I was in Georgia for about three weeks. ",He's not sure if the NHL was discriminatory, but he has cause for suspicion. But they never got a chance.

I knew he did it on purpose, so I hit him over the head with my stick. Amateur Teams: Kitchener Canucks. In 1958 a young man named Willie O'Ree made his debut in the National Hockey League. Major league statistics. / EdmontonOilers.com,Official Oilers Online Store - nhlshop.ca. More … On January 18, 1958, in Montreal, Willie took the ice with the Boston Bruins, becoming the first black player to make it to the NHL. ".Incredibly, it took 25 years for another black to make it to the NHL, "If I hadn't gotten that eye injury," he says. He played t… Willie's specialty was charging up the ice, shooting into a seam in the defense, taking a pass, and shooting. O'Ree did not appear on the nightly news. The Quebec Aces had a history of having black players. The fans gave me a two-minute standing ovation. ",It wasn't just opposing players he had to contend with. ".If he had played in today's NHL with its 26 teams, instead of when the It didn't bother me. I wasn't a great slugger, but I did my share of fighting. ''.Interview with Willie by Steve Murphy of CTV News in Halifax When I came back, I would loose sight of the puck, and I was getting body checked much more. The Gulls management told Willie they were glad to have him on the team instead of scoring goals against them, as he had with the LA team.Willie enjoyed the dedicated San Diego fans. Its customs, you know--like white-only or colored-only restaurants. Willie toiled in the minors the next two years and continued to improve, despite being legally blind in one eye. It turned out to be the winning goal. One of his coaches told him, "Willie, you could be the first of your race to make it to the NHL. "To this day a lot of people don't realize that I played my entire 20-year pro career with one eye. ".Willie played the next six seasons for Los Angeles and won the league goal scoring title in 1964 with 38 goals.When the NHL expanded to twelve teams in 1968, Los Angeles got one of the franchises and the Los Angeles Blades folded. "Considering the talent Montreal had, I knew I had no chance of I didn't care that much about publicity for myself, but it could have been important for other blacks with ambitions in hockey. The injury was so serious that he permanently lost 95% of the vision in that eye. Two years earlier, O'Ree had been blinded when he was hit in his right eye by an errant puck; this would have precluded him from playing in the NHL if the Bruins had known. Before my time, they had an all-black line with the Carnegie bothers, Herbie and Ossie, and Manny McIntyre. You'll be back with the Bruins. He was black, and there wouldn't be another black in the NHL for 25 years.Hockey was about 10 years late when it came to integration. If the timing was right, it was a deadly offensive play.Willie's happiest moment in the NHL came in 1961 in a game at the Boston Garden on New Year's night. Hall of Fame: Inducted as Builder 2018 . I hope he'll be with us a long time. Complete player biography and stats. Most recently in the PHL with San Diego Hawks. "There were blacks in the minor leagues and good ones too. The New York Times, for example, did not find it newsworthy. "At that point, I was 26 or 27 and figured my hopes of ever making it to the NHL were small, but I still loved to play. Willie O'Ree.

Not one of them was ever called up. His future looked bright. Willie got the call. That year the Quebec Aces won their league championship.Willie spent a few weeks at the Bruins training camp before starting the next season in the minors. He no longer plays hockey or even skates. But six weeks later he got a call from a sportswriter asking him what he thought of the trade. "In the city where my family lived, there were probably only two or three black families," says Willie.