Boston Bruins’ Willie O’Ree Was The First Black Hockey Player To Play In The NHL In 1958
Like many kids growing up in New Brunswick, Canada in the 1940s, Willie O’Ree loved hockey.
By the time he was 20, O’Ree was playing in the Quebec Hockey League when he was hit by puck and the eye and left partially blind.
O’Ree kept it secret so he could continue playing and on January 18, 1958, he was called up from the Quebec Aces to the Boston Bruins to replace Leo Labine, who had fallen ill.
Willie, whose parents escaped slavery on the Underground Railroad, became the first black player in the National Hockey League.
O’Ree only played one other game that season, but played 43 for the Bruins the following year.
In one of those game, against the Chicago Blackhawks, he had his front teeth knocked out and his nose broken by opponents calling him racist names.
In 2018, O’Ree was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, which also launched a community hero award in his honor.