Oyster Bay celebrates hockey's O'Ree
NHL pioneer Willie O'Ree, who was blinded in one eye due to a hit during a pro game, talked and gave a hockey clinic to young hockey players. (Jan. 18, 2012) Credit: John Roca
Appropriately enough, Willie O'Ree was standing on a red carpet that had been rolled out for him on the rink at the Town of Oyster Bay Ice Skating Center in Bethpage on Wednesday night.O'Ree was the guest of honor for a group of more than 50 Town of Oyster Bay League youth hockey players. They were there for an instructional clinic and a night to celebrate the achievements of a remarkable man. "Fifty-four years ago tonight, this gentleman wore the uniform of the Boston Bruins in the Montreal Forum for a game against the Montreal Canadiens," town supervisor John Venditto said. "He was not only a skilled and fast hockey player, but on that night, he became the first black player to play in a National Hockey League game."
After Venditto proclaimed Jan. 18, 2012, as Willie O'Ree Day in the Town of Oyster Bay, the kids pounded their sticks on the ice, hockey's universally recognized show of respect. For O'Ree, the road wasn't always paved with good intentions. The 76-year-old from Fredericton, New Brunswick, didn't just take a road less traveled, he took a path that had never been skated before. It wasn't a smooth ride.
His first NHL game, a rare 3-0 road victory for Boston at the home of the perennial Stanley Cup champions, was uneventful, and O'Ree said he didn't realize what he'd done until he read about it in the next day's paper. "I never thought of myself as a pioneer," he said. "When I saw the paper, I thought, 'I really broke the color barrier,' but at the time, it wasn't a big thing to me. I just wanted to play hockey."
He played only one more NHL game that season and a handful more the next season. Things got much rougher for O'Ree when, after more than a year in the minors, he returned to the NHL for the 1960-61 season. In his first game back, Chicago Black Hawks tough guy Eric Nesterenko hit O'Ree in the mouth with the butt end of his stick. The blow knocked out two front teeth, split O'Ree's lip and nose and caused a lot of bleeding. O'Ree responded by hitting Nesterenko over the head with his stick, and a brawl ensued.
"There were racial slurs and racial remarks directed toward me, but that wasn't what set me off," O'Ree recalled. "When I had the altercation, he [Nesterenko] just stood there and laughed at me. I decided then that I had to do something to show I belonged. I sent a message back to him that I'd do whatever I had to do."
O'Ree said he was treated well by fans, teammates and management in Boston, not a racially enlightened city at the time, but experienced racism around the six-team NHL of that era. "I sensed it and I felt it," he said. "There were times when you're sitting on the bench -- and back then there was no Plexiglas separating the fans from the players -- so you could hear it. The N-word was said numerous times. But I just let it go in one ear and out the other."
With obvious pride, O'Ree added, "I never fought one time because of racial slurs or insults. I fought because guys speared me and butt-ended me and cross-checked me. I wanted to protect myself. If it meant fighting, I'd fight."
O'Ree didn't share those anecdotes with the kids. He extolled the virtues of hockey, a sport he played professionally for 21 years, mostly for the San Diego Gulls and Los Angeles Blades of the Western Hockey League.
The youngsters were entranced when O'Ree told them that he was hit with a puck in his right eye as a teenager and was declared legally blind, but kept it quiet because he didn't want to give his opponents a competitive advantage.
"A coach told me, 'Concentrate on what you can see, not what you can't see,' " O'Ree told the kids.
A boy in the green Town of Oyster Bay League jersey timidly approached O'Ree for an autograph. O'Ree complied and 8-year-old Douglas Filippone of Hicksville beamed.
"I'm going to be telling the kids about it in school," Douglas said, showing a reporter his Willie O'Ree hockey card.
Asked what he'd tell his class he learned, Douglas replied, "That it was important that he was the first black player."
