Matthew Bores 

Staff Writer

mdb5896@psu.edu

Earlier last week, Willie O’Ree had his number retired by his former team in the NHL, the Boston Bruins. He played with the team from 1958 to 1979. The reason his career is so monumental was because he was the first black man to be a part of an NHL team. He played as a “winger”, someone who is on either the left or the right side of positioning that is a standard practice in the NHL.  He has always been a part of Boston Bruin history, but he now joins the twelve other players in Bruin history to have their numbers retired. O’Ree couldn’t join in person, so he was on a zoom call as his number was raised to the rafters. Willie O’Ree faced a lot of adversity during his time in the league, as being the first black person to play during a time of great struggle. Max Schneider, a reporter who talked to O’Ree once while in Nashville during Hockey Day in America, sat down and had a conversation with the legend.

 O’Ree had this to say about his time on the ice: “As far as myself, I was faced with racism, prejudice, bigotry and ignorance, but I just let those go in one ear and out the other,” O’Ree says. “I was a black man; nobody had to tell me that”. Only playing in 45 games over two seasons and officially retiring in 1979, his career was short when compared to the average player. He had a total of 14 points in the NHL, 4 of those being him scoring on the opposition and 10 being assisting others on the team score. He also had more minutes in the penalty box then he did any other statistic, being 26 minutes. But having to deal with what he did, it was tough to last long in a league that disliked you. But he pushed through, and for what he did in the league, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018. But not as a hockey player. As Schneider says in his article, he was inducted as a “builder”. He wasn’t someone who could be forgotten, and the league believed that he should have his own category as he helped the NHL into what it is today.