Dave Feschuk: Willie O’Ree, the NHL’s first Black player, has spent his life doing ‘what needed to be done’

Long before he would etch his name into history as the first Black player to compete in an NHL game, Willie O’Ree broke another race-related barrier of sorts.

This wasn’t about playing hockey. It was about getting a proper haircut. And while there was no such thing as systemic segregation in O’Ree’s hometown of Fredericton, N.B., in the 1950s, O’Ree had grown up politely obeying more than a few race-based boundaries. Among them, none of the members of the two Black families that populated his hometown made it their business to walk through the door of the local barbershop, which was staffed and patronized exclusively by white people.

“It wasn’t that we were segregated, but we weren’t integrated,” O’Ree writes in his new memoir.

The existence of this invisible barrier bothered O’Ree. Yes, there was a perfectly good Black barbershop in a nearby town across the river. And O’Ree, for his part, had always received haircuts from the father of a white friend in his neighbourhood, a man he knew as Mr. McQuade. But while Mr. McQuade worked in a barbershop, O’Ree’s cuts were always done away from prying eyes on his back porch. Around age 17, O’Ree asked Mr. McQuade how the folks at the barbershop might react if he came in.

“I remember Mr. McQuade kind of hesitated. And he said, ‘I really don’t know. We haven’t had any Blacks come into our barbershop,’ ” O’Ree said in a recent interview.

And so, on a day not long after, Willie O’Ree mustered up the nerve to take a seat in the barbershop’s waiting area until Mr. McQuade’s chair was free. And in full view of a room otherwise filled with white people, he became, to his knowledge, the first Black person in Fredericton to get his hair cut in that shop.

“I just thought it was about time,” O’Ree said. “And I heard from some friends that some people made comments about me later. But nobody said anything to me. I had a smile on my face and had a nice talk with Mr. McQuade. It was good. I think it needed to be done.”

Now age 85 and more than 60 years removed from his groundbreaking turn as the NHL’s first Black player at the Montreal Forum in 1958, lately O’Ree has been checking off an impressive lifetime to-do list. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder in 2018. Earlier this year it was announced that he’ll be inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame whenever the pandemic allows. And now he’s in the midst of promoting the release of his autobiography, “Willie: The Game-Changing Story of the NHL’s First Black Player.”

Co-written with Michael McKinley, the book is a fascinating read that sheds light on the long and difficult journey that led to O’Ree’s short but impactful run in the world’s best hockey league as a member of the Boston Bruins for a combined 45 games, ending in 1961.

Perhaps most remarkable of all his accomplishments is that he carved out a professional career that ran into the late 1970s with one functioning eye — he lost the sight in his right eye after being hit in the face by a slap shot in a junior game. Not once in his 21-year pro career did a team give him an eye test. For years, only O’Ree’s older sister, Betty, was aware of his secret handicap.

Once a kid who occasionally slept at the local arena so he would have the ice to himself for morning drills, O’Ree was always awake to the idea that there were people in the world who would hatefully root against him — not to mention hurl epithets in his face and spit on his sweater — simply because of his skin colour. In some ways, the hate directed his career. Once a promising middle-infield prospect invited to the Atlanta Braves’ training camp in the Deep South, O’Ree said he was immediately subjected to racists jeers from fellow players — something he generally hadn’t experienced as a hockey player in Atlantic Canada. O’Ree writes that the first time he walked into a Georgia restroom marked “Colored Only,” he felt like he was “endorsing segregation” and wanted nothing more to do with it.

“Even if I’d been offered a baseball contract, I would have turned it down,” he said. “I felt I couldn’t play under those circumstances.”

Circumstances have changed, but, as more than one tragic event in 2020 has underlined, the struggle for racial justice continues.

“Young Black people have been targeted since slavery. Nothing’s changed as far as that’s concerned,” O’Ree said. “Hopefully, by Nov. 3 (the date of the U.S. presidential election), there may be some significant changes if the voting goes the way I’d like to see it go. Because right now this country is in turmoil.”

The NHL saw its share of racially charged turmoil this past season, including the firing of Calgary Flames coach Bill Peters after allegations of racism by former player Akim Aliu. Aliu and San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane now co-head the Hockey Diversity Alliance (HDA), a group of players and ex-players with a mission to eradicate systemic racism in hockey while increasing access to an expensive game for a wider swath of the population. O’Ree has long championed those causes as the NHL’s ambassador for diversity and director of youth development, but he said he “didn’t want to make a comment” about the HDA’s announcement earlier this month that it was cutting ties with the league, accusing the NHL of engaging in “performative public relations efforts that seemed aimed at quickly moving past important conversations about race needed in the game.”

“Everybody has to account for their own doings,” O’Ree said, speaking of the HDA. “I know the way I feel about the programs I’m involved with and have been over the years. I’m very happy for the things that I’ve accomplished while I’ve been with the NHL.”

Asked what might still be done to increase diversity in the sport, O’Ree continued: “There are opportunities there for people of all races, people of all colours to get involved with the game. You’ve got to take it upon yourself. If you feel you want to be a referee, if you feel you want to be a linesman, if you feel you want to be in office management, then go for it and work towards it. Set goals for yourself. I think that hockey’s come a long ways over the past 20 years. I have to congratulate commissioner (Gary) Bettman on the job that he’s doing.”

Certainly, in the grand scheme of O’Ree’s life journey, there has been incredible progress. Amid the branches of his remarkable family tree, there have been seismic shifts. A few years back, in researching a documentary, O’Ree was part of a group that travelled to South Carolina to research his family’s history. He found out, among many things, the origin of his surname. It was handed down from Peter Horry, a retired army officer from a South Carolina regiment of the American Revolutionary War. Retired army officers in those days were given a parting gift from the military that included human slaves — “three grown negroes and one small negro,” according to the grim record. Slaves, in those vicious times, took the name of their owners. Peter Horry, of French Huguenot descent, pronounced his surname “o-ree.” Ergo, O’Ree. Willie O’Ree’s great-great-grandfather was one of Peter Horry’s slaves.

“So, no, I don’t come from a long line of Irishmen,” Willie deadpans in his memoir.

But Paris O’Ree, the great-great-grandfather in question, wasn’t much for chains. Like the great-great-grandson who would earn sporting fame by defying racial barriers, Paris O’Ree looms a giant in the family lineage. Though little is known about the specifics of his existence, this much can be deduced: Once a slave, at some point he escaped, travelled north on an early version of the Underground Railroad and settled in New Brunswick in the late 1790s, where he became a farmer and a father.

“I can see him in my mind’s eye, this man who was stolen from his homeland, given a new name and as payment to another man. I can imagine Paris O’Ree spotting his chance and taking it,” O’Ree writes. “I am proud of him. For without his taking that risk, putting his life on the line to find freedom, I wouldn’t be here now. And there’s more than a little bit of him in me.”

From a Fredericton barbershop to the Hall of Fame, more than a little bit, indeed.

“I guess (Paris O’Ree) had ideas like I did,” O’Ree said over the phone from San Diego. “He had set goals for himself and believed in himself. He just wanted to make a change. And he took it upon himself to do it.”