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In 2018, O'Ree was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and starting that year the NHL has introduced the annual Willie O'Ree Community Hero Award in his honor. Early life and career William Eldon O'Ree [ 1 ] was born on October 15, 1935, in Fredericton , New Brunswick, [ 2 ] to Harry, [ 3 ] a civil engineer and road maintenance worker, [ 2 ...
On Jan. 19, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill awarding O'Ree a Congressional Medal of Honor. A day earlier, the Boston Bruins retired Willie O'Ree's little-known journey to ...
The league's first black player, Willie O'Ree, came up during that era; he played for the Bruins between 1958 and 1961 but turned out to be the only black player until the 1970s. After World War II, all six NHL owners consistently rejected any bids for expansion, namely a bid for the American Hockey League's Cleveland Barons team in 1952.
When O'Ree first entered the league as the first ice hockey player of African descent, he received no recognition from the league or the media. The media did not publish any articles that the color line in ice hockey had been broken. Some newspapers who reported about the first game O'Ree played confused O'Ree's first name Willie, as Billy. O ...
O'Ree joined the Boston Bruins in the late 1950s, becoming the first Black player in the NHL.
O'Ree's moment came 11 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier and it would take another 16 years after he stepped onto the ice at the Montreal Forum before another black player ...
On January 18, 1958, Willie O'Ree became the first Black Canadian to play in the NHL. Playing with the Boston Bruins, he was also the first NHL player of African descent. [13] Val James was the first African American player to play in the NHL, called up by the Buffalo Sabres in 1982. [14]
ESPN has iced a deal for Willie, a documentary film about the remarkable life of the National Hockey League's first black player. ESPN2 will have the TV premiere of the pic about Willie O'Ree on ...