Willie

FOREWORD
 
In many ways, I grew up like Willie O’Ree: in a small Canadian town, playing every sport available, especially baseball and hockey.
 
Also, I was often the only minority kid on the team.
 
Not that it usually made much difference. My friends never made me conscious of this fact. My teammates didn’t seem to notice. Why should I care?
 
Well, for one thing, the world isn’t made up just of friends and teammates. It would be a lot easier if it were.
 
I clearly remember the first time someone pointed out to me that my color was different from the other kids playing hockey. I was at a tournament just outside of Edmonton, the first tournament I’d ever been to. I was playing Novice “C” (or Shaver “C”, as it was called back then). I could barely skate.
 
I had just played, and I was standing in line at the concession booth, waiting to get some fries. There were a couple of kids from another team ahead of me. For some reason, one of them turned around. Our eyes met briefly, then he did a doubletake. Then he asked a question Willie O’Ree must have been asked a lot more often than I was.
 
“Why are you playing hockey? Black people don’t play hockey.”
 
Who knows what was going through that kid’s mind at the time. I remember his face clearly to this day, and I remember just as unmistakably the expression on it, and the tone of his voice, both of which told me that his intentions were not friendly, or curious. He was suggesting that I didn’t belong in hockey.
 
One of the reasons I remember that tournament so vividly is that I didn’t have an answer for that kid. I was stung. Of course I was. I was just seven years old. That kind of unfriendliness just doesn’t make sense to a seven-year-old. So I wasn’t just hurt; I was confused.
 
Naturally, I told my mom. She said not to worry about what other kids say. She said black people are amazing athletes and amazing people. She said I could play or be whatever I wanted. And she had proof. She just told me to look at Grant Fuhr. My mother wasn’t a big hockey buff, but there was no one in Alberta who didn’t know who Grant Fuhr was. She was right, of course. Black people do play hockey. I also remember my dad telling me not to see color but to see people as individuals—that I am no better or less than anyone else because of my skin color. I was very fortunate as well that I had my grandparents, who were very helpful with words of encouragement. My grandmother in particular always knew just what I needed to hear.
 
After those conversations, I knew what to say the next time someone told me I didn’t belong.
 
That is to say, I came to understand something Willie talks about in his book. Racism never stopped me from being a hockey player. Not even close. Sure, there have been ignorant or rude people over the years. But you know what? Those people who tried to pass on their own issues to others almost always brought out the best in the people around me.
 
When I was playing minor hockey, a parent from the other team might shout something meant to discourage me. It happened. Not often, but it happened. And invariably, a parent from our team would go over and have a word. That means the world to a kid. My mom and my grandpa came to most of my games, but it wouldn’t have been the same if they had felt they had to stand up for me, so it was comforting that there were other parents who stepped up, and helped to make me more confident that I belonged in the game, and that it was the person in the stands who didn’t belong.
 
And sure, I heard that kind of language on the ice from time to time, but my teammates have always had my back. Willie says the same thing happened when he played. Hockey is like that. On any good team, the things that make you different don’t matter. It’s the things you have in common that pull you together. When you’re wearing the same sweater, nothing else should matter.
 
So no, racism never stopped me from being a hockey player. But it did stop me from being just a hockey player. Whether I wanted it or not, I was always a black hockey player.
 
Not that I minded being a black hockey player. But it was a reminder of how difficult the road ahead could have been for me. If you’re a white kid, you probably never have to think about these things, because every one of your heroes looks like you. Everyone in the Hockey Hall of Fame looks like you. The guy hoisting the Stanley Cup looks like you. Every number one draft pick looks like you. In fact, everyone in the whole draft. You get the picture.
 
That’s no one’s fault. But it does make it hard to dream about the NHL as a career when you’re black. Harder, anyway. But I definitely had those dreams. So naturally, I was always aware of the careers of black players in the NHL. It is impossible to exaggerate what Claude Vilgrain meant to me as a kid. Or Tony McKegney. You’re never going to accomplish something you don’t dream of, and I know that seeing stars like Fuhr made my dream feasible.
 
Don’t get me wrong. I had a lot of the same idols as the other kids. I loved Gretzky and wanted to be like Messier, but it was people like Fuhr, Vilgrain, and McKegney who kept my dream alive. They gave me an answer for whenever the same awkward question came up.
 
I wish I had known about Willie O’Ree back then. Maybe McKegney and Vilgrain knew about him, but I didn’t. I wasn’t much of a history buff—I was just a kid in love with sports, hockey, and the Oilers, in that order. Later on, I learned about his legacy, of course. It would have been impossible not to. But I didn’t meet Willie until my rookie year in the NHL.
 
I broke into the league in 1996–97. As it happens, Willie came back into the league, with the NHL’s diversity program, just the year before. I was at an event in Raleigh, North Carolina, put on by the league to make sure minority kids knew that they were welcome in our game. We were playing road hockey with kids who barely knew which end of the stick to hold, but everyone was having a blast. Then a member of the NHL head office brought over an older gentleman to introduce him. That’s when I met the Jackie Robinson of hockey.
 
It’s hard to explain the effect of meeting Willie O’Ree. I don’t just mean as a black hockey player. He is as warm and good-natured as anyone you’ll ever meet. He’s not looking for attention, not looking for the spotlight. If you talk to Willie for five minutes, it will be clear that he’s there just because he wants to help. Shake his hand, and you’ll realize that he could probably have crushed a billiard ball back when he was in his prime. Willie must have been a handful when he played.
 
How good was Willie O’Ree? For one thing, he played back when there were only six teams in the league. So that tells you that he was one of the best 132 players in the world back then. Today, a spot on an NHL roster means you’re one of the best 713. So Willie was good.
 
But there is more. As you may already know, Willie played with only one eye. I couldn’t believe that when I heard it. And he suffered the injury before he made the NHL. He could easily have called it a career after a severe injury like that. I can’t even imagine playing the game without peripheral vision, and without depth perception. To break into the best league in the world, and to put up the kind of numbers Willie did over the course of his professional career, while working against that kind of disadvantage, is nothing short of astonishing.
 
Hockey can get a little dirty at times. If a hockey player thinks he can get away with something, he’ll try. If he thinks he can intimidate you, he will. And it works. Some guys don’t want to fight through that every shift. And when you watch highlights of old games, you see that guys got away with a lot more back then. It’s not easy being a hockey player, and it was even harder back when Willie played.
 
But Willie wasn’t just a hockey player. He was a black hockey player. He was the only black hockey player, the first. He knew that every eye was on him, every shift. I can only imagine the target a black rookie would have had on his back in 1958. He knew that every pest and every tough guy and every loudmouth fan thought they could get under his skin. And I’m sure they tried. He would be navigating the ice with his one good eye, not knowing where the attack might come from, but knowing that, in some ways, he was all alone, because he was the first. And Willie just put on that smile, and went out there, and showed them how it’s done.
 
That is tough.
 
As Willie says in these pages, there were great black players before him, who never got their chance. It’s impossible to know exactly why. But I wonder if coaches and GMs recognized in Willie not only the skill to make it in the world’s best league, but also the discipline and attitude it would take to be a pioneer in that league, knowing it would be an uphill battle. Not everyone can skate uphill. Willie can. Willie did.
 
One thing you’ll never hear from Willie O’Ree is a complaint. He never had it easy, but I get the impression that he always knew he was blessed, too. He got to fulfill a childhood dream. And he got the chance to live a life that helps others. That is a blessing.
 
But there is one blessing every black hockey player has had since 1958 that Willie did not. We all had footsteps to follow in. But Willie never did. Willie O’Ree is the only one who made it without anyone showing him the way. I know what a trailblazer like Willie means to those kids, because I was that kid.
 
And now I know that when someone asks, “Why do you play hockey?” Willie O’Ree has answered the question already.
 
Jarome Iginla, June 2020