Tag Archives: Gary Bettman

Willie O’Ree, inducted into Hockey Hall of Fame, says his diversity ‘work is not done’

13 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

TORONTO – Displaying the humility and determination that’s typified his life and career, Willie O’Ree, the National Hockey League’s first black player, was enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday night.

In a moving speech, the 83-year-old pioneer lauded hockey for embracing diversity, but added that there’s still more to do to make the sport more inclusive.

And he expects to be at the forefront of the effort.

“Tonight, I am here to tell you that we are not done because the work is not done,”  O’Ree told the packed crowd at the induction ceremony inside the Hall in Toronto. “We have barriers to break and knock down, and opportunities to give.”

He urged the audience to “return to your communities, take a look around.”

“Find a young boy or girl who needs the opportunity to play hockey and give it go them,” he added. “You never know, they may make history.”

Embed from Getty Images

O’Ree got that chance on January 18, 1958 when the Boston Bruins called him up for a game against the Montreal Canadiens in the old Montreal Forum.

“All I wanted was to be a hockey player,” he said in his induction speech. “All I needed was the opportunity. To be here tonight is simply overwhelming.”

With no 24-hour news cycle of social media, the feat of him becoming the NHL’s first black player was largely confined to the local press. Even O’Ree said he didn’t know he made history until he read about it in the morning paper.

O’Ree’s NHL career was brief, 45 games over two seasons. The fact that he played that many games in the big leagues at all was amazing considering he was blind in his right eye, the result of a being struck with the puck.

But O’Ree’s Hall entry isn’t  about his player’s stats. The Hall of Fame’s selection committee admitted him as a Builder, a category reserved for for coaches, general managers, noted broadcasters and others who are regarded as pillars of the game.

O’Ree has worked tirelessly as the NHL’s Diversity Ambassador since 1996, traveling across the United States and Canada to visit youth hockey programs affiliated with the NHL’s “Hockey is for Everyone” initiative.

He’s also a revered figure to many of the NHL’s players, who seek him out for guidance and advice. O’Ree has been a mentor, role model, and advocate in growing hockey in communities previously overlooked by the sport.

Embed from Getty Images

“He’s what a builder is right out of the gate – you couldn’t make a better description of a builder,” said Grant Fuhr, the Edmonton Oilers goaltending great who became the Hall’s first black inductee in 2003. “When you see another person of color playing it gives you that thought that you can possibly play. It opens up a big door.”

O’Ree joins Fuhr and Angela James, a Canadian women’s hockey star who was regarded as the female Wayne Gretzky in her heyday, as the only black members of the Hall of Fame.

O’Ree told the Hall of Fame audience that he stood on the shoulders of others, notably the late Herb Carnegie and Manny McIntyre.

Carnegie, his brother, Ossie, and McIntyre, combined to form the “Black Aces,” the first all-black professional hockey line.

Herb Carnegie played on the semi-pro Quebec Aces with forward Jean Beliveau, who went on to become a  Canadiens legend. Beliveau regarded Carnegie as one of the best players he ever skated with.

Embed from Getty Images

“As a teen, I looked up to Herb Carnegie and Manny McIntyre,” O’Ree said Monday. “They paved the way for me. They just never got the opportunity I did.”

O’Ree was enshrined Monday with New Jersey Devils goaltending legend Martin Brodeur,  former Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers sniper Martin St. Louis, Russian hockey star Alexander Yakushev, Canadian women’s hockey star  and Canadian Women’s Hockey League Commissioner Jayna Hefford and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

Willie O’Ree, hockey history-maker, tours Smithsonian’s African American museum

04 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

The history-maker took a walk through history Wednesday.

Willie O’Ree, the National Hockey League’s first black player and soon-to-be Hockey Hall of Fame inductee, visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., for the first time.

O’Ree, along with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, saw artifacts and exhibits that chronicle the black experience from slavery to the segregationist Jim Crow period to the civil rights era to today’s times.

O’Ree, the NHL’s diversity ambassador for the league’s Hockey is for Everyone initiative, eyed tributes to game-changers like him, including a statue of a sliding Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

Future Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Willie O’Ree examines a statue honoring baseball great Jackie Robinson at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (Photo/Anthony Wright/National Museum of African American History and Culture).

“What black people had to go through then,” O’Ree, 82, told me. “We take a lot of things for granted but, boy, if you went through that museum it would open your eyes up – it definitely would.”

The tour left Bettman awed and inspired as well.

“I thought it was amazing,” the commissioner said. “I’m a history buff, there is an incredible amount that I learned, there’s more to be learned, and I look forward to going back.”

Willie O’Ree, left, and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman listen to Damion Thomas, sports curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, discuss an exhibit in the facility (Photo/Anthony Wright/National Museum of African American History and Culture).

The commissioner noticed one thing that the museum is missing: hockey.

“Among the sports, hockey doesn’t have a presence and, perhaps, we’d like to see one,”  Bettman said. “I think we have a story to tell as well. And most people aren’t aware of that story. And to have an opportunity to tell it as part of the overall museum…having a place among the other sports would not only be appropriate but would be good for people to know.”

Damion Thomas, the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s sports curator, said hockey “is an area we would like to collect around and it’s something that we’re planning on doing in the future.”

Thomas was thrilled to have living history in the museum in the form of O’Ree, who became the NHL’s first black player on Jan. 18, 1958, when he skated for the Boston Bruins against the Montreal Canadiens in the old Montreal Forum.

“I love sharing this history with everyone but it takes on a different meaning when you’re able to share this history with a history-maker and to be able to see how he responds to moments that he lived through and how he’s able to contextualize his own experiences within this much larger moment and space in time,” Thomas said.

Willie O’Ree made history when he entered the NHL with the Boston Bruins in January 1958.

He added: “One great things is that when you come to our museum it helps provide context to a lot of things Willie O’Ree went through and a lot of the challenges that he faced and how different aspects of society responded to those challenges.”

Embed from Getty Images

O’Ree will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Nov. 12, along with Bettman, former New Jersey Devils goaltending great Martin Brodeur,Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St. Louis, Russian hockey star Alexander Yakushev, Canadian women’s hockey star Jayna Hefford.

O’Ree, a right wing from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, only played 45 NHL games over two seasons with the Bruins, tallying 4 goals and 10 assists.

He enjoyed a long and productive minor league career, finishing as the 16th all-time leading scorer in the old Western Hockey League with 328 goals and 311 assists in 785 games, despite being blind in his right eye.

But O’Ree became Hall-worthy for his accomplishments off the ice. He has helped cultivate a generation of minority hockey players and fans by working tirelessly as the NHL’s Diversity Ambassador since 1996, traveling across the United States and Canada to visit youth hockey programs affiliated with the NHL’s “Hockey is for Everyone” initiative.

O’Ree will become the Hall’s third black member, joining five-time Stanley Cup champion goaltender Grant Fuhr and women’s hockey superstar Angela James.

Video by Thomas Mobley/National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

 

 

 

 

“Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future” makes U.S. premiere in D.C.

14 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

What a week in Washington!

President Barack Obama delivered his last State of the Union address Tuesday and the National Hockey League and the Washington Capitals hosted a screening Wednesday of a full-length documentary on the history and growing impact of blacks in ice hockey.

“Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future” had its U.S. premiere before a near-capacity audience at Washington’s Landmark E Street Cinema with plenty of hockey star power on hand. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, Washington Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis and Capitals Head Coach Barry Trotz were in the house.

Willie O’Ree, the NHL’s first black player, former NHL goaltender/turned NHL Network analyst Kevin Weekes, former NHL forward and current MSG Networks and NBCSN hockey analyst Anson Carter were there for a post-screening question and answer session that I had the honor to moderate.

Left to right, Anson Carter, Kevin Weekes, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, hockey legend Willie O'Ree, filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason, and Washington Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis at U.S. screening of Mason's "Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future."

Left to right, Anson Carter, Kevin Weekes, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, hockey legend Willie O’Ree, filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason, and Washington Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis at U.S. screening of Mason’s “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future.”

“It’s a story that needed to be told, but not many people even imagined it could exist,” Bettman  said of the documentary. “If you told somebody about this movie without actually seeing it, they’d think it was a work of fiction, like ‘how could it be because I’ve never heard of such a thing’ is what you get from most people.”

Canadian filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason was on hand to gauge a U.S. audience’s response to a film that he poured his heart, soul, and wallet into for the last four years. Mason was so committed to the project that the former disc jockey sold his condo to help fund it.

Mason hasn’t seen a paycheck in about three years, but he basked in a wealth of applause and appreciative remarks from the D.C. audience Wednesday night.

“The biggest thing that this screening means to me is all that hard work,  all those midnights worrying, all that stressing out, all that wondering what’s going to happen the next day, it made me feel like it was all worth it,” he told me. “For a guy who dreamed about doing a film, and being in a position like this, is remarkable.”

The film tells the little-told story of blacks in hockey from the Coloured Hockey League in the Canadian Maritimes in the 1800s to the exploits of forward Herb Carnegie – regarded as the best Canadian hockey player never to skate in the NHL – to O’Ree breaking in with the Boston Bruins, despite being blind in one eye.

While paying homage to the past, “Soul on Ice” examines the present by focusing on current stars like Philadelphia Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds, Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban, and Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Trevor Daley.

It gives a glimpse of the game’s future by following the path of Owen Sound Attack forward Jaden Lindo from his Ontario Hockey League junior team to the 2014 NHL Draft in Philadelphia. He was chosen by the Penguins in the sixth round of the draft with the 173rd overall pick.

Bettman and other NHL officials had seen the movie earlier, but Ken Martin, the league’s senior vice president of community and diversity programming, didn’t let O’Ree, who is the NHL’s director of youth development, get an early peek at Mason’s product.

Color of Hockey Editor William Douglas with The Bearded One - NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman at "Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future" screening in Washington, D.C.

Color of Hockey Editor William Douglas with The Bearded One – NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman at “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future” screening in Washington, D.C.

When O’Ree watched his legacy on the big screen, the hockey pioneer who joined the Bruins in 1958, became emotional.

“Unbelievable,” he told NHL.com. “Now I know why he didn’t want me to see it. It was breathtaking, really. I was thrilled when I saw it.”

Trotz, who coached forward Joel Ward when he was with the Capitals and Nashville Predators, said the documentary was an eye-opener.

“What I liked about it is it was three stories for me – it was a history of the game, Kwame’s story, and it was young Jaden’s story,” Trotz told NHL.com. “There are some things that I feel ignorant on being someone in the game and not knowing all the story. It’s quite enlightening.”

Mason said the hard work of making the movie is over but the hard work of trying to get the documentary before the general public is still ahead of him.

He’s hoping to work with the NHL in getting it televised nationally by the NHL’s broadcast partners, NBC in the U.S. and Sportsnet in Canada.

For more information about the documentary, visit http://www.soulonicemovie.com.

 

 

 

From rink to campus: 3 Hockey is For Everyone players win college scholarships

29 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Wyatt Christiansen, an NHL/TMCF recipient.

Wyatt Christiansen, an NHL/TMCF recipient.

Congratulations to Wyatt Christiansen, Cassidy Guthrie, and Austin Verissimo, the 2015 NHL/Thurgood Marshall College Fund academic scholarship recipients.

The three winners, each hockey players who participated in one of the National Hockey League-affiliated Hockey is for Everyone programs, were announced  last week at an event at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Christiansen is a defenseman from Calgary’s Hockey Education Reaching Out Society (HEROS) program. He intends to major in business at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

Guthrie, a hockey player for 11 years, hails from Ohio’s Columbus Ice Hockey Club.

Cassidy Guthrie.

Cassidy Guthrie.

She’s currently a sophomore at Miami University, where she’s a member of the school’s women’s club hockey team. Her scholarship will cover her remaining two years at the university.

Verissimo has played hockey for three years and is a member of New Jersey’s Hockey in Newark program. He’s interested in studying finance and has set his sights on attending Cornell University in New York.

“At the National Hockey League, it is our priority to do whatever we can to encourage young hockey players to pursue their education as eagerly as they pursue the puck,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said at the announcement event attended by Washington Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis, Thurgood Marshall College Fund President & CEO Johnny Taylor, USA Hockey Senior Communications Director Dave Fischer, and the Stanley Cup. “We want to connect the skills of skating and passing with the disciplines of study and passion for learning, to link the joys of scoring goals on ice with the importance of setting goals off the ice, and one of the ways we pursue those objectives is through our support of the NHL/Thurgood Marshall Scholarship.”

Austin Verissimo.
Austin Verissimo.

The NHL and TMCF have partnered to award scholarships to academically-eligible Hockey is for Everyone players since 2012. Hockey is For Everyone programs are nonprofit organizations across North America.

The programs provide youth of all backgrounds the chance to play hockey at little or no cost and serve as a means to encourage them to stay in school. In addition, participants learn essential life skills through the core values of hockey: commitment, perseverance, and teamwork.

Money for the scholarships is generated in part from an annual charity hockey game played between a team with members of Congress and a squad of Washington lobbyists.

The lawmakers defeated the lobbyists 3-2 in the game played last week at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex, the Capitals’ practice facility. Rep. John Katko, a Republican from New York, scored the winning goal with an assist from former Washington Capitals great Peter Bondra.

The event raised more than $100,000 and gave the lawmakers team – which included Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), Eric Paulsen (R-Minn.) and Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) – bragging rights for another year.

“It couldn’t have been any more fun,” Katko told Syracuse.com. “It was a great charity event. We skated with wounded warriors. One of my great, great heroes is Peter Bondra. I told him before the game, I said ‘Peter, you’re from Slovakia, my father’s from Slovakia (with) his family, you’ve got to get me a goal.’ And he got me the game-winner. It was great.”