That was always the goal, you see, ever since I was 13, and I wasn’t going to let anybody or anything stop As quoted in Breaking the Ice: “I had to play hockey again, because I had to make it to the NHL. Back then, they were more concerned with your physical condition, and I always kept myself in good shape. I don’t know why back then they didn’t make me. I never took an eye exam in all the 21 years I played. If it gets out that I’m blind in my right eye, I probably won’t be allowed to play pro, and definitely won’t be allowed to play in the National Hockey League. In an interview with Luke Fox of Rogers Sportsnet on 29 February 2012, O’Ree explained the situation he faced: O’Ree kept the injury as secret as possible.
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According to NHL bylaws, he would not be eligible to play, as the league had (and still has) a rule forbiddingĪll players who are blind in one eye from competing (Bylaw 12.6). However, O’Ree could not tell anyone about the injury. He was back on the ice within two months. He was advised by a doctor to stop playing hockey. O’Ree lost 95 per cent of the vision in his eye. The shot also broke his noseĪnd cheekbone. In one game, he got hit in the right eye with the puck. In 1955–56, O’Ree played for the Kitchener Canucks of the Ontario Hockey Association. He had 27 goals and 17 assists for 44 points in 43 games. While with the Fredericton Capitals, O’Ree played in the Allan Cup tournament, where he scored seven goals in seven games.Īt age 19, O’Ree moved to Quebec and played the 1954–55 season with the Quebec Frontenacs of the Quebec Junior Hockey League.
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After a season with the Junior Capitals, O’Ree made a step up to the senior ranks for a full season in 1953–54. In 1951–52, he played with the Fredericton Merchants of the York County Hockey League, as well as three games with the Fredericton Capitals of the New Brunswick Senior Over the next three years, O’Ree progressed through the Fredericton hockey system. By the time O’Ree was 15, he was playingįor the Fredericton Falcons in the New Brunswick Amateur Hockey Association (NBAHA) playoffs.
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When O’Ree was 14 years old, he played organized hockey with his brother Richard he was in his twenties and taught Willie how to bodycheck. Playing Hockey in New Brunswick and Quebec
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It was only later, when I became older, that
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You could have been purple with a green stripe down the middle of your forehead, and it wouldn't have mattered. In his autobiography, The Willie O’Ree Story: Hockey’s Black Pioneer, O’Ree wrote that colour was neverĪn issue on those early rinks: “The fact that I was black never came up when we played as kids. O’Ree has positive memories of growing up in New Brunswick. Home and skated to school when weather permitted. O’Ree played regularly on the backyard rink of the family O’Ree started playing hockey at age three and organized hockey at age five. O’Ree’s father, Harry, was a civil engineer who worked in road maintenance for the City of Fredericton. There were only two Black families in Fredericton while O’Ree was growing up. To say that the O’Ree family was an ethnic minority in Fredericton at the time is an understatement. O’Ree’s grandparents came to Canada through the Underground Railroad to escape slavery in the United States. O’Ree was raised in a large family in Fredericton, New Brunswick.