The Daily UbuntuThread 03 · Racialized but Human · November 2, 2026 · 2 min read
The Bruin Who Saw with One Eye
On January 18, 1958, at the Montreal Forum, Willie O'Ree of Fredericton became the first Black player in the NHL. No one knew he was nearly blind in one eye.
The Story Granary
On January 18, 1958, at the Montreal Forum, the Boston Bruins faced the Canadiens.
A young left winger jumped onto the ice. He was 22. He came from Fredericton, New Brunswick. His name was Willie O'Ree.
That night, the Bruins won 3–0. And Willie O'Ree became the first Black player in the history of the National Hockey League.
No one in the stands knew his secret.
He was born on October 15, 1935, the youngest of 13 children. As a boy, he played hockey with the neighbourhood kids.
In junior hockey, a deflected puck hit him full in the face. It broke his nose and part of his cheek. He lost 95 per cent of the vision in his right eye.
The surgeon was categorical: he would be blind in that eye, and he would never play hockey again.
Five weeks later, Willie O'Ree was back on the ice.
He kept the secret. At the time, NHL rules barred players who were blind in one eye. He told only his younger sister, Betty, and swore her to secrecy. Not even their parents, who would have tried to stop him from playing.
So he adapted. A left winger who shot left, he turned his head all the way to the right to follow the puck with his left eye.
On January 1, 1961, against Montreal, he scored his first NHL goal. Another first for a Black player.
Not everything was easy. On the ice and in the stands, he faced racist insults. He kept playing. He would play 21 years of professional hockey without ever taking a single eye exam. In 1964–65, he even scored 38 goals in one season.
Then, in 1998, the NHL gave him a new mission: bringing hockey to young people from every background. The program is called Hockey is for Everyone.
In 2018, he entered the Hockey Hall of Fame. In 2010, he had been named to the Order of Canada.
And on January 18, 2022, 64 years to the day after his first game, the Bruins retired his number 22.
He would write of his childhood in Fredericton:
“The fact that I was black never came up when we played as kids.”
On a neighbourhood rink, children had already understood what the big league would take years to learn: on the ice, what counts is the team.
And you?
What "closed eye" have you learned to work around? And for which young person could you open the door, as Willie O'Ree did?
Figures
Sources
- Willie O'Ree (The Canadian Encyclopedia) thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
- How former Bruins winger Willie O'Ree kept his vision impairment a secret from the NHL (CBC News) amp.cbc.ca
Every figure on this page links to a verifiable public source.
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