The NHL’s first Black player, Willie O’Ree, made his debut for the Boston Bruins this evening fifty years ago. Obviously he’s Canadian, like the overwhelming majority of players were in the Fifties, and he participated when his team was in Quebec because the Southies would’ve lynched him between periods at the Garden. Afterwards, he went on to have a long career in various leagues with a couple scoring titles. It’s a shame he didn’t get a spot on one of the expansion teams in 1967. He had talent, he was playing with the LA Blades then and he could’ve made the California Golden Seals or LA Kings stink less.
These days Mr. O’Ree is head of some diversity program or other nonsense with the NHL because Black Americans don’t find hockey interesting. I don’t want to diminish the man’s career but the problem with hockey is that it’s considered a Canadian past time. Black Americans are Americans first like their White counterparts which means their fandom revolves around sports invented here (baseball, basketball) or ones the world doesn’t challenge us at (football). Besides, which sports people are into isn’t based upon ethnicity (what is mislabeled as “race,” including the stodgy Economist). It’s based upon geography and economics. Case in point, golf. This is a sport (really a hobby) for the affluent who live in areas with country clubs that have wide-open spaces. People residing in urban sprawls don’t have the opportunity to find a local driving range to practice hitting the green. Geography is the other factor. I live in Texas, football is the state religion and all the best athletes are funneled into it. The local high schools have hockey teams yet I doubt much talent is ever tapped by a university with an NCAA Division I program such as Wisconsin or Boston College. Houston is the fourth largest city in the US yet it only has an AHL-level franchise which can put five thousand butts in the seats on a good day. I seriously doubt having more talented players such as Mike Grier, Anson Carter or Jarome Iginla in the NHL will get more Blacks to play hockey if Mike Modano, Jeremy Roenick and Joe Mullen did little for Americans overall.