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Willie Eldon O'Ree is a Canadian former professional hockey player known as the "Jackie Robinson of hockey" for becoming the first black hockey player in the Western Hockey League (WHL). In 1958 he played for the Quebec Aces and hid the fact that he had lost 95 percent of vision in his right eye from a stray puck, two years earlier. His injury did not stop him from playing, he played left wing and was a left-handed shot and learned how to work his right to see. He played for the Los Angeles Blades and San Diego Gulls and continued out his career playing in the minors. O'Ree was inducted into the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame in 1984, won the Lester Patrick Award in 2000 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018. Pictured is Willie O'Ree, left winger for the Los Angeles Blades hockey team. He skates up the ice rink for a photograph with his hockey stick in hand, wearing his number 10 Blades jersey. Photograph date stamped January 10, 1963.
Type
Image
Format
1 photographic print : b&w ; 26 x 21 cm. Photographic prints
O'Ree, Willie,--1935- Los Angeles Blades (Hockey team) Hockey Hockey players African American men Hockey arenas Hockey sticks Hockey--Equipment and supplies Los Angeles (Calif.)
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