Prior to watching this I had never heard of Willie O'Ree or this documentary, but I found myself with some time to fill and a scroll through the documentary options brought me to this one, with a big selling feature of a one hour-ish runtime. And once again, I am so glad that was my criteria because I truly enjoyed this. I am not what one would call a hockey fan, but even still it was surprising to me that I had never even heard the name of the first black player in the NHL. I mean, he's even Canadian. That seems like something we, as a country, would take ownership of. Even more perplexing to me, why this isn't a big deal within the NHL, yearly, like you see in baseball with Jackie Robinson. That is a lot to unpack right there before you even watch a minute of this documentary.
Despite it's shorter run time, there is a lot of story to dive into here from his childhood experiences in New Brunswick to baseball tryouts in the segregated south to a hidden eye injury and two seasons in the NHL and over twenty seasons as a professional hockey player. Some of the documentary is focused on the successful campaign to have O'Ree inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as well as his twenty years as the NHL Diversity Ambassador. At 80+ years old, O'Ree is still lacing up the skates and taking time to encourage and teach kids about hockey. That sort of dedication to improving the world around you is simply inspiring. Guys, I fell in love with Willie O'Ree. This is exactly the kind of content/experience I was hoping to find when I began this project! Highly recommend.
I watched this on Crave.
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