The Legacy of Willie O’Ree in 2021
The NHL is no stranger to change as the organization has grown from 6 teams to 32. Being the 32nd team to join the league, the Golden Knights had to contest with fans across the country complaining about hockey not being viable in the desert. Before they were even called the Golden Knights, NHL fans questioned why an expansion to Las Vegas was the best choice.
The other team in the desert, the Arizona Coyotes, were failing to fill seats due to a team whose performance on the ice was less than desirable. It was that defiance by the Golden Knights to dare take up space where nobody wanted them that made me relate to them.
I wanted so badly for this team, whom nobody believed in, to succeed. Some of that yearning for success came because I started my fandom for hockey around the same time as the Golden Knights' inaugural season. I felt that as a Black man who is an NHL fan I’m an outsider, and so were the Golden Knights. If they belonged in the NHL, then maybe I did too.
Black people and hockey don’t have the best history together. It's not a secret that when people think about a hockey player, they think of someone who looks more like Mark Wahlberg instead of Will Smith. This is changing as hockey is slowly becoming more inclusive when it comes to race. Black players are not the oddity they once were when Willie O’Ree took the ice as for the Boston Bruins in 1958.
O’Ree was the first Black Man to play an NHL hockey game and little did he know, he would be far from the last. Although still not commonplace, Black NHL players are appearing on the ice more frequently every year. In 2019 the Las Angeles Kings drafted Quentin Byfield, a Black man, second overall in the 2020 NHL draft setting a record for the highest-drafted Black player in the NHL. Fast forward 34 years to the city of Manitoba in Winnipeg where five-year-old Ryan Reaves is learning how to play hockey.
Ryan Reaves has played for three teams in the NHL. He was drafted to the St. Louis Blues in 2005 where he made a name for himself as an enforcer. This is a hockey term that refers to a player who uses their physical power to make big hits and often finds themselves in fights during their games. Reaves is an enforcer through and through. Standing just an inch over the league average at six foot two, Reaves isn’t the biggest man on the ice, but that’s not to say he doesn’t hit like a truck. He does.
Reaves continued his hit streak through his time with the Blues and into his stint with the Penguins. After playing a year with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ryan Reaves was selected in the 2018 expansion draft by the Vegas Golden Knights. Since becoming a Golden Knight Reaves has used his career as a hockey player to broadcast his views about racial inequalities in the United States.
After the murder of George Floyd by former police officer Derrick Chauvin, Reaves along with other NHL players shared their thoughts about policing in the United States. This caused backlash from fans across the NHL, but for Black fans, that moment will be cemented in history. Reaves had the following to say on the matter.
“There’s obviously been some problems between the black community and police and it’s been years of that and the video that just came out of George Floyd, obviously that’s a little bit of a boiling point, and it’s tough because not all cops are bad,” Reaves said.
“You see a lot of these protestors, sometimes people are out there for the wrong things and people need to be out there protesting and having their voice heard because that’s very important.”
The story of Ryan Reaves is still being written, but if the past is any indication of what the future holds Ryan Reaves will be an important player in the NHL no matter which team he plays for. Currently, the Vegas Golden Knights have clinched a playoff spot in the 2021 run for the Stanley Cup.
I feel lucky to be able to call the Golden Knights my team because they empower Black voices like Reaves and that ensures that the legacy that Willie O’Ree started 63 years ago will continue to inspire Black hockey players for generations to come.