Inspiring words from an NHL ambassador

The color barrier couldn't stop Willie O'Ree from playing in the NHL.

Neither could his secret: He was blind in one eye.

"Forget about what you can't see and concentrate on what you can see," O'Ree told a group of around 50 young hockey players at the Flyers SkateZone in Pennsauken on Wednesday.

The group plays the sport through the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, an organization created in 2005 by the Flyers owner to promote the game among inner-city and underprivileged youngsters.

The 76-year-old O'Ree, the NHL's director of youth development and ambassador for the league's Hockey is for Everyone initiative, told the young players to follow their dreams.

He followed his dream, all the way from his home in Fredericton, New Brunswick, to a spot on the roster of the NHL's Boston Bruins. He became the league's first black player on Jan. 18, 1958.

"There wasn't a game that went by where there wasn't a racial comment by the other team or by the fans," said O'Ree, who played parts of two seasons in the NHL but 21 seasons of professional hockey. "I learned that names wouldn't hurt me."

The color barrier wasn't the only obstacle O'Ree overcame. He also made the NHL - and collected 1,022 points while playing for 11 teams in his long career - despite an injury in youth hockey that left him blind in his right eye.

"The surgeon told me, 'You'll never play hockey again,' " O'Ree said. "But he didn't know how I felt inside. I had a dream to play professional hockey.

"I didn't tell anybody about my eye. I was a right wing, and I would turn my head all the way to see the puck.

"My philosophy is, 'If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you're right.' "

O'Ree's message resonated with 16-year-old C.J. Diaz, a Pennsauken resident who has been playing hockey for three years through the Snider foundation.

"I can connect to him," Diaz said. "He overcame so much because he had a dream and he had a once-in-a-lifetime moment. He is an inspiration."

O'Ree's mission dovetails with the Snider foundation's goal of seeking to provide opportunities in hockey to youths who might think the sport is beyond their reach. According to the NHL, O'Ree has helped launch more than 30 grassroots programs since 1998, serving more than 45,000 children.

O'Ree was in the area this week in support of events in conjunction with the American Hockey League's All-Star Classic in Atlantic City. Before Wednesday's hockey clinic, O'Ree spoke to about 200 youngsters at the H.H. Davis Elementary School in Camden.

O'Ree knows ice hockey is an expensive sport that sometimes is beyond the means of underprivileged children. But he said he had seen first-hand how organizations such as the Snider foundation and others across North America have made a difference in lives.

And the kids love the game, he said.

"Once they get out on the ice, they don't want to come off," O'Ree said.

"Not once in the 14 years I've been doing this have I ever heard a kid say, 'Mr. O'Ree, I don't like this. I'm not coming back.' "