Willie O’Ree will have his No. 22 retired by the Bruins next January, but there’s a movement to bestow an even greater honor on him.
Momentum continues to grow for the passage of the Willie O’Ree Congressional Gold Medal Act, which would honor O’Ree, who broke the NHL’s color barrier with Boston in 1958, with the highest civilian honor U.S. Congress can give, and now it’s getting a celebrity endorsement from Kenan Thompson.
Thompson, the longtime Saturday Night Live cast member whose connection to hockey dates back to his role as Russ Tyler in the second and third Mighty Ducks movies, wrote in an essay for NHL.com that while he did not know about O’Ree when he was growing up, he has come to be inspired by his story and believes Congress should pass the act.
“Willie may not be a role model we all knew when we were growing up, but I think he should have been, and will be, if we give him the recognition he deserves,” Thompson writes. “The Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor that Congress can give, is one very powerful way to recognize everything Willie stands for. It's time to decorate Willie with the gold medal.”
In addition to being the NHL’s first black player, O’Ree has also been its Diversity Ambassador since 1998, traveling around North America to schools and hockey programs to promote inclusion and the league’s Hockey Is For Everyone initiatives.
The Willie O’Ree Congressional Gold Medal Act was originally introduced in 2019 and was re-introduced this February by Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Tim Scott (R-SC).
The legislation must be co-sponsored by at least two-thirds of both the Senate and the House of Representatives before it can be passed. So far it has 38 of a required 67 co-sponsors in the Senate, including Massachusetts’ Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren. It has not officially been reintroduced in the House yet, but the 2019 version had 95 of a required 290 co-sponsors there.
There have been 169 Congressional Gold Medals awarded, making it much rarer than the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Athletes who have received the honor include Roberto Clemente, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Larry Doby and Steve Gleason.