Willie O'Ree has been called hockey's version of Jackie Robinson. When he made his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins in 1958, he became the first African-American to play professional hockey. O'Ree said he didn't realize he had broken the color barrier until the next day, when he read it in the newspaper. O'Ree played just two games with the Bruins that year, was sent down to the minors for the following two, and didn't come back to the National Hockey League (NHL) until 1961, when he returned for a 43-game stint. During his entire professional career he played with a handicap. O'Ree is 95 percent blind in his right eye, the result of being hit by an errant puck two years before he joined the Bruins. Normally, that would make him ineligible from playing in the NHL but O'Ree managed to keep it secret. He left the NHL in 1961 but continued to play, primarily in the now-defunct Western Hockey League, where he won a league goal-scoring title in the 1964-1965 season. He hung up his skates in 1979. Unlike baseball, where Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier cleared a path for thousands of black ballplayers to follow, no other black athlete played in the NHL until 1974, when Mike Marson was drafted by the Washington Capitals. To its credit, the NHL has taken an active role in promoting diversity throughout the league. Hockey players are required to enroll in a diversity training seminar before the beginning of each season. The league also hired O'Ree in 1998 to be the Director of Youth Development for the NHL/USA Hockey Diversity Task Force, a non-profit program designed to introduce children of diverse ethnic backgrounds to the game of hockey.