The NHL annually celebrates diversity with the campaign "Hockey is for Everyone", because at one time it wasn’t.
Before Willie O’Ree, there was Herb Carnegie.
The racial barrier that O’Ree was able to penetrate in 1958 when he became the first black player to play in the NHL, was the same one that kept Carnegie from ever reaching that goal.
Born in Toronto, Ontario in 1919, he was a dynamo on the ice, and an equally positive force off of it.
After retiring from an impressive semi-pro hockey career in the early 1950’s, he founded the Future Aces Hockey School and eventually the Herbert H. Carnegie Future Aces Foundation which has been providing post-secondary scholarships to students since 1989. Carnegie was also successful in business as a financial advisor, and received the Order of Canada, but the slight of never being able to achieve his dream of playing in the NHL never left him.
In 1997, he released his autobiography, A Fly in a Pail of Milk: The Herb Carnegie Story (Mosaic Press) with Robert Payne, now the book is being re-released (ECW Press) seven years after his death with a large section written by his daughter Bernice. She fills in blanks, adds her own story and also that of the Carnegie family as it relates to her father's lasting legacy.
Listen as we converse with Bernice about what is new, and what remains the same.
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 10) - Rick Westhead (TSN) - Finding Murph - How Joe Murphy Went From Winning a Championship to Living Homeless in the Bush
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 9) - Rick Vaive - Catch 22 - My Battles, in Hockey and Life
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 8) - Angie Bullaro / Manon Rheaume - Breaking the Ice
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 7) - Doug Smith (Toronto Star) - We The North - 25 Years of the Toronto Raptors
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 6) - Willie O'Ree - Willie - The Game Changing Story of the NHL's First Black Player
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 5) - Brian Burke - Burke's Law - A Life in Hockey
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 4) - Sami Jo Small - The Role I Played
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 3) - Jeff Pearlman - Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 2) - Bryan Berard - My Life in Hockey and the Power of Perseverance
SportsLit (Season 4, Episode 1) - Roy MacGregor - The Ice Chips and the Stolen Cup (Volume 4)
SportsLit (Season 3, Episode 5) - Ken Reid (Sportsnet) - Eddie Shack, Hockey's Most Entertaining Stories
SportsLit (Season 3, Episode 3) - Sean Fitz-Gerald (The Athletic) - Before the Lights Go Out
SportsLit (Season 3, Episode 2)- Jerry Howarth - Hello Friends, Stories from My Life and Blue Jays Baseball
SportsLit (Season 3, Episode 1) - Mark Hebscher - The Greatest Athlete You've Never Heard Of
SportsLit (Season 2, Episode 13) - Phil Lind (Rogers Comm.), Robert Brehl - Right Hand Man
SportsLit (Season 2, Episode 12) - Glenn Stout (BASW) - The Pats, An Illustrated History of the New England Patriots
SportsLit (Season 2, Episode 11) - Damien Cox - The Last Good Year, Seven Games That Ended an Era
SportsLit (Season 2, Episode 10) - Sean McIndoe (Down Goes Brown) - The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL
SportsLit (Season 2, Episode 9) - - Dan Robson (The Athletic) - Bower, A Legendary Life
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