On January 18, 1958, amidst very little fanfare, Willie O’Ree became the NHL’s first black player. During his 20-year career, the Fredericton-born man played 43 games in the NHL, and over 1,200 more as a professional in the Western and International Hockey Leagues. He accomplished all this despite being blind in one eye (from a teenage hockey accident) and having to endure racist taunts and violence at the hands of fans and opposing players.

O’Ree tells his story in this short autobiographical book, assisted by veteran Canadian journalist and documentary writer Michael McKinley. As the “black pioneer” in a white-dominated game, O’Ree brings to mind his predecessor in baseball, Jackie Robinson. However, unlike Robinson, O’Ree, whose game often calls for sticks and fists, got involved in punch-ups when the situation warranted. “I knew that he had butt-ended me on purpose, and then he tried to high-stick me,” writes O’Ree, who smacked the instigator on the head with his stick. “I cut him pretty good, and it took 14 or 15 stitches to sew him up.”

The book’s straightforward style explains a lot of hockey terminology in ways young readers can understand. There’s a self-consciously inspirational tone to a lot of the text (“If you really feel that you want to accomplish something, you can do the impossible”), but that’s understandable, considering O’Ree is now the director of the NHL’s Diversity Task Force, an organization designed to introduce minority kids to hockey. This is an interesting piece of hockey history by one of the game’s lesser-known but important heroes.