Feature: Bill Riley's fond memories of his short time in Winnipeg

When Bill Riley would play road hockey as a kid in Amherst, Nova Scotia, he always mimicked one player in particular.
"I was Willie," Riley said, referencing Willie O'Ree, the first black player in the National Hockey League.
O'Ree played professional hockey for 20 years, and skated in a total of 45 games with the Boston Bruins, with the first one occurring on January 18, 1958. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November of 2018, and is one of the people at the forefront of the NHL's Diversity initiative.
Inspired by O'Ree's ability to crack an NHL line-up, many other players of colour would make their way into the world's top hockey league.
In fact, the third black player to suit up in the NHL just happened to be that same kid running around in Nova Scotia playing road hockey.
Bill Riley.

To make it even better, Riley also suited up with the second player on that ever-growing list, Mike Marson, when the two were both with the Washington Capitals in 1974.
"When we skated on the ice together in Washington in 1974, we made history," Riley said, as the two black teammates worked to build on the legacy O'Ree started in 1958.
He admits to being a little disappointed that their story hasn't been celebrated as much when it comes to the history of black players in the NHL.
So, we offer this space to tell Riley's story, and how it brought him to Winnipeg in 1979-80, where he'd become the first black player to suit up for the Jets.
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Riley describes himself with two words: competitive and fit.
The competitiveness aspect, that came early on. He never liked to lose a game of road hockey, no matter who it was against. That attribute translated to the ice, no matter what level he played at.
The fitness aspect was developed through a work ethic he learned as a child, and carried through his professional hockey career. His training was a bit different than the big gyms and personal training programs we see these days.
He'd play a season for the Kitimat Eagles in the British Columbia Hockey League, then come home and try to find a job. That process repeated itself as his career took him all over North America - to Dayton of the International Hockey League, NHL stops in Washington and Winnipeg, and AHL stops in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Moncton, and Hershey.
"My father-in-law was a stone mason, my neighbour was a stone mason," he said. "I spent my summers mixing mortar by hand and stacking eight inch, 10-inch, 12-inch blocks. So it was pretty good conditioning and you were getting paid for it."
That level of conditioning routinely showed up when training camp rolled around.
"They used to do your recovery rate with the stethoscopes and those things," he recalled. "The doctors from the University of Ottawa tested us, they make you go to your max and put a stethoscope on you to see how quick you recovered. I was at the top of the class, and they said never in their life had they seen someone with a recovery rate like mine."
It paid off on the ice. In his final season in Kitimat in 1973-74, he had 76 goals and 118 points. If he wasn't already on the radar of pro scouts, that certainly did it.
He spent the majority of the 1974-75 campaign with the Dayton Gems, but got into one game with the Capitals at the NHL level - a historic night that made him the third black player in the league's history.
Ahead of the 1975-76 season, he was called into general manager Max McNab's office.
"I'm excited. He's going to sign me to a pro contract. I've been playing down in the IHL," Riley said. "My first year I made $5,500, my second year I made $7,000, and my third year I made $11,000. I had a wife and three kids at the time. He calls me in the office. I'm excited, I'm over the moon."

Player salaries at that time weren't as publicly available as they are now, but Riley knew what he was offered wasn't what he came in the office hoping for.
He remembers the negotiation, getting a comparatively small signing bonus, but $35,000 was as high as McNab wanted to go on the salary side.
"He said 'I've got two airplane tickets - one back to Dayton, and I've got one to Buffalo. You sign the contract you go to Buffalo. You don't sign the contract you go to Dayton,'" Riley said. "Dayton was where I was making $11,000. So $35,000 sounds better than $11,000 doesn't it?"
He got three assists that night.
Over the next two seasons Riley spent the majority of his time in the NHL, putting together back-to-back 13-goal seasons (in 43 and 57 games, respectively) and accumulating 52 points.
When called upon, he could also go up against some of the league's toughest.
"Back in the 70s, every team had two or possibly three guys that got one or two shifts per game and fought," he said. "You had the Broad Street Bullies, the Big Bad Bruins, Detroit had a tough club, Pittsburgh had a tough club. There were some tough boys in the league at that time. I fought them all. Plus I could play."
After splitting the 1978-79 season between Washington and Hershey, Riley's life was about to change.
He was selected by the Winnipeg Jets in the 1979-80 expansion draft, as the club was moving from the World Hockey Association to the NHL.
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Say the word Winnipeg, and Riley can remember vivid details of his time in the Manitoba capital.
"I was at the old Viscount Gort by the old Winnipeg Arena and there was a mall there," he said. "I'll never forget it. I paid $17 for a pair of gloves in 1979. I got halfway across the parking lot and had to take them off and put my hands down my pants."
The Winnipeg winter charms yet another!
Cold or not, Riley was motivated. He scored four goals in training camp, one that he still refers to as the best of his career. Even still, he'd start the season AHL.
"They had made a deal with Montreal to send me to Nova Scotia, because I was from there," said Riley.
But that competitive fire Riley played with earned him a recall back to Winnipeg in December. He'd racked up 13 goals in the AHL to that point, and when he put on a Jets jersey, he kept contributing on a line with Lyle Moffat and Jude Drouin. He had three goals and five points in 14 games, and off the ice, he was close with his teammates.
"I felt welcome in the room," he said. "I'll never forget, I went to Morris Lukowich's house for Christmas. He had me over for Christmas with his lovely wife. Lyle Moffat, Jude Drouin, (Lars-Erik) Sjoberg is gone now, they were very good to me. They made me feel welcome, made me feel at home."
That's what made it so hard to get reassigned back to Nova Scotia. Winnipeg was the last city Riley would wear an NHL jersey, finishing his career in the American League a few years later, in 1983-84, winning a Calder Cup with New Brunswick in 1981-82.
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When he thinks back on his career, Riley is proud what he accomplished, knowing he had to work for every opportunity he received.
The challenge of earning those opportunities was hard enough, and he admits that no matter what side of the border he was on in his journey to make the NHL, he faced racism on a regular basis.
"I remember one time, and this black family was in the audience, and the crowd was giving it to me pretty good," he said. "I just wanted to go up, because they had a little girl and a little boy, I just wanted to go up and hug the little girl and the little boy and explain what was going on. It was difficult."
A fan of musicians like Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash for as long as he can remember, he was often advised not to attend their concerts because "you'll be the only black guy there."
Those nights, alone in the hotel, were tough.
"There was all kinds of things you had to endure and keep inside you," he said. "It goes back to my grandfather and my mother - she's the toughest person I've ever come across - she always said 'if they're calling you names, they're trying to throw you off your game. You just let your game do the talking for you.' That made me a pretty good player."
He's thankful for the teammates he had, in Winnipeg and in other stops, that stepped up whenever they heard racial slurs directed at Riley.
"Gordie Lane was one guy. A guy who is gone now, bless his soul, Jim 'Seaweed' Pettie was with the Boston Bruins. Stan Jonathan and I played together. Larry Bolonchuk in Winnipeg, a Winnipeg native, we played together," Riley said. "They always had my back. Lots of times when somebody dropped the N-bomb on me, if it was another player or something like that, they were pushing me out of the way so they could get at the guy. From my teammates I had a tremendous amount of support."
He's happy to see that black representation - and representation of other cultures as well - has continued to grow over the years. From names like Ray Neufeld and Tom McKegney to more current players like Ryan Reaves, Evander Kane, and K'Andre Miller.
There remains more work to be done, but he's hoping to be part of it.
Until that call comes, Riley - a member of the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame since 1998 - says there is one other project he wants to get done. He's kept his story mostly to himself all these years, and he doesn't feel he needs to keep it private anymore.
"I played, kept my mouth shut, and now we have a lot of kids of colour playing," he said. "I didn't want to be perceived as a problem. I just stayed the course.
I think back now, and I just need to get it together and write a book."