Laraque inspired by O'Ree's courage, grace

MONTREAL --Towering
Georges Laraque
, 6-foot-3 and knocking on the door of 300 pounds, makes it clear that he could never fill the skates of reed-thin, 5-10
Willie O'Ree
.
It was O'Ree who broke the NHL's color barrier when he stepped onto Montreal Forum ice with the Boston Bruins on Jan. 18, 1958, roughly 17 years before Laraque was born.

"Can you imagine how hard it was for Willie to do what he did?" Laraque said, speaking at the 60th anniversary of O'Ree's historic NHL debut. "Can you imagine the racism and taunts and abuse that he faced just because of the color of his skin?
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"When I was a kid, some what I faced stopped when I became big enough to defend myself, when I became too big for people to call me names. Willie was treated like that his entire life, even when he was an adult. When you're an adult, it hurts more. When you're a kid, you don't quite understand it, but when you're called names as an adult, things said to hurt you just because you're black, hearing people say they'd boycott your games….
"I had a bit of strength when I was a kid," said Laraque, 41, half the age of O'Ree. "But as an adult, I don't know that I'd have the kind of control that Willie did."
It was early in a 12-season NHL career when Laraque heard of O'Ree for the first time.
"I'm kind of surprised about that," he said. "When I broke into the NHL (in 1997-98 with the Edmonton Oilers), Willie wasn't publicized that much. I didn't even know that it was Willie who had broken the NHL's color barrier."
O'Ree came to Laraque's attention when he was playing for the 2000-01 Oilers, a roster that included five black players -- himself, forwards Anson Carter and Mike Grier, defenseman Sean Brown and goalie Joaquin Gage.
"I don't think that had ever happened before in the NHL," Laraque said. "People joked about us. They said we weren't the Oilers as much as we were the (Canadian Football League's) Edmonton Eskimos because we had so many black players on the team. I got to know about Willie after that, and then I got to meet him and work with him at events of the NHL's diversity task force and the NHLPA."

It was almost four decades after O'Ree's debut when Laraque followed a man he would come to idolize into the NHL. Laraque played 695 rugged games for the Oilers, Phoenix Coyotes, Pittsburgh Penguins and Montreal Canadiens before retiring from the League in 2010.
Before he'd heard of O'Ree, Laraque devoured books and stories about the incredible odds and bitter racism that had been overcome by baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, who graduated from the Montreal Royals of the International League to break his sport's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. And in time, he would similarly study O'Ree and the hurdles he had to clear in hockey and in life.
Both Robinson and O'Ree would make history in Montreal, where Laraque played the final 61 games of his NHL career.
"When I read about Jackie, I began to understand a little of what I'd have to go through, what to expect, if I was going to make it," he said. "That really helped me. Willie O'Ree was the same thing in hockey. Prejudices had to be broken. He showed that a black player could make it in the NHL."
It is O'Ree's qualities of inspiration that most impress Laraque, who today has a daily radio show on French-language radio in Montreal. He's dazzled by O'Ree's ability to communicate easily with young people and old-timers, all of whom marvel at his storytelling and positive messages.
"Willie and Jackie [Robinson], it was the same thing, the message they got in their time was they had to take it," Laraque said. "They had to pave the way. They knew that if they were emotional or if they reacted negatively in the face of racism and abuse, people would say, 'Look, they can't control themselves…'

"I couldn't have done it. Even though I went through a lot as a kid, I can say with all honesty that what they went through as adults, I couldn't have had their control. I would have gone nuts. What they went through was inhuman and I wouldn't have had the temperament to accept that, even if I could have been the first.
"I've always been always amazed at how graceful and how much of a gentleman Willie is. I'm so fortunate that I was able to meet him and get to know him over the years."