O'Ree's number retirement adds to legacy of Bruins who wore No. 22

Willie O'Ree
said there's no great story behind him wearing No. 22 with the Boston Bruins.

"They just said, 'Here,'" O'Ree said of the Bruins equipment handlers at the time. "I put it, on and I wore it. I didn't ask for 22. It was just a number presented to me."
O'Ree and No. 22 forever became synonymous in Bruins history on Tuesday when his jersey banner was hoisted to the rafters of TD Garden before Boston played the Carolina Hurricanes.
His number was the 12th retired by Boston, joining those of
Lionel Hitchman
(No. 3, 1934),
Dit Clapper
(No. 5, 1947),
Eddie Shore
(No. 2, 1949),
Milt Schmidt
(No. 15, 1957),
Bobby Orr
(No. 4, 1979),
Johnny Bucyk
(No. 9, 1980),
Phil Esposito
(No. 7, 1987),
Ray Bourque
(No. 77, 2001),
Terry O'Reilly
(No. 24, 2002),
Cam Neely
(No. 8, 2004) and
Rick Middleton
(No. 16, 2018).
O'Ree wasn't the first player to wear No. 22 with the Bruins and he wasn't the last when he wore it in his final game with Boston in 1961. Thirty-five Bruins players have worn the number, 25 of them after O'Ree did.
RELATED: [Learn more about Willie O'Ree]
The previous owners range from journeymen to some of the hockey's greats. Some of them were unaware that they shared the number with O'Ree, who became the first Black player in the NHL when he debuted against the Montreal Canadiens on Jan. 18, 1958.
Hockey Hall of Fame defensemen
Brad Park
and
Brian Leetch
wore the number. So did "NHL on TNT" studio analyst Rick Tocchet, Bruins radio analyst Bob Beers, Florida Panthers chief commercial officer
Shawn Thornton
, as well as
Butch Goring
and
Jozef Stumpel
.
Leetch remembers when then-Bruins general manager Mike O'Connell handed him a No. 22 jersey at a press conference after the former New York Rangers All-Star defenseman signed with Boston as a free agent in August 2005.
Leetch, a two-time
Norris Trophy
winner as the best defenseman in the NHL (1992, 1997) who scored 1,028 points (247 goals, 781 assists) in 1,205 games with the Rangers, Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs, wore No. 2 in New York but it wasn't available in Boston because it had been retired for Shore.

"So O'Connell] goes, 'I just guessed that you'd probably take this one after wearing 2 your whole career,'" said Leetch, who played 61 games for Boston. "I said, 'That looks good to me.'
"I honestly didn't know about Willie wearing it until later on as he was getting recognized more and more for not only what he accomplished in breaking the color barrier as a hockey player and his continued work he was doing in youth hockey," said Leetch. "I had seen him at different events at Ice Hockey in Harlem when I was in New York, but I had no idea he wore No. 22 in Boston."
Like Leetch, Park wore No. 2 when he played 465 games for the Rangers from 1968-75.
Park said Bruins officials offered to ask Shore if he could have the number after he was acquired in a trade in November 1975 that also sent forward
[Jean Ratelle
and minor league defenseman
Joe Zanussi
to Boston and forward Phil Esposito and defenseman
Carol Vadnais
to New York.
"I said, 'No, no, no, that number is retired,'" said Park, a five-time first team NHL All-Star who scored 896 points (213 goals, 683 assists) in 1,113 games with the Rangers, Bruins and Detroit Red Wings. "I asked, 'What else you got?' They kept going through the numbers and they said, 'We have 22.' I said, 'I'll take 22, that way I'll be twice as good.'"
Park said he learned that O'Ree wore the number when Boston first announced the number retirement ceremony in January 2021.

"I think Willie is a great choice," he said. "He's kind of a groundbreaker in the League. The team has been around for 100 years or so, it's quite an honor to have your number retired by an Original Six team."
All Thornton wanted was a double number when the rugged left wing signed with Boston as a free agent in 2007.
"I was 11 my whole life," Thornton said. "I got to Boston and
P.J. Axelsson
had 11. I asked the trainer, basically, 'Which numbers aren't in the rafters?'
"There were about four of them I could pick from, and No. 22 was one of them. Ironically, once I got to Boston my first outing was a Bruins golf tournament and I was paired with Willie O'Ree. Obviously as you're in Boston you learn more and more about Mr. O'Ree."
O'Ree said he didn't realize that so many Bruins players wore No. 22 after he did, but it doesn't faze him because he knows how numbers are doled out by teams.

He wore three different numbers with the Bruins: No. 18 for two games, No. 25 for nine games and No. 22 for 34 of the 45 games he played during two seasons with Boston (1957-58, 1960-61).
"When they brought me up against Montreal on Jan. 18, I wore No. 18," he said.
O'Ree scored 14 points (four goals, 10 assists) during his NHL career despite being legally blind in his right eye, the result of an injury sustained in junior hockey.
O'Ree's NHL career was brief but he had a prolific minor league career, mostly in the former Western Hockey League with Los Angeles and San Diego.
He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November 2018 in the Builders category for his off-ice accomplishments that helped create a new generation of players and fans as NHL diversity ambassador.
In his role he helped establish 39 grassroots hockey programs in North America as part of the Hockey Is For Everyone initiative and inspired more than 120,000 boys and girls to play the sport.
Leetch said he was looking forward to watching O'Ree's jersey retirement ceremony, proud to be a fellow Bruins No. 22.
"To hear the stories about him and to know the individual, the man, and what he went on to do post-playing career, all the honors and recognition he's getting is tremendous," he said. "So to be a little sub-part of all his great accomplishments as an individual is fun for me. It's fun to talk about it right now."