The Bruins recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of Willie O'Ree playing for them, the first black* player in the NHL. He has gone on to be an ambassador for the game, working with the league and various programs to get minorities involved in hockey, and seems to be an all-around awesome person.
*And you can't call him the first African-American player in the NHL, because he's Canadian. Even my beloved Boston Globe got that wrong in one mention this month.
He did a lot of interviews around the anniversary and celebration, of course, and in one of them, he was asked if he had kept his jersey from those days. He laughed and said no; he was traded during the off-season, and if he had known, he said he would have taken the jersey home at the end of the season!
Well, as it turns out, Bruins player Matt Grzelcyk, or rather his father John, who has been a member of the Garden's Bull Gang forever, had something up their sleeves.
Isn't that awfully nice? You can see by not only his face, but the looks on the faces of his family behind him, just what it means to him, having his jersey again.
I mostly knit, sometimes crochet or cross-stitch. I read, a lot. I love cats. I love hockey, especially my no-longer-local team, the Boston Bruins. Want more? Read on.
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