Former Sudbury Wolves player Mike Marson was second black NHLer
Mike Marson says he's never really seen people in terms of colour. But, over his hockey career, many definitely saw him that way.
Star forward with Sudbury in the early '70s, broke in with Washington Capitals in 1974
Mike Marson says he's never really seen people in terms of colour — but over his hockey career, many definitely saw him that way.
Marson was usually the only black player on the ice.
When he was with the Sudbury Wolves in the Ontario Hockey League in the early 1970s, Marson said he was more of a "novelty", and sometimes the first person of colour his teammates had ever met.
But, when he reached of his goal of playing in the National Hockey League — the second black player to do so after Willie O'Ree broke the colour line in 1958 — he got a much different reaction.
To mark Black History Month, he told his story to Morning North radio show host Markus Schwabe.
