Mike Marson was a high-scoring 18-year-old left winger for the Sudbury Wolves when the expansion Washington Capitals selected him in the second round of the 1974 NHL Amateur Draft, three spots ahead of future Hall-of-Famer Bryan Trottier. When Marson, born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, made his debut as a 19-year-old with the Capitals that October, he became just the second black player to take the ice in the league’s 57-year history, the first since Willie O’Ree played for the Boston Bruins between 1957 and 1961. When, in December of ’74, Washington called up Amherst, Nova Scotia-born winger Bill Riley, it was, as the Associated Press noted at the time, “the first time in the NHL that two black players played in one game.”

“Yeah, I heard of Willie O’Ree,” Marson told a writer for The New York Times that fall, “but I never saw him play. That was way before my time. But I think it’s time to end all this ridiculousness: the first to do this, the second to do that. No only for blacks, but for a Russian going to the moon or a Chinese pole-vaulter or whatever. It’s childishness.”

The ridiculousness persisted, and (of course) worse, too. As much as Marson tried to focus on playing hockey in his rookie season and beyond, much of the media’s attention continued to focus on his race, how he’d ended up in hockey, why. Mostly they didn’t talk about the racist abuse he faced, on the ice and off, from opponents, teammates,  so-called fans, total strangers, but all that is specified in dispiriting detail in Cecil Harris’ 2007 book Breaking the Ice: The Black Experience in Professional Hockey.

Mike Marson played parts of five seasons for Washington and one final year with the Los Angeles before departing the NHL in 1980.