Color of Hockey: Fitzhugh honored to be O'Ree's voice in 'Willie'

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog for the past eight years. Douglas joined NHL.com in March 2019 and writes about people of color in the game. Today, he profiles Seattle Kraken team broadcaster Everett Fitzhugh, who is the voice of Willie O'Ree for the audiobook of the Hockey Hall of Famer's new autobiography.

Everett Fitzhugh was still on a high from being hired as the Seattle Kraken's team broadcaster in August when another unexpected offer came a few weeks later that floored him.
Fitzhugh, the NHL's first Black team broadcaster, was asked if he wanted to be the voice of Willie O'Ree for the audiobook version of the Hockey Hall of Famer's new autobiography, "Willie: The Game-Changing Story of the NHL's First Black Player," by Penguin Random House Canada publishing.
"Once I took my jaw up off the floor, I kind of had the same reaction that I did when (Kraken CEO) Tod Leiweke first emailed me back in February," Fitzhugh said. "'Not a chance someone is emailing me to narrate this audiobook.' Sure enough, it was true, and it was a massive, massive honor. I just hope I was able to do his story and his life some justice."

O'Ree gave Fitzhugh two thumbs up for his narration of the 256-page book, co-authored with writer Michael McKinley, that tells his story from his upbringing in Fredericton, New Brunswick, to his induction into the Hall of Fame in 2018 in the Builders category.
The autobiography also provides historical context and personal insights about the man who overcame racial prejudice and blindness in his right eye -- the result of an injury sustained in junior hockey -- to become the NHL's first Black player when he joined the Boston Bruins for a game against the Montreal Canadiens at the Forum on Jan. 18, 1958.
"I think he did a nice job, I was impressed," O'Ree said after listening to the audiobook last week. "I was happy."
So was Nick Garrison, the Penguin Random House Canada associate publisher who edited the book. When the written project was finished, Garrison and Ann Jansen, the publishing house's audiobook producer, pondered who would voice it.
The authors sometimes do the job themselves. Other times, professional narrators, who are usually actors, are hired for the job.

These decisions aren't taken lightly because audiobooks are big business. Deloitte Insights, a business analysis website and magazine, projected the United States to be the world's largest audiobook market in 2020, generating $1.5 billion and riding a predicted growth rate of 20-25 percent annually for the next few years.
Fitzhugh getting the O'Ree job was a matter of "superb timing," Garrison said. The Kraken announced the historic hiring of Fitzhugh, who had been the play-by-play voice and director of media relations of Cincinnati of the ECHL for the past five seasons, on Aug. 7.
"Our audio producer got in touch with me and just said 'Do you have any thoughts of who might voice Willie?'" Garrison said. "No one came to mind right away. That's just when Everett exploded into the hockey news cycle. Everyone's talking about what a great guy he is, that he was making history in his own right. I just put two and two together.
"I went to our audio producer and said, 'What do you think about Everett Fitzhugh?' And she said, 'Oh yeah, perfect.'"
Getting the audiobook recorded in September wasn't easy. Fitzhugh was in the throes of packing up and moving from Cincinnati to begin work in Seattle. Also, the U.S.-Canada border is closed due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus, meaning Fitzhugh couldn't travel to Toronto to record the book even if he had the time.

Penguin Random House Canada found a recording booth at Gwynne Sound in downtown Cincinnati, where the 31-year-old Detroit native holed up for four days with a sound producer on site and a director in Canada patched in via Zoom.
"I had to record the book on a Thursday, Friday, Sunday, Monday," Fitzhugh said. "Our moving truck came the following Thursday, like three days later. In between packing up our apartment and trying to get all the boxes filled and run all the errands, I was otherwise engaged for about six hours for those final seven days that we probably needed to get our stuff packed. Obviously, it all got done and we got here just in time and in good spirits."
Fitzhugh had more audio work to do when he arrived in Seattle. "I had to do a half hour here, do some pick-ups, a couple of edits, some unclear lines, things I had to re-read," he said.
He said doing the audiobook was a fun challenge that was different from reading "'Of Mice and Men' aloud back in the ninth grade" or doing a hockey broadcast.
"Because his story is so multilayered -- you go from the joy of growing up in Fredericton, discovering hockey and playing all these sports to experiencing racism for the first time, the heartbreak of the injury, the NHL dream deferred multiple times and then the pinnacle of finally getting there," he said. "There are a lot of different stories in his overall story, so trying to find a voice for each one of those layers, I think, was the most challenging part. It's not like a broadcast where you have the same energy all throughout the game. You're reading and you're trying to convey certain messages, trying to convey certain viewpoints."
Garrison said Fitzhugh succeeded on all fronts.
"You know how warm [Fitzhugh's] voice is, how gentle and thoughtful he sounds. Willie is like that too," Garrison said. "Willie has very little swagger, very little of the sense that he's full of himself. Willie is just there to make things better, and that's exactly the kind of person Everett is and that's what he sounds like. It was a perfect fit, couldn't have been better."
Fitzhugh said he enjoyed the experience so much that he would love to do it again.
"Maybe I did find a nice little side hustle reading audiobooks," he said. "You never know."