William James Riley (September 20, 1950 â March 29, 2026) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player, and was the third black player and first of African Nova Scotian descent in the National Hockey League (NHL). He played 139 games for the Washington Capitals and Winnipeg Jets between 1974 and 1980. The rest of his career, which lasted from 1974 to 1989, was spent in the minor leagues.
Riley's mother worked as a cleaning lady, while his father earned the minimum wage of $1.25 per hour. With limited finances, they made the necessary sacrifices to outfit their son with the required equipment to play hockey starting in peewee. Riley stuck with the game in spite of the absence of many black role models in the sport. After two seasons with the Amherst Ramblers, a team he would go on to coach many years later, he held no aspirations of pursuing hockey as a big-league career.
In 1973 while working in a factory and playing senior hockey with the Kitimat Eagles senior team in the Pacific Northwest Hockey League in British Columbia, Riley was discovered after putting up 206 points in 80 games across two seasons. Future NHL coach Tom McVie was in the process of fortifying his lineup for the Dayton Gems of the International Hockey League (IHL). He discovered Riley in Kitimat and invited him for a tryout. Riley accepted and made the club in 1974.
Riley was given a tryout with the Washington Capitals during their inaugural season in 1974-75 and played just one game on December 26, 1974. In that game, he shared the ice with Capitals left winger Mike Marson, making the duo the first black teammates in the NHL. Riley spent the rest of the season and the next season in the minors with Dayton. It was during this time that he was reunited with and played under future Capitals' coach McVie. He would eventually be signed as a free agent by the Capitals during the 1976âÂÂ77 NHL season and played for the team in parts of the next three seasons.
Riley was claimed by the Winnipeg Jets in the 1979 NHL Expansion Draft, but only played in 14 games before he was sent to the minors, where he played, with the New Brunswick Hawks, Moncton Alpines and the Nova Scotia Voyageurs, until he retired following the 1983âÂÂ84 season. Riley was the captain on the 1981-82 Hawks teams that won the AHL's Calder Cup championship.
Riley was back on the ice as player-coach and captain of the St. John's Capitals of the Newfoundland Senior Hockey League for three seasons during the late 1980s.
After retiring from professional play, Riley returned to coaching in 1989-90, when he landed a head coaching position with the Amherst Ramblers of the Maritime Junior A Hockey League. Later, he was the head coach, general manager and director of player personnel of the Miramichi Timberwolves of the Maritime Junior A Hockey League. He also served as head coach of the Moncton Wildcats during the 1996âÂÂ97 season, finishing with a 16âÂÂ52âÂÂ2 record.
Riley was roommates with Dave Feamster, and together they once poached a deer, to provide meat for Riley and his family.
Riley's son, Billy Jr., was killed in a motor vehicle accident in 2011 in Moncton at age 35.
In 2017, after seeing a segment on Hockey Night in Canada about Toronto Maple Leafs player Bill Barilko, Riley sent his daughter, who lived in Timmins, to the site of Barilko's grave to clean his tombstone.
Riley died from cancer on March 29, 2026, aged 75.