Hall of Fame Members

A native of Biddeford, Maine, who now makes his home in Belmont, N.H., Caron is credited with spearheading the creation of the Belmont-Gilford cooperative team, bringing together a diverse network of people to garner community support and, ultimately, New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association approval.

It was an idea that dated back more than twenty years ago, to a summer gathering on the back deck of Caron’s house, finding a way to give local student-athletes a chance to play high school hockey. As Town Administrator, Caron oversaw the development of a diverse group which included a teacher, business entrepreneurs, a lawyer, referees and coaches. They brought a proposal to both school districts, attended meetings and worked on finding solutions until their plan was approved.

The next step was to propose this innovative idea to Jim Desmarais, then the Executive Director of the NHIAA, who seemed open to it. After many more meetings attended and checkpoints reached, the NHIAA allowed the program to begin as a club team playing a sub-varsity, eventually growing into a team that would play its first varsity season in 2004-05.

Funding was a major challenge, but Caron got the support of Will Fay, the manager of what is now the Merrill Fay Arena in Laconia, to schedule the most and best ice time within a minimal budget. Thanks to the acceptance and openness of the school boards, administrators, athletic directors and the financial support of the local businesses, boosters, communities and parents, the team continues to flourish.

Cooperative high school sports teams have become numerous in New Hampshire in the two decades since Belmont-Gilford first took the ice together. In sports like boys’ and girls’ hockey, football, and boys’ and girls’ lacrosse,
which require larger rosters and costlier equipment, cooperative teams have allowed hundreds of more athletes the experience of playing high school sports.

Caron also served as a coach and on the Board of Directors for the Lakes Region Lakers from 1989 to 2007 and as a USA Hockey referee from 1999 to 2019. He currently serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors for the non-profit Winnipesaukee Skating Club, owner of the Merrill Fay Arena.

Please welcome to the Class of 2023, Dave Caron as a member of the New Hampshire Legends of Hockey Hall of Fame.

Paul D. Comeau

For nearly thirty years, the late Paul Comeau was actively involved in youth hockey in both the state’s Seacoast region and also at the state level for USA Hockey. A native of Everett, Mass., who later made his home in Nottingham, N.H., Comeau spent many years as the President of New Hampshire East Youth Hockey before later becoming the Director of Hockey for that organization. He coached many teams for New Hampshire East from 1992 until 2019, from Mites all the way up to Midgets. Many of his teams attended and won their playoffs, state championships and/or regional championships.

He helped develop NHE’s learn-to-skate program and also coordinated a partnership with the Boston Bruins organization to provide 25-50 boys and girls under the age of 9 each year with all the necessary equipment (skates, helmet, stick, gloves, etc.) and on-ice training with Boston Bruins staff. This was Paul’s way of reaching out to the youngest, to get them interested in hockey, and to work towards developing the future of youth hockey in New Hampshire.

Additionally, Comeau spent several years as a referee and scheduler. He made sure that all home games for New Hampshire East had officials; during the many times when an official couldn’t make it to a game, he would suit up and officiate the game himself.

Comeau was an advocate for making youth hockey affordable for families, while at the same time demanding that NHE offer the highest quality level of instruction in order for players to hone their skills and excel at each level. During his tenure with New Hampshire East, more than 2,000 players skated for the program. These players were on many of the teams that won state and regional championships, advanced to USA Hockey Nationals, and excelled at the high school and collegiate level.

In an era when many youth hockey programs in the region dissolved for various reasons, Comeau would work with those organizations to accommodate and absorb their players into New Hampshire East. He coordinated several fundraising activities for NHE that included the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival, Comedy Night with silent auction and Tag Days, plus raffles and concession stands at Phillips Exeter Academy during tournaments.

Comeau served on the Board of Directors in various capacities for the New Hampshire Amateur Hockey Association. At the time of his passing, he was serving as the organization’s president. Under his leadership, the NHAHA continued to see that the youth hockey players of New Hampshire were given every opportunity for success.

Accepting for Paul Comeau is his wife Robin Comeau.

Walter J. Nadeau

A native of Berlin, a city whose hockey story he would tell, Nadeau’s impact in his community and its proud hockey history cannot be understated. Nadeau’s more than thirty years of service to the Berlin and Coos County Historical Society has established him as the keeper of the hockey legend in Berlin, overseeing a permanent exhibit that celebrates the city’s long and robust hockey tradition. He served as a board member and Secretary in that organization, and currently serves as Vice-President. He spent more than two years researching and editing biographies and acquiring photos of the forty Legends of Hockey members from Berlin as part of that exhibit.

Nadeau graduated from Berlin High School in 1966, playing on a state champion football team as a senior. His passion for physical fitness led him to Springfield College, where he completed his Bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1970, after which he then spent nine years as a physical education teacher in Berlin, a tenure that included him founding the Spartan Weightlifting Club, a Berlin mainstay. This was followed by twenty years as a patrolman with the Berlin Police Department where he was promoted to Deputy Chief.

Walt’s passion for hockey was ignited through his service with the NH Legends of Hockey Board of Directors. He’s been credited with nominating five individuals from the greater Berlin area who were inducted into the Legends Hall of fame. His involvement continued through his many years of research and chronicling the evolution of the sport and how it had made an impact on his city, state and nation. Thanks to his efforts and interviews with so many of those who made hockey happen in Berlin, people learned about the Berlin Maroons, the storied rivalry between Notre Dame High School and Berlin High School, and how the city became known as “Hockey Town USA.”

His work did not go unnoticed by the community, as the historical society was approached by the late Legends Hall of Fame member Rod Blackburn as to how a permanent exhibit to the city’s hockey tradition and heroes could be created and funded. Nadeau, with his integrity and strength of purpose preceding him, was the man to handle the job. He had become Berlin’s hockey historian. He and Blackburn discussed the concept of creating an area in the Moffett House Museum dedicated to these Hall of Famers, which was unanimously approved by the Historical Society’s Board of Directors. The exhibit was dedicated on Dec. 10, 2022.

Please welcome to the Class of 2023, Walter J. Nadeau as a member of the New Hampshire Legends of Hockey Hall of Fame.

Willie ‘The Barber’ Bibeau

Attended the Canadian School systems where he started playing ice hockey at the age of 5 until he attained the age of 15 years.

Willie then played junior hockey for the Richmond Flyers of Windsor, PQ, where he was a major factor in their winning the championship in 1964.

In the 1964-1965 hockey season, Willie started playing for Manchester’s Alpine Club in the Granite State Hockey League, where in his first game he scored 7 goals. At the conclusion of the ’64-’65 season, Willie won the coveted high scoring title of the Granite State Hockey League.

In 1968, Willie broke a scoring record that had existed since 1948 by scoring 53 goals and 42 assists for a total of 95 points in 38 games.

Willie’s hockey career from 1964 through 1974 encompassed playing for the Alpine Club, Manchester Blackhawks and Manchester Monarchs braking many scoring records and was a fan favorite over that period of time.

Willie was a coach in the Youth Hockey League where his Merrimack Pee Wees won the State Championship in 1972.

Willie “The Barber” continues his 30+ years career as a professional barber.

A British Columbia native, the late Wayne Pecknold made his mark in New Hampshire with the Concord Eastern Olympics. In seven seasons between 1967-74, he put up 57 goals and 181 assists for 238 points, the only defenseman among the team’s all-time top 10 in scoring.

Born in Victoria, B.C., Pecknold was a standout in several sports before settling on hockey. At the age of 13, he led his Victoria bantam club to a provincial championship in lacrosse. He won a juvenile football scoring title with 48 points in five games and was a main cog on his high school’s basketball team.

In hockey, after leading the Juvenile Canucks to the Pacific Coast League title, Pecknold joined the Prince Albert Mintos of the Saskatchewan Junior League. His play with the Mintos earned him an athletic scholarship to Michigan State in 1959, though he was later ruled ineligible because he had signed an ‘A’ form with Prince Albert.

He became an honor student at Michigan State, receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in 1963. He’d go on to earn a Master’s and Ph.D in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and remained at MIT as a professor of civil engineering.

He joined the Concord Eastern Olympics in 1967 and played with them through 1973-74, serving as captain over that entire period. Often times he would coach the team during practices and, at times, in games in Pat Eagan’s absence.

“Wayne Pecknold was easily the most talented, the most efficient, the most unselfish, the smartest and the most complete defenseman with whom I had the great good fortune to have been paired with while playing for the Concord Eastern Olympics,” said teammate and Legends of Hockey Hall of Famer Bruce Parker. “Wayne was skilled both offensively and defensively. He possessed a great comprehension of the game and utilized that understanding to play with a special ability to anticipate where teammates, as well as opponents, were about to be and about to do.”

He finished his career playing for the Concord Budmen. He also coached youth hockey in Manchester, where his players included his son, Rand, a Legends Hall of Famer and now the successful coach at Quinnipiac; along with Jeff Serowik and Kyle McDonough.

Pecknold passed away in 2000 at the age of 60 after a lengthy battle with colon cancer.

He stood only 5 feet-4 inches – just a wisp of a center; a teenager not yet old enough to get a driver’s license – when first he was handed a uniform by the fabled Berlin Maroons and given a regular spot on the celebrated roster.

That all happened to Wally Fournier back when the 1930s were becoming the 1940s. He then was at Berlin High School, blessed with uncommon hockey skills, able then to play for a Senior hockey organization while also playing for a high school team.

By 1943, when he graduated from Berlin HS, Wally had added three stellar varsity seasons to his fine freshman season, and had served as a senior BHS co-captain.

Throughout those four high-school years, Wally simultaneously skated with the Maroons, which was a bonus for everyone. It gave him double the ice time, while fans and teammates had double the pleasure watching him. He many times was cited for his quickness and superb stick handling. One admirer said he “had few equals.”

Within a month of his graduation, he was in a cadet in a US Army Air Corp program that eventually turned him into a skilled B-17 navigator. He then went off to Europe and flew seven bombing missions.

In 1946, when he again became a civilian, it was just in time to shake the dust out of his old Maroons jersey and lace up the skates. For the six seasons between 1946 and 1951, he was regularly on the ice, again doing double duty. This time, his other team was the University of New Hampshire. As a UNH freshman, he was captain. As a senior, he was varsity captain.

The vagaries of our northern New England winters, though, plus playing on an outdoor rink in Durham, sometimes made for a miserable UNH hockey life. In his freshman season (1947-48), he played but a thimbleful of games. And his three varsity seasons (1948-49 – 1949-50 – 1950-51) weren’t much better. He played just 16 total games. It was a major Ouch for someone who dearly loved the sport and excelled as a scorer and stick handler. A newspaper sports columnist, back in March of 1951 at the close of the shortened season, wrote that “Fournier never had a real chance to hit his stride,” adding that there is an opinion that “Wally Fournier is the greatest all-around ice star ever to graduate” from UNH.

While in Durham, Wally still got plenty of ice time, traveling back and forth to Berlin to suit up with the Maroons. “There was one time,” he recalled, “that I got off the ice after a game in Durham and didn’t even take off my uniform. I just rode straight to Berlin in time for a Maroons game.”

The Maroons at that time were a powerhouse. Three times the team won the New England Amateur Hockey Association title: 1948, 1949 and 1951. And Wally was right in the middle of it all.

Fortunately, Berlin’s Notre Dame Arena, which opened for the winter of 1947, had walls and a roof, which helped extend the life of naturally frozen ice. Artificial-ice-making equipment didn’t get installed at the Arena until 1966, which was 15 years after Wally retired as a skater.

After graduating from UNH in 1951 with a degree in civil engineering, Wally called a halt to playing hockey seriously and went off into the work world. He and his wife Phyllis had married during his sophomore year and family life had grown more important.

Married 60 years, the couple today still lives in Berlin. They have three children, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Talk to Wally about his hometown coaching career and you’re apt to hear him tell you that he is the answer to the trivia question: Who is the only man, over 27 years, who coached varsity boy’s hockey at all three Manchester’s public high schools and won five State titles?

His record:
2 seasons West (1966-67 and 1967-68)
9 seasons Central (1979-80 to 1987-88)
16 seasons Memorial (1988-89 to 2003-04)

State titles:
Central 1980, 1981
Memorial 1989, 1991, 1995

Wally’s teams, by the time he retired as coach in 2004, had accumulated 356 wins.

Born, raised and schooled in Manchester, Wally also spent 35 years as an educator, teaching business education at both West and Central high schools. He retired in 2002. The interesting facet to his dedicated career is that for the entire 16 years he had the hockey helm at Manchester Memorial HS, he was teaching across town at Manchester Central HS, his alma mater. He was class of 1958.

Wally also, in 1984, coached the Manchester Flames to the National Junior “Cs” Championship. Jeff Serowik, one of today’s inductees, was a defenseman on that team.

Wally traces his keen hockey interest to age 5 when he began skating. Later, came the outdoor games on Lake Massabesic and Dorr’s Pond. During his high school years, though, Central HS had no hockey program but his enthusiasm never waned.

In the fall of 1958, he enrolled at Brewster Academy where, under the tutelage of Paul “Pop” Whalen-another of today’s inductees-he finally was able to use those natural hockey skills as a varsity player. He also captained the baseball team to the 1959 Prep School Championship.

In the fall of 1959, Wally enrolled at Providence College and graduated in 1963. He played varsity baseball there but not hockey. Three years after leaving Providence College he arrived back in Manchester and began crafting his enviable coaching and teaching record.

Notable bits and pieces: won New England Intermediate Golf Championship (1959); NH Hockey Coach of the Year (1991); coach on the All-NH Millennium Team (1991); inducted Queen City Hall of Fame (1999).

He and his wife Alice live in Manchester. They have three children: Matthew, Michael and Melanie; and 5 grandchildren.

First came the Learn-To-Skate program. Then, she skated one season with the mites in Derry before enrolling in the Manchester Flames organization. For most of that time, it was hockey with all boys. The girls’ programs in New Hampshire back then were still few and far between.

By the time Tricia Dunn was a junior at Pinkerton Academy, she was skating in an out-of-state women’s/girl’s program-in Chelmsford, MA-for a team called the Lions.

By that time, her talent was easily seen and her destiny was to become one of the all-time greats among women hockey players at the University of New Hampshire, followed by her play as a forward with the US Women’s Olympic and National teams.

Following her two seasons skating with the Lions, it seemed a natural union: Tricia and UNH. And it was. When those four years came to an end in 1996, she had played 108 games and scored 117 points-60 goals and 57 assists. Her best single-point season was 1995 when she potted 23 goals and added 27 assists.

In her senior year, she was named to the all tournament team after UNH won the ECAC title in five overtimes. That game against Providence still ranks as the longest game in collegiate history at 145 minutes and 35 seconds.

Tricia was inducted into the UNH Hall of Fame in 2003.

She went on to play for the U.S. Women’s National Program from 1996 through 2006, during which time she skated in three Olympic Winters Games, five International Ice Hockey Federation World Women’s Championships and nine Three/Four Nations Cups, among other events.

When the American women won the Olympic gold medal at Nagano, Japan in 1998, Tricia potted the goal that beat the Canadian women in the last round-robin game. That win gave the team a 5-0 record going into the medal round. She also played on the US Olympic team in 2002 and 2006, where she captured silver and bronze medals, respectively. While she was wearing a team USA jersey, she played in 196 games, scoring 56 goals and 48 assists.

She graduated from Pinkerton Academy in 1992 and also is enshrined in that school’s Hall of Fame.

Tricia also had a brief professional career (2005-06 and 2006-07) playing with the Minnesota Whitecaps of the Western Women’s Hockey League, scoring 57 points in 39 games.

Tricia Dunn-Luoma Class of 2008.

A native of Danvers, Mass., and a longtime resident of the Seacoast region, Tom Moulton was an assistant coach for the U.S. Sled Hockey Team that won its first gold medal at the Paralympic Games in 2002.

Moulton, 67, has been a supporter of youth hockey, men’s leagues and sled hockey in New Hampshire and the U.S. for decades. But it’s his role on the 2002 U.S. team at the Paralympic Games, as an assistant to head coach Rick Middleton, the former Boston Bruins great, that cemented his hockey legacy.

After finishing in last place at the 1998 and 2000 World Championships, Team USA entered the 2002 Paralympic Games ranked sixth out of six teams.

“The reasons Tom Moulton deserves to be inducted into the NH Legends of Hockey are the same reasons why I asked him to be my assistant coach on the U.S. National Sled Hockey Team for the 2002 Paralympics,” said Middleton. “I’ve been around hockey people for six decades now and I have never met anyone that is more passionate about the game of hockey than Tom.”

Moulton continued to assist Middleton with the National Sled Hockey Team and helped alter the course of the program. He received the USA Hockey Bob Johnson Award in 2002, and the four straight Paralympic gold medals (2010, 14, 18, 22) won by Team USA spurred greater interest in the sport, both in New Hampshire and across the country.

“I have fond memories of Coach Moulton as an outstanding coach that every day brought to the rink his enthusiasm and passion for the game,” said Kip St. Germaine, a player on that 2002 gold-medal team. “As athletes he challenged us and expected our best efforts. I cannot thank him for his generosity, giving of his time and energy in helping us achieve our ‘golden’ dream.”

A player his entire life, Moulton has been a big supporter of sled hockey, youth hockey and men’s league hockey. He has sponsored multiple adult amateur teams, helping them pay for jerseys, ice time, etc.

“And he continues to do so,” said Middleton. “He was always the consummate organizer and made sure that everyone got a chance to play who wanted to. All anyone had to do was show up at the rink and have fun. That passion and knowledge for the game of hockey is what I wanted the U.S. National sled hockey players to see. I knew that once they got to know him and see his passion they would respect him and come to love him as a coach.”

Tom Carroll is entering his 18th year as the head coach at New England College in Henniker, continuing to add to his reputation as one of the more successful Division 3 coaches in the region.

A native of Edina, Minn., Carroll played at the University of Wisconsin in the early 1980s under legendary coaches Bob Johnson and Jeff Sauer, playing on two national championship teams and also competing in baseball.  After graduation, he earned his Master’s degree from the Mendoza School of Business at the University of Notre Dame.

Carroll spent several seasons as the top assistant coach at Notre Dame, where he recruited and coached 19 NHL draft picks and six players who participated in the World Junior Championships.

Following a stint coaching in Des Moines of the USHL, Carroll arrived in Henniker prior to the 2002-03 season and immediately made an impact, leading the Pilgrims to a 20-6 record and the ECAC East championship.

In 17 seasons at NEC, he has compiled a record of 241-170-43, including trips to the conference postseason every year, five trips to the conference championship game, and an NCAA Tournament bid and trip to the Division 3 Final Four in 2005, when he was named runner-up for the AHCA National Coach of the Year award.

The Pilgrims are now consistently ranked in the USCHO.com top 20 teams in all of Division 3 hockey.

During his tenure at NEC, Carroll has coached four All-American selections, 38 All-conference selections, three Rookies of the Year and three Goaltenders of the Year. His players have also excelled in the classroom, boasting program-record numbers of ECAC East/NEHC All-Academic Team honorees.

An active member of the hockey community, Carroll has coached in the USA Hockey Development program for several years, and recently authored and published “Hockey’s Greatest Drills for Great Practices,” a popular coaching manual for all levels of hockey.

Some of his greatest accolades have come in recent seasons.

In 2016-17, Carroll led the Pilgrims to their best season in a decade with a 19-8 record. The team made it to the NEHC championship game, and goalie Brett Kilar earned All-America honors.

The 2017-18 season was highlighted by defeating reigning national champion Norwich. In 2018-19, the Pilgrims set a program record for the longest unbeaten streak in school history. Stretching from Nov. 20, the date of a 3-0 win at Becker College, until the team fell to Norwich on Feb. 8, NEC was not beaten for 16 games.

Not only was the late Ted Rice regarded as one of the best players in Concord’s history, he also was one of just a handful of players who played for all three of the city’s top amateur teams – the Concord Hockey Club, the Millville Bruins and Sacred Heart – during the golden era of senior hockey in Concord.

Proclaimed by his teammates as one of the greatest players in the city’s history, Rice displayed his skill and ability on a wide array of New Hampshire amateur teams. He debuted with the Concord Hockey Club in 1931, recruited by, among others, George Harkins.

Following his debut with the original C.H.C., Rice would help organize a new team called the Millville Bruins, who proved a formidable opponent to the established “Sacre Couers.” The Bruins first played Sacred Heart on Feb. 17, 1933 and won, 2-0. Between 1933 and 1937, the Bruins played Sacred Heart six times, winning one, tying one and losing three.

He quickly became a star attraction when the Bruins hit the road. Opposing clubs, like ones in North Conway and Wolfeboro, would feature Rice on their advertising: “Ted Rice and the Millville Bruins will be playing this weekend.”

When the Bruins dissolved, Rice played six seasons for Sacred Heart, from 1937-38 through 1941-42, and again in 1945-46 season. He played defense with an offensive flair. He played in 60 of the 76 games the Hearts played over those years and the team won 45 of those games, losing just 14 and tying one. He scored 22 goals and assisted on another 25, before the assist was awarded as freely as it is today, and also could play forward.

“He was rock solid and could score,” recalled Hall of Famer Red Adams.

During a two-decade playing career that lasted until his retirement in 1943 – through he’d come out of retirement to play one more season in 1945-46 — Rice played on several New Hampshire teams: the White Mountain Storm Kings of Littleton, the North Conway Hockey Club, the Abenaqui Indians of Wolfeboro and the Manchester Hockey Club.

In the early days of his career, he was granted a tryout with the Boston Bruins semipro club team and later was invited to play with the Springfield Indians, the No. 1 farm team of the New York Rangers. He declined this spot due to financial and family responsibilities, continuing to play with the Concord Hockey Club program and, on occasion, Sacred Heart.

Rice was a versatile player, playing goalie on occasion. In 1932, with the Concord Hockey Club, he was between the pipes for a 3-0 shutout of Hampton.

A spinal-cord injury playing junior hockey at the age of 16 set Taylor Chace down a path that ultimately made him a three-time Paralympic medalist.

Chace, a native of Hampton Falls, excelled at several sports growing up but hockey was his best. He became the youngest member of the New Hampshire Junior Monarchs in the Eastern Junior Hockey League.

On Oct. 6, 2002, playing in a charity game with the Monarchs in Cannington, Ont., Chace was checked, back-first, into the dasher behind the net. He collapsed to the ice, unable to feel or move from the waist down.

He was diagnosed with an incomplete spinal cord injury. After hours of surgery, weeks of hospitalization and months of rehabilitation, he relearned to walk using his remaining muscle in 2003; Chace was introduced to Northeast Passage at the University of New Hampshire and the sport of sled hockey. Two years later, he was invited to try out for the U.S. National Sled Hockey Team and made it.

Since 2005, Chance has played a big role in the U.S. National Team’s success. He was part of a bronze medal-winning team at the Paralympics Games in Torino in 2006. And 2010, he reached the pinnacle of his sport, captaining a U.S. team that won the gold medal at the Paralympics Games in Vancouver. He was named the tournament’s Top Defenseman and the Paralympics Sportsman of the Year for 2010.

In 2014, he helped the Americans become the first team to win back-to-back gold medals in sled hockey at the Paralympics, beating host Russia, 1-0, in the gold-medal game in Sochi.