Hall of Fame Members

A state champion at Concord High School playing with his big sister, future U.S. Olympic gold medalist Tara Mounsey, Mick went on to become one of the best defensemen in University of New Hampshire history. He
played four years for the Wildcats from 2000-04, winning two Hockey East championships and helping the team reach two Frozen Fours.

As a freshman defenseman at Concord, he scored 13 goals – including the game-winner in the Division 1 championship game against Bishop Guertin – and had 31 assists for a team that finished the year undefeated. He was the runner-up for Division 1 Player of the Year, finishing only behind sister Tara, who was a senior.

Declining an offer to go to Michigan and play for the U.S. National Team Development Program, Mounsey moved on to Avon Old Farms, helping that team win a New England prep school championship.

He was an impact player at UNH from the day he arrived. He played in 37 games as a freshman and finished as the runner-up for Hockey East’s Best Defenseman award. As a sophomore he led the team and Hockey East in plus-minus, as the Wildcats won the first of two straight league championships and advanced to the first of two straight final fours.

Mounsey finished his UNH career with a stellar plus-68 rating. He scored six goals and assisted on 38 others for a career 44 points, but brought much more to the ice than scoring.

“Mick was the ultimate team player,” said former UNH assistant coach David Lassonde. “He understood what he needed to do to bring value to his team, and he performed that role to a ‘T’. Every successful team has glue guys and for us he was exactly that.”

Mounsey’s 157 games played at UNH rank among the most in program history, and he enjoyed a brief career in the ECHL, winning a Kelly Cup with the Idaho Steelheads. After his professional career ended, he settled in Concord and got involved with youth sports including the Concord Youth Hockey Association, serving as its president in 2012.

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

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.

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.

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.

Attended Concord High School from 1992 to 1996. In her senior year, Tara was the team captain and was names Player of the Year in NHIAA men’s hockey.

Completed three seasons at Brown University. She took a year off after her freshman year to compete in the 1998 Winter Olympics. After her junior year she left Brown for two years to train with and play for the Salt Lake City Olympic Hockey team.

Tara won a Gold Medal at the 1998 Olympics held at Nagano, Japan and won a Silver Medal at the 2002 Olympics held at Salt Lake City.

Tara was selected to the All-World Teams at both the 1998 Nagano and 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

Tara was a member of the Women’s National Team from high school through the Salt Lake City Olympics. During this period she won three silver medals at the World Championships.

Tara is currently enrolled at Boston College Graduate School pursuing her Masters in Nursing degree to become a nurse practitioner

Steve Shirreffs played five seasons of pro hockey, including two in the AHL, but he got his start in the Upper Valley, playing on some terrific Hanover High School teams in the early 1990s.

An offensive defenseman, with excellent size and leadership skills, Shirreffs led the Marauders to state championships in his junior and senior seasons, 1992-93 and 1993-94. As a junior he posted 4-19-23 point totals and was a plus-59.

One of his biggest plays came in the waning seconds of the championship game against Concord. He stopped a clearing pass at the blue line and set up a play that tied the game; the Marauders won in double-overtime.

That championship helped insert Hanover into the conversation about the state’s top programs. Over a 14-year span, the Marauders would take home the state title five times.

“He played his best games in the biggest games against the toughest competition,” said longtime Hanover coach Dick Dodds. “He was a positive influence everywhere he went and never had a bad word to say about anyone.”

As a senior, Shirreffs upped his totals to 11-30-41 and plus-81, earning All-State honors. He prepped for a year at Hotchkiss, winning a New England title, getting drafted by the Calgary Flames and paving his way to Princeton, where he developed into one of the top defensemen in the NCAA.

He was named an All-American and first-team All-ECAC as a junior, when he was the second-highest scoring defenseman in the nation and the Tigers won the league crown and made their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance. He currently ranks fifth all-time at Princeton in defenseman scoring (16-48-64).

“I never had an easier guy to coach,” said former Princeton coach Don “Toot” Cahoon. “He was the consummate team player. No one worked harder or listened better…His graduating class was probably the best in Princeton hockey history.”

With his NHL rights traded to the Washington Capitals, Shirreffs started his pro career in the fall of 1999 with their AHL affiliate, the Portland Pirates, playing in 44 games. From there he moved on to Europe, playing three seasons in the Finnish Elite League around one more stint in the AHL/ECHL.

A student of the game, a positive influence on teams he touched, and a great ambassador for hockey from New Hampshire.

Steve grew up in Malden, Mass., and played at Malden High School, where he captained the team his senior year before moving on to New Prep in Cambridge, Mass., and St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. He was the first American to ever letter in hockey at Xavier.

His New Hampshire playing days began playing for the Concord Shamrocks in 1965-66 and played the next year with the Concord Coachmen, beginning a career that would land him the Legends of Hockey Hall of fame as a player.

From 1967-68 through 1971-72, the speedy Murphy was a fixture with the Concord Eastern Olympics of the New England Hockey League. Over five seasons and 200 games, he scored 112 goals and 155 assists for 267 total points, and also showing a knack for staying out of the penalty box.

He ranks fifth all-time in scoring for the Olympics. Murphy also holds records for most assists in a game (six) and most goals in a game (four, tied with several others). He was selected and played in NEHL All-Star game versus the College All-Stars in Boston.

“Steve was always one of the more prolific scorers (and point getters) each year for the Concord Eastern Olympics,” said Ryan Brandt, a teammate of his on those teams. “He had the hockey sense to find or create space relative to his teammates and opponents to have the opportunity to put the puck in the net, which he usually did.”

Murphy returned to Nova Scotia and played the season 1972-73 for the Antigonish Bulldogs. He returned to New Hampshire after that and suited up for the Manchester Monarchs in the Can-Am League and later the Concord Budmen.

Murphy played into his 50s in the Capital City Hockey League, a checking league and is a member of the CCHL Hall of Fame.

As a coach, he guided the varsity at Bishop Brady from 1991-94 and the varsity at Marian (Mass.) High School, where he was a teacher. He also oversaw three separate travel teams in the Concord Youth Hockey Association, winning N.H. State Championships at the Squirt 2 level (1993), the Squirt 1 level (1994) and the Pee-Wee 1 level (1996).

If famed Dartmouth hockey coach Eddie Jeremiah hadn’t dropped an encouraging word in Steve Arndt’s teenage ear during the summer of 1965, Steve might not be seated here today.

He might, instead, still be in living in rural New Brighton, Minnesota, about 30 miles northwest of St. Paul.

Back at the time of their meeting, Steve was between his freshman and sophomore years at Moundsview High School and Jeremiah had brought his noted hockey school out west. Steve, a forward with great skill, had enrolled and made an impression on the legendary coach.

Steve recalls him saying, “Please keep Dartmouth in mind.”

Over the next two years, Steve had thoughts about the University of Minnesota but in the end he remembered Jeremiah’s warm urgings and sent his application off to Hanover where it was received with approval.

When he landed in town, he had never been so far east. But sadly, by that time, Jeremiah had passed on. Steve’s freshman year and his three varsity seasons-first under head coach Ab Oakes and then Grant Standbrook-were all played with his patented skill and efficiency. Well known for his humility, he refers to himself only as “a contributor” during those four years.

One of his golden memories is the victory over Cornell his senior year during the annual Dartmouth Winter Carnival. He doesn’t recall the score but he does, for certain, know the name of one of the opposing Cornell players, longtime friend and future teammate, Concord’s Gary Young.

Steve, the oldest of the six Arndt children, became a Big Green alum in the spring of 1972 and since then has been a permanent New Hampshire resident.

He also at that time immediately immersed himself in Concord’s hockey scene, joining the Concord Eastern Olympics, then playing one season with the Tri-City Coachmen before skating 19 seasons with the Concord Budmen. His total service as a regular skater with a Concord team was 22 years.

Hockey runs in the Arndt family’s blood. Currently, at age 58, Steve still plays in the Capital City Hockey (checking) League (inducted Hall of Fame ’95) with son, Dan, who played for the Naval Academy ’98. Daughter Jaime played for Dartmouth ’00. Steve’s wife, Kim, UNH ’73, was one of the first coaches of Concord High School’s girls hockey program.

Steve is a longtime ECAC and NIHOA referee, and also served the community as president of the Concord Youth Hockey Association. Twice, while coaching youth hockey teams, he went to national tournaments.

Steve Arndt – Class of 2008.

Please welcome Steve Arndt.

Even before there was a rink in his hometown of Henniker, forward Ryan Weston was showing the kind of skill as a Mite that would make him one of the top players to come out of New Hampshire.

While attending John Stark Regional High School in Weare as a freshman, Weston skated for the New Hampshire Jr. Wildcats. He transferred to Tilton School for his final three years, where he was a standout four-sport athlete (soccer, hockey, lacrosse and golf) and his hockey teams won New England championships each year he played, including his senior year, when he was captain. He would later be inducted into the Tilton School Hall of Fame.

“He was unbelievably motivated,” said Mike Walsh, his coach at Tilton.

After two years playing for Gary Dineen and Lincoln Flagg for the New England Jr. Coyotes in the EJHL, where he amassed 39 points in 37 games, Weston took his talents to Boston University, where he played in at least 30 games in all four seasons.

The Terriers won three Beanpot tournaments of his first three years, BU advanced to the NCAA tournament.

As a senior, Weston served as Alternate Captain and was one of just four players to play in all 39 games. He finished his career with nine goals and 17 assists.

After BU, Weston went on to play parts of four seasons in the American Hockey League for the Albany River Rats and San Antonio Rampage.

His best season came in 2008-09 with Albany, when he scored nine goals and added seven assists in 63 games. He also played parts of two seasons with the Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL.

Weston just recently moved from San Diego where he was Head Coach of San Diego State University Club Hockey Team. He is now a volunteer assistant with Santa Margarita and Carlsbad Unified high school hockey