The story, so it goes, is that the young Bill Antonucci, in the early 1960s, was an enthusiastic basketball player-that is, until the day he was seen skating by Pop Whalen, Brewster Academy’s legendary hockey coach. Bill, that day, had laced ’em up for a turn on the school’s outdoor rink.
“Hey, Antonucci. Put away your basketball. You’re gonna be a hockey player for me, now.”
Those, of course, weren’t Pop’s exact words, but his message that day did, indeed, mark the beginning of Bill Antonucci’s dedicated hockey life. For those next four seasons, he was a varsity forward on Pop’s teams. In his junior year he scored 37 points, averaging 2.85 points per game. In his junior and senior seasons, Bill also skated with the fabled Laconia Lakers, a teenager taking a regular shift with “the big guys.” In fact, the 1963-64 Lakers won the Granite State Hockey League championship. In 1965, he went off to Colby College and kept on playing. Graduation came in 1969, followed by a hitch in the US Army.
Then, after arriving home, began the stunning chapter of his hockey history, packed full of hard work and accomplishment on behalf of others, especially youngsters. In the early 1980s, the Back Bay Youth Hockey Association was born. Bill was one of the founders, and over time he served as secretary, treasurer, vice president, president, plus coaching coordinator. Oh, yes. He worked behind the bench, too, coaching mites, squirts and peewees (but not all at one time.) Several state championships resulted. He even found time to serve a couple of seasons as assistant coach at Kingswood High School, later founding The Friends of Knights Ice Hockey. Perhaps his biggest single community contribution was the erection of the local rink. Fittingly, it was dedicated (January 7, 1989) as the Paul “Pop” Whalen Ice and Arts Center.
Before and after that golden evening, a lot of hard work was needed to find money. It took several hundred thousand dollars. Bill was project chairman and to raise funds he helped organize the Kingswood Klassic pro-am golf tournament that for three years brought LPGA members to town. Some days, he even jumped into the trench, literally, to help install some of the refrigeration pipe.
In 1992, he became executive vice president of New Hampshire Amateur Hockey, and the following year became president. Then came a 10-year run (1995-2005) as USA director from the New England district. Later, when USA Hockey began its developmental program, Bill served as general manager for all New England Select Teams, largely working behind the scenes with travel arrangements and caring diligently for all other logistical considerations. By the time 2005 rolled around, Bill, for a second time, stepped up as New Hampshire Amateur Hockey’s executive vice president and served until the spring of 2007.
So what is he doing now? This very minute? Well, he’s on the board of Back Bay Youth Hockey Association; he’s still president of The Friends of Knights Ice Hockey; he still coaches youth hockey; and he’s still New Hampshire Amateur Hockey’s president. He’s a special man!
Bill Antonucci – Class of 2008.
Dick Bradley’s record for 10 years as the head coach at Berlin High School was 84-87-7. Of the nine state championships the program would go on to win, he was behind the bench for just two of them.
But more than the wins and losses, the championships and runner-ups (six of them), was the foundation he built for a budding Mountaineers program, which would challenge, and then surpass, its cross-town rival, Notre Dame, for the label of best high school program in New Hampshire.
“Because Bradley eventually made his team winners, hockey flowed in the veins of thousands of young boys in Berlin,” said local author and historian Paul “Poof” Tardiff.
Bradley grew up in Watertown, Mass., starring as a high school goalie and going on to play at Boston University. He was the backup goalie on the first BU team to make the NCAA tournament, in 1949-50, and he was the starter as a senior a year later as the Terriers reached the NCAA semifinals, losing to Michigan.
“Richard Bradley was one of the founding fathers of BU hockey,” wrote current BU athletic director Mike Lynch, in endorsing him for induction to the Legends of Hockey Hall of Fame. “He was an integral part of beginning our tradition of NCAA success, which now includes five national titles and 31 appearances in the national tournament.”
After college, Bradley was selected for the 1952 U.S. Olympic team, but did not compete, because he’d signed a professional agreement. He later was offered the job of spare goalie for the Boston Bruins by then-Bruins owner Walter Brown. After a short stint there, he served 2 1/2years in the U.S. Marine Corps.
In 1954, after his service with the Marines concluded, Bradley took a physical education teaching position with the Berlin Public Schools, with an extra bonus of $100 to coach hockey. It turned out to be money well invested.
Notre Dame, being a parochial school, had the first crack at ice time at Notre Dame Arena, which was constructed in 1947. While NDHS was playing 20-plus games a year, including out-of-state ones against powers from Maine and Canada, Berlin had only 10 games on its schedule and limited ice time.
Bradley reached out to some of his old teammates for help – future UNH coach Charlie Holt, who was the coach and athletic director at the Northwood School in Lake Placid, N.Y., at the time; Bob Priestly at Norwich University and the staff at Hebron Academy in Maine all offered ice time.
Bradley continued to get the word out about the growing Berlin High School program. Within two years, he nearly doubled the number of games. The Mountaineers were still looking up at Notre Dame, which was in the midst of a stretch of annual state titles, but the games between the two programs were becoming famous across northern New England, leading to the city’s “Hockey Town USA” moniker.
Bradley coached the Mountaineers for the last time in 1964-65 season, finishing as the state runner-up, before accepting a position with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), the regional accrediting agency. Berlin would go on to win the next four state titles after he left.
He served 30 years with the NEASC; the last 25 as its executive director before retiring.
Dick is one of the legendary hockey players to come from Hockey Town USA (Berlin). His hockey career began in grammar school where he starred on the Angel Guardian team and won two Parks and Recreation championships. Dick played wing for three years on the Notre Dame varsity team from 1950 through 1953. Notre Dame won three state championships during his tenure and Dick also participated in three New England High School Championships held in Providence, RI.
From 1953 to 1962, Dick played for the Berlin Maroons, in 1954 he played wing on the team that won the Senior Amateur Hockey Association’s U.S. National Championship.
From 1962 to 1965, Dick played for the Concord Shamrocks, and the Alpine Hockey Club when a serious injury ended his playing career.
Dick was one of the original organizers of the Manchester Blackhawks and was the team business manager from 1965 through 1971.
Because of his playing abilities in High School Hockey and at the Senior Amateur Level, Richard received the honor of being given honorable mention on the All New Hampshire Millennium Team.
Richard is the Chairman of the Board was the prime organizer of the New Hampshire Legends of Hockey.
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 Chalue left his mark on the state’s hockey landscape through the decades he spent building the game and the opportunities for people to play it in Dover.
Chalue grew up in Needham, Mass., where he was close friends with the family of future NHL player and coach Robbie Ftorek. It was when he moved to Dover in the summer of 1977 that he began shaping the hockey culture in the state’s Seacoast region.
As the City of Dover’s arena director, he oversaw operations as the newly-built outdoor recreation rink, which would transform the access to hockey opportunities for decades to come. With little staff and minimal resources, he was instrumental in building the outdoor facility into the modern Foster Rink as it is known today.
Chalue served in his arena position from 1977 until 1994, when he was then promoted to be director of city buildings and grounds, a job he held until his retirement in 2007. For 30 years. Dover’s skating and hockey community had an innovator and tireless worker who provided the city with two ice sheets (Holt Rink was later added to the facility that became known as Dover Ice Arena) and a sustainability plan, which included energy efficiency, and modern locker room and support functionality.
Chalue became a national player in the rink business, and was a founding member of the New England Ice Skating Managers Association” lecturing and leading conferences and creatively finding supplemental resources to produce longer ice seasons. The regional increase in both youth and adult hockey players skyrocketed in the 1980s, with ice time usage nearing 20 hour per day.
He was a visionary with the New Hampshire Amateur Hockey Association, serving as vice president for midget/junior hockey, and obtaining a grant from the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States to institute a three-man officiating system in the organization’s junior C division. Many officials, including Class of 2021 NH Legends of Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Brian Murphy (who worked for Chalue while he was in college) would credit the initiatives he created to opening doors for countless skaters wishing to enter officiating.
Chalue also coached the hockey team at Dover High School during the 1979-80 season (with Murphy as his starting goalie). The mentor/mentee relationship between them would establish a model the player would follow during his own accomplished career would follow during his career.
Al Corriveau was a founder of the Manchester Youth Hockey League and was instrumental in the building of the two local ice arenas. He served as president of the Junior Hockey League and Queen City Hockey, Inc. Al was an owner of the Manchester Blackhawks and the Manchester Monarchs of the New England Hockey League. He was also a sponsor of men’s Senior “A” Hockey League teams.
Al was one of the original “movers and shakers” of ice hockey in Manchester. He founded the Manchester Youth Hockey League, the genesis of what became the one of the largest and most respected youth hockey programs in the country, Manchester Youth Regional Hockey Association (MYRHA).
As a pioneer in developing youth hockey, he gathered coaches, organized teams, got ice time and scheduled practices and games. Al provided order by breaking down the players into age groups and insisting that every player, no matter his/her abilities get equal ice time. His system was first line against first line, second line against second line, etc. As the program got underway smoothly, some people objected to the equal ice time for all players, Al never gave in to the pressure of creating just winners, he ran his program the right way from day one. Al always insisted on equal ice time for all kids, period!
The results of his method can be seen by hockey players from the Manchester Youth System that have excelled in the sport of ice hockey at the high school and collegiate levels through professional play.
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.
For 12 years, Ron DeGregorio’s leadership helped USA Hockey evolve into one of the world’s most respected hockey federations.
A resident of Salem for the past three decades, DeGregorio has been involved with the sport for more than 40 years as a player, coach and administrator, whose work and forward-thinking has resulted in notable improvements to the success, popularity and safety of hockey in the United States.
DeGregorio’s first appointment with USA Hockey came in 1973 when he was named registrar for the New England District, where he oversaw the reorganization of the district into several smaller, more manageable affiliates.
DeGregorio was first elected to the USA Hockey board of directors in 1975 and was the organization’s first vice president of youth hockey. In the 1980s, he served as treasurer of USA Hockey.
He has represented the U.S. at countless events during his tenure with USA Hockey. His first official role came as team leader of Team East at the 1979 U.S. Olympic Festival, from which the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” Olympic hockey team was chosen.
DeGregorio also served as team leader for the 1994 U.S. Olympic hockey team that competed in Lillehammer, Norway. DeGregorio has represented the USA at the 1998, 2002, ’06, ’10 and ’14 Olympic Winter Games and at numerous International Ice Hockey Federation championships.
He was elected president of USA Hockey on June 14, 2003, and unanimously re-elected to his fourth term on June 10, 2012. He stepped down from the position in June.
He was one of the architects of USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program, a two-year residency program for the top 16- and 17-year-old players in the United States. The program has greatly influenced U.S. success in international competition.
In January 2009, the organization launched the American Development Model, which, for the first time ever, provided associations nationwide with a blueprint for optimal athlete development. USA Hockey furthered the enhancement of those efforts by advancing the USA Hockey SafeSport Program in June 2012.
The former Boston Latin and Middlebury College goaltender is also known throughout the region as the originator of “Mini One-on-One,” a youth hockey competition that is broadcast through the Boston Bruins’ television network.
One of the pioneers of youth hockey in Exeter, the late Jim Houston served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was a football and baseball standout at Nichols (Mass.) College – getting elected to that school’s Athletic Hall of Fame – before settling in New Hampshire, where he’d spend the rest of his life.
A native of Bronxville, N.Y., Houston moved to Exeter with his family in 1955 and immediately became part of the community, taking over the Curtain Shop from his father-in-law and joining the Chamber of Commerce, and later serving as a selectman and on the Planning Board in town.
He was one of the founders of the Exeter Youth Hockey Association in 1961, which developed a successful house league program and All-Star system and still exists today, and was also a driving force behind the formation of a team at Exeter High School.
Exeter High School’s first team was a club team in 1967-68. The NHIAA approved it as a varsity program the next year and its enjoyed great success at the Division I and II levels over the last five decades.
But youth hockey is where Houston, who is being inducted posthumously as a builder, left his greatest mark. He helped develop a model that stressed opportunity, participation and a level playing field for children of all skill levels to grow, advance and improve, a model that stayed in place for more than two decades.
Houston raised funds for the fledgling program, secured ice time for the teams and coached in the newly-formed EYHA.
“He had a love of life and sport, and ice hockey was at the center,” said Peter Maher, an Exeter native and (Legends Hall of Famer ’12).
A year after his death in 1970, then-Phillips Exeter Academy coach George Crowe (Legends Hall of Famer ’04), a friend, started the Jim Houston Tournament, which was originally made up of eight top-tier Bantam teams from the region and still exists, in a different format, today.
The Manchester Monarchs; The New Hampshire Legends of Hockey; Jeff Eisenberg.
Those three names now are bound together, an inseparable trio, just like Athos, Porthos and Aramis.
The seed of that alliance fell in fertile soil in September of 2000 when Jeff arrived in town, a full 14 months before the Monarchs debuted on Verizon Wireless Arena. At the time, the Arena was still a work in progress, as were the Monarchs, and much remained to be done.
Jeff was hired by the LA Kings of the NHL and came to Manchester as the Monarch president and first employee. Earlier, the Kings had purchased a dormant AHL franchise that once operated in Cornwallis, Ontario. The Kings then struck a deal to create a new AHL team with the Verizon Center as home ice.
Initially, Jeff was without an official workspace but still handily pulled together all of the pieces and, right on schedule, the Monarchs debuted on November 16, 2001. Before reaching Verizon Wireless Arena, though, the team had to play 13 road games, having made its AHL debut October 6.
During the 14-month push to unveil the Monarchs to the home crowd, Jeff wanted to establish a strong relationship in the community and initially contacted local enthusiasts, Francoise Elise and Dick Boucher. The trio talked; plans were formed; and soon they co-founded and drafted bylaws for The Legends of New Hampshire Hockey. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
Prior to arriving in Manchester, Jeff had created an impressive work credential. It began in 1978 when he left Vanderbilt University with a bachelors degree in economics. By 1980, he was the Holyoke Millers’ assistant general manager in professional baseball’s Eastern League. He quickly moved up to the Majors, joining the Philadelphia Phillies in 1981 to work in marketing and information systems. While with the Phillies, he pursued a masters degree in sports management, receiving that degree in 1983 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
By 1991, he was vice president of baseball ticket sales in the Milwaukee Brewers front office. At that time, the Brewers were still an American League Central team.
In 1995, Jeff moved out of the realm of professional baseball and into the National Hockey League, joining the Buffalo Sabres front-office team as vice president of sales and marketing. In 1998, he became president of the Portland (ME) Pirates.
It was a 22-year employment run that set the stage for all of his successes with the Monarchs.
Among his and the organization’s many accolades: Jeff received the 2004 James Hendy Award as the AHL’s Executive of the Year – the Monarchs received the 2005 PRISM Award as the most outstanding Minor League franchise – the Monarchs, for eight consecutive years, were voted New Hampshire’s Favorite Pro Sports Team – the team twice has been the AHL attendance leader, averaging 8000-plus fans per game.
In March of this year, after 10 years of hard work that produced nine successful AHL hockey seasons, Jeff departed as Monarchs’ president.
He now owns Eisenberg, Vital & Ryze Advertising in Manchester.
Jeff resides in Bedford with his wife Carole and their three children: Matt, Kara and Alex.
Impressive. That, in a word, best describes Russ Martin. He was a leader of men, a civic-minded citizen and an outstanding hockey player and coach.
It all started at the University of New Hampshire where Russ excelled on the ice, playing three years of varsity hockey. As a captain his senior year (1937-38), he scored 39 points for a 4.2 points-per-game average. Although records weren’t then kept, it undoubtedly is UNH’s highest single-season total ever.
He holds the University record for goals-per-game average with 1.45 and has a share of the record for the most points in a game with 10. Russ also posted 45 goals and 30 assists in 31 games, which is a 2.4 points-per-game average. That is the best mark in school history.
After graduation, he played three seasons for the Boston Olympics, based at Boston Garden.
Martin, in 1959, settled in Concord and that winter with high energy and enthusiasm led a revival of ice hockey in the Capital City, forming the Concord Youth Hockey program. He heavily emphasized hockey fundamentals and sportsmanship.
In 1963, Russ joined hands with Dudley W. Orr and Malcolm McLane and with their leadership, vision and dedication it led to the design and ultimate construction of the Douglas N. Everett Arena in Concord. The facility was dedicated December 7, 1965.
As the Arena’s operations evolved, Russ led its volunteer Board of Directors, serving as President of Concord Ice Skating Arena, Inc. His tenure continued through the year the City of Concord purchased the Arena.
Russ also was involved with the operations of three Capital City senior teams: the Concord Shamrocks, the Concord Coachmen, and the Eastern Olympics.
High School hockey in Concord existed between the 1933-34 and 1951-52 seasons but thereafter was shelved. Prior to the 1961-62 season, Russ, as a member of the school board, persuaded City officials to restore hockey as a varsity sport. Since then, Concord has had seven championship teams.
Russ never lost his love of the sport and for 20 years was a top-notch official, blowing the whistle at many college, prep and high school games. He also served a term as President of the New Hampshire Official’s Association.
In 1986, Russ was inducted into the UNH Hall of Fame for football. He also was a recipient of the Carl Lundholm Memorial award for distinguished service to NH youth in athletics. During World War II, he saw combat with the 10th Mountain Division in the Italian Alps.
Russell F. “Russ” Martin – Class of 2007
Please welcome Rusty Martin, accepting for his late father.
Just mention Gerry Grassie’s name in any New Hampshire Seacoast rink and high praise sopped with reverence will follow. His hockey achievements were many, all of them etched in granite, as durable as the man himself and the legacy he left us.
Ironically, he didn’t play organized hockey as a youngster. At Holy Rosary High School in Rochester (Class of ’61), Gerry was prominent on the basketball court and baseball diamond. By the time he was 30 years old, though, the hockey bug had landed on his shoulder. The bite was a hard one and he became celebrated for his work coaching, refereeing, organizing, promoting and fund raising, all in the name of youngsters playing the sport.
His first affiliation was with the Dover Youth Hockey Association, beginning in 1973. During his five-year tenure, he did his usual job: coach, referee, chair the fundraising committee and serve as a distinguished board member and president.
In 1978, he shifted his attention to the fledgling Somersworth Youth Hockey Program in the town where he lived his entire life. For the next four years, his energies flowed like the neighboring Salmon Falls River as he recruited players and organized teams. He also set up fund-raising programs, spending time, too, as a coach and referee.
Also in 1978, Gerry volunteered to become the director of the Seacoast Hockey League and for twenty-four years oversaw the healthy growth of youth hockey in the area. The original league was comprised of just four local Associations. By the winter of 2002, the SHL had 16 Association members. It wasn’t easy and took a lot of hard, steady work. During his 24 years of Seacoast Hockey League service, Gerry was the SHL director and also director of the annual post-season tournament. Early in his tenure, he introduced a tournament format that paired teams in divisions according to how they finished the regular season. This allowed each team to be competitive in the tournament instead of having to compete in a division where their chances of losing were greater than winning.
He also developed special hockey software for the Seacoast Hockey League, and saw to it that it was made available at no cost to the New Hampshire Amateur Hockey Association.
In 1989, Gerry became a delegate to the NHAHA, serving until his untimely death in 2002 at age 59.
Perhaps the nugget in the Grassie hockey crown was the formation of the Seacoast Spartans. He and friend Bob Brown of Rochester, in 1988, co-founded the Spartans, which is an elite youth hockey program offering true skill development at all of the different age levels. In recent years, each of the teams has had high competitive success. He is greatly missed by all who knew him.
Gerry Grassie – Class of 2008.
Please welcome Chris Grassie accepting for his father, the late Gerry Grassie.
Born and raised north of the border, Leo came to the United States in 1960. Not surprisingly, he brought his skates.
From 1960 through 1964, Leo played with the Fitchburg Aces and the Fort Devens’ team. He worked tirelessly to upgrade the latter program.
By 1964, he was playing for the Manchester Alpine in the Granite State Hockey League and in 1965-66 joined the Nashua Royals, winning the G.S.H.L Championship. That team was led by later-to-be Montreal Canadien Bobby Sheehan.
Leo joined with three friends in 1966 to work on opening a rink in Nashua. A year later, Leo was playing for the Manchester Blackhawks and journeyed to Fitchburg MA where he founded and played for the Fitchburg Royals through 1971.
Leo, in 1970 was hired to assist in the final development and management of the Wallace Civic Center in Fitchburg. He oversaw the final stages of construction of the dual-rink venue and guided it through successful operation for seven years.
Never one to sit still, Leo started the Wallace Wallopers (1972-79) in the New England Junior Hockey League. This team featured many Division I and professional players such as NH’s own Lee Blossom (Boston College), Phil Bourque (Penguins), Mathieu Snider (Red Wings), Bobby Williams (Bruins), and Jim Campbell (Canadiens) to name a few.
From 1972-77 he hosted the Boston Bruins training camp at Wallace Civic Center, the first time an NHL team held a training camp in the United States.
Leo attended NHL Referee School in Haliburton, Ontario in 1973 and in 1977 he and his son, Mike, refereed a Boston Bruins vs NY Rangers pre-season game.
In 1982, Leo along with Ron Gosselin founded the Manchester Jr. Canadiens, coached by Don Awrey.
In 1994, Leo took over the Tyngsboro-Nashua Huskies Junior Hockey Team, a New Hampshire not-for-profit corporation in the New England Junior League. He is currently President of the New England Junior Huskies. He was instrumental in the development of Junior Hockey in America and continues his dedication to hockey through team ownership and as a Scout for the Moncton Wildcats of the Quebec Major Junior League.
In 2002, Leo was inducted into the Lakes Region Hockey Hall of Fame.
The ultimate recognition of your contributions to the hockey world is to have a rink named in your honor and to be elected to the US Hockey Hall of Fame.
Malcolm Kenneth Gordon, who lived to be 96, achieved both honors.
Gordon’s name is on a rink at St. Paul’s School in Concord, hung there posthumously in 1966. His induction into the US Hockey Hall of Fame happened in 1973.
In each case, he was honored as a visionary, an organizer, a guiding influence in hockey’s early development and as an outstanding athlete-all major contributions to the sport.
His connection to St. Paul-s School began in 1882 when he arrived as a young student. He graduated in 1887 as ice hockey in the US was becoming a refined, streamlined game with specific rules, moving quickly toward becoming the modern game we all now know so well.
Although the 11-man game of shinny is known to have been played at SPS in the early 1870s, it wasn’t until the afternoon of November 17, 1883, out on SPS’s Lower School Pond, that the first old style game of hockey was played in the USA. More than a decade later, in 1895-generally acknowledged to be The Year- the modern game was established, and Malcolm Gordon was right there in the middle of it all, making much of the evolution possible. While still a student, he was an enthusiastic admirer of the game. In 1889 he became the SPS hockey coach and his career spanned 28 years. During that time, he brought Canadian rules to campus, massaged them judiciously, and created the basis for what became American rules.
As a coach with the ear of the alumni, he bucked the tide that was already running towards athletic specialization. He encouraged diversity in accomplishment rather than specialization. This led to his creation in 1892 of The Gordon Challenge Medal, now the school’s highest athletic award.
Among his many players was the legendary Hobey Baker, who played at SPS in 1905-1909 and later achieved great fame as an athlete at Princeton University.
Coach Gordon left St. Paul’s School in 1917, entered World War I and founded the Malcolm Gordon School in Garrison, NY. Originally, Gordon Rink on the SPS campus stood as a single facility, completed in 1966. The current hockey center, completed in 1998, has two ice surfaces. Gordon Rink was renovated and Ingalls Rink was added. Malcolm Gordon, indeed, left an indelible mark on the game.
Malcolm Kenneth Gordon – Class of 2008.
Please welcome David Gordon, accepting for his grandfather, the late Malcolm Kenneth Gordon.
Fr. Bousquet, pastor of the Guardian Angel Parish in Berlin, New Hampshire for 36 years, was one of the pioneers of North Country hockey. With the help of an entire city, Bousquet built the Notre Dame Arena board by board, providing a home to local high school teams as well as the famed Berlin Maroons. With Fr. Bousquet’s blessing countless New Hampshire High School Hockey Tournaments were held at the Notre Dame Arena, providing young people with a true opportunity to display their talents on the ice. For his efforts, Fr. Bousquet was honored as “Man of the Year” by the Berlin Chamber of Commerce in 1951.
Monsignor Lauziere arrived in Berlin in 1922, when the young sport of hockey was growing rapidly, as the local mill had just formed a mill league and Berlin High School finished its first year competing in the sport. Msgr. Lauziere organized a city league whereby the mill teams, the High School, and various local clubs would play each other with playoffs held at the end of the season. His team, The Canadiens, won two city titles in four years.
Beginning in 1930, the depression was taking its toll on local hockey. Msgr. Lauziere persuaded several of the teams to merge, forming the Berlin Hockey Club, which became the Berlin Maroons in January 1937. Under his leadership and Hall of Famer “Navy” Labnon, the Maroons became a powerhouse and won the New England AAU championship in 1941.
After WWII, the Maroons resumed play in 1946/47. Described in newspaper accounts as having a “cool business head,” Lauziere financed the club year after year finding innovative ways to raise money to keep the club afloat. Under his guidance and quiet support, the Berlin Maroons won 7 New England and three national Senior AHA Championships. In 1949, Msgr. Lauziere and fellow priest Fr. Omer Bousquet were cited by the Amateur Hockey Assoc. for their outstanding contributions to hockey.
In 1966, as the treasurer of the Notre Dame Arena, Inc., he convinced the arena board to install artificial ice. He set aside $25,000 and had faith that the community would raise the balance. In 1969, the arena roof collapsed. He was one of those who spearheaded the arena rebuild which was completed in one year. His title “Patron Saint of Hockey” in the North Country was well earned.
No doubt, Ron Peters is the only man in the room today who has safely guided 747 jets onto Logan Airport runways and then, after getting off work, hightailed it to a rink to make line changes while coaching a hockey game. Ron, for 37 years as an air traffic controller, worked first in Boston and later in southern New Hampshire. That move north was our good fortune and it was in Nashua he became revered as the local “Father of Hockey.”
His robust hockey life started long before he came to New Hampshire, though-back in the late 1930s, on Jamaica Pond outside of Boston. At first, he was a skater, a grade-schooler then, who later put on the pads and became a standout high school District League goaltender.
Ron, in 1963, arrived in Nashua via a job transfer and with his vast experience immediately immersed himself in hockey. His player resume included practice goaltender for the Boston Olympics (Eastern Hockey League); goaltender Boston Barons; stalwart in the Newspaper League whose players all worked at Boston dailies (Post, Herald, Globe); a regular in the Mayflower Hockey League; and starter for the Wetzell Hockey Club of Braintree. Also, he and a few friends in 1958 had inaugurated the first youth hockey program in Brockton, MA. So, he was well prepared to give southern New Hampshire hockey a needed boost.
First, he became coach of the Nashua Royals in the Granite State Hockey League and won the 1964 league championship. He later served as GSHL president. When he met Adrien Labrie, a local general contractor, they conspired to raise funds and build the Nashua Garden rink.
Ron organized the first youth hockey program in Nashua, calling it the Greater Nashua Youth Hockey Association. The program was open to all hockey players, no matter which town they were from. He had lots of help from other lovers of the game in this creation. Ron became the first GNYHA president and served more than 10 years. It is estimated that more than 6000 youngsters benefited from the program.
Ron also formed the Twin State Youth Hockey League and coached mite level through junior teams. Some of his other duties included setting schedules, hiring officials, keeping records and statistics, selling ice time and driving the Zamboni. He even became a news correspondent, writing youth hockey and NEHL game stories for the Nashua Telegraph.
Later, he formed the Nashua Maple Leafs, an entry in the New England Hockey League, and became general manager and eventual coach of the team. When the Nashua Garden was forced to close its doors and the Maple Leafs were disbanded, Ron was hired to coach the Manchester Monarchs.
As time wore on, Ron became a certified AHA referee and joined with Paul Fischer, George Marineau and Brother John Paul, as prime movers in inaugurating the Nashua High School and Bishop Guertin High School hockey programs. Marineau became the first hockey coach for Nashua HS. Brother John Paul became Bishop Guertin’s first head coach.
Ron Peters – Class of 2008.
The town of Melrose has long been an incubator for Massachusetts hockey talent, a quiet hamlet where a deep love for the game has always burned brightly.
So, it’s easy to understand why Seaver Peters, being a product of that place, has been able to make major and lasting impacts on hockey in and around Hanover, New Hampshire.
He landed in the heart of the Upper Valley 60 years ago, fresh out of Melrose HS (Class of 1950), to enroll at Dartmouth College.
Among the things he brought with him that day were the hockey skills he had been honing since the 7th grade, playing for the Green Street Reds youth team. Later, at Melrose HS, as a sophomore he was a first-line left wing for coach Charlie Holt, who later became UNH’s legendary coach. Holt was succeeded by Henry Hughes, a Massachusetts coaching legend. By the 1949-50 season, Melrose was at its mightiest, in the end winning every title in sight: Champions of the GBI League; of Massachusetts; of New England!
At Dartmouth, Seaver played for an undefeated freshman team, followed by three varsity seasons under famed coach, Eddie Jeremiah. As a junior and a senior, Seaver was a first-line center. He also was team captain as a senior. His greatest hockey accomplishments were still ahead, to be off ice.
He graduated from Dartmouth in 1954 and then, via the ROTC program, served two years at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod.
By 1959, he was back in Hanover for good, becoming an integral part of Dartmouth’s administrative team. Initially, he worked as assistant comptroller and assistant athletic director.
He worked, too, in the local community, organizing what in 1962 became the Hanover Youth Hockey Association, collaborating as co-founder with Dartmouth hockey alum, Ab Oakes. Seaver then served the Association as president for 17 consecutive years.
In 1964, he briefly took over as freshman hockey coach in the absence of Eddie Jeremiah, who was on leave to coach the US Olympic hockey team at the Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria.
Then came 1967 and Seaver ascended as Dartmouth’s athletic director. Over the next 16 years, he was a major administrative force, on campus and in Hanover, making many hockey things possible.
Perhaps the largest nugget of his tenure was the building of the Rupert Thompson Arena, which replaced Davis Rink, opened in 1930, as the venue for Dartmouth hockey. Seaver, among others, helped guide the project from its inception and he smiled broadly when construction began in 1973. The first hockey game was in November of 1975: Dartmouth and the US Olympic team skated to a 3-3 draw.
In October of 1976, The Friends of Dartmouth College Hockey was created. Needless to say, the Peters’ administrative thumb was in the pie. The group today remains a vibrant supportive varsity adjunct. Also during the 1970s, he served a few years as chairman of the ECAC Playoff Selection Committee.
Next came the creation and development of the Dartmouth Women’s Hockey Program. The roots reach back to 1977, three years after Dartmouth ceased being an all-male institution. In the ensuing 33 years, the program has enjoyed great success, producing 8 Olympians, 38 1st-team All Ivy League skaters, 27 winning seasons, 8 NCAA appearances, and 4 ECAC titles.
In February of 1983, Seaver stepped down as Dartmouth athletic director and moved into the investment world full time. His sense of community hockey development never dimmed, though, and in 1988 he saw the James W. Campion Rink open. As you might suspect, he was involved with the planning and development. Located in contiguous West Lebanon, the rink gave the community a facility to replace Dartmouth’s old on-campus Davis Rink, which has been razed. Campion Rink serves and supports both local youth hockey and high school programs, as well as community recreational programs.
Today, Seaver and his wife, Sally, live in White River Junction, VT. They have six children and eight grandchildren.
Growing up in Rochester, Merrill attended Spaulding High School, a member of the Class of 1954. He was Class President in 1953 and 1954, and played varsity basketball, varsity football and was selected to the National Honor Society.
Merrill received the prestigious Elks Award, Renseller Award, and Bosch and Lomb Award.
After graduation from Spaulding, he attended Philips Exeter Academy for a post-graduate year in 1955.
He then attended the University of Michigan, continuing his education there in 1956, 1957 and 1958. Unfortunately, his Dad passed away in the spring of 1958 and Merrill made the decision to take over the family’s boat yard. Of note, Merrill’ father was the hockey coach for Spaulding High School from 1948-1952.
In the early Seventies, he maintained a skating rink within the confines of his boat yard on Lake Winnipesaukee. He flooded the ice and kept it plowed after snow storms.
Merrill became involved in hockey in 1978 in the Lakes Region when his son, Will, was seven years old. He later became Chairman of the Lakes Region Youth Hockey Association and built the first rink in Gilford at Varney Point. It was on public land and Merrill had Bruins’ stars Bobby Orr and Don Awrey come up from Boston to help raise money for the new outdoor rink. A roof went up in 1984 and Merrill purchased a used Zamboni from the Nashua Ice Palace.
In the early to mid-Eighties, he helped out doing whatever he could at the Rochester arena.
In 1989, Merrill formed the non-profit Winnipesaukee Skating Club. He purchased 7 acres of land and did a considerable amount of fund raising towards the $1.5 million goal. When the doors opened in 1994 as the Laconia Ice Arena, it was virtually debt free.
Merrill’s son, Will Fay, is the owner of the Laconia Leafs hockey team which competes in the Atlantic Junior Hockey League.
Downing Potter “D.P.” Brown was the fourth of five sons of the founder of the Brown Company, which ran the largest paper mill in the country in the early part of the 20th century in Berlin. He and his family’s company was one of the first major corporations in the country to sponsor and build the game of hockey on such a large scale. Brown was responsible for the founding of the Berlin Athletic Association hockey team in 1921, which was followed by the creation of a mill league, city teams and a team at Berlin High School. The success of those endeavors led to the inception of the Berlin Maroons, who went on to become one of the premier amateur teams in the country.
Brown himself was an excellent athlete, playing football and hockey — where he was the team captain — at Williams College, and graduating in 1908. After graduation, he began work at his family company in the forestry division, then went to manage operations in the company mill in LaTuque, Quebec.
After a stint in the United Kingdom during World War I, where he advised the British on wood and lumber mill operations, Brown returned to his hometown and served in several capacities within the Brown Company until his death in 1954.
His love of the sport of hockey influenced him to develop the game on an “industrial level.” In 1920, the Cascade Athletic Association was formed, with teams in hockey and baseball, and others would follow. He was the head coach when Berlin High School played its first year of hockey in 1921-22. In 1923, Brown was elected president of the Berlin Hockey Association, which he and his company formed, and whose team played opponents in New England and Canada. At the same time, the company’s sponsoring of mill teams in LaTuque, more than 300 miles away, led to growth in the sport in that area.
Although 1928 was the last year for the Berlin Hockey Association team, which had been renamed the B.A.A. Mountaineers, Brown and his company continued to finance mill teams in Berlin and brought amateur/semipro hockey back to the area in 1928, in the form of the Berlin Hockey Club. Nine years later, that team would be known as the Berlin Maroons. The Maroons, one of the greatest amateur teams in New England history, competed until 1972. The team would skate to numerous New England titles and three national championships.
The late Dr. Roy grew up in Berlin, but it was the contributions he made to Rochester, where he moved in 1962, that still impact hockey in the state. He was one of the men responsible for starting the Rochester Youth Hockey Association in the early 1970s, and he gave back to the community in ways that included, but were not limited to, fundraising for a new rink and inspiring others to donate their time.
Born in Berlin in 1931, he spent one year at Notre Dame High School and then attended St. Charles School in Sherbrooke Canada. He graduated from the University of Montreal, where he attended medical school. After serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy in Portsmouth, he made his home in Rochester, where he opened his private practice and was the first pediatrician on staff at Frisbee Memorial Hospital. He would practice there for 35 years.
“Doc” Roy, as he was known by many in the community, was heavily involved in it, serving as chairman of the school board at Holy Rosary School and on the parish council at Holy Rosary Parish, and he was the team doctor and coach for many sports teams in town.
By the late 1960s, Roy and some of his colleagues began taking steps to grow the game in the area. In 1969, Berwick Academy coach Pop Whalen wanted to upgrade the school’s outdoor rink and the boards were donated to Rochester to replace the current rink at the school grounds.
Roy reached out to parents from the community and three of his friends — Skip Kendall of Kendall Insurance, Charles Baxter Jr. of Baxter Woolen Mills and Jim Bisbee of Varney’s Insurance — to sponsor the teams by providing jerseys, pants and socks. This four-team league was the start of the Rochester Youth Hockey Association.
With Roy serving as its president for the first three years, the RYHA grew from four neighborhood teams to over 200 participants. With the money being raised, he applied a down payment for a new indoor rink in town, getting local businesses on board to support it. He went to fi ve other local communities — Dover, Somersworth, Oyster River, Portsmouth and York, Maine — for commitments to start youth programs and created what would eventually become Seacoast Hockey League.
In 2008, the Rochester Ice Arena was renamed the Dr. Roy Ice Arena. In 2015, Roy was posthumously inducted into the Rochester Sports Hall of Fame as a contributor, two years after he’d passed away at the age of 82.
“When it comes to youth hockey contributions over the last 40 years, he ranks at the top,” said Rochester Sports Hall of Fame chairman John Creteau. “It’s obvious when you look at (former Spaulding High School coach) Paul George’s program and the many state hockey championships for Spaulding over the years. We thank God for Dr. Roy, as he is one individual who has made an impact in the lives of a lot of children.”
As a successful businessman in Berlin, the late Clarence T. Lessard provided integral moral and financial support to the Berlin Maroons until his death in 1971, and was heavily vested in other aspects of hockey in town.
Whether it was buying hockey sticks or getting doctors to attend games, or encouraging young players to see a life beyond hockey by setting goals and furthering their education, he was a key behind-the-scenes influence to the team’s extended success.
“He never looked for public acclaim for his moral support and financial assistance; he just did what needed to be done,” said his son, Pierre. “My father saw the value of the Berlin Maroons as an extension of the community spirit that held Berlin together.”
From 1937 to their disbandment in 1972, the Maroons were one of the most successful amateur hockey teams in New England. They won seven New England titles and were national Amateur Hockey Association champions in 1953-54, 1966-67 and 1967-68.
Lessard was involved with the team as early as the 1953-54 season, and was elected its first and only president when the organization was incorporated in November of 1959.
From 1959 until his death in January of 1971, Lessard attended all director’s meetings, except one, when he was hospitalized, and attended all home games and most of the away games.
He negotiated with the local radio stations to broadcast the games and was involved in signing players. He successfully lobbied for Berlin to host the New England Amateur Hockey Association championships, a strong revenue source, and would give or lend money to purchase equipment like sticks and pucks. He created jobs for players associated with the team. Hired for summer work on construction projects, these opportunities sometimes grew into year-round employment.
Beyond the Maroons, Lessard served as a director of the Berlin Athletic Booster Club and the Notre Dame Arena Corporation, and served as a mentor to many young players, encouraging them to develop career plans and life goals.
He also had an impact at the New England level, serving as a director for the New England Amateur Hockey Association, and later as a lifetime director of the NEAHA.
Lessard passed away in 1971 at the age of 61. In 1974, three years after his death, his friend and colleague, Al Adams, wanted to ensure that his contributions were recognized with a plaque dedication at Notre Dame Arena.
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.
Albert Adams is a hockey legend in his hometown of Berlin, New Hampshire. A co-captain of the Berlin High School team in 1944 before he left to join the US Marine Corps, Adams returned to Berlin to play amateur hockey after playing for three years on the defensive corps at UNH. Adams played three seasons for the Berlin Maroons, including the 1953-54 season when the Maroons won the AHA National Championship. He moved on to coach the team and serve as General Manager from 1955 to 1962, leading the Maroons to two more AHA National Championships. At a cost of much personal financial sacrifice, Al kept amateur hockey in Berlin at the highest possible level in the United States Amateur Hockey Association during his term, In 1963, he was named Mr. Sportsman of the Year by the Athletic Booster Club of Berlin.
Every hockey player in New Hampshire knows about the Berlin Maroons. It wouldn’t be that way if Navy Labnon hadn’t cared so much.
When the Berlin Maroons hockey team was first being organized back in the late 1930’s, finances and promotion presented major problems. In addition, the young hockey club needed someone who could present a positive image for the budding organization in order to encourage spectator attendance at the games. The team turned to Navy, then a young and imaginative businessman. With his guidance, success promoting the Berlin Maroons was almost meteoric .
In short order, the team began traveling far and wide to play games and eventually developed a reputation that became almost mythic. To nearly everyone’s disbelief, Navy soon had the Maroons practicing and playing at the Boston Garden. Navy helped take the band of devoted players from a sandlot team to a great hockey attraction.
Navy served as General Manager of the Berlin Maroons from 1938 to 1942. In 1941, the Maroons were New England Champions and runners-up in the National Championships. Navy later was named Sportsman of the Year by the Athletic Booster Club.
Throughout his tenure, he was recognized as a shrewd promoter as well a successful businessman. His contributions made it possible for the Maroons to become a national force.
In an anecdotal history of hockey in Berlin, Navy Labnon’s name will forever be linked with the two Catholic priests who conspired to help make the city widely known as Hockeytown USA. Monsignor Bousquet is the man who built the Notre Dame High School and arena. And it was Monsignor Lauzier who worked so hard with the youth of the city and also became the manger for the Maroons. Hockey in Berlin has the fingerprints of these men on it.
Between 1943 and 1945, Navy took timeout to serve his country in the military. He returned to the Maroons, though, for the 1946 and 1947 seasons. He couldn’t stay away.
Navy and his family have been proprietors of the Town and Country Inn in Shelburne, NH since 1956.
The late Tony Urban was a football coach, a basketball coach, a teacher, athletic director, a school administrator, a state administrator, a basketball referee and an umpire. He was a “go-to” figure in the North Country but also led and impacted organizations statewide.
Urban graduated from Plymouth State College and later attended graduate programs throughout the country. He also had a great love for hockey. Basketball was the “family business” but he chose to play hockey for Berlin High School for two years.
Urban knew how important the sport was to his hometown. His career would include 36 years as chairman of the NHIAA Hockey Committee. He served on the National High School Hockey Federation for Hockey Rules Committee from 1977-88. As part of this committee in 1977 he helped author the first consolidated High School Ice Hockey rules book to standardize national rules and benchmarks for high school play.
From 1968-94, he served as assistant principal at Berlin Junior-Senior High School, where he helped design and construct the “new” high school, which still stands today. He served as principal of Berlin Junior-High School and Berlin Middle School, and served on New England-wide school accreditation committees.
In “retirement,” he led efforts to restore the city’s athletic fields from disrepair and acted as clerk of the works. He promoted the BioMass project in Berlin after the mills closed, and served as a Police Commissioner and State Racing and Gaming Commissioner.
Urban served on many NHIAA committees, and spent one school year (1975-76) as president of the NHIAA. He was also a member of the IAABO (basketball officials) since 1963 and served as its president in 1977-1978. He was a member of the NH Baseball Umpires Association since 1961 (serving as its president from 1979-81). He was a member of the NH Women’s Basketball Officials Organization from 1984-2005 (serving as its president from 1984-85). He was inducted into the NHIAA Hall of Fame in 2008.
Urban was a founding member of the predecessor group to the New Hampshire Legends of Hockey. When Berlin’s Notre Dame Arena fell on hard times, again, he helped to set up fundraising opportunities.
He was instrumental in moving the NHIAA hockey championship games from the “big ice” of Whittemore Arena at UNH to the SNHU Arena in Manchester. He also arranged for sponsorships for these costs. Today, the cost is still zero.
He also helped the NHIAA sanctioning of women’s ice hockey as interest expanded in the sport for young women and also oversaw the divisional segregation of the high school hockey programs to allow equitable, safe play for all participants.
He passed away on Dec. 29, 2016 after a battle with a rare cancer.
The late Beatrice Lambert’s title with the Berlin Maroons was secretary. Her life around hockey merits a label much more layered than that.
A Berlin native and lifelong hockey fan, Lambert watched the growth of the Berlin Maroons from that club’s infancy in 1937-38 to its national amateur championship in 1954, and came aboard as its secretary in the 1950s. She spearheaded fund-raising to keep the club afloat during lean times and became the first woman to serve on the board of directors of the New England Amateur Hockey Association.
Fund-raiser, publicist, statistician…Lambert wore many hats in her service to the Maroons, who played in the NEAHA through 1972.
“She was part of that glue that kept the legendary Berlin Maroons together and built them up to be twice national champions in the 1960s,” said Berlin historian Walter Nadeau, who nominated her for induction, “and continued to promote and build hockey as the first female to serve on the New England Amateur Hockey Association board of directors.” Lambert graduated from Berlin High School in 1929 and was hired by the city of Berlin as the Bookkeeper for the Welfare Department in 1934. By the 1950s she was fully involved as the Secretary for the Maroons, organizing fund-raising and writing up publicity for the local newspapers.
In 1959, as the Maroons officially became incorporated, Lambert was formally elected as the Secretary and Bookkeeper. According to Nadeau, she and Al Adams (Class of 2002) and Clarence Lessard were “the glue” that held the Maroons together for the next decade-plus. Lambert dutifully recorded the minutes at the Maroons’ board meetings, organized fund-raising events, served as team statistician and handled payroll.
For 10 years, beginning in 1968, she served on the board of directors of the New England Amateur Hockey Association. She was a director for three years and then NEAHA Secretary for another seven. She was also named “Miss Hockey of New England” by the U.S. Amateur Hockey Association.
She played a role in the building of a new hockey arena in Berlin after the tragic cave-in of Notre Dame Arena in 1969. Her fund-raising and tireless work helped the new building be ready for hockey less than a year later.
Lambert was a friend to many local sports organizations, including Little League baseball and youth hockey.
Derided and mocked, girls’ hockey wasn’t taken seriously in the city of Concord. Of course, that all changed when Sandy Sistare took over the girls program at St. Paul’s School.
The school’s first girls’ hockey coach, Sandy poured everything he had into the program, grooming, shaping and nurturing it into the successful program that still stands tall today.
It all began in 1979, when two students approached then-Athletic Director Bud Blake with a proposal to develop a girls-only hockey team. Bud was excited about the idea and immediately thought of Sandy, who he believed would be “a super coach for the girls – right temperament, great personality (and a) go getter.”
The first official season began in 1980. A group of former figure skaters, sisters of hockey-playing brothers and recreational players joined forces to play a four-game schedule. The Big Red went 0-4, but the fact that the girls received time at the rink (like the boys) and not on the pond was a step in the right direction.
Cynthia Ferris, one of the first females to lace up her skates for St. Paul’s, remembers that “it was exciting to be part of the first wave” of girls hockey and was comforted by Sandy’s way of applying gentle, consistent pressure to see that the team got the necessary equipment and ice time, games scheduled and goalie coaching.
Suzanne Walker, who played for Sandy in 1985 and ’86, evoked memories of Sandy pulling her out of club hockey on the pond and into the rink, where she eventually played goalie and moved on to play for Bowdoin College.
During his time as bench boss, Sandy put together a pair of trips to Scandinavia, where his teams experienced European hockey along with the educational benefit of seeing and interacting with other cultures. He was also instrumental in beginning the St. Paul’s/Taft Tournament, a tourney for high school girls that takes place every year in December, and that is still being played almost 30 years later as the Patsy K. Odden Hockey Tournament.
In his decade-long run as the girls’ coach at St. Paul’s, Sandy coached roughly 80 girls, many of which went on to play Division I and Division III puck at college’s like Bowdoin, Brown, Harvard, Middlebury, Princeton and Yale.
In 1986, four years before Sandy would retire, St. Paul’s endowed a prize in his name called the Sanford R. Sistare Memorial Award, which is given every year to the player who distinguishes herself in individual and team play.
In his eight seasons as girls’ hockey coach (1980-1987), Sandy finished with a record of 59-29-3. The team won the ISL title in his final season and the leagues first girls’ hockey championship in 1987. A proud alumnus of Bowdoin College, Class of 1950, Sandy returned to Brunswick, Maine after retiring from St. Paul’s in 1990. He volunteered as an assistant coach with the Bowdoin women’s team, and played host to several visiting players on an annual basis. There is a plaque at the Bowdoin arena that reads: “In honor and memory of Sanford “Sandy” R. Sistare of the Class of 1950. His devotion to hockey, at St. Paul’s School and Bowdoin, was unparalleled.”
Sandy spent most of his professional life of 37 years as an educator. Twenty two of those years were spent at St. Paul’s School in Concord, where he taught, worked as an administrator and coached. Sandy died at Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick, Maine, three days before Christmas in 2008. His obituary noted that, “among the many accomplishments in his long career as an educator, he was most proud of starting the SPS girls’ hockey team and serving as head coach for many years.”
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