Three-time selection to US National Teams
First RI-developed Mount St Charles player to make it to the NHL
First Princeton University graduate to make it to the NHL
Played in the NHL with the Quebec Nordiques
Right-winger Eddie Lee played a couple of games for the Quebec Nordiques in 1984-85. He was a talented college and a scrappy minor pro competitor who could win battles for the puck along the boards and create problems around the opposition goal.
Eddie was born in Rochester, NY, in 1961, while his mother was traveling, and raised in Providence, RI, one block from the RI Auditorium. Like so many young men who grew up in the area, he became a “rink rat”, grabbing free ice time in exchange for odd jobs at the arena. Lee played his high school hockey at legendary Mount St. Charles and was taken 95th overall by Quebec after his freshman year at Princeton in 1980-81.
In doing so, he became the first graduate of the Mount program to be drafted by an NHL team. That same year, Eddie skated for the US at the World U-20 Championships in West Germany, a country he would later dominate play in as an overseas professional.
Eddie graduated from Princeton in 1984 after four productive years with the Tigers, during which time he also skated briefly with the 1983 US National Team. After graduation, he made his pro debut while notching four assists in six games for the American Hockey League’s Fredericton Express. He would later play in the AHL with the Springfield Indians.
During the 1984-85 campaign, Lee became the first Princeton grad to make it to the NHL when he suited up with the Nordiques, notably facing off on successive nights against legends Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. It would be his only two games in the world’s top league.
Apart from that brief time in 1984, the hard working forward managed a respectable 11 goals while battling injuries in Fredericton. Early the next season he was traded to the Minnesota North Stars for a draft pick but never returned to the NHL.
Lee played for three different minor pro clubs in the states through 1986. The following year he moved to Germany and joined the Ahaus ESC of the German Oberliga for one season. That one season, his final full year as a professional, was spectacular as he tallied 71 goals and 52 assists in just 32 games.
Following his hockey career, Eddie became an educator and an elementary school principal in the Providence school system. Between lessons in the classroom, he also found time coaching at various stops in youth leagues and at the college level.
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