When Larry Wilson came to Providence in 1970 to coach the R.I. Reds hockey team, he brought with him a long pro career in both the National and American Leagues, a family legacy in the sport that featured his older brother's many years in the pros, and young sons on the verge of success in [...]
If you have spent any time in Rhode Island hockey rinks over the past 90 years, there is a really good chance that you’ve watched a member of the Gaffney family either playing or behind the bench coaching. The Gaffney hockey players have spanned four generations of Rhode Island high school hockey, starting with Charlie [...]
The Gaudreaus are unique among Rhode Island’s prominent hockey families. Theirs is the only family tree that includes a father who was an Olympian and a son who was an NHL player. The patriarch, Robert Gaudreau Sr., skated for the United States in the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, France, after a brilliant career at Brown [...]
It was 1941 and Boston Olympics General Manager Walter Brown came to the dressing room to congratulate Don Mellor on scoring a goal in his first game with the team. Don deflected the praise. “The puck was right in front of me on my stick, and all I had to do was tap it in, [...]
The story of the Belisle family and its accomplishments at Mount St. Charles is almost too incredible to be true. But it is, even if at times it reads like fiction. Normand B. “Bill” Belisle is the architect and backbone of one of the most famous families in Rhode Island hockey history. Bill grew up [...]
There aren’t many families in Rhode Island or anywhere else that have produced three Division 1 hockey players. The Omiciolis – with brothers Kris, Mike and Drew – are members of that select group. Kris, the oldest, played at Bishop Hendicken and Brown University. Mike, the middle brother, played at La Salle Academy and Providence [...]
The Eccleston family, while producing several high impact players at the high school and collegiate levels, have had the most influence in the world of hockey from behind the bench, beginning with legendary patriarch Thomas Eccleston, Jr. Born in the north of England in 1910, Tom Jr. emigrated with his family to Bradford, RI, in [...]
While history notes that Thomas Eccleston Jr. founded Burrillville High School hockey in 1938, the record book suggests that the Menard family deserves at least a sub-title billing on the cover of that story. It was to Eccleston’s great good fortune that Maxime and Albina Menard, Canadian immigrants, had settled in Burrillville a half [...]
The French-Canadians influence on molding life and customs in northern Rhode Island cannot be overstated. That fact is even more profound when considered in the context of ice hockey. While some RI hockey greats simply came to know and fall in love with hockey, Paul Guay, raised in North Smithfield, RI, was born into [...]
Along the northernmost stretch of North Main Street in Providence, where it meets the Pawtucket city line, the numbered streets, named 1st through 11th, reach up along the slope to the city’s East Side. Built into that hillside, between 2nd and 3rd streets, sits a parking lot that was once the footprint of the [...]
