History Blog
The Legend of Jerry Zifcak – The Pride of Burrillville Broncos Hockey
John Zifcak was the eldest of Phillip and Frances Zifcak's sons. With ten siblings to help take care of, he didn't have a lot of time for sports, but was athletic enough to join the Rhode Island State Police where he had distinguished career, retiring as a Lieutenant specializing in [...]
Ed Zifcak: the adventurous but uncertain journey of Burrillville High School’s greatest hockey hero
Four years before the outbreak of World War I, Phillip Zifcak emigrated from the Slovakian region of the teetering Austro-Hungarian Empire. His wife to be, Frances, followed two years later. They met working in a textile mill in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, married, and soon welcomed the first of 13 children. Phillip [...]
70 years ago, Brown became Maroon to help win Gold & Glory for Rhode Island hockey
Over the years, Rhode Island has captured 10 USA national hockey titles. Its first came in 1948, at a time when USA Hockey was known as AHAUS, the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States. That year, the Rhode Island Scarlets captured the “Memorial Cup”, the trophy of the US [...]
It Seemed like a Dream – the night Pawtucket’s Bob Ricci suited up against Gordie Howe and the Whalers
Bob Ricci's done all right for himself. The 62-year-old Pawtucket native lives in California, working as a Strategic Account Manager for the Industrial Division of Sherwin-Williams Paint. It's a good job with an important company that has commercial and retail customers around the globe. Maybe it's not what you dream [...]
Here’s how Football and a Brown Undergrad Gave Birth to RI Schoolboy Hockey
The New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University is widely recognized as the site of the first college football game in the USA. The Rutgers game, played in 1869 against Princeton (then known as the College of New Jersey), was reported to have more resembled the game of soccer than the [...]
The Long and Lasting Legend of 17-Year-Old Norm Desaulniers
It’s every sports-minded young person’s dream to hit the home run that wins the game…nail the shot that beats the buzzer…score that sudden death goal. The ultimate thrill, however, as improbable as it might be, would be to someday “play in the bigs.” If you grew up in Rhode Island [...]
Greg Britz – the First Bishop Hendricken Player to reach the National Hockey League
Bishop Hendricken’s future Hobey Baker Award winner, David Emma, made it to the NHL in 1993, the same year as Steven King, one of the stars of the Providence Bruins’ Calder Cup run in 1999. But there was another Hawk who made it to the big show well before both [...]
Post-War Hockey at Brown: Wes Moulton’s “Miracle on Ice”
Since its historic beginnings in 1898, Brown men’s hockey has endured two dormant periods. The first began in 1906, and play was not resumed until 1926. The second iceless stretch began after the 1938-39 season, when along with wrestling, hockey fell victim to the budget axe at the end of [...]
RI’s Hockey Coaches: A Legacy of Stardom and then Paying it Forward
Many ex-RI Reds coached at all levels of the game all over the continent after their time in Providence - names like Bessone, Blake, Cook, Flaman, Polano, Reardon, Schmidt, and Sinden, to name just a few. Fortunately, many of those Reds we cheered for settled in Rhode Island and paid [...]
In 1955, LaSalle’s hockey team went “Gaga” meeting Tenley Albright at St George’s rink
On Dec. 10th, 1955, it was a jubilee of sorts at St. George’s school in Middletown. The school’s Cabot Memorial Rink was surrounded rows deep with all ages straining for a glimpse of Tenley Albright, perhaps the most famous woman in American sports over the decade. Indeed, two years earlier [...]
Miracles: The Miracle on Ice and the One that Came Next
Virtually every single American knows the ever-so-famous “Miracle On Ice” story of the 1980 USA ice hockey team during that year’s Winter Olympics, held in Lake Placid, NY. However, few are familiar with the events that followed for Team USA, as a country and the world’s ice hockey community wondered [...]
The 1963 Ice Bowl All-Stars: Ambassadors for our Nation & an Audience with a King
For a young hockey player several accomplishments are achieved during their pee-wee days. Some of these milestones might include scoring their first goal, lifting the puck, winning their first game, or for one bunch of Rhode Island pee-wee players - meeting the King of Sweden! If after reading that last [...]
If you skated in RI, your blades were likely sharpened on a Roger Guillemette machine
From youth leagues through college in the late fifties and sixties, Woonsocket’s Roger G. Guillemette was one of New England’s most highly accomplished hockey talents. A super-quick forward, Guillemette enrolled at nearby Mount St. Charles before transferring to LaSalle Academy for his sophomore year. The All-State forward would go on [...]
“Rollie’s Skate Shop” – The story of perhaps Rhode Island’s Most Famous “Grinder”
For the smallest state in the country, Rhode Island has certainly turned out more than its fair share of great hockey figures – on ice and off. And behind the scenes there have been a number of key figures who ensured our players got the competitive edge they needed. To [...]
Jack Ferreira & The Legend of “Mr. Magoo” – Debunked
When visiting the Boston University athletics website, the entry on their Terrier hall-of-fame goalie, long-time NHL executive and Rhode Island native, Jack Ferreira, reads: “Ferreira, who was legally blind and nicknamed ‘Mr. Magoo’ by his teammates, gave up just 2.0 goals a game and recorded eight shutouts.” While his stats [...]
Hank Coupe: the Renaissance Man of RI Hockey did it all from the ice on up
Like so many other Rhode Islanders whose hockey careers are highlighted by both on- and of-ice achievement, it is impossible to categorize Henry J. Coupe, Jr. as simply either a “Player” or “Pillar” member of our nation’s hockey community for he excelled at both. Born in 1921 in Cranston, “Hank”, [...]
The Gilbane’s – RI’s Contribution to the 1980 Winter Olympics and the “Miracle on Ice”
The 40th anniversary of what might be the greatest upset in sports history – the United States’ victory over the Soviet Union’s thought-to-be-invincible hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics – just passed, and the memories came flowing back as one news outlet after another reached into its vaults and [...]
Art Lesieur – Rhode Island’s very first hockey Legend & Hero was born under the Stars & Stripes
Art Lesieur is a Providence Reds and Rhode Island hockey legend. With his skillful, imposing blueline play and his rights owned by the Montreal Canadiens, local fans and opposing players, alike, assumed he was Canadian. To the contrary, he was born and raised just 20 miles away in nearby Fall [...]
A History of #EBUG (Emergency Back Up Goalie) in Providence
If you're a hockey fan, odds are overwhelming that you’ve heard the story about David Ayres and #EBUG: https://www.nhl.com/news/hurricanes-emergency-backup-goalie-against-maple-leafs/c-315410618 And a great story it is. However, it's one we've heard in these parts before. You'd have to have seen a few faceoffs to remember this one. 20-year-old George Dermksian, who played goal for Central [...]
The Bennetts in Japan: A tale of two very different hockey cultures
If you're a fan of hockey in Rhode Island, you no doubt know a lot about the Bennetts. Here's something you probably don't know: In 1980, two of them -- Curt and Harvey Jr., their NHL careers completed -- went to the Far East and played two seasons of professional hockey [...]
The Hockey Game That Changed Aviation History!
It isn't often that a stick to the face alters the course of history. The course of a game, maybe. The course of someone's dental profile, possibly. But history? Well, according to Sean Braswell of the website ozy.com, there's a good chance the story of modern aviation began "with an [...]
Johnny Pesky & Milt Schmidt Both Laced Them Up in Providence
No, that's not a Photoshopped image. That really is Johnny Pesky in a Bruins uniform next to Milt Schmidt. We all associate Pesky, of course, with baseball in general and the Red Sox in particular: Player in the '40s and '50s, manager in the '60s, TV/radio announcer in the early [...]
“Fastest Gun in the History of Hockey.”
That was the opening sentence of a Providence Evening Bulletin story in February 1973, and for a couple of glorious weeks that aptly described North Providence High School’s Ron Bruno. And the Rhode Island high school hockey world basked in his radiated glory. Bruno, a senior left wing for the [...]
Rhode Island: Birthplace of Hockey’s First Full-Time Goalie Facemask
From youth leagues to the pros, the goaltender’s facemask is standard and required equipment. Younger generations might be surprised to know that it hasn’t always been that way. Prior to the 1950’s, no self-respecting goalie, let alone hockey player, would be caught hiding behind a mask. While, from time to [...]
The Birth of Burrillville Hockey: Tom Eccleston Needed an Edge.
As the 1937-38 RI amateur hockey season began, a 28-year-old defenseman, Tom Eccleston, Jr., was playing in the state's best amateur circuit, the Intercity League. His Greenville Townies played before paying customers at the legendary RI Auditorium. Tom needed an edge because the league had just announced that an Intercity [...]
Michael Spinks vs Harvey Bennett, Jr. Boxing in the City of Brotherly Love
Back in the summer of 1977, Harvey Bennett, Jr. was coming off, perhaps, his most eventful professional season. He started the 1976-77 campaign with the Washington Capitals but was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in November. During the season he was chosen to play alongside his brother, Curt, with the [...]
RI High Schoolers Came to the Rescue When the Flu Turned the RI Reds Blue
George “Butch” Keeling and Ed Yagnesak may not be household names in RI Reds’ history, but for about a week in October of 1957 they were the talk of all local hockey. That’s when the “Asian Flu” reached North American shores and effectively decimated the Providence Reds roster as it [...]
Brother Adelard and the Colorful History of “The Flying Frenchmen”
When Alfred “Al” Thurier was inducted into the Mount St. Charles Hall of Fame in 2013, the hockey legend was characterized as the Academy's “original Flying Frenchman.” As his career developed Thurier was better known as “Fred.” His was a pro career that began in 1937 and ended in 1952. [...]
LaSalle’s Clem Harnedy – in his time, “The greatest goalie ever developed among native-born Americans.”
New Englanders know Walter Brown as the former owner of the Boston Bruins, who later founded and owned the Boston Celtics with his close friend and RI Reds’ owner, Lou Pieri. However, Brown’s greatest contribution to sport may have been the development of hockey in the United States, which he [...]
Zellio Toppazzini: Such a Distinctive Name, You’d Think They’d Get the Picture Right!
As the R.I. Reds “Player of the Century”, Zellio Toppazzini had little difficulty getting his name on the list of top scorers or professional hockey greats. He had 786 points in 785 American Hockey League games. But Topper had no luck at all getting his picture on hockey trading cards. [...]
RI’s Bill Mandigo is the Winningest Coach in All of Women’s Collegiate Hockey
Burrillville High School’s accomplishments on the ice are legendary, not only in Rhode Island but throughout New England, as well. So, too, are many of the players and coaches it has produced. It may be surprising to many that the most successful coach of all whose early contact with the [...]
Main Event: Chuck Scherza vs Rocky Marciano When Discretion was the Better Part of Valor
In his 13 seasons in pro hockey, Chuck Scherza of the R.I. Reds earned a reputation as a scorer, fierce checker who could dig the puck out of the corners, and a tough customer who never backed down from a fight. His career penalty totals rank third on the list [...]
How a Barber and the Providence Clippers Revived Men’s Hockey at Brown
We know that Brown defeated Harvard 6-0 in the very first organized intercollegiate ice hockey game played in the United States on January 19, 1898. Brown went on to enjoy more success in those early years against collegiate teams from Yale, Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and club squads [...]
The 1974 NHL Draft – Shrouded in Secrecy but Delightfully Highlighted by a Japanese Imposter
The Buffalo Sabres will receive the #1 overall pick in the 2018 NHL draft. Their only other #1 picks became NHL legends - Gilbert Perreault (1970) and Pierre Turgeon (1987). This year, they are expected to select Sweden’s Rasmus Dahlin. It’s doubtful, however, that this occasion will be any more [...]
Remembering When the Friars Wore “Cooperalls”
Cooperalls were a brand of ice hockey equipment manufactured by Cooper Canada. The name has since become a generic term for all hockey pants featuring a waist-to-ankle outer shell. Cooperalls were marketed from 1972 to 1975. Promoted as "a complete hockey uniform system", it consisted of an elasticated girdle extending [...]
RI’s “Digit” Murphy Leading China’s Women’s Hockey Hopes for the 2022 Beijing Olympics
The growth and success of the USA in gymnastics, soccer and other sports, including hockey in the early days, has been helped along and fueled by the talents of coaches from other nations. So it is that China recently came calling to one of Rhode Island’s favorite daughters, Margaret Digidio [...]
The “Hobey Baker” Award was almost the “Frank Brimsek” or “John Mariucci” Award
In February of 1978, Charles Bard, CEO of the Decathlon Club of Bloomington, MN, attended a convention at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. There, he learned of the development plans for the Wooden Award, created to honor the outstanding collegiate basketball player of the year. He learned about its beginning, [...]
Slap Shot’s Real “Hanson” Brother Played For the RI Reds & Son Played with P-Bruins
Paul Newman’s movie, “Slap Shot”, opened 40 years ago to fairly negative reviews but over time has become a consensus pick as one of the top sports flicks of all-time. The trio that stole the show was the Hanson Brothers. And at the center of that mayhem was David Hanson, [...]
“Hat Tricks” – Everything & Anything You Ever Wanted to Know About “Hat Tricks”
If you were entertaining a visitor from Mars and brought your visitor to a hockey game, how would you explain all those hats thrown onto the ice by fans in the crowd after a player scores three goals in the game? Admit it, the hockey hat trick is an action [...]
RI’s Malcolm G. Chace, the “Father” of Ice Hockey in the United States
In mid-century and despite having no major home sports team, sports columnist John Hanlon’s insightful articles and whit combined with Frank Lanning’s legendary cartoon style to help rank the Providence Journal sports pages among the best in all of America. Hanlon was a commanding yet gentlemanly press box presence at [...]
70 Years Ago – Warburton, Pulliam & Galipeau – RI’s First USA Olympians
The Olympics of 1940 and 1944 were both cancelled because of WWII, but even before the '48 Games at St. Moritz got underway there was another war erupting - a hockey war - that threatened the inclusion of hockey and the appearance of RI’s first Olympic hockey players. The conflict [...]
Nancy Schieffelin, “Founding Mother” of Brown & USA Women’s Hockey
In the Fall of 1964, Brown University’s men's hockey coach, Jim Fullerton, cleverly arranged for Nancy Schieffelin '67, an experienced hockey player enrolled at Pembroke, the coordinate women’s college for Brown, to join a team practice disguised in full uniform. The exercise was to show the men's team how well [...]
Cosby Led USA to First World Title. Later Outfitted Reds & Other RI Teams.
In the early days of international hockey, Canada was all but invincible. It won the first four Olympic tournaments (1920, ‘24, ‘28, ‘32) and the first two International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championships (1930 and ‘31) without losing a single game. When looking closely at the scores, one could [...]
The First Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament
It may seem odd, but the very first Olympic ice hockey tournament did not take place in Winter. It was held at the 1920 Summer games in Antwerp, Belgium. At the time, organized international ice hockey was still relatively new. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the sport's governing body, [...]
“The Brown Cup”
In Rhode Island, the game of Ice Polo was the predominant ice sport at both the high school and collegiate levels at the turn of the twentieth century. Like today’s field hockey, it was played with short sticks with rounded ends and a rubber ball. It was taken up by [...]
“More Whistle, Less Cowbell”
Frederick Charles Albert Waghorne, Sr. was born on October 16, 1865 and passed away in 1956. "Old Wag”, as he was known, is an honored member of the International Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. He is best known for his prolific career as a referee – officiating over 2,400 [...]
How the E-22 Landed at the Auditorium
What do the names Kleenex, Formica, Xerox, Scotch Tape, Coke and Zamboni all have in common? Well, they are "eponyms." Eponyms (we had to look that one up) are proprietary brand names that have become synonymous with product categories: Kleenex with soft facial tissue, Formica with counter tops, Xerox with [...]
RI’s Bob O’Connor: USA “National Coach-in-Chief”
Rhode Island has been known for many, many successful and influential coaches at all levels of the game over the past century - Belisle, Eccleston, Mousseau, Cimini, Lamoriello, Ernst, Fullerton, Degidio, Mandigo, Crins, Army, Augustine, Wilson, Hynes, Capuano, Leaman, McCurdy - to name just a few. One name that stands [...]
RI Cheers for USA’s Kacey Bellamy
You may know that Kacey Bellamy, assistant captain and defensive star of the 2018 USA Women’s Olympic Hockey Team, is a 3-time Olympian. You may know that she has won a remarkable 7 Gold Medals playing for the USA National Team. But did you know she was born in Rhode [...]