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 she became the first American [...]
Inducted into the Rhode Island Reds Hall of Fame in 1964 A “Class of 1964” inductee into the RI Reds Hall of Fame, George Army, the Reds’ iconic and revered trainer from 1934 to 1969, had the longest tenure of any individual associated with the team. Self-taught during a time when there were no schools [...]
Inducted into the RI Heritage Hall of Fame in 1964 Inducted into the Brown University Hall of Fame in 1978 Bob Gaudreau, a two-time college All-American, was born in Providence in 1944. He grew up next door to the RI Auditorium where he had access to rink rat ice time and witness to the play [...]
Inducted into the Charter Class of the RI Reds Hall of Fame in 1963 Art Lesieur is a Providence Reds legend. With French name, his skillful blueline play and his rights owned by the Montreal Canadiens, local fans assumed he was Canadian. To the contrary, he was born just a few minutes away in Fall [...]
David was born in Cranston in 1966, developing his hockey skills in the CLCF and the Johnston youth league, where he captained USA Hockey's National Bantam Champions in 1981. He played his high school hockey at the Kent School in Connecticut, where he was a 2-year captain and team MVP. Highly touted, Dave was the [...]
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 if the Americans could do [...]
The news first appeared on the front page of the Providence Journal the morning of April 18th, 1925. Headlines announced plans for Rhode Island to become the home of New England’s largest auditorium, “an imposing structure of artistic design, seating 8,000 persons and costing $500,000.” The new facility was hailed as being “of vital importance [...]
Anthony Venditti became famous in automotive circles, not only here in Rhode Island but in a good part of the nation. Known as the “Godfather” of stock car racing in New England, his almost single-handed creation of the Seekonk Speedway and the innovations he introduced to the sport there made him one of the early [...]
When the RI Auditorium opened in 1926 it was the state’s very first indoor rink. With it, the game’s popularity exploded. Before too long there were too many players, too many teams and too many leagues for the available arena ice time. In order to meet their expanding needs, high schools, colleges and local amateur [...]
We call them “hockey” rinks because, well, we play hockey. They’re really “ice” rinks, a playground for all sorts of recreation, not the least of which is figure skating, which most certainly preceded hockey as a recreational pastime. Patricia and Betty Ann Farrell grew up on figure skates. Their father, the late Dr. Charles Farrell, [...]
