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 arson investigation and then being [...]
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 and Frances moved to neighboring [...]
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 National Seniors Championships, by defeating [...]
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 of as a kid, but [...]
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 “football” we know today. Two [...]
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 in the early and mid [...]
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 and few know his name. [...]
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 the Great Depression. Fortunately, a [...]
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 the favors forward by coaching [...]
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 [...]
