Tommy Gorman

Thomas Patrick " Tommy" Gorman ( born June 9, 1886 in Ottawa, Ontario, † May 15, 1961 ) was a Canadian athlete and official. He was co-founder of the National Hockey League ( NHL), led four teams of seven times to win the Stanley Cup and won at the Olympic Summer Games in 1908 the gold medal in lacrosse.

Life

Gorman was born in Ontario and started early with the sport. At the Olympic Summer Games in London in 1908, a competition was held in lacrosse, in which participated two teams. The crew of the Canadian Gorman went up against the team from Great Britain and won the only game 14:10. After the Olympics, he played for several years as a professional. After his career Gorman found employment with the Ottawa Citizen newspaper and worked there until 1921.

In the season 1916/17 of the Ottawa Senators hockey team players and Gorman were missing was tasked to put together a competitive level club. He was finally set as a functionary of the Senators and played as such a year later at the founding of the National Hockey League a role as banded together those responsible for the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators and Quebec Bulldogs on November 22, 1917 to a to set up their own league, there was disagreement within the National Hockey Association. He took over in 1917, the sporty line of the Ottawa Senators and won with them in 1920, 1921 and 1923, the Stanley Cup. In 1925, he handed over his post to Frank Ahearn and was manager and coach of the New York Americans, so he brought the professional hockey to New York City.

He left in 1929 the New York club to become manager of a horse race track in Mexico. In 1932, Gorman acted out that the Australian racehorse Phar Lap, which is maintained until today for the best Australian racehorse of all time, ran on the race track. It won the premium and died shortly afterwards in suspicious circumstances. After the owner of the track sold these in the same year, Gorman returned to the horse racing back.

During the season 1932/33, he was hired as coach of the Chicago Black Hawks and led the team from last place in the year in which they Gorman took over for their first Stanley Cup win a year later. Ten days after the triumph, he resigned and went to Montreal, where he helped the 1935 Montreal Maroons to win the Stanley Cup. He is thus far the only coach who twice could win the Stanley Cup with different teams in a row. He coached the Maroons until the club disbanded in 1938. In 1940, he became coach of the Montreal Canadiens, with whom he was in 1944 and 1946 Stanley Cup win.

Gorman took over later a horse racing track, which he headed until he died at 74 years of cancer. He was the last living founder of the NHL and was recorded in 1963 in the Hockey Hall of Fame, in 1966, he was still the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame and 1977.