Tommy Lockhart

Who was Tommy Lockhart?

Tommy Lockhart was an American ice hockey advocate, organizer and administrator. He is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in the "Builder" category, elected in 1965, and was among the inaugural class of inductees to the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1973. Lockhart started out in 1932 organizing amateur hockey games at Madison Square Garden, followed shortly by organizing the Eastern Amateur Hockey League the next year. In 1934, he became the vice-president of the Metropolitan Amateur Hockey League, a post he held for eighteen years. In 1935, he also became the president of the EAHL.

Lockhart held a number of other leadership roles in American ice hockey over the ensuing years, including organizer and founding president of the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States in 1937, which was renamed USA Hockey in 1991, and the business manager of the New York Rangers for six years in the 1950s. He also served on the U.S. Olympic Committee and the council of the International Ice Hockey Federation in 1965.