Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author
It’s the autumn of 1969, and Bruce Landon is on his strategy to town that may grow to be his hockey house for a lot of the subsequent half-century.
Change had began to comb throughout minor-league hockey, a difficult trade in the most effective of instances. A lot extra of that may comply with within the ensuing a long time.
However again in 1969, the Los Angeles Kings – two years faraway from their growth season within the Nationwide Hockey League – have been placing in vital effort to construct out a stable improvement program. That they had bought the Springfield Indians AHL franchise from Eddie Shore in 1967, given their new AHL affiliate the identical Kings moniker, and clad the staff within the group’s purple-and-gold colours.
Landon, a local of Kingston, Ont., and Los Angeles’s fourth-round choice within the 1969 NHL Beginner Draft, headed to Massachusetts to start his professional profession within the AHL’s capital metropolis.
These have been increase instances for the AHL after former Indians normal supervisor Jack Butterfield had been appointed president of the league in 1966. With the NHL having added six growth groups in 1967, participant jobs have been sprouting throughout hockey. NHL-AHL affiliations continued to tackle a way more structured look than previously. With the NHL and AHL maps rising, and the World Hockey Affiliation’s debut solely three years away, it was an excellent time to be a participant.
Landon had simply turned 20 when the Springfield Kings opened their 1969-70 season in opposition to the visiting Baltimore Clippers on Oct. 10, 1969, when he made 31 saves in a 6-0 shutout in his first skilled begin. He went on to play 45 video games and helped the Kings attain the Calder Cup Finals.
A 12 months later, future Hockey Corridor of Fame member Billy Smith confirmed up in Springfield for his personal rookie season. Landon was restricted to fifteen appearances as Smith backstopped the Kings to a Calder Cup title. Following his third season in Springfield, Landon took an opportunity on the WHA and signed a take care of the New England Whalers,
By now 23 years outdated, Landon took an opportunity on the WHA earlier than the 1972-73 marketing campaign. He signed a take care of the New England Whalers, first enjoying out of Boston after which briefly in Springfield earlier than the staff settled into the Hartford Civic Heart in 1975.
However Landon’s street finally took him again to Springfield. Following 5 years with the Whalers, Landon returned to a different-looking AHL. Shore had re-acquired his franchise and restored the Indians identify. However that early-1970’s development for the AHL had stalled; after dipping to 6 groups for the 1976-77 marketing campaign – halved from 12 groups simply three years earlier – the league discovered itself preventing for its personal survival.
Landon performed 14 video games for the Indians in 1977-78 earlier than a knee harm pressured him to retire at age 28.
With a household to help, what now? He was a hockey participant. However now he was a hockey participant who wanted a job.
So when proprietor George Leary, who bought the membership from Shore in 1976, supplied Landon a job, the hockey participant placed on a swimsuit and tie and went to work within the entrance workplace. Again then, working an AHL staff was one thing rather more akin to a mom-and-pop operation. It was in these circumstances that Landon started this new profession. He nonetheless labored in hockey, however that was about all that remained the identical for him.
“It was learn-as-you-go,” mentioned Landon, who took the job with none business-side or advertising and marketing background. Leary wished him to tackle group gross sales, so Landon did that. Like everybody round him – in Springfield, the league workplace, and throughout the AHL map – it was a do-what-had-to-be-done existence.
“They have been capable of survive the turmoil,” Landon mentioned of the AHL of the time. “The league was capable of survive and got here out of it.”
Landon discovered the enterprise aspect shortly, be it gross sales, advertising and marketing or public relations. In 1980, he received the Ken McKenzie Award from the AHL for excellent promotion of his staff. And when staff broadcaster Peter Cooney purchased the franchise from Leary in 1982, he put in Landon because the staff’s normal supervisor.
Whereas the AHL started to develop once more, the Indians solid a number of completely different NHL affiliations through the 1980’s, all secured and nurtured by Landon. The AHL acknowledged him once more with the James C. Hendy Memorial Award because the league’s excellent govt in 1989. The Calder Cup returned to Springfield because the staff received back-to-back Calder Cup titles in 1990 and 1991, doing so beneath two completely different NHL associates within the New York Islanders and the Hartford Whalers.
“I loved it a lot,” Landon mentioned of studying your entire enterprise. “I can actually say there wasn’t someday, not someday in my entire profession, that I regretted going into work or thought I had made the fallacious resolution. I believe when you might have a ardour for it – and I actually did – it turns into a lot simpler. I used to be capable of develop into the position.”
However extra challenges have been to come back. In 1994, Cooney offered the Indians to a bunch of buyers who would relocate the franchise to Worcester, Mass. An AHL mainstay for many years, Springfield out of the blue had an unsure hockey future.
Landon and his former Springfield teammate Wayne LaChance moved shortly. They put collectively a bunch inside two weeks and landed an growth franchise, the Springfield Falcons, in time for the 1994-95 season. Landon was now within the proprietor’s seat. He had folks to lean on for recommendation, reminiscent of new league president Dave Andrews, Syracuse Crunch proprietor Howard Dolgon and Hershey Bears GM Doug Yingst. Bob Oliver was Landon’s “right-hand man,” beginning as workplace supervisor and finally turning into senior vp and chief monetary officer.
The challenges not often eased, nonetheless. The Falcons had affiliation agreements with the Hartford Whalers, Winnipeg Jets/Phoenix Coyotes, Tampa Bay Lightning, Edmonton Oilers and Columbus Blue Jackets over the subsequent 20 years. Landon, additionally serving because the staff’s president and normal supervisor, needed to preserve the enterprise aspect of the operation going even because the Falcons struggled on the ice. He remained a part of a brand new possession group that took over in 2002, then facilitated a sale to Charles Pompea in 2010 with the dedication to maintain the staff in Springfield. However the Falcons went 9 seasons with out qualifying for the Calder Cup Playoffs.
Though Landon stored the enterprise going, dropping takes a toll on any group. In February 2014, a 64-year-old Landon determined it was time to scale back his workload, transitioning from staff president to an advisory position. And it was on this capability that he helped save hockey within the metropolis as soon as extra, offering steering to deliver a bunch of native homeowners collectively to launch the Springfield Thunderbirds within the spring of 2016.
Landon has been enshrined within the AHL Corridor of Fame, the Massachusetts Hockey Corridor of Fame and the Kingston & District Sports activities Corridor of Fame. The road exterior the primary entrance of the MassMutual Heart is now known as Bruce Landon Manner. And starting subsequent spring, the AHL Board of Governors will acknowledge the work of 1 excellent hockey govt with the Bruce Landon Award, honoring a person whose profession within the league spanned 48 years.
“I’m very, very appreciative of the Board of Governors to go ahead with one thing like this… I’m very honored, very humbled,” Landon mentioned. “It’s one thing I’m very pleased with.”
In Springfield, the place Thunderbirds president Nathan Costa is following the trail worn by Landon to determine a robust enterprise basis and entrance workplace, the membership has seen a rise in attendance yearly since becoming a member of the AHL. They reached the Calder Cup Finals in 2022, and just lately locked up a long-term affiliation with the St. Louis Blues.
“I believe that’s what makes me smile,” Landon mentioned, “understanding [we] weathered a variety of powerful years. I used to be a part of the nice years and a few unhealthy years, however via the tip of it we have been capable of guarantee that it stayed right here. I can look again and say ‘mission completed.’
“The staff’s right here, the staff’s doing nice, and I could be pleased with the truth that I performed an element, a minimum of, ensuring it stayed right here.”
Extra time along with his spouse, Marcia, and his household – plus a little bit of golf and house responsibilities – beckoned as a substitute.
Hockey in Springfield was protected.
On the American Hockey League beat for 20 years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally at the moment covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a daily contributor on SiriusXM NHL Community Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his excellent protection of the league in 2016.
