Art Potter

Arthur Thomas Potter (August 8, 1909January 19, 1998) was a Canadian ice hockey administrator.

Arthur Thomas Potter was born on August 8, 1909, in Ramsgate, Kent, England.

He was the youngest of five children to Annie and George Potter, the latter who worked as a blacksmith.

They departed Liverpool aboard SS Laurentic on April 30, immigrated to Canada at Quebec City on May 8, 1910, then settled in Edmonton, Alberta.

As an 18-year-old in 1927, Potter began coaching the Edmonton Elites junior ice hockey team.

He also volunteered as a convenor for the Edmonton Junior Hockey League in which the team played.

During three seasons in the league, the Elites won the city's playoffs championship in 1928, and were playoffs finalists in 1927 and 1929.

For five seasons from 1929 to 1933, Potter managed the Edmonton Poolers while Barney Stanley coached the team.

Their team included future National Hockey League (NHL) players Mac Colville, Neil Colville, Louis Trudel and Art Wiebe; and won the juvenile age group championship for minor ice hockey in Alberta in 1930.

The age groups played all of their games on outdoor ice rinks, had grown to exceed 200 players by 1941, and Potter hoped to further expand the groups be encouraging participation from the towns surrounding Edmonton.

Potter remained involved as the director for the midget and juvenile age groups in Edmonton, and served continuously in the role until the 1942–43 season.

Potter was an executive for the Alberta Amateur Hockey Association from 1943 to 1959, including seven years as vice-president and four years as president.

He was known as "Mr. Hockey" in Edmonton, where he was a lifelong volunteer to organize minor ice hockey, which included serving as president of the Edmonton and District Hockey Association.

He was elected to four terms as chairman of the Edmonton Recreation Board, assisted in the planning and construction of the South Edmonton Sports Centre, and was inducted into the Edmonton Sports Hall of Fame.

Potter was elected vice-president of the Edmonton and District Hockey Association (EDHA) in October 1943, then served as its president for four seasons beginning in October 1944.

The EDHA grew to include teams from Red Deer in junior hockey, and expanded its minor hockey program to include a bantam age group.

Potter and the EDHA sought to have a greater influence on hockey in Alberta, and perceived a lack of organization of hockey in Southern Alberta due to the failure to meet deadlines for provincial playoffs.

Potter was named a director of the Edmonton Junior Hockey League for the 1945–46 season.

He and fellow league executives hired local baseball executive John Ducey as a public relations director to promote junior hockey when senior ice hockey was growing in Edmonton.

The junior league suspended operations after the season, and the EDHA established a new city league including a combination of senior, intermediate and junior hockey teams.

Potter sat on a committee to establish a sports and recreation council for Edmonton, and felt the proposed body should aim to support and promote sports organizations rather than be simply a neutral administration.

The council supported a proposal for a C$100,000 artificial ice rink for minor ice hockey, and Potter sat on the committee to have the facility designed and built.

He retired as EDHA president in September 1948 to focus on organizing hockey at the provincial level.

Potter was elected vice-president of the Alberta Amateur Hockey Association (AAHA) in May 1948.

Potter led initiatives to organize the Northern Alberta Intermediate Hockey League in 1948, and became secretary of the Western Canada intermediate hockey committee to organize inter-provincial playoffs.

At the 1949 general meeting, the AAHA contemplated combining the best players from the Edmonton Junior Hockey League into a Western Canada Junior Hockey League (WCJHL) team.

An Edmonton team was formed for the 1950–51 season, but was denied entry since the WCJHL had already made its schedule.

In response, the AAHA threatened not to sanction the other four Alberta-based teams in the league, but recanted and sought exhibition games for the Edmonton team.

When players from Edmonton were added to the rosters of WCJHL teams, Potter stated that the players had not been released and faced suspension for not honouring commitments.

After the players returned, Potter announced the team would be known as the Edmonton Oil Kings and play an exhibition schedule versus WCJHL teams.

Intermediate hockey teams in Alberta included the Edmonton Mercurys who won the 1950 Ice Hockey World Championships, and the Lethbridge Maple Leafs who won the 1951 Ice Hockey World Championships.

Potter chaired the committee that organized the victory parade in Edmonton for the Mercurys.

The AAHA sought to increase registration in minor hockey and began paying the travel costs for teams during provincial playoffs, and reached its greatest number of players registered by the 1952–53 season.

He served seven one-year terms until 1955; and oversaw the Northern Alberta playoffs each season for intermediate level senior hockey, and the bantam, midget, juvenile age groups in minor hockey.

He was president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) from 1962 to 1964, and oversaw the establishment of a permanent Canada men's national ice hockey team after he decided that sending the reigning Allan Cup champion to international competitions was no longer the answer.

He felt that Canada needed discipline to handle Cold War tactics and propaganda at the Ice Hockey World Championships, sought to give its best players to develop as a team, and supported a plan by Father David Bauer to assemble a team of amateur student athletes to complete at the 1964 Winter Olympics.

Potter was against the increasing influence of the National Hockey League (NHL) into amateur hockey, and blamed minor league professional teams for the decline the senior ice hockey and loss of prestige for the Allan Cup.

He wanted to keep players in junior ice hockey as long as possible, and favoured the revised NHL Amateur Draft agreement to financially support junior hockey which ended the direct sponsorship of teams by the NHL.

He had multiple disagreements with coach Hap Emms during two Memorial Cup finals, suspended radio announcers for comments that he felt were detrimental to the game, sought rules to sanction teams and individuals who abused on-ice officials or the CAHA, and advocated using a three-man officiating system to reduce incidents.

He received the Canadian Centennial Medal in 1967, was inducted into the builder category of the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame in 1968, and was part of the inaugural class of inductees into the Alberta Hockey Hall of Fame in 1982.