THE PROJECT
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OUR COMMITTEE

We had 21 members of the committee. The major advantage our committee had over other selection committees is that we represented every major hockey playing area, with an age range from 28 to 63.

Said committee member Keith Lenn, "One would be hard-pressed to come up with a more knowledgeable and eclectic group of hockey historians, researchers, authors, collectors, statisticians, scouts, and fans than our committee of twenty-one. I will be as bold to say that the overall knowledge base of this group would rival, if not surpass, any collection of players (past or present), front-office personnel, and beat writers that one could muster up."

A wide diversity of background and credentials is what Committee Chair Morey Holzman was looking for.

"I would consider it an incredible day if four of the 16 members of the Hockey Hall of Fame committee in Toronto know why the Stanley Cup is engraved with PORTLAND, PCHA Champions, and why the owner of the Portland Rosebuds felt he could justify the engraving," Holzman said.

"Heck, I'd be impressed if four of them know who the owner of the Rosebuds was. Point being, they are not the most knowledgeable hockey people – just the best connected. Most of this committee could have answered that question before being appointed."

Here's who we are, and our qualifications:

CHIDLOVSKI, ARTHUR, 43.
Lives in Boston. Born in Moscow, U.S.S.R. and grew up rooting for the Soviet National Team. Immigrated to the United States in 1990. His background includes TV and film production, documentary filmmaking and professional web development. He authored several web-based projects about hockey history including The Summit in 1972, The Summit in 1974, Hockey CCCP International, and Hockey Retrospective.

DAVIS, LLOYD, 41.
Lives in Toronto. During his 10 years in publishing he has worked on books that run the gamut from gardening to investing to the Titanic. He has had a hand editing in such books as Total Hockey, Kings Of The Ice, Full Spectrum, Messier and Deceptions and Doublecross.

FITZSIMMONS, ERNIE, 66.
Lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The vice president of SIHR was a longtime hockey referee and statistician and media liaison for the Fredericton Express and Fredericton Canadiens AHL teams. Co-author of From Pond-to-Pro and Total Hockey, Ernie self-published his own book on Fredericton's history from 1895 to 1945. A collector of hockey photos, Ernie's collection of more than 20,000 photos resides at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, and is the driving force behind the SIHR hockey record database.

FYFFE, IAIN, 31.
Lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick. A chartered accountant who specializes in hockey's statistical analysis and historical data. He is the SIHR vice president for the Atlantic region and has published several articles in the Hockey Research Journal. He writes an online column at www.hockeyzoneplus.com and www.puckerings.com.

HOLLAND, DAVID*, 44.
Lives in Calgary, Alberta. A full-time environmental consultant and a spare-time hockey researcher, currently working on a publication about the history of the teams that have represented Canada at the World Hockey Championships.

HOLZMAN, MOREY, 43.
Lives in Escondido, California. Originally hails from Detroit. Co-author of Deceptions and Doublecross: How the NHL Conquered Hockey (Dundurn, 2002). Now an Enrolled Agent, the former journalist is a contributor to several books and the head of this committee.

HOUDA, PATRICK, 38.
Lives in Stockholm, Sweden. A long-time hockey researcher who once "bird-dogged" for the St. Louis Blues. Co-author of World Cup of Hockey (Warwick, 2002). Major contributor to Total Hockey, Total Hockey 2, and several NHL Official Record Books. Regular writer for European NHL magazine Pro Hockey.

JENNINGS, GORD, 66.
Lives in Plantagenet, Ontario. Originally hails from St. Catharines, Ontario. A former Montreal Canadiens season-ticket holder for ten years, Gord attended his first hockey game on January 10, 1950, a OHA junior contest between the Toronto Marlies and the St. Catharines TPs. He spends his time now collecting St. Cath memorabilia.

KASIOREK, JASON, 36.
Lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A life-long Red Wings fan and now a Griffins (AHL) season-ticket holder, the computer systems administrator writes scouting and game reports for www.redwingscentral.com. Jason also has a website tribute to the WHA's Edmonton Oilers at http://members.hockeyresearch.com/jkasiorek.

LENN, KEITH, 40.
Lives in Thiells, New York. A public school teacher and avid hockey memorabilia collector. His monthly column, "Penned by Lenn" appeared on the Professional Hockey Players' Association website, www.phpa.com. Keith also wrote and created HockeySandwich.com and actively involved in constructing the new VintageIceHockey.com site.

MATIC, ROB, 40.
Lives in London, Ontario. A Montreal Canadiens fan who grew up in Leafs' Country, Rob was our alternate voter in case someone missed an election. His vote counted almost every time.

NIEFORTH, JOSEPH, 44.
Lives in Toronto. Originally hails from Carroll's Corner, Nova Scotia. Co-author of Deceptions and Doublecross: How the NHL Conquered Hockey (Dundurn, 2002). Contributor to Total NHL, NHL Official Guide & Record Book and the Hockey Hall of Fame's website, legendsofhockey.net. Joe is SIHR's 2004 winner of the Brian MacFarlane Award for outstanding research.

PELLETIER, JOE, 33.
Lives in Northern British Columbia. Co-author of World Cup of Hockey (Warwick, 2002). Creator of 1972SummitSeries.com. Compiled several biographies of retired players with Patrick Houda for legendsovertime.com.

REIF, KARL-ERIC, 51.
Lives in Western New York. Co-author of five hockey books (with Jeff Z. Klein), including The Hockey Compendium and The Death of Hockey. A former sports writer and sports columnist for The Village Voice, The American and The Hockey News. Founder of the website Above and Beyond Hockey. Karl's work has also appeared in The New York Times, Sport, Inside Sports, and Goal.

ROBERTSON, LARRY, 59.
Lives in Burlington, Ontario. A former sports editor for three different Burlington newspapers, Larry has spent 35 years covering the NHL, OHA Senior A, Major Junior, and Tier II provincial juniors. Larry was the first person hired to be an assistant curator for Lefty Reid at the Hockey Hall of Fame when it was located on the CNE grounds. Larry co-wrote the first Hockey Heritage, published by the Hall of Fame in 1969. In addition to his love of hockey, he was the Chief Statistician Information Officer for the Canadian Football League from 1982 to 1992. Currently, he writes The Sports Page program insert for the AHL's Hamilton Tigers.

ROSENTHAL, HOWARD, 57.
Lives in Philadelphia. A Flyers fan since the team's inception in 1967. Wrote a weekly report during 1997-98 on the Flyers' AHL affiliate, the Philadelphia Phantoms, for In The Crease.

LARRY SEKULER, 55.
A former Winnipegger, Larry now resides in Mountain View, California, and is a former employee of the St. Louis Blues. A lifelong hockey fan, he has attended over 1,000 games at every level, and owns one of the world's largest hockey video collections. Larry has worked with the CBC on some of their hockey productions, and is scheduled to appear in the upcoming anthology series, "Hockey: A People's History."

STEWART-CANDY, DAVID*, 38. Lives in East Vancouver, British Columbia. Compiled the International Ice Hockey Almanac league-standings project. Has contributed to several books including Total Hockey and Deceptions and Doublecross: How the NHL Conquered Hockey, and to the independent hockey movie Rhino Brothers.

SWIFT, BILL, 59.
Lives in Connecticut. Tax attorney and hockey researcher has been a hockey fan since 1961. Amongst the games he attended were the Flyers' first home game in 1967, the game Red Berenson scored six goals, the game Guy Lafleur scored his 500th career goal, the first game of the Summit Series in 1972, Gordie Howe's last NHL game, all three games at Rendez-vous '87 and Challenge Cup '79.

TREMBLAY, SEBASTIEN, 33.
Lives in Ottawa. Raised in Quebec City. Hockey fan who grew up watching his hometown Quebec Nordiques and is a self-proclaimed addict of the art of goaltending.

UNDERWOOD, BILL, 45.
Lives in Philadelphia. Former NHL scout for the Quebec Nordiques and the head scout of the ill-fated Plattsburgh Pioneers of the QMJHL (don't look for their records, the QMJHL expunged them). A scout for more than 20 years, he has been head scout at major junior and minor pro level.

WYMAN, MIKE, 50.
Lives in Montreal. Originally from Arvida, Quebec. Lifelong hockey fan writes a history column called Old School for www.insidehockey.com. His work has also appeared in The Hockey News.

* former WWHOF Committe member

Universally, the committee anointed Arthur Chidlovski, the hockey fan who grew up in the Soviet Union, as the most influential member of the committee.

Bill Underwood, the former Nordique scout, spoke for the committee when he stated, "Arthur's anecdotes about the earlier Soviet players who I never had the pleasure of seeing and insights into the general attitudes in Soviet hockey from someone who grew up there were priceless!"

Karl-Eric Reif also praised the European content, as small as it was, on the committee. "Arthur Chidlovski's deep well of knowledge on Soviet hockey and Pat Houda's expertise on European hockey were often enlightening and thought-provoking. I was already eager to cast votes for some of the better-known Soviet and Czech players of the post-Summit-Series era, but they convinced me to add votes for a few lesser-known (to me and most of North America) Soviets, Czechs, and Scandinavians of the 1950s and '60s," Reif said.

Not that we always got along or played follow the leader. One heated discussion between Underwood and Iain Fyffe led Reif to send the following e-mail to Chair Morey Holzman, "Aw, c'mon ref. Let 'em go. C'mon ref."

Did we mention the Hanson Brothers received several votes as well?

By and large the committee was cohesive. We grew into a family, much the same way a Stanley Cup champion grows on their path. Away from the balloting, which took place twice a week for about 10 months, we had births, deaths, a wedding and business trips.

We started with 20 members for the 1945 ballot, and added an alternate in 1949, and didn't lose a single member after that. That dedication was shown most aptly by Bill Swift, the international tax attorney, who e-mailed his votes from Mexico City, Milan, London and Calais, France, amongst other places. Bill was one of three committee members who never missed a vote.