SPRINGFIELD, Mass. … The American Hockey League is happy to announce the creation of the Bruce Landon Award, to be offered yearly starting this season to an impressive hockey operations govt as chosen by the League’s Board of Governors.
This new award honors the person who was a mainstay within the American Hockey League for almost half a century and is taken into account by many to be synonymous with hockey in Springfield, Massachusetts. Bruce Landon was drafted as a goaltender by the Los Angeles Kings in 1969 and joined their AHL affiliate in Springfield that fall, serving to the membership win a Calder Cup championship in 1971. He performed 5 seasons with the New England Whalers within the WHA earlier than returning to Springfield in 1977, however a knee damage pressured him to retire that December on the age of 28.
Landon instantly took a advertising and marketing and public relations place within the Springfield Indians’ entrance workplace, and he was named basic supervisor in 1982. He guided the crew’s back-to-back Calder Cup championships in 1990 and 1991, an much more spectacular feat contemplating the titles had been gained with two completely different NHL associates (New York Islanders, Hartford Whalers).
In 1994, with the Indians relocating to Worcester, Landon helped set up a bunch of buyers and bought an enlargement franchise to maintain the American Hockey League in Springfield. He served as president and GM of the Springfield Falcons from their inception in 1994 till stepping down in 2014, and was the membership’s director of hockey operations till 2016. He additionally spent the 2016-17 season as an advisor with the Springfield Thunderbirds.
A 2016 inductee into the AHL Corridor of Fame, Landon has been honored with the AHL’s Ken McKenzie Award for excellent promotion of his membership (1980); the James C. Hendy Memorial Award because the league’s excellent govt (1989); the Thomas Ebright Award for profession contributions (2002); and induction within the AHL Corridor of Fame (2016).
With the creation of the Bruce Landon Award, the AHL has redefined the factors for the James C. Hendy Memorial Award, which can now be offered yearly for excellent achievements by a enterprise operations govt.
