Sportsman and Manager
According to Gardens' owner Conn Smythe, Hewitt didn't make a smooth transition into his job as attractions manager, and after about a year was given other duties. Hewitt, however, would work at the Gardens for more than 30 years.
For 58 years, he served as secretary of the Ontario Hockey Association, taking the position on what was supposed to be a temporary basis in 1903, and holding it until stepping down in 1966 when he was in his mid-80s. He also served as an officer of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association between 1915 and 1961.
Hewitt was honorary team manager of three consecutive Olympic gold medal winning hockey teams, the Winnipeg Falcons (1920), Toronto Granites (1924), and Toronto Varsity Grads (1928). He was also referee of the first Olympic hockey game, Sweden's 8-0 victory over Belgium at the 1920 Olympic Games. In 1924, he lost a coin toss to American William S. Haddock to determine who would be second vice-president of the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Hewitt became manager of the Argonaut football team in 1905 and in 1907 helped form the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union, known as the Big Four and comprising the top two teams from the Ontario and Quebec leagues. It would eventually evolve into the eastern division of the Canadian Football League. He served as president of the Canadian Rugby Union in 1918-1919.
Hewitt also had a long involvement with horse racing. In the early years of the 20th century, he arranged discount prices for train rides from Toronto to the race track at Fort Erie, Ontario that drew hundreds of passengers and ran daily, at their peak. Starting in 1917, he was a track steward, and in 1937 became presiding steward on the Incorporated Canadian Racing Association. Hewitt held that position until the ICRA was replaced by the Ontario Racing Commission in 1951. He then served as a senior official of the ORC until his retirement.
Read more about this topic: W. A. Hewitt
Famous quotes containing the word manager:
“Nothing could his enemies do but it rebounded to his infinite advantage,—that is, to the advantage of his cause.... No theatrical manager could have arranged things so wisely to give effect to his behavior and words. And who, think you, was the manager? Who placed the slave-woman and her child, whom he stooped to kiss for a symbol, between his prison and the gallows?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)