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Captain James T. Sutherland of Kingston served Canada in the First World War and brought his fighting spirit to the task of establishing a hockey hall of fame in his hometown. He advocated Kingston as the birthplace of our game, believing that the limestone city was the site of the first organized game of hockey played between Queen’s University and Royal Military College in 1886.

The original Hockey Hall of Fame was founded by the NHL and the CAHA in Kingston in 1943, almost 20 years before the opening of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in Toronto, but a shrine was not erected until 1965 after years of debate. Capt. Sutherland did not live to see the doors open, but his passion for the game’s heritage and his dedicated service as hockey’s ambassador to the world lives on. Plans have been made to move the original hall to new quarters in downtown Kingston, presided over by the spirit of Capt. James Sutherland.

Bill Fitsell may be the foremost hockey historian, the former curator of the International Hockey Hall of Fame, and the first president of the Society for International Hockey Research.