Belisle among Mount luminaries entering Hall
jbaker@pawtuckettimes.com
LINCOLN – Lou Pieri couldn’t even fathom how his grandfather, the late Louis A.R. Pieri, would have reacted if he had been alive to attend the inaugural Rhode Island Hockey Hall of Fame induction ceremony, held Thursday night at the Twin River Event Center.
“He had a tremendous career,” the grandson Louis A. Pieri Jr. remembered. “He loved Rhode Island, the Reds and hockey, and now he’s being (memorialized) like this. It’s an incredible honor. I don’t know how he would have reacted.”
Just as incredible is how Pieri became involved in hockey, he stated, then became an Ocean State hockey legend.
“It’s an interesting story,” Pieri Jr. began. “He grew up in Franklin, Mass., then went to Dean Academy, which at that time wasn’t even close to being Dean Junior College. After that, he went to Brown and played football, and actually was a player/ coach for the Brown varsity basketball team.
After receiving his degree in 1920, “he became a teacher and the head football coach at Central Falls High School, and a few years later – he was still a young man – he started up a small sporting goods store as a side ight.
“He found it strange, but he wasn’t selling much hockey equipment in the mid-1920s, so he decided to rent some ice time at the R.I. Auditorium,” he added. “It didn’t take long for him to address some issues he had with how the old auditorium was being run at the time, so he requested a meeting with the board of directors.
“Apparently, he expressed his concerns, and the board asked him to leave the meeting and wait outside. When they invited him back in, they asked him to be the new arena manager. Two years later, he bought into a portion of the old ‘aud’ and, three years after that, he owned the whole place, not to mention the Reds.”
Pieri Jr. insisted his grandpa never coached the professional organization in Providence, but did say this in jest: “Some of his general managers and head coaches, I’m sure, thought he was trying to do their jobs, too. At the same time, he did have really smart hockey guys running the operation. He just ran the business side.”
He admitted being “floored” when his sister, Susan (Pieri) Kinnane, called him at his home in Jefferson, Maine to inform the family their grandfather had been chosen one of the Class of 2018’s 16 members.
“Vin Cimini called her to let her know, and I couldn’t believe it, but I was so pleased,” Pieri Jr. said. “I told her, ‘Sue, that’s wonderful.’ To think he’s been gone over 50 years, and that the state of Rhode Island still thinks of him so fondly to put him in the hall, it was amazing.”
According to Jeffrey Azize, one of his great-grandchildren, he and six other Kinnane cousins are currently in the process of assembling a documentary on the late Pieri’s life and career. The film company’s name, appropriately enough, is “Kinnane Brothers.
The list of inductees happens to include a “Who’s Who” of R.I. ice legends, and Pieri is almost certainly the eldest. Among the others: Record-setting Mount St. Charles head coach Bill Belisle; Curt Bennett (first American to register 30-plus goals in the NHL); Harvey Bennett Sr. (paced the Reds to Calder Cup wins in 1949 and 1956); Bryan Berard (MSC star who was chosen first in the 1995 NHL Draft); and Pawtucket’s own Keith Carney, another Belisle disciple who played in 1,048 career pro games.
Others included Harvard All-American Joe Cavanagh; 1998 USA Olympic women’s gold medalist Sara DeCosta-Hayes; fellow Olympian Cammi Granato; Lou Lamoriello; Mount’s Brian Lawton; Dick Rondeau; MSC grad and 20-year NHL veteran defenseman Mathieu Schneider; Chris Terreri; Zellio Toppazzini (voted the greatest Reds player in history); and Ron Wilson.
Carney, now 48 and a resident of Paradise Valley, Ariz., mentioned he found out about the laurel by mail back in June.
“I received a letter from Vin Cimini, and he followed that up with a phone call,” he said, surrounded by his father Jack, his brothers and a bevy of other joyous family members. “My reaction, simply, was ‘Wow!’ I didn’t know that the state of Rhode Island had such a thing, but I was really excited that someone decided to take the lead to honor the rich hockey tradition it has.
“But when I saw the list of inductees, and I saw my name listed along with all of these legends, and I was, like, ‘What?’ There was Bill Belisle and Lou Lamoriello and Curt Bennett and ohers who had done so much for hockey, it was kind of mind-blowing.
“The way I look at it, I was born in Rhode Island (Pawtucket), went to Mount, the University of Maine and was drafted by Buffalo, so I’m a native son, but this? These people have accomplished so much and we’re all from the same state. Still, I am so honored that someone equate my name with all of these people.
“It’s unbelievable.”
For the elder Belisle, the Mountie mentor who directed so many of the high school, collegiate and professional best for decades, it was a time to reflect and take pride in the program he build at the Mount.
“This is first class, and I mean first class,” he grinned while his four sons and several of his 11 grandchildren celebrated the fete surrounding him. “This (event) is so well put together. I haven’t seen some of these people in years, and it’s a joy. Some of my former players are coming in here with their kids, and they all came up to me to say, ‘Hello’ and ‘Congratulations,’ and that’s a thrill.
“I’ll tell you, it almost made me cry,” he continued. “I’m so proud of what they all accomplished. They were all good hockey players, but also good students and kids. They all came from good, upstanding families; I could tell that by their character.
“I was the recipient of a lot of parents handing over to me well-behaved sons who worked hard and wanted to succeed.”