Frank Gallagher brought professional hockey to Flint and his 1968 dream continues to delight area hockey fans. He’s been gone from active ownership of the Flint Generals since 1975 but his legacy remains in the new Generals who play in a new United Hockey League.
His skill as an owner set the tone for an upsurge in the International Hockey League which usually struggled from year to year, once being reduced to two teams. Now the IHL is an 11-team circuit stretching from Florida to Manitoba and Detroit to Utah, expanding from the “bus league” of those early years to the present-day “airplane league.” The last franchise to be awarded cost $6 million. Gallagher paid $8,000 for the original Generals.
“I got out too soon,” he said with a laugh from his home in Deerfield Park, FL. Gallagher, who turned 86 in October, said, “Hockey was very good to me and the Flint fans were great. They supported a brand new team almost from the start, and they were behind us even when we struggled to become competitive. “We usually had a competitive team, but I regret being unable to give them a championship. They deserved it.”
He operated the Generals for six seasons until selling the franchise to a four-man Flint group, but remained as a consultant. Except for a brief term as interim commissioner, he remained when the franchise was shifted to Saginaw and continued until the club was sold to San Diego in 1990. Gallagher was one of several founders of the IHL at a meeting on Dec. 5, 1945 in Windsor, Ont. He was named assistant to Fred Huber, who was the IHL’s first managing director.
Huber also was public relations director for the Detroit Red Wings and enlisted Gallagher as team statistician. He tracked such items as shots on goal, face-offs won and lost, plus- minus numbers, etc. General Manager Jack Adams and Coach Tommy Ivan were the first to use such statistics to gauge players’ performances and Gallagher’s system spread to other National Hockey League cities. Ivan later became general manager of the Chicago Blackhawks and was Gallagher’s partner in owning the Generals.
Gallagher is receiving the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame Special Service Award for bringing the Generals to Flint and establishing high standards for organization and integrity. He gained experience as the general manager for Port Huron’s IHL debut in 1962, winning one regular-season championship and one Turner Cup in four seasons.
He left to bring the new Columbus franchise into the league and was assistant to the president at Muskegon for one year. When he learned of a new building in Flint, he secured the right of first refusal from the Industrial Mutual Association board. That became a key point when the arena construction was delayed by a building trades strike and the team, which was scheduled to begin play in 1968, was delayed a year. By then at least four other groups were seeking the franchise. Gallagher said, “The IMA people showed integrity by supporting me. They even gave me a job as commissioner of the youth hockey league”.
The first home game drew an encouraging 3,182 fans on Oct. 19, 1969. But the third game, on Halloween, lured only 1,484. The franchise took off after Christmas. Only eight of 36 games drew more than the 4,021 seating capacity but five of the last seven had standing room. That was the signal for the better. There was SRO for 3l of 39 games in 1970-71, including the last l8. Attendance for 1970-71 and 1971-72 averaged 4,174 or 103.6% of capacity. Attendance averaged 3,955 for 234 games in Gallagher’s six seasons.
Other IHL teams adopted his entrepreneurship out of envy. He said, “Considering the problems of playing during the winter and baffling possible bad weather, we did great and that’s a tribute to Flint fans.”
He sold the team because his wife, Marge, became ill and stayed in Florida much of the time. Gallagher said, “It didn’t make sense for me to be in Flint and Marge in Florida so we sold the franchise. Mrs. Gallagher, his wife of 50 years, died in 1990. Frank spends considerable time visiting with four sons and their families.
Gallagher’s association with hockey dates to the 1930s when he earned a letter at the old University of Detroit High. He lived in Windsor but crossed the Detroit River by ferry to attend school. When the present U-D High was built, he added bus travel to his itinerary until graduation. He attended Assumption College, now the University of Windsor, and played hockey with various amateur teams in the Detroit-Windsor area and held several jobs before hockey became a full-time endeavor.
The first IHL had two teams from Windsor and two from Detroit, all sponsored by businesses and playing on weekends. The first season consisted of 30 games, all in double-headers at Olympia Stadium before crowds sometimes in the 8,000-10,000 range. By 1946-47 the league had expanded to five teams playing 28 games. Within six years it had expanded to such points as Grand Rapids, Toledo and Sarnia with 56-game schedules. A major crisis struck in the summer of 1958 when Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis and Toledo abandoned their franchises, leaving only Troy, Ohio and Fort Wayne. Gallagher, who was league president and commissioner, said, “You can’t imagine how hard we worked that summer. We worked almost up to the start of the season but found new owners in Toledo, Louisville and Indianapolis.”
He was appointed the IHL’s first commissioner in 1952 and held that post until 1962, becoming full-time commissioner in 1959. During the 1950s he helped organize the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association and was elected a director of the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States, now known as USA Hockey. He has held several key posts, including vice president, second vice president and secretary. He was manager or business manager for five U.S. teams in international hockey, including three World Championships and the first Canada Cup tourney in 1976.
He was advisor to the 1980 U.S. Olympic team which won the gold medal. He recommended Buzz Schneider and Mike Eruzione of the IHL as potential players and Eruzione supported Gallagher’s recommendation by scoring the decisive goal against Russia.
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