Remembering Henry Brabham

Seven years before he became ECHL Commissioner for the League’s inaugural season in 1988-89, Pat Kelly had his first meeting with Henry Brabham.

Brabham, who passed away on March 30 at the age of 90, co-founded the ECHL with Bill Coffey in the summer of 1988.

“The first time I ever met Henry, I was coaching the Salem Raiders in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League,” Kelly said. “We came back from a road trip one night and we couldn’t get in the dressing room, everything was locked. The next morning I drove down to the arena and I saw Jack Dame, who was the general manager of the building. He told me that we were out of business, the guys who owned the team folded the team yesterday afternoon. But he told me not to do anything yet, so we waited a couple days, I convinced the players to stick around and we found out that Mr. Brabham bought the team.

“A few days later, Henry got a hold of me to introduce himself and he said he wanted to get a team picture, with him and the other new owners,” Kelly continued. “I said we will practice in the morning, get all of the guys to get their uniforms on with their game sweaters and you guys come on over. So over he comes, he’s out on the ice he has a puck and a hockey stick and he’s shooting pucks at the goalie and told him, 'Henry, you’re going to fall down out there, you better be careful.' A few minutes later, someone grabbed me and told me I had a phone call, so I told the photographer to hold on a moment, let me go take this call, I’ll be right back. I wasn’t in the office a few minutes and in comes one of the players and he says, ‘Coach, Mr. Brabham just fell on his face, he broke his nose and he has a big cut on his forehead.’ I go out there and sure enough, he’s sitting on the ice, there’s blood down his face, and I said, ‘What did I tell you Mr. Brabham?’ So we got an ambulance to take him to the hospital. So, that was the first time I ever met the gentleman, and he was definitely a character.”

For a person who grew up on a cotton farm in Columbia, South Carolina in the 1930s, Brabham went on to have a long involvement in the game of hockey.

Brabham fell in love with the sport while living in Greensboro, North Carolina in the 1960s, where the Generals featured a standout defenseman. Pat Kelly.

“He told me later he watched me play in Greensboro in the 1960s and that’s where he developed a passion for the game,” Kelly said.

Shortly after relocating from Greensboro to Vinton, Virginia, Brabham began his hands-on involvement in hockey when he purchased the Salem Rebels in the Eastern Hockey League.

Brabham went on to own the Raiders and the Virginia Lancers, and in the summer of 1988, teamed with Bill Coffey to form the ECHL. Brabham owned three of the league’s original five teams – Virginia, Johnstown and Erie – and helped secure a team in Knoxville as well.

“He owned three of the five teams, and he signed the lease for the Knoxville Cherokees, so he really owned four teams, because if he hadn’t signed that lease, they wouldn’t have been playing,” Kelly said. “Not one time did he ever try to influence me or anyone else to help his teams win anything. He didn’t try to trade players to each other or anything like that. He was all for the league, he wanted it to be successful, which it was.”

To say the ECHL was a success would be an understatement. The League quickly grew to eight teams for its second season, 11 teams for its third season and 15 teams by season four. Kelly believes the big turning point came in 1995-96, when the ECHL entered new markets in the southeastern United States.

“We took off from five teams to eight, then 11, and got to 15, and then every year after that we added teams here and there,” he said. “We went back into a lot of old cities at first, and when we really hit it big is when we added all of those teams along the I-10 corridor, Tallahassee, Mobile, Louisiana and all of those new, hockey markets. It was like a division all by itself.”

Brabham ended his direct involvement in the League following the 1992-93 season when he sold his interest in the Johnstown Chiefs to a local group. But, his name lives on with the Henry J. Brabham Cup, which is presented each season to the regular-season champion. However, that wasn’t Kelly’s initial plan.

“We needed a Cup, and I told Henry that I was going to name the playoff championship cup after him,” Kelly recalled. “He said he didn’t want the playoff championship, he wanted the league championship cup. I asked him why and he said, (in the League’s first season) you only have to win two series to win the playoff championship. I want something that you have to win 60 games for to win the cup. So I said, all right, I’ll name the regular-season championship cup after you, and we ended up naming the playoff champion for Jack Riley, who was a big name in hockey at the time.”

Brabham got to enjoy one last interaction with “his” Cup prior to his death, as it was the centerpiece of his 90th birthday celebration last April. Kelly himself had the honor of delivering the trophy to Brabham’s residence.

“When I walked in his bedroom with the Brabham Cup, it was unbelievable,” Kelly said. “I thought he was coming right out of the bed, but he was all hooked up, and he was crying like a baby. He told me afterwards that it was the best birthday party and present he had ever had in his life. That made his life, to see that. When (his wife) Sarah called me and told me about his passing, she said at least he had one more chance with hockey with the Cup in his bedroom with him.”

Anyone who has been associated with the ECHL over the last 32 years certainly owes a debt of gratitude to Brabham and Coffey for the foresight they envisioned back in the summer of 1988.

“Mr. Brabham has done so much for hockey, not just hockey itself, but for people’s careers, that’s what I always told him,” Kelly said. “Without him, all of those people who left our league and moved on to the American Hockey League and National Hockey League wouldn’t have had that opportunity. He felt very proud of himself that he was a part of their lives.”

And perhaps, no one has had a better ride as a result of the dream of the ECHL than Kelly himself.

“The ECHL has been such a big part of my life,” he said. “Henry gave me the job as Commissioner and from that day we became friends. He really just loved the game and enjoyed being around hockey. I am forever thankful to him and Bill Coffey for putting this league together since it’s been such a big part of my life for the last 32 years.”