Harkness to be Enshrined in Phantoms' Hall of Fame

GLENS FALLS, NY – The Adirondack Phantoms, proud AHL affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers, announced today the four members of the inaugural 2010 class of the Adirondack Hockey Hall of Fame, presented by Glens Falls National Bank. Among the inductees is legendary coach Ned Harkness.

Selected by the Adirondack Hockey Hall of Fame Selection Committee, the 2010 inductees also include Bill Dineen, Greg Joly and Glenn Merkosky.

“The selections for the inaugural class of the Adirondack Hockey Hall of Fame demonstrate the quality of hockey in this region over the past thirty years,” said Mike Thompson, Phantoms Vice President of Business Operations. “These four gentlemen have made significant contributions to this community’s proud hockey tradition. With the assistance of the great fans in this area, the Hall of Fame Selection Committee’s job was fairly easy. I think the fans will agree these selections are appropriate for the 2010 Inaugural Class.”

The Class of 2010 will be honored when the Adirondack Hockey Hall of Fame, presented by Glens Falls National Bank is officially unveiled during Hall of Fame Weekend, March 12-14, at the Glens Falls Civic Center.

NED HARKNESS

Nevin D. “Ned” Harkness was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and in the course of a long and storied career in hockey as a coach, general manager and executive he was directly involved in the construction of the Glens Falls Civic Center and helped found the Adirondack Red Wings of the American Hockey League, serving as the team’s first general manager and sparking a 20-year AHL dynasty in Upstate New York.

Harkness will forever be remembered as one of the key members in bringing AHL hockey to Glens Falls, NY. He became the director of the Glens Falls Civic Center in 1979 and supervised its construction, before establishing the Red Wings for their inaugural season, 1979-80, as the top minor-league affiliate of the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings. For his immense contributions in getting Adirondack off the ground Harkness was named the 1980 AHL Executive of the Year. In perhaps the ultimate sign of his accomplishments in the region, the Red Wings would capture the 1980-81 Calder Cup Championship, defeating the Maine Mariners four games to two, in his hometown, in the building he helped construct. Harkness served as the Red Wings’ general manager for three seasons (1979-82) and in 1982 he was appointed the president and CEO of the U.S. Regional Development Authority, in charge of managing the Olympic facilities in Lake Placid, NY, a position he held until retiring in 1993.

Harkness is perhaps best known for his incredible NCAA career as a head coach for the men’s ice hockey programs at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY, Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and Union College in Schenectady, NY. He ranks second All-Time amongst NCAA Division I coaches with a winning percentage of 0.740, posting a career NCAA record of 384-131-11 in 526 games over 24 seasons. Harkness began his extraordinary career by restarting the hockey program at RPI in the 1949-50 season. In 14 years (1949-1963) behind the bench for the Engineers he had a record of 176-96-7, winning three regular season conference titles, making three NCAA Tournament appearances and leading RPI the 1954 National Championship, the first in school history. Harkness moved on to become the men’s hockey coach at Cornell University in 1963-64 and over the next seven seasons he turned the Big Red into a national Division I powerhouse. In seven years as Cornell’s head coach he posted a record of 163-27-2, an astonishing 0.854 winning percentage, and winning NCAA championships in 1967 and 1970, while finishing as the runner up in 1969 and third in 1968. During that run the Big Red won five Ivy League titles and four Eastern regional championships. The 1970 NCAA Champion team had a perfect 29-0-0 record, setting NCAA marks for the best single-season winning percentage (1.000) and as the only team in the modern era to be undefeated and untied. His 1967 title-winning squad was led by Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Ken Dryden and Harkness was named the American Hockey Coaches Association (AHCA) Coach of the Year in 1968. His last college coaching job was at Union College in Schenectady, NY where he founded the schools hockey program and went 45-8-2 in three years (1975-78), before moving back to Glens Falls and beginning the steps toward creating the Adirondack Red Wings.

Not just a college hockey coach, Harkness was an outstanding lacrosse coach as well. As RPI’s lacrosse coach he was named the U.S. Lacrosse Coach of the Year in 1951 and he led the Engineers to the 1952 NCAA National Championship in lacrosse; two years later when RPI won its first hockey crown (1954) he became the first coach in NCAA history to win national championships in two different sports. He also coached lacrosse at Cornell from 1966-1968, helping the Big Red win back-to-back Ivy League titles and in 2001 he was inducted into the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

Harkness was hired as the head coach of the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings in 1970-71, but was replaced after 38 games, instead becoming the team’s general manager for the rest of the season; he would hold that position for four more years (1971-75). He was inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame in 1993, the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, MN in 1994, while also being a member of the Cornell Hall of Fame, the RPI Athletics Hall of Fame and Rensselaer Hockey Ring of Honor in 2007.

Born in Ottawa, Harkness was still a young boy when his family moved to Glens Falls. He attended Glens Falls Academy and Glens Falls High School, although he graduated from Worcester Academy in Worcester, MA in 1939. He went to college at the Royal Canadian Air Force Academy and served in World War II in the Canadian Air Force from 1943-45, where he flew in 39 successful bombardier missions in Europe. In 1949 he became a naturalized U.S. citizen, less than one year before he became RPI’s hockey coach. He passed away on September 19, 2008, his 89th birthday, at his home in Rochester, NY.