A belated happy birthday...

One great thing about going to the Frozen Four and showing your colors is that you get into some great conversations with strangers. It happened all week, of course, but the last one surprised me. While waiting in line at the particularly slow airport check-in counter on the way out of St. Louis, the guy behind me noticed my CU Hockey hat and said, "hey, I've got a good piece of Cornell Hockey trivia that you probably don't know..." OK, I'm always interested in things like that. The question:

What was the significance of this past Friday, April 6?

I figured it couldn't be of one of our Championships, since the tournaments were played earlier back then...so I was pretty stumped.

Answer: it was the 50th anniversary of the dedication of Lynah Rink.

(It also happened to be the same day the airport trivia guy was born, so I guess that's how he knew.) I just verified it on a couple websites, and it's true. From the wikipedia entry:

It was constructed for $500,000 with a donation from Walter Carpenter whose gift came with the stipulation that he did not want his name on the building. The facility was designed by Van Storch, Evans, and Burkavage of Waverly, PA and constructed by Streeter Associates of Elmira, NY.


The rink opened on March 21, 1957 with a match between the New York Rangers (NHL) and the Rochester Americans (AHL) in front of 4200 spectators. It was subsequently dedicated on April 6, 1957 and named the James Lynah Skating Hall. The rink opened on March 21, 1957 with a match between the New York Rangers (NHL) and the Rochester Americans (AHL) in front of 4200 spectators. It was subsequently dedicated on April 6, 1957 and named the James Lynah Skating Hall.

I'd be interested in hearing any stories old timers who were present for that.

Happy birthday to one of my favorite places in the world. With a new face lift, I hope it gets to start its 2nd half-century with plenty of raucous celebrations.

How did we miss that?

RichH
Answer: it was the 50th anniversary of the dedication of Lynah Rink.

The rink opened on March 21, 1957 with a match between the New York Rangers (NHL) and the Rochester Americans (AHL) in front of 4200 spectators. It was subsequently dedicated on April 6, 1957 and named the James Lynah Skating Hall.

I'd be interested in hearing any stories old timers who were present for that.

Well, that lets Al and me out.

RichH
Happy birthday to one of my favorite places in the world. With a new face lift, I hope it gets to start its 2nd half-century with plenty of raucous celebrations.

I remember that at Lynah during the mini-celebration after beating Yale in the 2002 ECAC preliminaries I mentioned to my family that "There's no other place in the world I'd rather be." I was 50 myself at the time and don't remember ever having that thought before then about any other event/place.

My favorite spot on the map.

RichH
Answer: it was the 50th anniversary of the dedication of Lynah Rink.

(It also happened to be the same day the airport trivia guy was born, so I guess that's how he knew.) I just verified it on a couple websites, and it's true. From the wikipedia entry:

It was constructed for $500,000 with a donation from Walter Carpenter whose gift came with the stipulation that he did not want his name on the building. The facility was designed by Van Storch, Evans, and Burkavage of Waverly, PA and constructed by Streeter Associates of Elmira, NY.

Then again, I wrote that wikipedia entry so I hope you found confirmation elsewhere.

schoaff

RichH
Answer: it was the 50th anniversary of the dedication of Lynah Rink.

(It also happened to be the same day the airport trivia guy was born, so I guess that's how he knew.) I just verified it on a couple websites, and it's true. From the wikipedia entry:

It was constructed for $500,000 with a donation from Walter Carpenter whose gift came with the stipulation that he did not want his name on the building. The facility was designed by Van Storch, Evans, and Burkavage of Waverly, PA and constructed by Streeter Associates of Elmira, NY.

Then again, I wrote that wikipedia entry so I hope you found confirmation elsewhere.

Sure did. The following confirms the date:

[bigred2.athletics.cornell.edu]

And Adam & Arthur's book also has that information, which I'm going to assume was your source material for the wiki entry.

The Sun digitization project hasn't completed 1957 yet, but I found the following from June 8, 1956 that shows that the naming had been decided by the groundbreaking.

[cdsun.library.cornell.edu]

RichH
The Sun digitization project hasn't completed 1957 yet, but I found the following from June 8, 1956 that shows that the naming had been decided by the groundbreaking.

[cdsun.library.cornell.edu]

It's hard to believe that there was a benefactor in the mid 50's who gave $500,000 anonymously and didn't ask that it be named for him/her. I'd like to know who that was and let it be known that we still appreciate it.

My question, too. Someone here in the past 51 years must know the name of the benefactor. Lynah surely surpassed his / her wildest dreams! We'll do some behind-the-scenes investigating to see what can be found out. Quite a return on their investment. And 50 years later - the renovation worked hard to keep best of the original rink.

Jim Hyla

RichH
The Sun digitization project hasn't completed 1957 yet, but I found the following from June 8, 1956 that shows that the naming had been decided by the groundbreaking.

[cdsun.library.cornell.edu]

It's hard to believe that there was a benefactor in the mid 50's who gave $500,000 anonymously and didn't ask that it be named for him/her. I'd like to know who that was and let it be known that we still appreciate it.

The donor was Walter Carpenter.

KeithK

Jim Hyla

RichH
The Sun digitization project hasn't completed 1957 yet, but I found the following from June 8, 1956 that shows that the naming had been decided by the groundbreaking.

[cdsun.library.cornell.edu]

It's hard to believe that there was a benefactor in the mid 50's who gave $500,000 anonymously and didn't ask that it be named for him/her. I'd like to know who that was and let it be known that we still appreciate it.

The donor was Walter Carpenter.

I assume that's the same Walter Carpenter who donated the money for Carpenter hall, which opened the same year? Or did he and a relative double-team the Uni?

KeithK

Jim Hyla

RichH
The Sun digitization project hasn't completed 1957 yet, but I found the following from June 8, 1956 that shows that the naming had been decided by the groundbreaking.

[cdsun.library.cornell.edu]

It's hard to believe that there was a benefactor in the mid 50's who gave $500,000 anonymously and didn't ask that it be named for him/her. I'd like to know who that was and let it be known that we still appreciate it.

The donor was Walter Carpenter.

Thanks, where did you get the info/

Jim Hyla

KeithK

Jim Hyla

RichH
The Sun digitization project hasn't completed 1957 yet, but I found the following from June 8, 1956 that shows that the naming had been decided by the groundbreaking.

[cdsun.library.cornell.edu]

It's hard to believe that there was a benefactor in the mid 50's who gave $500,000 anonymously and didn't ask that it be named for him/her. I'd like to know who that was and let it be known that we still appreciate it.

The donor was Walter Carpenter.

Thanks, where did you get the info/

Well, the wikipedia entry that schoaff wrote and I referenced in the original post of this thread mentioned Walter Carpenter as the donor. But for a more concrete and researched reference, it's in the "Cornell University Hockey" book written by Adam Wodon and researched by Arthur Mintz. I'll quote from chapter 2 (page 19):

Then, at a Thanksgiving Day luncheon before the 1954 Cornell-Penn football game, alumnus Walter Carpenter told director of athletics Bob Kane that he might be interested in helping Cornell build a hockey rink. Carpenter was chairman of the DuPont Company and a 1910 graduate of Cornell. Several weeks of negotiations resulted in disappointment, however -- in the end it was decided that Carpenter's money would fund the costs of a new engineering library instead. But Carpenter was concerned about disappointing his old friend Kane, and shortly thereafter he arranged for the Carpenter Foundation to underwrite the costs of a new rink as well. The $500,000 donation was originally announced as an anonymous gift.

Apologies to Adam and Arthur for use without permission.

RichH

Apologies to Adam and Arthur for use without permission.

That's OK. We took the information from Bob Kane's book about Cornell athletics, "Good Sports".

... alumnus Walter Carpenter told director of athletics Bob Kane that he might be interested in helping Cornell build a hockey rink. Carpenter was chairman of the DuPont Company and a 1910 graduate of Cornell.

FWIW, Carpenter's service to Dupont spanned 80 years (wow!). It appears that he never actually graduated from Cornell. Carpenter's bio on the DuPont site states that he left school to manage DuPont's Chilean nitrate interests in the fall of his senior year in 1909.

From Cornell Facility Services site -
Carpenter Hall, which was completed in 1957, houses the Engineering Library and the administrative offices of the College of Engineering. This building was a gift of Walter S. Carpenter, Jr., who was associated with E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company from 1909 until his retirement as their chairman of the Board in 1962.

Anyone know more about his connections with men's hockey?

MINIteam8s
Anyone know more about his connections with men's hockey?

Morris Bishop's book, a "History of Cornell," mentions that James Lynah '05, the first Director of Athletics and Physical Education, was once a manager of plants for Du Pont de Nemours Company. Lynah was also director of purchasing at General Motors. In addition to his life-long connection to Du Pont, Carpenter was on the Board of Directors of General Motors from 1927-1959.

So maybe there was a connection between Lynah and Carpenter through Du Pont and General Motors, as well as through their service to Cornell. Maybe the naming of the rink had more to do with honoring Lynah than with any connection between Carpenter and hockey. It's speculation on my part, but seems plausible and I just don't have time to actually go to Cornell Libraries to look it up. I would bet the answer is in the collection of Deane Malott's papers.

reilly83

MINIteam8s
Anyone know more about his connections with men's hockey?

Morris Bishop's book, a "History of Cornell," mentions that James Lynah '05, the first Director of Athletics and Physical Education, was once a manager of plants for Du Pont de Nemours Company. Lynah was also director of purchasing at General Motors. In addition to his life-long connection to Du Pont, Carpenter was on the Board of Directors of General Motors from 1927-1959.

So maybe there was a connection between Lynah and Carpenter through Du Pont and General Motors, as well as through their service to Cornell. Maybe the naming of the rink had more to do with honoring Lynah than with any connection between Carpenter and hockey. It's speculation on my part, but seems plausible and I just don't have time to actually go to Cornell Libraries to look it up. I would bet the answer is in the collection of Deane Malott's papers.

That sounds like a good assignment for a feshman hockey player, or maybe wanabe manager.

Reilly83 - thanks for this background

Harding - great idea; would be nice to see the findings archived here