Position as Malcolm G. Chace Hockey Coach Inaugurated At Yale's Ingalls Rink in Honor of U.S. Hockey Founder

Yale has established the position of Malcolm G. Chace Head Hockey Coach as a memorial to Chace, an 1896 graduate of Yale College and one of the initiators of ice hockey in the United States. The position is funded by a gift from the honoree’s grandson, Malcolm G. Chace, of Providence, Rhode Island, who graduated from Yale College in 1956.

Yale University Director of Athletics Thomas A. Beckett and Vice President for Development Charles J. Pagnam announced the new position in New Haven at ceremonies during the Yale men’s hockey game against Brown on Feb. 13, 1998.

Yale President Richard C. Levin thanked the donor and welcomed the creation of the endowed coach position. “This generous and far-sighted gift,” said Levin, “provides an ideal memorial for a man who helped establish ice hockey in this country and at Yale. One hundred years ago, Malcolm Chace led the first hockey match in U.S. intercollegiate competition. The head coach position will provide a formal link between his name and hockey as long as Yale exists.”

In the 1890s, Chace first learned of the Canadian game of ice hockey and led a team of American collegiate athletes in a series of games against Canadians. Chace and several friends decided to adopt the sport, replacing the more common U.S. game of ice polo played with a ball and different equipment . The first U.S. collegiate hockey competition was a game between Yale and Johns Hopkins University, played in Baltimore on Feb. 14, 1896. Yale, led by Chace as captain, won the game, 2-1.

At the inauguration ceremonies, Timothy B. Taylor was introduced as the first holder of the Malcolm G. Chace Head Hockey Coach title. Taylor has been head coach of men’s hockey at Yale since 1977 and is only the eighth hockey coach in Yale history. His teams have won or shared six Ivy League Championships, and he was named the Eastern Hockey Coach of the Year in 1986. Taylor was the Head Hockey Coach for Team USA at the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer and has also served as an assistant coach for several other U.S. National Teams.

The oldest award in Yale hockey, the Malcolm G. Chace Award, is given annually to the player who best exemplifies leadership and the traditions of the sport at Yale. A portrait of Chace hangs in the Schley Room at Ingalls Rink, home of Yale ice hockey.

Chace’s grandson is chairman of Mossberg Industries, chairman of Bank Rhode Island, and principal of Point Gammon Corp. A former member of the Yale Development Board, he also volunteered with the recently completed Yale Campaign 1992-97 as area co-chair for Rhode Island. He served as co-chair of his Yale College 40th reunion gift committee.

The Chace family has made numerous philanthropic contributions to Yale. In 1992, Chace and his father, Malcolm G. Chace Jr., a member of the Yale College class of 1927, established the Chace Family Professorship in the Humanities. The younger Chace has also supported the major renovation recently undertaken in Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library.

Levin emphasized the importance of endowed positions such as the Chace title, which provide a permanent source of funding that is independent of the University operating budget.

The Malcolm G. Chace Coach position is the third endowment for a varsity coach at Yale. In 1988, the position of Joel E. Smilow Head Coach of Football was established through a gift from Smilow, a 1954 graduate of Yale. In 1997, Gordon B. Hattersley Jr., Class of 1952, endowed the Robert J. H. Kiphuth Director of Swimming in honor of Kiphuth, swimming coach at Yale from 1918 to 1959.