The co-founder of the oldest minority hockey club in North America made it into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.
Neal Henderson moved to Washington, D.C., in the 1960s and started the Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club in 1978. The program gives local and inner-city children the chance to play organized hockey.
Henderson was part of the NHL's launch of its "Hockey is for Everyone" initiative.
D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton congratulated Henderson with a statement for the congressional record.
Henderson got into hockey as a boy when his father was stationed in Ontario with the Merchant Marines, Norton said. He began teaching neighborhood kids after moving to D.C., and when demand grew, he rented space at the Fort Dupont Ice Arena, establishing the hockey club with Betty Dean, a high school classmate.
The program includes educational initiatives like museum and college visits and has helped more than 1,000 children over four decades, Norton said. The program’s graduation rate is 85 percent.
“Coach Henderson richly deserves this recognition for his decades of commitment to the District’s hockey programs and our local youth sports,” Norton said. “Coach Henderson embodies the best values of the District of Columbia and its residents. This is a well-deserved induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.”
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Henderson will be inducted Dec. 12 with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, former Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas, longtime NHL forward Brian Gionta, and U.S women's star Krissy Wendell.
Thomas in 2011 became the second American and the oldest player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 2011 when he led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup. He made headlines for skipping the trip to see then-President Barack Obama in the White House and has been virtually invisible since walking away from hockey in 2014.
Gionta put up 595 points in 16 NHL seasons and won the Cup with New Jersey in 2003. He represented the U.S. in the 2006 and 2018 Olympics.
Wendell won two NCAA titles at Minnesota and ranks fourth all-time with 2.35 points a game. She put up 247 points in 147 international games, was the MVP of the 2005 world championships when the U.S. won gold for the first time and served as captain at the 2006 Olympics.
