SPRINGFIELD, Mass. … The American Hockey League is pleased to announce the creation of the Bruce Landon Award, to be presented annually beginning this season to an outstanding hockey operations executive as selected by the League’s Board of Governors.
This new award honors the man who was a mainstay in the American Hockey League for nearly half a century and is considered by many to be synonymous with hockey in Springfield, Massachusetts. Bruce Landon was drafted as a goaltender by the Los Angeles Kings in 1969 and joined their AHL affiliate in Springfield that fall, helping the club win a Calder Cup championship in 1971. He played five seasons with the New England Whalers in the WHA before returning to Springfield in 1977, but a knee injury forced him to retire that December at the age of 28.
Landon immediately took a marketing and public relations position in the Springfield Indians’ front office, and he was named general manager in 1982. He guided the team’s back-to-back Calder Cup championships in 1990 and 1991, an even more impressive feat considering the titles were won with two different NHL affiliates (New York Islanders, Hartford Whalers).
In 1994, with the Indians relocating to Worcester, Landon helped organize a group of investors and purchased an expansion franchise to keep the American Hockey League in Springfield. He served as president and GM of the Springfield Falcons from their inception in 1994 until stepping down in 2014, and was the club’s director of hockey operations until 2016. He also spent the 2016-17 season as an advisor with the Springfield Thunderbirds.
A 2016 inductee into the AHL Hall of Fame, Landon has been honored with the AHL’s Ken McKenzie Award for outstanding promotion of his club (1980); the James C. Hendy Memorial Award as the league’s outstanding executive (1989); the Thomas Ebright Award for career contributions (2002); and induction in the AHL Hall of Fame (2016).
With the creation of the Bruce Landon Award, the AHL has redefined the criteria for the James C. Hendy Memorial Award, which will now be presented annually for outstanding achievements by a business operations executive.