Netminder Gordon Gibson ‘Gib’ Hutchinson enjoyed a long and successful career in British ice hockey, despite a most inauspicious start.
Arriving in Britain in 1936 from Canada, Gib Hutchinson joined the Earls Court Rangers, but after an opening season stretching forty games, saw the Rangers finish with a record 232 goals against.
With his hockey future looking bleak, Gib Hutchinson went to work as a carpenter at the Earls Court Exhibition building. When the Rangers next goalie got injured, someone remembered seeing Hutchinson working around the building and he was invited to step into the breach. From that point he never looked back and became a fixture on the hockey scene for almost the next twenty years.
The following season, he made the All Star team while playing for the Rangers, a feat he was to repeat many times during spells with Streatham, the Wembley Lions and, above all, the Brighton Tigers. He backstopped the triumphant Tigers to the English National League and Autumn Cup trophies in 1947 and again the following season, staying with the Tigers until 1953. The 1950/51 season was a particularly good one, for if all the various competitions had been combined into one league, the Tigers would have been the top team and ‘Hutch’ the top netminder.
The era in which Gib Hutchinson played was long before facemasks or painted personalised helmets became de-rigueur for netminders, and he was reputed to have broken every finger in both hands. He recalled those times saying, “in those days we played on beer and guts.”
After retiring form playing, he became a stage manager of the Tom Arnold Ice Show at the Brighton Sports Stadium and later ran a number of public houses in Sussex.
Gib Hutchinson died peacefully in his sleep on December 30th 1996, at the Mile Oak Inn, Portslade near Brighton at the age of 84.
Compiled with research, provided by Martin C.Harris and Phil Drackett.
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