Peter Ham has established himself as one of the most respected and successful hockey builders in Brantford history, with a track record of owning and operating multiple teams, and culminating in getting inducted into the Brantford and Area Sports Hall of Recognition in 2010 for his contributions.
Ham, who spent his youth in Brantford playing hockey, whether it was in his backyard rink or the many frozen lakes and canals, would find his early calling being in advertising sales, gaining strong experience along the way.
“I was an ad man in Brantford with the Expositor, in Windsor with the Woolworths company, and in Cleveland, Ohio with a company called AVCO who were in financials and was the 65th largest corporation in the world at that time [around the late 60s]. Eventually, I would find my way back to Brantford, working for the Expositor, and then that’s the time that hockey really took over in my life,” recalled Ham.
Ham would find early success with the Holiday Inn Travelers and the Brantford Diamond Kings, a Canadian Junior B team, before becoming an owner of a hockey team.
“In 1974 I acquired 25% of a major team called the Brantford Foresters. They have quite a history in Brantford…but, I needed to figure out a way to generate some revenue. At that time, I was known as an ad man and a promoter in Brantford…[and] because of my advertising background, it was just tailor-made for this opportunity to be an owner of this team. I was named the president, and we did that for a year,” he said. “Then I sold the team to a doctor, making a good return. And then the person who bought the team came back to me and asked me if I wanted to manage it for him. I’d never been a general manager before, but I told him I would do it.”
The team, now led by Ham, known as the Brantford Alexanders, played in 1976 to 1978, in Ontario Hockey Association Senior A (OHA Sr. A), finding immediate success.
“During our first year, we won the Allan Cup [and] it was no small feat. It was the first hockey championship in the history of the city…and the Allan cup was emblematic of men’s Canadian hockey supremacy. It still continues today, although it’s not at the same level,” Ham said. “That was really how I got into it, and then in we operated that for two years, until I had an opportunity to join forces with a fellow named Jack Robillard, who wanted to bring the Hamilton Fincups OHL team to Brantford. He was a very wealthy man, and my partner and I of the Brantford Alexanders, had the rights to the arena, so we had to do business, and came up to terms to become partners.”
In order to accommodate the Fincups OHL franchise into the area, Ham and his partner had to move their OHA Senior A team.
“The year we moved the Fincups to Brantford, was also the year that we had to move the Alexanders Senior A team to Welland which has renamed; so the new OHL team could become the Brantford Alexanders and have the full facility to themselves (the Civic Center), because there wasn’t room for two teams, and at that time, we had become a very popular the senior team,” he said.
Although Ham would be involved with the Alexanders for another four seasons, he would leave in 1981.
“During that time, about 30 to 40 future NHLers went through our organization. And it was a tremendous success, although we didn’t have a championship team, it maintained a good junior operations…developing young men to get into the NHL, and giving Brantford something that we thought they wanted,” explained Ham. “We hosted the Ontario Hockey League All Star Game in Brantford, one year, which was a tremendous success. And the team was reasonably successful in terms of attendance, but it was very successful in terms of developing talent. And Jack Robillard was responsible for financing that, because it was certainly not a money maker.”
However, one of the highlights during that time for Ham was when he would successfully sign a future NHL star to play for them.
“I was the managing partner of the whole operation [and] I sat on the board of governors which decided the legislature for the OHL. There are a lot of good memories around that time but one that sticks out is around 1980, [when] we drafted a wonderful kid by the name of Dave Gagne. So, I went down to his home to try to [convince him] to sign with us [despite] him having a full scholarship offer from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the United States,” Ham recalled. “I didn’t have too many expectations that he would forgo that scholarship. But, after we finished our conversation, his dad was still very adamant that Dave was going to the States. Dave looked at his father and said he wanted to go play for us in Brantford and then play in the OHL. So that’s something I’ll never forget.”
However, by 1984 the Brantford Alexanders were sold and moved to Hamilton, being called the Steelhawks.
“They wanted me back in as a partner. So, I came back, this time to Hamilton… because it wasn’t cutting it in Brantford financially. We played at a place called the Hamilton Mountain arena. It had 2500 seats [and] was very small, but we sold out every game we played there. It was just fantastic. And we played in that arena while waiting for Copps Coliseum to be completed,” he said. “I had an office downtown in the Stelco tower, and I’d look out my window and I could see the arena being built [which] was very exciting.”
After moving into Copps Coliseum and having a successful four years in Hamilton, Ham and his partner looked to renew the lease.
“In 1988 we tried to renew a lease with more favorable terms, because it was very expensive to operate there…we tried to get another contract done [but] they didn’t want to do that for some reason. So, we decided to move. I went to a couple of towns, and ended up settling on Niagara Falls [which] became the Thunder in 1988,” he recounted. “At that point, we had gone from Brantford Alexanders to Hamilton Steelhawks, and now we’re the Niagara Falls Thunder…[despite] having our best team in 1989, we lost out in the OHL championship in six games to the Peterborough Pete’s. We went all the way [and] were a game and a half away from going to the Memorial Cup that year.”
That team would end by being loaded with future-NHL talent, as Ham recalled.
“That team was stacked. We had guys like Keith Primeau, Paul Laus, Stan Drulia, Scott Pearson and Brad May. We had about nine players who went right to the NHL after the end of that season including Bryan Fogarty. So, we got Bryan, who came from Brantford, to come to the Thunder [and] got him for a song. He broke records held by Bobby Orr, Paul Coffey and Al McInnis, all in one year [as well as winning the] scoring title. He got a million-dollar bonus to sign with Quebec Nordiques. But his struggles caught up with him. He was a great kid. I really liked him.”
Despite the success, the team ended up being sold and Ham was out of hockey for a bit, in 1991, Ham was hired to run the Detroit Falcons operations in the Colonial Hockey League, and was also tasked as president of the league to expand it. However, by 2002 Ham was back in senior hockey.
“I was asked to get back senior hockey ownership for a number of years and finally said yes in 2002. It really started when I was driving down by Market Street where that casino is, and I was coming home, I went to see the Cambridge Hornets play the Dundas McCoys, because they wanted me to come up to be their guest, to watch the game, and hopefully encourage me to come back into Senior A,” he said. “But as I drove through downtown, I thought to myself things are really changing in Brantford especially from our days in the OHL and Senior A. In that time span, all those old factories were torn down, and there was all new development down there. It was a different world. So, that’s when I decided to get involved again.”
Ham would work his magic as owner of the Brantford Blast, securing sponsors and reaching out to the Civic Centre and eventually hosting and winning the historic 100th Allan Cup in 2008.
“I had to go [and] find an arena, which was the Civic Centre…I met the general manager there and started to work with him on everything I thought we needed to have a winning hockey operation. Then I got some sponsors like the Brantford Expositor and the Paris Golf Club to promote the team as well as Martin Dixon from Millard,” explained Ham. “I wanted to make this the best Senior A hockey team in the country, especially in modern times [and it happened] as we had some of the biggest crowds and had tremendous success especially when we hosted and won the Allan Cup.”
However, after another decade of owning and operating the team Ham decided to sell the Blast in 2018 and retire. Regardless, he still reflects on his career as a hockey builder across five decades.
“It was my dream to own a sports team and do my own thing. I got a chance to display my creativity and my business acumen. It’s been heavenly for me. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I have met so many wonderful people coming through the doors. And my wife, Judy…knew everybody in town, and a lot of people would just want to come and say ‘Hi’ to her on Friday nights when the games were on,” he reflected. “You miss those kinds of things…the season ticket holders [and the fans] that I saw come and go [and how they] appreciated that old time hockey…there have been some truly wonderful memories.”
