Leo Reise Senior

Leo Reise Senior
Senior Reise made his mark with Hamilton Tigers in the Teens, also played several seasons with Hamilton’s NHL team and New York Americans

Leo Reise Senior in 1938. Photo courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator.

While his son and namesake went on to a great NHL career, Leo Reise Senior was an important part of the Hamilton Tigers in the early part of the 20th Century. He also played nine seasons in the NHL.

Born in Pembroke in 1892, Reise lost sight in his left eye when he was 20, but that did not stop the defenseman from being a major asset on the Intermediate and Senior Tigers from 1913 through 1924. During the 1918-19 season, Reise scored five goals in eight games, and helped out during the OHA’s Allan Cup final with a pair of goals in six games, helping Hamilton win its only Allan Cup to date.

When Hamilton entered its one and only era of NHL competition, Reise continued to play with the Tigers, now a professional team. After the franchise went to New York City in 1925, Reise played out west with the Saskatoon Crescents of the WCHL, but then signed on with the New York Americans of the NHL in 1926. He said he was enticed to return east by a former opponent turned coach.

“I had played against Newsy (Lalonde) and he knew what I could do,” Reise is quoted as saying in a 1972 interview. He then played one season with the newly-formed New York Rangers of the NHL for the 1929-30, and then went to the Pittsburgh Yellowjackers of the AHL for two seasons before retiring from playing.

Reise remained in the game, however, in a coaching capacity, coaching the Chatham Maroons of the Michigan-Ontario Amateur Hockey League and the Queen’s A.C. club in OHA Intermediate in the late 1930s,

He eventually settled in Brantford, was a parks board employee, and was caretaker at the Brant Historical Museum.

Celebrating his 80th birthday in 1972, Reise commented on the quality of the NHL games at the time, and recalled the differences from his era in the game:

“I look at a game on TV once in awhile, especially during the playoffs,” he said, adding that he saw his son Leo play only once in the NHL during a Maple Leafs game in Toronto in the mid-1950s.

Reise mentioned that when he played, he was in seven-man hockey where the seventh player was known as a rover, before lines were introduced to the game and when forward passes were not permitted. He also mentioned that for the 24-game NHL season, a top player would be fortunate to receive $5,000.

Son Leo Reise Jr, born in 1922, continued the family tradition, playing junior hockey prior to World War II, and then played for several seasons in the NHL, with Chicago, New York, and Detroit.

According to sportswriter Gary Lautens, who interviewed the Reises in 1961, when Leo Jr went to the Black Hawks in 1945, his family became the first in NHL history to have a father and son in the league.

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