McCrae-Williamson, John

BORN MARCH 20TH 1916, he considered ice hockey too rough for him to play, but was regularly invited to games by Bruce Henderson, who worked for John at General Electric and was treasurer and secretary of the Monarchs ice hockey club at St Moritz, St Kilda in Melbourne. John attended his first game in 1948 when he was 32. Amazed at the speed skill of the players, he was hooked almost immediately.

Henderson recruited McCrae-Williamson to the position of club secretary of the Monarchs in the Victorian league, where he remained for a record 26 years. In those years, the state competition for the Kleiner Cup was broadcast on radio station 3DB by Ron Casey and Mike Dyer. John became good friends with both, and at times helped out with game commentary at St Moritz. [2] He won two Goodall Cups as Team Manager of Victoria when Rus Jones was coach in 1955 and 1967. [1]

After television was introduced for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, McCrae-Williamson approached Ron Casey in his new role as a TV sports commentator, to persuade him to televise ice hockey. As a result, HSV-7 regularly televised the Kleiner Cup competition from St Moritz. The coverage ran from the bandstand where commentary and scoring took place, and continued into the late 1950s, when it was picked up by GTV-9 until the early 1960s.

Elected secretary of the Victorian association for the first time in 1952, McCrae-Williamson served during Sid Hiort's last year as president, when eight of the nine club delegates passed a vote of no confidence in the executive officers of the Victorian association. The underlying cause of the discontent was the falling away of spectators and the lack of ideas for presenting the game. In 1953 Sandor Miklós replaced Hiort as president for two terms.

McCrae-Williamson returned to office in 1954 with Miklos, and remained there as secretary until 1969. He served as state secretary  for a total of 17 years during the terms of George Hewitt, Bud McEachern and Kurt Defris. He then became state treasurer of the association in 1970 and '71 with Defris, and returned in the role for 14 more years with Defris between 1974 and 1987. He then continued as Permit Secretary until about 7:30 pm on July 26th 2001, when he announced to Russell Jones that he would retire. Jones arrived at the monthly association meeting a little later. At 9:30 pm he announced he would take over the role of Permit Secretary following John's retirement. John was 85 and died about 9:35 pm. [2]

Elected a life member of the state association, in 1966 he was the third recipient of the SM and HC Hudson Sportsman of the Year Trophy, awarded by the national association for unbroken continuous service to Australian ice hockey for 10 years. In 1992, the national association elected him a life member. In 1999, he received an award from the Queen of the United Kingdom for outstanding services to hockey in Australia. [2] The prize of the Under-11 national ice hockey tournament carried his name between 2003 and 2010, and the event has since been known as the John McCrae-Williamson Jamboree.  

John "guided me on the early road to pursue the history of the Demons IHC and the ensuing 30 years spent delving into the history of ice hockey in Victoria," says Paul Rice. "A great man whose actions commanded the utmost respect". [4] Kevin Madden calls John "the administrator's administrator. Without John McCrae's influence, hockey would not have prospered to the level it has today". [4] McCrae-Williamson gave to the game for 53 years [2] and it is doubtful Australian ice hockey ever had a longer-serving office bearer.