THOMAS, John Lawrence

BORN MARCH 11TH 1936 IN MELBOURNE, the son of Charlie and Lottie Thomas, he attended Fairfield State School and Northcote High, then became a coppersmith with the Victorian Railways. Sport mad, he played football, but he was best known for the determined, attacking game of hockey he could produce on the right-wing. That talent, combined with moderate habits, transported him to the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the 1964 Winter Olympic Playoffs.

Freckled-faced with a flat-top haircut, he struck up a close friendship with Kevin Harris in the Raiders juniors, and started competition hockey at age 17, playing out the 1953 season with the VIHA Raiders. He remained there through two state premierships until they became Hakoah in 1955. By August 1958, he had scored 20 goals and many assists for the Club run by Kurt Defris, and he continued on into the era when Frank Krista coached the team with such players as Harris, Ray Noble and Anders Wiking.

In 1958, Thomas and Hakoah goalie, Max Goddard, planned an overseas trip, intending to see the 1960 Rome Olympics. Instead, Thomas played for Australia at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, then on the Wing in the 1961-2 World Championship team. Of the six goals Australia produced at Denver Coliseum in its historic first international win over Denmark, Thomas scored two and an assisted a third, to tie the top scoring with Peter Parrot.

He maintained he owed a great deal of his success to the unstinted efforts and continued encouragement of Hakoah's Coach, Harry "Mac" Molloy, and Hakoah Centre, Ron Amess. Returning to the world stage in the Olympic Playoffs in Tokyo in 1963-4, he became one of only three players with Rus Jones and Ken Wellman, to represent Australia in its first three international ice hockey campaigns. The national association elected Thomas a Life Member in 2000, along with all members of Australia's first Olympic ice hockey team.

Thomas won the 1963 Australian Club Championship with Hakoah coached by Ivo Vesely against Glebe Lions, then moved to the Blackhawks in 1967 where he played 121 games in the A-grade competition until the end of the 1974 season. He spent 21 years at the top-level in 279 games, then played a further 182 games in the Blackhawks reserve-grade until he turned 50 in 1986.

During that time, he won four state premierships and six Goodall Cups representing Victoria (1962, '65, '66, '67, '68, and '75). An alternate captain to Tony Martyr with Harris in 1967, he played in the 1968 state squad, scoring 1 of 2 goals in the decider won by NSW. At 34, he captained the unsuccessful 1970 state squad coached by Ivo Vesely, which included players such as Kevin Harris, Ken Wellman and Ian Holmes.

Thomas played a combined total of 475 games with the Raiders, Hakoah-Arkana, Hakoah, Blackhawks and Nite Owls in the Victorian League, placing him among the top-20 players on Most Games. Active in club administration, he played a key role as a founding member of the Oldtimer movement in the 1980s, and played with the Nite Owls in 1994. A founding organizer of the original Oldtimer Bendigo Tournament with Don Reddish, John Thomas died at 58 in Melbourne on February 7th 1995. A trophy in the Victorian C-grade is named in his honour.

Canberra's Des Peterson played against Thomas and his Big-V crew several times in the 1960s: "A classic example of a real sportsman who played hard and fair. In the Old Timers era I was proud to call Dianne and John friends". Stephen Duncan remembers: "A magnificent man, great wingman, never had a bad thing to say about anyone. He was an excellent cricketer as well. Loved playing with him and an honour to have known him".

"Thommo was an inspiration to a lot of us younger players," wrote Kevin Madden in 2019. "He was a great Vic coach to me in '74 (Brown), and equally I played alongside him. His extraordinary ability in front of the net, to deflect a puck picked out of the air to beat a goalie, was amazing. Both John and Dianne (his wife) were loved in the club. Rob Blackburn gave an outstanding Eulogy at his Funeral, the likes I have never forgotten". The words are reproduced below with a message from Lorraine Blackburn that said: "Everyone loved and respected John, he and Dianne were hockey royalty".