Some regard George Pulliam as Rhode Island’s greatest all-around schoolboy athlete. At Cranston High School, he won All-State honors twice in football and hockey and once in baseball, where he played in every position except catcher. He was nicknamed “The Cranston Crusher” as the fullback of the 1940 team that was undefeated, untied, and unscored upon. In 1941, he was chosen as the Providence Journal Honor Role Boy. Dartmouth College dominated college hockey in the 1940s, winning 46 straight games at one point. Three Rhode Islanders were at the heart of the Big Green’s 1947 collegiate championship hockey team: George Pulliam. RI’s first College Hockey All-American, Ralph Warburton. RI’s first USA Hockey Olympian and Dick Rondeau, RI’s first US Hockey Hall of Famer.
The Olympics of 1940 and 1944 were both canceled because of WWII. Still, even before the ’48 Games at St. Moritz got underway, there was another war erupting – a hockey war – that threatened the inclusion of hockey and the appearance of RI’s first Olympic hockey players, George Pulliam, Cranston High School, Ralph Warburton, LaSalle Academy and Gus Galipeau from Mount St. Charles. The conflict involved two American hockey bodies, the American Hockey Association (AHA) and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), the predecessor to USA Hockey.
The IIHF has always maintained that athletes cannot participate in the Olympics unless they are endorsed by their own country’s governing body. In this case, the AAU had run amateur hockey in the US since 1930, but the IIHF expelled that organization the previous year because it had refused to support the players who made up the Americans’ national team, all of whom played under the auspices of the “professional” AHA.
The IIHF recognized and thus welcomed the AHA, not the AAU, to the 1948 Olympics, even though it was a league that paid some of its players. In an era of strictly amateur competition, athletes paid to play their sport were forbidden to participate in the Olympic Games. As a result, the AAU refused to acknowledge these players, even though not all were paid.
Ralph Warburton was the star captain of Dartmouth’s NCAA championship team. He played for the AHA team. His Dartmouth teammate, the multi-talented George Pulliam, another Cranston native, and Woonsocket’s Gus Galipeau out of Mount St Charles were vying for roster spots on the AAU squad.
Avery Brundage, the US Olympic Committee chairman, sided with the AAU. He threatened to withdraw the entire US Olympic team if the AHA attended the Olympics in St. Moritz. The IIHF countered by threatening to withdraw hockey from the Games if the AHA were banned. “It isn’t a question of which hockey team should play,” Brundage said. “It is whether the Olympic Games are for amateurs or business institutions like the AHA.” When Brundage spoke, the AHA team had already arrived in St. Moritz, and the AAU team was on its way. They were two teams hoping to represent the same country!
Meanwhile, the Swiss Olympic Organizing Committee had already formally accepted the AHA application when the executive committee of the International Olympic Committee offered its opinion that both US entries be denied. On January 20, the US Olympic Committee upped the ante by voting 68-6 to withdraw all American athletes from the Games if the AHA were allowed to participate.
Just before the Americans were to play their first game of the tournament, the IOC relegated hockey to an “unofficial” event. Then, on February 7, a compromise was reached whereby the USA’s AHA entry could play but not medal. They would play all opponents and be placed in the standings, but they could not qualify for a medal, and all statistics from games against the Americans would not count. In the end, the AHA team played but was disqualified from the competition.
Through it all, Ralph Warburton set the ice on fire, scoring an impressive 16 goals and five assists in just 8 games. George Pulliam and Gus Gallipeau, both of whom had made the final AAU roster, could only look on from the stands.
Sadly, George Pulliam died of a brain tumor in 1956 at the age of thirty-three.
He was inducted into The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1968, the Dartmouth College Hall of Fame in 1984, and the Rhode Island Hockey Hall of Fame in 2000.
For additional reading:
- Shribman, David; Degange, Jack (2005). “Dartmouth College Hockey: Northern Ice”. Dartmouth College.
- “1947-1948 All-American Team”. The American Hockey Coaches Association. Retrieved June 21, 2017.