Joseph Rodolph "Ray" Miron (March 20, 1923 – August 28, 2015) was an owner of the new

Central Hockey League The Central Hockey League (CHL) was a North American mid-level minor professional ice hockey league which operated from 1992 until 2014. It was founded by Ray Miron and Bill Levins and later sold to Global Entertainment Corporation, which opera ...

(CHL), as well as a

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL) executive, serving in the

Toronto Maple Leafs The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Div ...

organization and as general manager of the NHL's

Colorado Rockies The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. The team plays its home baseball games at Coors Fie ...

. Miron co-founded the CHL with

Bill Levins William “Bill” Levins (1922 – August 26, 1991) was an American ice hockey executive and sports entrepreneur. Levins was the first general manager of the Oklahoma City Blazers of the old Central Hockey League. He is also recognized as th ...

in 1992, under the concept of central ownership of all the teams. Miron had also previously coached in the "old"

, and he also was president of that league for three weeks, before leaving to accept the role of GM with the Rockies. Miron served as the president of the new league after Levins' death. He sold the league in 2000. In recognition of his importance to the league, the championship trophy, formerly known as the Levin's Cup, was renamed to the Ray Miron Cup. After the CHL merged with the competing

Western Professional Hockey League The Western Professional Hockey League (abbreviated WPHL) is a defunct minor professional ice hockey league. The WPHL operated from 1996 to 2001 with teams based in the southern United States, primarily Texas and Louisiana. The league started with ...

, the trophy was renamed to the "

Ray Miron President's Cup The Ray Miron President's Cup is a trophy that was awarded to the playoff champion of the Central Hockey League (CHL) from 2002 until 2014, when the remaining CHL teams joined the ECHL. The trophy was known as The William "Bill" Levins Memorial Cup ...

." In 2004, Miron was awarded the

Lester Patrick Trophy The Lester Patrick Trophy has been presented by the National Hockey League and USA Hockey since 1966 to honor a recipient's contribution to ice hockey in the United States. It is considered a non-NHL trophy because it may be awarded to players, c ...

by the NHL, a recognition he described as his "greatest hockey accomplishment."

Personal life

He played hockey growing up and played in the minor leagues. Miron has said he wasn't a strong enough skater to make it in the NHL. While working in a Canadian plant during World War II, Miron was in a

mustard gas Mustard gas or sulfur mustard is a chemical compound belonging to a family of cytotoxic and blister agents known as mustard agents. The name ''mustard gas'' is technically incorrect: the substance, when dispersed, is often not actually a gas, b ...

accident. The accident left much of his body covered in mustard acid, which severely burned him and left him in a hospital for months. Miron met his wife Rowena in the 1950s. Rowena died in 2004. They had two children and four grandchildren; their son Monte Miron served as commissioner of the CHL from 1992-1997. Miron died of a heart attack in

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

on August 28, 2015.

References

1923 births 2015 deaths Colorado Rockies (NHL) Ice hockey people from Ontario Lester Patrick Trophy recipients People from Cornwall, Ontario Toronto Maple Leafs executives Canadian expatriates in the United States {{Canada-icehockey-bio-stub