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Inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1950. Born
in Beckenham Kent on February 15th 1897, Carl Erhardt made
his mark on British ice hockey in the ‘golden era’ of the 1930s,
being widely accepted as one of the games great on-ice motivators. He
was to captain the famous Great Britain team that, in 1936, captured the
Triple Crown of World, Olympic and European titles in Germany at the
Garmisch-Partenkirchen games. But, Erhardt was something of a novelty
amongst his teammates, not having learnt his hockey in Canada, he learnt
to skate and play the game while attending schools in both Germany and
Switzerland. By the time those memorable games came around, Erhardt a
defenceman, was a veteran of 39 years and had played internationally for
England in 1931, ’34 and ’35. In
the colours of Great Britain, Carl Erhardt often logged in excess of
forty minutes a game and collected many medals including world
championship bronze and European silver in 1935, European gold and
Olympic gold in 1936 and world silver and another European gold in 1937. However,
his sporting prowess was not confined to the ice rinks of London, where
he played initially for Princes and later Streatham, for he was a
sporting all-rounder. He excelled at skiing, water-skiing and tennis. He
went on to become a founder and first president of the British Water Ski
Federation. After
he retired from playing ice hockey in the late thirties, Carl Erhardt
took to refereeing, wrote a book on the game and joined the Council of
the BIHA, where he regularly sat alongside his old Streatham defensive
partner, Ernie Ramus. Erhardt later became a life vice-president of the
BIHA and in 1950 was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Ice Hockey
World. Carl Erhardt, the man who captained the 1936 GB team, died
on May 3rd, 1988 at the age of 91 years.
Compiled with research, provided by
Martin C.Harris and Phil Drackett. |
