{"id":1532,"date":"2024-05-16T17:09:16","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T21:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/?page_id=1532"},"modified":"2024-05-16T17:18:44","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T21:18:44","slug":"william-bill-henry-thayer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/hall-of-fame\/reds-in-other-hofs\/william-bill-henry-thayer\/","title":{"rendered":"William \u201cBill\u201d Henry Thayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

William \u201cBill\u201d Henry Thayer<\/strong><\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Bill Thayer was born in the Norwood section of Warwick, RI in 1921. He was easily one of the greatest all-around RI athletes of his generation.<\/p>\n

He began a pro hockey career in 1943 at age 22 when he became the first native Rhode Islander to be signed by the Providence Reds, suiting up for seven games. He split the rest of his playing time that season between the New Haven Crescents of the Eastern Hockey League and the Boston Olympics.<\/p>\n

In 1948, Thayer earned a prestigious spot on the USA National Team, which would go on to win the bronze medal in the 1949 IIHF World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden.<\/p>\n

On his return to the States, Thayer joined Lou Pieri\u2019s RI Scarlets, helping them to the Atlantic Hockey League crown and then the American Hockey Association\u2019s national title in Detroit, where he was named to the All-Tournament team.<\/p>\n

Bill turned to ironworking after hockey. He passed away in a tragic accident during the construction of the New Bedford, MA hurricane barrier in 1964. Since 1965, the William H. Thayer Award, named in honor of the \u201cplaymaker\u201d, has been presented to the outstanding RI high school hockey player scoring the most assists in the season.<\/p>\n

In honor of his accomplishments, the city or Warwick dedicated its new municipal hockey rink the William H. Thayer Memorial Arena in 1970.<\/p>\n

Bill was posthumously inducted into the RI Hockey Hall of Fame in 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/span><\/div>

William \u201cBill\u201d Henry Thayer
\n<\/strong>Defense<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":59,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1532","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1532"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1540,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1532\/revisions\/1540"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}