Louis Magnus

Louis Neville Magnus was born in Kingston, Jamaica, into a family that had its roots on the island since 1755. He moved to France as an 8-year-old when he left Jamaica with his grandmother Florentine and her husband Lysius Saloman, who had recently been overthrown as Haiti president following a revolution. Magnus’ mother was already in Paris finishing off her medical studies at the time.

Magnus was educated in Paris and was a keen all-round sportsman. He enjoyed tennis and in 1909 became secretary-general of the Garden Tennis Club in Normandy. His main loves, however, were skating and ice hockey. Magnus was one of the founder members of the International Ice Hockey League (now the IIHF, International Ice Hockey Federation), having called the inaugural meeting in Paris on 15-16 May 1908 with Magnus as its first president. He was president up to 1912 and again in 1914, and was vice-president in 1923-24.

Magnus got his love of skating from his French-born mother, and he showed a serious interest in the sport from the age of 12. He skated for the Club des Patineurs of Paris and was the first winner of the French men’s singles title in 1908, a title he held for the first four years of the Championship. He also won the pairs title with Anita del Monte in 1912. Magnus was also a keen speed skater. Magnus was a recognised ice hockey referee and figure skating judge. He was a judge at the 1920 Antwerpen Olympics and the 1924 Chamonix Winter Olympics, when he was also a delegate on the Organising Committee for the inaugural Winter Games. He had earlier acted as a steward at the 1908 London Olympics.

Magnus spent most of his working life as a journalist and writer and was the chief editor and founder of the popular sports magazine Les Sports d’Hiver. During World War I, Magnus was a War Correspondent with the British Army. He died in 1950, and in 1985 the French Ice Hockey Federation created the Louis Magnus Cup in his memory, to be presented annually to the national ice hockey champions. In 1997 was one of the inaugural inductees into the IIHF Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the French Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.