Samuel “Sam” Edward Lichtenhein was a businessman and sports executive who owned the Montreal Royals and the Montreal Wanderers and was responsible for changing hockey from a seven-man to a six-man game.
Lichtenhein was born in Chicago. He moved to Montreal with his parents and three siblings after the Chicago fire of 1871 destroyed his father’s department store. He attended Loyola College in Montreal, and then pursued a career in business.
In 1910, Lichtenhein took over the Montreal Royals of the Eastern Baseball League, and remained the owner until the team disbanded 7 years later. In 1911, he bought the Montreal Wanderers, which had been a very successful franchise – winning four Stanley Cups in the previous decade – but was in trouble by the time Lichtenhein took over. In 1913, as the Wanderers’ owner, Lichtenhein famously approved changing Canadian hockey from seven players to six.
In 1917, Lichtenhein became one of the founding members of the National Hockey League (previously known as the National Hockey Association). Lichtenhein owned the Wanderers until the Montreal Arena burned down in 1918, at which point the franchise closed. In fact, Lichtenhein was famously unlucky with fires, which were responsible for the loss of his fathers’ department store as well as his own hockey and baseball teams’ arenas.
Lichtenhein was married to Huldah Lewin and they had one son, who predeceased them. He was a prominent member of the Montreal Jewish community, and remained in Quebec for the rest of his life, even after the Wanderers franchise closed. He was buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery.
