Jim ALDRED

Johan Bollue Award

Born Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 28, 1963

After a typical Canadian childhood that saw Jim Aldred play hockey in his homemade backyard rink, Aldred developed into a top prospect. He played major junior hockey with Kingston and Sault Ste. Marie in the OHL (1979-83) and was drafted a very respectable 59th overall by the Buffalo Sabres in 1981. After three years in the minors, however, he was forced to retire because of injuries. He coached in the Toronto area for several years and worked as a power-skating instructor at numerous hockey schools throughout Ontario. But life took an unexpected turn after he got married.

His wife, Cristina, and her parents also lived in Toronto, but as her parents got older they yearned to return home to Portugal. Jim and his wife wound up moving as well, in 2016, but his passion for hockey did not go away. Instead, he found a group that played weekly, and then started to teach the game to locals both in Portugal and Spain. He was quickly hired to be the head coach and director of player development for Portugal’s national team. He also formed a team, the Luso Lynx, that would play on temporary ice rinks at shopping malls and sign up for tournaments whenever he could find enough players to commit to playing.
 
Although Portugal had joined the IIHF in 1999, it did so as an Associate Member, meaning the country didn’t play in any IIHF events. In 2017, however, Portugal participated in the inaugural Development Cup. Aldred was named the team’s coach for the inaugural event in Canillo, Andorra, playing against Morocco, Ireland, and Andorra. The Portuguese finished third, but Aldred was hooked. He has led the team back to the Development Cup every tournament since, six in all, and he has taken pains to develop programs for local players in Elvas, near the Spanish border, where the nation’s only arena is located.
 
Aldred is nothing if not a man of action. In addition to his ongoing duties with the national team and the Lynx, he also became head coach of the club team in Porto, and got the team into the Spanish Liga Nacional de Hockey Hielo (LNHH), the first time a team from Portugal joined the Spanish league. The goal is to use the LNHH to further develop hockey in Portugal, but his ultimate dream is to build a regulation-size rink in the country so that it can truly establish the foundation of a national team and play in IIHF competition.