John Howard LECOMPTE

Louis Lecompte of Ottawa joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1935, serving as a photographer in the Public Relations Office and eventually reaching the rank of Flight Lieutenant. Prior to this he had spent two years in the Ottawa Junior Hockey League with the Ottawa Rideaus, followed by a year in the Senior League with the Ottawa Canadiens. In 1935 he began playing with the RCAF Flyers and suited up intermittently with them during the war years, in addition to stints with the Truro Bearcats of the Nova Scotia Antigonish-Pictou County Hockey League and the Ottawa Rockcliffe RCAF of the Ottawa National Defense Hockey League. Following the conflicts, he joined the Halifax City Senior Hockey League’s Darthmouth RCAF, and then the Upper Ottawa Valley Hockey League’s incarnation of the Ottawa Senators.

Lecompte played with the RCAF Flyers again in 1947 and joined them on their trip to the 1948 Winter Olympics, where Canada took home the gold. A defenseman, he played in eight games in the tournament and scored two goals. He also had four games with the Rockcliffe RCAF of the ONDHL that season, but retired from active play soon after. In the 1950s he served as a referee with the Ontario Hockey Association, and refereed at the 1953 Memorial Cup Canadian junior championships and at the ice hockey tournament at the 1956 Winter Olympics. In 1963, he began working for the Canadian external affairs department and was stationed in Nairobi, Kenya when he died at the age of 56. As a member of the Olympic ice hockey champions of 1948, the RCAF Flyers, he was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 2008. After his death, much of his 1948 materials were donated to the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame and Museum.