Thomas Duggan

Thomas Joseph Duggan (c.1880 – July 23, 1930) was a sports promoter with interests in horse racing, hockey, dog racing and arena management. He was the co-owner of the Mount Royal Arena and founder of the New York Americans of the National Hockey League (NHL).

Tom Duggan was involved in advertising and real estate activities in Montreal before becoming involved in one of his first sports ventures, the Buffalo franchise of baseball's upstart Federal League. When this league failed in 1915, Duggan turned his attention to horse racing, helping to build the Mount Royal track in Montreal and the Devonshire track in Windsor, Ontario, which had opened in 1916 in partnership with American entrepreneur Grant Hugh Browne.

In 1919, when Montreal's Jubilee Rink burned to the ground, Duggan joined up with George Kennedy, the owner of the NHL's Montreal Canadiens, the Jubilee's tenants, to build the Mount Royal Arena on the south side of Mont-Royal avenue between Clark and St. Urbain Streets. From there, Duggan and Kennedy promoted boxing, wrestling and hockey events under the banner of the National Sporting Club, and Duggan tried to get a franchise in the NHL for an English Montreal team to complement the Canadiens. When unsuccessful, he turned his sights southwards and obtained options for NHL franchises in the United States (where the league was looking to expand to thwart competition), selling one franchise to Boston grocery magnate Charles F. Adams and keeping another for himself (financed by bootlegger Bill Dwyer) to play in New York's Madison Square Garden.

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