Connecticut-based entrepreneur Ronald F. Milardo owns and manages Cooper Capital Specialty Salvage LLC, a marine salvage management company. Since opening the company in 1996, he and his team have recovered over $30,000 in assets from natural catastrophes at sea. Ronald F. Milardo is an avid ice hockey enthusiast. He belonged to the ice hockey varsity team at New Hampton School during high school. He went on to play Division 1 hockey and had many years of experience coaching ice hockey.

Ice hockey is one of the most popular sports in the United States and Canada. Although ice hockey could have been invented during the ancient civilizations of the Romans and the Greeks, most historians credit James Creighton as the sole “Inventor of Hockey.” Creighton did not claim that honor for himself, although he said, “I had the honor to be captain of the first regular hockey club to be formed in Canada.”

An engineer, lawyer, journalist, and athlete, Creighton developed today’s version of ice hockey. On March 3, 1875, Creighton organized the first indoor ice hockey game at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal. The teams each had nine players. They used a wooden disk for the puck. At the end of the game, the score was 2-to-1, with Creighton’s team winning the contest.

Creighton has since organized annual ice hockey matches in Quebec. He has also participated in almost all ice hockey matches played in Montreal during the earliest years of the sport. This period was the learning and development stage of the new sport, where Creighton was regarded as a leader and instructor of ice hockey.