George Kennedy

George Washington Kendall (December 29, 1881 – October 19, 1921), known professionally as George Kennedy, was a Canadian sports promoter best known as the owner of the Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team from 1910 to 1921. Kennedy was a wrestler himself and after the end of his wrestling career turned to wrestling promotion. Kendall along with other investors, formed the Club Athletique Canadien, and promoted wrestling, boxing, hockey and other sports. He would contract the Spanish flu during the pandemic of the late 1910s and never fully recovered from it, causing him to eventually succumb to complications from the illness in 1921, after the pandemic ended. Personal life An Anglo-Quebecer, George W. Kendall was born in Montreal, the son of Jane McClosky, an Irish Roman Catholic and George Hiram Kendall, a Scots-Quebecer and a prominent Baptist who owned a successful manufacturing business. At the time of his parents' marriage, the Catholic Church would only recognize it if her non-Catholic spouse agreed to raise the children in the Catholic faith. As such, George Kendall was educated at the High School of Montreal and then attended the Saint-Laurent College. In 1907, Kendall married Myrtle Agnes Pagels and they had two daughters, one who died before the age of one. Sports career While still in his teens, George Kendall embarked on a career as a wrestler and by age twenty was the top wrestler in his weight class in Canada. Because such activities were something his family frowned upon, he wrestled using the name George Kennedy. An entrepreneur at heart, in 1905 the fluently bilingual "George Kennedy" and friend Joseph-Pierre Gadbois founded Le Club Athlétique Canadien (CAC) to train and develop amateur wrestlers, later adding boxing matches to their promotions. In 1908, Kendall and Gadbois intended to get into the sport of ice hockey. They attempted to purchase the Montreal Wanderers, but were unsuccessful. The formation of the National Hockey Association (NHA) saw the formation of the 'Les Canadiens' team, which they considered an infringement on the name of their club. In October 1910, Kendall contacted Frank Calder, then the Montreal Herald sports editor, and announced that he wanted an NHA franchise, intending to purchase the Canadiens. If rejected, he would go to court to enforce his rights to the name. The NHA was receptive to Kendall, and on November 12, 1910, he paid J. Ambrose O'Brien $7,500 and took over the Canadiens organization.