page_title: Hershey Bears
section_title: 1950s–1960s
hierarchical_section_title: Hershey Bears / Team history / 1950s–1960s
caption_attribution_description: English: Center Arnie Kullman, Hershey Bears, AHL (1948-1960)
context_page_description: The Hershey Bears are an American professional ice hockey team based in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a town located 14 miles east of the state capital of Harrisburg. The current Bears club has played in the American Hockey League since the 1938–39 season making it the longest continuously operating member club of the league still playing in its original city.
  The Bears organization currently serves as the primary development club for the NHL's Washington Capitals since the 2005–06 season. Since the 2002–03 season the hockey club's home games have been played at Giant Center, located less than half a mile west of Hersheypark Arena, the AHL club's previous home from 1938 to 2002. The Bears have won 11 Calder Cups, more than any other AHL team. They won their most recent title in 2010.
  Chocolate manufacturer Milton S. Hershey first established the "Hershey Hockey Club" in 1932 to manage pro hockey teams based in Hershey. Now in its ninth decade, it has operated four teams in three pro leagues, including the AHL Bears.
context_section_description: From 1950 to 1956 the Bears were coached by a pair of former Boston Bruin defensemen: Johnny Crawford (1950–52), who guided Hershey to another division title in 1951-52, followed by player-coach Murray Henderson (1952–56). In 1953-54, center George "Red" Sullivan became the second Bear to win a scoring title and the first to be named the league's MVP, collecting 119 points (30-89) in 69 games to set an AHL regular season scoring record which stood for almost thirty years, while his 89 assists that season is still an AHL record six decades later.
  Although never an All Star, another player to briefly skate in Hershey during this era was Don "Grapes" Cherry who as a coach (Rochester, Boston, Colorado) and later a broadcaster became and still remains one of the game's most visible and controversial figures. As a 20-year-old defenseman Cherry made his professional debut with the Bears during the 1954-55 season and also played for the club in 1956-57.  As a TV personality and longtime commentator on Hockey Night in Canada, this former Bear is one of the best known figures in Canada in any field.
  With the demise of the AHL Pittsburgh Hornets in 1956, Bears managers John Sollenberger and Lloyd Blinco were able to acquire the services of seven of the recent Calder Cup champion Hornets' best players including four-time All Star goalie Gil Mayer and the AHL's eventual all-time scoring leader Willie Marshall (523–852—1,205). The most important from Pittsburgh, however, was the AHL's only five-time First-Team All-Star defenseman, Frank S. Mathers, who remained active with the Bears for an unprecedented thirty-five seasons as an All Star defenseman, player-coach, general manager, and club president. Under Mathers' leadership, Hershey won over 1,500 games and six Calder Cup titles while Mathers himself was honored with the Lester Patrick Award in 1987 for his "contributions to hockey in the United States", and in 1992 he became the second individual to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame based on a career in the AHL.
  While the Mathers era in Hershey started slowly with a fourth-place finish in 1956-57, he led the Bears back-to-back Calder Cup titles in his second and third seasons as a player-coach. With Bobby Perreault and Mayer in goal, the league's top two scorers in linemates  Marshall and Dunc Fisher, and Mathers himself earning All Star honors on defense for the sixth time in seven years, the Bears won both the regular season and play-off championships in 1957-58. Although Hershey finished the 1958-59 season with just a .500 record (32-32-6), they defeated the Cleveland Barons in the first round before upsetting the regular-season champion Buffalo Bisons in the finals, four-games-to-two, to win their third Calder Cup title.
  In 1958 the Bears also acquired the services of 23-year-old center Mike Nykoluk who had split the previous two seasons between the Toronto Maple Leafs and their AHL club in Rochester.  When Nykoluk retired fourteen years later in 1972, he was the AHL's then fourth (now sixth) all-time leader in points with 881 on 195 goals and 686 assists and his 972 games as a Bear are 219 more than Kullman's second overall 753 in a Hershey uniform. In 1972 his jersey number eight also became the first to ever be retired by the Bears.
  Although it was more than a decade before the Calder Cup returned to Hershey, during the first half of the 1960s five key players joined the club who would each stay from anywhere from seven to nine seasons: defensemen Barry Ashbee (1962–70) and Ralph Keller (1963-72), and forwards Roger DeJordy (1962–70), Michel Harvey (1963-71) and Gil Gilbert (1965–72).  Together they would eventually account for 2,654 games played, 710 goals, 1,251 assists, and 1,961 points as Bears. While these five and league MVP Mike Nykoluk all helped the Bears win their division's regular-season title in 1966–67, for the first time since 1957-58, on a 38-24-10 record behind the goaltending of First Team All Star Andre Gill and a league-leading 52 goals by DeJordy, it would be another two years before the Calder Cup re
caption: Arnie Kullman (1948–60)
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