Former Guelph Platers owner Joe Holody dead at 96
Posted Jan 2, 2024 05:13:27 AM.
Last Updated Jan 2, 2024 05:13:30 AM.
Joe Holody, the former owner of the OHL Guelph and Owen Sound Platers, has died.
The man also known as “Smoking Joe,” for always have a cigar handy, is most known for bringing Major Junior hockey to the royal city when he brought the Platers to the OHL in 1982. He won a Memorial Cup with the team in 1986 before moving to Owen Sound in 1989. He sold the team in 2000 and are currently named the Owen Sound Attack.
Holody emigrated to Canada from Poland in 1927 and grew up in Guelph. In 1955, he founded Holody Electro Plating Ltd, which still operates today on Victoria Road South in Guelph.
He was named Guelph’s “Man of the Year” in 1981 and was inducted in the Guelph Sports Hall of Fame as a builder in 1995. In 2012, he was awarded the Governor General award of Excellence and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for good work, good deeds and leadership.
A trophy is named after him, the “Holody Trophy,” which is awarded every year to the winner of the OHL’s Midwest Division.
Holody died on the morning of December 27 at the age of 96.
