Vince Rossiter served the Newfoundland and Labrador Amateur Hockey Association extremely well and with great dedication and efficiency during a 10-year period that was highlighted by transition.

After two years as Eastern vice-president, he fulfilled the duties of president for eight years and was especially effective in helping to lay the groundwork for the provincial organization to affiliate with the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association as a separate branch. In addition to this important work, he demonstrated the ability to cement provincial senior hockey into an important and permanent aspect of life within Newfoundland and Labrador. It was during the summer of 1960 that Rossiter and Ted Withers attended Canadian Amateur Hockey Association meetings in Nova Scotia and made the first appropriate move towards Canadian Amateur Hockey Association affiliation that finally came into being in 1966.

Rossiter was the main instigator of provincial minor hockey. He established an agreement whereby funds generated by radio broadcast rights for senior games went to minor hockey, and he attended a 1959 meeting with a group of minor hockey people that established the foundation for an effective and permanent minor hockey organization. It was in 1959 that he rewrote the Newfoundland Amateur Hockey Association’s constitution.

Rossiter was responsible for the introduction of an accident fund within provincial senior hockey that guaranteed players would receive adequate medical assistance and compensation when it was necessary. Under his guidance, hockey at all levels within Newfoundland and Labrador moved forward.

Rossiter’s hockey career as a builder began in 1950 with his election as the St. Pat’s Athletic Association’s delegate to the St. John’s junior and senior hockey leagues. He served that responsibility so well that he advanced through the St. John’s leagues to the Newfoundland Amateur Hockey Association and become its president.

In 1985, his contributions were recognized when he was made a lifetime Newfoundland Amateur Hockey Association member, and was the recipient of a Gold Stick award and a special Newfoundland Amateur Hockey Association plaque.