• Taught Classics at the U of A from 1920 to 1964 and coached the Golden Bears hockey team from 1922 to 1926.
• A driving force behind the University's first on-campus, covered hockey arena, which opened in December 1927.
• President of the fledgling Alberta Amateur Hockey Association (1931-33) and president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (1938-40).
• President of the International Ice Hockey Association (1940-47) and president of the International Ice Hockey Federation (1948-51).
• Appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 1973 and posthumously elected to the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in 1989.

While Dr. W. George Hardy is but one in a long line of outstanding men and women to teach and provide scholarly leadership at this University, he was a true renaissance man. His versatility and range of competence have seldom been equaled.

He was a superb teacher, a demanding scholar, a lucid writer in both the academic and historical novel modes, a meticulous editor, an able administrator, an athlete, coach, and sports visionary.

A classics scholar, he valued sport as an important expression of modern culture as it had been in the ancient Greek and Roman times to which he devoted a lifetime of study and teaching. Addressing a graduating class at Alberta in Physical Education and Recreation in the mid-1960's, he remarked, "Colleagues sometimes ask me why I, a classics scholar am interested in sport. I always reply that it is because I am a classics scholar that sport attracts me."

Dr. Hardy first came to the University in 1920 after completing a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. He began as a lecturer in the Classics Department, which he was to head from 1938 until his retirement in 1964. During that extended period he built a strong area of study in his field of interest and was a driving force behind the development of an intercollegiate program at the University. His key focus was hockey, where he served as coach of the Golden Bears from 1922 to 1926. His political skill and persistence were significant forces in the struggle to have a covered arena built on campus in 1927.

Between 1931 and 1951 Dr. Hardy was involved prominently in the development of The Alberta and Canadian Amateur Hockey Associations, as well as representing Canada internationally. From 1931 to 1933 he was the President of the Alberta Amateur Hockey Association. He then became the President of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association from 1938 to 1940. Expanding his love and interest in hockey, Dr. Hardy became the President of the International Ice Hockey Association from 1940 to 1947 and in 1948 was elected to a three year term as President of the International Ice Hockey Federation.

Dr. Hardy is recognized as a truly remarkable man and a great builder at this University. His achievements in the academic and literary world are reflected in his writing more than a dozen novels and scores of scholarly papers. In 1973, six years before his death in 1979 at age 84, Dr. Hardy was made a member of the Order of Canada, the highest honor this country can offer a citizen.