Ronny Van Gompel, 80; youth hockey coach, advocate

Ronny Van Gompel, a pioneering youth hockey coach who in the late 1950s began laying the foundation for today’s flourishing Southern California youth hockey scene, has died. He was 80.

Van Gompel, who also founded a program that gives hockey equipment to underprivileged children, died of congenital heart failure Oct. 18 at his Sun Valley home, said his companion, Mary Ann Maskery.

“Without Ronny’s efforts, youth hockey in Southern California would not be where it is today,” Jim Fox, an announcer and former player for the Los Angeles Kings, said in a statement.

For three decades, Van Gompel was a National Hockey League timekeeper who worked Kings games before retiring in 1997.

Former Kings player Luc Robitaille said in a statement that Van Gompel “was like a father” who “represented hockey in Southern California the way we knew hockey in Canada.”

When Van Gompel began coaching and organizing leagues in 1959, hockey playing and home-grown talent were almost nonexistent. Within three years, he had coached a California youth hockey team into competing at the national level.

“There were no other coaches here that I even knew of,” said Brian Bird, who was 12 when he joined that early winning team and is now a lawyer. “He was gruff but no-nonsense in a warm way . . . and he kicked hockey into gear here.”

Van Gompel often played a key role off the ice as a fervent recruiter.

“Hockey was such an unknown here, and Ronny was always trying to pull kids off the street and get gear on their back,” said Larry Bruyere, director of hockey operations at Ice Station Valencia. “Once they realized what an exciting sport it was, he moved on.”

In 1992, Van Gompel founded the Hockey Equipment Lending Program, a local nonprofit that gave him an official way to accomplish what he had done for decades -- provide free equipment to financially disadvantaged youths.

With Wayne Gretzky’s arrival in 1988 to play for the Kings, local interest in hockey started surging. Gretzky also gave Van Gompel’s cause a direct assist by donating 802 pieces of equipment after breaking Gordie Howe’s record of 801 goals in 1994.

Today, hockey scouts acknowledge Southern California as a significant source of young talent, and Canadian junior hockey leagues regularly recruit here.

Van Gompel was born Francois Van Gompel on June 6, 1927, in Antwerp, Belgium.

After he and his brother Carl joined the underground resistance during World War II, they last saw each other running up a hill to escape German soldiers; Van Gompel heard gunfire and thought his brother had been shot dead.

While working with the resistance, Van Gompel used a code name his father gave him -- Ronny. That became his nickname for the rest of his life.

He served as an interpreter for the U.S. Army and later worked with Canadian troops who introduced him to hockey.

After the war, Van Gompel played hockey in Austria and performed in “The Skating Vanities,” a roller-skating revue that brought him to Southern California.

For years, he worked for First American Title Co. of Los Angeles.

In 1996, Van Gompel answered the phone to find out that his brother had survived the war and had been searching for him since 1960. He found him through the Internet.

The brothers learned that they shared an interest in connecting needy children with sports equipment. Van Gompel soon sent a box of basketball and baseball gear to Belgium.

The card reportedly read, “From the poor kids of California to the poor kids of Antwerp.”

Van Gompel was divorced. In addition to Maskery, he is survived by a son, Michael.

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valerie.nelson@latimes.com