St. Catharines Ontario native John Hewitt is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario Business School. From 1961 to 1994 he taught history and economics at Lakeport Secondary School in the Garden City. In 2001 he switched gears and became a hockey columnist for the St. Catharines Standard, profiling Garden City Junior A hockey teams from the past.

Hewitt has also written hockey columns for the Niagara Falls Review and The Society for International Hockey Research.

For the last five years he has been working on a book entitled Garden City Hockey Heroes. It details the history of the 34 St. Catharines Junior A clubs that played in the city from 1943 to 1977. The book will contain more than 700 pictures and artifacts, along with bios of the 124 players who saw action in at least one NHL game. Among the players profiled are Hockey Hall of Fame members Marcel Dionne, Phil Esposito, Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Pierre Pilote, and former coach, GM and team owner, Rudy Pilous. The book will be available before Christmas of 2008.

Scheduled for publication in the fall of 2010, when the new Niagara Falls Arena opens, is a book on the history of Junior A and OHL hockey in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The 26 Niagara Falls Flyers and Thunder teams sent 106 players to the NHL, including Hockey Hall of Famers Bernie Parent and Mike Gartner.