User:Alaney2k/Emergence of the National Hockey League

The National Hockey League (NHL) emerged as the single 'major league' of professional ice hockey league in North America by 1927. The game developed in the pioneering amateur hockey of Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec. The professional game was pioneered in the Michigan and Pennsylvania states of the United States before being adopted in Canada. The 1910s saw the formation of the National Hockey Association (NHA) in eastern Canada and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association in western Canada. Backed at first by the mining boom in Northern Ontario, the NHA built upon its base and expanded into Toronto. Faced with internal and external pressures in 1917, the NHL was born, at first as a temporary league to get rid of an unwanted team owner and parner. Backed by the successful Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle, by the early 1920s, the NHL was ready to expand again, this time into the north-east United States. With the success of Boston and New York City, the NHL was poised to grow. This growth was made possible by the purchase of the players of the Western League in 1927.

Early amateur hockey

The National Hockey League can trace its lineage to the first indoor ice hockey game in 1875 in Montreal, Quebec. The game, played on the 204 feet (62 m) by 80 feet (24 m) ice at the Victoria Skating Rink was played between two nine-man teams, and was organized by James Creighton. Creighton, a Halifax native, adapted the outdoor game of shinny played in Nova Scotia, to the indoor ice of the Victoria Rink, where he was a figure skating judge. Outdoors, the game was played by any number of players, sometimes on skates, and usually using a ball. The game at the Victoria Rink was nine per side, and used a wooden puck.

The game grew in Montreal to the point where the annual Montreal Winter Carnival added an ice hockey tournament to its repertoire of events. The McGill University team, whose students also played in the first game, won the first trophy in 1883. The tournament changed the number of on-ice participants to seven per side. By 1886, interest in the game sparked the formation of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada (AHAC). Four clubs from Montreal, the Montreals, the Crystals, the Victorias, McGill University, as well as Ottawa HC were the original members of the league, and Quebec City would join the league later. Two teams from that league, the Ottawa HC (later known as the original Senators) and the Quebec HC (later to be known as the Bulldogs) would eventually be members of the National Hockey League.

In 1889 Lord Stanley saw his first ice hockey game at the Victoria Rink during the Montreal Carnival tournament. When he took residence in Ottawa, he and his family became involved in ice hockey activities. Stanley became patron of the Rideau Skating Rink and Curling Club, and his sons and daughter took up ice hockey actively. Stanley's sons played on the 'Rideau Rebels' team along with James Creighton, who had moved to Ottawa to become law clerk to the Canadian Senate. It was in Ottawa that P.D. Ross became editor of the Ottawa Journal and president of the Ottawa Hockey Club. Lord Stanley was considered a 'fan' of the Ottawa team. After the Ottawa team won the 1892 OHA championship, but lost the 1892 AHAC championship in the final game, Lord Stanley donated the Stanley Cup to be the national and overall championship trophy under the trusteeship of Ross and Sheriff John Sweetland. Stanley also suggested changes to the schedule that led to the AHAC starting a full round-robin schedule of games in 1893. The first winners were the Montreal Hockey Club of the Montreal AAA. The team had formed in the 1880s, first playing in the Montreal Carnival tournaments.

In 1898, the AHAC was dissolved in a way that would be repeated in the future. The Ottawa Capitals, champions of the intermediate division of the AHAC applied to move up to the senior level. There were 'two strikes' against the Capitals when they applied. The lacrosse side of the club had been scandalized by payments to its 'amateur' players. The club was also competition to the Ottawa Hockey Club, for players and for fans. The full membership of the AHAC approved the measure to move the Capitals into the senior level. Ottawa, and other teams of the senior level, then resigned their position in the league and formed the new Canadian Amateur Hockey League, thus freezing out the Capitals. The CAHL would adopt its own trophy, but otherwise was similar to the AHAC. Concurrent to this change-over in leagues, the Quebec team brought forth the first design for a hockey net and it was first used in the CAHL. Similar to the AHAC, the CAHL set up multiple divisions and had teams in Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec.

In 1903, the competing Federal Amateur Hockey League was set up, and one of its founding teams was the Montreal Wanderers. The Wanderers's core of players included players from the Montreal Hockey Club. Between the two leagues, most of the elite ice hockey players played in one or the other league, although amateur leagues in Manitoba, northern Ontario, southern Ontario and the Maritimes were becoming popular, and challenged for and occasionally won the Stanley Cup.

Ottawa Hockey Club, "Silver Seven", with the Stanley Cup in 1905

Emergence of professional hockey

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ice hockey had been introduced with the visits of Canadian teams from Queen's University and McGill University in the 1890s. Pittsburgh had one of the first artificial ice rinks and a city league developed of amateur teams. In 1901, this became the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL), and it was notable because the league hired Canadian ice hockey players, paying the players a weekly amount for hockey, usually provided lodging and often a non-hockey job as well. This was the first openly professional ice hockey, although players in the Canadian amateur leagues were given money before 1900, and a scandal ensued in Ottawa when Fred Chittick publicly exposed the payments in the 1897 season.

In Houghton, Michigan, a similar situation existed, where some Canadians were paid to play hockey. The WPHL and Michigan teams even played off for what was termed the 'Championship of the United States.' In 1904, the International Hockey League (IHL), based around Lake Michigan, was created as the first fully professional league. It included two Pittsburgh professional teams from the WPHL which suspended operations. In recruiting players, the IHL caused an "Athletic War" that drained amateur clubs of top players, most noticeably in the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA). The IHL challenged for the Stanley Cup, but the trustees turned down the challenge.

The period of 1905 through 1906 was another period of instability. The CAHL and Stanley Cup champion Ottawa Hockey Club went independent in February 1905, keeping the Cup under official sanction. Ottawa held the Cup through challenges from 1903 to 1906 before losing to the FAHL champion Wanderers. Ottawa and the Wanderers, Montreal Victorias, Montreal Shamrocks, Montreal Hockey Club and Quebec formed the new Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA), unifying the top teams into one league. This league now innovated and allowed professional players to play with the unpaid players. The Victorias and Montreal continued as amateurs, while the other teams had professionals. The denoting of professional players was supposed to be publicly announced, but this was abused. However, the limited professionalism was enough to attract those players which had joined the International League to return to Canada.

As the professional game now became ensconced, other professional leagues were formed, including the Ontario Professional Hockey League (OPHL) in the Toronto area. The Manitoba, Maritime and Northern Ontario leagues became professional. A new league the Temiscaming Professional Hockey League was formed in the Temiscaming area in 1906. The area was undergoing a boom around several silver mines. The miners and the mine owners became high-stakes gamblers on their hockey teams, and players and referees from the ECAHA regularly played games-for-hire in the TPHL. An area industrialist, Michael J. O'Brien, of Renfrew, Ontario indulged his son Ambrose O'Brien's interest in ice hockey and bankrolled the activities of the league, owning the Cobalt and Haileybury teams and supporting the Renfrew team, along with other activities such as opera houses in Renfrew.

By 1909, the ECAHA was fully professional, and the amateur teams proceeded to organize their own Inter-Provincial league to contest for the new Allan Cup championship. The O'Briens and the Renfrew team now sought to challenge for the Stanley Cup. The Renfrew team hired various professional players away from other teams to play in the Federal League in 1909, winning the championship. Because the Renfrew team was essentially players-for-hire, the Stanley Cup trustees turned down their challenges for the Stanley Cup. The trustees implemented the first 'roster-freeze' rule, disallowing any players not members of their team before January 1 of the calendar year.

The NHA

At the end of 1909, two events brought ice hockey into upheaval once again. The Montreal Wanderers were sold to P. J. Doran, who owned the Jubilee Rink in Montreal. The Wanderers were to play in the Jubilee rink, which was smaller and more spartan than the Montreal Arena, and meant lower gate receipts to the visiting clubs. The Wanderers were expelled from the ECHA, by the pattern of dissolving the league and forming the new Canadian Hockey Association of the remaining CHA teams. The CHA also added two Montreal-area teams, the francophone Montreal Le National and the All-Montreal.

Meanwhile, Ambrose O'Brien was in town, and he applied on behalf of the Renfrew team to join first the ECHA and next the CHA. He was turned down both times. While still in the hotel where the CHA was meeting, he met Jimmy Gardner, who was representing the Wanderers at the ECHA and CHA proceedings. Between O'Brien and Gardner, the two proposed the formation of another new league, the National Hockey Association (NHA). O'Brien brought in his two Cobalt and Haileybury teams to the NHA. O'Brien purchased the Renfrew team of the Federal League and added it to the NHA. Gardner won over O'Brien to the idea of a competing francophone team in Montreal and the two organized the Les Canadiens, predecessor of today's Montreal Canadiens. The NHA was formed as a limited business, with all teams equal partners in the company.

When compared to the CHA, the geographical distances between NHA teams were much greater; however, the NHA's financial backers were more notable businessmen. These businessmen applied financial principles similar to those of early baseball, and the leagues quickly entered a bitter bidding war over players. In particular, after being rejected from the CHA, Renfrew aggressively pursued any players that the CHA's Ottawa club wanted. With its significantly wealthier backers, the NHA easily recruited the top players, leaving the CHA teams, except Ottawa, relatively mediocre. Ottawa regularly trounced its opponents, and league attendance and interest dropped. The CHA's final season lasted eight games, and the league folded in 1910 as its Ottawa and Montreal clubs joined the NHA. O'Brien proposed that Montreal Le National take over the Canadiens but the club declined.

For the 1910-11 season, the NHA made several changes, dropping the old Montreal Shamrocks and the TPHL Cobalt and Haileybury teams. The Quebec Hockey Club returned. The two suspended NHA franchises, held by O'Brien were inactive. Interest was shown by groups in the Toronto area. The Toronto team had withdrawn from the Ontario Pro league after two seasons. A proposal to build a new arena in Toronto, the Arena Gardens was underway to house the professional game. It was to be the first artificial ice rink in Canada, and was a joint venture of the Montreal Arena owners, industrialists and financiers in Toronto, including Sir Henry Pellatt.

The NHA, while at first adopting the rules of the ECHA, continued to modify the rules as it saw fit. The league split the game into three periods in 1911. In 1912, the league dropped the 'rover' position, reducing the number of players to six per side. The NHA instituted the division of major and minor fouls. These rules are still part of the game today. Michael O'Brien donated the O'Brien Cup, a solid silver cup, to be given to the league champions. The O'Brien Cup would be in use until 1950.

The NHA was not long without competition, although not in their own cities. Frank and Lester Patrick, along with their father Joe Patrick, formed the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) in 1912. The PCHA was wholly-owned by the Patricks, along with the two new artificial ice rink arenas in Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia. Immediately, the Patricks lured players of the NHA, which had adopted a salary cap, to their league. By 1915, the PCHA had achieved a kind of parity with the NHA, and the PCHA's Vancouver Millionaires won the Stanley Cup.

Toronto joined the league for the 1912–13 season with two new teams, the Torontos (or Blueshirts) and the Tecumsehs, both at first owned by Frank Robinson of Montreal. Now the four largest cities of Canada (Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec and Toronto) were together in one league. Percy Quinn, president of the Dominion Lacrosse Association and insurance company executive, took over the Blueshirts and led it to the Stanley Cup in 1914.

The year 1914 saw the start of the First World War. Many of the NHA and PCHA players would soon enlist in the army and went overseas. The NHA clubs would add more players from the amateur ranks and other leagues to fill the gap. Both leagues would pursue players from the other. A draft was established to allow the PCHA to sign NHA players, but limit the league to league transfers. The two leagues co-operated in other ways, setting up an agreement to play off for the Stanley Cup, once their own league champions were decided.

Founding of the NHL

The Ottawa Senators, pictured in 1914–15, became a charter member of the National Hockey League

In the 1916–17 season, the NHA was facing numerous problems. The Quebec Bulldogs were in financial difficulty, while the league's most popular team, the Toronto 228th Battalion, was called away to fight in World War I. Several of the league's team owners were growing frustrated with Toronto Blueshirts owner Eddie Livingstone, with whom they had been having problems since 1915. Prior to the start of the season, the owners of the Montreal teams, Sam Lichtenhein of the Wanderers and George Kennedy of the Canadiens, threatened to drop the Blueshirts from the league over a player dispute Livingstone was having with the 228th Battalion. Livingstone was also in a dispute with the Ottawa Senators over the rights to Cy Denneny, while Kennedy and Livingstone had a mutual dislike that occasionally threatened to come to blows at league meetings.

The remaining owners used the loss of the 228th Battalion as a reason to eliminate the Blueshirts on February 11, 1917. The Montreal teams led a motion to reduce the NHA to four teams by removing the Blueshirts, ignoring Livingstone's attempts to create a revamped five-team schedule. Livingstone was promised that his players would be returned to him after the season. The dispersal of the Blueshirts' players, organized by league secretary Frank Calder, was described by the Toronto Mail and Empire as a "raid of the Toronto players". At the same meeting, the league adopted a motion commanding Livingstone sell the Blueshirts by June 1.

We didn't throw Eddie Livingstone out. Perish the thought. That would have been illegal and unfair. Also, it wouldn't have been sporting. We just resigned, and wished him a fine future with his National Association franchise.

 —Sam Lichtenhein, as told to sports journalist Elmer Ferguson

By November 1917, with the sale of Livingstone's Blueshirts still not completed, the remaining owners, realizing they were powerless under the NHA constitution to forcibly eject Livingstone, decided to suspend the NHA and form a new league without Livingstone. On November 26, 1917, following several meetings of the NHA owners throughout the month, the National Hockey League was created at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal. The new league was represented by Lichtenhein's Wanderers, Kennedy's Canadiens, Tommy Gorman on behalf of the Senators, and Mike Quinn of the Bulldogs. A new team in Toronto, under the control of the Toronto Arena Company, completed the five-team league. The NHL adopted the NHA's constitution and named Calder its first president. Quebec retained membership in the NHL, but did not operate that season, so their players were dispersed by draft among the other teams.

Minutes of the first meeting

At a meeting of representatives of hockey clubs held at the Windsor Hotel, Montreal, the following present, G.W. Kendall, S.E. Lichtenhein, T.P. Gorman, M.J. Quinn and Frank Calder, it was explained by the last named that in view of the suspension of operations by the National Hockey Association of Canada Limited, he had called the meeting at the suggestion of the Quebec Hockey Club to ascertain if some steps could not be taken to perpetuate the game of hockey.

Frank Calder was elected to the Chair and a discussion ensued after which it was moved by T.P. Gorman, seconded by G.W. Kendall: “That the Canadiens, Wanderers, Ottawa and Quebec Hockey Clubs unite to comprise the National Hockey League”. The motion was carried.

It was then moved by M.J. Quinn seconded by G.W. Kendall that: “This League agrees to operate under the rules and conditions governing the game of hockey prescribed by the National Hockey Association of Canada Limited”. The motion was carried.

At this stage, Mr. W.E. Northey, representing the Toronto Arena Company asked to be admitted to the meeting and was admitted. Mr. Northey explained that he was empowered by the interests he represented to say that in the event of a league being formed to contain four clubs, the Toronto Arenas desired to enter a team in the competition.

Upon this assurance M.J. Quinn on behalf of the Quebec Hockey Club declared the latter willing to withdraw provided a suitable arrangement could be made regarding players then the property of the Quebec Hockey Club.

After discussion it was unanimously agreed that the Quebec players be taken over by the league at a cost of $700 of which amount 50% should be paid to the Quebec Hockey Club by the club winning the championship, 30% by the second club and 20% by the third club in the race.

The meeting then proceeded to the election of officers. The following directors were elected S.E. Lichtenhein (Wanderers), Martin Rosenthal (Ottawa), G.W. Kendall (Canadiens) and a director to be named by the Toronto club.

M.J. Quinn was elected Honorary President with power to vote on matters pertaining to the general welfare of the league.

Frank Calder was elected President and Secretary-Treasurer at a salary of $800 on the understanding that there could be no appeal from his decisions.

After a schedule of Wednesday and Saturday games was adopted the meeting was adjourned.

From the Minutes of the
First NHL Board of Governors Meeting
November, 1917

The NHL was intended to be a temporary league, as the owners hoped to remove Livingstone from Toronto, then return to the NHA in 1918–19. Livingstone had other ideas, filing lawsuits against the new league, the owners and the players in an attempt to keep his team operating. Nonetheless, the NHL began play three weeks after it was created, with the first games held on December 19 in Ottawa and Montreal.

The end of the PCHA and WHL

By 1927, the PCHA had had to merge their interests with other western Canadian teams to form the Western Canada Hockey League, later simply the Western Hockey League. The Patricks' biggest assets, the Vancouver and Victoria arenas were now facing extensive and expensive repairs. The Patricks, together with the other owners devised a plan to bundle their players for sale to the NHL, which was expanding and needed players. Although the players were technically free agents, and some doubts were expressed about this by the NHL, the Patricks were able to sell three teams-worth of players for $300,000. The Victoria Cougars were sold to Detroit interest to begin play in the NHL as the Detroit Cougars. The Portland Rosebuds were sold to Chicago interests to become the Chicago Black Hawks. The third bundle was sold to the NHL itself and the players dispersed. Frank and Lester Patrick would both find jobs in the NHL.

The PCHA contributed much to ice hockey. The Patricks are credited with inventing the playoff system used today, whereby teams other than the first-place team have a second chance to become league champions. The Patricks invented the three zones of ice hockey, marked by today's 'blue lines.' The centre-ice zone allowed the forward pass in ice hockey. The Patricks held onto the rover position in the PCHA long after the NHA abandoned it.

By 1927, the NHL was now the dominant ice hockey league in North America. The league had placed teams in the largest cities in the East and had effectively fought off competition. Under the leadership of league president Frank Calder, the NHL would proceed to set up the minor league system, starting with an agreement with the American Hockey League.

The arenas

• Arena Gardens
• Montreal Arena
• The Arena, Ottawa
• Quebec Skating Rink

See also

• History of the National Hockey League
• List of Pre-NHL seasons

References

• Coleman, Charles (1964), Trail of the Stanley Cup, Vol I., Kendall/Hunt, ISBN 0-8403-2941-5
• Diamond, Dan (1991), The Official National Hockey League 75th Anniversary Commemorative Book, McClelland & Stewart, ISBN 0-7710-6727-5
• Gillmor, Don (2001), Canada: A People's History, vol. two, McClelland & Stewart, ISBN 0-7710-3341-9
• Holzman, Morey; Nieforth, Joseph (2002), Deceptions and Doublecross: How the NHL Conquered Hockey, Dundurn Press, ISBN 1-55002-413-2
• Jenish, D'Arcy (2008), The Montreal Canadians: 100 Years of Glory, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0385-66324-3
• McFarlane, Brian (1990), 100 Years of Hockey, Summerhill Press, ISBN 0-929091-26-4
• McKinley, Michael (2006), Hockey: A People's History, McClelland & Stewart, ISBN 0-7710-5769-5
• Pincus, Arthur (2006), The Official Illustrated NHL History, Readers Digest, ISBN 0-88850-800-X
• Sandor, Steven (2005), The Battle of Alberta: A Century of Hockey's Greatest Rivalry, Heritage House, ISBN 1-894974-01-8
• Wong, John Chi-Kit (2001), The Development of Professional Hockey and the Making of the National Hockey League, University of Maryland College Park, ISBN 9780493368948