Louis, with the understanding that the money would be paid to the club if the league managed to sell the franchise. The board refused and instead proposed that the league buy the rights to players under option to St. On September 28, 1935, the club asked the NHL board of governors for permission to suspend operations for one year. Louis franchise was in desperate trouble. The standings at season's end showed the Eagles with 11 wins, six ties and 31 defeats – the year's worst in the league. The last game of that miserable year was on the road at Maple Leafs Gardens, where St. Louis on March 12, 1935, the Eagles closed at home with a flourish by defeating the Red Wings 3-2. Playing their final game of the season in St. Eventually, Syd Howe and Bill Cowley ended up in the Hockey Hall of Fame. But the struggling franchise needed financial support and its first move was to deal Howe to Detroit for cash and Finnigan to Toronto for more cash. Finnigan was a cagey and reliable veteran and Cowley displayed all the potential of a budding star. At the time, the team had one outstanding line: Syd Howe (no relation to Gordie) on left wing, Frank Finnigan on right wing and Bill Cowley at Center. No less affected by the Depression, the Eagles also suffered mightily at the gate and on the ice. The franchise requested permission to lease its players until it could resume operations and Ottawa rejoined the league after a one-year absence, but the NHL board of governors later gave the Senators permission to move the franchise to St. And considering the city's rich hockey heritage, the loss of Ottawa sent shockwaves throughout the hockey world. Ottawa did likewise even though the Senators had enjoyed a more successful season. The Quakers suffered through an abysmal 1930-31 season with four wins, four ties and 36 losses before they asked permission to cease operations at the September 26, 1931, club owners meeting. In 1930, the Pittsburgh franchise was moved to Philadelphia – with little success.
a job.Īt first the league weathered the economic storm with no significant negative effects, but as the Depression lengthened, attendance dropped and clubs folded. The massive unemployment that was part and parcel of the Great Depression meant that hockey fans, like almost everyone else, had less to spend on entertainment – that is, if they had any money at all, or a source of it, i.e. The Great Depression quickly overcame North American life and would have a profound effect on the NHL too. Between 19, stock losses alone were estimated at $50 billion. WALL STREET LAYS AN EGG, shouted a headline in Variety, the show business weekly, as just one example. Then came October 29, 1929, and all bets were off, everywhere. They prepared for a 1929-30 campaign that would feature new rules that accented the offense as the Boston Bruins prepared to defend the Stanley Cup. When league owners convened for their annual meeting in September 1929, they could not have predicted the economic disaster that was so near at that point. A year later, the deluge of new teams began with the New York Americans and Pittsburgh Pirates, soon to be followed by entries from Chicago, Detroit and a second from Manhatten, the Rangers. It wasn't until the 1924-25 season that the league expanded to include its first American team, the Boston Bruins.
At first the National Hockey League responded slowly to the explosion in sports (along with everything else) that accompanied the 1920s. Prohibition in the United States was accompanied by bootleg brooze, shorter skirts were deployed in new dances, jazz was discovered by a wider, mixed audience a general joie de vivre seemed a natural antidote to the hangover left behind after World War I ended. The era spanning January 1, 1920, through October 29, 1929, is often referred to as the Roaring Twenties.
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