1915–16 NHA season

The 1915–16 NHA season was the seventh season of the National Hockey Association. Five teams would play a 24 game schedule. Montreal Canadiens would win the league championship and defeat the Portland Rosebuds to win their first ever Stanley Cup.

League business

Toronto Blueshirts included the players from the Toronto Shamrocks/Ontarios/Tecumsehs franchise. Before the season, Ed Livingstone, the Shamrocks owner, purchased the Blueshirts franchise from Frank Robinson. At the annual meeting of November 9, 1915, he was ordered to sell the Shamrocks franchise but could not do so as the Pacific Coast Hockey Association 'raided' the franchise and signed its players.

• Emmett Quinn continued as president
• Frank Calder continued as secretary-treasurer

Directors:

• Sam Lichtenhein, Ernie Russell, Wanderers
• E. J. Livingstone, Shamrocks
• Frank Robinson, M. J. Quinn, Toronto
• Barney Kane, Quebec
• George Kennedy, Canadiens
• Martin Rosenthal, Frank Shaughnessy, Ottawa

President Quinn instituted a rule that officials would be locked in their dressing rooms between periods to disallow influence from the press or players.

Regular season

Several players from the PCHA signed with NHA clubs:

• Frank Nighbor, Ottawa
• Bert Lindsay, Wanderers
• Walter Smaill, Wanderers

Highlights

On January 23, 1916, Skene Ronan was arrested by Toronto police and charged with assault for hitting Alf Skinner.

On February 23, 1916, Gordon Roberts of the Wanderers drew a match penalty for cutting Ottawa's Frank Nighbor in a game in Montreal. On the next visit of the Wanderers to Ottawa, Roberts was pelted with bottles from the Ottawa fans.^[1]

The race for the scoring championship was close between Newsy Lalonde of the Canadiens, Joe Malone of Quebec and Cy Denneny of Toronto. Lalonde would finish with 31 goals in 25 games and Malone and Denneny would tie for second with 26 goals. Clint Benedict of Ottawa would have the best G.A.A. of 3.0 to best Georges Vezina's 3.2 goals per game. Gordon Keats of Toronto would score five goals in a game against Quebec on February 7, 1916. He would finish the season with 22 goals in 24 games.

Final standings

^[2]

Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF= Goals For, GA = Goals Against

Montreal is the champion of the O'Brien Cup.

Playoffs

Part of the series on

Emergence of the NHL

Leagues

AHAC (1886–1898) WPHL (1896–1910) CAHL (1898–1905) FAHL (1904–1909) IPHL (1904–1907) ECAHA (1906–1909) TPHL (1906–1911) OPHL (1908–1911) CHA (1909–1910) NHA (1909–1917) PCHA (1912–1924) NHL (1917–present) WCHL (1921–1926)

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The Canadiens hosted the Portland Rosebuds, champions of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) in the 'World Series' for the Stanley Cup.

Stanley Cup Finals

Exhibitions

After the Stanley Cup playoff, Portland and Montreal travelled to New York for two exhibition games. The teams then played two games in Cleveland. Montreal then travelled to Boston to play the winner of an exhibition series played between Ottawa, Quebec and the Wanderers.^[3]

Schedule and results

Player statistics

Scoring leaders

Leading goaltenders

See also

• National Hockey Association
• List of pre-NHL seasons
• List of Stanley Cup champions
• 1915–16 PCHA season

References

• Coleman, Charles (1966). The Trail of the Stanley Cup, Vol. 1, 1893–1926 inc.. NHL.