| New York Americans |
|
|
| Founded |
1925 |
| History |
New York Americans
1925 - 1941
Brooklyn Americans
1941-1942 (franchise canceled 1946) |
| Home Arena |
Madison Square Garden |
| City |
New York, New York |
| Colors |
Red, White, and Blue |
The New York Americans were a professional ice hockey team, the third
expansion team in the history of the National
Hockey League (NHL) and the second to play in the United States.
Franchise history
The 1925-26 New York Americans
In 1923, Thomas Duggan received options on three NHL franchises for the United States.
After selling one to Boston grocery magnate Charles Adams, Duggan arranged with Tex Rickard
to have a team in Madison Square Garden. Rickard agreed, but play was delayed
until the new Garden was built in 1925. In April of that year, Duggan and Bill
Dwyer, New York's most-celebrated prohibition bootlegger, were awarded the franchise for
New York. Somewhat fortuitously given the shortage of players, the Hamilton Tigers, who
had finished first the season before, had been suspended from the league after they struck for higher pay. Dwyer duly bought the
collective rights to the Tiger players for $75,000 and moved them to the newly
built Madison Square Garden. The Tigers franchise was suspended and never
returned; the NHL does not consider the Americans to be a continuation of the Tigers.
The New York Americans in 1929.
The New York Americans and Pittsburgh Pirates became the second and third
American-based teams in the NHL. They followed Adams' Boston Bruins, who began the
previous season. As with the Pirates, the choice of "Americans" as a nickname may have been
influenced by a local strong baseball team, specifically the New York Yankees, but Rickard also wanted to market the American character of the team, which was
playing a sport acknowledged as Canadian.
Success didn't come easily for the Americans. Even though their roster was substantively the same that led the NHL in Hamilton
the previous year, in the Americans' first season, 1925-26, they finished 5th overall
with a record of 12-22-4. However, they did prove a success at the box office; so much so that the following season Garden
management landed a team of its own, the New York Rangers, despite promising Dwyer that
the Amerks would be the sole hockey team in the Garden. The Amerks were forced to support the bid due to a clause in their lease
with the Garden.
1925-26 New York Americans game program cover for hockey at Madison Square Garden
The 1926-27 season saw the Americans continue to struggle, finishing 17-25-2. Part
of the problem was that they were placed in the Canadian Division, resulting in a large number of train trips to Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. Meanwhile, the Rangers won the American Division title. The next season would see the
Americans fall even further from grace by finishing last overall with a record of 11-27-6 and would see the Rangers capture the
Stanley Cup in only their second year of existence.
The 1927-28 NHL season saw the New York Americans sign star goaltender Roy Worters from the Pittsburgh Pirates. He would lead the
team to a 19-13-12 record in the 1928-29 NHL season, good enough for second overall.
Worters had an incredible 1.21 goals against average, becoming the first goaltender to win the Hart Trophy as the most valuable player in the league. Standing on Worters' shoulders, the
Americans would make the playoffs for the first time, but would be unable to beat the New York Rangers in a "total goals" series.
The Rangers had extreme difficulty scoring against Worters, but the futile Americans were unable to score against the Rangers,
too. The Rangers ended up winning the series in the second game one to nothing in overtime.
The next season saw the Americans go from second best to worst overall. Worters had an atrocious 3.75 goals against and the
team ended up with a 14-25-5 record. Worters would rebound for the next season, with a 1.68 goals against average. That was good
enough to give the Americans a winning record. However, they lost a playoff berth since Montreal Maroons had two more wins; wins are the NHL's first tiebreaker for playoff seeding.
The following season (1931-32) saw some developments that would change the way the
NHL played the game. In a game against the Bruins, the Americans iced the puck 61
times. At that time, there was no rule against icing. Adams was so angry that he pressured, to no avail, for the NHL to make a
rule against icing. So, next time the two teams met, the Bruins iced the puck 87 times in a scoreless game. It wasn't until a few
years later that the NHL made a rule prohibiting icing, but those two games were the catalyst for change.
New York Americans logo from 1926-1938.
Overall, the Americans were struggling on and off the ice. With the end of Prohibition, Dwyer was finding it difficult to make ends meet. After the 1933-34 NHL season, having missed the playoffs for the fifth straight year, the Americans attempted a
merger with the equally strapped Senators, only to be turned down by the NHL Board of Governors. During the 1935-36 NHL season, Dwyer finally decided to sell the team. As fortunes would have it, the Americans
made the playoffs for the first time in six years that season, but would bow out in the second round against Toronto. No buyers
were found for the team and Dwyer abandoned it, causing the NHL to assume control for the 1936-37 NHL season. Dwyer sued the NHL, saying they had no authority to seize his team. A settlement
was reached where Dwyer could resume control provided he could pay off his debts. After the 1936-37 season, Dwyer could not do
so, and the NHL took full control of the franchise. The league-controlled team would fare no better than before, finishing last
with a record of 15-29-4. The only bright spot was Sweeney Schriner, who led the league
in scoring that year.
With Red Dutton now running the team for the 1937-38
season, the Americans signed veterans Ching Johnson and Hap Day and acquired goalie Earl Robertson. These new acquisitions
greatly helped the team as they finished the season with a 19-18-11 record and would make the playoffs. In the playoffs, they
would beat the Rangers in three games, but go onto lose against the Chicago Black
Hawks in three.
The next two seasons (1938-39 and 1939-40) saw the Americans make the playoffs for the second and third straight times. These times,
though, they would not make it past the first round. The following season, 1940-41,
they missed the playoffs with a horrible record of 8-29-11. Canada had entered World War II
in September, 1939, and many of the team's Canadian players left for military service. While the league's other teams were
similarly hard-hit, Dutton was still bogged down by lingering debt from the Dwyer era. This debt, combined with the depletion of
talent and wartime travel restrictions, forced Dutton to sell off his best players for cash. The Amerks were clearly living on
borrowed time; it was only a matter of when, not if, they would fold.
At wit's end, Dutton changed the team's name for the 1941-42 NHL season to the
Brooklyn Americans. He had every intent on moving the team to Brooklyn, but due to a
lack of a decent arena, the Brooklyn Americans continued to play their home games in Manhattan
at Madison Square Garden while practicing in Brooklyn. They barely survived the season, finishing with a record of 16-29-3. After
the season, the Amerks suspended operations for the war's duration. However, in 1946, the NHL
reneged on promises to reinstate the Amerks and Maroons (who had shut down in 1938, but had been
sold to Philadelphia interests) and canceled both franchises. Although Dutton had every
intention of returning the Amerks to the ice after World War II, NHL records list the Amerks as having "retired" from the league
in 1942.
The NHL would not expand beyond its remaining six teams until the 1967-68 season.
Dutton, however, blamed the owners of Madison Square Garden (who also owned the Rangers) for pressuring the NHL to not reinstate
the Americans. Dutton was so bitter that he purportedly swore the Rangers would never win a Stanley Cup again in his lifetime.
This "curse" became reality as for more than fifty years, the Rangers went without a Cup.
The Rangers wouldn't win another Cup until 1994, seven years after Dutton's
death.
The last active New York Americans player was Pat Egan, who retired in 1951. The last active Brooklyn Americans player was Ken Mosdell, who retired
in 1959.
Season-by-season record
- 1925-26: 12-20-4
- 1926-27: 17-25-2
- 1927-28: 11-27-6
- 1928-29: 19-13-12
- 1929-30: 14-25-5
- 1930-31: 18-16-10
- 1931-32: 16-24-8
- 1932-33: 15-22-11
- 1933-34: 15-23-10
- 1934-35: 12-27-9
- 1935-36: 16-25-7
- 1936-37: 15-29-4
- 1937-38: 19-18-11
- 1938-39: 17-21-10
- 1939-40: 15-29-4
- 1940-41: 8-29-11
- 1941-42: 16-29-3
- All Time Win-Loss Record: 255-402-127
Notable players
Hall of Famers
Team captains
Coaches
Head Coaches for the New York Americans:
- Tommy Gorman, 1925-26
- Newsy Lalonde, 1926-27
- Shorty Green, 1927-28
- Tommy Gorman, 1928-29
- Lionel Conacher, 1929-30
- Eddie Gerard, 1930-31,1931-32
- Bullet Joe Simpson, 1932-33 to 1934-35
- Red Dutton, 1935-36 to 1941-42
See also
References
- New York
Americans
- Coleman, Charles (1966). Trail of the Stanley
Cup, Vol I.. Kendall/Hunt.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
