The National Hockey League
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While the First World War raged in
the trenches of France, the National Hockey Association
had established itself as eastern Canada’s premier
professional league. Its champions were guaranteed the
chance to play in a Stanley Cup "final" against the
champs of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and
established clubs like the Montréal Canadiens and
Toronto Blueshirts had developed loyal followings.
Hockey had become a profitable
venture for the owners of the National Hockey
Association. But a renegade owner threatened the
existence of the NHA. Eddie Livingstone, owner of the
Toronto Blueshirts, irked his fellow owners when he
purchased the Toronto Tecumsehs and changed the team
name to the Shamrocks. He fought a League request that
he amalgamate his two teams—the NHA believed that if an
owner held more than one club, it defied the spirit of
competition.
Livingstone fought with his fellow
owners tooth and nail, but finally relented and joined
the two teams. But all was not well between the other
owners and the Livingstone camp—and in 1917, the owners
of the Quebec Bulldogs, Ottawa Senators, Montréal
Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers and the new Toronto Arenas
met without Livingstone. They agreed that they
were powerless to kick Livingstone out of the League—but
what if they started a new league altogether? They
voted unanimously to leave the NHA behind for a new
National Hockey League—and elected former NHA secretary
Frank Calder president of the new league.
The NHL would receive the old NHA
privilege of sending its champion to the Stanley Cup
final, and new rules—including the introduction of “blue
lines” were brought into the new league’s version of the
game. Livingstone was livid; he threatened to launch a
new, improved NHA, but he simply couldn’t rally enough
support for his cause.
Before the 1917-18 season began, the
two-time Stanley Cup champion Bulldogs announced that
they did not have the finances to make a go of the
season, reducing the League to four teams before a
player had hit the ice. More hardships followed; six
games into the season, the Wanderers’ rink burned down,
and the team was forced to fold because of it. The team
who had won Cups from 1906 to 1908 and 1910 was gone, leaving the
League
without a key connection to the early days of the game.
Even though the loss of the Wanderers hurt the League’s
credibility, the power of the League champion Toronto Arenas
could not be doubted—and the Torontonians won the
Stanley Cup thanks to a 2-1 win over the PCHA champion
Vancouver Millionaires in a tense sudden-death fifth and
deciding game.
The Bulldogs returned to the NHL in
1918 to return the League roster to four, but tragedy
struck in the 1919 Stanley Cup final. The League
champion Canadiens travelled to Seattle to face the PCHA
champion Seattle Metropolitans for the Stanley Cup.
After five games, the Canadiens could no longer continue
as many of the club’s players had been victimized by the
Influenza epidemic. The Stanley Cup was canceled and,
sadly, the life of Canadiens defender Joe Hall was claimed by the
epidemic.
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