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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.

PresidentsHockey 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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