Game Report: Dec.15, 1935 New York Americans v Chicago

Perusing the vintage hockey program listings on ebay (as I do on a fairly regular basis) I came across this 75 year old beauty. The description said it was from a game on December 15, 1935 and not much else. I wanted to dig deeper and find out what happened at Madison Square Garden that night.

It turns out that this game was the exact 10th anniversary of the Americans first home game at the Garden. They celebrated by shutting out the Chicago Black Hawks 3-0 in front of future Hall of Fame goaltender Roy "Shrimp" Worters. The Associated Press described the affair, "The Americans opened with a startling display of speed and agressiveness that threw the Hawks back on their heels." Indeed they came out fast and took the lead on an un-assisted mark by Sweeney Schriner. They led 2-0 at the end of one on a goal from Joe Jerwa with helpers from Nels Stewart and Harry Oliver.

"The second period was slow and scoreless, but the teams came back raging in the third, which was featured by a furious slugging match between Bill Brydge of the Amerks and Marty Burke of the Hawks." Oliver tallied halfway through the third with help from Stewart to close out the scoring.

The victory put New York one point out of first in the tight NHL's International Division, behind Toronto and one up on the Montreal Maroons. Their 5-6-2 record however would have placed them a distant fourth in the leagues' other division, the American. The Amerks would go 11-19-5 the rest of the season to finish 16-25-7 and 15 points behind the Maroons. They upset Chicago (which had 11 more regular season points) in the quarter-finals by 7-5 in the total goals round.
The Maple Leafs then dispatched New York two games to one in the Semis.

Sweeney Schriner ended up leading the NHL in points with 45, five more than Chicago's Paul Thompson and Marty Barry of Detroit. Schriner was also voted First Team All-Star left winger. 1935-36 was only the second time in eleven seasons that the Americans had made the post season and would remain the deepest they would ever get in the playoffs. The franchise would fold after six more seasons without getting any closer to the Stanley Cup than they did in this season of 1935/36.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Hextall and the stolen Conn Smythe Trophy

Image
Ron Hextall did not deserve the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1987....there, I said it. I recently caught game seven of the '87 finals on ESPN Classic, where the Oilers beat the Flyers 3-1. Hextall was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy to the disdain and boos of the Northlands Coliseum. Hextall was (and remains) the fourth player to win the trophy in a losing cause. Even as a teenager following these playoffs as they happened, I thought this was an injustice. Upon further inspection, I believe he only won because he was a rookie, and was the "sexy" pick as opposed to the proper pick. When looking at his numbers, it's hard to figure why he won. Hextall finished with 15 wins, 11 losses and a GAA of 2.77. Oilers, Grant Fuhr went 14 and 5 with an average of 2.46. I realize that stats cannot tell the whole story, but even if we dig further the award doesn't seem justified. His .908 Save Pct was the same as Fuhr's and tied for third behind Ken Wregget and Kelly Hrudey. Also,
Read more

WHA Ottawa Civics, The Two Week Franchise

Image
Tom Earl, Daryl Maggs, Mark Lomenda, Gary MacGregor, Garry Swain "Please let the fans make up their own minds," Henry Feller told a press gathering. "Let them decide if they want pro hockey here. We have to average 7,000 or 8,000 in the remaining 19 home games for a break-even point." Feller was a director of the Founders Club who had interest in buying the WHA's Denver Spurs club. Ivan Mullinex, owner of the Spurs had brought his team to Ottawa in an attempt to drum up interest and save his investment. The date was January 2, 1976 and Mullinex was in debt to a Denver bank to the tune of $1 million dollars. This same day, the newly christened Civics lost their first game under the new moniker by a score of 2-1 at Cincinnati. Star of the team, Ralph Backstrom said after the game, "Our first official notice of the move hit us when we entered the Cincinnati rink and the names on the big scoreboard read: Stingers and Civics. Until that moment we were un
Read more

Team Canada 1972, What Might have Been

Image
Guy Lafleur, if he had played in the 72 Summit Series "No way. Can you imagine what our fans would say if we allowed Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito to play for Canada in that series and either...suffered an injury that might prevent them from playing with us for a year or more?" This was the concern of Weston Adams Jr, president of the Boston Bruins as quoted on April 20, 1972. After being speculated and discussed since February 1972 at the Olympics in Sapporo Japan, the series was set to go. Early on however, controversy stirred as to who exactly would be representing Canada. Bruins GM, Milt Schmidt agreed with his boss saying, "My only interest would be to see the Russians play the Bruins for the world championship...or whatever team wins the Stanley Cup." In the Vancouver Sun a few days later, the legendary Jim Coleman responds to the American naysayers suggesting that Team Canada should be made up strictly of players from Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal
Read more