New York Americans

The New York Americans were a NHL hockey team, the third expansion team in league history and the second to play in the United States.

Founded: 1925

Arena: Madison Square Garden

Uniform colors: Red, white, and blue

Logo design: A red interlocking NY on a blue background in back of Americans written in white, with 6 alternating red and blue stars arched above

Stanley Cup wins: none

Stanley Cup finals appearances: none

[edit] Franchise history

At the league meetings in April of 1925, Bill Dwyer, New York's most-celebrated prohibition bootlegger, was awarded an expansion franchise for New York City. Somewhat fortuitously, following the league's first ever labor action in March, the players of the league-leading Hamilton Tigers were suspended. Dwyer duly bought the collective rights to the Tiger players for $75,000 and moved them to the newly built Madison Square Garden in New York City. However, the league regards the Tigers and Americans as separate teams.

The New York Americans would become the second United States based NHL team along with the Pittsburgh Pirates after the Boston Bruins two years earlier. As with the Pirates, presumably the choice of "Americans" as a nickname was influenced by a local strong baseball team, specifically the New York Yankees. But 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 Rangers' first season, 1926-27, saw them capture the American division title while the New York Americans would continue to struggle finishing 4th in the Canadian division with a record of 17-25-2. 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 their first Stanley Cup in only their second season.

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 Boston Bruins, the Americans iced the puck 61 times. At that time, there was no rule against icing. The Bruins governor Charles 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.

Overall, the Americans were struggling on and off the ice. With the end of Prohibition, their owner 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 also struggling Ottawa Senators. But the NHL Board of Governors turned down the idea. 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 the Toronto Maple Leafs. No buyers were found for the team and Dwyer abandoned it outright, causing the NHL to assume control for the 1936-37 NHL season. The league-controlled team would fair 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. Many of their Canadian players had to leave the team in 1940 after Canada entered World War II. The depletion of talent and wartime travel restrictions forced Dutton had to sell off his best players for cash. He was also unable to clear away the debt that the team still carried from the Dwyer era. As a result, the Amerks were an NHL team in name only.

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 practising in Brooklyn. They barely survived the season, finishing with a record of 16-29-3. Due to player shortages and lingering debt from the Dwyer era, 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). 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 not being allowed to 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.

[edit] Season-by-season record

[edit] Notable players

[edit] Hall of Famers

• Billy Burch
• Charlie Conacher
• Lionel Conacher
• Red Dutton
• Chuck Rayner
• Sweeney Schriner
• Joe Simpson
• Hooley Smith
• Nels Stewart
• Roy Worters
• Busher Jackson

[edit] Team captains

• Billy Burch (1925-26 to 1931-32)
• Red Dutton (1932-33 to 1935-36)
• Sweeney Schriner (1936-37 to 1938-39)
• Charlie Conacher (1939-40 to 1940-41)
• Tommy Anderson (1941-42)

[edit] References

• New York Americans
• Trail of the Stanley Cup, Vol I., Charles Coleman (Kendall/Hunt, 1966)