His Best Shot
You can read different stories about the last game of the Philadelphia Quakers: how Benny Leonard had tapped out financially before the end of the season, and how Americans’ owner Bill Dwyer had stepped in to bail out the Quakers, and the league, by paying the expenses of the Quakers to finish the schedule; and how on the last night of the season the Americans just needed to beat the Quakers in order to make the playoffs and eliminate the Canadiens from playoff competition. The story goes that the Quakers beat the Americans for only their fourth victory of the season, and that Bill Dwyer had shrugged off the loss as proof of how honest professional hockey was.
Not a word about the games in that story was true.
This particular fabrication was promulgated by none other than Frank J. Selke: Selke, Frank J., and Green, Gordon; Behind the Cheering, McClelland and Stewart Limited (Toronto:1962), at p.111.
Even though Selke was a well-informed and powerful hockey executive, even though he had lived through the very years being discussed, and even though his book didn’t require the Quakers or Americans as a prop for some argument that Selke wanted to make about the honesty of the operations of the NHL, he still made it up.
Sure Benny Leonard had walked away from the Quakers, and Dwyer may have taken over responsibility for the expenses of the Quakers – if he hadn’t owned them anyway – which prompts research ideas that travel in numerous directions: Bill Dwyer had owned an interest in the Quakers club when they had been the Pittsburgh Pirates, so Leonard’s ownership may have simply temporarily interrupted Dwyer’s responsibility for the club: Laroche, Stephen; Changing the Game: A History of NHL Expansion, ECW Press (Toronto:2014), at p.29; Eskanazi, Gerald; Hockey, Grosset & Dunlap (New York:1973), at p.28. I
It has been said that the “owners” lost over $100,000 on the Quaker operations that season: McFarlane, Brian; 50 Years of Hockey: A History of the National Hockey League, Pagurian Press Ltd. (Toronto:1970), at p.47; McFarlane, Brian; The Stanley Cup, Pagurian Press Limited (Toronto:1971), at p.79.
It would certainly be useful to know who was paying the bills of New York attorney Joseph Shalluck, who was described as responsible for transferring the obligations for player contracts from Frank Frederickson of the Pittsburgh Pirates to Benny Leonard’s Quakers: The Montreal Daily Star, October 21, 1930, p.26, c.6.
It is also true that the Americans were close to making the playoffs that season, but they had been eliminated from playoff competition the week before, when the Maroons got two points in the standings by defeating the Quakers in Philadelphia on March 14, 1931 by a score of 3 – 2. The Americans were then two points behind the Maroons, with only one game left – against those same Maroons.
That game happened on Tuesday night, March 17 at the Forum. The Americans defeated the Maroons 2 – 1 in their last game of the season to move into a tie for points for the last playoff spot in the Canadian Division. The Maroons then also lost their final game of the season against Boston.
The Americans missed the playoffs, but it had nothing to do with the Quakers. It was because the Maroons eventually had two more wins, and 29 more goals, than the Americans. And of course, Roy Worters had thrown a puck into his own team’s net on January 8, 1931, a game the Americans lost to the Canadiens 2 – 1, and so did not get a single point for the tie that would have put them into the playoffs over the Maroons (Part II, Chapter 19).
The fable about the Quakers rising up to defeat the Americans was even more of a fabrication. The Quakers were shut out by the Americans in both New York games that season: 3 – 0 on December 16, 1930, and 5 – 0 on January 4, 1931. In Philadelphia, the Americans won once, 2 – 1 on December 9, 1930, and tied their other, 1 – 1 on February 14, 1931.
Philadelphia’s actual last game of the season – and the last game of their existence – was in Montreal, at the Forum, against Howie Morenz and the Canadiens.
For the historian, and anyone attuned to uncovering facts rather than swallowing speculation, there remain many intriguing questions. Perhaps they will remain unanswered, and perhaps they are unanswerable. What doesn’t help is the making up of stories that are not based in fact.
My point in harping on all of this is that too many hockey histories have been constructed by conjecture, anecdote, and legend.
Sportswriter Jim Coleman did that, and entertained thousands for years with his fable about “the Muldoon curse” that supposedly prevented the Chicago Blackhawks from finishing in first place for a season’s work. He at least uttered a belated mea culpa when his mischief was reported as fact by several copycats: Coleman, Jim; Long Ride on a Hobby Horse: Memoirs of a Sporting Life, Key Porter Books (Toronto:1990), at pp.191 – 192.
Each may have a place in evaluating the impact of a player, or a style, over time. Yet a problem happens when the writers don’t identify sources, and either speculate, simply make stuff up because it might be entertaining, or just make assumptions because in haste there may not be time to research the true facts. Broad scope histories, hoping to provide a broad, summative perspective on a particular era, often stumble by asserting as facts things that are simply not true – a challenge in books such as Don Morrow, Mary Keyes, Wayne Simpson, Frank Cosentino. and Ron Lappage’s A Concise History of Sport in Canada, Oxford University Press (Toronto:1989), particularly at pp.169 – 229.
In my view, the real facts are always more satisfying, and often more interesting, than the made-up yarns. So, when the eventual Stanley Cup Champions of 1931 met the National Hockey League’s most inept franchise ever for the last game of their regular seasons, the fact was that the Canadiens and Quakers went to overtime to determine if there would be a winner.
In the overtime D’Arcy Coulson tangled with Howie Morenz, and both were penalized for fighting. That penalty marked the end of “millionaire” D’Arcy Coulson’s NHL career that had been launched with such promise from St Michael’s College in Toronto. In a bit of interesting but inconsequential trivia, Coulson was eventually claimed by the Canadiens in the Quakers’ dispersal draft, but never activated after that: Shea, Kevin, with Colle, Larry, and Patskou, Paul; St Michael’s College: 100 Years of Pucks and Prayers, Fenn Publishing Co. Limited (Bolton, Ont:2008), at p.28
No one ever did score a winner in that last game of the Quakers’ existence. Here is what happened statistically in that last Quakers game, which had no playoff implications for anybody:
Canadiens Starters: Hainsworth, S. Mantha, Burke, Morenz, Gagnon, Joliat
Canadiens Subs: Mondou, Wasnie, Leduc, Lepine, Larochelle, Lesieur, G. Mantha, Rivers
Philadelphia Starters: Cude, Coulson, Shields, Lowrey, Kilrea, Howe
Philadelphia Subs: Milks, Jarvis, McKinnon, Barton, Crosset
Referees: George Mallinson, Eusebe Daigneault
First period
1. Philadelphia Jarvis (Milks) 2:05
2. Canadiens Leduc 17:30
Penalties: Wasnie, Jarvis, Shields
Second period
3. Canadiens Gagnon (Morenz, S. Mantha) 18:00
Penalties: Coulson
Third period
4. Philadelphia Barton 2:50
5. Philadelphia Jarvis (Milks) 5:05
6. Canadiens G. Mantha 6:05
7. Philadelphia Lowery (Kilrea) 11:30
8. Canadiens G. Mantha (Morenz, Joliat) 18:45
Penalties: McKinnon, Milks (major), Lepine (major)
Overtime period
No scoring
Penalties: Morenz, Coulson