THE LEAGUE THE HABS THE CUP For something so old the National Hockey League sure moves fast In fact as the league marks its eleventh decade the game on the ice is faster than ever The top stars skate with blinding speed and can fire the puck as though their sticks were launching rockets Goalies need to react with lightning-fast reflexes to make a save Les Glorieux The Montreal Canadiens are the NHL’s greatest team If you like to cheer for someone else you might not think so But throughout 100 years of NHL history the numbers don’t lie The first NHL games were played on December 19 1917 The Canadiens got their first win that night when they defeated the original Ottawa Senators 7 4 Since then the Canadiens have scored more goals won more games and won the Stanley Cup more times than any other franchise in the NHL They’ve also had many of the greatest players in hockey history in their lineup No wonder fans call them Les Glorieux meaning The Glorious 4 A mural by Charles Pachter Les Rois de l’Arène Kings of the Arena 1984 Silky Mitts Joe Malone led the Montreal Canadiens with five goals in the team’s first NHL game He’d go on to lead the league with 44 goals in just 20 games played in 1917 18
The NHL was formed in meetings at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal on November 22 and 26 1917 Canadiens goalie Georges Vezina recorded the first shutout in NHL history beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 9 0 on February 18 1918 Montreal wins the First Stanley Cup 1893 That Silver Cup The history of hockey begins long before the NHL or the Montreal Canadiens Games with balls and sticks have been popular since ancient times and have been played on ice since at least the 1500s Historians like to debate where hockey began but the game truly caught on after it was moved inside from frozen lakes and rivers to the Victoria Rink in Montreal in 1875 Hockey’s popularity really exploded after Canada’s Governor-General Lord Stanley of Preston donated the Stanley Cup in 1893 The Governor-General is Canada’s head of state The Cup was won that year by the hockey club from the Montreal Amateur Lord Stanley Athletic Association The Montreal Canadiens are actually older than the NHL but they’re not quite as old as the Stanley Cup Their history begins during the winter of 1909 10 with the formation of a league known as the National Hockey Association 5
The Originals Five teams took part in the meetings that formed the NHL back in 1917 There was a team from Toronto a team from Quebec City a team from Ottawa and two teams from Montreal the Wanderers and the Canadiens Quebec decided not to play during the first two seasons so the NHL began with just four teams on the ice Montreal Canadiens hockey team October 1942 Back row left to right Portland Lee Bibault Laforce Coupille Richard Bouchard Front row left to right Carragher Harmon O’Connor Heffernan Lach Demers Adams wanted to have fun Music got jazzier movies began to feature talking actors and sports fans flocked to stadiums and arenas to cheer for their favorite teams The NHL was back up to four teams by its third season of 1919 20 and it continued to grow Soon the league had expanded beyond Canada adding teams in United States too By the start of the 1926 27 season there were 10 teams in the NHL In the Beginning The NHL was born during tough times Soldiers were still fighting World War I when the league began Then early in the first season of 1917 18 a fire destroyed the Montreal Arena and the Montreal Wanderers dropped out The NHL was left with just three teams That’s a long way from the 31 teams that are in the league 100 years later By the 1920s people wanted to forget all about the war years They 6
Surviving During Tough Times Then times got tough again The stock market crashed in 1929 plunging the world into an economic disaster known as the Great Depression Businesses closed People were out of work Sports teams had a hard time drawing fans NHL teams in Ottawa and Pittsburgh moved to new cities but it made no difference Both soon dropped out of the NHL During the good times another new team had been added in Montreal It was known as the Montreal Maroons During the 1930s even a city as crazy about hockey as Montreal couldn’t support two teams The Maroons folded but the Canadiens survived The Original Six By the start of the 1942 43 season the Canadiens were one of just six teams left in the NHL The others were the Toronto Maple Leafs the Boston Bruins the New York Rangers the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Black Hawks now the Blackhawks These were the only teams in the NHL for 25 seasons until the league began to expand again in 1967 They are often referred to as The Original Six Toronto Maple Leafs Boston Bruins New York Rangers Detroit Red Wings Montreal Canadiens Chicago Black Hawks now Blackhawks 6 Soup kitchens were opened to feed the hungry during the Depression With work scarce people didn’t have money for food let alone extras such as sports tickets Didier Pitre The Canadiens got the first overtime win in NHL history on January 5 1918 Didier Pitre scored for a 6 5 win over Ottawa 7
