Annex of visual documents and links for LES “Who Controls the Puck” Please respect individual image and website licensing conditions, which vary depending on each source. Early Professional Hockey Professional hockey began around the turn of the Twentieth Century. For a time, players were secretly paid under the table, but soon hockey embraced full professionalism. The early years of hockey were marked by clubs being formed and then folding, and of players jumping from team to team in search of better pay. For a short time in 1909 two rival leagues, both centred on Montreal, competed for talent and spectators. In the end only the National Hockey Association would survive. With less demand for players, salaries started to fall and the association reduced the number of players to six from seven in order to save on salaries. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ottawa-Hockey-Club-1909.jpg Interview with Fred "Cyclone" Taylor Q. Why did you leave that success (Stanley Cup with Ottawa 1909) to go to Renfrew the next season? A. Money, pure and simple. The Renfrew Creamery Kings gave me a salary of five thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars for a two-month, twelve-game season. The O’Brien family had made big money in mining and they wanted a team that could win the Stanley Cup/ You must remember how much money five thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars was in 1908. My father was a salesman for a farm implement company and, if I remember right, he made ninety dollars a month as his top salary… Q. Didn’t the players have things their way then with the strong bidding for talent? A. It was a great time for hockey players because the leagues were not very well structured, and we could jump all over the place, going where the money was the best. It wasn’t like in the 1920s on when a team could tie up your professional rights for life. We knew we were lucky. In the 1909-1910 season, there were twenty-five pro teams right across Canada, all bidding for players. It was a little like the mid-1970s with the NHL and WHA having twenty-eight teams and not enough good players. Back then, the players knew it wouldn’t last. The costs of a competitive team were much more than the income produced by the small arenas. The players tried to get all they could before the owners go sick of losing money. For instance, one year there were five pro teams in Montreal and they all lost money. Source: Goyens, Chrys and Frank Orr, Blades on Ice: A Century of Professional Hockey. np: Team Power Publishing, 2001 Source: Flickr user City of Vancouver Archives at http:// www.flickr.com/photos/vancouver-archives/5782766756/ under CC By 2.0 Ottawa Journal, December 9, 1909. In the Montreal Star, Marty Walsh, Ottawa’s crack centre, has some things to say about professional hockey which would make it appear that not all is gold that glitters. “Over $200 a week for hockey, that seems easy money,” remarked the crack little centre, “but I can tell you when a man draws that amount he pretty nearly earns every cent of it. Take myself for instance. I have only played ‘pro’ hockey for a comparatively short time, yet I have taken some bumps that is taking lots of money to equalize. My first year out I was handed a broken ankle in the Soo which laid me on my back for about six weeks. Then in New York last year I came out of a game with a face that looked like the results of an encounter with wildcats. I’ve had all my front teeth knocked out, and it costs money to get new ones, and at that they aren’t as good as the old ones….While it’s coming through, I want to get as much as I can , at the same time looking after my future interests when my hockey days are over.” Newsey Lalonde “The money was good and I was able to make some extra cash playing professional lacrosse. I played in Vancouver and got $6,000 for 12 games. That was in 1912. It came out to eight dollars a minute! “Hockey was a tougher game – much tougher. You’d think it was the other way around because of the swinging sticks in lacrosse, but nobody ever got hurt. In hockey it was different. One night “bad” Joe Hall nearly crushed my windpipe and I came back and almost broke his collarbone. “But I’ll tell you, son, if I had the chance, I’d sure like to play this new kind of game and get the money they’re getting today. I was a professional, you know.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E_Lalonde.jpg Source: Fischler, Stan & Shirley. Heroes and History. Whitby, Ontario: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1994, p. 14. L.N. Bate, Former Vice-President Ottawa Hockey Club Source: Ottawa Journal, December 13, 1909 Has professionalism benefited hockey? To that question I must make an emphatic reply in the affirmative. Since the game has become openly professional the conditions have improved both from the standpoint of the play and of the management. The professional has also improved the game from a spectators point of view. The management is now able to get the players who will fit the style of play decided upon by those in charge…The result is that the game has become more dashing and brilliant and is more appreciated by the spectators, as evidenced by the increased attendance... Now the club is conducted on strictly business principles. The player knows what he is to get (salary) and he knows, also, that he has to obey the training rules as laid down by the management. Any breach of discipline or any untoward departure of training rules is easily punished by a fine and the player, knowing this, guides his actions accordingly. Oh yes, give me the professional game. It is better on all counts, for the spectator, for the player and for the management. St. James Street St. James Street (present day Rue St. Jacques) in Montreal was the financial centre of Canada. Many banks and other important businesses were located on this bustling street, including the offices of Eddie McCafferty, the secretary of the National Hockey Association. Source: St. James Street, 1910-1911 MP-1978.207.1 © McCord Museum under CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA The Depression and WW1 contributed to the loss of players. "By 1916 the federal government's recruiting efforts had flagged, the flow of new recruits could no longer keep pace with the 'wastage' of war. As part of its effort to boost recruitment rates and attract young men to the Canadian Expeditionary Force, the military arranged to have a glamorous hockey team assembled to play a season in the National Hockey Association, the precursor of the NHL -- the major league of hockey in its day..." Read more on this photo and story at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigadore/5235461471/ Source at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigadore/5235461471/ Text by Alan MacLeod used with his permission. Photographer unknown. Photo used with permission by Alan MacLeod Renfrew Millionaires Its founder, Ambrose O'Brien, a millionaire from the then-current silver and mining boom in the Cobalt area of Ontario, sought to join the new Canadian Hockey Association with his existing Renfrew team in the semi-pro Federal Hockey League, and was rejected. With fellow rejecteeMontreal Wanderers, O'Brien founded the NHA, along with franchises in Cobalt, Haileybury and Montreal. With O'Brien's money backing the Creamery Kings, Renfrew iced a powerful team its first season, with Frank Patrick and Lester Patrick commanding salaries of $3,000 each, and Cyclone Taylor receiving a record-setting $5,250 for a two-month season. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renfrew_Creamery_Kings and http://www.habseyesontheprize.com/2009/12/4/1185141/the-birth-of-the-montreal Editorial Cartoon: The Renfrew "Millionaires" Source: The Montreal Star, January 17, 1910. Ambrose O'Brien John Ambrose O'Brien May 27, 1885 – April 25, 1968, was an industrialist and sports team owner. He was a founder of the National Hockey Association NHA, owner of the Renfrew Millionaires and the founding owner of the Montreal Canadiens professional ice hockey team. Text source and more biographical information at http://www.blurbwire.com/topics/Ambrose_O'Brien Image compilation source and more information at http://www.habseyesontheprize.com/2009/6/20/919690/a-history-of-the-montreal Unstable Founding Era The Cobalt Silver Kings were one of the early teams of the National Hockey Association during its inaugural season in 1910. However they played only one season in the NHA and in 1911 were taken over by the Quebec Bulldogs. The NHA lasted from 1909-1917. On November 26, 1917 the NHA decided to suspend operations and the National Hockey League (NHL) was created. Image sources: Found at Cobalt Mining Legacy.ca and credited to cobalthistoricalsociety.ca. Permission to use was granted to LEARN by Cobalt Historical Society on Feb. 2014. The NHL evolved over four different time periods. The "Founding Era from 1917-1942" was the early period when the league was first establishing itself. During this time period there was competition for fans and players from the Pacific Coast Hockey League and the Western Canada Hockey League. During this time period the other problems arose. The two World Wars hampered the leagues development, and the Spanish Influenza Pandemic actually canceled the 1919 Stanley Cup Championship.