April 5, 1919: The Stanley Cup Finals Are Canceled

Joe Hall

April 5, 1919, 100 years ago: For the 1st time, the Stanley Cup Finals are canceled. There was little choice, and it had nothing to do with the greed of the hockey teams' owners.

In 1917, the Seattle Metropolitans, Champions of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, became the 1st American-based team to win the Stanley Cup, beating the Montreal Canadiens, defending Champions, and again Champions of the National Hockey Association. At age 29, Pete Muldoon became the youngest head coach ever to win the Cup, and remains so.

The National Hockey League was then formed, and the Canadiens joined it. In 1919, the Canadiens won the NHL title again, with stars like Joe Malone, Edouard "Newsy" Lalonde, Didier "Cannonball" Pitre, Joe Hall, Odie Cleghorn and Georges Vézina.

They were skillful: Didier "Cannonball" Pitre was the fastest skater in the League, "Phantom" Joe Malone its leading scorer, and player-head coach Edouard "Newsy" Lalonde perhaps its best all-around player. And Georges Vézina was the best goaltender, the man for whom the award for the NHL's top goaltender would be named.

But they were also tough: Odie Cleghorn was dirty, "Bad" Joe Hall was perhaps the dirtiest player in the game, and Billy Coutu would actually go on to get banned for life because of an attack on a referee. (The ban was lifted after 2 years.)

With future Hall-of-Famers Frank Foyston, Jack Walker and goaltender Harry "Hap" Holmes as holdovers from the 1917 Champions, the Metropolitans won the PCHA title, setting up a rematch with "Les Habitantes."

But the Metros would be going into the Finals without their leading scorer. Not because he was stricken with what became known as "The Spanish Flu," an epidemic raging throughout the world since the previous August. Nor was it because he was serving in World War I. It was because he wasn't. Just before Game 1 of the PCHA Finals against the Vancouver Millionaires, Bernie Morris was arrested for draft evasion.

He was a Canadian citizen, and thus a subject of the British Empire. But because he was working in America, even though it was in professional sports, a treaty between the Empire and the United States meant that he was supposed to register for the draft, at which point he could claim an exemption. But he did not appear on his induction date, and became "the first foreign national on the West Coast convicted of draft evasion."

After being sent to the U.S. military prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay -- later to be turned into the most famous of all American civilian prisons -- he was transferred to a U.S. Army unit. In March 1920, he was granted an honorable discharge, and was permitted to rejoin the Metropolitans for the Stanley Cup Finals. Which did them, and him, no good in 1919. (Where was Clarence Darrow when Morris needed him?)

As with 1917, the Canadiens and the Metropolitans reached an agreement: Because of the distance between Montreal and Seattle, all the games would be played at the Seattle Ice Arena, but they would alternate with each league's rules: PCHA rules would be used for Games 1 and 3, and, if necessary, 5; while NHL rules would be used for Game 2 and, if necessary Game 4.

As could easily be guessed, the team whose league rules were used won each of the 1st 3 games. Foyston scored a hat trick in Game 1, part of a 7-0 Metropolitans win. But the Canadiens won Game 2, with Lalonde scoring all 4 of Montreal's goals, before Seattle came back with 2. Perhaps Foyston took that personally, as he scored 4 goals in Game 3, and the Metropolitans won, 7-2.

Frank Foyston

Game 4 was a purist's delight, as regulation, an overtime, and a 2nd overtime all ended 0-0, with both Holmes and Vézina stopping every shot. As the clock was winding down in the 2nd overtime, Louis Berlingette of the Canadiens appeared to have a clear shot, but just missed. Lalonde and Muldoon met, and agreed to halt the game, leaving Seattle up 2 games to 1, with 1 tie. The Ice Arena could only hold 4,000 people, but they all gave both teams a standing ovation.

Newsy Lalonde

But the next day, the agreement between the teams began to break down. Lalonde argued that, since Game 4 did not reach a conclusion, Game 5 should be a replay of it, and so NHL rules should be used. Muldoon insisted that the original agreement, that Game 5 would use PCHA rules, hold. In the end, Lalonde let the original agreement stand, but got a concession that, if the Canadiens won Game 5, tying the series, then Game 6 would be under NHL rules. Since alternating was what had been done, Muldoon agreed.

Pete Muldoon

A deal was also reached between the officials of each league, and the Cup's trustees: No more ties. No matter how long it took -- and, in the 1930s, there would be 2 Playoff games going to 6 overtimes -- the teams would play until somebody scored a winning goal.

On March 29, Game 5 was played. After 2 periods, the Metropolitans led, 2-0. But they faltered, the Canadiens took advantage, and at the end of regulation, it was 3-3. After 15:51 of overtime, Jack McDonald scored to give the Canadiens the 4-3 win. The series was tied, 2-2-1.

After the game, some players were taken to a hospital. Some of the Seattle players were carried home. At first, it was suspected that they were exhausted and dehydrated, from playing 9 periods of hockey in a span of 4 days. But the hospitalized players were diagnosed with the Spanish Flu.

The 1st wave of the flu hit the U.S. in February 1918, and peaked in April. A 2nd wave began in August, and, with U.S. troops having arrived in France, it spread throughout the Allied ranks. British and French soldiers took it to their colonies in Africa and Asia. This 2nd wave peaked in late October 1918, with Philadelphia reporting 4,600 deaths in one week. That's a "9/11" and a half, at a time when our country had about 1/3rd the population it has now.

There was a 3rd wave that began in late February 1919, after the Armistice, and it was still going on April 1, the day Game 6 was supposed to be played. We may never know how many people this epidemic killed: Estimates range from 50 to 100 million, possibly as much as 5 percent of the world's population. That's right: This disease may have killed 1 out of every 20 people in the world at the time. And the war was one of the causes. And not everybody died: About 500 million got sick from it, which could be 1 out of every 4 people. One out of four.

There were 70 million people serving in the armed forces of one country or another in World War I. About 10 million people died in service, and another 7 million civilians' deaths can be attributed it -- not counting the flu epidemic. So, about 17 million people died as a result of the war. The flu killed at least 3 times as many.

Lalonde -- remember, their head coach as well as their best player -- Hall, Coutu, Berlinguette and McDonald were all in a hospital, across the continent from their homes, and not even in their home country. Their fevers were between 101 and 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Game 6 was postponed indefinitely.

George Kennedy, the former professional wrestling champion of Canada who had become Montreal's top sports promoter, and owned the Canadiens, asked for emergency conditions: He wanted to use players from the next-closest PCHA team, the Victoria Cougars. But PCHA president Frank Patrick (Lester's brother) refused. With this in mind, Kennedy was willing to forfeit the series. But Muldoon was sporting enough to refuse this: He did not want to accept the Cup on the basis of his opponents' catastrophic illness.

Four days later, on April 5, Joe Hall died. He had won the Stanley Cup in 1907 with the Kenora Thistles, and in 1912 and 1913 with the Quebec Bulldogs. But now, he was dead at the age of 37. "Bad Joe" was one of the dirtiest players of his time, but was mourned as if he was already beloved.

Kennedy would also be hospitalized. Although the flu didn't kill him, it permanently compromised his health. On October 19, 1921, a few weeks short of his 40th birthday, he died.

With Hall's death, Game 6 was canceled outright. It is the only time the Stanley Cup Playoffs have been played without reaching a conclusion, and, aside from the canceled season of 2004-05, the only time since the Cup's establishment for the 1893 season that it hasn't been awarded.

At first, the tradition of engraving the winning team's name, and those of its players and officials, onto the Cup was not observed, because there was no winning team. In 1948, when the Cup was giving its current "barrel" shape, an engraving was made, reading:

1919

Montreal Canadiens

Seattle Metropolitans

Series Not Completed

The Metropolitans reached the Finals again in 1920, losing to the Ottawa Senators, despite the return of Bernie Morris. In 1921, '22 and '24, they lost the PCHA Final to the Vancouver Millionaires. After the 1923-24 season, they were evicted by the new owners of the Seattle Ice Arena, and folded.

Despite the growth of the NHL, and the existence of the World Hockey Association from 1972 to 1979, Seattle has never gotten another major league hockey team.

UPDATE: That finally changed in 2019, as the NHL awarded Seattle expansion team, to begin play in the 2021-22 season. On October 26, 2021, the Seattle Kraken raised a banner honoring the 1917 Stanley Cup win, but not a banner representing their 1919 PCHA title and Stanley Cup Finals appearance. The opponent that night was the Montreal Canadiens. Seattle won, 5-1.