"Bullet" Joe Simpson
December 15, 1925, 100 years ago: For the 1st time, a National Hockey League game is played in New York City. But the home team is not the New York Rangers. A few hours before the new, later "Old," Madison Square Garden held its 1st boxing card, it hosted a matinee of a brand-new hockey team, the New York Americans. In their 5th game, they lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1.
The NHL began to expand into America the season before, with the Boston Bruins. This expansion continued in 1925-26, with the Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates, who would also end up failing; then, in 1926-27, with the New York Rangers, the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Black Hawks.
The Americans' 1st game was on December 2, against the Pirates, at the Duquesne Gardens in Pittsburgh, and they won, 2-1, with Charlie Langlois scoring the winner, 3:10 into overtime.
The Americans were owned by Bill Dwyer, a bootlegger who was making money during Prohibition, and the hockey team became the toy he spent his money on. If that seems odd, let the record show that another major league sports team debuted in New York City that season: The football version of the New York Giants, and they were founded and owned by Tim Mara, who was a bookmaker at a time when that was legal in New York City.
George "Tex" Rickard, builder and owner of the new version of Madison Square Garden -- eventually to be known as "The Old Garden" -- made so much money on the Americans' rent and concessions that he wanted his own team. The media called them "Tex's Rangers," and they immediately became more successful than the Americans. The Rangers became known as the "classy" team, while the Amerks were the "blue-collar" or "working man's" team.
When Prohibition ended in 1933, Dwyer's hockey ownership was doomed. The League took over ownership of the franchise in 1936, and let its head coach, one of their former players, run it: Norman "Red" Dutton. It didn't change the image of either team: The Rangers were seen as the team of classy people, the Americans the team of the working class, struggling through the Great Depression.
The Americans made the Playoffs for the 1st time in 1929, but lost -- to the Rangers. They didn't make it again until 1936, beating Chicago before losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Semifinals, coming within 5 wins of the Stanley Cup. In 1938, the Americans beat the Rangers in the Quarterfinals, with Lorne Carr scoring in overtime to win the deciding Game 3, before losing to Chicago in the Semifinals, again coming within 5 games of the Cup. They made the Playoffs again in 1939, losing to Toronto; and in 1940, losing to Detroit.
As New York teams would later tend to do, the Americans became a haven for great players looking for one last payday, including Boston Bruins legend Eddie Shore. But they had some Hockey Hall-of-Famers that they could call their own: Center Billy Burch; left wing David "Sweeney" Schriner; defensemen Bullet Joe Simpson and the aforementioned Red Dutton;, and, at 5-foot-3 the shortest player in NHL history, and thus nicknamed "Shrimp," but the winner of the Hart Memorial Trophy as league Most Valuable Player in 1929, and the Vezina Trophy as best goaltender in 1931, Roy Worters.
Roy "Shrimp" Worters
By the 1939-40 season, Canadian players were going off to fight for the British Empire in World War II. The Americans missed the Playoffs in 1941. In 1941-42, still bogged down by lingering debt from the Dwyer era, Dutton had to sell off his best players for cash.
Red Dutton
At his wit's end, Dutton changed the team's name to the Brooklyn Americans. He intended to move the team to Brooklyn, but there was no arena in that borough suitable enough even for temporary use. As result, they continued to play their home games at The Garden, while practicing in Brooklyn. They barely survived the season, finishing dead last for the second year in a row with a record of 16–29–3.
St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1942, was no lucky day for the New York Americans. New York City's original National Hockey League team loses to the Boston Bruins, 8-3 at the Boston Garden. Since the Amerks did not qualify for the Playoffs, this was their last game of the season. Two days earlier, they had played their last home game, at the old Madison Square Garden, and won, beating the Maple Leafs, 6-3. Murph Chamberlain scored a hat trick.
The Amerks suspended operations for The War's duration. In 1945, a group emerged willing to build a new arena in Brooklyn, and Dutton was ready to resume operations. But in 1946, the year Bill Dwyer died, the NHL reneged on previous promises to reinstate the Amerks, and canceled the franchise.
Legend has it that Dutton blamed the Rangers for canceling the Americans' franchise, and placed a curse on them, saying they would never win the Stanley Cup again for as long as he lived. They had won it in 1928, 1933 and 1940. Dutton died in 1987, and the Rangers had not won the Cup again. But the New York Islanders, founded as an expansion team in 1972, had won 4 straight Cups, from 1980 to 1983.
The Rangers finally won the Cup again in 1994. The New Jersey Devils, founded when the Colorado Rockies moved to the Meadowlands in 1982, won the Cup in 1995, 2000 and 2003. Since the Americans were cut off in 1942, the won-loss records of the New York Tri-State Area's teams in the Stanley Cup Finals -- keeping in mind that it was only the Rangers from 1942 to 1972 -- are 1-4 for the Rangers, 4-1 for the Islanders, and 3-2 for the Devils.
The Americans' records and trademarks are still owned by the NHL. The Islanders have never worn "throwback uniforms" in their style. I don't know if they've ever even asked for permission to wear them.
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As I said, December 15, 1925 was the night that the 1st fight card was held at "The Old Garden," which became known as "The Mecca of Basketball," and "The Mecca of Boxing." Paul Berlenbach, the Light Heavyweight Champion of the World, won a decision over Jack Delaney. This Garden would be replaced in 1968.
Battling Siki would never get to fight at this Garden. The same night, he was found shot and killed on 42nd Street, where the Port Authority Bus Terminal would later be built. He was 28, and may have been shot by a policeman for drunk and disorderly conduct.
He was born as Louis Mbarick Fall on September 16, 1897 in Saint-Louis, in Senegal, the West African land that had been a French colony since 1677, during the reign of King Louis XIV. He began boxing at the age of 14. When World War I broke out in 1914, he joined the French Army, serving in the 8th Colonial Infantry Regiment. He was decorated for bravery in battle with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille Militaire.
After the war, he moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and resumed his boxing career, under the name Battling Siki. He was romantically involved with a Dutch woman, Lijntje van Appelteer, who became his common-law wife, and, in 1921, the mother of his son, Louis Fall Jr.
From 1919 to 1922, he was 43 out of 46 fights, with 1 loss and 2 draws. He earned a fight against the Light Heavyweight Champion of the World, a white Frenchman named Georges Carpentier, a war hero who had famously lost a bout for the Heavyweight Championship to Jack Dempsey in 1921.
The fight was set for September 24, 1922, at the Stade Buffalo in Paris. The venue, normally a cycling track or "velodrome," was named for Buffalo Bill Cody, who had brought his Wild West Show to the site many years before. Ernest Hemingway, not yet world-famous but already known to the Paris literati, was in attendance.
Siki claimed that he had agreed to take a dive, but when Carpentier knocked him down, he was outraged: Although he had agreed to throw the fight, he did not intend to get beat up doing so. In the 6th round, Siki hit Carpentier with a powerful right uppercut that appeared to put him down and out for the count.
The referee, however, claimed Siki had tripped Carpentier, and awarded the bout to the unconscious champion on a foul. Fearing a riot from the aroused crowd, the three ringside judges overruled the referee, and Siki was declared the champion.
Like many boxers before and after, Siki let his newfound fame go to his head. He would walk down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, wearing a tuxedo and top hat, and walking a pet lion. His carousing in postwar Paris knew no bounds, and his appetites for champagne and white women seemed endless. Had he acted like that in America, as had the 1st black Heavyweight Champion, Jack Johnson, his end might have come sooner.
He refused offers to come to America and fight boxers such as Dempsey and Harry Greb. He stayed in Europe, and lost his 1st title defense, to Mike McTigue, in Dublin, Ireland on March 17, 1923. He had been the champ for less than 6 months.
Later that year, he came to America, fighting at the soon-to-be-replaced Madison Square Garden at 26th Street and Madison Avenue, and also in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Memphis, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Rochester, Columbus, Syracuse and Baltimore. His partying had badly caught up with him: In 25 fights in America, he went 9-15-1.
He also married Lillian Werner, a white artist from Memphis who was 7 years older. His friends were under the impression that he was still married to Lijntje. With America under Prohibition, he would go into speakeasies, refuse to pay his tab, and fight his way out.
On December 15, 1925, a policeman saw him drunkenly staggering down 42nd Street. He told the cop he was on his way home, and walked off. That was the cop's story. Later that night, Siki was found dead, shot twice in the back at close range. No one was ever arrested for the crime.
He was buried in Flushing Cemetery in Queens. In 1993, his remains were repatriated to Senegal, which gained its independence from France in 1960.
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