April 11, 1936, 90 years ago: The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup for the 1st time. It completes an incredible stretch in which they became "The City of Champions," winning the titles in all 3 major league sports then offered in North America.
The Detroit Tigers won the American League Pennant in 1934, but lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. They won the Pennant again in 1935, and, this time, won the World Series, by beating the Chicago Cubs on October 7. This was followed by the Detroit Lions, who had arrived in 1934, beating the New York Giants to win the 1935 NFL Championship Game on December 15.
The team that became the Red Wings was founded in 1926, along with the New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks. This became possible with the collapse of the Western Hockey League, as players in that league came east. One of those teams was the Victoria Cougars, who had won the Stanley Cup in 1925, the last non-NHL team to do so.
The new Detroit team took the Cougars name, then became the Falcons in 1930, and the Red Wings in 1932. James E. Norris bought the team that year, and, remembering that Detroit was already known as the Motor City, and remembering the 1st Stanley Cup winners, the Montreal Hockey Club of the 1890s, adapted their "winged wheel" logo for his renamed Red Wings. The local fans picked up on it quickly, and, in 1934, they cheered the Wings on to their 1st trip to the Stanley Cup Finals, losing to the Black Hawks.
As head coach and general manager, Norris hired Jack Adams, who would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player, even though his greatest contributions were in management. This was also true for the Rangers' Lester Patrick and the Boston Bruins' Art Ross. Like Patrick, Norris, and Toronto Maple Leafs' GM and head coach Conn Smythe, Adams would one day have a division of the NHL named for him. And, like all of these men, Adams would have an NHL trophy named for him: Coach of the Year.
Jack Adams
The Wings finished 1st in the NHL's American Division in 1935-36, and beat the Montreal Maroons in the Stanley Cup Semifinals. They faced the Maple Leafs in the Finals, which was then a best-3-out-of-5 contest. Games 1 and 2 were held at Detroit's Olympia Stadium, and the Wings won them both, 3-1 and 9-4. Wilfred "Bucko" McDonald, John Sorrell and Gord Pettinger each scored 2 goals in Game 2.
The series moved to Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, and the Leafs won Game 3, 4-3, when Frank "Buzz" Boll scored 30 seconds into overtime. But that would be the Leafs' last gasp: Pete Kelly (no relation to later Wings and Leafs star Leonard "Red" Kelly) scored 9:45 into the 3rd period of Game 4, to give the Wings a 3-2 win, and the Cup. The city had now won World Championships in all 3 sports then available, and done it within a span of 187 days -- a shade over 6 months.
Norris, Adams, center Marty Barry, left wings Syd Howe (no relation to later Wings star Gordie) and Herbie Lewis, and defenseman Ebenezer "Ebbie" Goodfellow would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. As yet unelected are right wing Larry Aurie, defenseman and Captain Doug Young, center Wally Kilrea and his brother, left wing Hector Kilrea.
Larry Aurie
Aurie and Lewis had represented the Wings at the Ace Bailey Benefit Game in 1934, now regarded as the 1st NHL All-Star Game. But a broken leg in 1937 curtailed Aurie's career, and he retired in 1939. Norris announced that his Number 6 would be the first uniform number retired by the team. It has been issued only once since, with his blessing, to his cousin, Cumming "Cummy" Burton in 1956.
But when Mike Ilitch bought the Red Wings in 1982, he hung the Red Wings' retired numbers from the rafters at Joe Louis Arena, but Aurie's 6 was not among them. Pretty much every reference that mentioned NHL retired numbers included it, but the team itself did not. In 1997, team vice president Jimmy Devellano said the team refused to hang the number because Aurie is not in the Hall of Fame. Each of the Wings' other retired number honorees is: 1, 1950s and '60s goaltender Terry Sawchuk; 4, 1950s defenseman Red Kelly; 5, 1990s and 2000s defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom; 7, 1940s and '50s left wing Ted Lindsay; 9, 1950s and '60s right wing Gordie Howe; 10, 1950s and '60s center Alex Delvecchio; 12, 1940s center Sid Abel; and 19, 1980s and '90s center Steve Yzerman.
(On the 1936 and '37 Wings, goaltender Normie Smith wore 1, Herbie Lewis 4, Ebbie Goodfellow 5, Marty Barry 7, Wally Kilrea 9, John Sorrell 10, Hec Kilrea 12. Unlike the Canadiens and Rangers, the Wings do not do dual retirements.)
For 178 days, from April 11 to October 6, 1936, when the New York Yankees won the next World Series, Detroit held the championships of Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League, all at the same time. This "treble" had only been accomplished once before, by New York, with the Yankees winning the 1927 World Series, the Giants winning the 1927 NFL Championship, and the Rangers winning the 1928 Stanley Cup. It hasn't been done since: Even with the founding of the NBA in 1946 making winning in 4 sports possible, and in 3 of them more possible, it hasn't happened again.
In 1937, the Wings would make it back-to-back Cups, and Joe Louis, born and raised in Alabama but trained to fight in Detroit, became the Heavyweight Champion of the World. In 1938, the Tigers' Hank Greenberg hit 58 home runs, making a serious run at the single-season home run record. In 1940, the Tigers won another Pennant, losing the World Series; and another in 1945, winning it. The Wings reached the Finals again in 1941, '42, '43 and '45, but won only in 1943.
All this was a great relief for the people of Detroit, a city wracked by the Great Depression and labor strife in the 1930s, following by war and a race riot in the early 1940s.
Through the 2020-21 season, the Red Wings have won 11 Stanley Cups, more than any other U.S.-based team. In the entire NHL, only the Montreal Canadiens (24) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (13) have won more.
But Detroit's success in sports has been very sporadic. The Wings went from 1955 to 1997 without winning any Cups. The Tigers have won only 4 World Series in their 121 seasons of play, the last in 1984. The Lions have won 4 NFL Championships, but none since 1957, including the entire Super Bowl era. The Pistons have won 3 NBA Championships, the last in 2004. And not since 1954, with the Wings and the Lions, have 2 Detroit teams made their sports' finals in the same calendar year.
Other cities have used the "City of Champions" name since: Pittsburgh in 1979, with the Pirates and Steelers, and again in 2009 with the Steelers and Penguins; and Boston, with the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins all winning titles between 2007 and 2011.
Tampa Bay used it as the Lightning won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and '21, the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl in 2021, the Rays won a Pennant in 2020, and the Rowdies won the United Soccer League title in 2021. But the USL is the 2nd division of American soccer, not the 1st; the Rays lost the World Series; and, except for the Lightning's '21 Cup, each of these was won under COVID-influenced conditions.
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