HOH 2022-23 Project: Top-60 Pre-Merger Players of All-Time Pre-Discussion thread

[seventieslord]

It's only fair that I expand on Carson Cooper. Not only is this information important to why he's a pre-merger player, it's pertinent to why people should rank him and vote for him.

Here are the leaderboards in the OHA in Cooper's five significant seasons:

Ernie Parkes		Kitchener Greenshirts	RW	8	8​	22​	6​	28​
Harry E. Watson		Toronto Granites	LW	8	8​	17​	4​	21​
Carson Cooper		Hamilton Tigers	RW	8	6​	18​	2​	20​
Nels Stewart		Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club	C	8	8​	18​	2​	20​
Hugh Aird		Toronto Granites	LW	8	8​	15​	3​	18​
Plomer Merrick		Kitchener Greenshirts	D	8	8​	10​	4​	14​
Leo Reise Sr.		Hamilton Tigers	D	8	5​	8​	3​	11​

George Hiller		Kitchener Greenshirts	C	10	10​	11​	6​	17​
Bill Carson		Univ. of Toronto Varsity Blues	C	10	10​	13​	3​	16​
Carson Cooper		Hamilton Tigers	RW	10	10​	14​	2​	16​
Billy Burch		Toronto Aura Lee	C	10	10​	12​	2​	14​
Harry E. Watson		Toronto Granites	LW	10	9​	10​	4​	14​

Billy Burch		Toronto Aura Lee	C	10	9​	13​	10​	23​
Carson Cooper		Hamilton Tigers	RW	10	10​	22​	1​	23​
Harry E. Watson		Toronto Granites	LW	10	10​	18​	4​	22​
Bill Carson		Univ. of Toronto Varsity Blues	C	10	9​	15​	3​	18​
Bill Boyd		Hamilton Tigers	RW	10	9​	8​	8​	16​
Beattie Ramsay		Univ. of Toronto Varsity Blues	D	10	10​	11​	4​	15​

John Brackenborough		Hamilton Tigers	LW	12	12​	20​	8​	28​
Carson Cooper		Hamilton Tigers	RW	12	12​	20​	7​	27​
Harry E. Watson		Toronto Granites	LW	12	12​	21​	4​	25​
Dalton Meeking		Toronto Argonauts	RW	12	10​	14​	5​	19​
Bill Carson		Univ. of Toronto Varsity Blues	C	12	11​	8​	10​	18​

Carson Cooper		Hamilton Tigers	RW	12	10​	33​	7​	40​
Frank Carson		Stratford Indians	RW	12	12​	19​	10​	29​
Butch Kelterbourne		Stratford Indians	RW	12	12​	14​	11​	25​
John Brackenborough		Hamilton Tigers	LW	12	10​	13​	12​	25​
Gunner Arnott		Preston Riversides	U	12	12​	22​	2​	24​
Hooley Smith		Toronto Granites	RW	12	15​	10​	14​	24​
Hap Day		Hamilton Tigers	D	12	10​	6​	11​	17​

What does it mean to tear up a second rate league? Not much, unless there's a demonstrated history of players who do so being good enough to excel at a higher level:

- Ernie Parkes went on to a short, decent PCHA career
- Nels Stewart is a man who needs no introduction.
- Leo Reise Sr. had a decent length NHL career as a mostly offensive defenseman
- Bill Carson came to the post-merger NHL and was 8th and 9th in points in the NHL
- Billy Burch enjoyed an 11-year NHL career in which he was 3rd, 8th, 10th, 10th in points (the 8th was post-merger)
- Harry E. Watson is of course the HHOF's "other" Harry Watson, who seemed to be universally agreed to be a stellar player, the last truly amateur star who refused to go pro, right until the end
- Bill Boyd and Beattie Ramsay had cups of NHL coffee
- Frank Carson was a good, if not star-level NHL player for 7 seasons
- And then of course there is Hooley Smith and Hap Day.

Not only do these players demonstrate a pattern of how good a player had to be, to place so highly in the OHA year after year, they also serve as evidence of strong competition for Cooper himself.

Therefore, these seasons are very significant for Cooper, Therefore, most of his seasons of hockey, and most of his significant seasons of hockey, were before 1926.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Personally, I'm going to push for us to make room for at least the top-5 from this list:

Hall of Famers from the Earliest Years

In a previous post I wrote that players from the earliest days of organized hockey have largely been left out of the Hall of Fame, not beca...

hockeyhistorysis.blogspot.com

Absolutely was going to make sure i made some space for 1890s players. A rich area for research

Edit: glad you're linking to Ian's blog, such a valuable resource, wish he was still active.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

Hainsworth struck me as an easy 'out', but man, I forgot just how much hockey he played prior to coming to the NHL. I'd still say no to him, but it's close. I almost want to say that anybody who's close to a 50/50 on in or out should be 'in', just for the sake of having even more players to discuss...

On a more philosophical level, I'm more of a prime/longevity guy than a peak guy, and IMO that's especially important with these early years. So many rule changes, team changes, leagues folding and springing up. I value players with long careers, players whose game travelled gracefully, during this period even more so than in later years. For example, Frank McGee will not rank highly for me, while somebody like Harvey Pulford probably will, even though I'm well aware that the former was more highly regarded than the latter, and that it may be unfair to penalize somebody who retired early out of their own volition. But, there's always wiggle room, and I won't just blindly take the dude who eked out a few more years over another dude.

Also, I'm open to having my mind changed on this, but I can't help but get the impression from reading game reports and contemporary opinions (this great thread being a wonderful example) that players known primarily for their shot - think Denneny, Dye, player profiles like that - just weren't that well thought of in their day, compared to how they were seen in later years. We've already corrected that to some degree, with Nighbor > Denneny being set in stone on this forum, and Babe Dye not coming close to matching the position he was ranked at in THN's top 100, but I wonder if there's still more room for other players who made more of an overall impact to squeeze ahead of them.

 

[seventieslord]

Absolutely was going to make sure i made some space for 1890s players. A rich area for research

Edit: glad you're linking to Ian's blog, such a valuable resource, wish he was still active.

He's a longtime Facebook friend. I've let him know about this project. There's a chance it piques his interest and he joins.

 

[rmartin65]

Re: Cooper- I think it is important to note that, in addition to those 5 strong OHA seasons, he had a very strong year in a pre-consolidation NHL (1925-26) with 2nd place finishes in goals an assists.

Basically, the more information I get on Cooper, the more I think that he is a pre-consolidation (or pre-merger, if we decide to go with that) player.

 

[rmartin65]

What's the feeling on Scotty Davidson? Obviously he's eligible for the project, but his career was so extremely short (through no fault of his own). But despite the brevity of his career, people were listing him among the best at his position. @overpass made a terrific bio for him in 2020 here.

 

[MXD]

If my numbers are right, Reg Noble played 250 RS games Pre-Merger (OHA, NHA and NHL) and 290 RS Post-Merger (NHL, not counting IHL), with seasons being roughly twice as long Post-Merger. He was always or nearly always more of a depth player/D-Men Post-Merger, while he was a first liner for pretty much all of his stint in Toronto.

Of course he was on the other side of 30 after the merger and spent more time on defense. I think he should be IN, if only because his post-merger career, that is, the shorter part of his career, is somewhere between Albert Leduc and Taffy Abel, and if he had been that player for his whole career, he wouldn't have made it to this stage of the discussion, due to not being meritorious enough.

 

[ResilientBeast]

What's the feeling on Scotty Davidson? Obviously he's eligible for the project, but his career was so extremely short (through no fault of his own). But despite the brevity of his career, people were listing him among the best at his position. @overpass made a terrific bio for him in 2020 here.

With an 80 player starting list. I'm sure I'll find room for him

 

[Michael Farkas]

I have close access to a historian who is employed by the government of Canada. I'm going to check if there is access to any relevant database stemming from that.

Never before seen film

 

[ResilientBeast]

Frank Nighbor was the highest ranked player in the 2018 list. Taylor, Cook, and Lalonde not that far behind. Is this the order they place in here?

Malone went second to Cook in 2008, before all the research into Nighbor's defensive play. Did we swing too far the other way against Malone?

Talking about the top 3, I'm the biggest Taylor fan and have done the most research on him (which I'll dump into these threads eventually), but when then it's pretty clearly

Nighbor > Taylor > Lalonde

Malone is on that next tier down imo for star power. I had Taylor and Lalonde against a team in the ATD with Malone and did a pretty big comparison that I will also dump in a thread here

 

[JackSlater]

Never before seen film

Film would be ideal. I have to hear what kind of resources are available.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

He's a longtime Facebook friend. I've let him know about this project. There's a chance it piques his interest and he joins.

Iain would be a great addition to the project. He's done a ton of research about that era. And he's fair and objective.

 

[seventieslord]

I have it on good authority that TDMM is in fact IN the project.

I have sent a message out to 12 others I think would be good additions, let's see if any of them respond.

 

[overpass]

What's the feeling on Scotty Davidson? Obviously he's eligible for the project, but his career was so extremely short (through no fault of his own). But despite the brevity of his career, people were listing him among the best at his position. @overpass made a terrific bio for him in 2020 here.

Davidson is a case where it’s very difficult to rate him at this distance. His pro career was so short, and the statistics are good but not overwhelming. And yet some prominent hockey men listed him among the greatest players they had ever seen.

I suspect that some of the high praise he received was based on his junior and amateur career. He was a superstar as a junior in Kingston before he played a season as a senior in Calgary and two in Toronto. There is some evidence he didn’t consistently perform to his potential in his two Toronto seasons. There were reports of heavy drinking and poor training. And even so, the Blueshirts won the Stanley Cup in his second and last pro season, with Davidson playing a leading role in their playoff success.

 

[seventieslord]

@Habsfan18 is also in.

 

[Professor What]

How many people do we have now?

 

[rmartin65]

He's a longtime Facebook friend. I've let him know about this project. There's a chance it piques his interest and he joins.

I have it on good authority that TDMM is in fact IN the project.

I have sent a message out to 12 others I think would be good additions, let's see if any of them respond.

@Habsfan18 is also in.

Sign-Up List (17)

rmartin65
Professor What
Hockey Outsider
tarheelhockey
BenchBrawl
Michael Farkas
Black Gold Extractor
Dr. John Carlson
seventieslord
jigglysquishy
ResilientBeast
Kyle McMahon
Sanf
MXD
nabby12
Batis
Pominville Knows
VanIslander

How many people do we have now?

Unless I missed someone, it looks like we had 17 sign-ups in the first thread, and @seventieslord has been able to recruit @Habsfan18 and @TheDevilMadeMe , with Iain Fyffe a maybe. So at least 19, which seems pretty good.

EDIT- Up to 20 now with @overpass joining us! And another maybe with @kaiser matias

 

[overpass]

Count me in for the project. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have with a new job and some other commitments, but I’ll participate as time permits.

A little more on Davidson. I think we’ve assumed in this section that his reputation as a player, including his selection to the 1925 Macleans all-time team, was boosted by his early death. The difficulty is that there’s little evidence to support this assumption one way or the other.

On the one hand, Davidson was the exemplar of the British empire ideal - the young man who excelled in leadership and courage on the playing fields, and then on the battlefield. He was the first professional hockey player to volunteer to fight, and he died a hero’s death. Who could blame the hockey writers of the day for giving him the benefit of the doubt and projecting that he would have fulfilled all his early promise?

On the other hand, maybe Scotty Davidson was really one of the handful of greatest hockey players these men had seen, even if only for a handful of games. Maybe his combination of size, strength, speed, skill, on-ice leadership, and ability to play multiple positions really popped for those few games. Maybe when you see it and you know, you don’t need to see anymore. Think about watching a young Mario Lemieux or Eric Lindros.

Mike Rodden, who was maybe Davidson’s biggest booster in the 20s and 30s, made statements that could be interpreted both ways. On the one hand, he rated Davidson with Cyclone Taylor as the greatest players to ever play because they could both do absolutely everything on a hockey rink. On the other hand, he once wrote that Davidson never reached his full potential because of his early death. Was Rodden giving credit for unfulfilled potential when he rated Davidson with the Cyclone above all others? It’s hard to know.

 

[Neutrinos]

Instead of doing yet another "top players" list, why not mix it up and make a "best players" list?

 

[seventieslord]

Instead of doing yet another "top players" list, why not mix it up and make a "best players" list?

If enough people are interested, feel free to head that project. The "best 100 players of all-time list" probably includes Gretzky, Lemieux and 98 currently active players. You'd probably have to do it in another section in order to attract enough interested participants. Personally, I find it f***ing boring.

 

[Neutrinos]

If enough people are interested, feel free to head that project. The "best 100 players of all-time list" probably includes Gretzky, Lemieux and 98 currently active players. You'd probably have to do it in another section in order to attract enough interested participants. Personally, I find it f***ing boring.

Nah, Forsberg would definitely make the list

But, yes, you're right. In hindsight, I can think of nothing more f***ing boring than having to decide whether Yzerman was better than MacKinnon, or if Robinson was better than Hedman. Honestly, I'd rather be dead than participate in such an exercise!

So, keep doing the same tired ol' "top players" list that has been done countless times before on this board

Godspeed!

 

[seventieslord]

This just in... Different people have different interests. More at 11.

 

[Professor What]

Geez.

That is all.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Nah, Forsberg would definitely make the list

But, yes, you're right. In hindsight, I can think of nothing more f***ing boring than having to decide whether Yzerman was better than MacKinnon, or if Robinson was better than Hedman. Honestly, I'd rather be dead than participate in such an exercise!

So, keep doing the same tired ol' "top players" list that has been done countless times before on this board

Godspeed!

Maybe one day you'll contribute to this forum instead of exclusively criticizing everyone.

 

[seventieslord]

Best armies of all-time:

1. Modern USA
2. Modern China
3. Modern Russia
4. Some other present day country
5-100: 96 other present day countries
...
~1000-2000: the armies led by Alexander the great, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and Julius Ceasar