How well-known are Frank Boucher and Bill Cook among NYR fans?

[eco's bones]

There is no real way of comparing players from the 1920's and 1930's to today's players. It's the same game in a sense just played differently and with much cruder equipment and somewhat different rules. There is not much video---so historically speaking there's almost no alive who has seen them actually play and this makes the game and the players of this era almost mythical. We know it all happened but it's all vague.

 

[Edge]

There is no real way of comparing players from the 1920's and 1930's to today's players. It's the same game in a sense just played differently and with much cruder equipment and somewhat different rules. There is not much video---so historically speaking there's almost no alive who has seen them actually play and this makes the game and the players of this era almost mythical. We know it all happened but it's all vague.

And admittedly, it's not as well-documented as say, baseball history. At the very least, here in the States, the lore hasn't been handed down to as many people.

 

[NCRanger]

There is no real way of comparing players from the 1920's and 1930's to today's players. It's the same game in a sense just played differently and with much cruder equipment and somewhat different rules. There is not much video---so historically speaking there's almost no alive who has seen them actually play and this makes the game and the players of this era almost mythical. We know it all happened but it's all vague.

Actually, it wasn't even close to the same game. Back in the 1920's, players could not pass the puck forward. 1929-30 was the first season when forward passing was allowed in all zones.

I have seen some video. Back when I was in high school, the Rangers released a VHS tape about their history. There was some really grainy video in it from the late 20's. It was something with Ching Johnson if I remember correctly. The markings on the ice are not anything like they are today. Hextall's 1940 Cup winning goal is in it. There's video from the 1950 Finals.

 

[eco's bones]

Actually, it wasn't even close to the same game. Back in the 1920's, players could not pass the puck forward. 1929-30 was the first season when forward passing was allowed in all zones.

I have seen some video. Back when I was in high school, the Rangers released a VHS tape about their history. There was some really grainy video in it from the late 20's. It was something with Ching Johnson if I remember correctly. The markings on the ice are not anything like they are today. Hextall's 1940 Cup winning goal is in it. There's video from the 1950 Finals.

Playoff series were much shorter and there were ties. Sometimes series were decided by accumulated goals though the team that won the last game in a series always won the series. The Boucher book is interesting also in that it gives somewhat of an overview of what NYC was like in the 1920's keeping in mind that Boucher and his brothers (George, Billy and there might have been another who played in the NHL) were from Ottawa Ontario and NYC was awesome even then. The Rangers were not NYC's first NHL team by the way--they were predated by the New York Americans (later on the Brooklyn Americans) by one year but the game itself was really new to the city and so were the players.

Anyway I was born in 1957 and I started following the Rangers on March 1, 1972 (the night Ratelle breaks his ankle). I can tell you the difference between the 1920's and the 1960's and 1970's and again to 2019 seem like light years. People would be tripped out to see what life was like in the 1960's---the clothing, the habits, behaviors and beliefs. Communities and neighborhoods and how they interacted and how information was communicated. Cities could be walked around in---there were actual downtowns lined with locally own businesses everywhere and factories and industrial plants as well. Life evolves and the way it's lived evolves and it will continue to evolve with or without us as long as we don't wreck the planet.

 

[eco's bones]

And admittedly, it's not as well-documented as say, baseball history. At the very least, here in the States, the lore hasn't been handed down to as many people.

Hockey never really took hold here like baseball or football. They are the two sports that pretty much have had a hold on every region of the country going back decades. The NHL has caught up in some respects because they market similar to those sports and basketball but hockey is still like the 4th most popular sport. As a kid I dreamed of being a baseball player......now I don't care about baseball very much at all but that was my game until I became a hockey fan.

 

[bobbop]

Hockey never really took hold here like baseball or football. They are the two sports that pretty much have had a hold on every region of the country going back decades. The NHL has caught up in some respects because they market similar to those sports and basketball but hockey is still like the 4th most popular sport. As a kid I dreamed of being a baseball player......now I don't care about baseball very much at all but that was my game until I became a hockey fan.

Actually football had to catch up with baseball. In the 1950s, the three most popular sports in America were baseball, boxing and horse racing. The 1958 NFL Championship game (The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Football Giants 23-17 in sudden death overtime) is considered the event that truly turned America on to football. Interesting fact...the game was blacked out in New York. I listened on the radio with my Dad.

 

[eco's bones]

Actually football had to catch up with baseball. In the 1950s, the three most popular sports in America were baseball, boxing and horse racing. The 1958 NFL Championship game (The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Football Giants 23-17 in sudden death overtime) is considered the event that truly turned America on to football. Interesting fact...the game was blacked out in New York. I listened on the radio with my Dad.

I know boxing use to be f***ing huge. I would have been an infant in 1958 so you know more about that than I do. I think also the Super Bowl which started in the 60's also gave football a huge boost. Boxing was kind of an identity thing--there were communities and neighborhoods with distinct racial, ethnic, religious components--things weren't as mixed as they are today. So a Jewish or a Irish or a Black boxer would be representing a background and a fan base or a community.....and that's part of what that was.

In the 50's and 60's men walked around in suits like they were ordinary clothes. Women dresses and skirts all the time. 80% of men smoked cigarettes regularly. There were neighborhood bars and grocery stores--this is not just big cities---it's all over the country. Everyone knew everyone in the neighborhood. They went to school together--they grew up, worked and lived in the same neighborhoods their entire lives. That was the norm.



As far as baseball I can remember going through grade school and junior high and when the World Series was on (most if not all world series games were played during the daytime back then) and televisons were in pretty much every classroom and everyone was watching that instead of doing classwork. Happened every year. It was that big of a deal.

 

[alkurtz]

Even when I first became a Ranger fan way back in the late 1950s and a hardcore fan in the early 1960's, Boucher and Cook seemed like ancient history. Then again, almost anything that happens before you are born seems "ancient." I never remember any discussion of them during my days as a season ticket holder in the old blue seats during the Francis era. If I had not become interested in the history of the team, or if my dad hadn't told me about them (he saw them play), I would not have known who they were.

 

[Crease]

There's some tape floating around the interwebz of early 30s Rangers. I remember being impressed with the skating and stick handling of that era, even if the tape appeared sped up. When comparing players of different eras, I always default to comparing level of dominance over peers. Dominance is the only thing every player has control over regardless of what year they happen to be born.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Sad thing is theres no video of these guys so its hard to really get a good sense in who they were. You can always look at the stats and accomplishments but thats not the same as watching them.

The rangers have done a poor job of acknowleding the past of this team unless it revolves around the 94 team. Thankfully they have gotten better retiring ratelle, bathgate, howell, and hadfields number. It is criminal that the cooks and buchers numbers arent up in the rafters.

There are some videos around. For example:

(1933 SC Finals including a play-by-play guy !)

(Rangers training)

(balding guy number 7 is Howie Morenz)

Making It Rough (1932)

COUGARS VS RANGERS HOCKEY - 1929 - Stock Footage

Free Fight Hots Up Hockey In USA

 

[Elliman]

I’d say 20-35% would recognize the names.

I seriously doubt anyone is left alive who saw them play.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

There are some videos around. For example:

(1933 SC Finals including a play-by-play guy !)

(Rangers training)

(balding guy number 7 is Howie Morenz)

Making It Rough (1932)

COUGARS VS RANGERS HOCKEY - 1929 - Stock Footage

Free Fight Hots Up Hockey In USA

Interesting watching the 33' footage, which would be post-forward pass, but everybody is still playing like the early days. Notice how most rushes involve one guy picking up the puck and making a rush while the rest of his team sits back and watches

 

[egelband]

There's some tape floating around the interwebz of early 30s Rangers. I remember being impressed with the skating and stick handling of that era, even if the tape appeared sped up. When comparing players of different eras, I always default to comparing level of dominance over peers. Dominance is the only thing every player has control over regardless of what year they happen to be born.

I believe the broadcast technology makes the olden-days players look much slower than they were. I always think this when I’m watching old tape. They don’t get a fair shake.
(I know @Crease you’re speaking about sped-up tape, I’m just jumping off from there).

 

[egelband]

Have to go along with Mike14. I was born in the late 1950s in New Jersey, started watching some Rangers hockey in the early 70s but didn't really go all in until the early 80s. Still, that's 40-50 years of some level of fandom. But if I am any indicator, Americans of my generation are far more likely to be versed in baseball lore than that of most other sports; we might consume them very avidly in the present tense, but only baseball really carried significant historical romance... and to this day if you listen comparatively to broadcasts of the major sports, the past comes up with unusual frequency on baseball games but not very much on hockey broadcasts. So, like Mike says, I suspect a lot of us who are passing now for elder statesmen are marginally aware of great Ranger (and other) names of the past like Cook and Boucher, and maybe even a rough idea of their era and place in the timeline, but not a great deal more. Kind of sad, really.

You know, on a related tangent, I listen to a lot of radio broadcasts from the thirties through the fifties, and in that mix there are hundreds of baseball recordings. One can locate and listen to games featuring Gehrig, Greenberg, Mize, Spahn, Feller... with relatively little difficulty. Yet I have never been able to find a single full NHL game audio from that period. Knowing the past isn't made easier by a scarcity of readily available material. (Anyone knowing where one can get hold of some pre-expansion hockey radio broadcasts, please PM me, by the way.)

How do you get those old radio broadcasts? Just curious. Always looking for stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the shit show that is “current events”.

 

[Unusual Suspect]

Egelband, there's quite a number of ways to get a lot of pre-1962 radio broadcasts both paid and gratis. One free starting point would be the Internet Archive; here's another:

Old Time Radio Researchers Library

There's almost too much out there to select from if you're starting from a blank slate. A very few recommendations to give you a starting point:

Comedy -
Jack Benny
Fred Allen
Fibber McGee and Molly
Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy
Duffy's Tavern

Drama-
Suspense
The Lives of Harry Lime
Lux Radio Theater
Mercury Theater
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
The Whistler
X Minus One

Variety-
Kraft Music Hall (Bing Crosby)
Command Performance (WWII Armed Forces program)

"Juvenile":
Challenge of the Yukon (aka Sgt. Preston)
Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police

Westerns:
Gunsmoke
Fort Laramie
Frontier Gentleman
Six Shooter
Have Gun, Will Travel

There are literally thousands of series to look into... the above are just some good starting points. Do be aware that there's some amount of content that would not be considered appropriate in the year 2020 and keep the historical context in mind. I use this stuff most nights to take the edge of a worried mind and it works wonderfully well. Good luck!

 

[TominNC]

Sure, I know who they are.

 

[True Blue]

I’d say 20-35% would recognize the names.

I seriously doubt anyone is left alive who saw them play.

I think that most recognize the names and their place in NYR cannon.

 

[Leetch3]

I think that most recognize the names and their place in NYR cannon.

long time diehard fans maybe but not sure about the average person...but its not really shocking when according to the organization the only teams that existed are the 60s/70s teams with Rod gilbert, the 1994 team and post-2005 in the hank era. they never ever mention anything else...

 

[ecemleafs]

not nearly well enough. they were superstars and two of our greatest ever players.

 

[bobbop]

Umm, it has been proven that @bobbop is this person of which you speak. Now Steve Vickers and Bill Faibairn, OTOH...

I heard stories about Boucher and Cook from my father and grandfather, but that was many years ago and details were slim. Of course there was no video or film. Their legacy is the foundation of why my family is fifth generation Ranger fans.

Interesting story...when they retired #7 for Rod Gilbert in 1979, the Rangers brought back Red Sullivan and one or two other #7’s as part of the retirement ceremony. Frank Boucher had died a few years earlier and was mentioned during the ceremony.

 

[BKGooner]

There's some tape floating around the interwebz of early 30s Rangers. I remember being impressed with the skating and stick handling of that era, even if the tape appeared sped up. When comparing players of different eras, I always default to comparing level of dominance over peers. Dominance is the only thing every player has control over regardless of what year they happen to be born.

The thing I also always consider is that there were only 120(give or take) NHL jobs until 1967. Half the players in the league today couldn't get on the ice with with the 3rd liners in 1940. The talent level in the special players from that time really has to be off the charts.

 

[SA16]

The thing I also always consider is that there were only 120(give or take) NHL jobs until 1967. Half the players in the league today couldn't get on the ice with with the 3rd liners in 1940. The talent level in the special players from that time really has to be off the charts.

This is entirely canceled out by the pool of available players being much smaller. There were no Europeans, less Americans, and lots of guys from the Quebec area.

 

[BKGooner]

That being said, they were still the only 120 guys with NHL jobs. Maybe they weren't the top 120 players alive just the top 110 in any given season. There are probably guys on factory teams who would have been in the NHL if they were born in 1960, not 1940. 60's and 70's there start to be a sizable number of players overseas who could have had NHL jobs, but I don't there were many before that.

 

[HFsNumber1Heel]

Not well enough.

 

[nyrmetros]

Hello there. I'm a hockey history enthousiast and I was wondering how well-known Frank Boucher and Bill Cook were among NYR fans.

I know NY belongs to the Yankees, and Boucher's and Cook's career overlaped with Babe Ruth's which makes them hard to research because the NY newspapers seemed to focus more on Baseball, but still these two guys formed one of the greatest duos in hockey history.

Over a 9 years period—between the 1926-27 and 1934-35 seasons—Boucher and Cook finished 2nd and 3rd in points respectively, behind the legendary Howie Morenz. They brought two Stanley Cup championships to New York in that timeframe (1928, 1933).

See here for the stats: Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

Frank Boucher was a Top 5 playmaker of all-time IMO (click the "A" column on the above link), excellent defensively and a massive playoff performer.

Bill Cook was a great powerforward; Gordie Howe before Gordie Howe, a great goalscorer (click the "G" column on the above link) and captain of the Rangers.

Boucher and Cook were Yzerman-level players. Maybe better.

Yet I rarely hear about them, but now I'm coming here to test the water. Do you know them? Ever heard their name? Anything that can help me get a feel for how well-known they are in NY would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Such a great post. I have been advocating for them for years. Two of the greatest New York Rangers of all time. I certainly believe that Frank Boucher was and is the greatest Ranger of all time. He won 3/4 of all Rangers Stanley Cups in some capacity. The club has not done enough to honor him.