SIHR Blog The History of the New York Hockey Club

[sr edler]

The New York Hockey Club first launched its operations for the 1895–96 season (as the Hockey Club of New York) when Arthur Davies Knowlson, a player from Lindsay, Ontario, organized the club with a group of fellow Canadian expats, playing in exhibition games. The players were predominantly from Montreal (goalkeeper Gerald MacRae, point Irving Lynch, cover point Jim Fenwick, and forwards Fred Wonham and Alfred Fry) with the odd Napanee, Ontario native player (forward Beverley Bogert) in the mix. The team, originally playing in black and white striped sweaters, had its home quarters at the Ice Palace Skating Rink at 107th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

Interior of the Ice Palace Skating Rink at 107th Street and Lexington Avenue​

Prior to the 1896–97 season, the inaugural season of the New York based American Amateur Hockey League (AAHL), all of the players on the first team of the New York Hockey Club except Arthur Knowlson jumped over to the bigger New York Athletic Club organization, for an opportunity to join the newly started league. The New York Hockey Club in turn had to reorganize around players from its second team and from the recently disbanded Metropolitan Hockey Club.[1]

The original core of the New York Hockey Club as members of the 1896–97 New York Athletic Club, champions of the inaugural American Amateur Hockey League season​

The defensive core of the 1896–97 New York Hockey Club team, again playing in exhibition games, consisted of goalkeeper Ed O'Donnell from Kingston, Ontario and defenseman Bob Hunt from Montreal. And on offense diminutive Canadian Billy Russell, Manhattan native brothers Sam and Benny Phillips, and Charles DeCasanova made out the four-man strong forward line. Billy Russell and Benny Phillips in particular would go on to form a fleet-footed partnership on the New York Hockey Club offense for more than a decade.

For the 1897–98 season the New York Hockey Club was granted membership in the AAHL, and they would finish fourth in the league standing, only in front of the Montclair Athletic Club (also a new member in the league for the season). For the 1898–99 season the New York Hockey Club would move its operations from the Ice Palace Skating Rink to the St. Nicholas Skating Rink at 69 West 66th Street, on the northeast corner of 66th Street and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan, and the team improved to a second place finish in the AAHL standing, finishing 6 points behind the first placed standout team of the Brooklyn Skating Club. Benny Phillips scored 13 goals in 8 games during the season and Billy Russell added 7 more to a successful forward duo.

New York Hockey Club in 1897–98​

Things looked promising for the New York Hockey Club after their second place finish in 1898–99. But instead of taking off further upwards in the standing in 1899–1900, the team became significantly weakened from a competitive point of view at the turn of the century. First goalkeeper Ed O'Donnell and defenseman Bob Hunt left the club for the rivaling New York Athletic Club, after the 1898–99 season, with O'Donnell being replaced with Frank Ellison (formerly of the Brooklyn Skating Club). And after the 1899–1900 season – more precisely on June 1, 1900 – the team lost another key player when its captain Sam Phillips died of typhoid fever, at an age of 29.

Benny Phillips missed parts of the 1900–01 season while in Palm Beach, Florida to rest because of alleged heart trouble, per order by his physician. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on January 23, 1901 claimed that the parents – Isaac and Adeline Phillips – had been very much opposed to Benny continuing with the game ever since his older brother Sam had died during the previous summer.[2] But Benny Phillips would eventually be back on the rink, and he would continue to be the shining light on the New York Hockey Club alongside forward colleague Billy Russell for the first half of the decade. The two Phillips brothers were of Jewish descent, and in a 1932 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle former long-time AAHL player Sars Kennedy called Benny Phillips "the greatest Jewish player I have ever seen."[3]

Various installations of New York Hockey Club sweaters
by Danny Laflamme at SIHR's Sweater Museum​

The New York Hockey Club positioned itself as a middle-of-the-pack aggregation in the league standing for the next few years, with the Brooklyn Crescents and the New York Athletic Club most often battling it out against each other for the championship trophy. The best season during the first decade of the 1900s for the team happened in 1904–05, after they had acquired Rupert Howard the previous year (where he had only played briefly due to injury). Howard was a Canadian with goal scoring credentials from the Montreal Hockey Club and McGill University, as well as with the Pittsburgh Bankers of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL). Howard led the AAHL with 21 goals in 8 games during the 1904–05 season, while Benny Phillips and Billy Russell added 11 and 10 goals respectively, and with left winger Harry Bryan adding 9 more, together forming the most potent scoring line in New York City.

The New York Hockey Club scored 56 goals all-in-all during the 1904–05 AAHL season, most in the league and 10 more than their main rivaling team the Brooklyn Crescents. But the team had problems on defense – which was partly made out of former forward Charles DeCasanova – and conceded 33 goals compared to only 19 conceded goals by the Crescents, and the Brooklyn team could sail away relatively comfortably in the league standing, finally winning the championship 6 points in front of the Manhattan club. Rupert Howard departed the club after the 1904–05 season, without being sufficiently replaced, and the New York Hockey Club fell back into mediocrity during the following years.

New York Hockey Club in 1904–05​

For the 1908–09 season the New York Hockey Club was joined by a 21-year old Canadian cover point from Gananoque, Ontario named Clifford Britton. The red-haired youngster was nicknamed "Jimmy" or "Jimmy Britt" because of his resemblance with the American lightweight boxer Jimmy Britt.[4] Britton could both score goals and play a steady defensive game, while also adding a hot-headed on-ice temperament to the mix. Britton soon established himself as a key player on the New York Hockey Club and for the 1910–11 season he took over the role as team captain, after Billy Russell had retired after the 1909–10 campaign.

Tom "Attie" Howard – a former Stanley Cup champion with the Winnipeg Victorias in 1896, and a player in the AAHL between 1899 and 1906 – was assigned as a new coach with the New York Hockey Club for the 1912–13 season, after a long string of unsuccessful seasons for the team. In 1911–12 the team had finished dead last in the standing, losing 8 out of 8 games. Ever since his playing career had come to an end in 1906 Tom Howard had honed his coaching skills around the intercollegiate Ivy League circuit, coaching at Yale and Columbia. The coaching move paid off immediately as the New York Hockey Club improved dramatically defensively in 1912–13, allowing only 19 goals in 11 games, down from 49 in 8 games the prior season.

New goalkeeper Fred Lewis and new defenseman Bert White also helped out on the defensive side of the puck in 1912–13, along with five-year veteran Jimmy Britton. On offense Riley Casselman, a former key player with the New York Athletic Club, made a big impact with a team leading 6 goals, with captain Arthur MacKenzie, defenseman Jimmy Britton and forward Fred Coughtry scoring 5 goals each. And the team finally managed to edge out the second placed Brooklyn Crescents in the standing by a slight two-point margin after they had won two replayed tied games against the St. Nicholas Hockey Club and the New York Irish-Americans on March 1 and March 19 respectively.

Former player and sitting president Billy Russell had played 13 seasons on the New York Hockey Club, between 1897 and 1910, without ever capturing the big prize, and when the small red and gray coloured Manhattan club finally managed to put its hands on the league championship trophy – after having defeated the New York Irish-Americans 2 goals to 0 on March 19, 1913 at the St. Nicholas Skating Rink – Russell had a hard time holding back his joy, as he threw his fat little body over the sideboards to celebrate on the slushy ice surface with his players:

"To think that we should ever live to see this day!"[5]

– Words shouted by team president Billy Russell right after the New York Hockey Club had claimed its first (and only) AAHL championship in 1913

New York Hockey Club in 1912–13 with the AAHL championship trophy​

The New York Hockey Club never replicated its 1912–13 championship winning season, and when World War I became too much of an issue for the United States after the 1916–17 season the AAHL ceased its operations as a league. But a short triangular series between the New York Hockey Club, Brooklyn Crescents and St. Nicholas Hockey Club took place during the 1917–18 season, where the New York Hockey Club again came out on top, with Bert White, Jimmy Britton and Riley Casselman from the 1912–13 championship winning team steering the course.


Sources:

[1] New York Times, Dec. 8, 1896
[2] Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 23, 1901
[3] Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 20, 1932
[4] Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 28, 1916
[5] Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mar. 20, 1913


Posted on Behind the Boards (SIHR Blog)

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[sr edler]

Here's the forward line from 1899–1900: Billy Russell, Sam Phillips, Benny Phillips and Charles DeCasanova.

Note the shin pads on the right.

 

[Theokritos]

Great to have a new entry. We've read about the Brooklyn Skating Club before, now the New York Hockey Club.

Is it known how many spectators those AAHL games drew?

 

[Sanf]

I love your work with New York hockey history. Tom Howard is bit forgotten. He was excellent player and a good coach. Though his stint in Philadelphia later wasn´t as succesful as his time in New York.

I think you have mentioned already that his sons Tom Jr. and Jack also played in New York. Jack became sadly one of the first hockey players (to my knowledge) to die in car accident. In 1919 he died in car collition while travelling in "tool box" of his brothers car.

 

[sr edler]

Is it known how many spectators those AAHL games drew?

I think usually somewhere between 1,000–2,000 spectators, though at times a bit more, and at big games crowds up to 3,000 at the St. Nicholas Skating Rink.

Ice Palace at Lexington where the New York HC first played had an amphitheater with a seating capacity for 1,800 spectators, plus a gallery with additional seating for 2,500 people, but I don't think they necessarily drew 4,300 at their games there.

West Park Ice Palace in Philadelphia (1900–01 season) I think took 2,000, but the arena burned down pretty much immediately after the conclusion of that season.

 

[sr edler]

I love your work with New York hockey history. Tom Howard is bit forgotten. He was excellent player and a good coach. Though his stint in Philadelphia later wasn´t as succesful as his time in New York.

I think you have mentioned already that his sons Tom Jr. and Jack also played in New York. Jack became sadly one of the first hockey players (to my knowledge) to die in car accident. In 1919 he died in car collition while travelling in "tool box" of his brothers car.

Yeah, here below are Tom Howard's sons in 1900–01 in New York Athletic Club "Winged Foot" gear, while their father played for the club. Jack on the left and Tom Jr. on the right. They played together one season with the New York HC in 1916–17. Tom Jr. also played for the club in 1913–14 and 1915–16. Both good players, but not necessarily star players. I think Tom Jr. was pretty big sized for the era, and played both center and cover point. Jack played center too.

There was also something with Tom Jr. having some kind of heart trouble, and therefore his father (who coached the New York HC at the time) didn't let him play regularly, in all their league games.

Their mom Kathleen was also a player and a manager/coach of a women's team in New York, so it was a bit of a family enterprise going on there.

 

[Theokritos]

I think usually somewhere between 1,000–2,000 spectators, though at times a bit more, and at big games crowds up to 3,000 at the St. Nicholas Skating Rink.

Ice Palace at Lexington where the New York HC first played had an amphitheater with a seating capacity for 1,800 spectators, plus a gallery with additional seating for 2,500 people, but I don't think they necessarily drew 4,300 at their games there.

West Park Ice Palace in Philadelphia (1900–01 season) I think took 2,000, but the arena burned down pretty much immediately after the conclusion of that season.

Any idea how that compared to attendances at other team sports in the USA?

 

[sr edler]

Any idea how that compared to attendances at other team sports in the USA?

Not off the top of my head without doing any research on it, but in the States naturally baseball was the biggest sport at the time, and then football was bigger too. I don't know very much about baseball so I've no idea what attendance they had, but since they had outdoor stadiums it must have been substantially higher attendance, same for football I presume.

 

[Theokritos]

Not off the top of my head without doing any research on it, but in the States naturally baseball was the biggest sport at the time, and then football was bigger too. I don't know very much about baseball so I've no idea what attendance they had, but since they had outdoor stadiums it must have been substantially higher attendance, same for football I presume.

Sorry for the late follow-up, but I've been away a few weeks.

How do those American attendance numbers compare to contemporary attendance numbers at hockey games in Canada?

 

[tarheelhockey]

Sorry for the late follow-up, but I've been away a few weeks.

How do those American attendance numbers compare to contemporary attendance numbers at hockey games in Canada?

I don't have a direct answer, but the response that jumps to mind is that 2000+ would have been a pretty high capacity for an indoor ice rink in the 1800s. There weren't many buildings constructed to accommodate crowds of that size, so any rink routinely drawing 1000-2000 would have been operating near the upper end of attendance potential.

As a point of reference, Dey's Skating Rink in Ottawa was the largest ice surface in Canada with a capacity of 3500. It was purpose-built for bigger crowds and more of a "production" with intent to sell tickets and publicize the games, and it didn't open until the very end of 1896.

 

[sr edler]

Sorry for the late follow-up, but I've been away a few weeks.

How do those American attendance numbers compare to contemporary attendance numbers at hockey games in Canada?

Best answer is probably that the biggest Canadian actors were pushing the envelope regarding arena construction as they were looking, around the turn of the century and going forward, for more hockey specific venues. Such as the Montreal Arena (opened 98–99) pushing 4,000+ and the Arena Gardens in Toronto (opened 1912) pushing 6,000+, et cetera.

When I look at interior pics of the St. Nicholas Rink in New York I'm surprised they got up to 3,000 people in there at times because it looks really tight. I bet they stuffed the balconies with people in a way that probably wouldn't fly today from a safety perspective.

Montreal Arena:

St. Nicholas Skating Rink:

 

[Theokritos]

I don't have a direct answer, but the response that jumps to mind is that 2000+ would have been a pretty high capacity for an indoor ice rink in the 1800s. There weren't many buildings constructed to accommodate crowds of that size, so any rink routinely drawing 1000-2000 would have been operating near the upper end of attendance potential.

As a point of reference, Dey's Skating Rink in Ottawa was the largest ice surface in Canada with a capacity of 3500. It was purpose-built for bigger crowds and more of a "production" with intent to sell tickets and publicize the games, and it didn't open until the very end of 1896.

Best answer is probably that the biggest Canadian actors were pushing the envelope regarding arena construction as they were looking, around the turn of the century and going forward, for more hockey specific venues. Such as the Montreal Arena (opened 98–99) pushing 4,000+ and the Arena Gardens in Toronto (opened 1912) pushing 6,000+, et cetera.

When I look at interior pics of the St. Nicholas Rink in New York I'm surprised they got up to 3,000 people in there at times because it looks really tight. I bet they stuffed the balconies with people in a way that probably wouldn't fly today from a safety perspective.

Montreal Arena:

St. Nicholas Skating Rink:

Thanks. So 1,000 - 2,000 spectators and up to 3,000 spectators weren't bad attendance numbers at all at that time, even in a cross-border comparison.

 

[Section 104]

Any idea how that compared to attendances at other team sports in the USA?

Looking at 1910 the best drawing baseball team was the Philadelphia Athletics who averaged 7,550. The worst was the Boston Doves (later nicknamed the Braves) who drew 1.911 a game. If you are wondering about the Doves nickname,it comes from being owned by the Dovey brothers George and John.
My understanding is baseball attendance figures before 1920 are somewhat suspect.