1926-27 NIHA Season

 

After last year's disappointment, the Mad Hatters made major roster changes, replacing most of the core veterans with fresh new players like Joe “Rat” Robinson, who didn’t make the cut last year. This year, he topped the league with 35 goals and 56 points, helping the team go from worst to first.  The Nationals improved from third place last year to second this year, thanks in part to Harold Orton, who has been a brick wall for the team since last season. The defending Alex Cup champions, Montreal, had lost several key players to retirement, including Jean Ranou, who was part of the team in its pre-NIHA days. With some new players added, the team would finish third. Toronto’s Maple Thomas had a rough season, being the only player on the team to play a full 32 games; some players barely made it past 16 games, but Maple's contributions helped the Pros finish fourth. Even though the Lynx made it to the playoffs last year, they couldn’t keep the roster intact due to players not being paid, which led to their top player, Trevor Bell, who was on a roll in scoring, choosing not to put more effort in for the rest of the season until he and other teammates got paid. Later, it was discovered that owner Rick Kitchen was losing money badly, and he couldn’t raise ticket prices to keep the team afloat; in the end, the Chicago Lynx finished last.

Playoffs

Semi-Finals

Both semi-finals went to five games. In one semi, the Mad Hatters thought they would take out the Pros, but the Pros gave them a hard time. In game five, Rat Robinson led the team with three goals to win 5-2 over the Pros to advance to the Alexander Cup Championship. The rematch from last year's Alexander Cup Championship and the Nationals made huge wins to lead the series 2-0, but Montreal bounced back and became the first team in history to come back from trailing 2-0 to win the series 3-2, all thanks to Marc Dupont, who didn’t play well this season but stepped up in the playoffs.

Alexander Cup Championship

The New York Mad Hatters may be the top team in the league, but their young roster was no match for the Montreal Or Rouge, Montreal would win the first two games in New York until in game three were the Mad Hatters won it in Montreal but in game four the Mad Hatters ran out of fuel as the Or Rouge filled with veterans was scoring from all angles for a 6-1 score to win the Alexander Cup Championship for the second year in a row, the last team to ever win the Cup back-to-back was the Rimouski Otters (1920-1921) before the NIHA was established.