During the off-season, the Chicago Lynx acquired a new owner, Edward Elsbridge, a businessman from Chicago's West Side. After several failed attempts to buy a professional baseball team, Edward was given the opportunity to buy the Lynx hockey team, and he took it, hoping to turn it around. Many owners are planning an expansion, adding five more teams as it was supposed to have before the league’s inaugural season, but the NIHA president, Paul Benjaman, shot it down because he didn’t want to go through the same issues as the last time, and he said, “As long as I’m the NIHA president, we are not going to expand a big number of teams, and that’s that!”
The Minnesota Nationals finished first in the standings the hard way, experiencing some good winning streaks, but also endured a rough eight-game losing streak in the last ten games of the season, led by their top player, Victor Tillman, who had been playing in amateur leagues for years until he got on the Nats roster and became the first player in NIHA history to reach 100 points (32 goals, 68 assists), one of the biggest successes that any player could pull off. The Toronto Pros had the opportunity to take first place, but that plan backfired after losing the last four games to both New York and Chicago. For the second year in a row, the Montreal Or Rouge finished in third place, losing players from the 1910s to retirements, which means a rebuild is on the way. From first to fourth, the New York Mad Hatters lost a significant portion of their roster as they fought for the last playoff spot, particularly in the last game of the season, where they defeated Chicago 3-1 to secure fourth place. Even though they had youth on the roster, it didn’t help the Lynx get themselves out of the bottom of the barrel. However, they scored 21 points, four more than last season.
1928 Playoffs
The Minnesota Nationals took out the Mad Hatters in three games without issues, with Nats' rookie Victor Tillman leading the way with 10 goals within those three games. It was a back-and-forth series between the Pros and the Or Rouge all the way to game five, where both were tied 4-4 after the third period. With five minutes left in overtime, Maple Thomas scored the game-winner to win the series and send the Toronto Pros to the Alexander Cup Championship.
Alexander Cup Championship
The Minnesota Nationals made no mistakes; they made the right plays and shut down the Pros' offence in many ways. As game three ended, the Nationals celebrated as the first American pro hockey team to win the Alexander Cup in the trophy's history. Victor Tillman had one of the best seasons in his hockey career. Sadly, one month after winning the Cup, Victor got into a car accident that paralyzed him and ended his career.
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