1930-31 NIHA Season

 

New Teams

As Detroit prepares for its inaugural season, the four other teams have made some changes, mostly by moving elsewhere. One owner of the Nova Scotia team couldn’t make enough money to start a season, so he sold the team to Matthew Brown, who moved it to Moncton, New Brunswick, and named it the Brown Bears. John Lewiston, the owner of the London team, couldn’t get the arena built, so he moved the team to Cleveland, where it became the Cleveland Otters. An owner in Quebec City had issues with the city not building an arena for him, so he sold it to George Prince, took the team to Winnipeg, and called them the Winnipeg Northmen. James Lake had a team ready in Boston, but the city declined his request to place it there because of a change in the mayor's office. So, just like the other three teams, he moved his team to Pittsburgh and called them the Pittsburgh Iron.

Jersey changes

• With new teams entering the league, the Chicago Lynx add a white uniform to their set, and the logo shrinks a bit.

• The Nats add white uniforms to their set.

• Or Rouge got themselves a white uniform set to go along with their current set.

• Being no longer the only team wearing white jerseys, the Mad Hatters add a dark jersey in red, a rare thing to happen in New York sports.

• With word that a new team was wearing blue, the Toronto Pros quickly put together a white version of their current dark jersey, but they had plans to make a grey jersey set, which didn’t happen.

• The New Brunswick Brown Bears got lots of stripes on both dark and light jerseys.

• The Cleveland Otters jersey is red with cream stripes and red pants.

• Detroit Speed got a red jersey with black cuffs and a black hem with the “speed” in front of the jersey and black pants, not to be confused with the Otters set.

• A blue jersey with a gold and grey letter P for the Pittsburgh Iron.

• Winnipeg Northmen’s jersey is maroon with gold stripes on the arms.

Season Summary

The 1930-31 season began with a bang for the five new teams, with the Detroit Speed getting their first-ever win over the New York Mad Hatters 3-2, the next night, the Pittsburgh Iron won their game over the Winnipeg Northmen 4-2, the Northmen head back home two nights later to win their first home game over the Lancers 3-2, Cleveland Otters got their first win at home over the Speed 2-1, and finally it took ten games but the New Brunswick Brown Bears got their first win over the Toronto Pros 5-2.

The Toronto Pros took first place with a 28-6-2 record, one of the highest win totals in NIHA history. Taking second place is the Chicago Lynx, thanks to their top player, David Boweville, and a young player named Ryan Everett, who scored 23 goals and 55 points, not bad for an 18-year-old hockey player. The 1930 Alexander Cup Champ, New York Mad Hatters, had a good start early in the season, but after losing to Detroit Speed, they had a 10-game losing streak until finally snapping it with a win over the Northmen and finished the last 10 games with 8-1-1, and won enough to take third place. With losing so many players, the Minnesota Nationals are in a rough spot, but during the offseason, they signed forward Nick Watertown from Two Harbors, MN, who made a name for himself with 32 goals and 58 assists with a total of 90 points pretty well performance for an 18-year-old, they also got goalie Isaac Cheevers, a 20-year-old from Ely, MN who been a almost a brick wall with a 15-12-5 within 32 games but zero shutouts making him the first goalie in NIHA history to go through a 30 plus game season without a shutout, with these two key players the Nats finished fourth. Finally, after two disappointing seasons, the Or Rouge improved with the addition of a new defensive player from Quebec City. Lewis John has been giving some forwards from other teams a hard time with the bad news that they finished fifth, but the good news is that they finished fifth and are headed to the playoffs. The Detroit Speed had one of the best first years among the five new teams, thanks to the signing of the Pepper brothers: Luke on defence and Duke in net. The Speed finished sixth. Pittsburgh Iron made an impact on the league by signing future big-time player Greg Washington, who had only 15 goals, 21 assists, and 36 points at 17 years old —not bad. Also, they signed John Hallock after three years with the Mad Hatters, hoping that he would get better pay after winning the Alexander Cup, but the Mad Hatters would not give him what he was worth, so he signed with Pittsburgh, which gave him a better offer that would give the Iron a seventh-place finish. The battle for eighth place between Cleveland and New Brunswick was a back-and-forth, but in the end, the Otters won the season series over the Bears 2-1-1 in four games, as Cleveland heads to the playoffs while the Brown Bears' season ended. The Winnipeg Northmen finished last; their roster is mostly youth, with no one over 25, including 19-year-old goalie Kevin Vaughan, who won just six of 30 games.

1931 NHIA Playoffs

Two days before the 1931 playoffs began, the Brown Bears were about to pack their stuff for the off-season when their head coach came in and told the team to get on the rink to practice because they’re going to the playoffs. The reason is that the Cleveland Otters' owner, John Lewiston, ran out of money at the end of the season, couldn’t pay his players for the playoffs and had no other choice but to suspend operations for good. The Brown Bears finished with the same record as the Otters and claimed the 8th playoff spot.

The first round caught everyone off guard. The New Brunswick Brown Bears found a new life in a big way, pulling off one of the biggest upsets in NIHA history over Toronto in four games. It took four games for the Chicago Lynx to take out the Pittsburgh Iron. The New York Mad Hatters swept the Detroit Speed in three games. Both Minnesota and Montreal went back and forth all the way to game five, where Montreal won it in a big way, with Lewis John scoring a game-winner.

The second round got wilder than the first round. The Chicago Lynx became another victim of the Brown Bears in four games, and it took New York four games just to beat Montreal and reach the Alexander Cup Finals.

1931 Alexander Cup Championship

The first two games were blowouts as the Mad Hatters won 8-1 and 10-1 over the Brown Bears, leading them to believe game three would be another championship clincher. However, the Brown Bears got their butterflies out of their stomachs by beating the Mad Hatters 3-2, with Jack Ranger scoring three goals for that win. In game four, Jack scored three goals again for a 3-2 win to even the series two games apiece. Game five is all-or-nothing for both teams. New York had a lot of shots at the net, but the Brown Bears found a way to put pucks in the net, thanks to Jack scoring three goals for a 3-0 win over the Mad Hatters, and the New Brunswick Brown Bears are the 1931 Alexander Cup Champions, and to make things more interesting, the Brown Bears are the first team to win the championship with the highest goals-against average in NIHA history.