1933-34 NIHA Season

 

New team and jerseys

Buffalo Rams: The new expansion team showed their set: their dark jersey is orange with a white yoke that extends to the cuffs, and a white stripe on the hem. The light jersey, both orange and white, switched roles. Both jerseys feature the black “RAMS” wordmark logo and black numbers. Both jerseys have white socks with an orange stripe.

Both the Pittsburgh Iron and the Winnipeg Northmen got their own light jersey with a few tweaks.

Season Summary

After two seasons as a nine-team league, the NIHA is back to ten teams, meaning the playoff format is moving from six to eight teams. Thanks to the addition of the Buffalo Rams, they ended their first season with 12 wins, marking the first time a last-seeded team finished with more than ten wins. The Brown Bears went from making it to sixth place last season to finishing top of the league, led by Jack Ranger with his 72 points (36G-36A), and Gil Flowers kept his guard all season. The defending champions, the Toronto Pros, had an okay season despite having some players injured. Maple Thomas led the team in scoring and helped the Pros finish second. In third place is Detroit. Despite finishing in the top three, many questions were raised about the team’s decision to start Duke Pepper for the playoffs after he won just 15 of 30 games, compared to his 25 wins last season. Pittsburgh had a hard time later in this season after placing second in the first half of the season, then having a 12-game losing streak to finish fourth. The Mad Hatters set the league's longest winless streak at 19 (0-10-9); however, they would win their last 10 games to finish fifth. Even though the Or Rouge won 16 games, they lost 18 games and had two ties, and because the Mad Hatters had the most points, Montreal was one point behind and placed sixth. After a poor performance last season, the Winnipeg Northmen fired their head coach during the off-season and then hired Walter Clover, despite finishing seventh. Team owner George Prince was very happy with the morale boost they needed going into the playoffs. The Lynx returned to the playoffs after two years of disappointing results, with David Boweville having a poor start to the season but making up points before the end of the season. Rounding out the last two are the Minnesota Nationals and the Buffalo Rams.

1934 Playoffs

In the first round, the Brown Bears swept the Lynx in three, while Toronto, Detroit, and Pittsburgh played all five games to win their series, including the Pittsburgh-New York series, where all five games went to overtime. The Brown Bears won the series in three games over Pittsburgh, while it took Detroit five games to get their last year’s championship revenge over Toronto to move on from the second round of the 1934 playoffs to the1934 Alexander Cup Finals.

Alexander Cup Finals

In the Finals, the New Brunswick Brown Bears made it clear they wanted to win the cup with a perfect playoff record, and the only thing standing between them and their goal was the Detroit Speed. The Speed did some playing at their high level, but the Brown Bears turned it up to the next level, led by Jack Ranger with scoring and Gil Flowers' leadership; the Brown Bears went on to sweep the Detroit Speed in three games to become the 1934 Alexander Cup Champions for the third time in four years, becoming the first team in NIHA history to have a dynasty made to happen; for the Speed, it was a back-to-back championship appearance without a single win under their belt.