For the third straight season, the Detroit Speed made it to the top three, but this time they finished in first place thanks to Luke Pepper topping the team’s stats (15-24-39), and his brother Duke had a turnaround by getting his second 25-of-30-game season along with seven shutouts. Even with other players pinching in with goals and points, the 1934 Alex Cup champions, the Brown Bears, took second place; however, Jack Ranger missed the last three games due to injuries, and chances are he might not be able to play in the playoffs. The Pittsburgh Iron takes third place in the standings for the third time in four years. To top it all, James Lake announced that he bought land and is going to build a nice new arena for his team. Maple Thomas had a big fall this season, going from 87 points last season to 57 points this season, a 30-point drop; however, thanks to his teammates stepping up, the Toronto Pros won enough games to take fourth place. New York had a rough season; even though they finished in fifth place, the big news was that Rat Robinson suffered a broken arm in the last game of the season, and he’ll be out for the playoffs. The team is hoping that Rat can heal up for the next season. After signing new players, the Lynx improved from eighth place to sixth place; what’s lucky for them is that they signed David Boweville to a two-year contract worth $300 a year. After two years of being in the bottom two, the Nats got back on track and finished seventh in the league, and Nick Watertown is slowly and steadily playing like his first-season performance. In their second season of existence, the Buffalo Rams made a huge impact with their star player William “the Magic” Durocher leading the team into their first playoff appearance in team history. The Montreal Or Rouge had some hard times this season, with their top line not playing right, which led to losing streaks, and they even made one of their biggest mistakes by changing the lines in order to at least win some games, but in the end they finished in ninth place. In last place is Winnipeg Northmen; not only did they play badly, but they also did not sign their players to come back and to top all of it, they are bleeding money so badly to the point that George Prince had no other choice but to sell the team to anyone; sadly, it could be bought by someone who wants to move the team elsewhere.
1935 Playoffs
The first round was wild; the Detroit-Buffalo series was supposed to be one-sided; however, all three games ended by one goal, with the Speed scoring a goal with one minute to go in game two, to in game three, when Luke Pepper scored the tiebreaker with one second left to win the series. The Brown Bears kept their playoff winning streak going with a 3-0 sweep over the Nationals thanks to Jack Ranger, who scored 8 goals and 14 points within three games, and they proved everyone wrong about where he would play in the playoffs despite his injury. The Pittsburgh Iron were determined to go all the way; however, the Chicago Lynx had other plans, back-and-forth all the way to game five, where Mitchell Stevenson made a slap shot from the center line into the net with four seconds left in the game and with that, the Pittsburgh Iron moved on to the second round. The series between Toronto and New York was a war like no other, with high-scoring games; the total score in all five games was 35-33, and in the end, the New York Mad Hatters became the victor, winning the series 3-2 to move on to the second round.
The semi-finals were very different; in one series, Detroit Speed took out the New York Mad Hatters in three games; all three of their wins were by Duke Pepper, who didn’t let any pucks past him at all, leading him to become another goalie in NIHA history to win those three games in shutouts. In game one, Brown Bears' Jack Ranger suffered the same injury as he had before the season ended, with him out, which meant the Brown Bears' luck had run out. After losing game one, the Pittsburgh Iron won three in a row to win the series and head to the Alexander Cup Finals.
1935 Alexander Cup Finals
This is Pittsburgh Iron’s first Alex Cup Finals appearance, which is good news for them, but the bad news is this is Detroit Speed’s third Alex Cup Finals appearance in a row, and this time the Speed are determined to win it all. The Speed won both game one, 4-2 and game two, 3-1; however, the Iron took game three out of nowhere with a 2-1 win to stay alive, but in game four the Detroit Speed took the win 4-1 to win the series three games to one and become the 1935 Alexander Cup Champions.
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