1928-29 NIHA Season

 

Uniform Changes: Chicago and Montreal pants change colour. New York also changes the colour of their pants and adds blue trim around the numbers as well.

Season Summary

The Minnesota Nationals had a rough start after losing Victor Tillman to a career-ending injury. Many players rose to the challenge, but most of their wins came in low-scoring games; ultimately, the Nats finished in first place. After a slow finish last season in fourth place, the Mad Hatters were able to jump to second place, with Rat Robinson improving from 39 points last season to 69 points (39G, 30A) this season and becoming the top player in statistics. After two years of missing the playoffs, the Chicago Lynx finished third place in the standings, with some help from their star, David Boweville, who finally lived up to expectations after hitting 65 points (25G, 40A) this season became success, the team’s owner Edward Elsbridge, got the green light from the city of Chicago to build a new arena that would be the best thing to ever happen to Chicago. The Toronto Pros held first place on site, but their top player, Maple Thomas, was injured midseason, and they lost many games. By the time Maple returned from injury, it was too late, and they finished in fourth place. The Montreal Or Rouge was in decline, with many players leaving the team because they were not paid as much as John Giroux, Marc Dupont, and Etienne Rehnquist. Even though the Or Rouge signed new players, it didn’t help, as they finished in last place.

1928 NIHA Playoffs

The entire league witnessed an upset as the Toronto Pros not only came back from a 2-0 deficit to force a game five but also won the series after a 3-2 game five win over the Nationals, led by Maple Thomas, who scored 12 of the 15 goals in those five games. The Chicago Lynx got a win in game one, but that's all they could do as the Mad Hatters won three in a row to win the series in four.

1929 Alexander Cup Championship

On the eve of game one of the Championship, NIHA President Paul Benjaman suffered a heart attack and was taken to the hospital. While Paul was in the hospital, both New York and Toronto went back and forth all the way to game five. Despite the Mad Hatters having the upper hand in strength, the Pros got the heart, and with Maple on the team, the Pros won the series and took home the Alexander Cup Championship to Toronto.

1927-28 NIHA Season

 

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.

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.

1925-26 NIHA Season

 

It took a while to get the league going, but on November 20, 1925, the first game of the NIHA inaugural season was played, as NIHA president Paul Benjamin watched the Toronto Pros beat the New York Mad Hatters 4-2. The Pros' top scorer, Maple Thomas, led the team with his first hat trick of the season. The next night, spectators witnessed a very competitive game between the Chicago Lancers and the Minnesota Nationals, which ended in a 5-5 tie. The Montreal Or Rouge was the top team in the league, thanks to John Giroux, Marc Dupont, and Etienne Rehnquist, who formed the league's most dominant line. Behind them were the Toronto Pros in second place, followed by the Minnesota Nationals in third, the Chicago Lynx in fourth, and the New York Mad Hatters in last place.

The playoff format features the top 4 teams, with the last-place team eliminated. The semi-final and final are both best-of-5-game series. In the semi-final, the OR Rouge wastes no time and beats the Lynx in three games, while the Nationals shock the league and end the Pros' season, and it took all five games to do it.

The battle between the Montreal Or Rouge and the Minnesota Nationals for the Alexander Cup. The Nationals played well, but it wasn't enough, as Or Rouge star Etienne Rehnquist scored six of the nine goals to win in three games, becoming the first Alexander Cup champions in NIHA history.