The National Hockey League celebrates another historic anniversary Monday, remembering the first NHL game played in the United States, as the Boston Bruins hosted the Montreal Maroons, both expansion teams, at the Boston Arena on Dec. 1, 1924.

The Bruins won the initial game on American soil, 2-1, but their success was short lived. The Bruins lost their next 11 games en route to a 6-24-0 record.

Despite winning just six games, the Bruins certainly won over the hearts of not only Bostonians, but America. It wasn't soon after applications began pouring in from other U.S.-based cities seeking entry into the League.

The Boston Arena is now called Matthews Arena at Northeastern University. It wasn't until Nov. 20, 1928, that the Bruins played their first game in the famed Boston Garden.

The Bruins came into being on Nov. 1, 1924 when Charles Francis Adams, then a grocery store financier from Vermont, put his love of hockey into action, coughing up a rumored $15,000 to ice an expansion team that would play in Boston. Adams had grown disenchanted with an amateur league he had been involved with, and the NHL convinced Adams to attend the 1924 Stanley Cup finals between Calgary and the Montreal Canadiens. Excited by the kind of play he witnessed, Adams agreed to pay $15,000 to purchase a NHL franchise and, in the process, brought Boston the distinction of being the first American city in the league.

Adams quickly hired the now-legendary Art Ross as general manager, coach, and scout. Ross was one of the most innovative men to ever be involved in the game. He designed the goal net, introduced the first helmet, standardized the puck, and was the first coach to employ the tactic of removing the goalie in favor of an extra skater when trailing late in the game. Thus began one of the most colorful histories in the NHL.

Ross proved to be one of the most resourceful sports executives you could hope to find. Needing a way to better develop players, Ross purchased the entire Western Canada Hockey League to give the Bruins quite a supply of talent from which to choose, including another of the game's greats, the cantankerous Eddie Shore, the first great Boston defenseman and the subject of scores of tall tales.

Aside from hiring Ross as coach, Adams needed a name for his new team, and it had to fit within specific guidelines. Most importantly, the team uniform had to be brown with yellow trim, to match the color scheme of his chain of Brookside Stores. Second, the team name "should preferably relate to an untamed animal whose name was synonymous with size, strength, agility, ferocity and cunning, and in the color brown category." Numerous suggestions came from local newspapers and sports fans. Dissatisfied with all of the choices, Adams finally selected the name Bruins, which had been submitted by his secretary, who ran a Montreal sporting goods store part-time.

The Bruins began play in the Boston Arena, finishing last in the six-team NHL in their first season. Fan support was strong enough, however, to prompt Adams to spend money to bring in better talent. By its third year in the league, with Eddie Shore now in the lineup, the Bruins made the Stanley Cup finals, losing to Ottawa, but firmly establishing themselves with the city of Boston. Following the cup loss, the team would receive 29,000 applications for tickets.

Unhappy after four years of paying rent to the Boston Arena, Adams began to explore other accommodations. Tex Rickard, who was looking to establish a string of Madison Square Gardens across the country, signed Adams to a five-year lease for $500,000, and within a year he built an arena on property of the Maine Railroad over Boston's North Station. Always the showman, Rickard opened Boston Madison Square Garden ("Madison Square" would soon be dropped) by having President Calvin Coolidge turn on the lights from the White House by means of a key fashioned out of Yukon gold. The Bruins played their first game at the Garden on Nov. 20, 1928. Although the team lost to the Montreal Canadiens 1-0, it would draw 17,500 patrons, 3,000 more than the new arena was supposed to hold. At the end of the season, the Bruins would also be crowned Stanley Cup champions for the first time in franchise history.

The enthusiasm surrounding the Boston club soon dampened as the team struggled to find good players and compete in the league. Adams refused to stand pat and enhanced his squad by purchasing the entire Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) for a then enormous sum of $300,000. This changed the course of the Bruins' history by putting names such as Eddie Shore, Harry Oliver and Duke Keats into the black-and-gold uniforms. The Bruins could only take on a certain number of skaters from the WCHL. Consequently, a talent pool was made available for the new New York Rangers, Chicago Black Hawks and Detroit Falcons franchises that transformed the NHL by the late 1920s.

Once the Bruins fortunes on the ice were improved, "C.F." turned his attention to getting the team into a world-class venue. A large indoor arena was needed for the Bruins as well as for the multitude of indoor events that were being scheduled in the fast-growing Boston metropolitan area. Adams was able to acquire the financial backing for the construction of a new arena by boldly guaranteeing a half-million dollars in gate receipts from the first five years of Boston home games. The team played its first home match at the Boston Garden on November 20, 1928 when they lost 1-0 to the Montreal Canadiens.

Under Adams' presidency, the Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup in 1929. He also played a key role in the growth of the local baseball and horseracing scene, including owning the Boston Braves baseball team. The immense contribution to the game of hockey by Adams and his heirs Weston Adams and Weston Adams Jr. was honoured in 1974 when the NHL named one of its four new divisions after one of hockey's first families.

Adams was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1960.