Needless to say, Patrick's job was a tough one, battling those headline-grabbers, but he tackled it with great relish. New York's top sportswriters were hardly enamored of or familiar with the "foreign" game of hockey. Wrote Damon Runyon, perhaps the most famous sportswriter of that era: "Fortunately, hockey is a game that I do not fail to misunderstand."

Eminently more familiar with the boxing game, it is hardly surprising that Madison Square Garden assigned two of its boxing press agents to help Patrick and the Rangers. The first was Johnny Bruno and the second was Willis "Jersey" Jones, himself an ex-pug. They were, as Lester was soon to find out, sometimes as much of a hindrance as a help.

Bruno took it upon himself to rename two of the Rangers' players, Oliver Reinikka and goalie Lorne Chabot, in order to appeal to New York's large Italian and Jewish populations. Reinikka, of Finnish descent, became "Ollie Rocco", and Chabot, a French Canadian, became "Lorne Chabotsky".

Ever the purist, Lester was said to have choked on his morning coffee when he saw the bogus names in the box score, and that stunt was promptly ended. The next one effectively ended Bruno's tenure as a hockey publicist.

Boxing publicists were hardly opposed to stretching the truth in order to gain newspaper space, and Bruno wanted to have the Rangers' captain, Bill Cook, "kidnapped" prior to the team's first game, which was three days hence. "Of course, we will have him ‘returned' in time for the game," Bruno was said to have said. Patrick's reply is not known, but "rubbish" and "balderdash" are among the possibilities. Exit Johnny Bruno. Enter Jersey Jones.

So, Lester Patrick was quick to learn the ways and wiles of big city life, New York style. But, make no mistake about it, Lester was hardly a neophyte about New York City. In fact, he and his brother Frank had actually been to New York some 18 years earlier, in the spring of 1908.

Lester, Frank and a group of Canadian pros that included the famous Fred "Cyclone" Taylor, whom The New York Times dubbed "The Ty Cobb of Hockey", were in town for an historic exhibition against the St. Nick's Hockey Club, which played in the 7,000-seat St. Nicholas Arena on New York's west side, one of only three artificial ice surfaces in the world at the time.

It was New York City's very first view of professional hockey, and according to Lester Patrick biographer Eric Whitehead, it was this pioneering trip that planted the seeds (in Patrick) for the dynasty that was to become the Rangers a decade and a half later.

Recalled Taylor, who outlived all of the visiting Canadians (passing away in 1979): "Lester and Frank played hard and well in the series, but they were by nature intensely curious and observant men, and they got a lot more out of New York than just another hockey experience. In their off hours, they saw all they could of the city, and we saw little of them. They always gave the impression that they were filing information away for future reference.

"Like the rest of us, Lester was taken with Broadway... and the Ziegfeld Follies. Some of the boys wasted their time hanging around the Times Square taverns instead of seeing the real sights of New York. Lester, Frank, and myself were teetotalers (at the time), so the taverns with their nickel beers and free lunches didn't really interest us much."

Lester Patrick is the patriarch of what is known as hockey's "Royal Family." The family has shaped the game of hockey worldwide.

It was a staunch rival of Lester's --Tommy Gorman, the boss of the rival New York Americans -- who probably best described the relationship between Lester and New York City. "Lester didn't adjust to New York," Gorman said. "New York adjusted to him."

In a broader sense, Lester's effect on people was succinctly captured by Walter "Babe" Pratt, a lovable and effective defenseman for the champion Rangers of 1940. Said Pratt: "You just couldn't be around Lester for long without learning something." New York's sportswriters were finding that out, almost on a daily basis.

The late Joe Nichols, one of New York's first hockey writers who went on the cover the Rangers for almost 50 years for The New York Times, said: "Lester Patrick, to the occupants of the press box, was an oracle. The young reporter felt every bit the equal of the old timer in the presence of Lester, when the Silver Fox held one of his ‘hockey information' panels in the old days. Lester always had the power of making everyone else feel at ease."

Even Canadian newspapermen, ever more sagacious in the art of hockey than their New York counterparts, were admirers of Lester. Wrote Elmer Ferguson, the venerable sports writer and editor in Montreal: "Lester's greatest feats were of a legislative nature, writing the foundation for rules that made hockey a game of breathless, sustained speed and glittering color. He brought to the east a dramatic personality, a vivid imagination and a sincere love of the game, plus tremendous showmanship."

Born Curtis Lester Patrick, of Scottish-Irish descent, in Drummondville, Quebec on New Year's Eve of 1883, the "Silver Fox" grew up in a predominantly French-speaking community and thus was fluently bi-lingual. He was particularly fond of reciting the Habitant poems of W.H. Drummond.

One day, a mutual friend playfully chided Frank Patrick about Lester's ease with the French language. The friend said: "Lester speaks better French than you do."

"Yes," replied Frank. "And he speaks better English too."

Today, some 43 years after his death on June 1, 1960, the name of Lester Patrick remains permanently memorialized by the Rangers and the National Hockey League. The Lester Patrick Trophy has been awarded annually since 1966 for "outstanding service to hockey in the United States." It couldn't have been named for a better man.