Rangers’ first game 100 years ago was night to remember in New York, NHL

The arrival of the New York Rangers was one of the grandest events on the city’s 1926 social calendar. Given the choices for the top-hat and formal-gown set in the metropolis a century ago, that’s saying something.

It was almost sidebar news that the Rangers, under coach Lester Patrick playing their first game in franchise history on Nov. 16, 1926, would defeat the Eddie Gerard-coached defending Stanley Cup-champion Montreal Maroons 1-0.

Bill Cook, assisted by his brother, Fred (better known as Bun), scored the night’s only goal, bouncing a shot off the ear of Maroons goalie Clint Benedict at 18:37 of the second period.

At the other end of Madison Square Garden ice, superb Hal Winkler was unbeatable in the Rangers net, stopping 48 shots to the 43 turned aside by Benedict.

From left: Bill Cook, Frank Boucher and Fred “Bun” Cook were nicknamed as the A Line or Bread Line with the New York Rangers in the 1920s and 1930s. This undated photo was taken at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The game featured another historical note: it included the participation of the Rangers’ Clarence “Taffy” Abel, by many reports the first player of Indigenous heritage to play in the NHL.

Given the record keeping and social pressures of the time, it is impossible for the NHL to verify whether any indigenous players preceded Abel in the League. Undoubtedly, he was among the earliest.

The bruising defenseman from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, was born to a Caucasian father and a mother who was Ojibwe, a member of the Chippewa First Nation. Abel was able to pass as Caucasian early in his life, enabling him to escape being sent to an Indian Residential School at age 5 in 1905.

Regarded as the first U.S.-born NHL player to see regular action, Abel unofficially had four shots on goal and was assessed two minor penalties. He did not begin to embrace his heritage until 1939 upon the death of his mother, about four years after he had retired following 333 NHL games for the Rangers and Chicago Black Hawks.

Clarence “Taffy” Abel in a New York Rangers portrait.

The Rangers were warmly welcomed as the city’s second NHL team, joining the New York Americans in the latter’s second season of existence.

But where the Americans would play between 1925-42, the Rangers are still with us and on Monday, the 100th anniversary of their first game, they will be home to another Montreal team -- the Canadiens (7:30 p.m., HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN+, TVAS).

What an evening it was 100 years ago, an estimated 13,000 on hand for the festivities.

“The usual high-hat society crowd gathered early,” Brooklyn Daily Times writer James J. Wood wrote in his newspaper’s Nov. 17 edition. “There was enough fur, silk and satin in the arena boxes alone to decorate all the shop windows on Fifth Ave. -- and we don’t mean Brooklyn.

A photo in the Toronto Daily Star of Nov. 22, 1926, showing two bands on Madison Square Garden ice before the first game in New York Rangers history.

“Of course, the usual quota from rogues gallery found its way to the upper tiers, there to hand out such comment as it deemed necessary. All in all, it was a great night in spite of the weepy weather of the late afternoon and early evening. And a real Rolls-Royce occasion, taken by and large.”

The hockey fans devoured every delicious morsel; those who came for the event not knowing a puck from a piccolo were wonderfully entertained, too.

“Never before have such elaborate preparations been made to present this glorious winter sport under more favorable conditions,” trumpeted a game-morning report in the Jersey Journal.

“Nothing has been overlooked to add beauty to the presentation. The Garden has been transformed into a veritable winter palace and a most pretentious program has been arranged between periods for the entertainment of hockey patrons.

A portrait of Harry Westerby, trainer for the New York Rangers from the franchise’s inception in 1926 until 1946, and a Nov. 16, 1926 story in the Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

“The chief attraction will be Katie Schmidt’s ice ballet direct from the Winter Garden, Berlin, and her 12 internationally famous ice ballet dancers who will render a specially composed theme for the occasion. Miss Schmidt will be supported by Frieda Peterson, the Scandinavian champion, as well as Hans Witte, of Berlin, the only male member of the group and known as the ‘ironman’ of the ice.”

Future Shrine Circus bandleader Joe Basile’s 30-piece orchestra was booked to support the ice ballet, but the musical spotlight was stolen by the 126-piece West Point Cadet Orchestra, “a great concession as this orchestra isn’t usually permitted to leave West Point for outside engagements, this privilege being secured through the courtesy of Brig. Gen. March B. Stewart,” the Journal reported.

Amid all the pomp and ceremony was 60 minutes of spirited hockey that included a third-period scrap/fencing duel between the Maroons’ Bill Phillips and the Rangers’ Frank Boucher, “both players using the hickory,” the Montreal Gazette reported.

Referee Lou Marsh sent both off with majors and $15 fines, by night’s end having assessed 25 penalty minutes to the visitors, 17 to the Rangers. A game-high eight was sentenced to Maroons center Nels Stewart.

In the Daily Times, Wood was pounding his Rangers-opener typewriter in playoff form.

“To say that the New York Rangers, second metropolitan entry in the National Hockey League, were in mid-season swing against the Montreal Maroons on the Garden ice is not the hackneyed bit of bunk usually applied to all early schedule victories in any line of endeavor,” he wrote of Patrick’s “professional puck chasers.”

“The score doesn’t begin to tell the story,” Wood continued. “The Rangers outplayed, outskated, outsticked and outroughed the Canadians through every minute and by as wide a margin of superiority as the imagination will allow.”

Opposing goalies Hal Winkler of the New York Rangers and Clint Benedict of the Montreal Maroons.

While Wood was digging deeply into his bag of adjectives, the Montreal Star was less enthused.

“It wasn’t a brilliant hockey game but at the same time there was in it enough good hockey to satisfy the people who witnessed the affair,” Star correspondent J. Leonard Roundtree wrote.

“There also was enough of the roughness that satisfies those who know very little about the game. The ice was poor and heavy. …

“The rough end of it was a little unnecessary. But it must be remembered that a couple of defensemen from the wide-open spaces of the West, who it must be admitted broke into the professional game in a spectacular manner, more or less aggravated the roughness that there was.”

Montreal Maroons coach Eddie Gerard (left) and Lester Patrick, coach of the New York Rangers.

The evening raised a reported $30,000 for New York’s Grosvenor Neighborhood House, a settlement house for families whose work in a different form continues to this day with programs for children and youth.

The pregame ceremony wasn’t unlike that of the previous season when the Americans made their NHL bow against the Montreal Canadiens.

“But there was some of the dignity missing on this occasion,” the Montreal Star mildly complained of the Rangers’ ceremony. “The Governor-General’s Footguards band from Ottawa was not present to give the real Canadian touch to matters.

“Still, there was a stalwart band leader in kilts, who led a number of bandsmen brought in by the Madison Square Garden management to walk with the Maroons in the grand march.”

The official NHL scoresheet of the Nov. 16, 1926 game between the first-year New York Rangers and visiting Montreal Maroons.

Much was made of the fact that movie star Lois Moran presented Rangers captain Bill Cook with a handmade stick specially produced for him to use on this gala opening night, the game’s only goal coming off its blade.

Cook would score 33 goals that season, most in the NHL, leading the expansion Rangers to a stunning first-place finish in the American Division, 56 points coming on their 25-13-6 record. They would be eliminated in a semifinal against the Boston Bruins, who in turn would fall to the Canadian Division-champion Ottawa Senators in the Stanley Cup Final.

The Rangers would win the Stanley Cup the following season, their first of four to date, most recently in 1994. Their Nov. 16 Garden dance partner, the Canadiens, have won 24, their first coming in the pre-NHL National Hockey Association. Montreal last won in 1993.

The rich hockey history of the two cities is connected by back-to-back championships and a great deal more – even if the puck-drop elegance of top hats and ball gowns has faded into the mists.

Top photo: An action photo of the New York Rangers’ first game, with a newspaper ad of Nov. 16, 1926, announcing the game and its added attractions.