Stanley Cup

The Stanley Cup. emblematic of the World's Professional Hockey Championship, is a trophy which mystifies many hockey enthusiasts in the U. S. In the first place, small, battered and made of pewter, its appearance is incongruous with its importance. In the second place, possession of the Stanley Cup is decided by a procedure which is almost ridiculous in its complexity. The National Hockey League, chief circuit of hockey, is divided into the American Group and the International Group, of four teams each. At the end of the season, only the team which finishes lowest in each group is eliminated from the play-offs for the Stanley Cup. The winners in each group play a three-out-of-five-game series against each other. Then each second-place team and each third-place team plays a shorter series against the corresponding team in the other group. Then, the winner of the second-place series plays the winner of the third-place series. Then the winner of this series plays the winner of the first-place series for the championship. This arrangement makes it possible for a team to finish in third place in its group and still win the Stanley Cup.

By last week, the complicated play-offs for the Stanley Cup had started. The New York Rangers, winners in the American Group, lost their first game to the Montreal Canadiens, 4 to 3. Defending the championship, which they have won for the past two years, the Canadiens were favorites to win again. A fast, clever team, they are noted for a brilliant offense. Its spearhead is Howie Morenz, reputedly the fastest player in the world, famed for the way he pivots behind the goal to get up speed when carrying the puck. Last week, Howie Morenz received a cup for being the most valuable player to his team in the National Hockey League. In the second game, after 59 min., 32 sec., of overtime play to settle a 3-10-3 tie, Bun Cook of the Rangers made a goal on a pass from his brother Bill.* The Rangers won the third game 1 to 0. By this time, two of the Canadiens best forwards, Aurel Joliat (left wing) and Pit Lepine (alternate center) had been injured enough to keep them out of the rest of the series.

Dark horse of the play-offs were the Montreal Maroons, who finished third in the International Group. Playing against Detroit, the Maroons last week played a 1 to 1 tie in the first of a two game series to be decided by the total number of goals scored. In a similar series, Major Frederic Mclaughlin's Chicago Black Hawks, a strong team which has played erratic .hockey this year, won, 1 to 0, against the -Toronto Maple Leafs, whose energetic manager, Connie Smythe, often occupies a box seat instead of the players' bench .because he considers it good luck.

Widely hailed at the beginning of the season as this year's Stanley Cup winners, the Boston Bruins surprised their admirers last week by failing, like the New York Americans who played surprisingly well for their first six weeks, even to reach the playoffs.

P: Trustees of the Stanley Cup last week tried to persuade National League hockey officials to accept a challenge from the Chicago Shamrocks, champions of the "outlaw" American League, to a series for the Stanley Cup.

*Tommy Cook of the Chicago Black Hawks is no kin to the Rangers' Cooks. They have a third brother, Alec, who was last week seriously hurt playing for the Boston team in the Cana-dian-American League. Twenty years ago, a famed minor league team in Canada was composed entirely of Cooks--six Cook brothers and a Cook cousin for goalguard.

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