Stanley Cup

To U. S. sports enthusiasts who appreciate the simplicity of the World Series, in which the two best baseball teams in the U. S. play each other, the complexities which determine possession of the Stanley Cup, emblematic of the world's championship at hockey, are entirely incomprehensible. In professional hockey, there is only one major league, divided for convenience & profit into two "groups" whose members play against each other regularly. Instead of awarding the Stanley Cup each season to the best team, officials of the National Hockey League hold not one but five series of post-season games, from which only the three feeblest of the nine teams in the league are omitted. To the argument that this arrangement renders meaningless all the games prior to the playoffs, league officials have a practical reply: it prolongs the season for three weeks, pleases enthusiasts who like to watch hockey games whether they mean anything or not. Results of the play-offs that started last week confirmed their reasoning. Watched by capacity crowds in five cities were:

First Place Series: between the Boston Bruins (leaders in the American Group) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (leaders in the International Group).

Second Place Series: between the Chicago Black Hawks and the Montreal Maroons.

Third Place Series: between the New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens.

Semi-final Series: between the winner of the second and the winner of the third place series; for the honor of meeting the winner of the first place series, in the final, to decide who gets the Cup.

Roughest game was the first between the Rangers and the Canadiens, in which ten players whacked each other with their sticks so briskly that police were summoned to separate the fighters. Slowest was the first of the semi-final series, in which the Montreal Maroons out-tricked the Rangers, 2 to 1. Most exciting was the fourth, between the Bruins and the Maple Leafs, won by the Maple Leafs 2-to-1 when their young forward Regis Kelly tied the score two minutes before the end of the third period, made the winning goal in the overtime period that followed. When the uproar was all over, the Montreal Maroons, a clever, cautious team built around their crack defenseman, Lionel Conacher, had qualified to play the speedy, more experienced Toronto Maple Leafs for the Stanley Cup.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.