“Can we support a second team?”
The origin of what would become the New York Rangers nearly a century ago can be traced back to another National Hockey League team that preceded the Rangers and called Madison Square Garden home.
The New York Americans, who would become one of the Rangers’ fiercest rivals, was the NHL franchise that introduced professional hockey to New Yorkers.
In September of 1925, the Hamilton Tigers – a franchise that had been playing in the NHL from 1919-20 through 1924-25 (first as the Quebec Bulldogs before moving to Hamilton) was sold to William “Big Bill” Dwyer, who was one of the most notorious bootleggers of the era. Dwyer, along with one of his partners, Thomas Duggan, helped convince George Lewis “Tex” Rickard, who was the owner of the soon-to-be-completed Madison Square Garden on Eighth Avenue between 49th Street and 50th Street, that having a hockey team would be profitable for the new venue.
After seeing a game in Montreal, Rickard was hooked on hockey and was willing to provide MSG for the Americans for their inaugural 1925-26 season. Although the Americans didn’t have a winning record in their first season, they consistently drew large crowds. The Americans’ success at the box office led management at The Garden – particularly MSG vice president Col. John S. Hammond – to consider the possibility of MSG having a team of its own that could also play at the venue and create a rivalry with the Americans that was the equivalent of the Brooklyn Dodgers-New York Giants rivalry in baseball.
Rickard, who in addition to owning Madison Square Garden (and several other venues) was a renowned boxing promoter, was enamored with the idea of the building owning a team of its own. Without any provision in the agreement The Garden had with the Americans that prohibited a second NHL team playing at the venue, Hammond set out to secure and build a new New York team.
Hammond resigned his post as President of the Americans in February of 1926. The “second” New York franchise was officially incorporated and admitted into the NHL in the spring of 1926, with the team’s “birthday” coming on May 15, 1926. During a league meeting with NHL President Frank Calder on April 17, 1926, the team was incorporated under the name “New York Giants Professional Hockey Club”, although the “verbatim” minutes of the league meeting stated that the name “will be changed to New York Rangers Hockey Club.”
The origin of the “Rangers” name stems from George Haley, the sports editor of the New York Herald Tribune, describing the new team as “Tex’s Rangers” because of Rickard’s decision to bring a new NHL team to New York. For a short period of time, Garden management debated whether the team crest should be, as Boucher described it in his autobiography When The Rangers Were Young, “a horse sketched in blue carrying a cowboy waving a hockey stick aloft” which further played on the name.
Ultimately, Rickard did not like the idea, and management settled on a crest that would be along the same lines as what the Americans had in their inaugural season – a “shield” shape with “New York” horizontally across the top of the shield and “Rangers” written diagonally from the top left to bottom right. One major difference between the Rangers and Americans, however, was their uniforms. The Americans’ jersey featured the stars and stripes of the American flag, and the team name was featured horizontally across the front. By contrast, the Rangers’ jersey was solid blue, with “Rangers” positioned diagonally down the front in the same way that it was featured in their logo. This uniform would also lead to the Rangers’ nickname – the “Blueshirts” – as well.
And with that, the New York Rangers were formed. And an incomparable legacy that will be entering its 100th year began.
