Apple podcast title, The Deep Dive, Unmasking
the NHL's Original Six, Monopolies, Myths, and
Hockey History, Apple podcast description. Are
the NHL's Original Six actually the original
teams? In this deep dive, we unpack the surprising
truth behind the 25 -season era that defined
professional hockey. From the Boston Bruins and
Toronto Maple Leafs to the Chicago Blackhawks,
Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings, and New
York Rangers, we explore how the Great Depression
and World War II shaped the league, discover
the secret Norris House League monopoly, the
infamous 50 -mile rule that rigged the Stanley
Cup, and the labor battles that changed sports
history forever. Whether you're a diehard hockey
fan or just love a story of power, corruption,
and legacy, this episode reveals the hidden history
behind sports' most nostalgic era. Welcome to
today's Deep Dive. I am so thrilled you're joining
us because today we are getting into something
really fascinating. Yeah, we are. It's one of
the most romanticized eras in all of sports history,
really. It totally is. And if you are looking
for our Deep Dive titled Unmasking the NHL's
Original Six, Unpacking the Monopolies, the Myths,
and the Gritty Hockey History. you are in exactly
the right place. Absolutely. Because even if
you just appreciate a beautifully designed vintage
sports sweater, you know the era we are talking
about today. Oh, for sure. I mean, it is a remarkably
powerful brand. When you picture vintage hockey,
you immediately picture those six iconic logos.
Right. But as we dig into the sources today,
the reality behind that branding is far more
complicated. And significantly more calculated
than most people realize. Exactly. So for this
deep dive, we are pulling... from a really comprehensive
historical article that breaks down the entire
25 season original six era. It's a great source.
It really is. And our mission today is to look
right past that sepia tone nostalgia. We want
to uncover the surprisingly monopolistic reality
of how these teams built a sports empire. Because
it wasn't just about hockey. No. Not at all.
We're talking power, corruption, labor battles,
and a rigged system that completely defined professional
hockey for a quarter of a century. It really
serves as a fascinating study in how scarcity
creates value. Yeah. We're looking at a league
that survived by the skin of its teeth, but then
managed to turn that sheer survival into an exclusive.
Billion dollar club. A billion dollar club. OK,
let's unpack this because we need to set the
stage. Let's do it. We all know the six franchises.
You've got the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Blackhawks.
And fun fact from our source, Blackhawks was
actually spelled as two separate words back then.
Oh, right. Good catch. Two words. Then you have
the Detroit Red Wings, the Montreal Canadiens,
the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The classic lineup. Right. But here is our first
major aha moment of the day. It's right in the
name itself. Yeah, this gets people every time.
Despite being universally called the original
six, they're not actually the original teams
of the National Hockey League. Not even close.
The branding is a brilliant piece of accidental
marketing, but historically it's a complete misnomer.
It blew my mind. You hear original six and you
naturally assume they were the founding fathers,
you know. Sitting around a smoky room in 1917
drafting up the league together. That's the myth.
The reality is a lot less romantic. If you trace
the NHL all the way back to its charter season
in 1917 to 1918, only two of those six teams
were actually present. Just two. Just two. The
Canadians and the Maple Leafs. Wow. This specific
group of six teams didn't form the league. They
simply survived it. Survives is the perfect word
for it. Because in the 1920s, the NHL actually...
consisted of 10 teams. Right, it was much larger.
But you have to factor in the massive historical
context of the era. The league basically ran
headfirst into the meat grinder of the Great
Depression. The financial pressures were just
insurmountable for a lot of ownership groups.
Yeah, entire franchises were wiped off the map.
Teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Ottawa
Senators. And the Montreal Maroons. All collapsed
under the economic strain because they literally
could not afford to keep the lights on and pay
their rosters. And then... Just as the league
is trying to find its footing after the devastation
of the Depression, World War II breaks out. Which
had a very specific, massive impact on the NHL.
Because Canada entered the war in September 1939.
Exactly. And suddenly, the Canadian player base,
which was the absolute lifeblood of the sport,
is severely depleted. So many young men left
their skates behind for military service. You
really see that play out in the financial and
demographic attrition of the era. The league
was bleeding talent and it was bleeding money.
It was hemorrhaging in. The final casualty of
this period was a team called the Brooklyn Americans.
Right, the Americans. They had essentially been
operating as a ward of the league since 1936,
just barely scraping by. They finally suspended
operations in the fall of 1942. And when the
dust settled from that final collapse, Only those
six teams were left standing. Just six teams
out of ten. And what is wild to me is what happened
next, or rather what didn't happen. Yeah, the
stagnation. Yes. For 25 seasons, from 1942 all
the way to 1967. Absolutely nothing changed.
There was no expansion, no contraction, no teams
moving to new cities, no teams even changing
arenas. It is this massive era of total unprecedented
stagnation. It's hard to even wrap your head
around today. When you compare that level of
stagnation to the rest of professional sports,
it really stands out. Looking at North American
sports history, this 25 season stretch is the
second longest period without franchise movement,
expansion or contraction. Second longest. What
beats it? The only streak that beats it is Major
League Baseball, which had a 50 -season static
stretch between 1903 and 1953. Okay, 50 seasons
is wild. It is, but in hockey, a quarter of a
century with exactly the same six teams playing
in exactly the same buildings is incredibly rare.
And it wasn't for a lack of interest from the
outside. It wasn't like no one else wanted to
play professional hockey or own a team. Oh, definitely
not. This was an artificial fortress. The owners
of these six teams actively fought to keep the
pie sliced exactly six ways. There were multiple
outside efforts to initiate expansion after the
war. For instance, in 1952, a very serious bid
came in from the American Hockey League's Cleveland
Barons. And they wanted to join the NHL. They
did. But the six owners consistently rejected
these bids. They just shut the door. Observers
at the time noted that the NHL owners would essentially
change the entry criteria every single time a
bid gained traction. Moving the goalposts. Exactly.
Demanding exorbitant entry fees or suddenly altering
arena capacity requirements just to ensure the
expansion was defeated. They even went back on
their own promises to reactivate those dormant
franchises like the Maroons and the Americans
once the war was over. They basically looked
around, realized they had an incredibly sweet
deal, and locked the doors from the inside. Which.
brings us to how they actually ran this exclusive
little club. Because if you think a six -team
league means everyone gets a mathematically fair
shot at the championship, we need to talk about
the playoffs. The playoff format of the original
six era is one of its most heavily criticized
structural flaws. It's absurd. In a league of
only six teams, the top four teams in the regular
season advanced to the playoffs. It's mathematically
absurd for a professional sports league. Yeah.
You only had to be better than two other teams
over a grueling regular season to make the postseason.
Yeah, the bar was not very high. But how did
that actually play out on the ice? It created
incredibly static standings. Montreal, Toronto,
and Detroit essentially formed an upper class,
leaving Boston, New York, and Chicago to fight
over the scraps. The numbers from the sources
are staggering. Listen to these Stanley Cup numbers
from this 25 season era. Montreal won 10 cups.
Toronto won nine. Detroit won five. Chicago managed
to scrape out exactly one cup in 1961. And Boston
and New York. Zero. Not a single championship
in 25 years. That is a staggering disparity.
And our sources point out that this wasn't just
bad luck for the American teams or a case of
poor management. No, it was structural. This
upper class dominance was baked into the league's
rules. Why was there such a massive built -in
advantage for those specific teams? It all came
down to a mechanism known as the 50 -mile rule.
I found this concept fascinating. Think of it
like the most extreme version of a local television
blackout rule. but instead of applying to broadcasts
it applies to human beings. That is a great way
to look at it. If a teenager was playing hockey
within 50 miles of your arena your team had a
total monopoly on his professional future. The
rule formally stated that each team had exclusive
rights to negotiate contracts with local players
within 50 miles of its home ice. Right. If a
player lived outside that 50 -mile limit, they
were technically free to field offers from any
team. But if they fell inside it, they were locked
to that local franchise. And there was a massive
catch with the sponsorship system, right? Oh,
yeah. Once a player agreed to an NHL sponsorship
-level contract, the club could just assign him
to its sponsored junior squad. They essentially
owned his rights before he ever went pro. So
let's visualize the map here. You have the Montreal
and Toronto metropolitan areas. As you can imagine,
those regions were absolutely overflowing with
kids growing up playing ice hockey. Hockey was
everything there. They had an incredible abundance
of prospects right in their backyard. On the
flip side, Boston, New York, and Chicago had
very few hockey prospects in their immediate
geographic territories. Detroit occupied an interesting
middle ground, actually. How so? Because of their
geographic location, southwestern Ontario actually
fell within their 50 -mile radius. Oh, right
across the border. Exactly. So while they didn't
have the massive countrywide advantage of the
Canadian teams, they were positioned far better
than Boston, New York, or Chicago to pull in
top -tier Canadian talent. And the practical
result of this rule is that the league became
almost entirely Canadian. Almost exclusively.
All 16. ended up recruiting players from Canada
by sponsoring minor league and junior teams up
there because that's where the talent pool was
deepest. American players were exceedingly rare
in this era. You had a few standouts in the 1940s
like goalkeepers Frank Brimsek and Mike Caracas,
but they were very much the exception. It is
worth noting that the Chicago Blackhawks did
try to push back against this trend initially.
Oh, they did. Yeah, their owner, Major Frederick
McLaughlin, was fiercely patriotic. He made a
concerted effort to stock his roster with as
many American players as possible. Interesting.
But after he died in 1944, the team was sold,
and from that point on, Chicago essentially abandoned
that project. They had very few American -born
players after that, falling in line with the
rest of the league. It's staggering when you
look at the actual rosters. Over this entire
25 -year span, the Toronto Maple Leafs only had
one American -born player, Jerry Foley. And he
barely played. Four games. He played four games
for them. The Montreal Canadiens only had one
American -born skater. Norm Dussault. It was
a very closed loop. Speaking of the Canadians,
I saw a wild note in the sources about an emergency
goalie situation in Boston in 1958. What exactly
happened there? That is one of the most bizarre
anecdotes of the era, and it perfectly highlights
how insular things were. So in March 1958, the
Canadians were playing the Bruins in Boston.
Jacques Plante, Montreal's legendary goalie,
gets injured in the second period. And back then,
they didn't have a... backup goalie just sitting
on the bench in full gear. Right. So Montreal
desperately needs someone to get in the net.
The only person available was an American named
John Aiken. But Aiken wasn't a Montreal player.
No. He was actually an arena employee for the
Boston Bruins. Spectacular. He stepped in as
an emergency replacement for half a game to play
against his own employer. An arena worker? strapping
on the pads against the Bruins, it really underscores
how small the circle of talent was. Definitely.
And that lack of diversity wasn't just limited
to nationality. This era was incredibly exclusionary
on multiple fronts. For instance, European players
were practically non -existent. True. The only
European -born and trained player of the entire
era was a Swedish player named Ulf Sterner, who
played briefly for the Rangers in 1965. And the
exclusionary practices went much deeper than
geography, too. We have to talk about Willie
O 'Ree. We absolutely do. Willie O 'Ree broke
the NHL's color barrier. He played for the Bruins
from 1958 to 1961. Making him the first and only
black player in the league during the entire
original six era. The league wouldn't see another
black player until the 1970s. O 'Ree's presence
was historic, but the fact that he was the only
one for decades highlights just how fiercely
the league guarded its closed loop. That lack
of fresh talent, which the sources actually note,
resulted in some of the weakest Calder Trophy
winners or rookies of the year in NHL history
during the 50s and 60s, wasn't just an accident
of geography. It was by design. It was a symptom
of a league where the owners had absolute unchecked
control. Which brings us to a man named James
E. Norris. Here we go. Here's where it gets really
interesting. Because you cannot talk about the
original six without unpacking the absolute financial
corruption of the ownership. If the 50 -mile
rule represented a geographic monopoly, James
E. Norris represented the ultimate financial
monopoly. Right. Norris was the owner of the
Detroit Red Wings. But in this era, the league
tolerated business practices that would trigger
massive federal investigations today. Oh, completely.
Norris didn't just own Detroit. He effectively
owned the Chicago Blackhawks as well. Wait, how
does an owner casually own a rival team in the
same division? How did the other owners react
to Norris basically bankrolling half the league?
They largely accepted it because they relied
on him. During the worst years of the Great Depression,
Norris used his immense wealth to extend mortgages
to the Boston Bruins to keep them afloat. So
he held significant financial leverage over Boston,
too. On top of that, he was the largest stockholder
in the New York Rangers. He had his hands in
four of the six teams. That is insane. Critics
at the time literally joked that NHL stood for
the Norris House League. And they weren't entirely
wrong. He essentially was the league. And when
you have that kind of absolute unchecked control
from a single ownership block, the people who
suffer the most are the workers. In this case,
the players. The labor conditions for the players
were incredibly exploitative. The system was
designed to strip them of any leverage. They
were just property. Players were routinely signed
to binding contracts by teams as early as 16
years old. And once you signed that piece of
paper, you were effectively owned by that franchise
for your entire career. No free agency. None.
They dictated where you played, how you developed,
and what you earned with zero room for negotiation.
There were absolutely no the safety nets. If
a team decided you weren't performing and sent
you down to the minor leagues, you took an immediate
drastic salary cut. And the team didn't even
cover your relocation costs. You just had to
pack up your family, move to a new city, and
figure it out on a fraction of your previous
income. Which naturally leads to the question,
why didn't the players fight back against this
treatment? The truth is, they tried. They did
try. In 1957, there was a major effort to form
a players union accompanied by an antitrust action
against the league. An antitrust action essentially
meant the players were going to the courts to
argue that the NHL was an illegal monopoly. Unlawfully
restricting their ability to earn a fair wage
in an open market. The main force agitating for
this union was a superstar forward for the Red
Wings named Ted Lindsey. And we have to emphasize
that Ted Lindsey was not a fringe player trying
to save his roster spot. No, this guy was a massive
star, a four -time Stanley Cup champion. He was...
The face of the franchise. His star power didn't
protect him. The owners recognized the threat
a union posed to their absolute control, and
their retaliation was swift and merciless. What
did they do? To punish Lindsay for his organizing
activities, Detroit stripped him of his captaincy
and shipped him off to the Chicago Blackhawks.
Who, as we mentioned earlier, were the perennial
last place bottom feeders of the league. Exactly.
That trade must have sent absolute shockwaves
through the locker rooms. It's classic union
busting. The message was crystal clear. It doesn't
matter how many cups you win for us. If you step
out of line and demand fair treatment, we will
completely derail your career. And it worked,
didn't it? It worked perfectly. The union effort
collapsed shortly after. And the financial exploitation
went even deeper than salaries. We have to look
at the player pension plan, which was originally
formed in 1946. On paper, a pension plan sounds
like a great benefit for the players. But in
reality, the owners kept the financials of this
plan completely secret from the players whose
futures depended on it. The players just had
to blindly accept whatever pension payments the
owners unilaterally decided to dispense. That
secrecy is incredibly sinister. It took years
for the players to gain any real footing. It
wasn't until subsequent actions by Toronto players
Bob Bowne and Carl Brewer in the early 1960s
that the foundation was laid for the National
Hockey League Players Association. The NHLPA.
Right, which formally launched in 1967. But even
when the players finally got their association,
the corruption didn't stop. The betrayal came
from within. The inaugural executive director
of the newly formed NHLPA was a man named Alan
Eagleson. And instead of fighting for transparency,
Eagleson continued the owner's tradition of hiding
the pension's financials from the players. Why?
Because he was actively skimming money from the
plan to enrich himself and his associates. It
was a massive systemic crime. That wasn't fully
exposed and prosecuted until 1989. It is just
layers upon layers of exploitation, all hidden
beneath the shiny veneer of these classic hockey
sweaters. It really taints the nostalgia when
you look at the facts. It does. So what does
this all mean for the timeline? How did it finally
end? Because clearly this 25 year stranglehold
couldn't last forever, especially with the world
changing around them in the 1960s. The end of
the era was driven by a generational shift in
ownership, combined with the undeniable external
pressure of television markets and rival leagues.
By 1963, a younger, slightly more progressive
guard was entering the NHL boardrooms. The key
figure here was William M. Jennings, the governor
of the New York Rangers. Jennings looks around
the sports landscape and realizes the NHL is
falling drastically behind, right? Precisely.
Major League Baseball and the NFL were aggressively
adding teams and expanding their footprints.
The American Football League was proving that
rival leagues could force massive mergers. Jennings
saw that if the NHL didn't adapt, they were going
to lose their status. He was specifically terrified
of the Western Hockey League, the WHL. Up until
then. The WHL was just a minor league operating
on the West Coast, but they were threatening
to declare themselves a major league. And if
they declare a major league status, that means
they can start ignoring NHL contracts. Offering
massive salaries to poach the NHL's top stars.
Totally dividing the fan base. Jennings knew
they had to preempt that threat. Plus there's
a massive crisis regarding television revenue.
The NHL had actually lost its national broadcast
deal with CBS in the United States back in 1960.
Because a regional league huddled around the
Great Lakes and the Northeast just didn't appeal
to a national audience. Jennings knew that if
they ever wanted to secure a lucrative national
TV deal again, they absolutely needed a presence
on the American West Coast. Initially, his peers
rejected his proposal to add two West Coast teams.
They liked their exclusive club. But he had planted
the seed, and the topic of expansion came up
at every single owners' meeting from then on.
Finally, as the older, more conservative owners
phased out of the league, the remaining owners
made a massive decision in 1965. They were going
to double the size of the league. Doubling the
league is a monumental leap. In February 1966,
they formally awarded expansion franchises to
six new cities. Los Angeles, Minnesota, Philadelphia,
Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and the San Francisco
Oakland area. those teams would hit the ice for
the 1967 -1968 season. Which means the 1967 Stanley
Cup final was the ultimate swan song for the
era we've been discussing today. When the Toronto
Maple Leafs defeated the Montreal Canadiens in
six games to win the 1967 Cup, it officially
closed the book on the original six. Though we
should point out that those six historic teams
didn't just quietly fade into the background
when the new teams arrived. No, they maintained
an iron grip on the league for a long time. The
structural... Advantages, the wealth, and the
scouting networks they had built up over 25 years
didn't vanish overnight. The first dozen seasons
of the expansion era still saw absolute dominance
by the original six. You had the Bobby Orled
Bruins in the early 70s and that massive Canadians
dynasty at the end of the 70s. It took a long
time for the expansion teams to reach any clear
parity. Looking at the sources, between 1967
and 1979, only one expansion team managed to
hoist the cup. The Philadelphia Flyers. Right,
who won it back to back in 1974 and 1975. Every
other championship went to an original six franchise.
And you could argue those foundational advantages
have never really vanished, especially when we
look at the financial side of the sport. The
modern day valuations prove that the monopolistic
branding of the original six paid off in a historic,
lasting way. According to Forbes in 2015, the
top five most valuable franchises in the entire
NHL were all original six teams. Wow. In that
report, the Rangers were valued at approximately
$1 .2 billion. The Canadians at $1 .18 billion.
The Maple Leafs at $1 .15 billion. The Blackhawks
and Bruins rounded out the top five, and the
Red Wings were sitting very comfortably at eighth
overall. So what we are really looking at here
is a masterclass in how artificial scarcity and
ruthless survival can create legendary brand
prestige. It's incredible. When you look at a
vintage original six hat or jersey today, it
is incredibly easy. to get lost in the nostalgia
of the sports golden age. But you are actually
looking at the ultimate survivors of a ruthless
economic era. Teams that used every trick in
the book. From territorial monopolies to labor
exploitation, all to protect their kingdom and
build a billion -dollar legacy. It completely
changes how you view the early history of the
sport. And there's one final detail from our
source material that I think really emphasizes
how the legacy of this era continues to evolve.
In the 2013 -2014 season, the NHL underwent a
massive structural shift and moved the Detroit
Red Wings to the Eastern Conference. Okay, yes.
Because of that specific move, the Chicago Blackhawks
were left as the absolute... only original six
team in the entire Western Conference. Oh, wow.
I hadn't considered the conference split like
that. It's something to chew on the next time
you watch a modern NHL broadcast. How does being
geographically and competitively isolated from
the other five historic franchises impact the
Blackhawks' legacy and their legendary rivalries
moving forward? When the ties of the original
six are severed by modern conference lines, what
happens to that shared history? That is a phenomenal
question and exactly the kind of thought we love
to leave you with. Thank you so much for joining
us on this deep dive into hockey history. Keep
asking questions, keep looking past the nostalgia,
and we'll catch you on the next deep dive.