Imagine for a second that you are sitting down
in a dimly lit living room to watch a live professional
sporting event on a screen. The year is 1940.
But as you're watching this flickering black
and white broadcast. You are part of this impossibly
small club. You know that only about 300 other
people in the entire country are seeing what
you're seeing. Which is just wild to think about.
It really is. I mean, there are no massive stadium
jumbotrons overhead, no million -dollar ad campaigns
playing during the intermissions. There's just
this tiny, highly experimental window into a
hockey arena that is quietly about to change
the entire course of sports history. It is such
a striking image to hold in your mind. especially
when you contrast that quaint setup with the,
you know, multi -billion dollar global sports
broadcasting empires we live with today. And
that contrast is exactly the mission of today's
Deep Dive. You sent us this fascinating stack
of notes centered on a comprehensive Wikipedia
article detailing the 1939 -1940 NHL season.
We've got everything in here from Raw League
business records to the exact playoff brackets.
But we are definitely not just going to read
you a spreadsheet. No, absolutely not. We are
going to cut right through those raw statistics
to uncover the human dramas, the unbelievable
technological milestones, and the birth of one
of sports history's most infamous curses. All
packed into a single, frantic season. Okay, let's
unpack this. To really ground ourselves in the
notes you shared, we first have to strip away
a lot of our modern assumptions about professional
sports. This is the 23rd season of the National
Hockey League. Right. You won't find the massive,
sprawling organizations you're used to today.
We are looking at an incredibly tight, insular...
Exactly. And they are playing a fast, grueling...
48 -game regular season. So every single night
on the ice mattered immensely. But scanning through
the records you provided before we even get to
the triumphs on the ice, there's this massive
dark cloud hanging over the very beginning of
the season. It's a tragedy that hits the Montreal
Canadiens and, honestly, the entire league. The
drowning of Babe Siebert. It is a profoundly
devastating moment in the historical record.
Siebert had just been named the head coach of
a Montreal club that was, well... already trying
to find his footing but then in august of 1939
right weeks before the season even officially
began siebert tragically drowned and compounding
that heartbreak his daughter drowned Along with
him. When you read the source text, it plainly
states the chronological facts of the tragedy.
But you have to pause and just imagine the absolute
shockwave that must have sent through the Canadians
organization. Oh, absolutely. It wasn't just
a personnel loss. It was a devastating human
loss. They were forced to pivot to a new coach,
Pitt Lapine, under genuinely traumatic circumstances.
And you can see the ripple effects of that emotional
and organizational devastation directly in their
performance metrics. Under Lapine, the Canadians
collapsed. the absolute bottom of the 17 league.
They really did. Over those 48 games, they barely
scraped together 10 wins. They were bleeding
goals, allowing a league -worst 167 against,
while barely managing to find the back of the
net themselves. But buried in those grim statistics
is a profound moment of league solidarity. An
all -star benefit game was quickly organized
in Siebert's memory. Which tells you so much
about the tight -knit fraternity of the players
back then. They weren't just passing through
a corporate machine. They rallied together to
financially and emotionally support one of their
own in the wake of an unthinkable family tragedy.
If we connect this to the bigger picture, it
really highlights how fundamentally different
the league's atmosphere was compared to the highly
insulated corporate sports world of today. The
handling of a sudden tragedy, and as we are about
to see, the handling of utter financial ruin,
was done much closer to the ground level. offer
with desperate, deeply personal measures. That
is such a stark contrast because while Montreal
is dealing with profound grief, you look down
the coast to New York and you find a completely
different kind of desperation. Oh, the Americans.
Yes. Looking through your notes on the New York
Americans is like reading a script for a movie
about a chaotic sinking ship trying to survive
on scraps. They were in severe financial trouble
and their front office was essentially just throwing
the furniture into the furnace to keep the lights
on. The transactions they made under Red Dutton's
management were completely staggering. Out of
sheer financial necessity, they made the agonizing
decision to trade away their absolute star left
wing, Sweeney Schreiner, sending him to the Toronto
Maple Leafs. Wait, walk me through that. They
are already struggling to stay afloat, and their
solution is to trade away their marquee talent.
It was a survival tactic. In return for their
one superstar, they acquired an entirely new
core of four players. Ah, I see. Harvey Busher
Jackson, Buzz Bull, Murray Armstrong, and a minor
leaguer named Jimmy Fowler. It was a massive
one -for -four player swap designed to instantly
flesh out a thin roster without spending new
money. But the frantic moves didn't even stop
there. The source material outlines these late
-season trades that just scream panic. They traded
Eddie Wiseman and $5 ,000 to the Boston Bruins.
just to get the legendary Eddie Shore. They were
just aggressively mashing buttons at that point.
They even obtained Charlie Conacher, who is famously
a forward. And your notes specifically point
out they used him as a defenseman. Which is a
brilliant detail. Putting a forward on the blue
line at the professional level is a massive red
flag. It is a true testament to how physically
depleted their roster was and how chaotic their
day -to -day survival had become. But the absolute
irony of the New York Americans' frantic, duct
-taped season... is where they ended up. They
didn't finish last? They did not. Because in
this deeply unusual seven -team era, the league
structure allowed the top six teams to qualify
for the postseason. So despite the financial
hemorrhage, the wild trades, the $5 ,000 lifelines,
and forcing forwards to play defense, the Americans
managed to secure 15 wins all year. The source
calls it a poor sixth place. But they effectively
beat out the grieving Montreal Canadiens by a
few points and somehow punched their ticket to
the playoffs. It is a bizarre, chaotic, underdog
story hiding right there in the standings. But
if you look at the other end of those standings,
the chaos completely vanishes. Let's look at
the absolute kings of the regular season that
year. The Boston Bruins. The Bruins were operating
on a completely different planet than the rest
of the league. They comfortably secured first
place, racking up 31 wins and distancing themselves
from everyone else. Yeah, they were a machine.
They were an offensive juggernaut, scoring 34
more goals than their closest competitor. And
they achieved all of this dominant structure
under a new coach, Cooney Weiland, who was actually
a former captain of the team stepping behind
the bench. But Cooney Whelan wasn't just relying
on good defensive structure. He was armed with
what might be one of the most lethal forward
lines in hockey history. The Kraut line. Exactly.
The source material highlights their top trio,
famously known as the Kraut line, Milt Schmidt,
Woody Dumart, and Bobby Bauer. Here's where it
gets really interesting. If you look at the final
scoring charts for the entire NHL that season,
those three guys didn't just lead Boston. No.
They finished first, second, and third in overall
league scoring. It is a genuine statistical marvel.
When you synthesize the player statistics from
your nights, it is just a wall of Boston Bruins
at the top. Milt Schmidt ran away with the number
one spot, hovering well over 50 points. Unbelievably.
And right behind him, tied in a dead heat for
second and third, were his line mates, Woody
Dumart and Bobby Bauer. both cruising comfortably
in the 40 -plus point range, they completely
suffocated the rest of the league's elite talent.
It's almost impossible to wrap your head around
that level of dominance. Even today, if you are
watching modern hockey with all the hyper -specialized
line matching, power play setups, and video analysis,
having three guys from the exact same line sweep
the gold, silver, and bronze in league scoring
is mind -blowing. They weren't just playing well.
They were fundamentally breaking the math of
the league. And the league recognized it. The
postseason accolades reflected a complete Boston
takeover. Milt Schmidt took home the official
scoring title. Bobby Bauer was awarded the Lady
Bing Trophy for combining that elite skill with
sportsmanship. And the team awards too. Right.
Boston effortlessly claimed the Prince of Wales
trophy as the regular season champions. They
had Dick Clapper locked onto the first all -star
team on defense. And in net, Frank Brimsek was
an absolute fortress. He posted a goals against
average just under two, which is remarkable for
an era with that much offensive firepower. They
seemed entirely inevitable, a true dynasty in
motion. But before we follow the Bruins into
what should have been a coronation in the playoffs,
we have to talk about the milestone we teased
at the very beginning of this deep dive. Oh,
yes. Let's go back to that dimly lit living room
and the 300 viewer revolution. February 25, 1940.
It is a date that sits quietly in the archives,
but serves as the absolute foundation of modern
sports media consumption. The notes you provided
outline a regular season game between the New
York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens. And
plainly stated in the text, this was the very
first NHL game ever broadcast on television.
Yes. But the detail that completely stops you
in your tracks is the scale of that broadcast.
The viewership numbers are almost comical by
today's standards. The broadcast was pushed out
to a highly localized area in the United States
and was seen by an estimated 300 people. 300
people. You could fit the entire television audience.
of the National Hockey League into a moderately
sized local movie theater. Exactly. It's just
wild to think about the executives putting on
this broadcast totally unaware of the monster
they were birthing. What's fascinating here is
how that minuscule flickering broadcast was the
quiet genesis of today's multi -billion dollar
sports industry. Those 300 people were participating
in a technological test run that would eventually
dictate the entire financial structure of global
sports. It's incredible. But the source material
you shared is also very careful to provide proper
global context here. Because there is a common
historical misconception that needs correcting.
Right. The first broadcast ever. Correct. While
this Rangers -Canadians matchup was the first
NHL game on television, it was not the first
ice hockey game ever broadcast. That's a great
distinction to make. The text points out that
a hockey broadcast had actually been successfully
transmitted in England two years prior in 1938
by the BBC. And what I found even more surprising
in your notes is the timeline for Canada. We
heavily associate the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,
the CBC, with the cultural institution of hockey
broadcast today. But they didn't air their first
hockey game until 12 years later in 1952. It
really emphasizes how experimental and localized
that 1940 Rangers broadcast was in the United
States. It wasn't a cultural phenomenon yet.
It was a science experiment. A science experiment
that happened to feature the New York Rangers.
which brings us perfectly back to the ice, because
the Rangers were putting on an absolute show
for those 300 viewers. They certainly were. If
you track the regular season through these notes,
they were on an absolute rollercoaster ride.
They went on a historic, scorching, 19 -game
undefeated streak, just coasting comfortably
in first place for a massive jump of the year.
But maintaining that kind of historic momentum
is nearly impossible. they hit a massive debilitating
slump in the second half of the season. Yeah,
the wheels really started to wobble. And that
loss of momentum is exactly what allowed the
Boston Bruins, carried by that unstoppable kraut
line, to edge them out for the top spot. The
Rangers ended up finishing as the second seed,
trailing Boston by just a few points. And this
sets up a playoff bracket that genuinely made
me reread the notes you sent us. Because it defies
all modern sports logic. It really does. The
playoff bracket in 1940 was brutal. The top two
teams in the league did not get a bye to rest
and wait for the lower seeds to battle it out.
Instead, the NHL forced the first place Boston
Bruins and the second place New York Rangers
to play each other immediately in a best of seven
Stanley Cup semifinal series. It is a wildly
punitive reward for being the two best teams
in hockey. You spend 48 grueling games fighting
for the top spot, and your prize is facing your
absolute toughest competition right out of the
gate. It makes no sense. Given Boston's regular
season dominance and their monopoly on the scoring
charts, the expectation was that the Bruins would
survive the gauntlet. But the ice is slippery
for a reason. Despite all of Boston's firepower,
the Rangers completely flipped the script. New
York didn't just beat the Bruins. They dismantled
them. They really did. They won the series in
six games. They completely suffocated Boston's
offense, outscoring them 14 -8 across the entire
series. And most shockingly, they managed to
shut out the mighty Kraut line twice. Incredible.
They opened the series with a 4 -0 shutout and
dropped another 1 -0 shutout on them in Game
4. The architect of that monumental upset was
the goaltending. You had Boston's Frank Brimsek,
who was elite all year, going up against the
Rangers' Dave Kerr. And Kerr put on an absolute
masterclass in that. He really did. He actually
won the Vizina Trophy that year for the fewest
goals allowed, posting a 1 .54 average in the
regular season. But to maintain that exact level
of brilliance in the playoffs, recording a 1
.56 average and three shutouts against the greatest
offensive line of the era is historic. He completely
out -dueled Brimsek, whose playoff average ballooned
up to 2 .50. Kerr was an absolute brick wall
when it mattered most. So the Rangers eliminate
the heavy favorite Bruins. Meanwhile, if you
look at the lower brackets in your notes, the
third seed Toronto Maple Leafs were carving a
much different path to the finals. The lower
bracket was operating on a completely different
frequency. Toronto swept the fourth place Chicago
Blackhawks, then watched as the fifth place Detroit
Red Wings. barely squeezed past the financially
ruined New York Americans. Right. Toronto then
easily swept Detroit. So you have a situation
where Toronto advanced to the finals after playing
just four games while the Rangers had to fight
through a grueling physical six game war with
Boston. Which sets the ultimate stage. the Stanley
Cup Finals, the New York Rangers against the
Toronto Maple Leafs. And instead of giving you
a tedious play -by -play of every single period,
you just need to understand the wild swings of
momentum the source outlines here. It was a true
heavyweight bout. Game one immediately set the
tone with a grueling overtime battle that New
York barely edged out. They carried that momentum
into a blowout win in game two, fueled by a Brian
Hextall hat trick. But then they went to Toronto.
Exactly. The moment the series shifted back to
Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto woke up. They scraped
out a tight win in Game 3 and completely shut
the Rangers out in Game 4 to tie the series.
The momentum is just violently swinging back
and forth. It all comes down to the final two
games, both played in Toronto. Game 5 becomes
an absolute test of endurance, dragging deep
into double overtime before the Rangers finally
break the bedlock to take the series lead. The
tension was incredible. And then, April 13, 1940...
Game six. Toronto comes out desperate, jumping
out to an early two -goal lead, but the Rangers
slowly claw their way back in the third period,
scoring twice in rapid succession to source overtime
yet again. The tension is immense, and just over
two minutes into that first overtime period,
Brian Hextall finds the back of the net. He scores
the cup -winning goal. The New York Rangers win
the series 4 -2 and hoist the Stanley Cup. It's
their third Stanley Cup in just 14 years of existence.
When you look at the roster in these notes, they
had the Vazina winning goalie in Dave Kerr. They
had a phenomenal coach in Frank Boucher. They
had the league's best rookie in Kilby McDonald.
Yeah, they were stacked. If you are a Rangers
fan watching this in 1940, you are looking at
a franchise poised to completely dominate the
next decade of hockey. Which is what makes the
historical aftermath outlined in your source.
so utterly staggering. Because that triumphant
night in Toronto kicked off a massive, dark,
historical irony. This raises an important question.
How quickly can a dynasty vanish into thin air?
Because as the source text explicitly notes,
the Rangers' 1940 Cup win was the quiet beginning
of the infamous 54 -year curse. Wow. After looking
utterly invincible on that April night, the New
York Rangers would not win another Stanley Cup
until 1994. Try to actually conceptualize a 54
-year drought. That is over half a century. Entire
generations of fans would be born, live their
entire lives, and pass away without ever seeing
the Rangers host that trophy again. It's a lifetime.
be fought the moon landing would happen the berlin
wall would fall and through it all the rangers
would be waiting and it all started the exact
second brian hextall scored that overtime goal
it had such a profound melancholic layer to what
was objectively a brilliant season for them they
survived the insane 19 game streak they weathered
the late season slump They survived the brutal,
punishing first round matchup with the powerhouse
Bruins, and they outlasted Toronto in multiple
double overtime thrillers. Only to walk right
into a half century of heartbreak. Precisely.
It really is incredible to pull back and look
at the whole picture. When you review the 1939
-1940 NHL season through these notes, it is a
yam defined by massive, unbelievable contrasts.
You have a league reeling from the tragic grounding
of Montreal's coach Babe Seibert, while simultaneously
acting as the testing ground for the first -ever
television broadcast to an audience of just 300
people. You have the New York Americans trading
away their future and their stars just to afford
to keep the lights on, while the Boston Bruins'
kraut line is mathematically breaking the record
books by sweet... And towering over it all, you
have the New York Rangers climbing to the absolute
peak of the mountain, completely unaware that
they are about to wander into a 54 -year desert.
So what does this all mean? I think it reveals
that sports history is rarely clean or straightforward.
It is chaotic, it is deeply human, and it is
entirely unpredictable. It isn't just a sterile
list of who hoisted the trophy at the end of
the year. It is about the strange, desperate
and sometimes tragic journeys it takes to get
to that final handshake line. Well said. It's
about how those fleeting, seemingly localized
moments on the ice ripple out for decades, whether
it's the genesis of a global sports broadcasting
empire or the quiet birth of a generational curse
that will haunt a city for half a century. And
if you want something truly provocative to mull
over long after we wrap up here, consider this
final. Oh, I saw that. There's a brief administrative
note about June 1939. The Canadian Amateur Hockey
Association formally notified the NHL that they
wanted development fees implemented for when
the professional teams sign amateur players to
contracts. Because the existing pro -amateur
agreement was expiring that year, it seems like
such a dry, bureaucratic detail compared to everything
else we've talked about. It does. But think about
the implications. As you look at the massive,
highly regulated global draft systems of modern
professional sports today, systems that dictate
the entire financial future of billionaire franchises,
consider how much of that modern infrastructure
traces its roots directly back to the administrative
negotiations of this quaint 17 era. That's a
great point. How many of the complex salary cap
rules and amateur drafting regulations that we
completely take for granted today were born purely
out of the financial desperation of teams like
the 1940 New York. York Americans who were just
trying to secure talent without going completely
bankrupt. Right. The modern billion dollar business
of global sports was quite literally being drafted
in the background while guys like Eddie Shore
were being traded for five thousand dollars in
a handshake. It really forces you to view the
entire modern sports landscape through a completely
different lens. We owe so much of what we watch
today to the absolute chaos and desperation of
those early days. Thank you so much for sharing
these notes and joining us on this deep dive
into the archives. As always, keep questioning
the stats, look for the deeply human stories
hiding behind the numbers, and stay curious.