Sport: Hockey

Hockey is indigenous to Canada; all the best professionals are Canadian-bred. Nonetheless, the National Hockey League, misnamed major organization of professional hockey, has five U. S. and only four Canadian teams. By last week all nine had played their first three or four games. The World’s Champion Toronto Maple Leafs were tied for second place in the International Group after losing to the New York Rangers, 7 to 0, in the Leafs’ fourth game, in Manhattan. Boston’s Bruins, already criticized for defensive, dull-to-watch hockey, were tied with Chicago at the top of the American group. Rules. At their autumn meeting, the N. H. L. Board of Governors decided on eight new rules. Most important were: Teams must have at least 10 (instead of 8) and not more than 14 (instead of 15) players in uniform (exclusive of goal-keepers) ; a player with a broken stick may not kick the puck or handle it; a player who kicks or tries to kick an opponent must leave the ice for the duration of the game, may not be replaced by a substitute until five minutes after he leaves. Teams. Year ago there were only three Canadian teams in the National Hockey League. Ottawa had been a weak sister in the Canadian group for so long that its franchise was suspended for a year, along with Philadelphia’s. Philadelphia remains out of the American Group but Ottawa is back again this year with a team reorganized around the nucleus of the 1930 forward line. Also reorganized even to the detail of a new name are Detroit’s Red Wings, onetime Falcons. Their four new players came from the Chicago Shamrocks, a minor league team which tried to compete with Major Frederic McLaughlin’s Black Hawks for two years, disbanded last spring. The Black Hawks were last week involved in litigation with the Chicago’ Stadium which demanded $150,000 damages from Major McLaughlin because, with one year of a three-year contract left, he had moved his team to the smaller Chicago Coliseum. Major McLaughlin contended that the Stadium had broken the contract by refusing his team a choice of dates. At the opening game in the Coliseum the ice was poor. The small crowd of 4,600 chanted between periods: “We want the Stadium.” The Montreal Maroons, rebuilding after an unsuccessful season, last week released Bill Phillips, last member of the Maroon team which won the Stanley Cup in 1926. Before the season opened, the Maroons’ famed line of S’s—Siebert, Stewart, Smith —had broken up by trades: Siebert to the Rangers. Stewart to Boston, Smith remaining with the Maroons. The New York Americans had a new manager. Joe Simpson, onetime defenseman, to replace hot-tempered Eddie Gerard. Experts pick the Toronto Maple Leafs, just coming to their peak at the end of last season when they won the world’s championship, and the New York Rangers, seasoned, clever, whose famed Center Frank Boucher joined the team last week after a long salary dispute, to fight it out for this year’s Stanley Cup.