Montreal Maroons

The Montreal Maroons (officially the Montreal Professional Hockey Club) was a professional men's ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL). They played in the NHL from 1924 to 1938, winning the Stanley Cup in 1926 and 1935. They were the last non-Original Six team to win the Stanley Cup until the Philadelphia Flyers in 1974, and the last NHL franchise to fold after having previously won a Stanley Cup championship.

History
The Maroons joined the league in 1924 along with the Boston Bruins, the first American team in the NHL. They were the second NHL team in Montreal, the first being the Montreal Canadiens. The expansion fees for both teams were $15,000, with $11,000 of the Maroons' fee going to their cross-town rivals, the Canadiens. While the Canadiens drew primarily francophone fans, the Maroons largely drew fans from the anglophone neighbourhoods of Montreal. The team was designed to appeal to the anglophone fans of the defunct Montreal Wanderers, who folded just six games into the NHL's inaugural season.

At the time of their founding, the Maroons had no nickname. The Maroons' president James Strachan had been the owner of the Wanderers in the 1900s and he attempted to secure the Wanderers name but negotiations failed. The nickname of Maroons was eventually picked up by the media after the colour of their jerseys. The club never officially changed the organizational name to incorporate the Maroons name. The Vancouver Millionaires of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association had changed their name to the Vancouver Maroons, but the club had folded before Montreal started.

The Maroons participated in the longest NHL playoff game of all time, losing 1–0 to the Detroit Red Wings in 176:30 of play (16:30 of the sixth overtime period) on March 24–25, 1936.

1926 Stanley Cup win
In only their second season of operation, Montreal won their first Stanley Cup. The win was especially sweet for Maroons' goaltender Clint Benedict and forward Punch Broadbent. The pair had been traded from the Ottawa Senators in 1924, Benedict after a dispute with the Senators management. In the NHL playoff final, Montreal defeated Ottawa to advance to the Stanley Cup final against the Victoria Cougars of the Western Hockey League. In the last Stanley Cup final involving two different leagues, Montreal defeated Victoria three games to one. Rookie, and future Hall of Fame member Nels Stewart scored six of the Maroons' ten goals in the series.

Great Depression
Financial strains from the Great Depression in Montreal hurt the attendances of both the Canadiens and Maroons. However, there were far more francophone supporters for the Canadiens than there were anglophone supporters for the Maroons. As a result, the Maroons finished with the worst attendance in the league for three seasons in a row. This, along with the fact that both teams were owned by the Canadian Arena Company by 1935 (Ernest Savard and Maurice Forget, who owned the Canadiens, were part of the Canadian Arena Company, as were Maroons owners James Strachan and Donat Raymond) made it obvious that only one team could represent Montreal. The Maroons' dire financial straits caused them to sell off several players, including star winger Hooley Smith.

Despite the Maroons' financial troubles, they continued to play competitive hockey well into the 1930s. In fact, the Maroons team that won the Stanley Cup in 1935 were the last team to do so without a loss in the playoffs for 17 years. However, the team's bleak financial situation finally caught up with them in 1937–38, as they finished 12–30–6, the club's worst season since winning only nine games in 1924–25. The league allowed the Maroons to suspend operations for the 1938–39 season. The Maroons' owners tried to sell to interests in St. Louis, Missouri. Earlier in the decade, St. Louis proved that it could support NHL hockey when the Ottawa Senators moved there to become the Eagles. However, while the Eagles had drawn very well, they survived only one season, due to the high costs of traveling to Boston, Montreal, and Toronto (the Eagles had assumed the Senators' place in the Canadian Division in defiance of all geographic reality). The league was not about to give St. Louis another chance given the economic situation of the time.

Len Peto, a director of the Montreal Canadiens, took control of the dormant Maroons and succeeded in getting the franchise transferred to Philadelphia. However, despite being larger than all but two NHL cities (New York and Chicago), Philadelphia did not have an arena that could accommodate an NHL team. The largest arena in the city, the Palestra, did not have an ice plant. The second largest, Philadelphia Arena, was ruled out due to poor sight lines. The league gave Peto until the end of the 1946–47 season to find a suitable arena. Unfortunately, Peto failed to do so, and the Maroons were gone for good in 1947.

The last active Maroons player was Herb Cain, who remained in the NHL until 1946.

Season-by-season record
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes

Team Captains

 * Punch Broadbent 1924–25
 * Dunc Munro 1925–28
 * Nels Stewart 1928–32
 * Hooley Smith 1932–36
 * Lionel Conacher 1936–37
 * Stewart Evans 1937–38

Hockey Hall of Famers

 * Clint Benedict
 * Toe Blake
 * Buck Boucher
 * Punch Broadbent
 * King Clancy
 * Lionel Conacher
 * Alex Connell
 * Red Dutton
 * Reg Noble
 * Babe Siebert
 * Hooley Smith
 * Nels Stewart

Awards

 * Russ Blinco — Calder Trophy (Top Rookie) 1934
 * Nels Stewart — Hart Trophy (NHL MVP) 1926, 1930

Arenas

 * Montreal Forum &mdash; built specifically for the Maroons, the Forum, in an ironic twist, would become the most famous arena in hockey largely because of the Canadiens, who shared the arena with the Maroons from 1926 to 1938.