CrashingTheGoalie

by Ron Spence

Depression and St. Louis hockey seem to go together. 

The Blues were swept by the ‘nucks and St. Louis hockey fans are feeling down. They made it into the post-season – after a handful of years – but were quickly shown the exit after the first round.

St. Louis’ NHL hockey started during a depression – the Great Depression. 

On May 14, 1934 the NHL approved a new team for St. Louis, the seventh largest city in the U.S. 

The team was named the Eagles, after the Anheuser-Busch logo, and the club lasted for one season. 

The Eagles had been the Ottawa Senators. The Sens were an NHL team since the formation of the new league in 1917 and had already won the Stanley Cup 7 times, before the new circuit was formed. Then, between 1917 and 1927 they won the Cup 4 times.

But, Ottawa was the original small market area and the capital of Canada couldn’t support an NHL team. The club was first in trouble the year before the Crash of 1928. As the NHL expanded into the United States, the team couldn’t afford the travel costs to the U.S. Also, the Sens fans didn’t attend games when U.S. teams came to Ontario, which meant lower revenues.

The Senators sat out the 1931-32 season at the start of the Great Depression, squeaked by in 1932-33, and nearly went out of business after 1933-34. 

The Ottawa owners decided to try their luck in the Show Me State, and Frank Ahearn resigned as the team’s president and Redmond Quain took over.

ST. LOUIS ARENA

The ‘nucks complain about their travel schedule, but the Eagles had by far the worst – train – schedule during that era. They were kept in the Canadian division and had to travel to the Canadian cities of Montreal, and Toronto, as well as Boston (The NHL should have put them in the same division as Detroit and Chicago.). It would be like San Jose having to play most of their games against Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Washington.

Like today, many St. Louis fans turned out for the Eagles’ games, but the team had a terrible 11-31-6 record. 

The Ottawa squad had been largely depleted when they had sold some of their better players, but then the Eagles had to sell their captain, Syd Howe and Ralph Bowman to keep their head above water.

Finally, with the purse almost empty, the St. Louis owners sold the franchise and their players to the NHL for $40,000. 

The Eagles had thus started and ended during a depression.

The St. Louis Blues would take the ice during the boom times of the mid-1960s, over three decades later.

But, there is still depression in St. Louis.