Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets was the name of three separate ice hockey teams based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The original team was part of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA) from 1920 to 1925 and developed from predecessors dating back to 1915. After winning the USAHA Championship in 1924 and 1925, the ostensibly amateur (but arguably semi-professional) Yellow Jackets turned fully professional and became the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National Hockey League. After the Pirates relocated in 1930 to play as the Philadelphia Quakers, a second Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets club (organized by the founder of the original club) played for two seasons in the International Hockey League, a minor professional circuit. A third Yellow Jackets team was organized at the amateur level in 1935 by John H. Harris and competed in the Eastern Amateur Hockey League before folding in 1937.
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets | |
---|---|
City | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States |
League | USNHL (1918) USAHA (1920–1925) |
Founded | 1915 |
Operated | 1916–1925 |
Home arena | Duquesne Garden |
Colors | Gold, black (1916) Red, gray (1916–1920) Gold, black (1920–1925) |
Franchise history | |
1916 | Duquesne Garden hockey team |
1916–1920 | Pittsburgh Athletic Association |
1920–1922 | Pittsburgh Hockey Club |
1922–1925 | Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets |
Championships | |
League championships | 1 USNHL (1918); 2 USAHA (1923–24, 1924–25) |
Division championships | 2 (1923–24, 1924–25) |
The roots of the Yellow Jackets trace back to the winter of 1915–16, when Roy Schooley, a local politician and former hockey referee, put together an amateur team to play exhibition games at the Duquesne Garden. Schooley brought in Canadian players including Dinny Manners, brothers Larry and Joe McCormick, and Russell McCrimmon. [1] The team, known as the "Duquesne Garden hockey team" after its home arena, compiled a record of 20 wins, 3 losses and no ties in early 1916 against teams from Canada and the US. [2] A highlight of the season was a three-game series sweep of the St. Paul (Minnesota) Athletic Club, which had won the MacNaughton Cup as champion of the American Hockey Association and had defeated the Lachine club of Canada, holders of the Art Ross Cup. [2] After beating St. Paul, the Duquesne Garden team was claimed to be the hockey champion of the world, [2] [3] though this claim was not officially or widely recognized.
After its first season, the Duquesne Garden exhibition team established an affiliation with the Pittsburgh Athletic Association (PAA), a private athletic and social club, adopting that organization's name, colors, and "Winged Head" insignia. [4] [5] The team finished its 1916–17 campaign with a 37–3–0 record. [6]
During the winter of 1917–18 the PAA team joined the New York Wanderers, Boston Arenas and Boston Navy Yard in forming the United States National Hockey League, which would last only one season. The PAA won the league title and went on to defeat the Montreal Hochelaga club, holders of the Art Ross Cup, in an international amateur championship series to win a new honor called the Fellowes international trophy. [7] [8] That season's overall record of 24–3–2 included a 22-game winning streak. [9]
There was no 1918–19 season for the PAA, with Duquesne Garden being used as a barracks [10] and most of the players in military service. [11] The team resumed its dominance in 1919–20, going 25–5–3 playing an independent schedule. [12]
The PAA team figured prominently in the formation of the first U.S. Olympic ice hockey team. When the sport was about to debut as an Olympic competition at the 1920 Games in Antwerp, Belgium, the PAA won a three-team American tournament (with Boston AA and St. Paul AC) that was originally supposed to determine which one of the clubs would be sent intact to the Olympics to represent the United States. [13] However, as it became clear that no team had enough US-eligible players to furnish a full Olympic roster, it was decided to choose representatives from all three of the teams. [14] Four of the eleven selections were from the PAA: Herb Drury, Joe McCormick (who was appointed US team captain), [15] Larry McCormick, and Ray Bonney, all but the last of whom were born in Canada but had acquired US citizenship. [12] PAA manager Schooley, who assembled the Olympic team, said that the PAA's Manners, McCrimmon, and Ed Nagle, who were also Canadian-born, would have been worthy of inclusion had they been eligible. [16] The Americans won the silver medal by overwhelming all of their opponents except for Canada's gold medalist Winnipeg Falcons, to whom they lost 2–0.
In late October, 1920, the United States Amateur Hockey Association was formed, with Schooley and William S. Haddock serving as co-founders and respectively acting as the league's secretary-treasurer and president. [17] The team that had been playing under the PAA banner reorganized as the Pittsburgh Hockey Club, shedding the red and gray colors of the PAA for new uniforms of black and gold. [18] An original member of the USAHA, the team played only a few exhibition games in its inaugural season before suspending operations because of eligibility problems. [19] It was reapproved for league play for the following season. [20] The team would not become known as the Yellow Jackets until the 1922–23 season. [21]
According to former sports reporter Paul Sullivan, who covered hockey for much of his life for the Pittsburgh Gazette Times and later the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph , the USAHA was not a completely amateur league. Sullivan noted that even though the USAHA was called an amateur league, "They didn't come down from Canada because they thought Pittsburgh was a nice place." [22] The eastern teams of USAHA soon imported Canadian players, to add to their rosters of local players. In February 1923, Schooley invited Lionel Conacher, a future Hall of Famer, to come to Pittsburgh and officiate games, "to see if the crowd would take to him". Schooley then asked Conacher to play with the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets in a four-game series against his former team, the Toronto Aura Lee hockey team, and against the Hamilton Tigers. Conacher impressed the Pittsburgh fans by scoring 11 of the Yellow Jackets' 23 goals in the four games. [23] Schooley then used his connections in the Pittsburgh media [24] to promote Conacher to the city's hockey fans. After seeing how well the fans took to Conacher, Schooley made him the team's captain, and asked him to invite a number of his friends to play for the Yellow Jackets. These players included Harold Cotton, Hib Milks, Harold Darragh, Rodger Smith, Duke McCurry, "Tex" White and goalie Roy Worters. [17]
Dick Carroll, who had coached the Toronto Arenas to the Stanley Cup in 1918, [25] was appointed the team's coach once Conacher and his teammates arrived in Pittsburgh for the 1923–24 season by Schooley. However the use of Canadian players drew criticism, with the Boston-based teams leading the charge. In one instance, the Boston Herald questioned why: "Boston hockey … [was] hooked up with Pittsburgh at all… [After all] the best hockey in Boston is played by our own boys … [and Pittsburgh hockey] … is played mainly by a bunch of traveling mercenaries, who practically all are of Canadian birth and training." Boston Herald columnist W.E. Mullins referred to the Yellow Jackets as "Pittsburgh's Canadians". These imported players joined current Yellow Jackets players Dinny Manners and Herb Drury, the latter of whom was about to win his second silver medal as a member of the U.S. Olympic hockey team. [17] [26]
In the Yellow Jackets' 1923–24 season opening game at Duquesne Garden, Conacher scored a hat trick. [23] The Yellow Jackets posted a 15–5–0 record for the season to earn first place in the league's Western group. Pittsburgh then defeated the Boston Athletic Association to win the Fellowes Cup 4 games to 1 in the playoffs. [27] A Boston newspaper, the Boston Traveller , on January 29, 1924, termed the Yellow Jackets "a wonder team" and another account referred to Conacher as "Canada’s Wonder Athlete". The trio of Rodger Smith, Conacher and Roy Worters was part of Pittsburgh’s "stonewall defense." [23] The Yellow Jackets were so dominant by 1924 that they spun off another Pittsburgh team, named the Fort Pitt Hornets, who played in the Eastern Division. [22] Dinny Manners, who served as player-coach of the Yellow Jackets in the 1922–23 season, when they were only a .500 club, still played for the team during the 1923–24 season, however the following season he joined the Hornets. [17] [28]
In their 1924–25 season, the Yellow Jackets finished their split regular season with a 15–3–2 first-half record for first place in the Western Group, followed by a 10–8–2 second-half record for second place in the west. [27] After sweeping the second-half winner Eveleth Arrowheads in the group playoff, the Jackets moved on to the league finals against their in-city rivals the Fort Pitt Hornets, who had won the Eastern Group. [29] The favored Yellow Jackets defeated the Hornets three games to none, with one tie, to retain the Fellowes Cup. [30]
The Yellow Jackets stopped playing after the USAHA folded at the end of the 1924–25 season. When Duquesne Garden president Henry Townsend was granted an NHL expansion team for the following season, he filled it with the former Yellow Jackets players. The NHL team took the name Pittsburgh Pirates from the baseball club, something the new NFL team would also do eight years later. [31] The team wore black and yellow uniforms that largely resembled the Yellow Jackets' outfits from the previous season. The Pirates made it to the NHL semifinals within a year and would be barely nudged out of the playoffs. In 1926, the playoff series was just two games long, with total goals deciding the issue. The Pirates, who finished third in the seven-team NHL, lost to the Montreal Maroons, 3–1, in the opener in Pittsburgh and tied, 3–3, in Montreal. The Maroons' 6–4 edge in goals gave them the series and they went on to win the 1926 Stanley Cup. Among the Jackets-turned-Pirates were two Hockey Hall of Famers—Lionel Conacher and goalie Roy Worters. The Pirates would operate from 1925 until 1930. [31]
The Pittsburgh Hockey Club that succeeded the Pittsburgh Athletic Association hockey team in 1920 wore black jerseys with gold trim and the word "Pittsburg" (as the name of the city was still sometimes spelled) written in script diagonally across the chest. [32] [33] Black and gold had also been worn by the club's original predecessor, the 1916 Duquesne Garden team. [34]
In November 1922, the Pittsburgh club switched to gold jerseys with a black "P" on the front; [35] the nickname "Yellow Jackets" appeared in the press by the next month. [36] On the sleeves were patches in the form of the coat of arms of the city of Pittsburgh. [37] A late version of the Yellow Jackets jersey featured a slanted and more angular "P" logo on the front and the word "Champions" cursively written above the "P". [38] When the Yellow Jackets became the city's first NHL team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, they retained the colors, chest logo, and sleeve patches from the previous season's uniforms but changed the word above the "P" to read "Pirates".
The team's colors gained new relevance decades later when the city's second NHL team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, wanted to change their uniform colors from blue and white to black and gold. When the change was protested by the Boston Bruins, the Penguins showcased the Pirates-Yellow Jackets jerseys as precedence for the move. [39]
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against
Season | GP | W | L | T | Pts | GF | GA | Finish | Playoffs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1921–22 | 12 | 5 | 7 | 0 | 10 | – | – | third in Group 2 | Missed Playoffs [27] |
1922–23 | 20 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 20 | 49 | 35 | fourth in West | Missed Playoffs [27] |
1923–24 | 20 | 15 | 5 | 0 | 30 | 63 | 25 | first in West | Won USAHA Championship over Boston Athletic Association 4–1 [27] |
1924–25 | 40 | 25 | 11 | 4 | 54 | 78 | 39 | first in West | Won USAHA Championship over Fort Pitt Hornets 3–0–1 [30] |
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets | |
---|---|
City | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States |
League | International Hockey League |
Founded | 1930 |
Operated | 1930–1932 |
Home arena | Duquesne Garden |
Colors | Gold, black |
Owner(s) | Roy Schooley |
Head coach | Charlie Reid |
Championships | |
Playoff championships | 0 |
The Pirates left Pittsburgh and became the short-lived Philadelphia Quakers in 1930, due to issues related to the Great Depression and the failure to find a replacement for the aging Duquesne Garden. Shortly afterwards, Schooley headed a group that acquired the Niagara Falls franchise in the International Hockey League and transferred it to Pittsburgh under the reclaimed name "Yellow Jackets". [40] The Pittsburgh team competed in the IHL for only two seasons.
In 1932, the Yellow Jackets served as a farm team for the Chicago Black Hawks who often took several of their key players in mid-season. Before a March 1932 game against the Buffalo Bisons, Pittsburgh's Doc Romnes was recalled to Chicago to aid the team in their NHL title chase. This and other roster moves over the season left the Yellow Jackets' coach, Charlie Reid to constantly change his forward lines. [41]
By 1932, the Yellow Jackets were having financial problems, despite the support Pittsburgh fans gave them, leaving some doubt as to whether the team would operate in 1932–33. On August 22, 1932, it was reported that the defunct Pittsburgh Pirates would be returning to the NHL for the upcoming season. The news put the Yellow Jackets in limbo, since the Pirates still held territorial rights and could deny the team permission to operate. However the trust company that owned the Jackets had the right to deny the NHL team the right to play at Duquesne Gardens. However the optimism was short-lived and on October 1, 1932 the Pirates formally suspended operations. [42] The Yellow Jackets went dormant as well, [42] and ultimately disbanded without playing another season. [43]
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against
Season | GP | W | L | T | Pts | GF | GA | Finish | Playoffs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1930–31 | 48 | 21 | 18 | 9 | 51 | 101 | 108 | fourth in IHL | fourth in round robin [44] |
1931–32 | 48 | 17 | 22 | 9 | 43 | 91 | 118 | fifth in IHL | Missed Playoffs [45] |
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets | |
---|---|
City | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States |
League | Independent (early 1935) Eastern Amateur Hockey League (1935–1937) |
Founded | 1935 |
Operated | 1935–1937 |
Home arena | Duquesne Garden |
Colors | Gold, black |
Owner(s) | John H. Harris |
Head coach | Dinny Manners |
Championships | |
Playoff championships | 0 |
In January 1935, [46] Pittsburgh theater chain owner John H. Harris, who had taken a lease on the Garden in 1932, [47] hired coach and former player Dinny Manners to put together an amateur team with the intent of placing it in the Eastern Amateur Hockey League. [48] This was the third hockey team in Pittsburgh to take the name Yellow Jackets, not including yet another team of the same name in a local commercial league. [43]
The team spent its shortened first season in early 1935 as an independent playing various exhibition games against other clubs. Then on October 29, 1935, the Montreal Gazette reported that the Yellow Jackets had joined the EAHL with the New York Rovers. [49] During the team's three seasons of play, Frank Brimsek served as the team's goaltender. Brimsek would go on to win 252 games in goal, which gave him the record for winningest American-born netminder. His record would stand until February 15, 1994, when Tom Barrasso and the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Winnipeg Jets, 5-3, at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. [25] [50]
The Yellow Jackets had a hand in providing Pittsburgh with another professional hockey team, the Pittsburgh Shamrocks. The idea for the Shamrocks team came about when Yellow Jackets' owner, John Harris, and Charles King, president of the International American Hockey League, met in Pittsburgh to discuss Pittsburgh’s possible entrance into the league in the fall. The meeting resulted in the establishment of the Shamrocks and established that the Garden's ice time would be split by the new IHL team and the Yellow Jackets, who became the newest members of the Eastern Amateur Hockey League. [25] During his tenure as owner of the Yellow Jackets, John Harris made two notable decisions. First, on March 31, 1936, he hired Sonja Henie, 24-year-old Norwegian figure skater to perform before a Yellow Jackets’ game, leading to the creation of the Ice Capades. [51] Then, on October 4, 1936, Harris purchased the Detroit Olympics and moved the team to Pittsburgh, where they were renamed the Pittsburgh Hornets. Some players from the Yellow Jackets and Shamrocks players then joined the Hornets. After the 1936–37 season, the Yellow Jackets folded. [52]
Two players from the team have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame: Brimsek in 1966 and winger Gordie Drillon in 1975.
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against
Season | GP | W | L | T | Pts | GF | GA | Finish | Playoffs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1935–36 | 40 | 22 | 16 | 2 | 46 | 108 | 74 | second in EHL | second in round robin [53] [54] |
1936–37 | 48 | 19 | 24 | 5 | 43 | 119 | 147 | third in EHL | Missed Playoffs [53] |
The Pittsburgh Pirates were an American professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL), based in Pittsburgh from 1925–26 to 1929–30. The nickname comes from the baseball team also based in the city. For the 1930–31 season, the team moved to Philadelphia, and played one season as the Philadelphia Quakers.
Lionel Pretoria Conacher, nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was Canadian football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Roy Thomas "Shrimp" Worters was a Canadian professional Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender who played twelve seasons in the National Hockey League for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Montreal Canadiens and New York Americans.
The 1925–26 NHL season was the ninth season of the National Hockey League (NHL). The NHL dropped the Hamilton, Ontario, team and added two new teams in the United States (US), the New York Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates, to bring the total number of teams to seven. The Ottawa Senators were the regular-season champion, but lost in the NHL playoff final to the Montreal Maroons. The Maroons then defeated the defending Stanley Cup champion Victoria Cougars of the newly renamed Western Hockey League three games to one in a best-of-five series to win their first Stanley Cup.
The Duquesne Gardens was the main sports arena located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the first half of the 20th century. Built in 1890, the building originally served as a trolley barn, before becoming a multi-purpose arena. The Gardens opened three years after a fire destroyed the city's prior sports arena, the Schenley Park Casino, in 1896. Over the years, the Gardens was the home arena of several of Pittsburgh's historic sports teams, such as ice hockey's Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Hornets. The Western Pennsylvania Hockey League, which was the first ice hockey league to openly hire and trade players, played all of its games at the Gardens. The arena was also the first hockey rink to ever use glass above the dasher boards. Developed locally by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, Herculite glass was first tested in Pittsburgh. Most rinks were using wire mesh before the shatterproof glass was invented. Finally, the Pittsburgh Ironmen, a charter member of the Basketball Association of America, played at the Gardens from 1946 to 1947.
Sports in Pittsburgh have been played dating back to the American Civil War. Baseball, hockey, and the first professional American football game had been played in the city by 1892. Pittsburgh was first known as the "City of Champions" when the Pittsburgh Pirates, Pittsburgh Panthers football team, and Pittsburgh Steelers won multiple championships in the 1970s. Today, the city has three major professional sports franchises, the Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins; while the University of Pittsburgh Panthers compete in a Division I Power Five conference, the highest level of collegiate athletics in the United States, in both football and basketball. Local universities Duquesne and Robert Morris also field Division I teams in men's and women's basketball and Division I FCS teams in football. Robert Morris also fields Division I men's and women's ice hockey teams.
Wilfred Belmont "Tex" White was a Canadian professional ice hockey forward who played seven seasons in the National Hockey League for the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Americans and Philadelphia Quakers between 1925 and 1931.
Herbert Joseph Drury was a Canadian-born American ice hockey defenseman who played six seasons in the National Hockey League for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Quakers. Internationally he played for the American national team at the 1920 Summer Olympics and 1924 Winter Olympics, winning a silver medal both times.
The Pittsburgh Shamrocks were a professional ice hockey team, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that played in the International Hockey League in 1935–36. The team played all of its home games at Duquesne Garden. During their lone season in existence, the Shamrocks finished in fourth place in the West Division behind the Detroit Olympics, Cleveland Falcons, and Windsor Bulldogs. The Shamrocks scored 137 goals and allowed 170. The team folded after one season. It is estimated that the team lost $36,000 during 1935–36 season.
The Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL) was an originally amateur and later professional ice hockey league founded in 1896 and existing through 1909. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the league became the pre-eminent ice hockey league in the United States. It was the first league to openly hire and trade players.
The Pittsburgh Bankers were one of the earliest professional ice hockey clubs. The club was based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was a member of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League, the first league to openly hire hockey players, from 1899–1904 and 1907–1909. The team played all of its games at Duquesne Garden, and was involved in the first known trade of professional hockey players.
The Pittsburgh Pirates were an early professional ice hockey club based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and were members of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League for the 1908 WPHL season. The team, and the league, played all of their games at Duquesne Garden. The Pirates made one of the first known trades of professional hockey players.
The Pittsburgh Athletic Club (PAC) was one of the earliest professional ice hockey teams. It was based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from around 1895 until 1905 and again from 1907 to 1909.
The Pittsburgh Lyceum Club, or Pittsburgh Lyceum, was a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was a member of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League from 1907 to 1908 and played all of its games at Duquesne Garden.
The Duquesne Country and Athletic Club ice hockey team was a member of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL) from 1896 to 1901. The team was based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Roy Dunlap Schooley was a former hockey referee who later became the manager of both Duquesne Gardens, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association. In 1925, the Yellow Jackets hockey club, evolved into the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National Hockey League. On March 16, 1920 at the Duquesne Gardens, he helped found USA Hockey, the governing body for amateur ice hockey in the United States. That same year, he assembled the first U.S. Olympic Hockey Team which won a silver medal at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium and is credited with helping to foster the growth of hockey in the country.
The United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA) was an ice hockey governing body in the United States from 1920 to 1930, which operated an amateur league from 1920 to 1925. The league was filled with predominantly Canadian-born players, but struggled to achieve consistent attendance figures in the days before large arenas with artificial ice. The league disbanded in 1925, with some teams eventually joining the American Hockey Association, and one team joining the National Hockey League. It continued as a governing body 1930, when it's responsibilities were assumed Amateur Athletic Union.
The Fort Pitt Hornets were a semi-professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team played in the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), which was technically a semi-pro league by 1924.
The Pittsburgh Winter Garden hockey team was an amateur ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team received its name from its home arena, the Winter Garden at Exposition Hall, and played only four games, winning one and losing three, in its only season of 1915–16. The Winter Garden team was managed and coached by Arthur Sixsmith and consisted of several players from the defunct Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL), which was the first openly professional hockey league. Despite the fact that former professional players were on the team, the club remained strictly amateur. Lorne Campbell and Arthur's brother, Garnet Sixsmith, played on the Winter Garden team and were both alumni of the WPHL.
The Duquesne Athletic Club was a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that played for only one season in 1908–1909. It won the final championship of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL).