Hamilton Tigers Players’ Strike of 1925

Hamilton Tigers Players’ Strike of 1925

The 1924-25 Hamilton Tigers: A Missed Opportunity

The story of professional hockey in North America has many twists and turns, and some teams inevitably get left behind in the cracks of time. The Hamilton Tigers are one such story. The club never had much of a history to boast about, consistently underachieving from the moment it joined the league.

From the Quebec Bulldogs to the Hamilton Tigers

The franchise began as the Quebec Athletic Club before becoming the Quebec Bulldogs for the 1919-20 season, when the team finished 4-20. The club found a new home at the Barton Street Arena in Hamilton, Ontario, the following year, though the move alone wasn’t enough to turn things around. Now playing as the Hamilton Tigers in black, gold, and white, the team went 6-18, 7-17, 6-18, and 9-15 over its next four seasons.

The 1924-25 Hamilton Tigers Chase the Stanley Cup

A League-Best Regular Season

For whatever reason, everything came together for the Tigers in the 1924-25 regular season, and their play suggested a team on the verge of becoming a serious contender for the Stanley Cup. The 1924-25 Hamilton Tigers finished with the best record in the NHL at 19-10-1, edging the Toronto St. Patricks by half a game and a single point in the standings. Head-to-head, Hamilton went 5-1 against the Boston Bruins and 4-2 against the Montreal Maroons, two expansion franchises that had just entered the league. The Tigers also went 4-2 against the Toronto St. Patricks, 3-2-1 against the original Ottawa Senators, and 3-3 against the Montreal Canadiens.

Standout Performers on the Ice

The talent on Hamilton’s roster appeared to be executing the game plan the team had laid out. Center Billy Burch had 20 goals and 7 assists for 27 points. Left winger Christopher Redvers Green, better known as “Red,” had 19 goals and 15 assists for 34 points, while also leading Hamilton in penalty minutes with 81. Right winger Wilfred Thomas “Shorty” Green had 18 goals and 9 assists for 27 points, along with 63 penalty minutes. Defenseman Ken Randall had 8 goals and 10 assists for 18 points while spending 52 minutes in the penalty box, and defenseman Alex McKinnon added 8 goals and 3 assists with 47 penalty minutes. Center Mickey Roach chipped in 6 goals and 4 assists, and defenseman Charlie Langlois added 6 goals and 3 assists. The Tigers needed only one goaltender to protect their net: Jake Forbes, who allowed just 60 goals in 1,833 minutes for a stellar 1.96 goals-against average and 6 shutouts.

The Hamilton Tigers Players’ Strike That Ended It All

A Dispute Over Pay

What’s missing from this near-perfect season is any postseason play. The Tigers never took the ice in the playoffs because of an ongoing dispute over player pay. The core issue was that the regular season had been extended from 24 games to 30, and the players felt they deserved additional compensation for the six extra games. After repeated attempts to get the league’s attention went nowhere, the Tigers officially went on strike, marking the first players’ strike in NHL history. NHL President Frank Calder responded by immediately suspending the team, knocking Hamilton out of postseason play. With the Hamilton Tigers players’ strike sidelining the league’s best regular-season club, the semifinal series between the second-ranked Toronto St. Patricks and third-ranked Montreal Canadiens became the de facto NHL Finals. The Canadiens beat the St. Patricks 5-2 in a total-goals series and went on to represent the NHL in the 1925 Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the Victoria Cougars of the Western Hockey League, three games to one.

The Franchise’s Demise

The following offseason was no kinder to Hamilton hockey fans. Calder fined the players involved in the strike, with the fines to be paid the following regular season. Hamilton, Ontario, would never again see NHL regular-season play, as the Tigers’ assets were sold to New York bootlegger “Big Bill” Dwyer. At a league meeting on September 22, 1925, the Hamilton franchise was officially revoked, and its replacement took the ice as the New York Americans.

The 1924-25 Hamilton Tigers remain a mystery to hockey historians, their story reduced to a string of “what if” questions. What if the Tigers had never complained about their pay? What if they had gone on to defeat the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL Finals? What if they had beaten the Victoria Cougars for the 1925 Stanley Cup? Those questions will never be answered, so the story of the Hamilton Tigers ends with a simple summary: a missed opportunity.