[timun]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

1941-42

Trivia

• The Brooklyn Americans fold at the end of the season.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

1942-43

Spoiler!

With the War raging in Europe, Africa and the Pacific, NHL teams were having difficulty filling their rosters with many of their stars leaving to serve a higher cause. Meanwhile the Brooklyn American's had folded at the end of last season due to severe financial difficulties. The American's had never won the Stanley Cup since joining the NHL and were the third American team bought into the league during league expansion. With their folding the NHL stood at 6 teams and would stay that way until the late 60's.

Founded by Sports promoter Tom Duggan and bootlegger Big Bill Dwyer, the American's were a colourful franchise, Dwyer had spent the money he earned from illegal liquor sales into pro franchises, he had purchased the NHL's Pittsburgh Pirates quietly, and also purchased the Tampa Triangles of the NFL and moved them to Brooklyn and renamed them the Dodgers. Through this all Dwyer would become known for his big spending ways and later on in life it would cost him. With the end of prohibition in 1930 Bill Dwyer was leaking money with very little income. At the same time, Dwyer lost a lawsuit to the government and it left him pennyless with pretty much only the American's to his name.

The NHL had seized control of the floundering Americans and Dwyer sued the NHL who agreed to return ownership of the team to him if he could pay off the teams debts, but that wasn't possible. Meanwhile Merwyn "Red" Dutton had taken over the team first as a player manager in 1936, and later as the teams manager. He ran the team brilliantly considering it had no owner and the league had mandated a cheap existence. But then the war hit and Dutton had trouble assembling a roster and with the team continuing to struggle financially the league finally pulled the pin on the Americans.

However opportunity knocked for Dutton, when Frank Calder died suddenly the NHL asked Dutton to step in as league president, and he did so on the condition that the league would find a way to bring back the Americans after the war. Behind the scenes Dutton found financing for a new arena in Brooklyn, and continued to press the league to re-instate the Americans. Dutton continued to serve as president until 1946 when he found out that the NHL had backstabbed him in terms of bringing back the Americans. He instantly suspected the Rangers of foul play and put the Dutton curse on the Rangers, and it was a powerful bit of whammy as the Rangers didn't win another cup until the 1994 team. At the same time he told the NHL to stick the franchise up their asses and stormed out of the meeting, and didn't step foot iinto a NHL building until the opening night of the first season of the Calgary Flames where he dropped the puck as the last surviving member of the Calgary Tigers.

(As I suspected you might misconstrue...) The Americans franchise did not fold in 1942: they suspended operations. Dutton had every intention of resuming operations, and the way the rest of the owners stabbed him in the back and terminated the franchise in 1946 is why he was so furious. True to the "curse", the Rangers didn't win another Stanley Cup until seven years after Dutton died.