April 2, 1939: The Boston Bruins reach the Stanley Cup Finals. It wasn't easy. And it wasn't one of their Hall of Fame players who made it happen. But he did become a legend.
Coached and managed by Art Ross, himself once a great defenseman, the Bruins were a veteran team, with defensemen Eddie Shore and Aubrey "Dit" Clapper; centers Ralph "Cooney" Weiland (also their Captain) and Bill Cowley; left wing Roy Conacher, from one of hockey's most successful families; and a forward line of left wing Woody Dumart, center Milt Schmidt, and right wing Bobby Bauer.
Dumart, Schmidt and Bauer, all Canadians of German descent, were known as the Kraut Line. Once the U.S. got into World War II, they were renamed the Kitchener Line for their Ontario hometown -- itself renamed, as it had been Berlin before World War I, and it became the hometown of our own Scott Stevens. All 3 enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and returned as the Kitchener Line when the war ended.
The Kraut Line. Left to right: Bobby Bauer,
Woody Dumart and Milt Schmidt.
A notable exception was rookie goaltender Frankie Brimsek, a Minnesota native who earned shutouts in 7 straight games, earning him the nickname "Mr. Zero." Brimsek would join the rest of these men in being elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The Bruins had won the Cup in 1929, and lost the Finals in 1930, with Shore, Clapper and Weiland. But they hadn't been back since, in spite of the additions of the preceding players. This time, the Bruins finished 1st overall in the League, giving them a bye into the Stanley Cup Semifinals.
But the New York Rangers extended them to a full 7 games. Game 1, at Madison Square Garden, went to 3 overtimes, before Mel Hill -- not in the Hall of Fame -- scored with 35 seconds left in the period. The Bruins won Game 2, at the Boston Garden, when Hill struck again, at 8:24 of the 1st overtime. The Bruins took a 3-0 lead, but the Rangers took the next 3, including Clint Smith winning Game 5 in the 1st overtime.
This was the 1st time a team, in any sport, had blown a 3-0 lead in games. But the Bruins would not complete the collapse, fighting the Rangers into a 3rd overtime, before Hill scored again at the 8-minute mark. He became known as "Sudden Death" Mel Hill.
For the 1st time, the Stanley Cup Finals were a best-4-out-of-7. The Bruins would only 5 to eliminate the Toronto Maple Leafs. They won Game 1 in Boston, 2-1, with Bauer scoring the winner with 3:29 left in regulation. The Leafs won Game 2, on an overtime goal by Doc Romnes, who had won the Cup with the Chicago Black Hawks the season before. The Bruins would not lose again: They won Games 3 and 4 in Toronto, and took Game 5 at the Boston Garden, 3-1. This time, Hill scored the 1st goal of the game, not the last one.
Shore left the team, played for the New York Americans in the 1939-40 season, and then spent most of the rest of his life running the minor-league Springfield Indians in western Massachusetts. Nearly everybody else stuck around for the Bruins, despite Canada having gotten into World War II almost immediately in September 1939, and they won another Cup in 1941.
Despite losing players to the war effort, the Bruins reached the Finals again in 1943, and did so again in 1946 with most of their players coming back. But they didn't win another until 1970, with Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito, not yet born when the Bruins won the '41 Cup, leading the way.
A native of Arygle, Manitoba, John Melvin Hill played for the Bruins from 1938 to 1941. Ironically, he would win a 3rd Cup with the Leafs, in 1945. He played 1 more season in the NHL, kept going in the minors until 1952, owned a soda bottling plant in Regina, Saskatchewan, and lived until 1996.
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April 2, 1939 was a Sunday. Singer Marvin Gaye was born on this day. Another member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Dusty Springfield, was born on April 16, the day the Bruins won the Cup.
The game mentioned above was the only score on this historic day. Baseball was in Spring Training, football was out of season, and the NBA hadn't been founded yet.
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