Left to right: Lynn, Lester and Muzz Patrick.
They had just won the 1940 Stanley Cup.
November 10, 1934: The St. Louis Eagles beat the New York Rangers, 4-2 at the St. Louis Arena. It is only the 2nd NHL game played in St. Louis, as the Ottawa Senators had moved there. After the 1934-35 season, the Eagles will fold, the former giants of Ottawa now fully doomed by the Great Depression.
But this game has another significance. Lester Patrick, the head coach and general manager of the Rangers, put Joseph Lynn Patrick, who went by his middle name, into the game. Lynn did not participate in the scoring, and he was not assessed a penalty. This was the 1st game in which a father coached his son in an NHL game.
Born in 1912 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where his father and his uncle Frank were running a team called the Victoria Aristocrats, Lynn, a left wing, struggled at first, leading to the kind of booing from the New York fans that his father had feared.
But he soon won the fans over, and would play for the Rangers through the 1943 season, including winning the 1940 Stanley Cup, before serving in World War II -- in the U.S. Army, not in Canada's. His brother Murray, known as Muzz Patrick, a defenseman, joined him in 1938, and also served overseas. Each brother played 1 more season for the Rangers, in 1945-46.
The Rangers then named Lynn the head coach of their farm team, the New Haven Ramblers, playing 16 games for them while coaching them. He coached the Rangers in the 1948-49 and 1949-50 seasons, getting them into the 1950 Stanley Cup Finals. Offered more money by the Boston Bruins, he coached them until 1955, and remained as their general manager until 1964.
In 1967, he became the 1st head coach and general manager of the expansion St. Louis Blues, who played at the site of his NHL debut, the St. Louis Arena. He quickly handed the coaching duties over to Scotty Bowman, in his 1st NHL head job. He led them into the 1968, 1969 and 1970 Stanley Cup Finals. Patrick briefly served as an interim coach in 1974-75, and again in 1975-76.
On January 26, 1980, Lynn drove away from the St. Louis Arena, suffered a heart attack, and crashed his car. It's not clear whether the heart attack or the crash killed him. He was 67 years old.
Lynn's son, Craig Patrick, played in the NHL and the WHA, mostly for teams that have since moved or folded. In 1980, he was an assistant to Herb Brooks on the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.
He also coached the Rangers (twice), and was the GM who built the Pittsburgh Penguins' Stanley Cup winners of 1991 and '92. After serving in the front offices of the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Buffalo Sabres, he is back with the Penguins, as a scout. Glenn Patrick, another son of Lynn, briefly played in the NHL.
Muzz served as Ranger GM from 1954 and 1964, and coached the Rangers on 3 separate occasions over that span. He lived until 1998, age 83. Muzz's son Dick starred in hockey at Dartmouth College, and is a longtime executive with the Washington Capitals, now the team President. His son, Chris Patrick, is the associate general manager. When the Caps won the Stanley Cup in 2018, they became the 6th and 7th members of the family to win the Cup.
The NHL annually awards the Lester Patrick Trophy for service to hockey in America. It was posthumously awarded to Lynn Patrick in 1989. Lester Patrick received it in 2000, and his nephew Dick Patrick received it in 2012. Lester, Frank, Lynn and Craig are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Despite his surname, and having played for the Rangers from 1984 to 1994 -- he was traded just before they began the Playoff run that ended with a Cup win -- James Patrick is not related to the Lester Patrick family.
He is, however, a member of a notable Canadian sports family. His father, Stephen, anglicized the surname from the Ukrainian Patrebka, and was an All-Star guard who won 4 Grey Cups with the CFL's Winnipeg Blue Bombers, before serving in the Manitoba legislature. Steve Patrick Jr. was an NHL right wing, including playing with his brother James on the Rangers from 1984 to 1986. And Steve Jr.'s son Nolan has been a center with the Philadelphia Flyers and the Vegas Golden Knights.
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November 10, 1934 was a Saturday. Julián Javier, the All-Star 2nd baseman who helped the St. Louis Cardinals win 2 World Series, was born on this day.
There was 1 other game in the NHL: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 2-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens. Harvey "Busher" Jackson scored the winning goal, 5:37 into overtime.
Baseball season was over. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. These were among the college football games played that day:
* Minnesota beat Indiana, 30-0 at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Minnesota won the Big Ten Conference title, and were recognized as National Champions.
* Illinois beat arch-rival Northwestern, 14-3 at Dyche Stadium in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois.
* Kansas State beat Missouri, 29-0 at Memorial Stadium in Manhattan, Kansas. K-State went on to win the title in the Big Six Conference, which became the Big Seven, the Big Eight, and finally the Big Twelve.
* In a Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh matchup, Temple University beat Carnegie Tech (the school now known as Carnegie-Mellon University), 34-6 at Temple Stadium in Philadelphia. Temple finished the regular season undefeated at 7-0-2.
* Bucknell University beat Washington & Jefferson University, 13-7 at Cameron Stadium in the Pittsburgh suburb of Washington, Pennsylvania.
* The University of Miami lost to Rollins College, 14-0 in Orlando, Florida. Despite their 5-2-1, Miami were invited to play in the 1st-ever Orange Bowl, at Miami Field. Bucknell beat them, 26-0.
* In a major boost for the pride of Southern football, Georgia beat Yale, 14-7 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.
* Alabama beat Clemson, 40-0 at Denny Stadium (now Bryant-Denny Stadium) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Although 'Bama went "only" 7-0 in league play, while Tulane went 8-0, they and Tulane were named Co-Champions by the Southeastern Conference. Since Alabama were undefeated over the full season, 10-0, and Tulane were not, Alabama were invited to play in the Rose Bowl.
* Tulane lost to Colgate, 20-0, before a crowd of 40,000 at Yankee Stadium. Colgate were no slouches, going 7-1 that season, their only loss to Ohio State, which tied Illinois for 2nd in the Big 10 behind Minnesota. At 9-1, Tulane hosted a bowl game at their Tulane Stadium on New Year's Day, inviting undefeated Temple, in what became the 1st Sugar Bowl. Tulane won, 20-14.
* Stanford beat the University of Washington, 24-0 at the original Stanford Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California. Stanford won the Pacific Coast Conference title, but went on to lose the Rose Bowl to Alabama, 29-13.
* Army beat Harvard, 27-6 at Harvard Stadium in Boston.
* Navy beat Notre Dame, 10-6 before 54,571 fans at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Since then, Navy have played Notre Dame 88 times, and have won only 11.
* The University of Pennsylvania beat Penn State, 3-0 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
* Among New York City teams: Columbia beat Brown, 39-0 at Baker Field in Manhattan; Fordham beat West Virginia, 27-20 at the Polo Grounds; and in an arch-rivalry, New York University beat City College of New York at Ohio Field in The Bronx: NYU 38, CCNY 13.
* In New Jersey, Princeton beat Lehigh, 54-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton; while Princeton's rivals, Rutgers, beat Lehigh's rivals, Lafayette, 27-6 at Neilson Field in New Brunswick.
And in English soccer, the defending Football League Champions, North London team Arsenal, went to Blundell Park in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, and played Grimsby Town to a 2-2 draw.
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