December 28, 1929: The 1st NHL Game In New Jersey

Boardwalk Hall

When was the 1st National Hockey League game in New Jersey? It was the Devils' opener in 1982, right? Actually, it goes back a lot further than you might think.

December 28, 1929: It was at the end of the Roaring Twenties, just 2 months after the stock market's Crash of 1929. No one had yet realized that the Great Depression had begun. The Shore resort of Atlantic City had just opened a new Convention Hall, a 17,000-seat amphitheater, with the round end of the horseshoe pointing to the beach and a stage at the inland end.

The New York Rangers had begun play in the 1926-27 season. In 1927-28, they won the Stanley Cup. In 1928-29, they reached the Stanley Cup Finals, but lost to the Boston Bruins. For reasons lost to time, they decided to play a "home game" of the 1929-30 season 120 miles away, at Convention Hall.

The Rangers were loaded, with a forward line of Frank Boucher centering the brothers Bill and Frederick "Bun" Cook. Their defense was led by Ivan Johnson, known as "Ching" because, in that much less politically correct era, some people, who clearly needed glasses, thought he looked Chinese. Their goalkeeper for this game, and for every game from 1928 to 1933, was John Ross Roach, picked up following a goalkeeping emergency that nearly cost them the '28 Cup.

The Ottawa Senators had won the Cup in 1920, '21, '23 and '27, but were now in decline. They were still led by forwards Frank Nighbor, Frank Finnigan, and the brothers Hector and Wally Kilrea. Their defense still had Frank "King" Clancy and Alex Smith, with Alex Connell in goal.

Boucher opened the scoring at 14:30 of the 1st period. Clancy tied the game at 5:11 of the 2nd. At 9:00, Paul Thompson, later to help the Chicago Black Hawks win the 1934 and '38 Stanley Cups, gave the Rangers the lead. With 2:24 left in regulation, Leroy Goldsworthy (no relation to 1970s hockey star Bill Goldsworthy) gave the Broadway Blueshirts an insurance goal. The Rangers won, 3-1.

Frank Boucher

Two more games would be played at Convention Hall that season. On January 25, 1930, the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-2. And on March 15, the Senators returned, and beat the New York Americans, 8-7. The next season, the hockey version of the Pirates became the Philadelphia Quakers, but went out of business after that one season. They played at the Philadelphia Arena, and did not play any games in Atlantic City.

The Rangers reached the Finals again in 1932, and won the Cup in 1933, before rebuilding, and reaching the Finals in 1937 and winning the Cup in 1940. World War II wrecked the franchise, and they have only won the Cup once since, in 1994. They're still better off than the Senators, who went out of business in 1934. A new Ottawa Senators franchise began in 1992, but has only reached the Finals once, in 2007.

Despite the World Hockey Association moving the New York Golden Blades (formerly the New York Raiders) to the Cherry Hill Arena in the Philadelphia suburbs, and renaming them the Jersey Knights, in the middle of the 1973-74 season, after which they folded, there would be no more NHL games in New Jersey for 52 years, until October 5, 1982, when the New Jersey Devils made their regular-season debut, tying the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-3.

Convention Hall, renamed Boardwalk Hall in 2001, still stands. From 1940 to 1997, and again from 2013 to 2019, it hosted the Miss America Pageant. Within days in August 1964, it hosted both the Democratic National Convention and a concert by The Beatles. It hosted the Liberty Bowl football game in 1964, despite not quite being long enough for a standard football field. It's hosted many concerts, and some big prizefights, the most famous of them being Mike Tyson's 91-second knockout of Michael Spinks in 1988.

*

December 28, 1929 was a Saturday. One other NHL game was played that day: The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 at the Montreal Forum. The Bruins had won the Stanley Cup the season before, but the Canadiens would win it this season.

Baseball was out of season. Football season had just ended. The NBA hadn't been founded yet.

One other sports note from this day: The English soccer team I have come to support, Arsenal F.C., went to Yorkshire, and lost to Leeds United, 2-0 at Elland Road. They went on to win their 1st major trophy that season, anyway, the 1930 FA Cup.