October 11, 1930: The National Hockey League sees its 1st blockbuster trade, as opposed to the acquisition of a major player because a team badly needed to sell him.
Francis Michael Clancy was known as King, as was his father, Tom Clancy. (They were not related to the American novelist Tom Clancy.) Tom had starred in football for the Ottawa Rough Riders, and Frank starred as a defenseman for the Ottawa Senators, helping them win the 1923 and 1927 Stanley Cups.
On October 11, 1930, seeing Clancy come off the most productive season of his career, with 17 goals and 40 points in 44 games with the Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach and general manager Conn Smythe acquired him, sending the Senators for left wing Eric Pettinger, defenseman Art Smith, and $35,000.
Smith played 43 games for the Senators in 1930-31, and Pettinger 13. After that season, neither ever played in the NHL again. In contrast, in 1931-32, Clancy's 2nd season with the Leafs, and their 1st at Maple Leaf Gardens, they won the Stanley Cup. The Senators moved in 1934, becoming the St. Louis Eagles, played 1 more season there, and became victims of the Great Depression, going out of business. Ottawa did not return to the NHL until 1992. Toronto definitely got the better part of this deal.
Clancy remained with the Leafs through 1937. He coached the Pittsburgh Hornets, a Leafs farm team, to the 1952 American Hockey League Championship, the Calder Cup. He was an assistant coach on their 1962, '63, '64 and '67 Stanley Cup winners. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1958, and his Number 7 was retired -- for both him and a player he coached in Pittsburgh and Toronto, Tim Horton -- in 2016.
He died in 1986, at the age of 84, after 65 years of service to the NHL, a record since broken by Johnny Bucyk of the Boston Bruins' organization. In 1988, the NHL introduced the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, awarded annually to the "player who demonstrates leadership qualities on and off the ice and who has made exceptional humanitarian contributions in the community."
In 1998, The Hockey News ranked him 52nd on their list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players. In 2017, 80 years after his last game, the NHL named him to its 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players.
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October 11, 1930 was a Saturday. The start of the NHL season was a month away. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The baseball season had ended 3 days earlier, when the Philadelphia Athletics won the World Series, beating the St. Louis Cardinals in 6 games.
Among the college football games played that day were these:
* Army beat Swarthmore, 39-0 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; and Navy lost to Notre Dame, 26-2 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. That stadium had opened the week before, on October 4, with a 20-14 win over Southern Methodist University (SMU).
* In an early example of the football rivalry that would develop between professional teams in the 2 big steel cities, the University of Pittsburgh beat Western Reserve University, 52-0 at League Park in Cleveland. In 1967, Western Reserve merged with the Case Institute of Technology, and became Case Western Reserve University. CWR now competes in NCAA Division III, and their arch-rivals are Pitt's neighbors, Carnegie-Mellon University.
* Speaking of whom, Carnegie-Mellon were also formed by a merger in 1967, between the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. On this day, in an intersectional matchup, Carnegie Tech beat Georgia Tech, 31-0 at Pitt Stadium.
* In another big intersectional game, Georgia beat Yale, 18-14 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut. This came a year after Georgia opened Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia by beating Yale, 15-0. Both games were considered big by Georgia because their school had been founded by missionaries from Yale, their 1st 4 campus buildings were designed to resemble Yale buildings, and they chose their mascot from Yale's, the Bulldogs.
* In a game that would become one of the biggest rivalries in the sport, Oklahoma beat Nebraska, 20-7 at Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma.
* Texas Christian University opened their new Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, named for the publisher of the Fort Worth-Star Telegram, who had contributed toward its construction. TCU walloped the University of Arkansas, 40-0.
* The University of California beat their East Bay neighbors, Saint Mary's College, 7-6 at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley. It was a bit of an upset, as it was the only game that Saint Mary's would lose all season, going 8-1, while Cal finished just 4-5. (Like another Catholic school, Saint Louis University, the "Saint" is always spelled out, never abbreviated.)
* Among New York City teams, Columbia beat Wesleyan University of Connecticut, 48-0 at Baker Field in Upper Manhattan; New York University (NYU) beat Philadelphia's Villanova, 20-6 at Yankee Stadium; City College of New York (CCNY) beat Seton Hall of South Orange, New Jersey, 44-12 at Lewisohn Stadium in Upper Manhattan; .
The night before, Manhattan College had lost to Oglethorpe University of Georgia, 19-0 under temporary lights at the Polo Grounds; and, in the 1st night football game in Brooklyn, St. John's University beat Niagara University of Buffalo, 20-7 at Dexter Park. Fordham University had the week off.
* Among New Jersey teams, the aforementioned Seton Hall lost to CCNY; Rutgers lost to Syracuse, 27-0 at Archbold Stadium in Syracuse, New York; and Princeton lost to Brown, 7-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.
* And Brigham Young University played Northern Colorado to a 7-7 tie at Jackson Field in Greeley, Colorado. This was a much bigger day for BYU than this result would suggest, because, also on this day, Reuben LaVell Edwards was born in Orem, Utah. In spite of playing football at Utah State University, and getting a master's degree at the University of Utah, he coached at BYU, as an assistant starting in 196,2 and then as head coach from 1972 to 2000.
He won 257 games, 19 Conference Championships (the 1st 18 in the Western Athletic Conference, the last in the Mountain West), and a dubious but official National Championship in 1984. BYU's former Cougar Stadium, built in 1964, was renamed LaVell Edwards Stadium in 2001, and he's in the College Football Hall of Fame. He died in 2016. His former assistants include Mike Holmgren, Brian Billick and Andy Reid.
Also on this day, William Charles Fischer is born in Wausau, Wisconsin. Bill Fischer had a rather unremarkable career as a baseball pitcher, going 45-58 from 1956 to 1964. The most notable moment in his career was with the Kansas City Athletics on May 22, 1963. He gave up a walkoff home run to Mickey Mantle, and it hit the frieze (it's usually, but incorrectly, called "the facade") above the right field stands, coming closer than any other fair ball to being hit out of the old Yankee Stadium. Fischer died on October 30, 2018, at age 88, and was a member of the Wisconsin Sports Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, Ronald Campbell Simpson is born in Glasgow, Scotland. The son of Glasgow Rangers centreback Jimmy Simpson, he was the starting goalkeeper for Newcastle United in the 1952 and 1955 FA Cup Finals, and then returned home to Glasgow to play for Celtic, where he won 4 Scottish League titles and the 1967 European Cup, as one of the "Lisbon Lions." He also played for Scotland in their shocking win over recent World Cup winners England at Wembley Stadium in 1967. He died in 2004, and is a member of the Scottish Football Hall of Fame.
Finally, on this day, in English soccer, Arsenal, the North London team I would one day support, went to the East Midlands, and lost to Derby County, 4-2 at a stadium named The Baseball Ground. Derbyshire was one of the few places in England where baseball had caught on, but that didn't last long. The Baseball Ground, however, kept its name, from 1899 until 1997, when Derby moved into a new stadium.
