Before the Rangers, there were the Americans. And the Rangers only exist because the Americans were a hit.
The New York Americans brought NHL hockey to Manhattan in 1925, sold out Madison Square Garden, and were so successful that the Garden's own management started a competing team in the same building. Seventeen seasons later the Americans were gone and the Rangers were the ones left standing.
Bootleggers and Hockey: The Origin
The Americans were founded in 1925 when the NHL awarded an expansion franchise to New York. The primary owner was Bill Dwyer, a Manhattan bootlegger who had made a fortune during Prohibition and wanted a legitimate business to launder his reputation through.
Dwyer bought the assets of the recently folded Hamilton Tigers, whose entire roster had gone on strike in 1925 over unpaid playoff bonuses. The Tigers were dissolved, their players were sold to Dwyer, and the New York Americans were born.
The team debuted at the brand-new Madison Square Garden on December 15, 1925. They wore star-spangled red, white, and blue sweaters designed to evoke the American flag. Their nickname was the Amerks.
New York loved them. The building sold out. Hockey worked in Manhattan.
The Rangers Problem
The Americans were tenants at Madison Square Garden, and Garden president Tex Rickard watched their attendance figures with great interest. If hockey could draw like that, why should the Garden collect rent when it could own a team outright?
In 1926, Rickard founded the New York Rangers, initially and mockingly known as "Tex's Rangers." They played in the same building as the Americans, and they were the landlord's team.
The Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1928, their second season. The Americans never won one at all. The Rangers got the better scheduling, the better marketing, and the better ice times. Within a few years the Americans had gone from being the team that proved New York would support hockey to being the second team in their own building.
Red Dutton and the Long Decline
Prohibition ended in 1933, and with it went much of Bill Dwyer's income. He was also convicted of bootlegging and served prison time. By 1936 the Americans were in such financial distress that the NHL took over operations of the franchise.
Mervyn "Red" Dutton, a former Americans defenseman, took over as coach, manager, and eventually owner. Dutton was a WWI veteran who had been told he would never walk properly again after shrapnel wounds, then played ten seasons of professional hockey out of sheer stubbornness. He poured his own money into keeping the Americans alive.
The team had moments. They made the playoffs five times. In 1938 they upset the heavily favored Rangers in a playoff series, which remains one of the great moments in franchise history precisely because of who it came against.
But they were always broke, always second, always struggling.
Brooklyn and the End
For the 1941-42 season, Dutton renamed the team the Brooklyn Americans in an attempt to build an identity separate from the Rangers. It was branding without substance: the team still played at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. They did not practice in Brooklyn. They did not play in Brooklyn. They were the Brooklyn Americans in name only.
They finished the season 16-29-3, dead last.
Then World War II gutted the roster as players enlisted. Dutton suspended operations for the 1942-43 season, intending to return after the war. The NHL, now down to six teams, liked having six teams. The Americans were never allowed back.
The NHL's Original Six era began in 1942 precisely because the New York Americans stopped playing.
The Legacy
**They proved New York would support hockey.** Without the Americans' immediate success in 1925, there may never have been a Rangers franchise. The entire history of NHL hockey in New York traces back to a bootlegger buying a strike-broken roster from Hamilton.
**They created the Original Six by leaving.** The famous six-team era, romanticized as hockey's golden age, started when the Americans folded. That golden age was the result of a league contracting to its bare minimum.
**Red Dutton's grudge is legendary.** Dutton, who later served as NHL president, reportedly swore the Rangers would never win another Stanley Cup after the way the Americans were treated. The Rangers did not win again until 1994, 54 years later. Hockey people still call it the Curse of Red Dutton.
Seventeen seasons. Zero Cups. One curse that lasted half a century.
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New York Americans 1925-1942 | First Team | Vintage Hockey Tee – Odd Man Rush