New York Ranger's Lester Patrick Saves the Day

On April seventh, nineteen twenty eight, during the second game of the Stanley Cup Finals, where the New York Rangers were facing off against the Montreal Maroons. The Rangers lost, they're a goaltender due to an eye injury, and their head coach, at the age of forty four, stepped in stepped in behind the net. Here's the story behind Lester Patrick saving the Rangers today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day now. Lester was born in eighteen eighty three in Quebec, Canada, to Irish immigrants, and obviously, being in Canada, hockey was very popular at the time and he grew to love sports and to love hockey and play all the time with his friends and brothers. And in nineteen oh one he enrolled at McGill University, where he actually played basketball his first semester as a student. Then after that he joined the hockey team and was later invited to try out for the Montreal Shamrocks, one of the top senior teams in the city. However, that would admit he would have had to leave college, so he declined the offer to finish his education, but he only went one more year at school before he finally dropped out to focus more on sports as he was enjoying the sports he was playing and having much success on the ice. After working for his family business for a few years, he later joined the Canadian Pacific Railway to help make money. On his way back from a job, he stopped and met a friend who offered him a chance to play for his team for a total of twenty five dollars a month, and they would also cover expenses, and this led him back into his love of hockey, and he would go on in nineteen oh four to play for the Montreal Westmounts of the Canadian Amateur Hockey League, and he would continue jumping around from team to team throughout his career, playing for the Brandon Wheat Cities, the Montreal Wanderers, the Edmonton Pros, the Renfro Creamery Kings, the Spokane Canaries, the Seattle Metropolitans, the Victoria Aristocrats, the Victoria Cougars, and the New York Rangers, and his family came along with them, selling their company to help make arenas in both Vancouver and Victoria to help house hockey games and the arenas would be managed by the family. This helped Patrick break into coaching and allow him to run his own teams, and of these two arenas, they were able to host three Stanley Cup games. Lester eventually transitioned out of being a player, becoming a player manager in nineteen eighteen and only played in half the games, and he officially retired as a player in nineteen twenty two, but remained with the Victoria Cougars as their coach and became the last non NFL coach to win the Stanley Cup in nineteen twenty five, and in nineteen twenty six, Patrick actually returned to the ice to help his team that was playing very poorly, but it didn't help enough, and not too long the team folded and the whole league that they were in actually folded as well. In that year, he was offered a position for the New York Rangers, an expansion team for the NHL who had now taken over the rights of the Stanley Cup. He was also named the general manager as well, and he quickly helped make the Rangers into a power in the NHL and leading them to the nineteen twenty eight Stanley Cup Finals versus the Montreal Maroons. It was a best of five series, all hosted in Montreal, and Montreal won the first game to to zero, and heading into the second game, the Rangers desperately needed a win, but unfortunately, their goalie, Lorente Chabott, was struck in the eye by a puck in the middle of the second period, and at that time, teams didn't have backup goalies on the bench, and Patrick, being the former defenseman, decided to lace up the ice. But this wasn't just him deciding right away. There was actually goalies and attendance at the game. The Ottawa Senators goalie was in the stands and they asked if he would play, but Montreal's coach refused. There was a minor league goalie for the Pittsburgh Pirates organization in attendance as well, but they refused to let him play, so Patrick finally asked if they would allow him to play goalie for the rest of the game, and they agreed, and he told his team boys, don't let this old man down, as he was forty four years in ninety nine days at the time he entered the game and remains the oldest man to play in the Stanley Cup Finals, and he actually played pretty good and he saved eighteen of nineteen shots, helping the team win in an overtime victory. Following the game, the league allowed the Rangers to use another local goaldie for the remainder of the series. So you would think the storybook ending is the Rangers would go to win the rest of the games. Well, that actually lost the next game zero to two, but they came back in the final two games and win their very first Stanley Cup Finals three to two, making mister Patrick a legend for what he did to help their team. Team went showing a coach that went all in for his team, and Lester would go on to win two more Stanley Cups throughout his time with the Rangers and as a legend within the New York Rangers community. Unfortunately, in nineteen sixty at the age of seventy five, he passed away due to a heart attack after developing lung cancer. But he later had a trophy named after him, called the Lester Patrick Trophy, which is given to anyone without standing contributions to hockey, and he will always re remembered for the day he saved the Rangers. Thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you have a topic that you would like us to cover, let us know send us an email at Daily Sports History at gmail dot com. We'd love to hear from you. Or if you just want to tell us how awesome I am at doing these, you can also send us an email for that as well, And come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History pain painted and