This Day in Hockey History – March 31, 1923 – King Plays Every Part

Mar 31, 2019

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Talk about being a team player! During the Stanley Cup playoffs of 1923, Frank “King” Clancy played every single position as the youngest member of the Ottawa Senators. He remains the only NHL player to have been that versatile.

In March 1923, the Senators had accumulated injuries as they defeated the PCHA’s Vancouver Maroons by winning three of four playoff games. To win the Stanley Cup, the Senators then had to defeat the Edmonton Eskimos, the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) champs in a best-of-five series. In the process of winning the first game of the series, on March 28 (with a score of 2-1 in overtime), Ottawa suffered further injuries. The Senators would have to struggle through the March 31 bout.

The Senators’ manager and part-owner, Tommy Gorman, listed off the players who were mostly sidelined by the final game. The biggest problems were the defensemen. Captain Eddie Gerard had a dislocated shoulder and was “unable to raise his left arm as high as his chin at any time since he was injured in the last game with Vancouver.” Still, he “laced on his elastic bandages” to enter the game. According to the Ottawa press, he “did not attempt to do much beyond coaching his players, but at that he could not refrain from making a few dashes into enemy territory. He received a bad fall in the second period, and had to be helped off the ice but pluckily returned to the fray.” That was more than fellow-defenseman George “Buck” Boucher could manage. In the first game against Edmonton, his foot had been wounded. Even though he shot cocaine into the foot before the game, his inability to move his foot forced him to leave the ice almost immediately. Another defenseman, Lionel Hitchman, “went into it with injuries to his hip that ought to have sent him to the hospital.” Harry Helman, right winger, had his “face almost covered with plaster.” Left wing Cy Denneny had a bruised leg. That left only goalie Clint Benedict, center Frank Nighbor, right wing Harry “Punch” Broadbent, and substitute King Clancy as more-or-less healthy.

The news out of Vancouver, where the games were held, noted, “It was thought when the series opened that Ottawa was weak in spares. The work of Clancy and Hitchman, throughout the series belied this report, however. Both were most effective.” At the start of the final game, Clancy joined Gerard on defense. Ottawa preferred a defensive style, usually having Nighbor drop back to aid defense while the two wings rushed as forwards. Meanwhile, Edmonton had ten healthy players to rotate.

Both rounds of playoffs were held at Vancouver, and this final game saw about 7,000 in a crowd fairly evenly divided between the two teams. Since the first game had been played by western rules, the second game on March 31 followed NHL rules. Halfway through the first period, Broadbent scored what turned out to be the only goal of the game. The following 50 minutes were all about Ottawa holding off Edmonton.

Defense became even trickier when Ottawa’s goalie received a penalty in the second period. Benedict apparently struck Edmonton’s Joe Simpson “in the legs with his stick” or at least “chomp[ed] at the puck too close to Joe Simpson’s feet” and had to sit for two minutes. Clancy hopped in the net to cover. His teammates helped keep the shots on goal to a minimum, and according to Gorman, “Once Joe Simpson whipped in a long one, whereupon ‘King’ dropped his stick, caught the puck with the skill of a baseball catcher, and tossed it aside while the crowd roared its approval.”

Having previously covered defense, center, right wing, and left wing, Clancy’s time in the net meant that he played every single position during those playoffs. Frank Patrick, head of the Vancouver team Ottawa beat on the way to the finals, remarked, “The hero of the series, to my mind, was young Clancy. Tommy Gorman turned the tide in Ottawa’s favor in the third game against Vancouver when he threw Clancy in and out of the play ten or fifteen times. He transformed Clancy from a mediocre substitute into another super-star, and thus saved Ottawa.” Gorman himself commented, “In the last period Clancy outskated every other man on the ice.” His injured captain praised, “Look at Clancy playing the whole Edmonton team. He’s the greatest kid in the world.”

Thanks to hard-working players like Clancy, Ottawa won the Stanley Cup for the third time in four seasons. Gorman held a luncheon at the Vancouver Hotel to congratulate them and wired Mayor F.H. Plant of Ottawa, “Easter greetings to yourself and all our friends at home from the World’s Champions. We have ordered the Stanley Cup sent to you. Please guard it carefully. It’s pretty precious to us after this series.” The mayor replied, “Heartiest congratulations. Ottawa delighted with your success. I will take good care of the Stanley Cup. Arranging celebration for the homecoming of world’s hockey champions.” About 30 local Ottawa officials met to choose committee to plan homecoming celebration. The team headed back home on their private train car, the Neptune. Reporter Ed Baker, who had traveled with them to Vancouver, gushed, “The Senators, world’s hockey champions of 1923, will go down in history of sport as one of the greatest, if not actually the greatest, band of athletes ever assembled.”

Additional Sources:

Mike Commito, Hockey 365: Daily Stories from the Ice (Toronto: Dundurn, 2018), kindle edition.
“Ottawa Senators Are World’s Hockey Champions,” Ottawa Citizen, 2 April 1923, p. 10.
Tommy Gorman, “Ottawa Hockey Team Jubilant Over World’s Series Success,” Ottawa Citizen, 2 April 1923, p. 10.
“Ottawas Win the Stanley Cup,” Ottawa Journal, 2 April 1923, p. 14.
“Senators are on Way Home with Famous Stanley Cup Win Final with Lone Goal,” Ottawa Journal, 2 April 1923, p. 15.
“City to Welcome Home World Champions,” Ottawa Journal, 2 April 1923, p. 1.
“Ottawa Annexed Stanley Cup But Esks Put Up Game Fight,” Edmonton Journal, 2 April 1923, p. 14.
https://thepinkpuck.com/2018/11/24/this-day-in-hockey-history-november-24-1936-and-1986-two-retirements-in-50-years/