This Day in Hockey History – March 27, 1938 – The Game that Kept New York Awake

Decades before Frank Sinatra started crooning about heading for the Big Apple to be the king of the hill in the city that never sleeps, the New York Americans and the New York Rangers played a hockey game that went into the 4th overtime, keeping the 16,340 hockey fans well into Monday before a winner in the third game of the Stanley Cup quarterfinals could be determined.

Going into the game played Sunday, March 27, 1938, the teams were tied. The visiting Americans scraped out the first win, with a 2-1 score that went into double overtime on Tuesday, March 22. Two nights later the visiting Rangers took game two with a 4-3 win. Things returned to Madison Square Garden that Sunday to determine who would be moving on and whose season was coming to an end. The odds were on the Rangers, 8-1 in fact, to get the win.

The first period gave neither team an advantage, however it wasn’t because the teams were equally matched.

“Goalie Earl Robertson, and he alone, saved the Amerks and kept ‘em in the game throughout the opening session. The A’s defenses were perforated, their attack negligible. Only once did they break in close for a shot while the Rangers rollicked inside the Amerk defenses from start to finish,” wrote Gene Ward of what he called the “Subway Series.”

Coming back for the second period it was the Rangers who got on the scoreboard first, when Alex Shibicky put one past Robertson at 6:27 of the middle period, in part because Robertson’s  teammate John Sorrell backed into him. Shibicky was followed 1:04 later by Bryan Hextall to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead they took into the second intermission.

After Robertson once again saved his team with impressive hustle to beat Ranger Phil Watson to the puck, sending it up toward the neutral zone, the Amerks began to fire back at the other end. A couple of failed shots took place before Lorne Carr “toured in with a flash of speed, baited [Dave] Kerr into making the first move, and fired as he cut across the face of the net,” wrote Ward of the Americans first goal at 4:36 of the third period.

Chances for both teams at either end of the ice had everyone wondering who would get the next goal. At 10:38 everyone had their answer—the Americans had tied the game. Eddie Wiseman put the puck on Kerr, who blocked the shot, only to find Nels Stewart there waiting to put home the rebound. Both Kerr and his fellow Rangers who were on the ice tried to complain to the referee that Stewart had been in the crease. The referee shook his head, called it a goal, and told the teams to play on. And play on they would.

The overtime periods basically gave the fans another full game and still some extra time.

“Sunday soon became Monday and the teams drove their tired limbs to a killing pace. Odds favored the younger Rangers to hold on for victory but the veteran Americans never weakened,” wrote Bill H. Dumsday in The Leader-Post.

It would be Carr again, scoring his second of the game—having given the Americans their first and last goals of a very important game—who would finally put an end to what was looking like a never-ending game. After three full overtime periods, it took Carr just 40 seconds into the 4th OT to send his Amerks into euphoric cheers and the Rangers into silence.

Afterwards, the Americans bench boss felt that they were on their way.

“Nothing can stop us now,” Red Dutton said. “We’re as good as winners of the Cup right now. The Rangers were the toughest—and they’re behind us. We should breeze past the Hawks and win the finals.”

Though the Americans took their first game against the Hawks 3-1, Chicago came back to win the second game 1-0 in double overtime and the third game 3-2. The Hawks advanced to play the Toronto Maple Leafs, beating them three games to one to hoist the Stanley Cup for the second time.

As for the Americans? They played their final NHL season, under the team name the Brooklyn Americans, in the 1941-42 season, finishing dead last. They suspended the team for the remainder of the war years, but in 1946 the NHL cancelled the franchise.

Additional Sources:

• Bill H. Dumsday, “Rangers Beaten in Thriller,” The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan), Monday, March 28, 1938, p. 12.
• “Carr’s Shot in 4th Overtime Good for Semi-Final Berth,” The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan), Monday, March 28, 1938, p. 9.
• Gene Ward, “Rangers, A’s Tied In 3d Cup Match,” Daily News (New York, New York), Monday, March 28, 1938, pp. 34, 36.