Hamilton’s Hockey Tigers

From the shadowy first years of NHL hockey, the forgotten tale of Hamilton's short-lived NHL franchise, and the owner-player conflict that killed a team the town loved.

Hamilton's Hockey Tigers is the colourful story of the only NHL team ever to go on strike. After four years in the NHL basement, the Hamilton Tigers -- scrappers from northern Ontario, most of them -- were top of the league and ready to fight for the 1925 Stanley Cup. But in an era when amateurs could make more than their professional brothers, the team's ten hard-slogging players took a stand over what they believed was an issue of just treatment and fair pay. They went on strike. Neither side backed down, the Tigers lost their chance at the Cup, and in the summer of 1925 the team was sold to a New York rum runner and became the New York Americans. The game of hockey in Hamilton -- and the NHL -- was forever changed.

A ripping good story, set in the roaring twenties of the Ambitious City, the issues at its heart -- labour relations between management and players, expansion of the game south of the border, and rule changes involving goalies and lines on the ice -- are as current and relevant as today's sports headlines.