JANUARY 13 , 1947
4 GAME WIN STREAK EXTENDS BEES LEAD
After finishing off the final few weeks of 1946 with just 1 win in seven games the Boston Bees flipped a switch when the calendar flipped to 1947. The Bees, winners of 4 of the last 6 Challenge Cups, started January off with 4 straight wins and have extended their lead atop the NAHC to 4 points over second place Chicago. Boston's success has come despite the fact that a key piece of their powerful first line - right winger Jacob Grun- saw his season come to an end in late December with a back injury. Veteran Waldemar Rupp stepped up and filled the spot alongside Tommy Hart and Wilbur Chandler and contributed 6 points over the winning streak.
Hart had been in a slump during the losing skid but broke out of it with a hat trick in a 5-4 win over Chicago last Sunday to get the Bees back on track. The 29 year old winger would earn 9 points in 3 games before being held off the scoresheet yesterday in Montreal but that did not prevent the Bees from winning 3-2.
Meanwhile, the suddenly struggling Detroit Motors are longing for the good old days of 1946. The Motors were perched at the top of the NAHC standings on New Year's Day, a point ahead of the Boston squad, but it has been all downhill for Detroit since then. The Motors suffered 5 losses in their last six games and now find themseleves in third place, just 2 points up on Montreal for the final playoff berth.
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NAHC STANINGS
TEAM GP W L T PTS
Boston Bees 24 15 6 3 33
Chicago Packers 25 12 8 5 29
Detroit Motors 26 11 10 5 27
Montreal Valiants 26 11 12 3 25
New York Shamrocks 26 10 14 2 22
Brooklyn Eagles 26 8 12 6 22
Toronto Dukes 25 8 13 4 20
SCORING LEADERS
NAME TEAM GP G A PTS
Tommy Burns CHI 25 17 18 35
Orval Cabbell NY 26 16 15 31
Tommy Hart BOS 23 17 12 29
Quiton Pollack BKN 26 17 9 26
Laurel Albers NY 27 6 20 26
Marty Mahoney CHI 25 5 21 26
Wes Burns CHI 25 13 12 25
Bobbie Sauer TOR 25 10 15 25
Sam Coates BKN 26 8 16 24
Jarrett McGlynn CHI 24 12 11 23
Joe Morey BOS 24 12 11 23
Ed Delarue CHI 22 11 12 23
Claude Skinner MON 25 11 11 22
GOALIE LEADERS
NAME TEAM W L T ShO GAA
Norm Hanson CHI 12-8-2 3 2.56
Henri Chasse DET 11-10-5 4 2.62
Pierre Melancon BOS 10-5-3 2 2.64
Tom Brockers BKN 8-11-6 1 2.65
Andy Backlund MON 4-3-0 0 3.12
Etienne Tremblay NY 8-12-2 2 3.19
Gordie Broadway TOR 7-13-2 0 3.38
Millard Touhey MON 7-9-3 0 3.39
RECENT RESULTS
TUESDAY DECEMBER 31, 1946
A pair of New Year's Eve games saw the New York Shamrocks start their celebration early with a 6-0 shutout of the Boston Bees. Orval Cabbell had 2 goals and 3 assists while Tom Brescia had 4 points in the win with Etienne Tremblay making 19 saves for his second shutout in less than a week. In Montreal, Quinton Pollack scored twice to lead the visiting Brooklyn Eagles to a 3-1 win over the Valiants.
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 1, 1947
Montreal rebounded from the previous night's loss with a 3-1 win at home over the New York Shamrocks with Glen Whitley leading the way with a goal and an assist for the Valiants. In Detroit, three first period goals by the visiting Chicago Packers stood up in a 3-2 victory over the Motors.
SATURDAY JANUARY 4, 1947
New York took the back half of a home and home series with Montreal, with the Shamrocks recording a 5-2 win at Bigsby Garden. Laurel Albers and Gil Chandler led the way for the Greenshirts with 3 points each. Lee Carlson scored a pair of third period goals to lift Toronto to a 3-2 win over the Detroit Motors at Thompson Palladium.
SUNDAY JANUARY 5, 1947
The first day of 1947 with the maximum 3 games on the slate. Tommy Hart had a hat trick and added an assist to lead Boston to a 5-4 road win in Chicago. Montreal handed Detroit its third straight loss as Bert Lanceleve had a goal and an assist to power the Valiants to a 3-2 win over the visiting Motors while this chapter of the battle of New York went to the Shamrocks, who grounded the Brooklyn Eagles 3-2 thanks to a pair of goals from Gil Chandler to complete a big weekend for the 30 year old Shamrocks forward.
TUESDAY JANUARY 7, 1947
Another loss for the Detroit Motors, who fell to 0-4 in January after Pierre Melancon and the Boston Bess blanked the Motors 3-0. Chicago's Norm Hanson also had a shutout -his 3rd of the season- as the Packers dumped the New York Shamrocks 5-0. It was a big game for the Packers top line as Marty Mahoney had 4 points while the Burns brothers, Tommy and Wes, each scored a goal. The final game on a busy Tuesday evening saw the hometown Toronto Dukes rally with third period goals from Rosie McInnis and Dick Klein to beat Montreal 3-1.
THURSDAY JANUARY 9, 1947
A high scoring game in Montreal as the visiting Chicago Packers beat the Valiants 7-4 in a contest that saw 11 players score a goal. Plenty of offense in New York as well as defenseman Bert McCalley had 2 goals and an assist to pace the Shamrocks to a 6-3 win over Toronto. Detroit snapped its 4 game losing skid but the Motors are still winless in 1947 after settling for a 3-3 tie with Brooklyn.
SATURDAY JANUARY 11, 1947
Tommy Hart scored twice and added an assist to lead the Boston Bees to a 6-2 drubbing of visiting Montreal. The Bees are now 3-0 in Janaury. The only other game saw Toronto and Brooklyn skate to a 1-1 ie as Pat Green's first goal of the season with 2:32 remaining in the game earned the hometown Eagles a point.
SUNDAY JANUARY 12, 1947
Boston outshot Montreal 51-20 but some tremendous goaltending from Valiants backup Andy Backlund kept things close. In the end the Bees were too much for the Montreal squad and skated away with a 3-2 win for their fourth straight victory. In Detroit, Marty Mahoney had 3 assists to help lead the Chicago Packers to a 4-1 win over the struggling Motors while in Brooklyn Mike Laforme scored in the third period to allow the visiting New York Shamrocks to leave Prescott Arena with a point in a 1-1 tie with the Eagles.
AROUND THE LEAGUE
- Chicago's Tommy Burns, the league MVP a year ago, was named both the best and fastest skater according to a recent poll of NAHC players. The also claim that New York Shamrocks defender Bert McCalley is the toughest player in the league, Toronto's classy center Bobbie Sauer the cleanest and the hardest shot belongs to Dukes defenseman Al Cote.
- Tommy Burns also had a hot start to 1947 and was a big reason the Packers won 4 of 5 games to start the new year. Burns scored in each of the 5 games to give him 17 goals on the season after going without a goal for 5 straight games to end 1946. Chicago was just 1-3-1 during Burns goalless drought.
- Boston's Max Dewar is the players choice for the coach they would most like to play for. The 61 year old former player is the winningest coach in the modern era and has won 4 Challenge Cups since 1940.
- The Montreal Valiants have been hot and cold with the latest streak being a 4-game losing skid including back-to-back losses to the Boston Bees. Prior to that the Valiants had gone 6-3-1 in the previous 10 games.
- A 4-2-1 stretch has the New York Shamrocks thinking playoffs for the first time since 1942. The Greenshirts have 22 points, just 3 back of Montreal for the fourth and final playoff berth.
- The Brooklyn Eagles playoff hopes took a hit with news that rookie center Ian Doyle is likely done for the season after being injured in a 1-1 tie with Toronto on Saturday. Doyle, who prior to the season joined the new-look Eagles from the coast league along with fellow forwards Quinton Pollack, Sam Coates and Hank Walsh, was a key piece in Brooklyn's return to respectability this season after winning just 2 games a year ago. The 22 year old center had 11 goals and 19 points in 23 games this season.
OTHER HEADLINES THIS WEEK
- TWIFB editor Jiggs McGee believes it is just a matter of time before the Great Western League attempts to sign player away from the established FABL ballclubs.
- Challenger Mark Fountain says he is ready for his long awaited title shot. Fountain will face World Heavyweight Champion Hector Sawyer Saturday night in Detroit.
- Section play is set to begin in collegiate cage action. Two schools - Rainier College and Indiana A&M- still sport perfect records.
- For the first time in 18 years, Congress is being sent a balanced budget, recommending expenditures of $37,500,000,000 to be offset by receipts of $37,700,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1948.
Full national sports coverage is available in this week's edition of
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