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When the International Professional Hockey League (IPHL) the first fully professional ice hockey league, began in 1904, only one of the five teams — the Pittsburgh Pro Hockey Club — played indoors on artificial ice. The remaining teams (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Calumet, Michigan and Houghton, Michigan) played on natural ice. When temperatures warmed, play ended.
It’s no accident that teams from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula would partner with a team from Pittsburgh. Four aspects of the USA’s growing economy — electricity, railroads, mining and steel — connected the two regions at the start of the 20th century. Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range produced vast amounts of iron ore — a basic ingredient in steel. Copper came from mines in Northern Michigan. Railroads transported these raw materials to steel mills in Pittsburgh, also home to George Westinghouse, inventor and businessman, who created the air brake and our system of alternating current.
Canada’s original amateur hockey leagues protested the move to paid players and fully professional leagues. The five IPHL teams meanwhile agreed to a (60–40 home-visitor) revenue sharing plan to offset the costs of the long train ride to Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh’s home games were played indoors at the 5,000 seat Duquesne Gardens — opened 3 years after a fire destroyed the city’s first sports arena, the Schenley Park Casino, in 1896. The Duquesne Gardens featured the first glass dasher boards, invented by Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company (PPG). The Gardens later served as home ice to the National Hockey League Pittsburgh Pirates (1925–26 and 1929–30), and the American Hockey League’s Pittsburgh Hornets. The Hornets disbanded, temporarily, after the 1955–56 season when the Gardens closed. The Hornets reappeared in Pittsburgh’s new Civic Arena in 1961.
Everyone should follow this. A friend of mine has collected a crazy interesting lot of sport and culture bits to be posting here. More to come, whith hopefully a nice new design.
(Source: sportstownusa)
