Lester Patrick for president

When NHL president Frank Calder suffered a heart attack while running a meeting of the league’s board in Toronto in 1943, New York Americans governor Red Dutton was named acting president. But Victor O. Jones of the Boston Globe reported Dutton’s appointment was practically accidental, and that Lester Patrick was a more likely longer-term candidate.

Lester Patrick in his Silver Fox days as general manager of the New York Rangers, circa 1930s.

After Calder was taken to hospital, the meeting carried on under Boston governor Robert Duncan, a lawyer and banker who Jones felt was a “pleasant, reasonable chap” and “comparatively free of the whackiness [sic] which eventually afflicts all hockey executives.”

When it turned out Calder would not return for at least three months, the board asked Duncan to stay on. He declined. Instead, Dutton was announced as interim president. Jones said this “came as a great surprise” because he considered Dutton “the most whacky of hockey whacks.” Furthermore, his team was presently suspended from the league due to financial difficulties.

In Jones’ dismissive account, Dutton got the job only because he was at the meeting and happened to be headed to Montreal afterward, where he could return Calder’s briefcase to league headquarters.

“It now develops that Dutton is only a stop-gap and isn’t expected to last in his present role for more than a week or so,” Jones wrote on Jan. 28, 1943. The board was eyeing Lester to take over, but “the silver-tongued, silver-thatched” president of the New York Rangers wanted to think it over. Still, Jones was willing to bet Lester would agree.

An Associated Press dispatch concurred:

Lester Patrick seems certain to be chosen, despite the fact he does not relish the task. The Silver Fox plans to employ all of his famed eloquence about how vital his services are to his last-place Rangers. But his pleas are going to fall on the cotton-stuffed ears of his fellow magnates who will insist that the interests of the league are paramount to those of the individual clubs …

Instead, it was announced that Red Dutton would stay on until May with the help of an executive committee consisting of Lester plus E.W. Bickle of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The following day, Feb. 4, Frank Calder suffered a second, fatal attack. He was 65.

Now that the permanent job was up for grabs, Winnipeg Tribune columnist Herb Manning continued to beat the drum for Lester, writing that he was the odds-on favourite.

Nobody has a more thorough knowledge of hockey, from the viewpoint of player, coach, club director and league executive. Lester has been in the game all his life. He has been responsible for tactical changes in hockey, for many bright points of salesmanship. He has a keen business sense and a fine judgment of publicity values … It will be no surprise if he gets the majority vote.

But Lester appears to have taken himself out of the running over the next two weeks. While I can’t find him saying so directly, Detroit coach Jack Adams told the Montreal Gazette: “Lester Patrick would be an ideal man for the job — but he isn’t interested. He knows all about the affairs of the league and he has the respect and liking of the other governors, but he says he isn’t ready to retire from a competitive spot yet.”

Instead, Red Dutton stayed on, reluctantly, while Lester remained “managing director” as part of the executive committee for a while longer. In October 1944, it looked like Dutton would step down, and Lester proposed former Canadian Amateur Hockey Association president W.G. Hardy as a replacement, calling him “an ideal man for the job.”

A cartoon in the Hobart (Oklahoma) Democrat Chief of Oct. 30, 1944 indicated Lester was filling in for Red Dutton, who was himself filling in as NHL president.

However, Dutton was persuaded to remain. He agreed to a five-year term as president in June 1945, after nearly two and a half years in an acting role, only to quit the following year. Lester was once again spoken of as a possible successor. He had retired as general manager of the New York Rangers in February 1946, so he was available, but the job went instead to former referee Clarence Campbell, who would preside over the league for more than 30 years. Lester retired to Victoria to look after the Cougars of the PCHL.

As a postscript, Frank Patrick was apparently once a candidate for NHL president as well. Andy Lytle wrote in the Toronto Star Weekly of Jan. 17, 1948 that years earlier Frank had been expected to succeed Calder. Frank was appointed the league’s managing director in 1933.

In Joining the Clubs: The Business of the National Hockey League to 1945, J. Andrew Ross says that Frank was hired when Calder was on thin ice with the NHL’s board of governors over his handling of various disciplinary matters. Three clubs wanted him fired, but Montreal’s Leo Dandurand convinced them to keep Calder while giving Frank responsibility for oversight of officiating and enforcing the rules. (In this capacity, he dealt with Eddie Shore’s hit on Ace Bailey.)

Frank resigned after one season to become coach of the Boston Bruins. Ross suggests Frank departed when it became apparent he wouldn’t be taking over from Calder anytime soon.