The Patricks and Detroit

Something seldom written about in hockey history books: when the Western Hockey League sold its players to several NHL clubs in 1926, it was expected that Lester and Frank Patrick would go with them. To Detroit.

It didn’t happen, of course, but it’s still fascinating to think about what might have been.

Detroit Cougars, 1926-27. (Wikimedia Commons)

The first sign something was afoot came in the Victoria Daily Times of April 29, 1926, which reported a rumour the Victoria Cougars would be transferred to Detroit. A few days later, many papers carried a dispatch confirming the Cougars would indeed be sold to Morris Caplan and Morris Freidberg of Detroit for $100,000. “The sale price includes services as coach of Lester Patrick,” it added.

The only book that I can find that addresses this situation is Lords of the Rinks: The Emergence of the National Hockey Hockey League 1875-1936, by John Chi-Kit Wong, published in 2005. Wong had access to the NHL archives, and therefore to details that weren’t reported in the media.

He said the agreement with Friedberg (which also included a partner named P.R. Bierer) called for the group to hire Lester as coach for $10,000, buy an ice plant for $13,000, and pay Frank’s expenses of $20,000.

The only problem was that Caplan and Friedberg hadn’t actually been granted an NHL franchise yet, although Friedberg said he’d been assured approval would be forthcoming soon.

Detroit Free Press, May 13, 1926

Lester headed to Michigan in hopes of signing a contract. Over the next few months, it was taken for granted that he would be behind Detroit’s bench the following season. Frank, meanwhile, said he had “eight tempting offers” to work for teams in the east, “but it will take a lot of dough to tempt me away from Vancouver.”

But then things got messy. The NHL granted a Detroit franchise to a different ownership group, the Seyburne-Townsend syndicate. Frank tried to make a deal to provide them with the Victoria players instead and to serve as the new club’s general manager, while Lester would remain coach.

Calgary Albertan, July 31, 1926

However, according to Wong’s book, the Townsend/Seybourne group ultimately declined to pay Frank’s asking price. As a result, the Patricks went back to Friedberg, who was working with some other ownership groups unhappy at being shut out of the expanded league.

They asked the NHL to expand from seven clubs to 12 to accommodate all interested parties. Otherwise, Lester and Frank would start a rival eastern league with teams from Detroit (under Friedberg ownership), Chicago, Cleveland, Toronto, and Jersey City. Frank would be the new league’s president.

Wong discovered correspondence in the NHL archives that suggested it was all just posturing. According to second-hand reports, Frank needed money badly to fix the Vancouver Arena, which had been condemned. Plus, the NHL exerted control over the rinks in Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto and wasn’t about to share ice time with an upstart rival.

To make matters worse, Friedberg, who had made a $25,000 down payment on the WHL players, was having trouble coming up with the rest. He tried to deal the players to the Townsend/Seybourne interests, who said he was asking too much.

Townsend realized all was not well with the rival bid and began negotiating directly with Frank Patrick. They closed a deal that saw the entire Victoria Cougars club sent to Detroit for $100,000, as in the original proposal with Friedberg (whose down payment was refunded). But this time, for reasons unknown, the Patricks weren’t joining the players.

“Lester was not included in the sale,” the Victoria Daily Times wrote. “In the first draft it was understood that the Cougar boss would manager [sic] the Detroit club, but Lester did not sign with the new owners and decided to sit in the grand stand and look on for a while.”

Lester returned home to Victoria in October 1926, declaring himself a free agent. “[He] hasn’t a care on his shoulders at the moment,” the Times added. “He has no hockey club to worry about. He does not have to look forward to a season of worrying about contracts, humoring temperamental hockey players and financing a club and a rink as well as possibly playing some tough games at the age of 41.”

Lester admitted he’d had good offers to run clubs, but thought he deserved a break. The anonymous reporter believed it was likely that Lester would ultimately head east, “but they’ll have to talk in pretty sweet language to pull the old Cougar boss away from the Coast climate.”

Lester may have had a better inkling about his future than he let on. It may or may not have been coincidental that his discussion with the reporter shifted to Lester’s take on a recent boxing match he’d attended between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey. The fight’s promoter, Tex Rickard, had been awarded an NHL franchise.

Exactly two weeks after Lester mused about taking time off, the Montreal Gazette broke the news that he’d been signed to coach Rickard’s Rangers. Lester’s amazing third act in hockey was about to begin — in New York instead of Detroit.

Montreal Gazette, Oct. 26, 1926​

Updated on May 15, 2025 to add details from Lords of the Rinks.