The First Season: 1917-18 and the Birth of the NHL

by Bob Duff

2017-18 marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the National Hockey League. But the league almost didn’t survive the 1917-18 season. Bob Duff chronicles the trials and tribulations of that first season, and tells the story of that first generation of hockey heroes who lent their names to the game they loved, and helped to make it great.

Genres: Sports, Hockey, History

200 pages, Paperback

Published December 12, 2017

About the author

Currently the sports columnist for the Windsor Star, Bob Duff has covered the NHL since 1988 and is a contributor to The Hockey News and MSNBC.com. Duff's book credits include: The China Wall: The Timeless Legend of Johnny Bower, Hockey Dynasties, Without Fear, Nine: Salute to Mr. Hockey, On the Wing: A History of the Windsor Spitfires, and The Hockey Hall of Fame MVP Trophies and Winners. Duff lives in LaSalle, Ontario, with his wife Shira and daughter Cecilia. (Courtesy of Biblioasis)

Reviews

[bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

the founding of the nhl is literally like “y’all wanna hear a story about why me and this bitch here fell out????? it’s kind of long and full of suspense” and the bitch in question is eddie livingstone

[Benjamin K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short history of the NHL's first season, hockey fans will certainly find the book interesting as Duff recounts the ups-and-downs of the league's first four teams as they attempted to stabilize hockey as a professional sport during the ongoing Great War. From a wartime player shortage to legal challenges and even a burned down stadium, the NHL was able to weather the storm and complete the season despite many saying they would fail.

Duff's book examines the history behind the rise of professional hockey in Canada and northern United States, and the rise and fall of many precursor leagues before the founding of the NHL. One of the more overarching themes in this section of the book goes into Toronto team owner Eddie Livingstone, and how his conflicts with the other owners caused them to create the NHL in the first place just to exclude him. The author then goes into short biographies of the original teams themselves, as well as many of its Hall of Fame players who made an impact to the growth of the game. After this, Duff runs through the season itself and its playoffs, as well as an epilogue on how the league did in the years afterward.

The First Season is a good book for fans of the NHL and hockey in general, as it is a good introduction into how the sport shifted from an amateur one into the professional level.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duff looks at the first season of the NHL, and how it was formed. A good bulk of the book is business dealings, as that is what ultimately what led to the creation of the league, though there is a look at the actual games themselves as well. It also includes small profiles of nearly every player from that inaugural season, including some who only appeared in one game, so that was a nice touch. It is a rather short book though, and most of the material has been covered elsewhere before (especially the formation of the NHL and the legal dealings that came from that), but it is still a neat book, and the addition of the gameplay does make it worth reading through.

[Michele · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are better sooks about the history of the NHL. This book is good for the minute details about the first season.