Vintage Minnesota Hockey - History

The St. Paul Athletic Club played hockey at the highest level of league play at the time in American history. They were a dominant force in amateur hockey before the NHL had yet established a US presence before World War I. The domination came mostly from defenseman Francis Xavier (Moose) Goheen a White Bear Lake native contemporary to Hobey Baker. Tony Conroy, Nick Kahler and Ed Fitzgerald were other dominant players for the early AC hockey team. The Athletic Club won the MacNaughton Cup -- in 1916 and again in 1919--then symbolic of supremacy in Western U.S. hockey to honor the winner of the senior league American Amateur Hockey Association (AAHA). Today the MacNaughton cup is the trophy for the WCHA season champion. Goheen enlisted in the service for World War I, as did Conroy. They were also teammates on the U.S. team that won the silver medal in the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. Following WWI the AAHA fell apart and a new National league was formed called the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA).  The teams were only in US soil and competed at the time for the coveted Fellowes Cup. In 1922 and 1923 the AC's advanced to the finals only to come up short on each occassion. The NHL arrived in US soil in 1924 and with it ended the major league amateur hockey association, and thus ended the AC's illustrious era a year later. By 1925 professional hockey and the NHL with it's large contracts, and risks of "invasions" in the minor league systems had layed it's roots throughout the nation. St. Paul became a member of the professional Central Hockey League (CPHL), then called the American Hockey Association (AHA) this same year of 1926-1927 and were renamed the St. Paul Saints which bagan play in December of 2006. The "Saints" had been the nickname of the AC's for many years. Goheen and others signed contracts that kept them in Minnesota for years after the AC's dissolved play. The Saints continued in Minnesota in the AHA most seasons until 1942 when play ceased operations for WWII. Goheen had offers from Toronto and Boston to go the NHL, but he stayed in his hometown of White Bear Lake where he continued to work for Northern States Power while playing hockey for the Saints. Goheen became the second American inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1952, after Hobey Baker. "I never saw him play, obviously, but I had oldtimers tell me the tales about him as a wonderful athlete," Glen Sonmor said. "He would get the puck near his net and carry it right up the middle, time after time." 

The AC's hockey era in Minnesota namely layed the framework for what the Minnesota Wild today have aptly called the "State-of-Hockey".  Without the AC's and their presence in Minnesota prior to the NHL's arrival...Their wouldn't be a "State-of-Hockey".

1914-1915 No League Competition