Temple Hockey in the 1940s – Outdoor hockey and Holy Sundays

Temple Hockey in the 1940s is wacky. Full of oddities with its players, rinks and schedules, it got off to an odd start with its first coach.

Chet Messervy, a former player and then junior varsity coach for the Temple Owls’ football team, formed the Temple University Ice Hockey Club in 1940. Messervy played under College Football Hall of Fame coach Pop Warner, whose name now graces youth football leagues.

Ted Eichmann, the assistant director of athletics at the university, attended a meeting with multiple other colleges regarding a new intercollegiate hockey league in Philadelphia. Temple University couldn’t fund the program, at least in its first year, because the budget had already been set.

The hockey club played in the Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Hockey League, which was formed on Nov. 4, 1940. LaSalle, St. Joe’s, Penn, Lehigh, Lafayette, Drexel, Franklin & Marshall and Temple joined the PIHL in its first season.

Ramblers surge

The City of Philadelphia had not seen much success from any major or minor professional hockey teams. The Philadelphia Quakers and Philadelphia Comets had fallen flat. At the time of the Temple University Ice Hockey Club’s creation, the only team that had seen success in the city were the Philadelphia Ramblers. The Ramblers were formed in 1927 as the Philadelphia Arrows of the Canadian-American Hockey League. The Arrows won the 1933 Can-Am regular season championship, but the Boston Cubs captured the playoff title.

In 1935, the Arrows renamed themselves the Ramblers after becoming the top farm team of the New York Rangers. The Ramblers won Philadelphia’s first-ever playoff title after defeating the Providence Reds, 1-0, on April 7, 1936 to win the Frank Fontaine Cup, three games to one. They played in the International-American Hockey League from 1936-1940 then the American Hockey League from 1940 until the club’s dismal final season, in which they renamed again to the Rockets, ended in 1942.

Perhaps part of the Ramblers’ success in the mid-to-late 1930s led to hockey fever rising in the city, ultimately leading to the rise of Temple Ice Hockey.

Home is where the rink is

The Ramblers, as well as the Quakers and Comets, had played at Philadelphia Arena, located at 4530 Market Street in West Philadelphia. Nowadays, the arena’s location, which was fully contained within Market St., Ludlow St., 45th St., and 46th St., consists of a housing complex and the Philadelphia Enterprise Center.

The Owls did not play there in their first season. Instead, they played at a place called Philadelphia Gardens at the corner of Broad St. and Lehigh Ave. Don’t go searching for it online with that name, though. It proves fruitless.

That’s because before it was called the Philadelphia Gardens, it was called the Baker Bowl.

The Temple Owls played hockey at the former home of the Philadelphia Phillies. After the Phillies left the Baker Bowl in 1938, the upper deck was torn off the stadium and events like midget auto racing were held. In the winter, the confines hosted a skating rink. The stadium was demolished in 1950.

You’d never know that the Owls played there if you went back to the location today. Located within 15th St., Broad St., Lehigh Ave., and Huntingdon St. is a parking garage for the Philadelphia School District, Sunoco gas station, and Domino’s Pizza franchise. It was also across the street from the current North Broad Street Station.

If the team played there today, the journey to get to games would be under two minutes because the rink was under a mile from campus, and all the games during the inaugural PIHL season were played on Monday nights at Philadelphia Gardens.

Seven games were scheduled for the Owls’ inaugural season, with matches placed from December to March. Due to spring sports being back in session, however, the Owls ended up playing only five games.

The first season

The Owls had to practice for games at 6:15 A.M. because Philadelphia Gardens was used for public skating during the day. Jerseys either came from the JV football squad or from more “fashionable” sources; some players wore “Temple Fresh” jerseys.

The first-ever Temple Ice Hockey game was played on Dec. 9, 1940. The Owls defeated the St. Joe’s Hawks, 3-0, with two goals coming from Stan Batinski and the third coming from Roger Germain. Goaltender Bill Mattes scored the shutout.

The football connections didn’t stop with Messervy. Batinski played guard for the Owls’ football team and was drafted to the NFL in 1941. He played eight years in the league for three separate teams: the Detroit Lions (1941-47), Boston Yanks (1948), and New York Bulldogs (1949). Batinski’s coach for the 1941 and 1942 seasons in Detroit was Bill Edwards, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the godfather of six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick. His coach from 1943-1947 was Gus Dorais, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.

The Owls’ second game came against Lehigh on Jan. 7, 1941. Germain scored early to give Temple a 1-0 lead at the end of the first period, but Lehigh’s Hilton scored in the second to tie the game. The deadlock remained at the end of three periods, leading to overtime. Lehigh scored three times in the overtime period – which was not sudden death in the PIHL – to beat the Owls, 4-1.

Lafayette was scheduled to play the Cherry and Ice for the Owls’ third game on Jan. 20, but the school known for the famous French leader in the American Revolutionary War couldn’t play due to illness. Instead, Temple played Penn in a 5-1 defeat to fall to 1-2.

Temple defeated Drexel, 4-0, in its fourth league game on Feb. 3 and finished the season with a 4-1 victory over LaSalle on Mar. 17. Penn finished undefeated with five wins and was awarded the Hyde Cup by Philadelphia assistant district attorney Vincent P. McDevitt. Temple, Franklin & Marshall, Lehigh and Lafayette tied for second-place with all clubs holding three wins and two losses (except for Franklin & Marshall, who had one loss).

The Owls played three non-league games between their 5-1 loss to Penn and 4-0 victory over Drexel, but fell all three times. Penn State won both games, 6-1 and 5-3, and Georgetown won 5-0.

The beginning’s end

The 1941-42 season introduced some changes to the league. First, the games were scheduled to take place at Philadelphia Arena instead of Philadelphia Gardens. 22 games were scheduled between seven teams, as Lafayette left the league. Each squad was limited to 15 players before the Nov. 23 opener.

Right as the season was about to begin, the police shut the Sunday opener down. Philadelphia Blue Laws, which were laws made to ban most activities due to religious reasons on Sundays, dictated that hockey was not in the public’s interest and could not take place. In the 1930s, exceptions were made to allow baseball, football, tennis and polo to take place on Sundays, but hockey was not an exception.

Germain, Batinski and Mattes were the only three players lost to graduation from the previous season.

The schedule had to be rearranged, with the opening doubleheader featuring the Owls kicking off against Franklin & Marshall. The starting lineup consisted of football fullback George Sutch (RD), guard Joe Boyd (LD), halfback Jimmy Powers (C), end Frank Moister (Wing), quarterback Nick Serino (Wing), and guard Larry Brahm (G). Sutch played three NFL games for the Chicago Cardinals in 1946, and Brahm played 10 games for the Cleveland Rams in 1942.

The Owls won the opening game, 4-1. Quickly, however, the team started falling apart. It lost to championship holder Penn, 6-0, on Jan. 22, 1942. Temple played LaSalle, the last-place team in the PIHL, on Jan. 27 to a 2-2 draw after fending off a late surge from the bottomfeeders.

“Temple was hit hard by the examination period in progress at the University and had to use the same six the entire game,” an article from the Jan. 28 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer said. “While LaSalle fumbled away chance after chance, the tiring Owls just managed to gain the deadlock. The Owls had only one spare, Joe Kellerman, but he couldn’t skate. However, he drew a round of laughter with his antics during the final 15 seconds of the first session.”

Little did anyone know that it would be the final college hockey game contested by Temple for over three decades.

On Feb. 4, 1942, the Owls announced their withdrawal from the league. Due to players graduating and the World War II draft, they only had six eligible players.

Lehigh wound up winning the Hyde Cup after winning the championship game against Penn at the conclusion of the Shaughnessy Playoffs. Before the next season began, Lehigh dropped out due to transportation concerns and the possibility of losing players to the draft. This was the final nail in the coffin for the troubled circuit, and the league disbanded.

It wasn’t until 1957 that the league came back into the fold. Lehigh and Penn played on Feb. 27 at Philadelphia Arena, leading to chatter that the PIHL would come back. It ultimately did for a few more seasons, but the Owls were not a part of it.

Temple would not have a hockey team until 1977.

See all the newspaper clippings used to research this article here.