ROGER GODIN SET TO RELEASE MONOGRAPH ABOUT EAHL BALTIMORE ORIOLES

ROGER GODIN SET TO RELEASE MONOGRAPH ABOUT EAHL BALTIMORE ORIOLES

By: Matthew Blittner

The Wild team historical curator Roger Godin shared his latest project, a monograph about the 1934-35 EAHL Baltimore Orioles, with yours truly, who brought us all the details:

BACKGROUND: “I am the team curator for the Minnesota Wild, which encompasses two major responsibilities. The primary one is the maintenance of a series of exhibits called, the “State of Hockey Tribute,” which relates to hockey in Minnesota where we have a history dating back to 1895, through to the present. The second role would be to collect any artifacts that would be relevant for the team, achievements, for example, when Marian Gaborik had his 5-goal game, getting one of the five goal pucks. When Nick Schultz left the team, he had played more games than anybody else with us. Getting a stick from his career. I’ve been doing this since February of 2000. Before that I was the President of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame, from July 1971 through August of 1987.”

REASON FOR BALTIMORE ORIOLES PROJECT: “I’m interested in the role of the United States in the sport, and I think the role that Americans had prior to WW2, is largely unknown, so I attempt to find this type of topic and then I research and write about it. This is my most recent effort, but there have been earlier ones. In 1928 the United States, for various reasons, did not participate in the Olympics. But Canada did, and won easily since we weren’t participating, however, they did come down to New England and played at the University club of Boston in a two game total goal series in which the United States won one of those two games and I believe the other was a tie if i recall. In total goals it was a tie. The NHL as we know of started in 1917, but I should point out that the first United States franchise was Boston, and they don’t enter until 1924. Until that time the teams were all Canadian based. Up to that point we did have a very significant league called the United States Amateur Hockey Association, it existed from 1920-1925. St. Paul had a team, and it had significant local input to it. I actually wrote a book about that as well. This project took about 6 months, usually the time frame is 6 to 12 months.”

SPECIAL BALTIMORE ORIOLES: “The composition of the team, it belonged to the Eastern Amatuer Hockey League and there’s only 4 teams in the league, the New York Crescents, who ultimately become the New York Rovers, Stan knows well about them, the Atlantic City Seagulls and the Hershey City Bars, because of the chocolate connection. The composition of the players was overwhelmingly from Minnesota. Of the 13 players, 8 were from Minnesota, 7 of which from Eveleth Minnesota. Which is where the US Hockey Hall of Fame is. It’s a very unusual composition. They weren’t very successful, but they did better in non-league play. One of the players, Frank Laurich, his son had a large collection of photos that I was able to use.”

THINGS THAT STOOD OUT: “Frank Laurich had two penalty shot goals in one particular game, which is highly unusual. In the non-league games, they actually beat a pro team, the Philadelphia Arrows, who played in a league that was the predecessor to the AHL. A number of the players who played for the Crescents ultimately ended up playing for the Rangers, and you can find references to that in my monograph, 3 or 4 of them were on the Stanley Cup Ranger’s team in 1940.”

FAVORITE THING: “The Minnesota input, Americans are my specialty, but within that context obviously certain states stand out, historically, Minnesota, Michigan, and Massachusetts, are the states where we have produced significant players over the years.”

BUYING: “Easiest way would be to send me a check for $3 which basically handles the shipping and handling, I’ll handle the production. I don’t view this as a money making thing.”