1929 Chicago Blackhawks (or Shamrocks) Hockey (Home Movies)

[@GeorgeRoot3]

Wow. No glass or fence to protect the fans from the puck. You can see some fans with their hands hanging over the boards. Judging by the logo, I would guess that this is the 1931-32 Shamrocks playing their one season in Chicago Stadium. This footage is absolutely amazing!

[@cheezgonewild2515]

Back then they couldn't lift the puck

[@johnmeyer77]

The granddaughter of the man who took these, posted this on my 1929 World Series KZbin video: "John found these in my grandfather's 16 mm home movies, while transfering them. My grandfather was George J. Nikolas (1893-1968) who lived in River Forest, IL (suburb of Chicago)and was a lifelong Cubs' fan. At least he got to see them in a World Series! Can't thank John enough for finding these treasures. "

[@jonnywishbone17]

Hopefully the granddaughter was still alive in 2016 to see the Cubs win the World Series

[@dmf1029]

As a young lad growing up in the 60s in Southern Ontario, I remember the pre-zamboni days well. In my hometown, a tractor hauled around the resurfacing mechanism behind it, while in a neighbouring community that didn't even have that, a team of shovellers would clear the ice, shoving the accumulated snow into an opening created along a section of the boards, and into a huge concrete bunker. Huge 50 gallon drums full of hot water that were mounted on wheels were then pulled along the ice to resurface it.

[@ronfroehlich4697]

I've always loved how dark the rinks looked before broadcasters lit them up for tv cameras.

[@duckman531]

They are priceless pieces of history. Thanks for posting!

[@diddlytube]

I used to rink rat with my father when i was about 7 (late 1960s) and I remember marveling at the Zamboni. In those days they still had open tops, so you could see the conveyor with the scraped-up snow going around and dumping the shavings into the hopper. He told me about how they used to have human sweepers, before Mr. Zamboni had his light bulb moment, but I'd never actually seen them in action before. I mean, who would have thought to film them, since film was costly, and it was not part of the actual game? I had always pictured these guys as having push brooms, instead of the big, wide-arc ones in the film. Very interesting, filling in a blank. Interesting, too, to see their little hop-steps, presumably on some kind of count so that they would stay in sync and not cover each other's cleared spots. Dad said in his day ('40s, '50s) they would follow with a big canister of water dragged on wheels that would sprinkle water for the actual resurface. Of course they had to add water at some point even in the 'twenties, but I wonder if they did so between every period when this was filmed. I played in a few games, as late as the mid 'seventies, when the Zamboni would do a dry scrape (no water) between periods. The result was not great, but you didn't need to wait for the water to freeze, so the intermission could be shorter. It was usually something they'd do during tournaments, to make sure they did not fall behind schedule. Nice post.

[@mrcdad]

What a great piece of history!

[@dellotti]

This was great footage!!! Looks like the players actually stood still untill they got the puck. ....and those men in the end sweeping the ice, never actually seen how that was done before they had those ice machines.....

[@Chubstanley]

Great archival material . I Bet King Clancy is in there somewhere. I was looking for someone very short and feisty. Thanks for sharing this for all to view..

[@razoramon989]

Cool video, I can't believe how well these guys skate on those old style skates.

[@johnmeyer77]

This was taken by the grandfather of my 7th grade girlfriend. It is 16mm B&W film. I invented a frame-by-frame transfer machine and transferred this reel of "1929 Sports" film. This contained film of the Chicago Cardinals football team; the Chicago Bears football team; and the 1929 Game 1 World Series game between the Cubs and Philadelphia Athletics. It was an amazing find.

[@kamuzu]

Got to love the 2 human Zamboni's at the end of the clip........great technique..reminds me of when we used to get to watch the Oyen Clippers (senior hockey) games for free if we would scrape the ice between periods with wooden scrapers with a strip of flat iron bolted to the base........round and round until the snow was piled down centre of ice and then pushed in unison down to end of rink then shoveled over the boards

[@marieelena]

Thanks for this,always great to see history thru these old home movies!

[@jimnething1264]

so cool to see pre-Zamboni ice sweepers! 🙂

[@Don_Rhinestone85]

thanks for uploading how beautiful!!! makes me respect the game even more!!

[@colkilgore100]

At @ 1:25 no.7 makes a solo coast to coast rush, gets checked, tomahawks the d-man who checked him into the ice. And really, some of these guys looked pretty good. Good skaters who could pivot on a dime, good stickhandling...

[@mustatiikeri]

Yeah I was impressed how good the skating looked. Not a massive difference to today's skating. Goalies techniques& posture have drastically changed in the last 30 years while the actual players' skating has not much. Interesting. Obviously the game itself has come a long way.

[@brianallen2358]

Thank you for posting that, what a treat. I especially enjoyed the Vaudevillian ice cleaning. No. 7 White is my new hockey hero.

[@nukemech]

I am a lifelong Hockey Memories guy . i have never seen that footage before it is wonderful . It emotes afeeling what it must have been like back then a time i have always wonder about after having read about it so many times as a young lad . Thanks Dude

[@dannyduke666]

It is definitely a game between the Chicago Shamrocks and the St. Louis Flyers from the AHA... The Flyers had this fully striped blue-red-white sweater (very similar to the New York Americans). This footage is a gem, thanks for sharing!

[@dannyduke666]

I researched a bit more on this. It's not the St. Louis Flyers but the Duluth Hornets. The Flyers didn't have the NY Americans-like sweater before 1935-36. As for the exact date of this footage, the Shamrocks only existed for two seasons (1930-31 and 1931-32). They are wearing their first sweater without the "CHICAGO" block text over the Shamrock like they did on their 2nd season. In conclusion, it was probably filmed in 1931, for sure not in 1929.

[@johnmeyer77]

That's really useful stuff. I've been trying to figure this out for the past two years. I just re-obtained the film and am transferring it in HD, so perhaps I'll be able to get a little more detail on the logo.

[@prisonersforprofit]

love the ground camera work, wish the nba and nhl had these types of shots to watch the game, seeing the size of the players adds so much to the dynamics of the game.

[@driverdad71]

Amazing find! This is great. THANK YOU FOR POSTING!!!!!!

[@unclebobunclebob]

you gotta love the human zambonis at the end...great stuff

[@jybedard]

The style of play has definitely changed since then! Seems like players away from the puck moved less for one thing, sticking more to their position on the ice. makes sense though. Over 100 years of countless strategic minds that shaped the game to where we are today. Very cool footage!

[@lars1299]

A contributing to the style of play would be the rules that were on the books at the time.... depending on the year, potentially this was a game played without the forward pass in the offensive zone.

[@chimricholds1910]

J-Y Bedard lol wow you really figured that out. R u a scientist jesus chrisy

[@nyrmetros]

incredible footage!

[@gordyt99]

Thanks for the great post. Looks like they're playing the Detroit Cougars. This was their last full season at the Coliseum.

[@leafyutube]

Jagr's rookie season.

[@ralphamies828]

Damn that's funny

[@jackpayment6543]

leafyutube nice one bro

[@kinggeorgeiii7515]

leafyutube 🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😅😅😅😅☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

[@nkmcfrln]

If you're a loser that's desperate for attention i.e. a fucking nerd you go from one video to next telling the same stupid joke.

[@brianallen2358]

Hahaha, that's funny! Thanks for that.

[@joevolpini4038]

Gordie Howe was 1 year old no joke!

[@WINSOXWIN]

This is awesome. I like the ice sweepers at the end. Also at about 1:29 in the video the crosscheck to the face. I am not sure about the teams. i thought it was the Blackhawks and the Maple Leafs it's hard to tell.

[@sammycircle]

You really seem to know your hockey history.thats great info man.thanx!

[@jtolliver]

Wow, awesome footage! Thanks for posting this!

[@617AV86892]

A little high sticking at 1:28 ! Great piece of history I loved the Cubs World Series film and the Bears you posted also !

[@Cowpoo]

I remember this game

[@gints123]

It couldn't be the Toronto St. Pats, since the St. Pats changed their name to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1927 and this is 1929. Great footage.

[@werqa123]

Great video!

[@nyrmetros]

incredible

[@johnmeyer77]

--> this footage should definitely be in the Hall of Fame in Toronto They contacted me and, with the permission of the owner, I sent to them the DVD with the high-res footage.

[@JosephDungee]

Thanks for this upload...And you notice the Vicious Crosscheck/High Stick at 1:26..that would have definitely have been a minor or Game misconduct today..but a No call them...yeah they were tough

[@scottnoris106]

Duluth Hornets (dark striped uniforms) vs. Chicago Shamrocks at Chicago Coliseum, 1931-32 (the Shamrocks' only season in that building). The first half-minute or so of the film shows enough of the spectator seating to indicate that this was not filmed at Chicago Stadium, which rules out 1930-31.

[@johnmeyer77]

Great sleuthing! I appreciate the clarification of what this actually shows.

[@johnmeyer77]

According to proicehockey, ads didn't appear until 1978-1979, so you don't have to go quite as far back as 1929 to see "clean boards."

[@kungpuk5186]

I like the human samboni's att the end

[@extracleanwater3504]

kung puk Zamboni*

[@JannyDohnson]

Very cool. Thanks for posting!!

[@quintonhas]

i have always wanted to see footinge of hockey played at the chicago colesium thanks.

[@Lava1964]

Great piece of history!

[@tracyjacoby2382]

Wish my Dad could see this, because of him I'm a HUGE Blackhawk's hockey fan, still at 57. 🤗🏒👍

[@parkman35]

I'm sure thie was the Hawks vs the leafs. Once at the old Chicago Stadium I sat next to a little old Gentleman named Harold "Mush" March who scored the winning goal in one of the Hawks Stanley Cups back in the 30's...let me tell you this guy played with some of the greatest players ever like Howie Morenz, the Bentley Brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Georges Vezina....so many great stories!

[@jeffpope7811]

Awesome footage! There are no painted lines, the defense just stands there and the forward runs into him. Anyone know if the Rover was playing (6th player who could play Ll positions)?

[@johnmeyer77]

I thought it looked like a Shamrock as well. The can of film said 1929, but this was at the end of the reel, so it might be from a year or two later.

[@gcdcjccc]

look at those ice cleaners near the end, unbelievable. fantastic footage

[@mapleleafsfan4]

this is amazing!

[@cls57]

Quite incredible!

[@smscamp]

@jdoolsiu If is is the St Patricks, then it is the previous name of the Toronto Maple Leafs which changed to the Leafs in 1927-1928 season.

[@BurningtunaDC]

@12395294 You're not being mean at all in fact it is a very reasonable question. Motion picture cameras as a rule did not record sound. Sound was nearly always recorded on a separate device and then synced to picture in editing. In 1929 sound movies were only 2 years old. I suspect that the earliest audio recording devices were not that portable. Are you aware that most of the film footage shot in WW2 was shot MOS or "without sound"? In most of the WW2 shows stock sound was added later.

[@BostonGarden]

1929 was the year the Chicago Stadium opened (possibly in March). October was the huge stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression.

[@jmichaelbrent]

@bluebear1985 the darker jerseys resemble what the black hawks had, Ottawa and Montreal Canadien's jerseys are also close to it and Boston. Nobody else had similar stripes back then. The "white" though, doesn't resemble anything I know from the other 7 teams in the league at that time.

[@chrismomo1977]

I wondered if anyone in this arena is still alive today

[@johnmeyer77]

The Hockey Hall of Fame was all over this not long after I posted it several years ago. With permission of the woman who owns the film, I sent them a high-res version of this footage, so they do indeed have it. The Blackhawks have shown no interest, although the Cubs and the Chicago TV stations both have requested the 1929 World Series footage and, with permission, I sent that to them.

[@johnmeyer77]

@MrJustinbiebersucks I transferred it for a girl I knew back in the 60s. It was taken by her grandfather. He also took the 1929 Cubs World Series footage that you can find on my KZbin page.

[@robphilll22]

No Herculite plate glass in those days.The refs could really hear the fans through the wire mesh.

[@gobears1987]

Holy crap! It's Chris Chelios!

[@bluebear1985]

I've done a little research, and I don't think this is the Blackhawks in this footage. In their first couple of seasons in the NHL, they did play in the Chicago Coliseum. They were supposed to move into Chicago Stadium for the 1928-1929 season, so they let their lease at the Coliseum run out. However, Chicago Stadium was not ready yet, so they were forced to play most of their home games in Fort Erie, Ontario. This is according to the book "Ultimate Hockey".

[@adzwild]

The Zamboni was the "WOW" moment of this video

[@Throwbackjerseys3]

Actually now that I look at it again , it could be the St.Louis Flyers vs the Chicago Shamrocks. As the Flyers had uniforms similar to the New York Americans and also played in the American Hockey Association.

[@eeelick]

wow. awesome. where did you score this peice of film? Yeah this would be the coliseum, Their first game at Chicago Stadium was in December of 1929. I dont know when they switched from the old black and white jerseys to the red and black ones.

[@johnmeyer77]

@12395294 Home movie cameras never had sound, even those manufactured in the 1960s and 1970s, at the end of the home movie era (video cameras became available around 1980).

[@johnmeyer77]

--> 1929 was the year the Chicago Stadium opened. Yes, None of us are sure whether this is in the Stadium or the Coliseum. Also, if you look at the 1929 Cubs World Series footage I posted on KZbin, you'll realize that it was taken less than two weeks before the crash. Poor suckers ...

[@JordanR329]

it's crazy to think while this footage was shot....Al Capone was the most notorious man in the city

[@Shoknifeman]

I googled the uni, thats deffinately the Blackhawks in the dark uni and the Chicago shamrocks in white...What a treasure, I hope the Hockey hall of fame has a copy. Where did you find this?

[@johnmeyer77]

Both. Modern mercury vapor lighting was still several decades in the future. In addition, This is 1929 film emulsion, and it was really slow. Tri-X hadn't yet been invented and Pan-X, which wasn't introduced until the early 1930s had an ASA of 32. Thus, this film probably had an ASA of far less than that. By comparison, most digital cameras have an ASA of at least 100-200 meaning they'll take pictures that are four to eight times brighter in the same light.

[@onerisingphoenix]

It's the Chicago Shamrocks, and this footage is more than likely from 1930 as the Shamrocks did not take to the ice until then.

[@QueenMelissa1215]

first thing i thought was torono, in the light jerseys *shrug* cool video, thanks for posting

[@bashbrannigan]

Amazing stuff. Thanks! Do you have any more?

[@Lonerider99]

Wow, That's incredible, thanks johnmeyer77.

[@regantr6]

This was certainly a Home game for the Blackhawks, because it wasn't televised!!!! Thanks Mr. Wirtz!

[@Viclil]

1:22 he has the speed for todays hockey!

[@thehockeyfan8888]

After some research, this game is in fact between the Chicago Shamrocks and the Duluth Hornets. As far as the date is concerned, it most likely took place on January 29th, 1930. If anybody wants my sources I can cite them. This is a very interesting video and the research led to some cool reading.

[@johnmeyer77]

Interesting research. Another comment posted here suggested that the opponent was the St. Louis Flyers from the AHA. January 29, 1930 would fit within the timeframe of the other film that was on this amazing 400' reel of film that included the 1929 World Series, and various Chicago Bears and Chicago Cardinals football games.

[@thehockeyfan8888]

The jersey patterns of the dark team makes it clear (to me at least) that it's the hornets. The Flyers' jerseys had 3 or 4 thick lines at the bottom, whereas the Hornets had many thinner lines.

[@theshawnmurphyjournal2946]

There were no slapshots back then a lot of carrying the puck up ice .

[@gordyt99]

No - the opponent, as others have said, appears to be the Chicago Shamrocks.

[@johnmeyer77]

@MrJustinbiebersucks I am 59. This was taken with a 16mm movie camera. Video wasn't invented until the 1930s, and wasn't regularly broadcast until the late 1940s. Video wasn't available for home use until around 1980. So, between 1920 and 1980, all moving pictures were taken on film with movie cameras, either 16mm, 8mm, or Super8. I transfer all movie film using modified projectors that display each frame in a way that the video camera captures one frame of film onto one frame of video.

[@mentallarry]

That is amazing!!

[@johnmeyer77]

A 35mm camera would indeed have been rare, but these are actually 16mm movies. While owning such a camera was somewhat expensive, it didn't require too much money, and many people had them. My dad's father had such a camera back in 1929, the same year this film was taken.

[@johnnypera]

yeah this is amazing

[@CineRocco]

I watched this video on the larger screen. If you pause it at around 00:30, you get a good look at the logo. It's a shamrock. There used to be a team called the Chicago Shamrocks of the American Hockey Association. I'm thinking this might be an exhibition game between the Blackhawks and the Shamrocks? The Shamrocks were around from 1930-1932. This conflicts with the year of this film - 1929. But who knows...

[@johnmeyer77]

Great information. I'll change the name of the video.

[@chrisbibbs5242]

It's not an NHL game. It's an American Hockey Association game. The league existed from 1926 through 1942. For sure, the team that is in white is the Chicago Shamrocks. It was an AHA team that was owned by James Norris. Not sure who the other team was. My best guess is the Tulsa Oilers based on the uniforms. By the way, this is later than 1929. This would have to be 1930-1931 at the earliest, since Chicago didn't enter the league until that season.

[@Kniska]

These guys still skate faster then me

[@jonnywishbone17]

They'd be the mediocre guys in my beer league

[@kuntula25]

Respect

[@jbowen867]

That dangle at 1:03 👌

[@bjdon99]

Notice how some of the players wore baseball caps at that time?

[@rparry82]

was that their way of cleaning the ice with those big brooms

[@duckman531]

johnmeyer77, you are probably Chicago's foremost sports archivist! Please tell us something about this grandfather!

[@johnmeyer77]

@bobgill88videos This is not my footage. I transfer movies to video for clients and then, with their permission, post to KZbin. I need their permission for any further usage of their footage. On their behalf, I have licensed many of the films posted on my site. For commercial use, there is a licensing fee.

[@vitameat]

My guess is Chicago Stadium 1930-32...(Shamrocks only existed then, and seating background matches) and the opponent could be KC or the St. Paul Saints (red/green multistriping) Probably not the St.Louis Flyers....(stripes and stars on their unis only came in 1935) James Norris owned the Shamrocks and the Stadium, and in order to join the NHL he had to dissolve the Shamrocks to be accepted as the new owner of what he renamed the Detroit Redwings.

[@b4bhc]

@TheWitchOvAgnesi = No problem. I will definately pass along any info I get. Thanks.

[@RockyTop1012]

Allright, I can agree with that, it was just a bit cold how you put it at first. I mean the man had family, but oh well, now it's time for the winning ways coming back to the hopefully once again SOLD OUT UC someday.

[@hulaGUNZ]

so I'm guessing one of those 2 dudes with a broom last name is Zamboni

[@Blackhawk6699]

real cool movie

[@sdgakatbk]

According to wikipedia, the Sharmrocks were in the American Hockey Association in the 1930-1931 and 1931-1932 seasons. How about that zamboni at the end of the video?

[@Spudskie]

Great footage. Would have been great to see a game in 1929. Just make sure to sell all your stocks in September and buy Treasury bills!!

[@Shoknifeman]

@johnmeyer77 it sure was, you should contact both the Blackhawks and the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto