NHL History: What happened to Christmas Day Games?

Although now a thing of the past, the NHL used to play games on Christmas Day. What happened to this half-century long tradition?

Once upon a time, when Tigers and St. Patricks still roamed the Earth, the NHL decided to start playing games on Christmas. The MLB season wasn’t to begin until April and the NBA and NFL didn’t exist yet, so why not?

The first Christmas Day game was played in 1920. The Toronto St. Patricks defeated the Montreal Canadiens 5-4. This experiment actually turned into quite a thriller. The Canadiens went up 3-1 in the second period, and then the Lea- St. Patricks scored 4 unanswered. The Habs netted one more, but it wasn’t enough to overcome their green foes.

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Despite a thoroughly entertaining first game, the NHL apparently wasn’t impressed. So, no one played on Christmas Day again, until 1924. For good measure, two games were played this time around.

They were both pretty lame – Montreal beat Boston 5-0 and the Hamilton Tigers beat the St. Pats 8-1. This idea of a Christmas game seemed to be a very on-and-off one. The NHL skipped it again in 1925, but went right back to it in 1926.

Anyways, from them on, the NHL finally made up their minds. From 1926 onward, at least one game was always played on Christmas Day. Over the years, there’s been some exciting Christmas action.

1961 saw the Leafs‘ 3-3 tie against the Blackhawks, with Tim Horton, Dick Duff and Bobby Hull all getting their licks in. 1952 saw the 5-17-10 New York Rangers miraculously win their Christmas game.

Now, if you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering why you don’t remember any of this. The league obviously put an end to it at some point, but when? Well, the last hockey Christmas was 1971, where a total of 6 games were played.

No Christmas games were schedule for 1972, and a moratorium was eventually placed, preventing any games at all from being played on this day. This was probably due to pressure from players and staff.

For some information from a player’s perspective, I reached out to former NHLer Earl Heiskala, who played for the Philadelphia Flyers in a Christmas game on 1969.

He said he didn’t personally find playing on Christmas challenging, but he understood the difficulty for others. His comments make sense. While everyone else is spending time with family and loved ones, you’re just at another day of work.

While he managed to do it without much trouble, he still maintained that Christmas should be a family time, rather than another day of NHL action. Two years later, Stan Gilbertson scored the last Christmas goal, lifting the California Golden Seals to a 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings in the final Christmas game.

This ended what was a 50 year NHL tradition. Now, we approach the 50-year mark of the ending of that tradition. Thus, the NBA and occasionally the NFL are the only leagues to celebrate Christmas in sport.

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What do you think? Should the NHL go back to Christmas games, or are they better off leaving players with some much-needed time with their families?

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