From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mervyn "Red" Dutton (July 23, 1898–March 15, 1987) was a professional ice hockey player from 1921 to 1936, National Hockey League Managing Director and President from 1943 to 1946 and Stanley Cup Trustee from 1949 to 1987. He played for the Calgary Tigers, Montreal Maroons and the New York Americans. Born in Russell, Manitoba, he was inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1958.

The Americans played at Madison Square Garden, which they rented from the owners of the New York Rangers. Despite beating the Rangers in a playoff series in 1938, thanks to a dramatic overtime goal by Lorne Carr, the Americans were always treated as second-class citizens by the Madison Square Garden Corporation, the New York media, and fans. While the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1928, 1933 and 1940, the Americans never got closer than the 1938 semifinals, where they lost to the Chicago Blackhawks.

Dutton became the Americans coach and manager, and often supported the team financially as well, loaning money to its owner "Big Bill" Dwyer, a notorious bootlegger and race track operator. After the NHL assumed control of the Americans from Dwyer, Dutton ran the team in with NHL president Frank Calder.

During World War II, the Garden Corporation used its resources to help keep the Rangers in business and virtually ignored the Americans. After the 1941-42 season, having lost a great deal of money and too many players to military service, the Americans folded. Dutton believed that if the Americans could have held on through the war, his team would become more popular than the Rangers. "A couple of more years and we would have run the Rangers right out of the rink," he said [1].

Afterward, he predicted that the Rangers would never win another Stanley Cup in his lifetime [2]. He often joked about this quote [3], which became known as "Dutton's Curse."

Dutton was named managing director of the NHL after the death of Frank Calder in February 1943, running the league at the direction of a subcommittee of the NHL Board of Governors. Dutton was eventually convinced to assume the presidency, but in September 1946 he handed over the reins to his assistant, Clarence Campbell, a former NHL referee who had just returned from military service in Europe and had been in the job for less than a month.

Dutton expected the NHL Board of Governors to allow him to revive the Americans in a new arena in Brooklyn after the war, but opposition from Madison Square Garden made it clear this would not happen. Dutton returned to his contracting business in Calgary, Alberta, and focussed his attention on regional hockey. His relations with the NHL were restricted to dealings as a trustee of the Stanley Cup (succeeding Philip Dansken Ross).

Reportedly he did not attend another NHL game before the inaugural game of the Calgary Flames in 1980 [4].

• Hockey Hall of Fame
• Career Stats

This Canadian biographical article relating to ice hockey is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.