Jersey Devils 16 Syracuse Blazers 15 - Highest Scoring EHL Game Ever

On Saturday Night February 24, 1968 at Cherry Hill Arena, the Jersey Devils and Syracuse Blazers combined for an EHL record 31 goals as the Devils beat the Blazers 16-15. Below is more-or-less the Holy Grail of EHL boxscores.

It's possible that 31 goals is a professional hockey record. (Yes, the EHL was technically "amateur", but the players were paid and it was part of the NHL farm system.) I haven't found any larger score in any professional leagues, but minor leagues come and go and records are lost or hard to find. I also believe Tim McCormick's record 12 point night still stands across hockey. It's also possible that Reg Meserve's 4 minor penalties in the third period would at least tie a Devils' team record.

One of the problems of pasting together EHL history is that often hometown newspapers didn't publish on Sunday back then. The Camden Courier-Post, the Jersey Devils home paper was no exception. Since there was usually a Sunday game as well, Saturday's game many times scarcely got a mention and rarely a box score or picture in the Monday paper. In the case of the February 26, 1968 Camden Courier-Post it was also inaccurate as according to the box score, Gordie Stratton had 5 goals and only 1 assist, instead of the 5 goals and 5 asists the article states. Stratton's inaccurate total would have beaten the previous EHL record of 9 points in a game, set by Bill Purcell of the Baltimore Clippers in 1948. Note also that the Devils got shut out by New Haven loaner goalie Roger Wilson 6-0 the next night in spite of 43 shots on goal. Syracuse lost to the Johnstown Jets 11-4 on Sunday.

This game only tied a goal scoring record for Jersey. The Devils also scored 16 goals in a 16-7 victory over Jacksonville on January 19, 1965. The 23 combined goals is the largest previous EHL score I'm aware of.

Here's the scoring breakdown for the 16-15 game...

JERSEY DEVILS	G	A	Pts	PIM
Fred Bassi	3	4	7	0
Gordie Stratton	5	1	6	0
Lorne O'Donnell	2	4	6	0
Reg Meserve	1	5	6	10
Billy Christodal	2	3	5	0
Bobby Boucher	1	2	3	0
Wayne Kitchen	1	2	3	0
Don Rozich	1	1	2	0
Ray Crew	0	2	2	2
Ted Szydlowski	0	2	2	4
Andre Daoust	0	1	1	0
Bob Peters	0	1	1	4
Ron MacPherson	0	0	0	7

SYRACUSE BLAZERS	G	A	Pts	PIM
Tim McCormick	5	7	12	2
Ray Adduono	2	5	7	0
Joe Marich	4	2	6	0
John Chapman	2	2	4	15
Ed Skyhar	1	3	4	0
Wayne Caufield	1	2	3	0
Chris Finnerty	0	1	1	0
Bill Lastic	0	1	1	10

The one thing I've gained from trying to write about this amazing game is the need for centralized minor league hockey records. I personally need to create a Team and League Records page at http://TheEHL.com . This also shows that historical record keeping is not static, but ever changing during a league's run. It's just as important to know what the records are for, in this case, February 23, 1968 as they are for after the league has ended.


Discuss the game further with Syracuse forward (and former Devil) Wayne Caufield and other EHL players and fans at the Eastern Hockey League Facebook Group.

36 Years Ago Today - The EHL Dissolves into the NAHL and SHL

On April 12, 1973 the Syracuse Blazers won the EHL championship. As Ray Adduono skated around the rink with the Walker Trophy, it broke into three pieces. This was symbolic of what was about to happen to the EHL, splitting into three pieces (the NAHL, the SHL and the others) on May 1, 1973 at the last ever league meeting. Here's the AP Wire version of the story...

NEW YORK (AP) - The Eastern Hockey League, at its annual meeting in New York Tuesday, announced the formal dissolution of the EHL and the creation of two seperate leagues, one based in the north and the other operating out of the south, to fill the void.
The northern league, titled the North American Hockey League, plans to begin play this fall with a minimum of six teams. Charter members include the Cape Cod Cubs, Mohawk Valley Comets, Johnstown, Pa. Jets and the Binghamton, N.Y. Dusters. At least two additional NAHL entries are expected to be named shortly, with franchises from Rhode Island and Lewiston, Me. having the inside track. A Long Island entry is also a possibility. Cape Cod, Mohawk Valley and Johnstown were members of the now disbanded EHL. The NAHL, which is scheduled to begin a 74-game regular season Oct. 12, chose Jack Newkirk of Cape Cod as temporary chairman and Ed Stanley of Mohawk Valley as treasurer.
Earlier Tuesday, the Southern Hockey League was formed, with franchises granted to Charlotte, N.C., Greensboro, N.C., Winston-Salem, N.C., Roanoke Valley, Va. and St. Petersburg, Fla.

Binghamton and Lewiston had previously applied for EHL membership, and both were expected to be in the league for 1973-74.

It's interesting that Ed Stanley, who was the Clinton Arena manager who got Clinton into the league in 1954 became treasurer of the new NAHL. In 1973, Clinton had just been sold to a group of locals in a "Save the Comets" kind of deal. The new ownership, splitting the team between Clinton and Utica, renamed the team the Mohawk Valley Comets. Stanley was not one of the owners.

Of the teams not mentioned...
Syracuse Blazers owner Bill Charles had been angling all season to get into the AHL. They ended up back in the NAHL.
The Jersey Devils are a blog in themselves of things going wrong for them at that time. They were hoping for a northern division in the SHL or a southern division in the NAHL, neither of which happened. They were given two weeks to make a decision which league to join. In spite of the Philadelphia Blazers moving to Vancouver within that timeframe, the Devils never made it to the next season.
The Long Island Ducks, also affected by a local WHA franchise, had tried to fold at the end of the 1973 regular season - and even told the Devils to take their spot in the playoffs, before the league intervened and made the Ducks play. On May 24, 1973, the Long Island Cougars, under different ownership and as a farm team of the WHA Chicago Cougars, were accepted into the NAHL.
Rhode Island never made it to the gate.

In the south, Baltimore, Alabama were listed as possibilities for other first year franchises, but neither developed. The Macon Whoopees were added as the sixth SHL franchise that summer.