There isn't much in terms of published material on this time frame in hockey history, but one of the really fascinating books from this time frame is Red Dutton's "Hockey: The Fastest Game on Earth." The book was published in 1938.
The information within isn't overly technical in terms of strategies deployed, but it still provides some unique insights by someone who was obviously very involved with the game at the time, and had experienced the previous era as well. The book reads as somewhat of an introduction to hockey for someone who would be new to the sport and wants to learn more. Much of the focus is on explaining the different positions and the on-ice roles of those players. I thought it would be interesting to jot down some of the information given by Red in the book. Each bullet point below is from the mouth of Red Dutton. Again, not overly technical stuff, but I still hope you enjoy and find some of it interesting.
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- Hockey is so fast today, and changes so suddenly, that if a man has his eyes for nothing but the puck, he will wind up with the light on his own net turned into a broken traffic light that is always red.
- In hockey, you must keep your mind and eyes on half a dozen things at the same time, and follow the puck by instinct. You have no time to think things out. Decisions are carried through simultaneously with the thought of them - so keep moving, keep punching!
- Your acts, paradoxically must be deliberate and yet delivered with the speed of light - and most of these actions must be continuous.
- Blinding speed is the basic fundamental of the game, but speed alone does not make a hockey player. He must be durable, able to give and take in a rough and tough hard-contact game, where a single thought of the dangers can make or break a fine player.
- Admitting the essentials of speed and endurance, there is another and just as important factor in hockey today, with its wide-open attack. That factor is finesse and deception, the art of stick-handling; for our players have a better understanding of the indispensable ability to feint, than competitors in any other sport - not excepting boxing.
- Upon your ability to outmaneuver the defense, depends your game; which is why I say you must keep your eyes and mind on half a dozen things at the same time. In no contest is deception a much an asset as in hockey. The complexion of affairs changes with such swiftness that instinct for the game must be developed as much as the ability to skate or handle a stick.
- Speed of skates and covering the attack completely are the basic fundamentals of a sound game of hockey. Obviously, without speed your team can have little more than a weak attack. Occasionally slow skaters can overcome this weakness with a sound defensive game, but holes can be punctured in a defense line when it lacks speed.
- Speed and the ability to change direction are the first fundamentals; because if you can't follow the play, you'll never get your stick on the puck, and so you'll never score goals. Mastery of this swinging turn is one of the greatest assets a hockey player can lay claim to; to master it the hockey player must make his own banks and learn to keep his balance without outside influence.
- Passing and shooting can be improved with strong forearms and powerful wrists. The power all emanates from the wrists. To my way of thinking, Charlie Conacher and Johnny Gallagher possess the fastest shots I've ever seen. Conacher could knock you off your skates with the tremendous drive he put behind a shot. Both of these men had exceedingly well developed forearm and wrists, which snapped like steel bands.
- In passing a puck, there is one cardinal point. Never pass a puck to a man who is covered; and never allow yourself to be covered for any length of time if you have the puck, or if you haven't. Pass the puck only when you when an advantage is to be gained by passing it.
- In shooting, the primary focus is to force the goalie to give you an opening. A good goalie is as cagey as the fastest skating forward in the game. A good goalie gets wise quickly, and your only chance is to pull him out of position and score.
- At all times try to shoot between six and eight inches off the ice. If there is a small opening - and the best a good goalie will ever give you is a peep of free cage - a
swift thrust from fifteen to eighteen feet out on the ice, and never more than half a dozen inches off of it, will give the goal keeper more trouble than any other shot.
- Accuracy in shooting can be promoted in only one way - by shooting. There is a legend built up around the name of Tommy Phillips, one of the old-time Kenora Thistles, which is more than a legend because many men active today in hockey remember Tommy. The story goes that Phillips was perhaps the most accurate shooter of that time or any other. He acquired his deadly aim by constant practice with a puck, stick, and an ordinary tomato can. He would bring the can out on the ice with him and set it up on a block of wood, eight to ten inches off the ice, and then pace off a dozen and a half feet from it. With astonishing accuracy he would batter the bottom from the can with shots into
it.
- Goaltenders must have a fine pair of hands - as quick and tough as they are big. He must be able to use them as efficiently as a big league first basemen. Complementing the quick hands must be eyes which are just as quick and twice as sure. No mistakes can be made in vision, for the goalie never gets two shots at a puck; if he does not sight it with the first look, there is no second chance.
- Defensemen are fearless citizens. When I first played hockey, defensemen were solely players who were used for body checking and blocking. Now, the trend in hockey has changed. The defense positions are farther up the ice and there are no unwritten laws or traditions riveting the defensemen back in the positions the held near the goal when they were known as the point and coverpoint. The best example of a player using this new style is Eddie Shore, who carries a big load of the Boston Bruins attack.
- The winning hockey team now is one with five forwards, somebody has said. For today the six-man lineup has more men on attacking zones than it ever had when we played seven men to a side.
- Five players up the ice is no longer an exaggeration. The defenseman now must be able to check and break from a standing start, and pass and shoot just as well as a man on the forward line.
- On defense, the ability to poke check is a required attribute, and if a team has a man gifted with the ability to poke and another dangerous body checker, then the defense is apt to be well balanced.
- The center will change the direction of the play almost as much as the defenseman. Usually, he is the first man to meet the play, and almost always he meets it in center ice. As the center meets the oncoming play, he becomes the most important man in your lineup, the playmaker, the man around whom your own attack will build itself if he can steal the puck.
- The defense abilities of a center in this important role will stand him in good stead, for as he breaks up the play with a body check, his ability to recover the puck and allow a team-mate to get into scoring position will help the offense of his own team beyond estimate.
- The attack swirls around the center. He is the apex around which most plays are started. In pro hockey, it is generally accepted that wings never cross the ice, but protect their own areas - which puts the burden of protecting center ice on the all-important center man. He must be the strongest man on your team and have the ability to skate with lightning speed. He must also be possessed of swivel hips as a broken field runner in football. He must also be fearless and not stopped by a mere body check.
- The wings should never unnecessarily roam from the alleys that run the length of the rink, from one corner to the other.
- Once, as a rule, it followed that left wings were left-handed shots and right wings were right-handed shots, but this is no longer the case.
- The best forwards are those who possess a good backhand shot, giving them the ability to score from either side.
- Wings must be exceptionally fast on their feet, and the fast break is an absolute essential of a good wingman. Full speed ahead in one stride is more necessary in a wing than any other player.
- The wings and center make or break a hockey club. They must be fast, gifted with the ability to make sudden decisions, and possess absolute mastery of passing, shooting, and receiving.
- Now, with the forward pass an accepted play in hockey, the forwards must be defense men as well as attacking forwards. The positions are interchangeable and with such rapidity that slow-witted, slow-footed men are lost in this fastest game on earth.
- Hockey has come a long way since the days when a defenseman rarely crossed the center zone of the ice. Now, with the forward pass, the defenseman go up the ice and mix up in the play until such time as they drop back and become safety forwards. But even then, they are at the blueline and not away back near their own net, waiting for the action to move toward them.
- Set plays and set shots are almost a rarity. In my years in hockey, I have seen only one team which appeared to have a set attack and a fixed set of plays designed to meet certain emergencies. It was, to my mind, the greatest passing combination that ever took the ice in the modern NHL. I mean that Boston Bruins team of 1929-1930, in which Art Ross whipped together a group of men which for short, fast and accurate passing was nothing short of brilliant. They passed the puck like a basketball team. That the Bruins of that era had a set passing attack goes without saying. But with a combination of men that can pass the puck into a fixed order of plays is a rarity. And when the men for such
a combination do come along, you do not often find them on the same team.
- The forward pass is the one feature that has contributed more than anything else to the terrific speed of hockey as it's played today. It is the essential feature of any attack, and absolute mastery of it must be acquired in order for any offense to function. It changed the style of hockey. It brought out the defense, it created a situation in which five forwards up the ice in the attacking zone is still fundamentally sound hockey, both offensively and defensively.
- The forward pass brought about situations which require the defensemen to become forwards, or safety forwards, rather than strictly point and coverpoint. The now stand near the blue line at the face-off, ready for the action to move away from the goal, and ready to become a part of the action.
- Another consideration of the attack is the possession of the puck. Here the dcenter's part is of first-grade importance. He is usually the apex of the attacking plays. He maneuvers the wings into position for a pass, he times the passing from one man to another, and generally speaking, he should be the best shot on the team. Much as the goalie runs the defense, the center should control the attack.
- In the game as it is played today the defensemen have their parts. Time was, when it was an infraction of the unwritten laws of the game for a coverpoint or point to sally into the opponent's defense zone; and I guess Lester Patrick was about the first player to do it. The tradition of no defensemen up the ice is a forgotten legend today; and the greatest exponents of the new style are the New York Rangers, managed by the old gray fox himself.
- The era of leaving the defensemen behind, useless to the offense, is definitely only a legend from the past. The era of the trailing man taking a pass, and the passing man dropping back and out of the play, is history.
- Chasing as many forwards into the attack as can get there, and with as much dispatch as conceivable, is the soundest attack.
- Rebounds off the goalkeeper, the goal posts, or the backboards, are the breaks which may contribute to a victory as much as anything. A set play in hockey, when a wing does not get an open from a goalie, is to drive the shot over the net, deliberately, and skate like the mischief back into the area at the rear of the net for a rebound and another chance to set up a scoring play.
