Philadelphia Quakers (NHL)

The Philadelphia Quakers were a professional ice hockey team that competed for a single full season in the National Hockey League, 1930–31, based at the Philadelphia Arena. They took over from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Pirates, the third U.S.-based NHL team, began well, reaching the playoffs in two of their first three seasons. But the team struggled both in performance and attendance. A sale to bootlegger Bill Dwyer did not improve matters. After the 1929 Wall Street crash and the onset of the Great Depression, the owners sold off star players to stay afloat.

By the end of the 1929–30 season, the team was $400,000 in debt. Their home, the Duquesne Garden, built in 1890, was outdated; with only 5,000 seats (and standing room for 8,000), it was the smallest arena in the league. Boxing promoter Benny Leonard, acting for Dwyer, requested a temporary move to Philadelphia as the Quakers—named for the Quaker religious community’s role in founding the city and state—until a new arena could be built in Pittsburgh.

Things did not improve in Philadelphia. Financial troubles continued. On the ice, the Quakers were hopeless. They needed three games to score a goal and three more to get their first win, a 2–1 victory over the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs on November 25, 1930.

They finished with a dreadful 4–36–4 record. Their .136 winning percentage was the lowest in NHL history, a mark that stood for 45 years until the Washington Capitals posted a .131 percentage in 1974–75. The four wins tied the 1919–20 Quebec Bulldogs for the fewest by a team playing a full season. They had the worst offense (76 goals for) and worst defense (184 goals against) in the league.

At the end of the 1930–31 season, the Quakers and the Ottawa Senators both announced they would not field a team for 1931–32, leaving Philadelphia without an NHL team until the Flyers arrived in 1967. The Flyers adopted the Quakers’ orange and black colors, though ironically inspired by the Texas Longhorns.

While the Senators returned for two years before moving to St. Louis, the Quakers franchise never played again. At each of the next five NHL governors’ meetings, they announced they were suspending operations for that season. The franchise was officially canceled on May 7, 1936, when it became clear no new arena would be built in Pittsburgh soon.