Talk:History of the National Hockey League (1917–1942)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:History of the National Hockey League (1917–1942)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review. Any comments are welcome during the review LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 05:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC) GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

   Per WP:ENGVAR the article should be in either British English or American English. I would recommend British English, as the NHL was mostly in Canada at the time.

Checked, and now passing

1. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

2. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Covers Canadian teams as well as American teams evenly.

   B. Focused:

3. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

4. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

   History looks fine

5. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

6. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   On Hold

Passed

I've checked for consistency in dialect, and by my eye, it appears to consistently use Canadian English. i.e.: words like colour, honour, defence and offence are spelled using Brtish style, and words like "regularize" are spelled with the -ize suffix rather than -ise. These are both consistent with Canadian spellings. Are there any specific words or passages you are concerned with? Thanks! Resolute 14:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations the article is now a good article. LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 19:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

logos

The logos used during the era part of this article covers may be out of copyright, (but would fall under trademark). If someone has access to them, they may be usable in this article, such as the 1917 NHL logo Fasach Nua (talk) 11:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The information on File:NHL Logo former.svg listed that as the logo from 1918 through 2005, which is supported by this page (if reliable). Based on that, I updated the copyright status on the file description page (pre-1923 publication means it's public domain in the US). It's possible that it's also public domain in Canada (and since that's the source country, that would make it public domain in much of the world -- any country that uses the rule of the shorter term). I think the salient questions are 1) was this a "work for hire" (if so, copyright duration was 50 years from publication and it expired 1/1/1969), and if not, 2) when did the creator die (copyright duration of 50 years pma would apply in this case, so if the creator was dead before 1/1/1962 it would now be public domain in Canada). cmadler (talk) 13:52, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Sources and topic coverage

I think there are several topics that could be added to this to make it more complete and accurate.

• There is no mention of Thomas Duggan's role in expansion
• The Toronto ownership before Leafs is incomplete and inaccurate - Paul Ciceri, the Hambly brothers, J.P. Bickell and Nathan Nathanson were also involved.
• The "competition" with PCHA and WCHL needs definition - they had inter-league agreements that controlled the competition in the NHL era (compared to NHA)
• The relationship to minor leagues needs inclusion - esp. the AHA, which brought in James Norris
• Detroit's experience in the Depression could be added
• There is no mention of role of Frank Calder, or anything about owner relations, revenue sharing, or the changing organization of the league
• The references (of some necessity) focus on popular histories that are mostly derivative of each other or Charles Coleman's seminal Trail of the Stanley Cup. Many of these issues could be resolved by using Wong's Lords of the Rinks (2005) at least. Wong's dissertation is referenced but has not been used to address several of these issues.
• As to bias, the article is rather Canada-centric. For example, the Forum and Maple Leaf Gardens were only two of the rinks built in this era, and Madison Square Garden, Boston Garden, Detroit Olympia and Chicago Stadium also need to be acknowledged.
• I wonder if Bailey and Morenz merit separate sections. There are more important issues. If they are to be included, they should refer to the impact on the NHL - Bailey incident threatened Calder's power; Morenz' funeral shows the cultural impact of the league.
• McLaughlin's All-American team is not worthy of inclusion; it was a minor event of little impact.
• Also, there is little here on wartime - use the Ross article in John Wong's Coast to Coast (2009)

Until these issues are addressed (by myself or others) the feature article status is probably not appropriate. Hoghee (talk) 04:11, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

• Hrm. Well, a great deal of what you feel ought to be in there is a POV issue. For one thing, what is your basis for believing Wong's book to be superior to and more accurate than others? (Come to think about it, there are nine citations to a work of Wong's compared to a single citation to Coleman.) What makes revenue sharing seminal to this period? Why, exactly, does the league's relationship to the minors require inclusion? And so on and so forth.

  Certainly any work you would like to do on the article would be welcome - it doesn't appear that you have, to date - but your list seems more reflective of "This isn't the article I would have written myself" than any consensus of what elements are more important than others. Ravenswing 06:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

• Some good suggestions, but also some that are a bit too specific for this article. I do find it somewhat ironic that you argue the article is Canada-centric (unavoidable, given the league was founded in and dominated by Canadians in its first years), yet also argue for the removal of the All-American team section. In the case of Bailey especially, I think it merits its inclusion. It remains an infamous act of violence, and spawned the first all-star game. If you feel you can add a bit on the impact to Calder from your sources, please do. On the other hand, how relevant is the random ownership changes of one franchise (i.e.: Toronto)? Smythe and Livingstone's importance should be self-evident, but of the names you list, I am not sure there is any great need to add them. Some of your other suggestions are very good - i.e.: the business aspects of the league wrt revenue sharing and the like, but I actually think it might make more sense to rename NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement to something like Business history of the NHL and expand to cover the league's history as a companion article to this and that of the lockouts/strikes. Resolute 17:11, 18 March 2012 (UTC)