Northwest International Hockey League history and statistics

The Northwest International Hockey League was a Senior Amateur Hockey League that operated during the 1943-44 season. It was based in two cities in the Pacific Northwest: Seattle and Portland. A third city was represented - Vancouver BC - however the team was a road-only team so the league never actually played in Vancouver.

The NIHL grew out of the prior year's Seattle City Hockey League, with the organizers of that league inviting in the Portland and Vancouver teams. The league was still effectively an industrial league, with most players holding down jobs at the wartime factories in Seattle and Portland. Games were only played on Sunday nights. Teams were sponsored by local businesses such as Isaacson Iron Works or Boeing. A fair number of the players had played professionally, mostly in prior leagues of minor professional hockey in the same cities, but due to the war, were working in the local factories or were stationed at local military bases.

The rosters of... [Click for more] the teams were fairly fluid because players had trouble getting off work to travel to away games. Some of the military players were transferred suddenly as well. In many instances players were loaned from one team to another for a single game. There was some recruitment of players from Canada - mostly the Vancouver area - but many of the players were local to the Seattle and Portland areas, with some having played in the Seattle City Hockey League the prior season.

There was one very famous player who made an appearance - Johnny Pesky, reknowned baseball star. Pesky was from Portland and had a penchant for hockey, something the Boston Red Sox discouraged out of fear of injury. However, in 1943, Pesky had joined the Army, and while home on leave, played in a single game, scoring a goal, an assist, and a penalty.

As teams moved towards the playoffs, they attempted to bolster their rosters by signing Canadian players. This strategy sometimes backfired - there was a roster limit, and a player had to be released before another was signed. On occassion, a more skilled Canadian player would be signed, but could then not commit to playing in a game, causing the team that signed him to release a decent player, and then have to scrounge up someone else on short notice.

Toward the end of the season, a "wildcat" team from Los Angeles "raided" the NIHL and signed away several of its key players. In addition, several league players were also playing senior hockey in Canada, notably for the New Westminster Airliners. When that team made the Allen Cup playoffs, some of the players could no longer commit to playing in the NIHL.

The league was transformed into the Pacific Coast Hockey League for the following (1944-45) season, merging with teams from the Southern California Hockey League to form a league that truly spanned the Pacific Coast.