WAYNE GRETZKY / 1,852 POINTS : Howe Got Start in Old-Time Hockey : 1946-47: Toronto dethroned Montreal in NHL and the Los Angeles Monarchs were kings of the ice on West Coast.

In the National Hockey League season of 1946-47, when Gordie Howe was a rookie with the Detroit Red Wings, the game was far different from today’s.

There were only six teams in the NHL, instead of 21; there was only one league, instead of two conferences and four divisions; teams played 60 games, instead of 80; and only four of six teams made it into the Stanley Cup playoffs, instead of 16 of 21.

And things stayed that way a good while longer. It wasn’t until 1968 that the league expanded from its six original teams--the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks and Detroit Red Wings.

Maurice (The Rocket) Richard was the game’s major force. The Canadiens’ right wing was named to the all-star team eight times between 1945 and 1956, when Howe took over that honor. Richard was the most valuable player in 1947, when he led Montreal to its fourth consecutive league championship, although the Canadiens were upset by Toronto in the Stanley Cup finals.

Montreal had an advantage in those days, however, since a league rule gave the Canadiens the right to sign any French-speaking player before another club could talk to him. Since Quebec province was the main source of young players, the Canadiens flourished under this unique situation until the league initiated a draft.

One thing that has remained the same over the years, though, is the roughness of the game. Forty years ago there were the same complaints against dirty hockey as there are today.

Richard, a volatile, trigger-tempered French Canadian who was a native of Montreal, was often in the center of things. Or the instigator.

In the second game of the 1947 Stanley Cup series, after Montreal won the opener 6-0, Richard first cut the Maple Leafs’ Vic Lynn on the head with his stick and drew a major penalty, then later deliberately swung his stick at Bill Ezinicki, drawing a one-game suspension.

Toronto writers--TV was still a year or two away--were so critical of Richard’s play that they were barred from the Canadiens’ dressing room.

With their star on the sidelines, Montreal lost, 4-0 and 4-2, giving Toronto the series lead. When Richard returned, he apparently was on his good behavior and failed to score as Toronto won its third game, 2-1, in overtime. The Rocket got two goals as the Canadiens won their second game, 3-1, but Toronto won the cup before its home fans, 2-1, breaking Montreal’s dynasty.

With Richard on the all-star team were goalie Bill Durnan and defensemen Kenny Reardon and Emile Bouchard of the Canadiens, left wing Doug Bentley of Chicago and center Milt Schmidt of Boston. Howie Meeker, Toronto right wing, was rookie of the year.

Durnan, nearly as dominant as Richard, was named the league’s top goalie six seasons in a row between 1944 and ’50.

Max Bentley, Chicago’s center, won the scoring championship with 72 points to 71 for Richard when The Rocket failed to score in the final game of the season.

Phil Henderson, general manager of the Hollywood club of the Pacific Coast League, and Ray Lewis, a Hollywood contractor, made formal bids for a Los Angeles franchise at the league meeting in 1947 but were rejected. Clarence Campbell, the NHL president, said that “problems of transportation at this time prevented any commitment.”

Teams traveled by train then and it was a two-day trip to the West Coast.

Aside from that problem, interest in the NHL was minimal in Los Angeles in 1947. L.A. papers carried only bare results, and no stories, on NHL games during the season. During the Stanley Cup, the only story appearing in Los Angeles was one sentence after the final game:

TORONTO, April 19 AP--The Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup, emblematic of the world hockey championship, by nosing out the Montreal Canadiens, defending world champions, 2 to 1, before 14,346 partisan fans here tonight.

Of much more interest locally were the results of the Los Angeles Monarchs and the Hollywood Wolves, Pacific Coast League teams that played their games in the Pan-Pacific Auditorium.

The Monarchs, starring player-coach John Polich, defeated the Wolves, 3-0, in a five-game series to win the Southern Division title, and then swept the Portland Eagles, Northern Division winners, in four straight games. After that, the Monarchs traveled East to play the Boston Olympics for the the championship of the American Hockey Assn.

“We had to play all seven games in Boston because the travel was so impossible then,” Polich, who lives in Alhambra, recalled. “We lost in seven games, but to get there it took a day and a half by plane. We stopped in San Diego, Denver, Kansas City, Atlanta and Pittsburgh before we got to Boston.”

Polich was a cult hero of sorts to Southern Californians. He came West from Hibbing, Minn., to play college football and hockey for Loyola in the 1930s, when the Lions’ rivalry on the ice with USC was one of the hottest sports shows of the year.

“We used to sell out the Polar Palace and the Westwood Ice Gardens when we played Loyola,” recalls 86-year-old Arnold Eddy, who coached the Trojans from 1928 to 1941. “Then we played at the Pan-Pacific after it was built in 1938 and we filled it, too.”

The Polar Palace, on Van Ness Avenue in Hollywood, and the Pan-Pacific, on Beverly Blvd. next to CBS, both burned down, the Polar Palace in 1963 and the Pan last May. The Westwood Ice Gardens, an open-air facility designed to showcase Sonja Henie’s skating troupe, was located in Westwood Village before it succumbed to urban sprawl.

Los Angeles was a minor league city in those days, far removed from the Eastern sporting Establishment.

The Dodgers were not yet here, but there was plenty of Pacific Coast League baseball, with the Los Angeles Angels at Wrigley Field and the Hollywood Stars at Gilmore Field. It was the same with hockey, the Monarchs and the Wolves of the PCL each having a strong following.

Many of the Monarchs and Wolves were former USC or Loyola players who continued their collegiate rivalry after graduating.

“We had three teams out here--the Monarchs, the Wolves and the Pasadena Panthers,” said Polich, who spent two years with the New York Rangers between Loyola and the Monarchs. “We got most of our players from Minnesota and western Canada, up around Edmonton, Calgary and Moose Jaw. Most of them knew they’d never get to the NHL so they came down here.

“We had a few guys who had been in the NHL, too, like myself, Jack Keating, who played with Gordie Howe on the Red Wings, and Ching Johnson, who played defense for the Rangers for about 15 years. Ching came to L.A. for a vacation, watched us play, and signed up to play for the Wolves. He could still give you a lick. He hit me so hard a few times I think I can still feel the bruises today.”