After the start of hockey in Hungary the 1930s had great achievements in the sport (champions at the world university games, a draw against Canada), but the highlight of the decade was the start of the Hungarian championship in 1937.
At the start of the decade more and more hockey clubs were started, joining BBTE, Ferencváros and MHC were MUE, AHC, MAFC and BEAC. The 1930 World Championships in Chamonix, France were memorable, not because of what happened on the ice. The weather was unusually warm and the ice started to melt, the teams had packed up as the the tournament was going to be called off. The teams were literally pulled off the trains in the last minute when it was announced that the tournament was back on.
Hungarian players on the European Select team
One of the best Hungarian players, Sándor Minder was selected to the All-Europe team in 1930 by the international federation, the European select team was defeated by Ottowa by the score of 5-0. At the Krynica World Championships Hungary was in the same group as as the Czechs, who won the game, however Hungary defeated England, Romania and France to finish in seventh place.
Hungary had an opportunity to travel to the 1932 games, however the leadership at the time thought it would be too expensive and the national team did not compete.
University Games
The tournament was organized in Bardonecchia, Italy, Hungary started off with wins against the host nation and against the Czech Republic and made it to the finals. The weather prevented the championship game to be played, because of having a better group stage record Hungary was awarded the gold medal at the tournament.
At the World Championships in Prague that year Hungary faced Canada in the knockout stage and came up on the short side of a 3-1 result. An interesting story was that Háray was not allowed to travel with the team by his high school because his grades in Latin were not satisfactory.
Historical draw against Canada
During the 33-34 season the Canadian player-coach, John “Skinny” Dewar arrived on the ice of the City Park, who worked as an assistant coach for the national team besides working for BKE. It is thanks to him that after the failure of previous years Canada finally made a visit to Hungary as they prepared for the World Cup and played two exhibition games.
The first game was held before a relatively small crowd of 1700 in cold weather. Our players put away personal fame and fought together as a team. We have to admit that Canada stepped onto the ice after a day’s tiring travel, but Hungary worked hard to deserve a tie. Experts highlighted the play of our almost legendary goalkeeper, Hircsák. The following day we were not able to repeat the sensational result: Canada won by the score of 7-0.
At the World Championships, Hungary had the chance to play against yet another big gun: this time around against Sweden. We lost 3-0, and it says it all, that goalkeeper Hircsák was selected as the best player of our team. His excellent performance is best described by foreign reports that the Swedes thought he was the best netminder they had faced.
The first Hungarian championship
In 1937 the federation final organized a national championship in Hungary, naturally things did not go as smoothly as planned. Three teams, BKE, BBTE and FTC showed their determination to participate, plus Debrecen, which turned out to be the only team from the countryside, because of this they were unable to participate. Fradi (nickname for the team FTC) signed a Canadian player by the name of Frank Stapleford during his trip to Switzerland. Long debates went on as to whether or not they could have a foreign player on the roster. It was finally decided that they could not, so FTC withdrew from the competition. Because of this BKE entered a second team in the championship. The first game was played on January 15, 1937.
BKE I. – BKE II. 18-3 (4-3, 8-0,-6-0) Referees: F. Minder, Lator
BKE I.: Halász – Hubai, Békéssy – Jeney, Miklós, Róna. Substitutes: Lónyay, Margó
BKE II.: Hazai – Halmai, Hűvös P. – Hűvös I., Ott, Székely. Substitutes: Huber, Minder II., Farkas II.
The first goal in the championship was scored by István Hűvös.
The championship could ultimately not be finished because of the foreign obligations of the national teams and the clubs. Thus BKE’s first team won the championship ahead of the BBTE after the first round.
Tie against Canada at the World Championship
Hungary played against Canada again in the quarterfinals of the World championship in Prague. A win would have meant a spot in the semifinals for Hungary, but no one could have hoped for that against the title holder. After having allowed a goal in the middle of the first period Hungary did not collapse but was able to equalize in the very last minute. In the following period the Hungarian attacks kept on and they were able to tie the game. On top of that, a penalty shot was called against Canada, but Jeney missed the shot. In the third period we needed our goalie’s excellent skills, but Róna missed a scoring chance in the last minute of the game. The tie was evaluated by the press as the greatest achievement of Hungarian ice hockey so far and the biggest surprise of the World Championship. Géza Lator, Head Coach of the Hungarian team, was mostly proud of the fact that two penalties were called against Canada in the last period for delaying the game.
