Recap
The 1910–11 NHA season was the second season of the now defunct National Hockey Association. The Ottawa Hockey Club won the league championship. Ottawa took over the Stanley Cup from the Montreal Wanderers and defended it against teams from Galt, Ontario, and Port Arthur, Ontario.
The Shamrocks resigned from the league and were not replaced. The Club Athletique-Canadien and the Quebec Hockey Club were granted franchises. Haileybury and Cobalt left the league. Club-Athletique-Canadien had made a claim on the Canadiens name and threatened a lawsuit if they were not granted a franchise. There are three written descriptions of this transaction. Coleman(1966) writes that George Kennedy, president of the CAC bought the Haileybury franchise. In Andy O'Brien's book, Ambrose O'Brien is quoted as saying that he sold the Canadiens to Kennedy. In Holzman's book, the franchise was given to Kennedy, but Kennedy had to pay O'Brien for the rights to Newsy Lalonde. In The Globe of March 7, 1911, it is claimed that Lalonde's sale was the first ever sale of a player.
The NHA decided to impose a $5,000 per team salary cap.
The salary cap of $5000 per club caused a situation where Bruce Stuart of Ottawa threatened a mass defection to a new league. However, the players found that the Arena Company, owners of the Montreal Arena would not rent to the players. There was no other suitable arena in Montreal available for a new league and the players had no choice but to abandon the effort. Some players took a large cut in salary: Marty Walsh, Fred Lake and Dubbie Kerr were paid $600 each where they had been paid $1200 each in 1910. The dispute caused the cancellation of a pre-season exhibition series in New York for the Ottawas and Wanderers.
Games were changed from two periods of 30 minutes, to three periods of twenty minutes, with ten-minute rest periods. The Spalding hockey puck was adopted as the standard puck.
I sincerely appreciate the research work, and the information being shared. It is important and interesting history.