Friday, November 1, 1946, Toronto. The scene of the very first game in BAA history (the ancestor of the current NBA, which was born in 1949 when it merged with the NBL), Maple Leaf Gardens welcomes some 7,090 people on this fall evening in the province. of Ontario. Everyone crowded into the bays of the Canadian room, usually used for ice hockey meetings, to attend this historic poster (the only one scheduled that day) between the Toronto Huskies and the New York Knicks.
These are two of the league’s original eleven franchises, along with the St. Louis Bombers, Washington Capitols, Boston Celtics, Detroit Falcons, Pittsburgh Ironmen, Cleveland Rebels, Chicago Stags, Providence Steamrollers and the Philadelphia Warriors. Divided into two divisions (West and East) and bringing together 160 players (all white), they all played 60 games each, during this inaugural 1946/47 exercise.
First professional basketball league to organize its meetings in the major metropolises of the Midwest and Northeast of the United States (and Canada), under the impetus of the owners of the large halls, and then directed by the to commission Maurice Podoloff (until 1963), who then gave his name to the current MVP trophy, the BAA therefore chose the Huskies and the Knicks to take part in the first meeting in its history.
Three quarters of a century later, the NBA has chosen to face off against the Raptors and the Knicks (12:30 a.m. next night), but in New York and not Toronto this time, to celebrate this 75th anniversary with great fanfare. .
The Knicks, the first winners in history
History retains, in any case, that it was the Knicks who won on the field of the Huskies, after 48 minutes (divided into four quarters), on a final score which is today reached in l space of maximum three quarter-times (not to say two): 68-66!
Led in particular by Leo Gottlieb (14 points), the New York franchise had been able to resist 18 points from Ed Sadowski (coach/player from Toronto!), as well as 16 units from George Nostrand. Note that the Italian Hank Biasatti became the first non-American to walk on a BAA (or NBA) court.
History also records that it was Ossie Schectman, then New York’s point guard, who scored the league’s first basket. Without imagining that it would be the first of a long, very long list, since there are, to date, precisely 4,907,937 baskets!
” Back then, none of us could imagine what this league would become », confided Ossie Schectman in 2010, three years before his death. ” We didn’t know if it was going to work, if it was going to yield anything. »
Free ticket for the “giants”!
For the little anecdote, know that anyone taller than the pivot of the Huskies, George Nostrand (2m03), could enter… free (!) at Maple Leaf Gardens, but that no spectator tall enough had shown up to enjoy the offer, while a bagpipe group, which still exists elsewhere: the “48th Highlanders of Canada Pipes & Drums” was performing that evening. Otherwise, you had to pay between 0.75 and 2.50 dollars to obtain a ticket, or between 10 and 35 current dollars taking into account inflation.
A whole different era. This is also evidenced by the fact that salaries were so low that players had to work during the off-season, and that the accounts of all the teams were very quickly in the red.
However, this did not prevent Joe Fulks’ Warriors from winning the first title in history at the end of the campaign, against the Stags (4-1). Just before the BAA only counts eight franchises in its ranks, at the start of the 1947/48 financial year, due in particular to the disappearance of the Huskies (only one short season in the league). Huskies who, despite their defeat and their rapid extinction, nevertheless remain an iconic team, thanks to their participation in this first meeting of all time.
Photo: DR
