A Great Buy

Following the death of owner George Kennedy (also known as George Kendall) in 1921, the Canadiens franchise was put up for sale. There were three bidders for the club. In addition to the trio of Messrs. Dandurand, Cattarinich, and Letourneau, Tom Duggan came forward representing the Mount Royal Arena and Frank Calder, NHL president, spoke for a group from Ottawa.

Calder pleaded with Kennedy's widow not to sell the franchise until he could contact his principals in Ottawa. It seems they were on a hunting trip, miles away from a telephone. Calder apparently had been authorized to bid $8,500 on their behalf. Dandurand and his partners were also out of town, doing racetrack business in Cleveland. Their representative at the auction was Cecil Hart, a prominent Montreal businessman. He'd been authorized to bid $10,000 for the club.

Tom Duggan impressed the widow Kennedy by placing ten crisp new bills on the table, each of $1,000 denomination. "It's a huge sum of money to pay for a hockey team," he said, "but I'm prepared to do it."

Cecil Hart spoke up before Mrs. Kennedy could stash the bills in her purse. "Let me call Mr. Dandurand in Cleveland and see if he'll agree to increase Mr. Duggan's offer," he suggested. Hart suspected the Dandurand group was about to lose out on the investment of a lifetime.

When Hart called, Dandurand told him to keep on bidding but to use his own good judgement, reminding him that $11,000 was a lot to pay for a hockey team.

Hart returned to the meeting room and told Mrs. Kennedy and her representative that the Dandurand group would offer $11,000 and not a penny more.

When Mrs. Kennedy turned to Duggan, he shook his head, "No, no, it's too much," he said, sweeping his bills off the table. "I'm not going to get involved in a bidding war with the Dandurand group." And he stormed from the room.

Did the Dandurand group celebrate their triumph? Not at all. For some reason, Ceccil Hart didn't contact them until the following day. Only then did they learn that they owned an NHL hockey team - the most famous one of all. And it wasn't until the following season, when the team showed a profit of $18,000, that they realized what a wonderful bargain they'd made.

Many years later the club was sold to the Canadian Arena Company for $165,000. That too proved to be a real bargain.