Melville Sydney "Butch" Keeling (August 10, 1905 – November 12, 1984) was a Canadian professional
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
player. A left winger, he played 12
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
seasons with the
Toronto St. Patricks/
Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Div ...
and the
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home ...
between 1926 and 1938.
Playing career
Keeling was born in
Owen Sound
Owen Sound ( 2021 Census population 21,612) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. The county seat of Grey County, it is located at the mouths of the Pottawatomi and Sydenham Rivers on an inlet of Georgian Bay.
The primary tourist attractio ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
and began his hockey career in his hometown, learning the game at Victoria Public School under the tutelage of principal Henry Kelso, for whom Owen Sound's Kelso Beach was named. Several Victoria students, including Keeling, eventually ended up playing for the city's junior club, the
Owen Sound Greys. He was a key member of the Greys when they captured their first
Memorial Cup
The Memorial Cup () is the national championship of the Canadian Hockey League, a consortium of three major junior ice hockey leagues operating in Canada and parts of the United States. It is a four-team round-robin tournament played between t ...
as Canadian junior hockey champions in 1924, scoring 37 goals and 46 points in 15 playoff games.
Keeling's pro career began in 1926–27 with the London Panthers of the
Canadian Professional Hockey League, although he was quickly elevated to the NHL's Toronto St. Patricks, with whom he had signed as a free agent on September 7, 1926. The St. Pats changed their name to the Maple Leafs later that season. Despite playing in only 30 of Toronto's 44 games, Keeling finished fourth in team scoring with 11 goals and 13 points, right behind fellow Owen Sound native
Hap Day
Clarence Henry "Happy" Day (June 14, 1901 – February 17, 1990), later known as Hap Day, was a Canadian professional hockey player who played 14 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Americans. Day enjoye ...
.
He repeated that showing in
1927–28, again placing right behind Day, but was traded to the New York Rangers on the eve of the
1928–29 season. He was traded to the New York Rangers on April 16, 1928, in exchange for Alex Gray. Keeling slumped to only six goals and nine points for the Rangers in 1928–29, although he did lead the league in playoff goals and points as the Rangers marched to the final against the
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team has been in existence since 1924, making t ...
. Boston swept the best-of-three series for its first Stanley Cup win. Among the victorious Bruins was
Cooney Weiland, who had starred with Keeling on the 1924 Greys.
Keeling continued to rebound in
1929–30, registering career bests in goals (19) and points (26). Once again, he ended up fourth in team scoring. The Rangers went back to the Cup final in
1931–32 against Toronto but were again swept aside. It was another bitter disappointment for Keeling to see even more of his old mates skating off with the Cup.
But he and his new club got revenge in a rematch
the following year, on April 13, 1933. Toronto's
Maple Leaf Gardens
Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building located at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was initially constructed in 1931 as an arena to host ice hockey games, though it has sinc ...
was the site of Game 4 of the 1933 Cup final, and the Rangers held a 2–1 lead in the best-of-five series. The contest was scoreless through three periods but was decided at the 7:33 mark of sudden-death overtime. According to an article which appeared in the April 24, 1933 edition of
Time magazine
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...
,
"''Butch Keeling took the puck at a face-off, whipped through the Toronto defense on the left side of the rink, made a pass all the way across the ice of which he later said: 'If I hadn't seen that Bill was there, I would have kept the puck myself.' Bill was Bill Cook, oldest active player on the Rangers, leading scorer of the National League ... (Cook) took the puck without breaking his stride, feinted to bring tall Lorne Chabot away from the Toronto net, then flipped the puck over Chabot's shoulder for the goal that ended the game 1 to 0, the series 3 to 1.''"
Keeling had finally won the Stanley Cup, but his finest campaign as a professional was still yet to come. In
1936–37 he led the Rangers with a career-high 22 goals (third in the league) and matched his previous career best with 26 points. He was fourth in team scoring for the fifth time (he never did place higher than fourth in any of his NHL seasons) and also posted high-water marks in the playoffs, notching three goals and five points as the Rangers advanced to a fifth and deciding game in the Stanley Cup final against the
Detroit Red Wings.
He left the NHL after the 1937–38 season and played one year with the
Philadelphia Ramblers
The Philadelphia Ramblers were a minor professional ice hockey team based in the Philadelphia Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Ramblers played for six seasons during the infancy of the American Hockey League from 1935 to 1941.
History
T ...
, a Rangers farm team in the
International-American Hockey League. Keeling was also the team's captain. He then became a player-coach with the Kansas City Greyhounds of the
American Hockey Association. Keeling later returned to the NHL, spending three seasons as a referee.
During Keeling's NHL career, he played in 526 regular season games, scoring 157 goals and 220 points. He added five goals and 11 points in 26 playoff contests.
He was 79 years old when he died suddenly at his
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
home in 1984. He is buried in
Park Lawn Cemetery
Park Lawn Cemetery is a large cemetery in the Etobicoke district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It currently has around 22,000 graves. It is managed by the Park Lawn Limited Partnership, which also runs five other cemeteries in Toronto. The cemetery ...
in that city.
In the 2009 book ''100 Ranger Greats'', the authors ranked Keeling at No. 45 all-time of the
901 New York Rangers who had played during the team's first
82 seasons.
Career statistics
Regular season and playoffs
References
External links
*
Butch Keeling on the New York Rangers' All-Time Roster
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keeling, Butch
1905 births
1984 deaths
Canadian ice hockey left wingers
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Kansas City Greyhounds players
London Panthers players
Memorial Cup winners
New York Rangers players
Ontario Hockey Association Senior A League (1890–1979) players
Philadelphia Ramblers players
Sportspeople from Owen Sound
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Maple Leafs players
Toronto St. Pats players