Curse of 1940

The Curse of 1940, also called Dutton's Curse, was a superstitious explanation for why the National Hockey League (NHL)'s New York Rangers did not win the league's championship trophy, the Stanley Cup, from 1940 through 1994.

The Rangers began play in the 1926–27 season and won a division title in their first season of existence and a Stanley Cup against the Montreal Maroons in their second. They would win two more Cups in 1932–33 and 1939–40, defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs both times.

During the 1939–40 season, the mortgage on the Rangers' home arena, the third Madison Square Garden (built in 1925), was paid off. Hence, the management of the Madison Square Garden Corporation symbolically burned the mortgage in the bowl of the Cup. This led some hockey fans to believe that the Cup, which is regarded almost as a sacred object, had been "desecrated", leading the "hockey gods" to place a curse on the Rangers.

Another theory is that the supposed curse came from Red Dutton, the coach and general manager of the New York Americans, for whom he had once played. The Amerks were actually the first NHL team to play in New York City, beginning play as soon as the Garden opened for the 1925–26 season. However, their original owner, bootlegger Bill Dwyer, found the going difficult with the end of Prohibition, and the NHL took over ownership of the team in 1937. They made five playoff appearances, including a quarterfinal loss to the Rangers in 1928–29 and a quarterfinal win over the Rangers in 1937–38. However, after beating the Rangers, the Americans fell to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Chicago Black Hawks in the 1938 semifinals, the closest they ever came to winning the Cup.

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