The New York Rangers developed because of the success of their predecessors in Manhattan, the New York Americans, the team which introduced big-league ice hockey to New York. What was needed to make hockey a big-league game was a push, which was provided by Canadian-born hockey writer William "Bill" MacBeth. He was on good terms with George Lewis "Tex" Rickard, a fight promoter, and William "Big Bill" Dwyer, a bootlegger. In 1924, the New York Life Insurance Company announced it was foreclosing the mortgage on the old Madison Square Garden. Rickard decided he would promote a new Garden, and he brought together a syndicate of businessmen to organize the new Madison Square Garden Corporation. He needed a new attraction, deciding that boxing would not be sufficient. He investigated hockey as a new attraction. It is actually Dwyer who purchased the Hamilton (Ontario) Tigers and who then rented the new Garden for the newly-named Americans. Rickard changed his mind about hockey and planned for a second team to compete with the Americans, angering Dwyer. Dwyer's wrath marked the start of "an extraordinarily keen rivalry between the Rangers and Americans" (Beddoes, Fischler, and Gitler 39).
Much of this rivalry included efforts by the management of the Garden to harass the Americans. The Rangers played their first game in 1926 and beat the Montreal Maroons. The team put together for the 1927-1928 season won America's first Stanley Cup, defeating the Montreal Maroons in the final (Beddoes, Fischler, and Gitler 39-40). The Rangers would not win the Stanley Cup again until the 1932-1933 season (Beddoes, Fischler, and Gitler 42). The Americans never did win the Stanley Cup, and in time, they began to lose money. They lost their backer when Dwyer went to prison for bootlegging. The Rangers on the other hand developed a strong new team in the late 1930s, and the Americans could not compete any longer (Beddoes, Fischler, and Gitler...