Mel Hill wasn’t exactly one of hockey’s superstars. He played first for the New York Rangers, but they thought he was too small, and they let him go. The Boston Bruins took a chance on Hill. He scored only ten goals his first season, but he made the team as a substitute.
As luck would have it, Boston met the Rangers in the 1939 Stanley Cup playoffs. It was a rugged seven-game series.
The first game went into overtime. The winning goal was pumped into the net by Mel Hill.
Two nights later, the Rangers and Bruins went into another overtime game. Eight minutes into the extra period, Boston got the winning goal. It was scored by Mel Hill.
The final game was the toughest of all. The teams were tired, and after two overtime periods the score was still deadlocked. In the third overtime period, after the Bruins and Rangers had been playing for 108 minutes, Boston got the winner. Mel Hill had scored again!
As a result of those three overtime goals in one playoff series, the former Ranger reject got a nickname that stuck for the rest of his life. He was called “Sudden Death” Hill.
From The Giant Book of Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
Endurance is king!