Advertisement

F.W. (Nick) Kahler: Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Class of 1963

Pioneer of hockey and the Sportsmen's Show.

November 20, 2019 at 3:14AM
Nick Kahler, Excelsior: I had managed to save $3,500 and in 1937 bought the Minneapolis hockey club. It won the championship, but I lost $19,000. I sold the club and paid the money back from profits on the Sports man's show in 1938. Minneapolis Star Tribune
F.W. (Nick) Kahler, shown in 1938, was a hockey standout before becoming a promoter. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

F.W. (Nick) Kahler's first connection with hockey began in 1905 at the age of 13, when he leased and operated an indoor rink in his hometown of Dollar Bay, Mich.

He was 16 when he broke into professional hockey with the Edmonton Eskimos — one of the first Americans to be recruited to play for a Canadian team.

In 1913, he became the player/coach of the St. Paul Athletic Club. He led the team in scoring as it won the McNaughton Cup in 1916. He was named to the 1920 U.S. Olympic team but, because of financial reasons, did not play.

Kahler's playing days ended in 1928, but through various promotions and enterprises he saved enough money to buy the Minneapolis Millers hockey franchise. After the Millers won a league championship in 1938, Kahler sold the team to concentrate on his promotion business.

As a promoter, Kahler was inexhaustible. He put on Minnesota's first amateur boxing tournament and the Northwest Sports Show.

F.W. (NICK) KAHLER

Class: 1963.

Sport: Hockey.

Teams/business: St. Paul Athletic Club, Minneapolis Millers, U.S. Olympic team, The Northwest Sports Show, Golden Gloves boxing tournament.

Advertisement
Advertisement
about the writer

about the writer

Joel Rippel

News Assistant

Joel Rippel writes about sports for the Star Tribune.

See Moreicon

More from Minnesota Star Tribune

See More
In this photo taken Monday, March 6, 2017, in San Francisco, released confidential files by The University of California of a sexual misconduct case, like this one against UC Santa Cruz Latin Studies professor Hector Perla is shown. Perla was accused of raping a student during a wine-tasting outing in June 2015. Some of the files are so heavily redacted that on many pages no words are visible. Perla is one of 113 UC employees found to have violated the system's sexual misconduct policies in rece

We respect the desire of some tipsters to remain anonymous, and have put in place ways to contact reporters and editors to ensure the communication will be private and secure.

card image
Advertisement
Advertisement

To leave a comment, .

Advertisement