April 30, 1945: The 1st Hockey Hall of Fame Election

James T. Sutherland

April 30, 1945: The first election for the Hockey Hall of Fame is held, in Toronto. It is announced at the National Hockey League's offices, since the Hall does not yet have a physical location, and won't until 1961.

The Hockey Hall of Fame was established through the efforts of James T. Sutherland, a former president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA). Sutherland sought to establish it in Kingston, Ontario, as he believed that the city was the birthplace of hockey. (The evidence is murky: It could also have been in Montreal, or in Canada's Maritime Provinces.)

In 1943, the NHL and CAHA reached an agreement that a Hall of Fame would be established in Kingston. Originally called the "International Hockey Hall of Fame," its mandate was to honor great hockey players and to raise funds for a permanent location.

The 1st 9 "honoured members" were, in chronological order:

* Horace "Hod" Stuart, star of America's 1st great professional team, the Pittsburgh Bankers, and a member of the Montreal Wanderers' 1907 Stanley Cup winners, shortly before his death in a diving accident.

* Frank McGee, star of the Ottawa Silver Seven team that won the Stanley Cup in 1903, 1904, 1905 and 1906. 

* Harvey Pulford, who also played for those Silver Seven teams.

* Tommy Phillips, star of one of the greatest upset wins in hockey history, the 1907 Stanley Cup win of the Kenora Thistles.

* Georges Vezina, for whom the NHL's top goaltender award was named, backstop of the Montreal Canadiens' Stanley Cup winners of 1916 and 1924. 

* Hobart "Hobey" Baker, amateur star at Princeton University, the 1st American ever elected, and the only non-Canadian among the charter inductees.

* Eddie Gerard, who played for several Ottawa teams, including the Ottawa Senators' Stanley Cup winners of 1920, 1921 and 1923.

* Howie Morenz, "the Babe Ruth of Hockey," who led the Montreal Canadiens to win the Stanley Cup in 1924, 1930 and 1931.

* Charlie Gardiner, goaltender who fought through what turned out to be a fatal illness to help the Chicago Black Hawks win the 1934 Stanley Cup.

It wasn't just Gardiner: All of them were already dead. McGee had died in combat in World War I, while Baker had died in a training accident in service after the Armistice. Vezina died of tuberculosis in 1926, while still an active player. Pulford had died in 1940, at age 65, the only one to have lived anything resembling a long life.

In addition, the 1st 2 "Builders" were elected: Frederick Stanley, the 16th Earl of Derby, who, as Governor-General of Canada in 1893, had donated the Stanley Cup; and H. Montagu Allan, who had founded the Allan Cup, awarded since 1909 to Canada's annual amateur hockey champions. Hall of Fame founder Sutherland had donated the Memorial Cup in 1919, as a tribute to the dead of World War I, for the championship of Canadian "major junior hockey." He would be elected in the Hall's 2nd class, in 1947.

There would be no physical Hockey Hall of Fame until 1961, when it opened at Exhibition Place in Toronto. It was moved to the former Bank of Montreal building in downtown Toronto in 1993.

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April 30, 1945 was a Monday. It was the day that Adolf Hitler performed his one service to humanity: Killing Hitler. I have a separate entry for that event.

The National Football League was in its off-season. The National Hockey League had already completed its season, with the Toronto Maple Leafs having won the Stanley Cup. And the National Basketball Association wouldn't begin play for another year and a half. And it was a Monday, a travel day in Major League Baseball. No games were played.

January 21, 1907: The Kenora Thistles Win the Stanley Cup

The 1907 Kenora Thistles. Notice that the Stanley Cup

is little more than a bowl at this point.

January 21, 1907: The Kenora Thistles win the Stanley Cup. If you've never heard of them, that's probably due to the distance of time. Maybe they would have stood out more if they still used the name their city used until 1904: Rat Portage.

The history of the name extends beyond the time of white settlers arriving in the region. The name Rat Portage had its origin in the Ojibwa name Waszush Onigum, which, roughly translated, means portage to the country of the muskrats. A shortened and somewhat corrupted version, Rat Portage, was adopted by the Hudson’s Bay Company in naming their post, then located on Old Fort Island on the Winnipeg River. When the post was moved to the mainland and a town grew up around it, the name Rat Portage was assumed by the community.

The town of Rat Portage was renamed in 1905 by using the first two letters of itself and the neighboring towns of Keewatin and Norman to form the City of Kenora. According to Canada's 2021 Census, it has a population of 14,967. It was roughly the same in 1907, so it was, and remains, the smallest municipality ever to win the Stanley Cup.

It is on the Lake of the Woods in southwestern Ontario, 1,160 miles northwest of Toronto. It's considerably closer to Winnipeg, Manitoba: 130 miles east. It's 135 miles northwest of the U.S. border crossing at International Falls, Minnesota; 250 miles northeast of Grand Forks, North Dakota; 300 miles northwest of Duluth; 330 miles northeast of Fargo; and 430 miles north of Minneapolis. In other words, it's one of those places that nobody discovers by accident: You have to want to go there.

The Rat Portage Thistles were founded in 1894, and changed their name to the Kenora Thistles with the city. The players chose "Thistles" because they were mostly of Scottish heritage. For distance reasons, they joined the Manitoba Hockey Association instead of the Ontario Hockey Association. They won league titles in 1901, 1903 and 1905. In 1903 and 1905, they challenged the Ottawa Hockey Club for the Stanley Cup, but lost both times.

They were MHA Champions again in 1906, but scheduling issues meant that they couldn't challenge the Montreal Wanderers, who had dethroned Ottawa, until January 1907. Taking advantage of the new professionalism of their league, the club hired Art Ross and Joe Hall from the Wheat City Hockey Club of Brandon, Manitoba. (Since 1936, that city has had a junior team called the Brandon Wheat Kings.)

So the Thistles took the ice with Eddie Giroux in goal, Art Ross and Silas "Si" Griffis on defense, former Ottawa star Harry "Rat" Westwick as "rover" (hockey was 7-a-side back then), and a forward line of Billy McGimsie centering team Captain Tommy Phillips on the left and Roque "Roxy" Beaudro on the right.

The Wanderers, nicknamed "the Little Men of Iron," and also mostly staffed by Scots, had William "Riley" Hern in goal, Rod Kennedy and William Hodgson "Hod" Stuart on defense, Captain Lester Patrick as rover, and Ernie Russell centering Ernie "Moose" Johnson on the left and Frank "Pud" Glass on the right. Jack Marshall was a spare player. Center Cecil Blachford was injured in their previous series against Ottawa.

It was a two-games-total-goals series, with both games played at the Montreal Arena. On January 17, 1907, the Thistles won, 4-2. On January 21, the Thistles won again, 8-6. So the Thistles swept, and won, 12 goals to 8.

On their return to Kenora later in January, the Thistles were warmly received: A reception at the Opera House saw each player given a commemorative cup by the city, among other gifts. The team's dire financial situation meant that an admission was charged for the celebratory banquet, unusual for similar events at the time.

There were signs of improved finances, though. The owners of the Victoria Rink, where the team played, stated their intention to build a 4,000 to 5,000-seat replacement rink. This would have made it the largest rink west of Toronto, and dwarfed the 1,000-seat Victoria Rink then in use. This was suggested as a solution to the team's financial issues, since they would earn a portion of each ticket sold.

Since the Cup was still a challenge trophy, the Thistles were challenged by Brandon Wheat City. In games played at the Winnipeg Auditorium, the Thistles won 8-6 on March 16, and 4-1 on March 18. The Wanderers challenged the Thistles right after this, and objected to the conditions at the Victoria Rink, so the games were again played at the Winnipeg Auditorium. The Wanderers won on March 23, 7-2. The Thistles won on March 25, 6-5, but this was not enough, as the Wanderers won on aggregate, 12 goals to 8.

Following the tradition that had already been established with the Cup's introduction in 1893, the Wanderers had their names engraved on the Cup. Unlike previous winners, who wrote on the side of the bowl, the Wanderers had the result and their players' names engraved inside it, on the bottom of the bowl. The inscription is still there today.

Beaudro, Geroux and McGimsie retired before the 1907-08 season. Tommy Phillips was signed by Ottawa. Unable to compete with rising professionalism, and unable to get the new arena they were told they would get from the city, the Thistles fell apart, and folded at the end of the season.

Ross, Hall, Griffis, McGimsie, Phillips, Hern, Stuart, Patrick, Russell, Johnson, Marshall and Blachford would all be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Ross and Patrick were elected as players, but would become better known as coaches and executives, with the Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers, respectively. Phillips and Stuart were among the charter inductees into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1945.

A new Kenora Thistles played in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League from 1926 to 1940. Another played from 1952 to 1959, winning an intermediate amateur title in 1953. The Kenora Muskies were founded in the MJHL in 1968, won a regular-season title before losing in the Playoffs in 1971, changed their name to the Kenora Thistles in 1975, and folded in 1982.

Yet another Kenora Thistles played in a league named Hockey Northwestern Ontario, founded in 2006, and won division titles in 2010, '11 and '12, before folding  in 2016. The current Thistles play in the Manitoba U-18 AAA Hockey League.

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January 21, 1907 was a Monday. There were no other scores on this historic day: Baseball and football were out of season, and basketball was all-amateur.

January 2, 1908: The Hod Stuart Benefit Game

January 2, 1908: A benefit game is played for the family of the late Hod Stuart. It is generally considered to be hockey's first all-star game.

William Hodgson Stuart was born on February 20, 1879 in Ottawa, Ontario, the capital of Canada. He played football for the Ottawa Rough Riders, but hockey was his best sport. After playing for teams in Ontario, he and his younger brother, Bruce Stuart, helped to introduce professional hockey to America, playing for the Pittsburgh Bankers, winning a league title in 1903.

Noted for his clean play, he was unhappy with the violence in American games, and, at the end of 1906, signed with the best team in Canada at the time, the Montreal Wanderers, "the Little Men of Iron." The Montreal Star quoted him from Pittsburgh: "I can get more money here, but I am coming to the Wanderers." He did, and, as the Cup was then a challenge trophy, he won his 1st with the Wanderers on December 27, 1906. They subsequently lost it to the Kenora Thistles, but, in a new challenge, beat the Thistles to reclaim it on March 25, 1907, at the Winnipeg Auditorium.

That was to be Hod Stuart's last game. On June 23, 1907, he was swimming with friends near Belleville, Ontario when he swam to a nearby lighthouse ,and climbed onto a platform. He then dived head first into the water, hitting his head on rock, gashing his head and breaking his neck. He was killed instantly.

When the Hockey Hall of Fame was established in 1945, Stuart was 1 of the 1st 9 players elected. His brother Stuart was elected in 1961.

Teammate Lester Patrick, who with his brother Frank (another pair of brothers in the Hall of Fame) would go on to grow the sport tremendously in Western Canada, and later became the 1st head coach and general manager of the NHL's New York Rangers, recalled:

I was walking uptown, crossing Dominion Square, when I met somebody. I’ve forgotten who he was, but he stopped me and said, "Did you hear the news?" I said, "What news?" He told me Hod Stuart was dead. I couldn’t believe it. Hod had been like an elder brother to me. We were more than friends. He had taught me a lot about hockey, and a lot about life. He had helped me to keep straight. I could hardly have been more deeply affected had a member of my own family been so suddenly taken. It broke me all up.

To raise money for Stuart’s widow and two children, the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA) decided to hold an first All-Star game, a rarity for any sport at that point. It is sometimes credited as the first in any sport, ever, but this is not true: Baseball had one as far back as 1902, and had been holding benefit games (though not necessarily "all-star games") since at least 1873.

Nevertheless, the Westmount Arena, on the western edge of Montreal, agreed to host the game rent-free, so that all the gate receipts went to the Stuart family. On January 2, 1908, 3,800 fans attended. The Wanderers had future Hall-of-Famers Art Ross, Riley Hern, Ernie Russell and Ernie Johnson. (Ross was later the first head coach and general manager of the NHL's Boston Bruins, but, like Lester Patrick, good enough of a player to be elected as such despite his later, greater contributions in management)

Westmount Arena

They played a team whose players were selected by fans via mail, and included future Hall-of-Famers Percy LeSueur of the Ottawa Hockey Club (nicknamed the Silver Seven, and later renamed the Ottawa Senators), the aforementioned Frank Patrick of the Montreal Victorias, and Jack Marshall of the Montreal Shamrocks. Rod Kennedy of the Montreal Victorias was also on the All-Star team, and he and Marshall had both previously played for the Wanderers.

The Wanderers were used to playing together. According to the Montreal Gazette: "In the first half, it was all Wanderers. The Stars had not found their feet, suffering, just as might be expected, of a seven that had never played together before, from lack of familiarity with one another’s style of play."

The All-Stars battled back. According to the Ottawa Journal: "The second half seemed a little more exciting in the beginning. Patrick and Kennedy changed about in the position of point and cover-point and the All-Star men worked harder than in the first half." The All-Stars closed the gap, but the game ended 10-7 to the Wanderers. The Manitoba Morning Free Press wrote: "The game, although nominally a friendly one, bore all the marks of a cup contest, but was clean throughout, only two players being penalized."

The game raised $2,100 for the Stuart family. With inflation, that works out to about $53,000 in 2022 Canadian dollars. With the exchange rate, it's about $40,600 in American dollars.

Ten years later, to the day, January 2, 1918, a fire that began in, of all places, the ice-making plant caused the Westmount Arena to burn down. The National Hockey League was in its first season, and the Wanderers were members. Despite having won 4 Stanley Cups, they never played again.

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January 2, 1908 was a Thursday. No other sporting events were held in North America. Therefore, this was the only score on this historic day.