March 30, 1916: The 1st Canadien Cup

The 1916 Canadiens. Note the "CA" logo instead of "CH,"

the much smaller Stanley Cup, and the O'Brien Trophy.

Every great sporting institution had to start its greatness at some point. For hockey's greatest franchise, this was it.

March 30, 1916: The Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup for the 1st time. They defeat the Portland Rosebuds, the 1st American-based team to compete for the Cup.

The team was founded in 1909, as Club Athlétique Canadien -- Canadian Athletic Club. The original logo was a Gothic C inside a maple leaf. Later, it became a "CA," for "Canadian Athletic." In the 1st NHL season of 1917-18, it became "Club de Hockey Canadien," and the logo became a "CH."

George "Tex" Rickard, the boxing promoter who built the 3rd Madison Square Garden and founded the Rangers, was once asked what the H in the Canadiens' "CH" logo stood for, and he said, "Habitantes," a reference to the early French settlers of Québec, especially farmers. This got shortened to "Habs," leading to the English chant, "Go, Habs, go!"

But at their founding, they quickly became the team of Montreal's French speakers, or "Francophones." The Montreal Wanderers, "the Little Men of Iron," Stanley Cup winners of 1906, 1908, 1909 and 1910, remained the team of the English speakers, of "Anglophones."

The Canadiens reached the Playoffs for the 1st time in 1914, and in 1916, won the Championship of the National Hockey Association, the O'Brien Cup, which was named after their founder, J. Ambrose O'Brien. This, effectively, made them the hockey champions of Eastern Canada, and entitled them to play the champions of Western Canada, the champions of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. Only this time, it was the Portland Rosebuds, of Portland, Oregon, who won the PCHA title, becoming the 1st American team to play for the Cup.

The format was a best-3-out-of-5, and, because of the distance required for train travel in that pre-jet plane era, all the games were played at the Montreal Arena, so the Rosebuds would never have home-ice advantage. To make up for this, Games 2 and 4 would be played under Western rules, with 7 men on a side, including the "rover" position that the NHA had already eliminated, in favor of 6-a-side: Goaltender, 2 defensemen, left wing, center, right wing.

The Arena, also known as the Westmount Arena, because it was built just west over the city line, in the City of Westmount. It opened in 1898, as the 1st arena ever built specifically for ice hockey, with rounded corners, a style copied by hockey arenas ever since.

Despite playing under Eastern rules, the Rosebuds won Game 1, 2-0, holding the Canadiens to 6 shots. The Habs' Captain and best defender, Jean-Baptiste "Jack" Laviolette, got his jaw broken. And their head coach and best all-around player, Édouard Cyrille "Newsy" Lalonde, developed a bad cold, and would also miss Game 2, which would be played under Western rules. It looked like a major upset was in the making.

But the Canadiens won Game 2, anyway, 2-1, with a much tighter-checking defense. Laviolette and Lalonde both returned for Game 3. Lalonde got into a fight with Rosebuds star Ernie "Moose" Johnson, remembered by Montreal fans for his time with the Wanderers. The police had to come onto the ice to break up the fight, and Lalonde and Laviolette were both ejected from the game. Despite this, Didier "Cannonball" Pitre scored three goals -- the term "hat trick" didn't come into wide use until the 1950s -- and the Canadiens won, 6-3.

In Game 4, the Rosebuds blew a 3-0 lead, then the Canadiens blew a 4-3 lead, and the Rosebuds won, 6-5, to send the series to the distance. In Game 5, the Rosebuds took a 1-0 lead, but the Canadiens tied it, and George "Goldie" Prodgers won it for Montreal, 2-1.

It was the 26th time (counting the Cup's tenure as a "challenge cup") in 24 seasons that a Montreal team had won the Stanley Cup. But it was the first time for the Montreal Canadiens. Through the 2020-21 season, they have won 24. The only team in all of North American major league sports with more World Championships is the New York Yankees, with 27. From their 22nd Cup in 1979 until the Yankees' 24th World Series win in 1999, the Canadiens were actually in, or at least tied with the Yankees for, 1st place overall.

Hail the Champions: Goaltender, Number 1, Georges Vézina; defensemen, 2, Bert Corbeau; 3, Howard McNamara; and 8, Goldie Prodgers; centers, 4, Newsy Lalonde; 5, Didier Pitre; 6, George "Skinner" Poulin; and 12, Erskine "Skene" Ronan; and wingers, 7, Jack Laviolette; 9, Louis Berlinguette; 10, Albert John "Jack" Fournier; and 11, Amos Arbour. (Amos was a cousin of later New York Islanders coach Al Arbour.) Vézina, Lalonde, Pitre, Laviolette and O'Brien would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The Canadiens won the NHL Championship again in 1917, but lost the Stanley Cup Finals to the Seattle Metropolitans, who thus became the 1st American team to win the Stanley Cup. They lost the 1st NHL Finals in 1918, to the team now known as the Toronto Maple Leafs. They faced the Metropolitans again in the 1919 Stanley Cup Finals, but they were called off due to the Spanish Flu epidemic hitting both teams, killing Canadien defenseman Joe Hall (who was with the Quebec Bulldogs in 1916). The Canadiens didn't win the Cup again until 1924.

The Montreal/Westmount Arena burned down in 1918, dooming the Wanderers franchise. Condominums are on the site today. The Montreal Forum was built a block away, on the other side of the Montreal City Line, in 1924. Place Alexis Nihon, a shopping mall, was built between the sites, on the Westmount side.

From the opening of the Forum in 1924 until 1938, the Montreal Maroons played there, taking the Wanderers' place as the team of Anglophone Montrealers. But despite winning the Cup in 1926 and 1935, the Great Depression did them in. The Canadiens united the city for the next 40 years.

In 1979, the NHL took on the World Hockey Association's Quebec Nordiques, and the dynamic was reversed: In the Province of Quebec, the Canadiens began to be seen as the team of Quebec's Anglophones and Canadian nationalists/federalists, while the Nords were seen as the team of Francophones and Quebec nationalists/separatists. And the rivalry got very nasty, including "the Good Friday Massacre" in the 1985 Playoffs. But in 1995, unable to get a new arena, the Nordiques' owners moved them to Denver, making them the Colorado Avalanche.

After the founding of the NHL, the O'Brien Trophy was given to the NHL Champion (even if they didn't beat the Western Champions for the Stanley Cup) until 1927, then the winners of the NHL Canadian Division until 1938, and then to the team that lost the Stanley Cup Final until the trophy was retired in 1950. In my opinion, it should be brought back, and given to the last Canadian team standing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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March 30, 1916 was a Thursday. There were no other scores on this historic day: Baseball was in Spring Training, and professional football and basketball only existed on a minor-league level. 

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.