|
May 4, 2009
RBC.008
by Andrew Podnieks
While Junior A hockey may be the big game in town this spring with the National Junior A Championship on
the ice at Bear Mountain Arena, it’s worthwhile to look back on British Columbia’s place in hockey
history.
Indeed, the province has seen its fair share of great games and champion teams over the years. In recent
times the Vancouver Giants and Kelowna Rockets have won the Memorial Cup, and the Powell River Regals have
won the famed Allan Cup three times in the last decade.
But the big prize, the greatest of them all, has not been to beautiful British Columbia for more than
eight decades. It was in late March of 1925 that the Victoria Cougars won the Stanley Cup by defeating the
Montreal Canadiens 3-1 in a best-of-five series played at Patrick Arena in the B.C. capital.
Frank and Lester Patrick brought professional hockey to British Columbia in 1912 in the form of the
Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA). The league’s skill level rivaled the eastern NHA (pre-1917) and NHL
(post-1917) such that playoffs for the Stanley Cup ended in an east-west showdown for many years during this
era.
When the PCHA folded in 1924 Vancouver and Victoria (of the PCHA) then moved to the Western Canada Hockey
League (WCHL) and, as part of the restructuring of the WCHL, the Cougars signed four players from the PCHA:
star goalie Hap Holmes, and skaters Frank Foyston, Jack Walker, and Gord Fraser. These players complemented a
roster that included Frank Frederickson and Slim Halderson, two members of Canada’s gold medal team from the
1920 Olympics.
The Cougars finished third in the 28-game regular season behind the Calgary Tigers and Saskatoon
Crescents, but they beat both teams in the playoffs to advance to the Stanley Cup Final against the
Canadiens, who beat the Toronto St. Pats 5-2 in the NHL playoffs in the east and were chasing their third
Stanley Cup.
"Like a field of splendid thoroughbreds the 10 doughty Cougars spat upon their hands, snapped their teeth
and made furrows in their brows as they made the pledge to go out and get the championship,” the Victoria
Times said of the Cougars’ run to the final. “From that moment on the Cougars did not lose a game and they
disposed of the toughest competition that could be marshalled against them.”
Montreal traveled west to defend its win of 1924, giving Victoria fans a rare chance to see future Hall of
Famers Howie Morenz, Aurel Joilat and Georges Vezina, along with the rest of the Montreal lineup. Knowing an
opportunity to see this kind of skill may not come again, fans lined up the night before the game, hoping to
grab one of the 4,000 available tickets.
Goaltender Holmes did what few men ever did – outplay Vezina in the Canadiens’ net – as Victoria won the
opener 5-2, with Fraser and Walker leading the way with two goals each.
"The size of the score came as a big surprise to most of the fans but it knocked Canadiens on their beam
ends,” the Times said following the opening game. “They could not fathom it any easier than Vezina could read
a poem in English."
The series shifted across the Strait of Georgia for Game Two in Vancouver, where Walker once again notched
a pair of goals in a 3-1 Victoria win, putting the Cougars on the verge of victory in the series.
Morenz prevented a sweep by netting a hat trick for the Habs in Game Three, a 4-2 Montreal win back in
Victoria. The Canadiens, frustrated with their inability to stop the Cougars’ offence, went with two forwards
and three defencemen, a lineup that helped them to their only win.
Three days later, on March 30, 1925, the Cougars skated to a one-sided 6-1 win to claim the Stanley Cup.
The final whistle may have ended the series, but the fans at Patrick Arena had long known it was witnessing
the final game, beginning the celebration early.
"The Cougars left absolutely no doubt as to which club was the best,” said the Times. “They skated like
fiends, passed the puck like masters, shot like machine guns, and their defence was as hard to penetrate as
the side of a battleship."
Who could have known then that the Cougars would lose the Cup, in Montreal to the Maroons, the next year,
or that the NHL would take control of the Stanley Cup in 1927 thereby eliminating all other teams from its
competition and making the Cougars the last non-NHL team to hoist the Cup?
It would take until 2007 before another west coast team claimed hockey’s top prize, when the Anaheim Ducks
defeated the Ottawa Senators in five games to win the Stanley Cup and rekindle the memories of Victoria’s run
82 years earlier.
1924-25 VICTORIA COUGARS
FORWARDS
Jocko Anderson
Wally Elmer
Frank Frederickson
Frank Foyston
Gizzy Hart
Harry Meeking
Jack Walker
DEFENCEMEN
Clem Laughlin (captain)
Gord Fraser
Harold Halderson
GOALTENDER
Hap Holmes
|
