Montreal Canadiens 100 Years

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100 Joe Benoit

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Joe Benoit was a key member of the early 1940's Canadiens teams.

A gifted goalscorer and playmaker, Benoit made a name for himself as a winger with the Trail Smoke Eaters Allen Cups team in the late 1930's. He became only the fifth Habs player to notch 30 goals in a season in his third campaign in 1943.

Unfortunately for Benoit, he went off to serve in World War II the following season, while his role on the club, and his production, was filled in whole by Maurice Richard.

Benoit returned from duty in 1946 and contributed handsomely to the Canadiens 1946 Cup year.

Robert L rank: 97

T.C. Denault rank: 100

Dennis Kane rank: 100

Dave Stubbs rank: 99

I. M. Alias rank: not rated

Average rank: 99.5

Number 99

Joe Pelletier's Profile

HHOF Bio

Stats

Gallery

1909-10 A Team Is Born

2008-07-26T07:07:00.001-07:00

The Montreal Canadiens were born on December 2, 1909 in room 129 of the Windsor Hotel.

J. Ambrose O'Brien, a businessman and sports entrepreneur from Ottawa, with financial backing from business partner T.C. Hare, submitted the one thousand dollar National Hockey Association league entry fee and made guarantees for player salaries in the amount of $5,000.

The Montreal Wanderers had been one of the stronger teams in Eastern Canadian Amateur Hockey Association in 1908-09 and the owners of the club were upset that the ECAHA's other 3 teams - the Ottawa Senators, the Montreal Shamrocks, and the Quebec Bulldogs - had left them behind to create a newly formed league called the Canadian Hockey Association.

The CHA had been on created November 13, 1909 and was formed of the Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec franchises, in addition to the Montreal National, and a team known as All - Montreal.

O'Brien meanwhile, had sports and arena interests in Renfrew, Haileybury and Cobalt and was sought out by Wanderers owners to form a new rival league to the CHA. Included in their ideas, was one for a Montreal based team comprised mainly of french speaking players, to counter the same idea of the CHA's Montreal National. It would be called the Montreal Canadiens, and their colours would be blue and white.

There was one small problem, these Montreal Canadiens had no arena to play in.

The issue was solved by the Wanderers, who wanted this new league to work out in such a bad way, that they would share their home rink, the Jubilee Arena, with the Canadiens.

So the NHA was born, with the Canadiens joining forces with the Renfrew Creamery Kings, the Cobalt Silver Kings, the Haileybury Comets, and of course, the Wanderers. The Canadiens and the NHA, in its rivalry with the CHA, endured a difficult birth with several false starts.

After part of the initial schedule was remade and finally scrapped, the NHA accepted, or conspired to lure as the theory goes, two additional franchises from the CHA - the Senators and the Shamrocks - and began the season anew in January of 1910.

Jack Laviolette, a star player with the Montreal National of Federal Amateur Hockey League, the Michigan Soo Indians of the International Hockey League, and the Montreal Shamrocks of the Eastern Canadien Amateur Hockey Association, was regarded as one of the brighter hockey men the city of Montreal had in the early 1900's. He was brought in by owner O'Brien and teamed with secretary treasurer Eddy McCaffery in forming the group of players that would comprise the inaugural Montreal Canadiens team.

Laviolette, in addition to being manager, would also serve as the team's best defenseman and captain. He completed the task of getting players in place in less than one month.

Born Jean Baptiste "Jack" Laviolette in Belleville, Ontario on July 27, 1879, he moved with his family to Valleyfield, Quebec at age 12, where he developed a love of the game of hockey on his best friend Didier "Cannonball" Pitre's backyard rink.

Pitre, another defenseman, would become Laviolette's first signing to the Canadiens as he outbid the National for his services. It was quite a coup for the team, and the signing involved outracing the National's agent by train, who was also on the way to scoop up Pitre.

Soon after, Laviolette added Jos Cattarinich in goal and Newsy Lalonde in the rover position. The team's starters were rounded out by Ed Decary at center, with Arthur Bernier and Georges "Skinner" Poulin on the wings. Seven other players would suit up for Montreal in the restarted 12 game official season and they included Joseph Bougie, Ed Chapleau, Edgar Leduc, Edward Millaire, Patsy Séguin and goaltenders M. Larochelle and Teddy Groulx.

On a team photo handout of the day that featured the composition of the team, are two players named Rick Duckett and Noss Chartrand. There is little data pertaining to the standing of these players who were likely victims of the earlier season's false started schedule.

Laviolette, McCaffery, and O'Brien did much financial wheeling and dealing in aquiring several of their players, and certain transactions were contested with threats and lawsuits. After having stolen Pitre from under the National's nose, he targetted the services of Lalonde and Decary, and then moved on to All - Montreal for Poulin, all of whom where under contract.

With much of this contested in court, the Canadiens made headlines in local newpapers prior to having played their first NHA game.

Edouard Lalonde, was already known as Newsy by the time he arrived on the Canadiens scene. Born in Cornwall, Ontario, on October 31, 1887, the 22 year old Lalonde would quite rightfully become recognized as the Canadiens first true star player. Lalonde's on ice style made him the original "Flying Frenchman".

On January 5, 1910, the Canadiens beat the Cobalt squad 7-6 in overtime, with Lalonde scoring twice in what unofficially became their first ever game. Shortly after, the CHA was dissolved, and hence the Shamrocks and Senators, along with some of the league's better players, were absorbed into NHA.

It is not known how many games the Canadiens had played prior to the schedule being quickly revamped. The prior games played were shelved from the record and there exists little documentation today that details the false start.

The Canadiens restarted the season on January 19 and Lalonde recorded the team's first goal and hat trick in a loss to Renfrew. Both the Canadiens and Wanderers would play their local games at the Jubilee Arena, at the corner of Ste. Catherine and Malborough in the Westmount section of downtown Montreal. The Canadiens would lose the first four games in its history before beating Haileybury 9-5 on February 7, in front of a hometown crowd 3,000 strong. Pitre, the team's highest paid player at $1,700 per season, scored the winning goal.

Pitre would also score the winning goal in the Canadiens only other win of the 1910 season, registering a hat trick - a first for a Canadiens defenseman - on March 11 in a win over the crosstown Shamrocks. The game in itself was an oddity of sorts, as Canadiens starting goaltender M. Larochelle was tossed from the contest for vehemently arguing a goal with officials. Laviolette would take over in goal himself, thus becoming the first player coach to be credited with a win. Larochelle, who has no other Canadiens appearances to his credit, would not return. He has henceforth disappeared into mysterious Canadiens lore.

At the onset, the Canadiens were a bleak on ice, and off ice proposition. After three games, Laviolette passed the manager's hat to goalie Cattarinich so that he could concentrate his efforts on other duties involving the team while continuing to play.

Several events and strange occurances would mark the Canadiens initial campaign. Montreal would suffer its worst loss in history in this season on February 26, via a 15-3 pounding at the hands of the Haileybury Comets. In that game, Alex Currie and Nick Bawlf would become the first players to score 6 and 5 goals respectively against the sadsack Canadiens.

Finances were a problem for the Canadiens as well, and on March 9, prior to a game against the Wanderers, the Montreal players went on strike. Angered at not having been paid for their previous game, the players were convinced by Laviolette - who pointed to an arena full of possibly disappointed fans - that they would receive full renumeration for their services as soon as the gate receipts were counted.

The Canadiens would finish out the schedule in last place with a record of 2-10, scoring 59 goals and allowing an even 100. The following season, only Lalonde, Pitre, Laviolette, Bernier and Poulin would return.

In his first NHA season, Lalonde would score 38 goals in 11 games to win the league's first scoring title. He scored 16 of those in 6 games with the Canadiens before being "lent" to the Renfrew squad where he would add 22 more in the season's final five games. The move was done primarily to strengthen the O' Brien owned Creamery Kings in a Stanley Cup bid.

O' Brien was the big mover and shaker in the initial days of the NHA's first steps. In addition to the Canadiens and Renfrew, he also had ownership of the Haileybury and Cobalt franchises, and donated the league's first championship trophy - the O' Brien Cup.

Despite O' Brien's help, Renfrew would not manage its Cup goal, and the NHA championship and the Stanley Cup would become property of the Montreal Wanderers in 1910.

The Wanderers, led by stars Ernie Russell, Harry Hyland and goalie Riley Hern defeated the Berlin (now Kitchener) Union Jacks 7-3 in a one game Stanley Cup challenge held March 12, 1910 at the Jubilee Arena.

Ownership of the Stanley Cup at this time in hockey history is very different than it is known as today. As it was created to be a challenge cup, rules governing who could compete for it and how were in constant evolution until the bowl become property of the NHL.

The 1909 Stanley Cup champions were the Senators, then of the ECAHA. Ottawa had been awarded the Cup as league champions, and it was too late in the season for them to accept an outside challenge from the Winnipeg Shamrocks. While Ottawa partook in its first NHA season the following calendar year, it twice successfully defended its title in a pair of total goals games in January of 1910 against the Edmonton Eskimos and a team from Galt.

Though the Senators had twice defended their title, the team's name is inscribed on the bowl just once. Wheras other squads multiple wins within a 12 month period are duly recorded, there seemed to be little operative practice of consistency for inscriptions on the bowl.

Hockey in 1909-10, grew in often conspicuous leaps and bounds, and the Canadiens inaugural season mirrored the game's fast changing times.

The team's owners were sometimes suspect, often perceived by the public at large as simply money men cashing in on the sport's rise in popularity. As many of them were involved in boxing, horseracing, and gambling rings, hockey often suffered from the perception of it being nothing more than a violent mug's rackett. And it truly was!

Owners bought and sold teams quickly. Player's rights were fought over considerably. Local rinks gate receipts were questioned. In short, every variety of legal standing regarding the game had its share of dubious moments. Owners took advantage of players naivity, and the sides barely trusted each other.

That the Canadiens survived all of this, team name and origin intact, is quite a feat. They would have more than their share of trials and tribulations in their early going, but on the backs on great visionairies and proud players, they would outlast city rival teams through a multitude of ups and downs over the coming decades.

In all the fuss and flux, it would be the constants that remained from year to year that would bring about allegiance in the locals.

Laviolette and Cattarinich were emotionally invested in the team. Players such as Lalonde, Pitre, - stubborn as they came - and other mainstays to come, helped reinforce the team's humble foundation and build the sport in Eastern Canada.

Newsy Lalonde would leave his mark on the NHA and NHL, as much for his scoring exploits as he would for his temperament. A controversial figure of sorts, who was known at the time to have been making more money as one of the nation's best lacrosse players, Lalonde never hesitated to refuse his services when he felt he was being taking advantage of financially.

After the 1910-11 season, he jumped to Pacific Coast Hockey League's Vancouver Millionaires for more money. He was back in a Canadiens jersey the following season. Two seasons later he was sold / traded back to the Millionaires, but refused to report, causing the Canadiens all kinds of headaches in player and money transfers.

Regardless of his stubborn nature and his principles, Lalonde would be regarded as one of the NHL's early greats. He won six scoring championships across four leagues in his day - 2 NHA, 2 NHL, 1 PCHA in 1912, and 1 OPHL in 1909 - and would remain associated with the Canadiens as a player until 1923 when he was dealt to the Saskatoon Shieks for $3,500 and Aurel Joliat after a contractual squabble with then manager Leo Dandurand.

During his 12 seasons as a Canadiens player, Lalonde had been captain for eight of those years and its coach for 6. He played his final NHL game as a member of the New York Americans in 1927 and retired in 1929 after a year with the Niagara Falls Cataracts.

By 1932, he had patched up differences with Dandurand and returned to coach the Canadiens once more for two and a half seasons during some lean years for the club.

Pitre, a giant of a man for an early hockey player, had the on ice temperment of a teddy bear. He would play 13 of his next 14 hockey seasons in a Canadiens uniform, outlasting his sometimes rival team mate Lalonde by one season. A fast skating strong man with a reknowned hard shot, Pitre was one of the early game's better offensive defenseman at a time when the position was much less defined than it is today.

Laviolette would suit up for the Canadiens until 1918, when a car accident would end his career.

Cattarinich would not play for the Canadiens beyond the 1910 season. He would later team with Dandurand and another local businessman named Louis Letourneau to purchase the Canadiens.

For the 1910-11 season, Cattarinich would find his replacement in goal, and his discovery had a profound effect on the future of the Montreal Canadiens franchise.

1910-11 Vezina Arrives

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One season into their existence, the Montreal Canadiens franchise as it was known and owned, temporarily ceased to exist.

It is often cited that the Montreal Canadiens were created in 1909 by J. Ambrose O' Brien. While that is in fact true, the Canadiens team we know today, had it's origins as the Haileybury Comets. The 7 team NHA was going through initial growing pains and several of its franchises, 4 of which were operated by Canadiens owner O'Brien, were in financial straights.

O' Brien's Cobalt team entry ceased activities, and the Haileybury franchise was put into mothballs for the time being. The Renfrew Creamery Kings for their part remained alive and well. The Montreal Shamrocks also went into temporariry hibernation, to be revived later under another name.

O'Brien had another dilema on his hands, in dealing with the Canadiens name and players.

In Montreal, there had been and still is today, a sports enterprise known as "Le Club Athletique Canadien". In 1909, upon the formation of the Canadiens hockey club, permission to use the name "Canadiens" was permitted to O'Brien, with the stipulation that if the CAC would ever spread it's activities into the area of the hockey business, they would hence reinherit their copywritten legal name.

When the Canadien Athletic Club decided in 1910 to branch out from it's boxing, fighting, and lacrosse interests into hockey, they first attempted to purchase the more financially sound and reputable Montreal Wanderers club. When this plan did not work out, they set their sights on gaining an expansion franchise.

When O' Brien had brought in his three ECAHA teams into the NHA one year earlier, he assumed control of the Canadiens franchise, with the intention of one day turning it over to french Canadian interests. With his finances spread thin, a threat of a lawsuit for copyright infringement, and depts accumulated by the team, the NHA suspended the Canadiens activities until issues could be sorted. The name lawsuit was a mere formality, brought upon by the CAC that made it clear that while O'Brien could sell the team if he wishes, only the name itself could not go along with it.

O'Brien, at first, refused to sell the CAC the nameless Canadiens squad, as he wished to retain his contracted players for the 1910-11 season to employ in Renfrew or elsewhere. It was then that the CAC owners, led by boxer George ( Kennedy ) Kendall, approached the NHA about granting them an expansion franchise. With so much of the NHA teams in a financial rough spot, the league saw no sense in bringing in a new franchise, and declared the Canadiens dormant for 1910-11.

To O'Brien's dismay, the NHA governers met on December 12, and decided to transfer his dormant Haileybury franchise to the CAC, which they would then rename "Canadiens", as was their legal right.

The Cobalt squad became the Quebec Bulldogs, and the NHA was down to 5 teams from a 7 team league one year before.

O'Brien was renumereted for the Haileybury transfer, but was left with only his Renfrew Creamery Kings franchise. The former Canadiens franchise, presently dormant, was later sold to Toronto interests and became known as the Tecumsehs.

It wasn't to be the end of O' Brien's troubles. With the better former Canadiens players all on one year contracts, O'Brien held no legal right to them. The CAC only had eyes on the players without contract, who were essentially the Canadiens team core. The players remaining were of no interest to O'Brien as they would not have made his team a better one. He fought hard to retain Newsy Lalonde but the NHA ruled that Lalonde was free as a bird, and could play wherever he chose. Lalonde elected to remain a Montreal Canadien.

For the 1910-11 season, the makeup of the NHA would consist of the Canadiens, the Montreal Wanderers, the Ottawa Senators, the Renfrew Creamery Kings, and the Quebec Bulldogs. The season schedule was upped from 12 to 16 games. The NHA also changed the game's format from 2 half hour periods to three 20 minute frames, and enabled the teams to substitute for spares at an earlier point in the game.

The CAC's George Kendall was said to be a flamboyant personality. Better known at the time as George Kennedy, his boxing alias, Kendall assumed the positions of general manager and secretary treasurer with the team. He quickly undertook wholesale changes.

The ownership of this newly created second Canadiens franchise consisted of several well known Montrealers including the current mayor and his predecessor, James John Guérin and Louis Payette, the director of the "La Patrie" weekly, Jos Tarte, the manager of "Le Devoir", P. Delongchamps, and Senator Laurent - Olivier David.

The owners decided to use their newsprint to sell public shares in the team to help sturdy it financially and placed ads in dailies such as La Presse and their own papers. La Presse got right behind the promotion of the team, often offering players dollar amount bonuses and merchandise prizes for games won, and going so far as to petition for officials that could work the games in the Canadiens players mother tongue. Sponsors such as Bonin & Fils offered players hats when they beat the rival Wanderers.

The team moved its home games from the Jubilee Arena to the more spacious Westmount Arena which not only ended a split agreement with the Wanderers, it also doubled the amount of fans able to see them in the 6,000 seater. It also made the clubs more distinct in that they each now had a home arena. The Canadiens would finish the season in the black to the tune of $4,000 - which was unheard of at the time.

The initial Canadiens rivalry was a more subdued version of what would later evolve with the Maroons. The two clubs were extremely popular in the city and in the Quebec region. Telegraph lines joining areas as far away as Hull and Chicoutimi could now allow the Habs great many followers to take in games from the wire.

On the club, Kendall replaced the overburdened Laviolette as coach and brought in Adolphe Lecours, who had previously coached Le National. He then resigned the most vital team elements from the 1910 season and sought out others.

His first move was to bring in goaltender Georges Vezina on the enthusiastic recommendation of Jos Cattarinich.

The Canadiens first encountered Vezina during an exhibition game in Chicoutimi on February 20 of the previous winter. Few people gathered that day to witness the game gave the local Chicoutimi players a fighting chance against the professional Canadiens players. Stopping the blasts of Laviolette, Didier Pitre and company, the 23 year old Vezina with the red toque literally stole the show as the Canadiens were defeated 11-5.

After the contest, Laviolette told the local newspaper, "Le Progrès du Saguenay" that with the help of some coaching by Pitre and himself, the Chicoutimi club would beat any NHA squad.

The Canadiens signed Vezina on December 26, 1910 in preparation for the upcoming schedule. It would be the team's most important addition that year.

Kendall kept every player that was signed to a one year deal prior to the folding of the franchise, which meant Lalonde, Pitre, Laviolette, Poulin and Bernier were the only returnees. To that lineup were added Lorenzo Bertrand, Hector Dallaire, Eugene Payan, James "Rocket" Power, and of course, Vezina.

Payan's story testifies to the popularity of the team just one season into its existance. The son of the mayor of Ste. Hyancinthe wanted to play for the Canadiens so badly, he offered his services to the team free of charge. Teams of the day had a $5,000 salary cap, but Payan made it clear that his motivation was a love for the team and sport well before money. When he made the team at training camp, the Canadiens did in fact give him a salary, and he contributed 12 goals in 16 games.

Players on the Canadiens weren't happy with the cap arrangement. Laviolette refused to play for anything less than $1,500 and Lalonde demanded $1,600. The players threatened with thoughts of forming a union, creating their own teams, and going on strike, but the rebellion was short lived when they realized that the team owners mostly owned the arenas as well and that there would be nowhere for them to ply their trade. Of course, with time, the players would learn to refine their strike tactics.

Laviolette not only surrendered his player / coach status, he also lost the captaincy for the season to Lalonde. Lalonde and Pitre led the team in goals with 19, with Pitre having smartly been moved from defense to wing. Pitre registered the team's first 5 goal game in a 9-2 thrashing of the Wanderers on February 7.

The Canadiens game in Ottawa on February 9 had to be rescheduled because the players showed up without equipement. It was believed that upon leaving Renfrew, some wiseguy unhooked the section of the train carrying the Habs equipement, leaving it in Renfrew. The Canadiens had to pay the Senators a fine for the missed game.

The many changes brought on by new ownership and management had a positive effect on the ice as the Canadiens played for a .500 record of 8 wins and 8 losses, good for second place behind the Senators. After having giving up 100 goals in 12 games the previous winter, the addition of Vezina cut it to 62 goals against in 16 games - a marked improvement.

Pitre and Lalonde finished tied for 6th place in NHA scoring, but they were as much rivals as they were team mates from this time on because of salary jealousy. Whereas the competition between the men would sometimes benefit the Canadiens on ice, the dislike they held for each other hampered the composition of the team for a few seasons.

Thanks to Vezina's abilities, the Canadiens were drastically improved for 1910-11. The goalie who would become known as the Chicoutimi Cuccumber posted a goals against average of 3.90 and was named the league's best goaltender in his first campaign. It wouldn't be the last time.

Montreal began the season with a 5-3 loss to Ottawa on December 31, 1910 at the Westmount Arena. One week later, they travelled to Quebec and defeated the Bulldogs 4-1. Seven days later, they hosted O' Brien's Creamery Kings and won 4-1. The short win streak ended four days later in Ottawa with a 5-4 overtime loss to the Senators.

Hosting Quebec on Jabuary 21, they pounded the Bulldogs 9-5. They would move on Renfrew on the 27th, and slipped away with a 6-5 win. February wasn't as kind to the Canadiens as they began the month by getting shellacked 8-3 by the Wanderers. They returned the favor on February 7, when Pitre scored 5 goals in a 9-2 win. In a home and home series with the Bulldogs, Quebec grabbed both ends winning 9-3 and 7-4.

The Canadiens settled down some, beating Renfrew 4-2 on the 21st and then the Wanderers 3-2 one week later to finish out the month and remain in contention for the league title.

Deadlocked with the Senators at this point, with three games left, the Habs dropped a crucial game to Renfrew by a 5-3 score. The final two meetings with Ottawa were then extremely crucial, but Montreal surrendered both by scores of 4-3 and 5-0.

The Canadiens were still well behind the class of the league, the Ottawa Senators, who were easy winners of the O' Brien Cup with a 13-3 record. The Senators finished out the NHL season with a ten game win streak and would accept two Cup challenges from Galt and the Port Arthur Seniors, winning handily each time.

While things appeared to be looking up for the Canadiens in 1910-11, several unforeseen events would make the following season almost as rocky as their first.

Some side notes concerning the 1910-11 Canadiens season:

The team would sport a different sweater in 1910-11, and the blue and white "C" adorned knits of 1909-10 were exchanged for a red turtleneck pullover with blue and white bars on the collar, sleeves and base. The logo became a green maple leaf highlighted by a stylized "CA", that was very remiscent of the later jerseys of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

There are few photos of the Canadiens from this year in circulation today other than the hockey cards of the era featured above. No team photo was taken in this season, although individual player photograph's seem to exist for certain players. From the look of the hockey cards, the "CA" logo is obviously superimposed onto the images in both the colour O-Pee-Chee cards and the black and white Sweet Caporal cigarette pack inserts that include many of the same photos.

Many fans today have questioned whether the green maple leaf of the logo of 1910-11 was in fact green and not blue, as some online renderings would lead one to believe. Yes, it does seem odd that the colour green would be included on a Canadiens sweater, but in 1910 there was no reference for it to become a blue maple leaf - the Toronto hockey franchise by that name was still a good 17 years away. Hockey fan's eyes have long been used to the blue and red maple leaf logo's of teams in the country, but in 1910, long before the Canadian flag of today existed, the only maple leaf to be found was the green variety that grew on trees.

Looking back on the period, could it be that the Canadiens 1910-11 logo later inspired the Toronto Maple Leafs logo?

How about the Canadian flag?

The 1910-11 edition of the Canadiens had several stars such as Vezina, Lalonde, Pitre, and Laviolette, as well as some lesser known players. While those mentioned are in the Hockey Hall Of Fame, two other Montreal players were honoured in fifferent ways. Eugene Payan has a street named after him Barjols, Quebec - his hometown, and Hector Dallaire's image in a 1910-11 Canadiens sweater is painted on the side of a Giant Tiger store in his hometown of Rockland Ontario. Evariste Payer also hailed from Rockland Onario.

1911-12 Newsy Goes West

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In 1911, hockey was the fastest growing sport in Canada, and its popularity had spread from coast to coast like wild fire. With demand for top quality hockey reaching a zenith in more regions than just the East, money was there to be made in spades for savvy entrepreneurs with dreams of a bigger and better hockey world.

As it always has been, to make money, one often has to put it forth first, and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association began a bidding war with the NHA for the services of its better players.

The PCHA was founded by the Patrick brothers, Frank and Lester, who had left the Renfrew hockey club after the 1910-11 season. After selling off their interests in a very profitable lumber company, they set their sights on making their mark in the business of hockey in the Vancouver area, where an appetite for the sport was widely evident.

It is impossible to account for all of what the Patricks did for the game of hockey in one paragraph. In short order, they created a new league that would compete against the NHA, built arenas with artificial ice, structured a league's rules and teams, managed, coached, operated, and played for the franchises they were financing. Along the way, they reinvented the game of hockey as it is known today - 22 rule changes brought in by the brothers are still in existance - and changed the face of the game forever.

The pioneer Patrick's zest affected the NHA immediatly. They lured 11 star players from the NHA to the PCHA and gave them more lucrative deals. The players they took in comprised almost half of the new leagues three teams.

The Patricks went after some of the best, and the Canadiens lost its star Newsy Lalonde and forward Georges Poulin. The Wanderers for their part went without Jimmy Gardner and Ottawa lost Cyclone Taylor.

The NHA was being watered down, and the Renfrew franchise did not survive. It would proceed as a four team league for 1911-12 with the Creamery Kings players being spread across the remaining clubs.

While Lalonde would go on to win the PCHA scoring race with 27 goals in 15 games, his absence hit the Canadiens hard, and despite the continued excellence of goalie George Vezina, they headed back down to a last place finish - just a pair of wins away from the first place, and Stanley Cup winning Quebec Bulldogs. With the schedule upped to 18 games from 16 the season before, the Habs goal total would drop from 66 to 59. Didier Pitre would account for almost half that sum himself.

Transition was again the name of the game for the Canadiens, as manager Jack Laviolette reappointed himself coach in Lalonde's leave. After coach Adolphe Lecours' demands for more money left him twisting in the wind, one of the team's co-owners, Napoleon Dorval, assumed duties behind the bench.

Six Canadiens players from 1910-11 remained after the departures of Lalonde and Poulin. Returning for duty with the Habs were Vezina, Pitre, and Laviolette, who composed the core of the team, as well as Eugène Payan, Évariste Payer, and Hector Dallaire. Replacing Art Bernier, Lorenzo Bertrand and James Power were Ernie Dubeau, Frank Glass, Edgar Leduc, Alphonse Jetté, Louis Berlinguette, and Pierre Vezina.

When it came to facing the Canadiens, Didier Pitre was now the man to stop. Since being converted from a defenseman to playing the rover position, his devastating shot began to terrorize opposition goaltenders. Percy Lesueur of the Senators, fearfull of the rising shots, asked permission of the NHA to begin wearing a mask to protect himself. Wanderers goalie Riley Hern, a four time Cup champion in the early 1900's, quit from fear of being dinged by one of Pitre's blasts. It was a common sight at games, when Pitre wound up, to see fans jumping behind seats to protect themselves.

It was at this time that the Montreal Canadiens were beginning to be referred to as "the Flying Frenchmen" in the other cities in which they played. Laviolette had a certain knack for finding and signing players, such as Lalonde and Pitre, that could termed electrifying for their time. Through word of mouth, an inherant curiosity developed from the mystique of the language and seeing them perform their fast paced style of hockey.

Perhaps it was because the Canadiens played a wide open style of hockey, that word would spread in other cities that "the Flying Frenchmen" were in town. History has traced the term back to a journalist in Ottawa after a Habs win in January of 1911, but others credit an American scribe for coining the term at a later date. One thing is for sure, the Ottawa writers were quite impressed by the team that was literally "flying on the ice" that night, and the term has stuck with the team throughout the decades.

Upon its formation in December of 1909, the Canadiens were created with the Wanderers rivalry in mind. In doing so, the NHA understood that in order to make the rivalry reach a boil, a french versus english approach would suit their needs best. They designated that the Canadiens would hold exclusive rights to all french speaking players in order to achieve the identity needed to meet this criteria.

Ambrose O' Brien, who knew a dollar when he saw one, was a firm believer that the method would lead to success and the other three team's owners went along with it when the league was formed in December of 1909. As the NHA changed with each passing season, so did perceptions, and with O'Brien now out of the NHA hockey ownership picture by 1911-12, a certain jealousy arose in Quebec City and Ottawa over the designation that kept players such as Lalonde, Pitre, Laviolette and Vezina in a Canadiens uniform.

It wasn't that these players had made the Canadiens more successful on the ice - it hadn't yet - what upset owners, and brought out their envy, were the gate receipts that the Canadiens drew. It could be argued that the other franchises also had their star attractions, and that each of the three franchises - the Wanderers, the Senators, and the Bulldogs - won successive Stanley Cups with their respective approaches. If anyone was being shortchanged by the ruling, it was more likely Montreal, who could not align players from a larger english speaking pool. The french clientele in Quebec and Ottawa, remained a little miffed.

Not without coincidence, it was the Canadiens who first broke and challenged the agreement by signing former Wanderers captain Frank "Pud" Glass, a veteran of four Stanley Cup battles. The Ottawa Senators were furious, and lodged a complaint with the NHA. In a meeting several days later, Glass was ordered to remain a Canadien, and the Senators representative, one Charles Sparks, was beside himself in disbelief. He could not understand why a team that fought so strongly to maintain its hold on aligning french speaking players could now argue for signing an english player.

An amendment to the ruling was later brought forth, with the Canadiens being allowed 2 english speaking players and the remaining three teams allowed 2 french speaking players each. Glass had little effect on the Canadiens fortunes for 1911-12, scoring but 7 goals in 16 games before retiring from the professional hockey scene.

Prior to the start of the season, the league met and continued to make refinements to the game. Their first order of business was to transfer its two dormant franchises to Toronto ownership. Ambrose O' Brien's Renfrew team would become the Toronto Blueshirts and the dormant Canadiens entry that was O' Brien's as well in 1910, was to become the Toronto Tecumsehs. Due to the fact that these transactions were made late in the year, the two new teams would not begin to operate until the 1912-13 season.

The league also made adjustments to the rules and the way that the game was played. The rule changes implemented in 1911 introduced a format of play that foreshadowed what is modern day hockey.

The first change was the elimination of the rover position. Hockey had up until then, been a 7 player team sport. Along with the goalie, the center and two wing positions we know today, there was a rover who played above or behind the center, a point player who positioned himself near to the goaltender, and a coverpoint player who ventured out further up ice. As the game evolved, the point and coverpoint positions had now become known as defenseman and were more likely to play alonside one another than in the prior setup.

The removal of the rover was brought on by two motivations. The first was said to be a willingness to open up the game, and the second was purely financial - there would be one less salary to pay!

A team's six starting players still played the majority of the game but were now allowed substitutions at any stoppage in play. The season before, 1910-11, the NHA switched to a three 20 minute period format from 2 half hours frames and allowed substitutions at the 20 minute mark. Subs had only been permitted at the halfway point prior to that. There was no limit to how often the subs could be employed and it was stipulated that if a player left a game due to injury, he could not return.

In 1911-12, the NHA brough about the distinction between minor and major fouls. These penalties in the most primitive form sought two ideals - the ejection of players and the accumulation of dollars.

Major fouls included throwing a stick to prevent a goal, cross-checking, charging, deliberate tripping and hooking, and foul language. In each case, the player would be banished for the match and fined $5. If a player's fines reached $25, special discipline was warranted by the league president. In the event of a tossed player, teams could substitute.

Minor fouls identified as kicking an opponent, throwing, holding or batting a puck with the hand, use of the stick above the shoulder for anything other than shooting the puck, and being offside - which was termed "loafing".

For each minor fouls, a player drew one "caution" and when he reached a total of three fouls he was removed from the game.

Other details included the home team being given the choice of choosing which end they would play in and games would now go into overtime if tied after 60 minutes.

Of the Canadiens newcomers in 1911-12, left winger Berlinguette would have the longest tenure with the team. Berlinguette was a member of the 1909-10 Haileybury Comets before joining Galt of the OPHL for one season. In 1911-12, Belinguette started the season with Moncton of the MPHL, scoring 7 goals in 9 games. He was signed by the Canadiens on January 30, 1912 and appeared in 4 of the team's final 10 contests. He returned to the Moncton squad for a Stanley Cup challenge against the Bulldogs on March 12 and 13. Berlinguette, often mispelled as "Berlinquette", would participate in 6 NHA and 6 NHL seasons with the team.

Born in Papineau, Quebec in 1887, Berlinguette was at his best in the early 1920's when he registered 11 and 13 goal performances playing alongside Odie Cleghorn. He retired from professional hockey in 1927 and passed away in 1959 at the age of 72.

Pierre Vezina would become a footnote in Canadiens history. The brother of goalie Georges, the pair became the first siblings to suit up for the Habs, albeit for just one game. He was brought in as a substitute player for the season, and for personal reasons in regards to his brother. While he practiced with the Canadiens all season and remained on their roster, it was once said that he was taken on mainly to prevent his goalie brother from being lured to the PCHA. Pierre Vezina remained property of the Chicoutimi hockey club while associated with Montreal, who never officially signed him to a contract. He made his one game NHA appearance on Febuary 9, 1912.

Ernie Dubeau signed with the Canadiens on November 27, 1911 and would remain with the team through 4 season until he was traded to Toronto for Skene Ronan on January 17, 1916. He would score 16 goals in 76 career games with the Canadiens.

Edgar Leduc had two brief 3 game stints with the Canadiens, first appearing on loan from the National of the Montreal City hockey league in 1910. Borrowed by the Habs on March 3 of that year, Leduc scored 3 goals in as many games for the last place Canadiens. He returned to the National for one season before resigning with Montreal on December 21. 1911. His three apperances in 1911-122 produced no goals and he was not brought back the following season.

Alphonse Jetté was signed by the Canadiens on February 12 of this season, and appeared in the team's final 3 games. Used sparingly as a sub on wing and defense, Jetté would total but 19 games, a goal and an assist, in his four year association with the Canadiens.

Perhaps the most visionary of the changes the NHA addressed was the addition of number armbands on each player in order for them to be more readily identifiable by fans. The Canadiens employed 10 numbers during the 1911-12 season for the 12 players who suited up:

Georges Vezina (1), Ernie Dubeau (2), Jack Laviolette (3), Frank Glass (4), Didier Pitre (5), Edgar Leduc and Alphone Jetté (6), Eugène Payan (7), Louis Berlinguette and Pierre Vezina (8), Hector Dallaire (9), and Évariste Payer (10).

For the third successive season, the Canadiens on ice fashions were again altered. Gone were the red sweaters adorned with a "CA" stylized on a green maple leaf, and replacing them were a mostly white concoction, with diagonal bars of red and blue streaming from the right top shoulder down to the left hip. The double colour bars also ran the width of the sweater's base and sleeves. The scripted "CA" was then placed over the heart. Unfortunately for historians, there is nary a photo of these renderings to be found today. Hockey cards of the era, simply ran most of the previous season's photographs.

The 1912 Montreal Canadiens started the season off with high hopes despite the loss of Lalonde and Poulin to the PCHA. Things did not start out well however, and they were handed a 5-0 shutout courtesy of the Wanderers at the Westmount Arena, January 3, on opening night. The Canadiens bounced back quickly, defeated the Bulldogs in Quebec three days later.

Back in Montreal on January 10, they avenged the loss to the Wanderers, disposing them by a 6-1 score. Next up were a home and home pair against the Senators, with Ottawa winning the first 4-3, before the Habs travelled to edge the Senators 5-4. Montreal won their next contest on January 20, beating the Wanderers by a 6-3 score. It would be the last time until the end of the hockey calandar that the Canadiens would post two successive wins.

The Canadiens then began to follow a lose/win pattern over the next four games from January 24 to February 3. It started with 6-2 loss in Quebec before rebounding to beat the Bulldogs 5-3, three nights later. The Wanderers took the Habs 2-1 in a close one to close out a busy January, but then the Canadiens thumped Ottawa 9-3.

The Canadiens would not win another game for 25 days and took on the look of the hapless team from it's initial season.

The Senators brought the Habs back down to size with a 4-2 win on February 7 in Ottawa. Two nights later, in Quebec, Montreal lost 5-2. Their first successive losses on the season only brought more.

In Montreal on February 14, the Bulldogs edged Montreal 2-1. The team was at a low when it hit Ottawa four days later and was scalped 6-1.

Things soon hit rock bottom in a 9-1 defeat by the Wanderers in their home on February 21.

The Habs were in a tough spot, needing three wins to finish out the schedule combined with losses to Quebec, Ottawa, and the Wanderers in order to have a chance to tie for first place. Unfortunately, these teams could not lose to each other without someone winning.

Before games on February 25, the Bulldogs and Wanderers were tied with 16 points each. Ottawa was close with 14 and the Canadiens just behind with 12. The Habs and Bulldogs had 3 games remaining and Ottawa and the Wanderers had 4 due to the rescheduling of a January 24 game, a 10-6 Ottawa win that was in dispute. Chances were slim, and all the Canadiens could hope for at best was a four way tie - four teams all with 9-9 records.

On February 25, Quebec beat the Wanderers 2-1 while the Canadiens fought hard and lost 3-2 in overtime to Ottawa. For all intents, their season was over.

They finished out the schedule by beating the first place Bulldogs 6-3 in Montreal on the 28th and edging the Wanderers 2-1 on March 2.

With an 8-10 record, the Canadiens finished fourth, two wins behind the eventual Stanley Cup winning Bulldogs, who had a 10-8 mark. Ottawa and the Wanderers were 9-9. With such parity among the four clubs, it was easy to see where a gamebreaker the likes of Newsy Lalonde would have made a great difference.

Returning Lalonde would be the Canadiens first order of business for the 1912-13 campaign.

1912-13 Newsy Returns

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Newsy Lalonde's one year exile with the Vancouver Millionaires ends when the Canadiens outbid the PCHA team for his services, but his return to Montreal's lineup causes some rumbling amongst other players. Now earning more money per season than any other player on the team, Lalonde's salary brought out anger and envy in Didier Pitre, a constant star with the team since day one.

The Canadiens also lured Donald Smith, who had finished third in scoring with 16 goals in as many games with Renfrew two years prior. Smith had played with the Victoria Aristocrats of the PCHL the year before, and was now permitted to suit up for Montreal due to the loosening of english player restraints initially set forth in 1909. The Canadiens could now dress two english speaking players per game and the other teams were each allowed two french speaking players.

The addition of these two players makes Pitre quite unhappy, and he gives serious thought to heading where there is better money for him out west in PCHL. He had been given a car by the Canadiens supporters, and promptly sold it with such intentions in mind.

The battle between the NHA and the PCHA reaches new heights as players now have bargaining chips that they did not previously enjoy. George Kennedy, however, thwarts Pitre's plans of heading out west by trading him to New Westminster for the rights to Goldie Prodgers. A clause in the trade gives the Canadiens the rights to recall him at their whim, and Pitre never reports. Instead he signs a contract with the Quebec Bulldogs before NHA president Emmet Quinn steps in and annuls both deals and declares Pitre a Montreal Canadien for the season.

Pitre was not content with the solution, and walked out on the Canadiens with 3 games remaining in the season. Montreal then subtracts $450 from Pitre's $3,000 a year deal.

Smith was signed as a free agent by the Canadiens on November 26, 1912. Born in Cornwall, Ontario, he went on to play Senior hockey in his hometown for three years before making stops in Portage La Prairie, and later turning pro in the Ontario Professional Hockey League in 1908. Smith switched teams in each of the next three years with stints with the Montreal Shamrocks, the Renfrew Creamery Kings and the Victoria Aristocrats before settling in Montreal for good in 1912.

Smith would be halfway through his third season with the Canadiens when the club would sell his rights to the cross town rival Wanderers during the 1914-15 season. After playing one full season with the Wanderers. Smith's career was put on hold as he served his country in World War I for three years. He would return to hockey in 1919 when he was resigned by Canadiens.

During the season, Lalonde, Pitre, and Smith respond with 25, 24, and 19 goals respectively, but the Canadiens finish fifth in a 6 team NHA that now includes the Toronto Blueshirts and Toronto Tecumsehs.

More changes for the Canadiens this season include new barber pole coloured sweaters, striped red white and blue and featuring a maple leaf with a centered "CAC" as a logo. Complaints by the Senators, who wear a similar barber pole scheme of red white and black causes Montreal to adopt an alternate red sweater for games against Ottawa, In the first meeting between the teams in the nation's capital, fans actually became confused and cheered Montreal on at certain points. The sweaters last one season and were abandonned thereafter for another new design in 1913-14.

Other than Smith, the Canadiens add Fred Povey, Clayton Fréchette and Hyacinthe Guevremont as players and the the club's payroll reaches $8,000, well over the mandated cap of $5,000 per team.

In the team photo, there are three players in the back row listed as being Pete Degrowy, Cy Denneny, and Shorty Coderre. None of the three are known for ever having played an official game with the Canadiens in the NHA.

As the Canadiens 1912 training camp was underway, players as usual, were invited to try out. Cy Denneny, 21 years old at the time, was a future Hall Of Famer, who had yet to join the NHA, and had most recently played with the Cornwall Internationals of the Lower Ottawa Valley Hockey League in 1911-12. In 1917-18, he would join the NHL's Ottawa Senators and go on to play 11 seasons, retiring as the NHL's all time leading goal scorer, with 248, in 1929.

The Canadiens had signed Denneny to a contract on November 29, 1912, but like the other two players in the photo, he was released when training camp ended. There are varying stories as to why Denneny was let go, and one in particular has it that Canadiens management were unable to convince league authorities that Denneny was in fact french speaking, a ruling that they still were required to adhere to. The Canadiens were able to align a pair of english speaking players, and that season the roles were filled by Donald Smith and Fred Povey.

There is no accounting of where Denneny played hockey during the 1912-13 season, and his name did not resurface in NHA circles for another two seasons when he signed a contract with the Toronto Shamrocks.

The dog in the photo is a reference to the Stanley Cup champion Quebec Bulldogs, whose previous season's team photo included a Bulldog mascot. Superstitions being what they are, the Canadiens tried their luck to less successful results.

Public opinion is divided over the new 6 man game versus the former 7 man lineup. Canadiens owner Kennedy convinces the league to play the second half of the schedule in the old format, while letting the fans decide by voting in newpapers, such as la Presse and others. The 6 man game wins out easily.

The first local goal judges apeared in 1912 due to complaints from fans as well. Called umpires at the time, they stood behind the net and waved white flags to signify a goal rather than the officials doing so. Leo Dandurand served in this capacity for games in Montreal. Fans also found it unfair that there were no french canadian officials for games, and Dandurand became the first to serve there also in experimetal form on March 5, 1913.

The Canadiens would open the season with a three game winning streak and their record at midseason is 7–3. The Quebec Bulldogs came on strong with an 11 game win streak to win the league championship and Montreal finished third behind Quebec and the Wanderers.

The season began on December 25, 1912 for the Canadiens, and they welcomed the Toronto Blueshirts to the NHA with a 9-5 win. Smith, in his first game for Montreal, scored four goals against Harry "Hap" Holmes. Three days later, the Canadiens doused the Blueshirts once more, this time in Toronto by an 8-5 score. They stretched their win streak to three games, edging the Tecumsehs 4-3 on New Years Day, 1913.

Montreal's first loss of the season came at the hands of the Ottawa Senators by a 7-3 mark on January 4, but they returned to winning form four days later, defeating the Wanderers 4-3. The Canadiens and Bulldogs played a home and away series on the 11th and 15th with Quebec winning 4-3 at home and Montreal doing the same four nights later by a 5-4 score.

Montreal hit a season peak on January 18, shutting down the Senators by a 6-0 mark. It would be the first shutout in Canadiens history, thanks to Georges Vezina, but the wins would be few and far between from this point on. The Canadiens lost their next contest to the Wanderers 4-3 on January 22 and rebounded to win 5-4 in overtime three nights later against the Tecumsehs.

The second half of the season would see the Canadiens plummet ro fifth place with only 2 wins in the final 10 games. What might not have helped was an NHA decision to revert to a seven man game once more, an idea which was abandoned for good shortly thereafter. In this format, the Canadiens lost three straight games to the Senators, the Tecumsehs and the Blueshirts before beating the Wanderers 6-4 on January 12.

A longer losing streak awaited them with four losses in a row to Ottawa, the red hot Bulldogs twice, and the Wanderers all one or two goal defeats. The first of March saw them come out superior to the equally feable Tecemsehs 3-1, before closing the books with 6-2 pounding by the Blueshirts.

Despite the talent and high salaries on the Canadiens, they could not escape another season ending drought. Quebec, who ended the season on an 11 game win streak, would claim the Stanley Cup for a second straight year. The Canadiens would finish the season with a 9-11 record, scoring 83 goals and allowing 81 - the NHA's second lowest total.

The distractions on and off the ice for the Canadiens were of no help. Captain Lalonde, despite a good scoring year, took out his frustrations regularly in fiery fashion. Fines for on ice indiscipline were a problem all season for the Canadiens, who had three of the four highest docked players in the NHA in Pitre ($75), Smith ($54), and Lalonde ($51).

Newsy got the shenanigans rolling in a December 21 exhibition game against the Wanderers when he threw a questionable hit on Odie Cleghorn in the heat of action. Odie's brother Sprague retaliated with a stick to Lalonde's face, injuring his jaw and forehead. Lalonde was tossed from the contest, but the trouble didn't end there. With news that Lalonde was off to the hospital to receive a dozen stiches, fans sympathetic to the Canadiens cause took on the Wanderers players on their return to the dressing room. A general brawl erupted and the police had to be called in. Sprague Cleghorn was arrested and fined $50 by both the police and the NHA.

Two months later, Lalonde got into it again with his old rival Joe Hall of the Bulldogs. The two had a mutual hatred stemming from previous incidents and on February 22 things reached a fever pitch. After Newsy hacked away at Hall with liberties and a wooden shaft, Hall replied with a viscious crosscheck when Lalonde was not in possesion of the puck. In the second period, when Lalonde was about to get even once more, Hall swung a two hander for Lalonde's head, knocking him cold and earning a suspension from the game.

It was all part of what was becoming business as usual in the NHA, especially in the city of Montreal where the Canadiens Wanderers rivarly had taken hold. Team owners offered players on both sides bonuses for the winning side. Rich businessmen would dangle up to $250 for wins and first place finishes. Scalpers outside the arenas knew a quick buck was to be made and they started buying up chunks of $3 seats that would be resold for up to $5 by gametime.

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1913-14 Rising Canadiens Miss Cannonball

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Starting the fifth NHA season, league trustees continued to refine the rules governing the game. Changes included referees now dropping the puck for faceoffs instead of placing it on the ice, placing a dark line between the goal posts along the ice, and the recording of assists.

Goalkeeper sticks would now be limited in width to 3 1/2 inches, and goalkeepers lying down to stop a puck would receive a minor penalty and $2 fine. All minor penalties were set at $2 fine and major fouls would cost more per incident, starting a $3 and 5 minutes off, to $5 and 10 minutes off, to $10 and a match penalty. Deliberate injury was a $15 fine and banishment until the injured player returned to play.

The league achieved a certain amount of stability, with all six teams from the previous season returning. The only minor change was a name switch - the Tecumsehs would now be known as the Toronto Ontarios.

Bigger changes overall would come at the term of the 1913-14 season, for both the NHA and PCHL. Prior to the start of the next NHA season, league officials worked out an agreement on territorial rights for players with the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. As players were using the two leagues as leverage for salary increases, the owners were being hit in the pocketbook and the agreement was seen as a move towards stability for all franchises. Much to the detriment of the players, they would be suspended by both leagues if they failed to report in the eventuality of a trade from one league to another.

In a September of 1914 meeting in Montreal, it was decided that Port Arthur, Ontario, now known as Thunder Bay, would be the dividing line separating each league's territory. There was one stipulation made that each league could recruit 3 players from the other's protected area.

The leagues also conferred on a decision that marked the end of the Stanley Cup as a challenge cup. The trustees for both leagues negotiated an agreement to have the champions of the NHA and the PCHA meet each year to determine a champion, beginning in with the 1914 -15 season.

The final would be a best of five affair. The ruling was brought upon by controvery following the 1914 final between the Toronto Blueshirts and the Victoria Aristocrats after it was discovered that the PCHA champions had never formally applied to challenge for the cup.

The new season saw the unveiling of the first Canadiens sweater to resemble to modern day look presently sported. The mostly red sweater had a larger blue bar across the torso, on which the "CA" logo was positioned. The blue bar was outlined in white and the logo had gone from a stylized old english lettering to a more refined oval shape. There were no colour bars on the arms as of yet, and the bottom of the sweater was ourline with a simple small white bar.

Just as many hockey fans would later be curious about the origin of the letter "H" in the logo, many fans looking back on the team's look in 1913 have wondered about the origin of the letter "A" in this seasons version. The "A" had actually been a part of the logo design since the team had become owned by Le Club Athlétique Canadien since the 1910-11 season, and it remained so until the purchase of the team by Le Club de Hockey Canadiens in a matter of years. Still, legions of fans believe the "H" stands for Habs, a term that was not used in reference to them until the mid 1920's, close to 10 seasons after the "H" had been incorporated into the logo.

The 1913-14 season would be an interesting one for the Montreal Canadiens, and this time around adversity would not be their downfall.

Many players on the 1912-13 rosters were to return, but Canadiens management sought to shake up the team's compostion and did the unthinkable by trading Newsy Lalonde to the Vancouver Millionaires.

Of course, Newsy wouldn't have any of that, and he refused to report to the PCHA team.
The deal was Lalonde to the Millionaires for former Wanderers star Jimmy Gardner and five hundred dollars. Gardner was all too willing to return to his home turf, and upon Lalonde's refusal, the Canadiens offered Donald Smith instead.

Vancouver was not interested.

Finally, after Newsy wrote a letter to the Patrick brothers, owners of the Vancouver franchise, promising to head out west the following season, a deal was worked out that satisfied all parties for the time being. The Millionaires would aquire Didier Pitre for one season, returning him to Montreal in 1914-15, conditional upon Lalonde's promised arrival the following season.

Lalonde and Pitre were both content that they would not have to put up with each other for the season.

The always combustible Lalonde would celebrate that moral victory with a continuation of his personal war on hated rival Joe Hall of the Quebec Bulldogs.

In the second game of the season on December 30, as Quebec inaugurated a new arena, Lalonde sought vengeance for last season's battles and wacked Hall in the head, opening an eight stitch cut. He was tossed from the game and fined. Two weeks later on January 14, Hall got even, charging Lalonde violently from behind. Newsy crashed head first into the boards, requiring ten stiches. With Hall up ten stiches to eight, this war was far from over.

The Canadiens lineup for the season returned 10 players from the previous year. Other than Lalonde, Montreal brought back mainstays Vezina, Laviolette, Smith, Dubeau, Berlinguette and Dallaire, with Eugene Payan, Alphonese Jetté and Clayton Fréchette suiting up again as spares. Only Pitre and spares Fred Povey and Hyacinthe Guevremont would not return.

New to the team were Harry Scott, Emile Marchildon and Lorenzo Bretrand, who had subbed with the Canadiens during the 1910-11 season.

The biggest addition would be that of Gardner, who was named the team's captain and coach. Gardiner had previously coached the Wanderers for two seasons.

The Canadiens began their season on the road December 27th, losing to a strong Toronto Blueshirts squad by a 3-0 shutout. Three nights later they were in Quebec, and they defeated the Stanley Cup champions 4-3, in a game highlighted by the ongoing Lalonde and Hall feud and inherant shenanigans.

January was very good to Montreal as they would rack up six wins. After edging the renamed Ontarios 4-3 in Montreal on the third of the month, they travelled to Ottawa four nights later and were shut out the Senators by a commanding 6-0 score.

Montreal bounced back and unloaded their artiliary on the Wanderers January 10th, pounding them 8-2 in front of a hometown crowd. Lalonde scored six goals in the single handed dismantling. Four days later, a rematch with the Bulldogs ended in the same 4-3 score in Montreal, that included Round 4 of the Lalonde and Hall tilt.

The Canadiens kept their winning ways up when they ventured to Toronto and drubbed the Ontarios with a 9-3 shellacking on the 17th.

Four nights later, a resilient Senators squad bounced the Canadiens 4-3. Undeterred, Montreal steamrolled the Wanderers before their fans on the 24th, walloping them 9-3. On the 28th they won again, this time revenging the opening night loss to the Blueshirts by a 4-3 margin. They returned home on the final day of the month, losing the contest 6-4 to a weak Ontarios team.

On February 4, it was back up to Quebec city, where a 6-1 clubbing by the Bulldogs grounded the team. The Canadiens then asserted their claim for the NHA elite with a 9-3 manhandling of the Blueshirts on the 7th in Montreal. A return date with the Wanderers on February 11 offered another high scoring rout, this time by a 6-2 score.

On home ice on the 14th, against an improving Senators club, the Canadiens needed six minutes and fourty seconds of overtime to solve Ottawa goalie Clint Benedict for a 1-0 win. The win was a costly one for the Canadiens, who lost Newsy Lalonde for the remainder of the season after he was slashed in the ankle by the Senators Eddie Gerard. In his fall, Lalonde fell heavily to the ice, fracturing his clavicle, Gardner was also gone for the year from a knee injury sustained in this rough contest. In all five Canadiens left the game on stretchers.

The hurting Canadiens were at home against the Bulldogs four nights later, and with many spares in starting roles, edged Quebec by a 2-1 score.

The Canadiens were on the verge of a team record fifth straight win when they headed to Toronto on the 21st, trying to make it three wins in a row against the Blueshirts. A 3-2 setback dropped them from grabbing the season series with the Blueshirts and they moved onto Ottawa four days later for another one goal loss to the Senators, a 6-5 overtime game that required an additional 30 minutes to settle.

February 28 saw the Canadiens sweep the season series against the Wanderers for the first time, with a 6-5 win on home ice. Along the course of the 20 game season, the Canadiens had often complained of the treatment reserved for them by english officials. Oddly, it was a francophone referee would got under the ire of Canadiens owner George Kennedy in a game on February 28. Heading down to ice level, the Canadiens owner grabbed official Leo Dandurand by the throat, and insulted him publicly as per the letter sent to the NHA president by the official. The league took no action following the complaint.

With the Blueshirts loss to the Quebec on the same night, Toronto and the Canadiens were tied for first place with the Bulldogs four points behind. A Montreal win combined with a Blueshirts loss to the Wanderers on the season's final night of March 4 would give the Canadiens the NHL title.

It was not to be, as both teams lost their chance to gain the upper hand. The Blueshirts dropped their Wanderers matchup by a 7-5 score while the Canadiens found a way to lose to the last place Ontarios by a 5-3 mark.

The final regular season standings looked like this:

Toronto Blueshirts 20 13 7 26 93 65
Montreal Canadiens 20 13 7 26 85 65
Quebec Bulldogs 20 12 8 24 111 73
Ottawa Senators 20 11 9 22 65 71
Montreal Wanderers 20 7 13 14 102 125
Toronto Ontarios 20 4 16 8 61 118

A two game total goals showdown would be needed to declare a league champion. The Canadiens got off to a strong start, shutting out the Blueshirts 2-0 in the first game before hometown fans on March 7. Three nights later, the Blueshirts tightened up their league leading defense and shut the Canadiens down to take the game 6-0 and the total goals series 6-2. Without Lalonde and Gardner in the lineup, the Canadiens were no match for the Blueshirts - a disappointing ending to what the was far and away the Canadiens best season.

In the final season of the challenge Cup era, the Blueshirts defeated the Victoria Aristocrats in three straight games to give the city of Toronto its first Stanley Cup championship.

1914-15 A Hard Fall To Last Place

2008-07-26T07:03:00.000-07:00

The Canadiens sixth season is marred by contract squabbles and the ongoing tug of war over players with the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.

The one year delay in Newsy Lalonde's promise to the Vancouver Millionaires to head west and play for them in the 1914-15 season gave him just enough time for him to change his mind.

Just before the beginning of the season, the teams are informed of Lalonde's decision in November, and the Canadiens suggest that Vancouver keep Didier Pitre for another season. Of course, Pitre won't have any of this, as he feels the pull of Montreal hockey fans who desperately want him back. Vancouver is left with no other choice but to trade Pitre back to the Canadiens for a sum of money, which suits the Canadiens just fine.

Lalonde's contract is another problem as Newsy holds out for more money, wanting a better renumeration than Pitre, George Vezina, Jack Laviolette and Don Smith. Manager George Kennedy refuses to barter, and suspends Lalonde, fining him $100, and a subsequent $100 for each week of the season that he misses. Jimmy Gardner remains on as team captain.

In February, the Canadiens trade Smith to the Wanderers for cash shortly after Lalonde returns, having worked out a deal secretly with Kennedy. Newsy is not back for long, as the team suspends him once again, this time for lacklustre play. In all, Lalonde plays but seven games for the Canadiens in 1915, scoring four goals and three assists.

The personel squabbles make for a difficult start to the season for Montreal, and they drop their first four contests and never recover. Despite high hopes with 9 returning players in addition to Pitre, it would be a miserable season for the Canadiens. They would finish with a 6-14 record and they would surrender almost an additional goal per game. Vezina, who was named the league's best goaltender in three of his first four seasons, finishes third in goals against.

Five new players joined the Canadiens ranks in 1914-15 and they included Albert Corbeau, Jack Fournier, Nick Bawlf, Ed Lowrey and Marcel Béliveau. Corbeau, a right shooting defenseman, who signed with the team on December 23, would spend 8 seasons in total with the Canadiens.

The off ice commotion left many scars on the team throughout the season. Gardner, as coach and captain, asked for a pay raise in light of his cummulative duties following the season. His stand was rebuffed, and he retires to officiating.

George Vezina's temper emerged in a few matches. On one occasion against Quebec, he is penalized and tossed from the game for hitting Lalonde's rival Joe Hall - even though it is Vezina who goes flying and takes the goal net with him. With the Bulldogs behind 3-2, Laviolette replaces him in goal, and Quebec ties the game. As was then permitted, Vezina returns in extra play, only to surrender the fifth Quebec goal in a game that went on record as the longest overtime to that point. Fifty minutes and 28 seconds of additional play for needed to settle the contest.

The Canadiens finally won in their ninth game, a 7-2 win over the Wanderers on January 23. The game was marked by a 5 goal performance by Didier Pitre, who was one of the few Canadiens having a good season. Pitre would finish second in the NHA in goals this season with 30, and along the way becomes the first Canadiens player in history to net 100 career goals. On January 30, Pitre would notch a pair against Percy Lesueur of the Toronto Ontarios to achieve the feat in only 74 games.

Strangely enough, the Canadiens dressed six english speaking players in 1915, in contravention of the two player ruling. Other than Gardner and Pitre, Harry Scott, Bert Hunt, Nick Bawlf and Ed Lowrey were english speaking. The Canadiens tried to sign and dress a seventh, the legendary Art Ross, but the league governors stepped up to stop it.

Ross, who incidently had no connection to the Canadiens whatsoever beyond this boardroom battle, had his case argued for heavily by Montreal manager Kennedy. A rugged defenseman in his day, who never shied away from conflicts with authority, Ross had been banned from the NHA in this season for attempting to launch his own league. He had been organizing it quietly on the sidelines, and had signed on close to a dozen players when he was sniffed out by the league. Had Ross named the players he had signed, his suspension would have been lifted, but he refused to do so and it took Kennedy's effort to get him reinstated. Once that was accomplished however, he was not allowed to join the Canadiens. Upon his January 7 reinstatement, Ross signed with the Ottawa Senators.

Art Ross would go on to play and coach with the Wanderers, Hamilton, and later in Boston. He became a highly respected league governor, despite punch ups with NHL presisent Red Dutton and Detroit owner James Norris. It is curious in hindsight to note that although today's NHL leading scorer trophy is named after him, Ross only ever scored one goal in the National Hockey League. The reason for that oddity is that when Ross donated the trophy in his name in the late 1930's, it was to be given to the player judged as the league's most spectacular. Being that it was difficult to agree on how to judge such, the trophy went unawarded until 1948, whereupon it was given to the league's leading point scorer.

There was a little more controversy after the season had ended when it was revealed by players on the Bulldogs and Canadiens that they had been approached by gamblers offering wine bottles to them to help fix games. The ringers were not punished in light of a brief investigation that found no scores had been tampered with.

Towards the end of the year, the directors of the Westmount Arena announced that starting in 1915-16, there would be artificial ice at the arena. Other changes incurring in the NHA during 1915 included the Ontarios changing their name to the Shamrocks. The former Tecumsehs, now on their third name change, would not survive the year.

New rulings in the game included pucks played after rebounding from goalkeepers no longer being ruled offside, players standing a minimum of five feet away in distance from players facing off, and match fouls were now penalized by 10 minutes off and $15 fine. Charging a player into the boards is added as a major foul.

Even without Newsy Lalonde, the Vancouver Millionaires became a powerhouse. In the first year of PCHA champs meeting the NHA winners, Vancouver won the Stanley Cup over the Ottawa Senators three games to none.

Some photo notes: What you see directly above is an "Official Score Card" from a Wednesday, January 13th, 1915 game at the Quebec Arena between the Bulldogs and the visiting Montreal Canadiens. The flimsy and tattered paper piece has multiple creases and was plasticized at some point to prevent further deterioration and allow for handling. And what a treat to handle! The Canadiens’ lineup featured Hall-of-Famers Georges Vezina, Newsy Lalonde, Didier Pitre and Jack Laviolette, the latter relieving Vezina in goal during overtime play when Vezina was assessed a penalty for clipping Joe Hall! Joining Hall for Quebec was goalie Paddy Moran, while Joe Malone is listed in the lineup but did not play because of an ankle injury. Newspaper accounts relate that Quebec City had never witnessed a more hotly contested or sensational game than this one which ended after 50 minutes of overtime when Jack McDonald’s second goal of the game gave Quebec a 4-3 victory. Don Smith, twice, and Pitre had scored for Montreal, with Harry Mummery and Rusty Crawford getting Quebec’s other goals. Remarkable pre-NHL relic measures 10-3/4" by 8-1/4" and is museum worthy.

The photo of skates are those belonging to the Georges Vezina in this era.

Another photo note: The picture of Newsy Lalonde in the "CA" logo is a composite, photoshopped by someone with a creative side. Considering that Lalonde spent more time away from the Canadiens team than he spent time playing in 1914-15, there are precious few photos of him in a "CA" from this era. The head of Newsy is from an entirely different photo, and the "CA" logo was either drawn onto this sweater erroneously. The backdrop is actually a Seattle photo shoot from 1919.
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1915-16 A First Of Many Stanleys

2008-07-26T07:02:00.002-07:00

The Canadiens had endured a miserable season in 1914-15 and team owner George Kennedy was determined that the situation would not repeat itself. He offered contracts to defenseman Goldie Prodgers and Howard McNamara - who he'd soon name captain - as well as Georges Poulin and Amos Arbour. Later in the season, Kennedy would add Skene Ronan, the NHA's leading scorer from 1911-12.

The addition of Ronan caused a bit of a stir, as the Canadiens had only been allowed to dress only one english speaking player per game. Dressing Ronan in a January 20 match against the Quebec Bulldogs bent the rule, and a complaint was filed with the league. Agreements had been previously drafted whereupon the Montreal Wanderers, the city's other NHA franchise would be stocked almost entirely with english speaking players. From the Ronan incident on, and after a $100 fine and the forfeiting of a point gained in a tie game, the language restrictions were dropped for both teams.

Newsy Lalonde, who had played only 7 games for the Canadiens due to a contract dispute the previous season, returned to the team full time, satisfied with his new deal. He would center a line featuring Jack Laviolette on the left side and Didier Pitre on the right. Pitre would total 39 points ( 24 goals,15 assists ), but officially the scoring championship was won by Lalonde with 28 goals, as assists did not yet count in the scoring race.

Kennedy had difficulty coming to a contract with coach Jimmy Gardner, who opted to become a referee instead, so the owner turned to Lalonde to assume the duties as a playing coach.

The lineup for the Canadiens in 1915-16 included Newsy Lalonde (center/rover/playing coach), Amos Arbour (left wing), Louis Berlinguette (left wing), Albert Corbeau (defense), Jack Fournier (right wing), Howard McNamara (defense/team captain), Harold McNamara (defense), Didier Pitre (right wing/rover), Georges Poulin (center), Goldie Prodgers (defense), Skene Ronan (center), and Georges Vezina (goaltender).

Things began roughly for Lalonde as coach, with the team winning just 6 of their first 11 games. Early in February, an unhappy Kennedy served an ultimatum to his coach that delivered results. On February 12, Lalonde would score his 100th goal in his 75th game in a Canadiens uniform, in a win over the Ottawa Senators.

Towards the end of the season, the Canadiens demolished the Wanderers in a 15-5 rout. Four Habs - Lalonde, Pitre, Ronan, and defenseman McNamara - recorded hat tricks.

The Canadiens went on to win 10 of their final 11 games, capturing the league title and the O' Brien Cup. They would go onto meet the PCHL champion Portland Rosebuds for the Stanley Cup in a five game series played at the Westmount Arena.

Being that all games of the best of five series were on Montreal ice, they would play games one, three, and five by NHA rules, and games two and four by PCHL rules. The Rosebuds, the first American team in a Stanley Cup final, boasted a PCHL best record of 13-5, while the Canadiens finished up with a 16-7-1 record.

The five game series would go the distance and the Rosebuds won the opening contest with a 2-0 shutout of the Canadiens on March 20. Montreal bounced back two nights later, edging Portland 2-1 to even the series. On March 25th, the Canadiens took the lead in series with a 6-3 win, but the Rosebuds made up for it with a 6-5 win on March 28.

The series deciding game would be played on March 30 under NHA rules, and both teams played a tighter game than the previous two. Portland's Tommy Dunderdale gave his team a 1–0 lead before Skene Ronan tied the game later in the first period.

The seldom used Goldie Prodgers came in as a late game substitution and scored the game winner with four minutes left in the third period to clinch the Cup for the Canadiens with a 2-1 win.

During the entire series, future Hockey Hall Of Fame goaltender Georges Vézina aided Montreal by posting a 2.60 goals against average, while Didier Pitre led the Canadiens in scoring with 4 goals.

Then, as now, the city was swept up by the moment, with many fans not able to get tickets for games gathering at several spots where updates were being telegraphed.

The day following the win, a six paragraph writeup on the final appeared in the Montreal paper.

Written in the hockey terminology of the day, the piece aptly captures the excitement and drama of the first Stanley Cup championship in Montreal.

Both of the Winners' Goals Were Tallied by Players Used in Early Season as Substitutes

Goldie Prodgers, who has been used as a substitute by his club throughout the greater part of their scheduled season and who has been the sensation of the world's professional series which terminated last night, scored the deciding goal that gave the Canadiens possession of the Stanley Cup and his team mates the winners' share of the amount to be divided amongst the players. Following an attack on the Flying Frenchmen's nets Lalonde and Prodgers faked a play that turned the tide for the local club and accounted for their narrow margin victory, they beating the Portland Rosebuds by a score of 2 to 1.

Lalonde took the puck after Vezina cleared from a shot by Harris and started around the goal while he yelled at Prodgers to come on. The big defence player started from the other direction and taking the rubber as Lalonde left it in the corner, started on his way for Portland's end. He was given a rough journey, having to force his way past some of the opposing forwards and then the two outside defence men. He beat Harris in a rush for the centre of the ice by swinging around and starting in an opposite direction. Prodgers then skated into Irvine and his weight toppled the Portland player over, while it was an easy matter to skate around Johnson. Prodgers took his time in shooting in an effort to draw Murray out. As the Portland goaltender came out to meet him, Prodgers skated around him and lobbed the puck into the nets. That play spelled defeat for Portland, as there was less than four minutes to play and the Flying Frenchmen had little trouble in holding out their opponents for the remaining time by playing back on the defence.

TEAMS WELL MATCHED

That there was little to choose between the teams is best shown by the score of the final meeting. The Canadiens scored their first goal in the opening session, it coming from Ronan, another of the club's substitutes who has also made good in the series. The advantage was held by the Flying Frenchmen until well on in the third period, the middle session being a scoreless one. In the third session Dunderdale, who was sent in to relieve Harris, scored the goal that tied the score in a spectacular manner. He started to go between Corbeau and McNamara after getting clear of the forwards and then swung around and skated behind Corbeau, going almost into the nets before shooting. Following this score came the gruelling session of the contest, the players, ready to drop from exhaustion, became desperate in their efforts and through their over-anxiety to tally tossed away many chances from which goals would have been scored under other conditions.

The Canadiens allowed themselves to become bottled up and only the good generalship of their leader, Newsy Lalonde, enabled Prodgers to get his start. As the players went after Lalonde, Prodgers was on his way and was never overtaken. The exhibition of hockey furnished was not as brilliant as some of the previous games of the series, the checking being too close and hard to permit of the spectacular end to end rushes so conspicuous in former games. From the commencement of the play the players showed signs of ill feeling and slashed and cross-checked one another, which accounted for the almost steady procession of players to the penalty bench. The play was well handled by Harvey Pulford and Johnny Brennan, only their prompt ruling holding the players in control. During the first session there were fifteen minors and two major penalties handed out. This almost gave the game an appearance of burlesque, but it had the desired effect on the players and checked them up so that they played cleaner and more brilliant hockey in the remaining two sessions.

MADE HOCKEY HISTORY

In winning this series the Canadiens added to hockey history. They are the first French team to ever hold the coveted trophy, while through mistakes made from their bench in the fourth game they made it necessary for the series to go the full five games before a winner was determined. The victory of last night shows that the leaving of Newsy Lalonde on the bench in the final period of the game on Tuesday night was an error that might have cost the Flying Frenchmen the championship. The only advantage held by the winners under the six-man rules was their better supply of substitutes and, even with almost a second team on the bench, the regulars played throughout the better part of the match. The six-man game added to the number of substitutes on the Portland bench, as it gave them three men to send in to relieve the regulars and all of them were whipped into service at one time or another.

The game was played over a sheet of ice that was as nearly perfect as possible, which enabled the players to maintain the fast pace at which they started. The greatest number of changes were made in the opening period, these being necessary through the numerous penalties, which also served to give the regulars a rest occasionally, which served them well at the finish.

The play was witnessed by another disappointingly small attendance, so that the clubs will not reap a very rich financial harvest from the final match. The crowd of last night looked to be the smallest of the series, showing that even with the Stanley Cup at stake that the public have grown tired of hockey throughout the prolonged season.

SUBSTITUTES THE STARS

The series just brought to a finish brought together two of the fastest hockey teams who have perhaps ever competed for the Stanley Cup.

In the days when the trophy represented the amateur championship the game was not as fast as at the present time, while the meeting between the winners of the West and the East during the past two years have not brought forth the speed shown in the games played between Portland and Canadiens.

The Canadiens showed themselves the speediest aggregation in the National Hockey Association this season, and are the only team who could have kept pace with the Westerners.

The outstanding feature of the series has been the making good of men who have been used as substitutes throughout the scheduled season; Arbour, Prodgers and Lalonde have been the outstanding stars of the locals, while on the few occasions that Ronan was used he made good. His goal of last night was perhaps a flukey one, but it counted and started the French club on their victorious march. Manager Savage, of the Portland team, took exception to the scoring of the Canadiens' first goal. He claimed that the puck had not touched the ice as Referee Pulford dropped it for a face-off before Ronan batted it into the nets. Manager Savage had the option of protesting, but the decision of a referee or goal umpire is final in all matches.

PLAYERS WERE NERVOUS

From the commencement of the play the teams started out in a cautious manner, neither showing any anxiety to leave their defence open for attacks. As the game progressed the players mastered their nervous condition and went at their work with more confidence and determination. The Canadiens were the first to break away for a combined effort, Lalonde, Prodgers and Pitre going down the ice almost apace. Lalonde shot, but missed, and the play was carried back to the locals' end by Irvine. As Corbeau came out to meet Irvine the Portland player passed over to Tobin, who shot without a great deal of accuracy and Vezina had little trouble in taking care of it. Corbeau checked Johnson in a strenuous manner and was sent to the bench, drawing the first penalty. Arbour was sent in to replace him, and Prodgers dropped back on the defence. Lalonde and Johnson then came together, and Lalonde was penalized, while Poulin replaced him. With two of the regulars on the bench the Canadiens played an almost airtight defence and held their opponents out.

Ronan replaced Poulin, while Lalonde replaced McNamara on the defence, the latter being penalized. Following a rush of Prodgers, Harris took the puck offside and a face-off followed near the Portland nets. Ronan struck the puck as it dropped from Pulford's hand and it landed in the nets, giving Canadiens their first advantage, with nine minutes remaining in the period. Following the scoring of this goal the locals dropped back on the defensive and played a three-man defence, allowing only two to go up the ice at a time. On changing over for the second period, both clubs started their original teams. For the first few minutes the visitors had the edge and had the locals bottled up, but were unable to beat Vezina. On two occasions Tobin was inside the local defence, but failed to score. The players battled up and down the ice, being on the offensive and defensive in turn until the call of time for the resting interval.

CANADIENS FINISHED STRONG

Again at the commencement of the third period were the visitors the first to assume the aggressive. They showed more speed than the locals, and for a time had them well bottled up. From a face-off near the centre of the ice, Dunderdale got the better of the draw, and after a brilliant play, tied the score. This was the commencement of even more gruelling play than had been shown in either of the two previous periods.

Harris and Tobin got away for a combined effort and were in on top of the local defence when Corbeau stopped both of them. He bodied Tobin so that he went down and then reached out and tripped Harris, for which he was given a major penalty. Tobin continued to play, while Harris was replaced by Johnson, who had been serving a penalty. Following a shot on the locals' net Lalonde started the play from which the winning goal was scored, and the remaining time was devoted by the winners to purely defensive work, while Portland played five of their six men on the attack in an effort to tie the score, but without result.
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1916-17 Cupless In Seattle

2008-07-26T07:02:00.001-07:00

Robert L Note: The following encapsulation of the Montreal Canadiens 1916-17 season is quite a lengthy and drawn out posting, as it will involve a great many evolving tentacles that detail the transition of the NHA into the NHL within a twelve month span. This particular season is quite historic on many levels, as it not only involves the Canadiens defending their first Stanley Cup, but it also takes in a great number of changes within the sport of hockey. World War I, an army hockey club in the NHA, and the ongoing saga of two Toronto based clubs run parallel to the Canadiens season in this detailed account.

For historians of the game, or anyone curious about the NHL's beginnings, this post will provide some detail into how it all came about. For fans of this era in hockey, this post is enlivened with a pair of newpaper reports from 1917, that shed light on the perception of the sports in all it's innocence. Enjoy!

The 1917-18 NHA season was the eighth and final season of the league's existence. Events during the season would divide teams owners on a number of issues, and the fracture would lead to the creation of the National Hockey League the following season. It could be said that it was a season of war, outside the NHL, and within it.

Prior to the start of the season, it was decided that the six clubs would play two half seasons of 10 games each, with the winners of each half meeting for the league championship. It was an idea the defending Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens could warm to, as in recent seasons they often had great first halves, only to cool down in the latter part of the schedule.

With the onset of World War I about to rage overseas, the Canadiens and the other five NHA franchises would donate 2.5% of their gate receipts for the season to the Red Cross army relief fund. As the war wreaked havoc on all team sports in North America at the time, the NHA was not spared. Players league wide who were enlisted in the army were being called into service, and it would force the league to adapt and adjust haphazardly along the way.

The fledgling NHA considered suspending its activities initially, but soon approached dealing with the issue in a unique manner. Much of what transpired among the team owners during the schedule, affected the changes that would lead the league to being reborn at the season's close.

During the NHA summer meetings, the franchise of the dormant Toronto Shamrocks was revoked from renegade owner Eddie Livingstone, and baptised the 228th Battalion. The club would feature a number of NHA players who had enlisted in the military service.

The Shamrocks were an unsuccessful venture for its owners and the NHA, and the franchise had gone through several cosmetic alterations during it's existence. It began as the 1909-10 Montreal Canadiens, as owned by J. Ambrose O' Brien. After the club went into failure, the team's activities were then suspended for a season pending a transfer or sale. Finally in late 1911, the NHA transferred the rights of the club to Toronto interests, and it became known as the Tecumsehs.

The NHA was quite keen to set up shop in Toronto, and the league debuted two teams in the city in 1912-13, with the other coming under the name of Blueshirts. After one season, the Tecumsehs had been renamed the Ontarios, but it would be the Blueshirts who gained all headlines in winning the 1913-14 Stanley Cup.

Although NHA hockey proved to be extremely popular in Toronto, the Ontarios were the lesser of the two city clubs. Interests in the team were purchased by Livingstone in 1914, and the NHA owners would come to regret his inclusion into their inner circle. Midway through the campaign, Livingstone changed the club's name from Ontarios to Shamrocks, switching their uniform colours from orange to green in the process. It did little to avert the club's misfortunes.

During the season, the Shamrocks had trouble dressing a full team and paying its players. A belligerent Livingstone, hardly in a position to make demands, began to make enemies within the NHA by expecting that the league cover for his team's inadequacies in a number of ways. When the season ended without a solution from Livingstone for his club's woes, the NHA suspended the franchise for one season, in order for Livingstone to buy himself time to reorganize his finances.

Livingstone then went about several moves to keep himself in the NHA mix, but having made foes out of potential allies, he was blocked on every front. On different occasions he attempted to sell his club, buy both the Blueshirts and Wanderers, and move his franchise to Boston. All of his efforts received a thumbs down from the league. He was also at odds in a set of similar legal conflicts with the Arena Gardens, who had been home to the Shamrocks franchise.

Damned at every turn, Livingstone then sold his best Shamrocks players of to the Blueshirts, which reduced the Shamrocks franchise value greatly. When the NHA blocked Livingstone's attempt to buy the Blueshirts, arguing that an owner could not hold two clubs according to league bylaws, he disbanded the Shamrocks and purchased the Blueshirts prior to the 1915-16 season. To his horror, he then watched as his players were picked apart from him, some joining the Battalion club, and others signing with the Pacific Coast Hockey League.

After the dust had settled, and few of Livingstone's efforts bore fruit prior to the start of the 1916-17 campaign, his Shamrocks franchise was revoked by the league, who also declared that he no longer owned rights to his remaining former players that had been spread out across the other franchises. The multitude of acts and threats by Livingston would provoke a decade long series of litigation between Livingstone and the NHA owners, based primarily on the notion that he felt he was never fully compensated for his losses and received unfair treatment at the hands of the other NHA owners.

The creation of the NHL from the remnants of the NHA after the term of the 1916-17 season, were the league's answers to sidestepping ongoing hassles with Livingstone. It was deviously planned that forcing him out of their picture would leave him with little legal recourse. An Ottawa team governor at the time, was quoted as suggesting that Livingstone's hands were tied in legal matters, as he still owned his team, essentially, and the league it played in. The only problem was that Livingstone's franchise currently existed in a one team league.

Prior to Livingstone's being dealt with terminally, the NHA came upon the idea of employing his dormant franchise as a means to counter the challenges presented by the war and players enlisting in the service.

The 228th Battalion would be based in Toronto, and it would be comprised of several star players from the other five remaining clubs. The Canadiens lost three players to the service as Amos Arbour, Goldie Prodgers, and Howard McNamara all became members of the Battalion team. Skene Ronan, a key player in the Canadiens plans, went onto play with the Ottawa Munitions club in the OCHL.

The Battalion, also going under the Northern Fusiliers moniker, wore khaki military uniforms and were the league's most popular and highest scoring team in the earlier half of the schedule. The addition of the club to the NHA in this season was a morale booster during these times, but their creation would be short lived.

When the regiment was ordered overseas in February of 1917, the team was forced to withdraw from league play midway through the schedule's second half. This threw the NHA into an unforeeen tizzy, and rash decisions on what to do with the remainder of scheduled games ensued.

As the Toronto Blueshirts were also mired in financial straights at the moment, the NHA suspended the club for the rest of the season, and its players moved on to play for other teams for what was left of the season. Part of the decision by league governors had to do with the simplicity of recreating a schedule for four teams rather than five. The league made it known that it intended for the Blueshirts players to be returned to the franchise at the season's end when new ownership for the club would be found.

Several scandals for the NHA ensued beyond the nullifying of both Toronto based squads during 1916-17. The Blueshirts would not be sold, but instead the league approved a transfer of it's ownership to a group headed by the Arena Gardens, much to ire of Livingstone. The club would be an immediate hit in 1918, eventually metamorphisizing into the Toronto Maple Leafs.

A second scandal involved the Battalion players, as it was later revealed upon several of the stars being subsequently discharged from the army, that they had been promised commissions solely to play hockey, and not fight in the war. Of course this conflicted with the reasoning behind their withdrawl from the NHA schedule in the first place. Apparently, there was not much substance to the allegations, and although the NHA would sue the 228th Battalion club for its withdrawal, the suit ultimately did not succeed.

Considering the constant facelifts the NHA endured in 1917-18, the member clubs did a great deal of improvising on the fly to maintain the composition of their teams. In this regard, the Canadiens fared better than most in adapting to the changes.

The Canadiens would employ 18 players in 1917-18, the most they had ever dressed in one single season up to this time. The returnees included core players Georges Vezina, Newsy Lalonde, Didier Pitre, Bert Corbeau, Jack Laviolette, Louis Berlinguette and Skinner Poulin. Not returning were Skene Ronan, Amos Arbour, Howard McNamara, Jack Fournier, and the man who scored the Stanley Cup clinching goal in 1916, Goldie Prodgers. All but Fournier were enlisted in enlisted into the army and were called into service at different points.

An incredible eleven new faces, a mixture of veterans and hopefuls, joined the 1917-18 Canadiens, with visions of another Stanley Cup trip in their eyes. They included the seasoned Harry Mummery and Tommy Smith, who had each spent parts of the last four years with the Quebec Bulldogs and were part of their 1912-13 Cup win.

Reg Noble and Arthur Brooks came to the Canadiens in the second half when the Blueshirts season had been ended abruptly. Billy Coutu, Sarsfield Malone, Jules Rochon, Dave Creighton, Joe Maltais, Harold McNamara, and Dave Major were the other additions to the club. Harold McNamara, was the younger brother of Howard and was acquired on November 27 in exchange for the rights to Jack Fournier on November 27.

Of this new group of players, only Coutu would play beyond this season with the Canadiens, remaining until the end of the 1925-26 season.

Defenseman Mummery, all 220 lbs of him, would return for 24 games in the 1920-21 season. Coutu, whose real name was William Couture, would later become the first player banned from the professional hockey for assault in 1927, while a member of the Boston Bruins.

The aquisition of Smith was somewhat disapointing. After scoring 40 goals three seasons ago, and 16 goals for the Bulldogs the previous season, his goal total dropped to 8 with the Canadiens.

With the popularity of the Canadiens having grown by extremes following their 1916 Stanley Cup win, the Jubilee Arena, the rink that housed the Canadiens in their inaugural 1909-10 season, wanted them back as tenants in a big way. Even though the Jubilee had less seating capacity, they made the Canadiens an offer that was quite tempting, but eventually passed up by the club. The Canadiens then used the Jubilee offer as a bargaining chip for a better deal at the Westmount Arena. In an unfortunate twist of fate, the Canadiens would return to the Jubilee in 1918, when the Westmount Arena would burn to the ground.

Starting the season, several Canadiens players were again unhappy with their contract offers from the club. Corbeau, Pitre, Laviolette and as usual, Newsy Lalonde, all balked at initial offers made, but all had little salary leverage with the World War's effect on the economy. Despite problems during negotiations, all four players were duly signed without any holdouts, trades, or league skipping due to the new restrictions brought on one season prior in agreements put in place by the NHA and the PCHL.

Money was tight in this time of war, and despite the team coffers being crowbarred for player raises, the Canadiens finally settled a year old outstanding debt with the Vancouver Millionaires for $750. A disputed fee owed to the Patrick brother's PCHA club in the botched Lalonde transfer from two seasons back was dealt with easier than had been expected due to the tough times.

As for the Canadiens starting the split schedule season hot and ending it cold, that exact scenario played out. They went 7-3 in the first ten game slice, earning a spot in the league final halfway through the season, before settling down in the second half and going 3-7 down the stretch.

In the first half, Montreal scored 58 goals, second behind the 228th Battalion with 70. However, they allowed only 38, the least among teams in the first ten games. In the second half, the Canadiens would manage but 32 goals, the least of the four teams who finished the season. They allowed 42 goals against, good enough for second place but well behind the Seantors who only surrendered a mere 22 goals.

Ottawa goalie Clint Benedict would beat out Vezina for the best goals against average and the leading scorers for the season were Joe Malone of the Bulldogs and Frank Nighbor of the Senators each with 41 tallies. The Canadiens best were Lalonde with 28 and Pitre with 21.

In the season's opening ten game half, both the Canadiens and Senators shared a 7-3 record, but first place was awarded to Montreal based on percentage system of wins versus losses and goals scored versus goals against. Montreal was plus 20 in goals and had a .604 percentage to Ottawa's plus 15 and a .577 percentage.

The Senators would excel in the second half, running up a 9-1 record. With a combined 16-4 season, the Senators were favorites over the Canadiens to represent the NHA in the Stanley Cup final. The two teams would square off in a two game total goals final to decide which club would represent the NHA.

The Canadiens took the first contest in Montreal by a 5-2 score and held off the Senators with a 4-2 loss in Ottawa for a final score of 7-6 in the Canadiens favor.

The Canadiens were a very confident bunch as they headed out to Seattle to defend their Stanley Cup championship against the Metropolitans. The series began on March 17 and things got off to a good start with 4 goals by Didier Pitre in game one, an 8-4 handling of the west champs.

All games were scheduled with two days off between matches, and the rest did little to help Montreal the rest of the way. They lost the three next games by scores of 6-1, 4-1, and 9-1. The Canadiens had to console themselves with being Canada's best eastern team for the time being.

They would have an opportunity to avenge the loss to the Metropolitans again in two years time.

Here is an account of the 1917 final from Collections Canada.

In 1917, the Seattle Metropolitans, of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), became the first American based team to win the Stanley Cup. They did so by defeating the Montreal Canadiens, of the National Hockey Association (NHA), 23 to 11 in a four game, total goal series. The games alternated between the seven player rule of the PCHA and the six player rule of the NHA.

SEATTLE, March 27. The Seattle Hockey team annexed the highest honors in hockey last night when they met and defeated the Montreal Canadiens in the fourth and final game of the series for the Stanley Cup, the score was nine goals to one.

Starting in a manner which threatened to give the local team trouble the Flying Frenchmen couldn't keep the pace and in the latter stages of the battle the Seattle forwards rained goals through Vezina. The speed of the local team again won for Seattle. The Mets outskated and bested the Montreal players at every turn. At times the visitors showed flashes of the form they exhibited on the first night but for the most part their play lacked the dash and aggressiveness expected of them.

The visitors seemed tired and listless and plainly showed the strain of former struggles. Again and again the Seattle skaters rushed through their defence for scores. Bernie Morris seemed to be the principal fly in the Montreal ointment, the Seattle forward snagging five scores alone. Captain Foyston followed with three. Pitre who shot goals like a world beater on the opening night got the only Canadien score late in the struggle.

A peculiar feature of last night's contest was the lack of roughness, not one player was sent off the ice by the referee and the penalty bench was deserted all through the game. The play was clean all the way but lacked the thrills and excitement of the other three contests.

The victory for the Mets makes Seattle the first American team which ever won the world's title. Every game found the Arena filled to overflowing and the Seattle people were treated to one of the most thrilling series of hockey ever played.

Manager Kennedy admits his team was outclassed. He said his boys never had a chance and that the speed of the local men was altogether too much for his players. He believes however that with Noble in the lineup his team can trim the Champions. They will get a chance to make good Wednesday night when the same teams play for the gate receipts, after this game the teams will go south where they will play a series of three games in San Francisco.

Here is another accounting from the Seattle Metropolitan's perspective:

That Championship Season: The Story of the 1917 Seattle Metropolitans by Gary M. Bernklow

FUTILE DEFENSE

The NHA playoff pitted the defending Cup holders and first half champion Montreal Canadiens against the second half champion Ottawa Senators. The predominantly French speaking Canadiens won the first game of the two game, total-goals series by the score of 5-2. They managed to stay close enough to the Senators in the second game, losing 4-2, to win the series 7-6. The Canadiens, nicknamed the "Flying Frenchmen," would head to Seattle to defend the Cup, in a five game series. As captain of the Canadiens, Newsy Lalonde headed back to the PCHA, this time as an opponent.

With an opponent finally set, the city of Seattle began to buzz with talk of the World Series of Hockey. Arena manager Curtis Lester prepared the building for what he expected would be the biggest crowd ever, and sportswriters from all over the Northwest converged on the city. Special telegraph wires were strung into the Arena, and newspapers all over Canada prepared to print bulletins on the goals as they occurred.

While enthusiasm ran high among the fans, oddsmakers put Seattle's chances of winning the cup at around 50-50. Just before the series was to begin, Mets' defenseman Bobby Rowe injured his shoulder in practice. Without Rowe in the lineup, Seattle's defense was weakened. Roy Rickey, Rowe's replacement, was hailed as a promising prospect, but lacked the experience of Rowe.

Muldoon's players were further disheartened when Seattle sportswriters, unfamiliar with any of the teams in the Eastern league, requested player biographies for the Montreal team. "Statistics taken from the Montreal Herald, giving the individual weight of the Canadiens, indicate that the NHA pennant winners probably are the heaviest hockey team in the world," commented a Seattle Daily Times writer. With an average weight of 179 pounds compared to the Mets' average of 163 pounds, "the Canadiens loom like giants."

Tickets for the first game went on sale at 9 A.M. on March 14, three days before the first game. A crowd gathered hours before the ticket window opened, stretching nearly one block. The seats were sold in a few hours, at which time the Arena management printed standing room only vouchers, raising the building's capacity to more than four thousand.

As injured defenseman Bobby Rowe tried to heal in time for the first game, Montreal was delayed on its trip to the West. Due to arrive on March 16, the team stopped and practiced at the Vancouver Arena as Frank Patrick's guests. They arrived late at night on March 16, just one day before the first game was scheduled. Travel weary and without their skating legs, even the Canadiens manager expected them to lose the first game.

"I do not expect my team to have their feet tonight because of the long trip they have just finished, " said Montreal manager George Kennedy, just before the first game. "They will be in fighting form by Tuesday, however, and we have not the slightest doubt of the outcome of the series."

In addition to fatigue, his team also had to play the first game under the seven player system still used in the West, adding to Seattle's advantages for the first game.

On St. Patrick's Day, 1917, the Canadiens drew first blood in the series, winning the opening game easily. Led by the great goaltending of Georges Vezina, the Montreal team "skimmed over the ice like feathers floating down an airshaft." The aging winger, Didier Pitre, scored four goals for Montreal, all on fifty foot shots that whizzed past Seattle netminder Hap Holmes "so fast that Holmes could not see them."

At 40 years old, Pitre was one of the oldest players in either league. But if his age slowed him down, he didn't show it. In the NHA, he was recognized as having the hardest shot in the league. "Whenever the whirlwind forward for the Frenchmen hooked his stick on the puck, 'Happy' Holmes folded his arms, closed his eyes, and prayed."

When the third period began, Montreal led 5-1, as Seattle tried to mount a counterattack, without the services of Bobby Rowe. Bernie Morris scored his second goal of the night just one minute into the period, which was followed by another from Frank Foyston just minutes later. But the comeback fell short two minutes later, as Pitre again blasted one by Happy Holmes, making the score 6-3. Bernie Morris got his hat-trick later, but to no avail, as the Canadiens held on to take the first game, 8-4. In addition to the victory, Newsy Lalonde also managed to make some enemies with the Seattle team by taking three penalties for a total of nine minutes.

Montreal was elated by the victory. The Mets, on the other hand, seemed to take the loss in stride, saying they still intended to win the series. But the loss must have weighed as heavily on Pete Muldoon as it did on the Seattle sportswriters:

"When the speed boys from the East got through with the home lads you could only recognize them by the 'S' on their uniforms," quipped Royal Brougham in the Post-Intelligencer. "In the language of the street, they 'blew'. The goalkeeper leaked like a fork," he continued, "altogether it was a sad night." Muldoon vowed his team would be prepared for the next meeting.

The teams met for game two just three nights later. This time, the match would be played under the NHA six man system. Oddsmakers, or "dopesters" as they were called by the press, gave the edge to the Canadiens on the basis of their showing in the first contest and Seattle's unfamiliarity with the six player game. Muldoon was outwardly confidant, if inwardly troubled, by his team's performance in the previous match.

"My team got all the bad hockey out of its system Saturday night," he told reporters.

"Five of my men were on the team which beat the Canadiens out of the NHA pennant in 1914," he added. "Foyston, Walker, Carpenter, Wilson, and Holmes beat the Frenchmen then and they ought to be able to do it again."

Happy Homes echoed the sentiments of his boss. Realizing that his poor play was partially responsible for the defeat, Holmes promised to "show up those frog-eaters Tuesday night if he ever showed up a team in his life." Despite the outward confidence of the Seattle players, none of them would have predicted the outcome of the crucial second game.

Seattle came out of the locker room flying. Ten minutes into the game, Bernie Morris scored his fourth goal of the series, giving the Mets their first lead against the Canadiens. Then, with Newsy Lalonde of Montreal out for roughing, Cully Wilson scored a power play goal on a pass from Jack Walker, giving Seattle a two goal lead.

The second period featured more of the same, with Bernie Morris again putting the puck behind Georges Vezina. Frank Foyston then added another, giving Seattle a four goal edge to begin the third period. Captain Foyston then added two more in the third, closing out the Mets' scoring. Tommy Smith scored for Montreal with less than a minute remaining to spoil Holmes' shutout.

Besides the lopsided 6-1 score, the game provided excitement for the boxing enthusiasts.

"The fight fan was in his glory," wrote Royal Brougham. "There were not any eight ounce gloves or padded rings, but there was plenty of mixing just the same."

Once again, it was Montreal who received the bulk of the penalties, leading one columnist to crack, "The brand of hockey those lads play is as clean as the bottom of a parrot's cage. Tuesday's contest wasn't a game, it was a crime."

The controversy about the fighting, however, did not matter to the Metropolitans. They had tied the series, and earned a measure of respect from the Canadiens.

Happy Holmes was especially pleased, having redeemed himself in front of his fans.

"If 'Happy' had nailed a six-foot fence across his nets the Montreal forwards couldn't have had any more trouble slipping the puck through for scores," Brougham said.

The Seattle Times wrote, "Last night Holmes was stopping them with everything from his toe to his eyebrow, fending off shots from every angle and guarding his goal like Horatius watched the bridge." Then, as now, a player's popularity was the direct result of his last performance.

By "upsetting the dope," Seattle managed to cause a switch in the wagering and put the pressure back on the shoulders of the defending Cup champions. Believing the loss resulted from his players having "too many parties," Montreal Manager George Kennedy forced his team to buckle down. "No more pleasure from now on, " he told the press. "The boys have found out that they haven't any walk away and they are going to knuckle down to business now."

The third game, on March 23, proved not only to be the most important contest of the series, but the most controversial as well.

Led once again by the amazing scoring touch of Bernie Morris, the Mets moved to within one game of taking home the Stanley Cup. Morris opened the first period with the first of his three goals on the night. The Canadiens held Seattle scoreless in the second to preserve their hopes of equalizing the score in the third. But Frank Foyston netted his fifth goal of the series, and Morris followed with two goals in two minutes to seal the victory. Tommy Smith again spoiled the shutout with a Montreal goal in the last minute.

But the real fireworks began after the game. George Kennedy filed a formal protest following the match, claiming that when his best defenseman, Harry Mummery, was given a ten minute penalty, the Canadiens had no replacement for him. The Montreal reserves were all either serving penalties or actively playing on the ice. Seattle scored all three of its third period goals while Mummery served his penalty. Kennedy formally submitted his protest to league president Frank Patrick the following day. The surprise move by the Montreal manager made him "about as popular as a worm in a chestnut" with Seattle fans.

On March 25, just one day before the scheduled fourth game, Frank Patrick handed down his decision regarding the protest. After consulting with NHA president Frank Robinson, Patrick ruled against the protest, validating the results of the game.

"I do not think Montreal was deprived of Friday's game by any action of the officials," Frank said in a written statement to the press. "And for that reason I cannot allow the protest. The Seattle players were in the lead all the way, and they got none the worst of the refereeing."

Despite the near setback, Seattle fans were confidant that their team would capture the Cup in the next game. "Seattle fans are unable to see how the Canadiens can win from the dashing Metros," wrote reporters. "In the last two games the Seattle puck chasers have so far outplayed the Canadiens that nothing but a drastic reversal of form by the Mets or a wonderful revival of form by the Canadiens would make it possible for the Montreal men to win."

By the start of the fourth game, all of the "dope" was with Seattle. The game would be played under NHA rules (six players), but the Mets seemed to have no trouble adapting to the different style, as they had demonstrated in the second game. They had dominated the Canadiens since getting over their opening night jitters, outclassing the Frenchmen at every turn. Mike Jay, a Vancouver Sun sports reporter, declared that he would like to be "in at the death Monday." The Seattle players were "filled to overflowing with confidence and pep," sure that the Cup would be theirs following the game.

GROUNDING THE FLYING FRENCHMEN

At precisely 8:30 P.M. on Monday, March 26, referee Mickey Ion dropped the puck for the opening face off of the fourth game between the opposing centers, Bernie Morris for the Mets and Newsy Lalonde for the Canadiens. Less than two minutes later, in front of the largest crowd to ever witness a hockey game in Seattle, Morris bulged the twine behind Georges Vezina with an unassisted goal. That goal held up through the period, which ended with Seattle nursing a 1-0 lead.

The second period began with the Mets becoming more aggressive. A Frank Foyston shot right after the faceoff just missed the net. Montreal forward Jack Laviolette, after leading a brilliant rush, crumpled to the ice following a check from Mets defenseman Ed Carpenter. He returned later in the game, but the tone had been set: the Metropolitans would not lose this game.

Eight minutes into the second stanza, Foyston and Morris carried the puck into the Montreal zone on a two on one. Foyston feathered a pass to Morris who then slipped it by Vezina for a 2-0 lead. One minute later, Foyston tallied one of his own, unassisted, for a three goal lead. Now, the Seattle players had found their stride, and the floodgates were about to open, with Bernie Morris leading the deluge.

Roy Rickey, the young Seattle defenseman, shot down the ice with Morris close behind. He held the puck as Morris positioned himself in front of the net, then floated a pass right on Bernie's stick. "The tricky Morris," wrote a sportswriter, "shot with ridiculous ease." Seattle headed into the second intermission with a comfortable 4-0 lead.

The third period started as badly for the Montreal Canadiens as the second period had ended. First, as George Kennedy walked across the ice to his bench, the Seattle fans gave the Montreal manager quite a good natured heckling. Soon after the puck was dropped, Kennedy's spirits sank even further. Again the source was Bernie Morris, picking up his fourth goal of the game a little more than one minute after the face off. At this point, the Arena fans erupted, sensing the demise of the Canadiens. The crowd had scarcely quieted down when Morris struck again, this time with an assist to Jack Walker.

The fans were in an uproar, cheering and stomping their feet until the iron girders in the Arena rattled from the vibration. All the Montreal Canadiens could do was wait for the clock to run out in the game, and their reign as Stanley Cup Champions. Foyston scored again, making it 7-0. Didier Pitre countered for the Canadiens, but it was too late. Jack Walker added one more late for the soon to be champion Seattle team, and the amazing Bernie Morris put away his sixth goal of the game to close it out. As the game ended, Seattle had walloped Montreal, 9-1.

The Seattle fans went berserk. "The lexicon of sport," wrote the Seattle Daily Times, "does not contain language adequate to describe the fervor of the fans."

But if the Seattle faithful were expecting to catch a glimpse of the fabled Stanley Cup, they were disappointed. Not only had the Montreal Canadiens left the chalice at home, but the Mets would have to put up a $500 bond before the NHA would relinquish it to their possession. It would be another three months before any of the Seattle players could hold the Cup aloft as world champions.

Even though the physical symbol of their victory was missing for a short time, the players took pride in the fact that they had done what no other U.S. team had ever done - etched their name on the base of the Stanley Cup.

With their victory over Montreal, Seattle sports fans had their first ever big league professional sports championship. It would be sixty two years before the Seattle Supersonics of the National Basketball Association would give them another. Mets fans showed their appreciation by presenting the Seattle players with trophies purchased with donations.

Seattle sports writers wasted no time before gloating about the victory.

"The Mets went through the invaders defense like a tornado on wheels in huckleberry time," wrote one columnist. "They couldn't have played better if they cheated."

The Canadiens prized Stanley Cup had "gone where the woodbind twineth and the grass is ever green, and Lalonde and his gladiator's chests have receeded and resumed their normal position on their backs."

The reporter concluded with a nod to the more than sixteen thousand fans who witnessed the four games, and exclaimed, "Among Monday's four thousand spectators were the Montreal players."

.

1917-18 Malone Paces Canadiens In NHL Launch

2008-07-26T07:01:00.001-07:00

It was the Montreal Canadiens ninth season of existance, and the NHL as we know it, was about to be born.

The Canadiens were not yet known as "the Habs", "Les Glorieux" or "Le Tricolore", and the term "Flying Frenchman" was only beginning to spread. In fact, the Canadiens were just another professional hockey team in what was then a rapidly growing sport.

Albeit just two years removed from their first Stanley Cup championship, the Canadiens team and franchise of the day were possibly best recognized at the time as the one professional city hockey team made of mostly of french speaking players. It was their calling card upon their 1909 creation, and remained their identity and public perception despite the fact that they had been signing more and more players from outside the province of Quebec in order to maintain it's survival.

Up until 1917, teams in the city of Montreal had won no less than 17 Stanley Cups since 1893. In the 24 years since Lord Stanley of Preston donated the trophy that was to be competed for in the dominion of Canada as a challenge cup, the city of Montreal was for all intents and purposes, the center of the hockey universe.

Prior to the forming of the NHA in 1909, the Stanley Cup remained an amateur team's conquest. It's winners were:

Montreal AAA: 1893, 1894, 1895 (March), 1902 (March), 1903 (February)
Montreal Victorias: 1895, 1896 (December), 1897,1898,1899 (February)
Winnipeg Victorias: 1896 (February), 1901,1902 (January)
Montreal Shamrocks: 1899 (March), 1900
Ottawa Senators (Silver Seven): 1903 (March), 1904, 1905, 1906 (February), 1909
Montreal Wanderers: 1906 (March), 1907 (March), 1908
Kenora Thistles: 1907 (January)

From the formation of the NHA until the beginning of the first NHL season, the Stanley Cup was competed for by teams across Canada. The winners during those 8 years were:

Montreal Wanderers: 1910
Ottawa Senators: 1911
Quebec Bulldogs: 1912, 1913
Toronto Blueshirts: 1914
Vancouver Millionaires: 1915
Montreal Canadiens: 1916
Seattle Metropolitans: 1917

Since the Stanley Cup had been donated to the country and competed for since 1893 there had been 31 winners in 24 hockey seasons. The Montreal Canadiens had been but one of the 12 clubs to win the Cup. Other teams in the city of Montreal had already claimed 16 Stanley Cup championships when the NHL began in 1917-18

The game of hockey, and Stanley Cup competition, had gone through many changes in it's 24 years evolution. It had essentially evolved from an outdoor game of shinny to an indoor business capable of seating up to 7,000 paying customers in those years. However rudimetary it seems when looking back now, it became a business long before the NHL was formed. The NHA seasons from 1909 to 1917 were merely a template for what professional hockey would later become.

In all the constant change and flux of the earliest days of pro hockey, the Montreal Canadiens were nothing more than another pro hockey franchise dealing with the survival constraints brought on by the first world war. The Canadiens, by this time, had identifiable stars in Newsy Lalonde, Didier Pitre, Georges Vezina, and Jack Laviolette, and these early hockey pioneers helped forge an identity for the team among hockey fans in Montreal.

As pro hockey evolved, so did society. Times were moving fast, and they were hard times. Financial gain and prosperity for those willing to risk it all when investing in hockey were obtainable for the most daring of folks, but the circumstances of failure loomed large. Due to the times, it was so with any financial endeavor. Hockey was but another fleeting opportunity for financial prosperity in 1917. Fans of the game then, and the money makers and the visionary risk takers of the day interested in hockey pourred the foundation for what the game is today.

The Senators, Wanderers, and Canadiens were three of seven teams present when the NHA formed in 1909 that were still viable when the NHL began in 1917. Montreal would outlast its two inaugural partners due to good fortune and a loyal fanbase. As the NHL's first season dawned, the trials of the times and those fans and owners passions would make or break the Montreal Canadiens in the coming years.

The NHL's first season was a mere 6 games old when disaster struck and play was disrupted as a fire destroyed Montreal's stately Westmount Arena, home of the Canadiens and the Wanderers. Both clubs lost all their equipment. The Canadiens relocated to the Jubilee Rink, but Wanderers manager Art Ross folded his team because he thought the Jubilee was too far away from the Wanderers fan base.

Wanderers owner Sam Lichtenhein is best known for being unlucky with fires, which destroyed the arenas of two of his sports teams, one of his father's and one of his businesses. One of his father's department stores were destroyed in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, after which the family moved to Montreal.

At the time of the fire, the Wanderers were drowning in problems, as they were hard hit financially because of the war. Owner Lichtenhein had threatened to withdraw from the league because of the scarcity of good players, due mostly to the outbreak of theWorld War I. Making matters worse the Cleghorn brothers, Odie and Sprague, were unable to play for the team. Sprague was still recovering from his broken leg while Odie couldn't play due to avoiding military enlistment. Things were so bad for the Wanderers, that the other teams sent some of their players to the Wanderers to keep them afloat. The Wanderers had a 1-5 record when the fire destroyed their Westmount Arena home.

The fire, which started in the Wanderers locker room, destroyed all the Wanderers equipment. The Montreal Canadiens who were also using the Westmount Arena that season returned to the Jubilee Rink with an offer to share the building with the Wanderers.

Another offer came from the city of Hamilton, however owner Sam Lichtenhein chose to fold citing he had already lost $30,000. Despite the suspicious nature of the fire there would be no official investigation for arson. Wanderers players would be distributed around the rest of the league.

The Canadiens fared much better in this sudden twist of fate. They called upon a previous offer by owners of the Jubilee Arena to return there without missing a game. Though the Canadiens had lost some equipement in the blaze, it is said that they were able to retain certain items - namely the players skates and some sweaters. Former Canadiens defenseman and goaltender Jos Cattarinich, who was still involved with the team, sold tickets for the Canadiens first rescheduled date at the Jubilee from his local business.

Here is an article from Collections Canada, recounting the Westmount Arena blaze:

Underwriters Inspectors Had Certified to Safety of Building Shortly Before the Outbreak Took Place

With the building just inspected and found to be in order by the inspectors of the Fire Underwriters Association, the Westmount Arena, home of hockey in Montreal for many years, and the scene of many historic ice battles and festivals, was totally destroyed by fire yesterday, the blaze starting shortly before midday. The flames, which originated between the floor of the secretary treasurer's office and the ceiling of the west side dressing room, spread so rapidly that it was impossible to save the building, the structure being burnt to the ground, causing a damage estimated by the president of the Montreal Arena Co., Mr. Ed. Sheppard, at $150,000. This is covered partly by an insurance of $50,000, an insufficient sum to rebuild the edifice in these times.

While no definite statement could be obtained last night as to the next steps of the company, it is believed the building will not be reconstructed, the probable cost being far in excess of the figures at which the house was originally built. The site, however, is very valuable and it is more than likely that the company's directors, when they meet this week, will decide to dispose of the property and close up affairs.

The loss of the building brought about the loss of several thousands of dollars in incidentals. Canadiens manager William Northey will lose a large Buick motor car which he had stored in the annex of the building for the winter, while the superintendent of the building, James McKeene, lost most of his household goods. The clubs which had the use of the rink for the winter will also be heavy losers, both the Wanderers and Canadiens, who were scheduled to play there last night, having lost all their uniforms, sticks, and other paraphernalia. The clubs of the Montreal City League, with the single exception of Loyola, which has just returned from Pittsburgh, also lost all their effects.

The cause of the fire could not be determined yesterday, though it is thought a defective electric wire was responsible. Underwriters had just inspected the buildings and they found that usual precautions had been taken by the company to prevent fire.

The explosion of one of the boilers used in the heating apparatus was at first thought to have caused the outbreak, but this was afterwards found to be erroneous.

On the ice, the National Hockey League officially had its beginnings on December 19, 1917, as the Montreal Canadiens defeated Ottawa 7–4 and the Montreal Wanderers downed Toronto 10–9. Those historic games, however, were preceded by more than a month of meetings and backroom dealings by a group of gentlemen that were entrusted with the formation of the National Hockey League (NHL) following the demise of the National Hockey Association (NHA).

These meetings began in early November as the National Hockey Association’s directors, namely S.E. Lichtenhein of the Wanderers, George W. Kendall of the Canadiens, Thomas P. Gorman of Ottawa and M.J. Quinn of Quebec along with NHA secretary treasurer Frank Calder attempted to keep the league afloat. The numerous franchise problems in the preceding season, however, eventually led the NHA executives to start anew.

At the historic Board of Governors meeting in November 1917 at Montreal’s Windsor Hotel, the National Hockey League was formed. The crude 25 page constitution of the National Hockey Association, the NHL's predecessor, was adopted as the governing document of the new league. As president elect Calder told a sparse gathering of media, the purpose of the new league was the fostering and furtherance of the game of hockey to be governed by bylaws and rules.

The NHL's formation was a cunning affair. The NHA had admitted a military unit, the 228th Battalion, during the 1916-17 season, but it was called to active duty in February 1918. A majority of NHL owners were upset with Toronto owner Eddie Livingston for a variety of reasons. Livingston had owned the Toronto Ontarios, previously named the Tecumsehs and then later renamed the Shamrocks. He then purchased the rival Toronto Blueshirts and attempted to consolidate both Toronto teams in 1917. They also were tired of his constant demands regarding scheduling and player redistribution.

The other NHA owners used the 228th's departure to call for an even number of teams and dissolved the Blueshirts, promising to return Livingston's players later.

They didn't. Instead, they created a new four team league comprised of the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Quebec Bulldogs and Ottawa Senators.

The Bulldogs would fail to ice an NHL team for the 1917-18 season, temporarily reducing the league to four teams. Bulldogs owner M.J. Quinn was perceived in October of 1917 as being in with Livingstone's group in wanting to merge with interests south of the border in launching a rival league to the NHA. Quinn's financial concerns were later named as reasons for the Quebec franchise not being on board at the time of the NHL's creation. A club playing out of and under the control of the Toronto Arena company, under that name, was brought in by the league as a last minute replacement for the Bulldogs, who had to suspend activities for the season. Quebec players hence became free agents until the franchise was on solid ground once again.

The morphing of the NHA into the NHL, with an exact league constitution, was ostensibly undertaken as a method for the league and owners to rid themselves of Livingstone.

"He was always arguing about something," said Ottawa Senators owner Tommy Gorman of Livingston. "Without him, we can get down to the business of making money."

In a delicious quote that is indicative of the freewheeling times, one owner was noted as saying that "we didn't throw Livingstone out because he still has his team in the NHA. The trouble is, he is playing in a one team league. We should thank Eddie. He solidified our new league, because we are all sick and tired of his constant wrangling."

Eddie Livingston did not take his exclusion lying down, suing players, teams, arenas and the NHL. A new Toronto NHL club, the St. Patricks, legally separate from the Toronto Arenas, was created in 1919-20, ending Livingston's quest to join the NHL. He tried to form a rival league, but was thwarted by moves taken by NHL President Frank Calder, beginning with the creation of the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise in 1925, and other American franchises that followed.

Both the Canadiens and Wanderers started playing in the Westmount Arena, which burned down after the Wanderers sixth game. That team was disbanded and its players were distributed around the league. Future Boston Bruins coach and general manager Art Ross played his only three NHL games for the Wanderers, scoring one goal.

The Wanderers were in trouble from the start of the season. They won their home opener but drew only 700 fans. The Wanderers then lost the next three games and owner Lichtenhein threatened to withdraw from the league unless he could get some players. Although they could have acquired Joe Malone in the draft they turned to the PCHA and signed goaltender Harry "Hap" Holmes. They also obtained permission to sign such players as Frank Foyston, Jack Walker and others if they could do so. The Wanderers loaned Holmes to the Seattle Metropolitans of the PCHA but he eventually found his way back to the NHL when Seattle loaned him to the Toronto Arenas.

A league meeting was planned to deal with the situation, however on January 2, 1918, the matter was resolved when the Westmount Arena burned down, leaving the Canadiens and Wanderers homeless. The Canadiens moved into the 3,250-seat Jubilee Arena. The Hamilton arena offered to provide a home for the Wanderers, but Lichtenhein disbanded the team on January 4, after the other clubs refused to give him any players. The remaining three teams would complete the season.

The Canadiens returned to the smaller Jubilee Arena where they had played their inaugural 1909-10 season, and the NHL was down to three teams.

The Canadiens 1917-18 lineup included, Georges Vezina, Newsy Lalonde, Didier Pitre, Billy Coutu, Bert Corbeau, Jack Laviolette, Louis Berlinquette and Evariste Payer. Joe Malone and Joe Hall were added from the dormant Bulldogs franchise while Billy Bell and Jack McDonald came from the Wanderers.

The Bulldogs loss would be the Canadiens gain in 1917-18, as Malone would establish a professional hockey record with his 44 goal season. The mark would stand as the goal scoring bar for 27 years until it was surpassed by Maurice "Rocket" Richard's 50 goal season in 1945. Malone averaged an incredible 2.2 goals per game - a standard no player would ever top.

The NHL's inaugural year would also see two other stars, the Senators Cy Denneny and the Canadiens Newsy Lalonde, curiously both Cornwall, Ontario natives, create equally impressive feats. Denneny's 36 goals in 20 games, and Lalonde's 23 markers in only 14 contests, set marks of 1.8 and 1.64 goals per game respectively.

Comparitively, Wayne Gretzky's 87 tallies in 74 games in the 1983-84 season, was good for a 1.18 goals per game average.

Though it couldn't be known at the time, Denneny and Lalonde also set upon owning the NHL's oldest record, that of an NHL player in his first season, not neccessarily a rookie by the definition of the times, scoring goals in their first six pro games. The feat was matched just once in 90 years of NHL history, by Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2006-07 season - some 89 years later!

The Canadiens debut NHL season mirrored it's previous eight NHA campaigns in that it was filled with change, unpredictability, and certain constants.

For a third consecutive season, they would battle for the league championship with an eye on reaching the Stanley Cup finals. Despite the setback and demoralizing aspects of their home arena burning to the ground, Montreal would write a very interesting chapter to their NHL beginnings.

For a third successive season, Lalonde would act as player and coach for the team, while George "Kennedy" Kendall would remain it's manager.

A line was formed with Lalonde at center, Malone converted to left wing, and Didier Pitre on the right. The three stars would account for 84 of the Canadiens 115 goals during the 22 game season.

Malone, a native of Silary, Quebec who donned the Bulldogs colours for nine seasons, would have a career year in his first season in Montreal. Not only did he raise the goal scoring standard, he set a points total mark of 48, notched seven hat tricks, scored 5 goals on three different occassions, set a one game mark for most total points with 6, and had a 14 goal goal scoring streak during the season.

The record of 7 hat tricks would not be bested until Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders topped the mark in 1980-81 with nine.

Malone would play part of the following season with Montreal before being returned to the Bulldogs for the 1919-20 season. After two season with the Hamilton Tigers, he would return to Montreal for two more less productive campaigns. In his NHL 7 year career alone, Malone would post 146-18-164 totals in 125 games.

George Vezina would record the NHL's first shutout - a 9-0 blanking of the Ottawa Senators. He would lead the league in wins with 13 and GAA with a 3.93 average.
Four days prior to the season's start, the Canadiens and Wanderers would play a benefit game for homeless victims of an explosion in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Canadiens Joe Hall, a longtime Newsy Lalonde rival, was suspended by the league and charged with assault by Toronto police after a stick swinging incident with the Arenas Alf Skinner on January 28.

In the NHL's opening game of the 1917-18 season, Ottawa defenseman Dave Ritchie, scored the first goal in NHL history, before scoring a second in the victory over the Wanderers.

Ritchie probably wasn't surprised to find that Joe Malone was the league's opening night leading scorer, with five goals, after his Canadiens downed the Senators. After all, Malone had been the leading scorer for the NHL's predecessor, the NHA, for the second time the previous season. Malone, who would score seven goals in a 1920 NHL game, led the League in its first season with 44 goals in 20 games, a scoring pace never equaled in NHL history.

The first NHL season was a 22 game affair, split in "halves," with the first half winner to meet the second half winner for the right to challenge the Pacific Coast Hockey Association champion for the Stanley Cup.

Malone and goalie Georges Vezina led the Canadiens to a 10-4 record to win the first half of the season. Toronto won the second half with a 5-3 mark, and then won the two game series with a 10-7 edge in total goals.

Combining the two half seasons, Toronto and the Canadiens both finished 13-9, while Ottawa was 9-13. The Wanderers were 1-5 at the time of the Westmount arena perishing.

Toronto went on to beat the Vancouver Millionaires in a five game series to win the Stanley Cup. Reg Noble, who briefly appeared as a Montreal Canadiens player in 1916-17 and was later an NHL referee, led Toronto with 30 goals. Noble would become the last active player from the NHA to perform in the NHL. He retired following the 1933 Stanley Cup playoffs. Harry "Hap" Holmes was the goaltender, although Arthur Brooks played four games and Sammy Herbert one.

It wasn't until later that NHL officials officially called the Toronto team the "Toronto Arenas." The name wasn't engraved onto the Stanley Cup until 1947, long after the tradition had begun. The NHL didn't control the Stanley Cup in 1918, but it would in 1947.

A note on photos included in this post: None of the pictures of the Montreal Canadiens are from the 1917-18 NHL season. There were quite simply none to be found.
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1918-19 The Cup That Almost Was

2008-07-26T07:00:00.002-07:00

The NHL began its second season with the three franchises who survived the hard times of the 1917-18 campaign: The Montreal Canadiens, the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Arenas.

The new season would become another turbulent trial for the Canadiens and the NHL, and this one would end like quite no other. Three separate tragedies would befall the Canadiens in this season, and the first bad omen came just a month after the end of 1918 playoffs.

Defenseman Jack Laviolette, an automobile racer in the offseason, lost his right foot in a car accident on May 1. Though he was not racing at the time, Laviolette lost control of the vehicle he was driving and hit a steel post, jamming his foot between the brake pedal and a section of steel frame. Several times during the season the Canadiens held fundraisers for their former star, and they kept him in their employ for a short time thereafter.

Montreal returned a large core of its team from the previous year as only Evariste Payer did not make it back. The new additions were Odie Cleghorn and Fred Doherty. Amos Arbour returned after a brief time in the service during which he suited up with the 228th Battalion. Arbour had played a key role in the Canadiens 1916 Stanley Cup. Doherty had been a part time player with the Wanderers and Bulldogs and returned from the war to play but a single game in this season with Montreal.

Cleghorn, a former goal per game forward with the Wanderers for six seasons, was the big addition to the Canadiens. The younger brother of the Senators Sprague Cleghorn, Odie would spent seven seasons in a Canadiens uniform and was joined in Montreal by his sibling in 1921. He would match Newsy Lalonde goal for goal in this campaign and finish second behind him in points.

Lalonde regained his status as the team's top player when leading goal scorer Joe Malone announced to the Canadiens organization that he'd found employment in Quebec City and would become available only on weekend home dates for the team. Lalonde liked to have the onus placed upon him, as well as the icetime that came with it, and Malone's decision opened room for him to reassume his status while continuing on as the team's coach as well. A happy Newsy usually meant a more productive player for the Canadiens. Malone informed Montreal that he would suit up for all playoff games, but was later unable to fullfill that committment. He would be missed when he would have been counted on most come that time.

The season was again split into two ten games halves and the all too familiar scenario played out once more for the Canadiens. They would post a 7-3 record, assuring them of a playoff round against the second half's winner should they not take that title as well. The Ottawa Senators, as per their norm, came on strong at season's end and clinched the second half early as the Canadiens ended with a 3-5 record.

The final two games of the season were trimmed from the schedule when the Toronto franchise faltered. The Arenas, who had won the Stanley Cup the previous season, were in dire straights on many fronts. With the team playing badly, attendance sagging, and players breaking training, team owner Hubert Vearncombe alerted the league that he was ceasing activities for the time being. The NHL president Frank Calder asked the team to play its eighteenth game to even the schedule out.

With the NHL down to two teams - not coincidently its two halves winners - a best of seven series was set to decide the league champion for 1919. The Canadiens, without Malone, would defeat the Senators four games to one. Ottawa, deprived of leading scorer Frank Nighbor for a family bereavement, were no match for Montreal.

Newsy Lalonde was a one man wrecking crew on a mission. He tallied 11 times in the five games against Ottawa, and the Canadiens confidently headed west to face the Seattle Metropolitans in a rematch from two seasons prior.

A long trip and a stayover in Victoria would prove to have disastrous consequences for the Canadiens Stanley Cup hopes.

The Canadiens got off on the wrong foot in game one, suffering a humiliating 7-0 defeat to the PCHA champions. Three days later, on March 22, Lalonde took care of things in a record setting way by scoring all four of his teams goals in a 4-2 win that knotted the series.

The Metropolitans bounced back on the 24th, pounding Montreal again by a 7-2 score. The contest of March 26 was a hard fought battle that produced no winner. A scoreless tie, undecided after a full additional period of overtime, was a showcase for goaltenders Harry Holmes and Georges Vezina - perhaps the two best goalies of this era.

Game 5 also produced overtime on March 30, with Jack McDonald of the Canadiens notching the winner at 15:57 of the extra period. The series stood deadlocked at 2-2-1, and it would remain that way.

The Spanish influenza virus that was ravaging the world tragically had hit the west coast. Several of the Victoria Cougars players had fallen seriously ill when the Canadiens had stopped over in that city prior to moving on to Seattle, and it has long been assumed that that is where the Montreal players came in contact with the deadly virus.

Canadiens manager George Kendall Kennedy was aware of the virus, and had taken out insurance on his players before setting off for the west. When many of the team's elements fell ill, the series was cancelled.

On April 1, the scheduled date of the sixth game, a definite and final announcement as to the fate of the series was made by the Seattle arena management at 2:30 p.m. that there will be no more games played. At noon that day, workmen started tearing up the arena ice floor, preparatory to converting the building into a roller skating rink.

The fact that the ice was being taken up settled all arguments as to whether or not the series would be continued if the visitors were able later to put enough men on the ice.

A newspaper writeup at the time had this to say:

Lalonde, Berlinguette, Couture and Kennedy are reported only slightly ill. Last night the remaining four men came down, leaving only Pitre, Cleghorn and Vezina, who are not afflicted. It is believed here the Canadiens contracted the disease in Victoria, where the players of that team are just recovering from influenza, seven of them having been in bed at one time.

Not in the history of the Stanley Cup series has the worlds hockey championship been so beset with hard luck as has this one. Of the 19 players engaged in it, hardly one of them has gone through without some bad luck. The Seattle team has been badly battered, Rowe, Foyston, Wilson, Murray and Walker all having had injuries. Corbeau, the great Canadien defenseman, was hurt in the very first game and has not been able to do more than substitute since.

The great overtime games of the series have taxed the vitality of the players to such an extent that they are in poor shape indeed to fight off such a disease as influenza. However, the Canadiens are being given the very best of care, nurses and physicians being in attendance at all times on them and every other attention is being shown the stricken players.

The Canadiens Odie Cleghorn was the only player who was not afflicted. Joe Hall, known as the baddest and oldest player of the time died in Seattle's Columbus sanatorium on April 5, four days after authorities had called off the series.

The Montreal players headed home after the sixth game was cancelled with the exception of Couture, Berlinguette and longtime Hall rival Lalonde, who travelled to Brandon, Manitoba to act as pallbearers for their fallen comrade.

Some might find it odd that Lalonde would be along for his hated rival's last moments, but the two had long settled their differences, had become good friends, and were even roomates during road games.

Manager Kennedy also fell gravely ill, and passed away two years later from the effects of the virus.

Once back in Montreal, the Canadiens players were just regaining their health when the Jubilee Arena burned to the ground.

It would be a difficult season to forget.

The tragedies suffered were only part of the tale. The Canadiens had been build into a solid squad and had appeared in three of the last four Stanley Cup finals. With some better fortune, they may have won a second Cup. The Canadiens were by far the most popular hockey team in Montreal, and things could only get better.

On the league front, several changes brought in at the start of the season had enhanced the quality of the spectacle. Two blue lines were added to the ice, painted twenty feet each from center, creating three playing zones. Forward passing and kicking the puck were permitted in the middle neutral zone. Penalties now had to be served in full. For minor fouls, substitutes were not allowed until the penalized player had served three minutes. For major fouls, no substitutes were allowed for five minutes. For match fouls, no substitutes were allowed for the remainder of the game. Both new wrinkles added up to a very freewheeling game.

With the war reaching an end and the Quebec Bulldogs ready to make a return, things were looking up for the NHL. The issue of a solid Toronto franchise would soon be settled as well.

Some notes on the photos in this post: You will have noticed that several of the shots of Canadiens players feature the same background. There has long been confusion over which year the pictures were taken - 1917 or 1919? The source of the confusion lies in that these pictures were taken in Seattle, where the Canadiens competed for the Stanley in both those seasons. There are also photos of the Seattle Metropolitans players taken in this same area, which leads one to believe they may have been taken outside an arena door prior to a match. The photos are most definitely from 1919, as Canadiens Joe Hall, Odie Cleghorn, and Jack McDonald were not with the club in 1917. Oddly, a long circulated poster of the 1917 Metropolitans Stanley Cup team features the shots taken in 1919.

Several of the 1919 photos are incorrectly attributed as being the wrong player. The photo of Billy Coutu is often erroneously listed as Louis Berlinguette. They can be told apart by Coutu's thinner hair, and Berliguette's particular from, when compared to other photos. In these pictures, Berlinguette is leaning on his stick. Photos of Joe Hall and Newsy Lalonde are often mixed up as well - likely because their hair is parted in the same manner. Hall is the player with the outstretched stick.

In all these photos, it is not hard to tell that the Canadiens were wearing white hockey pants!

The photo of Billy Bell may have been taken anytime between 1919 and 1923, when the Canadiens ceased wearing the white pants.

The photos of the children in Canadiens sweaters was taken about this time - somewhere between 1918 and 1922. It is featured in this post primarily because it is from the era, but there is also an additional reason for its inclusion. According to the book "Kings Of The Ice" from which the photo was taken, the short player posing directly to the right of the kid holding the "Joliette" sign is Jack Adams. "Jolly" Jack, a man who would later develope an unbridled hatred of the Canadiens while running the Detroit Red Wings, is the only man to have his name on the Stanley Cup as player, general manager, and coach. It is highly doubtful that the photo is actually Adams, as he was a member of the 1918 Toronto Arena Cup champions.

There is no featured photo of Joe Malone, as he did not accompany the Canadiens out west this season. Most known photos of Malone in a Canadiens sweater are from the early 1920's, when his start had greatly faded.

The cartoon of the man behind the wheel of an automobile from the time is actually Jack Laviolette.

Years after his retirement from hockey, Odie Cleghorn would be found dead in his bed just hours before his brother Sprague's funeral on July 13, 1956. Odie and Sprague were very close, "like twins" according to Canadiens coach Leo Dandurand. It's often been said that the stress of the loss of Sprague may have been the main factor contributing to his heart failure.

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1919-20 Newsy And Joe Malone Battle It Out

2008-07-26T07:00:00.001-07:00

Canadiens fans were excited and relieved to hear the announcement that a new hockey arena was being built at the corners of Mount Royal and Saint Urbain, and would be ready in the coming season. With the fire that destroyed the Jubilee occuring in April, a month after the previous season had ended, meant that the Canadiens would begin their 1919-20 season on the road until the new Mount Royal Arena was completed.

Montreal's first home games of the season were played in Ottawa and twice the scheduled home opener against the Quebec Bulldogs had to be postponed due to having no water to form the artificial ice surface.

The Canadiens finally made their home debut on January 10 in the brand new Mount Royal. The team, as popular as ever, turned away a thousand spectators due to lack of seating. Newsy Lalonde celebrated the occasion with a six goal game in a 14-7 drubbing of the Toronto St. Patricks.

Very few changes were made to the Canadiens lineup in 1919-20. Lalonde was back for a tenth campaign in a Canadiens sweater, and Georges Vezina and Didier Pitre were returning for their ninth seasons. Also returning were Bert Corbeau, Louis Berlinguette, Odie Cleghorn, Amos Arbour and Billy Coutu.

Missing from the season prior were spare Fred Doherty, sniper Joe Malone, forwards Jack McDonald and Billy Bell, and defenseman Joe Hall, who passed away following a short battle with infuenza from the Seattle final six months back.

Malone and McDonald were transferred back to Quebec by Montreal when Bulldogs franchise returned to NHL on November 25, 1919. Bell remained property of the Canadiens but saw no game action in this season. He would return in 1920-21.

The Canadiens new faces for the season included two older familiar ones - Donald Smith and Howard McNamara.

Smith was signed as a free agent by Montreal on December 11 after having served three years Smith in the military. He was no longer the high scoring forward he had been in his early days in Montreal, and suited up mainly as a spare, netting one lone goal in 10 games. The Canadiens had sold his rights to the cross town rival Wanderers during the 1914-15 season.

Montreal also recouped McNamara after war service, signing the 240 lb defenceman on December 7. He had played the the 1916-17 season as a member of the high scoring 228th Battalion team, counting for 11 goals in 12 games. This season would be McNamara's last, as he appeared in 10 contests, scoring one goal.

The Canadiens attempted to return another former player in Goldie Prodgers, who had scored the Stanley Cup winning goal for the team in 1916. Unfortunately, Prodgers wanted no part of Montreal at this time and after aquiring his rights from the Bulldogs, where he had also refused to report, he was sent to the St. Patricks for Harry Cameron on January 14, 1920.

Cameron, a man credited with perfecting the game's first curved shot with a straight blade, gave the Canadiens 12 goals in his 16 games with the team. He was later dealt back to Toronto on November 27 in return of Prodgers and Joe Matte in what was at the time a large three team, 10 player shuffle.

Montreal's one new face in this season was a spare named Jack Coughlin, who appeared in three games before being part of the aforementioned package deal with Toronto.

The Canadiens as a team, once again fared better in the first half of the split schedule before tailing off in the final twelve games of the expanded 24 game season. Unfortunately, Montreal won neither half as the Ottawa Senators took both, losing only five games all season.

The underlying story of the 1919-20 campaign was a heated scoring race battle between Lalonde and the Bulldogs Malone, who fought for the lead until the final game of the season. Newsy, who was in his fifth running year as the Canadiens coach, was in fact called out more than once by manager Kennedy for playing too individualistic a style for the betterment of the team.

Lalonde ended the schedule with 37 goals and 9 assists in 23 games - far and away his best season in professional hockey. Still, despite the career year, Lalonde missed one game and fell behind Malone in the final count by two goals and an assist.

Both players were at their performing peak, with Malone at 29 years of age, and Lalonde two years his senior.

If NHA statistics are taken into consideration, the two had split scoring titles for four seasons running. Lalonde had won in 1915-16 and 1918-19 while Malone took honours in 1916-17 and the following season with a record setting mark of 44 goals while a member of the Canadiens.

By many accounts, Lalonde was a man often motivated by monetary principles that were often tied to his on ice performance. As competitive as they came in the day, Lalonde was always ready for a challenge. With Malone on the sidelines due to job committments in 1918-19, Lalonde was all too ready to best him once more in 1919-20. Although he fell slightly short, Newsy would again gain the upper hand one season later.

In early NHL history, no two players battled it out as hard as Lalonde and Malone for who was better.

They are the game's two best goals per game scorers to this day, considering, or not counting their NHA years. Malone scored 143 goals in 126 NHL contests. Lalonde scored 124 goals in 99 NHL games. Malone averaged 1.14 goals per game in the NHL while Lalonde averaged 1.25 goals per games. In total, Lalonde played 15 years of professional hockey through various leagues, and averaged 1.36 goals per game, while Malone racked up 16 pro seasons where he averaged 1.35 goals per game.

Each player finished with 3 NHA/NHL titles to their resume. A debate over who was better would be eternal.

In the 1919-20 season, both Lalonde and Malone seemed primed to outdo each other. After Lalonde scored 6 to astablish a personal mark in the Canadiens home opener, Malone outdid him with a 7 goal effort three weeks later against the same St. Pats. Malone also netted 6 against Ottawa later in the season.

There may be a very early hockey lesson in all this goal scoring, who was the better individual, debate.

The Canadiens were the NHL's highest scoring team in this season, with 129 goals scored to their credit. Ottawa, who were the winners of both 12 game halves scored 121, but allowed only 64 against, including a mere 23 in the first half. Montreal allowed 113.

Other than Lalonde's 37 markers, several Montreal shooters had good years, as Arbour scored 21 goals, Odie Cleghorn netted 20, and Didier Pitre, still solid in his older years, accounted for 14.

On March 3, the Canadiens humiliated the Bulldogs by a 16-3 score, setting an all time record for goals by one team in one game. Four Montreal players had hat tricks - another NHL record. Lalonde, Pitre and Cleghorn, all forwards, had three goal games, while defenseman Cameron hit the mesh with four, thus becoming the only rearguard in NHL history to do so twice in a career.

All the offensive prowess for the Canadiens would prove for nough, since the Ottawa Senators won both halves of the split regular season. There would be no need for an NHL playoff, and the Senators were given the O' Brien Trophy, assured a spot in the Stanley Cup Championship series.

Representing the PCHA again this year were the Seattle Metropolitans, who battled in a very tight league where two wins separated its three teams.

A problem arose as Seattle's green, red, and white uniforms looked almost alike to Ottawa's striped white uniforms. Ottawa agreed to play the series in white sweaters. As the previous year saw the championship played out west, it moved to Ottawa this season, but with unseasonably warm weather, the final two games were played in Toronto's Arena Gardens.

The NHL story in it's third season was a tale of growth versus setback. In Ottawa, as with Montreal the year before were crowned Stanley Cup champions, both cities were consumed with hockey interest.

The League seemed to have solved its issues revolving Toronto team ownership when a group was found to buy the dormant Toronto franchise one day before the regular season was slated to begin. The Toronto Arenas were dead, and the new team was nicknamed the St. Patricks. The group paid $5,000 to the NHL for what was essentially an expansion franchise.

Quebec, on the other hand, did not enjoy as glorious a return to the NHL. With a dismal record of 2-10 in both halves of the season, the Bulldogs fan support waned despite Joe Malone scoring exploits. With the Bulldogs surrendering an average of 7.18 goals against per game, a record that still stands today, Quebec finished dead last. Despite a pair of Stanley Cups to their credit, NHL hockey in Quebec was on its final crutches.

The best news for the NHL was that World War I was finally over. Players came home and fans were now coming in larger numbers to see games. On February 21,1920, a record crowd of 8,500 fans came to see Ottawa play Toronto at the Mutual Street Arena.

Hockey fans were now freed from the constraints of wartime rationing to indulge in loves and leisures again. Hockey and the NHL would now solidify and grow accordingly.

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1920-21 Aging Canadiens Fall Short

2008-07-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

As the 1920-21 NHL season was on the horizon, there was much wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes for the Canadiens and the league's three other clubs. The Flying Frenchman had missed going all the way to the Stanley Cup final in 1920, and with a steady lineup filled with experienced players, there wasn't much tinkering that needed to be done to the roster to enable it to remain competitive.

For the NHL as a whole, what it was looking for coming out of World War I's hard times, was to solidify the financial strength of its teams in order to grow the game geographically. The understanding at this particular time, was that the NHL and its clubs were susceptible to an ambush by rival leagues setting up shop in areas in which the NHL wished to expand. The threat of a new league posed by the exiled Eddie Livingstone was taken seriously, and steps were undertaken to roadblock his every move.

BULLDOGS BECOME TIGERS

With that threat in mind, and the Quebec Bulldogs on wobbly legs, the NHL helped its owner Mike Quinn engineer a sale of the team to Hamilton interests. Old foe Livingstone was in fact making inroads for a rival league and the city of Hamilton was a known starting point. To thwart this, NHL president Frank Calder convinced the NHL club owners to fast track a Hamilton franchise by allowing the Quinn sale to go through.

The team would become known as the Tigers, and the league set upon making the team quickly viable by shoring up their lineup with player loans and trades. Montreal and Toronto pitched in to help even out the balance of power and make the Tigers more competitive.

The Canadiens, Tigers and the St. Patricks swung a three team trade on November 17, and Montreal reaquired last season's holdout Goldie Prodgers and Joe Matte from Toronto for Harry Cameron.

The Canadiens then sent Prodgers and Matte to Hamilton with Jack Coughlin and loaned Billy Coutu for a season in return for Harry Mummery, Jack McDonald and former Seattle defenseman Dave Ritchie from Hamilton. Toronto also loaned forward Babe Dye to the Tigers, but he was rerturned after one game when St. Pats star Corb Denneny was injured. Mickey Roach was then substituted in the transaction.

It appeared to be a good deal for all three clubs initially, as it looked as though Bulldogs star Joe Malone would have nothing to do with the Tigers. Malone did not sign with the team until 4 games into the season, but still managed 28 goals in 20 games upon his return.

MUMMERY QUITE A CARD

Mummery, who had suited up for the Canadiens during the 1916-17 campaign, would pitch in with 15 goals, and was a fairly strong and regular contributor to the Canadiens cause. Prodgers and Cameron did ever better than Mummery, with 18 goals apiece. McDonald and Ritchie would manage only a goal between the two of them as they appeared in only six games each.

A hefty defenseman for his day, Mummery often moonlight as a fireman, and had the habit of showing up for games just as the club was preparing to head out onto the ice. When he did arrive well ahead of time, he had the most unique of pre-game rituals, taking five pound steaks in a shovel and cooking them up in a pot bellied stove right in the dressing room. He'd follow that treat up with some apple pie, and wash the whole thing down with a pint of cream.

CLEGHORN'S CARVE OUT A REPUTATION

Ottawa attempted to assist the Tigers by sending them Sprague Cleghorn and Harry "Punch" Broadbent, but both refused to report. When Broadbent let it be known that he would rather play with Montreal, which may or may not have been a ruse, his rights were traded to the Canadiens by Hamilton for cash on January 4, 1921. When Broadbent dashed that assignment as well, the Canadiens were left with little choice but to sell him back to the Senators on February 21.

Cleghorn, for his part, was traded to Toronto by Hamilton for future considerations on January 25. The older brother of the Canadiens Odie, Sprague secured his own release from the St. Patricks on March 15, and signed as a free agent with Ottawa. Thus, somewhat unfairly, both Cleghorn and Broadbent were able to help Ottawa remain Stanley Cup champions in 1921. So much for propping up the Tigers!

Less than a month later, Cleghorn was again dealt to Hamilton on April 6, and for a second time, he would refuse to play there.

CULLY IGNITES FIRST LEAFS-CANADIENS DISPUTE

Another new face in with the Canadiens in 1920-21 was forward Cully Wilson, who was loaned to Montreal by the St. Patricks on January 21.

After scoring 6 goals in 11 games for Montreal, Wilson was recalled to Toronto but refused to report. He was suspended for the remainder of the year, and the Canadiens substituted Jack McDonald in return to the St. Pats. He would return to the Canadiens for another 3 games the following year.

Wilson, who came on loan from the St. Patricks after registering only 2 goals in eight games, became the cause of the first of many Montreal / Toronto disputes. While the loaning of Wilson had stipulated his recall could be at any chosen time, Toronto sought to bring hin back just as he was getting hot and helping the Canadiens catch Toronto in second half race for first place.

With little notice, and only four games left for Montreal on the schedule, the recall was made and Wilson refused the move. An appeal was called, and Toronto failed to attend after the Canadiens had loaned McDonald in his place. Wilson was left for the time being to twist in the wind, suspended and without a team to play for. Meanwhile, Toronto was able to edge out Montreal by two points in the second half standings.

The lone other new face in Montreal in this year was a 24 year old defenseman named Dave Campbell, who appreared in the only two games of his NHL career.

Perhaps the Canadiens lacked the influx of younger talent to the team. With the relative success of recent seasons, the team continued on with a familiar core of players, though some were getting up in years. In 1920, the youngest full time members of the club were 26 year olds Bert Corbeau and Amos Arbour. Goalie Georges Vezina was 34, Newsy Lalonde 32, and Didier Pitre 37.

Pitre contributed 16 goals in 24 contests, but was no longer the dominant force of a few seasons ago. Lalonde however, seemed to be stretching his prime. Now in his fourteenth professional season, he tallied 33 goals and 10 assists which were good enough for his fifth professional hockey scoring title.

NEWSY AS GNARLY AS EVER

All season long, Lalonde battled Toronto's Babe Dye and Ottawa's Cy Denneny for the goal scoring crown, and often all three seemed to become inspired after either of the others notched a big game performance. After a five goal game by Lalonde on February 16 against the Tigers, Denneny replied with a six goal game nights later in Hamilton.

Going into the season's final week, Lalonde and the Canadiens were shutout 1-0 by Clint Benedict and the Senators but Dye was also held scoreless. Newsy would finish a goal behind Denneny and two back of Dye, but would gain the NHL points title on the strength of his ten assists.

Lalonde, who again in this season, coached the Canadiens as well, continued his hellbent ways on the ice. At times it seemed no tactic would deviate him from his pursuit.

An on ice incident in the day, perfectly captures what Lalonde was capable of whn things got nasty. St.Patricks goalie Jake Forbes had it for Newsy in one particular game, after Lalonde, unprovoked, cuffed him a good one straight to the chops while the official was focused elsewhere. With blood gushing from his nose, he made a beeline for Lalonde, only to be halted by referee Copper Smeaton.

A vengeful Forbes later awaited Lalonde, and as he neared the net with the puck, the goalie wielded his paddle high like an axe, readying a two hander for Lalonde's head. Just as Forbes was about to let it swing however, the ever tricky Lalonde spat out a long squirt of tabacco juice at the goalie's face, much to his bewilderment. Lalonde laughing, circled the net and scored into the open side. And so on it went, in the lawless NHL.

Lalonde might not have seen it coming, but his career would begin to wind down after this season. Back in 1906, Newsy's career almost ended suddenly before it began during a game with the Canadian Soo of the International Hockey League. After having injured his leg badly in one particular game, Lalonde reached for a swig of whiskey to numb the pain. Unbeknownst to him, the bottle contained amonia, and it severly burned his mouth and throat. There was quick concern for Lalonde's well being, but what would kill most mortals only seemed to make Newsy spring to life. Later in the same game, he'd tally a pair of goals.

CANADIENS SHOW UP FOR SECOND HALF AGAIN

It had been a strong second half for the Canadiens. After posting a dismal 4-6 record in opening half's ten games, they went 9-5 in the second half's 14 game slice. Scoring only 37 goals as a team to start the season, they doubled that total with 75 down the stretch.

Perhaps it was becoming obvious that there was something inherantly wrong with the split schedule idea. The Senators, defending Cup champions, seemed to appropriate Montreal's method of coming out like lions to win the first half season, before lying down as lambs in the second. The turn seemed for the best, as Ottawa went on the win a second consecutive Cup, despite a 6-8 record in the second half.

Cummulatively, the second half leading St. Patricks owned the best overall standing, with a record of 15-9. Ottawa stood at 14-10, and Montreal had a 13-11 showing. The reclamationn project Tigers, despite a 5-0 win over Montreal on opening night, never got it in gear, finishing 6-18.

Thankfully, 1920-21 would be the last season in which a split schedule would be employed.

One thing is for certain about the NHL in the early 1920's: there surely was no limitations or rules governing how players could manipulate their own destinies.

WEIRD GOINGS ON STILL HIGHLIGHT EARLY NHL

Strange things happened with the Canadiens during this season. While they surely were pleased to have an arena to call home after both the Jubilee and Westmount Arena perished to fire in recent years, such might not have been the case when a warm January 21st brought up the ground surface at the Mount Royal, causing the postponement of a St. Patricks / Canadiens game on that date. Artificial ice beckoned.

One of the owners of the Mount Royal Arena, Tom Duggan, with 6 games remaining in the season's second half, offered the Canadiens players a thousand dollars - meaning roughly a hundred bucks per player - should they overtake Toronto for honours in the second half. The owners of the Canadiens had already promised a $200 bonus per player for the same.

Ted Day, the owner of the Senators, and Tommy Gorman, the team's manager, became so enfuriated over a goal they felt was offside in a game against the Canadiens on January 26, that they pulled the Ottawa squad off the ice and left. The players were fined, and forced to contribute $500 to the Joe Hall fund. The game was forfeited to the Canadiens, who were leading at the time of the outburst.

At the season's end, the Canadiens second half thrust fell short of their post season hopes. It would be the St. Patricks who would meet up with the Senators in the NHL final. The two game, total goal series was anticlimactic however, as the Senators shut down Toronto in both cities, 5-0, and 2-0. They would square off with the Vancouver Millionaires for the Stanley Cup title.

SENATORS STAY ON TOP

Heading west, the Senators were greeted by a Vancouver throng 11,000 strong, as the Millionaires grabbed game one by a 2-1 margin, Ottawa evened the best of five series in the next game, and took the lead with a win in game three. Vancouver tied the series with a game four win, setting up a "winner take all" for game five.

The Senators Jack Darragh would prove to be the hero once again, netting both Ottawa goals in the Cup clinching 2-1 finale. The Senators reign continued, as they became the first consecutive Cup winners since the 1913 Quebec Bulldogs.

Much of what occured in 1921 pointed to several changes being needed in the game, in the service of fairness. To say the rules needed some tinkering, would be putting it lightly.

Despite the efforts of the league to assist the Hamilton franchise to get off to a strong start, they were league doormats in both halves with 3-7 and 3-11 records. The project of grooming hockey in the Ontario steeltown would get another shot in 1922, but similar results would ensue.

For the Canadiens, it was readily apparent that changes were needed as well. The NHL's oldest team on average - 31 years - needed an injection of a more youthful brand to stay pace with the frontrunners. Owner George Kendall Kennedy, still recovering from illnesses brought on by the influenza epidemic of 1919, had left it other hands to man the club. As his fate worsened in the summer of 1921, the Canadiens fortunes took a back seat. Because of his failing health, events on the Canadiens horizon would force a rebuilding stage to kick in sooner than expected.

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1921-22 Three Musketeers, Two Cleghorns, And One Bad News Newsy

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George Kendall Kennedy, the man behind the Club Athlétique Canadien's purchase of the Montreal Canadiens franchise in 1910 passed away in his home on the morning of Wednesday, October 19, 1921. His death was attributed to the long illness brought on by the after effects of the influenza virus that he contacted in 1919 while Canadiens were out west in Seattle challenging for the Stanley Cup.

According to local papers, a long list of friends and sporting figures were present, and they included T. P. Gorman of Ottawa, Dider Pitre, Odie Cleghorn, Sam Lichtenhein, Nap Dorval, Lucien Riopel, Cecil M. Hart, Dr. J. P. Gadbois, Oscar Benoit, Emmett Quinn, Frank Calder, Cooper Smeaton and many others.

KENDALL KEPT CANADIENS AFLOAT

Though his real surname was Kendall, he began using the name Kennedy, his mother's maiden name, so that he could persue wrestling without his disapproving father being any wiser. Born of Scottish decent, he became one of the better known promoters in North America. After building a reputation in lacrosse and wresting, he set his sights on hockey and founded the Canadiens along with five other businessmen in 1910. Along with Frank Calder, Sam Lichtenhein, Mike Quinn and T.P. Gorman, he is one of five founding fathers of the NHL.

Oddly, Kendall is not a member of the Hockey Hall Of Fame, even though both the Canadiens and the NHL owe him a great debt for his efforts in keeping the team and the game growing through the first world war.

After his death, and within weeks of the 1921-22 season, someone had to assume control of the team, and the task was handed to Kendall's brother Frank. Offers came forth from groups wishing to purchase the Canadiens and the first was tendered by Mount Royal Arena owner Tom Duggan who made a $10,000 bid. Montreal businessmen Leo Dandurand, Louis Létourneau, and former player and manager Jos Cattarinich were also heavily interested, but were unable to be in Montreal due to committments at their Cleveland race track. The trio engaged Cecil Hart to make the offers in their name, and on November 4, 1921, the trio officially purchased the team from Kendall's widow for the sum of $11,000.

Dandurand would become the most public of the three figures soon to be known as the Three Musketeers. He would both manage and coach the Canadiens, while Cecil Hart would come on board as one of the team's directors. Following their first season, the three owners would recoup their initial investment, making a profit upwards of $20,000.

THE SPRAGUE CLEGHORN SIDESHOW BEGINS

The new manager and coach set about sturdying the Canadiens aging lineup and made an important aquisition that would impact the team for quite some time. A mere three weeks after taking charge, Dandurand sent Harry Mummery and Amos Arbour to Hamilton for defenseman Sprague Cleghorn, whose brother Odie had played wing for the Canadiens for three seasons running.

The elder Cleghorn, a much feared and despised competitior, had a large say in consecutive Stanley Cups with Ottawa in 1920 and 1921. He'd bring the same tenacity and mean spirit to Montreal after his rights were traded back to the same Tigers team he refused to report to previously.

Dandurand worked hard to gain Cleghorn, buying out his suspended contract following his refusal to go to Hamilton. One snag out of the way, Dandurand made his offer and Hamilton could not refuse.

Just prior to the Cleghorn trade, Montreal welcomed Billy Coutu back from a one year loaning to the Tigers. Together the pair teamed up to form one of the most vicious defensive duos hockey had known.

Not only would Sprague be a feared backline componant, but he also led the Canadiens in scoring with 17 goals and 9 assists. Brother Odie was right behind with 21 goals and 3 helpers.

During the 1921-22 season, Cleghorn seemed intent on settling a score with the Ottawa Senators and certain members of the team. Possibly upset at being released by the Cup champions on two occasions, he enacted his vengeance with his stick and fists in a game on February 1. Winning the game seemed the last thing on Sprague Cleghorn's mind as he injured no less than 3 Senator players in a single game. He badly sliced Eddie Girard and Cy Denneny with his stick and violently hit Frank Nighbor from behind. All three players would miss a pair of games and Cleghorn was fined $15 and arrested by Ottawa police.

The official on the game, Lou Marsh, described Sprague as a disgrace to the sport in a post game report to the league, and offered that he should be banned from the NHL. Canadiens owned Dandurand was also displeased by the shenanigans and felt it tainted the game. Montreal and Ottawa could not find common ground in regards to a precise suspension, and Cleghorn returned soon after. It wouldn't be his final run in with Ottawa in the coming years.

The Cleghorn brothers set a very unique NHL record in January of 1922, in a game against Hamilton, by becoming the only two brothers to score 4 goals each in the same game.

NEWSY'S ANTICS A DISTRACTION

As successful as Dandurand was in rejuvenating the team, ongoing troubles with star Newsy Lalonde further soured the club atmosphere. Not content with Lalonde's play, nor his results as the team's coach, Dandurand openly criticized his captain and Lalonde bolted the team on January 10.

After Lalonde had missed four games, NHL president Frank Calder was brought in to mediate and settle the peace, returning Newsy to the team. Things were so tense at one point, that rumours of Lalonde throwing punches with the Cleghorn brothers in the dressing room even made the rounds. Upon his return to the team, Newsy was roundly booed to the point where, Dandurand, now acting as coach, would only use him as a sub for the remainder of the season. The 33 year old Lalonde's production dropped to 9 goals and 5 assists after scoring 60 goals in the previous two seasons in Montreal.

Three of those nine goals were scored on February 8, after his return.

Despite rough times, contract squabbles, and disputes, Lalonde became the first professional player to hit the 200 goal total. He accomplised the feat, mostly with the Canadiens, in a mere 184 games.

Three new players joined the team in 1921-22. Defensemen Edmund Bouchard and Phil Stevens appeared in 18 and 4 games respectively, but neither would go on to a career as Canadiens players.

Dandurand had strange measures for trying to instill discline on the team, and he brought in several team rules, one of which was a ban on motor vehicles for the players. Only a small portion of the public owned cars in the early 1920's, and perhaps even a lesser amount saw them as bad things. This did not stop Dandurand from banning players from owning cars in a contract stipulation.. After the incident in which Jack Laviolette lost a foot due to a car crash, Dandurand went all out to assure the same fate would not strike one of his players a second time.

ONE BOUCHER OR TWO

Dandurand, whose Canadiens still held first rights to french Canadians, implied to the league that it should give Montreal the Senators Frank Boucher, but Ottawa manager T.P. Gorman countered that Boucher was a unillingual anglophone of Irish descent and the NHL sided with him.

Frank's brother, Billy Boucher, nonetheless, was the Canadiens best new addition, and he helped make up for the drop in production by Lalonde, finishing third on the team in scoring in his rookie campaign with 17 goals and five assists. Signed as a free agent by Montreal, December 13, 1921, he would go on to become a vital piece in the Canadiens attack over the next six seasons.

Gone from the 1921 season were Jack McDonald, Dave Ritchie, Harry Mummery, Cully Wilson, Amos Arbour, and Dave Campbell.

STANDINGS STATUS QUO

For all the changes made by the Canadiens, from ownership to management, to the on ice makeup of the team, the final standing was much similar to one year ago. Montreal finished the season with a 12-11-1 record, one point behind last year's pace. They finished in third place, two points behind the St. Patricks and three behind the Senators.

The season record for Montreal is quite deceiving upon recognizing that 7 of the teams 12 wins came at the hands of the lowly Tigers. The team did however make a late season push to catch the St. Patricks, going 7-1-1 in their final nine games.

The Canadiens, whose record mirrored its standing of 1921, were clearly in a period of transition, and there would evidently be more changes on the horizon. The team could console themselves in knowing that despite all the inner turmoil on the team, they were but two points off from the Cup's eventual winner.

Ottawa's Punch Broadbent was clearly the star of this NHL season. With a 16 game consecutive goal scoring streak en route to a 32 goal campaign, Broadbent led the league in scoring and helped the Senators to a first place finish.

The NHL was also moving ahead and they abandonned the split schedule format for a complete 24 game season in which the first place and second place teams would challenge for the league title and the right to compete for the Stanley Cup. The victor of the two game, total goals series was Toronto, and they went on to defeat the Vancouver Millionaires 3 games to 2 to claim the franchises first Stanley Cup.

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1922-23 The Newsy Era Ends, A New One Begins

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Two shocking blockbuster trades, with opposite results, highlighted the Canadiens 1922-23 season.

On November 3, Canadiens owner Jos Cattarinich announced to much consternation and fan outcry, that the Canadiens had traded star Newsy Lalonde's contract to the Saskatoon Crescents of the Western Canadian Hockey League for $3,000 and the right to a promising player named Aurel Joliat.

In Joliat, the Canadiens were gambling on a smallish, unproven, and often injured player. Despite the forwarning, word had it that Joliat could be every bit as fiesty as Lalonde. The fact that Joliat was but 21 years old surely helped tilt the deal in Montreal's favor.

An original Montreal Canadiens player dating back to the start of the 1909-10 season, Lalonde was said to have signed a $5,000 per season deal with the Crescents.

Lalonde's contract was guaranteed renewable dependant upon the Saskatoon team's standing after each of the first two seasons.

Lalonde, a Cornwall, Ontario native and pro hockey's first 200 goal scorer, had fallen out of favor with Canadiens management and a split seemed almost inevitable. His salary would double his previous year's earnings with Montreal.

A Saskatchewan daily said this about the Lalonde acquisition at the time:

"One of the greatest drawing cards in professional hockey today, the Flying Frenchman, as he is best known, should be able to turn out a winning team for the Crescents this winter, provided he has any kind of material, and there is small doubt but that he will. For years "Newsy" has been one of the leading goal getters in the N.H.L., and in obtaining his services the local management has turned a real trick, for, in spite of his age, the old boy has plenty of hockey spirit and brains left in him yet."

Other NHL teams were upset that they were not given a chance to acquire Lalonde, a drawing card for the league if there ever was one. The NHL had just instituted a policy where players could not be traded to the WCHL without bypassing NHL suitors, but apparently the Canadiens / Crescents transaction was finalized just prior to such an amendment.

SO, JUST WHO IS THIS AUREL JOLIAT?

For all intents, Joliat was all but a virtual unknown in Montreal, and at 5' 6", and 135 lbs, was a skeptical proposition as a hockey player in a rough and tumble era.

Joliat could consider himself fortunate to be playing any sports at all. In his teens years, he was working as a roofer one time, and plunged 25 feet, landing on the ground, back first. While he narrowly escaped serious injury, he would play his NHL career with two displaced vertebrae. While playing, he would wear a truss to keep his back from further injury.

"The Mighty Atom" as he became known, also suffered a serious leg injury while playing football with the Ottawa Rough Riders. Joliat had been the club's kicker, until the broken leg forced him to concentrate mainly on hockey. Playing with terrible stomach ulcers for the majority of his career, Joliat was one tough little bugger.

However, the smallish player with the injury prone reputation, began dispelling concerns in his very first game with the Canadiens, a 7-2 loss to Toronto in which Joliat was his team's lone goal scorer.

NEWSY MADE HIS BED

The seeds for Newsy Lalonde's exit were sewn during a very troubling 1921-22 campaign, his most miserable as a pro player. Over the years, there was a lot of water passed under the bridge between the playing coach and team management, and things were especially worse that season, when he first sat out in a contract dispute, before being fined for indifferent play by owner Leo Dandurand.

A separate occurance two seasons prior that had not been forgotten was a game in which Lalonde seemed to deliberately score on a flabbergasted George Vezina. Claiming he felt the play had been blown dead, Newsy fired a puck passed his own goalie before all hell broke loose. As team mates admonished the gesture, Lalonde tore after the game's official to no avail. Certain opinions felt than Lalonde may have been trying to prove a point, especially when he returned to ice as though a hell hound were at his heels. Newsy's goathorns were removed when he netted the eventual game winner in overtime.

Lalonde's relationship with management and team mates had always been an arduous and laborious one. Newsy enjoyed his celebrity status as the Canadiens premier player since it's inception and was never afraid to speak his mind out. The original Flying Frenchman enjoyed the income from two concurrent professional sports, hockey and lacrosse, and was never in tough for cash during the tightest of times of the Depression era. This however, never prevented him from fighting over a hard earned dollar, espescially when he was well informed as to how the owners pocket were being lined by his efforts and talent.

The Canadiens often tolerated Newsy's behavior and antics, simply because he battled as hard on the ice as he had off it. When the twilight of his career seemed at dawn, the Canadiens did not hesitate to cash in on it, and dispatch him from the league.
Lalonde would be rejuvenated with the Crescents in 1922-23, scoring 30 goals in 29 games. It would mark his sixth professional scoring title across six different pro leagues. The following season ( see photo ) Newsy would be joined on the Crescents by current Canadiens defender Louis Berlinguette and goaltender for montreal, George Hainsworth.

After four seasons in Saskatoon, he would return to the NHL's New York Americans as their coach in 1926, making his final NHL appearance. He would return to the Canadiens one last time as a coach in the 1930's.

MALONE RETURNS, LEAVES SCORING PUNCH BEHIND

The second most controversial move of the season was the Hamilton Tigers trading away of star forward Joe Malone to the Canadiens in exchange for Bert Corbeau and Edmond Bouchard. Malone had scored 28 and 24 goals in his two seasons in Hamilton, but the controversy quickly quieted as Malone would only go on to score 1 goal in 20 games with the Habs in 1922-23, while Bouchard, with Hamilton, led the league with 12 assists.

After having been suspended by Hamilton for refusing to report to training camp on December 6, the Canadiens reacquired Malone, but at the age of 33 his skills had now vanished as he struggled with illnesses and injury.

If the Malone deal was disappointing, the acquisition of Joliat was anything but. The rookie chipped in with 12 goals and 9 assists in 24 games, and the best seemed like it was yet to come.

One important player gone from 1922 was defenseman Corbeau. The veteran of eight seasons in Montreal wished to be closer to his family, and asked Dandurand for a trade to Hamilton. He was included in Malone acquisition from the Tigers, and was traded a season later to the St. Patricks where he would wind down his NHL career.

Starting the season, the team held its training camp in Grimsby, at the west end of Lake Ontario. Players and team management enjoyed the experience, as did the locals, who not only gave the Canadiens a municipal welcome, but invited the team back for more such occasions.

DIDIER'S LAST HURRAH

It would be the final camp for the longest standing original Montreal Canadien, Didier Pitre, who was the first ever player signed by the club. Now 39 years old and wearing down fast, the right winger / defenseman was at the end of an illustrious career that would see him score 220 goals in a Montreal uniform, second only to Newsy Lalonde's 266.

Born on September 1, 1883, Pitre also has the distinction of being the second oldest forward to suit up for the Canadiens, after Jean Beliveau, who was born one calandar day earlier, 47 years after Pitre in 1931. The distiction of the eldest of Habs to ever suit up in teams colours, would go to a goaltender the club would reacquire in the years to come.

The burly Pitre had held his own battles over the seasons, a few with management, more than a few with Newsy, and a scattered issues with the media of the day.

As the Canadiens first ever signed player, he entered the NHA in controversy, with signed contracts from two rivals leagues in hand. He often warred with Lalonde for status on the club, in regards to contracts. In many seasons in which he outscored the fiesty Newsy, he never seemed to gain the upper hand financially.

Pitre, often was of an easy going nature, despite the flare ups. He was once criticized by his coach for apologetically helping an opponant up after he had knocked him to the ice.

His most troubling season came when the Canadiens had traded him to Vancouver in lieu of Lalonde snubbing the PCHL contract he had signed. During that time, an article emminating from Ottawa, had portrayed the big Canadiens winger's lifestyle as being less than exempliary. As Pitre filed suit against the paper, the Canadiens attempted to clean their hands of both troubles at once.

A popular player with the local fans, Pitre would add a mere goal and an assist in 23 games, in his final campaign with the club

With Lalonde gone, the Canadiens management offered the team captaincy to goalie Georges Vezina, who declined the honour because he felt his position was ill suited for the duty. The "C" then ended up on the sweater of Sprague Cleghorn.

SHAKY CANADIENS PULL IT TOGETHER

The Canadiens employed only 10 skaters and a goalie in 1922-23, with Joliat and Malone being the lone new faces. The slack left by Lalonde's departure was picked up by Joliat and Billy Boucher, but the Canadiens were an inconsistant team for the majority of their 24 games.

After nine games, Montreal had but three wins and a pair of ties for their earning. They would win six of their next eight games, beating every club twice in that span, before dropping a pair to Hamilton and Ottawa.

With five games remaining, the Canadiens needed to win all five to have a shot at the O' Brien Cup, a first place standing, and the Stanley Cup. It started well with a 5-3 win at the Mount Royal against the Tigers, but the Canadiens let the St. Patricks snuggle up to them in the standing with a 4-3 loss to Toronto.

The standings were incredible tight, and all of Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto were still aspirants to top spot. The Canadiens went on to defeat each of the three remaining foes, but didn't get any help from Hamilton as they lost a pair to Ottawa.

Final wins for the Canadiens against Toronto and Ottawa helped clinch second place, and happily, a playoff berth. They finishing one point back of the Senators, and one point up on the St. Pats. The Tigers remained the league doormats for a third consecutive season.

In the final tally, the Canadiens managed one more win than it had the season before, but the playoffs held promise as Montreal ended on a three game winning note, while the Senators lost their final two games as they held onto first place.

CLEGHORN GOES BALLISTIC ON OTTAWA

While the era of NHL hockey's earliest years is infamous for its rough and often violent action, Cleghorn stands above every evil doer as the most notorious perpetrator of dirty deeds. It was by no accident that he led the league in penalty minutes for nine of his first ten seasons.

In the first game of this season's playoffs, the always vigilant Cleghorn still had bones to pick with the Senators, and he literally went ballistic at the site of their barber shop pole sweaters.

First, Cleghron unleashed his wrath upon Ottawa's Lionel Hitchman, butt ending him in the face with his lumber. After being penalized, he went on even further, and attempted to carve his initials into Cy Denneny's facial features. As Denneny backed off, team mate Billy Coutu joined in the brawl, and clunked the Senator a two hander over the head. As Ottawa players were hauled off on stretchers, Cleghorn himself would be hauled off to an Ottawa police station after the incident and charged with aggravated assault and fined $50.

Montreal manager and coach Leo Dandurand, who despised such acts and felt that violence had no part in the game, was given little choice but to suspend both Cleghorn and Coutu for their actions. Each paid a $200 fine. Dandurand felt so strongly about his personal stand, that neither player suited up for the second game of the playoff series.

Ottawa won the bloodied contest by a 2-0 score, and Cleghorn's absense in game two, may or may not have cost the Canadiens a trip to the Stanley Cup finals. Needing a two goal win, the more disciplined Canadiens team could only manage the slightest of 2-1 victories.

The Senators would win the two game total goals series 3-2, but the round will long be remembered by the Cleghorn maiming of Ottawa players.

SENATORS REIGN SUPREME ONCE MORE

This would the second season in which the Stanley Cup playoffs would involve competition from three different leagues. The previous saw all three second place teams win their respective leagues, and now it would be the turn for all first place clubs.

The Pacific Coast Hockey Association abandoned its seven man hockey in favour of the six man rule used in the NHL and the Western Canada Hockey League. This allowed the PCHA and the WCHL to play interleague games while the separate leagues kept their own standings. The newly renamed Vancouver Maroons won the PCHA championship and the Edmonton Eksimos won the WCHL championship.

The Senators first faced the Maroons, and won the best of five, three games to two. They went on to sweep the Eskimos 2-0 in a best of three. In one game against Vancouver, the Senators King Clancy played all five positions, in cluding goal in one game. Unbeknowst to league president Frank Calder, the Stanley Cup then spent the entire season in the Clancy household before it was returned.

STARS ON THE HORIZON

As Ottawa claimed its third Stanley Cup win in four seasons, the Canadiens again could feel that they were not far off the mark - and truly they would not be wrong.
Additions in recent seasons, Joliat in this year, Billy Boucher, and the Cleghorn brothers, changed the face of the Canadiens quite rapidly. It is an old saying that team's were often one player away from the Cup, and in this instance, nothing could prove to be more true.

As the prospects for a solid career from Joliat looked good, a compatriot of sorts, who would more than compliment his talents, was on the horizon. Few knew at the time, that soon to be in a the Canadiens midst, would be a player who would become the game's most blazing talent over the two decades.

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1923-24 With Morenz Comes A Second Cup

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After a span of several seasons in which the Canadiens roster saw hardly any changes, a youth movement of sorts, begun in 1922, had a dramatic effect on the team's fortunes for the 1923-24 campaign. The addition of younger and highly skilled talent, mixed in with the core of savvy veterans that remained, proved to be just the recipe to get the Canadiens over the hump.

In recent seasons, the Canadiens hockey club appeared to be as strong as those teams who went on to claim the Stanley Cup prize. For a variety of reasons, the team always fell slightly short of their goal. Often it was the case of the team either starting out strong and ending meekly, or vice versa. In the end, the Canadiens it seemed, were forever a win or a goal short of greater achievements.

THE FRENCH MYTH CONTINUES

Since the club's inception in the 1909-10 season, team ownership - be it Ambrose O' Brien, George Kendall Kennedy, or more recently, the Leo Dandurand group - held steadfastly to the notion that the Montreal Canadiens hockey club be comprised mainly of french speaking players from the local area. It has always been the team credo of sorts, and it worked well to form an allegiance between the team and it's fans. This was especially apparent, and successful, during the years in which the Montreal Wanderers were the Canadiens fiercest rivals.

Slowly over time, the grip on french speaking players was lessened, and players from the Ottawa region, the whole of Ontario, and as far away as the western provinces, began infiltrating the team's ranks. It was never seen as a diluting of an ideal, but merely an intelligent means of survival for the club.

Through the era's of the three successive owners, several mainstays remained on the roster. Newsy Lalonde had spent a dozen seasons in a Canadiens uniform. Didier Piter lasted an additional season. Goalie Georges Vezina, still in peak form, was about to begin his thirteenth season with the Canadiens. Others, such as defensemen Jack Laviolette and Louis Berlinguette, also enjoyed long tenures with the club. The purposes of solidifying a francophone fan base had long been met. With no english geared rival team within the city limits, it began to make solid sense that the Canadiens simply align the best possible players, regardless of origin.

Perhaps certain changes signified a breach with past methods of good business for the club, but from this point on, the Canadiens were prepared to seek talent from wherever it came, while keeping close watch on local prospects. It was an intelligent and forward move, that would quickly enable the Canadiens to enjoy their most prosperous seasons yet.

Manager Dandurand, knowing full well that the Canadiens mythical frenchman were selling tickets at home and on the road, was not about to let anyone in on the fact that newcomers Joliat and Morenz were both of Swiss descent. Nevertheless, a Flying Frenchmen identity had already forged into the minds of fans and rivals alike, and little would deviate hockey fans perception of the club as such.

OUT WITH THE OLD

In parting ways with Lalonde prior to the beginning of the 1922-23 season, and with Pitre and Berlinguette gone at season's end, a shift towards a younger team was signified with the arrival of Aurel Joliat and Billy Boucher in the previous campaign.

For the 1923-24 season, the Canadiens would add a defenseman named Sylvio Mantha from the Montreal Nationale, and a sleek centerman from Stratford, Ontario named Howie Morenz, who would both impact the club tremendously and share long tenures as Canadiens.

Both were 21 years of age, and added to the 22 year old Joliat and the 24 year old Boucher, the Canadiens were a great deal more youthful than in preceding seasons. Billy's brother, Bobby, also joined the team. At 19 years old, he was almost half the age of the Canadiens eldest citizen, goalie Georges Vezina, who would turn 37 in the course of the season.

Save for 27 year old spare Billy Campbell, the remaining players on the Canadiens were all 30 and over, and included Billy Coutu at 31, Billy Bell and Odie Cleghorn at 32, brother Sprague and Joe Malone, both 33.

MORENZ ALMOST SLIPPED LOOSE

It took all of Canadiens manager Leo Dandurand's powers of persuassion to get Morenz into a Montreal uniform. The player known as the "Mitchell Meteor" and later, the "Stratford Streak" was highly coveted by several professional organizations, among them Toronto, Saskatoon, Hamilton and Victoria.

Ernest Sauvé, who was affiliated with Hart and the Canadiens through several sources, had officiated a game involving Morenz's Stratford CNR team and the Point St. Charles machine shop squad at the Mount Royal Arena one Saturday in April of 1923. After Morenz put in a 9 goal performance in one game, Sauvé was on the phone to Dandurand, and he dispatched to Hart to Stratford to speak with Morenz's family and he came away with his signature on a contract.

After weeks passed, Morenz and his family had a change of heart in regards to his willingness to turn pro, and he sent a telegram to the Canadiens explaining his wish to remain in Stratford where a secure living awaited him. It seems the player was being influenced by the local senior team that he played for, and by his personal entourage, and he stated in his note that he had doubts about having what was needed to be a pro player. He had signed a $1,600 contract, and he was asking Dandurand to please tear it up.

Dandurand replied in the negative, and Morenz then countered with a a second hand written letter that stated:

"Dear Sir, I am enclosing a cheque and contract to play hockey with your club. Owing to several reasons, of which family and work are the most to consider, I find it impossible to leave Stratford. I am sorry if I caused you expense and inconvenience, and trust you will accept the returned contract in a sportsmanlike way. Yours truly, Howarth Morenz."

The Morenz note was dated August 10, but not postmarked until the 23rd, which told the savvy Dandurand that there was hesitation and uncertainty in the player's actions. Dandurand was no fool, and he knew a scheme when he saw one coming. He promptly phoned the player at home, and told him that there would be a railway ticket at the Stratford station for him to come to Montreal the next day to discuss matters.

The two met the following day and Morenz was steadfast about not joining the Canadiens or any other pro team for that matter. He allowed that he was getting good money on the side to play senior hockey in Stratford, and combined with his work in a car shop, it was a larger sum that his pro deal. When Dandurand countered that a contract was a contract, and business was business, the debt ridden Morenz broke down. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he confessed that he felt he was not good enough to play pro, and that Dandurand would be sorry he forced him into it, and depriving his family of his livelyhood in the process. Dandurand almost fell for it.

Morenz showed up for the 1923 training camp and immediately made a strong impression. The team veterans made it especially rough on the new greenhorn, and players such as Vezina and Sprague Cleghorn came away convinced Morenz would be a star in the league.

In his third game of the season, on December 27, as Ottawa inaugurated their new the Auditorium, Morenz scored his first of a career 270 goals on December 27, 1923.

MANTHA, THE NEWEST MAINSTAY

Sylvio Mantha was a product of the local Montreal hockey scene, and the Canadiens were aquainted with his play when he was brought into camp as a forward. He would soon be converted into a defenseman and would succeed Cleghorn as the Canadiens best rearguard for years to come.

Born and raised in the St. Henri end of Montreal, Mantha his reputation as a right winger with the Notre Dame de Grace juniors in 1918-19. In successive campaigns, Mantha appeared on clubs from Verdun to Montreal in the local junior leagues. Guided and groomed by such local hockey notaries as Arthur Therrien, Mantha became the "can't miss kid" by the time he signed on with the Canadiens in December of this season. As Sprague Cleghorn and Billy Coutu's time in Montreal winded down, Mantha was ready to assume the position of the Canadiens all purpose defenseman.

MALONE SEES THE END

Joe Malone, one of the most illustrious of early NHL'ers, began his 15th pro season, which would turn out to be his fourth and final one as a Montreal Canadien.

The hockey legend who held the single season goal scoring mark with 44 in the 1917-18 season with Montreal was at a crossroads. Appearing in 20 games for Montreal one year prior, he managed but one goal, and was slowed by a throat infection for the majority of the season.

Malone returned in 1923-24, set to prove himself, but ended up with a front row seat in witnessing the birth of a legendary career.

"I took a look at a new kid in our training camp at Grimsby, Ontario and knew right then I was ready for the easy chair. He was Howie Morenz. In practice he moved past me so fast I thought I was standing still. I knew it was time to quit. Besides I was bothered by a throat ailment. I didn't want to grow old on the Canadiens bench. I had a good job as a tool maker. So I said goodbye. I didn't stay long enough in 1923-24 to get a goal. Morenz had taken over."*

Malone would dress for 10 games with Montreal, and after a game on January 23, he called it quits. The Canadiens would later have a "Joe Malone Night" to honour his career and achievements. He was presented with a gold watch, which was quite the expensive gift in the day. Canadiens team president Alphonse David stated that Malone deserved a gift suitable for a world champion.

COLD IN HOT WEATHER, HOT IN COLD WEATHER

The Canadiens had several false starts to their season when unusually warm temperatures forced the cancellation of games at the Mount Royal Arena, as artificial ice was not made at the Canadiens home. They would also run into similar problems at the end of the season.

Perhaps because of scheduling conflicts and added youth to the team, Montreal started the season flatfooted, winning only four of its first 13 games. Owners Cattarinich and Létourneau decided to shake up the troops by offering a $1000 bonus to all players should the team qualify for the post season. Being that the team was in last place and needed to finish in the top two to accomplish this feat, it would take a great string of victories in the season's final 11 contests.

To the surprise of many, the Canadiens went on to win 9 of those final 11 games, finishing a solid second, six points behind the Ottawa Senators and six ahead of the Toronto St. Patricks. They were in the playoffs, and a good grand richer for their efforts.

CLEGHORN GOES BALLISTIC - THE SEQUEL

Sprague Cleghorn continued to be his viscious self, and the NHL brought forth a cummulative list of his deeds in mid season, in order to consider a suspension for the Canadiens battling blueliner. After citing a spearing incident against Ottawa's Cy Denneny, the league rejected all charges against him. A few games later, Cleghorn rammed the Senators Lionel Hitchman into the boards from behind, and was forced to sit out a game for his deed.

The slow changing of the guard on defense over the course of the last three seasons, and the youth injection upfront were evident in the team's final statistics for the season. Despite finishing only two games above .500 with an 13-11 record, goalie Georges Vezina, solid as ever, allowed the least goals against, with 48 in 24 games. This was crucial to their success, as the team also managed a league low 59 goals for, with Bobby Boucher, Joliat, and Morenz contributing 16, 15, and 13 respectively. The eight remaining Canadiens accounted for the other 15 goals scored.

Vezina, who had yet to miss a game in 15 seasons, owned the league's best goals against average for the fifth time in his career, and the team's committment to defense would continue to pay further dividends.

SENS GET DUMPED, OH WELL

The Senators finished with the NHL's best record at 16-8, despite a bizarre incident near the season's end. Montreal fans hung around Mount Royal for hours before hearing the news as to why Ottawa were so late for the contest. On their way to the game with the Canadiens, the Senators train was snowbound near Hawkesbury, Ontario, and they were stuck all night causing the one day postponement. Ottawa's Cy Denneny, a native of Cornwall, decided to scrounge around for some food, and somehow fell down a well. Fortunately, he escaped injury. The next night, Vezina and the Canadiens shut out the Senators 3–0.

In the playoffs, the second place Canadiens would upset the Senators in a two game total goals series to become the first winner of the new Prince Of Wales Trophy. The trophy took the place of the O'Brien Trophy, which was retired but later brought back and awarded to Canadian Division teams starting in 1927-28. This season saw the introduction of another new trophy into the NHL, the Hart Trophy, donated by Cecil Hart's father, Dr. David Hart, was to be awarded to the player judged most valuable to his team.

After the Canadiens took care of the Senators with a 1-0 win in Montreal and a 4-2 win in Ottawa, they went on to challenge the winners of the PCHA and the WCHL for the Stanley Cup. This would be the last season in which three leagues would compete for the Cup as the PCHA folded prior to the start of ther next season.

DANDURAND BACKS OFF

Canadiens owner Dandurand initially wanted the Calgary Tigers and Vancouver Maroons to face off against each other and then have the Canadiens play the winner for the Cup, but Frank Patrick, the president of the PCHA, refused to go along with that idea. At first, Dandurand claimed that Calgary and Vancouver were inferior to his team, and he felt that they should face off against one another to determine a winner. Instead, Patrick proposed a compromise in which the host team's (Montreal) customary contribution towards the two other clubs travel expenses would be cut in half.

When Dandurand realized that an additional series in Montreal translated into additional income whether or not Montreal won the Cup, he relented.

In order to generate the additional money, Calgary and Vancouver decided to play a three game series before heading to Montreal, with the loser having to face the Canadiens in the first round. Games were played in Vancouver, Calgary, and Winnipeg, with the Tigers coming back from a Game 1 loss to win the next two contests. Despite this additional series between the Tigers and the Maroons, Montreal still had to defeat both western teams in order to win the Cup.

The first two games against the Maroons were played at the Mount Royal Arena on March 18 and 20, and the Canadiens won both by scores of 3-2 and 2-1.

BOUCHER DOUBLE

Billy Boucher was the hero of the Vancouver series as he scored the game winning goals both games. In Game 2, Vancouver scored first on a goal by Billy's brother, Frank, but Billy responded with two goals of his own to give the Canadiens a 2-1 win and clinch the series.

After sweeping Vancouver, Montreal's next opponent were the Calgary Tigers and the Canadiens swept them as well in a best of three series. Howie Morenz was the star, scoring a hat trick in the first game on March 22, then another goal in the next game, which was transferred to Ottawa on march 25 because of the slushy ice at the Mount Royal. Morenz was levelled by Cully Wilson of Calgary and suffered a chipped collarbone, but it did little to slow Montreal down.

The Canadiens swept all three teams they faced during the playoffs en route to their first Stanley Cup since their 1916 Cup win as a member of the NHA. After the playoffs, a new ring was added to the Cup with the player's names engraved along with the following: "Canadiens of Montreal / World's Champions / Defeated / Ottawa Vancouver Calgary / Two Straight Games Each".

CANADIENS CASH IN

An article in La Presse at the time stated that the four playoff games brought in a total sum of $23,119.77 to the Canadiens organization. Each players share of the winnings was a handsome and much appreciated $603.92. Added into the $1000 promise per player that team owners paid up on the last game of the regular season, a good half of the Canadiens players practically doubled their annual salaries for the season.

The Canadiens were honoured after the win with a gala evening held in their presence at the University of Montreal. Once the night was over and much spirits were consumed, they were off to Dandurand's residence for a private victory party. The Dandurands home was at the top of Mount Royal, and along the way of the rocky road, a vehicle containing the Cleghorn brothers and Sylvio Mantha suffered a tire puncture.

SPRAGUE LOSES IT IN A DIFFERENT WAY
Team captain Sprague had been holding the Stanley Cup, and he deposited it at the roadside to fix the flat. Once they were back at the Dandurand residence hours later, the team owner's wife suggested that the punch she had made would best be served from the bowl. That was when the players realized they had left it on the roadside hours earlier.

Hurrying back to the scene of the flat tire, there was the Cup, still sitting atop the snowbank where it had been left hours earlier by the players.

After the Canadiens second Cup win, the engraving of names on Lord Stanley's gift to Canada became a solid and unbroken tradition. Lord Stanley encouraged each team to add a ring to the Cup to commemorate its victory. The 1907 Montreal Wanderers were the first to actually engrave the players names on the Cup, doing so on the flat surface inside the bowl. The Vancouver Millionaires followed in 1914-15.

Since 1924, the engravings have been an annual event, but there have been many uncorrected name misspellings and some illegitimate names on the Cup. One such occurance with the 1924 Canadiens happened when the name of spare forward Charles Fortier. The Rockland, Ontario born player who was a spare for the team, never appeared in game action for Montreal. Better known as an employee of Bell Canada for over 40 years, Fortier has without a doubt received the easiest NHL immortalization of all time.

The city of Montreal were caught up in a frenzy of delight over the Canadiens triumph, and threw the team a big bash following their win.

*Malone knew it was time to retire when he literally saw the future of hockey in Montreal. In an article by Vern Degeer in the March 18, 1961 issue of The Hockey News. Thanks to Joe Pelletier at Hockey's Greatest Legend's for the quote.

*From Joe Pelletier's Habs Legends

1924-25 The Forum And Two New Rivalries

2008-07-26T06:57:00.001-07:00

When the defending Stanley Cup champion Canadiens took to the ice for the 1924-25 season, both the NHL and the Montreal hockey landscape had a very different look.

To suggest the business of hockey was booming would be an understatement, and the changes in the NHL perfectly reflected the growth of the game.

Since the NHL began eight seasons earlier in 1917-18, it had existed as a four team league that had struggled financially to get through the first World War unscathed. With strong teams in four cities now existing on financially solid ground, the NHL decided it was time to spread itself out.

There would be two new NHL franchises added this season, including a renewed Montreal rivalry, a new building, a longer schedule, and a long standing league doormat - the Hamilton Tigers - rejuvenated into a first place team.

THE FORUM OPENS

A new arena was contructed in Montreal, the Forum, and it was built to house the new Montreal team, and instant Canadiens rivals, the Maroons. In an odd and foreshadowing twist of fate, it would the Canadiens who played first in the Forum.

Sir Edward Beattie, president of the Canadian Pacific railway is cited as first having the idea to build the Forum in 1923, long before the Maroons were envisioned as possible tenants. A need for a new arena in the city of Montreal was created in the absence of the Jubilee and Westmount Arena fires in recent years.

William Northy, owner of the 4,300 seat Westmount that burned to the ground in 1918, and a builder with the Canadian Arena Company, was himself looking to build a new arena in the city. After the CAC successfully built the Arena Gardens in Toronto, Northey and Liberal Senator Donat Raymond began to develop plans for 12,500 seat capacity rink for the city of Montreal.

Plans were scaled back due to financing questions during the Depression and a 9,300 seater was designed. After more money trouble, a backer by the name of H.L. Timmins financed the final project.

The historically significant site at the northeast corner of Atwater and St. Catherine St. West was chosen as the location as it had been home to an outdoor rink earlier in the 1900's, where future hockey legends Frank and Lester Patrick, and Art Ross learned their craft.

At the time contruction began, the building on site was a roller skating rink named the Forum. Northey decided to keep the name.

At a cost of $1.5 million, contruction of the Forum began in the summer of 1924, and was finished in an incredible 159 days. The building would see two major upgrades in it's lifetime, one in the early 1950's and a second in 1968.

The Forum hosted it's first hockey game on November 29, 1924, and surprisingly, the Maroons were not the home team. Against the wails of both Forum and Maroons management, the Canadiens season opening contest against the Toronto St. Patricks was moved to the new building by the NHL - once again because the Mount Royal Arena couldn't produce ice on a natural surface so early in the season.

The Canadiens went on to beat the St. Patricks 7–1 in the opener, with Billy Boucher scoring a hat trick.

BRUINS BECOME FIRST U.S. BASED NHL TEAM

The NHL's other new franchise, the Boston Bruins, was the first granted outside of Canada.

In 1923, First National Stores grocery tycoon Charles Adams fell in love with the game of hockey, after wirnessing the Stanley Cup playoffs. He persisted in convincing NHL governors to grant him the first U.S. based franchise and the league decided it was time to explore American hockey markets.

Adams sought out the Ottawa Senators Art Ross as his manager, and Ross proceded to put his imprint on the club. Ross, on Adams advice, was directed to choose a nickname that portrayed an untamed animal displaying speed, agility, and cunning. The Bruins moniker he choose fit perfectly in line with colours of Adams chain of stores. Ross would remain on the Bruins front near 30 years, in every capacity from player to manager to four separate coaching stints.

More American franchises would in the Bruins wake, but few would have the rivalry with the Canadiens that the Bruins would enjoy, or regret, in years to come.

In this eighth season of NHL hockey, the league decided it would begin it's schedule earlier and expand it from 24 to 30 games. The additional games were gravy for the owners, but not all the players were as enthused.

TIGERS FINALLY SPROUT CLAWS

The improvement of the Hamilton Tigers can be traced to the previous season when owner Percy Thompson signed the Green brothers, Red and Shorty, from the Sudbury Wolves of the NOHA in November 1923. The brothers were placed on a line with emerging star Billy Burch.

Two other Wolves players, Alex McKinnon and Charlie Langlois were also added, and the players acquired from the Canadiens in the Joe Malone trade, Bert Corbeau and Edmond Bouchard, helped sturdy the team considerably. The final piece was the hiring of former Montreal Wanderers guru Jimmy Gardner as coach. The former NHA and NHL star transformed the once hapless Tigers into winners almost immediately.

CANADIENS SET TO DEFEND THEIR TITLE

Still recognizable within all this, were a very strong Canadiens squad that would have it's best regular season ever.

While the Canadiens altered the look of their red, white, and blue sweaters with a globe logo befitting their World Champion status, the men who wore them were for the most part an unchanged core group.

Back were Georges Vezina, the Cleghorn brothers, Sprague and Odie, their three young offensive stars - Morenz, Joliat, and Boucher, solid defenseman Sylvio Mantha and Billy Coutu, as well as coach Leo Dandurand. Not returning this season were Bill Cameron, who would be back in the NHL in two seasons time, and Bobby Boucher, who went on toplay with the Vancouver Maroons. Billy Bell and Joe Malone both retired from hockey.

Despite having shared in the success in Montreal, only 61 days after his arrival, Boucher was traded to the WCHL Maroons on the very day the Habs were celebrating their Stanley Cup win. Team owner Leo Dandurand felt Bobby was too small a player, and traded him for prospect Charlie Cotch, who never appeared with the team.

The new faces on the Canadiens were mainly spares, part timers, and late season aquisitions and they included John Matz, a 33 year old center who had last played with the Saskatoon Crescents, and Fern Headley, a 23 year old defenseman who was on loan from the Bruins 13 games into the season. Dave Ritchie, who was previously acquired from Hamilton during the 1920-21 season, appeared in five games with the Canadiens after being signed as a free agent on January 28.

THE OTTAWA THREE COME AND GO

On November 17, three Ottawa area players from the OCHL were signed as free agents to brief tryout contracts, and they were Roland Lafleur and goaltender Eugene Decosse of the Ottawa Royal Canadians, and René Joliat, Aurel's brother, from the Ottawa New Edinburghs.

It is unclear exactly why Decosse and the relatively average fellow Ottawa players René Joliat and Roland Lafleur all got a chance with the Habs at the same time. The "Ottawa Three", as they were known at the time, all dressed for the team to open the season against the St. Patricks on November 29. Only Decosse did not play, as Vezina was in fine form, and backstopped the Habs to an easy 7-1 victory.

The very next day, the french language Ottawa newspaper Le Droit painted Decosse's return to Ottawa as a good thing, claiming the conditions offered by the Canadiens contract were not worth throwing ones future away. The paper did not elaborate on what those expectations were, but they were presumably equally unacceptable to René Joliat and René Lafleur, who also returned to the Ottawa area following their lone games in the NHL.

DANDURAND SEES DOLLAR SIGNS

Canadiens owner and manager Leo Dandurand, knew a thing or ten about how to make a cash register ring. As a horse racing afficianado and promoter extraorinaire, Dandurand had firm ideas upon his purchase of the Canadiens hockey club three seasons prior, on what endeavors could maximize his investment.

With Montreal being a hotbed of hockey madness, and recalling the interest and dollar generating fury of the Canadiens - Wanderers rivalry of years gone by, Dandurand put up no qualms when it came to sharing the city's territorial rights with a second NHL franchise. In fact, his asking price was so low, the demand almost seemed foolish.

Dandurand charged a mere $15,000 to allow a rival team to set up shop within the city limits, knowing full well that his bank account would benefit. He would later claim that it was no generous offer on his part to allow a second city team into the picture.

Once assured by the NHL governors that a second Montreal club would only be allowed to dress english speaking players, the offer took on the form as an investment into what would become a bitterly fought cash generating rivalry.

At the time, many followers of the game where surprised when Dandurand stepped forth to second the motion by Ottawa manager T.P. Gorman that a second NHL franchise be admitted for the city of Montreal.

The Maroons $15,000 fee later became the source of controversy when several NHL factions claimed that the money was destined for league pockets, as was the Bruins fee. Dandurand sternly disagreed, claiming successfully that it had previously been agreed to that the fee was payment for allowing the Maroons onto the Canadiens turf. From this point on, Dandurand made certain the minutes of NHL meetings were written down and signed by all parties.

CECIL HART GETS MAROONED

The Canadiens man for all purposes, Cecil Hart, who had made the winning bid for Dandurand, Cattarinich and Letourneau when they purchased the team from the Kennedy family, and who had signed Howie Morenz one season prior, was tabbed as the man to be in charge of the Maroons. Hart's loyalties are divided when it comes to parting ways with the Canadiens, but he remains on good terms with the Canadiens team.

The Maroons owners however, fail to relinquish the desired complete control of the team's players to Hart, and disagreements ensue to the point where he is let go by the organization on February 9. Not long after, he is rehired by the Canadiens as a scout once more, and along with Morenz, he would scour the Ontario side of the border for hockey talent.

The new Forum was also of a concern to the Canadiens, as the home of the Maroons held close to 10,000 seats. The building had owners of the Mount Royal Arena worried about losing the Canadiens as tenants, and they offered Dandurand and company $50,000 to purchase the club. The offer was refused.

The first Canadiens and Maroons contest took place at the Mount Royal on Wednesday, December 10, and was won 5-0 by the Canadiens in front of 5,000 fans. The teams met again 17 days later and played to a 1-1 draw at the Forum before 11,000 spectators. The tie ended a Canadiens six games winning streak and left them with a 7-1-1 record to start the season.

SPRAGUE BEING SPRAGUE

Sprague Cleghorn continued to be a sideshow, much to the detriment of Dandurand. On January 24, Cleghorn kept up his one man war against the Ottawa Senators by getting involved in a fiery battle with the George Boucher. After the Ottawa player levelled a Montreal player into the boards, Cleghorn was helping him up when he was clocked by a Boucher roundhouse. Cleghorn retaliated and pled innocent, but was still suspended along with Boucher for the incidents that followed.

Late in the season, on February 28, the Canadiens were in Ottawa for a game against the Senators, when both players and fans felt what was explained away as an explosion at the time. In Montreal, as the Maroons hosted Hamilton, a similar sensation was felt. What occured, was an earthquake centered in Charlevoix, Quebec near the Saguenay River. It shook all the way to Ottawa, scattering fans temporarily in both buildings. While Billy Boucher and the Senators Ed Gorman were exchanging fists in the penalty box area, scribes in the press box above were gripping their typewriters so that they would not drop onto spectator's heads down below. The quake did not shake the Canadiens, who lost the game 1-0.

BRUTE CLEGHORN INSPIRES THE LADY BYNG

The NHL introduced another new award in 1924-25, the Lady Byng trophy, named in honour of Marie Evelyn Moreton, the wife of the Viscount Byng of Vimy, a Vimy Ridge war hero who was the Governor General of Canada from 1921 to 1926. Lady Byng, who was an avid hockey fan, decided to donate the trophy to the NHL in 1925.

The Governor General's wife was said to quite appauled by players the likes of Sprague Cleghorn and sought to reward cleaner play with her donation to the game.

Lady Byng decided the trophy's first winner would be the Ottawa Senator's Frank Nighbor. Late in the season she invited Nighbor to Rideau Hall, showed him the trophy, and asked him if the NHL would accept it as an award for its most gentlemanly player. When Nighbor said he thought it would, Lady Byng, much to Nighbor's surprise, awarded him the trophy.

CANADIENS SET TEAM RECORDS

The Canadiens finished the season with a record of 17-11-2 and their 36 points placed them third in the NHL. Hamilton led with 39, followed closely by Toronto with 38.

Joliat, Morenz, and Boucher finished third, fourth, and seventh, respectively in the scoring race. Morenz's 30 goals were bested only by Toronto's Babe Dye with 38.

The Canadiens as a team scored 93 goals, the most in this season, while also allowing the least, with 56 in 30 games. The 38 year old Georges Vezina was again the best goaltender in the league, with a miniscule 1.81 goals against average and 5 shutouts.

In the six contests with the cross town rival Maroons, the Canadiens held a 4-0-2 edge. The NHL's two newest teams, the Maroons and Bruins, finished fifth and sixth in their initial NHL campaings.

With a 3-2-1 record against the Toronto, the Canadiens were all set for the two game total goals series against the St. Patricks. Implemented under the NHL's new playoff format, the second and third place teams would battle for the right to take on the first place squad for the O'Brien Cup. The winner of that series would then move on to challenge the WCHL champions for the Stanley Cup.

TIGERS PLAYERS REVOLT

The Canadiens were about to begin the series when it was learned that the first place Tigers players were revolting against the terms of their contracts. The players demanded to their owner, Percy Thompson, that they would not participate in the NHL finals unless they received an additional $200 each for the extra six games played that year. Under their contracts the Tigers players were to receive the same amount of money no matter how many games they played from December 1, 1924 to March 31, 1925.

Upset at having to play an additional 6 games in the schedule for no extra pay, the Hamilton players went on strike figuring they had NHL President Frank Calder over a barrel.

Calder was furious, stating that the Tigers players would be fined or suspended if they did not play in the final series, but the players stated that they would rather retire than be taken advantage of.

The Canadiens meanwhile, had won the first playoff game on March 11 in Montreal by a score of 3-2. They travelled to Toronto for the second game and learned that a tie game would be all that was needed to achieve the Stanley Cup finals.

On March 13, the day of the final game of the semi final between Toronto and the Canadiens, the Tigers Red Green met with president Calder and attempted to iron out an agreement to no avail. There was little negotiating, as Green told that the players stood firm.

All Tigers players were then suspended by the NHL and fined $200 each, and their season and playoffs cancelled. Calder declared that the winner of the Canadiens / St. Patricks series would then advance to the Stanley Cup challenge.

That evening the Canadiens shut out the St. Patricks 2-0, and they were off to the Stanley Cup finals for a second season running.

WESTERN HOCKEY MERGED INTO ONE LEAGUE

Western league hockey had undergone its share of changes as well in 1924. Prior to the start of the season, the PCHA folded and two of its best teams, the Vancouver Maroons and the Victoria Cougars, joined the WCHL. This meant that after three seasons of having three leagues compete for the Stanley Cup, the final would once again have only two competing teams.

The Cougars followed much the same path to the final as did Montreal. They were also a third place finisher, and they topled the Calgary Tigers and Newsy Lalonde's Saskatoon Crescents to earn their way into the final.

CANADIENS LEAVE STANLEY BEHIND

The Canadiens were perhaps a little overconfident as the left for Victoria, and purposely did not bring the Stanley Cup with them, assured it would still be theirs upon their return.

The games were played at the Victoria Arena in this best of five series were the first broadcast on radio, and it was Dr. Clem Davies who called the play by play.
The series began on March 21, and the Canadiens dropped game one by a 5-2 score. In a supersticious move prior to the start of the game, the Cougars players hurried to leave the pre-game warmup first for good luck. The trick worked well for them again in game two, as they put the Canadiens in a hole with a 3-1 win.

INNOVATIVE PATRICK DUPES CANADIENS

Montreal, as did most of the NHL teams, still used its six best players for the majority of the game, substituting them as they each tired. Cougars manager Lester Patrick, perhaps hockey's greatest visionary, employed two lines in constant rotation during games. His reasoning was that even fresh second tier players had more to give energy wise over the course of a game that the tired players the opposition would counter with.

For game three, the Canadiens thought they would pull the Cougars trick of leaving the warmup first. It likely had no bearing on the final score, but the stunt seemed to work, as they Canadiens went on to win 4-2.

The Canadiens backs were again against the wall on March 30, and Victoria handed them a firm 6-1 routing. There would be no Stanley Cup in Montreal this season.

Montreal scored eight goals in the series, with all of them coming from their top line of Morenz, Boucher and Joliat. Victoria countered with a more balanced attack with eight different skaters combining for 16 goals. There was something to be learned from Lester Patrick's method.

The next day, on April 1, the mayor of Victoria hosted a banquet for the team without the Stanley Cup being present. It would be mailed by the Canadiens organization to the Cougars upon their return to Montreal.

With a host of changes still to come on the hockey horizon, this series would mark the closing of an era and the dawning of a new one. The Victoria Cougars would become the last non NHL team to win the Stanley Cup.

1925-26 All That Could Stop Georges Vezina

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Changes on the Montreal hockey scene that were viewed as significant prior to the start of the 1924-25 NHL campaign, perhaps paled next what occured in the city in this season.

While the NHL continued to evolve at a rapid clip, the natural order of things had a dramatic effect on the Canadiens.

All matters taken all together, it would not be business as usual for the Montreal Canadiens in 1925-26.

Compared to other professional hockey franchises, the Canadiens had been quite successful in outlasting all NHA and NHL counterparts since they began in 1909. Along with the equally solid Ottawa Senators, the Canadiens and their star players were constants on the hockey scene.

BUILDING A TRADITION

Through the years, there were few elements that would remain with the team annually through good times and bad. Team owners came and went. Arena's perished and new one's were built. The league itself evolved and grew. Rules of the games were being altered.

Stars such as Newsy Lalonde and Didier Pitre, who had long tenures with the Canadiens were ably replaced by the younger legs of Aurel Joliat and Howie Morenz. There were two Stanley Cup championships to the team's credit, as well as three other appreances in the Cup final. First place finishes were followed by last place falls.

Through all these paradoxes, one constant on the team had remained in place, almost since the club's inception.

VEZINA WAS THE FRANCHISE BACKBONE

Georges Vezina may have meant more to the Canadiens than simply being one of the greatest goaltenders of his era. He was a solid as a rock team citizen, and in most seasons, even when the Canadiens formed lesser teams, Vezina's play helped the club remain competitive. When many of the Canadiens name players squabbled over contract details, the goalie known as the Chicoutimi Cucumber went about his business in a dignified manner. In 15 seasons with the Canadiens, Vezina never once missed a game.

The game of hockey was a wide open offensive affair in Georges Vezina's time. In the first 12 seasons of his career, his goals against average never dipped below three goals per game.

Vezina seemed to improve with age. He excelled in an era in which rules were constantly implemented to increase scoring. While players scoring skills evolved and goaltenders were still not allowed to drop to make saves, Montreal's ironhorse kept posting better numbers as time passed.

As a 36 year old puckstopper, his average dropped from 3.84 to 2.46 in 1922-23. In the following years, when the Canadiens made the Stanley Cup finals, his average became a miniscule 1.97 and 1.81. He'd been named best goaltender six times in his 15 full seasons.

Known as quiet type who did not drink or smoke, his life away from the hockey rinks was turbulent, but disguised by his calm and cool demeanor. In the off season, he operated a tannery business in Chicoutimi while raising his large family. It couldn't have been easy. Tragically, because of the varying undiagnosed and incurable illnesses and deseases of the time - with infuenza being just one - only two of Vezina's 24 born children would live to see adulthood.

Not much was made of this by the private man who rarely complained. All he did was show up for work each day and stop pucks.

At 39 years of age, Vezina was highly regarded as the best goalie in professional hockey.

VEZINA DIAGNOSED WITH TUBERCULOSIS

For a few seasons running, the Canadiens had held their training camp as very welcome returning guests to Grimsby, Ontario. Situated just off the far west end of Lake Ontario, between Hamilton and Niagara Falls, the camp had it's perks for players, but in this season, Canadiens manager Dandurand decided to hold camp nearer to Montreal.

Vezina showed up for the Canadiens training camp in 1925 and seemed to be having a more difficult time than usual. After an exhibition game against the Victoria Cougars on November 18, in which Vezina felt ill, he decided he would see a doctor. Believing he had caught a viscious flu virus, the medic prescribes him several bed ridden days off to rest.

The Canadiens opened the 1925-26 season at home, and as usual Vezina was in goal this night. Through a very high fever and various aches and pains, Vezina shrugs it off during the first period. It was apparent that he was ill at ease in many ways. During the first intermission, Vezina has an arterial hemorrhage. Even though he had bled from the mouth and lost consciousness temporarily, he insists on starting the second period.

Starting the second frame, he slumps on the ice. He is carried off, unable to continue on.

Taken to hospital, he is diagnosed with a very advanced case of tuberculosis. Doctors inform the goaltender that his life is in danger due to the advanced nature of the condition, and that nothing short of a complete rest can help him. Vezina is hospitalized, but fights it off valiantly. He demands that he be taken to his home in Chicoutimi.

ONE LAST VISIT WITH MATES

In March of 1926, with his health and strength waning by the day, he calls for manager Leo Dandurand to bring him to visit his team mates, who are about to be eliminated from playoff contention. In the early evening, and at the usual time he always arrived in the team dressing room, Vezina meets with his comrades one final time. His equipement, his pads, his skates, are all laid out before him. He leaves with only the sweater he donned in the previous March's Stanley Cup final, and returns home.

One week later, Georges Vezina passes away in his home on March 27, 1926.

Tributes, cards of sympathy and condolences pour in from fans and assorted hockey folk from everywhere. The team auctions off pieces of his equipment for the benefit of his wife and family.

In recalling the goaltending great years later, Frank Boucher said, "The first thing that pops into my mind is that Vezina always wore a toque, a small, knitted hat with no brim in Montreal colours - bleu, blanc et rouge. I also remember him as the coolest man I ever saw, absolutely imperturbable. He stood upright in the net and scarcely ever left his feet; he simply played all his shots in a standing position. Vezina was a pale, narrow featured fellow, almost frail looking, yet remarkably good with his stick. He'd pick off more shots with it than he did with his glove."

A TROPHY IN HIS NAME

Shortly after his passing, Canadiens owners Dandurand, Létourneau, and especially Cattarinich - the man who discovered and suggested he replace him back in 1910 - ask that the NHL create a trophy bearing Vezina's name, to be awarded in his honour for the season's best goaltender.

The 1925 Montreal Canadiens, who have played in front of hockey's best puckstopper for 367 regaular season and playoff games running, are now tasked with moving forward and finding a replacement.

The team, most positively affected and distracted by his ailing, and eventual passing, will endure a miserable year without him.

NHL EXPANDS ONCE MORE

The NHL brought two more new cities into its rapidly expanding league by allowing the transfer of the Hamilton Tigers players to New York. The new team's creation was brought upon by the Tigers player's strike from the prior season. Hamilton team owners were caught in a bind, and felt that that following the player's actions, NHL hockey might be too big a gamble in Canada's steel town.

The New York franchise would be named the Americans, and the franchise was granted to an infamous bootlegger named Bill Dwyer, who then purchased the contracts of the Tigers players from the former owner for $75,000.

The league also accepted into it's fold a third U.S. franchise - the Pittsburgh Pirates. Hockey had long been popular in the state of Pennsylvania, where minor league roots had sewn a keen interest for years. The area was deemed as a good place for the NHL to set up shop, as old NHA rival Eddie Livingstone was in the midst of garnering interest there in pursuit of setting up a league of his own south of the border. The NHL granted the Pittsburgh franchise to the owners of the Yellow Jackets team that had won several titles in the area.

THE CLEGHORNS LEAVE THE SCENE

Prior to Vezina's illness and death, the Canadiens organization sought to bring changes upon the team and a big part of the makeover included bringing in younger players at the expense of older ones. Hence, the Cleghorn brothers, Sprague and Odie aged 34 and 33 respectively, were gone by the time training camp opened.

Odie, who had scored only 3 goals in 30 games for the Canadiens a season ago, was released by the Canadiens in September. He would sign on as a player and coach with the expansion Pittsburgh Pirates a month later. Sprague was traded to the Boston Bruins for $5,000 on November 8, 1925. The brothers time in Montreal had helped benchmark an era for the team, and a party was held in their honour at the Windsor Hotel following the announcement of Sprague's trading.

The captaincy of the team was thus passed on to Billy Coutu, who had spent 8 of his 9 pro seasons with the Canadiens.

The Cleghorn brothers would not play together ever again. Perhaps testament to their bond as siblings came shortly after Sprague's passing away in 1956 when Odie was found dead in his bed just hours before his brother's funeral on July 13. Odie and Sprague were very close, "like twins" according to Canadiens coach Leo Dandurand. It's often been said that the stress of the loss of Sprague may have been the main factor contributing to Odie's heart failure.

FRENCHY LACROIX IN WAITING

Probably lost to historical records are the reasons why the Canadiens sought to sign goalie Alphonse "Frenchy" Lacroix on the day of November 10, 1925. By most documented accounts, it was not yet known that Georges Vezina had taken ill, but perhaps Canadiens manager Leo Dandurand was simply exhibiting a similar cautious reflex in regards to Vezina's age as he had done in the previous year when Eugene Decosse of the Ottawa Royal Canadians was signed and almost immediately released just as the 1924-25 season was underway.

The 28 yr old Lacroix, born of french descent on October 21, 1897 in Newton, Massachusetts, had guided the U.S. Olympic team to a surprising silver medal in 1924. He'd spent five seasons with the Boston AA Unicorns of the USAHA. He may have been viewed by Dandurand as an insurance to Vezina's aging at the time.

Whatever the circumstance, Lacroix was on hand to relieve Vezina in the 1925-26 season's opening game after 20 minutes of play.

The contest in question, was the inaugural NHL game for the brand new Pittsburgh Pirates against the Canadiens in Montreal. Lacroix surrendered one goal in this game, but it was enough to give the Pirates a 1-0 win over a Canadiens team that might have had their minds distracted elsewhere.

Lacroix would win his only NHL game three nights later in Boston, as the Canadiens edged the Bruins 3-2.

SEE YOU LATER ALPHONSE

The team with the NHL's most potent offense from a season ago did not give much support to Lacroix over the next three contests. Consecutive losses to the Maroons (3-2), the New York Americans (6-2), and the St. Patricks (4-0) spelled the end of Lacroix's run in nets for the Canadiens.

On December 13, a day after the loss to Toronto, the Canadiens signed goaltender Herb Rheaume to a contract. Two nights later, he would travel with the team to New York and avenge the Canadiens earlier loss with a 3-1 win.

Rheaume was born in Mason, Quebec, and had spent three unspectacular seasons with the OHA Sr. Hamilton Tigers. He had enjoyed some Allen Cup experience while there, but had only played part time in the ECHA with the Trois-Rivieres Renards and the Quebec Sons of Ireland since.

RHEAUME DEBUTS AT MADISON SQUARE

Nevertheless, he looked to be a more viable solution at the time than Lacroix. In 31 games with the Canadiens, Rheaume would post a 10-20-1 record, with a 2.92 goals against average. He was far from being the reason why the Canadiens would have a disastrous season, as the team managed to score only 79 goals in his defense.

While Frenchy Lacroix remained contracted to the team for this season and another in which he only sat on the sidelines, Rheaume would ply his puckstopping trade in a myriad of minor pro leagues for another 11 seasons. The Canadiens solution as to Vezina's eventual replacement would have to come from another source.

Rheaume's first NHL game was also the first NHL game at Madison Square Garden in New York city for the new Americans team. The local media had made a big deal out of the game, and several papers were sent to cover the event. The owner of the Gardens, Tex Rickard, was perhaps one of the finer knows promoters in the U.S. People paid attention when he spoke.

HOCKEY BIG IN N.Y.C.

Rickard played up to the opening game for the Americans team and soon all of New York's elite came to attend the event. Here's how the New York Times saw it, in a report the following day:

"A team of bowlegged French-Canadian skaters from Montreal cut the ice in the rink of Madison Square Garden, Manhattan, into a fine powder. This way and that they swayed and slithered, passing the puck with flawless teamwork. A huge crowd of sportsmen, society dames, politicians, actors, editors, financiers, diplomats, discovered - as perhaps they had discovered before - that hockey is a pretty but not always a gentle game."

"The men on the ice, like the notables in the boxes, were celebrating the formal opening of Madison Square Garden. There have been preliminary events in the new Garden - a six day bicycle race, some amateur bouts, a championship fight - but the hockey was the fashionable start of promoter Tex Rickard's entertainment centre. Therefore, the notables in the boxes, like the men on the ice, had been led to display an interest in professional hockey, in "Les Canadiens," in the Prince of Wales Cup, which will go to the team which wins the league championship. John Ringling, Rosamond Pinchot, Frank Crowninshield, Mayor Hylan, Charles Sabin, Mayor-Elect Walker, Paul D. Cravath, Clarence Mackay, Mr. and Mrs. James N. Hill, Paul Manship, Sarah Schuyler Butler and innumerable others with printable names saw the Canadians in their scarlet shirts drub the New York team, 3 to 1."

While Rickard did not own the Americans team, he did manage to get a team for himself the following season based on the successes of the first Manhatten franchise.

TEXAS PROMOTER BAPTISES THE CLUB AS "HABS"

Popular myth has it that around this time, Rickard, of all people, was quizzed on the meaning of the "H" in the Canadiens "CH" logo. Misunderstanding the origins of the Canadiens club ownership, Rickard unassumingly tied it to the word "Habitants". The loud and brash born Texan, who had been all over every corner of North America in his promotional travels, had encountered the word whilst in the Province of Quebec at one time. Knowing that it was derived from a reference meaning something along the lines of rural farm boys as he understood it, Rickard, figuring this was where most of the Canadiens players where from, began using the term "Habitants", later shortened to simply "Habs".

Rickard could not have known that the "H" in the club's logo was simply an initial for the word "hockey in the name "Club de Hockey Canadiens", as the team had been incorporated long before he came onto the NHL scene.

MORENZ AND JOLIAT LEAD THE WAY

Beyond the Canadiens intial troubles finding a replacement in goal for the ailing Vezina, they had to contend with a busier and longer schedule than before, and how they would go about using players within an evolving game.

Eighteen players would dress for the Canadiens this season, the most ever in one year up until this season.

The Canadiens better offensive talents, Morenz and Joliat, would contribute respectable seasons given the changing and difficult circumstances. They would finish slightly behind last season's pace in scoring, in sixth and eighth place respectively. Morenz accounted for 23 goals and 3 assists while Joliat notched 17 goals and 9 assists. Together the pair counted for just over half the team's tallies in this year.

Billy Boucher saw his goal standard drop from 17 to 8, as he was outscored in the team's ranking by a rookie defenseman named Albert Leduc, who contributed 10 markers.

THE ARRIVAL OF LEDUC, LEPINE AND LAROCHELLE

Leduc, nicknamed "Battleship" for his relentless combativity, was a 23 year old Valleyfield, Quebec prospect, and one of nine new players who would don the Canadiens colours for this season.

Among the other eight first year players, were a pair of keepers that would play large roles for the Canadiens over the next decade.

Alfred "Pit" Lepine was signed as a free agent by Montreal, November 13, 1925. A product of the local Montreal Nationale club, Pit was a goal scorer and a strong player in the rink's corners. At 24, he would be key in helping build a solid line to back up the Morenz line for years to come.

Wildor Larochelle was a stocky right winger of 19 years would be groomed to play alongside Lepine. The Sorel, Quebec born player were merely a prospect at this time, and contributed 2 goals and an assist for the Canadiens. Signed as a free agent by Montreal, November 23, 1925., his role would grow into a more pivotal one as they years went on.

Hec Lepine was Pit's 28 year old brother who was signed as a free agent by Montreal, December 29, 1925. He would only appear this one season with the Canadiens and add 5 goals.

DANDURAND FILLS OUT LINEUP

The remaining rookies and part time players were spares and injury replacements, signed up on a game by game basis by Dandurand based upon requirement at the time.
They were Bill Holmes, Roger Cormier, Rollie Paulhus, John McKinnon and Joe Matte.

Paulhus was free agent signing by Montreal, November 16, 1925 and was in training camp to start the season. He would appear in 33 of the team's 36 games without adding a point.

McKinnon was signed in training camp as a free agent by Montreal, November 23, 1925. The Canadiens retained his rights despite him anly playing 2 games, and he was traded to Pittsburgh for cash early the following season.

Holmes was signed as a free agent after being released by NY Americans, December 25, 1925. He would take part in 9 Canadiens games.

Cormier signed as a free agent on January 15, 1926, the same day the Canadiens added Matte on waivers from Boston on January 15, 1926. Cormier would play but one game while Matte would see action in six.

Dave Ritchie was signed as a free agent, and returned to Montreal for another short two game stint beginning January 13, 1926.

INJURIES SINK HABS

A rash of mid season injuries and desperate player signings had much to do with the Canadiens free fall that took place at this time. The Canadiens brought their season record to 8-6 with a 2-1 win over the New York Americans on January 13. They would go 2-5-1 over the next month, as injuries mounted. From February 13, up until a March 13 game at the Forum versus the Maroons, the Canadiens lost a team record 12 straight games. They revived some on March 16, to beat the St. Patricks 6-1 at home to finish out a disastrous season.

WILD MID 20'S HOCKEY

There was no era in the game quite like the mid 1920's, when hockey spread like wildfire. Great stars were emerging from everywhere it seemed and the popularity of the sport took it into incharted waters. The daring times, where a buck was made fast, or just as quickly lost, was captivating for the risk takers and big money gamblers of the day.

The fate of teams in this time could change quickly. The story of the Hamilton Tigers is just one example. The Montreal Maronns were another.

The second to last place Maroons 1925, catapulted to one of the NHL's best teams in one year. Rookie Nels Stewart came seemingly out of nowhere to propel his team into the league's upper echelons, winning the scoring title, the Hart Trophy, and potting 34 goals in 36 games to boost his team. Maroons GM Eddie Girard also signed defensemen Babe Siebert and Dunc Munro, a former Olympian to contracts. The Maroons were on their way to glory.

In Ottawa, T.P. Gorman and Ted Day sold the team to Franklin Ahearn, who hired a host of good hockey people to jumpstart the Seantors. Ne coach Alex Curry was quite successful, as he took a team that had gone from fourth overall to first with an impressive record of 24–8–4.

The Pirates, with a cast that included stars Lionel Conacher and goalie Roy Worters, finished a strong third.

The second place Maroons took out the Pirates 6-4 in a two game total goals series and then went on to undo the top seeded Senators 2 goals to 1 over two games. The Maroons were awarded the Prince of Wales Trophy and won the right to play the Victoria Cougars for the Stanley Cup.

FINAL NHL TRIP WEST BRINGS ANOTHER STANLEY TO CITY OF MONTREAL

This would be the last season that saw challengers from outside of the NHL compete for the Stanley Cup, and once again, the Victoria Cougars would emerge as Western Hockey League champions. After the 1926 playoffs, the WHL, formerly the WCHL, would fold leaving the Cup entirely to the NHL, never again to be challenged for by a non NHL team.

In the final Cup showdown, Nels Stewart was again the star, scoring six goals in the Cup final as the Maroons downed the Cougars 3 games to 1.

The Stanley Cup was returning to Montreal in 1926, only the Canadiens would have to watch their cross town rivals be toasted only two seasons into their existance.

NEWSY DOES THE HABS A FAVOR

With the collapse of western hockey league, a dozen quality players were available for the NHL's taking. Starting in the 1926-27 season, new players would be spread across the league, leading to further club expansion.

Former Canadiens great Newsy Lalonde gave the Habs some good advice, recommending team mate George Hainsworth as the solution to the team's goaltending woes. Smartly, Leo Dandurand took Lalonde up on his word, and signed the Saskatoon Crescents stopper in August. The signing turned out to be not a moment too soon, as Hainsworth was also sought out by the Toronto St. Patricks.

Soon it would be revealed that Hainsworth was in fact property of both the Canadiens and St. Pats, and a complicated decison on the matter awaited the NHL governors.

Hainsworth would help the Canadiens replace themselves among the league elite in short order, and would to be more than a worthy heir apparent to the legacy of Georges Vezina.

1926-27 Hainsworth Revives Canadiens

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The sudden illness and passing of Georges Vezina in March of 1926 was a shock that threw the Montreal Canadiens for a loop. Very strong elements remained on the team, and a search had been undertaken to find a goaltender who would help the team reinstate its position among the NHL's better clubs.

The business of the NHL, and the collapse of the Western Hockey League would greatly assist the Canadiens in this task.

EXPANSION, 1920's STYLE

Due in part to the extinction of it's strongest professional rival league, the NHL was able to expand from 7 teams to ten in 1926-27. The WHL had been having trouble competing with NHL salaries, and folded under such pressure. They sold off the entirety of it's player assets to the NHL for a whopping $258,000.

The NHL board of governors ruled over the purchases in a meeting on September 25, 1926, transferring two WHL franchises into NHL squads. The Portland Rosebuds were rechristened the Chicago Blackhawks, and were owned by Major Frederic McLaughlin. The Victoria Cougars became the Detroit Cougars, and were owned by Charles A. Hughes.

McLaughlin was a Harvard grad who had served in the U.S. Army during World War I, achieving the rank of major. He named the team after his army unit, the 86th Infantry Blackhawk Division. Major McLaughlin made a deal with Frank Patrick to acquire 14 players from the Rosebuds for $100,000. The Major's story would intersect with that of the Canadiens owners in a few years, when he would need financial assistance to keep the Blackhawks afloat.

In all, there were enough quality players left over from the WHL sale to create a tenth team, that would become the New York Rangers.

These swooping changes left the NHL in sole possesion of not only the Stanley Cup, but also the greatest professional players in the game.

A committee made up of Frank Calder, Leo Dandurand and James Strachan would distribute the remaining players amongst the ten NHL teams.

The Toronto St. Patricks themselves would purchase all but one player from the Saskatoon Crescents.

HAINSWORTH SLIPS THROUGH THE LEAFS FINGERS

That one player, goaltender George Hainsworth would become property of the Montreal Canadiens. The St. Patricks (soon to be renamed the Maple Leafs in mid season) believed they had Hainsworth in the deal, but the goalie had reached an agreement prior to the team sale and the NHL board ruled in the favor of the Canadiens.

A further assembling of NHL heads on October 26 decided the league would be split into five team Canadian and American divisions. Oddly, the New York Americans, much to the dismay of their owner, were placed in the Canadian Division.

The playoff format was also greatly altered and would feature the top team from each division meeting the winner of a total goals series between the second and third place teams from their divisions. The winners of those total goals series would then meet in a best of five series for the Stanley Cup.

The face of other NHL franchises were evolving as well, and the Toronto St. Patricks were purchased by Conn Smythe and renamed the Maple Leafs during the course of the season.

However, the team was contracted under the St.Patricks name for the 1926-27 season. They would become known as the Maple Leafs from the following season on.

Smythe began the season as the Rangers GM, but was replaced after a falling out with team owners. He did a commendable job in assembling a strong team for New York, and was ably relieved by Lester Patrick, who became as synonymous with Ranger success thereafter as would Smythe with the Maple Leafs.

A TROPHY IN VEZINA'S NAME

Georges Vezina was very much still on the minds of the Montreal Canadiens brass six months after his passing. Dandurand recalled that Vezina spoke highly of George Hainsworth from exhibition games, and had been impressed by his play. It is told that the Crescents goalie was his own suggested heir apparent. A further recommendation by former Canadiens star Newsy Lalonde sealed the Canadiens interest in Hainsworth.

The Canadiens owners also brought forth the idea for a trophy in Vezina's memory honouring the NHL's best goaltender each season.

In a unanimous vote, the NHL agreed the trophy would be awarded annually to the goalkeeper with the best goals against average.

Vezina thus became the first NHL player to have a trophy named for him.

NEWSY PLAYS HIS FINAL NHL GAME

With the folding of the western hockey leagues, several former NHL star players made their way back to the league in 1926-27 - and former Habs star Newsy Lalonde was no exception. Lalonde, who would have preferred to continue playing on in his twilight years, accepted the position of coach with the lowly New York Americans.

The Americans never got going under Newsy, and even though he suited up for one final NHL game, Lalonde might have been the first prime example of a former star player not being able to translate his on ice understanding into a coaching capacity. The Americans finished fourth in the Canadian Division, seventh overall, with a 17-25-2 record. Lalonde would move on to coaching positions in the Can - Am league before resurfacing behind the bench of the Senators in the years ahead.

NINE NEW CANADIENS SUIT UP

Not unlike the season before, 9 new players would join the Canadiens in 1926-27, only this time, it had more to do with the surplus of talent around the NHL rather than weaknesses on the Canadiens team. New faces such as Ambrose Moran, Athur Gauthier, Peter Palangio, Carson Cooper, Arthur Gagné, Gizzy Hart, and Léo Lafrance would play for the club in 1926-27.

Gagné, perhaps the most talented of the lot, was born in Ottawa, and had last performed with the Edmonton Eskimo's of the WHL in 1925-26.

He'd had a career season with 35 goals, and contributed 14 for the Canadiens in this season. Gagne was on the Chicago roster and was acquired for cash on October 18, 1926.

Gagne would play three seasons for the Canadiens before being traded to Boston for cash on May 13, 1929.

Cooper was a 27 year old right wing who appeared in 14 games with the Canadiens, notching a very worthy 9 goals and 3 assists. He was in his third season with the Bruins when the Canadiens sent Billy Boucher to acquire him in a deal where either squad had the right to recall the players.

Cooper was worth the gamble, as had scored 28 goals for Boston in 1925-26. Both players did end up returning to their original teams on May 22, 1927.

Left winger Gizzy Hart was acquired from Detroit for cash on December 12, 1926, and later traded to Providence of the Can-Am league for cash, October 17, 1928. In his years with the Canadiens, Hart would score 6 goals, while appearing in 84 games.

Peter Palangio was an 18 year old prospect who had played with the North Bay Trappers of the NOHA in 1925-26, scoring 25 goals in 11 games. His production did not translate into the NHL, where he went scoreless in six games with the Canadiens. He signed on with the Canadiens as a free agent late in the season in February, and while he disappointed scoring wise, Montreal managed to get all kinds of mileage out of his trade wise. After going goalless in 4 playoff games with the Canadiens, Pelangio was traded twice to Can-Pro league teams for cash and a player, before being shipped a final time to London of the IHL for more cash on November 11, 1929.

BILLY COUTU BANNED FOR LIFE

The Canadiens paid a hefty price for Ambrose Moran went they exchanged Billy Coutu for him in a pre-season deal with Boston on October 22, 1926. The 31 year old Moran had been a sturdy backlimer with the Vancouver Maroons over the past two seasons and didn't last long with the Canadiens, as they returned him to the Bruins on December 23 in a cash transaction. Coutu actually fared worse. After 40 games with Boston, he was involved in an altercation with an official, and became the first NHL'er banned for life from the league.

Leo Lafrance appreared in but 4 games with the Canadiens in 1926-27 after being acquired from Duluth of the AHA for cash on November 10, 1926. He was suspended by the Canadiens two weeks later for leaving the team. Somehow, Montreal would hold onto his rights until 1936. In the interim, his rights were dealt a half dozen times for cash and loans.

Arthur Gauthier was a 22 year old prospect who had been playing with the Galt Terriers in the OHA Sr. League when he signed with the Canadiens as a free agent on February 9. He went pointless in 13 games with Montreal and was traded to London of the Can - Pro league a year later.

GARDINER AN INSTANT MVP

The two biggest additions in 1926 to the Canadiens were Hainsworth and defenseman Herb Gardiner.

Hainsworth was no greenhorn when he joined the Canadiens. He was a veteran of 11 years with a pair of OHL Sr. teams - Berlin Union Jacks and the Kitchener Greenshirts - and had most recently been a standout with the Crescents of the WHL for three seasons.

At 31 years of age, he was in the prime of his career. He would play 7 seasons with the Canadiens and fittingly became the first winner of the Vezina Trophy, and award he owned for the first three seasons of it's existence.

Gardiner was so adept at his position that he almost singlehandedly filled the voids left by both Coutu and Sprague Cleghorn one season earlier. A dominant defensive defenseman that the Canadiens were well aquainted with from battles with the Calgary Tigers in the 1924 Stanley Cup final, they acquired his right just prior to the big WHL sell off in a cash deal with Calgary on October 20, 1926.

In his first season in a Canadiens sweater, Gardiner so impressed with his play, that he was awarded the Hart Trophy as the NHL's MVP. Prior to his third season with Montreal, he was loaned to Chicago where he was named playing coach of Black Hawks in August of 1928. The Canadiens recalled the valuable veteran for the 1929 playoffs before trading his right to the Bruins for cash that spring.

THE FLYING FRENCHMAN LEGEND TAKES ROOT IN THE U.S.

Perhaps the "Habitants" nickname helped spread a public curiosity of the team, with Howie Morenz on the verge of becoming the NHL first veritable superstar. The Canadiens "Flying Frenchman" myth was beginning to take hold and grasp the imaginations of American hockey fans, and Montreal were a big draw in every arena they appeared in. Both the Canadiens and the Maroons had the best home attendance in the NHL, but it was the fast skating Morenz and crew that fans turned out in large numbers to see on the road.

The Montreal Daily Star, catching onto the team's speed mystique, sponsors intermission speed skating contests between Canadiens stars such as Morenz and Gizzy Hart verus the opponants fastest movers. Hundreds of dollars are at stake, often pocketed by the speedy "Stratford Streak".

Morenz enjoyed a very good season with the Canadiens, scoring 25 goals, second only to the Rangers Bill Cook with 33.

A NEW COACH AND CAPTAIN

Above all the changes in the team's makeup, the look of the Canadiens behind the scenes was also given several unexpected facelifts.

After Coutu was traded to Boston, the Canadiens named Sylvio Mantha the new team's captain. The team also had a new man behind the bench in Cecil Hart. After several seasons in the Canadiens organization, Hart took over from Leo Dandurand, who, on the advice of his doctors, relinquished the stressful duties. Dandurand had been a man for all purposes since taking co-ownership of the team, and he decided it would be better to focus his energies all in one place.

REDS AND HORNETS BECOME THE HABS FIRST FARM TEAMS

Keeping Dandurand busy, was the establishing of the Canadiens first feeder teams in Providence and Windsor. The Reds and Hornets, respectively, played in the Can - Am league and Dandurand made agreements with each team that the Canadiens could sign their two best prospects annually. In exchange, Montreal would supply the Reds and Hornets with players, whether they be up and coming prospects or aging players that no longer fit their plans.

Gradually, this practice would evolve into the full fledged sponsorship of entire teams filled with Canadiens hopefuls.

HABS MOVE INTO FORUM AS MOUNT ROYAL ARENA SUES

The Canadiens finally left behind the old Mount Royal Arena for good in 1926. Renovations at the old arena ran into financial snags and delays, causing the team to begin playing its home games on the Maroons Forum ice. The Mount Royal offers the Canadiens $50,000 in damages for the inconvenience of renting the Forum while work is finished, but the team demands double the fee.

When no agreement is reached and the Canadiens sign a full time lease with the Forum, the Mount Royal counters with a $180,000 lawsuit for breaking their contract. The courts first favor the Mount Royal, but the Canadiens appeal the decision, which will later be settled in their favors.

With the NHL now playing a 44 game schedule, seasons begin in mid November and stretch until the final days of March.

CANADIENS START SLOW BEFORE HITTING THEIR STRIDE

The Canadiens might have had an even better season had they started off stronger. Three consecutive losses in which the team managed only one goal in each against Boston, Ottawa, and the Maroons set the tone for what would be an up and down first half of the season.

After 11 games, the Canadiens were a very ordinary and disappointing 4-6-1. As they hit the road for a three game swing, they began winning the close games, and mounted a four game winning streak that took them above the .500 mark for the first time. Just when it looked as though the team had turned the corner, another extended road trip saw them fumble four more games.

Nearing the mid season point with a record of 8-10-1, the Canadiens needed an injection of confidence only a winning streak could provide. It perhaps bode well for the club that it's next four games were against perceived weaker opponants. With the Americans, Maroons, Cougars, and St. Patricks all on the menu, the Canadiens settled into a groove for good with four stright wins.

From this point on, the Canadiens were practically unstoppable as they won 20 of their final 25 games. A 3-2 loss to the Rangers on January 27 was but a roadbump as Montreal went on to win the next three. They were 2-2-1 over the next five before finally hitting their stride from February 24 to March 24 with 11 straight wins.
A highlight was a 4-1 dumping of the Senators on March 15. Montreal had been unable to beat Ottawa in five meetings thus far and it looked as though there was no road around the Senators should the Canadiens wish to get back to the Stanley Cup.

HABS SET NEW TEAM MARKS

The Canadiens would finish the regular season, one of their best, with a record of 28-14-2 for 58 points. They are second in the Canadian Division, and overall in the league, behind the Senators who end with 64 points. The Canadiens 99 goals scored proved to be the second highest total in the 1926-27 season, behind the Blackhawks with 115.

Contrary to Chicago, who allowed one more goal than they scored over the course of the season, the Canadiens were excellent at keeping the puck out of their net. Montreal allowed a league low 67 goals against in 44 games, thanks in no small part to Hainsworth's amazing 13 shutouts and a tight defense led by Gardiner and captain Sylvio Mantha.

CANADIENS WIN BATTLE OF MONTREAL

While the first place Senators awaited a winner, a second versus third place battle of Montreal was underway between the Canadiens and Maroons. The two teams with the same home rink played a close two game total goals series and the stingy Maroons gave the Canadiens quite the fight. After the teams fought to a 1-1 knot, everything was on the line two nights later.

Howie Morenz capped a fine 25 goal season, by scoring the overtime winner against the cross town rivals to give the Canadiens a 1-0 win and the right to advance against Ottawa in another two game showdown.

SENATORS TOO STRONG

The Senators of the day boasted a lineup of stars with a wealth of experience. Cy Denneny, King Clancy, a young Hec Kilrea, Frank Finnigan, Hooley Smith, Frank Nighbor, Georges Boucher and Jack Adams, with Alec Connell in goal, were worthy of a Hall Of Fame lineup. The Senators, bevied by much Stanley Cup experience, stolled into the Forum and thumped the Habs 4-0. The 1-1 tie in Ottawa two evenings later was merely anticlimactic.

Ottawa went on to meet the champions of the American Division, the Boston Bruins in a best of five series for the Cup. Oddly, the Senators claimed Lord Stanley's mug without the benefit of gaining a third win. They'd won the second and fourth games of the hard fought series, while tying the first and third. Sudden death overtime would have only come into play in a fifth and deciding game.

HAINSWORTH WORTHY OF VEZINA

The Montreal Canadiens were hardly dispirited by the outcome of their season. One year prior, they were a seventh place team in a 7 team NHL, and were now a second place team in a much stronger 10 team league. The Canadiens were young and gaining in experience for the most part, and with all things taken into consideration, the one team they could not beat in this season won the Stanley Cup. Clearly better days were ahead.

Much of the credit for the Habs resurgence in this season belonged to goalie George Hainsworth. The 31 year old puckstopper exceeded all expectations with an impressive 28-14-2 record in 44 games. His 14 shutouts led the league, and were one off from the NHL record set by Ottawa's Alex Connell one season prior.

Hainsworth was quite stingy in his first NHL campaign, allowing a league low 67 goals, for a goals against average of 1.47. Had Habs defenseman Gardiner not been named as the league MVP, Hainsworth would have merited the award.

Perhaps it was only fitting that he be named the inaugural winner of the Vezina Trophy, as he helped the Canadiens and their fans over the loss of their fallen hero. Hainsworth would have a stranglehold on the trophy for the coming seasons, as his play would set standards so high for netminders, that the NHL would step forth and adjust the rules of play in order to increase scoring.