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- Jan 19, 2011
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Interesting article on an exhibition game played in 1925 between the Stanley Cup champion Victoria Cougars and the New York Americans in Windsor. The old Windsor arena is closing this spring.
http://www.timescolonist.com/techno...+Victoria+final+that+never/6174702/story.html
http://www.timescolonist.com/techno...+Victoria+final+that+never/6174702/story.html
Arena closing sheds light on Victoria's final that never was
By Jack Knox, Times Colonist
Seems odd that a New York Times story about Windsor, Ont. should shake the dust off a story from Victoria's past, but there you go.
It's the tale of the Stanley Cup final that never was, and the barn that Victoria's nomadic hockey heroes once called home.
This week, the Times published a feature about the imminent demise of the venerable Windsor Arena as a hockey rink because, well, that's the kind of esoterica into which the venerable newspaper likes to delve.
Buried in paragraph nine was a one-line reference to the official opening on Nov. 26 1925, an exhibition match between the National Hockey League's New York Americans and the reigning Stanley Cup champions, the Victoria Cougars.
It was much more than just another game, though. It was a contest between the two teams who were supposed to play for hockey's greatest prize.
It goes like this: back in the 1920s, the Stanley Cup went to the winner of a playoff between the champions of the National Hockey League and Western Hockey League.
The 1925 winners, the last non-NHL team and last B.C. team to capture the cup, were Lester Patrick's Victoria Cougars. Featuring the likes of Frank Fredrickson, Jocko Anderson and Gizzy Hart, they played out of Oak Bay's 4,200-seat Patrick Arena, which is where, on March 30, they beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-1 to win the best-of-five final three games to one.
That part of the story is fairly well-known. A cairn marking the occasion stands on the grounds of Oak Bay High, across the street from the site of the old rink. A Stanley Cup banner is on display in SaveonFoods Memorial Centre.
The thing is, the Cougars' opponents weren't supposed to be the Canadiens. Victoria only played Montreal because the players on the NHL's regular season winner, the Hamilton Tigers, had gone on strike. The Canadiens, who were supposed to play off against Hamilton to see who would represent the NHL in the Stanley Cup, were declared league champion when the NHL suspended the Tigers.
Which is where the Windsor exhibition game comes in. Victoria's opponents, the New York Americans, were the freshly transplanted Hamilton Tigers, their roster virtually intact from the year before. "All the core players were there," says Bob Duff, Windsor Star sports columnist and hockey author.
Hence the added weight given to a relatively meaningless meeting.
"It was billed as the Stanley Cup final which was never played," Duff wrote in 2007. "A crowd of 7,200 packed the rink. Another 3,000 stood outside, awaiting second-hand accounts of the contest."
Somewhat surprisingly, most of the crowd was rooting for Victoria. What no one knew at the time was that the Cougars would soon call the rink their own.
After the team lost the 1926 Stanley Cup final to the Montreal Maroons, the Western Hockey League folded.
The Victoria roster was sold to interests in Detroit, where they were known first as the Cougars, then the Falcons, before morphing into the Red Wings. But the Detroit Olympia was not yet built when the Victoria players moved east, meaning the Detroit Cougars spent their first season playing out of the same Windsor arena whose 87-year hockey history is now coming to an end.
Just about every hockey great who ever was has played in that building, says Duff, on the phone from Windsor. "I'm a goaltender, I've played there. You stand in that goal crease and think of all the great goalies who stood there." George Hainsworth, Tiny Thompson, Terry Sawchuk, Johnny Bower.
At least the Windsor Arena, which is expected to be converted to a market next fall, is still standing.
Oak Bay's Patrick Arena burned to the ground on Remembrance Day 1929. The fire was believed to have been deliberately set.
As for the 1925 exhibition game in Windsor, the Stanley Cup that never was? New York won 1-0 on a goal by Bullet Joe Simpson.
Oh well, at least it wasn't Brad Marchand and the Boston Bruins.
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