^ These guys are Ottawa Victorias players, from left to right Art Throop, Bob Harrison and Alf Young. Ottawa Victorias figured around 1900–1908 in different Canadian amateur leagues (Ottawa City League, CAHL-Jr., and FAHL). The team was launched by one Jim Enright and during its first year (years?) of existence the team was known as the Ottawa Boarders (or Enright's Boarders). They played at the Victoria Rink in Ottawa, hence the name change, and in purple and white colors.
The most renowned players who played for the Victorias were HHOFers Tommy Smith and Eddie Gerard. Smith played for the club in 1904–05 and 1905–06 and Gerard appeared in one game when the team challenged for the Stanley Cup in January 1908 against the Montreal Wanderers. They had beaten Renfrew from the Upper Ottawa Valley Hockey League 5-4 (4-1, 1-3) over two games for a chance at a Stanley Cup challenge but against the Wanderers at the Montreal Arena they met pretty brutal defeat scoring wise 4-22 (3-9, 1-13). Jack Fraser, Ed Roberts, Harry Manson and Alf Young scored for the Victorias in their futile Stanley Cup challenge.
Ottawa Victorias is perhaps most known (or "known") though for what happened during the previous FAHL season (1906–07) leading up to the playoffs against Renfrew (in late December 1907) and the Stanley Cup challenge against the Wanderers. During a March 6, 1907 FAHL game against the Cornwall Hockey Club in Cornwall, Ontario a violent stick swinging brawl happened where Cornwall's forward
Owen "Bud" McCourt was hit so badly in the head that he died the next day. The Ottawa Victorias player deemed most responsible for the passing of McCourt was one Charles Masson (not Manson). Cornwall goalie Jack Hunter witnessed that Masson had delivered the most serious blow to McCourt's head. Masson was
put on trial charged first with murder and later with manslaughter, but he was acquitted on both accounts.
I have no pic of Masson in a hockey outfit but here he is in civil clothes:
Of the Victorias players pictured above apparently both Throop and Young received blows to their heads in the fracas, and McCourt himself (allegedly) also hit 'Chic' Chamberlain over the head before Masson moved in on him. This incident/game happened roughly two years after
Allan Loney of the Maxwell HC had clubbed
Alcide Laurin of the Ontario based Alexandria team to death in a game between the two teams (on February 24, 1905).
Another violent incident/game during this era (there were quite a number of them) was when Alf Smith, Harry Smith and
Charlie Spittal of the Ottawa Hockey Club clubbed down Hod Stuart, Moose Johnson and Cecil Blachford (respectively) of the Montreal Wanderers in a January 1907 game. When the Ottawa team returned to Montreal two weeks later all three were arrested by police. Spittal and Alf Smith were each fined $20 for the three-headed incident, while Harry Smith was acquitted. A year later, in January 1908, Spittal was again placed into custody for knocking out Pembroke player Oren Frood with a blow to the head while playing for Renfrew of the UOVHL.
Art Throop (by the way) went on to have a relatively distinguished (?) career as he played for both the Haileybury Comets and the Toronto Tecumsehs in the NHA and both the New Westminster Royals and the Portland Rosebuds in the PCHA. He also played for the Brantford Indians in the OPHL, and for the Pittsburgh Lyceum and the Pittsburgh Bankers in the WPHL as a middle-of-the-road scorer.
