History is on our side

John Mackie – Vancouver Sun

08 Apr 2003, Tue The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

Should the Vancouver Canucks reach the Stanley Cup finals against Ottawa this year, we have a bit of history on our side.

In March 1915, the Vancouver Millionaires demolished the Ottawa Senators three games to nil to win Vancouver's only Stanley Cup.

The Millionaires are one of hockey's great unheralded teams. At a time when teams only carried about 10 players, seven Millionaires made it into the Hockey Hall of Fame: Fred (Cyclone) Taylor, Frank Patrick, Frank Nighbor, Hugh Lehman, Mickey Mackay, Barney Stanley and Si Griffs.

Taylor is the legend, a speed demon who terrorized defencemen and goalies with his deft moves and rocket acceleration. Another hockey legend, Lester Patrick, called him the best player he had ever seen, and Taylor was paid accordingly: he once made the princely sum of $5,250 for a 12-game season with the Renfrew Creamery Kings in 1909.

But the team was simply brimming with speed and talent. The 20-year-old rookie Mackay was the team's leading scorer during the regular season, notching 34 goals in 17 games (Taylor had 16). Many of Mackay's and Taylor's goals came off snazzy passes from 22-year-old Nighbor, a fleet right-winger who many regarded as the best all-around player on the team if not all of hockey. Stanley was no slouch, either: he scored five goals in the third and final Cup game.

If the opposition got past the front line, they ran into hard rock defenders Patrick and Griffs. Patrick was also the team owner and coach; Griffs was the captain. In goal was “Eagle Eye” Lehman, who would go on to become the first goalie in Chicago Black Hawks' history.

Hockey was a far different game in 1914-15. There were two main professional leagues, the six-team National Hockey Association in the east and the three-team Pacific Coast Hockey Association in the west the winners of the leagues played in “World's Series” for the Stanley Cup.

The Millionaires were the champs of the PCHA, which also included the Victoria Aristocrats and Portland Rosebuds. The league had been founded by the Patrick family, which financed teams and arenas in Vancouver and Victoria by selling off the family lumber business in Nelson.

Frank Patrick took the Vancouver franchise and spent $300,000 in 1911 building the 10,500 seat Denman Arena at Denman and Georgia (near the present-day Bayshore Hotel). Lester ran the Victoria team.

In the west, hockey was played with a seventh player on the ice, called a rover. Defencemen were called point and cover point. Players often played a whole game, as in soccer.

The east played with six players, and had a curious system where penalized players were replaced by substitutes while they served penance for their sins This made for some rough play; the really bad boys would receive a three-minute penalty instead of the standard two minutes, which wasn't much of a deterrent.

The Millionaires suffered a big blow in an exhibition game before the series when captain Griffs suffered a fractured leg in Portland. To add to the disaster, the players were robbed of $300 from the dressing room while the game was on. Frank Patrick asked that his brother Lester be allowed to replace Griffs, but Ottawa declined, so forward Lloyd Cook was shifted back to defence for the final.

The series was a best-of-three affair, with odd games to be played under western rules, even under eastern. The previous year's series had been held back east, so all the games were in Vancouver. (The teams had to travel by train and it wasn't practical to go back and forth across the country for the series — it took Ottawa five days to make it out west by the Great Northern Railway.)

The Ottawa team was a powerhouse, with future Hall of Famers Art Ross (of Art Ross Trophy fame), Clint Benedict, Eddie Gerard, Jack Darragh and Harry (Punch) Broadbent. They oozed confidence when they arrived on the coast, but were in for a shock.

From the moment the puck was dropped, the younger Millionaires out-skated, outhustled and outplayed Ottawa. Taylor lived up to his nickname, making several sensational dashes up ice from his rover position and leading Vancouver with two goals, but Nighbor was rated the top player by the newspapers for his stellar two-way play.

The teams were tied one all after the first period, but Vancouver exploded for four straight goals in the second to seal the victory. The final score was 6-2, but could have been much higher save for the fine play of Ottawa goalie Benedict.

The stunned Senators claimed the change in climate from east to west had made them “sleepy” and vowed revenge in Game 2, played with eastern rules.

The Senators decided to deal with the Millionaires' speed by hitting them at every turn, which made for a rowdy second game.

A story in the Vancouver World stated “The checking was the most strenuous ever seen in the local arena and some of it was of the dirtiest kind. [But] there was one who passed up dirty work and played the game from start to finish… Cyclone Taylor, the fastest man that ever donned a steel blade.

“For the simple reason that they knew he would not come back at them, several members of the visiting team picked him out as a mark for dirty work. Ross was the worst offender. It seems a shame that a good, clean player must be singled out by players of this ilk as a mark for foul work.”

A writer in the Daily Province opined “encouraged, perhaps by the reports of the lady-like exhibitions provided by the strict rules of the Coast League, the Easterners apparently endeavored by their strenuous tactics to make up for their lack of speed and staying ability.”

The tactic seemed to work in the first period when Ottawa went ahead 2-0. But Vancouver stormed back to score six goals in the second period, taking the game 8-3.

In spite of being harassed all game, Taylor scored three goals and two assists. His chief tormentor, Ross, emerged with three penalties, and “was the subject of much abuse from the crowd for his murderous charge on the veteran [Taylor].”

Having already clinched the title, the Millionaires waltzed to an easy 12-3 victory in the final game. Stanley — who had only turned pro a month before — led the way with five goals, while Taylor and Nighbor scored two apiece.

The crowds shrunk from 7,000 in the first game to 6,000 in the second to 5,000 in the third, but roared themselves hoarse as the Millionaires piled up the score.

“It was Vancouver's 12th straight victory, including league and exhibition [play],” reported the Daily News-Advertiser.

Taylor led all scorers with seven goals and three assists in the three game series, but Nighbor matched him in points by racking up four goals and six assists.

Oddly, while the story was big on the sports pages, it didn't make the front pages of the newspapers: the First World War was on, and there was also a terrible disaster at Britannia mine the week of the final where 50 people were killed in a slide.

The Millionaires looked to have the makings of a dynasty, but were edged out by Portland and the Seattle Metropolitans in succeeding years. The Millionaires won the PCHA in 1917-18,1920-21, 1921-2 and 1922-23 (after the team's named was changed to the Maroons), but lost the Stanley Cup each time. The last B.C. team to win the Stanley Cup was the Victoria Cougars in 1924-25, beating the Montreal Canadiens three games to one.

The NHA became the National Hockey League in 1917, and when it decided to expand to the U.S. in 1926, the Patricks sold virtually the entire league to the NHL for about $300,000. The Millionaires ceased to exist, but the Victoria Cougars — which had started out in 1911 as the New Westminster Royals — became the Detroit Cougars, and later the Red Wings.

Frank Patrick went on to coach the Boston Bruins in 1934-35 (succeeding Art Ross). His brother Lester became the coach and manager of the New York Rangers, and helped the Rangers take the Cup in 1927-28,1932-33 and 1939-40.

Lester Patrick was regarded as one of hockey's first great rushing defencemen, but his most famous feat came in the 1928 Stanley Cup final when the 45-year-old left his coaching spot to don goaltender's equipment when goalie Lorne Chabot was injured, leading the Rangers to a 3-2 victory. He is also credited with making hockey a success south of the border. The Lester Patrick Trophy is now awarded annually for contributions to hockey in the U.S.

Cyclone Taylor retired from hockey in 1923 and stayed in Vancouver, where he had a job with the Canadian immigration department. He lived to be 93 years old.