March 30, 1925, 100 years ago: The Stanley Cup is awarded, but not to the Champions of the National Hockey League. That has never happened again.
The Montreal Canadiens won the Cup in 1924, led by the legendary goaltender Georges Vézina, and a pair of young stars, center Howie Morenz and left wing Aurèle Joliat, all of them early inductees into the Hockey Hall of Fame. They won Cup by winning the NHL Championship, then beating the Champions of the West Coast Hockey League, the Calgary Tigers. They won the NHL Championship again in 1925, and again prepared to face the WCHL Champions for the Cup.
Unlike the season before, the WCHL Champions would not have to qualify for the Finals by beating the Champions of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. The PCHA folded, and 2 teams from the Province of British Columbia, the capital city's Victoria Cougars and the biggest city's Vancouver Maroons (formerly the Millionaires, 1915 Cup winners), were admitted to the WCHL. The Cougars beat the Tigers for the title, setting up the Finals against the Canadiens.
The Cougars were loaded with experience: Goaltender Harry "Hap" Holmes, center Frank Foyston and winger Jack Walker had each won the Cup with both the 1914 Toronto Blueshirts and the 1917 Seattle Metropolitans. Defenseman and Captain Clem Loughlin had won the Allan Cup, the championship of Canadian senior amateur hockey, with the 1915 Winnipeg Monarchs. Left wing Jocko Anderson had won the Allan Cup with a military team, the Winnipeg 61st Battalion.
Left wing Harry Meeking (not to be confused with later Toronto star and broadcaster Harry Meeker) had won the Cup with the 1918 Toronto Arenas. Center Frank Frederickson was a member of the Winnipeg Monarchs, the team that Canada sent to represent them in 1920, the 1st time the sport was played in the Olympics, and they won the Gold Medal. And their head coach, Lester Patrick, had won the Cup playing for the Montreal Wanderers in 1906 and 1907.
The Stanley Cup Finals were a best-3-out-of-5 series that season. Game 2 was played in the Denman Arena in Vancouver, and the rest were played at the Patrick Arena in Victoria. Both arenas had been built with funds raised by Lester Patrick and his brother Frank.
The Cougars won Game 1, 5-2. Walker and defenseman Gord Fraser each scored 2 goals. They won Game 2, 3-1, with Walker again scoring 2 goals. The Canadiens kept the series alive by winning Game 3, 4-2, with Morenz scoring a hat trick. But the Cougars ran away with Game 4, 6-1. Frederickson scored 2 goals, and the Cougars were the World Champions.
A Cougars sweater, on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame
For the 1925-26 season, the WCHL was renamed the Western Hockey League. The Cougars won the title again, but lost the Stanley Cup Finals to the Montreal Maroons. The WHL folded, and the Cup became an NHL-only trophy.
That folding opened the door for expansion in the NHL, and 3 new teams were added. The owners of the Detroit franchise signed all the players from Victoria, and named their new team the Detroit Cougars. New owners renamed them the Detroit Falcons in 1930, and another change in ownership made them the Detroit Red Wings in 1932. Since the Cougars are considered a separate franchise, the Red Wings do not claim the 1925 Stanley Cup among their achievements, nor does the NHL recognize it as such.
The owners of the Chicago team signed the players from the Portland Rosebuds, forming the Chicago Blackhawks. The other new team, the New York Rangers, signed Lester Patrick as head coach and general manager, and he signed several WHL players.
The 1925 Cup remains the last one won by a team from outside the NHL. In 1954, the Cleveland Barons, winners of the Calder Cup, the Championship of the American Hockey League, reminded the NHL that the Cup was a challenge trophy, and challenged the holders, the Red Wings, for the Cup. The NHL rejected this challenge, and got away with it.
This was also, through the 2023-24 season, the last Cup won by a team from the Province of British Columbia, of which Victoria is the capital city. The Vancouver Canucks were founded in 1970, and have been to the Finals 3 times -- 1982, 1994 and 2011 -- losing all 3.
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