PMO Photo by Jason Ransom
Like millions of other Canadians, Stephen Harper developed his love for hockey at a young age as he played at the arenas and on the shinny rinks and roads of his hometown. Today, long retired from his on-ice “career” with the Leaside Lions, he is the 22nd prime minister of Canada and is happily married to Laureen, who, with their children Ben and Rachel, live in Calgary and Ottawa.
A member of the Society of International Hockey Research with a particular interest in the early decades of the game, Mr. Harper is an amateur historian interested in exploring the sport’s impact on the people and places that define Canada.
A Great Game is his first published work on the game of hockey.
All author royalties from this book will go to the Canadian Forces Personnel and Family Support Services (CFPFSS).
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NOTES
INTRODUCTION: FACING OFF
1 “Remarked on the Side,” Toronto Telegram, March 5, 1908.
2 “Snap Shots on Sport,” Toronto Telegram, December 1, 1906.
3 The Toronto Star cited the London Advertiser to make its point. See “Latest Hockey Notes From Star Exchanges,” Toronto Star, January 3, 1907.
4 “Snap Shots on Sport,” Toronto Telegram, December 4, 1907.
5 “Edward Hanlan,” Toronto Globe, January 4, 1908.
6 “Hockey on Bare Floor,” Toronto News, January 6, 1908.
7 “Berlin Wins Great Game from Torontos—Score 3 to 0,” Toronto World, January 6, 1908.
8 As far as I am aware this error originates with Charles Coleman’s seminal work on the history of the Stanley Cup. See Charles L. Coleman, The Trail of the Stanley Cup: Volume 1, 1893–1926, 1964, pp. 162 & 610.
9 Mike Ozanian. “The Business of Hockey: Team Values Hit All-Time High,” Sports Money, Forbes, November 30, 2011. As of November 2011, Forbes estimated the value of the Toronto Maple Leafs at $521 million, followed by the New York Rangers at $507 million and the Montreal Canadiens at $445 million.
CHAPTER ONE: THE OLD ORDER IN HOCKEY’S SECOND CITY
1 Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, “The Life I Lead,” from Mary Poppins (Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Productions, 1964).
2 Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Canadian Club of Ottawa, January 18, 1904.
3 These newspapers represent the vast majority of information available on pre–First World War hockey in Toronto.
4 The exception in this period was the year 1907, which witnessed a brief recession throughout the Canadian economy.
5 “Star for Burlesque,” Toronto News, January 2, 1909.
6 Interestingly, smoking tobacco was already commonly viewed as bad for one’s health, especially for an athlete. For example, see “No Cigarettes for Lindsay Hockey Players,” Toronto News, October 24, 1906, and the advertisement “Tobacco Kills,” Toronto Star, March 13, 1909. Even the first book ever written on hockey warns players of the dangers of cigarette smoking. See Arthur Farrell, Hockey: Canada’s Royal Winter Game (Montreal: C.R. Corneil, 1899), p. 59.
7 “More than Double in West Toronto,” Toronto News, June 24, 1911.
8 John Irwin Cooper, Montreal: A Brief History (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1969), p. 130.
9 Cooper, p. 131.
10 Mariana Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap & Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1825–1925 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1991).
11 The view that Montreal is the birthplace of hockey as an organized sport, though contested, is widely shared. It is, for example, the position of both the Society for International Hockey Research and the International Ice Hockey Federation that a match played on March 3, 1875, is the first fully recorded, formally organized game. Although arranged by a native of Halifax, James G. A. Creighton, the contest was played on Montreal’s Victoria Skating Rink. From this game one can trace subsequent developments. However, some observers believe this history should be turned on its head. That is to say, it is not a question of modern hockey having been established in Montreal, which just happened to be Canada’s power centre. Rather, the organized sport traces its origins to Montreal because it was the country’s most influential city at the time. According to this argument, the emergence of a formal sport like ice hockey out of a collection of folk games could—due to the rationing of space and time—occur only in the context of an urbanizing, industrial society. The society’s leading locale and its elites would then invariably set the rules—just as hockey’s “McGill Rules” squeezed out the alternative, perhaps even older, “Halifax Rules.” See Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1993), pp. 45–46; Bruce Kidd, The Struggle for Canadian Sport (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 16–17; and Michael McKinley, Putting a Roof on Winter (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2000), pp. 15–19.
12 The five teams in the league, the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, were Ottawa, Quebec, Montreal, Victoria and Crystal (later Shamrock), the last three of which were based in Montreal. I mention this because it is important to understand that, in the pre–First World War era, hockey clubs really had only one name. The practice of designating a hockey club by two terms—a place name followed by a team name—came about gradually and for two reasons. The first reason was the intercity game. For example, the Victoria Hockey Club of Montreal really only became known as the “Montreal Victorias” when they later played against the Victoria Hockey Club of Winnipeg (the “Winnipeg Victorias”) for the Stanley Cup. (It seems every city had a “Victoria Hockey Club” back then.) The second reason was the conversion of nicknames to official or near-official status. The Ottawa Hockey Club had then, as its usual nickname, the “Generals.” After 1900, the “Silver Seven” arose and, eventually and most commonly, the “Senators.” The Quebec Hockey Club was long nicknamed the “Bulldogs,” with a mascot to match. In this book, I have tended to use two-name versions of club names for the ease of the modern-day reader. This is challenging where such names were uncommon. For example, the Montreal Hockey Club, when not called just “Montreal,” would have been designated “Montreal HC” or “Montreal AAA” (after its sponsor, the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association). In such instances, I have tended to use more genuine nicknames. I have also tended more to the shortened forms of those nicknames. In this case, for instance, I have chosen to use “Montreal Wheelers” more than “Montreal Winged Wheelers,” both of which came from the team’s symbol (which originated in its bicycle club).
13 See the advertisement “New Caledonian Rink Mutual Street,” Toronto News, December 10, 1885.
14 I reluctantly name the children because different sources cite different names. In Lord Stanley’s recent biography by Kevin Shea and John Jason Wilson, Edward, Victor and Arthur are mentioned as playing on or practising with the Rebels, although only Arthur did so regularly. These were the three eldest of Stanley’s eight (living) children. However, the book also implies that all the Stanley children played hockey. Algernon is mentioned in one passage as having some connection to the Rebels. This is possible, although he was only nineteen when the family left Canada in 1893. If he played with them, then it is likely older brothers Ferdinand (“Ferdy”) and George did also. The youngest brother, William (“Billy”), is mentioned as a very good player, but he would have been only fifteen when the family left Canada. Interestingly, daughter Isobel also played hockey. She played on the Government House ladies’ team and performed in the first women’s hockey game ever recorded, in 1889. See Kevin Shea and John Jason Wilson, Lord Stanle
y: The Man Behind The Cup (H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd., 2006), pp. 348–386.
15 “The Granites Defeated,” Toronto Mail, February 10, 1890.
16 “The Vice Regal Team Will Play Two Games Here,” Toronto Mail, February 7, 1890.
17 “The Granites Defeated.” Ibid.
18 “The Visitors Beaten by the St. Georges,” Toronto Mail, February 10, 1890.
19 Barron was a controversial politician. The Liberal MP was one of only thirteen cross-benchers who had defied their leadership and voted in favour of urging Lord Stanley to disallow Quebec’s Jesuit Estates Act. The measure was one of a series of disputes that pitched French and Catholic against English and Protestant during the later years of John A. Macdonald’s government. The “Devil’s Dozen” or the “Noble Thirteen” (depending on one’s political perspective) were ultimately unsuccessful in persuading the governor general to intervene.
20 “The Granites Defeated.” Ibid.
21 “Hockey Clubs in Toronto,” Toronto Mail and Empire, December 21, 1897.
22 This is taken from the Toronto Mail, “The Toronto Hoggy Association,” December 7, 1893.
23 Numerous sources agree that amateurism was rooted in the history of the class structure. For perhaps the most comprehensive review of this from an Anglo-Canadian perspective, see Frank Cosentino, “A History of the Concept of Professionalism in Canadian Sport,” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Alberta, 1973.
24 A proscription on remuneration would also have been completely consistent with the original class criteria, given that aristocratic-military society was explicitly noncommercial. For a broad discussion of this question, see Jane Jacobs, Systems of Survival, 1992.
25 For a hypothesis on the role of religion in amateurism, see Alan Metcalfe, Canada Learns to Play, 1987, pp. 24–26. Metcalfe views the Christian version of “Hellenic dualism” (the noble mind, the sinful flesh) as an integral part of the social values behind amateurism. However, while an explanation rooted in social structures and one based on theological assumptions may be compatible, they are certainly distinctive.
26 This is taken from Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada, 1993, pp. 46–47.
27 Scott Beckman, Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America (Westport, CN: Praeger Publishing, 2006), p. 26.
CHAPTER TWO: THE RISE OF “THE PAPER TYRANT”
1 “Hockey: The O.H.A. Annual Meeting,” Toronto Globe, December 7, 1903.
2 Ron Poulton, The Paper Tyrant (Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1977).
3 Murdoch Mysteries, “Murdoch Night in Canada,” Episode no. 64, first broadcast August 21, 2012, by CityTV. Directed by Gail Harvey and written by Lori Spring.
4 Scott Young, 100 Years of Dropping the Puck (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1989), p. 46.
5 “Thirteenth Annual Convention of Ontario Hockey Association,” Toronto News, December 6, 1902.
6 Young, p. 46.
7 “Annual Meeting of Hockeyists,” Toronto Mail and Empire, December 5, 1898.
8 Poulton, p. 13.
9 Poulton, p. 95.
10 Poulton, p. 14.
11 “Annual Meeting of Ontario Hockeyists,” Toronto News, December 5, 1898.
12 Ontario Hockey Association, Constitution, Rules of Competition and Laws of the Game: As Amended December 1, 1900, p. 27.
13 See “The Address of the O. H. A. President,” Toronto News, December 5, 1903.
14 Shea and Wilson, pp. 89–108.
15 Andrew C. Holman, “Playing in the Neutral Zone: Meanings and Uses of Ice Hockey in the Canadian-U.S. Borderlands 1895–1915,” in American Review of Canadian Studies (Spring 2004), pp. 38–39.
16 “Hockey: The O.H.A. Annual Meeting,” Ibid.
17 “Note and Comment,” Toronto World, December 25, 1907.
18 “Review of the O.H.A. Convention,” Toronto Star, November 22, 1909.
19 “Thirteenth Annual Convention of Ontario Hockey Association,” Toronto News, December 6, 1902.
20 Ibid.
21 W. A. Hewitt, Down the Stretch (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1958), p. 185.
22 This was, of course, also the nickname of the first Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, the late British prime minister and vanquisher of Napoleon, after whom the hockey club itself was named.
23 Note that this means the Wellington champions of 1900–01 did not meet the Cup champion Victoria Club of Winnipeg until 1901–02. This was not unusual. The hockey season was quite short in the era of natural ice. Even in the coldest cities, it did not start before mid-December and did not go much beyond mid-March. Ideally, Stanley Cup challenges would be played between league champions at the end of the season—that is, in February or March. However, given the shortness of the season and the difficulty of interprovincial travel, Cup contenders would often play off early in the next season—that is, in December or January.
24 “First Stanley Cup Game To-Night,” Toronto News, January 21, 1902.
25 “Wellingtons’ Departure,” Winnipeg Tribune, January 25, 1902.
26 Ibid.
27 “Wellingtons Will Arrive To-morrow,” Toronto News, January 27, 1902.
28 “Wellingtons’ HomeComing,” Toronto Globe, January 29, 1902.
29 Ibid.
30 Because winter begins earlier in Winnipeg than in Toronto, the Wellingtons were bound to be in poorer game shape than the Victorias. However, unseasonably mild weather in the early part of that Toronto winter had further complicated the situation for the Iron Dukes.
CHAPTER THREE: THE ENEMY IN THE OPEN
1 Copyright 1970 Okefenokee Glee & Perloo, Inc. Used by permission.
2 J. W. (Bill) Fitsell, “Doc Gibson: The Eye in the IHL,” Hockey Research Journal, Volume 8 (Fall 2004), p. 5.
3 It should be noted that the official spelling of the western Pennsylvania city was actually “Pittsburg” during this period. Apparently, in 1896, it had been decided that the h was an aberration. However, the change never caught on and was reversed in 1911. In this work, the conventional spelling of Pittsburgh is maintained throughout.
4 In this work, I have tended to refer to the Ottawa Hockey Club as the “Silver Seven” rather than the “Senators,” before 1910 although, of the two, the latter was clearly more common at the time. The problem is that there was also an officially named Senator Hockey Club—Ottawa’s entry in the Federal league during 1908–09. For a detailed discussion of the nicknames of the Ottawa HC, see Paul Kitchen, “They Weren’t the Silver Seven,” Hockey Research Journal, Volume 5 (2001), pp. 21–22.
5 This should not be confused with an earlier Montreal amateur club called the Wanderers that had existed in the late 1800s. See John Chi-Kit Wong, Lords of the Rinks: The Emergence of the National Hockey League, 1875–1936 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp. 18 and 183.
6 “The Address of the O.H.A. President,” Toronto News, December 5, 1903.
7 “The O.H.A. Annual Meeting,” Toronto Globe, December 7, 1903.
8 Baseball Almanac, “World Series Gate Receipts and Player Shares,” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/wsshares.shtml.
9 “With the Hockey Players,” Toronto News, November 7, 1903.
10 Andrew Podnieks, Canada’s Olympic Hockey Teams: The Complete History 1920–1998 (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1997), p. 4.
11 In his autobiography, Hewitt claimed he and Nelson invented the goal net for hockey. The latter had apparently returned from a trip to Australia with two large fishing nets that he believed could be adapted to the winter sport. He shipped them to Montreal after Hewitt arranged for their use in an 1899 game between the Victorias and the Shamrocks. There is, however, evidence of limited use of goal nets prior to the Nelson-Hewitt story. What cannot be disputed is that Hewitt’s Herald and Nelson’s Globe were active proponents of the innovation. See W. A. Hewitt, Down the Stretch: Recollections of a Pioneer Sportsman and Journalist (Ryerson Press: Toronto, 1958), p. 33, and Paul Kitchen, “The Early Goal Net: Hockey Innovation and the Sporting Page,
1896–1912,” in Colin D. Howell, ed., Putting It On Ice, Volume 1: Hockey and Cultural Identities, 2002, pp. 35–46.
12 Howell, p. 37.
13 “Mr. Cox’s Amateur Principles,” Toronto Globe, February 20, 1904.
14 The Marlboros were named after John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, the renowned British military commander and statesman of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and ancestor of Sir Winston Churchill. The Marlboros were thus nicknamed the “Little Dukes,” although simply the “Dukes” was more common. As already noted, the Wellingtons were nicknamed the “Iron Dukes,” which, in contrast, was never shortened.
15 “A Record Crowd Saw Hockey Match,” Toronto News, January 18, 1904.
16 “Marlboros and the Cup,” Toronto Globe, February 18, 1904.
17 It should be mentioned that the McGee family was quite prominent. Thomas D’Arcy McGee, the assassinated Father of Confederation, was Frank’s uncle. His father, John Joseph McGee, was clerk of the privy council during the Silver Seven’s championship years. His older brother, Jim, also played for the team before his untimely death in a horse-racing accident in May 1904.
18 “Ottawa Led at the Finish,” Toronto Globe, February 24, 1904.
19 “Slugged and Bodied into Submission,” Toronto Star, February 24, 1904.
20 “Ottawas Win First Stanley Cup Match,” Ottawa Citizen, February 24, 1904.
21 “Stanley Cup Holders Outclass Marlboros,” Ottawa Citizen, February 26, 1904.
22 Ibid.
23 See “Ottawa Won First Stanley Cup Match,” Toronto News, February 24, 1904, and “Ottawa Won Easily,” Toronto News, February 26, 1904.
24 “Hockey is Not Ping-Pong,” Toronto News, February 29, 1904.
25 See “Sporting Note and Comment,” Belleville Intelligencer, February 26, 1904. This was far from an isolated opinion. For example, in “Puckerings” (Cornwall Freeholder, March 4, 1904), a similar argument is made about the difference between Ping-Pong and hockey, noting Toronto’s reputation as “squealers.”
26 This is taken from Charles L. Coleman, The Trail of the Stanley Cup: Vol. 1 (Montreal: National Hockey League, 1966), p. 132.
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