A Great Game (54 page)

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.

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' Home-Coming,”
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.

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.

27
 “The O.H.A.'s Fine Record,”
Toronto Globe
, March 14, 1905.

28
 “Snap Shots on Sport,”
Toronto Telegram
, February 19, 1904.

29
 “Stanley Cup Holders Outclass Marlboros,”
Toronto Telegram
, February 19, 1904.

30
 Hewitt,
Down the Stretch
, p. 189.

31
 Eric Zweig has pointed out to me that “there were lots of stories after the first Rat Portage-Ottawa Stanley Cup game in 1905 that the ice was salted before game two. It is therefore very possible Hewitt was just mixing up these events all those years ago.” Still, the partisanship of Hewitt's
Star
for the Marlboros is beyond doubt.

32
 See “President Robertson's Note,”
Toronto Globe
, November 5, 1904. This was written before the annual meeting, no doubt to undermine the campaign of his lesser-known rival. Robertson did, however, present the same theory in his presidential address a month later.

33
 Ibid.

1
 “Pure Amateurism in O.H.A. the Main Theme,”
Toronto Star
, December 3, 1904.

2
 See Eric Whitehead,
Cyclone Taylor
, 1977, p. 31. The author says that the calls between Hewitt and Taylor began in October 1903. If that is so, then Hewitt had been in touch with Taylor for a year.

3
 Whitehead, pp. 32–33.

4
 A recent high-profile rendition of the story can be found in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation–sponsored work by Michael McKinley,
Hockey: A People's History
(Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2006), pp. 39–41.

5
 Eric Zweig, “Setting Cyclone's Story Straight,”
Hockey Research Journal
, vol. 11 (2007), pp. 47–50.

6
 See W. A. Hewitt,
Down the Stretch
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1958), p. 214. Hewitt did, however, vividly remember Taylor's professional career and considered him one of the greatest players of all time.

7
 “The O.H.A. Convention,”
Toronto Globe
, December 5, 1904.

8
 For examples of this label, see “Puckerings,”
Toronto Globe
, December 11, 1907, and “Bruce Ridpath's Trip Abroad,”
Toronto Star
, December 11, 1907.

9
 “The Marlboros Have a Good Lead,”
Toronto News
, February 20, 1905.

10
 “A Good Hockey Season,”
Toronto News
, November 11, 1905.

11
 Ibid.

12
 Hewitt,
Down the Stretch
, p. 186.

13
 “A Good Hockey Season,”
Toronto News
, November 11, 1905.

14
 This is taken from Paul Kitchen,
Win, Tie, or Wrangle
(Manotick, ON: Penumbra, 2008), p. 133.

15
 “Is the O.H.A. a Purely Philanthropic Body?”
Toronto News
, January 30, 1906.

16
 Ibid.

17
 “Darroch and Rowe Case,”
Toronto Telegram
, March 20, 1906.

18
 “Injunction Made Permanent,”
Toronto Globe
, February 22, 1906.

19
 “Last Stages of Hockey,”
Toronto
Telegram
, March 26, 1906.

20
 The
Tely
cited the
London Free Press
to advance its argument. See “New Ontario Ambitions,”
Toronto Telegram
, March 9, 1906.