Seattle Metropolitans the first US Team to win the Stanley Cup!
Okay, I am not the world’s biggest hockey fan.Living in the suburbs of Philly,I do follow the Flyers and a couple of years ago attended several games. However, I did not follow any hockey before 1967, when the Flyers entered the league,. In 1967 the NHL doubled in size adding six teams to the original six teams.So when saw that on March 27, 1912. The Seattle Metropolitans, of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, defeated the Montreal Canadians and became the first U.S. hockey team to win the Stanley Cup. I said huh?? The Seattle Metropolitans? The Pacific Coast League of Canada and the Stanley Cup?? I needed to find out about this!!
First came exploration of the Seattle Metropolitans– From Wikipedia…..
The Seattle Metropolitans were a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle, Washington which played in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association from 1915 to 1924. They won the Stanley Cup in 1917, becoming the first American team to do so. They played their home games at the Seattle Ice Arena
The Metropolitans were an expansion team in the PCHA, that joined the league in 1915! The team was stocked by raiding players from the 1914 Stanley Cup wining Toronto Blueshirts of the National Hockey Association (NHA)The Blueshirts’ players who moved to Seattle were Eddie Carpenter, Frank Foyston, Hap Holmes, Jack Walker and Cully Wilson. This core group of players made the Seattle team immediately competitive. Now what about the Pacific Coast LHocky Association and how was a team in that league playing for Lord Stanley’s Cup!!
Featured Image:Seattle Metropolitans Stanley Cup winning team in 1917. Top row: Harry Holmes, Bobby Rowe, Eddie Carpenter, Jack Walker; Middle: Frank Foyston, Pete Muldoon, mgr.; Bottom: Bernie Morris, Cully Wilson, Roy Rickey, Jim Riley.
The Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) was a professional men’s ice hockey league in western Canada and the western United States, which operated from 1911 to 1924 when it then merged with the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL). The PCHA was considered to be a major league of ice hockey and was important in the development of the sport of professional ice hockey through its innovations.
The league was started by the Patrick family, professional hockey players from Montreal, building new arenas in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia. After a few years of play, the league was accepted by the Stanley Cup trustees as being of a high enough standard that teams from its league were accepted for Stanley Cup challenges. Starting in 1915, the league entered into an agreement where the Stanley Cup was to be contested between the National Hockey Association and the PCHA after the regular seasons were finished. Read More
So where does the NHL fit in……
The history of the National Hockey League begins with the end of its predecessor league, the National Hockey Association (NHA), in 1917. After unsuccessfully attempting to resolve disputes with Eddie Livingstone, owner of the Toronto Blueshirts, executives of the three other NHA franchises suspended the NHA, and formed the National Hockey League (NHL), replacing the Livingstone team with a temporary team in Toronto, the Arenas. The NHL’s first quarter-century saw the league compete against two rival major leagues—the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and Western Canada Hockey League—for players and the Stanley Cup. The NHL first expanded into the United States in 1924 with the founding of the Boston Bruins, and by 1926 consisted of ten teams in Ontario, Quebec, the Great Lakes region, and the Northeastern United States. At the same time, the NHL emerged as the only major league and the sole competitor for the Stanley Cup; in 1947, the NHL completed a deal with the Stanley Cup trustees to gain full control of the Cup. The NHL’s footprint spread across Canada as Foster Hewitt’s radio broadcasts were heard coast-to-coast starting in 1933. Read More
So now I know the expansion Seattle Metropolitans of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, a rival league of first the NHA and then the NHL, played the Montreal Canadians of the NHL/NHA in March of 1917 at the end of the season for their respective leagues. The Metropolitans won the series 3-1 outscoring the Canadians 19 to 3 over series to become the first US hockey team to win the Stanley Cup!!