Sunday marks exactly 100 years since a hockey team from British Columbia won the Stanley Cup.
On March 30, 1925, the Victoria Cougars of the Western Canada Hockey League defeated the National Hockey League’s Montreal Canadiens 6-1 to clinch their best-of-five series, becoming the last non-NHL team to raise Lord Stanley’s cup.
Events will take place in the Victoria area over the weekend to mark the anniversary, including the display of the Stanley Cup at the Oak Bay Recreation Centre on Sunday afternoon.
Among those in attendance will be Bob Miles, whose grand-uncle was Harry “Hap” Holmes, a goaltender who won four Stanley Cups with four different teams, including the Cougars.
Miles said Holmes’s nickname of “Happy” or “Hap” was an inside joke referring to the fact that he never smiled.
His career began at a time when goaltenders weren’t allowed to drop to the ice to make a save. He also used pads that were small in comparison to those used by modern netminders.
A 1925 article in the Saskatoon Phoenix noted that Holmes made his own pads out of “some canvas, a few maple splints, a couple of straps, and a bit of felt.”
“A goalie can’t be judged by the pads he wears, but rather by the pucks he stops,” Holmes said.
Holmes didn’t wear a mask or a helmet, but he donned a cap on the ice to cover his bald scalp, according to the Hockey News, “because lore has it that his shiny head made for an easy target for fans who wanted to spit tobacco juice on him.”
After the Cougars’ victory over the Canadiens, the team drank champagne ordered from the Empress Hotel, according to a 1995 retrospective published in the Times Colonist, and the Stanley Cup was put on “unguarded display” at a jewelry store in downtown Victoria.
The Cougars, who played their home games in an arena in Oak Bay, returned to the Stanley Cup final in 1926, falling to the Montreal Maroons.
Following the loss, the league dissolved and several Cougars players were sold to a new NHL team in Detroit that was named the Cougars in honour of the defunct Victoria franchise, before ultimately changing its name to the Red Wings.
Among the players who moved to Detroit was goaltender Holmes, who was posthumously elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972.
Miles hopes for a “loud and proud” celebration of the Cougars in Victoria, something that would make his taciturn grand-uncle proud.
“Although his nickname was Happy and he never smiled, I’m sure he would be very happy to see the celebration going on this weekend in Victoria,” he said.
