Kenora Thistles: 1907 Stanley Cup Champions

Kenora Thistles: 1907 Stanley Cup Champions Out of the Mists of the Past-- Kenora Thistles 1907 Stanley Cup Champions. Player Biographies, Histor The Thistles were very much a product of their times.

UP ALONG THE COAST of the Lake Of The Woods in northwestern Ontario lies the port town of Kenora, home of the 1907 Stanley Cup Champion Kenora Thistles. Before there was a united professional league, amateur senior leagues reigned supreme in both popularity and talent. Any town with a few good skaters could form a squad and try their luck against other nearby towns. Kenora (or Rat Portage as it wa

s known until 1905) was one of just many Canadian midwestern boom towns that, after a hardworking summer season, felt the desire for an off-season past-time. That past-time was ice hockey, played on many of the thousands of frozen lakes that speckled the Canadian winter countryside. Within a few years, the Thistles had assembled an awesome roster, boasting some of the greatest players of the game. Though their Stanley Cup stewardship was short, only two months, the Kenora Thistles' influence remaines undiminished, indelibly imprinted upon the formative pages of the National Hockey League. To this day their story remains an inextinguishable source of simple, old-time hockey idealism in this modern age of corporate-sponsored marketing, cynicism and greed.

After the Thistles' Cup win in January, 1907 there was still a matter to attend to-- winning the Manitoba Hockey League ...
03/19/2020

After the Thistles' Cup win in January, 1907 there was still a matter to attend to-- winning the Manitoba Hockey League championship. The Thistles, now the hunted, and no longer truly "amateur", brought in future HOFers Fred Whitcroft (goal scorer extraordinaire for the OHA Peterborough Colts), Alf Smith and Harry "Rat" Westwick (both veterans of the fabulous Ottawa "Silver Seven" of the ECAHA) to offset the losses of Art Ross and Joe Hall, who had both returned back to Brandon, and of the injured Si Griffis, who had a lingering and problematic ankle injury.

By the end of the season, the Thistles found themselves tied in the standings with the upstart Brandon club and on March 16th began a best-of-3 playoff in Winnipeg to decide the winner of the league-- with the Stanley Cup at stake! Though the games were hard fought, Brandon, who lost team spark-plug Joe Hall to a broken thumb halfway through the second game, could not overcome the Thistles' significant offensive firepower, and fell to the champs in two games, by the scores of 8-6 and 4-1, respectively.

Now it was the Thistles' turn to accept the ECAHA champ Montreal Wanderers' challenge for the Cup, but this time, the series wouldn't be played in the east-- the series would be played in Kenora-- in two days! Fate, long being on the Thistles' side, would quickly deal the club two big blows. With the early spring Kenora ice surface being deemed unsatisfactory to skate upon, the series was moved up to Winnipeg and delayed by two days. The other blow was that, after a formal protest filed by the Montreal team against Alf Smith and Harry Westwick (basically the 1907 version of modern day 'rent-a-players'), the two were ruled by Stanley Cup trustee Bill Foran as being ineligible to play!

By March 23rd, the series was on-- but the Thistles had managed to convince the Wanderers to let Westwick and Smith play, much to Foran's displeasure. So incensed was he over being pushed out of the final decision, he threatened to take the the famed chalice back east and declare the championship void!

(To better read this the newspaper article below make sure to click on the photo, select Options and select "Download")

Tonight the NBA decided to suspend the basketball season due to one of its players contracting the Coronavirus. While de...
03/12/2020

Tonight the NBA decided to suspend the basketball season due to one of its players contracting the Coronavirus. While delaying or cancelling a large portion of un-played games is an extreme measure, the act is not unprecedented-- it has happened before in pro sports-- in 1919 to be exact, when the Spanish Flu raged throughout North America and infected several members of the Montreal Canadiens during the Stanley Cup final, including former Kenora Thistle Joe Hall. The series was suspended after 5 games and Hall never recovered, passing away from the dread disease 5 days after his last game.

12 years prior, a healthy and hungry Hall and future HOFer Art Ross had been brought in by the Thistles management prior to their legendary Cup challenge with the Montreal Wanderers to shore up the team after the abrupt departure of longtime Thistles mainstay "Tuff" Bellefeuille. Bellefeuille as well as steady defenseman Matt Brown were replaced by Ross and Si Griffis. Tom Hooper moved up to assume Griffis' vacated spot at rover, while the potent front line of Billy McGimsie, Tommy Phillips, and Roxy Beaudro, which had combined for 48 goals in only 8 games the previous season, stayed intact.

Joe Hall soon became the odd-man out, and found himself sitting on the sidelines along with Tommy Phillips' 19 year-old brother Russell as a spare. Still, it was probably quite apparent to the Wanderers that if they happened to injure one of Kenora's starting seven with a questionable tactic, they would have to answer to the legendary brawn of "Bad Joe" in relief. The Thistles took care of business without Hall touching the ice, beating the Wanderers 4-2 and 8-6 to capture the honored trophy.

For all the happiness and glory that is the Kenora Thistles' unlikely Stanley Cup achievement, there is also the tragedy...
02/07/2020

For all the happiness and glory that is the Kenora Thistles' unlikely Stanley Cup achievement, there is also the tragedy and heartbreak that came soon afterwards.

Charles Hilliard, one of the Thistles' standout players during their formative years and up to their first Stanley Cup challenge of 1903, made the ultimate sacrifice in WWI- he was killed in action in France in April, 1917. A year later his brother Harold, who also played amateur hockey in Kenora, was also killed in action.

Eddie Giroux, the nimble netminder who, from 1905-07 showcased a strong and steady backstop while his high flying Thistles teammates were scoring goals by the bushel, succumbed to an unknown, 8 month illness at 46, only 7 years after the untimely death of his good friend and future Hockey HOFer Tommy Phillips, who had convinced him 25 years prior to leave the OHA champion Toronto Marlboros and come west with him to Kenora and fulfill their Stanley Cup destinies.

113 years ago this evening the Thistles beat the Montreal Wanderers 4-2 in game 1 of the 2 game Stanley Cup final. Back ...
01/18/2020

113 years ago this evening the Thistles beat the Montreal Wanderers 4-2 in game 1 of the 2 game Stanley Cup final. Back in the day, there wasn't TV or even radio, so folks got the play-by-play courtesy of the telegraph, which relayed in real-time down-ice rushes, manic goalie saves and glorious goals scored. The following morning the Winnipeg Tribune reprinted the entire play-by-play. One can imagine the fever pitch of the hometown Kenora fans who read it, forced to be 2000 miles from the center of the action!

(To read this amazing article make sure to click on the photo, select Options and select "Download")

113 years ago this week the Thistles embarked on a 2,000 kilometer train ride to Montreal to meet their Stanley Cup dest...
01/09/2020

113 years ago this week the Thistles embarked on a 2,000 kilometer train ride to Montreal to meet their Stanley Cup destiny. Captain Tommy Phillips, doing his best Joe Namath impersonation 62 years before the fact, guaranteed a victory. His prediction might have been a bit easier to make, seeing that the team was absolutely loaded with what would be 6 future Hockey HOF players!

Nowadays we take urgent dental work for granted-- thanks to the power of antibiotics, but 100 years ago it could be dead...
09/13/2019

Nowadays we take urgent dental work for granted-- thanks to the power of antibiotics, but 100 years ago it could be deadly. An extraction of an infected tooth ended up taking the life of one of the greatest hockey players of all time-- and the greatest of the legendary Kenora Thistles-- Tommy Phillips.

Rat Portage/Kenora Thistles Newspaper Clippings 1895-1908(To read these amazing articles try clicking on the photo, sele...
09/23/2018

Rat Portage/Kenora Thistles Newspaper Clippings 1895-1908
(To read these amazing articles try clicking on the photo, select Options and then select "Download". Then you can view the full-sized article)

Manitoba Morning Free Press January 18, 1907:
09/23/2018

Manitoba Morning Free Press January 18, 1907:

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