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East Coast bias Stanley Cup hasn't called West Coast home since 1925Posted: Friday June 06, 2003 7:30 PMANAHEIM, Calif. (Reuters) -- If the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim win two more games they will be the first team to bring the Stanley Cup to the West Coast in 78 years. And the last team to do so did not even play in the NHL. The Victoria Cougars, champions of the Western Hockey League, defeated the Montreal Canadiens in four games of a best-of-five series in 1925. That achievement recalls a long-forgotten time when Eastern and Western Canada vied for professional hockey supremacy, a period of colorful, humorous and tragic moments.
To stock those teams, the Patricks raided the rosters of the National Hockey Association (NHA), the NHL's predecessor in Eastern Canada. Hall-of-Famers Cyclone Taylor and Newsy Lalonde were among those who moved West. In 1914, the Victoria Aristocrats became the first PCHA team to contest the Stanley Cup by challenging the NHA's Toronto Blueshirts. At the time, any Canadian team could compete for the Cup. But club officials neglected to file a formal challenge with the Cup's trustees. Without such a formality, the trustees refused to legitimize the series, creating a problem had Victoria won. The Blueshirts resolved the problem by sweeping the Aristocrats in three games. The next year, the PCHA and NHA agreed to have their champions compete for the Cup in a best-of-five series. Two elements made the format unique. First, one champion would play host to all the games, with sites alternating every year. Second, since the leagues used different rules, each team would use its league's rules every other game. The Vancouver Millionaires became the first Pacific Coast team to win the Cup in 1915. The Millionaires outscored the Ottawa Senators 26-8 in a three-game sweep, with Taylor scoring six goals. In 1916, the Portland Rosebuds became the first American team to play for the Cup and almost won it. But the Canadiens rallied in the fifth game to earn a 2-1 victory and the first of their 24 Cups. The Seattle Metropolitans brought the Cup to the United States for the first time when they beat the Canadiens in four games in 1917. Seattle's Bernie Morris scored 14 goals. But tragedy struck in 1919 when the final between Seattle and Montreal was abandoned because of the worldwide flu epidemic. Several Canadiens became ill and defenseman Joe Hall died in a Seattle hospital. The East-West rivalry proved so popular that the 1921 final between Ottawa and host Vancouver set attendance records. Almost 11,000 fans saw the first game and nearly 51,000 witnessed the series, which Ottawa won in five games. But the PCHA was having financial problems. In 1924, it merged with the Western Canada Hockey League to form the Western Hockey League. Then, in 1926, weeks after Lester Patrick's Victoria Cougars lost the Cup to the Canadiens, the Patricks sold the whole league to the NHL for $250,000. The Stanley Cup passed into the NHL's exclusive possession. But the PCHA made a permanent impact. It introduced such innovations as the blue line, forward passing, allowing goalies to leave their feet to make saves, even numbers on uniforms and the tabulating of assists. Three years after coaching the Victoria Cougars to the Stanley Cup, Lester Patrick did the same for the New York Rangers. Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. |
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