Vancouver’s entry in Pacific Coast Hockey League in 1912 season had no nickname and played in the Denman Arena when it was known as “the arena”
On Jan. 5, 1912, the city of Vancouver had its first professional hockey game.
The Province reported about 5,000 spectators turned out to watch Vancouver beat New Westminster 8-3 at a new 10,000 seat arena the Patrick family had built at Denman and Georgia Streets.
“Most of them had never seen a hockey game before, but they became ardent enthusiasts long before the finish,” the Province noted Jan. 6.
“At times the game was very fast, and the spectators were up on their toes and cheering wildly at the spectacular work shown. After last night’s exhibition, there is no doubt about the popularity of hockey here.”
That said, the anonymous scribes who covered the game for the Province and the Vancouver World were not overly impressed with the calibre of play.
“It was not Stanley Cup hockey by any means,” said the World, which said there were 3,000 people in attendance.
“It was simply individual brilliance in play which took the hearts of the fans on a toboggan, and for that reason it was a good hockey match.”
Hockey was far different in 1912. There were seven players on the ice, and you had to stay on the ice until a stoppage in play, like soccer. Defencemen were called point and cover point, and the seventh player was a rover.
Players weren’t allowed to make a forward pass, you had to pass the puck behind you, like in rugby. Penalties were three minutes. Goalies had to stand up, and got a penalty for falling to the ice.
The Vancouver and New Westminster teams both played in the Vancouver arena — New West’s rink wasn’t ready until the following season.
They joined a Victoria team in the Pacific Coast Hockey League, which had been founded by hockey legends Frank and Lester Patrick.
Originally from Montreal, the Patrick brothers had moved to Nelson with their family in 1907 to get into the lumber business. In 1910, the Patricks sold their Nelson business, built arenas in Vancouver and Victoria and started their own hockey league.
They stocked it with many stars they had played against back east, such as Newsy Lalonde (who played for the Millionaires in 1912) and Tommy Dunderdale (who played for Victoria). Frank Patrick played defence for Vancouver, Lester played with Victoria.
The new league began play on Jan. 2, 1912, in Victoria, when New West beat Victoria 8-3. The Province writer thought the New West team were “in poor condition physically” for the Jan. 2 game, but “played at top speed for the full journey.”
This made them ripe for the picking Jan. 5, when New West’s players “were unable to get going in their proper stride.”
Vancouver’s team didn’t have a nickname their first season. And the Denman Arena wasn’t called that, it was just “the arena.”
“Technically the only official names were the Vancouver Arena company, which owned the Vancouver Professional Hockey Club,” said hockey historian Craig Bowlsby, author of Empire of Ice: The Rise and Fall of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.
“The press called them the Terminals and the All-Stars. They called them the Terminals because Vancouver was known as the Terminal City.”
Neither name stuck, but during the second season the press started referring to the team as millionaires.
“They were tipping their hats to the amazing high-salaried players,” said Bowlsby.
“Millionaires at the time were considered like rock stars. Nobody was making anywhere near a million dollars in hockey, but they started calling them that.”
The Millionaires became their official nickname in 1914-15, the year the team won Vancouver’s one and only Stanley Cup. The last west coast team to win the Stanley Cup was the Victoria Cougars in 1925.
The PCHL folded in 1924 and the Cougars won the Cup while in the Pacific Coast League. In 1926, the National Hockey League decided to expand and the Patricks sold virtually the entire league to the NHL for about $300,000.
The Victoria team moved to Detroit, becoming the Detroit Cougars and then the Red Wings.
The big impact of the PCHL was the rule changes ushered in by Frank and Lester Patrick. Bowlsby wrote a book about it, 1913: The Year They Changed The Future of Hockey.
That was the year Frank Patrick brought in the forward pass.
