Montreal Canadiens; Hockey Institution© Jeff Justiz
Jun 29, 1998
Happy Canada Day readers. This week, my article is about the history of the Montreal Canadiens. This year, the Canadiens celebrated their 88th year of existence. Their start was rather unusual and they have had their unusal occurences in the past which led to hockey-wide traditions, such as engraving the names of Stanley Cup winners on the cup, and hockey rules, such as letting the penalized player leave the box when the opposing team scores a power-play goal.
The Canadiens got their start in 1909. Back then, a group of team representatives met in 1909 to start a new league to be called the Canadian Hockey Association. The teams involved were the Montreal Wanderers, Shamrocks, Nationals, the Quebec Bulldogs and the 1909 Stanley Cup champs, the Ottawa Senators. A representative from the Renfrew pro team of the Federal league, Ambrose O'Brien, also came to make the 6-league team. O'Brien was rejected, as was Jimmy Gardner of the Montreal Wanderers because their home arena, the Jubilee Rink, was considered too small. Gardner met up with O'Brien in the lobby of the Windsor Hotel, and they decided to form their own league, the NHA, or National Hockey Association. They had also decided to get a team of all French-Canadians, which they would call the Club de Hockey Canadien or Les Canadiens, and this team would play in the Jubilee Rink. Added with a team from Cobalt, they were the NHA, for two weeks. Meanwhile the CHA only drew a few hundred to every game and pleaded to amalgamate with the successful NHA. But O'Brien and Gardner exacted revenge on the owners by only allowing the Senators and the Shamrocks to join. The CHA was forced to close. (O'Brien had later offered the Nationals to take over Les Canadiens. The Nationals missed out on 24 Stanley Cups by rejecting.) The funny thing was that there was an agreement that stated that Les Canadiens could only sign French players, while no other team in the league was allowed too. That was signed prior to the 1912 season. The history of the logo dates back to 1917. The Canadien Athletic Club bought out Les Canadiens in 1910, and made the jersey red, white and blue, with CAC imprinted on, get this, a maple leaf. In 1915, they made it more red. In 1917, someone designed a big C surrounding a small H. The H stood for hockey, but some people mistakened it for "Habs" or "Habitants" the farmers of the day.
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