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| Out of the Mists of the Past | The Kenora Thistles: 1907 Stanley Cup Champions |
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| Out of the Mists of the Past | The Kenora Thistles: 1907 Stanley Cup Champions |
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THE 1903-04 SEASON showed the Thistles in fine form, but their interleague rival, the Brandon Wheat Kings was a just a bit better, entitling the defensively-oriented club, and not the talent-laden Thistles, to a Stanley Cup challenge against the powerful Ottawa Silver Seven in March of 1904. Brandon would come up woefully short against the Ottawa juggernaut, just as the Toronto Marlboros did two weeks earlier with Tommy Phillips' talented services on one year loan. Local Enthusiasm for the Thistles never wavered, despite an 8-4 record and a second place finish in the M.N.H.A. in 1903-04. Even though the Thistles led their league in overall offense, they relied heavily upon Billy McGimsie and Si Griffis, who finished 1st and 3rd in league scoring, with 14 and 12 goals respectively. Roxy Beaudro and Tom Hooper only tallied 6 goals between them and, in regards to the rest of the club, only right winger Billy Martin managed to score more than one goal. Bob Rose did an admirable job in goal, but the Thistles appeared to be one player short of icing a complete team. That missing player, of course, was Phillips, who was still making a name for himself back east with the Marlboros. Phillips scored seven goals in four playoff games while a member of the Montreal Amateur Athletic Club and the Marlboros, including two games against the stellar Silver Seven in which he potted 3. During the 1904 offseason news quickly made its way around an excited Rat Portage populace that Phillips was coming back to play again for their beloved Thistles and the town prepared for what all felt was going to be a successful Stanley Cup run in 1904-05 While in Toronto, Phillips played in front of the Marlboros' brilliant young goaltender, 20 year-old Eddie Giroux. Perhaps Phillips persuaded Giroux to come back to Rat Portage with him or perhaps the Toronto native saw his chance for fame and fortune in the rough and tumble western frontier. Whatever the case, the diminutive netminder made the thousand mile trek west and was soon inserted into the Thistles' 1904-05 starting line-up. With Phillips back onboard, the Thistles assembled one of the most formidable front lines in hockey history. With Billy McGimsie anchoring center, Phillips took the Left Wing while Tom Hooper moved up and assumed Right Wing. The ranging Si Griffis continued to patrol the ice behind them in the rover position. The two positions of defense, point and cover point, were inhabited by several different players, most notably longtime Thistles Theo "Tuff" Bellefeuille and Matt Brown. Roxy Beaudro relieved at Right Wing, though Griffis, Phillips, and Hooper were talented enough themselves to move around and assume different positions when in a pinch. The lads, who had been playing together for nearly ten years, knew intimately the in's and out's of each other's playing styles, earning the team a reputation as a well-oiled hockey machine. The Thistles averaged over 10 goals per game while Giroux and the steady Thistles defense kept the opponent's average to under 3. McGimsie and Phillips finished 1-2 in the league's scoring race, with 28 and 26 goals respectively. The end of the '05 season found the Thistles with 7 wins and only 1 loss-- celebrating another M.N.H.A. championship and the right to again challenge the mighty Silver Seven for the Stanley Cup. This time, however, the Thistles brought with them a revolutionary tactic that would change the way hockey would from then on be played. During the club's previous challenge, it was noted that, although Rat Portage offered broad and considerable talent upon the ice, their rushes were the result of each player's natural individual abilities, not an overall combination of efforts. This realization brought the Rat Portage lads to the doorstep of the modern game, evolving a series of combination plays that gave them a considerable advantage over the older style method of play. Brown and Bellefeuille were by no means behemoth sized defensemen. They were light and swift and good with the stick which allowed them to join in on the Thistles' offensive rushes and still have time to regain their defensive posture in case of a turnover or a sudden opponent counter-attack. The Thistles also employed for the first time in recorded history the modern "side by side" defensive positioning, abandoning the old-fashioned "T" formation and evolving a formidable "X" pattern with the rover Griffis at the pivot. Billy McGimsie once remarked in his old age, "...(we) probably invented the version of the game which is so popular today." Though the old age tales of Billy McGimsie give a certain level of creedence to the proposal that the Thistles invented much of the modern game, confirmation can be found in the newspaper articles of the day. The Montreal Star boldly asserted in March of 1905 that the Thistles were, "the fastest (team) that has ever been seen anywhere on ice.". The first game of the early March best-of-three challenge match wasn't even close. The Thistles stunned the Ottawa players and fans alike with their extraordinary swiftness and tight play. The final score was 9-3. Tommy Phillips topped the Thistles scorers with five goals. Two days later, on March 9th, the Thistles took the ice only to find it covered in a thin layer of water and slush. What had happened to the surface prior to game-time was uncertain, and the Thistles' vaunted offensive attack virtually ground to a halt, resulting in a sluggish 4-2 loss. Accusations of foul play came streaming forth in the following morning's newspaper headlines-- "Ottawa Won By Doctoring the Ice!" was the Manitoba Free Press' rather subjective account of the events that transpired the night before. Though the suspect ice certainly did not help the Thistles' chances, in fairness the Silver Seven line-up for game 2 included future hall-of-famers Frank "One Eyed" McGee and Billy Gilmour, who did not play in game 1 due to injury. Game three, played on March 11th, saw the Thistles return to their fast-paced style of play, though the game itself was played by both sides much closer to the vest, and even though the Thistles carried much the play for the first half of the game, by intermission they only had a one goal lead to show for it. Meanwhile, fans back in Rat Portage kept up on the game's events as they transpired by telegraph, installed in the Thistles' own Victoria Rink. Even in Winnipeg regular updates were being wired to selected sites, captivating interested throngs of hockeyists throughout the evening hours. In the second half og the final game, the Thistles, paced by captain Tommy Phillips' two goals, held to a 3-2 lead, though the play soon became quite rough, with penalties being called on both sides, but mostly against Rat Portage by what appeared to be a biased hometown referee. Two rushes by the Silver Seven put Ottawa ahead 4-3 in the game's latter stages. Phillips completed his 3 goal "hat trick" shortly thereafter, evening the score at 4-4, but Silver Seven legend Frank McGee was not to be outdone, and quickly pulled away and scored his own hat trick, catapulting Ottawa back into the lead which the Thistles were unable to overcome in the heart-wrenching final seconds. The loss was a crushing defeat for the club, and for the fans as well, who claimed the final two games of the three game series were grossly unfair. The unsuccessful challenge was a bit different than the one in '03 however. The series had garnered intense interest amongst the hockeyists of the day, and the results of each of the three games found their way into the front page headlines of major newspapers across the country. The Thistles were no longer unknowns, and in the opinion of many unbiased observers, though they fell a goal short, the little team from Rat Portage showcased the best collection of hockey talent in the world. | |
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