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As I record this, my beloved Edmonton Oilers have just punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup Final.
They will travel on a private jet, in the lap of luxury.
They will enjoy wonderful food, comfortable seats and lavish hotel rooms.
But it wasn’t always like that.
Over 120 years ago one team wanted to play for the Stanley Cup so bad they embarked on an epic journey.
On ships, trains, dogsleds, bicycles, AND on foot, these players journeyed through the dead of winter across 5,000 kilometres for the chance to play for hockey’ most famous trophy.
But after their epic journey, they were sent home empty handed… how did it happen?
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today we are doing an early-20th century version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles and instead of John Candy we have the story of the Dawson City Nuggets!
Lord Stanley of Preston was Canada’s sixth Governor General He served from 1888 to 1893.
During his term, he guided the country through the death of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald in 1891 and cemented the position of the Governor General as non-interfering in political matters while still being a deeply important role.
It is somewhat humorous that one of the last things he ever did, which may have been inconsequential at the time, became his legacy.
Because you see…Lord Stanley loved hockey.
When he saw the game played at the 1889 Winter Carnival in Montreal, he was immediately taken by it.
That passion spread to his entire family.
His sons, Arthur and Algernon, formed the Ottawa Rideau Hall Rebels hockey team which traveled to games in the Governor General’s private rail car.
Arthur also played a key role in the founding of the Ontario Hockey Association and spread hockey to the United Kingdom.
Lord Stanley’s daughter, Isobel, loved the sport.
So much so that she convinced her father to construct a natural ice rink at Rideau Hall.
A picture from around 1890 shows Isobel playing hockey with several other women on that rink.
It is the earliest known photograph of women playing hockey.
There was something else Lord Stanley’s children did.
They asked their father to create a championship trophy to be given to the best amateur hockey team in the Dominion of Canada.
And Lord Stanley was more than happy to oblige. He loved hockey after all.
On March 18, 1892, the Ottawa Hockey Club was celebrating their second straight and third overall Amateur Hockey Association of Canada championship.
As they partied in Russell House that night, a message arrived from the Governor General.
It said,
“I have for some time been thinking that it would be a good thing if there were a challenge cup which would be held by the champion hockey team in the Dominion. There does not appear to be any such outward and visible sign of a championship at present, and considering the general interest which the matches now elicit, and in the importance of having the games played fairly and under rules generally recognized, I am willing to give a cup, which shall be held from year to year by the winning team.”
Meanwhile, after he sent that letter, Lord Stanley purchased a decorated punch bowl, and had the following words engraved:
“Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup” on one side. On the other, “From Stanley of Preston”.
Some say it was a rose bowl, made in Sheffield, England by silversmith G.R. Collis and costing $48.67.
That simple decorative bowl became not only priceless, but arguably one of the greatest trophies in North American sports.
At least I think so, but I may be a bit biased.
In 1893, the Montreal Hockey Club finished first in the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada and became the first winners of what was quickly called the Stanley Cup.
The next year, there was a four-way tie between the Montreal Hockey Club, the Montreal Victorias, the Ottawa Hockey Club and the Quebec Hockey Club for the top spot.
Quebec pulled itself out of contention, and a three-team tournament was organized.
The Montreal Hockey Club won that tournament, becoming the first repeat Stanley Cup champion.
But then…something interesting happened in 1895.
A team from Queen’s University decided to challenge for the Cup.
Thus began the Challenge Cup Era, an amazing time for sport stories, wild games and some truly epic journeys.
When people think of teams competing for the Stanley Cup, they usually think of modern legendary NHL dynasties.
The Montreal Canadiens of the 1950s and 1970s.
The New York Islanders of the early-1980s.
And the Edmonton Oilers of the late-1980s.
But things get very interesting when you go back into the history of the Stanley Cup.
The Challenge Era saw the most unique winners, and competitors, in the trophy’s long history.
The small community of Brandon, Manitoba competed not once, but twice in 1904 and 1907.
Three different teams from Nova Scotia competed for the Cup.
The Halifax Crescents in 1900, New Glasgow Cubs in 1906 and the Sydney Millionaires in 1913.
Even Moncton, New Brunswick competed in 1912.
Long before Edmonton hoisted the Stanley Cup in the 1980s, the Edmonton Hockey Club competed for it in 1908 and 1911.
None of these teams won.
One of the most famous of the unique Stanley Cup challengers were without a doubt the Kenora Thistles.
The Thistles had long tried to win the Stanley Cup with a stacked team of players who were given sweet jobs in Kenor.
It was a bit shady, because they barely got around the amateur rules, but Kenora was far from the only place to do that.
Kenora, was previously called Rat Portage, and in 1903 and 1905 it competed twice for the Stanley Cup.
Realizing that encouraging tourists to visit a place called Rat Portage was an uphill battle, they changed the name to Kenora in 1905, from the first letters of Keewatin, Norman and Rat Portage.
Maybe that name change helped bring the small community in Ontario some luck because the Thistles won the Stanley Cup in 1907 and to this day, Kenora is the smallest city to ever win the Stanley Cup.
As unique as the Thistles win was, Kenora is in Ontario and an easy train ride to Toronto, Winnipeg or Montreal to compete.
There was another team that wanted to lift Lord Stanley’s Mug, but they were so far away that it would be an epic journey to do it.
Enter into the chat…. The Dawson City Nuggets.
When the Stanley Cup was created in 1893, Dawson City didn’t even exist.
There were Indigenous camps, a few hardy prospectors, and a lot of pristine wilderness.
All that changed on Aug. 16, 1896 when George Carmack, his wife Kate, her brother Keish and their nephew Kaa Goox, discovered gold in the Klondike River.
By the time word reached the outside world in the summer of 1897, the quiet and pristine wilderness was gone forever.
Before long, 100,000 people from across North America set out to find their fortune in the Klondike.
Only 30,000 made it into the Yukon, but that was enough to create the bustling and thriving community of Dawson City.
Joseph Ladue was a smart man who arrived in 1882 via the Chilkoot Pass to prospect for gold.
For the next 15 years, he found little in the way of gold, but he persevered hoping for a big strike.
When news of the Klondike River strike reached him in the summer of 1896, he had a choice to make.
He could move his camp closer to where that strike happened.
Or he could build a community and benefit from other’s fortunes.
He chose the second, and in August 1896, only days after the gold strike, he staked a claim for 160 to 178 acres of boggy flats at the mouth of the Klondike River.
A few months later in January 1897, he named it Dawson City in honour of Canadian geologist George Mercer Dawson.
It was a stroke of genius.
By July 1897, 5,000 people lived in Dawson City and Ladue was selling lots for as low as $5,000 and as high as $10,000 each.
Ladue also set up the first saw mill, store and saloon so by the time he left in December 1897 he was a very rich man.
After Ladue left Dawson City carried on…
Reaching its peak in 1898 with a population of20,000 making it the largest city west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle.
But…the gold rush eventually died down causing people to leave in droves.
When the Earth’s odometer turned from 1899 to 1900, 8,000 people were left in Dawson City.
The population would fall to 5,000 within three years.
Though many were leaving, some were making their way to Dawson City in the hopes of finding a new life.
One was Frank Berton, the father to my idol Pierre Berton. I covered his story in late-2023, so go check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast app.
Weldy Young decided in 1901 it was right for a change and packed up his bags, left Ottawa and moved as far away as he could.
He moved to Dawson City.
Born in 1871, Weldy played for the Ottawa Hockey Club from 1890 to 1899.
He had been present when Lord Stanley’s letter was read out to the hockey team, beginning the history of the Stanley Cup.
In 1894, he played for the Stanley Cup with Ottawa against Montreal but lost.
The defenseman had been recruited by the Dawson City Nuggets which was sponsored and managed by the Klondike entrepreneur Joseph W. Boyle, better known as Klondike Joe Boyle.
Playing alongside him would be a motley crew of men from the nearby mining camps.
In the long cold winter, Dawson City was practically cut off from the outside world and residents needed something to do.
They could dance, drink, sit in their homes next to the fire, or get together and enjoy a good old-fashioned hockey game.
And Weldy Young had one thing in mind… win the Stanley Cup.
(PAUSE)
The Dawson City Nuggets were good, and they had some great players. There was Young of course, but there was also team captain Lionel Bennett, who was the second-best player on the team. Randy McLennan was hard-hitting and had played for Queen’s College against Montreal in the 1895 Stanley Cup challenge, which they lost.
The Dawson City Nuggets won a lot.
Nearly every game they played.
But there weren’t many teams in the area and players became bored with constantly winning.
They needed a challenge.
A Stanley Cup Challenge
Because I can only imagine Young giving an inspirational speech to his fellow players in the locker room, convincing them that they could not only compete, but also win The Stanley Cup.
To get things rolling, Young sent a letter to the Stanley Cup trustees indicating that Dawson City wanted to challenge the current cup-holders, Winnipeg Victorias.
He wrote,
“On behalf of the civil service hockey club of Dawson, hockey champions of the Yukon Territory, we hereby challenge the Victoria Hockey club of Winnipeg, the present holders of the Stanley Cup to a series of matches for the championship of Canada. Owing to our isolated position we would deem it a favor if you would act for us in the matter and let us know as soon as possible the dates for games, we would suggest the latter part of January 1902 as a suitable season as the winter trails in this country would, by that time, be in good condition to travel.”
The Winnipeg Victorias were a good team.
In 1896, they became the first non-Montreal team to win.
They captured the Stanley Cup again in January 1901 and fended off various challenges over the course of the winter.
During the Challenge Cup Era, any team challenging for the Stanley Cup had to travel to the current Cup-holder’s city.
That wasn’t a big deal when Ottawa, Winnipeg, or Montreal held the Cup since they were located along the railroad.
But if Dawson City challenged for the cup and WON, future challengers would have to make that long journey to the Yukon just to compete.
The Nuggets could hold onto the trophy for years in that case, without ever being challenged and that didn’t sit well with the trustees.
The Ottawa Journal wrote,
“Hockey men say that if the Dawsonites should happen to win the cup it might likely remain a long time in Dawson, for the possibility of a team from the east going out there to play for it would be a matter of considerable difficulty.”
The captain of the Winnipeg Victorias, Dan Bain, stated that he hoped Dawson City would be allowed to compete for the Cup, but that he didn’t expect the small-town team to stand much of a chance.
In the end, it did not matter. The trustees did not allow the request to go forward, and everyone moved on with their lives.
But not the Dawson City Nuggets.
They were not about to let this go.
The Nuggets believed they had one of the best teams in Canada, and they were going to prove it.
The team easily defeated local opponents in lopsided games, all while dreaming of the Stanley Cup.
It took them three years, but in September 1904, the Nuggets decided they had enough and challenged once more.
If they were granted the chance to play for the Cup, they would do so not against the Winnipeg Victorias but against one of the greatest hockey teams ever assembled.
A team so powerful that they seemed unbeatable.
They would have to beat… The Ottawa Silver Seven.
Ottawa has a long history with hockey.
After attending the Montreal Winter Carnival in 1883, Halder Kirby, Jack Kerr and Frank Jenkins founded the Ottawa Hockey Club.
Not only was this the first hockey club in Ottawa, but it was the first in Ontario.
Their first season they had no opponents, so they just practiced.
A year later they had their first game at the 1884 Montreal Winter Carnival, in which the future mayor of Ottawa, Nelson Porter, scored the club’s first goal in competition.
For the next twenty years, the team continued to compete and piled up championships.
They won the first three Ontario Hockey Association championships from 1891 to 1894 with a team that included defenseman Weldy Young.
Then they won the Canadian Amateur Hockey League’s championship in 1901.
But these championships were small potatoes for the team.
They wanted the Stanley Cup.
The Ottawa Silver Seven won their first Stanley Cup in early March 1903 by defeating the Montreal Victorias.
Only two days later, they had their first challenger, the Rat Portage Thistles.
The Silver Seven won that game and faced their next challenger in December 1903 the Winnipeg Rowing Club, which they defeated only to be challenged again by the Toronto Marlboros which they also defeated.
The team won twice in March 1904 against Montreal and Brandon.
It seemed they were impossible to beat.
Even the name caused pause.
The name, Silver Seven, came from the fact that the players were the best of the best in Canada.
Every single member of that team was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Of those seven, one player stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Frank “One-Eyed” McGee.
Frank McGee was born into privilege 1882 in Ottawa, one of nine children born to Joseph McGee and his wife Elizabeth.
His father was a clerk with the Privy Council and the most senior civil servant in Canada, while his uncle was Father of Confederation Thomas D’Arcy McGee.
As a young man, Frank excelled at hockey, but his career nearly ended before it began.
On March 21, 1900, while playing for the Ottawa Canadian Pacific Railway team, a lifted puck hit him in the left eye.
The incident cost him his sight and McGee walked away from hockey.
Or so he thought.
By 1903, McGee was back on the ice, even if it meant injuring his one good remaining eye.
The Ottawa Hockey Club immediately offered him a spot, and he became the youngest player on the team, and the shortest at five-foot six inches.
He may have been smaller than other players on the team, but what he lost in stature he made up in skills by being the best player anyone had ever seen and helping the Senators win their first Stanley Cup.
McGee couldn’t be stopped by goalies, he just kept scoring on them.
In his first year with the team, he had 21 goals in eight games.
His second year was even better, he had an astounding 33 goals in 12 games.
There were some games when McGee scored every goal for the Silver Seven.
None of this mattered to the Nuggets.
They truly believed they could defeat McGee and the Silver Seven.
In Dawson City, Welby Young was confident in his team and believed they could go toe-to-toe against the very best.
In his letter to the Stanley Cup trustees in September 1904, he requested to play the Silver Seven in January 1905, which would give the Nuggets enough time to make the long journey to the nation’s capital.
He said,
“This would leave us a month in which to play the balance of our games and still enable us to return to Dawson over the ice in March. The distance from Dawson to Whitehorse, where we will make our first railroad connection going, is about 350 miles and it is the intention of the team to make this part of the journey on foot. The road is good, and we can cover this distance in about nine days and by travelling this way we would keep the boys pretty fit.”[6]
Realizing that the Nuggets were not going to give up, the trustees agreed in December 1904 to allow them to take on the Silver Seven.
Now that they had approval, they needed money.
Thankfully, the team’s owner, Colonel Joe Boyle, had deep pockets.
The self-proclaimed King of the Klondike owned several massive dredges that dug for gold in the Yukon.
He took out millions of ounces of gold and became one of the richest men in Canada. $3,000 for the Dawson City Nuggets’ journey to Ottawa was mere pocket change for him, and Boyle wanted the pride of owning a Stanley Cup winning team.
The Ottawa Citizen wrote,
“Mr. Boyle will not bring the Arctic heroes down from the frozen north without good strong hopes of success. If they are in anything like the same class as eastern hockeyists, and Joe is of the opinion they are, they should be thoroughly seasoned by the time they reach the capital.”
On Dec. 19, 1904, the Dawson City Nuggets began their long journey to Ottawa.
Albert Forrest was the goalie for The Nuggets, he had arrived in the Klondike with his parents who hoped to find their fortune.
A trained speed-skater, he had never played goalie before but agreed to take the position. At 17-years-old, he was the youngest player on the team.
Then there were Jim Johnstone, a former police officer from Ottawa, George Kennedy and Hector Smiths, two civil servants employed by the federal government.
Dawson City postal employees Norm Watt and J.K. Johnstone were on the journey as well.
Lorne Hannay was one of the players with the most experience and had faced the Silver Sevens before.
He took to the ice with the Brandon team name the previous year in their unsuccessful challenge for the Cup.
Then there was Randy McLennan, who was a doctor and graduate of Queen’s University.
Lastly, there was Archie Martin, a star lacrosse player from Ottawa who was friends with Col. Joe Boyle.
Ironically, the man who campaigned the hardest to get Dawson City the Stanley Cup challenge, Weldy Young, was not on the journey.
He worked as a civil servant and couldn’t’ leave his post to make the trip to Ottawa so he watched his team leave from behind his desk.
Also absent was their captain, Lionel Bennett. His wife was injured when she was dragged by a runaway sleigh, and he wanted to stay with her.
Much like the Mighty Ducks, this motley crew of players assembled to battle on the ice for hockey’s greatest trophy.
But first they had to make it to Ottawa.
[PAUSE]
News spread of the challenge and Canadians became transfixed by this plucky young team’s desire to win the Stanley Cup.
The Montreal Wanderers, Winnipeg Victorias and Toronto Marlboros all invited the Nuggets to play exhibition games against them following the Stanley Cup challenge.
As interested as Canadians were in the team, no one thought they could possibly win but they were along for the ride.
As soon as the Nuggets left Dawson City, newspapers followed their progress.
The first part of the journey took the team to Whitehorse, and they had to cover a distance of 500 kilometres, with no train service.
So, the players travelled by dog sled first, with some on bicycles.
And at first, they made good progress but then the weather turned warm, and their route became slushy and muddy.
The bicycles and dog sleds became useless, and players were forced to walk the last stretch into Whitehorse.
Along the way, they slept in North West Mounted Police sheds.
Upon reaching Whitehorse, the weather turned bad, and the trains could not run for three days so the team had to wait as their steamer in Skagway, on the coast of Alaska, left without them.
When the weather cleared, the players boarded the train to Skagway, but their bad luck followed them because as soon as they stepped off the train in Skagway, they were met with a buildup of ice on the harbour which prevented the steamer coming to pick them up to take them to Vancouver from approaching.
The Nuggets would have to wait another three days.
(PAUSE)
By now they were a week behind schedule, but the team was finally able to leave Skagway on a steamer, but it wasn’t smooth sailing.
On the journey south along the British Columbia coast, the players became seasick which made an arduous journey even worse.
Once they reached Vancouver, the steamer was unable to dock because of fog, so it headed to Seattle instead.
By Jan. 4, the Ottawa Journal reported,
“As of yet, nothing has been heard from the challengers since they left Dawson.”
Meanwhile, the team was traveling on a train from Seattle, when they arrived in Vancouver on Jan. 6, 1905 news outlets were happy to report the Nuggets were alive and well, if a bit rundown.
The Winnipeg Tribune wrote,
“After their record-breaking trip from Dawson to Whitehorse, the Dawson City hockey team arrived in Vancouver via Seattle and left on the afternoon train for Ottawa. The boys look husky and weather-beaten and say they are as hard as nails.”
The Ottawa Citizen reported,
“The Dawson City Hockey team challengers for the Stanley Cup arrived. The men are in fine condition.”
But there was no time to rest.
To paraphrase the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland,
They were late! For a very important date! No time to say “Hello”, goodbye! They were late, they were late!
Almost as soon as the team arrived in Vancouver, they boarded a train for their long journey across Canada to Ottawa.
They were traveling at a breakneck speed Seattle to Vancouver to Winnipeg all on Jan. 6
Nuggets player Norman Watt said,
“The boys are in poor shape, and it is our intention to ask for another postponement of the matches. We have practically no chance to keep in condition and when we get to Ottawa, we will be in no shape at all to play.”
They had traveled 4,200 kilometres by train and arrived in Ottawa on Jan. 11.
They only had two days before they had to hit the ice against their formidable opponents.
The unbeatable Ottawa Silver Seven.
[PAUSE]
As soon as they stepped off the train, they were greeted by a huge crowd cheering on the Nuggets.
Even members of the Ottawa Silver Seven executive were there to welcome them to the city.
That night, a welcome dinner was held, and the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club provided the Nuggets with rooms free of charge.
The Ottawa Journal wrote,
“They have endured great hardships and born a tedious railway journey without showing any ill effects, which speaks well for their sound physical health. That along, however, will not win them the cup.”
With only two days before the team was supposed to take to the ice, the Nuggets requested to delay the games a few days to give their players some time to rest.
The Silver Seven didn’t have any games scheduled for weeks and could easily accommodate.
Instead, they said no.
The Nuggets may have been rebuffed by the Silver Seven, but Ottawa itself welcomed the men with open arms.
With no choice, the Nuggets got ready for their first game while constantly being distracted by a stream of people wanting to meet them.
This meant they were often on the go with little time to rest.
As the first game approached on Jan. 13, the Nuggets were dead tired.
In front of a crowd of 3,000 people, including Governor General Lord Grey, the players likely wondered what they were thinking by traveling across the country to play a hockey game.
The Stanley Cup was on the line, and it was their turn to play.
[BEAT]
At first things were going well for the Nuggets.
By the halfway point, they were only down 3-1 against the Silver Seven. Considering their star power, that was surprisingly good.
But that would be the high point for the Nuggets.
During the second half of the game, Norman Watt from the Nuggets tripped Ottawa’s Art Moore.
Ottawa was known as a highly skilled team that could score at will, AND they were also vicious on the ice.
Opponents were often injured and carried off the ice.
As soon as Art Moore got back up, took his stick and swung it across Norman Watt’s face and teeth went flying.
In retaliation Watt hit Moore over the head with his stick, knocking him out.
Both men received 15-minute penalties, and Moore got four stitches to close up the wound on his head.
This was the tipping point in the series.
Ottawa exploded with six goals in the second part of the game and defeated the Dawson City Nuggets 9-2 to take the first game of the Challenge series.
Ottawa’s Alf Smith scored four goals, while Harry Westwick and Frank White scored two goals each.
The one-eyed superstar of the team, Frank McGee, scored only one goal.
(BEAT)
For their part, The Nuggets protested that several goals were offside, meaning that the Ottawa player was in the offensive zone before the puck.
Whether that was the case or not, everyone watching the game felt that Dawson City was horribly outmatched by Ottawa.
The Winnipeg Tribune wrote,
“It is true that the Dawson City men had only just arrived and that they had hardly had time to get into proper shape but the form they did show was the most mediocre kind and while several were individually good, they had absolutely no system whatever and the local team practically scored when they wanted to.”
Norman Watt was unhappy with the end result, naturally, and in retaliation he mocked the best player on Ottawa’s team, Frank McGee.
He said to the media that quote:
“McGee didn’t look like much.”
And McGee…well…he took that personally.
[BEAT]
The second game of the challenge was scheduled for Jan 16 and by now The Nuggets were more relaxed and ready to go up against The Silver Sevens.
They skated out onto the ice with the crowd behind them, and likely felt confident.
But someone else was determined to win.
Frank McGee.
As soon as the puck dropped, Frank McGee began his relentless attack on goal.
Within the first half of the game, he had scored four times.
Most players, except for the best of the best, never score four goals in a game.
McGee did so in only half, and he wasn’t done yet.
McGee would go on to score again…and again…and again.
By the end of the game, he had 14 goals under his belt.
No one had ever seen a performance like that before or since.
Joe Malone holds the NHL record with eight goals in a game from 1920.
The modern record is six goals, most recently by Darryl Sittler of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1976.
Even The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, only scored five goals in a game.
With the powerhouse performance of McGee, the Ottawa Silver Seven blew out the Nuggets 23 to 2.
The Manitoba Free Press wrote,
“There was some doubt as to whether Dawson would allow the series to go in two straight games, many believing that their first defeat was due to the fact that the team was suffering from the effects of its long journey to the capital, but tonight, even after a prolonged rest, the team was never in the running for a moment.”
Ottawa had outscored Dawson City 32 to four in the two-game series.
It was an absolute blowout.
But everyone loves the plucky underdog, and such was the case for the Nuggets.
A celebration banquet was held in Ottawa where Albert Forrest, the Dawson City goalie, was commended for keeping the score from being double what it ended up being.
He was named the most valuable player of the team.
The Ottawa Silver Seven also celebrated that night.
They went out drinking and took the Stanley Cup with them.
As they walked home along Rideau Canal, one of the players bet that he could kick the Stanley Cup over the canal.
He lined himself up and gave it his hardest kick.
The trophy flew and barely landed halfway across the frozen canal.
Then they just left it there.
Through the entire night.
The Stanley Cup!
The next day, now sober, one of the Ottawa players returned to the spot where the Cup sat on the ice and retrieved it.
[BEAT]
So how did Dawson City get to compete for the Stanley Cup?
Unlike every other team in the Challenge Era, they were not part of any senior league, had not won a championship, and were about as amateur as a team could be.
While the Stanley Cup was to be given to the best amateur team in Canada, the Nuggets pushed the limits of what that meant.
The best comparison I can make is that it was like a beer league team competing against an NHL team.
The Ref Riders vs The Maple Leafs.
Which begs the question of how did this happen in the first place?
The answer lies with Joe Boyle, who had some significant political connections including with then Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton.
Political pressure on the Stanley Cup trustees may have tipped the scales for the Nuggets to be able to compete at such a high level.
[PAUSE]
And the Nuggets weren’t done yet.
A few days after the games in Ottawa, the Dawson City Nuggets were invited to compete against Kingston and although they originally accepted, they didn’t show up as they chose to go east instead.
The team sent no message that they weren’t coming, and Kingston lost $100 in revenue because of the cancelled game.
The Nuggets played several games in the Maritimes and in the Eastern United States.
With each game, they improved.
By March 1905, they were starting to win games.
In three games against Pittsburgh, they won two and outscored the American team 17 to 10.
As fun as it was to play against these other teams, the team eventually had to return to their lives in Dawson City.
And they weren’t met with a hero’s welcome.
[BEAT]
Postal workers Norman Watt and Randy McLennan returned home to discover they had been laid off from their job, effective June 30, 1905.
Weldy Young, who had stayed behind, returned to Ontario in 1911 where he became an investor in several silver mines.
He eventually became the president of Young-Davidson Mines and died in his home in Collingwood, Ontario on Oct. 27, 1944.
Col. Joe Boyle organized a machine gun company from volunteers in Dawson City during the First World War. Each man wore an insignia made of gold and the unit was eventually incorporated into the Canadian Army.
Boyle left Dawson City in 1916 for England. A year later, without being able to speak Russian and without any railway experience, he coordinated the transport of food and supplies to Russia.
By the end of the year, with the Bolsheviks in power, Boyle transported Romanian currency and documents out of Russia, along with food and aid.
Boyle then negotiated a peace treaty between Romania and Russia, including the release of Romanian prisoners of war and a $25 million loan from Canada to help Romania rebuild.
He met Queen Marie of Romania in March 1918, and they developed an extremely close friendship.
When Boyle suffered a stroke that nearly killed him in June 1918, Marie took him to her country retreat.
They were so close that her children called him Uncle Joe.
Marie also made him the Duke of Jassy.
Unfortunately, Boyle never recovered, and he died of heart failure in London in 1923.
Legend says that from 1923 to 1938, a woman in black placed flowers at his grave every year.
It is speculated the woman was Queen Marie, who died in 1938.
In 1983, his remains were exhumed from London and returned to Canada where they were buried in Woodstock, Ontario.
I have an episode about Joy Boyle, the King of the Klondike, coming later this year. Please search for and follow Canadian History Ehx on all podcast platforms so you don’t miss it.
As for the Ottawa Silver Seven, they held onto the Stanley Cup until 1906 when they lost it to the Montreal Wanderers.
But that was not the end of their story.
In 1910 the team joined the National Hockey Association, and then the National Hockey League in 1917.
Now the team is known as the Ottawa Senators, and from 1903 to 1927, they won 11 Stanley Cups until they folded in 1934.
In 1950 they were chosen as the Greatest Hockey Team of the First Half of the Century.
The team returned to the NHL in 1992 but, as of yet, has not won the Stanley Cup.
But you might be wondering what happened to the legendary one-eyed hockey player, Frank McGee?
[TRANSITION]
A year after his record setting performance against The Nuggets McGee retired from the game in 1906.
For as long as he played for the Silver Seven, they never lost a single Stanley Cup challenge.
By the end of his hockey career, he had 134 goals in 55 games.
McGee spent the next decade working as a civil servant in Ottawa, but his life changed when the First World War began.
Soon after Canada entered the war in August 1914, McGee enlisted.
How did he pass the physical with one eye?
McGee tricked the doctor examining him.
His nephew, Houston McGee, said,
“When he was asked to cover one eye and read the chart, he covered his blind eye, and when required to cover the other eye, he switched hands instead of eyes.”
On Sept. 14, 1915, McGee arrived on the front lines of France.
A few months later on Dec. 17, his armored car was hit by a shell, and he suffered a knee injury. McGee recovered in England and was cleared for service on July 7, 1916.
He was given the option of taking a clerical post far from the front lines or returning to his battalion.
He chose the second option and entered the Battle of the Somme with his fellow troops.
On Sept. 16, 1916, an artillery shell landed next to him and exploded, killing him instantly.
His body was never recovered.
When the Hockey Hall of Fame inducted its first inductees in 1945, McGee was one of first nine players to enter the Hall.
