When people think of an NHL team in Quebec City, they are naturally going to think about the Quebec Nordiques.
But long before the Quebec Nordiques, there were the Quebec Bulldogs.
This was a team that won Stanley Cups, had several Hall of Famers, and existed from the earliest years of organized hockey in Canada.
The story of the Quebec Bulldogs begins in 1878 when the Quebec Skating Rink was constructed and the Quebec Hockey Club was founded.
This team primarily consisted of Anglo-Canadian players.
There wasn’t much in the way of competition in Quebec City at the time, so the club typically played against teams made up of other hockey club members, or any visiting teams from Montreal that wanted to make the journey.
In 1883, the Quebec Hockey Club participated in the Montreal Winter Carnival, which added sports to its events that year. A four team hockey tournament was organized and played on the frozen St. Lawrence River. The tournament was won by McGill University’s team, but it was from this tournament that the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada was organized in 1886.
In 1888, the Quebec Hockey Club joined the association and remained part of it until 1898. The team’s time in the league was nothing stellar, and Quebec never competed for the Stanley Cup. The closest the team came to competing for the Cup was in 1894 when Quebec tied for the league lead with three other clubs. The league drew up plans for a playoff in Montreal, which Quebec refused to take part in without one game in their city. That year, the Montreal Hockey Club won the Stanley Cup.
In 1899, the Quebec Hockey Club joined the Canadian Amateur Hockey League. Remaining in the league until 1905, the Quebec Hockey Club registered the best record in the league in 1904. That year, the Ottawa Hockey Club were the defending champions but they withdrew from the league. With the league championship, the Quebec Hockey Club expected to receive the Stanley Cup but the trustees of the Stanley Cup instead gave it to Ottawa.
The team next spent four seasons in the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association where it never had the best record or competed for the Stanley Cup.
In 1909, Quebec joined the Canadian Hockey Association as a founding member. That league only lasted one month before it was absorbed into the National Hockey Association. Rejected by the league that first season, the team did not play until 1910.
During the first decade of the 20th century, things were not great for the club but there were some bright spots. The brothers Chubby, James and Joe Power joined the team and helped elevate the play somewhat. Chubby Power was a top-notch goal scorer, once registering four goals in a game in 1908 and five in a game in 1909. After his hockey career ended, he served in the First World War and earned a Military Cross and was wounded at the Battle of the Somme.
He later went on to serve as the Minister of National Defence for Air, Minister of National Defence and the Postmaster General in a Parliamentary career that lasted from 1917 to 1955. He was then appointed as a Senator from 1955 to his death in 1968.
Joe Power played for the team from 1902 to 1911, and recorded 21 goals in 10 games in 1905-06 and 12 goals in 10 games in 1907-08. He later went on to serve in the Legislative Assembly of Quebec from 1927 to his death in 1935.
And then there was James Power, who joined the team in 1904 and remained with it to 1913. A gifted player, he helped elevate the play of the entire team on their way to glory in the 1910s.
That first season in the NHA was a tough one. The team only had four wins and suffered 12 losses.
But there were good things on the horizon, including Jack McDonald scoring 14 goals and Tommy Dunderdale scoring 13.
In 1911-12 season, the Quebec Bulldogs went from being the worst team in the league to the best, and a big part of that was the play of Phantom Joe Malone, one of the greatest goal scorers in history. He had actually joined the Bulldogs in 1909 but he was only 19 and still had to grow into the new league.
In 1911-12, Malone exploded with 21 goals in 18 games.
The Bulldogs won the O’Brien Cup as NHA champions and the Stanley Cup. It was the first Stanley Cup for the team. Only six days after winning the Stanley Cup, the Moncton Victorias challenged them for it, and the Bulldogs put the team down in two games winning 9-3 and 8-0.
The Montreal Gazette wrote,
“The Stanley Cup aspirants of the Moncton Hockey Club, the champions of the Maritime Provinces, received a decided setback here tonight when they were walloped by Quebec, the champions of the NHA…Taking the match from start to finish, it was a very poor exhibition of hockey but in flashes it was relieved by some brilliant work on the part of both teams.”
In 1912-13, the Bulldogs again finished in first place, and retained the Stanley Cup and O’Brien Cup. Joe Malone had scored a staggering 43 goals, while teammate Tommy Smith scored 39 in only 20 games.
Three days after the Cup win, the Sydney Millionaires challenged for the Cup. Once again, the Bulldogs easily defeated their opponent in two games, outscoring them 20 to 5.
The Regina Leader Post wrote,
“The style of hockey played on Saturday evening by the Sydney team, champions of the Maritime province league and challengers for the Stanley Cup does not place them by a big margin in the same class with the teams of the National Hockey Association. The score piled up by the Quebec boys, Stanley Cup holders, representing about the difference in play between the two teams.”
In December 1913, the Bulldogs moved to the brand-new Quebec Arena but the glory years were clearly over.
This new arena was a bit step up for the team. It could hold 7,500 fans, with 5,600 being reserved seating. A band was also in attendance every game at the arena. The Victoria Daily Times wrote,
“The stand will be erected near the roof so that the strains will float through the building.”
After winning two Stanley Cups in a row, the team had difficulty in the next three season. In 1913-14, the team finished with 12 wins and eight losses putting them in third place.
In 1914-15, the team won 11 games and had eight losses, good for third again.
But in 1915-16, the Bulldogs won only 10 games and lost 12. It was the first time the team was below .500 since the terrible 1910-11 season when they had only four wins.
They improved to second overall in the last NHA season in 1916-17, finishing with 10 wins and 10 losses to break .500 once again.
When the National Hockey League was formed in 1917, the Bulldogs were planning on joining the new league but there were complications. Long-time manager Mike Quinn had retired due to failing health. He had led the team to its two Stanley Cups but would be dead within six years.
The directors of the Bulldogs hoped to get financing together to move to the NHL but instead chose to suspend operations for the first season in the new league.
In 1918, Percy Quinn bought the franchise. Working with Eddie Livingstone, who had been left out of the NHL with his Toronto team, Quinn planned to use the Bulldogs to resurrect the National Hockey Association. The NHL then demanded a firm commitment from Quinn to have a team ready for the NHL season of 1918-19. Quinn refused to do this and the Bulldogs sat out for another season.
Finally, with the help of new owner Mike Quinn, who was not related to Percy Quinn, the NHL approved the Quebec Bulldogs to join the NHL on Dec. 2, 1919 under the name Quebec Athletics.
Star player Joe Malone, who had been playing for the Montreal Canadiens during the first two seasons of the NHL came back to the Bulldogs and went on to win the scoring championship that year with 39 goals. Malone was not enough to help the franchise though, and they finished in last place with four wins and 20 losses.
That proved to be the only season for the team in the NHL. Prior to the 1920-21 season, the NHL took the franchise back and moved it to Hamilton where it became the Hamilton Tigers.
In November 1920, the owners of the Bulldogs attempted to bring the club back through a new syndicate that was to provide financing. Unfortunately for the team, it went nowhere and the team officially folded.
Thus ended the story of the Quebec Bulldogs.
Superstar Joe Malone did not initially join the Hamilton Tigers as he had to attend to business interests in Quebec City. He finally joined the Tigers in January 1921 and finished fourth in league scoring. He eventually left the Tigers in 1922 and returned to the Canadiens in 1923 where he finished out his Hall of Fame career.
The last Bulldogs player still in professional hockey was Eddie Oatman, who retired from pro hockey in 1939.
Over the course of 311 games for the team in its existence, they won 134 and lost 175 with three ties. The two Stanley Cups they won in 1912 and 1913 remained the only ones the club would ever win.
On the team were eight Hall of Famers in Rusty Crawford, Thomas Dunderdale, Joe Hall, Joe Malone, Paddy Moran, Tommy Smith, Bruce Stuart and Hod Stuart.
