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Vancouver is a hockey-mad city. At the start of each season, fans expect that it will be “their time” — when their beloved Canucks will go all the way to become Stanley Cup champions. It happened once before, back in the days of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, when Cyclone Taylor led the Vancouver Millionaires to hockey glory in old Denman Arena.
The 1915 Millionaires, in maroon jerseys with the Vancouver V. Cyclone Taylor is second from the left in the back row.
Denman Arena, on the corner of Denman and Georgia.
The northwest corner of Georgia and Denman, site of the old arena.
In the 1914-15 hockey season, the young Pacific Coast Hockey Association reached an agreement with the National Hockey Association that the winners of the respective leagues would meet for the Stanley Cup.
The Patrick brothers, Lester and Frank, had founded the league in 1911, and Frank played for, coached and managed the Vancouver Millionaires. The brothers knew that a competitive league couldn’t depend on local talent alone, so they recruited from the NHA. Vancouver’s biggest steal was to acquire Cyclone Taylor, who would star for the team for ten years and become a hockey legend.
The Millionaires faced the Ottawa Senators for the Cup. The best-of-five series was played in Vancouver’s Denman Arena, the first artificial ice surface in Canada and the largest indoor rink in the world. Led by Taylor and Patrick, the Millionaires swept the series and humiliated the Easterners with scores of 6-2, 8-3 and 12-3. Cyclone Taylor himself scored 6 goals in the three matches.
The Denman Arena burned down in 1936, and Vancouver has had a long wait for the Stanley Cup to return to the city. But maybe this year...