The Montreal Wanderers were an amateur, and later professional,

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

team based in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

. The team played in the

Federal Amateur Hockey League The Federal Amateur Hockey League (FAHL) was a Canadians, Canadian men's Senior ice hockey, senior-level ice hockey league that played six seasons, from 1904 to 1909. The league was formed initially to provide a league for teams not accepted by th ...

(FAHL), the

Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association The Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA) was a men's amateur – later professional – ice hockey league in Canada that played four seasons. It was founded on December 11, 1905 with the top clubs from two other leagues: four ...

(ECAHA), the

National Hockey Association The National Hockey Association (NHA), initially the National Hockey Association of Canada Limited, was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor of today's National Hockey Leagu ...

(NHA) and briefly the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...

(NHL). The Wanderers were four-time

Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup () is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, and the International Ic ...

winners. Prior to the formation of the NHL, the "Redbands" were one of the most successful teams in ice hockey.

History

James Strachan announced the formation of the new club on December 1, 1903. The team was founded on December 3, when club members met and selected their colours as red and white and named their officers – George Hodge as honorary president, Clarence D. McKerrow as honorary vice president, James Strachan as president, George Guile as vice president, and Tom J. Hodge as secretary. The club had formed over a dispute over the control of the

Montreal Hockey Club The Montreal Hockey Club of Montreal, Quebec, Canada was a senior-level men's amateur ice hockey club, organized in 1884. They were affiliated with the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association (MAAA) and used the MAAA 'winged wheel' logo. The team ...

. Along with teams rejected for membership in the

Canadian Amateur Hockey League The Canadian Amateur Hockey League (CAHL) was an early men's amateur hockey league founded in 1898, replacing the organization that was formerly the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada (AHAC) before the 1898–99 season. The league existed for ...

(CAHL), the team helped found the

(FAHL) on December 5. Many of the early Wanderers had been members of the 1902–03 Montreal Hockey Club team, which won the

. That team had been known as the "Little Men of Iron", because of the players' tenacity and small stature, and the nickname carried over to the new club. Nlc006599-v5

The Wanderers' first Stanley Cup challenge was played against the

Ottawa Hockey Club Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatinea ...

on March 2, 1904, resulting in a 5–5 tie game. The Wanderers refused to continue the series unless the tie was replayed in Montreal, and forfeited the series. This was the start of a terrific rivalry as Ottawa and the Wanderers would split the championship between them from 1903 until 1911. Ottawa and the Wanderers would meet again in 1906, after a regular season tie for first place in the

(ECAHA), and played a two-game, total-goals series for the league championship and the Stanley Cup. The Wanderers won the first game in Montreal 9–1. The "Silver Seven" would storm back in the return match in Ottawa, with a 9–1 lead at one point in the game evening the total goals, but only won 9–3 as the Wanderers scored the last two goals, to win the series, and their first Stanley Cup. MontrealWanderers1907

Montreal defended the Stanley Cup in its first challenge as champions in December 1906. The Wanderers defeated the

New Glasgow Cubs The New Glasgow Cubs, later the New Glasgow Black Foxes, were a professional ice hockey team from New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in Canada. The team played for three seasons in the Maritime Professional Hockey League (MaPHL), between 1911 and 1914. In ...

17–5 in a two-game, total-goals series. They repeated as league champions in 1907, then faced the

Kenora Thistles The Kenora Thistles, officially the Thistles Hockey Club, were a Canadian ice hockey team based in Kenora, Ontario. Founded in 1894, they were originally known as the Rat Portage Thistles. The team competed for the Stanley Cup, the ice hockey ...

in a Stanley Cup challenge in January 1907. Kenora defeated Montreal 4–2 and 8–6, taking the trophy back to

Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on p ...

. The Wanderers would regain the Stanley Cup from Kenora two months later in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

, defeating the Thistles 7–2 and 5–6. The Wanderers won their third consecutive league title in 1907–08, while defending the Stanley Cup in a mid-season challenge by the

Ottawa Victorias The Ottawa Victorias were an early Canadian ice hockey team. The club challenged for the Stanley Cup in 1908, losing to the Montreal Wanderers. History The club was founded in 1901 by Jimmie Enright, owner and manager of the Victoria ice rink in ...

in January. After their third consecutive ECAHA title, the Wanderers were given its trophy, the Arena Cup permanently. The Arena Cup is on display in the

Hockey Hall of Fame The Hockey Hall of Fame () is a museum and hall of fame located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it holds exhibits about players, teams, National Hockey League (NHL) records, memorabilia and National Hockey Le ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. After the 1907–08 regular season, Montreal defended the Stanley Cup twice in March 1908, in challenges by the

Winnipeg Maple Leafs The Winnipeg Maple Leafs, or Maple Leaf Hockey Club, were a professional men's ice hockey team in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg Maple Leafs played in the Manitoba Professional Hockey League from 1907–1909. In March 1908, as 1907–08 MPHL cha ...

, and the

Toronto Professional Hockey Club The Toronto Professional Hockey Club was a professional ice hockey team in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was Toronto's first professional ice hockey team, founded in 1906. The team played the 1906–07 season in exhibition games against other profe ...

. The 1907–08 Wanderers team scratched their names inside the bowl, which was just prior to the second band being added to the Cup. The team included five future honoured members of the Hockey Hall of Fame –

Moose Johnson Thomas Ernest "Moose" Johnson (February 26, 1886 – March 25, 1963), also known as Ernie Johnson, was a Canadian ice hockey player whose professional career spanned from 1905 to 1931. He was a member of four Stanley Cup winning teams betwe ...

Hod Stuart William Hodgson "Hod" Stuart (February 20, 1879 – June 23, 1907) was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman (ice hockey), cover-point (now known as a defenceman) who played nine seasons for several teams in different leagues from 1899 ...

Riley Hern William Milton "Riley" Hern (December 5, 1878 – June 24, 1929) was a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender. He was the first professional goaltender to play on a Stanley Cup-winning team. Biography Hern began playing ice hockey at an earl ...

Lester Patrick Curtis Lester Patrick (December 31, 1883 – June 1, 1960) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and coach associated with the Victoria Aristocrats/Cougars of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA; Western Hockey League (WHL) after ...

, and

Ernie Russell Ernest Russell (October 21, 1883 – February 23, 1963) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He was born in Montreal, Quebec, and played for the Montreal HC and Montreal Wanderers in the early 1900s. Russell was the offensive star of ...

. Before the 1909 season started, Montreal defended the Stanley Cup in a challenge by the

Edmonton Hockey Club The Edmonton Hockey Club was a Canadian amateur men's ice hockey club first organized in 1894 and formally established in 1896. The club consisted of two teams, the Thistles who were the elite players, and the Stars who were young prospects. The ...

, winning 13–10 in two games. The Wanderers lost the Cup they had held for two years, finishing second place in the ECAHA to Ottawa.

National Hockey Association

The Wanderers were involved in the formation of the

(NHA). After the 1908 season, the Wanderers had been sold to P. J. Doran, owner of the

Jubilee Rink The Jubilee Arena also known as Jubilee Rink and l'Aréna Jubilee was an indoor arena located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was located at the area bounded by rue Alphonse-D. Roy Street (then known as rue Malborough) and rue Ste. Catherine Est ...

, who now made plans to move the club from the

Montreal Arena The Montreal Arena, also known as Westmount Arena, was an indoor arena located in Westmount, Quebec, Canada on the corner of St. Catherine Street and Wood Avenue. It is considered the first arena designed expressly for ice hockey. Opened in 1898, ...

to the smaller Jubilee Rink for the 1910 season. This upset the other members of the

Eastern Canada Hockey Association The Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA) was a men's amateur – later professional – ice hockey league in Canada that played four seasons. It was founded on December 11, 1905 with the top clubs from two other leagues: four ...

(ECHA), who would receive a smaller share of the proceeds from games played in the Wanderers rink. The other ECHA members suspended the ECHA and set up the Canadian Hockey Association (CHA) league and rejected the application of the Wanderers to join. The Wanderers' representative at the meeting Jimmy Gardner met

Ambrose O'Brien John Ambrose O'Brien (May 27, 1885 – April 24, 1968) was a Canadian industrialist and sports team owner. He was a founder of the National Hockey Association (NHA), owner of the Renfrew Millionaires and the founding owner of the Montreal Canad ...

in the ground floor of the hotel where the league was meeting. Gardner suggested to O'Brien, who had been rejected in his application for the

Renfrew Creamery Kings The Renfrew Hockey Club, also known as the Creamery Kings and the Millionaires, was a founding franchise in 1909 of the National Hockey Association, the precursor to the National Hockey League. The team was based in the founder Ambrose O'Brien's h ...

to join the ECHA, that they form a new league, including the Wanderers, Renfrew, the

Cobalt Silver Kings The Cobalt Silver Kings of Cobalt, Ontario, were a professional ice hockey club established in 1906. The team is notable for being a founding member of the National Hockey Association, the predecessor to the National Hockey League. Established t ...

and the Haileybury Hockey Club teams that O'Brien owned. O'Brien agreed and on December 4, 1909, the NHA was founded. Later in January 1910, the CHA folded and Ottawa and

Montreal Shamrocks The Montreal Shamrocks were an amateur, later professional, and then amateur again men's ice hockey club in existence from 1886 to 1924, based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They were spun off from the Montreal Shamrocks lacrosse club. Starting off ...

joined the NHA. Doran sold the club to Eddie McCafferty, the secretary of the

Montreal Royals The Montreal Royals were a minor league professional baseball team in Montreal, Quebec, during 1897–1917 and 1928–1960. A member of the International League, the Royals were the top farm club ( Class AAA) of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1939; pi ...

minor league baseball team, owned by

Sam Lichtenhein Samuel Edward Lichtenhein (October 24, 1870 – June 21, 1936) was an American-Canadian businessman and sports executive. He was the owner and president of the Montreal Wanderers ice hockey team of the National Hockey Association (NHA), later Na ...

. McCafferty incorporated the Wanderers and sold shares of the club to the public. The majority of shares were bought by Lichtenhein, and he became president of the club's corporation. The club moved back to the Montreal Arena. The Wanderers regained the Stanley Cup in 1910, winning the 1910 championship of the new NHA and the new

O'Brien Cup The O'Brien Trophy, or O'Brien Cup, as labelled on the trophy itself, is a retired trophy that was awarded in the National Hockey Association (NHA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) ice hockey leagues of North America from 1910 to 1950. It was ...

. The Wanderers successfully defended the Stanley Cup for the final time versus the Berlin Dutchmen in March 1910. Montreal fell to fourth place the following season, and lost the privilege to defend the Stanley Cup. The Wanderers would then miss the playoffs for four consecutive seasons. Montreal's last winning season came in 1914–15, when they tied for first place and lost in a playoff series for the league championship. The Wanderers would win only 15 of their next 44 games in two seasons, before the NHA was reorganized as the

(NHL).

The NHL and the team's demise

The Wanderers played only four games in the NHL's inaugural season and lost all but one game before their home rink, the Montreal Arena, burned down on January 2, 1918. At the time, they had lost star players

Sprague Cleghorn Henry William Sprague "Peg" Cleghorn (March 11, 1890 – July 12, 1956), also known as "The Big Train", was a Canadian professional ice hockey player from Westmount, Quebec who played 17 professional seasons between 1911 and 1929 for the Renfrew ...

and

Odie Cleghorn James Albert Ogilvie "Odie" Cleghorn (September 19, 1891 – July 13, 1956) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player, coach, linesman and referee. His brother Sprague Cleghorn also played professional ice hockey and the two played several sea ...

and had appealed to the other teams for player help. Before the fire, they had successfully obtained goaltender

Hap Holmes Harry George "Hap" Holmes (February 21, 1888 – June 27, 1941) was a Canadians, Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender. As a professional, Holmes won the Stanley Cup four times, with four teams. He tied the record of his 1914 Stanley Cu ...

from the

Seattle Metropolitans The Seattle Metropolitans were a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle, playing in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) from 1915 to 1924. During their nine seasons, the Metropolitans were the PCHA's most successful franchise, a ...

of the

Pacific Coast Hockey Association The Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) was a professional ice hockey league in Western Canada and the Western United States, which operated from 1911 to 1924 when it then merged with the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL). The PCHA was cons ...

(PCHA) and it seemed that they might turn around their misfortunes. After the fire, the Wanderers again appealed for reinforcements, but none were forthcoming. The team defaulted its next two games, against the

Montreal Canadiens The Montreal Canadiens (), officially ' ( Canadian Hockey Club) and colloquially known as the Habs, are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal. The Canadiens compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic D ...

and

, and then disbanded. The last active Wanderers player was George Geran, who played his last NHL game in 1926. Dave Ritchie and Phil Stevens also played that season, but not the full year. After the founding of the Montreal Canadiens, a team that specifically appealed to Montreal's

French-speaking French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in ...

community, the Wanderers drew their support from Montreal's English-speaking community. A new team, the

Montreal Maroons The Montreal Maroons (officially the Montreal Professional Hockey Club) were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL). They played in the NHL from 1924–25 NHL season, 1924 to 1937–38 NHL season, 1938, winning the Sta ...

, was later established to take the Wanderers' place. The owners originally intended to use the name Wanderers, but were unable to obtain rights to the name. The Maroons, too, would eventually suspend operations in 1938, ending efforts to entrench separate Montreal-based teams for French- and English-speaking fans.

Nickname

The Wanderers; nickname was the

namesake A namesake is a person, place, or thing bearing the name of another. Most commonly, it refers to an individual who is purposely named after another (e.g. John F. Kennedy Jr would be the namesake of John F. Kennedy). In common parlance, it may ...

of several earlier Montreal teams.Vigneault, Miche
"The Birth of Organized Sport in Canada: Hockey in Montreal, 1875-1917"
July 2001 These teams each only lasted one year throughout the latter portion of the 19th century. The first had played in the Montreal Winter Carnival ice hockey tournament in 1884. Another was an independent team that played various challenges in 1893. A third played in the Independent Amateur Hockey League in 1895, while a fourth played in the ''Cyclists Interclub Hockey League'' in 1897.

Early Stanley Cup dominance

The Wanderers were created in December 1903, played their first league game the following month, won their first league championship the next month, and challenged the Ottawa "Silver Seven/Senators" Hockey Club (HC) for the Stanley Cup on March 2, 1904. While they lost that first challenge, it marked the start of a period of eight consecutive years through March 5, 1912, where these two teams would co-exist and either the Montreal Wanderers (1,390 days) or the Ottawa HC (1,474 days) would hold the Stanley Cup. Only the

, for 61 days in 1907 (January 23 through March 25), would impinge on these two teams. The Wanderers won or defended the Cup 10 times in their first seven years of existence, and lost only two direct challenges (to Ottawa in March 1904, and to Kenora in January 1907) during that period.

Season-by-season record

* 1904–1905 –

(FAHL) * 1906–1908 –

(ECAHA) * 1909 –

(ECHA) * 1910–1917 –

(NHA) * 1917–1918 –

(NHL) ''Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against''

Head coaches

* Dickie Boon, 1910) * Jimmy Gardner, 1910–1911 * Dickie Boon, 1911–1917 *

Art Ross Arthur Howey Ross (January 13, 1885 – August 5, 1964) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and corporate officer, executive from 1905 until 1954. Regarded as one of the best defenders of his era by his peers, he was one of the first t ...

, 1917–1918

Honoured players

The following

players played for the Wanderers during some point in their careers: * Dickie Boon *

Harry Cameron Harold Hugh Cameron (February 6, 1890 – October 20, 1953) was a Canadian ice hockey defenceman who played professionally for the Toronto Blueshirts, Toronto Arenas, Ottawa Senators, Toronto St. Pats, and Montreal Canadiens. Cameron won three ...

* Jimmy Gardner *

Joe Hall Joseph Hall may refer to: Sports * Joe Hall (American football) (born 1979), American football player * Joe Hall (baseball) (born 1966), American baseball player * Joe Hall (ice hockey) (1881–1919), Canadian ice hockey player * Joe B. Hall (1928� ...

Tom Hooper Thomas George Hooper (born 5 October 1972)''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005''. 5d: 2485. is a British-Australian filmmaker. Known for his work in film and television he has received numerous accolades includ ...

Harry Hyland Harold Macarius Hyland (January 2, 1889 – August 8, 1969) was a Canadians, Canadian professional ice hockey forward (ice hockey), forward who played for the Montreal Wanderers, New Westminster Royals, and Ottawa Senators (original), Ottawa Senat ...

* Ernie "Moose" Johnson *

Jack Marshall Sir John Ross Marshall New Zealand Army Orders 1952/405 (5 March 1912 – 30 August 1988) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party. He entered Parliament in 1946 and was first promoted to Cabinet in 1951. After spending twelve years ...

* Gordon Roberts *

* Bruce Stuart *