Ottawa Senators (original)
The Ottawa Senators were an ice hockey team based in Ottawa, which existed from 1883 to 1954. The club was the first hockey club in Ontario, a founding member of the National Hockey League and played in the NHL from 1917 until 1934. The club, which was officially the Ottawa Hockey Club, was known by several nicknames, including the Generals in the 1890s, the Silver Seven from 1903 to 1907 and the Senators dating from 1908.
Generally acknowledged by hockey historians as one of the greatest teams of the early days of the sport, the club won numerous championships, starting with the 1891 to 1893 Ontario championships. Ottawa HC played in the first season during which the Stanley Cup was challenged in 1893, and first won the Cup in 1903, holding the championship until 1906. The club repeated its success in the 1920s, winning the Stanley Cup in 1920, 1921, 1923 and 1927. In total, the club won the Stanley Cup 11 times, including challenges during two years it did not win the Cup for the season. In 1950, Canadian sports editors selected the Ottawa HC/Senators as Canada's greatest team in the first half of the 20th century.
The club was one of the first organized clubs in the early days of the sport of ice hockey, playing in the Montreal Winter Carnival ice hockey tournaments in the early 1880s and founding the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada and the Ontario Hockey Association. Along with the rise of professionalism in ice hockey in the first decade of the 1900s, the club changed to a professional team and were founding members of the National Hockey Association and its successor, the National Hockey League. The club competed in the NHL until the 1933–34 season. Due to financial difficulties, the NHL franchise relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, to become the St. Louis Eagles. The organization continued the Senators as an amateur, and later semi-professional, team in Quebec senior men's leagues until 1954. The "Senior Senators" would win two Allan Cup titles: in 1943, and 1949.
When the current Ottawa Senators debuted in 1992, they adopted the original team's black, red and white color scheme and nickname.
History
Early amateur era (1883–1902)
The Ottawa Hockey Club was founded by a small group of like-minded hockey enthusiasts. A month after witnessing games of hockey at the 1883 Montreal Winter Carnival, Halder Kirby, Jack Kerr and Frank Jenkins met and founded the club. Being the first organized ice hockey club in Ottawa, and also the first in Ontario, the club had no other clubs to play that season. The only activities that winter were practices at the "Royal Rink" starting on March 5, 1883, as recorded in the Ottawa Daily Citizen: "The Ottawa Hockey Club had its first contest on the ice at the Royal Rink last night. There was good play made on both sides."The club first participated competitively at the 1884 Montreal Winter Carnival ice hockey tournament wearing red and black uniforms. Future Ottawa mayor Nelson Porter is recorded as the scorer of the club's first-ever goal, at the 1884 Carnival. Frank Jenkins was the first captain of the team; he later became the president of the hockey club in 1891 and of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada in 1892.
For the 1885 season, the club adopted gold and blue as its colours and returned to the Montreal tournament. Ottawa earned its first-ever victory at the tournament over the Montreal Victorias, but lost its final match to the Montreal Hockey Club to place second in the tournament. The 1886 Montreal tournament was cancelled due to an outbreak of smallpox and the club would not play an outside match again until 1887.
Formation of the AHAC
On December 8, 1886, the first championship league, the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada was founded in Montreal. It was composed of several clubs from Montreal plus a Quebec City club and the Ottawa club. Ottawa's Thomas D. Green was named the first president of the league. The league did not have a set schedule, and instead games were played in "challenge series", whereby a team held the championship and entertained challengers until the end of the season, a format the league employed until 1893. Under the format, Ottawa lost the one challenge it played in that first 1887 season to the Montreal Victorias.After that season, Ottawa HC became inactive. The Royal Rink, which had been their primary facility, had been converted to a roller skating rink, and ice rink facilities were at a shortage. This changed with the opening of the Rideau Skating Rink in February 1889. One of the principal organizers in the restarting of the team was Ottawa Journal publisher P. D. Ross, who also played on the team. Returning as captain was Frank Jenkins, and the other players were Halder Kirby, Jack Kerr, Nelson Porter, Ross, George Young, Weldy Young, Thomas D. Green, William O'Dell, Tom Gallagher, Albert Low and Henry Ami. In 1889, the club played only one match against an outside club, an exhibition at the Rideau rink against the Montreal HC 'second' team.
In November 1889, the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club was opened at the corner of today's Elgin and Laurier Streets on the site of today's Lord Elgin Hotel. The Club building would also be the Hockey Club's headquarters. The OAAC was affiliated with the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Association, and the Hockey Club through the affiliation also became OAAA members. When the club began outside competition again in 1889–90, it was with new sweaters of white with black stripes and the OAAA red "triskelion" logo. It was during this period of affiliation with the OAAC, that the club would become known by the nickname "Generals", attributed to the club's insignia. The club is also referred to as the "Capitals" in literature, although there was a rival Ottawa Capitals club organized by the Capital Amateur Athletics Association active at the time.
File:OttawaHockeyClub1891.JPG|left|thumb|240px|alt=A group of men wearing their team uniforms, some standing and some sitting, each with a hockey stick, in a studio. On an easel is an Ottawa championship banner. On a table is a trophy.|The 1891 Ottawa Hockey Club, Ottawa and Ontario champions.
Back Row, L to R: H. Kirby, Chauncey Kirby, Albert Morel, H.Y. Russel, F. Jenkins, W.C. Young, ?, ?
Front Row, L to R: R. Bradley, J. Kerr
The team is posed with the Cosby Cup.
In the 1889–90 season, Ottawa HC played two competitive games but this was to increase greatly the next season. The 1890–91 season saw the club play 14 games, playing in three leagues. Ottawa HC was a founding member of two new leagues, the Ottawa City Hockey League and the Ontario Hockey Association and also rejoined the AHAC. Ottawa HC won the Ottawa and Ontario championships, and two games against AHAC opponents, but lost to the AHAC champion Montreal HC in its one challenge for the championship.
OHA championships
The team was the OHA champion for that league's first three years. The first championship was played on March 7, 1891, at the Rideau rink and was won 5–0 by Ottawa over Toronto St. George's. The 1891 championship was the only OHA final played in Ottawa, as Ottawa played the 1892 final in Toronto, defeating Osgoode Hall 4–2, and in 1893, the Toronto Granites defaulted by not appearing for the championship match scheduled for Ottawa. The club resigned from the OHA in February 1894 after the OHA refused the club's demand to have the 1894 final in Ottawa and ordered Ottawa HC to play the final in Toronto. The dispute caused a permanent schism between Ottawa area teams competing in the Ottawa City Hockey League and the Ontario Hockey Association. Ottawa and area teams remain unaffiliated with the OHA; the official association under Hockey Canada is Hockey Eastern Ontario.It was at a dinner to honour the 1892 OHA champions at the Russell Hotel that the Governor General, Lord Stanley, announced his new Dominion Challenge Trophy, now known as the Stanley Cup, for the Canadian champions. Former player and president of the club, P. D. Ross, was selected by Stanley to be a trustee of the Cup.
Re-entry into the AHAC
Ottawa HC did not win a game in its return to AHAC challenge play in 1890–91, but in the next season of AHAC play in 1891–92 the club won the league championship, and held it for most of the season, from January 10 until March 7, 1892. The club took the championship from Montreal HC, who were previously undefeated, and won five straight games before Montreal won the championship back by a 1–0 score in the last challenge of the season. Montreal's win in the final challenge was their only win of the season and their only one in four games against Ottawa.Lord Stanley, who often attended Ottawa HC games, felt the loss of the title after holding it all season was an unsuitable way to determine the championship. In the letter announcing the Stanley Cup, Stanley suggested that the AHAC start a 'round-robin' type regular season format, which the AHAC implemented in the following season of 1892–93. The key match-up in that season for Ottawa was a loss in the opening game of the season against the Montreal Victorias on January 7, 1893, as Ottawa split its season series with eventual winner Montreal HC, both teams otherwise winning all of their games. This loss provided the one game margin in the standings that led to Lord Stanley awarding the initial Cup to Montreal HC.
In 1893–1894, Ottawa HC finished in a four-way tie for first in the AHAC standings. A playoff was arranged in Montreal for the championship between Ottawa, Montreal HC and Montreal Victorias. These games would be the first Stanley Cup playoff games ever played. As the 'away' team, Ottawa was given a bye to the final game. On March 23, 1894, at the Victoria Rink, Ottawa and Montreal HC played for the championship. Ottawa scored the first goal, but Montreal would score the next three to win the game 3–1. Ottawa captain Weldy Young fainted from exhaustion at the end of the game.
For the period of 1894 to 1900, the club did not win the league championship, finishing as high as second several times, and fifth once. For the 1896–97 season, the Ottawa club unveiled the first use of the 'barber-pole' style sweaters of horizontal bars of black, red and white. This basic style would be used by the club until 1954 except for the 1900 and 1901 seasons, when the team used a plain sweater with only the letter 'O' on the front.
In 1898, the AHAC dissolved over the admission of the intermediate-level team Ottawa Capitals of the rival Capital Amateur Association to the AHAC by a vote of the league executive. The Capitals had won the intermediate championship of the AHAC and were eligible to join the senior ranks. After they were outvoted by the intermediate-level teams of AHAC which wanted to promote the Capitals to the senior-level, the senior-level Ottawa, Montreal HC, Montreal Victorias and Quebec clubs left the AHAC and formed the Canadian Amateur Hockey League, shutting out the Capitals.
The club won the CAHL 1901 season title, its first league championship since winning the OHA in 1893. It wished to challenge the Stanley Cup champion Winnipeg Victorias at first but chose not to after deliberating for a week after the season, although it also had the option to challenge in the 1902 season. According to hockey historian Charles L. Coleman, it was due to the "lateness of the season". The Ottawa Journal openly supported the idea, stating that the players were 'racked' and would be at a serious disadvantage to travel to Winnipeg.
Notable players of this period included Albert Morel and Fred Chittick in goal, leaders of the league several times in goaltending, and future Hall of Famers Harvey Pulford, Alf Smith, Harry Westwick and brothers Bruce Stuart and Hod Stuart. It was during this period that the nickname Senators was first used; however, from 1903 to 1906, the team is better known as the '''Silver Seven.'''