Vancouver marks 109 years since Stanley Cup win

It’s been 109 years since Vancouver’s first — and only — Stanley Cup win. Yes, you read that right. But no, it wasn’t the Canucks.

On March 26, 1915, the Vancouver Millionaires made history, winning B.C.’s first Stanley Cup championship at the Denman Arena in the city.

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The team swept the Ottawa Senators in three games, according to Jason Beck, a BC Sports Hall of Fame curator.

“Large crowds attended each game with over 16,000 spectators packing Denman over the three games,” Beck wrote in a thread on X.

“Cyclone Taylor led the Millionaires with six goals, while Barney Stanley had five, including a second-period hat trick and the series-clinching goal in Game 3. The Senators blamed the one-sided series loss on the “sea air” which they claimed sapped the strength from their legs.”

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Beck says the Senators were “so confident in victory” that they didn’t bring the cup to Vancouver. Because of that, there was “no immediate post-game Cup presentation.

“Still considered one of the greatest teams of all time, the Millionaires featured seven future [Hockey Hall of Fame] members, including Taylor, playing owner Frank Patrick, and the ‘Pembroke Peach’ Frank Nighbor,” Beck added.

He notes the Denman Arena was built just a few years prior to the Millionaires’ win. The rink, he explains, was the first “in Canada to boast artificial ice,” and was, at the time, the “second-larges indoor arena in North America.”