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Uploaded By: PRESIDENT on October 14th, 2015

Montreal Wanderers Team in Winnipeg, Manitoba with the Executive of the Wanderer Hockey Club in March, 1907.

Team Roster
Curtis Lester Patrick, William Milton "Riley" Hern, Ernie "Moose' Johnson, Cecil William Blachford (captain), William Hodgson "Hod" Stuart, William Henry "Bill" Chipcase, Ernest "Ernie" Russell, Frank "Pud" Glass, John Calder "Jack" Marshall, Ernest James Liffiton

Trainer - Paul Lefebvre

The 1907 ECAHA season was the second season of the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA). Teams played a ten game schedule. The Montreal Wanderers won the league championship going undefeated, with their only loss of the season coming in a Stanley Cup challenge series with the Kenora Thistles on January 17 and January 21, 1907 at the Montreal Arena.

After returning home, Kenora had played the balance of the MPHL season and playoffs. After losing McGimsie, Si Griffis and Tom Hooper also went down to injury. Kenora signed three players to bolster its team: Alf Smith and Rat Westwick of Ottawa, and Fred Whitcroft of Peterborough to finish the season. (All three were future Hall of Fame inductees.) By the time of the MPHL playoff, Stanley Cup trustee Bill Foran notified Kenora that Smith and Westwick were ineligible for the challenge.

Kenora dressed Smith and Westwick for the challenge anyway and Montreal filed a protest with Foran. Foran ruled that both players were ineligible. The series was supposed to start on March 20 in Kenora, but did not. One report was that the ice in the rink was too poor to play on and the rink was closed. The clubs went ahead and started the series on March 23 in Winnipeg instead, with Smith and Westwick playing. Mr. Foran was notified by the press (inaccurately) that Montreal had dropped its protest and that the clubs intended to play anyway. Mr. Foran threatened to take the Cup back to Ottawa:

"If the two clubs ignore the instructions of the cup trustees by mutually agreeing to play against Westwick and Smith when both were positively informed these men were ineligible to participate in the present cup matches, the series will be treated as void, and the cup will be taken charge of by the trustees. It will remain in their possession till the various Hockey leagues can educate themselves up to a standard where decent sport will be the order of the day.”

The teams went ahead and played the series. However, Mr. Foran changed his mind after the Wanderers won the Cup, stating that the Wanderers could keep the Cup, because they had not rescinded their protest.

After the series, the Wanderers returned to Montreal with the Stanley Cup.

Sourced from http://collectionscanada.gc.ca. Credited to Gibson Photo.

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