Montreal Maroons

Lore & Background

The Montreal Maroons were created to appeal to the anglophone neighbourhoods of Montreal after the Montreal Wanderers folded in 1918. In July 1924, construction began on a new arena, the Montreal Forum, on the site of a former roller-skating rink, completed at a cost of CA$1,500,000. The Maroons joined the NHL in 1924 alongside the Boston Bruins. The Canadiens initially objected to a second team in Montreal but relented when compensated by the expansion fee, receiving $11,000 of the Maroons' $15,000 fee. The team had no official nickname; the media adopted 'Maroons' from their maroon sweaters with a capital 'M' logo. In their second season, the Maroons won their first Stanley Cup, defeating the Victoria Cougars of the Western Hockey League in the last Stanley Cup Final between two leagues. Rookie Nels Stewart scored six goals in the series and won the Hart Trophy. The Maroons later lost the 1928 Stanley Cup Final to the New York Rangers, with all five games played at the Forum due to a circus occupying Madison Square Garden. In 1935, the Canadian Arena Company, which also owned the Canadiens, purchased the Canadiens, bringing both teams under common ownership.

Reader's Guide

The Montreal Maroons were a highly competitive team, winning the Stanley Cup twice and finishing first in their Canadian Division twice more. Eleven players were elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and five of the six head coaches were also honoured. Financial difficulties resulting from the Great Depression led to the Maroons suspending play after 1938. Despite efforts to revive the team, the franchise was cancelled in 1947, leaving the Canadiens as the sole NHL team in Montreal. Since the Maroons' demise, no NHL team that has won a Stanley Cup at any point in its history has subsequently folded or relocated. The Maroons were the last non-Original Six team to win the Stanley Cup until the Philadelphia Flyers in 1974. Their legacy includes being the first team to play in the Montreal Forum, the first large arena in the NHL, and goaltender Clint Benedict becoming the first in NHL history to wear a mask, to protect a broken nose.

Did You Know?

• The Maroons' expansion fee was CA$15,000, of which $11,000 went to the Canadiens.
• The Montreal Forum was built for the Maroons in 1924 at a cost of CA$1,500,000.

Birth of a Rival: The Maroons and the Forum

The Montreal Maroons were born from a specific cultural need. After the 1918 fire that destroyed the shared arena and the subsequent folding of the anglophone Montreal Wanderers, the city's English-speaking community was left without a major-league hockey team. By 1922, plans took shape to fill that void, and in July 1924 construction began on a brand-new arena atop the site of an old roller-skating rink. Completed by autumn at a cost of CA$1,500,000—roughly $27.4 million in today's dollars—the Montreal Forum became the NHL's first truly large indoor venue. The Maroons entered the league that same year alongside the Boston Bruins, the league's first American franchise. The Canadiens, initially resistant to sharing their city, were placated with $11,000 of the $15,000 expansion fee, and their owner later admitted he saw "an important and lucrative local rivalry" in the new club. The team itself had no formal nickname at launch; president James Strachan, a former Wanderers owner, failed to buy back that name. It was the maroon-coloured sweaters bearing a bold capital "M" that led the press to christen them the Maroons—a label the organization never officially adopted.

The 1926 Cup and a Rookie Record

The Maroons' debut season ended with a near-worst record in the league, but the new Forum was already drawing sellout crowds. The turning point came with the arrival of players like Nels Stewart, Babe Siebert, and Merlyn Phillips, and within a single year the team transformed from the league's weakest to its strongest. In their second season, Montreal captured the Stanley Cup. The playoff format that year was a two-game, total-goals affair; the Maroons dispatched the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-4 and then stunned the favoured Ottawa Senators 2-1. In the final against the Western Hockey League's Victoria Cougars—the last Stanley Cup Final to pit two different leagues against each other—Montreal won three games to one. The engine behind that triumph was rookie Nels Stewart, who scored six of the team's ten series goals and collected the Hart Trophy as league MVP. Standing 6 feet 1 inch and weighing 195 pounds, Stewart was a physical giant for his era, logging 119 penalty minutes while scoring 34 of the Maroons' 91 regular-season goals. That rookie goal total stood as an NHL record until the 1970-71 season. In that era, players typically skated the full sixty minutes, with substitutions reserved for injuries.

A Decade of Rivalry and Reclamation

The Maroons and Canadiens shared the Forum from 1926 onward, and their rivalry produced some of the era's most memorable moments. In the 1926-27 playoffs, a crowd of 11,000—exceeding the building's listed 10,000 capacity—watched the Canadiens eliminate the defending champions in a two-game series. The Maroons also featured in a small piece of league history on November 16, 1926, when they hosted the New York Rangers' NHL debut, losing 1-0. Revenge came the following spring: in 1927-28, Montreal knocked the Canadiens out of the semifinals before falling to the Rangers 3-2 in the Stanley Cup Final. Because the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus occupied Madison Square Garden, all five games of that final were played at the Forum. After a dismal 1928-29 campaign that saw them finish last in the Canadian Division, the Maroons rebounded to take first place the next year. Over their full run, the club won the Stanley Cup in 1926 and 1935, finished atop their division twice more, and produced eleven Hall of Fame players and five of six Hall of Fame coaches.

The Long Goodbye and an Unbroken Record

The Great Depression dealt a blow the Maroons could not survive. Financial strain forced the club to suspend operations after the 1938 season, and despite subsequent attempts to resurrect the franchise, the NHL formally cancelled it in 1947. The Canadiens were left as Montreal's sole professional hockey team, a status that persists to this day. The Maroons' disappearance also left a peculiar mark on the league's history. They were the last team outside the Original Six to hoist the Stanley Cup until the Philadelphia Flyers achieved that feat in 1974. More strikingly, since the Maroons' folding, no NHL franchise that has ever won the Stanley Cup has subsequently gone out of business or relocated. That unbroken streak—spanning nearly a century—makes the Maroons' demise a singular event in professional hockey. A team that once filled the Forum with 11,000 roaring fans and produced Hall of Famers like Nels Stewart ultimately succumbed to economics, leaving behind a legacy defined as much by its absence as by its two championships.

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