Montreal Wanderers

Lore & Background

The club formed over a dispute about control of the Montreal Hockey Club. Along with teams rejected for membership in the Canadian Amateur Hockey League (CAHL), the Wanderers helped found the Federal Amateur Hockey League (FAHL) on December 5, 1903. Many early Wanderers had been members of the 1902–03 Montreal Hockey Club team that won the Stanley Cup; that team was known as the 'Little Men of Iron' for their tenacity and small stature, and the nickname carried over. The Wanderers' first Stanley Cup challenge was against the Ottawa Hockey Club on March 2, 1904, resulting in a 5–5 tie; the Wanderers refused to continue unless the tie was replayed in Montreal and forfeited the series. This began a rivalry with Ottawa that saw the two teams split championships from 1903 until 1911. The Wanderers won their first Stanley Cup in 1906 after a two-game total-goals series against Ottawa. They defended the Cup successfully against New Glasgow, lost it to Kenora, then regained it from Kenora two months later. After winning their third consecutive league title in 1907–08, the Wanderers were given the Arena Cup permanently, now displayed in the Hockey Hall of Fame. The 1907–08 team scratched their names inside the Stanley Cup bowl just before the second band was added. The Wanderers were involved in forming the NHA after a dispute over moving to a smaller rink led to the suspension of the Eastern Canada Hockey Association. The team regained the Stanley Cup in 1910, winning the NHA championship and the O'Brien Cup, and successfully defended it for the final time against the Berlin Dutchmen. After the founding of the Montreal Canadiens, which appealed to French-speaking fans, the Wanderers drew support from Montreal's English-speaking community.

Reader's Guide

The Montreal Wanderers were a foundational team in early professional ice hockey, winning the Stanley Cup four times and dominating the sport before the NHL's creation. Their rivalry with the Ottawa Hockey Club defined the championship landscape for nearly a decade. The team's involvement in the formation of the National Hockey Association (NHA) was pivotal: after a dispute over rink size led to their rejection from a new league, the Wanderers helped create the NHA, which later evolved into the NHL. The Wanderers played only four games in the NHL's inaugural season before their home rink, the Montreal Arena, burned down on January 2, 1918. After losing star players and failing to obtain reinforcements, the team defaulted two games and disbanded. The last active Wanderers player was George Geran, who played his last NHL game in 1926. A later team, the Montreal Maroons, was established to take the Wanderers' place; the owners originally intended to use the name Wanderers but could not obtain the rights. The Maroons suspended operations in 1938, ending efforts to maintain separate Montreal teams for French- and English-speaking fans. The Wanderers' nickname was the namesake of several earlier Montreal teams that each lasted only one year in the late 19th century.

Did You Know?

• The Wanderers were founded on December 3, 1903, after a dispute over control of the Montreal Hockey Club.
• Their home rink, the Montreal Arena, burned down on January 2, 1918, leading to the team's disbandment after only four NHL games.

Birth of a Rivalry and the Forum

The Montreal Maroons emerged from a specific cultural need: serving the anglophone neighborhoods of a city where the Canadiens already dominated the francophone market. The path to their creation was marked by tragedy. The Montreal Arena, shared by the Canadiens and the Wanderers, burned in January 1918, and the Canadiens' temporary home, the Jubilee Arena, followed suit the next year. The Wanderers, who had represented the English-speaking community, folded, leaving a void. By 1922, plans were underway to fill it. In July 1924, construction began on a brand-new arena atop the site of an old roller-skating rink known as the Forum. Completed by autumn at a cost of CA$1,500,000, the Montreal Forum became the NHL's first truly large-scale venue. The Canadiens' owner initially lodged a formal objection to a second franchise in his territory, but he was compensated with $11,000 of the Maroons' CA$15,000 expansion fee. In truth, he was thrilled, later calling the new team an important and lucrative local rivalry.

The 1926 Cup and Nels Stewart

The Maroons' first season was a disaster, finishing second from the bottom. Yet within a single year, a dramatic roster overhaul featuring Nels Stewart, Babe Siebert, and Merlyn Phillips transformed them into the league's best. In their second season, Montreal captured the Stanley Cup. The playoff format was a two-game, total-goals structure. After dispatching Pittsburgh 6-4, the Maroons stunned the favored Ottawa Senators 2-1 in the NHL final, then faced the WHL's Victoria Cougars in the last Stanley Cup Final to pit two different leagues against each other. Montreal won three games to one. The story of that series belonged to rookie Nels Stewart, who scored six of the team's ten goals. Standing six feet one inch and weighing 195 pounds, Stewart was a physical giant by the standards of his era, amassing 119 penalty minutes and tallying 34 of Montreal's 91 regular-season goals, a rookie record that stood until 1970-71. He was awarded the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player.

Rivalry Moments and Shared Ice

The Maroons and Canadiens shared the Forum from 1926 onward, and their rivalry produced some of the era's most electric moments. In the 1926-27 playoffs, the two met in a two-game, total-goals series at the Forum, where 11,000 fans crammed into a building officially listed at 10,000 capacity to watch the Canadiens eliminate the defending champions. The following season, the Maroons got their revenge, knocking their rivals out in the semifinals before falling to the New York Rangers 3-2 in the 1928 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. The Maroons also found themselves on the other side of history on November 16, 1926, when they hosted the New York Rangers' very first NHL game, losing 1-0. These encounters cemented the Maroons as the Canadiens' truest local adversary and gave Montreal's fans a rivalry that transcended mere competition.

Legacy and the End of an Era

The Great Depression dealt the Maroons a blow they could not recover from. Financial collapse forced them to suspend operations after the 1938 season, and despite attempts to resurrect the franchise, the league officially cancelled it in 1947. The Canadiens were left as Montreal's sole NHL team. The Maroons' departure left a remarkable statistical footnote: since their demise, no NHL franchise that had ever won a Stanley Cup has subsequently folded or relocated. They remain the last non-Original Six team to lift the Cup until the Philadelphia Flyers did so in 1974. Their on-ice legacy is equally extraordinary. Eleven players were enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and five of their six head coaches received the same honor. For fourteen seasons, the Maroons proved that a second franchise in one city could be both commercially viable and competitively elite, finishing first in the Canadian Division twice and winning the Cup on two occasions.