Ottawa Senators (original)

Lore & Background

The Ottawa Hockey Club was founded by a small group of enthusiasts after witnessing games at the 1883 Montreal Winter Carnival. Halder Kirby, Jack Kerr, and Frank Jenkins met and founded the club, which held its first practice at the Royal Rink on March 5, 1883. The club first competed at the 1884 Montreal Winter Carnival tournament, wearing red and black uniforms, and future Ottawa mayor Nelson Porter scored the club's first goal. Frank Jenkins served as the first captain and later became president of the club and of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada.

The club was a founding member of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada in 1886 and the Ontario Hockey Association in 1890. It won the Ontario championship for the OHA's first three years (1891–1893). The club was known by several nicknames: the Generals in the 1890s, the Silver Seven from 1903 to 1907, and the Senators from 1908. During the Silver Seven years, the club held the Stanley Cup from 1903 to 1906. The club repeated its success in the 1920s, winning the Stanley Cup in 1920, 1921, 1923, and 1927 (the Super Six years).

Reader's Guide

The original Ottawa Senators hold a foundational place in ice hockey history. As the first organized hockey club in Ontario and a founding member of both the National Hockey Association and the National Hockey League, the club helped shape the sport's early professional structure. Its 11 Stanley Cup victories, including challenge wins, mark it as one of the most successful teams of the early era. 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's legacy extends beyond its NHL tenure; after the NHL franchise relocated to St. Louis in 1934, the organization continued as an amateur and later semi-professional team in Quebec senior men's leagues until 1954, winning two Allan Cup titles (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, directly linking the modern franchise to this historic club.

Did You Know?

• The club was the first organized ice hockey club in Ontario.
• The club won the Stanley Cup 11 times, including challenges during two years it did not win the Cup for the season.
• The club was known as the Silver Seven from 1903 to 1907.
• The NHL franchise relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, to become the St. Louis Eagles.

Founding & the Early Amateur Years

The Ottawa Hockey Club traces its origins to a single evening in 1883, when Halder Kirby, Jack Kerr, and Frank Jenkins gathered after watching ice hockey at the Montreal Winter Carnival and decided to form their own team. What followed was a modest beginning: the trio's new club, the first organized hockey outfit in both Ottawa and Ontario, spent its inaugural winter simply practicing at the Royal Rink, with no opponents to face. The club's first true competitive outing came at the 1884 Montreal Carnival, where players donned red and black sweaters and future mayor Nelson Porter recorded the franchise's first goal. Frank Jenkins, the original captain, would go on to lead the club's presidency and later helm the newly formed Amateur Hockey Association of Canada. The early years were marked by instability — a smallpox outbreak cancelled the 1886 tournament, and the conversion of the Royal Rink into a roller-skating venue forced the club into a hiatus after 1887. It was not until the Rideau Skating Rink opened in 1889 that the team found new life, eventually earning the "Generals" nickname through its affiliation with the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club.

A Dynasty of Championship Glory

Few clubs in the history of ice hockey can match the Ottawa organization's tally of Stanley Cup triumphs. The franchise claimed eleven Cup titles across its existence, a record that cemented its reputation among historians as one of the sport's all-time greats. The first major stretch of dominance arrived in the early 1900s, when the team — then known as the Silver Seven — captured the Cup in 1903 and held onto the championship through 1906. A second golden era followed in the 1920s, with victories in 1920, 1921, 1923, and 1927, a period fans and writers dubbed the Super Six years. The club's championship pedigree extended beyond just winning seasons; it also engaged in Cup challenges during two additional years in which it did not take the title for the regular season. In 1950, a panel of Canadian sports editors voted the Ottawa Hockey Club and Senators as the nation's greatest team of the first half of the twentieth century, a recognition that underscored how deeply the franchise's success was woven into the country's sporting identity.

From Pioneers to Professionals

The Ottawa organization played a foundational role in shaping the institutional structure of ice hockey. As one of the earliest organized clubs in the sport, the team helped establish the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada in 1886 and was a founding member of the Ontario Hockey Association in the early 1890s. As the game shifted toward professionalism in the first decade of the 1900s, the club transitioned from an amateur outfit to a professional one, joining the National Hockey Association and later its successor, the National Hockey League, as a founding member. The Senators competed in the NHL from its 1917 inception through the 1933–34 season, a span of seventeen years in the top professional circuit. However, mounting financial pressures ultimately proved unsustainable. After the 1933–34 campaign, the NHL franchise was relocated across the border to St. Louis, Missouri, where it was rebranded as the St. Louis Eagles. The move marked the end of the club's professional era in Ottawa, though the organization itself persisted in a different form.

A Legacy That Endures

Even after the NHL franchise departed for St. Louis, the Ottawa identity refused to fade. The organization continued competing as an amateur and later semi-professional squad in Quebec senior men's leagues, carrying the Senators name forward until 1954. During that extended period, the so-called Senior Senators captured two Allan Cup titles, in 1943 and 1949, proving that the club's competitive spirit survived well beyond its professional heyday. The franchise's cultural footprint also evolved over the decades. Originally the Generals in the 1890s, then the Silver Seven from 1903 to 1907, the team settled on the "Senators" moniker in 1908 — a name that would outlive the original club by nearly a century. When a new Ottawa Senators franchise entered the NHL in 1992, it deliberately adopted the historic black, red, and white color scheme along with the original nickname, explicitly linking the modern team to the pioneering organization that had first brought organized ice hockey to Ontario in 1883.