A Look Back
Spokane hockey history
A look at key events in the history of hockey in Spokane and the region:
1890s
First recorded hockey competition in the region takes place near Grand Forks and Phoenix, British Columbia, featuring games between the rival mining towns.
1906
First covered rink built in Grand Forks.
1909
Lester Patrick, working in his father’s logging business, leads Nelson to the British Columbia championship.
1911
The Victoria Arena is built by Lester Patrick. It is the first artificial ice rink in Canada and is home to Patrick’s Victoria Aristocrats.
1915
The Vancouver Millionaires become the first western team to win the Stanley Cup, defeating Ottawa.
1916
The Portland Rosebuds become the first U.S.-based team to compete for the Stanley Cup, but lose to the Montreal Canadiens. The Rosebuds are the only losing team to have their names engraved on the Stanley Cup.
1916
When the Victoria Arena is commandeered by the Canadian government for use as an armory during World War I, Lester Patrick moves his team to Spokane. There, with the help of a young student, Spokane’s team gets its unusual nickname, the Canaries.
The Nov. 28, 1916, edition of The Spokesman-Review tells just how the team got one of the strangest nicknames in sports. The name “was thought of by a precocious youth who has more dealings with algebra than he has with barbers. After giving Lester Patrick’s contingent of puck chasers the scientific once over, and observing their canary and purple regalia, gave it as his opinion that an appropriate nickname for the ice terrors would be Canaries,” the paper wrote.
Playing outdoors at a rink at Elm and Cannon Streets, and finishing in last place, the Canaries are history after just one season.
1917
The Seattle Metropolitans become the first U.S.-based team to win the Stanley Cup when they defeat the Montreal Canadiens in a series played in Seattle.
1937
Hockey returns to Spokane after a 20-year absence. On Feb. 5, despite objections from Seattle Seahawks president Phil Lycette, approval is given for the midseason transfer of the Oakland Clippers franchise to Spokane. The team finishes third in the four-team league, defeats the Vancouver Lions in the first round of the playoffs, but loses to the Portland Buckaroos for the Pacific Coast Hockey League championships.
1937
The Spokane Ice Arena, known to many as the Elm Street Arena, gets a major facelift that includes a roof and walls. The building serves Spokane until 1954 when the Coliseum opened. The Elm Street Arena still stands today as a lumber storage building. Spokane plays two more full PCHL seasons, finishing last each time and losing big sums of money before taking a year’s leave of absence following the 1938-39 season.
One successful local hockey team is the Gonzaga Bulldogs. With their coach, Denny Edge, recruiting heavily in Canada, the Zags win a pair of West Coast amateur championships in 1938 and 1939, playing and defeating highly regarded teams like the Big Ten champion Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Gonzaga goaltender Frank McCool later leads third-place Toronto to a Stanley Cup win in 1945, registering three straight shutouts in the finals against Montreal.
1940
Former Gonzaga University coach Denny Edge brings pro hockey back to Spokane. The Bombers are a huge success on the ice, winning the regular season Pacific Coast League championship. But the club is “beaten to death with poor attendance,” according to Edge, and folds after one season. World War II interrupts much of hockey play on the West Coast.
1946
Rossland’s Rene Morin re-establishes hockey in Spokane after World War II when his Spartans are accepted as members of the Kootenay Hockey League. Once the league accepts membership from Spokane and Los Angeles, the league changes its name to the Western International Hockey League.
1948
After two seasons of losing money, Morin sells out his interest in the Spartans to a group that includes contractor Gus Bouten and Mel Smith. The team changes its name to the Flyers and recruits several members of the Seattle Ironmen, including a player-coach named Roy McBride. Spokane goes on to win the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States Senior Men’s championship, defeating the Windsor Spitfires of the International Hockey League.
1950
For an encore, the Flyers arrange for the Eastern Hockey League’s New York Rovers, a top farm team of the NHL’s Rangers, to come to Spokane to play for the U.S. national title once again. After spotting the Rovers and goaltender Gump Worsley a 3-1 series lead, Spokane rallies to win the series 4-3.
1953
After the British Columbia and Canadian Amateur Hockey Associations grant Spokane the right to compete for its major trophies, the Flyers lose - 4 games to 3 with one tie - in the Savage Cup (British Columbia championship) finals to the Penticton V’s. The loss is tempered voter approval of a bond issue for a new Spokane arena.
1954
After some 30 years of dreaming and 14 months of construction, the new Spokane Coliseum opens Dec. 8. The Flyers rally to defeat Trail 5-4.
1957
Behind the scoring of Art Jones, Dave Gordichuck and Tick Beattie, the Flyers win the Savage Cup by defeating the Vernon Canadians and the Patton Cup (Western Canadian championship) from the Fort William Beavers. Spokane meets the Whitby Dunlops for the Allan Cup in Maple Leaf Gardens, falling in four straight games.
1958
After dominating the Western International Hockey League for the better part of a decade, Spokane makes the move to the pro Western Hockey League. Its short five-year stay in the pros is highlighted by the Comets’ run to the WHL finals in 1961-62, Spokane losing the seven-game series to the Edmonton Flyers 4-3. The Comets also lose huge sums of money and move to Denver after the 1962-63 season.
A number of future NHLers get their starts with the Comets, including forward Forbes and goaltenders Cesare Maniago and Eddie Johnston. The flamboyant Don Cherry, a defenseman on the 1962-63 team, is one of the more notable Comets who make it to the big leagues - not as a player, but as a coach (Boston Bruins) and commentator on Hockey Night In Canada telecasts.
1963
The Spokane Jets are founded and return to the senior amateur ranks in the Western International Hockey League.
1965
Jets coach and general manager Colin Kilburn pulls strings and brings the Soviet Union national team to play in Spokane. It marks the first time for the Soviets to play in the United States since their defeat at the hands of the United States in the 1960 Olympics. The game sells out quickly, prompting KXLY-TV to provide the first live television broadcast of a hockey game in Spokane.
1970
Canadian Olympic and World Championship veteran goaltender Seth Martin of Trail joins the Jets. Under coach Al Rollins, he helps Spokane to a third straight Savage Cup, a Patton Cup victory over St. Boniface and an Allan Cup date in the Coliseum with the Orillia Terriers.
Fans line up overnight and encircle the Coliseum in order to buy tickets. Spokane becomes the first team from the United States to win the Allan Cup series, 4-2. The Jets repeat as Allan Cup champs in 1972 when they defeat the Barrie Flyers, averaging more than 5,000 fans per game.
1974
Thwarted in their efforts to again join the professional Western Hockey League, the Jets sell out to contractor Ralph Redding, who plans to campaign the team in the Tier II British Columbia Junior Hockey League. Governing boards of both the Canadian and British Columbia Amateur Hockey Associations block the Jets from playing in the BCJHL. The team plays one exhibition game in the Coliseum and disbands.
Another contractor familiar to Spokane hockey fans - Gus Bouten - provides the funding to form a new senior amateur team with a familiar old name, the Flyers.
1976
Coming from a third-place finish in the regular season, the Flyers go on to win the city’s third Allan Cup, defeating the Barrie Flyers in four games.
1980
Despite a team that dominates the WIHL, hockey is in trouble in Spokane. The Flyers win a fourth Allan Cup in 10 years, but do so in a Coliseum that is barely half-full. Competition from an expanded NHL, the World Hockey Association and a growing number of minor-league teams strips senior hockey of many of its best players.
The attendance drop prompts team owner Tom Hodges to sell to a group of Portland businessmen, who place a junior Western Hockey League team in the city. It turns out to be a horrible experience as Spokane goes from being the top team in Canadian senior hockey to having “new” junior Flyers needing to play an extra game to make the playoffs.
Underfunded and undertalented, the Flyers go 3-22-1 and have their equipment seized by the sheriff after a game in Billings, Mont. - folding just 26 games games into their second season.
1982
Once again, Gus Bouten is back to save hockey, forming the senior Spokane Chiefs. After missing the playoffs in their first year, the Chiefs, with Al Rollins back as coach, dominate a vastly watered-down WIHL the next two seasons.
1985
In May, Rollins walks out of WIHL league meetings, refusing to pay increased league fees. By June, an agreement is reached to transfer the troubled Kelowna Wings franchise of the junior Western Hockey League to Spokane.
1986
After a slow start, the WHL Chiefs finally catch fire both on the ice and at the box office - taking the Portland Winter Hawks to the limit in a best-of-9 series before losing. The season is marked by constant front-office feuds between coach Marc Pezzin and team owner Vic Fitzgerald of Penticton. Over the course of the season, Pezzin is fired, hired and fired again before Fitzgerald ends it in April by hiring Bob Strumm as general manager.
1989
Strumm states that he’ll resign if the Chiefs don’t make the playoffs. They don’t and the fiery Strumm is fired in April, ending a tempestuous tenure marked by controversial trades and the firing of coaches, including popular Butch Goring.
1990
Spokane Indians baseball club owner Bobby Brett heads a group that purchases the Chiefs from Fitzgerald.
1991
In Brett’s first year as owner, and Bryan Maxwell’s second season as coach, the Chiefs win the WHL playoffs and sweep their way to a Memorial Cup victory in Quebec City. The Chiefs’ Pat Falloon is the second-overall pick in the NHL draft.
1994
Mike Babcock is hired as Chiefs coach.
1995
The Chiefs move into the new 10,500-seat Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena and open the building in proper fashion by winning their first regularseason title. After becoming the first WHL team to rally from a 3-0 playoff series deficit against Portland, the Chiefs advance to the league championship before losing to Brandon.
1996
Spokane is named to host the 1998 Chrysler Memorial Cup.