I have been very disciplined about writing for at least 2 hours a day. If the weather is inclement, I get a lot more writing done. I have now passed 80,000 words. I know I will have to cut a lot of material out of the narrative, but I have carefully documented each source so it will be much easier to confirm facts later.

I am also compiling game statistics for the Victoria Cougars of the 1950s as nobody has done it before. I find it much easier to write about a team and their games if I have the complete records of games played, the dates, and the final scores. After all, statistics are what determines success or failure and it is up to me to ensure that they are accurate. Once I have completed this project, I will be posting the season stats to a Wikipedia page so that others will not have to do the work that I have done.

I am so glad to finally writing about people that I actually saw play and some of whom I have actually talked interviewed. It is a real pleasure to write about a very young team that was so successful in their early years. Writing about the later years will not be as fun, but the truth is there. What is now interesting is the links between different eras of professional hockey in Victoria. There is, of course, the Patrick thread, with their ownership of the original Cougars, the Cubs, and the 1950s Cougars. Players from the 195s Cougars who also played for the later Victoria Maples Leafs included Andy Hebenton and Eddie Mazur who were young stars in the 1950s and were in the autumn of their careers in the Maple Leaf era.

I am back writing again. I have now finished the first draft of the first two chapters. I have decided to get the information into a readable form then worry about where specific items should be paced. There is just so much information out there that it is hard to decide what to include and what to omit.

I am hoping to get back to writing a couple of hours every day so that I can finish the years up to the Stanley Cup victory in a few months.

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This week I completed a nomination of the 1965-66 Victoria Maple Leafs to the Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame. As I noted earlier, they are the only professional hockey team from Victoria that won a championship in their league that is not recognized by the Hall of Fame. It became obvious to me during my research that this was an oversight – nobody had ever nominated them.

Now I have and hope it is successful.

 

I am so close to documenting the 1925 Stanley Cup win. I just started dictating information from the 1924-25 season into my database. It is exciting to read the articles even if I know what happens in the end. The Victoria Cougars were not that successful in the PCHA and WCHL, but when they did win, they did it in style. By reading all the newspapers, I am getting a really good idea of how to build a winning team. From what I have read so far, it seems to start with a good goaltender. It helped the Cougars that the Seattle Metropolitans folded at the end of the 1923-1924 season and their star goaltender, Happy Holmes became available. The young players that Lester Patrick signed in the previous few years were now seasoned veterans and all did their part.

I just had to share this newspaper account of a game played in Edmonton between the Edmonton Eskimos and the Victoria Cougars on December 9, 1923. The game was played on natural ice, and from the account, it was less than acceptable.

” Playing the first home game of the season by a sheet of ice in which the sawdust was showing through in twice as many holes as they are in the municipal golf course, the Eskimos lost to the Victoria Cougars last night by a score of 3-1, and are still at the bottom of the Western Canada League. Not within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of Edmonton, has a hockey game being played here under such poor conditions, and in consequence, the fans did not look for anything approaching a high class exhibition. In many parts of the rink, the sawdust was barely covered with ice and before the contest was well underway, the players had cut through it and had to perform all kinds of maneuvers to keep on their feet.”

Yesterday, I was part of Five Hole for Food in Victoria. I was part of the VIP game and ended up with a really cool team. One of my team-mates was Mike Walker from CHEK-TV so I asked him how to get in contact with Ryan Wade who both played and coached with the Salmon Kings. I knew Ryan had lived in Langford but had moved. Now i know how to get in touch with him. Mike called him “Mr Salmon King” so I hope I can get an interview.

I have finally finished going through old newspapers for a while. I finished up to the end of the Victoria Maple Leaf era. Luckily for me, most of the articles on the Salmon Kings are online. I cannot even estimate the number of pages of microfilm I have read — but my eyes are getting tired.

Found a goldmine of newspaper clippings at the BC Archives today. Now they have been digitized and you can save them on a USB stick. Sure save time – and money for copying. I thought I had read everything on the Patrick family, but I was wrong. So many things to read, so little time.

On March 30, 1913, the Victoria Aristocrats beat the Stanley Cup holders Quebec Bulldogs in a series between the east and west. Had the Stanley Cup been offered for that series, Victoria would have won it very early in their hockey history. As it was, the City would have to wait until 1925 to win the ultimate hockey trophy – the last non-NHL club to do so.

I have finally finished reading all the newspapers for the early version of the Victoria Cougars (also Aristocrats). Luckily there was only one sports page in the early 20th century so the news is fairly easy to find. Even when the Cougars won the Stanley Cup, there was only a small piece on page 1 about a public dinner. Now, there would be banner headlines and wall to wall coverage. I am learning a lot about these early hockey players and feel like I have known some of them for years. The downsize to these early newspapers is the poor quality of the photographs – in the rare occasions when they are in the newspaper – fuzzy and smudged. I will be looking for better copies in the next while.