Montreal Shamrocks
Encyclopedia
The Montreal Shamrocks were an amateur, later professional, men's ice hockey
club in existence from 1886, merging with the Montreal Crystals
club in 1896. They won the Stanley Cup
ice hockey championship in 1899 and 1900. The club was a founding member of the National Hockey Association
(NHA), the predecessor of today's National Hockey League
.
The Shamrocks were founded on December 15, 1886 at a meeting of the Shamrock Lacrosse Club to organize an ice hockey club. The Shamrock Lacrosse Club of Montreal predated the hockey team by twenty years, founded in 1867 by J. B. L. Flynn. In its inaugural season of play, the Shamrocks had both a junior and senior team. The Shamrocks standard of play increased leading to the club playing in two Amateur Hockey Association of Canada (AHAC) challenges, in 1891 and 1892. In 1895, the Montreal Crystals
' hockey club merged with the Shamrocks, ending a successful existence of 15 years.
The club rose to be the pre-eminent senior amateur hockey club in North America by the turn of the twentieth century, winning the Stanley Cup
in 1899 and 1900 before losing a Stanley Cup challenge in 1901. Following the retirement of its stars, including Hall of Famers Harry Trihey
and Arthur Farrell, the Shamrocks faded from prominence and never again had a winning season. They were eventually done in around 1910 by the growth of professionalisation in hockey. Unable to compete financially, and with the myriad splits and feuding in elite-level hockey (which lead to the formation, disbandment, and formation of new leagues), the Shamrocks folded their professional team.
The Shamrocks re-entered competitive play as an amateur team in the Interprovincial Amateur Hockey Union for the 1911–12 season. The club then entered the Montreal City Hockey League in 1912.
, the hockey club reflected a more bourgeois background, more in keeping with the image the Shamrock Amateur Athletic Association wished to convey to the wider community of Montreal
, as Irish Catholic
s attempted to integrate into the mainstream of the city's body politic in the late 19th century. Many of the players on the Stanley Cup–winning teams of 1899–1901 went on to study at McGill University
, and entered into the city's bourgeois professional ranks as doctors, lawyers, and businessmen.
Harry Trihey, the captain of the Cup-winning teams, became a prominent Montreal lawyer and, during World War I
, was commissioned by the Government of Canada
to raise the Irish Canadian Rangers, a venture that ended with Mr. Trihey resigning his commission and returning to Montreal in 1916 after the British High Command reversed its earlier promise to Mr. Trihey to send the Rangers into battle as a unit, deciding instead to plug them into the front line as reinforcements. Mr. Trihey also had problems recruiting in Quebec
and Ireland
following the GPO Rising in Dublin at Easter
1916.
:
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
club in existence from 1886, merging with the Montreal Crystals
Montreal Crystals
Montreal Crystals were an ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that existed from 1886 to 1895. The Club was a member of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada . The team won the Canadian championship twice. In 1895, the team became the Montreal Shamrocks...
club in 1896. They won the Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup
The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...
ice hockey championship in 1899 and 1900. The club was a founding member of the National Hockey Association
National Hockey Association
The National Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor organization to today's National Hockey League...
(NHA), the predecessor of today's National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
.
Team history
Montreal Crystals
Montreal Crystals were an ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that existed from 1886 to 1895. The Club was a member of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada . The team won the Canadian championship twice. In 1895, the team became the Montreal Shamrocks...
' hockey club merged with the Shamrocks, ending a successful existence of 15 years.
The club rose to be the pre-eminent senior amateur hockey club in North America by the turn of the twentieth century, winning the Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup
The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...
in 1899 and 1900 before losing a Stanley Cup challenge in 1901. Following the retirement of its stars, including Hall of Famers Harry Trihey
Harry Trihey
Henry Judah "Flip" Trihey was a Canadian amateur ice hockey forward who played for the Montreal Shamrocks....
and Arthur Farrell, the Shamrocks faded from prominence and never again had a winning season. They were eventually done in around 1910 by the growth of professionalisation in hockey. Unable to compete financially, and with the myriad splits and feuding in elite-level hockey (which lead to the formation, disbandment, and formation of new leagues), the Shamrocks folded their professional team.
The Shamrocks re-entered competitive play as an amateur team in the Interprovincial Amateur Hockey Union for the 1911–12 season. The club then entered the Montreal City Hockey League in 1912.
Players
While the lacrosse club was a predominately working-class team, based largely in the Irish Catholic industrial working class neighbourhood of GriffintownGriffintown
Griffintown is the popular name given to the former southwestern downtown part of Montreal, Quebec, which existed from the 1820s until the 1960s and was mainly populated by Irish immigrants and their descendants....
, the hockey club reflected a more bourgeois background, more in keeping with the image the Shamrock Amateur Athletic Association wished to convey to the wider community of Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, as Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...
s attempted to integrate into the mainstream of the city's body politic in the late 19th century. Many of the players on the Stanley Cup–winning teams of 1899–1901 went on to study at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
, and entered into the city's bourgeois professional ranks as doctors, lawyers, and businessmen.
Harry Trihey, the captain of the Cup-winning teams, became a prominent Montreal lawyer and, during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, was commissioned by the Government of Canada
Government of Canada
The Government of Canada, formally Her Majesty's Government, is the system whereby the federation of Canada is administered by a common authority; in Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council...
to raise the Irish Canadian Rangers, a venture that ended with Mr. Trihey resigning his commission and returning to Montreal in 1916 after the British High Command reversed its earlier promise to Mr. Trihey to send the Rangers into battle as a unit, deciding instead to plug them into the front line as reinforcements. Mr. Trihey also had problems recruiting in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
following the GPO Rising in Dublin at Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
1916.
Season-by-season record
| Year | GP | W | L | T | PTS | GF | GA | PIM | Finish | Playoffs |
| 1896 1896 AHAC season The 1896 Amateur Hockey Association of Canada season lasted from January 3 until March 7. Each team played 8 games, and Montreal Victorias were first with a 7–1 record. During the season, on February 14 the Victorias hosted a Stanley Cup challenge match with the Winnipeg Victorias club. Winnipeg... |
8 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 16 | 30 | -- | 5th in AHAC | -- |
| 1897 1897 AHAC season The 1897 Amateur Hockey Association of Canada season lasted from January 9 until March 6. Each team played 8 games, and Montreal Victorias were again first with a 7–1 record, retaining the Stanley Cup. The club won the Stanley Cup back from the Winnipeg Victorias prior to the season. This was their... |
8 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 27 | 37 | -- | 5th in AHAC | -- |
| 1898 1898 AHAC season The 1898 Amateur Hockey Association of Canada season lasted from January 8 until March 5. Each team played 8 games, and Montreal Victorias were again first with a 8–0 record, to retain the Stanley Cup. This was their fourth-straight league championship.... |
8 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 6 | 25 | 36 | -- | 3rd in AHAC | -- |
| 1899 1899 CAHL season The inaugural 1899 Canadian Amateur Hockey League season lasted from January 7 until March 4. Teams played an eight game schedule The Montreal Shamrocks were the league champion with a record of seven wins and one loss.-Highlights:... |
8 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 14 | 40 | 21 | -- | 1st in CAHL Canadian Amateur Hockey League The Canadian Amateur Hockey League was an early men's amateur hockey league founded in 1898, replacing the organization that was formerly the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada before the 1898–99 season. The league existed for seven seasons, folding in 1905 and was itself replaced by the Eastern... |
Won Stanley Cup |
| 1900 1900 CAHL season The 1900 Canadian Amateur Hockey League season lasted from January 6 until March 10. Teams played an eight game schedule. Again, the Montreal Shamrocks were the league champion with a record of seven wins and one loss.-Executive:... |
8 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 14 | 49 | 26 | -- | 1st in CAHL | Won Stanley Cup |
| 1901 1901 CAHL season The 1901 Canadian Amateur Hockey League season lasted from January 5 until March 5. Teams played an eight game schedule. The Ottawa Hockey Club was the league champion with a record of seven wins, no losses and a draw. The Montreal Shamrocks lost a Stanley Cup challenge during the season, so... |
8 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 8 | 30 | 25 | -- | 3rd in CAHL | Lost Stanley Cup challenge |
| 1902 1902 CAHL season The 1902 Canadian Amateur Hockey League season lasted from January 5 until March 1. Teams played an eight game schedule. The Montreal HC were the league champion with a record of six wins and two losses.-Executive:... |
8 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 15 | 62 | -- | 5th in CAHL | -- |
| 1903 1903 CAHL season The 1903 Canadian Amateur Hockey League season lasted from January 3 until February 28. Teams played an eight game schedule. Ottawa and Montreal Victorias tied for the league championship with records of six wins and two losses.-Executive:... |
8 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 56 | -- | 5th in CAHL | -- |
| 1904 1904 CAHL season The 1904 Canadian Amateur Hockey League season lasted from January 2 until February 24. Teams played an eight game schedule. This was a tumultuous year as Ottawa resigned in February and defaulted four games.... |
8 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 32 | 74 | -- | 4th in CAHL | -- |
| 1905 1905 CAHL season The 1905 Canadian Amateur Hockey League season lasted from January 2 until March 11. Teams played a ten game schedule. This year saw the addition of two teams, Montreal Westmount and Montreal Nationals. Montreal Nationals had previously been in the FAHL. Montreal Victorias won the league... |
8 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 6 | 41 | 62 | -- | 4th in CAHL | -- |
| 1906 1906 ECAHA season The inaugural 1906 Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association season lasted from January 3 until March 10. Teams played a ten game schedule. Ottawa HC and Montreal Wanderers would tie for the league championship with a record of 9–1, while the Montreal Shamrocks would not win a single game... |
10 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 90 | -- | Last in ECAHA Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association The Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association was a men's amateur, later professional ice hockey league in Canada that played four seasons. It was founded on December 11, 1905 with six clubs: four from the Canadian Amateur Hockey League and two from the Federal Amateur Hockey League, to bring... |
|
| 1907 1907 ECAHA season The 1907 Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association season lasted from January 3 until March 10. Teams played a ten game schedule. The Montreal Wanderers won the league championship going undefeated, with their only loss of the season coming in a Stanley Cup challenge series with... |
10 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 52 | 120 | -- | Last in ECAHA | -- |
| 1908 1907–08 ECAHA season The 1907–08 Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association season lasted from December 29, 1907 until March 7, 1908. Teams played a ten game schedule. The Montreal Wanderers would win the league championship with a record of eight wins, two losses.... |
10 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 10 | 53 | 49 | -- | 4th in ECAHA | -- |
| 1909 1909 ECAHA season The 1909 Eastern Canadian Hockey Association season lasted from January 2 until March 6. Teams played a twelve game schedule. The Ottawa Senators would win the league championship with a record of ten wins, two losses and take over the Stanley Cup.... |
12 | 2 | 10 | 0 | 4 | 56 | 103 | -- | 4th in ECAHA | |
| 1910 1910 NHA season The 1910 NHA season was the first season of the National Hockey Association men's ice hockey league. The season started on January 5, but was suspended immediately and the league then absorbed the Ottawa and Shamrocks teams of the Canadian Hockey Association and the season continued from January 15... |
12 | 3 | 8 | 1 | 25 | 59 | 100 | -- | 6th in NHA National Hockey Association The National Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor organization to today's National Hockey League... |
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| 1911–12 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 4 | -- | -- | -- | 3rd in IAHU | |
Prominent players
The following players have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of FameHockey Hall of Fame
The Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it is both a museum and a hall of fame. It holds exhibits about players, teams, National Hockey League records, memorabilia and NHL trophies, including the Stanley Cup...
:
- Arthur Farrell
- Jimmy GardnerJimmy GardnerJames Henry Gardner was a Canadian professional ice hockey forward.His playing career started with Montreal Hockey Club amateur men's team of the Canadian Amateur Hockey League in 1900, where he played until 1903, winning the Stanley Cup twice, in 1902 and 1903 as one of the 'Little Men of Iron'...
- Jack LavioletteJack LavioletteJean-Baptiste "Jack" Laviolette was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played nine seasons for the Montreal Canadiens hockey club and was their first Captain, Coach, and General Manager....
- Jack Marshall
- Ian Henneberger
- Didier PitreDidier PitreJoseph George Didier "Cannonball" Pitre was a Canadian professional ice hockey forward. He was nicked named "Cannonball". One of the first players to join the Montreal Canadiens, Pitre's French-Canadian heritage helped give his line-mates the nickname the Flying Frenchmen, brought upon by his...
- Fred ScanlanFred ScanlanFrederick R. Scanlan was a Canadian amateur ice hockey forward who played for the Montreal Shamrocks and Winnipeg Victorias. He played on a forward line with other notable players' Arthur Farrel and Harry Trihey. Fredrick was a Stanley Cup champion with the Shamrocks in 1899, 1900...
- Harry TriheyHarry TriheyHenry Judah "Flip" Trihey was a Canadian amateur ice hockey forward who played for the Montreal Shamrocks....