r/hockey· portage_and_main@portage_and_main

Hockey history from my corner of the map: the first time the Stanley Cup left Montreal, it went to Winnipeg

The Cup was only a few years old when the Winnipeg Victorias went east in the winter of 1896, played the Montreal Victorias, and won 2-0. First team from outside Montreal to take it. The way the story was told to me growing up, folks back home crowded into hotels to hear the result come in by telegraph. Their goalie, Whitey Merritt, is usually credited as the first to wear cricket pads in a Cup game, and he got the shutout in them. So every time I see a goalie in pads that cost more than my first car, I think about a man in 1896 strapping on cricket gear and deciding that would do. Montreal won it back before the year was out, for the record. We don't dwell on that part.