Alberta

The location of the province in Canada.

Alberta is one of Canada's prairie provinces. It became a province on September 1, 1905. The capital of Alberta is Edmonton, and Calgary is the largest city in the province. It has a population of approximately 3,645,000 people.

History of hockey in Alberta

The first recorded ice hockey game in Alberta took place in Calgary on January 4, 1893, between two city teams: the Town Boys and the Tailors. The game was played with seven players aside and the Town Boys won 4-1. Shortly after, the Town Boys met a challenge from a team of North-West Mounted Police officers, losing 4-0 before avenging the defeat in a rematch. The first game in Edmonton was played in 1894.

The Calgary Fire Brigade was the first organized club in Alberta and frequently faced clubs from Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan in 1895 and 1896, and competed in the 1897 Northwest Territories Championship, which was won by the Medicine Hat Hatters. In 1898, a "Battle of Alberta" between the Edmonton Thistles and the Fire Brigade turned violent. A brawl saw Calgary's E.D. Marshall lose an eye in a stick swinging incident.

The province's first hockey league, the Calgary Senior Hockey League, was formed in 1901. Hockey developed quickly in Alberta during the early 1900s and soon spread to various cities, towns and villages throughout the province. Another early competition was the Crow's Nest Pass Hockey League, which lasted until 1903 and featured teams from Medicine Hat, Pincher Creek, McLeod and Frank, Alberta, as well as a squad from Fernie, British Columbia.

The Alberta Amateur Hockey Association (AAHA) was founded in 1907 to oversee the expanding amateur game and to distinguish it from professional hockey. The AAHA created two levels of senior hockey and later introduced the intermediate level (a step below senior) in 1913, and then regulated junior hockey in 1914.

The Alberta Professional Hockey League was formed for the 1907-08 season. The three-time league champion Edmonton Pros challenged for the Stanley Cup in 1908 and 1910. Edmonton stocked their roster with six "ringers" (paid professionals who did not usually compete for the team) for their 1908 cup challenge, and this played a significant role in the Allan Cup being established as a Canadian amateur championship in 1909. Alberta staged its first official Senior Championship in 1910-11.

After this early interlude with professionalism, ice hockey returned to being a strictly amateur game in Alberta. The Big-4 League, which was formed as an elite senior amateur league in 1919, led to the re-emergence of pro hockey in the province. While the league billed itself as an amateur circuit, it became known as a notorious example of a "shamateur" league, as amateur teams secretly employed professional players in an attempt to gain an upper hand on their competition. When the Big Four announced their intention to compete in the Allan Cup playdowns, the Pacific Coast Hockey Association sent a letter of protest to the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association demanding that the league be declared professional, thus ineligible to compete for the Allan Cup. The Big Four ultimately chose to withdraw from the AAHA, and operated as an independent league in 1920–21.

The league collapsed after the 1921 season, and the displaced Edmonton Eskimos and Calgary Tigers joined forces with two Saskatchewan-based teams (Regina and Saskatoon), to form the professional Western Canada Hockey League. The teams from the league were eligible to compete for the Stanley Cup, although no Alberta-based club claimed pro hockey's top prize during the WCHL's five-year run.

After the demise of the WCHL, the Tigers and the Eskimos joined the minor pro Prairie Hockey League. They only lasted one season (1926-27) in the league before withdrawing. After another stretch of solely amateur hockey, the two clubs competed in a new incarnation of the Western Canada League in 1932-33. After one season, the league expanded into the United States and became the North West Hockey League. It lasted until 1936, before fizzling.

Women's hockey also made some inroads in Calgary, Edmonton, and some rural locales during this time period, after first being played during the late 1800s. The Banff Winter Carnival, first organized in 1917, provided a popular meeting place for women's teams from Alberta and British Columbia; competing for the Alpine Cup. The Edmonton Monarchs won the 1918, 1926, and 1929-1932 (successive) tournaments. The Edmonton Jasper Place Rustlers claimed two national women's titles during the 1930s. After a long interval of stagnation, women's hockey was revived in the 1970s.

The Calgary Stampeders were the first team from Alberta to play in the Allan Cup finals in 1940. After some war-time disruptions where competitions were largely stocked with military teams, senior hockey experienced a major boom across Canada during the 1940s and 1950s. Teams from Alberta competed in the Western Canada Senior League from 1945-1950. The league was elevated to "Major" status (a new classification defined as a step-above senior hockey) for 1950-51, before folding. The Calgary Stampeders captured Alberta's first Allan Cup title in 1946.

A return of true professional hockey to the province occurred in 1952, when the Calgary Stampeders and Edmonton Flyers from the defunct Western Canada League joined the Pacific Coast Hockey League, which became the Western Hockey League the following year. WHL teams were sponsored by NHL franchises and the league operated at a very high level.

Senior hockey took a hit with the professional game becoming firmly embedded in the province, and as a result the Intermediate game became more prominent. Due to a dearth of senior teams, some intermediate-level squads entered the Allan Cup playdowns. Junior hockey soared to popularity in the 1930s, and the Western Canada Junior League was contested with teams from Alberta and Saskatchewan from 1948-1956. The re-emergence of pro hockey led to a decline in interest in the junior game by the mid-1950s.

As more NHL games were broadcast on television, the WHL began to suffer, and both the Edmonton and the Calgary franchises withdrew from the league in 1963. With the professional game having vanished again, junior and senior hockey began to flourish once more. The Alberta Junior Hockey League was formed in 1964 and a new Western Canada Senior League was created the same year. Calgary-based teams made it to three Allan Cup finals in four years between 1967-1971. The junior Western Hockey League was founded in 1966, and became Western Canada's premier junior competition. It has competed for the Memorial Cup since the reorganization of Canadian junior hockey in 1970.

The Prairie Senior Hockey League proved to be the last hurrah for senior hockey in Western Canada. The following year, the World Hockey Association was formed, and the professional game became the driving force. The Edmonton Oilers were founding members of the WHA, and the Calgary Cowboys joined the league two play two seasons in 1975.

The Oilers joined the National Hockey League in 1979, following the league's merger with the WHA. Professional hockey returned to Calgary to stay in 1980, when the Atlanta Flames relocated to the city and became the Calgary Flames.

External links

• Ice Hockey - Alberta Sports Library

Canadian Provinces

Alberta - British Columbia - Manitoba - Newfoundland and Labrador - New Brunswick

Nova Scotia - Ontario - Prince Edward Island - Quebec - Saskatchewan

Territories: Northwest Territories - Nunavut - Yukon