British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces. It became a province in 1871. The capital is Victoria, and Vancouver is the largest city in BC. The province has a population of approximately 4,400,000 people.
History of hockey in British Columbia
The first organized game in British Columbia was played by the Vancouver Hockey Club on the Lake of the Woods on January 17, 1893.[1] There was also a game played in Nelson on the Kootenay Lake on March 4 of the same year. In 1895, a team from Golden, BC, faced the Calgary Fire Brigade in a competitive match.[2]
In January 1896, Nelson and Kaslo played a game against one another, and a four team tournament featuring teams from Rossland, Kaslo, Nelson, and Sandon was held that February. With the opening of an indoor rink in the now-ghost town of Sandon, the first indoor game was played between the Black's and the White's (6-3) in early February, 1897. On February 24, a Sandon team traveled to Kaslo and beat the hosts 5-2. A three-team tournament involving Kaslo, Rossland, and the hosts Sandon for the Silver Cup was played in March 1897.
An ice hockey tournament was played at the Rossland Winter Carnival between 1898 and 1917. The teams played, ostensibly, for the title of Champions of British Columbia.[3] The BCHL, which operated from 1900-1905, was the first ice hockey league in British Columbia. It featured teams from Rossland, Nelson, and Greenwood. Professional hockey came to British Columbia with the creation of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association in 1912. The PCHA was a premier league in Canada and the Vancouver Millionaires became the first west-coast team to win the Stanley Cup in 1915.
Women's hockey made its debut in Sandon in 1897 and a women's tournament was added to the program of the Winter Carnival in 1900. In 1911, rather humorously, the Carnival officials declared that the winner of the women's tournament would receive the honor of being "world champions". The Rossland Ladies' Hockey Team won every year through 1915.[4]
Women's teams from Vancouver, New Westminster, and Victoria set up their own competition for the "championship of British Columbia" in 1914. New Westminster won the first edition of the new championship. In 1918, the Vancouver team faced a new opponent made up of King George High School tournaments called the Amazons. The Amazons won the game and proclaimed themselves provincial champions. In 1921, the Pacific Coast Hockey Association organized a women's league featuring the Vancouver Amazons, Victoria Kewpies, and Seattle Vamps. The Amazons won the 1922 Alpine Cup, emblematic of the Banff Winter Carnival women's ice hockey championship. The Fernie Swastikas claimed the title in 1923. By the mid-1930s, women's hockey in British Columbia had practically died out, and was not revived again until the 1970s.
The first Provincial Senior Championship for the Savage Cup was contested in 1913. An Intermediate Championship for the Coy Cup began the same year, and Junior Playoffs were first held in 1919. Amateur hockey in the province was under the jurisdiction of the BC Amateur Athletic Union from 1912-1919, when the British Columbia Hockey Association was created. After the demise of the PCHA in 1924, some of the teams joined the Western Canada Hockey League, which itself folded in 1926.
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