Journal Article

Playing in the Neutral Zone: Meanings and Uses of Ice Hockey in the Canada-U.S. Borderlands, 1895-1915

Holman, Andrew C.

2004

Overview

In these years, the best senior hockey teams in the American Northwest Interior had some Canadian players on their rosters, but a significant number of American-born skaters too. The Butte Shamrocks featured \"Fleming,\" a \"star player\" from Ontario, the Columbias had \"Neill,\" who had played two seasons with Winnipeg, and Spokane had captain Ernie McCaugherty, who had played on \"strong Canadian teams.\" Canadian \"stars\" attracted the attention of local newspapers, clearly, but hockey teams in the American Northwest interior were not wholly British Columbian transplants; not, as the Nelson newspaper once suggested, \"composed largely of former Boundary hockeyists.\"(43) A feature story on the local team in a March 1911 edition of the Missoula Sentinel provides rare detail on the composition of these early hockey teams and illustrates this fact (see figure 3). Under the caption \"Missoula Hockey Champions\" was a team photograph and two columns dedicated to describing the team's seven players, including \"Matt Lucy, left wing,...a Missoula-reared boy...J.O. Safford,...a native of Massachusetts and [a product] of Harvard university...H.T. Thane...from St. Paul, Minn., where he played in the school league.\" Three of the team's other members were from New Brunswick, and a final player's origins were not specified (figure 3).(44) The point here is simple, but important. Hockey was not a game reserved for Canadian expatriates in Missoula or other places in the American northwest. It had the interest, following, and participation of American-born residents, too. Despite this, the biggest attraction for northwest borderland American hockey clubs in these years was in Canada, at the Rossland Winter Carnival international tournament in mid-February. Initially modest, the Rossland Winter Carnival grew significantly in the years after 1900. Excursion trains carrying carnival goers came from all parts of the Western Interior, from both sides of the line. \"Large contingents of visitors arrived from Nelson, the Boundary and points along the Spokane Falls & Northern [Railroad] today,\" a Daily News reporter wrote from Rossland in early February 1906. \"[T]he carnival is very successful.\" Carnival organizers promoted two hockey tournament series, the British Columbia championship for which organizers invited the ablest teams from across the province, and the International Tournament which, by definition, involved hockey clubs from both sides of the Canadian-American border. The International Championship tournament was created in 1907, and after 1911, the tournament victor was awarded a sizeable trophy, the \"International Cup.\" These tournaments were the centerpiece of the whole event: \"Rossland Winter Carnival\" a front-page headline in the Nelson Weekly News read in January 1910, \"Hockey-Championship of BC and International Championship.\" The Spokane Spokesman-Review echoed in early February: \"Rossland Carnival This Week...Hockey Tourney Booked.\"(45) Local teams with good records were invited to play, but over time even uninvited clubs with high self-assessments began to seek invitations to play. \"Big Carnival\" read one February 1910 headline in the Nelson Weekly News, \"Vancouver and Spokane want Senior Hockey Games.\"(46)

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group,Taylor & Francis Inc
• Subject: Borders / Boundaries / Canada / Canada - US relations / Canadian history / Carnivals / Clubs / Competition / Expatriates / Games / History / Hockey / Ice hockey / Identity / Local media / Neutrality / News media / Regional studies / Self evaluation / Sports / Team sports / Teams / Tournaments / Transplants / U.S.A / Visitors / Winter