Les Canadiens
Les Canadiens were created by Ambrose O'Brien on November 4, 1909 in Room 129 of the Windsor Hotel. He later paid the $1000 franchise fee and $5000 to guarantee player salaries. He hired Jack Laviolette to build the team of mostly French speaking players. The uniforms were a navy blue sweater with white narrow bands at the shoulders connected to a band across the chest and a white "C" at the center of the chest band.Their first game was January 5th, 1910 against the Cobalt Silver Kings at the Jubilee Rink, located on Sainte-Catherine Street East in Montreal, before a crowd of 3,000 spectators. Newsy Lalonde, who previously played for Cobalt in the TPHL, scored the first goal of the game at 17:00 of the first half for the Canadiens. Newsy scored 2 goals that first game, but had to leave the game with an ankle injury. Bernier scored 2 and Laviolette scored 1. Joe Cattaranich played goaltender. After taking a 3-0 lead over the Silver Kings, they later trailed 4-3 and 6-4 before tying the game. Referee Riley Hern called for an overtime. The Canadiens won the game 7-6 at 5'35" of overtime when Skinner Poulin scored his second goal of the game. This game did not actually count in the standings as the league was restructured a week later.
On February 24th, Cobalt beat the Canadiens 11-7 in Cobalt. On March 5th, Cobalt beat the Canadiens 6-4 in Montreal.
Stats
COACH - Jack Laviolette 2-10-0
| PLAYER | GP | G | A | PTS | PIM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newsy Lalonde | 6 | 16 | 0 | 16 | 40 |
| Pat Seguin | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 12 |
| Art Bernier | 12 | 13 | 0 | 13 | 25 |
| Jean Bougie | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Didier Pitre | 12 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 5 |
| Ed Millaire | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Skinner Poulin | 12 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 53 |
| Chapleau | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Ed Decarie | 12 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 42 |
| M. Larochelle | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Edgar Leduc | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Joe Cattaranich | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jack Laviolette | 11 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 26 |
| Teddy Groulx | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GOALTENDER | GP | W | L | T | MINS | G.A. | G.AVE. | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M. Larochelle | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 67 | 4 | 3.58 | 0 |
| Jack Laviolette | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 |
| Joe Cattaranich | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 240 | 34 | 8.50 | 0 |
| Teddy Groulx | 7 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 420 | 62 | 8.86 | 0 |
Note
- Commonly available stats reguarding Larochelle and Laviolette are incorrect. Laviolette finished the last 5 minutes of the 72 minute overtime game on March 11 after Larochelle was thrown out of the game, earning the victory.
- Les Canadiens are not actually the Montreal Canadiens. In fact, the Haileybury Comets franchise was sold and renamed the Montreal Canadiens.
- Must read "La Glorieuse Histoire Des Canadiens".