100th anniversary of Victoria Cougars’ win will be a celebration fit for champions

It may have taken 100 years, but it looks like the 1925 Victoria Cougars may finally get their Stanley Cup parade next March.

The Western Canada Hockey League team won the Stanley Cup final at the former Patrick Arena—which used to reside across the street from Oak Bay High School—after battling it out with the Montreal Canadiens in a four-game series, winning 3-1 (it only took three wins back then to take the title). The Cougars were the second BC team to win the Stanley Cup—and the last. The Vancouver Millionaires, coached by Frank Patrick, won the Cup in 1915.

The idea of a 100th anniversary celebration for the Cougars was brought forward to the Victoria Hockey Legacy Society (VHLS) by a group of Oak Bay residents and business owners, after the success of the Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada events held in Victoria in January.

“Just in the last month, it's really kind of percolated,” said John Wilson, VHLS board chair. “We've gotten the committee together and are just working on budgeting right now.”

The VHLS plans to have a “mini parade” along Oak Bay Avenue, according to Wilson, and are in the works to borrow the Stanley Cup from the NHL for the public to view. The memorial of the Patrick Arena, which burned down in 1929, will be updated at its former location and the society is hoping a banner will be added above the rink at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

The society also has the artificial rink used at this year's Hockey Day in Canada celebration.

“We're hoping to get that set up somewhere in Oak Bay near the high school itself for kind of a festival type atmosphere,”  Wilson says.

While, unsurprisingly, none of the team members are alive today, Wilson says the VHLS is working on connecting with their descendants and relatives through the NHL’s network, in order to have them at the event. The Patrick family, related to brothers Frank and Lester who helped shape hockey as we know it, will also be contacted.

Though Victoria will likely never see a local NHL team—and therefore will never win another Stanley Cup—Wilson says the city “punches well above its weight with events,” and he expects it will be another successful celebration for hockey fans.

Fun fact: Despite the 1925 Cup win, the Cougars moved to Detroit the following year. They were renamed the Falcons in 1930 and then Red Wings in 1932 and have gone on to win the Stanley Cup 11 times.