When the Canadiens played for a city championship

The Montreal Canadiens used to compete annually in a city championship against the Montreal Maroons for the George Kennedy Memorial Cup (shortened to Kennedy Cup), named after the former owner of the Canadiens, as a bragging-rights award presented to the team that won the season series between the two intercity rivals. The Kennedy Cup became a symbol of the fierce competition between these two teams, a rivalry that defined Montreal hockey for a decade.

How a wrestling promoter became the owner of a hockey team

The way that George Kennedy, a renowned wrestling and boxing promoter, became owner of the Canadiens is a bit of a convoluted story. It can be somewhat summarized in the following manner: Kennedy’s Club Athlétique Canadien (CAC), a sporting club that was founded well before the National Hockey Association (NHA), publicly threatened to sue the NHA and Ambrose O’Brien’s Le Canadien following the league’s inaugural 1909-10 season for unauthorized use of the name and causing brand confusion, unless they awarded him an expansion franchise.

O’Brien, already looking for a way out of his ownership of the team following serious financial losses after only one season, gladly stepped aside for Kennedy and the NHA awarded to Kennedy the franchise license previously occupied by the Haileysbury Comets for a reported sum of $7,500. The franchise license held by O’Brien for Le Canadien was suspended and eventually sold to a Toronto group interested in bringing professional hockey to the Queen City for the 1911-12 season. It is important to conclude at this point that the 1910-11 CAC does not share any lineage with the 1909-10 Le Canadien. That said, they do share players, as the CAC was given exclusive NHA rights for all French-Canadian players, and so two pillars of O’Brien’s team in Jack Laviolette and Didier Pitre signed on with Kennedy’s new team, having no other choice.

There was a dispute over the rights of Newsy Lalonde between O’Brien, who still operated the Renfrew Millionaires, and Kennedy. O’Brien had ‘traded’ Lalonde from Le Canadien to Renfrew in 1910 for a playoff run, and considered Lalonde to be Renfrew property. Ultimately the league ruled in Kennedy’s favour that Lalonde was French-Canadian and had to be released from his obligations in Renfrew. O’Brien ended up pulling out entirely from the NHA following the 1910-11 season, folding Renfrew in the process, and the league created a Cup in his honour that would be awarded to the team that finished first in the standings at the conclusion of the regular season. But the story of the O’Brien Cup is for another day. This is about the Kennedy Cup.

Kennedy’s legacy

George Kennedy not only ran the Canadiens for 11 years, but was a well-renowned sports promoter not just in the city, but in Canada and North America, promoting fights for such headlining wrestlers as Karl Gotch, Strangler Lewis, and George Hackenschmidt. He was well-regarded and respected for bringing sporting events to Montreal, including ventures in boxing, lacrosse, bowling, and baseball.

Kennedy ended up passing away in 1921 at the age of 41 from complications caused by the Spanish Influenza he contracted during the cancelled Stanley Cup final against Seattle in 1919 that cost the life of defenceman Joe Hall. Kennedy’s widow sold the team a few weeks later to a consortium of sporting men for the sum of $11,500. The consortium was made up of money men Louis Letourneau, Joe Cattarinich, and promoter/manager Léo Dandurand.

In March of 1927, Dandurand announced that John Y. Kendall offered to donate a cup that commemorated his brother’s services to sport in Montreal. It was to be played for by the city’s two professional hockey teams, the Canadiens and the Montreal Maroons, and named the George Kennedy Memorial Cup.

The Cup was formally recognized by the National Hockey League in November of that year during the board of governors meeting ahead of the 1927-28 season. Three trustees were assigned to the management of this trophy: Dandurand, Frank Calder, President of the NHL, and James Strachan, President of the Maroons. To this day it remains the only trophy recognized by the NHL that focused solely on a rivalry between two teams, to be won by the team who has the most wins against the other during regular season play. If either team won the trophy for three consecutive years, it would be considered that team’s permanent property.

The inscription on the trophy read:

1927-28: The first Kennedy Cup series

The Canadiens and the Maroons met six times during the 1927-28 season, with the first game between the two teams taking place a few days after the league meeting, on November 19. It was an evenly matched affair in front of 13,000 fans, which was highlighted by a wrestling struggle between Sylvio Mantha of the Canadiens and Dunc Munro of the Maroons, which started with headlocks and body punches, and ended with 17 separate penalties being called in the 20-minute frame. The game ended in a 1-1 tie, with the pugilism taking attention away from the puck for most of the game, and Aurèle Joliat tying the game late in the third period.

The Canadiens took the series lead a month later, winning the second game 2-1 on the strength of two goals by Joliat, but the Maroons quickly got their revenge the following game, winning 1-0 and stopping the Canadiens’ unbeaten streak at a record 18 games (remaining, to this day, the 10th longest streak in NHL history). The low scoring and tough competitive games carried through to the fourth game of the series when opposing elite goaltenders George Hainsworth and Clint Benedict willed a 0-0 tie to keep the series even at one win per side, with two ties.

The fifth game was filled with dramatics, as the Maroons were edging ever closer to the top-ranked Canadiens in the standings on top of inter-city bragging rights waiting to be determined. Thanks to the heroics of Howie Morenz and Joliat, the Canadiens were able to overcome a two-goal deficit late in the third period to send the game to overtime, but the Maroons eventually tallied in the extra frame to give them the lead in the Kennedy Cup series, with one game to go.

The Canadiens would not go quietly, and in the final regular season game between the two teams, the Canadiens pulled out the most conclusive result of the season, beating the Maroons 3-0 in a brutal game where 31 penalties were called as the Maroons became more focused on arguing with the referee than playing against the Canadiens. Joliat scored twice to tie the series at two wins per side, with two ties.

It was decided by the board of trustees that the inaugural winner of the Kennedy Cup would now be determined by the winner of the first-round playoff series between the two teams who were conveniently paired up against one another for the Canadian Division championship.

Incredibly, the two-game most-goals-scored playoff series went absolutely down to the limit, with the first game ending in a 2-2 tie, and the second game requiring overtime to settle a master. Ultimately the Maroons pulled off a 3-2 overtime victory and went off to play for the Stanley Cup. With the win they also earned the inaugural Kennedy Cup. There was no big celebration at centre ice with the trophy after the game however. It was presented a week later, prior to the third game of the Stanley Cup final between the Maroons and the New York Rangers.

This would remarkably be the final playoff series between the two crosstown rivals, which is amazing considering that the Maroons would be around for another 10 seasons before disbanding.

After the Maroons won, the Kennedy Cup was put on display in the window of a high-end stationary store on the English side of town, the L. E. Waterman’s St. James street store, along with photographs of all the Maroon players, goalie Clint Benedict’s stick, and Hooley Smith’s stick. High-end pens from the store were presented to each of the Maroons players to commemorate their win.

Kennedy Cup results

The two teams went on to compete for the city championship 10 more times. Below is a complete list of the Canadiens’ season series record against the Maroons each season, and the Cup winning team:

1928-29: 4-0-2, Montréal Canadiens

1929-30: 1-4-1, Montreal Maroons

1930-31: 3-1-2, Montreal Canadiens

1931-32: 5-2-1, Montreal Canadiens

1932-33: 2-3-1, Montreal Maroons

1933-34: 2-3-1, Montreal Maroons

1934-35: 4-1-1, Montreal Canadiens

1935-36: 1-6-1, Montreal Maroons

1936-37: 2-3-3, Montreal Maroons

1937-38: 4-4-0, Montreal Canadiens

Overall, the Maroons hold the edge in all-time Kennedy Cup wins with six victories, while the Canadiens have won five times. Neither team managed to win three season series in a row to lay permanent claim of the trophy.

No players dominated the Maroons more for the Canadiens than Joliat and Morenz. Joliat scored 33 goals and added 28 assists in 71 games (0.86 points per game), while Morenz scored 21 goals and recorded 22 assists in 45 games (0.96 points per game).

For the Maroons, the standards were much lower, with Dave Trottier putting up 40 points in 62 head-to-head games, and Jimmy Ward put up 39 points in 70 games.

Final Kennedy Cup moment

On March 18, 1938, the Canadiens played their final game against the Maroons, winning 6-3 to tie the season series at four after trailing by two games. With the series tied, the winner of the final Kennedy Cup was determined by the second tiebreaker, as both teams had scored the same number of goals. The Canadiens were declared the winner due to ranking higher in the league standings.

The final time the Kennedy Cup was presented was three days after the Canadiens’ victory, with the trophy scheduled to be presented before the Canadiens game against the Rangers. However, there was one problem, nobody could find the trophy. Eventually, after 40 frantic minutes of searching, the Kennedy Cup was finally presented before the start of the third period by Frank Calder to Canadiens general manager Ernest Savard, to the sarcastic exaggerated applause of the fans who mocked the situation in good spirit.

Following the dissolution of the Maroons, the Kennedy Cup faded into obscurity, and was ultimately lost for many years. It was found not long ago for sale at a sports memorabilia store in Saint-Nicolas, a suburb of Lévis. The trophy, which for many years represented the best Montreal had to offer, is now damaged and in desperate need of repair and restoration. It needs to find a proper home in the Hockey Hall of Fame as a relic from the NHL’s foundational years, or, at the very least, end up in the hands of the Montreal Canadiens, the trophy’s final winners.