Creation and Early Years
While the Stanley Cup was created in 1893 as the Canadian amateur hockey championship, professional teams were openly competing for the trophy by 1907. Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey, the Governor General of Canada, planned to donate a new trophy to serve as the senior amateur championship, however Sir Montague Allan donated the Allan Cup before he could finalize his plans. Grey instead offered an award to the Dominion amateur rugby football championship beginning in 1909. He initially failed to follow through on his offer; the trophy was not ordered until two weeks prior to the first championship game.
The first Grey Cup game was held on December 4, 1909, between two Toronto clubs: the University of Toronto Varsity Blues defeated the Parkdale Canoe Club 26–6 before 3,800 fans. The trophy was not ready for presentation following the game, and the Varsity Blues did not receive it until March 1910. They retained the trophy in the following two years, defeating the Hamilton Tigers in 1910 and the Toronto Argonauts in 1911. The University of Toronto failed to reach the 1912 Grey Cup, which was won by the Hamilton Alerts over the Argonauts. The Varsity Blues refused to hand over the trophy on the belief they could keep it until they were defeated in a title game. They kept the trophy until 1914 when they were defeated by the Argonauts, who made the trophy available to subsequent champions.
Canada's participation in the First World War resulted in the cancellation of the championship from 1916 to 1918, during which time the Cup was forgotten. Montreal Gazette writer Bob Dunn claimed that the trophy was later rediscovered as "one of the family heirlooms" of an employee of the Toronto trust company where it had been sent for storage. The Grey Cup game was also cancelled in 1919 due to a lack of interest from the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU) and the intercollegiate unions, along with rules conflicts between the Canadian Rugby Union (CRU) and the western union. Competition finally resumed in 1920 with the 8th Grey Cup game, won 16–3 by the Varsity Blues over the Argonauts. It was the University of Toronto's fourth, and final, championship.
Famous quotes containing the words early years, creation, early and/or years:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“There have been heroes for whom this world seemed expressly prepared, as if creation had at last succeeded; whose daily life was the stuff of which our dreams are made, and whose presence enhanced the beauty and ampleness of Nature herself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims” and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ‘tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jing by gee by gosh by gum”
—E.E. (Edward Estlin)
“What blessed you
that you sit,
sedately no harlot
a witness
as years pass,
to beauty?”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)