Dawson City Nuggets - The Challenge

The Challenge

For more details on this topic, see 1904–05 Ottawa Hockey Club season#Ottawa vs. Dawson_City.

The Nuggets participated in perhaps the most famous Stanley Cup challenge of all, against the Ottawa Hockey Club, aka "The Silver Seven" in 1905. Dawson City had two former elite hockey players, Weldy Young who had played for Ottawa in the 1890s and D.R. McLennan who had played for Queen's College against the Montreal Victorias in the challenge of 1895. Other players were selected from other Dawson City clubs. Dawson City's challenge was accepted in the summer of 1904 by the Stanley Cup trustees, scheduled (inauspiciously) for Friday, January 13, 1905. The date of the challenge meant that Young had to travel later as he had to work in a federal election that December, and meet the club in Ottawa.

To get to Ottawa, several thousand miles away, the club would have to get to Whitehorse by road, catch a train from there to Skagway, Alaska, then catch a steamer to Vancouver, and a train from there to Ottawa. On December 18, 1904 several players set out by dogsled and the rest left the next day by bicycle for a 330 mile trek to Whitehorse. At first the team made good progress, but the weather turned warm enough to thaw the roads, meaning the players had to walk several hundred miles. The team would spend the nights in police sheds along the road. At Whitehorse, the weather turned bad, causing the trains not to run for three days, causing the Nuggets to miss their steamer in Skagway. The next one could not dock for three days due to the ice buildup. The club would find the sea journey treacherous, causing seasickness amongst the team. When the steamer reached Vancouver, the area was too fogged in to dock, and the steamer docked in Seattle. The team from there caught a train to Vancouver, and finally left Vancouver on January 6, 1905, arriving in Ottawa on January 11.

Despite the difficult journey, the Ottawa squad refused to change the date of the first game, only two days away. Otherwise, Ottawa was hospitable. The Klondikers received a huge welcome at the train station, had a welcoming dinner, and used the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club's rooms for the duration of their stay. Young would not arrive in time to play for Dawson.

The first game started well for Dawson, being only down 3–1 at the half, but things turned ugly afterwards. Norman Watt of Dawson tripped Ottawa's Art Moore, who retaliated with a stick to the mouth of Watt, who promptly knocked Moore out hitting him on the head with his stick. The game ended 9–2 for Ottawa. The game left a poor taste in the Klondikers, complaining that several goals were offside.

Watt then made the mistake of saying that Frank McGee wasn't that good, as he had only scored one in the first game. McGee would score 4 goals in the first half of the second match and 10 in the second half, leading Ottawa to a 23–2 win. Despite this high score, the newspapers claimed that Albert Forrest, the Dawson City goalie, had played a "really fine game," otherwise the score "might have been doubled." Ottawa would celebrate by hosting Dawson at a banquet, after which the players would take the Cup and attempt to drop-kick it over the Rideau Canal. The stunt was unsuccessful, and the Cup landing on the frozen ice, to be retrieved the next day.

The news got worse for McLennan and Watt. The day after the second game, the Yukon Territory announced that they would be laid off from work, effective immediately, albeit with pay until June 30, 1905. The pair worked in the gold commissioner's office.