Allan Cup—Canada’s True Amateur Crown

When the Stanley Cup was introduced as Canada’s national hockey prize in 1893, it was supposed to be the end reward for the country’s top amateur team.

But, only a few years after the Cup challenges began, it became obvious that many of the teams vying for Lord Stanley’s mug were "amateur" in name only. Because money was paid to the teams out of the gate receipts from the challenge games, the owners and managers of Canada’s top amateur teams had no qualms in doing what it took to make it to the Stanley Cup final. What was the harm in paying players under the table if a big paycheque was waiting in the wings?

Even though the Stanley Cup was designated as an amateur trophy, it had become Canada’s de facto championship for professional teams. So, in 1908, Sir H. Montagu Allan, a famed horse breeder from Montreal, decided that a new trophy was needed for Canada’s true amateur clubs. The Allan Cup was born—and like the Stanley Cup, trustees were appointed to make sure legitimate challenges for the trophy could be made by elite amateur teams from across the nation.

That year, the Montreal Victorias, winners of the Stanley Cup from 1895 to 1899, were presented with the Allan Cup, and were told that the winners of their hockey association would be the first team to defend the trophy. It was a symbolic move, by naming one of the great Stanley Cup teams of the past as the first defenders of the Allan Cup, the trustees wanted to remind Canadians about how far the Stanley Cup had deviated from its origins in amateurism.

The Ottawa Cliffsides wrested the Cup away from the Victorias, and were named the first official champions of the trophy. A team from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario soon dispatched the Cliffsides, and challenge after challenge came in from points across the country. With the formation of the National Hockey Association in 1908-09, and that league’s guaranteed participation in the Stanley Cup, Canadians knew that the true amateur championship of the country was now the Allan Cup. Interest in the Allan Cup grew to the point where the trustees had to limit the number of challenges that could be made for the trophy in one winter.

In both 1911 and 1912, the Winnipeg Victorias, Stanley Cup winners in 1895 and 1901, won the Allan Cup.

As the First World War raged in Europe, governors of the newly-formed Canadian Hockey Association determined that, to cut down on travel costs and the number of challenges, that the trophy should be contested between Western and Eastern Canadian teams who had each gone through a series of "playdowns" on their sides of the country.

In 1920, a new twist was added—the Allan Cup champion would be sent to represent Canada at the Antwerp Olympics. That year, the Winnipeg Falcons won gold. The practice was repeated in 1924, when the 1923 Allan Cup champs, the Toronto Granites, won gold at Chamonix, France.

While the Canadian Hockey Association did not continue the practice of giving Allan Cup teams automatic Olympic berths, the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen who appeared in both the 1956 and 1960 Olympics were Allan Cup champs in 1953 and 1955.

Interest in the Allan Cup spread south of the border, too. Allan Cup rules state that a challenging team must come from a Canadian senior amateur hockey association; but that didn’t mean that the team itself must be Canadian. In 1970, the Spokane Jets, playing out of a Western Canadian association, became the first American team to win the Allan Cup. Teams from Spokane won the Cup four times between 1970 and 1980. From 1994 to 1996, the Warroad Lakers out of Minnesota captured the Cup three consecutive times playing out of a Manitoba-based amateur association.

Today, the Allan Cup tournament brings together the four top amateur teams from Canadian Associations. Like the junior Memorial Cup, the four teams contest the championship in one host city.

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