The Eskimos—High Priced Talent

The Edmonton Eskimos, owned by local hockey man Kenny McKenzie—who also acted as the general manager of the club—bore the same name as the famed Edmonton amateur club that challenged for the Stanley Cup in 1908 and 1910.

The Eskimos—who inexplicably decided to change their name to "Eskimoes" for their final season before folding—were key members of the new Western Canada Hockey League that emerged to compete with the Pacific Coast Hockey League and the new National Hockey League in the wake of the First World War.

The Eskimos, like the three other WCHL member clubs, spent lavishly so they could procure talent that rivaled that of any NHL club. And the team was loaded with talent—goaltender Hal Winkler was considered one of the best puck-stoppers in the country; and skaters "Bullet" Joe Simpson and Gordon "Duke" Keats were later named to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

With McKenzie stacking the lineup with superstars, there was little surprise when the Eskimos finished atop the WCHL standings in 1921-22. The real shock came in the playoffs, when the Eskimos were upset by the Regina Capitals for the League championship.

Simpson, Keats and Winkler planned better things for the next season. Again, the Eskimos finished first overall in the WCHL standings, but this time, the team followed it up with a playoff championship as well. Keats scored the overtime winner in Game 2 of the WCHL championship series to give the Eskimos the League title. Because of a special arrangement between Canada’s three professional leagues, the Eskimos would get the right to challenge the winner of the series between the Pacific Coast Hockey League champion Vancouver Millionaires and the NHL champ Ottawa Senators. The three teams agreed that each of the series would take place in Vancouver.

The Senators narrowly defeated the Millionaires three games to one—with two of the Ottawa wins coming by one-goal margins. While Vancouver and Ottawa played a best-of-five series, the Eskimos and Senators agreed to contest the Cup on a best-of-three basis. The series started only three days after the Senators dispatched Vancouver. But Clint Benedict was a fortress in the Senators’ net; he allowed just one goal in two games as the Senators won 2-1 and 1-0. No Edmonton team would return to the Cup final until the Oilers lost to the Islanders in 1983.

The Eskimos continued to be a League power, never finishing below .500, but despite their record, they could not return to the Stanley Cup. McKenzie, worried about the tens of thousands of dollars he was losing as the ticket revenues for the team could not match the salaries he was paying his star players, decided the best course to ensure the team’s survival was to outlay more money for even more star talent. Barney Stanley, a former Cup winner with the 1915 Vancouver Millionaires and the man who had led the Calgary Tigers to the 1924 WCHL title, was signed. And after the Regina club folded in 1925, McKenzie spent even more on hard-hitting defenceman Eddie Shore.

McKenzie, because of the outrageous sums he was paying his players, had a hard time securing a lease for the Edmonton Arena. Before the 1925-26 seasons, McKenzie had held secret talks with Regina about moving the Eskimos there. But an outcry from season-ticket holders brought the financial woes of the team into the public eye and, as a result, a ticket drive was organized and helped bring in over $10,000 worth of seat revenues and saved the team.

Shore led his Eskimos to the Western Hockey League (the league was renamed in 1925 when the surviving teams from the now-defunct PCHL joined) final in 1925-26. Playing on a badly-injured leg, Shore was not his usual mean-hitting self, and the Eskimos succumbed to the defending Stanley Cup champion Victoria Cougars in the WCHL final.

Even with the success of the season-ticket drives, McKenzie continued to be desperate for funds, as were the other owners in the League. In a last-ditch effort to save the club, McKenzie sold Shore, Keats and five other players to the free-spending Boston Bruins of the NHL for $50,000. While the money mitigated McKenzie’s huge losses, it was not enough to save the team or the League. The WCHL and the Eskimos folded in 1926, killing professional hockey in Western Canada until the emergence of the World Hockey Association and the rise of the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks in the early 1970s.

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