The First Stanley Cup In Ottawa received by the Ottawa Senators at Dey’s Arena the Corner of Bay Street and Gladstone - The Dawson City Klondikes
During the 1904-1905 season, the Dawson City Nuggets traveled in a extraordinary trip,4000 miles south, to play the Ottawa Silver Sevens in a Stanley Cup Challenge at Dey’s Arena. The trip began on December 21st, 1904, during the harsh winters of the Yukon. As part of their 8 day,350 mile journey to White horse, they traveled extensively by bicycling, dog-sledding and walking, much enthusiastic to begin their journey. From there, they took a train to Skagway, a sea port in Alaska. Just missing their boat to Vancouver, they fortunately found another boat that took them to Seattle, in which brought on much water and sea-sickness amongst the crew. The proceeded then to Vancouver by train, and on to Ottawa where they were fit into a spacious smoking car. After 23 days passed, the Nuggest finally arrived in Ottawa to find that only 36 hours was given for them to recover from their exhausting trip and prepare for the first (sold-out) match between them and Stanley Cup Champions of the Ottawa Silver Sevens on January 13th. This historical game was to be held in the newly furnished Dey’s Arena, which had become the Silver Sevens much cherished home, and the arena was about to be tested to see whether it could facilitate a sold-out crowd. And because back in those days, there were no subs from any of the teams, they lost their first game 9-3 to the Ottawa Silver Sevens in the Dey’s Arena. The second game the Ottawa Silver Sevens won again by 23-2, and is in the record books as the biggest single game winners in Stanley Cup history, and up to the present day, has not been broken. In 1997, the 23 day road trip was enacted with a newly formed Dawson City Nuggets team as they traveled by dogsled and snowmobiles to attend the commemoration of the Dey’s Arena, and the historically famous Stanley Cup game. After traveling back to the area, where Dey’s Arena has long been torn down, they met a similar gate losing against the Ottawa Sentator’s Alumni on March 23rd. Not surprisingly, they lost their first game 9-3. But they took some comfort that they had kept it respectably close under the circumstances. This sense of comfort gave way to proud confidence as they opted to spend the two days before Game Two “relaxing” in Canada’s capital rather than training. This turned out to be a bad plan as they lost the second game 23-2, thus entering the record books as the biggest single game losers in Stanley Cup history. The record still stands. The historical legacy of the Dey’s Arena and the Ottawa Silver Sevens will never be forgotten.