Poor Len Canayen: the year the flu cancelled the Stanley Cup

Ed. here. With the National Hockey League forced to "pause" its season -- in the words of (((Gary Bettman))) -- and probably the playoffs too, we didn't expect our National Sports Editor, Poor Len Canayen, to contribute anything until whenever play resumes, probably in the fall. But here he is, with a timely story about the year the Stanley Cup was not awarded.

Today, April 5th, A.D. 2020, is the 101st anniversary of the death of Joe Hall. [Who he? Ed.] Tanks, Hed., for asking. Joe Hall played for the 1918-19 edition of Canada's team, the Montréal Canadiens. That season, only the second for the NHL (founded in 1917), the Habs had finished at the top of the standings, and in March of 1919 went to Seattle to play the Seattle Metropolitans, of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, for the Stanley Cup.

The bleu-blanc-et-rouge were looking for revenge. They had won Lord Stanley's silverware, emblematic of North American (and therefore world) hockey supremacy, in 1916, defeating the Portland OR Rosebuds. (Seriously. That was the team's name.) But the Metropolitans thrashed the Canadiens the following year, bringing the trophy back to the west coast.

In 1918 the Toronto Arenas (or Blueshirts, depending on whose history you read) defeated the Vancouver Millionaires, [Where did they get these names? Ed.] in a series held in Toronto. This was back in the daze when transcontinental travel was a big deal, so the series alternated between the east and west, which meant that Seattle would be the venue for the 1919 rematch between the Metropolitans (no-one had dubbed them them "Mets") and the Canadiens.

Unfortunately, the "Spanish flu" got to Seattle before the Habs did. The epidemic is thought to have started at Camp Funston, in Kansas, in March 1918. From there it went with American doughboys to Europe, where it mutated in the trenches of the Great War, and spread around the world. The name "Spanish influenza" resulted from Spain's neutrality during WWI, which meant that Spanish newspapers, unlike those of the belligerent nations, did not censor news of the devastation caused by the disease.

The Spanish flu came back to North America wih wounded soldiers in the summer of 1918, and spread quickly and with deadly effect across the major cities of the USA and Canada. About 8500 Chicagoans died in September and October. In New York City, 851 people died in a single day. In Toronto, more than 1600 people died in the last three weeks of October. Montréal reported over 16,000 cases in that same month. In the East, the disease seemed to disappear by December of 2018, but in the West, Seattle suffered through its worst month of the epidemic.

The Canadiens arrived in Seattle on 18 March 1919. That spring's series had all the makings of a classic, but turned into a tragedy. Five games were hotly contested, with Seattle thrashing the Habs in games 1 and 3. Montréal prevailed in game 2. Game 4 was an epic, ending, after two 10-minute overtime periods, in a scoreless tie! Game 5 also went into overtime, with la Sainte Flannelle coming out on top.

So as April Fool's Day of 2019 dawned, the two te4ams were even, with two wins apiece and the 0-0 tie. A victory for either team in Game 6 would mean the Stanley Cup. Both teams appeared to be tiring, but it wasn't fatigue. It was the Spanish flu. On the morning of April 1st, George Kennedy, the Canadiens' owner/manager, and three players were confined to their hotel. Joe Hall and a teammate had fevers of 104 degrees and were taken to Providence Hospital.

The game that night was cancelled. There was some talk that Game 6 might be played later, perhaps in Vancouver BC, which had not been so hard hit, once the players recovered. But it was not to be. Joe Hall died in Sattle's Columbus Sanitarium on April 5th. Two teammates and the owner died later. No winner for 1919 was ever declared.

Footnote: More than half a century after the NHL started expanding in 1967, Seattle will finally get a team in the Big League, starting in the 2021-22 season, if such event ever eventuates. The name of the new franchise is as yet unknown, but it probably won't be the Metropolitans... or the Rosebuds.

Another footnote: For a long time it looked as if there couldn't possibly be another season in which there would be no Stanley Cup champion. Then along came Mr Bitchman, on whose watch the NHL saw the entire 2004-5 season cancelled. If the Cup is not awarded this year, as seems likely, it won't be his fault... this time... just the flu... again. But take heart, hockey fans. Hockey survived, the NHL survived, the Montréal Canadiens not only survived, but came back stronger than ever!