Glory Days T he Canucks played their first NHL season in 1970 71 However professional hockey already had a long and colorful history in the city Vancouver is an important seaport with access to the Pacific Ocean It is located in the Canadian province of British Columbia In the early 1900s there were a lot of jobs and a lot of young workers in the city Often they spent their free time playing hockey and watching it Vancouver had a team called the Millionaires In 1915 they won the Stanley Cup It marked the first time a club from the West Coast captured hockey’s greatest prize Over the years the Millionaires featured some of Canada’s top stars including Fred Cyclone Taylor and Jack Adams 6
As the NHL grew in size and power during the 1920s western teams such as the Millionaires could no longer afford to pay the top players West Coast hockey continued to thrive but only for teams in the minor leagues Vancouver was home to one of the most successful teams in the region at this level the Canucks They won six league championships from 1946 to 1970 Five players who skated for the Canucks during this time would later enter the Hall of Fame During the 1960s the NHL decided to expand from six teams to 12 In 1970 the league grew to 14 teams with the addition of the Buffalo Sabres and the Canucks At this point Vancouver was a completely different team than the minor-league club The new owners simply bought the old team so they could keep the name for the new one They hired Bud Poile and coach Hall Laycoe to build a lineup from scratch Poile had done the same job for the Philadelphia Flyers a few years earlier Vancouver and Buffalo were allowed to participate in a special expansion draft The Canucks first pick was Gary Doak LEFT Jack Adams was one of Vancouver’s first stars ABOVE This yearbook was printed for the team’s second season 7
a defenseman from the Boston Bruins Next the team took Orland Kurtenbach from the New York Rangers Kurtenbach had played for the old Canucks in the 1950s when he was a teenager He would become the team’s first captain after it moved to the NHL Another pick in this special draft was Pat Quinn of the Toronto Maple Leafs Quinn would go on to coach the Canucks in the 1990s The Canucks had some talented players in the early 1970s including Jocelyn Guevremont Dale Tallon Don Lever and Andre Boudrias However they failed to make the playoffs in their first four seasons Things began to look up in 1974 75 The Canucks finished with the best record in their division and their first winning record This season of promise was followed by 15 years of frustration Try as they might the Canucks simply could not find the winning formula even though they had plenty of good players Stan Smyl Thomas Gradin Patrik Sundstrom and Tony Tanti ranked among the NHL’s best scorers Richard Brodeur was a quality goalie But something always seemed to go wrong except in 1981 82 That LEFT Orland Kurtenbach wore the captain’s C for four seasons with the Canucks ABOVE This trading card shows Pat Quinn during his playing days 9
