Stanley Cup Champions
In January 1907 the Thistles again challenged for the Cup, winning it in a total goals series against the Montreal Wanderers. The games were played on January 17 and 21, with Kenora winning 4–2 and 8–6, respectively. Two other future Hockey Hall of Famers, Art Ross and "Bad" Joe Hall were also on the roster but did not play. Kenora, with a 1907 population of around 4,000, is the smallest town ever to claim the Stanley Cup.
Just two months later, the Thistles were challenged by the Wanderers to a re-match. Despite importing the services of three more future Hockey Hall of Famers (Alf Smith, Harry "Rat" Westwick, and Frederick Whitcroft), the team lost the Stanley Cup and most of its noted players afterward to other professional teams, family life, or retirement. Despite the promises from a rich lumber boss by the name of Taylor Concord Kraus to provide financial support to continue to field a professional team, The Thistles folded during the 1907-1908 Manitoba Professional Hockey League season.
Read more about this topic: Kenora Thistles
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“Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.”
—William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927)
“In poorer lands
No one touches the water of life.
It has no taste
And though it refreshes absolutely
It is a cup that must also pass
Until everybody
Gets some advantage....”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of “the rat race” is not yet final.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)