sports// no. 6 Vancouver's first Stanley Cup » The story of the Vancouver Millionaires Mo Hussain Sports Reporter ast week, we covered how the Vancouver Millionaires were the first and only team to have brought a Stanley cup to Vancouver. In this piece, the Millionaires are still the key focus except we are now shifting towards the unique origin of this team and the kind of impact that the founders of the team have made on the hockey world. The story is quite unique because one of the founders did not just own the Millionaires franchise, but one of the founders played for the team and was part-owner of the rest of the league as well. “The Patricks were great entrepreneurs, innovators, and inventors,” said John Taylor, son of former Millionaries forward Cyclone Taylor in a 1997 interview. Brothers Lester and Frank Patrick founded the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), after their father sold the family’s lucrative lumber business for them to have enough money for them to build an arena. “They built an arena here in the summer of 191 that seated 10,500 people, which was the largest arena of its size in Canada at that time and for many years after they installed an artificial ice plant which was the first in Canada, in Victoria and Vancouver.” said former Millionaires player Cyclone Taylor in a 1970 interview. The first three teams in the league were the New Westminster Royals, Victoria Senators, and the Vancouver Millionaires. Frank ended up playing for the Millionaires, making him what could be one of the only people to have not only have played on a team that he had a stake in, but to have also played in an entire league that he helped found. According to Cyclone, the brothers also picked up “twenty-five of the best top-flight players playing from cities such as Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa” and transferred them to Vancouver. The PCHA would later form a partnership with the eastern-based National Hockey Association (NHA), agreeing among other things that the winner of each league’s championship would face off with one another and play for the Stanley Cup. The PCHA was up and running until the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) was established. The teams in Vancouver and Victoria decided to join the WCHL in 1924, ultimately putting an end to the PCHA. However, Frank Patrick and the rest of the PCHA played a huge role in shaping the way hockey is played today by establishing many different aspects of the game that had not been introduced prior. Believe it or not, Frank was the first to introduce the penalty shot back in the 1921-22 PCHA season after being “fed up with deliberate fouls on players with good scoring opportunities.” He is also credited with being the first to put numbers on the back of uniforms, although that is still up for debate. The Chaos 1n San Francisco » Remembering the 1989 ‘Earthquake Series’ Brandon Yip Senior Columnist Ihe Oakland Athletics in 1989 were known as the bad boys of Major League Baseball. They were perceived as cocky, arrogant, and too good to be on the baseball diamond. Lack of modesty aside, they were a very dominant team—the best team in baseball during the late 1980s. The Athletics had a powerful intimidating lineup, which included home-run sluggers known as the “Bash Brothers”: Jose Canseco, and Mark McGwire. In addition, other players such as Dave Henderson, and Dave Parker, could also hit the long ball when called upon. Furthermore, the Athletics had the skill and speed of Rickey Henderson—who oe - m= Sew): Cee Ieee eee = MG a ee seeded aes Photo of Walt Weiss and Jose Canseco via In Memoriam: Silent Sensei on Flickr was always a threat to steal bases. Other notable players included Walt Weiss, Terry Steinbach, Mike Gallego, Stan Javier, Carney Lansford, and Tony Phillips. Moreover, the team had solid pitching from Dave Stewart, Mike Moore, Bob Welch, Curt Young, Storm Davis, and one of the best closers in baseball history, Dennis Eckersley. The Athletics were managed by Tony La Russa. Remarkably, the Oakland Athletics finished the 1989 regular season with the best record in baseball with 99 wins and 63 losses; top of the American League West. The Athletics would face the San Francisco Giants in the World Series—in what would become known as the “Bay Bridge Series.” The Giants finished the regular season in top spot in the National League East, with ee ee g2 wins and 70 losses. Games one and two would be played at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland—with the Athletics winning both games by scores of 5-0 and 5-1. But on October 17, 1989, game three of the World Series was about to begin when a magnitude 6.9 earthquake (known as the Loma Prieta earthquake) struck the city of San Francisco at 5:04 pm (PST). Sports broadcasters, Al Michaels and Tim McCarver, were on the air doing a live broadcast for ABC television when the earthquake began. People sitting in Candlestick Park recall parts of the stadium vibrating and shaking. Concrete pieces fell from the baffle at the top of the stadium with the power being severed. In October 2019, ESPN aired a special segment marking the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Al Michaels remembers being very frightened and worried about his safety: “Could we have been pitched out of the booth? Could the upper deck have collapsed? Those were the thoughts that made your heart sink and your throat go into your heart later on,” Subsequently, when the earthquake was over, the damage was extensive and devastating—approximately 67 people were killed and 3,757 were injured. Many of the Bay Area’s main transportation structures were severely damaged. A section of the double-deck Nimitz Freeway in Oakland collapsed; hence having the largest number of deaths during the event. Plus, the breakdown of man-made structures and other linked accidents were a contributing theotherpress.ca Photo by Arnaldo Fragozo Patrick brothers were also the first to switch the structure of a hockey game from two thirty-minute halves, to three twenty- minute periods. The Patricks and the rest of the PCHA had also innovated plenty of other aspects that we now see, and without them, who knows where hockey would be today. factor in other deaths that occurred in Santa Cruz, Los Altos, and San Francisco. Inevitably, game three was canceled and the World Series would be delayed while city crews repaired the extensive damage done to so many sections in the San Francisco area. The World Series would resume 10 days later on October 27 at Candlestick Park. Oakland would win game three by a score of 13-7. In game four, played on October 28, the Athletics would win 9-6—capturing the World Series in a four game sweep. But the World Series was merely an afterthought after the devastating damage caused by the earthquake 1 days prior. Notably, ina classy gesture, the Oakland Athletics, out of respect for the victims of the earthquake, chose not to celebrate with champagne, which was customary—and done by all winning teams who captured the World Series. Manager Tony La Russa did not believe it was appropriate to be celebrating after such a tragedy. “As we got close to Game four, there was a decision that we would really respectfully celebrate and not go the whole route,” La Russa said to NBC Sports California via FaceTime in June 2020. “We didn’t have a parade because we didn’t think it was appropriate. Compared to what was happening in the Bay Area, the loss of life, the injuries and property damage, and emotional scars on the community both sides of the Bay [...] putting that into perspective and making sure that we struck the right balance,” he said.