The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
For a junior hockey team, the Regina Pats are quite senior. In fact, they are widely regarded as the oldest major junior hockey franchise in the country. First stepping on the ice in 1917, the Regina Pats Hockey Club actually began life as the Regina Patricias. Various stories have emerged over the years as to the origin of the name, but it is commonly accepted that it came from two sources Ð Princess Patricia, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The regiment was formed in response to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Before the Pats dropped the puck, hockey was already popular on the Prairies. First surfacing in the towns and villages along the Canadian Pacific Railway line, hockey was being played long before the province of Saskatchewan was created in 1905. In fact, it was being played in Regina as early as 1894, with teams competing for the championship of the Northwest Territories. In 1914 the Regina Victorias put Regina on the hockey map. With three senior leagues in the province, the Vics, as they came to be known, defeated Wolseley to capture the Saskatchewan title before knocking off teams from Edmonton and Winnipeg. They went on to sweep a team from Quebec to capture the Allan Cup on home ice. In the process they became world champions, as the Allan Cup was considered the highest honour in amateur hockey at the time. While Regina enjoyed a championship season, the rest of the world did not. Overshadowing the Vics' title was the onset of hostilities during the First World War. Although the fighting was taking place in Europe, the war also took its toll back in Saskatchewan. With more men signing up for active duty, senior hockey teams throughout the province found themselves short of players. To fill the void, it was decided at a meeting in November 1917 to compete provincially at the junior level. The junior game soon established itself as more than a second-rate replacement. The Memorial Cup became a suitable substitute for the Allan Cup. For the 1917 season, 12 junior hockey teams were assembled throughout the province, including three from Regina Ð the Monarchs, Vics and Patricias. The Patricias enjoyed immediate success, winning the Saskatchewan title in their first year of existence. They followed that up in their second season by claiming the western Canadian crown. As the first western team to compete in a Memorial Cup final, the Patricias came up short against a squad from the University of Toronto. With its name shortened to the Pats around 1923, the team would win more championships than any other junior hockey team in the province. Under the leadership of legendary coach Al Ritchie, who was know as the Silver Fox, the Pats completed their quest for the cup in 1925. Defeating an all-star squad from Ontario, they became the first team west of Manitoba to win the Memorial Cup. Briefly joining forces with the Regina Falcons to form the Regina Monarchs, the Pats/Falcons merger was successful. The Monarchs defeated a squad from Ottawa to capture the Memorial Cup in 1928. Reverting back to their former moniker, the Pats captured the city's third Memorial Cup two seasons later. In the mid-1930s the team's finances did what its foes couldn't Ð knock the Pats off the puck. Caving to financial pressures, the team was disbanded despite a successful season the previous year. Thanks to the efforts of Beattie Ramsay Sr., the proud history of the Regina Pats was brought back to life the following decade. Returning to its former glory, the team captured its last Memorial Cup title in 1974. This is a recent installment of Back to the Past, a column on Saskatchewan history that appears each week in our sister paper, The Northern Visions Gazette.1/9/06
