Prince Albert Mintos

The Prince Albert Mintos are a Canadian ice hockey team that plays in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League (SMAAAHL). Their home rink is the Art Hauser Centre formerly Comuniplex. The Prince Albert Mintos won the Telus cup and western Canada Regionals back to back years starting in the 2005-2006 season and 2006-2007 year.

The Mintos team is named after a district in Scotland. But back in the 19th century, the land was controlled by a baron without a proper name of distinction. They decided to call him the Earle of Minto, or Lord Minto.

In 1884 the fourth Earle of Minto was working together with General Middleton in the Riel rebellion before being named governor general of Canada in 1904.

Canada was looking for different ways of showing unification and national identity at that time and as such, sports and past times became very popular. Any of the sports that really started to grow and catch on, a lot of the politicians got behind them and supported them because it helped promote national unity and identity in Canada as a young country.

The Stanley Cup was made by Lord Stanley at around this time period, as well as the Grey Cup. Those politicians through that era tried to promote and support sports and that’s why a lot of our national trophies are connected to high-profile politicians.

At this time the Minto Cup was made by Lord Minto, which is still a junior national lacrosse trophy. The link wasn’t just between politicians and trophies, but between politicians and teams as well.

In 1909, there was a senior hockey team in Prince Albert and they called themselves the Mintos. The Mintos were then allowed to compete for the Stanley Cup in 1911 due to being deemed as a professional teams as they had to paid players on the roster.

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