Trail Smoke Eaters (senior)

The Trail Smoke Eaters (previously named as the Trail Hockey Club) were a senior level men's ice hockey team from Trail, British Columbia that played from 1926 to 1987. They are recognized as being one of the best senior hockey teams in Canadian history. The Smoke Eaters won their first Allan Cup in 1938; they won the 1939 World Ice Hockey Championships and the 1961 World Ice Hockey Championships; and they won another Allan Cup in 1962.

The Trail Smoke Eaters played out of the small smelting town of Trail in southeastern British Columbia and were subsidised by the smelting company to provide recreation and entertainment for the isolated community. Playing in the West Kootenay League since the 1923-24 season, Trail's hockey team was originally named the Trail Hockey Club, and they won the league and the provincial championship under this name in 1927. They won the province championship, but lost out the final in the 1927 Western Canada Allan Cup Playoffs.

The team's name was changed after 1926-27 to the Trail Smoke Eaters, and under this name they won six more consecutive provincial titles.

The Smoke Eaters won their first Allan Cup in 1938 and won a trip to the 1939 World Championship. which they won. They won another World Championship in 1961 and another Allan Cup in 1962.

They folded on January 29,1987, a victim of the sharp drop in senior hockey popularity. Their colours are now carried by a junior team of the same name.

The 1926-27 season marked the beginning of Trail's rise to hockey fame, for the first time in history the team won the Savage Cup, emblematic of the provincial hockey supremacy of British Columbia. The team was coached by Carl Kendall, a real hockey mastermind. The players wearing the Trail colours that year were: Percy Jackson (Goal); Howard Anderson, Harry Brown, Moynes, Jim Hanson, P.R. McDonald, Olaf Gustafson, eorge "Curly" Wheatley, Clarence Reddick, Frank Lauriente, DePasquale, Matovich; and Dick Dimock, general manager. That season Trail defeated Rossland in a two-game total goals series, by winning the first game 2-0, and Rossland fighting back to take the second encounter 3-2. Trail had little trouble in eliminating the Vancouver Towers 5-1 in a similar total goals series. They added the BC-Alberta championship to their list by blasting Canmore 15-4 in a two-game, total goals affair. Trail made short order of Delisle, Saskatchewan, beating them 2-0 and 9-0. The Fort William Thundering Herd proved too much for the Trail team, and knocked them over 8-3 in a series played in the Denman Street Arena in Vancouver before capacity crowds.

...
Wikipedia