INSTANT REPLAY:
Bruce Duffee (centre) and Dawson City Nuggets teammates march down
Burrard Friday on their way to a press conference as part of
their journey commemorating the 1905 team (right).
This is a story about a hockey team. A hockey team with an uncommon love for the game. A team that has stared adversity in the face and won. A team that has shucked the trappings of luxury because they're not important.
A team of one for all and all for one. A team that dared
to dream. A team on a journey to challenge for The Cup.
Did someone say the Vancouver Canucks?
As if.
No, I'm talking about the Dawson City Nuggets. This is
their story.
Any good Yukon tale needs a gold miner to tell it.
A grizzled prospector. Someone who stares up in to a
sweltering sun to summon his story. Someone who's a cross
between John Huston and Humphrey Bogart. Someone who takes
swigs from a bottle of rum.
Well, at least John Flynn is a Yukon gold miner.
"I was playing hockey and got hit in the face.
Broke my nose. It must have knocked something inside my head
because I got the idea shortly after."
The idea.
The idea was to relive a wonderful chapter of Yukon
history. A history that has brought us the gold rush. And
Audrey McLaughlin. And good things too. Like the Stanley Cup
challenge of 1905.
In the early 1900s, a Yukon adventurer and businessman
named Joe Boyle was in Ottawa. While there, he took in an
Ottawa Silver Seven hockey game.
The Silver Seven had won the Stanley Cup. So, being the
good promoter that he was, Boyle decided that when he returned
to the Yukon he would put together a team that would challenge
for the Cup.
"Think of it. A team travelling 4,000 miles
(6,437 km) to Ottawa in the dead of winter to play a Stanley
Cup series," said the Yukon raconteur, known to all as
the King of the Klondike.
Think of it. Sounds dreadful.
The team left in the middle of December. Three of
the seven players left by bicycle, headed for Whitehorse,
320 miles (514 km) away. The other four left a day later with
dogsleds and walked a portion of the trip. The players
averaged 36 miles (57 km) a day and took eight days to
reach Whitehorse. From Whitehorse they took a train to
Skagway. They missed the boat to Vancouver so had to take
the next one, which was going to Seattle.
They eventually made their way to Vancouver for the
long rail trip to Ottawa. The only place they had to train
was in the smoking car. They eventually landed in the nation's
capitol on Jan 11, 1905, exhausted.
Boyle tried to get the two-game series postponed a
couple of days to give his team time to recuperate. No luck.
The Nuggets were defeted 9-3 (Ed. note: the
recorded score is 9-2) in their first outing. The
team's next game wasn't for two days. So they rested up at
Sam Casey's Sports Bar, where they made fun of Ottawa player
One Eyed Frank McGee. The next and final game Dawson City
lost 23-2. McGee scored 14 of the 23 goals.
It is believed to be the last time a Yukoner made fun
of anyone with a disability.
The 1997 version of the Dawson City Nuggets arrived
in Vancouver yesterday. They departed Dawson City on March
1. They've travelled by bicycle and dogsled and boat to
get here. Now they hop the train. Just like the original
Nuggets.
It has been cold. Even by Yukon standards.
They have travelled with wood-burning stoves, which
they cranked up in their tents at night. Pat Hogan, 45, who
plays defence for the Nuggets, says the fire went out in the
stove one night because the wood was too green. Outside the
temperature was 40 below.
They've eaten what the original Nuggets ate. Moose
chili. Moose stew. Ginger moose. They've had bannock and
bacon. And there's a bottle or two or 20 of brandy floating
around. And similar numbers of rum bottles. There have been
65-mile (104 km) days, 85-mile (136-km) days. There has been
frostbite.
There are 23 players on the Nuggets. They plan to
pick up another player in Winnipeg, just as the original
team did. The Nuggets are miners and carpenters and high
school teachers and painters. Gerard Parsons, left wing, is
the town doctor.
On March 23, after 20 days of travel, the Stanley
Cup challenge of 1905 will be re-enacted when the Dawson
City Nuggets face off against the Ottawa Senators Alumni.
The Sens will have Brad Marsh and Laurie Boschman. But no one
with one eye.
John Flynn, gold miner, Nuggets centre, today's King
of the Klondike, says if you've ever had a dream you know
why this crazy band of adventurers set off on this
improbable journey.
"This is a dream. One that's going to come
true. This is something my grandchildren will take about."
That's for sure.
