1.
New Westminster Royals
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The New Westminster Royals was the name of several professional and junior ice hockey teams based in New Westminster, British Columbia. The first team played from 1912–1914 in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association which was established in 1911, the team was notable as it was the inaugural champion of the PCHA when the league first started out in 1912. It would be the league championship the Royals would earn. Their home arena was the Denman Arena in Vancouver, the name was revived for a club that played in the Pacific Coast Hockey League from 1945 to 1952 and the Western Hockey League from 1952 to 1959. The Royals won the Presidents Cup in 1949-50 as PCHL champions, future NHL star Cliff Ronning was a notable member of the early 1980s squad. Frank Biller, a fraudster from British Columbia would also play for the Royals from 88-90
2.
St. Marys, Ontario
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St. Marys is a town in southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is located at the junction of Thames River and Trout Creek, southwest of Stratford, surrounded by the Township of Perth South and located in Perth County, however, like Stratford, St. Marys operates under its own municipal government that is independent from the Countys government. Nonetheless, the three enjoy a large degree of collaboration and work together to growth the region as a leading location for industry. Census data published for Perth County by Statistics Canada includes St. Marys and most Perth County publications also do, at least in some sections of the document. The town is known by its nickname, The Stone Town, due to the abundance of limestone in the surrounding area, giving rise to a large number of limestone buildings. St. Marys Cement, a cement producer founded in the town, capitalized on this close feedstock. St. Marys is home to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and it is the burial place of Arthur Meighen, Canadas 9th Prime Minister. Timothy Eaton, who went on to one of Canadas greatest retailers, opened his first businesses in Canada in St. Marys and nearby Kirkton. In 1839 the Canada Company sent a surveyor to Blanshard Township in the Huron Tract to choose a site for a town on the Thames River which would later be named St. Marys. The first settlers arrived at the junction of the Thames River and Trout Creek, southwest of Stratford in the early 1840s, attracted by the areas natural resources. At the new site, the Thames River cascaded over a series of limestone ledges, providing the power to run the first pioneer mills and giving the community an early nickname. The Smiths Canadian Gazetteer of 1846 describes the settlement as follows, It was laid out in 1844, there is an excellent limestone quarry close to the village. Professions and Trades. —One grist mill, one saw mill, one physician and surgeon, the arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway in the late 1850s increased the growth, the community became a centre for milling, grain-trading and the manufacture of agriculture-related products. In 1854 the community was incorporated as a village and in 1863 as a town, however, it did not incorporate itself into Perth County. In the riverbed and along the banks, limestone was close to the surface, many 19th century limestone structures survive, churches, commercial blocks, and private homes. They have given St. Marys its current nickname, Stonetown, a plaque erected by the Government of Ontario provides additional details about the early days. When opening Blanshard Township for settlement in 1839, the Canada Company made an arrangement with Thomas Ingersoll, in 1841-43 he erected a sawmill and a grist-mill and in return obtained 337 acres of land in this vicinity. The mills formed the nucleus of a settlement named St. Marys, the first library was opened in 1857, it belonged to the local Mechanics Institute but had no permanent home and had to rent space where it could
3.
Tacoma, Washington
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Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city in and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washingtons Puget Sound,32 miles southwest of Seattle,31 miles northeast of the capital, Olympia. The population was 198,397, according to the 2010 census, Tacoma is the second-largest city in the Puget Sound area and the third largest in the state. Tacoma also serves as the center of activity for the South Sound region. Tacoma adopted its name after the nearby Mount Rainier, originally called Takhoma or Tahoma and it is locally known as the City of Destiny because the area was chosen to be the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the late 19th century. The decision of the railroad was influenced by Tacomas neighboring deep-water harbor, by connecting the bay with the railroad, Tacomas motto became When rails meet sails. Today, Commencement Bay serves the Port of Tacoma, a center of trade on the Pacific Coast. Like most central cities, Tacoma suffered a decline in the mid-20th century as a result of suburbanization. Neighborhoods such as the 6th Avenue District have become revitalized, tacoma-Pierce County has been named one of the most livable areas in the United States. In 2006, Tacoma was listed as one of the most walkable cities in the country and that same year, the womens magazine Self named Tacoma the Most Sexually Healthy City in the United States. In contrast, Tacoma was also ranked as the most stressed-out city in the country in a 2004 survey, Tacoma gained notoriety in 1940 for the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which earned the nickname Galloping Gertie. The city of Tacoma and surrounding areas were inhabited for thousands of years by American Indians, predominantly the Puyallup people, mcCarver, who named his project Tacoma City, derived from the indigenous name for the mountain. Tacoma was incorporated on November 12,1875, following the merger of Old Tacoma, the transcontinental link was effected in 1887, but the railroad built its depot on New Tacoma, two miles south of the Carr-McCarver development. The two communities together and joined. The population grew from 1,098 in 1880 to 36,006 in 1890, rudyard Kipling visited Tacoma in 1889 and said it was literally staggering under a boom of the boomiest. George Francis Train was a resident for a few years in the late 19th century, in 1890, he staged a global circumnavigation starting and ending in Tacoma to promote the city. A plaque in downtown Tacoma marks the start and finish line, in November 1885, white citizens led by then-mayor Jacob Weisbach expelled several hundred Chinese residents peacefully living in the city. The next day two Chinese settlements were burned to the ground, the discovery of gold in the Klondike in 1898 led Tacomas prominence in the region to be eclipsed by the booming development of Seattle
4.
Ice hockey
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Ice hockey is a contact team sport played on ice, usually in a rink, in which two teams of skaters use their sticks to shoot a vulcanized rubber puck into their opponents net to score points. Ice hockey teams usually consist of six each, one goaltender. A fast-paced, physical sport, ice hockey is most popular in areas of North America, Ice hockey is the official national winter sport of Canada, where the game enjoys immense popularity. In North America, the National Hockey League is the highest level for mens hockey, the Kontinental Hockey League is the highest league in Russia and much of Eastern Europe. The International Ice Hockey Federation is the governing body for international ice hockey. The IIHF manages international tournaments and maintains the IIHF World Ranking, worldwide, there are ice hockey federations in 74 countries. Ice hockey is believed to have evolved from simple stick and ball games played in the 18th and 19th century United Kingdom and these games were brought to North America and several similar winter games using informal rules were developed, such as shinny and ice polo. The contemporary sport of ice hockey was developed in Canada, most notably in Montreal, some characteristics of that game, such as the length of the ice rink and the use of a puck, have been retained to this day. Amateur ice hockey began in the 1880s, and professional ice hockey originated around 1900. The Stanley Cup, emblematic of ice hockey club supremacy, was first awarded in 1893 to recognize the Canadian amateur champion, in international competitions, the national teams of six countries predominate, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Of the 69 medals awarded all-time in mens competition at the Olympics, in the annual Ice Hockey World Championships,177 of 201 medals have been awarded to the six nations. In Russia and the Ukraine, where hockey can also refer to bandy, the name hockey has no clear origin. The English historian and biographer John Strype did not use the word hockey when he translated the proclamation in 1720, the 1573 Statute of Galway banned a sport called hokie—the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves. A form of this word was thus being used in the 16th century, though much removed from its current usage. According to the Austin Hockey Association, the word derives from the Scots Gaelic puc or the Irish poc. The blow given by a hurler to the ball with his caman or hurley is always called a puck. Stick-and-ball games date back to pre-Christian times, in Europe, these games included the Irish game of hurling, the closely related Scottish game of shinty and versions of field hockey. IJscolf, a game resembling colf on a surface, was popular in the Low Countries between the Middle Ages and the Dutch Golden Age. It was played with a curved bat, a wooden or leather ball
5.
Western United States
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The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West, the Far West, or simply the West, traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because European settlement in the U. S. expanded westward after its founding, prior to about 1800, the crest of the Appalachian Mountains was seen as the western frontier. Since then, the frontier moved westward and eventually lands west of the Mississippi River came to be referred to as the West. The West contains several major biomes, the Western U. S. is the largest region of the country, covering more than half the land area of the United States. Given this expansive and diverse geography it is no wonder the region is difficult to specifically define, a majority of the historian respondents placed the eastern boundary of the West east of the Census definition out on the eastern edge of the Great Plains or on the Mississippi River. The survey respondents as a whole showed just how little agreement there was on the boundaries of the West, within a region as large and diverse as the Western United States, smaller areas with more closely shared demographics and geography have developed as subregions. Meanwhile, the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington can be considered part of the Northwest or Pacific Northwest, West Texas in the Chihuahuan Desert may be considered as part of the Western U. S. Fort Worth has long laid claim to be Where the West Begins, the West is still one of the most sparsely settled areas in the United States with 49.5 inhabitants per square mile. Only Texas with 78.0 inhabitants/sq mi, Washington with 86.0 inhabitants/sq mi. and California with 213.4 inhabitants/sq mi. exceed the national average of 77.98 inhabitants/sq mi. The entire Western region has also strongly influenced by European, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Native Americans. African and European Americans, however, continue to wield a stronger political influence because of the rates of citizenship and voting among Asians. The West also contains much of the Native American population in the U. S. particularly in the reservations in the Mountain. The Western United States has a sex ratio than any other region in the United States. Because the tide of development had not yet reached most of the West when conservation became an issue, agencies of the federal government own. National parks are reserved for activities such as fishing, camping, hiking, and boating, but other government lands also allow commercial activities like ranching, logging. The largest city in the region is Los Angeles, located on the West Coast, Other West Coast cities include San Diego, San Bernardino, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Bakersfield, Sacramento, Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland. Prominent cities in the Mountain States include Denver, Colorado Springs, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Boise, El Paso, and Cheyenne. Along the Pacific Ocean coast lie the Coast Ranges, which and they collect a large part of the airborne moisture moving in from the ocean
6.
Stanley Cup
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The Stanley Cup is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoff winner. The first Cup was awarded in 1893 to Montreal HC, and subsequent winners from 1893 to 1914 were determined by challenge games, Professional teams first became eligible to challenge for the Stanley Cup in 1906. After a series of mergers and folds, it was established as the de facto championship trophy of the NHL in 1926. There are actually three Stanley Cups, the bowl of the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, the authenticated Presentation Cup. The NHL has maintained control over both the trophy itself and its associated trademarks. Nevertheless, the NHL does not actually own the trophy, the original bowl was made of silver and is 18.5 centimetres in height and 29 centimetres in diameter. The current Stanley Cup, topped with a copy of the bowl, is made of a silver and nickel alloy, it has a height of 89.54 centimetres. Unlike the trophies awarded by the major professional sports leagues of North America. Originally, the winners kept it until a new champion was crowned, currently, winning teams get the Stanley Cup during the summer and a limited number of days during the season. It is unusual among trophies to include winning members names, every year since 1924, a select portion of the winning players, coaches, management, and club staff names are engraved on its bands. However, there is not enough room to include all the players and non-players, initially a new band added each year, though this caused the trophy to grow in size, earning the nickname Stovepipe Cup. In 1958 the modern one-piece Cup was designed with a barrel which could contain 13 winning teams per band. To prevent the Stanley Cup from growing, when the band is full, the oldest band is removed and preserved in the Hockey Hall of Fame. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanleys Cup, The Holy Grail, the Stanley Cup is surrounded by numerous legends and traditions, the oldest of which is the celebratory drinking of champagne out of the cup by the winning team. Since the 1914–15 season, the Cup has been won a combined 100 times by 18 active NHL teams, prior to that, the challenge cup was held by nine different teams. The Montreal Canadiens have won the Cup a record 24 times and are the most recent Canadian-based team to win the cup, the Stanley Cup was not awarded in 1919 because of a Spanish flu epidemic, and in 2005, as a consequence of the 2004–05 NHL lockout. After the Lord Stanley of Preston was appointed by Queen Victoria as Governor General of Canada on June 11,1888, he, Stanley was first exposed to the game at Montreals 1889 Winter Carnival, where he saw the Montreal Victorias play the Montreal Hockey Club. The Montreal Gazette reported that he expressed his delight with the game of hockey
7.
Seattle
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Seattle is a seaport city on the west coast of the United States and the seat of King County, Washington. With an estimated 684,451 residents as of 2015, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In July 2013, it was the major city in the United States. The city is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 100 miles south of the Canada–United States border, a major gateway for trade with Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, the settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named Seattle in 1852, after Chief Siahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Logging was Seattles first major industry, but by the late-19th century, growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed as a technology center beginning in the 1980s, in 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District, to the Central District, the jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix and the alternative rock subgenre grunge, archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay, the first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1851, a party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28,1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon, after a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, david Swinson Doc Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name Seattle appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23,1853, in 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14,1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of managing the city
8.
Curse of Muldoon
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It may have been the first public example of the mainstream media publicizing a curse on a major-league sports franchise. The Hawks first season, 1926–27, was a success, with the forward line of Mickey MacKay, Babe Dye. The Hawks lost their 1927 first-round playoff series to the Boston Bruins, following this series, team owner Frederic McLaughlin fired head coach Pete Muldoon. Jim Coleman, a sportswriter for the Toronto Globe and Mail wrote in 1943 that the reason for Muldoons firing boiled down to a heated argument with McLaughlin. As the story goes, McLaughlin felt that the Black Hawks were good enough to finish first in the American Division, Muldoon disagreed, and McLaughlin fired him. Muldoon supposedly responded, Fire me, Major, and youll never finish first, ill put a curse on this team that will hoodoo it until the end of time. At the time, finishing in first place was considered to be as much of an achievement as winning the Stanley Cup. While the team would win the Stanley Cup in 1934,1938 and 1961, in 1967, the last season of the six-team NHL, the Hawks finished first, breaking the supposed Curse of Muldoon,23 years after the death of McLaughlin. However, they lost the Stanley Cup Semifinals to the Maple Leafs, afterward, sportswriter Jim Coleman, who first printed the story of the curse in 1943, admitted that he made the story up to break a writers block he had as a column deadline approached. The Blackhawks were not completely shut out during the post-1961 period. Since their 1961 Stanley Cup, the Blackhawks finished first in their Division 14 times,1967,1970,1971,1972,1973,1976,1978,1979,1980,1983,1986,1990,1991,1993,2010 and 2013. The team played in the Stanley Cup Finals eight times, in 1962,1965,1971,1973,1992,2010,2013 and 2015. Nevertheless, the team did not win the Cup from 1961 until 2010 — when they defeated the Philadelphia Flyers —— which was the second longest drought of any current NHL team, the longest is 54 years by the New York Rangers. Moreover, until the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Blackhawks had not appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals since 1992, mention of the Curse on the Blackhawks website Holzman, Morey. The New York Times, Sunday, May 30,2010
9.
Chicago Blackhawks
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The Chicago Blackhawks are a professional ice hockey team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League and they have won six Stanley Cup championships since their founding in 1926. The Blackhawks are one of the Original Six NHL teams along with the Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, since 1994, the clubs home rink is the United Center. The club had played for 65 years at Chicago Stadium. The clubs original owner was Frederic McLaughlin, who owned the club until his death in 1944, under McLaughlin, a hands-on owner who fired many coaches during his ownership, the club won two Stanley Cup titles. The club was owned by the Norris family, who as owners of the Chicago Stadium were the clubs landlord. At first, the Norris ownership was as part of a syndicate fronted by long-time executive Bill Tobin, after the senior James E. Norris died in 1952, the Norris assets were spread among family members and James D. Norris became owner. Norris Jr. took an active interest in the team and under his ownership, after James D. Norris died in 1966, the Wirtz family became owners of the franchise. In 2007, the club came under the control of Rocky Wirtz, who is credited with turning around the organization, under Rocky Wirtz, the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup three times within six seasons. On May 1,1926, the NHL awarded a franchise for Chicago to a syndicate headed by former football star Huntington Hardwick of Boston. However, only one later, Hardwicks group sold out to Chicago coffee tycoon Frederic McLaughlin. McLaughlin had been a commander with the 333rd Machine Gun Battalion of the 86th Infantry Division during World War I and this Division was nicknamed the Blackhawk Division after a Native American of the Sauk nation, Black Hawk, who was a prominent figure in the history of Illinois. McLaughlin named the new team in honor of the military unit. The Black Hawks began play in the 1926–27 season, along with new expansion franchises Detroit Cougars, McLaughlin took a very active role in running the team despite having no background in the sport. McLaughlin hired Bill Tobin, a goaltender who had played in the Western league, as his assistant. He was also interested in promoting American hockey players, then very rare in professional hockey. The Hawks first season was a moderate success and they played their first game on November 17 when they played the Toronto St. Patricks in the Chicago Coliseum. The Black Hawks won their first game 4–1, in front of a crowd of over 7,000 and they ended up finishing the season in third place with a record of 19–22–3
