Seattle Metropolitans

History

The Metropolitans were formed in 1915 as an expansion team. To stock the team, the Toronto Blueshirts of the National Hockey Association (NHA) was raided. The Blueshirts had won the Stanley Cup in 1914 and this provided Seattle with an immediately competitive squad. The Blueshirts' players who moved to Seattle were Eddie Carpenter, Frank Foyston, Hap Holmes, Jack Walker and Cully Wilson.

The United States' first Stanley Cup

Seattle won the 1917 championship by defeating the National Hockey Association's Montreal Canadiens three games to one by a combined score of 23 to 11. Fourteen of Seattle's goals were scored by Bernie Morris (including six in game four alone). Games one and three were played under PCHA rules, i.e., seven players per side, forward passing in the neutral zone, and no substitution for penalized players. Games two and four were played under NHA rules, i.e., six players per side, no forward passing, substitutions allowed.

Life in the PCHA

After winning the 1917 Stanley Cup the Metropolitans also played in the Stanley Cup finals in 1919 (which was cancelled due to the Spanish flu pandemic after five games, with the series tied 2-2-1) and 1920, when they lost to the Ottawa Senators.

In the 1919 cancelled Stanley Cup finals, two brilliant performances by Seattle players were recorded, one by Hap Holmes keeping the last played game scoreless resulting in the referee declaring a tie and another by Frank Foyston, who scored 8 goals in the first 4 games of the series.

During the 1920 Stanley Cup finals, the Ottawa Senators would don solid white Jerseys to avoid confusion with Seattle's barber pole style of green, red and white (Ottawa traditionally wore black red and white pole style jerseys). The 1920 Series was subsequently relocated from Ottawa to Toronto's mutual artificial ice surface at Toronto's Mutual Street Arena due to poor ice conditions.

The PCHA consisted of four teams for the 1915-16 and 1916-17 seasons, while operating under only three teams from 1917-18 until its final season in 1923-1924. From 1922-23, games against the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) counted in the PCHA standings. This allowed Seattle to have a losing record yet still win the league regular season championship in 1924. In 1924, the Seattle team folded and the PCHA ceased to operate. In its final season, the team had an average of 1000 fans per game in attendance. Arena owners subsequently did not renew the team's lease. The remaining teams of Vancouver and Victoria joined the WCHL for the 1924-1925 season.

On December 5, 2015, the Seattle Thunderbirds held a special "Seattle Metropolitans Night" to celebrate 100 years of Seattle hockey. During the game, the team wore replicas of the original Metropolitans jersey and temporarily changed the team name to the Seattle Metropolitans. The final score was a 3-2 Metropolitans win over the Tri-City Americans.

Season-by-season record

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against

Hall of Famers

Five honored members of the Hockey Hall of Fame are recognized as part of the Seattle Metropolitans team.