The Inside Story of the Old Ottawa Senators, 1883-1935
The Ottawa Hockey Club, the Ottawas, the Silver Seven, and the Senators were all one in the same. The Ottawa Hockey Club was organized to play what was becoming the increasingly popular game of hockey in 1883. Its original members assembled to play the game among themselves just for the fun of it, while…
Early matches of hockey were adaptations from the rules of the English game of field hockey. Play started and was renewed after each game, with a “Bully in the centre of the ground”. In the bully, the opposing centres banged their sticks together before trying to gain possession of the “ball”, or puck, positioned between…
It was agreed! After travelling to Montreal in January of 1883 to witness the game, notable Ottawa sportsmen Jack Kerr and Halder Kirby would start a hockey club in Ottawa. And they did. On March 6 of that year, both of Ottawa’s dailies, the Citizen and the Free Press, reported that the recently-organized Ottawa Hockey…