Hamilton Labour Council wants NHL to apologize for suspending striking players a century ago
An organization wants the NHL to reconsider a decision it made a century ago.
According to a report from The Canadian Press, the Hamilton Labour Council is calling on the league to apologize for suspending players who went on strike 100 years ago.
In 1924-25, the Hamilton Tigers were one of the best teams in the NHL, posting a league-best 39 points, going 19-10-1 during the regular season. They automatically advanced to the league championship series, where they were supposed to face the defending Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens.
The series never happened.
That season, the league expanded its regular season from 24 to 30 games. However, players’ salaries didn’t increase alongside the longer campaign. With that, the Tigers’ players elected to strike, demanding an extra $200 (approximately $3,649 today) for their services. According to the book Hamilton’s Hockey Tigers (Wesley & Wesley, 2005), the team’s general manager, Percy Thompson, passed the issue along to the league’s brass. What transpired was the first players’ strike in the history of the NHL.
In response, NHL President Frank Calder, after whom the Calder Trophy is named, suspended the players and declared the Canadiens as champions. To add salt to the wound, each player, whose back-pay was being withheld, was fined $200 for going on strike.
The Habs would go on to lose to the West Coast Hockey League champions, the Victoria Cougars, in the Stanley Cup Final (this being the Challenge Cup era).
The strike also marked the end of the Tigers. The team formerly known as the Quebec Bulldogs was sold off to Bill Dwyer, who brought the team to Madison Square Garden, introducing the New York Americans for the 1925-26 season.
Hamilton has since had many teams call Steeltown home. Copps Coliseum, now known as TD Coliseum, was home to the Steelhawks and Dukes of Hamilton of the Ontario Hockey League, who called the building home from 1985 to 1991. From 1992 to 1994, it was the home of the Hamilton Canucks, then the American Hockey League affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks.
A couple of years later, the AHL Bulldogs were introduced, beginning a 20-year run that saw the team be affiliated with both the Edmonton Oilers and Canadiens. The last top-tier team to play in Hamilton was the OHL Bulldogs, who spent eight years in the city before moving to Brantford in 2023.
There’s a chance Hamilton could receive an AHL team for the 2026-27 season.