Back in Renfrew, the O’Briens were hastily adding a thousand extra seats to the Argyle Street Rink, anticipating huge turnouts for their upcoming home games against the Ottawas and the Wanderers. Ottawa's new entry, officially called the Senators, was organized by players who resigned from the ECHA's (and former FAHL) Ottawa "Senators/Silver Seven" HC. The O’Brien Cup was awarded to the NHA champion until 1917. Alf Smith coached the team. At the end of regulation, the game was tied, 5-5.
The Comets were timid, and seemed especially wary of Fred Taylor. The Millionaires were forced to line up the uniform of the amateur Renfrew Rivers. (The curse of having a hands-on owner, I guess.) J. Ambrose O’Brien decided that if they were adding another team, it would be the Renfrew Creamery Kings.Behind the scenes he began approaching other owners to back his application. Hockey was done for the year, except for a few post-season exhibitions in New York.True to their word, O’Briens had gone all out to try and capture the Stanley Cup, shelling out over $16,000 in player salaries and thousands more in bonuses. That was dispiriting. Well, except for Bert Lindsay. The team was based in the founder Ambrose O'Brien's hometown of Renfrew, Ontario. Renfrew Creamery Kings Logo on Chris Creamer's Sports Logos Page - SportsLogos.Net. The greatest player in the game, Fred “Cyclone” Taylor, jumped ship.Renfrew’s courtship of Taylor was an agonizing will-they-wont-they dance, as he flirted with one club or the other throughout all of December, but ultimately the O’Briens made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Renfrew was proud of its lovsl hockey team, the Renfrew Creamery Kings, and it had a secret weapon other towns did not: M.J. O’Brien. Ambrose even backed up his bravado with good money, wagering up to $5,000 on his team’s games.January 12th, 1910 arrived almost too soon. The lost and delayed challenges cost the Ottawas thousands of dollars of gate receipts they badly needed.The Ottawas tried to make the best of a bad situation, issuing an open challenge to the Millionaires for an exhibition match, with the winner taking all the gate receipts. Perhaps too aggressively. They tried to sign Hay Millar, who was in town for Edmonton’s long-delayed Stanley Cup challenge. I’m not sure why, because it’s not like other teams hadn’t done the same in the past. Frank, sick of being the punching back for everyone in the league, responded in kind and both players were left rolling around on the ice clutching their heads. The dream was still alive.The first game after the merger was a home bout on January 19th versus the Montreal Canadiens. To spite Doran even further, the CHA brought in two new Montreal-based franchisees to compete with him, All-Montreal and Le National.There was no room in the new league for the Renfrew Creamery Kings.Ambrose O’Brien was shocked. He showed up at the league’s November meeting in Montreal with application in hand and high hopes.Before the meeting, O’Brien ran into some of the Ottawas excutives in a restaurant, and made his case for adding the Kings to the league. It turns out the Millionaires were a wonderful collection of individual talents, but they weren’t playing like a team yet. They would make the trustees think twice before awarding the Stanley Cup to the CHA champs.And so, with a handshake in the lobby of the Windsor Hotel, the National Hockey Association was born. Currently over … Gillmour, who actually had signed a contract with the Victorias, was allowed to skate. Though if they’d tracked assists back then, he’d probably be right up there.And that was it. But they clung to hope, like the fans of an 8-7 NFL team running through every tiebreaker in their head.At the February 28th league meeting, Newsy Lalonde’s transfer was officially approved. But there was a problem.
The Thistles outscored the Wanderers 12-8 in a two game series to capture the Stanley Cup. They found one of unimpeachable credentials — M.J. O’Brien’s personal secretary, Herb Jordan. Some 250 fans made the trip from Renfrew to see the game, and a special telegraph line was set up to communicate a play-by-play in real time.
The Renfrew Hockey Club, also known as the Creamery Kings and the "Renfrew Millionaires" was a founding franchise in 1909 of the National Hockey Association, the precursor to the National Hockey League. Even increased ticket prices couldn’t keep the fans away.Meanwhile the CHA was playing to half-empty arenas and dispirited fans. He saw O’Brien, stormed over, and started venting.In the course of their bitch session, they realized that the O’Briens had control of three hockey teams. Whether it was a genuine accident or a sophisticated mind game, it worked. In its early years, a group of trustees would award the Cup to the team they judged the best in Canada. That meant at times poor Bert Lindsay was the only one playing defense. Ottawa sold 7,000 tickets to the game, making it the largest crowd to ever see a hockey game in the city. They still have amateur hockey teams, though none of them use the Creamery Kings name. In any other year, that would have been a player’s salary for the full season.The Millionaires kept their momentum going, beating the visiting Haileybury Comets 3-6 on February 4th.
They were aiming for a 1-1 tie, hoping that when the ice had been cleared after the game they could win in a sudden death overtime without Hall there to bedevil them.But when that overtime came around, the Shamrocks sent Hall back out on the ice citing a 1903 Cup game between Winnipeg and Manitoba as precedent. Ambrose sent a telegram to Vancouver asking if Lester Patrick would play for $3,000. The Renfrew Hockey Club, also known as the Creamery Kings and the Millionaires, was a founding franchise in 1909 of the National Hockey Association, the precursor to the National Hockey League. Any team in Canada could submit a challenge to the trustees and try to steal the championship in a two-game playoff.