Dawson City Nuggets
Order vintage Dawson City Nuggets tees and hoodies. In 1904 this Gold Rush team set out to challenge the Ottawa Silver Seven for the Stanley Cup, travelling by dog sled, train, bicycle, foot and ship on a trek of roughly 6,400 km. Ottawa won the series, including a 23 to 2 rout. Celebrate one of the most unique Stanley Cup stories ever told by browsing all of our Nuggets gear, then read the team history below. As a small business, we're proud to keep the names, logos and stories of hockey's lost teams in circulation.
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Dawson City Nuggets History
Perhaps one of the most unique stories about the Stanley Cup ever told involved the Dawson City Nuggets, who were put together in 1904 for the express purpose of challenging the Ottawa Silver Seven for the Cup. This was several years before the NHL came into existence, and essentially, anyone could challenge the winner of the Cup from the year before for the championship. Dawson City itself was at the tail end of the Gold Rush and they put together a team of two experienced players and selected miners from the local teams, to create a team of 8 who would travel to Ottawa to play in January 1905. With nothing approaching “typical” in this series, the players would travel by dog sled, train, bicycle, foot and ship over the course of roughly a month to make the 6,400 km (4,000-mile) trek to Ottawa. The series was best-of-three, and not surprisingly, the Ottawa team won handily, 2–0. The scores of the two games were eye-opening: 9-2 in the first game, but a shocking 23-2 win in the second (a Stanley Cup record, and Ottawa’s Frank McGee scoring 14 of the 23 goals in the second game, also a record). After the series, legend has it that Ottawa's players made an unsuccessful attempt to kick the Cup into the Rideau Canal during a post-series banquet. After leaving Ottawa, the Dawson team played a series of exhibition games around eastern Canada, before heading back home.
In 1997, the Ottawa Senators Alumni played a commemorative game against a team from Dawson. Seems little had changed over the 92 years, as Ottawa won that game 18-0, recording only 25 shots on goal.
Given that the original Dawson City Nuggets didn't have a logo, we've created our own rendition that captures the colours and spirit of Dawson City's gold rush.