

Posted by

Sam Gregory ,

January 2, 2015 Email

Sam Gregory

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The Voyageurs Cup is my favourite soccer tournament. It is the only tournament in which I actively cheer for the competition over any actual team. From fellow Canadian soccer supporters I’ve spoken to around the country I know I’m not alone in this.



This sounds quite strange; cheering for a tournament over any specific team seems to go against the competitive nature of sport. However, the Voyageurs Cup is special. It’s special because it’s ours. A Canadian championship made possible through donations by Canadian soccer supporters, coveted by Canadian soccer supporters and presented annually to the winners by a Canadian soccer supporter. Given all of this it seems rather symbolic that the first ever (unofficial) Canadian soccer championship was called The People’s Shield.



However, the People’s Shield didn’t belong to the people at all. It was donated by and named after an English newspaper called The People. The People donated the trophy with the intent that it would be given “for competition among the footballers in Canada.” (Toronto World, March 16, 1914)



The trophy was first contested in 1906 with the Toronto Thistles beating Dundas 1-0 in the final played at the Rosedale Grounds in Toronto. Although this was the first edition of the competition it can hardly be called a Canadian championship since only teams from Ontario and Quebec were invited. This initial playing of the People’s Shield laid the groundwork for the Ontario-Quebec soccer rivalry, which would later develop into the Carls-Rite Cup.



In 1907 the People’s Shield shifted its focus out West and the finals were played in Winnipeg. The 1907 competition, although still not universally attended can hold a greater claim to being the first Canadian soccer championship. Teams from four provinces – Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta – competed. The 1907 People’s Shield was also the beginning of what could be considered one of the first true Canadian soccer dynasties, the Calgary Caledonians.



The Caledonians beat the Winnipeg Brittanias 1-0 in the final of the 1907 edition of the People’s Shield off a goal from Andy McLean. McLean, who was born in Scotland, went onto play for the Canadian national team six times featuring in the team’s 1924 tour of Australia and New Zealand. According to the program notes in one of the games from that tour McLean “specialises in a solid tackle and he puts plenty of weight behind his kicks; left back is his regular position, but he appears to be just as much at home when moved to centre half or the forwards.”



The Caledonians went onto to win the next two editions of the People’s Shield in 1908 and 1909. They defeated Ladysmith in 1908 when the tournament was staged in Vancouver and then retained the trophy at home in Calgary in 1909. The 1909 final ended in a 0-0 draw against the Vancouver Celtics, but Vancouver had to return home before there was time to schedule a replay so Calgary retained the trophy in what must have been one of the least satisfying victories of all time.



In 2007 the Calgary Caledonians were inducted into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame as the Team of Distinction with special attention given to their three consecutive People’s Shield victories.



The People’s Shield stayed in Calgary in 1910, but this time the victors were not the Caledonians, but the Calgary Hillhurst. The Hillhurst tied the Hamilton Independent Labour Party team 1-1 in the first playing of the final, but unlike Vancouver in the previous tournament Calgary were able to stick around for the replay.



The replay proved to be a classic, slow-developing thriller. The game ended 0-0 in regular time so went to extra time in which both teams scored. In a second ten-minute period of extra time Hamilton scored, but Calgary scored twice and the game ended in what the Ottawa Citizen described as semi-darkness.



The same match report also called the People’s Shield “emblematic of the Canadian Championship.” (Ottawa Citizen, September 13, 1910) So in only the fifth playing of the People’s Shield, an unofficial invite-only tournament, the champion was already considered the Canadian champion.



The People’s Shield was not contest in 1911 because Corinthians, the famous English amateur club, was touring the country and took priority.



1912 was an important year for soccer in Canada with the formation of the Dominion of Canada Football Association, the organization that we know today as the Canadian Soccer Association. One of the early goals of the Dominion of Canada Football Association was to establish an official national championship, which they did in 1913 with the creation of the Connaught Cup.



Therefore the 1912 People’s Cup was the final time the competition could claim to crown a Canadian Champion. The winner in 1912 was Fort William C.P.R., a town that makes up part modern day Thunder Bay. The C.P.R. refers to the fact Fort William was a major terminal for the Canadian Pacific Railway. According to the Times-Journal the team returned home from their 3-0 final victory over Lethbridge to a thunderous welcome, “every automobile in town was lined up to convey the team to the banquet hall at the West Hotel.”



The People’s Cup didn’t disappear after 1912, but with the introduction of the Connaught Cup it no longer held the same appeal. Only two teams competed for the tournament in 1913 with Nanaimo United beating the Vancouver Thistles 1-0. In 1914 the tournament was entirely composed of teams from Nanaimo.



Today the People’s Shield has a permanent home in the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame. Although it never held the official title of Canadian Championship the winners of the People’s Cup from 1906 to 1912 hold an important place in Canadian soccer history and form a lineage that can be traced to today’s Voyageurs Cup.



Special thanks to Colin Jose’s incredible website www.canadiansoccerhistory.com for providing much of the background for this story.