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The Vancouver Canucks are celebrating their 50th season in the National Hockey League. But the name didn’t originate with the NHL — the Canucks was the name of a minor league team that started playing at the Forum in 1945-46.

Only one player is left from the original Canucks — Ernie Dougherty. But he cautions he wasn’t a regular on the 1945-46 squad.

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“You’ve got to let the people know I was strictly a utility player,” said Dougherty. “But I outlasted everybody else.”

He did. Dougherty was born at St. Paul’s Hospital on Nov. 23, 1924, which makes him 95 next month.

He grew up at 2727 Triumph Street, a block-and-a-half west of the PNE grounds at Hastings Park. The PNE would have a prominent place in his life — he got his first job at the fair in 1936, setting up a hamburger stand.

The next year he started working for White Spot’s Nat Bailey, who ran concessions at several PNE buildings.

“I was a peanut hustler to start with in the Forum,” Dougherty recounts.