[1] Located near the Manitoba–Ontario provincial border, the region was contested by both provinces until the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled in favour of Ontario in 1884.

[1] With the railroad connecting Rat Portage to Central and Eastern Canada, the town grew quickly, going from only a few people before the railway link, to 5,202 in 1901 and 6,257 by 1908.

[5] The town's name was changed on May 11, 1905, to Kenora, which was derived from the first letters of the three neighbouring municipalities: Keewatin, Norman, and Rat Portage.

[7] The first recorded ice hockey game played in Rat Portage was on February 17, 1893,[a] organized by the Hardisty brothers, who had recently moved from Winnipeg to take part in a minor gold rush in the region.

[4][5] A club was formed in 1894, with a contest held to name it; the winning entry, "Thistles", was chosen by Bill Dunsmore, a carpenter with Scottish heritage.

"[14] A legend developed that the senior team quit hockey after that match, letting the junior players take their place in the Manitoba league.

[20] Before the 1902–03 season the Thistles were admitted to the senior league, along with Brandon Wheat City and the Portage la Prairie Plains.

[19] Playing in the new three-team senior league, the Thistles won the championship and were allowed to issue a challenge for the Stanley Cup, held at the time by the Ottawa Hockey Club (also known as the Senators).

While they had downplayed the Thistles' importance before, the Winnipeg clubs were impressed by their play during the Stanley Cup challenge and considered it financially viable to add the team.

[24] The Thistles were bolstered by the presence of Tommy Phillips (who had returned to visit his dying father) and goaltender Eddie Giroux, the only player not from Rat Portage.

[25][c] The Thistles easily won the league championship, finishing with a record of seven wins and one loss, and again challenged Ottawa for the Stanley Cup.

[30] In 1903 Ottawa won the Cup, after finishing the season tied for first in the Canadian Amateur Hockey League with the Montreal Victorias.

[34] Team captain Tom Hooper said that while they "were comparatively inexperienced, and ... consequently a little nervous", they were "not in the least discouraged" and planned to "be better qualified to play them when [they] come after the puck next year".

[25] This strategy was aided by their point and cover-point men (early names for defencemen) who lined up on the ice side-by-side rather than one in front of the other as was common.

[41][42] Due to fears that teams were covertly paying their players, the Winnipeg Rowing Club, which had been expected to play in the MHA, withdrew.

[44] Though the league was now openly professional, the Thistles continued to remain a homegrown team, despite rumours before the season there would be a major overhaul of the roster.

[45] To accommodate the Thistles' challenge against the Wanderers in January, which saw the team gone for nearly a month, modifications to the regular season schedule had to be made.

It is unclear how much they were paid for the series, but ice hockey historian Eric Zweig has speculated the amount was substantial (though Hall did not play any games for the Thistles).

The Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA), the Wanderers' league, allowed professionals beginning in the 1906–07 season as long as each players' status was defined by the team.

[52] On their return to Kenora later in January, the Thistles were warmly received; a reception at the Opera House saw each player given a commemorative cup by the city, among other gifts.

[49] The team's dire financial situation meant that an admission was charged for the celebratory banquet, unusual for similar events at the time.

[53] Brandon and the Thistles finished in a tie for first, so a two-game total-goal series was played to decide the league championship; Kenora won both games, 8–6 and 4–1.

[56] To further bolster the team for the Cup challenge, the Thistles signed Alf Smith and Harry "Rat" Westwick, both from the Ottawa Hockey Club; each player made their debut in the league's final season game and played in the series against Brandon.

Located in a small town, they were unable to build a large enough rink, let alone attract the crowds to fill it and raise revenue.

The promise of a larger arena, suggested in the wake of the club's Stanley Cup championship, would have been impossible to realize since it would have required the entire town to attend games to sell it out.

[66] As a result, sports historian John Wong has suggested it was unlikely that the Thistles could compete for top-rated players with clubs in larger cities and remain secure financially.

The five players signed for their 1907 Cup challenges—Art Ross and Joe Hall from January; Alf Smith, Harry Westwick, and Fred Whitcroft—would also be inducted.

[69] Lappage has noted that during their existence, the Thistles were romanticized in the press "as a team of hometown boys who used to play shinny together on the streets of Rat Portage".

[53] Sports historian Stacey L. Lorenz has noted that "Although Kenora's experience of professional hockey was brief, the Thistles' early twentieth-century Stanley Cup challenges [illustrated] some of the key issues surrounding community identity, town promotion, and the amateur-professional controversy in [that] period.

[73] A plaque was unveiled by the city on August 24, 1960 commemorating the Cup win; two of the three living people from that team (McGimsie and trainer James Link) were in attendance, while Ross was unable to join.