A month after witnessing games of hockey at the 1883 Montreal Winter Carnival, Halder Kirby, Jack Kerr and Frank Jenkins met and founded the club.

"[13] The club first participated competitively at the 1884 Montreal Winter Carnival ice hockey tournament (considered the Canadian championship at the time)[14] wearing red and black uniforms.

[32] Lord Stanley, who often attended Ottawa HC games, felt the loss of the title after holding it all season was an unsuitable way to determine the championship.

The conditions did not hinder Ottawa, as they won 8–0, with McGee scoring three goals and the other five shared among the three Gilmour brothers, Dave (3), Suddy (1) and Bill (1), to win their first Cup.

At first the team made good progress, but the weather turned warm enough to thaw the roads, forcing the players to walk several hundred miles.

[67] Besides McGee, future Hall of Fame players Billy Gilmour, Percy LeSueur, Harvey Pulford, Alf Smith, Bouse Hutton and Harry Westwick played for the Ottawas.

This led to the retirement of several stars, including Ottawa's Harvey Pulford and Montreal's Russell Bowie, who insisted on keeping their amateur status.

[85] Notable players of this time period include future Hall of Famers Percy LeSueur in goal, Dubby Kerr, Tommy Phillips, Harvey Pulford, Alf Smith, Bruce Stuart, Fred 'Cyclone' Taylor and Marty Walsh.

After the withdrawal of O'Brien's Renfrew team in 1911, the two clubs fought over the rights to Cyclone Taylor, who wanted to return to Ottawa, where his fiancé lived and he still had a government job.

The Senators then played in the first inter-league Stanley Cup Finals playoff series with the Vancouver Millionaires of the Pacific Coast (PCHA) league.

[105] With the wartime shortage of players, Rat Westwick and Billy Gilmour of 'Silver Seven' days attempted comebacks with the club but both played only two games before retiring for good.

The Senators ended their play in the NHA by losing a two-game total goals playoff series to the Canadiens, who eventually lost to Seattle in the Stanley Cup Finals.

To decide the ECAHA championship and the Stanley Cup, the Senators played a two-game total goals series against the Wanderers in March 1906 and lost.

[114] In October 1992, at the first game of the current Ottawa Senators NHL club, banners were raised to commemorate Stanley Cup wins in nine seasons, excluding 1906 and 1910.

He loaned Ottawa Citizen sports editor Tommy Gorman (who also doubled as a press representative for the Canadiens) $2,500 to help buy into the Senators.

At a meeting held at Montreal's Windsor Hotel, the Senators, Canadiens, Wanderers and Bulldogs formed a new league—the National Hockey League—effectively leaving Livingstone in the NHA by himself.

Salary squabbles delayed the home opener (on the league's first night, December 19, 1917[118]) as players protested that their contracts were for 20 games, while the season schedule was for 24.

Clint Benedict had the top goalkeeper average, and Cy Denneny and Frank Nighbor placed third and fourth in scoring with 18 and 17 goals in 18 games, respectively.

At this point, NHL president Calder moved the series to the Arena Gardens in Toronto, which had an artificial ice rink, the only one in eastern Canada at that time.

[141] The Senators won the regular season title but lost to eventual Stanley Cup winner Toronto St. Patricks 5–4 in a two-game total goals series.

[142] In 1922–23, the Senators were led by the league's top goalie Clint Benedict, the goal scoring of Cy Denneny and the return from retirement of Jack Darragh.

The club further repeated the scheme of playing two "home" games in Detroit en route to an undistinguished campaign in which they missed the playoffs for only the third time as an NHL team.

[165] NHL president Frank Calder addressed an Ottawa Rotary Club meeting that February, and told the attendees: "The team cannot live on tradition and sentiment.

[170] The Senators and the equally strapped Philadelphia Quakers asked the NHL for permission to suspend operations for the 1931–32 season in order to rebuild their fortunes.

[172][173] In December 1933, rumours surfaced that the Senators would merge with the equally strapped New York Americans; however, this was denied by Ottawa club president Frank Ahearn, who had sought financial help from the league.

[176] The home crowd was in a "throwing mood" and "carrots, parsnips, lemons, oranges and several other unidentified objects were thrown onto the ice continuously for no reason whatsoever.

Frank Finnigan, the last surviving member of the original Senators' last Stanley Cup winner, played a key role in the drive to win an expansion franchise for Ottawa.

The basic design would be used for the rest of the organization's existence, except for one season, 1909–10, where the stripes were vertical and Montreal fans nicknamed the team derisively as 'les suisses', a slang term for chipmunk.

[192] In 1917, the club was separated from the Association and sold to Tommy Gorman, Ted Dey and Martin Rosenthal for CA$5,000 (equivalent to $99,430 in 2023) in time to join the National Hockey League.

In the 1903 Stanley Cup Finals against the Montreal Victorias, the Governor-General (who had a private box seat at the ice's edge) is recorded as getting wet from the play.