Pacific Coast Hockey Association

The league was started by the Patrick family, professional hockey players from Montreal, building new arenas in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia.

Starting in 1915, the league entered into an agreement where the Stanley Cup was to be contested between the National Hockey Association and the PCHA after the regular seasons were finished.

After playing for the Renfrew Millionaires in 1910, the brothers Frank and Lester Patrick moved west to Nelson, British Columbia to work in their father Joe's lumbering business.

The league was formally organized on December 7, 1911 to be run by Frank and Lester, who would also play for and manage the Vancouver and Victoria teams.

[2] The Victoria arena would open to the public on Christmas Day 1911, and the first game of the PCHA was played on January 3, 1912, only a year after the Patricks decided to form the new league.

After the PCHA all-stars won the first two games 10–4 and 5–1, leaving the series outcome in no doubt, the NHA manager Art Ross decided to let Taylor play at the Patrick's request.

Taylor would put on an outstanding display of ice hockey prowess for the British Columbia fans and receive a two-minute ovation.

Besides Taylor, Goldie Prodgers, Eddie Oatman, Jack McDonald and Ernie Johnson moved out west, although Newsy Lalonde returned to Montreal.

Victoria would win the season and the club arranged for an exhibition series of the Stanley Cup champion Quebec Bulldogs.

In the 1914–15 season, Vancouver defeated the Ottawa Senators in a best-of-five series to become the PCHA's first Stanley Cup champions.

In 1924, the Seattle Metropolitans folded, and the two remaining teams in Vancouver and Victoria joined the WCHL (renamed the Western Hockey League), putting an end to the PCHA.

[5] The PCHA is also credited with introducing numbers to player sweaters for identification purposes (starting in 1911–12),[6] but this had been had also been experimented with in the NHA at the same time.

[8] As early as January 1916, Frank and Lester Patrick talked of the formation of a women's league to complement the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.

In February 1921, Frank Patrick announced a women's international championship series that would be played in conjunction with the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.