Kingston's only trip to the Memorial Cup

Kingston made its one and only appearance at the Memorial Cup in 1926, falling one goal short of becoming Canada’s junior hockey champions.

The local team was called the Kingston Combines and featured players from the junior Frontenacs, Queen’s and RMC.

The Combines had an outstanding goaltender in Bill Taugher.  He would go on to play nine seasons of pro hockey, primarily with the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, winning two championships.
George Patterson was one of the Combines scoring stars, and the following season he would score the first goal in Toronto Maple Leafs history. 

Coached by Lt. Col. Tom Gelley, the Combines beat North Bay, Quebec City and Fort William to capture the Eastern Canadian title and advance to the Memorial Cup. Kingston’s playoff run almost ended in North Bay. Trailing by three goals in the third period of the deciding game, they stormed back to tie it. In the third overtime period Patterson netted the winning goal. Hundreds of Kingston hockey fans turned out to greet the team and celebrate the victory when they arrived home by train at the outer station on Montreal Street.

After eliminating Fort William, it was off to Winnipeg, a neutral site, for a best of three series versus the Calgary Canadians. Two years earlier, Calgary had lost the 1924 Memorial Cup final to Owen Sound. Kingston won the opening game 4-2, but dropped the next 2 games by identical 3-2 scores to fall just short. The Memorial Cup had previously been a two-game total goal series, but that year it was a best of three and Calgary won it.

Other prominent stars on that Kingston team included Carl Voss and Hartland Molson. Voss, who also played football at Queen’s, was the NHL rookie of the year in 1933 and scored a Stanley Cup winning goal for Chicago in 1938. Molson and his family would later own Molson Breweries and would buy the Montreal Canadiens in 1957. Molson was team president for a decade and the team won six Stanley Cup wins during that era. Molson was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder in 1973.