From 1920 to 1952, Canada won every single gold medal in hockey at the Olympics...except one.

In 1936, Great Britain won gold (with a team loaded with Canadians) and silver went to a team from Port Arthur (Thunder Bay).

This is the story of the Port Arthur Bearcats.

The Port Arthur Bearcats were formed in the early-1900s in Port Arthur (now part of Thunder Bay), Ontario. One of the best teams in the area, they played the Ottawa Senators in a Stanley Cup challenge on March 16, 1911. The team lost the one-game showdown 13-4.

One of the best senior-A teams in Canada, the Bearcats won the Allan Cup in 1925, 1926, 1929 and 1939. In 1935, when the Allan Cup champion Halifax Wolverines disbanded, the Bearcats were asked to represent Canada at the 1936 Winter Olympics.

At the Olympics, the Bearcats were joined by 14 other teams including Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Latvia, Sweden, Poland and the USA. On the Great Britain team, nine of the 13 players grew up in Canada and 11 played previously in Canada.

In the Group A playoff, the Bearcats won all three games, outscoring their opponents 24 to 3. Against Latvia, the team won 11-0. In the Second Round, the Bearcats went 2-1, suffering Canada's first-ever Olympic loss when Great Britain won 2-1.

In the final round, tournament rules stated that semi-final results would be carried to the final round, which the Canadians protested. As a result, despite the Bearcats beating Czechoslovakia 7-0 and the United States 1-0, Canada was awarded the silver medal.

The Bearcats were chosen to represent Canada at the 1940 Winter Olympics but these were cancelled. After the war, the Bearcats returned to playing and eventually became the Thunder Bay Twins. The team won five more Allan Cups until it folded in 1991.

I hope you enjoyed that look at the Port Arthur Bearcats.

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