Frank Patrick names the Lions

Since 1954, the BC Lions have played in Vancouver in the Canadian Football League and its predecessor, the Western Interprovincial Football Union. They’re named after the The Lions peaks of the North Shore Mountains. 

(The peaks are known in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) language as Ch'ích'iyúy Elx̱wíḵn, meaning “The Twin Sisters.” Pauline Johnson related their story in her book Legends of Vancouver, as told to her by Chief Joe Capilano.)

But this was not the first Vancouver-based team named the Lions. There was an earlier hockey team, and according to a column by Dick Beddoes in The Vancouver Sun of Feb. 5, 1960, Frank Patrick “was the first to call any Vancouver team the ‘Lions.’”

The Lions seen from Cleveland Dam at Capilano Lake in North Vancouver. (Wikipedia)

That appears to be true, setting aside a Vancouver Lions bowling team mentioned for the first and last time in the Vancouver Province of Sept. 5, 1905.

When the Vancouver Millionaires of the PCHA were slated to be renamed, Lions was one of the contenders. According to the Province of Oct. 20, 1922: “One prominent fan [who was not identified] has suggested the name of Vancouver Lions, but this may be confused with the local service club of that name.” Instead the Millionaires became the Maroons, after the colour of their uniforms.

(The name change is puzzling. “The argument is advanced that the nickname of Millionaires is a misnomer, that it is unwieldy and that a new one should be tacked on this season,” the same Province story said. Yet they had been playing with it for the better part of 11 seasons, so why the change of heart?)

The PCHA amalgamated with the Western Canada Hockey League. After it folded in 1926 and its players were sold to the NHL, Vancouver was without a high-level team until 1928 when the Pacific Coast League was formed. Frank Patrick was its president. A very interesting story appeared in The Vancouver Sun of Oct. 16, 1928, announcing the Vancouver club would be called the Lions.

“Exit the Morose Maroons and enter the Larruping Lions,” the Sun said, adding that Frank Patrick “emerged from a very cogitative huddle this morning” to make the announcement. Frank was apparently annoyed that when Vancouver’s PCHA team was renamed the Maroons, “our stuff was stolen by Montreal, by Winnipeg, and by Moose Jaw.”

(The Montreal Maroons joined the NHL in 1924 and used that name after they weren’t able to get the rights to “Wanderers,” the name of a defunct club that won the Stanley Cup four times. Supposedly the name Maroons was never officially adopted, however, and was a media concoction based on their sweater colour. The first mention I can find is in the Montreal Gazette of Nov. 24, 1924, where they are referred to as the maroons, lowercase. The first instance of them being called the Maroons, uppercase, came in several newspapers on Dec. 20, 1924. An all-Maroon Stanley Cup final between Vancouver and Montreal was possible for two seasons, but alas, it didn’t happen.)

The proliferation of Maroon-named teams made Frank seek something else for the new PCHL club in Vancouver. “We feel that the Lions is appropriate with those grim harbor guardians of ours frowning down majestically upon us,” he said.

Here’s the really intriguing part: Frank wasn’t worried about copycats this time, “because it is the intention of the local management to copyright it, which is by way of warning to potential poachers to lay off.” I don’t know if they actually registered the copyright, but it’s true that no other teams adopted it, at least in the short term.

(Bellevue, Alta., had a junior team named the Lions starting in the late 1940s and Brantford, Ont., had a senior team by that name from the late ‘30s until the early ‘40s. Elsewhere, the Wembley Lions started play in 1935 in the British National League and the Washington Lions joined the International-American Hockey League in 1941.)

I guess the BC Lions Club didn’t complain.

The Vancouver Lions, who were mostly coached and controlled by Frank’s brother Guy, initially wore uniforms that looked a lot like their PCHA predecessors: a V with Vancouver written inside.

The Vancouver Lions, 1930. (Stuart Thomson photo/City of Vancouver Archives AM1535-:CVA 99-3829)

The Lions played in the PCHL until 1931, when the league folded following a dispute between Frank Patrick and Seattle club president Hugh Caldwell. The club re-emerged in 1933 as part of the four-team Northwest Hockey League. By then, team uniforms had lions on them. The animals, not the mountain peaks.

The NWHL reverted to the PCHL in 1936 and the Lions remained a member until the league folded in 1941. When a new PCHL appeared in 1944, the Vancouver team was called the Vans or Vanguards. The following year Vancouver adopted a name you may have heard of: the Canucks.

(But, fun fact, they weren’t the first Vancouver Canucks sports team. That distinction belonged to a baseball team first mentioned in 1905, but the name might have been unofficial at that point. It became official in 1907, when Vancouver had a team in the Northwestern league.)

Football’s BC Lions played their first season in 1954, but the name was announced in April 1953.

According to the Vancouver Province, a name-the-team contest resulted in 1,168 suggestions. A panel of nine judges made up of sports editors and sportscasters then chose the name in a series of ballots. Among the other contenders: Totems, Grizzlies, Tyees, Loggers, and Cougars. On the final ballot, the Lions prevailed by a vote of 8-1 over Grizzlies. (Grizzlies was the name of Vancouver’s NBA team, which played from 1995 to 2001.)

The same mountain peaks that gave the BC Lions and Vancouver Lions their name also inspired the name of Vancouver’s Lions Gate bridge, which opened in 1938. It has a pair of lion sculptures on either side of its south approach.