The Amateur Hockey Association played five of its first six seasons in a challenger format, a championship process we see in boxing where the winning party continues to hold the championship title until defeated. The AHAC did play its second season in 1888 in a balanced, round-robin format but switched back to challenge play from 1889 until 1892. In 1893 this all changed.
The six seasons from 1893 to 1898 are summarized below as a single entity because the AHAC adopted three critical practices in 1893:
- The AHAC would become the official premier hockey league when its champion was gifted the first ever Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup.
- The AHAC switched to an ongoing round-robin format for each subsequent season, a tradition that has been followed ever since.
- The membership of the AHAC would become set with five premier clubs: Montreal Hockey Club, Montreal Victorias, Montreal Crystals/Shamrocks, Quebec Hockey Club, and Ottawa Hockey Club.
| Team | TGP | TW | TL | TT | TGF | TGA | SW/SP |
| Montreal Victorias | 48 | 34 | 13 | 1 | 233 | 158 | 4/6 |
| Montreal Hockey Club | 48 | 28 | 20 | 0 | 185 | 135 | 2/6 |
| Ottawa Hockey Club | 48 | 28 | 20 | 0 | 173 | 140 | 0/6 |
| Quebec Hockey Club | 47 | 17 | 29 | 1 | 141 | 204 | 0/6 |
| Montreal Shamrocks | 31 | 8 | 23 | 0 | 89 | 142 | 0/4 |
| Montreal Crystals* | 16 | 3 | 13 | 0 | 35 | 77 | 0/2 |
* The Montreal Crystals were absorbed into and replaced by the Shamrocks in 1895.
SW/SP = Seasons Won / Seasons Played
Al Young is a sports stats enthusiast and budding web designer. He loves how hockey history created legends and wanted to combine that with how hockey stats can be tell stories as well. IceHockeyLeagues.com is another web site dedicated to the FanSeeStats.com group of 'stats-as-stories' web properties.
Latest posts by Al Young (see all)
- Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, 1905 - December 17, 2017
- Canadian Amateur Hockey League, 1905 - December 16, 2017
- Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, 1904 - December 10, 2017
