If the Oshawa Generals were slight favourites to win the 1942 Memorial Cup, it was not for any on-ice reason in the 1941-42 hockey season. The year belonged to the Portage la Prairie Terriers, who romped to the national junior title three games to one in their first-ever appearance in the Cup final series, played at Winnipeg’s Amphitheatre arena. The Terriers took a 22-game winning streak into the final series, having blitzed through the first four rounds of that season’s playoffs with 11 straight wins, most of them one-sided whippings.

Under the coaching direction of Staff Sgt. Addie Bell, the Terriers lit up scoreboards all season long and did not stop to get nervous for the playoffs. Eighteen-year-old Joe Bell, star left-winger of the team and son of the coach, not only fired a league-leading 36 goals in 18 regular-season games that season, but contributed an astounding 31 goals in 12 playoff contests. Addie’s other son, Gordon, was the team’s star netminder who, later in his career, made brief stops with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Rangers. Teammate Billy Gooden (who later played for the Rangers) added another 22 goals in the playoffs and Lin Bend (who also went on to play briefly for the Rangers), also scored 22 in the post-season. Bend was the overall regular-season scoring champ with a then-league-record 57 points. Team Captain Jack MacDonald was not to be outdone, scoring 24 goals for the team in the playoffs, including eight in the finals against Oshawa.

All four Memorial Cup games that spring were played before sell-out crowds of 5,000 at the Amphitheatre. The opener went to Portage la Prairie, 5-1, and game 2 put the green-and-white-clad Terriers in the driver’s seat with an 8-7 win on the strength of Gooden’s five-goal, two-assist performance. The Generals avoided the sweep by winning 8-4 in game 3, but on April 21, the Terriers romped home 8-2, with three goals each from Bend and MacDonald to take the national title.

On their way to a decisive win over the Generals in the Memorial Cup final, the Terriers swept the St. James Canadiens in the first round of the Manitoba playoffs, 12-1, 9-6 and 5-4. In the league final for the Ollie Turnbull Trophy, the St. Boniface Athletics were no match for the eventual champions, bowing 11-8 and 15-3. Other members of the team included Wally Stefaniw, Bobby Love, Oliver (Bud) Ritchie, Bill Heindl Sr., Jack O’Reilly, Joe Ledoux, Lloyd Smith and Don Campbell, who later made a career stop in Chicago to play for the Blackhawks. Ray Forbes, Wes Fenson and George Daniels also played for the team that season, but not in the playoffs.