Renfrew Creamery Kings

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Renfrew Creamery Kings logo (1910)

The Renfrew Creamery Kings was a founding franchise in 1909 of the National Hockey Association, the precursor to the National Hockey League. Its founder, John Ambrose O'Brien, a millionaire from the then-current silver and mining boom in the Cobalt area of Ontario, sought to join the new Canadian Hockey Association with his existing Renfrew team in the semi-pro Federal Hockey League, and was rejected. With fellow rejectee Montreal Wanderers, O'Brien founded the NHA, along with franchises in Cobalt, Haileybury and Montreal.

With O'Brien's money backing the Creamery Kings, Renfrew iced a powerful team its first season, with Frank and Lester Patrick commanding salaries of $3,000 each, the highest ever reported to that date, Frederick Whitcroft and the legendary Cyclone Taylor, and in consequence the team became widely nicknamed the "Millionaires." In addition, O'Brien secured the services of Newsy Lalonde midseason from the Les Canadiens franchise, and Lalonde would wind up the season the NHA's first scoring champion. Coached by Ottawa Silver Seven legend and future Hall of Famer Alf Smith, Renfrew finished in third place in the 1910 season with an 8-3-1 record.

Its second and final season, Renfrew lost Lalonde to the new Montreal Canadiens team, and finished 8-8, with Don Smith and Odie Cleghorn being the leading scorers. Renfrew's final major professional game was a 7-6 victory on March 7, 1911, against the Wanderers.

After the season, the O'Brien interests, realizing that Renfrew was too small a town to support a major calibre hockey team, sold the franchise to Frank Robinson, who with his successor Edward J. Livingstone operated it as the Toronto Blueshirts for the NHA's remaining history.