Pittsburgh Bankers

Pittsburgh Bankers
City:	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
League:	Western Pennsylvania Hockey League
Operated:	1900-1904, 1907-1909
Home Arena:	Duquesne Gardens
Owner(s):	Various local banks
Championships
Regular Season Titles:	1903, 1908, 1909

The Pittsburgh Bankers were a Pittsburgh hockey club that consisted of a group of local men from Pittsburgh that were employeed by local banks during the early 1900s. The Bankers began as the amateur Banker's League. The league later merged into one team which became members of the the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League. The WPHL was the first league to openly hire hockey players. Many of the athletes in the WPHL were Canadians who were drawn to Pittsburgh because of the Duquesne Gardens which was one of the few arenas in North America that had an artificial ice rink. According to Stan Fischler, a renowned author and commentator on hockey, "In the early 1900s a local league also sprung up, called the Bankers League. Some of the banks started a hockey league as a promotional stunt and brought Canadians down and gave them jobs in the banks. They were down here to play hockey but in order to qualify and play for the bank they had to be an employee of the bank. I don't know what they gave them to do at the bank, but it wasn't much." This led to the Bankers laying partial claim to being one of the first teams to pay athletes.

To their credit, the Bankers might have been the first team to trade professional hockey players. According to the deal, the Pittsburgh Pirates sent Jim MacKay, Edgar Dey and Dunc Taylor to the Bankers for Josephy Donnelly, Cliff Bennest and a player named McGuire on January 28, 1908.

The Bankers won WPHL titles in 1903, 1908, 1909

References

• Is Pittsburgh the Birthplace of Professional Hockey? The early years of hockey 1900-1910 Compiled by Ernie Fitzsimmons
• Ice Age By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sports Writer May 02, 1999