Hockey in April? How radical!
At least, that’s how it was when the 1919-20 Ottawa Senators faced the Seattle Metropolitans in the rubber match of their best-of-five Stanley Cup Final. Ottawa’s eventual 6-1 victory was the first game ever played after March with hockey’s hallowed chalice at stake.
As it happened, that milestone also coincided with a couple of lasts. It would be the last championship appearance for Seattle’s PCHA franchise, which folded along with the league in 1924. It was also the last Cup final to feature a U.S.-based team until 1927, when these same Senators battled Boston.
Accordingly, the biggest sports news of April 1, 1920 generated headlines of significant interest in multiple countries. Meanwhile, across the Pacific Ocean, an event of deferred impact for another two nations took place.
On the day in question, Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune was born in China. He would spent his entire upbringing there with his expatriate parents, then join the Japanese effort in World War II. Upon his discharge, he spent nearly five decades in entertainment.
Over a career that ran through 1995 (two years before he died in Tokyo), Mifune rose to prominence in the mid-’50s and ’60s. In that stretch, he appeared in the legendary films Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and Yojimbo.
Through the latter, in particular, Mifune turned heads on each side of the Pacific and Atlantic alike. At the Venice Film Festival, he claimed two Volpi Cups in as many nominations (1961 and 1965). He was also nominated for a BAFTA in 1956 and an Emmy in 1981.
Five years later, the Montreal World Film Festival singled out “his contribution to the knowledge of Japanese cinema in the Western world.” And even that was not the culmination.
Nearly two decades after his death, Mifune garnered a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2016. In addition, the Japanese Academy bestowed a lifetime achievement award on him in 1995.
Across the other great pond from the competition, the last U.S.-Canada, NHL-PCHA Stanley Cup Final coincided with the end of another era. Six years after the Welsh Church Act disestablished the Anglican Church in that portion of Great Britain, the formalities were finished on this day. Within two months, A.G. Edwards assumed the new position of Archbishop of Wales.
Leave a Reply