Gingras Won Cup For Winnipeg

St. Boniface's Tony Gingras won the Stanley Cup for the Winnipeg Victorias in 1896.

Tony Gingras was one of the most colorful hockey players of the early Winnipeg days. A very agile player of his time, he was also the first Metis and French-Canadian player to win the Stanley Cup when he did so with the Winnipeg Victorias in 1901. According to the newspapers of the time, Tony was gifted an extraordinary skill with Herculean strength and tremendous flexibility. He was also credited with an innovative new Hockey stick of a much more modern design.

The original “Flying Frenchman”, Gingras was born in St. Boniface on October 20^th, 1876. The son of François Gingras and Annie McMurray, Tony was named after his famous grandfather Antoine Blanc Gingras, a founder of St. Joseph, North Dakota (now Walhalla), who famously helped Louis Riel hide out at his Trading Post at Walhalla. Tony’s father had first come to Winnipeg in 1870 when he opened a store on Main Street where the Dominion Bank building is located.