the Manitoba Hockey League, the senior league in the province. In 1906, his first season, he scored six goals in seven games while he recorded six goals in ten games in 1907. Around this time, the Kenora Thistles, the Manitoba League champions, wanted to strengthen their team for the Stanley Cup challenge against the Montreal Wanderers in Montreal during January 1907. They paid Ross $1,000 to play both matches, a common practice at the time, and the Thistles won the Cup. While failing to score, Ross started many plays and proved an important part of the team. Although he played for the opposing team, he received a good reception from the Montreal crowd. Ross did not play for the Thistles when the two teams played for the Cup again in March, which the Wanderers won to take back the Cup. The following year Ross moved back to Montreal. He joined the Wanderers, the team he had helped to defeat, who played in the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA), the successor league to the CAHL as the premier league in the country. He scored eight goals in ten games over the two-month season that lasted from January to March. He helped the team to finish first in the ECAHA and retain the Cup in 1908 with challenges from Ottawa, Winnipeg and Toronto. The Wanderers were Cup champions throughout these challenges, so Ross became the second player to win the Cup with different teams in consecutive years, after Jack Marshall in 1901 and 1902. In January 1908, he participated in the first all-star game in sports history, a benefit for the family of former Wanderer defender Hod Stuart, who died the previous summer. Aside from his time with the Wanderers, Ross repeated his practice of playing for other teams who paid for his services in important matches. For the 1909 season Ross demanded a salary of $1,600. Although he settled for $1,200, the average salary of hockey players at the time was $600. Ross received a cash bonus of $400 to play in a Stanley Cup challenge against a team from Edmonton in December 1908, in which the Wanderers won the two-game, total-goal series 13–10. He finished the season with two goals in nine games. 1909–18 A new league, the Canadian Hockey Association (CHA), was formed in late November 1909. One of the teams, the All-Montreal Hockey Club, hired Ross as