alternatehistory.com

The 1924 off-season had to be the most eventful in Canadian hockey history. First, the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, which had brought Pro Hockey to the West Coast of North America a decade earlier, folded. The league had been a pioneer by dropping the rover, ie reducing to 5 skaters and a goaltender, and had been one of three leagues (along with the Eastern-based NHL and the prairie-based Western Canada Hockey League).
However, the American-based franchises in Seattle and Portland had been hemorrhaging money, and their departure required the remaining Canadian clubs, the Victoria Cougars and New Westminster Royals, to join the WCHL for the 1924-1925 season; where they would play alongside the Calgary Tigers, Edmonton Elks, Saskatoon Sheiks (nobody knows why...), and Regina Stars.
Meanwhile, back East...Charles Francis Adams, Boston-based grocer, had convinced the NHL to sell him the rights to the first American franchise, to be called the Boston Bruins (nobody knows why...), for $15,000.
This expanded the NHL to six teams, the other five being the Montreal Maroons, the Montréal Canadiens, the Ottawa Senators, the Toronto Saint Patrick's, and the Hamilton Tigers.
This also expanded the regular season schedule from 24 games to 30, a 25% increase; their was no increase in player salaries.
The previously lackluster Hamilton Tigers franchise bolted out of the gate in the 1924-1925 season, winning their first 4 and 10 of their first 15 to lead the NHL at the halfway point of the season.
The introduction of the American franchise, and the resulting racism experienced by African and Indigenous Canadians when playing or travelling to Boston, allowed the Conservative Party to exploit fears of 'Americanisation' of Canada, due to the Progressive-Liberal alliance currently in power in Ottawa.
In response, the federal government created a new Minister of Athletics and Culture, with a mandate specifically to use athletics and culture to promote a distinctly Canadian identity, although the first appointee, Tom Longboat, spent most of his first few months trying to figure out just exactly how he could do that.

The Hamilton Tigers would indeed finish first in the NHL, for the first time ever, and under the rules of the day would await the winner of a playoff between the second and third place teams (Toronto and the Canadiens), for NHL Championship, before taking on the Western Champion for the Stanley Cup.

On the train ride back from their final game, Tigers players approached GM Percy Thompson with a demand for $200 each for the additional six games required to play this year (the minimum NHL salary being $800).
Thompson matter of factly stated the players were under contract from December 1st and March 30th, and told them to take the issue up with the NHL.