Fifty years ago this month, the first CCAA National Championships were held. Each of the hockey programs that participated in the inaugural event won a CCAA title at some point, but only one could be the first.

Four men's hockey teams gathered in Sydney, Nova Scotia while four men's basketball teams assembled in Calgary for the 1975 CCAA National Championships. The time zone difference meant that men's hockey would declare a national champion before men's basketball.

The College of Cape Breton Capers hosted the 1975 CCAA National Hockey Championship with games played in the Sydney Forum on George Street in downtown Sydney. The venue built in 1937 had chicken wire, not plexiglass, on the end boards and sloping ice in the corners. Centre 200, which was constructed for the 1987 Canada Games, stands adjacent to the site where the Sydney Forum once stood.

The Capers also donated the CCAA Championship Bowl which was awarded to ten hockey programs from four provinces between 1975 and 2001. A replica of the original trophy is on display at the Dr. Carl "Bucky" Buchanan Capers Hall of Fame located on the campus of Cape Breton University. The original trophy is in the possession of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The event featured the 4-West champion Camrose Lutheran College Vikings, the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association champion St. Clair College Saints, the Fédération des Associations Sportives Collégiales du Québec champion les Patriotes de Collège St-Laurent and the Nova Scotia Colleges Conference champion College of Cape Breton Capers. Every game was on the airwaves as Saints fans in Windsor & Capers fans in Cape Breton had the opportunity to listen to radio broadcasts of their team's games.

On Friday, March 21st, 1975, a pair of teams extended their post season winning streaks. St. Clair posted three victories in the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association playoffs prior to outscoring St. Laurent 5-1 while Camrose was riding a four game unbeaten run as they triumphed in a pair of must win games in the Alberta College Athletic Conference's best of the three championship final series and as they set nine records in sweeping the competition at the 4-West Championship before doubling Cape Breton 6-3.

On Saturday, March 22nd, 1975, the streaks were on the line in the event finale after the Capers downed les Patriotes 8-4 to place third. The Vikings jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first and extended the advantage to 4-0 in the second before the Saints cut the lead to 4-2 by period’s end. In the third, Camrose tallied twice to upset St. Clair 6-2. Phil Irwin, Tom Gould, Harley Johnson, Peter Hanson, Lee Cumberland and Larry Stuart lit the lamp for the Vikings.

A half century later, the 1974-75 ACAC, 4-West and CCAA champion Camrose Lutheran College Vikings, who represented a campus of 390, are hailed as a triumphant team of trailblazers. They were the first ACAC hockey team to travel to Europe, the first team in any sport from across the nation to win a CCAA championship and the first team in any sport from the Rose City to win a national championship. They were also the first post-secondary team to enter the Alberta Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009, the first team in any sport to enter the Vikings Hall of Fame in 2012 and the first standalone national hockey champion to enter the ACAC Hall of Fame in 2024.

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