The Jump
Let’s refresh our memory with Baz O’Meara’s description of the “moving picture†goal:
Morenz whirled down centre and gathered momentum to bear down on Hitchman and Shore, who were playing a gates ajar defence ready to put the pinches on if Howie shot as they apparently figured he would. As he reached them he shoved the puck ahead, and leaped through by a split second as they closed in to apply pressure. He landed flying, steadied himself, and drilled a shot at Thompson, who gazed at him as though fascinated, and the light glared in token of surrender to a magnificent effort which was received with a bedlam of acclaim in which hats, programs, muffs and gloves lost ownership in the ensuing excitement. (The Montreal Daily Star, December 1, 1930, p.26, c.1)
It was the kind of play that no one else in the league was doing during Morenz’s time. The closest that anyone else seems to have done was when Valeri Kharlamov did close to the same thing, without the rotation, in 1974 during the Russia/WHA series:
. . . in Quebec City, he would confound them by unleashing a third option from his seemingly endless arsenal of offensive trickery. He jumped between the two startled defenders – somehow inching between them and their sticks – then landed back on the ice off-balance where he had the presence of mind to bring his swinging stick down on the loose puck and promptly flip it over the shoulder of a stunned Gerry Cheevers. (Denault, Todd; The Greatest Game, McClelland and Stewart, Inc. (Toronto:2010), at p.176)
Half a century later, with several rule changes to open up the offensive game, and with coaches now teaching young players how to jump in their hockey skates, coaches are still not training players to jump like Howie Morenz or Valeri Kharlamov.
Such a remarkable feat of agility would not be easy. Morenz’s jump between defencemen, rendering them stationary as he flew through the air, then landing, and then shooting the puck into the net, was such a gaudy accumulation of offensive prowess that it would create an indelible sense of amazement not only on Baz O’Meara, but also the sports-saturated memory of the Stratford Beacon-Herald’s Milt Dunnell who recalled this, within the first 24 hours of Morenz’s passing:
. . . heart beats will quicken as a figure in a red and white sweater gathers in the puck and picks up the speed of an express to charge straight down the ice. Nearing the defence, he turns on an extra burst of speed and hurls himself with the spring of a panther through the barricade of padded bone and muscle. He rifles his shot into the corner of the net, but the light doesn’t flash. It’s only a phantom, a trick of sight and brain. There was only one who flashed such speed, only one who hurdled that defence. . . . That was Morenz. (“Howie’s First Practice With Midgets Recalled,†The Stratford Beacon-Herald, March 9, 1937, p.1, c.5 – 6)
Those contemporaneous descriptions of Morenz’s athletic performance eventually evolved into literary evocations by Roger Kahn:
First he is circling behind his own goal. A little hop signals the start of his charge. Skating from the hips with long, easy strides, Morenz gains speed. The crowd at the Forum rises in waves as he skates past, and the cheering comes in waves, too, rolling down the tiers of seats louder and louder. As if to match the crescendo’s rise, Morenz drives himself still faster toward the goal. In his path, two defensemen brace their heavy frames. Suddenly Morenz is upon them, hurling his body into the air as though he would jump over the two men. The crowd is on its feet and screaming. Morenz breaks through. A final feint, a goalie’s lunge, a hard, quick shot into the open corner of the cage. Morenz has scored. (“The Life and Death of Howie Morenzâ€, in Khan, Roger, Games We Used to Play, Ticknor & Fields (New York:1992), at pp.36 – 37)
Khan’s imaginative description of the magic of the big jump is engaging precisely because he includes the reflexive behaviour of the Forum crowd in the experience. Khan’s version first appeared in Sport magazine in 1956. Stan Fischler paid homage to both Khan and Morenz by quoting Khan directly – though Fischler cited Esquire magazine rather than Sport magazine -in Fischler, Stan; Those were the Days, Dodd, Mead & Company (New York:1976), at pp.81 – 82.
Beddoes, Richard, Fischler, Stan, and Gitler, Ira; Hockey! The World’s Fastest Sport; Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. (New York:1973), at pp.178 – 179, which was first published in 1969, gave Khan no credit for their own description of the Morenz rush:
Morenz leaps across the screen of remembrance in the bleu-blanc-rouge of Les Canadiens, number 7 on his back and the puck at the end of his stick as he skates swiftly over the bright ice of Montreal’s old Forum. First, winding up, Morenz circles his own goal. Then a little pushing hop tips off his charge down the ice. He gains speed as a stocky blur, long striding, grabbing the Montreal spectators to their feet and keeping them there, howling. He drives to the enemy blueline and, rising to the noisy crescendo, hurls his wiry body past the two defensemen who would impede him. Then, a quick final feint at the goalkeeper, a quick shot into the vacant net – goal! Morenz has scored.
The image eventually became literature in Don Gutteridge’s Bus Ride (Tablo Publishing (2019), at pp.18 – 19):
When it went well it was like a dance. A shift to the right, all power channelled to that side, bursting back to the left, and the red jerseys, it seemed, merely playing their part in the intricate dance. One, down on his knees, unbelieving; a second, too clever, tangled in his own amazed skates. The speed was there now: red-line, three more jerseys behind him; the puck jumping to his muscled command. Net in sight, waiting, its role assured. Old feeling coming back; as if he could fly – skates like a breeze on the ice, speed alone would do it, would carry him up and over, he was rising, floating with the puck, into or over the goal, above the smothering applause, the suffocating snow, he was above it all, knowing the puck had found its own way, the applause secure, but high and floating now through the snow which had a beginning after all, here, high over it, floating and free with a peace shared only by a quiet cold audience of stars.
And then again in Bus Ride, at page 143:
It was three against one. This time it would be sheer strength. The front two converged on him, lunged with simultaneous zeal. They caught Bill in the sudden vise of their hips knocking him onto one skate. The puck slid through. Bill fought for balance, the boards floating sideways before him, ice coming up fast, all weight on one leg, muscles stretching, cramping, giving way – and then he was upright. He was through! On sheer strength!
No discussion of this kind of riveting sequence that was something unique to Morenz would be complete without a nod to the fine poeme of Benard Pozier whose final phrases in “Pour Le Vrai†in his collection Les Poetes Chanteront ce But,†Ecrits des Forges (Trois Rivieres:1991, 2004), at p.82 contained:
. . . il pousse la rondelle dans le filet
en perdant pied
mais dans un joie reelle
avec un petit cri pleine de fumee froide
il leve les bras au ciel
vers les etoiles.