The Canadiens, the Maroons, their Fans, and a “Big Goal” to End the Hockey Year
There was definitely a frisson of excitement about the last NHL game of the year at the Forum, particularly because it would involve the Maroons against the Canadiens. Fans had started to line up around the Forum at 2 pm to purchase rush and standing room tickets: The Gazette, December 31, 1930, p.16, c.3. La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.4, said the lining up started a little later: 4:30 pm. The puck would not drop until 8:30 pm.
By 8 pm the police had begun to be overwhelmed by the traffic around the arena. Buses, trams, and taxis poured fans onto Atwater and St Catherine’s Streets: La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.4. As soon as the doors opened:
A shrieking multitude filled every seat in the big west-end amphitheatre and, overflowing, packed itself into all the nooks and crannies that offered an advantageous view. Standees crammed the rink-encircling aisles half-way up the tiered seats and again at the topmost past of the Forum. The promenade even had its quota of unseated spectators.
The north-end rush section presented an active and colorful front, wherein was crowded the rival rooting sections as well as numberless other fans fortunate enough to gain admittance. (The Gazette, December 31, 1930, p.16, c.3)
The Forum proclaimed a sell-out of 13,000, but may have been fuller even than that:
Tout l’espace non occupe par les sieges etait bonde de spectateurs entasses les uns sur les autres comme des sardines.( La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.4)
Many were singing popular songs to buoy themselves through the waiting (La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.4), and then:
As the Canadiens swarmed onto the ice first, a veritable snowstorm of torn paper was exploded by the Millionaires, only to be exceeded minutes later by a blizzard of paper from the Montreal rooters as the Maroons swung out for preliminary drill. (The Gazette, December 31, 1930, p.16, c.3)
The Canadiens jumped to the attack, but it was the Maroons’ Hooley Smith who opened the scoring three quarters of the way through the first period. Then, about halfway through the second, the Maroons’ rookie Jack “Pop†McVicar caught Howie Morenz “in full flight†with a hard check, and:
. . . demolissant pratiquement le centre du Canadien. (La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.4)
As he had spun off McVicar, Morenz had collided with Jimmy Ward, leaving him flattened on the surface of the ice. He had lain there for a time, and then was helped up, guided to bench, and supported off in the arms of Trainer Jim McKenna to the dressing room.
The toss that McVicar and Ward combined to provide for Morenz early in the second period took a lot of steam out of the Canadien flash. (The Gazette, December 31, 1930, p.16, c.3).
The goaltenders had already become the stars of the game:
Ces deux hommes ont fourni une performance sensationelle qui valait a elle seule le prix d’admission.(La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.3)
Their saves brought fans to their feet five different times, once when Kerr caught a searing shot by Johnny Gagnon “a la facon d’un receveur de baseball.†La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.4.
Morenz returned to the ice but was struggling physically. The Maroons clung to their 1 – 0 advantage past the middle of the third period. On the ice and in the stands time and tempers had become short. Penalties to both teams continued to mount. The score had not changed since the 15 minute mark of the first period. Several in the crowd remembered the clogged streets and sidewalks and stairwells that had preceded the game, and thought it wise to head towards the exits with a few minutes to go:
Alors que bon nombre de spectateurs quittaient leurs sieges pour se precipiter vers les sorties afin d’eviter la foule, le Canadien reussit au cours d’une attaque desesperee a amener la rondelle dans le territoire du Montreal.( La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.1 – 2)
A great hockey struggle was fast drawing to a close and a record crowd for the Forum this season was preparing to wend its way homeward, certain in its mind that Maroons had scored a thrilling 1 – 0 triumph over their arch rivals . . . (The Gazette, December 31, 1930, p.16, c.1)
However, the beat writers around the league had not forgotten that Morenz’s ability to personally influence the outcome of close games had become a particular phenomenon this season. He had scored critical, winning goals in last spring’s playoffs against the Hawks, and the Bruins. He had continued that trend through the first two months of the new season:
Morenz is enjoying one of his most spectacular seasons. The Mitchell meteor has pulled a lot of games to the winning side during the current campaign by his ability to get goals. . . . When Canadiens are a goal down or are on even terms with their opponents and require a goal or two to get a lead, usually Morenz leaps into one of his thrilling solo rushes and lands the puck in the desired spot. In at least four games this season he has provided the winning counter . . . . (Per Bert Perry, The Globe, January 3, 1931, p.33, c.2 – 3)
The difference tonight was that Morenz had been injured early in the second period. and his play since his halting return had seemed substantially impaired. Playing continued to be physically difficult for him. That was perhaps why some fans had started heading for the exits rather than waiting a few extra minutes to see what Howie might do.
Cecil Hart and Dunc Munro had been matching forward lines from the start of the game (The Montreal Daily Star, December 31, 1930, p.18, c.1), but now, late in the third period, Hart decided to put 5 forwards on the ice. He instructed 4 of them to play up on the attack. Hart also decided to leave Howie on the ice among them.
Lepine and Roche went off for scragging, complicating the Maroons’ line-matching effort, but creating more open ice. The Maroons’ defence of McVicar and Gallagher calculated that the safest strategy in the final minutes was to fling any loose pucks as far as they could down the length of the ice. Aurel Joliat scampered back to collect one of them as Morenz was incapable of carrying a rush the full length of the ice:
Joliat tenait la rondelle au bout de son baton et pendant que les porte couleurs des Maroons, tous fatigues par les efforts qu’ils avaient fournis pendant la lutte semblaient figes, paralyses, incapables de faire tout movement, le petit ailier du Bleu Blanc Rouge passa adroitement la rondelle a Morenz.(La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.1 – 2)
Although he had missed one open net, and had been beaten by the kid goaltender in the Maroons’ net three times or more on the best shots he could make, even Howie’s own teammates still expected Morenz to be able to best imagine yet another way to try to score.
It was a declaration of both hope, and faith, when Joliat carried the puck across the Maroons’ blue line, but then sent his pass backwards to Morenz. The left winger:
. . . shot a hard back pass across to Morenz, who took it gingerly, side-stepped the Maroon defence, and went in slowly varying his accustomed pace as he stickhandled instead of rushing pell mell into the goal.(The Montreal Daily Star, December 31, 1930, p.18, c.1)
Everything seemed to unfold in slow motion from that point, as Morenz found space for himself and the puck:
. . . Morenz accepted a pass from Joliat inside the blue line and skated right in on Goaler Kerr while a seemingly mesmerized Maroon team looked helplessly on. (The Gazette, December 31, 1930, p.16, c.1)
A l’example du joueur d’echecs, qui calculi bien tous ses mouvements, le centre du Canadien se fraya lentement un chemin a travers la defense du Montreal. Lentement, lentement, il s’approcha du filet du Montreal. (La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.1 – 2)
Sometimes players who are challenged by unanticipated opportunities imagine themselves as someone else. See Gzowski, Peter; The Game of Our Lives, Heritage House Publishing Ltd. (Surrey, BC: 2004), at p.78. It was a phenomenon even in Russian hockey: Ludwig, Jack; Hockey Night in Moscow, McClelland and Stewart Limited (Toronto:1972), at p.147. See also: Scott Pellerin in Croucher, Philip; Road to the NHL, MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc. (Lunenburg, NS:2013), at p.142
Without either television, radio, or access to live professional hockey, could Howie Morenz have tried to imagine himself as Frank McGee of the old Ottawa Senators?, as Cyclone Taylor of the Renfrew Millionaires?, or as Newsy Lalonde of the old Canadiens? When he was playing those long, cold January afternoons on the Thames River in Mitchell, had he – like young hockey players on every street or pond or river or slough or backyard rink – pretended to be any of them?
Within a few years of Morenz arriving in the league, even players like Joe Primeau would talk of pretending to be Frank Nighbor: Fischler, Stan; Those were the Days, Dodd, Mead & Company (New York:1976), at p.124. Compare Daniels, Calvin; Guts and Go: Great Saskatchewan Hockey Stories, Heritage House Publishing (Calgary, AB: 2004), at p.80. Howie had never seen any of them.
Howie Morenz had to be able to imagine and conceive how he himself could score the big goal in the anxiety of a late moment in an important game with an unreliable, injured body. For generations of fans and even professional hockey players who possess a collective memory of the best players scoring monumental goals, it is hard to appreciate that Howie Morenz played before that was possible. He had no obvious visual models to copy.
Instead of pretending to be some other hero, I expect that Howie would have cleared his mind. Like Maurice Richard (O’Brien, Andy; Rocket Richard, The Ryerson Press (Toronto:1961), at p.86), he had no choice but to be spontaneous and original:
Morenz avait manqué d’innombrables chances de scorer au cours de la joute mais cette fois, il avait suffisamment pris son temps pour ne pas rater.( La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.2)
Toujours lentement, comme quelqu’un qui calcule tous ses mouvements, Morenz se rapprocha des buts puis alla porter pour ainsi dire la rondelle dans le filet.†(La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.1 – 2)
It was a brainy play as Morenz was almost surrounded by nudging Maroons when he made the counter. (The Montreal Daily Star, December 31, 1930, p.18, c.1)
Some described this last Morenz goal of 1930 as one of the most brilliant of his career (La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.2 – 3). Other fans chose other Morenz goals as their most memorable and important – his Stanley Cup goals, or the jumping goal he had scored against Boston earlier in the season.
There would be another, at the brand-new Maple Leaf Gardens on December 28, 1931, when the Canadiens and Leafs had hurled 31 and 35 shots respectively through three periods without anyone scoring. And then, two minutes into the overtime:
Just as the fans settled back for real overtime session, Darragh and Gracie brought them to their feet with some fine passing, but Frankie Finnigan was banished under the anti-defence rule and the Canadiens leaped to the attack. Morenz, who thrilled the spectators time and time again with his cylonic rishes and fine checking, secured, and with but little over two minutes gone shot a sizzler which eluded Chabot and nestled in the back of the net. (Tbe Globe, December 28, 1931, p.6, c.2)
The Canadiens ended up as the 2 – 0 victors in that one..
As Bill Brant said:
To select one game or one moment as Howie’s all-time gem is like picking a star from a tropical sky and saying: “This is the most brilliant, the most dazzling, the most beautiful!†(Brandt, Bill; “Once in a Lifetimeâ€, April 1948, p.39, 101)
At the Forum, in this last game of 1930, the celebration by the remaining fans became a deafening recognition of Morenz’s status:
“What a hero†exclaimed a lady supporter of the Canadiens when Morenz scored. “Why to play against him is like playing golf against Bobby Jones.†The Montreal Daily Star, December 31, 1930, p.18, c.2)
Une immense acclamation s’eleva aussitot dans tout le Forum et pendant quelques instants, ce fut une serie d’acclamations formidables.
Les partisans du Canadien manifestaient bruyamment leur joie pendant que les supporteurs du Montreal . . . bassaient la tete . . (La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.2)
Morenz’s teammates were even more ecstatic than the paying customers:
L’exploit de Howie souleva un tel enthousiasme chez les joueurs du Canadien que Morenz se trouva aussitot entoure de tous ses copains qui vinrent pres de l’embrasser dans leur joie. (La presse, 31 decembre 1930, p.18, c.5)
There would be more from him. The game wasn’t over. It had only been tied. Howie Morenz lined up for the face-off at centre ice, shoved the puck towards Jack McVicar off the draw, and chased after it:
Jack McVicar and Howie Morenz kindled a minor feud during proceedings. An early bump by McVicar affected Canucks’ hero somewhat early in the play, but the defenceman was jarred by Howie near the end so things were even. (The Montreal Daily Star, December 31, 1930, p.18, c.2)
Scoring an important goal late, and then making sure that the physical side of the game had also been evened up, was how he played.
But there was still more to be done. Just as he flattened McVicar, the Maroon defenceman had managed to fling the puck to his defence partner, Jimmy Ward. Morenz couldn’t catch up to the puck, but he got within reach of Ward, and yanked him down in front of both referees, earning a tripping penalty that would carry though into the overtime.
Both teams had chances in the overtime. Hooley Smith went in alone on top of Hainsworth while Morenz was still serving his penalty. Then Lepine had a good chance for the Canadiens. The goaltenders remained impregnable.
Yet another remarkable thing was to happen at the end of this final regular season game of 1930. These two NHL teams:
. . . when the game was over skated to meet each other and shake hands. (The Gazette, December 31, 1930, p.16, c.3)
The intensity of the game experience for the fans was matched on the ice, blossoming in memorable scoring tries, memorable goals, and violence. Particularly when the games pitted the Canadiens against the Maroons – described so well in William Brown’s The Montreal Maroons: The Forgotten Stanley Cup Champions, Vehicule Press (Montreal: 1999).
This game experience demonstrated the intensity of anticipation, antagonism, violence, brilliant scoring, and handshakes. The fans, the players, and the teams were all participants in their complicated relationship as Montrealais. Some think it may be an inherent consequence of the game that is loved by all of them. See: O’Malley, Martin; Gross Misconduct: The Life of Spinner Spencer, Penguin Books (Toronto:1988), p.85; Scanlan, Lawrence; Grace Under Fire: The State of our Sweet and Savage Game, Penguin Books (Toronto:2002), at p.202