Lester Patrick was one of the most distinguished defensemen
ever to grace a professional rink before he retired to become manager of
the New York Rangers in 1926. Tall, with white combed-back hair, Patrick
was behind the Ranger bench when the Blueshirts went up against the Montreal
Maroons in the 1928 Stanley Cup finals.
This was only the second full season of NHL hockey for the New Yorkers, and to reach the cup finals was a remarkable accomplishment. Nobody really expected the Rangers to go all the way and when they lost the first game to the Maroons, 2-0, very few eyebrows were raised.
The second game of the series at Montreal's Forum was a tight defensive battle that featured the superb goaltending of Lorne Chabot in the Ranger nets. A tall French-Canadian, Chabot girded himself at the cage as Nels Stewart of the Maroons bore down on him in the second period.
Stewart, who was to the hockey of the twenties what Bobby Hull
and Bobby Orr are to the game today, boomed a shot that took off with surprising
velocity. Chabot seemed temporarily mummified by the blast as it sailed straight
for his head. Before he could duck, the six-ounce hunk of vulcanized rubber
crunched into his head just above the left eye.
Chabot fell backward to the ice and crumpled up into a ball, bleeding profusely. It was obvious at a glance that he would be unable to complete the game. A stretcher was dispatched to the ice and the unconscious Chabot was carried out of the rink and sent to Royal Victoria Hospital.
Still very much in the hockey game, the Rangers' problem now was to find a goaltender. But where?
Lester Patrick dashed around the rink to the Maroons' dressing room and conferred with their coach, Eddie Gerard. Patrick had an idea. "I'd like permission to use Alex Connell of the Ottawa Senators," said Patrick. "He's in the rink and I'm sure he'd play for us."
By contemporary standards "borrowing" a goaltender is a primitive practice, but in hockey's early years it was a customary procedure, if the opposing team agreed to it. In fact, Patrick himself, when he was running the Victoria team, had allowed the Toronto St. Pats to use the very same Eddie Gerard in a play-off series against Victoria. So there was precedent for Gerard to approve Lester's request.
Eddie mulled over the bid for about ten seconds and unequivocally replied, "Hell, no. You can't use Connell!"
Stunned and furious, Patrick stormed out of the room and headed straight for the Ranger players who were huddled in their own quarters. "We don't have a goalie," said Lester, "and Gerard won't let us use Connell. Frankly, gentlemen, I don't know what we're going to do."
The late James Burchard, who covered hockey for the old New York World-Telegram, was there at the time. A rollicking sort who thought nothing of swimming across the Hudson River on a dare, Burchard fancied it a stroke of genius when he suggested that Lester don the pads himself. "G'wan, Lester," urged the big, gravel-throated Burchard, "show 'em what you're made of."
Nobody took Burchard's latest brainstorm very seriously. After all, Patrick was forty-five years old and had never been a goaltender by profession. But suddenly he startled the onlookers. "Okay," he muttered, "I'm going to do it." While some of the Rangers attempted to persuade him that he had no business making a comeback - in goal, no less! - Lester diligently strapped on Chabot's bloodstained pads.
"Okay, gang, let's go," he shouted as he headed for the ramp leading to the ice. A muffled chorus of oohs and ahhs came from the grandstand as Patrick made his way to the net for the traditional practice shots. Realizing the hopelessness of the situation, the Rangers attempted to bolster Lester's hopes as well as their own by pumping some mild shots at his pads. Maybe, they felt, if he stops a few in practice the old boy will think he can stop a few in the game.
The referee signaled the resumption of the game and Patrick
rapped his pads in the symbolic goaltending gesture of readiness. Finally
the puck was dropped and the Rangers pounced on it. They scarcely let the
Maroons touch the disk, and when the Montrealers did manage to get off a
shot at Patrick, old Lester turned it away.
Somehow Patrick blanked the Maroons in the second period and when the teams trooped into the dressing room for the ten-minute break the score was still tied, 0-0. All of a sudden the Patrick ploy no longer seemed like a joke. His decision to play goal was a catalyst for the Rangers and they returned to the ice for the third period more determined than ever.
Within fifty seconds Bill Cook had barreled through the Maroons' defense and lifted the puck past goalie Clint Benedict. But the Montrealers weren't about to give up easily. They counterattacked more fiercely than ever, yet the old Silver Fox stood his ground, groaning with every kick-save that strained his aging physique. At last, with only five minutes and forty seconds remaining, Lester cracked. Nels Stewart skirted the Ranger defense, feinted once, and then skimmed the puck past Patrick, making the score 1-1.
Lester held fast after that as the clock ticked its way to the conclusion of regulation time. Then it was sudden-death overtime - the first goal would win. The Maroons were counting on the ancient Lester to fold in the stretch. After all, there was just so much a senior citizen could take.
But somehow Patrick managed to foil the Maroons in the early minutes of the overtime, and soon the momentum - as so often happens in the kaleidoscopic game of hockey - tilted in the Rangers' favor. Frank Boucher, their creative center, captured the puck and made his way up the ice. He zigzagged past a Maroon's defenseman and swerved toward the goal. Benedict crouched in the Montreal goal as Boucher cruised in. The shot was hard and low and the puck flew past the Maroons' net minder. The Rangers had won, 2-1, and Lester Patrick was the triumphant goalie.
To a man, the Rangers clambered over the boards and surrounded Patrick. He was hoisted to their shoulders and carried off the ice in victory. One of the broadest grins of all was worn by Jim Burchard, who patted Lester on the back. Years later, he composed a poem to him:
'Twas in the spring of twenty-eight
A golden Ranger page,
that Lester got a summons
To guard the Blueshirt cage.
Chabot had stopped a fast one,
A bad break for our lads,
The Cup at stake - and no one
To don the Ranger pads.
"We're cooked," lamented Patrick,
"This crisis I had feared."
He leaned upon his newest crutch
And wept inside his beard.
Then suddenly he came to life,
No longer halt or lame.
"Give me the pads," he bellowed,
"I used to play this game."
Then how the Rangers shouted.
How Patrick was acclaimed.
Maroons stood sneering, gloating,
They should have been ashamed.
The final score was two to one.
Old Lester met the test.
The Rangers finally won the Cup,
But Les has since confessed.
"I just spoke up to cheer the boys,
"I must have been delirious.
"But now, in reminiscence,
"I'm glad they took me serious."
James Burchard
November, 1947
From Strange But True Hockey Stories by Stan Fischler, 1970
