Hockey

When the hockey season ended last year, with the Ottawa Senators world's champions, critics said "Watch the Rangers." The blue-shirted New York team were picked to win this year because they were fast and clever, because their centre, Frank Boucher, is the smartest poke-checker in the game, because their two bald defense men, Ivan ("Ching") Johnson and Clarence ("Taffy") Abel, are heavy and efficient, because Bill Cook, who skates with the rhythm of a moose running, is the highest-paid team captain in the National Hockey League, because Bun Cook, his brother who looks like Lindbergh and is engaged to be married, is surpassed as a skater only by the famed Howie Morenz of the Montreal Canadiens. All season big crowds (from six to fifteen thousand) have cheered the Rangers in their home games but until two weeks ago the Rangers did not do much to justify the hopes placed in them.

When a hockey season ends the teams ranked second and third in each group play each other for the right to play the leading team for the group championship. There are two groups, American and International. The Montreal Maroons beat the Canadiens for the championship in the International group and in the American group the Rangers inspired suddenly to justify predictions, beat Pittsburgh and then Boston.

Tired after the long ride from Boston in one of the Canadian night-trains that stop at many junctions, on edge after the four hard games they had just played with only one day's rest between each game, the Rangers skated into the Montreal Forum feeling that it would be hard for them to get going. They were cut up and gashed--Johnson with the lobe of his nose torn through by a skate-point, Bun Cook with a charley-horse, Frank Boucher with a stitch over his eye. They were tired also from the strain of playing before the hostile and unsportsmanlike crowd in Boston which threw garbage and bottles on the ice, hit the referee in the head with bread soaked in near-beer, and kept quiet when the visiting team scored a goal.

Against the heavier Maroons the Rangers lost the first game, 2--0. In the second game each team had a goal when Goalie Chabot of the Rangers was hit in the eye with a puck, taken to the hospital. Coach Lester Patrick, famed defense man in his day, put on the goalie's pads, kept goal for his team, stopped all rushes, was wildly cheered. In the overtime period Johnson passed to Boucher who whipped the puck into the Montreal goal, winning the game 2--1, with two games left to play.