Bloodthirsty Boston

At professional hockey games Ottawa and Winnipeg crowds respond to scientific team-play. In Manhattan clever work by visitors often wins great applause. Detroit and Chicago spectators are prone to throw eggs when matters displease them. But nowhere is sheer roughness on the ice a greater drawing card than in bloodthirsty Boston. There one night last week fans got more than their money's worth when the Toronto Maple Leafs trounced the Boston Bruins 4-to-1.

Throughout the first period the referees shut their eyes to the fiercest kind of rough-&-tumble while Bostonians screeched their delight. In the second period Toronto's truculent "Red" Homer crashed into Boston's "Eddie" Shore, sent him sprawling against the boards. Shore picked himself up, skated straight into Toronto's "Ace" Bailey. When Bailey's head hit the ice, everyone in the Boston Garden could hear the thud. While Bailey's teammates carried him to the dressing room, twitching and writhing with a fractured skull, Horner whizzed up to Shore, whammed him on the chin, knocked him unconscious. It took seven stitches to put Shore's scalp together. Few minutes later a bespectacled spectator in an excited crowd around the dressing-room door was punched in the eye. Connie Smythe, Maple Leaf manager, was arrested for that.

"Ace" Bailey underwent two delicate trepanning operations. "Eddie" Shore, one of the least malicious of hockey players, sat miserably in his room at home, waiting to hear whether Bailey would live or die. Both he and Horner were suspended by the National Hockey League pending investigation of the case. League officials dug into the whole question of whether or not hockey violence had gotten out of bounds. A seasoned spectator in a strange U. S. city does not have to be told whether he is watching a professional or collegiate hockey game. At a glance he can tell by any of three points: 1) Professionals, most of them Canadians, are ever so much faster and more skillful skaters. 2) Collegians skate with long swinging strides, handling the puck down a 7-ft. alley, whereas professionals skate foot-over-foot as if they were running. 3) Most collegians wield the stick righthanded, Canadians (hence, professionals) lefthanded.

Even the best college players rarely make good as professionals. Dartmouth's Myles Lane played for a time with the New York Rangers. The Rangers let him go to the Boston Bruins who in turn relegated him to their "farm" team, the Cubs. Last week Lane played again with the Bruins in place of the injured and ousted Eddie Shore. Harvard's George Owen Jr. also played with the Bruins.

Last week the U. S. college hockey season got under way. In the East the teams of the newly formed Intercollegiate Quadrangular Hockey League (Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton) were playing for a trophy in memory of Hobart Amory Hare ("Hobey") Baker, famed all-around Princeton athlete of 20 years ago. Shrewd critics rated Princeton's team best this year, Harvard's next. All four started with victories over early opponents until Yale tackled McGill in Montreal last week. McGill, with its best team in 15 years, ran a 5-to-1 score over Yale without appearing to try.

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