Yesterday I opened the NYT to its obituary page and got a flashback. Andy Bathgate had passed away at 83. I had once written about Bathgate and the shot he took at Jacques Plante in 1959 that resulted in Plante's coming back into the game wearing a mask, the first time an NHL goaltender wore a mask in a game.
I was at that game, my first hockey game, and it was of course at what would now still be called 'The Old Garden,' the pile on 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets. I've retrieved the archive news story of the game and realized it was played on a Sunday night, which along with Wednesday nights were the usual nights for Ranger home games. On Sundays, they started at 7 PM rather than Wednesday's 7:30 PM
For some reason I thought it was a Monday night and I had off from school the next day because that was Election Day. But no, the story appears in Monday's November 2, 1959 paper, meaning of course the game was the night before.
How strange to be taken somewhere on a 'school night.' Parents were very touchy about taking their kids anywhere when the next day was a school day. So, I don't know if my father was ignoring my mother, or himself, but the seats we had were the best seats I ever sat in, and I've seen maybe over 600 hockey games at the Old and New Gardens. (It is still The New Garden to me despite being open now nearly 50 years.)
There is nothing more exciting for a young boy than to be taken to a sporting event by their father, and on a school night at that. If anyone remembers the Old Garden they would know that balcony seats were reached by the plain entrance on 49th Street. Every other seat was reached by going under the bulb-lit marquee that announced TONITE HOCKEY on the 8th Avenue side.
We had Loge, or Mezzanine seats, and I don't know how. It was the only time I was ever in seats that good. The Old Garden, with its levels supported by beams, offered great sightlines, as long as you weren't behind one of those columns, or in a row other than A in the side balcony.
The tickets were probably $2.50, or even $3.00. I don't know where my father got the tickets, or when. Someone must have given them to him. My father did not plan ahead with tickets. You went the day of the event, and usually if it was a World Series Yankee game, he would linger around and look for a scalper.
I've never forgotten my fascination of the between period ice cleaning. It was done by guys who walked around with snow shovels to scrape the ice, followed by two water barrels, each being pushed by a pair of guys on skates to recoat the ice. There was no Zomboni. And you'd always see the same guys. Even when they got to the New Garden in February 1968, there wasn't yet a Zomboni, and the same guys were scraping and watering. I guess, who would give up that job.
The Canadiens' uniform at the time had a bright yellowish, orange trim on top of the shoulders. They looked like the winners they were. It was their away uniform, but looked as sharp as a Marine dress uniform. The NYT news story the next day leads off with Toe Blake bragging that perhaps this season the Canadiens will win the Stanley Cup for the fifth straight year, as predicted. They did.
I couldn't believe my prior post on Bathgate and Plante was in 2009! It was precipitated by the retirement of Andy and Harry Howell's numbers.
It's a great obituary, save for lumping Bobby Hull in as a right wing, when he was a left wing. I never knew Bathgate purposely tried to inflict damage to Plante in retaliation for a poke-check that Plante delivered to Bathgate in a prior game that sent Andy crashing into the boards. Think of that. Trying to injure the goaltender rather than scoring!
The six team league made for at least 14 meetings between teams in a 70 game season. The players held grudges and dispensed retaliation quickly, sometimes in back-to-back home games.
The above photo is of Bathgate in the locker room after scoring his 200th goal in 1961. You can see that the players really didn't wear much in the way of padding. A sweater pulled over some thin shoulder and elbow pads. A photo of Plante with his goalie's mask makes him look like Freddie Kruger on skates, without the chainsaw.
In the 200th goal photo of Andy above, Andy has definitely put his false teeth in. No player of that era had more than a few original teeth left in their mouths. Someone Tweeted that despite the roughness of the game played with thin, or no protective gear, how did his cheekbones look so good? The answer is: Players didn't make enough money to eat. They looked eemaciated. The lean and hungry look. A little Shakespeare:
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
Roger Angell, in his gem of a piece in the March 25, 1967 New Yorker magazine, 'The Last Flowers in the Garden' mentions that NHL players of the 1967 era earned perhaps $15,000 a year, including playoffs. So imagine what Bathgate was pulling down in the late 50s and early 60s on a team that seldom made playoff in a six team league! The Rangers were doormats.
Dave Anderson wrote a Sports of the Times column on the Rangers in 1971, 'From the Butcher Shop to Leather Coats,' telling of the ascension of the Rangers at that point that allowed them to seek celebrity discounts beyond the butcher shop on 9th Avenue to now buying designer leather coats. They could now at least eat out rather than cook for themselves. And start to look good in public while eating.
Goaltender's masks after Plante's first use became more prevalent. The coaches started to allow it. The 20 minute delay of the game I was at was caused by the time it took to stitch Plante up, and the fact that at the time the league didn't dress an extra goaltender. I don't really know if someone was ever called onto suit up because there was no backup. Now, of course, there has to be a backup goaltender.
Goaltenders these days resemble Matt Damon in the movie 'The Martian.' They look like they just fell out of a NASA space capsule. I have a large photo of Eddie Giacomin coming back to the Garden as a Detroit Red Wing on November 2, 1975 after he was traded by the Rangers. (God almighty!) I have cushions on the couch that look like they would afford more protection than his leg pads.
And just as there are two goaltenders, I suspect goaltenders might pack an extra mask. I was at the Ranger-Flyer game when the Flyer goaltender Bernie Parent wandered away from the crease to join in a fracas along the boards.
A goaltender skating away from the crease looks like someone lost from a cricket game. In this instance, soon after Parent put his two cents in, Vic Hadfield pulled Bernie's mask off and gave it a good heave into the stands. Way back into the stands. This was at the New Garden. Not nice, but a real crowd pleaser.
Chants of "Don't Give it Back! Don't Give it Back" repeated for a good while. Parent never got that mask back, during the game at least. I don't remember if he then got another mask, or another goaltender came in. Flyer games of that Broad Street Bully era could take a while to finish.
I didn't know about Bathgate appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated, or writing a story that said spearing shouldn't be part of the game. I never knew Clarence Campbell fined Bathgate the $500 he got for the magazine story because Campbell viewed the story "prejudicial to the league and game." The Players' Association would have something to say about that these days.
Campbell was somewhat like the IOC's Avery Brundige. He was out of step with what was happening to new values. He however once suspended Montreal's 'The Rocket,' Maurice Richard, for some fights he had.
Richard was going to miss at least one playoff game, and the fans at the Montreal Forum were not happy. There were riots in the street, and Old Clarence there was showered with galoshes when he appeared at a game. The league office was in Montreal at the time. Imagine getting whacked with galoshes. So very French.
I also never realized how long Bathgate played in the League after leaving the Rangers. But I will always remember when he had the puck it seemed someone in a leather jacket with lots of zippers and greasy hair would stand up in the last row of the side balcony, put a bugle to their mouth and blow Charge!
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