I can still remember,
When a Ranger crowd went nuts!
It was so long ago it escaped being mentioned by Richard Sandomir, the NYT obituary writer who recently wrote the obit for Bernie Parent, a Hall of Fame hockey goaltender for the Philadelphia Flyers, winning back-to-back Stanley Cups for the team that was called the Broad Street Bullies for their overly pugnacious style of hockey: lots of penalties.
But before gaining his fame with the Philadelphia Flyers, Parent played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it was in a playoff game with the New York Rangers that for me he will forever be remembered.
Jim Croce sang...
"...you don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger,
And you don't mess around with Jim.
Don't pull Bernie's mask off and expect to get away with it. At least until you do.
It was the second game of the first playoff round between the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The game was at Madison Square Garden, and I was there in my season seat, probably alongside my friend Andy, who sat in my other season seat.
The Rangers won the first game in the seven game series, but were not doing well in the second game. They were behind 4-1 late in the game, and were likely looking at a certain loss.
Hockey in the 70s had a lot of fights. The penalties then for fighting existed, but were not as stringent as they are now. Bench clearing brawls were not uncommon, and the ice could be littered with gloves and sticks when the punches and sweater pullings finally stopped. It was a very raucous atmosphere, and it spilled over into the fans in the stands.
Reading the account of the game in the NYT edition of April 9, 1971 reminds me of how great it was reading about sports in the paper. Reporters were actually assigned to attend the games and report. New York teams had so-called beat reporters assigned to follow them, and the beat reporter for the Rangers for years was Gerald Eskenazi.
Through the joys and magic of accessing the paper digitally, I was able to bring up the account of the game as reported in the edition of April 9, 1971.
The events of the game in the closing minutes of what would be a Ranger 4-1 loss, required Mr. Eskenazi to rip out whatever lede he was going with, and substitute it with: "In what became the zaniest show on earth, with 17,250 fans cheering the loss of a mask in lieu of Toronto blood..."
With four minutes to go in the game the Ranger's Vic Hadfield, a sometimes belligerent left wing, clashed with Toronto's Jim Harrison along the far boards. Nothing new there. Those two were going at each other all night.
What was new was the Toronto goaltender, Bernie Parent, leaving the crease and joining into the fray. This lead to the Ranger goalie Eddie Giacomin to leave his crease, skate the length of the ice, and also join the scrum.
Very quickly both benches emptied and everyone was part of the action. Bench clearings were not uncommon, and sometimes it took quite a while to get the game resumed. This was no different.
With Hadfield, Henderson and Parent in the nucleus of the scrum, Hadfield reached for Bernie's mask and flung it into the stands. Not just over the glass, but deep into the stands. Many rows back. Raw meat was now in the lion's den—where the fans sat.
Someone of course caught he mask and Parent started pleading with whomever to throw it back. It turned out he had no replacement mask with him, so without the mask he wouldn't be able to play.
The fans of course didn't know this, and didn't care. They started to chant, "Don't give it back" over and over. And no one did give it back.
Parent had to be replaced by Jacques Plants, the 42-year-old Toronto goalie who ironically was the first goalie to wear a mask when he played for the Montreal Canadians. It was in a game against the Rangers in the 1950s when Plante needed stitches in his face. There were no backup goalies dressed in that era, so the game was held up until Plante could return to the ice. And when he did, he wore the mask he had been experimenting with in practice. The coach and general manager for the Canadians, Toe Blake, wasn't happy with the need for a mask, but Plante insisted. History was made that night.
And history of another kind was made the night Hadfield threw Parent's mask into the stands and a fan kept it. Garden security tried to find it, but to no avail. The whereabouts of the missing mask remained a mystery until it resurfaced in 2006 and was authenticated by Parent and the collector who purchased it.
Those were the days. This was hockey in the 70s. You could lose a game but still make the fans happy if you kept the opposing team's goaltender's mask.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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