New England Hockey Journal contributor Tim Rappleye’s new book — “Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review: Exploring the Life and Death of a Hockey Immortal” explores the Ivy League legacy of the collegiate game’s most enduring figure. Exclusive to NEHJ readers, enjoy this excerpt. “Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review” is available at Amazon.
No one prepared for Hobey more than Harvard, thanks to their Hall-of-Fame coach Alfred Winsor, a tireless tactician. His Crimson squad was Hobey’s foil in the greatest game of his college career. No one lucky enough to score a ticket to the Princeton-Harvard game on January 24, 1914 ever forgot it. This was the night Hobey became a true icon in the mecca of eastern hockey—Boston.
There was a huge buzz prior to this matchup of college hockey’s superpowers. Scalpers on Huntington Avenue conducted brisk business prior to the Saturday afternoon sellout at Boston Arena. According to biographer Davies, there was “a good deal of betting,” on this game, with the Tigers established as 10-7 favorites by the bookmakers. By 1914, Harvard was building its own hockey legacy, and they were determined to slow, if not stop, the irresistible force that was Hobey Baker. Now a senior who had just celebrated his 22nd birthday, Baker received a standing ovation from the hockey-savvy crowd when he stepped onto the ice, the atmosphere electric.
It was another historical figure, however, who stole the show this night. Massachusetts political giant Leverett Saltonstall played only briefly in that storied match, but will forever be associated with its lore. Fifty years later, 69-year-old Senator Saltonstall wrote about that game as if he had just stepped off the sheet. “When Baker started up the ice, the crowd always either rose or became tremendously excited and screamed—Here he comes!” said Saltonstall. Harvard was not intimidated by the aura of superstar Hobey Baker: they had beaten Princeton two out of three times the previous season to wrest the 1913 intercollegiate championship from the Tigers.
Substitute Saltonstall may have been a terrific rower for Harvard, but he was a sluggish skater, relegated to the role of bench-warmer for the speedy Crimson hockey clubs. He analyzed this classic game from memories gleaned mostly on the dormant side of the boards.
“When Hobey took the puck from behind his own goal, he used to zig-zag and dribble up the rink without looking at the puck,” said Saltonstall. “[Coach] Winsor taught us to keep our lanes and come back as fast as we could so that we would not give him an opening to jump between us.”
Although Harvard managed to keep Hobey off the scoreboard this night, it was more a result of the marvelous skills of Crimson goaltender Guvvy Carnochan than any tactical genius.
Baker and Kuhn were superb through regulation, and Hobey’s wingman snuck one through Carnochan from the left side to open the scoring 15 minutes into the contest. Crimson sniper Morgan Phillips answered moments later, splitting the Princeton defense in a spectacular individual effort, causing the rafters to shudder from the fans’ raucous response. Those two goals, less than a minute apart, represented the only scoring in 90 minutes of scintillating hockey, a marathon of a game much like the televised NCAA championship overtime thrillers that followed later in the century.
Not that there wasn’t action from this game suitable for a time capsule: Princeton poured 36 shots on Carnochan, who used all his body parts to repel the identified flying objects. Hobey, who “seemed to be everywhere on the ice,” had two glorious chances to put the Crimson away with overtime breakaways, indelible moments that brought Boston’s faithful out of their seats, hands to their heads. On the first, he fired a quick wrist shot that was coolly turned aside by Carnochan, and on the second, Harvard’s defenseman Bill Claflin hauled him down from behind. Penalty shots were not awarded back in the day. “Bill was put off the ice for two minutes,” said Saltonstall, “but the game was saved.”
After 40 minutes of regulation, and another 10 of scheduled overtime, the two captains—Kuhn and Harvard’s Bill Willets—were summoned to center ice. They agreed to play sudden death hockey until the game was decided, one way or another, even if it took all night. The Boston crowd roared with approval, and most remained standing the rest of the way.
It became a war of attrition, as several exhausted Harvard forwards asked to be taken out. It was reported that players lost an average of four pounds of water weight in this game, Carnochan nine. The machine-like Hobey reportedly, “wasn’t even breathing hard.”
At the game’s 80-minute mark, Crimson coach Winsor saw his second-to-last forward beg out of the game. He looked down the bench and gave a quick nod to the lumbering Saltonstall. Despite being the freshest skater in the building, he was still out of his league. “Even at that point I could not skate as fast as Baker or some of the others,” said the future Governor of Massachusetts. Ten minutes later, destiny called.
“Paul Smart (Harvard) took the puck down the rink,” recalled Saltonstall, “hit the defense, and the puck went up in the air and came down at my feet as I was thundering along.” Saltonstall’s use of the verb “thundering” may have been an embellishment. He did, however, find himself with a world of opportunity. “There was nothing between me and the goal. I made the quick decision that I would be better off to try and shoot than to try and fool him and dribble the puck in.” So Saltonstall launched the puck, a change-up of sorts that made time stand still, all eyes on the black disc as it floated past players’ shoulders on its way toward the Princeton net. Tigers’ goalie Frank Winants waived at the puck prematurely, and it bounced into the goal, touching off a celebration for the ages. Saltonstall, however, was subdued in his recollection. “I was lucky enough to break the tie.”
Bedlam reigned from ice level to the far reaches of Boston Arena’s steep balconies. Delirious fans who had paid four times face value for their ticket knew they had just experienced the sports bargain of a lifetime. Harvard’s forgotten man, stapled to the end of the bench, had miraculously conquered Hobey Baker’s Princeton Tigers. The headlines from this historic game would be outlasted by its oral history, which began immediately in the excited taverns of Copley Square, Back Bay and within the dorms of Harvard Yard. The Crimson had beaten the legendary Hobey Baker in the greatest game of all time.
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The following is what the author refers to as a “Hobeyquest,” an attempt to find a modern-day connection to the legend of Hobey Baker.
Ron Fimrite’s brilliant article on Hobey Baker in the March 19, 1991 issue of Sports Illustrated did a great deal to return Hobey, deceased for over 70 years at the time of its publishing, to the sporting mainstream.
As an independent producer fascinated with Hobey’s legend, I often returned to the Fimrite story on-line. It was during one of those visits that an electronic letter to the editor jumped off the screen. One of Leverett Saltonstall’s grandchildren, Harvard man Richard Byrd, wrote in to describe how Gramps used to take him out on the frozen ponds to teach him hockey, and how he wore the same skates and used the same stick that had defeated the great Hobey Baker. In the closing paragraph, Byrd mentioned that the stick had been bequeathed to the Harvard hockey office. As a faculty brat who grew up in Cambridge, I knew my way around the red brick campus, and made a vigorous mental note.
Days later I was up in Cambridge visiting family, and invited the high-octane Bill Cleary to help me search the Harvard athletic offices. He just so happened to be coming up from the Cape that day, so he agreed to meet me outside the Dillon Field House, the former home of the Harvard hockey office. Although he had retired as athletic director over a decade prior, the gregarious Cleary was entirely within his comfort zone when interacting with the Crimson sports scene, remembering everyone’s name—from maintenance men to secretaries to athletic trainers. He procured a key in short order, and we soon found ourselves in coach Donato’s old office, creeping in like a couple of cat burglars. The spacious room glowed from a fresh coat of white paint; despite the blinds being drawn, there was ample light.
Fifteen feet from the desk was the hockey closet, not unlike an unkempt locker stall, only closed off by a door. It was tall, and had two levels. Cleary was in charge and thoroughly enjoying himself, pulling out old jerseys and commemorative pucks. Then he got excited and beckoned me over. He pulled out a hockey stick whose blade was fully wrapped with black friction tape. Once I saw “Northland Pro” on the shaft, I lost some of my buzz; this stick was far too modern to be from Hobey’s era. Cleary, on the other hand, was getting red in the face, all pumped up. He extended the stick in front of him, as if posing for a hockey promotional video.
“This is my stick from Squaw Valley!” said Cleary, jabbing the air with his old wand. It was clear that the leading scorer from the 1960 Olympics was poised to light the lamp once again, with the same twig, no less. As a one-time chronicler of Team USA’s gold medal run at the 1960 Winter Games, my mood swung back to positive. Cleary’s enthusiasm was indeed infectious.
Then he redirected his famous energy back to the task, thrashing about in the closet’s distant corners. Moments later he emerged with what looked like a narrow, brown branch. It…was…an…antique hockey stick! We laughed in joyful unison, feeling like Howard Carter in King Tut’s tomb. There it was, Excalibur itself, the sword that smote Hobey Baker a century prior. I grasped it and held it carefully, feeling hockey history traveling up and down my arms. Cleary was beaming his signature victory smile, revealing a mouth full of gold-laden teeth. This was a pretty cool dream: a couple of hockey maniacs from Cambridge locked away in the Harvard hockey office, unearthing two immortal hockey sticks.
Then I looked down the ancient shaft to the blade, and something caught my eye. Engraved into the heel of the stick was the word “Brine,” with a branded circle around it, the flip side had an identical mark. Holy Moly! Brine was still a major player in New England sporting goods. There was no doubt in my mind that not only had we found the ultimate artifact, but it included a sponsor for the next Hobey video project. What an unbelievable morning we were sharing.
There has always been magical energy surrounding Cleary, and that day it manifested itself once again. Closing century-long gaps to flesh out Hobey Baker history is both challenging and frustrating; so many of my chases had been of the “wild goose” variety. But on that particular Thursday in Cambridge, the other King of American Hockey made the process both fun and easy, with a virtual stop in Squaw Valley thrown in for good measure.
