This Day in Hockey History – November 23, 1929 – Shore to Fight
One would think that with the record for the most fights in one game that Eddie Shore was cruisin’ for a bruisin’ when his Boston Bruins played the Montreal Maroons on November 23, 1929. Turns out, even the Montreal Gazette did not blame him for picking all five fights.
Shore, just two days shy of turning 27, became an inspiration to his team during the “mayhem on ice.” His goal was to play all or most of the game since his teammate George Owen’s illness left the Bruins shorthanded. The current rule that would have had him evicted from the game after three fights had not yet been set.
His first fight was with George “Buck” Boucher (the “biggest and toughest” Boucher brother). Depending on the point of view, either Shore was then a victim or the instigator for the second fight. According to a Shore biography, he was sandwiched between Reginald “Hooligan” Smith and Dave Trottier, who gave him “the butt end of their sticks” until he “was sent reeling to the Forum’s near-perfect sheet of ice.” He came up with blood spurting from his forehead but refused to leave the game. By another account, it was Shore who randomly used his stick to butt Trottier after finishing with Boucher. Either way resulted in Trottier heading to the hospital with a collapsed lung. At that point, the Maroons really came after Shore, beginning with Smith instigating Shore’s third fight. Then came last season’s penalty leader, Mervyn “Red” Dutton, for the fourth fight. The biography claimed that in the midst of these fights, “Two well-placed jabs to his face tore open his cheek and sliced deeply into his chin” and “knocked out several teeth.”
Eddie Shore, via Wikimedia Commons
For the fifth and final fight, Shore hit Albert “Babe” Siebert, who was trying to get up after being “knocked down behind the net.” In retaliation, “Siebert got up and rant at Shore with his stick up. Sticks, gloves and then the two players were dropped in short order.” Or was it that, as the biography claimed, “the final wallop was delivered by Babe Siebert, and it sent Shore reeling to the ice.” Even the Montreal Gazette noted, “The assault on Shore was deliberate and in plain view and called for a major banishment at least. No one, however, saw Shore smack Siebert over his Adam’s apple when the Maroon lay prone behind the Boston cage.” Regardless of the way the fight played out, both men ended up in the hospital. Per the Gazette, this marked the “first time in many games at the Forum the contest had to be stopped and the blood scraped from the ice so that hostilities could continue.” Somehow amidst all the fighting, Shore managed to assist on two of Boston’s four goals. The Bruins defeated the Maroons 4-3 for their fourth straight win.
At the final tally, Shore had a “broken nose, four teeth lost, two black eyes, gashed cheekbone, cuts over both eyes, and a mild concussion.” He was discharged from the hospital in time to catch the train back to Boston with the team. The Montreal Gazette claimed a parting shot. “The Bostonese left yesterday morning for home muttering that they would cut the Maroons’ ears off when the Montrealers appeared in the city of beans tomorrow night and, although Shore won’t be in any shape to perform these delicate operations, there will probably be a number of his mates who will be ready to do the job for him.” When the Bruins arrived back at North Station, the press wrote that Shore “had all the appearance of a man who had exploded a charge of dynamite with a hammer” and a nose “like a crushed egg.” Ross told the press, “The hockey displayed by the Maroons was a crime. It was brutal. Eddie Shore was knocked out four times.” His complaint to Bruins owner Charles Adams led to a complaint to NHL president Frank Calder. When Calder failed to do anything, Adams gave Shore a $500 check, “$100 for each facial scar.” The money was to be shared with Shore’s teammates.
Although the Boston Globe thought that Shore would be ready to face the Maroons in the rematch, he did not return for another week. The rematch, only a few nights later, only featured 12 minor penalties, but the Maroons won 6-1. For the season, Shore and three of his opponents, Smith, Dutton, and Siebert made the top ten in penalty minutes.
Additional Sources:
- C. Michael Hiam, Eddie Shore and That Old-Time Hockey (McClelland & Stewart, 2011), 7-9, 171-172.
- Liam Maguire, Next Goal Wins! (Toronto: Random House of Canada, 2012), 77-78.
- “Boston Defeats Maroons, 4-3, in Rugged Struggle,” Montreal Gazette, 25 Nov. 1929, p. 20.
- John J. Hallahan, “Bruins Playing Montreal Maroons at The Garden,” Boston Globe, 25 Nov. 1929, p. 23.
- http://thirdstringgoalie.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-nhl-record-for-most-fights-in.html
- http://bruinslegends.blogspot.com/2006/05/eddie-shore.html
