This Day in Hockey History – March 6, 1907 – Misfortunes of McCourt and Masson

(hockey rink in Cornwall, Ontario)

In modern times, player safety takes priority in hockey rulings. The events of March 6, 1907 paved the way to understanding the importance of protecting the players of this rough sport. During a Federal Amateur Hockey League (FAHL) game, forward Owen “Bud” McCourt of the Cornwall team was struck in the head during a brawl, lost consciousness twice, and the following morning succumbed to a “broken blood vessel in the brain.” He was the second player to die from an on-ice injury, one located nearly the same place as the first. Charles Masson of the Ottawa Victorias was accused of causing the fatal injury with his stick and charged with manslaughter. Understandably, the 1906-07 season was cut short.

The FAHL existed between 1904 and 1909. Up until this Canadian league turned professional for its final two season, the teams’ amateurs played at the men’s senior level. With the formation of the National Hockey Association (NHA), the FAHL (which had dropped the amateur) dissolved.

Playing for the FHL, 22-year-old McCourt had been with Cornwall for the past three seasons. In the month or so before his death, he had finally recovered after a severe case of typhoid fever and returned to the sport. According to the Ottawa Citizen, “He was a splendid player, fast and clever and his work was always clean. He had a hot temper, but was never deliberately rough.”

Meanwhile, Masson had been playing at Truro, Nova Scotia. Having returned to Ottawa a few weeks before the game, he filled in when the Victorias’ captain, Bob Harrison, missed his train connections after another game. According to the local press, Masson was “well known and liked about town” and “played cover-point for the Victorias and was seldom ruled off for rough work; in fact he had been looked upon as a very clean player.”

The two teams met at Cornwall that fateful March 6 to replay a game that was not considered a valid (amateur) FHL game. (Two of Cornwall’s players had played a couple of paid matches with the Shamrocks.) For this re-match, Cornwall had to replace two players with juniors (including S.E. Runions). McCourt himself was not feeling up to playing and was “only persuaded to play at the last minute.” The game could not start until after he arrived at 9.

During the first half, Ottawa scored three goals. Although Cornwall put the puck in the net twice, neither counted when they were ruled offsides. According to the time-keeper, W.D. Knight, “The first half of the match was strenuous in places.” Ottawa players and management consistently made comments that the “game was very rough right from the start, but that Referee [Thomas Emmett] Quinn could have averted all the trouble had he been more strict at the start. Once the rough work started, they say, it was allowed to go along until the free-for-all.” 

The only person penalized was McCourt. Knight claimed that he was given two minutes for striking Arthur Throop and three minutes for “striking a player on the arm.” E.A. Pilon, a judge of play, claimed that McCourt had been penalized for hooking Throop. As the referee, Quinn didn’t think the first half was “particularly rough.”

That changed about five or six minutes into the second half. With so many witnesses, the sequence of events became muddled, especially as everyone agreed that they happened so quickly. It seems that Charles Chamberlin was skating with the puck when McCourt (as the Ottawa Citizen recapped) “skated across the ice and hit Chamberlin across the back” causing him to fall. McCourt’s brother Lee claimed that from the audience it looked like an Ottawa player gave McCourt the “end of the stick, the latter then skating after Chamberlin, and striking him on the shoulder.” This launched a free-for-all brawl. 

It revved up one of three ways. According to the Victorias’ manager, Jim Enright, McCourt collided with a player named Young, who was hit from behind and fell. Then Throop seemed to have been struck with McCourt’s stick leaving him with a five-inch gash on his cranium. Throop himself claimed that McCourt and Chamberlin were “apparently threatening each other with their sticks,” so he dropped his to break them up. He was then hit from behind and “dazed by a blow on the head.” Chamberlin denied that story but said he, too, was hit from behind and thus “did not know anything from that moment until reaching the dressing room.”

The main issue was what happened next. Immediately following the game, the Ottawa newspapers reported that after McCourt and Throop “exchanged blows and separated,” it looked like McCourt was about to retaliate when Masson hit him over the head and Runions took out Throop. Runions refuted, claiming that Throop and Masson both struck McCourt (who dropped his stick to fight with his fists) and that Runions retaliated against Masson. As referee, Quinn testified that he saw “McCourt skating towards the timekeepers’ box following other players [with his stick uplifted]. A second or so later he saw Masson skate over to McCourt, and strike him on the head. Then followed a mix-up by several players … Masson had no occasion as a player to skate the 15 or 20 feet he was distant from McCourt.” McCourt’s brother also witnessed Masson skating over 20 feet to hit from behind with the heel of his stick causing McCourt to drop to the ice.

With McCourt, Throop, Young, and Chamberlin all laid out, Ottawa’s goalie, Billy Bannerman, helped stop the fight. At the end, judge of play Pilon “heard the whistle blow and saw a fight in progress. He blew his own whistle, and attempted to part the combatants. He also helped McCourt off the ice.” The newspapers summarized, “There was a wild time for a few seconds, and McCourt was picked up and carried off the ice. Throop had an ugly cut and could not continue playing.” Masson was ruled off, so Runions sat out to even up the teams.

To continue the contest, Quinn “called the players up, and gave them a lecture which had good effect and the balance of the match was comparatively mild.” The Cornwall team proceeded to score 11 goals with Smith taking care of nearly half of them. They won 11-3.

Meanwhile, as Lee McCourt put it, his brother took a ten-minute rest and then resumed play for about seven or eight minutes. During that time, Quinn thought “he seemed to be all right. Once I collided with him and his skate caught in the leg of my trousers and made a hole there” to which he joked that “if he was not more careful I would have to charge him for a new pair of trousers.” Finally, McCourt said he was “all in,” and those would be his last words as he fell unconscious and never woke.

They had already called for a doctor. When he arrived, Dr. D.O. Alguire noted that “McCourt was on the ice [skating] and he proceeded to sew up the head of an Ottawa player” [presumably Throop]. After McCourt passed out again, Dr. Alguire checked his pupils, which showed “evidently serious trouble,” perhaps internal bleeding. He immediately had McCourt sent to Hotel Dieu, where his “skull was trepanned, and revealed a large clot” and “broken blood vessel in the brain.” With his condition “very precarious,” they called his mother and a priest to the bedside. McCourt died at about 8 the next morning, and the funeral was scheduled for March 9th.

The morning after the game, most of the Victorias headed back to Ottawa on the train (which broke down six miles before their destination). Chief of Police Smyth, having charged Masson “with assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm,” took Masson into custody either at Hotel Duquette (where the team had stayed) or at Cornwall’s train station. Masson’s goalie and an officer of the club accompanied them to lock-up to see about bail, food, and reading materials. Right when Masson arrived at lock-up, a town employee told him, “I may as well tell you that you are in a bad fix, young man. McCourt is dead.” Masson could only apologize and pled “not guilty” at the quick inquest. His father, an ex-alderman for Ottawa, came to help but was denied bail.

The inquest resumed on March 13. The coroner’s jury decided: “That the said Owen McCourt came to his death by a blow from a hockey stick in the hands of Charles Masson, during the progress of the game of hockey played I the Victoria rink in the town of Cornwall … in the opinion of this jury, although there is no evidence of any ill-feeling previous to the blow, there was no justification by personal provocation for the above blow … Your jury further recommends that an act be passed by the legislative assembly whereby players and spectators engaged in or encouraging roughness or foul play in the game of hockey may be severely punished.”

Two days later, Mason was charged with manslaughter. Police Magistrate Danis stated, “There is a certain doubt in my mind that the evidence that has been adduced here before me might technically prove the accused to have been guilty of murder. I feel strongly that, taking into consideration the match … [and circumstances] the charge should be reduced to one of manslaughter, and I would feel much more pleased if the crown attorney would consent to it.” When the attorney did not consent, Danis reduced the charge anyway. “I cannot believe that any jury or any court would hold this young man guilty of murder. There was certainly no evidence of any intention to do anything more than the usual injury that is generally committed in this game.”

On March 17, after ten days in custody, Masson was finally released on bail (despite the crown attorney’s strong protestations). He paid $8,000 himself, and his father paid another $4,000. The father and son had lunch with friends at Hotel Duquette before sympathetic Cornwall citizens (including Lee McCourt) saw them off on the train. The press found Masson “in good health and spirits, although he deeply regrets the sad death” and “confident that he will be acquitted.”

The trial took place over April 10 and 11. Masson again pled “not guilty,” and after hearing all the witnesses and deliberating for 45 minutes, the jury agreed and acquitted him.

The 1906-07 season did not survive the incident. The two teams were scheduled to meet again March 9th. But the day before, the Victorias cancelled the rest of their season because the “players are completely broken up over the death of Bud McCourt and are all anxious to hang up their sticks.” Upon their return, they had left their uniforms in a box outside the door of their “quarters at Dey’s rink.” However, they did try to arrange an exhibition game for the support of McCourt’s widowed mother and sisters.

Before the game, the two teams had been tied leading the league. The 11-3 victory put Cornwall ahead, so Ottawa assumed it would lose the championship by canceling the remainder. Instead, Cornwall also stopped playing and “waived their claim to the laurels.” Another team, the (French-Canadian) Montagnards dropped out of the league altogether. Thus, as of April 4, the Ottawa Victorias were named the FAHL champions and challengers for the Stanley Cup. They got their wish and played the Montreal Wanderers the following January, but their attempt was unsuccessful.

Additional Sources:

• “Player may die as result of blow,” Ottawa Citizen, 7 March 1907, p. 8.
• “Free fight at hockey match,” Ottawa Evening Journal, 7 March 1907, p. 2.
• “Hockey Player Succumbs,” Ottawa Evening Citizen, 7 March 1907, p. 1.
• “Vics Through for Season,” Ottawa Citizen, 8 March 1907, p. 8.
• “Chas. Masson Before Court,” Ottawa Citizen, 8 March 1907, p. 9.
• “Masson Held Responsible for Death of McCourt,” Ottawa Citizen, 14 March 1907, p. 10.
• “Benefit Fund for McCourt,” Ottawa Citizen, 15 March 1907, p. 8.
• “Masson Struck Owen M’Court,” Ottawa Evening Citizen, 15 March 1907, p. 1.
• “Reduced to Manslaughter,” Ottawa Citizen, 16 March 1907, p. 2.
• “Masson Out Under Bail,” Ottawa Citizen, 18 March 1907, p. 8.
• “Swear Masson Struck McCourt,” Ottawa Evening Citizen, 10 April 1907, p. 1.
• “Masson Trial,” Ottawa Evening Citizen, 11 April 1907, p. 1.
• “Chas. Masson ‘Not Guilty,’” Ottawa Citizen, 12 April 1907, p. 9.
• “Ottawa Victorias Have Challenged for Stanley Cup,” Ottawa Citizen, 4 April 1907, p. 8.
• “Out of Federal,” Ottawa Evening Citizen, 15 March 1907, p. 1.