(Note: This article, written by Eugene McCarthy and with the headline, “A Copenhagen Snuff Can Filled With Dirt,” appeared in the March 1978 issue of Hockey magazine. A copy of the magazine was provided by Charlie Basch, St. Cloud, former hockey coach at St. Cloud State University.)

By Eugene J. McCarthy

            If things had happened slightly differently one late-winter day in 1935, I might well be writing today of how, in a one-on-one situation, I beat the great Frankie Brimsek, who only a few years later was the all-star goaltender (“Mr. Zero”) in the National Hockey League and eventually was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

            As it happened, however, I was coming in on Brimsek, one on one, having stolen the puck near center ice from the opposition, St. Cloud Teachers’ College (now St. Cloud State University). Just as I was about to make my shot into the upper right-hand corner of the net (I thought Brimsek had waited too long to move out of the goal), I was tripped from behind by a defenseman named DePaul. It was a gentle but dastardly trip. My great opportunity ended in a disappointing slide, along with the puck, into Brimsek. No goal.

            If I had beaten Brimsek (we knew then that he was destined for hockey greatness), I would have been able to talk about the shot for the rest of my life. This was my last college hockey game, or at least the last against St. Cloud, and I knew that I would never meet Brimsek in the professional ranks. If I had not beaten Brimsek, so what? Nobody could beat Brimsek.

            That tripping penalty led to the only serious fight of my limited hockey career. Actually, it was a series of fights, born of frustration. The first was with DePaul on the ice, the second with him in the penalty box, another on the way back to the gymnasium after the game. And one more, I was reminded by the man who was the St. Cloud coach on that day, Lud Andolsek (more recently a member of the United States Civil Service Commission), in the gymnasium locker room.

            Andolsek was a good coach and well qualified to be a Civil Service Commissioner: He knew how to recruit talent. After a few years in the nets at St. Cloud, he became the coach and gathered his team: Brimsek in the nets; a center named Bjork; a super wingman, Gasperlin; two DePaul brothers; and a defenseman called (Roland) Vandell – all from northern Minnesota, or so it was reported. Although some of the names sounded suspiciously Canadian (sometimes the border between Minnesota and Canadais uncertain, especially in the winter, when the snow is on the ground and hockey players are involved.) Andolsek supplemented his core group from the North with a few central Minnesota players, notably one named Alexander and another known as “Speed” Winters, to put together what was probably the best college team in the United States at that time.

            Although the Saint John’s University team, on which I played, that year won the championship of the Minnesota College Conference – a conference made up largely of church-affiliated schools: Lutherans from Augsburg, Gustavus Adolphus and St. Olaf; Presbyterians from Macalester; Methodists from Hamline; and Catholics from St. Thomas, St. Mary’s and Saint John’s – we were no match for the St. Cloud team, which, as I recall, had beaten us 12-1 and beat us 6-2 in the game in which the infamous tripping incident occurred.

            Northern Minnesota hockey had indoor rinks in the early 1930s, thanks to the wisdom of local municipal authorities, who collected taxes on iron ore and spent at least a part of what was collected in building the rinks.

            In central Minnesota, we were not so favored: We played our hockey on outdoor rinks, on ponds, on cleared spaces on lakes and rivers, in all kinds of weather.

            My early hockey experience was highly unorganized. There were no youth leagues or high school teams. There were not even hockey sticks for small boys (at least there were none for sale in small Minnesota towns with populations of less than 600). Our favorite stick was a hickory cane, used normally for moving cattle and hogs at the local stockyard. With a little persistence and patience, the local cattle dealers, one of whom was my uncle, could be moved to give a cane to a prospective hockey player. Once the cane4 was obtained, the critical process of straightening the curved end followed. Hot water and steam, weights and wires were used. The result was not an instrument that permitted much fancy shooting, but it was all right for stick work and for tripping, and excellent for hooking. And it was strong. If no puck was available (often they were lost in a snow beyond the rink, and not found again until spring) a Copenhagen snuff can filled with dirt and held together with friction tape would do for an afternoon workout.

            We moved very quickly from the straightened-cane and Copenhagen-puck stage to regular sticks, official pucks, nets made by the local blacksmith, and a boarded rink, at the same time progressing from clamp skates to shoe skates and – when one’s parents were sure that their children’s feet had reached a final size – a pair of CCM hockey skates, the mark of hockey maturity. Along with this progress went the acquiring of shin pads, gloves, shoulder pads, and, finally, uniforms. It was before the time of helmets and goalie masks, although a goaltender might occasionally wear a baseball catcher’s mask. The wearing of caps was frowned upon unless the temperature was getting down close to zero.

            Some of the rinks in our area had full boarding. Some were marked by little more than two-by-sixes or two-by-eights to keep the puck in bounds. Some, the most dangerous ones, were boarded to a height of about two feet. Fortunately, there usually was a cushioning pile of snow just outside the boards to absorb the worst of the shock if a player fell or was pushed over the boards.

            We were not sticklers for observance of the rules or quality of the ice. We were desperately eager to play, ignoring the temptation of basketball with its warm gymnasiums, cheerleaders and crowds. Ours was a lonely sport. Age was no barrier. No educational qualifications were required. We played what, for want of a better name, was called “town hockey.”

            If it snowed the night before a game, the visiting team was expected to arrive early to help clean off the rink. If the ice was bad, the teams might set out together looking for open ice on a nearby lake, usually with a truck following loaded with two-by-fours or –sixes with which to outline the playing area and keep the puck from escaping to slide half a mile across the open ice of the lake.

            The worst rink in the area was at Kingston (Minn.). The rink was on the Crow River, and was maintained, more or less, by the local fire department, which flooded the rink by pumping water out of the river, thus helping to lower the water level of the river and create areas of what was known as “hollow ice” – that is: ice not sustained by underlying water.

            The Kingston rink was unboarded except at the ends; the willow-lined banks were considered adequate for lateral definition of the playing area. There was one other problem about playing at Kingston. The team insisted on using basketball rules, with a center permanently positioned in front of their opponents’ net. We threatened not to play, but eventually, rather than lose a Sunday afternoon’s sport, yielded to their rules with an agreement from them that before the next game (to be played in our town), they should study the rules and then abide by them. The game was the thing, and so we played.

            Each team had its own ethnic character: the Swedes in Willmar, the Irish in Eden Valley, the Germans from St. Cloud, the Finns of Kingston, and what we called the Yankees, persons with names like Eaton and Adkins and Greeley, from Litchfield. The kids from my own town, Watkins, were a mixed lot. Norwegians: Lewis Ludemo and his brother, Victor; Norwegians: Lewis Ludemo and his brother, Victor; Germans: the three Theis brothers – Al, Oscar and Ewald – Merlin Meirhofer; and Butch Leiter, and the goalie, Wilfred Becker; one Yankee: Donald Ehlers; and the Irish: my brother Austin and I.

            The game is still the same to me as I watch the professionals play. There is the same stateliness and order of the warm-up, slow circling left and right, the shots on goal, the passing. Then the face-off, the rattle of stick on stick, the ring of skates on ice, the thump of body against body, or of puck or stick on pads. The banging against the boards, the small cries of the players, and under and through it all, the balancing of speed and grace against strength and power, and always an element of surprise, of risk, of danger. With men, or boys, skating faster than they can run, propelling the puck faster than they can throw a baseball, defying gravity and friction, testing endurance and intelligence and courage to the limit, in desperate drives for the puck or desperate lunges to prevent a score. The exultation of a goal, and of victory, with players near exhaustion, muscles aching, lungs burning, and then the sweat cooling against the body, under wool, while the will waits for new strength to undress, to shower, to return to humanity – the players like reluctant centaurs having to put off the horse half, and become men again.