Pigskin, cigar clamped in his teeth, had regained the puck and was rushing away, looking for a new place to shoot it.
By Gregory Clark, November 15, 1930.
“I have to shoot a bear,” I said to Merrill. And that was the end of Merrill and me.
“I will go apple picking with you,” said Merrill. I will go judging cattle and hogs. But never again will I go hunting or camping with you.”
“But, Merrill,” I protested, “journalism isn’t like that. Ours not to reason why. Ours but to do or die. We have been ordered to get a bear hunting story to relieve the tedium of eternal deer hunting and moose hunting stories.”
“I am engaged,” said Merrill, “in writing radio dramas for some of the largest corporations of this northern or wider half of the continent. And they have hinted that some of the enterprises I have been engaged in with you are hardly in keeping with the je ne sais quoi of a dramatist of the air. I think you had better get a new partner.1“
“Partners are hard to get,” said I. “First Charles Vining and now you.”
“Get Jimmie Frise or Lou Marsh,” said Merrill. “Or Frederick Griffin or Bob Reade.”
“I tried them long ago,” said I, “and when we set forth on an adventure it always ended up at the coca cola fountain.”
“Well,” said Merrill, “coca cola for me, though I am not writing their scenarios.”
And it was at that moment that Pigskin Peters walked into the office.
“There you are,” said Merrill, and quietly slipped away.
Pigskin looked in the pink. He had a nice new whoopee overcoat2 on and his shoes were shined. His face glowed with ruddy health.
“Where’s Jimmie?” asked Pigskin.
“Are there any races on?” I asked.
“No.”
“Well, then, I guess he’s duck hunting,” said I. “How’s the old burg, Pigskin?”
“Same as ever. Say,” said Pigskin, “if I can’t find Jimmie will you do something for me?”
“What?”‘
“Take me up to the Arena and introduce me to Conny Smythe3,” said Pigskin, with a most embarrassed look.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I’m going into pro hockey,” said Pigskin, clearing his throat. “I’m taking it up.”
“Why, I never knew you were a hockey player, Pigskin.”
“I ain’t,” said Pigskin. “But I’m going to be.”
“Well, er,” said l, “usually, you know, Pigskin, you put in a good deal of time as an amateur before you go into pro. As a matter of fact, it takes years to make a pro hockey player.”
“Will you introduce me to Conny Smythe?” said Pigskin, briefly.
“Sure I will! But I was just telling you.”
“I been in training,” said Pigskin. “Everybody down home says I would make a pro hockey player. Lots of pros are over thirty years old.
“Well, we’ll have to step along, Pigskin, if we are going to see Conny at noon.”
“l Practiced Skating All Summer”
So I took Pigskin up Yonge St. to the Arena4 and in the dim echoing emptiness we found Conny, standing as usual with his hat on the back of his head, hands in pockets, quietly watching his boys swooping about on the ice and banging pucks with hollow booms against the boards.
“Conny, I’d like to introduce Mr. Peters,” said l.
“Glad to know you.” said Conny.
“Pigskin Peters,” said I.
“You don’t say!” cried Conny, giving Pigskin another handshake. “l know a lot about you.”
“It can’t be proved,” said Pigskin.
We all laughed.
“I wanted to see you, Mr. Smythe,” said Pigskin, doggedly, “about getting taken on by the Maple Leafs.”
When Conny doesn’t know what to say, he just grins and looks interested.
“You play much hockey, Mr. Peters?” asked Conny.
“I been in training all summer,” said Pigskin, avoiding the question. “All the boys down home say I got the makings of a real pro hockey player. We had a fellow come through last winter. He was a scout for one of the big New York clubs, and he tried to sign me on then.”
“Well,” said Conny. “H’m.”
Pigskin unbuttoned his whoopee coat and let his chest stick out. It was about the size of a good big pickle barrel. His neck is about a twenty.
“Have you done much skating?” asked Conny.
“I practiced all summer,” said Pigskin. “From June on.”
“Have you got artificial ice down in Birdseye Centre?” Conny asked with interest.
“No,” said Pigskin. “It was roller skating I was doing. I used to get up as early as four or five o’clock all summer and go out to the main highway and practice on the pavement. None of the speed cops could catch me.”
Conny looked embarrassed. He didn’t want to offend either Pigskin or me.
“Well, there’s no harm, Mr. Peters,” said he. “in putting on pair of skates and letting as what you’ve got. Harry,” he called to one of the boys hanging around, “get Mr. Peters a pair of skates.”
So Pigskin went back to the dressing room.
“What the heck!” said Conny, looking at me out of his rather steely blue eyes.
“I couldn’t help it,” I apologized. “Jim Frise couldn’t found, so Pigskin put it up to me straight to introduce him.”
“Roller skates!” snorted Conny, turning to watch his boys again.
In a few minutes Pigskin wobbled out of the dressing room wearing his usual sweater and Christy hat5 and supporting himself on a hockey stick.
“They kind of pinch,” he said as he came to us and passed through the gate on to the ice. Pigskin took a short slide and slipped and fell flat on his back. As he scrambled up, Happy Day, the captain, skated over to us and looked inquiringly at Conny.
“All right,” said Conny. He winked at Happy. “Shoot him a couple.”
Happy skated back and passed the word amongst the boys.
Poor Pigskin, leaning heavily on his stick, made a couple of desperate efforts to get out into centre ice, but the skates seemed bedevilled. Down he went, two, three, four times, and each time he fell he became madder. The boys on the ice came and flashed around him with the puck, like swallows around a balloon, but Pigskin was too busy.
“What’s This – The Newest Rules?”
Finally standing up and propelling himself with the stick, he came to the ringside where Conny and I were standing.
“These boots pinch,” said Pigskin. “The skates is too slippery.”
“Some other time,” said Conny. “Call on me some day when I’m not so busy.”
“Just a minute,” said Pigskin, pushing past us and staggering heavily out the corridor to the dressing room.
“What’s the big idea,” said Conny to me.
“Gee, Conny, I’m sorry,” I said, “but I didn’t know he couldn’t even skate.”
Conny seemed not to want to discuss the matter at all and turned to watch his players.
I stood waiting for Pigskin to get the skates off and rejoin me.
There came a rumbling sound, out from the dressing room. Up the alley behind us came Pigskin – on roller skates.
“Hey!” said Conny, blocking the little gate in the boards that lets the players onto the ice.
“Just a minute,” cried Pigskin, pushing at the gate. “Lemme out for just a minute. I wanta show you…”
And out he burst on to the ice, while Conny slammed the gate.
Strange sights have been seen in that Arena, from wrestling bouts to ice carnivals. But the performance that Pigskin put on was the supreme best.
No tumbling or fumbling now. All we saw was a red and white streak circle the Ice topped with an old Christy hat. A blur of red and white, in front of which brandished a hockey stick.
Nothing was said. King Clancy6 who was just performing a nice job at clearing the puck from the net, stopped and stared. The rest of the boys desisted in their practice and stood watching that weird blur, a sort of flying cloud or spectre that went around the rink with a humming sound coming from it.
Pigskin did a couple of pirouettes, a la winter carnival. He jumped into the air and whirled into a figure eight. Happy Day7, who was standing staring, with the puck on the end of his stick, was suddenly pounced on and the puck was gone. Pigskin had it, and on his roller skates, had dissolved into another mist of speed, ahead of which the puck hissed on the ice.
“Get it!” roared Conny.
The Maple Leafs carne to life and all started after Pigskin. Cotton raced into a corner after him, but when Cotton hit the boards in that corner, Pigskin was already steaming around the opposite corner.
The Arena wan now filled with shouts, from the players, from Conny and I believe from me. For with nine or ten Maple Leafs all after him, Pigskin was doing a kind of roller skating that had never been seen on land or sea. From centre ice, he suddenly, crouching down, made a shot at the north end net, and the whole net collapsed. Whereupon the team rushed in to get the puck, but Pigskin, whose knowledge of hockey appears to be confused with rugby or prize fighting, slammed his weight right into the midst of them, and when the puck came back down the ice, it was on Pigskin’s stick. And again he began to fade from sight, so fast was he going.
Happy Day skated over to us and said to Conny:
“What is this? The newest rules or something?”
“Get it!” said Conny.
Up to the other net rushed Pigskin and made another terrific shot, and the puck went right through the net and smashed the board behind.
“Here, here!” shouted Conny. “Don’t wreck the place!”
Pigskin Melts the Ice
King Clancy hooked the puck out of the broken boards and shot it out to midice, where Pigskin grabbed it, colliding with two other players who skidded on their backs. Hard pressed by the seven remaining players, Pigskin shot the puck against the boards for a rebound and a whole section of the fence fell over.
“Hay, hay!” shouted Conny, opening the gate and rushing on to the ice. “Hay, hay!”
But Pigskin, cigar clamped in his teeth, had regained the puck and was rushing away, looking for a new place to shoot it.
“Get off the ice,” yelled Conny to his boys.
“Give him the ice and when he gets tired, we can go on practicing.”
The Maple Leafs skated over the boards and sat, breathing heavily on the fence.
“Get him out of here!” said Canny to me.
“Pigskin!” I hollered. “PIGSKIN!”
But I was too late. He lifted the puck in a terrific shot, it rose like a bullet, up, up and sailed in what seemed like a long black streak through the air to the rafters, where it struck one of the solid steel beams. And struck so hard that is melted and stuck there, a sort of black pudding dangling from the steel.
Pigskin slowed down in centre ice, patted the ice with his stick and said:
“Toss us out another one.”
The Arena was very still.
“Pigskin,” said I, softly.
“Huh?”
“Come here! Mr. Smythe wants to talk to you.”
As Pigskin slid over to us, we all noticed at the same time that the Arena ice was melting. A steam was rising off it and it was just beginning to run.
Conny held out his hand. Pigskin shook it in a proud but embarrassed way.
“What do you think of me?” he said.
“Wonderful,” said Conny. “But I’m filled up for this year.”
“Couldn’t you lay nobody off and give me a chance?” asked Pigskin, crestfallen.
“They are all on contracts,” said Conny. “Or I’d do it in a minute.”
“Come on, Pigskin,” I said, “let’s get going. I’ve got an appointment at the office.”
“I think I’ll stick around here for a while,” said Pigskin, “and watch the practice.”
“There won’t be any more practice to-day,” said Conny. “The ice is melted.”
And sure enough, the whole surface of the Arena was honeycombed, especially where Pigskin had been skating.
He shook hands with all the players and with his whoopee coat on again, I walked him down Yonge St.
“Too bad, Pigskin,” I said.
“Well, I only did it to please my friends,” said Pigskin. “I didn’t want to get taken on anyway.”
“No?”
“No. I want to play with the Birdseye Centre Rovers this winter, and it was them that said I was too good for them and told me to try to turn pro.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. And they’ll be glad to hear I didn’t get on the Maple Leafs.”
“I’m sure they will,” I said.
“Well, so long,” said Pigskin.
“So long.”
And he headed briskly down Bay St. for the Union station.
Editor’s Notes: This is an odd one, as it is pre-Greg and Jim, but with a fictional character from Birdseye Center as if he is real? It is interesting that he does mention the other people he had “adventures” with (Charles Vining, Merrill Denison, Jimmie Frise, Lou Marsh, Frederick Griffin and Robert Reade). The regular Greg-Jim stories would debut in 1932.
- This is true. Merrill Denison’s playwriting career really started taking off after he left Canada for New York in 1929. He would still produce stories every now and then for the Star Weekly from New York (and illustrated by Jimmie). ↩︎
- A Whoopee coat was a style of coat popularized by Eddie Cantor in the 1928 Broadway play Whoopee! which was also made into a 1930 movie. It seems to be describing any brightly coloured coat with eye-catching patterns. ↩︎
- Conn Smythe was the principal owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NHL from 1927 to 1961. ↩︎
- This would be the Mutual Street Arena. In 1962, it was converted into a curling club and roller skating rink known as The Terrace. It was demolished in 1989. Maple Leaf Gardens would be built in 1931. ↩︎
- This would be his regular bowler hat. Christy’s is a hatmaker. ↩︎
- King Clancy was a player for the Toronto Maple Leafs at the time. He retired in 1937, later being a referee, a coach, and a team executive until his death in 1986. ↩︎
- “Happy” Day was also a player at the time. ↩︎
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