top of page
Search

Chicago Black Hawks Top Rangers at MSG, Hull Kept Off Scoresheet

Feb. 3, 1965 - Bobby Hull, the blond bomber of the Chicago Black Hawks who leads the NHL with 37 goals, was kept in his scoring slump tonight.

That was about all the New York Rangers accomplished before 14,939 fans at Madison Square Garden as the Hawks skated off the ice with a 4-1 victory over the Blues and stayed unbeaten at the Garden this season. (Pictured below, Chicago’s Bill Hay [#11] checks Phil Goyette [#20] as goalie Glenn Hall, Matt Ravlich [#5], and Dennis Hull [#10] defend the net.]

The victory put the Hawks in a first-place tie with the idle Montreal Canadiens.

Between the final two Chicago goals — by Ken Wharram and Fred Stanfield — tempers flared. Lou Angotti, the little pepperpot of the Rangers, raged and ranted at Mikita in the Chicago corner. There was no penalty called, but Angotti had to be held back by his teammates.

Angotti tried to wrestle free as he sought to get at Mikita. Whatever Mikita had done occurred after the whistle was blown when the puck was trapped along the boards.

Angotti finally cooled off, and play resumed. But not for long. Hull and Bob Plager suddenly exploded into a shoving, grappling match near the Ranger cage. 

Hull, his features livid with rage, had to be restrained by Neil Armstrong, one of the linesmen. Armstrong had his arms full of a struggling, wriggling hockey player bent solely upon bodily harm — to Plager. But Plager wasn’t having any part of the furious Hull.

“It’s all part of the game, what they fans do,” Hull said later. “It just gets me when some guy on the other team tried to make his reputation by trying to cream me. Then I have to fight back.”

Both players received two-minute penalties, which ended the hostile action in the rink. But it was resumed in the penalty box. A fan by the name of George Johnson from Woodside, Queens, used Plager for a spittoon. Plager punched him in the nose, in the face, and across the back and shoulders as he pulled him almost out onto the ice.

Garden police finally separated the two with the help of Vic Hadfield, who usually is in on all the fights, and led the fan out of the arena to the street.

“He [Johnson] spit at me,” Plager said afterward. “I tried to warn him, but he said I’d never hit a man facing me. So, I hit him.”

Hull observed the player-fan melee quietly. “If I had gotten in it, I’d have helped the fan,” Bobby remarked. “I guess he [Plager] is trying to stay in the league, and he figures the only way to do it is to bat people around. Wait till they start looking at the statistics and seeing how many times a guy like that is on the ice when the other team scores. Let’s see how long he’s around then.”



Support this project at patreon.com/realtime1960s

Comments


© 2024 by Joe Rubenstein

bottom of page