Kup's Chicago - Irv Kupcinet [81]
The next night, when the rookie substitute arrived from Wichita, the Hawks wanted to use Moore as their goalie again. “Nothing doing,” said the Maple Leafs. “Moore is ineligible.” So it was that young Paul Goodman, who never had seen a major-league hockey game and hadn’t practiced for three weeks, tended goal for the Hawks. They lost, 5 to 1.
But the saga of English Alfie Moore was not quite ended. When the Hawks returned to Chicago for the third game of the series, English Alfie traveled with them, as the guest of the team. Chicago gave the team a hero’s welcome, and excited fans packed the Stadium on the night of the game. By that time, regular goalie Mike Karakas, his toe splinted and guarded by a special shoe, was back in the nets. But the biggest ovation of the evening was not for him, or for any other member of the team. It was for English Alfie Moore. When he was introduced to the crowd and presented with a watch, the walls of the Chicago Stadium shook with applause. When the demonstration was finally stilled, the Hawks swarmed out to win the game, 2 to 1. From there, they went on to win the final series and become the professional hockey champions of the world – thanks to a substitute goalie they didn’t want and one who didn’t believe he should play for them in the first place. And that was the last I ever heard of English Alfie Moore.
To all these regular sports attractions, add such major special events as the 1960 Pan-American Games, and you will have a list of activities that would do any city proud. And I have not even started to talk about football. As I’ve already confessed, to me all else pales beside the excitement of a football game – which is another reason why I’m a confirmed, contented, card-carrying Chicagoan. There is no livelier football town anywhere.
Metropolitan Chicago high schools, which have produced Otto Graham, Terry Brennan, Buddy Young, Leo Nomellini, and Red Grange, play America’s toughest schoolboy football. Chicago’s public and Catholic high schools, whose league champions play each fall for the city title in 100,000-seat Soldier Field, have produced more All-American and professional stars than the secondary schools of any other city. My former Harrison High coach, Bob Daugherty, in a career stretching over thirty-eight years, himself produced enough greats of the gridiron to give any major team a long afternoon – including Andy Puplis, Hank Pojman, Andy Pilney, Dr. Wally Phillips, Frank Leonetti, Al Brosky, Frank Kopczak, Nap Hearn, and Walt Kudzik.
For Chicago fans of big-time college football, there is Northwestern, of the Big Ten, and – in the extreme environs of our metropolitan area – Notre Dame. For a more intimate game, there is the ring of suburban colleges that includes Wheaton and Lake Forest. And, of course, for pro football fans we have the Bears. (To complete the record, add two names of fond memory: the Chicago Cardinals, now in St. Louis, and the University of Chicago Maroons, now in class.) The football fan in Chicago doesn’t need that hip flask to get his kicks on a crisp autumn afternoon.
To me the biggest kick comes from the fast, wide-open pro football played today. And as most fans realize, much credit for the development of the modern professional game rightfully belongs to George S. Halas, the Papa Bear.
One of Chicago’s most colorful personalities, George was