Lester Patrick between the pipes

Lester Patrick’s emergency stint in the New York Rangers net during the 1928 Stanley Cup final is the stuff of legend, to put it mildly. It’s one of the best known stories in hockey history and has been recounted in innumerable books, rendered in comics, and re-created for a TV series.

Writing in Macleans magazine on March 1, 1950, Bruce Hutchinson called it: “[P]erhaps the supreme moment of hockey, one of the major adventures in the history of sport and the apex of Lester’s epic. The story has been told a thousand times, [and] will be told over and over again to our grandchildren …”

Writer/broadcaster Stan Fischler, interviewed for the above-mentioned TV series, described it as “the most bizarre episode in the history of hockey … Lester putting on the pads is certainly the epitome of all the legendary hockey stories.”

In The Patricks: Hockey’s Royal Family, Eric Whitehead called it: “Part of the folklore of North American sport.” On his Puckstruck blog, Stephen Smith says: “Lester Patrick’s career as a goaltender ... is as famous a half-hour as you’ll find in the annals of NHL playoff history.” Frank Boucher wrote in his autobiography, When The Rangers Were Young: “This dramatic moment has become part of the lore of sport,” as legendary as Babe Ruth’s called shot. Sports Illustrated named it No. 13 on a list of the NHL’s most iconic moments. (No. 1 was Bobby Orr taking flight in the 1970 Stanley Cup final.)

“That’s just about the most famous story in hockey history, isn’t it?” Lester’s grandson Craig asked in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix on April 21, 1975. “I’ve heard it a few hundred times.” He added in the Montreal Gazette of May 16, 1991: “I must have heard the tale about my grandfather going in to play goal every summer of my life.”

If you are somehow unfamiliar with the story, this is the broad outline: when goaltender Lorne Chabot suffered an eye injury in the second game of the series against the Montreal Maroons, Lester — then the Rangers’ coach — wanted to replace him with Ottawa goalie Alex Connell, who was in the stands.

Montreal refused to allow this, so Lester took matters into his own hands: he suited up. The Rangers won 2-1 in overtime and went on to win the cup. At 44, Lester was the oldest goalie to play in the finals, a record that still stands.

Topps’ 1960-61 set included a card of Lester Patrick, dressed for his 1928 Stanley Cup playoff appearance.

Some sources exaggerate by stating that Lester had never played goal before. (Although a 1961 Sports Illustrated said: “As a player, Patrick had often gone into the net when his team's goalie was penalized.”) In fact, he had minded the net on at least seven previous occasions and also appeared in goal at two training camps. The full list is below.

March 9, 1904: Ottawa Hockey Club 6, Brandon Wheat City 3 (Stanley Cup challenge)

Lester’s first recorded turn as a puckstopper came in the first match of a two-game Stanley Cup challenge series played in Ottawa. In those days, goalies served their own penalties and position players substituted in net. When Brandon goalie Dugald Morrison went to the penalty box for slashing Alf Smith during the second half (hockey was not yet played in three periods), Lester became the temporary goaltender. He stopped one shot, by Smith. But Ottawa went on to win the game, the series, and the cup.

Feb. 16, 1907: Montreal Wanderers 13, Quebec 5 (ECAHA)

During the second half of the game, Wanderers goalie Riley Hearn argued with the referee — who happened to be Lester’s brother Frank — and was assessed a three-minute minor.

However, Hearn continued to mouth off from the penalty box, so Frank tacked on a major penalty as well. Lester was called upon to defend Montreal’s net for the ensuing eight minutes. According to the Montreal Gazette, Lester “stood guard over the nets and made good, though at times he would forget his charge and make dangerous excursions with the puck.”

Lester didn’t give up any goals, although earlier in the match, he scored one. It probably wasn’t the first time a player scored and substituted in goal in the same game, but Lester would accomplish the feat at least four times, including in his next temporary stay in net.

Jan. 3, 1909: Edmonton Hockey Club 4, Ottawa Senators 2 (Exhibition)

What happened in this game was so astonishing, I am surprised it isn’t a much bigger part of hockey folklore generally and Lester’s legend specifically. Defending the net while his goaltender was serving a penalty, Lester made a save, then went end-to-end to score a goal! I only found out about it recently from the Society for International Hockey Research database.

It happened after Lester joined an Edmonton team for a two-game Stanley Cup challenge against the Montreal Wanderers in late 1908, which Edmonton lost. On the way back, they played an exhibition game in Ottawa. The incident in question happened near the end of the game. By far the most detailed and lyrical account was in the Ottawa Citizen the next day:

Harry Smith and [goaltender Bert] Lindsay had a little mix-up, both going back to the timers’ bench. It was here that Lester Patrick tore off the most spectacular stunt of the evening. No game in which he takes part would be complete without an end-to-end rush by Patrick, so Lester proceeded to show what he could do just before the bell rang. Patrick had backed into the nets while Lindsay was off. Alf Smith went in and shot and Patrick saving with his shins, turned the rubber to one side and then started on his long jaunt. Side stepping Harry Smith and Harrison, Patrick, with that wide sweeping movement for which [he] is famous, covered the ice at lightning speed. The other players resembled ten-pins as Patrick swung in and out. The crowd seemed to expect something of Patrick and there was a a cheer as the big fellow drew up to Baird and Moore. Swerving to one side, Patrick eluded Baird and then as Moore reached for him he dodged the other way, shooting the puck into the corner of the nets. Lester skated off as though it were easy money and the spectators applauded him to the echo.

The Senators goalie whom Lester victimized was Bouse Hutton.

I could only find two later mentions of this incident, one in the 1961 Sports Illustrated story previously mentioned. It just said that once, while playing goal, Lester “had cleared a shot and skated the length of the rink to score.”

The other mention was in a Feg Murray cartoon that appeared in many papers on March 16, 1928 (coincidentally a few weeks before Lester’s big appearance in goal for the Rangers). It read: “Lester once scored a goal while playing goal-minder! It was in an exhibition game between Ottawa and Edmonton in Montreal about 20 years ago. Patrick volunteered to play goalie, without pads, when the Edmonton regular was injured.” The game was in Ottawa, and the goaltender was penalized, not injured, but the rest is correct.

Jan. 26, 1912: Vancouver Millionaires 10, Victoria Senators 8 (PCHA)

This game took place within the first few weeks of the PCHA’s existence.

When Victoria goalie Bert Lindsay was given a one-minute minor in the first period for roughing, Lester took his place in net. Lester’s “wild swings at the puck kept the spectators in an uproar of laughter,” the Victoria Daily Times reported, describing his style of blocking shots as “circus stunts.”

It seemed to work, however: he didn’t give up any goals. And in the rest of the game he had a hat trick.

Feb. 9, 1912: Victoria Senators 8, Vancouver Millionaires 7 (OT) (PCHA)

Only a few games later Lester found himself back in net, with Lindsay serving a one-minute minor in the second period. Lester gave up a soft goal to Sibby Nichols, who fired a long shot that slipped through his legs. He made up for it by scoring a goal himself in the same period and setting up another in the third.

Jan. 9, 1922: Vancouver Millionaires 4, Victoria Aristocrats 0 (PCHA)

Nearly 10 years went by before Lester’s next stint in goal.

In the third period, Victoria goalie Hec Fowler was given a 10-minute misconduct following a dust-up with Vancouver’s Mickey MacKay. Lester, who was coaching Victoria, but had earlier substituted himself for Moose Johnson on defence, elected to fill the position himself. According to the Victoria Daily Times:

For the next ten minutes the fans got more real laughs out of hockey than will probably fall to their lot for a long time to come. Without pads, but with his hair standing on end the Victoria veteran gave the multitude a lot of thrills … He performed in every conceivable fashion. Catching the puck a la baseball he would heave it first this way then that. Other times he was on his knees, stick yards away, pushing himself in the direction of the puck.

He gyrated this way on his wishbone, and the other way on his eyebrow. The greater the crowd roared the harder Lester worked. And all the time the Vancouvers were shaking him down with drives from all angles.

Penalty shots had only been introduced to the PCHA — and the game — the previous month. Jack Adams was awarded two in this match and succeeded in the first period against Fowler. But on his second attempt, Lester stopped him.

Lester lost his stick at one point, but prevented Vancouver from scoring until Adams beat him with a shot over his shoulder just as the penalty expired. “Patrick may never be a great goalkeeper, but he showed enough last night to convince fans that as a custodian he’s a wonderful forward,” the Daily Times added.

While it has been written that this appearance in net (or maybe the subsequent one) resulted in Lester being dubbed the “Praying Colonel,” that was not the case, as I discuss in detail here.

Victoria Daily Times, Jan. 10, 1922

Jan. 20, 1922: Vancouver Millionaires 4, Victoria Aristocrats 3 (OT) (PCHA)

Eleven days after his comical outing, Lester returned to the net in a game that clinched the league title for Vancouver. In the first period, Hec Fowler got into a row with Alf Skinner and referee Mickey Ion gave them each three-minute minors. Lester went into goal with Fowler’s stick, but once again without pads. He gave up no goals and stopped at least two shots.

April 7, 1928: New York Rangers 2, Montreal Maroons 1 (OT) (NHL)

That brings us back to Lester’s finest hour. After close to a century, what could possibly be left to say about it? Not much, except to point out a couple of discrepancies. The summary of the game on the NHL website says Lester played 35:05, which is the same time given on hockey-reference.com and quanthockey.com. Lester played all of the third period (20 minutes) and the overtime (7:05), so to get to 35:05, he must have replaced Lorne Chabot at the 12 minute mark of the second period and played eight minutes.

However, the Society for International Hockey database has Lester playing 46 minutes, which would mean he went in one minute into the second period and played 19 minutes. So which number is correct?

An initial review of the newspaper coverage frustratingly didn’t reveal an exact time of the switch. But the papers did seem to agree that Chabot was injured early in the second period, making the SIHR figure the much more likely of the two. I’m not sure if it represents an estimate or if a source actually stated that it happened one minute into the second.

Then I found a lone paper, the Brooklyn Daily Times, which on April 9 and April 15 said Lester played 43 minutes, suggesting he came in at the four-minute mark. A Google search revealed the same figure cited in several works, including Kings of the Ice: A History of World Hockey by Andrew Podnieks and Sheila Wawanash (2002), The Best Book of Hockey Facts, by Dan Weber (also 2002), and the Greatest Hockey Legends blog. Given that the Times accounts were published close to the actual game, 43 minutes is the time I’m going with.

Additionally, there is some disagreement about the number of saves Lester made. The NHL didn’t officially track shots on goal at the time, and therefore its game summary doesn’t contain any data. But reporters counted them on their own. An unattributed dispatch in the Winnipeg Tribune of April 9, 1928 said Lester made five saves in the second, nine in the third, and three in overtime, for a total of 17.

However, a United Press report that appeared the previous day in the Vancouver Province said Lester made six saves in the second and six in the third. It did not give a figure for overtime but described two saves, for a total of at least 14.

While it is a bit unfair to tally up Lester’s goaltending stats since they were across leagues and eras, I am going to do it anyway. We have to make some guesses because we don’t know for sure how long he was in goal in the 1904 or 1909 matches. Let’s say it was two minutes each.

His totals therefore in six regular-season or exhibition appearances: two goals allowed in 25 minutes for a 4.80 average, plus one penalty shot stopped. Combine that with his 1928 heroics where he surrendered one goal in 43 minutes and the 1904 match with no goals against in two minutes, and we arrive at a grand total of three goals against in 70 minutes over eight games, for an average of 2.57. Plus he scored a goal of his own! And we aren’t quite finished.

Nov. 8, 1923: Victoria Cougars training camp (PCHA)

About 300 people watched an intra-squad game between the Yannigans, captained by Frank Fredrickson and the Nannigans, captained by Lester who “made some great stops and continually drew applause from the gallery,” according to the Daily Times. However, his team lost 5-3. (Yannigans is a delightful, if obsolete word, more often applied to baseball. It referred to a team of rookies or inexperienced players.)

November 1927: New York Rangers training camp (NHL)

Lester was the regular goalie for the Yannigans at Rangers camp. There’s no word how Lester fared, but it gave him at least a bit of a tune-up ahead of his date with history five months later.

One other bit of trivia: Lester’s 1928 heroics were his only NHL post-season appearance. But he played defence in one regular-season game for the Rangers on March 20, 1927 against the New York Americans. It’s not clear from contemporary news coverage why he inserted himself, but it backfired as he was immediately penalized for tripping. The Rangers still won 2-1 and Lester earned another distinction: at 43, he was the NHL’s oldest rookie.

And one final anecdote: in December 1928, a story began making the rounds in newspapers about a dinner or party given by a New York Rangers grandee, either Col. John S. Hammond or William A. Carey. Lester was introduced to one of the guests and the story was told of his emergency stint in the Rangers net the previous spring. “How marvelous!” the guest replied. “And had you ever played hockey before, Mr. Patrick?”

Adapted from a story that appeared in the April 2020 edition of the SIHR Bulletin. Updated on Jan. 13, 2025 to add the Edmonton game of 1909 and the cartoon; on Jan. 14, 2025 to add the discussion about the discrepancies in the 1928 stats; on Jan. 25, 2025 with the final anecdote; and on Feb. 11, 2025 to add quotes from Craig Patrick and Frank Boucher. With thanks to Eric Zweig.