The Night Blueshirt Defenseman Lou Fontinato Got Himself A Red Smith Column

During the late 1950's – with Phiery Phil Watson coaching the Rangers – games against the Canadiens at the Old Garden were epic; without fail.

This was the era when the Montrealers were in the midst of an unprecedented five consecutive Stanley Cups and the New Yorkers were worthy challengers; just not quite as good.

It also was the epoch when New York City was overflowing with newspapers such as the Herald-Tribune, Journal-American, World-Telegram, Daily Mirror, Daily News and the Times.

Each paper had its own hockey writer and a columnist who would occasionally drop over for a story. Herb Goren, a former hockey writer himself, was the Rangers publicist at the time and very well-liked by his peers.

Herbie had one problem; Red Smith, the pre-eminent Times' sports columnist, was not exactly crazy about hockey nor the Rangers for that matter; or the Rangers and hockey, for that other matter as well.

Time and again, Goren would plead with Smith to come to one game and at last Red showed up for a Canadiens-Rangers match. 

(I should note that Smith loved horse racing, baseball, football but, best of all boxing.)

Like all the others, this New York-Montreal matchup was a dilly. "Firewagon Hockey" they called it and the Habs had the fire and the wagon. But the Rangers always got up for these games, especially Lou Fontinato who had a hate on for and Canadien.

Otherwise known as Louie The Leaper or Leapin' Louie, Fontinato was the NHL's unofficial heavyweight champion. Among the Canadiens he fought were the likes of tough Dickie Moore, equally nasty Bert Olmstead and mean Doug Harvey.

Comparing Rangers, Devils, Islanders Starting GoaliesYou'll have to agree – but you don't have to if you don't really want to – that goaltending  will go a long way toward determining whether the

But up until this night, Louie had never had it out with  the legendary scorer Maurice (The Rocket) Richard. By the way, The Rocket was notorious for being as good a fighter as he was a lamplighter.)

Sure enough there was a collision in the middle of the second period – Rocket ramming Fonty like iceberg vs. Titanic; only Louie didn't sink. He dropped his gloves and went at it with Richard.

This was looking like Graziano vs. Zale for the Middleweight championship: a big WHACK here and a big WHACK there -- nobody giving an inch.

Suddenly, Fontinato tossed a right cross that banged Richard in the forehead and suddenly blood spurted up and out like a Texas oil strike.

Did Louie hit Rocket THAT hard? 

No, he did not but he did hit the BANDAGE covering eight stitches that Richard had taken from a flying puck the night before in Detroit.  Fonty's fist released the bandage and simultaneously unstitched the stitches.

Of course, the capacity crowd of 15,925 (it always was 15,925) thought this was the greatest sight since the Coney Island parachute jump and hailed Leapin' Louie as if he was Rocky Marciano personified.

But as far as this Hockey Maven was concerned the two happiest guys in captivity that night were Red Smith of the Times and Herb Goren of Rangers publicity.

"THAT," said Red to Herb, "was one helluva fight!" 

"It sure was," said Goren with hope in his heart.

And that "hope" was realized the next day when Herbie picked up the Times, turned to the sports pages and there was a big, juicy column titled "Roman Circus."

By Red Smith!