{"id":573425,"date":"2026-05-12T22:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/573425\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T22:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:48:20","slug":"how-lester-patrick-was-chosen-to-stop-the-montreal-maroons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/573425\/","title":{"rendered":"How Lester Patrick Was Chosen To Stop The Montreal Maroons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wendell<\/p>\n

Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

The reporter covering the 1928 Stanley Cup Final for New York’s World-Telegram newspaper was James Burchard. A rollicking, fun sort of fellow happened to be in the dressing room when the goalie puzzle needed a solution.<\/p>\n

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“Hey, Lester,” shouted the newsman known as Thirsty Jim, “YOU go in there and show these guys how to play goal.”<\/p>\n

Then, a pause and finally Lester stood up and said “OK, I will.” And he did.<\/p>\n

(The reader must remember that it was Rangers hockey beat writer Thirsty Jim Burchard who set the fantastic episode in motion.)<\/p>\n

For the rest of the second period and well into the third, the 43-year-old Silver Fox kept the mighty Maroons scoreless. Meanwhile, Bill Cook put New York ahead 1-0 in the third period\u00a0 but once again Nels Stewart was poisoned again, beating Lester at 12:40 of the third stanza.<\/p>\n

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Now this peerless hockey melodrama went into sudden death overtime where Montreal<\/a> goalie Clint Benedict and Lester Patrick each made three saves. Suddenly, Boucher realized that he had THE chance.<\/p>\n

“I got around the Montreal defense and managed to get off a shot,” Boucher remembered, “and it beat Benedict and the Maroons. Next thing we knew, we were carrying Lester off the ice on our shoulders.”<\/p>\n

Was this the greatest story ever told?<\/p>\n

The Maven says that it has to be because it’s one of a kind and even has a poem\u00a0 written by the man who started the whole thing \u2013 World-Telegram hockey writer Jim Burchard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images The reporter covering the 1928 Stanley Cup Final for New York’s World-Telegram newspaper was James…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5111],"tags":[64147,5,64144,64142,64148,5620,64145,264,3328,35,5190,5193,4,36,64146,4302,64143],"class_list":{"0":"post-573425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-rangers","8":"tag-clint-benedict","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-james-burchard","11":"tag-jim-burchard","12":"tag-lester","13":"tag-lester-patrick","14":"tag-maroons","15":"tag-montreal","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-rangers","18":"tag-newyork","19":"tag-newyorkrangers","20":"tag-nhl","21":"tag-rangers","22":"tag-silver-fox","23":"tag-stanley-cup-final","24":"tag-thirsty-jim"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116564047240734810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}