reserved fashion. They realize that, if Lou is so popular, his presence must be one of the explanations for the Rangers’ soaring box-office totals this season. And while Lou Fontinato’s defensive play is studded with damaging errors and unnecessary penalties, he has shown great aptitude for improvement and, after all, this is only his first complete NHL season.

 

“Louie makes mistakes,” is Coach Phil Watson's understatement. "And nobody gets madder at himself than Louie when he does pull a rock. But nobody shows greater desire to correct himself.”

 

Fontinato is what hockey men would call the "policeman" of the Rangers. As such, he is an asset to a lightweight team like the Manhattan Blueshirts because of his rugged approach to the game. This is not to suggest that mayhem should be, or is, an integral part of hockey but bodily contact definitely is. Because of that, each team is equipped with one or more flinty types who make sure that the opposition doesn’t take undue liberties.

 

Penalty Tally High

 

MY style of defence is to play the man," Lou explains.” Some have great success by concentrating on the puck, but that's not my style. I play the man who has the puck and try to take him right out of the play. l’ve got where I am today by playing that way, so I imagine it must be the best way for me. Sure, it's a style that invites penalties. But they're something you have to take as part of the game when you play it my way.

 

“lf you belt guys often enough they start easing up as they approach you. They hesitate as they come in toward the goal and it's in just that split second that you’re able to beat them.”

 

Lou always has been well-known for time served in the penalty box. As a player with the Guelph Biltmores, Canadian junior champions in 1952, he led the Ontario Hockey association junior “A” league in penance served. He turned professional with Vancouver of the Western league the following season and sat out 169 minutes, or almost three hours, in 65 games. The next year was split between Vancouver and Saskatoon and he totalled 147 minutes in 63 games. He was with the Saskatoon club for 35 games last season, putting in 55 penalty minutes, and was promoted to the Rangers for 27 games, during which he was penalized a total of 60 minutes. This season, as a full-time Blueshirt, he has passed the 140-minute mark with a third of the schedule to go and he appears a cinch to break Red Horner’s all-time NHL record of 167 minutes in one season.

 

Thus, in less than four complete seasons of pro hockey, he has spent almost 10 hours in penalty boxes from coast to coast. And at 24, he has possibly 10 more years to become the most penalized player in the history of the game.

 

The Rangers have given up trying to reform him. Coach Watson, who took over the job this season and had the Rangers playing better hockey than they had since the early '40’s, tried levying fines for stupid infractions. But this made Lou over-cautious, diminishing his overall effectiveness, so the system was abandoned. But as he picks up big-league experience with each game he plays, he is improving defensively, while continuing his lusty belting. With increasing moxie, he’s able to throw solid checks without sticks or elbows getting into the act and so he may be able to cut his penalty totals. But since this diamond’s roughness is part of his appeal, you can bet he won't be smoothed excessively. Watson has taken advantage of Lou's hard-hitting ability by pairing him on defence with Harry Howell, the team’s captain, who is a skilled, though unobtrusive, rear- guard.

 

“Harry is the most solid performer on our club,” New York Manager Muzz Patrick explained. “He is the guy who covers up Louie Fontinato‘s mistakes and makes it possible for Louie to keep rival forwards honest with chance-taking but hard-hitting play.”

 

By “honest,” Patrick meant that opposition forwards, when they enter the Ranger defensive zone, are just as concerned about whether Fontinato jolts them as they are about making a play on goal. And if, as frequently happens, Fontinato does miss with his body-check, Howell is there to smother the attempt scientifically. lt is this rough-house style that has endeared Fontinato to New York fans. He has been a key factor in the current revival of hockey in Manhattan. For many seasons Ranger teams had their share of talent but lacked zest and were frequently pushed around by their opponents. The advent of Phil Watson, with his “get-tough” policy, the natural improvement of some of the Ranger youngsters and the devil-may-care play of thumpers like Fontinato transformed them, in a few months, into one of the most respected teams in the league. Today, any player who pushes a Ranger around has to answer to Leapin’ Lou.

The “Leapin’ Lou” or “Lou the Leaper” tag was derived from his theatrical conduct when apprehended in the midst of some illegality. Sometimes, when given what he considers an unjust penalty, he leaps sky- ward as though just dealt a painful and unprovoked blow. He gestures like a professional wrestler and, with an air of injured innocence, skates the familiar path to the penalty box, jumping into it to the accompaniment of cheers or jeers, depending on where the game is being played. Similarly, he hurls himself down the ice or towards ‘opponents in prodigious bounds. His number "8" automatically becomes the most prominent figure on the ice.

 

Lou has another special sort of public appeal in New York. He has become the hero of the sports-loving, Italian-American element there, the same people who worshipped Joe DiMaggio and now idolize Yogi  Berra. This type of racial appeal has been something the Rangers always have striven for in melting-pot New York. The story goes that when the Rangers first began operations, they advertised the presence on their team of “Lorne Chabotsky, the only Jewish player in hockey.” Later, investigation revealed him to be none other than Lorne Chabot, a French-Canadian by descent. It was a good try, anyway. However, there’s nothing phony about Lou Fontinato’s Italian ancestry. His father emigrated from Italy to Canada in the early 1920’s and settled on a farm on the outskirts of Guelph.

 

Lesson in Rink Etiquet

 

LOU has the knack of making quotable statements and doing colorful things. He has described his style as “rock ’n’ roll” hockey, which actually means little, since it refers to a current popular music fad, but which was widely repeated. “Do to others before they do to you,” was one of his theories. “Always play the man-that’s my idea," he told an admiring youngster. “Some games go by when 1 never see the puck at all.” His advice to a fellow-newcomer. Bronco Horvath, was: “Give it to them before they give it to you. In that way you’lI be respected. If you don't you'll be getting it all the time.”

 

But Fontinato realizes that such an approach is an invitation to trouble: “In this game. if you are going to play rough, you’ve got to expect to be treated roughly, too.” This acceptance of the fact that hockey life is stern and tough may have come about through a lesson in rink etiquet given him by Butch Bouchard, Montreal Canadiens‘ experienced and hard-bitten defenceman. Challenged by the Ranger upstart, Bouchard utilized an old hockey strategy by pulling Lou’s sweater over his head and then fetching him a few memorable swats. Wiser but undaunted, Lou has battered some of the league’s toughest players, men like Ted Lindsay of Detroit and Montreal's Maurice (The Rocket) Richard, both noted scrappers. Lindsay absorbed a Fontinato check in an early season game and has no recollection of the remainder of the match. The Rocket, who has scored some impressive fistic victories in Madison Square Garden, became embroiled with the Leaper and suffered a five-stitch cut on his forehead, the result of a Fontinato punch. Even at 24, Lou himself has several scars of the hockey wars. His face bears the traces of several stitching jobs and he has had a broken nose, two knee injuries and a severely bruised chest cartilage.

 

This much must be said: If fights cannot be avoided in hockey, and it appears they cannot, then Lou Fontinato must be considered one of the best fighters.

 

Lou laughingly attributes his belligerence to being the youngest in a family of six, the other five being girls.

 

“Five older sisters." says Lou. “That's enough to make anybody mean.”

 

Today, having so large a family within an easy drive of Toronto means that, next to New York, his biggest and loudest cheering section is in Maple Leaf Gardens. The Fontinato family generally attends Ranger games in Toronto. Sometimes three carloads of them make the trip, Lou says.

 

Born in 1932, he spent his early life on the family vegetable farm on the outskirts of Guelph. On the adjoining- farm lived the Maschios, whose son, Lou, is now a referee in the NHL. The two boys were fast friends and played minor hockey together. The story had rather an amusing sequel last fall when Maschio was sent to New York for his first refereeing assignment. He happened to meet Fontinato in the lobby of the Garden and the two greeted each other as fondly as two old friends would. That night Maschio hit Fontinato with four penalties, one of which led to a goal which beat file Rangers.

 

Afterwards, Lou said: “When I get home, I'm going to build that fence between our yards so high he won’t be able to fly over it. Seriously, he must have wanted to show that our being friends didn’t make any difference when it came to giving penalties. But don’t you think he overdid it a little?”

 

Father Consistent Rooter

 

AS a youngster, Lou played hockey only casually as a hobby. His real interest was learning to be a machinist. But the men behind Guelph’s junior hockey set-up saw great possibilities in the youngster. A-diet of pizza and spaghetti had made him into a lean and muscular 190-pounder who stood an inch above six feet H6rC0mpellS8l8d for clumsiness with unbounded fearlessness and self-confidence.

 

His parents, who were a little strange to the idea of playing a game for a living. were horrified when he announced he was quitting his machinists job to become a hockey player. By now, they‘ve been convinced and Signor Fontinato, Sr., is Lou's most enthusiastic rooter when the Rangers play in Toronto.

 

By 1951, when Guelph, under Ranger sponsorship. put together one of the most potent and colorful junior hockey clubs of all time, Leapin’ Lou Fontinato was a fixture on defence. The Biltmores breezed through to the Memorial Cup, symbol of the Canadian junior championship, and today several members of that team are playing big-league hockey. Besides Lou, the Rangers have Harry Howell, Ron Murphy, Dean Prentice, Andy Bathgate and Aldo Guidolin, and a seventh is Ron Stewart of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

 

“Like any kid, I wanted to play for the Maple Leafs,” Lou relates. “I used to save my best shots for Maple Leaf Gardens. When l’d skate out on the ice, I'd look for that white hat up in the seats and, if it was there, l’d know Conn Smythe was watching and I'd work extra hard. Now, of course, I'm happy with the Rangers. The New York fans are wonderful-- as long as you’re winning, and we've been winning."

 

Fontinato didn’t know until later how close he actually came to becoming a Maple Leaf. Following that successful 1951-52 season, most of the Bilts got a try at making the first-string Ranger team and several did. But not Fontinato. Ranger executives confessed he showed promise but felt he needed schooling, and he was dispatched to the minor leagues where he was to serve a 2½ year apprenticeship. So glowing were the reports concerning Fontinato that drifted east that the Leafs sent observers out to watch him. By the time they decided he might be worth having, the Rangers had decided they didn’t want to let him go. He finally reached the NHL early lad: season when the Rangers called him up but he was slowed down by a gimpy knee and was returned to Saskatoon, only to be promoted again for the last couple of months of the schedule. '

 

That taste of the big time convinced Lou he’d seen enough of the prairie circuit and he stormed into the Rangers’ Saskatoon training camp determined to make the grade for good. In scrimmages, he thumped prospective teammates as though they were the Montreal Canadiens. One day Ivan Irwin, a rival for a defence job, became irked at Fontinato’s slamming and stripped off his gloves, challenging Lou to settle the dispute fistically. Lou was happy to oblige and Phil Watson beamed happily as his athletes slugged it out. Finally he stepped in and broke up the brawl, announcing that henceforth Fontinato and Irwin would be partners on defence.

 

“Now shake hands, you two,” he said, “and I don't want you to give up a single goal today."

 

And they didn’t, either.

 

END

 

(Copyright 1956 The Star Weekly)