The United States entered World War II two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Canada had declared war on each Axis power as long as 27 months and as short as two days prior.
In Boston, an assembly of citizens of both countries heard U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt’s Dec. 9, 1941 declaration. The audio of the speech put a Bruins-Blackhawks game at the Garden on hold.
Boston’s Kitchener Kids — Bobby Bauer, Woody Dumart and Milt Schmidt — were on the home roster that night. Chicago’s Max Bentley was another Canadian-born household name on hand when the contesting puck parties listened to FDR’s unifying message.
By the end of the next season, they had all joined Canada’s war effort. Likewise, American-born Bruins goaltender Frank Brimsek and Hawks forward John Mariucci enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard.
Those six, plus many others, resumed playing postwar, and most built on their Hall-of-Fame resumes as if they were never gone. Other skaters-turned-servicemembers-turned-skaters were just getting started on that.
And with their backgrounds, they helped to amplify appreciation around the continent. They lived out and epitomized both sides of the sacrifices abroad and long-term objectives for freedom at home.
On that note, for this anniversary of the North American allies’ somber yet resolute convergence, we look back at the top NHL legends who put their careers on hold during World War II. Special consideration goes to performances in the postwar portion of a given player’s career.
10. Woody Dumart
Two months after FDR’s declaration, the Boston Garden masses witnessed another binational display of patriotism. Following their Feb. 10, 1942 game against Montreal, the three Kitchener Kids turned their focus to the military. The visiting Habs saluted the new Royal Canadian Air Force enlistees by carrying Dumart, Schmidt and Bauer off the ice.
Dumart would miss the balance of that season, plus each of the next three. When he returned, he finished second among the team with 34 points in 50 games.
The next year, with the schedule stretched to 60 games, Dumart was one of only five Bruins to see action every night. He would place third behind only his linemates in their last year together. After Bauer retired, Dumart carried on for the seven more seasons, including an impressive 41-point, 70-game campaign at age 33 in 1950-51.
9. Frank Brimsek
No one was going to Wally Pipp “Mister Zero.” The Bruins dealt the last of Brimsek’s seven stand-ins, Paul Bibeault, to Montreal during the 1945-46 season.
The two-time Stanley Cup champion and Vezina Trophy winner played the remaining 34 games that year. He then played every minute of the next two seasons, plus the bulk of 1948-49 before capping his career in Chicago. There he saw action every night in a newly lengthened 70-game schedule, laying five goose-eggs for the last-place Blackhawks.
8. Sid Abel
Abel had his best season at age 31, four years post-service. After sacrificing two full seasons, plus the majority of 1945-46, he returned to a league with a longer season than before.
But by 1949-50, Abel was a point-per-game producer for the first time in eight years, tallying 69 in 69. The year prior, he had co-led Detroit (opposite Ted Lindsay) with 54 points. That marked a four-year peak for the Production Line.
7. Roy Conacher
A teammate of Brimsek’s in Boston and Chicago, Conacher led the league with 68 points in 1948-49. The next year, he was another rare Blackhawks bright spot with a team-best 56 points. He again led the Hawks with 50 points in 1950-51, his final full NHL campaign.
Previously, Conacher missed three seasons with the Bruins, then played only four games late in 1946. But he tallied three points in that stretch, then led the Red Wings with 30 goals during a one-year stay in Detroit.
6. Turk Broda
Over the two-plus seasons of Broda’s absence, the Maple Leafs dressed six substitutes in net. This after he had played every minute of the three seasons before enlisting in 1943.
Broda made 15 appearances as he renewed his rhythm in 1945-46. The next year, the NHL expanded its schedule from 50 games to 60, but Broda was ready to flaunt his old form. He played every regular-season game over the next four years, including a 68-game slate in 1949-50.
In that stretch, he backstopped three consecutive Stanley Cup victories from 1947 to 1949. And he garnered his second and final Vezina in the middle.
5. Max Bentley
Bentley finished his last season before a two-year military hiatus second to brother Doug on Chicago’s scoring chart. When he returned, he played an identical 47 games and topped the chart with 61 points. He accelerated that number to a career-best 72 in 60 games for his last full season as a Blackhawk.
After a trade to Toronto, Bentley was a valuable supplement to Syl Apps and later Harry Watson in a one-two scoring punch. In his last otherworldly run, he led the Leafs with 62 regular-season and 13 playoff points as part of their 1951 championship run. And even after that peak, he rounded out his career with respectable 41-, 23- and 32-point campaigns.
4. Syl Apps
Talk about going out on top. Apps was 30 when he returned from two-plus years in Canada’s forces, and upped his output in the remaining three years of his playing career.
Despite missing 10 games for Toronto in 1945-46, he averaged a point per night with 40, third-best on the team. Missing only six games the next season, he finished second with 54 points.
And in 1947-48, he led a stable of twentysomethings with 26 regular-season goals and 53 points. He added eight points in the playoffs en route to a Stanley Cup, his last act before retiring.
3. Milt Schmidt
In his last full season before joining the service, Schmidt logged 38 points in 45 games. Five years later, in his first season back, he totaled 31 points in 48 appearances.
Schmidt turned 28 during that 1945-46 campaign, and had seen no NHL action for three-plus years going in. But his best years, production-wise, were still ahead. He would rebuild his form toward a career-best 62 points in his second postwar hockey almanac.
Granted, the schedule had lengthened that year. But when he was healthy, Schmidt continued to anchor the Kitchener Kids. He would lead or co-lead the Bruins in points three more times, culminating in 1952 at age 34. One year prior, he won his only Hart Trophy.
2. Johnny Bower
On a normal list, where every season gets equal priority, Brimsek and Broda would rank above Bower. But remember that we are giving extra weight to a player’s postwar performance.
Bower had yet to log a minute of action in any professional league when he served Canada. When the war ended, he started penning his profile in persistence with an eight-year AHL tenure in Cleveland.
The New York Rangers gave Bower his break before his 28th birthday in 1953. And despite spending the majority of another four seasons in the minors, he later resurfaced in Toronto. Over 12 years with the Leafs, he won two Vezinas, went to six Stanley Cup Finals and earned four rings.
1. Doug Harvey
Harvey was a teenaged Montreal prospect when he joined Canada’s Navy. The war ended within a year, and he spent two more seasons and a portion of another in the Canadiens’ farm system.
After reaching the NHL permanently in 1948, the blueliner matched or increased his scoring output for eight seasons. By his production peak in 1957, he had bagged three Norris Trophies. He nabbed a fourth the next year, then added three more.
Harvey never again hit the 40-point plateau after 1958, but remained a reliable point-based point producer. The year after winning his last Norris with the Rangers, he tallied 39 points at the ripe age of 38.
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