A Goalie's Debut

The Red Wings famed right wing, long a fearsome sight to pro goalies, bore down on the cage and fired low and hard. Sprawling, the New York Rangers' rookie goalie flung out his left leg, and the puck thunked into it. At the next whistle, a Ranger defenseman skated over to the goalie. "Nice stop on Gordie Howe," he said. "Who the hell is Gordie Howe?" asked Goalie Jack McCartan politely.

Fresh from his splendid performance in the U.S.'s upset victory in the Olympics, McCartan was as unawed by the National Hockey League stars as he had been by the Russians. After watching him at work in Squaw Valley, the Rangers had quickly invited him for a five-game tryout. McCartan, 24, now an Army specialist four with four months left to serve, took a furlough and came.

He outdid even the Rangers' fondest hopes. Lean-jawed, strapping McCartan (6 ft. 1 in., 200 lbs.) stopped Howe eight more times ("The other times he let go from about 20 to 30 feet, and I had it all the way"), helped the last-place Rangers beat Detroit 3-1.

Glove Preferred. McCartan grew up ignorant of big-league hockey and its heroes. In his home town of St. Paul there were no pro teams near by, he explains, and "most of us didn't know the league existed." Besides, McCartan was more interested in baseball, developed into a fine third baseman ("I could always use the glove pretty well"), earned All-America honors at Minnesota and a tryout with the Washington Senators. He started playing goalie in ice-lot hockey only because the regular goalie once failed to show up for a game. His baseball still shows in his hockey: his first reflex is to catch the puck instead of blocking it with stick or pads as most other goalies tend to do.

Starting out against Detroit, McCartan sweated heavily, but kept his head. "All I knew," he said after the game, "is that those guys in jerseys were carrying the puck and coming at me 100 miles an hour. My job was to stop them. If a goalie thinks about their scoring ability, the next thing he's reaching behind him to take the puck out of the net."

Head-on Blocking. Just to prove that his first pro performance was no fluke, McCartan did equally well against the Chicago Black Hawks. He had to settle for a 1-1 tie only when, in a melee, the puck bounced off a skate and into the net. Twice, burly Bobby Hull, the league's leading scorer, drove straight for the mouth of the cage. Twice, McCartan met Hull headon, bulled him off balance, and booted the puck away. Conceded Chicago's Glenn Hall, hottest goalie in the league: "He's got a good right skate for kicking out shots." At week's end, McCartan took on the fast-skating Toronto Maple Leafs, fended off a late Toronto barrage with spectacular acrobatics to achieve a creditable 2-2 tie.

Looking back on the 43-year history of the N.H.L., officials could recall only a handful of American-born players who had broken the Canadians' monopoly of big-time pro hockey. Most had made it only after fighting their way up through minor-league teams. But at week's end, it looked as if Jack McCartan might join that small and select band--and what's more, do it in one single leap.

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