When 6′2″, 245-pound defenseman Clarence “Taffy” Abel arrived in the Na- tional Hockey League in 1926, he was both a premium player and a center-ring at- traction.
This was an era when forwards were small and sleek, many of them weighing less than 165 pounds. Abel’s burly girth made him a curiosity. Fans were clearly in- trigued by this bear-sized man who had no difficulty handling the speed of the game.
“He was a very good skater,” his former Chicago Blackhawks teammate Art Coul- ter said in a 1996 interview. “When he would start up ice, the defense would just converge on him. They would be hanging all over him. He would be like a mother ape with five baby apes hanging off him.”
Abel was not the first American-born and trained player in the NHL. That distinc- tion belongs to former Dartmouth center/right wing George “Gerry” Geran of
Holyoke, Massachusetts, who played four games for the Montreal Wanderers in 1917. But Abel, a member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, was the first true Amer- ican standout, playing three seasons with the New York Rangers, starting in 1926– 27, and five seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks, starting in 1929–30.
U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame member Muzz Murray from Michigan was the first true American to reach the Stanley Cup Final when he played for the Seattle team that reached the 1918–19 Stanley Cup series that was cancelled due to the Spanish influenza epidemic. But Abel was the first American on an NHL team to win a Stan- ley Cup.
Coulter said Abel probably should have been elected to the Hall of Fame. Under the idea that he had been overlooked, Abel was nominated again in the mid-1990s, but his candidacy didn’t receive any support by the selection committee.
Born in 1900, Abel was the grandson of the chief of the Cherokee tribe. He was a legend around the Soo until his hometown ice rink burned to the ground. To con- tinue his hockey career, Abel moved to the St. Paul Athletic Club, where he started to draw the attention of the NHL and organizers of the 1924 U.S. Olympic Team. He made the Olympic team and was chosen to be the American flag bearer at the Winter Games in Chamonix, France.
In an era when it was considered blasphemy for defenders to stray from their own blue line, Abel managed to net 15 goals in five games as the USA won the sil- ver medal in France. Word of his exploits reached Conn Smythe, then the manager of the New York Rangers. He had been interested in Abel prior to the Olympics be- cause he had heard Abel was as big as a house but could still skate with reasonable quickness.
Abel’s defensive ability and toughness made him attractive to professional coaches. But because he wasn’t immediately enamored with the idea of an NHL ca- reer, he went back to St. Paul after the 1924 Olympics, resisting the idea of an NHL career with the same fierce stubbornness that made him one of the league’s better defenders. Smythe’s method for locking Abel into his first National Hockey League contract in 1926 was literally locking him in…or, at least that’s what Smythe threat- ened to do.
Smythe had heard his hockey buddies gush about the 245-pound American de- fenseman for several years and was more than annoyed to discover Abel wasn’t overly impressed by the NHL’s offers and was as stubborn as Smythe when it came down to money.
Abel rejected several Rangers offers before Smythe convinced him to at least show up for a face-to-face meeting in the Pullman train car. Abel wouldn’t budge on his stance, and when the conductor announced the train was about to roll, he began to head for the door. Smythe raced ahead of him and locked him in.
“The money’s good, you won’t do better, and the next stop is 250 miles away,” Smythe said. “If you don’t sign, you won’t be getting off until then.”
Abel, a powerful man with a quick temper, must have been amused by Smythe’s style, because on another day he might have thrown Smythe through the window.Instead, he signed the contract, shook Smythe’s hand, and jumped from the train as it was pulling out of the station.
The Rangers immediately proclaimed Abel to be the NHL’s largest player, which would be both a curse and a blessing for Abel. Although opponents feared Abel’s size, coaches felt he would have been more effective if he was better conditioned and 20 pounds lighter.
According to the media reports of that era, Abel was a gum-chewing, rough-and- tum-ble competitor whose body checks often sent opposing forwards airborne. He was also adept at pushing his opponents into the boards and draping over them until the referee whistled the play dead. His size and his willingness to use it made him an intimidating presence. When he was playing for the Blackhawks, the fans in New York, Boston, and Detroit loved to rain boos and insults down on him and razz him unmercifully about his girth.
Meal money didn’t go to waste on Abel. At various points in his career, Abel weighed more than 260 pounds. When he played with the New York Rangers early in his career, he was paired with Ching Johnson, another beefy defenseman. At a combined 430 to 460 pounds—depending upon when they had last been fed— they were probably the heaviest defensive duo in the game. Johnson, although born in Winnipeg, actually had some American roots. He had come down to Eveleth, Minnesota, as a teenager to play senior hockey. He was still playing senior hockey in Marquette, Michigan, when he was in his forties.
In his rookie season, Abel’s eight goals made him the Rangers’ fourth-highest goal scorer and one of the league’s top-scoring defensemen. That level of produc- tion put him in the company of Ottawa Senator King Clancy, New York American Lionel Conacher, and Boston Bruin Eddie Shore, all of whom were considered elite- level NHL defensemen.
Shore was considered among the best ever to play the position. But it certainly wasn’t Abel’s offensive touch that endeared him to fans; he never had more than three goals or six points in any future NHL season. He was known as an immov- able object and quickly earned a reputation for doing whatever was required to achieve a win.
People in Abel’s hometown understood his molten drive to win. According to local folklore, the legend of Abel’s competitive spirit was established by a well- timed right cross. Abel’s team, the Soo Indians, had just lost a 1–0 decision against a bitter rival when the team manager strolled into the dressing room and said, “Well, there’s always the next game.” The sentence was barely finished when Abel’s fist caught the manager square on the jaw. It was a one-punch TKO, and Abel was suspended for the remainder of the season.
“He was two different personalities,” says Bill Thorn, Abel’s second cousin. “Off the ice, he was easygoing. But on the ice, you didn’t want to meet him. He hated to lose.” He also didn’t like anyone taking advantage of him on or off the ice. A Cana- dian newspaper carried the story of Abel, then playing for the Rangers, being rolled for $100 by a Manhattan con artist who had convinced the kindhearted Abel to loan him $2. When Abel removed his money clip from his trousers, the thief snatched it and escaped into the streets before Abel could react.
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