Hockey News Names Robbie in Top 100 Goalies of All Time

Quoted from:  ​The Hockey News Nov 9, 2018.  

Imagine parachuting in for an NHL debut in the Cup final. He lived that dream and flourished.

Not many goalies can make the claim they made their big-league debut in an NHL final and went on to win the Stanley Cup, but that’s exactly what Earl Robertson did back in 1937 for the Detroit Red Wings. 

A 10-year minor-league journeyman, Robertson made his NHL debut in Game 1 of the Cup final after Detroit starter Normie Smith injured his elbow in the Red Wings’ first-round series. Smith’s elbow had swelled up so badly, he had to watch from the stands. 

The Red Wings faced the New York Rangers in the 1937 final and were looking to defend the Cup. Detroit was dealing with injury problems already when its star goalie went down. Prior to joining the Wings, Robertson had lived a nomadic pro career starting at age 17, playing for minor-league teams in Regina, Vancouver, Victoria, Tacoma, Oakland, San Francisco, Hollywood, Edmonton, Windsor, Rochester and Pittsburgh. 

Robertson was 26 when the Wings called him up from the Pittsburgh Hornets. He played well the first three games, withstanding the pressure of a Cup-final series, but Detroit trailed 2-1 and was on the brink of elimination in the best-of-five final. That set the stage for heroics that forever etched Robertson into hockey history. 

He was flawless turning aside shot after shot in a 1-0 Game 4 victory in Detroit. He followed that up with a 3-0 shutout on home ice in Game 5 to give Detroit its second Stanley Cup. Robertson even stopped the first penalty shot awarded in a Cup final game when he robbed Rangers forward Alex Shibicky to preserve the shutout. “They could take me out and shoot me now,” Earl told reporters after the game. “I’d die happy.” 

After backstopping his team to glory, Robertson didn’t receive any of the team bonus money Stanley Cup winners get, newspapers reported. That’s because he was viewed as a replacement. The Red Wings owner, James Norris Sr., soon insisted on looking after Robertson personally by handing him a $600 cheque. It’s likely that if the Conn Smythe Trophy had been awarded in those days, Detroit’s Marty Barry would have won it. But Robertson surely would have been runner-up. Barry, who scored the Cup-winning goal, told Robertson, “You were great, kid. Just sensational. They can’t keep you in the minors now.” 

Barry was right. But they could trade Robertson. The Red Wings stuck with Normie Smith the following season, so Robertson was shipped to the New York Americans for Red Doran and cash. It worked out because Robertson, who never played a regular-season game for Detroit, went on to play five seasons with the Americans and was one of the NHL’s better goalies despite playing for a weak squad. He was named a second team all-star in 1939 and twice finished in the top five in Hart Trophy voting..  

But there's more that Hockey News did not reveal about Earl's debut story.   

Even though he led them to a Stanley Cup win the Red Wings traded Robbie for $7500 to the New York Americans who were owned by the most notorious bootlegger in New York, ‘Big Bill’ Dwyer”.  Dwyer paid his players, one at a time in his office where he was surrounded by his gun carrying henchmen and the payment was always in cash.  The story is that one of his players asked for a raise and the response was a bullet in his leg.  

Robbie’s first year with the Americans, they made the play-offs, his second year with the Americans, they didn’t make the play-offs but even so Robbie was named to the second all star team.  The Americans, the first NHL team to be situated in New York, were having financial difficulties and finally went under in 1942, the last year of Robbie’s NHL stint.  

Now here's another part of the story that resurfaced through the research of hockey historian, Eric Zweig.  It takes place between game 4 and game 5. 

 #2 The Stanley Cup Baby

#2 Stanley Cup 80th Anniversary Story

by Eric Zweig, Hockey Historian and Author

For the last couple of years, around the start of the playoffs, I’ve done a “Stanley Cup Anniversaries” story.  I’m a little late this year, and this time I’m choosing to focus on just a single quirky anniversary story. This one is from 80 years ago in 1937. The story begins in the spring of 1936, when the Detroit Red Wings became the last of the so-called “Original Six” teams to win the Stanley Cup. Goalie Normie Smith was a Red Wings hero that season. According to a report in the Detroit Free Press (which was picked up by a few other papers) on April 17, 1937, Smith was friendly with an ex-Canadian couple living in Detroit, a Mrs. Ida Lefleur and her husband, who were expecting a baby shortly after the Red Wings’ 1936 championship.

“If we have a boy,” Ida told Normie, “we’ll name him Stanley after the Cup and next year the Red Wings will win the Stanley Cup again on his birthday.” As the story goes, the boy was born on April 15, 1936 and was named Stanley Lefleur. And as it turned out, the baby’s first birthday in 1937 really did coincide with Game 5 of that year’s best-of-five Stanley Cup Final … between the Rangers and Normie Smith’s Red Wings. Smith had won the Vezina Trophy during the 1936-37 season, but was injured in the playoffs and replaced by minor-leaguer Earl Robertson. On the day of Game 5, Smith sought his replacement. “Out near where we live is a Stanley Cup baby,” he told Robertson. “Now what you should do is go out there and take a few lucky pats on that baby’s head.”

As the Free Press story explains, Normie Smith “will do anything for good luck.” Earl Robertson wasn’t nearly as superstitious, “but he doesn’t pass up any good luck charms.” So, “out they went to a little birthday party for Stanley and following Normie’s instructions Earl stole those few pats on the head.” That night, Robertson recorded his second straight shutout in a 3-0 win over the Rangers as the Red Wings rallied to win the Stanley Cup. Afterwards, the injured Smith happily told of the role that he and baby Stanley had played in the comeback. “I got into the final playoffs after all,” said Smith, grinning broadly, “by getting Robbie to go out there with me.”

It’s a silly story, really, but one told with such detail that I certainly hoped it was true. So...
I went to Ancestry.com and searched for “Stanley Lefleur” born in “1936” with the mother’s name “Ida”...

Expanding the search a little bit, I discovered that a Gilbert Stanley Lafleur, son of Lenard or Leo Lafleur and his wife, the former Ida Bergeron (both French Canadians living in Detroit), really was born on April 15, 1936. I didn’t come across a birth certificate or baptismal record, but I did come across a record of the Lafleur family in Detroit in the 1940 U.S. Census:

As for the rest, I know that many old-time sportswriters never let the facts get in the way of a good story, but I’m choosing to believe this one is true!

Now for this last story we take you back to 1928 and Robbie's playing days in the Pacific Coast Hockey League (PCHL)

 #3 ​​Fire Leaves Robbie and Team Homeless

by M. Thill, Wetaskiwin

First Season in the Minor Pros

Robbie played Juniors with the Regina Falcons for two years and then went to the Vancouver Monarchs for 1927-28.  At the end of the season the Vancouver Maroons picked Robbie up for the Allan Cup Tournament,  Then he jumped to the minor pros of the Pacific Coast Hockey League when his playing contract was sold to the Victoria Cubs.  After one season, a series of unforseen circumstances thrust him and a few team mates on the road through a variety of cities and a handful of leagues.

It all started in 1928 when the American Hockey League made the decision that the Winnipeg Maroons, their only Canadian Team, should be moved to St. Louis.  Other WHL teams complained that Winnipeg was too great a distance to travel for games.  

Maroon's owner W.J. Homes held the contract rights to at least a dozen players that would not go south to St. Louis.  Seventeen year-old Earl Cooper Robertson, was one of those players.  His rights were sold to the Patrick brothers who that year had organized the Pacific Coast Hockey League (PCHL).  This was a minor pro league consisting of four teams: Vancouver Lions, Victoria Cubs, Portland Buckaroos and Seattle Eskimos.  The Patrick brothers purchased several contracts from Holmes.  Robbie and five other players joined the Victoria Cubs - the rest destined for Vancouver. 

By the time Robbie and his team mates arrived in Victoria, the PCHL schedule was set for the opening season.  Vancouver would play home games on Mondays.  Tuesdays for the Victoria Cubs.  Thursdays for the Buckaroos and Fridays for the Seattle, Eskimos.  The Patrick's arranged that several  matches would be broadcast on the radio.  

Season Two

By November 4th 1929, plans for second PCHL season had been finalized with a few changes in the rules:  
- -  Each team would be able to dress 11 men as compared to 10 from the previous year
- - A two-minute penalty would be given to a goaltender who deliberately delayed the game by holding the puck for longer than three seconds; however, any offender  would receive two warnings before a penalty was assessed.
- - 18 games each at home and the same number away.

With the Cubs first game  scheduled to be played at the Patrick Arena on November 19 against the Seattle Eskimos, the team's first work-outs of the season were underway minus Ernie Leacock who was hospitalized with chicken pox and isolated for two weeks. 

This is where ​skullduggery deals a blow.  

It was about 4:35 AM on the morning of November 11, 1929 when the driver of a Palm Dairy milk wagon noticed smoke and flames pouring out from the Patrick Arena.  He hurried to the nearest call box to summon help.  The fire spread quickly.  Sparks were flying 300 feet in the air.  The building was engulfed in flames when the fire brigades arrived from Victoria and Oak Bay  but there was little they could do to save the arena.  It was completely destroyed along with one residence.  Fortunately the family escaped.  Three other homes and two business suffered damage.  

All the team and player equipment was consumed by the blaze.  In the arena was housed a collection of photographs and records of the early days of hockey and figure skating.  Those too were lost and could never be replaced.  

Investigators found that the fire was deliberately set.  During the summer there had been another suspicious fire that was confined to one corner and quickly extinquished. 

What would the Victoria Cubs do now that they were homeless? With no other nearby arena, where could they play?  What would Robbie and his team mates do with no equipment or place to practice? 

Move or be a Road Team?

Actually, management acted quickly.   Their first decision was to get the Cubs to Vancouver where they could obtain new equipment and practice.  

While the players speculated about their fate, an emergency league meeting took place in Seattle to discuss three options.  One, the players could be absorbed by the three other teams.  Two, the team could move to Tacoma which had been clamouring for a franchise.  Three, the Cubs could become a road team.   

Without the players having a vote in the decisin, the PCHL directors and owners decided that the Cubs would be a road team, with Tuesday “home” games split between Vancouver and Seattle. The general concensus was that a new arena would not be completed in time for the third season so it was likely that the Victoria club would transfer to Tacoma.  But no firm decision was made about the Cubs for the 1930-31 season.  After all "minute one" of the 1929-30 season was still a few days away.  

Once the season got underway it was difficult for the Cubs. - no home rink, no home fans.  More often than not they played in front of hostile crowds and to make their scheduled games they endured exceptionally arduous travel.   Nasty trips.  

Former Cubs Manager Joe Smith wrote for the Daily Columnist 

"They leave . . . on Wednesday night, leave Seattle 9:30 am, arrive at Portland just after 3, play at 8:30, catch a train out for Seattle again at 11:30 that same night, arrive Seattle 7 am, breakfast and start for Vancouver, and at 8:30 Friday night, play in Vancouver.  

Such a grueling schedule and game atmosphere took its toll on the Cubs  

The 1929/30 season opened on November 18 with the  Victoria Cubs visiting the Vancouver Lions. Although young netminder Earl Robertson played well, his team went down to defeat 2–1. In the next game, the Cubs again scored only once, and lost to Seattle 3–1.59 In their first eight games, the Cubs only managed a total of six goals. During that time, they lost six games and tied two.  It was not until December 17 that they won their first game of the season, a 3–0 shutout of the Portland Buckaroos. The team followed up that victory with an impressive 2–1 win over Seattle, when Asmundson scored the winning goal just 27 seconds before the end of the game.  The rest of the season was an exercise in futility. The Cubs won only three more games by the end of the season, finishing with a dismal record of 5 wins, 29 losses and two ties. From February 10 to March 20, they played 11 games and were shut out in 10 of them.