The loudest roar I ever heard that wasn’t provided by the United States Air Force was at Chicago Stadium. The game was tied late in the third period. The Maple Leafs got caught down ice and the Blackhawk’s Bobbie Hull came up with an errant puck and a clear lane along the boards. As he crossed mid ice, picking up speed, Eddie Shack sped across the rink, drew a bead on him and was about to nail him to the boards.
Hull stutter stepped and used a forearm to introduce Shack’s face to the boards. The crowd left it’s feet and the yells shook the rafters. The puck was sliding toward the blue line as Hull regained it, nudged it into position and took a full wind up. The crowd had not stopped yelling but the crack of the stick meeting the puck was clearly audible. For a moment Hull was frozen in the classic follow through, one skate on the ice, one leg trailing in the air, the stick high over the shoulder, while gliding toward the net.
I’m sure Terry Sawchuck, in goal, saw the puck leave the stick but after that it made little difference. When the puck drilled the net, the continuous roar that had started as a high pitched cheer when Hull came up with the puck in his own zone and intensified as he gained speed, peaked and deepened as he upended Shack had now reached a crescendo, a full throated blast, reverberating from every surface, and shaking every inch of the building. The floor was vibrating, I couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice yelling.
There must have been hundreds of gallons of beer spilled in those moments. The official attendance at the Stadium was always announced as 16,666 but with a couple rows of standing room fans all the way around the mezzanine, the first balcony and the second balcony and the fire marshal looking the other way, I’m sure there were closer to 21,000 people there and every one of them was on their feet, arms in the air, yelling as loud as they could and not one of them was thinking about pugilism on the ice.