Ice Age

The ice condition was perfect . . . for blended margaritas. A quorum of NHL officials huddled between periods, discussing whether the game should be postponed or continued. The players, exhausted, their jerseys soaked with sweat, pushed themselves on.

It was Game 1 of the 1936 Stanley Cup semifinals. For 176 minutes 30 seconds, the equivalent of nearly three hockey games, the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Maroons skated, wearily, into NHL history.

Detroit’s Mud Bruneteau, a little-known grinder who started the season in the minor leagues, finally ended the long night’s journey into morning at 2:25 a.m., whipping a shot through a crowd and past goalie Lorne Chabot for a 1-0 victory.

For 65 years, that game, the longest in NHL history, has stood as an example of hockey endurance.

“What I’ll always remember is that we were certainly relieved to call it a night,” said 88-year-old Pete Kelly, one of the only surviving Red Wings who played in that game.

“I could appreciate how the Montreal guys must have felt, to play that long and go that late and have nothing to show for it. We knew it was a special moment.”

So did the Maroons. In a scene that could be compared to handing over a sword after surrendering, Chabot sought out Bruneteau in the hotel lobby later that morning.

“He handed my brother the puck,” said Ed Bruneteau, who joined the Red Wings the next season. “He said, ‘Here, you earned this. You deserve it.’ ”

The victory gave the Red Wings momentum to finish off the Maroons, the defending Stanley Cup champions, in three games. They then defeated Toronto in the finals, with Kelly scoring the deciding goal in the final game.

Yet as a memory, scoring the cup-clincher is a runner-up.

“Mud scoring that goal stands out in my mind,” Kelly said. “That was a long night. But we didn’t feel nearly as bad as the Maroons.”

That game can be argued as the jumping-off point for hockeymania in the Motor City.

There was nothing special about the Red Wings before that season. They had finished last in the American Division the previous season.

But that year, second-year goalie Norm Smith developed into one of the league’s best. Center Marty Barry, acquired in a trade with Boston, teamed with Larry Aurie and Herbie Lewis to form the league’s most dangerous line.

Other key role players arrived. Kelly was acquired after the St. Louis Eagles franchise folded. Bruneteau was called up at midseason.

The Red Wings finished with the league’s best record. Barry finished second in scoring. Smith played in every game and led the league in victories. Still . . .

“No one had ever seen the Stanley Cup in Detroit,” Kelly said.

How much that mattered was evident before the first playoff game. Detroit Mayor Frank Couzens sent a telegram urging victory to Adams, who read it to the team in the visitors’ dressing room at the Montreal Forum.

“When I went into that game, I had some butterflies,” Smith said after the game. “Of course, I had no idea how long the game would eventually last. But as it got longer and longer into the game, I seemed to settle down.”

Smith stopped 91 shots. He would set an NHL playoff record for not giving up a goal in 248 minutes 32 seconds during the series. The Maroons seemed to lose hope of repeating as champions after Game 1. They scored only one goal while being swept.

“It took the stuffing out of Montreal,” Kelly said. “We were even teams. The fact we were scoreless for six overtimes showed that.”

Both teams struggled with the ice. Henry Ford’s automobiles may have filled the streets of Detroit, but this was pre-Zamboni days. The ice was swept with brooms between periods, which did little to smooth the deep gashes caused by skates.

“It was like playing on cobblestones,” Kelly said. “The longer we played, the less chance there seemed of settling things that night.”

League officials considered that as well. Frank Calder, the league president, conferred with league and team officials after each overtime, discussing whether the game should be postponed. In the end, they stuck to the NHL rule of two teams playing until there was a winner.

Adams sent out for hot tea between periods. He also gave the players sugar cubes soaked in brandy.

“That was an NHL first,” Kelly said.

A crowd of 10,000 packed the Forum on March 24, 1936, but few were left when the game ended.

When the sixth overtime was ready to begin, Lewis skated to the press box near the ice and asked, “We aren’t keeping you boys up, are we?”

They would a while longer.

Under normal circumstances, Bruneteau was an unlikely candidate for a game-winning goal, or any goal. He had scored only twice in 24 games during the regular season.

“We were both defensive forwards,” Kelly said. “But he had a good, accurate shot. When he got an opening, he could pick a hole.”

Bruneteau got that opportunity. He crashed the net and took Hec Kilrea’s pass 12 feet from the net.

“There was this big scramble in front of the goal, a lot of bodies,” Kelly said. “Then the puck was in the net. Just like that, it was over.”

Bruneteau, his jersey soaked and torn, was carried off the ice. Afterward he said, “Thank God that Chabot fell down as I drove the puck toward the net. I hope my old man is listening to the radio. I showed ‘em that they didn’t bring me up for nothing this time.”

As it turned out, his father wasn’t listening. Bruneteau’s family, as worn and anxious as the players, didn’t share their endurance. They were in bed by the time the winning goal was scored.

“We couldn’t keep listening,” said Mud Bruneteau’s brother, Ed, then a 17-year-old living with his parents in Winnipeg. “It was history, but it was too tough to take. I didn’t find out who won until the next morning.”