Sport: Hockey: Mid-Season

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Unlike Gardiner, who had an unparalleled ability to anticipate plays and great success with the dangerous maneuver of skating out of his position to interrupt them, Chabot almost never leaves his net. Slow at regaining his feet when he falls down, he indulges in few of the acrobatic tricks that make the work of smaller goalies more spectacular. These qualities give his style of play a peculiar indolence which he exaggerates as much as possible. Instead of chattering encouragement to his teammates, the method by which most goalies relieve their nervous tension, he munches slowly a huge wad of chewing gum, rarely speaks a word during a game. Instead of waving his arms, he lounges against his cage as if it were a mantelpiece. All this helps mask his real capabilities: preternaturally quick eyes, phenomenal ability to spread his bulky frame across his goal.

Like most of his confreres, Chabot is superstitious. Over the 25 pounds of pads and guards in which all goalies are encased, tie has worn the same pair of lucky trousers for nine years. More amiable than he appears when professionally engaged, Chabot, like most hockey players, has a summer job, as ice cream salesman. His Black Hawks salary is $4,500. When on tour with the team, he wears grey spats, plays Casino with enthusiasm. In Chicago, he lives at the Croydon Hotel with his wife and two children.

Whether the Black Hawks maintain their championship form is a problem of many factors. In the same trade which brought them Chabot last autumn they acquired the fastest forward in the world, famed Howie Morenz. So far, he has been of great assistance but his legs, after twelve years of professional hockey, are weakening. A new defenseman, Alex Levinsky, one of the two Jewish players in big-league hockey, joined the team three weeks ago to bolster the defense but the Black Hawks are still shaky when their forwards grow tired. Manager Tommy Gorman who helped them win the Stanley Cup last year has been replaced by Clem Loughlin. Chicago hockey crowds, impatient because the team has done most of its winning away from its home arena, have lately taken to tossing dead fish down from the gallery.

Gestures of this sort, and the fact that attendance is not so far ahead of last year's as it should be in view of the team's prowess, irritate its owner, Chicago's Major Frederic McLaughlin who attends Black Hawks' games with his famed wife, Irene Castle McLaughlin. On Goaltender Chabot, disdainful, lazy and alert, they have no effect whatever. Occupied entirely with his job of making saves—i. e. keeping the puck out of the goal—Chabot is irritated only when he fails to do so. Last fortnight he clubbed a goal judge with his hockey stick for daring to assert that his opponents had contrived to score a goal. He was amused by news that the goal judge was suing him for $10,000.