Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores by Bathroom Readers’ Institute

Bruins do not list some of his best attributes. At 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds, Clapper was among the strongest and toughest players in pre-expansion history. His endurance and athleticism allowed him to have what some have called two distinct hockey careers, as both a forward and a defenceman.
    Clapper had the first 20-season NHL career from 1927 to 1947, serving the opening 10 years as a winger (twice an all-star), then playing the latter half as a defenceman (four times an all-star, three as a first-team selection). “Dit was as good a player in all areas of the game as I saw in my time in the NHL,” said Milt Schmidt, who spent more than 60 years with the Bruins as player, coach and executive. “He had such size and skill that he could play tough hockey without fouls, and he was such a good fighter that through most of his career, very few challenged him to fisticuffs.”
    NO ALL-STAR SELECTIONS FOR COACHES
    Clapper played junior hockey in Oshawa when he was 13 and earned a spot with the Bruins when he was 20. In his second season, Clapper helped the Bruins win their first Stanley Cup crown and the next season he scored 41 goals in 44 games.
    When the Bruins had a splendid group of young forwards for the 1937–38 seasons, they shifted Clapper to defence as partner to the great Eddie Shore. That year Clapper and Shore swept First Team All-Star honors. The Bruins won the Stanley Cup the next season and, with Clapper and Flash Hollett as a strong backline pair, once again in 1941. After retiring, Clapper coached the Bruins for four seasons, then left hockey to operate his sporting goods store in Peterborough, Ontario. He coached the AHL Buffalo Bisons for the 1959–60 season, his last hurrah in hockey.

EDDIE, YOU’RE OUT!
    The NHL was formed when the other owners had had enough of Toronto’s aggravating Eddie Livingstone.
    T o say that spite against one team owner inspired the creation of the National Hockey League is not hyperbole. The other four team bosses in the National Hockey Association were fed up with the nonstop arguments of Eddie Livingstone, owner of the Toronto Blueshirts. Livingstone had waged long boardroom battles, never-ending debates over the rules, lawsuits, injunctions, and even a threat to form a rival league.
    HOW TO FORM A ONE-TEAM LEAGUE
    In November 1917, representatives of the other four NHA teams—the Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, Montreal Canadiens, and Montreal Wanderers—plus a new Toronto team, the Arenas, met at Montreal’s Windsor Hotel and solved the “Livingstone problem” by forming the NHL with newspaperman Frank Calder as first president. “We didn’t throw Eddie Livingstone out because he still has his team in the NHA,” an NHL team owner said. “His only problem is that he’s playing in a one-team league. We should thank Eddie. He solidified our new league because we were all sick and tired of his constant wrangling.”
    BE SUCCESSFUL AND I’LL SUE
    The NHL’s start was not smooth. The bankrupt Quebec team didn’t open the season and after six games the Wanderers left hockey forever when their home rink was destroyed by fire. The remaining three teams, still determined not to ask Eddie back, carried on with the Arenas beating the Canadiens in the first NHL final and then winning the Stanley Cup against the Vancouver Millionaires. Predictably, Livingstone launched a lawsuit against the new league. But he lost the case and vanished from hockey.
    HOW (NOT) TO FORM A ONE-MAN ARMY
    Earlier, Livingstone had even waged war against the CanadianArmy. During World War I, several star hockey players had joined the 228th Battalion, based in Toronto, including Duke Keats and Archie Briden from Eddie’s Blueshirts. When the 228th formed a strong club to play against the pro teams, Livingstone staged a noisy battle, claiming that Keats and Briden had signed contracts with his team. The players eventually