Looking back: Red Wings travel to Michigan prison to take on team of inmates
Matt Jaworowski Woodtv.com
In the summer of 1953. Red Wings general manager Jack Adams and star forward Ted Lindsay were on a promotional tour across the U.P. when one of their stops brought them to the Marquette Branch Prison.
While walking a tour with the warden, Emery Jacques, Adams ran into a couple of old acquaintances: Ray Bernstein and Harry Keywell. The pair belonged to the Purple Gang, one of Detroit’s most notorious groups who just so happened to enjoy the nightlife and were once a common fixture at Red Wings and Tigers games.
From left, NHL President Clarence Campbell, Red Wings co-owner Marguerite Norris, Red Wings General Manager Jack Adams, team captain Ted Lindsay and Red Wings co-owner Bruce Norris gather around the Stanley Cup following the team’s Game 7 win over Montreal on April 16, 1954. (Getty Images)
Given their notoriety, Adams had met the men several times and did his part to keep a healthy distance.
“(Adams) had enough sense to just smile, shake hands and politely turn down all invitations to join the boys for a night out on the town,” Richard Bak wrote for Vintage Detroit.
Marquette Branch Prison was home to some of Michigan’s worst offenders. It was often referred to as the “Alcatraz of the North.” Leonard “Oakie” Brumm, who served as the prison’s athletic director, said “you didn’t get into Marquette unless you’ve screwed up several times.”
Bernstein and Keywell ended up behind bars in 1931 for their roles in a triple homicide dubbed the Collingwood Massacre. They were eventually transferred from Jackson State Prison to Marquette for their alleged roles in the 1945 assassination of state Sen. Warren Hooper.
During the tour, Bernstein and Keywell pitched Adams on the idea of bringing the team up for a scrimmage. Adams agreed to it, knowing the prison didn’t have the facilities to actually fulfill that request. What he didn’t expect was the warden’s dedication to seeing it through.
“Unbeknownst to Adams, the warden was in the process of hiring Oakie Brumm,” Bak wrote.
Brumm was a Marquette native who was a part of the University of Michigan’s 1948 NCAA championship hockey team. He was tasked with putting together recreational programs to keep the prisoners active.
“I’ve got to keep them busy. I’ve got to tire them out. I have to get their minds on something other than tearing this place apart,” Jacques reportedly told Brumm before hiring him.
So he put together baseball and football programs, added shuffleboard courts and even an 18-hole mini-golf course. Then he got started on hockey.
Using the inmates as laborers and building materials donated by his father, Brumm was able to erect a regulation-sized rink, complete with boards, in a corner of the prison yard.
With the rink ready, Jacques reached out again to Adams and worked to get a game on the schedule. Adams proved to be a man of his word. He said the Red Wings would come and so they would. It didn’t hurt that two of the men he promised were convicted killers who had proven to have influence that could reach far beyond prison walls.
Gordie Howe and the Detroit Red Wings played an exhibition game against the Marquette Prison Pirates on Feb. 2, 1954. The game, played on an outdoor rink on prison grounds, is considered the first outdoor game to feature an NHL team. (Getty Images)
With the rink ready, Brumm and Jacques had to get a team ready. Adams donated equipment to the prison, old pads that were previously used by a defunct Red Wings’ farm team.
According to Bak, Brumm scheduled games against any team willing to come and play on the prison grounds. Nicknamed “Emery’s Boys,” the Marquette Prison Pirates fared pretty well against their early competition, going 4-1-1 in their other games. Having mandatory home-ice advantage certainly helped.
The date of the matchup versus the Red Wings was eventually set for Feb. 2. They had a road game in Chicago Jan. 31, and then a few days off before returning to Detroit with a showdown against the Bruins. Adams made even more of the trip by scheduling a second exhibition scrimmage against the Marquette Sentinels, a nearby semiprofessional team
After a 5-1 win over the Blackhawks, the Red Wings took to the skies and headed north. They checked into a hotel and had lunch before being escorted to the prison for the afternoon scrimmage.
Any concerns the players had about entering the prison grounds were quickly put to rest. They were welcomed as heroes and celebrated for being willing to make the trip north and appease some hardened hockey fans.
Despite temperatures hovering around 20 degrees, virtually the entire prison turned out to watch the game. According to the Marquette Mining Journal, outside of a few stragglers, the only prisoners who did not attend the game were those stuck in solitary confinement.
Even during the game, which proved to be lopsided, the mood was “cheerful” on both sides. A ragtag group of inmates were no match for the Detroit Red Wings, a team that featured eight future Hall of Famers and would go on to win the Stanley Cup a few months later.
A clipping of the Feb. 3, 1954 edition of the Oshkosh Northwestern reporting on the Red Wings’ exhibition game in Marquette. The Associated Press reported the score as 5-2, but it was actually much more lopsided. (Oshkosh Northwestern/Newspapers.com)
Depending on the source, the score of the scrimmage was never close. One source said the Red Wings won 18-0. Another said 9-0, and a third said 8-2. The Associated Press, possibly to save the inmates from embarrassment or deciding to stop the count early, said the Wings won 5-2.
“For the first several minutes, nary an inmate touched the puck,” Bak wrote. “The Wings freely passed it back and forth several times on each rush, skating around the cons as if they were pylons. After about a minute of this dazzling stickwork, someone would finally pop the puck past the prisoners’ goalie, Bugsy Wisocki, a habitual thief who had been released from solitary confinement specifically for this game.”
Gordie Howe later recalled an exchange between Wisocki and one of his defenders — one that probably carried more weight than the typical on-ice taunt.
“I deked around their goaltender, put it in the far side, and their defenseman was laughing,” Howe recalled. “The goalie said to him, ‘I’ll kill you, you (expletive).’”
Still, both teams knew it was all in good fun. Red Wings goaltender Terry Sawchuk, understandably bored with the lack of action on his end, reportedly finally touched the puck and decided to abandon his net to skate it up ice. Later in the game, he intentionally drew a penalty so he would get sent off the ice, leaving to sign some autographs for the other prisoners.
Eventually, some of the Red Wings swapped jerseys with the prisoners and took on their teammates to put on a show for the rest of the observers.
Afterward, with the victory firmly in hand, Brumm presented the Red Wings with their trophy, a gold-painted honeypot, a bucket that inmates typically used in their cells in place of a toilet. Adams proudly carried the trophy off of the ice, showing it off to the cheering spectators. Afterward, the Red Wings were treated to a dinner prepared by prisoners and paid for out of their personal accounts.
The Red Wings left the prison for the second round of scrimmages, another landslide win over the Sentinels. They were back in Detroit two days later to post a 5-0 shutout over Boston.
