The second last game Murray Patrick played for the New York Rangers before he went to war, he damaged Detroit captain Ebbie Goodfellow. Nobody called him Murray — Lester Patrick’s younger boy had been Muzz since he was a boy in Victoria, B.C. He was 25 in the spring of 1941, in his fourth year as a defenceman on a Ranger team coached by his father. They’d won a Stanley Cup in 1940, but the following year, the Red Wings knocked them out of the playoffs in three games. Muzz Patrick’s last pre-war game was a 3-2 Detroit win in which he didn’t figure in the scoring or the newspaper accounts. In the previous game, he’d collided with Goodfellow, knocked him out of action with a badly bruised elbow. Goodfellow came back for the deciding game — only to leave in the second period with a bad leg.

Detroit ended up losing in the Stanley Cup Final to the Boston Bruins. Muzz Patrick, meanwhile, spent his off-season enlisting in the U.S. Army. His application for U.S. citizenship was already in the works when he reported to Camp Upton in Yaphank on Long Island. He passed his physical in June; in August, he reported to Camp Dix in New Jersey to be inducted and, as Private Patrick, Serial No. 32170256, to begin basic training.