There would be no gathering of the clans on this night in 1941 — not all of them, anyway, just some of them. In fact, by this point in the 1940-41 season, the brief era of the NHL’s greatest sibling assembly had already come and gone. There would be other nights of brotherly note in years to come, as when four Sutters took part in a 1983 game, but that wartime season was unlike any other insofar as four sets of brothers were on the ice together on several of the occasions when the Chicago Black Hawks battled the New York Rangers.

The Rangers, who were the defending Stanley Cup champions going in ’40-41, featured GM Lester Patrick’s boys that year, Lynn, 28, and 24-year-old Muzz, both born in Victoria, B.C. Also on the roster were Edmonton’s own Colvilles, 26-year-old Neil and Mac, 24. Chicago, meanwhile, had Edmontonians of its own in Bill and Bob Carse, aged 26 and 21 respectively. And they had dual Bentleys, too, from Delisle, Saskatchewan, 24-year-old Doug and, in his rookie season, 20-year-old Max.

While the two teams would meet eight times over the course of the regular season, all the brothers would be involved for just three of those games. The first of those was on December 1, 1940 in Chicago, with the home team prevailing by a score of 4-1. The novelty wasn’t much noted. There was the photograph, above and, here and there, a few newspaper inches on previous NHL brothers, Cleghorns, Cooks, and Conachers. Thompsons, too, one of whom, Paul, was the Chicago coach. Max Bentley scored the first goal of his career that night, early in the first period: Phil Hergesheimer passed him the puck and Bentley went racing through centre. “One lightning swish and Max blinded Goalie Dave Kerr with the first tally,” was how The Chicago Tribune wrote it. Bill Carse scored, too, in plainer prose.

The teams met again just before Christmas, though the brother act was incomplete this time, with Muzz Patrick and Bob Carse absent on the night. On Christmas Day, the teams tied 3-3 at Madison Square Garden with all eight brothers back in action. Lynn Patrick scored a goal that looked like this in the next day’s New York Times: he “steam-rolled” through the Chicago zone before he “stepped inside the defence and got off a drive that flew squarely into the cords.” (Bill Carse got another goal, also.)

The last time all the brothers were in a game together was on the night of January 7, 1941, in New York again, where the Black Hawks prevailed, 3-2. This time, Lynn Patrick’s goal involved “a terrific shot that eluded Goalie Sam LoPresti” (Chicago Tribune) and “converting a pass from Neil Colville” (Times). Carsewise, Bob scored.

And that was all. When the teams met again on this day in ’41, it was Max Bentley who was missing. Sent down that week for seasoning with the minor-league Kansas City Americans, he’d at first refused to report, though Kansas coach Johnny Gottselig soon talked him into it. Chicago won the January 26 game, while New York took the last three match-ups. Max was back in Chicago for those games, though they lacked, variously, Doug Bentley (troublesome back) and/or Bill Carse (skate-cut to the leg).

The brothers might all have re-united the following season, 1941-42, but for Muzz Patrick having departed the league for a higher calling. Does that sound morbid? The fact of it is that, having applied for and gained American citizenship, he’d joined up. As the rest of the brothers prepared for another season on ice, the U.S. Army’s Private Patrick was in basic training at Camp Wheeler in Georgia.

By December he’d been transferred north, to Fort Jay, New York. “That gives Muzz a chance to see the Rangers in action a few times,” fancied a sports columnist; “he’d probably like to switch uniforms long enough to give his dad and brother Lynn a hand some night.” Promoted lieutenant, he found his calling as a military policeman and served out the duration of the war. He got his discharge in October 1945, just in time to head for the Rangers’ training camp in Winnipeg.