Oh! The Stories You’ll Hear…

Oh! The Stories You’ll Hear…

 “Porky” Levine generated a lot of ink in his 62 years. Most of it was by sports writers  and color commentators covering, or just reminiscing about, his antics during fifteen years as a professional goalie. However, before we get into those stories, many of which are now being passed down to a fourth generation, we’ll need to set the stage... 

Perhaps not everyone knows how he fits into the pantheon of Rosses and Solomons and Genenders (oh my!).

1. Introducing Samuel Levine (1908 - 1970)

Samuel Levine was born in 1908 in the town of Bobr, in the province of Mogilev, which was then part of the Russian Empire. (Today, Bobr is in Belarus.) At the age of six, he emigrated with his 39 year old mother “Minnie” (Minia Fromkin) and three other siblings: Rose, Sara and Alex.

Cover pages of the 1914 Passport/Visa Issued to Minia Levin

They boarded a Russian Northwest steamship in Lubava, Latvia and headed for Canada where the head of the family, Herschel “Harry” Levine, waited. Their passport/visa had been stamped in Mogilev on June 28, 1914. World War I began one month later, and the Russian Empire collapsed not long after. (Timing is everything.)

Upon arrival in Canada, the family settled in the mining towns of Northern Ontario: South Porcupine, Kapuskasing, Timmins, and Kirkland Lake in turn. Sophie was born in 1916 and, with that, the eight member Levine family was complete: parents Harry and Minnie, and six children - Max, Rose, Alex, Sara, Samuel and Sophie. Sara, of course, later married Saul Ross which meant that Samuel Levine became “Uncle Porky” to (among others) the families of Noreen Solomon, Mervyn Ross and Joan Genender. 

2. Wherefore Art Thou “Porky”?

In a 1929 interview, Sammy related how he came to be known as “Porky”. It seems he was quite a baseball player and made the Timmins (Ontario) Junior team while at school. The team was sent to a neighboring town to play and there the boys were served a big meal, with roast pork as the featured dish. Sammy apologetically explained that he couldn’t eat this forbidden fruit, and the hosts graciously prepared an alternative. From that day on, he was known as “Porky” to his team mates and, eventually, to everyone else. 

It was all in jest, of course, and in those years (from 1920-1940 especially) colorful, fun nicknames were almost a requirement for all hockey players. Porky played with the likes of Moose, Bullet, Shrimp, Flash, Pickles, Fido, Lulu, Spud, Bomber, Mousie, Butch, Bouncer, and so on. The list is endless. 

It didn’t take long, however, before Sammy Levine actually assumed the characteristics of his sobriquet. Sports writers began to describe him as “the little fat man”, “pudgy”, and “roly-poly”. When explaining why “Porky” was unlikely to make it in the major leagues, one journalist quipped: “…there is not enough difference between his height and his diameter.” 

Rather than taking offense at this kind of press, Porky seemed to thrive on the attention. He was always considered “popular”, “good natured”, and a “master showman”. One newspaper from a rival city (St. Louis Post Dispatch, 1936) put it this way: “Porky Levine is one of the most colorful goalies in hockey. The fans ride him but they laugh at his antics… He knows just how to make a stop look spectacular and he also knows how to make stops -  which, after all, usually gives Porky the last laugh.”

Porky must’ve had many “last laughs” over the course of his impressive goal-tending career. He started as backup goalie in 1927 with the Detroit Olympics, a minor league team of the Canadian Professional Hockey League. The following year, Detroit reluctantly “loaned” him to the Windsor Bulldogs and then to the Seattle Eskimos (photo above) where he quickly helped turn their season around. By age 20, he was already touted as “one of the most brilliant goal keepers in professional hockey today”. 

Although Porky was released by Detroit in 1930, Jack Adams soon regretted his decision. (Adams was then manager of the Cougars, Detroit’s fledgling NHL franchise, and his team was  struggling to get established.) Porky may have left the city, but his ghost continued to haunt Hockeytown:

“Distraught during one of his team's many slumps, Adams concluded that it was because the Cougars had loaned backup goalie Porky Levine to Seattle of the Pacific Coast League, thus leaving his club with only one goalie to shoot at during practice. Team officials would not allow him to sign another netminder, so Adams had a wooden effigy of Porky constructed and outfitted in goalie equipment, including skates. The Detroit players pushed their pine Porky into place in front of the net during practice and sometimes took it out for pregame warmups.” 

[Bob Duff, from the book Total Hockey (The Official Encyclopedia of the NHL), as found at http://goo.gl/lTw5BU]

That would certainly not be Porky’s final “last laugh”. Stay tuned for more, in subsequent posts.