An unbelievable end: The Norsemen go out fighting

The Rise and fall of the Buffalo Norsemen: Part 6

“I have a theory about the brawl in Johnstown.”

Ed Helinski, Tonawanda NEWS sports writer on the Norsemen beat for 1975-1976. Interviewed for NTHistory.com, October 2025.

Lots of people, it turns out, have a theory about the brawl in Johnstown—the brawl that effectively ended the Norsemen’s NAHL franchise after just one season, exactly half a century ago. The problem is, no two theories are the same.

Here’s what is broadly agreed upon: on March 27, 1976, at the Cambria County War Memorial Auditorium in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the Norsemen and Jets were set to square off in the deciding fifth game of a brutal, penalty-packed playoff series. During the warm-up skate, a free-for-all broke out. Most agree the Jets started it—some say they even planned it. Also in the building that night—watching from a reserved section—were Paul Newman and members of the film crew for Slap Shot, already in production.

Because there were no referees on the ice yet, the chaos continued until two Norsemen required hospitalization. When the Norsemen refused to re-emerge from their dressing room, the referees declared a forfeit, handing the Jets the game and the series.

Two years later, when Slap Shot was released, audiences would watch an eerily similar pre-game fracas unfold on screen, with the Jets’ fictional alter ego, the Charleston Chiefs, doing the instigating.

“To this day I don’t know why the Carlsons, Hanson and the rest of their team felt they needed to brawl us and outman us.”

Norsemen right winger Paul Crowley commenting in the Real North American Hockey League (1973-1977) Facebook Group in 2022.

So much for the facts. Now for the theories.

Some say the brawl was simply the product of tensions that had been building throughout the series. Some say it was the Jets’ retaliation for racist taunting suffered by their Black rookie during Game 4 in North Tonawanda. Others believe it was a psych-out tactic by a desperate Jets team on the brink of playoff elimination. Still others (including Tonawanda NEWS writer Ed Helinski quoted above) believe it was an ambush staged for the technical benefit of the Slap Shot film crew. According to this view, the Buffalo Norsemen showed up for a hockey game, and a movie broke out.

Let’s return to that explosive series, game by game, and try to make sense of the unbelievable end of a memorable, if short-lived, era in North Tonawanda history.

The Mouse’s Norsemen squeak into the playoffs

It is a minor (league) miracle that Guy “Mouse” Trottier’s Norsemen make the playoffs at all.

After a strong season start to their first season as an NAHL franchise, the Norsemen’s bench is depleted by their parent team, the Toronto Toros, who snatch up players for their own playoff run. Norsemen GM Willie Marshall takes matters into his own hands in the spring of 1976 and uses his extensive hockey connections to hire new players, including legendary minor league character (and brother-in-law) Keke Mortson, Southern Hockey League Rookie of the Year Billy Steele, Dave Given, and Denis Andersen.

With this additional firepower, the Norsemen squeeze into the 1975-1976 NAHL playoffs with an unenviable 30-44 record, just four points ahead of the Binghamton Broome Dusters for the final Western Division playoff spot.

After all we put up with this year, it’s a good feeling to know that we are in the playoffs… you name it, and it happened to us this year. We stuck with our kids all year and only brought the veterans in when we really needed them. But, you never saw us go to that “goon” style of play.

Player-coach Guy Trottier, Tonawanda NEWS, March 18, 1976

Waiting for the Norsemen in Round 1 are the defending NAHL champion Johnstown Jets: a punishing squad best remembered as the basis for Slap Shot‘s Charleston Chiefs. The Norsemen played the Jets 10 times in the NAHL regular season, registering a dismal 2-8 record, and never winning in Johnstown.

Still, spirits are high in the Norsemen camp. The Jets finished fourth last season and still won the Lockhart Cup—so why not Buffalo? Even getting out of the first round would be a significant achievement, and help the team’s financial bottom line. Winning teams draw crowds, and with attendance running well below expectations, that revenue is badly needed if the Norsemen are going to become a self-sustaining franchise.

In contrast to the newly minted Buffalo Norsemen, the Johnstown Jets are a hockey institution, playing their 26th season at Cambria War Memorial Arena. In the weeks running up to the playoffs, they have been moonlighting: filming scenes for a movie written by their former teammate Ned Dowd’s sister, Nancy Dowd.

The opponents: The Johnstown Chiefs. Er, Jets.

Hollywood comes to Johnstown

Ned would call me from these various towns—Utica, Syracuse, New Haven—and tell me how he was being beaten up and having his teeth knocked out. Well, it sort of fascinated me.

Nancy Dowd, New York Times, March 3, 1977.

When Nancy Dowd started shopping around the script she’d written based on her brother’s NAHL experiences, nobody would believe the violence and depravity depicted on the page. The movie executives thought it was all too outlandish.

She had her brother Ned record some of the Jets’ bus rides to capture the profanity and chaos firsthand. Then she sent Ned to relay those stories directly to the executives. That’s when it clicked: this wasn’t exaggerated material, it was real.

The characters in her script—the long-haired, bespectacled brothers who moved like a single unit on the ice (and took out their frustrations on vending machines), the grinders barely aware of ownership, the womanizers—were all grounded in reality. If anything, what she put on the page was toned down from what was actually happening on the backroads of the North American Hockey League.

Playing at the “Aud”

The first game of the NAHL Western Division quarterfinals is played on the NHL Sabres home ice, the Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo (the Sabres will host the hapless Kansas City Scouts later that evening).

Keke kicks into high gear

The signing of Keke Mortson pays off in Game 1. The colorful 42 year-old scores twice to lead the young Norsemen team to a 5-1 rout before 4,041 fans. With single-goal contributions from Larry Gould, Jim Stanfield and Billy Steele, the Norsemen run the score up to 5-0 before goaltender Jim Makey’s shutout bid bid is spoiled by the Jets’ Jean Tetreault with 3:54 left in the third.

Player-coach Guy Trottier, who does not dress because of ongoing back pain, is elated. “If we keep playing that way, we won’t get beat,” he crows to the Tonawanda NEWS.

The Norsemen put together a remarkably clean game, refusing to be drawn into penalties. In the first and second periods, Johnstown is assessed six consecutive penalties.

Box score for Game One

BUFFALO NORSEMEN 5, JOHNSTOWN JETS 1
-----------------------------------

SCORING

1st Period
BUF  Mortson (Morin, Gould)..  6:40
BUF  Gould (Lahey)........... 10:33

2nd Period
BUF  Mortson (Lahey, Gould)....... 12:32
BUF  Stanfield (Given, McConvey).. 13:16

3rd Period
BUF  Steele (unassisted)............14:24
JHN  Tetreault (Bechtold, Cardiff). 16:06


PENALTIES

1st Period
BUF  Harker, holding........ 2:14
JHN  Bench minor............ 3:50
JHN  Docken, slashing....... 7:06
JHN  Cardiff, interference...15:29
JHN  Head, tripping......... 19:32

2nd Period
JHN  Cardiff, holding..............  7:03
JHN  S. Carlson, roughing.......... 16:56

3rd Period
BUF  McConvey, cross-checking...... 13:30
BUF  Bench minor................... 16:48


SHOTS ON GOAL
JHN   7   10   16 — 33
BUF  15   12   14 — 41

SCORING BY PERIOD
JHN   0    0    1 — 1
BUF   2    2    1 — 5

ATTENDANCE: 4,041

Outplayed in P. A.

The Johnstown Jets, back in front of their rabid fanbase in the rolling Pennsylvania hills, recapture the combination of punishing physical play and overwhelming offense that made them division champs. They outshoot Buffalo 47-30, and rack up 55 penalty minutes to the Norsemen’s 14. By the second period it is 5-1 Jets. Three late Buffalo goals make for a final score (6-4) that sounds closer than the game actually was.

The Norsemen’s power play continues to suffer without player-coach Guy Trottier, who has now missed the last four games with a bad back. His fifteen regular season power-play goals and seven game-winning goals were a critical ingredient in getting the Norsemen this far.

Uneven officiating vexes both sides

Referee Gene Kusy infuriates both teams with inconsistent penalty calling–letting everything go the first two periods, then doing an about-face in the third. The Jets’ Dave Hanson, still raw over an earlier call, fires the puck at Kusy, but is not penalized.

Next thing I know is a knife flies between Guy and myself.

Greg Neeld, Buffalo Norseman defenseman, commenting in the Real North American Hockey League (1973-1977) Facebook group.

A knife at a hockey fight

After the game, Buffalo defenseman Greg Neeld sees his coach Guy Trottier out on the ice. Mr. Neeld described what happens next on Facebook in 2022:

I noticed Guy Trottier our coach (who I also loved playing for) was out at centre ice yelling at someone in the stands. I was not going to leave Guy out there by himself so I pulled up beside him. I do not know how it got started and I wasn’t going to ask Guy at that point. The F-U’s started flying back and forth and the guy then put his hand over one of his eyes and pointed at me. I responded with an F-U and the finger. Next thing I know is a knife flies between Guy and myself. The guy in the stand threw a knife at us!! I knew I could not climb the boards to go after him so I took my hockey stick and put it in my right hand, took three or four strides and I to this day still do not know how I did this (probably adrenaline), threw the stick as hard as I could and this guy had to be 30 to 40 feet away from me and the stick hit him right in the middle of the forehead. He and his buds took off at that point and Guy and I headed to the dressing room. What angered me is that the guy took and did not return my hockey stick!

An article in the Tonawanda NEWS the next day says that Neeld didn’t actually hit anybody.

Guy Trottier defends his defenseman in the press—perhaps a touch overzealously. After claiming fans also poured a beer and threw a “steel can” at Neeld, Guy implausibly adds: “[Neeld] started swinging his stick to scare the [heckling fans] away and he lost his balance and the stick flew right up into the air and went into the stands.”

And that’s how the sandwich got in the fish tank, Daddy.

[Greg Neeld] shouldn’t have been playing with us. He should have been playing for the Sabres. He made people look stupid.

Norsemen fan Dan Dzikoski
Interviewed September 2025 for NTHistory.com.

A surreptitious suspension

It is probably not Neeld‘s finest moment. But the game is over, and the beaten Norsemen pile back into the team bus. It is not until they are on the way to the motel that Trottier reads in the game report that the big defenseman has been given a two-game suspension for throwing his stick: a devastating loss of a key player to a team already knocked on its heels.

This is a dirty, rotten thing. It’s the same old stupid thing that has been going on all year — let the bad guy get away with everything and then penalize the good guys.

GM Willie Marshall, interviewed in “Neeld suspension irks Norsemen,” Tonawanda NEWS, March 24, 1976.

It turns out that NAHL Commissioner Jack Timmins is in the crowd that night, and witnesses Neeld’s ill-advised stick-throwing (though he claims he was too far away to see anything thrown at Neeld). Instead of leaving the officiating to the officials, Timmins rushes into the Jets’ office after the game “to make sure that [referee] Kusy had given Neeld a game misconduct for his action” (Jets check Norsemen in rough 6-4 battle, Tonawanda NEWS, March 23, 1976)

The incident rekindles the Norsemen’s mistrust of NAHL officiating (recall that Trottier was suspended three games in December for publicly criticizing the league). The Norsemen are quick to point out that no similar penalty was meted out to the Jets for flinging the puck at the ref for calls they didn’t like (twice, according to Trottier). GM Willie Marshall says he “doesn’t condone” what Neeld did, but insists it’s a “civil matter.” “It’s so typical of this league. Every call they make is so inconsistent,” Marshall fumes.

Trottier’s…”back”

Neeld‘s two-game suspension in Game Two forces coach Trottier to return to the playing lineup for Game Three in Johnstown, bad back and all. He tells the Tonawanda NEWS he stayed in in bed the entire day before the game with a heating pad. The old NHL-er, drawn out of retirement to coach, finds himself playing hurt against a brutal Johnstown Jets team. It will be his final game as a player.

The score is tied late in the first period and the Norsemen are on the power play when the Jets’ Steve Carlson takes a run at the tiny Trottier, driving him into the boards. Carlson is sent to the box for Roughing, giving the Norsemen a two-man advantage for more than three minutes. It is a golden opportunity to take the lead and force the Jets to play from behind.

Delay of Game penalty a turning point

The cheap shot seems to hurt Trottier badly. For instead of attacking the Jets with a two-man advantage, the season’s power play maestro dawdles with the puck, avoiding Johnstown players and buying time to rest his back. Referee Steve Dowling is having none of it. He calls a Delay of Game penalty on the Norsemen with just 0:29 remaining in the first period.

Trottier is beside himself with rage. He argues the call with referee, and is given a 10-minute Misconduct penalty for his outburst. When the period ends, Trottier skates after Dowling again, perhaps looking to do more than just talk this time. His teammates have to physically restrain him.

Referee Dowling has had enough. He hits Trottier with a Game Misconduct penalty, which carries an additional automatic two-game suspension. He will not be able to play for the remainder of the series. Mike Billoni describes what happens next:

And if the [Slap Shot] cameras were following Guy to the dressing room, they would have seen a mob of Johnstown fans throw litter and yell obscenities toward Trottier. This angered Guy so much, that he wanted to fight the fans. Well, after several minutes of having security guards and Norsemen players pull him into the locker, peace finally settled in the Cambria Arena.

“Norsemen lose as Guy’s misdeed proves costly.” Mike Billoni for the Tonawanda News. March 25, 1976

Opening the (Johnstown) flood gates

With Trottier ejected, veteran Keke Mortsen assumes coaching duties.

Johnstown wastes no time in exerting their will over a demoralized and weakened Norsemen club. They score three unanswered goals in the second period. The game is never in reach for the Norsemen again. They skate to a humbling 8-2 final.

Jets rookie Hank Taylor has the game-winning goal

Leading the Jets’ 8-2 rout is Black rookie Hank Taylor. He has had a spectacular season with the Jets, scoring an NAHL record-setting 50 goals. In a few weeks he will be voted the NAHL’s Rookie of the Year.

Back in North Tonawanda, Taylor’s race will become another explosive element in this series.

A storybook comeback

Trailing in the series 2-1, the Norsemen pile into the team bus (driven by trainer Gary “Cabbage Head” Stevens) to return to North Tonawanda. If the Norsemen are to stay alive in the series, they will have to do so without the services of two key players: Greg Neeld (the tall, one-eyed defenseman who is a Buffalo Sabres draftee) and player-coach Guy Trottier (who will still be allowed to coach).

The Jets stun the Norsemen just eleven seconds into the game with a goal by player-coach Galen Head (Head will also make an appearance in the Slap Shot movie.) It’s a savage first period, with fifteen penalties handed out: eleven for Roughing/Fighting, and three Game Misconducts. The Norsemen outshoot the Jets by a whopping 18-8, but return to their home dressing room trailing by one.

The penalties subside in the second period. The Jets’ Galen Head strikes again with an early unassisted goal.

Down 2-0 in the second, the Norsemen offense finally wakes up. Just as he had done in Game One at the Aud, the wily old veteran Keke Mortson gets things going. The Norsemen capitalize on back-to-back power plays with goals by Mortson and late-season addition Billy Steele, evening the score at 2-2 in a three-minute volley.

In the final period, Norsemen rookie Claude Noel scores the game-winner on a shot that just manages to bounce past Johnstown goalie Levasseur. Noel was a skinny defenseman when he arrived in North Tonawanda six months before. He has flourished with the move to the center position, finishing third on the team in scoring and first in the hearts of the Norsemen fans, who voted him the “Most Popular Norsemen.”

Noel’s heroics—and the team’s remarkable comeback—would be overshadowed by truly ugly events off the ice in that Game Four. Those events, however they’re remembered, set the stage for the melee two nights later in Johnstown.

A racist “sign” of the times

That was a sign of the times in North Tonawanda. You know, it’s always been a rough town when it comes to minorities. Let’s face facts.

Ed Helinski, Tonawanda NEWS reporter, 1975-76 (interviewed in 2025)

At least one person I spoke to in researching this series does not recall “the sign” being held by a fan at Tonawanda Sports Center on March 25, 1976.

Many more do.

In the west end of the arena, about 15 rows up, a Norsemen fan holds a racist sign. Its target is the Jets’ Hank Taylor, a Black rookie who had the game-winning goal in Johnstown the night before. The sign states, in the most reprehensible terms, that Black men don’t belong in hockey, but in basketball. And the sign wasn’t all: another person who was there that night relates that “The N-word was probably tossed around [the arena] quite liberally as well.”

Neeld’s suspension doesn’t stop his mouth

Although serving the second game of a two-game suspension for hurling his stick into the Johnstown crowd after losing Game Two, Greg Neeld is in North Tonawanda for Game Four. And he makes his presence known. In his street clothes, he goads the opposing Jets, heckling them vociferously in the small arena, and fully living up to his reputation as one of the league’s elite shit-talkers.

In Dave Hanson’s autobiography, Slap Shot Original, he claims that Neeld “apparently” joined in the racial taunting of Hank Taylor as well. Although no one I spoke to for this series had that specific recollection, it is clear that Neeld was a vocal presence during his team’s come-from-behind victory. All this animosity erupts when the game ends.

Neeld speared; Local journalist struck

As the final buzzer sounds and the teams head for their locker rooms, referee Fournier wisely tries to keep them separated. Norsemen coach Guy Trottier objects and helps his players muscle past him. Between the ice and the players’ dressing rooms is a restricted area where rink officials, local press, and management are standing about. Greg Neeld is also waiting there. As the teams leave the ice and enter this area, all H-E-double-hockey-sticks breaks loose.

The Jets’ Vern Campigotto yells to Neeld, “Hey, you one-eyed ****, we are going to run you out of the building Saturday [for Game Five].” Just then, the Jets’ Steve Carlson comes flying off the ice and throws a haymaker at Neeld, trying to catch him off-guard. Carlson misses and instead strikes Tonawanda NEWS reporter Mike Billoni, knocking his glasses from his head. As Billoni searches for his glasses on the floor, more Jets arrive from the ice and surround him. In a panic, he grabs a stick (the players benches are also nearby) and scrambles backward to the stairs leading up to the press box, staving off his would-be attackers.

Meanwhile, the Jets’ Dave Hanson spears Neeld (who, again, is there in street clothes) in the stomach.

The North Tonawanda police are called to help restore order.

The Jets’ Dave Hanson recalls the incident this way in his autobiography:

After the game I tried to go after Neeld, but the police grabbed me before I could nail him and escorted me to the squad car parked outside the back of the building. I still had my skates and uniform on, it was crazy. A couple of the other Jets players also tried to get at Neeld, most notably Vern Campigotto, but with no success. I was finally let go once order was restored inside.

No penalties result from the post-game encounter

Norsemen officials demand that Steve Carlson and Dave Hanson be suspended for their post-game violence, just as Neeld was for throwing his stick into the crowd in Johnstown. When it becomes clear that the league is not going to penalize the Jets in any way, GM Willie Marshall vents to Mike Billoni on the record:

“This just goes to show you the inconsistency of this league,” he tells the reporter. “I just hope some justice is done.”

The Norsemen’s owner Dr. Turecki is well aware of the series’ rising violence. “We are going to request some police protection for Saturday’s game there. A lot of our fans are going up for the game and I wouldn’t want them or our team members injured by the people in Johnstown.”

Game Four box score

## JOHNSTOWN JETS 2, BUFFALO NORSEMEN 3

SCORING

1st Period
JHN  Head (Gorton, Campigotto)..... 0:11

2nd Period
JHN  Head (unassisted)............ 14:01
BUF  Mortson (Gould, Andersen).... 15:07
BUF  Steele (Mortson, Stanfield).. 18:10

3rd Period
BUF  Noel (LaBelle, Crowley)...... 12:24

PENALTIES

1st Period
JHN  Cardiff, interference........ 0:37
JHN  Boudreau, roughing/fighting.. 3:03
BUF  Crowley, roughing/fighting... 3:03
BUF  Morin, roughing.............. 4:02
JHN  Cardiff, roughing............ 4:02
JHN  Tenesi, roughing............. 4:34
BUF  Steele, roughing............. 4:34
BUF  McConvey, roughing........... 6:03
JHN  Birch, fighting.............. 9:00
BUF  Lahey, roughing.............. 9:00
JHN  Hanson, tripping............ 11:56
JHN  Cardiff, misconduct......... 13:16
BUF  Steele, misconduct.......... 13:16
JHN  Tetreault, fighting/misconduct 17:27
BUF  Lahey, fighting............. 17:27

2nd Period
JHN  Levasseur, delay of game.... 15:00
JHN  Tetreault, interference..... 17:39

3rd Period
BUF  Morin, elbowing.............. 2:51
JHN  Hanson, elbowing............. 8:58
JHN  Reed, hooking............... 10:19
JHN  Reed, tripping.............. 16:16

SHOTS ON GOAL
JHN   8   11   10 — 29
BUF  18    6   12 — 36

SCORING BY PERIOD
JHN   1    1    0 — 2
BUF   0    2    1 — 3

ATTENDANCE: 1,531

“Keep your head up”

There is a buzz in Cambria County War Memorial Arena on the evening of March 27, 1976, and it goes beyond playoff game excitement. Before the teams even get on the ice, the visiting Norsemen begin to receive ominous warnings.

Coach Guy Trottier says that as his team enters the arena at 6 p.m., both Jim Stanfield and goalie Mario Vien are told by several Jets players to “keep their heads up” during the warmup skate.

Norsemen Greg Neeld (who would be beaten unconscious in the ensuing brawl) is given the same warning. He later tells the Tonawanda NEWS:

“As we were walking to the ice for the warmup, one of the film men…told me to keep my head up during the warmup. I knew the film people and Paul Newman have been pretty close to the Johnstown team over the past few weeks, but I couldn’t understand what he meant by ‘Keep your head up.’

The teams take the ice a little before 7:30 p.m. for the warmup skate. Norsemen Paul Labelle (who would also be taken to the hospital) could tell that something was up:

“To see Hansen, Campigotto and Carlson skate together past Greg, to hear people tell you to keep your head up and to see three extra players in the warmup, sure makes it a little suspicious.”

The three extra players is a crucial detail. When a rink-wide brawl begins, players typically pair up. With extra players on the ice, the Johnstown Jets tilt the board, creating opportunities for two-, three, or even four-on-one jumps.

Neeld continues in the NEWS:

“During the pregame skate, I was just circling the rink, getting myself mentally prepared for the game when number fourteen (Campigotto) skated in front of me and asked me if I wanted to start something. I didn’t know (Steve) Carlson and (Dave) Hansen were right behind him when I threw Campigotto into the boards. As soon as I did, the other two guys jumped me and started to hit me. Carlson hit me in the back of the neck with that cast he has on his wrist.

In his autobiography, Dave Hanson pretty much agrees with how the fight between Neeld and Campigotto starts: Campigotto says something, and Neeld reacts with extracurriculars. But instead of a three-on-one fight, Hansen describes the fight between Neeld and “Campy” as a fair one-on-one fight in which Neeld is cut over the eye with a “solid right punch” before he “broke free from Campy and plowed his way through the crowd down a concrete corridor to the Buffalo locker room.” Neeld says he is beaten unconscious, and remembers little after that.

When the Norsemen’s Paul Labelle attempts to help Neeld, he is also beaten by Steve Carlson’s cast. He falls to his knees, doing his best to protect his head and face. When he looks up for a moment, “a couple” Johnstown players are able to work over his face. Trottier later recounts, “They really gave it to Labelle. He looked worse than Neeld did.” Both men will be taken to a Pennsylvania hospital that night.

Putting on the…plaster?

What in the world was Steve Carlson doing in a hockey game with a cast? In the Slap Shot movie, when we see the Hanson brothers “putting on the foil” before a game (treating their fists to gain an advantage in a fight), it is presented as a cute and zany detail. In real life, being bludgeoned with a cast in front of four thousand roaring fans is surely not as funny.

With no referees on the ice yet, and two Norsemen already beaten senseless by Carlson’s cast, the chaos rages on.

One Norsemen player attempts to skate off the ice, but is thrown back onto the ice by the rabid Johnstown fans.

Goalie Jim Makey‘s arms are held by two Jets as a third (Dave Birch) punches him in the stomach. When Birch gets tired, Jets player-coach Jim Cardiff allegedly takes over pummeling the helpless Makey. (Labelle claims Steve Carlson got in on the act, too.)

Coach Trottier tries to restore order: “Seeing what I was seeing and feeling helpless, I asked the security people in the building to help us, but they said they couldn’t. So, I ran to the hall and called the police. They said it was not in their jurisdiction to come over here.”

Barricaded in their own locker room

Owner Dr. Turecki and General Manager Willie Marshall are in Johnstown for the game. When they see the unchecked violence unfolding, they order Trottier to get the team off the ice and back to the locker room.

The first order of business is to get their injured players treated: Neeld doesn’t even know where he is. The team call for an ambulance to pick up Neeld and Labelle (the doctor would no doubt be qualified to evaluate his players’ conditions).

Dr. Turecki makes the difficult decision not to return his Norsemen team to the ice. NAHL Commissioner Timmins (who is also in the arena that night) rushes to the Norsemen locker room and tries to talk him out of it. The commissioner even offers to reschedule the game. But Dr. Turecki won’t budge. “We told the commissioner that we were not going to return to the ice. We don’t have to sacrifice the welfare of our players like that. No game is that important when two of our players are brutally attacked by these animals,” Turecki tells the NEWS.

Coach Trottier appears more ready to barter. He tells Commissioner Timmins he is in favor of playing the game if the league immediately suspends Campigotto, Hanson and Carlson. Timmins claims (in spite of being spotted watching from the stands) that he did not actually see the incident, and could not make such a ruling. Trottier is furious. “They beat up two of our only enforcers and say, ‘okay, we are ready to play now,’ and the commissioner of this league goes along with them.”

Norsemen players Paul Crowley and Claude Noel (at least) want to play the game, Crowley reminisces on Facebook in 2022. “[Our leadership forfeited the game] likely for our safety, but we were beat up anyway.”

Meanwhile Jets fans are pounding on the walls of the Norsemen locker room. Some fans even try to crawl in through the windows. “Once they got their head in their shoulders in it was free rein. They got the hell beat out of them” NEWS reporter Ed Helinski remembers.

At 8 p.m., fans at the Johnstown arena are treated to another strange sight: The officials now take the ice, along with the Jets’ opening line. On the other side of the red line, there are no Norsemen. When five minutes elapse, per league rules, the Jets are awarded a 3-2 forfeit victory. They will advance to Round 2 of the NAHL playoffs against the Philadelphia Thunderbirds (where they will lose).

“It was a helluva fight, but not much of a game.”

Paul Newman on Game 5. “Norsemen reach an unbelievable end.” Tonawanda NEWS, March 29, 1976

Around the same time, an ambulance departs with Neeld on a stretcher and Labelle with him. It is another hour and a half before Pennsylvania police can extricate the rest of the Norsemen team from the arena. Somewhere in that interval there is a brief meeting between Timmins, Marshall, Turecki and Johnstown Executive Director John Mitchell. The forfeit stands. “Timmins was so scared he didn’t know what he was doing at that meeting,” Marshall later says.

Escape to New York

“The fans were mad we forfeited this final game. They shook our bus, pelted us with rocks as we left the rink and drove to the hospital to pick up our beaten up players. It was a sad day for Buffalo as it turned out to be the last game for Buffalo.”

Paul Crowley, Facebook (2022)

The Norsemen are escorted to the hospital and out of town. Some crazed Jets fans go so far as to follow the team bus in their cars, hurling insults (if not more).

End of the Norsemen

The Norsemen leadership ultimately decides not to field the team for a second season. The franchise folds, never to be seen again. The NAHL follows suit one year later, collapsing under financial pressures and competition from better-funded and better-positioned leagues. Even the WHA closes up shop, with some franchises expanding the NHL.

The Tonawanda Sports Center on Ridge Road survives another few years, hosting a vibrant local hockey scene comprised of industrial, bar and junior hockey leagues. These soon fade, too, and the rinks are dismantled, the bleachers and press box carried away, though the buildings’ hulking steel frames remain. So does the vacant lot to the south, where a larger, third rink was to be built.

By the time I first encounter the former Tonawanda Sports Center facilities as a hockey-crazed pre-teen in the mid-80s, no trace remains of their hockey glory days—at least not that I recognized. I played around the back of the buildings often, lighting fireworks, sneaking cigarettes, and fantasizing the industrial wreckage was a marooned spaceship that I could pilot. Around this time I remember walking into the cavernous former rink when it was used as a flea market, seeking trading cards of my Buffalo Sabres hockey heroes. I had no idea that some of those very Sabres, and others who clashed and battled in the same sport, had skated under my very feet.

Conclusion and thanks

So many people came forward to help me tell this wild, wide-ranging tale of the rise and fall of the Buffalo Norsemen. I’d like to thank Tim Lynch, a former Zamboni driver at the Sports Center and later manager of the Boulevard rinks, for many great stories over (let us not say too many) beers at Deerwood. Greg Lureman, president of Twin Cities Community Outreach, gave me a detailed tour of their building that housed the former smaller rink, and a timeline of its later years and present ownership. For access to the former big rink (and now the NT school bus garage), thanks to Dr. Jeffrey Jachlewski Ed.D. Local Norsemen fans Dan Dzikowski, Paul Rumbold, and Nelson Brochey also shared stories and items from their personal collections that really brought the team to life for me. Last but certainly not least, thank you to one of Dr. Turecki’s daughters, Kim Turecki- Chiodo, for contributing amazing team photos, ticket stubs and programs, and her Norsemen scrap book loaded with 150+ clipped newspaper articles that she carefully curated as a fourteen year-old girl.

Most of all I am indebted to the sports beat writers who followed this team, and told their epic story in thrilling fashion, week after week, meeting deadlines that I would have crumbled under.

One such NEWS writer, Ed Helinski, generously granted me an hour-long video interview over Zoom in October of 2025. I’d like to give him the last word in the series.

ED: Any more questions for me?

NT HISTORY: One more. What questions did I forget to ask?

ED: (Amused) Oh, my. (Pauses). “How should the Norseman be remembered?”

NT HISTORY: Okay. Yeah! How should the Norsemen be remembered?

ED: A happy-go-lucky band of misfits. Hockey misfits that tried to make a go of it in professional hockey. I mean, they, it was a memorable season. One I’ll never forget. I’m grateful that I was there for part of the ride. And, I’m glad, you know, a lot of it became, incorporated into a classic movie [Slap Shot].

NT HISTORY: Yeah. So then a little piece of the Norsemen is going to live on, right?

ED: It will live on forever, you know that? Yeah.