By: Mark Allred | Follow me on Twitter @BlackAndGold277 & @AmesburyMaples
Longtime Amesbury, Massachusetts resident and Amesbury Maples hockey player Hercule “Archie” Cloutier was a legend as soon as he stepped on the ice for the town team during the winter of 1928-29. Known as an offensively gifted player, Cloutier’s skating was by far his greatest attribute throughout his decades of on-ice service.
While Cloutier could wow, nearby spectators with how he worked up and down the ice cutting his way through oncoming traffic, he played the game the right way. Archie wasn’t an overly aggressive player in his decades on the ice with his Maples team. With him only registering nine penalties in his Maples career, he would be known today in National Hockey League terms as an annual Lady Byng Trophy winner. Every year at the NHL Awards, the Lady Byng Trophy is given to the player who displays the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability, per the Official Wikipedia Page.
Throughout Cloutiers Maples hockey career, the former Amesbury resident was part of the hockey team’s highest moments in the organization’s early years. Cloutier and teammates would travel long distances from our community to take on an opponent. In many well-known newspapers of the past, I’ve read the mention of the Amesbury team being one of the United States’ best amateur clubs.
In Archie’s 35-year hockey career, he played in all of the NEAAU tournaments held in the early years in Providence at the Rhode Island Auditorium. During the start of the Great Depression, the Rhode Island Auditorium owners were going through financial ruin, and the annual NEAAU tournament was relocated north to Boston, Massachusetts, and held at the original Boston Garden.
In the 1937-38 regular season, after a 15-4-1 record, Cloutier ended the campaign as the Maples leading scorer posting 17-18-35 numbers in 20 games. The Maples would attend the NEAAU tournament in the Spring of 1938 at the Boston Garden. After beating the Waltham Rangers 5-3 in the first round, the Maples would lose 4-3 in the second round to the Massena, New York Scarlets.
The following season, Managed by Wilbrod Picard, head coach by Louis Casavant, and captained by Eddie Nichols, the Amesbury club, was on a mission to get better after knowing they could play with some of the best United States hockey teams. In 1938-39 the Maples won the Essex County Championship with a regular season record of 16-2-0 but was unsuccessful in the return to the NEAAU playoff tournament that spring. Cloutier would take a bit of a decrease in offensive production, posting 8-14-22 numbers in 18 games that year.
In the 1939-40 season, the Amesbury Maples would go on to have their best regular season and postseason in the organization’s history. Before the winter campaign began, the organization would make changes in management as Cloutier and teammates continued to find different systems of success to reach higher level accolades. New team managers Albie Roy and Everett Picard brought new voices to the organization and a new direction.
Cloutier and Maples teammates would finish the 1939-40 season with a 19-4-2 regular season record capturing the team’s second straight Essex County Championship. Cloutier, who missed several games in the organization’s best year, finished the season with 12-29-41 numbers. The Maples would appear in the NEAAU tournament held at the Boston Garden and were not going home until the mission was successful.
In the Spring of 1940, Cloutier and Maples club would go on to sweep all four rounds at the Boston Garden, beating East Boston 13-3, Higham Cove 3-1, Hyde Shoe Cambridge, Mass 3-1, and in the final game shutout the powerful Concord, NH team 7-0. For the first time and the only time in Maples history, the team from Amesbury was headed to Lake Placid, New York, to compete against the U.S. nation’s best.
Archie and Maples team would take the long journey to upstate New York for the daunting task of becoming National Champions. Many Like 32-year-old Cloutier, at the time of the team’s highest success, was among many other aging veterans on the Maples Squad. Cloutier and his Maples team were severely outmatched and outmanned going into the National Ice Hockey Championships held by the United States Amateur Athletic Union in Lake Placid.
In the 1940 elimination tournament, the Amesbury Maples were fortunate to have the first-round bye. The first team Cloutier and the Maples faced was the younger and full bench of the University of Minnesota. Back then, the Maples would operate with a roster of 11-14 players every year, so playing a team of early 20-year-olds with 19 skaters and one goaltender was already a disadvantage.
In the second round of the NAAU tournament, Cloutier and the Maples club did a decent job keeping up with the much faster and more skilled Minnesota team. In the first two periods, the Maples held off the Gophers the best they could. In the final period, Minnesota turned it up and relied on a few rested players to clamp down on a tired Amesbury team. Minnesota would take the game and Maples dreams away with a 9-4 victory in Lake Placid and capture the 1940 National Championship after winning the tournament’s final round.
Archie would continue to be a passionate hockey player and committed to his Maples organization even though he’d never see the team’s success reach the level of the 1939-40 season. Cloutier would remain relevant in the Maple organization’s offensive production in his late 30s and crossing into his 40s. At the age of 49, Cloutier scored a career-high of four goals in one game in the 1957-58 season against the Bradford Vikings at the Exeter Academy rink where the Maples often played in Exeter, New Hampshire. Our area of New England has a funny way of being temperamental when talking about yearly winter seasons. When outdoor ice couldn’t be used at the local Powwow Arena or Stuarts Rinks, the Maples and high school teams would often travel to Exeter or Lynn Arena in Lynn, Mass., for favorable indoor ice to get regular season and postseason games in.
Cloutier would hang up his skates after dedicating 35 years of his life on the year of his 35th wedding anniversary to his wife, Cora. At 56, Cloutier retired from the game he loved after getting a scare back in 1963. An unknown local newspaper article written by local sports writer Ed Gleed mentioned that a game he played against North Reading, where he accrued a significant back injury, was the first of many thoughts to walk away from the game. This injury shook Archie and his family pretty hard for an aging hockey veteran, but since that injury, Cloutier’s wife and family were heavy influencers on his decision as he looked to transition away from the game.
Among all the wonderful times as a player for the Amesbury Maples team, Cloutier was also the team’s head coach and team manager when the void needed to be filled. As a bench boss or player-coach, in the 1956-57 season, Archie orchestrated a 21-3-1 record in his only season in the coaching role.
In the mentioned article by Ed Gleed, competitive hockey was over for Cloutier following the 1964-65 season, but his passion for skating would never end until his death. Before passing away at the age of 58, Archie would take advantage of the several waterways in our Amesbury community during the winter seasons and just skate to keep the legs moving and that sense of game feeling he once had but this time at a safer pace and without contact.
On January 14th, 1967, the hockey world and Amesbury, Massachusetts, the community lost a legend as thousands mourned the loss of Hercule “Archie” Cloutier upon hearing about his passing at his home on this particular Saturday morning. An outstanding player and another Maples member who benefitted from the local development of the game back in the day to keep generations of hockey players involved.
Cloutier was a quiet man on and off the ice but was a leader throughout his career and gave back to younger players looking for advice. As a diehard American citizen, I was thrilled to learn that Cloutier, born in Quebec, Canada, served in the United States armed forces. During World War II, Cloutier stepped away from his family and the game of hockey to enlist in the Air Force. An honorable thing to do is serve a country you weren’t born in. To me, that’s earning citizenship the hard way and should be recognized even by today’s standards.
Archie was a longtime employee of the Amesbury Fibre Company, where he served as a foreman. The old Amesbury Fibre Company was located on the corner of High Street and Pond Street, as seen in the image below. This whole stretch of land in the upper mill yard in downtown Amesbury was originally the United States’ first automated nail-making company which thrived on natural power from the close by Powwow River. Later huge textile companies like Hamilton Woolen (Seen Below) would also feed off gravity and natural water flow to make their products one of the nation’s best.
