Good guy Gauthier went along with 'puck in the ocean' gag

"On the Waterfront" was a 1954 Hollywood classic that won eight Oscars, including one to Marlon Brando for best actor. But seven years before that flick hit theaters, the NHL had its own version, with Rene Fernand (Fern) Gauthier in the starring role.
Granted that Gauthier never won an award during his six NHL seasons, but in this case, that wasn't the point.

The point was that if the League ever gave a "Good Guy Willing to Do a Zany Stunt" award, Gauthier would have been a hands-down winner.
During the 1946-47 season, Gauthier, a native of Chicoutimi, Quebec, agreed to participate in a gag that would have embarrassed almost any other player. It originated because a Detroit reporter wrote a story about Gauthier, charging that he "couldn't shoot a puck in the ocean" if he was standing on a pier with a pail full of them.
Remember, this was in 1947. Nobody would have dared say such a thing during his rookie season in 1943-44, when he skated for the New York Rangers. That's when Gauthier scored 14 goals and had 10 assists in 33 games. With the Montreal Canadiens in 1944-45, Gauthier found the back of the net 18 times and had 13 assists in 50 games.
But that was wartime hockey. When Gauthier wound up with the Detroit Red Wings for the 1946-47 season, World War II had ended and the game's quality was back to high-grade pre-war levels.
"Somehow Gauthier lost his skill for scoring with Detroit," wrote Stan Saplin, who was the Rangers' press agent at the time. "Eventually his teammates began to kid him as the player who couldn't put a puck in the ocean."
Lew Walter, who covered the Red Wings for the Detroit Times, heard the "puck in the ocean" line enough times to be inspired. He conspired to make a newspaper feature story out of it. Walter couldn't understand why Gauthier was not a better performer.

"Fern was an All-American in practice," Walter said. "But he just couldn't get that puck in the net when the game started."
That led to Walter contriving a bizarre scenario which would ultimately have Gauthier actually try firing the puck into New York Bay, which emptied into the Atlantic Ocean.
According to Walter's script, when the Red Wings played the Rangers in New York, they would take Gauthier down to Manhattan's waterfront. Fern would be armed with a pail full of pucks and a hockey stick-- not to mention a photographer and teammates. The trick was to get Gauthier to go along with the gag.
"Fern took it good-naturedly," said Saplin, who helped arrange the stunt, "because he was a swell guy with a great disposition."
Walter, a photographer, Gauthier and teammates Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay, and Marty Pavelich all took a taxi down to the Battery at the tip of Manhattan Island alongside New York Bay.
"The photographer was there to get on film evidence and disprove once and for all that Fern couldn't shoot a puck in the ocean," Walter said. "His teammates were there as further witnesses."
At this point, there are two versions of the story.
The apocryphal one goes like this: It took three shots for Gauthier to finally send the puck into the drink. On his first attempt, the puck landed on a passing barge. On the second one a seagull swooped down and -- thinking it was a snack -- nabbed it in midair. He finally found the water on his last shot.
Version No. 2 has it that Gauthier did, in fact, put the puck in the ocean on his first try. Saplin favored the first version while Walter went with the second.
Following the stunt Walter went back to his typewriter and summed up the saga as follows:
"Fern proved not only that he could put the puck in the ocean, but also that he was a good sport by entering the spirit of the rib. He was a winger of great potential, of fine personality and, if injuries had not hampered him, might have made a true success of professional hockey."
P.S. Whichever story you prefer, the fact is that in 40 games played by Gauthier in that "On the Waterfront" season, he scored a grand total of one goal!
Then again, when you think about it, Oscar-winner Brando couldn't have done much better.