A couple of weeks ago I managed to purchase a book about Tommy Burns,
 who played field lacrosse for Galt and also was the first Canadian Boxer
 to win the World Heavyweight title in 1907 weighing in at only 172
 pounds  and only being 5'7". He was the first white boxer to ever box
 a negro,  breaking the colour bar for boxing. The poor man died a
 pauper in Vancouver  and thought the fans would enjoy reading a
 couple of pages from the book.

 THE FIGHTING GOALIE
 If ever there was a good training ground for boxing it was the brand
 of field lacrosse played in Canada in the last years of the nineteenth
 century. It was a violent, rough-and-tumble game in which players
 routinely clubbed one another over the head, back and shoulders with
 their sticks. Fistfights were almost as common as goals.The game was
 so vicious that one  Toronto team purchased a sewing kits its trainer
 could stitch up any players who suffered facial cuts on road trips.
 "The move is a wise one, as the physicians' bill for stitching up
 the boys at Cornwall aggregated $12,"  the Toronto Globe reported
 in the fall of 1899. The newspaper added,  "Some of the members
 have suggested an ambulance corps should accompany the team."
 
 During one particularly savage game at St.Catharines, Ontario, the 
 home team openly declared it would disable any Orangeville player
 who dared to even touch the ball. The first visitor to do so was kicked
 so viciously that one of his kidneys ruptured. Before the match was over, 
 a second Orangeville man had suffered a fractured kneecap, a third
 sustained a punctured lung and a fourth required seven stitches to close
 a scalp wound. When the Orangeville players attempted to leave the field
 early, they were hemmed in by hundreds of hostile St.Catharines fans. The 
 frightened athletes protested to the referee but, possibly fearing
 for his own safety, he allowed the game to continue. Afterwards, two
 members of the home team were jailed for assault causing bodily harm.
 Such incidents caused the Canadian Sportsman magazine to declare, 
 "Lacrosse is killing itself, it is too savage."
 
 In spite of the brutality, or perhaps because of it, the game was
 enormously popular with the public. spectators were just coming into 
 fashion at the time, and Canadians couldn't get enough of them. The 
 pioneer era was ending, and people had more time - and money - for
 recreational pursuits. Although its hard to believe now, lacrosse was
 the most popular game in the country. Major-league baseball was 
 just getting off the ground, basketball had yet to be invented and
 the National Hockey League didn't exist. So whenever a lacrosse game
 was staged, huge crowds turned out. Championship matches were so 
 popular that mayors of the opposing communities would declare civic 
 holidays so everyone could attend.

 Because he was so much smaller that the other players. Noah was soon
 inserted into the net, where he quickly developed into a top-notch
 goalie. His cat-like reflexes caught the attention of reporters. After
 Galt upset Toronto 7-1 in a crutial match, the Globe informed shocked
 readers, "The contest was much closer than the result would show.
 The work of Brusso (Noah Brusso was Tommy Burns' birth name), the 
 Galt goalkeeper. was magnificant, he proved invulnerable."

 Noah, however, was doing more than blocking shots. He was right
 in the thick of the nasty fights that were commonplace at every 
 lacrosse match. The London Free Press reported,  Brusso has a defence
 all his own. The ordinary goaltender relies upon his stick to protect
 the net, but Brusso has never lost sight of the fact that hands were
 known long before lacrosse sticks. Accordingly, when an aggresive person 
 approaches Brusso's net in a way that implies familiarity, Brusso
 not infrequently meets the intruder with what is a technically known
 as a "stiff punch."

 In the ruthless world of lacrosse, players had to fight to survive.
 Nevertheless Noah's conduct made him the most hated player in the league.
 Inevitably, his antics got him into trouble with referees, who began 
 tossing him out of games on a regular basis. Desperate to keep him 
 in the line-up, Galt's coach began bribing Noah to stay out of trouble. 
 The team, which paid its players $25 per week, offered him a
 $50 bonus for each match he completed without receiving a game
 misconduct. With that incentive, he managed to control his hot temper
 for the rest of the season.

 With Noah behaving himself, Galt won the Canadian junior lacrosse
 championship, losing just 3 of 20 games. Along the way, Brusso posted an 
 astonishing total of five shutouts. As far as the Galt Weekly Reporter was
 concerned, the only way the opposition could beat him was by luck. After he
 narrowly missed his sixth shutout in a game against St.Marys, the
 newspaper noted, "The fact they did not score was because Brusso was
 for the moment out of his goal and the ball shot through unhindered." 
 In a league in which teams routinely scored 10 to 12 goals per  contest,
 Noah seldom surrendered more than one or two, Time and
 again he was the difference between victory and defeat. In one
 particularly memorable game, Guelph dominated Galt throughout the
 earlygoing, only to find itself trailing 6-0. As Noah continued 
 to slam the door with one dazzling save after another, his opponents
 became increasingly frustrated. At half-time they simply gave up,
 walked off the field and went home.

 Brusso's remarkable skill also led his junion team to victories over 
 much older and bigger players from the Brampton intermediates and
 the Fergus seniors. Brampton scored just twice before going down to an  
 embarrassing 7-2 defeat. Against the vaunted Fergus Thistles, he was
 even more impressive, giving up only one goal - and a disputed one at
 that - in backstopping Galt to an unlikely 3-1 triumph. His work in
 that contest again gained him national attention. A Toronto writer
 reported Noah had "turned back one charge after another." What made
 the victory all the more remarkable was the difference in the sizes 
 of the clubs. Brusso and his buddies had vanquished " as fine an
 athletic body of men as Ontario can produce, averaging easily 155 
 pounds a man. Their speed, agility, and strength was marvellous, and
 their endurance correspondingly great. The local players will not tip 
 the scales at more than an average of 130 pounds, yet they scored 
 three goals to their opponents' one. The solitary goal was disallowed 
 by the umpire, but the referee (who was from Fergus) over-ruled his  
 decision and the one stood."

 Tommy Burns played lacrosse well enough that there is a card 
 of him playing for Vancouver in a 1911 set that I'm dying to get
 my hands on.