The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.

March 23, 1968

The Hockey News March 23, 1968

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0018-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03329/3195861-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg"></div>(Statistics Include Games of Sun. Mar. 10) &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

How WHL Teams Compare

<div class="byline">BY VIN GIMINI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-01617/3195592-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="627" height="990"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARCEL PAILLE &hellip; Checks Barons</figcaption></div>PROVIDENCE, R.I. &ndash;After sustaining five straight losses, Rhode Island Reds found themselves stale and player-coach Dave Creighton&rsquo;s remedy was a two-day layoff which paid dividends as soon as the Reds hit the ice in their next league game, that against the Cleveland Barons on the eighth of this month.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02537/3195585-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="260" height="478"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Creighton</figcaption></div>After suffering a 6-2 home loss to the surging Quebec Aces, Creighton and general manager Buster Clegg felt that the time had come to slow up the pace and give the guys a rest.&ldquo;Too many games in too many nights has left us tired and a little bit stale,&rdquo; noted Creighton.&ldquo;The schedule seems to have caught up with us. I guess we all need a little rest.&rdquo;When the club resumed its workouts the team became its sharp self once again and it looked like the layoff had done some good. By the end of their next weekend of play the move proved to be even more than that.Against the Barons, Marcel Paille recorded his first shutout since the 1965 season, as he turned in a 3-0 whitewash.Paille, behind the spirited and close checking antics of his team-mates, held Cleveland at bay with a number of superb saves, especially against the Barons&rsquo; Norm Ferguson who was stymied on two breakaways. However, if you can bring yourself to believe it, the best save of the night was turned in by Cleveland&rsquo;s Wayne Schultz.With the Reds holding a 2-0 edge midway through the second period, it was this same Ferguson who found the handle on a loose puck about 20 feet out to the right of the Reds&rsquo; goal.Firing through a maze of entangled legs and sticks, the puck managed to evade everything on its way to the net, including Paille and his big fat stick. There was just one thing standing in the way of that shot.Schultz, who had stationed himself aside the left post, had lain his stick along the goal crease behind Paille and, not seeing the shot, Inadvertently deflected Ferguson&rsquo;s attempt as it was making its way into the twine. A clearance, and the Reds were on their way.The Reds had an off-day on Saturday, a situation which has come to be an enemy in disguise when between weekend encounters for the Reds.On the following evening the opening minutes gave all indication that it had done its dirty work once again as the Buffalo Bisons hit for two quick goals. Then the Reds began to roll.They won an exciting 6-4 decision, widening their margin over the Baltimore Clippers in the race for third in the Eastern Division, and in the process showed the poise and crisp attack which had hurtled them into playoff contention in the first place.The regular season will be over in a little more than a week but if the Reds can continue to play with the same drive which lifted them to these two victories, the playoff position which has eluded them for three years now will finally be theirs.<h2>HOW THEY STAND</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-04330/3195578-1-eng-US/f0016-042.jpg" title="f0016-04" width="682" height="2230"></div> &#9632;

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Reds Roll Again After Shaking Tired Legs

<div class="byline">BY HANS TANNER</div>ROCHESTER, N.Y.&ldquo;Hold &lsquo;em scoreless in the first period and beat &lsquo;em&rdquo; has been the key to the Rochester Americans ascendancy to first place in the American Hockey League&rsquo;s Western Division this season.The Amerks, at this writing, have held the opposition without a goal in the first periods of 24 of the 62 games played and have piled up an unbelievable record of 19 wins, 1 loss and 4 ties for these games!Rochester is 14-0-2 on its home War Memorial ice here for these contests and 5-1-2 on the road. The lone reversal after stopping the enemy in the opening session came in Vancouver Dec. 12. when the Americans lost 5-3 after leading 1-0 at the end of the first period.Equally as strange, for contests In which the opposition has scored at least one goal in the opening period and no matter whether the Amerks have started with one, two, three or more, the Western Division leaders can show only 12 wins and five ties against 21 defeats.The Americans have played six games in which neither club scored in the opening period and have won all of them.So here&rsquo;s fair warning for the rest of the AHL before the Calder Cup playoffs. If you don&rsquo;t score in the first 20 minutes, forget it.ICICLES Jim Pappin, high scoring wing suspended by the Toronto Maple Leafs Feb. 9 for failure to report to Rochester, finally showed up here March 8 and was in the lineup two nights later against Quebec. Pappin led the Calder Cup champion Amerks and the AHL in playoff goals in both 1965 and 1966 and last spring led the Stanley Cup champion Leafs and the NHL in playoff goals. &#9632;

First Period Goal ‘Magic’ Aids Amerks

<div class="byline">BY JACK BERRY</div>DETROIT, Mich.&mdash;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-02733/3195309-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="260" height="478"><figcaption class="caption-body">Carl Brewer</figcaption></div>Frank Mahovlich scored, Garry Unger scored, Peter Stemkowski scored but the same old bugaboo continues to plague the Red Wings after their big trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs: No defense.The Wings allowed six goals the first game after the trade, seven the next and five the one after that. The new men scored but their own goalie continued to be riddled.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-03593/3195302-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="246" height="436"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pete Mahovlich</figcaption></div>So General manager Sid Abel hustled to the west Michigan town of Muskegon for a talk with 29-year-old Carl Brewer, star defenseman of the Muskegon Mohawks of the International Hockey League.The International League is not a bad league. John Ferguson played there for the Fort Wayne Komets, Frank St. Marseille, playing some pretty fair hockey now for the St. Louis Blues, played in the I HL last season. And there have been others.But it&rsquo;s a league in which Carl Brewer&rsquo;s talents are far superior to anyone else&rsquo;s. He doesn&rsquo;t belong there he belongs in the NHL where he twice was voted to the All-Star team.Brewer is there by choice, though, after a year with the Canadian National team and you hear figures like a $20,000 salary for playing &ldquo;semi-pro&rdquo; hockey.The Wings obtained the professional rights to him from Toronto in the seven player trade and, really, he&rsquo;s the key man. Detroit&rsquo;s desperate need Is defense and Brewer is one of the best.Abel telephoned Brewer the day of the trade, then flew across the state to talk to him personally.&ldquo;Carl said he wanted to finish out the season In Muskegon and then talk after the season is over,&rdquo; Abel said.It would have been possible, Muskegon and the NHL clubs consenting, for Brewer to have had a five game &ldquo;pro tryout&rdquo; with the Wings this season.It wouldn&rsquo;t help the Wings in the standings &mdash; they&rsquo;re hopelessly mired in the cellar. But it would have given Abel some pleasant thoughts to carry through the summer.Right now the Wings have a defense corps of Gary Bergman, Kent Douglas, Jim Watson, Bob Falkenberg and Howie Young. Bart Crashley, who spent most of the season with the team, is in Fort Worth.Of the six only Bergman Douglas and Young are experienced Howie comes up with the occasional excellent game but he&rsquo;s been Inconsistent. Watson shows promise of being the tough man the Wings need at the blue line but he has trouble with the puck in his end,Crashley can handle the puck and pass but he doesn&rsquo;t check effectively and Bergman and Douglas are carrying more than their share of the burden and that hurts too.Brewer thus is the answer to the problem but, even if he does decide to return to the NHL, the Wings won&rsquo;t have him fulltime until Dec. 18 which is the earliest date he can turn professional again.While the Wings floundered defensively toward the close of the season, there were some optimistic signs provided mainly by the rookie; and one with a most familiar name: Mahovlich.Pete Mahovlich, Frank&rsquo;s little-big brother he&rsquo;s four inches taller than the Big M came back from a long stint at Fort Worth looking like Harry Houdini with a stick.Peter started right out with Fort Worth this year and progressed rapidly. The Wings, short because of injuries called him up for a midJanuary game against Chicago and he scored twice, earning a tie with a great effort and goal late in the third periodThe Wings recalled him for good in February to take a long look at him and moved him to center with rookies Nick Libett and Ron Anderson on the flanks and all three have been impressiveBut Mahovlich has impressed the most. He&rsquo;s been aggressive, using his reach and size to advantage and his playmaking and stick handling have been nothing short of eye-popping. You just don&rsquo;t expect to see young players stick-handling from one end of the rink to the other &#9632;

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New Wings Can Score But Red Wings Plagued By Same Defense Ills

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0001-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0001-01180/3196362-1-eng-US/f0001-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">With speculation rampant that the Oakland Seals may be playing elsewhere next season players like goalie CHARLIE HODGE and defenseman BOB BAUN, checking Montreal&rsquo;s CLAUDE PROVOST, could be playing their hockey in Canada again &mdash; possibly Vancouver.</figcaption></div>OAKLAND, Calif. &ndash;Expansion has created a few headaches the National Hockey League wasn&rsquo;t expecting, to say the least.First, the troubled Oakland franchise is being bandied about with the distinct possibility it will end up in Canada, likely at Vancouver, if and when the NHL&rsquo;s Board of Governors give their consent.It appears that a change is imminent although at least three of the 12 NHL governors are adamantly opposed to switching any franchises, particularly Oakland where the league and Los Angeles owner Jack Kent Cooke thinks the NHL has a definite future.At any rate, Labatt Breweries of Canada has announced that they have complete negotiations to purchase a controlling interest in the Seals. The sale is conditional upon the franchise being moved from Oakland to Vancouver, a step that many hockey experts wager will never happen.While the Seals are having their shortcomings in the West, the Philadelphia Flyers are having troubles of their own in the East and it could ultimately result in the Philadelphia owners seeking to put their team in another location unless the City of Brotherly Love starts practicing some of their benevolence and reopens the jinxed $12,000,000 Spectrum arena.The Flyers have threatened to start looking elsewhere if the city doesn&rsquo;t settle the political hassle that is apparently keeping the Spectrum doors shut, likely for the balance of the season.Philly president Bill Putnam and general manager Norman (Bud) Poile have been quoted as saying they would favor moving the club unless some prompt action develops on the part of the city of Philadelphia. Putnam said he has been flooded with offers to take the Flyers in.<blockquote class="pullQuote">FINAL FANS&rsquo; ALL-STAR BALLOTS -On The Inside</blockquote> &#9632;

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Oakland, Philadelphia May Be On The Move

BOSTON, Mass.The Boston Bruins are breathing a little easier after putting the clincher on the National Hockey League Playoff berth that has eluded them for nine years.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0001-02151/3196393-1-eng-US/f0001-022.jpg" title="f0001-02" width="262" height="396"><figcaption class="caption-body">Milt Schmidt</figcaption></div>The rejuvenated Bruins knocked the Toronto Leafs out of the playoff hunt by toppling Montreal 3-1 last weekend while the Leafs fell victims of the Philadelphia Flyers 7-4. If the Leafs were to win their remaining seven games and Boston was to lose its last five, the Bruins would still get the fourth and final playoff position on a superior goal average between the two clubs.However, there appears little chance of this happening with the Bruins rolling in high gear for the forthcoming playoffs, their first since 195859 when Milt Schmidt, the team&rsquo;s current general manager, piloted the B&rsquo;s to a second place finish.The NHL playoff picture is taking shape. Montreal, Boston Chicago and New York are in the East. Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Minnesota and St. Louis appear to be the four Western teams. &#9632;

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Boston Bids For ‘Second’ In Final Run

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-01785/3194816-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="623" height="972"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOBBY ORR &hellip; Boston Bruins</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-02730/3194809-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="598" height="969"><figcaption class="caption-body">BILL WHITE &hellip; Los Angeles Kings</figcaption></div>MONTREAL, Que. &ndash;Who is the National Hockey League&rsquo;s best netminder? And is Bobby Orr really the greatest defense-man of them all? Would you pick Jean Beliveau over Stan Mikita?You, the fans can answer these and many other questions that surround the picking of All-Star earns by getting in on THE HOCKSY NEWS&rsquo; 21st annual All-Star poll, which ends this week.This is the last chance to select/our AllStar teams and compare t with the official teams that will be made public after the close of the regular season.It&rsquo;s a kind of challenge you won&rsquo;t want to pass up if you&rsquo;re a hot hockey fan.This is the third and final week we have published All-Star team ballots. Results will be compiled and the teams you the fans selected will appear in the THE HOCKEY NEWS issue dated April 6.We invite our thousands of readers to get on the bandwagon and join in the fan poll.Merely clip the ballot shown on this page, read the voting regulations carefully and then fill in your selection. It&rsquo;s simple and it can be fun.As has been the custom in the past, you are requested to pick a first and second NHL all-star team, printing the name of the player carefully on the ballot. Remember, you are also afforded a chance to cast a vote for the league&rsquo;s outstanding rookie and Most Valuable Player to his team. It&rsquo;s all contained in your ballot.The most important thing is to get your votes in so your favorite players are not left out.The faster you get them in the sooner we can tabulate them too.Keep in mind, if one of your favorites should fail to gain a berth on the Fans&rsquo; All-Star team by the margin of just a few points, it could be because you didn&rsquo;t send that ballot in as you had intended. So right now, while it&rsquo;s still fresh in your mind, fill out the ballot on this page and mail it right away to All-Star Editor, THE HOCKEY NEWS, Room 212, 1434 St. Catherine St. W., Montreal 3, Quebec, Canada.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03587/3194802-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="614" height="740"><figcaption class="caption-body">LORNE WORSLEY &hellip; Montreal Canadiens</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-04406/3194795-1-eng-US/f0002-042.jpg" title="f0002-04" width="600" height="737"><figcaption class="caption-body">KEN WHARRAM &hellip; Chicago Black Hawks</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-05284/3194788-1-eng-US/f0002-052.jpg" title="f0002-05" width="603" height="748"><figcaption class="caption-body">JEAN BELIVEAU &hellip; Montreal Canadiens</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-06188/3194781-1-eng-US/f0002-062.jpg" title="f0002-06" width="602" height="740"><figcaption class="caption-body">FRED STANFIELD &hellip; Boston Bruins</figcaption></div>Get in on the fun. Try to outguess the coaches who select the official NHL teams. &#9632;

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Hockey News Closes Fans’ NHL All-Star Poll

<div class="byline">BY BILL LIBBY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-01790/3194854-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="268" height="458"><figcaption class="caption-body">Lowell MacDonald</figcaption></div>LOS ANGELES, Cal. &ndash;The most s u r prising team In hockey has been Bill Flett of the Los Angeles Kings. Somehow, despite super-sideburns, he has not attracted much attention among writers around the circuit, but the clubs who have to contend with him know him very well.He&rsquo;s 6-1 and 195 pounds. A fair skater with moderate quickness, he Is powerful and determined and a tremendous shooter.He scored a dozen goals In the first half of the season and had 25 with nine games to play In the full campaign. These Included three first-goals in games, a game-tying goal and five game-winning goals. Among his 18 assists, he also had three game-winners.He&rsquo;s twice singed Detroit for three-goal &ldquo;hat-tricks&rdquo; and has three times scored two goals in a game. Except for two stretches early this season, when he had a eight-game goal less droughts, he has been very consistent.Nicknamed &ldquo;Cowboy,&rdquo; the sometimes off-season calf roper from Alberta is fearless and has 95 minutes In penalties.He and Wayne Connelly of Minnesota are the two best right-wingers In the Western Division this season.Flett may also be the outstanding rookie in the NHL this season, even if he does not get many votes at the polls.Derek Sanderson, Boston&rsquo;s brilliant prospect, will win the honor. Montreal center Jacques Lemaire and Philadelphia goalie Doug Favell may come close. L.A. has a brilliant rookie goalie in Wayne Rutledge.But there has not been a more outstanding first-year performer in the entire NHL than the dark husky Flett, whom Toronto will regret having let go in the expansion draft. Almost 100 players were picked before Flett. L.A. drafted him only 16th, so the Kings didn&rsquo;t know what a good one they were getting.He is only 24 years old. This is only his fourth full year as a pro, and he is going to be one of the standouts in the NHL for many seasons to come. With kids like Flett, improving Ted Irvine and goalie Rutledge, the Kings may win championships in the future.With toughies like Flett, the Kings&rsquo; keep bouncing back. They can&rsquo;t seem to put together the winning streak that clinches a play-off berth, if not a pennant, but when they go down, they get back up.Recently completing a home stand, they were routed by Montreal, 6-2, but rebounded to rip resurgent Oakland 9-2. In the latter, led by Lowell MacDonald&rsquo;s two goals, they set their season record for shots, 54, as well as goals.Then, opening a short road swing, they piddled away a game in Pittsburgh, 3-1 but rebounded the next night to record their most spectacular win of the season, 4-3 ending New York&rsquo;s season-long Sunday-at-home unbeaten string.In the breathtaking bash, Flett scored L.A.&rsquo;s first goal, then burst in on Ed Giacomin, handcuffed him with a hard shot, grabbed his own rebound and ripped it into the nets to win with only 20 seconds to play.This gave L.A. the most victories of any expansion team against established clubs, 10. It also completed their 12-gameroad run in established cities with a stunning split, 6-6. Few figured any first-year club could accomplish what the Kings have swung this season.KINGS THINGS The Kings had scheduled to televise the Sunday night game home from New York, but when the game was moved back from 7 p.m. to 8:30 (5.30 in L.A.) it might have kept some fans from going to the Forum for a 7 p.m. Laker basketball game, so the club announced the telecast was cancelled, and a tele-cast of a first-place fight with Philadelphia the following week subbed instead. Thus, King fans missed their team&rsquo;s biggest win of the season. Few even heard it on radio because the Kings and Lakers are carried on the same station and the Lakers&rsquo; are given preference. Rather than delay the Laker broadcast a half-hour, the King broadcast was delayed four hours. This calls for reconsideration.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-02665/3194847-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1252" height="1347"><figcaption class="caption-body">BILL FLETT &hellip; Could Be Top NHL Rookie</figcaption></div>Asked what he thought of his rookie broadcaster Ken &ldquo;Jiggs&rdquo; McDonald, Kings owner Jack Kent Cooke said, &ldquo;I think he is the finest in hockey already. Seeing this young man come through for me is as big a thrill as seeing some of our young players come through.&rdquo; &hellip; Since ending participation in the Kings&rsquo; broadcasts at mid-season, well-known sales Boosters, Inc., which provides gifts for guests, has failed to provide gifts for guests who already had been on the show and had been promised prizes &hellip; The Kings now have had six crowds above 10,000 in 14 games in their now Forum topped by 15,752 for Chicago and are aver aging around 9,000 there.After two weeks in the AHL, Dale Rolfe was recalled around the first of March &hellip; After five weeks out with a seperated shoulder, Brian Smith returned to action the first week of March &hellip; Eddie Joyal had eight goals in 10 games and now is second on the club with 21 goals and first with 51 points &hellip; Lowell MacDonald scored goals in four straight games and nine games out of 12 &hellip; After Rutledge had started 11 straight games, Terry Sawchuk has returned from the injury list with starts in the last three. &#9632;

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’COWBOY’ FLETT RIDES ROOGHSHOD OVER NHL RIVALS

SARNIA, Ont. &ndash;A first for professional sports will be achieved here in June when the first annual North American Trainers&rsquo; School of Techniques is conducted.Director of the school, Fraser Gleeson, a 15-year veteran of the professional trainers world, has announced his new school would be open to trainers from all sports as well as individuals aspiring to enter the profession.The three-day school will be held at the Holiday Motor Hotel June 28, 29 and 30.Primary function of the school will be instruct candidates on the proper use of training equipment, procedures of the dressing room and in depth explanations of athletic injuries and the treatments they require.Gleeson, a native of Sarnia, Ontario, has lined-up a full schedule for the school and has arranged for nationally-known speakers to discuss trainer&rsquo;s problems and requirements.Gleeson, trainer for the two-time Central Hockey League champion Oklahoma City Blazers, has acquired Dan Canney, head trainer for the Boston Bruins, as his chief instructor for the school.Canney, a native of Boston, is a member of the National Trainers Association and is in his fifth season with the Bruins after 12 years of experience in minor league hockey.Canney reports his staff will conduct a broad and Intensive view of present-day concepts of the prevention and treatment of athletic injuries.Lectures, panel discussions and demonstrations will be conducted and ample opportunity will be provided for questions and discussions by trainees, Canney said.An instructional fee of $75 will be charged for the three-day program and interested persons can secure more information about the school from: The North American Trainers School of Techniques, 1708 North Vermont, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73107. &#9632;

Trainers’ School First For Pro Sports

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-01848/3194909-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg"></div><h2>Vancouver Would Add Lustre To NHL Scene</h2>Hockey News Editor:Here is another vote for the entry of Vancouver into the NHL. I think it would be more profitable and fitting for Oakland to move to a better site, such as Vancouver.This city would draw more fans and would be the most enthusiastic location in the league. Fans would journey from as far as the Prairies to see the top hockey players in the world perform in Vancouver.I cannot see why some NHL governors are against Oakland moving to Vancouver. They aren&rsquo;t making any sense at all.DAVID HOFFMAN, Sheho, Sask.<h2>Russians Not On Par With Teams in NHL</h2>After watching the Russians on TV during the Olympics and then seeing the NHL Game of the Week the following day, I find it difficult to see how anyone could possibly say that the Russian team can compare with the NHL in skating, shooting, and checking, let alone speed of play.The Canadian National team would have considerable trouble defeating teams in the WHL and CPHL, yet the Russians maintain that they could beat the best in the world, the NHL.To conclude that the Russians are the greatest hockey players in the world as a result of the mediocre Olympic competition reveals an obvious lack of hockey knowledge.ERNIE RUDLOFF, Huntington, N.Y.<h2>New Fan Clubs For NHL Stars</h2>Hockey News Editor:Would you kindly inform your readers I have formed fan clubs for Gary Jarrett, the fine young rookie of Detroit Red Wings, and Mike Walton, the Toronto all-star. Membership is $1 per year and includes photos, membership card, bulletins, and many other surprises. Postage costs are also included.MARK HUESTIS, 348 Dufferin Row West, Saint John, N.B.Hockey News Editor:Please publish in your Fan Forum column that anyone interested in joining the Keith McCreary fan club may do so by writing to me at the address below.HARLEY CHARETTE, 6 HOte] de Ville St., Deschenes. Que.<h2>Detroit Robbed, Too, She&rsquo;s Ullman Booster</h2>Hockey News Editor:I just read the letter in Fan Forum from Richard Williams, the ex-Toronto fan who said the &ldquo;trade with Detroit was very stupid&rsquo;&rsquo;, and that now he disowns the Leafs.How does he think we Detroit fans feel? I personally adored Normie Ullman. I thought there was no finer centre in hockey. In fact, I still do! I wish him every success with the Maple Leafs, for he deserves it.Although I think Detroit got the raw end of the deal, lam still a Red Wing fan. lintend, to continue to root both for Normie Ullman and my team, the Detroit Red Wings, win or lose.MAUREEN EVANS, Detroit, Mich. &#9632;

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FAN FORUM

<div class="byline">By ken McKenzie</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-02800/3194961-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="504" height="488"></div>MOST EVERY hockey fan in Canada is anxious to see Vancouver obtain a National Hockey League franchise &hellip; but the chances of this coming about seem very remote right now &hellip; The NHL is too concerned about losing the lucrative TV market of San Francisco-Oakland &hellip; This is the fourth largest television market in the States &hellip; Montreal Canadiens average 31 shots on goal per game, which makes them the &ldquo;shootingest&rdquo; team in the circuit &hellip;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-03696/3194954-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="246" height="469"><figcaption class="caption-body">Phil Esposito</figcaption></div>Statistics reveal that only 47 of 100 shots taken by NHL players actually are on the goal &hellip; This is a poor record indeed, when you think that less than half of the shots taken are wide of the intended mark &hellip; Phil Esposito, the ex-Chicago center who is having such a fabulous season with Boston, said this recently: &ldquo;In Chicago Hull (Bobby) was the big man and rightly so. But with the Bruins I&rsquo;ve been able to shoot a lot more. When I centered for Hull my primary job was to feed him. But in Boston they told me to carry the puck and shoot more, and that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ve been doing&rdquo; &hellip; When someone criticized Rangers&rsquo; Rod Gilbert about going out a lot, he had a marvellous answer to give back. &ldquo;Sure I go out a lot. It&rsquo;s my way of relaxing. Some guys like to sleep. I like to chase girls"&hellip; Gilbert is one of the most exciting players to perform in the NHL for a long time. He&rsquo;s a great natural scoring star. He&rsquo;s as handsome as a movie star and dresses and lives with a flourish. He has oodles of poise and first-class manners. He&rsquo;s got a quality known as style &hellip; and this makes him one of the most refreshing and colorful players around today &hellip; Norm Ullman is the fourth Toronto player to be issued No. 9. The others were Charlie Conacher, Ted Kennedy and Dickie Duff.DANNY GALLIVAN celebrates his 25th anniversary as a hockey broadcaster on March 23. The popular play-by-play announcer of the Montreal Canadiens aired his first game over Station CJFX in Antigonish, N.S&hellip;. Old pro Allan Stanley won&rsquo;t be back with Toronto Maple Leafs next season. Also not returning are two or three other veterans on the Leafs &hellip; Chicago&rsquo;s Pierre Pilote is expected to be traded by the Hawks during the off-season &hellip; Either Bill Gadsby or Fern Flaman will be appointed as coach of the Detroit Red Wings. Both men are very capable in the position and the Red Wings are fortunate to have men such as these two in their organization and ready to take over from Sid Abel &hellip; When talking about outstanding coaching jobs this season don&rsquo;t forget Harry Sinden of the Boston Bruins. The youthful mentor has done a superb chore in keeping the Bruins afloat after the injury to Bobby Orr and indifferent goaling from time to time &hellip; Whatever happens to the Oakland franchise in the NHL &mdash; if it moves to Vancouver or not &mdash; the Labatt Breweries of Canada scored heavily in the public relations department &hellip; The hockey fans in Vancouver and British Columbia know that the Brewery did everything possible to bring NHL hockey to the West Coast metropolis &hellip; Glenn Hall has been playing fantastic goal for St. Louis during the last half of the schedule. He&rsquo;s earning the huge salary that Sid Salomon is paying him &hellip; The fourth annual Cornwall, Ont. Sports Award dinner takes place on April 17 at the New Parkway Hotel in that city &hellip; They say the situation regarding the Philadelphia Spectrum roof has now developed into a real political football and no one knows just when the Flyers will return to their home arena. This is the toughest blow expansion has suffered as the Flyers were successful in selling hockey to Philadelphia sports fans and the club has topped the Western Division throughout most of the season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-04597/3194947-1-eng-US/f0004-042.jpg" title="f0004-04" width="246" height="442"><figcaption class="caption-body">Danny Gallivan</figcaption></div>A FIRST for Professional Sports is the North American Trainers School of Techniques being held this June at Sarnia, Ont. See full particulars in advertisement in this issue &hellip; Nine members of the Montreal Canadiens are graduates of the Metropolitan Junior Hockey League of Montreal. There are 34 grads of this league in the NHL right now according to Alex McKellar, president of the organization. Four goalies, Bernie Parent, Philadelphia; Rog Vachon, Montreal; Eddie Johnston, Boston; and George Gardner, Detroit; performed in this league &hellip; The current issue of Sport Magazine gives as comprehensive a picture of Bobby Hull as has ever been compiled. Sport studies Bobby through the eyes of his teammates, his rivals and the fans in an unusual feature titled: &ldquo;Three Views of Bobby Hull&rdquo; &hellip; &ldquo;How An Expansion Team Could Win the Stanley Cup!&rdquo; is a most interesting and thought-provoking story in the March issue of HOCKEY WORLD &hellip; Art Brewster did a fine cartoon on Philadelphia&rsquo;s goaling sensations Bernie Parent and Doug Favell for the cover&hellip; Red Kelly made two predictions at the start of this season. He said L.A. would make the playoffs and it seems positive that they will, and he stated Toronto would not. He appears right on both counts &hellip; &ldquo;It was just something I felt,&rdquo; mentioned the Los Angeles coach &hellip; Jean Ratelie is credited with being the spark of the highflying Rangers &hellip; There wasn&rsquo;t any finer junior in Canada than Ratelle and it&rsquo;s nice to see him finally playing the way he was expected.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-05476/3194940-1-eng-US/f0004-052.jpg" title="f0004-05" width="272" height="456"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jean Ratelie</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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PASSING THE PUCK

<div class="byline">BY GLENN REDMANN</div>TWIN CITIES, Minn.&mdash;Ever since the untimely death of Bill Masterton in mid January, the Minnesota North Stars have been at least one forward short.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-01785/3194992-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="278" height="464"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sandy Fitzpatrick</figcaption></div>Then when Centerman Ray Cullen went on the shelf for nearly three weeks with a hairline fracture of the right ankle early in February, the Minnesotans frequently found themselves going complete games with only nine forwards.In between, general manager coach Wren Blair made a deal with Phoenix for the major league rights to first-year pro Walt McKechnie and brought up tough Ted McCaskill and George Standing &mdash; also first-year pros &mdash; from Memphis for brief trials.But as McKechnie so aptly put it, &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t blame a coach for not wanting to go with a first-year pro when his club has a chance to go all the way and get a shot at a bundle of playoff money.&rdquo;Blair kept trying, however, when he called up Sandy Fitzpatrick from Memphis last month.Although the 23-year-old Fitzpatrick had two full Central League seasons plus part of another under his belt, Wren admitted that it was another move born of desparation. &#9632;

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Fitzpatrick Filling Gap For Undermanned North Stars

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-02672/3195023-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg"></div>NEW YORK, N.Y. &ndash;The National Hockey League&rsquo;s Board of Governors have given their approval for a memorial award to honor the late Bill Masterton.The 29-year-old forward of the Minnesota North Stars, who died Jan. 13 of head injuries sustained in an NHL game, will have his memory perpetuated each year by an award to be presented to the player who best demonstrates the qualities of sportsmanship, dedication and perseverance to hockey.The selection will be made by the National Hockey League Writers Association and will be a sort of &lsquo;unsung hero&rsquo; award with the emphasis on players who toil game in and game out yet never receive recognition for their efforts on the ice.Typical of the players the association would consider for their new award are Ralph Backstrom of Montreal, Chico Maki of Chicago, Bob Nevin of the Rangers, and many more who rarely are considered for the major NHL player awards.Many were of the opinion that Masterton best typified the &lsquo;unsung hero&rsquo; in the NHL, the little man who gave it all he had on the ice.But to and behold Fitzpatrick showed almost immediately that he had improved by considerable lengths over his showing in training camp last fall when oddly enough, his roomate was the late Masterton.After 10 games In a North Star sweater, the 6-foot-l, 190-pound native of Paisley, Scotland had seven points while centering several different combinations on the wings.Sandy&rsquo;s biggest night came at Metropolitan Sports Center March 7 when he tallied both of his team&rsquo;s goals in a 2-2 tie against pesky Pittsburgh.Coach Red Sullivan&rsquo;s Penguins, who hold a 4-2-2 edge over the Minnesotans in their first eight meetings, rallied from a 1-0 deficit and were leading 2-1 when Fitzpatrick struck from close range at 12;40 of the third period to give his team a deadlock.Then two nights later, it was Sandy who picked up a loose puck in the Minnesota end and started a third-period play which ended with Bill Goldsworthy knocking in his team&rsquo;s lone goal of a 1-1 tie against New York&rsquo;s streaking Rangers.Although Fitzpatrick had scored 16 goals and assisted on 23 others at Memphis, Blair couldn&rsquo;t recall too many glowing reports coming out of the Tennessee metropolis on the one-time Ranger farmhand.&ldquo;I was impressed by how hard he worked in camp,&rdquo; said Blair, &ldquo;but I think we both agreed that his skating needed improvement and when I told him he was going to Memphis he took it real well.&ldquo;Oh yes, I think his skating has Improved. He&rsquo;s done very well at digging the puck out of the corners and from behind the net, too. Although his line hasn&rsquo;t had too many scoring opportunities, they seem to have made the best of those that have come their way.&rdquo;Fitzpatrick admittedly was surprised to be called up so late in the season even though he was well aware of Cullen&rsquo;s injury.&ldquo;I had just about given up hope of being moved up to the parent club,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;But I tried not to let it effect my play at Memphis. I was captain down there, so it wouldn&rsquo;t have looked very well for me to be brooding over not being recalled.&ldquo;To be quite frank,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I think my skating still has quite a way to go to measure up to NHL standards. But if work will bring out the necessary improvement, then I&rsquo;m confident I&rsquo;ll make it.&rdquo;After that 1-1 tie against New York which pushed them to within a single point of West Division leader Philadelphia, the North Stars had to hop a plane for Quebec City, where after a 4:30 a.m. arrival they were blanked by the Flyers that night 2-0 to again fall three points out of the lead.Misfortune struck the Stars in the first period of that game when goalie Cesare Maniago suffered a mild concussion and had to leave the game with the score tied 0-0.The night before, the 6-2, 175 pound Maniago was simply magnificent in turning back 39 shots by his former New York teammates to lead his team to a tie. The Rangers&rsquo; lone goal by Harry Howell at 12:39 of the third period came on a shot that deffected off North Star defenseman Bob McCord&rsquo;s skate past Maniago.At one juncture of the contest when Goldsworthy was in the penalty box, Cesare was credited with six saves in 53 seconds. &ldquo;He was the difference,&rdquo; said New York manager-coach Emile Francis. &ldquo;We had enough shots to win it.&rdquo; &#9632;

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’Unsung Hero’ Award To Honor Masterton

<div class="byline">CAROL MASTERTON</div>WINNIPEG, Man.Following is a letter submitted to THE HOCKEY NEWS from Mrs. Carol Masterton, wife of the former Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; player who died Jan. 13.SAT. MARCH 2, 1968The Editor,Hockey News,Montreal, Que.Dear Sir:So many kind people in Minnesota and ip many parts of the United States and Canada, hockey fans and others, have sent their expressions of sympathy and kindness in our tragic loss of Bill. It is simply impossible for me to acknowledge them individually.1 am therefore hoping you will be kind enough to put this letter in THE HOCKEY NEWS to let your readers know the many hundreds of people who wrote, made contributions to the Bill Masterton Memorial Fund, and helped in so many ways; that their great kindness and sympathy is deeply appreciated by me and my two children, Bill&rsquo;s parents and brother, and my family.To those who contributed to the Memorial Fund, I would like them to know it is my hope to establish a scholarship fund in Memory of Bill, in the very near future.Thank you sincerely, &#9632;

Mrs. Carol Masterton Thanks Sympathizers

<div class="byline">BY TOM MONAHAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-01878/3195092-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="269" height="470"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Zeidel</figcaption></div>BOSTON, Mass.&mdash;It was a hectic week for the Bruins. They battled into third place in the NHL&rsquo;s Eastern Division standings; challenged for second place; Larry Zeidel and Eddie Shack played the woodchoppers ball on each other skull, drawing four and three-game suspensions and $300 fines; Derek Sanderson landed in Toronto General Hospital with an eye injury; the Bruins were accused of bigotry by Zeidel for making derogatory remarks that were neither wholly confirmed nor denied.The Zeidel-Shack incident took place in Toronto when the Bruins game March 7 with Philadelphia had to be moved because of roof damage to the Flyers&rsquo; spectrum homesite. Sanderson was hit in the left eye by a flying puck on a shot by teammate Dallas Smith.There was fear for a time that his vision had been impaired. He had to be helped from the ice and the wound required 15 stiches. He was kept in Toronto General Hospital two days for observation and examination and X-rays did reveal a slight fracture of the high cheekbone.The 21-year-old center has been one of the Bruins&rsquo; most pleasant surprises this season.A scrappy 170-pounder with the reputation of being a junior hockey &ldquo;brat&rdquo; with Niagara Falls the two previous years, Sanderson mended his ways after a talk with Coach Harry Sinden and has been one of the B&rsquo;s top scorers.Until his injury, Turk, as he is called by his teammates, had scored 22 goals and had 44 assists. His 22 goals are just four short of the 26 scored by Roy Conacher in his first season with the Bruins back in 1938-39 season.Although Conacher set this Bruins&rsquo; rookie record in only 48 games, still Sanderson&rsquo;s performance has been noteworthy and he&rsquo;s the league&rsquo;s prime candidate for the Calder Trophy over the season.His loss for even two games at a time when the Bruins are jockeying for playoff position while Bobby Orr still is on the injured list, Ron Murphy, Tom Williams and Eddie Westfall also are below par physically and Phil Esposito is bothered by a cranky knee, presented another big problem for Sinden.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02712/3195085-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="596" height="1280"><figcaption class="caption-body">DEREK SANDERSON &hellip; His Injury Hurt B&rsquo;s</figcaption></div>&ldquo;We miss the kid,&rdquo; said Sinden. He has done a good job all season and he&rsquo;s a good hockey player. He not only scores, but he is aggressive both fore checking and back checking. &ldquo;The loss of Sanderson also took away from the Bruins&rsquo; penalty killing strength.Skip Krake had to take a regular turn at center with Westfall and Glen Sather working the wings.They have been the Bruins&rsquo; short-handed specialists all season.The loss of Shack with his three-game suspension also forced Sinden to move the veteran Murphy into the lineup sooner than anticipated with Murphy taking over left wing for Esposito and Ken Hodge.Fortunately, Williams&rsquo; bruised back showed steady improvement during the week so that Harry had enough bodies to handle his juggling act but the situation was a mite hairy to say the least.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03520/3195078-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="589" height="1280"><figcaption class="caption-body">EDDIE SHACK &hellip; Involved in Fracas</figcaption></div>Zeidel accused the Bruins for having warned him &ldquo;they&rsquo;d put him on a slab and send him to the gas chamber&rdquo; and fingered Don Awrey, Tom Williams and Gerry Cheevers as the instigators.After his initial accusation Zeidel clammed up but there was at least one discrepency in his statement &mdash; Williams didn&rsquo;t even dress for the Thursday night game in Toronto.Sinden denied hearing any remarks from the bench directed at Zeidel, &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t doubt someone called him a Jew-Boy or something like that on the ice. He was calling Esposito &ldquo;Wop". That doesn&rsquo;t mean they are bigots.&ldquo;And,&rdquo; added Sinden, you know Zeidel has a reputation of being one of the greatest stick-men In Hockey.&rdquo;That particular situation was under further investigation by NHL president Clarence Cambpell.In the meantime the Bruins were going about their business of improving their position in the race under trying circumstances. &#9632;

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Bruins Put In Hectic Hockey Week

BOSTON, Mass. &ndash;ICE CHIPS - Bobby Orr returned to uniform a week earlier than anticipated originally &hellip; He donned skates just one month after his operation for removal of the medial cartilage in his left knee &hellip; Bobby skated with the B&rsquo;s in practice Monday and Tuesday but avoided contact work &hellip; Although he reported his knee was sound and gave him no trouble &hellip; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m badly out of shape, though, &ldquo;he said. &ldquo;My wind is gone and my feet hurt. It will take at least a week of skating before I have my wind back and my feet toughen up again.&rdquo;&hellip; Murphy recovering from his third shoulder operation in six months repeats his condition is all right &hellip; My legs feel great and my arms aren&rsquo;t bothering me. But my timing Is off. Against Detroit I had a sure goal but misfired because I am not sharp yet&rdquo; &hellip; Murphy continues to work out dally on a light punching back to condition his arms and shoulders as well as working with weights &hellip; &#9632;

Orr Returns To Ice Drills

DULUTH, Minn. &ndash;Denver University Pioneers won the 1968 National Collegiate Amateur Association hockey championship for the fourth time and head coach Murray Armstrong says his team can look back to its tough competition against three world hockey squads for giving the new champions their fine edge in this year&rsquo;s tournament.The Pioneers duplicated their feat of winning the NCAA title in 1958, 1960 and 1961 by defeating North Dakota in the show-down game 4-0.Denver, which had already beaten North Dakota three times in four previous meetings this season, had to score four times in the final period to earn its title win.Armstrong, the one-time National League player with the New York Americans, said exhibition games against the American, Russian and Finnish national teams toughened his team up for the NCAA tournament.In tribute to his young skater^ Armstrong said, &ldquo;they are the youngest and most determined bunch I&rsquo;ve had. They certainly worked hard for their championship win.&rdquo;While Denver walked off with the title and North Dakota wound up second, pre-tourney favorite Cornell had to settle for third place as the result of a 6-1 victory over Boston College.The Bid Red from Cornell just didn&rsquo;t have it and saw their hopes for a second straight NCAA title disappear when they were defeated by North Dakota in a first-round game. Denver also downed Boston 4-1 in a preliminary game to set up an all-Western final.Denver, which brought an impressive 27-5-1 record into the tourney, succeeded in extending its victory streak to 22 games in a row by beating North Dakota in the final.Bob Trembecky scored two of the Denver goals in the championship game, a performance that earned him a spot on the all-NCAA first all-star team along with goalie Garry Powers and defenseman Keith Magnuson, both of Denver.Powers was chosen the most valuable player of the four-team tournament after yielding only one goal in two games.Others named to the NCAA team included Terry Abram of North Dakota on defense and forward Brian Cornell of Cornell. Goalie Ken Dryden, brother of Chicago Black Hawks &rsquo; netminder Dave Dryden, was picked on the second all-star team. He was the backbone of the Cornell defense this season.Cornell had come West after winning the ECAC title by whomping Boston University 7-2. Boston College had beaten Clarkson 65 to win an invitation to the NCAA tournament along with Cornell. Boston College lost their ECAC tourney game to Cornell 6-3.<h2>UNITED STATES LEAGUE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-01820/3195147-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="643" height="1554"></div> &#9632;

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Denver Topples North Dakota For Title

<div class="byline">BY JIM PROUDFOOT</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-01865/3195185-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="285" height="458"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tim Horton</figcaption></div>TORONTO, Ont. &ndash;It&rsquo;s very likely that the J. P. Bickell Trophy, for the third time since its inception, won&rsquo;t be awarded in Toronto this season.Honoring the memory of a long-time Maple Leaf Gardens executive, the trophy is given to a Leaf player for one tremendous feat, a season of spectacular play or for remarkable service over a period of time. The board of directors, who pick the recipient, is permitted to decide nobody is worthy and they did so in 1957 and 1958, when Leafs missed the Stanley Cup playoffs. Chances are they&rsquo;ll reach a similar conclusion this spring, for it&rsquo;s been a sad season at Church and Carlton,The trophy is valued at $10,000. and the replica given to each winner is worth $500. But it&rsquo;ll be difficult to single out any Leaf this time around. There isn&rsquo;t one player who&rsquo;s had a consistently good season from start to finish. No individual has accomplished anything truly remarkable. And it&rsquo;s obvious there aren&rsquo;t going to be many miracle finishes to excite the Toronto populace.There is one way out, and it makes excellent sense. It&rsquo;s painfully obvious that this will be George Armstrong&rsquo;s final season and the directors may see fit to honor him for his distinguished service to the organization as a fine right-winger and an excellent team captain.Since the Bickell Trophy first was struck in 1953, the winners have been Ted Kennedy, Harry Lumley, Kennedy again, Tod Sloan nobody in &rsquo;57 or &rsquo;58 co-recipients George Armstrong and Bob Pulford in 1959, Johnny Bower, Red Kelly, Dave Keon, Keon again, Bower twice more, Allan Stanley and, last year, Terry Sawchuk, in recognition of his playoff heroics.Check over this season&rsquo;s lineup, though and decide for yourself:Bower and Bruce Gamble have been reasonably good in goal, but they haven&rsquo;t done as well as their averages would indicate. It&rsquo;s misleading because, if Leafs were scoring more, they&rsquo;d have been winning more regularly and their goalkeeping would look better.Apart from Um Horton, the defence has suffered through a mediocre winter. And even Horton has tailed off badly enough to suggest he may blow the all star berth he won over the first half of the season.Among the forwards, Murray Oliver has been doggedly efficient but hasn&rsquo;t been scoring proportionately. Nobody else has been steady, not even Mike Walton, who leads the team in goals.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-02766/3195178-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="1252" height="2018"><figcaption class="caption-body">With the coming of Easter, support for the cause of crippled children has been urged by the Canadian Rehabilitation Council For The Disabled by the purchase of Easter Seals. Here&rsquo;s the campaign &lsquo;Timmy&rsquo;, young MICHAEL MANDERSON of Newcastle, N.B., who was photographed with GEORGE ARMSTRONG of the Maple Leafs when he attended a game in Toronto this season.</figcaption></div>Leafs&rsquo; best player by far right now is centre Norm Ullman, who came here in the big March 3 swap with Detroit Red Wings. He is the perfect example of what Leafs want their centres to do. He forechecks tirelessly &mdash; and effectively &mdash; and sets up plays shrewdly. As a bonus, he is a dangerous scorer himself.He&rsquo;s going to wind up spending less than a month with Leafs, and that&rsquo;s not enough to be considered for any individual prize.Preliminary judgment is that the deal did Leafs a lot of good. Coach Punch Imlach put Ullman with the other newcomers, Floyd Smith flush and Paul Hander son, on one forward line and they collected six goals in their first two games with Toronto.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s my best line,&rdquo; Imlach said. &ldquo;They go for the goal, without any fooling around, and that&rsquo;s what we need.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no secret why I made this trade. We needed some scoring. I dealt 30 goals for 60. If I&rsquo;d had those 60 all season, we wouldn&rsquo;t be in the jackpot we&rsquo;re in now. &ldquo; &#9632;

f0008-01

Leafs’ Pathetic Season May Cancel Bickel I MVP Award

<div class="byline">&#x2014;PROUDFOOT</div>TORONTO, Ont.It&rsquo;s impossible to evaluate the players his Detroit Red Wings got from Toronto Maple Leafs this soon said manager-coach Sid Abel.Frank Mahovlich, Gary Unger and Pete Stemkowski are in poor condition, Abel charged in what could be interpreted only as a rap at coaching methods employed by beat boss Punch Imlach.&ldquo;They aren&rsquo;t in proper shape, either mentally or physically, to play hockey,&rdquo; Abel said.&ldquo;I know Toronto players are supposed to be in wonderful condition, but I was amazed to find that these three weren&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Able said.&ldquo;This is why I&rsquo;m giving these new men as much ice time as I can,&rdquo; Abel explained.Abel and Imlach have feuded mildly over coaching techniques since the Stanley Cup finals of 1964. Wings, who seldom practised and spent most days off at the races, held a 3-2 lead in that series. Imlach persisted with rigorous daily workouts and his club came back to win.Leaf drills this year have been noticeably easier, a hint that Abel may have hit upon a major discovery. Detroit players report he&rsquo;s been a tougher boss since his club descended into the second division. &#9632;

Abel Charges Leaf Players In Big Trade Not In Shape

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-01841/3195240-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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National Hockey League Summaries

<div class="byline">BY DAN MOULTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-01855/3195271-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">JACK NORRIS &hellip; nerves were shot</figcaption></div>CHICAGO, III. &ndash;A month or so ago, Jack Norris had decided to quit hockey after having been battered 12-3 by Tulsa while tending goal for the Black Hawks&rsquo; Dallas team in the Central League.Now he&rsquo;s being hailed as the main reason the Black Hawks are assured of a spot In the Stanley Cup playoffs, and even have a chance of moving into second place in the NHL&rsquo;s Eastern division.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d just plain had it,&rdquo; said Norris as he sat trying to unwind in the dressing room after kicking out 27 shots in a 4-0 victory over Toronto.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d even sent my resignation to our coach, Bobby Kromm. My confidence was gone, my reflexes were awful and my nerves were shot. I didn&rsquo;t see much point in trying any more. After all, I&rsquo;d been in pro hockey for several years and didn&rsquo;t see much future. I don&rsquo;t think I even slept for a week.&rdquo;The Hawks&rsquo; management which had picked up Norris in that trade with Boston last summer along with Pit Martin and Gilles Marotte for Phil Esposito, Fred Stanfield, and Ken Hodge, managed to talk Jack out of his plans to return to his farm In Canada.Earlier, when he&rsquo;d had trouble, they&rsquo;d sent him for a week&rsquo;s holiday In Mexico. This time, though, he was simply allowed to sit out the action while Bob Sneddon tended the Dallas nets.Norris went back to work after seven games, following a9-3beating by those same nasty fellows from Tulsa, and had worked In seven more games until the call came from Chicago.He came up as an emergency replacement for Denis DeJordy, who suffered a split finger on his catching hand. Under the emergency rule, he&rsquo;ll have to return to Dallas when DeJordy is ready to go. But that could be quite a way in the future, according to Coach Billy Reay, who has been desperate for solid goal-tending in recent weeks.&ldquo;You just can&rsquo;t tell about those fingers,&rdquo; said Reay. &ldquo;Denis might not be healthy for three or four weeks. You just never know.&rdquo; Included among Jack&rsquo;s 27 saves was one against Mike Walton&rsquo;s penalty shot, awarded by Referee Bruce Hood early In the second period when he was hauled down from behind on a breakaway by Doug Jarrett.The Hawks were mursing a 1-0 lead at the time and a penalty-shot goal could have given the Leafs&rsquo; morale a tremendous lift.However, Jack stayed with Walton all the way, forced the Leafs&rsquo; center to make the first move and took the shot high on his right pads.Just before stationing himself in the cage to meet Walton, Norris skated over for a short conference with Reay.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d never faced Walton before on a break-away,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;I wanted to know what he was likely to do. Billy just told me to use my own judgment.&rdquo;Jack admitted he was more nervous after the stop than he was before.&ldquo;I went weak In the knees and could feel my face flush while I was waiting for them to line up for the face-off after the shot,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I really hadn&rsquo;t felt at all shaky before.&rdquo;Reay, who was battling to get his team out of a losing streak that had reached three games, stunned his entire team by naming Norris to start In the important clash with last year&rsquo;s Stanley Cup champs.&ldquo;When Billy had Norris warmup first before the game, we all figured that (Dave) Dryden would start,&rdquo; said Hawk Captain Pierre Pilote. &ldquo;The coach really shook us up when he Informed us that It would be Norris just before we went on the Ice to start the game.&rdquo;&ldquo;Actually, Jack made up my mind for me the previous night in Montreal,&rdquo; said Reay, who had replaced Dryden with Norris at the start of the second period with the Hawks trailing 3-0.&ldquo;I thought he played very well against the Canadiens. You sure couldn&rsquo;t fault him for the two goals they got. And he really rose to the occasion In this one, although I was afraid the first shot the Leafs took at him was going in when it dropped between his pads.&ldquo;You know, a coach and manager don&rsquo;t have too much to worry about at a time like that. There are only 16,000 or so fans ready to jump down your throat if the move back-fires.&rdquo;The 26-year-old Norris, who turned pro with Los Angeles of the Western League in 1963-64, had played only 23 games in the National Hockey League (with the Bruins during the 1964-65 season) going into the Toronto game. But the shutout was his second in the big league.&ldquo;I remember the first pretty well&rdquo; he said with a laugh. &ldquo;It was against the Maple Leafs, too. I guess I have pretty good luck with them. &#9632;

f0010-01

Norris Rebounds With Hawks After Threatening To Quit

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-01845/3195340-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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NHL SCORING RACE

<div class="byline">BY GIL SMITH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-02768/3195371-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="252" height="464"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dick Duff</figcaption></div>MONTREAL, Que. &ndash;Dick Duff aims to be a card-carrying member in hockey&rsquo;s 250-goal club by the time this season is over.The hardrock Canadlens winger needs just two goals by March 31st to join the scoring elite. He had 248 goals with eight games left in the schedule.Duff, who was 32 last month, is having a dandy season with Habs. He had 43 points (25-18) despite missing eight games through injury, and was playing with more dash than he&rsquo;d shown in some time. Mostly, he&rsquo;s been working on a line with rookie Jacques Lemaire and Bobby Rousseau, and they&rsquo;ve been the second highest scoring unit on the team.This is Duff&rsquo;s 13th season in the league and he&rsquo;s had his share of ups and downs. A star with Toronto during the late &lsquo;fifties, Dick fell from grace as 1960 dawned and was eventually peddled to New York in a multi-player swap in 1964. His friend, Bob Nevin, also went along in that deal, but, while Nevin settled down to become an important man with Rangers, Duff just couldn&rsquo;t seem to get with it. New York dealt him to Montreal for Billy Hicke in December of 1964.In his sojourn with Canadiens, Duff has appeared in many different lights. He has run the gamut from autograph-signing star to brooding bench-warmer. There have been nights when he looked like the complete hockey player, a driving, hard-skating winger who could thread a needle with the puck. And, there&rsquo;ve been other nights when he was so inconspicuous that you had to check with Art Kennedy, the statistician at Montreal games, to be certain that he&rsquo;d taken a turn on the ice.One thing that rankles Duff is the fact that he&rsquo;s never won an award, nor made an all-star team, in his 12 completed seasons in the league. When someone mentioned this to him, onetime, he replied: &ldquo;Well, it just goes to show you how long I&rsquo;ve been over-looked.&rdquo;Duff patterned himself after the fiery Ted Lindsay, and, while he&rsquo;s not likely to achieve the prominence that Lindsay did, there are similarities in style. It was Lindsay who impressed on Duff the importance of not backing away from opponents, and Dick took the lesson to heart. He&rsquo;s traded punches with some of the best of them over the years, though, as he matured, his penalty total declined. He still plays an agressive type of game, however, and is fearless in the corners.When Dick joined Canadiens In the 1964-65 season, his kindly old coach, Toe Blake, was a bit non-plussed about him. Asked what he thought about the player, Blake said: &ldquo;Well, when he was with Toronto, he showed he could do quite a lot of things. He went both ways, he scored, checked and killed penalties. I expect him to do the same for us.&rdquo;Blake&rsquo;s expectations were a long time being fulfilled. But, Duff looked sharp In 1965-66, when he helped Canadiens to a first-place finish and the Stanley Cup. He was a disappointment last season, being hobbled by Injuries, and Habs didn&rsquo;t protect him In the first round of the expansion draft, last June. They were fortunate that nobody claimed him. &#9632;

f0011-02

Veteran Dick Duff Aims To Join 250-Goal Club By Season’s End

<div class="byline">BY ED CONRAD</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-01827/3195416-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"></div>PHILADELPHIA, P.A. &ndash;If you&rsquo;re looking for a sentimental favorite to win this year&rsquo;s Stanley Cup you needn&rsquo;t look any farther than the City of Brotherly Love.The homeless Flyers continue to wage a determined battle to win the Western Division title even though it appears the club will be forced to play the last 14 games of the regular season &mdash; probably all of its possible&rsquo;-playoff games, too &mdash; on the road.That&rsquo;s because petty bickering in Philadelphia politics apparently has forced the Spectrum &mdash; the Flyers&rsquo; new $12 million arena &mdash; to close its doors for the remainder of the campaign.A section of tar paper had blown off the roof on two different occasions and, for that reason, the Spectrum was deemed unsafe. Politics has turned a molehill into a mountain concerning its repair.This meant that the Flyers had to shift the site of their home dates to other rinks. They played a 1-1 tie in New York against the Oakland Seals and dropped a 2-1 verdict to the Boston Bruins in their second home-away-from home encounter in Toronto.The club finally chalked up a victory on its &ldquo;home&rdquo; ice when it blanked the Minnesota North Stars, 2-0, in Quebec, where it also was to battle the Los Angeles Kings and Toronto Maple Leafs. Two other &ldquo;home&rdquo; dates remain and it is expected that these, too, would be played in Quebec.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a helluva thing, not being able to play in the rink we&rsquo;ve been using all year in Philadelphia.&rdquo; said Flyers&rsquo; coach Keith Allen. &ldquo;But, the way I figure it, if we couldn&rsquo;t play there, Quebec isn&rsquo;t such a bad place to land.&rdquo;The Flyers&rsquo; American Hockey League farm team is located in Quebec and eight of the current players on the roster, including AHL scoring sensation Andre Lacroix, are on the parent club.&ldquo;If we have to play away from Philly, this is the best place to play,&rdquo; said Joe Watson, who scored the game-winning goal in the victory over Minnesota. &ldquo;The guys who played here in Quebec in past years give it that little extra because they know the fans who supported them in the past are out there cheering them on. This is important, having support of the fans.&rdquo;The Flyers&rsquo; departure from their home base at the Spectrum was a terrible blow to the club because it is estimated the organization stands to lose approximately $400,000 by playing the final seven regular-season home games on the road.&ldquo;We felt sure we&rsquo;d play before sellout crowds the last seven home dates,&rdquo; lamented general manager Bud Poile. &ldquo;What has happened has really been rough all the way around in the front office and on the ice.&rdquo;Not only will the Flyers take it on the chin financially, but they could very well feel the impact of their Inability to play in their home rink. Quebec may be friendly but Philadelphia is where the players&rsquo; families reside and playing &ldquo;home&rdquo; games on the road means that an important psychological advantage is removed.For example, the Flyers spent just two 24-hour periods with their families in Philadelphia over the past two weeks. They had been on the road for six days, then returned to Philadelphia for one day before hitting the road again for another six-day spell.If this wasn&rsquo;t bad enough, the club was scheduled to return from Quebec, spend another 24 hours at home, then head to California for one week to play contests in Los Angeles and Oakland.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tough situation, being forced on the road so much", said Allen. &ldquo;But we can&rsquo;t let that interfere with what we do on the ice. We&rsquo;ve got to make sure we&rsquo;re up for every game and play our best, no matter where we&rsquo;re playing.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve come too far to let first place slip through our hands now,&rdquo; concluded Allen. &ldquo;And the guys would like nothing more than to reward our struggling owners with an NHL title.&rdquo;<h2>NHL Player Of The Week &mdash; IN THE EAST</h2>Every time Floyd Smith steps out on the ice he helps make the big six-player trade between Toronto and Detroit look good &mdash; for the Maple Leafs.The hard-skating journeyman right winger, who was shunted to Toronto along with Norm Ullman and Paul Henderson from Detroit in exchange for Frank Mahovlich Gary Unger and Pete Stemkowski, enjoyed a highly productive week for the Leafs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-02714/3195409-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="296" height="459"><figcaption class="caption-body">Floyd Smith</figcaption></div>He pumped in four goals in two weekend games to raise his season total to 24, three more than he scored in his previous best NHL campaign.Smith has counted six times since becoming a Maple Leaf and as far as the Toronto team is concerned, he has proven more than adequate. The 32-year-old Smith is one of a very select few players this season to score four times in one game.THE HOCKEY NEWS and El Producto Cigars are pleased to salute the NHL&rsquo;s player-of the-week in the East:<blockquote class="pullQuote">Floyd Smith&hellip; Toronto</blockquote><h2>NHL Player Of The Week &mdash; IN THE WEST</h2>Bill Sutherland has always been renowned for his minor league scoring feats. The big question surrounding the skinny veteran was whether he could put the puck in the net in the big time and would he be able to stand up to the body pounding in the National League.Well the answer to both questions appears to be positive for Sutherland has scored 19 times for the new Philadelphia Flyers and could finish up with a 20-plus year before the schedule runs out. Despite his 160 pounds, he has not missed too much action with the Flyers.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03563/3195402-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="262" height="447"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill Sutherland</figcaption></div>Sutherland scored two goals this past week for the Flyers and both were key markers. One proved to be the insurance marker that helped sink the Toronto Leafs and the other aided in a 4-2 defeat of Minnesota, two big victories that enabled Philadelphia to open a sizeable Western Division lead over L.A.THE HOCKEY NEWS and El Producto Cigars are pleased to salute the NHL&rsquo;s player-of the-week in the West:<blockquote class="pullQuote">Bill Sutherland&hellip; Philly</blockquote> &#9632;

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TROUBLED FLYERS AIMING TO WIN TITLE

<div class="byline">BY LOU PRATO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-01811/3195447-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="276" height="482"><figcaption class="caption-body">Earl Ingarfield</figcaption></div>PITTSBURGH, Pa. &ndash;If the characteristics of a hockey team can by typified by one player then center Earl Ingarfield certainly symbolizes the frustration and ill fortune of the Pittsburgh Penguins during their initial National Hockey League Season.Ingarfield was the first draft choice by the embryonic Penguins in Montreal last June, and though his selection may not have been considered a steal it was tabbed a smart pick.The 33-year-old Lethbridge, Alberta, native had spent nine of his 13 professional hockey playing years with the New York Rangers where he had been one of the team&rsquo;s steadiest performers. At one time he had been part of the Rangers high-scoring line that help make Andy Bathgate a superstar. He was not only a playmaker but a solid checker and a hustler who could add spark to a team.Coach Red Sullivan, who had once been Ingarfleld&rsquo;s teammate in New York, figured he had re-unit a natural scoring tandem after taking Bathgate in the draft, too. And that&rsquo;s the way it appeared early in the Pittsburgh season as the Penguins number one line of Bathgate, Ingarfield and Ab McDonald &mdash; one-time member of Chicago&rsquo;s Scooter Line &mdash; scored with the proficiency the Penguins brass had anticipated.Then came &ldquo;the accident". During the middle of a game against Oakland at Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Civic Arena Oct. 25 Ingarfield collided with the Seals&rsquo; aggressive Bobby Baun. Ingarfield went down and was carried from the ice on a stretcher. A few hours later the report came in: a cracked right knee cap which could keep him sidelined for at least six weeks.Neither Ingarfield nor the number one Une has been the same since. And that injury was an omen, for It was only the first of many serious ones to afflict the Penguins.Later In the year, such front line performers as All-Star wingman Ken Schlnkel, goalie sensation Les Binkley and defenseman Dune McCallum would wind up In the hospital and miss several weeks of action. Ingarfield, himself, has sat out several other games since recovering from the knee injury. In January he was sidelined by pulled tendons in the left knee and as the Penguins battled for the playoffs in mid-March, Ingarfield was absent because of a severe medical reaction to swollen glands.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been around hockey a long time,&rdquo; says coach Sullivan, who started his playing career in Boston in 1949, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;ve never seen a hockey player who has had as many Injuries or sicknesses in one year than Earl. It certainly has cut his effectiveness this season. He has never really regained the same form he showed early In the year. Everytime he seems to be coming back Into his own he gets hurt or sick.&rdquo;And that&rsquo;s been the story of the Pittsburgh Penguins this year, also. Injuries spoiled the effectiveness of the Penguins, both on offense and defense.This is not meant to be an excuse for losing. But it is a reason. All clubs had to overcome injuries to key players at crucial times. But the Penguins had to counteract too many Injuries to too many key players at too many crucial times. And they did not have the depth to do so.It has been a long, gruelling, most of all &mdash; frustrating season for the Pittsburgh Penguins. And no one is more disappointed than Earl Ingarfield. &#9632;

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Hobbled By Injuries, Penguins’ Ingarfield Winds Up Dismal Year

<div class="byline">&#x2014; By Bill Libby</div><h2>Super Stars Bugged</h2>Seeing Stars; Everywhere he goes on Chicago&rsquo;s hockey trips, especially into expansion cities, Bobby Hull is besieged. Lately, Hull and Stan Mikita have been subjected to a series of luncheons. They turn around and a tape recorder is thrust at them. Chicago manager Tommy Ivan shrugs and says, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s part of the business. They handle themselves very well.&rdquo; Coach Billy Reay says, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s good for the game. I don&rsquo;t mind on off-days. I do mind on game-days. But Hull loves it. And Mikita has begun to do it pretty good, too. Possibly it&rsquo;s distracting but stars of their magnitude have to expect it and learn to live with it.&rdquo; Hull, who is a remarkably plain and pleasant person for a player of his stature, says, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not so bad,&rdquo; But the same questions, over and over again: Will you score 50 goals again? Are the defenses bothering you? How long will you play? What do you think of expansion teams? Over and over and over again.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-02699/3195492-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="294" height="474"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Hull</figcaption></div>Hanging off to a side at a recent luncheon at Jack Kent Cooke&rsquo;s Forum was Pierre Pilote, a third Chicago super-star. He is overshadowed by the two forwards, but he has been a great one for a long time now. Incredibly, he has been booed a good bit by Chicago fans this season. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t feel good about it,&rdquo; Pilote admitted quietly. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I deserve it. I have 500 pounds of sweat in the pipes under the Chicago ice. I&rsquo;ve had a good career in Chicago uniform. And generally I&rsquo;ve been treated very well by the Chicago fans. But if you score a goal today, you still got to score another one tomorrow. You can&rsquo;t harvest goals and save &lsquo;em up for winter. You gotta&rsquo; produce every game. And if you have a bad game, the fans forget the good ones you had before.&ldquo;I think the fans are particularly tough in the U.S. because most of them never played the game and don&rsquo;t really understand its Intricacies. One game, I got hit real hard. I didn&rsquo;t even know where I was for awhile. I saw a man coming at me and I tried to take him out, but I missed him and he scored. The fans booed me. Well, what&rsquo;re you gonna&rsquo; do? If you&rsquo;re gonna think about the boos, how can you think about the game? It you concentrate on the fans, you can&rsquo;t concentrate on outsmarting your foes. It&rsquo;s pretty hard to fight,&rdquo; he concluded sadly and wistfully.<h2>Ashley Former Player</h2>Portrait of a referee Art Skov, Vern Buffey and John Ashley are the senior referees in the NHL and will become 10-year men in the major league system next season. Ashley is the only one of the present NHL referees who played professional hockey, although many of the others played in the high amateur ranks. After Ashley had retired as a pro player at the tender age of 22, he got a call from the NHL office asking if he wanted to join their staff as an official. He had been officiating some kids&rsquo; games in Canada, but says he still doesn&rsquo;t know how and why the NHL picked him. Presumably somebody said he&rsquo;s obviously not a player, so he must be a referee. Actually, he had played three years with Pittsburgh in the American League, but after he was sold to Eddie Shore&rsquo;s Springfield club, he quit and rejoined the senior amateur ranks.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03546/3195485-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="295" height="484"><figcaption class="caption-body">John Ashley</figcaption></div>As a player, Ashley was a rough defenseman who spent considerable time in the penalty boxes. As a referee, he is a rough official who dishes out considerable time in the penalty boxes to others. He is a very good referee, who this season will work as many games in the NHL during the regular season as any player, 74. Although several refs have been injured this season, Ashley has never been hurt working a game, and he missed his first assignment in nine years this season when he was bedded down with flu at his home in Ontario. Despite the roughest travelling schedule he and his fellow refs ever have had, because of expansion, Ashley averages, as he always has, about three days home a week. He is married. He only beats his wife occasionally. And he seldom steals candy from children.<h2>Coaching Tough Business</h2>Comments of a coach Los Angeles rookie mentor Red Kelly says, &ldquo;Coaching has been a little tougher than I thought it would be. The second-guessing bothers me more than anything else. If you win, everything is great. If you lose, everything is wrong. Some people cannot learn to take the normal ups and downs of a season in stride. As a coach, you have to learn to work with other people. Not the writers; I&rsquo;ve found them fine. A coach has to fight for the players he wants. Unfortunately in our present situation we don&rsquo;t have all we would like to have. We don&rsquo;t have the depth the old clubs had. We can&rsquo;t just reach down and pull up a talented guy who might help. We have to make the best of what we have. And some players have disappointed me. It&rsquo;s hard for me to realize some just won&rsquo;t try sometimes. But then some have surprised me pleasantly. You have to be patient. But sometimes you have to be tough. Most expected me to be patient. Few expected me to be tough. But I&rsquo;m an Irishman, and Irishmen are stubborn. And I&rsquo;ve bossed men, in the tobacco fields, where you have to be rough., On the whole, coaching has been an interesting experience. And I haven&rsquo;t changed my mind about it. I always wanted to be a coach. I still do.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04397/3195478-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="295" height="495"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tracey Pratt</figcaption></div>Portraits of other people Sometimes when a player swan-dives to the Ice, referee Lloyd Gilmour, whom we profile in the March Hockey World Magazine, will make a &ldquo;diving&rdquo; motion with his hands, indicating that he appreciates the technical skill and bravery exhibited, but does not feel it should be rewarded with a penalty to an opposing player &hellip;Wayne Rutledge, the Los Angeles rookie goal-keeper, who wears contact lenses, became interested in the art, which it really is, learned it, and ground eight pairs of his own&hellip; He explains: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s mathematics. You figure it out, set a machine, and away you go.&rdquo;Bobby Hull is one of only a few outstanding left-wingers in the entire NHL. There is not an outstanding left-winger in all of the Western Division. In the writers&rsquo; voting for THE HOCKEY WORLD Magazine All-Star teams, Minnesota&rsquo;s Dave Balon has been getting the most votes among left-wingers but not very many. He is a good hockey player who has been having an ordinary season. But what left-winger has been better? So if you want your son to make it in hockey, take note that there are some openings on the left side &hellip; Babe Pratt&rsquo;s son Tracy was born in New York, but moved away when less than a year old. Recently, as a member of the Oakland Seals, he returned for the first time. He spent most of the game in the penalty box. Oh well, pop used to visit there a lot, too. &#9632;

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Hockey Ad Lib

<div class="byline">BY GLENN REDMANN</div>TWIN CITIES, Minn.&mdash;Minnesota general manager-coach Wren Blair openly announced at a Fan Appreciation luncheon here March 5 that U.S. Olympic team defenseman Lou Nanne &ldquo;could have an eight-game tryout with the North Stars anytime he wants it.&rdquo;But the Canadian-born former University of Minnesota All American, who was at the luncheon in the capacity of player-interviewer for a local television station, blushingly declined.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we can afford to pay Lou what he&rsquo;s presently making in four jobs (envelope salesman, U-M freshman hockey coach, semi-pro hockey player and part-time television sports-caster),&rdquo; said Blair, &ldquo;but there is an open spot on the roster and we hope he sees fit to fill it.&rdquo;The next day, after talks with Blair and MacKay Envelope Co. president Harvey Mackay, Nanne decided against joining the Stars for their game against Pitts-burgh.Blair told reporters that he had planned to use Nanne, married and the father of four children, at the right point on power plays. Lou, 26, reportedly makes $15,000 &mdash; $20,000 alone for the MacKay, company and about half of that in his other three sidelines. He indicated that he may reconsider his decision before the start of the 196869 season. &#9632;

U.S. Olympic Ace Rejects Stars’ Offer

<div class="byline">BY GEOFFREY FISHER</div>ST-LOUIS. Mo. &ndash;Close the hat&mdash;ches and secure for combat the St. Louis Blues have the smell of champagne in their nostrils and the feel of greenbacks in their wallets and with two weeks left in and with two Craig Cameron weeks left in the regular season you&rsquo;ll hear the bodies dropping In the scramble.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-01787/3195547-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="265" height="431"><figcaption class="caption-body">Craig Cameron</figcaption></div>As of mid-March the Blues, as nearly deserving of the name of &ldquo;scoreless wonders&rdquo; as one might imagine, were proving that they were not doing it with mirrors or some dime-store magic kit. After 64 games they had lost fewer than any other club in the Western Division and they had demonstrated a finishing kick that had catapulted them from fifth place into a pressure-packed sprint for the league lead. Ir their first five matches in March, as the tension tightened, the Blues won three, tied one and lost one and during that run not only opened up daylight between themselves and the pursuing Pittsburgh Penguins, but also knocked Oakland&rsquo;s Seals right out of any mathematical chance to make the playoffs.The Blues continued to do it by the closest system of shadowing the opposition that anyone has come up with since Pinkerton organized his detective agency.It&rsquo;s the frustrating kind of defensive play that one recent night caused the great Bobby Hull to rip himself away from the clutches of the Blues&rsquo; Al Arbour, who had him pinned like a paper donkey to a wall, and kick at the puck like an angry child.It&rsquo;s also the kind of stout protection that enabled Glenn (Hall of Famer) Hall to ring up his fourth shutout of the season and the 73rd of his career. Three of these have been against Oakland, a club that had scored only six goals against him in eight games. In backing up Hall, the Blues shadowed the desperate Seals so thoroughly that only 16 shots were on the Blues&rsquo; net.With the great strength of their defense, the Blues have been able to win hockey games on a trickle of goals. But that trickle has been flowing in the right direction at the right time. The Blues don&rsquo;t waste goals.Thus it was that the 1&mdash;0 shutout against Oakland in the Seals&rsquo; rink Sunday evening, March 10, was brought about by the great veteran netminder Glenn Hall barring the gates, and the rookie Craig Cameron firing his seventh goal in the first period to supply the margin.The story of Cameron is typical of the story of the Blues&rsquo; success in this first NHL season. Nobody in the Blues&rsquo; igloo from General Manager Lynn Patrick down to the stick boy even expected Cameron, a 200-pound six-foot 23-year-old from Edmonton, Alta, to be with the club. He looked like sure-fire material for the farm. But Cameron has produced the fire and hustle that has marked the play of the Blues all season. Coach Scotty Bowman has had moments of wondering when he would send fellows like Cameron and Terry Crisp down for more seasoning but as Scotty puts it &ldquo;I just can&rsquo;t turn loose players With their desire.&rdquo;Patrick said of Cameron &ldquo;He&rsquo;s all desire. We had a practice session the other morning and the boys were worked real hard by Scotty. I happened to be out in the Arena that same afternoon and there was Cameron working out again, this time with a couple of our players who were recovering from injuries.&rdquo;Patrick said Cameron and some of the other Blues&rsquo; rookies reminded him of an incident with Golfer Sam Snead one time.&ldquo;Snead had just shot a 69 or 70,&rdquo; said Patrick, &ldquo;but he was not satisfied with his game and when he came off the 18th green he headed right for the practice tee.&rdquo;Patrick said that he was more than satisfied with the performance of the St. Louis club and that the Blues had measured up at least as well as he would have hoped following the draft meetings,&ldquo;We can still finish first and that&rsquo;s quite a tribute to this club and the way Scotty (Bowman) has handled it.Patrick said that such rookies as Frank St Marseille, Tim Ecclestone, Gary Sabourin and Cameron had all exceeded expectations. The biggest boost to the Blues had come, he said through the deal made with New York Rangers that brought Gordon (Red) Berenson and Barclay Plager to the Blues in exchange for Ron Stewart and Ron Atwell.Berenson has not only been the top gun of the Blues but his strong performance in the attacking zone and his swift backchecking have been tremendous factors in the success of the club. &#9632;

f0015-01

Amazing Blues Flexing Their Muscles

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03431/3195623-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0016-03

American League Summaries

<div class="byline">BY CHARLEY BARTON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01527/3195661-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="612" height="1404"></div>GILLES VILLEMURE &hellip; Following The LineBUFFALO, N.Y. &ndash;For some reason goaltending has seldom been a problem with Buffalo hockey clubs, and nothing has &lsquo;happened this year to alter that happy situation.The list of Buffalo goaltenders through the years contains some of the top names in the game. Jacques Plante &hellip; Denis DeJordy&hellip; Harry Lumley &hellip; are just a few that come to mind quickly.A year ago, the Bisons finished last in the Western Division, but Roy Edwards and Ed Chadwick gave the club the best goaltending in the league.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02469/3195654-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="287" height="484"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ed Chadwick</figcaption></div>Chadwick and Don Simmons started the season this time around, and Gilles Villemure joined the club Dec. 30. Villemure came here from the parent New York Rangers when he and Simmons switched jobs.Gilles has taken over as the No. 1 backstop, and has supported the club with a series of top-flight performances.&ldquo;I can honestly say that Gilles hasn&rsquo;t given us a bad game, or even an off-color one,&rdquo; said Coach Fred Shero.&rsquo;&rsquo;But I can think of any number of times when he has held us together early and enabled us to get organized and win.&rsquo;He has been a big man for us. There isn&rsquo;t any part of his job that he doesn&rsquo;t do well. And he&rsquo;s a good team man.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0017-01

Villemure Keeps Net Record Up

BALTIMORE, Md. &ndash;Willie Marshall, veteran high-scoring center for the Baltimore Clippers was honored here, March 15th at the Civic Center for having played his 1000th game in the AHL.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03390/3195716-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="289" height="477"><figcaption class="caption-body">Willie Marshall</figcaption></div>Only two other players in the long and colorful history of the American League have passed this enviable plateau. Fred Glover, player-coach of the Cleveland Barons is approaching the Willie Marshall 1,200 mark, while Harry Pidhirny, who reached this goal while playing for the Clippers three years ago, wound up his pro career with a total of 1,071 games.Now in his 17th year of skating in the league, the 36-year old Marshall is generally regarded as one of the AHL&rsquo;s all-time greats. His career covers four years with the old Pittsburgh Hornets, 6 &frac12; with the Hershey Bears, a half year in Rochester, three in Providence and two in Baltimore.Marshall&rsquo;s statistics show 1,002 games played 470 goals, 731 assists for a total of 1,201 points. This places &ldquo;Wonderful Willie&rdquo; in second place behind Glover in all of these departments, but he is leading all players in most hat tricks scored throughout the years with 24 three-goal games. He is also tied with Paul Gladu of the old St. Louis Flyers and Andre Lacroix of this year&rsquo;s Quebec club with most hat tricks in one season at six.On five separate seasons, Marshall scored better than 90 points. His best winter came in 1957-58 with Hershey when he led the AHL in scoring with 104 points on 40 goals and 64 assists. Last year with Baltimore he set two new club records with most points (89) and most assists (56). This year, a broken ankle saw him sit out 22 games, but despite the absence he is second in club scoring with 23 goals and 33 assists for 56 points. &#9632;

f0017-03

Clippers Honor Marshall For 1,000th Game Feat

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK SANTANIELLO</div>SPRINGFIELD, MASS. &ndash;Winger Marc Dufour and goalie Don McLeod are two very unusual members of the Kings Unusual, because at the start of the season Dufour was not seeing regular action Marc Dufour and McLeod was not even a member of the Kings organization.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-05250/3195747-1-eng-US/f0017-052.jpg" title="f0017-05" width="280" height="479"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marc Dufour</figcaption></div>A native of Three Rivers, Quebec, Dufour rode the bench a good part of the early going. He got a regular job when the Los Angeles Kings took some players back from here and a few more were injured.Marc has good speed and scoring ability. Dufour is a hard worker and never quits. He was so glad to get a chance to play on a regular basis, he never let up a second on the ice. Off the Ice, he has a scholarly, professor-type look.Last winter, Dufour was with the Vancouver Canucks of the Western Hockey League. He tallied just 21 points in 70 games, with 11 goals and 10 assists. He was assigned here at the start of the season.Like a lot of good athletes who develop only after they are given a chance to play, Marc never let the local management down. He managed to score key goals in lots of games. His hustling aggressive play is stimulating.Marc is married with two children. He works in the offseason as a beer salesman. He once had a brother, Claude Dufour, who used to tend goal here. It&rsquo;s a startling difference to see a mild, scholarly looking Dufour on the street and watch the same guy playing hockey.McLeod has been sensational in goal for the Kings. He was obtained for the rest of the season from Detroit Red Wings. Shortage of goalies and injuries forced local management into the action. They have not been sorry.He has been the pick-me-up the team needed. He filled the same role Glenn Ramsey did a few seasons ago. He came from the Toledo Blades of the International League to tend goal in a brilliant manner to help the club here.Don had no chance to work in goal with Detroit. They sent him to Ft. worth in the Central League. Then Roger Crozier came down to get into shape. He was sent to Quebec where he saw a litle action in January. &#9632;

f0017-05

Dufour Sparkles After Bench Stint

<div class="byline">BY JOHN TRAVERS</div>HERSHEY, Pa. &ndash;Veteran winger Roger DeJordy and goalie Andre Gill are making strong bids for two of the American League&rsquo;s most coveted awards as the 1967-68 season heads into the stretch run.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-04304/3195785-1-eng-US/f0017-042.jpg" title="f0017-04" width="294" height="429"><figcaption class="caption-body">Andre Gill</figcaption></div>The 30-year-old DeJordy, with 76 points on 41 goals and 35 assists, is in quest of the John B. Sollenberger trophy, emblematic of the loop&rsquo;s top scorer.Gill, the circuit&rsquo;s top cage cop last season with a 2.90 average, is battling Rochester&rsquo;s Bobby Perreault for the Han Holmes Award a $300 prize awarded to the goalie with the best average.The 25-year-old Gill showed a 2.94 mark after 36 games to Perreault&rsquo;s 2.88, who had appeared in 47 games as of March. 8. A player is required to have appeared in 43 games to be eligible for the award and Gill has ten contests remaining.DeJordy, who led the league&rsquo;s goal snipers last season with 52, has been closing in fast on frontrunning Andre Lacroix, former Quebec star now with the NHL Philadelphia Flyers. Lacroix after 54 games has 87 points on 41 goals and 46 assists.DeJordy has nailed nine goals since Feb. 17, a 12-game span and is only a dozen short of reaching the 50-goal plateau for the second straight season. Only one other player in AHL history ever put 50 goal season back-to back. He was Carl Liscombe, the one-time Providence Reds&rsquo; star, who accomplished the feat in the late 1940&rsquo;s.Both DeJordy and Gill were first all-star picks in 1966-67.And three of their teammates, defensemen Barry Ashbee and Ralph Keller, along with captain Mike Nykoluk also must be considered for post-season awards. Both Ashbee and Keller have a shot at the Eddie Shore outstanding defenseman prize, while Nykoluk is striving to repeat as the most valuable player. Nykoluk currently is the league&rsquo;s best playmaker with 58 assits.Coach Frank Mathers is still of the opinion that winger Don Marcotte is the best rookie in the league. The 6-0 Marcotte is three goals shy of becoming the first Bears&rsquo; rookie ever to hit the 30goal standard.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the best rookie we&rsquo;ve had at Hershey since I&rsquo;ve been here,&rdquo; said Mathers, who has handled the Bears for a dozen years.Hershey is practically a shooin for its sixth divisional title as the defending Eastern Division champions boasted a seven point spread (71-64) over the Springfield Kings at the 60 game mark and still had two games in hand on the Bay State club.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-06211/3195778-1-eng-US/f0017-062.jpg" title="f0017-06" width="606" height="592"><figcaption class="caption-body">ROGER DEJORDY &hellip; Eyes Scoring Title</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0017-04

DeJordy, Gill Bid For Top AHL Awards

<div class="byline">BY JOHN WHITE</div>PORTLAND, Ore.&mdash;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01532/3195830-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="310" height="482"><figcaption class="caption-body">Guyle Fielder</figcaption></div>It was almost painful to watch the face of pert little Jill Jones, wife of Art Jones, a fellow who is a center for the Portland Buckaroos of the Western Hockey League.&ldquo;Did you hear Guyle Fielder what happened in Seattle tonight?&rdquo; Jill was asked after a Buckaroo home game by a fun-loving spectator.&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Jill, still smiling, &ldquo;but I suppose he scored six or seven points or something like that.&rdquo;&ldquo;Not six or seven,&rdquo; said the dead-panned tormenter. &ldquo;Seattle set a league record by winning 18 to 1. Fielder got three goals and 11 assists.&rdquo;Jill tried hard to think It was a joke, which It was, but the expression on her face was one of sheer agony.&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she sighed, &ldquo;here we go again.&rdquo;You see, Jill Jones did not marry a bridegroom. She married a bridesmaid.Or to make it perfectly clear: In the season of 1966-67, Portland captain Art Jones finished second in the Western Hockey League individual scoring race.In the season of 1965-66, Portland captain Art Jones finished second In the Western Hockey League individual scoring race.In the season of 1964-65, Art Jones was second in the scoring race.In the season of 1963-54, Art Jones was &hellip; that&rsquo;s right, you know where he finished in the scoring race.Always it was someone, and most often Fielder, who nipped Jones at the wire.Now all of this Is tough on pride, of course, and most hockey players, Jones being no exception, have pride.It also affects the bank account. You figure six hundred bucks for a scoring title ($300 from the league and another $300 from the club). You multiply that by four.The answer is a new car or a trip to Bermuda.But this season, Jones seems a shoo-in for his first WHL scoring title since 1961 when he scored 100 points, earning an assist on the last night of the season to nip Lou Jankowski, then with Calgary, by a single point.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02434/3195823-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="1295" height="1680"><figcaption class="caption-body">ART JONES &hellip; Waiting Since &rsquo;61</figcaption></div>There was a mild taint to that lone title, too, because the frugal Calgary management of that season frowned on bonuses. And Jankowski was held out of action in the final game of the Stampeders&rsquo; campaign.With three weeks to go in the current season, Jones had scored 78 points on 31 goals and 47 assists and had a nine-point lead over his closest challenger, Len Ronson of San Diego, who had 69 points.And the most under-rated player in the history of the Western Hockey League might actually receive this season some of the awards he has deserved but not received In the past.Under-rated?Put It this way:You&rsquo;ve heard of Guyle Fielder of Seattle! Right? He&rsquo;s scored more points than any player who ever played In the Western League. He&rsquo;s won more scoring titles. He&rsquo;s won more All Star votes. He&rsquo;s won more Most Valuable Player awards.The accolades have been deserved, too. Fielder is close to being a genius with a puck. As Coach Hal Laycoe of Portland once said, &ldquo;This guy has made more wings than Boeings.&rdquo;Yet Jones could circle the date of March 10, 1968, in his little black book.He scored a goal and earned an assist that night. And in eight seasons with Portland his point total had just climbed to 705.In the same period with Seattle, Fielder had scored 704 points. Jones was one up during his tenure as a Buckaroo. Yet he never in his life had won first All Star honors.Jones&rsquo; reaction to passing Fielder over the past eight seasons was so typical it hurt.&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he said with all the enthusiasm of a six-year-old being told that It&rsquo;s bedtime. &ldquo;Yeah?&rdquo; And he sauntered off at the same lazy gait at which he skates.This has been Jones&rsquo; major problem. He is not colorful. He Is not especially popular, even with some of his own teammates In the past. He is not a holler guy. He has an attitude of &ldquo;you do your job and I&rsquo;ll do mine and why talk about it.&rdquo; He Is one of the worst guys to Interview in professional hockey.Bud Poile, now riding high at Philadelphia after years of coaching in the Western League, once put it well when he said, &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t even notice Jones on the ice. Then you look at the scoresheet the next day and he&rsquo;s the guy who beat you.&rdquo;Murray (Muzz) Costello, onetime junior riot in Ontario and now general manager of Seattle, put It well, too.&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve figure it out,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You watch Jones and you watch Jones and you wonder how he does It. It&rsquo;s anticipation. He has the greatest anticipation of what&rsquo;s going to happen I&rsquo;ve ever seen.&rdquo;This has accounted for Jones scoring more goals while his team was short-handed than any player in Western League history.Jones has known individual nights of big point explosions. But mostly it&rsquo;s his consistency that kills opponents.<h2>HOW THEY STAND</h2>(Standings on Tues. Mar. 19)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-05193/3195816-1-eng-US/f0018-052.jpg" title="f0018-05" width="649" height="1772"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Tues. Mar 12Portland 1 at San Diego 5Wed. Mar 13Phoenix 3 at Seattle 6Thurs. Mar. 14Portland 0 at San Diego 3Sat. Mar. 15Phoenix 4 at San Diego 2Portland 2 at Seattle 2Sun. Mar. 16San Diego 3 at Portland 3<h3>GAMES TO COME</h3>Tues. Mar. 19San Diego at VancouverWed. Mar. 20San Diego at PortlandSan Diego at SeattleVancouver at PortlandThurs. Mar. 21Seattle at San DiegoFri.Mar.22Portland at VancouverSat. Mar. 23Seattle at San DiegoVancouver at PhoenixSun. Mar. 24Portland at Seattle<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3>(Including Games Of Sun. Mar. 10) &#9632;

f0018-01

Golden Guyle Out Of The Picture, Art Jones Nears WHL Point Title

<div class="byline">BY ALEX HARDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02441/3195892-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former NHL goaling great JACQUES PLANTE, left, talks with Calgary owner BOB BROWNRIDGE during recent Western Canada Junior League all-star game dinner. Plante was guest speaker. The WCJHL Stars defeated Estevan 8-7 before a sellout crowd that included 12 NHL scouts.</figcaption></div>EDMONTON, Ata. &ndash;Just three hours before the Edmonton Oil Kings were to play Saskatoon Blades in an important Western Canada Junior Hockey League game, Edmonton coach Bill Gadsby suddenly resigned.Gadsby, 20-year NHL veteran, quit when Bill Hunter, Oil King general manager and president, asked him to watch the game from the press box while Hunter handled the club from the bench.The move by Hunter came after Oil Kings managed only a tie in two home games in the WCJHL quarter-finals against lowly Saskatoon. Edmonton finished third in the regular schedule, far ahead of seventh-place Saskatoon.The uproar from Oil King fans could be heard throughout the West, since Gadsby is highly popular in Edmonton.Oil King players were confused and downhearted by the events. They got word of the resignation over the public address system during their pre-game warmup that night, and responded by losing 5-0 to Saskatoon.Following the game, Hunter took a slap at Gadsby&rsquo;s coaching ability, saying: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re dreadfully weak on the fundamentals. Fortunately, we have three days before our next game and I hope we can get straightened out.&rdquo;Hunter then proceeded to devote hours to restoring Oil Kings&rsquo; confidence and reminding them of the fundamentals of hockey.During the next three days the team had a lengthy chalk talk each morning, then practised for 90 minutes in the afternoon.Hunter seemingly worked magic. Oil Kings responded by dumping Saskatoon 4-2 in Saskatoon to narrow the Blade&rsquo;s series lead to 2-1 with one tie.The series resumed in Edmonton the following evening, with Oil Kings smothering Saskatoon 13-0. In the short span of 72 hours, Hunter completely rejuvenated the Kings.By this time, the last echo of the alarum against Hunter had faded away. Fans who had earlier criticized him over the Gadsby incident were now changing their tune.It just goes to prove that it takes a psychologist to understand an Edmonton hockey fan. Next to professional football, junior hockey is king in this city.Interest in the juniors has flourished since 1954, when an Oil King team loaded with such stars as Normie Ullman and Johnny Bucyk reached the Memorial Cup final. Between 1960 and 1967, Edmonton dominated Western junior hockey.Last season, Gadsby&rsquo;s first as coach, Oil Kings were upset by Moose Jaw Canucks in the playoffs. This year they finished third behind powerful Flin Flon Bombers and Estevan Bruins in league play.Despite his popularity with the fans and players, Gadsby and Hunter didn&rsquo;t get along due to Gadsby&rsquo;s seeming inability to win the important games. Last year Hunter reportedly lost $37,000 on the Oil King operation, much of it because the team was bounced in the very first playoff round.This year Oil Kings will have to win five different playoff series to reach the Memorial Cup final. Every game means money to Hunter, and he couldn&rsquo;t stand to see the team again losing out in the first round &mdash; especially to a team like Saskatoon.In Edmonton, where junior hockey is an island entire unto itself, Hunter is now a hero. &#9632;

f0019-02

GM Hunter Turns Junior Oil Kings Into Winner

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01512/3195923-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0019-01

WHL Summaries

<div class="byline">BY MATT DENNIS</div>DALLAS, Tex. &ndash;Coach Bobby Kromm wiped his brow following a tough game In which his Black Hawks nipped Fort Worth Wings, 5-4, saying, &ldquo;This was a hard battle for and we really Doug Barrie needed it. That puts us two points up on Houston in our battle for that playoff spot. My boys sure worked for this one.&rdquo; The all Texas battle for the last playoff berth loomed as the highlight of the closing season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01358/3195961-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="287" height="484"><figcaption class="caption-body">Doug Barrie</figcaption></div>With less than four minutes to go Wayne Maid clicked for the winning goal and the crowd of over 5,200 In the Fair Park Coliseum had the right to be joyful.Kromm had been disappointed when Gerry Goyer and Bob Schmautz were called to the parent National League Chicago Hawks within 10 days nothing that the former &ldquo;had been a great help In settling down our kids in the two weeks he&rsquo;s been with us. Schmautz, 23 goals and the same number of assists were big In our offence.&rdquo; Maki was sent down as a replacement.But he smiled when the name &ldquo;Maki&rdquo; was brought Into the conversation saying, &ldquo;He was a big scorer for me In St. Louis last winter &mdash; 31 goals, and once he gets playing regular here, he&rsquo;ll produce. He&rsquo;s that type of a player.&rdquo;Kromm was pleased with the way that veteran Matt Ravlich was working his way back into shape still recovering from a leg Injury suffered a year ago with Chicago and spoke of him as a player who, &ldquo;Is smart In his puckhandling and sticks to his basic knowledge of playing defence.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02269/3195954-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="626" height="651"><figcaption class="caption-body">WAYNE MAKI &hellip; Like Old Times</figcaption></div>Brian McDonald was the leading point-getter for Dallas with 19 goals and 29 assists over his first 60 games while Oscar Gaudet was finding the range with his booming shot and had flashed the light on 27 occasions and matched his goal output with the same number of assists.The Hawks had drawn 82,689 fans over the first 30 home games and publicity director Bob Campbell spoke of the extra Interest created in hockey throughout Dallas via the televising of certain games over KDTV.HOUSTON &mdash; The Apollos sent Gary Butler and Elgin McCann on loan to the Memphis South Stars. The parent Montreal Canadiens recalled Danny Grant.Chris Bordeleau was the top point-getter for Ray Kinasewich&rsquo;s Apollos with 23 goals and 27 assists In 162 games.&ldquo;Dallas will force us to go all out In every game If we want a playoff berth. I think we can beat them out but it means that every player on the Ice will have to give out with everything in the fin JI seven contests,&rdquo; he said with optimism.MEMPHIS &mdash; General manager-coach John Muckler was enthused with the play of McCann and Butler in their early appearances with the South Stars coming in from Houston.&ldquo;Both players showed they wanted to see more action and they produced for me when given the opportunity,&rdquo; he said.Germain Gagnon took over as the leading point-getter for the South Stars with 21 goals and 31 assists In 60 games.Goalie Chuck Goddard and forward George Standing were returned to the South Stars after being called up on an emergency basis to the parent Minnesota North Stars.OMAHA &mdash; A crowd of 4,125 fans made their way through the turnstiles of the Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum to see the Dallas Black Hawks edge the Omaha crew 5-4 on Oscar Gaudet&rsquo;s goal with less than two minutes to play.Juha Widing Is the top point-getter for the club with 25 goals and 27 assists in 54 games for the Knights who have failed to win a playoff berth.FORT WORTH &mdash; Coach Fern Flaman was able to place veteran Dave Richardson back In the lineup. In the over-23 years of age group, he has been able to see only limited action this season but when dressed for 37 CPHL games this season, he has been able to produce 19 goals and 20 assists.Rich McCann Is the loop&rsquo;s leading playmaker with 46 assists in 59 games. Gary Marsh is the top sniper for the club with 22 in 55 outings.KANSAS CITY-Gary Veneruzzo took over as the top pointgetter for the Blues with 18 goals and 44 assists In 55 games but George Guilbault was chasing him for the honors with 22 goals and 36 assists.Over their first 30 home games, the Blues attracted 138,839, an average of 4,624 per contest.Wayne Rivers Is enjoying one of his best seasons In pro hockey and in 42 games with the Blues fired 23 goals and came up with 30 assists. Don Giesebrecht has Improved on offence and scored 22 goals and chipped In with 35 assists In 59 contests.OKLAHOMA CITY &mdash; Jim Lorentz of the Blazers and Ken Campbell of the Tulsa Ollers were tussling for the league&rsquo;s goal-getting crown each showing 30 goals with eight games left to play.Russ Gillow pulled his goals-against average down to a stingy 2.11 and was the league leader in shutouts with six.John Arbour was called up to the parent Boston Bruins to join Barry Gibbs who earlier had left the Blazers for the National League club.TULSA &mdash; Doug Barrie joined the Oilers in the big six player deal that involved Toronto and Detroit.General manager Ray Miron figured with Pat Quinn back in the lineup following recovery from a leg Injury and the addition of Barrie, the defence would tighten up.Ron Ward took over sole possession of first place In the league scoring race with 28 goals and 45 assists for 74 points with eight games left to play.Kenny Campbell, Len Haley and Gerry Meehan were trailing him with 70, 70 and 67 points respectively. &#9632;

f0020-01

Sparks Dallas In Playoff Battle With Houston

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03224/3195992-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0020-03

Central League Summaries

<div class="byline">BY HARVEY POLLACK</div>CLINTON, N.Y. &ndash;A deal that-was consummated three years ago played a large role In the Clinton Comets&rsquo; current ranking as the greatest team ever to perform In the Eastern Hockey League.The Comets were getting this universal acclaim as they opened the first round of the playoffs against the Long Island Ducks. They were heavy favorites to make mincemeat of the Ducks and to earn the right to meet the survivors of the New Haven &mdash; Johnstown set.The transaction that helped make the Comets what they are today brought Pat Kelly, Borden Smith and Ed Babiuk to the Comets and shipped Norm DeFelice, Benny Woit, Ed Szydlowski, Lorne O&rsquo;Donnell and Hector Lalande to the Jersey Devils. At the time, it looked like a grood trade for both sides, but today the deal has to be ranked as a steal.Kelly, a star defenseman was made the player-pilot of the Comets and has been a successful mentor for three seasons. Babiuk developed into the circuit&rsquo;s No. 1 goalie and had a 2.60 average and six shutouts this year. Smith had a 64-goal campaign at last count despite missing five games, to lead the league in goals.Meantime Woit, DeFelice and Lalande are out of the league while O&rsquo;Donnell and Szydlowski had anything but distinguished seasons for the Devils.Clinton wound up the year with 57 wins (a new league mark), with just five losses (another EHL standard), and a record total of 124 points. What&rsquo;s more, the Comets ended the season with six straight wins and a 21-game unbeaten streak that comprised 19 wins and two ties. They bowed at New Haven Jan. 28 and then went through the last 42 days of the campaign without a setback.Five Comets scored at least 50 goals (Don Davidson, Bill Bannerman, Howie Dietrich, Bill Heindl, and Smith). Six men hit the century mark including the five men cited plus captain Jack Kane.Clinton didn&rsquo;t lose more than one game In succession. From their opening game of Oct. 20 through Nov. 19, the Comets didn&rsquo;t meet defeat to thus have a great beginning as well as a sensational ending. Ten ties were also on the team&rsquo;s record. The Comets tallied a record 435 goals compared to just 185 for the opposition.In the Southern Division, Greensboro came home first after dipping in the stretch, compiling 98 points to 93 for runnerup Charlotte, so Greensboro faced Florida in one series and Charlotte met Nashville In the other.GREENSBORO Gens used Larry Holmes from Dallas in nets in some stretch games. Club missed its quest of 100 points by two. Great start In which they lost only 3 of first 23 games helped Gens take Southern crown. Gens&rsquo; goalie Bob Smith finished game for Nashville against his mates when Flyers goalie Matt Thorpe hurt head. Ron Muir had another great year out of penalty box, winding up with just 8 minutes in the sin bin.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-0759/3196044-1-eng-US/f0021-072.jpg" title="f0021-07" width="603" height="642"><figcaption class="caption-body">ED BABIUK &hellip; Tod Goaler</figcaption></div>FLORIDA Ron Willy&rsquo;s late surge enabled him to clear the 50-goal mark for season and establish club record. Rockets slumped in stretch but hat trick by Bill Glashan and Willy&rsquo;s steady scoring pulled team out of doldrums. Coach Bob Sabourin will engage in summer clinics with other Rockets. Club makes money at St. Petersburg for neutral games but loses on ice.CHARLOTTE Checkers blanked Greensboro in regular season finale after tieing Gens on their ice to clinch second place. The club total of 93 points was second best in club history, trailing only the 1956-57 pennant winners. Barry Simpson&rsquo;s 4-goal effort was first such feat in two years. He had three straight hat tricks vs Salem. Checkers may lose six more players next year to higher loops.JERSEY Devils wound up season with 8-game non winning streak. Bob Boucher was flattened by one punch by Johnstown&rsquo;s Jim Mair in last weekend tiff. Ted Szydlowski suffered 4-stitch lip injury from the stick of Johnstown&rsquo;s Mike Crupi. Fred Bassi&rsquo;s sprained ankle and loss of Bill Christodal to Army cut down man power in stretch. GM Eddie Ferenz said best thing about season was &ldquo;that we didn&rsquo;t finish last. But a fifth place finish is not my idea of a good year.&rdquo;JOHNSTOWN Dick Roberge reached century mark in next to last game. Jets won 12 games on road. Galen Head cleared the 50goal mark vs Jersey. Chances of John Gofton&rsquo;s availability in playoffs very dim but leading scorer Reg Kent may make it back &hellip; Jets set club record for paid attendance. Newcomer Jack Dale has scored steadily since his arrival.NEW HAVEN: Ducks maintained mastery over Long Island with 12-2-2 record. Goalie Roger Wilson hurt elbow warming up and trainer Ken Garrett had to work the nets. Blades tied alltime record of 43 wins set in 1955-56 campaign. Don Perry said he doesn&rsquo;t care what people think after 20 goal explosion vs Syracuse, 15 vs New Jersey and 17 vs Syracuse. Nate Podoloff&rsquo;s reduest for EHL meeting to be held in Bermuda was rejected in favor of New York.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-0853/3196037-1-eng-US/f0021-082.jpg" title="f0021-08" width="599" height="641"><figcaption class="caption-body">PAT KELLY &hellip; Leading Coach</figcaption></div>NASHVILLE Flyers failed in stretch drive to catch Charlotte for second but Wally Sprange held tenaciously to Southern scoring lead. Wayne Spooner&rsquo;s broken thumb bothered him in playoffs. Matt Thorpe and Alan Aubrey likely to get trials with Chicago and Minnesota, respectively. Thorpe glad he wore mask when he was hit in forehead by flying puck.LONG ISLAND: Ducks wound up year with 1-7-3 record under John Brophy which didn&rsquo;t figure to improve in playoffs. Clinton beat Ducks 4 times and tied another vs Brophy. Ducks went through another season and two-year total of 15 games without win at New Haven. Les Calder back from 3game stint with Springfield. Brophy intends to stick to Hal Willis on defense and Don Newman at wing during playoffs. Dwight Winters broke Gene Achtymichuk&rsquo;s club record for points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-0946/3196030-1-eng-US/f0021-092.jpg" title="f0021-09" width="604" height="620"><figcaption class="caption-body">BORDEN SMITH &hellip; Prolific Scorer</figcaption></div>SYRACUSE Blazers won first game in 18 starts with triumph over Long Island. Team wound up year, however, on short end of 20-3 count at New Haven. Ray Adduono honored as club&rsquo;s most valuable player. He also was in race to wire for Sorthern scoring crown. Blazers lost every game on road except early season tie at Johnstown.SALEM Rebels suffered humiliating 17-1 loss to Florida in season finale. Rebels claimed deposed Long Island coach Gene Achtymichuk on waivers but Gene went home instead of playing. There is talk Rebels may deal him to Knoxville. Rebels broke 24-game non-winning streak five days before finale by beating Knoxville. Coach Dave Lucas has indicated his return to active duty at defense next year.<h2>EHL Playoffs</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01212/3196023-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="687" height="4098"></div> &#9632;

f0021-07

Three-Year Old Trade Pays Off For Clinton

<div class="byline">BY BOB REED</div>MUSKEGON, Mich. &ndash;Fans of the Muskegon Mohawks, champions of the International Hockey League have been concerned about the possible loss of Carl Brewer for the playoffs Since Carl Brewer the announcement of the sweeping National League trade that gave the Detroit Red Wings negotiation rights to the Mohawks&rsquo; star defenseman.Shortly after the announcement it was stated that it would be possible for Brewer to play eight games during the remainder the season with the Red Wings under NHL rules as an amateur, his present status. It was reported that the Red Wings planned to negotiate along these lines, and if successful, Brewer would probably miss closing games of the Muskegon schedule.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01233/3196103-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="281" height="467"><figcaption class="caption-body">Carl Brewer</figcaption></div>However, both Brewer and Jerry DeLise, top man of the Mohawks, have assured local fandom he will fulfill his obligations with the team. Sid Abel, coach and general manage r of the Wings, also confirmed this, saying that he had been told by the player that his first obligation was to the Mohawks. He also said that Brewer had promised to talk to him after the IHL season about a possible comeback.Questioned just before a game in Fort Wayne, Brewer was noncommittal about his future plans, saying, &ldquo;Just say that I signed a contract to play for Muskegon and that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m going to do.&rdquo; DeLise, who was present at the same game, said he had no doubt that Brewer would be with him until the finish.DAYTON Injured Barry Merrell was expected to be ready for the playoffs &hellip; Moe Benoit, sidelined with a broken leg since Dec. 22, flew with the team to Des Moires. He took the plane seat vacated by goalie Rick Best, who refuses to fly and went by automobile &hellip; Gary MacMillan was placed on the negotiation list by Pittsburgh of the NHL.FORT WAYNE Dave Parenteau and goalie Gerry Randall received knee injuries in a game at Muskegon, the same place that Merv Dubchak had received a broken leg that kept him out for six weeks &hellip; Nine Komets, which includes all of their forwards, were over the 15-goal mark &hellip; A 5-3 loss at Port Huron snapped a five-game winning streak &hellip; The final Sunday matinee game drew 6,224 bringing season attendance to 156,535 for 34 games, an average of 4,605.TOLEDO The Blades took the league lead in tie games when they played their 12th of the season at Port Huron &hellip; Stan Maxwell vaulted into team scoring lead with 27 goals and 39 assists, getting at least one point in 20 of his last 22 games &hellip; Coach Terry Slater vowed he would not smile or talk to members of the Blades until they clinched a playoff spot.COLUMBUS Chuck Kelly was credited with a 140-foot shot into an open net in a game with Des Moines &hellip; Checker home attendance reached 102,548 for 32 games, against last year&rsquo;s total of 75,565 for 35 &hellip; Bert Fizzell moved up to fourth among league scoring leaders. Goalie Gordon Dibley topped the league in assists with four &hellip; The Chex won season series with Fort Wayne, 8-3-1, after dropping 10 of 12 to the Komets last year.PORT HURON The Flags scored three goals against the Komets in 31 seconds, tying the league record for three fastest goals &hellip; Randy Prior&rsquo;s 46th goal tied the club record for a rookie, set by Frank Golembrosyk two years ago &hellip; The Flags were ahead of only Columbus and Des Moines in the season series.DES MOINES Goalie Phil Headley&rsquo;s third shutout saved the OakLeafs from setting a new club losing record of six &hellip; Terry Sexsmith drew a five-game suspension and $25 fine for a stick fight with Columbus&rsquo; Jim Curry &hellip; Minnie Menard, former coach and general manager of the Leafs, lost an eye while playing in an exhibition for Belleville.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-0598/3196096-1-eng-US/f0022-052.jpg" title="f0022-05" width="615" height="920"><figcaption class="caption-body">GARY MacMILLAN &hellip; Eyed by Pittsburgh</figcaption></div><h2>How They Stand</h2><h3>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</h3>(Standings on Tues. Mar. 19)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02165/3196089-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="721" height="2745"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Tues. Mar. 12Des Moines 7 at Columbus 8Wed. Mar. 13Des Moines 5 at Port Huron 6Fri Mar. 15Dayton 2 at Columbus 4Fort Wayne 2 at Toledo 2Muskegon 6 at Des Moines 6Muskegon 2 at Des Moines 4Sat. Mar. 16Dayton 5 at Port Huron 3Columbus 2 at Toledo 3Sun. Mar. 17Port Huron 9 at Columbus 14<h3>GAMES TO COME</h3>Tues. Mar. 19Toledo at Des MoinesWed. Mar. 20Toledo at Des MoinesColumbus at DaytonPort Huron at Fort WayneThurs. Mar. 21Muskegon at Port HuronFri.Mar.22Des Moines at ToledoDayton at MuskegonSat Mar. 23Des Moines at Fort WaynePort Huron at MuskegonColumbus at ToledoSun. Mar. 24Fort Wayne at Day tonToledo at Port Huron<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3>(Including Games of Sun. Mar.10)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03143/3196082-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="654" height="761"></div><h3>GOALKEEPERS&rsquo; RECORDS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-04114/3196075-1-eng-US/f0022-042.jpg" title="f0022-04" width="639" height="452"></div> &#9632;

f0022-01

Brewer Assures Muskegon Hawks He’ll Finish Out IHL Schedule

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-06" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-0674/3196134-1-eng-US/f0022-062.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0022-06

Looking At The Playoff Races

<div class="byline">BY JACK GATECUFF</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01210/3196207-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="295" height="470"><figcaption class="caption-body">WALT TKACZUK &hellip; All-Star Center</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02167/3196200-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="298" height="478"><figcaption class="caption-body">TERRY CAFFERY &hellip; Shared MVP</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03130/3196193-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="276" height="470"><figcaption class="caption-body">PHILMYRE &hellip; Shared MVP</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-04101/3196186-1-eng-US/f0023-042.jpg" title="f0023-04" width="288" height="468"><figcaption class="caption-body">GERRY GRAY &hellip; All-Star Goaler</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-0581/3196179-1-eng-US/f0023-052.jpg" title="f0023-05" width="278" height="463"><figcaption class="caption-body">DANNY LAWSON &hellip; All-Star Wing</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-0669/3196172-1-eng-US/f0023-062.jpg" title="f0023-06" width="285" height="458"><figcaption class="caption-body">MIKE ROBITAILLE &hellip; All-Star Defense</figcaption></div>KITCHENER, Ont. &ndash;Walt Tkaczuk of the Kitchener Rangers was the lone unanimous selection for the Ontario Hockey Association Junior &ldquo;A&rdquo; League&rsquo;s all-star teams picked by the 10 league coaches.Kitchener, Hamilton, Niagara Falls and Toronto Marlboros each placed three players on the two teams with Montreal Canadlens drawing an unexpected blank.Based on five points for the first team and three for the second squad, Tkaczuk drew the maximum 45 votes. No coach was allowed to select his own player.Named to the first team were Gerry Gray of Hamilton, goal, Mike Robitaille of Kitchener and Rick Ley of Niagara, defense, Tkaczuk at center, Danny Lawson of Hamilton right wing and Jack Egers of Kitchener left wing. On the second team, Phil Myre of Niagara was in goal, Brad Park of Toronto and Rick Smith of Hamilton defense, Terry Caffery at center, Tom Webster of Niagara, the league&rsquo;s scoring champion, right wing, and Richie Bayes, Marlboros, left wing.Caffery and Myre were joint winners of the most valuable player award with three first place votes, while Gary Swain of Niagara Falls, Robitaille, Ley and Tkaczuk drew one each.Rejean Houle of Montreal was nemed six times as rookie-of-the-year followed by Andre Gaudette of Montreal and Dale Tallon of Oshawa with one vote each.For the second consecutive year Kitchener Rangers finished In first place.However their method of earning the pennant was much different than a year ago.During the 1966-67 season me Rangers reached first place early In the season, then clinched the top spot with three weeks remaining to play.Manager Brent Madill was inclined to blame the lack of pressure late In the schedule for the Rangers&rsquo; failure to win the Ontario championship after proving themselves to be the best club in the province during the 48-game season.Toronto Marlboros eventually won both the league title and the Memorial Cup.This year with basically the same team back again Kitchener had a more difficult time In earning first place.Niagara Falls Flyers sprinted Into&rsquo;a huge lead, going their first dozen games without a loss and it wasn&rsquo;t until the Flyers tapered off that the Rangers finally reached the top.Their most severe challenge in the 1968 portion of the schedule came from Montreal Canadlens.And It wasn&rsquo;t until Kitchener crushed St. Catharines Black Hawks 11-6 the final night of 270-game list that they finally eked out a one-point margin over the Canadlens.The same evening Montreal defeated Hamilton Red Wings 5-2.The victory in St. Catharines could prove costly to the Kitchener playoff hopes.Robitaille, their robust and talented defenceman, crashed head first Into the boards after attempting to check Hawk forward Don O&rsquo;Donoghue and was carried unconscious from the Ice.Rated highly in the future plans of the New York Rangers, Robitaille spent the night in a St. Catharines hospital, then was taken the 70 miles back to Kitchener the following day.However, he was still suffering nausea and dizzy spells and his return to the lineup may be delayed for some time.Fortunately the Rangers have a well-balanced club but no team can lose a player of Robitaille&rsquo;s undoubted ability without suffering some let down.<h2>Point Race</h2><h3>FINAL SCORING LEADERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-0852/3196165-1-eng-US/f0023-082.jpg" title="f0023-08" width="626" height="400"></div> &#9632;

f0023-01

Tkaczuk Lone UnanimousPick As Montreal Habs Draw Blank

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0023-09" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-0943/3196238-1-eng-US/f0023-092.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0023-09

Junior OHA All-Stars

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0023-07" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-0763/3196269-1-eng-US/f0023-072.jpg"></div><h2>SOLUTION IN MARCH 30 ISSUE</h2><h3>ACROSS</h3>1&ndash;Pictured player.8&ndash;A Leaf centre.9&ndash;First name of former Leaf Brewer.11&ndash;Highest male voice.13&ndash;Nickname of an A.H.L. team.14&ndash;Topoll of Phoenix answers to this.16&ndash;Bth and 10th letters of the alphabet.18&ndash;Number worn by Wayne Rutledge.19&ndash;Mikita injured one earlier this year.20&ndash;lnitials of one of the Habs.22&ndash;A former Montreal Coach.25&ndash;15th and 4th letter of the alphabet.27&ndash;Compass point.28&ndash;One of the Habs.31&ndash;lnitials of Taylor of Rochester.32&ndash;An N.H.L. Linesman.33&ndash;First name of one of the Hawks.34&ndash;lnitials of ex&ndash;Ranger Kr aftcheck.<h3>DOWN</h3>1&ndash;Pictured player played junior hockey for this team.2&ndash;A Boston defenseman.3&ndash;Gilbert and Ratelle have been for many years.4&ndash;lnitials of former Bruin Labine.5&ndash;Estimated Time of Arrival (abbr.)6&ndash;An International Hockey League team.7&ndash;Native Province of Pictured player. (abbr.)10&ndash;lnitials of one of the Oakland Seals.12&ndash;Nickname of the Leafs farm club in the C.P.H.L.15&ndash;lnitials of one of the Hawks.17&ndash;One of the Black Hawks.21&ndash;A Member of the Scooter Line.23&ndash;An N.H.L. general Manager.24&ndash;23 down once coached 1n this league. (abbr.)26&ndash;This Bruin wears No. 25.29&ndash;lnitials of former Leaf APPS.30&ndash;Native Province of Lowe 11 MacDonald. (abbr.).<h2>LAST WEEK&rsquo;S ANSWERS</h2><h3>ACROSS</h3>1&ndash;ANGOTTL8&ndash;NEIL.9&ndash;ONCE.11&ndash;D.S.12&ndash;REGAN.13&ndash;R.T.14&ndash;F.M.15&ndash;EEL.17&ndash;ROY.19&ndash;ART.20&ndash;F.L.21&ndash;11.22&ndash;ONE.24&ndash;E.V.25&ndash;KEON.27&ndash;LES.29&ndash;00.30&ndash;ANDRE.32&ndash;G.A.34&ndash;MACNEIL.<h3>DOWN</h3>1&ndash;ANDREA.2&ndash;NESTERENKO.3&ndash;G.I.4&ndash;O.L,5&ndash;TOE.6&ndash;INC ARFIELD.7&ndash;HENRY.10&ndash;C.A.12&ndash;R.M.16&ndash;L.T.18&ndash;OLIVER.23&ndash;E.E.26&ndash;N.A.28&ndash;SEAL.29&ndash;ORR.31&ndash;NON.32&ndash;G.M.33&ndash;A.A. &#9632;

f0023-07

Hotkey Crossword

NEW YORK, N.Y.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01214/3196300-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="305" height="482"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bernard Geoffrion</figcaption></div>On March 9 at Minnesota, Boom Boom Geoffrion practiced with Rod Gilbert&rsquo;s curved stick and the next night he replaced the sick and injured Gilbert in the Ranger line up on the Hot Line with Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield.Geoffriqn&rsquo;s weapon was his own regular lie stick plus the great pride and just plain intestinal fortitude that is so much part of the great Gaul. He responded with two big assists on both of Jean Ratelle&rsquo;s goals and while he does not move around the ice with the speed or verve that is Rod&rsquo;s wont these days, Boomer was very much a plus. The Hot Line was still hot and Geoffrion even livened up the night with fisticuffs with Los Angeles&rsquo; Bill Flett midway in the second period.Francis said in a post game interview, &ldquo;He reached back and came up with a great performance. He has done that a couple of times for us this season.&rdquo;Statistically, the Boomer has only five goals and fifteen assists for a meager twenty points, but there are games when he does not get on the ice at all, and in most, he gets one, two or three turns.&ldquo;Having been a coach myself at Quebec, I understand what Francis must do. I am only seven goals short of that magic 400 mark and still would like to get those goals&mdash;and to help the Rangers. I am very happy here in New York.&rdquo;Bernie Insists that no one will have to tell him when it is time to hang up his skates for good&mdash;and it must be admitted that he made New York a playoff contender a year ago when he came to New York on the first year of a reported $80,000 contract over a three year span.This is the point 2014 the contract still has next year to run. Will Geoffrion retire? Will Francis step down and let the Boomer coach the club?The possibility that Francis would step down is considered remote, because Emile likes his dual jobs. &#9632;

f0024-01

IS THIS GEOFFRION’S LAST YEAR IN NHL?

<div class="byline">BY NORMAN MacLEAN</div>NEW YORK, N.Y.Excitement is the theme of all hockey from the big leagues to the pee wees, from the first period to the last. For this reason you can bet that Monday Emile Francis Night is excitement night at the Bronx&rsquo; Riverdale Skating Rink. If Saturday Night is Hockey Night in Canada, Monday night is Hockey Night at Riverdale as three different leagues strut their stuff in four games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02158/3196331-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="283" height="485"></div>The action starts at 5:00 P.M. when the Westchester Interscholastic Hockey League starts its doubleheader. Darien High of downstate Connecticut recently won the championship with a thrilling 2-1 victory on Geoff Eaton&rsquo;s two goals. They defeated the other Connecticut entry in the seven team scholastic loop, Greenwich. Greenwich had qualified for the finals with a double overtime 1-0 win.At 7:30 the Metropolitan Junior Hockey Association swings into action with home games of the Riverdale Rams and New York Green Leafs being featured. The Green Leafs were the Cinderella squad of the 1966-67 campaign as they upset the champion West New York Raiders in the playoffs and swept to the championship in their first year of operation. The caliber of play in the eight team New York Ranger organized and sponsored circuit has improved steadily this season.Emile Francis, the Rangers General Manager Coach says, &ldquo;It is because of facilities like the modern 200 x 86 Riverdale Rink that has made possible the great strides that amateurhockey is making in New York City. The M.J.H.A. owes a lot to Riverdale owner Bob Kelton for his time and money, which is a big reason our program has been so successful. Did you know that my boy, 14 year old Ricky, is playing as much hockey in New York City this winter as he would if he lived in Canada.&rsquo;&rsquo;The second half of the evening program, starting at 9:30 P.M., is Kelton&rsquo;s pride and joy. It is the collegiate game between members of the newly formed Metropolitan Intercollegiate Hockey Association. Queens, City College of New York, Manhattan and Iona have formed the first ever collegiate hockey league in the greater Metropolitan area. The Iona powerhouse has swept through nine straight games undefeated and probably could hold its own in Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Division II play.Kelton says, &ldquo;The formation of the college league was a giant step forward as it showed that hockey was catching on at the sidewalk level in New York City. Some of our games here have drawn crowds as high as 500 people &mdash; and this will improve.&rdquo;The entire program at Riverdale was started by Joe Spendley, former long Island League star who in 1960 started Pee Wee hockey on Saturday mornings. Joe now directs a flourishing pee wee, bantam and junior program which has over 500 youngsters in it. He is ably assisted by Kevin Woods, the coach of the Riverdale Rams. Also never to be forgotten in Riverdale hockey annals is Ira Gitler who helped organize the first junior Rams squad.The Rink itself is a modern prototype of a skating facility. It has an arched laminated wood roof covering a glistening white surface which has the best ice in the area. The United States Olympic hockey squad worked out at Riverdale prior to departing for Europe and Coach Murray Williamson was very pleased with the facilities at Riverdale.Williamson said, &ldquo;We were told out in Minnesota that there were no practice rinks available around New York, but Kelton called us up and suddenly we found ourselves in a beautiful full sized rink. We may try to work out an exhibition game at Riverdale for next season&rsquo;s World Team, if possible, playing against an all star team of senior amateurs from the New York area.&rdquo;So that no one is slighted let us not forget to mention that the originators of the entire hockey program at Riverdale, the seniors are still in there every Friday and Saturday night with contests in the Riverdale Senior League. They may be pushing their luck and forty, too, but the caliber of play is surprisingly good in the four club circuit.Kelton emphasizes, &ldquo;Our entire hockey program has but one aim and that is to promote the game of hockey in New York &mdash; and give New York youngsters the same opportunities that their Canadian opposites have. Young hockey fans in the Riverdale area tell us that Monday night is the best night of the week.&rdquo; &#9632;

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March 23, 1968

How WHL Teams Compare

Reds Roll Again After Shaking Tired Legs

First Period Goal ‘Magic’ Aids Amerks

New Wings Can Score But Red Wings Plagued By Same Defense Ills