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 2, 1973

The Hockey News March 2, 1973

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02111/3410179-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="596" height="2471"></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

HOW THEY STAND

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01261/3409507-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="274" height="430"></div>The Philadelphia Blazers have been waiting patiently for the kind of offensive leadership they&rsquo;ve been getting from JOHN McKENZIE. The former Boston Bruin has been coming on strong in recent weeks as he and Danny Lawson continue to lift the club towards a WHA playoff berth. McKenzie touched off his rejuvenation program this past week by scoring a hat trick in 9-2 win over New York. &#9632;

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WHA FEAT OF THE WEEK

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div>BUFFALO &mdash;Joe Crozier, coach of the Buffalo Sabres, will long remember the week that was but wished it wasn&rsquo;t.It started on Feb. 5, the day after his club had knocked off the New York Islanders, 5-1, with a show of the scoring power they had displayed early in the season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01582/3409155-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="264" height="430"><figcaption class="caption-body">Richard Martin</figcaption></div>Things didn&rsquo;t look bad.Then Joe got to his Memorial Auditorium off ice Monday morning and learned that his ace left winger, Rick Martin, was running a temperature and was on his way to a hospital bed. Martin, the club&rsquo;s third highest scorer and left wing on the much-publicized French Line, had what was diagnosed as a severe bronchial condition.That was only the beginning.Before a week had elapsed, the Sabres had played good hockey in four games, and had lost three of them. They had dropped out of the first division in the National Hockey League East for the first time since the season began, had regained fourth place, then lost it again.And Gil Perreault, center on the French Line burned his arm, thereby causing a furore among press, radio and television representatives when the Sabres attempted to keep it a secret.Playing without Martin in Chicago on Wednesday, Sabres held the Black Hawks to a scoreless tie through two periods, only to have the home team score twice in 42 seconds and win the game, 2-1. That loss dropped the Sabres a point behind Detroit Red Wings, into fifth place.The next night, things looked up a bit. The Sabres, playing at home, blanked the California Golden Seals, 4-0. Dave Dryden got his third shutout of the season. Rene Robert, the French Line&rsquo;s right winger, who hadn&rsquo;t scored in four games, got two goals.The Sabres were back in fourth place because the Red Wings didn&rsquo;t play that night.That was the night, however, hat Perreault tipped over a coffee urn in the dressing room while opening a cabinet door behind the urn. Most of the coffee spilled on the floor but some hit Gil&rsquo;s arm.The ace center was rushed to the Burn Treatment Center of Western New York and missed the pre-game practice. Naturally the press wanted to know where he was.&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry, Gil will be out to play,&rdquo; they were told. And he did, playing very well. The burn wasn&rsquo;t serious.After the game, however, Gil was hidden in the training room and Crozier refused to say anything about the center&rsquo;s accident. Which sent the media types sleuthing around and built into a big story what probably would have been a line or two of type.That had died down when the Sabres went to Montreal, still without Martin for a Saturday game. They played the Canadiens even through two periods, 1-1, then lost on a goal by Henri Richard. But the Red Wings lost to Minnesota, so the teams went into Sunday&rsquo;s big confrontation in Buffalo with the Sabres one point up.Martin returned to action Sunday and scored two goals, his 29th and 30th. The Sabres outshot the Red Wings, 37-3. And lost, 5-2. Marcel Dionne,&rsquo; the little Detroit center who lives in St. Catharines, some 30 miles from Buffalo, scored twice.Dionne got the goal that put the Wings ahead in the opening period and he got the goal that made it 4-2 late in the final period. The first was on a rush through the Buffalo team from beyond the red line and the second was on a breakaway.Then, to make things even worse, Crozier had to rush to a radio station after the game and take over Punch Imlach&rsquo;s postgame show. Punch had called during the afternoon saying he was ill and couldn&rsquo;t make the game or show. &#9632;

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Week of Turmoil Throws Crozier, Sabres Into Tizzy

<div class="byline">BY BILL FLEISCHMAN</div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Some reasons for the Philadelphia Flyers rise in the NHL West Division are as obvious as Catherine Deneuve&rsquo;s beauty.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-01890/3408714-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="247" height="436"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Watson</figcaption></div>One is the highest powered offense in the club&rsquo;s six-year history. Helping Flyers climb into second place have been 20-goal scorers Rick MacLeish and Bill Flett, and 20-goal scorers Bobby Clarke, Gary Dornhoefer and rookie Bill Barber.Another reason is that the Flyers&rsquo; are popping out all over with muscles. As the season headed into its final seven weeks, five Flyers - Bob Kelly, Andre (Moose) Dupont, Dornhoefer, Dave Schultz, and Don Saleski &mdash; had battled and bruised their way to over 100 penalty minutes.Beneath the surface of goals, assists and penalty minutes is another important reason: an improved defense. No one is comparing the Philadelphia blue-liners to Bill White and Pat Stapleton, or Bobby Orr and Dallas Smith, but veterans such as Ed Van Impe, Joe Watson, Wayne Hillman and. until his eight-game suspension, Barry Ashbee, all were contributing steady performances.Coach Fred Shero complimented Van Impe and Hillman for outstanding work. Earlier. Shero cited Watson and Ashbee for carrying the defense.Watson, the only Smithers. B.C., product in the NHL. has lived through the full Flyers&rsquo; cycle &mdash; from a defensive-conscious original expansion entry to the current free-wheeling, mayhem-minded club.&ldquo;I think the change is great,&rdquo; Watson said after his assist total soared to 20. nearly triple his previous two season totals. &ldquo;Freddie and (assistant coach) Mike Nykoluk have been stressing offense more in practice. My shots have been getting through a lot more. Freddie has stressed deflections &mdash; that&rsquo;s how I&rsquo;ve gotten a lot of assists.&rdquo;&ldquo;Joe generally misses the first (opposition) man with his shot, and that&rsquo;s good.&rdquo; Shero said. &ldquo;He keeps his shot low. which gives our forwards a chance for deflections.&rdquo;Watson, 29. played one season with Boston before the Flyers drafted him. His rookie year with the Bruins was the beginning of a friendship with another Boston newcomer. Bobby Orr. 1 he two usually meet after Flyers Bruins games, except when the outcome upsets Watson too much. Following one of the Flyers&rsquo; 15 straight losses to Boston (a streak that was finally interrupted by a 2-2 tie in Boston Feb. 4) Joe said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so mad I can&rsquo;t see Bobby tonight.&rdquo;Watson&rsquo;s admiration for his friend surfaces when the boos that greet Orr at nearly every rival NHL arena are mentioned.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to understand why people do that, Watson said. &ldquo;Bobby has to be one of the three top athletes in sports &mdash; there&rsquo;s nobody like him in hockey.&rdquo;Joe received an unexpected and unwanted rest when a Jerry Korab check left the 5-10, 180-pound Watson with a badly bruised shoulder Feb. 11 in Chicago.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-02803/3408707-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="1134" height="1238"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hockey News Photo by Bernie MoserTypical of the rejuvenated Flyers is the dub&rsquo;s prolific 36-goal-scoring ace RICK MacLEISH, shown here pinning Canadiens&rsquo; veteran HENRI RICHARD on the boards during a game at the Spectrum. MacLeish has become new hero with Philadelphia fans.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Muscular Flyers Put It All Together

<div class="image-hero"><img title="Cover-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-01589/3410807-1-eng-US/cover-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-02447/3410800-1-eng-US/cover-022.jpg" title="Cover-02" width="1016" height="324"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-03197/3410793-1-eng-US/cover-032.jpg" title="Cover-03" width="616" height="470"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-0465/3410786-1-eng-US/cover-042.jpg" title="Cover-04" width="1667" height="1741"><figcaption class="caption-body">PHIL ESPOSITIO TOP LINE DOMINATION CHALLENGED AROUND NHLHockey News Photo by Robert Shaver</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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FLYERS NEW THREAT IN WEST

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0002-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-01844/3408169-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Flyers&rsquo; tough Bob Kelly, right, is NHL&rsquo; new &lsquo;bad man&rsquo;.</figcaption></div><h2>FLYERS HEADED FOR RECORD</h2>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Philadelphia Flyers are the new &lsquo;bad men&rsquo; of the National Hockey League and they are accumulating penalties at a record rate. With just six weeks to go in the schedule, the Flyers have 1,239 minutes, an average of 20.3 per game.Flyers are rapidly closing in on the NHL record of 1,371 minutes held by Vancouver. There are 16 players in the league with more than 100 penalty minutes. The Flyers have five of them including penalty leader Bob Kelly, who has 163 minutes.<h2>DURBANO SUSPENDED</h2>ST. LOUIS&mdash;Blues&rsquo; defenseman Steve Durbano was suspended for two games and fined $250 for a run-in with Referee Ron Wicks during a Feb. 14 game against Minnesota.Evidence, considered by NHL President Clarence Campbell who handed down the ruling, showed that Durbano, in protesting a misconduct penalty, pushed the referee, threw his gloves in the official&rsquo;s face and then shouted obscenities at Wicks.<h2>WHA EYES WCHL STAR</h2>FLIN FLON &mdash;Blaine Stoughton, Flin Flon&rsquo;s high-scoring winger in the Western Canada Junior League, has been approached by Los Angeles Sharks of the World Hockey Association. The report is in direct contrast to claims by the WHA that Canadian juniors won t be sought until after the season.Stoughton, one of the top scorers in the WCHL, recently was convicted of assault causing bodily harm for striking a spectator with his stick. He was given a three-month conditional discharge.<h2>BOBBY HULL SHOWS &lsquo;EM</h2>CHICAGO&mdash;When Bobby Hull was in the National Hockey League he never picked his spots for scoring goals. Maybe he&rsquo;s picking them now as playing-coach of Winnipeg Jets in the World Hockey Association.Last week, the former Golden Jet of the Black Hawks returned to Chicago and put on a one-man show with four goals and two assists as the Jets beat the Cougars 7-2.How did Bobby pick his spot? Well, some of his old Hawk team-mates were at the game and Hull wanted to show them he could still hit the net. &#9632;

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Deadline Stoppers

<div class="byline">BY NORM MacLEAN</div>NEW YORK &mdash;&ldquo;It was almost like we lost,&rdquo; said Brad Park in the Rangers dressing room after Montreal had rallied for a 2-2 tie in the first of two head to head encounters for the NHL East lead. In the second the Rangers did lose 6-3 on Feb. 14.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-02776/3408200-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="254" height="424"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bruce MacGregor</figcaption></div>After the Montreal series, the Rangers had salt rubbed into their wounds when they dropped a 4-1 decision to Buffalo Sabres to make it but one point out of six for the suddenly slumping New Yorkers.In the first encounter, New York leading 2-0, at the end of two periods, and with three straight 6-0 shutouts behind them in games with Atlanta and the New York Islanders, suddenly was the victim of a.dangerous second penalty call by Referee Bruce Hood. With a two man advantage, the Canadiens, Frank Mahovlich got one quick goal to cut the margin to 2-1.Later, Park attempted a blue line pass which was blocked by Guy Lapointe who carried into the Ranger zone with Brad heckling him from blue line to blue line. Ed Giacomin came out and sliding on his rump stopped the shot, but did not smother it as Lapointe knocked it loose. Trailer Chuck Lefley tapped the tying goal into the net.&ldquo;Giacomin had to come out. He made the right play,&rdquo; said Ken Dryden, the injured Montreal goalie who was not dressed for the game.What made it worse was the tying goal, while Montreal was shorthanded, with Claude Larose in the penalty box. Bruce MacGregor was the victim of the second penalty call setting up Mahovlich&rsquo;s tally and he complained bitterly to Hood about it.&ldquo;It was a bad call,&rdquo; said MacGregor. &ldquo;Before that I was happy playing in a real pressure game. It was almost like a playoff game, with close checking and good hockey on both sides.&rdquo;MacGregor had scored the opening goal of the game and had popped two the night before against the Islanders. He was hot, reaching his seasonal peak after a lhte start due to injuries when the jinx struck again. A third period collision sent Bruce to the hospital with a broken ankle which will require five weeks to mend.Vic Hadfield, who scpred the Rangers&rsquo; other goal after coming out of the penalty box, also injured himself, breaking his left thumb which will keep him out for three weeks. The Rangers had etched 25 straight goals without being scored upon, when Montreal broke through. This totaled 255 minutes and 13 seconds, but emotionally it went flat when Montreal scored the tying tally.&ldquo;Cournoyer took a dive and Hood went for it,&rdquo; groaned the angry red-haired MacGregor later.Mac had upped his total to 13 goals and was looking for a twenty goal season when he got hurt again.Rangers still have more wins than any other NHL team, but time is running out if they are to catch Canadiens. Only a March 31 game at Montreal remains, as far as head-to-head competition is concerned.Giacomin, who took over as number one goalie, allowed only 31 goals in his last sixteen games and 45 in his last 21. He was 162-3 in that span with Gil Villemure being 15-7-2. With MacGregor out, speculation seemed to indicate that Bobby Rousseau, who led the Rangers in playoff scoring last year would take his place on the Pete Stemkowski-Glen Sather line. Ted Irvine, a left winger recently back from the injury list, figures to get first shot at Hadfield&rsquo;s job. Gene Carr, out since December 20 with a broken collarbone, has been skating and claims he can play, but coach G.M. Emile Francis says it will be two weeks before Gene is ready.BLUE CHIPS: Rangers were 9-3-2 at home with the East and 8-6-0 away. Against the West they were 13-2-0 at home and 83-3 away &hellip; Vic Hadfield and Jean Ratelie were each leading with 8 power play goals with Walter Tkaczuk having six game winners &hellip; Jerry Butler was called up from Providence (AHL) to help out in the shortage of wingers &hellip; &#9632;

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Rangers’ First-Plate Hopes Jolted

<h2>NHL Teams</h2>Atlanta &hellip;&hellip; 12Boston &hellip;&hellip; 15Buffalo &hellip;&hellip; 18California &hellip;&hellip; 14Chicago &hellip;&hellip; 10Detroit &hellip;&hellip; 6Los Angeles &hellip;&hellip; 21Minnesota &hellip;&hellip; 5Montreal &hellip;&hellip; 9N.Y. Islanders &hellip;&hellip; 7N.Y. Rangers &hellip;&hellip; 2Philadelphia &hellip;&hellip; 11Pittsburgh &hellip;&hellip; 13St. Louis &hellip;&hellip; 44Toronto &hellip;&hellip; 8Vancouver &hellip;&hellip; 17<h2>Other Leagues</h2>World Hockey &hellip;&hellip; 24American &hellip;&hellip; 27Western &hellip;&hellip; 30Central &hellip;&hellip; 32Eastern &hellip;&hellip; 34International &hellip;&hellip; 35Colleges &hellip;&hellip; 36OHA Major &hellip;&hellip; 38WCHL &hellip;&hellip; 39Quebec Major &hellip;&hellip; 40<h2>Columnists</h2>Ken McKenzie &hellip;&hellip; 4Bill Libby &hellip;&hellip; 8<h2>Other Features</h2>Fan Forum &hellip;&hellip; 4Movements &hellip;&hellip; 12NHL Scoring &hellip;&hellip; 16NHL Summaries &hellip;&hellip; 19NHL Scoreboard &hellip;&hellip; 21WHA Scoreboard &hellip;&hellip; 24WHA Summaries &hellip;&hellip; 26Crossword &hellip;&hellip; 41Hockey Tips &hellip;&hellip; 43Jr. Jottings &hellip;&hellip; 43 &#9632;

WHERE YOU’LL FIND IT ALL

<div class="byline">BY GIL SMITH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-01849/3408262-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hockey News Photos by Robert ShaverPIT MARTIN pivots Black Hawks&rsquo; Top Production Line.</figcaption></div>MONTREAL &mdash;Scoring has always been the name of the game in the NHL, and this season the trigger-men are operating in threes.Most teams have come up with at least one big line, a practice that&rsquo;s as old as the game itself, but one which hasn&rsquo;t always received the unqualified support of coaches. However, after some shuffling around in the early part of the season &mdash; Boston moved to break up the Esposito-Hodge-Cashman unit at one point &mdash; the idea of a set line is back with us, and some of the trios are really producing.Among the more colorful units is Buffalo Sabres French Connection line of Gilbert Perreault, Richard Martin and Rene Robert. They were disconnected for awhile due to Martin&rsquo;s illness, but are back together again. Though not the highest-scoring unit as this was written they possess color and flair and get plenty of ink.Says Sabres coach, Joe Crozier: &ldquo;I put &rsquo;em together last March after getting Robert from Pittsburgh for Eddie Shack. They just seemed to click. I guess they complement each other in style.&rdquo;Not as colorful, but even more effective is the Chicago Black Hawk trio of Jim Pappin, Dennis Hull and Pit Martin. They were the highest-scoring line in hockey after some 56 games had been played, this season. Each member of the line had better than 68 points: Hull had 71, Martin 70 and Pappin 69 for a total of 210 points overall.The Boston record-holding line of Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Wayne Cashman was back in business, and had a formidable 196 points among them at this writing. They hold the record for most goals (140), and most points (336), by a line in one NHL season (1970-71).The Sabres&rsquo; French Line was No. 3 with 192 points.&ldquo;I think most hockey players prefer playing with the same linemates,&rdquo; says Esposito. &ldquo;You get used to each other&rsquo;s moves and know what to expect in a given situation.&rdquo;Not all coaches agree, however, and a number of them won&rsquo;t hesitate to break up a unit if they teel it&rsquo;s gone flat. One of the league&rsquo;s biggest innovators is Scotty Bowman of the Montreal Canadiens. He can, and has, broken up lines frequently, yet the Habs continue to win.Canadiens lines are seldom set for long periods of time. Currently, the Frank Mahovlich-Henri Richard-Jim Roberts unit is one ol their big producers, but they haven&rsquo;t been together that long.The N.Y. Rangers&rsquo; &ldquo;GAG Line&rdquo; of Jean Ratelie-Rod Gilbert-Vic Hadfield has recently been put out of business by Hadfield&rsquo;s injury. But they&rsquo;d been together most of the season and had some 178 scoring points among them before Hadfield got hurt. They swept into the spotlight last season when their &ldquo;Goal-a-Game&rdquo; pace had the hockey world buzzing.The &ldquo;GAG&rdquo; line got plenty of ink, but some felt the Rangers&rsquo; unit of Walt Tkaczuk, Billy Fairbairn and Steve Vickers deserved more recognition for their efforts this season.The leading goal-scorer in the NHL at this writing was Mickey Redmond, Detroit&rsquo;s power-shooting winger. He had 37 goals after 53 games and generally operated on a line with veteran Alex Delvecchio and either Al Karlander or Nick Libett.The Red Wings of course, once boasted one of the greatest lines in hockey history: the &ldquo;Production Line&rdquo; of Gordie Howe, Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay. That was back in the days when practically every team in the league had at least one forward unit that was famous. Montreal had the &ldquo;Punch Line&rdquo; of Blake, Lach and Richard; Chicago owned the famed &ldquo;Pony Line&rdquo; of the Bentleys and Mosienko; Boston still had the power &ldquo;Kraut Line&rdquo; of Schmidt-Bauer-Dumart.Teams in the NHL&rsquo;s West Division have come up with some fine trios this season, too.In Philadelphia, the gifted Bobby Clarke has been centering for rookie Bill Barber, with rugged Bill Flett usually the party of the third part. At this point. Clarke&rsquo;s 49 assists was third highest in the league.In St. Louis, the line of Garry Unger, Mike Murphy and Jack Egers was producing for the Blues, and helping them in their fierce battle for a playoff position in the tight West Division race.Los Angeles Kings had a hustling, productive threesome in Juha Widing, Mike Corrigan and. Bob Berry. Berry had 30 goals after 57 games and looked to be a cinch to eclipse the club record of 33, set by Ed Joyal in 73 games in 1968-69.Still another trio of pretty fair scorers was Pittsburgh&rsquo;s unit of Syl Apps, Al McDonough and the rejuvenated Lowell MacDonald.Hot lines with hot sticks &hellip; that was the story of the spectacular scoring this season, as teams blasted their way into the stretch.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-02720/3408255-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1800" height="849"><figcaption class="caption-body">Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; French Connection Line can really turn it on and packs more youth than any other top NHL threesome. At left, RICHARD MARTIN has fashioned 30 goals while his two linemates at right, RENE ROBERT and GILBERT PERREAULT, on the right, have another 54 between them for a line total of 84.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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HOCKEY HOT LINES

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03486/3408300-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="484" height="986"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-04286/3408293-1-eng-US/f0003-042.jpg" title="f0003-04" width="1229" height="696"></div> &#9632;

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THE BIG SCORING LINES IN HOCKEY

<div class="byline">Ken McKenzie&#x2019;s</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-01902/3408352-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="315" height="365"></div>&bull; HARRY S1NDEN, managing director of the Boston Bruins, has forbidden all membersol the Bruins from engaging in any outside activities or making personal appearances from now until the end of the Stanley Cup playoffs &hellip; Larry Regan, general manager of the Los Angeles Kings, feels the NHL schedule for the remainder of the season is on his side. Out of their last 20 games, the Kings play 14 at home &hellip; Bep Guidolin, new coach of the Boston Bruins, has his club on the move. The Bruins hadn&rsquo;t lost a game since Bep took over the coaching reins. They won five in a row before losing to Minnesota &hellip; Rick MacLeish. Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; ace goal scorer, frowns on the slapshot. He scores all of his goals with a wrist shot. Playing his first full season in the NHL, Rick is the leading goal scorer on the Flyers with 36 and leads in power play goals with 14 &hellip; Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; Bob Murdoch, another player in his first full NHL season, has more than made good on the Montreal defense. Like so many pro players today Bob wears contact lenses while performing on the ice. Murdoch was a member of Canada&rsquo;s National Team of a few years ago along with teammate Ken Dryden and such other NHL players as Chuck Lefley, Canadiens; Fran Huck, St. Louis; Bill MacMillan, Atlanta: and Morris Mott of California &hellip; Ed Dyck, Vancouver&rsquo;s rookie goalkeeper, recorded his first NHL shutout recently as the Canucks blanked Atlanta Flames. 5-0 &hellip; John McCauley is the only NHL referee who has his own fan club. It&rsquo;s located in Boston and they hang banners in John&rsquo;s praise &hellip; Wayne Thomas, Montreal&rsquo;s fine young goalie, attended the University of Wisconsin on a hockey scholarship&hellip; The power-packed Montreal Canadiens have players unable to crash their lineup who would be stars on most of the expansion clubs&hellip; GM-Coach Fred Glover of the California Golden Seals hopes to announce his team&rsquo;s new coach soon.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-02858/3408345-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="250" height="422"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Murdoch</figcaption></div>&bull; AVERAGE ANNUAL salaries of professional athletes reveals that NHL players are now second only to basketball having passed baseball and the NFL. The average N HL player&rsquo;s salary is now $42,000 &hellip; Ottawa Nationals of the World Hockey Association are fighting gamely to keep the team in that city and prevent the franchise from being shifted to a United States city &hellip; Derek Sanderson of the Bruins forked over $1,000 to teammate Bobby Orr recently. They had a bet that whoever became married first collected that sum from the other. Known for years as hockey&rsquo;s most eligible bachelor. Orr is scheduled to marry a Fort Lauderdale school teacher at the conclusion of the Stanley Cup playoffs &hellip; St. Louis Blues are telecasting some of their home games on cable TV. The cablecasts are available in Jefferson City, Mo., approximately 120 miles from St. Louis, and the viewers pay $1 a game, which they see without commercials. Skip Erwin and Clay Hyland are the announcers. The Blues passed 500,000 in attendance at the 28th home game of the season. They&rsquo;re averaging about 18,447, or about 102 percent of capacity &hellip; Tom Young, the very capable publicity director of the Cincinnati Swords, advises that Rick Dudley of the Swords has been seen lately in a multi-colored sweatshirt on the front of which is a cartoon character named Dudley Doright. A fan in Baltimore presented it to Dudley and the player is quite flattered that he receives fan mail from most American Hockey League cities &hellip; Altona&rsquo;s Mr Hockey. Elmer Hildebrand, was honored with a special night last month at the Sunflower Gardens in Altona. Man. Elmer has been t he key man behind the success of the Altona Maroons in the Southeastern Manitoba Intermediate League for many years &hellip; Thomas &ldquo;Windy O&rsquo;Neill, a member of the 1944-45 Stanley Cup champion Toronto Maple Leals and a popular and successful Toronto lawyer, died suddenly at the age of 49 &hellip; Danny Lawson is t he big gun for t he Philadelphia Blazers of the WHA. The 25-year-old right winger has finally come into his own after spending the last four years shuttling between NHL and minor pro ranks Boston s Carol Vadnais was mistaken for a robber in Philadelphia recently and arrested by local police. Apparently he fitted the descript ion of a man who had just held up a bank in the vicinity of the hotel where the Bruins were staying. The last time Vadnais was in Philadelphia he spent 90 minutes in a police station after a fan lodged charges against him. The charges were shortly dropped. &ldquo;I guess it isn&rsquo;t my town.&rdquo; Vadnais laughed.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-03753/3408338-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="244" height="425"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Dudley</figcaption></div>&bull; EMILE FRANCIS is the only NHL coach active today to pilot his team into the Stanley Cup playoffs for the last six years. &lsquo;The peppery general manager-coach of the New York Rangers oozes class and is easily one of t he most popular and respected men in the game &hellip; The Louisville Slugger hockey sticks feature NHL players Ivan Boldirev, Jim McKenny, Don Luce and Ron Stackhouse in their very attractive ads &hellip; &lsquo;The Minnesota Junior Hockey League starts the summer program this month according to Dr. Harry Brown. Commissioner of his ambitious group. The summer program is in its fifth year &hellip; Executive offices of the Western Canada Hockey League are now located in Saskatoon and the expanding circuit recently hired Ed Chynoweth as assistant to executive secretary &lsquo;Tom Fisher &hellip; Abe Pollin&rsquo;s Washington franchise won&rsquo;t start play in the National Hockey League until the 1974-75 season but already he&rsquo;s heard from over 12,000 hockey fans enquiring about season tickets. The new arena is being built at Largo. Md. on the outskirts of Washington. Pollin is investing $2 million of his own money in the $16 million project. Bill Putnam. astute president of the Atlanta Flames, told us sometime ago that he&rsquo;dbet anythingthat the Washington franchise will be a huge success in the NHL, and Bill hasn&rsquo;t been wrong so far in selecting successful sites lor NHL clubs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-04651/3408331-1-eng-US/f0004-042.jpg" title="f0004-04" width="225" height="405"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill Putnam</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0004-01

PASSING THE PUCK

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-05" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-05525/3408383-1-eng-US/f0004-052.jpg"></div><h2>Canadian TV Needs More Crucial Games</h2>The CBC has been using the Canada-Russia series, as an excuse for the decline in popularity of the televised NHL games. This, undoubtly is partially true, but I feel that their consistency in televising games which have no bearing on the standings or that draw little interest from the fan, is a more serious issue.It seems inevitable that if CBC were to leave their schedule open and fill in on a week by week basis, choosing crucial games, or games clashing perennial rivals, then Hockey Night In Canada would retain its just place in the standings.GEORGE HENDRICKSON,Thompson, Man.<h2>Air Horns Not For Real Fans</h2>A North Stars&rsquo; fan, who recently expressed his views concerning the banning of air horns at Madison Square Garden, is way off base.I am a college student who has had season&rsquo;s seats for the Rangers for the past three years. I, too, feel the same contempt for the same situation that exists in every major hockey city, where many affluent people, who are only mildly interested in the sport, acquire hockey tickets at the expense of the truly dedicated fan. This, however, has no relation to the banning of those noxious horns. They have never been a tradition at the Garden until only a few years ago, to the dismay of hockey fans. The real tradition is the thunderous aura created by thousands of people applauding, shouting and whistling but not the painful blast of a nearby air horn.I say pack up the unused horns, and ship them off to Metropolitain Sports Center for those deserving North Stars fans.ROBERT WEISENValley Stream, N.Y.<h2>NBC By passed Sabres Because Of Record</h2>There have been both favorable and unfavorable comments in regards to the NBC telecasts of the NHL Game the Week. While the telecasts have been very interesting and well-handled so far some people will always be unhappy. Buffalo fans are complaining because the Sabres were not included in the schedule. Perhaps they haven&rsquo;t stopped to realize that last year&rsquo;s club had only 16 wins, the fewest in the league. Certainly NBC considered last years accomplishments before picking what games would be shown this season. If the Sabres stay hot and make the playoffs, they&rsquo;ll deserve coverage throughout the playoffs and in the future.I enjoy the telecasts and look forward to them each week. The only thing which annoys me is why the first telecast isn&rsquo;t presented until the season is nearly half over. If football is so important to NBC, surely something could be worked out to show a &ldquo;Game of the Week&rdquo; on a week night during the first half of the season. Also, NBC&rsquo;s failure to telecast the All Star game can only be a major disappointment.WALT NEEDHAM,Allentown, Pa.<h2>New York Fans Booed For Booing</h2>After seeing the All Star Game, I have to comment on the amount of &ldquo;class&rdquo; shown by the Rangers&rsquo; fans when the Bruins and the Eastern coach were introduced. Boston is often criticized, but I remember when the game was held here a few years ago, and the fans gave a standing ovation to a player on the opposing Western team.Now we all know who the &ldquo;big bad guys&rdquo; are don&rsquo;t we?PEGGY RIOUX,Nashua, N.H.<h2>Johnson&rsquo;s Dismissal Could Hurt Bruins</h2>I thought Coach Tom Johnson dit a remarkable job this season with what he had to work with. First of all, losing all those great players to the WHA and expansion had to hurt Boston&rsquo;s chances. However, Johnson did not give up and the results may show before the end of the current season and definitely before the end of the 1973-74 campaign.Giving young players like John Adams, Nick Beverley, Gregg Sheppard, Fred O&rsquo;Donnell and others valuable NHL experience this year, will make a stronger unit next season. The Bruins may regret dismissing Johnson.SGT. D.W. BERGER,Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii<h2>Billy Harris Truly Islander Super Star</h2>I&rsquo;ve come to praise Billy Harris, not to bury Stan Fischler, who said in one of his magazines that the New York Islander rookie was one of hockey&rsquo;s ten most overrated players. Billy Harris&rsquo; play has been overlooked because of the Islanders&rsquo; poor showing. So far, only two other rookies have scored more goals than Harris: Steve Vickers and Bill Barber. Vickers is playing between Tkaczuk and Fairbairn and Barber between 20-goal All Stars Bobby Clarke and Gary Dornhoefer.Billy is continuously laying beautiful passes out through the slot and there&rsquo;s just not enough talent on the team to connect.RICHARD WENDELKEN,Long Island, N.Y.<h2>Not All &lsquo;Stars&rsquo; In All Star Game</h2>In reference to the All Star game, how were Roy Edwards and Mickey Redmond overlooked? Goalie Edwards should have been picked second to Ken Dryden, but when Dryden couldn&rsquo;t play, Eddie Giacomin was named to back up Gilles Villemure, it was an insult to every knowledgeable hockey fan. Edwards had the second best average in the NHL behind Dryden and was playing for a fifth place team as well, at the time.Coach Tom Johnson admitted that he was biased when he picked his own Ken Hodge to play, over right-winger Mickey Redmond. Perhaps it is time that the NHL All Star Team selection system was revamped to make sure that those participating were truly All Stars.GENE MOSCICKI,Windsor., Ont.The Hockey Newsvol.26 No. 22 MARCH 2, 1973OFFICIAL NATIONAL HOCKEY WEEKLYFounded October 1st, 1947Published weekly except monthly June through September by Ken-Will Publishing Co. Ltd. 1434 St. Catherine Street West, Montreal 107, Canada U.S. Office. 16 Maple Street. Rouses Point, N.Y. 12979Kenneth William McKenzieCharlie HalpinPresident and PublisherEditoriol DirectorUnited States Adverting Representatives Boston Stephen Ganak Mediarep Center Inc., 1425 Statler Office Bldg Boston Mass 02116, telephone (6171 482-5233 New York: Raymond Ogren Sports Communications Inc., 770 Lexington Ave., New York. N.Y. 10021 Telephone(212) Ha 1-7800 Chicago Hooper Jones & Associates; 3322 W. Perterson Ave., Chicago, III 60645, Telephone (312) 478-5544.Yearly SUBSCRIPTION Rates: $7.00 in Canada $8.00 in the USA and $10.00 in Foreign CountriesPostpage paid at Rouses Point. N.Y. 12979. SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO 1434 ST. CATHERINE STREE WEST, SUITE 212, MONTREAL 107. P.Q. Second class mail Resistration No.1327.Printed in Canada. &#9632;

f0004-05

FAN FORUM

<div class="byline">BY DWAYNE NETLAND</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-01824/3408414-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="257" height="446"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jerry Byers</figcaption></div>TWIN CITIES&mdash;Minnesota North Stars have been rightfully depicted all season as a veteran hockey club, but it was a batch of young players who rushed in and helped check a downward slide recently in the West Division standings.During one stretch. North Stars lost six out of seven games and, in the process, lost such stalwarts as defenseman Barry Gibbs with a strained knee and Dean Prentice with severely bruised ribs.General manager Wren Biair and coach Jack Gordon appraised the situation, called up rookie left winger Jerry Byers from Jacksonville and hopefully looked for a lift from some of the younger, fresher athletes on the varsity.The result was a pair of much-needed home ice wins, 3-1 over a hot Detroit club and 6-3 over Vancouver, which vaulted the North Stars back into respectability again just when they were looking warily at a slide down into seventh place.The young colts came through handsomely. Buster Harvey at right wing, Gilles Gilbert in goal and Dennis O&rsquo;Brien and Fred Barrett on defense responded with some crackling performances at the most critical time of the season.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s true that we have a lot of veteran players,&rdquo; said Blair, &ldquo;But we&rsquo;ve also got some blue chip youngsters, the type who give our club some real balance.&rdquo;Byers, Minnesota&rsquo;s No. 1 pick in the 1972 junior amateur draft, is being groomed for regular duty next season. He is a goal-scoring left winger with a deadly shot, much like Danny Grant, who scored 43 goals for Kitchener in his final season of junior hockey.Another top young winger in the system is Terry Holbrook, who very nearly made the Minnesota club earlier this season.The North Stars also have talent at forward such as Gary Gambucci, Steve West and Rod Norrish in their farm system, in addition to some strong young defensemen like Jim McElmury and Chris Ahrens.Nor has Blair forgotten goaler Fern Rivard, who has been consigned to minor league hockey with competition like Gump Worsley, Cesare Maniago and Gilbert on the Minnesota roster. Worsley is gone now, and Rivard has put in three seasons of steady goalkeeping while waiting for his chance.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll get it, too,&rdquo; said Blair. &ldquo;Rivard will be in the NHL some day soon. I wouldn&rsquo;t hesitate to trade one of my regular goalkeepers now because we have Fern as a backup, and I&rsquo;m also sure Rivard could help several clubs in the NHL.&rdquo;The North Stars have been reluctant to dip into their organization for help this season, mostly because it wasn&rsquo;t needed. Then the injuries began piling up. and some of the older players began feeling the strain of the long, grueling playoff race.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s good to know the young talent is there,&rdquo; said Blair. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve always taken pride in our farm system, and over the years it has helped us many times.&rdquo;Gordon, meanwhile, was reving up his personnel for a strong finish. &ldquo;I know two things,&rdquo; said the Minnesota coach. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be close. And those remaining games we have with St. Louis are going to be ring-a-dingers.&rdquo;And come to think of it, most of the Minnesota-St. Louis games over the years have been just exactly that.NORTH STAR NOTES: The loss of Gibbs for two weeks with his knee injury has to hurt the North Stars. The All Star defenseman had been playing super hockey this season &hellip; Dennis Hextail has already surpassed his best point-scoring year, 52, with California in 1970-71 &hellip; The North Stars have topped 400,000 in home attendance for the sixth straight year &hellip; Danny Grant, with a pair of goals against Vancouver, reached the 20-goal mark. &#9632;

f0005-01

Young Skaters Pick Up Sagging Stars

<div class="byline">BY JACK BERRY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-01932/3408445-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="522" height="611"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARCEL DIONNE&hellip; Two Big Goals</figcaption></div>DETROIT&mdash;Battered and bruised but not down and out, the Red Wings have turned into some kind of terror in the National Hockey League&rsquo;s East Division.There they were, in Buffalo for perhaps their most important game of the season, at last eyeball-to-eyeball with the surprising Sabres, and they had top goal-getter Mickey Redmond on the limp with a bad ankle, Ron Stackhouse with a bad knee, Nick Libett with a sore leg, Red Berenson with a busted-up mouth and four broken teeth, and defenseman Gary Doak back at home with a bum knee.They&rsquo;d had their eight game unbeaten streak on the road snapped the night before in Minnesota and had only three really threatening shots on Cesare Maniago during the entire game.And they were going against the club with the best home ice iccord in the league.Against all that, Red Wings won, nearly blowing the Sabres out of the building with a four goal third period that gave them a 5-2 victory and put them in fourth place, the final playoff spot.The victory was a tremendous confidence booster for the Red Wings and this is a team that has needed those boosts. It isn&rsquo;t a swashbuckling team like the Bruins or a superbly-talented team like New York on Montreal.It is a team that does have some decent talent, some of it very good, but it is a team that has to work for what it gets and when it lets up, it&rsquo;s in trouble.Start right in goal with Roy Edwards who threatened to set a record for most retirements in the fewest number of seasons. Edwards certainly couldn&rsquo;t be regarded as low-risk when General Manager Ned Harkness repurchased him from Pittsburgh a couple days before the season started.And yet Edwards has played some excellent hockey for the Red Wings. They needed dependability and he has given it to them. He had a 22-12-4 won-lost-tied record for 38 games, five shutouts and a 2.40 goals against average, the best of his career.Edwards needed some relief, too, and Denis De-Jordy was supposed to supply that. But DeJordy hasn&rsquo;t quite looked Vezina caliber the last couple of years and since he appeared in only 12 games, the season was virtually a complete loss for him.It took a trip to the minors in December for DeJordy to build his confidence and when he returned, he came up with three anchor efforts in a four game, six-day stand that was among the most important of the season for the Red Wings.All three of those games were on the road, in exceptionally tough rinks for Detroit &mdash; the Philadelphia Spectrum, Boston Garden and Montreal Forum. And they had a tie in Philly and victories in Boston and Montreal.It has reached the point now where the Red Wings believe in themselves. As Billy Collins, who is playing exceptionally well both on the checking line, and as a penalty-killer with Henry Boucha, said during the upward surge, &ldquo;if we fall two goals behind now, we don&rsquo;t worry.&rdquo;The Wings fell behind in the showdown game at Buffalo, the fifth and final meeting of the teams this season, when Rick Martin rocketed two past Edwards on the short side in the second period.But the Wings rallied, Al Karlander tipping in a lob pass from 41-year-old Alex Delvecchio, the Greatest Passer of &lsquo;Em All, for the go-ahead goal after Boucha had tied it.Marcel Dionne, who had his 12-game scoring streak, (seven goals and 13 assists), snapped by Maniago, scored his second goal of the game on a break-in and Collins put the ribbon on it with an empty net goal.It pumped the Wings&rsquo; confidence sky-high as they headed west for the final three games of their six game road swing, their longest trip of the season, and they were 2-1 for the first halt.RED WING NOTES: Red mond pulled a tendon in his right ankle when he and Minnesota&rsquo;s J.P. Parise crashed to the ice. Redmond was expected to be out at least a week &hellip; Berenson&rsquo;s teeth were broken when linemate Collins&rsquo; stick hit him in the mouth on Saturday in Minnesota. Red went on with the club to Buffalo and played wearing a mouth guard when he finally got to the club dentist on Monday.Doak, who sprained his knee-on Feb. 4, wasn&rsquo;t expected back until Feb. 22 but the injured Wings seem to be recovering faster lately &mdash; the winning spell seems to help. &#9632;

f0006-01

Battered Wings Show Spirit To Bounce Back In East Race

<div class="byline">BY HARRY KLAFF</div>LONG ISLAND&mdash;When Phil Goyette held the Islander reins during his three and a half month tenure, one thing he never did was pull his goalie in the middle of a game.No matter how high the count went, the starting netminder was always on hand at the conclusion of the massacre.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-01863/3408483-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="256" height="427"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gerry Desjardins</figcaption></div>It was evident from the start of the Islanders&rsquo; &ldquo;second season&rdquo; under new coach Earl Ingarfield, that changes would be made during the course of a game if things weren&rsquo;t going right. Gerry Desjardins learned this the hard way when he found himself removed from two games within the span of a week and a half.Desjardins answered the opening bell in a Coliseum game against Chicago on February 1st, a matchup which marked Ingarfield&rsquo;s home coaching debut. The first period was tame enough as the Hawks led only 1-0 on a goal by Stan Mikita, but the flood gates opened in the second as Billy Reay&rsquo;s charges ran the count to 5-0.When Islanders skated out for the finale, the crowd was surprised to note that it was Billy Smith and not Desjardins who led the team onto the ice. Although the move didn&rsquo;t have any effect on the final outcome of the game, the Islanders did wake up sufficiently to make the final score a more respectable 5-3.&ldquo;Sometimes you have to make a change like that hoping to give the team a lift.&rdquo; said Earl following the game. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think it was Desjardins&rsquo; fault at all. No one could be blamed for those goals.&rdquo;Although Desjardins was exonerated by the coach in this case, it was Smith who appeared in the nets in the Islanders&rsquo; next three outings. He was brilliant in two of them&mdash;a 1-1 tie with the Buffalo Sabres on February 3rd, and a surprising 4-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on February 6th.Desjardins was back in the nets for a 6-0 pasting by the high-flying New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden the day after the victory over Toronto, and also received the call for the second half of the home-and-home series that Saturday.This game was not one of Gerry&rsquo;s stronger efforts as the Rangers beat him for four goals before the first period was twelve minutes old..Despite the embarrassment of being yanked for the second time. Desjardins was his usual calm, cooperative self in the locker room. &ldquo;No. I wasn&rsquo;t angry when I was taken out, if anything maybe I was a bit relieved,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The thing is I really felt good tonight, although I wasn&rsquo;t so sharp in that Chicago game. I&rsquo;m just one of those guys who has to be playing every day to be sharp.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-02739/3408476-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="526" height="582"><figcaption class="caption-body">BILLY SMITH&hellip; Hops On Hot Seat</figcaption></div>As far as the Coliseum crowd is concerned. Smith is the more popular of the two at the moment. But the 22-year-old Los Angeles Kings product seems to be cheered more for his aggressive behavior in the crease than for his puck-stopping ability.Billy has quickly established himself as one of the roughest goaltenders in the NHL. Early this season he set a league record by breaking three goalie sticks across the ankles of members of the Buffalo Sabres. Then he got into a scrap with the Flyers&rsquo; Bill Flett and won a clear-cut decision against Philly&rsquo;s bearded warrior.Coming in cold off the bench doesn&rsquo;t cool his rambunctiousness either, as Rangers&rsquo; Glen Sather found out in the Coliseum game. It took only about a period before Smith and Sather were exchanging sticks and stares in front of the Islander cage.&ldquo;I hit him in the ankle, and then he speared me in the throat,&rdquo; explained Smith. &ldquo;Then I swung back. A goalie really can&rsquo;t exchange words with another player because he always has to keep his eyes on the puck. But if I get my chance, you can be sure I&rsquo;ll retaliate,&rdquo; he added with a smile. &#9632;

f0007-01

Is Billy Smith No. 11n Goal?

<div class="byline">&#x2014; By Bill Libby</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-01921/3408521-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="276" height="355"></div><h2>Came Up The Hard Way &hellip;</h2>James Anthony Neilson&rsquo;s mother was a full-blooded Cree Indian. His father was a full-blooded Dane. Jim was born in Big River, Saskatchewan, and came out looking Indian with a flat, rugged face, high cheekbones, dark skin and a lot of straight black hair. His parents separated when he was a little boy. His mother returned to the reservation, where she was comfortable. His father was a mink-rancher who had to be out and away a lot, wrestling with his rugged profession, and their home was desolate, and far from schools. He decided to place Jim, who was four, and his two sisters in St. Patrick&rsquo;s Catholic Orphanage in Prince Albert.As they grew up, Jim&rsquo;s two sisters were not happy in the orphanage and their father managed to arrange to place them in a private school. However, Jim was happy there, where he spent 12 years of his life. It was not, he says, like the orphanages we read of in old books or see in old movies, with cruel masters and rotten food and insufficient clothing. &ldquo;It was fine,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We did not have much, but we were fed and clothed well enough. We were kept warm and never went to bed hungry. The nuns were very nice to us. I got very good schooling there and learned to play hockey there.He left to play amateur hockey with the Prince Albert Mintos in 1959, turned pro with Kitchener-Waterloo in 1961 and by the time he was 19 he was with New York Rangers in the majors in 1962. Now at 32, he has completed a decade with the National Hockey League team and is a known name throughout Canada and the United States.He returns to visit St. Patrick&rsquo;s from time to time and admits, &ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;m a little bit of a hero to the youngsters now in the orphanage there.&rdquo; He tells them they can come out of the orphanage to be anything they want in life if they work at it. He is one of their most famous graduates. One of the nuns who used to be his teacher there still writes him regularly.Jim has his own family now, a wife of nine years, Donna, who is not an Indian, and three children &mdash; daughters Darcy, 8, and Dana, 6, and a son, David, 2. They live on Long Beach, Long Island, during the season, but still go back to the open spaces of Canada to spend the off-seasons. &ldquo;I am happy enough in New York. There is a lot to do and it is exciting to live there,&rdquo; he smiles. &ldquo;But I still prefer the open spaces, the lakes and fields. I prefer fresh air and clear skies. I hunt and fish. But I also play golf. They have a golf course back home and it is not crowded so it is a pleasure to play.&rdquo;He sees his father, Olaf, who is retired now, who has never seen his son play big time hockey except on television. Jim says, &ldquo;He lives alone and is content. He lives in the wilderness, but he stocks up on supplies and is satisfied. He was never a hockey fan. I know he is proud that I have made it in hockey because that is what I wanted, but I think he is i prouder of me as a son than as a hockey player. I have no hard feelings for him. He was left alone with us and simply couldn&rsquo;t care for us himself, but he cared and did what he could and I feel close to him.&rdquo; &ldquo;However, Jim has seen his mother only a few times since she left. &ldquo;We just do not have much to say to each other,&rdquo; he sighs. &ldquo;She did what she was driven to do. I&rsquo;ve never tried to make it a difficult situation, but we have been driven too far apart. She remains on the reservation at Big River and I&rsquo;m not sure what she thinks of me, but I do not think hard things about her.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-02822/3408514-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="544" height="856"><figcaption class="caption-body">JIM NEILSON&hellip; Feeling Younger Again</figcaption></div>One of his sisters was married last year, and is now Mrs. Jean Wienenwold, although she may spell it differently. She lives in Montreal. The other sister, Mary Lou, is single, and lives in Calgary.Jim, who is called &ldquo;The Chief&rdquo;, or, simply, &ldquo;Chief,&rdquo; by his teammates, says he has encountered only small, passing pieces of prejudice in his life. A writer, such as this one once did, may mistakenly call him an Eskimo or an Eskimo Indian. One writer, suggesting Jim was straight, wrote he did not imbibe of &ldquo;kickapoo joy juice.&rdquo; An opposing player may refer to him as a &ldquo;blankety-blank Redskin.&rdquo; People he meets usually ask him to what tribe he belongs. It is all right for he his proud of his heritage. He stands out, but tries not to set himself apart. He tries just to live life as best he can.<h2>A Senior Citizen Now &hellip;</h2>WHEN HE CAME UP, he was a crude performer, but good enough and tough enough to be a regular right from the start. That was in the 1962-63 season and he was paired with Doug Harvey, from whom Jim learned a great deal. Harry Howell, who was a Ranger then, taught him a lot, too. He was still inconsistent by the 1966-67 season when he was benched during the playoffs and was supposed to be traded, but he bounced back the next season and has been one of the best ever since. In the 1967-68 season he was paired with Brad Park and broke that brilliant youngster in. Now he is the senior citizen j on the Rangers&rsquo; strong rearguard in his 11th season, but he expects to play for many more seasons. He has been sidelined with a shoulder separation, stretched knee ligaments, a J broken finger and a broken foot, has had elbow surgery and recurring knee problems, but he insists, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had no serious injuries. It&rsquo;s a tough game, but I&rsquo;ve survived so far and feel fine, like a young man, and love to play.&rdquo;He usually totals 30 or more points in a season, anyway, and has had as many as 10 goals a season. This was after his goal in the last two minutes had brought the Rangers from A 3-0 deficit to a 4-4 tie on the road and as the 6-2, 200-pound Cree was pulling on stylishly mod blue civvies later, he grinned and said, &ldquo;The puck just landed on my stick so I shot it. I was out of position, in front of the wrong net. But it&rsquo;s nice to be a hero once in a while.&rdquo;In this country, the Indians are seldom the heroes. &#9632;

f0008-01

Hockey Ad Lib

<div class="byline">BY DAN PROUDFOOT</div>TORONTO&mdash;Many nights this National Hockey League season, it seemed sure that Brian Glennie would fall apart at center ice.He had so many nagging injuries, surely everything eventually would come unglued. Trainers Joe Sgro and Guy Kinnear would come running with contact cement, hammer and nails and wads of gum, but for 1 once it would be useless.This isn&rsquo;t to suggest Glennie is subhuman, that he can ever be repaired like a machine and returned to perform in his usual workmanlike fashion.But, for much of the NHL schedule, the description did fit. Glennie played while other players suggested privately that he was wasting his effort. He should have quit when he injured his shoulder in October, and had the necessary surgery immediately &mdash; some said. But he didn&rsquo;t.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-03685/3408552-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="257" height="371"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian Glennie</figcaption></div>In fact, Glennie didn&rsquo;t concede this season until his series of injuries finally reached his right knee Feb. 10 against Los Angeles Kings.He was told then that the torn ligaments would require a cast for four weeks after which another two weeks of therapy would be required. By then, the Leafs would be packing their golf bags for post-season vacations.&ldquo;Maybe this season means I have gone through my quota of injuries for five or six years,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It has been one disappointment after another.&ldquo;All in all, extremely frustrating. I was in great shape after Team Canada, but then I hurt the shoulder early in the season. I could live with it, even though the brace I had to wear was a nuisance.&rdquo;The brace Glennie wore most of the season limited the motion in his arm, so he couldn&rsquo;t make the shoulder injury worse. It did its job, but it also meant that Glennie had to perfect falling to one side so that he would be able to get up again. It also meant he couldn&rsquo;t use his arm during routine defensive chores.He didn&rsquo;t miss a single game with the painful shoulder damage, but on Dec. 30 he suffered a severely bruised ankle which kept him out eight games. He returned for one game, reinjured the ankle, missed another, and then came back for eight more before injuring his knee. During the brief return, his agility was hampered severely and his goals-against suffered accordingly.&ldquo;The ankle was something else. It was very tender from the original bruise and it seemed to attract shots like a magnet. &ldquo;The doctors said that only time would heal the shoulder and the ankle, but I wanted to play if possible. I had missed a month as it was.&rdquo;Glennie finally found the time, Feb. 10. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m thinking now that this season is over for me,&rdquo; he said two days later. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be visiting the doctor about the knee but it looks as though I just don&rsquo;t have time to get back from this one.&rdquo;Glennie joined several other Leafs on the injury list. Paul Henderson (shoulder separation), Joe Lundrigan (broken bone in hand), and Denis Dupere (twisted ankle) all were out of uniform at the same time. Defenseman John Grisdale and a severely bruised hip which required drainage before each game.The only good from all the damage was that it forced Leaf management to call up Dave Fortier from the Tulsa Oilers farm team. Fortier had a reputation for aggressive, hard-hitting while playing junior hockey, a qualification lacking on the Leafs, but scouting reports had indicated Fortier was giving the puck away too much in the minor professional ranks. &#9632;

f0008-03

Knee Injury Puts Glennie On Shelf As Luck Runs Out

<div class="byline">BY GIL SMITH</div>MONTREAL. &mdash;Officially, the men who guard the nets for the Montreal Canadiens go to work at 7.25 P.M. on the night of a game, and not before.That&rsquo;s the time that Scotty Bowman, or a designated aide, hands the puck to the starting netminder, and it&rsquo;s the first the goalie knows of it.&ldquo;I never say in advance who the starting netminder&rsquo;s going to be,&rdquo; deciares Scotty. &ldquo;I certainly don&rsquo;t tell the press, because I never want to be in a position where I can&rsquo;t change my mind as game time approaches. If I tell the press in advance that Ken Dryden is going to play, and then switch to Michel Plasse or Wayne Thomas, I&rsquo;ll be accused of playing games with the media.&ldquo;And, as for telling the goalie, I prefer not to. If he&rsquo;s nervous, like Glenn Hall used to be in St. Louis, it&rsquo;ll only make him moreso. If he isn&rsquo;t nervous there&rsquo;s nothing to be gained anyway.&rdquo;With Dryden sidelined with a bad back for key games against N.Y. Rangers in mid-February, Bowman went with rookie Plasse and it turned out to be a rewarding experience.Plasse, the 24-year-old native of Montreal who gave up professional hockey in 1969-70 but came back impressively the next season, was a standout against the New York squad in a pair of clutch contests.The 5&rsquo;11&rdquo;, 175-lb. netminder who is the only goalie in pro hockey to have scored a goal in a game, back-stopped Habs in a 2-2 tie in Madison Sq. Garden on Feb. 11th and a 6-3 troucing of the Rangers in Montreal on St. Valentine&rsquo;s Day.&ldquo;Was I nervous for those games?&rdquo; said Plasse, repeating a question. &ldquo;Well, people had been saying that I hadn&rsquo;t played against any real top teams, that I hadn&rsquo;t really been tested before we met the Rangers. So, maybe that put a little pressure on. But, if I get into a game early by having to make some quick stops, I lose my nervousness.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-02793/3408583-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="240" height="421"><figcaption class="caption-body">Michel Plass</figcaption></div>Plasse was picked as the first star of the Feb. 11th game in which Canadiens rallied from a 2-0 deficit to gain a tie in what amounted to a &ldquo;moral victory.&rdquo;Meanwhile, Canadiens were getting a fine effort from rookies and veterans alike as they headed into the tough latter stages of the schedule.Among the bright-eyed youngsters was Murray Wilson, who literally brought down t he house when he scored his first goal in the Montreal Forum against Pittsburgh on Feb. 7th. Wilson was the victim of a check by Jean-Guy Lagace that sent him head-overheels into the boards and caused Wilson&rsquo;s skates to hit the protective glass, shattering it with a crash. The 21-year-old Wilson reminds observers of a young Frank Mahovlich, with his smooth, fluid skating style.And, at the other end of the scale, veteran 37-year-old Henri Richard was skating and handling the puck in oldtime fashion, as he passed the total points mark of retired brother Maurice. Henri&rsquo;s goal and assist against Rangers on Valentine Day gave him 966 points, one more than the Rocket retired within 1960.HAB BITS: Defenseman Bob Murdoch is liable to be the most overlooked rookie in the NHL this season. People don&rsquo;t even think of him as a contender in the Calder Cup race, because he was around for some games last year. But, he qualifies and deserves recognition for a fine effort, this season &hellip; Guy Lapointe is having the best season of his three-year NHL career. He can do it all, and is doing it. With any other team he&rsquo;d be hailed as a superstar &hellip; The Hab brass is hoping Pete Mahovlich makes it back at least three weeks before the end of the schedule. He needs that much time to regain stride for the playoffs. &#9632;

f0009-02

Bowman Picks Coaler Before Faceoff

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-01893/3408621-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="500" height="829"><figcaption class="caption-body">FRANK MAHOVLICH</figcaption></div>MONTREAL &mdash;The magic number is six for big Frank Mahovlich of the Canadiens as he continues to pursue the magic 500-goal plateau in his major league hockey career.The &lsquo;Big M&rsquo; closed out last week with a career total of 494 goals and needs only six to reach the exclusive 500-goal club presently numbering only Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Rocket Richard and Jean Beliveau, all now retired from the NHL.Here&rsquo;s NHL&rsquo;s top 15 alltime goal scoring leaders:<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-03618/3408614-1-eng-US/f0009-032.jpg" title="f0009-03" width="480" height="602"></div> &#9632;

f0009-01

Mahovlich Six Away From 500

<h2>BOARDING AND DAY STUDENTS ACCEPTED</h2>Top staff of university coaches headed by Bob Crocker of the University of Pennsylvania.Beautiful campus and rink with swimming, tennis, gym and playing fields.Accepting only 70 boarders, ages 8 to 14, per two-week session thus assuring maximum attention for each boy.For a brochure write:BOB NAYLORRoute 22,Katonah, N.Y. 10536Phone 914-232-3618 &#9632;

THE HARVEY SCHOOL HOCKEY CAMP

<div class="byline">BY BOB VERDI</div>CHICAGO&mdash;Dennis Hull, no longer known as &ldquo;the other Hull&rdquo;, was wearing a toothy grin when the subject was broached.&ldquo;You know,&rdquo; he said, losing only half a smile, &ldquo;we have to keep working hard. First we lost Bobby. Now we&rsquo;ve lost Stan. We just can&rsquo;t afford to lose any more superstars.&rdquo;Quite to the contrary, the way things were going as February hit its midpoint all the Hawks seemed to need were Hull, his linemates Pit Martin and Jim Pappin, a puck and a place to play. The gaudy statistics would follow.This, then, is the MPH Line, which cruised into the final seven weeks with well over 200 points, leading the National Hockey League in damage done. It was this trio which had been expected to carry the Hawks with Bobby Hull absent, and it did just that.But then, on the night of Feb. 9, the Hawks&rsquo; leading scorer, Stan Mikita, suffered a fractured left heel bone and was sidelined for perhaps a month. This placed still a greater onus on Martin, Pappin and Hull.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll just try to hold off those other teams till Stan comes back,&rdquo; said Dennis. &ldquo;Our line has played well before, but I guess this is the best it&rsquo;s ever been. The good thing is that we&rsquo;re concentrating on our defensive game, and this naturally produces scoring chances.&rdquo;Mikita, enjoying his best season, was hurt on a splendid play which propelled the Chicagoans to a 4-3 comeback victory over Atlanta after they had trailed 3-0.Mikita stole the puck from Flames&rsquo; defenseman Pat Quinn and bore in on goalie Phil Myre. Mikita&rsquo;s first shot was stopped, but the rebound hopped out, struck Mikita&rsquo;s leg, and trickled through Myre&rsquo;s pads to deadlock the match 3-3.Before the Czech could savor his 398th career goal, he went crashing into the boards feet first. His left foot took the brunt of the blow, and the next day Mikita was on crutches &mdash; out for at least three weeks.&ldquo;You just don&rsquo;t replace a man of his ability,&rdquo; groaned Coach Billy Reay, who immediately summoned Walt Ledingham from the Hawks&rsquo; Dallas farm team in the Central League. The young center, one year out of the University of Minnesota-Duluth, had collected 16 goals for Dallas. Mikita had 24 goals and a league-high 53 assists when hurt.Mikita&rsquo;s injury took some of the gloss off the work by the MPHers. They were chewing up everybody in sight.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-01912/3408652-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="529" height="778"><figcaption class="caption-body">STAN MIKITA&hellip;398th NHL Goal</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure Billy has been tempted to split us up at one time or another,&rdquo; said Martin, the threesome&rsquo;s doughty pivot. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s showed confidence in us and that means a lot. I&rsquo;ve been with Jimmy for five years and Dennis has been with us for three. We&rsquo;re not only compatible on the ice, but we get along real well and do a lot of things off the ice, and that helps.&ldquo;A lot of teams shuffle lines constantly, and sometimes it works. Montreal does it and they win. But I&rsquo;ve talked to some of their players, and they don&rsquo;t really care for it. Every game you have to be introduced to your linemates. With us, we figure we&rsquo;ll be together and we like it.&rdquo;Pappin, who surpassed his career-high of 30 goals, had some provocative offerings concerning how vital the line was to the current Hawks.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve carried the team for the last two years,&rdquo; he said assertively. &ldquo;We just never get noticed. We never get the same mention as the Esposito line or the French Connection, but we&rsquo;ve always been up there in the scoring. Maybe it&rsquo;s just as well we haven&rsquo;t gotten the publicity, though, because then maybe the other teams would be paying more attention to us.&rdquo;HAWKEY TALK: Hull capped the rally in Atlanta with a game-winner in the final two minutes, his 200th career goal &hellip; Dick Redmond compounded the Chicago injury problems by straining his left wrist during a game Feb. 7 versus Buffalo. He next appeared wearing a playing cast &hellip; Hawk General Manager Tommy Ivan admitted that Mikita&rsquo;s mishap might hypo trade talks. But he quickly doused a rampant rumor that Tony Esposito was headed to Boston in exchange for Ken Hodge, Derek Sanderson, and Carol Vadnais, or something like that &hellip; With a big 7-2 verdict over second-place Philadelphia Feb. 11, Hawks extented their unbeaten string to 11 games. &#9632;

f0010-01

Can Hawks’ Hot Line Atone For Loss?

<h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>CHICAGO &mdash; Walt Ledingham, forward, recalled from Dallas of CHL.TORONTO &mdash; Dave Fortier, defenseman, called up from Tulsa of CHL as replacement for Brian Glennie, defenseman, who is out for season with knee injury.BUFFALO &mdash; Robert Richer, forward, returned to Cincinnati of AHL. Butch Deadmarsh, forward, traded to Atlanta in exchange for Norm Gratton, forward.DETROIT &mdash; Bill Hogaboam, forward, recalled from Virginia as replacement for injured Mickey Redmond.BOSTON &mdash; John Adams, goalkeeper, returned to Boston Braves of AHL. &lsquo;MONTREAL &mdash; Chuck Arnason, forward, returned to Nova Scotia of AHL.ST. LOUIS &mdash; Wayne Gibbs, defenseman, recalled from Columbus of IHL and assigned to Denver of WHL. Connie Madigan, defenseman, recalled from Denver, Mike Lampman, forward, returned to Denver.MINNESOTA &mdash; Jerry Byers, forward, recalled from Jacksonville of AHL as replacement for injured Dean Prentice.N.Y. RANGERS &mdash; Jerry Butler, forward, recalled from Providence of AHL as replacement for injured Bruce MacGregor.PITTSBURGH &mdash; Dennis Herron, goalkeeper, recalled from Hershey of AHL for emergency standby duty and later returned.ATLANTA &mdash; Ernie Hicke, forward, traded to New York Islanders in exchange for Arnie Brown, defenseman.<h2>WORLD HOCKEY ASSN.1</h2>QUEBEC &mdash; Punch Cartier, defenseman, assigned to Rhode Island of EHL.LOS ANGELES &mdash; Mike Byers, forward, traded to New England of WHA in exchange for Mike Hyndman, forward.<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>PROVIDENCE &mdash; Gary Coalter, forward, and Dick Mattiussi, defenseman, sent to Omaka of CHL in exchange for Ken Ireland, forward, and Marty Gateman, defenseman. Mattiussi placed on suspended list for failing to report.ROCHESTER &mdash; Herman Karp, forward, recalled from Toledo of IHL.BALTIMORE &mdash; Claude Piche, forward, assigned to Dayton of IHL.RICHMOND &mdash; Wayne Hawrysh and Bob Gerrard, forwards, returned to New Jersey of EHL after five-game pro trials.<h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>DENVER &mdash; Mike Stevens, defenseman, sent to Fort Worth of CHL as emergency replacement and returned.<h2>CENTRAL LEAGUE</h2>TULSA &mdash; Jean-Louis Levasseur, goalkeeper, returned to Orillia of Ontario Senior League after emergency replacement.FORT WORTH &mdash; Tony McCarthy, forward, called up from Johnstown of EHL on five-game pro trial.<h2>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>FORT WAYNE &mdash; Glen Colard, defenseman, released.PORT HURON &mdash; Jim Watt, forward, returned to active roster.FLINT &mdash; Laurie Yaworski, forward, secured from Dayton of IHL. Ken Southwick, defenseman, secured from Richmond of AHL on loan.DES MOINES &mdash; Dave Burr, forward, released.<h2>EASTERN LEAGUE</h2>RHODE ISLAND &mdash; Mike Haramis, forward, placed on disabled list for rest of season with shoulder injury. Pierre Cournoyer, forward, returned to Roanoke Valley of EHL. Kevin Sheehan, forward, placed on waivers. &#9632;

Movements of Players

<div class="byline">BY JIM HUBER</div>ATLANTA&mdash;It was feast one Sunday, famine the very next. And nobody can quite figure out why as Atlanta Flames continue what has been a pleasant albeit rollercoaster first season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-01883/3408769-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="257" height="356"><figcaption class="caption-body">Key Comeau</figcaption></div>Although they most certainly will have broken out of their slump by the time this makes print, the Flames of this writing are begging for a goal.They have now gone 148 minutes. 35 seconds without scoring &mdash; that&rsquo;s seven periods, two and a half games. Two straight shutouts. It&rsquo;s almost absurd to think of such a thing, especially happening to the league&rsquo;s very own &lsquo;Cindrella&rsquo;. It&rsquo;s almost as though she made it to the Grand Ball but the prince didn&rsquo;t show.One Sunday in Buffalo, where the weather was cold and the hospitality normally even colder, the Flames marched onto the small Aud ice and took an 8-5 victory over the spunky young Sabres. Nobody believed it. When the score came in on the wires around the country, newspaper desk men familiar with Buffalo&rsquo;s home reputation merely took it to be a misprint and neatly rearranged the stats:Buffalo 8, Atlanta 5. Had to be. No wav the young Flames could walk in and score eight on Roger Crozier and walk out a winner.But it most definitely was right the first time, Eight-five, Atlanta. The Flames had not scored a hat trick all season. In this one, they got two &mdash; one from Keith McCreary, the other from little Rev Comeau.Perhaps even more important was the job the line of Billy MacMillan. Curt Bennett and McCreary did on the French Connection that evening. Shadowing the Perreault line like afternoon sunshine, the Bennett line leaned all over their counterparts and limited them to only one goal &mdash; a power-play shot by Rene Robert &mdash; and one assist on the same play. Nothing more. Considering the fact that the French Connection had scored six of the seven goals in the 7-2 win in Buffalo last time and that the line had scored 16 points that night, the defensive job was a little short of amazing.Since the Flames were the second-lowest scoring team in the league next to the Islanders, one might have seen a break in the scoring lag that has plagued the Flames all season.They came right back to beat Minnesota four nights later. 3-1. But there&rsquo;s been precious little since.One reason might have been the loss of Bennett to a terrible tragedy involving his 11-vear old brother. On the Thursday of the game with Minnesota. Bennett was told his brother had fallen through thin ice on a pond near his parent&rsquo;s home in Providence, R.I., and drowned. Of course, the big Atlanta center rushed home and understandably missed two games. While his presence against Minnesota was not missed terribly, his absence was glaring in the 1-0 shutout by Detroit two nights later.And then, of course, he returned to face the dangerous machine of the New York Rangers the next night and watched a 6-0 pasting performed with a delicate and near perfect precision.And so the whippersnapper Flames, called Cinderella by most and the best expansion team in sports history by others, are in the throes of another scoring lapse.Nothing new, The only new factor might be that they are losing now. Before when they weren&rsquo;t scoring, somehow they won anyway. &#9632;

f0012-01

Flames’ Cinderella Story Dashed By Scoreless Run

<div class="byline">BY DAN DONOVAN</div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;Looking back at what &ldquo;might have been&rdquo; is no good for a team like the Penguins, for they would be hypnotized by the myriad of chances they let float by. Instead, the Penguins must look to see what the future offers.The Penguins must put together some sort of winning streak or they will continue to just cling onto the tail-end of the playoff pack. Teams like St. Louis and Detroit have proven what a lift a good streak can be, but the Penguins only streaks have been losing ones.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-01861/3408800-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="538" height="861"><figcaption class="caption-body">LOWELL MocDONALD&hellip; Working On Bonus</figcaption></div>At first glance, the last month of the Penguins&rsquo; schedule looks ripe for a rally. Streak breakers like Boston and Montreal are already stumbled past and there is only one game left with a pre-1967 team. And four of the Penguins last 14 games are with California and Vancouver.A rally in the final month would almost insure the Penguins of a playoff berth since there are only three games with East Division teams the entire month. If they beat the West teams, they are not only picking up points, but are preventing rivals from getting points. But the seemingly easy schedule could backfire. Which would be an easier team to play the last week of the schedule: a Chicago team that is resting for the playoffs or a Philadelphia team that remembers how barely the Penguins edged them for a playoff berth last year?For many teams, how they do at home dictates the whole season, and, again at first glance, this can apply to the Penguins.&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t afford to lose any more home games,&rdquo; Penguin Coach Ken Schinkel said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s too late in the season for that.&rdquo;But the key to the Penguin season may come on the road and on a key road trip in particular. The Penguins start the second week in March in Philadelphia and go from there to the West Coast.Penguins are one of the few teams that travel to the West Coast three times this season and they flopped the other two times, winning one and tying one of five games. If they flop this time, a playoff berth is doubtful.During the final month, the Penguins will find out about goalie Jim Rutherford&rsquo;s durability. During their stretch run last year, he was a stalwart in goal, playing almost every game.But several times this year. Rutherford has seemed to lack stamina. After several excellent games, he gets bombed, and thus his average doesn&rsquo;t show how valuable he really is to the team.During the final month, there will be no easy games to rest him in and the Penguins may suddenly have to find out how backup Cam Newton performs under pressure.Not helping the goalie pressure would be the inconsistent performances by the Penguin defense. They have been plagued with an inability to get the puck out of their own end that could spell doom no matter who is in the goal.But the Penguins know all this and are seeking ways to solve their problems. No longer can they talk about past games they should have won.PENGUIN CHATTER &mdash; A fight between the Penguins&rsquo; Duane Rupp and Phil Esposito was a surprise since Rupp is the Penguins&rsquo; most mild mannered defenseman &hellip; Darryl Edestrand&rsquo;s one arm is two inches shorter than the other. Several years ago he had four inches removed from one of his bones in his arm &hellip; When Lowell MacDonald reached 25 goals, his bonus just started even though that was far more goals than the Penguins thought he would get. After sitting out two years, MacDonald had little bargaining power when the season began. &#9632;

f0013-01

Penguins Need Win Streak To Nail Down Playoff Spot

<div class="byline">BY GEOFFREY FISHER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-01867/3408831-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="261" height="432"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Stewart</figcaption></div>OAKLAND&mdash;Insurance tycoon Charles O. Finley, who brought a world championship in baseball to Oakland in 1972, must be wishing that he had written himself a $10 million casualty policy on his California Golden Seals&rsquo; who seem to be headed for classification as a disaster area.Finley, the king of baseball, is on the verge of becoming the pauper of ice hockey. There have been rumors that he has put out the word that his hockey franchise could be had for an attractive price. The fact is that Finley has suffered serious disillusionment with his hockey enterprise. He has been described as a tough business executive who firmly believes in the creed that &ldquo;sweat and sacrifice&rdquo; equal success.It&rsquo;s not clear how much sweat and sacrifice Finley has suffered but there is no doubt concerning the sweat and sacrifice of his outmanned hockey troops and his overworked staff.As an absentee owner, Finley has been as remote to the Seals as Howard Hughes to a panhandler. He saw the Seals ice chances melt quickly before the season got started as player after player defected to the World Hockey Association. His Seals will finish this campaign with their worst record in their NHL history.Just for openers, this is a sampling of what the Seals gave up: Tom Webster headed for a 40-goal season with New England; Wayne Carleton, in the 30-goal bracket with Ottawa; Norm Ferguson and Bobby Sheehan, both near the 30-goal mark with New York Raiders.Whether it was a case of Finley being ill-advised by his former lieutenant, Garry Young, or whether it was a case of Finley stubbornly refusing to participate in the bidding war (and Finley has the track record in sports for refusing to submit to salary shakedowns), the Seals embarked on this campaign of NHL warfare with their top guns somewhere else.Then, in early November, the Seals dirty laudry was suddenly exposed when Finley booted Young out, claiming, his general manager and coach had hoodwinked him by signing players to secret pacts without Finley&rsquo;s knowledge.Be that as it may, it was quickly apparent that those alleged fat &ldquo;secret pacts&rdquo; of Young were not fat enough because the Seals were left with a roster far too meager, far too inexperienced, and far too disorganized to play the game by NHL standards.There are some potentially valuable properties among the young Seals, notably Gilles Meloche, Stan Weir, Hilliard Graves, Bobby Stewart, to name a few, but there is some doubt that Finley is going to go into the vault for the kind of money it will take to keep them in the Seals&rsquo; igloo. One such is goaltender Meloche, a heroic and highly-talented youngster.Meloche recently revealed that he has not heard from Finley about a contract for next season. &ldquo;So far,&rdquo; said Meloche, &ldquo;the only contract talks I have had have been with the Chicago Cougars of the WHA.&rdquo;Then, there has been the matter of the turnstiles at the Oakland Coliseum where Finley has taken a cold bath this winter. There have been many nights when the peanut vendors had so much trouble finding people in the seats that they were selling to each other.In January the attendance figures were beginning to look the same as the shots on goal. It was then that Finley reached for the phone back home on his LaPorte, Ind. farm and ordered all tickets to Seals&rsquo; games to be cut to half price.If he is planning to sell his NHL franchise, he might have to cut that to half price too. &#9632;

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Disillusioned Finley Ready To Unload Seals For Price

<div class="byline">By Jack McCarthy</div>BOSTON &mdash;Bruins continued to make news in all directions with Hall-of-Famer Milt Schmidt&rsquo;s contract dispute, the return of Derek Sanderson and Bruins winning the first five games under new coach Bep Guidolin.The Schmidt controversy erupted when Schmidt was offered a one-year contract as the Bruins &ldquo;executive director&rdquo;. The popular Schmidt, who has been with the Bruins&rsquo; organization for 37 years, wanted four.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-03595/3408869-1-eng-US/f0015-032.jpg" title="f0015-03" width="246" height="361"><figcaption class="caption-body">Milt Schmidt</figcaption></div>Said Milt &ldquo;I&rsquo;m 55 years of age, and what good does a one-year contract do me?&rdquo;This turn of events was touched off by what is apparently a company policy regarding executive contracts of the Storer Broadcasting Co., the new owners of the club. It was believed that money was not the stumbling block, just the length of the contract. Schmidt is also believed to be interested in offers both from World Hockey Assn, clubs and it had been rumored for some time that the former great center would hook up with the new NHL entry from Washington, D.C.This was another blow to Schmidt, who had been moved out of his general manager&rsquo;s job to make room for Harry Sinden, who returned to the Bruins in the post of managing director. Schmidt has been scouting since.At that time, Schmidt had appeared at a press conference with Sinden and said that he accepted the change, but that when he was told of it. &ldquo;It hit me right between the eyes &hellip;&rdquo;The dispute touched off a storm of criticism in the Boston papers. Schmidt has always been a favorite here, ever since Art Ross brought him in from Kitchener with Woody Dumart and Bobby Bauer to form one of hockey&rsquo;s most famous units, &ldquo;The Kraut Line&rdquo;.Schmidt played, was coach and general manager, was on two Stanley Cup teams as a player and was general manager of t he last two. He helped build with the famous Chicago trade that brought Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield to Boston.He was an awesome competitor in the big league for 16 1/2 years before cranky knees forced him to retire. He played hurt, and he played tough, being one of the roughest, toughest centermen in the game. He led the Bruins for all his time with them, and some of his running battles, such as those with Black Jack Stewart of the Red Wings, are legend.In his day, he matched up against people like Elmer Lach, Max Bentley and. in another famous confrontation. with Teeder Kennedy. He was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1961.In the midst of all this, Sanderson signed a contract which is believed to extend through next season, and made his debut with the Bruins against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Boston Gardens.Derek played about 12 minutes in that game, which the Bruins won, 6-3, in front of Eddie Johnston. In his second game, in which Ross Brooks shut out the L A. Kings in Boston. Sanderson played about nine minutes and picked up his first point, an assist.Said Turk. &ldquo;The people were super to me. I&rsquo;m lucky to be playing with a winner. My legs didn&rsquo;t get that tired. My wind, that was my only problem. It felt like there was glue in mv throat and I couldn&rsquo;t do anything about it.&ldquo;When the guys play as well as they did, you can&rsquo;t look bad. and Bep did a great job fitting me in. Only his whistling is brutal &hellip;&ldquo;My back was a little tender, that&rsquo;s all. My back is all right. I was relieved to get the first home game out of the way. I was more nervous than anyone thought, even to the point of having trouble sleeping.&rdquo;Guidolin said Derek played good, sound hockey. &ldquo;He moved the puck and his anticipation was great &hellip;&rdquo;Bep was asked if he was satisfied with the three wins the Bruins had given him since he took over as coach. He shot back, &ldquo;A coach should never get satisfied. He&rsquo;ll tend to get lazy.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-01842/3408862-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="1158" height="1285"><figcaption class="caption-body">DEREK SANDERSON&hellip; Wind Only Problem On Return To Bruins</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Bruins Winning For Guidolin

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-01673/3408921-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02585/3408914-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="754" height="3883"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03471/3408907-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="1504" height="2340"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-04363/3408900-1-eng-US/f0016-042.jpg" title="f0016-04" width="758" height="3970"></div> &#9632;

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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-05" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-05264/3408952-1-eng-US/f0016-052.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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NHL’S EAST-WEST SCOREBOARD

<div class="byline">BY HAL SIGURDSON</div>VANCOUVER&mdash;For Vancouver Canucks the balance of the schedule has taken on the look of an unwelcome social engagement. The dates have to be kept, but there is little joy in their anticipation.Some, as a matter of pride, continue to unfailingly perform to the best of their ability, others only as the spirit moves them. Uppermost in the minds of all is the future and what it holds in store.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03420/3408983-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="251" height="432"><figcaption class="caption-body">Vic Stasiuk</figcaption></div>Almost inevitably, sweeping changes will follow closely after the conclusion of the current season. Conceivably they could extend right from the dressing room to the ownership level, missing exceedingly few stops in between.President Tom Scallen still steadfastly maintains he intends to keep control of the club through his Minneapolis-based company, Medicor. But he stops short of ruling out all possibility of a sale.Serious health problems and the Canucks&rsquo; poor three-year NHL record make the return of general manager Bud Poile unlikely. The future of Hal Laycoe, who has taken over as GM during Poile&rsquo;s illness, also is a question mark.And what about coach Vic Stasiuk? No one could have worked harder or offered the job more dedication than Vic, but professional sport is a singularly unsentimental business. Wins are all that matter and in that area the Canucks&rsquo; record is not good.New owners would almost certainly restructure the whole hockey operation. If the present owners remain, they might well be entertaining similar ideas.Big changes up top usually are the signal for a big change at playing level, too.So while the Canucks continue to get to the games on time, much of their off-ice time is spent in wondering what lies ahead. Undoubtedly, too, several players have offers from the rival WHA to ponder.At this writing the Canucks had lost five games in a row, their longest losing streak of the season. However, a few players will be able to look back on personally successful seasons.Though his production has slowed recently, Bobby Schmautz, with 28 goals, is already assured of an outstanding year. Andre Boudrias was only one goal away from his third straight 20-goal season and climbing steadily in total points.Don Tannahill was also in a bit of a slump, but with 17 goals now he seems certain to give Vancouver at least three 20-goal men for the season.Bobby Lalonde and Richard Lemieux, with 13 goals apiece to date, have an outside chance to reach the 20-goal plateau, but it would require fantastic finishes for defenseman Josh Guevremont (12), Don Lever (10), Dale Tallon (10) and Gerry O&rsquo;Flaherty (10) to scale that peak.But the Canucks&rsquo; news isn&rsquo;t all bad. Captain Orland Kurtenbach, recovering from a gall bladder operation, should be back in action within 10 days. &#9632;

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Sweeping Year “End Changes Expected To Revamp Canucks

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01575/3409014-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg"></div>Scoring key: GP&mdash;Games played; G&mdash;goal; A&mdash;assist; PTS&mdash;paints; PIM&mdash;penalties in minutes; PPG-power play goal; SHG-shorhanded goal; WG-winning goal; TG-tying goal.) &#9632;

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TOP 25 SCORERS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02506/3409045-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Looking At NHL Goalers

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-04326/3409076-1-eng-US/f0017-042.jpg" title="f0017-04" width="513" height="531"></div> &#9632;

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TEAM PENALTIES

MONTREAL &mdash;Philadelphia Flyer center Bobby Clarke needs two points to reach the biggest point-total acquired by a player of a post-1967 National Hockey League team.Clarke, who has equalled his 1971-72 total of 81 points, is only one short of the 82 recorded by Red Berenson, then with St. Louis Blues, in 1968-69. Berenson that season finished eighth in the final scoring statistics with 35 goals and 47 assists.A second-round draft choice by the Flyers in the 1969 amateur draft, Clarke is now second in the indivudal scoring parade, the highest position attained by a post-1967 team player this late in any season. His 52 assists ties the mark for a player from a post-1967 team, set in 1969-70 by Tom Williams of Minnesota North Stars and equalled by North Stars&rsquo; Jude Drouin in 1970-71.The all-time record of assists, however, appears out of reach this season for any player. Boston defenseman Bobby Orr holds the record of 102, set in 1970-71, and he is also the current assist leader with 54. Orr has 71 points, placing him in a three-way tie for 10th place.Phil Esposito of Boston is the scoring leader with 90 points, including 37 goals which tie him with Mickey Redmond of Detroit for the lead in that department. Stan Mikita of Chicago, out with a foot injury, slipped to third place with 77 points, only two more than another Flyer, Rick MacLeish, who has 36 goals and is tied with Ken Hodge of Boston for the lead in power-play goals, each with 14. MacLeish&rsquo;s goaltotal is a Flyer record.Dennis Hull of Chicago is fifth with 74 points, one more than Rene Robert of Buffalo, Jacques Lemaire of Montreal and Chicago&rsquo;s Pit Martin.Although Canadiens were defeated 7-6 by Philadelphia at Montreal &mdash; the. most goals against Montreal this season &mdash; their goaltending trio of Ken Dryden, who returned to action after missing 15 games with a back ailment,-Wayne Thomas and Michel Plasse continues to hold the lead in the Vezina Trophy race among goaltenders. The three have a combined goals-against average of 2.27 compared to the 2.44 average recorded by New York Rangers&rsquo; Gilles Villemure. Ed Giacomin and Peter McDuffe. Third is Buffalo with an average of2.73.The dubious honor of penalty leaders belongs to Philadelphia which is accumulating minutes at a record rate. With 17 games left to play. Flyers have 1,239 minutes, an average of 20.3 per game. The record is held by Vancouver Canucks, who totalled 1,371 minutes in 1970-71. There are 16 players in the NHL withmore than 100 penalty minutes and Flyers have five of them, including Leagueleader Bob Kelly with 163. &#9632;

NHL WEEK — In Review

AT THE TAFT SCHOOL, WATERTOWN, CONN. AGES 9-17&mdash;WEEKLY DURING JULY AND AUGUST FULL-TIME SVS HEAD COACHES From Yale, Boston College, Cornell, Brown, Providence College, Taft, Andover, Choate, and other leading educational institutions.SVSWrite for brochure:SVS HOCKEY SCHOOLP.O. Box 726, Dept. H,New Haven, Ct. 06503 &#9632;

Hockey School

<h2>In The East</h2>Anyone looking for evidence last week that Bobby Orr&rsquo;s leg was still causing him great difficulty would have been hard-pressed to come up with the proof.Orr, who underwent off-season surgery to remove a cartilage from his knee, sputtered early in the season before he rounded into form and Boston Bruins went on a 21-game tear.Then talk began mounting again in January that Orr was not healthy and that was the reason the Bruins were in a slump. However, the super defenseman dispelled all rumors and talk last week by scoring two goals and assisting on five others to lead the Bruins to three wins in four games. Included in that total is a goal and two assists he earned in Boston&rsquo;s 3-1 victory over Philadelphia. He moved up into the top 10 NHL scorers with 71 points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03356/3409193-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="528" height="588"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOBBY ORR&hellip; Boston Bruins</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-04270/3409186-1-eng-US/f0018-042.jpg" title="f0018-04" width="527" height="541"><figcaption class="caption-body">RICK MacLEISH&hellip; Philadelphia Flyers</figcaption></div><h2>In The West</h2>Philadelphia Flyers have added some offensive power to their rugged-style of play this year and it&rsquo;s keeping the West Division team &lsquo;planted in second place behind Chicago Black Hawks.One player who has supplied a surprising amount of offense is Rick MacLeish, who is centering a line with Ross Lonsberry and Gary Dornhoefer.MacLeish turned in an amazing performance last week, scoring six goals and adding three assists to move up into third place in the NHL&rsquo;s individual scoring race behind Phil Esposito and Flyers&rsquo; Bobby Clarke. He scored four of his six goals in one game against New York Islanders. MacLeish now leads the Flyers with 36 goals and also in power-play goals with 14. &#9632;

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⋆ Player’s of the week ⋆

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02474/3409224-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="199" height="304"></div>Coaches from: Dartmouth Penn, Princeton, Yale, Minnesota, Univ, of Toronto, NHL Coaches, Secondary and Prep Schools.Four two-week sessions: July 1, July 15, July 29, and Aug. 12. Ages Completely supervised off-ice program; superb dining and living facilities; adult supervisions at all times.For details writePOCUMTUCK HOCKEY SCHOOLDept. 26, P.O. Box 812GREENFIELD, Mass. 01301 &#9632;

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IN GREENFIELD, MASS.

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01562/3409297-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="427" height="284"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02475/3409290-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="417" height="270"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-03374/3409283-1-eng-US/f0019-032.jpg" title="f0019-03" width="216" height="1238"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-04318/3409276-1-eng-US/f0019-042.jpg" title="f0019-04" width="605" height="478"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-05264/3409269-1-eng-US/f0019-052.jpg" title="f0019-05" width="197" height="1219"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02308/3409262-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="254" height="1120"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03257/3409255-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="266" height="1211"></div> &#9632;

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National Hockey League SUMMARIES

C-Captain A-Alternate CaptainMONTREALGOALKen DrydenWayne ThomasMicnel MasseDEFENSEGuy LapointeSerge SavardLarry RobinsonDale HogansonBob MurdochJacques Laperriere APierre BouchardCENTERHenri Richard CJacques LemaireRejean HouleR WINGGuy LafleurClaude LaroseJimmy RobertsYvan Cournoyer AL WINGFrank Mohovlich AMarc TardifChuck LefleyMurray WilsonStove ShuttINJUREDPete MohovlichBOSTONGOALEd JohnstonRoss BrookDEFENSEDallas Smith ADon Awrey ACarol VodnaisNkk BeverleyBobby OrrCENTERPhil Esposito AFred StanfieldGregg SheppardDerek SandersonR WINGKen HodgeFred O&rsquo;DonnellDoug RobertsTerry O&rsquo;ReillyL WINGJohn Bucyk ADon MarcotteGarnet BaileyWayne CashmanMike WaltonINJUREDNoneDETROITGOALRoy EdwardsAndy BrownDenis DeJordyDEFENSERon StackhouseLarry JohnstonThommie BergmanKen MurrayGary Bergman ARed Berenson AMarcel DionneAlex Delvecchio CHenry BouchaR WINGBill CollinsBrian LavenderBill HogaboamL WINGNick LibettTim EcclestoneGuy CharronAl KarlanderINJUREDGary DoakMickey RedmondTOROHTOGOALRon LowJacques PlanteGordon McRaeDEFENSEMike PelykJim McKennyLarry McIntyreTerry ClancyDave FortierJohn GredaleCENTERDave Keon CGeorge FergusonDarryl SittierNorm Ullman AR WINGRon Ellis ARick KehoePierre JarryL WINGGarry MonahanErrol ThompsonDenis Du poreDale SmedsmoINJUREDBrian GlenniePaul HendersonRANGERSGOALEd GiacominGilles VillemurePeter McDuffeDEFENSERod SeilingAb DeMarcoRon HarrisDale RolfeBrad Park AJim Neilson ACENTERJean RatelleWalt TkoczukPete StemkowskiBob RousseauR WINGRod Gilbert ABill FairbairnGlen SatherJerry ButlerL WINGSteve VickersTom WilliamsTed IrvineINJUREDGene CarrBruce MacGregorVic Hodfield CBUFFALODave DrydenRoger CrozierDEFENSELarry HillmanMike RobitailleTracy Pratt APaul TerbencheTim Horton AJim SchoenfeldCENTERGilbert Perreault AGerry Meehan CJim LorentzDon LuceR WINGRene RobertSteve AtkinsonLarry MickeyCraig. RamsayNorm GrattonL WINGRick MartinRandy WyrozubHugh HarrisDoug RomboughINJUREDNoneVANCOUVERGOALDune WilsonEd DyckDEFENSEJocelyn GuevremonDale Tallon AJim HargreavesGreqa BaddyBarry Wilkins ADennis KearnsCENTERAndre Boudrias ARichard LemieuxJohn WrightR WINGBob SchmautzBobby LalondeGerry O FlahertyBryan McSheffreyBarry WilcoxL WINGDon TnnnahillDon LeverDave BatonINJURED.Bruce BullocLWayne MakiOrland Kurtenbach CISLANDERSGOALGerry DesjardinsBilly SmithDEFENSEA Bill MikkehonJim MairNeil NicholsonBrian LefleyGerry HartRon SmithCENTERDave HudsonTom MillerLorne HenningRalph StewartR WINGBilly HarrisCraig CameronEddie Weytfall CBob CookTerry Crisp ARon StewartL WINGBrian SpencerDon BlackburnGermain Gagnon AErnie HickeINJUREDNone.CHICAGOGOAL ITony EspositoGary SmithDEFENSEBill White AKeith MagnusonPhil RussellJohn MerksPot StapletonCENTERPit MartinLou AngottiChico MakiWalt LedinghamR WINGCliff KorollJimPappin 1J.P BordeleouL WINGDennis HullDon MaloneyJerry KorabDick RedmondNoneINJUREDDoug Jarrett AStan Mikita AST.LOUISGOALJacques CaronWayne StephensonBob JohnsenDEFENSEBob Ploger A. Barclay Ploger CJeon HamelBob McCordChris EvansPaul CortisSieve DurbanoConnie ModigonCENTERGory UngerFran HuckWayne MerrickR WINGMike MurphyGary Sabourin APhil RobertoPierre PlanteL WINGJack EgersFloyd ThomsonDonny O&rsquo;SheaINJUREDBrent HughesCALIFORNIAGOALGillet MelocheMarv EdwardsDEFENSERick Smith ABert Marshall CMarshall JohnstonTed McAneeleyBobby StewartCENTERWalt McKechnieSten WeuIvon Boldirev AR WINGReggie LeachHilliard GravesCraig PatrickDarryl MaggsMorris MottL WINGStan GilbertsonGary CroteauPete LaframboiseDel HallJooy JohnstonINJUREDNonePHILADELPHIAGOALDoug FavellMichel BelhumeurBob TaylorDEFENSEAndre DupontWayne HillmanTom B&rsquo;adonEd Van ImpeCENTERBobby Clarke CBill ClementRick MacLeishR WINGGary Dornhoefer ADon SaleskiSimon NoletJean PotvinBill FlettL WINGBob KellyRoss LonsberryDave SchultsBill BarberINJUREDBarry AshbeeJoe Watson APITTSBURGHGoalJim Rutherford ICam NewtotDEFENSEDave BurrowsDarryl EdestrandDuane Rupp ASheldon KannegiesserJean-Guy LagoceBryan WatsonCENTERSyl Apps ABryan Hextail ARon SchockRick KessellJim WileyR WINGNick HorbarukAl McDonoughJean PronovostRonLalondeEddie ShackL WINGGreg PolnLowell MacDonaldJim ShiresRobin BurnsINJUREDNoneLOS ANGELESGOALRogatien VachonGary EdwardsDEFENSETerry HoroerGilles Marotte AHarry Howell ABarry LongNeil KomodoskiLarry BrownCENTERJuha Widing AJim PetersVk VenaskyFrank St. MarseilleButch GoringR WINGDoug VolmarMike CorriganBill LesukSerge BermerL WINGBob BerryReal LemieuxDon KozakRalph Backstrom AINJUREDNoneMINNESOTAGOALCesare MamogoGilles GilbertDEFENSETed Harris CTom ReidDennis O&rsquo;BrienFred BarrettDoug MohnsCENTERJude DrouinDennis HextailMurray OliverCharlie BurnsR WINGBob NevinBuster HarveyLou NanneTerry HolbrookBruce McIntoshL WINGDanny GrantJean-Paul Parise AJerry ByersINJUREDBarry Gibbs ADean PrenticeBill GoldsworthyATLANTAGOALDan BouchardPhil MyreDEFENSEArnie BrownPat Quinn ABill Plager ARandy ManeryKerry KetterNoel PicardBob ParadiseNoel Price ACENTERBobby LeiterRey ComeauCurt BennettR. WINGLew MorrisonLarry RomanchyckLeon RochefortL WINGKeith McCreary CBilly MacMillanJohn Stewa tJacques RichardButch DeadmarshINJUREDLucien Grenier &#9632;

NHL Team Rosters

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01405/3409352-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="553" height="708"><figcaption class="caption-body">JOHN BUCYK&hellip; Leading Shooter</figcaption></div>MONTREALIf you are wondering who is the National Hockey League&rsquo;s most accurate shooter you don&rsquo;t have to look beyond the Boston Bruins. The sharpshooter in question is vetran-John Bucyk, who is right on when it comes to putting the puck on the net.In the first-hall statistics released by the NHL. the Boston left winger, who led the league in accuracy two seasons ago, has again emerged as the leader in the first part of the 1972-73 campaign.Among players with 15 or more goals, Bucyk scored almost once on every four shots on opposition nets &mdash; 19 goals on 79 shots for 24.0 per cent. When he led the NHL in 1970-71, he had 51 goals on 225 shots, a percentage ol 22.6The annual mid-season statistical review by the NHL Information Bureau reveals that 11 players had a scoring accuracy of 20 per cent or better, the most players to have an everage of a goal every five shots in any season.Second to Bucyk was Gerry Meehan of Buffalo Sabres with 23 goals on 96 shots &mdash; 23.9 per cent. Dennis Hextail of Minnesota was close behind with 23.8 per cent on 15 goals and 63 shots; followed by Bob Berry of Los Angeles &mdash; 21 goals, 92 shots and 22.8 per cent; Mike Walton of Boston &mdash; 21 goals, 96 shots, 21.8 per cent; Sy 1 Apps of Pittsburgh &mdash; 19 goals, 92 shots, 20.6 per cent; and Mike Corrigan of Los Angeles &mdash; 18 goals, 87 shots and20.6 percent.Phil Esposito of Boston, who has had more shots on goal in each of the last two full seasons &mdash; and scored more goals than anyone else &mdash; again led in that department in the first half of the current season. The Bruin center took 213 shots to score 24 goals. 11.2 per cent. In 1971-72 he had 426 shots and 66 goals; in 1970-71, a record 550 shots and a record 76 goals; and in 1969-70, he had 405 shots and 43 goals, his total shots being only eight fewer than leader and teammate Bobby Orr. &#9632;

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Bucyk Most Accurate Sharpshooter in NHL

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-04183/3409383-1-eng-US/f0020-042.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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NHL’s Leading Players In Plus-Minus Ratings

LOS ANGELES &mdash;Coach Bob Pulford and his players haven&rsquo;t lost their enthusiasm about Los Angeles making the playoffs for the first time in four NHL seasons.Pulford, who really had the Kings driving in the first half of the schedule before they started fading as of old, recently pointed out how the remainder of the schedule favored his team in the tight West Division race.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01253/3409414-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="235" height="419"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Pulford</figcaption></div>&ldquo;We play 14 of our last 20 games at home,&rdquo; said Pully. &ldquo;That kind of a home stretch should help.&rdquo;Pulford may have something, considering the Kings&rsquo; records of 15 wins, six losses and six ties at Jack Kent Cooke&rsquo;s Fabulous Forum against a tally 9-22-3 on the road.And the general feeling of playoff enthusiasm is expressed by Terry Harper&rsquo; the veteran defenseman acquired from Montreal.&ldquo;We have quite a few players now who have been there before (in the playoffs),&rdquo; Harper referred to Rogatien Vachon, Harry Howell, Frank St. Marseille, Ralph Backstrom and Coach Pulford, who was on a few Stanley Cup title teams with Toronto. &ldquo;If we play the way we can together, there&rsquo;s no way we can miss the playoffs. The West Division race is so close that any team putting three or four wins together is back up in second place.&rdquo;The enthusiasm is there but games that look easy on paper are seldom so on the ice. The Kings found out as much when they started that last string of 14 at home (out of 20) by twice blowing leads in a pair of ties against Detroit and Atlanta.On Feb. 14, Butch Goring and Harry Howell scored first-period goals as the Kings took a 2-0 lead in the Forum against Detroit. But they couldn&rsquo;t stand prosperity and wound up in a 2-2 stalemate after Nick Libbett scored both goals for the Red Wings, the equalizer in the third period.Three nights later the Kings also took a 2-0 lead against the Flames but blew the margin again as the Flames hustled back to a 3-3 tie.The two points helped, however, and so did the Kings&rsquo; Sunday triumph at Oakland where they defeated the Golden Seals 4-2. That victory left the Kings with 57 points, three below St. Louis Blues for the fourth and last playoff spot in the West.But the Kings&rsquo; next two games could tell the story if home ice really will favor them. They faced the Rangers and the Bruins in Wednesday and Saturday encounters.Meanwhile Juha Widing, the flying Finn, continued as the Kings&rsquo; points leader with 59 points, as centre on their big forward line. Bob Berry led the goalgetters with 30 off left wing while Mike Corrigan had counted 28 on the right side. &#9632;

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Kings Hope Schedule, Vets Carry Team Into Playoffs

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0021-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02185/3409445-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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NHL SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01278/3409476-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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NATIONAL HOCKEY SCHOOL 1973

<div class="byline">BY ALEX HARDY</div>ST. PAUL &mdash;Injuries play a role in determining the champions in any team sport) but nowhere is the injury bug such a deciding factor as in this season&rsquo;s WHA race.The reason is that the WHA has experienced amazing parity, and injury to one or two key players can kayo a team. Added to this is the fact most WHA clubs only have one or two stars each. If one of these leaders is hurt, the club falters.Alberta Oilers are a classic example. They started strongly thanks to the leadership and goal scoring of Jim Harrison. When Harrison got hurt, Oilers folded, but soon after he returned to the lineup they became a threat again.New York Raiders have had the same problem. Scoring leader Ron Ward was hobbled with an injury that limits the movement in his left arm (he will be operated on at the end of the season), and defenseman Kent Doublas was out with an eye injury that threatened to sideline him for the season. As a result, the Raiders stumbled. Philadelphia Flyers are another good example. When Bernie Parent. John McKenzie and Derek Sanderson were all hurt early in the season, the team floundered. The return of Parent and McKenzie perked them up considerably.ALBERTA: General manager Bill Hunter got off to a fast start in his added role as coach, after the club&rsquo;s directors decided he would lead the team from the bench the remainder of the season. Ray Kinasewich was asked to stay on as official coach but was relegated to handling the club at practices and watching games from the stands. Assistant Coach Glenn Hall resigned from the club. Oilers responded with early key wins under Hunter. Goalie Jack Norris registered his first shutout after coming close several times.WINNIPEG: Jets refused to fold under pressure from second-place Houston. They ended the week playing .667 on a crucial road trip that saw them beat back a Houston challenge, then edge Los Angeles with a dramatic last-second comeback. Player-coach Bobby Hull scored his first WHA hat trick and moved into the top 10 in goals scored.Jets&rsquo; home attendance showed improvement, climbing to an average of 6,718 since the All Star game.HOUSTON: Aeros played to the first sellout in the city&rsquo;s hockey history when 9,549 jammed Sam Houston Coliseum for a game against Minnesota. Gord Labossiere continued to score at an average of nearly one-and-a-half points a game. John Schella maintained his large lead in the penalty department, and Aeros still had the WHA&rsquo;s best power play (one goal every 3.44 times they have a manpower advantege).MINNESOTA:Fighting Saints were slipping as their lack of pro experience began to show. Dick Paradise provided some life when he engaged in a slugfest against Los Angeles.Saints, enjoying the comfort of the new $19 million St. Paul Civic Center, have the best attendance since the All Star game (an average of 7,497 fans per game). Wayne Connelly continued his goal-scoring feats, while little-knowns Frank Sanders and Jim Johnson paced one victory with a combined five points.CHICAGO: Cougars were winning with consistency during the week as they attempted mightily to close ground on the other clubs. The playoffs still seemed far away, but no one was discounting the Cougars. &ldquo;Our luck was bad for awhile, but we&rsquo;re not that bad a team.&rdquo; stated star Jan Popiel.LOS ANGELES: Gary Veneruzzo continued to amaze all with his scoring as Sharks stayed in the thick of the playoff fight. He had 36 goals in the first 56 games and led team with 56 points.At week&rsquo;s end Sharks had five players (Tom Gilmore. Earl Heiskala, Jim Watson, Ted McCaskill and Jim Niekamp) with over 100 penalty minutes for the season. Fortunately, the club is fourth best in the WHA in killing penalties. They also have the third best power play efficiency. &#9632;

Injuries Vital In Deciding WHA Playoff Participants

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0024-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02198/3409562-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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WHA SCOREBOARD

<div class="byline">BY WALT BURROWS</div>OTTAWA&mdash;Whatever takes place between now and the end of the season in the World Hockey Association&rsquo;s East Division can&rsquo;t prevent the Ottawa Nationals from being tagged the &ldquo;surprise&rdquo; team of the year.The Nationals, stocked with personnel little known in big league circles, with but three exceptions, have been in contention for a post season playoff berth since the first puck was dropped.Coach Billy Harris had Wayne Carleton, Guy Trottier and Brian Conacher on his roster with National Hockey League experience, but beyond that, &ldquo;youth&rdquo; was the name of the game.Of course, Harris had veteran Pittsburgh goalie Les Binkley, too, which sort of solidified things around the net.&ldquo;Sure, we had a lot of unfamiliar names in our lineup when we started,&rdquo; Harris admitted recently, &ldquo;but the spirit was as high as on any team in the league.&ldquo;We had hungry kids &hellip; the type of kid who realized the opportunity he had to make the big leagues. Our inexperience hurt us early in the season, but the young kids played super and we began to make people sit up and take notice.&rdquo;Harris discovered the Nationals had a fine back-up goalie in Gilles Gratton, a 20-year-old out of Oshawa in the OHA Junior League, when an injury forced Binkley to the sidelines.&ldquo;Gratton was outstanding for us,&rdquo; said Harris, &ldquo;Without him we would have been out of it a long while ago. He played like an octapus in goal.&rdquo;While Ottawa got good goaltending from Gratton, it also fine offensive performances from Carleton and the rookie line of Gavin Kirk, Jack Gibson and Steve King.&ldquo;Those young guys all feel they must prove themselves,&rdquo; Harris explained. &ldquo;They hope to establish themselves this year and be around for a long while.&rdquo;As for Carleton he had a torrid start but tailed off when linemate Ron Climie was injured and was lost to the Nationals until the second week of March with a shoulder separation.&ldquo;About that time, too,&rdquo; offered Harris, &ldquo;Wayne began to get a lot more attention from the opposition. It didn&rsquo;t hurt us too much, though, as the other players picked up the slack.&rdquo;A recent victory over second place New England on the Whalers&rsquo; ice proved Harris&rsquo; point.The Nationals, fighting for a playoff spot, beat New England, 7-4, and Carleton didn&rsquo;t score a goal. He helped his mates score, though, getting an assist and playing a fine checking game.Jack Gibson and Tom Simpson scored twice in that big game, Simpson scoring the go-ahead goal in the second period and Gibson the third goal as the Nationals beat New England for the first time on the road.Ottawa has a favorable schedule down the stretch, playing most of its games at home, but regardless of how things turn out, the Nationals can&rsquo;t possibly lose their &ldquo;surprise&rdquo; tag.CLEVELAND: Jim Wiste and Gary Jarrett have sparked Crusaders&rsquo; late flurry that has enabled them to pull out to a comfortable lead in the East. Wiste and Jarrett scored twice as coach Bill Needham&rsquo;s crew beat Chicago, 7-5.Dick Pumple&rsquo;s goal gave Crusaders a 3-2 nod at Ottawa as Gerry Cheevers lowered his goalie avearage to 2.50. Crusaders lost six jerseys in Winnipeg. Well you can&rsquo;t win everything, I guess.Needham, encouraged by a recent seven-game winning streak, feels his club has a great shot at the divisional title. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve done okay in big games with New England and we have a favorable schedule ahead of us,&rdquo; he explained.NEW ENGLAND: Despite its contending poisition, New England is having its problems at the turnstiles when playing in the Boston Arena. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re averaging only 3,975 in the Arena,&rdquo; a team spokesman said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re hoping the talk of a new arena becomes a reality. It would solve a lot of problems.&rdquo;On the ice, Whalers have been having problems, too. Continuing to play hot and cold, the New Englanders beat a tough Houston sextet on the road and then dropped an afternoon tussle to fifth place Ottawa.The Whalers&rsquo; checking line of Kevin Ahearn, Jake Danby and Mike Hyndman scored seven goals in a three game stretch, but was broken up a week later when the Whalers dealt Hyndman off to Los Angeles Sharks for right wing Mike Byers in a straight one-for-one swap.NEW YORK: Raiders, troubled by injuries and a rough road schedule, found its third place position in jeopardy until they beat Quebec, 5-4 on a goal by rookie Gene Peacosh. Peacosh&rsquo;s 27th goal of the season gave Raiders&rsquo; a 3-2 road victory against Ottawa.&ldquo;I think that was a big one,&rdquo; said coach Camille Henry. &ldquo;I think the guys were beginning to think it was impossible to win on the road. Now I think they feel different.&rdquo; Henry will get the opportunity to find out soon. Raiders play their last six games of the season on the road.QUEBEC: Nordiques won a big one against the Blazers, 3-0, when Alain &ldquo;Boom-Boom&rdquo; Caron scored twice and Serge Aubry and Rich Brodeur divided goalie honors. Quebec continued to be a patsy in road games, which could hurt, since the majority of its remaining duels are away from Quebec.J.C. Tremblay continued to lead the division in assists while Mike Rouleau topped the team in penalty minutes.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Blazers made strong bid to gain playoff berth, winning four straight games on the road before dropping the final four on an eightgame swing. Bernie Parent&rsquo;s super goal-tending and the offensive play of former National Hockey Leaguers John McKenzie, Danny Lawson, Andre Lacroix and Bryan Campbell triggered the Blazers&rsquo; move.Defenseman Jim Cardiff also earned praise from coach Phil Watson. &ldquo;The little guy played well on the road,&rdquo; said Watson, &ldquo;but we got good efforts from everyone. With a good schedule ahead of us, I think we&rsquo;ll be able to qualify for the playoffs.&rdquo; Blazers are the only team in the WHA which remain tieless. &#9632;

Ottawa Nats Surprise Team With Lack Of ‘Name’ Stars

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01212/3409617-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="547" height="562"></div> &#9632;

f0025-01

WHA LEADERS

<h2>NEW ENGLAND</h2>GOAL: Al Smith, Bruce London.DEFENSE: JimDorey, Ted Green, Paul Hurley, Rkk Ley, Brad Selwood.CENTER: Terry Caffery, John Danby, John French. Larrv Pleau.R. Wing: Tom Earl, Mike Byert, Tim Sheehy, Tommy Williams.L. WING: Kevin Ahearn, John Cunniff, Tom Webster, Brit Selby.<h2>QUEBEC</h2>GOAL Serge Aubry, Jacques Lemelin, Richard Brodeur.DEFENSE: Jacques Blain, Ken Desjardine, Frank Lacombe, J.C Tremblay, Pierre Roy.CENTER: Michel Harvey, Jean Payette, Andre Gaudette.R. WING: Yves Bergeron, Alain Caron, Rejean Giroux, Paul Larose, Renald Lederc, Frank Golem brosky.L. WING: Mike Archambault, Jean-Guy Gendron, Bob Guindon, Pierre Guite, Michel Parizeau.<h2>NEW YORK</h2>GOAL: Gary Kurt, Peter Donnelly, Ian Wilkie.DEFENSE: Kent Douglas, Jean Gauthier, Wally Olds, Ken Block, Bill Speer, Hal Willis, Bob Winograd, Bob Brown.CENTER: Norm Ferguson, Mike Laughton, Gene Peacosh, Garry Peters, Bob Sheehan, Ron Ward, Brian Perry.R. WING: Jamie Kennedy, Wayne Rivers, Bob Jones.L WING: Brian Bradley, Craig Rekhmuth, Jarda Krupkka, Ted Scharf.<h2>OTTAWA</h2>GOAL: Les Binkley, Giles Gratton, Frank Blum.DEFENSE: Mike Amodeo, Rick Cunningham, Brian Gibbons, Chris Meloff, Ken Stephenson, Steve Warr.CENTER: Gavin Kirk, Bob Leduc, Bob Charleboa.R. WING: Mike Boland, Steve King, Tom Martin, Dkk Sentes, Guy Trottier, Brian Conacher.L. WING: Wayne Carleton, Ron Climie, Jack Gibson, Tom Simpson.<h2>CLEVELAND</h2>GOAL: Gerry Cheevers, Bob Whidden.DEFENSE: Ray Clearwater, John Hanna, Jim McMasters, Wayne Muloin, Paul Shmyr, Billy Horton.CENTER: Doug Brindley, Ron Buchanan, Bob Dillabough, Skip Krake, Dkk Pumple.R. WING: Jim Wiste, Paul Andrea, Ted Hodgson.L WING: Joe Hardy, Grant Erkkson, Garry Jarrett, Gerry Pinder.<h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2>GOAL: Bernie Parent, Marcel Paille.DEFENSE: Jim Cardiff, Irv Spencer, Ronnie Plumb, John Migneault, Richard Campeau, Dave Hutchison.CENTER: Bryan Campbell, Andre Lacroix,Jacques Lapierre.R. WING: Danny Lawson, Johnny McKenzie, Don O&rsquo;Donoghue, Michel Boudreau.L. WING: Don Herriman, Don Burgess, Michel Plante.<h2>LOS ANGELES</h2>GOAL: George Gardner, Russ Gilow, Bob Perreault.DEFENSE: Bart Crashley, Ralph MacSweyn, Jim Niekamp, Gerry Odrowski, Jim Watson.CENTER: J.P. Leblanc, Ted McCaskill, Tom Serviss, Joe Szura, Gary Veneruzzo.R. WING: Steve Sutherland, Mike Hyndman, Alton White, Peter Slater.L. WING: Tom Gilmore, Earl Heiskala, Fred Speck, Bernie MacNeil.<h2>WINNIPEG</h2>GOAL: Joe Daley, Ernie Wakely, Gordon Tumilson.DEFENSE: Bob Ash, Steve Cuddie, Larry Hornung, Bob Woytowkh, Joe Zonussi.CENTER: Chris Bordeleau, Wally Boyer, Danny Johnson, Garth Rizzuto, Duke Asmundson.R. WING: Norm Beaudin, Milt Black, Bill Sutherland, Brian Cadle.L WING: Bobby Hull, Ab McDonald, Dune Rousseau, Cat Swenson, JearvGuy Gratton.<h2>MINNESOTA</h2>GOAL: Mike Curran, Jack McCartan, Carl Wetzel.DEFENSE: John Arbour, Terry Ball, Mike McMahon, Dick Paradise, Frank Sanders, George Konik, Blaine Rydman.CENTER: Mike Antonovkh, Ted Hampson, Jim Johnson, Terry Ryan.R. WING: Keith Christiansen, Wayne Connelly, Billy Klatt.L. WING: George Morrison, Mel Pearson, Bob MacMillan, Len Lilyholm, Craig Falkman,<h2>ALBERTA</h2>GOAL: Ken Brown, Jack Norris.DEFENSE: Ken Baird, Doug Barrie, Steve Carlyle, Bob Falkenberg, Bob Wall, Al Hamilton, * Roger Cote.CENTER: Jim Harrison, Ed Joyal, Bob McAneeley, Ross Perkins.R. WING: Ron Anderson. Bernie Blanchette, Billy Hkke, Rusty Patenaude.L. WING: Brian Carlin, Val Fonteyne, Dennis Kassian, Ron Walters, John Fisher.<h2>HOUSTON</h2>GOAL: Wayne Rutledge, Don McLeod, Bill Hughes.DEFENSE: Dune McCollum, Gord Kanneigiesser John Schella, Larry Hale, Ray Larose.CENTER: Murray Hall, Ed Hoeksfra, Gord Labossiere, Larry Lund, Keke Mortson.R. WING: Don Grierson, Duke Harris, Frank Hughes, Brian Smith.L WING: Brian McDonald, Paul Popiel, Jock Stanfield, Ted Taylor.<h2>CHICAGO</h2>GOAL: Andre Gil, Jim McLeod, Paul Menard.DEFENSE: Ron Anderson, Butch Barber, Larry Cohan, Dkk Proceviat, Larry Mavety.CENTER: Bob Skinski, Bob Whitlock, Rod Zaine.R. WING: Dan Lodboa, Jim Benzelock, Dkk Sarrazin, Rosaire Paiement.L WING Reg Fleming, Brian Glenwright, Bob Liddington, Rkk Morris, Jan popiel. &#9632;

WHA Rosters

f0026-02

World Hockey Association Summaries

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02156/3409710-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="545" height="2658"></div> &#9632;

f0027-02

<div class="byline">BY HANS TANNER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01200/3409748-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="544" height="561"><figcaption class="caption-body">MIKE CHERNOFF&hellip; On Scoring Spree</figcaption></div>JACKSONVILLE&mdash;Scoring three goals in one game is enough of a feat for any hockey player, but the Barons Mike Chernoff was thought to have set an all-time pro record the way he got his.He scored three goals in one game while on the ice killing penalties to his club. And that wasn&rsquo;t all he did on Jan. 23 in Cleveland in one of the Barons&rsquo; three names there after moving to Jacksonville. He scored two other goals for a total of five!Everybody connected with the Barons and the American Hockey League figured it had to be a pro hockey record. But word hadn&rsquo;t yet filtered out of Dallas where Dave Kryskow of the Black Hawks scored three shorthanded goals against Omaha four days before Chernoff did his thing.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-03119/3409741-1-eng-US/f0027-032.jpg" title="f0027-03" width="265" height="436"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Ellett</figcaption></div>So, in the space of five days, something that never had been done previously, had been done twice!Chernoff, a 26-year-old left wing, started his spree at 15:44 of the first period against Springfield&rsquo;s power play. He got No. 2 at 5:04 of the second, again with his team short. The third, making it a legitimate hat trick, too, since the goals were consecutive, came 8:44 into the final period.Mike followed those with a power play tally at 12:38 and finished the big night with an open net goal at 18:55. &lsquo;His comment afterward: &ldquo;Everything I touched turned to gold.&rdquo;And Baron coach Johnny Muckler says he could have had a sixth goal as well. &ldquo;It was late in the third period and he was about 20 feet out in the slot. But he didn&rsquo;t get all his stick on the puck and it just missed the corner of the net.&rdquo;The five goals in 44 minutes is only three less than Chernoff scored in 71 games last season.He had collected 36 for the Iowa Stars of the Central League in 1969-70 and followed with 31 in his rookie American League campaign in 1970-71.&ldquo;He just wasn&rsquo;t working, that&rsquo;s all,&rdquo; Muckler said. &ldquo;We had two good lines for our power play and Mike wasn&rsquo;t on either of them. I guess he was upset at that and his play went downhill. So I sat him on the bench and by the end of the season he wasn&rsquo;t doing anything for us.&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s a different story now. He realizes that if he wants to go higher in hockey, he has to show something this year and he has the ability to do that. Now he&rsquo;s a complete hockey player.&ldquo;He always could score goals, but now he&rsquo;s killing penalties for me and is doing everything. Mike came to camp with a different attitude. He knows he has the ability, and I agree 100 per cent that he has. But he knew he&rsquo;d better start working or he&rsquo;d never move up.&rdquo;ROCHESTER: American League president Jack Butterfield made an unscheduled, unannounced trip to Rochester for the Feb. 7 game against Jacksonville because of violence involving fans at the games recently.Butterfield went so far as to buy a ticket at the window like the rest of the crowd, and he sat in the stands near the usual trouble area for the first period. But all was calm.War Memorial officials banned the sale of beer in over-sized containers, one reason cited for the violence. And extra policemen were on duty and sat with their backs to the ice facing the stands.The fact that the Feb. 7 game was the first mid-week game of the season and 4,097 people were there instead of the 6,500-8,000 the club had been drawing, also probably contributed to the quiet mood. So did the usually rough Amerks, who didn&rsquo;t pick up a penalty after the first 11 minutes of the game.Veteran winger and captain Bob Ellett is headed for one of his best pro seasons. A recent six-goals-in-nine-games spurt lifted him to 15 for the season. He&rsquo;s scored more than that in only four of his previous 13 seasons as a pro and still had 24 games left on the schedule.NOVA SCOTIA: Yvon Lambert put his name into the Voyageur record book Feb. 9 with his 38th goal of the season. That broke the single season club record shared by Jude Drouin and Guy Charron with the then Montreal Voyageursin 1969-70.Lambert had tied their record with two goals in a 5-1 home ice win over Providence Feb. 6. He was blanked in a 3-2 Feb. 8 defeat in Richmond, but got his team&rsquo;s lone goal on the 9th in a 4-1 setback by Virginia in Hampton.Coach Al MacNeil is becoming concerned over his team&rsquo;s sudden failure to score goals on the road, Except for a seven-goal outburst in Springfield Jan. 27, the Vees were shut out once, held to one goal twice, two twice and three once in a stretch of seven games on enemy ice.CINCINNATI: Swords were having trouble wiping out the record for most road victories in a season. The Rochester team of 1964-65 set it with 20 and when Cincinnati won in Baltimore Feb. 4, it was 19. Not only did the Swords miss a chance to tie the record Feb. 6 in Jacksonville, they failed to score a goal, losing 1-0. They had another crack at it Feb. 11 in Rochester, and again were shut out, this time 3-0, running their scoreless streak to six periods.The two shutouts left Cincinnati with only nine goals in the last six road games and just about ruined any chance the club had of breaking the records for most goals on the road during a season 154, set by Providence in 1948-49. The Swords had 131 with only four chances left. &#9632;

f0027-01

Barons’ Chernoff Equals Pro Scoring Mark With Three Shorthanded Goals In One Game

<div class="byline">BY GREG FARLEY</div>PROVIDENCEDesperate times call for desperate measures, but Reds&rsquo; coach Larry Popein refused to reach for the panic button.Jolted by a seven-game losing streak, his club, nestled comfortably in second place only weeks before, was suddenly fighting for playoff preservation.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a frustrating month for us,&rdquo; admitted Popein, back in his Civic Center office following a brief road excursion which climaxed in back-to-back losses to the Voyageurs at Halifax.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02130/3409786-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="250" height="424"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marty Gateman</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Maybe we&rsquo;re pressing too much, I dunno,&rdquo; reasoned the ex-Ranger staiwart, &ldquo;but we haven&rsquo;t been playing that badly.&ldquo;We had at least as many good scoring opportunities as Halifax did in that series, but we just weren&rsquo;t able to convert them,&rdquo; he lamented.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to give the guys a lot of credit for keeping their spirits high though. We&rsquo;re convinced we&rsquo;re going to break out of it soon.&rdquo;Prior to a crucial three game weekend series against Eastern Division rivals Rochester, Springfield, and Boston, Popein made a minor line change (uniting Al Blanchard with Tom Williams and Bill Knibbs), and pressed a pair of newcomers &mdash; center Ken Ireland and defenseman Marty Gateman &mdash; into immediate service.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re not going to do us any good sitting on the bench,&rdquo; Popein concluded&rdquo;, so we&rsquo;ll throw them right in there and see what they can do.&ldquo;What we need is a psychological lift &mdash; a seven or eight-goal game &mdash; and maybe they can give it to us.&rdquo;And, with the revamped Blanchard line accounting for two goals and seven points and Ireland and Gateman performing brilliantly. Reds trampled the Amerks, 7-2, creating a little more breathing room between themselves and the resurgent fifth place Kings.Subsequent stalemates with Springfield and Boston enabled the Reds to maintain their bulge and, with fewer than 20 games remaining, put added pressure on the Kings.&ldquo;They were struggling until we went sour.&rdquo; Popein pointed out,&rdquo; and they&rsquo;ve been coming on ever since. We&rsquo;re in the driver&rsquo;s seat right now, but we&rsquo;re going to have to stay sharp the rest of the way to hold them off.&ldquo;All of a sudden they can smell &ldquo;5 that playoff money, so they&rsquo;re o going to be tough.&rdquo;Last year the Reds nosed out the Amerks for the final playoff on spot on the final weekend of the season, and although Popein refuses to speculate on a possible clinching date, he enthusiastically volunteered one guarantee:&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be there.&rdquo;BOSTON &mdash; With Bob Gryp and Ron Anderson providing most of the firepower, the Braves staged a lengthy unbeaten skein to keep the first place Voyageurs looking over their shoulders - Center Richie Leduc admits that chances of overtaking Nova Scotia are remote, but that the Braves &ldquo;will be satisfied with finishing second, considering all we&rsquo;ve been through &mdash; injuries and the loss of coach Guidolin to the Bruins.&rdquo;NEW HAVEN: &mdash; Nighthawks continue to improve and will undoubtedly be a major factor as spoilers in the outcome of the standings &mdash; After a somewhat shaky beginning, goalie Glenn Resch has developed into a top-notch AHL performer. Perhaps his best effort to date was a 42-stop, 4-1 decision over Richmond Robins two weeks ago.SPRINGFIELD &mdash; Netminder Bob Sneddon has spurred the Kings&rsquo; belated playoff drive, and will have to continue his excellence if the Kings hope to overtake the Reds in the waning weeks. Coach Jerry Toppazzini has been delighted with Sneddon&rsquo;s inclination to &ldquo;make the big save at the big moment,&rdquo; because the Kings have usually responded with an important goal.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01191/3409779-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="542" height="565"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOB SNEDDON&hellip;Holding Kings In</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0028-02

Larry Popein Says His Reds Will Be There

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-0396/3409831-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="630" height="3091"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-0476/3409824-1-eng-US/f0028-042.jpg" title="f0028-04" width="1192" height="1861"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-0563/3409817-1-eng-US/f0028-052.jpg" title="f0028-05" width="580" height="1177"></div> &#9632;

f0028-03

American Hockey League Summaries

<div class="byline">BY JOHN TRAVERS</div>HERSHEYIt makes no difference whether Hershey Bears are home or away &mdash; they just keep winning in their drive to lock up second place in the Western Division.From Jan. 16 to Feb. 6. coach Frank Mathers club had run off seven straight road wins, just one victory shy of tieing the club record. In 1964-65, Bears won eight straight road matches. &raquo;In the team&rsquo;s last 10 games it had posted six wins and two ties against a pair of defeats.The goaltending of both rookies Paul. Hoganson and Dennis Herron has been outstanding. Herron, sent down from Pittsburgh last month, won his first six road starts and in overall play was 6-2-3. He allowed only 21 goals.Hoganson on home ice was 112 and showed a winning 16-7-1 overall standard.One of the club&rsquo;s hottest scorers of late has been Ron Snell. In his last eight starts, the veteran winger scored at least a point a game, amassing 13 points on five goals and eight assists. He is among the league&rsquo;s top scorers with 52 points in 55 games.Barring a complete collapse by the Western Division leading Cincinnati Swords, it&rsquo;s virtually impossible for Hershey to overhaul the Ohio club.As of Feb. 9, Swords held a 17-point lead over Hershey. Cincinnati had 17 games remaining, while Hershey had 22.The Bears opened a seven-game road trip in February by topping Rochester, 5-2 and then beating Baltimore, 5-1.Another standout for Hershey since checking in from Pittsburgh has been big Jack Lynch, a 6-2 defenseman who can wheel the puck like a winger when he decides to make his move. In his first seven games, Lynch hammered in four goals and set up six others for 10 points.&ldquo;He has a lot of talent,&rdquo; said Mathers. &ldquo;For a big guy he can sure turn it on when he picks his spots. He will help us both ways.&rdquo;RICHMOND: Coach Larry Wilson&rsquo;s Robins have started to gain ground on the pressing Jacksonville Barons in the race for fourth place, last spot open in the West for a playoff berth. Robins opened a seven point spread (50-43) on the Barons by the second week of February. One of the team&rsquo;s key wins was a 5-1 triumph over the Barons and a 43 decision over Rochester just two nights earlier. Rene Drolet has begun to challenge the scoring leaders. After 53 games, he had 26 goals and 31 assists for 57 points.BALTIMORE: Clippers, virtually eliminated from a playoff position, continue to struggle along with coach Jim Morrison trying to put the pieces together. After being shut out 40 in Cincinnati Feb. 1, Swords coach Floyd Smith predicted that &lsquo;Baltimore is going to hurt a few teams before it&rsquo;s all over. They play well against us.&rdquo; Morrison claims his team doesn&rsquo;t take advantage of its scoring chances.NORFOLK: Virginia, with Art Stratton continuing to show the way, is still striving to catch Hershey and the Wings figure to make it quite a battle to the wire. As of Feb. 9, the were trailing Hershey by seven points (6962) but had two games in hand on the Bears. With a 2-2 tie against the Bears in the season&rsquo;s rivals, Wings won the eight game series, 3-23 for nine of 16 points. &#9632;

Bears Rolling Relentlessly Towards Second-Place Lockup

WEST SPRINGFIELD-There will be no changes in the American Hockey League&rsquo;s Calder Cup playoff format this season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01158/3409886-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="247" height="437"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jack Butterfield</figcaption></div>That&rsquo;s the word from AHL President Jack Butter-field, who said &ldquo;you can see we are going to stick with a i winner.&rsquo;Last year the AHL set a record i playoff pool of $260,000 which guaranteed the cup winners a nice fat $4,000 per player. The format was also changed ton what Butterfield termed the (&ldquo;perfect plan&rdquo; last year. Expansion to 11 teams made the four teams per division plan possible and with this year&rsquo;s 1 twelve-team set up the eight-team or four per division format is even more workable. The first four finishers in each division will qualify for the playoffs. The first place finisher will meet the fourth place finisher and two plays three within each division. The winners of these series and all series with best-of-seven sets, will meet in the semifinals. The only crossover occurs in the finals.&ldquo;We did make one minor adjustment in the plan. Butterfield noted, last year we encountered some difficulty in i scheduling games due to blackouts or the unavailabitly of ice in certain buildings and we were handcuffed with the old regulations. This year the president and those Governors whose teams are not involved in the playoffs have the right to adjust the schedule of games so that we may prevent any long delays in any one series.&rdquo;Here&rsquo;s the actual breakdown of the playoff pool by teams:Series &ldquo;A&rdquo;. &ldquo;B&rdquo;. &ldquo;C&rdquo;, &ldquo;D&rdquo;(Quarter-finals):Loser, $750.00&mdash;$60,000;Series &ldquo;E&rdquo;, &ldquo;F&rdquo; (Semi-finalsLoser, $3,000.00 &mdash; $60,000Total pool &mdash; $260,000. &#9632;

f0029-01

AHL Keeps $260,000 Cup Plan

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01185/3409917-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="577" height="1807"></div> &#9632;

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SAN DIEGO&mdash;Final action in a merger between the Western and Central Hockey Leagues is scheduled for March 15.The two leagues moved a step closer to the eventual merger at a meeting here. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re hopeful that it&rsquo;s just a matter of what kind of an arrangement can be worked out,&rdquo; said WHL president Bill MacFarland, following a meeting among the governors of the two leagues.&ldquo;There are so many ifs about the whole thing, but we&rsquo;re hopeful that most of them can be settled.&rdquo;&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s possible to get together, we&rsquo;re going to try to do it,&rsquo; said Emory Jones, president of the CHL. &ldquo;I think we&rsquo;ve shown that we can sit down and work these things out.&rdquo;The two leagues are competing in schedule this season, each club playing two home and two away dates with each club in the other league.The merger would probably be under the WHL banner with two divisions. The interlocking experiment has been less than successful at the gate. &ldquo;I don t think you could call it a financial flop,&rdquo; said MacFarland. &ldquo;You have to remember that most of these games were weekday games. I think the attendance figures are pretty much in line.&ldquo;Actually, the biggest problem of a merger would be the increased travel costs.&rdquo; The CHL found a large jump in traveling costs this season. The CHL cities are in a fairly tight cluster but the WHL is spread out over 1,700 miles&mdash;Seattle to Phoenix.Bob Breitbard, president of the San Diego Gulls, feels there is a future for a league encompassing the present WHL and four CHL cities.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just a matter of building up a rivalry with these other cities,&rdquo; says Breitbard. &ldquo;I think once they&rsquo;re in the same set of standings, that will start happening.&rdquo;Albuquerque, N.M., has been granted a conditional franchise but is still a question mark as a WHL member.&ldquo;At this point,&rdquo; said MacFarland, &ldquo;they have not yet met all the necessary conditons out-lined to them. We told them what they have to do and they are to report back to us on March 6 about their progress.&rdquo; &#9632;

WHL Confident Merger With CHL To Come Off

<div class="byline">by Doug McConnell</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-03101/3409972-1-eng-US/f0030-032.jpg" title="f0030-03" width="535" height="562"><figcaption class="caption-body">MURRAY KEOGAN&hellip;Second Time Around</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02133/3409979-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="236" height="418"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Barlow</figcaption></div>DENVER&mdash;Murray Keogan is the third Denver Spur to score four goals in a single game. He is also the fourth.Keogan counted his second four-goal game of the season in a 7-2 victory over Portland Buckaroos. The 23-year-old center from Bigger, Sask., was named Western Hockey League player of the week for his nine point production in three games. He had tive goals and four assists. The first two Spurs to collect four-goal games are Wilf Martin, in 1969-70, and Jim Shires, in 1971-72.Keogan has scored 13 points, including six goals, in his last four games and his line has collected 31 scoring points in that four-game span.Rightwinger Don Borgeson, the geam&rsquo;s scoring leader, counted 47&mdash;11 and left winger Jack Borotsik 3-4&mdash;7 in the hot streak.Borgeson has 51 points, including 21 goals, for ninth in the WHL. Borotsik has 19-27&mdash;46 and Keogan 20-27&mdash;47Last week&rsquo;s roster changes were welcome additions. Mike Lampman was sent to Denver from St. Louis for the fourth time this season. And defenseman Wayne Gibbs arrived from Columbus of the International League.Lampman has been in the Denver lineup for just 25 games but has scored 20 goals and 11 assists for 31 points. He counted two assists in his first game back on his latest visit from St. Louis.At St. Louis, the 22-year-old winger from Arvada, Colo., dressed for 18 games, collected two goals, three assists and a batch of splingers.Gibbs, younger brother of Barry Gibbs, replaces Andre Aubry who was loaned to the Portland Buckaroos as part of the deal which sent Connie Madigan to St. Louis. The 21-year-old from Calgary Alberta, split last season, his first out of junior, between Columbus and the Central League Kansas City Blues.At Phoenix, Bob Barlow came back. And is Murray Heatley glad he did.Heatley attributed his breaking out of an eight-game scoring drought for his 29th and 30th goals of the season to Barlow&rsquo;s return from a 16-game injury absence.Heatley, who erupted for 10 points, including four goals, in two games two weeks before, had been able to contribute just three assists in the next eight games.Heatley, 24-year-old right winger, leads the Western Hockey League in points, 68, but has been caught for the goal scoring lead by Salt Lake&rsquo;s Ron Huston, who counted his 30th in the past week.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing to do with Jim Boyd who played just great,&rdquo; said Heatley of his former University of Wisconsin teammate who had taken over Barlow&rsquo;s spot. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s my fault the line wasn&rsquo;t going. 1 wasn&rsquo;t working and wasn&rsquo;t digging in the corners the way I usually do.&ldquo;I did tonight and I think it was just playing with Barlow again. The way he hustles is catching.&rdquo;Barlow was the WHL points leader until torn back muscles hospitalized him at the end of December. The 37-year-old center, despite his long absence, is still just two points out of the WHL&rsquo;s top 10. He has 48 points, including goals.His return came as a surprise. He had been released from hospital just one week before and returned to skating five days before donning his unform again.&ldquo;He kept telling me how good he felt and that the only way he would get into game shape was to play,&rdquo; said coach Sandy Hucul. &ldquo;So, I said go ahead. He&rsquo;d add a lot if he only sat on the bench.&rdquo;Barlow added more than anyone expected and he didn&rsquo;t do any bench sitting.Hucul had intended to ease Barlow back into the lineup with spot duty, but early in the first period had reunited him with Heatley and Andy Hinse.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s amazing,&rdquo; said Hinse, the WHL&rsquo;s All-Star leftwinger. &ldquo;He steps right back in and played like he&rsquo;d never been out.&rdquo;The whirlwind skater was in on Heatley&rsquo;s two goals, and belted opponenets about like a 21-year-old out to make an impression.The 5-10, 178-pound winger who moved into the center slot to fill a gap early in the season, said he was letting out a lot of grustration.Barlow was in, out back to practice and back in the hospital with what was first diagnosed as a ruptured disc, then later treated successfully as torn back muscles.&ldquo;I tried to come back too soon,&rdquo; said Barlow. &ldquo;If I had been back in the pack instead of leading the scoring race, I wouldn&rsquo;t have but I felt I had so much at stake.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0030-03

Keogan’s Four-Goal Outburst, Barlow Return Top WHL Action

<div class="byline">BY DOUG MCCONNELL</div>SAN DIEGO &mdash;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01166/3410010-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="531" height="562"><figcaption class="caption-body">KEN BRODERICK&hellip; WHL Shutout King</figcaption></div>Ken Broderick has played 11 straight games in the San Diego Gulls&rsquo; nets and posted and 8-3-0 record over that span as the Gulls moved back into contention for the Western Hockey League lead.Gulls are chasing the runner-up Roadrunners and hold four games in hand. They are just seven points behind the league leading Salt Lake Golden Eagles and also hold two games in hand on them.Gulls set a team record of eight straight home-ice victories and now own a 19-3-3 home-ice record.Broderick is making a runaway of the WHL goaltending race. He owns a 2.77 goals against average, well ahead of Lyle Carter of Salt Lake City, who has a 3.29 record. The former member of Canada&rsquo;s National team has won 17 games, two more than Carter and Phoenix&rsquo; Don Caley. He also leads in shutouts with three.Broderick is aware of why he is where he is.&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t forget,&rdquo; he tells interviewers, &ldquo;to say how well the guys are playing in front of me. I really appreciate the job the guys are doing. It&rsquo;s really been a big part of it, the way they are playing.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a general team attitude. We&rsquo;re playing a strong defensive type of game this year. We know we&rsquo;re having problems on the offense, so we just figure we have to keep the goals against to a minimum.&rdquo;Gulls have scored fewer goals than any other team, except the last place Portland Buckaroos. The Gulls have 164 goals, the Bucks 156. They have also allowed far fewer goals than any other team, 142. Seattle has the next best goals against record, 162.The difference between the Broderick of 1968-69, his first season in pro hockey (with Phoenix) and the present day model is simply experience, says Broderick.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got three or four more years behind me,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;To me, goaltending is basically experience and good reflexes. If he&rsquo;s sharp, I think that the goaltender is going to have a successful year.&rdquo;Broderick had to make an adjustment to pro hockey, leaving the amateurs at the age of 26. He played college hockey before his five years with the Nationals.&ldquo;The Nationals&rsquo; schedule never extended more than 35 or 40 games over the whole year and the pressure games were placed into about a 10 or 12 day period where there is a world tournament or an Olympic tournament but in pro hockey it&rsquo;s quite different. You have to be ready 72 times a year. Even though you might not have to start a certain game, you have to be ready to jump into the action if you&rsquo;re needed.&rdquo;The Toronto-born goaltender, who will be 31 Feb. 16, is now a greater student of the game.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve studied my weaknesses more than I have in the past,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;For instance, when I&rsquo;m beaten on a particular shot, after the game I go over the goals scored against me and really think them out and find out how I might have played it differently to avoid having a goal scored.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0031-01

Broderick Credits Experience, Gulls’ Team Play For No. 1 Role

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0031-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02127/3410048-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-03106/3410041-1-eng-US/f0031-032.jpg" title="f0031-03" width="1175" height="1719"></div> &#9632;

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Western-Central Hockey League Summaries

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-0370/3410117-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="574" height="1839"></div> &#9632;

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<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div>DALLAS&mdash;Growing tired of their steady diet of deadlocks on the road, coach Bobby Kromm&rsquo;s Dallas Black Hawks broke that string spectacularly, Feb. 9. The Central League leaders charged into Salt Lake and took it out on the Western League-leading Golden Eagles, 4-2.The season&rsquo;s largest crowd at the Salt Palace &mdash; 8,200 fans &mdash; saw the Hawks take charge on first and second-period goals by Brian Ogilvie, while the Eagles couldn&rsquo;t put the puck past Dallas goalie Michel Dumas until seven minutes were gone in the final period. Then Dave Kryskow and Don Gordon made it 4-1 before Salt Lake could score again. Both Eagle goals came on power plays, scored by Angus Beck and Fred Hilts.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02115/3410086-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="268" height="450"><figcaption class="caption-body">Reg Bechtold</figcaption></div>The string of ties had begun in Omaha, Feb. 4, when the Hawks rallied from two down to forge a 3-3 knot. For the second straight night, Kromm challenged a stick for extreme curvature, and for the second straight night, he was proved correct. While the offending Knight, Brian McKenzie, was serving two minutes for the illegalblade, Gordon scored his second power goal of the night, with 1:50 on the clock, to tie the game. Dan Spring had scored earlier in the third.Omaha had a goal in each period &mdash; by Wayne Schaab, Doug Horbul and Lynn Powis, with the first and third coming on power plays.Then came a 4-4 tie in Portland, and a 3-3 draw in Seattle, before the climax victory in Salt Lake City. That ran the Hawk string to six games without a loss, since their Jan. 27 set back in Tulsa. They were unbeaten in five straight road games, and had won five straight at home, since bowing to Tulsa, Jan. 3.It also raised Dallas&rsquo; record against Western League clubs to 11-2-4, with a 5-2-3 reading in WHL rinks. It was the Hawks&rsquo; third victory in three meetings with the Golden Eagles, two of them in the Salt Palace. Dallas moved 10 points ahead of runnerup Omaha in the Central League race.FORT WORTH: Wings finally found the key to victory &mdash; on the road, of all places! It was in Portland Feb. 10, that the mini-battalion of coach Bob Lemieux outskated the Buckaroos for a 6-3 decision. That broke a nine-game winless string since Jan. 14 (five on the raod, four at home), and was the first game Fort Worth had won since the loss of league-leading scorer Ralph Stewart.The win was a long time coming, but it enabled the crippled Wings to maintain their one-point advantage in third place over Tulsa Oilers.The victory raised the Wings record to 9-10 in interlocking games against the Western League, a better pace than they&rsquo;ve been holding against their rivals in the CHL.Tony McCarthy, 20-year-old center from the Johnstown Jets of the Eastern League, joined the Wings on a five-game trial as they headed West. He belonged to the St. Louis system.Although the Wings&rsquo; fortunes were disappointing in late January, the attendance showed no signs of slacking off. They had drawn 92,571 for 23 home dates, for a league-leading average of 4,020.OMAHA: &ldquo;I enjoy playing in this building,&rdquo; said Omaha coach Fred Creighton, looking around at Tulsa&rsquo;s Assembly Center after the Feb. 9 game there. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;d enjoy playing in Madison Square Garden, too, if my team scored five goals in the first period. You know, this is the second game in a row we have done that.&rdquo;In fact, the visit to the Tulsa arena was more pleasant than the return home to Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum the following night, when the Omaha guns were completely silenced by amateur goalkeeper Jean-Louis Levasseur, and the close-checking Oilers gained 2-0 revenge.The Friday victory broke a four-game winless string for the Knights&rsquo; and was their first road triumph since their previous invasion of Tulsa, Jan. 24.In that game the Knights also jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the opening period. But the Oilers fought back in that one before finally succumbing, 7-5. There was no rallying by the Tulsans Feb. 9, as Omaha skated away with a 6-2 verdict.Scott Smith&rsquo;s opening Omaha goal was matched by Reg Bechtold for a brief tie. But Jean Lemieux, Doug Horbul, Wendell Bennett and Dave Murphy joined in the Omaha barrage before the first period ended. Murphy scored a shorthanded goal, his third of the season, second against Tulsa, and the Knights&rsquo; ninth of the campaign.Brian St. John added Tulsa&rsquo;s second goal with 30 seconds to play in the middle period. Don Martineau got Omaha&rsquo;s last tally early in the third.Rookie Grant Cole started in the Tulsa nets, but was lifted in favor of amateur Levasseur at 6:29, after the Knights had gone ahead, 3-1.It was the Knights&rsquo; third straight victory over the Tulsans, their seventh game without a loss in the series, and their third straight victory in the Assembly Center. Even after the setback at home the next night, the Knights enjoyed a 7-2-1 advantage, and were within a victory of clinching the 16-game series.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01168/3410079-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="559" height="643"><figcaption class="caption-body">DON GORDON&hellip; Two Power Play Goals</figcaption></div>The week opened with a 3-3 home tie against Dallas. The split with Tulsa left the Knights 10 points behind the first-place Hawks, and five in front of third-place Fort Worth Knights came up short on a planned two-for-two trade with Providence of the American League, a switch of players belonging to New York Rangers.Omaha sent two rookies, center Ken Ireland and defenseman Marty Gateman, to the Rhode Island Reds, Feb. 8, in exchange for center Gary Coalter and blueliner Dick Mattiussi. Coalter, 22, who played the last two seasons at Omaha under Ranger sponsorship joined the Knights immediately. But the 34-year-old Mattiussi, a veteran of 13 pro seasons, refused to report. Mattiussi was in the CHL for eight games at Amarillo in 1968-69. He has played 200 National League games with Pittsburgh and California.Lynn Powis and Wayne Schaab each had a goal and two assists for the week. Powis clung to the club scoring lead with 48 points to Schaab&rsquo;s 46.TULSA: Just when it appeared the Oilers might be threatening to match their eight-game losing streak of November-December, coach Gerry Moore&rsquo;s club turned the tide with a defensive gem on the road.The hero was an amateur goalkeeper, Jean Louis Levasseur, up for a professional trial from the senior amateur Orillia (Ont.) Terriers.Although the Oilers were outshot, 29-21. in the Feb. 10 game at Omaha, they took a 2-0 lead in the opening period, and Levasseur held the Knightsat bay.For the second straight game the Oilers got goals from Reg Bechtold. That ran bechtold&rsquo;s total to a league-leading 31, and his 57 points led the scoring among players still in the CHL. However, Reggie was still eight points behind the total Ralph Stewart compiled before being traded off the Fort Worth roster.The Oilers named left wing Lyle Moffat, a second-year pro and the club&rsquo;s No. 2 scorer, as team captain. The team had played 50 games without an actual captain, although the four assistant captains &mdash; Moffat, St. John, Bob Duncan and Dave Fortier &mdash; had been performing some of the duties.Tulsa completed its final Westtern League tour with an 8-3 loss in Denver, Feb. 4. The Friday loss at home to Omaha was the club&rsquo;s fifth straight.A total of 64 minutes in penal ties grew out of the wild first period in that game (three fights). Fans thought the Oilers and Knights might be threatening the CHL season-high of 186 penalty-minutes they amassed in Omaha, Jan. 28. But only six minor penalties were whistled in the next two periods.Levasseur&rsquo;s shutout came in his first full pro game. He had played parts of three previous losing efforts, and had a fearsome 7.29 average, before his perfect performance in Omaha.Even in his hour of triumph, t he Oilers agreed to let Jean Louis return to his amateur dull. Tulsa was expecting to learn whether Gordie McRae would he returned from Toronto Maple Leafs, or whether they would have to look elsewhere for goalkeeping help. &#9632;

f0032-02

Dallas Frustrated By Ties Takes It Out On Salt Lake

<div class="byline">BY FRANK BROWN</div>NEW YORK &mdash;Among other things ironed out at the recent Board of Governors meeting here was the final playoff setup, which on the surface appears to be incredibly complicated, but isn&rsquo;t really.In Walker Cup first &mdash; round action, the first and third place team in the Central-Division will play each other, as will the first and third teams in the Southern Division; the favored Syracuse Blazers (who have already clinched in the North) will play the second &mdash; place team with the worst record, while the second &mdash; place team with the best record plays the remaining team.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01160/3410148-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="244" height="424"><figcaption class="caption-body">Darrell Knibbs</figcaption></div>It appeared, though, that the identities of the teams filling those spots would be in doubt until the very last week of the season. Except for Syracuse and Johnstown finishing one-two in EHL North, the races in the Southern and Central Divisions will be of the photo finish variety with virtually every team still in the running.In the South, Roanoke Valley and Greensboro will fight it out for the top two spots with Charlotte and Suncoast battling for third place. In the Central Division, only five points separated the top three (Cape Cod, Rhode Island, Long Island).The Governors announced, along with the setup, that three officials would be assigned from different league cities during the championships, eliminating local linesmen.Well, regardless of what teams make the cherished playoff spots, one thing is certain: the first round will be over by March 18, and the second round will be terminated by April 1. The Governors decided that at their meeting, too.NEW JERSEY: A 52-shot, 4-1 triumph over Long Island kept the dimly flickering light of playoff hope burning for the Devils, who stand eight points behing the third place Ducks in EHL Central. The next game, though the Devils gave away three goals and wasted a two-man advantage in losing to Johsntown. There are only two home games remaining for Jersey this month. Ian MacKinnon has been one of the few sources of happiness for coach Red Hay. The lanky center had, over a two-game stretch, scored all of his team&rsquo;s goals in a 6-3 and 4-1 loss.CHARLOTTE:Checkers, somewhat surprisingly, find themselves right back in the thick of it as far as the playoffs are concerned, trailing third-place Suncoast by a mere four points after appearing out of it in EHL South. Checkers also have two games in hand on the Suns. An 8-2 trouncing by the pesky Clinton Comets didn&rsquo;t help, though. Bob Shupe, the rough and tumble defenseman, had 10 Doints in 46 games last year. He had 10 by his 11th game this year.GREENSBORO: For the first time in a number of weeks, Generals found themselves looking up at first place from the second spot in EHL South. But there was something of a rarity, too, in the fact that the club went two games in a row without a loss on the road. After managing an 8-8 tie at Rhode Island, Generals topped Rhode Island 6-4. Meanwhile, Roanoke Valley Rebs, who took over first place from the Gens, ended Greensboro&rsquo;s 21-game unbeaten streak at home. In all fairness to the Generals, though, the club was finishing an impossible six-game-in-sevennights string.RHODE ISLAND: Eagles lost a fine player in defenseman Bob Brown when the New York Raiders of the WHA purchased his contract for their own playoff drive. Brown had scored seven goals and added 22 assists for the Eagles and often drew plaudits of the fans for his play. Eagles obtained Punch Cartier from Quebec Nordiques to fill the gap. Nick Haramis, is finished for the season with a shoulder injury. He was the Eagles&rsquo; number two scorer with 14-28&mdash;42. Dave Walter and Darrell Knibbs both hit for the hat in leading Rhode Island over Clinton 9-1. Walter nears the 100-point mark with 49 goals and 45 assists. Comets scored with just nine seconds remaining in that game.LONG ISLAND: Club returned from a rocky road trip which included a 10-1 loss to first place Cape Cod and a 9-3 loss to Comets. Long Island suffered irritating one-game injuries which broke up the club&rsquo;s line combinations and momentum. In one game, high scoring forward Claude Chartre was checked face-first into the chicken wire netting behing the goal at Clinton. Claude needed plenty of stitchwork after that collision. In another game, defenseman Pierre Viau took a puck in the mouth and spent the rest of the game getting his swollen jaw stitched up. Only the steady line of Wayne Maxner. Jean-Marie Nicol and Dwight Winters could skate intact after that.JOHNSTOWN: Rookie center Tom Steeves is out for the year with a shoulder injury. Jets also lost right winger Doug Anderson, who was hit in the eye with a puck. The good news came in the return of center Reg Kent, who finally was pronounced fit for play after missing 42 games with mononeucleosis. He made it back just before Feb. 13 roster-freeze date, and should have playing edge back for the playoffs, Brian Vescio also returned after missing 38 games with a broken ankle. Dennis Erickson registered first shutout of season, defeating Charlotte 4-0. Jets had only seven forwards recently, but managed to tie Syracuse 3-3.ROANOKE VALLEY: Camille Lapierre probably will finish the season in Philadelphia centering a line for John McKenzie with the WHA Blazers. Rhode Island Eagles returned Pierre Cournoyer after he failed the physical exam the team&rsquo;s doctor gave him. He might see action with the Rebs in the playoffs^ As was expected, Claude St. Sauveur scored his 41st goal of season to break the team record of 40 set by Jim J ago. Rebs pushed a momentary panic button when &ldquo;The Saint&rdquo; was chosen by Chicago Cougars to be the &ldquo;player to be named later&rdquo; in a trade earlier this season. They breathed easier when the deal fell through. Yves Archambault has two shutouts to his credit, and is the only Rebel not to have scored a point this season. Danny Sullivan has two assists.SUNCOAST: Suns suffered a 9-1 pounding at the hands of Greensboro before 3,575 disappointed hometown fans. Marty Desmarais, a relatively newcomer to Suncoast, fit right in with linemates Dennis Lemieux and Andre Lajeunesse. Coach Lloyd Hinchberger had had enough of the Cliff Pennington business and sent Cliffs contract to the Long Island Ducks. However, the recently remarried Pennington refused to report to the Ducks and became a free agent., Suns suspended him after his refusal to report to Ducks.CAPE COD: Cubs own a big edge over the rest of EHL Central not only because of its points total but because they have four games in hand on the other clubs. Luc Simard&rsquo;s 52 goal total is exactly double the output of J m Sherrit, Cubs No. 2 scorer. The team has a new mascot &mdash; a skater in a Cub suit who leads the team out onto the ice. The Simard-Sherrit-Jacques Royer line has potted over 100 goals. Ray Gibbs made such a sensational debut in Cape Cod nets he played seven games in a row and forced Bob Dupuis right out of the Cubs&rsquo; future plans. They asked waivers on Dupuis.CLINTON: Well, what can you say about poor Clinton? They dropped a 9-1 game to the Cape while surrendering hat tricks to two players, they have no goalies in the top 10, no scorers in the top 20, and no shot whatsoever at the playoffs. The &ldquo;Butch&rdquo; line has been doing well, though, with Butch Williams skating between Brian Macklin and Jerry Andreatta. The team has given up more goals than any other club in the circuit on its way to just 16 victories and sixties in 64 games. That&rsquo;s not the way things used to be in Clinton.SYRACUSE: At the other extreme are the Blazers, who last week cemented their second consecutive Northern Division championship. The team is still undefeated at home, winning 30 and tying two. Ray Adduono continues his rampage against opposition goaltenders with 136 points, and needs only four assists more to go over the 100 mark for the second year in a row. At this writing, Yves Belanger and Joe Junkin had each won 23 games and combined for eight shutouts, the latest being an 11-0 mauling of Clinton Comets. &#9632;

f0034-01

Blazers Romp But Rest Of Spots Still Up For Grabs

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01149/3410210-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="560" height="2150"></div> &#9632;

f0035-01

<div class="byline">BY JOHN GUGGER</div>SAGINAW&mdash;Coach Don Perry didn&rsquo;t enjoy seeing his Saginaw Gears fall out of playoff contention in the International League. So he decided not to look.Perry walked out of a game in Flint after his club had, for the third straight night, fallen behind after either leading or being tied. Gears had wasted away a 3-0 lead on this night and, with Flint leading 54 heading into the third period, Perry told the Gears he was tired of watching them lose and walked out.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02122/3410241-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="258" height="444"><figcaption class="caption-body">Glenn Ramsay</figcaption></div>He turned the team over to trainer Gunner Garrett. Gears came back to tie the match with 1:50 to play on a goal by Juri Kudrasovs, then won 40 seconds into overtime on Stu Irving&rsquo;s goal.&ldquo;I went out in the lobby and sat down,&rdquo; Perry said. &ldquo;I could hear the noise and occasionally I would get up and take a quick peek. But that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;Gears responded the way Toledo teams used to react when Terry Slater, now coaching the World Hockey Association Los Angeles Sharks, ran the IHL team. Toledo often won when Slater pulled one of his disappearing acts, too.Saginaw still needed some magic to make the playoffs. They were performing creditably for a firsGyear team and had won 23 games in their first 61 tries. But they were 13 points behind third-place Toledo and a playoff berth in the North Division with just 13 games remaining.Meanwhile time was against Muskegon Mohawks, too but the IHL schedule wasn&rsquo;t.Hawks had been in pursuit of third-place Toledo and the last playoff position in the North Division for nearly two months without progress. On Dec. 21, 1972, the Hawks were just four points behind the Hornets. On Feb. 14, 1973, the margin was six points.Muskegon had won 15, lost 10, and tied twice since late December. But the scrappy Hornets had expanded their edge by winning 16, losing 11, and tying twice during the same period.&ldquo;But we&rsquo;ve gotten most of our road games out of the way,&rdquo; Muskegon coach Moose Lailo &lsquo;said. &ldquo;The schedule favors us the last month. We&rsquo;re a long way from being eliminated. I think we&rsquo;ll make it.&rdquo;Mohawks had 10 home games and five road matches remaining in their last 15 games. Of Toledo&rsquo;s last 16 matches, nine were on the road and seven were at&rsquo; home.Hornets had three games left with clubs under .500 on the season. excluding three crucial matches remaining against the Mohawks. Muskegon, meanwhile, played six of its last 15 games against the league&rsquo;s weaker opposition and had two of the three games against Toledo on its home ice.Muskegon was about as close to being a &ldquo;one-man team&rdquo; as any club could be. The fortunes seemed to rest on the shoulders of center Gary Ford, who fired five goals in a game at Des Moines and had taken over the league scoring lead though he missed his team&rsquo;s first 15 games.The Hawks were 1-12-2 B.F. (before Fordland are 25-14-2A. F. (after Ford). He has scored 41 goals and added 52 assists for 93 points in just 43 games.Goalie Dave Hainsworth came in for his share of credit in Muskegon&rsquo;s resurgence by posting three straight shutouts and 264 minutes&rsquo; 2 seconds of shutout goaltending, both league records. Hainsworth, who led the IHL in shutouts with four, made 51 saves in the same game. Ford scored five goals as Hawks clipped Des Moines, 7-3.PORT HURON: Gary Holt, who had two hat tricks at Columbus, scored his first for Wings to key rout of Toledo &hellip; Wings continued to play tight checking game, and led league in goals-against-average &hellip; Wings had opportunity to overhaul Flint for division lead if they could win games in hand &hellip; League ruling to increase rosters to 18 players helped make decision to active Bill Watt for rest of season&hellip;FLINT: Generals added winger Laurie Yaworski trom Dayton and defenseman Ken Southwick from Richmond of AHL to reach limit of tour pros on roster &hellip; Gens were three players ever Feb. 16 limit of 18 &hellip; Gens&rsquo; 37 victories were most in club history. Doug Kerslake was sidelined with knee injury &hellip; Brian McBratney&rsquo; with one goal all season, scored twice and had three assists against Columbus &hellip; Flint passed 100,000 mark in attendance in 24th game.TOLEDO: Goalie Glenn Ramsay turned in third shutout against Saginaw and second &ldquo;zero&rdquo; on road &hellip; Herm Karp was recalled by Rochester when injuries hit Amerks &hellip; Ken Sutyla broke seven-game slump with only goal of game when puck bounced into net at Saginaw off his toe &hellip; Lome Rembough scored overtime winner against Fort Wayne &hellip; Hornets&rsquo; mark of 29-25-4 was best for a Toledo team since February of 1969&hellip;SAGINAW: Dennis Desrosiers, league&rsquo;s leading goal scorer with 48, split elbow in fall after colliding with teammate &hellip; Gears have lost 14 one-goal games &hellip; Gears&rsquo; 24 victories best among last four expansion teams in IHL &hellip; Desrosiers had figured in nearly one-third of club&rsquo;s goals before injury &hellip; Cal Hammond turned in consecutive one-goal performances to win back No. 1 net job &hellip;DAYTON: Gems obtained center Claude Piche from Baltimore of AHL &hellip; Club decided not to activate Ken Tarnow, who had knee operation, for rest of season &hellip; Defenseman Lome Weighill fifth Gem to go over 100-minute mark in penalties &hellip; Goalie Curt Ridley strained ligament in knee and will be out for three weeks &hellip; Gems were near 2,000-minute mark for team penalty time &hellip;COLUMBUS: Jerry DeMarco returned to action though not completely recovered from broken jaw &hellip; Ray Martynuik made 48 saves to salvage 4-4 tie in Saginaw, team&rsquo;s fourth road point of season &hellip; Defenseman Wayne Gibbs assigned to Denver of WHL &hellip; Seals not happy about IHL scheduling, which left them with just four home games in last six weeks of season.FORT WAYNE: Komets squandered 5-1 lead and were tied at home by Muskegon, then lost lead in last three minutes and were beaten in overtime of next game in Toledo&hellip; K&rsquo;s earned five of 10 possible points in Dayton, but just two of possible eight points in games here against division-leading Gems &hellip; Robbie Irons snapped five-game losing streak in goal&hellip; Don Atchison had gone five games in goal without loss &hellip; Glenn Collard, defenseman, was cut&hellip;DES MOINES: After scoring hat trick against Toledo goalie Ramsay, Nellie LeClair said: &ldquo;That guy has been robbing me for nine years. I&rsquo;ve been waiting that long to get him&rdquo; &hellip; Caps poured 54 shots on Muskegon&rsquo;s Dave Hainsworth, but only three found target. Caps had two wins twice in 12 back-to-back home dates against same foe &hellip; Caps had just 21 victories, but owned at least two against every IHL team except Fort Wayne &hellip; &#9632;

f0035-02

Saginaw Coach Takes ‘Walk’

<div class="byline">By Steve Klein</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0289/3410296-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="251" height="420"><figcaption class="caption-body">John Nnhlp</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01130/3410303-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="237" height="455"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jim Makey</figcaption></div><h2>Michigan State&rsquo;s Position Seen Best</h2>This is the time of season that Western Collegiate Hockey Assn, coaches become mathematicians as well.Notre Dame coach Lefty Smith looks at the WCHA race with a new math approach. &ldquo;The way this league is going at the moment, we could have five clubs in the top four spots,&rdquo; the Irish coach jokes, referring to Denver (40 points), Wisconsin (37), Michigan Tech (36), Michigan State (35) and Notre Dame (34).Denver&rsquo;s Murray Armstrong has a more precise formula &mdash; he has maintained throughout the season that it will take 52 points to win the championship.Points won isn&rsquo;t necessarily the best way to look at the race for a finish among the first four and home ice advantage in the post-season playoffs, which begin March 5-6. In the points lost column, Michigan State is still the team the beat, having dropped just 15 so far. Denver is next with 16 lost, followed by Wisconsin, 19, Notre Dame, 22, Michigan Tech, 24, and even Minnesota-Duluth, which has lost only 26 points and won 26 as well..Each team plays 72 total points, or eight against each of the other nine league teams. So, in the final bit of math, Denver, Wisconsin and Notre Dame have 16 points remaining, Tech just 12, Duluth 20 and Michigan State 22. Added together, Michigan State would appear to be in the most enviable position with the fewest points lost and the most points remaining.The big gainer as the race headed into its final month was Michigan Tech, which started February seventh and was second a week later. Tech&rsquo;s big week started during winter earnival week in Houghton, and the victim was Wisconsin in an eight-point series. The Huskies followed those weekend victories with a 7-1 win at Colorado College that left coach Jeff Sauer muttering, &ldquo;Tech&rsquo;s the most effective team we&rsquo;ve played this year.Then it was on to Denver for games four and five in seven days against Denver. Tech won the first night, 6-4, on goals by Mike Zuke, Graham Wise and John Jaschuk in the final nine minutes of the third period to turn around a 4-3 Denver lead. Then, with first place at stake, t he Pioneers slowed down the tiring Huskies, 4-1, and first place was safe for another week.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re happy,&rdquo; said Tech coach John Maclnnes, after winning 14 of 16 possible points. &ldquo;We were looking for three of five and we got four of five.At Madison, things remained perfect for Wisconsin with 5-2 and 6-4 victories over Michigan State. The Badgers are 14-0 at home and have played before 14 consecutive 8,000 &mdash; plus SRO crowds. Jim Makey who has taken over as the Badgers, No. 1 goaltender ahead of Dick Perkins, played both games and was the big difference between the two teams according to State coach Amo Bessone.In Colorado Springs, Notre Dame was suffering the Saturday night blahs again after John Noble had scored a hat trick in an easy 8-3 Friday night victory. The Tigers, who look much better than an out-of-t he-playoffs team on their home ice, effectively forechecked the Irish on their smaller rink for two periods and built a 6-3 lead.But unlike the Saturday before, when the Irish lost the North Dakota, 3-2, after an easy 9-3 victory, Smit h had the right medicine to cure his team&rsquo;s blahs-here united right wing Ian Williams with Noble and Eddie Bumbacco. the WCHA&rsquo;s leading scorer. Just 50 seconds into the periods, Williams scored, and by the time the period ended, so had Ric Schafer. Ray DeLorenzi, Mike Dunphy and Paul Regan tor an 8-6 Irish victory. Notre Dame totally dominated the third period, outshooting CC&rsquo;26-4.The two losses, combined with Duluth s eightpoint sweep at Michigan, all but mathematically eliminated Colorado College from the playoffs. I think I&rsquo;ll go recruiting,&rdquo; was about all Sauer could say.Saner did have nraise for one of his players, junior Steve Sertich, who was a one-man show for the Tigers. &ldquo;With 58 seconds left and us trailing 8-3, he&rsquo;s still giving 100 per cent. He&rsquo;s been our most consistent player all year.&rdquo;Duluth, which got off to an awful start, won eight in a row. and then started losing again, started its stretch drive with fourth place in mind with 7-5 and 9-8 victories at Michigan. Three of Duluth s final tour series are eight-ponters. The last place wolverines rallied late &mdash; but too late both nights, nearly catching up to a 6-3 UMD lead the first night (Pat Boutette had four assists for OMD) and scoring twice in the final minute Saturday to send the game into overtime. Lyman Haakstad scored the overtime winner for the Bulldogs. &#9632;

f0036-02

WESTERN WAY

<div class="byline">By Tom Burke</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0369/3410341-1-eng-US/f0036-032.jpg" title="f0036-03" width="262" height="448"><figcaption class="caption-body">Peter Harasym</figcaption></div><h2>BU Bounces Back As ECAC Tightens</h2>Except for the rage still smoldering within every Boston University player s breast. L&rsquo;Affaire DeCloe is over. Dick DeCloe has taken a leave of absence from school after being declared ineligible by the ECAC. He&rsquo;s playing Junior A with Toronto Marlboros back in Canada, and BU hasn&rsquo;t lost a game without him.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve shown we&rsquo;re going to live through this thing,&rdquo; said Leon Abbott. &ldquo;The team is playing good hockey and we&rsquo;re proving we&rsquo;re not a 8-15 club. But Dick&rsquo;s life has changed.&rdquo;Apparently, there won&rsquo;t be wholesale security leaks on the many suspect hockey players presently cavorting in the East. Hopefully, some rule clarifications are being sought which will not retroactively punish players as was the case with DeCloe.BU, Boston College, Cornell, and Clarkson all took giant steps in the strangulating ECAC Division One race in the first full week of February. All four teams registered a pair of victories. The big losers were RP1 and Dartmouth with two setbacks each, dropping them into a four wav tie with &ldquo;New Hampshire and St.Lawrence for sixth spot. UNH lost its lone game of the week whlie the Larries blasted RPI11-2.BU gained the Beanpot Tournament final by routing Harvard 8-3 after BC had tipped Northeastern 9-8 in overtime in the other first round game. Terriers followed that up with an 8-1 thumping of Providence to make their divisional mark 6-7. Parenthentically, it looks certain that BU will make the playoffs even with the four divisional game forfeit handicap. But they quite possibly won&rsquo;t have quite the percentage to grab a home ice berth unless there&rsquo;s some seed juggling done in the committee rooms. Too bad, though, if BU has to play away from home for round one and ends up with Harvard, BC, or Cornell.That way, one of the four best teams in Division One will be eliminated early &mdash; something that could have been avoided if the Terriers hadn&rsquo;t been penalized with four forfeit losses.RPI, 7-5 at the outset of the week along with Dartmouth, blew a chance to ensure a playoff berth when they lost a pair on the North Country swing. Two players mentioned in this column&rsquo;s &ldquo;All-Anonymous America&rdquo; team a couple of weeks ago did a big chunk of the damage.The Engineers were leading Clarkson. 4-2, with nine minutes to go when Peter Harasym&rsquo;s two goals keyed a four-goal Clarkson surge to a 64 triumph. Harasym also scored two against Colgate earlier in the week when Clarkson broke a six-game losing streak, 7-1. Jerry York inserted freshman George Galbraith in the nets for the two games.But to get back to RPI, they went down to Canton the next night and lost to an aroused St. Lawrence outfit, 11-2, thanks in part to Gary Webb&rsquo;s hat trick. Five players were ejected from the contest. The Larries, sky high in memoriam for John Toomey, an electrician who passed on earlier in the week, poured 62 shots at Don Cutts. Toomey, before a heart attack felled him, hadn&rsquo;t missed a Larrie home game in 23 years.Dartmouth had Boston College 4-2 in the second period in Hanover when suddenly it was 5-4, BC, within three minutes. The Green tied the game in the third frame, but Ed Kenty&rsquo;s short handed goal with 10:26 remaining lifted BC to its second win of the week.Yale followed Bobby Kane and his hat trick to a 5-3 win at Hanover on Saturday morning. Ken MacKenzie stopped 35 Green shots. The two home losses especially hurt Dartmouth&rsquo;s playoff hopes, as five of their last six games are on the road. _BC, in winning over Northeastern, blew leads of 5-1 and then 8-5 before edging the Huskies in overtime to gain the Beanpot on a goal by freshman Mike Powers Finals. Powers tied the Beanpot record of five goals in a game held jointly by Harvard coach Billy Cleary and BC&rsquo;s Ed Sullivan..BU got five goals from its senior line &mdash; three by Ray Cournoyea &mdash; in routing Harvard in the Beanpot 8-3. The Crimson&rsquo;s own vaunted Local Line, playing head to head with the Terrier trio, was blanked in their final game together. Two days later, Dave Hynes, Alt-America left wing, announced that he was leaving school. That left Bob McManama and Bill Corkery to carry on and that they did, with Larry Desmond in Hynes&rsquo; spot, by scoring four goals between them in an 8-4 win at Vermont, followed up by McManama&rsquo;s five point effort in a 7-6 win at Penn. Dave Gauthier scored with 3:04 left for the game winner.Elsewhere in Division One, Providence avenged a December overtime loss to New Hampshire by handing the &lsquo;Cats their first home home defeat, 2-1. Mike Marvell, another All-Anonymous star, had one of PC&rsquo;s goals. Brown stayed alive &mdash; barely &mdash; edging Army at home 4-3 on Dave Stevenson&rsquo;s goal at 11:18 of the third frame. Cornell won a pair of divisional tilts, 4-0 at Yale and 6-1 over Princeton..Vermont stayed unbeaten in Division Two. Merrimack and UMass tied 4-4 thanks to the Warriors&rsquo; Tom Pallotta, who clicked at 8:31 of the last period. UMass&rsquo; record became 9-2-2 while Merrimack went to 10-2-1.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0449/3410334-1-eng-US/f0036-042.jpg" title="f0036-04" width="256" height="445"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gary Webb</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0036-03

DOWN EAST

<div class="byline">BY STEVE KLEIN</div>DENVER &mdash;For a team without a real home. Western Collegiate Hockey Assn. Leader Denver is having a remarkable season.Evicted from the Denver Arena in early December, the Pioneers proved to be just as difficult in the Denver Coliseum, where they now play most of their home games, and at the Broadmoor World Arena in Colorado Springs, 68 miles south and 1,000 feet higher.Until the trusses that support the Arena roof were weakened by age and heavy snows, the Pioneers were a not surprising 4-0 at home. Forced into the older, cross-town Coliseum, a city-owned facility whose major tenants are the Western League Denver Spurs and a January stock show, the Pioneers lost their first visit, 5-4, to North Dakota. In eleven Coliseum games since then, Denver is 10-1.The month-long stock show, which leaves an even longer, airy after-effect, forced the Pioneers to play Wisconsin in the Broadmoor where the WCHA&rsquo;s top two teams split.So, while most WCHA teams have only had to worry about earning home ice for the post-season playoffs, Denver has had to worry about a place to play.The league leading Pioneers are confident they can repeat as WCHA champions and retain the McNaughton Cup. but when the playoffs begin with the two-game, total goal semifinals March Denver will very likely have to play host at the Air Force Academy (although one game may be shifted back to the Coliseum). No one dares think where the finals on March 10-11 will be played should Denver win the semifinals and finish first or second and earn the doube home ice advantage.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not discouraged, and neither are my players. Coach Murray Armstrong says without hesitation. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m even prouder with the team doing well under adverse conditions. This has cut down tremendously on our practice time, and we have to work at a rink five miles away from the campus.&rdquo;By February with the playoffs approaching. Pioneers usually are especially crisp, but it has only shown in spurts this season due to a considerable shortage of practice time.&ldquo;We could work three hours or longer at the Arena.&rdquo; Armstrong says. &ldquo;Now allowing for time on and getting off. we only get about an hour and a half a day. It&rsquo;s starting to tell a little.One area most affected is the Pioneer power play, which failed 11 times in Denver&rsquo;s recent split with Michigan Tech. &ldquo;We just don&rsquo;t get the time to practice it much,&rdquo; Armstrong conceeds.Home ice advantage is emphasized by the records of the WCHA&rsquo;s playoff bound teams Denver is 15-3. Wisconsin 14-0, Michigan Tech 14-2, Michigan State 8-1. Notre Dame 10-2. Minnesota 8-2-2, North Dakota 10-3-1 and Minnesota-Duluth 9-6. In last year&rsquo;s playoffs^ the four semifinal winners (Denver. Wisconsin. North Dakota and Michigan State) all won at home, and the final series hosts, Denver and Wisconsin, advanced to the NCAA tournament. In the 12 playoff games, the home teams were 10-11 (Wisconsin survived a loss and tie in both of their two-game, total-goals playoffs).Armstrong would like to look ahead to next season and say he has an answer, but he admits, &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t a clue; I really don&rsquo;t know what we&rsquo;re going to do. The authorities haven&rsquo;t told us a thing.&rsquo;The problem is further complicated by Chancellor Maurice B.Mitchell&rsquo;s attitude he&rsquo;s already eliminated football, and if he had his way, he&rsquo;d chuck the whole intercollegiate program at Denver.A new arena &ldquo;just doesn&rsquo;t seem in the cards,&rdquo; Mitchell recently told the Denver Post. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure we could, or should, go to the community and ask it to provide us with that kind of money,&rdquo; he says, listing figures of $8 million to $ 11 million as necessary for a new complex which would also accomodate other academic and entertainment events.Denver does have possible options to building a new arena. A dummy roof could be constructed under the present truss system, but no other changes could be * made since the Arena is already classified as &ldquo;noncom form ins.&rdquo;&ldquo;Any alterations except for the roof &mdash; even the addition of one seat &mdash; and we have been told the city will take the position that the entire building must be brought into code conformity,&rdquo; Mitchell explained. &ldquo;This might mean new exits, stairways, washrooms and the like and, for all practical purposes, we would be out of business there.&rdquo;Costs for that option range from $300,000 to$500,000.The Pioneers could remain at the Coliseum as a major tennant with the Spurs, but attendance has been down since the Pioneers moved cross-town. The city has approved construction of a new arena, but it won&rsquo;t be completed until 1976. &#9632;

Nomadic Denver Still Doing All Right ‘On Road’

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01120/3410386-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="598" height="3712"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-0292/3410379-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="593" height="2276"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-0364/3410372-1-eng-US/f0037-032.jpg" title="f0037-03" width="1190" height="1542"></div> &#9632;

f0037-01

Looking At College Races

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-0297/3410417-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="584" height="3136"></div> &#9632;

f0038-02

<div class="byline">BY JACK GATECLIFF</div>TORONTO &mdash;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01143/3410455-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="547" height="570"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARK HOWE&hellip; Five-Goal Game</figcaption></div>Check the statistics and there are any number of reasons why Toronto Marlboros will win t heir second successive Ontario Hockey Association Major Junior A pennant.They have won more games and scored more goals, lost fewer and had fewer scored against them than any other team in the 10 - club group and under former Toronto Maple Leaf captain Ceorge Armstrong have first place since the opening days of the schedule in October.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-0366/3410448-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="253" height="444"><figcaption class="caption-body">lan Turnbull</figcaption></div>Yet, oddly, enough, many National Hockey League scouts and fans around the circuit were not completely &ldquo;sold&rdquo; on the Marlies. sharing the belief they would eventually be caught by the more experienced Peterborough Petes and Ottawa 67s.There was the feeling that with 11 rookies and only five last-year players they were too young to head the league indefinitely.Then there wa&rsquo;s the case of the forwards who, with exceptions such as Glenn Goldup and recently-acquired Dick DeCloe were small by Junior A standards plus a defense and goaltending which some thought were questionable.However, Marlboros dispelled all doubts as to their superiority in four days.They invaded Peterborough where few teams come out with a tie, letalonea win, and handed the Petes an 8-6 defeat thanks to goals by Brad Winton and Goldup four seconds apart late in the third period.The following night it was strictly no contest as Marlies rolled over the second-place Petes 11-1 and 48 hours later demolished third place Ottawa 67s by an 11-2 score in the Gardens.Puck control has been their chief reason for success and while the forwards may be comparatively small they are exceptionally fast and Armstrong has three well-balanced lines.As coach Rudy Pilous said in The early 1960s when his Chicago Black Hawks were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs: &ldquo;They play that funny game. They don&rsquo;t let you have the puck.&rdquo;Marlies do have the biggest player in the league 6 ft. 4 in., 220-pound defenseman Bob Dailey.However even Dailey is a rather gentle giant and has proven to be exceptionally mobile for such a huge teenager.In other years, Marlboros have conquered the opposition by physical means. This season finesse has taken then to first place and almost certainly the Junior A League title.TORONTO: General manager Frank Bonello has been exceptionally sharp in acquiring players for the Marlboro push to-wards clinching the title &hellip; He heard St. Catharines sportscaster Tom Garriock mention defenseman Dennis Owchar would not be included on the Black Hawk list of eligible players-Jan. 10&hellip; Owchar had decided to return to his home in Thunder Bay and play senior hockey but Bonello contacted his (Owchar&rsquo;s) lawyer and brought him to Toronto&hellip;He has been an asset, filling in for Marty Howe who is still suffering from mononudeosus&hellip; Bonello then discovered Dick DeCloe. who played with London Knights two years ago had been declared ineligible to continue with Boston University and talked the 6 ft. 4 in. forward into joining the Marlies Feb. 10, the last date for signing players&hellip; Mark Howe scored five goals in 11-2 win over Ottawa.PETERBOROUGH: Only eight points behind Marlboros and with three games in hand, Petes blew their chances of overtaking the Toronto club with their back-to-back defeats&hellip; The 8-6 loss on home ice to Marlies was their first in four games to the Dukes before their own fans&hellip; The 11-1 defeat the next night in Toronto was their most decisive setback this season&hellip; Petes are primarily a defensive club but gave up the unusual (for them) total of 19 goals in the two games&hellip; Rick Chinnick ruined Toronto goaltender Mike Palmateer&rsquo;s bid for a shutout with their only goal in the humiliation at the Gardens.OTTAWA: It was a case of feast or famine for the Ottawa 67s&hellip; Rick Chinnick and Ian Turnbull scored three goals each, Denis Potvin two in 13-3 win over Oshawa but two days later they were shattered 11-2 by Marlboros&hellip; The 11 goals against was almost unbelievable as Turnbull and Potvin are rated the top two defensemen in the league and will almost certainly be picked in the top five NHL draft choices&hellip; Like Peterborough it was the most goals given up in a single game.LONDON: Knights have had a hot hand the last six weeks and ran their victory-streak to eight games with a 10-1 win in Sault Ste. Marie and 7-4 in Sudbury&hellip; Their move may be too late to finish higher than fourth but coach Bill Long has high hopes for the playoffs&hellip; Team is receiving extra scoring power from lines other than the top unit of Dennis Ververgaert, Reg Thomas and Andy Spruce&hellip; Ververgaert almost positive to Guelph (519) 824-3515 Chicago (312) 234-1710bring first points title to London with his centreThomas his closest rival.ST. CATHARINES: Black Hawks lost 6-4 in Oshawa, then had to settle for 4-4 tie on home ice with Hamilton when Chuck Blair scored with seven seconds left and goaltender Steve Miskiewicz out for extra forward&hellip; Chances of finishing fourth growing dimmer as London continues to surge and their immediate battle is to retain fifth position over Oshawa&hellip; Goaltending by Brian Cousineau and Jim Pettie has been excellent but defense not playing up to form of earlier in season&hellip; Captain Jeff Jacques reached 30-goal plateau but their highest scorer Dave Gormanstill inslump.OSHAWA: Generals still inconsistent&hellip; Following solid 6-2 win over St. Catharines they were beaten 13-3 in Ottawa and 4-2 at home by Peterborough&hellip; Goaltender Richard St. Croix injured in first period against Ottawa and replaced by Lew Moore who allowed all but one of the 13 goals in 62-shot barrage by 67s&hellip; Over the 50-goal mark Rick Middleton has opportunity of surpassing record 71 goals set by Richard Martin while playing with Montreal Junior Canadiens in 1970-71&hellip; Don Seiling and Bill Lochead also scoring regularly.SUDBURY: Wolves changed coaches for second time this season&hellip; Barry MacKenzie started, was replaced by Ron Rubic who in turn gave up his duties to Trevor Royce, who had been director of playing personnel&hellip; Under new bench jockey Wolves defeated Kitchener 5-4 then lost 7-4 to London at home&hellip; Club lost 6-2, also at home to Kitchener, in last game team was handled by Rubic&hellip; Greg Neeld, a Vancouver native, playing superlative hockey on defense and has three seasons of junior eligibity left&hellip;HAMILTON: Red Wings lost 14 straight games on the road before salvaging 4-4 tie in St. Catharines on late goal by Chuck Blair&hellip; Earlier in week Hamilton came from behind 6-1 deficit to tie Sudbury 7-7 in the Hamilton Forum&hellip; Jim Miskiewicz solid bulwark in Red Wing nets while Glen Cickello, a former forward, scored his 11th and 12th goals against former teammates in St. Catharines&hellip; Hamilton should make playoffs but Kitchener and Sault Ste. Marie still close enough to pose threat.KITCHENER: Rangers had busy weekend winning at home 6-2 over Sudbury, then losing twice on Northern Ontario swing 6-4 in Sudbury and 5-4 in Sault Ste. Marie&hellip; Rookie Rick Bourbonnais had biggest game of brief Junior A career with three goals in victory against Sudbury&hellip; Coach Eddie Bush still convinced club can catch final playoff spot while also planning for next season with young club.SAULT: Greyhounds just a shade back of Kitchener and, similar to the Rangers, are in a building phase&hellip; Bruce O&rsquo;Grady and Paul Woods both scored 20th goals during 5-4 home win over Kitchener&hellip; Cary Farelli excellent prospect at 16 years of age&hellip; Attendance has been generally disappointing in both Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury during their first season of Major Junior A hockey but should improve when teams develop into contenders. &#9632;

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Marlies Roll Over Top Rivals To Maintain Ice Superiority

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March 2, 1973

HOW THEY STAND

WHA FEAT OF THE WEEK

Week of Turmoil Throws Crozier, Sabres Into Tizzy

Muscular Flyers Put It All Together