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

March 23, 1979

The Hockey News March 23, 1979

<div class="byline">BY JIM SCHNEIDER</div>BOWLING GREEN&mdash;Bowling Green captain Paul Titanic scored four goals, two each game, to pace the Central Collegiate Hockey Association regular season champion Falcons to 5-3 and 6-4 wins over Ohio State in the two-game, total-goal, playoff championship. The series score was 11-7.Titanic, a senior from Toronto, Ont., was named CCHA player-of-the-week, for his goal scoring against the Buckeyes.The veteran left-winger has picked up where he left off last season when he scored eight goals in seven playoff games including the game winning goal in three contests.Titanic may have scored the key goal in the playoffs against OSU in the second period of the opener as he connected on a penalty shot to tie the game at 2-2.BG scored twice in the final minutes after Titanic&rsquo;s penalty shot with Mike Cotter&rsquo;s goal at 19:58 of the second period pushing BG&rsquo;s margin to 5-4, but the Falcons scored the next five goals to ice the win.Freshman George McPhee, who sat out the opener with an injury, saw limited ice time in the second game, but scored three points including his 40th goal of the season. McPhee now has 88 points for the season to set a new BG season record.BG meets Minnesota in the NCAA regionals. The Falcons are the only team to have qualified for the NCAA playoff system for each of the last three seasons. Two years ago BG lost to Michigan 7-5 in the first western regional, and last season BG advanced to the final four in Providence and took the consolation game from Wisconsin after dropping the semi-final game to Boston College.Ohio State freshman Steve Amoruso ended the longest game in CCHA history at 1:23 of the fourth overtime as the Buckeyes defeated Northern Michigan 5-4 to take the two-game, total-goal series 10-9 in the first round of the league playoffs.In the other first round series, CCHA champ Bowling Green pounded Lake Superior 12-2 and 6-1 for an 18-3 two-game score.The visiting Northern Michigan Wildcats led in each game of the series played in the OSX Ice Rink, but the host Buckeyes, ranked 9th in the nation, rallied for two goals in the third period in each game to get a tie.In the opener OSU led 2-1 after one period with Paul Tilley and Rod McNair getting the goals, but NMU exploded for four goals in the second period to take a 5-3 margin into the final stanza. Steve Bozek tied the game for NMU at 2-2 with an unassisted goal at 1:56 of the second period and Terry Houck and Bob Donahue scored at 13:01 and 13:52 to make the score 4-2.OSU&rsquo;s Larry Marson cut the lead to 4-3, but Mike Mielke scored at 19:46 to push the lead to 5-3.Rick Barker scored on the power play at 14:42 of the third period and Mark Freeman scored on another power play chance with three seconds to play to tie the game. Since the teams were playing two games, there was no overtime in the opener.OSU sophomore Mike Blake started the second game, but NMU jumped him for three quick goals. Bozek started the NMU offense at 2:11, but Marson tied the game at 3:34.Bill Joyce knocked Blake out of the game as he scored twice in 41 seconds at 12:12 and 12:53 of the first period. Steve Jones replaced Blake and went on to win CCHA Player-of-the-Week honors for his work.Jones allowed a power play goal to Mielke at 12:23 of the second period, but it was the only goal he allowed while facing 42 Wildcat shots in 78:30 of action.Mike Conrad scored a second period goal for OSU, and Tom Scanlon and Amoruso scored in the third period for the tie.The first overtime featured nine saves for NMU&rsquo;s Steve Weeks, and the second overtime featured OSU killing off a penalty to Tilley at 0:52. Mielke and McNair each drew roughing penalties at 9:39 of the third overtime and the game was over before they could return to action.Amoruso was assisted on the winner by Scanlon and Dan Mandich and the winner was a &ldquo;good&rdquo; goal, not a &ldquo;fluke&rdquo; that &ldquo;usually&rdquo; decides an overtime thriller.OSU&rsquo;s Mark Collins had a chance to become the overtime here twice, but one shot hit the crossbar and fell Straight down and not into the net and Weeks was able to fall on the puck. The other time Collins clicked a shot off the post.Weeks played all 91:23 of the game that started at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and ended at 12:05 a.m. Sunday.The loss ended the NMU season at 19 wins, the total Rick Comley&rsquo;s squads have reached in all three varsity seasons.NMU captain Tom Laidlaw had a super series collecting five assists.At Bowling Green the Falcons were ready for the start of the playoffs and jumped to a 5-1 lead in the first period of the opener and took a 12-2 lead after one game.The Falcons didn&rsquo;t coast to the victory as they scored three goals in the final four minutes of the game.All American Ken Morrow scored at 5:44 of the first period and LSSC&rsquo;s Ron Sandzik gained the only Laker tie of the weekend at 6:40.BG got its offense into gear midway through the period getting goals from Yves Pelland at 9:18, George McPhee at 10:15, Bruce Newton at 12:51 and Mark Wells at 14:44.BG added four more goals in the second period and the score was 8-1 before Steve Sharman scored the final LSSC goal of the game.Senior John Markell scored his second goal of the game at 18:33 of the third period to register his 100th career goal.Falcon captain Paul Titanic, who was the playoff scoring hero for BG last season when they reached the final four in the NCAA Tournament, opened the second game with a goal after just seven seconds of play, the quickest goal in BG history. vFollowing Titanic&rsquo;s goal, BG used its &ldquo;Mac Attack&rdquo; to grab a 4-0 lead, Brian MacLellan, playing his first series of the year on defense, scored at 7:53, Don McLaughlin scored at 15:01 and McPhee scored his 39th goal of the season at 17:16.Freshman Chris Guertin pushed BG&rsquo;s margin to 5-0 at 1:51 of the second period.The lone Laker goal in the 6-1 loss was scored by Kevin Kosowski on a short handed solo effort at 18:42 of the second period.McPhee led the playoff scoring with seven points in two games followed by Markell with six while Tilley, Wells and Laidlaw all have five points. &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUE

Bowling Green Keeps Title With Sweep

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01776/4261617-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="615" height="1884"></div> &#9632;

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Looking At NHL Goalers

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011125/4261200-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"></div>DO YOU HAVE AN OPINION ON HOCKEY?Write to:FAN FORUM, The Hockey News, 1434 St. Catherine St., W., Montreal, Canada H3G 1R7<h2>Likes Gordon&rsquo;s Canada Cup Proposal</h2>I am writing to express my opinion Of an open letter to Canada&rsquo;s hockey fans that appeared in the March 2 issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS and was written by Edmonton Oiler Executive Vice President Larry Gordon.I truly believe Mr. Gordon&rsquo;s letter expresses the feelings of many hockey fans throughout Canada that Canadian hockey is more than just the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs or Vancouver Canucks. To install Team WHA in place of Sweden, Finland and the United States would be both sensible and rewarding to those stars in the WHA who no matter what, never get the amount of recognition they truly deserve. Besides, using four clubs with a double round robin would be quicker and likely much easier to grab television coverage than if say three games were going on at once.Many fans will dismiss this idea with little thought as they will try and-imagine how inferior a WHA representative would be as compared to the NHL. Don&rsquo;t fool yourself, there are quite a number of talented youngsters toiling in the WHA. Sure the WHA may lack in abundance of talent but that&rsquo;s only because there are only six WHA franchises as compared to 17 NHL clubs. There is no dout tin my mind the two dozen players Mr. Gordon selected would be close if not par with their NHL counterparts that took part in the Challenge Cup. Furthermore, I believe the Stars of the WHA would jump at a chance to compete in such a prestigious international event and would treat it as an excellent chance for proper recognition.I think Mr. Gordon&rsquo;s choice of players is both fair and a good one, however, I thought I would suggest one more name to the squad, that of Winnipeg Jet All Star defenseman Lars Eric Sjoberg.RICK DILLABOUGH, Virden, Man.<h2>Swedes Bringing Excitement to MSG</h2>I take exception to two letters printed in your Jan. 26, 1979 edition. First, to say that Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson &ldquo;can&rsquo;t check their hats&rdquo; or that they &ldquo;skate like Zombies&rdquo; is outrageous.They have accumulated 92 points between them so far. Surely knowledgeable hockey fans didn&rsquo;t expect them to tally near the totals seen in their WHA careers. They have played exceptionally well, and boy can they check, hit, kill penalties, and they are not afraid to dive to the ice to stop shots. They are not two goal hungry individuals; team play is their major objective.For years Ranger fans have cried, why can&rsquo;t this team check. Well this year they do check and our Swedish duo set the tone by checking and hitting opponents with a desire not witnessed on a Ranger team in years. They along with a talented, hungry supporting cast have brought excitement and fun back to MSG.Finally, in reference to the All Star balloting, we did not stuff ballot boxes. This has been proven now that the final results are in.ANN MCGOVERN, Elmhurst, N.Y.<h2>Expansion Ruins Top-Flight Rivalries</h2>In my opinion the NHL should not let expansion ruin hockey as it did basketball. Living in New York myself there isn&rsquo;t a better game than when the Islanders play the Rangers.So if the NHL expands there would be less Islanders-Rangers and those other heated rivalries which make hockey the great sport it is.PATRICK DIVERS, Queens, N.Y.<h2>Canadiens Fans Don&rsquo;t React Enough</h2>I&rsquo;m a Montreal Canadiens fan ant live in Montreal where we have the number one team in the world. But the fans who go to the Forum don&rsquo;t know that.When was the last standing ovation the Canadiens received before a game. I&rsquo;m sure that if the Canadiens played for an American city they would receive a standing ovation each game, each period.The Montreal fan doesn&rsquo;t appreciate the team for their just value. If the Canadiens lose a game, it&rsquo;s the end ol the world, and people say that the Canadiens won&rsquo;t win the Stanley Cup.Also, there are a number of Quebecers, French and English, who cheer for another team, Why? Is il because the Canadiens win so many games?Don&rsquo;t be afraid to cheer for the Canadiens and don&rsquo;t wait until they win another Stanley Cup to do it. Give them a standing ovation and cheer louder for them after a loss.RICHARD BORDELEAU, Montreal, Que.<h2>Disputes Savard On Challenge Cup Loss</h2>While there is no question that Serge Savard is one of the premiere players in the game today, I must disagree with his inference that the NHL would have fared better against the Russians with less goon-orientated developmental system.How can the junior A leagues be faulted when they turn out the likes of Mike Bossy, Bryan Trottier, etc., and even if the clock were turned back 11 years and all the goons eliminated, I suspect the NHL All Star line-up would have been just about the same.The NHL iced a team of tremendous talent (and not a goon amongst them) but a collection of highly paid super stars does not a hockey team make Don&rsquo;t forget that the Russians were also a team of All Stars, but they did not spend less than a week preparing for the series.Rather, they worked together for months and I believe that it is their &ldquo;team sport&rdquo; approach which makes them so tough. Maybe we shouldn&rsquo;1 even bother playing them. I doubt if their individual players are better than ours, but their whole system lends itself more to this kind of international competition.Instead of pointing our fingers at the Jr. A goons, I suggest we re-evaluate our NHL priorities.OWEN CUMMINGS, Baltimore, Md.<h2>Name On Cup Girl&rsquo;s Dream Too</h2>I&rsquo;m 15 years old, play hockey and dream of having my name on the Stanley Cup. Unusual, no: for a girl&mdash;yes. That&rsquo;s right, I&rsquo;m a girl and I&rsquo;ve played hockey for two years. But unfortunately, like many other girls to enter the sport, I don&rsquo;t have much of a future in it. Any boy my age has a chance at &lsquo;NHL, WHA, AHL, CHL, etc.&rsquo;It just seems unfair that girls don&rsquo;t have the opportunities in this sport like the boys:&bull; Why can&rsquo;t girls have the right to good hockey training and excellent coaches?&bull; Why can&rsquo;t more colleges (besides Ivy League) form girls hockey teams and offer scholarships?&bull; Why can&rsquo;t they have girls&rsquo; hockey in the Winter Olympics?&bull; Why can&rsquo;t there be &lsquo;professional&rsquo; female hockey teams?LESLIE CURTISS, Bloomfield, Hills, Mi. &#9632;

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FAN FORUM

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The NHL Scoreboard

<div class="image-hero"><img title="Cover-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-01694/4263223-1-eng-US/cover-012.jpg"></div>&mdash;Page 2 &#9632;

Cover-01

NHL-WHA SIGNING WAR HEATS UP

<div class="byline">BY CHARLIE HALPIN</div>MONTREAL&mdash;The National Hockey League&rsquo;s expected decision to reject the World Hockey Association one more time is certain to renew pro hockey&rsquo;s embittered player signing war.As one league spokesman put it, &ldquo;if you thought the WHA&rsquo;s action in plundering nine under-aged juniors last season was a bold move&mdash;you haven&rsquo;t seen anything yet.&rdquo;It appears battle lines are already drawn with the first volley likely to be fired in the next few weeks as junior hockey leagues in Canada wind down on their regular season. It seems underaged juniors will be the prime target, meaning, of course, junior hockey will be the big loser.Both sides are blaming one another for the end result of recent merger meetings held by the NHL in Key Largo, Fla., that culminated with a 12-5 no vote favoring a proposal that the NHL add four WHA teams for the 1979-80 season. Many feel the decision, the third against any merger, is likely forever, which prompted WHA president Howard Baldwin to comment:&ldquo;From here on, what we do will be for the good of WHA franchises and their fans.&rdquo;Baldwin, who admits the negative NHL vote can only make his league stronger, is understanbly bitter and said the WHA will do everything in its power to sign hockey&rsquo;s best under-aged juniors with no holds barred.The NHL required a 13-4 vote to swing an association with the WHA for next season. Instead, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Boston and Los Angeles turned the proposal down and the WHA probably lost its last chance to make pro hockey a more viable one-league operation.While Baldwin insisted the WHA will mount a massive campaign to grab the best junior stars available, NHL president John Ziegler said his league could not preclude doing the same thing.The WHA may have already fired the first shot in the player war. Defenseman Keven Lowe of the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major League, said he is very receptive to an attractive four-year offer that would enrich the 18-year-old Lowe to the tune of $600,000 over the next four years, with the Bulls reportedly already making a $250,000 down payment to the youngster in a show of good faith.Lowe said he would like to play in the NHL but the money offered by Birmingham owner John Bassett tempts him. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d have to say I&rsquo;ll sign now rather than wait for the NHL draft in June,&rdquo; added Lowe.Ziegler has already asked several NHL club owners to explore the possibility of an under-age draft in order to counter any all-out burst of player signings by the WHA. Such a draft may be closer than most people think. Ed Chynoweth, the president of the Canadian Major Hockey Leagues, has already informed the WHL, OHA and QMHL to expect the NHL to move on their teen-aged stars. Chynoweth said he knows the WHA will continue to do it and doesn&rsquo;t expect the NHL to sit back and not reciprocate.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-02954/4260652-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="554" height="857"><figcaption class="caption-body">HOWARD BALDWIN&hellip;No Holds Barred</figcaption></div>Ziegler, who is actually a proexpansionist, said he was personally disappointed at the way the decision went.&ldquo;I thought we were breaking some common ground, but that did not prove to be the case,&rdquo; added Ziegler.What killed the latest round of negotiations The usual hurdles&mdash;sharing TV revenue, player rights, divisional realignment and scheduling. The player issue was probably the most distressing for the NHL, particularly the Montreal Canadiens, who own NHL rights to some 25 WHA players. Vancouver was concerned about scheduling more than any other club and the Canucks felt they would lose too much in any realignment program-meaning the good teams like the Canadiens and Leafs would not get into the Pacific Coliseum regularly enough.Toronto owner Harold Ballard has insisted from day one that he wanted nothing to do with the WHA claiming the latter league placed considerable financial strain on teams like the Leafs and Canadiens by grabbing off some of their young players and forcing the salary scale to jump from $30,000 to $90,000 starting in 1972.Philadelphia chairman Ed Snider is one person who has been in the WHA&rsquo;s corner for many years. He insisted the two leagues should merge and cut costs. He has constantly repeated to his fellow NHLers that if they thought they could outwait the WHA, they more mistaken. He said the WHA just wouldn&rsquo;t go away and the NHL&rsquo;s problems would continue to mount.As far as the WHA is concerned, president Baldwin said his league would probably concentrate on an expansion program now that the NHL has rebuffed them.The 36-year-old Baldwin said he would recommend the WHA keep its six-team format through 1979-80, expand to eight teams in 1980 and add two more franchises in 1982, levelling off with 10 teams.Baldwin also said WHA chairman Ben Hatskin would tackle the international hockey program to explore scheduling games with European teams that would count in the league standings.Baldwin said player procurement, signing juniors and underage kids, would be the league&rsquo;s first concern now. He said his league wasn&rsquo;t interested in signing NHL free agents. He also suggested that the WHA might play a shorter schedule, 70 games down from 80, start later Nov. 1 and finish in late March.Baldwin said the WHA had a contingency plan in the event they were turned down by the NHL and he said it would go into operation immediately. The league will look into requests for franchises from such places as Seattle, Dallas, Portland, Miami, Calgary, Phoenix, Ottawa and the Meadowlands in New Jersey.Baldwin said the WHA operation was far from dead. He said the league is healthy financially pointing to the New England operation where a total of 16 companies own control of the Whalers including the Aetna Insurance Company, which has combined assets of $59 billion.The WHA president said he was saddened and puzzled by the NHL&rsquo;s attitude in the latest expansion talks. &ldquo;It was a chance to solve many of the problems facing the game today. A positive vote would have helped clean up hockey. Instead the NHL has allowed them to continue.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Rejection Rekindles NHL-WHA Signing War

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0002-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011058/4260683-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">REAL CLOUTIER&hellip; Heading For 70 Goals (Photo by Steve Babineau)</figcaption></div>QUEBEC CITY&mdash;Real Cloutier, the scoring phenom of the Quebec Nordiques, is bent on setting a new WHA goal-scoring record and if he maintains his present pace, he&rsquo;ll probably make it with some to spare.The fast-skating Nordique right winger scored eight goals last week and five the week previous for a total of 13 goals in his last seven games. With 63 goals in 63 games, Cloutier needs 15 goals in his remaining 14 league games to eclipse the pro goal-getting record of 77 set by Bobby Hull with Winnipeg in 1974-75.Cloutier had two hat tricks in his hot scoring run to give him a record 20 erasing Hull&rsquo;s mark of 19. Both were achieved in six years.Cloutier scored 60 goals in 60 games but missed the record set by Anders Hedberg, who had 60 in 57 games. But Cloutier has his sights set on Hull&rsquo;s mark of 77 and Phil Esposito&rsquo;s NHL record of 76, the most for a season in the two leagues.<h2>Hockey Canada Gets Backing</h2>OTTAWA&mdash;Canada&rsquo;s sports minister Iona Campagnolo has come out and declared that Hockey Canada must go forward and not be hobbled by the CAHA or anyone else in conducting Canada&rsquo;s world hockey operations.Campagnolo&rsquo;s announcement means that the CAHA must relinquish its seat on the IIHF council. She forwarded the information to the CAHA in a letter to its president, Gordon Renwick.Meanwhile, Alan Eagleson, executive director of Hockey Canada, says he sees no reason why Canada won&rsquo;t compete in the 1980 World Cup competition and he even went so far as to speculate it could still be held in Canada. Vienna and Stockholm are both making bids to stage the tournament. &#9632;

f0002-01

Nordique Ace Cloutier On Record Goal Course

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03707/4260714-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="420" height="388"><figcaption class="caption-body">ROGIE VACHON&hellip;Where To Next?</figcaption></div>DETROIT&mdash;Goaler Rogie Vachon says he is still in a state of shock after the Detroit Red Wings decided he wasn&rsquo;t doing the job for them and promptly tossed him on the waiver market.The diminutive goaler, who has a whopping five-year contract calling for $1.9 million, was not immediately claimed for the $2,500 waiver price. The Rangers were reportedly interested but when owner Sonny Werblin put the idea to a player vote, they turned thumbs down on acquiring Vachon.The 33-year-old Vachon remains in Detroit practising and playing a backup role but he is mystified by the sudden turn of events that have cast him out of the NHL limelight. His goaling this season with Detroit has been sub-par. &#9632;

f0002-03

Vachon Stunned By NHL Waivers

<h2>THE NHL&hellip;</h2>Atlanta&hellip;&hellip;2Boston&hellip;&hellip;3Buffalo&hellip;&hellip;8Chicago&hellip;&hellip;20Colorado&hellip;&hellip;17Detroit&hellip;&hellip;10Los Angeles&hellip;&hellip;9Minnesota&hellip;&hellip;20Montreal&hellip;&hellip;18N.Y. Islanders&hellip;&hellip;12N.Y. Rangers&hellip;&hellip;6Philadelphia&hellip;&hellip;5Pittsburgh&hellip;&hellip;4St. Louis&hellip;&hellip;15Toronto&hellip;&hellip;7Vancouver&hellip;&hellip;13Washington&hellip;&hellip;15<h2>THE WHA&hellip;</h2>Birmingham&hellip;&hellip;24Cincinnati&hellip;&hellip;28Edmonton&hellip;&hellip;25New England&hellip;&hellip;24Quebec&hellip;&hellip;24Winnipeg&hellip;&hellip;27<h2>OTHER LEAGUES&hellip;</h2>Colleges&hellip;&hellip;29American&hellip;&hellip;32Central&hellip;&hellip;33International&hellip;&hellip;34Ontario Major&hellip;&hellip;36North Eastern&hellip;&hellip;28WHL&hellip;&hellip;37Quebec Major&hellip;&hellip;38Pacific League&hellip;&hellip;39<h2>COLUMNISTS&hellip;</h2>Ken McKenzie&hellip;&hellip;4Bob Verdi&hellip;&hellip;6Bill Libby&hellip;&hellip;8Bill Fleischman&hellip;&hellip;12<h2>FEATURES&hellip;</h2>Player Movements&hellip;&hellip;5Fan Forum&hellip;&hellip;10Hockey People&hellip;&hellip;14NHL Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;22Minor Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;35Amateur Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;38Hockey School News&hellip;&hellip;39 &#9632;

Where To Find It…

<div class="byline">BY AL SMITH</div>ATLANTA-The road to recognition has been a long one for Bob MacMillan of the Atlanta Flames. Throughout his amateur and professional career he has played away from hockey&rsquo;s hotbeds and thus has played in obscurity.But he&rsquo;s slowly but surely making his mark and in the near future he&rsquo;ll gain the recognition he deserves.MacMillan started playing hockey on Prince Edward Island where few amateurs get the exposure needed to be drafted high in the National Hockey League.So, he left to join the St. Catharines Black Hawks with hopes of catching the eye of the people who make the decisions for NHL clubs, but spent his final year of junior hockey in the stands due to illness.Feeling he hadn&rsquo;t gotten the exposure and sure he wouldn&rsquo;t be drafted high in the NHL, the young MacMillan jumped at the chance to sign a professional contract with the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the World Hockey Association. And of course everyone knows the Fighting Saints are no longer fighting and are now defunct.But when his contract with the Saints ran out, New York Ranger general manager Emile Francis was ready to give MacMillan a shot at the NHL. The Ranger GM had drafted MacMillan in the first round of the &lsquo;72 amateur draft the same day MacMillan signed with the Saints.But again it was obscurity for MacMillan. This time, plying his trade in Providence of the American Hockey League.From the Ranger farm system, MacMillan was traded to the St. Louis Blues where for two seasons he played the role of a defensive hockey player and his scoring talents went unnoticed.Then came the break that put MacMillan in the linelight. He was traded to the Atlanta Flames in December 1977 and he finally got a chance to show people around the NHL he has a knack for putting the puck in the net.He ended the 1977-78 season with 38 goals and 33 assists, by far his most productive year in hockey.Word was it was a fluke and MacMillan wouldn&rsquo;t repeat, but the 26-year-old right wing has proved them wrong.After 63 games, the five-foot-11, 185-pounder was the fifth leading scorer in the league with 33 goals, 59 assists and was a sure bet to become the Flames&rsquo; first 100 point scorer in a season.Through all this, he still plays in obscurity.True, he was selected to the NHL All Star team to play against the Soviets, but when the first cut was made, MacMillan was gone.He took it in stride, although he wanted to play on the team.His scoring in the past two seasons has been no fluke and barring any serious injury he&rsquo;ll gain the recognition in the near future even though he plays hockey south of the Mason-Dixon line where football is king and other sports are treated like stepchildren.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03622/4260807-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="541" height="942"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOB MacMILLAN&hellip;Career Of Obscurity</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0003-03

Recognition Due Flames’ MacMillan

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div>BOSTON&mdash;There&rsquo;s nothing like a visit from the Minnesota North Stars to cure whatever ails the Boston Bruins.It helps to have the coach thrown out of the game, too.All this happened on a Saturday afternoon in early March when the Bruins, who once were challenging Montreal Canadiens for the best record in the National Hockey League, had gone 6-11-4 in their last 21 games.The low point in the season had been plumbed only two days before when Philadelphia Flyers scored a club record three goals in 35 seconds and the Bruins were fortunate to escape with a 4-4 tie.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011065/4260776-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="503" height="1234"><figcaption class="caption-body">&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t Want To Talk I&rdquo;&mdash;Cheevers</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I have never been so nervous coaching as I am now,&rdquo; said Don Cherry in a choked voice after the game. &ldquo;And the players have never been so nervous playing as they are right now.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s exactly why we&rsquo;re not playing well. We&rsquo;re up tight. We get the puck in front of the net and&hellip;look, Ratty (Jean Ratelie) had the puck three times in front of an open net and&hellip;but, what the hell, everybody&rsquo;s doing it.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s exactly why I haven&rsquo;t been criticizing anybody on this team. The fact is we&rsquo;re trying too hard. How do you go in there and tell guys not to try so hard?&ldquo;We&rsquo;re making dumb mistakes that we don&rsquo;t normally make. We didn&rsquo;t make them in the first 40 games, not one. We&rsquo;re making 10 a game now.&ldquo;Now&rsquo;s the time I should turn on the players and say, &lsquo;well, I can&rsquo;t put the puck in the net for them,&rsquo; but, hey, that&rsquo;s what we got and we&rsquo;re going to go down together or we&rsquo;re going to rise together, one or the other.&rdquo;&ldquo;Besides that,&rdquo; he added in a hushed voice, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a person going in the hospital tomorrow for an operation and I wanted to win to make her feel good.&rdquo;Pencils were poised to record another moment of high drama.&ldquo;Blue&rsquo;s got gallstones and she&rsquo;s having an operation,&rdquo; Cherry went on. &ldquo;What a month! I&rsquo;ll never forget this month as long as I live.&rdquo;Blue, of course, is the person who hangs around the Cherry household disguised as a dog.In the Bruins&rsquo; dressing room, captain Wayne Cashman was feeling it, too.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to hate to lose so bad&hellip;&rdquo; He didn&rsquo;t finish the sentence. &ldquo;When I lose I have no place to go, no people I want to see. I go home and I can&rsquo;t sleep. I can&rsquo;t accept a loss.&ldquo;If you&rsquo;ve ever been on a losing team and then been part of turning it into a winner, you get a feeling of what it&rsquo;s like to win and you should never let it slip out of your grasp.&ldquo;Maybe it&rsquo;s slipped away from this team a little. If it has, we have to get it back now, right now, or it will be too late.&rdquo;Enter Minnesota North Stars.The North Stars have never&mdash;that&rsquo;s never ever&mdash;beaten the Bruins in Boston Garden in the 12 years they have been in the NHL. On the morning of March 3, 1979, that record for futility had reached 22 losses and seven ties in 29 games.It started well enough for the Bruins. Peter McNab got his 32nd goal and Rick Middleton his 31st in the first period. Bobby Schmautz and Ratelie made it 4-0 early in the third period. Then it happened.Dwight Foster, just back from a brief rustication in Rochester and eager to remain, hit Jean Potvin a thunderous, but from all appearances legal, check in center ice. Referee Greg Madill, who lost control of the game early and whistled himself hoarse trying to get it back, called Foster for charging.Cherry&rsquo;s rage was unbounded. He leaped on the dasher and, balancing himself precariously with the help of Brad Park, he screamed at Madill. Madill called a bench minor, which was a little like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. Finally, he threw Cherry out of the game.Gerry Cheevers, the backup goalie in full uniform and pads with a towel around his neck, stepped in as coach and immediately set the tone for the rest of the game.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to show my confidence in you Rocky,&rdquo; he said to young Al Secord. &ldquo;You serve the bench minor.&rdquo;The Bruins bench dissolved into laughter.&ldquo;Having a guy like Cheese being able to fill in sort of calmed the situation,&rdquo; said Jim Pettie, the game-winning goalie with his first NHL shutout (5-0). &ldquo;He has that way about him that he can say stuff to break the tension.&rdquo;After the game, following the long-established routine, the hockey writers crowded into Cherry&rsquo;s small office to find Cheevers presiding behind the coach&rsquo;s desk.&ldquo;My dog&rsquo;s got ulcers,&rdquo; he said with a straight face. Then he stood up. &ldquo;Get Grapes in here. I don&rsquo;t want to talk. I don&rsquo;t like this.&rdquo;Cherry, who was waiting coyly around the corner, came in.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-02917/4260769-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1085" height="1113"><figcaption class="caption-body">&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve Never Been So Nervous Coaching&rdquo;Cherry</figcaption></div>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;First things first. The important this is that Blue has come out of the operation with flying colors. Visiting hours are tomorrow, four to six. No microphones.&rdquo;&ldquo;I thought that was a helluva check by Foster,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I put the kid on for one shift and he costs me 200 bucks. Back to Rochester for sure.&rdquo;&ldquo;I thought Cheesy did a helluva job,&rdquo; added Cherry, who has been having contract problems with Bruins&rsquo; management lately. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s another guy after it. I knew they were grooming him but this is too much.&rdquo;And out in the dressing room,. Peter McNab was saying:&ldquo;It made us realize that the game is supposed to be fun. When you&rsquo;re losing like we were you lose the essence of the game. The idea is that it&rsquo;s fun. We had some fun today.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0003-01

Coaching Caper Relieves Tension For Bruins

<div class="byline">Ken McKenzie&#x2019;s</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011116/4260866-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="460" height="459"></div>&bull;THERE SEEMS to have been a huge sigh of relief heaved on several North American hockey fronts now that the NHL has turned down expansion plans with the WHA for the &ldquo;final time.&rdquo; On one side you have NHL owners like Harold Ballard who are delighted that the rival league won&rsquo;t be joining the established circuit, while on the other side, several WHA officials have expressed confidence that their league is now solid and that they can continue to improve as a separate entity. A WHA source revealed that the league will operate with six teams again next year, increase to eight in two years and probably to 10 a coupld of years later&hellip;The major effect rendered by the non-expansion decision will be a full-scale escalation of under age signings. Says WHA president Howard Baldwin, &ldquo;We will make a concerted effort to sign as much under age talent as possible. This will be league policy.&rdquo;&hellip;New American Hockey League franchise holder Joel Schiavone has pulled out all the stops in New Haven. Schiavone held a press conference at center ice attended by over 300 people with two bands, champagne and a buffet&hellip;The New York Rangers&rsquo; line of Don Maloney (called up from New Haven)&mdash;Phil Esposito&mdash;Don Murdoch has been red-hot. In their first 11 games as a trio they produced 18 goals and 24 assists&hellip;Montreal&rsquo;s 11-1 pasting of the Vancouver Canucks was accomplished in two hours and eight minutes, the fastest game of the season at the Forum.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021071/4260859-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="282" height="464"><figcaption class="caption-body">Don Murdoch</figcaption></div>&bull;IT&rsquo;S BEEN a rough year for the &ldquo;iron men&rdquo; of the National Hockey League. No less than five players with consecutive games streaks of more than 300 were forced out of the line-up this year. Latest to join the list are Nick Libett of Detroit and Bob MacMillan of Atlanta who were sidelined after 390 and 325 games, respectively. Others whose streaks came to an end were Montreal&rsquo;s Steve Shutt, 347, Bob MacMillan of Atlanta, 325, and Minnesota&rsquo;s Al MacAdam, 323&hellip;St. Louis&rsquo; Garry Unger is safely in the lead with more than 865 straight games without a miss and is followed by Islanders&rsquo; Billy Harris, over 540, Buffalo&rsquo;s Craig Ramsay, over 460 and Chicago&rsquo;s John Marks, over 450&hellip;Maine Mariners collected $7,500 at their annual carnival held on Sunday, March 4. Proceeds I from the event are being turned over to a summer camp for crippled children in the Portland area&hellip;Bruins&rsquo; captain Wayne Cashman had this to say about former linemate Phil Esposito: &ldquo;When Phil first came to us from Chicago he knew how to win and he taught us. He was the most determined player I ever saw. If he had one goal, he wanted two. If he had two, he wanted three. He had a comi; pulsion to drive the puck through the net.&rdquo;&hellip;Claude Larose, who signed with the New York Rangers&rsquo; organization after playing for Indianapolis in the WHA, has been a going concern with the Rangers&rsquo; New Haven farm team. In Larose&rsquo;s first 25 games with New Haven he scored I 20 goals and 20 assists.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-03966/4260852-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="264" height="437"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Cashman</figcaption></div>&bull;BEFORE LEAVING for Denver, Don Saleski, who was traded to the Rockies by the Flyers showed his class by thanking the Philadelphia fans &ldquo;for the good years I had there.&rdquo; Actually, Saleski had been booed quite a bit the last few years. About the Rockies he said, &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve got some good young players&mdash;Beck, Paiement and others. It could be a good hockey town. All they need is some wins.&rdquo;&hellip;Doug Wenschlag, director of marketing for the Edmonton Oilers has accepted a job as the general manager of Edmonton&rsquo;s new soccer team in Don Saleski the North American Soccer League, who are owned by Oiler chieftain Peter Pocklington. John Short will handle PR duties while continuing as director of public relations for the Oilers as well&hellip;Word around the World Hockey Association is that Oilers&rsquo; coach Glen Sather is the most disliked coach around the circuit. The reason&mdash;&rdquo;Slats&rdquo; likes to yap on the bench to get opposing players rattled&hellip;The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team will begin residence in Bloomington, Minnesota and will play a 12-game home schedule this fall beginning Sept. 29 when they will host the Minnesota North Stars. The exhibition game will be the first meeting between a U.S. international hockey club and an NHL team. The Soviet Union will also be sending over a team, with other games scheduled against Minnesota U., Wisconsin U., the Canadian Olympic team (twice) and Central Hockey League teams.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-04864/4260845-1-eng-US/f0004-042.jpg" title="f0004-04" width="275" height="427"><figcaption class="caption-body">Don Saleski</figcaption></div>&bull;WHA GOALERS rate Mark Howe as the player with the toughest shot in the league. In a survey answered by about 75 percent of the league&rsquo;s netminders, Howe was selected as the toughest to stop, while Quebec&rsquo;s Marc Tardif and Winnipeg&rsquo;s Kent Nilsson were tied as runners-up&hellip;Howe was regarded as No. 1 because of his quick release and hard shot, while Tardif was highly rated because he is able to score in a variety of ways and Nilsson was lauded because of his deceptive shot&hellip;Joe Gordon, a hockey writer for the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot-Ledger, frequently practices with the Boston Bruins. Gordon, in fact, had been kidded about being the last player to score on Gilles Gilbert before Gilbert&rsquo;s two-month period of inactivity&hellip;It didn&rsquo;t take Bob McCammon long to regain his touch with the Maine Mariners in the American League. When McCammon was fired by the Flyers and came back to coach Maine whom he had led to the AHL championship last year, the Mariners held a two-point edge over New Brunswick in the race for first place. Four weeks later, the Mariners&rsquo; margin had increased to 15 points&hellip;Cincinnati Stingers added 36-year-old ex-NHL defenseman Bryan Watson to the club because he will lend some needed leadership to the club for the playoff stretch drive, according to Stinger coach Floyd Smith&hellip;Rochester Americans of the AHL did not win a single game in the month of February. Mark Howe<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-05725/4260838-1-eng-US/f0004-052.jpg" title="f0004-05" width="286" height="436"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mark Howe</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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PASSING THE PUCK

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;A Pittsburgh radio station recently conducted a man-in-the-street interview. The question asked was, &ldquo;Who is the Penguins&rsquo; most valuable player?"One man interviewed answered, &ldquo;Denis Herron. As Herron goes, so go the Penguins.&rdquo;&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not so,&rdquo; said Herron, when told about the radio survey. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you something. If the players play well in front of me, this team is going to carry me. If they make mistakes, the other team has more chances to score. It&rsquo;s harder for me.&rdquo;Herron, 26, set a club record last season by tending goal in 60 of Pittsburgh&rsquo;s 80 games. He also set a team record for most shots faced in a season, with over 2,000 being aimed his way.&ldquo;In my five previous seasons in the National Hockey League, I got outshot every game,&rdquo; recalled Herron. &ldquo;This year it&rsquo;s a whole different story. With the type of team we have this season, I have to change my whole concentration.&ldquo;I think if you face less shots, you need better concentration. Because I was always used to a lot of shots, my concentration wasn&rsquo;t sharp at the beginning of the season. With less shots, it was hard for me to adjust. But, it hasn&rsquo;t been too bad lately.&rdquo;In the first five weeks of the season, Herron lost nine games. In the next 15 weeks, he lost only five.&ldquo;At the start of the season, it was very, very hard,&rdquo; said Herron. &ldquo;It was a brand new team. With all the new players we had acquired, we had to-get together with a new system and everything. After a month-and-a-half, everything was all right. I was used to the guys.&rdquo;The five-foot-10, 155-pound Herron was originally drafted by the Penguins in the 1972 amateur draft. But he was traded to the then Kansas City Scouts in 1975. Pittsburgh reacquired him two seasons later, when they signed him as a free agent.With only five losses in 15 weeks, Herron is satisfied with how he has been playing.&ldquo;The only thing I&rsquo;m unhappy with is my goals-against-average,&rdquo; said Herron. &ldquo;I play three or four good games. Then all of a sudden I have a game that there&rsquo;s seven or eight goals. It hurts my average.&ldquo;For example, recently played back-to-back games against Montreal. In the first game I only had one goal against me. Then the next night I go into Montreal, and I have seven goals in two periods.&ldquo;I should have stayed in for the third period,&rdquo; said Herron. &ldquo;Nothing was working that night for anybody. I&rsquo;m used to a lot of goals against me, and it&rsquo;s not going to bother me. It bothered Greg to have five goals scored against him in one period. It didn&rsquo;t help him, and his confidence was down. But I talked to him after the game, and everything was okay after that.&rdquo;Herron and the rookie Millen have been sharing the goaltending load for the Penguins. They have been alternated by Wilson, almost on a game-to-game basis. That is in contrast to last season when Herron bore the brunt of the load.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind sharing the goaltending,&rdquo; said Herron. &ldquo;Gregie&rsquo;s good. He&rsquo;s young, but he&rsquo;s learning very, very fast. When he plays, I get a good rest and that helps my game. We get along very good, and that&rsquo;s a big thing for us.Herron isn&rsquo;t worried about being named as the Penguins&rsquo; most valuable player as he has been the last two seasons by his teammates.&ldquo;The only thing on my mind is to make the playoffs,&rdquo; he concluded.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-06432/4260897-1-eng-US/f0004-062.jpg" title="f0004-06" width="530" height="672"><figcaption class="caption-body">DENIS HERRON&hellip;Changed Concentration</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0004-06

Penguins’Herron Belittles Theory Of Carrying Club

Following are the latest player movements in hockey:<h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>ATLANTA&mdash;Gerry O&rsquo;Flaherty, LW, returned to Nova Scotia of AHL.BOSTON&mdash;Stan Jonathan, LW, reinjured shoulder. Rick Smith, D, injured knee. Both players on disabled list.BUFFALO&mdash;Jim Schoenfeld, D, returned to lineup from injury list. Bill Stewart, D, placed on disabled list with back injury.CHICAGO-Bob Kelly, LW, recalled from New Brunswick of AHL. Doug Hicks, D, recalled from New Brunswick and-reassigned to Dallas of CHL. Darryl Sutter, C, assigned to New Brunswick.COLORADO&mdash;Ralph Klassen, LW, assigned to Philadelphia of AHL. Barry Beck, D, placed on disabled list with knee injury.DETROIT&mdash;Roland Cloutier, C, and J.P. LeBlanc, LW, recalled from Kansas City and later returned. Rogie Vachon, G, placed on waivers.MINNESOTA&mdash;Bryan Maxwell, D, Jim Roberts, LW, and Alex Pirus, RW, recalled from Oklahoma City of CHL.MONTREAL&mdash;Ken Dryden, G, placed on disabled list with stretched knee ligaments. Rejean Houle, LW, placed on disabled list with pulled groin. Richard Sevigny, G, and Rod Langway, D, recalled from Nova Scotia of AHL.N.Y. ISLANDERS&mdash;Alex McKendry, LW, returned to Fort Worth of CHL. Mike Hordy, D, Steve Tambellini, C, and Hector Marini, RW, recalled from Fort Worth and later returned. Neil Nicholson, D, signed as free agent after playing in Europe and assigned to Fort Worth.N.Y. RANGERS&mdash;Lucien DeBlois, RW, recalled from New Haven of AHL.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Rick St. Croix, G, returned to Maine of AHL. Robbie Moore, G, retained as backup goaler.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Pete Mahovlich, C, placed on disabled list for rest of season with shoulder separation.ST. LOUIS&mdash;Steve Harrison, D, recalled from Salt Lake of CHL and reassigned to Port Huron of IHL.TORONTO&mdash;Lome Stamler, LW, assigned to New Brunswick of AHL. Rocky Saganiuk, RW, recalled from New Brunswick.VANCOUVER&mdash;Hilliard Graves. LW, cleared NHL waivers and assigned to New Brunswick of AHL. Veli-Pekka Ketola, C, signed as free agent. Chris Oddleifson, C, placed on disabled list with injury.WASHINGTON&mdash;Bernie Wolfe, G, and Rick Green, D, both placed on disabled list with injuries. Jim Bedard, G, and Doug Patey, RW, recalled from Hershey of AHL. Patey later returned. Rick Bragnaio, RW, recalled from Hershey.<h2>WORLD HOCKEY ASSN.</h2>BIRMINGHAM&mdash;Tony Cassolato, RW, and Brent Hughes, D, recalled from Binghamton of AHL.EDMONTON&mdash;Risto Siltanen, D, and Hannu Kampurri, G, signed as free agents from Finland&rsquo;s National team.NEW ENGLAND&mdash;George Lyle, LW, and Mike Antonovich, LW, assigned to Springfield of AHL. Lyle later recalled. Paul Popiel, D, signed to five-game tryout after returning from Innsbruck, Austria. &#9632;

Hockey Players On The Move

<div class="byline">BY BILL FLEISCHMAN</div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Add Behn Wilson&rsquo;s name to the small group of Flyers who can win games single-handedly.When the Flyers have needed big goals, they&rsquo;ve turned to Rick MacLeish, Bobby Clarke, and Reggie Leach. As Wilson nears the end of his rookie National Hockey League season, he has earned a place on the game-breaker&rsquo;s list.Consider his latest credentials:&bull; In a 4-4 tie with the Bruins in Boston, Wilson triggered a club-record three-goals-within-35 seconds spurt.&bull; With 10 seconds remaining and the Flyers trailing Toronto, 4-2, Wilson scored to raise the hopes of the Flyers, who have specialized this season in last-minute rallies. This time, however, Toronto won, 4-3.&bull; In a 3-2 victory over Minnesota, Wilson broke in from the right point, eluded a checker, skated through the slot, behind the net, and back to the right face-off circle, where he waited for a screen, then scored against Gilles Meloche.Besides carrying a Phi Beta Kappa vocabulary, Wilson carries the mark of stardom. No one associated with the Flyers can be accused of exaggeration when they project Wilson into the Larry Robinson&mdash;Denis Potvin&mdash;Barry Beck class.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s an awareness about him, which has helped him over a rough spot,&rdquo; said Flyers&rsquo; coach Pat Quinn.The rough spot was a two-month stretch where the six-foot-three, 210-pound defenseman was booed by Philadelphia fans who identified the struggling rookie&rsquo;s troubles with those of an erratic, declining team. That the supposedly knowledgeable fans wouldn&rsquo;t show patience with the talented Wilson disturbed teammates and front-office types. That Bob McCammon couldn&rsquo;t convince Wilson to alter his me-against-the-world style until the jitters (and boos) subsided, led, in part, to McCammon&rsquo;s dismissal.&ldquo;Pat has helped a lot,&rdquo; said the redhaired Wilson. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just what he says, it&rsquo;s what he is. He takes the attitude that he&rsquo;s seen us play and he knows we can do it. He demonstrates, and not just verbally. He gives us confidence, he keeps things very basic: &lsquo;Take care of the slot area first, then venture into the corners.&rdquo;&rsquo;Flyers&rsquo; observers thought Wilson used poor judgment during his shaky streak by not admitting the mistakes that the Spectrum&rsquo;s 17,077 critics could plainly see. A good sign now is that Wilson speaks honestly about his NHL indoctrination.&ldquo;Things went really well for me at first,&rdquo; Wilson recalled. &ldquo;Then, around Christmas I was playing mediocre. I started doing a lot of extra work because I wanted to make sure I could do exactly what I wanted to every time.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve settled down a lot. I&rsquo;m not taking the chances when they don&rsquo;t need to be taken and I&rsquo;m moving the puck up quicker. What I&rsquo;m doing is playing less dynamic offensively and more solid defensively.&rdquo;Wilson&rsquo;s assessment is accurate. However, with seven goals in Quinn&rsquo;s first 12 games as coach (6-3-3 record), the rookie&rsquo;s offense has been dynamic enough to please everyone.The young man&rsquo;s personality is also dynamic. He is interested in the theater, he reads more than just newspaper sports sections, and spends his off days visiting places like museums. The Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce should hire him for promotion work.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know much about Philadelphia, but I came down in the summer and was really impressed,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;Considering the economic state of the world and the U.S., Philadelphia is doing exceptionally well. It&rsquo;s a very strong city and quite diversified.&ldquo;The city has a lot to offer. Look at City Hall: it&rsquo;s an old building, but it&rsquo;s well kept and you can see all the work that went into building it, with the gargoyles and the art work on it that you can&rsquo;t just see in today&rsquo;s buildings. The time and skill that went into that is something to marvel at.&rdquo;Even without gargoyles the Flyers think Behn Wilson will be something to marvel at for many years.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-01967/4260976-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="545" height="1057"><figcaption class="caption-body">BEHN WILSON&hellip;Matured Quickly</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Flyers’ Freshman Wilson Overcame Learning Pains To Become Game Breaker

<div class="byline">&#x2014; BY BOB VERDI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011147/4261014-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="301" height="441"></div>The Chicago Black Hawks erred many years ago when they let Bobby Hull get away to the WHA. Today they would dearly like to have him back, but it&rsquo;s going to cost them in players and money. Columnist Bob Verdi spoke with the Golden Jet recently and here is how Hull feels about returning to Chicago.<h2>News Stirred Chicago</h2>READY FOR THIS? Stop, look, listen. Speaker is Bobby Hull. Message important.&ldquo;Everytime I come through Chicago, I get that old feeling again and you might be right if you&rsquo;re guessing that 1&rsquo;11 get the itch to put on skates one more time.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t rule out anything, really. I could return to Winnipeg to play, too, or I could return to Chicago or I might not return at all. I don&rsquo;t know.&ldquo;I am thinking of moving down to Chicago to live again, though, and if I do, it will only be because I want to play again in front of some of the nicest people who ever lived, the Chicago hockey fans.&rdquo;Suffice it to say that, when those words created headlines the other day, there was much ado about the Black Hawks for the first time in too long around Chicago, a city which loves hockey but has temporarily abandoned its team for lack of interest.That&rsquo;s no reflection on the players who, for better or Wirtz, wear short pants and the Indian head now. Nor do we intend to declare sainthood for Hull. The Black Hawks once finished in last place with him (albeit not because of him) and the first year after he departed to give the World Hockey Association a heartbeat, 1972-73, the club went to the Stanley Cup finals. The year after that they lost only 14 games, fewest in the franchise&rsquo;s history.It&rsquo;s just that&hellip;well, Chicago has been a seven-year itch for Hull, who win or lose or tie, did his thing with panache. So when you discover that the big guy had a chat with team president Billy Wirtz, you begin to wonder.And when you hear via the grapevine that Wirtz told No. 9 he&rsquo;d &ldquo;always be welcome in Chicago,&rdquo; then you suspect that perhaps where there&rsquo;s smoke, there&rsquo;s fire. Even though there have been puffs of smoke before about this very topic, because never has Hull been so nostalgic, and never have the Hawks been so bereft of color.<h2>Don&rsquo;t Expect Miracles</h2>&ldquo;IF I WERE to come back, I hope the people don&rsquo;t expect me to be a Moses,&rdquo; continued Hull. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been seven years since I left, don&rsquo;t forget, and I&rsquo;ve been off for most of this year. There&rsquo;s no way I could come back this season, but maybe next.&ldquo;But if I were to come back, I would still believe that the hockey fans of Chicago should be entertained royally the way they used to be, and I would play that way. I wouldn&rsquo;t go up and down the wing with my derriere stuck to the boards. You can get a bunch of robots to do that.&ldquo;Then when the next period starts, you turn the robots around and they do the same thing in the other direction. Anybody can play that kind of hockey, but obviously the people in Chicago don&rsquo;t want to watch it. The players are just doing what they&rsquo;re told, though.&rdquo;So much for adding Hull to Bob Pulford&rsquo;s Christmas card list. Of course, there aren&rsquo;t too many of Al Eagleson&rsquo;s clients for whom Hull has any liking.&ldquo;I pick up a magazine the other day and I see Harry Sinden saying the reason the NHL lost to the Russians is because I invented the slapshot 20 years ago and everybody forgot to skate after that. What a stupid thing to say. Who put more emphasis on skating than I did?&rdquo;To reacquire The Golden Jet, the Black Hawks would have to restart negotiations which ended in acrimony. They would have to swallow large quantities of pride, and they would have to make some sort of peace with Winnipeg.<h2>Jets Want Compensation</h2>&ldquo;I DON&rsquo;T CARE if he&rsquo;s retired,&rdquo; said John Ferguson, Jets&rsquo; GM. &ldquo;We want $750,000 for Hull, or players, or draft choices, or some combination of the above. No way he&rsquo;ll just becaome a free man.&rdquo;Alas, the bottom line. Would hiring a legend after all these cold winters be deemed a gimmick? Would it build the Black Hawks a future or would it just build the Black Hawks a following? And if everybody expected The Golden Jet to score 50 goals again, and he scored only 30, would it be fair to him?The Black Hawks made a terrible mistake when they let Hull go. The question now is whether it would be a mistake to bring him back. Might be the right thing to do, but for all the wrong reasons. You know one group of folks in Chicago who would be delighted at his return. The Ticket scalpers. They, too, have the seven-year itch.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02880/4261007-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="689" height="789"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Hull said he may move back to Chicago to live and if he does, then he surely would return to the Black Hawks as a player. But the big question is, could he really help the Black Hawks&rsquo; cause?</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0006-01

Will Hawks Bring Back Hull To Revitalize Franchise?

<div class="byline">BY TOM MURRAY</div>NEW YORK&mdash;The Ranger rollercoaster, which just last week was mired in what threatened to be a season-spoiling valley, is at a lofty peak once more, by virtue of three consecutive wins&mdash;over the Colorado Rockies, Montreal Canadiens (yes, that&rsquo;s right, they did it again), and Chicago Black Hawks.The Rangers&rsquo; doldrums, you will recall, were brought on by a depressing four game, two point week which was capped by a hip pointer to defenseman Carol Vadnais, who has not yet returned to action.The losses, coupled with the injury to Vadnais&mdash;the fourth serious injury for New York in less than a month&mdash;would have been enough for a lot of teams to fold up their tents and pack it in for the season. But instead of allowing themselves to get down and risk extending their mini-losing streak even further, the Rangers somehow pulled together and managed to defeat Colorado, 5-3, after going out in front, 4-0.The win, although not a particularly inspiring one, was a game that the Rangers needed desperately, so that they could prove to their fans&mdash;and to themselves, for that matter&mdash;that there is indeed life after Ulf Nilsson. Up until that win over the Rockies, the Rangers hadn&rsquo;t scored a victory since February 25, when Nilsson was lost for the season in the Rangers&rsquo; 3-2 conquest of the Islanders.The joy and relief that dominated the locker room after that rocky Rockies&rsquo; win was tempered somewhat by the fact that the Rangers&rsquo; next opponent would be Montreal, in Montreal. And although everyone was aware that the Rangers had a three-game winning streak against the Canadiens, the prevailing opinion was that it would finally come to an end. The Rangers, it was feared, were just too injury-ridden to stay with the Canadiens, who were flying and coming off games which saw them win by frightening scores of 12-0 and 11-1.But once again, just as they have all season long, the Rangers totally befuddled all of the fortuneteller&rsquo;s predictions, and went out and defeated Les Canadiens, 6-3.Doug Soetaert was spectacular in the nets for the Rangers, and he became the fourth different Ranger goalie who has beaten the Canadiens in these two team&rsquo;s last four games. The streak started last season when Hardy Aastrom (remember him?) was thrown into the nets on a whim by then general manager John Ferguson. Aastrom performed brillantly, beating the Canadiens and stopping their 28-game winding streak.Since that game, Wayne Thomas (in Montreal) and John Davidson (at the Garden) have beaten Montreal, and last Saturday it was Soetaert&rsquo;s turn to get a crack. And just as he has all season long, he rose to the occasion.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t nervous or anything,&rdquo; said the soft-spoken Soetaert of his first-ever Forum appearance. &ldquo;I felt real sharp from the first shot on, and the guys played super in front of me.&rdquo;Indeed they did. Assistant coach Mike Nykoluk, who is rarely totally satisfied with the Rangers&mdash;collectively or individually&mdash;said after the game that there wasn&rsquo;t one negative thing he had to say about any one of his players.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll always remember that game,&rdquo; Nykoluk said, beaming as he chomped on his omnipresent cigar. &ldquo;Every guy on the ice gave 110 percent. We told them before that nothing was going to bring the injured guys back and that they had to win every game from now on for themselves. And that&rsquo;s just what they did against the Canadiens.&rdquo;Back at Madison Square Garden the next night to play the Black Hawks, the Rangers looked as if they were still feeling the euphoric affects of the Montreal win. The play for most of the game was sluggish and sloppy before the New Yorkers finally snapped out of it and overcame the Hawks, 5-2.The Ranger wins over the weekend, combined with the Atlanta Flames&rsquo; tie and loss in their two games with the Buffalo Sabres, means that at this writing the Rangers hold a slim three-point lead over the Flames in the race for second place in the Patrick Division&mdash;the most breathing room either team has had in a while.Look for fireworks the next time these two teams meet (March 14 at the Garden). The game should be a corker.BLUE CHIPS: Lucien DeBlois, back with the Rangers after a stint with the New Haven Nighthawks, scored two big goals in the win over Montreal and seems to be out of Fred Shero&rsquo;s Doghouse&hellip;Ron Greschner&rsquo;s shoulder separation has been further complicated by strained muscles in his chest, and it looks like he will join Nilsson on the sidelines until at least the playoffs. Andre Dore from New Haven was called up to fake Greschner&rsquo;s place for several games&hellip;Walter Tkaczuk needs one assist for 400 in his career. &#9632;

Rangers Perform Minor Miracles To Stun Experts

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011024/4261069-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Lanny McDONALD&hellip; Sets Leafs&rsquo; Scoring Pace</figcaption></div>TORONTO&mdash;Toronto Maple Leafs have reacted to the rehiring of coach Roger Neilson with their finest display of the season, remaining hot on the heels of Buffalo in the race for second place in the Adams Division, but even more importantly, opening up some daylight between I themselves and Minnesota in the wild card derby which will decide the four teams other than the first and second place finishers from each division which will qualify for the playoffs.The Leafs reeled off five consecutipe victories to celebrate the return of Neilson, the coach whom the players felt they had let down. And shouldering a large part of the blame and then leading the way in the team&rsquo;s turnabout were captain Darryl Sittler and the leading pointmaker and goalscorer of the Leafs&rsquo; Lanny McDonald.McDonald set up the tying goal s; with just seven seconds left in the middle period against the Philadelphia Flyers, sending the club to the dressing room with the momentum which carried them to a 4-3 victory. The Leafs scored after just 1:37 of the third stanza and grabbed a 4-2 lead by midway in the period while the Flyers were only able to cut the deficit with 10 seconds left on the clock.The following night in Madison Square Garden, McDonald converted a Ron Wilson feed for a second period power play goal, boosting the Leafs into a 2-0 advantage over the Rangers and they eventually held on for a 4-2 decision.And when it wasn&rsquo;t McDonald, it was Sittler, or Salming, or goaltender Mike Palmateer who fashioned a pair of shutouts after coming back to the lineup after suffering dizzy spells after a pair of collisions, one with a puck and the other with Buffalo&rsquo;s Dave Schultz.The Leafs played the tight, defensive-minded style which Neilson has been drumming into them for nearly two years, in the two shutout contests, downing the listless Vancouver Canucks, 2-0, and then blanking the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-0 as Palmateer turned aside 39 Penguin drives.Sandwiched in between was a 9-4 scoring spree against the Los Angeles Kings, a game in which, McDonald, who&rsquo;s been averaging a little better than a point a game through the Leafs&rsquo; first 67 contests, failed to register even an assist. Sittler contributed his fair share, though, with two goals and an assist and was also joined by Ian Turnbull who connected for a pair of scores.The scoring outburst allowed the Leafs to finally get a firm stand on the plus side fit the goals for and against column, as they entered the week having scored 204 goals, with 203 against, with a great part of the offense having centered around the McDonald-Sittler tandem, as it has for several years.In the past four seasons, McDonald and Sittler have scored 161 and 154 goals respectively for the Leafs, on what, for the most part has been a one-line team. Sittler turned in seasons of 41, 38, and 45 goals before becoming the second player to hit the 30-goal mark for the Leafs this year when he scored his pair against the Kings. McDonald increased his goal production in each of his first five NHL seasons with records of 37, 46 and 47 the last three campaigns. However, though he leads the club with 31 this year, he&rsquo;ll have to have a very hot finish if he intends to get much beyond 40, as this year has been a struggle for the Hanna, Alta, native, despite his modestly impressive statistics.With the team reflecting the hot-and-cold nature of the fortunes of its big line, it is most heartening that they have launched an important winning streak at a crucial time in the season, and can look forward to McDonald and Sittler getting their game into high gear.McDonald has been plagued by an assortment of injuries, including a sore back which have hindered both his skating and his shooting, and robbed him of that split second of quickness which allows the really deadly goal-scorers to gain an advantage over the goaltenders.He also missed the presence of Sittler as his cornerman for a 10-game stretch in January when Sittler was sidelined by a knee injury. It was during this time that McDonald was rendered least effective, because of Sittler&rsquo;s uncanny ability to get him the puck at so many opportune moments.A play like the one in the Leafs&rsquo; 21 loss to Montreal recently, the night before Neilson was sacked, illustrates this point. McDonald into the corner with the game scoreless as the Leafs pressed to the attack on a power play. He nudged the puck along the boards where Sittler rushed in and took control. As Sittler skated along the boards he slipped a pass to the seemingly covered McDonald who had his back to the net, located about 25 feet away. But McDonald pivoted, used a checker as a screen and wristed a blazing shot on the short side past Canadiens&rsquo; goaler Ken Dryden. Though the Leafs lost that night, it was a classic Sittler to McDonald goal.And a sign of what the Leafs hope to see often in the closing weeks of the schedule plus the playoffs. &#9632;

f0007-01

Leafs Hot At Right Time For Playoff Stretch Run

<div class="byline">-BY BILL LIBBY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011138/4261107-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="344" height="442"></div><h2>Gaining His Goals&hellip;</h2>THIS IS THE Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; ninth season and they never have had a star, much less a super star. They have had only two winning seasons and have appeared in the playoffs only twice. They are not having a winning year, but will make the playoffs this year because they are in a weak division.Vancouver is a great hockey town and when the Canucks started play in 1970 the Pacific Coliseum was sold out for every game, but as we leave the 1970s attendance is down. Without a winning team or a gate attraction the guys in the gaudy black, red, and yellow costumes are not appreciated.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021027/4261100-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="658" height="755"><figcaption class="caption-body">For years, Ron Sedlbauer has been a hard-working forward for the Vancouver Canucks who has been appreciated by his coaches, but often underrated by the fans. Now that he has come into his own as a scorer, he is being more widely recognized.</figcaption></div>The club has had high draft choices, but have not made the most of these as, say, Buffalo has, starting at the same time and swiftly gaining Gil Perreault and Richard Martin. The Canucks&rsquo; first two picks, Dale Talon and Jocelyn Guevremont, looked like budding stars, but did not develop as anticipated and were dealt away.For purposes of comparison, the Kings brought in super stars such as Marcel Dionne and Rogie Vachon in trades but the Canucks have not benefitted from their deals. The Kings&rsquo; scouts found Dave Taylor and Butch Goring in late rounds of the draft, but the Canucks were disappointed by second-rounder Bob Dailey and dealt him away. Third-rounder Glen Hanlon looks great but has been sidelined by an injury, as have each of their last two first-rounders, Jere Gillis and Bill Derlago.The first-round selection in 1973, Dennis Ververgaert, did not quite make it as the club hoped he would, but their first choice in 1974, the 23rd pick of the grab-bag, Rod Sedlbauer, suddenly looks like he is a star and may be the Canucks&rsquo; first super star.IT HAS NOT BEEN easy for the six-foot-three, 200-pound left-winger. He spent most of his first season as a pro with Seattle and a little of his next two seasons at Tulsa in the Central League, but he stayed with the Canucks all last season and as he finishes his fifth pro season he is becoming one of the best.Sedlbauer is a well-balanced player. He is a long-striding, swift, and powerful skater with a lot of size and strength who is not afraid to hit. Although he was not used to kill penalties, he developed into one of the finest defensive forwards on the team in recent seasons and was on the positive side of the plus-minus figures.He hustles hard and gives great second effort, I but he did not attract a lot of attention because he did not score much. He never scored 30 goals in a season as an amateur and did not score 20 in a season as a pro until this season, although he often came close. This season he scored 17 in the first third of the campaign and was the high-scoring left-winger in the league with 34 at the three-quarter pole.Rod is almost certain to top the club record of 38 goals in a season held by Bobby Schmautz and Don Lever, and figures to pass 40 as the campaign concludes. He is among the league leaders in power-play goals and is the team leader in winning goals.He says, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why I&rsquo;m scoring so much more than before, except that I never played on the power play before. I am now, and that has to help pad the totals. We&rsquo;re using less lines than in the past and I&rsquo;m on the ice more. I got a good start last season, but I got hurt and never got back in the groove. I haven&rsquo;t been hurt this season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always tried to play both ends of the ice and tried to concentrate on checking. I don&rsquo;t want to think offense to the point where I forget defense, But I do think I always could shoot and I&rsquo;m gaining confidence in my shot as the goals have been going in, I&rsquo;m taking the offensive opportunity when it presents itself more, I&rsquo;m shooting more, and so I&rsquo;m scoring more.&ldquo;I always wanted to play every game hard, but it took me awhile to realize you have to prepare yourself mentally to play every game and go out on the ice determined to give everything you have. Some nights you just don&rsquo;t feel like it, but if you put out on every play you get goals on plays you&rsquo;d swear would never work. I think I&rsquo;ve become consistent this season,&rdquo; he concludes.Manager Jake Milford says, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been our most consistent player. He&rsquo;s always been a good, solid player, but he&rsquo;s becoming one of the best.&rdquo; Coach Harry Neale says, &ldquo;Seds has given us a good effort in all but two or three games, which is unusual. He does a lot of things well for us and his scoring is just the icing on the cake.&rdquo;SEDLBAUER WAS BORN in Burlington, Ontario, near Hamilton, in October of 1954. His father, Walter, owns Susan Shoe Company, named after Rod&rsquo;s mother. The company manufactures Cougars and all kinds of shoes and boots. A younger brother, Steve, is in the family business and Rod, who studied marketing two years at Mohawk College in Hamilton, says some day he will be, also. Still single, this agreeable, outgoing guy shares a house in Surrey in season with a lawyer, realtor, and bartender, but goes back to Burlington summers.The big guy was a tough tackle in football as a schoolboy, but gave up the game when he joined junior ranks in hockey. At 24, he suddenly has made a big jump on the stairway to stardom. He says, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d be happier if the team was doing better, but we have the youngest team in the league and we&rsquo;re going to get better. I&rsquo;m still young and I&rsquo;m getting better. Am I a star? I don&rsquo;t know. I know I was booed a year or two back and I didn&rsquo;t blame the fans. I know I like the cheers I hear now a lot better.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0008-01

Hockey Ad Lib

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-03871/4261138-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">CRAIG RAMSAY&hellip;Steady Despite Team&rsquo;s Troubles (Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>BUFFALO&mdash;the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; Mr. Consistency finally received his due.Craig Ramsay swept both major awards at the Buffalo Sabre Booster Club&rsquo;s annual banquet and dance. The hard-working left winger received the Wayne Larkin Memorial Award as the club&rsquo;s Most Valuable Player&mdash;so voted by his teammates&mdash;and the Frank Eddolls Memorial Award as the Most Popular Player on the team, on a ballot of the Booster Club members.The double honor came to Ramsay the night after he played his 460th consecutive regular-season game for the Sabres, third only to the National Hockey League&rsquo;s ironman, Garry Unger of St. Louis, and New York Islanders&rsquo; Billy Harris who has topped the 500-game plateau.In his usual self-deprecatory manner, Ramsay said, on receiving the MVP award for the first time, &ldquo;When they passed out the ballots for the MVP, the players all laughed and said, &lsquo;This year, nobody deserves it. Let&rsquo;s give it to Rammer.&rsquo; But in 20 years, nobody will remember how I got it.&rdquo;The truth is, in this difficult year for the Sabres, Rammer has played the same as he has in the best years. He ranks with the club&rsquo;s leading scorers and is a key man in one of the best penalty-killing records in the league. He has been known as one of the NHL&rsquo;s best checking forwards ever since he joined the Sabres in 1971.In his years with the Sabres he won most of the other team awards but never the MVP. He won the Tim Horton Memorial Award, as the player whose performance is far superior to the public recognition he has received; the Charley Barton Memorial Silver Stick Award, as the player who best exemplifies love of the game; the Buffalo Evening News Award, as the player showing the most improvement over the course of the season, and, once before the Eddolls Award as most popular.Ramsay isn&rsquo;t a big guy and he doesn&rsquo;t have muscles on muscles. He&rsquo;s quiet and self-effacing. He just goes about doing his job, whether he is feeling well or not.He has spent time between games in a hospital but was there when the opening puck was dropped. In 1973, he missed almost the entire training camp because, of a back injury. He spent the interval in a hospital, in traction, but he got out in time for one practice and then played the opener and every game on the schedule.Last season, Ramsay had his best year in pro hockey. He scored a career high 28 goals, five of them when the Sabres were shorth which tied him for the league leader for the season.He was second in the voting for the new Frank J. Selke Trophy for the best defensive forward in the NHL and also was second in the voting for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for the player&rdquo; who best exemplified&hellip; perseverence, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.&rdquo;This year&rsquo;s awards dinner came the night after the Sabres won perhaps their most important victory of the season to date, a 3-1 decision over Toronto, that put Buffalo in second place in the Adams Division by two points.Ramsay&rsquo;s line scored all three goals in that win. Don Luce got two goals and Ric Seiling one. The Luce-Ramsay-Seiling line had been Buffalo&rsquo;s most consistent since being put together when Danny Gare hurt an ankle in early January.Luce&rsquo;s two goals gave him 20 and made him the team&rsquo;s first 20-goal scorer this season. The Sabres were the last club in the league to have a 20-goal scorer. At the time, Ramsay had 17 goals, Seiling 16.Luce scored the winning goal in that game, which gave him seven game-winners for the season.The Sabres ended a losing streak at four games by beating Washington the game before with Rene Robert scoring two goals in the last six minutes of a 6-4 win. Robert&rsquo;s game-winner gave him five for the season.The speedy right winger ended a scoring drought with two goals and two assists in the game and his linemate, Rick Martin, who also had been having a tough time putting the puck into the net, got a goal.The Sabres played both those games without three regular defensemen who were hurt&mdash;Jim Schoenfeld, Bill Hajt and Jocelyn Guevremont. Larry Playfair, Ken Breitenbach and Mike Boland were called up from Hershey of the American League to fill in and did so capably. &#9632;

f0008-03

Most Consistent, Sabres’ Ramsay Earns Dual Honor

<div class="byline">BY BILL LIBBY</div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;Management sent down Mario Lessard last season and almost sent him down again this season. He didn&rsquo;t get a start until the seventh game of the season, but he has become the Kings&rsquo; number one goaltender and the backbone of the defense.Charlie Simmer, who was sent down three straight seasons by the California-Cleveland club, was sent down last season and this season by L.A. but since being recalled this season the big left-winger has-been one of the five or six best forwards and a tower of strength on the first line.Doug Halward, who was sent down three straight seasons by the Boston team, was sent down this season by L.A., but since being recalled has been excellent on defense. He has been one of the two or three best defensemen on the team.Both Simmer and Halward performed in promising fashion in the preseason, better than others who were kept, but for one reason or another was sent to Springfield of the American League. So, management makes mistakes. So do we. The good news is they are in the National League now and making like major leaguers.Halward is out of Toronto and was a standout as a junior with Peterborough. A first-round pick by Boston, he was the 14th player chosen in the 1975 summer draft. Although the Kings have none from their own drafts, he joins Marcel Dionne, Murray Wilson, Rick Hampton, and Richard Mulhern as first-round picks picked up in trades.Halward was not too big, strong or physical a player when he reported to the Bruins and did not fit in with their hard-hitting style. He says, &ldquo;The coach, Don Cherry, didn&rsquo;t like the way I played and kept sending me out to Rochester. They kept saying I was improving, the most improved player in the organization, but they didn&rsquo;t feel I fit with the big team, I guess. I got discouraged.&rdquo;He played only 65 games with Boston over three seasons, but was encouraged when he was sent to Los Angeles for future draft choices last September. He is an excellent skater and the Kings are a skating team. He can carry the puck, which the Kings need. So he was discouraged again when the Kings sent him to Springfield. &ldquo;I was so disappointed, I considered retiring,&rdquo; he says.&ldquo;I was serious. I went home to Orilla and talked to my wife and family. I&rsquo;m only in my early 20s, but I didn&rsquo;t see any point in becoming a career minor leaguer. I have some outside business interests I can go into. But I kept remembering the coach, Bob Berry, said if I played well, he&rsquo;d bring me back up.&ldquo;I was out two weeks before I reported. I know management wasn&rsquo;t too happy with me. Then, I got into an argument with the manager, George Maguire, because I wanted to go to Russia to play with the &ldquo;Future Stars&rsquo; in a tournament. I went anyway and it was a great experience. We won two, lost two, and tied one and finished third behind the national teams of Russia and Czechoslovakia.&rdquo;Returning to the American League, he got the call to the National League where injuries riddled the defense corps of the Kings at year&rsquo;s end. He broke in brilliantly, then almost immediately started to suffer from flu and a seriously sore throat. Although ailing and weak, he responded to Berry&rsquo;s pleas to play when there was no one else to play during the long road trip that opened the new year.Finally, he had to be bedded down and then hospitalized. His temperature rose two or three degrees above 100, he couldn&rsquo;t swallow, and had to be fed intravenously 10 days. Built up to 187 pounds before this, he lost 15 pounds and started to look sickly. His condition diagnosed as a strep throat, he was treated, then sent home to recover his health and strength. He was sidelined three weeks.Returning, the six-foot-one, 24-year-old left-hander has played determinedly, aggressively, and well. &ldquo;They say if they hadn&rsquo;t caught it in time, the condition could have become rheumatic fever,&rdquo; he sighs. &ldquo;I really felt terrible for awhile. I feel better now, but I&rsquo;m still less than full strength. I&rsquo;m giving it everything I&rsquo;ve got, though, because this is the best chance I&rsquo;ve had.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011097/4261169-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="547" height="1023"><figcaption class="caption-body">DOUG HALWARD&hellip;Had Strep Throat</figcaption></div>The son of an electrical contractor, Doug married his high school sweetheart, the former Cindy Proctor, last June, and she is with him here, but he says he wants to wait awhile before settling down and starting a family. He has every reason to feel insecure, but it looks right now like he is here to stay for awhile,KINGS THINGS: Returning from Las Vegas, owner Jack Kent Cooke saw his Lakers and Kings play at his Forum for the first time in three seasons. He is back to take part in the property settlement conference on his 42-year marriage, which ended in divorce in November of 1977. Former wife Barbara estimates he is worth $100 million and wants $30 million, while he has offered $10 million.Murray Wilson&rsquo;s wife Catherine gave birth to their first child six weeks premature on Feb. 12. Emily Wilson was born with a hole in her heart and had a rough beginning but after two weeks, on Feb. 26, she was released from intensive care. It looks good now and the worries of the Wilsons have eased.The Kings failed to beat Philadelphia for the 18th straight time since October of 1974 and the loss left them at 25-27-8 for 60 games, compared to 23-25-12 last season, so are dead even at 58 points. They were 8-10-2 for the third quarter, compared to 6-11-3 last season. They finished 8-9-3 in the last quarter last season. &#9632;

f0009-01

Disappointments Follow Kings’ Halward

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT&mdash;&ldquo;I think the whole team feels&mdash;I know myself, at least&mdash;that there&rsquo;s a big load off our shoulders,&rdquo; said Dale McCourt as the Red Wings moved into the final month of a disappointing season.The burden has been twofold on the 22-year-old second year pro and the pressure he has had to endure, only he knows.Unquestionably, the McCourt-Rogie Vachon episode had a disruptive influence on the Wings. The team got off to a slow start and the pressure began to mount immediately.It didn&rsquo;t let up until the Wings were hopelessly out of playoff contention. For the Wings, the objective through the final 20 games of the season is to recapture the attitude of a year ago, to recapture the confidence and the winning feeling.&ldquo;You come in before a game and everybody is so relaxed,&rdquo; McCourt said after an 8-1 victory over the Colorado Rockies.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re just going out to do our best. Everything is clicking. I don&rsquo;t know. It&rsquo;s a funny thing.&ldquo;Everybody just wants to show that we&rsquo;re not going to quit. I think the people realize we&rsquo;ve got the makings of a good club here. I think that&rsquo;s why they hung on with us. They keep coming out.&ldquo;At the beginning, there was pressure and the players felt it. Things didn&rsquo;t go right and the fans start getting on you. It got so bad that some of the guys didn&rsquo;t want to be in the starting lineup because the fans would boo during the introduction and you&rsquo;d think, &lsquo;What am I doing here?&rsquo;&ldquo;Everybody&rsquo;s more relaxed. There&rsquo;s no more pressure where you&rsquo;ve got to do this, you&rsquo;ve got to do that. We&rsquo;re just going out and doing it.&ldquo;There was pressure before the season started. The players put pressure on themselves to do better than last year. You could see it. Things didn&rsquo;t start out right for our line. You want to get going, have a better year than last year. You create your own pressure.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-02901/4261231-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="504" height="803"><figcaption class="caption-body">DALE McCOURT&hellip;Hanging In There</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;m just a slow starter. Through the years, I&rsquo;ve been able to keep my points pretty near the top. Once I get to Christmas time, then things seem to come a little easier. But junior hockey is different than this.&rdquo;And winning is different&mdash;it&rsquo;s better&mdash;than losing. Now the young Red Wings have experienced both. They can take it from here.Vaclav Nedomansky is on a torrid scoring streak. He notched hat trick in the victory over Colorado and then in the next game did it again for six goals in two games. (The second game was a 6-5 loss to St. Louis.)Including those two games, Nedomansky had scored 15 goals and six assists in 15 games to take over the club leadership in goals, 32, and points, 60.MOTOR CITY SHORTS: Nick Libett&rsquo;s consecutive games streak was halted at 390 when he suffered a knee injury against St. Louis&hellip;Jean Hamel (injured hand) was ready to return to action and replaced Libett, the veteran left winger, in the lineup. &#9632;

f0010-02

Pressure’s Off So Wings Relax, Game Improves

Viewable HockeyPlayed by SovietsThe best thing that could have happened to North American Hockey happened. The Soviets gave a splendid display of what &ldquo;viewable&rdquo; hockey is like. Thank Heaven that Team NHL did not prevail, otherwise we&rsquo;d be subject to their mindless brand of dump it in the corner from the red line, and traffic jam in the goalmouth for another generation.The NHL is barking up the wrong tree when they look for reasons why they haven&rsquo;t been able to sell their product to the viewing public at large.Their spectacle is boring!In the average 60 minutes of hockey as it is played today, the only time you see a genuine passing attack in the attacking zone is during a power play. That helter skelter undisciplined quality is what robs the game of its speed and beauty when viewed on TV and the Soviets gave a graphic example of this. No uncontrolled "Dump and Jump&rdquo; with them. Puck control. The Soviets don&rsquo;t play &ldquo;progressive&rdquo; hockey&mdash;they play what we played years ago. Puck control, short passing, intelligent shot making, etc.As for defense today&mdash;forget it. NHL defense means hooking, grabbing, interference (unbelievably allowed interference), and in short illegal defensive tactics.The main reason for this sloppy system is the officiating. The officials are not incompetent; merely intimidated.F.D. BARZEE, Winthrop, Conn. &#9632;

LETTER OF THE WEEK

MONTREALHave you been thinking about participating in THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; annual All Star balloting? If so, you&rsquo;ll have to hurry because this is the last chance to get in on the fun of choosing your own major league All Star team.With this issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS, we are closing the balloting in our 32nd annual All Star selections in which the fans pick the teams of their dreams for both the National Hockey League and the World Hockey Association.All Star ballots have now appeared in two issues of THE HOCKEY NEWS and final results of the NHL&rsquo;s selections will be published in the issue of April 13. The final WHA selections will appear two weeks later in the April 27 issue.So hurry hockey fans. This is definitely your last chance to pick your favorite All Star teams.Selections will follow the same procedure as last season when readers picked two goalers, four defensemen, two centers, two right wings and two left wings from both the NHL and WHA.Picking the All Star teams is only half the challenge.In addition to the first and second All Star teams, the editors are also requesting that readers select a most valuable player and the outstanding rookie of the year from both the NHL and WHA.Picking All Star teams is something most avid hockey fans relish but get very few opportunities to do. THE HOCKEY NEWS gives its readers this chance to exercise their right to select a first and second All Star team. Don&rsquo;t miss out on this test of your hockey knowledge.It&rsquo;s really fun and might require a little more concentration on your part to come up with the best teams. With nearly 350 eligible players from the NHL and 120 from the WHA to choose from, you can expect to have your work cut out for you.Merely clip the ballot shown on this page and then fill in your selections. It&rsquo;s both simple and exciting.Remember if one of your favorites should fail to gain a berth on the fans&rsquo; All Star teams by the margin of just a few points, it could be because you didn&rsquo;t take the time to send in your ballot. So right now, while it&rsquo;s still fresh in your mind, fill out the ballot and mail it right away to All Star Editor, THE HOCKEY NEWS, 1434 St. Catherine St. West, Montreal Canada, H3G 1R7.If you need any player help in making your selections, kindly consult the leading player lists of both the NHL and WHA shown in column one and two of this page.Last season we afforded our readers the opportunity to pick teams from both the NHL and the WHA on the same ballot and the response was overwhelming.So, hurry hockey fans. This is your last chance to pick your favorite All Star teams. &#9632;

Hockey News Closes NHL, WHA All Star Balloting

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011076/4261310-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Leading Players To Help You Select Your All Stars

<h2>Ballard&rsquo;s Nutty &lsquo;Hoax&rsquo;</h2>HAROLD BALLARD, the unpredictable owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, claimed the two-day &ldquo;firing&rdquo; of coach Roger Neilson was &ldquo;just a hoax,&rdquo; an effort to shake up the team which has floundered through much of the 1978-79 National Hockey League season.But if it was just Ballard&rsquo;s little joke, many people were asking why it threw the Leaf administration and players into such a tizzy for two days before Ballard restored Neilson to his post.A more likely explanation is that Ballard made a large mistake and, prodded by the Leaf players, decided to reverse his decision, then didn&rsquo;t want to admit his blunder. Thus, the hoax statement was the easy way out for the bombastic Ballard, a man more noted for his get-my-name-in-the-papers-at-all-costs approach than his concrete contributions to his team or the name.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011098/4261341-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="531" height="611"><figcaption class="caption-body">Roger Neilson</figcaption></div>Anyway, Neilson is back as the Leaf coach for the duration of the season as the team tries to guarantee a Stanley Cup playoff berth.However, the sequence of events around the Neilson sacking and rehiring was merely another in a long line of looniness which has characterized the team since Ballard assumed full command back in 1971.In mid-February, Ballard warned general manager Jim Gregory and Neilson that he&rsquo;d be forced to make some changes if the team didn&rsquo;t get on a winning track. When the Leafs went on a four-game losing streak and the risk of their missing the playoffs became a real one, Ballard told a board of directors meeting that Neilson was doomed and leaked the same information to a Toronto sports columnist.Ballard made it appear as if the coach&rsquo;s future pivoted on the outcome of a Mar. 1 game in Montreal against the Canadiens, a team the Leafs haven&rsquo;t defeated since early in the 1976-77 season. But he&rsquo;d already made up his mind that Neilson had to go. He told a writer at the end of the second period in that game when the Leafs held a 1-0 lead that Neilson was finished. Then the news broke in public on a post-game television show.Ballard also announced that John McLellan, who had coached the Leafs for four seasons from 1969 to &lsquo;73 until stomach ulcers forced him into a less stressful post as the team&rsquo;s assistant GM, would be Neilson&rsquo;s interim replacement.<h2>Leafs After Johnston</h2>THE LEAFS WERE trying to acquire Eddie Johnston as their coach, at least for the duration of the season. Johnston, who retired as a good NHL goalie last spring, has coached New Brunswick Hawks of the American League, the farm team of which the Leafs share sponsorsl/ip with Chicago Black Hawks.Johnston, however, is under contract to the Chicago team and is being groomed as a possible Hawk coach if GM-coach Bob Pulford gives up the coaching segment of his portfolio. The Hawks turned down the Leafs, saying they&rsquo;d prefer that Johnston finish the season at New Brunswick.On Friday, Mar. 2, Maple Leafs Gardens was bedlam as Neilson held a farewell press conference and expressed no bitterness or rancor over his dismissal. He&rsquo;d even prepared a questionaire for the players to fill in which would give him their criticism of his coaching methods.Meanwhile, McLellan, not wanting to risk an ulcer attack, bowed out of the coaching picture.Then Saturday, Mar. 3, dawned, a day which will be marked in hockey history as one of the nuttiest ever. Neilson was still around the Gardens because he&rsquo;d agreed to act as analyst on the Leaf radio broadcast that night.Neilson knew something was brewing when Ballard told him to stay close.That morning, the Leaf players held a meeting.&ldquo;Every player on the team had a feeling of disappointment when Roger was fired because we knew we&rsquo;d let him down,&rdquo; said Leaf captain Darryl Sittler.&ldquo;We then requested a meeting with Ballard, who&rsquo;s a very fair man in a face-to-face situation. We would have felt guilty if nothing had been done. He told me that he felt the top five players on the team hadn&rsquo;t been up to snuff this year, including me.&rdquo;Neilson didn&rsquo;t seem overly surprised that he was restored to the job.&ldquo;Ballard had talked with the players at their request and things went from there until he offered me the job again late in the afternoon. I was happy to take it because I feel I&rsquo;m a part of this team.&ldquo;I had some good meetings with the players and a great deal of air was cleared. I think now we can put this behind us and go on to some good things.&rdquo;&ldquo;It was just a hoax; I wanted to light a fire under the players, put some turpentine on their behinds,&rdquo; Ballard said. &ldquo;Roger never was fired, only on furlough. There never was a time he wasn&rsquo;t going to be in our organization.&rdquo;Meanwhile, no announcement was made as to who would coach the team in the game against Philadelphia Flyers. But when Neilson appeared behind the Leaf bench, the Gardens&rsquo; crowd gave him a rousing standing ovation.&ldquo;If it was a hoax,&rdquo; Neilson said, &ldquo;I sure wasn&rsquo;t in on it.&rdquo; &#9632;

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HOCKEY VIEW POINT

<div class="byline">BY NORM MacLEAN</div>LONG ISLAND&mdash;Leo Durocher couldn&rsquo;t have done it any better when he was driving the New York Giants to the Little Miracle of Coogan&rsquo;s Bluff in 1951 as they overcame the Brooklyn Dodgers&rsquo; thirteen and one-half game lead. Lippy Leo&rsquo;s shake-up produced a new third baseman in Bobby Thomson and a new center fielder&mdash;fellow named Willie Mays in May. By August Whitey Lockman was the regular first baseman, after a long career in the outfield&mdash;and right hander Al Corwin was a key man as the fifth starter and long reliever.&ldquo;By the time the Giants got to the World Series they weren&rsquo;t the same team that started the season,&rdquo; remembers Marvin Resnick, a Dodger&mdash;Ranger loyalist, who now roots for the New York Islanders.Taking a page from the Durocher book, Islander coach Al Arbour, incensed over inconsistent play, a persistent win one, lose one pattern, and a case of the team blahs, brought up three players from the Fort Worth Texans of the CHL and benched Gerry Hart, Dave Lewis, Mike Kaszycki and Ed Westfall.&ldquo;We brought these kids up to shake these guys up,&rdquo; said Arbour. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have to wait until the next few games to see if it worked, but there was something different out there last night.&rdquo;&ldquo;Last night,&rdquo; was a game between the Isles and the St. Louis Blues which ended in a 5-5 tie. Billy Harris created the tie with a goal at 17:32 of the third period&mdash;after getting only one shift in the first Deriod.The changeover came after the Islanders had lost to Buffalo, 3-2, defeated Atlanta 4-2, lost to the Flames 3-2, whipped Montreal 7-3, and lost to the Rangers 3-2. Only Montreal&rsquo;s seeming indifference to first place in the overall point standings, as epitomized by a loss to Detroit and a tie with Washington is keeping the Islanders alive in the scrap for the best regular season record.Harris, who has fallen way off in his goal scoring this season, also set up Denis Potvin with the score that put New York just one goal back, at 13:07. He made a great pirouette, after shooting at Phil Myre in the Blues goal, and grabbing his Own rebound, passed to Potvin in front for the score.Harris, who treasures the fact that he has never missed an Islander game, being their first draft pick in 1972, their organizational season, said, &ldquo;Obviously, I was benched in the first period. Somebody thought I needed some shaking up.&rdquo;Arbour&rsquo;s injection of new blood included center Steve Tambellini, right wing Hector Marini and defenseman Mike Hordy. Tambellini, the Isles&rsquo; number one draft last summer, worked between Bob Bourne and Bob Nystrom. Hordy, who played one game during an emergency in January against Boston, did well then, and played flawlessly against the Blues.&ldquo;You could hear the banging all over the rink when the Fort Worth guys were on,&rdquo; marveled Potvin. &ldquo;They worked their butts off. It shifted to some of the other guys. That&rsquo;s why they were brought up. Why do we always seem to wait until we are threatened to turn it on?&rdquo;Fate seemingly has turned on the Islanders in their stretch run with Montreal. If they finish second in overall points, they may still avoid the Habitants until the finals, but then, New York can look forward to playing four games in the Forum in the Stanley Cup showdown.When the Islanders assembled for their game with Buffalo at the Nassau Coliseum, they learned that captain, Clark Gillies, a hot scorer of late, had been stricken with chicken pox.Gillies will be out at least a week, and probably, two, causing Bourne to note, &ldquo;that has to hurt us. Let&rsquo;s face it, our power play worked because five guys just happen to click. Clarkie is one of those guys. It means that the other left wingers (John Tonelli, Garry Howatt and Bourne) are going to have to take up the slack.&rdquo;Chico Resch and Billy Smith, the Islander goalies, continue to play well, despite some questionable support.Arbour, who did what he promised when he brought up the Fort Worth kids, had termed the loss in Atlanta, &ldquo;disgraceful.&rdquo; He was mollified with the win back home the next night, but when the Isles flopped once more to a scrapping Buffalo team, Arbour and GM Bill Torrey made their move.Right now, the Islanders have to rate as the NHL&rsquo;s most consistently inconsistent team&mdash;even over their cousins, the Rangers, who once had that market cornered.&ldquo;What kind of a team are we?&rdquo; softly asked Bryan Trottier, the all star center. &ldquo;I would hope we are the team that beat Montreal.&rdquo; &#9632;

Shake - Up Arbour’s Ploy To Prod Unsteady Isles

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div>VANCOUVER&mdash;Many members of the Vancouver media were in agreement about the behavior of Harry Neale. It was almost a resignation to his fate. He would watch one uninspiring loss after another and never seem to lose his cool. He was always perfectly affable to all members of the media and never once seemed to be hot under the collar by the time he began his post-mortems.But finally, he exploded after a recent 4-3 loss to the Boston Bruins at the Pacific Coliseum and everybody was saying, it&rsquo;s about time.Canucks, had just finished playing two periods of hockey against the Bruins, but unfortunately for the locals, most NHL games have three. In the middle session the team decided not to play and the Bruins scored all four of their goals without the slightest encumbrance from Vancouver. In the first and third periods, Canucks played the Bruins even, and with some help from referee Dave Newell, might well have escaped with a tie.What wrangled Neale was not losing to Boston. It was the fact that a series of pretty good teams had come into the Coliseum that week and simply punched the clock, and all Vancouver got out of games against the Islanders, Philadelphia and Boston was one point.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011053/4261403-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="525" height="666"><figcaption class="caption-body">GARY BROMLEY</figcaption></div>&ldquo;There are about a half a dozen guys on this team that aren&rsquo;t pulling their weight, and it doesn&rsquo;t take too much to figure out it isn&rsquo;t the young guys who I&rsquo;m talking about,&rdquo; said Neale.&rdquo; We just gave them the game in the second period. Anyone who counted a take-out in the second period for us should have his head cut off. We didn&rsquo;t lift a finger to stop them. No matter what you may say about what Newell did to us, we lost it with that second period.&rdquo;Canucks that night were led in takeouts by their Swedish center Thomas Gradin which, while a credit to the young blond rookie, was an indictment to the rest of the team.&ldquo;There has got to be something done to stop this disease that has been here eight years, because if it is not stopped soon it will be here as long as this building is here, and long after all the people have left,&rdquo; said Neale, referring to his club&rsquo;s acceptance of defeat.The rookies, led by Stan Smyl and Gradin,, have been the real shining light for the Canucks so far, that plus Ron Sedlbauer&rsquo;s sudden ability to find the net.But some veterans have not had great seasons and in fact have been dragging considerably compared to the youngsters. Neale says he will make changes if things don&rsquo;t pick up, so likely some of the veteran members of the club could be playing elsewhere next season.The only thing that made the week palatable for Neale during the four-game homestand was a 3-0 victory over Colorado, a listless boring performance by both clubs but the first shutout of the season for goalie Gary Bromley.The fact that Canucks have not lost to the Rockies this season plus having lost only one game each to St. Louis and Chicago is the reason they still look pretty fat to make the playoffs.Further, to the ftausea of most of the general managers in the league, it may be possible to gain that playoff position and still get the No. 3 pick in the amateur draft.Meanwhile, defenseman Harold Snepsts was added to the team&rsquo;s injury list in the Boston game as he bruised his tailbone apparently in a brief fight with Stan Jonathan. The rugged defender has played most of the season with series of minor injuries, but this one put him out finally. Also on the shelf are Chris Oddleifson (charley-horse), Hanlon (stretched knee ligaments) Kevin McCarthy, out for the season with an operation necessary on his hip, Pit Martin with stretched ligaments in his ankle and Bill Derlago, still recovering from severed knee ligaments.With all the hurts, Vancouver has been reduced to only 10 forwards, and until the injury to Snepsts, they have gone with seven defensemen. They are now playing one man under the roster limit, though that won&rsquo;t last much longer as Martin, Oddleifson and Snepsts are not expected to be out much longer.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-02841/4261396-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="532" height="643"><figcaption class="caption-body">HARRY NEALE&hellip;Talks Of &lsquo;Disease&rsquo;</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Lifeless Vets Rile Canuck Coach

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011079/4261455-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"></div><h2>A New Hall Of Famer</h2>Jack Cooper, left, president and chairman of the board of Cooper Canada Ltd., gets a helping hand from John Monetta, president of the National Sporting Goods Association, after Cooper was presented with a plaque commemorating his entry into the sporting goods industry &lsquo;Hall of Fame&rsquo; at Toronto&rsquo;s Royal York hotel. Cooper, who is the 45th member to join the &lsquo;hall&rsquo;, has been responsible for the developing of equipment which improves both the performance and enjoyment of sports, new manufacturing techniques and improved safety of the athletes&rsquo;equipment.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-02890/4261448-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="1133" height="1227"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div><h2>Streaking Islander</h2>Scoring sensation Mike Bossy of the N.Y. Islanders holds 10 pucks to illustrate he scored in 10 straight games to tie an old NHL single game record. Bossy, who&rsquo;s bid for a new mark was thwarted in his 11th game, has scored a fantastic 106 goals in his first 144 games as a major leaguer that began last season when he won the rookie award with a record 53 goals.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03659/4261441-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="1108" height="1461"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo By Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div><h2>Another Milestone</h2>Veteran center Phil Esposito is still achieiving new personal scoring goals in the NHL despite the fact he recently passed his 37th birdthday. Espo is shown thanking the New York fans after he received an award for achieving his 800th career assist. He recently notched his all-time 668th goal.<h2>Going With The Winners</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04463/4261434-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="1740" height="1411"></div>Wayne Maxner, left, a one-time NHLer with the Boston Bruins and now the coach of the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Major Hockey League, gets a little help from one of his star players, Mark Hamway, as they draw the lucky scholarship winners for January and February in the Louisville hockey stick contest. Awarded summer hockey school scholarships to the Can/Am Hockey School were Bobby Careless, a 14-year-old from Leduc, Alberta, Karen Richardson, 13, of Needham, Mass., Mike Kelly, also 14 of Amherstview, Ont., and Werner Campbell, another 14-year-old from Binbrook, Ont. &#9632;

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HOCKEY PEOPLE

<div class="byline">BY RUSS WHITE</div>WASHINGTON&mdash;It has been a long, tough struggle for defenseman Jack Lynch to make it back into the lineup of the Washington Capitals.Lynch&rsquo;s career was in serious shape after a knee injury suffered Dec. 13, 1977 when he collided with exVancouver forward Hillard Graves at the Pacific Coliseum.Doctors told Lynch he had less than a 50-50 chance of ever playing hockey again.&ldquo;Long ago they told me I didn&rsquo;t have even that good a chance to ever play the NHL,&rdquo; Lynch recalled. &ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t think I was good enough. The injury was bad but I was determined to make it back.&rdquo;Lynch would have liked to have made the team at training camp but he still wasn&rsquo;t ready. He faced duty at the Caps&rsquo; farm at Hershey. He accepted his lot, determined all the more to return to Washington.Playing for the Hershey Bears meant being away from his wife, Jane and their two daughters, Terri and Katie, but whenever he could, Lynch would drive back for a day or two.Sometimes he would be able to watch the Caps play at Capital Center.Finally, he was ready and the Caps recalled Lynch.&ldquo;Still, there was more watching and waiting rather than play,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The team was going well in January, winning a lot of games and they didn&rsquo;t want to break up the lineup.&rdquo;The Caps, 9-5-1, for January, went sour in February. They were 1-7-1, hadn&rsquo;t won a single home game (0-5) and suddenly Lynch was wearing No. 2 again.&ldquo;The most frustrating trip was the four-game thing we had to Colorado, Montreal, New York and Atlanta,&rdquo; Lynch said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t get to play any of those games and there was an awful lot of waiting. Too much time just to think.&ldquo;On the road you don&rsquo;t get as much ice time at practice or time to exercise as you do at home,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was very frustrating.&rdquo;Lynch finally played some in Washington&rsquo;s 8-5 home loss to Montreal. He played well and was not responsible for any of the Canadiens&rsquo; scoring.At 27, Lynch has time to regain his top game and be of help to the Caps&rsquo; future playoff plans. He is 6-2, 180, can skate and move the puck. He stands his ground defensively and isn&rsquo;t agraid to jump in front of a puck to prevent a score.Lynch became quite popular with the Washington fans because of his enthusiasm. His victory dance after goals was always a treat. At one time he and Yvon Labre were paired on defense and their hard work gave the Caps a never-say-die attitude.During his long absence from the lineup, Lynch became involved with writing for a local newspaper and also doing some broadcast work. He did color with Caps&rsquo; play-by-play man Ron Weber on WTOP Radio and was quite good. Lynch would like to pursue this field after he retires.Originally with the Pittsburgh Penguins, a first draft choice in 1972 from the Oshawa Generals, Lynch went to Detroit in January 1974 and to the Caps a year later.He scored nine goals for the Caps his first full season with them and it was a team record for defensemen until Robert Picard came along. Picard has upped the record to 17 so far this year.The Caps are eighth in scoring in the NHL but are next to last in defense. With Lynch back fulltime, perhaps the team&rsquo;s defense will show improvement in the final month of the season.CAPS&rsquo; NOTES: After giving Montreal a tough 2-0 game in Montreal, Caps were up 4-3 in home game against the champs but dropped it 8-5. That ran their five-year record to 0-28-1 against Montreal. &ldquo;When Montreal plays its best and we play our best, we still come out second best,&rdquo; said Caps&rsquo; coach Danny Belisle&hellip;Gary Inness experienced some troubles in goal after a tremendous start for Washington&hellip;After west coast trip to Los Angeles and Vancouver with the team, Caps&rsquo; general manager Max McNab stayed west tc scout junior prospects.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011034/4261486-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="536" height="1097"><figcaption class="caption-body">JACK LYNCH&hellip;Waited For Chance</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Lynch ‘Caps’ Determined Comeback

<div class="byline">BY DONALD BERNS</div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;The St. Louis Blues skidded into a seven-game winless streak after the All Star break but found unusual motivation in a match against the New York Rangers.The Blues beat the Rangers, 4-1, in a game which New York&rsquo;s Nick Fotiu played but St. Louis&rsquo; Steve Durbano missed because of a five-game suspension after a fight with Fotiu.The suspension was from a 7-3 loss to the Rangers after a 3-3 tie with Vancouver and losses of 5-1 to Chicago and 6-4 to Atlanta. The Vancouver game marked the return of Wayne Babych, who missed 13 games with a broken ankle. And Babych broke Mike Murphy&rsquo;s St. Louis rookie scoring record with his 44th point in the game against the Flames.But the fireworks were ignited in that loss to the Rangers in Madison Square Garden. The versions of what happened vary with team loyalty, but everyone agrees it was a tumultuous series of events.In the third period of the game with the Rangers leading, 3-2, Brian Sutter tied the score with his third goal of the game and his 30th of the season to become only the fifth St. Louis player ever to score 30 goals in a season. Red Berenson, Garry Unger, Pierre Plante and Chuck Lefley also have scored 30.As most of the St. Louis players rushed to congratulate Sutter, Durbano and Fotiu became embroiled in their squabble. Fotiu says Durbano swung, then dropped his stick but didn&rsquo;t want to fight. Durbano says Fotiu hit him, so he gave him a stick across the shoulder.Referee Bryan Lewis, who gave Durbano 45 penalty minutes during the evening, threw both players out of the game. Durbano gestured crudely toward the fans by bending deeply at the waist, and Fotiu tried to keep the melee going by chasing Durbano down a oorridoi leading to the dressing room, bui somebody closed a door between the two players.When the Blues left Manhattan and went to the suburbs to play the Islander: the next night, Durbano was under temporary suspension pending a hearin; in Montreal before Brian O&rsquo;Neill, ex ecutive director of the National Hockey League. The Blues lost to the Islanders 6-1, and the hearing went against Dur bano for the five-game suspension Fotiu went free.The Blues&rsquo; winless streak reachec seven in a 6-4 loss in Montreal. Berni Federko took the NHL lead in assist with his 58th of the season, and Plage replaced Harvey Bennett with Inge Hammarstrom on an even more sueccessful line with Unger and Tony Cur rie.Then the Blues returned home for the rematch with the Rangers, and Larry Giroux was the hero by setting up two goals. Giroux, luring goalie Wayne Thomas to the side of the net, fed a perfectly timed pass to Federko in front of the net for Federko&rsquo;s 26th goal of the season. Then Giroux used the same play lessthan five minutes later to give Bob Murdoch a goal.&ldquo;The guys on our bench were mystified by the first pass,&rdquo; Murdoch said, &ldquo;so Larry had to do it again to show them how it was done.&rdquo;The two sparkling passes by Giroux overshadowed an excellent performance by St. Louis goalie Ed Staniowski, who stopped 29 New York shots but still was looking for his first NHL shutout after 85 games during four seasons. The one New York goal was by Don Murdoch.&ldquo;We needed this win after that game in New York,&rdquo; Staniowski said. &ldquo;It was 2-2 going into the third period in that first game, and we got the raw end of the deal. But we beat the Rangers on our own ice with one of our soundest games of the year.&rdquo; &#9632;

Road Hostilities Motivated Blues Into Better Play

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-01884/4261555-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="654" height="534"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02740/4261548-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="729" height="3602"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03591/4261541-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="2174" height="3048"></div> &#9632;

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NHL POINT SCORING AND PENALITY STATISTICS

<div class="byline">BY FRED PIETILA</div>DENVER&mdash;If the late great W.C. Fields had been Boston Bruins&rsquo; fan and been on hand it Boston Garden Feb. 27 when the Colorado Rockies stunned the Bruins 4-2 to and their team record 10-game losing streak, he would have probably delivered one of his famous lines.&ldquo;Great Mother of Pearl, we&rsquo;ve been hoodwinked,&rdquo; Fields would have undoubtedly said. Instead, Boston coach Don Cherry pointed to the Rockies&rsquo; Same-winning goal, a breakaway by Randy Pierce, and called it &ldquo;Unpardonable.&rdquo; Perhaps Cherry was referring to the total loss to the National Hockey League&rsquo;s worst team as &ldquo;unpardonable.&rdquo;Anyway, the Rockies quickly reverted to their earlier form the following night by giving up two goals in the final two minutes in a 5-3 loss to Pittsburgh and followed that one with an unproductive 4-0 home loss to Tony Esposito and the tight-checking Chicago Black Haws. That made it 12 losses in 13 games.In the loss to the Smythe Division leaders, the Rockies did the two things they do best, stand around and shoot off-target. The Rockies are struggling badly and although there is some evidence of effort and hard work, they are just unable to finish off plays.Whether it is lack of talent, total frustration or poor management remains to be seen, but the Rockies appear to be going nowhere fast.The team did make a player transaction which should help in the acquisition of veteran right winger Don Saleski from the Philadelphia Flyers for future considerations. Saleski, though, played in only 35 games with the Flyers this season.But the Rockies need strength and somebody who will deliver even an occasional body-check. Lately, bodychecks have been delivered by the Rockies as often as goals have&mdash;and that is infrequently.Barry Beck and rookie left winger Mike Gillis missed games because of injuries, Beck with a knee which might require surgery and Gillis because of a Charley horse sustained when he was kneed by the Flyers&rsquo; Mel Bridgman. Beck missed five straight games and Gillis was out for four straight. Those two are two of the Rockies&rsquo; better hitters, particularly Beck if the opportunity presents itself.Meanwhile, though, the Rockies grew more and more perplexed. Aldo Guidolin was saying less and less and kept insisting the team must stick to its defensive system. And defenseman Dennis Owchar and high-scoring center Paul Gardner were wondering where they&rsquo;d be playing next. Neither the offensive-minded Owchar nor the crafty, but non-checking Gardner fit into Guidolin&rsquo;s system and both were seeing only limited playing time as the teams struggled hopelessly.Aside from the fact that Guidolin&rsquo;s coaching job appears an interim one, Rockies&rsquo; president Armand Pohan indicated that no other high-level changes were in store for the next season. Thus, vice president and alternate governor Munson Campbell and general manager Ray Miron will probably be back. Pohan was in the process of negotiating a new contract with Miron.ROCKY RAMBLINGS: Wilf Paiement served the final game of his 15-game suspension when the Rockies were humiliated by Vaclav Nedomansky, Andre St. Laurent and the rest of the Detroit Red Wings in an 8-1 horroi show in the Olympia&hellip;Paiement watched the game which was televised back to the Mile High City and sounded totally frustrated afterwards, as if he had been on the ice&hellip;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just terrible,&rdquo; the 23-year-old right winger moaned. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t even check hard. We don&rsquo;t look like we want to win. I don&rsquo;t think we play aggressive enough. I wouldn&rsquo;t want to see a game like that&rdquo;&hellip;The one option Paiement had was to turn to another station which was one more choice than the players had&hellip;Besides Owchar and Gardner, it&rsquo;s likely that goalie Doug Favell, another player who quickly got in disfavor with management this season, left winger Joe Contini and right winger Ron Andruff have seen their last NHL playing days with the Rockies&hellip;For the second time in their three-year history, the Rockies were assured of at least four 20-goal scorers&hellip;Jack Valiquette, Gardner, Paiement and team captain Gary Croteau have equaled or topped the 20-goal mark and wingers Ron Delorme (15) and Randy Pierce (13) have outside shots at it.:.Paiement, Croteau, Gardner and now retired Nelson Pyatt scored 20 or more goals in the Rockies&rsquo; first season in Denver&hellip;Valiquette, after a great start, has really cooled off&hellip;the big center acquired from Toronto four games into the season, went eight straight games without a goal and had only two in 15 as the Rockies were going through a 1-12-1 stretch.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03505/4261586-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="548" height="1299"><figcaption class="caption-body">DENNIS OWCHAR&hellip;Doesn&rsquo;t Fit In</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Rockies Missing Hitting, Muscle To Play Coach’s Defensive Style

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NHL Leaders

LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRAOSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRAOSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and Canada&ldquo;Washington Capitals&rsquo; right wing Tom Rowe was known as a great practice player last year. Now he&rsquo;s making his great work in practices pay off on the ice as well as he recently reached the 30-goal mark.Rowe, a Lynn, Mass, native in his second full season with the Caps, tied team records for most goals and points in a game when he scored four times and added two assists in the Caps&rsquo; 7-5 verdict over St. Louis. Three of Rowe&rsquo;s goals, in fact were consecutive as he scored at 3:44, 7:46 and 14:37 of the opening period. He added an assist and a goal in the second frame and assisted on the insurance goal in the third stanza.In a 3-3 tie the following evening, Rowe put the Caps on the scoreboard in the first minute of the second period with his 30th goal of the season. He had 13 goals a year ago.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02639/4261679-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="460" height="623"><figcaption class="caption-body">TOM ROWE&hellip;Washington Capitals</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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NHL’s… Player of the Week

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0018-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01794/4261710-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">BRIAN ENGBLOM&hellip; Works On Speeding Reactions (Photo by Ian MacAlpine)</figcaption></div>MONTREAL&mdash;Even 11-1 victories aren&rsquo;t all sweetness and light.Although the Montreal Canadiens ran roughshod over the Vancouver Canucks by a 10-goal margin the other night, there was one sobering moment for a sophomore defenseman during the joyous frolic.That occurred when Brian Engblom, who happens to play for the Canadiens, inadvertently put a pass on the stick ot Brad Gassoff, who&rsquo;s never been accused of playing for the Canadiens, especially while wearing one of those black, orange, red and yellow outfits which are supposed to unleash feelings of aggressiveness and power by their wearers.Gassoff, overcoming his surprise, redirected the puck past Canadiens&rsquo; goaler Ken Dryden, momentarily reducing a three-goal deficit to two. Thereafter, the Canadiens repaid the indiscretion with eight unanswered tallies of their own.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe that pass went in front of the net,&rdquo; Engblom was saying in the dressing room following the game in which Canadiens&rsquo; had reached double figures for the second time in two weeks. &ldquo;It was right along the boards and (Don) Lever was right on top of me. I was going to shoot it around the boards behind the net to Rick (Chartraw) but I don&rsquo;t know if.it hit off the boards or just stayed on my stick.&rdquo;What did happen was that Engblom hooked his pass and it sailed through the goal crease, between a startled Dryden&rsquo;s legs and out to Gassoff who drilled a 35-foot shot into the net.And it also served to illustrate how this season has been going for the six-foot-two, 200-pound Engblom, because a) in terms of the night&rsquo;s scoring, the faux pas had been preceded by an assist by Engblom on the Canadiens&rsquo; third goal of the game, b) it was his only bad moment in a night filled with several solid plays on his part, and c) it was softened by the fact that the Canadiens had recorded two more points in the standings.&ldquo;It was a rotten way to lose a shutout,&rdquo; Engblom did exclaim, although the goal did occur less than 23 minutes into the contest.Coach Scotty Bowman employed six defensemen on the evening giving players like Engblom and Chartraw and Gilles Lupien and Bo"b Gainey more ice time than usual, what with Larry Robinson out indefinitely with water on the knee, the result of a missed check thrown in Canadiens&rsquo; 12th loss of the season against Detroit.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think one guy being out of the lineup really changes things much,&rdquo; Engblom explained. &ldquo;We have so many guys who can do the job and I figure that Rick and I have to go out and have a strong first period so that we can keep on being sent out.&rdquo;Does that put pressure on you, knowing that a slow start in a game could find you sitting on the end of the bench?&ldquo;Not really. I don&rsquo;t think about it anymore,&rdquo; Engblom said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s up to him (Bowman) how much we play. I just try to go out and do my best.&rdquo;Drafted out of the University of Wisconsin, Engblom served a two-year apprenticeship with the Nova Scotia Voyageurs and was voted the league&rsquo;s top defenseman, turning in eight goals and 42 assists, two seasons ago.The unexpected retirements of Nyrop and Pierre Bouchard from the Habs&rsquo; defense corps left Engblom in a good position to battle it out with Lupien and Chartraw, who was used more last year on the right wing than on defense, for the fourth spot on the Canadiens&rsquo; defense.But after a fine training camp Engblom broke his jaw, missed nine games at the start of the season and has had an up-and-down season since. With the regular season winding down, things haven&rsquo;t gone the way most people had expected and now Gainey has entered the scene as Bowman searches for the strongest possible combination in terms of defensive alignment.&ldquo;What I have to work on,&rdquo; said Engblom,&rdquo; is being quicker with the puck. Moving to the puck quicker, getting turned around and looking to make the play to get it out of our end. Naturally, you want to play as much as possible. Everyone on this team does; the power plays, killing penalties, the more you play the better.&rdquo;From all indications, Engblom will get to play more in due time. In terms of all-around abilities, he&rsquo;s at the top of the list among defensemen on the Canadiens, excluding, of course the veteran trio of Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe and Robinson.He&rsquo;s big, strong, can skate and has a decent shot to boot. And he&rsquo;s been around long enough to know that playing for the Canadiens is usually worth the wait. &#9632;

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Habs’ Engblom Struggling To Reveal Talents

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COMBAT GLASSES.

<div class="byline">BY BOB VERDI</div>CHICAGO&mdash;An interesting thing didn&rsquo;t happen here the other day.The Black Hawks refused the Toronto Maple Leafs permission to hire Eddie Johnston as coach.And no sooner did that unfold than the Black Hawks spent lots of time explaining that what didn&rsquo;t happen has nothing whatsoever to do with what will happen.&ldquo;Eddie was hired to coach our minor league club through its first season,&rdquo; said Chicago general manager-coach Bob Pulford. &ldquo;And to take him out of that situation, where he has worked hard and is very popular, wouldn&rsquo;t be fair to him or the team.&rdquo;But, of course, this is all rhetoric. Johnston, in his rookie year as coach of the New Brunswick Hawks of the American Hockey League, has been promised that he will be rookie coach of the Black Hawks next season. Period.Certainly, the Maple Leafs have a stake in the New Brunswick franchise, too, since they share the operation with Chicago But when Roger Neilson was fired (two days before he was rehired) Toronto quickly made a move for Johnston, a Hawk employee. If the Hawks hadn&rsquo;t denied the transfer, Johnston would be coaching the Maple Leafs today, and never mind all the hoi polloi out of Toronto that Neilson was not fired, but that he was merely assessed a brief furlough.Similarly, if the Black Hawks were concerned about being fair to the city of Moncton, they should have been equally concerned about being fair to Johnston.To deprive him of a National Hockey League coaching opportunity &mdash; especially a prestige position such as in Toronto&mdash;would have been patently wrong. The only way they could justify Johnston not going there would be to assure him that, come next September, he&rsquo;ll be going to Chicago.So Pulford, upon hearing of Toronto&rsquo;s mission, went to Black Hawk president Bill Wirtz and elicited a committment that otherwise wouldn&rsquo;t have been sought until after the season.Interestingly, in doing so, Pulford himself might have gained a vote of confidence for continuing as general manager of the Black Hawks. The club has been erratic during his reign as GM-coach, and there has been a spate of rumors that he would not be retained in either capacity.If Wirtz had told Pulford that it would be best to free Johnston, one might have interpreted that as a caution sign that Pulford was unsafe and therefore in no bargaining position to nominate his successor as coach.Pulford, of course, may still be in trouble. And so might Johnston, for that matter. One need not delve too deeply into Black Hawk history to recall the saga of Bobby Kromm. Every year he was supposed to be the next Black Hawk coach after paying his dues in the minor leagues. And every year, Kromm was stalled for one reason or another. He still hasn&rsquo;t gotten the job, and if you want to get an earful about the Chicago operation, call Detroit.Still, it appears more and more that the ticket next year will be Pulford as general manager and Johnston as coach. The Wirtzes may have decided on hiring Johnston, anyway, and dismissing Pulford, but that&rsquo;s a longshot.Johnston&rsquo;s imminent promotion should not render Pulford as a lame duck coach in the players&rsquo; eyes. If anything, they should he motivated to work harder than ever for him, for it seems more definite that he&rsquo;ll be signing them to contracts for a while to come.Freed from the albatross of having to run daily practices, travel everywhere with the club and run the bench, Pulford would for the first time be able to perform as a true general manager, and prove himself to be either a good one or a bad one. It may make for more objective judgments of players, which may in turn generate what the Hawks desperately need&mdash;a facelift.Johnston, despite being older than Pulford, is both respected and liked by his former teammates. The fact that he played here for only a half season should mean that he&rsquo;s not too familiar with the personnel, but just familiar enough. There&rsquo;s no doubt about his hockey mind, and he&rsquo;ll bring another welcome trait to town&mdash;a sense of humor. Chances are, he&rsquo;ll need it.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01593/4261772-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="547" height="667"><figcaption class="caption-body">EDDIE JOHNSTON&hellip;Promised Job</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0020-01

Johnston Headed For Hawks’ Bench

<div class="byline">BY PAT THOMPSON</div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;Introducing the new hit man of the Minnesota North Stars: He takes hits, he gives them. And he is a giant hit with the increasing crowds at Minnesota&rsquo;s Met Center.He is Jack Carlson, the homestate strongboy who joined the North Stars in February and who made his National Hockey League debut with some rows against the likes of Tiger Williams, Moose Dupont, Lee Fogolin and Brad Marsh.It became obvious from the outset that the six-foot-three, 205-pound Carlson would serve the North Stars much the same way Williams serves the Maple Leafs, Terry O&rsquo;Reilly and John Wensink the Bruins, Dave Schultz whomever he&rsquo;s with.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t go out there looking to drop the gloves,&rdquo; said Carlson. &ldquo;I know what my job is. I&rsquo;m going to go in the corners and play the body. In order for me to stay with the team, I have to play aggressively. I&rsquo;m not trying to be a finesse player. My job is going to protect my wingers and centers.&rdquo;At the same time, the 14-year-old left winger wants it known that he does not want to be known as a goon.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like having the reputation of a fighter,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to fight just to fight. I fight to help out my teammates.&rdquo;Coach Glen Sonmor, who broke Carlson in as a pro with the old Minnesota Fighting Saints five years ago, backs up his winger in that regard.&ldquo;Jack is a lot better hockey player than people give him credit for,&rdquo; said Sonmor. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a fine team man who puts a lot into the game on the ice and in the dressing room.&rdquo;Sonmor drew another comparison after Carlson scored a key goal in a 4-4 tie against the New York Rangers.&ldquo;Pretty soon, Jack is going to create a vacuum in front of the net like Wensink Has with Boston,&rdquo; said Sonmor. &ldquo;You know, when Wensink broke into the league, there were some people who thought he was the worst player they&rsquo;d ever seen. I watch him now and laugh&mdash;he&rsquo;s turned into a pretty good player and he&rsquo;s going to score more than 30 goals this season.&rdquo;Carlson, who is ushered onto the Met Center ice by organ chords of the &ldquo;Jaws&rdquo; theme, has carried out his assignment in nine games, Opposing players know that anyone taking a run at players such as Bobby Smith, Tim Young or Ole Barsar, has to answer to &ldquo;Big Bird,&rdquo; as he is called by his teammates.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02421/4261803-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="537" height="560"><figcaption class="caption-body">JACK CARLSON&hellip;Hit In Minnesota</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Home State Boy Applying Punch For North Stars

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0021-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01441/4261834-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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The Hockey News

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-06" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-06155/4261945-1-eng-US/f0022-062.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Where NHL Teams Play

ATLANTA: Houston 15,16, Vail 28,29, Lalonde 21,22, MacMillan 34,35, Chouinard 37,38,39,40, Pronovost 24, Lysiak 23, Laurence 13,14.BOSTON: Middleton 32,33,34,35, Miller 15, Redmond 5,6, Cashman 19,20, Park 5,6, O&rsquo;Reilly 20, McNab 34.BUFFALO: Perreault 20,21, Seiling 18,19, Ramsay 20,21, Luce 21,22, Care 19,20,21, Dudley 2, R. Martin 17,18,19,20, Boland 1, Robert 15,16, Fogolin 2, Korab9, Savard 16, Breilenbach 1.CHICAGO: Mikita 17,18, Kerr 13,14, Marks 15, Murray 16, Mulvey 12, Boldirev 29.COLORADO: Pierce 14,15, Saleski 12, Van Boxmeer 7, Gradner 23, Croteau 22.DETROIT: Hogaboam 4, Nedomansky 34, Miller 4, St. Laurent 14.LOS ANGELES: Dionne 47,48,49,50, Goldup 13, Apps 6, Goring 29,30,31, Simmer 9,10, M. Wilson 8,9, Taylor 37, B. Wilson 8.MINNESOTA: Manery 12,13, MacAdam 18,19,20, Payne 13,14,15, B. Smith 29, Young 22.MONTREAL: Larouche 8,9, Tremblay 25,26,27, Lemaire 14,15,16, Shutt 28,29,30, Connor 1, Gainey 16, Houle 17, Mondou 22,23.ISLANDRS: Bourne 24, Persson 8, Tonelli 15, Harris 13,14, Bossy 52,53,54, Potvin 24,25, Merrick 17,18, Henning 11,12, Howatt 14, Kaszycki 11, Nyslrom 15, Trottier 40.RANGERS: Plante 6, Hickey 27,28, Tkaczuk 9,10,11, Talafous 13, Esposito 34,35, Duguay 26,27, DeBlois 7,8, Hedberg 28, Don Maloney 4, Dave Maloney 9.PHILADELPHIA: Bridgman 19, Holmgren 10,11, Linseman 1,2, Hill 5, Watson 4, Clarke 15, Barber 24,25, MacLeish 22, Leach 27, Ververgaert 15, Gorence 12.PITTSBURGH: Mahovlich 14, Tallon 5, Malone 25.ST. LOUIS: Stewart 4, Suiter 34,35,36, Zuke 5, Patey 8,9,10, Brownschidle 9,10, Unger 27,28,29, Murdoch 11,21, Babych 23,24, Smrke 5.TORONTO: Butler 7, Elis 13,14, Wilson 5, Turnbull 7,8,9, Sillier 29,30, Maloney 14,15, Bouleiie 14, Salming 14,15, Saganiuk 1.VANCOUVER: Gassof 3, Lever 17.WASHINGTON: Charron 24,25, Walter 25, Rowe 26,27,28,29,30, Lane 1, Maruk 26,27, Hexlall 5. &#9632;

NHL’s Scorers …This Week

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01481/4261914-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="598" height="1690"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02376/4261907-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="1199" height="2324"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03305/4261900-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="617" height="3331"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-04232/4261893-1-eng-US/f0022-042.jpg" title="f0022-04" width="577" height="1169"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01453/4261886-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="647" height="3592"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02344/4261879-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="1198" height="1697"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03253/4261872-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="600" height="579"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-04195/4261865-1-eng-US/f0023-042.jpg" title="f0023-04" width="606" height="372"></div> &#9632;

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NATIONAL LEAGUE SUMMARIES

C-Captain * - Rookie<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-05166/4262031-1-eng-US/f0023-052.jpg" title="f0023-05" width="185" height="178"></div><h2>ATLANTA</h2>GOALDan BouchardRejean LemelinDEFENSEGreg FoxEd Kea*Brad MarshBob MurdochPat RibbleRod SeilingDave ShandCENTERSGuy Chouinard*Red LaurenceTom Lysiak CR. WINGSBill ClementJohn GouldKen HoustonBob MacMillanJean PronovostWilliPlettL. WINGSBobby LalondeHarold PhUlipotfEric Vail<h2>BOSTON</h2>GOALGerry CheeversGilles Gilbert*Jim PettieDEFENSEGary DoakMike MilburyDennis O&rsquo;BrienBrad ParkDick RedmondAl SimsCENTERSPeter McNabBob MillerJean RatelleR. WINGSDwight FosterRick MiddletonTerry O&rsquo;ReillyBobby SchmautzL. WINGSWayne Cashman CDon Marcotte* Al SecordJohn Wensink<h2>BUFFALO</h2>GOALDon Edwards*Bob SauveDEFENSE*Mike BolandKen BroltenbachLee FogolinJocelyn GuevremontBill HajtJerry Korab*Larry PlayfairJim SchoenfeldCENTERSDon LuceGilles PerreaultAndri SavardR. WINGSDanny Gare CJacques RichardRoni RobertRic SoilingL. WINGSRick DudleyRichard MartinTorry MartinCraig RamsayDave Schultz<h2>CHICAGO</h2>GOALTony EspositoMike VeisorDEFENSE* Bob HoffmeyerDave LoganMike O&rsquo;ConnellBob MurrayPhil RussellCENTERSIvan BoldirevAlain DaigleStanMikitaJean SavardMike WaltonR. WINGSJ.P. Bordeleau*Tim HigginsCliff KorollGrant MulveyL. WINGSTedBulleyBob Kelly*Reg KerrJohn MarksDarcy Rota<h2>COLORADO</h2>GOALBill OleschukMichel PlasseDEFENSEDon AwreyNick BeverleyMiko ChristieMiko KitchenMichel LachanceDonnis OwcharJohn VenBoxmeerCENTERSRoy ComeauPaul Gardner*Merlin Malinowski*Paul MossierJack ValiquetteR. WINGSRon Dolormo*Paul MessierWilf PaiementRandy PierceDon SaloskiL. WINGSGary Croteau*Miko GillisBill LocheedAndy Spruce<h2>DETROIT</h2>GOALJim RutharlordRogie VachonDEFENSEThommie BergmanJean HamelTerry Harper*Willie HuberGreg JolyReed LarsonPerry MillerCENTERS*Greg CarrollBill HogaboamDale McCourtAndre St. LaurentR. WINGSDan LabraatenVaclac NodomanskDennis PolonichL. WINGS*Dan BolducErrol ThompsonPaul Woods C<h2>LOS ANGELES</h2>GOALRon Grahame*Mario LessardDEFENSEDarryl EdestrandDoug HahwardRick HamptonRandy HoltRandy ManoryRichard MulhernRob PalmerCENTERSSyl AppsMarcel DionneButch GoringVic VenaskyR. WINGSMark HeaslipMike Murphy CDave TaylorL. WINGSDanny GrantSteve JensenCharlie SimmerTom WilliamsBert WilsonMurray Wilson<h2>MINNISOTA</h2>GOALGary EdwardsGilles MelocheDEFENSEFred Barrett*Bill ButtersBryan MaxwellBrad MaxwellJean PotvinGary SargentGreg SmithCENTERS*Krta ManeryGlen Sharpley*Bob SmithTim YoungR. WINGSMike FidlerAl MacAdamAlex PirusTom YoughansRon ZanussiL. WINGSPer-Olov Brasar*Jack uartsonJean-Paul Parise C*Steve Payne*Mike PolichJim Roberts<h2>MONTREAL</h2>GOALMichel Larocque* Richard SevignyDEFENSERick ChartrawBrien Engblom* Rod LangwayGuy LapointeGilles LuptonSerge SavardCENTERSDoug JarvisPierre LaroucheJacques LemairePierre MondouDoug RisebroughR. WINGSCam Connor* Pat HughesGuy LafleurMario TremblayL. WINGSBob GaineyYvon LambertMark NapierSteve Shutt<h2>ISLANDERS</h2>GOALChico ReschBilly SmithDEFENSEGerry HartDave Lewis*Bob LorimerBert MarshallDenis PotvinStefan PerssonPat PriceCENTERSLome HenningMike KaszyckiWayne MerrickBryan TrottierR. WINGSMike BossyBilly HarrisBob NystromEd WestfallL. WINGSBob BourneClarke Gillies CGarry HowattJohn Toneili<h2>RANGERS</h2>GOALDoug SoetaertWayne ThomasDEFENSE* Don ClarkDave FarrishDave Maloney CMario MaroisMike McEwenCENTERSRon DuguayPhil EspositoWalter TkaczukR. WINGS* Lucien De BloisAnders HedbergEddie JohnstoneDon MurdochPierre PlanteDeanTalafousL. WINGSNick FotiuPat Hickey*Don MaloneySteve Vickers<h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2>GOAL* Robbie MooreWayne StephensonDEFENSE*Norm Barnes*Frank BatheBob DaileyAndri DupontRick LaPointeJim Watson*Behn WilsonCENTERSMol BridgmanBobby Clarke CBlake DunlopKen LinsemanR. WINGS*Tom Gorence*AI HillPaul HolmgrenReggie LoachDennis VervergaertL. WINGSBill Barber*Davo HoydaBob KellyRick MacLoish<h2>PITTSBURGH</h2>GOALDenis Herron*Greg MillenDEFENSERuss AndersonTom BladonColin CampoellRandy CarlyleRon StackhouseDale TallonCENTERSGreg MaloneGregg SheppardR. WINGSBlair ChapmanJacques CossetteGeorge FergusonRick KehoePeter LoeL. WINGSOrest Kindrachuk CRoss LonsberryGary McAdam*Rod Schutt<h2>ST. Louis</h2>GOALPhil MyroEd StaniowskiDEFENSEJack BrownschidleSteve DurbanoBarry Gibbs CLarry GirouxNeil KomadoskiBob StewartCENTERSBernie FederkoLarry PatoyGarry UngerR. WINGS*Wayne BabychBob MurdochMike Crombeen*Tony CurrieJohn SmrkoL. WINGSCurt BonnettIngo HammarstromBrian Sutt lorMike Zuke<h2>TORONTO</h2>GOALPierre HamelPaul HarrisonMikePalmatoerDEFENSEDave BurrowsDave Hutchison*Joel QuennevilleBorje SalmingIan TurnbullCENTERSJimmy JonesGarry MonahanWalt McKechnieDarryl Slttler CRon WilsonR. WINGS*John AndersonJerry ButlerRon EllisLenny McDonald* Rocky SaganiukL. WINGSPat BoutetteDan MaloneyDave William<h2>VANCOUVER</h2>GOALGary BromleyDune WilsonDEFENSEJohn GrisdaleLarry GoodenoughDennis Keems*Lars LindgrenBob MannoJack McllhargeyHarold SnepstsCENTERS*Thomas GradinDon LeverR. WINGSDon Kozak*Stan SmvlRob TudorL. WINGS*Curt FraserBrad GassoffJere GillisRon Sedlbauer<h2>WASHINGTON</h2>GOAL* Jim BedardGary InnessDEFENSEYvon Labre CGord LaneJack LynchRobert Picard*Leif SvenssonCENTERSGuy Charron*Rolf EdbergDennis HextallDennis MarukR. WINGSRick BragnaloTom RoweL. WINGSBob Girard*Paul Mulvey* Gary RisslingBob Sirois*Ryan Walter<h2>INJURED PLAYERS</h2>BOSTONStan JonathanRick SmithBUFFALODerek Smith*Bill StewartCHICAGOKeith MagnusonDoug WilsonCOLORADOBarry Beck*Dave WatsonJoe Watson CDETROITNick Libett*Brent PetersonLOS ANGELESBrian GlennieGlenn GoldupMONTREALYvan Cournoyer CKen DrydenRejean HouleLarry RobinsonPITTSBURGHWayne BianchinPete MahovlichPHILADELPHIABernie ParentRANGERSRon GreschnerJohn DavidsonUlf NilssonCarol VadnaisVANCOUVER*Bill Derlago*Glen HandsonPit MartinKevin McCarthyChris OddleifsonWASHINGTON*Tim CoulisRick GreenGreg PolisPete Scamurra &#9632;

f0023-05

NHL Team Rosters

Phenomenal is the only word to describe the scoring exploits of Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; right winger Real Cloutier. After copping &ldquo;Player of the Week&rdquo; honors last week with five goals in two games, Cloutier got even hotter and pumped in eight goals over a five-game span to set a World Hockey Association record.Cloutier scored two goals in a 4-3 victory over Edmonton and came back with three more tallies&mdash;his 20th hat trick&mdash;in a rematch with the Oilers, giving him 60 goals in 60 games. Bobby Hull held the league record for most goals in 60 games, a total of 57 en route to his WHA record of 77 goals in a season.But Cloutier wasn&rsquo;t through. He added three more goals, one in a 3-1 win over New England and a pair in a loss to Winnipeg, giving him 13 goals in his last seven games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03259/4262100-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="459" height="566"><figcaption class="caption-body">REAL CLOUTIER&hellip;Quebec Nordiques</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0024-03

WHA’S… Player of the Week

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE WARRINER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0024-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01470/4262069-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">SERGE BERNIER&hellip;Game Winner Scuttled Bulls (Photo by Steve Babineau)</figcaption></div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in US. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in US. and CanadaBIRMINGHAM&mdash;In the struggle for that final World Hockey Association playoff berth, the Birmingham Bulls had hit the road for a tour across Canada. Although they lost the trip&rsquo;s opener to Edmonton 6-4, they wished the Oilers well in their future endeavors&mdash;mainly because the fifth place Cincinnati Stingers were next on the Oilers&rsquo; list. As a matter of fact, Edmonton and Cincy had a home-and-home series on tap.The Bulls had better luck in Winnipeg where they dumped the Jets on the strength of goals by Michel Goulet (his 20th), Steve Alley, Bob Stephenson and Jim Turkiewicz. Meanwhile Cincy dropped a pair to the streaking Oilers.Next stop for the bulls was Quebec City. The Nordiques would be tough because second, third, and fourth places were becoming a log jam and the Nords still had not counted out finishing at the top of the heap.Back-to-back weekend games were scheduled at Le Colisee. Nordiques&rsquo; coach Jacques Demers had earlier put most of his scoring power together in one explosive line combination, so the question was&mdash;could John Brophy&rsquo;s Baby Bulls tie up the Marc Tardif&mdash;Serge Bernier&mdash;Real Cloutier combo and still score a few goals themselves?Paul Henderson&rsquo;s 21st goal of the season got the Bulls out of the gate, but then Quebec&rsquo;s big guns went to work as Cloutier, Tardif, and Cloutier again found the mark. A late goal by the Bulls&rsquo; Stephenson set up a struggle to the finish line, but the Nords hung on for the 3-2 victory.The following night Birmingham was bent on reversing the tide. This time Rob Ramage and Henderson fired the Bulls into the lead in the first few minutes of the contest. But again, Quebec&rsquo;s storm troops were unleashed. Buddy Cloutier racked up his 14th power play goal of the season to tighten things up.In the second period Cloutier struck again just after Goulet had given the Bulls a 3-1 edge. As a matter of fact, within a minute and ten seconds of the Bulls goal, the WHA&rsquo;s top scorer ripped the cords for his 54th and 55th of the season to complete his hat trick and tie the score.The Bulls valiantly jumped back into the lead on the strength of a Steve Alley goal, but Richie Leduc&rsquo;s late goal knotted the count for the Nords. In the final stanza Serge Bernier banged in the winner to send the Bulls down to another one-goal defeat, their 12th of the season. It was Bernier&rsquo;s 31 st.Of the eight goals scored by Quebec in the two-game set, Cloutier had five. To prove his streak was no fluke, the dynamic Quebec right winger went out and scored five more&mdash;including another hat trick&mdash;and ended up getting his 60th goal in his 60th game. Simply fantastic.NEW ENGLAND: &ldquo;We have to play better defense because we have simply been giving up too many goals,&rdquo; said New England coach Bill Dineen as his Whalers embarked on an important two-game swing to western Canada. Heading into Edmonton Dineen prescribed a defensive strategy against the red hot Oilers. &ldquo;We have to have tighter checking and obviously, stronger defense,&rdquo; said the coach.The Whalers had just completed an exhausting 10-day stretch in which they had played eight games and had won only three. They had suffered injuries to Marty Howe, and veterans Gordie Howe, and John McKenzie. Heading back into Edmonton where a week earlier they had been clobbered 8-2, things didn&rsquo;t look too rosy. The Oilers had put together a string of 10 victories and were just oozing with confidence.Dineen started Dave Keon&rsquo;s line&mdash;but without his two familiar wingers. McKenzie was sidelined with a rib injury and Mike Antonovich was &ldquo;benched.&rdquo; Recently recalled Jordy Douglas worked the left side and another rookie, Jim Warner started on the right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02376/4262062-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="504" height="610"><figcaption class="caption-body">PAUL HENDERSON&hellip;Shot 21st Goal</figcaption></div>As expected it was a very tightly played contest. The Whalers got a good effort from all hands, but it was the crafty Keon and his young wingmen who sparkled. Douglas gave New England the lead in the second period with an unassisted effort. But in the final stanza former Whaler Stevie Carlson got the equalizer for Edmonton.The Whalers looked forward to their return to Springfield. The schedule was not as arduous from here on in and the first visitors were to be a tired Cincy team. But when the smoke cleared the Stingers emerged the victors in a 4-3 contest.It was truly a missed opportunity for the Whalers as first-place Edmonton&rsquo;s lead loomed larger and larger. The only solace for New England was that they&rsquo;d get four more cracks at the Oilers before the season ended, three of them at home.As a result of the progress of rookies Douglas and Warner, the Whalers sent Antonovich and George Lyle to their Springfield farm team on 24-hour recall. &#9632;

f0024-01

Cloutier, Nordiques Just Too Much To Handle For Brophy’s Baby Bulls

EDMONTON&mdash;A fast lesson in the art of compromising by Edmonton Oiler Larry Gordon allowed an exhibition series involving three World Hockey Association teams and a Finnish national team to go as scheduled, a fact regarded as a big plus by Gordon and all those who worked to arrange the series.The Oilers were directly involved because they signed defenseman Risto Siltanen and goaltender Hannu Kampurri, annoying Finnish national hockey officials and leading to a threat that the series would be cancelled.Gordon got to work immediately to resurrect the series and succeeded when he agreed the two Finnish stars would return to their country for the national team&rsquo;s training camp in about three.weeks. However, the young Finnish stars are under contract for next season to the Oilers.They flew into Edmonton briefly March 8 and left the next day for Birmingham, where the Oilers were preparing to end the two-game losing streak inflicted by Quebec. Coach Glen Sather said he wanted to give the newcomers a chance to work out and himself a chance to evaluate their abilities.There was a possibility they could see some action before returning home, but Sather would not commit himself.&ldquo;Both these guys are good prospects,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt about that&mdash;but it might not help them or the team if we rushed them into an important game late in the season with the league championship on the line.&rdquo; &#9632;

Oilers Appease Finnish Officials

EDMONTON&mdash;Edmonton Oilers extended their World Hockey Association unbeaten streak to 13 games (12 wins and a tie) during their hottest streak in history, but then they lost two games in a row oi the road and fell right into a dogfight for first place.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01406/4262155-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="554" height="851"><figcaption class="caption-body">BILL GOLDSWORTHY&hellip;Adds Muscle</figcaption></div>Quebec Nordiques, who emerged recently from a lengthy and damaging slump, edged the Oilers 4-3 on a late goal by Curt Brackenbury to end the streak, then thumped Edmonton 6-3 the next night at the Colisee on a three-goal performance by Real (Buddy) Cloutier.Oilers coach Glen Sather, who refused to get too high during the unbeaten streak, would not get down on his club after the losses, which left Edmonton only two points ahead of the second-place Nordiques with one game in hand.&ldquo;We knew we wouldn&rsquo;t go undefeated for the rest of the season,&rdquo; Sather said. &ldquo;This is too tough a league for that.&ldquo;I was a little unhappy that some of our guys were letting Quebec players stand around in front of the net, and that some guys weren&rsquo;t concentrating on faceoffs, but there isn&rsquo;t a problem we can&rsquo;t solve.&rdquo;Center Ron Chipperfield, whose consistently outstanding play has been overshadowed by the attention paid to Wayne Gretzky, was a casualty during the two-game Quebec series. He took a painful six-stitch cut on his elbow and was placed on the bench to let the injury clear up.Apart from that, the Oilers were in good shape physically&mdash;a far cry from last season when a long string of injuries derailed the Oiler Express on the way to the playoffs.Right winger Bill Goldsworthy finally returned to the lineup late in the unbeaten streak, after going out early in the year with a separated shoulder. Goldsworthy showed the effects of his long layoff but gave the lineup some additional truculence.In his first game back, Goldsworthy was hooked by New England&rsquo;s Rick Ley and had the injured shoulder wrenched slightly, but there was no damage. Two nights later, Goldsworthy was rapped in front of the net by Cincinnati defenseman Bryan Watson and the old foes engaged in a vigorous fight for which both drew major penalties.Again, no injury resulted, and Goldsworthy was convinced he would be more effective down the stretch as a result.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t just sit around and not take contact for all those weeks and not worry about what will happen when you get hit,&rdquo; the veteran right-winger said. &ldquo;At least I know now that I can take a hit.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0025-01

Goldsworthy Rejoins Oiler Lineup

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02298/4262193-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="489" height="630"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03205/4262186-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="610" height="959"></div> &#9632;

f0025-02

WHA Leaders

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01421/4262238-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="590" height="943"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02330/4262231-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="1206" height="1570"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03284/4262224-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="611" height="1758"></div> &#9632;

f0026-01

WORLD HOCKEY ASSN. SUMMARIES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-04222/4262269-1-eng-US/f0026-042.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0026-04

Where WHA Teams Play

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-06151/4262300-1-eng-US/f0026-062.jpg" title="f0026-06" width="599" height="702"></div> &#9632;

f0026-06

The WHA Scoreboard

BIRMINGHAM: Cassolato 6, Stephenson 15, Goulet 2, Gorman 13, Vaive 21, Adduono 14, Ramage 9, Tebbutt 2.CINCINNATI: Shutt 7. Hislop 22,23, Parizeau 6, Thomas 23,24,25, Marsh 31, St. Sauveur 8.EDMONTON: Gretzky 32,33, Callighen 16,17,18,19, Shmyr 6, Weir 20, Carlson 12, Fletl 17, Micheletti 11, MacDonald 29,30, Langevin 6.NEWENGLAND: Ley 7, Miller 19, Rogers 22.QUEBEC: Cloutier 56,57,58,59,60.61,62,63, Brackenbury 10,11, Bernier 32,33,34, Leduc 23, Lariviere 4, Fitchner 5, Bordeleau 12.WINNIPEG: Preston 19,20, Moffat 11,12,13, Lindstrom 20, Lukowich 51, Nilsson 30,31,32,33, Sullivan 37, MacKinnon 1, Ruskowski 14,15. &#9632;

WHA’s Scorers …This Week

WINNIPEG&mdash;Despite their 1-2-0 record since his takeover, new head coach, Tom McVie, likes the way his troops are performing for him.&ldquo;I certainly can&rsquo;t accuse the guys of not putting out an effort,&rdquo; he said after the Jets dropped a 5-4 decision in Birmingham. &ldquo;We have work to do but not in the area of motivation, that&rsquo;s for sure.&rdquo;Try as they might, Winnipeg did not succeed in making McVie&rsquo;s debut a successful one. Before a near capacity crowd that turned out to welcome McVie, the Jets found themselves on the tail end of a 4-1 score with New England.McVie, who shared the area behind the bench with assistant coach, Bill Sutherland, said after the game. &ldquo;One of the first things we&rsquo;ll have to work on is getting the puck out of our own end. That was really the only glaring weakness I saw. We didn&rsquo;t have much of an offense out there tonight, but everyone in the league knows that we have more than a few guys who can put the puck in the net. It will take us awhile, but by playoff time we&rsquo;ll be there.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01398/4262362-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="478" height="659"><figcaption class="caption-body">TOMMY McVIE&hellip;Outlook Bright</figcaption></div>Four nights later in Birmingham, the Jets had their offense rolling, but they couldn&rsquo;t stop the spirited Bulls from slipping away with a 5-4 win. Winnipeg found itself down 3-0 after the first period, but rebounded quickly and the teams headed into the final stanza deadlocked at 4-4. A deflected shot that went in off the stick of Barry Long early in the third period proved to be the winner and the Jets left Birmingham with their third consecutive loss.Still not shaken, McVie repeated the words he spoke the night of his Winnipeg debut. &ldquo;We got trapped in our own end a few times and like I said earlier, this is something we&rsquo;ll have to work on. In the meantime, they showed me that they have guts. They didn&rsquo;t quit when we were down and we easily could have won this game.&rdquo;Despite those words, the new Jets&rsquo; coach certainly must have been wondering when his team would come through for him. He waited only 24 hours.The next night in Cincinnati, Winnipeg put their game in order and came away with a 5-3 win. Paced by Kent Nilsson&rsquo;s second hat trick of the season, the Jets opened up a 3-0 first period lead and then coasted to an easy win.McVie was obviously pleased with his first win and he offered words of encouragement. &ldquo;We played well and this is definitely going to give us momentum as we head home for five games.&rdquo;The Jets will have to look at buildings other than their own only four more times this year. Tom McVie is going to have plenty of time to work with his players and he has served notice that by playoff time, his team will be ready. WHA bewareJET STREAMS: Lyle Moffat&rsquo;s goal in Birmingham was the 50th of his WHA career&hellip;Willie Lindstrom appeared in his 200th career game when the Jets dumped Cincinnati 5-3&hellip;Bill Davis has been sent back to Philadelphia of the AHL&hellip;Bernie Saunders, the WCHA All Star from Western Michigan will be in the Jets&rsquo; training camp come September.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02302/4262355-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="1069" height="1292"><figcaption class="caption-body">KENT NILSSON&hellip;Second Hat Trick</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0027-01

New Coach Loses Debut But Pleased With Jets

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02285/4262400-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="248" height="241"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03221/4262393-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="2287" height="1652"></div> &#9632;

f0028-02

WHA’S POINT SCORING AND PENALTY STATISTICS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01385/4262431-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="538" height="678"><figcaption class="caption-body">MIKE LIUT&hellip;Enjoys Challenge</figcaption></div>CINCINNATI&mdash;Cincinnati Stingers&rsquo; goaltender Mike Liut is enjoying his best season as a professional but he downplays his ability.&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve had a good year,&rdquo; said Lint. Now in his second year as a goalie. &ldquo;I would like to have done better, but I think that&rsquo;s the way everybody thinks. Unless you win the championship, there&rsquo;s always something you would like to have done.&ldquo;We lost a couple of games in the last minute of play and they stick out in my mind. If the team was sitting a little bit higher in the standings, I would be pleased.&rdquo;Liut, a graduate of Bowling Green University, has posted an 18-21-4 record this season, which includes two shutouts, and recently completed a stint in which he started 18 consecutive games.One might think that starting that many games would drain a goalie physically but Liut was seemingly unaffected during his streak, during which he posted an 8-9-1 mark, including a shutout. Liut was not tired.&ldquo;When I was playing, I really didn&rsquo;t feel tired,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I liked it. I knew I was starting and I liked playing in those games.&ldquo;You need a rest every once in a while. I had about a week off. &ldquo;When you don&rsquo;t play, you sit back and say, &lsquo;I played 18 games in a row, I must be tired.&rsquo;&rdquo;At six-foot-two and 180 pounds, Liut is one of the bigger goalies in the World Hockey Association, and he uses that size to advantage.That was especially evident in the Stingers&rsquo; 4-3 overtime win over New England March 4th, a game in which Liut made 37 saves.Liut works tirelessly in practice on that aspect of his game, for the quickness and agility of a goaltender often means the difference between winning and losing.How does the 23-year-old Liut feel when a goal is scored against him?&ldquo;The atmosphere of the club seems to fall,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;Sorrow sets in. You really don&rsquo;t see anyone&rsquo;s face, but it&rsquo;s kind of like they lost their parents. Or it&rsquo;s as though you had a winning lottery ticket&rdquo; and lost it. It feels as though there are 30 thousand eyes staring at you, and you&rsquo;re the guy who let them down.&ldquo;I realize you&rsquo;re going to have a bad game once in a while, but if a goalie stops to think that he can&rsquo;t do it all by himself, he&rsquo;ll play better. In this game, you have to leave yourself a certain margin of error.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0028-01

Liut OK’s Stinger Workload

<div class="byline">BY PATRICK LYON</div>ERIE&mdash;As good a coach as Nick Polano of the Erie Blades is, he has turned into an even better general manager in his first year of holding down the dual role.In a five-team league where all coaches are serving two responsibilities as general manager, Polano has stood head and shoulders above the others mainly because of his uncanny ability to bring in top caliber players to the Blades, players that were available to other teams in the league, but saw themselves lose out because the Erie coach was always hustling a little faster to improve his team.With the co-operation of Blades&rsquo; owner and president Doctor John Caruso, Polano this season secured a full coverage broadcast contract for the first time in Blades history, has advertising revenue for programs way ahead of previous years, has helped with a marked increase in attendance with the club getting two sell-outs of over 4,000 within the space of 30 days and most important, improved the stature of the Blades within the Erie community with a more positive image. Anyone that has requested a speaker for any charity event has never been turned down by Polano.After the Blades had won just one of five games to open their maiden season in the NEHL and were sitting in last place, many were ready to push the panic button except Polano, who successfully acquired a bevy of talented players and molded them into the team they are today&mdash;a first place club needing only a combination of 10 wins or 10 losses by second place Hampton to secure their first league title.The past week the Blades demonstrated their &ldquo;team hockey&rdquo; concept in handling the Freedoms back-to-back losses of 7-0 and 8-1. In the 7-0 waltz, Daniel Poulin recorded two goals and center Brad Rhiness handed off four assists, while goalie Walker was claiming his second shutout in 18 games. Members of the news media were so impressed with the team&rsquo;s play in the 8-1 blasting of Cape Cod that they named the entire Erie squad as stars for the game. The Blades closed out a 2-1 week with a 6-5 overtime loss to the Mohawks after rallying from a 5-3 deficit. Rhiness is a shoo-in to go over the century mark in points with 93 already, Gulutzan is their top goa scorer with 44, Poulin leads NEHL&rsquo;: defensemen with 70 points.UTICA: Coach Larry Mickey became player-coach Larry Mickey, as he at tempted to find a way to turn his club&rsquo;: fortunes around after they lost 17 of their last 20 games. Mickey&rsquo;s first ap pearance in a uniform since his playing days ended with the Buffalo Sabres in 1974 inspired the younger players as the Mohawks continued their battle with Johnstown for the final playoff spot.In his first game in over four years Mickey scored a hat trick, but the in spired Mohawks still came up short against the Freedoms 4-3. The next game was a different story, however, a Mickey handed out two assists ant Utica pulled off a 6-5 overtime upset the first place Blades. Utica blew a 5-3 lead in the latter states of the secont period, but the steadying influence of Mickey&rsquo;s experience paid off with Ray Kurpis ripping home the game-winning goal. It marked the second time in a week the sluggish Mohawks upset the front runners. The Mohawks were also knocked into last place when they dropped a pair of games to the Wings 6-1 and 3-2.JOHNSTOWN: The red-hot Wings left behind a position all too familiar to them all season &mdash; last place. By defeating the Mohawks twice on their home ice 6-1 and 3-2, Johnstown took over fourth place and set their sights on third place and the Freedoms after tripping Cape Cod 4-2. Hampton momentarily stalled the Johnstown express, dealing the Wings back-to-back defeats of 4-2 and 6-4.Prior to their twin losses to the Aces, Johnstown was the hottest item in the league judging by their eight wins and one tie in 10 games. Balance has been the key to the Wings recent success with coach Dick Roberge getting good scoring from all three lines on top of solid defense. Veteran Ron Docken has also been a tower of strength for Johnstown in the nets.HAMPTON: Boasting three of the top 10 scorers in the league, the Aces again climbed to within nine points of first place and the Blades by winning a pair of home games against Johnstown.Mike Keeler ripped two goals in a 4-2 edging of the Wings and Pat Donnelly picked up a pair in the 6-4 conquest of Johnstown. Hampton fell prey to hot goaltending in Cape Cod, losing 1-0.Larry Billows, Jim Misener and Brian Coates ranked among the league&rsquo;s most prolific scorers. Billows is second in the circuit with 26 goals and 66 assists for 92 points, Misener has totaled 46 and 40 for 86 points"and Coates has caught fire and shows 40 goals and 43 assists for 83 points in just 45 games.CAPE COD: Cap Raeder and John Cunniff were the stories for the Freedoms in an otherwise uneventful week that saw them take their five game unbeaten streak on the road only to come home again with a lackluster 1-3 record in four road contests.After Cap Raeder recorded his second shutout of the season, both of them coming against Hampton, the Codders were blitzed in Erie 7-0 and 8-1, managed to beat Utica 4-3 and then fell victim to the Wings 4-2.For the first time in his career, playercoach Cunniff went over 100 points and remains the top pointmaker in the<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-04168/4262462-1-eng-US/f0028-042.jpg" title="f0028-04" width="526" height="592"><figcaption class="caption-body">NICK POLANO&hellip;Masterful GM</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Polano Spearheading Erie Success

<div class="byline">BY VIRG FOSS</div>GRAND FORKS&mdash;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01336/4262500-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="550" height="890"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARK TAYLOR&hellip;Power Play Scorer</figcaption></div>One horrible period of hockey nearly deprived the No. 1 ranked college hockey team in the United States from a berth in the national tournament.The University of North Dakota, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association champion, the winningest team in school history with 29 victories this season, nearly saw the season go down the drain against upstart Wisconsin in the league finals.Wisconsin, trailing 5-1 early in the second period, outscored the Sioux 6-1 the rest of the period to take a 7-6 lead entering the final period.It put the Badgers just a goal behind the Sioux in the two-game, total goal series after North Dakota won the opener 4-2.But a goal by senior wing Rob Mihulka a 2:32 into the last period created a 7-7 tie and freshman goalie Bob Iwabuchi came off the bench to make it stay that way at the finish.Iwabuchi got the call after Wisconsin&rsquo;s second period outburst against Sioux senior goalie Bill Stankoven, who got no help from his teammates as they collapsed around him.Iwabuchi, who had the best goals-against average in the WCHA, showed Wisconsin why he&rsquo;s a prime candidate for All America honors. He handled nine third period shots flawlessly, including point-blank chances from Bob Suter and Rod Romanchuk.It was a game where North Dakota clearly made hard work out of what had the makings of a rout. But give credit to Wisconsin, which never quit.In the other WCHA final series, Minnesota outscored Minnesota-Duluth 8-4 in the total goal series, winning 2-1 and 6-3.Minnesota meets Bowling Green, the Central Collegiate Hockey Association winner, for the right to advance to the NCAA tourney in Detroit March 22-24. North Dakota is an automatic seed into the nationals as the No. 1 team from the west. Two teams from the East&mdash;New Hampshire and Dartmouth&mdash;will complete the four-team tourney at Olympia Stadium.North Dakota, the most penalized team in the WCHA, let Wisconsin&rsquo;s penchant for the penalty box in the second game enable the Sioux to take a 41 lead after one period.Bill Himmelright, Mark Taylor and Dave Christian scored on power plays on Wisconsin&rsquo;s first three chances and Mike Burggraf got one of the shorthanded variety, his fifth shorthanded goal of the season.When freshman ace Kevin Maxwell bagged his 30th goal of the season just 49 seconds into the second period, it looked like a rout was on.Somebody forgot to tell Wisconsin about it. The Badgers, bidding for their sixth trip to the nationals in the last 10 years, came back like champions.Les Grauer, Ron Vincent and Mark Johnson blitzed North Dakota with three goals in 76 seconds and North Dakota&rsquo;s Maxwell misfired on a penalty shot just 29 seconds before Johnson made it 5-4.Rod Romanchuk tied it a 5-5 on a scramble, Paul Chadwick pushed the Sioux ahead 6-5 on a breakaway, then the Badgers came back on goals by Mark Johnson and Bob Suter to take a 7-6 lead into the last period. Suter&rsquo;s goal came with the Badgers skating shorthanded.When the final period started, Iwabuchi got the call. He played super and Mihulka provided the Sioux with the goal they needed to advance to Detroit for the first time since 1968.&ldquo;This team never ceases to amaze me. No matter what happened all year, they continually showed a lot of class and discipline. We let a few teams off the ropes during the year and we let Wisconsin off the ropes, too,&rdquo; Gino Gasparini, UND hockey coach said.The results gave North Dakota a 4-1-1 edge over Wisconsin in six meetings this season. More importantly, it gave the Sioux a trip to the nationals, where North Dakota can now go after its first national championship since 1963.In the other WCHA series, Minnesota disposed of pesky Duluth despite some brilliant goaltending by Duluth&rsquo;s Bill Perkl, who stopped 45 of 47 shots at him in the opener, won 2-1, by the Gophers.Steve Christoff and Tim Harrer had the Gopher goals, sandwiched around a score by Duluth&rsquo;s Mark Pavelich, which tied it early in the third period.Minnesota had to struggle the second game, too. Duluth battled back from a 3-1 deficit, tied it a 3-3, then saw the Gophers rattle off the next three goals to win going away.Minnesota got goals from Bart Larson, Steve Ulseth, Neal Broten, Harrer, Christoff and Don Micheletti. Duluth&rsquo;s goals were by Bill Oleksuk, John Harrington and Oleksuk again, to create a brief tie.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02264/4262493-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="538" height="638"><figcaption class="caption-body">DON MICHELETTI&hellip;Spark For Gophers</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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North Dakota Aims For NCAA Title; Minnesota Must Hurdle CCHA Champs

<h2>WCHA CONFERENCE</h2>FinalsNorth Dakota 4, Wisconsin 2North Dakota 7, Wisconsin 7(North Dakota wins two-game series 11-9)Minnesota 2, Minn-Duluth 1Minnesota 6, Minn-Duluth 3(Minnesota wins two-game series 8-2)Semi-FinalsNorth Dakota 6, Colorado College 3North Dakota 7, Colorado College 3(North Dakota wins two-game series 13-6)Minnesota 5, Michigan Tech 3Minnesota 6, Michigan Tech 1(Minnesota wins two-game series 11-4)Minn-Duluth 5, Denver 2Denver 4, Minn-Duluth 2(Minn-Duluth wins two-game series 7-6)Wisconsin 11, Notre Dame 5Wisconsin 5, Notre Dame 2(Wisconsin wins two-game series 16-7)<h2>NCAA REGIONALS</h2>Bowling Green at Minnesota(Two-game total-goals series)<h2>NCAA FINALS</h2>Mar. 22-24East: New Hampshire and DartmouthWest: North Dakota and Minnesota vs BowlingGreen Winner at Detroit Olympia.<h2>ECAC CONFERENCE</h2>Championship GameNew Hampshire 3, Dartmouth 2Consolation GameCornell 7, Boston Univ. 4Semi-FinalsNew Hampshire 5, Cornell 2Dartmouth 5, Boston Univ. 3Quarter-FinalsBoston Univ. 4, Vermont 3New Hampshire 9, Yale 2Cornell 6, Providence 5Dartmouth 2, Clarkson 1<h2>CCHA CONFERENCE</h2>Championship FinalBowling Green 5, Ohio State 3Bowling Green 6, Ohio State 4(Bowling Green wins two-game series 11-7)<h2>CANADIAN COLLEGES</h2>Ontario AssociationGuelph 7, McMaster 4Guelph 3, McMaster 2(Guelph wins best-of-three final series 2-0)Quebec AssociationConcordia 7, UQAC 2Concordia 7, UQAC 5Concordia 8, UQAC 5(Concordia wins best-of-five final series 3-0)Maritime AssociationSt. Mary&rsquo;s 4, Dalhousie 3Dalhousie 6, St. Mary&rsquo;s 3Dalhousie 5, St. Mary&rsquo;s 4(Dalhousie wins best-of-three final series 2-1)Canada West AssociationAlberta 6, Calgary 4Calgary 6, Alberta 3Alberta 3, Calgary 1(Alberta wins best-of-three final series 2-1)Great Plains AssociationRegina 7, Manitoba 2Regina 5, Manitoba 1(Regina wins best-of-three final series 2-0) &#9632;

College Playoffs

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-03169/4262555-1-eng-US/f0029-032.jpg" title="f0029-03" width="572" height="2063"></div> &#9632;

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The Top 10 U.S. Colleges

<div class="byline">BY TOM BURKE</div>BOSTON&mdash;Up and down the ice they skated, these strangers&mdash;new on the block&mdash;from the Granite State. The hockey teams from Dartmouth and the University of New Hampshire, playing for the ECAC Division One championship before 14,490 at Boston Garden, had been alternately freewheeling and cautious for the better part of 60 minutes. Burglar-careful one minute and devil-may-care the next, the Blue and the Green stood at 2-2 with less than three minutes to play in regulation.All of a sudden, it was over. UNH captain Bob Gould, crossing the blueline on a two-on-two rush, blasted a rising slap shot to the glove side of Dartmouth goalie Bob Gaudet. The sophomore netminder stabbed, but he wasn&rsquo;t quick enough as the puck stretched the twine and flopped to the ice with 2:43 to play. The Wildcats, with the anonymous defense and untried goalie, had taken their first ECAC Division One crown since joining the league 11 years ago, by beating Dartmouth 3-2.Such heroics are not new to Gould. As a sophomore, he had scored the winner in the second overtime against Cornell in the Garden semi-finals, the only other Boston playoff win UNH has mustered. Earlier this year, he tallied the clincher in a 5-4 overtime win over Providence. It was a fitting close to a superb career in Durham.But the most valuable player trophy went not to Gould, but to UNH sophomore goalie Greg Moffett. Entering the season, Greg had played in but three varsity games. The sellout crowds in the Garden didn&rsquo;t faze him at all, as he turned aside 29 shots in impressive 52 semi-final triumph over Cornell, then added 30 saves in the title game.With 7:55 to play and Dartmouth pressing after Steve Higgins&rsquo; power play goal had tied the score, the Green&rsquo;s high scoring Ross Brownridge slipped in alone behind the UNH defense. Moffett advanced slightly, let Brownridge deke, then kicked the puck off his stick with an outstretched left leg. After Gould scored, Dartmouth was buzzing in the zone, and Moffett picked off a bouncing slapshot from out of a maze of screening bodies, freeing it harmlessly aside to ward off the final desperation bid.Dartmouth, which had upset favored Boston University 5-3 the night before to gain the final, took a 1-0 lead at 4:49 of the first on Mark Culhene&rsquo;s conversion of a backhand crease pass by Higgins. The Greenies held the territorial edge the rest of the period, forechecking with abandon and looking for defensive zone mistakes.But the mistake that came next was their own, almost midway through the second frame. All five Dartmouth players scooted to the bench for a change on the fly without dumping the puck deep enough to the UNH end. Freshman defenseman Ross Yantzi flung the puck to the neutral zone where Cox and Bob Francis lurked hanging out in anticipation. Cox advanced on Gaudet, fired, and cleared away while Francis picked up the rebound to rifle it home at 8:38.Thirty-one seconds later, Bruce Crowder tipped home a centering pass from Terry Flanagan for a 2-1 UNH lead which lasted until Higgins beat Moffett on a second rebound, setting the stage for Gould&rsquo;s winner.The Friday semi-finals were also played to a full house. While New Hampshire&rsquo;s win over Cornell wasn&rsquo;t surprising to those present, the ease with which they pulled away from the Big Red in the third period certainly raised some eyebrows. Dartmouth, in the semis for the first time ever, rated the traditional chances against BU&mdash;slim and none. But, thoroughly unimpressed with the Terriers&rsquo; reviews, the Green worked their unorthodox system to near perfection.The 2-0 Dartmouth lead, on Don O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s steal of an errant pass and Murphy&rsquo;s conversion of a three-on-two, seemed no cause for alarm. True to form, BU cranked up for three goals in the second to Dartmouth&rsquo;s one, and for a couple of minutes in the third frame it looked as though the trend would continue. BU was floating a man in center ice, disrupting the five man forecheck of the Greenies.But the break came for the underdogs when BU goalie Jim Craig, after stopping a Higgins backhand, failed to bend down and smother the puck. Instead, it trickled out of the crease, and Craig followed, trying to find the handle. Higgins, seizing the opportunity, wheeled from the corner, purloined the puck, and backhanded it around the startled goalie into the net 10 feet away.With the score 4-3, Dartmouth caught fire again, throwing caution to the wind and forcing BU to abandon the neutral zone floater. When Brownridge drew a holding call on a partial breakaway at 8:33, the resulting power play goal by Chip Bettencourt provided the clincher and paved the way for Dartmouth to return to the NCAA finals after an absence of 30 years.In the other semi-final, the winning goal came from freshman Dan McPherson on a disputed play. Late in the second period, with the score 2-2, McPherson stepped from behind the Cornell net and flicked a pass-shot through the crease behind Brian Hayward. The puck hit a skate and trickled over the line, but after heated discussion it was allowed to count because no kicking motion was detected by any officials.That made it 3-2, and UNH just ran and hid for the third period, outshooting Cornell 18-8. Bob Francis scored twice for the Wildcats, whose forwards had very little trouble penetrating the slot for several good chances on Hayward.In the consolation game, Cornell gleefully dumped BU 7-4, with hat tricks by Brian Marrett and John Stornik leading the way. It was the Red&rsquo;s second win over the slumping Terriers, iced by a three goal burst within a 51 second span in the third period. BU, which also lost in the quarter-finals last season after entering the tournament as the favorite, thus dropped its fourth game in five outings, ending with a record of 21-7-2. Cornell finished 21-8 while the NCAA representatives, New Hampshire and Dartmouth, ended with records of 22-8-3 and 18-8-2 respectively. For the first time since 1970, there will not be a Boston area school representing the East at the NCAA tournament.In the quarter-finals, held on Tuesday at four different sites, only New Hampshire had no trouble although the winners were all home ice seeds. UNH blasted Yale 9-2 behind McPherson&rsquo;s four goals.Dartmouth survived a disputed goal by Clarkson and downed the Golden Knights in overtime 2-1 on Dennis Murphy&rsquo;s 30 foot slap shot at 6:36 of the extra period. Kevin Zappia had scored an apparent goal for Clarkson in the second period, but it was not allowed by the referee after the goal judge did not turn on the red light. They did sew up a hole in the twine after the play, however.Vermont threw a scare into BU by hopping out to a 3-0 lead on power play scores. But back fought the Terriers with John Bathel, coming off the bench for his first time in five games, scoring three times. The last one came with 16 seconds to play for a 4-3 win against the scrambling Catamounts.Providence looked like sure winners for the second year in a row at Lynch Rink, taking a 5-1 lead over Cornell with 16 minutes to play. But Cornell battled back this time, receiving a gift from heaven when PC&rsquo;s Randy Wilson missed the vacated Cornell cage from 10 feet out on a 2-on-0 break in the last minute. Lance Nethery picked up the puck, rushed away to score on a slapshot with 13 seconds left, and Rob Gemmell netted the winner in overtime.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01379/4262586-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="544" height="774"><figcaption class="caption-body">GREG MOFFETT&hellip;Chosen As MVP</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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New Hampshire Headed For NCAA’s Beating Dartmouth In Title Game

<div class="byline">BY RICHARD JABLONSKI</div>MONTREAL&mdash;The Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Association championship round began at suburban Pointe Claire Arena and the cast for the last chapter of Canada&rsquo;s collegiate title scenario had a few unfamiliar faces.The Dalhousie Tigers for one were not quite expected to be the Maritime Association&rsquo;s standard bearer in the C1AU finals but they made it on the strength of an upset of league-leading St. Mary&rsquo;s.The Tigers lost the series opener to SMU 4-3 but bounced back to win the next two 6-3 and 5-4 to win the best-of-three series 2-1.In the Ontario Association final, Guelph Gryphons swept past McMaster Marlins 7-4 and 3-2 to represent their conference when everyone had expected Toronto Varsity to be there.The University of Alberta Golden Bears, the odds-on-favorites to take it all, were extended to three games by the Calgary Dinosaurs before winning the Canada West Association title again. The Bears won the opener 6-4 but Calgary tied it 6-3 before Alberta won 3I to take the series 2-1.University of Regina Cougars swept the Great Plains title by beating Manitoba Bisons twice 7-2 and 5-1.And in Montreal, Concordia University Stingers did it again by winning three times without any opposition from the UQAC Inuks from Chicoutimi. Because Quebec is the host conference, both the Stingers and Inuks are included in the final round, of six for the championship.Here&rsquo;s the championship, draw: Thursday, March 15, Guelph plays Dalhousie and Alberta opposes Concordia. On Friday, Guelph meets UQAC and Alberta is paired with Regina. On Saturday, it is Regina and Concordia and Dalhousie against UQAC. The championship final is Sunday on Canadian national television.If this is March, the Concordia Stingers must be the Quebec University Athletic Association hockey champions.It has become an unwritten rule, or so it seems, that come the winds of March Paul Arsenault&rsquo;s Stingers make official their entry into the Canadian interuniversity national championships. There were only two variations on the original theme this time around: Concordia had an automatic trip to the nationals as host team anyway, and the Chicoutimi Inuks, not the Trois-Rivieres Patriotes, were the Stingers&rsquo; final round victims.Concordia needed only three games to secure its fourth consecutive QUAA title, dumping Chicoutimi 8-5 in the final game of a three-game sweep. Steve Young, Kevin Sands and Doug Feasby scored two goals apiece as the Stingers moved out to a 7-2 lead before cruising home in the final 10 minutes.From a Stinger point of view, the key development of the championship series was the continued effectiveness of the Young&mdash;Sands&mdash;Kim Elliott line. The veteran Elliott has hastened the maturation of the two rookie wings as goalscorers with his pinpoint passing and playmaking sense. In fact, he assisted on all four of his linemates&rsquo; goals in the deciding game.Chicoutimi will be in the nationals as well, much to the dismay of more deserving wild card teams. The fate of the Inuks will rest on the performance of their three QUAA All Stars: goaltender Laval LcClerc, center Daniel Dufresne and wing Bernard Chamberland.Other first team stars included defensemen Michel Blais of Concordia and Georges Robitaille of Laval, and forward Bert DiFazio of Concordia. &#9632;

Dalhousie Upsets St. Mary’s; Guelph, Alberta Reach Finals

LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRAOSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg. Ontario Sold in U.S and CanadaLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRAOSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg. Ontario Sold in U.S and Canada<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02276/4262665-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="603" height="896"></div> &#9632;

f0032-02

Where AHL Teams Play

<div class="byline">BY JIM LEAHY</div>HALIFAX&mdash;After winning four of five games, the Nova Scotia Voyageurs are closing in on second place New Brunswick in the torrid Northern Division race. At this writing, the Vees are only one point in back of New Brunswick, however, the Hawks to have five big games in hand on the fast-charging Voyageurs.Burly forward Dan Newman is now back in Halifax with the Vees after spending time playing for the Canadiens while several members of the NHL club were injured. Newman will be a welcome addition to the Vees. Rookies Gary MacGregor, a center, and goaltender Dennis Henderson were dropped from the Nova Scotia roster after failing their AHL tryout.The Vees were in action twice during the week. They skated to an important 5-3 win over New Brunswick in a game played at the Moncton Coliseum, but were upset 3-2 in Halifax by the lowly Philadelphia Firebirds.NEW BRUNSWICK: Eddie Johnston has done a fine job in New Brunswick, guiding his expansionist Hawks to a 30-23-7 record in the AHL&rsquo;s tough Northern Division. But during the last two weeks, the club has been in a mild slump winning only two of their last five contests. After beating Hershey 5-3 at the Coliseum, the improving Nova Scotia Voyageurs came to town and skated to a 5-3 win.The saga of Jim Harrison continues. After being sent to New Brunswick by the Chicago Black Hawks, the veteran center apparently refused to report, citing a recurring back injury. Now he has been placed on the injured list and it&rsquo;s doubtful that he will ever skate for the AHLclub.On the bright side, Rocky Saganiuk continues to lead the AHL in goal scoring with 46 in 58 games.PHILADELPHIA: As the season enters the final five weeks, the Firebirds have their backs to the wall in their attempt to qualify for the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season. Last year, their first in the AHL, they made the playoffs only to be ousted by the New Haven Nighthawks. This season the &lsquo;Birds have been injury-riddled and have limited depth. As a result, a strong flurry by third place Hershey coupled with the inconsistent play by the Firebirds has broadened the Hershey lead over Philadelphia to 18 points with just 21 games to play.Two more players were lost by the Firebirds during the week. Right winger Clayton Pachal was recalled by Colorado and loaned to Springfield in a strange move, and defenseman Bill Davis was recalled by the WHA Winnipeg Jets. Despite all of the adversity, the Firebirds upset powerful Nova Scotia 3-2 at the Metro Center in Halifax.MAINE: The Mariners have just concluded a 15-day, 3,000-mile road trip which took them to six Amrican Hockey League cities for eight contests. The club came up with a respectable 4-2-2 record during the marathon journey and still holds on to the top spot in the Northern Division.Earlier in the week, the club lost center Ken Linseman to the Flyers and learned that center Bernie Johnston will be lost for nearly two weeks with a knee injury. At the time of his injury, Johnston was leading the league in scoring. Goaltender Robbie Moore was also called up to the Flyers, forcing the Mariners to use their trainer as a backup to Pete Peeters in the win over New Haven.After beating the New Haven Nighthawks 5-1 before 5,404 fans at the Civic Center, the Mariners stretched their lead to 13 points over second place New Brunswick in the Northern Division race. The Mariners beat Rochester 9-4, also on home ice, but dropped a 7-2 contest in Springfield.BINGHAMTON: A five game Duster losing streak came to an end when the club skated to an upset 5-4 win at New Haven over the first place Nighthawks. New Haven bounced back to take the return match at Binghamton 6-3, but the Dusters defeated Rochester 6-3 at home and the Springfield Indians 3-2 on the road. After splitting their last six games, the Dusters are now tied with red-hot Hershey in the battle for second place in the Northern Division.SPRINGFIELD: Indians&rsquo; defenseman Pierre Roy, with 76 penalty minutes in the last six games, is closing in on the AHL and Springfield penalty records. He has 323 PIM&rsquo;s so far this season which is just 21 shy of the Springfield record set in 1968-69 by Larry Johnston. The AHL mark, set by Dave &ldquo;The Hammer&rdquo; Schultz in 1971-72 when he had 392 penalty minutes, is within reach of the Springfield defenseman.Springfield went 1-1-1 during the week. They skated to a 4-4 tie in Hershey, beat Maine 7-2 at the Coliseum and dropped a 3-2 contest in overtime to Binghamton. They still trailed Nova Scotia by six points as the week ended.ROCHESTER: Winless in their last 15 games, the Amerks have hit rock bottom. &ldquo;We need to get more scoring,&rdquo; said coach Pat Kelly. The club suffered through three more losses during the week. Maine won 9-4, Binghamton 6-3 and Hershey skated to a 3-2 win over the once-powerful Amerks.Some help may be on the way. Ron Garwasiuk is back from his knee injury. Garwasiuk missed 14 games with his injury and his loss had a lot to do with the present Rochester losing streak.HERSHEY: Ever since Fred Stanfield took over the coaching duties, the Bears have been almost unbeatable. At this writing they are tied with Binghamton for second place in the Southern Division and have three games in hand on the Dusters.During the week the Bears went 2-1-1. After losing 5-3 in New Brunswick they tied Springfield 4-4 at home and beat New Haven 2-1 on the road. The week ended in Hershey where the Bears defeated Rochester 3-2 in overtime.NEW HAVEN: The Southern Division-leading Nighthawks have lost four of their last five, but they still have a commanding 21-point lead over Binghamton and Hershey. The Nighthawks lost two in a row at home during the slump. Binghamton skated to a 5-4 win at the Coliseum and a fired up Hershey team beat New Haven 2-1 in one of the best performances seen this year at the Coliseum by a visiting team.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01358/4262696-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="546" height="683"><figcaption class="caption-body">ROCKY SAGANIUK&hellip;He&rsquo;s No. 11n Goals</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-01

Voyageurs Eyeing Leading Hawks; Maine ‘Survives’ Hectic Road Trip

LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRAOSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg. Ontario Sold in U.S and CanadaLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRAOSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg. Ontario Sold in U.S and Canada<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02243/4262727-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="532" height="610"></div> &#9632;

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Where CHL Teams Play

<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div>FORT WORTH&mdash;The Texans, locked in a desperate struggle for the fourth and last playoff spot, welcomed back a big plus when veteran defenseman Neil Nicholson rejoined the club after a sojourn in Europe.The 29-year-old Nicholson, a native of Saint John, N.B., has been the key man in the Fort Worth defense for the last five seasons, and was voted the Texans&rsquo; most valuable player the last two years. He was a first-team CHL All Star selection in 1976-77.Bolstered by Nicholson&rsquo;s return, Billy MacMillan&rsquo;s Texans posted a 4-1 home victory over Oklahoma City, the team which had nudged Fort Worth out of fourth place a week earlier. The rest of the week wasn&rsquo;t as fruitful, however, as the Texans dropped back-to-back 3-1 games against their turnpike rivals, the Dallas Black Hawks.That left the Texans and OC Stars in a fourth-place tie, although Fort Worth had two games in hand. They were six points back of third-place Kansas City.Defenseman Darcy Regier, who had missed four weeks with a badly bruised foot, returned to the lineup for the game against Dallas, but didn&rsquo;t last long. At 12:31 of the first period of that brawling game, Darcy drew a game misconduct for being the third man into a battle between Hawk Jeff Bandura and Texan Neil Hawryliw.Three goals in the final period broke open the game against Oklahoma City. Yvon Vautour&rsquo;s second-period tally had brought a 1-1.tie, then Garth MacGuigan scored after a minute and a half of the third. Ed Pizunski scored a shorthanded goal with five minutes left, and Charlie Skjodt beat the final buzzer by five seconds.The Texans, who once had enjoyed a commanding 9-3 advantage in the 20-game turnpike series, had lost their last four encounters with the Hawks.Charlie Skjodt continued to lead the club&rsquo;s scorers with 51 points, tied for ninth in the league.OKLAHOMA CITY: With right wings Jamie Gallimore and Jim McKenny back in action after long injury layoffs, OC coach Ted Hampson had the &ldquo;luxury&rdquo; of sitting out an ablebodied player for the first time since November. McKenny, ordinarily a defenseman, had been converted to winger to ease a shortage of forwards.The week started dismally with a 5-3 home loss to Dallas Tuesday and a 4-1 setback in Fort Worth the next night. But the Stars came home to post back-to-back victories, 4-2 over Tulsa and 5-2 over Kansas City, and tied Fort Worth for fourth place.Dan Chicoine and Jim Roberts scored 16 seconds apart against Dallas, but the 2-1 lead they provided didn&rsquo;t survive the first period. Alex Pirus had a breakaway to put the Stars ahead in the second, but that lead had even a shorter life.Roberts opened the scoring with a second-period goal in Fort Worth, but that proved all the Stars could get off Texan goalie Goran Hogosta. It was the fifth straight-road loss for Hampson&rsquo;s crew.Things were brighter with an augmented lineup two nights later. Gallimore made his first start since Dec. 3, and McKenny his first since Feb. 6. Roberts, Kelly Greenbank and Peter Shier put the Stars firmly in command in the first frame. Mike Eaves made it 40 before Tulsa&rsquo;s Ken Kuzyk spoiled Jim Warden&rsquo;s shutout bid at 18:32 of the second. The Stars&rsquo; goalie was making his first start after a week&rsquo;s absence, following the death of his sister in California.Eaves, who lost the league scoring leadership during an injury layoff, moved to within a point of pace-setter Rick Shinski of Salt Lake.TULSA: John Choyce&rsquo;s Oilers continued their unhappy road experiences. They dropped a 4-2 game in Oklahoma City, then suffered a 5-4 overtime loss in Salt Lake, when the Eagles tied the game with two seconds to go in regulation.Right wing Ken Kuzyk had a goal in each game. In Oklahoma City the Stars had a 4-0 lead before Kuzyk tallied late in the second and Brian Hill late in the third period.The Loss in Salt Lake was a frustrating one. Gene Carr and Kuzyk had scored two minutes apart at the end of the first period for a 2-1 lead. That vanished in the second period, but Carrtied the score halfway through the third, and Jim MacRae apparently won the game with his 20th goal with 2:29 on the clock. But Eagle Gordon McTavish scored the tying goal with two seconds remaining (after Salt Lake lifted its goalie), then won the game after 8:08 of overtime, on a power play goal.The losses ran Tulsa&rsquo;s road string to nine games without a victory and left them mired in the cellar, 15 points out of the last playoff position.KANSAS CITY: The Red Wings did something no other CHL team has accomplished this season. Larry Wilson&rsquo;s men skated into Salt Lake&rsquo;s Salt Palace and came out with back-to-back victories over the front-running Golden Eagles, 6-5 and 2-1 in overtime.Earlier, the Wings had come up with seven goals in the second period (including a two-minute hat trick by Jim Maladrewicz), to clobber the Dallas Black Hawks, 10-4, in Kemper Arena. But the four-game win string was snapped in Oklahoma City Saturday, 5-2, and Dallas got 4-3 revenge Sunday.Ron Low had his biggest night in the Friday rematch. The veteran KC netminder was almost unbeatable. Salt Lake outshot the Wings 45-18, but Low time and again turned back point-blank efforts.The Wings were in third place, six points behind second-place Dallas, but six in front of Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, who shared fourth.DALLAS: The Black Hawks rebounded from a 10-3 thumping in Kansas City to post four straight victories and cement their hold on second place, 11 points behind the pace-setting Salt Lake Golden Eagles. They won in Oklahoma City, 5-3, took a pair of 3-1 games against archrival Fort Worth, then edged KC, 4-3, for their seventh straight triumph in Fair Park Coliseum.Steve Clippingdale was the streakingest scorer in the Central League. He had collected points in 13 straight games, and in 20 of his last 21 outings.Steve Hazlett (two goals), Clippingdale and Jim Mayer scored in the Sunday night debacle at Kansas City, with the Wings putting it away by scoring seven times in the middle period. In OC, Mayer and Gerry Minor managed a 2-2 deadlock in the first, Dave Gardner and Doug Berry brought the Hawks from behind in the second, and Rick Blight added insurance in the third.Dallas came from behind to beat Fort Worth at home when Brad Smith scored in the second period, Jeff Bandura and Blight in the third. The next night in Fort Worth Gardner provided an opening goal, but Drew Callender won it with a rebound shot in the third period, and Clippingdale scored into an empty net at 19:38.Rob Tudor, who had been in Vancouver two weeks, still led the Dallas scoring on 64 points, third best in the league. Hazlett and Clippingdale shared fifth place with 57, and Mayer was tied for eighth at 52.Jeff Bandura ran his penalty-minute total to 165 and finally wrested the league lead away from former teammate Brad Gassoff (164), who had been in Vancouver six weeks.SALT LAKE: The Golden Eagles, who led the league by 21 points on Feb. 22, had watched the margin dwindle to 11 by March 2. They had suffered an unprecedented four straight losses, including two on home ice, when Kansas City swept the set in the Salt Palace, 6-5 and 2-1 (in overtime).The Big Birds came within two seconds of suffering their fifth straight loss (third at home) when the Tulsa Oilers showed surprising strength in a Saturday game. But Gordie McTavish got the tying goal with two seconds left in regulation time, and the winning goal on a power play after 8:08 of overtime.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01324/4262758-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="521" height="682"><figcaption class="caption-body">CHARLIE SKJODT&hellip;Top Texan Scorer</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Texans Continue To Struggle On Ice; Returning Players Give Oke City Lift

DALLAS&mdash;The Central Hockey League announced each member team will play a 78-game schedule for 1979-80, two more games than played in the last three seasons.The expansion was made to give each pf the six clubs a home-and-home two-game series against the U.S. Olympic team, with the games to count in the regular CHL standings. &#9632;

CHL To Play Olympic Team Next Season

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div>GRAND RAPIDS&mdash;The Owls staged a furious rally to win a record-breaking 3-2 victory over the slumping Saginaw Gears but lost the heart of their hockey club as well&mdash;for an undetermined length of time.The come-from-behind victory was the 27th straight at home for the Owls without a loss, breaking the IHL record of 26 established by the Cincinnati Mohawks 23 years ago. Not around for the finish were Rick Dorman, Dean Magee and John Flesch, and the three may not be in uniform for sometime.Prior to a two-goal spurt in the final 2:32 which overcame a 2-1 Saginaw lead, Magee, Dorman and Flesch physically attacked referee Tod Larson after the referee had disallowed what appeared to be a goal by the Owls&rsquo; Archie King at 16:06 of the final period. Larson did not allow the goal because he apparently lost sight of the puck during a wild scramble in front of the Saginaw net.Dorman, the fiery captain of the Owls, was the first of the trio to become involved with Larson. After questioning Larson&rsquo;s call, Dorman followed him to the penalty box after drawing a 10-minute misconduct penalty and roughed the referee up with his glove. The action brought a game misconduct.Magee also questioned Larson and made physical contact although he said later it was accidental because he stumbled.Flesch became involved after order appeared to be restored. Flesch took a couple of swings at Larson and then dropped both of his gloves to the ice and threw his headgear. Flesch received a 10-minute misconduct, gross misconduct and a game misconduct.The actions of the three brought immediate suspension pending a hearing on the incident.King insisted he &ldquo;had the puck all the time. It was never dead. That call was the thing that really got us going.&rdquo; King referred to the tenacious attack the Owls mustered in the final minutes to turn defeat into victory,Tom Mullen tied the game at 17:04 of the period with a short-handed effort. It was the 22nd short-handed goal of the season for the Owls, tying an IHL record.Defenseman Mike Holmes scored the winning goal with just 24 seconds remaining.Earlier, the Owls had extended their streak to 26 with a 5-5 tie against Kalamazoo. That was followed by a rare defeat&mdash;only the 14th of the season&mdash;at Muskegon, 8-7.FORT WAYNE: The Komets used a three-game home stand for a goalscoring spree. It started with an 11-1 romp over Muskegon. Then followed an 8-4 decision over Milwaukee. They saved the best for last.Trailing Flint by two goals, 6-4, the Komets scored three times in the final four minutes to steal a 7-6 victory. Robbie Laird got the hat trick and Al Dumba pumped in a pair, including the winner with 29 seconds remaining.Terry McDougall, who centers for Laird and Dumba on the explosive &ldquo;Western Union&rdquo; line padded his league-leading point total with six assists in the victory over Flint.TOLEDO: The Diggers couldn&rsquo;t hold a 3-2 lead and dropped a 4-3 decision at Port Huron in their only action of the week. The loss brought an angry reply from Ted Garvin who blasted the officials for &ldquo;giving it away.&rdquo;Port Huron scored twice in the final five minutes for the victory.MILWAUKEE: The Admirals suffered through another losing road trip, losing three straight. The most damaging was a 6-3 loss at Muskegon, marking the first time in eight games the Mohawks had managed to finish on top against the Admirals. Muskegon is the only club behind Milwaukee in the nine-club circuit and represents the sole challenge for a playoff spot.The trip concluded with an 8-4 loss at Fort Wayne and a 10-3 whipping at Kalamazoo.KALAMAZOO: The K-Wings closed the books on the month of February with a 10-3 romp over Milwaukee which boosted their unbeaten string to eight. Kevin Schamehorn and Benoit Gosselin led the way with three goals each.Earlier, the K-Wings managed a 5-5 tie at Grand Rapids and returned home for a 4-2 win over Flint. The three-game spree left Kalamazoo one point up on Port Huron in the snug North Division race. The Wings posted an 8-3-2 record for February and have skated at a 17-5-3 pace since the first of the year.PORT HURON: A strong one-two punch in the nets has been the chief reason for the recent surge of the Flags&mdash;five straight victories and just one point out of first place in the North Division.Coach Ron Ullyot has Rick Heinz and Rojlie Bouton for goalie duty and both have been playing well. Heinz capped a 3-0 week for the Flags by blanking Muskegon, 4-0. Boutin has posted a 4-1 record since rejoining the Flags from Hershey of the American League. Boutin helped the. Flags reach the Turner Cup finals last season.The Flags started the week with a 4-3 win over Toledo at home and then picked up a 5-2 triumph on the road at Saginaw. Since the All Star break the Flags have won seven and lost two.SAGINAW: The Gears were within two-and-a-half minutes of snapping their losing streak at Grand Rapids but couldn&rsquo;t hang on. The loss was the seventh straight for the slumping Gears who have dropped to third place in the north behind Kalamazoo and Port Huron.The Gears also lost twice at home during the week before going on the road. They lost to Flint, 5-3 and Port Huron, 5-2.FLINT: The Generals lost one they thought they had won at Fort Wayne to drop to a 1-2 level for the week as a six-game road trip approached an end. The Generals had a 6-4 lead with just four minutes to play but the Komets scored three times.The loss was the second straight following a key 5-3 win at Saginaw. Kalamazoo turned back the Generals, 42. Still, Flint continued to close in on third-place Saginaw. The Gears are now just seven points away.MUSKEGON: Muskegon is making a determined bid to catch Milwaukee for the final playoff spot. Muskegon was .500 for the week, putting together two straight victories at home while losing on the road twice (11-1 at Fort Wayne and 4-0 at Port Huron).The home wins came over Milwaukee, 6-3, and league-leading Grand Rapids, 8-7. The significant thing about the win over the Owls&mdash;the Mohawks first of the season&mdash;is that with just 5:27 to play Grand Rapids led, 7-3. But Muskegon put on its most exciting offensive performance of the season, scoring five times in just 4:02 for the victory.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01354/4262813-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="533" height="701"><figcaption class="caption-body">JOHN FLESCH&hellip;Attacked Referee</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Grand Rapids Wins Wild One On Ice But Three Team Stars Suspended

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02286/4262844-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="559" height="805"></div> &#9632;

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Where IHL Teams Play

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01332/4262882-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02267/4262875-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="617" height="263"></div> &#9632;

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Looking At The Minor League Scoreboard

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03197/4262913-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="535" height="1069"></div> &#9632;

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March 23, 1979

Bowling Green Keeps Title With Sweep

Looking At NHL Goalers

FAN FORUM

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