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.

September 1, 1979

The Hockey News September 1, 1979

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IN THIS ISSUE

BOBBY’S BACK…

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CUPOLO’S

<h2>ATLANTA FLAMES (7)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01129/5103074-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="762" height="206"></div><h2>BOSTON BRUINS (7)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0294/5103067-1-eng-US/f0046-022.jpg" title="f0046-02" width="771" height="209"></div><h2>BUFFALO SABRES (7)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0363/5103060-1-eng-US/f0046-032.jpg" title="f0046-03" width="775" height="214"></div><h2>CHICAGO BLACK HAWKS (6)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0452/5103053-1-eng-US/f0046-042.jpg" title="f0046-04" width="765" height="191"></div><h2>COLORADO ROCKIES (4)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0536/5103046-1-eng-US/f0046-052.jpg" title="f0046-05" width="761" height="137"></div><h2>DETROIT RED WINGS (6)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0629/5103039-1-eng-US/f0046-062.jpg" title="f0046-06" width="754" height="285"></div><h2>HARTFORD WHALERS (6)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0724/5103032-1-eng-US/f0046-072.jpg" title="f0046-07" width="763" height="192"></div><h2>LOS ANGELES KINGS (7)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0814/5103025-1-eng-US/f0046-082.jpg" title="f0046-08" width="773" height="214"></div><h2>MINNESOTA NORTH STARS (6)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0913/5103018-1-eng-US/f0046-092.jpg" title="f0046-09" width="758" height="64"></div><h2>MONTREAL CANADIENS (8)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-1011/5103011-1-eng-US/f0046-102.jpg" title="f0046-10" width="768" height="231"></div><h2>NEW YORK ISLANDERS (7)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-1111/5103004-1-eng-US/f0046-112.jpg" title="f0046-11" width="771" height="205"></div><h2>NEW YORK RANGERS (5)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-129/5102997-1-eng-US/f0046-122.jpg" title="f0046-12" width="739" height="304"></div><h2>PITTSBURGH PENGUINS (5)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-138/5102990-1-eng-US/f0046-132.jpg" title="f0046-13" width="745" height="163"></div><h2>QUEBEC NORDIQUES (6)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-148/5102983-1-eng-US/f0046-142.jpg" title="f0046-14" width="741" height="188"></div><h2>ST. LOUIS BLUES (4)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-158/5102976-1-eng-US/f0046-152.jpg" title="f0046-15" width="729" height="137"></div><h2>TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS (5)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-168/5102969-1-eng-US/f0046-162.jpg" title="f0046-16" width="731" height="160"></div><h2>VANCOUVER CANUCKS (6)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-178/5102962-1-eng-US/f0046-172.jpg" title="f0046-17" width="729" height="187"></div><h2>WASHINGTON CAPITALS (5)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-188/5102955-1-eng-US/f0046-182.jpg" title="f0046-18" width="726" height="160"></div><h2>WINNIPEG JETS (6)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-198/5102948-1-eng-US/f0046-192.jpg" title="f0046-19" width="721" height="74"></div><h2>TOP 21 Picks By Teams</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-207/5102941-1-eng-US/f0046-202.jpg" title="f0046-20" width="1174" height="574"></div> &#9632;

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How NHL Teams Drafted The Amateurs

TORONTO&mdash;The Ontario Major Junior Hockey League which had the most players drafted, 43, from any organization contributing to the National Hockey League&rsquo;s entry draft, was also the hardest hit in the area of under-age players selected with 21 claimed by NHL clubs.Special rules of the underage draft, however, provide that the players with junior eligibility remaining will be returned to their junior clubs if they do not make the NHL club which drafted them, a concept which pleases new OMJHL commissioner Dave Branch.&ldquo;According to our sources, scouts we have talked to, only about six under-age players willconference.Sherry Bassin, recently appointed chairman of the Board of Governors of the OMJHL after having served as interim commissioner since December 1978 added, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not about to hold back players. If they can play in the NHL let them&mdash;but there aren&rsquo;t that many (Wayne) Gretzky&rsquo;s or (Bobby) Orr&rsquo;s around.&ldquo;I though that the purpose of the underage draft was to take the exceptional player,&rdquo; said Bassin. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t think that you can say that there are 53 exceptional players (the number of underage players chosen) all coming into professional hockey this year.&rdquo;The following is the list of1-Keith Brown2-Raymond Bourque3-Laurie Boschman4-Tom McCarthy5-Mike Ramsey6-Paul Reinhart7-Duane Sutter8-Tomas Jonsson9-Brent Ashton10-Paul Marshall11-Doug Morrison12-Stuart Smith13-Dale Hunter14-Guy Carbonneau15-Boris Fistric16-Bill Gardner17-Normand Aubin18-Mark Robinson19-Tim Hunter20-Jacques Cloutier21-Lindsay Carson22-Roland Melanson23-Lee Norwood24-Steve Peters28-Jim Peplinski29-Don Gillen30-Larry Melnyk31-Mark Reeds32-Joe Paterson33-Tim Tookey34-Jim Dobson35-Jimmy Brown36-Frank Nigro37-Alan Haworth38-Brad Kempthorne39-Yvan Joly40-Glen Duncan41-Thomas Steen42-Gilles Leduc43-Carmen Cirella44-Shane Swan45-Doug Crossman46-Bill McCreary47-Rick Knickle48-Glen Johnson49-Gord Williams50-Mike Krushelnyski &#9632;

OMJHL Loses 21 Players In NHL Underage Draft

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011231/5101073-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="528" height="436"></div>(THE HOCKEY NEWS is making several changes this season, and one of the most significant is the addition of a new columnist&mdash;Bobby Orr. The super star defenseman, forced into a premature retirement by knee problems which need not be chronicled, is no longer affiliated with any hockey club, but we&rsquo;re happy to say he&rsquo;ll be affiliated with THE HOCKEY NEWS for every issue. Bobby Orr, the hockey player, needs no introduction. But, by way of introducing Bobby Orr, the columnist, we threw a few questions at No. 4 for his first effort.Question: Bobby, you left the Chicago Black Hawks earlier this summer. What are your plans now?Orr: Well, I still want to stay involved in the sport. I plan to do some color commentary for the Hockey Night In Canada telecasts, as I did last year. Most of my time will be spent in other businesses&mdash;with Standard Brands, for whom I&rsquo;ve worked the last few years, and for the Tuuk Blade. But between the broadcasts, and some clinics with youngsters, and these columns, I plan to stay busy.Question: For the first time since you were 14 years old, you have elected not to have a job within organized hockey. Isn&rsquo;t that a tough transition?Orr: It will be a tremendous change for me, but I&rsquo;ll stay plenty busy. I still plan to live in Chicago, and between everything, I&rsquo;ll be on the go. But just betause I&rsquo;m not working for any team, that doesn&rsquo;t mean I&rsquo;ll stay away from hockey. No way. That&rsquo;s still my first love.Question: Bobby, when you were playing, you seemed to prefer having your comments out of the newspapers. Did you ever think you&rsquo;d wind up contributing to a newspaper?Orr: Let me say this about when I was an active player. I felt that I spent a fair amount of time with writers, because I realize that they have a job to do. But I had a job to do, too&mdash;playing. And that&rsquo;s really all I wanted to concentrate on. I was a player, and that&rsquo;s all I really had on my mind.Question: How do you plan to use this space from now until May?Orr: Well, I&rsquo;d really like to have sort of an open forum. If I have something to say, I&rsquo;ll say it. If the readers have something to ask, I&rsquo;d like them to ask it. At the bottom of the column, there&rsquo;s an address where the readers can write me. I&rsquo;d like to encourage anybody who&rsquo;s interested to do so. Whether it&rsquo;s an instructional tip I might be able to give, or an issue you want to discuss, or something personal, please write. Adults, kids, we&rsquo;ll print them. I might even wind up answering a letter from my old pal, Stan Fischler.Question: Bobby, you actually did a weekly letters column for a while in Boston, didn&rsquo;t you?Orr: Yes, we had a &ldquo;Letters to Bobby Orr&rdquo; column in Boston. There were a lot of questions about how to do this and how to do that on the ice. It was fun, but here, I&rsquo;d like to open the column up to anything the readers have on their minds. Or anything I nave on my mind. This should be an interesting year for hockey.Question: Yes, but if it&rsquo;s going to be so interesting, why won&rsquo;t you be integrally involved in a game that has been your life? When you went to Chicago, even if you couldn&rsquo;t play, it was supposed to be a long-term proposition. Yet, after three years you left. Why?Orr: That&rsquo;s a long story and I&rsquo;ll go into that in length at a later time.Question: Bobby, you were a great stickhandler as a player. You&rsquo;re not going to start doing that here, are you?Orr: On the contrary. I&rsquo;m not going to shy away from something just because it&rsquo;s controversial. There are lots of opinions I&rsquo;ll express here that won&rsquo;t be popular. Maybe the readers won&rsquo;t like them, maybe the people in hockey won&rsquo;t like them, maybe other writers won&rsquo;t like that. But I&rsquo;m not going to do a column every week for THE HOCKEY NEWS just to sidestep hot topics. That&rsquo;s one reason why we&rsquo;ll be answering lots of letters. To keep the ball rolling. I repeat. Don&rsquo;t be afraid to write. The more I hear from you, the better. There will be many times when I&rsquo;ll be completely wrong, but the opinions you see here will be mine. We&rsquo;ll give equal time to opposing views, though.(If you want to Ask Bobby Orr anything on hockey write, Bobby Orr, Post Office Box No. 11, Northbrook, Illi &#9632;

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ASK BOBBY ORR

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-021012/5101104-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="598" height="1128"></div>One of hockey&rsquo;s all-time greats, Bobby Orr, is coming back to hockey as a regular columnist with THE HOCKEY NEWS. It is one of many new features planned for the 1979-80 season and it is an acquisition that will allow No. 4 to remain close to the millions of hockey fans who hailed his ice achievements in the past. Look for Bobby Orr&rsquo;s column each issue in THE HOCKEY NEWS. It promises to be interesting reading. &#9632;

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BOBBY ORR JOINS THE HOCKEY NEWS

<div class="byline">BY BOB HANLEY</div>Accidental head injuries in the swift collision sport of hockey have been feared and abhored by North American fans for generations. The real accident, of course, is that there has not been a higher toll of critical or fatal injuries with players banging one another about in all areas of the rink, exposing themselves and others to mishaps against the ice, boards or protective glass.And so you can hardly credit the National Hockey League with prompt and enlightened action in its recent helmet decree. The league has waited until about 70 per cent of players have voluntarily donned helmets, and until 11 years after the death of Bill Masterton.And however high-sounding the decree, the league has also permitted seniors (those signing NHL contracts before June 1, 1979) to sign a waiver and opt themselves outside the helmet law.Pro hockey has trailed its football counterpart by 40 years in handing down a helmet rule. It has also been 25 years behind the construction industry where the use of hard hats is mandatory, even though, in many cases, the exposure to hazard is probably less frequent than in hockey.In hockey, a factor in the delay has been player pride and the desire to maintain a personality image. It was the same condition which caused baseball to be inordinately slow in requiring the use of batting helmets at the plate. Ray Chapman was killed by a pitched ball in 1920 but baseball helmets didn&rsquo;t come into general use until the mid-Fifties.However, by 1958 the helmet rule was mandatory in both the National and American Baseball leagues, the date being 21 years in advance of National Hockey League action.And now that the NHL has introduced its limited law (thanks to the influence of the junior leagues and the colleges) it should move at once to put helmets on referees and linesmen.Vicious point shots, whistling through the slot in today&rsquo;s style of hockey, are frequently deflected and become a hazard to players and officials aliketowards a law that would make helmets mandatory for all players and all officials at all times.Finally, with the more general use of helmets, there should be an intensified watch against careless or wilful misuse of hockey sticks.The newest move to prevent Skull fractures is belated but commendable. The next target should be to protect against loss of sight by bringing down an iron fist on all who use their sticks carelessly. &#9632;

Player Pride Kept The NHL From Moving On Helmet Rule

MONTREAL&mdash;The National Hockey League has announced that it has established a mandatory helmet rule beginning with the 1979-80 season.The only exception to the new rule are players who signed professional contracts prior to June 1, 1979 and who sign a special waiver exempting them from the rule.NHL president John Ziegler said, &ldquo;The introduction of the helmet rule will be an additional safety factor. All amateur players are accustomed to wearing helmets as they are compulsory in junior, college and international hockey.&ldquo;Seventy percent of ail NHL players wore helmets during the 1978-79 season. This rule permits a veteran to decline the use of a helmet. The rule recognizes the claim of some players who believe that their playing ability might be diminished if required to wear a helmet after playing so many years without one.&ldquo;Eventually every player will wear one.&rdquo;In reference to game officials wearing helmets, Ziegler, said discussions are in progress at the league level regarding use of helmets by referees and linesmen. &#9632;

NHL Orders Helmets For All Newcomers

<h2>THE NHL&hellip;</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03751/5101204-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="582" height="822"></div><h2>OTHER LEAGUES&hellip;</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-04523/5101197-1-eng-US/f0002-042.jpg" title="f0002-04" width="614" height="302"></div><h2>COLUMNISTS&hellip;</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-05385/5101190-1-eng-US/f0002-052.jpg" title="f0002-05" width="614" height="222"></div><h2>FEATURES&hellip;</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-06282/5101183-1-eng-US/f0002-062.jpg" title="f0002-06" width="606" height="158"></div> &#9632;

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Where To Find It…

<div class="byline">BY FRANK ORR</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011271/5101242-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Darryl Sittler is the Maple Leafs. An inspiring ice leader, he faces challenge of turning Leafs upwards this season under a new manager and new coach. (Photo by Robert Shaver)</figcaption></div>TORONTO&mdash;Darryl Sittler admits that he has difficulty realizing that the 1979-80 season will be his tenth campaign in the National Hockey League.&ldquo;It seems just a little while ago that I was breaking into the league and now, I suppose, I&rsquo;m an old veteran,&rdquo; said Sittler, the centercaptain of the Toronto Maple Leafs who had his 29th birthday on Sept. 18.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing, isn&rsquo;t it? Or at least, I think it is. When I went to my first Leaf camp, I figured I&rsquo;d be lucky to stick around for a season or two. Then you figure you might last five years. But here I am, a 10-year man.&rdquo;Throughout the seventies, Sittler has been one of the NHL&rsquo;s premier players and a much respected citizen. He&rsquo;s an athlete of class and style who never forgets that being an important hockey player in Canada tosses some responsibilities to a man. He&rsquo;s never shirked those obligations, never failed to understand precisely what it means to be the captain of the Maple Leafs.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Leafs&rsquo; Captain Facing Fourth Management Change In His 10-Year Career</blockquote>As a hockey player, Sittler has produced strong offense (288 goals and 397 assists for 685 points), effort and leadership. Of course, there have been nights when Sittler didn&rsquo;t play well. But there haven&rsquo;t been any when he didn&rsquo;t try very hard.With Punch Imlach back in the Leaf fold as general manager, Floyd Smith as head coach and Dick Duff as assistant coach, it&rsquo;s the fourth manager change Sittler has seen in the team&rsquo;s front office in his decade in Toronto.Jim Gregory was the Leaf general manager all the way until this season. But when Sittler joined the Leafs in 1970 from London juniors, Johnny McLellan was the club&rsquo;s coach.Then came four years with Red Kelly as coach followed by two with Roger Neilson at the helm. Now the Imlach era returns. Imlach and Smith claim they plan to have the Leafs play offensive, attacking hockey. Sittler is the big man in such a scheme.&ldquo;Of course, it will be interesting to work under a new administration but I won&rsquo;t be talking with them a great deal until just before training camp,&rdquo; Sittler said.&ldquo;A few seasons back, our Leafs&rsquo; team scored well but a great many people said that we didn&rsquo;t have strong enough defensive play. Well, we changed that and last season we had the fourth best defensive record in the NHL.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m certain some young players like John Anderson and Rocky Saganiuk will be getting a good long look with us. They both have a couple of pro seasons under their belts and should be ready to play regularly.&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s only part of a successful team to have players who can score a great deal. A good team must have players who fit well together as a team. Then when the going gets tough, you can really pull together. I think we had that type of team last season. We were really close with a good team feeling because we did go through quite a bit and stuck together.&ldquo;The ideal situation is to have a team which scores well and still is strong defensively. I think we have the players with the talent to build that type of team.&rdquo;Sittler strongly denies last spring&rsquo;s stories that there was a serious split between him and Neilson.&ldquo;Those stories were just that&mdash;stories&mdash;and there was absolutely no truth to them,&rdquo; Sittler said. &ldquo;I had&mdash;and still have&mdash;great respect for Roger as a coach. He&rsquo;s a man who&rsquo;s learning all the time, new approaches, new methods, and he always had new challenges for us as players.&ldquo;A lot of people said that Neilson had a bad influence on myself and Lanny McDonald (Leaf right wing star) but I could never figure out why they thought that way. Under Neilson, who many people figured stifled me offensively with his emphasis on defensive play, *I had the best offensive season of my career (117 points in &lsquo;77-78) and the best two-way year I&rsquo;ve had.&ldquo;Jim Gregory is another man I have great respect for and so did every player on the team. He&rsquo;s a very fair man and did everything possible to make playing for the Leafs a pleasant experience.&ldquo;But things are changing all the time in hockey and I guess Mr. Ballard (Leaf owner Harold) figured it was time to make a change.&rdquo;Sittler wasn&rsquo;t pleased with the season that he and the Leafs had in &lsquo;78-79. He collected 87 points in 70 games, a strong season for most players. But early season problems with his sinuses and teeth and a mid-season knee injury didn&rsquo;t help.&rdquo;This summer, Sittier eased his load of extra-curricular activities. He purchased a cottage on Lake Couchiching near Orillia and spent considerable time relaxing there with his family.&ldquo;In the summer of &lsquo;78, I was really busy with personal appearances and some work for charities,&rdquo; Sittler said. &ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t have any time to relax, no real vacation.&ldquo;Of course, you can&rsquo;t be sure how things like that influence but I don&rsquo;t think it helped my last season, at least at the star the year. I was a bit draggy lacked a little drive. A few snproblems with my health di help, either, and then I got knee injury.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021039/5101235-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="561" height="1348"><figcaption class="caption-body">Lanny McDonald has been Si er&rsquo;s constant right wing throughout his NHL days and relationship has proved ben cial to both players.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;This summer, I&rsquo;ve spen great deal of time at the cott and I&rsquo;m ready for the season, worked just as hard as ever physical conditioning, running miles a day, riding a bike and ing weights. In mid-August started to skate. Training cam short and players these days to be ready.&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s helped to rela great deal. I&rsquo;ve spent much with my family and that&rsquo;s good.&rdquo;Early in October, a book ca &ldquo;Sittler At Centre&rdquo; will be leased. The Leaf captain prepa it with Brian MacFarlane of Hey Night In Canada.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a combination of sc hockey instruction, my phil phies of the game and a little of biography.&rdquo; Sittler said. &#9632;

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Sittler Denies Conflict With Neilson: Amazed He’s already 10-Year NHLer

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03681/5101273-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="609" height="940"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;Don&rsquo;t be surprised if you wake up one morning and find the National Hockey League&rsquo;s Stanley Cup champions on course for Moscow to face the European Cup champions in a global confrontation for world cup supremacy.It now appears inevitable following the recent agreement between the two world hockey powers that will extend through the next five years.The Montreal Canadiens facing the Moscow Dynamo in a world &lsquo;Stanley Cup&rsquo; series is something that has been kicked around for years by the hockey administrations of both the NHL and the Soviet Union. Both powers took the first step by signing a new five-year agreement that will pit the best of the NHL against the best of the Soviet Union through until 1983.While the agreement serves as the foundation for future hockey exchanges between the two countries, under the surface it includes a long-sought after annual match or series between the Stanley Cup winners and European titleholders. It&rsquo;s a hockey man&rsquo;s dream and will likely come about during the present five-year pact.NHL president John Ziegler and Soviet representative Valentin Sych both agreed such a series was an excellent idea. But Ziegler didn&rsquo;t hesitate to say scheduling may be a problem because of the length of the NHL playoffs.tournament, Challenge Cup competitions and games between NHL te and Soviet club teams.&ldquo;Hockey here is a business as well as a sport, and it is difficul release players from the league during the regular season,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;But we are working on dates to get teams and players released ing the season or before the season. It&rsquo;s impossible to get the NHL together with the Soviet Union after the Stanley Cup.&rdquo;A tentative&rsquo; schedule calls for a Challenge Cup series between at of NHL stars and the Soviet Union national team in 1981 and 1983, pr bly before the season.Ziegler said it has also been decided that there will be a Canada tournament next year, although the dates and venue have not been cided.Plans also are under way for the Central Red Army team and Mo Dynamo, members of the Soviet Union&rsquo;s top league, to play nine ga against NHL teams next season, between Dec. 26 and Jan. 10. A dates and venues are not yet confirmed.&ldquo;One of the things in dealing with European hockey and the Sovie that they don&rsquo;t realize the number of dollars that are involved in total operation,&rdquo; said Ziegler.&ldquo;Their suggestion is that we just shut down the league for two we Everyone in our business knows this is not feasible. They don&rsquo;t re that we have to find a minimum of $6 million ($3 million a week) where to replace our obligations.&rdquo;The five-year agreement also calls for regular exchanges of coa &#9632;

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NHL, Soviet Brass Eyeing Hockey World Series

<div class="byline">&#x2014;By Charlie Halpin, Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011299/5101304-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="400" height="468"></div><h2>Dryden Not The Best</h2>THERE HAS BEEN A LONG STANDING resentment among hockey fans that the goalkeeper who wins the Vezina Trophy is not necessarily the best netminder in the NHL.Because Ken Dryden has been on four consecutive Stanley Cup winning teams does not make him the premier goaler in the league, ret he has won the Vezina four years in a row. Fans have long expressed their dissatisfaction with NHL&rsquo;s archaic way of determining who is truly the No. 1 goalkeeper after an 80-game season.Under present rules, the team that boasts the best goals-against average wins the Vezina Trophy. Not so says Vic LeMire, who is a man who knows a little about the injustices which the NHL system inflicts on goalies. LeMire is a professional goaltender coach and director of the very successful Vic&rsquo;s Hockey School for Goaltenders in Vancouver.Says LeMire in defense of the goaling fraternity, &ldquo;every athlete who has ever strapped on a pair of goal pads will tell you that the &lsquo;goals against average&rsquo; is strictly a &lsquo;team&rsquo; average. It has very little to do with a goaler&rsquo;s performance. Hence, the goalkeeper with the best team invariably has the best goals-against average and in the case of the NHL, wins the Vezina Trophy.&rdquo;LeMire is one of many who points out that the most valuable statistic which a goaler should be responsible for is his &lsquo;saves percentage&rsquo;. It is his contention that if the NHL had been following this method of determining the best goaler this past season it might have been Mike Palmateer or Don Edwards or even Billy Smith instead of Dryden and Michel Larocque, Dryden&rsquo;s goaling partner the past few years with Montreal.<h2>New System Needed</h2>LEMIRE THINKS IT IS TIME the NHL introduced a new system that will be fair to the beleaguered netminder who strives to register a respectable goaling performance despite a porous defense. He points out that THE HOCKEY NEWS in its July edition, publicized statistics for 256 goaltenders from eight different hockey leagues, yet it is realistically impossible to tell which of these goalers is the best in their league.Because the NHL does not publish saves by netminders, all of minor hockey has fallen in line behind them and issues only the goals-against averages. LeMire maintains that total saves in a hockey game give you a true indication of goaler&rsquo;s worth both in a game and over an entire season. He says that his records indicate that the best goalies are in the 90% to 98% range. LeMire adds that to determine a goalkeeper&rsquo;s worth you take his total saves in a game times 100 and divide it by total shots, which will give you his saves percentage.As an example, if Dryden and the Canadiens were facing the Bruins and Gerry Cheevers, and Canadians outplayed and outscored the Bruins 2-1 resulting in the shots on goal at the end of the game being 48 for the Canadiens and only 18 for the Bruins, here&rsquo;s how the system should work out. Canadiens scored two times therefore Cheevers made 46 saves. That would give him a 95.8 saves percentage. Dryden allowed one goal, therefore he made 17 saves giving him a 94.4 mark. This clearly shows that Cheevers was the better goaler on the night. When this system is applied over an entire season, it gives a far more accurate assessment of how an NHL goaler performed over an 80-game schedule than the present outmoded system claims LeMire.<h2>Let&rsquo;s Have Two Awards</h2>THE NHL&rsquo;S DIRECTOR OF STATISTICS, Ron Andrews, claims that the league has always maintained that the Vezina Trophy is awarded to the goalkeeper or goalkeepers who have played a minimum of 25 games for the team with the fewest goals scored against it. Saves have never been taken into consideration when making up NHL goaling averages. Andrews says he does not forsee any change in the NHL&rsquo;s system to determine its best goaltender.LeMire and many hockey fans feel that the NHL should make two goaling awards each season. In addition to the Vezina Trophy for the team with the best defensive record, an individual award should be made to the goaler with the best saves percentage. Many hockey people feel it is the best measuring device for goalkeepers and it tends to give the overworked goalers&mdash;like Edwards and Palmateer, both of whom played more games and spent more time on the ice last season than Dryden&mdash;a chance for personal recognition as they struggle behind a defense that is not quite up to the strength of the Montreal Canadiens.The NHL for years ignored the defensive players around the league when awarding the Byng and Hart trophies. Later they introduced the Frank Selke Trophy to salute the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game.And should the NHL have a change of heart in awarding two goaling awards one day, what better way to pay tribute to probably the greatest netminder of all time and present the Terry Sawchuk Trophy to the goaler who produced the best saves percentage rather than the best goals-against average. &#9632;

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INSIDE HOCKEY

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div>MONTREAL&mdash;The grumblings of discontent have already started, despite the fact that the Canadiens are just heading into training camp for the 1979-80 season.It all has to do with the sub-par performance by the Canadians in the entry draft, a proceeding which saw them without a first-round draft pick for the first time in their history.They did get a high second-round choice when they sent the rights to defenseman Bill Nyrop to the Minnesota North Stars, but they used it to pick Gaston Gingras, a defenseman who performed last year with the Birmingham Bulls in the World Hockey Association.By selecting Gingras, the Canadiens passed up a chance to select goaltender Pat Riggin from Birmingham, who would have been more than adequate relief for first-stringer Bunny Larocque, and they also got a defenseman who won&rsquo;t be able to help them for a year or two yet.&ldquo;We went for what we thought was the best-available player,&rdquo; said Managing Director Irving Grundman. &ldquo;Other clubs draft by position. It&rsquo;s been our tradition to go after the best guy available, regardless of position.&rdquo;But the last thing the Canadiens needed for this year was a defenseman. They already have Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, Larry Robinson, Brian Engblom, Red Langway and Gilles Lupien and Gingras, who is an all-offense, littledefense defenseman is not likely to dislodge any of those gentlemen.The man who recommended Gingras was Bert Templeton, the man who will likely hone Gingras&rsquo; talents in Halifax, where Templeton is in charge of the Voyageurs.&ldquo;Bert had him when he coached at Hamilton,&rdquo; explained Ron Caron, Montreal&rsquo;s director of player recruitment. &ldquo;He felt he was one of the best talents he had since Dale McCourt. He&rsquo;s willing to work with him.&rdquo;Among the other selections made by Montreal in the draft were Nat Naslund, a smallish forward from the Swedish national team, and two goaltenders&mdash;Rick Wamsley from Brantford of the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League in the third round and Greg Moffett, who helped the University of New Hampshire to the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference title and the berth in the U.S. college finals. Wamsley&rsquo;s goals-against average last season was a bloated 5.21 while Moffett&rsquo;s log was just over three a game in a league which is noted more for offense than defense.Over all, the Canadiens&rsquo; efforts in the draft were considered poor by most observers, but then again, this was not a banner year for the junior crop, despite the fact that 19-year-olds were eligible for selection. Guy Carbonneau from the Chicoutimi Sagueneens and Yvan Joly from the Ottawa 67s were 19-year-olds grabbed by Montreal, but they will be back with their junior teams next season unless they pull off some shocking performances during training camp.Meanwhile, Grundman held several get togethers with a few of his players during the summer with a view to renegotiating contracts. Among those agreeing to a new two-year pact was Rick Chartraw, who performed well for the Canadiens during last spring&rsquo;s playoffs. &#9632;

Weak Entry Draft Raises Questions On Habs’ Thinking

<div class="byline">BY PAT CALABRIA</div>LONG ISLAND&mdash;A lack of depth at center&mdash;the anders&rsquo; most pressing deficiency last three seasons&mdash;may final-have been solved by the quiet dition of a player likely to stir citement in the club&rsquo;s training mp this month, and for several lining camps to come.He is Anders Kallur, named the best valuable player in Sweden at season, whose signing was nounced by general manager all Torrey during the NHL entry aft. Not only does the addition of llur, 27, appear to give the Isaders another experienced forword, but it may also end the m&rsquo;s search for a dangerous erer to back up Bryan Trottier.&ldquo;Anders gives us several opposition is right wing, but he has played center a lot and even some left wing. He&rsquo;ll give us the kind of versatility a good team should have.&rdquo;With the Islanders stocked at both wing positions, Torrey and coach Al Arbour will give Kallur a long look at center where Wayne Merrick, Lorne Henning, Mike Kaszycki and 1978 first-round draft pick Steve Tambellini also will be competing for the three remaining spots behind Trottier. &ldquo;Believe me, Anders will make our team somewhere,&rdquo; Torrey said.With 20 goals and 26 assists in just 32 games last season, Kallur&rsquo;s credentials were impressive enough to overshadow the club&rsquo;s draft selections which Torrey thought were surprisingly good considering the Islanders selectedpick was Duane Sutter, a right wing and brother of Brian Sutter of the St. Louis Blues.Sutter, 19, was a 50-goal scorer for the Lethbridge Broncos, the same junior team that produced the last underaged player drafted by the Islanders&mdash;Trottier. If Sutter does not make the team, he will be returned to Lethbridge for his final junior season, a move Torrey also made in developing Trottier.With two picks in the second round, the Islanders chose Tomas Jonsson, also 19, a defenseman and a member of the Swedish National Team and Bill Carroll, 20, a center and 35-goal scorer for the London Knights. Jonsson, however, will remain in Sweden for one more year to complete a commitment to his club there.Torrey described as &ldquo;a pesky Doug Jarvis type,&rdquo; was another indication of the team&rsquo;s desire to insure itself at center. Although Carroll will almost certainly be farmed out to a minor-league team, he represents another prospect for a position that Torrey and Arbour concede needs to be shored up.That was why the signing of Kallur particularly excited the Islanders. Having played alongside Rangers&rsquo; star Anders Hedberg and having carved his own reputation in Europe, Kallur should be of immediate help. His addition also might create the most wide-open battle for center positions since the Islanders&rsquo; earliest seasons.In such a battle, Kallur is likely &#9632;

Swede Strengthens Islanders’ Middle

OFFICIAL NATIONAL HOCKEY WEEKLY FOUNDED 1947VOLUME 32, NUMBER 37 SEPTEMBER, 1979Kenneth W. McKenzie President and PublisherW. C. C. Publishing Ltd., Suite 217, 1434 St Catherine St. W., Montreal, Canada, H3G 1R7Charlie Halpin Editorial DirectorTom Murray Assistant PublisherMike Dennis Assistant EditorPeter Emerson Vice-President SalesSuite 314, 214 King St. West. Toronto, Ont. M5H 1K4, Telephone: (416) 598 1753<h2>Advertising Representatives:</h2><h3>New York:</h3>Tom Murray 850 Third Ave.,New York, N.Y 10022 (212) 593-2100<h3>Chicago:</h3>Hooper, Jones & Associates 3322 W. Peterson Avenue Chicago, III. 60659 &bull; (312) 478-5544<h3>Boston:</h3>Steve GanakSteve Ganak Ad Reps Statler Office Buldlng Boston, Mass. 02116 &bull; (617) 542-6913THE HOCKEY NEWS, (ISSN 00183016), is published weekly except monthly June through September by W.C.C. Publishing Co., Ltd., 214 King St., W., Suite 314, Toronto, Ont. M5H 1K4. Phone: (416) 598-1753. In U.S. c/o W.C.C. Publishing Corp.. 850 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022. Phone (212) 593-2100YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION RATES: S13.95 In Canada, S14.95 in the U.S.A, and S19.25 In Foreign Countries. Second class postage paid at New York, N.Y. 10001 and at additional mailing Offices. SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO 1434 ST. CATHERINE STREET WEST, SUITE 217, MONTREAL, CANADA H3G 1R7. Second Class mall Registration No. 1327. All inquiries pertaining to subscriptions should be addressed to Subscription Dept., The Hockey News, 214 King St. W., Suite 33d Toronto Ont MdH 1KA &#9632;

The Hockey News

Following are the latest offseason movements in hockey:<h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>ATLANTA&mdash;Serge Beaudoin, D, Rick Adduono, C, and Dave Gorman, RW, signed to multi-year contracts as free agents. Paul Terbenche, D, secured from Winnipeg for future considerations.BOSTON&mdash;Gilles Gilbert, G, signed to new two-year contract.DETROIT&mdash;Nick Libett, LW, traded to Pittsburgh in exchange for Pete Mahovlich, C. Andre St. Laurent, C, sent to Los Angeles along with Wings&rsquo; first round draft picks for both 1980 and 1981 as compensation for Dale McCourt&rsquo;s NHL rights. Jim Korn, D, Colin Ahern, C, Randy Wilson, LW, and Bill Millner, G, signed to NHL contracts from Providence College.EDMONTON&mdash;Reg Thomas, LW, traded to Toronto in exchange for a future draft choice. Lee Fogoilin, D, signed to new three-year contract. Joe Micheletti, D, traded to St. Louis in return for Risto Siltanen, D, and Tom Roulton, C.HARTFORD&mdash;John McKenzie, RW, placed on voluntary retired list. Chuck Luksa, D, and Dave DeBol, C, signed as free agents.LOS ANGELES&mdash;Randy Manery, D, Steve Carlson, C, and Glen Goldup, RW, signed to multi-year contracts. Tommy Williams, LW, traded to St. Louis in exchange for Barry Gibbs, D.MINNESOTA&mdash;Kris Manery, RW, signed to new NHL contract.ISLANDERS&mdash;Anders Kaller, C, signed to NHL contract from Sweden&rsquo;s National team.RANGERS&mdash;Wayne Dillon, C, traded to Winnipeg for future considerations.QUEBEC&mdash;Richard Brodeur, G, traded to Islanders in exchange for Goran Hogasta, G. Jim Corsi, G, and Louis Levasseur, G, released.VANCOUVER&mdash;Glen Hanlon, G, signed to multiyear contract. Veli-Pekka Ketola, D, informed Canucks he will remain in Finland and will not report because of family reasons.WASHINGTON&mdash;Wayne Stephenson, G, signed as free agent from Philadelphia. &#9632;

Hockey Movements

<div class="byline">BY BILL FLEISCHMAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011172/5101431-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Flyers&rsquo; coach Pat Quinn, left, will be looking towards former teammate Phil Myre as the number one man in his goaltending set-up this season. The two played together with the Atlanta Flames. (Photo by Bernie Mose)</figcaption></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Unlike some previous summers, no one could accuse the Flyers of hanging out the &ldquo;Gone Fishin&rsquo;&rdquo; sign concerning personnel changes.Bernie Parent retired, Bobby Clarke was named a playing assistant coach, Joe Watson climbed back aboard as a scout, and Wayne Stephenson was shipped off to Washington. Oh, almost forgot&mdash;the Flyers also drafted a young man they think will be a big goal scorer.Starting a new season with an entirely new goaltending corps is surely the club&rsquo;s most striking change. Parent and Stephenson had been the Flyers&rsquo; one-two punch since Stanley Cup days. The decision to go with veteran Phil Myre and probably Pete Peeters is risky, leading many to believe general manager Keith Allen spent his summer nights cranking the slot machines at Atlantic City&rsquo;s casinos.However, the decision to name Clarke assistant coach may have the most impact on the club of all the changes over the summer.When Clarke&rsquo;s new position was announced, long-timer Flyer watchers snickered and said, &ldquo;They might as well give him the title: he&rsquo;s been an unofficial assistant coach for years.&rdquo;Observers wondered at first if Pat Quinn, who&rsquo;s starting his first full season as Flyers&rsquo; coach, had spent too many days in the summer sun without a hat. The suspicion has been that Clarke will be the next Flyers&rsquo; coach. Why would Quinn give his possible successor on-the-job training?Clarke cleared up one point by saying he doesn&rsquo;t think he wants to be a head coach. Management&mdash;-probably Keith Allen&rsquo;s replacement as general manager when Allen moves up or retires&mdash;is the path Clarke says he wants to pursue.Clarke also insists he hasn&rsquo;t had any more input into management decisions than any team captain would.&ldquo;I think some of the players think I&rsquo;ve had more impact than I&rsquo;ve had,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think it all got started when I was given credit for talking Keith into trading for Reggie Leach. I didn&rsquo;t really have anything to do with it, other than their asking my impressions of Reggie.&rdquo;Both Clarke and Quinn are bright enough to know that by accepting the assistant&rsquo;s duties, Clarke will be severing his close affiliation with his teammates. Clarke, a three-time Hart Trophy winner, has been the heart and driving force of the Flyers for years. He&rsquo;ll likely continue those roles, but odds are not even he, with his superb judgment, can be &ldquo;one of the guys&rdquo; any more.&ldquo;The only thing that&rsquo;s going to stop it from being successful would be the veteran players I play with not accepting it,&rdquo; Clarke said.&ldquo;I think it will work great,&rdquo; said Paul Holmgren, one of Clarke&rsquo;s closest friends on the Flyers. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what he&rsquo;s been doing already. He helps on the ice and offers what he thinks. What else, really, was he doing but helping coach?&rdquo;Jimmy Watson, who is cut from the same mold as Clarke, was considered the top choice to be the new Flyers&rsquo; captain.One of the players Clarke will help coach is left winger Brian Propp, the Flyers&rsquo; top draft choice. The Western Canada League&rsquo;s leading scorer (94-100-194) wasn&rsquo;t expected to be available by the Flyers&rsquo; turn. Maybe Propp&rsquo;s size (five-foot-nine, 185 pounds) discouraged some teams. Whatever, the Flyers are counting ori him to immediately join the left wing ranks where only second-team All Star Bill Barber has a permanent job.Stephenson believes he&rsquo;ll have a permanent job in Washington. After five years of back-up stati brilliant relief missions, and cc tinual squabbling with the fro office, Stephenson hopes he&rsquo;s goi to a team that will appreciate hii &ldquo;Fort Wayne&rdquo; was gone as soon the Flyers were humiliated by New York Rangers in the Stanl Cup quarter-finals. It was just matter of finding a team th wanted him. &#9632;

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Clarke Takes Flyer Coaching Role As Part Of Restructuring Project

<div class="byline">&#x2014;BY BOB VERDI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011354/5101462-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="322" height="480"></div><h2>First Class Viewing</h2>I GUESS I never thought much about it until a fellow writer walked into our office one day last May.&ldquo;Verdi, you know I don&rsquo;t like hockey very much,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I was up north over the weekend and I caught a game on TV, and it was unbelievable.&rdquo;&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; I said.&ldquo;The way they handle it,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;The Canadian TV. I couldn&rsquo;t get away from the set. It&rsquo;s a different game, the way they treat it. First class.&rdquo;I ran into Ralph Mellanby not long after land related the story. Mellanby, the executive producer of Hockey Night In Canada, reacted proudly and with humility. He also acted as though he&rsquo;d probably received similar kudos before, because surely he and [his staff deserve them.There are oh, so many things wrong with hockey, a sport whose bigwigs, by and large, have not a clue about now to sell. But one of those problems is not the highly professional manner in which HNIC presents the game. The National Hockey League&rsquo;s greatest advertising asset is HNIC. Period.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s our national game,&rdquo; says Mellanby. &lsquo;We have to do our homework. We have to put on the best possible broadcast. The viewers want it that way. We want it that way.&rdquo;That is not to say that the weekly telecasts in Canada are puff pieces, or that HNIC is in any way an official arm of the KHL. On the contrary. Mellanby and staff quite properly believe that their jobs extend well beyond giving goals, assists and blah, plah, blah.<h2>Obligation To Sport</h2>&ldquo;SPORT FANS LIKE to feel they are knowledgeable, and by and large, they are&rdquo; Mellanby said. &ldquo;We have to give them something more than just a picture. We are very interested in having good production, put we are also journalists.&ldquo;We have editorialized against stick-winging, and for more protective equipment for the sport&mdash;helmets, facemasks. We have a certain obligation to the development of the sport and the development of the kids who are playing it, and who watch the games so intently.I &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t legislate against fighting. But we don&rsquo;t have to show replays of fighting. And we can&rsquo;t shy away from a high-sticking Incident. But we can show it again only up to the point of where it gets out of hand.I &ldquo;In that way, we can influence and shape oan extent. Personally, I don&rsquo;t feel hockey needs fighting. Did they need any fights in the seventh game of the Boston-Montreal semi-final series last year? No, and they didn&rsquo;t have any. But it was a game that the whole world should have seen.&rdquo;A good portion of the world, and certainly 99 per cent of Canada, witnessed Team Canada&rsquo;s saga in 1972. Its comeback triumph over the Soviet Union in Moscow, Mellanby opines, was perhaps a spectacle that never will be equalled on television.&ldquo;That was like having The World Series before the season started,&rdquo; said Mellanby. &ldquo;The rest of the season seemed somewhat anticlimactic, and the ratings reflected as much. But they have come back since to where they once were, and right now our numbers are terrific.<h2>Cable, Pay TV Coming</h2>&ldquo;IT&rsquo;S STILL THE most popular TV show in Canada. Our national heroes are still the Rocket Richards, the Guy Lafleurs, the Darryl Sittlers. If you ask a kid in Canada to name the 10 best-known people in the country, he&rsquo;s not going to list the Prime Minister. He&rsquo;s going to list Howe and Richard and Lafleur and Sittler.&rdquo;Mellanby has worked numerous events in the United States, too, from Super Bowls to the World Series, and he does not share the concern that the NHL is doomed until it reaps a network contract in America.&ldquo;Pretty soon, network television sports will be outmoded, anyway,&rdquo; he predicted. &ldquo;Cable TV will become a major factor, then pay TV, then you&rsquo;ll have a communications center in your living room with a wall-sized screen. You&rsquo;ll put a dollar in and get the Rangers at Montreal without advertisements.As for interesting Miami and Dallas, it may never happen. But you won&rsquo;t know unless you try to sell it.&rdquo;The influx of three Canadian teams to the NHL means more challenges for HNIC, which prefers to do most of its telecasts from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver rather than road cities because it is more accustomed to logistics of the buildings. But Mellanby would like to see the NHL add more than Winnipeg, Edmonton and Quebec.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to see two halves in hockey rather than three periods,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Hockey could be more innovative. Look what the designated hitter did for baseball interest in the American League. Can you imagine if the NHL adapted a shootout to resolve tie games? Guy Lafleur versus Darryl Sittler? Fantastic. It would not only be great for TV, it would be great for hockey.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0006-01

HOCKEY TALK

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div>TORONTO&mdash;There&rsquo;s been talk in Toronto about how the Maple Leafs lacked scoring punch, how they were less than ordinary once you got past about a half dozen players or so, and about how it was time to change the style of the club since the team has been obviously mired just outside the circle of elite in the National Hockey League&mdash;and slipping.General manager George (Punch) Imlach and coach Floyd Smith, the combo reborn out of the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; organization, got down to work with the August entry draft as their first official duty and came away from the telephone conference hook-up pleased by the talent selected by the Leafs.For several years the Leafs have been seeking an offensive-minded center who can take away some of the scoring load from the shoulders of star Darryl Sittler. Last season Walt McKechnie was a pleasant surprise with 25 goals and the Leafs did acquire Paul Gardner from Colorado Rockies who managed his third consecutive 30-goal season, but Imlach and Smith weren&rsquo;t about to stop there.Their first choice&mdash;ninth overall&mdash;in the draft was six-foot, 185-pound 19-year-old center Laurie Boschman of the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League.Boschman, who has another year of junior eligibility remaining, centered junior hockey&rsquo;s highest scoring line flanked by Brian Propp and Ray Allison and came through with an impressive 66 goals and 83 assists for 149 points.He was generally considered the most talented centerman available in the draft and the Leafs were obviously delighted that he had not been tabbed when they came to exercise their choice.Considered a potential super star by Imlach, Boschman was in Calgary at the time of the draft working out with the Canadian Olympic team. It is expected that he&rsquo;ll opt for a starting position with the Leafs and said when notified of his selection: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to training camp confident I can make it with the Leafs.&rdquo; He then added: &ldquo;I definitely want to play pro hockey really bad, and I can&rsquo;t think of a better place than at Toronto.&rdquo;Toronto&rsquo;s second choice in the draft came in third round (Los Angeles lay claim to the second round choice when they shipped Dave Hutchison and Lome Stamler to the Leafs) and was another high-scoring pivot, Normand Aubin, of the Verdun Black Hawks in the Quebec Major Junior League.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02978/5101493-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="508" height="596"><figcaption class="caption-body">NORMAND AUBIN&hellip;Great Goal-Scorer</figcaption></div>Like Boschman, Aubin was also an underage pick with another year of eligibility, but the Leafs had to be impressed by, his 149 points total last year, including 80 goals, the most in the QMJHL. He&rsquo;s also the same size as Boschman.Of the Leafs&rsquo; three other choices in the entry draft, one other player, Frank Nigro of London in the Ontario Major Junior League, was a center. Goaltender Vincent Tremblay of Quebec City in the QMJHL and left winger Bill McCreary of Colgate University completed the Leafs&rsquo; selections.Nigro, who like Boschman and Aubin still has a year of junior play available, will almost certainly be returned to the London Knights, for whom he scored 33 goals last season.McCreary, son of the former NHL player of the same name, was also an underage selection. He scored 19 goals and had 25 assists in just 22 games for Colgate.The Leafs&rsquo; only 20-year-old draftee was goaltender Tremblay who toiled for a sub .500 club last year. He was a real workhorse, too, with 66 appearances and a 4.56 goals against average in a high-scoring league. &#9632;

f0006-02

Boschman’s Talent Aids Leafs’ Plans To Bolster Center

WASHINGTON&mdash;Last year, the Washington Capi-Imade some waves in the Nall Hockey League by drafting ptional forward (Ryan Walter) signing a scholarly ex-flyer lender (Gary Inness). loth those players were key edients in the team&rsquo;s formula success.Maybe that&rsquo;s why general lager Max McNab and coach ny Belisle recently duplicated formula to a &ldquo;T&rdquo;. First, they ked a highly-regarded right, Mike Gartner, out of the, draft.When, just seven days later, signed another one of those larly ex-Flyer goalies&mdash;he Stephenson.left the Niagara Falls Flyers and played underage for the Cincinnati Stingers. Last year, despite a succession of nagging injuries in the second half of the season, he finished with 27 goals and good marks in the categories of overall play.Should the Capitals eventually reclaim Swedish right wing Bengt Gustafsson from Edmonton in September, the right side could get pleasantly crowded.The goal crease already is just that.Last year, Danny Belisle&rsquo;s troops finished up their best season ever with a weary Gary Inness and Jim Bedard, who showed positive signs at season&rsquo;s end of breaking out of the mire of a sophomore year slump. They then picked up the extremely promising Daveand Bernie Wolfe on hand, although the latter is not expected to see much action this year.Now enter &ldquo;Fort Wayne&rdquo;, a 34-year-old goalie with 26 games of Stanley Cup experience and the best lifetime credentials (2.89 GAA) of anyone ever to suit up for the red, white and blue.Last year, Stephenson started half the Flyers games posting a 2010-5 record and a 3.35 GAA, but the Flyers management and the bespeckled goalie had never seen eye-to-eye after a well-publicized contract dispute in 1976 and the two were glad to go their separate ways.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m delighted to be here in Washington,&rdquo; said Stephenson at his first press conference. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t knock Philadelphia. I had some good years there and my family&rsquo;shad control over where I was going to go and I liked the idea of coming to Washington. They&rsquo;ve got the basis of a good young team here.&ldquo;To be honest, I never liked playing here as a Flyer because the Capitals would always give all we could handle. Now I&rsquo;m looking forward to being with them, not against them.&ldquo;I consider myself the number six goalie at the moment. I plan to go into camp, work hard and try to emerge as number one.&rdquo;With Inness and Bedard on hand, the battle for the two goaltending spots should be fierce.&ldquo;This deal gives us by far the most competition we&rsquo;ve ever had at goaltending. We&rsquo;ve been in the unfortunate position of heading &#9632;

Capitals Repeat Successful Formula

<div class="byline">BY BOB VERDI</div>CHICAGO&mdash;The Black Hawks may not have had much to cheer about last winter, but the same cannot be said for the summer.If the agony of defeat haunts them, they at least experienced the thrill of victory Aug. 9 when the National Hockey League held its entry draft.For whatever reasons, Chicago&rsquo;s record in the junior market over the years has not been, shall we say, spotless. But there was near unanimous approval over the Hawks&rsquo; No. 1 selection this time around.He is Keith Brown, a burly defenseman who is but 18 years old. Brown is six-foot-one and 192 pounds and the Hawks&rsquo; chief talent scout, Jack Davison, could not conceal his glee that Brown was available when the Hawks&rsquo; turn&mdash;No. 7 in the overall draft&mdash;came up.&ldquo;He may not only be ready next year, but he may be a star in this league before long,&rdquo; said Davison, who is not usually given to gushing. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen him a few times, and I can&rsquo;t tell you how happy we are to have him.&rdquo;Brown played last season for the Portland Winter Hawks in the Western Hockey League, where angels fear to tread. He had 11 goals and 85 assists, plus 75 penalty minutes in 70 games. He&rsquo;s a right handed shot, and may add to the tougher image which general manager Bob Pulford and coach Eddie Johnston would like the Hawks to evoke.After Brown, who was the first underage draftee in the market, the Hawks selected:&bull; Tim Trimper (six-feet, 185 pounds) a left wing from Peterborough of the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League. Trimper, a hardnosed type, scored 62 goals and added 46 assists with 97 penalty minutes for the Petes, who won their division. Davison thinks Trimper needs a little polish, in which case he will fit in perfectly with a lot of other Hawks.&bull; Bill Gardner, a center with the same Peterborough club and its second leading scorer with 33 goals and 71 assists in 68 games.&bull; Louis Begin, a left wing who collected 46 goals in the offensive Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with Sherbrooke.&bull; Doug Crossman, a defenseman who amassed 12 goals and 51 assists with the Ottawa 67s of the OMJHL.&bull; Lowell Loveday, another defenseman who had 13 goals and 28 assists with the Kingston Canadians of the OMJHL. He also had 121 penalty minutes in 65 games.&ldquo;I think we made out great,&rdquo; said Davison, who believes that with a spate of draft choices the Hawks have coming from IOU&rsquo;s&mdash;such as Quebec&rsquo;s first in 1980 in exchange for not reclaiming Real Cloutier&mdash;things can&rsquo;t but be better in seasons to come.Meanwhile the summer-long soap opera involving the Black Hawks, Tony Esposito and Bobby Hull, we&rsquo;re sorry to report, had no definitive turn at press time.Esposito and Pulford were still talking, which is what they&rsquo;ve been doing for eons. Wonder what they&rsquo;re talking about?&ldquo;I know one thing, we gotta have him,&rdquo; said Johnston of the free agent goalie.As for Hull, he declared in midAugust that despite any snafus, and despite the fact that he had been dealt conditionally to the Hartford Whalers, &ldquo;I think all signs are pointing to my being in Chicago next season.&rdquo;He said that he and team president Bill Wirtz would continue talking which is what they&rsquo;ve been doing for eons, too.Nice to know that phone bills are up at Chicago Stadium even if the attendance isn&rsquo;t.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-02856/5101548-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="562" height="1510"><figcaption class="caption-body">TONY ESPOSITO&hellip;Holding out</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0007-02

Black Hawks Thrilled With Entry Draft Pickings

<div class="byline">BY TOM MURRAY</div>NEW YORK&mdash;The big news out of the New York Rangers&rsquo; organization this month is that goalie John Davidson and right wing Don Murdoch&mdash;both of whom underwent late-summer surgery&mdash;will be ready for the opening of the team&rsquo;s training camp.And, while we&rsquo;re on the subject, training camp for the Rangers this year will take place in an area that is&mdash;believe it or not&mdash;even further away from civilization than the old Long Beach, N.Y. facility. But more on that later. First the good news on Messrs. Davidson and Murdoch.J.D., you will recall, played the entire final series of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Montreal Canadiens with what was later diagnosed as strained ligaments in his left knee. In the locker room after that final loss last May, Davidson told reporters that an arthogram&mdash;in which the knee is flushed out and explored&mdash;was &ldquo;inevitable&rdquo; and that surgery was &ldquo;possible&rdquo;. As it turned out, both the arthogram and surgery were ultimately performed. What everyone wanted to know, however, was why the threemonth delay?&ldquo;It was a matter of giving the doctors some time to look at it,&rdquo; Rangers&rsquo; assistant general manager Mickey Keating explained. &ldquo;J.D. had to build up the strength of his knee before the operation could be performed. Right now he&rsquo;s undergoing therapy, he&rsquo;s way ahead of schedule and he&rsquo;ll be ready for training camp.&rdquo;As for Murdoch, Keating explained the reason for the young right wing&rsquo;s late operation this way: &ldquo;Athletes go through a whole season under a lot of pressure and with a lot of emotion. When it&rsquo;s all over they need some time off, but they can&rsquo;t really enjoy that time off if their upper arms are strapped and all that. So we gave Donnie a little time to relax and then he came in and had one shoulder tightened. He&rsquo;ll be ready for training camp.&rdquo;Ah, yes, training camp. After spoiling both players and reporters by abandoning Long Beach and holding training camp last season at the conveniently located Westchester Twin Rinks in Hawthorne, N.Y.&mdash;just a 45-minute ride from the city&mdash;the Rangers are going to make commuting between training camp and the New York City area really tough this year: The site will be, of all places, Richmond, Virginia. Why, pray tell, Mr. Keating?&ldquo;A lot of reasons,&rdquo; Mickey explained. &ldquo;First of all, the rink we used last year is not available. They&rsquo;re still having financial difficulties. Second, one of Eastern League) and by holding the camp down there, we&rsquo;ll be able to show the new kids that are trying out for the organization the kind of place that Richmond is.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011205/5101579-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="536" height="694"><figcaption class="caption-body">DON MURDOCH&hellip;He&rsquo;ll Be Ready</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Third, it&rsquo;s a major league facility and getting the fellows together for awhile&mdash;10 days&mdash;is good for team morale. There, they have to associate with one another, both on and off the ice. It&rsquo;s a good chance for the rookies to meet the veterans and have a beer together, go out for dinner, whatever.Now that the training camp dilemma is resolved, all that remains is for the team to determine where they will practice once the season starts. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; Keating said, &ldquo;we won&rsquo;t be commuting to Richmond. But we do have three or four options open in the New York area. I don&rsquo;t want to say who they are.&rdquo;One thing Keating would talk about, however, were the five youngsters the Rangers picked in the recent entry draft.1. Doug Sulliman 5-9, 195, right wing, Kitchener: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very similar to Don Maloney,&rdquo; Keating said. &ldquo;He played for the same junior team as Donnie and has the same style. He&rsquo;s good in the corners and holds onto the puck well.&rdquo;2. Ed Hospodar, 6-2, 210, defenceman, Ottawa: &ldquo;He likes to use his body. He&rsquo;s supposed to be the toughest kid in the draft. I wouldn&rsquo;t label him as our future crease-clearing defenseman, but there&rsquo;s definitely some toughness there.&rdquo;3. Pat Conacher, 5-8, 185, center, Saskatoon: &ldquo;A little sparkplug and a real competitor.&rdquo;4. Dan Majuch, right wing, Ottawa: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to stay in college for another year. He tried out for the Canadian Olympic team and was one of the last cuts. A good prospect for the future.&rdquo;5. Stan Adams, 6-0, 200, center, Niagara Falls: &ldquo;He should have gone a lot earlier but most teams stayed away from him because he broke his neck in a car accident. He came back, &#9632;

f0007-01

Ranger Recoveries Right On Schedule For Richmond Camp

<div class="byline">Ken McKenzie&#x2019;s</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011290/5101638-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="542" height="510"></div>&bull; GARRY UNGER may leave the National Hockey League for West Germany if he can&rsquo;t make a good deal for himself. The National League&rsquo;s &ldquo;Iron Man&rdquo; and brightest star on the St. Louis Blues for the last nine years is now a free agent and has been trying to make a deal for himself all summer&hellip;Phil Myre will replace the retired Bernie Parent as Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; No. one goalie. The former Atlanta Flames&rsquo; netminder is looking for a house in the Philadelphia area right now&hellip;Jean-Guy Talbot, former coach of the St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers, is all through with hockey. He has now accepted a job with a brewery in Three Rivers, Que&hellip;. J. C. Tremblay, former star defenseman with Montreal Canadiens and Quebec Nordiques has also called it quits. There is a chance he can land a playing-coaching role in Europe, like his ex-teammate Jacques Lemaire&hellip;The day Lemaire was to fly from Montreal to Switzerland he discovered after reaching the airport that he had left all his hockey gear at home. After a frantic race home he managed to pick up his equipment and still catch his plane&hellip;Bobby Clarke should do a superb job as assistant coach to Pat Quinn of the Flyers. He will continue to play with the team but he is the best natural leader in the whole league and should develop into a standout coach when he retires as a player&hellip;Wren Blair, president and general manager of the Saginaw Gears, elated at the recent affiliation agreement with the NHL Hartland Whalers. &ldquo;The Gears had worked briefly with the Whalers last season and it was through that association that we acquired Jon Fontas,&rdquo; said Blair.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021079/5101631-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="279" height="421"><figcaption class="caption-body">Garry Unger</figcaption></div>&bull; JACK RILEY and Bob Dill will be enshrined into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame on October 20 at the Hall of Fame building at Eveleth, Minnesota. The U.S. Olympic team will play the University of Minnesota-Duluth in a game that evening&hellip;Riley, a legendary figure as coach of the West Point hockey team, coached the United States to an Olympic victory at Squaw Valley in 1960. The Medford, Mass., native played for the 1948 U.S. Olympic team and was coach of an army team since 1950. He is also assistant athletic director at the U.S. Military Academy&hellip;Bob Dill played professional hockey for nine years. After starring in minor pro hockey he graduated to the New York Rangers. Following the 1944-45 season, the St. Paul, Minn, all-around athlete (he also played top minor pro baseball) returned home and played five seasons with the U.S. Hockey League St. Paul Saints. In later years Dill has served as a scout for New York Rangers, Chicago Black Hawks and Minnesota North Stars&hellip;Colorado Rockies have a much better schedule this year than last, with five of their first seven games at home. Last season, they played eight of their first 10 at home and 12 of their first 17 games away from Denver&hellip;Red Storey, one of Canada&rsquo;s most controversial sports figures, will be supplying CKO All-News radio listeners with his colorful comments during Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; games this season. Storey will be an integral part of the expanded coverage of Maple Leafs hockey along with CKO&rsquo;s play-by-play man Peter Maher and sports editor Dave Lafave&hellip;Matt Pavelich, an active NHL official for 23 years, plans to join Scotty Morrison&rsquo;s supervisory<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-03892/5101624-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="276" height="406"><figcaption class="caption-body">J. C. Tremblay</figcaption></div>&bull; THERE ARE more artificial ice rinks in the Scandinavian countries than anywhere else in Europe. At the present time there are 252 of these rinks in Sweden, 40 in Finland, 18 in Denmark and 11 in Norway. Erik Guldvik, who is Mr. Hockey in Norway, paid us a visit in Montreal recently and tells us that there are 45 senior teams operating in Norway at present. These teams are split up over four divisions and that 99 per cent of Norway&rsquo;s National Team comes from players in the 1st Division. In the 1979 World Championships, Norway finished fourth in the &ldquo;B&rdquo; group which was won by Holland. A team of Midget players will play a series of games in Owen Sound, Ont., this Christmas. Last year a team of midgets from Owen Sound visited Oslo. This year&rsquo;s team of Norwegian Midgets will play seven games against teams in the Owen Sound area&hellip;Leo Ornest, former marketing director of the National Hockey League and World Hockey Association, is expected to become associated with the Los Angeles Kings shortly&hellip;The 1979-80 NHL schedule will consist of 840 games, 160 more than last season as a result of the four extra teams which brings the total to 21. The schedule will open on Oct. 9 and end on April 6. The All Star Game will be played Feb. 5 at Detroit&rsquo;s Joe Louis Arena&hellip;Los Angeles and Vancouver travel more (close to 15,000 miles more) than do the other NHL clubs&hellip;Soviet hockey lost one of its greats when Vsevolod Bobrov died of a heart attack at the age of 56. He was a star player (Soviet&rsquo;s first national championship in 1954 and for the Olympic gold medalists of 1956) and also coached the Soviet team that lost to Team Canada in the epic 1972 summit series&hellip;Howard Baldwin, president of the World Hockey Association when it was absorbed by the NHL, has been spending the summer attempting to write an authentic history of the WHA. Baldwin was around from the first and knows the phonies who were supposed to have millions and couldn&rsquo;t come up with pennies.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-04467/5101617-1-eng-US/f0008-042.jpg" title="f0008-04" width="283" height="389"><figcaption class="caption-body">Matt Pavelich</figcaption></div>&bull; EVERY PLAYER who signs a professional contract after June 1, 1979 must wear a helmet. That is a major breakthrough and almost eveyone involved in hockey agrees that it is a good move and one that should have happened a long time ago&hellip;The new NHL rule giving a minor penalty to players coming over the boards to congratulate their teammates after a goal is scored is one that has been scoffed at by many media people. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a league which wonders why it can&rsquo;t get a national TV contract because it doesn&rsquo;t have enough appeal. Then it kills one of the most appealing parts of the game,&rdquo; is a statement uttered by most U.S. hockey media men&hellip;It&rsquo;s amazing that so many hockey players are good golfers playing a game in which you have to keep your head down&hellip;Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team was interviewed by a rookie Montreal reporter who asked him what he planned to do when he retired. With a straight face, the baseball star replied: &ldquo;I plan to become the first black goaltender in the National Hockey League&rdquo;&hellip;The Calder Cup champion Maine Marines will play the United States Olympic team at Portland on Oct. 8. The U.S. Olympic squad is coached by Herb Brooks. Herb has been coach of the University of Minnesota team for the last seven years, during which time his teams have won the NCAA championship<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-05339/5101610-1-eng-US/f0008-052.jpg" title="f0008-05" width="287" height="405"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jerry Buss</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0008-01

PASSING THE PUCK

<div class="byline">BY PAT DOYLE</div>WINNIPEG&mdash;Jimmie (The Ox) Mann was compared to Terry O&rsquo;Reilly, then Paul Holmgren.Then, somewhere from the back of the East Ballroom in the Winnipeg Inn, somebody suggested Mann just might be the second coming of John Bowie Ferguson.&ldquo;We&rsquo;d settle for that,&rdquo; said John Ferguson, laughing.Indeed, if Mann can do for the Winnipeg Jets in the 1980s what Ferguson did for Montreal Canadiens in the 60s, then the Jets landed themselves a good one in the National Hockey League&rsquo;s entry draft last month.In making the 20-year-old winger their first selection, 19th overall, Jets followed the same pattern they employed at the June expansion draft&mdash;they went for size and aggressiveness.&ldquo;Jimmie Mann was probably the toughest player in all of junior hockey last season,&rdquo; claimed Ferguson, the Winnipeg general manager. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t expect him to score a lot of goals for us, but he will give us quite a lot of backbone.&rdquo; Mann had a 35-47-82 scoring log with Sherbrooke Beavers of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in 1978-79 and spent 260 minutes in the brig, and he makes no attempt to hide the fact he enjoys the odd bare knuckle exchange.&ldquo;I just enjoy barging into those corners and knocking people around,&rdquo; Mann says. &ldquo;And, I just love to fight. I&rsquo;m definitely an intimidator, but don&rsquo;t get me wrong, I&rsquo;m not crazy. It&rsquo;s just that I&rsquo;ll do anything to win a hockey game.&rdquo;Like most graduating juniors, Mann spent the first two months of summer wondering where he&rsquo;d be playing hockey next winter.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell you how happy I am to be going to Winnipeg,&rdquo; says the six-foot 202 lb. Mann. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t sure where it would be, but even before we ended our season in Sherbrooke I was hoping it would be Winnipeg.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never been there, but from what I hear it&rsquo;s a good situation to get into. The organization is good and so is the team. Another thing I like is that you have hockey weather there. I&rsquo;m not too sure I&rsquo;d want to go to L.A. and play golf in the day then hockey at night.&rdquo;Jets went into the entry draft in desperate need of a quality center, and Ferguson was anxious to get his hands on Laurie Boschman, a 19-year-old pivot with the Brandon Wheat Kings. It wasn&rsquo;t to be, though, because Punch Imlach laid claim to Boschman on behalf of the Toronto Maple Leafs on his first pick, ninth over all.&ldquo;Laurie Boschman was the best center available in the entire draft,&rdquo; claimed Ferguson. &ldquo;We would have loved to get him, but we feel we got a pretty good one on our second pick.&rdquo;That would be Dave Christian, a five-foot-eleven, 166 lb. center by way of the University of North Dakota. A strong skater and excellent playmaker, Christian will be lost to the Jets until March due to a commitment with the United States Olympic team.The same can be said for Winnipeg&rsquo;s third draft choice, defenseman Bill Whelton. He&rsquo;s also in the U.S. Olympic camp and, even if he doesn&rsquo;t stick there, it&rsquo;s likely he&rsquo;ll go back to Boston University forbe at both the rookie camp and main camp of the Jets this month. Daley had what Ferguson referred to as a &ldquo;so-so year&rdquo; last season (25-50-75), but he added Winnipeg was &ldquo;fortunate to get a player of his quality in the fourth round&rdquo;.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-06272/5101669-1-eng-US/f0008-062.jpg" title="f0008-06" width="592" height="748"><figcaption class="caption-body">JIMMIE MANN&hellip;Patrols Corners</figcaption></div>It&rsquo;s interesting to note that, had there been no National Hockey League expansion to include the Jets, Daley had already agreed to play with Winnipeg if the World Hockey Association remained in operation.Winnipeg&rsquo;s final two picks are also what you could term as &lsquo;futures&rsquo;, because one is in the army until March and the other is working out with Canada&rsquo;s Olympic squad.Thomas Steen, a Swedish center, has to fulfill a military commitment before he can skate over on this side of the ocean. In the meantime, he&rsquo;ll be playing with Leksand of the Swedish Major League.Tim Watters of Michigan Tech is the Canadian Olympic hopeful, and he&rsquo;s trying to earn a spot on defense. If he doesn&rsquo;t make the Olympic team, he&rsquo;ll likely be farmed out to Tulsa Oilers of the Central Hockey League.Paul Terbenche, a 33-year-old defenseman, has been traded by the Jets to Atlanta Flames for future considerations.Terbenche, a veteran of 13 pro seasons, played five years in the WHA, the final season with the Jets. He came to Winnipeg when the club purchased the contracts of a dozen members of the defunct Houston Aeros franchise.Previous to his stint in the WHA, Terbenche spent time with Chicago Black Hawks and Buffalo Sabres in the NHL. &#9632;

f0008-06

Mann Joins Jets As Tough Player In Fergy’s Image

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011330/5101731-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"></div>Write to: FAN FORUM, The Hockey News, 214 King St. West, Suite 314, Toronto, Ont. M5H 1K4<h2>FANS MAY REVOLT OVER WHA LOSS</h2>I have been a hockey fan for teen years and hail from New ork where I avidly follow the angers. Recently I have been ole to attend numerous Winnipeg ets games over the past two seans. The support that Winnipegrs give their team is nothing ort of outstanding and I found WHA to offer competitive and cellent hockey. With an enlarged ena there will be no doubt that innipeg is a major league city, I&rsquo;m sure that goes for all ex-HA cities.After seeing what the NHL did decimate the rosters of these evious WHA teams I would not surprised to see a fans&rsquo; revolt, proud Avco Cup Champions we will be reduced to a struggling st year entry in order to permit Black Hawks to win their divion in again, below .500.The NHL board of governors ce again denied the fans the portunity of seeing first hand aat real differences there were tween the leagues and thereby missed out on some real rivals. We are losers again!HAL LAETSCH, Baudette, Minnesota<h2>OVERTIME NEEDED IN TIE GAMES</h2>During the past few years the HL has debated whether or not to titute overtime during the regu season to decide tie games, viously an unlimited overtime is tually impossible with teams eady playing an 80 game sched f1. A 10-minute sudden death periwould be ideal and it would Solve the majority of tie games.I am more convinced than ever It the NHL must adopt the over be rule. It is not fair to the fans pay their money to have to tle for a deadlock. There is no Ison why this rule cannot be put beffect. It should at least be put the test during the exhibition son.SCOTT KASZYK, Medicine Hat, Alta.<h2>MUSICAL CHAIRS IN HOCKEY WORLD</h2>After reading the goals of Floyd ith (ex Sabres coach) and the mof Neilson & Bowman (forrly of Montreal and Toronto) I re come to the conclusion that in Buffalo will be watching the falo Maple Leafs and they in onto will be watching the To-to Sabres; i.e.; Mr. Smith is nning to turn the Leafs into the res, while Neilson is attempting same task for which Mr. Proost was fired last year&mdash;try-to turn the Sabres into the fs.My personal opinion is that ore December 1, 1979, both men be turned into the street.PAMELA GEIGER, BUFFALO, N.Y.<h2>PROPP BEST CHOICE IN DRAFT</h2>As an avid fan of the Toronto ble Leafs, I am stunned by the that the Leafs would draft ndon&rsquo;s Laurie Boschman in-ad of his teammate Brian app. The Leafs desperately need on left wing and with Propp would have helped solved their 94 goals in one year and have 194 points has to be sensational.I am not putting down Boschman&rsquo;s abilities. In fact, I think he will be a superstar but they don&rsquo;t need a center because the Leafs are strong there with (Darryl) Sittler, (Walt) McKechnie, and (Paul) Gardner, plus young (Rocky) Saganiuk.It seems totally idiotic to me to draft Boschman over Propp. If anyone knows the reason, please say so! The Leafs need help!BOB VALLIAN, Windsor, Ont.<h2>LAMENTS LOCATION OF TRAINING CAMP</h2>I address my letter to the Rangers, who last year thrilled their fans with their play in the Stanley Cup playoffs. They were great! Thanks for the letdown. I am not referring to the Stanley Cup finals, but to your training camp location.There are many New Yorkers who look forward to Ranger training camp. They get to meet and talk with the players. They can learn to appreciate the hard work that goes into what we call a game. They can see the scrimmages and get autographs. They get a closer feeling towards the Rangers and become more knowledgeable and more appreciative fans.I realize that the facilities used last year cannot be used this year, but Richmond, Virginia? Come on, give us a break. We fans were right there behind you, cheering you on last season, right to the final buzzer of the final game. Is this how you thank New Yorkers, by taking your training camp to Richmond, Virginia? I&rsquo;m sure there is a rink somewhere in New York that has appropriate facilities for a hockey team.I love the New York Rangers and will be cheering them on every game this season, but I, and others, will miss being able to see them train for this coming season.MARIE BURKE, Yonkers, N.Y.<h2>SELKE AWARD BELONGS TO GAINEY</h2>I am writing in response to James M. Carrig&rsquo;s letter in the August issue of The Hockey News. In his letter, Mr. Carrig stated that Bob Gainey was not deserving of the Selke award. First of all, I would like to correctly state what the Selke award represents. The Selke award is given each year to the best &lsquo;defensive forward&rsquo; and not to the best &lsquo;defensive-offensive&rsquo; player as Mr. Carrig previously stated. Furthermore, Mr. Carrig stated in his letter that Craig Ramsay and Don Luce outscored Gainey. This is correct, but the award implies a &lsquo;defensive&rsquo; forward. Yes, Gainey had more penalty minutes but the Selke award is for the best defensive forward and not the most gentlemanly player in the league. It is evident that Mr. Carrig misunderstood the meaning of the Selke award.In my estimation, Bob Gainey is a hard driving skater who was groomed under the guidance of Roger Neilson. Checking is one of the ingredients of &lsquo;defensive&rsquo; hockey and I feel no one better exemplifies the word more than Gainey. To me, Gainey is not only the league&rsquo;s best defensive player but one of the top all-around players in hockey today.I have also noted that others connected with hockey give credit where credit is due. &ldquo;Boy, I think for anybody to play with Gainey is a luxury,&rdquo; said Bobby Clarke. Furthermore, says captain Dave Maloney of the Rangers, &ldquo;One guy can&rsquo;t throw a whole team off balance, but he&rsquo;s (Gainey) everything the Canadiens stand for.&rdquo;In conclusion, I would just like to say that Bob Gainey is truly a &lsquo;defensive&rsquo; specialist who plays at a 100 percent all the time and in doing se does it with class. Gainey is why Les Canadiens from Montreal keep winning Stanley Cups.JOHN GUIDO, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.<h2>GOOD AND BAD OF WHA REMEMBERED</h2>The World Hockey Association is gone now and all we can do is remember the good and the bad. The league brought us some good young stars like Marc Tardif, Mark Howe, Robbie Ftorek, Real Cloutier and numerous others. It gave us some great names and it gave all of us in WHA cities something we never had before&mdash;pro hockey.It sure had its faults though. It never kept the same schedule throughout the year because teams were coming and going all the time, and the constant rumour of the league folding always kept us guessing. One thing it did do was move professional hockey to Hartford and for that I am eternally grateful.KENNETH FARGNOLI,<h2>LETTER OF THE MONTH</h2><h3>NHL OWNERS SHOW THEIR GREED</h3>Have the NHL owners in all their wisdom finally destroyed junior hockey? The recently announced decision to sanction the drafting of 18 and 19-year-olds in the future leaves some very serious doubts in my mind.Outside of the almost invincible Brandon Wheat Kings and Portland Winter Hawks, very few teams in the Western Hockey League could have afforded to lose more than two exceptional players this year. If you combine the loss of the juniors who would normally graduate with the proposed theft of underage talent, many junior franchises will be forced to dress inferior players and youngsters who would benefit from playing another year or so in developmental leagues. This will result in lower attendance in all arenas which would bankrupt half the major junior franchises in Canada within two years. The U.S. colleges simply could not be expected to pick up this slack immediately. Tier-two-and-minor-hoekey&mdash;systems will collapse from the talent drain.With the merger of the pro leagues there is simply no excuse for this blatant show of greed by the NHL. I certainly hope the juniors involved will ignore the big buck men until they have the time to fine tune their skills. It will be to everyone&rsquo;s advantage in the long run.BRYAN LEDERHOUSE, &#9632;

f0010-01

FAN FORUM

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021022/5101762-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">GILBERT PERREAULT&hellip;Disappointment To Fans (Photo by Robert Shaver)</figcaption></div>BUFFALO&mdash;Scotty Bowman says he wants to make Gil Perreault the best hockey player in the National Hockey League.&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; amended the man who coached Guy Lafleur for the last eight years, &ldquo;better make that one of the two best players in the league.&rdquo;Buffalo hockey fans have been a bit disappointed in Perreault, the NHL rookie of the year in 1970-71, over the last few years, as they have been disappointed in their club.The big center leads his team in scoring nearly every season but the fans demand more. Bowman thinks he can get a more complete performance out of Perreault and if he does, he probably will get more out of the Sabres, who have finished second in the Adams Division the last four years and haven&rsquo;t gone beyond the Stanley Cup quarter-finals in that time.&ldquo;We just have to scratch a little more to get the players to play the hockey they are capable of,&rdquo; said Bowman, who left the Montreal Canadiens in June to take over as general manager and coach of the Sabres.&ldquo;We have a team that has the potential. We just have to get the players playing up to that potential.&rdquo;Bowman and his associate coach, Roger Neilson, who left the Toronto Maple Leafs to join the Buffalo organization, showed they believe in the Sabres&rsquo; potential by the players they picked in the NHL entry draft.Each of the seven players they picked in the draft (the Sabres had two selections in the third round because of a trade) was an underage junior.Their first choice, defenseman Mike Ramsey, won&rsquo;t be 19 until December and he won&rsquo;t be available to the Sabres next season until after the 1980 Olympics.The big defenseman, who starred for the University of Minnesota&rsquo;s national collegiate champions, is a member of the United States Olympic team. He made the NCAA all-Tournament team last season as a freshman.&ldquo;Ramsey was THE player we wanted in the draft,&rdquo; Bowman noted. &ldquo;We are willing to wait for him because we figure he has the potential to be a pillar of our team in the future.&rdquo;The Sabres&rsquo; second choice, also a defenseman, Lindy Ruff, from Lethbridge of the Western Hockey League, could possibly move into the big club&rsquo;s lineup right away, Bowman said, but on the whole, the Sabres used the draft to &ldquo;build for the future.&rdquo;&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t feel we could get any 20-year-olds who could move right onto the club now,&rdquo; Bowman pointed out, &ldquo;so we figured it would be better to pick people who will be mainstays of the club in the future.&ldquo;All the players we selected would go up in the top 30 next year if 19-year-olds were not eligible for the draft this year.&ldquo;Our job is to motivate the players we have. And we figure we have enough of them so they will have to be motivated to stick with the club.&rdquo;The Sabres took three defensemen, two goaltenders and two forwards in the draft.Bowman has 23 players who performed for the Sabres at least part of last season, so all of them won&rsquo;t be able to play regularly.ICE CHIPS&mdash;The Sabre coaching troika was completed when Bowman hired Jim Roberts as assistant coach. Roberts played for Scotty at both St. Louis and Montreal.The Sabres will have three players on the U.S. Olympic team. Rob &#9632;

f0010-02

Bowman Planning To Make Perreault One Of NHL’s Best

<div class="byline">By BILL LIBBY</div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;After 12 seasons, the Los Angeles Kings go to training camp in mid-September with rookies playing a prominent part and graduating juniors capable of jumping right to the majors for the first time. Prior owner Jack Kent Cooke dealt away almost all early-round draft-rights for veterans in the past.Two first-round rights went for Gerry Desjardins, one for Bob Murdoch and Randy Rota, one each for Skip Krake, Ross Lonsberry, Eddie Shack, Gene Carr and Ron Grahame, a first and third for Glenn Goldup; a first, second, and third for Terry Harper, and seconds for Dick Duff, Ralph Backstrom, Ab DeMarco and Dave Schultz.Few paid off the way top picks have for other teams, but it remains to be seen if defensemen Jay Wells and Mark Hardy and forward Dean Hopkins, selected in the first two rounds this August, prove productive.The only first-rounders the Kings have had in the past&mdash;Jim McInally in 1968 and Tim Young in 1975&mdash;did not help as McInally didn&rsquo;t make it and Young was not signed and was traded.Of the second-rounders they&rsquo;ve had&mdash;Don Kozak, Dale Hoganson, and Al McDonough made it only modestly, and Terry Bucyk and Steve Clippingdale didn&rsquo;t.Fortunately, George Maguire, then chief scout, found people who could at least play in the big league in late rounds, including Vic Venasky, Gary Sargent and Dave Hutchison in third rounds, Neil Komadoski in a fourth, Butch Goring, Rob Palmer and Billy Smith in fifths, Mario Lessard in a ninth, Dave Taylor in a 15th.One wondered if Maguire, now the manager, knew how to pick in early rounds. Laughing, he expressed confidence he could find one or two who could step right in and help the Kings. They never have had a junior make it his first year. Hoganson started his first season, but then went down. Goring went down before he came up.Venasky and Palmer came out of college to the Kings their first years, but then went down.Detroit had the No. 3 pick and took Mike Foligno. The Kings already had traded the No. 8 for Grahame and Boston took Raymond Bourgue. It will be interesting to see how they do. The Kings had traded their 1981 first-rounder to Montreal for Murray Wilson, but got Montreal&rsquo;s 1979 choice back, which turned out to be No. 16, and they took Wells.After the draft, the Kings added defense experience by acquiring 10-year NHL veteran Barry Gibbs, 31, from St. Louis in exchange for wing Tom Williams.With three picks in the first two rounds and seven in the six rounds, the Kings went for the size and the defense which coach Bob Berry concedes they need. Five of the seven picked were defensemen and six were at least 6&rsquo;0&rdquo; and 198 pounds:First Round (#16)&mdash;Jay Wells, 20, 6&rsquo;0&rdquo;, 204&mdash;The kind of defensive defenseman they need, a lefthander who plays the right side. He was the leader in Kingston and considered the best in the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League. He&rsquo;s not much with the puck, but chief scout Ted O&rsquo;Connor says, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very strong, pushes people away from the net, and is a feared fighter.&rdquo;Second round (#29)&mdash;Dean Hopkins, 20, 6&rsquo;1&rdquo;, 202&mdash;A rightwinger who also plays center, he is a persistent forechecker who scored 37 goals in the OMJHL last season and had an impressive playoff. He was rated higher than this on some lists.Second Round (#30)&mdash;Mark Hardy, 19, 5&rsquo;11&rdquo;, 185&mdash;A rushing defenseman, named the best in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League last season. Scored 18 goals and assisted on 52.Third (#50)&mdash;John-Paul Kelly, 20, 6&rsquo;0&rdquo;, 210, a powerful left-winger who had 25 goals and 207 penalty minutes in the Western Hockey League.Fourth (#71)&mdash;John Gibson, 6&rsquo;2&rdquo;, 198&mdash;An agile defenseman who had 15 goals and 218 minutes in the OMJHL.Fifth (#92)&mdash;Jim Brown, 19, 6&rsquo;2&rdquo;, 205&mdash;A defensive defenseman with three years left at Notre Dame.Sixth (#113)&mdash;Jay MacFarlane, 19, 6&rsquo;1&rdquo;, 200&mdash;A defensive defenseman with two years left at Wisconsin.The Kings hope patience with pay off on the last two collegiar as it did on Dave Taylor and Ro Palmer.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011217/5101793-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="573" height="1204"><figcaption class="caption-body">BARRY GIBBS&hellip;He&rsquo;ll Help</figcaption></div>Meanwhile, Wells and Hard will get shots at wide-open defens berths and Hopkins will get a she at an open forward slot in camp i Denver.Dan Bonar, rookie-of-the-year i the International Hockey Leagu will get a shot at the open thin center slot, while rookies Lorr Molleken from the American Hoel ey League, Doug Keans from th IHL, and Julian Baretta from th University of Wisconsin will cha lenge Ron Grahame for the backu position in goal.KINGS THINGS&mdash;Rand Manery&rsquo;s wife Linda presente him with their first child, daughte Lindsey Ann, July 31&hellip;Maner and newcomer Steve Carlson (on of the battling brothers from &ldquo;Sla Shot&rdquo;) signed multi-year contract&hellip;The Kings will have a playe on the U.S. Olympic team&mdash;pas draftee Bob Suter from U. of Wis consin&hellip;Former manager of th old Blades, Jack Geyer, died at 5 of a heart attack in July.Following seven pre-season games, three in LA, the King open the regular season at hom Oct. 10 and 13 against Detroit an St. Louis before taking off on five-game trip. In a balance schedule, the Kings will meet eac of their rivals twice at home an twice on the road.The Kings play 18 home game on Saturdays, nine on Wednesdays seven on Tuesdays, and six Thursdays. They have a sever game trip in January, play seve of eight at home in November seven of nine at home at season&rsquo; end. &#9632;

f0011-01

Kings Move Towards Bigger Defense Through Entry Draft, Trade For Gibbs

<div class="byline">By JIM MATHESON</div>EDMONTON&mdash;Mark Messier had an inkling he was officially a pro hockey player last winter when he got his first per diem on a roadtrip in Indianapolis.It was almost double his salary as a junior in St. Albert, a suburb of Edmonton.&ldquo;We got seven dollars for a win, four dollars for a tie and two bucks for a loss&hellip;plus gas mileage at St. Albert,&rdquo; chuckled Messier, who made the quantum leap from Tier Two junior to the World Hockey Association last season.The rugged Messier, who&rsquo;s only six months past his 18th birthday, went on to play 47 games in the World Hockey Association in Indianapolis before the Racers folded, then in Cincinnati with the late Stingers. The 6&rsquo;1&rdquo;, 195-pound forward was the undisputed baby of the World Hockey Association, even if Rob Ramage and Co. in Birmingham were tabbed the Baby Bulls by team typewriter and Edmonton Oiler center Wayne Gretzky is actually a week younger.Now, Messier has taken his act to the NHL.The Oilers selected the winger in round three of the six-hour telephone draft Aug. 9, ensuring that they&rsquo;ll have the two youngest players in pro ranks this season. Messier doesn&rsquo;t turn 19 until Jan. 18 of next year. Gretzky, who plays like a 29-year-old, won&rsquo;t get a birthday cake until Jan. 26, 1980.All coach Glen Sather has to do is find another kid that age to play right wing and he&rsquo;ll have three guys on one line just three years OLDER than Gordie Howe.Sather made good on a promise he made last March by picking Messier.&ldquo;If he&rsquo;s available in the draft of kids this summer, I&rsquo;ll take him in a minute. He&rsquo;s good in the comers and big and strong. Surprisingly so. I remember him knocking 215-pound (defenseman) Dave Langevin over once.&ldquo;This is a boy who jumped all the way from Tier Two to the pros in one season and didn&rsquo;t look terribly out of place. I think he&rsquo;d make a helluva choice for us.&rdquo;Messier chose a hockey career early in life when he was still trying to learn reading and writing and arithmetic.&ldquo;I always wanted to be a hockey player&hellip;I remember I was skating with my dad&rsquo;s team (Portland Buckaroos) when I was just six or seven.&rdquo; Messier&rsquo;s father Doug was a rock-ribbed Western Hockey League defenseman for years, then Mark&rsquo;s coach in the Alberta Junior League.&rdquo;&ldquo;I was always around older kids, starting in peewees and bantams,&rdquo; said the young forward, who first started playing Tier Two as a 14-year-old with two years of midget still remaining.He made the jump to the WHA last November after scoring &ldquo;about 17 goals&rdquo; in six weeks with St. Albert. &ldquo;It was the start of my third year playing for my dad,&rdquo; said Mark, who obviously has great affection for his father and his ability to teach in school (junior high), at home and on the ice.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t exactly make seven figures like Gretzky,&rdquo; said Mark, &ldquo;but I did alright. I made more than $10,000 on my contract in Cincinnati for half a season.&rdquo;The Stingers got their money&rsquo;s worth, even if Mark managed only 10 points and just one goal in his stint. He shadowed 75-goal scorer Buddy Cloutier of Quebec (&ldquo;that was a real treat&rdquo;) and worked a more-or-less regular shift.He finally scored his first pro goal in mid-March after being snake-bit for months.&ldquo;It was a bit of a fluke,&rdquo; shrugged the young Messier. &ldquo;I let a shot go from just inside the blueline against Birmingham&rsquo;s Pat Riggin. It took a crazy bounce over his stick.&rdquo;Sather admitted that Messier was a little out of his element offensively in his first year of pro. But it was understandable. &ldquo;By not playing Tier One junior, I think he missed out on developing his offensive skills,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;The game was a little too fast for him to make good plays right away. But, he&rsquo;ll get better. He&rsquo;s a helluva prospect. I might even try him at center at training camp.&rdquo;He learned his lessons pretty well last season, even if they weren&rsquo;t history and chemistry. His biggest? Stay away from Howe&rsquo;s elbows. &#9632;

Oiler Sather Sees Messier As Star Of Future

<div class="byline">BY BILL LIBBY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011303/5101855-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="348" height="452"></div><h2>Valuable Antique&hellip;</h2>AT A TIME when it is unclear what compensation hockey teams have to provide for signing free agents, it is not surprising that many are finding it easy to re-sign their own free agents, such as Detroit has done with powerful forward Vaclav Nedo-mansky. Although the defector from Czechoslovakia who recently was sworn in with his family as new citizens of Canada, is 35, he is valuable and the Red Wings had to provide him a million-dollar contract to keep him.His agent Alan Eagleson said, &ldquo;He could have had more money elsewhere, but he wanted to stay here. What&rsquo;s special about this contract is that it&rsquo;s for 15 years. He feels he can play five years or more, then will work for the organization 10 years or so.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021092/5101848-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="850" height="980"><figcaption class="caption-body">Vaclav Nedomansky completed the transition to the NHL last year with an outstanding season. Though he shopped around as a free agent he signed a long-term contract in Detroit and plans to serve the organization for the next 15 years.</figcaption></div>Detroit manager Ted Lindsay said last year, &ldquo;If Ned would apply himself all the time, he&rsquo;d be the best player in the world.&rdquo; Coach Bobby Kromm said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;d be one of the best, but doesn&rsquo;t always seem to have the desire. He did really go late last season.&rdquo; Former manager and coach Sid Abel said, &ldquo;All he lacks at times is aggressiveness. He has the most accurate snap-shot in the game today and plays a good all-around game.&rdquo;An easy-going guy, Vaclav, whose name is pronounced Vas-Lov, sighs and says, &ldquo;They do say I could be better, but I am the best I could be. It may look like I am not going all out all the time, but I am giving my most every minute. I was not taught to play rough hockey, but I can take a tough game. I am a funny kind of player, not flashy, and do not always look like what I am.&rdquo;THE SIX-FOOT-TWO, 205-pound forward does not look like a fast skater, but he has strong strides and covers a lot of ice in a little time. When he takes a position near the net, he is hard to move. Gordie Howe says, &ldquo;He does what Phil Esposito does&mdash;takes up space in the slot, gets the puck, and snaps shots on goal.&rdquo;The knock on Nedomansky is the same as on many European players&mdash;that he does not like close checking and can be insaid aloud. After scoring 56 goals in one season and averaging above 40 in three seasons in the World Hockey Association, he was limited to 11 goals in his first season in the National League last season and the whispering grew intense.However, the veteran played every one of the Wings&rsquo; 80 games last season and led the team with 38 goals and 73 scoring points. He scored three-goal hat-tricks in consecutive games at one stage of the season. He had a very good season on a team that had a very bad season. Dennis Hull, a former teammate, has said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s one of the finest centermen I&rsquo;ve ever seen.&rdquo;Vaclav was born and reared in the. southern Czech city of Hodonin, an industrial river community of about 35,000 persons. His father worked in transportation. A marvellous all-around athlete, Vaclav became a junior tennis champion and a major league soccer player, as well as a hockey star. His wife, Vera, was a superb cross-country skier who now does a lot of downhill skiing and spends a lot of the summers trying to beat her husband in tennis.Vaclav played 12 years for Slovan of Bratislava in major league hockey in his homeland and was the greatest star of his country&rsquo;s national team, which is second only to Russia in the world these years and which has taken the world title from Russia a few years. Vaclav was voted Most Valuable Player of the World Tournament in 1973 and led his country to the title before fleeing the Communist country to come to Canada in 1974.&ldquo;IT WAS A VERY hard decision to make,&rdquo; he admits. &ldquo;I was scared. It started when I went to Switzerland on holiday and met some hockey men from Canada who wanted me to come to their country to play. I thought it over and decided to go. I met the men during the world championships and never returned to my homeland.&ldquo;It is hard to leave your country. It was not merely a matter of money, though I was offered a lot of money. In my country you were not all that well paid to play, but you lived a better life than most. Over here I was offered a much better, freer way of life.&rdquo;Vaclav, who lives with his Vera, Vaclav Jr., 8, and Victoria, 2, in houses in suburban Toronto and Detroit, says, &ldquo;I did not leave a lot of family behind, but I left what family I had and I miss my parents. They are getting on in age and I have not seen them for years and get to talk to them on the telephone only at Christmas time. My mother, she cries. So I cry.&ldquo;We were lonely here at first, but we learned to speak the language, made good friends, and love it now. I would like to go back, but only for a visit. I like Toronto where I first played, and I like Detroit, where I have been playing, but I found Birmingham, where I played a year or so, a bit different to get used to.&rdquo;Since he came to the National Hockey League in its first trade with the World Hockey Association, he says he has had a little adjustment to make: &ldquo;This league may be a bit better, but hockey is hockey, here, there or in my homeland. There was the same pressure to do well at home as here. There was always pressure in Czechoslovakia to be better than Russia. There is always pressure to be better than the next player or the next team. But, for me, there always is pleasure in this sport, too. I love the game and would like to play a few years yet. I am not too old, I do not think.&rdquo;He is in any event a valuable antiaue. &#9632;

f0012-01

Hockey Ad Lib

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;&ldquo;I think defense is still the point that we have to work at,&rdquo; said Ken Schinkel, director of player personnel of the Pittsburgh Penguins, as the club headed into this month&rsquo;s start of training camp. &ldquo;We drafted three defensemen of the five players we took in the entry draft, and we did that without a first-round choice. So we have to feel pretty pleased when we look at the 31st player chosen.&rdquo;Even though the Penguins may have believed defense was their weakest position heading into the draft, they took a left wing with that 31st overall pick, because 18-year-old Paul Marshall, &ldquo;was the best hockey player available at that point in the draft,&rdquo; said Schinkel.&ldquo;He played with the worst team in the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League (Brantford) last year and he still managed to have pretty good credentials,&rdquo; Schinkel said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big kid&mdash;he&rsquo;s got good size. He&rsquo;s a kid that played on a team that&rsquo;s oriented to playing defense, too.&rdquo;Marshall, six-foot-one, 185 pounds, was the leading scorer for Brantford with 42 goals and 72 assists for 114 points in 67 games. He will be 19 this month.&ldquo;The style of hockey that that club played was always defensive and you can see the record that he has,&rdquo; said Schinkel, who is in charge of the Penguin scouting system. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a kid that&rsquo;s not afraid to come back and he&rsquo;s not afraid to go out and block shots at the point, which a lot of kids won&rsquo;t do. So he&rsquo;s not afraid of the puck and he&rsquo;s not afraid of the man.&ldquo;He should be up with us but I don&rsquo;t know how well he&rsquo;ll be able to play up here because of the difference in the age, and that usually takes those kids a little bit of adjustment. I think he has the potential to be an excellent hockey player.&rdquo;The three defensemen the Penguins selected were: Bennett Wolf, 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, from Kitchener; Brian Cross, six-feet, 190 pounds, also from Brantford; and Marc Chorney, six-feet, 195 pounds, from North Dakota University.Wolf picked up 281 penalty minutes last year and over 600 in his last two years of junior hockey. Cross scored 24 goals and 37 assists and picked up 222 penalty minutes. Chorney is expected to remain in school for his final two years of eligibility.The Penguins also selected goaltender Nick Ricci of Niagara Falls. He had the best goals-against-average in the OMJL at 3.80 in 67 games with three shutouts.Marshall&rsquo;s quest to win a spot on the Penguin team may be a little tough as Schinkel pointed out that &ldquo;we&rsquo;ve got six left wings.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03734/5101886-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="612" height="1072"><figcaption class="caption-body">NICK LIBETT&hellip;Sought By Penguins</figcaption></div>The newest left wing was Nick Libett, who came in a trade with the Detroit Red Wings for popular center Pete Mahovlich.&ldquo;We hate to lose Pete because he was one of my favorite players and I&rsquo;m sure the Penguin fans felt the same way about him,&rdquo; said general manager, and HOCKEY NEWS executive of the year, Baz Bastien. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve wanted Libett for a couple of years now. With players like Gregg Sheppard, Orest Kindrachuk and Greg Malone available at center, we felt as if now was the time to go after Libett.&rdquo;Coach Johnny Wilson said, &ldquo;I had Nick when I was coaching Detroit and have always respected his ability and aggressiveness. He is one player that we have been trying to get since I came here and he should fit in perfectly with our system.&ldquo;You hate to lose a player like Pete, but we are strong at center and had to make a trade to strengthen our left side. Nick is one of the best penalty killers in the league and always manages to score 20 goals a year.&rdquo;Libett, 33, played more games (66) against Pittsburgh than any other player in the club&rsquo;s 12 years in the NHL.As the Penguins head into training, they may try to swing a deal to shore up their defense.&ldquo;Like I said before, we&rsquo;ve got six left wingers,&rdquo; said Schinkel. &ldquo;That gives us leverage elsewhere.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0012-03

Penguins’ Defense Gets Shot In Arm From Draft Picks

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE WARRINER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0013-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011229/5101917-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">New England Whalers were obviously pleased with the amount of talent they were able to obtain in the National Hockey League&rsquo;s expansion draft. Joining Whaler star Gordie Howe, far right, were centerman Jean Savard (Chicago), defenseman Al Sims (Boston), right winger Nick Fotiu, (Rangers) an exWhaler, and six-foot-five left winger Bill Bennett (Boston).</figcaption></div>HARTFORD&mdash;When the 1979-80 Hartford Whalers report to their new training site in Bolton, Connecticut, they&rsquo;ll be in for the most competitive camp in the team&rsquo;s eight-year history. The expected 45 candidates may even be augmented by a few of the standouts from a rookie camp&mdash;first in Whaler history.Coach Don Blackburn is enthusiastic about beginning his first full season behind the bench, and he pointed out that there is vouth un the middle too. Mike Rogers was expected to sign soon, and speedy Jean Savard&mdash;taken from Chicago in the expansion draft&mdash;is touted as having good potential.When an observer pointed out that the overall stature of the centermen was on the small side, coach Blackburn said, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right as long as you&rsquo;ve got tough wingers out there&hellip;You&rsquo;re going to see some big bodies out there compared to what you&rsquo;re used to seeing! &ldquo;Blackie plans to use Mark Howe back on defense and will shift him to forward &ldquo;only out of necessity. If you look at successful NHL teams, they all have a guy that can control the game back there&mdash;and score! Mark will score close to what he got last year&mdash;maybe more. He&rsquo;ll be on the ice every second shift instead of every third, and there&rsquo;s no way they can put a checker on him back there&hellip;&rdquo;With the Whalers&rsquo; young star back at the blue line, Blackie will be looking for a strong contribution from sophomore Jordy Douglas at left wing. Of course if Hartford finally signs Bobby Hull, scoring from the left side will be considerably enhanced. Others vying for a left wing spot are draftees: Nick Fotiu (Rangers), Steve Alley (Birmingham), Steve Shutt (Cincinnati), Bill Bennett (Bruins), and M. F. Schurman (Flyers). Tough sophomore Jeff Brubaker has been working hard during the off-season to sharpen his skills too.The right side is where the Whalers need bolstering. With John McKenzie retired, and Warren Miller reclaimed by the Rangers, the Whalers were left with only Blaine Stoughton and rookie Jim Warner. Picking up Bob Stephenson in the WHA dispersal draft (Birmingham) improved things a bit, but it wasn&rsquo;t until the entry draft that management began to smile a little.Picking 18th overall, the Whaler brain trust chose highly regarded Ray Allison of the Brandon Wheat Kings. &ldquo;If anybody had said earlier that he&rsquo;d be available I&rsquo;d have been surprised,&rdquo; said Jack Kelley. We were looking at Allison and (Duane) Sutter. We had rated Allison over Sutter so we were very pleased to get him. He can put the puck away, he skates his lane, and he&rsquo;s a dedicated kid. We needed someone like that on the right side and I&rsquo;m confident he&rsquo;ll make the team.&rdquo;In goal, the Whalers seemed set with returning veterans John Garrett and Al Smith being challenged by the Central Hockey League&rsquo;s leading netminder last year&mdash;Terry Richardson. &#9632;

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Hartford Boasts Most Competitive Camp Ever

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011282/5101976-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photos by Bernie Moser)</figcaption></div><h2>An Old Face Returns</h2>Flyers&rsquo; chairman of the board Ed Snider, right, welcomes Joe Watson back at recent press conference announcing changes in the hockey operation of the team. Looking on is executive vice-president Bob 3utera. Watson will be In charge of pre-scouting for his old NHL club. At right, Flyers&rsquo; star Bobby Clarke, who was named assistant coach to Pat Quinn, is shown talking over old times with Watson, who helped win two Stanley Cups. Watson&rsquo;s NHL playing career was ended last season by a serious leg injuy after he left Philadelphia to play for Colorado.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021009/5101969-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="1242" height="1792"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03707/5101962-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="564" height="1620"></div><h2>Helping Hand</h2>All Lesuk of the Winnipeg Jets rves at a barbeque during ub&rsquo;s recent Booster Club annu-picnic. Lesuk, one of the most pular Jets with the fans, will back with the new NHL team is season, ft will be second ne around on an expansion am for Lesuk, who did it first<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04502/5101955-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="1236" height="1661"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Jerry Hobbs)</figcaption></div><h2>Their Best Not Enough</h2>Former NHL super star Bobby Orr, left, and new Edmonton whiz kid Wayne Gretsky ended up on the same softball team during recent outing for the Ontario Society for Crippled Children. Both played for the NHL All Stars against the Molson Pro Stars, most of whom were members of the Toronto Leafs. The NHL team lost 11-10 despite the fact Orr was a hitting star and Gretzky contributed on the field in a losina cause<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-05352/5101948-1-eng-US/f0014-052.jpg" title="f0014-05" width="1245" height="1748"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Robert Shaver)</figcaption></div><h2>Two Heads Better Than One</h2>The new Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; brain trust take time out to plan for the club&rsquo;s first training camp under their direction. Head coach Scotty Bowman watches as assistant coach Roger Neilson works over the team&rsquo;s camp roster. Bowman will have four-man coaching staff this &#9632;

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HOCKEY PEOPLE

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div>BOSTON&mdash;Harry Sinden, wearing shirt sleeves and a broad grin, was obviously pleased.&lsquo;&lsquo;Our future on defense has turned around pretty good in the last two hours,&rdquo; chortled the general manager of the Boston Buins, whose aging defense certainly was in the market for a good turnaround.The Bruins, exercising the eighth (from Los Angeles) and 16th choices in the NHL&rsquo;s entry draft, had just selected Raymond Bourque, an underage defender from Verdun, and Brad McCrimmon, a blueliner from Brandon.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to say that either one of them will make the Bruins right away because I don&rsquo;t want to put pressure on them,&rdquo; said Sinden, but it was obvious from the way Sinden and chief scout Gary Darling talked there would be pressure on at least two of the Bruins&rsquo; veteran defensemen.&ldquo;They call Bourque a cross between a Doug Harvey and a Brad Park,&rdquo; said Darling in a burst of enthusiasm. &ldquo;Bourque will make the Bruins&mdash;if we can get him out of Verdun.&ldquo;At the moment we have only one defenseman under 30. That&rsquo;s Mike Milbury. All our defensemen have some time left on them but we have to plan for the future.&rdquo;Those with some time left on them include: Gary Doak 33, Rick Smith 31, Brad Park 31, Dennis O&rsquo;Brien 30, and Dick Redmond 30. The farm system boasts untried youngsters Graeme Nicolson, Brad Knelson, Joe Rando and Darryl Drader.Sinden&rsquo;s high hopes struck a snag almost immediately when Bourque&rsquo;s agent, Roderique Lemoyne, who also owns the Verdun Black Hawks, balked at signing away his protege right away.&ldquo;Ray is the best defenseman ever to come out of the Quebec League,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He is better than Robert Picard, and he is a second Bobby Orr. He is even bigger and stronger than Orr.&rdquo;That was agent Lemoyne speaking. Then he spoke as an owner.&ldquo;If the Bruins ever think they can take my property without compensating me for it, it will be war,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that would happen, but if it does I will keep Ray here with me and go to court in Quebec to challenge the NHL draft and make Ray a free agent so he can sign with anybody he wants.&rdquo;&ldquo;Salary is the only thing we&rsquo;re paying,&rdquo; retorted Sinden. &ldquo;If he demands compensation we just won&rsquo;t sign Bourque, that&rsquo;s all.Keep tuned.Sinden averted what could have been a thorny goaltending problem by signing Gilles Gilbert, the star of last spring&rsquo;s Stanley Cup semifinal thriller with Montreal, to a new two-year contract. Gilbert was a free agent, with compensation.&ldquo;I talked to a lot of teams but the compensation was pretty tough,&rdquo; said Gilbert. &ldquo;I got a lot of offers but they were afraid to negotiate. Maybe 10 teams offered me contracts but we were waiting for Harry to come up with the last word.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m part of the team now. I&rsquo;m happy about it.&rdquo;Gilbert played in only 48 games over the past two seasons as his blithe spirit moved him in and out of ex-coach Don Cherry&rsquo;s doghouse. It is reported that his new contract guarantees him a certain number of games.&ldquo;Sort of,&rdquo; says Gilbert.&ldquo;No way,&rdquo; says Sinden. &ldquo;The subject was never even a negotiation item. I don&rsquo;t know whether he&rsquo;ll play one game or 80. It all depends on how he plays.&rdquo;WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN: Bruins will report to their training camp at the Wallace Center in exurbanFitchburg on Sept. 16 with about 45 players on skates. The first exhibition game will be Sept. 21 against Philadelphia Flyers in Providence.Expected in camp are 29 contract pros (provided John Wensink and goalie Jim Pettie sign new contracts), eight to 10 free agents and five draft choices&mdash;Bourque, McCrimmon, Doug Morrison, Keith Crowder and goalie Marco Baron. Fourth and sixth round choices Larry Melnyk and Mike Krushelnyski will stay with their junior teams, New Westminster and Montreal respectively.Bruins will conduct a tryoutcamp for New England free agents for four or five days starting Sept. 10 at Twin Rinks in suburban Danvers. The best of them will be invited to Fitchburg.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011206/5102007-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="564" height="985"><figcaption class="caption-body">BRAD MCCRIMMON&hellip;Future Star</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0015-01

Bruins Insure Future Defense Corps With Addition Of Bourque, McCrimmon

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01952/5102052-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02768/5102045-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="1496" height="1756"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03591/5102038-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="1578" height="1890"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photos by Robert Share)</figcaption></div><h2>PROS FINDING VARIETY IN HOCKEY EQUIPMENT</h2>Modern day hockey manufacturers are making it easier for the players to select their own brand of hockey equipment. Today a player can choose what he feels comfortable with whether it be a stick, skates, a helmet, pants, pads or whatever.The hockey pros are a selective bunch and they tend to lean towards one special make of equipment. Others like a variety, like the three NHLers shown here on this page. At left, top Islanders&rsquo; scoring ace Mike Bossy shows off Titan stick that made him one of the NHL&rsquo;s leading goal scorers the past two seasons. He also wears a CCM helmet and KOHO gloves. On the right, top, Ulf Nilsson of the Rangers prefers a JOFA helmet, wears Cooper gloves and carries a KOHO stick. At left, bottom, big Larry Robinson of the Montreal Canadiens is at ease with his Victoriaville stick, Cooper gloves and Micron skates.The idea in showing these three top pros and the type of equipment they prefer, is simply to point out the variety and selection today&rsquo;s hockey player is afforded in pursuing his hockey trade. New discoveries are being made every day in the equipment industry, and while it would be impossible to chronicle all of them in the next 16 pages, we have compiled a survey which will give some idea of the recent developments in the areas of sticks, skates, general equipment and miscellaneous equipment. &#9632;

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EQUIPMENT SUPPLEMENT

f0018-01

Proper Fit Seen Vital When Purchasing Skates

TORONTO&mdash;Thinking of outfitting your youngster for the coming hockey season. Well there&rsquo;s good news and bad news. First the bad and that&rsquo;s in the area of prices. Like everything else, hockey equipment prices are on the rise this year, up 15 to 20 per cent compared to the year before. The price rise is brought about mainly by the increased price of leather, one of the main ingredients of some of the equipment.Now for the good news&mdash;and indeed there is a great deal of progress to report in the equipment field. First, manufacturers are beginning the widespread introduction of new, lightweight equipment. This is especially important for those just starting out in hockey, youngsters who are still developing and it is also being hailed by juniors and professional players who are always anxious for that little extra edge.Lighter shin pads, elbow pads, skate blades, etc. are one of the chief concerns of equipment manufacturers and also an important aspect of the redesign of equipment for younger players, especially novices.&ldquo;There is a great deal of attention being paid to designing equipment for those players below the junior level,&rdquo; said the manager of one of Toronto&rsquo;s most successful sporting good stores. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re now making sizes for minors. It used to be you had to get almost top of the line euipment that often wasn&rsquo;t made for the younger, smaller players. You&rsquo;d either have to get ill-fitting equipment or cheaper quality. But that&rsquo;s changed,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;Now you can get quality material that is properly constructed for your youngster,&rdquo; the manager continued, &ldquo;although the prices are up this year as compared to the past two or three years where the prices were relatively stable with just small increases each year.&rdquo;O.K. then let&rsquo;s get down to dollars and cents and the actual cost range of outfitting a youngster. We&rsquo;ll take age 12 as a representative age and present a head to toe assessment of the financial output. The following is an approximate price range of hockey equipment at a retail sporting goods store not taking into account special sales or discounts.&bull; Helmet with face mask&bull; Shoulder pads&mdash;$12 to $29&bull; Elbow pads&mdash;$5 to $20&bull; Jersey&mdash;$6 to $30&bull; Athletic supporter, cup, garter belt, suspenders, shin guard straps&mdash;$15&bull; Shin pads&mdash;$7 to $25&bull; Pants&mdash;$12 to $29&bull; Stockings&mdash;$4 to $6&bull; Skates&mdash;$19 to $90&bull; Stick&mdash;$3 to $15&bull; Equipment bag&mdash;$10 to $20That completes the list and totalling it we find that the minimum expenditure is $130 and the maximum is up to nearly $370. And that&rsquo;s relatively cheap if your son or daughter is considering becoming a goaltender where you have to tack on the additional costs of goaltender pads, catching and blocking gloves and chest protector. Each of these items are generally more expensive than any of the other items, including even the most expensive skates. If it sounds like too much to handle you can at least be assured that most of these items are quite resilient and durable and can generally be passed on to another up-and-coming player and several of them are adjustable, including many helmets and can be used for several years. &#9632;

Equipment Better But It’ll Cost You More

Negotiations have been completed between the Nestor Johnson Mfg. Company of St. Louis and the Bauer Division of Greb Industries for the purchase of the Planert Division of Bauer, it was announced by the Nestor Johnson president, Ken Connor.The Planert Division is the world&rsquo;s largest manufacturer of indoor racing ice skates and is the only one in Canada and the U.S.A. The blade-making equipment has been moved from Kitchener, Ontario, to Quebec City, Quebec, and the boots will be manufactured in the U.S.A. All of the skates will be assembled and warehoused at the Nestor Johnson facilities located in the Tree Court Industrial complex in St. Louis.The popularity of indoor speedskating is increasing due to the interest in the new short track type of ice skate racing. The availability of more ice rinks in the United States and Canada, due to the influx of many rinks being built because of the popularity of hockey, is helping the sport tremendously.Nestor Johnson plans to continue manufacturing basically the same models of skates that Planert has been making with some modifications and improvements on the blades. The Planert name will be retained on all models. Production has already begun and skates are available for immediate or fall delivery. &#9632;

Nestor Johnson Acquires Planert Skate Division

<div class="byline">BY LOIS KALCHMAN</div>The importance of wearing a helmet in a hockey game has been officially recognized.This summer the National Hockey League announced that their rookies will be required to wear helmets in* the forthcoming season. It is mandatory in both Canada and United States that minor league players wear helmets. The NHL announcement is an adjustment in thinking for the hockey establishment as Darryl Sittler, captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, recalls in the book, Safety On Ice, when he first wore a helmet back in 1970.&ldquo;Perhaps I imagined it but I felt I got vibes from management. Nobody said anything but I got the feeling they would prefer I not wear a helmet.&rdquo; Since a National Standard was set in Canada, 1975, all helmets sold for hockey in Canada must bear a Canadian Standard Association approval sticker. This, in fact means the helmet has passed rigid tests including the ability to absorb shock, the penetration of a stick through any openings and how the neck and chin straps stand up to releasing the helmet, etc. under certain circumstances.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Sittler Felt Vibes From Leafs When He First Put On Helmet</blockquote>At present there is no comparable body to the C.S.A. in United States. The Hockey Equipment Certification Coun cil is working to close that gap. Helmets are available in junior and senior sizes. There is no particular age level when one stops wearing a junior helmet or switches to a senior size. With the adjustments some adults can comfortably wear a small helmet. The adjustments are usually made with screws by moving overlapping sections to increase or decrease the size. Some helmets have linings with extra pieces available to make the helmet smaller.All in all, a properly fitted helmet does a remarkable job. However, there has been some breakage. I have seen helmets crack when hit by flying pucks. A Cooper commercial showed, in slow motion, the physical effect on the helmet of a puck hitting it. The distortion was phenomenal. They feel, if the helmet cracks and the youngster is not injured, the helmet has absorbed the shock and done its job.Parents and players have, in the past, drilled holes into the helmet to affix the facemasks. This created a weak point (s) making the helmet more vulnerable. Helmets are now manufactured with holes molded into the shell eliminating the need to drill providingpopular products used in manufacturing helmets are polyethlene and polycarbonate with ProTec using Zytel from Dupont.Instead of trying to sort out which manufacturer uses which material there are basic rules to follow: Do not paint your helmet. Do not use glues, cleaning fluids or acid based chemicals.The helmet is a vital piece of equipment so make sure it fits correctly and is adjusted so it does not slide around. The youngest child will need extra strips to insert even in the junior models. Ask the retailer at the store. He should have them available<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01555/5102246-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="568" height="654"><figcaption class="caption-body">DARRYL SUTLER</figcaption></div><h2>Comprehensive Analysis Of Skate Products</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02358/5102239-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="2452" height="3237"></div><h2>JOHN BROWN</h2>For the coming season John Brown Custom Sporting Equipment Ltd. has added to its line of custom-made goalie equipment a new catch glove.The new glove differs from previous Brown catch gloves in that its construction is a combination of foam and plastic. The outer cover on the cuff and back hand is covered in nylon. The impact areas of the palm and frontal cuff are covered with leather. The foam and plastic combination plus the nylon make the Brown catch glove the lightest on the market, yet still offers superior protection and durability. This glove is now being worn by several big league goaltenders.The Brown line of custom-made goalie equipment now includes pants, leg pads, face masks, catch gloves, blocking gloves, chest and arm protectors. The same equipment worn by over 60 professionals is available to goaltenders of every level by phoning or writing direct to John Brown Custom Sporting Equipment Ltd., P. O. Box 69, Collingwood, Ontario, L9Y 3Z4, 1-705-4457133.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01562/5102232-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="576" height="574"><figcaption class="caption-body">Here are two views of Brown&rsquo;s new goaling catch glove.</figcaption></div><h2>BONI</h2>From the manufacturers of Boni Goalie Trainers comes another innovation designed to mechanically improve the skating players in hockey. The &ldquo;Boni Face-Off Trainer&rdquo; is similar in durability and performance to the Goalie Trainer machines.The intended use of this training unit is to simulate a face off situation. Two players take their usual &ldquo;face off&rdquo; position and on command the machine drops pucks, as a referee would, from a distance of about four feet. A fully loaded machine will hold 48 pucks, which can be timed to automatically drop pucks at intervals of one second, two seconds, three seconds, etc.&ldquo;All interested parties kindly write or call Orlando Boni at his new location in Toronto: Boni Sports Specialties, 558 Scarlett Road, Weston, Ontario, M9P 2S2, or phone (416) 241-0030.<h2>CANADIEN</h2><h3>Gloves</h3>HG 92: The traditional European style of glove. The of specially treated leather for extra flexibility and wear. The pre-curved fingers and back rolls are foam filled for lightness.<h3>Shin Guards</h3>SG 90: This Custom Pro shin guard is of conventional design but unconventional construction. Ultra light-weight, it offers complete protection without excess weight.It is made of high density moulded plastic with high impact absorbing foam padding.<h3>Elbow Pads</h3>EP 96: This Custom Pro elbow pad is a pre-shaped model of white, urethane coated nylon. It boasts a covered elongated elbow pad.<h2>COOPER</h2>Cooper Canada Limited, Toronto has introduced a new series of hockey shinguards and shoulder pads. The new pads are an extension of the XL series&rsquo; of equipment which began last year with the introduction of the highly successful XL-1 hockey glove.The XL-2 shin guard is designed to protect the vulnerable spots below and beside the knee. Constructed of high impact polyethlene, the pad incorporates a unique floatinging of the XL-2 is of heat-molded Plastafoam, covered with antiscuff nylon. The Plasta-foan cushion is molded to provide an extremely shock-absorbent pad with special channels through which air can circulate. This reduces heat buildup and allows sweat to dry quickly.The XL-3 shoulder pad takes advantage of light weight construction to extend its range of protection. Covering the front of the chest as well as the back, the pad wraps around to cover the ribs under the arms and also extends further down over the biceps than most conventional pads. A separate stomach pad can be added for defencemen to create complete frontal protection right down to the pants. As with the XL-2, the XL-3 is molded from Plastafoam with built-in air channels to keep the wearer from overheating and allows sweat to evaporate without being absorbed into the padding.These new pads are designed to take advantage of the versatility of heat molded Plastafoam. This construction method allows for improved fit with built-in cooling channels. Covered with Lycra nylon, the new pads are extra tough, comfortable to wear and completely washable.<h2>Comprehensive Look At Helmets And Masks</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02395/5102225-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="2515" height="2196"></div><h2>JOFA</h2>While probably best known in North America as &ldquo;the Swedish car company&rdquo;, Volvo has also acquired an enthusiastic following for its high quality sports equipment that now includes both the Jofa and Lange lines.Volvo of America Corporation created its recreational products division in 1974 to market Jofa ice hockey equipment and wood-core cross country skis and accessories in the United States and Canada. Although Jofa has been a household word among serious hockey players and skiers in Europe for over 50 years, Jofa products had not previously been distributed widely in North America. Jofa is now distributing Lange equipment in the United States.Keeping pace with current consumer tastes in winter sports, the recreational products division of Volvo of America also markets the Dynamic selection of Alpine skis and foam-core Nordic skis, and Koflach Alpine ski boots. Dynamic is the performance and recreational ski made famous by Jean Claude Killy and used by the winners of 37 world championship and Olympic medals as well as four world cup races. Koflach ski boots from Austria are well known for technical performance and* comfort by both competitive and recreational skiers. Jofa&rsquo;s complete line of Nordic racing, training and touring skis is supplemented with cross country boots, bindings and poles.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01483/5102218-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="1164" height="1158"><figcaption class="caption-body">Volvo of America has signed an agreement with Lange to distribute their skate line in the U.S. and here is a panoramic view of the products they offer both in the Jofa and Lange lines, including Jofa&rsquo;s goaling pad, glove, shin guard and helmet.</figcaption></div>The top professional offroad motorcycle riders in North America are among those who use Jofa&rsquo;s protective equipment designed for this rough, fast sport. Helmets, shoulder/chest pads, elbow and shin pads and face guards are essential equipment for motocross, enduro, desert and trail riding.&ldquo;Our products are recognized as leaders in the field,&rdquo; says Jerry Depot, general manager of the Recreational Products Division. &ldquo;They emphasize the quality and safety orientation of Volvo&rsquo;s overall product philosophy.&rdquo;Volvo of America Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of AB Volvo, Gothenburg, Sweden, selling cars, marine engines, hydraulic pumps and motors and recreational products in North America.Jofa hockey gear is perhaps the best known of the wide range of sports equipment marketed by Volvo and sold through more than 750 pro shops and sporting goods retail stores in North America.There is much to be said about the JOFA line. It is spectacular and diversified.First, the wide range JOFA gloves.Here is where difference counts! JOFA all-leather hockey gloves are unique in construction. They provide superior protection&hellip;yet are amazingly light-weight. And the supple horsehide palm allows highly sensitive stick feel.Unlike other gloves, the JOFA models are pre-shaped for quick, easy break-in. Jofa gloves have double-stitched, reinforced palms and thumbs, padded with foam. Lightweight, well ventilated, comfortable, and long-wearing.The Professional. JOFA&rsquo;s finest all leather glove. Supple horsehide, with grip-formed, double stitched palms for excellent flexibility and sensitive stick control. Reinforced thumb protected by a 3 section nvlon shell &frac34;&rdquo; thick durable foam padding protects fingers&hellip;five back rolls and two additional inserts protect the hand and hold the glove shape. 14&rdquo; length, extra padded, ribbed cuff protects the forearm. Water and perspiration resistant. Colors: red/white/blue, red/white, blue/white, black/white/red, black/white, blue/orange, blue/gold, green-/gold/white.The National. Ultra-lightweight glove for the junior player. Excellent flexibility&hellip;with the looks and style of the senior models. Horsehide palm, vinyl-covered cuff, nylon-covered back rolls, Length: 12&rdquo;. Colors: red/white/blue, red/white, blue/white, black/white.The Champion. For intermediate players, the Champion has all the protective features of the Professional&hellip;looks, flexibility and feel. Horsehide palm, nylon covered back-rolls and cuff. Overall length: 13&frac12;&rdquo;. Colors: red/white, blue/white, red/white/blue, black/white, blue/gold.The JOFA Cage, Sr. Model. This is the most advanced full face mask available. Designed and approved to meet the standards of AHAUS, Canadian Standards Association, and the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation. The JOFA cage gives protection from blows from front or side. The highly tempered Swedish spring steel has a tensile strength of 350 thousand psi. Heliarc welded by a special process.The JOFA cage mask is designed to permit unobstructed visibility while covering the entire face of the player. The upper part is bolted to the helmet: the selection of one of three adjusting holes permits fitting to the player&rsquo;s face. A foam-padded cup protects the chin. A tab, through which the helmet strap is passed, holds the mask securely against the chin.The Custom Pro shin guard. It is trim and contoured to the knee and leg, with strong, molded polyethylene shin and knee guards designed to deflect blows&hellip;with extrathick, extended layers of &ldquo;hockey cell&rdquo; at vital points for added protection.The knee is cushioned with three layers of &ldquo;hockey cell&rdquo;&hellip;one especially designed to shape itself around the kneecap&hellip;under the rigid, molded, vinyl-covered polyethylene knee guard.The JOFA helmets are rugged with lightweight protection. Tough enough to take the hardest knocks and jolts of the game. Good looking and comfortable.JOFA&rsquo;s advanced shell construction is based on scientific principles of impact distribution and absorption. The unique one-piece design permits precise adjustment for the most comfortable fit&hellip;the helmet that fits well protects better. Two screws control the size adjustment. One size fits all.And lastly, JOFA is proudcal equipment manufactured by Bourdon for years&mdash;the same high quality, hand-crafted workmanship that has never faltered. JOFA/Bourdon represents workmanship, easy break-in and durability.The Custom Pro Leg Pads. Hand-crafted of top-grain cowhide. The front rolls are filled with a selected Kapok for reduced weight and minimum rebounds, while back rolls and sides are shaped for easy flex with special synthetic materials providing added protection and weight reduction.Instep is leather reinforced and lined. All Custom Pro leg protectors are hand sewn.Pro Body Pads. Complete chest, shoulder and arm protection. Features include quilted front panel design for easy flex and comfort. Front panel consists of polyethylene slats covered with reinforced nylon, and plates backed with synthetic material and padded with closed cell plastic fiber for resiliency and added protection. Shoulder nylon caps for joint protection with bicep and forearm protection asdesigned for front panel. Added elbow and interior forearm protection. Extra wide elastic straps and nylon lacing adjustable in eight locations. Wide, deep cut neck measuring 18&rdquo; to front panel base with wrap-around protective wings. Fully adjustable sizes 34-46.The new Goalie Catch Mitt. Professional model goalie mitt trapper is made of &ldquo;heart of hide&rdquo; leather. Double-ply leather trap that extends into toe and thumb is secured with nylon lacing. Specially designed trap is nylon-stitchedfor extra strength. Mitt has closed back of lace leather, with reinforced back-of-hand opening cover. Pro Flex breaking palm, with a polyethylene insert sandwiched between wool felt padding. Nylon stitching throughout. Extra polyethylene stiffness in thumb for added protection. Back of glove padded to protect knuckles and fingers. Built-in thumb and finger loops, adjustable for better fit. Cuff especially constructed with high-impact polyethylene insert, foam-padded for better protection. &#9632;

f0027-01

Helmet Rule Spreading In Hockey

As you can see by this supplement there is a great deal of equipment at the disposal of today&rsquo;s hockey players, equipment designed for protection and comfort and made to be as lightweight as possible.However, there&rsquo;s one area of an athlete&rsquo;s body which has been sadly neglected for the most part and that&rsquo;s the vital throat and neck region.Statistics indicate that in the Ontario Hockey Association in the 15-21 age group over a three-year period there were 542 injuries to the players of which 149 were lacerations. And of the total number of lacerations, 96 percent were in the head and neck area and 68 percent of these were caused by contact with a hockey stick.Over the period from 1974 to 1978 seven players in the United States or Canada were killed or seriously injured from cuts or severe blows to the neck area. What&rsquo;s more, no less than four players on the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League have suffered major laryngeal trauma during the last 10 seasons.Happily, improvements are being made in the total protection of the players and the Kim Couch Collar is one important step in the area of throat and neck safety.This patented protective device is worn by numerous professionals including three goaltenders in the National Hockey League ranks, Denis Herron and Greg Millen of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Rick St. Croix of the Philadelphia Flyers.The collar was developed to protect hockey players of all positions from severe cuts and bruises to the throat and neck area and has saved numerous players from serious injuries over the past few years.The Kim Crouch Collar is made of Dupont Kevlar 29 Ballistic Nylon material which prevents cuts. It also contains Ensolite foam material which is used for shock absorption and protection against blows from pucks, sticks, etc.The Crouch Collar is available in two sizes&mdash;for youngsters in the six to 11 age range and in a senior model. &#9632;

New Crouch Collar Saves On Injuries

<div class="byline">BY LOIS KALCHMAN</div>Full facial protection is mandatory in minor hockey in both the United States and Canada by the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States (AHAUS) and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) rules.There have been no legally blinded eyes in minor players (under 19), in Canada, since the end of the 1976-77 hockey season. &ldquo;Any serious eye injuries sustained have been to players without masks,&rdquo; comments Dr. Tom Pashby, a Toronto ophthalmologist, and chairman of the Canadian Standards Association Committee who have set the facial protector standards for ice hockey and box lacrosse.Buying the proper facemask is not too difficult. It is easiest to attach a facemask to a helmet of the same manufacturer. Some producers have their facemasks in both junior and senior sizes while others offer a universal size. Do not let a retailer sell you a mask just &ldquo;because it comes with the helmet&rdquo; unless it is universal size for that specific helmet. The junior and senior masks are generally interchangeable within their own product range. It is NOT uncommon to have a full grown man wear a senior helmet with a junior facemask attached to achieve the optimum fit required in the chin area.Some facemasks seem to dip or bow outwardly more than others at the nose area. Here, again personal fit is important.Although there is no claim that full facial protection will eliminate all dental or eye injuries, statistics do prove its effectiveness. With the polycarbonate masks, fogging was always a problem but Cooper now coats their combination Lexan/cage with Hydron, which is supposed to prevent fogging.This year many facemasks will bear the CSA sticker as the national standard was set at the beginning of 1979. The sticker means the face mask can pass the stringent tests set out by the CSA committee, i.e. penetration, deflection, toughness and movement. They must lift up or away from the face in case of injury. In Canada, the penetration test allows for only a two inch opening in any facemask as the minimum legal measurement for a stick blade is two inches. However, this does not apply to face masks manufactured in the United States for their consumption at this time.As many competitive minor clubs supply facemasks and helmets, as a unit, with their equipment issue to players, it is up to the parents to check the fit and perhaps buy or exchange small for large or whatever is necessary.In order to become accustomed to a new wire facemask, wear it while watching television or doing anything familiar. Gradually the consciousness of the lines will disappear.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01527/5102301-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="998" height="1004"><figcaption class="caption-body">Here is mask that provides full facial protection.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Full Facemasks Mandatory In Canada, U.S. Hockey

<div class="byline">Bill Fleischman&#x2019;s</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01541/5102332-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="348" height="502"></div><h2>Devilish Ferguson</h2>THE SCENE was worth treasuring.The National Hockey League and World Hockey Association, after years of red ink and red necks, were finally together. The occasion was the NHL &ldquo;expansion draft&rdquo; and there in the grand ballroom of Montreal&rsquo;s Queen Elizabeth Hotel were cards marking tables for teams such as the New York Islanders, Boston Bruins, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets.Shortly after the draft began, John Ferguson announced loud enough for people to hear as far away as Chicago, &ldquo;Winnipeg claims Robert Marvin Hull&rdquo;.Ah, you devil, Fergy. Before Hull became the first NHL star to accept millions from the WHA, the Black Hawks insisted their &ldquo;Golden Jet&rdquo; wouldn&rsquo;t desert them. But, in a wise business decision even the Wirtz family should have admired, Hull did scurry north of the border.Prior to the expansion draft, with Hull insisting he wouldn&rsquo;t abandon retirement to resume playing in Winnipeg, the Black Hawks never thought Winnipeg would claim Hull again and left him unprotected. Zap! Fergy struck and wound up trading Hull to the Hartford Whalers.<h2>Call Never Came</h2>FERGUSON WILL TELL you the reason he socked it to the Black Hawks was they reneged on a deal to send players to Winnipeg as compensation for Hull. After he selected Hull in June, Ferguson said weeks drifted by without a call from the Black Hawks.&ldquo;And I don&rsquo;t plan to call them,&rdquo; he said mischievously.If readers get the impression I&rsquo;m happy to see John Ferguson working again in the NHL, you&rsquo;re as attentive as I&rsquo;ve always thought you were. Fergy is one of hockey&rsquo;s quality people, a man who won the respect of his opponents when he played for Montreal, and a man whose old-fashioned values won respect from almost everyone when he was summoned to resurrect the New York Rangers.Among the few who didn&rsquo;t respect Ferguson were Rangers&rsquo; management, whose shabby handling of his dismissal to make room for Fred Shero is a development people of good breeding would be ashamed of. With Rangers&rsquo; executives assuring Fergy his job wasn&rsquo;t in jeopardy, the man who injected life into the Rangers&mdash;not to mention Ulf Nilsson and Anders Hedberg&mdash;had to call Keith Allen in Philadelphia to discover he should start humming &ldquo;Give my regards to Broadway&rdquo;.Fergy isn&rsquo;t known as a vindictive man, but when his Rangers&rsquo; association is recalled, the old fire lights up his eyes and he says, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like nothing better than go back into the Garden and stick it to them.&rdquo;He declines much discussion of the Rangers&rsquo; success in Shero&rsquo;s first season, preferring to merely say, &ldquo;Give them credit: they did well with their personnel.&rdquo; What he doesn&rsquo;t add is, most of the Rangers personnel was provided by his judgment and Gulf and Western money.<h2>Obligation To Jets</h2>DURING THE expansion draft, there was serious talk about Ferguson succeeding Scotty Bowman in Montreal. In his candid style, Fergy said, &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s face it: I&rsquo;d love to do it. But I have an obligation here (Winnipeg). I brought people with me and I&rsquo;d like to build something here. So I told them (Montreal) &lsquo;no&rsquo;.&rdquo;Montreal&rsquo;s loss is Winnipeg&rsquo;s gain. While the Jets won&rsquo;t be winning any Stanley Cups for a few years, they&rsquo;ll be a team worth watching. Adjusting to the loss of leading scorer Kent Nilsson (to Atlanta) and Terry Ruskowski and Rich Preston (to Chicago) will be difficult, but Ferguson has added talent in Peter Marsh and workers such as Mark Heaslip, Dave Hoyda and top draft pick Jimmy Mann. Hoyda is a team-oriented hitter whose raw hockey skills were futher stifled by inactivity in Philadelphia.&ldquo;I watched Hoyda a lot in Maine before the Flyers brought him up,&rdquo; Fergy said. &ldquo;He terrorized our (Rangers&rsquo;) New Haven club one year and he kept a few guys honest in the National League, too.&rdquo;Fergy is clearly enthusiastic about the new season. &ldquo;My eyes were opened by the calibre of play in the WHA,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The National League hasn&rsquo;t seen players like Ruskowski Kent Nilsson. Lukowich, the young Gretzky.&rdquo; The &#9632;

f0034-01

HOCKEY WORLD

<div class="byline">BY PAT THOMPSON</div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;The National Hockey League draft last month wasn&rsquo;t through the first round when former goaltending great Gump Worsley delivered one of his rib-splitting one-liners.I&rsquo;m going to make a comeback&hellip;in a rocking chair,&rdquo; explained the Gumper, now a talent scout for the Minnesota North Stars.Worsley, and the rest of the Minnesota organization, is ecstatic about the defense of the Minnesota North Stars heading into the 197980 NHL season, for a number of very sound reasons.&bull; The acquisition of Bill Nyrop from the Montreal Canadiens for a second-round choice in last month&rsquo;s draft and a second-rounder next season.&bull; The addition of WHA All Star Paul Shmyr from Edmonton in reclaiming terms of the NHL-WHA merger agreement.&bull; The drafting of Craig Hartsburg, who turned pro a year early and spent the season with Birmingham of the WHA.Simply put, the North Stars will have the best defense in its 13-year history.No wonder Gump wants to come back. Gilles Meloche and Gary Edwards are going to love the combinations which coach Glen Sonmor will have available to him this season.Just add those names above to the likes of Gary Sargent, Brad Maxwell, Greg Smith, Fred Barrett and others. No wonder the Stars are beaming. Their goals-against, always a sore spot, looks like it&rsquo;s in for a big reduction.&ldquo;I feel that we now have as much depth defensively as any team in the league,&rdquo; declared general manager Lou Nanne. &ldquo;Overall, we came out of the draft with everything we wanted. I feel we had as good a draft as any team in the league.&rdquo;Nyrop is the 27-year-old defenseman who grew up in Minnesota, went to Notre Dame and played on three Montreal Stanley Cup championship teams before retiring last season to start out in the insurance business. Now that he&rsquo;s gotten that start, Nanne is convinced he will be in a Minnesota uniform this month. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t have made the deal if I didn&rsquo;t think we could sign him,&rdquo; said Nanne.Hartsburg (6-1, 190) abandoned his junior career at Sault Ste. Marie as a 19-year-old last season, and wound up with nine goals and 40 assists and 73 penalty minutes. One scout described him as another Serge Savard.The native of Stratford, Ont., was the sixth player taken in the first round, but the North Stars thought he would be gone by the time their turn came to draft. &ldquo;We actually had Craig pegged as the best player available in the draft because of his year of pro experience,&rdquo; said Nanne. &ldquo;If we had been able to trade our No. 6 position in the draft to Colorado for the No. 1, we would have taken Craig first anyway.&rdquo;The North Stars also had the No. 10 pick in the first round, in payment from Washington in the Dennis Maruk deal, and they selected 19-year-old left winger Tom McCarthy, a 6-2, 200-pound who scored 144 points with 98 penalty minutes for Oshawa in the Ontario Major Junior League last season.&ldquo;We need scoring punch and he could give it to us,&rdquo; said Sonmor. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s described as an excellent skater and a magician with the Oilers left winger Dave Semenko, so that they could draft University of Minnesota star center Neal Broten, who is playing on the U.S. Olympic team. Center Kevin Maxwell, a center for North Dakota who is on the Canadian Olympic team, was another later draft. Minnesota&rsquo;s other two draft choices were wingers Jim Dobson from Portland of the Western Juniors and Brian Gualazzi of Sault Ste. Marie.STAR DUST: The Stars will be in camp this month less than a week before opening their 11-game exhibition schedule against Atlanta. One of the exhibitions is scheduled against the U.S. Olympic team. Two other members of that team are North Star draft choices of previous years, winger Phil Verchota and center Steve Christoff. Nanne announced the signings of forwards Kris Manery and Mike Polich.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02423/5102363-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="549" height="766"><figcaption class="caption-body">PAUL SHMYR&hellip;Veteran Rearguard</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Deepest North Star Defense Key To Squad’s Improvement

<div class="byline">BY AL SMITH</div>ATLANTA&mdash;Summertime and the living is easy&hellip;or so it used to be.Come July or August many National Hockey League team offices closed and it wasn&rsquo;t business as usual. But this wasn&rsquo;t so in the case of the Atlanta Flames this summer.The summer of &lsquo;79 has been the busiest in the history of the franchise and come September they should have the most interesting and competitive camp ever.General manager Cliff Fletcher and his assistant David Poile, had their work cut out for them by taking on a minor league franchise in the Central Hockey league. The Flames want to staff the team with players under contract with the Flames as they do not want to look for outside help.&ldquo;We may have to borrow some players,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;But we don&rsquo;t want to.&rdquo;The task of stocking a minor league team in Birmingham was made even more difficult after the expansion draft cost the Flames three players from their already depleted ranks.When the new NHL teams had finished, the Flames had only two goalies, five defensemen and 13 wingers in the organization.&ldquo;We need depth at every position,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to get caught short like last year. If we have an injury we want to be able to call Birmingham and have a player with NHL experience to fill his place.&rdquo;Thus, these have been busy times.The Flames first move after signing a new coach, Al MacNeil, was to reclaim Kent Nilsson from the Winnipeg Jets. This done, Fletcher and Poile literally scoured the world for possible depth in the organization.Pekka Rautakallio, a Finnish defenseman with two years ofFlames first acquisition. The Finnish blue-liner is considered the best in Europe and plays in the style of Stefan Persson of the New York Islanders.Next, the Flames signed three ex-Birmingham Bulls, winger Dave Gorman, center Rick Adduono and defenseman Serge Beaudoin.&ldquo;We were very pleased to sign these three players,&rdquo; Fletcher said. &ldquo;They will add some much needed depth to our organization and possibly create some interesting, competitive situations in training camp.&rdquo;Next came the re-entry draft and the Flames picked seven players&mdash;five of whom are considered underage and would not have been eligible for the draft this season.&ldquo;For the first time in the history of the franchise we can draft some young players and not put pressure on them by putting them right into the NHL,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;We drafted with the future in mind. With our recent acquisitions we can take a &ldquo;wait and see&rdquo; attitude. We haven&rsquo;t been able to do this in the past.&rdquo;Paul Reinhart, a center-defenseman, was the Flames&rsquo; first round pick and Fletcher was happy to get him. The Flames picked 12th in the first round and Reinhart was ranked in their top 11. Fletcher expected Buffalo to select Reinhart, but when the Sabres took University of Minnesota defenseman Mike Ramsey, the Flames didn&rsquo;t hesitate in taking Reinhart, even though Brian Propp, a scoring machine for the Brandon Wheat Kings, was available.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to pass up a 94-goal scorer,&rdquo; Fletcher said. &ldquo;But Reinhart was ranked high by our scouts. If he or one of our other top ranked players wasn&rsquo;t available we would have taken Propp.&rdquo;In an effort to shore up their depleted defensive corps, the Flames took a defenseman and a goalie in the second round. They took defenseman Mike Perovich on the 22nd choice &#9632;

Bulging Roster Goal Of Flames’ Busy Off-Season

<div class="byline">BY BUDDY O&#x2019;CONNOR</div>QUEBEC CITY&mdash;&ldquo;Several players on the Nordiques club this year will find it very, very difficult to prove themselves in the National Hockey League.&rdquo;This is no idle statement. It comes from Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; coach Jacques Demers, the affable leader of what is termed &ldquo;the best ever expansion club&rdquo; to enter NHL ranks.Coach Demers, in a Hockey News interview, said &ldquo;we will bust our necks to make the playoffs, but you have to be realistic and face hard fact.&rdquo;As for the players concerned, he would not name names. However, he continued, &ldquo;pros such as Real (Buddy) Cloutier, newly acquired Robbie Ftorek and defenseman Gary Lariviere will have no problem adjusting. They are great and will be even better this year against NHL competition.&ldquo;Naturally&rdquo;, he added, &ldquo;Marc (Tardif) and big Serge (Bernier) are former NHL boys and they will be in their own element again this year.&rdquo;At 34, the youngest head coach in the NHL, Demers has already undergone terrific pressure in the defunct World Hockey Association. Demers spent three years as coach of Chicago, moved to Indianapolis for two years and headed Cincinnati for one before coming to the Nordiques last year. The constant moving was due to a sell-off of his best players.A candid man with a definitive opinion, Cloutier concluded, &ldquo;what a challenge it will be with us in the NHL this year.&rdquo;General manager and director of player personnel, the astute Maurice Filion concurred fully with his coach. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going for a playoff spot, and believe me, the Nordiques will work up the ladder from there.&rdquo;The ever-exciting New York Islanders will highlight Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; exhibition season here at the Quebec Coliseum with an appearance Wednesday, October 3.The Islanders game is one of seven exhibitions scheduled by the Nordiques&rsquo; four at home and three away.Following is the exhibition schedule: Sept. 26: Minnesota at Quebec, Sept. 29: Colorado at Quebec, Oct. 2: Quebec vs Pittsburgh at Syracuse, Oct. 3: NY Islanders at Quebec, Oct. 5: Detroit at Quebec, Oct. 6: Quebec at Detroit, Oct. 7: Quebec vs Hartford at Springfield.From this viewpoint, an early sighting on two top Nordiques&rsquo; lines would be the 7-8-9 combination with Ftorek (7) as center, Tardif (8) and Cloutier (9) as wingmen. These three, as would have it, carried these sweater numbers in the WHA.A second trio could he Serge Bernier with newcomer Jamie Hislop and second year man Richard David, who only played the first part of the season last year and then came up injured for the balance.SKATE MARKS: Quebec Nordiques will have over 55 candidates at training camp which starts here on Sept. 17 at the Pavilion de la Jeunesse&hellip;The Pavilion will be the site of training because of the major repairs now underway at the Quebec Coliseum, home of the Nordiques&hellip;Coach Jacques Demers says this is over double the number he started with last season&hellip;He will be looking at 11 centermen in comparison to four, 16 defensemen as against six in 1978 and about 25 to 30 wingmen&hellip;Goalies, well that&rsquo;s a club problem at the moment.Nordiques&rsquo; president Marcel Aubut will announce shortly that the club will be carried on a much greater number of TV appearances than the four highlight games, Canadiens versus Nordiques, scheduled by the CBC&hellip;Summer sales of some 10,000 season tickets means that the Coliseum will carry a &ldquo;Sold Out&rdquo; card for every game&hellip;Because of repairs, top crowd for any game this year will be 11,500. In 1980, seating capacity will be 5,040.Quebec area hockey fans include hundreds whose hearts have always been with the Montreal Canadiens. Here&rsquo;s an early season &ldquo;quickie&rdquo; survey: Two dedicated Montreal Canadiens fans, Sainte-Foy resident Jacques Labrecque, and Beauport resident Jean-Pierre Elsliger, both wonder whether the Nordiques will even come close to a playoff spot. Their most optimistic outlook is 15th overall at the very best.Jean-Marc Thibault, father of 21-year-old Pierre who could become a future NHL&rsquo;er, stated &ldquo;Nordiques will finish about halfwav overall because of a better defensive unit plus more firepower.&rdquo; Thibault has been a Nordiques season ticket holder for five of the seven years&rsquo; WHA experience and is emphatic on his point.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01512/5102418-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="570" height="1242"><figcaption class="caption-body">SERGE BERNIER&hellip;Back In NHL</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0035-01

Demers Welcomes Nordiques’Challenge

<div class="byline">By TONY GALLAGHER</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaVANCOUVER&mdash;Vancouver Canucks are hoping to score around 75 more goals this year than last NHL season.And the way coach Harry Neal figures it, the expectation doesn&rsquo;t seem too unreasonable.For starters, there will be right winger Rick Vaive in the lineup, assuming all has gone well with his agent Bill Watters. It&rsquo;s going to cost the Canucks to land their first round draft pick, but they have the money and the necessity of gaining some help on the right wing.Vaive is the abrasive type of forward Neale has been looking for since he took the job in Vancouver, and 248 penalty minutes plus the fact that he led the Bulls in scoring last year should be sufficient credentials to land him a job and provide some of those goals.There is further cause for optimism in the scoring department because of the return of center Bill Derlago.The man who set all those scoring marks in the Western Canada League two years ago played only eight games last year for the team which needed him so desperately. But this year he&rsquo;ll be back and a goal of 25 goals seems quite modest for someone of his talents.If it were not for the hip check of Denis Potvin last season Derlago could well have battled the likes of Bobby Smith for the rookie-of-the-year award. If&rsquo;s however, have yet to show up in a scoring summary.There is one other major cause for offensive hope in the form of right winger Rick Blight, who with all his struggles managed only five goals last season. A cripple with the shot he possesses could get that many goals, and the former Brandon Wheat King is determined to bounce back from the early knee injury he had last year and make good on another 20-goal season.Blight spent a lot of time in the Central League last year after he recovered from a stretched cartilage in training camp and then never really hit top form until the two playoff games in which he looked impressive.If Blight bounces back and gets 25 goals, Neale has 20 more in the bag.&ldquo;I still maintain that I would never have had such a bad season if I hadn&rsquo;t been hurt in training camp,&rdquo; said Blight. &ldquo;But I got discouraged and then made the mistake of going to the media with my problems.&rdquo;Blight is determined to be at this year&rsquo;s training camp venue of Powell River B.C. in top form with his weight right where he wants it, and that should keep everyone happy. He was skating as well as he ever has during the playoffs, with Canuck brass hoping he picks up where he left off.The club also needs help on the blueline and may be in the market for a defenseman. But then, who isn&rsquo;t. They were strongly considering taking Portland Winter Hawks&rsquo; underage star Keith Brown in place of Vaive, but decided against it.&ldquo;We agonized a long while over that one,&rdquo; said chief scout Jack MacDonald. &ldquo;We knew he was going to go high and is going to be a good one but we had to have someone who could step right in and help us now.&rdquo; &#9632;

Canucks Spurn Defense For Rugged Wing Vaive

<div class="byline">BY DONALD BERNS</div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;The St. Louis Blues start training camp with their second straight No. 1 draft choice from the Portland Winter Hawks.Last year the Blues took Portland&rsquo;s Wayne Babych, the third player taken in the National Hockey League draft. This year the Blues had the second choice behind Colorado and took left wing Perry Turnbull.Babych, a right wing, fulfilled the Blues&rsquo; expectations by setting team scoring records for rookies with 27 goals and 36 assists for 63 points despite missing several weeks with a broken ankle. Babych was spectacular on a line with center Bernie Federko, the team&rsquo;s leading scorer, and left wing Brian Sutter, the team&rsquo;s leading goal scorer.The Blues are hoping Turnbull will be equally spectacular in his rookie season. Babych, who played with Turnbull in Portland, gave a solid endorsement of his former and future teammate when he said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s aggressive and he&rsquo;s tough and he can fly like the wind.&rdquo;Turnbull last season had 75 goals and 43 assists in 70 games with the Winter Hawks. The goal total broke a Portland record held by another St. Louis player, Tony Currie.Although Turnbull played left wing virtually all of last season, he previously had experience at center. St. Louis general manager Emile Francis said Turnbull&rsquo;s position with the Blues could be determined by the pace set by Chuck Lefley, making a comeback with the Blues after two seasons away from the NHL.The Blues&rsquo; pick in the second round went to Atlanta as part of the deal that brought Curt Bennett, Barry Gibbs and Phil Myre to the Blues. All three now are with otherIn the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds the Blues took right wing Bob Crawford of Cornwall, right wing Mark Reeds of Peterborough and Verdun&rsquo;s Gilles Luduc, a converted defenseman who played left wing last season.&ldquo;All our picks were made with speed and aggressiveness in mind,&rdquo; Francis said.The Blues ended last season with the need for defensive help but ignored defensemen in the draft because of trades made since the end of the season.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve added three excellent defensemen in Rick LaPointe, Bryan Maxwell and Joe Micheletti,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;Had we drafted in May, our priority probably would have been a defenseman. But with the defensemen we&rsquo;ve acquired, we moved up front.&rdquo;Micheletti was obtained by the Blues the day before the draft from the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for defenseman Risto Siltanen and center Tom Roulston. Siltanen, drafted by the Blues a year ago, was brought from Finland by the Oilers in the second half of last season and reclaimed by the Blues after being left unprotected by Edmonton. Roulston, drafted by the Blues two years ago, was languishing in the minor leagues, where he had played with Port Huron, Salt Lake City and Dallas.Micheletti, who played for the University of Minnesota, was drafted by Montreal five years ago but later went to the World Hockey Association and played for Calgary and Edmonton.After the draft the Blues completed a deal also involving the Los Angeles Kings and New - York Islanders. Left wing Tom Williams went from the Kings to the Blues, and Gibbs went from the Islanders to the Kings. In May the Blues sent Gibbs and goaltender Terry Richardson to the Islanders and received center Ralph Klassen.Williams was drafted by the New York Rangers in 1971 but spent most of his time with Ranger &#9632;

Drafting Turnbull Attempt By Blues To Repeat Success

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01497/5102535-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01467/5102528-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="3175" height="3986"></div> &#9632;

f0038-01

NHL’s Training Camp Rosters

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01210/5102566-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="596" height="1090"><figcaption class="caption-body">PETER MAHOVLICH&hellip;Accepted Trade</figcaption></div>DETROIT&mdash;Nick Libett called it a &ldquo;good trade for both teams.&rdquo;Pete Mahovlich didn&rsquo;t necessarily understand the logic used by the Pittsburgh Penguins, but accepted the trade and prepared to settle down in Detroit.The Wings traded Libett, 33, the senior member of the team, to the Penguins on Aug. 3 in exchange for Mahovlich, the tall centerman who began his pro career in the Red Wing organization. Mahovlich was traded away by the Wings in one of the club&rsquo;s worst deals ever and blossomed into a top player with the Montreal Canadiens.&ldquo;I told Ted Lindsay this and I sincerely meant it: I had 12 good years in Detroit and I expect to have at least three more good years in Pittsburgh,&rdquo; Libett said.&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s a good trade for both teams. I will fit in with Johnny Wilson and the Wings say they need centers here. Peter can help them.&ldquo;I think relief is a good word,&rdquo; Libett continued. &ldquo;The grass isn&rsquo;t necessarily greener on the other side. It&rsquo;s just what I felt I was not a part of their plans here anymore, but I feel I am in Pittsburgh. I&rsquo;ll tell you, I&rsquo;m not as bitter as I thought I would be.&rdquo;Mahovlich&rsquo;s comments were remarkably similar.He&rsquo;s been traded twice in recent years, from Montreal to Pittsburgh and not to Detroit, and he visited Olympia to talk business with Lindsay.Mahovlich, 32, began his professional career with the Wings in 1965-66. Now he returns.&ldquo;Over the years, I&rsquo;ve learned a little and matured a lot, said Mahovlich. &ldquo;When you have a wife and family, it makes you grow up.&rdquo; The family. That&rsquo;s what gave Mahovlich some uneasy thoughts about the trade.Lindsay is willing, in fact anxious, to give him the additional years which will provide the veteran center with the security he seeks.&ldquo;The only way he can play good hockey, the kind of hockey that I know he&rsquo;s capable of playing, is for him to be happy,&rdquo; Lindsay said. &ldquo;He has to have a contract and he will have the contract. Peter&rsquo;s going to be an asset. We have so many young kids on the team. This guy&rsquo;s a leader. He&rsquo;ll help pull it all together. He&rsquo;ll keep them in the right frame of mind, keep them loose and keep them together.&rdquo;Mahovlich and his wife, Candy, have three children, two young schoolage boys and a 2&frac12;-year-old daughter.&ldquo;As far as my career, my job, goes, I pack one suitcase and leave,&rdquo; Peter said. &ldquo;My wife is left with all the other responsibilities, which is tough.&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve got five, six really good years left in me if the attitude is right and my attitude is right now. I&rsquo;m coming here knowing they want me to play here, not just to keep until another trade comes alone.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0040-01

Mahovlich Back To Square 1 With Wings

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT&mdash;On the eve of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s Entry Draft, Ted Lindsay announced the Red Wings would attempt to shore up the right side.The next day, the Wings made Mike Foligno, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound junior star from Sudbury, their No. 1 pick.Coach Bobby Kromm immediately projected Foligno on the right side of a line with newly-acquired Peter Mahovlich in the middle and veteran Errol Thompson on left wing.&ldquo;What better way than to put two veterans like that with a kid?&rdquo; Kromm said. &ldquo;It would give us another line which could score goals. You never know what will happen when training camp starts, but that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m thinking right now.&rdquo;Detroit didn&rsquo;t have another choice until the third round, when they had a pair back-to-back, the 45th and 46th overall. They selected another right winger, Jody Gage, a 46-goal scorer from Kitchener.Then the Wings refocused on the future by taking three under-age players among their final four choices.Boris Fistric, 19, was selected on the third round, followed on the fourth by a teammate of his at New Westminster, winger John Ogrodnick. On the last two rounds, the Wings selected underage players, taking left wingers Joe Paterson from the London Knights and Carmine Cirella from the Peterborough Petes.Foligno, a native of Sudbury, was the best player in the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League last season. He scored 66 goals and 85 assists and was selected the league&rsquo;s most valuable player. The Wings have relied on the OMJHL for their first-round pick in each of the last three seasons, selecting Dale McCourt in 1977, Willie Huber in 1978 and now Foligno.&ldquo;There were two guys we could take, Foligno and Mike Gartner,&rdquo; Lindsay said. &ldquo;We could have taken either and not made a mistake.&ldquo;Foligno is a little different skater. He skates with a straight back. It&rsquo;ll be interesting to see. He handles the puck well and he&rsquo;s a good scorer. He finishes around the net. The fact that he&rsquo;s really a good scorer is a big plus but the big thing was the right side.&rdquo;&ldquo;I&rsquo;m real pleased to be going to Detroit,&rdquo; Foligno said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know where I&rsquo;d be going, but I&rsquo;m glad it&rsquo;s Detroit. All I can say is I hope everything works out well.&rdquo;Lindsay is confident it will.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking forward to that young man playing for us next season,&rdquo; the boss said.Foligno spent the summer working as bricklayer in Sudbury.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not too bad&hellip;I get by,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s good work.&rdquo; It may be good, but not good enough to keep Foligno&rsquo;s mind off the upcoming season. He&rsquo;s hoping the negotiations are smooth and swift. Foligno said he&rsquo;s been a Red Wing fan for many years, ever since the family moved back to Canada from Italy.&ldquo;It was because of Alex Delvecchio and a couple of the guys playing with the Wings then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The family always talked about Alex become &#9632;

Scoring Prowess Assures Foligno Spot On Wings

<div class="byline">BY FRED PIETILA</div>DENVER&mdash;Don Cherry painfully recalls his hockey playing days when, he like every other player, had aspirations of making the big time&mdash;the six-team National Hockey League.&ldquo;The Big Six was the league. I was in every camp,&rdquo; Cherry says. It&rsquo;s been pointed out before, but defenseman Don Cherry played one game in the NHL. &ldquo;But I was a regular (for that game),&rdquo; he beamed.And in every training camp Cherry was in, he heard the same old story. &ldquo;They used to say, &lsquo;Well, we&rsquo;ll tell you right now, every job is open.&rsquo; The first three years I believed &lsquo;em. I really thought I had a chance to make the club. Then a couple of vets told me, &ldquo;Hey, Don, you&rsquo;re batting your head against the wall. They&rsquo;ve already got the big club picked.&rsquo;&ldquo;After that we used to laugh to ourselves when someone would mention that &lsquo;every job is open, &lsquo;&rdquo; Cherry continues, before assuming a very, very serious tone.&ldquo;But this year when I say it, I mean it,&rdquo; he says of the impending pre-season camp of the Colorado Rockies. &ldquo;This could possibly be the first time when this was said it could be true. I haven&rsquo;t prejudged anybody &lsquo;cause I don&rsquo;t remember them. What a break for them.&rdquo;Cherry might be exaggerating when he says he doesn&rsquo;t remember the personnel who comprised the worst team in the National Hockey League last season, but certainly he remembers a few&mdash;like defensemen Barry Beck, Trevor Johansen and Mike Christie and forwards Wilf Paiement and Ron Delorme.And he&rsquo;s certainly high on the team&rsquo;s No. 1 draft choice, defenseman Rob &ldquo;The Rammer&rdquo; Ramage, who was a World Hockey Association second team All Star last season.In essence what Cherry is saying is that there are no safe jobs with the Rockies, whose fortunes he hopes to turn around after signing a four-year, $130,000 per year contract to coach them May 30.In fact, it&rsquo;s got to the point during the summer that Cherry and general manager Ray Miron abandoned the name training camp in favor of &ldquo;Tryout Camp&rdquo;All of which should make it that much more interesting when the Rockies open what is expected to be a brutal, physical &ldquo;Tryout Camp&rdquo; Sept. 17 at South Suburban Ice Arena in Littleton.&ldquo;They say our camp is going to be a bloodbath,&rdquo; Cherry muses. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not saying it is, but the maintenance men and the Zamboni driver better have the mops ready.&rdquo;In addition to players previously under contract to the Rockies, there will be at least 11 free agents in camp attempting to make the team.And with guys like defensemanleft winger Peter McNamee and right winger Jeff Carlson (of &ldquo;Slapshot&rdquo; fame) among the would-be candidates, you can expect toughness to be a desirable commodity in the camp.Besides McNamee and Carlson, other free agents who will try out are goalie Carey Walker, defenseman-left winger Kevin Morrison, left wingers Stan Gulutzan, Rob Flockhart, Peter Sturgeon and Mark Falcone and centers Joe Noris, Gary MacGregor and Alex Belcourt.In addition to Ramage, the Rockies drafted underage Steve Peters, a left winger-centre from Oshawa as their fourth-round pick; center Gary Dillon from Toronto as their fifth-round pick, and centre-right winger Bob Attwell from Peterborough as their sixth-round Choice. &#9632;

Rockies’ Cherry Promises: ‘Every Job Open At Camp’

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02105/5102676-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="534" height="584"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Wilson</figcaption></div>GLENS FALLS&mdash;Larry Wilson, slated to. open the 1979-80 season as the head coach of the Adirondack Red Wings, the newest entry in the American Hockey League, died of an apparent heart attack while out jogging in Queensbury, New York, just weeks before the start of the training camp.Wilson, 49, was a 19-year professional player who had briefly coached in the National Hockey League during the 1976-77 season for the Red Wings. During 12 seasons as a minor league player, he had helped lead his team into the playoffs on 11 occasions.His brother, John is the coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Larry is survived by four &#9632;

f0041-02

AHL Coach Dies While Out Jogging

<div class="byline">BY JIM LEAHY</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaSPRINGFIELD&mdash;There was a flurry of late summer activity in the American Hockey League recently as clubs got ready for the opening of training camp by aligning their front office staff. The most recent additions to the AHL&rsquo;s coaching fraternity were Michel Parizeau with Syracuse and Joe Crozier with the New Brunswick Hawks. They are the latest to come to terms joining a trio of other rookie coaches in the loop, Bert Templeton of the Nova Scotia Voyageurs, Gary Green of Hershey, and Larry Kish in Springfield.Parizeau, 31, who has spent the past eight seasons in the World Hockey Association with Quebec Nordiques, Cincinnati Stingers and the Indianapolis Racers, will handle the Firebirds&rsquo; reins in Syracuse as the top farm club of the Quebec Nordiques. Last year the Firebirds missed the playoffs despite a late rally under coach Bep Guidolin.Crozier, meanwhile, was thought to be a top candidate for the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; coaching job, but was offered the New Brunswick position by Leafs&rsquo; general manager Punch Imlach after Floyd Smith was selected for the Toronto job.With one of the best all-time records as a coach in the AHL (210 wins) during seven years with Rochester, during which time his clubs won five divisional titles and three Calder Cups, Crozier will be stepping in to replace Ed Johnston who moved up to coach the Chicago Black Hawks.Meanwhile, after several months of negotiations filled with threats, open denials, behind-the-scenes maneuvers and pending lawsuits, the NHL Hartford Whalers have agreed to operate the Springfield Indians franchise this season. Under the terms of the pact, Hartford will lease the club this year with an option to buy the AHL franchise next season.Whaler director of hockey operations Jack Kelley, will also serve as general manager of the Indians. The Tribe front office will be re-vamped with George Ducharme becoming director of operations, Dave Andrews the new business manager and Norma McCann, ticket manager. Former Whaler goaltender Bruce Landon remains director of marketing.The AHL governors has already approved the Whaler takeover and Kelley will serve as an alternate governor on the board. Whaler managing general partner Howard Baldwin takes a seat on the board of governors as the Springfield representative. George Leary, who was the Tribe leader prior to the Hartford-approved changes, steps down to become a limited partner this year.Springfield will continue to play in the Eastern States Coliseum (The Big E), while the Whalers skate across the river in the new Springfield Civic Center which the Indians left because they claimed that it was falling apart and their fans enjoyed the free parking at the Big E. For most of the upcoming season, hockey fans in the Springfield area will enjoy a bonanza with pro hockey on tap nearly seven nights a week. When the Whalers move back into their rebuilt Hartford Coliseum, they will enjoy the obvious advantage of having their top development team less than a half hour&rsquo;s drive away. No other NHL team will have such a lucrative arrangement.Larry Kish has been named to coach the Indians. &ldquo;Kish is the ideal man for the coaching position here in Springfield,&rdquo; said new GM Jack Kelley. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a man with whom I have been associated with for 17 years. He&rsquo;s known as a teacher with a fine hockey mind and he&rsquo;s experienced at all levels including the AHL. I felt that it was imperative that we hire somebody who can teach and developPublished reports claimed that the team was &ldquo;several hundred thousand dollars in debt,&rdquo; which may have given the Whalers second thoughts about the vitality of the Springfield franchise in the American Hockey League. The Whalers hope that the Indians will average around 3,000 fans this season and break even. If the NHL club buys Springfield&rsquo;s AHL franchise next year, their money and marketing know-how could revive what was once the flagship city in the American Hockey League. The Whalers will need a strong development team, they must count on fans in the Springfield area to support their NHL team in Hartford, and owning an AHL club in Springfield would give them a unique opportunity to promote both of their clubs at the same time. It would be one of the best moves they ever made.As every hockey fan knows, the Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens built a powerhouse in Nova Scotia without worrying about whether or not the team made money. The Voyageurs provided one great player after another to the parent club, yet it took a new building in Halifax and a great nearby rival in New Brunswick before the franchise started to turn the corner. Last season the Vees did not dominate the AHL yet they had perhaps their best year at the gate. The Whalers could invest in their future by developing a strong farm system and Springfield is ready, willing and able to supply the players and the fans.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01172/5102645-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="584" height="736"><figcaption class="caption-body">MICHEL PARIZEAU&hellip;Named By Nordiques</figcaption></div>MAINE&mdash; The Calder Cup champion Mariners, undefeated in pre-season competition against major league competition prior to the start of this year&rsquo;s exhibition schedule, will meet the Minnesota North Stars in Portland on Thursday, Sept. 27. Maine beat St. Louis 5-3 two years ago, blasted Washington 7-1 and tied the then New England Whalers last season.North Stars will bring about 25 players to Maine and they could dress last year&rsquo;s top NHL rookie, center Bobby Smith, for the contest. Smith is a native of Sydney, Nova Scotia who scored 30 goals in his first NHL season.&ldquo;The fans in Maine will have a great chance to see our draft choices frequently,&rdquo; said Keith Allen, general manager of both the NHL Philadelphia Flyers and the Maine Mariners. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll be at our training camp and we&rsquo;ll likely use some of them in both the Mariners-Minnesota game and our own pre-season game with Washington at the Civic Center in Portland on Oct. 3.&rdquo;NEW HAVEN&mdash; Jeff Russell, former sports director for WELI Radio, has been named director of press relations for the Nighthawks. &ldquo;We are happy to have Jeff join our staff. He has had great involvement with the game and the local press in his past experiences, and will devote full-time duty to an area we believe is extremely important,&rdquo; said Richard Buckley, vice-president of Schiavone Sports, owners of the AHL club.Russell will handle press relations and promotions in his new position. He will report to vicepresident of operations Roy Mla-Kar, as the new owners of the Nighthawks continue to bolster the front office.HERSHEY&mdash; The Bears are set to open the AHL season with new coach Gary Green behind the bench. Green replaces Fred Stanfield after leading Peterborough to the Memorial Cup last season. Hershey will be the top development club of the Washington Capitals, now that Buffalo has decided to cast their fortunes in Rochester and send their top minor league players to the Amerks. Having Washington as their sole NHL sponsor may be a blessing in disguise for Hershey fans since dual major league affiliations have not been successful in recent years. Long one of the top franchises in minor league hockey, the Bears look forward to returning to contention under Green. &#9632;

f0041-01

Parizeau, Crozier Newest Coaches; Hartford Directs Springfield Operation

<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaDALLAS&mdash;Indianapolis&rsquo; belated entry gave the Central Hockey League its hoped-for nine-team format, but not without some last-minute juggling of affiliations.When the New York Islanders announced they were moving their farm club operation to Indy, after six seasons in Fort Worth, the Texans were left without a parent club, much to the dismay of president Cliff Overcash. However, Overcash quickly signed a working agreement with the Colorado Rockies.The newest CHL franchise will be known as the Indianapolis Checkers. Former Islander defenseman Bert Marshall, previously announced as Fort Worth&rsquo;s new coach, was given that assignment at Indy. Jimmy Devellano, Islanders&rsquo; head scout since 1974, was named general manager of the farm club.Indianapolis was a chartermember of the CHL, which opened as a five-team circuit in the fall of 1963. But a fire and explosion ruined the Indianapolis rink before the season started, and the parent Detroit Red Wings moved their farm club to Cincinnati for a year.Now Cincinnati is also coming back into the CHL, after a 15-year absence, along with Houston, which ended a four-year membership in 1969. And Birmingham will make its first appearance in the league.The four former World Hockey Association cities&mdash;Birmingham, Cincinnati, Houston and Indianapolis&mdash;were made available to the CHL when the latest National League expansion spelled the demise of the WHA.The four new teams will play in the CHL&rsquo;s Eastern Division. While Cincinnati (the Stingers) and Birmingham (the Bulls) will keep the nicknames of their old WHA clubs, Indianapolis executives wanted to get away from the unhappy image of the Racers in WHA play. In Houston the decision was made to return to the nickname of Apollos, which the former CHL club there had as a Montreal farm club from 1965-69.Ron Ryan, formerly WHA executive director, was named executive vice-president and general manager of the new Cincinnati entry, with Al Karlander, 32-year-old center who had a long career in the NHL and WHA, as coach. The Cincy franchise will be operated by the Hartford Whalers, but players will come from all four of the NHL&rsquo;s latest expansion teams&mdash;the Whalers, Winnipeg Jets, Edmonton Oilers and Quebec Nordiques.Al Rollins is general managercoach at Houston, backed by Edmonton, and John Brophy was retained as coach at Birmingham, where the Atlanta Flames moved their operation after four years in Tulsa.Fort Worth&rsquo;s new working agreement was quickly followed by the announcement of Ron Ullyot as coach of the Texans. Ron, a 33-year-old former International League player, has Coached the past two seasons at Port Huron in that circuit.Ullyot&rsquo;s appointment completed the lineup of CHL mentors for the 1979-80 campaign. A few days earlier the Vancouver Canucks had announced John Choyce as the new mentor for their farmhands with the Dallas Black Hawks. Choyce, at Tulsa the past two seasons, has also coached at Kansas City, Albuquerque and Fort Worth in the CHL.Jack (Tex) Evans, winningest coach in Salt Lake&rsquo;s pro sports history, was renamed as coach of the Golden Eagles in that city, backed by the St. Louis Blues.assistant coach for the Rockies last year (and with the New York Rangers for two seasons previously) was hired by the Winnipeg Jets to coach their new farm club in Tulsa. Mike Doran of the Jets&rsquo; front office, will serve as Tulsa&rsquo;s player personnel director.The five holdover CHL clubs will play in the Western Division of the league. Only Kansas City is missing from the 1978-79 CHL membership.Each club will play an 80-game schedule, including a two-game home-and-home series with the U.S. Olympic team, training in Bloomington, Minn., and these games will count in the CHL standings.Since the CHL had only six members when the agreement was reached with the Olympic team a year ago, only six dates were set aside for these games against CHL teams in the Met Sports Center in Bloomington. Two of the other &ldquo;home games&rdquo; for the Olympians will be played in Wichita, one in Chicago.Three teams from each CHL division will make the post-season playoffs, with the division champions getting byes into the semi-final round.Second and third-place teams will play a best-of-five series, with the winners meeting the first-place teams in a best-of-seven series. The Adams Cup final will also be best-of-seven.It will be the fourth time the league has operated in two divisions. In both 1967-68 and 1968-69, Tulsa won the Northern Division and Oklahoma City the Southern. Tulsa took the Adams Cup in &lsquo;68, but Dallas beat out Oke City in the &lsquo;69 finals.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01176/5102707-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="570" height="874"><figcaption class="caption-body">AL KARLANDER&hellip;Named Cincy Coach</figcaption></div>Salt Lake was the Northern winner in 1974-75, and Dallas the Southern winner, with Dallas capturing the Adams Cup.The nine-team CHL operation for 1979-80 matches the league&rsquo;s largest previous membership, the 1968-69 season. The low point was reached in 1972-73, when only four teams competed.Cliff Fletcher, Atlanta general manager and governor of the Birmingham franchise (after serving as Tulsa&rsquo;s governor previously) was re-elected chairman of the board at the CHL July meeting in Las Vegas. John Ferguson, Winnipeg GM and new Tulsa governor, was named vice-president.Bud Poile was re-elected league president (to serve his fourth season) and Bill Adler was renamed secretary. &#9632;

f0042-01

Islanders Switching To Indianapolis But Fort Worth Stays As 9th Team

BIRMINGHAM&mdash;It seems only fitting that Paul Henderson should be the first to sign a contract with the Birmingham Bulls on the occasion of their entry into the Central Hockey League.He&rsquo;s become a native of the city, which he now calls &lsquo;home&rsquo;.Henderson, who was weighing offers from the National Hockey League, reaffirmed his commitment to the Birmingham area by signing a multi-year contract effective with the start of the 1979-80 season.On the occasion of signing his CHL contract, Henderson said that &ldquo;I really hadn&rsquo;t planned to play this season at all, but the family really wanted to remain here in Birmingham and all of a sudden it made great sense to stay with the Bulls. The decision was in large part family oriented. We have finally bought a home here, the kids are set in school and plain and simple, this is now our home. We have our roots here, our friends are here, our church and religious ties are here and by signing with the Bulls we&rsquo;re set in Birmingham for a good while.&rdquo;Over the years, the name Paul Henderson has been syno-nomous with the best that hockey had to offer. His seasons in the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs along with his world-renowned performance for Team Canada against the Soviet Union, established Henderson as one of the most exciting skaters in the sport.John Brophy, the Bulls first CHL bench boss, was elated at the opportunity of being able to call on Paul&rsquo;s services this season. &ldquo;I said it last year and I&rsquo;ll say it now, Henny is a credit to the game and a first class individual. We&rsquo;ll have a fairly young team in Birmingham this season but with Paul adding stability and experience we&rsquo;ll be well ahead of the game.&rdquo;Henderson finished fourth among Bulls&rsquo; scorers with 24 goals and 27 assists for a 51amassed 66 points on 37 goals and 29 assists.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02117/5102745-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="544" height="608"><figcaption class="caption-body">PAUL HENDERSON&hellip;First To Sign</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0387/5102738-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="548" height="596"><figcaption class="caption-body">JOHN BROPHY&hellip;Glad To Have Him</figcaption></div>In office developments, Eli Gold, the Bulls&rsquo; director of public relations and team broadcaster, announced that an agreement has been reached with WAPI radio in Birmingham to broadcast all Bulls&rsquo; games, home and away, for the fourth straight year.Gold, who will be doubling as TV commentator on 20 road games for the St. Louis Blues next season as well as handling all games of the Birmingham club, said that the Bulls are on course in their projected pace for 3,000 season tickets before the start of the 1979-80 season.Gold also said the Bulls will have a new trainer in Don Niederkorn, who formerly worked with coach Brophy with the old Hampton Gulls in the AHL. Niederkorn replaces Larry &#9632;

f0042-02

Henderson Decides Birmingham’s Home, Inks Bulls Contract

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaDAYTON&mdash;The International Hockey League drafted a total of 101 overage juniors during its annual draft in Toronto. A staggering figure when you consider it appeared for awhile there would be no draft at all.The question about the draft apparently came about as some teams had already dipped into the player pool and didn&rsquo;t want to risk same in a league draft. But the draft stood&mdash;and all 10 teams took part.Dayton, returning to the IHL after a brief absence, picked off 14 players and general manager Keith Spunk believes there is &ldquo;some outstanding talent in the bunch&rdquo;. The Gems drafted through 10 rounds.Meanwhile there were some significant happenings throughout the league as the opening of training camps loomed on the horizon. New ownership structures have surfaced for two franchises and one of the IHL&rsquo;s most colorful coaches will be off the bench at least for this season.Wren Blair, who founded the Saginaw franchise, sold his interests to a new group in the Michigan city called Tri-City Investment Co. Blair, along with nine Saginaw businessmen, Tri-City Investment.Blair, who was president of the Saginaw club will own 20 per cent of the company. Blair will serve the new group as president, general manager and league sponsor, In making the announcement about the change, Blair said: &ldquo;The Tri-City area is a great on-going hockey community and since at some point in time I will have to consider retirement, I wanted to make sure that the continued operation of this great club was secured.&ldquo;I am greatly indebted to the hockey fans for their tremendous support and I felt it important that this team come into the hands of local ownership.&rdquo;Local ownership is now also in control at Grand Rapids as Al Savill sold his interest in the club. It was Savill who brought hockey to Grand Rapids when he moved the Dayton Owls (formerly the Columbus Owls) to the Michigan city two years ago after a poor start in Dayton.The missing coach will be Ted Garvin who is recovering from heart surgery. Garvin has been assured a place in the Toledo picture, but will not have to worry about the pressures of coaching this season. The Goaldiggers have hired Gregg Pilling, who two years ago led the Fort Wayne Komets to the league championship.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01176/5102776-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="561" height="700"></div>Ironically, it was Garven&rsquo;s Toledo team which bounced Pilling&rsquo;s Komets out of the 1978 playoffs.The Diggers eliminated the Komets in the second round after finishing second during the regularseason chase in the South Division.Pilling, who coached the Regina entry in the Western Junior Hockey League last season, was given a one-year contract. Prospects for an extension rest on Garvin&rsquo;s health&mdash;and the health of the Goaldiggers on the ice during the coming season.Pilling will bring an exciting brand of hockey to Digger fans&mdash;some of it unique. During his tenure with Fort Wayne, Pilling pulled off some rather unorthodox stunts&mdash;like changing goalies on the fly, putting defensemen on the forward line for a shift or two. But he also was a winner. &#9632;

f0043-01

Pilling New Coach As IHL Undergoes Changes

JOHNSTOWN&mdash;It has become official. From now on you can call the North Eastern Hockey League the Eastern Hockey League according to new commissioner Bill Beg Beagan.Among the first of Beagan&rsquo;s moves was to drop the &ldquo;North&rdquo; from the league&rsquo;s logo and refer to the organization as the Eastern Hockey League. Says the former IHL commissioner, it was just natural to have it called by the new title. &ldquo;By calling it North Eastern we were limiting ourselves to a certain geographic part of the country,&rdquo; explained Beagan. &ldquo;With our long range plans we hope to represent the entire eastern seaboard instead of just the north eastern part of the country.&rdquo; &#9632;

It’s The Eastern League Now

<div class="byline">BY PATRICK LYON</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKS Made in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street. Wallaceburg Ontario Sold in U. S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaJOHNSTOWN&mdash;Changes are continuing to occur rapidly in the Eastern Hockey League since Bill Beagan assumed the commissioner&rsquo;s post at the Montreal meetings in the middle of June.With the existing franchise in Johnstown hanging by a thread since the announcement that owner John Mitchell wanted to sell the club, Beagan moved in swiftly and negotiated a deal that will keep the Wings in the league and according to the EHL boss, &ldquo;make hockey in Johnstown a continuous and viable operation.&rdquo;Began approached the NHL&rsquo;s Detroit Red Wings (Johnstown had a working agreement with Detroit last season) with a proposal that would enable them to be part owners of the Johnstown franchise. Working with Red Wings&rsquo; vicepresident and assistant secretary Lincoln Cavalieri, Beagan reached an agreement that will have Detroit cwning 60 percent of the Johnstown franchise. The easier part of his task successful the new commissioner began the hard part of trying to find ten local people in Johnstown who would purchase the remainder of the team.After much hard work, at least .10 and as many as 14 stockholders came forward and gave notice that they would like to buy into the club. The Johnstown chamber of commerce, who also played a vital role in keeping hockey in the Pennsylvania city, guaranteed a sale of 1,000 season tickets for the coming season. When this issue went to press final approval was expected to be given to the five-year deal in Johnstown with the whole package set to be placed before the EHL&rsquo;s board of governors at a meeting in late August.&ldquo;Things couldn&rsquo;t have been better orchestrated,&rdquo; said the commissioner. &ldquo;We got everyone involved. To make this thing a reality we had to have local citizenry interested, people that don&rsquo;t want to treat this as a hobby but as a business. We had to have people who are willing to work.&rdquo;To say that a broad spectrum of citizenry is taking part in the Johnstown dealings would almost be an understatement. Besides the Red Wings and the local investors, the chamber of commerce, 16 directors of board of the War Memorial Coliseum and three county commissioners of Cambria County were also involved. Of the package, Beagan declared, &ldquo;This will go down as one of the most unique packages in all of sports history.&rdquo;With the Johnstown situation settled and out of the way, the search by Beagan for the sixth club was continuing when this issue went to press. A franchise in Baltimore was in the serious stage of discussion since Beagan planned a meeting in the Maryland city with Baltimore officials and a National Hockey League team that was interested in a cross-section type of ownership that became a reality in Johnstown.Beagan has been working vigorously in an attempt to make Baltimore the newest member of the EHL. &ldquo;I have been exhausting all my energies in the past few weeks to the Baltimore situation,&rdquo; he related. &ldquo;Phase I of our three phase program calls for six teams this year and that is what we will be going for.&rdquo;RICHMOND: The newest franchise in the EHL named Andre Beaulieu to the dual capacity role as coach and general manager. The excoach of the Minnesota North Stars was hand picked for the Richmond Rifles by Fred Shero. Last season, Beaulieu led the Sioux City Muskateers to the finals of the United States Hockey League championships.The Reiss family, owners of the Rifles, are extremely happy with the new arrangement and their new home which will seat 9,674, the largest capacity of any arena in the circuit. The Reiss&rsquo; were the former owners of the Cape Cod Freedoms before the franchise was terminated. Richmond retained the rights to the Freedoms&rsquo; players.Among Richmond&rsquo;s first order of business was establishing a working agreement with an NHL club and they wasted little time in striking up an arrangement with the New York Rangers. According to Sandy Reiss, the Rangers will be supplying the Rifles with a minimum of 12 players. The Rangers will also be conducting their training camp in Richmond from September 15-26 and the Rifles will be the first EHL club to partake in an exhibition with an NHL team. Richmond will be just one of two farm teams of the Rangers, New Haven being the other.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01153/5102807-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg" title="f0044-01" width="582" height="728"><figcaption class="caption-body">ANDRE BEAULIEU&hellip;To Head Richmond</figcaption></div>Just three weeks into their season ticket campaign the Rifles had sold 500 of the season passes. Reiss was very confident in all aspects of the 1979-80 season.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re shooting to sell 1,500 season tickets. We&rsquo;re looking for a banner season and things are progressing very smoothly. We&rsquo;ve got an excellent coach. He&rsquo;s a disciplinarian and a great teacher.&rdquo;Names as director of operations for the Rifles was Hillman Lyons, a former minor league executive of the year with baseball&rsquo;s Richmond Braves. Lyons was also a general manager with the Richmond Robins of the American League.ERIE: Last year&rsquo;s league champions announced that head coach and general manager Nick Polano will return next season in the same dual capacity. Under Polano&rsquo;s direction, the Blades won the regular season race with a 47-19-3 record and then topped off a very successful season by winning the Mitchell Cup. Voted by his peers as Coach of the Year, Polano will mark his fourth season with the Blades as head coach.Returning with Polano will be communications director John Paul Dellacamera, who will be the team&rsquo;s radio voice for the second consecutive year.The Blades also took what they hope will be another step towards a championship when they announced a working agreement with the Quebec Nordiques. GM Polano was very pleased with the new setup.Erie Blades&rsquo; owner Dr. John Caruso assumed his new role as president of the Eastern League. Caruso succeeds John Mitchell as president.UTICA: After playing as an independent in 1978-79, the Mohawks figure to have strengthened themselves immeasurably with the announcement that they will have a working agreement with the new Hartford Whalers of the NHL. Coach and general manager Larry Mickey is very pleased and confident that the Mohawks can better their fourth place finish thanks to the new arrangement.Season tickets sales are over the 300 plateau, the Mohawks already surpassing their advertising for their game program over last season.HAMPTON: Part owner Jim Humphrey is confident that the Aces can maintain an average attendance of between 3,200 and 3,500 for the season after hovering around the 3,000 mark last year.The Aces have just started their season ticket campaign push with sales standing at 325. Coach and general manager Muzz MacPherson revealed that Hampton has affiliated with the Philadelphia Flyers as they did in 78-79. &#9632;

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Beagan Pursuing Baltimore Franchise After Selling NHL Wings On Johnstown

<div class="byline">BY MORRIS DALLA COSTA</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0045-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01131/5102862-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">New OMJHL commissioner David Branch receives the welcome treatment from outgoing chief Sherry Bassin, right, while Sault Ste. Marie owner Jim McAuley, left, looks on. Bassin, who served as interim commissioner, will continue as chairman of the league&rsquo;s board of governors and will direct the Oshawa Generals.</figcaption></div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaTORONTO&mdash;David Branch has been selected as the new man to sit in the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League hotseat.Branch was named the league&rsquo;s new commissioner, taking over from interim commissioner Sherry Bassin, who took over from departed commissioner Bill Beagan.Branch steps into a tough situation. The proverbial bowl of cherries could turn out to be the pits, but the OMJHL is making a concerted effort to present themselves as a big league operation and the hiring of Branch is the first step.Branch brings a sound administrative background to the job. He spent four years as Ontario Hockey Association secretary-manager and two years as executive-director of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. He is going to need all the contacts he has made through the years. At a time when junior hockey is facing a draft of under-age juniors and a somewhat tarnished image, Branch&rsquo;s goals will revolve around insuring the league&rsquo;s credibility is restored.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got some pre-conceived ideas of my own and I want to meet with the owners and boards of governors before actually discussing them,&rdquo; says Branch. &ldquo;But one thing that the governors and I agree on is that we don&rsquo;t come out and tell people what is going on.&ldquo;The OMJHL program is excellent for the kids. We try to ensure that the boys who participate in the program get the best in equipment, practice time and schooling,&rdquo; continues Branch. &ldquo;We want to make sure the player can go to school. In a report by an independent body they found 55 per cent of the students across the province finished school last year. Players in the OMJHL finished school at the rate of 78 per cent. We are proud of that. A lot of people don&rsquo;t realize that.&rdquo;Once the league has established itself as a viable and perhaps better alternative than college hockey and once the league has sold their product to their market, it remains to keep the quality of the product at a high level. Hence the big, bad under-age draft.&ldquo;You have to worry about that,&rdquo; says Branch. &ldquo;The biggest thing is for everybody to keep their sanity. You can&rsquo;t tell me that all those under-age players drafted have a chance at making the pros. If a truly exceptional player comes along it isn&rsquo;t our objective to hold them back, but we have to be concerned with the product.&rdquo;&ldquo;There are really two steps to making sure junior hockey operates at an effective level. One is for the national Hockey League to act as a deterrent for themselves in the draft and the other is for compensation to junior operators. Junior hockey operates on a star system and when you take a Tom McCarthy away from Oshawa you hurt the team. It may take another three or four years to develop another player of his calibre, so you need the compensation,&rdquo; explains Branch.Branch has not turned a deaf ear to the prognostications of gloom and doom for junior hockey. Junior hockey has survived problems in the past, just as difficult to manage as the ones facing the league at this time in history. Branch is hoping to ensure the league will be able to weather any other problems cropping up in the future.&ldquo;People are concerned about the quality of play. I think you&rsquo;ll see a more developed system of growth right through the minor leagues. A better quality player will be found on the OMJHL door step.&rdquo;Branch will have plenty of help in improving the plight of junior hockey. The consulting firm who helped in the selection of Branch from over 100 candidates, also suggested changes in structure of the OMJHL, changes the league has adopted.&ldquo;There is no question the league is more of a corporate structure. This will ensure better communication and a smoother running league, which is something that any organization has to have,&rdquo; says Branch.Branch will be in charge of operation of the league. Bassin remains on as chairman of the board of governors, a new position. The board will be in charge of the financial affairs, negotiations with the NHL, the government and any other bodies and they will provide a liaison with the teams. Both Branch and Bassin feel the new system will enable the league to overcome certain problems and implement the goals Branch and the league want reached.&ldquo;There couldn&rsquo;t have been a better choice than Branch,&rdquo; says Bassin. &ldquo;He is a very thorough, knowledgeable person and because of the work he has done with the OHA and CAHA the contacts he has made are unmatched. I am really looking forward to working with him.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s going to take a lot of that knowledge and thoroughness once Branch sits on the hotseat. The league is at a crucial stage in its development. The future could be very bleak or most promising. Branch will have a lot to do with the way it turns out. &#9632;

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Branch On ‘Hotseat’ As OMJHL Commissioner

<div class="byline">BY DAVE SENICK</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaCALGARY&mdash;The Western Hockey League&rsquo;s board of governors have their man. He&rsquo;s David Descent of Ottawa.The governors have ended a search to fill the void left by the retirement of Ed Chynoweth as league president. Descent will fill the gap, taking over as executive director in charge of the league office.Chynoweth resigned in May to become part owner and general manager of the Calgary Wranglers after holding the president&rsquo;s job for seven and a half years.Descent moves into his new position from the post of executive director for the Canadian Amateur Wrestling Association.&ldquo;Dave certainly appears to be the person we want,&rdquo; said league board chairman Brian Shaw. &ldquo;He has a proven record as a top-flight sports administrator.&rdquo;The record of the 31-year-old includes a three year association with the CAWA and an involvement with refereeing and some administrative capacities in areas such as the Ontario Hockey Association, intermediate, senior, university and junior B hockey ranks.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question Ed did a super job and that it&rsquo;s a challenge for me to follow him,&rdquo; said Descent. &ldquo;Just the fact that they (board of governors) feel I can replace him shows tremendous faith. I intend to work my tail off to repay that faith.&ldquo;The first year will be an education process. I&rsquo;ll have to spend the first two or three months simply getting acquainted with the job.&rdquo;Descent will be relying on people like Del Wilson to help him over the bumps. Wilson will retain his position as referee-in-chief and will be in charge of league discipline.The board room has been a busy place for the governors. Besides the move to hire Descent, a number of other decisions have been made.One of the principal moves was to select a western site for this season&rsquo;s Memorial Cup.The national final will be split between Brandon and Regina. The first three games of the double round-robin series are slated May 4-6 in Brandon. The final three games, May 7-9, will be in Regina and the championship final goes May 11, also in Regina.Spectators will be able to be accommodated. The seating capacity at Brandon&rsquo;s Keystone Centre is listed as 5,022 and Regina&rsquo;s Agridome will also be able to hold more than 5,000 persons.Other items emerging from the WHL&rsquo;s board rooms include the move to allow teams to retain two overage players (20 years of age) on their roster. That is one more than last year. The decision was made to compensate for the drafting of under-age players by the National Hockey League.Overage players who do not fit into the plans of their former clubs and are available to play in the WHL will be put on waivers. They can be picked up by the other teams with the one compiling the poorest record last season receiving first pick. Then, teams will have the opportunity to select players in the reverse order of the previous schedule&rsquo;s finish.Governors have also decided to have a 10-minute, sudden-death overtime period in the event of ties. If the score is still deadlocked following the extra session, the game will be recorded as a tie.Team negotiation lists, which provides exclusive rights to players, will be reduced from 90 to 70 by October.A number of the players on those lists will be meeting the Moscow Selects this season. The Selects, who are the Soviet Union&rsquo;s number two touring team, will play eight games against WHL teams.Selects open their western swing Dec. 8 in Victoria then are in New Westminster Dec. 10. Theiagenda shifts to Seattle Dec. 12, Billings Dec. 13, Medicine Hat Dec. 15, Saskatoon Dec. 16, Brandon Dec. 18 and Regina Dec. 19.In other news, Will Klein and Ross Sneath have purchased a small interest in the Regina Pats and a trade has been completed between Calgary and the Portland Winter Hawks.Portland sent Don Keller to Calgary in exchange for Gerry Wilson. Both were in the Alberta Junior Hockey League last season. Keller had 30 goals and 44 assists along with 231 penalty minutes for Fort Saskatchewan while Wilson produced 25 goals and assists for Calgary Chinooks.Obviously, governors and coaches have their own specific search, namely the hunt to find ways of improving their teams. &#9632;

Ottawa Man Named To Head WHL’S Operation

LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaMONTREAL&mdash;More than 40 percent of the players chosen in the National Hockey League&rsquo;s Aug. 9 entry draft were underage prospects, so it stands to reason that Raymond Bourque of the Verdun Black dawks, the second underage player selected (one pick after Portland&rsquo;s Keith Brown), is a pretty fair hockey player.The Boston Bruins thought so. They&rsquo;re the ones who drafted the star defenseman who contributed 22 goals and 73 assists to the Black Hawks&rsquo; attack, as the eighth player in the draft and the first from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.Seven players taken from the first round still had a year of eligibility remaining and all except the seventh, Duane Sutter of Lethbridge, were claimed before junior hockey&rsquo;s leading scorer of a year ago, Brian Propp of Brandon. Propp, who totalled 94 goals and 100 assists, was the 14th player selected overall in the first round by the Philadelphia Flyers.Following Brown, who was taken seventh by the Chicago Black Hawks, and Bourque, Toronto used the ninth pick of the first round to draft Propp&rsquo;s Brandon linemate, center Laurie Boschman. Minnesota chose underage left winger Tom McCarthy of Oshawa tenth and then Buffalo took the first collegian of the draft, University of Minnesota defenseman Mike Ramsey. Atlanta Flames took the sixth underage player of the opening round with the 12th pick as they drafted Kitchener&rsquo;s Paul Reinhart, a defenseman and center. Sutter was claimed 17th by the New York Islanders.In the opening round, two teams, the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League and the Birmingham Bulls, a former member of the defunct World Hockey Association, shared honors by each having four players drafted.Defenseman Rob Ramage of the Bulls was the first pick overall in the draft as he was selected by the Colorado Rockies, while right winger Rick Vaive was tabbed fourth by the Vancouver Canucks. Bulls&rsquo; defenseman Craig Hartsburg was sixth overall, claimed by the Minnesota North Stars and left winger Michel Goulet was picked 20th by the Quebec Nordiques.In addition to Boschman and Propp, other Wheat Kings to go in the first round included their third linemate Ray Allison, who was drafted 19th by the Hartford Whalers and defenseman Brad McCrimmon, Boston&rsquo;s second first-round choice and 15th overall.Of the 126 players taken in the six rounds of the draft, the Ontario Major Junior League narrowly edged the Western League for producing the most picks by a margin of 43 to 37. The Quebec League contributed 17 with 15 from the college ranks, eight former WHA performers and six from European countries.Ten of the players from the college ranks were members of Western Collegiate Hockey Association teams with four players from Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference clubs and one from the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, Bowling Green&rsquo;s defenseman John Gibb, drafted by the New York Islanders.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01149/5103105-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg" title="f0047-01" width="564" height="586"><figcaption class="caption-body">RAYMOND BOURQUE&hellip;QMJHL&rsquo;s First</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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September 1, 1979

BOBBY’S BACK…

CUPOLO’S

How NHL Teams Drafted The Amateurs

OMJHL Loses 21 Players In NHL Underage Draft