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.

December 14, 1979

The Hockey News December 14, 1979

ATLANTA:Rota 4, Henderson 1, Nilsson 4.BOSTON: Middleton 8, 9, Wensink 4, 5, Milbury 2, Cashman 6, Ratelle 12, Redmond 5.BUFFALO: Smith 9, 10, Gare 14, Ramsay 7, Martin 10, 11, 12, 13, Perreault 15. CHICAGO: Lysiak 6, Murray 3, Mulvey 9.COLORADO: Johansen 1, Robert 9, 10, Delorme 5, 6, 7, DeBlois 11, Pierce 5, 6, Paiement 3, 4, 5, Valiquette 7, 8, 9, Berry 3.DETROIT: Mahovlich 4. 5, Nedomansky 11, 12, 13, 14, Foligno 7, Poionich 2, Labraaten 7, Larson 4, 5, McCourt 9, 10, Huber 4, Labraaten 8.EDMONTON: Siltanen 3, Price 4, Lumley 3, MacDonald 16, 17, 18, Chipperfield 4, 5, Gretzky 10.HARTFORD: Stoughton 14, 15, Lacroix 3. M. Howe 6, 7, 8, Keon 4, Fotiu 2, Douglas 6, Carroll 3, G. Howe 9, Allison 6, Rogers 10.LOS ANGELES: Hopkins 3, Taylor 16, 17, Goring 8, 9, 10, 11, Simmer 19, 20, 21, Jensen 9, 10.MINNESOTA. Polich 4, 5, Payne 15, 16, 17, Eaves 2, Manery 3, MacAdam 10, Sharpley 13, 14, Fidler 1, Sargent 6.MONTREAL: Lafleur 19, 20, 21, Houle 10, Larouche 16, 17, Savard 2, Tremblay 5, Mondou 7, Shutt 14, 15, Dupont 1.ISLANDERS: Henning 2, D. Potvin 4, Langevin 3, Smith 1, Trottier 14, Sutter 1, 2, Kallur 3, Tonelli 5, Nystrom 2, Bossy 15.RANGERS: Esposito 10, Hedberg 15, Murdoch 10, 11, 12, Greschner 6, Nilsson 9.PHILADELPHIA: Busniuk 1, Ververgaert 4, 5, Barnes 4, Propp 12, 13, Leach 16, 17, 18, MacLeish 14, 15, 16, Holmgren 8, 9, Linseman 7, Barber 12, Clarke 5, Wilson 1, Hill 4, 5.PITTSBURGH. McAdam 9, 10, 11, 12, Stewart 1, Kehoe 8, 9, Bladon 1, Lee 5, 6, Lonsberry 3, Schutt 4, 5, 6, Kindrachuk 10, Llbett 6, Carlyle 3.QUEBEC: Tardiff 6, Hart 1, Lacroix 4, Ftorek 6, Cloutier 17, 18, Goulet 5, Bernier 7, Leduc 8.ST. LOUIS. Monahan 4, Chapman 4, 5, Federko 8.TORONTO: Hotham 1, Salming 4, 5, 6, Anderson 5, 6, Gardner 6, 7, McDonald 11, IX Ellis 7, Boschman 5, Maloney 9.VANCOUVER: Oddleifson 4, Sedlbauer 9, 10, Gradin 8, Gillis 6, McCarthy 3.WASHINGTON: Rowe 8, 9, Charron 4, Walter 5, Gustafsson 7, Gartner 4, 5, 6, Jarvis 2.WINNIPEG: Sjoberg 2, Marsh 5, Sullivan 11, IX Lukowi&ccedil;h 7, Drouin 4, Wilson 8, Lindstrom 6, Hull 3.&hellip; &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUE

NHL’S SCORERS THIS WEEK

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011077/4311059-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">President John Ziegler says that he&rsquo;ll never be satisfied totally. He feels whatever is accomplished will only be a starting point for future improvement.</figcaption></div>National Hockey League president John A. Ziegler, Jr., in a lengthy state-of-the-league interview with THE HOCKEY NEWS., declared that his circuit is &ldquo;in fair health&rdquo; and getting better.Pro hockey&rsquo;s chief executive, addressing himself to a wide-ranging list of problems, conceded that there are chinks in the NHL&rsquo;s armor but that the worst (the WHA-NHL war) is over and happy days are on the horizon.However, the 45-year-old Ziegler allowed that the Colorado (Denver) franchise has aroused concern and, to a lessor degree, Atlanta has betrayed difficulties that worry the president.&ldquo;Colorado started as a question mark,&rdquo; said Ziegler, &ldquo;and remains a question mark. I think a judgement as to that (the future of the Rockies in Denver) will have to be made in late February.&rdquo;Ziegler said he was empathetic to the problems affecting Rockies&rsquo; owner Arthur Imperatore.&ldquo;If the Rockies&rsquo; ownership were to come to us in March and say we&rsquo;ve lost so many millions of dollars each year and we cannot go on, it wouldn&rsquo;t surprise me. I don&rsquo;t think you can ask people to continue to lose $2,000, 000 a year.&ldquo;On the other hand, Imperatore has not said that, and I know he is doing his best to make Colorado a very viable franchise.&rdquo;The NHL boss admitted that he is no less concerned about the Flames&rsquo; franchise in Atlanta. (A recent column in The New York Times noted that both Colorado and Atlanta &ldquo;had expressed an interest in transferring a franchise&rdquo; to the Meadowlands Arena in New Jersey.)&ldquo;Atlanta is in a tight situation.&rdquo; said Ziegler. &ldquo;Their TV arrangement is unfortunate in that it has limited their ability to develop ancillary revenues. The Flames&rsquo; other handicap is their inability to get crowds of 11,000-12,000 during the week. Atlanta&rsquo;s fans seem to be weekend fans.&rdquo;Ziegler countered that, despite these quasi-critical situations the league has cause for optimism.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re playing to an average of a little over 80 per cent of the capacity of our arenas,&rdquo; Ziegler explained, &ldquo;which, from a business standpoint, is a healthy percentage.&rdquo;(However, Ziegler had noted in October that, &ldquo;Basically, you have to sell about 90 per cent of your building to make money.&rdquo;)Ziegler was asked to comment on remarks recently made by Alan Eagleson, executive director of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association, that the following franchises were suffering from financial problems: Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Pittsburgh.&ldquo;As to the analysis of each of these teams,&rdquo; said Ziegler, &ldquo;I would think that they all lost money last year but they are not in danger of folding. Take St. Louis as an example. The Ralston-Purina people are very committed to that team and to that building because of their interest in St. Louis. That kind of commitment gives me assurance that the team will come on&mdash;we&rsquo;ve seen signs already. Their attendance is climbing.&ldquo;As for Washington, with that team&rsquo;s current nucleus of exciting players, it is going to be one of the great hockey markets.&ldquo;Pittsburgh also increased its attendance last year and probably had the highest season ticket sales in some time. They&rsquo;ve been severely hurt, I think, by the popularity of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pirates but the Penguins&rsquo; ownership is very encouraged by what is going on.&ldquo;Another very encouraging sign is the increase in attendance in Los Angeles. The new ownership out there, Jerry Buss, is really taking an interest and has added a new dimension with his concern about promotions.&ldquo;I saved Chicago for last,&rdquo; concluded Ziegler. &ldquo;We need Chicago to become a very competitive, very exciting place for hockey. I know that (Hawks&rsquo; President) Bill Wirtz is committed to building the calibre of team like the one that he had in the 1960s. He may have to take his lumps over the next two years but Chicago has the kind of draft choices that Montreal used to collect and I have reason to suspect that Wirtz will use them. I don&rsquo;t like their attendance, I&rsquo;m sure, anymore than the owners do. But I don&rsquo;t worry about the Wirtz&rsquo;s leaving hockey or Chicago not being a hockey town.&rdquo;Addressing himself to other NHL sore points, Ziegler conceded that the balanced schedule is a burden the league must bear for at least another season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always been an advocate of an unbalanced schedule but in order to get expansion we had to agree to a balanced schedule. In a sense the balanced schedule has been a blessing for a number of clubs because it has provided the opportunity for fans to see players such as Gordie Howe and the four new teams.&rdquo;Ziegler agreed that eventually&mdash;likely two years&mdash;the NHL will revert to an unbalanced schedule while developing sectional rivalries.&ldquo;When that happens,&rdquo; said Ziegler, &ldquo;we have to have a realignment of divisions, and when we consider realignment we should also have travel subsidization. We soon will organize a subcommittee exploring an unbalanced schedule and realignment.&rdquo;Ziegler allowed that the league still has not filled the void created by Bobby Orr&rsquo;s retirement and that the NHL lacks a super star who automatically will fill arenas by his appearance.&ldquo;The player who comes closest to filling a building now is Guy Lafleur,&rdquo; said Ziegler. &ldquo;He is the outstanding player. After that &bull; among the top draws, I think people come out to see Phil Esposito, Bryan Trottier and Mike Bossy, as a combination, Marcel Dionne and Bobby Clarke, among others.&rdquo;Criticized in some quarters for not taking a more direct involvement in the lengthy dispute between Winnipeg Jets and Chicago Black Hawks over Bobby Hull, Ziegler said he deliberately adopted a passive stance.&ldquo;More could have been done,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;but I elected not to because it would have gone against an important principle of mine&mdash;that each club should be permitted to make its own choice as to who it wants on its club.&ldquo;It was my judgement that it was more important for Hull to report to Winnipeg and fulfill the obligations of his contract than satisfy the player&rsquo;s desire or even the fans in Chicago. It&rsquo;s more important that people live up to their obligations, whether they be owners, or players.&rdquo;Ziegler acknowledged that the NHL&rsquo;s playoff system, which permits 16 teams out of a possible 21 to qualify for the Stanley Cup round, has been roundly criticized but he defended the arrangement.&ldquo;The history of our league is that we&rsquo;ve always had two-thirds of our teams make the playoffs. This season it will be a little over two-thirds. But if you&rsquo;re a fan of the 16th team that makes the playoffs I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;ll complain.&rdquo;Other critics have suggested that the quality of the big-league product is down and they reinforce their argument by pointing out that 51-year-old Gordie Howe is able to skate with younger NHL aces.&ldquo;Howe is special. He is probably the greatest athlete of all-time,&rdquo; Ziegler replied. &ldquo;As for NHL quality, it has continued to improve. It is better than it was last season and each year in the past few seasons it has improved. Lately, we&rsquo;ve seen more effort by more teams on more nights. In addition, the coaching is getting better now that teams are using more assistants.&rdquo;Ziegler said he is monitoring league play for evidence of excess violence but has found no cause for concern. He noted that he had received a report last spring that one NHL team had planned to accent goon-style hockey again and he was prepared to take action to curb the mayhem. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t have to do anything,&rdquo; said Ziegler, &ldquo;because it never happened.&rdquo;Ziegler added: &ldquo;I maintain that there is no place for the (illegal) use of the stick to harm another player and I will see to it, to the best of my ability, that this kind of behavior is kept out of hockey.&rdquo;As for the future of the NHL, Ziegler exudes an optimism bordering on Pollyanna. He even can foresee an expansion of the circuit&rsquo; from its present roster of 21 teams to 24 by 1985.&ldquo;Given time,&rdquo; said Ziegler, &ldquo;and seeing how our player development comes along, I think it is reasonable to expect that we will have 24 teams in the next six years, although we have no such specific plan in the works.&ldquo;Right now the Meadowlands (East Rutherford, New Jersey) is one site we will be looking at for the 1981-82 season. We should have an answer on that by June 1980.&rdquo;Ziegler listed Hamilton, Calgary, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Diego, Seattle, Indianapolis and Miami-Fort Lauderdale as potential NHL cities within the next decade, but purely in the theoretical sense.&ldquo;I consider Hamilton a metropolis with big-league potential,&rdquo; said Ziegler. &ldquo;It needs an arena and if the indemnification and other problems with the Maple Leafs can be worked out, it (Hamilton) deserves a look.&ldquo;In terms of the city&mdash;not that it&rsquo;s ready with an arena&mdash;Calgary rates consideration. After all it is the financial center of Western Canadian oil business.&rdquo;Some of Ziegler&rsquo;s critics believe it is foolish for him to even consider further expansion when some of the NHL present clubs are financially unstable. But the NHL boss has reason for optimism because of the success of the four new NHL entries. &ldquo;They play to capacity,&rdquo; enthused Ziegler. &ldquo;As for playing ability, I don&rsquo;t think that anyone any longer figures, &lsquo;well, we&rsquo;re playing one of the new 1979 teams, let&rsquo;s count up two points.&rsquo; Those who have, have lived to regret it on occasion.&rdquo;Ziegler addressed himself to the question of league-wide publicity when it was pointed out that a national magazine such as Sport appeared on newsstands during November without a single hockey item in it.&ldquo;For the first two years,&rdquo; said Ziegler, &ldquo;all of the outside NHL problems took so much of my time that it wasn&rsquo;t until this summer that I had a chance to start looking internally. We&rsquo;ve reorganized our finances, we&rsquo;ve changed the Montreal office by adding computers and we&rsquo;ve started to do some reorganizing in marketing and public relations but I&rsquo;m just catching up.&rdquo;One of the tougher decisions that Ziegler has faced was whether to follow the example of junior hockey and institute a mandatory helmet rule. The result was a rule, supported by the NHL Players&rsquo; Association, requiring players signing a contract on or after June 1, 1979 to don headgear. While Ziegler does not believe that such a requirement is in any way a violation of the players&rsquo; rights, he agrees the rule has its drawbacks.&ldquo;Personally, I&rsquo;d rather watch players skating without a helmet,&rdquo; Ziegler admitted. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of the great appeals of our game, to see players with their hair flying. I grew up thinking that any guy who wore a helmet looked like a turtle. It took a great deal of soul-searching on my part to get to the position where I could advocate it but if one of our 480 young men got severely injured&mdash;I was very concerned with that responsibility.&rdquo;Future plans for the NHL include another Challenge Cup series, tentatively scheduled for January or February 1981. Ziegler conceded that the time of year may not be in the best interests of the NHL. &ldquo;Ideally, a series like that, a Challenge Cup, probably would be best if you had the Stanley Cup finish in early May and you did it after that. But the ability to do that right now is slim or none financially.&rdquo;Threatening the future working order of the league, Ziegler believes, would be problems with the Players&rsquo; Association over the current NHL rules regarding compensation.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have another full session at the All Star game,&rdquo; said Ziegler. &ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t come to some decision between now and June, the Players&rsquo; Association has to decide whether to give us notice to terminate the equalization by 1982.&rdquo;In conclusion, Ziegler vowed never to become complacent while in office.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not satisfied; I&rsquo;ll never be satisfied,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Whatever we do I&rsquo;ll say, &lsquo;that&rsquo;s a start, let&rsquo;s go from there.&rdquo;<div class="sidebar">&ldquo;We need Chicago the become a very competitive, very exciting place for hockey.&rdquo;&ldquo;We soon will organize a subcommittee exploring an unbalanced schedule and realignment.&rdquo;As for the future of the NHL, Ziegler exudes an optimism bordering on Pollyanna. &#9632;</div>

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Ziegler Contends NHL Problems Subsiding

SALT LAKE&mdash;The Salt Lake Golden Eagles fell out of first place by losing for the second time to the U.S. Olympic squad, this time 6-4 in Bloomington, Minn. But Jack Evans&rsquo; Birds kept close to the top by sweeping a pair in Cincinnati, 5-3 and 5-2.Tony Currie and Doug Palazzari shared fifth place on the league scoring chart with 22 points. Right wing Rick Bowness was returned by the parent St. Louis Blues.The Olympians&rsquo; Robbie McClanahan scored on the first shot of the game Tuesday, and went on to post a hat trick, with a goal in each period. Mark Pavelich, Mark Johnson and Steve Christoff also scored for the Olympic squad. Christoffs was an empty-net goal with 29 seconds left. The U.S. team ran its record to 6-1 against CHL foes.Brian Ogilvie got the Eagles&rsquo; first shorthanded goal of the season for a first-period tie. Richie Hansen, Palazzari and Rick Bourbonnais scored later for the Birds.Right wing Bobby Crawford, the rookie from Cornwall, Ont., was the standout of the series in Cincinnati. He scored the opening goal Wednesday, then had the hat trick Friday, with one goal in the first period and two in the second.OKLAHOMA CITY&mdash;In a complete turnabout, the Stars won twice at home, where they had suffered five straight losses, then bowed on the road, where they had won three in a row. The victories were 6-4 over Fort Worth and 7-4 over Dallas, while the loss was in Tulsa, Thanksgiving night, 4-2.Rob Flockhart added a goal and four assists to take over the CHL scoring leadership with 25 points. Robbie Laird collected 25 minutes in penalties to rank second in the league, but wasn&rsquo;t within shouting distance of Dallas&rsquo; Brad Gassoff. who had 116.The brawling victory over Fort Worth added up to 181 minutes in penalties. Ted Olson received a match penalty, and game misconducts went to Jim Boo, Peter Shier and Laird. Olson scored in the first period, Dave Delich, Flockhart (shorthanded), Alex Pirus and Warren Young in the second. Dan Chicoine found the empty net with 19 seconds left.Rookie center Delich and linemate Tony White featured the win over Dallas. Delich posted a hat trick in the first period. White also tallied in that period, and again in the third. Other goals came from Shier and Laird (an empty-netter with seven seconds to play).BIRMINGHAM&mdash;John Brophy&rsquo;s Bulls lost two of three against Houston, but salvaged an overtime triumph in Fort Worth for a break-even week. At home against the Apollos, the Bulls won, 4-3, Tuesday, but bowed, 5-1, two nights later. Following the Friday win in Fort Worth, they trekked to Houston and suffered a 4-3 setback. That left second-place Birmingham four points behind front-running Indianapolis in the CHL East, and four in front of third-place Houston.INDIANAPOLIS&mdash; The Checkers&rsquo; brilliant goalie tandem of Richard Brodeur and Jim Park keyed two victories and a tie, as Bert Marshall&rsquo;s crew - stretched its Eastern Division lead over Birmingham to four points. Brodeur became the CHL&rsquo;s leading goaltender on a 2.07 average yield, with Park second at 2.10.CINCINNATI&mdash; Four straight losses, three of them at home, left the Stingers in last place, five points back of Houston. Hartford recalled veteran center Dave DeBoi, while sending down rookie defenseman Dave Stewart. Veteran defender Paul Stewart was summoned by Quebec.Two losses to Salt Lake (5-3 and 5-2) were interspersed with a 3-1 loss in Indianapolis and followed by a 5-1 home loss to Indianapolis.HOUSTON&mdash; After breaking even for two games in Birmingham, the Apollos played a tie in Indianapolis, then beat Birmingham again 4-3 at home. That put Houston in third place in the CHL East, four points out of second. &#9632;

U.S. Olympians Knock Eagles Out Of CHL Lead

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-01896/4311868-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"></div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKS<h2>WINNIPEG JETS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01788/4311861-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="559" height="781"></div><h2>GOALING STATS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02662/4311854-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="546" height="2442"></div><h2>TEAM PENALTIES</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03512/4311847-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="548" height="538"></div> &#9632;

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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE

One of the hottest goalers in the NHL this season is Glen Hanlon and it is because of his sterling net play that the Vancouver Canucks have become a force in the NHL race. Next week in THE HOCKEY NEWS we will have a page 3 feature on Hanlon with correspondent Tony Gallagher describing his role in turning the Canucks from pretenders to contenders.The college hockey races are now in full swing on all fronts. The teams are rapidly approaching the Christmas tournament break but before they cut out, there are tell-tale games in both the ECAC and WCHA to be decided. &#9632;

What’s Coming Next Week!

<div class="byline">BY BOB VERDI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011070/4311004-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="515" height="352"></div><h2>Fighting Is Pollutant</h2>Stan Fischler, ColumnistTHE HOCKEY NEWSToronto, OntarioDear Stan:You have spoiled the holiday season for me, Stanley, with one deft stroke of your pen.In your column for the Nov. 16 issue of this great newspaper, you said I was &ldquo;half-cocked&rdquo; when I wrote a column of my own decrying fighting in hockey. Half-cocked! I can&rsquo;t even find that in my family dictionary. Couldn&rsquo;t you have just deleted the expletive?Then, you poured salt on the wound by saying I was only your third favorite hockey writer in the world. I could have pouted, but then it could have been worse, I suppose. You could have said I was your third favorite hockey writer on that page.Last, but not least, you attributed my half-cockedness to youth. Stanley, there was one and only one hockey writer I read religiously when I was a kid. You. And now that I am a kid no more, my teacher-from-a-distance slaps me on the typewriter. Ouch.Anyway, personal matters aside, your concept of fighting, I cannot agree with. You say there is &ldquo;absolutely nothing wrong with a good, clean one-on-one fight between equals.&rdquo; You are absolutely right, except that such a fight belongs in a ring, not in a rink. Name one positive or salient result that results from a hockey fight, and you can have a dinner for two at your favorite restaurant. Not allhockey players are created equal, and if anything, the fisticuffs you crave tend to pollute the sport to the point that the artists are vulnerable to the finger painters.<h2>Too Good To Allow It</h2>I MEAN, STANLEY, after Marcel Dionne scores four goals one night, what is to prevent a thug on the other team from &ldquo;equalizing&rdquo; him by breaking his nose? A two-minute roughing penalty? A five-minute major? C&rsquo;mon, Stanley.After Willie Stargell buried the Orioles in the World Series, I didn&rsquo;t see any Baltimore pitchers running to the Pittsburgh dugout looking for a fight, did you? After Roger Staubach was sacked in the Super Bowl, did he arise and punch Mean Joe Greene? When the match is over at Forest Hills, I always thought it was great that the combatants shake hands at midcourt. Evidently, you want them to shake fists.Why, of all sports, does hockey have to consent to this subrosa behavior? I say the game is too good to allow it. You obviously think the game needs that extra ingredient. Why, Stanley? Don&rsquo;t you like a good, hard-hitting, clean hockey game? Have you become jaded with age?You do make a couple wise points, and fortunately, they merely underscore what I am saying. You write that hockey players are lousy fighters as a rule and that &ldquo;there is virtually no evidence of damage accruing from a legitimate bit of fisticuffs.&rdquo; Correct. The most common injury in hockey is the knee injury, and hockey players don&rsquo;t hurt knees in fights. But what are we talking about, Stanley, is not violence. We are talking about stupidity, inanity, idiocy when we talk about fights. If there is all this spontaneous combustion around the NHL these days, how come players, don&rsquo;t use it to make a good body check at center ice or on the boards rather than to drop the gloves and play roller derby?<h2>A Lousy Substitute</h2>YOU KNOW WHY, Stanley? Because too many of the players are not capable and because the nabobs who run the game figure that, in absence of a clean shot, a cheap shot is a passable substitute. Wrong. It&rsquo;s a lousy substitute.&ldquo;The problem, Robert, is not with the fists but with the stick, which, when left uncontrolled, leads to fist work,&rdquo; you also wrote. Right again, Stanley. But why this lack of control? If you really believe that the elimination of fighting would mean open stick warfare, then you believe it only because you are programmed to think that somewhere, somehow, come hell-or-high-water, hockey must have a cannibalistic code of ethics. But it doesn&rsquo;t. It doesn&rsquo;t, because it doesn&rsquo;t need it.There is one rule in baseball that says a batter, after being struck out, can&rsquo;t walk out to the mound and brain the pitcher with a bat. It&rsquo;s just implicit that such ugliness won&rsquo;t happen. If it does, the batter will not only be banished from that game, and&rsquo; several games thereafter, but maybe the season, too. Hockey people refuse to think likewise. They are absolutely positive that their game must operate like a forest fire: if a blaze is extinguished over here, then there&rsquo;s bound to be another one over there.But why? Why take a Cadillac of a sport and ruin it with a thirty dollar paint job? They do it right in the colleges, they do it right overseas, and sometimes they do it right even in the NHL.Why not always, Stanley? Stanley, my favorite hockey writer, why not always?Sincerely,Number Three &#9632;

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HOCKEY TALK

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011128/4311118-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="421" height="341"></div>&bull; BERNIE GEOFFRION has lost 15 pounds since becoming coach of the Montreal Canadiens&hellip;Wayne Gretzky, Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; sensational young center, would like to own a team in the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League. He said he would like to purchase a club as soon as possible. Gretzky, 18, is the youngest player in the NHL and he wants to become the youngest owner in the OMJHL. If he obtained part ownership of a junior club it would not be unique. Randy Carlyle, a defenseman with the Pittsburgh Penguins, became a part owner of the OMJHL&rsquo;s Sudbury Wolves earlier this year. Gretzky is in the second year of a nine-year personal services contract that guarantees him between $2 to $3 million&hellip;Rogie Vachon of the Detroit Red Wings has the distinction of facing more penalty shots than any goalie active in the game today. He has had six penalty shots taken at him and he&rsquo;s stopped them all. He faced one while with Montreal and five while playing with Los Angeles. He has/yet to race a penalty shot since joining Detroit at the start of the 1978-79 season&hellip;Dan Bouchard has played brilliantly in goal for the Atlanta Flames all season. The veteran netminder is playing the best goal of his career since he became the No. one goaltender and didn&rsquo;t have to share netminding duties with Phil Myre which he did for so many years&hellip;Rick St. Croix of the Maine Mariners will be the next regular goalie of the Philadelphia Flyers. He&rsquo;s ready to make the move anytime&hellip;Paul Reinhart, youthful defenseman with the Atlanta Flames, is the second highest scoring rookie in the NHL, trailing only Brian Propp of Philadelphia&hellip;The Flames scored seven power play goals in their first 11 attempts&hellip;Montreal Canadiens signed Gerry O&rsquo;Flaherty as their Western Canada scout&hellip;Canadiens have had a spotty record since Bob Gainey has been out of the lineup with an injured foot. If ever a team missed one player, Canadiens miss him. The Stanley Cup champs have had more than their share of injuries this season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021082/4311111-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="269" height="377"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Reinhart</figcaption></div>&bull; HOWARD BALDWIN, governor of the Hartford Whalers, advises us that the brand new arena will be ready by January 17 and the Whalers will play that evening against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Having the new building ready so soon was a masterful feat of engineering construction. The Whalers have been one of the better of the four new NHL teams this year&hellip;Maine Mariners played their 200th American Hockey League game the other night (including playoffs) and their record for those 200 games was 114 wins, 60 losses and 26 ties. Out of the 102 home games the Mariners won 68, lost 20 and tied 14. This is indeed a phenomenal record for the Portland based team&hellip;Johnny Wilson of the Pittsburgh Penguins is the only coach in history to coach four different NHL clubs. Before taking over the coaching reins at Pittsburgh in 1977, he had coached the Los Angeles Kings (1969-70), Detroit Red Wings (1971-72 and 1972-73) and Colorado Rockies (1976-77). He also coached in the WHA in 1974-75 and 1975-76&hellip;. Only two players have scored five goals in a single game in their rookie seasons. They were Howie Meeker and Don Murdoch. Meeker scored five times for Toronto Maple Leafs against the Chicago Black Hawks in. the 1946-47 season, and Murdoch tallied five against the&mdash;Minnesota North Stars playing for the New York. Rangers during the 1976-77 season&hellip;Rangers are still trying to make a deal to unload Murdoch but so far there have been no takers&hellip;The last possible date the Stanley Cup playoffs could be played this season would be May 29. Last season it could have gone to June 1&hellip;Two hockey sweaters donated to the Quinte Sports Center in Belleville, Ont. by the Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; Bobby Hull have been stolen from the arena&rsquo;s display case.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-03976/4311104-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="259" height="449"><figcaption class="caption-body">Johnny Wilson</figcaption></div>&bull; HOW&rsquo;S THIS for durability? Gary Rissling, a promising young left winger, played for the Washington Capitals against the Buffalo Sabres on the afternoon of November 24 in Washington. Then he jumped into his car and drove to Hershey, Pa. where he starred for the Hershey Bears against the New Brunswick Hawks that evening&hellip;The Alberta Junior Hockey League suspended Red Deer Rustlers trainer Terry sexsmith for life recently as a result of a brawl in Red Deer between the Rustlers and the St. Albert Saints. The league also banned Red Deer general manager Graham Parsons, St. Albert general manager Jack Reid and Saints&rsquo; coach Doug Messier for the rest of the season. Players from both clubs were suspended for a number of games. Each team was fined $500 and ordered to put up $1,000 in cash as a performance bond. The brawl began when St. Albert players violated a league rule by skating into Red Deer&rsquo;s end of the rink during a pre-game warmup&hellip;We would like to hear from any longtime reader of THE HOCKEY NEWS who has every edition of the publication from the 1947-48 season through 1964-65. Or any one of those seasons complete&hellip;It was erroneously reported the other day that Steve Shutt of the Montreal Canadiens had set a club record when he scored the 256th goal of his career. This was said to be a record for a Canadiens&rsquo; left winger. It took Toe Blake to set the record straight. Blake produced figures to prove that Aurel Joliat held the record with 270 goals&hellip;There is a feeling among several hockey people who should know what they&rsquo;re talking about that Boston&rsquo;s Brad Park may never play again. His recent knee operation will keep him out of action for a minimum of a month and if the knee doesn&rsquo;t heal properly he could miss the entire season or end his career. Park, easily one of the game&rsquo;s top defensemen, has had knee trouble for several years now. In fact, it started back when he played junior hockey for the Toronto Marlboros&hellip;Another Boston defenseman, Dennis O&rsquo;Brien has decided to retire from hockey. He played seven seasons with the Minnesota North Stars before joining the Bruins.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-04874/4311097-1-eng-US/f0004-042.jpg" title="f0004-04" width="259" height="495"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Shutt</figcaption></div>&bull; MONTREAL CANADIENS did not receive any penalty other than a minor in the first quarter of the current season. Nor did any of their opponents receive any more than a minor while playing against the Canadiens. This illustrates the esteem in which the opposition holds the Montrealers&hellip;Toronto Maple Leafs may lose captain Darryl Sittler for a month as a result of his badly sprained ankle which he incurred when he slid into the boards in a game against the Chicago Black Hawks&hellip;John Davidson, New York Ranger goalie, made a special plea to be sent to the New Haven Nighthawks of the American League. He didn&rsquo;t have to go, but felt it would be a better place to work his knee back into shape&hellip;Marcel Dionne of the Los Angeles Kings who is off to his best start ever has already started contract talks for next season&hellip;Coach Harry Neals is receiving much of the credit for the fine showing of the Vancouver Canucks this year. The Canucks are one of the most improved teams in the NHL. One of the toughest members of the team is Stan (Steamer) Smyl, a battling little wingman who likes nothing better than to muck in there with the opposition at all times&hellip; Gary Unger who played eight seasons with St. Louis Blues didn&rsquo;t know until the last minute he would start this season with the Atlanta Flames. He was notified a day before the present season started that he would be with one of four teams, Atlanta, N.Y. Islanders, Chicago and Detroit. He barely made it to the Flames opening game against the Nordiques in Quebec&hellip;Every player on the American Hockey League Adirondack Red Wings wears a helmet<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-05735/4311090-1-eng-US/f0004-052.jpg" title="f0004-05" width="276" height="473"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stan Smyl</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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KEN McKENZIE’S PASSING THE PUCK

VOLUME 33, NUMBER 11, DECEMBER 14, 1979Editorial and Advertising Offices:214 King Street WestSuite 314Toronto, Ontario. M5H 1K4Charlie HalpinEditorial DirectorTom MurrayAssistant PublisherMike DennisAssistant EditorCathy MunroCopy EditorBob HanleyEditorial ConsultantStan Fischler, Frank Orr Bob VerdiContributing EditorsBusiness StaffPeter EmersonExecutive Vice President and General ManagerJoanne HatchSales Service ManagerKenneth W. McKenziePresident and PublisherW. C. C. Publishing Ltd.,Suite 217, 1434 St Catherine St. W&bdquo;Montreal, Canada. H3G1R7Donald R. WallChairmanTom MurrayAssistant Publisher850 Third Avenue,New York, N.Y. 10022Advertising Representatives:New York:Tom Murray850 Third Ave,New York, N.Y. 10022 &bull; (212) 593-2100Chicago:Hooper, Jones & Associates3322 W. Peterson AvenueChicago, III. 60659&bull; (312) 478-5544Boston:Steve GanakSteve Ganak Ad ReosStatler Office BoldingBoston, Mass. 02116&bull; (617) 542-6913THE HOCKEY NEWS, (ISSN 0018-3016), Is published weekly except monthly June through September by W.C.C. Publishing 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) 593-2100.YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION RATES: S14.95 in the U.S.A., 13.95 in Canada, S19.25 in Foreign Countries. Send all subscription requests to The Hockey news, 850 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022.Please allow 4-6 weeks for processing. SEND ADDRESS CHANGES (AND 3579 FORMS) to: The Hockey News, Martinsville Center, Martinsville, New Jersey 08836. Second class postage paid at New York, N.Y. 10001 and additional mailing offices. Second Class ZMall (Registration No. 1327). &#9632;

The Hockey News

<div class="byline">BY STEVE WINTER</div>LANDOVER&mdash;With one quarter of the 1979-80 NHL season history, the Washington Capitals have already experienced more than their share of surprises&mdash;most of them unpleasant.Injuries to no less than eight key players at once, including leading scorer Dennis Maruk, lost presumably until March; and a seven-game winless streak which included embarrassing losses to Edmonton and Detroit, and a tie with Colorado have Washington general manager Max McNab and coach Gary Green wondering which hairs to pull out next.One surprise, however, has turned out better than anybody expected; that being the play of the Capitals&rsquo; new Swedish import, rookie Bengt-Ake Gustafsson.After 21 games, Gustafsson tied with Tom Rowe for the team lead in points with 14, and was one of only three players&mdash;the others being Robert Picard and Ryan Walter&mdash;to have played in all of the Caps&rsquo; games thus far.Yet Gustafsson almost didn&rsquo;t make it to Washington. A fourth round draft pick by the Capitals in 1978, the 25-year-old baby-faced speedster opted to remain in his home country, where he scored 26 points in 34 games for the Forjestads Hockey Club. But Gustafsson was also scouted and selected by Edmonton, then of the WHA, and come playoff time, the flying Swede found himself wearing the colors of the Oilers. But after one game under Glen Sather&rsquo;s tutelage, the WHA ruled Gustafsson ineligible; and following a six-month legal wrangle in the aftermath of the NHL-WHA merger, league president John Ziegler ruled Gustafsson Washington property.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s an absolute steal for this hockey club,&rdquo; said Gary Green, the Capitals new, young coach. &ldquo;Max (McNab) and (assistant GM) Roger (Crozier) put up a helluva fight to get him. He&rsquo;s an extremely talented hockey man.&rdquo;Sather agreed, but from another point of view. &ldquo;To us, losing Gustafsson was like losing a number one draft choice, only it&rsquo;s like losing one with experience. You lose a lot of depth when you lose a player like that.&ldquo;You can see what he means to the Capitals now.&rdquo;What Gustafsson means to the Capitals is a legitimate scoring threat everytime he steps onto the ice. His lightning quick reflexes, brilliant stickwork and keen anticipation have produced many scoring opportunities for Gustafsson and his various linemates; and to date, his scoring totals rank him second in the NHL behind Philadelphia&rsquo;s Brian Propp in the race for rookie scoring honors&ldquo;He&rsquo;s an opportunist,&rdquo; says Green; &ldquo;with great finess and uncanny hockey sense.&rdquo;Such talents have produced goals from Gustafsson that most players can only dream about. In his fourth NHL game, Gustafsson beat Mario Lessard on a pair of dazzling ice-length rushes to lead the Caps to an 8-6 win over the Los Angeles Kings. He oft times makes his own openings by &ldquo;dipsy-doodling with the puck&rdquo;, long enough to turn a defending player inside out.&ldquo;Sometimes I have a tendency to try to do too much,&rdquo; Gustafsson said. &ldquo;Sometimes I try too hard.&rdquo;Gustafsson had a streak of bad bounces a few weeks back missing on about half-a-dozen breakaways in a span of five games.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Usually I turn a goaltender inside out.&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s a little tougher playing over here than it was in Sweden,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;In Sweden I can carry the puck more. Here most teams dump the puck and send in two guys after it.&rdquo;Gustafsson has apparently learned the dump-and-chase technique quite well&mdash;well enough to produce two assists in a 3-3 tie with Colorado recently, which snapped a five-game losing streak.&ldquo;I love playing over here,&rdquo; Gustafsson said. &ldquo;When I was a child, it was my dream to play in America.&rdquo; &#9632;

Gustafsson Rare Pleasant Surprise For Caps

<div class="byline">BY FRANK ORR</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-01979/4311197-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Rockies are building for the years ahead and young Rob Ramage represents the youth movement that could make the team a contender one day.</figcaption></div>DENVER&mdash;Rob Ramage is not a young man who backs away from anything or anyone on a hockey rink but there was an evening during the 1978-79 season when he was playing with Birmingham Bulls of the World Hockey Association when he would have preferred to stay in the dressing room.&ldquo;The Bulls were playing a game in Edmonton against the Oilers and it seemed every scout in hockey was in the building,&rdquo; Ramage recalled. &ldquo;There were close to 35 of them there because the Bulls had so many young players who were eligible for the National Hockey League draft in 1979.&ldquo;Well, the Oilers beat us, 11-3, and at the end of the second period, I think I was minus-nine on the night. Craig Hartsburg (Bulls&rsquo; other splendid 19-year-old defenseman) was minus-eight. Before the third period, I looked at him and said that, for the sake of our hockey futures, maybe we should suddenly become ill and stay in the dressing room.&rdquo;Fortunately, the NHL scouts, who watched the Bulls closely last season, didn&rsquo;t base their assessment on that one game. Ramage showed enough in the other 79 matches to earn the No. 1 draft spot in the NHL&rsquo;s 1979 harvest. As the worst team in the NHL last season, Colorado Rockies were granted that privilege and, this season, Ramage rests on their defense.Ramage, who is 6&rsquo;2&rdquo; and 200 pounds himself, began his first NHL season partnered with another blueline giant, 6&rsquo;3&rdquo; and 217 pounds, Barry (Bubba) Beck. It was the Rockies&rsquo; way of duplicating the Rocky Mountains that surround the city of Denver.Ramage&rsquo;s reactions to playing alongside Beck ranged from &ldquo;being partnered with Barry was a big break for me in my first season&rdquo; to the reassurance that having Beck at his side helped. &ldquo;Is he ever big. I&rsquo;m a fair size myself but he makes me feel small,&rdquo; added Ramage.On the massive shoulders of these two precocious youngsters rested the big portion of the Rockies&rsquo; hockey future. Then it happened.The Rockies, desperate for much-needed scoring punch, decided to sacrifice Beck in a five-player trade. Did Ramage&rsquo;s early advancement make the Rockies feel they could dispose of Beck and still get the job done with Ramage? No one was saying yes or no. Beck was gone now and the Rockies were apparently richer in forwards and they picked up a pretty good defenseman in the deal to boot, Mike McEwen.The pressure grew for young Ramage. He was the one the Rockies were banking on now that they had peddled Beck to the Rangers.The team is struggling in several areas&mdash;to attain respectability on the ice and to attract fan interest in Denver, where the team lost $2 million last season, the Rockies grabbed Ramage first in the NHL draft.Another big move to upgrade both areas was the hiring of Don (Grapes) Cherry as coach after his successful five-year tenure in Boston. This season, the Rockies are young and Cherry wants to see a steady improvement.&ldquo;Kids like Ramage will have a lot to do with how far we progress,&rdquo; Cherry said.Ramage, 20, from London Knights, was one of the &ldquo;Baby Bulls&rdquo;, six youngsters who were eligible for junior hockey last season but turned pro with the Birmingham team. Ramage was the No. 1 pick in the NHL&rsquo;s draft. Hartsburg (Minnesota North Stars), winger Rick Vaive (Vancouver) and winger Michel Goulet (Quebec Nordiques) also were first-round selections. Defenseman Gaston Gingras (Montreal Canadiens) and goalie Pat Riggin (Atlanta Flames) were second-round picks.&ldquo;It was a good decision to turn pro a year early,&rdquo; Ramage said. &ldquo;Really, it was the opportunity of a lifetime aside from the money I earned ($50,000 for the season, instead of $75 per week in junior hockey).&ldquo;I had the chance for an intermediate step on the way to the NHL, to play in a good league where I improved much more quickly than I would have in junior.&ldquo;Looking back on it now after being with the Rockies for a short time, it was a special season. On this team, just about all the players are married and have their own lives away from the rink. In Birmingham last season, there were the six of us who were all the same age and single. It meant I had six young guys to chum with and that was great.&ldquo;The Bulls were very young but it created a special attitude because many of us had our hockey careers ahead of us and really wanted to show how good we were for the draft. That meant the young guys all came, ready to play, for just about every game.&rdquo;Although Birmingham is located in football country where Bear Bryant, U. of Alabama football coach is a semi-diety, there was considerable interst in hockey.&ldquo;The Bulls had a solid core of 6-7,000 fans who were there for every game,&rdquo; Ramage said. &ldquo;It was funny but the people in Birmingham worshipped the Montreal Canadiens. At a fan club party one night, they showed the Stanley Cup film, which, of course, featured the Canadiens, and the people were cheering and hooting for them.&rdquo;Scouts from NHL teams were familiar figures at Bulls&rsquo; games all over the WHA because of the six draft-eligible young stars.&ldquo;At first, having all the scouts at the game was a bit of a pressure thing because you always wanted to play well and impress them,&rdquo; Ramage said. &ldquo;But as the season went along, they became part of the furniture.&ldquo;In fact, I got to know most of them quite well. I&rsquo;d meet them in the lobby of the rinks and chat.&rdquo;Ramage impressed them rather well. He excelled for the Bulls, played strongly in the WHA All Star series against the Soviet club Dynamo and earned second All Star team honors, finishing the season with 12 goals and 36 assists for 48 points.But when the NHL pushed its draft from its usual June setting to August, the summer became a nerve-racking time for Ramage and the other draftees. Added to that was the abundant talk that the Rockies planned to trade their first draft pick.&ldquo;When they shifted the NHL draft to August, it made it an uneasy summer for me,&rdquo; Ramage said. &ldquo;I wanted to know as early as possible where I would be playing this season so I could get my contract settled.&ldquo;Added to it was the fact that Rockies weren&rsquo;t certain if they were going to keep their first draft choice. I knew I would be going high in the draft because I&rsquo;d talked with scouts who knew where I stood on the ratings of the draft crop.&ldquo;When the Rockies did claim me, it was a relief.&rdquo;But that wasn&rsquo;t the end of turmoil for Ramage and the other Baby Bulls. Birmingham team owner Johnny Bassett had made them contract offers last season that the NHL was forced to honor. The agent for the players, Bill Watters, threatened court action. The four WHA teams entering the NHL had to pay close to $500,000 to the six Bulls as part of the cleanup costs of folding up the league.&ldquo;I just left that up to Bill Watters to settle,&rdquo; Ramage said. &ldquo;I figured it would be fixed up without a big court case and it was.&rdquo;Ramage then was able to sign a long-term contract with the Rockies that will pay him in excess of $100,000 this season.&rdquo;In the early part of the schedule, the Beck-Ramage duo received such a heavy load of icetime from Cherry that it was quipped in a press box that if they played that much all season, they would be ground down to the size of Bobby Lalonde (5-foot-6) by March.&ldquo;I always have had a lot of ice time so it doesn&rsquo;t bother me,&rdquo; Ramage said. &ldquo;In fact, it&rsquo;s great to play that much.&rdquo;The season likely will be a long one for the Rockies. They played strongly defensively in the early going but the club lacks much attacking sting.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have a pack of 50-goal scorers so we&rsquo;ll have to stick to basic hockey to try and hold the opposition down,&rdquo; Ramage said.&ldquo;Cherry is an excellent teacher and there&rsquo;s nothing complicated about the style of hockey he wants us to play. We&rsquo;re young and will make mistakes but Cherry is very good at helping us correct the blunders. It&rsquo;s fun to play hockey for him.&rdquo;<div class="sidebar">He was No. 1 on every scout&rsquo;s report while sticking out with the WHA BullsWith Beck gone, the pressure is squarely on Ramage&rsquo;s shoulders and he knows it won&rsquo;t be easy &#9632;</div>

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Rockies High On Ramage’s Future Potential

<div class="byline">By BILL FLEISCHMAN</div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Before he ever played a game for the Philadelphia Flyers he was called &ldquo;another Bobby Clarke&rdquo;.He is Ken Linseman and he&rsquo;ll tell you now that his pre-Flyers build-up didn&rsquo;t help. Neither did his over-confident attitude, or a gimpy ankle.The Flyers finally sent Linseman to the Maine Mariners last season, where he rediscovered his confidence. When he returned late last season, there were finally signs that he would be the player the Flyers expected when they paid the WHA Birmingham Bulls $500,000. Linseman&rsquo;s overtime goal in the quarter-final playoff opener against the New York Rangers was the Flyers&rsquo; only bright spot in an otherwise disastrous series.As you may have noticed this season, Linseman is fulfilling every expectation the Flyers had for him. The quick-as-a-quiver center with the Ferrari acceleration and Don Rickles&rsquo; tongue is as responsible as anyone for the Flyers early-season streak.When Linseman starts his dash out of the Flyers&rsquo; zone with the puck, the Spectrum crowd roars in anticipation and defensemen begin retreating. Frequently the retreating defensemen are rendered helpless as Linseman bursts past them.It happened again in the Flyers&rsquo; 6-4 victory over Minnesota, a win that extended their unbeaten streak to 19 (16-0-3). Rookie Craig Hartsburg was the victim this time, as Linseman broke in goaltender Gilles Meloche, faked a forehand shot, then went to his backhand and scored.&ldquo;The little bugger is so fast, he&rsquo;s gonna&rsquo; put me in my grave trying to keep up with him,&rdquo; said linemate Bill Barber. &ldquo;Playing on his line really helps me. He opens things up for me because they have to key on him. I know he gets the crowd excited. It&rsquo;s great for the team, and it&rsquo;s great for hockey.&rdquo;Right winger Dennis Ververgaert also appreciates Linseman&rsquo;s company. Ververgaert still hasn&rsquo;t joined the Flyers&rsquo; scoring parade, but he is working hard enough to please Coach Pat Quinn and is also showing signs of rediscovering the scoring touch he had in Vancouver.&ldquo;Kenny compliments me with those give-and-goes,&rdquo; said Ververgaert. &ldquo;He allows me to get my speed up. Plus, he creates a lot of openings.&rdquo;Linseman also creates controversy, as anyone who saw him play for the Kingston Canadians or Birmingham will agree. Vancouver Coach Harry Neale saw Linseman in the WHA. Whenever he sees Linseman these days, Neale doesn&rsquo;t know whether to smile or snarl.&ldquo;I have to admire the little bleep,&rdquo; Neale said following a 5-2 Philadelphia victory at Pacific Coliseum. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s either crazy or the bravest guy since Audie Murphy. I don&rsquo;t know whether I dislike him more than I admire him.&ldquo;I know one thing: You get all the guys you&rsquo;re swearing at all night on your team and you win a championship. And our guys were swearing all night at Linseman.&rdquo;Glen Sonmor only swore in delight at Linseman when they were together in Birmingham. And, although Sonmor now coaches the North Stars, he still marvels at the 5-10, 175-pound center.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a great little hockey player,&rdquo; said Sonmor. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a great talent with explosive speed. He&rsquo;ll make the big plays and score big goals for you.&rdquo;Linseman will also assist on big goals. Just ask Bill Barber or Dennis Ververgaert.FLYERS FACTS: Barber was the Flyers&rsquo; leading &ldquo;plus&rdquo; player at 19, according to figures compiled by the Daily News&rsquo; Jay Greenberg after 20 games. Bobby Clarke (18) and rookie Brian Propp (16) were next. Reggie Leach was plus 13, but also had made the biggest improvement over his 20-game figure of minus 4 a year ago.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011159/4311228-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="584" height="1088"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ken Linseman combines cockiness with abundant talent for the Flyers.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Flyers Praise Explosive Linseman

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02888/4311259-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="437" height="338"></div><h2>New Season Grows Old</h2>SOME OBSERVATIONS, notes and gripes on a National Hockey League season that is aging all too quickly.&bull; Amazing, isn&rsquo;t it, how quickly the four merger teams from the World Hockey Association have been integrated into NHL thinking and the pattern of the league. After 20 games, it seemed that Hartford Whalers, Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets had been around for years. Of course, they were featured players in those seemingly endless merger talks.&bull; Montreal Canadiens have established rather decisively this season that hockey needs fighting and a large number of fouls about as badly as Custer needed another Indian. In their first 22 games of the &lsquo;79-80 schedule, Canadiens didn&rsquo;t earn one major penalty and neither did the teams playing against them. They averaged 8.5 minutes in penalties per game and not one mention has been made that Canadiens are chickens or lack aggressiveness.&bull; Wayne Gretzky, the magnificent young center of Edmonton Oilers, has passed the Orr-test for that most over-used expression &ldquo;super-star&rdquo;. To me, the true test to join the very small group of players who deserve that title is this: Do hockey fans say that the player, not the team, is coming to town, i.e. Gordie Howe, not Hartford Whalers, are in town tonight? Well, NHL fans are saying that Gretzky, not the team, is in town.&bull; Although hockey doesn&rsquo;t receive the space granted to other big league sports, it&rsquo;s by far the best-written major league game in North American newspapers. There are fewer cheerleaders, much less boosterism and more sound investigative stuff than on the other pro beats.&bull; NHL owners don&rsquo;t demonstrate such tendencies very often but in early December they showed a decided edge in brightness over the major league baseball owners. While baseball was holding its annual major league meeting in sunny Florida.&bull; Most puzzling move of the &lsquo;79-80 season? The efforts of the Toronto Maple Leafs upper brass to downgrade their captain and center Darryl Sittler. He&rsquo;s been a splendid player and a first-rate gentleman during his decade with the Leafs and the bad-mouthing he&rsquo;s received from the club&rsquo;s hierarchy is difficult to understand.<h2>Things To Like</h2>HOW ABOUT A few things one man has liked about this season?&bull; Watching the Marcel Dionne-Dave Taylor-Charlie Simmer forward line play the game for Los Angeles Kings. There&rsquo;s a joy and a flair to their work that&rsquo;s gorgeous to behold. They also operate at a very high skill level and execute some intricate moves at great speed.&bull; The grace with which Gordie Howe has handled what must be the most demanding load of interviews of any player in history. Every time Howe makes his first appearance in a city, it&rsquo;s compulsory that every writer, radio and TV man in that city have a feature story on him. Howe treats each interviewer as if it&rsquo;s the only one he&rsquo;s given this year.&bull; The honest emotion displayed by Darryl Sittler when telling a luncheon in Toronto about a family with a young son suffering from cancer. Sittler is honorary chairman of a fund to open a residence for the families of children being treated for the disease at Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto.&bull; Seeing Maple Leaf defenseman Borje Salming play the game with a sheer athleticism that very few players can equal.&bull; Watching Jean Ratelle, at 39, work with that great elegance and style for Boston Bruins and Dave Keon of Hartford Whalers, the same age, cavort with the same quickness and skill he had 15 years ago.&bull; The post-game press conferences of Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; coach Harry Neale, where the good one-liners come thick and fast.<h2>Funny Game, Sometimes</h2>HOCKEY PEOPLE ARE funny sometimes when they&rsquo;re trying to be. Often, they&rsquo;re funny when they&rsquo;re not trying to be but that&rsquo;s another matter. Here are a few examples of this season&rsquo;s one-liners.&bull; Bob Plager, St. Louis Blues&rsquo; scout: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s ridiculous how young players are in this league these days. Two of our kids went into a bar the other night and ordered Scotch and wa-wa!&rdquo;&bull; A Toronto Maple Leaf on a flight when a baby at the back of the plane started to cry and wail loudly: &ldquo;Geez, they&rsquo;ve just told Pat Boutette (Leafs&rsquo; pint-sized winger) that he&rsquo;s been traded to Colorado.&rdquo;&bull; Harry Neale: &ldquo;Last season, the best system of forechecking my Canucks could use was to shoot the puck in and leave it there.&rdquo;&bull; Neale again: &ldquo;Last season, we couldn&rsquo;t win at home and we were losing on the road. My failure as a coach was that I couldn&rsquo;t think of any place else to play.&rdquo;&bull; Dave Dunn, Neale&rsquo;s assistant coach: &ldquo;When I played hockey, I had a unique style of skating. My feet never left my ankles.&rdquo; &#9632;

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HOCKEY VIEWPOINT

<div class="byline">By VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT&mdash;Time is running out for Olympia Stadium.As the National Hockey League turned into December, the grand old building on Grand River was counting down the hockey games.Home of the Detroit Red Wings since it was built more than half-a-century ago, Olympia will be vacated by the NHL club after the game Dec. 15 against the Quebec Nordiques.The Wings are scheduled to move into their new home on the riverfront, the Joe Louis Sports Arena, on Dec. 27 when they entertain the St. Louis Blues.The new arena will open with a pair of college basketball games early in December, but the Wings, with a 12 day break in their home schedule, delayed their move a little bit to allow themselves plenty of time to make the switch effectively and smoothly.While a lot of people are sorry to see the end of Olympia&mdash;its future beyond December is unclear&mdash;General Manager Ted Lindsay views the move into the new building with enthusiasm.Nostalgia is for those people who sit on their hands and live in the past, Lindsay said. Give him the future, and a chance for accomplishment any time.Still, it will be sad to see the end of the red brick building, the place Gordie Howe said was &ldquo;almost home&rdquo; for him in his early days as a professional player.Construction of Olympia began in the summer of 1926 and was completed the following year. The first hockey game was played on November 22, 1927, between the Detroit Cougars and Ottawa Senators.Detroit&rsquo;s John Sheppard scored the first goal in the new building, but Ottawa won the game, 2-1.The building has gone under extensive renovation and expansion in the last 15 years. In 1965, the seating capacity was increased by nearly 2,000 seats to 14,700, and the capacity including standing room is another 2,000.Meanwhile, back in the current season, the Red Wings nearly pulled off back-to-back weekend upsets.First Vaclav Nedomansky and Reed Larson notched a pair of goals as the Wings came from behind and bounced the Bruins 6-3 in the Olympia and the following night in Philadelphia, the Red Wings banged in a couple of goals in the last seven minutes to pick up a 4-4 tie with the Flyers. &#9632;

End Drawing Near For Venerable Olympia

<div class="byline">By TOM HENSHAW</div>BOSTON&mdash;Perhaps it&rsquo;s that one more year of hockey maturity. Or perhaps it&rsquo;s the confidence and ice time given him by a new coach. Or perhaps it&rsquo;s two veteran linemates backing him up, even yelling at him when he does something they don&rsquo;t like.Whatever it is, it&rsquo;s making Bobby Miller a better hockey player, a mild but pleasant surprise for the Boston Bruins in his third year in the National Hockey League.Miller, a local boy from suburban Billerica, surprised the Bruins once before when he made the big club right off the campus of the University of New Hampshire on his first try. He even scored 20 goals as a parttime rookie forward.Then came the sophomore slump, which arrived at a particularly bad time for the Bruins since they had just traded off Gregg Sheppard for a badly needed defenseman on the assumption that Miller was ready to take his place. He wasn&rsquo;t. Not just then, anyway.The nadir of Miller&rsquo;s brief career came during a game with the New York Islanders when he lost a face off in the Bruins&rsquo; end to Bryan Trottier with two seconds left in the period and the Islanders came within a split second of scoring.&ldquo;When I got back to the dressing room I really heard about it,&rdquo; he recalls. &ldquo;That was about the last time all season that I was allowed to take a face off in our end. Don Marcotte and Stan Jonathan took them instead.&rdquo;He scored only 15 goals playing fulltime at center and, when training camp time rolled around last September, General Manager Harry Sinden was saying such things as &ldquo;we&rsquo;re concerned about Bobby Miller. He flattened out last year. His progression wasn&rsquo;t what we thought it would be.&rdquo;Enter the new coach, Fred Creighton&mdash;and enter the new Miller, too.In the second exhibition game, while Creighton was feeling his way along with line combinations, Miller was dropped in between Marcotte and rookie Doug Morrison and he scored two goals, one of them shorthanded while killing a penalty with Marcotte.In the opening game of the season, Wayne Cashman replaced Morrison; the third Bruins&rsquo; goal went to Miller from Cashman and Marcotte; the duo of Miller and Marcotte killed four penalties; and new hockey vistas were opening for Bobby Miller.After the first 22 games of the season, the trio had 14 goals, which is not bad when you consider their primary responsibility is to check the enemy&rsquo;s big lines, the ones that include the Guy Lafleurs, the Marcel Dionnes, the Mike Bossys.Perhaps more important, with Miller and Marcotte the basic set, Bruins&rsquo; penalty killers had allowed only eight goals in 76 opportunities, an effectiveness of 89.5 per cent. Last year Boston was 74.7 per cent, fourth worst in the league.Miller credits his linemates with his comback from the sophomore jinx.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re so easy to play with,&rdquo; he said after winning first star in a 4-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens. &ldquo;Marcotte makes things particularly easy because you know if you make a mistake he&rsquo;s always backing you up. Cash is such a great leader and he dominates the corners.&ldquo;Cash has been trying to get me to stay out of the corners and get into places where he can get me the puck with a chance to score. I could have had six goals tonight the way those guys went into the corners and got the puck to me.&rdquo;&ldquo;He&rsquo;s really matured as a player,&rdquo; said Cashman. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got that great speed and we&rsquo;re trying to take advantage of It now. I told him to stay out of the corners and we&rsquo;ll get him the puck. We want him in the slot. I keep yelling at him to get clear and keep us from getting tied up in the corner.&ldquo;He can be a really good goal scorer and I&rsquo;m talking 30 or 40 goals a year.&rdquo;The general manager has changed his mind about Miller, too.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a different player,&rdquo; said Sinden. &ldquo;He goes for the net and he looks like he feels he can score.He&rsquo;s playing with confidence. He worked very hard during the summer to build himself up.&rdquo;The play that caught the critics&rsquo; eye in the Montreal game went like this:Miller won a face off from Pierre Larouche, got the puck back to defenseman Ray Bourque and headed for the net in time to tip Bourque&rsquo;s shot past the goalie. A year ago that wouldn&rsquo;t have happened. He might not even have been trusted to take the draw.<div class="sidebar">Miller credits his linemates with getting him past the sophomore jinx. &#9632;</div>

Bruins’ Local Hero Puts Slump Behind Him

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div>MONTREAL&mdash;The latest in the series of mini-dramas which seem to crop up in the Canadiens&rsquo; camp from time to time, popped into some significance thanks to Gilles Lupien.Lupien, one of the six defencemen the Canadiens are carrying this season, was more than a little incensed with the amount of ice time he was getting from coach Bernard Geoffrion and after a 3-2 win over St. Louis, the Towering Inferno was ablaze.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had it with this,&rdquo; he stormed. &ldquo;If I&rsquo;m not good enough to play here, let them send me somewhere else.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not improving sitting on the bench. They are a bunch of hypocrites, I&rsquo;ve had enough.&rdquo;Lupien, who had played just one shift in three previous games for which he had dressed, was given the hook by coach Geoffrion shortly after taking a cross checking penalty at center ice late in the first period of the game against St. Louis.&ldquo;And did he tell you he was late for our team meeting that night,&rdquo; Geoffrion stormed. &ldquo;I have nothing against the guy. If he wants to be traded, let him go upstairs.&rdquo;And to conclude another tempest in a teapot, Managing Director Irving Grundman added this piece of information.&ldquo;I prefer to see my players do their talking on the ice.&rdquo;Lupien clearly does not want to become another Pierre Bouchard with the Canadiens and can sense that is what is happening to him.The team brass wants him to hit, but they do not want him taking the silly type of penalty he took in the game against the Blues or such as the needless high sticking minor he had a few days earlier in Boston.The Lupien incident overshadowed for a while a very real problem of inconsistency that faced the Canadiens.They had not been getting balanced scoring from their forward lines and at one stage, 13 of the 15 goals Montreal had scored came from the line of Guy Lafleur, Steve Shutt and Pierre Larouche.Mark Napier, who had a passle of chances, had been gone 10 games without a goal, after being held off the scoresheet against Hartford to start the month of December,Teammate Pierre Mondou had two goals in 11 games and people such as Mario Tremblay, and Yvon Lambert were having similar problems.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t have just one line doing it,&rdquo; said Shutt. &ldquo;Everybody has got to contribute.&rdquo;Normand Dupont, a rookie left wing, finally got his first goal of the season in the Hartford game, jamming the puck in from the left side after a set up from Tremblay.And then there were the injuries.Bob Gainey came back too early from a broken bone in his left foot and played in a home-ice triumph over Boston. He couldn&rsquo;t go against the Bruins the next night and did not resume skating until the beginning of December.Doug Risebrough, out with strained ligaments in his left knee, was knocked to the ice in a practice the afternoon before the Hartford game and could not return after being out since Oct. 28.Lambert had back spasms with the result that he could not play for three games.Larry Robinson twisted his knee against the Blues, but fortunately, it wasn&rsquo;t serious enough to keep him out.Both Napier and Tremblay had leg injuries which sidelined them for a game and of course, Denis Herron was still recuperating from his broken collarbone, hoping to return to duty Dec. 29. &#9632;

Canadiens’ Lupien Towering Inferno

The International Hockey Weekly Founded in 1947Published by the W.C.C. Publishing Ltd.214 King St. West, Suite 314, Toronto, Ont. M5H 1K4<h2>Incomparable Bobby</h2>THE FLYER FRANCHISE was only two years of age when it was joined by the diabetic kid from Flin Flon&hellip;Robert Earle Clarke, a hard-working centerman of modest physical stature and enormous competitive desire.Through the next decade of Flyer hockey nobody put a deeper imprint on the club, nor on the league generally, than the intense and capable Bobby Clarke, leader by example on the ice, leader by words in the dressing room.Flyers have been an excellent franchise from the beginning, with Ed Snyder providing sound economics and marketing, and Keith Allen sniffing out a high quota of available hockey talent.But in the last decade perhaps Clarke has been the core of the franchise with intense and bitter competition on the ice and the ability as captain to sell coaching theories and coaching edicts to his mates.He was principal communicator and motivator in the days of Freddie Shero, days distinguished by tactics, mysticism, brutality and cornball legends on the dressing room blackboard.In the new era, which is the Pat Quinn era, Clarke has become an assistant coach in a brand new Flyer order which stresses perpetual skating motion and minimizes emphasis on the hitting game. As he sold Shero to his mates, he is now selling Quinn. And as he sold the hitting game, he is now selling the skating game.Clarke is the perfect coach-to-player salesman because of his own dedication and exemplary performance. Because of the intensity and skill in his own 60-minute play, who better to preach the coaching gospel than Bobby Clarke?Seniors listen, youngsters listen, and it is under Quinn as it was under Shero&mdash;if new philosophies are good enough for Bobby Clarke, then they&rsquo;re good enough for all of the Flyers.Flyers, despite injuries, have had incredible early success with their new systems and with the performance of youngsters filling for injured veterans.Clarke involves himself in intramural activities of the Flyer team and has what few captains or assistant coaches have&mdash;total acceptability by everybody on the squad.Quite aside from his own high level of play, Clarke is a coach&rsquo;s dream&mdash;tactical assistant, disciplinarian, communicator, motivator.The NHL has had a lot of super stars across the last decade but it&rsquo;s doubtful if the contributions of any other have been as multi-sided as the contributions of Bobby Clarke.He&rsquo;s a rare jewel of many facets, the kind of guy who is sought by many and found by few.<h2>New Year&rsquo;s Eve</h2>CHRISTMAS IS COMING and so are the Soviets.First game in the holiday exhibition series will be December 26 in Vancouver (Moscow Dynamo at Canucks) and last game will be January 8 (Moscow Dynamo at Capitals).The Soviet visits will probably draw well in all rinks but the two games of special interest to NHL fans everywhere are December 31 (Red Army at Canadiens) and January 3 (Red Army at Sabres).If you had to pick a single game that would draw the broadest interest and the largest TV audience it would probably be the Red Army-Hab clash in Montreal on New Year&rsquo;s Eve.The last time the two met (and on the same date) it was one of the finest competitions of the year, and it could be again. &#9632;

<div class="byline">BY BOB KULLEN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011150/4311386-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="333" height="499"></div>Last summer, the athletic directors of the Eastern College Hockey Association (ECHA), a subsection of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC), overwhelmingly approved a rule which makes wearing facemasks mandatory by all hockey players in the east this year.Most players, who had learned to play hockey without the mask, hated the rule. And many coaches complained that they weren&rsquo;t consulted on the matter. One of them&mdash;Bob Kullen, an assistant coach at the University of New Hampshire&mdash;became the center of attention when he pulled his team off the ice in the middle of a game against Ohio State, whose players are not required to wear the mask. Kullen&rsquo;s explanation of that decision, plus his thoughts on the facemask issue, follow.The major problem with the facemask that now confronts eastern schools is the adjustment the players have had to make to wearing it. The majority of them have never worn one, so it&rsquo;s very difficult for them to get used to it after playing all of their lives without one. If, on the other hand, these kids had been familiar with the mask from youth hockey on&mdash;as is the case today&mdash;there would be no adjustment to make and no complaints.While I think it&rsquo;s been proven that the mask does prevent some facial injuries, I feel that the ECAC was pressured by doctors and lawyers into making a somewhat premature decision. Sometimes, decisions are made regarding spots by non-athletic people, and I think that perhaps this facemask decision is one of those. It was made hastily and without regard to the players or to the game of hockey.The players weren&rsquo;t really taken into consideration because the product has simply not yet been perfected. It was such a rush job that there are a lot of masks that don&rsquo;t fit helmets, a lot of helmets that aren&rsquo;t supposed to have masks, certain masks that have to be approved by AHAUS (Amateur Hockey Association of the United States) and others that don&rsquo;t. And those that have to be AHAUS-approved have that sticker right on the side or the helmet, in an area where your peripheral vision can be most impaired. Even with the mask we&rsquo;ve had numerous incidents where a player has still gotten stitches; they get hit in the face by another mask and get cut anywhere from sideburn to sideburn along the chin line.As for the impact the mask has had on the game itself, the major factor is that the officials are unprepared to handle games where masks are worn. And in a game between a masked team and an unmasked team, they don&rsquo;t have the foggiest idea of what to do.In that game we played against Ohio State, my interpretation was that the Ohio State players weren&rsquo;t used to having skirmishes with players with masks on. There was no place to hit anybody, so the first thing they did was grab the mask. As a result, there was a lot of clutching, twisting and grabbing; so much that my captain complained to the referee. The ref responded that there was nothing against those tactics in the rulebook. I said that there are a lot of things that aren&rsquo;t specifically covered in the rulebook that could be interpreted through any number of violations&mdash;like holding, intent to injure, misconduct&hellip;any of those.There was a legitimate danger there. But more than that, the game had turned into mayhem and the officiating was awful. Hockey was probably the fourth or fifth factor in the kids&rsquo; minds out there. My players were seriously concerned about their welfare, and it was senseless to continue.All of this is the result of the quick implementation on the part of the ECAC to impose the masks on the players this year. There were a lot of ramifications that could have been projected that weren&rsquo;t&mdash;like investigating the issues thoroughly and anticipating something like that which occurred between us and Ohio State.What it boils down to is, I think, two factors: The first is that there have been isolated incidents over the years where players have suffered serious eye injuries and there is a definite &ldquo;one eye lost is one eye too many&rdquo; attitude on the part of the medical people who asserted that this ruling should be made.The second and I think key factor is that the people in hockey&mdash;especially athletic administrations&mdash;are petrified of lawsuits. They say that without the mask, a player is not protected to the maximum. And the responsibility of athletic administrations is to do just that&mdash;protect their players to the maximum.In other words, if a player loses an eye now and he isn&rsquo;t wearing a facemask, he can sue. But if he is wearing a facemask, is therefore protected to the maximum, and still loses an eye&hellip;the rationale can be, &ldquo;Hey, these things happen.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Facemask Implementation Too Hasty

<div class="byline">BY KEITH ALLEN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021035/4311417-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="276" height="413"></div>A lot of people are asking if we can hold our early pace (undefeated in 21 straight) and others are asking if the Flyers are for real. I can say we expected, to do well, but, I&rsquo;d by lying if I said I thought this was the kind of start we would have.Certainly, with the rash of injuries, especially on defense, we&rsquo;re doing better than anybody expected and I would have to give credit to Pat Quinn as coach and to the influx of young players from the minors. Another factor would be our new style with the accent on continuous skating motion.Frankly, I don&rsquo;t know if we can go on at exactly the present pace, but I expect a good solid pace. We have demonstrated depth and that is the sign of a good hockey club.Through most of the early season we had to go without three injured defensemen&mdash;Bob Dailey, Behn Wilson and Andre Dupont were out with injuries. In fact, there was a point at which Jim Watson was our only veteran defenseman playing.We brought up four from our farm team&mdash;Mike Busniuk, Norm Barnes, Dennis Patterson and Wesley Blake and all were agreeable surprises.As for Pat Quinn, I think he has done a superb job. He settled down his team, introduced a more offensive style of hockey and has them scoring more. We used to be a grind-it-out hockey team but now we&rsquo;re a skating team and I think we can skate with anybody.Typical of the way that Pat Quinn has lifted up seniors is the case of Reggie Leach who had been in Freddie Shero&rsquo;s dog house. With Quinn&rsquo;s confidence, Leach is a new player, and he&rsquo;s giving us the best two-way hockey of his career.Overall, I think we have the talent, attitude and direction to win the Stanley Cup.&bull; Keith Allen is the general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers. &#9632;

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Flyers Are For Real

<div class="byline">BY NEIL MILBERT</div>CHICAGO&mdash;The Black Hawks are carrying 23 players and that means 4 men are on the unemployment rolls every game.Sure, they&rsquo;re drawing their regular salaries. But money isn&rsquo;t buying unhappiness.And the unhappiness engendered is reflected in the non-production the Hawks are getting from the men who are playing this game of musical chairs. General Manager Bob Pulford&rsquo;s fight-for-jobs plan hasn&rsquo;t worked out the same way that a similar incentive program has in Montreal.The Canadiens put people like Pierre Larouche and Mark Napier in the press box and they acquire a voracious appetite for competition.In Chicago, it&rsquo;s different. Instead of finding inspiration in the press box, the players have been getting coffee nerves, inferiority complexes, and chips on their shoulders.Nevertheless, the discontented are en-rapport on one subject&mdash;bad as the situation is, it beats Moncton. When forwards Alain Daigle and Harold Phillipoff were asked to volunteer to go to the New Brunswick farm team for &ldquo;conditioning&rdquo; they refused.&ldquo;What do I want to do in Moncton?&rdquo; asked Daigle after coach Eddie Johnston broached the subject. &ldquo;They can&rsquo;t send me because somebody wants me.&rdquo;Daigle&mdash;the player the Hawks protected at the price of losing Bobby Hull to Winnipeg last summer&mdash;is right on both counts.&bull; Under terms of the collective bargaining agreement with the National Hockey League Players Association: &ldquo;Unless a player consents, he shall not be sent to a minor league club for conditioning purposes. Nor shall such conditioning extend for more than 14 consecutive days without the players&rsquo; consent.&rdquo;&bull; It has been learned that Toronto lodged a claim for Daigle when the Hawks put him on the waiver list, trying to send him to New Brunswick without his consent.&ldquo;One club claimed him so we&rsquo;ve taken Daigle off the waiver list,&rdquo; Pulford affirmed. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to lose him that way. He&rsquo;s a decent player and tries hard. As a junior, he was fantastic.&rdquo;In his last junior season, 1973-74, Daigle had 80 goals and 68 assists for Three Rivers.&ldquo;He just hasn&rsquo;t come along in this league, but that&rsquo;s not to say he won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; continued Pulford. &ldquo;He could suddenly get his confidence and start realizing his potential the way Grant Mulvey is doing.&ldquo;The Hull situation has been talked about and talked about. The reason we protected Daigle instead of Hull is simply because we didn&rsquo;t feel Winnipeg would take Hull. That&rsquo;s what we were led to believe. But they did.&rdquo;Phillipoffs case is slightly different than Daigle&rsquo;s, according to Pulford. He was asked to so to New Brunswick&mdash;and refused&mdash;but wasn&rsquo;t placed on waivers earlier.Because Phillipoff and defenseman Pat Ribble have been spectators more often than they&rsquo;ve been players. Pulford is a sitting duck for pot-shots from critics. Along with Tom Lysiak, Greg Fox, and minor-leaguer Miles Zaharko, these two came from Atlanta in the mid-March trade that cost Chicago the services of Phil Russell, Ivan Boldirev, and Darcy Rota.However, injuries in training camp and early in the season have retarded the progress of Ribble and Phillipoff. &ldquo;Harold missed nine games because he had the flu and the ankle injury (tendonitis) and now that we&rsquo;re winning it will be difficult to fit him in,&rdquo; said Pulford. &ldquo;Practice isn&rsquo;t the same as playing in games.&ldquo;Moncton has a lot of games coming up. If he went there, he&rsquo;d come back in shape in two weeks and if somebody got hurt&mdash;and we needed him before that&mdash;he&rsquo;d be better prepared than this way. We wouldn&rsquo;t be asking these guys to go to Moncton if it wasn&rsquo;t for their own good and the good of the team.&rdquo;HAWK TALK&mdash; Defenseman Dave Logan&mdash;another on-again, off-again player&mdash;vented his discontent verbally after the 4-2 loss in Edmonton on Nov. 28 in which he was benched for the third period. Johnston reacted by sending him back to Chicago, while the team continued westward for weekend games in Vancouver and Los Angeles&hellip;&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t a suspension,&rdquo; said Johnston. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just going to tell Mr. Pulford what happened and he will have a talk with Logie when we get back to Chicago (en route to the East Coast for a three-game swing). I didn&rsquo;t like his attitude. He&rsquo;s had to sit down before and he&rsquo;ll sit down again. If I didn&rsquo;t make a stand, I would have lost the respect of the players.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011107/4311448-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="556" height="708"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alain Daigle was placed on waivers but was claimed by Toronto and recalled by Chicago.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0009-01

Idle Black Hawks Feel Frustrated

<div class="byline">BY AL SMITH</div>ATLANTA&mdash;&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re not stupid, you learn by your mistakes,&rdquo; says Atlanta goalie Dan Bouchard.And the Flames&rsquo; goalie feels he learned a lesson from last season when late in the season he had to get away from hockey because he was mentally and physically drained.&ldquo;I feel differently about things this year,&rdquo; Bouchard said. &ldquo;I feel 100 per cent physically and mentally and I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ll have those problems again. And I haven&rsquo;t faced as many shots in games as I did last year.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want history to repeat itself and I know I can play 60 games, but I need a rest from time-to-time. When I do get a break, I feel great when I come back.&rdquo;Yet, after 23 games, Bouchard had started 21 and played 1,220 minutes, while backup goalie Pat Riggin had been in goal for only 160.&ldquo;Sure, I want to play more,&rdquo; Riggin said. &ldquo;No matter how hard you work in practice, it&rsquo;s not like playing in a game. I want to start contributing to the team, but the situation hasn&rsquo;t been right.&ldquo;I need to get a win under my belt and give Danny a rest. I notice when I do play, he comes back strong in the next two or three games.&rdquo;The situation Riggin alludes to is actually three-fold.First, the Flames weren&rsquo;t playing well; second, Riggin broke a finger, and third, Bouchard was playing so well in one streak that MacNeil didn&rsquo;t want to change anything.&ldquo;I would have liked to play Riggin more than I have,&rdquo; MacNeil said. &ldquo;But the team has been so inconsistent, that I feel more comfortable with Bouchard in there. I would have liked to have played the kid four or five games by now, but the calibre of play we&rsquo;ve been getting has dictated who we play in goal.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t changed my views about Riggin&mdash;I still think he&rsquo;s a good goalie. No goalie is going to play 80 games, and Bouchard will get his rest, but I don&rsquo;t feel the time is right.&rdquo;Although the Flames were only two games over .500 (11-9-3), Bouchard was playing some of his best hockey in his eight-year career. His goals against average was 2.80, his record was 11-7-3, and he had two shutouts. And during a four-game Atlanta winning streak, he was spectacular.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always had great respect for Ken Dryden,&rdquo; Bouchard said &ldquo;He had the basics down pat. Things became routine for him and I&rsquo;m trying to do the same thing. At times I even break out a pad and pencil and get the basics down on paper.&rdquo;&ldquo;Things snowball&mdash;good or bad&mdash;and last season I got into a mediocre pattern, I don&rsquo;t want that to happen again.&rdquo;HOT NOTES: Flames had four players out of the lineup at one time with Willi Plett (sprained knee), Guy Chouinard (fractured knuckle), Bill Clement (broken finger), and Curl Bennett (pulled thigh muscle). In their place, Paul Henderson and Dave Gorman were called up from Birmingham farm team&hellip;Flames hit three milestones in the same week: Jean Pronovost scored his 350th goal, Bouchard registered his 150th career victory, and the Flames won their 150th home game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011137/4311479-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="568" height="886"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dan Bouchard hopes to have something left for the end of the season.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0010-01

Flame Bouchard Learns From Past

<div class="byline">Compiled By CATHY MUNRO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-02911/4311510-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="566" height="328"></div>Do you have an opinion on hockey? Here&rsquo;s your chance to get it off your chest. Write the Fan Forum, The Hockey News, 214 King St., West, Suite 314, Toronto, Ont. M5H 1K4. To facilitate processing, type-written letters are given preference.<h2>Beavers Prevail Over Eagles</h2>In his column of Nov. 16 Stan Fischler expresses the opinion that hockey is as much an American game as it is a Canadian game.Sorry Stan, but not quite.On your list of American born players I can see many names of players who may have been born in the good old U.S. of A., but most of them owe their skills to Canadian coaching. I can name no fewer than five of those players who played junior hockey in Canada. Those players are: Mark Howe (Toronto), Marty Howe (Toronto), Lee Fogolin (Oshawa), Curt Fraser (Victoria), and Jere Gillis (Sherbrooke). I am sure that there are a few more who could go on that list.Another point which Fischler seemed to overlook was the fact that when most of those players were playing junior or college hockey the majority of the coaches who taught them were Canadian. This still holds true, to a certain extent, to this day.Let me state that I am not flag waving and saying that hockey is 100 per cent Canadian. What I am saying is that there is far more Canadian influence in the game of hockey than American influence.Paul Romanuk, Oshawa, Ont.<h2>Hopes For Hockey In Bay Area</h2>Being an avid hockey fan in an area where hockey no longer exists can be a very frustrating experience. My only ties with the game are what I read in THE HOCKEY NEWS, and my own experiences on the ice in an amateur league here in the San Francisco bay area. Since the 1975-76 season when the California Golden Seals were moved to Cleveland, hockey has been almost non-existent here. A feeble attempt at creating a minor league, in which San Francisco was granted a franchise, flopped because of poor promotion and a lack of organization.Now, I don&rsquo;t live in a fantasy world and realize that it would take a minor miracle for an NHL team to move back into the bay area, but what harm would there be in having the Los Angeles Kings play one or two pre-season games at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. The league doesn&rsquo;t make much, if any money, on pre-season games and it would give the bay area fans a taste of what they have been missing for the last four seasons.I don&rsquo;t forecast sell-outs for these game (s) but with proper promotion I think it could be advantageous to everyone concerned.Greg Bryson San Rafael, CA<h2>Hickey and McEwen, &ldquo;Something Special&rsquo;</h2>When I read the article on Barry Beck in the Nov. 16 edition of HOCKEY NEWS I got very annoyed. I was a big fan of Pat Hickey and Mike McEwen and when I went to a game without either of them playing, it seemed as though something very special was missing.I have been a Ranger fan for a long time and if you ask me Fred Shero made a big mistake. All he really had to do was to make Ron Greschner and Mario Marois gain a little weight and stay in their own end.If in fact Don Murdoch is the next one they &ldquo;unload&rdquo; they may as well get rid of Phil Esposito because the results would be the same.Celeste Loenser Bay Head, NJ<h2>Give Newcomers Chance to Breathe</h2>Tom Murray&rsquo;s article in the Nov. 16 issue amazed me. I like to see the new teams on TV&mdash;after all, one knows most of the moves that the players in the original teams will make!Mr. Murray must have a short memory&mdash;I can remember when the Flyers and the Islanders were a big laugh. And, I can recall a game on television in which the Islanders scored five goals in the first period against the Bruins!!I look forward to seeing Winnipeg and Edmonton playing our local teams as we are blacked out for home games.The Washington Capitals are the team to watch this year!G. Goddard New York, NY<h2>Time Announcements Of the Essence</h2>The few of us in the Baltimore area who can get cable television are blessed with four sources by which we can see NHL games. As a confirmed hockey nut who made his living as a hockey writer for eight years, I have one complaint which cuts across everybody&rsquo;s hockey TV set up.Why in heck do none of the announcers tell the viewers at what time in the period something happens? Perhaps the worst offender is Madison Square Garden Cablevision, which features, among other things, Bill &ldquo;The Big Whistle&rdquo; Chadwick. Invariably, Chadwick will let the arena announcer be heard giving the goals and assists, then talk over the time announcements. Occasionally they&rsquo;ll show the message board, but usually that&rsquo;s cut off by a commercial.Before they go away for any commercial, which almost always happens after a penalty or goal, the cue should be, &ldquo;Now, with 4:20 left in the second period, let&rsquo;s pause for this important message.&rdquo; The key is, the time should be given for the viewers&rsquo; benefit anytime something happens which would appear on a score sheet. They do it in football; why not hockey?Charles A. Frainie Catonsville, MD<h2>Rangers Spending To Make Money</h2>Judging from recent comments, one would think that most of hockey&rsquo;s problems were caused by Sonny Werblin and the money the Rangers spend.Having an owner who is willing to spend money to make his team better and more exciting does not have to be detrimental to a sport. The money that George Steinbrenner has spent on the Yankees has certainly not ruined baseball.However little people in Canada might like the fact, most NHL teams are located in American cities. And in most cases, hockey is not as attractive to fans in those cities as such sports as baseball and football. Nor is hockey as attractive to American television networks as other sports. It seems to me that trying to change that situation would be more productive than sitting around complaining about how Sonny Werblin runs the Rangers.Alan Stewart Setauket, NY<h2>Media Should Curb Abuse</h2>I would like to express my concern towards the attitude of most of the media covering the NHL this year. All I have heard this season is that the four &lsquo;expansion&rsquo; teams have no right beating any of the decent, established teams. &ldquo;They are expansion teams, they should be in last place.&rdquo;I would like to remind some of these self-appointed experts that these are not true expansion teams in the conventional use of the word. All four teams have at least half of last year&rsquo;s rosters intact, therefore some cohesion does exist between these returning players, and they are indeed &ldquo;teams&rdquo;. I cannot accept the media&rsquo;s grouping of these teams into the same class as the New York Islanders, Washington Capitals, or any of the other traditional expansion teams in their initial NHL seasons.Being realistic, of course I don&rsquo;t expect the Stanley Cup finals to find their way to Edmonton, Hartford, Quebec, or Winnipeg for a few years yet. These teams are not collections of old NHL retreads, though, as is the usual case with expansion, so wake up and realize that they can play hockey!Randy Witten Edmonton, Alta<h2>Player Rash Attacts Fans</h2>I have come to the conclusion that the rash that has been plaguing some players (no other pro athletes have been affected) is quite possibly being caused by faulty ice making or air conditioning equipment.I base this on the fact that I, too, have developed such a rash since becoming an avid hockey follower, some four or five years ago.Think about it: funnier things have been known to cause ailments.Ken Sulz Victoria, B.C.<h2>Calls For Fair Games</h2>One of the reasons for diminishing attendance in U.S. hockey rinks is the blatantly prejudicial officiating that occurs when a Canadian based team plays a U.S. based team. As a hockey fan I have grown to expect it, but never to enjoy it. If Canadians want as many of their sons as possible to continue their employment by the &lsquo;Big Buck Yanks,&rsquo; hockey officials are going to have to stop bumming out the U.S. hockey fans with their lopsided officiating and start calling fair games.Dennis Kappel Chicago, IL<h2>Those Voices From The Booth</h2>After many years of watching Hockey Night In Canada I have taken the liberty of rating the play-by-play men offered by HNIC.DANNY GALLIVAN&mdash; You don&rsquo;t need to be a Canadiens&rsquo; fan to appreciate the voice of Gallivan. He mixes his superlatives well and can make a game between the Colorado Rockies and Winnipeg Jets sound exciting.BOB COLE&mdash; The nice thing about Cole is he keeps himself completely neutral. He&rsquo;s proven this by ably handling telecasts in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.BILL HEWITT&mdash; He&rsquo;s been missing this season but when he does Leaf games he does an adequate job. Hewitt is much like his father, Foster, difficult at times to understand, but when you hear that voice you know it&rsquo;s Hockey Night in Canada.DON WHITMAN&mdash; Although he&rsquo;s just joined HNIC he offered a pretty good performance when the Leafs met the Winnipeg Jets on Nov. 10. Easy to listen to.DAN KELLY&mdash;Although he doesn&rsquo;t actually appear on HNIC, he is one of the tine play-by-play voices in hockey. St. Louis Blues were foolish to fire the U.S.&rsquo; most knowledgeable hockey announcer.Tom Gavey Toronto, Ont. &#9632;

f0010-02

FAN FORUM

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011085/4311541-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Borje Salming has progressed to the point where he leads Leafs in scoring. (Photo by Robert Shaver)</figcaption></div>TORONTO&mdash;This story on Leaf defenseman Borje Salming could be written at practically any time throughout the season. If he&rsquo;s not just coming off an exceptional game, he&rsquo;s more than likely to be heading into one the next time he steps on the ice.Salming generally plays two types of games for Toronto: a) the kind where he dominates at both ends of the ice with his skating, puck handling and defensive abilities and b) those where he is merely one of the better National Hockey League players. At nearly all times he is exciting, magnificently smooth and in the tradition of that &ldquo;other (non-hockey) Super Swede&rdquo; who rivals him in popularity on both sides of the Atlantic&mdash;Bjorn Borg&mdash;unflappably cool.This year&rsquo;s edition of the Leafs&mdash;in fact all of the Toronto teams for which Salming has played in the last six-plus seasons&mdash;has struggled to stay above .500 hockey: sometimes playing extraordinarily well; on other occasions boringly inefficient. And for all of the talents and instincts for the game he possesses, Salming has struggled his share as well.He was the first of the Europeans to &ldquo;make it&rdquo; in the NHL when he and Inge Hammarstrom joined Toronto for the 1973-74 season. Hammarstrom was later traded to St. Louis and has since returned to Sweden, but Salming rose quickly from a five-goal, 34-assist rookie campaign to as many as 17 goals (last year), 66 assists (1967-77) and either first or second team All Star status in each of the last five years.Asked about changes in the North American game since he first came from Europe Salming answered: &ldquo;I think the new rules concerning fighting have helped; it&rsquo;s a better type of hockey now.&rdquo;Although it may be the dream of many a European youngster today to some day play in the NHL, it wasn&rsquo;t one for Salming.&ldquo;I never really thought about it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You know, we heard a great deal about it&mdash;Bobby Hull, Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe&mdash;but I never had it in my mind to play here.He was the first of the Europeans to make it in the NHL&ldquo;My last three years in Sweden went so fast, it didn&rsquo;t give me much time to think about anything. I was playing in the first division and for the national team and in international tournaments. All of a sudden I had the chance to play in the NHL, so I just came.&ldquo;My first year I played very defensively, but since then I&rsquo;ve been more offensive minded,&rdquo; Salming said. Enough so, that he notched his 300th NHL assist in late November and will likely pass 400 NHL points before the new year arrives.When the Leafs were in a particularly bad slump earlier in the year, coach Floyd Smith moved Salming up onto left wing and the slender (six-foot-one, 185 pounds) Swede responded with two goals in his first game.&ldquo;It was kind of fun,&rdquo; he related. &ldquo;I played some center for (Roger) Neilson and we were struggling at the time. It is a different pace and I was able to get myself back on my game.&rdquo;Not that Salming is ever far from it. He did have a bit of a slow start this year as he was battling a bad sinus condition but when it began to clear up, his point total began to rapidly rise so that he overtook Darryl Sittler for the team lead in points with a three-assist effort against the Rangers the night after Sittler injured his ankle.He followed with a pair of goals against Atlanta and then two assists against Washington as the Leafs won three straight road games.As far as self-improvement is concerned Salming says: &ldquo;I have to be able to shoot better. I&rsquo;m getting myself into position to score (often at the expense of skating around an embarrassed defenseman) but I&rsquo;m sort of letting up.&rdquo;However, his drives from the point and his ability to stick-handle and keep the puck in the offensive zone have played a big part in the more balanced offense shown by the club.&ldquo;We have the Kid Line going now and three solid lines,&rdquo; Salming said, &ldquo;we just have to put everything together to be a contender. I think our defense is really good&mdash;Turnbull, Burrows, Hutchison and Quenneville and Hotham&mdash;we&rsquo;re one of the four best defenses in the league.&rdquo;Further proof that Salming has adapted to the NHL game is his contention that the Leafs have to hit&mdash;albeit cleanly&mdash;to be effective. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to get more body contact,&rdquo; Salming was saying before the club&rsquo;s latest road swing. &ldquo;We have lots of guys whose game really is to be hitting the other team; staying on top of them.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0011-01

Toronto Defender Salming Consistently Exceptional

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011110/4311572-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="522" height="617"><figcaption class="caption-body">Roger Neilson will be stepping in to handle the coaching reins next year.</figcaption></div>BUFFALO&mdash;William Scott Bowman is now the second winningest coach in National Hockey League history.Bowman&rsquo;s 14th coaching win with the Buffalo Sabres gave him a total of 543 for regular season play and put him ahead of Billy Reay, who amassed 542 while masterminding Toronto and ChicagoOnly the late great Dick Irvin, who coached Chicago, Toronto and Montreal to 690 victories has more than Bowman. Scotty, however, is the all-time leader in percentage with .693. Irvin&rsquo;s percentage is .559.Bowman says he doesn&rsquo;t expect ever to become the all-time top winner. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t coach long enough,&rdquo; said the Sabres&rsquo; general manager, coach and director of hockey operations. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t be able to beat out Irvin in regular season wins but I might do it in playoff wins.&rdquo;Bowman has stated that this will be his last season as coach, that next season he will devote himself to the GM duties and Roger Neilson, now associate coach, will become coach.Bowman now has 96 wins in Stanley Cup play to 100 for Irvin.The Buffalo mentor said it was &ldquo;a thrill&rdquo; to get win No. 543, especially because of the way it came.The Sabres went into Boston and bested the Bruins, the team that had beaten out the Sabres for first place in the Adams Division the last four years and was leading again this season.The Sabres&rsquo; 5-2 triumph moved them two points behind the Bruins and later in the week they tied them by downing the New York Rangers, 2-1, while the Bruins were idle.The main thing about the win in Boston was that the Sabres beat the Bruins at their own game, just as Bowman planned it.The defense moved the puck up the ice quickly and the forwards forechecked fiercely, the way the Bruins usually do. Forechecking led to a Buffalo goal after only 77 seconds of play and the Sabres led by 2-0 after one period and 4-0 after two.Bowman has made some changes in this Buffalo team, although, as he predicted when he took over, there have been no wholesale trades.The only deal Scotty made was to send Rene Robert, temperamental right winger, to the Colorado Rockies for defenseman John Van Boxmeer. Van Boxmeer not only filled the gap left when veteran Jerry Korab was injured in the first preseason game, but Van B. now is tied for third among the Buffalo scorers with three goals and 17 assists for 20 points in 23 games.Bowman sent two veteran forwards, Andre Savard and Jacques Richard, to the minors, along with young defensemen Mike Boland and Bill Stewart, who played for Buffalo last season, and kept two rookies, 20-year-old center Bobby Mongrain and 19-year-old defenseman Lindy Ruff.Scotty made a regular defenseman out of Richie Dunn, who had been a spare in the time he was with the Sabres the last two years and who had spent most of those campaigns in Hershey.As of now, Scotty also is alternating his goaltenders, Don Edwards and Bob Sauve, which had not been done before.The biggest change, of course, is in the coaching technique. There is a three-man staff, headed by Bowman. Neilson is associate and Jimmy Roberts assistant. All three often are on, the ice for practices but sometimes Bowman watches from the stands, or is absent completely, and the other two run the workout.During games, Bowman runs things behind the bench, with Roberts at his side. Roberts is in constant electronic communication with Neilson, who is observing from the pressbox.&ldquo;So far it has worked well,&rdquo; Neilson commented, recently. &ldquo;We are able to spot things from up above that might not come to the notice of the man who is running things at the bench. This way, he can learn about them immediately and so can the players.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0012-01

Sabres Slashing In Bowman Style

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-02944/4311610-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="335" height="362"></div><h2>Hard-Hitting Hustler</h2>GREG MALONE IS one of the improving players in hockey. The 23-year-old Pittsburgh center led the Penguins with 43 assists season-before-last and with 35 goals and 65 points last season, his third in the NHL. He was second on the team in power-play goals with eight and game-winners with five. But his defense is as good as his offense. He was chosen The Players&rsquo; Player on the club last season. He is a level-headed youngster who, despite his youth, is player representative on the team.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;m a leader, but I am a worker and I think the hard work gets to the other guys. I have more strength than speed,&rdquo; the six-foot, 190-pounder says. &ldquo;My game is hustle&mdash;skating, checking. I try to play both ends of the ice, defense as well as offense. I&rsquo;m not a great player, but I&rsquo;m getting better. I want to be a good all-round player.&rdquo;As an all-around player, he has been compared to Darryl Sittler of Toronto. Malone says, &ldquo;I consider that a compliment. If I&rsquo;ve modelled myself after anyone, it&rsquo;s Sittler. When I was still in juniors, he came in for a clinic and impressed me. It was not only the skillful way he handles himself on the ice, but the gentlemanly way he handles himself off the ice. If I can become anywhere near a Sittler, I&rsquo;ll be satisfied.&rdquo;Malone has been overshadowed throughout his career. He was captain of the Oshawa Generals as an amateur, but the star of the team was Paul Gardner. Malone scored 36 goals and Gardner 69 their final season there. Malone was the first player taken in the second round of the draft, but Gardner went in the first round. Malone scored 18 goals as an NHL rookie, with Pittsburgh, while Gardner scored 30 with Colorado.<h2>Seized Opportunity</h2>IT LOOKED LIKE Malone might not make the Penguins when he joined the team because one of its strengths was at center ice, where Syl Apps, Pierre Larouche and Ron Schock held sway. Larouche broke his wrist and Malone made the most of his chance. All three of the other centers were traded, but Pete Mahovlich came in to take the center-stage spotlight.Malone suffered a serious injury late in his first season when he was hip-checked onto his chest by Bob Plager of St. Louis. Greg broke one rib and cracked another, puncturing his lung and causing air to rush into his chest cavity. It was painful, dangerous, and debilitating, but Greg recovered and came back for the last few games of the season.He played 78 games the following season and all 80 games last season and became something of a star, while his own junior teammate, Gardner, was getting bounced around and losing his shine. Greg is the kind of hard-worker who gets better as he gets experience. He is a hitter and a hustler and he is gaining confidence in himself. &ldquo;My coaches have always been after me to shoot more,&rdquo; he admits. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m getting in on the net more and I&rsquo;m getting goals. I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;m a star, but its sounds good to me,&rdquo; he grins.If William Gregory Malone is not known around Pittsburgh, where the Penguins are not held as highly as are the Steelers and Pirates, Greg is a hero on the streets of New Brunswick. A small population and lack of facilities has limited the province&rsquo;s hockey heroes and now that Danny Grant has left the NHL, Malone is one of the few left in the NHL.His parents live in Chatham and he went to high school in Fredericton and he has been followed avidly by the natives since he left for Oshawa. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Everyone knows you and you know everyone. It&rsquo;s always nice to go back. I went back this summer and got to see all my old coaches.<h2>On The Quiet Side</h2>&ldquo;BUT ALL THE people want to do is talk hockey and sometimes in the summer when I&rsquo;m not playing hockey I want to get away from it. So it&rsquo;s just as well my wife and I are making our home in Pittsburgh now, where we can go around the city and do things without attracting attention.&ldquo;By nature, I&rsquo;m a quiet sort who can live without the spotlight.&rdquo;Greg&rsquo;s father, Bill, works in a pulp mill. He and Greg&rsquo;s mom, Natalie, have another son, Jim, 17, who was the third draft choice in Junior A this summer and so is being watched closely with the Toronto Marlboros. Greg also has three sisters&mdash;Dot, Susan and Kelly.A clean-cut kind of kid, Greg married Diana Smith of Pittsburgh in June, 1978. &ldquo;I needed someone to wash and clean,&rdquo; he laughs impishly. Her duties are soon to be increased as she was due to give birth to their first child late in November.His duties with the Penguins are increasing, too. Coach Johnny Wilson says, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s one player we count on. He comes to play every night and almost always gives you a good game.&rdquo; Manager Baz Bastien says, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s young, but he&rsquo;s mature for his years. He&rsquo;s steady, developing and giving us a lot of leadership.&rdquo;Greg says, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very happy in hockey. My style of play is to work hard. It&rsquo;s not hard for me. I like to hit someone as soon as I get on the ice. It gets me into the game. It gets me going. I go as hard as I can from the moment I get on the ice to the moment I go off. I really like the game and it&rsquo;s fun for me.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03686/4311603-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="286" height="434"><figcaption class="caption-body">Greg Malone</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0012-02

BILL LIBBY’S HOCKEY AD LIB

<div class="byline">BY PAT CALABRIA</div>LONG ISLAND&mdash;Stunning. Bizzare. Incredible. That described either the goal scored by Islander Bill Smith&mdash;the first by a goalie in NHL history&mdash;or the fact that it came in a game in which the Islanders were crushed by the Colorado Huskies, 7-4.Smith has been a member of the club&rsquo;s defense since its very first game in 1972, but he joined the offense on the night of Dec. 28 in Denver on an extraordinary play which helped only to highlight the team&rsquo;s topsy-turvy season.First of all, Smith did not even start the game. He replaced Glenn Resch in the second period. Second, the goal was scored into an empty net during a delayed penalty to the Islanders&mdash;the first of three empty net goals in the third period, the other two being scored by the Rockies.&ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;ll ask for a bonus clause in my contract for goal-scoring,&rdquo; Smith joked.Not in the previous 62 years of the NHL had a goalie scored, although many have tried. Smith was not trying. He was only hoping to survive a game that swirled around the Islanders. The play began, in fact, when Smith made a save off his chest and the puck bounced past teammate Dave Lewis and into the right corner. behind the net.It was there that Colorado&rsquo;s Bob Ramage backhanded a pass toward the point, where he expected his team&rsquo;s sixth skater to be after goalie Bill McKenzie raced off the ice on the delayed penalty. Had an Islander touched the puck&mdash;intercepted Ramage&rsquo;s pass. For example&mdash;the sequence could have been whistled dead.But no one touched the puck. It skidden back toward the blue line and then down the ice and carried 195 feet into an open net&mdash;not only giving Smith an historic first goal, but perhaps giving him the longest goal in history, as well.Originally, the goal was credited to Lewis, because he was the Islander closest to Ramage. After the game Smith was credited with the goal because it was ruled he was the last Islander to have possession of it when he made the save that started the bizarre play.And because the matter was not decided until after the game, Smith never got to retrieve the puck for his trophy case. &ldquo;Just as well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d have to lock it in my basement anyway because my sons would play with it.&rdquo;For his part, Ramage said: &ldquo;I thought I saw someone back there, so I passed it out. It was a touchdown,&rdquo; he laughed.He could afford to, of course, because the Rockies added two empty net goals at the end of the game to clinch their first victory over the Islanders since the team moved from Kansas City to Denver in 1976.All the laughter about Smith&rsquo;s goal and the memories of the almost-goals could not camouflage the continuing Islander problems. After leading the NHL with 116 points last season, they are lingering in the bottom fifth of the league&mdash;a deep plunge.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why scoring the goal is no big deal,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;Everybody is so downhearted about the way we&rsquo;ve been playing. I wish I knew what was wrong. We&rsquo;ve been playing so badly.&rdquo;Coach Al Arbour wishes he knew what was wrong, too. He has tried various line combinations and defensive pairings, but the team has not responded. It has not helped that the Islanders have been thinned by injuries, with Bob Lorimer the most recent casualty. &#9632;

Incredible Goal Can’t Help Isles

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011065/4311665-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="460" height="356"></div><h2>Same Old Punch</h2>WHEN SUPER STARS SUCH AS Mike Palmateer and Darryl Sittler of the Toronto Maple Leafs declare war against their boss, Punch Imlach, it is news.But when Imlach goes to war against his employees, such as Sittler and Palmateer, it is not news.Reason: Punch has been at war with his army ever since he was first outfitted with bullwhip and megaphone at Maple Leaf Gardens in the late 1950&rsquo;s. It&rsquo;s known as the style of Punch.Over the years, some objects of Imlach&rsquo;s scorn&mdash;Frank Mahovlich, Carl Brewer, Bob Baun, Andy Bathgate, to name a few&mdash;would make excellent candidates for Hockey&rsquo;s Hall of Fame. In fact some of them already are members.That, however, does not mean that Imlach necessarily is in error when he puts the rap on Palmateer or Sittler. In this regard, I am reminded of a November headline in The Toronto Star: &ldquo;WHY IS PUNCH KNOCKING US?&mdash;PALMATEER AND SITTLER.&rdquo;To that I say, don&rsquo;t be naive, Mike and Darryl. Surely, you must recall that Punch and (Leafs&rsquo; owner) Harold Ballard ordered you not to participate in the summertime taped TV show hockey &ldquo;Showdown&rdquo;. Your bosses were worried about you guys getting hurt (the way Borje Salming got hurt a year earlier) and that&rsquo;s why they ruled &ldquo;Showdown&rdquo; off limits.But the order from Ballard and Imlach, the men who pay your salary and call the shots, was not good enough for you. So, on the encouragement of your counsel. Alan Eagleson, you did what management explicitly said was a no-no. In the army that&rsquo;s called insubordination. And now you wonder why Imlach gets angry.Mike and Darryl, now really, was your showdown over &ldquo;Showdown&rdquo; necessary? Obviously not. You don&rsquo;t need the money and the prestige is minimal. No, fellows, the showdown over &ldquo;Showdown&rdquo; was necessary only if you insist upon crossing the boss. Your battle even went to court and that only further enflamed relations between management and team.On your behalf, Mike and Darryl, a neutral observer would correctly point out that Imlach could have taken a more lenient position. However, Imlach-watchers realize that it will snow on the sun before Punch gets that soft. The Sittler and Palmateer of another era&mdash;Carl Brewer and Bob Baun&mdash;can vouch for that.Both Brewer and Baun skated for Punch in his halcyon Stanley Cup years in which Imlach won four championships in all. Talk to Brewer and he will tell you that Palmateer and Sittler are dead right.Brewer argues&mdash;and there are others who back him&mdash;that Imlach&rsquo;s handling of sensitive players often was destructive, especially in the case of Frank (Big M) Mahovlich.&ldquo;A lot of players felt the way I did,&rdquo; Brewer adds, &ldquo;but they only talk about it privately. None of them dared to go public.&rdquo;By contrast, ex-Leaf Baun goes public now but he is conspicuously less vehement about Imlach than Brewer. &ldquo;Punch was one of the two toughest coaches I ever had,&rdquo; says Baun, &ldquo;the other being Bert Olmstead. I&rsquo;m not sure Punch was the best coach but he was the best general manager. I appreciate him more now that I&rsquo;m not playing forAs for me, I have known Punch since his Day One in the NHL (1959). I have fought with him and occasionally supported him. I still covet a deliciously nasty letter he once wrote (long-hand), telling me what I could do with a lowly prediction I had made about his club. Don Rickles couldn&rsquo;t have said it better.Imlach has proven to me&mdash;especially with that greatest of homestretch comebacks in hockey history (1959) when his Leafs were nine points down with two weeks to play and beat out the Rangers&mdash;that he is a brilliant hockey man. Or, at least, he was. Surely, he has his shortcomings and there is every reason to listen to Brewer&rsquo;s theories about him. But, to me, the bottom line in the Sittler-Palmateer dispute is a simple matter of discipline. If the boss-men (Ballard and Imlach) say don&rsquo;t participate in &ldquo;Showdown&rdquo;, you don&rsquo;t. Period. If you do, you qualify for the wrath of Punch and that&rsquo;s second only to the wrath of God!You asked for it, Mike and Darryl, and you got it.<h2>Bring Back Numbers</h2>NOTES: Washington&rsquo;s hiring of 26-year-old coach Gary Green was not a mistake. Nor was the hiring of Danny Belisle a year ago. The Caps&rsquo; original sin was firing Tom McVie in the first place&hellip;By the way, whatever happened to the guaranteed stardom of Robert Picard?&hellip;Quite a hullabaloo has been made of the Bruins&rsquo; attempt to get Eddie Shore&rsquo;s No. 2, Lionel Hitchman&rsquo;s No. 3, Bobby Orr&rsquo;s No. 4, Dit Clapper&rsquo;s No. 5 and Milt Schmidt&rsquo;s No. 15 out of mothballs for the new breed B&rsquo;s&hellip;The Nervous Nostalgia Nellies consider such a move heretic. Booshwah! I commend Bruins&rsquo; GM Harry Sinden for the idea. Having a rookie such as Ray Bourque wear Hitchman&rsquo;s No. 3 would in no way detract from Hitchman&rsquo;s immovable niche in the Hall of Fame. And do you think having a contemporary Bruin wear Orr&rsquo;s No. 4 would in any way reduce Bobby to the level of ordinary? Of course not. Right on, Harry&hellip;Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; owner Mike Gobuty learns fast about NHL life. &ldquo;The thing I never realized about hockey until I got into it, Gobuty told Canadian author Jack Batten, &ldquo;is that if you&rsquo;ve managed a successful business, then everything in hockey goes against the grain: Most of the people in hockey seem to be taking a holiday from their usual business principles.&rdquo;&hellip;If NHL prexy John Ziegler wants to know why newsmen get mad at his operation, he ought to consider the fact that the 1979-80 NHL Guide, which should have been available to the media in mid-October, did not make its appearance until December. Ugh!&hellip;The beginnings of an ugly rivalry between English-speaking hockey fans in British Columbia and French-speaking&rsquo;Quebec rooters was launched when Vancouveritees recently booed a few bars of O Canada sung in French at Pacific Coliseum.RATING ZIEGLER: NHL President John Ziegler is quoted at length in this issue (page 3) on the state of the NHL. My feelings abut Ziegler&rsquo;s two-year stewardship are militantly mixed.I am prepared to give Ziegler the benefit of the doubt because he stepped to the throne in the midst of homestretch merger negotiations with the WHA. There was precious little time for him to address other problems until the peace treaty was signed.As for Ziegler, the man, his energy and personality are a plus. Whether he has the power to steer the NHL to calm and prosperous seas remains a question. He perplexes me when he even broaches the seemingly unrealistic idea of a 24-team league at a time when his predecessor, Clarence Campbell, Openly talks of &ldquo;inevitable attrition&rdquo; and ChiHawks&rsquo; boss Bill Wirtz in Chicago suggests that the league could eventually trim down to 18 clubs.Further, I don&rsquo;t believe that Ziegler has taken an adequate stance on violence and illegal stickwork, which is why an ace such as Jacques Lemaire is skating in Switzerland. The NHL certainly could do a better job in public relations and seling its product. Finally, I don&rsquo;t believe that Ziegler fully understands the need for upgrading quality control so that the game is played on a level guaranteeing a fan his money&rsquo;s worth whenever he buys a ticket.I don&rsquo;t expect Ziegler to accomplish these goals overnight. The inter-league war bled the NHL white and thoroughly distracted Ziegler. Maybe I&rsquo;m too patient but I&rsquo;ll wait another year before voting him down. What I&rsquo;d like to see from him in the months ahead is energetic, positive action rather than benign neglect.<h2>Some Mixed Feelings</h2>MEDIA NOTES: The I.Q. (Integrity Quotient) of the Fred Shero high command is under constant scrutiny from the N.Y. press. Consider the recent headline in the N.Y. Post: &ldquo;SOETAERT: RANGERS LIED TO ME&rdquo;&hellip;Ex-Flyers&rsquo; goalie Bobby Taylor is emerging as one of the better TV &ldquo;color&rdquo; commentators. His sidelick, Gene Hart, orchestrates Taylor to perfection&hellip;Bruins&rsquo; goalie Gerry Cheevers embarrassed scoop-hungry newsmen who had him washed-up and retiring a month ago&hellip;Cousin Bob Verdi&rsquo;s Chi Tribune piece on Keith Magnuson was so good, Verdi is now my second&rsquo; favorite hockey writer. (Rex MacLeod is still first)&hellip;Ironic that Brooklyn-born Alan Abel is going ape oyer the idea of a Canadian Division of the NHL in his Toronto Globe and Mail column. Next he&rsquo;ll be urging formation of a six-team NHL&hellip;As a rule I can do without Clarence Campbell columns but Jim (Vancouver Sun) Kearney did a beaut on the not-so-retiring ex-prexy&hellip;Nate (Bruins&rsquo; p.r.) Greenberg nixed a shot at the NHL&rsquo;s media job in Manhattan. They treat Nate too good in Beantown&hellip;The new Playboy feature on the Rangers has a quote from Ulf Nilsson on goal-scoring which should be reserved for adult audiences only&hellip;When are hockey writers&mdash;mostly Canadians&mdash;going to do us a favor and omit the wasteful &ldquo;ehs&rdquo; in their prose?&hellip;Sport Magazine comes down hard on the NHL in its December issue and shuts out hockey again in January. &#9632;

f0013-01

ON THE CONTRARY

<div class="byline">BY BILL LIBBY</div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;The Kings reached the quarter pole of the season first in offense and 19th in defense among the 21 teams in the National League. However, they had given up only eight goals in their last four games and there were some signs the defense was tightening.One of the reasons appears to be the surprising play of Brad Selwood, a 31-year-old refugee from the World Hockey Association, who didn&rsquo;t even play the last half of last season and wasn&rsquo;t supposed to be here now.Born in Leamington, Ontario, Selwood. was a first-round draft choice by Toronto in 1968. He played at Tulsa and Vancouver in the minors, but played only one and a half season with the Leafs before he jumped to the WHA and played six and a half seasons with New England.Montreal had drafted him in 1972 (intra-league draft) and redrafted him him in the merger last summer, but traded him to. the Kings for a draft choice. While trying rookies Jay Wells and Mark Hardy at the start of the season, the Kings assigned Selwood to their American League team in Binghamton, but he refused to report and went home to Toronto, ready to retire.Wells was sent out and Selwood recalled. Given a new chance, he was steady and won a regular role and Hardy was sent out.The six-foot-one, 186-pound Selwood, a left-handed shot, a pretty good skater and playmaker, who has been playing good defense, says, &ldquo;I had a run-in with the New England coach last season and went home. I was happier at home than in hockey.&ldquo;I thought I&rsquo;d get to play in Montreal this season, but I&rsquo;m trying for my U.S. card and found out I&rsquo;d lose it unless I played for a U.S. team so I asked to be traded. I thought I had a pretty good preseason camp with L.A. but I thought the kids did, too.&ldquo;When they decided to go with the kids and send me out, I understood the situation, but I decided not to go to the minors. I figured if I couldn&rsquo;t play here, I couldn&rsquo;t play anywhere and should face the fact it was time to call it a career.&ldquo;I was frustrated because I knew I could play in the majors. I was happy when I got another chance and I think I&rsquo;m proving I&rsquo;m a big leaguer now. Gibbs and I are new here and Manery is just off the injury list, so we&rsquo;re just getting to know one another and getting together, but I think we&rsquo;re getting better.&rdquo;He has survived a fractured lumbar vertebra, a broken left ankle, and surgery for removal of a bone spur on his ankle in his career. He&rsquo;s a fighter, who has been knocked down a few times, but gets up and goes on. &#9632;

Selwood Returns To Aid Defense

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE WARRINER</div>HARTFORD&mdash;From the very beginning of this season, one of the major concerns of Whaler watchers was that their team would have a great deal of trouble putting the puck in the net with any real consistency. Coach Don Blackburn was quite clearly emphasizing the defensive aspects of the game from the outset.As the season went into the second month, however the Hartford team began to pick up the offensive pace. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re getting our confidence offensively&mdash;which is a good sign,&rdquo; said Blackburn. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re getting progressively better; we&rsquo;re starting to score goals,&rdquo; he continued.The upgraded goal production was largely attributed to the line of Dave Keon centering for Jordy Douglas and Blaine Stoughton. &lsquo;Stash&rsquo; Stoughton&rsquo;s hattrick against Buffalo (5-3 win), culminated his climb to the top of the scoring stats for the Whalers.&ldquo;Ever since the first day I put them out there together, they&rsquo;ve taken off and played very well,&rdquo; said Blackie.Keon has always been a master at moving the puck so it may be merely a matter of finding the right pair of wingers for the smooth, 39-year-old center to work with. Stoughton&rsquo;s history shows him to be a scorer, although in recent years he has bounced around a bit, and his scoring totals had fallen off.Back in 1976-77 Stoughton was very successful for Cincinnati in his first year in the World Hockey Association. He had been given free reign and there was little question that he knew how to find that old &lsquo;six by four&rsquo;. Before the season had ended he had tallied 52 times for the Stingers.But the following year a change in coaches brought in a new philosophy and Blaine was asked to play a more defensive style. His output fell off markedly, of course, so it wasn&rsquo;t long before he was traded to Indianapolis where he finished the season in not too spectacular fashion.Last year, when the Indy franchise folded, Stoughton was left without a team. The Whalers finally picked him up but they didn&rsquo;t use him all that much. The wrap against him was that he wasn&rsquo;t a good two-way player.It wasn&rsquo;t until Blackburn took over the coaching reins near the end of last season, that &lsquo;Stash&rsquo; began to get more ice time.With the start of the present season Blackie saw Stoughton as one of the few potentially good scorers on the team and hence turned him loose. The result has been obvious, in the scoring department. And a pleasant surprise has been the good two-way play that the right winger has shown so far.Says left wing Jordy Douglas: &ldquo;David is making it easy and &lsquo;Stash&rsquo; is putting it in the net. I&rsquo;m just happy picking up the garbage.&rdquo;The key to the line&rsquo;s success, however, is undoubtedly the veteran Keon. Young Jordy explains it this way: &ldquo;David leads me. He points me in the right direction. Just by the way he handles the puck, I know whether to come behind him or whatever. You just know where he&rsquo;s going to go.&rdquo;It hasn&rsquo;t been all that easy for the second year pro. Douglas was signed by the Whalers prior to the NHL junior draft in 1978. He didn&rsquo;t get much ice time in that first year&mdash;nor was he given much time down on the farm. So it wasn&rsquo;t a very productive year for the youngster.This year he worked hard in camp and earned a regular spot. But in the early going, when his performances were less than outstanding, he began to press. Nothing went right. Then coach Blackburn took some of the pressure off by telling him to just go out and skate, regardless of how things were going. And from that point on things began to look up.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not back to where I was at the end of training camp, but I&rsquo;m coming,&rdquo; said Jordy&mdash;having run up a streak of 11 consecutive games with points. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m relaxed now, they&rsquo;ve told me that I&rsquo;m going to play. I hope we stay together&mdash;I&rsquo;d like to see what could happen,&rdquo; he said.WHALERS WAVES: The acquisition of Greg Carroll has proven to be a big plus for the Whalers&mdash;in many ways. Although ostensibly the fourth line center, Carroll is the best faceoff man on the squad. He&rsquo;s also an effective penalty killer, thereby giving Blackburn the advantage of resting Dave Keon&rsquo;s legs a little more.Lately, Carroll has been used effectively as the third line left wing as well.Jimmy Warner, second year player out of Colorado College, hasn&rsquo;t been skating a regular shift, but he has shown that he can jump over the boards and go full-tilt whenever the fourth line is called upon. In addition, he has been doing an excellent job as a penalty killer.Blackburn says his guys are gaining confidence: &ldquo;Our guys are beginning to feel that any time they put that uniform on, no matter who they play, they can win the game. And that&rsquo;s great!!&rdquo; &#9632;

Whalers’ Stash Valuable With Keon, Douglas Line

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011091/4311744-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">ANDERS KALLUR&hellip;New York Islanders (Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>The Islanders made big news over the summer when they signed 27-year-old Anders Kallur, Sweden&rsquo;s most valuable player. A five-year veteran of the Swedish first division, Kallur, who plays right wing and center, was a former teammate of Ranger star Anders Hedberg. Injured early in the year, Kallur played himself into condition in Fort Worth and then joined the Islanders, scoring 10 points in his first 15 NHL games. &#9632;

f0014-01

Meet The Rookies

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;Through the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; first 16 games of the season, defenseman Russ Anderson had the best plus-minus mark on the club at plus 13. The closest player on the team to Anderson was his defensive partner, Ron Stackhouse, at plus 11.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m playing with a pretty good partner in Ron Stackhouse,&rdquo; Anderson said. &ldquo;Our two styles suit each other pretty well. We just help out each other. He&rsquo;s more of a rushing and scoring defenseman and I consider myself a defensive defenseman.&ldquo;Being a defensive defenseman, I sort of look at the plus-minus figures. If I&rsquo;m on for more goals when we score than against, I figure I&rsquo;m contributing by doing my job and that makes me happy.&rdquo;Anderson, 24, is in his fourth season in the National Hockey League with the Penguins after being drafted in the second round of the 1975 amateur draft from the University of Minnesota.&ldquo;Reed Larson (of the Detroit Red Wings) was my defensive partner in college,&rdquo; Anderson said. &ldquo;That was sort of a similar situation as it is here&mdash;he was more offensive minded than I was.&ldquo;I think college hockey is going to be the route kids from the U.S. take to make it in the NHL. It&rsquo;s a pretty good caliber of hockey. It&rsquo;s fast hockey&mdash;a lot of skating. You practice a lot, so you get your technique down.&rdquo;Born in Minneapolis, Minn., Anderson is the only American on the club.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think any of the guys hold it against me that I&rsquo;m an American,&rdquo; Anderson said. &ldquo;We have a bunch of good guys on this club. I think I&rsquo;m well accepted here.&ldquo;The guys are always kidding me that my shot isn&rsquo;t the hardest, so each time I try to shoot it a little bit harder.&rdquo;Anderson, who managed to score three goals last season with his improved shot, also played linebacker in addition to playing hockey at Minnesota.&ldquo;I never got in any games&mdash;I was sort of on the meat squad,&rdquo; Anderson laughed as he recalled his college football exploits. &ldquo;Hockey was always my first love.&rdquo;Speaking of loves, Anderson is - married to the former Dorothy Benham, Miss America of 1976.&ldquo;I was in college and she was going to a different college in the same area,&rdquo; Anderson said, in describing how they met. &ldquo;The year she became Miss America we didn&rsquo;t see each other too much. She was on the road a lot&mdash;a lot of long distance phone calls.&rdquo;His aggressiveness earned him the nickname of &ldquo;The Enforce&rdquo; while in college and Anderson has carried over that type of game to the NHL.&ldquo;I think they (team management) expect me to hit,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll get into a few fights but I don&rsquo;t think they want me to go out and just &lsquo;goon&rsquo;.&rdquo;In addition to playing with Stackhouse, Anderson attributes his improved play to experience.&ldquo;I was really green when I came up here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was just running around all over the place. Johnny (coach Wilson) just told me &lsquo;Hey, just play your position&rsquo; and that&rsquo;s what I concentrate on.&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s turned me around. I&rsquo;m not so anxious just to run and go and get the puck. That&rsquo;s what I was doing all the time. I&rsquo;ve lerned that I have to stay in position to be effective.&rdquo;It appears Anderson has learned his lesson well.PENGUIN TRACKS: The Oct 27 postponed game with the Philadelphia Flyers has been rescheduled for Tuesday, March 11, 1980, at 7:30 p.m. The game was postponed because of a strike by building service personnel at the Civic Arena. The strike has been settled. &#9632;

Anderson Majoring In Defense

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div>VANCOUVER&mdash;Rick Vaive, the Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; No. 1 draft choice is proving to be exactly what the team expected out of the June entry draft.Brent Ashton is proving that the No. 2 pick wasn&rsquo;t all that bad either.Ashton came to camp almost not expected to make the National Hockey League club, but the Canucks were optimistic that one day he would play in the league.Well, the day came sooner than most anyone had any right to expect, as the 202-pound winger from the Saskatoon Blades has burst onto the scene in Vancouver, pleasing just about everyone who has seen him so far.He does all sorts of things right for a guy his age. He&rsquo;s enthusiastic, cares about winning, hits, has a big shot and appears to have all the natural ability one could hope for in a second round pick.&ldquo;We had him rated at the end of the first round somewhere,&rdquo; said Minnesota general manager Lou Nanne about the Saskatoon native. &ldquo;We thought a lot of him at the time as well. Vancouver was lucky to get him where they did.&rdquo;The Canucks had wanted to draft the man the Islanders took, the underage Swedish defenseman Tom Johnsson, the player who is supposed to be another Borje Salming. But he was gone and the Canucks had to console themselves with Ashton.Some consolation. Ashton, who will not be 20 until well past the end of the season, has come onto the team and actually made it at a new position.&ldquo;We have maybe been a little unfair with him,&rdquo; said coach Harry Neale. &ldquo;There is probably a pretty good chance that he is a better left winger than any of the spots we&rsquo;ve had him in, but he has been playing well most nights even at the unfamiliar spots we&rsquo;ve had him.&rdquo;The unfamiliar spots include mostly right wing, where he recently replaced the injured Stan Smyl on a line with Thomas Gradin and Jere Gillis, and at center, where he is not only new but has had a host of wingers to play with.The hockey business goes way back in his family. His father was always an enthusiast and his brother Ron played for the Winnipeg Jets in the earlier days of the World Hockey Association. And Ron himself is the first to admit that his brother is probably a much better prospect than he ever was.Young Brent is still very much wet behind the ears when it comes to playing in his own zone, but experience should iron that out in fairly short order.&ldquo;If there is one thing you know he&rsquo;s going to do out there it&rsquo;s run into somebody,&rdquo; said Neale. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s one of the reasons why I put him out in Stan&rsquo;s place to see if he could fill in that role.&rdquo;Ashton has generated himself numerous scoring opportunities, but so far he hasn&rsquo;t shown much savvy around the net, another part of his game Canucks are hoping will come with experience.Ashton is taking the whole thing fairly calmly on the surface, but he admits that in stepping into Smyl&rsquo;s spot, he has his work cut out.&ldquo;Those are big boots to fill out there,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;That little guy is a helluva hockey player.&rdquo;Indeed the loss of Smyl seemed to coincide with some problems encountered by the club. He was hurt in the 5-2 win over Montreal Canadiens, and Canucks proceeded to drop their next three games, giving up five goals in each of them.Smyl suffered a badly bruised heel when he went into the boards with Larry Robinson, and was expected to be out about two weeks. Smyl, with nine goals so far this season, has been the catalyst for the Vancouver attack, &#9632;

Number Two Pick Pleasing Canucks

<div class="byline">By TOM MURRAY</div>NEW YORK&mdash;The last time we left the Rangers, the team was in the middle of an horrendous skid&mdash;they had lost six of their last eight games&mdash;and no one knew who the No. 1 goalie was going to be.Now, just one week later, the picture is a little less murky: While the team proceeded to tie the Minnesota North Stars, 4-4, and lose to the Buffalo Sabres, 2-1, thus extending its winless streak to five, victory finally came when the Rangers defeated St. Louis, 2-0. More importantly, it appears that a decision has been made as to who the No. 1 goalie is going to be. (Hint: His name is not Davidson, Soetaert or Thomas).It is a 6-3, 200-pound, 22-year-old named Steve Baker, who played for Union College and, more recently, was in the nets for all three games the Rangers played last week. How he got there is a story in itself. Here goes:After the Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs last week, 43, for their third straight, someone asked Fred Shero if Doug Soetaert would be given a chance to play since Wayne Thomas hadn&rsquo;t looked that terrific against the Leafs.&ldquo;I dunno,&rdquo; Shero said, &ldquo;I think Thomas is playing very well.&rdquo;But not well enough. Because the next day, the Rangers demoted Soetaert to their New Haven affiliate&mdash;where he joined John Davidson (remember him?&mdash;and promptly brought up Baker, whom Shero had called the &ldquo;most impressive&rdquo; goalie in training camp and who was sporting a 6-1-1 record and a 3.45 goals against average with the Nighthawks when the Rangers called.Upon hearing that he had been demoted, Soetaert got extremely upset. And for good reason: The kid had played in just five of the Rangers&rsquo; 22 games and had won four of them. His only loss came in that 10-5 laugher against the Islanders, when the entire team played dreadfully. Considering the Rangers have won only 10 games so far this season, that ain&rsquo;t a bad record&mdash;but apparently it was not good enough for Shero or assistant general manager Mickey Keating.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I did to get in their bad books,&rdquo; Soetaert said. &ldquo;They never even told me when I was going to play; I had to find out from Wayne or J.D. But I wasn&rsquo;t going to let anything bother me this year. I was just going to wait my turn and then show them I could play. Now, it seems like they were just waiting for an excuse not to play me, and the Islanders&rsquo; game was it.&rdquo;Those remarks came at the same time that Soetaert severely criticized Keating for not trading Soetaert or Thomas to another team&mdash;as Keating had supposedly promised several weeks ago, when J.D. was active.&ldquo;You know what he (Keating) had the bloody nerve to tell me?&rdquo; Soetaert asked. &ldquo;He said he tried to trade each one of us and not one other team in the league is interested in any of us. He said other teams say the Rangers have quantity but no quality in goal. What bull. Can you believe the nerve telling me that?&rdquo;Soetaert&rsquo;s heated words seemed to give the Rangers the perfect out: Disgruntled player mouths off, so the big club sends him to the minors to cool his jets. But the Rangers proved to be as inept in their front office dealings as they have been on the ice lately, and Soetaert was back with the big club in less than 24 hours. Here&rsquo;s why:On October 7, all 21 teams in the league had to submit a list of their protected players. Since Soetaert&rsquo;s name was not on the Rangers&rsquo; list, he was automatically placed on waivers&mdash;and he emerged unclaimed. An NHL rule stipulates that a nonprotected player can neither play in any more than five games nor be on the big club&rsquo;s roster for 30 days and be assigned to the minors without again clearing waivers.Since the Rangers knew damn well that Soetaert would not clear waivers a second time, they allowed him to play in only five games and then&mdash;neglecting to realise that he had been on the roster for more than 30 days&mdash;shipped him to New Haven, not bothering to place him on waivers because they didn&rsquo;t think they had to. The amazing thing about this little maneuver is that the NHL&rsquo;s Central Player Registry in Montreal, which keeps track of all these things, didn&rsquo;t think the Rangers had to place Soetaert on waivers, either. But the mistake was ultimately discovered and Soetaert was recalled by the red-faced Rangers, who now have to put him on waivers and risk losing him for nothing if they want to demote him.So, there you have it. The Rangers now have four goalies, each of whom has his own little label:&bull; CONFUSED: Wayne Thomas, who in less than one week fell from the lofty position of No. 1 goalie to a rumored berth on the waiver list.&bull; VERY CONFUSED: Doug Soetaert, who although he was on the bench as a back-up for Baker in that 2-1 loss to Buffalo, has probably played his last game as a Ranger.&bull; VERY, VERY CONFUSED: John Davidson, who demoted himself to New Haven to get into shape. If losing all three games he&rsquo;s played in the minors is getting J.D. into shape physically, God only knows what it&rsquo;s doing to him mentally.&bull; JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE: Steve Baker, who is at this writing, anyway, the No. 1 Ranger goalie.The Rangers&rsquo; No. 1 goalie. That has kind of an ominous ring to it, doesn&rsquo;t it?BLUE CHIPS: Rangers victory over St. Louis was only their third in 12 road games this season&hellip;In that Buffalo game, the Rangers became the first team to hit the 100-goals-allowed mark this season. &#9632;

Unknown Emerges As Top Ranger Goaltender

<div class="byline">BY ARNOLD IRISH</div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;Bobby Simpson was watching TV, one of his favorite office pastimes, last May 24 in his Marietta, Ga., home when an Atlanta sportscaster interrupted the program with a news flash.&ldquo;The Flames today reacquired left winger Curt Bennett, a 34-goal scorer in 1976,&rdquo; the sportscaster declared.Simpson wondered what the Flames gave St. Louis in compensation. &ldquo;In exchange,&rdquo; the sportscaster concluded his report, &ldquo;the Flames gave the Blues young Bobby Simpson, the left winger who spent last season with the club&rsquo;s Tulsa farm in the Central Hockey League.&rdquo;Strange nobody told me, Simpson thought to himself. &ldquo;Then I remembered I&rsquo;d taken my phone off the hook&mdash;I do that sometimes when I don&rsquo;t want to be disturbed,&rdquo; Bobby said. &ldquo;My lawyer had been trying to reach me, and so had Mr. Francis (Blues&rsquo; president and general manager Emile Francis), so it was my own fault I learned about the trade watching TV.&rdquo;The trade seemed to make sense for both clubs. Atlanta had known Bennett at the top of his career and hoped he could recover his golden touch in familiar surroundings. The Blues, looking to the future, were giving up a 31-year-old player for one who hadn&rsquo;t yet turned 23. Besides, Francis couldn&rsquo;t forget that Simpson had been the Flames&rsquo; third choice (28th overall) in the 1976 amateur draft and had scored 13 goals and 10 assists for Atlanta as a rookie.Simpson wasn&rsquo;t surprised by the deal. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t fit into Atlanta&rsquo;s plans,&rdquo; he said.That&rsquo;s unfortunate because Simpson has plans for Atlanta. His home is there (Marietta is a suburb) and he&rsquo;s invested in an Atlanta hair-styling salon with his best friend, a lifelong Georgian who &ldquo;as he&rsquo;d say, he&rsquo;s &lsquo;lived there all his natural born days,&rdquo;&rsquo; Bobby grinned.&ldquo;Everybody needs a haircut sometime,&rdquo; Simpson reasoned. &ldquo;The Flames get their hair cut there. Do I cut hair? Gosh, no. If I did, I&rsquo;d mess it up more than anything else, and then for sure he&rsquo;d have to get his hair cut.&rdquo;Just as the hockey season is all business to Simpson, summer in Georgia is strictly R & R. &ldquo;I play golf all day&mdash;used to have a six handicap&mdash;and softball in the evenings,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When I&rsquo;m not doing that, or watching the Braves play baseball, I sit home and watch TV.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care for soap operas, naturally, but I enjoy some of the movies. &lsquo;A Bridge Too Far,&rsquo; for instance. I saw &lsquo;Jaws&rsquo; three times.&rdquo;Simpson, a Mohawk Indian (he was born in Caughnawaga, Quebec, on a reservation a few miles south of Montreal), takes the cowboys-and-Indians flicks with a grain of salt. &ldquo;You know the Indians are going to lose unless you&rsquo;re watching Custer&rsquo;s Last Stand,&rdquo; he said wryly. &ldquo;He thinks the average person has a distorted idea of Indians. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t live in teepees,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re like anybody else.&rdquo;It isn&rsquo;t true that Canadians are born wearing skates. &ldquo;But I was only three years old when I first pushed a chair around the ice on cheese-cutters&mdash;you know, those dual blades&mdash;and playing in the NHL was always in my dreams,&rdquo; Simpson said.&ldquo;I guess I was about 17 or 18 when I finally got down to the nitty-gritty of thinking about hockey in terms of a career. From the time I was a baby until I left the reserve at 16, I was raised by my great aunt. When she died, I made a vow on her grave that I&rsquo;d play in the NHL.&rdquo;Simpson broke into pro hockey at that level, too, but after a promising rookie season, things began to go somewhat sour for Bobby.&ldquo;My second year with the Flames, I missed camp with a pulled groin muscle and they sent me to Tulsa to get in shape,&rdquo; Simpson remembered.&ldquo;When Curt Bennett got hurt, they called me up,&rdquo; he said. Simpson had been hot in Tulsa, scoring eight goals in 14 games, but had a pedestrian season (10 goals and eight assists seeing irregular action in 55 games) for Atlanta.Last year I injured my groin in camp again and got a chipped bone in my shoulder&mdash;right here in the Checkerdome when Barry Gibbs checked me into the boards&mdash;and was out quite a while,&rdquo; Simpson said. He played only 49 games with Tulsa, scoring 14 goals and 19 assists.&ldquo;I thought I was finally on my way this past summer when I scored five goals in five pre-season games for the Blues,&rdquo; Simpson said.&ldquo;Nobody&rsquo;s perfect, but Bare (Blues&rsquo; coach Barclay Plager) told me to be aggressive and take the body&mdash;you don&rsquo;t have to drive a guy through the boards&mdash;and work on my defense. You&rsquo;ve got to remember to pick up your winger. If you don&rsquo;t, the defenseman has two jobs.&rdquo;When Brian Sutter got injured, Simpson found himself playing left wing on imaginative center Bernie Federko&rsquo;s line. &ldquo;Bernie&rsquo;s very smart, and he&rsquo;s always in position,&rdquo; Simpson said. &ldquo;He slows down the play, so the best thing to do when you&rsquo;re on his wing is come late with him and then break.&rdquo;Bobby wasn&rsquo;t burning up the league, but he felt he was holding his own, when that old Simpson luck struck Nov. 14 at Toronto. The Blues&rsquo; reckless young forward wrapped himself around a goal post and was helped off the ice with shoulder and knee injuries.&ldquo;The puck was in our zone, and (Ron) Ellis was breaking toward the net,&rdquo; Simpson reconstructed the event. &ldquo;I tried to follow him and lost my balance. I&rsquo;ve hit the goal posts before, but not like that. At first I thought it was my leg that was sore. By the time I got to the bench, I realized it was my shoulder that hurt worse. Woody (trainer Tommy Woodcock) said he thought I might have a fractured collarbone&mdash;and it felt that bad&mdash;but x-rays showed it was rather badly bruised and I&rsquo;d be coming back soon instead of sitting out four weeks.&ldquo;Am I injury-prone? It seems that way, doesn&rsquo;t it. I hope I&rsquo;m not. I don&rsquo;t think I am.&rdquo; &#9632;

Simpson Has Rough Road To Dream

<div class="byline">BY FRED PIETILA</div>DENVER&mdash;Bill McKenzie is a firm believer in psychocybernetics and the like. That belief, in his uncertain eight years in professional hockey, has helped him through rough moments.But this year, it wasn&rsquo;t necessarily his practice of psychocybernetics that carried him back into the National Hockey League. More than anything, it was hard work and a desire to make good in what could be his final year as an active participant in the sport.McKenzie, a 30-year-old goalie who began his NHL career with the Detroit Red Wings after playing collegiately at Ohio State University, spent all of last season with Tulsa of the Central Hockey League and never once got a call from the Colorado Rockies. And this year when he reported to training camp with the Rockies, he was&mdash;for some reason or other&mdash;given little chance of making the club.It seemed everyone was convinced that the goalie battle was among Swedish import Hardy Astrom (in his second NHL try); incumbent Bill Oleschuk; and moody and often out-of-shape, mentally and physically, Michel Plasse. McKenzie simply was cast in the lot with young goalies Carey Walker and Tim Thomlison.So when the Rockies became unhappy with the goaltending of Oleschuk and Astrom in the early going, McKenzie was summoned from Fort Worth of the Central League and responded with a tie and a win in his first two games, providing a lift for a team which needed one in the worst way.Let McKenzie explain his situation:&ldquo;I feel like a kid again,&rdquo; McKenzie said of his arrival back in Denver in the midst of a 17-inch snowstorm. It was 75 degrees in Fort Worth when he left, but he endured the change in temperature for what perhaps will be his final chance in the NHL. &ldquo;Emotionally and psychologically, I feel like I&rsquo;m in the same position I was in my first year of pro eight years ago.&rdquo;Through his first seven years of pro, McKenzie played in just 65 NHL games. Last year he languished in Tulsa and this year he had been sharing goalie duties in Fort Worth with Plasse.&ldquo;A lot of things have changed since I left Denver,&rdquo; McKenzie laughed, referring to the constant personnel shuffling of general manager Ray Miron and coach Don Cherry in hopes of putting together a competitive NHL team. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure that I know the team.&ldquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t think I really had a chance after not even getting a shot with the team last year,&rdquo; the somewhat surprised McKenzie said. &ldquo;With being in the minors last year and not having been looked at in training camp this year even with a coaching change, I felt I wasn&rsquo;t going to be looked at again this year.&rdquo;And furthermore, it bothered him that a Denver newspaper writer had also prejudged him and speculated in a pre-training camp piece that McKenzie would no doubt be relegated to the minors.&ldquo;This is my option year. I really wanted to work hard and to do well and go out with an honest effort. I didn&rsquo;t want to look back at age 45 and say, &lsquo;I wonder what would have happened if I had worked a little harder that last year?&rsquo; I wanted it to be not me that ended my career,&rdquo; McKenzie explained.&ldquo;I worked hard at camp until I saw the writing on the wall&hellip;and I worked hard down there (Fort Worth). No, I had to take a long look at my career with the Rockies as I&rsquo;ve done every couple of months since I&rsquo;ve been with the team in Denver. I&rsquo;m grateful for the opportunity. I think I deserve it. It&rsquo;s up to me now. If I can do the job and work hard, I ought to be able to stay with the team.&rdquo;After his 5-2 win over Detroit in which the Rockies scored four goals in a 3:37 span (earlier in the season they scored a total of three goals in three straight 60-minute games), McKenzie was happy but not ecstatic.&ldquo;Just because I played with &rsquo;em before, I think it&rsquo;s low base to say I really got a lot of satisfaction out of beating the team that gave up on me. I&rsquo;d get the same amount of satisfaction beating them as I would any other team,&rdquo; McKenzie said of his 31-save effort against Detroit.And he wasn&rsquo;t surprised he started the first two games in his return. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think they were gonna waste my time and their time and bring me up to sit on the bench. Maybe they were just adding a little new blood&mdash;throwing in a new pitcher,&rdquo; McKenzie reasoned. And whatever the motive, it worked for awhile.ROCKY RAMBLINGS: The Rockies&rsquo; inability to win two straight games, which dates back to March of 1978, continues to be a mystery to everyone, particularly Cherry. &ldquo;Every time these guys win a game, it&rsquo;s like they won the Stanley Cup,&rdquo; Cherry said. &#9632;

McKenzie Prepared For Final Rockies’ Shot

<h2>VACLAV NEDOMANSKY&hellip;Detroit</h2>The Detroit Red Wings have been struggling this season but if they continue to play the kind of hockey they showed last week in the NHL. they&rsquo;ll be battling their way back into contention led by &lsquo;Big Ned.Of course, &lsquo;Big Ned&rsquo; is Vaclav Nedomansky, the talented center who is working on the first year of a new multi-year contract with Detroit and he is already starting to pay the Wings dividends. Nedomansky scored four times last week to raise his season total to 14 as the Wings came off a productive week tying Montreal 5-5 and Philly 4-4 and upsetting the Bruins 6-3.With two two-goal games last week, Nedomansky is well on his way to equalling or surpassing his NHL high of 38 goals set last season over an 80-game schedule. &#9632;

Player Of The Week

<div class="byline">BY PAT DOYLE</div>WINNIPEG&mdash;Scott Campbell has learned to live with something he had never experienced until this hockey season.Boos.It hasn&rsquo;t taken much for the railbirds in Winnipeg to dump on Campbell this year: a bounce of the puck over his stick, an errant pass, a missed bodycheck. The slightest of miscues and the braying begins.&ldquo;I notice it,&rdquo; says Campbell, who was one of Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; two priority protections in last summer&rsquo;s National Hockey League expansion draft.&ldquo;It bothered me at the first of the year,&rdquo; adds the big defenceman. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never had that happen to me before. But, the way I look at it now, those fans are paying my salary so they have the right to get on me if they don&rsquo;t feel I&rsquo;m playing well.&rdquo;Certainly one reason the gallery gods have been on Campbell&rsquo;s case this season, is because he was protected over popular Terry Ruskowski.When general manager John Ferguson announced he had decided to shield Campbell, along with Morris Lukowich, you would have thought he had protected the Ayatollah Khomeini judging by the reaction of some people here.They said he coudn&rsquo;t skate well enough to make it in the NHL, others said his shot couldn&rsquo;t break a pane of glass from 15 feet and somebody even suggested the only thing he was good at was losing fights.All wrong, of course, and Ferguson is convinced time will reveal the truth about Gary Scott Campbell, now in his third pro season.Campbell turned pro with Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association in 1977, spurning an offer from St. Louis Blues, the NHL team which made him its first-round selection in the junior draft that summer. He landed on his feet in Winnipeg when the Jets purchased the contracts of a dozen Houston players after the Aeros&rsquo; franchise was lowered into a plot in hockey&rsquo;s graveyard.One season with the Jets was enough to convince Ferguson he couldn&rsquo;t part company with the 6&rsquo;2&rdquo;, 207 pound blueliner.&ldquo;We just couldn&rsquo;t see ourselves letting a first-round draft choice go,&rdquo; says Ferguson, &ldquo;especially a defenseman. Defensemen take longer to develop than forwards and we&rsquo;re convinced Scott will be one of the top dozen in the league eventually.&rdquo;For his part, Campbell admits he was surprised when advised Jets had protected him, although he knew prior to the draft that Ferguson was considering taking that route.&ldquo;Sure I was surprised,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but the thing is, before I left after the season I was told I was one of the three players they were thinking of keeping. So I knew there was a chance I&rsquo;d be here again.&rdquo;To this point in time, the 1979-80 season has not been kind to Campbell. He has been hampered by a severely bruised shoulder, which militated against extremely physical play, and he had to wear a protective face mask for a few games because of a cut on his upper lip. He was hit by a shot in a game against Chicago Black Hawks and it took 25 stitches to close the wound.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a little more hesitant to take a run at somebody,&rdquo; he explains, &ldquo;because I&rsquo;m not sure of their moves. Until we get around&rsquo; the league you just can&rsquo;t go around running people, because they&rsquo;ll burn you. Hopefully, when we&rsquo;ve played 40 games and have seen most of the teams a couple of times it&rsquo;ll be different.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01805/4311923-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="578" height="876"><figcaption class="caption-body">Injuries have hampered Scott Campbell&rsquo;s physical game thus far.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Jets’ Campbell Coping With Boos

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01769/4312009-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Goaler Billy Smith of the Islanders etched his name in the NHL record book last week when he was credited with the first goal ever scored by a major league netminder. Smith got the goal against Colorado when Rockies&rsquo; defenseman Rob Ramage cleared the puck the length of the ice into his own unguarded net on a penalty call against the Islanders. Smith, according to the referee, was the last New York player to touch the puck before it went into the net. (Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div><h2>Park Operated On</h2>BOSTON&mdash;A third operation on his right knee within the last year will sideline Bruins&rsquo; defenseman Brad Park probably for at least two months.Park, who has not played in the 1979-80 season, missed half of the schedule last year due to knee problems and operations. He underwent surgery during the offseason and reported to training camp in excellent shape but problems with a fluid build-up in his knee necessitated further surgery.The surgery removed several small bone spurs and smoothed the area under the kneecap according to Bruins&rsquo; physical therapist Jim Kausek. Park will wear a cast for one month and then may possibly resume skating with two months seen as a reasonable recovery period.<h2>Petes To Europe</h2>PETERBOROUGH&mdash;With financial problems resolved, the Peterborough Petes and seven other players from Ontario Major Junior League teams will represent Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championships in Helsinki, Finland from Dec. 28-Jan. 2.The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, the OMJHL and the Petes will accept financial responsibility for the cost of the trip, estimated at $500,000.A request for federal government assistance was refused for the Petes who will leave for Finland on Dec. 23.<h2>Blackout Probed</h2>MONTREAL&mdash;A request by the Quebec Council of Minorities has led to the opening of an investigation by the office of the Official Languages Commissioner in Ottawa over the restricted televising of a game between the Quebec Nordiques and the Montreal Canadiens.The game was transmitted in Quebec only and according to Yvon Giguere, Radio-Canada sports programing head, the decision was made for &ldquo;very complex&rdquo; reasons, including a respect for team blackout rights.Eric Maldoff, CQM president, said he has been unable to &ldquo;obtain a straight-answer&rdquo; as to why the Oct. 28 game was not televised on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation&rsquo;s French-language stations in Ontario, the west and the Atlantic regions.Frank Selke of the Canadian Sports Network, which holds the broadcast rights for all NHL games, said the game was never scheduled to be shown outside Quebec.<h2>Harris&rsquo; Streak Ends</h2>LONG ISLAND&mdash;The New York Islanders have been struggling to find out why they haven&rsquo;t been winning and have now sacrificed one of their players&rsquo; iron-man records in an effort to find the right combination.When the Islanders called up Yvon Vautour and Randy Johnston from their Central League farm club and also summoned Duane Sutter from the Lethbridge Broncos junior team, someone had to sit out and one of those designated to do so was Billy Harris.The lineup scratch for Harris marked the first game he had missed in his professional career which began in the 1972 season when he was the first choice of the Islanders. Harris had played in 576 consecutive regular seasons&rsquo; contests and had the second longest current iron-man streak in the NHL.Only Gary Unger, who&rsquo;s now passed 900 straight games, Andy Hebenton with 630, and Johnny Wilson with 580, appeared in more consecutive games.<h2>Turnbull on Block?</h2>TORONTO&mdash;Defenseman Ian Turbull is still the name mentioned most prominently around NHL circles these days as trade bait.The Leafs&rsquo; defenseman, who is not having one of his better starts, has been mentioned in just about every possible trade being kicked around the League.Detroit Red Wings are interested in Turnbull but the Wings are offering 36-year-old Vaclav Nedosmansky in exchange and GM Punch Imlach has been scared off by the Czech&rsquo;s aging years. He wants youth to keep in step with the team&rsquo;s rebuilding plan.<h2>Hull May Quit</h2>WINNIPEG&mdash;Jets&rsquo; left winger Bobby Hull, who is making a belated comeback after sitting out more than a year, will probably decide in the next couple of weeks if he is going to hang up his skates for good.Hull, who had just two goals and one assist in his first 10 games, claims that he has had the slowest start of his professional career this season and that he will retire unless his performance improves soon.&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be a long season if I decide to hang around and play this way. But I don&rsquo;t think I will,&rdquo; Hull said.<h2>New Agreement Eyed</h2>TORONTO&mdash;The NHLPA is certain to junk the collective bargaining agreement and try for a change in the equalization clause on free agents who change teams. The players&rsquo; group can serve a year&rsquo;s notice of termination of the agreement at the conclusion of the &rsquo;79-&rsquo;80 season.&ldquo;There were no free agents who changed teams this season because of the compensation to their former team,&rdquo; said one player rep.&ldquo;Some players feel that they&rsquo;re trapped on teams that will be at the bottom of the NHL forever and would at least like the chance to move to a winner. Also, there are four or five owners who would pay the big bucks to build a winner by signing free agents but the compensation scares them off.&rdquo;<h2>Smith Makes History</h2>DENVER&mdash;New York Islanders&rsquo; Billy Smith became the first National Hockey League goaltender to be credited with a goal during a 7-4 loss to the Colorado Rockies.With the score 4-3 in favor of the Rockies, and the Denver net vacated on a delayed penalty, Smith made a save off defenseman Rob Ramage who pounced on the rebound and passed back to the point. However, no one was there and the puck sailed into the empty Rocky net.Islanders&rsquo; Dave Lewis, who chased Ramage for the puck, was originally credited with the goal, but official scorers changed their decision after viewing videotapes&rsquo; of the game, determining that Smith was the last Islander to touch the puck.Although it was the first goal ever &ldquo;scored&rdquo; by an NHL goaltender, Michel Plasse, a member of the Rockies, scored the first goal by a professional goaltender when he cleared a puck into an empty net while playing for Kansas City in the Central League in the 1970-71 season.<h2>Hockey briefs</h2>WASHINGTON&mdash;Left winger Gary Rissling isn&rsquo;t quite a household name around the NHL but the youngster did an iron man stint last weekend that few hockey players would relish. He dressed for an afternoon game in Washington with the Caps and then flew out to Hershey to suit up with the AHL Bears in a night game&hellip;Hartford Whalers are pleased with their $50,000 deal they worked out with the Leafs when the NHL expansionrogram was announced. The Whalers bought NHL rights to Blaine Stoughton and defenseman Rick Ley from the Leafs. Both players have been nothing short of sensational in the club&rsquo;s fast pace of late. Stoughton has 15 goals, more than any of the Leafs.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02618/4312002-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="1822" height="1425"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Golden Jet could be ready to pack it in as an NHL player. Bobby Hull said he is totally disenchanted with his performance since making his comeback with the Winnipeg Jets and unless he improves in the next two weeks, he will hang up his skates and concentrate on his business ventures. Hull has only two goals in his first 10 NHL games this season. (Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0019-01

SLAPSHOTS

MONTREAL&mdash;The surprising Colorado Rockies are on the rise and even the runaway Philadelphia Flyers might do well to take notice of Don Cherry&rsquo;s Mile High warriors.Cherry&rsquo;s marauders are on cloud nine after their most productive week of the 1979-80 NHL season. Among their conquests were victories over the New York Islanders and Boston Bruins.Now when was the last time that you can recollect the Rockies did these two powerful NHL clubs in on successive appearances? Forget it, because it probably has never happened.At any rate, the Rockies belted the slumping Islanders 7-4 in Denver, and after losing 5-4 to Pittsburgh, came back to celebrate Cherry&rsquo;s return to Boston by whipping the Bruins 6-3. The Boston Garden fans gave Cherry a standing ovation and it appeared to some that public sympathy was actually riding with the Rockies.While the Rockies were etching their most memorable week of the season, those menacing Philadelphia Flyers weren&rsquo;t slowing down one iota. In fact, they have lost so few games that they are threatening to establish a league precedent. Never before has a team lost only one game so far into the season as the Flyers have done.After 23 games, the Flyers have a record of 17 wins, five ties and only one loss. That loss, ironically, was a lopsided 9-3 defeat at the hands of the Atlanta Flames Oct. 13. Since then Philadelphia has gone on a 21-game undefeated streak&mdash;16 wins and five ties&mdash;to near its own club mark of 23 without a loss, accomplished in 1975-76 with 17 wins and six ties.The best previous start made by any team in NHL history was by Montreal Canadiens, who had a record of 17 wins, one loss and four ties after 22 games in 1927-28. Canadiens, however, lost their 23rd game that season. Spearheading Flyers&rsquo; phenomenal success this season is rookie Brian Propp, the club&rsquo;s leading scorer with 29 points&mdash;13 goals and 16 assists. That total gives Propp a share of 10th place in the overall league scoring race.At this time last season, Flyers had accumulated 26 points on 11 wins and four ties. Flyers, who have 39 points after 23 games this season have registered the biggest increase of any team in the NHL, over last season. Buffalo Sabres, who have won eight of their, last nine games, and Minnesota North Stars, who have won 10 and tied seven in their first 23 games, are 11 points ahead of their records last season.New York Islanders who had 34 points at this time last season, are 16 points behind that pace this season. New York Rangers, Stanley Cup finalists last season, are currently 12 points behind the pace which they set at this time last season. Rangers had 34 points after 25 games in 1978-79 while after 25 games this season, Rangers have 22 points and are third in the Patrick Division behind Flyers and Atlanta.National Hockey League history was made last week when New York Islanders&rsquo; goaltender Billy Smith became the first NHL net minder to be credited with a goal. Smith&rsquo;s historic feat occurred Wednesday, Nov. 28 in Colorado.Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; Marcel Dionne continued his torrid scoring pace of 2.12 points per game last week as he added five more points to his League-leading total of 51. Montreal&rsquo;s Guy Lafleur trails Dionne with 42 points while Dionne&rsquo;s Los Angeles linemates, Charlie Singer and Dave Taylor, are third with 40 points each. &#9632;

Lowly Rockies Knock Off NHL Power Teams

<div class="byline">BY PAT THOMPSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01603/4312064-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="575" height="835"><figcaption class="caption-body">With his ankle mended, Mike Eaves stepped in to replace Bobby Smith who broke his ankle.</figcaption></div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;When the North Stars returned to Minnesota from a one-game road trip to Chicago, one of the first to welcome rookie Mike Eaves aboard was Bobby Smith.A few pleasantries exchanged, Smith and Eaves got down to some serious discussion on the breaks of the game.Smith, Minnesota&rsquo;s leading scorer through its first 16 games and the 1978-79 National Hockey League rookie of the year, was lost to the team in mid-November for four to six weeks with a broken right ankle.Eaves suggested Smith stay active while the cast was on his foot. &ldquo;He wanted to know if there were any complications,&rdquo; Eaves said. &ldquo;The only problem I had was that the ligaments and tendons were a little tender. I told Bobby I lifted weights to keep my upper body strong and that I spent a lot of time on the stationary bike. Mentally it&rsquo;s hard. It gets to be a drag.&rdquo;Eaves, called up as Smith&rsquo;s replacement, missed most of training camp with a broken ankle and was sent to Oklahoma City after being given strong consideration to make the team.Eaves deserved a shot at the big club after being named THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; minor player of the year in 1978-79 for his 26 goals and 61 assists for 87 points.So when Smith went down in a game against Buffalo after falling to the ice along the boards with Dan Gare toppling on his foot, Eaves was the natural callup. He had nine goals and eight assists in 12 games, but that was after his ankle had given him another scare.In his first game for Oklahoma City this season, Eaves twisted his ankle and missed two games.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t expect the callup at all since the team was going so well,&rdquo; said Eaves, a 23-year-old Denver native who played on the University of Wisconsin&rsquo;s NCAA champions. &ldquo;I was just trying to get things going in Oke City. The ankle feels great now.&rdquo;The North Stars wished they could say that about their other injured.When Smith went down, left winger Mike Fidler and defenseman Greg Smith still had not played a game. Fidler, out with knee surgery, scored 49 points on 23 goals and 26 assists last season. Greg Smith, who had loose cartilage removed from a knee, was voted the team&rsquo;s outstanding defenseman.Winger Jack Carlson was out for the season with back surgery. Kent Anderson continued to play while a broken bone in his foot healed. There were numerous other minor ailments.Fidler finally returned in late November and Greg Smith was ticketed for an early December comeback.Through this siege, the Stars got off to a 9-4-4 start on the season, one of their best in history. But most of that came with Smith in the lineup getting six goals and 18 assists. The power play could be the most affected. The Stars had 20 power play goals in their first 16 games, and Smith and his wingers, Al MacAdam and Steve Payne accounted for 12 of them. Defensemen on their PP unit had two more.And Smith had to be the big reason that the Stars were on top of team scoring in the NHL with the Los Angeles Kings.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve felt all along one of our strengths this season was the team depth,&rdquo; coach Glen Sonmor said. &ldquo;With Bobby out, we are being put to a severe test.&rdquo;Sonmor&rsquo;s preliminary plan was to move Tim Young, who had four goals his first 17 games, in as center for Payne and MacAdam. If that wasn&rsquo;t going to Work, Eaves would move in there.STAR DUST: Ole Brasar broke a 26-game goal drought dating back to last season in a 7-2 victory over Quebec. Young was the No. 1 star in the game with two goals and an assist&hellip;Fred Barrett, never known as a scoring machine, scored his fifth goal&mdash;a career season high&mdash;in Minnesota&rsquo;s first home loss of the year to Buffalo after six victories on the Met Center ice. The Stars were the last NHL team to lose at home this season. &#9632;

f0020-01

Break Makes Eaves A North Star

<div class="byline">BY JIM MATHESON</div>EDMONTON&mdash;After spending last season in Europe, Poul Popiel had no grand illusions about where he&rsquo;d be playing defense this season. He fully expected to be earning a minor league salary in Houston, the farm club of Edmonton Oilers.But the Pope must have said a few prayers.Because he&rsquo;s been in the National Hockey League for the last month instead of the Central league. After answering an SOS when Al Hamilton went down with a separated shoulder, the 36-year-old rearguard has been playing a pretty regular shift for the Smythe Division Oilers.Strange. But true!At this time last year, Popiel was in the Austrian Alps, getting paid a handsome tax-free salary as player-coach of a club in Innsbruck. Popiel won&rsquo;t say how much he earned for the 50 games total (28 of them league) but it&rsquo;s somewhere between Jacques Lemaire&rsquo;s $150,000 package in Sierre in Switzerland and the approximately $35,000 ex-Oiler Ray McKay made in Italy a few years back.With a rent-free apartment, a nanny for kids Leslie and Andy and a spiffy Audi car, not to mention great downhill skiing weather, Popiel was living the life of Riley as his career wound down.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;d go so far as to say it was a holiday,&rdquo; said Popiel, who&rsquo;s been sequestered in a downtown hotel ever since he got the call from the minors in early November. &ldquo;It was more like quiet relaxation.&rdquo;After 15 long and winding years of pro hockey, with stops in Buffalo, St. Louis, Springfield, Rochester, Vancouver, Detroit and Houston, Popiel needed a break. And he got it in the Alps.After the Houston Aeros folded in 1978, Popiel didn&rsquo;t feel he wanted a seventh year in the World Hockey Association. So he jumped at the chance to go to Europe like so many Canadians recently. &ldquo;I was raised there. I was born in Sollested (Denmark),&rdquo; said Popiel. &ldquo;I looked on it as an education for my kids. Innsbruck has a good atmosphere and a well-known name.&rdquo; The ski resort played host to the &lsquo;64 and &lsquo;76 Winter Olympics.Popiel and former New York Ranger farmhand Greg Holst were the two token Canadians on the Innsbruck squad. As player-coach Popiel was on the ice during games almost from the opening whistle to the final buzzer. &ldquo;About 50 to 55 minutes,&rdquo; laughed Popiel, who resisted the urge to reach for the oxygen bottle. &ldquo;The only time you could get off the ice was when you took a penalty.&rdquo;He operated in a kind of &ldquo;ignorant bliss&rdquo; when it came time to yakking with his players in the Tuesday and Saturday games. But he must have said the right words often enough because Innsbruck won the league title on the strength of a 19-game undefeated streak.They eventually lost out in the playoffs, however. And Pope lost out too. The owner rather fancied a kid from the Salzburg team named Robin Sadler. Yup, the same Sadler who used to play for the Edmonton Oil Kings before turning down pro offers with the Oilers and Montreal Canadiens. With only two Canadians allowed, somebody had to go. Popiel was the odd man out.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d negotiated a two-year contract on an optional basis,&rdquo; said Popiel. &ldquo;When Robin was coming in, they tried to make Greg or I Austrian citizens.&rdquo; It didn&rsquo;t work and Popiel packed his wife Janet, his kids, his skates and his skis and came back to his home in Houston.After training with Oilers, he was back there when Edmonton called a dozen or so games ago.&ldquo;When I didn&rsquo;t get a shot with the Oilers in training camp I expected to be in Houston for a good long while,&rdquo; said Popiel, who has a nice house and his kids in school in the Texas city.But when the veteran Hamilton went down with his third serious injury in the past five years (he earlier broke his leg twice and almost lost the sight in his left eye), Popiel was summoned instead of youngsters like Bryon Baltimore or Mike Forbes.&ldquo;I wanted a guy with some experience,&rdquo; said coach Glen Sather, who obviously looked at Popiel&rsquo;s 213 games in the NHL. &ldquo;He had some trouble at the start because the NHL&rsquo;s a little faster than the Central league, but he&rsquo;s played quite well for us.&rdquo;His length of time with Oilers undoubtedly will be decided by injuries. Rookie Kevin Lowe has just come back after missing about a month with ligament damage in his ankle. &#9632;

Praying Pays Off For The ‘Pope’ Of Edmonton

TORONTO&mdash;Without tackling the question of whether or not the National Hockey League clubs should have been drafting players with remaining junior eligibility, how about a look at the underage players who have stuck with NHL clubs and how the teams feel about their teenage stars.Three are defensemen, Paul Reinhart with Atlanta, Ray Bourque of Boston and Chicago&rsquo;s Keith Brown, while Tom McCarthy, Minnesota, Paul Marshall, Pittsburgh, Laurie Boschman of Toronto and Brent Ashton with Vancouver are underage players.Reinhart, whose 15 points tied him with Bourque for the lead among all freshmen blueliners is tabbed by Atlanta coach Al MacNeil as &ldquo;a bright guy, a smart player, sure of himself on and off the ice.&rdquo;Bourque, heralded in Boston as the second coming of Bobby Orr, has turned more than a few heads with his deft passing and stickhandling ability. Says Boston&rsquo;s Harry Sinden: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s destined to be a top player, no question about it.&rdquo;Chicago&rsquo;s Keith Brown has already made coach Eddie Johnston &ldquo;confident of him in every situation.&rdquo; Said Johnston, &ldquo;By Christmas he should be one of the better guys in the league.&rdquo;Among the forwards, McCarthy and Boschman have been the most notable: McCarthy for his scoring, his &ldquo;Golden Touch&rdquo; as North Star scout Harry Howell puts it; and Boschman for his hockey sense and puckhandling ability. &#9632;

Teenage Rookies Draw Employers’ Praise

<div class="byline">BY KEN FENSON</div>WINNIPEG&mdash;Winnipeg Jets. The name has meant so many things over the last seven years.As an original franchise member of the World Hockey Association, there was the image of an outlaw team in an outlaw league that plucked away one of hockey&rsquo;s greatest stars&mdash;Bobby Hull. No one would ever refute the claim that when the team&rsquo;s original owner, Ben Hatskin, inked the Golden Jet to a multi-year contract, the Jets and in fact the WHA had secured themselves a future.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03311/4312157-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="269" height="434"><figcaption class="caption-body">Winnipeg Jets</figcaption></div>In the formative years many players travelled through the multitude of teams that stood under the umbrella of the WHA. The Jets were no different. While the team went to the WHA finals (losing to New England) in year one, their fourth place finish and first round playoff dismissal in 1973-74, led to a dramatic search for new talent. It was from the little Swedish towns and villages the Jets came back with some of their proud catches. Among them were LarsErik Sjoberg, Ulf Nilsson and Anders Hedberg. Combined with Hull, Hedberg and Nilsson formed one of the most prolific scoring lines in hockey history. Their freewheeling, European style of play captured the imaginations of hockey fans everywhere. &ldquo;The Hot Line&rdquo;, as they were called, led the Jets to two WHA championships and were the attraction that brought over even more European players. Willy Lindstrom, Dan Labraaten, Kent Nilsson and Thommie Bergman were all European players who still play or have played for the Winnipeg Jets.While the on ice attractions would help attendance rise dramatically, the office revamping of the team&rsquo;s financial structure put the Jets in the limelight again. In the summer of 1974 over $639,000 worth of shares were offered to the public to keep their team financially fit and in Winnipeg. By doing so, the Jets became the first and only pro hockey club to have ever been owned by its fans.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01493/4312150-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="1822" height="1128"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jets won the Avco Trophy twice in their WHA existence and had the distinction of being the final winner of the championship when the league became extinct.</figcaption></div>From 1976-78 Winnipeg won two Avco trophies while losing in the 7th game of the finals on one other occasion. In 1978-79 the franchise went through a &ldquo;mini crisis&rdquo; on two fronts. First, many of the teams&rsquo; established stars left to take up residency in NHL cities. If that wasn&rsquo;t enough, the experiment in public ownership was proving to be a strain financially and there was some question as to whether the club could survive. But like every good story, a happy ending prevailed when a group of private businessmen purchased the assets of the club. When the WHA Houston Aeros&rsquo; franchise folded, the player contracts were purchased by the Jets and thus the new ownership assured Winnipeg fans of yet another quality team.The true quality of the 1978-79 Jets&rsquo; team really took form when in November of 1978 John Ferguson assumed the reins as the club&rsquo;s vice-president and general manager. Three months later the final piece of a successful combination was put in place when Tom McVie was named head coach. By late season the team had its game in high gear and in 10 playoff games they won the third and last ever Avco Cup&mdash;securing a place for themselves in the annals of hockey history.Although entrance into the National Hockey League cost the team dearly in terms of player personnel, early indications are the Jets will be one of the most successful expansion teams in the NHL history. With the finishing touches now being put on a 15,000-plus seat facility, the team has become a source of pride to its city and province.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02385/4312143-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="1130" height="1332"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Hull, left, and Anders Hedberg; between them they became the Winnipeg franchise as they played a major role along with Ulf Nilsson in making the Jets a force in the old WHA.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0022-03

Jets’ Great Past Carrying Into NHL

<div class="byline">By VIRG FOSS</div>GRAND FORKS&mdash;Fans have come to expect nothing but the finest of college hockey when North Dakota and Minnesota play each other.The two neighboring rivals finished 1-2 in the WCHA last year with North Dakota beating Minnesota 4-2 on the final game of the season to win the championship. Minnesota came back to beat North Dakota 4-3 for the NCAA championship in Detroit.So when the Gophers came to Grand Forks ranked No. 1 in the nation and leading the WCHA, North Dakota, No. 2 in the nation and second in the league, was ready for another great series.The teams didn&rsquo;t let the fans down. In two tremendous hockey games, North Dakota emerged with 6-3 and 7-6 victories, the latter in overtime, to wrestle first place from the Gophers.&ldquo;It was an excellent series. The usual, emotional, enthusiastic, breath-taking Gopher-Sioux series. There aren&rsquo;t enough adjectives to describe the kind of series it was,&rdquo; said Sioux hockey coach Gino Gasparini.The Dec. 1 game was outstanding. After 60 minutes of play, the two teams were tied 6-6. After nine minutes, 52 seconds of the 10-minute sudden death overtime session, they were still tied.But senior center Rick Zapar-niuk ended the drama by slipping in a rebound with eight seconds left to send a capacity-plus crowd of 5,800 fans home happy.&ldquo;It would have been an injustice if we had lost it in overtime since we dominated the play so much. But I was worried. You can dominate the play, but you see it so often that the other team comes down, gets one shot, and wins the game,&rdquo; Gasparini said.Zaparniuk&rsquo;s goal saw to it that it didn&rsquo;t happen. North Dakota outshot Minnesota 21-6 in overtime with Gopher goalie Paul Butters making 11 overtime saves to just three for North Dakota&rsquo;s Bob Iwabuchi.It was a game of individual heroes, too. Minnesota&rsquo;s Tim Harrer, the hardest shooter in the league, scored four goals to pad his league scoring lead. North Dakota&rsquo;s senior center Mark Taylor, the leading goal scorer in the league, had the hat trick to give him 11 goals in his last four games.Minnesota rallied from 4-1 and 5-2 deficits with Harrer&rsquo;s three straight second period goals tying the game at 5-5. After Phil Sykes put the Sioux ahead 6-5 with 40 seconds left in the second period, Minnesota&rsquo;s Aaron Broten tied it just 11 seconds into the third period. It was scoreless from then on until Zaparniuk scored his third goal of the season.The night before, saw brilliant goaltending from North Dakota&rsquo;s Iwabuchi. He made 25 key saves while the offense came from Doug Small (2 goals, 1 assist) and Taylor (1 goal, 3 assists).Let&rsquo;s take a look around the league:MICHIGAN VS. MICHIGAN STATE: Center Murray Eaves had one goal and four assists to spark Michigan to a 7-2 victory in the series opener in Ann Arbor, Mich.Second period goals by Eaves, Brad Tippett, Joe Milburne and Bruno Bennetto broke open a 3-1 game and gave Michigan the victory.The next night, with Michigan in position to regain a piece of the lead, Michigan State played the role of the spoiler once again with a 6-3 victory in East Lansing, Mich.Mark Hamway and Mike Stoltzner each scored two goals for Michigan State, which has shown steady improvement under the first-year coaching of Ron Mason.NOTRE DAME AT WISCONSIN: Ron Griffin&rsquo;s hat trick paced Wisconsin in a 5-2 win in the opener. Goalie Roy Schultz was tough in goal with 34 saves.The next night, Greg Meredith snapped a 3-3 tie in the third period with 14 minutes left to provide injury-riddled Notre Dame with a 4-3 victory. It was the second goal of the game for Meredith.DULUTH AT COLORADO COLLEGE: This series was about as even as you could find. Colorado College won the opener 7-6 before Duluth came back for a 5-3 victory the second night for a split of the series.Colorado College, which has had the ability to pull close games out in the closing minutes, did it to Duluth the first night.Mark Pettygrove and Gary Reinking scored in the last 10 minutes to provide Colorado College with the victory. Bruce Aikens and Reinking each had two goals for Colorado College while Dave Dicksuk had the hat trick for Duluth.DENVER AT MICHIGAN TECH: It was 70 minutes of no decision in the opener of this series featuring two long-time great hockey powers.The two teams tied 3-3 after 10-minutes of sudden death overtime. Denver earned the tie on Perry Stensland&rsquo;s goal with three minutes left in regulation play.It was all Michigan Tech the second night. Salt led the way with two goals while single scores came from the sticks of Steve Murphy, Mike Lauen, Jeff Johnston, PerAke Johansson, Mark Palkovich, Jim Bissett and Scott.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01464/4312188-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="550" height="772"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Zaparniuk&rsquo;s overtime marker gave the Sioux a weekend sweep.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0023-01

North Dakotans Waited In Ambush For Chance To Revenge Minnesota

<div class="byline">BY MIKE MURRAY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02348/4312219-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="494" height="600"><figcaption class="caption-body">Guelph&rsquo;s Mike McParland has picked up where he left off last year the leading scorer in the country.</figcaption></div>QUAA: If asked who would be the only two undefeated teams in Canada at this point of the season, University of Quebec at Trois-Rivieres probably would not have been a top choice. The Patriotes Coach Norm Meunier, who was the coach of the year in Canada two years ago, has brought his team from a last place finish last year to national contender this year. The Patriotes made it eight in a row without a defeat as they knocked off the slumping Bishop&rsquo;s Gaiters 6-1 and then travelled to Chicoutimi for a weekend double header. Gervais Savard had two goals but it was Maurice Belanger&rsquo;s goal at 18:02 that kept the string going, as they tied Chicoutimi 6-6. The two teams then played to another standoff as once again the Patriotes had to come up with a late goal by Dennis Francour at 17:21 to even the score at four.So the Patriotes continue to score the big goals at the right moment. Of their eight games, Trois-Rivieres has won two games in the last six minutes, both over Concordia. They&rsquo;ve also tied three games, all in the last three minutes. The Patriotes really believe that this will be the first year that someone other than Concordia will represent Quebec at the national finals. &ldquo;Those two early season victories certainly won&rsquo;t hurt us,&rdquo; remarked coach Meunier with his boyish smile, referring to his team&rsquo;s 8-6 and 9-7 victories over Concordia.AUAA: A clean sweep of their three games has given the Dalhousie Tigers some breathing room at the top of the eastern division in the Maritimes. Coach Pierre Page claims this may be the best talent he has had and with Brian Gualazzi threatening to win the scoring championship, the Tigers appear very tough to dethrone. In a big game, Kevin Zimmel had two goals and Ken Bickerton stopped 32 shots as St. Francis Xavier fell 5-4. Rick McCallum had one goal and one assist and two goals and one assist as the Tigers downed U.P.E.I. and Memorial, 4-2 and 6-2 respectively. U.P.E.I. and Memorial continued to have a rough time in Nova Scotia as they both lost to St. Francis Xavier by scores of 125 and 8-3. Steve Topshee had a big weekend by picking up two goals and four assists.Meanwhile, the western playoff race has started to tighten up as only six points separate the top five teams. U.N.B. evened their record at 4-4 as they disposed of St. Thomas 7-5, with Sid Veysy accumulating three goals and two assists. Meanwhile Moncton fell to U.N.B., 6-3, as George Wood led the way with a goal and two assists. The Mounties were able to hold onto first place as they split their weekend games by identical scores of 5-4. Francois Bessett&rsquo;s goal late in the third period proved to be the winner as Moncton downed Mt. Allison. The Mounties rebounded however, and managed to edge St. Thomas 5-4 in the next game.OUAA: Interim coach Gord Davies lost a lot when six of his players joined Tom Watt with the Olympic team. Nevertheless, the University of Toronto Blues are off to a good start with five wins and two ties in seven games and still remain only one point behind McMaster, but hold two games in hand. This past week the Varsity Blues defeated crosstown rival York 4-1 as the Yeomen were held to 18 shots on goal.McMaster lost its first game of the season, as Queens upset the Marlins 5-3. Coach Bill Mahoney felt his squad might have been looking ahead to their big encounter against Guelph the next day. After falling behind 2-0 early in the contest, the Marlins, led by their big gun Rick Rizzo, came back to hand the Gryphons their third loss of the season.Guelph stayed within striking distance of the top by winning its other two games. In a penalty-filled, brawling game, that had a total of 244 minutes, Bud Folusewych&rsquo;s club clobbered Western 103. Mike McFarland, the leading OUAA scorer, had two goals in a 74 victory over Queens.GPAC: University of Manitoba&rsquo;s coach Andy Bakogeorge&rsquo;s Bisons have left their early season problems behind and have won three and tied one in their last four games. They clobbered Winnipeg in both ends of their doubleheader recently by scores of 8-1 and 13-0.The timely return of captain Willy Warner and Dave Geddes from injuries has been the lift the Bisons needed to get themselves back on to the winning track.CWUAA: The Calgary Dinosaurs have quietly climbed into a first place tie with the defending CIAU champion University of Alberta Golden Bears. The Dinosaurs swept both ends of a doubleheader from the Thunderbirds. Calgary, who does not have a single player in the top 12, has climbed to the top with good all around efforts from each of their three lines. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not afraid to use any of my forwards in any situation,&rdquo; says coach George Kingston.Gary Cummins scored two goals in Calgary&rsquo;s 7-6 victory, while Jim Bertram had a two goal effort in the Dinosaur&rsquo;s 8-3 triumph. &#9632;

f0023-02

UQTR’s Patriotes Most Surprising

<div class="byline">By TOM BURKE</div>BOSTON&mdash;Looks like there&rsquo;ll be no rabbits in ECAC Division One this year, folks.Every season is predicted to be &ldquo;the closest yet&rdquo; for the 17 team Eastern college circuit, but the early going indicates that this line of thinking will be even closer to the mark for 1979-80 than usual. With just two full weeks of play completed in the regular season, only Clarkson, Vermont, and Boston College had not yet tasted defeat from another team in the conference.The Golden Knights raised their league slate to 3-0 with a 123 drubbing of Route 11 rival St. Lawrence on December 1 while Verment was blanking Maine 4-0 to elevate its loop slate to 2-0. BC had only played one ECAC Division One contest and come away victorious, 5-3 at New Hampshire on November 29.And these unblemished records promised to shrink or dissolve during the second week in December when both the Eagles and the Catamounts are scheduled to visit Walker Arena in Potsdam. Indeed, it seems unlikely that any Eastern team will be able to get hot and put appreciable breathing space between itself and the rest of it&rsquo;s ECAC subdivision before the action dwindles to a trickle for Christmas break.Clarkson can&rsquo;t be called a total surprise because they&rsquo;re usually good, seldom missing the playoffs. But most observers figured that new coach Bill O&rsquo;Flaherty would need a year to build his team back to the level of a home ice contender after he took over from Jerry York, who departed to Bowling Green. Several good scorers and defensemen graduated, and it looked like Danny Makuch was headed for the Canadian Olympic team, so most people lowered Clarkson&rsquo;s rating to wait and see status.Then Makuch, a New York Ranger draftee, returned to school in August, O&rsquo;Flaherty brought in a couple of late arriving recruits who boosted the number of freshmen playing regularly to five, and things, began falling into place.Makuch, who was paired with veterans Mike Prestidge and Steve Cruickshank, tallied the overtime goal in an 8-7 squeaker over Yale. Kelly Morgan rattled off nine goals in the first ten games; the junior had scored just two over all of last season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m pleased the way we&rsquo;re playing, but every one of the games has been close,&rdquo; commented O&rsquo;Flaherty a few days before the Golden Knights blew St. Lawrence away.Vermont&rsquo;s goalies, Andy Ash-forth and Sylvain Turcotte, were relatively idle in the Catamounts&rsquo; wins of 5-2 over St. Lawrence and 4-0 at Maine. Ashford had but 12 saves against the Saints while his counterpart, Gary Laskoski, turned away 44; then Turcotte stopped 21 to 38 for Maine&rsquo;s Jim Tortorella. Craig Homola had three goals for UVM in the two games.New Hampshire was involved in snapping a couple of streaks in their 1-1 split for the week. The defending ECAC champs lost 5-3 to Boston College for the first Eagle win in eleven years in Snively Arena. Junior wing Paul Hammer scored twice for BC. Then Charlie Holt, who&rsquo;s recovered from a gall bladder operation which sidelined him for a few weeks, took his charges to Boston University&rsquo;s Walter Brown Arena and came away with a 4-3 victory to snap a 25-game home streak for the Terriers. Freshmen Jay Miller and Craig Steensen had the only goals of the third period and the UNH forecheckers were able to keep BU at bay to the end.Cornell had a struggle on its annual Brown-Yale road trip, losing convincingly 5-3 to the Bruins before nipping the Elis 4-2 to make their ECAC slate 1-1. Freshman goalie Darren Eliot stopped 40 Yale shots for the Big Red, who didn&rsquo;t have the game won until an empty net goal by Dougie Berk with five seconds to play.At Brown the night before, the usually low scoring Bears turned on the artillery with Jim Lawson netting a hat trick. It was actually 5-1 going into the last two minutes. Earlier in the week, Brown dropped its opener 5-3 at Maine. Had goalie Mark Holden not been hot for 43 of the 48 shots thrown at him, it might have been much worse for Brown.Colgate shared the trip with Cornell and split too, losing to Yale 5-4 and then dumping Brown 4-0. Eddie Kilroy&rsquo;s goal with 4:09 to play was the decisive blow for Yale, but the following evening the show belonged to Colgate freshman goalie Guy LeMonde with a 36 save performance.Princeton hold the lead in the Ivy Division thanks to a 4-3 win at Princeton over Yale before a 4-2 loss at Maine. The Yale win as an overtime triumph with Dave Tweedy netting the clincher at 1:05 of the extra session. In the loss at Maine, Princeton had 38 shots to Maine&rsquo;s 24 but Jim Tortorella was equal to most of them.Providence leaped back into the win column after an opening 3-0 home loss to BU. The Friars defeated Harvard 5-3 in Providence and then dumped RPI by the same score in Troy.Freshman Dan Miele had the hat trick against the Harvards, who fell to 1-2 in the East. Two other Friar tallies were by freshmen, Kurt Kleindendorst and Tom McCarthy. Harvard had come from behind on goals by Tom Murray and Greg Olsen to tie the score at 2-2 before a four goal surge by PC put the game out of reach.At RPI, it was PC&rsquo;s turn to come from behind, again with a four goal binge in the third period. Freshman Steve Anderson had a pair of tallies in the rally.Boston University gained a measure of revenge for last year&rsquo;s ECAC semi-final defeat as they edged Dartmouth 6-4 in Hanover behind Tony Meagher&rsquo;s two goals and Jeff Weisman&rsquo;s 40 saves.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01481/4312257-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="583" height="836"><figcaption class="caption-body">Freshman backstop Guy Lemonde sparkled in Colgate win over Brown.</figcaption></div><h2>Leading U.S. College Teams</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02381/4312250-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="535" height="447"></div> &#9632;

f0024-01

Unbeatens Rare Species In Early Action

How They StandECAC CONFERENCE(Standings on Mon. Dec. 3)<h2>EAST DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01417/4312477-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="534" height="171"></div><h2>WEST DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02309/4312470-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="519" height="122"></div><h2>IVY DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03215/4312463-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="520" height="124"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Maine 5, Brown 3Princeton 4, Yale 3Vermont5, St. Lawrence 2Providence 6, Harvard 3Boston Univ. 6, Dartmouth 4Boston Coll. 5, New Hampshire 3Yale 5, Colgate 4Maine 4, Princeton 3Brown 5, Cornell 3New Hampshire 4, Boston Univ. 3Colgate 4, Brown 1Providence 6, RPI 3Cornell 4, Yale 2Vermont 4, Maine 0Clarkson 12, St. Lawrence 3<h3>NON-CONFERENCE GAME</h3>Boston College 7, St. Anselm&rsquo;s 3U.S. Intl. 9, Colgate 0Colgate 6, U.S. Intl. 1Air Force 4, St. Thomas 5Army 7, Cortland St. 0Bentley 5, Assumption 3Bowdoin 8, AIC 1Connecticut 4, Amherst 3New Haven 8, Williams 6Oswego 5, Genesee St. 4Trinity 4, Fairfield 1Union 5, Buffalo 4Union 2, Plattsburgh St. 2Cortland St. 4, Brockport 3<h2>WCHA CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Fri., Dec. 7)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-04155/4312456-1-eng-US/f0025-042.jpg" title="f0025-04" width="520" height="264"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>North Dakota 4, Minnesota 3North Dakota 7, Minnesota 6Michigan 7, Michigan State 2Michigan State 6, Michigan 3Denver 3, Michigan Tech 3Michigan Tech 9, Denver 1Colorado Coll. 7, Minn-Duluth 6Minn-Duluth 5, Colorado Coll. 3Wisconsin 5, Notre Dame 2Notre Dame 5, Wisconsin 3<h3>Leading scorers</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-05132/4312449-1-eng-US/f0025-052.jpg" title="f0025-05" width="553" height="529"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-06109/4312442-1-eng-US/f0025-062.jpg" title="f0025-06" width="562" height="444"></div><h3>WCHA Goalies</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-07102/4312435-1-eng-US/f0025-072.jpg" title="f0025-07" width="575" height="429"></div><h2>CCHA CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Fri., Dec. 7)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-0892/4312428-1-eng-US/f0025-082.jpg" title="f0025-08" width="552" height="171"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Northern Mich. 5, Ferris State 2Northern Mich. 7, Ferris State 2<h3>NON-CONFERENCE GAMES</h3>Miami (0) 1, Ohio State 1Bowling Green 8, U.S. Intl. 2Western Mich. 5, Miami (0) 4Western Mich. 4, Miami (0) 3Ohio State 10, Wilfrid Laurier 5<h2>LEADING SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-0983/4312421-1-eng-US/f0025-092.jpg" title="f0025-09" width="580" height="458"></div><h2>ONTARIO CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Dec. 3)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1066/4312414-1-eng-US/f0025-102.jpg" title="f0025-10" width="568" height="318"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Waterloo 9, York 1Guelph 5, Laurier 5Laurentian 5, Windsor 1Queen&rsquo;s 6, Western 4McMaster 4, York 1Laurentian 7, Windsor 1Laurentian 5, Windsor 1Queen&rsquo;s 7, Western 6Toronto 3, Waterloo 1<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1158/4312407-1-eng-US/f0025-112.jpg" title="f0025-11" width="564" height="266"></div><h2>ATLANTIC CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Nov. 26)<h3>EAST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1249/4312400-1-eng-US/f0025-122.jpg" title="f0025-12" width="563" height="119"></div><h3>WEST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1343/4312393-1-eng-US/f0025-132.jpg" title="f0025-13" width="566" height="167"></div><h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3>EAST DIVISION<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1440/4312386-1-eng-US/f0025-142.jpg" title="f0025-14" width="553" height="143"></div>WEST DIVISION<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1535/4312379-1-eng-US/f0025-152.jpg" title="f0025-15" width="558" height="146"></div><h2>QUEBEC CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Nov. 26)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1630/4312372-1-eng-US/f0025-162.jpg" title="f0025-16" width="549" height="188"></div><h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1725/4312365-1-eng-US/f0025-172.jpg" title="f0025-17" width="556" height="146"></div><h2>CANADA WEST CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Nov. 26)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1821/4312358-1-eng-US/f0025-182.jpg" title="f0025-18" width="573" height="120"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Calgary 7, UBC 6Saskatchewan 4, Alberta 3Calgary 8, UBC 3Alberta 4, Saskatchewan 3<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-1916/4312351-1-eng-US/f0025-192.jpg" title="f0025-19" width="563" height="168"></div><h2>GREAT PLAINS CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Nov. 26)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-2013/4312344-1-eng-US/f0025-202.jpg" title="f0025-20" width="557" height="144"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Manitoba 8, Winnipeg 1Brandon 8, Regina 4Manitoba 13, Winnipeg 0<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-2110/4312337-1-eng-US/f0025-212.jpg" title="f0025-21" width="552" height="166"></div><h2>Games To Come</h2>ECAC Conference<h3>DECEMBER</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-228/4312330-1-eng-US/f0025-222.jpg" title="f0025-22" width="571" height="637"></div><h2>WCHA Conference</h2><h3>DECEMBER</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-238/4312323-1-eng-US/f0025-232.jpg" title="f0025-23" width="612" height="659"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-247/4312316-1-eng-US/f0025-242.jpg" title="f0025-24" width="577" height="287"></div><h2>CCHA Conference</h2><h3>DECEMBER</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-256/4312309-1-eng-US/f0025-252.jpg" title="f0025-25" width="564" height="474"></div><h2>CIAU Conference</h2><h3>DECEMBER</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-266/4312302-1-eng-US/f0025-262.jpg" title="f0025-26" width="532" height="475"></div><h2>College Tournaments</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-275/4312295-1-eng-US/f0025-272.jpg" title="f0025-27" width="564" height="866"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-283/4312288-1-eng-US/f0025-282.jpg" title="f0025-28" width="552" height="868"></div> &#9632;

f0025-01

VICTORIAVILLE College Scoreboard

<div class="byline">BY JIM SCHNEIDER</div>KALAMAZOO&mdash;Western Michigan made itself known as a contender to the rest of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association despite a pair of losses to the University of Michigan.The WMU Broncos coached by Glen Weller dropped the games to the nationally-ranked Wolverines 54 and 8-7 in overtime and held leads in the third period of both games.Heading into the series, WMU was riding a seven-game winning streak, but following a season opening split against Michigan State the Broncos had not really played a &ldquo;name&rdquo;.In the series opener against Michigan in WMU&rsquo;s Lawson Arena the Broncos grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals by Jim Olson and Pete Raps.While Michigan bounced back with goals by Roger Bourne and Bruno Bascotto in the second period, it was Ken Calder who put WMU on top 3-2 at 19:24 of the second period.The third-ranked Wolverines tied the game on a goal by Murray Eaves and took a 4-3 lead on a power play goal by Dan Lerg. Rob Reid tied the game less than a minute later on a power play. Lerg scored the winner at 15:24.The rematch in Michigan&rsquo;s Yost Ice Arena was a wild offensive battle in which WMU&rsquo;s Bob Scur-field collected a hat trick in the first period. Scurfield has had hat tricks in WMU&rsquo;s two road contests against WCHA teams.The first period was 4-4 with John Blum and Tim Manning each scoring their first goals of the season for Michigan.Brad Tippett&rsquo;s second goal of the game gave Michigan a 5-4 lead after two periods, but WMU scored three of the first four goals of the third period to take a 7-6 lead on Ross Fitzpatrick&rsquo;s first goal of the game.Michigan freshman Ted Speers, a native of Ann Arbor, scored his first career goal, in front of his home town fans, to tie the game at 13:46 of the third period and Eaves finished off his hat trick with an unassisted overtime winning goal at 3:45 of the extra period. Eaves finished with eight points.In other CCHA action Northern Michigan split at Michigan Tech, losing 3-2 and winning 6-2, Lake Superior swept Lakehead, 9-6 and 4-3 and Bowling Green dropped two games at New Hampshire 5-2 and 4-2. Ohio State and Miami played to a 1-1 tie in a later game.At Michigan Tech the host Huskies jumped to a 3-0 lead in the opener in the first period with Rodger Moy and John Haddad scoring 41 seconds apart to make the score 3-0.CCHA player-of-the-week Walt Kyle scored in the second period for NMU and Jeff Pyle scored in the third period, but Tech held on for the win.In the second game NMU jumped ahead 2-0 with Bill Joyce scoring a power play goal and Steve Bozek connecting on a shorthanded goal less than a minute later. Kyle made the score 3-0 at 7:28 of the second period and Mike Mielke made it 4-0. Joyce collected his 100th career assist on Mielke&rsquo;s goal. Bozek finished off the scoring in the game with a power play goal at 14:48 of the third period. Steve Weeks made 24 saves in the win for NMU.Bowling Green made its Thanksgiving trip to New Hampshire with three key players missing due to injuries&mdash;Mike Cotter (shoulder), George McPhee (shoulder) and Bill Newton (wrist). The results were Derek Arzoomanian moving up to forward and scoring his first two career goals.UNH took a 2-0 lead in the first period of the opener, but goals by Arzoomanian and Brian Hills tied the game at 2-2 after two periods. The Wildcats clinched the win with three unanswered goals in the third period.The second game found UNH ahead 2-0 after the first period again. Chris Guertin scored at 3:00 of the second period for BG to cut the lead to 2-1, but it was 3-1 after two periods. Arzoomanian scored at 18:14 of the third period, but that was the final goal in the 4-2 UNH win.Goaltending played a key role in the encounter at Ohio State as OSU&rsquo;s Mike Blake made 30 saves and was the Buckeye star of the game. Meanwhile Dan Kadatsky was making 36 saves for Steve Cady&rsquo;s Miami Redskins. Miami took a 1-0 lead in the first period and Paul Tilley scored the only other goal of the night at 00:25 of the third period assisted by Mark Freeman and Jim Penningroth.Coach Jerry Welsh took the opportunity of the non-league contest to sit out some of the regulars and take a look at some of the younger players.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01429/4312515-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="502" height="613"><figcaption class="caption-body">Broncos&rsquo; Bob Scurfield fired his second hat trick of the season in a losing cause.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02334/4312508-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="561" height="616"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rodger Moy notched the winning goal in Michigan Tech&rsquo;s split with NMU.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0026-01

WMU Proves Tough Despite Defeats

<div class="byline">BY MORRIS DALLA COSTA</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSTORONTO&mdash;Marlboros will never be accused of being at all predictable.With just over one third of the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League schedule gone the Dukes have been as unpredictable as the weather. It&rsquo;s fortunate they are in the Emms division, in which only one team is playing above .500 hockey. With their slow start and terrible schedule, they would already be struggling for a playoff berth if they were in the Leyden division.Marlboros played only six games at home out of their first 24, including their opening 10 games away from Maple Leaf Gardens. Marlies haven&rsquo;t been playing bad hockey, they&rsquo;ve just had trouble winning games.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been in every game we&rsquo;ve played,&rdquo; said nice guy coach Dave Chambers who took over the Marlie coaching job this year from York University&rsquo;s coaching position. &ldquo;It will be nice to know we&rsquo;ll have a good home stand coming up. It&rsquo;s always easier to play at home.&rdquo;Marlies have been in countless games they should have won but didn&rsquo;t. The major reasons for not coming away with two points have been a lack of goal-scoring and at times shaky goaltending. They may have solved their goaltending woes with the installation of 17-year-old fourth round draft pick Bruce Dowie. He gets better the more work he gets. Solving the goal-scoring problem may be something else, though. Jim Pep-linski is their leading scorer and so far has only had 14 goals.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question we&rsquo;ve had trouble scoring. We don&rsquo;t have any 50 or 60 goal scorers. We have to work hard for our goals because we just don&rsquo;t have the fine touch around the net. What we&rsquo;ll end up with is a lot of 20 and 30 goal scorers,&rdquo; says Chambers.Marlies have made several &bull;deals trying to land some extra scoring power including bringing Wayne Crawford from Niagara Falls and Brad Hood from Kingston. With such players as Stewart Gavin, Dave Aquin, Glen Duncan, Dan Barber and defenseman Scott McGeown they should have ample scoring ability but the puck just doesn&rsquo;t want to bounce their way.First round draft pick Jim Malone could ease some of the offensive burden for Marlies. He has started to score after finding it tough to adjust to Toronto from his Maritimes home.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll know around Christmas just how good we are going to be. I feel it&rsquo;s just going to take some time. We&rsquo;ve played well in stages and once we obtain some consistency and get a few more home games under our belts we should be fine,&rdquo; says Chambers.Marlies completed a good northern swing winning in Sudbury, never an easy chore, 7-3 with Duncan scoring twice. They lost in Sault Ste. Marie 4-3 despite outshooting Greyhounds 50-30. A penalty shot in the last minute was Marlies&rsquo; undoing. Toronto went into Oshawa and played a lacklustre game losing 4-2 but it was Dowie who kept them in the game stopping 50 shots.So goes the Toronto Marlboros&rsquo; story.Up north it&rsquo;s headaches for both the Soo and Sudbury. Greyhounds haven&rsquo;t done much this season and they haven&rsquo;t got a lot to look forward to.They started a road trip that will keep them away from home until Christmas time. Greyhounds haven&rsquo;t been terrors on the road and by the time they play in the Soo again they could be a long way out of a playoff spot.Ottawa &rsquo;67s have also had to make due without league leading scorer Jim Fox for five games. He has a shoulder problem but he&rsquo;s back in the line-up now. &rsquo;67s continue to win on the road going into Windsor and among 4,700 fans (a sellout) handed Windsor a 7-4 loss. It was the first home loss of the year for Spitfires.For Windsor, where one loss at home is a rarity, two in a row is tough to believe. This time it was Leyden division leading Peterborough Petes who turned the trick. With another 4,700 on hand (and scalpers outside) Petes came up with a 4-3 win. It was Petes&rsquo; ninth win in a row and Mike Keenan&rsquo;s troops are starting to play like Memorial Cup champions. In the streak they easily handled Oshawa 7-4 and Kitchener.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01410/4312546-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="578" height="720"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marlboros may have solved their goaltending problems with 17-y ear-old Bruce Dowie in nets.</figcaption></div>Rangers, who have been struggling at the bottom of the Emms Division, received more bad news when they learned of the one-game suspension of coach Bob Ertel, plus two-game suspension for five of their players.Leading scorer Stan Adams, Duane Sprague, Jim McGeachie, Grant Martin and Joe McDonnell were all suspended as a result of brawls in a weekend series with Kingston.It&rsquo;s interesting to note that Windsor has not played many Leyden division teams and that both their losses at home have been to tough Leyden division squads.That division continues to be a dog-fight with four teams scrambling behind Peterborough.Oshawa Generals came back with a pair of wins over Ottawa and Toronto to stop a skid that saw them lose five games out of six. Goaltending woes plague Generals as their regular man Greg Stefan continues to sit out with a knee injury. &#9632;

f0027-01

Unpredictable Marlies Search For Scorers

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BROPHY</div>PETERBOROUGH&mdash;The Peterborough Petes are still feeling the effects of last season&rsquo;s thrilling Memorial Cup victory.But it&rsquo;s not the same feeling they had when Bob Atwell scored in overtime to give the Petes a 2-1 win over the Brandon Wheat Kings to secure the cup. It&rsquo;s more like the feeling a politician gets around election time when so many other candidates are prepared to take over his seat.The Petes have been branded defending champions, even though half of last year&rsquo;s team is gone. It&rsquo;s an honor they could do without, but are slowly learning to live with. Everyone likes to beat the champs, so that when the Petes are in town, every game is like the Memorial Cup final.&ldquo;You are carrying the team colors and past performances of other years even though there may have been a major turnover in personnel,&rdquo; said Pete&rsquo;s rookie coach and general manager Mike Keenan, who took over both posts on July 1 of this year replacing Gary Green who has moved on to become the youngest coach in the history of the National Hockey League with the Washington Capitals.&ldquo;You&rsquo;re upholding the reputation of the defending champions who happen to be the Peterborough Petes.&rdquo;.Keenan&rsquo;s analogy of the situation is typical. The 29-year-old former coach of the Oshawa Legionnaires of the Metro Junior B Hockey League had a big job ahead of him when he joined the Petes and has handled every sticky situation thrown his way in the same smooth way. He never panics.First came news that Veli Kinnunen and Anssi Melametsa wouldn&rsquo;t be returning to the Petes from Finland. Both played in Peterborough last year and scored 31 points as rookies. Green felt that the two Finns had great potential and would be team leaders this year.If that wasn&rsquo;t bad enough news, the junior draft was. Four Petes were selected as underaged players by the NHL and Keenan went to training camp not knowing if any would return. It was a crushing blow.&ldquo;I was willing to live with that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think I was ready to accept it. If the individuals who went to camps were good enough to play in the NHL, then that&rsquo;s where they belong. It&rsquo;s what they&rsquo;re striving for.&rdquo;Keenan was let off the hook easy. Unlike some teams that lost underaged talent to the pros, all four Petes were returned after missing only the first two regular season games.Bill Gardner came back from Chicago; Mark Reeds from St. Louis; Carmen Cirella from Detroit and Stuart Smith from Hartford.&ldquo;We were pleased to have them back,&rdquo; said Keenan. &ldquo;It was unfortunate for the fellas that they didn&rsquo;t make it but if they can all return with good attitudes and work hard, it will make them feel that much better when they go back next year.&rdquo;With all his players back, Keenan then set out to the task of molding another champion. The team had been put up for sale in the summer, causing some concern and he was only on a one-year contract. He wasn&rsquo;t given much time to prove himself.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel any pressure at all,&rdquo; said Keenan. &ldquo;I have enough confidence in my ability as a coach and I&rsquo;m with a team that has a winning tradition.&ldquo;I was happier to come to a team with a winning attitude as opposed to a team that doesn&rsquo;t know what it takes to be a winner. A lot of these players were with the Petes last season and they know what it took to win the Memorial Cup.&rdquo;The Petes got off to a slow start, as they did a year ago, but seem to be on the right track now. After 27 games they led the Leyden Division with a 20-7 record.The Petes are looking to Gardner and Reeds, along with defenseman Larry Murphy to supply them with scoring punch. Gardner and Reeds should be able to score over 50 goals.Rick LaFerriere, who played behind Ken Ellacott last season, will carry the bulk of the goaltending duties this season. As a rookie, LaFerriere posted a 17-3-1 record with two shutouts and a 3.57 goals against average.&ldquo;I learned a lot playing behind Kenny last season,&rdquo; said LaFerriere, who started in 23 of the Petes&rsquo; first 24 games and won 17. &ldquo;I like to play all the games. Some people need a rest but I like the work. I even like practising.&rdquo;Leading the rookies is little Larry Floyd. The five-foot, seven inch centerman was the leading scorer, most valuable player and rookie-of-the-year in the Metro Junior B Hockey League last year and played with the Petes for the final nine league games and playoffs.Floyd got off to a slow start but regained his scoring touch when he counted three times in the second period to lead the Petes to a 12-3 win over Niagara Falls Flyers on Nov. 9.So while the Petes may carry the title of defending champions, they are showing one and all that they aren&rsquo;t about to rest on their laurels.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02304/4312584-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="574" height="576"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-03199/4312577-1-eng-US/f0027-032.jpg" title="f0027-03" width="571" height="584"><figcaption class="caption-body">New faces with the Petes this season are coach and GM Mike Keenan, above, and rookie Larry Floyd. The young Petes&rsquo; star scored three goals in an early OMJHL game and Keenan expects big things from him.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0027-02

Petes Not Resting On Cup Laurels

<div class="byline">BY DAVE SENICK</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSPORTLAND&mdash;The scene was not the usual type associated with post-game activities.Rather than boarding the team bus with his players, New Westminster Bruins&rsquo; coach Ernie McLean was led in handcuffs from the Ice Palace rink to a squad car.Bruins had dropped a 5-1 Western Hockey League decision to Portland Winter Hawks, but it was what happened after the proceedings that prompted law authorities to enter the scene. McLean was held on $525 bail after being charged with fourth-degree assault. That was later reduced to harassment, a lesser accusation carrying a maximum penalty of six months in jail or a $500 fine, or both.The charge is rated a class B misdemeanor and will be dealt with in a pre-trial conference at the end of December. McLean has entered a not guilty plea.Jackie Jones, 19 years of age, alleges that McLean struck her in the corridor leading to the New Westminster dressing room following the game. She related to authorities that she was insulted, pushed and punched by McLean. But McLean told police that the young woman threatened him with a broken hockey stick.McLean was later released from jail when, in a rather ironic move, Winter Hawks&rsquo; general manager Brian Shaw posted bail.The incident with Jones followed an occurrence last March in New Westminster which led to seven Bruins pleading guilty to common assault against two Winter Hawks. That occurred on the ice. The courts decreed that the players were barred from participating in league games at any level until this past Dec. 1. No Portland players were charged after the incident.Shaw, who was far from happy with McLean following the March brawl, said he didn&rsquo;t find it unusual bailing McLean out of jail. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in business together and I&rsquo;m sure that he would do the same thing for me if I was in his position.McLean had complained earlier in the season of inadequate police surveillance of unruly fans in Portand. Because of that, he had his son Brian coach two previous games while viewing from the stands.In the dying minutes of the game, after which the alleged harassment took place, McLean climbed on top of a chair and bowed to the crowd to the tune of &ldquo;Goodbye Ernie&rdquo; being played by the rink organist.The next move is up to the courts.In addition to the Portland loss, the Bruins were defeated 7-5 by Seattle. Marc Chartier tallied twice for New Westminster which trailed 3-0 after the first period but only 5-4 at the end of the second.The results left Bruins mired in last place of the Western Division with a meagre two wins and tie as compared to 10 losses.PORTLAND: Winter Hawks remained in second place, with 26 points which is four less than Victoria, despite losing three times in five games. Portland, led by Tim Tookey&rsquo;s two goals, beat New Westminster 5-1 and also edged Seattle 5-4. Center Jim Dobson tallied twice against Seattle, Ron Chorney scored with five minutes left to force the proceedings into overtime and Brian Shaw produced the winner at 2:01 of the extra session. Winter Hawks also lost 5-2 to Victoria, 6-4 to Calgary and 8-5 to Regina.SEATTLE: Breakers were playing at .500, winning and losing twice during the week. One of the victories was a 6-4 triumph over division-leading Victoria Cougars. It was Seattle&rsquo;s third win in seven games against the Cougars. Brian Graves and John Strait both scored twice to lead Seattle to a 75 triumph over New Westminster.Breakers also dropped a 5-4 overtime decision to Portland, despite two goals by Joe Ward, and lost 4-1 to Victoria.VICTORIA: General manager-coach Jack Shupe received a two-game suspension and $1,000 fine tor pulling his team off the ice in a game earlier against Lethbridge. Assistant coach Dave Andrews was behind the bench as Cougars defeated Portland 5-2. Torrie Robertson had two goals in that encounter.Cougars also lost 6-4 to Seattle but bounced back to beat the Breakers 4-1.BILLINGS: Bighorns increased their record to 13-8-1 with three wins and a loss. Pat Rabbitt scored two goals to pace Billings to a 6-2 win over Saskatoon and, in a return match, Gord Stafford tallied twice to help Bighorns to a 5-2 triumph. That gave Stafford 21 goals on the season. Marc LeClair, acquired from Saskatoon in exchange for Dean Renneberg, produced two goals in Billings&rsquo; 8-5 win over Brandon. Bighorns also lost a 5-4 overtime game to Calgary in which goalie Neil Girard made 45 savesBRANDON: Wheat Kings lost three consecutive games but still have a fairly respectable record of 10-11-1. Brandon lost 6-2 to Saskatoon, 3-0 to Regina and 8-5 to Billings. In the Regina game, Pats took three consecutive minor penalties within a span of two minutes in the opening period but Brandon was unable to score.CALGARY: Wranglers have put together a six-game winning streak to remain at the top of the Eastern Division standings with 14 wins and three losses for 28 points. They don&rsquo;t have much of a cushion, though. Billings is next in line with 27 points followed by Regina at 26.Kelly Kisio had a goal and three assists to help Wranglers to a 6-4 win over Regina. In another game, Clint Fehr&rsquo;s goal at 7:45 of overtime lifted Calgary into a 5-4 victory over Billings.GREAT FALLS: It was the same old story for the Americans. The team lost twice, both times to Saskatoon by 9-4 and 8-2 scores. In the 9-4 loss, Great Falls was outshot 70-30. Tom McGillivrey scored twice for Americans in the encounter that produced three game misconducts, all to the Americans.LETHBRIDGE: Linemates Duane Sutter and Gord Williams combined for 13 points, including five goals to lead Broncos to an 115 win over Medicine Hat. Sutter had two goals and five assists while Williams contributed three goals and three assists. Doug Morrison also tallied twice.MEDICINE HAT: General manager-coach Paddy Ginnell was in trouble with the league, receiving a $1,000 fine and two-game suspension for pulling his team off the ice in a game earlier in the season against Regina.Tigers, who have a 11-12-1 record, defeated Lethbridge Broncos 8-3, producing six goals in the second period.REGINA: Pats had a seven-game winning streak halted by a 64 loss to Calgary but promptly got on track again with two consecutive victories. Goalie Bart Hunter faced 25 shots, 13 of which came in the first period, to record his second shutout of the season as Regina blanked Brandon 3-0.SASKATOON: Blades increased their record to 11-12 with three wins and two losses. Blake Stephen had two goals in a 6-2 win over Brandon while Terry Paskaruk tallied twice in a 9-4 triumph over Great Falls. Paskaruk also had two goals in an 8-2 victory over Great Falls.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01395/4312615-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="572" height="666"><figcaption class="caption-body">Broncos&rsquo; Gord Williams had three goals, three assists in win over Medicine Hat.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Bruins’ McLean In Trouble Again After Slugging Portland Lady Fan

<div class="byline">BY DANNY YOUNG</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSSHERBROOKE&mdash;Now that the Chicago Black Hawks have Louis Begin&rsquo;s name on a three-year contract, they may want to pay closer attention to another Sherbrooke star, Serge Boisvert.As linemates since the beginning of last season, Begin and Boisvert may be the Quebec league&rsquo;s most dangerous scoring combination.Both were top ten scorers last season. Left winger Begin scored 46 goals and 85 assists, and center Boisvert scored 50 goals and 72 assists to lead the Sherbrooke attack.Last August, the underaged Begin was tapped by Chicago in the fourth round although Boisvert, who was graduating, was surprisingly overlooked.After attending the Washington Capitals&rsquo; training camp, Boisvert came back to Sherbrooke as an overaged player with the option of either signing a pro contract during the season or testing his luck in next year&rsquo;s draft.&ldquo;I felt I didn&rsquo;t have enough experience,&rdquo; explains Boisvert, &ldquo;so I chose to come here (Sherbrooke) for another year rather than going to the American Hockey League.&rdquo;When Begin returned to Sherbrooke from Chicago, he was immediately reunited with Boisvert. Since then, the two have dominated both on the ice and on the score sheets. In 28 games, Begin has 33 goals and Boisvert has 29.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re on our game when we&rsquo;re controlling the puck in their zone and getting the puck in the corners,&rdquo; says Begin. &ldquo;And every time I get the puck, I don&rsquo;t really have to look for him. I know where he is.&rdquo;At six-feet, 190, Begin is the bigger of the two and better equipped to do the dirty work in the corners. But Boisvert, though five-nine, 175, gets scrappy when he has to and does more than his share with effective work along the boards and forechecking.If opponents try to key on Begin and Boisvert, they are sure of getting burned by several other great scorers on the talent-laden Sherbrooke squad. Forwards Norm Aubin, Alan Haworth, Ricky Secco, Brian Johnson, and Bernard Gallant have all received attention from pro teams for their respective abilities.LAVAL: For the first time this season, Laval fans had something to cheer about. The Voisins (5-21-2) recorded two consecutive home victories. Louis Haman scored twice to lead a 5-3 triumph over Verdun. Then Norman Beck and Alain Grenier each scored twice as the Voisins-downed Quebec 7-3. The mini-streak ended at two games when the Voisins lost to Chicoutimi 8-3. Beck, who&rsquo;s been superb since his arrival from Sherbrooke, scored two more.CORNWALL: Two wins evened the Royals&rsquo; record at 13-13, and placed them just two points out of first in the Lebel division with a game in hand over Montreal. Rookie Scott Arniel, back from an injury, scored two goals to pace a 6-3 win over Chicoutimi. In Quebec, Pat Haramis and rookie Dale Hawerchuck each scored twice to support a 5-4 decision in favor of the Royals.TROIS-RIVIERES: Rene Labbe scored twice in the Draveurs&rsquo; only loss, 9-6 to Hull. Then Pierre Aubry scored two in a 5-2 win over Shawinigan. Against Hull, Aubry continued to be the Draveurs&rsquo; hot hand. He notched four goals as they crushed Hull 9-4. Aubry, a 53-goal scorer last season, already has 30 this season.MONTREAL: After a 3-3 tie with Hull, the Juniors blasted Verdun 8-4. Jean-Pierre Dubois and Francois Lecompte had two-goal games. Then in front of a large home crowd, the Juniors staged an impressive comeback before bowing to Sherbrooke 7-5. Down 5-1, the Juniors came back to tie the game 5-5. The winning goal was scored by Sherbrooke ate in the third period. The last goal was into an open net. Dubois led the Montreal comeback with two goals.HULL: Hometown favorite Mario Chartrand, back with the Olympics after one-year absence, scored twice in a 9-6 victory over Trois-Rivieres. The win was Hull&rsquo;s tenth, evening their output in the win column for the entire 1978-79 season. The Olympics went on to tie Montreal 3-3, and lose to Sherbrooke 7-3.CHICOUTIMI: The Sags had an excellent opportunity to gain ground on Sherbrooke but did not cash in. Gilles Hamel and Robert Millette each notched a pair, but the Sags lost to Shawimgan 6-4. After losing to Cornwall 6-3, the Sags rebounded to bomb Laval 8-3. The win was led by two-goal nights from Hamel and Francois Gravel.QUEBEC: The Remparts dropped games to Laval 7-3, and to Cornwall 5-4 despite a pair of goals from Gaston Therrien. Then the Remparts recorded their tenth win of the season a 4-3 final over Shawinigan. Patrice Masse scored two of the Quebec goals.SHAWINIGAN: Alain Labelle piked up a hat trick to support a 64 victory over Chicoutimi for the Cataractes. They lost their next two games, however, 5-2 to Trois-Rivieres, and 4-3 to Quebec. The Cats are in a three-way tie for fifth place in the overall standings with Verdun and Cornwall.VERDUN: After losing to Laval 5-3, Chris Valentine had a goal and three assists to lead a 6-5 win over Sherbrooke. Alain Bouchard scored the winner early in the third period. Then Jean-Marc Gaulin, a recent acquisition from Sherbrooke, scored twice as the Hawks lost to Montreal 8-4. &#9632;

Begin, Boisvert Bolster Beaver Goal Bite

<div class="byline">BY JIM LEAHY</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSHERSHEY&mdash;New coach Doug Gibson is off to a roaring start as the Bears have won three straight to move into third place in the Southern Division. Gibson, who was the most valuable player and an All Star performer as an active player, took over the Bears when Gary Green went up to coach the Washington Capitals. Gibson&rsquo;s first win came over Rochester by a 4-3 margin. Ironically, former Hershey Bear Don Cherry won his first game as coach of the Rochester Americans against Hershey. Cherry played for a while in Hershey before moving over to coach the Amerks and then into the NHL with Boston and now Colorado.The Bears defeated Springfield 4-1 in Springfield and then moved on to Binghamton where they edged the Dusters 5-4. Hershey had split two previous contests with the Indians and had won two of three against the Dusters prior to their, win in Binghamton.Center Wes Jarvis, with six goals and 14 assists, leads the team in scoring. However, Steve Clippingdale and Tony Cassolato are not too far behind. Clippingdale has 18 points and Cassolato 12. Rollie Boutin has an impressive 2.60 goals-against-average, but the Caps decided to recall Jim Bedard.In other transactions, the Caps called up left winger Tim Coulis and returned him two days later. Wes Jarvis was up for a few days and Coulis went back to Washington. The Caps did assign left winger Errol Rausse, who was their second round draft choice last year. In addition, left winger Harvie Pocza has been called up from Port Huron and sent to Hershey by the parent club.SYRACUSE: The Firebirds are in big trouble and that may be the reason why coach Michel Parizeau has been replaced by former Rochester Americans&rsquo; coach Duane Rupp. Parizeau could not get the &lsquo;Birds untracked&rsquo; in fact they had the worst record in the AHL (3-113) before Rupp took over the coaching duties. Syracuse was blown out 7-4 in Binghamton in the only game on the schedule for them.Rupp has quite a chore on his hands. The Firebirds have a decent team on paper, but of course the game is played on ice not on paper. The co-parent clubs, Quebec and Pittsburgh, are not too deep in player talent and the Nordiques are starting to move players back and forth between Quebec City and Syracuse, a situation that tends to lower the morale of players who are sent down to the AHL after tasting the good life in the NHL. Just recently Quebec took up left winger Richard David, one of the leading scorers in Syracuse. They sent Terry Martin to the Firebirds in return for David. Defenseman Brian Cross was sent to Grand Rapids of the IHL.NEW HAVEN: The Nighthawks are the hottest team in the league at this point. They won six straight at home and were unbeaten in their last 11 contests at the Coliseum. In three games at home this week, they won all three. It started with a 4-2 win over Binghamton, continued with an exciting 6-5 victory over Rochester and ended in dramatic style with a 5-4 victory in overtime against Springfield. New Haven hit the road for a five game trip in enemy rinks, a stern test of just how strong the Southern Division leaders really are.Claude Larose and Tom Colley each scored two goals to give the Nighthawks their 4-2 win over the Binghamton Dusters. Larose was later recalled by the Rangers. Rookie center Pat Conacher scored his second goal of the night with 2:48 to play, giving New Haven a 6-5 win over arch-rival Rochester. The Nighthawks had blown a 3-1 first period lead and the Amerks had a 5-4 advantage late in the game.The win over Springfield was a classic. Bill Lochead scored his third goal of the night with 45 seconds left in overtime to give New Haven a 5-4 win and send 4,506 fans home in a festive mood. The Nighthawks had overcome a 4-2 Springfield lead with less than five minutes to play and had tied the count at 4-4 with less than a minute to go in regulation play.ROCHESTER: A split of four games left the Amerks still chasing New Haven for the Southern Division lead. They beat Nova Scotia and New Brunswick but lost to Hershey and New Haven. The club also lost Alex Tidey to Edmonton, completing a deal the Sabres made. Jacques Richard has been out for a few weeks with an injured elbow and Ron Garwasiuk has a bad knee.Gordie Robertson scored twice for the Amerks but that was not enough as the New Haven Nighthawks edged the Amerks 6-5 down in New Haven. The Amerks had led three different times during the game, only to see Pat Conacher score with less than three minutes to play, giving the Nighthawks an important win in the Southern Division race.Rochester got solo tallies from Norm Lefebvre, Joe Kowal and Chris Halyk in the hard-hitting contest. The Amerks pulled goaltender Ed Walsh with 1:09 to play in favor of an extra attacker but the Amerks were unable to score. They had two faceoffs deep in New Haven territory, yet could not get a decent shot on goal.BINGHAMTON: After winning three of four, the Dusters came into New Haven and left on the short end of a 4-2 decision. Goaltender Lorne Molleken was outstanding in the nets for Binghamton despite the 4-2 loss. It wasn&rsquo;t until late in the game that Claude Larose scored twice to break up a tight 2-2 contest. Prior to that, Craig McTavish scored on a first period power play to knot the count at 1-1. Rick Dorman scored at 5:52 of the third period from 15 feet out to make it 2-2. However, the tiring Dusters wilted in the late going setting the stage for the two goals by Larose.The Dusters did have a three-game home ice winning streak going, but Hershey stopped that skein with a 5-4 win in Binghamton. The Dusters had been defeated only once in their last eight home ice outings and they had averaged just under seven goals a game during the last three contests at the Broome County Arena. One of those victories was a 4-2 verdict over Hershey, ending a jinx which had seen the Dusters go winless at home against the Bears for the last year in regular season play.Craig McTavish, Tom Songin and Don Howse pace the Binghamton scoring attack at this time. Lorne Molleken has seen a lot of action in the nets, appearing in 10 of the club&rsquo;s first 17 games and posting a 3.49 GAA. Veteran Dennis O&rsquo;Brien is the leader in penalties, taking 65 penalty minutes in just six games, a pace that would give him over 800 minutes in the sin bin over the course of an 80-game season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01389/4312670-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="562" height="816"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill Lochead completed a hat trick in overtime for a Nighthawk victory.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Bears’ Gibson Has Roaring Start While Shifts Unsettle Firebirds

PORTLAND&mdash;Rick St. Croix is the only regular AHL netminder with a goals against average of less than 2.00. Through nine appearances, he had a sensational 1.82 GAA and the AHL champions were leading the league in total defense. Backup netminder Robbie Moore is third best in the AHL with a 2.80 average.The Mariners were in action twice during a relatively inactive week. They defeated New Brunswick 5-2 at the Civic Center and won a return contest with the same Hawks, also in Portland, by a 6-3 margin. The twin victories over the Northern Division leaders pushed Maine to within three points of the Hawks.ADIRONDACK: The Red Wings are coming off a trip to the Maritimes which saw them lose two of three games played against New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It is a moral victory sometimes to win just a single game up there since the Vees and New Brunswick Hawks are almost unbeatable on home ice. The Wings started off the trip in high gear. They upset New Brunswick 4-3. Two nights later the Hawks came to life and ripped Adirondack by a 7-2 score. Down in Nova Scotia, the Voyageurs didn&rsquo;t throw out the welcome mat, skating to a 4-2 win in Halifax at the Metro Center. All of this left the Wings in fourth place in the tight Northern Division race.NEW BRUNSWICK: The Hawks have suddenly gone stale. After. being the hottest team in the American Hockey League for a good part of early season play. New Brunswick has lost four of five. They started their slump in Maine losing 5-2 to the improving Mariners. Adirondack came into Moncton the next night and skated to a 4-3 victory over the Hawks. The return match was a 7-2 win for New Brunswick, but Maine tangled with the Hawks again in Portland and won easily by a 6-3 margin. A visit to Rochester ended a busy week for New Brunswick on a sour note as the Amerks skated to a 4-3 win.NOVA SCOTIA: This is a highly unusual Voyageur team. They are one of the highest scoring teams in the AHL and at the same time they lead the league in penalties by a wide margin. Forward Chris Nilan has been on a rampage, picking up 124 penalty minutes in 20 games. At that pace he will smash Pierre Roy&rsquo;s AHL record of 416 penalty minutes in one season.The Voyageurs won two of three to leapfrog into third place in the Northern Division. They started off beating Springfield 5-4 in overtime in a road game. A trip to Rochester resulted in a 4-1 victory for the Amerks. Nova Scotia got back to home cooking and responded with an important 4-2 win against the expansionist Adirondack Wings.SPRINGFIELD: This has to be the hard-luck team of the year. It&rsquo;s almost impossible to believe how many games this club has lost in the last minute. Two recent losses are evidence of the Tribe&rsquo;s hard luck. Nova Scotia&rsquo;s Bruce Baker scored with 44 seconds left in overtime to give the Vees a 5-4 win in Springfield. A few days later. New Haven&rsquo;s Bill Lochead scored with 45 seconds left in overtime to beat the Indians by the same score.A 5-4 loss in New Haven was the toughest of all. Springfield led 4-2 with less than five minutes to play and were well on their way to a much-needed victory behind the outstanding play of goaltender Terry Richardson. Suddenly New Haven&rsquo;s Doug Sulliman scored two quick goals, one of them with less than a minute to play, to knot the count at 4-4. With 4,506 New Haven fans roaring, Richardson got into a fight with Ray Markham after the Indians&rsquo; netminder had crosschecked the giant New Haven forward. That battle seemed to ignite the home team as Bill Lochead scored in overtime with less than a minute to play and another very tough loss for the Indians had to be swallowed by Tribe fans. &#9632;

St. Croix Keeps Mariners Sailing

<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSTULSA&mdash; Balanced scoring, tight checking, strong goaltending and a productive power play added up to six straight victories for Mike Smith&rsquo;s Oilers, who took over first place in the CHL West.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re playing three periods of solid hockey for a change,&rdquo; Mike observed. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s disciplined hockey, and when we get behind, we&rsquo;re not panicking. We&rsquo;re checking strongly in all three zones of the ice, and that&rsquo;s paying off.&rdquo;I It was four victories in five nights Thanksgiving week, and two of those were on the road. The Oilers won in Fort Worth, 4-3, came home to beat arch rival Oklahoma City, 4-2, and won in Dallas, 3-2, and blitzed the Black Hawks again on home ice, 8-2. Six of those eight goals came on power plays. As a result, the Oilers moved in front of Salt Lake&rsquo;s Golden Eagles.In Fort Worth, Mark Heaslip and John Markell provided a two-goal Tulsa lead in the first period, and Mark Plantery and Bob Guindon made it 4-1 after two. A pair of late goals by the Texans proved insufficient.Two 60-foot blasts by rookie defenseman Tim Dunlop started the scoring against Oke City, and Heaslip made it 3-0 in the second. The Stars counted two goals in a span of 38 seconds early in the third, but couldn&rsquo;t catch up.Tulsa had to come from behind in both games against Dallas. After falling behind 2-0, the Oilers got a goal from Gerry Rioux in the middle period. Then Hilliard Graves and Plantery scored 35 seconds apart as the third period began, and the Tulsans&rsquo; defense, did the rest.Markus Mattsson was in goal for both road games, Lindsay Middlebrook for the two home victories. Middlebrook was victimized by Bruce Affleck&rsquo;s 175-foot clearing pass at the start of the second period. With the Hawks killing a penalty, Affleck fired from his own goal-line. The puck hit Middlebrook&rsquo;s stick and bounced into the net for a shorthanded goal.The Oilers&rsquo; first three goals came on power plays, including what proved to be the winning goal by Graves midway through the second period. Guindon had tied the score in the first, and Bud Stefanski only 17 seconds after Affleck&rsquo;s shorthanded goal. Guindon barely beat the buzzer with another second-period tally. Rioux scored twice in the third, once on a power play, and other power play goals came from John Bethel and George Hughes.The six power play goals in one game apparently set a CHL record. The Oilers scored five in a 72 home victory over Oklahoma City, Mar. 5, 1976, and Fort Worth scored five against the Oilers last Jan. 18, in a 7-2 game at Fort Worth.Although winning twice, Mattsson fell out of the CHL goaltending leadership, all the way to third place. Markus had a 2.12 average yield, topped by the Indianapolis tandem of Richard Brodeur (2.07) and Jim Park (2.10).FORTH WORTH&mdash;&ldquo;What a difference 24 hours made,&rdquo; said Texans&rsquo; general manager Cliff Overcash. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;d gone into our dressing room Friday night, you&rsquo;d have thought it was the end of the world. We&rsquo;d played three solid periods of hockey, only to lose in overtime to Birmingham (4-3 at home, the Texans&rsquo; 10th straight loss).&ldquo;But if you&rsquo;d gone into the dressing room Saturday, you&rsquo;d have thought we&rsquo;d just won the Adams Cup.&rdquo; The celebration was over a 5-3 triumph against arch rival Dallas. Earlier the Texans had lost in Oklahoma City, 6-4, and at home against Tulsa, 4-3.Of the 10-game losing streak, only two short of the CHL record, Overcash said, &ldquo;We were playing hard, but the harder we played, the more frustrating it got.&rdquo;The parent Colorado Rockies recalled goalie Bill McKenzie, but replaced him with Bill Oleschuk. They also sent down center Nelson Pyatt and borrowed burly right wing Archie Henderson (6-6, 220) from the Washington Capitals for their CHL farm. Forwards Paul Messier and Mike Dwyer were recalled from Fort Worth and reassigned to Birmingham.It was catch-up hockey all the way in Oklahoma City. Rey Comeau was credited with, a tying tally in the first period, when OC&rsquo;s Curt Giles put the puck into his own net, vacated by Louis Levasseur during a delayed penalty call. Larry Atwell, Kevin Morrison and Mario Giallonardo brought the Texans back into contention, but the Stars got an empty-net goal with 19 seconds left.Michel Plasse started in the Fort Worth nets, but was replaced by Tim Thomlison after yielding five goals in the first 30 minutes. Thomlison, brought up from Saginaw of the International League, was returned when Oleschuk arrived.The game produced two team brawls, from which nine men were ejected. Texans getting game misconducts were Merlin Malinowski, Peter McNamee, Andy Spruce, Peter Sturgeon and Giallonardo.Michel Lachance, Don Ashby and Will Trognitz scored against Tulsa, but the deficit wasn&rsquo;t narrowed to 4-3 until only 40 seconds remained in the game. Plasse was again in goal.In the slump-breaking victory over Dallas (cutting the Hawks&rsquo; Turnpike Series advantage to 2-1), Sturgeon and John McCahill rallied the Texans into a tie, before Lachance put them ahead to stay. Pyatt scored the eventual winning goal at 12:45 of the third, and Ashby added an empty-netter in the last second of play. Oleschuk again was the goalie.McNamee had the season&rsquo;s first penalty shot in the first period, when he was brought down from behind on a breakaway, but couldn&rsquo;t beat Dallas goalie Gary Bromley. The Texans were in the division cellar, six points out of fourth place.DALLAS&mdash; Johnny Choyce&rsquo;s Black Hawks, who had been in a first-place tie, dropped to third place, seven points off the pace, as their losing streak mounted to five games. They suffered a 7-4 loss in Oklahoma City, bowed to Tulsa at home, 3-2, then lost in Fort Worth, 5-3, and in a rematch in Tulsa, 8-2. Gary Bromley was the losing goalie in Fort Worth, while rookie Ken Ellacott took the other three beatings.Gary Lupul scored twice at OC, and Dave Ross and Larry Goodenough also tallied, but the Stars took charge in the first period, when Dave Delich scored a hat trick. An empty-net goal in the closing seconds padded the margin. An early two-goal lead, supplied by Rob Tudor and Steve Hazlett, didn&rsquo;t stand up against Tulsa&rsquo;s surge Friday.Dirk Graham, returning after an injury layoff, got the first goal of the game in Fort Worth. Lupul, on a power play, gave the Hawks a 2-1 advantage in the second, but the Texans had pulled ahead before Ross&rsquo; late goal in the third. For the second straight night the Hawks yielded an empty-net goal at the finish. Bromley stopped a first-period penalty shot by Texan Peter McNamee.Brad Smith was the league leader in goals (14), Affleck in assists (18), and Brad Gasoff in penalty-minutes (116). Smith and Affleck shared second place among CHL scorers on 23 points, with Tudor tied for eighth on 20. &#9632;

Hot Streak Makes Oilers No. 1 In Race

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSKALAMAZOO&mdash;Goals for, goals against, and netminder Larry Lozinski again this week appear to be the reason that the Kalamazoo Wings, (Turner Cup Champions), are ranked number one in the entire International Hockey League for the fifth week in a row.The Wings won two of three and again remain atop of the IHL. Kalamazoo scored a total of seventeen goals, an average of 5.6 per game. On the season, in 20 games thus far, the Wings lead the IHL with 93 goals for, an average of 4.65 goals per game.Netminder Larry Lozinski has remained the best man for the job in the IHL in defending the goal. Larry has an impressive 3.08 goals against average in 12.3 games played. &ldquo;My teammates are responsible for my goals against average being so low,&rdquo; commented Lozinski, &ldquo;I only had 73 shots fired on me this entire weekend, that breaks down to only 24 per game, I wish all of the games were that easy.&rdquo;Goaltender Georges Gagnon saw his first IHL action and professional on Sunday evening in a 10 - 1 routing of the Muskegon Mohawks. Gagnon played 40 min. of the game and turned away 17 shots.Spunky Wings&rsquo; left sider Tom Milani has moved into the individual IHL scoring lead with 36 points. Milani has scored 16 goals, and has picked up 20 assists to give him the honors. Tom had both a pair of goals in recent weekend games.Three members of the Kalamazoo Wings are in the top 20 scoring list this week, Milani, linemate Tom Ross and Neil Meadmore. Ross has only played in nine games, and has scored eight goals, four of which were scored in the last two games.Centerman Doug Derkson was released from Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo on Saturday after spending one week there recovering from throat surgery. It is expected that Doug will miss at least another two weeks of action.A weekend series between leading contenders Kalamazoo and Flint highlighted the week. The Generals came into Kalamazoo leading by a single point following a 3-1 victory over Fort Wayne - the Generals&rsquo; 12th straight game without a loss.When the weekend was over, Kalamazoo was on top by three points as the K-Wings continued to frustrate their division rival by sweeping the home-and-home series, 5-2 and 2-1.The Generals haven&rsquo;t won at Kalamazoo since Nov. 12, 1977. They have gone 15 straight games without a win.Kalamazoo has dominated Flint over the last four seasons. Over that span, Kalamazoo has a 30-13-6 edge. The record over the last 12 meetings is 12-0-1.Elsewhere in the North, Port Huron is putting on quite a spurt and has moved to within range of second place. The Flags have racked up three victories, including two on the road. They bombed Grand Rapids, 9-2, whipped Fort Wayne 7-5 on the road and returned home to dominate Toledo, 6-2.Harvie Pocza featured the triumph at Fort Wayne&mdash;the Flags&rsquo; first in the Allen County Memorial Coliseum in two seasons&mdash;with four goals.At the opposite end of the pole, Muskegon and Saginaw split a week-end series with the results leaving the Gears three points up on the last-place Mohawks. Muskegon was 2-2 for the week with home wins over Milwaukee, 4-2, and the Gears, 5-1, while losing at Fort Wayne, 8-7, and Saginaw, 205.DAYTON: Before running into the rejuvenated Grand Rapids Owls, the Gems enjoyed their finest hour of their rebirth by pounding North Division leader Kalamazoo, 11-4. Nine players figured in the scoring with Kim Koswin and Mike Hartman each pumping in a pair of goals.The Gems also made news off the ice. General manager Keith Sprunk, who hopes to make the Gems a winner on and off the ice, announced he has been offered a job with the Detroit Express of the North American Soccer League. Sprunk admitted he would take the job &ldquo;if the money is there.&rdquo;Sprunk left Grand Rapids in midstream last season to initiate plans for the Gems&rsquo; second coming.MILWAUKEE: The Admirals completed a road trip with a 5-5 tie at Toledo that left them tied for second place with Dayton. The most active Admiral in the game at Toledo was Yves Dandurand&mdash;who wasn&rsquo;t in uniform.Dandurand allegedly became involved with some Toledo players and fans when a brawl erupted early in the third period. Milwaukee denied Dandurand was at the game but Toledo general manager Jim Welch didn&rsquo;t agree. He threatened to charge Danduran with inciting a riot.TOLEDO: New Toledo coach Gregg Pilling is frustrated. The Diggers are struggling longer than he anticipated.A 1-2-1 week left Toledo still under .500 and one rung from the South Division basement. &ldquo;I still maintain that the potential is there but I&rsquo;ve about run out of keeping the faith with their potential.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s discouraging. Consistency just isn&rsquo;t there&hellip;except for the consistency of being inept. I figured after the first 10 games we&rsquo;d have things down pretty pat, but that hasn&rsquo;t proven out,&rdquo; Pilling commented.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01369/4312773-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="570" height="861"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Lozinski has been backstopping Kalamazoo&rsquo;s defense allowing just over three goals per game.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-01

K-Wings Combine Offense, Defense To Rank As IHL’s Top Contenders

GRAND RAPIDS&mdash;Moe Bartoli is wearing two hats again and the Grand Rapids Owls have already doubled their pleasure.The cigar-chomping Bartoli, who helped bring hockey to the Michigan city, was given the added responsibility of coaching last season&rsquo;s Hubert Trophy champions in addition to his general manager&rsquo;s duties in the wake of a 2-11 record through the first 13 games. Bartoli took over from Nellie LeClair, who has been one of Bartoli&rsquo;s closest allies through two decades on the hockey beat.LeClair, who served the Owls as coach previously, was named coach a second time this last summer when Bartoli expressed a desire to devote all of his time to the job as general manager. Bartoli served as both general manager and coach last season aS the Owls led the race almost from the first game of the season and piled up a record 109 points while posting a 50-21-9 record. The Owls advanced to the finals of the Turner Cup players before losing in the seventh game to Kalamazoo.LeClair got the bounce following a 9-2 loss to Port Huron at home. That was the fourth defeat for the Owls at home already this season. Last year the Owls lost just twice all season in their cozy ice arena.While Bartoli maintains he hates the two-job role, the Owls responded favorably on the ice. As general manager, Bartoli was 2-11. As general manager and coach he is 2-0.Grand Rapids followed the humiliating 9-2 loss to Port Huron with an 8-4 whipping of Dayton and came right back the next night to beat the Gems in Dayton, 5-4.Co-owners Mike Knapp and David Baines, who made the announcement about the coaching changes 30 minutes after the disaster against Port Huron, were quick to point out they weren&rsquo;t putting all the blame on LeClair.&ldquo;We felt it was necessary to shake the bag,&rdquo; said Knapp. &ldquo;We are committed to not just riding out the rest of the season. It&rsquo;s a matter of making changes until we are successful. Mind you, we are not assigning fault. We are trying to be as successful as possible.&rdquo;Knapp said that the decision to make a change was made after a discussion by himself, Baine and Bartoli. &ldquo;Bartoli concurred in but did not suggest the dismissal of Le Clair.Bartoli will handle both positions until&mdash;and if&mdash;a decision is made to find another coach.Reflecting on the season thus far, Bartoli said, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no leader. Talent wise, we have the players to get the job done. But there is no spark to get it all going. We only lost two games here all last season. We&rsquo;re past that already. But it is still early enough to salvage this season. I have to believe that.&rdquo; &#9632;

Bartoli Resumes Dual Owls’ Role

<div class="byline">BY PATRICK LYON</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSHAMPTON&mdash;For the second time in less than a year, the ownership of the Hampton Aces changed hands with the announcement that Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt had relinguished his majority interest in the club.Schmidt sold his 80 per cent interest in the team along with Dave Landfield, who owned a 10 per cent share. Jim Humphrey, the other 10 per cent owner and Mrs. Jerry Decker purchased the entire stock and will both own equal 50 per cent shares.Schmidt originally purchased the team when they were known as the Jersey Aces and located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Wanting to give back something for the fine support of the people in the New Jersey area, Schmidt purchased the franchise after the first owner ran into financial troubles.The Jersey Aces continued to have attendance problems after Schmidt took over and it became necessary to shift the franchise to the present Hampton location where they are enjoying much success. Schmidt eagerly backed the re-location hoping it would help turn the. fortunes of the club around, which it did. the new Hampton Aces making it into the then North American Hockey League championship series.It became increasingly difficult for Schmidt to be actively involved with the franchise and decided to sell the club because the geographic location made it almost impossible for him to oversee his duties as owner.In stepped the Humphrey-Decker duo, both having been connected with the team for some time, Humphrey serving with the Aces while still in New Jersey. After much discussion the new owners decided to pursue the purchase of the team and the long process came to an end in the middle of November with the approval of the sale by the board of governors.Mrs. Decker is in the unique position of being one of the few women to own a hockey franchise. Mrs. Laurel Reiss also serves as president of the Richmond Rifles hockey club.In a sense, Mrs. Decker started at the bottom and worked her way up to the top. Involved with the old Hampton Gulls of the Southern and American Leagues as a secretary, she moved up to the marketing and promotions end of things with the Aces. She will continue her work in promoting the club as well as serving as vice-president and treasurer.Humphrey is also no stranger to hockey and noted that there will be no major changes in the team since-everything is already running very smoothly.Both of the new owners are very confident that local ownership will only help the team and the change in ownership has been well received in the Hampton area.Kelly Dean racked up a pair of goals in a 6-4 decision over Baltimore, Bo Schryer netting two goals as Hampton rallied to tie Utica 3-3 in a road contest. The Aces played the Clippers even in Baltimore for the first period, but then succumbed to a flurry of goals in a 10-2 loss. Hampton also had their chance to beat rival Richmond by leading the first place club after two periods 5-4, but the Rifles rebounded and topped Hampton 8-5.RICHMOND: The Rifles are fast becoming the scourge of the EHL while running their win streak to seven games and their unbeaten streak to nine. Owners of a glossy 11-2-3 record at press time, the Rifles held an eight point edge over nearest rival Erie.Richmond won all five games they played during the week and showed their prowess when they came from behind in the third period in four of the five contests.Andre Beaulieu&rsquo;s contingent faced a very difficult task of three road games in three nights, but were impressive in sweeping Erie (3-2), Johnstown (7-4) and Baltimore (6-3).Returning home to a crowd of 5,376, the Rifles felt no threat in a Coliseum meeting with the Blades, Richmond nailing a 6-0 shutout of their closest rival. Rookie Tom Semenchyk was credited with his first ever shutout and Mike Clark and Lawrie Nisker supported him, Clark netting a hat trick and Nisker adding another pair to his already bountiful total.BALTIMORE: The Clippers climbed into a tie for third place in the standings with impressive victories over the Aces and Blades.Warren Young and Brent Gogol each scored two goals and combined with the outstanding play of Barry Alter (one goal, four assists) in a 7-5 road victory over Utica. Baltimore dropped 6-4 and 6-3 games to Hampton and Richmond before rebounding in fine style.Baltimore scored their most lopsided win of the campaign as Henry Taylor picked up a four-goal game in a 10-2 home decision over the Aces and finally beat the Blades on the road 6-1 after three tries.UTICA: Coach Larry Mickey became a player as the former NHL forward was forced to suit up with his team decimated by injuries. Mickey picked up an assist in his first game as Utica was able to dress only 11 players.Ken Yackel (ankle), Bob Beatty (shoulder), Tom Jacobs (jaw) and Ray Kurpis (leg) were only a few of the squad to be felled by injuries.Earlier, Utica had to hold off the Hampton Aces for a 3-3 deadlock which finally broke the club&rsquo;s four game losing streak lengthened by losses to Baltimore 7-5 and Erie 4-3.JOHNSTOWN: Most people might have trouble finding anything good about losing six straight games, but general manager Al lade was pleased by the fact that the club&rsquo;s defense was cutting down on their goals against.The Red Wings lost three games at home, 7-4 to Richmond, 5-3 to Erie and 2-0 to Utica and also came up short in their only road game, a 5-3 loss in Utica. After Dave McQueen&rsquo;s 20 points, the rest of the team is very well balanced in the scoring department with Pierre Tremblay and Randy Wilson each owning 13 points, Randy Betty 11 points.ERIE: At press time, Erie had lost to straight games with the lone bright spot being a crowd of 3,641 for a Thanksgiving home game with the Baltimore Clippers. &lsquo;It was a high attendance record this season for Erie and also a new mark for the club for the month of November.After being narrowly defeated at home by Richmond 3-2, the Blades bounded back for a 4-3 win over Utica and a 5-3 road triumph in Johnstown. Erie was then outscored the next two games 12-1 as the Rifles blanked the defending champions 6-0, Baltimore following that up with a 6-1 Turkey Day win. &#9632;

New Ownership Changes Hampton’s Ice Luck

<h2>DECEMBER</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1723/4313135-1-eng-US/f0034-172.jpg" title="f0034-17" width="565" height="994"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1822/4313128-1-eng-US/f0034-182.jpg" title="f0034-18" width="547" height="1038"></div> &#9632;

f0034-17

WHERE NHL TEAMS PLAY

<h2>TUE. NOV. 27 HARTFORD 2, PHILADELPHIA 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01364/4313097-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="578" height="532"></div><h2>TORONTO 5, ATLANTA 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02298/4313090-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="581" height="608"></div><h2>MONTREAL 5, DETROIT 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03217/4313083-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="587" height="640"></div><h2>WINNIPEG 3, LOS ANGELES 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04138/4313076-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="584" height="623"></div><h2>QUEBEC 2, ST. LOUIS 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-0598/4313069-1-eng-US/f0034-052.jpg" title="f0034-05" width="595" height="514"></div><h2>BUFFALO 5, BOSTON 2</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-0672/4313062-1-eng-US/f0034-062.jpg" title="f0034-06" width="583" height="575"></div><h2>Wed. Nov. 28 MINNESOTA 4, RANGERS 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-0764/4313055-1-eng-US/f0034-072.jpg" title="f0034-07" width="577" height="626"></div><h2>ISLANDERS 4, COLORADO 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-0857/4313048-1-eng-US/f0034-082.jpg" title="f0034-08" width="586" height="777"></div><h2>TORONTO 4, WASHINGTON 2</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-0947/4313041-1-eng-US/f0034-092.jpg" title="f0034-09" width="609" height="588"></div><h2>QUEBEC 2, PITTSBURGH 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1045/4313034-1-eng-US/f0034-102.jpg" title="f0034-10" width="597" height="631"></div><h2>WINNIPEG 2, VANCOUVER 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1140/4313027-1-eng-US/f0034-112.jpg" title="f0034-11" width="605" height="553"></div><h2>CHICAGO 2, EDMONTON 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1238/4313020-1-eng-US/f0034-122.jpg" title="f0034-12" width="597" height="645"></div><h2>Thu. Nov. 29 RANGERS!, BUFFALO 2</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1332/4313013-1-eng-US/f0034-132.jpg" title="f0034-13" width="598" height="466"></div><h2>MINNESOTA 4, PHILADELPHIA 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1429/4313006-1-eng-US/f0034-142.jpg" title="f0034-14" width="555" height="670"></div><h2>ST. LOUIS 2, MONTREAL 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1528/4312999-1-eng-US/f0034-152.jpg" title="f0034-15" width="575" height="579"></div><h2>Fri. Nov. 30 ISLANDERS 3, EDMONTON 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1628/4312992-1-eng-US/f0034-162.jpg" title="f0034-16" width="578" height="687"></div><h2>CHICAGO 1, VANCOUVER 1</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01344/4312985-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="539" height="462"></div><h2>PITTSBURGH 5, HARTFORD 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02279/4312978-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="544" height="627"></div><h2>Sat. Dec. 1 RANGERS 2, ST. LOUIS 0</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03208/4312971-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="554" height="436"></div><h2>PHILADELPHIA 4, TORONTO 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-04167/4312964-1-eng-US/f0035-042.jpg" title="f0035-04" width="550" height="599"></div><h2>QUEBEC 2, WASHINGTON 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-05130/4312957-1-eng-US/f0035-052.jpg" title="f0035-05" width="544" height="627"></div><h2>HARTFORD 4, MONTREAL 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-06111/4312950-1-eng-US/f0035-062.jpg" title="f0035-06" width="577" height="591"></div><h2>COLORADO 4, PITTSBURGH 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-07102/4312943-1-eng-US/f0035-072.jpg" title="f0035-07" width="563" height="629"></div><h2>BOSTON 3, DETROIT 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-0884/4312936-1-eng-US/f0035-082.jpg" title="f0035-08" width="562" height="625"></div><h2>CHICAGO 0, LOS ANGELES 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-0980/4312929-1-eng-US/f0035-092.jpg" title="f0035-09" width="560" height="557"></div><h2>WINNIPEG 4, MINNESOTA 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-1070/4312922-1-eng-US/f0035-102.jpg" title="f0035-10" width="571" height="556"></div><h2>Sun. Dec. 2 ISLANDERS 4, WINNIPEG 0</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-1165/4312915-1-eng-US/f0035-112.jpg" title="f0035-11" width="557" height="481"></div><h2>DETROIT 4, PHILADELPHIA 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-1255/4312908-1-eng-US/f0035-122.jpg" title="f0035-12" width="583" height="617"></div><h2>WASHINGTON 0, BUFFALO 2</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-1349/4312901-1-eng-US/f0035-132.jpg" title="f0035-13" width="576" height="437"></div><h2>VANCOUVER 1, QUEBEC 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-1438/4312894-1-eng-US/f0035-142.jpg" title="f0035-14" width="575" height="487"></div><h2>COLORADO 5, BOSTON 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-1534/4312887-1-eng-US/f0035-152.jpg" title="f0035-15" width="567" height="654"></div><h2>The Point Race&hellip;</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-2316/4312880-1-eng-US/f0034-232.jpg" title="f0034-23" width="556" height="701"></div><h2>NHL SCORE BOARD</h2>(Standings on Mon. Dec. 3)<h3>NORRIS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1921/4312873-1-eng-US/f0034-192.jpg" title="f0034-19" width="557" height="148"></div><h3>ADAMS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-2020/4312866-1-eng-US/f0034-202.jpg" title="f0034-20" width="559" height="123"></div><h3>PATRICK DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-2119/4312859-1-eng-US/f0034-212.jpg" title="f0034-21" width="557" height="122"></div><h3>SMYTHE DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-2217/4312852-1-eng-US/f0034-222.jpg" title="f0034-22" width="547" height="150"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Tues. Nov. 27Hartford 2 at Philadelphia 6Toronto 5 at Atlanta 3Montreal 5 at Detroit 5Winnipeg 3 at Los Angeles 5Quebec 2 at St. Louis 4Buffalo 5 at Boston 2Wed. Nov. 28Minnesota 4 at Rangers 4Islanders 4 at Colorado 7Toronto 4 at Washington 2Quebec 2 at Pittsburgh 7Winnipeg 2 at Vancouver 4Chicago 2 at Edmonton 4Thurs. Nov. 29Rangers 1 at Buffalo 2Minnesota 4 at Philadelphia 6St. Louis 2 at Montreal 3Fri. Nov. 30Islanders 3 at Edmonton 5Pittsburgh 5 at Hartford 7Chicago 1 at Vancouver 1Buffalo at Atlanta (ppd)Sat. Dec. 1Rangers 2 at St. Louis 0Philadelphia 4 at Toronto 4Quebec 2 at Washington 7Hartford 4 at Montreal 4Colorado 4 at Pittsburgh 5Boston 3 at Detroit 6Chicago 0 at Los Angeles 7Winnipeg 4 at Minnesota 4Sun. Dec. 2Islanders 4 at Winnipeg 0Detroit 4 at Philadelphia 4Washington 0 at Buffalo 2Vancouver 1 at Quebec 3Colorado 5 at Boston 3 &#9632;

f0034-01

NATIONAL LEAGUE SUMMARIES

<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Tues. Dec. 4)<h3>Northern Division</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01325/4313414-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="563" height="151"></div><h3>Southern Division</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02245/4313407-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="548" height="262"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Tues. Nov. 27New Haven 3 at New Brunswick SWed. Nov. 28Binghamton 0 at Adirondack 5Nova Scotia 3 at Hershey 5Springfield 1 at Maine SRochester 2 at Syracuse SThurs. Nov. 29New Haven 2 at New Brunswick 3Fri. Nov. 30New Haven 6 at Nova Scotia 4Adirondack 4 at Rochester 5Sat. Dec. 1Binghamton 1 at Hershey 4Syracuse 2 at Maine 4New Brunswick 3 at Springfield 5Sun. Dec. 2Springfield 3 at Adirondack 3New Brunswick 6 at Binghamton 5New Haven 1 at Nova Scotia 6Hershey 3 at Rochester 2<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-03181/4313400-1-eng-US/f0036-032.jpg" title="f0036-03" width="553" height="249"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-04112/4313393-1-eng-US/f0036-042.jpg" title="f0036-04" width="564" height="132"></div><h2>CENTRAL LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Tues. Dec. 4)<h3>EAST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0578/4313386-1-eng-US/f0036-052.jpg" title="f0036-05" width="569" height="121"></div><h3>WEST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0660/4313379-1-eng-US/f0036-062.jpg" title="f0036-06" width="565" height="255"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Tues. Nov. 27Indianapolis 3 at Birmingham 1Wed. Nov. 28Cincinnati 2 at Houston 6Fort Worth 1 at Tulsa 2Thurs. Nov. 29Houston 7 at DallasBirmingham 1at Salt Lake 3Fri. Nov. 30Cincinnati 3 at Fort Worth 6Dallas 2 at Indianapolis 8Birmingham 4 at Salt Lake 3Sat. Dec. 1Indianapolis 3 at Dallas 3Salt Lake 6 at Fort Worth 4Birmingham 2 at Houston 11Oklahoma City 4 at Tulsa 1Sun. Dec.2Cincinnati 1 at U.S. Olympic 6<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0756/4313372-1-eng-US/f0036-072.jpg" title="f0036-07" width="554" height="220"></div><h2>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Wed., Dec. 5)<h3>NORTH DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0851/4313365-1-eng-US/f0036-082.jpg" title="f0036-08" width="557" height="149"></div><h3>SOUTH DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0945/4313358-1-eng-US/f0036-092.jpg" title="f0036-09" width="551" height="260"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed., Nov. 28Flint 3 at Fort Wayne 4Toledo 6 at Dayton 4Port Huron 3 at Kalamazoo 1Saginaw 5 at Milwaukee 3Fri., Nov. 30Grand Rapids 2 at Muskegon 8Flint 3 at Dayton 4Fort Wayne 5 at Saginaw 6Port Huron 3 at Milwaukee 5Sat., Dec. 1Dayton 5 at Fort Wayne 7Milwaukee 0 at Muskegon 8Saginaw 3 at Port Huron 10Toledo 4 at Kalamazoo 3Flint 5 at Grand Rapids 2Sun., Dec. 2Flint 6 at Port Huron 6Fort Wayne 5 at Dayton 3Grand Rapids 1 at Saginaw 4Milwaukee 3 at Kalamazoo 5Muskegon 3 at Toledo 4<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1042/4313351-1-eng-US/f0036-102.jpg" title="f0036-10" width="555" height="264"></div><h2>EASTERN LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Wed. Dec. 5)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1139/4313344-1-eng-US/f0036-112.jpg" title="f0036-11" width="521" height="249"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed. Nov. 28Baltimore 2 at Richmond 7Utica 3 at Johnstown 11Thurs. Nov. 29Richmond 3 at Hampton 1Sat. Dec. 1Johnstown 8 at Hampton 7Utica 4 at Richmond 4Baltimore 3 at Erie 3Sun. Dec. 2Hampton 2 at Baltimore 1Utica 2 at Richmond 4Erie 8 at Johnstown 5<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1235/4313337-1-eng-US/f0036-122.jpg" title="f0036-12" width="545" height="345"></div><h2>AMATEUR SCOREBOARD</h2>ONTARIO MAJOR LEAGUE(Standings on Tues. Dec. 4)<h3>Emms Division</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1332/4313330-1-eng-US/f0036-132.jpg" title="f0036-13" width="522" height="172"></div><h3>Leyden Division</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1428/4313323-1-eng-US/f0036-142.jpg" title="f0036-14" width="527" height="148"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Tues. Nov. 27Oshawa 3 at Brantford 9Sault Ste. Marie 1 at Sudbury 4Kitchener 2 at Ottawa 8Niagara Falls 4 at Toronto 5Thurs. Nov. 29Kingston 3 at Peterborough 1Sault Ste. Marie 4 at Windsor 3Fri. Nov. 30Windsor 3 at Kitchener 2Peterborough 6 at Ottawa 3Brantford 3 at London 14Sudbury 2 at Kingston 4S.S. Marie 4 at Niagara Falls SOshawa 7 at Toronto 6Sat. Dec. 1Sault Ste. Marie 0 at Kitchener 4Windsor 4 at Toronto SSun. Dec. 2London 8 at Windsor 1Ottawa 5 at Kingston 4Sudbury 3 at Niagara Falls 8Kitchener 0 at Ottawa 3<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1528/4313316-1-eng-US/f0036-152.jpg" title="f0036-15" width="547" height="417"></div><h2>CENTRAL JUNIOR LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Thurs. Nov. 29)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1626/4313309-1-eng-US/f0036-162.jpg" title="f0036-16" width="556" height="179"></div><h2>QUEBEC MAJOR LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Dec. 3)<h3>LeBel Division</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1723/4313302-1-eng-US/f0036-172.jpg" title="f0036-17" width="539" height="150"></div><h3>Dilio Division</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1823/4313295-1-eng-US/f0036-182.jpg" title="f0036-18" width="539" height="126"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Mon. Nov. 26Cornwall 5 at Verdun 3Hull 4 at Laval 7Tues. Nov. 27Shawinigan 3 at Quebec 6Montreal 6 at Trois-Rivieres 4Wed. Nov. 28Trois-Rivieres 9 at Laval 1Quebec 6 at Sherbrooke 5Thurs. Nov. 29Verdun 3 at Chicoutimi 7Hull 4 at Cornwall 8Fri. Nov. 30Montreal 2 at Quebec 2Cornwall 6 at Shawinigan 8Trois-Rivieres 4 at Sherbrooke 7Chicoutimi 10 at Verdun 4Sun. Dec. 2Montreal 6 at Chicoutimi 12Quebec 3 at Cornwall 2Shawinigan 3 at Sherbrooke 5Laval 4 at Trois-Rivieres 11Hull 9 at Verdun 14<h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Mon., Dec. 3)<h3>WESTERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-1922/4313288-1-eng-US/f0036-192.jpg" title="f0036-19" width="562" height="132"></div><h3>EASTERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2021/4313281-1-eng-US/f0036-202.jpg" title="f0036-20" width="559" height="226"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Tues., Nov. 27Lethbridge 3 at Billings 2Regina 2 at victoria 6Brandon 0 at Calgary 8Wed., Nov. 28Lethbridge 6 at Great Falls 4Medicine Hat 5 at Billings 3Thurs., Nov. 29Great Falls 2 at Medicine Hat 8Saskatoon 8 at Brandon 5Fri., Nov. 30Brandon 6 at Saskatoon 7Lethbridge 1 at Calgary 7Sat., Dec. 1Brandon 5 at Medicine Hat 3Portland 4 at Victoria 7Regina 7 at Great Falls 3Sun., Dec. 2Brandon 2 at Lethbridge 6Victoria 7 at New Westminster 4Regina 4 at Billings 6Portland 6 at Seattle 5Great Falls 3 at Calgary 6<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2120/4313274-1-eng-US/f0036-212.jpg" title="f0036-21" width="568" height="718"></div><h2>CONTINENTAL SENIOR</h2>(Standings on Wed., Nov. 28)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2219/4313267-1-eng-US/f0036-222.jpg" title="f0036-22" width="549" height="240"></div><h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2318/4313260-1-eng-US/f0036-232.jpg" title="f0036-23" width="561" height="292"></div><h2>Who They&rsquo;re Affiliated With&hellip;</h2>1&mdash;Montreal2&mdash;Chicago3&mdash;Boston4&mdash;Rangers5&mdash;Detroit6&mdash;Toronto7&mdash;Philadelphia8&mdash;Los Angeles9&mdash;St. Louis10&mdash;Minnesota11&mdash;Pittsburgh12&mdash;Islanders13&mdash;Vancouver14&mdash;Buffalo15&mdash;Atlanta16&mdash;Washington17&mdash;Colorado18&mdash;Edmonton19&mdash;Hartford20&mdash;Quebec21&mdash;Winnipeg<h3>OTHER AFFILIATIONS</h3>22&mdash;Chicago&mdash;Toronto23&mdash;Boston&mdash;Los Angeles24&mdash;Quebec&mdash;Pittsburgh25&mdash;Edmonton&mdash;Winnipeg26&mdash;Montreal&mdash;Chicago27&mdash;Vancouver&mdash;Islanders28&mdash;Boston&mdash;Pittsburgh29&mdash;Atlanta&mdash;Colorado30&mdash;Washington&mdash;St. Louis31&mdash;Los Angeles&mdash;Hartford32&mdash;Que&mdash;Islanders&mdash;Buff.33&mdash;St. Louis&mdash;Philadelphia34&mdash;Boston&mdash;Hartford<h2>GEORGIAN BAY LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Fri., Nov. 30)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2418/4313253-1-eng-US/f0036-242.jpg" title="f0036-24" width="550" height="197"></div><h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2515/4313246-1-eng-US/f0036-252.jpg" title="f0036-25" width="557" height="393"></div><h2>UNITED STATES LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Wed., Nov. 21)<h3>NORTHERN CONFERENCE</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2613/4313239-1-eng-US/f0036-262.jpg" title="f0036-26" width="553" height="124"></div><h3>SOUTHERN CONFERENCE</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2713/4313232-1-eng-US/f0036-272.jpg" title="f0036-27" width="545" height="77"></div><h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2813/4313225-1-eng-US/f0036-282.jpg" title="f0036-28" width="559" height="291"></div><h2>NORTHLAND LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Fri., Nov. 23)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-2912/4313218-1-eng-US/f0036-292.jpg" title="f0036-29" width="551" height="154"></div><h2>PRO GAMES TO COME&hellip;</h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE<h3>DECEMBER</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-3011/4313211-1-eng-US/f0036-302.jpg" title="f0036-30" width="562" height="763"></div><h2>CENTRAL LEAGUE</h2><h3>DECEMBER</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-3110/4313204-1-eng-US/f0036-312.jpg" title="f0036-31" width="536" height="714"></div><h2>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</h2><h3>DECEMBER</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-329/4313197-1-eng-US/f0036-322.jpg" title="f0036-32" width="556" height="872"></div><h2>EASTERN LEAGUE</h2><h3>DECEMBER</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-338/4313190-1-eng-US/f0036-332.jpg" title="f0036-33" width="534" height="678"></div> &#9632;

f0036-01

MINOR SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01282/4313445-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg"></div>PLAYER EQUIPMENTRINK EQUIPMENTPERSONALSFAN CLUBSOPPORTUNITIES OFFERED, WANTEDDo you have something to sell&mdash;or tell&mdash;to your fellow readers of The Hockey News?Here&rsquo;s the place to do it, in this brand new Classified section that&rsquo;s being read right now by thousands of hockey fans and players, many of them &ldquo;in the market&rsquo;&rsquo; for used hockey equipment and rink equipment&hellip;many others seeking playing opportunities and job opportunities&hellip;still others eager to buy, swap, or sell hockey items, services, and ideas on a personal, one-to-one basis. Tell them what you have to offer and get action! It&rsquo;s easy to do&hellip;just use the handy coupon (lower left-hand corner), enclose your cheque, and prepare to do business. (Please note schedule of deadlines&mdash;your copy is due 3 weeks before issue date.)<h2>PLAYER EQUIPMENT</h2>SKATES, CCM PROGOAL, 2 pr., 7, 8. Used two seasons, good condition, best offer over $80/pr. Write: John Monahan, 4 Baldwin St., Newton, Mass.HELMETS, 4 JOFA, 4 WINNWELL 2000. Like new, $100 takes all. Write: Kevin Burke, 56 East 87th St., New York. N.Y. 10028.<h2>PERSONALS</h2>A GIRLS ICE HOCKEY TEAM in Denver, Colorado is looking for competition with other girl ice hockey teams. If interested please contact us at 1333 York, Apt. 301, Denver, Colorado 80206.WANTED: Newspaper clippings, books, pennants, bulletins, articles, gum cards, buttons and other Montreal Maroon memorabilia. Send description and asking price to: Bill LeGrand, P.O Box 775, Manitouwadge, Ontario POT 2C0 or phone 1-807-826-4401.WANTED: Hockey crests of clubs in North America or anywhere in world. Will trade. Write Ron Brinnen, RR #1, Armstrong, B.C., Canada V0E 1B0.HOCKEY PEN PALS. Send your name, address, age and name of your favourite team and we will find you a pen pal. Send to: Ann E. Bellini or Gilles Alberta. 658 41st Street, Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A. 50312.WANTED: National Hockey League Guides 1957 thru 1970. Don&rsquo;t have to be in mint condition. Also looking for Springfield Indians memorabilia 1957 thru 1962, team/player pics, etc. Write: Benny H. Burel Jr., 1006 East Street South, Suffield, Connecticut 06078.SALE: Color 8 &times; 10 photos Det. Red Wings Past-Present and NHL Stars $3.50. Write Gerald Stanley, 9318 Pickwick Cir. W., Taylor, Michigan 48180.WANTED: Cards, pictures, souvepiers, programs and other publications pertaining to hockey. Sale: Large lists of hockey items and material on other sports. Send large SASE for copy. Bill White, 1150 Ocean Ave., Ocean City, N.J. 08226.<h2>OPPORTUNITIES OFFERED, WANTED</h2>POSITION WANTED, goalie with Jr. B and university experience seeks position with major A or tier two junior team in the U.S. or Canada. Send inquiries to Dept. 4-H, Hockey News, 214 King Street West, Suite 314, Toronto, Ontario M5H 1K4.MINOR MIDGET &ldquo;AA&rdquo; second team OMHA Ontario C&rdquo; Division Champions 1978 want games, tournaments, will travel and reciprocate in beautiful Barrie and billet. Contact Hugh Knowles (705) 728-9636, 183 Anne Street North, Barrie, Ontario.Experienced: Broadcaster and Public Relations man interested in opportunity in Hockey. Practiced play-by-play broadcaster and successful charity game promoter. Willing to relocate. Contact: Eric Martin, Townhouse Route 66, Apt. 15, Hudson, N.Y. 12534. Tel. 518-828-4173 or 518-828-1153.HOCKEY FORUM: New publication! Express your opinion now! Type or print. 10 per word, $10.00 minimum. Get your thoughts publicized! Free subscription each month for best letter! Subscriptions $10.00 (12 issues). Send letter and payment to: Hockey Forum, 40 Norfolk, San Mateo, CA 94401.ICE ARENA MANAGER: City of Janesville (Pop. 50,000) is seeking an innovative manager to direct the operation of the City owned Ice Arena. Duties include all operational aspects of a full service year round ice arena; maintenance and care of the facilities; promoting, planning and directing activity programs such as figure skating and hockey; operation of pro shop and food service 1; preparation of budget over-seeing collection of revenues. Also directly responsible for competitive figure skating program which takes up 65% of available ice time. World level pro works with top competitive figure skating program (U.S.F.S.A.). Successful programs have made this 5-year-old ice arena self-supporting. Must have minimum of two consecutive years experience at an ice arena. Salary $20,000-$24,000, depending upon qualifications. Individuals apply who are not U.S. citizens must be able to provide necessary work permit. Send resume by Dec. 28, 1979, to the Personnel Director, Municipal Building, 18 N. Jackson Street, Janesville, Wisconsin 53545.NON-IMPORT PLAYERS FOR EUROPE: For the 1980-81 season. If you were born in Europe or if your father held European citizenship at the time of your birth (even if you were born elsewhere) you may qualify as a non-import player for the country in question. Good salaries and benefits if you have played for equivalent of junior B&rsquo; or better. An experience of a lifetime. All information will be kept in strictest confidence. Send details of birth records and hockey resume to: &#9632;

f0037-01

CLASSIFIED

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01338/4313511-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="818" height="1206"></div><h2>Beauty on ice</h2>Sherri De Wees of Hartford, Conn., makes wearing a hockey helmet look pretty chic as she takes the ice for a Clarkson College alumnae game. She beats the guys by a mile.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02266/4313504-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="1448" height="1596"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo bv Gordon ChibroSki)</figcaption></div><h2>Executive of the year</h2>Ed Anderson, left, president of the Maine Mariners of the AHL receives THE HOCKEY NEWS award as 1978-79 executive of the year in minor hockey from Ken McKenzie, president and publisher, during recent presentation ceremonies at Portland, Me. Anderson&rsquo;s Mariners have become one of the top organizations in pro hockey.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03201/4313497-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="534" height="1306"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Robert Shaver)</figcaption></div><h2>Still going</h2>Frank Christie is a legend around hockey in the city of Buffalo. At age 58 he is the dean of NHL trainers after starting out with the old Buffalo entry in the AHL back in 194748. He is also one of the game&rsquo;s most efficient operators behind the bench.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-04141/4313490-1-eng-US/f0038-042.jpg" title="f0038-04" width="874" height="1834"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-05104/4313483-1-eng-US/f0038-052.jpg" title="f0038-05" width="1168" height="1344"></div><h2>Contrasts in coaching</h2>Here are three NHL coaches with varying styles behind their respective benches. At left, Buffalo coach Scotty Bowman is pretty well his own boss as GM-coach and it shows. He looks calm and reserved. In center, Jacques Demers of the Quebec Nordiques is given to emotion and - climbs up on the players&rsquo; bench to make a point. At right, Tommy McVie of Winnipeg has GM John Ferguson, rear, looking over his shoulder as he directs the NHL&rsquo;s new expansion team. Bowman&rsquo;s Sabres are No. 1 while the Nordiques and Jets are running behind in their divisions.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-0680/4313476-1-eng-US/f0038-062.jpg" title="f0038-06" width="874" height="1836"></div> &#9632;

f0038-01

HOCKEY PEOPLE

<div class="byline">BY BILL HILTS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01316/4313542-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="354" height="348"></div><h2>Ottawa Senators Alive</h2>THE NAME OTTAWA SENATORS is as traditional in the Ottawa area as the towering Peace Tower standing on Parliament Hill overlooking the bustling Ottawa River. Yes, the Senators are alive and playing again!The names of LEGS FRASER, BUTCH STAHAN and BOBBY COPP, legends of T.P. GORMAN&rsquo;S Senators of an earlier era, have been replaced by such youngsters as GEOFF DERVIN, CRAIG MELANCON and JEFF VAIVE.Fittingly, the Senators play out of Sandy Hill Arena, named after another tradition&mdash;Sandy Hill&mdash;that flamboyant area of Old Ottawa just off Rideau Street where people from the crossroads of Europe melded together and never for a moment thought but that they could not whip any team from the &lsquo;Burg both off and on the ice.The Senators are the newest (and sixth) entry in the rejuvenated Central Junior Hockey League of OHA. CHARLIE HENRY, formerly coach of the Ottawa East Voyageurs, wisely drafted a young team and he has them off to a solid start just two points out of third place. GERRY ALBERT, team president, heads an impressive list of dedicated and enthusiastic hockey people, including FRED SHIELDS, general manager and likeable EDDY ARTELLE, who does it all.To paraphrase another tradition&mdash;the Millionaires Rush End Club at the old Montreal Forum&mdash;Les Senators sont la!&#9733; &#9733; &#9733;CRAIG HEWSON says the Brantford Etatech Hawks have raced off to a fast start in the Central OHA League. After dropping their second game to Burlington, the Hawks turned around and shocked the visiting team, beating them 7-1. FRANK TOTTLE, coach of the Central League title winners last season, has made three changes to the current team lineup bringing BEN LEONARD, RICK LALONDE and FRED GARVIN from the AA Hub League to the Triple A squad. Also RON BALACZ has earned a position, with former star CRAIG LESKY going out west.In April, the Brantford team will host and play in the All-Ontario Major Bantam Loblaws Tournament. Teams from Metro Toronto, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Northern Ontario and Ontario Central regions will be represented.&#9733; &#9733; &#9733;The Charlottetown G.J.&rsquo;s are again entered in the Southern New Brunswick Intermediate Hockey League. President of the club is MICHAEL MacKINNON. BILL WEATHERBIE, who takes over as coach after several years as a player with the G.J.&rsquo;s, has several new faces in his lineup, including former junior stars MICKEY CALLAGHAN, SHANE CARR and ART MacGUIGAN.&#9733; &#9733; &#9733;<h2>New St. Louis Coaches</h2>In the New England Junior League action BOB DeBRASE fired three goals and JAY NOLAN added a pair to power league-leading South Shore Braves past runnerup Fitchburg, 10-4. Goalie&rsquo; RICK COHEN stretched his unbeaten string to six games in backstopping the Braves to their second win in three tests against the Wallopers so far this season.Suffolk Royals&rsquo; STEVE KLEIN tallied his first points of the season&mdash;a pair of goals and an equal number of assists and PETER PAVESE added a hat trick to help New York get past Tyngsboro 14-2. Royal TOM IERNA had two goals and four assists.Walloper PHIL BOURQUE&rsquo;S second goal of the game deflated Suffolk&rsquo;s comeback and helped Fitchburg upend their guests 6-4. Fitchburg built a 4-0 lead on strength of two TOM MONTESION goals. Pavese netted another hat trick in as many nights.JEFF BAYENS, general manager of the St. Louis Knights of the St. Louis Metro Jr. B Hockey League has announced that BUD STEGE has resigned as coach of the squad. Bayers will handle the coaching duties for the remainder of the season. In other coaching changes, JIM BURKE has departed from the helm of the St. Louis Jr. Blues under mutual agreement of GM FRANK FERRARA. Stege, former assistant coach of the Jr. Blues, will serve as interim coach until a replacement is found.In exhibition ice action regarding the SLMJHL teams, the league entries skated away with their first three wins over college competition. The Jr. Blues defeated the Bobcats of the University of Cincinnati (JV) 6-2&hellip;The Affton Americans also contributed a 7-2 win-over the Bobcats in a game that was led by the two goal performances of centers JIM DOMOS and BOB GIEGLING in spearheading the American attack&hellip;Brentwood Blazers also recorded a win against Miami University (Ohio) (JV) by a 5-3 count, behind the heroic netminding feats of Blazer puckstopper JIM JOST.&#9733; &#9733; &#9733;GORDON MacDONALD of Prince Edward Island Jr. Hockey League notes that the executive board has three new faces this season&mdash;president DAVID LAWLOR, Charlottetown; vice-president FRED MacDONALD, Charlottetown and secretary-treasurer GLEN HUGHES, Sherwood, joining veterans HARRY MacKENZIE, vice-president from Sherwood and past president W.J.R. MacDONALD of Summerside.PEI teams include: Sherwood-Parkdale Metros, Centennial Cup finalists in &rsquo;78-&rsquo;79, who lost to Prince Albert Raiders in sudden-death final in overtime; Charlottetown Eagles; Summerside Crystals; Tignish Bluefins; Eastern Junior Kings and North River North Stars, an expansion team this season.New coaches, are North River, EVERETT STEWART who last year was assistant coach of UPEI Panthers; Eastern Kings, BILL MacKINNON, who last year was assistant coach for Montague Midgets (PEI representative at Air Canada National Midget Final), and Summerside&rsquo;s CLAUDE HUTCHINSON, who coached in minor hockey last season.Returning coaches are, Tignish, one-time NHLer FORBES KENNEDY: Charlottetown, GORDIE WHITLOCK and Sherwood-Parkdale ANGUS CARROLL.&#9733; &#9733; &#9733;<h2>Junior NHL Action</h2>Redford Royals continue as top team through the first quarter of Great Lakes Junior Hockey League action. In a 12-3 rout of the Fraser Highlanders, the Paddock Pool Saints&rsquo; MIKE BURKHEISER, JEFF PALMER and JEFF GRADE all scored two goals apiece while teammate COLIN CHIN was scoring one and assisting on two others. In all, the Paddock offense put 69 shots on shell-shocked Highlander goalie DOUG JAKUBIK&hellip; Detroit Jr. Wings, still looking for an improved defense, gave up seven goals as they dropped a decision to Wayne Chiefs. The Chiefs&rsquo; KEVIN CLARK tallied twice as did teammate WIN DAHM. Dahm&rsquo;s second came on a short-handed effort&hellip;The Fraser Highlanders won their first game of the season by beating the Michigan State University Junior Varsity 10-4. TOM McFINCH and GERRY SHINER each scored two Fraser markers&hellip;The Bowling Green University Falcons (JV) are not to be taken lightly as they rallied the entire game and came up with a well-earned 7-5 win. Their opponents, the Wayne Chiefs, watched as the see-saw battle turned toward the BG side late in final stanza. Former Cleveland Baron GREG COYLE recorded the game winner midway through the final period. JIM DAVENPORT scored two of the Chiefs&rsquo; goals&hellip;and former Detroit Jr. Wing RICH HUTCHINSON is back in GLJHL with the Paddock Pool Saints after a short tryout with Johnstown. &#9632;

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THE AMATEUR SCENE

Following are the latest player movements in hockey:<h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>ATLANTA&mdash;Dave Gorman, RW, recalled from Birmingham of CHL. Bill Clement, C, out with broken finger, Guy Chouinard, C, out with broken knuckle, and Willi Plett, RW, out with sprained knee.BOSTON&mdash;Dennis O&rsquo;Brien, D, returned by Binghamton of AHL, informing Bruins he has voluntarily retired from hockey. Bob Schmautz, RW, sidelined with cut mouth requiring 20 stitches.BUFFALO&mdash;Jerry Korab, D, returned to lineup from injury list.COLORADO&mdash;Bill Oleschuk, G, and Nelson Pyatt, C, assigned to Fort Worth of CHL. Tim Thomlison, G, recalled from Forth Wayne of IHL and re-assigned to Fort Worth. Joe Contini, C, released outright as free agent, later signed by Minnesota and assigned to Oklahoma City of CHL.DETROIT&mdash;Jim Korn, C, recalled from Adirondack of AHL. Perry Miller, D, assigned to Adirondack.EDMONTON&mdash;Cam Connor, RW, recalled from Houston of CHL and later placed on disabled list with broken bone in his hand. Jim Bedard, G, signed as free agent and assigned to Cincinnati of CHL. Byron Baltimore, D, recalled from Houston and later returned along with Dan Newman, LW. Alex Tidey, RW, sent to Cincinnati on loan. Doug Patey, RW, sent to Houston.MINNESOTA&mdash;Mike Fidler, RW, returned to lineup from injury list.ISLANDERS&mdash;Duane Sutter, RW, recalled from Lethbridge of WHL and placed on active NHL roster. Randy Johnston, D, and Yvan Vautour, RW, recalled from Indianapolis of CHL.RANGERS&mdash;John Davidson and Doug Soetaert, Gs, sent to New Haven of AHL. Steve Baker, G, recalled from New Haven. Barry Beck, D, signed to new contract.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Gord Laxton, G, returned to lineup from injury list. Nick Ricci, G, returned to Grand Rapids of IHL.QUEBEC&mdash;Gilles Bilodeau, LW, recalled from Syracuse of AHL and returned. Paul Stewart, D, recalled from Cincinnati of CHL as replacement for Paul Baxter, D, who is injured. Bob Fitchner, C, and John Smrke, C, both placed on injury list. Greg Tebbutt, D, recalled from Syracuse.ST. LOUIS&mdash;Larry Giroux, D, recalled from Salt Lake of CHL. Chuck Lefley, LW, returned to lineup for first time this season from injury list. Rick Bowness, RW, and Floyd Thomson, C, sent to Salt Lake.VANCOUVER&mdash;Don Lever, C, Thomas Gradin, C, and Lars Lindgren, D, signed to new NHL contracts. Stan Smyl, RW, returned from injury list.WASHINGTON&mdash;Steve Clippingdale, LW, Brent Tremblay, D, and Gary Rissling, LW, recalled from Hershey of AHL. Rissling returned after one game. Tim Coulis, RW, and Tony Cassolato, RW, returned to Hershey. Rolf Edberg, C, and Dennis Hextail, C, both placed on disabled list.WINNIPEG&mdash;Mike Amedeo, D, assigned to Tulsa of CHLC.<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>ADIRONDACK&mdash;Pierre Tremblay, D, and Don Hawkes, D returned to Johnstown of EHL.HERSHEY&mdash;Harvey Pocza, LW, and Lou Franceschetti, LW, recalled from Port Huron of IHL. Bob Bilodeau, D, off injured list.NEW BRUNSWICK&mdash;Rick Paterson, C, placed on injured list.NOVA SCOTIA&mdash;Dave Stewart, C, returned to Hartford and later loaned to Cincinnati of CHL.NEW HAVEN&mdash;Jim Pettie, G removed from active roster.SPRINGFIELD&mdash;Dave DeBol, G, recalled from Cincinnati of CHL. Terry Richardson, G, returned to active roster. John Cunniff, LW, signed as free agent. Brian Hill, RW, and Jean Savard, C, both on injured list.SYRACUSE&mdash;Brad Rhiness, C, recalled from Erie of EHL and signed to pro contract and tryout. Kim Davis, C, on injured list. Tom Price, D, taken off injured list. &#9632;

Player Movements

BLOOMINGTON&mdash;The performances by the Minnesota North Stars during the last couple of weeks of this National Hockey League campaign have been enough to run the needle of an electrocardiogram right off the paper.Four times in six games the North Stars have come from behind to either win or tie. Those finishes have kept Minnesota in the thick of the NHL pennant race&mdash;the North Stars rank sixth overall in the league.Newest hero for the come-from-behind crew is defenseman Gary Sargent, the Minnesota-born blueliner who struck against Chicago with less than three minutes to play to give Minnesota a 3-3 deadlock.The 25-year-old from Bemidji is in the midst of an almost exact rerun of his fast start of last season. He has five goals and eight assists for 13 points in 20 games. Last year he had four goals, seven assists and 11 points.The difference is that this year&rsquo;s goals have been a tad more timely. Sargent has one game-winner, one game-tier and one goal that brought the North Stars close enough to eventually tie the score. &#9632;

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December 14, 1979

NHL’S SCORERS THIS WEEK

Ziegler Contends NHL Problems Subsiding

U.S. Olympians Knock Eagles Out Of CHL Lead

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE