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 19, 1980

The Hockey News December 19, 1980

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IN THIS ISSUE

The Hockcy News

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div>BUFFALO &mdash; The Buffalo Sabres have not been playing up to expectations much of the time, of late, but one player who is doing better than most people expected is Andre Savard.The veteran center from Temiscamingue, Quebec, who says he didn&rsquo;t expect to still be with the club at this stage of this season, has been a key figure in recent games.The Sabres, who have won only five of their last 14 games, two of eight on the road, going into this week, were struggling in Hartford recently, playing lackluster hockey and trailing, 1-0, in the second period. Savard scored two successive goals, then assisted on a third, during a scramble in front of the Hartford net, and the Sabres went on to a 4-1 victory.The Sabres lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 6-5, in Buffalo last week but it certainly wasn&rsquo;t Savard&rsquo;s fault. Andre scored Buffalo&rsquo;s first two goals after the Canadiens had taken a 2-0 lead.&ldquo;Actually.&rdquo; coach Roger Neilson pointed out, &ldquo;Savard set up another Buffalo goal, although he didn&rsquo;t get an assist. He went in and jammed a Montreal defenseman, forcing the guy to cough up the puck.&rdquo; The puck went to John Van Boxmeer, who scored on a shot from the blue line to narrow Montreal&rsquo;s lead to 5-4.Savard feels he is playing the best hockey of his eight-year National Hockey League career It comes after a season that was the low point of his hockey days.Savard, taken in the first round by the Boston Bruins in the 1973 draft, was sent to Rochester of the American League by Buffalo at the start of the 1979-80 season. It was the only time he ever played in the minors.&ldquo;I figured I wouldn&rsquo;t be with the Buffalo club by the end of that year and certainly not this year,&rdquo; said the rugged center.He was called back up to Buffalo about midseason but did not play regularly until the playoffs, when he did a solid job.After the Montreal game. Neilson praised Savard. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t make fancy plays,&rdquo; the coach mentioned, &ldquo;he gets what he gets through hard work. He digs for the puck and he&rsquo;s leading all our forwards in body checks. He has worked hard from the first day of training camp.&rdquo;The next game, however, he was shut out but other diggers and checkers came through as the Sabres scored three goals in the final period to tie Minnesota, 3-3, on the North Stars&rsquo; ice.Rick Dudley, Don Luce and Ric Seiling scored the Buffalo goals. Seiling&rsquo;s came with 45 seconds remaining in the game and Buffalo goalie Don Edwards off in favor of an extra attacker. &ldquo;We needed a game like that,&rdquo; said Dudley.It was only the second time this season that the Sabres went into the third period of a game trailing and did not lose. They tied the other time, also, scoring three third-period goals. The Sabres lost seven times when they were behind after two periods.The Buffalo defense, which looked so solid a year ago, was at fault for most of the nine goals in the loss to Montreal and the tie with Minnesota. Time and again an opposing player cruised in on goal all alone, or was alone in front of the net for a pass.Sunday night the Sabres exploded for a 10-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Buffalo. Dudley scored three goals, his first NHL hat trick since 1973-74, and Tony McKegney had two. Savard played center with Dudley and Craig Ramsay much of the game, against the Penguins&rsquo; high-scoring line of Paul Gardner. Rick Kehoe and Ross Lonsberry. Savard assisted on one of Dudley&rsquo;s goals. The line shut out the Gardner line.The odd thing about the game was that Pittsubrgh outshot Buffalo, 11-4, in the first period but trailed, 2-1. Then, in the second period, the Sabres went wild. They scored four goals in a stretch of 3:30 during the first five minutes of play.Bill Hajt, who missed 12 games because of a broken foot, returned to the Buffalo defense in the Minnesota game but another backliner, Richie Dunn, suffered a knee injury. &#9632;

Sabres Sharpened By Surging Savard

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FEELING SATISFIED!

<div class="byline">BY JAY GREENBERG</div>PHILADELPHIA - The Flyers last week traded Cyd Barnes and her husband, Norm, to the Hartford Whalers for a No. 2 draft choice in either 1980 or 1981. A new anthem singer has not yet been auditioned, but a couple of defensemen, Blake Wesley and Terry Murray, are already in Norm&rsquo;s place.It&rsquo;s a great life being a hockey player, as long as you buy houses which have wheels on them. Two years ago Norm was a 25-year-old career minor leaguer. Last year he was playing in the NHL All Star Game, the best defenseman on the league&rsquo;s first-place club. Last Friday he was packing up to join the Whalers for a game in Calgary.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no use crying over spilled milk,&rdquo; said Norm. &ldquo;We bought a house here last spring. The carpeting, as a matter of fact, was just laid yesterday. But I guess I&rsquo;m not the first guy to go through this.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, I&rsquo;ve got about five different ideas about moving, staying, selling the house, keeping it. I just haven&rsquo;t had enough time to think about it. All I know is that I&rsquo;ll be in Calgary by one o&rsquo;clock tomorrow afternoon.&rdquo;Barnes, who missed most of the second half of last season with a severe groin pull, has been healthy this year, but more than just a conditioning edge was lost in the long layoff. With the 21-year-old Wesley looking more and more like a major-leaguer and some additional clones being developed in Maine for possible emergency, help, the Flyers took the Whalers&rsquo; generous offer and ran.Hartford is already in the soup for a No. 2 pick to Chicago for goalie Mike Veisor. The Hawks have the option of taking it this June or next. &ldquo;It really doesn&rsquo;t matter to us,&rdquo; said Flyers&rsquo; general manager Keith Allen. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll wait.&rdquo;Jack Kelley, the Whalers&rsquo; director of hockey operations, had asked about Barnes three weeks ago, but settled for Jack Mcllhargey (for a middleround draft choice) instead. The Flyers promised to get back to Kelley once they got a better reading on the physical condition of both Jimmy Watson and Bob Dailey.In the meantine, Wesley has not looked out of place. So essentially the Flyers secured a high second-round pick for two spare defensemen. &ldquo;What we&rsquo;ve done is given them Norm in addition to Jack and upgraded the considerations,&rdquo; said Allen. In view of Allen&rsquo;s ravenous hunger for draft choices, it&rsquo;s amazing he chanced the deal falling through in those two weeks.Still, our eyes did not deceive us a year ago. Barnes was one of the six best defensemen in the Campbell Conference at All Star voting time. It wasn&rsquo;t a strong field, but he did deserve the honor. And with Watson and Dailey in and out of the lineup with injuries, there certainly would have been no 35-game unbeaten streak without Norm.Barnes was the same player this year, doing the same things, but his timing and judgement had deserted him. Coach Pat Quinn remained patient through a &lsquo;quarter of the season, but the truth is there were seven Flyer defensemen playing better than Norm.Watson&rsquo;s back leaves his day-to-day availability for the rest of the season in question, but Frank Bathe, the surviving seventh man, had done an adequate job. And even if Barnes finds last year&rsquo;s form again in Hartford, there will be no second-guessing of the trade here. With 18 and 19-year-olds now permanently draft-eligible, the Flyers have a solid chance of landing a significant talent with what should be a high No. 2 pick.&ldquo;If we run into injury problems, we still have a few guys in Maine who we feel we could still call up if we are left short, said Allen. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re getting really good reports on Glen Cochrane and Reid Bailey and there&rsquo;s still Thomas Eriksson, who one day will play for us.&rdquo;There is always the possibility that Keith is closer to packaging one of his goalies and surplus forwards for a quality defenseman than he&rsquo;s letting on. But the GM swore on a stack of pucks he&rsquo;s no longer looking to trade Rick MacLeish, even with Ken Linseman&rsquo;s return imminent. And the kind of defenseman who would significantly upgrade a team like the Flyers remains, as time eternal, in short supply.So too, may be the number of good years you&rsquo;re going to get from a journeyman like Barnes. So the Flyers, who drafted Norm out of Michigan State in the eighth round in 1973, and signed Mcllhargey as a free agent, have effectively recycled the pair into a No. 2 choice.Where that leaves a good guy who persevered five years in the minors and now finds his one chance for a Stanley Cup yanked from beneath him, is the unfortunate portion of the story.&ldquo;I thought they&rsquo;d work something out,&rdquo; said Barnes. &ldquo;But I didn&rsquo;t expect a trade. I thought maybe they&rsquo;d work out some kind of rotation to give us all some playing time, but when I saw Keith Allen at practice today I thought, Oh boy, here we go.&rsquo;&ldquo;Then Pat said he had to talk to me. I saw Keith and he mumbled something about future considerations.&ldquo;I know I got off to a slow start. My timing, my passing, was way off, but I thought I hit a stretch there for five or six games where it was coming around. Then that blowout [7-3 in Montreal when Barnes was on for four goals against] and things started to go downhill.&ldquo;Part of it, I guess, was the long laW)ff. I guess I could sound off about it being unfair, but it wouldn&rsquo;t do any good.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of a disappointment. Hartford&rsquo;s not going to win the Stanley Cup, like this one may, and it&rsquo;s kind of tough to get your thoughts together right away. It&rsquo;s sort of, oh, what&rsquo;s the word?&rdquo;Traumatic?&ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Norm Barnes, &ldquo;is nicely put.&rdquo;ICEBERGS &mdash; Ken Linseman who has missed the entire season recuperating from a broken leg suffered in an exhibition game, was hoping to be back in the lineup by mid-December. &#9632;

Barnes To Whalers Sweetens Fiver Pot

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Cover-01

The Hockey News THE INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY WEEKLY VOL. 34 NO. 11 DECEMBER 12,1980 64522 $1.00

<h2>The NHL</h2>Boston&hellip;&hellip;7Buffalo&hellip;&hellip;7Calgary&hellip;&hellip;15Chicago&hellip;&hellip;18Colorado&hellip;&hellip;4Detroit&hellip;&hellip;21Edmonton&hellip;&hellip;39Hartford&hellip;&hellip;39Los Angeles&hellip;&hellip;9Minnesota&hellip;&hellip;5Montreal&hellip;&hellip;18Islanders&hellip;&hellip;17Rangers&hellip;&hellip;6Philadelphia&hellip;&hellip;21Pittsburgh&hellip;&hellip;12Quebec&hellip;&hellip;39St. Louis&hellip;&hellip;10Toronto&hellip;&hellip;14Vancouver&hellip;&hellip;13Washington&hellip;&hellip;19Winnipeg&hellip;&hellip;9<h2>The Minors</h2>AHL&hellip;&hellip;22CHL&hellip;&hellip;23IHL&hellip;&hellip;24EHL&hellip;&hellip;26<h2>The Colleges</h2>WCHA&hellip;&hellip;27Canadian&hellip;&hellip;28ECAC&hellip;&hellip;30CCHA&hellip;&hellip;30<h2>The Amateurs</h2>OHL&hellip;&hellip;31WHL&hellip;&hellip;32QMJHL&hellip;&hellip;33<h2>Columnists</h2>Frank Orr&hellip;&hellip;2Bob Verdi&hellip;&hellip;4Ken McKenzie&hellip;&hellip;5Bill Fleischman&hellip;&hellip;12Stan Fischler&hellip;&hellip;14<h2>Features</h2>Tony Esposito&hellip;&hellip;3NHL Attendance&hellip;&hellip;6NHL Scoring&hellip;&hellip;16Slapshots&hellip;&hellip;20College Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;29Hockey Classified&hellip;&hellip;33NHL Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;34NHL Rosters&hellip;&hellip;35Minor Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;36Amateur Scoreboard&hellip;36 &#9632;

Where To Find It…

<div class="byline">FRANK ORR&#x2019;S</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011452/6567229-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="309" height="355"></div><h2>A Boost For The Elderly</h2>THE YOUTH-KICK is on in the National Hockey League. Most teams claim they&rsquo;re building with youngsters, lads who shave only every third day. A few clubs are considering the idea of replacing their training rooms with sand boxes, and one club has a Jolly Jumper on order.Now that&rsquo;s fine, because youth must be served and all that garbage! The NHL probably never has had as many talented kids, boys 22 and under with skill, speed and pep. But as Bob Plager, the distinguished scout for the St. Louis Blues said: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s getting a little ridiculous how young the kids are in this game. We have two who are so young that they went into a bar and ordered Scotch and wa-wa.&rdquo;Now, to those of us who are working on our fifth decade, who have some hinges that creak, the ones who lost our No. 1 hockey hero when Gordie Howe retired at 52, it&rsquo;s heartening to know that there&rsquo;s still a little room in the game for a few old coots.Because of the youth-quake, the number of players in the NHL who have reached their 30th birthdays has decreased noticeably in the past few seasons. It&rsquo;s very doubtful if there will ever be a repeat of a team like the 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs, a pack of hockey geriatrics that won a Stanley Cup and prompted comedian Johnny Wayne to quip. &ldquo;The Leafs&rsquo; problem isn&rsquo;t knee operations; it&rsquo;s prostate surgery.&rdquo;The 1970s were grand times for hockey players of all ages because the team population swelled, at one point to 34 with the NHL and World Hockey Association listing the ability to stand up as the main qualification for earning a berth &mdash; and a high salary &mdash; on a team.However, the merger of the two leagues and the underage draft in which players 18 and 19 years of age are selected and granted the opportunity to earn major league employment has made the existence in the NHL hazardous for any man who has reached his 30s.&ldquo;Our team is on the road and I&rsquo;m looking around for someone to go have a drink with who isn&rsquo;t going to get asked for his birth certificate in a bar,&rdquo; said one NHL oldtimer, an ancient 32.&ldquo;Suddenly, it hit me: I&rsquo;m the oldest guy on the team by quite a bit. It was a shocker. Hell, I don&rsquo;t even own a pair of jeans or cowboy boots.&rdquo;<h2>A Few Good Oldtimers</h2>THAT&rsquo;S WHY IT was heartening when Jean Ratelle, 40, was able to shake off the ailment of the elderly &mdash; a pain in the back &mdash; and restore his elegance to the Boston Bruins.Oldsters don&rsquo;t ever want to hear that Dave Keon, 40, is considering retirement because the Hartford Whaler center still moves as well as any player in the game.To those who hear all the time that it&rsquo;s difficult for the middle-aged to find a job, it&rsquo;s reassuring to know that Tony Esposito, 37, wants to play every game in the Chicago Black Hawks&rsquo; net and is capable of doing it. It wasn&rsquo;t exactly a downer to those with a little gray in their hair when Tony&rsquo;s brother Phil, 38, signed a new contract for more than one year with the New York Rangers.The Vancouver Canucks have some splendid young players but I&rsquo;m rooting for winger Bobby Schmautz, his body all achin&rsquo; and wracked with pain, to strike a blow of all old lads by leading the team in scoring. Schmautz is an ancient 35.Gary Green, a young whelp of 27, coaches the Washington Capitals and he demonstrated a little wisdom by realizing that a little experience isn&rsquo;t a bad thing. Thus, two players considered washed-up by their previous clubs &mdash; Jean Pronovost, 35, and Bob &ldquo;Hound&rdquo; Kelly, 30,. are playing key roles for the revitalized Caps because they&rsquo;ve been there and know the price that must be paid.<h2>Leaders By Example</h2>THE MOST IMPORTANT thing players of that age and caliber can add to a team of brats is a total professional attitude.&ldquo;Pronovost just knows how to play the game so well that he&rsquo;s a great help to me in teaching things to young players,&rdquo; Green said. &ldquo;Any new wrinkle I try takes a little time for the green kids to master but Pronovost can simply do it properly the first time.&ldquo;Kelly might not have the greatest physical talent in history,&rdquo; Green went on, &ldquo;but he&rsquo;s showed our kids how to be &lsquo;up&rsquo; and ready for every game.&rdquo;The Maple Leafs appeared to have winger Dan Maloney, 30, assigned to the scrap heap this season, a casualty in their rebuilding job with kids. Throughout training camp and the preseason series, Ol&rsquo; Satch spent much of the time working out with the taxi-squad.Maloney kept his mouth shut and his energy open. He worked his buns off so when the call did come, he was ready to answer it. When several precocious youngsters played themselves out of the picture, Maloney got the call.&ldquo;If our young players would watch Maloney and copy his attitude, we wouldn&rsquo;t be having any problems,&rdquo; said Leaf coach Joe Crozier. &ldquo;He is always ready to play. I wish he could share his intensity with all our players.&rdquo; &#9632;

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HOCKEY VIEWPOINT

Harold Ballard, the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Maple Leaf Gardens, is 76 years old. But the grueling schedule he maintains and the pace at which he and King Clancy, 77, Ballard&rsquo;s inseperable friend, live their lives would exhaust a man one-third their age. Tom Murray, the Editor-In-Chief of THE HOCKEY NEWS, recently spent several days following Ballard and Clancy around and recovered in time to write our cover story for next week&rsquo;s issue. Don&rsquo;t miss the story or the surprise cover of this special pre-Christmas edition! &#9632;

Coming Next Week

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011601/6567284-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tony Esposito, 37, has spent 13 seasons in the NHL &mdash; 11 of them with the Black Hawks &mdash; and this is the first year his goals-against average has exceeded 4.00. (Photo by Robert Shaver)</figcaption></div>Anyone who says he enjoys being a goalie is just too dumb to understand the situation,&rdquo; said Tony Esposito, college graduate and magna cum laude in the fine art of stopping flying hockey pucks.&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t fun. It never was fun. But it&rsquo;s a living.&rdquo;Earning his living in opulence has been a mentally oppressive task for Esposito this season.For the first time in his 13-year career in the National Hockey League his goals-against average has soared over 4.00 per-game. Although he went into the season with 73 career shutouts to lead active goalies, as of early December he still was in search of his first shutout this season.Worst of all, the Chicago Black Hawks had fallen to fourth place in the Smythe Division. This is the team that was supposed to have one of the league&rsquo;s strongest defenses. Instead, the Hawks have been getting bombed.And some people are asking: &ldquo;Is Tony 0 over the hill?&rdquo;&ldquo;I know I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; said Esposito, who turned 37 April 23. &ldquo;But I could be more consistent and so could the whole team. As a unit, we&rsquo;re making mistakes. It&rsquo;s embarrassing.&ldquo;Naw, one guy doesn&rsquo;t carry a team. You&rsquo;ve got to have everybody or else you go nowhere.&rdquo; What&rsquo;s bothering me is the way this team is playing.&rdquo;Something else was bothering Esposito during the first two months of the season, the goaltender revealed. He felt that Hawks&rsquo; general manager Bob Pulford didn&rsquo;t want him around.Esposito believes that Eddie Johnston was telling it like it was when the former Chicago coach went public with a private conversation in a hotel room during last year&rsquo;s playoffs. He believes that Pulford, assistant GM Jack Davison, and Keith Magnuson, the current coach but then Johnston&rsquo;s assistant, sat in the hotel room after the Hawks lost to the Sabres and calledTony&ldquo;a loser.&rdquo;&ldquo;Yeah, at times it&rsquo;s tough to play when you think about the feelings that they [Pulford and Davison] have for you,&rdquo; Esposito confided. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough when you realize they have such disrespect for you as a person and as a player.&rdquo;But he hastened to qualify his feelings regarding Magnuson&rsquo;s role in the purported backstabbing: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t blame Keith. If he was involved, I don&rsquo;t think it was intentional.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s face it, he was caught in a precarious position. His future in hockey probably was in the hands of the people cutting me up, the GM and the assistant. He had to go along.&ldquo;The years Keith and I played together we were pretty good friends. I still regard him as my friend. But we both realize that a player and a member of management can&rsquo;t associate or have the camaraderie they used to. It&rsquo;s no good for the rest of the team.&ldquo;Pulford? The first season [1977-78] he came [as coach and general manager] our team had a very decent season &mdash; we were much improved &mdash; and I felt had one of my better years&ldquo;Strike one in our relationship came during that summer, when I found out he was talking about trading me to Los Angeles for Rogie Vachon [whom Pulford coached prior to coming to Chicago],&ldquo;Strike two was our contract troubles prior to last season. Normally, one side makes an offer and the other side makes a counter-offer. That&rsquo;s not the way it worked with Pulford. He wouldn&rsquo;t compromise.&ldquo;Finally, Tommy Ivan [the current vice-president and Pulford&rsquo;s predecessor as GM] got involved. I have great respect for Mr. Ivan. He was the one most instrumental in my signing.&ldquo;Mr. Ivan talked with Mr. Wirtz [Hawk president Bill Wirtz] and we worked out my contract troubles.&ldquo;Believe me when I say I never considered leaving Chicago because of my relationship with Bill Wirtz &mdash; as a person and as a hockey player. Over the years, Bill has been utterly great. He has treated me tremendously.&ldquo;But it wouldn&rsquo;t surprise me at all if I heard Pulford was trying to get rid of me.&rdquo;Immediately after the story that Esposito felt unwanted came out in the Chicago Tribune, Pulford took pains to publicly and privately dispel that impression.&ldquo;I think Esposito has been playing very well,&rdquo; said Pulford. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not his fault that things are going the way they have been. When a goalie lets in shots from the point, you blame him. That hasn&rsquo;t been the case. Most of the goals that the other teams have been getting have been coming from right on top of the goalie.&ldquo;It has also been that way with [backup goalie] Murray Bannerman in the games that he has played. A goalie can&rsquo;t be expected to keep stopping the puck when he&rsquo;s surrounded and they&rsquo;re shooting from close-in.&ldquo;The story that I tried to get Vachon from LA is blown out of proportion. Vachon was a free agent and I talked to his agent. But his agent also approached every other general manager in the NHL looking for the best deal.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t interested for two reasons. I know Vachon had a bad leg and I knew that they&rsquo;d demand Esposito as compensation. I wasn&rsquo;t going to give up Esposito.&ldquo;As far as talking about Esposito in a hotel room, that was distorted. Because of the waiver draft we know we&rsquo;d have to give up one of our goalies - Esposito, Mike Veisor, or Bannerman. Yes, we wondered what we could get for Esposito. But I think every general manager in every sport does that with his star players. The Chicago Bears probably do it with Walter Payton.&rdquo;Johnston has bitterly denounced Pulford and Magnuson since leaving the Hawks and becoming coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins. But the ex-goaltender remains an admirer of Esposito. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the best goalie in hockey,&rdquo; said Johnston. &ldquo;Any time Chicago doesn&rsquo;t want him, they can ship him to me.&rdquo;Lou Nanne, the Minnesota general manager who grew up in Esposito&rsquo;s home town of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., concurs with Johnston. &ldquo;Tony is still number one,&rdquo; said Nanne. &ldquo;Chicago would be in trouble without him.&rdquo;As befits a man who majored in business administration at Michigan Tech, Esposito is an exponent of conservatism in hockey. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to keep the number of shots against you under 30 [which the Hawks haven&rsquo;t been doing] if you possibly can,&rdquo; said Esposito. &ldquo;You do that and you&rsquo;re going to win a lot of hockey games. Play well defensively and let the other team press and make mistakes and you&rsquo;re in business.&ldquo;Rebounds are toughest. You&rsquo;re down on the ice, the opposition gets the puck, and if they have any know-how they put the puck in.&ldquo;When things are working right between the goaltender and defensemen you dominate the rebounds. Screen shots are inevitable at times. You just have to try to get in the way of the puck.&ldquo;My best point is probably my concentration. People who have been going to games for years and years will say: &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t you see me? I&rsquo;m right here in the seats on your left.&rsquo;&ldquo;I say to them: &lsquo;I&rsquo;m there to work, not to be sociable.&rsquo;&ldquo;Playing a weaker team is more of a mental strain for me,&rdquo; Esposito continued. &ldquo;It has never been hard for me to get up for Montreal [with whom he broke into the NHL in 1968-69]. You know if you&rsquo;re not up they&rsquo;re going to fill the net on you. But sometimes you get into a game against a team like Colorado and you&rsquo;re not really ready and, after the first period, you&rsquo;re down two or three goals and have to play catch-up.&ldquo;Marcel Dionne&rsquo;s line is the toughest to play against. I&rsquo;d rather catch their act in Los Angeles than in Chicago Stadium, though. LA&rsquo;s ice is bad, and the worse the ice is the better it is for a goalie. Another thing &mdash; I don&rsquo;t think the climate is conducive to playing hockey.&rdquo;Esposito believes the game has changed since he came to Chicago in 1969-70 and recorded a career-high 15 shutouts in 63 games.&ldquo;The style has changed a lot because of the Boston Bruins and Bobby Orr and my brother, Phil,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;Orr got 120 points and my brother scored 76 goals. They made it more exciting for the people and the people pay our salaries. &ldquo;Pretty soon every team had defensemen carrying the puck and opening up the offense.&ldquo;After Orr got hurt and my brother was traded, Boston kept winning. They didn&rsquo;t have the best skaters or the best checkers or the best shooters. It was grind, grind, grind. But they kept the puck out of the net.&ldquo;Goaltending is different than any position. You rely on your teammates, naturally. But a goal always is partly due to the goalie because he&rsquo;s the last man and he should know what&rsquo;s going on.&rdquo;From the beginning, Esposito has been an acrobatic goaltender. He lunges, dives, sprawls. He does what comes naturally.&ldquo;Your one job is to stop that puck and your reactions and experience tell you what has to be done when it comes,&rdquo; he explained, &ldquo;You should never pattern yourself after one person. You try to get the best points of every goalie you see and use them to the best of your ability. If you copy somebody, you&rsquo;ll always be second best.&ldquo;I think I could sit out two or three years and come back and play like I never left. Jacques Plante did.&ldquo;When I was 17 I quit and never played for two years. I had a chance to play Junior hockey but it would have meant leaving Sault Ste. Marie and probably quitting school. I didn&rsquo;t want to do that.&ldquo;Then, when I was 19 they started a Junior team in Sault Ste. Marie. My dad and a friend were part owners and they kept bugging me to play. They said: &lsquo;Look, if you don&rsquo;t like it you can just walk off and we&rsquo;ll quit bugging you.&rsquo;&ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t want to play anymore because the pressure was too great. I didn&rsquo;t like playing. But they talked me into it. I played for a week or so, our team starting rolling, and before I knew it I got a scholarship to Michigan Tech. I got my education all right, but I also got into hockey deeper than ever.&ldquo;You always enjoy it after you win, but while you&rsquo;re doing it, you don&rsquo;t enjoy it at all. It&rsquo;s a job. You set yourself a standard and you&rsquo;ve got to maintain it.&rdquo;That standard won&rsquo;t tolerate a goals-against average of more than 4.00 over an 80-game season. &ldquo;Come see me in March and see what it is,&rdquo; pledged Esposito. &ldquo;But the main thing is that we start winning again. I don&rsquo;t care if the score is 8-7 as long as we win. That&rsquo;s what it&rsquo;s all about.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Esposito Frustrated By Hawks’ Inconsistency

<div class="byline">BY BOB VERDI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011623/6567315-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="307" height="348"></div><h2>Leaders in Futility</h2>FOR SHEER FUTILITY, few teams, if any in professional sports, match the Detroit Red Wings. They have qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs in just two of the last 14 seasons; make that 15 seasons if you prepare for the inevitable failure this season.This feat is not easy, mind you. The NHL, a permissive society if ever there was one, takes care of virtually all its poor and all its crippled when it comes to making the playoffs. You really have to be a terrible organization to have your season end with the regular season in the NHL.But, of course, the Detroit Red Wings are a terrible organization. I would rather be Rip Van Winkle than a Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; sufferer. At least I could sleep while they are sleeping.The topic of the Detroit Red Wings seems timely, if not palatable, because they just fired another coach the other day. Ted Lindsay took it on the chin. You knew he would. It was just a matter of time.Since Sid Abel ended a relatively stable tenure as the Red Wings&rsquo; coach in 1967-68, this ersatz professional sports franchise has held several public hangings. Bill Gadsby followed him as coach, then Abel came back, then Abel left for Ned Harkness, who was followed by Doug Barkley, who was followed by Johnny Wilson, who was followed by Ted Garvin, who was followed by Alex Delvecchio, who was followed by Barkley again, who was followed by Delvecchio again, who was followed by Larry Wilson, who was followed by Bobby Kromm, who was followed by Lindsay, who just gave way to Wayne Maxner, who surely will be followed by somebody else sometime soon for some reason.<h2>Absorbing The Lumps</h2>EITHER ALL OF these men were incompetent, or the man at the top, Bruce Norris, is incompetent. The record suggests that the latter gentleman wins the sack race, hands down. Numerous alleged front office geniuses who tap danced through the six-team league thinking they knew it all have proven to know very little. But, alas, Bruce Norris has absorbed the greatest lumps of all. Watching his onetime proud hockey team play other hockey teams which are just barely born is a laughable sight these days, especially if you are the other team.What&rsquo;s amazing is that the hockey fans of Detroit bother to support his team at all, anymore. They are great hockey fans, fans who were treated to excellence during the 1940s and 1950s and part of the 1960s. One suspects that they pay to watch the Red Wings now, not because they believe in what is happening, but because they enjoy the sport, albeit a travesty the way the Red Wings play it.There have been several regimes in Detroit, not one of which has worked lately. Ned Harkness came in from the Ivy League and told Delvecchio, then a player, to stop smoking cigars. Then there was Jim Bishop, who sure knew a lot about lacrosse. Then there was the pitiable Garvin, who started saying hello just when it was time to say good-bye. Then Delvecchio took over to discover a problem that those before him and those after him would discover &mdash; this franchise doesn&rsquo;t have any hockey players. Lindsay tried to resurrect the mess, lit the fire briefly from the GM&rsquo;s chair while Kromm did likewise below, but now they are all in the ashcan, too, as Mr. Maxner awaits his day before the firing squad.<h2>Howe Was Embarrassed</h2>EMBARRASSMENT BY NO means has been confined to the sacrificial lambs who have been installed in management positions. A fellow by the name of Gordon Howe, who might have been the greatest player who ever lived, couldn&rsquo;t satisfy the whims of the Wings either.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sick of what&rsquo;s going on over there,&rdquo; said Howe, who blasted the organization upon quitting in 1973. The Red Wings should have, could have, placed him in some meaningful position. Instead, they were too busy uncovering bright guys who could tell them about lacrosse. So Howe got the mushroom treatment, as he called it, and sought gainful employment in the World Hockey Association while Norris chafed.&ldquo;We are a disgrace out there,&rdquo; said then-Red Wing Marcel Dionne not long afterward. &ldquo;The Red Wings are a joke, and I can&rsquo;t wait to get the hell out of here.&rdquo;Dionne, one of the most talented athletes then or now, got his wish, and the Red Wings experienced another humiliation. After many of these comeuppances, Norris resorted to a really terrific excuse. Media brutality. The press has been too hard on us, said the man who fired Jack Adams.Is the chap Norris for real? Sadly for the fans of the Detroit Red Wings, he is. While they annually change nameplates on their front office doors for effect, then make atrocious player personnel decisions, then miss the playoffs again, the owner sits up wherever he sits and says things will get better. Meanwhile, they get worse.Mr. Norris often claims he wants to sell this Titanic. If I were a Red Wings&rsquo; fan, my question would be not why, but when? They built Mr. Norris a new building in Detroit to allay his earlier threats of leaving. But now, if and when Mr. Norris departs, the words should not be goodbye, but good riddance. &#9632;

f0004-01

HOCKEY TALK

<div class="byline">BY FRED PIETILA</div>DENVER &mdash; For a National Hockey League rookie, Paul Gagne started on the right foot.And for an 18-year-old National Hockey League rookie, Paul Gagne really started on the right foot.A quarter of the way through the NHL season, Gagne was scoring goals at a 40-goal-a-season pace, a pace which staggered his imagination.&ldquo;Ten goals in the first 20 games,&rdquo; Gagne mused one afternoon. &ldquo;I believe it, but its hard to believe because I never thought I&rsquo;d score 10 goals this soon.&rdquo;For that matter, through training camp, Gagne nourished thoughts that he might be returned to his Windsor Spitfires junior hockey team. But the Iroquois Falls, Ont., native kept working, kept impressing and has made it as one of only two 18-year-olds in the league. The other is defenseman Mickey Volcan of Hartford.The notion of an 18-year-old playing in the NHL boggles some people&rsquo;s minds &mdash; although both super rookies of last season &mdash; Boston&rsquo;s Ray Bourque and Edmonton&rsquo;s Wayne Gretzky, started their outstanding rookie seasons as 18-year-olds. Gagne, though, is playing better than even the Rockies expected.He was selected 19th overall in last summer&rsquo;s entry draft, when the Rockies swapped No. 1 choices with the Montreal Canadiens and although Colorado knew they were getting a quality player, they never dreamed Gagne would develop so quickly.But he has impressed them with a keen goal-scoring knack, good skating and a hard shot.&ldquo;No I don&rsquo;t feel there&rsquo;s any pressure,&rdquo; Gagne said. &ldquo;Just in training camp when I was the first draft choice and felt a lot was expected of me. I worked harder than I should have. I had a hard time breathing. Now I just go as the game goes and I don&rsquo;t think of anything else.&rdquo;&ldquo;We never thought an 18-year-old rookie would be our leading goal-scorer at one point in the season,&rdquo; Rockies&rsquo; coach Billy MacMillan said, &ldquo;but Paul&rsquo;s got an excellent learning personality. He just knows his position. On and off the ice, he realizes his position.&rdquo;Gagne blended well with a young Rockies&rsquo; team and had the aid of veterans Walter McKechnie and Lanny McDonald in the early going as he was finding his way.&ldquo;Lanny and Walt have been really good to me,&rdquo; Gagne said. &ldquo;They tell me what to do and really keep on me. They help me a lot. They let me fit in. It&rsquo;s a good feeling.&rdquo;The fact that the Rockies have the second youngest team in the NHL didn&rsquo;t hurt Gagne&rsquo;s smooth transition from juniors to the pros.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s one thing, too, the guys being so young helps,&rdquo; Gagne said. &ldquo;On some teams you have older guys that think they&rsquo;re real special and don&rsquo;t even bother with the younger guys. Look at Lanny McDonald here, with all the publicity he gets. He shouldn&rsquo;t even bother with me, but he helps me out a lot.&rdquo;Gagne expressed surprise in training camp on the first day he was teamed with McDonald on a line. The season got under way and Gagne was scoring more goals than McDonald, who earlier this season reached the 250-goal milestone against his former team, the Toronto Maple Leafs.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good feeling,&rdquo; Gagne said, when told he is the second youngest player in the NHL. &ldquo;When I thought about that, I said I don&rsquo;t believe that there&rsquo;s only one other guy in the league 18 years old. I&rsquo;m kind of proud. A lot of guys my age would like to be in my spot.&rdquo;There were plenty of folks around the Rockies who were skeptical of Gagne even after he started scoring goals. Skeptics said that since he was playing with vets McKechnie and McDonald he should score goals. True enough, but one has to get into position to score and then be able to pull the trigger and put the puck in the net. A lot of players can&rsquo;t; Gagne can.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021431/6567384-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="572" height="667"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Rockies have been pleasantly surprised by Paul Gagne, the second youngest player in the NHL.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I sure hope it continues,&rdquo; Gagne mused of his early scoring. &ldquo;I sure hope the puck keeps going in for me. My confidence is really the important thing.&rdquo;While there has been nothing wrong with Gagne&rsquo;s offensive play, his defensive play suffers a little &mdash; a fact which does not escape the modest and personable young man.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m working on taking my man a little more,&rdquo; Gagne said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to keep working on taking my man and I&rsquo;ve got to work more on my defense. And I&rsquo;ve also got to start finishing my checks and all that. But that&rsquo;s going to come with time.&rdquo;As far as the Rockies are concerned, Gagne is ahead of his time. &#9632;

f0004-02

Rockie Rookie Surprised By Smooth Pro Transition

<div class="byline">BY PAT THOMPSON</div>BLOOMINGTON &mdash; During a recent road trip made by the Minnesota North Stars, defenseman Greg Smith made an interesting statement.&ldquo;Somebody better call the cops,&rdquo; he was heard to say.OK, Greg, we&rsquo;ll bite. Why?&ldquo;Because we just stole a game.&rdquo;How does that cliche go? The good teams show their trademark for victory even on an off night. Or, a hot goalie will keep you close enough to let you steal a couple of points.Either way, the North Stars have been committing a lot of larceny in the National Hockey League these days. Oh, they&rsquo;ve been playing very well and winning. But even on off nights, they&rsquo;re coming through with victories or ties.In the game to which Smith alluded, the Stars had been outshot 28-15 in Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers. Final score? North Stars win, 5-3.A very big reason is the goaltending team of veteran Gilles Meloche and 19-year-old rookie Don Beaupre. They&rsquo;ve been so sharp this season that proven veteran Gary Edwards has yet to make a start.Beaupre is a special case. Including that &ldquo;steal&rdquo; against the Rangers, the native of Kitchener, Ont. had a 2.55 goals-against average and a 6-3-2 record in his first 11 games.Not bad for an under-age draft selection (second round last summer) who thought he might be headed back to the Sudbury team in the Ontario junior league if he didn&rsquo;t stick with the Stars after training camp.The North Stars have been committing a lot of larceny &hellip; even on off-nights, they&rsquo;re coming through with wins or ties.The 5-8, 155-pound goalie had been so good, in fact, that the Stars are ready to launch a campaign to promote Beaupre&rsquo;s candidacy as a genuine contender for the Calder Trophy that goes to the NHL&rsquo;s top rookie.The Ontario junior circuit is a scorer&rsquo;s league and the Stars were convinced by scout Gump Worsley that Beaupre was a much better goalie than his 4.32 average indicated in 1979-80. Consider, too, he played in 59 games and logged 3,447 minutes.He won&rsquo;t get that much work with the Stars, not with a quality goalie like Meloche to team with &mdash; and Beaupre is very much aware of that fact.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to step in and take any games away from Gilles,&rdquo; Beaupre said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s playing much too well for that to happen. I do feel twice as confident as I ever did before. But it just wasn&rsquo;t me who won that game against the Rangers. Everybody counts.&rdquo;Coach Glen Sonmor tended to disagree about Beaupre downplaying his role in the Ranger game. &ldquo;We were outplayed worse in that game than we have been all year,&rdquo; he said.In the games before and after that New York visit, it was Meloche&rsquo;s turn to work his magic. Just like he did in three playoff victories on Montreal ice last spring. Meloche was outstanding in the first meeting of the season between the teams.The Canadiens outshot the Stars 34-32. Final score? North Stars win, 4-2.In his next start at Washington, the Caps ended with a 34-24 edge in shots. Final score? A 3-3 tie, although the Stars were leading 3-1 at one time.Meloche used that pair of games to lift his record to 7-2-3 with a goals-against average of 3.08.Together, the two goalies have combined to limit opponents to 66 goals in Minnesota&rsquo;s first 23 games. Only Philadelphia had allowed fewer as the NHL went into the second week of December.Sonmor is very pleased with that figure, but he is happier about the team&rsquo;s play on the road this season. The Stars won only 10 games out of 40 on the road last season. This year, they were 6-3-4 for the first 13 away games.Somebody better call the cops if that continues into May.STAR DUST &mdash; There was good and bad news from the injury department. Jack Carlson reinjured his. back and was sent to the Mayo Clinic for tests. Tests showed the fusion from last year&rsquo;s spinal surgery was still solid and that the big left winger had suffered only strained muscles &hellip; Center Mike Eaves underwent a brain scan after suffering another in a series of concussions &hellip; Left winger Steve Christoff was ready to return from a shoulder injury, his second of the year &hellip; Defenseman Gary Sargent has been in and out of the lineup all season and he was having tests for an injured back &hellip; Defenseman Brad Maxwell still had his cast on a leg from knee problems &hellip; Right winger Jim Dobson and defenseman Murray Brumwell, were both called up from Oklahoma City.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011544/6567415-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="559" height="1125"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gilles Meloche, above, is still a mainstay for the North Stars, but he has a new partner in rookie Don Beaupre.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0005-01

Meloche, Beaupre Stealing Points For Stars

<div class="byline">KEN MCKENZIE&#x2019;S</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-021112/6567467-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="288" height="342"></div>&bull; CLAUDE RUEL, coach of the Montreal Canadiens, disgusted with the play of several of his high-priced veterans of late, tore into his players after a recent Forum workout. He also had a private meeting with captain Serge Savard. Ruel made it clear that he was fed up with the second-rate efforts displayed by many of his highly-touted charges &hellip; Guy Lafleur, sidelined much of this season with inflamed tonsils, has finally given up smoking. The fleet Montreal forward has been a two-pack a day man for years, yet he&rsquo;s still been able to maintain his amazing speed and endurance on the ice. There are few players with his stamina around today &hellip; The University of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota at Duluth were tied in a recent college hockey poll for top spot in the nation. Boston College was selected third and Michigan Tech fourth &hellip; Hap Day, who coached the Toronto Maple Leafs to three-consecutive Stanley Cups in late 1940s, had one of the best quotes about the late Conn Smythe, who was running the Leafs at that time. &ldquo;Most people go to bed to sleep, but he goes to bed to think,&rdquo; said Day, who is still rated as one of hockey&rsquo;s finest coaches and possessor of one of the league&rsquo;s best coaching records &hellip; Carl Voss, the first player ever signed to a Toronto Maple Leaf contract and former NHL referee-in-chief, is enjoying retirement in Florida. Carl will be 74 next month &hellip; When Floyd Thomson, captain of the Salt Lake Golden Eagles, plays 10 more games he will match Denis Meloche&rsquo;s career total of 282 games with the Eagles &hellip; The Salt Lake power play converted at least once in 17 of the club&rsquo;s initial 18 games this season en route to a league-leading 31 power play goals &hellip; Don Maloney, 22-year-old New York Rangers left winger, is known as the King of the Cornermen. After only two NHL seasons, Maloney has become a master manipulator of the sideboards, a true maestro of the muckers. It&rsquo;s too bad there aren&rsquo;t more players like Maloney on the Ranger roster &hellip; Charlie Schulz, the famed cartoonist and hockey buff, will be the recipient of the 1981 Lester Patrick Award on February 9 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles as part of the All Star dinner &hellip; Garry Unger opened the season wearing No. 27 for the Los Angeles Kings. Recently he switched to No. 77.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-03731/6567460-1-eng-US/f0005-032.jpg" title="f0005-03" width="403" height="513"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dan Maloney</figcaption></div>&bull; TORONTO AND MONTREAL seem to be close to making a trade. However, if one or two things aren&rsquo;t cleared up soon the trade could be called off. It would send goalie Denis Herron and right winger Mark Napier, a Toronto native, to the Leafs in exchange for Robert Picard, first-round draft pick of Washington in 1977, who was traded to the Leafs for Mike Palmateer during the summer, plus a first-round pick at the next entry draft &hellip; Richard Sevigny is expected to finish the season as the Canadiens&rsquo; backup goalie to Bunny Larocque &hellip; The Winnipeg Jets, with one of the sorriest records in the league, are in dire straits for an experienced defenseman. The Jets have a penchant for losing games in the final minutes, and in some cases final seconds, and if they could obtain an experienced blueliner they feel their cause would be aided considerably &hellip; Normand Dupont and Danny Geoffrion combined to score one goal for the Canadiens last season. As the Jets headed into December, the two had accounted for 19 goals for Winnipeg. Geoffrion had scored 10 and Dupont nine, several of which were game-winners &hellip; Denis Cyr, the outstanding Montreal Junior who was called up for four games with the Calgary Flames, pick up one assist against the Canadiens in his first NHL game and a goal against Winnipeg. Cyr was a member of the famed &ldquo;Denis&rdquo; forward line, composed of Cyr, Denis Savard, and Denis Tremblay, which terrorized opposing goalies in the Quebec Major League for years. Incidentally, all the members of that line were born on the same day, February 4, 1961 &hellip; Savard has been scoring goals at a great rate for the Chicago Black Hawks and he, along with Larry Murphy of Los Angeles, Peter Stastny of Quebec, Dave Christian of Winnipeg and Don Beaupre of Minnesota, will all be a strong candidate for the NHL rookie award for 1980-81 &hellip; The Minnesota North Star are gaining a reputation as the best skating team in the National Hockey League, probably because they hired Dick Vraa to teach the North Stars to skate properly on a fulltime basis. Vraa, formerly a top-ranked United States figure skater, is the only skating coach employed fulltime in the NHL. The North Stars reserve 20 minutes of every practice session for skating instruction by Vraa.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-04454/6567453-1-eng-US/f0005-042.jpg" title="f0005-04" width="411" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">Denis Savard</figcaption></div>&bull; MIKE BOSSY of the New York Islanders is the NHL&rsquo;s most proficient scorer. He boasted a .785 average when we went to press, which means that he scores nearly four goals in every five games. Remarkable! No other goal-scoring great of the past can duplicate Bossy&rsquo;s phenomenal mark. Cy Denneny and Babe Dye, with .767 and .738 marks respectively, played their hockey back in the 1920s, but not even such contemporary scoring stars as Phil Esposito, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull or Maurice Richard come close to matching Bossy&rsquo;s fantastic achievements. Bossy would appear to be the most likely player to score 100 goals in a season &hellip; The Montreal Canadiens and hockey fans in Montreal did themselves proud in honoring Roger Doucet prior to a recent game against Minnesota. The popular Doucet, who sings O Canada before each Canadiens&rsquo; home game, received a check for $25,000 plus all kinds of assorted gifts. The 61-year-old Doucet is recovering from a serious brain operation. Bob Beale, one of the main organizers of the event, selected a special night to honor Roger. It took place on the 56th anniversary of the first pro game played at the Forum &hellip; Mike Liut, clever goalie of the St. Louis Blues, is starting to receive some of the credit due him. The Blues play wide-open hockey and Liut is the one responsible for holding the team together. A latter-day Ken Dryden, the 6-2 Liut will be a Vezina Trophy winner one day &hellip; Belated birthday congratulations to Dink Carroll, sports columnist of the Montreal Gazette, who recently turned 80, and Camil DesRoches, publicity director of the Montreal Forum. Camil, who has been associated in one capacity or another with the Canadiens since 1946, turned 66. Carroll, long regarded as one of best sports writers in both Canada and the United States, is now the oldest living columnist writing for a major Canadian newspaper &hellip; The Boston Bruins have improved considerably ever since the veteran Jean Ratelle joined the team after being sidelined most of the year with a bad back &hellip; The Hartford Whalers are expected to become involved in a multi-trade deal any day now &hellip; Doug Soetaert is gaining more confidence now that he has won the Rangers&rsquo; No. 1 goalkeeper position. He&rsquo;s been knocking at the door for a long time and he&rsquo;s hoping he can keep the top spot.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-05272/6567446-1-eng-US/f0005-052.jpg" title="f0005-05" width="418" height="514"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Liut</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0005-02

PASSING THE PUCK

<div class="byline">BY RICH FRIEDMAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011721/6567498-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Thomas, who was recently named as the goaltending coach, made his first start in the Rangers&rsquo; goal in more than a month and emerged with a victory.</figcaption></div>NEW YORK &mdash; Craig Patrick insists that he is merely the interim coach of the Rangers.If the Broadway Blueshirts keep winning with Patrick pushing the buttons, interim could last a long time.After orchestrating his Rangers for eight games following the axing of Fred Shero, Patrick had a 5-2-1 record to show for it and the New Yorkers suddenly emerged as a formidable NHL force.Even in losing, the Rangers have looked like winners. The December 1st Madison Square Garden match against the Minnesota North Stars was a case in point.The Rangers had outshot and outplayed the North Stars but lost the game, 5-3. They had hit the goalpost at least four times. &ldquo;Part of his equipment,&rdquo; said Patrick of North Stars&rsquo; rookie goalie Don Beaupre. And they had allowed Minnesota to rebound from a 2-1 deficit to a 3-2 lead with two goals in eight seconds left in the second period.&ldquo;Were you happy with team&rsquo;s play for 59 minutes and 52 seconds?&rdquo; Patrick was asked. His eyes narrowed and he carefully composed his reply.&ldquo;I was happy with our play for 60 minutes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We still have a ways to go but I was very pleased with our play, our effort and our overall sticking to our system. The team worked hard.&rdquo;Someone observed that it was becoming a bit of a game, this effort to extract a harsh word from the Rangers&rsquo; rookie coach/GM/Director of Operations. He was asked if he saw in the future a night when he would not be pleased.&ldquo;I hope not, I don&rsquo;t think so. I believe in this team.&rdquo;Thus is the Rangers&rsquo; very self-image being shaped, following their emergence from the void of the first 20 games of the season under Fred Shero&rsquo;s faltering, and sabotaged, leadership. That was a time when the Rangers looked in the mirror and saw nothing, when they looked to each other and were answered with shrugs.Now, they are coming off the adrenalin-high that characterizes a change of coaches, and are being forced to look to themselves. And what they found in Winnipeg two days after the Minnesota defeat was the ability to quell a third-period rally by the Jets and pull out a 4-3 victory on a late goal by Don Maloney.On December 5th the Rangers had their third straight victory on the road when rookie Mike Allison scored two goals and they beat the Edmonton Oilers, 5-1.In a season tinged with irony, the goal tending heroics that night were provided by none other than new assistant coach Wayne Thomas, whose playing career appeared to be all but over last month and who had not played since October 25th. That was before major knee surgery ended John Davidson&rsquo;s season.&ldquo;The toughest thing was when Craig asked me to coach.&rdquo; Thomas said later. &ldquo;You spend all year during your playing career staying sharp. For 10 days after I thought my playing career was over, I took it easy and put on a couple of pounds.&ldquo;I was sorry I wasn&rsquo;t going to play any more, but happy to get the opportunity to coach and the luxury of being offered it under a player&rsquo;s contract.&rdquo;With Davidson sidelined, Thomas had to re-tune his motors. Patrick is leaving the goaltenders&rsquo; rotation in the hands of Thomas and Doug Soetaert.&ldquo;Goalies know how they think; most coaches just guess,&rdquo; Thomas explained. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s good for both people when faith is shown in both of them; a Number Two goalie tends to assume the role of the second-stringer. A lot of goalies in this league have been ruined by management.&rdquo;Added Soetaert: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty easy to endorse a two-goalie system providing you&rsquo;re one of the goalies.&rdquo;A month ago, neither man could make such statements. Nor, for that matter, could Davidson.NOTES: Dave Maloney wore the captain&rsquo;s &ldquo;C&rdquo; for the last time in the Edmonton game. Beginning with the 5-4 victory over the Chicago Black Hawks at the Garden on Sunday, December 7th. veteran center Walter Tkaczuk wore the &ldquo;C&rdquo; and early in February he will be replaced by Barry Beck. The new arrangement followed discussions between Patrick and those three players, who were designated the Rangers&rsquo; co-captains this past summer. It is bound to help Beck, who is moving the puck more and is steadier on defense now.Steve Vickers, playing more consistently then he had all season, scored two goals in 2:25 in the Chicago game, which was Soetaert&rsquo;s sixth victory of the year, a career high for him. Ed Johnston, who recently ended a long scoring drought, had his fourth of the year, and Tkaczuk had three assists.&ldquo;Beginner&rsquo;s luck,&rdquo; said Vickers of Tkaczuk. his new captain. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s see how he does at the first team party.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0006-01

Rangers Forge New Image

<div class="byline">BY CHARLIE HALPIN</div>The Edmonton Oilers have become the new box office giants of the National Hockey League.In the first of four quarterly attendance reports published and compiled by THE HOCKEY NEWS and covering the first 10 home games of each of the 21 NHL teams, the Oilers have managed to nudge the New York Rangers from the No. 1 spot by a mere 1.100 fans.With their colossal new Edmonton Coliseum sold out for the entire season, the Oilers attracted 173,643 fans to their first 10 home starts as compared to 172,543 for the Rangers. It doesn&rsquo;t represent that much of an edge for the NHL expansion team over the established New Yorkers but when you take into consideration the fact that the Edmonton rink has only 15,426 seats in contrast to 17,500 in New York&rsquo;s Madison Square Garden, the difference is more profound.The Oilers sell better than 2,000 standing-room tickets each game to maintain a crowd average of 17,354, the highest in the NHL. As a result, Edmonton is also 19,611 fans ahead of their first-quarter box office attendance for the 1979-80 season, a big factor in establishing the city&rsquo;s claim as the NHL&rsquo;s newest top hockey attraction.It has been a year now since the NHL implemented its latest expansion program and there&rsquo;s little doubt the Oilers and the other former WHA teams have been good for the league. The overall NHL crowd figure for the first 10 games this season is 41,287 better than this time last year with the Oilers, Hartford Whalers and Winnipeg Jets contributing to the embellished box office numbers.After 10 home games this season, the NHL attendance stood at 2,693,354, up from last year&rsquo;s first quarterly figure of 2,659,870. If the league is able to maintain this quarterly average into the 1981 portion of the schedule, the NHL could conceivably surpass its 1979-80 record year, when 10,533,623 fans passed through the turnstiles.The NHL, of course, would not be anywhere near its attendance objective without its hardline hockey crowds in such sellout cities as Montreal, Toronto, Philadelphia. New York and Buffalo. The Philadelphia Flyers, the Montreal Canadiens, the Buffalo Sabres, the Toronto Maple Leafs and both New York teams, the Islanders and the Rangers, are all at or near the crowd averages the league expects.After 210 games, the league has recorded 87 sellouts (where attendance is equivalent to the listed NHL rink capacity)With the Oilers and the Rangers running one and two at the box office, here are the top 10 NHL teams and how they rank in attendance:1. Edmonton, 173,643; 2. Rangers, 172,543; 3. Philadelphia, 170,770; 4. Toronto, 164,682; 5. Buffalo, 164,330; 6. Montreal. 163,953; 7. Vancouver, 146,636; 8. Islanders 146,282; 9. Minnesota, 142,425; and 10. Winnipeg, 131,361.There have been some pleasant attendance surprises for the NHL through the first quarter of the schedule. The Washington Capitals have made the most sizeable gain of the NHL&rsquo;s 21 teams. The Caps have pulled in 122,603 fans in their first 10 starts, an increase of 30,738 over last year. They also have the distinction of recording the highest single crowd of the year &mdash; 17,921 for a game against the Boston Bruins on Nov. 22, which ended in a 2-2 tie.While the crowds were holding in the seven NHL stronghold cities, a total of eight other teams showed an increase over last season, which has aided in the league&rsquo;s overall turnstile upsurge. The Washington Caps were up 30,738, Hartford was 30,106 ahead (the Whalers were playing in the 7,627-capacity Springfield rink at this time last year), Edmonton was better by 19,611, Minnesota showed a 13,094 increase, St. Louis was rolling at 12,306 ahead of 1979-80, Chicago was up by 9,871, Winnipeg 6,597 and Vancouver 3,307.Despite the glowing crowd report, not all NHL cities were turning fans away. The biggest drop-off in attendance has been recorded at Detroit&rsquo;s Joe Louis Arena where the woeful Red Wings (3-16-4) have been so bad on the ice they&rsquo;ve changed coaches. The Wings have pulled in 116,883 fans, good for 13th place in the league, but they are still 22,606 behind last year. The Quebec Nordiques are running 9,256 behind, the Colorado Rockies, who took off at the box office under Don Cherry last season, are approximately 8,000 fans in arrears this season. Boston, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles have all fallen behind as well. This situation is particularly perplexing to Kings&rsquo; owner Dr. Jerry Buss, whose team was ranked No. 4 in league standings but No. 18 in attendance. In contrast, the Edmonton Oilers, who are No. Tat the gate, are around 16th or 17th in the overall NHL team point standings.One of the strangest success stories in the NHL has to be the transplanted Calgary Flames, who perform in the antiquated Calgary Corral and sell all 6,492 seats, with a $21 seat being tops. The Flames have been promised a new downtown facility with a seating capacity in the 18,000 range for the future.Encouraged by that prospect, Calgarians are willing to pay the NHL&rsquo;s top price to see their team perform in an old rink. The Flames undoubtedly have visions of the day when they&rsquo;ll draw in the vicinity of 18(000 in a new arena, which would make the move from Atlanta to Calgary this season look that much better for new owner Nelson Skalbania. &#9632;

Edmonton Becomes New Box Office Leader

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021171/6567553-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg"></div>(Attendance figures quoted in this survey are unofficial and are obtained from the summaries of NHL games which appear in daily newspapers across the country. Also, 1979-80 attendance figures credited to Calgary represent crowds for games when team was located in Atlanta last season.) &#9632;

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Here’s How NHL Attendance Looks

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div>BOSTON &mdash; He didn&rsquo;t wear a number, just a black Bruins&rsquo; sweat suit with gold trim, but further identification wasn&rsquo;t really necessary. Hell, everybody knows Bobby Orr, with or without his famed No. 4.Orr last appeared in a Boston uniform on Nov. 26, 1975, and last played in an NHL game for the Chicago Black Hawks on Nov. 1,1978, before six bouts with surgery on his left knee ended his career prematurely at the age of 30.But there he was last week, out on the practice rink in suburban Danvers with his old Boston teammates, trying to help his beleaguered buddy, Gerry Cheevers, with the young defensemen &mdash; and some of the not so young ones, too.&ldquo;It was great just to see him on the ice,&rdquo; said Wayne Cashman, the Bruins&rsquo; captain whose name is linked with Orr&rsquo;s twice on the Stanley Cup. &ldquo;I wish he could suit up and be on the ice with us tomorrow night in Montreal.&rdquo;&ldquo;Everytime he made a point it wasn&rsquo;t just the guy standing next to him who listened,&rdquo; said Mike Milbury, the defenseman who came along just as Orr was leaving the Bruins.&ldquo;Everybody was all ears. It was like that commercial on television. WhenOrr talks, people listen. Every teacher should get that much attention.&rdquo;&ldquo;I loved it, loved it,&rdquo; laughed Orr, who recently bought a home in the fashionable suburb of Weston and appears ready to settle down in the Boston area.&ldquo;The Bruins are having some problems now. There&rsquo;s no doubt in my mind that they&rsquo;re a much better club than they&rsquo;ve been showing. I&rsquo;m happy to be able to help. We just worked on basics, fundamentals.&rdquo;It was rookie defenseman Larry Melnyk, who was playing pee wee hockey in New Westminster, B.C., when Orr was leading the Bruins to Stanley Cups, who started the ball rolling for his return.&ldquo;Before our game the other night,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Cash was telling us stories about some of the things Orr used to do. I thought it would be great to get a chance to watch him.&rdquo;Melnyk went to John &ldquo;Frosty&rdquo; Forristal, the Bruins&rsquo; assistant trainer, who used to be Orr&rsquo;s roommate, and asked him if he had any films or tapes of Orr in action. Forristal said he didn&rsquo;t.&ldquo;Then I thought it would be great if I could talk to him,&rdquo; said Melnyk. &ldquo;Frosty said he thought it could be arranged.&rdquo;Then rookie Doug Morrison heard about it and wanted in and then Ray Bourque, last year&rsquo;s NHL Rookie of the Year. It was arranged for Orr to come to the practice. Bourque, who has been out since Nov. 11 with a broken jaw, postponed a hospital appointment to be there.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-021050/6567591-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="565" height="821"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ray Bourque postponed a hospital visit to learn some lessons from Bobby Orr.</figcaption></div>Orr was on the ice for an hour and a half to two hours.&ldquo;He was telling me he thinks I don&rsquo;t hit the open man fast enough,&rdquo; said Melnyk. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to make your pass to the open forward with certainty. It was nothing I didn&rsquo;t know but it helped hearing it from him.&rdquo;Cheevers said Orr will come back again.&ldquo;He won&rsquo;t be with us every day.&rdquo; said the coach. &ldquo;But if he can come once a week or a few times a month it would be great. I don&rsquo;t care if we had the greatest defense in the history of hockey playing for us, he could still help.&rdquo;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I can teach them,&rdquo; said Orr. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re pros. They know what the game is all about. I doubt if there&rsquo;s anything seriously wrong with the Bruins but maybe someone coming in cold can spot something.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t pretend to be an expert,&rdquo; he added modestly.Orr, who is now employed as a traveling ambassador of hockey good will for Standard Brands, is a frequent after dinner speaker in the Boston area, telling audiences he made a &ldquo;serious mistake&rdquo; when he left the Bruins and signed with the Hawks.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t thinking completely on my own,&rdquo; he told a recent dinner in Quincy. &ldquo;I should have negotiated further with the Bruins. The record book says I retired in 1978 but, in my heart, hockey ended for me the day I stopped playing for the Bruins.&rdquo;The night before his appearance at the practice in Danvers, Orr skated for the Bruins&rsquo; oldtimers in a charity game. He wore No. 10. His now retired No. 4 was preempted by Pat Egan, a defenseman who wore it in 1948-49.WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN &mdash; &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve lost one game in 12,&rdquo; mused Cheevers after beating Detroit 5-3. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to knock winning but there are wins and there are wins. Sometimes it&rsquo;s better to play a super game and get beat 1-0.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011561/6567584-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="1168" height="1232"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By Steve BabineauBoston&rsquo;s rookie defenseman Larry Melnyk wanted to see videotapes of Bobby Orr, but wound up being tutored by the great defenseman at a Bruins&rsquo; practice.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Bruins Instant Listeners When Orr Becomes Teacher

A MONTH OR SO AGO in this space, we said that the realignment the National Hockey League is planning for the 1981-82 season would attract a lot of proposals from a lot of people, each of whom had his own idea &mdash; selfish or otherwise &mdash; of how the league should be set up.Recently, the NHL&rsquo;s expansion committee and general managers became the latest group to jump on the realignment bandwagon when they submitted their proposal for review by the governors.To refresh your memories, the teams, representing two conferences, would play an unbalanced schedule: Eight games against each team in their division (32), and three games against all other teams (48) for a total of 80 games. The six-team Smythe Division would play 40 games against its divisional rivals and 40 games against all others. Eight teams from each conference would compete in the Stanley Cup playoffs and each conference would produce a winner, who would then play each other for the Stanley Cup.Before we go on any further, here is what they proposed:PRINCE OF WALES CONFERENCE: Adams Division: Winnipeg Jets, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks, Los Angeles Kings.Comment: From a geographical point of view, it makes a lot of sense and the potential &mdash; although certainly not yet realized &mdash; is there for rivalries to develop. Potential is also there for problems from Kings&rsquo; owner Jerry Buss, whose fans only come out in droves for glamor teams from the east like the Flyers, Rangers and Islanders.Norris Division: Montreal Canadiens, Quebec Nordiques, Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Sabres, Detroit Red Wings.Comment: Again, makes a lot of sense. Natural rivalries already exist between Montreal-Quebec, Montreal-Toronto, Toronto-Buffalo, Buffalo-Detroit. This could develop into a dynamite division once Detroit and Quebec improve.CLARENCE CAMPBELL CONFERENCE: Patrick Division: New York Islanders, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, Pittsburgh Penguins.Comment: Beautiful! A plethora of firmly entrenched rivalries: Islanders-Rangers, Rangers-Flyers, Flyers-Penguins, Flyers-Islanders, Washington is much improved and injury-ridden Pittsburgh has good potential.Smythe Division: Boston Bruins, Hartford Whalers, Chicago Black Hawks, Minnesota North Stars, St. Louis Blues, Colorado Rockies.Comment: WHAT! This, unfortunately, is where the whole thing begins to fall apart. The whole idea of realignment is to reduce travel costs and increase geographical rivalries. But how can this possibly be accomplished with Boston playing Colorado eight times a year? Or Hartford playing Minnesota as many times? While there is a pretty sound nucleus of rivalries here &mdash; Boston-Hartford, Minnesota-Chicago, Chicago-Boston &mdash; this division looks as if it was thrown together last, after the 15 other teams were neatly divided and organized. You have two eastern teams &mdash; Boston and Hartford; three mid-western teams &mdash; Chicago, St. Louis and Minnesota; and one western representative &mdash; Colorado.However, while it doesn&rsquo;t seem to make too much sense, the chances are excellent that it will pass &mdash; unless Chicago owner Bill Wirtz raises some objections, a very real possibility since the powerful Wirtz would like to see more crowd-drawing teams come into his building more frequently.No matter what happens, it should be interesting. And one thing to keep in mind is that the NHL governors have only agreed on one thing in the past decade or so &mdash; that they disagree. &#9632;

More On Realignment

<div class="byline">BY PAUL MARTHA</div>During the past year, there have been several rumors that cities in the United States as well as Canada were interested in obtaining the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; franchise. This season, the Penguins got off to a slow start, their attendance has declined, and the owner of the club, Edward J. DeBartolo, Sr., has been faced with substantial losses, partly because their lease with the Pittsburgh Civic Arena is so costly.Penguins&rsquo; vice president and general counsel Paul Martha recently discussed the future of the Penguins and some of the rumors about a possible move for the franchise.The Penguins aren&rsquo;t going to move &mdash; as far as I&rsquo;m aware, anyway.We&rsquo;re very deeply involved and almost completed in negotiations with the city and the county to lease, on a long-term basis, the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.Long-term it would be very difficult for us to financially sustain the franchise in Pittsburgh under the present lease arrangements.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011625/6567670-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="379" height="443"></div>We&rsquo;ve been contacted for a fairly long period of time by the Hamilton [Ontario] people. We have been contacted by a group in Atlanta. I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s any secret that Hamilton is interested in a National Hockey League franchise. The Atlanta group was interested in building a new arena in Atlanta, north of the city. And of course, there&rsquo;s always the continual interest in the Meadowlands. Anyone close to hockey knows that various teams, particularly Colorado, have an interest in The Meadowlands.Unfortunately, I think the rumor that we were moving is one that got started inadvertently. Really, we are comfortable in Pittsburgh but we would certainly like to get operating control of the Civic Arena. For that we&rsquo;re willing to assume the long-range debt obligation and the operating and maintenance responsibilities with the arena.Our attendance has been maybe five percent below that of last year. We&rsquo;ll average between 9,500 and 10,000 a game, which isn&rsquo;t great shakes, but then our record isn&rsquo;t great shakes, either. Pittsburgh is the type of a sports city that if you win, you&rsquo;ll draw the crowds, or even if you play aggressive hockey you&rsquo;ll draw the crowds. But with the injuries we&rsquo;ve had this year, it just hasn&rsquo;t been in the cards.Inquiries about moving the team have come in over the course of the year &mdash; every once in a while they come in spurts. As soon as there&rsquo;s some indication in the media or in print that there is a vulnerability here, you&rsquo;ll get a flurry of activity from other cities.We certainly will make every effort to keep the Penguins here; if we play a little bit better hockey, that would be a lot easier. &#9632;

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“We’ll Make Every Effort To Keep The Penguins Here”

<div class="byline">BY PAUL A. MOONEY</div>Recently, the National Hockey League&rsquo;s expansion committee and general managers made proposals for realignment for the 1981-82 season. One of the divisions &mdash; the Smythe &mdash; would have the Boston Bruins, Hartford Whalers, Chicago Black Hawks, Minnesota North Stars, St. Louis Blues and Colorado Rockies. Crazy, right?Bruins&rsquo; president Paul A. Mooney, doesn&rsquo;t think it makes too much sense, either, and in the following article discusses his ideas on realignment and the future of travel in the NHL.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021269/6567701-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="367" height="441"></div>There are two reasons why I feel as strongly as I do about trains playing a more significant role in the future of travel for the National Hockey League. First, almost every airline in the United States has dramatically reduced the number of flights leaving from and going to many cities in the U.S. Second, the fuel situation in North America is going to get worse before it gets better. North America is a very high fuel consuming area and unless or until some further technology is developed, the airline travel industry is especially going to feel pressure on the cost of travel, fuel and labor.This doesn&rsquo;t mean that the Boston Bruins will now start taking trains to places like Chicago and Montreal instead of flying. That is not logical. But it seems to me that long trips like that could be greatly reduced for teams in the league &mdash; not just the Boston Bruins &mdash; if the realignment we&rsquo;re all talking about for next year can be based on rivalries, television contracts, transportation availability and cost. In other words, realign geographically so that you maximize all of the opportunities that are facing you. For instance, it makes no sense whatsoever for the Bruins to be in the same division as, say, the Colorado Rockies. Not only is it not geographically logical, but it makes no sense from the point of view of television, a very important source of revenue. There are not too many people in Boston who will stay up on a week night to watch a game that&rsquo;s starting out in Colorado at 11 PM Boston time. Conversely, I&rsquo;m sure there are not too many people out in Denver who are going to watch a game that starts in Boston at 7 or 7:30 Eastern time.And because of the reduction in flights, those cities in the west and midwest aren&rsquo;t as easy to reach as they used to be. I&rsquo;ll give you an example: We recently played a game in Boston on a Sunday night and had a game in Minnesota on Tuesday and one in Calgary on Wednesday. We left Boston on Monday and played in Minnesota on Tuesday. In order to get to Calgary for our Wednesday game, we had to go through Denver. After the game in Calgary we went back to St. Louis. From St. Louis we went to L.A. From L.A. we went to Vancouver. From Vancouver we went to Winnipeg and finally back to Boston. The bills for a trip like that are significant. And the fact that there are less flights and no rivalries only compounds the problem.What we have to do is realize that if we want to continue to conduct our business, it&rsquo;s going to have to be done in a reasonable manner. For instance, it is possible for us to take a bus to Hartford or a train from Boston to New York or Philadelphia. It is possible for Montreal to take a train to Toronto and vice versa; or for Buffalo and Toronto to go back and forth between those two cities. And I&rsquo;m sure that there will soon be train transportation available between Boston and Montreal.Look at my flight schedule now and compare it to one from seven or even five years ago, and you&rsquo;ll find that the flights have been dramatically reduced and the cost has more than doubled. That can only mean that in another five years the costs will double again and there will be half as many flights as there are today. The only way around this reality is for the NHL to realign its teams by putting them in areas that are geographically logical for rivalries, television, radio, time zones and travel. &#9632;

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“Realignment Must Be Geographically Logical”

<div class="byline">BY HARVEY ROSEN</div>WINNIPEG &mdash; Following the highly rated television series Roots, the trend in North America amongst many inquisitive families was to begin to probe into their early past and perhaps uncover heretofore unknown ancestral relationships.Pro sports teams also appear to be availing themselves of such interesting background information when scouts take to the highways, byways, and backwoods to pursue the youth necessary to stock their franchises &mdash; which brings us to David Christian, picked by the Jets in round two of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s 1979 entry draft largely because his family background was rich with hockey lore.Perhaps it&rsquo;s a credit to the Jets&rsquo; scouting staff, consisting of Les Binkley, Tom Savage, Charlie Hodge, and director of player personnel Mike Doran, that the 5-11 173-pounder was selected. Many observers marvel at the fact that the Warroad, Minn., native was still available as the 40th pick.In the ninth round of the 1980 draft the Jets snatched Dave&rsquo;s brother Eddie, also a center, from Warroad High School. At 18, the speedy and supposedly more aggressive Eddie, may turn out to be a bigger steal than Dave.As for the &ldquo;roots&rdquo; factor, the father of both boys is Bill Christian, who played on the 1960 United States Olympic hockey team and who scored the winning goal in a 3-2 victory over the Soviet Union which earned his team a gold medal.Two of the boys&rsquo; uncles, Roger and Gord, won Olympic hockey medals too. The former was on the 1960 and 1964 clubs and the latter on the 1956 squad. Bill and Roger now-operate the Christian Bros, hockey stick company in Warroad.And unless you&rsquo;ve been off on an inter-planetary space flight for the past year you&rsquo;re no doubt aware that Dave himself is also the proud owner of an Olympic gold medal, having been an integral part of the squad which surprised the world at the Lake Placid Games last February.How badly did Dave want to play in the NHL? Badly enough to leave the University of North Dakota campus and hockey team two years early. &ldquo;Playing in the NHL,&rdquo; he said recently, &ldquo;was something I had wanted to do since I was a kid watching Hockey Night in Canada on TV.&ldquo;There was never any pressure to be year-old admitted. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m discouraged. I&rsquo;m trying not to a hockey player,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I grew up in a hockey atmosphere and I wanted to play.&rdquo; And play he did. After joining the Jets last season, Christian scored eight goals and 10 assists in just 15 games.The word &ldquo;versatile&rdquo; is an adjective which often precedes Christian&rsquo;s name. Although he played center during his two-year stint at North Dakota, he was used exclusively as a defenseman by Olympic team coach Herb Brooks.Why the shift in position? &ldquo;They wanted more puckhandling from the defenseman,&rdquo; said Christian. &ldquo;It took a few games for me to be comfortable.&rdquo;In the NHL, Christian, the only player in the league to wear No. 13, been centering a line with Danny Geoffrion on the right side and Morris Lukowich on the left. Recently, in order to balance the attack, ex-Canadiens&rsquo; left wing Normand Dupont replaced Lukowich on the line.In what has so far been a disastrous season for the Jets &mdash; at this writing they had won only one of their 27 games to date, on October 27, and with 24 straight winless games were closing in on an NHL record for consecutive winless games (27) &mdash; Christian has been a bright light, with five goals and 22 assists. If he keeps up that 1.25 points-per-game pace for the rest of the season, he might just break the Islanders&rsquo; Bryan Trottier&rsquo;s rookie point scoring record of 95, set in 1975-76. And if Christian can add a few more points to that total, he could become the first U.S.-born player to reach the 100-point mark in one season.If Christian accomplishes all of that by the end of the season, the chances are excellent that he could reach one more milestone &mdash; the NHL&rsquo;s Rookie of the Year award. Because he played less than 25 games in 1979-80, he&rsquo;s eligible this season.Sound impossible? Don&rsquo;t bet against him. After all, he does have those roots.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011543/6567732-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="566" height="823"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By Steve BabineauAlready an established star, Dave Christian is still eligible for Rookie of the Year honors.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Winning Tradition ‘Rooted’ In Jets’ Christian

<div class="byline">BY BILL LIBBY</div>LOS ANGELES - At 14-5-1 for the first fourth of this season, the Kings wound up with two more victories and one more point than in any of their previous 53 quarter-seasons. And three of four rookies made major contributions. One didn&rsquo;t.The Kings selected Larry Murphy and Jim Fox in the first round and Greg Terrion in the second round of last summer&rsquo;s draft. General manager George Maguire felt he had three rookies who could be regulars immediately.Murphy was the outstanding rookie in the league for the first fourth of the season. The giant and agile 19-year-old led all defensemen. with 24 points in the first 20 games, and played his position like a veteran.Terrion, another rookie who plays like a veteran, centered the second line skillfully and pitched in with five goals. Another rookie, Dan Bonar, up from the minors, hustled hard and checked effectively.The rookie who played the least was Fox. Curiously, he came in as the most publicized. Prior to the draft, Maguire spoke more of him than any other prospect. Needing a defenseman more, Maguire grabbed Murphy. But the GM risked losing Terrion to take Fox and he also passed up Minnesota&rsquo;s spectacular rookie goalie Don Beaupre.Small, but explosive. Fox was labelled &ldquo;another Dionne&rdquo; after he scored 65 goals and assisted on 101 to lead the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League with 166 points in only 52 games for Ottawa last season &mdash; his third straight 100-point season as an amateur.The 10th pick in the pro draft, the right wing showed marvellous moves and a fast, hard, and accurate shot in the preseason. At 5-8 and 170 pounds, he wasn&rsquo;t too rugged, but was trying to check to earn his spot on the team.Since the season&rsquo;s start, he was played irregularly, sometimes only a shift or two a game. The knock on him was he was wandering all over the ice, booking for offensive opportunities.At the one-quarter mark, the 20-year-old admitted. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m discouraged. I&rsquo;m trying not to get caught out of position, but I&rsquo;m getting blamed for it even when I&rsquo;m not. when I&rsquo;m covering up for someone.&rdquo;It is not easy to alter your natural style, and asking an offensive player like Fox to stress defense is like putting handcuffs on him. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not getting the puck much.&rdquo; Fox says, &ldquo;and when I get a good chance I blow it.&rdquo; He had two goals in the first 20 games.He seemed depressed, which seemed to surprise coach Bob Berry. &ldquo;Every rookie can&rsquo;t play regularly,&rdquo; Berry says. &ldquo;Jim has more to learn than the others. He has as much ability as anyone, but he&rsquo;s not ready yet.&rdquo;Neither Berry nor Fox liked the idea of sending the youngster to the Central League, where he could play regularly, but in Fox&rsquo;s case it could be a wise move.Fox was born in May, 1960, in Coniston, Ont. His father, Clarence, has worked 30 years in a nickle refinery in Sudbury. He mother, Barbara, is saleslady in a department store. Older sons Mike and Steve are teaching. Mike played in the International League. Youngest son Kevin is playing at the bantam level. Jim also has a sister, Debbie.&ldquo;My parents worked hard and we got by,&rdquo; Jim says, &ldquo;My hometown has only about 3,000 people and I was comfortable. Ottawa was larger and I was lonely and less comfortable there. L.A. is so large it may take me a long time to get used to it. The traffic scares me. At home, we don&rsquo;t even have cars.&rdquo;KINGS THINGS - The team needs to develop deeper offense. In the first 22 games the Marcel Dionne-Charlie Simmer-Dave Taylor line scored 54 of the team&rsquo;s 97 goals, although Taylor missed seven games. They scored all the goals in consecutive 5-2 and 4-3 wins in Toronto and Quebec City and a 4-2 loss to Philadelphia and remain on a league-record pace.In the first 20 games, Simmer had 21 goals, Dionne 17, and Taylor 10. Garry Unger and Billy Harris had six, Terrion and Larry Murphy five, Jerry Korab four. &#9632;

Kings’ Rookie Fox Struggles At Start

<div class="byline">BY ARNOLD IRISH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011601/6567787-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tony Currie recently notched his first National Hockey League hat trick, a feat he often performed during his junior days in Portland.</figcaption></div>ST. LOUIS &mdash; Frequently, when a member of the St. Louis Blues describes the offensive skills of a teammate or opponent, he&rsquo;ll say the athlete in question is dangerous around the net, then add, &ldquo;Of course, he doesn&rsquo;t have the fast hands of a Tony Currie.&rdquo;Currie recently put those fast hands on display with three goals &mdash; his first National Hockey League hat trick &mdash; in a 6-2 victory over Detroit.&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t sleep all that night, so I sat up and made phone calls,&rdquo; said Currie, 23. &ldquo;I phoned my folks, the people I lived with in junior hockey at Portland, my brother in school at Billings, Montana, my wife&rsquo;s family &mdash; about six calls in all, I guess.&rdquo;Playing right wing on Mike Zuke&rsquo;s line, Currie made life miserable for Red Wings&rsquo; goalie Gilles Gilbert. The blond marksman&rsquo;s first goal came on a rush. &ldquo;I played with Mike in Salt Lake City and I know what he likes to do,&rdquo; Tony said. &ldquo;When he carried the puck in, I figured I&rsquo;d get it on the wing. Sure enough, he gave it to me. I took a quick look and shot.Currie&rsquo;s second goal came about in an unusual manner. He tried to pass across the crease, but the puck hit somebody&rsquo;s stick and bounced back to him. Before the startled Gilbert could blink, Tony had turned on the light.Detroit&rsquo;s Reed Larson wore the goat&rsquo;s horns on Currie&rsquo;s third goal. Larson was trying to pass the puck out qf his own end, and Currie intercepted. &ldquo;I was coming in to forecheck and the puck landed right where I could shoot it,&rdquo; Currie said.&ldquo;Quick hands? Well, I maneuver the puck relatively quickly in and around the net,&rdquo; Currie said. &ldquo;Just as important, I have the perception to see plays about to open up before they do. Mike Crombeen and Ralph Klassen have a similar perception in the defensive end; I don&rsquo;t have it there.&ldquo;In close, though, I can get a shot away quickly without forcing it and fell as comfortable with a backhand as a forehand. I don&rsquo;t have the backhand of a Red Berenson, when he was playing, or a Davey Keon, but it&rsquo;s respectable.&rdquo;&ldquo;The nucleus of our team is so young,&rdquo; said Currie, &ldquo;that we could be good for years to come if all the guys live up to their full potential.&rdquo;Tony and two other Blues-to-be, Wayne Babych and Perry Turnbull, were junior teammates at Portland when St. Louis picked Currie fourth (63rd overall) in the 1977 amateur draft. There was some question whether Tony &mdash; a mediocre skater with defensive shortcomings &mdash; was big enough to play at the NHL level, but the Blues liked his hustle and stickhandling &mdash; and his knack for scoring goals.Currie appeared to be over his head in his first two NHL seasons, scoring only four goals in each. He was languishing at Salt Lake midway through last season when Wayne Babych was injured. Recalled, Currie responded with six goals in his first six games and finished the season with 19 goals in 40 games. It was apparent that GM Emile Francis had drafted wisely in 1977.Currie, whose father made a career of the Canadian Army, grew up as a self-described &ldquo;Forces brat&rdquo; who as a youngster &ldquo;played hockey from Manitoba to New Brunswick because the family moved 10 times.&rdquo;The Blues&rsquo; winger speaks warmly of his parents, Tony and Lois. &ldquo;My folks will retire soon after the holidays, back to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where they&rsquo;re from. Dad will have his 30 years&rsquo; army service. He&rsquo;s a master warrant officer. MWO2, they call him &mdash; the old sergeant-major.&ldquo;A lot of Forces brats don&rsquo;t have good relationships with their parents, but our family was very close. Our mother would go without a new pair of slacks before we would, and the folks put up with some pretty big phone bills from me when I left home at 14 to play junior.&rdquo;Tony is still close to Dick and Mary Lou Lisk, with whom he lived in Portland. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d had some bad experiences with other families, who told me things like, &lsquo;Keep your hands out of the fridge.&rsquo; Dick and Mary Lou took me in as a son and boarder. They let me snack, like it was my own house. When the Blues play in Vancouver, they drive up for the game.&rdquo;There was a time when Tony was a scratch golfer. &ldquo;That was when I played junior and shot 36 holes every weekend.&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Now that I don&rsquo;t play so much anymore, I&rsquo;m a two or three handicap.&rdquo;Last summer was a difficult one for Tony and his wife, Peggy, a registered nurse. They learned that her brother, Phil Kenney, had contacted bone cancer and spent much of the summer helping out on his farm near Pembroke, Ont.Currie&rsquo;s brother-in-law died eight days before Tony got his first NHL hat trick. &ldquo;When the third one went in, I kind of told myself, &lsquo;This one&rsquo;s for Phil,&rsquo;&rdquo; Tony said.Tony tried to improve his skating in the off-season when he took a powerskating course from Laura Stamm. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s more for bigger men,&rdquo; said the 5-11, 166-pound Currie, but I wanted it for lengthening my stride,&rdquo; he said.Aware he hasn&rsquo;t been hailed as a defensive genius, Currie thinks he&rsquo;s improving that aspect of his game. &ldquo;My main problem on defense is positioning,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;As an offenseminded player, there&rsquo;s a temptation to follow the puck, and I tend to chase it a bit. When I play my wing the way I should, a lot of loose pucks end up coming to me.&rdquo;A superstar Currie isn&rsquo;t. Not yet. But the ingredients are there.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m at the establishing stage,&rdquo; Tony said, &ldquo;and my objectives are mainly team goals. The nucleus of our team is so young that we could be good for years to come if all the guys live up to their full potential. Should that happen, any individual goals I might set for myself would be fulfilled along the way.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-01

Blues’ Currie Regaining Knack For Scoring

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>New Suggestion For Overtime</h2>Two different methods of awarding points in overtime games are currently being discussed by the NHL. However, since both of these methods are flawed, I would like to propose a third.The method of giving two points to the winner and zero points to the loser has been justifiably attacked because it will often leave a weak team with nothing to show for a fine performance against a strong club. Phil Esposito&rsquo;s novel suggestion of giving two points to the winner and one point to the loser would certainly eliminate this problem but it would also create another: It would give a team virtually nothing to gain by taking chances in the third period and virtually nothing to lose by playing recklessly in the overtime. Thus, the nature of the game would be changed and its quality lowered.The solution to these problems is to make all hockey games worth a total of four points instead of just two (or three). Then, a regulation winner would receive four points, an overtime winner would get three, a tie would be worth two points to both teams, and an overtime loser would get one point. In this way, a weak team would not walk away with nothing after 60 minutes of excellent hockey, and all hockey games would still be created equal.David Teitelbaum&nbsp;Hackensack, N.J.Nowhere is the need for some solution to the overtime problem more apparent than in the weekly NHL summaries published in THE HOCKEY NEWS. A recent issue summarized 30 games, seven of which ended in ties; last week it was 29 games and eight ties. Surely the avid hockey fan deserves a more definite outcome to many of these games. Most glaring was the home-and-home series between the Washington Capitals and Buffalo Sabres in early November; in both games the final score was 3-3. The fans in Washington can&rsquo;t convince me they&rsquo;re really happy with those outcomes; at this rate, how can we be sure who really deserves to be in the playoffs? Let&rsquo;s get the players and owners together before the entire NHL schedule becomes mired in the One Point Syndrome.Frederick GanczarSmithfield, R.I.<h2>New Point Plan Needed</h2>By NHLMany avid hockey fans like myself feel that the present point system of the NHL is rather insufficient for the high calibre professional players. I, too, have to agree. However, I have a solution that, in my opinion, is quite sufficient for the pros.Instead of the old two, one, zero point system, why not allow one point per period won, and a half point for a tie? (one point to the team who scores the most goals in each period). So if your favorite club is losing badly after the first period, they still have a chance to gain points. This will create more excitement because the winning team will not sit on their big lead, plus the opposing players will fight to the bitter end to acquire points. Then, at the end of the game, go back to the regular two, one, zero system.This way, the winning team can acquire a maximum of five points per game, while the defeated team can attain two points. This system, I guarantee you, will keep the game exciting until the final buzzer, and satisfy your hunger for a truly exciting hockey game.Ken DeBrouwerBlenheim, Ont.<h2>Cole Unfair With Canadiens&rsquo; Savard</h2>I can&rsquo;t put off writing any longer. Since Day One of this season, THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; Montreal correspondent, Glenn Cole, has been taking great delight in tearing down Canadiens&rsquo; defenseman. Serge Savard. I sit here and can&rsquo;t believe the stuff he is writing. Not only has he been knocking Savard, but now he is berating all those Montreal journalists who have dared to defend him, accusing them of being &ldquo;sentimental.&rdquo; The criticism leveled at Serge is unfair and completely unjustified. Cole claims Savard is struggling. He says he is slow. How can this be when to others it appears he is skating better than ever? Is there some reason why Cole is on an anti-Savard campaign? Is Cole upset that Serge didn&rsquo;t retire, as he had predicted? The way Cole talks, Savard is just taking up space on the roster, space that belongs to the likes of Bill Baker and others. Well, if Savard is such a &ldquo;burden&rdquo; to the Montreal team, I&rsquo;m sure there are 20 teams in the NHL who would be happy to take him off their hands.Jean Cardillo&nbsp;Somerville, Mass. &#9632;

FAN FORUM

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div>PITTSBURGH - His coach says Rick Kehoe is &ldquo;the only guy on our club with the potential to get 50 goals.&rdquo;Kehoe, 29, has scored 27 or more goals seven different times and admits he thinks about scoring 50 goals after getting off to the best start he&rsquo;s ever had in his nine-year National Hockey League career.&ldquo;Since I&rsquo;ve been in Pittsburgh, I&rsquo;ve always scored over 25 goals,&rdquo; said Kehoe, who was traded to the Penguins by Toronto for Blaine Stoughton and a first-round draft choice in 1974. &ldquo;It just so happens that I&rsquo;ve had years like that. There&rsquo;s been years that I&rsquo;ve started out real well and then have an injury and slow down.&ldquo;I think anybody playing in the NHL thinks about scoring 50 goals if they have the opportunity. Fifty goals is quite a plateau.&rdquo;Kehoe usually plays the right side on a line centered by Orest Kindrachuk with Ross Lonsberry on the left wing. The line has been nicknamed the &ldquo;Sting&rdquo; but with Kindrachuk missing a number of games this season because of a back injury, Kehoe has found himself with other linemates.&ldquo;Since the day they came to Pittsburgh we started playing together,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;With some guys you just blend in so well, you move the puck around well. You get a lot of chances to score a lot of ways. It&rsquo;s funny how different players blend that way.&rdquo;Kehoe, who is known as &ldquo;Chico&rdquo; to his teammates because of his resemblance to the character from the television series Chico and The Man, scored 33 goals in his first full season in the league with Toronto. He slipped to 18 the next season after differences with then Maple Leaf coach Red Kelly and was dealt to Pittsburgh.&ldquo;One of the reasons that I was traded was at that time I was pretty young,&rdquo; Kehoe recalled. &ldquo;I just came off my first full year in Toronto. I ended up getting hurt and it was just one of those years.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d have any trouble playing for him now. I was young and I was kind of immature about a lot of things. I thought maybe he should have told me what he really wanted. He didn&rsquo;t, and it&rsquo;s frustrating for a younger player if they don&rsquo;t know what they&rsquo;re supposed to do.&rdquo;Penguin coach Eddie Johnston says that players of Kehoe&rsquo;s caliber &ldquo;are very, very hard to find.&rdquo;&ldquo;He&rsquo;s just a gifted hockey player,&rdquo; said Johnston, who played with Kehoe for one season in Toronto. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to get you 30 goals automatically. If Rick can stay away from injuries, he&rsquo;s a 40-goal man in this league.&ldquo;He does so many things. He&rsquo;s got an incredible move coming in from the left side. That&rsquo;s where he&rsquo;s dangerous. He comes off that side and gives you that fake and moves his stick almost from behind the net up. Rick gets the goalkeeper turned around a. little bit.&rdquo;Johnston likes to use the right-handed shooting Kehoe on the left wing during power plays to take advantage of the move he has developed coming out of the corner with the puck.&ldquo;The key to that play is the left winger or the centerman,&rdquo; Kehoe said. &ldquo;If the center is out a little bit deeper in the slot, the defenseman has to go to him or he comes to me.&ldquo;If he comes to me I give the puck to the center. I take the pass into the slot and if the defenseman goes out I just come out. The key is for the other guy to be in the slot area.&rdquo;Johnston hopes that Kehoe, who scored his 250th NHL goal this season. can stay healthy and perhaps hit the 50-goal mark.&ldquo;Kehoe doesn&rsquo;t need many chances,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;If he gets three good chances in a game, you can almost bet your life he&rsquo;s going to put one of them on the board.&rdquo;Kehoe did more than that in a recent game against the Maple Leafs, scoring his second hat trick of the season and third career &ldquo;trick&rdquo; against the Leafs, to hit the 20-goal mark. Newcomer Paul Gardner, another ex-Leaf, centered for Kehoe and Lonsberry in that game and two Kehoe power play goals, which helped the Pens wipe out a 3-0 Leafs&rsquo; lead in the space of 93 seconds, were set up by Gardner.PENGUIN TRACKS &mdash; Gregg Sheppard returned to the lineup after being out with back problems. However, Sheppard took a shot on the ankle during practice and missed two more games. Then he came back in the Toronto game and suffered a severe Charley horse. Nick Libett picked up his 500th NHL point, a goal against the Boston Bruins. &#9632;

50 Goals Reasonable Target For Pens’ Kehoe

<div class="byline">BILL LIBBY&#x2019;S</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011559/6567904-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="297" height="346"></div><h2>Injury-Prone</h2>DALE HOGANSON had three shoulder operations and a hernia operation. He has broken both collarbones, a foot, and several toes. This season his back has been bothering him and he has missed quite a few games. In a dozen seasons he has missed about 250 games with injuries.&ldquo;Those injuries are about all I can remember, the major ones, anyway,&rdquo; the Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; defenseman says with a wistful smile. &ldquo;It certainly has been discouraging. I&rsquo;ve been in this league or the other league a long time now, but it&rsquo;s like I&rsquo;m just beginning.&rdquo;It is hard to believe he I is 31 now. I remember when he was a promising rookie breaking in with the Los Angeles Kings in 1969. He has bounced from team to team and league to league ever since.Dale played for the Kings and their farm team at Springfield. Hewas one of four players traded by the Kings to Montreal for Rogie Vachon in November of 1971. He played for the Canadiens and their farm team in Nova Scotia until he signed with Quebec of the rebel World Hockey Association in May of 1973. He played with Quebec until traded to Toronto of the WHA in June of 1976. That team became the Bulls after it was transferred to Birmingham, Ala. The Bulls sold Dale back to the Nordiques in July of 1978.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021260/6567897-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="403" height="414"></div>Hoganson returned to the NHL when the WHA folded and Quebec was admitted last season.He played 77 games and was considered the most dependable and consistent player on the team. He scored only four goals, but assisted on 36 and was especially effective defensively. A husky 5-9 and 190-pounds, Dale showed what he could do when healthy.<h2>Different Diagnosis</h2>&ldquo;WELL I WASN&rsquo;T HEALTHY, but I wasn&rsquo;t hurting enough not to play,&rdquo; the agreeable, red-haired veteran says, smiling. &ldquo;My shoulders still give me trouble. I&rsquo;ve had two operations on my left shoulder and one on my right and I guess they&rsquo;ll never be what they used to be.&ldquo;And my back&rsquo;s been bothering me since last season. It feels like muscle spasms, but every doctor I go to makes a different diagnosis. One says it&rsquo;s a sprained muscle, one says a torn muscle, another says arthritis. Whatever it is, it hurts like heck.&rdquo;Dale doesn&rsquo;t go around complaining, even if it sounds like that. He had been asked to discuss his injuries and difficulties. &ldquo;I feel like I should have established myself as a big leaguer long ago, and I guess I have, but every time I got going good, I get another injury,&rdquo; he says.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if it&rsquo;s bad luck or a bad body,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I do know I want to play. Usually, if I play, it&rsquo;s without practice. When you&rsquo;re out awhile, your perception of the play isn&rsquo;t sharp and you lose touch with the game and your feel for the action goes bad.&ldquo;I was pleased with my play last year because I played a lot and started to feel comfortable out on the ice once again. After awhile, I was able to do those things I do best. But this season it&rsquo;s been in and out of the lineup again.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to give up the game unless I have to,&rdquo; Dale goes on. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve suffered through a lot to last this long and I&rsquo;d like to last a while longer and enjoy Some healthy seasons before I finish. But I am prepared to do something else when the time comes.&rdquo;A bachelor from Battieford, Sask., Hoganson has a ranch in that area, raising quarter-horses and purehead cattle. He has about 100 head of cattle now and he&rsquo;d like to breed horses.His partner, Bob Ashauder, a married man with a wife and kids, tends the spread year-round for now and Dale pitches in during off-season. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard but healthy work,&rdquo; Dale says, &ldquo;and I really like the outdoors life.&ldquo;You get up early and put in a long day, but after the winters in the big cities and noisy arenas, I like the quiet and seclusion. If I get married, my wife is going to have to like this sort of life, too.&ldquo;Maybe that&rsquo;s why I haven&rsquo;t gotten married, yet,&rdquo; he laughs. &ldquo;The girls I go with during hockey season might not take to life on a farm out in nowhere. I don&rsquo;t know why I like it, but I do. I wasn&rsquo;t raised on a farm or anything like that.&rdquo;<h2>Adventurous Sort</h2>DALE&rsquo;S FATHER is a former plumber. The Hogansons had three sons and two daughters. A couple of the brothers now live in the Yukon. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re adventurous sorts, I guess,&rdquo; Dale says laughing.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to get a wife and start a family, but hockey is a hard life for a family. The way I&rsquo;ve been bounced around, I wonder how fellows with familes deal with it. Anyway, I haven&rsquo;t been driven to desperation yet. I&rsquo;m too young to get married, anyway,&rdquo; he smiles.Although there has been a lot of talk by former Nordiques that English-speaking players have been ostrasized by the French-Canadiens on the club, creating considerable controversy, Dale says, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been treated well by everyone. It&rsquo;s a little tough to speak English in a community where everyone speaks French, but I&rsquo;ve been happy here, with this team and this town.&rdquo;So he struggles on, a young man with an old man&rsquo;s body, a man who has not had a lot of luck playing his game, who has been hurt as much as he has been healthy and who may never become the player he might have been. Hoganson has every right to be bitter, but he&rsquo;s not.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a lot of life left in me,&rdquo; he says, smiling. &ldquo;Besides, I&rsquo;m too young to die.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0012-01

HOCKEY AD LIB

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div>VANCOUVER - The Canucks have never really had a big goal scorer in the 11-year history of the club.The team record is 40 goals, held by Ron Sedlbauer and set two years ago, and after that the highest total is 38, a far cry from what the likes of players like Mike Bossy may hit this year at his present pace.But this season, nobody is noticing that shortcoming. For what the Harry Neale-Dave-Dunn-Tom Watt coached club has done is to substitute balance to solve a problem most everyone feared would be almost insurmountable at the beginning of the year.At present, if you project the goal totals of the players over the full schedule, it would appear the Canucks have the opportunity to accomplish what the Detroit Red Wings did last year; that is, have five players each score over 30 goals. Last year theCanucks had four, but two of those players &mdash; Ivan Boldirev and Dave Williams &mdash; did not get all their goals with the Canucks. And who would have guessed that Williams would have another 30-goal year? But right now, with only 25 games played, Williams is almost halfway there after missing just four games with a broken back. He has been severely bothered by pain from the injury, although he doesn&rsquo;t seem to have slowed down any.Besides Williams and Boldirev, Smyl, Schmautz and Fraser will likely reach the 30-goal mark for the Canucks&rsquo; balanced offense.To go along with Williams, there is Boldirev, probably the most natural scorer on the club.If he recovers from the fractured cheekbone he suffered in a Canucks&rsquo; practice, he will parlay his 13-goal total into 30, as will Stan Smyl, Bobby Schmautz and Curt Fraser, all of whom had 11 goals as this was written. And one player who had 30 last year, Thomas Gradin, has not been scoring at all. He had only four goals as this went to press, so it will be almost impossible for him to reach 30. But he leads the team in assists with 23, a factor which indicates he&rsquo;s still active on the power play and helpful on the line with Fraser and Smyl.Boldirev was injured when he and Fraser were both cruising around without their helmets on during practice and didn&rsquo;t see each other. The two collided, and since almost nothing would hurt the body-structure of Fraser, Boldirev took the brunt. The prognosis was that he would be out for 10 days at the very least and would probably be outfitted with a mask to protect him against further knocks in the area.&ldquo;I notice that when football players are out for the pre-game warmup they wear their helmets, so I guess I should insist that we wear ours,&rdquo; said Neale. &ldquo;It seems that if you wear one during a game it makes sense to wear it during practice.&rdquo;Gerry Minor filled in for Boldirev on the line with Schmautz and Darcy Rota, one of the surprising units which has given the Canucks so much balance this year. Minor, who recently lost three teeth in a collision with Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; Blake Wesley&rsquo;s stick, has been playing extremely well for Vancouver, getting a key goal for the Canucks in a recent 7-4 victory over Pittsburgh. He is one of those rare players who can pop off the bench for short periods of time and not be seriously affected by a lack of ice time.He has been playing with a tremendous degree of bravado for the amount of work he&rsquo;s seen, and his ability to kill penalties has been a great asset to the club, which was down to three centers until Boldirev returned.Meanwhile, the Canucks were boasting one of the best home records in the league, 9-2-2, a big improvement and a big difference from last season, when they had a terrible home mark and still got 70 points, due mainly to one of the better road records in the league.The Canucks are also bracing for the month of January, a period in which they play only four home games. Last year, that part of the schedule buried them deep in the overall standings. If they get past January in good shape, they&rsquo;ll have an excellent chance to move even higher down the stretch.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011464/6567935-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="569" height="721"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gerry Minor seems perfect for the role of spot starter and penalty-killer for the Canucks.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0013-01

Scoring A Team Effort For Canucks

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div>TORONTO &mdash; All along, the Maple Leafs said that they had to give Jiri (Call Me George) Crha, the Czechoslovakian expatriate more time to get used to the North American style of Play.At the same time, the club never denied that they were seeking help in the goaltending department, although they wouldn&rsquo;t say whether it was relief for Crha or his occasional replacement, Curt Ridley, who saw just 124 minutes of action in the team&rsquo;s first 25 games this season.Enter one James Earl Rutherford, 31, who came to the Leafs from the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for 22-year-old center Mark Kirton, and the Leafs suddenly had themselves a goaltender with over 400 National Hockey League games under his belt. And &mdash; this may be the key factor in the deal &mdash; they also had themselves a little more time to figure out if, indeed, the 30-year-old Crha was going to be able to develop into a reliable starting goaltender at the NHL level.The Leafs plan to make considerable use of Rutherford, who had a 4.30 goals-against average in 10 games while splitting the 20th place Detroit club&rsquo;s goaltending chores with Gilles Gilbert. Lifetime. Rutherford&rsquo;s goals-against average is 3.52. with 14 shutouts, four of them with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the early &rsquo;70s. At the same time. Leafs&rsquo; goaltending coach Johnny Bower will continue his tutoring of Crha, whose handling, or mis-hand-ling of the puck, has been a factor in the Leafs&rsquo; sluggish getaways from their own zone. Now, he&rsquo;ll have the opportunity to view Rutherford&rsquo;s deft manuevering of the puck.After one workout with the club, Rutherford drew the starting assignment for the Leafs against the Quebec Nordiques in Maple Leaf Gardens and came away a winner in his first outing, 5-2. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to start off with a win,&rdquo; Rutherford said following his debut. &ldquo;I guess the biggest adjustment for me is going to be off the ice because leaving behind your friends kinda works on you.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to admit it, but I guess I didn&rsquo;t have the best attitude in Detroit. But it wasn&rsquo;t just one guy or three; everybody on the club had a negative feeling. I thought for awhile things might work out, but they didn&rsquo;t.&ldquo;Tonight, we moved the puck out of our end well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t make many mistakes and when you cut down on the mistakes, you win.&rdquo;While the Leafs were looking to strengthen their goaltending, they were also intent on landing a defenseman who can clear opposing forwards from in front of their net, a player they believe they now have in 6-1,201-pound Barry Melrose, who was obtained from the Winnipeg Jets in a cash deal. In an unrelated trade, the Leafs sent defensemen Richard Mulhern, who had been with Dallas of the Central League, to the Jets.Melrose displayed quite a bit of sock in his debut for the Leafs, getting into a fight with Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Jim Hamilton on his first shift, and handing out several stiff checks during the evening. He also contributed a totally unexpected shorthanded goal when his drive from right wing broke off Penguin goaltender Rob Holland&rsquo;s glove and sailed into the net. Melrose had only one goal and one assist in 18 games with the Jets.&ldquo;It went much better tonight,&rdquo; Melrose said, after getting in his second game as a Leaf.&rdquo; I was just a little nervous again at the start, but nothing like the first game. I&rsquo;m getting to know the system now.&rdquo;Melrose&rsquo;s game is to stand up at the blueline and stop the opposition before it gains control in the Leafs&rsquo; zone, a tactic he and and the other Leafs&rsquo; defenseman displayed throughout the home ice win against Quebec, their second victory in nine home games since Nov. 15, when they defeated Edmonton. &ldquo;Since I&rsquo;ve been here, the forwards have done a great job picking up the wingers,&rdquo; Melrose said.was trying too hard and there were a lot of defensemen fighting for a job, but if I just play the body and keep my stick down, I shouldn&rsquo;t get too many penalties.&rdquo;LOOSE LEAFS &mdash; Defenseman Vitezslav (Slava) Duris was forced to remain in bed for 10 days with a slipped disc, knocking him from the lineup for at least two weeks &hellip; Laurie Boschman injured his hand in a fight during the game at Quebec. He will be replaced by Bruce Boudreau, who was called up from New Bruns- &#9632;

Rutherford Brings Stability To Leafs’ Goal

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011549/6567966-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="291" height="352"></div><h2>Genius Warped By Time</h2>&ldquo;When it comes to coaching, Freddie Shero wrote the book.&rdquo; &mdash; Don CherryFred Shero wrote not one but three hockey books. One wonders whether he bothered to read them.The rise and fall of the Shero NHL coaching era proves that even genius can be warped by time. The temptation is to suggest that Freddie was the supreme masochist ultimately bent on destroying Freddie. But who can be certain what really was on the man&rsquo;s mind?This much we do know &mdash; his departure is a grievous loss to hockey because of the squandered potential. His reach failed to exceed his grasp. In the end we can only mourn his descent to a level of One of The Game&rsquo;s genuinely tragic figures.He owned Philadelphia yet somehow managed to blow his stewardship with the Flyers right into the Schuylkill River. But he got a reprieve on Broadway.In Manhattan, Shero had the media at his feet. He had Madison Square Garden management in his palms. He had his players eating out of his textbooks. He had the kind of deal you would only wish on your best friend &mdash; if not yourself. And he blew it.Oy vay, did he blow it. Right into the Hudson River. He is gone; unceremoniously booted out of the Garden. If no NHL team will touch Don Cherry with a ten-foot pole, for Freddie it&rsquo;s a 20-yard lance.What went wrong? The Broad Street hindsighters say Shero was a goner by 1976. &ldquo;In his last two years in Philly he had lost the respect of many of his players,&rdquo; says a high NHL official. &ldquo;The Flyers couldn&rsquo;t wait to unload him.&rdquo;The Rangers took a gamble. The smart money said go for Scotty Bowman. The Rangers ignored negative radar blips from Philadelphia and went for Shero.For a year it looked like a stupendous move. The Rangers, more laid-back than Freddie himself, churned their way to the Stanley Cup finals. But the symptoms of failure already were apparent. There was even one report that Shero was called on the carpet by Garden brass during his winning days.Last year Shero lost everything. The media sued for divorce. Management began third-guessing him. The mystic aura, which once had clouded the players&rsquo; eyes, disappeared faster than a Seventh Avenue pickpocket. Even close friends found Freddie distant, if not lost. The front line troops had given up on their general.Nothing epitomized Freddie&rsquo;s inclination to self-destruct more than his decision to deputize his crony, Mickey Keating, as general manager pro tem. Keating was doing what Shero had been hired to do in the front office. Mike Nykoluk was doing what Shero had been hired to do on the ice. Meanwhile, Freddie was enjoying an 80-game freebie at a six-figure salary.Whether Shero&rsquo;s self-confessed drinking problem was part of a masochistic mechanism is a moot point, if it was I a factor at all. Larry (Ratso) Sloman, the Rangers&rsquo; biographer and one of the few to defend Freddie, argues that Shero was a victim of the voracious New York media and a few backstabbing players. He may be right.&ldquo;Freddie was drinking the same when he took the Rangers to the finals as he was afterwards,&rdquo; says Sloman. &ldquo;It was the press that screwed him up. That and a couple of players with management&rsquo;s ear.&rdquo;One theory has it that Freddie knew that he needed a first-rate assistant and a strong captain in the manner of Nykoluk and Bobby Clarke during his halcyon Philadelphia days.Tragically, the Nykoluk-Shero relationship disintegrated on Seventh Avenue while Feddie&rsquo;s attempts to develop Dave Maloney into a Clarke-type captain culminated in disaster.The lost chord in Shero&rsquo;s symphony is the period September-November 1980. Nykoluk and Keating were gone. Vowing reform, Freddie moved behind the bench promising change. But before he could hammer out his new platform he was hit with a spate of injuries that would have staggered a Scotty Bowman. Add to that the inevitable bad-mouthing by the &ldquo;couple of players with management&rsquo;s ear&rdquo; and you have a man with little hope of producing anything better than a 4-13-3 record.In my conversations with Shero this Fall, he seemed relaxed and at peace with himself. When Hugh Delano of The New York Post broke the story about Shero&rsquo;s drinking problem, Freddie could have denied the article and rapped the writer. Yet when I talked to him, Shero stuck by Delano. Few would have been as decent as Freddie under the circumstances.&ldquo;Give Freddie credit,&rdquo; says Sloman. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t get crazy when everything was going wrong. He did what he thought he had to do to make the club better.&rdquo;Perhaps. But did he do enough for the Rangers and, more important, for himself?I cannot help thinking of a conversation I had with Shero&rsquo;s old buddy, Bob Dill, who desperately wanted to talk to Freddie about what Dill believed to be Shero&rsquo;s drinking problem.Dill, who is active in Alcoholics Anonymous, visited Shero at the Rangers&rsquo; training base last September. Dill knew that his buddy&rsquo;s job was hanging by a string. One bad move and Freddie was bye-bye.&ldquo;He listened to me,&rsquo; says Dill, &ldquo;but we didn&rsquo;t get very far. Freddie said we&rsquo;d sit down and talk again when the Rangers come to Minnesota.&rdquo;That will be on December 20th but Fred Shero won&rsquo;t be there. He is no longer with the Rangers. He may never be in the NHL again.Yes, Freddie wrote the book but he never meant it to have so unhappy an ending.<h2>Good Deal For Both</h2>NOTES: Dave (Hammer) Schultz, who played four years for Fred Shero in Philadelphia, encountered his old boss before the sacking. &ldquo;He looked very old and very tired,&rdquo; says Schultz &hellip; The almost deal between Calgary and Quebec - Dan Bouchard for Robbie Ftorek &mdash; would have been good for each &hellip; The departure of Shero should hasten the return of Nick Fotiu to the Rangers &hellip; Shero&rsquo;s last two messages on the Blueshirts&rsquo; blackboard were: &ldquo;When you win nothing hurts&rdquo; and &ldquo;Success is a ladder, not an escalator&rdquo; &hellip; For a chap with only three goals, Ron Duguay is scoring nicely on Madison Avenue. He&rsquo;s now featured on U.S. News & World Report ads claiming it&rsquo;s &ldquo;On-target as a puck with eyes.&rdquo; &hellip; Two worst Shero moves on the trade market were importing Josh Guevremont to fortify the Rangers&rsquo; defense and the deal sending Don Murdoch to Edmonton for Cam Connor &hellip; Mike Bossy&rsquo;s bag of tricks is expanding. &ldquo;My aim,&rdquo; says The Scoring Machine, &ldquo;is to be more dominating than I&rsquo;ve been in previous years.&rdquo; Last season, says Bossy, he used the wrist shot 80 percent of the time and the slap 20 percent. So far this year it&rsquo;s been about 50-50 &hellip; How can the Penguins&rsquo; high command beef about attendance being below 10,000? Pittsburghers have a long history of hockey knowledge dating back to the AHL. They won&rsquo;t fill the Civic Arena for a lemon &hellip; Only place where the Pens would automatically sell out every night would be Hamilton, Ont., which doesn&rsquo;t have a full-size NHL rink and may never have one &hellip; Former U.S. Olympian Mike Eruzione will be handling &ldquo;color&rdquo; commentary on NHL Monday night Game Of The Week telecasts on the USA Cable Network. The ole maestro, Dan Kelly, will handle the play-by-play. Sports Illustrated&rsquo;s pre-season prediction had Shero, Roger Neilson and Keith Magnuson as the coaches most likely to be canned by Christmas. How did they miss Ted Lindsay? &hellip; The downfall of Bugsy Watson as a coach, according to a close friend, was Watson&rsquo;s intensity. &ldquo;The guy tried too hard,&rdquo; says his pal &hellip; Jets&rsquo; coach Tom McVie recalled that when Edmonton was visiting Winnipeg, Watson chatted with McVie. They sat up til four in the morning discussing the fine art of coaching hockey players &hellip; &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t try to do too much,&rdquo; counselled McVie. Unfortunately, Bugsy did &hellip; The appointment of Wayne Maxner as Detroit coach is a nice, quiet story of a guy who neatly turned his life around after suffering plenty of hard-knocks &hellip; Memo to several NHL general managers: If you&rsquo;re looking for an assistant coach with superior player insights and an excellent grasp of the game, try Buzzy Deschamps &hellip; I wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if Fred Shero buys himself a minor league team and settles down to play Eddie Shore the rest of his life &hellip; With the year running out, the hands-down winner of Fischler&rsquo;s annual &ldquo;Up From The Ashes&rdquo; award goes to Craig Patrick. Last spring Patrick was singing the blues, out of work and desperately looking for a job in hockey. &ldquo;He would have settled for anything,&rdquo; a friend confides. &ldquo;Now he&rsquo;s got one of the biggest [GM of the Rangers] jobs in all hockey.&rdquo; &hellip; Patrick can thank Rangers&rsquo; president Bill Jennings for that &hellip; Amazing how the Philadelphia people bad-mouthed Fred Shero once he was down. &ldquo;He never went one-on-one with anyone here,&rdquo; said Bobby Clarke of the Flyers after Freddie got the axe &hellip; That didn&rsquo;t seem to matter to Clarke when Shero won a pair of Stanley Cups &hellip; By the way, it was Shero and Mickey Keating who made the Barry Beck deal with Colorado &hellip; That trade will look good for New York when Beck gets around to playing for the Rangers instead of Beck.<h2>No Sacking Pattern</h2>ON FIRING COACHES: The sackings of Fred Shero, Ted Lindsay and Bryan Watson offer no distinct pattern as to why coaches are hired, why they succeed (or fail) and why they are fired.Shero and Lindsay were relatively old as coaches go, while Watson was a mere stripling. Shero had loads of experience, Lindsay a smidgen and Watson none whatsoever when he went behind the bench this year.We know that Shero was hired because he had won two Stanley Cups in Philadelphia. But why in heaven&rsquo;s name did owner Bruce Norris consent to putting Lindsay behind the Red Wings bench? As my dear grandmother Ethel used to say, &lsquo;Gawd only knows!&rdquo;The Watson fiasco is Edmonton GM Glen Sather&rsquo;s fault. He knew Bryan was consummately inexperienced and, if nothing else, would require lots of time to acclimatize himself to the NHL. Give the guy a break before you fire him, or don&rsquo;t give him the job in the first place. It would have seemed more logical had Sather given the coaching job to his aide Billy (Hinky) Harris, who has a vast background coaching international and pro hockey.According to Red Wings&rsquo; GM Jimmy Skinner, the Detroiters had hoped that some of Lindsay&rsquo;s fire would kindle his skaters. &ldquo;I thought Ted would infuse some drive into the team,&rdquo; Skinner tells me. &ldquo;To my surprise he was low key. We&rsquo;d lose a game and he&rsquo;d say &lsquo;Okay, guys, we lost a tough one.&rsquo; I kept waiting for him to blow his top. I waited and waited and it never happened. The players liked him; maybe they liked him too much.&rdquo;Skinner is reminded of Scotty Bowman and how little affection there was for Scotty from his Stanley Cup-champion Montreal Canadiens.&ldquo;But,&rdquo; Skinner concludes, &ldquo;the most important thing was that they respected him.&rdquo;By contrast, Sather is vague about the Watson affair. He tells me that &ldquo;a combination of problems&rdquo; compelled him to axe his buddy, Watson. &ldquo;We had only won one game out of 10 at home. I had to do something. Reasons? I can&rsquo;t point to one specific&hellip;&rdquo;It&rsquo;s a tough situation when pal works for pal. &ldquo;I just don&rsquo;t want to go into it any deeper,&rdquo; says Sather. &ldquo;Bryan is a good friend of mine.&rdquo;In the end, maybe that was the problem.MEDIA NOTES: Pat Doyle of the late Winnipeg Tribune has moved to The Toronto Sun &hellip; Lawrie Mifflin of the New York Daily News was escorted out of the Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; lockerroom by Dave (Tiger) Williams following a game at Madison Square Garden. Canucks&rsquo; coach Harry Neale had told Mifflin it was okay for female reporters to talk to his troops in the dressing room but Williams &mdash; who is militant about his no-females-in-the-locker-rom philosophy &mdash; overruled the coach &hellip; Bernard Brisset of Montreal&rsquo;s La Presse says there&rsquo;s a difference in the approach of French and Englishspeaking hockey writers. &ldquo;The English reporter is more interested in the technical aspect of the game. The French go more with the emotions &mdash; the way the guy is feeling. On the whole the American hockey writers are more factual than we are.&rdquo; &hellip; Claude Larochelle of Quebec&rsquo;s La Soleil attributes the difference to the French writers&rsquo; Latin extraction &hellip; My offhand poll indicates that Larochelle and Rejean Tremblay of La Presse are the top French-writing columnists &hellip; Wayne Parrish is a breath of fresh air writing hockey for Montreal&rsquo;s Gazette &hellip; For the first time the Lester Patrick (outstanding service to hockey in U.S.) Trophy will be presented outside New York. Charles (Peanuts) Schulz, Snoopy&rsquo;s creator, will get the award at the NHL&rsquo;s All Star dinner, Feb. 9 in Los Angeles&rsquo; Century Plaza Hotel &hellip; Jim Christie of The Toronto Globe and Mail extracted some delicious Tiger Williams comments on the Robert Picard-to-Toronto-for-Mike Palmateer deal. &ldquo;That was the worst trade [for Toronto] in hockey. I hated Picard when he was at Washington and I hate him in Toronto. He&rsquo;s a prima donna.&rdquo;TRIVIA CORNER: Q. Name the NHL defenseman whose wife is a dentist. A. Ron Stackhouse of the Pittsburgh Penguins.MORE NOTES: Washington will be the site of the 1982 NHL All Star Game &hellip; The inside report on Claude Ruel is that he&rsquo;s a superb technician and the Canadiens like him as a person. &ldquo;But,&rdquo; adds a Montreal insider, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s too tense. He yells to much &mdash; right from the opening face-off &mdash; and he can be outcoached.&rdquo; &hellip; Ray Miron is bullish about the Meadowlands getting an NHL team. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s gotta be a team there. It&rsquo;s inevitable.&rdquo; &hellip; The Maple Leafs-Penguins deal (Paul Marshall, Kim Davis for Dave Burrows, Paul Gardner) is regarded as a steal for Toronto. Leafs unloaded a pair who did zip for them while obtaining two good kids. &ldquo;Marshall,&rdquo; says one NHL GM, &ldquo;could be a real winner.&rdquo; &#9632;

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ON THE CONTRARY

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011436/6568021-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By Ian MacAlpineBill Clement, who skated with a swollen knee, felt that the Flames played poorly at times despite their relatively successful road trip.</figcaption></div>CALGARY &mdash; Suddenly, in the space of 24 hours,, the Calgary Flames went from an injury-free club in the National Hockey League to a team with a serious shortage of front-line players.The latest victim in a series of freak accidents which the Flames encountered in a 48-hour stop-over in Montreal, the scene of their 5-4 upset win over the Canadiens, was center Guy Chouinard.&ldquo;Chouinard, who up to that point was the team&rsquo;s leading goalscorer, with 14&rdquo; goals in 19 games, suffered a dislocated shoulder in a morning skate just before the club left for Buffalo to continue its six-game road trip.The shoulder was taped by trainer Jim Murray and Chouinard returned home the next day, when he underwent surgery.Flames&rsquo; officials said that the injury would keep him out of the lineup for an indefinite period.No one expressed any sympathy for the fallen Chouinard as he lay on the Forum ice surface, because no one could believe that he actually got hurt in his soft collision with the boards.&ldquo;Everybody thought he was kidding,&rdquo; said Atlanta coach Al MacNeil. &ldquo;When I skated over to him I expected him to jump up with a big grin on his face.&rdquo;Chouinard became the fourth player injured in the costly Montreal stopover. Prior to the game with the Canadiens, rugged Brad Smith banged heads with Willi Plett in practice and developed a shiner that closed his left eye.Then both Don Lever and Kent Nilsson were forced out of the game itself &mdash; Lever with a suspected groin pull and Nilsson with a sore ankle. Lever&rsquo;s injury was later diagnosed as a slight tear in the abductor muscle, located just above the knee and he was out for the remainder of the trip.Earlier, veteran Bob MacMillan blocked a slapshot from teammate Brad Marsh with his ribs and he saw only spot duty on the road trip.Perhaps the most serious injury after Chouinard&rsquo;s was sustained by defenseman Randy Holt. Holt suffered strained knee ligaments in the first game of the trip, a 4-2 loss to the Washington Capitals, and he also had to return home. He is out indefinitely.The beneficiary of all the bad fortune turned out to be Denis Cyr. The team&rsquo;s No. 1 1980 draft choice joined the Flames for the game against the Canadiens, more as a confidence-builder than a promotion, and then was returned to the Montreal Junior Canadiens of the Quebec Major Junior League.He turned up for the club&rsquo;s light skate the day after the hockey game, anyway, and when the extent of Chouinard&rsquo;s injury became clear was told to pack his bags and accompany the team to Buffalo. &gt;.&ldquo;This is my big chance,&rdquo; said Cyr. &ldquo;The game against Montreal gave me a little boost. I&rsquo;m sure that I can play in the league.&rdquo; Cyr had a goal and an assist on the remainder of the road trip, but was later returned to his junior club.MacNeil&rsquo;s pressbox corps &mdash; Bert Wilson and Alex McKendry &mdash; saw plenty of action as a result, as did Mike Dwyer, who was called up from the Birmingham Bulls of the Central League so the Flames could dress 19 players for the final two games of the trip, St. Louis and Winnipeg.The Flames finished the six-game swing &mdash; their second of the season &mdash; at 2-3-1, just shy of the .500 mark coaches strive for. Before the trip began, MacNeil felt that getting eight out of a possible 12 points was not out of the club&rsquo;s reach, but then he didn&rsquo;t expect the rash of injuries.&ldquo;Ideally, I wanted 12 points, said MacNeil. &ldquo;I just kept readjusting the schedule as the games went away.&rdquo;Center Bill Clement participated in all six of the games, but had to have his swollen knee drained twice in St. Louis by one of the club&rsquo;s doctors who happened to be passing through town.Clement was satisfied by the team&rsquo;s net result, five points, because they came near the break-even point for the trip. However, they would have been more satisfied, he said, had the club executed better on some occasions.&ldquo;I hate to use injuries as an excuse,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We played some poor hockey on this trip; that bothers me as much as all the injuries.&rdquo;HOT NOTES: Goalie Reggie Lemelin performed well in the latter stages of the trip, subbing for Pat Riggin, who&rsquo;s been in a bit of a slump. Forgotten netminder Dan Bouchard will likely be traded when the right deal comes along &hellip; Winger Ken Houston, sidelined in the off-season by hepatitis, has resumed skating with the Flames. &#9632;

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Calgary Clobbered By Freak Injury Outbreak

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011333/6568059-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011189/6568052-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="609" height="3869"></div> &#9632;

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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE SCORING

<div class="byline">BY PAT CALABRIA</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02896/6568090-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">&ldquo;When you&rsquo;re going well, you get some breaks,&rdquo; said defenseman Dave Langevin during the Islanders&rsquo; streak. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve gotten some breaks, but we&rsquo;re playing well, too.&rdquo;</figcaption></div>LONG ISLAND &mdash; If it&rsquo;s true that what goes up must come clown, then it can be said that the Islanders plunged to earth in a hurry, their 15-game unbeaten streak slamming to the ground and disintegrating on impact. The team may have been a Mile High, but it was feeling mighty lowFor it was in Denver where the Rockies registered a mountainous upset that led to the Islanders&rsquo; undoing. But if the Islanders were upset, they were not necessarily upset.&ldquo;What can you do?&rdquo; coach Al Arbour said. &ldquo;It was bound to happen. It was a strange night.&rdquo;The Islanders had come into McNichols Arena with a 13-0-2 unbeaten streak to tie the club record. They had not lost since a 7-3 whipping at the hands of the Los Angeles Kings. They were playing well and talking confidently.Just two nights earlier, they had beaten the Rockies in Nassau Coliseum, 5-1. It was then that Dave Langevin said: &ldquo;When you&rsquo;re going well, you get some breaks. We&rsquo;ve gotten some breaks, but we&rsquo;re playing well, too.&rdquo;And the Islanders had been playing well. Their streak had launched them &mdash; briefly &mdash; into the top of the NHL point standings, a single digit ahead of Patrick Division rival Philadelphia. The streak included impressive victories over Montreal 4-3, St. Louis 7-2, Buffalo 4-1 and Chicago 7-3. The only team to avoid defeat to the Islanders was Minnesota, which rallied from four goals down for a 6-6 tie, and Winnipeg, which caught the Islanders napping and escaped with a 5-5 tie.There was no reason to believe that the Rockies would not become victim No. 16 when the Islanders kicked off a six-game, 11-day road trip. The Rockies, after all, had lost three straight.So the Islanders outshot Colorado, 35-25.So the Islanders allowed only one goal in the last 43 minutes.So the Islanders allowed only one goal in the last 43 minutes.So the Islanders lost, 4-3.The Islanders wished to credit Rockies&rsquo; goalie Hardy Astrom for snapping their streak and, in truth, Astrom did play well. He stopped Mike Bossy twice in dangerous situations. He kicked put a shot by Bob Lorimer as he raced back after falling behind the net. He withstood a shower of Islanders&rsquo; shots in the third period when the Islanders outshot Colorado, 15-5.&ldquo;They worked hard and they kept us off-balance,&rdquo; Arbour said. &ldquo;And that Astrom, he&rsquo;s some streak-breaker.&rdquo;Arbour was referring to Astrom&rsquo;s victory over the Canadiens that stopped Montreal&rsquo;s unbeaten streak at 28 games when Astrom was making his NHL debut for the Rangers four seasons ago. But the Islanders were also responsible for making their streak end.They let Colorado take a 3-1 lead in the first period, then allowed the Rockies to pad that lead in the second period by failing to convert two easy chances early in the period. The power play fizzled. Badly.It was, in fact, a shorthanded Colorado goal that proved to be the decisive play of the game. The Islanders were down by two goals in the second period but were enjoying a four-on-three advantage in skaters when Rob Ramage intercepted a pass by Stefan Persson 20 feet in front of the Islanders&rsquo; net.Ramage raced the length of the ice and pulled goalie Glenn Resch out of the net before tucking the puck in effortlessly for a 4-1 lead. That kept the Rockies ahead despite third-period goals by Steve Tambellini and Clark Gillies.Still, the Islanders remained near the top of the point standings and one defeat was not going to stop their climb to the top. &ldquo;I think we&rsquo;re all helping each other out there,&rdquo; Butch Goring said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re all thinking. And we&rsquo;re very confident.&rdquo;That confidence was not even sapped when the Islanders lost the second game of the road trip two nights later in Los Angeles, 5-3. They had. after all, summoned an excellent effort and were locked in a 3-3 tie until there were six minutes left.It was the first time the Islanders had lost back-to-back games since losses to Philadelphia and Buffalo Oct. 25 and 26. But the Islanders were not fretting. Instead, they continued on their trip, hoping to right themselves again and not concerned that they would fail.And they were hoping to win one for the road. &#9632;

f0017-02

Streak Ends, But Isles Still Confident

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div>MONTREAL - Richard Sevigny has been the No. 3 goaltender in the Canadiens&rsquo; scheme of things from the start of the season.Now, Sevigny is getting a full shot at the No. 1 job.The opportunity came for the 23-year-old netminder when Michel Laroque, who had performed in the majority of the Montreal games this season, suffered a cut right hand as the Canadiens lost to Pittsburgh 3-2 at the Forum, marking their fourth consecutive loss on home ice.Larocque was injured trying to poke the puck away from the onrushing Peter Lee late in the third period. Larocque got the puck all right, but as Lee skated by him, he accidentally caught the goaltender with his left skate.With Larocque unable to continue, on came Sevigny with 4:31 to play and he kept the Penguins off the scoresheet for the remainder of the night and was given the starting assignment in the Habs&rsquo; next game against the Boston Bruins.It was a critical game for Montreal. They had not lost five in a row at home since the 1938-39 season and the last time they had been beaten four straight times on Montreal ice was during the 1947-48 season.But Sevigny was razor-sharp for most of the evening, kicking out 20 shots in Montreal&rsquo;s 4-1 triumph, avenging a 3-2 loss they suffered to the Bruins in Boston in October.&ldquo;Winning the first game was important to me,&rdquo; admitted Sevigny. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s important to give me confidence and to give the players confidence in me.Sevigny has shown a good deal of confidence in his abilities since making his first tour of duty with the Canadiens last season.He was called up in November when Denis Herron suffered a broken collarbone and played in 12 games, including a 4-2 victory over the Red Army club of the Soviet Union last New Year&rsquo;s Eve.Against the Bruins, he showed no fear, bouncing out of the net from time to time to clear loose pucks and helping his defensemen and forwards.&ldquo;I was nervous,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Some players put a lot of pressure on themselves but I try not to. It&rsquo;s only a hockey game. All I can do is my best.&ldquo;Goaltending is 80 percent mental and 20 percent physical. To some guys it may be 50-50, but I see it the other way.&rdquo;The injury to Larocque silenced some of the trade rumors involving Denis Herron, the other member of the Canadiens&rsquo; goaltending troika.Herron was reported bound for the Toronto Maple Leafs along with forward Mark Napier in return for a draft choice and defenseman Robert Picard. That rumor, which didn&rsquo;t make a lot of sense anyway, died when the Maple Leafs acquired Jimmy Rutherford from the Detroit Red Wings.The day after Napier heard the report, which emanated from Toronto, he went out and enjoyed his finest night in a Montreal uniform, potting four goals as the Canadiens went into Buffalo and beat the Sabres 6-5, running their unbeaten streak to six games.&ldquo;Sure these things bother you a bit,&rdquo; said Napier. &ldquo;But you have to consider where they come from. It seems every time a trade with Toronto is mentioned, my name comes up and the talk always seems to come from Toronto. I&rsquo;d be more worried if they came from Montreal.&rdquo;Meanwhile, coach Claude Ruel held a 45-minute closed-door meeting with his players prior to the victory in Buffalo and two days after a loss against the North Stars.The Montreal coach, distressed by the lackadaisical play of some of his charges, roared at a rock-and-roll decibel level as he delivered his strongest speech since taking over the club from Bernard Geoffrion last December.Among things discussed was the lack of leadership provided by some veterans, including team captain Serge Savard, and Ruel told his players that if they had any complaints, they should go directly to the coach and not to the media.Ruel&rsquo;s words reverberated off the walls outside the dressing room although players also had their opportunity to throw their comments around.There was no feeling of panic in the Montreal camp, despite the losing efforts which were due in part to an all-too-long injury list.&ldquo;I still think that we have the best team in the league,&rdquo; said carrot-topped center Doug Jarvis. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there is any team that can match our talent and depth.&rdquo;The problem was that the Canadiens had to have a full effort from everybody or that talent and depth didn&rsquo;t mean anything. &#9632;

Sevigny Earns Shot To Be Habs’ No. 1 Goalie

<div class="byline">BY NEIL MILBERT</div>CHICAGO &mdash; After what has happened to Rich Preston, maybe the Black Hawks&rsquo; president. Bill Wirtz, will have second thoughts over his advocacy of fighting as an outlet for frustration in pro hockey.While the team was starting the second segment of what turned out to be a dismal six-game road-trip, the versatile forward was undergoing surgery for a knee injury stemming from a Nov. 16 fight.Dr. Louis Kolb performed the operation to repair cartilage on the outside of Preston&rsquo;s left knee. Preston is expected to be sidelined for two or three months.&ldquo;Rest wouldn&rsquo;t have helped,&rdquo; said Preston. &ldquo;The cartilage is torn. I don&rsquo;t have any support. It was okay when I went up and down the ice but when I got in the corners and went to work I had a lot of pain.&rdquo;The injury goes back to a second period fight with Edmonton rookie Paul Coffey in the 5-4 loss to the Oilers in Chicago Stadium. Apparently, the knee was hurt when they fell to the ice.Preston missed just one night&rsquo;s work because of the injury. But it was obvious that he wasn&rsquo;t 100 percent when coach Keith Magnuson gave him spot assignments in the six contests that followed and his performances weren&rsquo;t up to his customary high standards.Skating on both right and left wing, Preston scored seven goals and assisted on 11. Last season he played in every game, had 31 goals and 30 assists, and the team&rsquo;s best plusminus rating, plus 11.6.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s one of the best defensive forwards in the league,&rdquo; said Magnuson. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough for him and tough for the team. Rich is very conscientious about keeping in shape so I&rsquo;m optimistic he will be back in a couple of months.&rdquo;Ironically, Preston doesn&rsquo;t have a reputation for fighting and had gone through five years in the World Hockey Association and last season with the Hawks without a major injury.Preston is the second Chicago forward this season to be forced onto the disabled list because of a fight. Reg Kerr separated a shoulder in an altercation with Duane Sutter of the New York Islanders in the opening exhibition Sept. 21 and consequently missed the first eight regular-season games.The loss of Preston probably precipitated the trade that brought right wing Peter Marsh from Winnipeg in exchange for forwards Doug Lecuyer and Tim Trimper, who&rsquo;d been playing up on the farm in New Brunswick.&ldquo;I played against him in the WHA and I know he&rsquo;s a sniper,&rdquo; said Preston of Marsh. &ldquo;He can help us. He gets a lot of power play goals.&rdquo;However, on the first shift of his Chicago debut against the Flyers in Philadelphia, Marsh twisted his right ankle when he fell into the boards.&rdquo;Because of the injury. Marsh missed the final twp games of the trip and Rick Paterson was recalled from New Brunswick to fill in.HAWK TALK &mdash; Chicago&rsquo;s losing streak stretched to five games and the defending champions were in fourth place in the Smythe Division &mdash; 15 points behind pacesetting St. Louis &mdash; following their 6-4 loss to the Penguins in Pittsburgh. It was their first meeting with Pittsburgh. Eddie Johnston was fired as the Black Hawks&rsquo; coach last summer and subsequently hired by the Penguins. &ldquo;Last year against Chicago this team won two and tied two,&rdquo; said Johnston. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re one up on that already. But I want to finish the Chicago situation right now. Enough has been said.&rdquo; &hellip; In losing the five games on the road, the Hawks surrendered 34 goals. &#9632;

Preston’s Knee Operation Takes Fight From Hawks

LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMike Rogers of the Hartford Whalers is living proof that good things come in small packages.The 5-9, 170-pound center continues to blossom into a topflight NHL scorer in his second season and if he maintains his present pace, he should easily eclipse his 1979-80 totals of 44 goals and 105 points.The diminutive Whaler pivot, this week&rsquo;s HOCKEY NEWS NHL Player of the Week, produced a six-point week for Hartford, scoring five times and setting up a sixth goal. Rogers also turned in a hat trick, against Vancouver, his second in two weeks, to raise his season&rsquo;s record to 16 goals and 35 points in 20 games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011227/6568169-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="534" height="808"><figcaption class="caption-body">MIKE ROGERS Hartford Whalers</figcaption></div>Rogers has scored four power play goals and tallied gamewinners three times for the struggling Whalers, who continue to be overwhelmed by in juries. As a result, Rogers has been receiving plenty of ice time for Hartford. &#9632;

f0018-01

NHL Player Of The Week

<div class="byline">BY STEVE WINTER</div>LANDOVER &mdash; Hockey players, as a rule, are specialists. Guy Lafleur, Gilbert Perreault and Marcel Dionne are best known for their skating, playmaking and touch around the net; Bill Barber, Lanny McDonald and Mike Bossy are known for their quick release and wrist shot and Ed Hospodar, Dennis Polonich and Jimmy Mann are best known for &hellip; well &hellip; Other qualities.But occasionally, along comes a Bob Gainey-type, or a Danny Gare-type hockey player who demonstrates the rare ability to adapt to a given situtation and perform equally well undering conditions.The Washington Capitals have just such a player in the form of Alan Hangsleben.Hangsleben joined the Capitals last January in a trade with the Hartford Whalers for Tommy Rowe. In both cases, it was an exchange of two popular, young Americans; and whereas Rowe has not yet duplicated the 31-goal form he demonstrated for Washington in 1978-79, Hangsleben has easily matched his contributions to his former team, and then some.Upon arrival, Hangsleben was dubbed a defenseman, and turned in a stellar performance in his debut, scoring his first Washington goal in a 4-4 tie with the Flyers. A short time later, however, coach Gary Green decided his two Swedish forwards, Rolf Edberg and Bengt Gustafsson needed some muscle up front, and suddenly the then-26-year-old Warroad, Minn., native was a left wing.Hangsleben finished the year on that line, totalling 10 goals and seven assists in 37 games, and he found himself in the same position when the 1980-81 season began. But 10 games into the regular season, defenseman Paul MacKinnon went down with a knee injury, and Hangsleben found himself back on the blueline once again. And now, with fellow rearguard Rick Green out nursing a broken hand, Hangsleben and Pat Ribble have suddenly emerged as the club&rsquo;s No. I defense unit.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m certainly very proud of Alan Hangsleben, and I think he&rsquo;s doing an excellent job on defense.&rdquo; said Green. &ldquo;He and Ribble are combined right now; they&rsquo;re playing as a team, they&rsquo;re playing as a two-man unit, and they&rsquo;re playing against the other teams&rsquo; best. So I couldn&rsquo;t be happier with Alan&rsquo;s play, and I know that it&rsquo;s even going to improve in the days and weeks to come.&ldquo;And I just think very positively, that if we can get those two guys playing very well together, that whenever we get Rick Green back, that will be like an added bonus, coming back to a defense that &mdash; so far in the last few games &mdash; has looked pretty good.&ldquo;Overall, Alan is a very valuable man to have, because he has the capabilities of playing two positions,&rdquo; Green said, &ldquo;and very few players in the National Hockey League have that capability.&rdquo;But that capability &mdash; as Hangsleben readily admits &mdash; is no easy task.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d say that going from forward to defense really affects me,&rdquo; Hangsleben said following a recent 2-2 tie at home with Boston. &ldquo;In order to properly stand up at the blueline, I find that I really have to practice my timing and so forth. But say if I go from defense to forward, it&rsquo;s not quite as bad, but I still find myself drifting back and becoming a defenseman because I&rsquo;ve always loved it.&rdquo;Hangsleben makes no bones about his preference for the blueline, contending that he feels more at home on defense, and is more familiar with the various tactics employed there.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really know any of the little tricks of being a forward&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;It you play forward all your life, then there are a lot of little things you pick up from watching other guys that a guy being switched back and forth may never have picked up. On the other hand, I think I have little tricks back on defense that help me out that I have picked up along the way.&rdquo;Some of his &ldquo;little tricks&rdquo; include his preference to play the body, which always results in a crowd pleasing performance at the Capital Centre. And against Boston, he set the pace early with a pair of heavy checks in the first period.Yet Hangsleben&rsquo;s checks are solid &mdash; not cheap. But more often than not, his aggressive play leaves him open as a target for enemy assaults, sqch as one by Boston&rsquo;s Terry O&rsquo;Reilly, which removed both players from action for seven minutes.Aggressive play and solid bodychecking is not the end of Hangsleben&rsquo;s contribution to the Washington Capitals. After 22 games, he had scored two goals and added eight assists, and stood plus-five on the team&rsquo;s plus-minus ratings, fourth best on the club. And if you asked Capitals&rsquo; assistant coach Bill Mahoney, he&rsquo;d tell you a few other things about Hangsleben.&ldquo;Hank&rsquo;s one of my favorite players, for sure,&rdquo; said the 40-year-old ex-McMaster University coach who joined Gary Green&rsquo;s staff in the offseason. &ldquo;I like his quickness. He&rsquo;s a very smart hockey player, he&rsquo;s got so much enthusiasm that he puts into the game, and he&rsquo;s a real coaches&rsquo; treat.&ldquo;And, I think his game is going to get a little more controlled, a little more disciplined from a positional point of view, because as a defenseman, he&rsquo;s just coming off a few shifts as a forward, so it will take a little bit of time to get adjusted back to the defenseman role. But he&rsquo;s so energetic, he&rsquo;s such a good team man. &ldquo;The crowd loves him, all the team loves him, the coaches love him. What more can you say?&rdquo;CAPSHOTS &mdash; The Capitals marked their 500th performance &mdash; the 2-2 tie with Boston &mdash; with a heartwarming pre-game ceremony honoring Capitals&rsquo; radio broadcaster Ron Weber, a former HOCKEY NEWS correspondent; and defenseman Yvon Labre, the only player to survive seven full seasons with the Capitals.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011140/6568200-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="583" height="795"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By Graig AbelWashington injuries returned Alan Hangsleben to defense after a stint as a forward.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0019-01

Hangsleben Handy Man For Capitals

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011018/6568238-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mark Napier of the Montreal Canadiens exploded for four-goal game against the Buffalo Sabres filling in for the ailing Guy Lafleur. (Photo by Steve ttaomeau)</figcaption></div><h2>Dionne Gets 400th</h2>LOS ANGELES &mdash; Marcel Dionne of the Los Angeles Kings became the NHL&rsquo;s latest 400-goal scorer when the King-defeated the Vancouver Canucks 3-1 on Dec. 4 in Los Angeles.Dionne, who reached the 400-plateau with his 20th goal of the NHL season, joined teammate Garry Unger, who recorded his 400th a week earlier. The two also moved into a tie for 14th place on the NHL&rsquo;s all-time list behind Guy Lafleur of the Montreal Canadiens, who is in 12th spot with 415 career goals, and Rod Gilbert, who retired after scoring 406 goals. Gilbert is currently ranked 13th.As for other recent NHL milestones, Nick Libett of the Pittsburgh Penguins scored a goal against the Boston Bruins to collect his 500th career point. Mike Bossy of the Islanders also clicked for his 200th lifetime goal and Boston&rsquo;s Brad Park became only the second defenseman in NHL history&rsquo; to record 500 assists when he set up a goal against Detroit. Bobby Orr retired as the leader with 645 assists. Denis Potvin of the Islanders recently picked up his 400th assist.<h2>Trade Winds Blow</h2>TORONTO &mdash; The Toronto Maple Detroit Red Wings. Winnipeg Sets and Chicago Black Hawks all I made trades recently in an effort to strengthen their defensive play.The Leafs secured veteran goalie Jim Rutherford from Detroit in exchange for newcomer Mark Kirton, a 22-year-old center with very little NHL experience. Rutherford is 32. The Leafs had earlier purchased Barry Melrose from the Jets and in turn sold minor league defenseman Richard Mulhern to Winnipeg for cash.The Black Hawks gave up two left wingers, Doug Lecuyer and Tim Trimper, to the Jets in return for Peter Marsh, a right winger who hadn&rsquo;t exactly been burning up the NHL for Winnipeg. Jets&rsquo; GM John Ferguson said that while he hated to see Marsh leave, he was happy at the thought of obtaining two youngsters with an eye to the future. Lecuyer is 22 and Trimper 21. Ferguson said Lecuyer will help the Jets&rsquo; penalty killing units.<h2>Hull Goes West</h2>WINNIPEG &mdash; Bobby Hull is back in Winnipeg. That&rsquo;s Bobby Jr., of course, and he&rsquo;s now a member of the Winnipeg Warriors of the Western Hockey League.The 19-year-old son of Bobby Hull was obtained from the Cornwall Royals of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for an undisclosed amount of cash.The younger Hull, a 5-11, 190-pound right winger, was a member of the Cornwall team that won the Memorial Cup last season. He recently walked out on the team, protesting a lack of ice time and the way new Royals&rsquo; coach Bob Kilger treated him. Kilger said that he gave Hull as much chance to play as was possible but the youngster wasn&rsquo;t content with his time on the ice. This is the second time around in the WHL for Hull, who formerly played with the Lethbridge Broncos.<h2>Ref Blew It</h2>TORONTO &mdash; According to NHL referee-in-chief Scotty Morrison, NHL referee Ron Harris probably blew a penalty call in a recent game.Morrison said that he planned to meet with the veteran Harris to discuss his decision not to penalize rookie defenseman Bennett Wolf of the Pittsburgh Penguins for a high stick incident involving Dan Maloney of the Toronto Maple Leafs.Maloney has charged that Wolf deliberately speared him in the face during the 4-4 tie at Maple Leaf Gardens. Wolf claims it was all an accident, that his stick caromed off Maloney&rsquo;s arm and into the Leaf winger&rsquo;s face.After reviewing the incident a number of times on film, Morrison said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m perfectly satisfied that it was not a deliberate spear. But there&rsquo;s no question Wolf&rsquo;s stick was too high. I think a high-sticking penalty would have been appropriate. It did injure Maloney, but whether there was cause for a major penalty against Wolf is hard to say.&rdquo;Morrison&rsquo;s dilemma is heightened by the fact that referee Harris did not call any penalty on the Pittsburgh defenseman. Maloney drew a major fighting penalty and a game misconduct for going after Wolf, who madeno attempt to fight back. Morrison said Maloney&rsquo;s misconduct was justified and also said that no disciplinary action would be taken against Harris. &ldquo;He called it the way he saw it,&rdquo; said Morrison &hellip; and that&rsquo;s the way it will go into the book.<h2>Cyr Disenchanted</h2>MONTREAL &mdash; Underage draft Denis Cyr is back with his Quebec Major Hockey League team, slightly disillusioned with the way his hockey career is going.The 19-year-old right winger, who was the Calgary Flames&rsquo; top pick in the 1980 Entry Draft this past summer, has twice been ready to play for the Flames and both times he&rsquo;s been sent back to the Montreal Juniors.Cyr was expecting to start the 1980-81 season with Calgary after an excellent training camp performance. But the Flames decided to return him to his junior club. Then the Flames went into Montreal for a game and promptly summoned Cyr. He continued to play against Buffalo, St. Louis and Winnipeg. The rookie accompanied the team to the Winnipeg airport at 6 AM for a flight back to Calgary. However, he was told he would be going back to Montreal even after an injury to high-scoring Guy Chouinard.Now Cyr finds himself back in the QMJHL, a league he has already admitted he&rsquo;s outgrowing because of his talents. The Flames obviously think otherwise.<h2>Parents Speak Out</h2>TORONTO &mdash; In a recent survey conducted by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association of 548 parents of players in the Metropolitan Toronto Hockey League, 61 percent of those parents said that the rule changes made by the CAHA to curb violence at the Atom (10-year-old) level should also have been implemented at the bantam level (14-year-olds), where violence is more prevalent.This is the first year for the rules, which were established by the CAHA last May as part of a five-year program affecting players 10 years old and less.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02676/6568231-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="1194" height="1225"><figcaption class="caption-body">Underage junior Denis Cyr of the Calgary Flames has twice been shuttled back to his Montreal junior club after playing in the NHL. (Photo by Ian MacAlpine)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0020-01

SLAPSHOTS

<h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>BOSTON &mdash; Al Secord, LW, and Craig MacTavish, C, recalled from Springfield of AHL. MacTavish later returned to Springfield.BUFFALO &mdash; Steve Patrick, RW, an underage draft, returned to Brandon of WHL. Alan Haworth, RW, recalled from Rochester of AHL. Richard Suwek, LW, recalled from Rochester and reassigned to Port Huron of IHL.CALGARY &mdash; Guy Chouinard, C, sidelined with shoulder injury. Denis Cyr, RW, an underage draft, returned to Montreal of QMJHL.CHICAGO &mdash; Doug Lecuyer, LW, and Tim Trimper, LW, traded to Winnipeg in return for Peter Marsh, RW. Trimper recalled from New Brunswick of AHL. Rich Preston, RW, placed on injury list for two months after knee surgery.COLORADO &mdash; Ed Cooper, LW, recalled from Fort Worth of CHL.DETROIT &mdash; Jim Rutherford, G. traded to Toronto in exchange for Mark Kirton, C. Larry Lozinski, G, recalled from Adirondack of AHL. Al Jensen, G, returned to Adirona-dack.HARTFORD&mdash;Fred Arthur, D, an underage draft, returned to Cornwall of QMJHL. Mark Renaud, D, recalled from Binghamton of AHL. Marty Howe, D, Rick Ley, D, and Tommy Abrahamsson, D, all sidelined with knee problems. Dave Debol, LW, out with back injury.MINNESOTA &mdash; Murray Brumwell, D, and Jim Dobson, RW, recalled from Oklahoma City of CHL. Mike Eaves, C, back on injury list with concussion.MONTREAL &mdash; Michel Larocque, G, on injury list with cut wrist. Rich Sevigny, G, recalled from Nova Scotia of AHL. Guy Lafleur, RW, returned to injury list for tonsil surgery.RANGERS &mdash; John Davidson, G,, on injury list after undergoing knee surgery. Wayne Thomas G., reactivated as backup goal tender.PHILADELPHIA &mdash; Norm Barnes, D, traded to Hartford for future considerations.PITTSBURGH &mdash; Mark Johnson, C, returned to lineup from injury list.QUEBEC &mdash; Lee Norwood, D, assigned to Hershey of AHL on loan, and later recalled. Normand Rochefort, D, out with neck injury. Serge Bernier, C, returned to lineup from injury list. Bernie Saunders, LW, returned to Nova Scotia of AHL, not Rochester.TORONTO &mdash; Richard Mulhern, D, recalled from Dallas of CHL and sold outright to Winnipeg. Greg Hotham, D, Paul Marshall, LW, and Stewart Gavin, LW, all assigned to New Brunswick of AHL. Kim Davis, C, sent to Springfield of AHL. Robert Picard, D, returned to lineup from injury list.VANCOUVER &mdash; Ivan Boldirev, C, suffered fractured cheek-bone and will be out indefinitely after undergoing surgery. Chris Oddleifson, C, recalled from Dallas of CHL.WINNIPEG &mdash; Markus Mattsson, G, recalled from Tulsa of CHL.<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>BINGHAMTON &mdash; Roger Lemelin, D, released.MAINE &mdash; Bob O&rsquo;Brien, RW, back from injury list.NEW BRUNSWICK &mdash; Bill Gardner, C, on injury list.NEW HAVEN &mdash; Jim Dorey, D, activated and signed to playing contract.NOVA SCOTIA &mdash; Craig Laughlin, RW. and Bill Kitchen, D, both on injury list.<h2>CENTRAL LEAGUE</h2>BIRMINGHAM &mdash; Serge Beaudoin, D, left team and anounced retirement.DALLAS &mdash; Rory Cava, D, assigned to Fort Wayne of IHL.FORT WORTH &mdash; Steve Janaszak, G, recalled from Fort Wayne of IHL. Bill Oleschuk, G, and Jan Kaarela, G, both on injury list.INDIANAPOLIS &mdash; Dwayne Lowdermilk, D, recalled from Fort Wayne of IHL.OKLAHOMA CITY &mdash; Daniel Poulin, D, returned from injury list.SALT LAKE &mdash; Doug Palazarri, C, on injury list. Kevin Willison, D, returned from injury list.TULSA &mdash; Mike Antonovich, C, signed as free agent after returning from Europe. Rod Willard, LW, sent back to Fort Wayne of IHL.<h2>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>FLINT &mdash; Mark Jackson, D, added to roster.MUSKEGON &mdash; Bob Lekun, LW, added to roster. &#9632;

Latest Player Movements In Hockey

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT &mdash; Jimmy Rutherford got his wish &mdash; the Toronto Maple Leafs.The Red Wings traded Rutherford, the club&rsquo;s elder statesman, to the Maple Leafs for center Mark Kirton, a 22-year-old third year pro, to signal the start of still another rebuilding era.The trade was the first of what promises to be a series of moves aimed at redesigning the troubled Red Wings.The Rutherford-Kirton deal shapes up as an excellent trade for the Leafs feid the veteran netminder. He should Beady their uncertain goaltending and Rutherford gets a fresh start with a better team then the Wings. For the Wings, it&rsquo;s a trade for the future, and admittedly a gamble, but one the club couldn&rsquo;t afford not to take, the fan reaction was against the trade, since Mark Kirton is a virtual unknown, but Red Wing officials think highly of the Toronto native who is a rookie in the NHL.Rutherford greeted the trade enthusiastically. The decade of the 1970s was one of turmoil for the Red Wings and Rutherford had suffered through all of the controversies and changes, frustrations and losses.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a big load off my mind,&rdquo; Rutherford said. &ldquo;The rumors &hellip; for three, four years, I went into every new week wondering if it was my last in Detroit. I&rsquo;m sad to be leaving all my friends, and all the people who have been so good to me, and a great city.&ldquo;But I really felt I needed a change and I&rsquo;m very happy &mdash; for two reasons &mdash; that I&rsquo;m going to Toronto. I was born and raised there (actually, in nearby Beeton) and it&rsquo;s close to Detroit. Really, over the years the Red Wing organization has been good to me and I&rsquo;m grateful they traded me to Toronto.For Rutherford, the last straw was a weird 7-7 tie with Washington in which the Capitals scored six third period goals.&ldquo;After that game, I laid awake all night. I just couldn&rsquo;t handle it anymore. I guess if there wasn&rsquo;t a trade, I&rsquo;d have kept going. Physically, I could have done it. But mentally, it was too tough &hellip; to be working so hard and nothing happening.&rdquo;Jimmy Skinner, the Wings&rsquo; director nf hockey operations, talked trade with a number of clubs.&ldquo;I tried to stay away from the other teams, for Jimmy&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; Skinner said. &ldquo;If I got desperate, I would have dealt with another club but I&rsquo;m glad I didn&rsquo;t have to.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t expect Kirton to be a superstar. But he skates, forechecks and picks up his wing. We were worried about our center ice situation. We&rsquo;ve got some older players there and this is a kid who is a hungry hockey player. He&rsquo;s a well-trained junior and Max (new coach Wayne Maxner) likes him.&ldquo;If he can score 15 to 20 goals and do the things he&rsquo;s capable of, he&rsquo;ll be doing a good job for us.&rdquo;One of those things, the Wings pointed out, was Kirton&rsquo;s abilities on face-offs.In his second game as a Red Wing, Kirton scored a goal as Detroit surprised everyone by defeating Philadelphia, 4-2. The victory snapped Detroit&rsquo;s winless streak at 11 games and it was the Wings&rsquo; first victory in a month.Kirton&rsquo;s goal came directly off a face-off against the Flyers&rsquo; Rick MacLeish.&ldquo;We tied up on the draw,&rdquo; Kirton said. &ldquo;The puck bounced in the air and I shot it as soon as it hit the ice.&rdquo;Later, Kirton forced defenseman Bob Dailey to take a tripping penalty when he stickhandled through the Flyers, and it was during that penalty that Mike Foligno scored the winning goal on a power play.&ldquo;It feels great,&rdquo; Kirton said. &ldquo;What a great team to turn it around against.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01791/6568293-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="585" height="1061"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mark Kirton parlayed his ability to win faceoffs into a goal in his second game as a Red Wing.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really happy to be in Detroit. They&rsquo;ve got three pretty good centers in Toronto and I was sitting on the sidelines waiting for somebody to get hurt. This is a big break for me. I&rsquo;ll get a chance to prove myself.Just two days before the victory over the Flyers, the Wings were embarrassed at home by the Quebec Nordiques, 4-1, and blasted by Maxner.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s too bad I can&rsquo;t fine them for indifferent play,&rdquo; said Maxner. &ldquo;If I could &hellip; ding, ding, ding, ding&hellip;. I&rsquo;d walk right in there and fine four guys $200 each.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0021-01

Wings Trade To Redesign Future

<div class="byline">BY JIM LEAHY</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMONCTON &mdash; Four straight defeats dropped the New Brunswick Hawks to the bottom of the Northern Division standings in the American Hockey League, and for awhile, it looked like things were going to get worse before they got better.First, the Hawks lost defenseman Greg Hotham. one of the best rearguards in the AHL this season, when the co-parent Toronto Maple Leafs summoned him to help out on their blueline. Next, the Hawks found themselves without rookie center Billy Gardner, who was forced to undergo surgery for the removal of calcium deposits in his foot.Finally, things started to turn the other way for the Hawks when they signed goaltender Bob Parent; then the Maple Leafs, who have been active week kept them near the top of the AHL Southern Division race. in the NHL trade market, reassigned three players to Moncton &mdash; Hotham, left winger Paul Marshall, who briefly played for Binghamton earlier this year when he belonged to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and rookie pro Stewart Gavin, another left winger. The Chicago Black Hawks also helped New Brunswick&rsquo;s cause by sending down defenseman Doug Crossman.The week of defeats started in Hershey where the Hawks dropped a 4-3 contest in overtime. They moved on to Binghamton and were blasted 6-2 by the lowly Dusters and a quick trip back to Moncton resulted in a humiliating 6-1 loss to Rochester. A few days later, the club was in New Haven and suffered a 5-3 loss to the Nighthawks. In that game, Bill Riley, Norm Aubin and Jack O&rsquo;Callahan did the scoring for New Brunswick.SPRINGFIELD - &ldquo;We have had no problems with our offense &hellip; and if we can cut down our goals against and settle down our defense, especially on the road, our club will be a prime contender,&rdquo; said Indians&rsquo; coach Johnny Wilson recently. Wilson is high on rookie Mike Krushelynski and goaltender Roy Schultz. &ldquo;Both of these kids have bright futures as pros, you can see steady improvement in every game.&rdquo;The Tribe had two wins, a loss and a tie during the week, fn addition, they lost high-scoring center Paul Gardner when he was traded by Toronto. Kim Davis was sent by the Leafs as a replacement. Springfield skated to a 4-4 overtime tie in Maine, beating the Mariners 9-2 back in Springfield on Tom Songin&rsquo;s hat trick, lost 5-2 in Adirondack and beat Maine 3-1 back on home ice.NOVA SCOTIA &mdash; Bernie Saunders is now with the Voyageurs after being sent there by the Quebec Nordiques. The Vees also got center Wayne Thompson from Flint of the IHL and saw defenseman Francois James come back to action after being out for a while with an injury.Losing three out of four games dropped the Voyageurs back in their divisional race. They lost 5-2 at Binghamton, 6-4 at Rochester and 3-2 to those same Amerks in a game played at the Halifax Metro Centre. The only bright spot was a 6-3 win in Hershey.MAINE &mdash; The Mariners led the AHL in attendance about one-fourth of the way through the regular season. Maine is averaging 5,404 per game, an increase of more than 200 over last year&rsquo;s pace. On the ice, the club had little success, failing to win in four tries. They skated to a 4-4 overtime tie at home against Springfield, lost 9-2 to the Indians on the road, tied Binghamton 4-4 back home and lost 3-1 down in Springfield again.Glen Cochrane returned to the Mariners after a brief spell in Philadelphia.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01917/6568348-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="577" height="911"><figcaption class="caption-body">Offense hasn&rsquo;t been a problem for Springfield&rsquo;s Tom Songin, who got a hat trick against Maine</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0022-01

Slumping Hawks Receive Fresh Player Supply

ROCHESTER &mdash; Here is a team that is red-hot and proving to be a real contender for the Southern Division title. They beat Nova Scotia twice and also defeated Adirondack and New Brunsuring the week. The Amerks into first Red Wings on Bon Mon two goals and three assists. Pete Horachek&rsquo;s hat trick propelled the Amerks to a 6-4 win over Nova Scotia as 4,606 fans, the largest crowd of the year, cheered the home team on.The club left for their longest road trip of the season, five games in 11 days. The journey started in New Brunswick and Rochester belted the Hawks 6-1. A few days later in Nova Score the Amerks topped the 3-2.Rochester got some additional help when Quebec sent rearguard Wally Weir and Ron Chipperfield to the Amerks. Rookies Gilles Hamel and Alan Haworth are still up with Buffalo BLiS tjie Amerks have been able to dress a health&rsquo;s team for just about every game this Year &mdash; a big advantage in I the AHL.HERSHEY &mdash; Three wins in four games moved the Bears near the top of &lsquo;he Southern Division. After beating New Brunswick 4-3 in overtime on Jim McTaggart&rsquo;s goal before 4,393 at the Hersheypark Arena, the Bears visited New Haven and won a thrill-packed game by the same score. Glen Currie, who had been called up by Washington for a game in Boston and then returned to New Haven for the game against the Nighthawks, was the hero. He intercepted an errant Nighthawk pass and roared in to beat Steve Baker with just 15 second left to play.Nova Scotia came to town and ended the Hershey celebrations as they skated to a 6-3 win. Hershey got back fin the groove on a road trip to Binghamton as they blasted the Whalers 5-1.NEW HAVEN - The Nighthawks are starting to make their move. Now that the horrendous streak of injuries and recalls has run its course, New Haven has most of the players they need to be competitive. Evidence of this rebirth came in their impressive 5-3 win over New Brunswick which followed a heartbreaking 4-3 home loss to Hershey.Five different players scored in the win over New Brunswick and the much-maligned defense played superbly in front of goaltender Steve Weeks. Veteran defenseman Jim Dorey has been signed to finish the season in the AHL after passing his 10-game tryout with flying colors and along with Nighthawk great Dave Lewis, who recently rejoined the club, gives New Haven some much-needed experience.BINGHAMTON - Only a 5-1 loss to Hershey marred an otherwise good week for the Whalers. Goaltender Ken Holland turned back 51 of 55 shots as the Whalers beat Nova Scotia 5-2 and New Brunswick 6-2. Rob Garner scored a hat trick in the win over Nova Scotia. Steve Alley had two goals and Glenn Merkosky a goal and two assists in the victory over New Brunswick.The Whalers sent spare goaltender Jay Palladino to Saginaw of the IHL in order to give him some additional playing time. Holland has been sensational in the nets, lowering his GAA to nearly 3.00 after the twin victories.ADIRONDACK - Not only did the Red Wings lose their coach to the parent Detroit Red Wings, but when Wayne Maxner left for the National Hockey League, he took defensemen Jim Korn and John Barrett with him. They were reunited with Mai Davis and Glenn Hicks, who performed for Maxner earlier in the year at Adirondack. Detroit did return three players to the AHL Red Wings, however, defensemen Greg Joly and Rick Vasko, and right winger Jody Gage. Also joining the Red Wings was veteran defenseman Tom Bladon who couldn&rsquo;t crack the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; lineup.On the ice, the Red Wings had a light week and came away with a split in their two contests. They dropped a 5-1 decision to Rochester and took the measure of Springfield, 5-2. The .500 &#9632;

Rochester Streaks To Southern Lead

<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSOKLAHOMA CITY - None of the Central Hockey League teams seemed able to check the Oklahoma City scoring for three full periods. The Stars came from behind with the aid of four-goal periods to win a pair of games on the road &mdash; 6-3 in Fort Worth &ldquo;and 7-5 in Wichita.That ran the streak to seven straight victories for Ted Hampson&rsquo;s men, the second best winning skein of the season in the CHL. On the road the Stars owned four straight wins, a feat matched only by Dallas, before falling to Tulsa.As a result, Oke City moved into a temporary first-place tie with the Indianapolis Checkers in the CHL North, before slipping back to third again although the Stars had four games in hand on the Checkers.The Stars were down, 2-1, early in the second period at Wichita, but goals by Kevin Maxwell, Ron Friest, Joe Contini and Robbie Laird made it 5-2 before the period ended. Tony White had scored earlier for OC, and Rob Flockhart added one in the final period.Four goals in the third period brought the victory in Wichita. As the Stars trailed. 4-3, going into the last 20 minutes. Jim Dobson who began the third-period barrage, clinched a hat trick with an empty-net goal for the Stars with 10 seconds left. Dobson&rsquo;s second goal was followed by scores by Henry Taylor and Dino Ciccarelli. Dobson, Warren Young and Taylor had the earlier OC goals.Louis Levasseur was the winning goalie in Fort Worth, Jim Weaver in Wichita. The Stars welcomed back young defenseman Kim Spencer as part of the continuing interchange with Baltimore in the Eastern League. Defenseman Dan Poulin returned to action after missing 12 days with a hip pointer. Still sidelined were blueliners Don Jackson (rib injury) and Neil Komadoski (leg injury).SALT LAKE &mdash; Jack Evans&rsquo; Eagles, who once had their troubles on the road, posted two runaway triumphs in Birmingham (8-2 and 8-4), then wenl into Dallas and handled the Southern Division leaders, 5-3, for a third road victory in three nights.That ran the Eagles&rsquo; overall streak to eight straight wins (best in the CHL so far this season), and 10 games without defeat. They stretched it to nine and 11 before finally bowing at Indianapolis.Doug Palazzari picked up a goal and three assists in the first three victories, while linemate Joey Mullen had two of each. Rookie goalie Paul Skidmore worked all three victories, running his personal string to five victories, six starts without a loss. The Boston College product lowered his goals-against average to 2.94.Denis Houle started and ended the Birds&rsquo; scoring parade in the Thursday tilt at Birmingham, while Neal Labatte had two goals in the brawling Friday rematch. A second-period altercation put 12 men in the penalty box, and while the teams were skating three to a side, Labatte and Mullen scored a minute apart to give the Eagles a commanding 6-2 lead.The St. Louis Blues returned defenseman Dick Lamby. Kevin Willison, recuperating from shoulder surgery, was skating again and ready to return to the lineup.WICHITA - The Wind lost its bid to escape the cellar in the CHL North by Splitting a pair with fourth-place Tulsa, winning in Wichita, 3-2, after losing in the Oilers&rsquo; rink, 5-3. Then a 7-5 home loss to Oklahoma City dropped Ace Bailey&rsquo;s crew three points behind Tulsa. Their record, though, was better than three South Division counterparts.Wind captain Roy Sommer retained his league penalty leadership, adding 13 minutes for a total of 69. His closest challenger was Tulsa&rsquo;s Rick Bowness at 63.The parent Edmonton Oilers returned center Don Ashby, and defenseman Scott McGeown was reassigned to Erie in the Eastern League.The Wind fell behind, 4-0, after two periods at Tulsa. Mike Toal, Paul Messier and George Pesut scored in the third-period rally that fell short. In the rematch the Wind scored twice in the third period for a lead that finally stood up. Walt Poddubny got the winning marker at 6:25. Against Oklahoma City the Wichitans got goals by Tom Roulston, John Hilworth, Poddubny and Messier in the first for a 4-2 advantage, but saw the lead erased by four OC tallies in the third.TULSA &mdash; The Oilers snapped their five-game losing streak with a 4-3 home triumph over Wichita, but not before a four-goal lead had almost evaporated. Dave Hoyda got two power play goals in a rematch at Wichita three nights later, but the Wind prevailed, 3-2.Markus Mattsson, who was the hottest goaltender in the CHL before he went up to Winnipeg last January, returned from the Jets, and played brilliantly in the loss at Wichita. He was in the nets again two nights later at home, when the Oilers turned back Fort Worth, 2-1. Then he was called up once again. Glen Tomalty and John Bethel scored for Tulsa in the first period. Mike Christie got the only goal off Mattsson in the second period.Playing assistant coach Bob Guindon was sidelined when he caught a puck on his ankle at Wichita. Right wing Lyle Moffat was still out with a rib injury. The Oilers acquired center Mike Antonovich, a WHA veteran, who had been playing in Europe.INDIANAPOLIS - The Checkers suffered their first home loss of the season when the Houston Apollos took a 3-1 verdict in Market Square Arena. That snapped a 17-game home unbeaten streak that dated back to a loss to Oklahoma City last spring.Earlier the Checkers had padded that string with a 7-1 romp over Fort Worth. They followed the loss with a 4-4 home tie against Dallas.Billy Carroll scored goals 33 seconds apart in a four-goal third period that wrapped up the victory over Fort Worth. Al Cameron had two power play tallies against Dallas, and also had goals in two other games. The Checkers were outshot, 41-18, by Dallas.Defenseman Mike Hordy was still out with a bad knee, and left wing Lome Stamler was recovering from hepatitis.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01815/6568403-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="571" height="631"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jim Dobson collected a hat trick in another come-from-behind victory by Oklahoma City.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0023-01

Third Period Offensive Outbursts Leave OC Opponents Seeing Stars

HOUSTON - With Steve Carlson scoring two goals in the middle period, the Apollos snapped Indy&rsquo;s home unbeaten streak at 17 games. Carlson&rsquo;s scoring and near-perfect goaltending by Doug Keans added up to a 3-1 Houston victory.Earlier Carlson was the hero in a 3-3 tie at Dallas, getting the tying goal with 35 seconds left, after Keans had been lifted in favor of an extra attacker.The victory and tie lifted the Appollos to within a point of second place in the CHL South, and they later reached it with a victory over Birmingham. They were still well off the pace of front-running Dallas, but the Apollos, thanks to an 18-day layoff in late October-early November, still had four games in hand.After J.P. Kelly had tied the score in Dallas, John Smrke&rsquo;s second-period shorthanded goal put the Apollos in front, but they fell behind 3-2 before Carlson tied it up, and they battled through 10 scoreless minutes of overtime.Claude Larochelle opened the scoring in Indy, and Carlson made it 3-0 before Checker Dave Cameron tallied in the third. Between the Carlson goals, Apollo Alex Tidey was awarded a penalty shot, but missed.Right wing Kevin Schamehorn was returned by the parent Los Angeles Kings.FORT WORTH &mdash; Home ice wasn&rsquo;t the answer for the faltering Texans, as five losses ran their unhappy string to 10 straight setbacks, three at home and seven on the road. They wound up an eight-game road marathon by bowing in Indianapolis, 7-1, came home to get shut out by Dallas&rsquo; Paul Harrison (1-0) and lose to Oklahoma City (6-3), then trekked to Tulsa to absorb a 2-1 defeat. Another home loss followed before the Texans halted their slide with a 3-0 win over Houston.Bob Attwell got the only Fort Worth goal in Indy, narrowing the deficit to 2-1 midway through the first period, but the Checkers were in complete charge after that. At home the Texans outshot Dallas, 27-26, but couldn&rsquo;t solve Harrison. Ed Cooper got two goals in the losing effort against OC. In Tulsa the Oilers were in front, 2-0, before Mike Christie scored for Fort Worth in the second.Goalie Bill Oleschuk suffered a hip pointer in Indianapolis, and Jari Kaarela had a bad back. Steve Janaszak, who had been ordered to Fort Wayne in the International League, was hastily recalled, and worked the next three contests. Left wing Dave Watson had missed five games with a bruised sternum. The parent Colorado Rockies returned defenseman Les Auge.BIRMINGHAM - Defenseman Serge Beaudoin decided to retire from pro hockey in the middle of warmups for the first of two home games against Salt Lake. The 27-year-old Serge has been plagued by a back problem in recent years. But, most of all, he wanted to move to Montreal, where he could rejoin his wife.Goalie Reggie Lemelin was recalled by the Calgary Flames, leaving Tim Bernhardt as the Bulls&rsquo; only netminder. Calgary reportedly was trying to make a deal for another one. Assistant trainer Henry Dube was dressing as the backup goalie. The Flames sent back defenseman Gord Wappel.Bernhardt was bombed twice by the Eagles, 8-2 and 8-4. The second game saw 103 minutes in penalties assessed, 58 on the Bulls.DALLAS &mdash; The Black Hawks&rsquo; seven-game unbeaten string was snapped when the Salt Lake Eagles invaded State Fair Coliseum and took a 5-3 decision. Earlier, coach Danny Belisle&rsquo;s men had tied Houston at home (3-3), and enjoyed Paul Harrison&rsquo;s first CHL shutout (1-0) in Fort Worth. They closed the week with a 4-4 tie in Indianapolis, running their unbeaten road string to four games.The Hawks had rallied against Houston to go ahead on Hal Phillipoff&rsquo;s late goal, but Steve Carlson tied it for the Apollos. Harrison made 27 saves in recording his fifth career shutout. &#9632;

Apollos’ Rise Fueled By Carlson

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSFORT WAYNE - Moose Lallo expected to lose a few of his younger players during the course of the season as injuries to teams up the ladder created shortages.But Lallo didn&rsquo;t expect what has happened so far this season. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something you have to live with.&rdquo; said the veteran coach after he saw his roster stripped of three of his key players on the Fort Wayne Komet roster. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t let it tear you up. You just have to keep going.&rdquo;That was after Lallo saw rookie goalie Steve Janaszak, rookie winger Rod Willard and veteran Glenn Tomalty swept away to the Central League.But what Lallo didn&rsquo;t expect was the sudden retirement of Al Dumba, the IHL&rsquo;s Most Valuable Player and scoring champion of last season. Dumba did not make a three-game road trip with the team because he told Lallo and general manager Ken Ullyot that &ldquo;the game just isn&rsquo;t any fun for me any more.&rdquo;Ullyot and Lallo asked Dumba to think things over for a couple of days and if he still felt the same way, that was his decision. Dumba didn&rsquo;t have to think it over. He left the next day for his farm in Saskatchewan.&ldquo;I guess they weren&rsquo;t listening,&rdquo; Dumba told THE HOCKEY NEWS from his farm home. &ldquo;I told them [Ullyot and Lallo] how I felt. I just couldn&rsquo;t give enough time to the farm and hockey, too. I want to expand &mdash; and I can&rsquo;t do that if I continue to play hockey.&rdquo;The 24-year-old winger was in his fourth season with the Komets after being drafted from the defunct Dayton franchise where he broke into the league. He has improved steadily and last year hit his peak.Dumba admitted the fact he did not jet a pro contract could have been a actor in his decision. &ldquo;There are guys 5laying pro who were with me in this league. It bothered me. But when I am to Fort Wayne this season I felt good for awhile. But it didn&rsquo;t last. I was alright on the ice. But off the ice I was moody. And I didn&rsquo;t want to stay that way.&rdquo;Dumba emphasized that there was nothing deeper behind his decision. &ldquo;I just didn&rsquo;t get any enjoyment from the game any more. I was afraid that attitude would affect my game and I could hurt the team. I didn&rsquo;t want that. I enjoyed playing in Fort Wayne. The fans treated me very well. So did the club. There was no problem of any kind.&rdquo;Dumba almost didn&rsquo;t return to Fort Wayne after leaving pro camp. &ldquo;I thought about quitting then. But Fort Wayne wanted me back and made me a good offer. I thought I would give it one more shot. And, as I said, when I first got back I felt good. And the team is going so well. But it just didn&rsquo;t last so I thought it was time to quit.&rdquo;Despite the loss of Dumba &mdash; and the younger players &mdash; the Komets continued to skate at full speed. During the three-game road series without Dumba, Janaszak, Willard or Tomalty the Komets won two and tied one. The series boosted the Komets&rsquo; unbeaten string on the road to nine &mdash; tying a 24-year-old league record established by the old Cincinnati Mohawks. The last Komet loss came at home on Nov. 5 to Muskegon. Since then they have won six and tied one for an unbeaten string of seven. The road record for the season is 8-0-1.Fort Wayne ended the week with a 14-2-2 overall record and 30 points, seven points in front of Kalamazoo in the West Division.KALAMAZOO &mdash; The K-Wings feel like they are on a treadmill. Since completing a demanding five-game road trip, the K-Wings have been nearly perfect. They have put together an unbeaten string of five, including four wins. But they still lost ground to Fort Wayne. They started the week five points back and finished seven behind despite beating Saginaw at home, 5-2, and playing a 2-2 tie with Milwaukee &mdash; also at home.MUSKEGON &mdash; If Mohawk GM-Coach Gerry Moore has anything to say about the schedule next season, Muskegon won&rsquo;t have any home games on Friday night. As far as the Mohawks are concerned every Friday is Friday the 13th.They call it the Friday night jinx. It&rsquo;s struck three straight times, the most recent as the Mohawks launched another three-game weekend. Fort Wayne did the damage, 7-2. The Mohawks completed the weekend with a 4-4 tie, at home with Toledo and a 4-3 loss at Flint. Muskegon shares fourth place in the West with Milwaukee, each with 19 points.MILWAUKEE - The Admirals went on the road for three games and managed to pick up a pair of ties. The lone loss was a 7-2 bombing in Port Huron. The Admirals got a fine effort from goalie Gordie Garbutt for a 2-2 tie at Milwaukee and closed out the week with a 6-6 tie at Toledo.The Admirals have also been getting some fine play out of Veteran Fred Berry who took over the IHL scoring lead with 16 goals and 26 assists.FLINT &mdash; The Generals reached a milestone in a 5-3 home victory over the Toledo Golddiggers. It was Flint&rsquo;s 400th victory since joining the IHL 12 seasons ago. The victory launched a successful three-game weekend which netted another victory, 4-3 over Muskegon at home, after a 5-3 road reverse at Saginaw.The four-point weekend left the Generals tied for the East division lead with Saginaw. Each club has 18 pointsSAGINAW &mdash; The Gears managed me victory in three starts during the week which cost Saginaw undisputed possession of first-place in the East. The lone win was a 5-3 triumph over irst-place rival Flint which put the Sears on top all alone. But an earlier 5-2 loss at Kalamazoo and a 5-3 whipping at home to red-hot Fort Wayne Iropped the Gears into the tie again.There were a couple of bright spots, however. Doug Crawford reverted to eft wing for the first time since his pee-wee days and scored a pair of goals in the win over Flint. Goalie Jay Paladino played well in his debut lespite losing at Kalamazoo.TOLEDO &mdash; The Diggers ended a six-game losing streak by rallying from two goals down to tie Muskegon on the road, 4-4. A 6-6 tie at home against Milwaukee followed.Earlier in the week the IHL career of veteran Joe Nathe apparently came to an end when the Diggers placed him on waivers &mdash; with no takers. Nathe, who was in his sixth season with Toledo, reported to camp late and after 11 games he had one goal and no assists. Nathe had left the team a week before being put on waivers. He returned to his Minnesota home &ldquo;to make a decision on my future.&rdquo; He said he intended to return to Toledo but the Diggers prevented that byputting him on waivers. A key contributor to two Turner Cup championships, Nathe now considers his career over.PORT HURON - It didn&rsquo;t take the Flags long to get the message. Upset by the team&rsquo;s poor play &mdash; the Flags have the worst record in the IHL &mdash; General Manager Morris Snider met the team after a one-sided loss in Flint which marked the Flags&rsquo; fifth straight game without a win. Snider wasn&rsquo;t there to welcome the Flags home.Snider ordered two-a-day practices and promised if the extra work didn&rsquo;t bring improvement, there would be more drastic measures taken. The winless streak ended right there. The Flags whipped Milwaukee the next time out, 7-2, and played powerful Fort Wayne to a 4-4 tie. Ironically, the Flags are the only club the Komets have yet to beat this season. The two teams have played a pair of ties.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01894/6568458-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="575" height="621"><figcaption class="caption-body">Fred Berry jumped into the lead in the IHL scoring race when he passed the 40-point mark.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Dumba Retires, But Komets Keep Flying

<div class="byline">BY PATRICK LYON</div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSSALEM &mdash; You can&rsquo;t blame Pat Kelly for being anxious.The former National Hockey League coach, in his first year as the head man of the Raiders, has yet to see his injury-hobbled club at full strength, but his dream could soon become reality.Greg McPhee was lost to the Raiders due to injuries early in the season and now seems ready to resume a fulltime role and Paul Conway, who was the club&rsquo;s leading scorer as a defenseman, appears to be over a shoulder injury that sidelined him for two weeks.The return of those two players could help the Raiders jump in the standings as they continue to look up at the first-place Richmond Rifles and second-place Erie Blades.Kelly has to be extremely pleased with the fact that both games the Rifles had lost so far this season were inflicted by his Raiders. More significantly, Salem has played the Rifles tough in all six of their meetings and a healthy club could help Salem make up the difference. The personality of a Kelly team, where there are no stars and everybody contributes equally, is beginning to show dramatically.Teams were finding it quite easy to muscle the Raiders earlier in the year, but Salem solved that problem when they brought in Bruce Greig to add some strength to their forward line. The 6-3, 235-pounder brings the Raiders experience, since he has toiled in both the National and World Hockey Leagues.Six different players scored in a 6-3 home victory over Hampton and the Raiders managed a 4-4 tie at Hampton, erasing a 3-1 Aces lead.Ed Smith smacked home a pair, including the game winner, in the thrilling home overtime win against the Rifles. Greig, Dean Fraser, Ian Perrin, Ed Starkey and Claude LaFontaine collected the other goals in the 7-6 contest. The Raiders have also been getting offensive punch from Jim Toomey, Lee Keller, Bob Ferguson and Bob Smith.Jean Pominville got his first EHL win in the nets against the Aces, but was then released because of an overabundance of goalies. Kelly decided to go with Tom O&rsquo;Toole, 4-2-2 and playing well after a slow start, and Gilles Moffet, 2-3-0 with a 3.71 goals against average.As a team the Raiders possess the second best goals-against mark in the circuit, yielding just 63 goals in 17 games.BALTIMORE &mdash; The Clippers set a record for the top crowd in the EHL when they attracted 7,418 for a Jacket Night promotion against the Blades.Forced to come from behind the entire game, coach Gene Ubriaco&rsquo;s crew managed a 4-4 tie with Erie on a late third period goal by Bruce Hamilton.Baltimore dropped a heartbreaking 4-3 overtime loss in Erie after holding a 3-2 edge in the third period. The Clippers snapped their five-game winless streak with a 5-2 home conquest of Hampton. John Meredith played an outstanding game against the Blades and scored two of the Clip-for goals.Jon Fontas continues to be the club leader in scoring with 15 points, while Norm Stefan (14), Gerry Ciarcia (14), Glenn Kulyk (13), Dave Herbst (10), Tony Thomas (10) and Meredith (10) are other double digit scorers.RICHMOND&mdash;The Rifles kept their hold on first place with their glittering 15-2 record and five point lead over second place Erie.Nobody had defeated the Rifles on their home ice at the Richmond Coliseum as coach Bill Purcell&rsquo;s club had rifled off nine straight victories in front of the home fans. Added to the list were the Aces, who suffered an 11-5 setback in Richmond.Richmond&rsquo;s five-game winning streak was brought to a halt by the Raiders, who posted a 7-6 overtime decision despite three goals by Jim Jackson.The offensive-minded Rifles have seven scorers in the top 20, with Tom Mullen pacing the team with 18 goals and 15 assists for 33 points. Joining Mullen are Lawrie Nisker (30), Dale Yawiwchuk (28), Jackson (23), Kent Reardon (20), Alex Jeans (19), and Kevin Street (17).Goaltender Tom Semenchuk was the first to reach the 10-win mark as he pushed his record to 10-1 to go along with a goals-against average of 3.44.ERIE &mdash; The Blades increased their home unbeaten streak to seven games and had yet to lose at the Erie County Fieldhouse in 22 games, dating back to February 15.Erie completed a four-game series with the Clippers and came away winning three and tying one. The Blades managed a 4-4 overtime tie in Baltimore which marked the return of goalie Carey Walker and Erie topped the Clippers in an exciting 4-3 overtime duel in Erie. Ron Carter had a hat trick, including the game winner for the Blades, while Walker collected his 13th straight win in the Fieldhouse nets.The annual Thanksgiving night game proved to be another success as Erie drew over 2,500 Turkey Night fans to see a 9-3 drubbing of the Aces. Brad Rhiness had two goals, two assists, Stan Gulutzan two goals, three assists and Pierre Aubry, the league&rsquo;s leading scorer with 38 points, had four points.Defenseman Scott McGeown and winger Louis Sleigher were the latest additions to the Blades&rsquo; roster. McGeown, property of the Quebec Nordiques, played the last two years in Toronto of the OHA, where he scored 124 points in two seasons. Sleigher totalled 28 goals and 43 points for Syracuse of the AHL a season ago.Goalie Rick Knickle showcases the best goals against average with his 3.31 mark. Erie was first in power play goals, with 20, and also was the most penalized club, averaging 45.4 minutes per contest.HAMPTON &mdash; The Aces&rsquo; winless streak reached eight games with the team failing to gain a win in a busy week of action. Hampton was pounded 11-5 in Richmond, rallied for a 4-4 home tie against Salem and dropped two other road contests, in Baltimore 5-2 and Erie 9-3.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01870/6568520-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="572" height="920"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brad Rhiness had two goals and two assists in Erie&rsquo;s 9-3 Turkey Night drubbing of Hampton.</figcaption></div>Coach Larry Mickey is hoping to turn things around by getting more practice time for his players, something that has been lacking for the last two weeks. Because of the unavailability of ice in Hampton, the coach was forced to have his club practice on a soccer field. Mickey was planning some hard practice sessions in an effort to get his club back into condition.Dave Walter, Paul O&rsquo;Neil and Steve Salvucci remain the club&rsquo;s top scorers, with Walter heading the cast with 10 goals and 19 points. O&rsquo;Neil had 13 points and Salvucci 11. &#9632;

f0026-01

Full — Strength Raiders Could Be Contenders

<div class="byline">BY TOM BURKE</div>BOSTON &mdash; The undefeated teams might be in another section. The cofavorites might be in another section. But right now, the ECAC Division One West is the most competitive group in Eastern college hockey.After the first full week of action in December, four of the five ECAC West teams &mdash; RP1, Clarkson, Colgate, and even former doormat St. Lawrence &mdash; sported winning records in Division One competition. Only Vermont, left at the gate at 0-3, wasn&rsquo;t on the winning side of the ledger.Maine extended its lead in the ECAC East to a 4-0 record, but an overlooked and underrated Northeastern club was breathing down the Black Bears&rsquo; necks with a 3-0 slate, a couple of steps in front of Division One co-favorites Boston College and Providence.The Ivy Division, starting a bit later than the rest, was having its problems as only Harvard had managed a winning divisional record. In the aggregate, the ECAC West teams were 11-8, the East teams 10-7-3, and the Ivy teams 8-14-1 in play with other teams in the East&rsquo;s major loop.Two of the most pleasant surprises of the young season have to be RPI and St. Lawrence. Neither was picked to do much in the pre-season, polls, but the Engineers find themselves sharing the subgroup&rsquo;s lead with highly-regarded Clarkson while the Larries, 2-1 in standings, had managed a 6-3-1 record overall to equal the entire victory production of last season&rsquo;s sorry group.The Engineers haven&rsquo;t lost the scoring touch, as their 8-6 free-for-all win at New Hampshire attests. Seven different RPI players scored as they hurled 47 shots at goalie Greg Moffett. Michel Deschenes&rsquo; second tally of the game, going into an empty net with one second to play, iced the contest.Then against Harvard, RPI went wild with a 9-1 devastation that saw 54 shots at Wade Lau. Larry Landen and Bob Debrase each netted two scores in the rout. The bubble burst the next night, however, as Brown rolled into Troy after a 5-3 loss at Colgate and won out in a tight duel. Brown defenseman John Slonim tied the score with an unassisted goal at 17:31 of the third period, and Dan Santanello tallied 5:56 into the overtime session to give Brown its first win and RPI its first league loss of the season.St. Lawrence swapped a lopsided loss for a lopsided win, surprising Vermont 6-1 in Canton but losing two nights later to Cornell by a 5-1 count. As SLU has been doing this year, they erupted for the win in one period, bagging four scores to break open a 2-1 contest in the third frame. Sylvain Turcotte was forced to make twice as many saves, 42, as Gary Laskoski made in the St. Lawrence cage.Following the week&rsquo;s pair of games, SLU journeyed to Yale and knocked off the Eli&rsquo;s 3-2 in overtime, with Brad MacDonald beating goalie Ken Shaw at 6:52 of OT for the clincher. This was a tighter checking game, as the Larries only had 19 shots on goal. MacDonald had scored the only SLU goal against Cornell too, spoiling the shutout bid by Darren Eliot.Clarkson&rsquo;s only game of the week was an easy 7-2 win over Vermont in Potsdam, with seven different Knights scoring. Colgate had a bit more trouble, letting Brown tie the game after the Red Raiders had hopped out to a 3-0 lead. But then Steve Smith and Dan Fridge scored midway through the third period and the Raiders held on for a 5-3 win.The Harvard game was a different story, as Colgate&rsquo;s lead was 6-2 after two periods and they still couldn&rsquo;t hold on. Five unanswered Crimson goals brought the Johns a 7-6 triumph in unfriendly Starr Rink. Freshman Shayne Kuklowicz had the winner, beating Terry McSweeny 54 seconds to play, but junior Mike Watson really got things going, igniting the comeback with scores at 0:08 and 0:34 of the third stanza.Turning to the East, we find the showcase game of the early season ending in a tie. Boston College invaded Providence and forced a 3-1 lead after two periods before Gates Orlando and Bruce Raboin capitalized on a strong PC third period, to knot the count. Neither team could score in the extra session of the well played tilt, and PC coach Lou Lamoriello had high praise for his third-string goalie, Greg Nolin, who had 42 stops against the potent Eagles.BC had eked out another tie two nights earlier, across town at Brown by a 4-4 score. Bruins&rsquo; rookie goalie Paul McCarthy turned aside 42 shots, and Bryan Price and Mark Gherity were the third period goal-scorers. Paul Hammer had a pair of goals for BC, which ended the week tied with PC at .500 in the standings, even with Northeastern and Maine.Looks like Fernie Flaman wasn&rsquo;t kidding when he insisted we were all taking his boys too lightly. The Huntington Hounds, now proudly ensconced in their &ldquo;new&rdquo; Boston Arena, pummeled Dartmouth 10-6 and then edged an improving Princeton team 5-2 to stay unblemished.The line of Sandy Beadle, Paul MacDougall, and Gerry Cowie had six of the 10 Northeastern goals against Dartmouth, with Beadle, a fine sophomore, getting the hat trick. It was a chippy game, with a total of 19 penalties called. NU goalies Mark Davidner stopped 29 shots while Jim Jankowski and Tyler Foster combined for 25 against the buzzing Huskies.Against Princeton, NU was away to a 4-0 lead at the end of one period and held on for the 5-2 decision. Cowie again scored twice and Chuck Marshall, a transfer student from Bryant College, which dropped hockey last season, also had two scores. Marshall combined with teammate John Montgomery to shut out Princeton on five power play attempts.The University of Maine perhaps shouldn&rsquo;t be too much of a surprise, with all their veteran talent, but their 11-4 win against Princeton, coming on the road, shows that they&rsquo;re for real Princeton actually led, 4-3, late in the second period when the Black Bears&rsquo; offense kicked into gear.Paul Croke bagged two scores before the end of the second period, and Maine proceeded to run up a 6-0 margin in the third period for the final 11-4 count. Robert LaFIeur accounted for three of those goals in the period.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re getting great leadership from the upperclassmen,&rdquo; said coach Jack Semler of his veteran club. &ldquo;Plus, we have great respect for how good everybody is in this league. Anyone can beat you on any night, and we&rsquo;re really hungry to make the playoffs.&rdquo;Boston University dropped a couple of road games, 5-2 at Harvard and 6-2 at Cornell. Harvard held a 5-1 lead after two periods in the close checking tilt, as BU&rsquo;s Jeff Weisman only had to make 22 saves to 29 for Wade Lau. Cornell started off in similar fashion with power plays goals from Bob Jones and John Olds in the first period, then easing out to a 5-1 edge after two. Brian Hayward was a little busier than Lau, stopping 42 shots.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01823/6568551-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="578" height="654"><figcaption class="caption-body">St. Lawrence is much better this year with Gary Laskoski in goal.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Ivy Division Teams Off To Slow Start; Engineers, Larries Unexpectedly Strong

<div class="byline">BY B. L. ELFRING</div>PLATTSBURGH&mdash;More and more, off-ice training has become an integral part of any hockey team&rsquo;s success. The New York Islanders used an off-ice fitness program to prepare for what became a Stanley Cup championship, and the U.S. Olympic Hockey team used a vigorous conditioning program to come up with a stunning gold medal triumph in the 1980 Winter Olympic Games. Now, a dryland training program is paying big dividends for the Plattsburgh State Cardinals.At this writing, the Cardinals, under the direction of first-year head coach Herb Hammond, had raced off a 10-0 record, including a convincing performance in Merrimack College&rsquo;s annual Blue and Gold Thanksgiving Tournament. Hammond&rsquo;s club dominated the host team in first night action, posting a 8-4 victory, and then completely controlled the championship game against arch-rival (and last year&rsquo;s NCAA Division Two runner-up) Elmira College, whitewashing the Soaring Eagles, 6-0.Plattsburgh State, a member of the ECAC&rsquo;s Division Two Western Division, has beaten the best at home and on the road. In the season opener, the Cardinals came from behind to knock off ECAC Division One semi-finalist, Clarkson College, in Potsdam. Trailing 2-0 in the third period, Hammond&rsquo;s conditioning program paid big dividends. The Cardinals scored three unanswered goals to shock the Golden Knights, 3-2.The Cardinals then defeated ECAC Division One playoff teams, Colgate, 11-6, and Vermont, 7-5, over the next 16 days. Add victories over Bishop&rsquo;s University and McGill University, and the Cardinals were ready to move into their regular schedule.Hammond&rsquo;s club opened its Division Two schedule with wins over a pesky Union College squad, Brockport State, and a one-goal decision over Norwich, the team that eliminated Plattsburgh from the playoffs two years ago.In the ECAC&rsquo;s scheduling format for Division Two schools, all games against other Division Two opponents count in the standings, so the Merrimack tournament took on an added importance for all the teams (Merrimack. Holy Cross, Elmira, and Plattsburgh). The two schools from the west knocked off the eastern representatives, setting up two showdowns on the second night.Merrimack clipped the Crusaders by a 4-2 score, before the Cardinals and Elmira renewed their rivalry. Plattsburgh got the only goal it needed late in the first period when junior center Jim Griffin intercepted a clearing pass 30 feet in front of net and pumped a shot past freshman goalie Mike MacDermott&rsquo;s stick side.Hammond&rsquo;s club collected a second score from senior Pierre Brunet during a second period power play, before exploding for four more goals in the final 20 minutes. Denis Poulin caught MacDermott going the wrong way to make it 3-0; Chip Grabowski scored twice during scrambles in front of the net, and Gaetan D&rsquo;Anjou&rsquo;s blast from 35 feet off the left wing accounted for the final tally.Goaltender Rick Strack was outstanding in the nets, turning aside 20 shots to post his first shutout of the year. He received excellent defensive help from captain Doug Kimura, Tod Wescott, Francis Bellefeuille, Bob Bateman and Keith Wright.Kimura, a four-year starter, feels the dryland training introduced this season by Hammond is paying off. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s been the biggest difference this year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The team was not too happy about it at first, but we accepted it, and it&rsquo;s paying off late in the period and late in the game.&rdquo;An All-American as a sophomore. The 5-8, 170-pound Kimura spoke highly of Hammond&rsquo;s ideas. &ldquo;Coach Hammond has a very enthusiastic approach to the game, and is a great motivator,&rdquo; Kimura said. &ldquo;The dryland training program really paid off against Clarkson. We kept going after being down 2-0, and it was the same way against Vermont.&rdquo; Both times the Cardinals were able to come from behind for the victory.After spending 12 seasons compiling a record of 179-123-5 as the head coach at Oswego State, last year&rsquo;s ECAC Division Two West champions, Hammond moved to Plattsburgh State. &ldquo;I was looking for a change,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and the Plattsburgh job was very attractive. And the area is good for hockey.&rdquo; Plattsburgh is just a short ferryboat ride across Lake Champlain from Burlington, Vt., home of the University of Vermont, and about 70 miles south of Montreal.Having spent time in Russia, it is no surprise to see Hammond introduce some of what he learned to the Cardinals. &ldquo;The only real changes I made&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;were the introduction of the dryland training program and the addition of some of the European ideas to our game. The players have responded very well to what I have tried to do, and they are a fun bunch to coach.&rdquo;Hammond had his players running every day prior to stepping on the ice, along with a 45-minute circuittraining weight program. &ldquo;The program used by the Cardinals is designed to tone muscles, not build new muscles. Each player would go through 24 different stations, working 45 seconds at each station, then take 30 seconds off before starting the next task. Since the start of the season, Hammond still has his players working out, depending on the schedule.AROUND THE LEAGUE: Keep an eye out for the New England College Pilgrims. Head coach Bill Beaney&rsquo;s team got off to an excellent start, winning its first three games, including a 4-3 overtime victory over the University of New Haven, a playoff team last year &hellip; Bill Riley, Jr. has won some of the bragging rights in the Riley family when his University of Lowell Chiefs knocked off St. Lawrence in the North Country Thanksgiving Tournament. His cousin Rob is an assistant coach at the Canton N.Y. school. The Chiefs were also off to a good start, going 4-2, mostly against Division One competition &hellip; Look for Merrimack to bounce back from a slow start. Bruce Parker&rsquo;s team is only 2-5, but four of the losses have come against Division One teams &hellip; Defending ECAC Division Two West champion Oswego State won its first six games by impressive scores.Some outstanding tournament action takes place around the holidays. Union College (Schenectady, N, Y,) hosts AIC, Middlebury, and Oswego State, December 19-20. Boston State College hosts the annual Codfish Bowl Championship, with Westfield State, Norwich, and Babson coming to Boston, December 27-28. Merrimack will carry the banner of Division Two to Dartmouth College&rsquo;s Annual Auld Lang Syne Tournament, December 30-31. After the new year, Salem State will entertain St. Anselm&rsquo;s, New Haven and Colby, while Hamilton, Westfield State, and Union will be at Williams College (Williamstown, Ma), all on January 2-3.Division Two&rsquo;s showcase, the Teapot Tournament, will be played January 5 and 11, at Boston Garden. In the opening round, Merrimack and Lowell will square off, while Bowdoin will begin its title defense against Salem State. Also, Merrimack and Bowdoin, along with Colby, will try to wrestle the Downeast Classic championship away from the high-flying University of Maine Black Bears, January 8-9, in Portland, Maine. &#9632;

Hammond’s Conditioning Makes Cardinals Fly

<div class="byline">BY MIKE MURRAY</div>MONTREAL &mdash; As this was written, the Concordia Stingers remained the only undefeated team in Canada, but not without some anxious moments. Hosting the Ottawa Gee Gees proved no easy task as the Stingers found themselves trailing their visitors at the end of both the first and second periods.The Stingers jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on goals by Mike Piano and Rick Mancuso before the game was five minutes old, but the Gee Gees came roaring back with three straight goals of their own in a span of five minutes and 10 seconds. After exchanging second period tallies, the Stingers outscored the Gee Gees three to one in the third, to pull out the victory. Kim Elliott scored his third winning goal of the season at 7:19, to move the Stingers&rsquo; record up to 8-0. The line of Roily Hedges, Brad Davis and Chris Jodoin once again led the Gee Gees offensively as each picked up four points.Traveling East along the Trans Canada Highway, the Gee Gees faced the Laval Rouge et Or the following afternoon. Both teams entered the crucial contest with six wins and were tied for second place. It started off as a repeat performance of the previous night for the Gee Gees, Laval notched two early goals. However, this time the Gee Gees came from behind to take the lead and they didn&rsquo;t relinquish it. Jean Leboeuf netted a pair of goals for the winners and Ottawa&rsquo;s big line had another three goals to their credit. &ldquo;This was our biggest win of the year,&rdquo; said Ottawa&rsquo;s coach Norm Chouinard, &ldquo;we showed a lot of composure by coming back.&rdquo;Laval moved into a tie for second place when they mowed down the Bishop&rsquo;s Gaitors 7-1. Denis Halle scored three times to tie Ottawa&rsquo;s Hedges as the league&rsquo; leading goal scorer. The Gaitors&rsquo; Steve Miglis ruined Paul Menard&rsquo;s shutout with a shorthanded marker.GPAC &mdash; After a sluggish couple of weeks, Brandon Bobcats&rsquo; coach Andy Murray was perplexed over what to expect from his team, as they prepared to face the previous undefeated University of Manitoba Bisons. Once the dust had settled after a very physical weekend doubleheader series however, Brandon found itself back on top of the GPAC Conference.&ldquo;We felt that with their speedy forwards, we would have to knock them off the puck to establish control of the game&rdquo; Murray explained. The Bobcats more than knocked the Bisons off the puck. They knocked them into submission as they took both games. In the opener the Bobcats displayed their customary balance as six different players scored. With the score tied at one, two second period power play goals by Bruce Rogger and John Tweedie broke the game wide open. The 6-2 final score was closer than one might think; the 51-21 shots on net indicates the true territorial margin held by the Bobcats.The Bobcats then roared to a 12-2 shellacking as the Bisons fell behind early and were unable to regroup. &ldquo;We never allowed them to use their finesse skills,&rdquo; said Murray. John Tweedie had the hat trick while Rod Winkler and Scott Ray each notched a pair of goals. The Bobcats outshot their visitorsd 61-27, sealing the victory with a six-goal outburst in the second period.The Bobcats appear to have regained their early momentum and if they stay healthy, a trip to the National finals is not unrealistic. With only one loss separating the two teams, Brandon is by no means a shoo-in and Manitoba is a much better club than they showed in this series.CWUAA &mdash; The Christmas break is upon the teams in Western Canada, putting the race for top honors on hold until January. The University of Saskatchewan Huskies have to be the most pleasant surprise in all of the CIAU as they presently share first place with Calgary In less than two years, Dave King has taken his Huskies from a cellar dwelling club to a national contender.In the latest action, Saskatchewan won two crucial home contests from the University of British Columbia, Greg Wiebe, the Huskies&rsquo; leading scorer, set up Willie Desjardins and Tim Leier with third period goals as Saskatchewan held on for a tight 3 4 victory. Canada West&rsquo;s leading scorer, Rob Jones, spoiled goalie Steve Amiss&rsquo;s shutout bid with a power play goal.UBC provided little resistance the following day as the Huskies demolished them 10 to 2. Once again. Greg Wiebe was a thorn in the Thunderbirds&rsquo; side, as he collected a pair of goals and assists.Last year&rsquo;s finalists in the CWUAA &mdash; Calgary and Alberta &mdash; split their weekend series in Calgary. Friday night saw the Calgary Dinosaurs drop the Alberta Golden Bears 6-5 in overtime, marking the fourth overtime contest for Calgary this season. Ron Fisher, who was cut by Alberta two years ago, enjoyed sweet revenge with a five-point evening.The Golden Bears showed why they are the defending national champions, though, as, they came back to hand Calgary their first home loss of the season. Jim Lomas paced the 6-2 Alberta win with two goals and a helper. &ldquo;That was a big victory,&rdquo; said Alberta coach Clare Drake. &ldquo;If we had of come out flat and lost, we would have a hard time making up six points on Calgary in the New Year.&rdquo;OUAA &mdash; Western, Toronto and Guelph all remain huddled atop the OUAA with each team showing only a single defeat. In recent action, the Western Mustangs prevailed 6-5 over the York Yeomen as Bill Smith scored a controversial winning goal, with only 1:32 remaining in the game. York&rsquo;s coach Kris Kosta called for a measurement of Smith&rsquo;s stick, and sure enough, it was illegal. But the goal still counted. According to the CAHA rulebook if a player leaves the ice surface, a goal cannot be called back. So the goal counted, but Smith went to the penalty box for the remaining minute and a half for playing with an illegal stick.The Toronto Blues kept pace with the high-flying Mustangs as they dropped Waterloo 7-1, with Brad Thiessen leading the way with a pair of markers and helpers. Unfortunately, Thiessen lost his cool and received a game misconduct. The Blues followed their victory up with a 4-4 tie with the Queen&rsquo;s Golden Gaels.Coach Bud Folusewych has his Guelph Gryphons on a six-game winning streak and he&rsquo;s doing it with 12 rookies in his lineup. The Gryphons edged the McMaster Marlins 3-2 as John Sikura&rsquo;s power play goal proved to be the winner. Guelph then handed Laurentian their sixth defeat of the season as Tom Castle and Ray Irwin paced a 5-3 win.Queen&rsquo;s stayed within striking distance as they whipped Brock 10-1. Queen&rsquo;s Paul Stothart moved into first place in the scoring race with 31 points for the year including four goals and one assist against Brock.AUAA &mdash; When one thinks of the Mount Allison Mounties, ace scorer Ross Yates usually comes to mind. However, a young left winger has written himself into the AUAA record book with an astonishing performance. Jamie Watling eclipsed two records, previously set in the early 70s, as he scored an amazing seven goals and two assists in a 13-3 shellacking of Memorial.Wailing&rsquo;s seven goals were one better than Greg McCullough&rsquo;s Feb. 22, 1972 performance. His nine points also eclipsed the eight scored by Ron Naud for the Dalhousie Tigers on Jan. 30, 1971.Mt. Allison moved into a tie for first place in the MacAdam Division with UNB as the Mounties dumped Memorial 12-4 the next day. Yates had a six-point game and moved into second place in the AUAA scoring race.After seven straight victories, the Moncton Aigle Bleus suffered their first setback of the season as St. Mary&rsquo;s dumped them 7-4, right in Moncton. Tom MacDonnell registered his first hat trick of the year to pace the Huskies. St. Mary&rsquo;s also had an easy time with the Dalhousie Tigers; Steve Axford had five goals for the Huskies in their 8-5 triumph.Both St. Mary&rsquo;s and Dalhousie travelled to Wolfville to face the much improved Acadia Axemen. Neither of the Halifax based clubs were able to mount much offensively, as they fell by identical 6-2 scores. Greg Rowe had a pair of goals for the Axemen&rsquo;s victory over the Huskies, while Paul Gallagher&rsquo;s pair led Acadia over the Tigers.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01863/6568606-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="563" height="843"><figcaption class="caption-body">Captain Doug Feasby is the leading scorer of the red-hot Concordia Stingers.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Late Rally Keeps Stingers Away From Defeat

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0029-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01756/6568637-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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VICTORIAVILLE College Scoreboard

<div class="byline">BY VIRG FOSS</div>GRAND FORKS &mdash; Since the colleges started playing for the national championship in hockey in 1948, 26 of the 33 NCAA titles have gone to teams representing the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.So it is no surprise that the WCHA is off to a fast start once again against non-WCHA teams as league play dwindled to a standstill for the Christmas break.In 39 games to date for the WCHA against outside competition, the WCHA had won 29 of them, lost seven and tied three, a startling statistic that indicates that the winner of this year&rsquo;s NCAA title could indeed come from the WCHA once again.The WCHA had a 19-5-3 record against teams from the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, including games with Chicago Circle, which has been granted probationary status in the CCHA.The WCHA was 3-1 against the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference and 7-1 against teams not affiliated with any U.S. college league.Those figures will shift dramatically in the coming weeks as there are just five WCHA games on tap between now and Jan. 9-10, when league play resumes with a full schedule.Minnesota, which currently shares the WCHA lead with defending national champion North Dakota, will be in the best position to improve the WCHA&rsquo;s glittering record against outside competition during the lull in league play.Coach Brad Buetow&rsquo;s Gophers play six non-league games over the holiday break, including two each with Dart-mouth. Providence and Ohio State. All 10 WCHA teams have games lined up over the holiday break, highlighted by tournaments featuring North Dakota in the Yale Invitational, Michigan, Michigan Tech and Michigan State in the Great Lakes Invitational and Colorado College in the Broadmoor Invitational.Meanwhile, the WCHA race continues to be a heated one. North Dakota moved into a tie for first by splitting a pair at Michigan while Denver put itself in position to wrestle the league lead from both North Dakota and Minnesota in limited play on Dec. 12-13.North Dakota had its 11-game road winning streak snapped at Ann Arbor in rude fashion with Michigan romping over the Sioux 8-2, led by two goals each by Gordy Hampson and Steve Richmond, as the Wolverines scored their first four goals on power plays.It was North Dakota&rsquo;s first road loss in six games this year and first since Feb. 2 of last season, when Michigan Tech beat the Sioux 6-4. Since then, North Dakota put together a remarkable streak on the road, which of course was highlighted by two wins and the national championship in last year&rsquo;s NCAA finals at Providence.North Dakota had run the streak to 11 straight by beating Michigan 5-1 in the series opener in Ann Arbor, as goalie Darren Jensen made 31 saves and Phil Sykes scored two goals.But both North Dakota and Minnesota could be looking up at Denver by the time league play resumes on a full scale in January.Coach Marshall Johnston&rsquo;s Pioneers, who dropped two games at Minnesota on their last road trip, found the magic formula this time to handle Michigan Tech twice on the road.Denver came out of Michigan Tech with 5-4 and 4-0 victories to move to a 7-3 record, one game off the 8-4 records held by Minnesota and North Dakota.Should Denver sweep Colorado College in a home-and-away series Dec. 12-13, the Pioneers would go into Christmas break with the league lead, which would set up a key showdown Jan. 9-10 in Grand Forks when Denver plays at North Dakota.But one win by Colorado College in the spirited rivalry with Denver would leave the WCHA in a three-way deadlock entering the second half of the season. The return of Dale Maksymyk to the CC lineup has pumped new life into the Tigers. He has been sidelined since Oct. 24 with a shoulder separation, but the Tigers are 2-0 since he&rsquo;s been back.Frank Xavier scored on a power play to power Denver past Tech 5-4 in the opener, then Scott Robinson had 37 saves for the shutout in the second game.At Duluth, Chris Tucker&rsquo;s goal at 15:41 of the third period gave Duluth a 3-2 win over Wisconsin in the opener, but then John Newberry and Scott Lecy potted third period goals the next night to give Wisconsin a 5-3 win.Notre Dame had a perfect week, snapping a 10-game losing streak at home by beating Michigan State 4-3 in overtime in mid-week, then hammering Chicago Circle 11-2 and 6-4 on the weekend.Michigan State, just 1-10 in the WCHA, found success outside the league, too. The Spartans tied Miami of Ohio 4-4, then got a 6-3 win the second night.Minnesota split at U.S. International of San Diego, losing the opener 6-4, then winning 10-4.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01856/6568675-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="573" height="1077"><figcaption class="caption-body">Denver netminder Scott Robinson shut out Michigan Tech with a 37-save performance.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02570/6568668-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="564" height="588"><figcaption class="caption-body">Scott Lecy had a late goal for Wisconsin which helped them past Minnesota-Duluth.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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WCHA Dominates Other Conferences; Pioneers Primed For Run At First

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-03392/6568706-1-eng-US/f0030-032.jpg" title="f0030-03" width="504" height="371"></div> &#9632;

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How U.S. Colleges Rank

<div class="byline">BY JIM SCHNEIDER</div>KALAMAZOO &mdash; Defending Central Collegiate Hockey Association champion Northern Michigan collected a pair of wins from Western Michigan, 5-3 and 7-5, in the first full week of league action.Elsewhere in the CCHA Ferris State and Ohio State kept their conference records perfect to match NMU. Ferris State swept Lake Superior 8-6 and 7-6, while OSU was beating Bowling Green, 5-2 and 6-3. In non-league action Miami tied Michigan State 4-4 in the opener at MSU before dropping a 6-3 decision to the future CCHA Spartans.Junior Jeff Pyle earned CCHA Player of the Week honors for NMU&rsquo;s Wildcats as he collected three goals and added four assists in the series sweep. Pyle collected three straight goals for his hat trick in the 7-5 win as NMU bounced back from a 5-4 WMU lead midway in the third period.Pyle snapped a 3-3 deadlook at 17:41 of the second period to give NMU a 4-3 lead, but Western Michigan&rsquo;s Terry Olson scored a pair of third period goals to give WMU the 5-4 edge.Pyle tied the game at 9:27 and scored the winner at 15:33. Jeff Tascoff collected an insurance goal, originally credited to Pyle at 17:24.In the opener the Wildcats (8-7-1; 4-0 WCHA) used a pair of goals from Dave Ikkala and Eric Ponath to offset WMU&rsquo;s fast start that included a Ross Fitzpatrick goal just 14 seconds into the game. The Broncos are 5-9 overall and 2-4 in CCHA play.Freshman netminder Jeff Poeschl played both games for the Wildcats in the sweep.Ferris State (7-4-1; 4-0 CCHA) kept pace with NMU by using a high-powered third period attack that included nine goals against Lake Superior (8-5-1; 1-2-1 CCHA) in the final period.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-04277/6568744-1-eng-US/f0030-042.jpg" title="f0030-04" width="556" height="867"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jeff Pyle totalled seven points for NMU in their sweep over Western Michigan.</figcaption></div>The lead changed hands five times in the opener with the visiting Lakers taking the 1-0 lead on a Monty Beauchamp goal at 1:18 of the first period and then later on Steve Mulholland&rsquo;s second period goal. Bill Sobkowich put Rick Yeo&rsquo;s squad into a 5-4 lead in the third period, but FSC&rsquo;s Steve Banonis snapped a 6-6 tie at 15:29 of the third period and clinched the win with an empty net goal at 19:29 of the third period.Paul Cook paced the Ferris State offense on the weekend with a goal and five assists, getting three points in each game.Kevin Collar scored two first period goals in the second game to give Lake Superior a 3-2 lead in the second game.Following a scoreless second period Brian Walters tied the game for the host Bulldogs, but goals by John Wilson and Greg Retty pushed the LSSC lead to 5-3 at the 9:34 mark of the final period.FSC exploded for four goals with Dan Pupillo starting the comeback at 11:56. Pupillo has now scored at least one goal in six straight games and eight in the last nine games.Quick goals by George Harrison at 13:17 and Randy Strong at 13:35 gave FSC a one goal lead, but the Lakers tied the game at 6-6 at 18:41.Jim Baker untied the game just 13 seconds later at 18:54, assisted by Walters and Strong for the win.John Morris had 43 saves in the win and he earned an assist. Pat Ansell made 47 saves, including 21 in the third period, in the loss.Senior Mike Blake played a key role in goal for Ohio State in the sweep over state rival Bowling Green. The win gives OSU a six-game winning streak over the Falcons in the past two seasons.Blake made 69 saves in the series and stopped five Falcon breakaways.Paul Pooley opened the scoring in the series for OSU and BG took its only lead with Peter Wilson and Brian MacLellan scoring the goals.OSU bounced back with three second period goals by Mark Freeman, Jim Mroszak and Perry Pooley. Brian Jenks closed out the scoring in the third period.In the second game, played in front of another sellout crowd in the OSU Ice Rink, OSU scored four times in the first period to put the game away early.Defensemen Jenks and Dan Mundich opened the scoring with power play goals at 7:20 and 8:07 of the first period and Mroszak and Paul Pooley made the score 4-0 before Mike Pikul scored for BG at 19:21.Steve Amoruso and Jamie MaCoun closed out the OSU scoring before Brian Hill and John Samaneki scored for the Falcons in the third period.The league action continues this week with a battle of first place teams: Ferris State and Northerr Michigan play at NMU and Ohio State travels to Lake Superior. In non league action Western Michigan heads to Miami for two games, while Bowling Green hosts Western Ontario in a single contest.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-05203/6568737-1-eng-US/f0030-052.jpg" title="f0030-05" width="555" height="840"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ferris State&rsquo;s Steve Banonis scored the winning and insurance goals in an 8-6 victory over Lake Superior.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0030-04

Pyle Paces Wildcats Past Broncos — Twice

LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSThe London Knights were overjoyed when Tony MacKenzie came back to the lineup from the injury list. It seems they couldn&rsquo;t win without him.While MacKenzie sat injured on the sidelines, the Knights went into a tailspin, losing four times while their ace scorer was out of action. Then MacKenzie returned and things changed for the Knights as they won two in a row.The London sniper scored five goals and had two assists in a four-game stretch. In a 7-6 overtime win over league-leading Niagara Falls, MacKenzie scored two power play goals and set up a third, and followed up with two goals in a 3-1 victory over Oshawa.As the Knights battle the Toronto Marlboros for third place in the OHL&rsquo;s Emms Division, a healthy MacKenzie is vital to the London offense. The 19-year-old winger, who is a native of Charlottetown, P.E.I., will be eligible for the 1981 NHL entry draft and his statistics are certain to impress the scouts. He has 16 goals and 10 assists in 22 games in his second season with London.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02517/6568775-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="524" height="1061"><figcaption class="caption-body">TONY MacKENZIE London Knights</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0031-02

OHL Player Of The Week

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BROPHY</div>TORONTO &mdash; Commissioner: Before I make any judgements, I have to ask you a few questions to make sure this incident wasn&rsquo;t blown out of proportion. Did you really throw a water bottle at the referee?Coach: Yes.Commissioner: Did you put a $50 bounty on the referee?Coach: Yes.Following that conversation, Ontario Hockey League commissioner David Branch suspended Sudbury Wolves&rsquo; coach Andy Laing for three games, fined the team $750 and forced the Wolves to post a $1,000 bond in lieu of any further incidents involving Laing and an official.Branch&rsquo;s action followed an incident in which Laing, a three-year veteran behind the Wolves&rsquo; bench, threw a water bottle at referee Doug Robb in a game and then offered any of his players $50 if they shot at &mdash; and hit &mdash; Robb with the puck.&ldquo;We have filed complaints about Robb&rsquo;s officiating in the past, yet he keeps getting games in Sudbury,&rdquo; said Laing. &ldquo;Sometimes it seems that the more you complain about a guy, the more they send him to you.&rdquo;The incident took place in late November with the Oshawa Generals playing in Sudbury. A fight between the Wolves&rsquo; Rob Mazzuca and Oshawa&rsquo;s Pat Poulin broke out with refereeRobb standing nearby. Laing and the Wolves claim that Poulin gained an unfair advantage in the fight by grabbing Mazzuca&rsquo;s hair &mdash; an offense that calls for a match penalty.Robb didn&rsquo;t see any hair-pulling and gave each player a minor and major penalty. Mazzuca suffered cuts requiring 14 stitches in the battle.When Laing heard the announcement that no match penalty was being called, he sent designated captain Mike Martin to inquire about it. Martin lost his cool and charged the ref, and was ejected from the game. He was later slapped with a three-game suspension.It was then that Laing threw the water bottle and put the bounty out on Robb.&ldquo;Maybe I regret doing it now but at the time I felt justified,&rdquo; said Laing. &ldquo;We probably wouldn&rsquo;t have even bothered arguing if Mazzuca didn&rsquo;t get hurt. I just can&rsquo;t see how a referee can stand right over a fight, watch a player get carved and not do anything about it. The funny thing is, if Don Cherry did what I did in the National Hockey League, they&rsquo;d probably just call it color.&rdquo;Laing gave Robb a verbal tar and feathering in the media folowing the game and added: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I said anything that every coach in this league hasn&rsquo;t thought for a long time.&rdquo;Branch said that the league, not its coaches, are responsible for policing officials.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re always concerned about the quality of officiating in the league,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I think this is the worst incident involving a coach and offical since I have been in the league [two years). It&rsquo;s something that we just will not tolerate.&rdquo;Branch said that the OHL is working in close contact with the National Hockey League and even has some referees doing games who are under contract to the NHL.&ldquo;When you take into consideration that we have over 400 hockey games in a year, we get very few complaints from teams,&rdquo; said Branch.&ldquo;Last year we had only three written complaints about officials. We had some phone calls but we tell the teams that if they have a complaint, to write it down and send it to us.&rdquo;SAULT STE. MARIE: The Greyhounds are&rsquo;t satisfied with just leading the entire league in the standings. They recently made a player move in hopes of beefing up their already tough defense, sending Scott Clements (his fourth team in two years), Bob Hocks and Mario Michieli to the Kitchener Rangers for rugged defenseman Jim Pavese and forward Rick Morocco.Pavese was a member of the Memorial Cup champion Peterborough Petes two years ago but was drafted by the Rangers the folowing season. Last year, still considered a rookie, Pavese was the Rangers&rsquo; captain. He has earned a reputation as being hard to handle but so had many others before they came under the tight reigns of coach Terry Crisp.OTTAWA: The 67&rsquo;s also picked up a veteran defenseman, John Odam, after he was put on waivers by the Windsor Spitfires. Odam is an Ottawa native and will be in charge of keeping the crease area in front of the 67&rsquo;s goal free of traffic.KINGSTON: The Canadians had the defensive part of their game working fine, now they have added offense. Bernie Nicholls and Scott Howson have worked their way near the top of the scoring race, with 54 and 53 points respectively, after 25 games. Defenseman Rick Wilson is the top scoring blueliner with 36 points and Neil Belland is fourth with 27.OSHAWA: After beating the Greyhounds in, Sault Ste. Marie, Oshawa fell into a bit of a slump, losing 9-2 in Kingston and 3-1 at home to London.PETERBOROUGH: The Petes continue to struggle this season. After putting together an impressive six-game undefeated streak, the Petes dropped two games up north, 5-4 in overtime to the Soo and 6-2 to the last place Wolves in Sudbury.SUDBURY: With coach Andy Laing suspended for three games, director of operations Joe Drago took over behind the bench. He has a lifetime coaching record of 8-1-1 in relief. Newcomer Emilio lovio, obtained in a trade with the Niagara Falls Flyers, took over the team scoring lead with 13 goals and 15 assists. The Wolves also picked up overage goalie Jim Sidwell and he won two of his first three starts.NIAGARA FALLS: The Flyers are still in first place despite losing three of four games, including a 6-1 decision to Kitchener. Two Flyers &mdash; Steve Larmer and Steve Ludzik &mdash; remain in the top 10 in scoring.WINDSOR: Spitfires&rsquo; captain Ernie Godden took over as the goal scoring leader with 32. His rugged play has helped keep the Spits near the top of the pack despite a dreadful road record.TORONTO: Goaltender Bruce Dowie, last year&rsquo;s Rookie of the Year, appears to be suffering from the sophomore jinx. His record recently dropped to 10-12 and his goals-against average rose to 5.01. The Marlies lost 3-2 to Kitchener and 11-2 to Windsor before downing Kingston 5-4.LONDON: The Knights have been playing games with only one goaltender dressed &mdash; rookie Doug Chessell. Manager Bill Long has tried to pick up another goalie to fill in for injured Frank Caprice but has had no luck.KITCHENER: After losing 9-4 to Niagara Falls, the Rangers rebounded to defeat Toronto 3-2 in overtime and Niagara Falls 6-1.BRANTFORD: Defenseman Tony Curtale leads the team in scoring, hustle and desire. While the Alexanders continue to struggle, Curtale has improved his offensive output to eight goals and 24 assists, second best among all defensemen in the league.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01791/6568806-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="561" height="640"><figcaption class="caption-body">Throwing a water bottle and placing a bounty on a referee cost Sudbury coach Andy Laing a suspension and fine.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0031-01

Sudbury’s Laing Fined For ‘Bounty’ Incident

LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSThe Lethbridge Broncos are making a move to challenge the leaders in the East Division of the Western Hockey League and one player who has been a big contributor to their newfound success is 19-year-old Doug Rigler.The Broncos won three consecutive games in one stretch with Rigler providing the offensive punch with nine points to jump into the top 15 scorers while winning Player of the Week honors in the WHL.The Lethbridge right winger scored once and set up two more as the Broncos defeated Spokane 5-2 and had a pair of assists in a 5-4 squeaker over Medicine Hat. Rigler capped the week with a four-point game as the Broncos edged Billings 7-6.A former member of the Centennial Cup champion Red Deer Rustler, Rigler has scored 19 times and picked up 39 scoring points in his first season of major junior hockey with Lethbridge.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02585/6568837-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="516" height="805"><figcaption class="caption-body">DOUG RIGLERLethbridge Broncos</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-02

WHL Player Of The Week

<div class="byline">BY GREGG DRINNAN</div>WINNIPEG &mdash; Despite the fact his club had won just three of its last nine games, Winnipeg Warriors&rsquo; head coach Fran Huck was smiling.Understand that those nine games constituted one of the Western Hockey League&rsquo;s legendary road trips, a gruelling 19-day affair and the Warriors, an expansion franchise in its very first season, ended the trip by dumping the Wheat Kings 7-5 in Brandon, vacating the Eastern Division cellar in the process.&ldquo;We played very well on the road,&rdquo; said Huck, the former Canadian National Team member and one-time National Hockey Leaguer. &ldquo;It took us 19 days to get to know one another and I&rsquo;m very pleased with the way we played. We lost those six games by seven goals and in five of the six we outshot the opposition.&ldquo;In fact, if we had played like this at home, we wouldn&rsquo;t be behind the eight-ball the way we are now.&rdquo;Winnipeg&rsquo;s win in Brandon lifted the Warriors to within five points of the sixth-place Lethbridge Broncos who, at the time, held down the East&rsquo;s sixth and final playoff spot.The Warriors, who owned a 7-15 record, had suffered a total of eight one-goal losses, while dropping four others by two goals. On the season, Winnipeg had scored 99 goals, while giving up just 110.When Winnipeg was granted a franchise last summer, Huck &mdash; along with general manager Harry Buekert and assistant coach Bruce Southern &mdash; went about trying to piece together a playoff contender. Naturally, they ended up with a nucleus of players who have been rejected by various clubs around the league. But Huck has them playing an extremely grinding, disciplined style and it has been paying off.The Warriors also added three new players to their roster: Joe Scherer, a 19-year-old right winger, who totalled 18 goals and 38 assists with the Kitchener Rangers and Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Major Junior League last season; Dave Fisher, an 18-year-old defenseman from the WHL&rsquo;s Saskatoon Blades; and Kevin Braun, an 18-year-old forward from the Saskatoon J&rsquo;s of the Saskatchewan Junior League.At the same time, Randy Minoletti &mdash; a 13-goal man &mdash; was lost indefinitely with a dislocated wrist. But after beating Brandon, the Warriors posted a 7-1 home-ice win over the Saskatoon Blades, marking the first time the Warriors had won two games in a row. It gave them a three-point edge over the last-place Blades. The modest winning streak ended with an 8-4 loss to the Portland Winter HawksBILLINGS: Marc Chartier&rsquo;s goal at 15:54 of the third period broke a 4-4 tie and the Bighorns went on to score a 6-4 win over the visiting Regina Pats. Rookie winger Scott Makin scored the winner midway through the third period as the Bighorns posted a 3-2 win over Medicine Hat Tigers in Billings.BRANDON: Defenseman Dean Kennedy, a 17-year-old who is having a superb season, picked up his first two WHL goals in a 5-4 loss to the Pats in Regina. Brandon got some good news when the Buffalo Sabres returned high-scoring right winger Steve Patrick after a six-game trial. Centers Dave Chartier and Syd Cranston scored two goals each in a 7-5 victory over the Saskatoon Blades in Brandon.CALGARY: Clint Fehr - selected the East&rsquo;s Player of the Week after getting eight points in two wins &mdash; and Bill Hobbins had two goals apiece as the Wranglers got past the visiting Winnipeg Warriors 5-3. Calgary continued its winning ways, dumping the visiting Portland Winter Hawks 7-6 on Dan Bourbonnais&rsquo; power-play goal at 18:05 of the third period.LETHBRIDGE: Coach John Chapman was suspended for one game after becoming involved with fans in a game in Saskatoon and fined $500 for failing to control his players, who also became involved with fans in the same disturbance. Four unanswered goals &mdash; three in the third period &mdash; gave the visiting Broncos a 5-2 win over the Spokane Flyers. Rookie Brent Sutter picked up his 17th and 18th goals.MEDICINE HAT: The Tigers posted a pair of 6-5 overtime victories over the Lethbridge Broncos. Captain Steve Tsujiura scored twice, including the winner at 3:33 of overtime, as the Tigers picked up a 6-5 victory in Lethbridge. In Medicine Hat, Rod Buskas scored the winner after just 16 seconds of extra time. The wins left the Tigers with five wins and a tie in six overtime contests this season. Center Mike Winther appeared in a Regina court, charged with causing bodily harm by criminal negligence and had his case adjourned until Feb. 23 when he will be tried by a judge without a jury. Winther was charged after he threw his stick into the stands during a game Oct. 3. At the time, Winther was a member of the Brandon Wheat Kings. The stick struck a fan, who was cut for four stitches.REGINA: Bill Ansell scored twice and Brian Varga added a goal and three assists as the&rsquo; hometown Pats defeated Brandon 5-4. Varga then banged in three goals and set up two others in a home ice 7-5 win over the Portland Winter Hawks.SASKATOON: The Blades were fined $250 for not having adequate security at a game during which the Lethbridge Broncos and their coach John Chapman became involved with fans.NEW WESTMINSTER: Duane Potekal scored three times as the Bruins earned a 7-7 tie with the visiting Spokane Flyers. Dennis Labbe, playing his first game after recovering from a shoulder injury had two third-period goals to give the Bruins a 6-4 win over the Seattle Breakers. John Neeld had two goals and three assists. The Bruins picked up winger John Strait, who already has seen action with the Brandon Wheat Kings, Spokane Flyers and Billings Bighorns.PORTLAND: Two goals each from Kelly Rissling and Peter Derksen sparked the Winter Hawks to a 6-1 home-ice win over the Seattle Flyers. Ken Yaremchuk&rsquo;s three goals led the Hawks to an 8-4 triumph in Winnipeg.SEATTLE: The Breakers picked up over-age netminder Jeff Murdoch on waivers from the Brandon Wheat Kings.SPOKANE: Mark Sochatsky fired back-to-back hat tricks, scoring three times in a 9-7 loss to the Cougars in Victoria and repeating the feat in a 7-7 draw with the Bruins in New Westminster. The teams staged a pregame brawl and Spokane lost Dan Brown, who skated with the Memorial Cup-champion Cornwall Royals last season, with a suspected broken hand.VICTORIA: Center Barry Pederson returned after a nine-game stint with the Boston Bruins, and was named the West&rsquo;s Player of the Week after piling up 18 points in three games. The Cougars moved into sole possession of first place in the Western Division for the first time with a 7-3 victory over the Breakers in Seattle, with Pederson scoring three goals and adding two assists. In his second game, Pederson scored twice and set up four others as the Cougars dumped the visiting Spokane Flyers 9-7. Then, Pederson banged in one goal set up six others as the Cougars posted a home-ice 10-4 win over Seattle. In only seven games with the Cougars this season, Pederson has 27 points. Victoria got some bad news when it was learned goaltender Granl Fuhr, the WHL&rsquo;s best puckstopper, will be sidelined at least three weeks with a partial separation of his righl shoulder.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01852/6568868-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="570" height="879"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Scherer, who joined the Warriors from the Ontario League, is a leader in Winnipeg.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-01

Warriors’ Journey Ends On Upswing; Huck’s Charges Proving Competitive

CALGARY - Ed Chynoweth president of the Western Hockey League, is obviously fed up and he recently let the league&rsquo;s 13 team know it.&ldquo;I thought the Western Hocke; League had progressed out of thi dark ages, but it is increasing!; clear to me that many of our team are content to take a back-alle; approach to the game,&rdquo; Chynowetl said, after suspending 11 players and issuing fines totalling $2,250 after wild and woolly week. &ldquo;It is deep!; disturbing to me when so many in cidents occur in a single week.&ldquo;I feel that the only alternative to curb these actions is to hit the tean where it hurts most &mdash; in the pocket book. If the teams insist on using prehistoric methods, the fines wil continue io increase and the suspen sions will get heavier.&rdquo;The Billings Bighorns were fine $500 and the Brandon Wheat Kings $250 for a post-game brawl Nov. 20 that resulted in a total of 667 minutes in penalties being handed out. As well, Darren McKay of Billings was suspended for three games foi starting the altercation. Sheldor Currie of Billings and Carl Mokosa! of Brandon were suspended for one game each for picking up spearing penalties during the brawl.The New Westminster Bruins and the Spokane Flyers were fined $501 each for their participation in a pre game brawl Nov. 24. Four player; from each club &mdash; Dan Brown, Crai) Newsome, Ken Goodwin and Kevil MacNaught from Spokane and Rol Beckner, Rick Amann, Doug Kos tynski and Brian Ingram of New Westminster &mdash; were suspended fo one game each for their roles in th brawl. &#9632;

Teams Fined $2,250 After WHL Violence

<div class="byline">BY HERB ZURKOWSKY</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMONTREAL &mdash; The future looks great for the Montreal Juniors. As for the present, well, uh, now that&rsquo;s another story. But at least the Juniors aren&rsquo;t last in the Lebel Division, where many soothsayers and crystal ball gazers predicted they&rsquo;d be at this state of the season.Instead, the Juniors are second-last, eight points ahead of the Laval Bvoisins. After 31 games, Montreal had recorded a 13-18-0 record, putting them eighth in the 10-team league and occupying the final playoff spot.The Juniors have plenty of problems &mdash; inconsistent goaltending, sloppy defensive play and a lack of scoring by the forwards. But one thing the Juniors do have is a group of young, energetic workers who can only become better with time.On defense there is Bill Campbell, only 16. Campbell, the Juniors&rsquo; first midget pick, is mature beyond his years. He had 10 goals and 24 assists after 29 games and has displayed skating and shooting skills that should turn him into a future great.Also on defense are Jarmo Vuorinen, 18, plucked from Finland, Michel Doyon, 18, acquired from the Voisins in a trade, Taras Zytynsky, 18, who was selected underage by the Philadelphia Flyers, rookie Joe Bertucci, 17, moved up front because of injury problems as was 17-year-old Alan Somerville, and Sylvain Gagne, 18.Up front, centers Tony Fioro, Joceyn Fortin and Pierre Martin, 18, 17, and 18 respectively, and wingers Robert Lerun, only 16, Gaetan Malo, 17, Claude Vienneau, 17, provide the Juniors with a nucleus to build around.But alas, while these kids are developing, the Juniors&rsquo; scoring is left to old hands Constant Priondolo, Francois Lecomte and Denis Cyr.Priondolo, only 5-7, 165 pounds, is the Juniors&rsquo; designed overage member; he had 24 goals and 27 assists after 30 games.Lecomte, 19, leads the Juniors with 24 goals and 42 assists for third spot in the league scoring, but at this writing was suffering from a shoulder injury.Cyr, also 19, and drafted underage by the Calgary Flames, has been up-and-down on two occassions from the NHL club but has still managed to score 16 goals and 21 assists in only 22 games.But getting back to Lecomte&rsquo;s injury, it has been a plethora of maladies that also have plagued the Juniors and caused rookie head coach Pierre Creamer many a sleepless night.In addition to Lecomte, Zytynsky (torn knee ligaments); Lebrun (broken bone in ankle); Vienneau (sore ankle); and Dore (sore leg) were on the mend.&ldquo;Look at the big team,&rdquo; Creamer said referring to the Montreal Canadiens. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re not the same team without Pierre Larouche, Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson. But injuries are something you have to live with.&rdquo;Creamer, 36, led the St. Eustache Jr. B Patriotes of the Metropolitan Junior Hockey League to the provincial championship last season and to three provincial championship tournaments in six years with the team.He replaced Jacques St. Jean at Montreal when St. Jean was forced to resign due to work commitments, and he has coached many NHLers &mdash; the most prominent one being Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders.The two things Creamer stresses are work and discipline.&ldquo;Hockey doesn&rsquo;t change from level to level as long as you work on the ice,&rdquo; Creamer says. &ldquo;You have to have players working together and you can&rsquo;t win in any sport without discipline. Without discipline, you&rsquo;re not in the same league as the other teams.&rdquo;Creamer figures his Juniors can still finish as high as sixth overall this season, but admits he&rsquo;ll be satisfied with a playoff spot &mdash; any playoff spot.He says of the Juniors&rsquo; 31 games, they have worked in all but three &mdash; losses to Sorel, Cornwall and Trois-Rivieres &mdash; and believes the team&rsquo;s plight would have been strengthened if a) his players remained free of injuries, b) Cyr spent all his time in Montreal and c) Gaetano Orlando had decided not to play college hockey. Orlando, a 30-goal man last season, was allowed to play for Providence College even though he is not longer an amateur, having received money from the Juniors &mdash; a strict violation of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.&ldquo;You put Orlando on my team, not have Zytynsky injured, have Savard [Denis, selected underage by Chicago Black Hawks] and Cyr here regularly,&rdquo; drools Creamer, &ldquo;we wouldn&rsquo;t have a super team, but we&rsquo;d have a team fighting for first place.&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t need 17 super players, only 10, just like Sorel and Cornwall.&rdquo;Creamer has elected to put his big guns on one line, moving Priondolo, normally a right winger, over to the left side, with Lecomte at center and Cyr on right wing. He&rsquo;s also given the line up to 40 minutes of ice time per game.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather have the three of them on one line then have one on each of our three lines,&rdquo; Creamer explained. &ldquo;At least that way we&rsquo;ll be putting pressure on the other team. And they spend a lot of time on the ice against a defensive line which gives us the advantage because defensive lines only backcheck and don&rsquo;t put pressure on you.&ldquo;Sometimes I&rsquo;ll keep the line on the ice three minutes ata time. I don&rsquo;t like doing that, but with the line on the ice I know our chances are better. Look, I&rsquo;m the first to admit we&rsquo;re not a great scoring team.&rdquo;Creamer said he wishes either Jeff Barratt or Patrice Pare would establish themselves as the No. 1 goalie. Creamer has been alternating the two much of the season on a game-bygame basis because neither has held a hot hand for two successive games. Both sport an average in the 4.5 range.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t count on one for a big game,&rdquo; Creamer said of his netminders. &ldquo;Sometimes a team is not playing well and they count on their goalie to keep them in the game.&ldquo;And certainly our defense is a concern, but you must remember we work as a five-man unit on the ice. The defensemen can&rsquo;t look good if the forwards aren&rsquo;t backchecking. But our defense has to hit more. I want forwards skating with their heads up when they come to our blueline.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m happy with the way we&rsquo;ve been playing. No doubt our future looks good.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01770/6568923-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="569" height="987"><figcaption class="caption-body">Veteran Francois Lecomte has been showing the way for the Montreal Juniors, leading the team in scoring.</figcaption></div>AROUND THE LEAGUE - Offensive and defensive Players of the Month of November for each team were announced. Offensively they are, with each player&rsquo;s monthly output in parenthesis: Robert Millette, Chicoutimi, (15-12-27); Dale Hawerchuk, Cornwall, (18-21-39); John Chabot, Hull, (11-13-24); Alain Grenier, Laval, (6-9-15); Francois Lecomte, Montreal, (10-23-33); Stephane Lessard, Quebec, (8-13-21); Guy Fournier, Shawinigan, (10-12-22); Gerard Gallant, Sherbrooke, (9-15-24); Andre Cote, Sorel, (16-10-26); and Claude Verret, Trois-Rivieres, (9-13-22). Defensively, players selected were: goalie Yvan Charbonneau, Chicoutimi; defenseman Richard Vinet, Hull; defenseman Marc Prevost, Laval; defenseman Jarmo Vuorinen, Montreal; goalie Roberto Romano, Quebec; defenseman Patrick Dodier, Shawinigan, defenseman Claude Michon, Sherbrooke; winger Jean-Marc Gaulin, Sorel; and defenseman Pierre Sevigny, Trois-Rivieres. The league will now select one player from keach category. &#9632;

f0033-01

Juniors Have Makings Of Future Champions

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0034-06" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-06260/6569062-1-eng-US/f0034-062.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0034-06

WHERE NHL TEAMS PLAY

BOSTON - Jonathan 4, 5, 6, Redmond 5, 6, Lalonde 2. Ratelle 5, Foster 8, McNab 11, 12, O&rsquo;Reilly 4, Cashman 9, Kasper 10.BUFFALO &mdash; Savard 10, 11, McKegney 13, 14. 15, Van Boxmeer 7. Seiling 5. 6. 7, Dudley 7, 8. 9, 10, Luce 5, Hamel 4. Schoenfeld 2. Gare 18, Smith 5.CALGARY - Vail 10,11, Nilsson 13, Wilson 1. Rautakallio 2. Plett 12.CHICAGO - Kerr 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, O&rsquo;Connell 5. Sutter 11, Savard 12, Mulvey 16. Bulley 7. Sedlbauer 8, Higgins 6, Paterson 1.COLORADO - Vautour 9, Robert 4, 5, McDonald 11, DeBlois 5. 6, Ramage 7, 8. Hughes 2, Gagne 11, Gillis 4. Delorme 6, Malinowski 8.DETROIT &mdash; Larson 6, 7. Huber 1, McCourt 7. 8, Kirton 1, Foligno 11. Woods 4.EDMONTON - Gretzky 12,13. Messier 5, 6, Siltanen 3. Murdoch 5, Hagman 5.HARTFORD - Boutette 10. 11, 12, Stoughton 9. 10. Rogers 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, Miller 6. 7, Mark Howe 8, 9. Renaud. 1.LOS ANGELES - M. Murphy 3. Taylor 14, 15,16,17, Simmer 26, Dionne 19. 20, Bonar3, 4, 5, Jensen 5, Unger 7.MINNESOTA - B. Smith 11,12, Payne 11, Young 9, 10, 11, Andersson 5. McCarthy 11, Zanussi 4, Sharpley 11, 12, Fidler 5.MONTREAL - Napier 8, 9,10,11, Trembla 10, 11, Savard 3, Shutt 17. Langway 3, 4. Gainey 9, Acton 8.ISLANDERS - Bourne 13, 14. 15. Persson 2, 3, Kallur 16, 17, Bossy 27, 28, Merrick 2, Tambellini 7, 8, 9, Gillies 11, D. Potvin 8. Trottier 8.RANGERS - Hedberg 13, 14, Don Maloney 2, 3, 4, Allison 8, 9,10, Laidlaw 3. Greschner 11. Johnstone 3. 4. Silk 6, Beck 4, Vickers 8.9, Hospodar 2.PHILADELPHIA - Propp 8, 9, Watson 2, Kerr 7, Dailey 4, Gorence 9, Leach 11, 12, Clarke 7. MacLeish 16, 17. Barber 22, Wilson 8.PITTSBURGH - Kehoe 18, 19, 20. 21, Lee 4, Carlyle 3, Hughes 4, 5, 6, Ferguson 10, Malone 2, 3, Schutt 11, Johnson 7.QUEBEC - Ftorek 5. Richard 20, 21, 22. Hislop 13, 14, 15, Goulet 8, 9, Lacroix 1, P. Stastny 10, 11.ST. LOUIS - Babych 17, 18, Klassen 3, 4. Brownschidle 3. Turnbull 8, Currie 8, Sutter 11,12,13.TORONTO - Paiement 12, Salming 5, Melrose 2, Turnbull 4. 5, Sittier 14,15, Picard 1,2, Saganiuk 7, Vaive 11,12, Maloney 9.VANCOUVER - Rota 7, Minor 3, McCarthy 9, Smyl 12,13, Brasar 7, Ashton 4, Fraser 12.WASHINGTON - Mulvey 2, 3, 4, Kelly 9,10, 11, Pronovost 7, 8, 9, Ververgaert 6, Maruk 21, 22, Jarvis 5, Veitch 2.WINNIPEG - Manery 6, Dupont 10, Christian 6, Wilson 8, Geoffrion 11, Lindstrom 3.Four-goal game Napier, Montreal.Hat tricks - Dudley, Buflalo, Kerr, Chicago, Rogers, Hartford. Kehoe. Pittsburgh. Sutter, St. Louis and Pronovost, Washington, 1 each. &#9632;

NHL’S SCORERS THIS WEEK

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-08221/6569117-1-eng-US/f0034-082.jpg" title="f0034-08" width="524" height="1900"></div> &#9632;

f0034-08

NHL SCOREBOARD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01859/6569031-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="585" height="2459"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02605/6569024-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="541" height="1381"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03474/6569017-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="567" height="2400"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04365/6569010-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="554" height="3476"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-05294/6569003-1-eng-US/f0034-052.jpg" title="f0034-05" width="512" height="487"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01818/6568996-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="547" height="1851"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02597/6568989-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="523" height="1078"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03483/6568982-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="523" height="1966"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-04390/6568975-1-eng-US/f0035-042.jpg" title="f0035-04" width="514" height="823"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-05329/6568968-1-eng-US/f0035-052.jpg" title="f0035-05" width="506" height="324"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01694/6568961-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="575" height="2763"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02489/6568954-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="1232" height="1621"></div> &#9632;

f0034-01

NATIONAL LEAGUE SUMMARIES

BOSTONGoaliesCRAIG, JimVACHON, RogieDefenseDOAK, GaryMcCRIMMON, BradMELNYK, LarryMILBURY, MikePARK. BradREDMOND, DickCentersLALONDE, BobbyMcNAB. PeterMILLER, BobRATELLE, JeanR. WingsCASHMAN, Wayne - CFOSTER. DwightMIDDLETON. RickMORRISON. DougO-REILLY. TerryL. WingsJONATHAN, StanKASPER. SteveMARCOTTE, DonBUFFALOGoaliesEDWARDS, DonSAUVE. RobertDefenseDUNN. RichiePLAYFAIR, LarryRAMSEY, MikeRUFF. LindySCHOENFELD. JimVAN BOXMEER. JohnCentersHAMEL. GillesLUCE. DonPERREAULT. GilSAVARD, AndreSMITH. DerekR. WingsDUDLEY, RickGARE. Danny - CSEILING. RicL. WingsHAWORTH, AlanMcKEGNEY. TonyRAMSAY. CraigCALGARYGoaliesBOUCHARD. DanLEMELIN, RejeanRIGGIN. PatDefenseHOLT. RandyMARSH. Brad-CMURDOCH. BobRAUTAKALLIO. PekkaREINHART. PaulRUSSELL, PhilCentersCHOUINARD, GuyCLEMENT. BillINGARFIELD. EarlNILSSON. KentPEPLINSKI. JimR. WingsCYR. DenisMacMILLAN. BobMcKENDRY. AlexPLETT, WilliSMITH. BradL. WingsDWYER, MikeLAVALLEE, KevinLEVER. DonVAIL. EricWILSON, BertCHICAGOGoaliesBANNERMAN. MurrayESPOSITO, TonyDefenseBROWN, KeithFOX, GregHUTCHISON. DaveMURRAY. BobO&rsquo;CONNELL. MikeWILSON. DougCentersGARDNER. BillLYSIAK. TomKERR RegRUSKOWSKI, TerrySAVARD, DemsR. WingsHIGGINS. TimMULVEY, GrantPRESTON, RichL. WingsBULLEY.TedLECUYER, DougMARKS. JohnROBIDOUX, FlorentSEDLBAUER, RonSUTTER. DarrylCOLORADOGoaliesASTROM, HardySMITH. AlDefenseHUGHES. JackKITCHEN. MikeMcEWEN, MikeQUENNEVILLE. JoelRAMAGE, RobCentersBERRY. DougMALINOWSKI, MerlinMcKECHNIE, WaltSHEEHAN, BobbySMITH. BarryR. WingsDeBLOIS. LucienDELORME, RonMcDONALD, LannyROBERT, Rene-CVAUTOUR. YvonL. WingsGAGNE. PaulGILLIS. MikePIERCE, RandyDETROITGoaliesGILBERT, GillesJENSEN. AlRUTHERFORD. JimDefenseBARRETT. JohnHAMEL, JeanHUBER. WillieKORN, JimLARSON, ReedMILLER. PerryCentersMAHOVLICH. PeteMcCOURT, DalePETERSON. BrentR. WingsDAVIS, MalFOLIGNO, MikeNEDOMANSKY. V.OGRODNICK. JohnPOLONICH. DennisL. WingsHICKS, GlennLABRAATEN, DanLYLE, GeorgeTHOMPSON. Errol - CWOODS. PaulEDMONTONGoaliesLOW, RonMIO. EddieDefenseCOFFEY. PaulFOGOLIN. LeeHUDDY, Charlie.HUGHES. JohnLOWE. KevinPRICE. PatSILTANEN. RistoCentersGRETZKY. WayneHAGMAN. MattiMESSIER. MarkWEIR, StanR. WingsANDERSON. GlennBRACKENBURY, CurtMacDONALD, B. J. - CMURDOCH. DonL. WingsHUNTER, DaveKURRI, JariLUMLEY. DaveSEMENKO. DaveHARTFORDGoaliesGARRETT, JohnVEISOR, MikeDefenseABRAHAMSSON. T.HOWE. MarlyLEY, Rick-CMclLHARGEY, JackROBERTS. GordieSIMS. AlVOLCAN. MickeyCentersGALARNEAU, MichelJOHNSTON. BernieKEON. DaveNACHBAUR. DonROGERS. MikeR. WingsMILLER. WarrenNEUFELD. RayROWE. TomSTOUGHTON. BlaineL. WingsBOUTETTE. PatDEBOL, DaveDOUGLAS. JordyFOTIU, NickHOWE. MarkLOS ANGELESGoaliesGRAHAME, RonLESSARD MarioDefenseHALWARD, DougHARDY. MarkKORAB, JerryLEWIS. DaveMURPHY, LarryWELLS. JayCentersBONAR. DanDIONNE, MarcelTERRION, GregUNGER. GarryR. WingsFOX. JimHOPKINS. DeanMURPHY. Mike-CTAYLOR. DaveL. WingsGOLDUP, GlennHARRIS, BillyJENSEN. SteveSIMMER. CharlieMINNESOTAGoaliesBEAUPRE. DonEDWARDS. GaryMELOCHE. GillesDefenseBARRETT. FredGILES, CurtHARTSBURG, CraigSARGENT, GarySHMYR. Paul - CSMITH, GregCentersCARLSON, JackEAVES. MikeSHARPLEY. GlennSMITH. BobbyYOUNG. TimR. WingsANDERSSON. KentMacADAM, AlYOUNGHANS, TomZANUSSI. RonL. WingsCHRISTOFF. SteveFIDLER. MikeMcCarthy, TomPAYNE. SteveSHARPLEY. GlenMONTREALGoaliesHERRON, DemsLAROCQUE. MichelDefenseBAKER. BillENGBLOM, BrianGINGRAS. GastonLANGWAY. RodLAPOINTE, GuySAVARD, Serge - CCentersACTON. KeithJARVIS, DougMONDOU, PierreWICKENHEISER, DougR. WingsCHARTRAW, RickLAFLEUR. GuyNAPIER. MarkNILAN. ChrisTREMBLAY, MarioL. WingsGAINEY. BobHOULE. RejeanLAMBERT. YvonSHUTT. SteveISLANDERSGoaliesRESCH, ChicoSMITH. BillyDefenseLANE. GordieLANGEVIN. DaveLORIMER. BobMORROW. KenPERSSON. StefanPOTVIN. Denis - CPOTVIN, JeanCentersGORING. ButchHENNING, LorneMERRICK, WayneTAMBELLINI. SteveTROTTIER. BryanR. WingsBOSSY. MikeKALLUR. AndersNYSTROM. BobL. WingsBOURNE, BobGILLIES. ClarkHOWATT, GarryTONELLI. JohnRANGERSGoaliesDAVIDSON. JohnSOETAERT, DougDefenseBECK. BarryGRESCHNER. RonKOTSOPOULOS. C.LAIDLAW, TomMALONEY. Dave-CVADNAIS, CarolCentersALLISON, MikeESPOSITO. PhilNETHERY, LanceTKACZUK. WalterR. WingsHEDBERG. AndersJOHNSTONE. EddieSILK. DaveL. WingsGILLIS. JereHOSPODAR. EdMALONEY. DonSULLIMAN, DougVICKERS. StevePHILADELPHIAGoaliesMYRE. PhilPEETERS. PeteST CROIX. RickDefenseBARNES, NormBATHE. FrankBUSNIUK. MikeDAILEY, BobMURRAY, TerryWATSON. JimmyWESLEY. BlakeWILSON. BehnCentersBRIDGMAN. Mel - CCLARKE. BobbyKERR. TimMacLEISH, RickR. WingsGORENCE, TomHOLMGREN. PaulLEACH. ReggieMORRISON, GaryL. WingsBARBER, BillHILL. AlPRESTON, YvesPROPP. BrianPITTSBURGHGoaliesHOLLAND, BobMILLEN. GregDefenseBURROWS, DaveCARLYLE. RandyFAUBERT, MarioLUPIEN. GillesSTACKHOUSE, RonWOLF. BennettCentersBULLARD. MikeGARDNER, PaulHUGHES. PatMALONE, GregSHEPPARD. GreggR. WingsFERGUSON, GeorgeHAMILTON, JimKEHOE. RickLEE. PeterL. WingsLIBETT. NickLONSBERRY, RossMcADAM, GarySCHUTT, RodQUEBECGoaliesDION. MichelPLASSE, MichelDefenseCLACKSON. KimDUPONT. AndreHOGANSON. DaleLACROIX. PierreLARIVIERE. GaryROCHEFORT. NormCentersFTOREK, Robbie - CLEDUC. RichSTASTNY. PeterR. WingsHISLOP. JamiePADDOCK. JohnRICHARD, JacquesL. WingsHUNTER, DaleSTASTNY, AntonTARDIF. MarkWENSINK. JohnST. LOUISGoaliesLIUT, MikeSTANIOWSKI. EdDefenseBROWNSCHIDLE, J.HART. GerryKEA, EdLAPOINTE, RickMICHELETTI, JoeSTEWART, BillCentersDUNLOP. BlakeFEDERKO, BerniePATEY, LarryZUKE, MikeR. WingsBABYCH, WayneCHAPMAN. BlairCROMBEEN. MikeCURRIE, TonyMONAHAN. HartlandL. WingsKLASSEN, RalphPETTERSSON. J.SUTTER, Brian - CTURNBULL, PerryTORONTOGoaliesCRHA. JiriRIDLEY. CurtDefenseDURIS. VitezslavFARRISH. DaveMELROSE, BarrySALMING. BorjeSHAND, DaveTURNBULL. IanCentersBOSCHMAN, LaurieDERLAGO. BillKIRTON. MarkSITTLER, Darryl-CR. WingsELLIS, RonPAIEMENT. WilfSAGANIUK. RockyVAIVE. RickL. WingsANDERSON. JohnHICKEY, PatMALONEY. DanMARTIN, TerryVANCOUVERGoaliesBRODEUR. RichardBROMLEY. GaryDefenseCAMPBELL. ColinKEARNS, DennisLANZ, RickMAROIS, MarioMcCarthy, KevinSNEPSTS. HaroldCentersBOLIDREV, IvanBRASAR, Per-OlovGRADIN. ThomasR. WingsASHTON, BrentBUTLER. JerrySCHMAUTZ. BobbySMYL. StanMINOR. GerryL. WingsFRASER. CurtPRIMEAU. KevinROTA, DarcyWILLIAMS. DaveWASHINGTONGoaliesPALMATEER, MikeSTEPHENSON, WayneDefenseBOUCHARD, PierreRIBBLE, PatSMITH. RickVEITCH, DarrenWALK.ER, HowardCentersCHARRON, GuyEDBERG RolfJARVIS WesMARUK. DennisWALTER. Ryan-CR. WingsGARTNER, MikeGUSTAFSSON, BengtPRONOVOST. JeanVERVERGAERT, D.L. WingsHANGSLEBEN. AlanKELLY. BobMULVEY. PaulWINNIPEGGoaliesHAMEL, PioerreMIDDLEBROOK. L.DefenseBABYCH, DaveCAMERON. AlLEGGE. BarryLONG, BARRYMANTHA. MoeSPRING. DonCentersCHRISTIAN. DaveDROUIN. JudeEAVES. MurraySULLIVAN. PeteR. WingsGEOFFRION, DannyLINDSTROM. WillyMANERY, KrisMANN. JimmyMARSH. PeterWILSON. RonL. WingsDALEY. PatDUPONT. NormandLUKOWICH. MorrisINJUREDEDMONTONCALLIGHEN. BrettHICKS. DougLOS ANGELESST. LAURENT. AndreMINNESOTAMAXWELL, BradMONTREALLAROUCHE. PierreRISEBROUGH. DougROBINSON. LarryISLANDERSSUTTER. DuaneRANGERSDUGUAY, RonNILSSON, UlfTALAFOUS. DeanPHILADELPHIALINSEMAN, KenPITTSBURGHANDERSON. RussBAXTER, PaulJOHNSON, MarkKINDRACHUK, OrestQUEBECBERNIER. SergeCLOUTIER. ReneST. LOUISMAXWELL, BryanNORWICH. CraigTORONTOPICARD, RobertVANCOUVERHANLON, GlenLINDGREN. LarsWASHINGTONGREEN, RickLABRE, yvonMacKINNON. PaulWINNIPEGCAMPBELL, Scot - CSMAIL. DougINJUREDBOSTONBOURQUE. RayBUFFALOHAJT, BillMARTIN. RichardCALGARYHOUSTON, KenCOLORADOJOHANSEN, Trevor &#9632;

Starting Rosters For NHL Teams C - CAPTAIN

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-06301/6569172-1-eng-US/f0035-062.jpg" title="f0035-06" width="513" height="554"></div> &#9632;

f0035-06

ESPN NHL, COLLEGES ON U.S. TV

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01773/6569203-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0036-01

MINOR SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01760/6569255-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo by Owen Shaw</figcaption></div><h2>Youngest Coach Honored</h2>Don Wall, left, publisher of THE HOCKEY NEWS, makes a special presentation of the framed front page of the publication to Gary Green, coach of the Washington Caps, who was featured on the cover of the Nov. 28 issue. At 27, Green is the youngest coach in the NHL.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02558/6569248-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="1721" height="1276"></div><h2>A Cloning Affair!</h2>NHL goalkeepers have trouble enough handling one Wayne Gretzky, let alone seven of them on the Edmonton Oilers. The super Oiler forward was the subject of a promotion campaign by GWG Limited, a jeans company, during a &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s Talk Hockey&rdquo; show at the Londonderry Mall in Edmonton which resulted in more than 5,000 persons turning out for the event. GWG gave participating stores life-size cutouts of Gretzky.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03449/6569241-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="1166" height="1539"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo by Robert Shaver</figcaption></div>Another AwardWayne Gretzky of the Edmonton Oilers has been receiving endless nonors for his sensational first year in the NHL in 1979-80. THE HOCKEY NEWS selected him as the NHL Player of the Year and columnist Ken McKenzie, left, presented a commemorative plaque to the Oilers&rsquo; superstar prior to a game at Maple Leaf Gardens between the Leafs and the Oilers.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-04350/6569234-1-eng-US/f0038-042.jpg" title="f0038-04" width="1719" height="1729"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo by Ray Amati</figcaption></div><h2>Flyer Brass Shines</h2>Publisher Don Wall was on hand again recently to present Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; GM Keith Allen and coach Pai Quinn with their plaques as, respectively, THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; Executive and Coach of the Year for 1979-80. &#9632;

f0038-01

HOCKEY PEOPLE

<div class="byline">BY BUDDY O&#x2019;CONNOR</div>QUEBEC CITY - Gilles Leger, the Nordiques&rsquo; director of player personnel, has high hopes for the future of his team, mainly because four youngsters &mdash; a centerman and three defensemen &mdash; have played well so far this season for their respective minor league teams.Leger has the most raves for the center, 20-year-old Pierre Aubry, a 5-10, 170-pounder who is playing for the Erie Blades, of the Eastern League.&ldquo;Pierre is leading the league in scoring,&rdquo; Leger said, &ldquo;and he has just feibout everything going for him except experience. He&rsquo;s a speedster, too, which is a great asset in the National Hockey league.&rdquo;Leger then talked about the progress of the three defensemen &mdash; Dave Pichette, Lee Norwood and Terry Johnson &mdash; all of whom are playing with Hershey of the American Hockey League.&ldquo;All three have the size and the range that is needed to play in the NHL today,&rdquo; Leger said. &ldquo;I hope that in the future, not too far away, they&rsquo;ll be able to put these qualifications to work with the Nordiques.&ldquo;Pichette is having a really good season and is improving with every game. Norwood played with us this season and is gaining more ice time at Hershey, while Johnson has all the tools and is a very tough customer as well.&rdquo;Leger then shifted gears and went on to say that the Nordiques were totally against setting up a farm club in the province of Quebec, even though the cities of Sherbrooke, Chicoutimi and Rimouski have expressed a desire to have the American Hockey League place a franchise in their communities &mdash; preferably connected with the Nordiques.&ldquo;We do not want to disrupt the Quebec Junior Major Hockey League,&rdquo; Leger said. &ldquo;With an AHL team in either Sherbrooke or Chicoutimi, who both have a QJMHL entry, or Rimouski, we would be hurting the whole setup of the league.&rdquo;This year, the Nordiques do not have an AHL affiliate and have had to place their extra players from the major club in other cities in the American, Central, and Eastern leagues.Saint John, N.B., was the likely site of the Nordiques&rsquo; AHL entry for this year, but problems cropped up and the deal fell through. However, Leger is still thinking along the lines of having his farm club in Saint John. &ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t make it in Saint John for next season,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;then our second choice would be tn Fredericton, N.B., the third would be Erie. Pa.&rdquo;The chances of Erie qualifying are slim because the Nordiques want to keep any new AHL franchise within Canadian borders &mdash; for obvious reasons: In the U.S. the dollar exchange rate could become prohibitive and kill off the entry within a very short time.SKATE MARKS - Young centerman Dale Hunter took the honors as top Nordique for the month of November in the race for the O&rsquo;Keefe Cup. Hunter picked up 13 points on one first star and two second placers &hellip; Peter Stastny was second once again with 12 points and shares the overall lead with Jacques Richard, both with an accumulation of 23 points &hellip; Now practicing regularly after having been out of the lineup since the start of the season with a badly smashed ankle, Buddy Cloutier was slated to play against the arch rival Montreal Canadiens in their first visit to Quebec this season in late December. With Cloutier up front, the Nordiques&rsquo; firepower will increase remarkably &hellip; Jacques Richard calls the New York Islanders the best club in the NHL &hellip; &ldquo;They never miss an opportunity and create their own openings.&rdquo; &hellip; Coach Michel Bergeron was critical of Peter Stastny&rsquo;s play in the Nords&rsquo; 7-3 loss to the Isles. But even more furious about his play was Stastny himself&hellip; After 24 games, the Nordiques had 16 points &mdash; two behind last season&rsquo;s total for the same number of games &hellip; At the halfway mark last season, the Nordiques had a respectable 40 points out of a possible of 80. However, in 13 games away from home, the Nordiques have gained only one win so far. Former assistant coach Andre Boudrias, relegated to a minor post ever since Bergeron took over as head coach from GM Mauric Filion, has officially cut all ties with the Quebec organization &hellip; Rumors are rampant here that 24-year-old defenseman Gordie Roberts of the New EnglandWhalers could be coming to Quebec in a possible exchange for big centerman Serge Bernier &hellip; Bernier has only been used sporadically by coach Bergeron and is not happy about it. Whalers&rsquo; GM Jack Kelley has always raved about Bernier&rsquo;s talents.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01725/6569286-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="585" height="739"><figcaption class="caption-body">Speedy center Pierre Aubry, now with Erie, could be a future star for the Nordiques</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Farm Kids Helping Nordiques’ Optimism Grow

<div class="byline">BY JIM MATHESON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02491/6569317-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="536" height="1194"><figcaption class="caption-body">Charlie Huddy made a favorable impression on the Oilers after being recalled from Houston.</figcaption></div>EDMONTON &mdash; In his first three games with the Oilers, defenseman Charlie Huddy had two goals, three points and was a star twice. It&rsquo;s doubtful anybody could top this debut after being recalled from the minors. Least of all a guy who was totally ignored when the 21 NHL teams sat down to conduct a phone draft of juniors.With underage kids being the rage, Huddy was overlooked when the 1979 draft was held. After a good year in Oshawa, he sat back and watched as defensemen like Boris Fistric and Shane Swan were picked in the lottery. He didn&rsquo;t get a sniff.&ldquo;I was a little surprised,&rdquo; admitted the 21-year-old, &ldquo;but then there were only six rounds and there were a lot of underage players picked. Really, when I took back on it, it sort of worked to my advantage. A few teams [Oilers and Atlanta] were interested in me. The Oilers offered me a contract.&rdquo;As a free agent signee, he spent last season with the Oilers&rsquo; farm team in Houston. While older defensemen like Poul Popiel, Bryon Baltimore and Mike Forbes were recalled by the Oilers for various lengths of time, Huddy spent the entire year in the Central League. Not only did he play a lot on the injured-riddled Houston club, but he piled up 48 points.He went to training camp this year with only an outside chance to make the team. While he played two games, he couldn&rsquo;t beat out any of the returnees (Lee Fogolin, Doug Hicks, Kevin Lowe. Risto Siltanen or Pat Price). Top draft Paul Coffey and reclaimed defenseman John Hughes (Vancouver) earned the other spots. &ldquo;He would have had to knock out two or three guys,&rdquo; said Bryan Watson, who was coaching the Oilers at the time, speaking of Coffey and free agent Tom Bladon, who was also around briefly. &ldquo;We had a lot of money invested in Paul and I wanted to play him.&rdquo;Huddy was farmed out to Wichita, the Oilers&rsquo; current farm club. He was barely there a month when he got an SOS. Hicks broke his wrist, Price was struggling and Oilers were losing at a brisk rate.Huddy joined the team in Toronto, his home town, on Nov. 15. &ldquo;I was nervous,&rdquo; admitted Huddy, who was playing before his family. He didn&rsquo;t show it on the ice at Maple Leaf Gardens, however. He played a regular shift, killed penalties, and worked the point on the power play. His long shot on one manpower advantage resulted in a goal by Don Ashby.The next night in Chicago, he was even more impressive. He fired his first NHL goal past Tony Esposito, again on a power play, played about 25 minutes and was the game&rsquo;s third star. &ldquo;I was really pleased with his second effort,&rdquo; said Watson, whose brother Jack had been associated with Huddy with the Markham, Ont. Waxers. &ldquo;He made a super diving stop to knock the puck off one of the Hawks&rsquo; sticks.&rdquo; Watson was so confident of his ability, he had him on the ice in the last minute as the Oilers eJung to a 5-4 lead. Why not? was Watson&rsquo;s answer.Fogolin, who partnered Huddy, tad nothing but praise for the. tearded defender. &ldquo;He was steady and didn&rsquo;t give the puck away,&rdquo; said Fogolin, who ironically also played for Oshawa as a junior. &ldquo;I think it was easier for Charlie to be playing than sitting and thinking about making mistakes on the bench.&rdquo;Huddy played his first home game Nov. 19 against Vancouver, and while the lost 6-4 he was plus-2 on the night with another goal. He was chosen third star by Hockey Might in Canada. It may be a little early to project Huddy as a regular &mdash; Hicks had his cast removed the first week in December &mdash; but Huddy has done what all kids hope they can do. Make a favorable first impression.ON THE BENCH &mdash; Doctors feel Brett Callighen will be out until mid January after corrective surgery to repair a cataract in his left eye. He&rsquo;ll come back wearing a face-shield of some description &hellip; After the first 20 games, the most consistent Oilers have been rookie forward Glenn Anderson. Siltanen and Fogolin. &#9632;

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Huddy Has Auspicious Oiler Debut

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE WARRINER</div>HARTFORD - When the Whalers were lambasted recently by the Chicago Black Hawks, 11-3, managing general partner Howard Baldwin seized the opportunity to give the team a tongue lashing. &ldquo;We won&rsquo;t tolerate it,&rdquo; said Baldwin. &ldquo;If all the guys were playing 100 percent, we wouldn&rsquo;t be in the predicament we&rsquo;re in now.&rdquo;The night before, the Whalers had snapped a 10-game winless string with a win over the Vancouver Canucks. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to imagine us playing like we did Saturday, working like hell,&rdquo; said Baldwin, &ldquo;and then going to Chicago and being so embarrased.&rdquo;Baldwin then authorized director of hockey operations Jack Kelley and coach Don Blackburn to make any changes they think might be needed to get the Whalers turned around. &ldquo;I told them if they&rsquo;re not happy with the players we&rsquo;ve got, get rid of them,&rdquo; said Baldwin. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;re overreacting. That was our worst loss in history.&rdquo;As it turned out, the Whalers won their next two before dropping a 5-2 decision to Buffalo &mdash; all at home. When the dust cleared the team&rsquo;s overall position wasn&rsquo;t all that bad &mdash; everything considered.After the back-to-back wins, Hartford stood in 14th place in the overall NHL standings, which is exactly where they finished last year. Based on the opposition they faced in the season&rsquo;s first quarter, however, that really wasn&rsquo;t too bad a result.Theoretically, a team should play 20 games before beginning to meet the opposition a second time. But of course the schedule doesn&rsquo;t work that way. As a matter of fact, the Whalers had the misfortune of running into four of the League&rsquo;s top five or six teams twice each in the first quarter of the season. And in those eight games &mdash; with the Islanders. Philadelphia. Minnesota, and Buffalo &mdash; Hartford emerged with just two points (ties with the Isles and Buffalo).The Hartford blueline corps is having a difficult time fielding a full contingent these days. Coach Don Black burn would like to inject a little more firepower into one of the forward lines by moving Mark Howe up for a while But injuries to Rick Ley, Thommy Abrahamsson. and Marty Howe (as well as the return of first round draft pick Fred Arthur to juniors) has meant that Mark had to stay back or the blueline.Thom my A. finally shook off his early season injuries enough to get the nod from trainer Joe Altott. He player brilliantly for a game and a half, bu then was felled by another groin pull Such was the recurring nature of theinjury that Abrahamsson hinted he might need surgery to correct it.Captain Rick Ley&rsquo;s knee problen may be more serious than at firs thought. According to Ley, his docto: in Toronto has indicated that an arthritic condition might complicate matters.In the meantime, newcomer Jack Mcllhargey sprained an ankle and was lost for a game or two. The Whalers were scratching for defense help. Gordie Roberts, Al Sims, rookie Mickey Volcan, and Mark Howe were the only healthy members of the blueline corps.Although underage centerman Michel Galarneau had played only five games with the Whalers, it had been virtually decided that he would stick with the team, instead of being returned to his junior club in Hull of the Quebec Major Junior league.It appears that the Whalers may be grooming young Galarneau for Dave Keon&rsquo;s center spot &mdash; if the veteran decides to pack it in at the end of this season. Noting Michel&rsquo;s ability as a faceoff man, coach Blackburn has already used the youngster in key situations in the defensive zone. As a matter of fact, he was even considering using Michel every time the team has a draw at that end &mdash; regardless of who is centering the line. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way Montreal does it with Doug Jarvis,&rdquo; said Blackie.Galarneau&rsquo;s first NHL goal was a big one for the Whalers. After running out to a big 5-1 lead against Edmonton, Hartford relaxed a bit. Before they knew it, the Oilers scored three quick goals. Michel&rsquo;s marker was a nice follow-up shovel of a rebound which found the mark even though he had a defender draped all over him.WHALER WAVES - Hockey fans from around the world who happen to drift into Hartford, Ct., might find it worthwhile to take a short trip to the nearby suburb of Glastonbury. A four or five mile drive from the Hartford Civic Center will take you to &ldquo;Gordie&rsquo;s Place&rdquo; &mdash; Gordie Howe&rsquo;s latest venture. Besides being a fine restaurant, it serves as a virtual museum for all of Number Nine&rsquo;s memorabilia. &#9632;

Baldwin’s Dressing Down Shapes Up Whalers

<div class="image-hero"><img title="C4-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/c4-01231/6569372-1-eng-US/c4-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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December 19, 1980

The Hockcy News

Sabres Sharpened By Surging Savard

FEELING SATISFIED!

Barnes To Whalers Sweetens Fiver Pot