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.

January 2, 1981

The Hockey News January 2, 1981

BOSTON &mdash; Middleton 12, 13, Morrison 5, MacTavish 1, 2, 3, Park 7, 8. McNab 13, Crowder 1, Jonathan 7.BUFFALO &mdash; Smith 8, Perreault 7, 8, Luce 8, Van Boxmeer 8. Selling 8, 9, Ramsay 9, Gare 22, Hamel 6.CALGARY &mdash; Plett 16, Clement 7, Vail 14.CHICAGO &mdash; Hutchison 2, Marsh 7, Ruskowski 5, Lysiak 8, 9, Sutter 13.COLORADO &mdash; Gagne 12,13, McDonald 14, 15, Malinowski 11, Delorme 9, Quenneville 3, 4, DeBlois 8.DETROIT &mdash; Labraaten 1, Ogrodnick 16, Kirton 2, 3, Foligno 13, 14, 15, Korn 1, Nedomansky 5, McCourt 11, 12,13.EDMONTON &mdash; Messier 7, 8, Roulston 1, Murdoch 6, 7, Hunter 5, 6, Hagman 7, Anderson 9.HARTFORD &mdash; Douglas 6, 7, 8, 9, Keon 6, Neufeld 3, Stoughton 13, 14, Fidler 6, Rogers 19, 20, Boutette 13,14, Miller 10.LOS ANGELES &mdash; Goldup 4, Fox 3, 4, Simmer 32, 33, Dionne 25, 26.MINNESOTA &mdash; McCarthy 12,13, Hartsburg 4, MacAdam 9, Younghans 3, Payne 12, Christoff 2, Roberts 3.MONTREAL &mdash; Gainey 11, 12, Acton 9, 10, Langway 6, 7, Lafleur 12, Tremblay 13, Houle 11, Shutt 18, Napier 14.ISLANDERS &mdash; Kallur 18, 19, 20, Bourne 17, 18, D. Potvin 11, 12, 13, Nystrom 6, 7, Tambellini 10, Bossy 34, 35, 36, 37, Trottier 9, Gillies 14, Merrick 3, Tonelli 6.RANGERS &mdash; Dave Maloney 3, Vadnais 3, Johnstone 6, Gillis 6, Don Maloney 6, 7, Silk 7, Sulliman 3, Esposito 7, Kotsopoulos 1, Greschner 13.PHILADELPHIA &mdash; Wilson 10, MacLeish 19, Dailey 5, Leach 14,15, Kerr 8, Gorence 10.PITTSBURGH &mdash; Lonsberry 8, Lee 8, Ferguson 12, Carlyle 4, 5, Gardner 8, 9, Kehoe 24, 25, McAdam 3.QUEBEC &mdash; A. Stastny 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, Goulet 12, 13, 14, Wensink 4, Richard 24, 25, Hislop 18.ST. LOUIS &mdash; Sutter 16, Federko 13, 14, Klassen 5, Pettersson 7, 8, 9, Currie 11, 12, Micheletti 1, Dunlop 5, Zuke 9.TORONTO &mdash; Maloney 10,11,12,13, Martin 1, Anderson 11, Vaive 15, 16, Saganiuk 8, Boudreau 1, Ellis 1, Derlago 10, Sittier 17, Turnbull 8, Hickey 8.VANCOUVER &mdash; Rota 10, 11, 12, Williams 18, Brasar 10,11, Smyl 14, 15,16,17, Boldirev 14, Ashton 7, 8, McCarthy 10, 11, Butler 7, Gradin 5.WASHINGTON &mdash; Pronovost 10, 11, 12, Gartner 19, Green 3, Gustafsson 10, Charron 2, Tookey 1, 2, Kelly 12, Maruk 23, Labre 1, Walter 11.WINNIPEG &mdash; Geoffrion 14, Trimper 1, 2, Smail 3, 4, Wilson 10.Hat tricks &mdash; McCourt, Detroit, Bossy, Islanders, Maloney, Toronto, and Smyl, Vancouver, 1 each. &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUE

NHL’S SCORERS THIS WEEK

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The Hockey News

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011145/4471097-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By Robert ShaverDan Maloney responded to a starting role with the Leafs by recording his third career hat trick in leading the Leafs past the Minnesota North Stars.</figcaption></div>TORONTO &mdash; The Maple Leafs gave their fans a bit of a sneak preview of what life may be like next year with a string of four games against teams which will be sharing the newly realigned six-team Norris Division during the 1981-82 National Hockey League schedule.The Leafs faced off against the Minnesota North Stars in a home-and-home series, dropped into Detroit for a tilt with the Red Wings and then came home to host the Chicago Black Hawks. The result was a 2-2 split, but, as has been their custom this season, the Leafs didn&rsquo;t accomplish it in the normal, logical, expected fashion.The classy North Stars, who broke into the top six of the NHL last season, and will be the prime attraction of the Norris Division, proved to bring out the best in the Leafs as the Buds skated stride for stride with the swift Minnesotans and came away with a pair of victories.And it wasn&rsquo;t the young legs which carried the Leafs to victory. Instead it was a couple of oldtimers &mdash; Dan Maloney, 30, with his third career hat trick, and first as a Leaf in the opener, and Ron Ellis, 35, who picked up his first points of the season with two assists as the Leafs doubled the North Stars, 6-3 in Bloomington.Maloney, whose primary function has been casting a shadow in the goal crease on Leafs&rsquo; power plays &mdash; a skill which he had parlayed into a teamleading eight power play goals &mdash; finally worked his way into regular duty as the left winger for center Bill Derlago and Rick Vaive. Ellis, who didn&rsquo;t dress for 16 games and saw limited duty as a penalty-killer in his other outings, drew the starting right wing spot on Darryl Sittier&rsquo;s line with Terry Martin on the left side.Maloney turned a couple of set-ups from Vaive into goals, including the game-winner, while Ellis set up two first period goals by Terry Martin and John Anderson.Back in Maple Leaf Gardens, the Leafs twice erased North Star leads and finally broke through against rookie goalie Don Beaupre when Rocky Saganiuk. who started the game on the bench, scored his eighth goal of the season, late in the second period. Then, mid-way through the third after Minnesota had gone ahead again, Bruce Boudreau cashed a Saganiuk rebound to pull the Leafs even once again. Then the old guys, er, veterans took over.Maloney chalked up his 13th of the season with just less than two minutes to play and the Leafs had their first back-to-back victory since their six-game win streak at the beginning of the season. Ellis added an empty-net goal, his first of the season and the 331st of his NHL career.Buoyed with the victories, the Leafs sailed into Detroit and were undone by a terrible first period. They practically handed the Red Wings two goals &mdash; one deflected off defenseman Barry Melrose and the other was a rebound potted by Vaclav Nedomansky when no one bothered to check the Czech. The Leafs came out of the first period trailing 4-1 and although they eventually closed the gap to 4-3 their first-period flop undid all of their efforts and spoiled goalie Jimmy Rutherford&rsquo;s return to the Motor City.Against the Black Hawks, who have been simply abysmal of late, the Leafs played the grand hosts and made the Hawks feel more than welcome. After trailing 1-0 following the first period, the Leafs coughed up another goal to the Hawks and then played one of their worst games of the season from that point onward before bowing 5-2.On the couple of occasions where the Leafs tried to make a game of it, such as when Rick Vaive knocked in his 16th of the season to narrow the deficit to 2-1 and when Pat Hickey scored his first goal in 14 games to make it 4-2 for Chicago, the Leafs managed to give the Hawks a 2-on-1 break and Chicago made good on their opportunities. First Tom Lysiak and then Darryl Sutter scored for the Hawks as they cruised in on Leafs&rsquo; goalie Jiri Crha, using one of their linemates as a decoy. Borje Salming, then Ian Turnbull played the role of helpless defenseman, torn between which of two opponents to cover.Following the Chicago loss, coach Joe Crozier bemoaned the fact that the top players on the Leafs just aren&rsquo;t carrying their share of the load. Without naming names it&rsquo;s obvious that Salming, Darryl Sittler, Hickey, and Turnbull, who&rsquo;s been wavering of late after a strong start, are going to have to produce a more positive effect on the team&rsquo;s level of play.The Leafs have youth and speed, potential and talent, but they don&rsquo;t seem to be coming up with the necessary ingredients to make any significant progress past being a mediocre and inconsistent team.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-02918/4471090-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="1134" height="1340"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Ellis added to his penalty-killing duties with a shift as a right wing on Darryl Sittier&rsquo;s line and came through with a pair of assists and a goal in two games.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Leafs Inconsistent Against New Division Rivals

<div class="byline">BY HARVEY ROSEN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011201/4470942-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Many of the Jets, including defenseman Barry Long and goalie Pierre Hamel, above, found treacherous footing en route to their record-setting losing streak.</figcaption></div>WINNIPEG &mdash; One of the prime disadvantages of being a head coach of a professional sports team is that your security far too often depends upon the performance of your personnel.Consequently, whenever they underachieve, the athletes become instrumental in helping management to decide to give away your job to someone else.A despondent and shaken Tom McVie informed the media at a hastily called press conference to announce his firing on December 11 that &ldquo;the biggest key would be the giveaways in our own end of the rink. Everyone was doing it and you can&rsquo;t coach against giveaways.&rdquo;McVie became the fourth National Hockey League coach within a month to relinquish his job following a horrendous and unpredictable 1-20-7 record which had the club heading on a record setting clip towards the unenviable streak of 27 held by the 1975-76 Kansas City Scouts. (As this issue went to press, the Jets had just played their 30th game without a win).His successor, assistant coach Billy Sutherland, 46, took over the team immediately. An original Jet, he signed back in 1972 and wound up his career with this city&rsquo;s WHA entry. This season he had been stationed in the press box during games in direct communication with the coach.Not surprisingly, McVie was offered another job in the organization. Despite having now been let go by the Washington Capitals just prior to the &rsquo;78-79 season and now the Jets, the diligent and likeable mentor still believes in himself and his methods as a coach.&ldquo;I probably did a lot of things wrong, but I had a plan and I believed in certain things,&rdquo; McVie said. &ldquo;I was taught by some of the best hockey men in the world. I used the good points they had taught me. I thought I was doing the right things.&rdquo;Much like the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; Glen Sather, who was forced earlier into firing Bryan Watson, a good friend. Jets&rsquo; general manager and vice-president John Ferguson was also placed in the circumstance of having to cashier his old buddy.The thought of the inevitable had begun to cross his mind following the Jets&rsquo; unimpressive and lackadaisical performance in a 6-1 setback to the upstart Canucks in Vancouver. He waited another three weeks before he was forced to make a change.The December 10 loss, 8-5 to the 15th place Hartford Whalers was, it appears, the straw that broke the camel&rsquo;s back. After his team had fallen behind by three goals at the 7:06 mark of the opening frame, Fergy bolted from his private booth in the press box and ascended the stairs to the catwalk with a look of determination and resolution on his face.Forget that tough guy image Ferguson earned in his years as an enforcer with the Montreal Canadiens. The decision to change the guard was one of the most difficult of his hockey career.&ldquo;I still don&rsquo;t think it was a coaching problem,&rdquo; Fergy said. &ldquo;The only reason he&rsquo;s being replaced is because we are not winning games in the NHL.&ldquo;J still think that Tommy is a very competent, very organized, very dedicated coach. We&rsquo;ve tried to change personnel and bring it around for him.&rdquo;McVie, unfortunately for him, may have become for the second time a victim of an expansion team. He never knocked his players and he rarely rebuked them publicly.The club not only has the worst record in the circuit, but in addition the worst penalty-killing and power play statistics.Goaltending has been another serious problem. Neither Pierre Hamel or Markus Mattsson have performed to the level of some of their major league counterparts.McVie prided himself in having a key to the Arena so that he could arrive at an hour when most other employees are still off in dreamland.Perhaps some of his players, from another generation, didn&rsquo;t share his belief in the work ethic or agree with his rigid discipline methods which he felt were a necessary ingredient in his master plan.According to Sutherland, &ldquo;The players said they were under pressure. It might be a little different now because I&rsquo;m maybe a little more relaxed. I&rsquo;m a bit more easy than Tom.&rdquo;Ferguson offers the belief that &ldquo;Sudsy might be just what the club needs at this time. I like his philosophy &hellip; I have to admit I&rsquo;d have liked to see a little looser team in practice.Tommy set the disciplines, did the organizing, the players are well behaved &hellip;&rdquo;But they didn&rsquo;t win, and when you&rsquo;re a coach &hellip; that&rsquo;s all that really matters. &#9632;

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Winnipeg Giveaways Prove Costly For McVie

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The Hockey News THE INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY WEEKLY $1.00 64522 JANUARY 02,1981 VOL. 34 NO. 14

<h2>The NHL</h2>Boston&hellip;&hellip;19Buffalo&hellip;&hellip;11Calgary&hellip;&hellip;39Chicago&hellip;&hellip;17Colorado&hellip;&hellip;14Detroit&hellip;&hellip;18Edmonton&hellip;&hellip;4Hartford&hellip;&hellip;21Los Angeles&hellip;&hellip;13Minnesota&hellip;&hellip;7Montreal&hellip;&hellip;19Islanders&hellip;&hellip;10Rangers&hellip;&hellip;11Philadelphia&hellip;&hellip;18Pittsburgh&hellip;&hellip;22Quebec&hellip;&hellip;15St. Louis&hellip;&hellip;12Toronto&hellip;&hellip;9Vancouver&hellip;&hellip;40Washington&hellip;&hellip;5Winnipeg&hellip;&hellip;6<h2>The Minors</h2>AHL&hellip;&hellip;23CHL&hellip;&hellip;24IHL&hellip;&hellip;25EHL&hellip;&hellip;26<h2>The Colleges</h2>EC AC&hellip;&hellip;27CCHA&hellip;&hellip;28Canadian&hellip;&hellip;28WCHA&hellip;&hellip;28<h2>The Amateurs</h2>OHL&hellip;&hellip;30WHL&hellip;&hellip;31QMJHL&hellip;&hellip;32<h2>Columnists</h2>Frank Orr&hellip;&hellip;2Bob Verdi&hellip;&hellip;4Ken McKenzie&hellip;&hellip;5Bill Libby&hellip;&hellip;12Stan Fischler&hellip;&hellip;14<h2>Features</h2>The Stastnys&hellip;&hellip;3NHL Scoring&hellip;&hellip;16Slapshots&hellip;&hellip;20College Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;29Hockey Classified&hellip;&hellip;32NHL Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;34NHL Rosters&hellip;&hellip;35Minor Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;36Amateur Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;36 &#9632;

Where To Find It…

Nothing!Because of the Christmas holidays and the fact that there just aren&rsquo;t that many games scheduled for Christmas week, THE HOCKEY NEWS skips a week and there will be no issue dated January 9, 1981.But, we will be back the following week with our January 16, 1981 issue, which will feature the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; Ken Linseman on the cover.Until then, best wishes to all of you for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us at THE HOCKEY NEWS. &#9632;

Coming Next Week

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011110/4470704-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="285" height="347"></div><h2>Apologies To Longfellow</h2>&rsquo;TWAS the night before ChristmasAnd all through the league,Governors were awaiting,the word from Big Zieg.Realignment was nestled,All snug in its beds,While visions of parityDanced in their heads.From up on the roof,There came such a clatter,Is it Santa? No. Ballard!The same, only fatter.For the good of the leagueAnd all sorts of things,He&rsquo;d made it all work.Hark! The angel Harold sings!&ldquo;The Norris ain&rsquo;t great,&rdquo;Big Hal said to the King,&ldquo;The fans? Hear &rsquo;em howl,But it don&rsquo;t mean a thing.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll give &rsquo;em the Jets,And the Red Wings and Blues.If they don&rsquo;t like the hockey,They can go buy my booze.&rdquo;Away on the west coast,A doctor named BussSaid: &ldquo;I like the Flames and Oilers,But, why Lord? Why us?&ldquo;We wanted some Flyers,Habs, Bruins and the Rangers,Instead of those good draws,We&rsquo;re playing with strangers.&rdquo;And high in the Rockies,A sale taking place,Led Armand and Arthurto the Meadowlands race.&ldquo;We really love Denver,&rdquo;They said quite sincerely,&ldquo;But to land in the MeadowsMeans paying less dearly.&rdquo;<h2>Traveling For Free</h2>THE CHAPS in the PatrickWere chortling with glee.&ldquo;Our cities are close,We can travel for free.&rdquo;While out in the &lsquo;Peg,Where losing&rsquo;s the rule,Fergy was thinking,&ldquo;Hey! I&rsquo;m no fool!&ldquo;They laugh at us now,But we&rsquo;ll stick with the babies.Someday they&rsquo;ll all wish,That we had caught rabies.&rdquo;In Hawtfawd and Bawston,The burgers were mellow.Because the Whalers and BruinsStopped playing like Jello.In old Motor City,A Red Wing revival,Under Wayne Maxner,Gave hope of survival.There was suddenly hopeFor the Rangers and Sonny,In the wormy Big Apple,Where they sure can spend moneySaid Sonny: &ldquo;Damn Yankees!They grab all the praise&rsquo;For signing free agentsHey Phil! Wanna raise?&ldquo;Hey Patrick! Get Working!We need big affairs,Find some more SwedesWe can make millionaires!&rdquo;<h2>Fired Coaches Not Merry</h2>FOR BUGSY and LindsayThe Fog and McVie,Christmas ain&rsquo;t merry,They were fired, you see.And up in his suite,Sat the satisfied Prez.&ldquo;After Palm Beach,I should wear a fez.&ldquo;I had the old guys.Eating out of my hands.I now should be hired,To free the Afghans.&ldquo;What happened down south?A political coup!Now anything elseIs like tieing a shoe.&ldquo;The Iran hostage crisis?Like failin&rsquo; from bed!Don&rsquo;t forget I got HaroldTo agree with old Ed.&rdquo; &#9632;

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FRANK ORR’S Hockey View point

<div class="byline">BY ALLEN ABEL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011119/4470735-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">&ldquo;They&rsquo;re phenomenal,&rdquo; says a teammate of Peter (left) and Anton Stastny. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re so far ahead of us, it&rsquo;s unbelievable. They don&rsquo;t care who scores. They&rsquo;re just as happy with the assist.&rdquo;</figcaption></div>I look in the newspaper and I see I have so many goals, so many assists, but zero penalties. Very bad. Very bad. What kind of Canadian hockey player has zero penalties? So I go out and tonight I am slashing at somebody. But the referee, he doesn&rsquo;t see.&mdash;Anton StastnyThe chuckling Calder Trophy candidate with no lust for Lady Byng is Anton Stastny, escaped draftsman of Bratislava, late of the Plains of Abraham. He is in the dressing room of Quebec&rsquo;s polyglot Nordiques beneath the Joe Louis Arena, which has been less than half-filled for a match between two occupants of the lower rungs of the National Hockey League ladder. Most of this city&rsquo;s hockey fans have stopped showing up. Those who do, boo.At the next stall dresses brother Peter, darker-haired, taller, three years older at 24 than the blond Anton, but no less fluent in English or the game itself. This night, in the Nordiques&rsquo; first road victory in two months, the brothers have shone brilliantly; their playmaking has been exquisite, their defensive work somewhat less so.Down the line stands the beneficiary of the defections of the deft puckhandlers of Slovan Bratislava, a round right winger from Sarnia, Ont., named Jamie Hislop. This night, Hislop has recorded a pair of goals that &mdash; he won&rsquo;t disagree &mdash; could have been scored by a skating bear from the Moscow Circus. Twice he has been sent in alone on an empty net; Red Wing goaltender Gilles Gilbert and his attendant defensemen having been lured far out of position by Anton&rsquo;s behind-the-back passes.Things rarely have gone so swimmingly for the Nordiques, but they are a young team forced to play without their two most proficient non-Slovak forwards &mdash; Real Cloutier, yet to begin his season because of a broken ankle received in a fastball game, and Marc Tardif, who has missed several games with a sore hand. Now Jamie Hislop is being asked about the proficiency of his linemates and he fairly gasps for breath.&ldquo;I hate to knock the North American game,&rdquo; Hislop says, &ldquo;because we have stars as well. But as far as working together goes, these guys, geez, they&rsquo;re phenomenal. They&rsquo;re so far ahead of us, it&rsquo;s unbelievable. The thing is, they don&rsquo;t care who scores. They&rsquo;re just as happy with the assist. They&rsquo;re just as happy if they don&rsquo;t even get an assist, as long as the team scores.&ldquo;They impress me so much by the things they take for granted, the way they know each other&rsquo;s moves so well. When we first were put together, I was totally lost. They sat down with me and took out a piece of paper and showed me where I should be. Anton told me, just break down my wing and if he doesn&rsquo;t get the puck to me, that&rsquo;s his fault.&rdquo;And Anton says, &ldquo;If I see the man and I have the time, I can do anything.&rdquo;&ldquo;Always,&rdquo; says Peter Stastny, &ldquo;they ask me, &lsquo;Why did you come? Why did you come? It must have been for the money.&rsquo; But it was not for the money. No, not for money.&rdquo;He is in a Titan T-shirt and blue satin briefs in a room on the 32nd floor of the Detroit Plaza Hotel in the megalithic Renaissance Center on the river shore, and he says that the grand, fountain-filled lobby of the hotel has impressed him as much as anything on his first swing through the NHL. He mentions the beaches of Southern California and the marvellous play of a St. Louis goalie named Mike Liut as other surprises, and then offers one of his own. The brothers Stastny, he claims, left the homeland they had represented so impeccably in league and international play mainly because they disliked their coach.&ldquo;He was destroying our team,&rdquo; Anton says, and in a 90-minute conversation the word &ldquo;freedom&rdquo; never will be mentioned. &ldquo;In Czechoslovakia, it was not like here. You could not change teams if you did not want to play some place. Our coach, he did not care about the team. We would practice for two hours and he would only be there for 30 minutes. He had duties at the university and he coached the second national team. The players, they wanted to practice more and more. Is that crazy? I never have heard of hockey players who wanted to practice, but we did.&ldquo;He would send his assistant around, a man who had never played in the First Division. He would show us a piece of paper and say, &lsquo;Horsky wants you to do this and that.&rsquo; That was the coach&rsquo;s name, Horsky. In 1979, we won the championship of the league, the first time a Slovak team had ever won. We were 20 points ahead of Kladno. But in 1980, we were 20 points behind them!&ldquo;Sometimes, the players would joke. They would say, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve had enough. I&rsquo;m going to Canada to play in the NHL.&rsquo; But it is not so easy. All right, you-could go, and you would show up at the training camp and say, &lsquo;Hello, I am from Slovan Bratislava.&rsquo; And they would laugh and say, &lsquo;Who are you?&rsquo; You had to have a name, like Nedomanskv.&ldquo;Our coach, he went to the board of directors and made them get rid of six players. They sold Sakac, the goalie, just to make money for themselves. He destroyed the team, but he came to us and said, &lsquo;I am rebuilding a prospective team.&rsquo; And I said, &lsquo;We are the prospective team.&rsquo; Seven years I worked hard. I said, &lsquo;I want it now.&rsquo;&ldquo;So I come to Quebec. Here, yes, we are building too, but at least I have a goal. Last year, they were 19th. This year, we hope to reach the playoffs, next year higher, and so on. Here, you get the money. There, you got the money only if you were winning games. And now I look in the newspaper and Slovan Bratislava is in last place.&ldquo;And the coach &mdash; they fired him.&rdquo;They learned to play the game before they learned to skate. On a frozen playground near the housing development where the Stastnys lived, the young boys of the family &mdash; there were five of them &mdash; would bandy about with sticks and pucks, but the skates were made of wishing.&ldquo;I was playing hockey from when I was six or seven,&rdquo; Peter recalls, &ldquo;but not until I was 11 or 12 did I have skates. I had the old kind &mdash; you needed a key to attach them to your boot &mdash; but I was ashamed to wear them. I wanted the real good skates. We called them, &lsquo;Canada skates.&rsquo;&rdquo;The sport was their city&rsquo;s, and their country&rsquo;s, tradition, fed in the Stastnys&rsquo; boyhood by the far-off successes of a fellow Slovak who took the name of Mikita. In 1970, when Peter was 14 and Anton was 11, Stan Mikita came to Czechoslovakia, practiced with the national team and &ldquo;people were crazy and I was too.&rdquo;Peter remembers the reports of NHL games that made their way to the television screen in a flat that did not have and still does not have, a telephone. When the defectors call home, they ring a neighbor who is eager for news of two young men who, since the report of their escape was uttered in their hometown press, have not been mentioned officially.&ldquo;When they would have a big fight, say, Toronto and Chicago, they would always show us the ice and the gloves and the sticks. It made a fun picture. But people said, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s not hockey. That&rsquo;s boxing.&rsquo; In Europe, if we played like that with the referees we had, the penalty box always would be filled. If you fought, you were suspended for five or seven or 12 games.&ldquo;Always, we looked up to the Canadian players. But then there were the years that Canada did not send a team to the Olympic Games or world championships, and we only knew what our journalists would write: &lsquo;Why? Why? Hockey without Canada is not hockey.&rsquo;&ldquo;When you had the first confrontation in 1972, I held my fingers crossed for Canada. I was so very glad when Paul Henderson scored the winning goal. We did not think of Russian hockey as our hockey. If they had won, it would be a victory for Russia, not for European-style hockey. In Czechoslovakia, we went our own way. When Russia played Canada, I wanted Canada. I said, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s tradition. That&rsquo;s hockey.&rsquo;&rdquo;&ldquo;I would like someday to visit Japan,&rdquo; says Peter Stastny. &ldquo;I have read about it and it sounds so exotic.&rdquo;&ldquo;So buy a ticket and go to Japan,&rdquo; he is told.&ldquo;Buy a ticket?&rdquo; he replies, &ldquo;Ah, yes, such a thing is possible. It is one of the advantages here.&rdquo;&ldquo;I look here at the good Canadian players who are my age,&rdquo; says Anton Stastny after his 25th National Hockey League game and his 24th and 25th scoring points. &ldquo;I look at Wayne Gretzky and Denis Savard in Chicago, and I see players who know how to use the good passing. They&rsquo;re not so strong, not so fast skating, but they pass, and a good pass, it changes the position and all the action.&ldquo;I look at them and I see something from Europe in them, and something from the NHL. They have taken from us just as we have taken from you. Formerly, in Czechoslovakia, they never had the play where you passed back to the point and they took a shot. But from Canada, we learn that.&rdquo;&ldquo;We have played against professional teams so many times now,&rdquo; says Peter who earlier this season managed at least one point in 16 consecutive games, &ldquo;that there was no surprise when we came here to live. I was used to the hitting. I liked it. I wasn&rsquo;t scared. But so many players in Czechoslovakia, they were scared. That&rsquo;s why Canada used to play tough when they came to Europe. They knew what our players felt. We had players, they would say, &lsquo;let them win, just so we get out alive.&rsquo; here, it is the worst thing, to be scared."The imminent arrival of Marian Stastny to play the right wing beside his two brothers is regarded as a fait accompli in the Quebec media and &ldquo;just a cruel joke&rdquo; by Peter. Maurice Filion the club&rsquo;s general manager, says only that &ldquo;if Marian is available, we would like to have him. But of course he would be a free agent.&rdquo; So, technically, were Vitezslav Duris and Jiri Crha of the Toronto Maple Leafs. But it is likely that Marian, who may be the most accomplished of the three, would make it known that he would play only for Quebec and nowhere else. It had been reported that Marian would arrive &ldquo;before Christmas,&rdquo; but his brothers professed to know nothing of this. What they do know is that, if he does defect, it will be farewell to Jamie Hislop. (Hislop may be displaced anyway; coach Michel Bergeron is toying with the notion of using the flamboyant Real Cloutier with the two Stastnys when his ankle heals. But Cloutier may not be disciplined enough to stick to his wing.)Allen Abel is a columnist for the Toronto Globe & Mail. This story is reprinted here with his and his paper&rsquo;s permission.&ldquo;With Jamie, if I have time, it is easy,&rdquo; Anton says. &ldquo;If I can see where I am passing, I can make behind-the-back. through-the-legs, anything. But if I play with both my brothers, then I do not even have to see. We have practiced together for 10 months a year for four years. With Jamie, I must see him. With my brothers, I know.&rdquo;They live the life now of the itinerant professional athlete, and in some ways it is the life they always have known and in other ways it is so new. Peter recalls their cushy travel schedule &mdash; short trips were by bus, flying exursions from Bratislava to Prague never took them away from home for more than three days &mdash; and he reveals the pay scale of the Czechoslovakian &ldquo;amateur." It was a bonus system whose rewards depended on the quality of the opposition and the importance of the event.&ldquo;If we beat Sweden, we got from 1,200 to 1,700 crowns,&rdquo; he says, noting that an average monthly salary for a factory worker in Bratislava was 2,500 crowns. &ldquo;For beating the Russians, it was 1,500 and 2,000. For a world championship, about 2,000 crowns for each player.&ldquo;The goal was to play long enough and well enough to be allowed to play your final seasons in the West, in Germany or Austria. That was my goal. You got to keep most of the money &mdash; about 75 percent, but you had to convert it to crowns after you came home. You could not possess other currency.&ldquo;The top players, it is true, had many advantages, but not a car, not a house. There was always a big problem with flats. Some people, they would wait five or seven years. If you were a sportsman, you had a chance to get a new flat in a few months, Your food was free. There was a hotel where you could go and eat I breakfast, lunch, dinner for free. This was only during training, but we trained for 11 months.&ldquo;Everyone had to go into the army for two years, but a sportsman would be assigned to practice his sport. I had to take courses at university, &lsquo;soldiering courses,&rsquo; they were called, but instead of two weeks at camp, I had only to go one week. Later, I would have had to go for one month to the hard training and be a real soldier, with a rifle, like everyone else, sportsman or no.&ldquo;They would invite you to speak at a school or factory or workers&rsquo; club, but never for money. Sometimes, after an important tournament, there would be an appearance on radio or television on the open-line discussion, and for that you would be paid. When you went to a factory, usually the workers tried to find a gift for you, but never money.&rdquo;It was a life of comparative luxury, of frequent trips to the West, the first of which took him to Montreal for one night en route to Winnipeg for a junior tournament when Peter Stastny was 18. Their plane was late and Peter, away from Czechoslovakia for the first time in his life, spent an unforgettable evening in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. When he recalls the trip, he rubs his neck in mock pain at the stiff neck caused by craning at the skyscrapers of a free, if stumbling, economy.Now the land of the tall buildings is his own but sometimes an immigrant forgets. &ldquo;Sometimes I talk about &lsquo;home&rsquo; and I am meaning Bratislava but now this is my home, my new country.&rdquo;He is silent for a moment, pondering the scope of his vast, adopted motherland. Then he rattles off the names of some fellow National Hockey Leaguers.&ldquo;There are many foreigners here, yes?&rdquo; he asks. &ldquo;I see the names. Ee-VAN Bol-DEE-rev. TER-ry Rush-KUV-ski.&rdquo;Following the brief layover in Montreal, there would be other trips across the ocean for the Stastnys, the most fondly remembered being the Canada Cup tournament of 1976 in which the Czechs, backed by the impenetrable goaltending of Vladimir Dzurilla and Jiri Holocek, reached the final round before losing on Darryl Sittler&rsquo;s overtime goal. A 1-0 defeat of Canada remains the summit of Peter&rsquo;s hockey experiences.Far less memorable would be the utter collapse of the Czechoslovakian nationals upon the leasing to West German teams of the two aging goalkeepers. Humiliated at Moscow in 1979 and at Lake Placid last winter, the homeland was promising a facelift that would not include two, and possibly three, of the Stastnys of Bratislava.In the spring of 1977, Canada rejoined world championship play with a collection of NHL veterans whose rough and occasionally obscene play at Vienna did little to reinforce the belief that the lessons of 1972 and &rsquo;76 had been learned. But Peter remembers Team Canada &rsquo;77 as &ldquo;the best team Canada ever sent to Europe. Such big stars like Phil Esposito. They had a very bad reputation, but they played us so well. We lost three points out of four to them, and we were the world champions!&rdquo;A year later, they lent him to the Kladno team for a game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Peter Stastny scored two goals and was named the game&rsquo;s first star. They gave him a silver bowl and when it is remembered the hotel room on the 32nd floor clouds over for the first time in a remarkable day.&ldquo;It had a nice place in my flat in Bratislava,&rdquo; Peter Stastny says. &ldquo;But I had to leave it there. I went away and left so many things.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0003-01

The Brothers Stastny Are Shining In The NHL

<div class="byline">BY BOB VERDI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011168/4470766-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="292" height="340"></div><h2>The St. Louis Difference</h2>ONE DECEMBER AGO, the St. Louis Blues were in the autumn of their lives. Again. Many a night, they would skate for three hours only to find the exercise pointless. They were an also-ran in the Smythe Division, which is the National Hockey League&rsquo;s equivalent of a used car lot.But, as that noted philosopher Emile Francis once said, what a difference a year makes. For the 1980 calendar, few teams in the sport can equal what the St. Louis Blues have wrought. They finished last season like a runaway train, and have begun this season on the same, right, track.Moreover, the more one sees of this club, the less one is inclined to think that their act is a fluke. On the contrary, with an abundance of youth, Les Blues figure only to get better and better.Don&rsquo;t know about you, but this makes me very happy for one Emile Francis, the Blues&rsquo; doughty president and general manager. When The Cat was the little guy behind the New York Rangers, he assembled an excellent squad, but because it never won the big one, Francis was labeled all sorts of things, including a loser.By way of confirming his critics&rsquo; opinions, Francis transferred to the city of St. Louis, where the Blues were once proud, but then in advanced disrepair. Let&rsquo;s see, the funeral directors said, what this guy does with this infernal outfit. To say rebuilding the Blues represented a challenge is not unlike saying King Kong was a hungry monkey.&ldquo;There was a lot of work to be done,&rdquo; recalled Francis. But, then, work is something The Cat always handled rather well.The Blues, understand, were somewhat of an NHL afterthought to begin with. When the league went from six to 12 teams, the Blues were the 12th. The Chicago Black Hawks, a really altruistic organization, finally opted to let St. Louis have a team providing it play in The Arena, a barn which, coincidentally, was owned by the people who own the Black Hawks.<h2>Converted The Arena</h2>THE SALOMON FAMILY said thanks, paid millions for the club, a few more million to convert the Arena from a pigpen into a showplace, and the Blues were on their way. But in time, physical, then fiscal, ailments beset the Salomons, and this hockey franchise was in deep trouble.&ldquo;Shortly after I came in,&rdquo; Francis was saying, &ldquo;we ran into big money problems. I had run ballclubs out west with the same problem many years ago, learned how to stretch dollars. Hell, I held so many bingo nights that it&rsquo;s a wonder I didn&rsquo;t get excommunicated from the church.&ldquo;Sure, when I came to the Blues, I got 10 percent of the club. But, what&rsquo;s 10 percent of nothing? We were gone in August of 1977. We had negotiated with 16 or 18 groups to buy the club, and nothing materialized. We had a league meeting in Chicago, and we were one phone call away from being dead.&rdquo;The Ralston-Purina company saved the Blues for St. Louis, and then Francis saved Ralston-Purina from the blues. During his tenure there, The Cat has literally turned the roster inside out. He says that only four of the 50 players he once had are still in the system.&ldquo;And age,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;is no longer a problem either. Once our average was 32 years. Now it&rsquo;s 24.5 on the big club.&rdquo;Because the Blues were tapped, Francis could not retain draft picks such as Scott Campbell and Mike Liut, both of whom went to the World Hockey Association, may it rest in peace. But two years ago, Liut was retrieved from the Cincinatti Stingers, and he now is the big reason why the Blues are not likely to fold, and very likely to graduate to a legitimate contender.<h2>Through Tough Times</h2>&ldquo;HE&rsquo;S THE KEY,&rdquo; says Francis. &ldquo;No doubt about it. But there are a lot of others. Bernie Federko, Brian Sutter, Wayne Babych &mdash; these kids have been through some tough times here, and now we&rsquo;re beginning to see the light.&ldquo;You know, when you have problems &mdash; and we had them, believe me &mdash; people don&rsquo;t want to hear about your troubles. You can&rsquo;t come out in the papers and say we don&rsquo;t have any money, that if we go on the road, we gotta pay the bus companies in advance so they take us from the hotel to the rink. You just iron out what&rsquo;s wrong.&rdquo;A year or so ago, the Blues, as mentioned, were getting nowhere and coach Barclay Plager was getting sick. So Red Berenson was named coach, and Les Blues finished 27-20 under him for a .500 year. Berenson called it a soft .500 because there were a lot of games when the puck bounced right.But this season, there is nothing soft about the Blues, and the loyal customers of St. Louis are buying tickets as once they bought them. Excitement has returned to this franchise, and if ever a man should take a bow, it&rsquo;s Emile Francis.&ldquo;Not me,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The good people around me, the people who went months without a paycheck when times were tough. That&rsquo;s who have made this thing go. A lot of work, and a few prayers did it.&rdquo;And one pretty smart cat. &#9632;

f0004-01

HOCKEY TALK

<div class="byline">BY JIM MATHESON</div>EDMONTON &mdash; As Christmas looms, the Oilers are closer to the outhouse than the penthouse in the National Hockey League and have shown little of the heart and hustle that got them the final playoff spot last spring.After a 5-1 home loss to the New York Rangers earlier this month, coach Glen Sather was looking for a place to hide. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so embarrassed, you won&rsquo;t see me on the street tomorrow,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;The players should be so embarrassed, they should hide in a snowbank.&rdquo;With things going bad, it&rsquo;s easy to look for an excuse or to blame somebody else. Goalie Ron Low, who tends to view things with a clear eye and a sound head, figures it might be a better idea if each player looked in the mirror.&ldquo;Last year, character surfaced down the stretch,&rdquo; said Low, the oldest Oiler at 30. &ldquo;Once you&rsquo;ve found character and let it go, you really got trouble. It&rsquo;s a hard thing to find in the first place, but to find it and lose it&hellip;&rdquo;Low, who was the catalyst in the Oilers&rsquo; drive to the 16th playoff berth last spring, feels something is missing. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re a bump and grind hockey team,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and we&rsquo;re a skating team. We should be in the corners all night. And as for skating &hellip; we should be one of the best skating teams in the NHL with the people we have here. To be honest about it, we haven&rsquo;t been bumping and grinding or skating all year.&ldquo;And the way we play at home? There&rsquo;s no excuse for it [the Oilers had four wins in their first 14 games]. We seem to wait for teams to do something in our rink instead of going out and taking charge. After the way we were at the end of last season, a team shouldn&rsquo;t be able to come in here without knowing they&rsquo;re going to get hit. With the talen we have here, there is no reason we shouldn&rsquo;t be up higher in the standings.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to be worried about it,&rdquo; Low concluded. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s getting worse. And we have to turn it around soon. If we don&rsquo;t, there will be little chance of finishing higher than 15th or 16th.&rdquo;True, the Oilers have the second-youngest team in the league (23.9 average). There are times when coach Glen Sather must feel like bringing some pablum into the dressing room for breakfast. Times when he must feel he&rsquo;s working in a day-care center. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like my kids at home,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;You tell them to pick up their clothes &hellip; they do it, then when you turn your back they drop something else.&rdquo;The young kids haven&rsquo;t necessarily been the problem, however. The veterans are having off-years. Low hasn&rsquo;t been as sharp as he was last March; his goals-against average was above 4.00 after 20 games. Center Stan Weir, who had 33 goals last year, had five in his first 25 games. Winger Don Murdoch, who averaged 25 goals a year in his first four seasons, had the same number.Low points the finger at himself without hesitation. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m giving up the crappy goal at the most inopportune time. For awhile, I was trying to stand up too much. I ended up sprawling all over the place. I&rsquo;m best when I&rsquo;m standing up. I think I&rsquo;m getting back on my game, but I haven&rsquo;t been playing well." Over a three-game stretch in late November, he allowed 14 goals in 62 shots. He was beaten three times in four shots against Hartford before being pulled. The next night in Boston, he allowed two in six shots in the first-period. He was beaten three times in the first 20 minutes against the Rangers in the subsequent 5-1 loss.Low has the misfortune to play one of those positions where you have to lead by example. Words don&rsquo;t mean much, if goals are going in at a brisk rate. &ldquo;I came here last year and I led by experience,&rdquo; said Low. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m silent in the dressing room. It&rsquo;s tough for a goalie to be a leader. To do that, you have to play well every night. Last year when I came to Edmonton, I did it.&rdquo;Now? He&rsquo;s got to look in the mirror like everybody else. It&rsquo;s sometimes a sobering experience. But it&rsquo;s got to be done.&ldquo;When we win one game, we can&rsquo;t start thinking we&rsquo;re going to win the Stanley Cup,&rdquo; said defenseman John Hughes, another free-thinker.&ldquo;In this league, you have to put something together, five or six games without a loss and we better start doing it.&rdquo; &#9632;

Loss Of Character Leaves Edmonton Sinking Slowly

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021118/4470828-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg"></div>THE HOCKEY NEWS. (ISSN 0018 30161. is published weekly except monthly June through September by W.C.C Publishing Ltd.. 214 King Street West-Suite 314. Toronto. Ontario M5H IK4. (416) 598-1753 In U.S. c/o W.C.C. Publishing Corp.. 850 Third Ave.. New York, N.Y. 10022.YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $15 95 in the U.S.A.. $15.95 in Canada. $19.95 in Foreign Countries Send all Canadian and foreign subscription orders to THE HOCKEY NEWS. P. O. Box 13035. Postal Station A. Toronto. Ont. M5W 1V7 U.S. subscription reguests should be mailed to Box 112. Martinsville. N.J 08836 Please allow 4-6 weeks for processingIN CANADA SENO ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE HOCKEY NEWS. Box 112 Martinsville. N J 08836. Second Class mail Registration No 1327. All inguiries pertaining Io subscriptions should be addressed to Subscription Dept., The Hockey News. 214 King St. W., Suite 314. Toronto. Ont. M5H IK4. CanadaIN THE UNITED STATES: Second class postage paid al New York. N.Y and at additional mailing offices. U.S. POSTMASTER send address changes to: The Hockey News Box 112 Martinsville. N.J 08836<div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-03993/4470821-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="78" height="70"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div>Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations &#9632;

f0004-02

<div class="byline">BY STEVE WINTER</div>LANDOVER &mdash; The same Dr. Jekyll Washington Capitals who enjoyed a recent seven-game winning streak and a spree in which they lost but once in 12 games, resurfaced as the heinous Mr. Hyde Capitals, when they ran off a five-game losing streak, dropping consecutive games to the Bruins, Canucks. Rangers, Penguins and Red Wings by a composite score of 28-13.Although coach Gary Green won&rsquo;t use it as an excuse, injuries to the backline have played a major role in the club&rsquo;s recent slide. Forget for a second the injuries to Paul MacKinnon, Rick Green and Yvon Labre. Their ailments are ancient history by now. In fact, Green&rsquo; and Labre have even returned to action. But in the midst of their absence, they were joined on the sidelines by the Capitals&rsquo; new &ldquo;insurance man,&rdquo; Rick Smith, who fractured his right index finger during a wild 8-6 win over the Rockies, the club&rsquo;s final win before the five-game drought.Pat Ribble, the Capitals&rsquo; apparent Rock of Gibraltar, was next. He jammed his right thumb the following night during a 7-3 loss in Boston, but suited up and played the ensuing games, a 4-2 loss to Vancouver and a pair of 6-2 losses to New York and Pittsburgh.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re hurting right now, no question about it,&rdquo; said Gary Green. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not an excuse, it&rsquo;s actual fact.&ldquo;Quite obviously, we&rsquo;re hurting on the blueline. Ribs [Ribble] has played recently, but it was obvious that his puckhandling was off, his shooting was off, everything was off. And it&rsquo;s bound to be, because he&rsquo;s only shooting with four fingers, and with our tough schedule [including a four-games-in-five-nights] I can&rsquo;t see it getting any easier.&rdquo;To help remedy the situation, the Capitals recalled a number of young defensemen from their Hershey farm club, including Jim McTaggart, whom the Capitals signed to a contract during the off-season, and Greg Theberge, who played solid defense in 12 games last season for the parent club.The results, however, were still self-evident.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t blame the youngsters, though,&rdquo; said Alan Hangsleben after the 6-2 loss to the Penguins. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re doing all that&rsquo;s been asked of them right now.&ldquo;And it&rsquo;s really not a matter of talent, either. They can only do as well as the rest of the team.&rdquo;The Capitals&rsquo; No. 1 draft pick, Darren Veitch, and off-season free agent Howard Walker were playing as well as they could of late, but that only wound up earning them a return trip to Hershey.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a matter of us being dissatisfied with their play,&rdquo; said Gary Green, &ldquo;rather it was a matter of wanting to give them the proper amount of playing time under the right conditions.&ldquo;The one thing we don&rsquo;t want to do with them is rush them into a situation that they might not be prepared for, and ruin them for the future. Both Darren and Howard are going to be major parts of this organization, and right now, we just want to help restore their confidence.&rdquo;Without Veitch and Walker, the Capitals found themselves in yet another hole, when sturdy Pierre Bouchard slightly tore the medial collateral ligament in his right knee against Pittsburgh, and has missed action ever since. To compensate. Walker was recalled once again, within the space of 24 hours.&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s not really fair to blame the losses on the injuries,&rdquo; said Rick Green, who played steady defense and &mdash; to his credit &mdash; found himself on the ice for just one goal during the loss to Pittsburgh, his first game back after a 10-game layoff due to a sprained wrist. &ldquo;Because when Mac and 1 were out, the team went seven games without a loss. Now, all of a sudden, everybody&rsquo;s talking about the injuries.&rdquo;&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve just got to start working hard again,&rdquo; offered Mike Gartner, who scored both goals in the loss to the Rangers, one on a penalty shot, &ldquo;In those four losses, we were outworked &mdash; all over the ice &mdash; by each of those four teams.&ldquo;All we&rsquo;ve got to do now is start working hard once again as a team. Then we&rsquo;ll be back on the right track.&rdquo;&ldquo;Our game is a hardworking game,&rdquo; said Hangsleben, who was recently moved back from defense to the left wing to team with Wes Jarvis and Dennis Ververgaert. &ldquo;If we&rsquo;re not doing working hard, then we&rsquo;re just not going to win hockey games.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011019/4470859-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="555" height="1036"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pierre Bouchard was the latest Cap defenseman hurt, tearing a cartilage in his knee.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0005-01

Injuries Behind Capitals’ Reversal Of Form

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-02777/4470911-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="286" height="339"></div>&bull; CHARLIE SIMMER, the left wing scoring ace of the Los Angeles Kings, has been keeping pace with highly-touted Mike Bossy of the Islanders for the first 10 weeks of the season. At that stage of the schedule Bossy had 33 goals in 33 games but Simmer had 31 goals in 31 games. It would appear in many instances that Simmer is not receiving the recognition he so justly deserves. Fans usually refer to the Kings&rsquo; great scoring unif of Dionne, Taylor and Simmer without singling out Simmer, the scorer, for special praise. The Terrace Bay, Ont. native scored 56 goals last season while being named to the First All Star team, but up until that time he was hardly ever heard of. He scored 21 goals while playing 38 games at the end of the 1978-79 season. He&rsquo;s a scoring star who literally zoomed out of nowhere &hellip; Both West Coast teams, Los Angeles and Vancouver, are playing extremely well on the road this season. The Canucks won three and tied one in their most recent road trip and came home in fifth place in the overall standings, which is by far the highest they&rsquo;ve ever reached since joining the National Hockey League. The Kings and Canucks are both playing above .500 on the road &hellip; Injuries are catching up with the Washington Capitals again and the club has slumped badly of late &hellip; Tiger Williams&rsquo; play is making everyone in Vancouver happy. He&rsquo;s credited with supplying the spark for the Canucks and he&rsquo;s scoring more goals than he usually does &hellip; Dan Summers, chief scout for the New York Rangers, was rated one of Canada&rsquo;s top junior defensemen in the early 1940&rsquo;s. He spent a good many years as a scout in Western Canada for the Detroit Red Wings &hellip; Bob Miller, U.S. born and developed center with the Boston Bruins, is anxious to ger more ice time. The Bruins are using him as a penalty killer. The Medford, Mass, native is one of the fastest skaters in the league &hellip; Jere Gillis, recently traded to the Rangers from Vancouver, is the son of one of the famed Wuertle twins, Canada&rsquo;s top lady skiers a few years back. He was Vancouver&rsquo;s first draft choice and fourth overall in 1977 &hellip; Rick Lanz is the only first-round draft pick still with Vancouver. Other first-round draft - picks by the Canucks were Dale Tallon, Jocelyn Guev-remont, Don Lever, Dennis Ververgaert, Bob Dailey, Rick Blight, Bill Derlago and Rick Vaive.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-03534/4470904-1-eng-US/f0005-032.jpg" title="f0005-03" width="399" height="488"><figcaption class="caption-body">Charlie Simmer</figcaption></div>&bull; NHL STATISTICS reveal that an average of 7.52 goals are being scored in each game. Last year at the same time the average was 7.02, but going back to 1966-67, the last season of the six-team league, the average was 5.96 goals per game. Most puck advocates favor lots of goal scoring, so this would appear to be a move in the right direction. In 1943-44, when teams played a 50-game schedule, the six clubs scored an average of 8.16 goals a game. This was known as war time hockey and that&rsquo;s the season the New York Rangers allowed no less than 310 goals for a goals-agamst average of 6.20 &hellip; Fred Shero is taking it easy these days at his White Plains, N.Y. home. The ex-Ranger coach is expected to be back coaching somewhere in the future. It&rsquo;s a certainty he won&rsquo;t be out of hockey forever &hellip; Tall John Davidson, the fine goalkeeper of the New York Rangers who underwent surgery recently, is sidelined for the rest of this season &hellip; The Bouchers of Ottawa were the only family to have four brothers to play in the National Hockey League. Best known of the quartet was Frank, who played, coached and managed the New York Rangers, George, &ldquo;Buck,&rdquo; was a player with Ottawa, the Montreal Maroons and Chicago, and he coached Boston; Billy played with the Canadiens, Boston and the New York Americans, and Bob played for the Canadiens in 1923-24. Frank, &ldquo;Buck&rdquo; and Billy were all members of at least one Stanley Cup champion during their NHL careers &hellip; Gil Perreault of the Buffalo Sabres, off to a slow start this season, has missed only two games since he came into the NHL in 1970 and was named Rookie of the Year for the 1970-71 season &hellip; Former NHL&rsquo;ers currently playing in Japan are Garry Monahan, ex-Toronto Leaf; ex-Edmonton Oilers Ted McAneeley and Gregg Boddy; Barry Wilcox, former Vancouver Canuck; and Randy Gregg, former member of Canada&rsquo;s Olympic team. Other well-known players in Japan are Vladimir Shadrin and Juri Liapkin, both former members of the Soviet Union National Team &hellip; The NHL record for consecutive games in which a player had one or more assists is 14, and is shared by Bobby Orr, Boston; Stan Mikita, Chicago; and Jude Drouin of Minnesota &hellip; Ken Dryden, now living in England, recently did some scouting in Sweden for Montreal.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-04356/4470897-1-eng-US/f0005-042.jpg" title="f0005-04" width="397" height="489"><figcaption class="caption-body">Frank Boucher</figcaption></div>&bull; THERE&rsquo;S A Southern Collegiate Hockey Association headquartered in Atlanta. It is comprised of seven collegtes. They are Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Emory and Vanderbilt. The commissioner is Chick Waddell and he has some very ambitious plans for the future. The league sends out a media guide to all the high schools with a hockey program in the United States &hellip; Numerous hockey fans are fed up with the lack of hitting in the game today. It&rsquo;s an intrinsic part of the sport and when it is lacking the game loses 3 lot of appeal to spectators &hellip; &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve just go to many rules,&rdquo; said John Ferguson of the Winnipeg Jets &hellip; As Pat Quinn, Philadelphia&rsquo;s successful coach and a big advocate of the physical game says: &ldquo;Give me a player who will pay the price anytime&rdquo; &hellip; Garry Howatt of the New York Islanders will wear a foam collar as a precaution against whiplash suffered in a check in a game against Vancouver. He may be forced to wear the collar for a lengthy period &hellip; Nine members of the 1980 United States Olympic team signed NHL contracts, but many of them are finding the going a lot tougher in the NHL than anticipated. The big difference they all admit is the speed of the play and the close checking. Some of the nine have fared better than others but all agree the transition was much tougher than they expected &hellip; The poor attendance at home games of the Boston Bruins has the owners worried. This season&rsquo;s attendance has been the poorest since the last war. Even in the years the Bruins finished last they sold out the Boston Garden &hellip; Pittsburgh coach Eddie Johnston recently had this to say: &ldquo;When we get some of our injured players back, I&rsquo;ll send some guys so far away that not even THE HOCKEY NEWS will be able to find them.&rdquo; &hellip; Wayne Maxner, Detroit&rsquo;s new coach, is optimistic that he&rsquo;ll have the Red Wings in the playoffs. &ldquo;Maybe if I had the team earlier I could say this definitely, but we&rsquo;ve dug ourselves into a hole and the first thing we&rsquo;ve got to do is get out of it.&rdquo; &hellip; Paul Martha, vice-president and general counsel of the Pittsburgh Penguins, figures the Penguins will lose close to $2 million this year. He said the only way the Penguins could break even is by owning Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Civic Arena, which owner Edward DeBartolo Sr. has been trying to buy for two years.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-05233/4470890-1-eng-US/f0005-052.jpg" title="f0005-05" width="395" height="494"><figcaption class="caption-body">Garry Howatt</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0005-02

KEN MCKENZIE’S PASSING THE PUCK

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02916/4470973-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg"></div>HARTFORD &mdash; The Hartford Whalers have emerged as the most successful of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s four expansion teams after their first 100 games in their new environment.The Whalers put together a 33-44-23 record for 89 points, five more than the Edmonton Oilers, who were 33-49-18 in their first 100 NHL starts. The Quebec Nordiques rank third, with 29-54-17 for 75 points, followed by the Winnipeg Jets, who lost 63 of their 100 games. The Jets were 21-63-15 for 58 points, well behind their former WHA compatriots.The Whalers and Oilers have managed the same number of wins, 33, but Hartford has lost less and has more tie games to show than Edmonton. Offensively, the Oilers are the top scoring machine with 369 goals, only three more than the Whalers. The Nordiques have allowed the least number of goals, 399.Individually, it comes as no surprise that Edmonton&rsquo;s great young star, Wayne Gretzky, is the leading point getter among the one-time WHAers. Gretzky collected 168 points in his first 99 games compared to Mike Rogers of Hartford, who had 128 points in 100 games. The honor of being the leading goal-getter goes to Blaine Stoughton of the Whalers, who had 63 goals in only 91 games as compared to Gretzky, who had 60 in 99 starts. &#9632;

f0006-02

Whalers’ Performance Best Of Expansionists

<div class="byline">BY PAT THOMPSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011068/4471004-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By Ian MacAlpineGlen Sharpley, above, wants to be traded away from the North Stars because of his continued friction with coach Glen Sonmor.</figcaption></div>BLOOMINGTON &mdash; The trading lamp is lit in Minnesota.General manager Lou Nanne of the North Stars is suddenly shopping after saying earlier in the season he was not going to be making many trades this year.Two major developments have prompted a radical change in that thinking. First, injuries have put defenseman Gary Sargent and Brad Maxwell out on a long-term basis.And second, there is the Glen Sharpley case.Sharpley, the Toronto native who was once a first-round draft choice, has been dissatisfied most of his career in Minnesota. Such dissatisfaction boiled over in late December when he found out he was not going to suit up for a game against the New York rangers.The 24-year-old center with 99 career goals and 150 assists walked into Nanne&rsquo;s office and said he was having constant friction With coach Glen Sonmor.Sharpley said that a trade would be the best way to resolve the difficulties.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to do our best to accomodate him,&rdquo; said Nanne. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;re only going to trade him if we can get a good deal. He told me that he didn&rsquo;t feel comfortable playing for us and the easiest resolution is to get rid of him. If nobody comes up with something we can live with, we won&rsquo;t get rid of him. He&rsquo;d have to make the adjustment to living with the situation.&rdquo;This is not the first showdown between Sonmore and Sharpley. Last spring during the Stanley Cup quarterfinals against Montreal, the recalcitrant center stormed off the ice during a practice.Sharpley had not played since midseason and was trying to come back from a knee injury. When Sonmor ordered him to do additional skating, Sharpley became upset and felt he was ready to play.Apologies were made, and Sharpley returned for the sixth game with a performance that helped send the North Stars back to Montreal for a dramatic seventh game victory.Sharpley was benched for the Rangers game because the line featuring Mike eaves at center and Ron Zanussi and Steve Christoff on the wings was reunited right before it.Sharpley had been centering Zanussi and Mike fidler, but that combination ended when Nanne trade Fidler to the Hartford Whalers for defenseman Gordie Roberts.Roberts was needed because Maxwell is still on the mend from a serious knee injury and Sargent looks like he may need surgery to correct a prolonged back ailment.Fidler, 24, had five goals and 12 assists in 20 games. He missed most of last season with knee and shoulder injuries.Roberts, 23, gave Hartford two goals and 11 assists in 27 games. Ironically, both men scored goals that gave their new teams against the Rangers and Boston.There are no new developments involving goalie Gary Edwards, but speculation is increasing that Nanne will trade him soon.Ewards was the star of Minnesota&rsquo;s opening round playoff victory against Toronto last spring. But he has not played a game while Gilles Meloche and rookie Don Beaupre share the goaltending duties.Sonmore is trying various means of bringing the North Stars out of their December swoon. Earlier this season, the Stars had the fewest losses in the league, with three.But near the end of the holiday month that figure rose quickly to eight. The team did show signs of coming out of the slump with a 4-3 victory against Winnipeg, in which young defenseman Curt Giles was named the No. 1 star.But Toronto stuck the Stars with back-to-back losses and Sonmor figured his team&rsquo;s lack of scoring was the major reason.&ldquo;Most of our goals have been coming on power play situations,&rdquo; the Minnesota coach said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a good sign when your team is not able to score with any consistency when both teams are at even strength.&rdquo;In the 3-3 tie against the Rangers, the Stars played as well as they have all December. A big asset was the return of left winger Jack Carlson from a back injury. Carlson did not score, but made his presence felt with some strong bodychecks.His return, along with Christoff&rsquo;s from a shoulder ailment, eased Minnesota&rsquo;s problems with depth. But they&rsquo;re going to miss the puck-carrying ability of Sargent, who may need surgery similar to that performed on Carlson.Carlson underwent a spinal fusion in the fall of 1979 and did not play another game until this season. That would mean Sargent would miss all of this year, the playoffs, and not be ready until well into 1981-82. &#9632;

f0007-01

Benched Sharpley Asks North Stars For Trade

IT&rsquo;S THAT TIME OF THE year once again, when everyone in the world has an opportunity to put all their woes and misfortunes behind them and look forward to brighter prospects in the new year. Hockey is no exception to this time-honored tradition and THE HOCKEY NEWS would like to take this opportunity to bestow the following good wishes for 1981:Boston Bruins: A speedy recovery for coach Gerry Cheevers from his appendectomy; less wrinkles in GM Harry Sinden&rsquo;s worried brow and more fannies in the seats at the Boston Garden, where the attendance this year has been abysmal.Buffalo Sabres: A vote of confidence for Captain Video, coach Roger Neilson, whose job was supposedly in jeopardy as the Sabres headed into the new year.Calgary Flames: A groundbreaking ceremony for a new, large rink.to replace the tiny Corral.Chicago Black Hawks: A place for Bob Verdi in the Wirtz family&rsquo;s will.Colorado Rockies: A hope that their new owner, Peter Gilbert, really does intend to keep the franchise in Denver, whose fans deserve a hockey team.Detroit Red Wings: A team that looks as good as the Joe Louis Arena, where the Wings play all their home games.Edmonton Oilers: Ten more pounds for Wayne Gretzky. That&rsquo;s all he needs.Hartford Whalers: Another Gordie Howe comeback.Los Angeles Kings: A record for attendance that&rsquo;s as impressive as their won-lost record so far this season.Minnesota North Stars: Freedom from injuries and a job on some NHL team for forgotten man Gary Edwards.Montreal Canadiens: Relief from critics who say the dynasty is dead; a healthy knee for Guy Lafleur, and many more years of Roger Doucet singing O Canada.New York Islanders: A new victory song if they win the Stanley Cup again. We Are The Champions somehow just doesn&rsquo;t cut the mustard.New York Rangers: A new theme song. That dopey ditty they play before their home games makes We Are The Champions sound like music &mdash; almost.Philadelphia Flyers: A replacement for Cyd Barnes and a new video tape machine to review all of the horrible, unjust calls that have recently been made against them.Pittsburgh Penguins: A new lease for their arena and three healthy centers for the entire season.Quebec Nordiques: One more Stastny, brother Marian, to complete the line and continued harmony between the French and English-speaking players.St. Louis Blues: A Vezina Trophy for Mike Luit and a permanent return to the days when fans used to pack the arena to sing, er, see the Blues.Toronto Maple Leafs: Beer at the concession stands. PLEASE!Vancouver Canucks; New uniforms. PLEASE!Washington Capitals: A berth in the playoffs.Winnipeg Jets: A win, two lousy points, a hope that their winless streak doesn&rsquo;t last as long as the Flyers&rsquo; unbeaten streak (35 games) last season.And as far as individuals are concerned:Mike Bossy: 50 goals in 49 games or 51 goals in 50 games.John Ziegler: A year that&rsquo;s as successful as the realignment meetings he recently chaired in Palm Beach.Bobby Orr: A happy solution to the investigation currently being conducted by Revenue Canada.Scotty Morrison: A new calculator, nicknamed &ldquo;54e.&rdquo;The writer of this editorial: More imagination, so that next time he can come up with a better way to end it. &#9632;

Wishes For 1981

<div class="byline">BY JOHN A. ZIEGLER Jr.</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011183/4471059-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="388" height="470"></div>Prior to the recent National Hockey League governors meeting in Palm Beach, Fla., many people around the league predicted that there was no way the realignment issue would be resolved and that it would be February or even June before an agreement could be reached.But to the surprise of everyone, a decision on realignment was reached. And very amicably. In the space below, NHL president John Ziegler, who-deserves much of the credit for his masterful choreography of those meetings, explains why he thinks they were so successful and productive.Although a lot of what was written about the Palm Beach meetings suggested that there was a whole new attitude among the governors, 1 really believe that this positive attitude has been growing all along. 1 think it all started several years ago, when we combined the Cleveland and Minnesota teams. Once we did that, we started solving problems rather than wringing our hands and crying about them. Then, when we put the two leagues together and we got the players&rsquo; agreement on that, it permitted us to start talking about the game and how to improve it &mdash; rather than worry about some of those horrible problems like who was going to finish the season, who was going bankrupt, who was suing whom, who was stealing whose players, those kinds of things.&ldquo;We are not a national sport &hellip; and we&rsquo;re not going to be one in the forseeable future&hellip;Through all this, people have simply started to work together; they&rsquo;ve just had to. Dealing with realignment was an emotional issue, and up until about 30 days before the Florida meeting, my timetable was that the issue would be resolved by February. I never thought it would go beyond that.My experience has taught me two things on these emotional issues: You usually need two meetings. One to get the venom and the emotions expressed and another to finally get down to the actual decision making. In my judgement, a couple of factors made it possible for us to accomplish what we did:First, a lot of work was done beforehand. The general managers had done a great deal of thinking and had talked to their owners &mdash; which was very helpful in establishing a dialogue.Secondly, the owners had talked &mdash; both formally and informally. And all the different combinations and possibilities had probably been discussed or at least thought about. As a result, by the time we got to Florida a lot of the emotionalism that I had expected had been used up somewhere else.I&rsquo;m not trying to make less or light of the work that the GMs or owners did, because there was a great sense of compromise and understanding and they worked at it long and hard. But the realignment decision was not all that different from a lot of other decisions we&rsquo;ve had to make as a board. The main difference in Florida was that there was a really strong recognition on the part of everyone involved that we were doing something that was very important for each of the teams that would be very important for some time to come. And if somebody had an idea that he thought may have been better than what was being discussed, the fact that he was able to express it &mdash; even though it was not acceptable by a majority &mdash; was a big factor. That way, he could recognize that even though his idea was not universally accepted, even though some people may not have gotten all that they wanted, there were enough plusses in the final plan for everybody to be supportive. To me, that was very significant. And compared to some of the other decisions the board has had to reach in recent years &mdash; particularly expansion &mdash; this was fun!I think that in addition to the obvious affects realignment will have on our game &mdash; increased ribalries, decreased travel costs and more practical television packages &mdash; there, is another, more subtle result that came out of those meetings. I think we have a new philosophy. It is one that I articulated to the board; it is one that some of us have talked about over the last couple of years, and one that I&rsquo;ve come to believe very strongly:&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing wrong with being a Cadillac or a Mercedes and sell to where people want, understand and enjoy our product&hellip;We are not a national sport. We tried for some 10 years to emulate the National F8tball League because we thought that was the way to do it. And we should have realized &mdash; perhaps a few years ago &mdash; that we are not going to be a national sport, at least not in the forseeable future, because our game is not played across the United States, like f8tball and baseball. As a consequence, we&rsquo;ve been defensive. People say we&rsquo;re not a national sport and therefore we&rsquo;re not good. Well, that doesn&rsquo;t necessarily follow, and I said that instead of us always trying to defend ourselves when that point is made, why not take the offensive? First of all, we have one fine piece of entertainment and when we play to 80 percent capacity as live entertainment, 900 to 1,000 live events a year, there isn&rsquo;t much entertainment in the world that does that.Secondly, instead of trying to be Ford or Chevrolet and having a big volume of car sales, there&rsquo;s nothing wrong with being a Cadillac or a Mercedes and sell to where people want our product and where they understand and enjoy it. There&rsquo;s nothing wrong with being somewhat elite and g8d at what you do. We don&rsquo;t have to go around and make excuses because we&rsquo;re not the NFL.I&rsquo;ve found, and many other sources have confirmed this, that we have a very high intensity of identity of our fans with our sport. That identity with our entertainment, our teams and our product is precisely the kind of thing the new development i(i cable TV is l8king for &mdash; because cable is a local development. It is the local and the regional programming that has the great appeal when it comes to selling cable.So if all these things are correct &mdash; and 1 believe strongly that they really are &mdash; look at what we&rsquo;ve done by realigning the league: We have provided the opportunity for the teams and for the fans to maximize this kind of local regional identity and to intensify that contact, which in turn will open up and intensify the demand for the product. The result of it all is that we will have very strong, regional contracts in the cable systems all over North America &mdash; and that&rsquo;s the real joy of what was accomplished in Florida in early December. &#9632;

f0008-01

“A Great Sense Of Compromise And Understanding”

<div class="byline">BY PAT CALABRIA</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011177/4471135-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Bourne scored his sixth shorthanded goal of the season for the Islanders as they pulled away for a 6-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets.</figcaption></div>LONG ISLAND &mdash; Sometimes the Islanders do things hard and sometimes they do things easy. But almost always they get things done.Take their recent 4-0-1 unbeaten streak. The latest victims were Winnipeg and Quebec, teams that should have posed no problems. But they did Then again, as Stefan Persson said, &ldquo;Sometimes we play terrible. You can&rsquo;t get up for every game. But even when we play terrible, as long as we win &mdash; that&rsquo;s what counts.&rdquo;So count a 6-2 victory over the Jets and a 5-2 victory over the Nordiques, which gave the Islanders a 17-2-3 record since Nov. 2. And count Bob Bourne and Anders Kallur very much a part of the team&rsquo;s success.There was, for instance, the victory over Winnipeg. The Islanders were trying to protect a 1-0 lead in the first period in the teeth of a two-man disadvantage. But the Islanders happen to be good at turning a disadvantage into an advantage &mdash; and sometimes they even turn a disadvantage into a goal. In this case, make that two goals.Down two players, the Islanders accomplished a rare feat. They scored twice and they got their two shorthanded goals in a mere 17 seconds for what is believed to be a club record.First, there was Bourne poking the puck away from Winnipeg&rsquo;s David Babych and then taking a drop pass from Bob Lorimer. Bourne then blasted a 35-foot shot past goalie Pierre Hamel for a 2-0 lead.A nice goal, but Kallur&rsquo;s was even better. The Islanders won the next faceoff, Denis Potvin launched a pass behind his own net which freed Kallur for a breakaway. He darted left, then swept a shot in for a 3-0 lead that split the game wide open.&ldquo;Andy has been a very important player for us this year,&rdquo; said coach Al Arbour. &ldquo;He does a lot of nice things. And he&rsquo;s intelligent. I like that.&rdquo;Kallur&rsquo;s big play was followed by contributions from the Nystrom-Tambellini-Tonelli line, which accounted for 10 points over two games. The line was on the ice for the last three goals against Winnipeg, sealing the victory.That was a lot easier than the Islanders made it for themselves against the Nordiques four nights later. The teams were locked in a 2-2 tie through two periods and it appeared the Islanders might have to settle for an unwelcome tie at home against one of the NHL&rsquo;s worst teams.&ldquo;We played like we had our Christmas turkey a few days early,&rdquo; said Arbour, referring to the Islanders&rsquo; sluggish performance. But with the game on the line, Potvin and Kallur rallied the Islanders.When goalie Michel Plasse kicked out a shot by Persson, the puck landed right on the stick of Potvin, who had drifted into the right faceoff circle. Potvin hoisted a shot over Plasse&rsquo;s shoulder for a 3-2 lead.A few minutes later, Persson had the puck at the right point and as he started to wind up to shoot, he noticed Kallur skating into the high slot with his back toward the net. Persson quickly snapped a pass which Kallur steered between the legs of Plasse for the Islanders&rsquo; fourth goal.&ldquo;I had my back to the net, but I knew where the net was,&rdquo; Kallur said. &ldquo;I think we forwards always have a good idea of where the net is,&rdquo; he winked.The Islanders were outshot in that game, 38-34 and Kallur might not have been winking if goalie Bill Smith had not turned in one of his best games of the season. Persson said: &ldquo;Everybody knows we were terrible. The only guy who wasn&rsquo;t terrible was Smitty.&rdquo;The victory helped the Islanders keep pace with the Philadelphia Flyers, for the overall NHL lead. It also allowed the Islanders to heave a sigh of relief, considering the tongue-lashing that awaited them had they been tied.&ldquo;We had a long talk between the second and third periods,&rdquo; Potvin said. &ldquo;We even did some yelling.&rdquo;ISLAND SOUNDS: The first book on the Islanders&rsquo; Stanley Cup season has arrived in the mail. Veteran Newsday reporter Tim Moriarty has collaborated with photographer Joe Bereswill to produce The Dynamic Islanders, a prose-and-picture history of the Islanders&rsquo; climb from the cellar to the championship.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-02932/4471128-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="581" height="496"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By lan MacAlpineAnders Kallur added insult to injury when he duplicated Bourne&rsquo;s feat &mdash; another shorthanded goal 17 seconds later against the Jets &mdash; his fifth of the year.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0010-01

Isles Travel Hard Road But Results Are Positive

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div>BUFFALO &mdash; Every year for the last decade, Gil Perreault&rsquo;s name has appeared among the National Hockey League&rsquo;s top 20 scorers.Only in 1973-74, did he drop down, when he suffered a broken ankle and missed much of the season. Every other year he&rsquo;s been 16th or higher. Last season he ranked fourth.This season, however, the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; super center is down the list. Before the weekend&rsquo;s two-game West Coast trip, Perreault hadn&rsquo;t scored a goal in 11 straight games. He had only one goal in 17 games and six for the campaign so far.Gil is, of course, more of a playmaker than a goal scorer. And he was getting his assists, although not as many as in past years.Perreault is not one to talk about how his game is going. But when pressed, the 30-year-old Sabre veteran did admit &ldquo;I would like to have more goals.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been having lots of chances, but I&rsquo;ve been, missing the goals,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to let it get me down.&rdquo; Perreault went on. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been working hard but nothing happens. We&rsquo;ve been missing lots of goals around the nets.&rdquo;Roger Neilson, head coach of the Sabres, admitted that he, too, wished Gil would start scoring some goals again but he had lots of praise for the rest of the big guy&rsquo;s game.&ldquo;Gil has been getting points,&rdquo; Neilson pointed out, &ldquo;and you have to feel he is going to start scoring goals again. With Rick Martin out, it is tougher on Perreault because the other clubs key on him. With Martin in there, they have to worry about both of them.&ldquo;And, of course, with Martin scoring goals, Perreault is getting more assists. We never really have had their line of last season together. Perreault, himself, was hurt for a while, then Ric Seiling and now Martin has been out for a long time.&rdquo;Martin suffered a knee injury Nov. 9 against Washington and he still is out of action.With his regular left winger missing, Perreault has been playing with a multitude of wingmen. For a while he was flanked by two first-year pros, Gilles Hamel and Alan Haworth.&ldquo;Gil plays with any wingers and never complains,&rdquo; Neilson pointed out. &ldquo;In fact, you can ask him to do almost anything and he won&rsquo;t complain. He will play the wing, he will play up front or on the point on the power play, he will kill penalties if you need him to. And we also use him against the opposing team&rsquo;s top scoring line sometimes.&ldquo;This is bound to detract from his offensive potential, so we only do it when we feel we need him as a checker for the good of the team against certain opposition.&rdquo;Perreault was asked if going against, for instance, the Lafleur line when Montreal is the oppostion. doesn&rsquo;t reduce his scoring.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been in the league 10 years now.&rdquo; said Gil. &ldquo;I should be able to play against the top line of any team. And should be able to score, too.&rdquo;Perreault has been the target of criticism from many writers with opposing teams and in magazines. Last fall, one publication called him the NHL&rsquo;s most overrated player.Don&rsquo;t try to tell that to Perreault&rsquo;s coach.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how that magazine could come up with something like that.&rdquo; said Neilson. &ldquo;Perreault is as good as anyone in hockey. He is as important to our team as Lafleur is to the Canadiens, or Darryl Sittier to the Toronto Maple Leafs.&ldquo;He certainly was one of the top men in the Stanley Cup playoffs last year. He finished second in scoring [to Bryan Trottier of the New York Islanders] without even playing in the finals.&ldquo;He almost won the game singlehanded the night the Sabres were eliminated by the Islanders.&ldquo;He always has the big checkers of the league following him and lots of times hanging on him.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s no holler guy bin he&rsquo;s the leader on the ice for the Sabres. We look to him to pick the team up. He&rsquo;s the key man in our power play.&rdquo;ICE CHIPS &mdash; Perreault finally broke out of his slump, scoring a goal and four assists in the Sabres&rsquo; 7-4 win over L.A. and another goal in a 3-3 tie in Vancouver &hellip; Lindy Ruff, 20-year-old forward-defenseman for the Sabres was lost for more than a month when his right ankle was fracturered in a practice session last week. He collided with another young defenseman, Mike Ramsey, who, ironically, is his tenant. Both bachelors, they live together in a home Ruff bought in the Buffalo suburbs. &#9632;

Sabres Are Waiting For Perreault To Get Hot

<div class="byline">BY RICHARD FRIEDMAN</div>NEW YORK &mdash; For Dave Silk, it was a poignant homecoming, and a bit like playing in a fishbowl.On Wednesday, December 17, the Rangers shellacked the Winnipeg Jets, winning 8-2 and peppering diminutive Jets&rsquo; goaltender Lindsay Middlebrook with 49 shots as they extended Winnipeg&rsquo;s record-shattering winless streak to 29 games.Across from center/wing Silk that night on several faceoffs was a teammate of his from the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic hockey team, Dave Christian and in the Madison Square Garden stands were several more &mdash; Neal Broten, Bob Suter, Ken Morrow, Eric Strobel and captain Mike Eruzione.&ldquo;There was an extra edge tonight with them here,&rdquo; admitted Silk after scoring a goal and two assists. &ldquo;They even rented a hotel room for me, and I thought I&rsquo;d sleep for an hour-and-a-half before the game. I lay down on the bed and got up six minutes later.&ldquo;Everything that has been written about the 20 of us getting along is true. It may sound like a cliche, but we all enjoy each other.&rdquo;Just then, Suter walked into the Rangers&rsquo; dressing-room followed by Broten, who was immediately the target of some good-natured ribbing from Silk, who claimed his old teammate had not washed his hair since the Olympics.Also present that day were Rob McClanahan and Jim Craig and the team&rsquo;s G.M, Ken Johannson. And of course behind the Rangers&rsquo; bench that night was the Olympic team&rsquo;s assistant coach, Craig Patrick, as speculation mounted over the perhaps imminent arrival from Switzerland of Olympic coach Herb Brooks, Patrick&rsquo;s heir-apparent as Rangers coach.All were in town to participate in pre-game ceremonies which commemorated the U.S. Olympic team&rsquo;s victory at Lake Placid last February.&ldquo;I could hardly stand up during the presentation,&rdquo; said Silk. &ldquo;I had the jitters. The trophy was a nice ending to a dream-come-true.&rdquo;The year 1980 ends in a manner markedly different from its beginning for Silk, who has bucked the odds twice. Aside from the Olympic victory, the 23-year-old Scituate, Mass, native has made the Rangers&rsquo; varsity.He was unimpressive last season with them following the Olympics, was subsequently demoted to New Haven, and was even counted out by some observers early this season. When the Rangers were crippled by injuries this past fall, it appeared that Silk was here on borrowed time. But he proceeded to play his way onto the team.In mid-November, he was singled out by then-coach Fred Shero as the most impressive of the rookie crop, along with Mike Allison. Around the time Patrick took over as coach, Silk was told to get an apartment here as Patrick acknowledged that the return to health of sidelined regulars &mdash; Ulf Nilsson and Ron Duguay will be the next to rejoin the team &mdash; would not affect Silk&rsquo;s position.Playing with Phil Esposito and Don Maloney, Silk learned how to get the puck to the veteran center. He later was replaced by Dean Talafous on that line, but in the 3-3 tie with the North Stars at Minnesota on December 20th Silk centered for Eddie Johnstone and Steve Vickers with Walter Tkaczuk sidelined. The combination generated a speedy offense tor the Rangers, particularly late in the game. Ultimately, Don Maloney tied the score as the Rangers came from behind after taking an early 2-0 lead.Silk was a sophomore at Boston University when he was recruited by Brooks for the Olympic team. Working the squad relentlessly, Brooks concentrated on Silk&rsquo;s skating.&ldquo;He is a go-getter,&rdquo; says Patrick of Silk. &ldquo;His willingness makes up for any lack of fluid skating, and he can put the puck in the net.&rdquo;Silk is among a handful of Rangers rookies who are genuinely pleased to have broken into the big leagues. But he knew that his ascension to the NHL was anything but a certainty six months ago.&ldquo;The gold medal didn&rsquo;t really hit me until this past summer, after the hockey season was finally over,&rdquo; he recalled. &ldquo;But in the back of my mind was my obsession with making the Rangers. Whenever I allowed myself to think of the gold, I felt as if I was living in the past.&rdquo;In Craig Patrick, Silk has a constant reminder of the gold medal, and he soon may be seeing a whole lot more of Herb Brooks.&ldquo;Whenever I see anyone from the team, it picks me up,&rdquo; Silk concluded. &ldquo;Now and then, Craig and I just look at each other and smile.&rdquo;NOTES: Right wing Gary Burns was called up from New Haven to replace Doug Sulliman. stricken with the flu, for the Minnesota game and looked good on offense &hellip; Wayne Thomas provided the acrobatics in goal that night&hellip; Rookie defenseman Chris Kotsopoulos scored his first goal of the season and added an assist.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011122/4471190-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="549" height="1055"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Silk&rsquo;s six-month &ldquo;obsession&rdquo; with making the Rangers was realized just before Christmas.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0011-01

Silk Beats Odds Again By Making Rangers

<div class="byline">BY ARNOLD IRISH</div>ST. LOUIS &mdash; Who is the National Hockey League&rsquo;s most underrated center?Why, it&rsquo;s good old what&rsquo;s-his-name &mdash; Bernie Federko, the St. Louis smoothie who gets less ink and related media attention than any of the league&rsquo;s top players.Federko, known hereabouts as &ldquo;The Magician&rdquo; because his shots and passes (now you see them, now you don&rsquo;t) confound enemy goaltenders, has been developing along with the Blues as they fight for a home berth in the playoffs.Only 23. Federko is ahead of schedule in his quest for his first 100-point campaign after scoring 95 two years ago and 94 last season.Typical of Bernie&rsquo;s prowess was his performance in the Blues&rsquo; most recent game with Minnesota.They had played the North Stars to a 2-2 tie Oct. 29 in Bloomington, Minn., and their offense had been blunted by Don Beaupre, Minnesota&rsquo;s fuzzy-cheeked goalie.&ldquo;He played a great game against us up there, and all you hear about the North Stars since then has been about Beaupre,&rdquo; Blues&rsquo; coach Red Berenson said. &ldquo;For a 19-year-old, he&rsquo;s taken the NHL by storm.&rdquo;The North Stars were riding high when they came to St. Louis for a mid-December game. Minnesota was unbeaten in its last five games, and Beaupre had been dazzling in the nets.The Blues were without injured Blair Chapman, who normally plays right wing on Federko&rsquo;s line. Defenseman Rick LaPointe didn&rsquo;t think Chapman&rsquo;s absence would be important because the Blues are so balanced with four representative lines. &ldquo;This team now has the manpower that no one man is that important to the team.&rdquo; LaPointe said, presumably excluding goalie Mike Liut and the multi-talented Federko. It&rsquo;s hard to imagine where St. Louis would be without either.Anyway, Federko scored a goal and three assists as the Blues went out and destroyed Beaupre.The game was only 4:37 old when Federko drew a crowd behind the goal and flicked a&rsquo; pass to Tony Currie (Chapman&rsquo;s replacement), who shuttled It to Brian Sutter. The Blues&rsquo; captain put his team ahead with a power-play goal.Later in the period Federko passed to Currie at the blue line and split the defense to take Tony&rsquo;s return pass in the goal mouth. Bernie toyed with young Beaupre, outwaiting the goalie. When Beaupre finally kicked out a leg to cover the most conspicuous opening, Federko nonchalantly flipped the puck over Beaupre&rsquo;s shoulder and into the upper righthand corner of the capeFederko toyed with young Beaupre &hellip; nonchalantly flipping the puck over the goalie&rsquo;s shoulder into the upper corner of the netAs the game progressed, Federko assisted on a pair of goals by Currie.Although the Blues&rsquo; sixth straight victory on home ice drew only 10,213 (slightly more than half the Checker dome&rsquo;s capacity), they extended their unbeaten streak to eight games (7-0-1) and increased their point total to 40, only two behind NHL-leading Philadelphia before running into an overdue Chicago team which bested them 5-2.Federko&rsquo;s goal was only his 11th, but he later added his 12th in a 9-4 blitz of Colorado and placed in the top 10 in NHL scoring thanks to 31 assists.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03697/4471221-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="547" height="1326"><figcaption class="caption-body">After scoring 95 and 94 points in his last two NHL seasons, Bernie Federko has his sights set on 100 points this year</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0012-03

Federko’s Development Parallels Blues’ Success

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011151/4471259-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="286" height="336"></div><h2>Year Of Years</h2>FOR KENNETH ARLINGTON Morrow of Flint, Mich., 1980 was a year which in many ways was greater than any athlete had experienced before. First, he played for the United States team as it captured the Olympic Games gold medal in hockey in February, then he played for the New York Islanders as they captured the Stanley Cup trophy in May. No other athlete in any sport has scored such success in a single season.A few have played on championship college or other amateur teams and gone on to play on professional champions, but never in a single season. Others have won Olympic crowns and gone on to professional laurels, but never in a single season. Within four months, Morrow&rsquo;s teams swept the two most coveted titles in his sport. His double was unprecedented.&ldquo;I still can&rsquo;t believe it,&rdquo; he admitted &ldquo;I wake up and wonder if I was dreaming. I really do. I&rsquo;m sure most players never get to play for a champion in their sports, a lot better players than I am, and for me to have played for two champions in a few months, for me to have had a share of winning two of the greatest titles in all of sports &mdash; the Olympic gold medal and the Stanley Cup - well, it goes beyond anyone&rsquo;s wildest dreams.&ldquo;Look, I was very lucky. I was in the right place at the right time,&rdquo; the towering, bearded defenseman concludes.This is true, but he was, at the tender age of 23, a regular and important performer for both teams. Others received more publicity, but Morrow was the Olympic club&rsquo;s steadiest and strongest performer. Olympic coach Herb Brooks said, &ldquo;Ours was a team triumph, but I don&rsquo;t think we would have won without Kenny.&rdquo;His arrival in New York freed the Islanders to part with veteran defenseman Dave Lewis in order to obtain the center the team needed to go all the way, Butch Goring. Islander manager Bill Torrey says, &ldquo;Without Kenny, the deal would not have been made and we would have not captured the cup.&ldquo;I watched him through the two weeks at Lake Placid and knew he could play in the National Hockey League immediately. It is unusual for a rookie to be ready to move right in without previous professional experience, and in the middle of the season, but he proved he could do it.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-02981/4471252-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="370" height="436"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ken Morrow</figcaption></div><h2>Surprisingly Steady</h2>THE ISLANDERS HAD drafted Morrow earlier and exercised their rights to him as soon as the Olympics concluded. He signed and was suited up. Within one month, Lewis was traded and Morrow was a regular. Islander coach Al Arbour says, &ldquo;Kenny knows what he can do and he doesn&rsquo;t try to do what he can&rsquo;t. He&rsquo;s surprisingly steady and dependable for a player so young and inexperienced.&rdquo;Morrow says, &ldquo;I thought they&rsquo;d send me to the minors. I was nervous about moving right into the majors. I had to bear down to get going again. There was a letdown after the Olympics and I had to pick myself up. We went a long way on tremendous spirit in the Olympics. When they finally ended, we were spent. I suddenly realized how tired I was. But I&rsquo;m basically a worker and, compared to the Olympics, the National Hockey League is more like work &mdash; month after month of work. The playoffs seemed to last forever.&rdquo;Actually, they lasted seven weeks. The Olympics lasted two weeks. But those were nine weeks of pressure-packed games. And they were only part of the long season of Ken Morrow.Kenny went to training camp with the Olympians in July, 1979. He played 70 games with that team to prepare for the Games and seven games to win the gold medal. He then played 18 regular-season games with the Islanders and 20 post-season games to win the Stanley Cup. After 115 games, his season finally came to a conclusion in May, 1980.&ldquo;I was so tired I couldn&rsquo;t think straight,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We went to visit my wife&rsquo;s family in Ohio and mine in Michigan and furnished our new home near Long Island Sound. Part of the time we got as far away from the phone as possible. I don&rsquo;t mind giving interviews, but I&rsquo;m not much of a talker, and I got tired. I endured on emotion.&rdquo;<h2>Never Been Easy</h2>KENNY MAY HAVE made it look easy last year, but it has never been easy for him. Back in Davison, Ohio, a small town of 10,000 people about 10 miles from Flint, his father, Don, was an oiler at an auto body plant. After a four or five month ordeal with cancer he died in 1976. Ken&rsquo;s mother, Loretta, who now works as a police dispatcher, went to work to support Ken&rsquo;s brother Greg, and sister Kathi.Ken says, &ldquo;My dad worked hard all his life. I&rsquo;m sorry he didn&rsquo;t get to see my success. My mom worked hard to pay the bills after dad died. Somehow she gave me gas money so I could get to my games. But there were times it was hard for me to find the buck or two it took to get to a game. I haven&rsquo;t had a lot of luxuries in my life, so I hope I appreciate those I can have now.&rdquo;He got a scholarship to play hockey for Bowling Green University in Ohio, where he played four years and was an All American choice in 1978 and 1979 and was Central Collegiate Hockey Association Player of the Year in 1979. He tried out for and made the U.S. Olympic team and left camp two days after marrying his wife. Barb, the end of August, 1979. She lived with the families of other players in rented quarters at Lake Placid, sharing his magic moments with him.The success of the U.S. team there was unexpected, emotion-packed and dramatic beyond the usual sports. Ken smiles and says, &ldquo;Everyone went crazy. Nothing could match it. Not even winning the Stanley Cup. Not even getting the goal that won the third game of the first round and got us going, and I don&rsquo;t get many goals. But, winning the last game was a thrill, too.&rdquo;So he bathed in and drank champagne from the cup and was showered with confetti during the victory parade that concluded his spectatular year. Now the 6-4, 210-pound, 24-year-old has returned to reality, playing regularly as a professional, making the mistakes a young player makes. &ldquo;I think I can make it. I want to make it,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But if I didn&rsquo;t make it, if I had to go from the game, I&rsquo;d have no regrets. I&rsquo;d feel I had done more than any man has a right to do.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0012-01

BILL LIBBY’S HOCKEY AD LIB

<div class="byline">BY BILL LIBBY</div>LOS ANGELES &mdash; Through the first third of the season, the Kings have been the most improved team in the National Hockey League. Most of the publicity has gone to the fabulous first line of Marcel Dionne, Charlie Simmer. and Dave Taylor, or the remarkable rookie, Larry Murphy.However, much of the credit should go to the much-maligned goaltender Mario Lessard.The goaltender remains the most important player on any hockey team. The big save brings the big win. And Lessard has been making the big saves. He had played 18 of his team&rsquo;s 21 victories prior to Christmas. At one time, he played 12 games in a row and the Kings had won 10 of them.In winning six of his last seven games, he had allowed an average of less than two goals a game. Three victories in a row the first week of December won Lessard &lsquo;Player of the Week&rdquo; honors in the NHL.Veteran reserve Ronnie Grahame became the forgotten man, much the same as last year. Coach Bob Berry lost confidence in him and he was sold to Quebec. Doug Keans was called up from Houston to take his place, as he was last season.&ldquo;When I lose they say I&rsquo;m fat,&rdquo; says Mario Lessard. &ldquo;When I win, nobody notices my weight.&rdquo;Lessard agrees that he is not playing better than he did last year, but the team is playing better in front of him. He says, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m the same as I always was, I&rsquo;m just getting more help.&rdquo;During one stretch of six games, he gave up an average of only two goals a game. He usually makes the first save. If he is beaten, it usually is by rebounds. The revamped, improved defense of the Kings is clearing opponents and the puck from in front of the net.They said last season the chubby 5-7 goalie was too fat to get up fast when he went down. He laughs and says he owes his success this season to having dieted down to 195 pounds. &ldquo;Exactly the same as last year,&rdquo; he giggles. &ldquo;When I lose they say I&rsquo;m fat. When I win. no one notices my weight.&rdquo;The quick little left-hander from East Broughton, Que., is a cocky character who paid no more attention to the criticism than he did to the praise. &ldquo;I just play. I always play well,&rdquo; he says, just approaching his peak at 26.He has known hard times. He is one of 12 children His father was a truck driver. Mario spent four seasons in the minors before he got his chance. He takes his sport and life in stride.Glenn Goldup says every time he goes on the ice he gives Mario a wake-up call. &ldquo;He tends to fall asleep, so I tap him with my stick and tell him about the game.&rdquo;&ldquo;That is bull.&rdquo; Lessard said.&rdquo; but it it makes him feel better, fine. I will not let them make me nuts like they do other goaltenders.&rdquo;KINGS THINGS - The Kings&rsquo; 5-3 victory over the Islanders early in December was the best game the team has played in their 14 seasons of existence. It thrilled a Saturday night turnout above 15,000. The six-game home-stand produced five victories and other crowds of 13,000 and 12,000, but also three in the 7,000 range. When a team is going as good as this one is, that is unsatisfactory support. The Kings are a lowly 18th in league attendance.After a fast start. Greg Terrion, a highly-promising all-round rookie scored only one goal in 15 games and was not dressed for several games. Another rookie, hustling Dan Bonar, replaced him as center of the third line and scored two big goals in the win over the Islanders and one in a win in Detroit that raised the team&rsquo;s road record to 9-3-1, best in the league. The team&rsquo;s penalty-killing was the worst in the league last season, but Bonar and Billy Harris have made it one of the best this season. Twenty of the last 21 penalties have been killed off &hellip; After not playing in eight of nine games, rookie Jim Fox scored two-goals to tie Pittsburgh 3-3.After sitting out three games, Steve Jensen returned to tally goals in seven games &hellip; Marcel Dionne, in the 20th game of his 10th season, became the 16th NHL player to reach 400 goals. So sick with the flu he should have been in bed, he tallied two in a 7-2 romp in Minnesota &hellip; He and Simmer are 1-2 in league scoring. Taylor is fourth. Simmer scored goals in nine of 10 games, Taylor in seven straight &hellip; The Kings&rsquo; first line had 74 goals, all other lines 50 &hellip; Garry Unger played in his 1,000th NHL game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011100/4471290-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="541" height="768"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mario Lessard says he&rsquo;s playing the same as always, but his mates are doing a better job in front of him.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0013-01

Lessard Benefitting From Kings’ Aid

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011132/4471321-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="278" height="343"></div><h2>Flyers-Style Hockey</h2>Down with the Philadelphia Flyers. Up with good, clean hockey.&rdquo;Whether the Broad Street brethren like it or not, that is a recurring theme, sounded like a clarion call from The Forum in Los Angeles to The Forum in Montreal. It is echoed by folks who believe that the Flyers are a disease upon the body of hockey.It is by no means an understatement to suggest that the future of the NHL &mdash; for better or worse &mdash; will hinge on the ultimate acceptance or rejection of Flyers-style hockey. In the eyes of many observers artistry vs. brutality is the issue, pure and simple.Philly critics argue that despite the endless euphemisms conjured up by their defenders, the Flyers employ more cheap, vile, dirty tactics than any team east or west of The Suez.Some folks are gutsy enough to go on record, roasting Philly. Others choose to talk off-the-record but no less passionately on the subject.Before getting to them, let us here and now make the distinction between cheap-vile-dirty hockey and the good-clean-tough kind. The former accentuates illegal use of the stick as in cleaning an enemy&rsquo;s nostrils with the lumber, hitting a man from behind or having three players surround one foe. The latter emphasizes the body for bodychecking and the stick for scoring, not spearing.Bobby Clarke, the archetypical Flyer, spears. At least that&rsquo;s the impression conveyed by Vancouver rookie Rich Lanz, among dozens who wear Flyer-inscribed welts.&ldquo;I was surprised when Clarke did that,&rdquo; Lanz told Vancouver Sun columnist James Lawton. &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have been, reading all about him. But when it happens, it surprises you.&rdquo;Others are not surprised but few are willing to talk for the record. The Flyers&rsquo; reputation is so ominous that an opponent who turns canary with a newsman about Philly players has a legitimate fear of losing his dentures next time he visits The Spectrum.&ldquo;The Flyers,&rdquo; one such anonymous NHL forward tells me, &ldquo;are a bunch of barbarians and it all stems from Clarke&rsquo;s behavior. He always has his &lsquo;boys&rsquo; around him for protection. You&rsquo;d never see Clarke pull half that crap if he wasn&rsquo;t surrounded by those goons.&rdquo;During the 1974-1975 Stanley Cup years the goons were Dave (Hammer) Schultz and Bob (Hound) Kelly. Now they allegedly are Paul Holmgren, Mel Bridgman and Behn Wilson.Laurie Boschman of the Maple Leafs was telling Toronto Star columnist Jim Proudfoot how one night Clarke overreacted to &ldquo;a little jolt in the corner&rdquo; and started to curse him out. &ldquo;I felt terrible,&rdquo; said Boschman. &ldquo;I mean here was a guy I&rsquo;d always watched on television and sort of looked up to, you know.&rdquo;Another NHLer, who prefers anonymity, admits he looks down upon the oft-eulogized Clarke as nothing more than a gifted scoundrel. &ldquo;Clarke is a great player but he&rsquo;s also a coward. It would have been interesting to see what kind of game he&rsquo;d have played if he was on a different team.&rdquo;One NHL official found Clarke&rsquo;s behavior so repugnant in a game against the Rangers that he said he wanted to quit the sport after watching Clarke cut up Rangers&rsquo; rookie Mike Allison. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been connected with the league for 11 years,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;yet this is the first time I felt ashamed of what I do for a living.&rdquo;In Philly, they like to say that the Flyers fill rinks wherever they play. Booshwah! I know wrestling and roller derby people who say the same thing. The fear among many NHL types is that the Flyers&rsquo; tactics will spawn another era of violence at the expense of hockey&rsquo;s virtues. Scotty Bowman says he&rsquo;s concerned that teams will deem it necessary to carry at least two enforcers. &ldquo;That would mean 42 goons running around the NHL,&rdquo; Scotty said.The media shares Bowman&rsquo;s concern. Many journalists perceive the damage the Flyers have inflicted upon hockey&rsquo;s image. A national magazine recently singled out the Flyers for censure. Writers such as Bob Keisser of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner write:&ldquo;Instead of employing players like Dave Schultz to hammer opponents in fights, they [the Flyers] now wreak their havoc during the course of play through slashing, holding, high-sticking and hooking. In other words, intimidation.&rdquo;Such tactics have been perfumed on Broad Street by euphemisms. &ldquo;Hard-work&rdquo; is one of the cosmetic favorites. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s so &lsquo;hard&rsquo; about hooking or slashing?&rdquo; one NHLer responds.The anti-Flyers plaque argues that such cheap tactics work because the 10-eyed referee has yet to be born. Officials, under the present system, are incapable of keeping pace with the fouling Philadelphians.&ldquo;The Flyers,&rdquo; says Blues&rsquo; coach Red Berenson, &ldquo;are masters at interfering and hooking. Every time a winger is trying to break into the clear, he gets interfered with or hooked. Pretty soon he gets frustrated and stops skating&rdquo;Few opponents are tenacious enough to absorb 60 minutes of such flak. Instead, they succumb to the Flyers&rsquo; assault and are willing to leave bad enough alone. Some Philadelphia writers appear to take the same tack. They ignore the negative side of the Flyers&rsquo; department or produce fatuous rationales for their failure to censure the culprits.&ldquo;I no longer consider it interesting,&rdquo; says Jay Greenberg of the Philadelphia Daily News. &ldquo;It gets repetitive; old-hat. The Flyers are a big, rough team and sometimes they play dirty. I still believe that fighting is part of the game.&rdquo;Such rationales don&rsquo;t wash with non-Philadelphia types. One hard-nosed NHL scout who watched the Flyers getting shellacked early in the season at Maple Leaf Gardens noted: &ldquo;Once Philly sensed the game was lost they resorted to every cheap-shot in the book.&rdquo;The same pattern was followed more recently by the Flyers in a loss to the Canadiens at Montreal except that the Habs retaliated in kind and defused the Flyers&rsquo; fury.Canucks&rsquo; coach Harry Neale is acutely aware of such behavior and has advised his skaters accordingly. &ldquo;We tell our players that if Philadelphia gets frustrated they are apt to resort to &lsquo;physical play&rsquo;,&rdquo; Neale tells me. &ldquo;Against some teams they get the results that they want, the Flyers create an atmosphere where fights are more likely to occur.&rdquo;Are the Flyers as detestable as some people describe them?&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; says Neale, &ldquo;they&rsquo;re not as bad as they used to be.&rdquo;Unfortunately, in the eyes of many, that&rsquo;s bad enough!<h2>Savard Holds Habs&rsquo; Cure?</h2>NOTES: One quick cure for the Canadiens&rsquo; headaches would be the rapid ejection of Serge Savard from the lineup. It&rsquo;s time for Serge, the entrepreneur, to concentrate on his multi-businesses and let the hockey-minded kids take over the Habs&rsquo; defense &hellip; Harry Neale tells me that the Flyers are the best team in the NHL. &ldquo;When a game is up for grabs,&rdquo; says Neale, &ldquo;the Flyers will win it. They only lose when a team really outplays them.&rdquo; &hellip; Is Neale going to be the next Vancouver GM, succeeding Jake Milford? There&rsquo;s nothing to it,&rdquo; says Harry. &ldquo;I still enjoy coaching.&rdquo; But if Milford decides to retire, Harry could quickly get to like managing &hellip; Jake&rsquo;s acquisition of Tiger Williams is the single most important reason for the Canucks&rsquo; superior play this year &hellip; Red Wings&rsquo; owner Bruce Norris nearly plotzed when he discovered the ultra-liberal manner in which his ex-GM Ted Lindsay had dispensed Norris&rsquo; money on player contracts. Now Lindsay&rsquo;s successor, Jimmy Skinner, is trying to unload a spate of those absurdly excessive pacts &hellip; There is a survival-of-the-fittest philosophy among some NHL bosses who would not be adverse to seeing at least two of the weaker clubs evaporate &hellip; Mike Bossy says the best goaltending exhibition (against him) was delivered by Rogie Vachon when Rogie was with the L.A. Kings. &ldquo;It was a 0-0 tie,&rdquo; Bossy recalls, &ldquo;and he made an incredible number of great stops.&rdquo; &hellip; Bobby Orr says he can&rsquo;t see the Bruins moving to a new rink-sports complex in Rockingham Park, N.H. but the truth is that the Bruins&rsquo; high command will bid Boston Garden goodbye if they get a favorable report on the Rockingham-project &hellip; All 1,700 seats at the NHL All Star banquet in Los Angeles honoring Charles (Peanuts) Schulz have been sold &hellip; Why couldn&rsquo;t Ted Lindsay cut it as a coach? &ldquo;He was too easy,&rdquo; Wings&rsquo; captain Errol Thompson tells me. &ldquo;He gave us everything we wanted in the hopes that we&rsquo;d do better.&rdquo; &hellip; Wayne Maxner thought he was all alone one night near the dressing room while he pacedthe corridor waiting for his Red Wings&rsquo; to start the second period. &ldquo;Geez, geez, geez,&rdquo; snapped Maxner out loud. Then, an obscene &ldquo;Bleep!&rdquo; At that point he looked up and realized that he had uttered the obscenity in front of a female reporter who had been standing there all the time. &ldquo;Oops, sorry,&rdquo; said Maxner who returned to: &ldquo;Geez, geez, geez!&rdquo; &hellip; Scotty Bowman sensed that Buffalo fans wanted new blood on the Sabres. That explains why Alan Haworth and Gilles Hamel have been added to the roster, &ldquo;I got the feeling that we needed something else,&rdquo; says Scotty. &ldquo;The intensity was not there.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s another way of telling Craig Ramsay, Don Luce and Rick Dudley, among others, to take notice.<h2>Why Isn&rsquo;t Cherry Working?</h2>IS THERE A CHERRY BOYCOTT? If you were assured last October that the Rangers, Red Wings and Oilers would have changed coaches by December and were then asked whether one of the new coaches would be Don Cherry you would have, of course, answered yes.So, how come Grapes is still on the outside of the NHL looking in? How come Cherry, one of hockey&rsquo;s best salesmen, cannot get himself a coaching job? To put it another way, is Cherry the victim of a boycott?The question was put to Alan Eagleson, who is Cherry&rsquo;s representative.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll know if he&rsquo;s being boycotted by July 1, 1981,&rdquo; Rockies expires. Then we&rsquo;ll see if there are any offers.&rdquo;Have there been any offers since Grapes was unloaded by Colorado?&ldquo;Yes. He could have had the Pittsburgh job but he turned it down. One factor is that he wants to stay in Denver for the time being. It&rsquo;s a matter of his son&rsquo;s health. The boy has a kidney problem and he gets good treatment in Denver.&rdquo;What kind of &ldquo;feel&rdquo; do you get from other managers about Cherry?&ldquo;People don&rsquo;t want to buy a headache. A lot of managers have expressed some concern about that problem.&rdquo;Who likes Cherry besides me?&ldquo;Sammy Pollock, for one. He feels that Don did a lot of good things in Colorado. But now someone else is reaping the benefits. When a fellow like Pollock speaks highly of Cherry, he must be good. And let&rsquo;s not forget how well he worked with the other coaches on Team Canada in 1976. There wasn&rsquo;t one bad word said about him. And a lot of good ones.&rdquo;TRIVIA CORNER: Q. Few professional hockey players suffered lifetime suspensions but in the early 1950s this one did for slugging a referee from behind in an Eastern League playoff game between New Haven and Johnstown. Name the player and the referee. A. Joe Desson, a defenseman for New Haven (and previously with the Philadelphia Falcons and other minor league clubs) knocked referee Mickey Slowik unconscious and was suspended by EHL president Tom Lockhart.MEDIA NOTES: Helen (Newsday) Elliot is the latest woman reporter to get the dressing room heave-ho. Brad Park shouted Helene out of the Bruins&rsquo; locker area at Madison Square Garden while Helene interviewed Jim Craig &hellip; Hugh Delano of the New York Post writes that &ldquo;some wimps and whiners [on the Rangers] pouted when they didn&rsquo;t get enough playing time&rdquo; from Fred Shero. He adds that &ldquo;players quit on their coach&rdquo; and cost Shero his job. No names are mentioned. Another newsman&rsquo;s guess is Steve Vickers, Dave Maloney and Phil Esposito, among others &hellip; Jim (Edmonton Journal) Matheson also plays guessing games with us. &ldquo;What NHL player,&rdquo; he asks, &ldquo;is reputed to be so self-centered, people jokingly figure he looks in the standings for his name?&rdquo; The guy played in Edmonton this year &hellip; Denver Post columnist Steve Cameron tells it straight to-Colorado hockey fans &mdash; either support the Rockies or lose them to another city. &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; writes Cameron, &ldquo;we find out if Denver wants NHL hockey or not.&rdquo; He adds that if the Rockies don&rsquo;t draw from now to April, Arthur Imperatore has every right &ldquo;to move to New Jersey or Newfoundland.&rdquo;OPINIONS:&bull; The best underplayed move of the season was the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; acquisition of defenseman Gerry Hart.&bull; Gary Edwards will replace Don Beaupre as the North Stars&rsquo; second goalie by February.&bull; It won&rsquo;t happen but a great idea for a 22nd NHL club would be a merger between the Toronto and Montreal NHL Oldtimers teams.&bull; Each season one member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association should be allowed to referee one game and coach one team.MORE NOTES: A Manhattan-spawned rumor has the Rangers leaning toward Marshall Johnston as the next coach if Herb Brooks balks. But Craig Patrick may be talked out of that before he gets serious about M.J. &hellip; One NHL coach snipes that Tony Esposito&rsquo;s problem is not age but rather his caoch &hellip; A friend of Barry Beck says Bubba will never forget how Serge Savard refused to help and ignored him when they were NHL teammates in The Challenge Cup &hellip; Mike McEwen says the Rangers gave up too much speed when they unloaded Pat Hickey and himself last season.NEXT ISSUE: The Flyers and their supporters denounce the denouncers. And, finally, the Fischler view. &#9632;

f0014-01

ON THE CONTRARY

<div class="byline">BY FRED PIETILA</div>DENVER &mdash; Christmas arrived early for the Colorado Rockies this National Hockey League season. And it wasn&rsquo;t fully restricted to the Mile High City. The actual planning for this greatest of all Christmas presents began, in all places, Buffalo, N.Y.The Christmas present the Rockies received was neither a much-needed high-scoring center, nor a much-needed, high-scoring left winger &mdash; but a new owner.From all early indications, the much-needed and high-scoring center and left winger might be next to come.The sale of the Rockies from APA Transport, Inc., executives Arthur E. Imperatore and Armand Pohan to Buffalo, N.Y., cable television executive Peter Gilbert is expected to be consummated in late January or early February.As of mid-December, there apparently were no major obstacles in the path of the transfer.Reports and rumors had again been rampant this season that the Rockies would be sold to another party in another city or moved to the New Jersey Meadowlands next season. So, with Gilbert&rsquo;s assurance that he has no intention of moving the team from Denver, the Rockies&rsquo; diehard fans, who are continually bothered by this rumor, ought to be able to relax and enjoy their improving team.And the sale and guarantee that the Rockies would remain in Denver as Gilbert attempts to get into the ground floor of the Denver cable TV market also ought to bring back some of the doubting Thomases who have stayed away in the past because of absentee ownership.Imperatore and Pohan have made clear their intentions with the struggling five-year-old club since Day One when they purchased the franchise from Denver oilman Jack A. Vickers.The have stressed time and time again that they wanted to move the Rockies to the Meadowlands &mdash; or if not that, then sell the Rockies to local ownership and obtain an expansion franchise near their New Jersey homes.Gilbert&rsquo;s involvement with the Rockies began Nov. 30 in Buffalo, where the Sabres beat the Rockies by a 4-1 score.Gilbert, a 54-year-old owner of Internat International Cable Company. based in Buffalo, has envisoned himself as an NHL owner for some time.He has &ldquo;been working on owning a National Hockey league team in my mind for several years. I&rsquo;ve always been a fan. I watched the Rangers foryears, and I kept an apartment in Chicago for 12 years and had tickets to the Chicago Black Hawks.&rdquo;Gilbert&rsquo;s cable television company carries Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; games, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ve gotten to know a lot of people in hockey. When I found out I couldn&rsquo;t purchase the Sabres or the St. Louis Blues, I started looking around. I talked with the Sabres&rsquo; owners and they told me the Rockies&rsquo; owners might be interested in selling. I think it&rsquo;s public knowledge that the Rockies&rsquo; owners are from New Jersey and want a team there.&rdquo;So, when the Rockies and Sabres clashed in Buffalo on Nov. 30, Gilbert approached Pohan in the directors&rsquo; room of Memorial Auditorium. &ldquo;I was introduced to Armand and I asked him if he wanted to sell the Rockies,&rdquo; Gilbert recalled. &ldquo;He said yes; it happened that quickly.&ldquo;The league must approve my ownership and that should be no problem. And the city of Denver must agree to transfer the lease to me. And we&rsquo;ve got to sign the purchase agreement. As soon as that happens, though, I expect to be in the hockey business, and I&rsquo;m very excited. I&rsquo;m not familiar with Denver, but I&rsquo;ve studied the city enough to know that it can be a great hockey city,&rdquo; he said.Gilbert, who intends to have former Colorado lieutenant governor Mark Hogan as his chairman of the board, indicated he would purchase a home in the Denver area.Under Imperatore and Pohan, the Rockies have lost almost $4 million. Their 1980-81 attendance is about even with last year (8,200 a game) and their season ticket sales are also about the same 13.500 to 3.6001.Gilbert said he was aware of the Rockies&rsquo; financial problems. &ldquo;Not only am I prepared to lose money, but I&rsquo;m sure I will,&rdquo; Gilbert said. &ldquo;I have no illusions about a hockey team being a gold mine. But I&rsquo;ve gone into a lot of companies that weren&rsquo;t making money, and we ended up making money. I expect to make money with the Rockies, although I&rsquo;m sure it will take a while. My concern is putting together the best franchise.&rdquo;Gilbert will also probably buy or start a cable TV company in the Denver area, with the intent of joining it and the Rockies as a viable combination.Pohan said the sale of the Rockies to Gilbert would free him and Imperatore to seek an expansion franchise in the Meadowlands.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s what we would like to do,&rdquo; Pohan said,&rdquo;but there are obstacles. If those can be cleared, it&rsquo;s possible that a franchise would be awarded for next season or the season after that.&ldquo;We have examined Mr. Gilbert, and there&rsquo;s no question that he has the money, the attitude and the ability to own the Rockies. And he will keep the team in Denver.&rdquo; &#9632;

Rockies’New Owner Won’t Be Moving Team

<div class="byline">BY FRANK FONTAINE</div>QUEBEC CITY &mdash; Michel Dion would still like to play in Quebec City. The 26-year-old goalie, who skated off the Coliseum ice at the 7:39 mark of the second period of a game against the Bruins, on Dec. 10, made the astonishing statement from his father&rsquo;s home, in Montreal, after speaking on the phone with Nordiques&rsquo; general manager Maurice Fillion a few days after the incident.Dion was reluctant to say any more about his future, but it was obvious that contrary to what he had said on the spur of the moment, he had no desire to call it quits and that he was prepared to pay the price for his walkout. The Nordiques put Dinn on Waivers on Doc 18Dion said he knew tie was making a mistake from the moment he left his crease after Dick Redmond&rsquo;s second goal of the game, which then made the score 4 to 1. (The final score was 6-4 for Boston.) As was the case on his first goal, Redmond&rsquo;s shot came from fairly far out. It looked to the capacity crowd as though Dion should have stopped it &mdash; as he should have stopped Redmond&rsquo;s first marker, as well as a goal by Wayne Cashman in the first period.It was after the Cashman tally that the fans began to get on Dion. The booing got progressively louder as the pucks kept going in. And instead of trying to concentrate harder on the game, Dion just got madder at everybody &mdash; himself and the crowd.Whenever the play would stop, he&rsquo;d skate away from his nets with short, quick, jerky strides, or he&rsquo;d bang away at the goal posts with his stick. His mask was moving continuously, as he berated himself or harangued the spectators around him. At one point, he gestured to them with his arms, as if to say: &ldquo;Come on. Pour it on.&rdquo; That was just before Redmond&rsquo;s second goal&hellip; an easy shot he probably never saw because he was too angry. He knew he was beaten again, and before anyone could react, coach or teammates, he was gone, leaving a trial of discarded equipment behind him.This seemed an almost natural culmination of events for the unhappy goalkeeper. After last year&rsquo;s Cinderella season with the Nordiques, everything has gone wrong for him this season. The sad truth is, he hadn&rsquo;t had one really good game since the start of the current campaign.Dion started off the schedule as the team&rsquo;s No. 1 goalie, but he quickly played himself out of the regular spot. Journeyman Michel Plasse, who had been signed strictly as a backup man, took over the major part of the work load, while Dion wondered publicly what had gone wrong with his game, and why.He strongly suggested that contract troubles were at the source of all his problems. But there were other reasons; personal reasons.Michel is married to a girl from Indianapolis, where he once played in the World Hockey Association, and where he still makes his off-season home. According to his friends, his wife is not too fond of Quebec City. She did not join him here until well into the season. Such a situation can be extremely hard on a young couple getting adjusted to married life.After last year&rsquo;s Cinderalla season everything has gone wrong for Dion &hellip; the sad truth is, he hasn&rsquo;t had one really good game since the start of the current campaign.Throughout his ordeal, Dion&rsquo;s most loyal supporter was coach Michel Bergeron. But after Dion quit the team, Bergeron said he was through with him. &ldquo;Enough is enough. If it&rsquo;s left up to me, he&rsquo;ll never play with the Nordiques again,&rdquo; said the quick-tempered bench boss.However, GM Filion was more conciliatory. He said that while there was a limit to his patience, he wanted to talk matters over with the talented, albeit highly emotional, young man who, at the same time last year, was being heralded as one of the finest young goalies in the NHL.Filion&rsquo;s approach should pay off in the long run. Dion has already begun to make amends. Maybe some day soon, Michel will come up with that big game that&rsquo;ll change the boos back to cheers again.NOTES &mdash; GM Filion&rsquo;s hoping goalie Ron Grahame, purchased from the L.A. Kings the day after Dion&rsquo;s outburst, will return to the form he always showed at the Coliseum, when he played with the Houston Aeros. Grahame was murder on the Nordiques in the WHA, before signing as a free agent tshould have stoppedwh the Boston Bruins, in 1977. Despite a brilliant season, the Bruins traded him to L.A. in return for the Kings&rsquo; first round draft pick, with which they drafted All Star defenseman Raymond Bourque &hellip; The Nordiques paid cash for Grahame who had been relegated to being back-up man to Mario Lessard. The whopping contract Grahame signed with the Bruins is still in effect &hellip; That goalies&rsquo; union is as closely knit as ever. The backstoppers interviewed about the Dion affair all sympathized with him. Rogie Vachon said he often thought of doing what Dion did during his career but never dared because he knew he&rsquo;d become a marked man. Vachon says life in Detroit last season was pure hell. His current coach, Gerry Cheevers, said he too had some times though of skating away from it all during some games &hellip; Michel Plasse said he&rsquo;d seen other goalie do it &hellip; Richard Brodeur almost did it while with the WHA Nordiques &hellip; but Marc Boileau, who was coaching at the time, didn&rsquo;t let him get very far. He just pointed to the net and Brodeur docilely did an about turn.Frank Fontaine makes his debut in THE HOCKEY NEWS as the Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; correspondent, with this article.After last year&rsquo;s Cinderalla season everything has gone wrong for Dion &hellip; the sad truth is, he hasn&rsquo;t had one really good game since the start of the current campaign.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011082/4471376-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="963" height="1781"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By Bruce BennettMichel Dion apparently hadn&rsquo;t forsaken playing in Quebec City despite bolting from the team in the middle of a loss to Boston, but then he was placed on waivers.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0015-01

Nordiques’ Dion Regrets ‘Emotional’ Walkout

QUEBEC CITY - To most Canadians, Jean Lesage, who died on December 12, of cancer at his home, was known primarily as the father of the Quiet Revolution in the province of Quebec. However, hockey fans in Quebec will remember him as the father of the Nordiques.Mr. Lesage, 68, was chairman of the Nordiques&rsquo; board of directors. He had been associated with the team since its birth. The former Premier had been instrumental in convincing established NHL players such as Jean Claude Tremblay and Rejean Houle, to sign with the team when it belonged to the World Hockey Association.Mr. Lesage had been quick to realize the impact that the Nordiques could have on a city like Quebec, where tourism is the most important industry, (after the government, of course.) He was the one who set up the original financing of the team, among local businessmen.When operations began to get too costly for the original owners, he took advantage of his position as a director of Carling-O&rsquo;Keefe breweries to have the brewers invest two million dollars in the Nordiques. He then brought in a dynamic 26-year-old lawyer named Marcel Aubut, who became president of the team. Their goal was the NHL.Right up to his death, Mr. Lesage was in on every major move involving the Nordiques. His last stamp of approval was placed on the NHL divisional realignment which will go into effect next season. &#9632;

Father Of Nordiques, Lesage Dies At Home

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-01936/4471431-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0016-01

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE SCORING

<div class="byline">BY NEIL MILBERT</div>CHICAGO &mdash; If Reggie Kerr were an author instead of a hockey player with the Black Hawks he&rsquo;d be accused of plagiarism.Kerr is copying Charlie Simmer&rsquo;s script.Today Simmer is one of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s most lethal goalscorers. But a few years back he was a nomad who shifted between center and left wing and drifted through the season with an uninspiring statistical portfolio.It wasn&rsquo;t until he became a full-time left wing that Simmer&rsquo;s scoring totals skyrocketed and he became one of the top players in hockey.Something similar has happened to Kerr this season. He too alternated between center and left wing during the first few years of his pro career. Then, coach Keith Magnuson decided to try him at left wing on the line with center Terry Ruskowski, last year&rsquo;s team leader in assists, and right wing Grant Mulvey, the top goal-scorer.The move has turned the 23-year-old Kerr into Chicago&rsquo;s second-best goalgetter. Going into Christmas week he had 16 goals, a total exceeded only by Mulvey&rsquo;s 18.Hitherto, Kerr&rsquo;s best year in the NHL was two seasons ago, when he scored 16 goals and assisted on 24.Last year Kerr played in only 49 games and his season came to a premature conclusion because of back problems. After engaging in a rigorous off-season rehabilitation program at the Sports Fitness Institute in suburban Glen Ellyn, he came to training camp with high hopes.But in the first exhibition he got into a fight with Duane Sutter of the New York Islanders, subsequently missing the rest of training camp and the first eight regular-season games because of a separated shoulder.When he came back he went back to getting bit parts.&ldquo;At first, Keith didn&rsquo;t use me very much,&rdquo; recalled Kerr. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t feel right &mdash; I wasn&rsquo;t in shape and my head wasn&rsquo;t in the game.&ldquo;He asked me what was wrong. I told him I thought I was capable of making a big contribution to this team if I got a chance to play more.&ldquo;When he put me on the line with Terry and Grant, everything came together. I&rsquo;m happy about the way I&rsquo;ve been playing but our record disappoints me. It&rsquo;s not as much fun when you score goals, and your team doesn&rsquo;t win.&rdquo;Kerr laughed when it was suggested he was following Simmer&rsquo;s script.&ldquo;The main similarity there is is that we both broke into hockey with a team that&rsquo;s now out of business,&rdquo; replied Kerr. (Simmer was drafted 39th overall by the California Golden Seals in 1974. Three years later the franchise was known as the Cleveland Barons, and Kerr was their 41st overall draft choice.)&ldquo;Skating is a big part of my game and I think getting much more ice time this year has been the biggest factor in my success, &rdquo; Kerr continued. &ldquo;I still don&rsquo;t have any preference as far as positions go.&ldquo;Last year you have to remember at the start of the year I was the fourth center with Stan Mikita, Tommy Lysiak, and Terry Ruskowski ahead of me. This year I still don&rsquo;t figure to get a lot of ice-time at center. Stan has retired but we drafted Denis Savard.&rdquo;HAWK TALK - The Hawks made a surprising trade in mid-December, sending their highest scoring defenseman Mike O&rsquo;Connell (5-16-21) to Boston for left wing Al Secord, who&rsquo;d twice been demoted to the Bruins&rsquo; Springfield farm team. Secord&rsquo;s output with the Bruins was limited to three assists in 18 games. With Springfield he had four goals and six assists in nine games &hellip; After sitting out four straight games, incumbent All-Star goalie Tony Esposito returned to the ice and turned back the New York Rangers 2-1. He was chosen th game&rsquo;s No. 1 star. The No. 2 star was Tom Lysiak, author of the game-winning goal with 8:34 remaining &hellip; Grant Mulvey suffered a badly broken forearm in a recent game against Toronto when he crashed into the boards. He&rsquo;ll be out indefinitely. &#9632;

Hawks’ Kerr Follows Simmer’s Script

LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSHockey observers who had seen the Stastny brothers perform in world tournaments, were certain they could play regularly in the NHL, All they needed was a chance.Well the famous Czechoslovakian brothers, Peter and Anton Stastny, are proving with each passing week that they truly belong in the National Hockey League. The two Czech defectors have combined for a total of 27 goals in their first 33 NHL games and they seem to be getting better every time out.Anton turned in a remarkable six-point week with five goals and an assist to earn recognition as THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; Player of the Week. The younger of the two Stastnys scored in all three Quebec games to raise his season output to 34 points, nine behind brother Peter, who leads the Nordiques with 43. Anton has scored three power play goals and one game winner among his 15 goals.The arrival of the Stastnys has put new life in the Quebec offense and the Nordiques are going to get tougher as they go along if Anton and Peter continue to produce the way they have been since their arrival in the NHL this season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03491/4471486-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="490" height="790"><figcaption class="caption-body">ANTON STASTNY&hellip;Quebec Nordiques</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0018-03

NHL Player Of The Week

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT &mdash; Jimmy Skinner had the harried look of a loser in the victorious Detroit dressing room.&ldquo;Sitting up there in the stands is worse than coaching,&rdquo; said Skinner, the last man to coach the Red Wings to a Stanley Cup in 1955. &ldquo;You sit up there and second guess all the time. None of the games are easy.&rdquo;But Skinner, the Wings&rsquo; director of hockey operations, hasn&rsquo;t had to do much second guessing lately. Coach Wayne Maxner had the Wings on a four-game winning streak and it&rsquo;s been a long, long time since that&rsquo;s happened.Victories No. 3 and No. 4 in the streak came over Edmonton, 4-3, and Toronto, 5-3, and in each case the man most responsible for keeping the streak alive was goaltender Gilles Gilbert.&ldquo;Gilbert&rsquo;s giving us outstanding goaltending,&rdquo; Skinner said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s giving the club a lift when it needs it. Terry Sawchuk and Glenn Hall used to do that for us when we were winning championships.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m pleased with the way things are going but we&rsquo;ve still got a long way to go. They&rsquo;re working, trying and doing everything they&rsquo;re asked to do, but they can do even more. You&rsquo;ve got to be realistic. We&rsquo;ll have to fight for every point we can get and it&rsquo;s never going to be easy.&rdquo;Gilbert, the undisputed No. 1 goalie since the Wings traded Jimmy Rutherford to Toronto on Dec. 4, posted a 5-2-1 record in eight straight starts.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s coming up big when we have to have it, when it&rsquo;s 1-1 or 2-2. You&rsquo;ve got to come up with it. If you don&rsquo;t it&rsquo;s a battle,&rdquo; coach Wayne Maxner said.Gilbert preferred to spread the credit.&ldquo;Right now, it&rsquo;s 19 players &hellip; not just one or two or three, everybody is doing the job,&rdquo; Gilbert said.Dan Labraaten, a3O-goal scorer last season, finally got his first in 28 games this season in the victory over Edmonton. John Ogrodnick added his team-high 16th and rookie Mark Kirton his second. Mike Foligno added an empty net goal before the Oilers&rsquo; Don Murdoch cut the margin to a single goal with a score at 19:59 of the final period.Against the Maple Leafs, the Wings skated to a 4-1 first period lead and then held on before Foligno finally iced the victory with another empty net goal. Former wing Jimmy Rutherford was in goal for the Leafs and he and Gilbert put on quite a display of goaltending.&ldquo;Gilly stopped two or three breaka ways and Jimmy was phenomenal,&rdquo; Maxner said.All of the Red Wings are excited over their turnabout.&ldquo;I like this team, I really do,&rdquo; said defenseman Reed Larson. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re coming together. If you want the truth, we&rsquo;re a tough team. Not dirty but tough, and we&rsquo;ve got talented players. It&rsquo;s good to be tough, nobody is going to take our game away from us.&rdquo;Maxner said, &ldquo;Potentially, I&rsquo;m looking forward to making the playoffs. It&rsquo;s no secret I&rsquo;d still like to make some changes, three or four players.&rdquo;WING TIPS &mdash; &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t nervous at all,&rdquo; said Rutherford, the popular former Wing goaltender who returned to Joe Louis Arena with the Leafs. &ldquo;The last couple of days, I knew I was going to play against the Wings here and I was nervous then. But before the game, I was pretty calm.&rdquo; There was a hitch, however, &ldquo;I walked past the visitors&rsquo; dressing room door &hellip; I didn&rsquo;t know which one it was.&rdquo; &hellip; Rookie defenseman John Barrett is out with a slight shoulder separation. &ldquo;If this was a playoff game, he could have played,&rdquo; Maxner said. &ldquo;But why take a chance? He&rsquo;s an asset, a valuable player on this team, and I want to have him fit and ready when we need him.&rdquo; &#9632;

Goalie Gilbert The Catalyst Of Wings’ Revitalized Play

<div class="byline">BY JAY GREENBERG</div>PHILADELPHIA - It&rsquo;s a chilly ocean out there, full of waves, undertows, even a few sharks. You take a guy out of a warm whirlpool and throw him overboard, he just might drown.So Pat Quinn immerses Jimmy Watson one toe at a time. You have an All Star defenseman who will need to play like one again by May, you don&rsquo;t throw him into a channel swim in December.Watson is 28, with a career-threatening degenerating disc in his lower back. The Flyers can roll through any number of Edmontons and Winnipegs without Jimmy now, but they couldn&rsquo;t beat the Islanders in last year&rsquo;s finals with him sub-par. And there&rsquo;s no concrete evidence to suggest they will be able to do it this year, either.So they try not to rush him. They believe the doctors who tell them it&rsquo;s okay for Jimmy to play, try to believe Watson when he says he can play every game.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s my decision now,&rdquo; said Quinn, the Flyers&rsquo; coach. &ldquo;Jimmy has never walked in and said &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t want to play.&rsquo; He&rsquo;s the type of guy who would want to play under any kind of circumstances.&ldquo;But there were times that it was so apparent in warmups or in practices that he just couldn&rsquo;t move well enough. The medical decision has been to give him time in this area or that area. But at this stage it&rsquo;s just been a matter of coaching observation.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s been some back-to-back games where while he wants to play, you run the risk of binding him up again and losing him for a longer period of time. So you don&rsquo;t play him.&ldquo;He has assured me now that he can play all the time. But he used to always say that anyway.&rdquo;Watson says his back continues to stiffen up after games, suspects that back-to-back nights would be a load, but wants to put it to the test. Since he received medical clearance, Jimmy has dressed for eight of the Flyers&rsquo; 13 games.There&rsquo;s almost four months left until the playoffs, plenty of time to be sensible about this and find out just how much that back can take. But conditioning and psychological barriers are factors, too. Since his return, Watson has not played poorly, but as one would expect of a defenseman who has missed 19 games this year. The jury &mdash; his back &mdash; has not even heard the final arguments yet, yet let alone begun deliberating, but sooner or later, he&rsquo;s going to have to put it to the test. Later is probably the wiser course, but Watson has to find out some things about himself, too.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve been shy about taking and giving hits,&rdquo; said Jimmy. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to think I haven&rsquo;t. Maybe I have. I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;If so. Quinn says its understandable. &ldquo;I hope his conditioning comes around so he can be an All Star again,&rdquo; said the coach. &ldquo;We need his contributions and experience. But with the length of time he&rsquo;s been out, he&rsquo;s going through training camp again.&ldquo;When the body&rsquo;s not working right, the head can&rsquo;t. And you need these practices to catch up. Any player coming off an injury is tentative until he regains his confidence. I expected that. I&rsquo;m not down on him. He just has to go through it.&rdquo;And be able to get out of bed the next morning. Jimmy tries not to think of the worst these days, because even if the current treatment &mdash; periodic rest and a relaxation technique &mdash; doesn&rsquo;t work, there are still alternatives.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01845/4471517-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="552" height="864"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jimmy Watson is the type of player who wants to play every game, but the Flyers are using him cautiously.</figcaption></div>There are chiropracters. There&rsquo;s acupuncture. There&rsquo;s your Aunt Emma and the surefire cure she used, with mixed results, on your late Uncle Al. If Fred Shero will answer his phone, he may even remember the name of that faith healer he and Orest Kindrachuk visited a few years ago.Jimmy is only 28. It&rsquo;s too early for any sad songs, but it has been painful to see him diminished by his physical misfortunes of the last five years.He was playing as strong a defense as anyone in the NHL when a Gary Sargent slapshot fractured a cheekbone in the 1976 Canada Cup. An errant Jerry Butler stick, in a 1977 game in St. Louis, his cost Jimmy some peripheral vision in his right knee. And the back, which began as little more than an annoyance, had deteriorated to the point where he submitted to an electrical shock treatment at the beginning of the season.It didn&rsquo;t work, but Jimmy refuses to despair. &ldquo;The relaxation stuff has probably helped some,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s certainly not a cure-all.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m optimistic. When Pat feels I&rsquo;m ready to play game-in, game-out, I&rsquo;m ready.&rdquo;ICEBERGS &mdash; Ken Linseman had only one point in his first four games after returning to the lineup &hellip; Pat Qqinn, with five centers spotted Mel Bridgman and Tim Kerr between wing and center on a fourth line, and continued to use Rick MacLeish at center. MacLeish became the 38th player in the history of the NHL to score 300 goals, with a game-winner against St. Louis &#9632;

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Flyers Won’t Risk Losing Watson

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div>BOSTON &mdash; At 4:10 p.m., Friday. Dec. 19, the Boston Bruins were, in the words of general manager Harry Sinden. &ldquo;halfway home.&rdquo; which came as a surprise to a dwindling number of fans who didn&rsquo;t think the 11-15-6 club had even left the driveway.The latest low point in a season (hus far chockfull of low points came the night before when the St. Louis Blues turned on their old tormenters and routed them 7-3 for only their second victory in Boston Garden in the past seven years.That obviously called for extraordinary measures, so on Friday morning at 10:40 a.m., one by one like chastened schoolboys, the Bruins filed into coach Gerry Cheevers&rsquo; office for a little verbal wrestling with Sinden, Cheevers and assistant coach Gary Doak.&ldquo;A lot of points were raised,&rdquo; said Sinden, describing cautiously the unprecedented five hours and 30 minutes of debate between players and management.&ldquo;A lot of valid, legitimate things surfaced. Naturally, we felt one thing became the dominant factor. There was one problem that was a common denominator for most of the players.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not to say that you all of a sudden start winning just because you know the major problem or problems. But it&rsquo;s better to get halfway home and that halfway mark is to identify what&rsquo;s wrong. The next job is to solve it.&rdquo;Sinden wouldn&rsquo;t say what that &ldquo;common denominator&rdquo; was but the St. Louis Blues were rejoicing over the results of it.&ldquo;The old days in Boston are gone now,&rdquo; said coach Red Berenson, who stopped short of announcing that visiting teams are no longer intimidated by the erstwhile big. bad Bruins in the chummy confines of their little Boston Garden.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s just say that the so-called Boston jinx, or whatever you want to call it, isn&rsquo;t present any longer.&ldquo;Boston was so strong at home that they had an edge on a team before they took the ice. They had a home ice advantage more so than the average team. You knew you had to play extremely well to get out of Boston Garden with two points.&ldquo;Now, it&rsquo;s a different situation. We&rsquo;re a different team and Boston&rsquo;s a different team. Their players have changed. The young players are new to Boston. The oldtimers have changed. Wayne Cashman is a different kind of hockey player than he was six years ago.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re just a completely different team. You can sense it watching them.&rdquo;&ldquo;Everybody&rsquo;s catching up with them,&rdquo; said the Blues&rsquo; Bernie Federko, who has been around just long enough (four years) to recall the Bruins when they were truly big and bad.&ldquo;Two years ago we didn&rsquo;t have a shot in this building. Last year we were one-and-one. Tonight we blew them right out. I don&rsquo;t know what their problem is but they got one.&rdquo;He didn&rsquo;t sound unhappy about it at all.As a matter of fact, more and more long-suffering teams are looking forward to visits to Boston Garden. Two weeks ago, Quebec won for the first time. Vancouver won for the first time in eight years.And the Minnesota North Stars simply can&rsquo;t wait for Jan. 12 to arrive when they will have an odds-on chance to break the longest jinx in hockey. They have never beaten the Bruins in Boston since they entered the league 13 seasons ago.With a couple of minutes remaining in the St. Louis game, the Bruins announced a trade, sending Al Secord, the young, tough but penalty-prone left winger, to Chicago for defenseman Mike O&rsquo;Connell, whose forte is moving the puck out of the zone.It was only a coincidence, the Bruins assured everyone, that the trade was announced moments after a lazy pass from Dick Redmond to Brad McCrimmon was picked off by Jorgen Pettersson. who went in alone on goalie Jim Craig for the go-ahead goal.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s safe to say we need some help on defense,&rdquo; said Cheevers. &ldquo;O&rsquo;Connell moves the puck quite well and he&rsquo;s a righthanded defenseman, which on our team is uhique because we&rsquo;re all lefthanded.&rdquo;&ldquo;He&rsquo;s supposed to be very mobile in handling the puck,&rdquo; said Brad Park, the senior Bruins&rsquo; defenseman, who conceded that, with the balanced schedule in the NHL, he really hadn&rsquo;t had much chance to see O&rsquo;Connell in action.&ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s necessarily the problem,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Anything that&rsquo;s been happening to us is a team effort. It&rsquo;s the forwards and the defense. It&rsquo;s not one area that&rsquo;s causing the problems.&ldquo;We used to have a very simple philosophy: Don&rsquo;t handle the puck in our end. Shoot it out as hard as you can and we&rsquo;ll play in their end. We&rsquo;re having trouble moving it out. But. like I say, it takes all five guys to move it out.WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN: Cheevers recently underwent an emergency appendectomy and could miss the Bruins&rsquo; sixgame road trip. Gary Doak will probably coach the team while Cheevers recuperates.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01807/4471572-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="555" height="706"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike O&rsquo;Connell&rsquo;s ability to move the puck out of his own zone was a major reason the Bruins traded for him.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0019-01

Bruins Hold Discussions To Air Problems

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div>MONTREAL &mdash; The question will be asked several hundred times:Did the Montreal Canadiens do the smart thing when they selected Doug Wickenheiser as their No. I choice in last summer entry draft?The answer will probably not come until Wickenheiser is ready to unlace his skates and hang up his Montreal uniform for the last time.&ldquo;I think maybe at the end of my career might be the easiest time to compare me with [Davidj Babych and [Denisl Savard,&rdquo; Wickenheiser noted. &ldquo;I think you have to wait until a person is finished and judge his whole career rather than doing it in, say, the first five years.&rdquo;&ldquo;Individual awards are always nice and everybody likes to get them. There is no heartbreak if you don win them. You have a better chance at the individual awards, especially something like the rookie, if youre on a poorer team. People seem to notice you more.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s easy to spot Savard and Babych, because at least they are getting a chance to play regularly. Savard started off well with the Chicago Black Hawks, although the former Montreal Junior struggled along with his club late November and early December.Babych was one of the few positive aspects of a Winnipeg club which rolled its way into futility, losing game after game en route to an NHL winless record.&ldquo;Sure it&rsquo;s nice to be able to play every day," said Wickenheiser. who has spent several nights this season modelling some of his finest tailor-made suits. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll probably still be practicing or playing in May while they are at home watching the playoffs on TV.&rdquo;The 19-year-old from Regina appeared in two-thirds of the Canadiens&rsquo; first 33 games this season, getting four goals and 10 assists. But in the majority of the games, he was used just three or four times a game by coach Claude Ruel, who sat the youngster out for five consecutive games in mid-December.&ldquo;It was a blow to my pride and my ego at the beginning of the year when I had to sit out.&rdquo; Wickenheiser remembered. &ldquo;I let it get to me too much.&rdquo;Wickenheiser was in the stands for all three games on the mid-December trip, a disappointment to his parents who were on hand for the games in Calgary and Edmonton. There didn&rsquo;t seem to be any plausible reason for his penance in the stands, it was just another series of coaching decision by Ruel, who is coming under heavy criticism from fans, players and, of course, the media for his moves this month.While the Canadiens were .500 for their western trip, they could have and should have had at least five or six points. Reverting to a laid-back style in Edmonton, the Canadiens blew a 3-2 lead in the last five minutes of play and lost 4-3 when Dave Hunter of the Oilers beat Denis Herron with two seconds to play.In Vancouver, silly penalties incurred by Rejean Houle and Chris Nilan led to four power-play goals for the Canucks, although Keith Acton scored two tainted goals to lift Montreal to a 4-4 tie.Led by Rod Langway&rsquo;s two-goal, one-assist effort, the Canadiens mastered Calgary 4-0 as Herron recorded his first victory of the season and his first shutout in a Montreal uniform.However Herron was not as sharp against the Oilers and neither were the rest of his mates, who looked as though they were feeling the effects of Ruel&rsquo;s decision to go basically with nine forwards and four defensemen.After Edmonton&rsquo;s Mark Messier had tied the, game, the Canadiens stopped dead apparently on Ruel&rsquo;s orders.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand it.&rdquo; said Larry Robinson, who had the winning goal go off his glove. &ldquo;I can see it against the Islanders or a team that&rsquo;s really hot.&rdquo;Why is it that we can go into a game against Calgary and not worry about who is playing against who. How come we had to start matching lines against Edmonton?&ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t we go out and play the game?&rdquo;.Easy Larry, the coach won&rsquo;t let you. Ruel has always and will probably continue to play as close to the vest as possible. But the laid-back style cost Montreal three victories in their first 33 games and the limited usage of people such as Wickenheiser, probably cost a couple more,IN PASSING - Doug Risebrough received an early Christmas present. Risebrough, out of action since Oct. 15 with an arthritic problem in his left shoulder which was separated last March 15, was given the go-ahead to resume playing. Risebrough wanted to rejoin his team-mates in Edmonton on Dec. 20. but the club decided to delay his return &hellip; Rick Chartraw suffered damage to his ribs in a practice collision with Pierre Mondou just before the Canadiens were set to leave for Vancouver on their mid-December tour of the Canadian west. Chart raw was likely to sit out anyway &hellip; Guy Lapointe&rsquo;s return to the lineup was unforeseeable at Christmas. Lapointe suffered a severe Charley horse on Nov..29 and doctors, have not seen much improvement in the injury &hellip; Gaston Gingras was scratched from the Canadiens&rsquo; lineup Dec. 18 in Vancouver as Bill Baker moved in as the fifth defenseman. Gingras had not sat out since Oct. 15, but his play had slipped, partly because of limited ice time as Ruel went with four defensemen when Robinson returned from his shoulder separation. &#9632;

Ruel Provides Ammunition For Habs’ Second-Guessers

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01637/4471627-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Veteran NHLers Rick MacLeish, left, of the Philadelphia Flyers, and the Boston Bruins&rsquo; Wayne Cashman each achieved personal milestones in the NHL recently. Cashman collected his 700th career point while MacLeish scored his 300th lifetime goal.</figcaption></div><h2>Trade Offs</h2>BOSTON - Mike O&rsquo;Connell, Gordie Roberts and Mike Fidler are three of the growing number of U.S. born hockey players making it in the NHL arid now all are with new teams.O&rsquo;Connell, a defenseman who was born in Chicago but played his hockey in Canada with the Kingston Canadians, was swapped by the Chicago Black Hawks to the Boston Bruins for left winger Al Secord.Fidler, who is a native of Charlestown, Mass., and a product of Boston University, has landed with the Hartford Whalers in a trade for defenseman Gordie Roberts. Like O&rsquo;Connell and Fidler, Roberts, too, is an American. He hails from Detroit, although he played his junior hockey in Western Canada with Victoria. Fidler, a left winger, has been on the injured list most of the season.<h2>NHL Milestones</h2>PHILADELPHIA - NHL scoring milestones are popping so fast, the hockey historians are going to have trouble keeping track of them.Wayne Cashman and Rick MacLeish, both achieved personal scoring plateaus while three others &mdash; Marcel Dionne, Guy Lafleur and Bobby Clarke &mdash; continued in their efforts to reach the 1,000-point mark in their big league careers.Cashman, the veteran captain of the Boston Bruins, recorded his 700th NHL career point when he assisted on a goal by Raymond Bourque in a 2-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks.MacLeish, the sharpshooting center of the Philadelphia Flyers, fired his 300th career goal the night of Dec. 14 and it was a big one. It proved to be the game-winner as the Flyers edged St. Louis 5-4. It was his 18th of the season.Meanwhile, the race to become the NHLs 1,000-point scorer is shaping up into a three-way dogfight between Dionne, Lafleur and Clarke. All three have managed to either tie or pass Andy Bathgate on the all-time scoring list with their 973rd career points. Dionne was actually ahead with 984 points after his 31st game of the season, pushing him into 13th place. Lafleur rapped in his 974th point. Clarke, who had a hat trick recently against Pittsburgh, raised his total to 973 to tie Bathgate for 15th spot.<h2>Gretzky No. 1</h2>EDMONTON &mdash; Hot scoring Wayne Gretzky continues to stash away the individual awards.The super star of the Edmonton Oilers was chosen as Canada&rsquo;s male Athlete of the Year by the Canadian Press. The 20-year-old Gretzky tied with Marcel Dionne for the NHL scoring lead last season but lost out to the Kings&rsquo; center because of Dionne&rsquo;s better goal-scoring record. He also walked off with the Hart Trophy as MVP and the Lady Byng Trophy as most gentlemanly player, a rarity for a first-year player.In the annual CP year-end poll, Gretzky was an overwhelming choice over Terry Puhi, the Melville, Sask., native who stars for the Houston Astros, and Marathon of Hope runner Terry Fox, who finished third in the voting.<h2>Edwards Available</h2>BLOOMINGTON - North Stars&rsquo; general manager Lou Nanne can&rsquo;t figure out why no NHL team wants to make a deal for idle netminder Gary Edwards.The 33-year-old Edwards has become a victim of the numbers game with the Minnesota North Stars and has yet to see action in an NHL game this season. Don Beaupre, the 19-year-old rookie who jumped into the goalkeeping job, has pushed Edwards out of the picture. Veteran Gilles Meloche is the backup to Beaupre as well.Nanne said he is puzzled why no other NHL team has approached him about Edwards, who is obviously available. &ldquo;Everyone thinks I&rsquo;m after a first round draft choice when I&rsquo;m trying to make any kind of deal,&rdquo; said Nanne. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not true. Sure I&rsquo;m looking to strengthen the team. I was talking trade with one GM the other day and 1 told him I&rsquo;d give him a draft choice if he could send me a player who could play on my club right now.&rdquo;Nanne said he hasn&rsquo;t talked with the Toronto Maple Leafs this season about Edwards, whom Nanne thinks could help a number of NHL clubs right now. The Leafs recently grabbed Jim Rutherford from Detroit.<h2>Soviets Triumph</h2>MOSCOW &mdash; The Soviet Union has captured the Izvestia Cup tournament championship in the first big event of the European hockey season.The Soviets won the cup by trouncing Czechoslovakia 6-2 in the championship game after playing scoreless hockey for the first 18 minutes of the contest. Vyatshevlav Fetisov started the Russians on their way with a goal late in the period before the flood gates opened in the second and the Soviets ran in five unanswered goals. Alexander Maltsev, Victor Schalimov, Victor Zhuluktov with two, and Shepelev were the other Soviet scorers. Both of Czechoslovakia&rsquo;s goals came in the last two minutes of the game.The Soviets, who lost an early round game to the Czechs 5-4, were completely in command of the title game and played without three of their injured stars in the lineup. The Czechs had been rolling with a 2-0 record in the tournament when they were upset by Finland 5-1<h2>Cheevers Out</h2>BOSTON &mdash; As if the Boston Bruins weren&rsquo;t having enough problems on the ice, head coach Gerry Cheevers underwent an emergency appendectomy operation at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and will be forced to miss the team&rsquo;s six-game road trip.Bruins&rsquo; GM Harry Sinden said assistant coach Gary Doak will take over behind the Bruins&rsquo; bench in Cheevers absence. Sinden said that Dr. Ashby Moncure, who performed _ the surgery on Cheevers, reported that &ldquo;everything went fine with the operation.&rdquo;<h2>Coach Recalled</h2>WINNIPEG &mdash; The Winnipeg Jets have been doing considerable player recalling this season from the Tulsa Oilers but this past week they went one step further &mdash; and summoned the coach of the CHL team to the NHL club.The Jets announced that Mike Smith has been appointed associate coach with the NHL team and he will be in charge of the Jets&rsquo; specialty units and defense. The 35-year-old Smith will serve under new head coach Bill Sutherland, who recently was named to replace Tommy McVie, after he was fired by the Jets during an NHL record losing streak.Bobby Guindon, a former member of the Jets, has been installed as interim coach of the Tulsa Oilers.<h2>Bossy On Course</h2>NEW YORK - Mike Bossy of the Islanders continues to roll towards the NHLs long-standing goal scoring record of 50 goals in 50 games.The sharpshooting Islander right winger blasted home four more goals, including a hat trick during New York&rsquo;s 9-0 lambasting of the Chicago Black Hawks. The four goals gave Bossy 37 in 36 games, which put him within range of the existing record set-by the great Maurice (Rocket) Richard back in 1945. The mark has stood the test of time but now it appears Bossy, at his present rapid rate of production, will possibly break it before 50 games. Another NHL scorer, Charlie Simmer of the L.A. Kings, is also chasing the record. Simmer had 33 goals in 33 games &#9632;

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SLAPSHOTS

<h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>BOSTON - Roy Schultz, G, returned to Springfield of AHL. Craig MacTavish, C, and Keith Crowder, LW, recalled from Springfield. Al Secord, LW, traded to Chicago in return for Mike O&rsquo;Connell, D. Jim Stewart, G, recalled from Indianapolis of CHL and reassigned to Springfield.BUFFALO &mdash; Alan Haworth, C, returned to Rochester of AHL. Lindy Ruff, D, sidelined for six weeks with broken ankle.CALGARY - Bobby Gould, RW, returned to Birmingham of CHL. Dan Bouchard, G, placed on injury list.CHICAGO &mdash; John Marks, LW, out for season with broken leg. Paul Mulvey, RW, placed on injury list with fractured wrist.COLORADO &mdash; Trevor Johansen, D, returned to lineup from injury list.DETROIT - Mai Davis, C, returned to Adirondack of AHL. Wayne Wood, G, signed as free agent and assigned to Adirondack.EDMONTON - Tom Roulston, C, recalled from Wichita of CHL. Charlie Huddy, D, out indefinitely with a shoulder separation. B. J. MacDonald, RW, on injury list for two weeks with broken finger.HARTFORD - Gord Roberts, D, traded to Minnesota in exchange for Mike Fidler, LW. Bernie Johnston, C, Dave Debol, RW, and Mark Renaud, D, all assigned to Binghamton of AHL.LOS ANGELES &mdash; Doug Keans, G, recalled from Houston of CHL.MINNESOTA - Dino Ciccarelli, LW, recalled from Oklahoma City of CHL. Gary Sargent, D, and Steve Christoff, LW. both placed on injury list. Murray Brumwell, D, and Jim Dobson, RW, returned to Oklahoma City.RANGERS &mdash; Lance Nethery, C, returned to New Haven of AHL-QUEBEC - Alain Cote, recalled from Rochester of AHL. Marc Tardif, LW, on injury list, Normand Rochefort, D, returned to lineup from injury list. Michel Dion, G, placed on waivers.ST. LOUIS &mdash; Bobby Simpson, LW, recalled from Salt Lake of CHL and handed outright release.TORONTO &mdash; Paul Marshall, LW, recalled from New Brusnwick of AHL. Wilf Paiement, RW, returned from injury list.VANCOUVER - Kevin Primeau, LW, returned to Dallas of CHL.WASHINGTON - Tony Cassolato, RW, and Howard Walker, D, recalled from Hershey of AHL. Pierre Bouchard, D, placed on injury list with torn knee cartilage. Rollie Boutin, G, returned to Hershey.WINNIPEG &mdash; Lindsay Middlebrook, G, and Ross Cory, D, recalled from Tulsa of CHL. Pat Daley, LW, returned to Tulsa. Moe Mantha, D, placed on injury list.<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>BINGHAMTON - Paul Stewart, RW, signed as free agent.HERSHEY - Errol Rausse, LW, off injury list.NEW HAVEN &mdash; Ray Markham, C, returned to lineup for first time since training camp injury. Mike Clarke, LW, and Dan Makuch, RW, assigned to Richmond of EHL.NOVA SCOTIA - Wayne Thompson, C, recalled from Flint of IHL. Bill Kitchen, D, back from injury list. Mark Holden, G, out indefinitely after suffering shoulder separation.SPRINGFIELD - Bob Stephenson, RW, reported after previously balking at being assigned by Toronto.<h2>CENTRAL LEAGUE</h2>INDIANAPOLIS - Lome Stamler, LW, back to lineup after bout with hepatitis. Mike Hordy, D, also returned to lineup from injury list.TULSA - Lyle Moffat, RW, returned to lineup from injury list. Bob Guindon, C, out with ankle injury.WICHITA - Roy Sommer, LW, out indefinitely after undergoing surgery for a broken jaw. Laurie Nisker, RW, returned to Richmond of EHL. Bill Bennett, RW, out with shoulder surgery.<h2>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>PORT HURON - Bill McNaught, C, assigned to Hampton of EHL.<h2>EASTERN LEAGUE</h2>ERIE &mdash; Stan Gulutzan, RW, out indefinitely with shoulder separation.HAMPTON &mdash; Steve Stockman, C, purchased from Erie of EHL for cash. Rich Duguay, RW, and Paul Tilley, RW. both placed on waivers. Ken Southwick, D, left team to return to his home.RICHMOND - Tom Mullen, C, on injury list.SALEM &mdash; Tom Machowski, RW, left team to play in Holland. Tom O&rsquo;Toole, G, released. &#9632;

Latest Player Movements In Hockey

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div>HARTFORD - Forget the fame and financial rewards for the moment, and light a candle for the professional athlete.Norm Barnes woke up one December morning, a member of the Philadelphia Flyers, packed to fly to Detroit.When Barnes fell asleep late that night, he was actually a member of the Hartford Whalers, packed to fly to Calgary.&ldquo;My in-laws live in Detroit, so I was really looking forward to the trip,&rdquo; Barnes said. &ldquo;I had Christmas presents and all that stuff.&rdquo;For Barnes, the move from Philly to Hartford was the 19th of his seven-year professional career.&ldquo;It took me seven years to buy a house,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been living in it for about eight months and we just got the carpeting in the day before the trade. Do you believe it? The day before.&rdquo;Barnes, at 27, a 6-0, 190-pound Toronto native, was the second defenseman obtained by the Hartford Whalers from the Flyers in two weeks.Jack Mcllhargey, a 28-year-old defenseman known for his physical and enthusiastic input, is the other.For Barnes and Mcllhargey, the Whalers gave up a second-round draft choice in 1981 or 1982, the same method by which they acquired goaltender Mike Veisor from Chicago in the off-season. Chicago gets first choice on the draft pick with the other second-rounder going to the Flyers.The arrival of Barnes and Mcllhargey was greeted by applause on the part of the Whalers.&ldquo;Not only are they good defensemen,&rdquo; coach Don Blackburn said, &ldquo;but they are two of the toughest guys in the NHL. We won&rsquo;t have to put up with much nonsense with those two guys around.&rdquo;&ldquo;We&rsquo;re all happy to see them &rdquo; Veisor said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re going to make things a lot easier for the rest of us.&rdquo;&ldquo;They will improve our team 10C percent,&rdquo; winger Tom Rowe said. &ldquo;Not only do they have ability, but they add enthusiasm and hustle. They are the type that never stop working.&rdquo;Both Barnes and Mcllhargey initially expressed disappointment about leaving the Flyers&rsquo; organization.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give Hartford 110 percent all the time I play, but I&rsquo;m disappointed right now,&rdquo; Barnes said.&ldquo;This is a difficult time of my life,&rdquo; Mcllhargey said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything about Hartford. I feel lost.&rdquo;Whalers&rsquo; GM Jack Kelley said that he fully understood the pair&rsquo;s reaction.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s be honest,&rdquo; Kelley said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a step up. They have a right to be disappointed. When a player plays for the Flyers, he&rsquo;s thinking about the extra $25,000 or $20,000 he can make in playoff money.&ldquo;But they&rsquo;re joining a good organization. They can be important players here. Maybe by playing in Hartford, they can add a couple of years to their careers.&rdquo;Injuries at the blueline as well as an unproductive sameness prompted the deals.Rick Ley has missed roughly half the games with knee trouble, while Thommy Abrahamsson has been sidelined with an assortment of injuries, ranging from a virus infection to a groin pull.More significantly, perhaps, all of the Whalers&rsquo; blueliners play like forwards. While they skate and handle the puck well, they do not move bodies from in front of the net.The Whalers felt that they needed a stay-at-home bruiser willing to play the body.In Barnes and Mcllhargey, they&rsquo;ve acquired two.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough when you&rsquo;ve got five forwards playing defense,&rdquo; Blackburn said. To be ettective, you need players who can handle the skating end of it and players who can handle the physical end. With the crew we&rsquo;ve got right now, I think we&rsquo;ll mesh a lot better.&rdquo;&ldquo;I like Blackie and I like Larry [Assistant coach Larry Pleau],&rdquo; Mcllhargey said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve got a good bunch of guys here.&rdquo;&ldquo;The Whalers are an up and coming team,&rdquo; said Barnes, who has been paired primarily with Mark Howe. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re a team with a future. Playing with Mark hasn&rsquo;t hurt either. He&rsquo;s a good hockey player who can do a little bit of everything.&rdquo;Randy Smith, who covers the Whalers for the Manchester, Ct., Journal-Inquirer, starts this week as THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; Whaler correspondent.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01479/4471682-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="550" height="815"><figcaption class="caption-body">Norm Barnes was disappointed that the Flyers traded him, but he feels the Whalers have a good future.&rdquo;</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0021-01

Hartford Adds Muscle To Defense

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01532/4471713-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By Graig AbelNewly acquired center Paul Gardner set a Pittsburgh club record when he scored four goals in a losing cause against the Flyers.</figcaption></div>PITTSBURGH - The Civic Arena organist plays &ldquo;Clap for the Wolfmen&rdquo; as Pittsburgh Penguin defenseman Bennett Wolf skates back to the bench to a round of applause and wolf howls.Wolf has just finished a shift in which he knocked an opposing centerman on his rear for trying to camp in front of the Penguin net. Wolf&rsquo;s aggressive style of play and propensity to mix it up quickly have made him a favorite in his first season in Pittsburgh.The 6-3, 205-pounder was drafted by the Penguins in the third round of the 1979 Amateur Draft. He broke his ankle last season after an impressive training camp and spent the entire year in Grand Rapids of the International League, where he picked up 417 penalty minutes in only 51 games.&ldquo;The role [coach] Eddie Johnston has for me is to play an aggressive type of game,&rdquo; Wolf said. &ldquo;1 try to clear the front of the net out because most of the good team&rsquo;s centers crowd the front. I just try to play a tough, aggressive game and move them out.&rdquo;Johnston has picked his spots when he likes Wolf to play and one of the most frequent is when the Penguins are a man short and the opposition tries to set up shop in front of the Pittsburgh net.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the type of coach you want to go out and do your best for,&rdquo; said Bennett Wolf of Penguins&rsquo; coach Eddie Johnston.&ldquo;E.J.&rsquo;s a super coach and I&rsquo;ve learned an awful lot from him this year,&rdquo; Wolf said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve learned more in the weeks I&rsquo;ve been here than I have the last four or five years.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the type of coach you want to go out and do your best for. It&rsquo;s not like you have to go out and do a job, it&rsquo;s you want to go out and do it for him. When you get into trouble he&rsquo;ll tell you what you did wrong. He doesn&rsquo;t yell and scream, but he&rsquo;ll point out what you should have done in that situation. On the other hand if you make a good play, he&rsquo;s right there to give you a pat on the back. It helps keep your confidence up.&rdquo;Wolf was injured again in training camp this season and spent a couple of weeks in Binghamton of the American League getting into shape before he was recalled.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a bit tougher than all of the other leagues that I&rsquo;ve played in,&rdquo; Wolf admitted about playing in the National Hockey League. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an experience, but I&rsquo;ve enjoyed it a lot so far. I&rsquo;m really happy to be with the team.&rdquo;Although Wolf is primarily known for his aggressive style, he is attempting to improve other areas of his game.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not that fast a skater, but I can get around fairly well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty big so I like taking out the man, playing the body, but I stick back at the blueline and play defense. There&rsquo;s room for improvement.&ldquo;This summer 1&rsquo;11 take figure skating lessons to improve my skating. Four years ago I could hardly skate at all compared to the standards here. It&rsquo;s gradually improved from year to year.&rdquo;Wolf, 21, credits his parents for having a great deal to do with his being in the NHL.&ldquo;There was a time where I was going to quit playing hockey and my parents talked me into just playing for the winter for something to do. From that point on everything just seemed to turn around from me. My parents have helped me an awful lot with my hockey.&rdquo;The Kitchener, Ont., native wants to help the Penguins become a winner and eventually capture the Stanley Cup.&ldquo;I just go out on the ice and try to do the best job that I can,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I just want to win all the time. It&rsquo;s a lot better when you&rsquo;re winning than when you&rsquo;re losing.&rdquo;PENGUIN TRACKS - Paul Gardner set a club record when he scored four goals in a 6-5 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. No Penguin had scored more than three goals in a game before &hellip; Rick Kehoe reached the 20-goal mark faster than any Penguin in history &hellip; Johnston&rsquo;s club beat the team that fired him this summer, the Chicago Black Hawks, 6-4, in the first meeting of the clubs since he took over as coach of the Penguins. &#9632;

f0022-01

Tenacious Wolf Keeps Foes Off Pens’ Doorstep

<div class="byline">BY JIM LEAHY</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSBINGHAMTON &mdash; The Whalers lost two of three during the week but that lone victory was one of their biggest wins of the year. After dropping a 6-3 contest in Hershey and being blasted 9-2 at home by Nova Scotia, the Whalers came into New Haven&rsquo;s Veterans Memorial Coliseum tied with the Nighthawks for fourth place in the Southern Division and sporting an unimpressive 3-14-1 record in New Haven since they joined the AHL four years ago. Binghamton had to be the underdog in this contest after giving up 15 goals in their last two games and having one of the worst road records in the league.In an absolutely amazing performance, the Whalers blasted New Haven 6-2 and took over fouth place in the standings. Perhaps the presence of Hartford coach Don Blackburn had something to do with the Binghamton victory because they looked unbeatable that night. Three first period goals gave the visitors the early lead as Steve Alley, Ray Allison and Glenn Merkosky found the range. The rout continued in the second period. Jeff Brubaker, Merkosky and Alley gave the Whalers a 6-0 lead after two periods in what was now a hard-hitting affair as the frustrated Nighthawks tried everything to break Ken Holland&rsquo;s shutout effort. They finally scored twice in period three, but Binghamton had played one of its better games of the year to keep ahead of the improved Nighthawks in the Southern Division race.Rick Meagher and John Baby scored in the 9-2 loss to Nova Scotia. In addition, Hartford returned defenseman Mark Renaud and sent right winger Dave Debol to their AHL affiliate. The Whalers also signed colorful winger Paul Stewart who is sure to be a big favorite in Binghamton.MAINE &mdash; Once again, the Mariners lead the AHL in attendance. About one-third of the way through the season, Maine is averaging 5,313 per game and showing just about every team in the AHL that they are a strong challenger for the Calder Cup this season. The loyal fans throughout upper New England want that cup back!As has been said many times in THE HOCKEY NEWS, this is a model franchise for minor league hockey. It is a mini-major league operation. Take their radio network for example. Flagship station WGAN in Portland beams Mariner broadcasts throughout Maine and New Hampshire on a nine-state network. The parent Philadelphia Flyers support the Mariners in every way and the fans are solidly behind their team. Mariners are treated like heroes in Portland and the surrounding area and obviously, the players enjoy skating for fans that turn out in record numbers to cheer for them. The entire Maine Mariners operation is first class in every way and they have provided the Flyers with numerous quality players who have been trained in the winning tradition of the Mariners and are throughly indoctrinated in the style of play which has been so successfully employed by the Flyers.On the ice during the week, the Mariners blasted Nova Scotia 7-4 in Portland and then dropped a 5-4 contest in overtime at Adirondack. Wayne Schaab, Don Gillen and Ron Flockhart lead the Mariners in scoring and Pelle Lindbergh has the best GAA among the three Mariners netminders.NEW HAVEN &mdash; A big 5-3 win over Nova Scotia and a victory in Rochester by the same score gave Nighthawk fans reason to believe that their team would blast the lowly Binghamton Dusters in a game at the Coliseum. Some 5,573 fans turned out, the largest crowd of the year, but the Nighthawks were simply blown off the ice by the Whalers. The final score was 6-2 but the game was over after the first period when Binghamton took a 3-0 lead. The combination of some shaky goaltending by Steve Baker, who was yanked by coach Rod Gilbert after giving up all six goals in two periods, and horrible defensive play by the Nighthawks, enabled the Whalers to rout the home team.Earlier in the week. New Haven beat Nova Scotia 5-3 at the Coliseum. Dale Lewis scored twice and the Nighthawks got solo tallies from Dan McCarthy, Gary Burns and Rick Adduono in that game. Andre Dore and Mike McDougal each scored twice in the 5-3 win at Rochester. Steve Weeks was the winning goaltender.The Nighthawks named Roy Mlakar their new president and made several player moves during the week. Center Ray Markham is back after being out all year with a knee injury. In addition, the Rangers sent center Lance Nethery back to their AHL club after he scored six points in 11 NHL games. Forwards Mike Clarke and Dan Makuch were subsequently sent to Richmond of the EHL by the Nighthawks.Mlakar, a 30-year-old native of Cleveland has been with New Haven since 1977 after serving his apprenticeship with the AHL Cleveland Barons and Rhode Island Reds. The announcement of Mlakar&rsquo;s promotion was made by owner Joel Schiavone, who said &ldquo;The entire hockey operation has been functioning smoothly and this is a reflection on Roy&rsquo;s hard work and dedication&rdquo;.NEW BRUNSWICK &mdash; High-scoring center Bruce Boudreau, who had 12 goals and 26 assists in 25 games for the Hawks, was called up by Toronto to fill in for Laurie Boschman, who suffered a hand injury. The Maple Leafs did return wingers Paul Marshall and Stewart Gavin along with defenseman Greg Hotham. However, Chicago recalled right winger Rick Paterson, who had 15 points in 22 games with New Brunswick and the Leafs later recalled Marshall again.The Hawks won two of three during the week and may be in the process of getting themselves untracked. They beat Rochester 5-2 at home and defeated Springfield 4-1, also at the Moncton Coliseum. The Indians returned to Moncton three days later and hung a 3-2 loss on the Hawks. In the win over Rochester, J. P. Bordeleau scored once and set up another goal as the Hawks erupted and scored four times in the second period to ice that contest.ADIRONDACK &mdash; The parent Detroit Red Wings made a goaltender switch with Adirondack during the week. Wayne Wood came to the AHL from the IHL and Larry Lozinski went up to Detroit. On the ice, the Red Wings continue to pack the Civic Center, averaging 5,142 per game. The Wings split the two games on their schedule, they lost 3-2 in Springfield and edged the Nova Scotia Voyageurs 5-4 in overtime before another SRO crowd at home. The week ended when Hershey came to town and bombed the Wings 8-3.NOVA SCOTIA &mdash; After losing 7-4 in Maine and 5-3 in New Haven, the Voyageurs got hot. They blasted Binghamton 9-2 on the road and edged Springfield 5-3 back at Halifax. In player moves, the injury-riddled Vees called up centers Jim Lawson and Wayne Thompson from Flint of the IHL and got defenseman Bill Kitchen back off the injured list.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01500/4471744-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="557" height="902"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ray Allison had one of the Binghamton goals in their upset victory over the Nighthawks.</figcaption></div>Dave Gorman and sensational rookie Guy Carbonneau scored for Nova Scotia in the 5-3 loss at New Haven, but a wild scene initiated by coach Bert Templeton had referee Bob Hall wishing he hadn&rsquo;t showed up for the game. After New Haven&rsquo;s Mike Backman checked Voyageur goaltender Mark Holden and separated Holden&rsquo;s shoulder in the process, the Vees were in an ugly mood. When Hall called a questionable penalty on Dave Gorman, Dan Metivier was thrown out for arguing too much and the stage was set for Templeton three-ring circus. He started to stall his line flchange and then refused to put his players out on the ice, an apparent test of. Hall patience and a protest against the penalty to Gorman. In addition, his club must have been tired after a long bus trip from Maine in the wee hours of the morning. Hall penalized Nova Scotia for delaying the game and then threw Templeton out of the game. The Voyageur coach may have won the battle with Hall but he lost the war.SPRINGFIELD &mdash; Kim Davis and Bob Stephenson have been sent to the Tribe from Toronto and coach Johnny Wilson hopes they will help his club. During the week, the Indians beat Adirondack and New Brunswick but lost in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The move from the Big E Coliseum to the Springfield Civic Center has had a positive effect at the box office, the Indians are ahead of last season in home attendance.HERSHEY &mdash; Rollie Boutin was in the nets and Hershey won again at home, giving Boutin an amazing 16-1-1 record at the Arena. The Bears beat Binghamton 6-3 in that game and defeated Adirondack 8-3 on the road later in the week. In the other game on home ice, Maine hung a 5-4 loss on the Bears.ROCHESTER &mdash; Only a 6-6 overtime tie at home against Maine salvaged an otherwise losing week for the Amerks. They lost 5-2 in New Brunswick even though Bob Hess scored twice. Goaltender Jari Paavola stopped 29 shots in that game. &#9632;

f0023-01

Whalers Slip Ahead Of New Haven; Mariners Set Pace In Attendance

BIRMINGHAM &mdash; Left winger Gary Rissling set a Central League penalty-minute record in the Bulls&rsquo; 8-5 loss in Salt Lake City and may have ignited his teammates to victory as they halted a nine-game winless streak.Rissling picked up a CHL record total of 49 minutes in the game when he collected two minors, a major, two misconducts; a game misconduct and a gross misconduct, with the latter assessed after the game had ended. The penalty minutes lifted Rissling&rsquo;s personal total to 114, tops in the league, far ahead of the 84 minutes charged to Salt Lake&rsquo;s Jim Nill.After suffering two beatings on the scoreboard in Salt Lake City, the first loss was 7-3, the Bulls arrived in Birmingham only a few hours before game time but then broke a six-game losing streak (nine without a win) when they upset powerful Indianapolis 3-2.Tim Harrer supplied most of the offense for the Bulls with a pair of goals, while Dave Hindmarch added a third Bulls&rsquo; tally in the final period. Goalie Jim (Seaweed) Pettie held the fort for the victory.Birmingham got two goals in the middle period and three in the third in the second loss at Salt Lake, including a shorthanded score by Bobby Gould, but the Eagles had taken command with five in the first, and never let up.Gould was called up by the Calgary Flames between the two games in Salt Lake, but returned, along with winger Mike Dwyer. Defenseman Ralph Andreesen was still out with a knee injury.HOUSTON &mdash; Two victories and a tie ran the Apollos&rsquo; unbeaten string to five games and lifted them into second place in the CHL South. They were still a distant 15 points behind first-place Dallas, but seven ahead of Fort Wayne and Birmingham, who shared third place. And Houston had seven games in hand on the Texans, four on the Bulls, and three on the Black Hawks.Steve Carlson and Rob Palmer had second-period goals at home to rally the Apollos past Dallas, 2-1. The same pair scored in the first period in FortWorth, with Warren Holmes getting the eventual winning goal in a 3-2 decision. Rick Hampton and John Gibson rallied the Apollos to a 2-2 home tie with Dallas.Alex Tidey (pul led groin muscle) and Blair Stewart (torn shoulder muscle) continued to be sidelined.FORT WORTH &mdash; Two losses and a tie did little to help the Texans&rsquo; cause. They lost an early two-goal lead and had to settle for a 4-4 home tie with Tulsa, then bowed at home to Houston (3-2) and in Tulsa (2-1 in overtime) to begin a four-game road trip.Rey Comeau&rsquo;s two goals paced the week&rsquo;s meager scoring. Jack Valiquette, who scored at home against Tulsa, sat out the rematch with a knee injury. Peter Sturgeon had the lone Fort Worth goal (at 7:10 of the third period) in that game.Left wing Ed Cooper was recalled by the parent Colorado Rockies. As the new week started, defenseman Mike Christie was dealt by Colorado to Vancouver, while the Texans received forward Jim Mayer, who came to the Rockies in the deal.DALLAS&mdash; Their race to the South Division title slowed only briefly by a 2-1 loss at home to Houston, the Black Hawks followed with a 6-3 romp in Wichita. They came home for a 2-2 tie with Tulsa that left Danny Belisle&rsquo;s club 15 points ahead of Birmingham, the closest rival.Dave Feamster scored early against Houston, but that was all the Hawks could manage against Apollo goalie Paul Pageau, as a five-game unbeaten string was scissored. Hal Phillipoff, Drew Callander, Tim Coulis and Greg Vaydik, scored in the first period at Wichita and made it 4-0 before the Wind found the net. Then Dave Ross scored a pair to wrap things up.Against Tulsa, Art Rutland and Phillipoff twice put Dallas ahead, but the Oilers kept coming backThe Hawks lost a defenseman. as the parent Vancouver Canucks sold Richard Mulhern to the Winnipeg Jets, and a forward, as Jim Mayer was traded to the Colorado Rockies. Winger Kevin Primeau came back from the Canucks, and defenseman Mike Christie (acquired in the Mayer trade) reported to the Hawks, where he broke in as a rookie eight years ago.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02400/4471806-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="546" height="753"><figcaption class="caption-body">A total of 49 minutes in penalties by Birmingham&rsquo;s Gary Rissling put his name in the record book.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0024-02

Bulls’ Rissling Sets Penalty Mark

<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div>WICHITA &mdash; Hat tricks by Tom Roulston and Barry Dean sparked the Wind to two victories in three starts, and pulled them to within a point of fourth-place Tulsa in the CHL North. Later, they slipped ahead with a victory over Fort Worth.Roulston got his three goals in the first period of a 5-3 home triumph over Oklahoma City. The first score was on a power play, and the next came only four seconds after a power play had expired. It was Tom&rsquo;s second hat trick of the season, his first coming at Birmingham, Nov. 13. The parent Oilers liked what they saw as they called Roulston to join the varsity.Dean had an unusual hat trick in a 5-2 romp at Tulsa &mdash; two shorthanded tallies and one on a power play. The second shorthanded goal &mdash; probably a CHL record for a player in one game &mdash; came on a 150-foot shot into an empty net, after Tulsa had lifted goalie Lindsay Middlebrook.In between the victories the Wind dropped a 6-3 game at home against Dallas. Travelling to Tulsa the next night, coach Ace Bailey sat in the press box to get a better view of his team in action, turning over the coaching reins to assistant Byron Baltimore.Roulston notched his league-leading 19th goal in that one, and held a share of the CHL scoring leadership with Salt Lake&rsquo;s Joey Mullen before he left for Edmonton.Roulston provided a 3-1 lead in the first period against OC, as the Stars&rsquo; Ron Friest briefly interrupted the one-man barrage. Peter Driscoll and Paul Messier raised the margin to 5-2 in the second, with Tony White scoring for OC. Rob Flockhart got the last Stars&rsquo; goal.Rookie goalie Andy Moog worked that victory, and started against Dallas, but was replaced by Pete LoPresti after the Hawks jumped in front, 4-0. Blair Barnes scored twice for the Wind and Don Ashby once, but it wasn&rsquo;t enough.LoPresti got the call for Baltimore&rsquo;s coaching debut the next night. Dean&rsquo;s first shorthanded marker and a power play goal by Driscoll tied it at 2-2 after two periods and the Wind took com plete charge in the final period on Roulston&rsquo;s goal (the only one Wichita scored at even strength), a power play goal by Dean, and his empty-net tally with 15 seconds left gave Wichita its third straight road win.Ron Sommer, onetime CHL penalty leader, was out indefinitely after surgery to repair a hairline fracture of his jaw. Big left wing Bill Bennett underwent shoulder surgery. The Wind called up left wing Bob Phillips from Richmond in the Eastern League.OKLAHOMA CITY&mdash;The surprising Stars went into Indianapolis and came out with two victories, to strengthen their hold on second place in the North Division. The first win took 9:25 of overtime before Warren Young put in the winner for a 3-2 victory. The second was somewhat easier, 3-1, featuring Ron Friest&rsquo;s shorthanded goal in the third period, after defensemen Don Jackson and Daniel Poulin had put the Stars in charge in the second.The week had begun with a 5-3 loss in Wichita, but the two victories in Market Square Arena left the Stars 2-2 at the halfway point in their eight-game road tour. They were in second place, seven points behind Salt Lake City, and two ahead of Indy, but the Stars had four games in hand on both of their rivals.Goalie Jim Weaver had to leave late in the second period of the second victory at Indianapolis after being slightly injured. Teammate Rob Flockhart was sliding into the crease when Weaver put himself in the way, and both were slammed into the post. Louis Levasseur got the overtime win in Indy, and finished up the second victory, as Ted Hampson&rsquo;s Stars snapped a four-game losing streak on the road.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01519/4471775-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="545" height="1122"><figcaption class="caption-body">Barry Dean produced two shorthanded goals among his three tallies in a Wichita victory.</figcaption></div>TULSA &mdash; The Oilers went from the heights to the depths in a four-game week. They rallied to tie in Fort Worth (4-4) and Dallas (2-2), then won in overtime at home against Fort Worth. But they were badly outplayed in the last 30 minutes at home by Wichita, and dropped a 5-2 decision, after twice taking leads on a pair of goals by Ben Gosselin.Bill Davis got the tying goal in Fort Worth with 2:33 left in regulation time, after the Oilers fought back from being two down in the first three and a half minutes. Mike Antonovich tied the Dallas game with 5:08 left in the third period.The Oilers and Texans were tied at home after 60 minutes, marking the third straight overtime game for the Tulsans, but Tulsa&rsquo;s John Bethel, with his 10th goal of the season, ended the extra period after 5:45.Right wing Lyle Moffat returned to duty after a long injury layoff, but center Bob Guindon was still out with an ankle bruise.INDIANAPOLIS &mdash; Three losses ran the Checkers&rsquo; slump to five games, and three of those setbacks had been in the Market Square Arena, where Bert Marshall&rsquo;s crew had once been invincible for 10 games. In between a pair of home losses to Oklahoma City (3-2 in overtime and 3-1), the Checkers journeyed to Birmingham and took a 3-2 reversal.Roland Melanson tended the nets for both losses to OC, with Jim Park working in the Birmingham game. Garth MacGuigan had two goals in the latter game, the second coming with 2:04 to play. Marshall pulled Park, but the Checkers couldn&rsquo;t get the equalizer.About the only bright notes in the Indy picture were the return of left wing Lome Stamler (from hepatitis) and defenseman Mike Hordy (from a knee injury). Stamler had a goal in each of the games with OC. The Friday overtime game drew the season&rsquo;s biggest turnout &mdash; 6,593.SALT LAKE &mdash; The first period had been the Golden Eagles&rsquo; worst period previously, but you couldn&rsquo;t tell it as December started. Jack Evans&rsquo; Birds scored three goals in the opening period en route to a 7-3 win at home against Salt Lake. Two nights later they tallied five in the first, and routed the same foes, 8-5. Then they got the only goal of the first period in Houston, and had a 2-0 advantage early in the second, but the Apollos rallied for a 2-2 overtime tie. The Eagles&rsquo; foes did not score in the first period all week.Ken Federko, Richie Hansen, Floyd Thomson, Bobby Crawford and Mike Boland scored in that five-goal first-period Friday, the best first period the Eagles have ever enjoyed. Later Paul MacLean got his third shorthanded goal, taking the league lead in that department, only to be tied two nights later by Wichita&rsquo;s Barry Dean.Rookie netminder Paul Skidmore tied a franchise record Wednesday with his seventh straight victory (eighth game without defeat). The victory record was set by Terry Richardson in 1978-79 and tied by Rick Heinz last season.Center Doug Palazzari had missed seven games after a siege of tendinitis in his right shoulder. &ldquo;Pizza&rdquo; was reportedly ready to return, but the Eagle rookies were going so well, Evans was in no hurry to restore to the lineup the man who has twice won the CHL scoring Triple Crown and was voted MVP last season.Defensemen Kevin Willison and Steve Harrison were expected back in the lineup much sooner than scheduled. Willison, who had shoulder surgery, was expected to be ready in another week. Harrison had the cast off his leg, and could be playing in early January. The Eagles released left wing Bobby Simpson.Evans recorded his 175th victory behind the Eagle bench (the second win over Birmingham), and the same night the team received its 1979-80 championship rings. &#9632;

f0024-01

Wichita Wins With Hat Trick Power; Stars Spring Double Sweep In Indy

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSTOLEDO &mdash; The pressure had been mounting in Toledo &mdash; on coach Jim Sanko; on his players; on the management of the Goaldiggers&rsquo; franchise.When it finally broke, Sanko was out of a job and Billy Inglis was the new Toledo coach.The club began a rapid descent to the basement of the International Hockey League&rsquo;s Eastern Division in early November and as the team&rsquo;s winless streak stretched to 14 games, rumors began to swirl.Ted Garvin, a longtime favorite in Toledo, who had led the team to two Turner Cup championships (he also led Port Huron to a pair of titles), and now a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers, had been a frequent visitor and vocal critic of the Goaldiggers. Following Toledo&rsquo;s 11th consecutive game without a victory, a 6-6 tie with Port Huron, Garvin was quoted in the Toledo Blade as saying: &ldquo;This team needs motivation. I love this town. Sure I&rsquo;d come back.&rdquo;That idea was rapidly quashed by Virgil Gladieux, the president and chairman of the board of directors of the Toledo Sports Arena, who said: &ldquo;Garvin&rsquo;s style of coaching goon hockey is gone forever. I don&rsquo;t think the fans or anyone else connected with hockey will tolerate that kind of hockey anymore. I haven&rsquo;t given any thought whatsoever to Ted.&rdquo;Gladieux indicated that he wanted to leave Sanko&rsquo;s future to general manager Jerry Francis and assistant general manager Jim Welch, although he did express dissatisfaction with the Goaldiggers&rsquo; rapidly decreasing attendance figures, which fortold projected revenue losses in the neighborhood of $300,000 for the season.Gladieux expressed hope that his club could stick with young Sanko and things seemed to brighten somewhat when the Diggers finally secured a 6-5 victory, at the expense of Port Huron, completing a stretch in which the club went 1-1-2, a lot better than they had done earlier.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01453/4471844-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="552" height="772"><figcaption class="caption-body">Billy Inglis, in limbo with the Buffalo organization, has been named Toledo coach.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02329/4471837-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="559" height="735"><figcaption class="caption-body">Goalie Ted Tucker held Muskegon to one goal in a 4-1 triumph for the Saginaw Gears.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0025-01

Goaldiggers Bring In Inglis As New Coach

<div class="byline">BY PATRICK LYON</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSHAMPTON &mdash; Fans, players and everyone connected with the Aces breathed a sigh of emotional relief.The Aces, occupants of last place in the latest standings of the Eastern Hockey League, finally felt the thrill of victory when their 6-1 win over the Baltimore Clippers gave the team its first triumph in over a month.Hampton defeated the defending champion Erie Blades 6-4 in Hampton on November 4 and then proceeded to go 13 games without a win as they gained but one tie in 12 outings.M.F. Schurman helped the Aces with a two-goal effort while Rob Clavette, Rich Kramp, Steve Salvucci and John Saunders added single lamplighters. Bob Parent was in the nets as he had been in all three of Hampton&rsquo;s successful appearances this year.Hampton coach and general manager Larry Mickey was busy making changes in an attempt to improve on the standing of the club. Last year&rsquo;s Co-Coach of the Year in the EHL swung a deal with the Blades which sent center Steve Stockman to the Aces for a return well in excess of $250 waiver price.The Aces were able to purchase Stockman because of the overabundance of forwards that dotted the roster of the Blades. &ldquo;Stockman will really help us because number one he&rsquo;s a goal-scoring threat and number two there is probably nobody faster than him in the league, except maybe Pierre Aubry of the Blades,&rdquo; said Mickey. &ldquo;His speed in the middle will really be a big asset to us.&rdquo;Stockman collected five goals and eight assists in 15 games in limited action with the Blades this season and last year chipped in 34 goals in just 40 games. Along with the deal came an option, with the Blades getting first choice in reacquiring the forward if Hampton should deal him before June 1, 1981.The deal was a hard one for Blade coach Nick Polano to make, but he had no choice since the club had to cut down to the 17-man limit. &ldquo;It was the toughest player move I&rsquo;ve ever had to make in the three years I&rsquo;ve been both coach and general manager,&rdquo; said Polano.Mickey also added Port Huron center Bill McNaught to the roster while placing Rich Duguay and Paul Tilley on waivers. Ken Southwick decided to leave the club and return home.Playing a hectic schedule of three games in three nights and four games in five nights, the Aces dropped a 6-2 decision in Richmond and a 3-2 setback to the Rifles in Hampton before their big win over the Clippers. The joy was cut short, however, with Erie blasting the Aces 10-1. Despite the bombing suffered to the Blades, Mickey remained encouraged by the recent showing of the club.The Clavette-Schurman-Dave Walter line has been playing well lately for the Aces with Walter the top scorer of the club, with 11 goals and 16 assists. Clavette had nine goals in 12 games, Schurman 10 points in 13 games. Steve Salvucci and Paul O&rsquo;Neil each have 16 points, Saunders 15 points.SALEM &mdash; Gary Carr&rsquo;s debut in goal for the Raiders was a success, with the veteran shot-stopper holding Richmond to a 3-3 tie. Carr survived a 40-shot barrage from the Rifles and also weathered a 19-shot storm in the second period.Down 3-2 late in the contest, Lee Keller knotted the game with his third game-tying goal of the season. The tie left Salem with a 2-5-1 mark against the Rifles.Salem played their finest road game of the campaign as they suffered a 3-2 loss in their first visit to Erie. Ed Smith and Keller pushed the Raiders to a quick 2-0 lead before the Blades rallied.In player movements, Tom Machowski quit the club to play hockey in Holland while goalie Tom O&rsquo;Toole was waived after posting a 4-2-3 record and 3.66 goals against average.BALTIMORE - Randy Ireland&rsquo;s first win in the nets as a Clipper was an inspiring performance as he shut out the Rifles 3-0 at the Civic Center.Ireland, who was 0-6-2 in his first eight decisions with the Clippers, kicked away 28 shots in helping Baltimore crack a four-game winless streak. Norm Stefan, Bruce Hamilton and Pierre Lagace had the goals.Everything hasn&rsquo;t been roses for coach Gene Ubriaco&rsquo;s club, which has a 2-9-2 record in their last 13 games. Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; general manager Lou Nanne was a visitor-to the Maryland city to check on the situation with the Clippers, but stated that he couldn&rsquo;t give the club any help at the present time because of the injury situation in Minnesota and Oklahoma City.Dave Herbst, Hamilton, Wes Coulson and Peter Hayek are just a few of the Clippers who have missed games due to injuries.Following their win over Richmond, Baltimore was dealt identical 6-1 losses by Hampton and Erie.Gerry Ciarcia remained the top scorer with two goals and 22 assists for 24 points, while John Meredith had 19 and Stefan and Jon Fontas 18 apiece.The Clippers are the least penalized club, with an average of 25.3 minutes per game.ERIE &mdash; The Blades&rsquo; home ice winning streak was extended to 25 straight games with a pair of victories over Baltimore and Salem. The skein goes back to last February when the Blades lost a home game to the Utica Mohawks.Erie increased its overall winning streak to eight games and unbeaten mark to-11 games with decisions over Baltimore 6-1, Salem 3-2, Hampton 10-1 and Richmond 7-3.Six different scorers lit the red light for Erie in the win over Baltimore and three players hit against Salem. Lou Sleigher and Jim Cowell each had a pair of goals in Erie&rsquo;s conquest of Richmond which gave the Blades a share of first place with the Rifles when this issue went to press. Sleigher, Aubry and Stan Gulutzan each flipped home two goals in the Hampton massacre.After Polano&rsquo;s deal sending his extra forward (Stockman) to Hampton, forward Gulutzan suffered a separated shoulder, making the Blades minus a front liner. At press time it wasn&rsquo;t known if Gulutzan&rsquo;s injury would require surgery, but the valuable winger could be lost to the Blades for a lengthy period. Gulutzan was the league&rsquo;s sixth most productive point producer af the time of his injury.Aubry opened a wide lead in the scoring race with his 17 goals and 26 assists for 43 points, 10 points better than the total of Rifle Tom Mullen.RICHMOND &mdash; What would be considered a good week for some clubs must have been tough for the Rifles to take. Bill Purcell&rsquo;s crew won two games, lost two and tied one to fall into a first place tie with Erie.Richmond was handed their first shutout defeat in a 3-0 loss to Baltimore before rebounding for 6-2 and 3-2 triumphs over Hampton. The Rifles hung on for a 3-3 tie in Salem, but then dropped a 7-3 decision in Richmond to the Blades. The loss to Erie was the first at home for Richmond this season.Lawrie Nisker was returned to Richmond from Wichita, but the club got some bad news when they lost top scorer Tom Mullen due to injury.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01467/4471882-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="540" height="672"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hampton acquired speedy forward Steve Stockman from Erie to boost their offense.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02359/4471875-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="540" height="723"><figcaption class="caption-body">M.F. Schurman led the Aces to their first victory in more than a month with two goals against Baltimore</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Aces’ Shuffling To Improve Lineup Finally Results In Winning Combo

<div class="byline">BY TOM BURKE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0027-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01446/4471913-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Clarkson College co-captains Bryan Cleaver, center, and Ed Small, right, accept congratulations and the North Country Holiday Hockey Festival trophy from Clarkson athletic chairman John Hantz after winning the tournament for the fifth time in its 11-year history. Clarkson, who defeated Bowling Green, 6-5, Lowell, 6-2 and St. Lawrence, 4-2, for the title, has been co-champion on three occasions.</figcaption></div>BOSTON &mdash; Only two league games were played in ECAC Division One as the Christmas break sent the players on many teams home for a few days and the coaches off to parts unknown for recruiting vists.The fans who attended those contests weren&rsquo;t disappointed, as the visting team took a one-goal victory on each occasion. Dartmouth returned from exams to nip Harvard 3-2 in Cambridge and, in the battle of the two best teams of December, Northeastern edged Maine in Orono, 6-5.The Huskies had to come from behind three times against the Black Bears, unbeaten on their home ice up until that game. Things looked bleak when Andre. Aubut, Gaetan Bernier, and Paul Greke tallied for the hosts in the first period for a 3-0 edge. Sandy Beadle, NU&rsquo;s fine sophomore winger, finally broke the ice with his first goal of the game late in the period and Maine took a 3-1 lead into the first intermission after outshooting the unbeaten visitors, 13-12.Even though Ted Bjerkstrand upped Maine&rsquo;s lead to 4-1 at 8:48 of the second period, the momentum had already shifted to the Huntington Hounds, as they peppered Maine goalie Jeff Nord with 15 shots to five on Mark Davidner in the Huskie cage.Beadle scored again at 10:09, once more assisted by linemates Paul McDougall and Gerry Cowie, to cut the deficit to two. Then defenseman Tim Jacons potted a power play goal and, 30 seconds later, McDougall tied the score assisted by Beadle and Maurizio Pazinate.Maine once again grabbed the lead when John Tortorella slipped a backhand by Davidner at 0:42 of the third period. The brash Hounds refused to fold, however, and they tied it up again at 9:02 when freshman Scott McKenny set up his rookie linemate Rick Turnbull for a point blank shot after digging the puck from behind the net.The fresh line remained on the ice and potted the winner just 22 seconds later. This time it was Ken Manchurek&rsquo;s turn to be the hero, as he poked him the disc, which had trickled up and over the shoulder of the surprised goalie Nord. For Manchurek, as well as for Turnbull, it was his second varsity goal.Maine still had half a period to come back, and they had some good chances that wore foiled by Davidner. The soph netminder stepped Rob LaFleur on a shorthanded breakaway with two and half minutes remaining. Then with 2:01 to play, Jacobs was called for tripping and Maine played with a man advantage for the rest of the game but couldn-t score on the determined Huntington HoundsNever before has Northeastern won six games at the outset of a season. Their superb December will stand them in good stead for the February playoff race, especially since Boston College and Providence, the preseason favorites who are in the ECAC East along with the Huskies, have had trouble hitting on all cylinders during the first semester.&ldquo;We have a winning attitude, and we&rsquo;re like a bit family,&rdquo; said coach Fernie Flaman.A winning attitude, rather than a inferiority complex? You bet. You need the talent to win in college hockey, but you also have to believe in yourselves. This Northeastern team believes, and they&rsquo;re going to make the first two months of 1981 mighty interesting.In the other game, Dartmouth celbrated the return of goalie Bob Gaudet from a knee ligament injury. Gaulet stopped 34 Harvard shots to 20 for his counterpart Wade Lau. He stymied four power plays in the opening period, and by 11:43 of the second frame Dartmouth had moved out to a 3-0 lead on goals by Mark Burton, Mark Bedard, and Chip Bettencourt. Bettencourt&rsquo;s goal, the eventual game winner, was a shorthanded tally.Tom Murray and Rick Benson brought the Crimson to within reach by 11:19 of the third period, but Gaudet would let them get no further.Other than the Maine-RPI game in the RPI Tournament&rsquo;s December 29 finale, no other Division One games are scheduled until January 3, when all the kidding stops and the pennant chase resumes for good. We might call December the &ldquo;first half&rdquo; of the schedule, but it&rsquo;s really the first quarter or first third of the journey. So much more lies ahead of us, but here&rsquo;s how the reality stands versus the predictions thus far.In the ECAC East, we were right that the power of Division One would reside in this sector. The difference is that it&rsquo;s more broadly distributed than we thought. Providence has been a disappointment thus far at 1-3-1. The Friars need more offense, but the betting here is that they&rsquo;ll find it and run up a nice win streak. Boston College, at 2-1-2, has yet to play its best hockey. The Eagles are getting a lot of shots without a commensurate number of goals.You&rsquo;ve heard a lot about Maine and Northeastern already. NU will be in big trouble if McDougall or Beadle get injured, but with their nice cushion they may be like the sprinter who&rsquo;s eight lengths ahead at the half mile pole &mdash; they could stagger home victorious despite adversity. Maine had a chance to do likewise, and now must guard against losing its poise and slipping backjo the pack from 5-2.New Hampshire is the key team in this Division. They&rsquo;ve been erratic in a 2-3 start, but if they continue to play as they did in a 5-2 win at BC. they won&rsquo;t be kept from the playoffs,. Boston University appears to be relying overly on several of its good freshman and will be in trouble unless the veterans produce more.The West finds Clarkson and Colgate doing pretty much as expected and RPI and St. Lawrence pleasant surprises. The Knights and Raiders both have good offensive punch and still suspect defenses which, nonetheless, are adequate to the task. Despite their good start (2-1) it&rsquo;s tough to see how the youthful St. Lawrence club can sustain a playoff pace. Vermont, as we thought, still hasn&rsquo;t found the offensive depth behind Craig Homola and may be in too big a hole at 1-5 even though they&rsquo;ve been competitive. RPI is thus this area&rsquo;s key, getting good upperclass leadership along with a sprinkling of rookie leavening which could spell playoffs.Cornell appears to be the only Ivy team reasonably assured of a playoff berth. The Big Red have had a few injury problems but Darren Eliot has been good in goal and the injuries came before an extended break which gives time to recuperate.Harvard is the key here, at 4-4 and with a couple of impressive offensive performances that resulted in losses due to good goaltending by Brown&rsquo;s Paul McCarthy and Dartmouth&rsquo;s Bob Gaudet. The Crimson end the season with five rugged road games, however, which lengthen the odds agaist them.Princeton is very thin at defense while Brown is still in the offensive doldrums; McCarthy has been a find in goal for the Bruins, however. Dartmouth and Yale are capable of better than they&rsquo;ve shown, although there won&rsquo;t be room for both of them in the final eight.Revised predictions? Oh. why not. Here are the teams yours truly projects for the top eight: From the ECAC East &mdash; Boston College, Providence, Northeastern, and New Hampshire. From the West &mdash; Clarkson, Colgate, and RPI. From the Ivy &mdash; Cornell. This elevates NU and RPI while dropping Princeton and Dartmouth from the pre-season predictions.For what it&rsquo;s worth &mdash; we&rsquo;re wrong more often than we&rsquo;re right on these pages. So keep rooting for your school, and enjoy the holidays! It&rsquo;s all business from here on in. &#9632;

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Northeastern Has Nose For December Wins

<div class="byline">BY B. L. ELFRING</div>BOSTON &mdash; Four of the best Division Two teams in the East take to the Boston Garden ice, January 5 and 11, for the Second Annual Teapot Tournament. Last year&rsquo;s Teapot champion, Bowdoin, 1980 ECAC Division Two East champion Merrimack, Salem State and the University of Lowell, will again take center stage for the showcase tournament of the Division Two season, sponsored by Busch Beer.Bowdoin won the inaugural tournament with a 4-2 victory over Salem State, while Lowell took third-place honors in a 10-6 shoot-out with Merrimack. This year&rsquo;s first round matchups pit last year&rsquo;s championship game opponents against each other at 6:15, while arch-rivals Merrimack and Lowell play in the second game of the night. The championship and third place games will be at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., respectively, six days later.When these four teams get together, you can throw the book out the window trying to pick a favorite. None of the four coaches would offer any predictions for this year&rsquo;s tournament. All four teams are off to good starts again this season, with Lowell on top, Merrimack second, Bowdoin third, and Salem State fifth in the latest Division Two East standings.Lowell, off to an 8-0 start in league play and an 11-2 record overall, is coming off the holiday break, and head coach Bill Riley is concerned that the layoff and lack of practice time could hurt his team&rsquo;s performance. &ldquo;Mentally, we&rsquo;ll be ready, but we may not be as sharp in our assignments and passing as we would like,&rdquo; commented the Chiefs&rsquo; head man. &ldquo;The teams playing games before the tournament should be in better game shape.&rdquo; Lowell, Riley says, will have only two practice sessions prior to the Teapot.The Chiefs have put together some very impressive offensive statistics despite having four top forwards on the injured list. Sophomore center Mike Carr (Burlington, Ont.) has amassed 33 points in just 13 games on 13 goals and 20 assists. Linemate Dean Jenkins (Billerica, Ma), an All American last year, is next on the scoring list with 11 goals and 17 assists, including a recent hat trick against North Adams State. Defenseman&rsquo; Paul Lohnes (Woburn, Ma), also an All American last year, and sophomore Ken Kaiser (St. Paul, Mn.) both have 20 or more points.Riley also pointed out the excellent play of his defensive corps, which has been very solid, and the better than average goaltending the Chiefs have gotten from any of their three netminders.Last year&rsquo;s champion, Bowdoin, under the direction of Sid Watson, lost its first league game of the season December 13, dropping a 4-3 decision to AIC in Springfield. &ldquo;The tournament is a toss up,&rdquo; said Watson. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re all in the same boat and you can&rsquo;t pick a favorite.&rdquo;The Polar Bears have received outstanding work again from All-ECAC goaltender Bill Provencher (Lewiston, Me). The senior netminder has posted a 2.41 goals-against average in six games, including a 4-0 shutout against Colby. He has received strong defensive work from senior co-captain Mark Rabitor (Pascoag, R.I.) and freshman Jean Roy (Lewiston, Me.)Bowdoin&rsquo;s offense has revolved around the line of John Corcoran (Middletown, R.I.), Ron Marcellus (Somerset, Ma.), and co-captain Steve McNeil (Canton, Ma.) Corcoran is off to his best start with seven goals and seven assists in six games. McNeil has 10 points on five goals and five assists. Watson expressed concern though, because his offense has come mainly from that line.Merrimack, currently second in the ECAC Division Two East standings, will play in Dartmouth College&rsquo;s Auld Lang Syne Tournament prior to the Teapot. &ldquo;We really enjoy the Teapot Tournament,&rdquo; says coach Bruce Parker. &ldquo;It gives us the chance to play two games agai nst the best in the east. These are the top four teams in the east and anyone can win.&rdquo;All American senior Tom Lawlor (Andover, Ma.) leads a Warriers&rsquo; attack that will face Lowell&rsquo;s strong defense in the first round. Lawler has 10 goals and 19 assists for 29 points in 11 games. Linemates Mickey Rego (Hudson, Ma.) and John Viveiros (Fall River, Ma.) follow with 2-2 and 15 points, respectively. Among Rego&rsquo;s 22 points are 15 goals.Defensively, juniors Fred Monyihan (East Boston, Ma.) and Tom Deignan (Watertown, Ma.) have been standouts for Parker&rsquo;s club. They will have the task of shutting down Lowell&rsquo;s potent offense. Sophomore goaltender Frank Bonaventure (Beverly, Ma.) has emerged as the Warriors&rsquo; No. 1 netminder. In five games, he has posted five wins and a 3.00 goals-against average.Parker feels that team defense will be the big key to his and the other teams&rsquo; success. &ldquo;If our forwards help take the pressure off our defensemen, we&rsquo;ll be there,&rdquo; said Parker. &ldquo;Team defense will win it if there is one determining factor, particularly the play of the forwards.&rdquo;The Vikings of Salem State, under Mike Gilligan, are the only team to have played two of the other Teapot teams, but ironically, Merrimack and Lowell are matched up in the first round. Gilligan has another typical Salem State team that relies more on speed and forechecking than playing the body. &ldquo;There is a size difference between us and the other teams. We&rsquo;ll counter that with our speed, trying to beat the other team to the puck,&rdquo; said Gilligan. Oddly, Salem&rsquo;s only two losses in league play have come at the hands of Merrimack (5-2) and Lowell (6-2).Sophomore John Pascarelli (Hull, Ma.) leads the Viking offense with three goals and 11 assists. Peter Digiacomo (Worcester, Ma.) follows wilh eight goals and five assists. Sophomore Bob Maguire (Peabody. Ma.) is the only other Viking with more than 10 points. Gilligan&rsquo;s club should get a big boost with the return of co-captain Ed Sousa (Peabody, Ma.), who missed two games with a shoulder injury.Gilligan&rsquo;s defensive group will receive a boost when sophomore Bill Kenney (Topsfield. Ma.) becomes eligible in time for the Teapot. Kenney was playing at the University of Maine last year before academic woes hit. He will help take some of the load off veterans Steve Goddard (Winthrop, Ma.) and Ward Gleason (Lexington, Ma.). Goal tender Charlie Barbour (Tewksbury, Ma.) has played fairly well despite a 4.22 goals-against average.The Teapot Tournament has provided a big boost for the Division Two Schools involved. &ldquo;It is a big selling point for our schools,&rdquo; said Gilligan. &ldquo;The Teapot is very healthy for Division Two hockey, and the people were very impressed with the Division Two game and the way the teams played last year.&rdquo;AROUND THE LEAGUE - Lowell and Oswego State are the only two undefeated teams left in Division Two play. Plattsburgh State dropped two games in a row to Potsdam State (8-5) and Oswego (6-5), before finding the winning combination against Genesso State &hellip; Keep an eye on Potsdam State. Coach John Horan&rsquo;s young team is in fifth place in the ECAC Division Two West standings, losing only to league-leader Oswego and second place Elmira &hellip; Honored players for the first two weeks include Tom Lawler of Merrimack. Paul Lohnes of Lowell, Bill Provencher of Bowdoin and Frank Bonaventura of Merrimack for the first week, and Dave Lair of Oswego, Jean Roy of Bowdoin, Mike Mac-Dermott of Elmira, and Mark Fitzpatrick of AIC for the second week &hellip; Congrats to Lowell sophomore Mike Carr on scoring his 100th career point and 50th career goal recently. Not bad for playing only 42 games. He is one of only six Chiefs to reach the 100-point plateau. Linemate Dean Jenkins is also two assists short of breaking Tom Jacobs&rsquo; school record for career assists &hellip; Merrimack and Bowdoin will play in the Downeast Classic Jan. 8-9, along with Colby and the University of Maine, prior to returning to Boston for the Teapot Tournament final round &hellip; Bowdoin College and Williams will participate in the Lake Forest Invitational Tournament Jan. 23-24. The Polar Bears will play Augsburg, while Williams battles the host school in first round action &hellip; Coach Steve Lane&rsquo;s club has dropped six of its first seven league games, including two overtime games &hellip; Connecticut coach John Chapman must be wondering what he has to do for a victory. His young Huskies, winless in four Division Two starts, have lost games to Lowell, New England College, and Bowdoin by one goal, and by two at North Adams State &hellip; Colby is 3-1 after four games, including overtime triumphs over New Haven and AIC. Seems the Mules want to be in the playoff picture again this year &hellip; Best of luck to Eileen Smart, formerly SID at Salem State. She recently accepted a position with the New England Gulls of the Women&rsquo;s Professional Basketball league. &#9632;

Division II Power Eager For Teapot Two

<div class="byline">By JIM SCHNEIDER</div>BIG RAPIDS &mdash; Senior Perry Zoldak collected nine points, leading Ferris State to a sweep of Wilfrid Laurier in Central Collegiate Hockey Association action last weekend.In other non-league CCHA action, Bowling Green lost twice at North Dakota, while Lake Superior lost two games to future CCHA member Michigan State.Zolkak earned CCHA Player of the Week honors for his soiid series. The veteran Zoldak, the all-time scorer in Ferris State history, reached the 150-career point plateau in the 11-2 opening win over Wilfrid Laurier and ran his total to 157 with five assists in a 6-3 victory in the second game.The host FSC Bulldogs (9-6-1) jumped to an 8-0 lead in the first game with four goals in the first period with Paul Cook and Zoldak scoring shorthanded goals after Jim Watchhorn and Randy Strong had opened the scoring.Rick Duffett&rsquo;s Bulldogs blew the game open with four goals in less than four minutes in the second period with Brian Walters, Paul Pickard, Dan Pupillo and Steve Ross making the game 8-0 at 10:41.Wilfrid Laurier&rsquo;s Jeff Clark scored his first of two goals at 10:54 of the second period against FSC rookie netminder Greg Davis. Ted Ykema gained the win in goal, leaving the game with a 7-0 lead while Davis made his collegiate debut with 12 saves.Pickard made the score 9-1 after two periods with his second goal of the period as Zoldak collected his 150th point withan assist on the goal at 19:09 of the second frame.Zoldak and freshman defenseman Jim File closed out the Ferris State scoring in the opener and Clark added the final WLU goal at 13:52.Larry Pedrie and Paul Cook scored, giving FSC a 2-1 lead in the second game as the Bulldogs scored two goals in each period.The second period found Cook and Walters collecting goals for FSC with Pickard notching his third goal of the weekend after switching from defense to left wing, and Pupillo scoring third period goals.Ykema made 32 saves in the second game.Bowling Green (6-11-1) found things tough on the road against the defending NCAA champions at North Dakota losing 9-3 and 4-1.Junior Brian MacLellan was the bright spot for the Falcons as he collected two goals in the opener and was named third star in the second loss.MacLellan gave the Falcons their only lead of the weekend with a power play goal at 4:16 of the first period of the opener, assisted by Ron Megan and Brian Hills, but North Dakota bounced back with four first period goals, two by Troy Murray, his 19th and 20th of the season for a 4-1 first period lead.ND pushed the lead to 6-1 before MacLellan&rsquo;s unassisted goal at 16:52 of the second period.Freshman defenseman Wayne Wilson added BG&rsquo;s third goal of the opener at 00:15 of the third period assisted by George McPhee and Perry Braun, but that was it for the BG offense for the game.Michael David made 25 saves for BG in the opener, while Wally Charko looked sharp with 35, saves in the 4-1 second game. Charko allowed three goals with (he fourth sailing into an empty net off the stick of Phil Sykes at 19:30 of the third period.Glen White provided the early ND lead in the second game before Cary Eades and Paul Chadwick scored twice in less than a minute late in the first period.BG&rsquo;s Wilson added his second goal of the series, and third of the season, at 1:22 of the second period assisted by McPhee and Tim Hack for the lone BG goal.Michigan State coach Ron Mason, three-time winner of the CCHA Coach of the Year award, returned to his original coaching site to sweep Lake Superior 5-2 and 3-2.MSU took a 1-0 lead in the opener on a Leo Lynett goal and the host Soo Lakers (9-8-1) battled back to tie the game twice in the second period on goals by freshman Monty Beauchamp, but Mark Hamway&rsquo;s goal at 17:28 of the second stanza proved to be the winning goal.Larry Dyck had 28 saves in the opener for LSSC, while MSU freshman Ron Scott made 42 saves, including 20 in the third period, toearn the first star of the game.The second night found the score 1-1 after one period with Mickey Candler scoring an unassisted goal at 4:04, tying the game for the Lakers. Candler bounced back after his 16-game scoring streak had been snapped in the series opener by MSU.Craig Lakian&rsquo;s second goal of the game at 4:49 of the second period put MSU ahead 2-1 and Frank Finn made it 3-1 at 12:08.LSSC&rsquo;s Myles Forget closed out the scoring at 17:14 of the second period cutting the MSU lead to 3-2, but the third period was scoreless.Scott collected 25 saves for his third straight sharp performance in goal for MSU, while Dyck had 41 saves, 32 in the last two periods, in the loss.Northern Michigan (10-7-1); Ohio State (11-4), Western Michigan (6-10) and Miami University (3-13-2) had the weekend off.The lone action this week will come in the Western Classic hosted by the Broncos of Western Michigan (Dec. 28-29) in Lawson Arena. The first round pairings include Lake Superior meeting Brown, while the host WMU Broncos meet Iowa State.The next full weekend of play will be Jan. 2-4 featuring. Western Michigan meeting Notre Dame. Ohio State at Minnesota, Michigan Tech at Northern Michigan Western Ontario at Ferris State, while Bowling Green will be meeting Boston University in the first round of the Colonial Classic in Hartford. Ct. &#9632;

Zoldak Paces Ferris State To Weekend Sweep

<div class="byline">BY MIKE MURRAY</div>TORONTO &mdash; The Ontario Universities Athletic Association Conference is being torn apart internally over the controversial rule that made the usage of facemasks mandatory.Once again it was the athletic directors who felt qualified to speak for their hockey coaches. Unfortunately, the OUAA&rsquo;s hockey coaches feel that their athletic directors made an unjust decision by passing the legislation in favor of the facemasks.Athletic directors Dave Knight, from Wilfred Laurier, and Dick Moriarty, of Windsor, put forth the original proposal last May &hellip; &ldquo;That Canadian Standards Association approved facemasks be mandatory in the OUAA for the 1980-81 hockey season.&rdquo; The result of the vote taken was eight schools in favor and two schools against, but there were six Universities who chose to abstain because at that specific moment they were not prepared to vote on. such an important matter without more information. Unbelievably, though, the OUAA&rsquo;s legislative committee accepted the 8-2 vote and war was declared.The hockey players and coaches&rsquo; arguments are that 1. The facemasks that are made available to the teams are unsuitable for the calibre of competition played in Canadian universities and 2. The visor style protector that is on the market should be made acceptable (there are two styles: the cage/visor combination and the straight visor style used by nine players in the NHL.)McMaster Marlins&rsquo; assistant coach Jack Birch says, &ldquo;How can a facemask do the same job for an eight-year-old, a 15-year-old and a college player of 20 years of age when it only comes in one size? &ldquo;Birch has noticed that teams are making modifications to the facemask; most of the players on the University of Toronto, for instance, have removed their chin cups.Bud Folusewych, head coach of the Guelph Gryphons, cannot see why so many people have negative feelings about the visors. &ldquo;If Borje Salming and Ron Stackhouse feel secure behind the single visor,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;maybe the OUAA should reconsider its stand.&rdquo;And Folusewych has a very reasonable question when people point out to him that the single visor has never been approved by the CSA. &ldquo;If the Toronto Marlies can wear the cage/visor combo mask,&rdquo; and their league is considered to be of better calibre than the OUAA. then why is it outlawed in ours?&rdquo;The most outspoken of the coaches is Toronto&rsquo;s Gord Davies, who seems almost to be conducting a personal vendetta against the OUAA. For instance, he refused to sit out one of his players after the player was assessed a match penalty because, according to Davies, &ldquo;the highsticking work that went on was unbelievable, and that incident never would have happened if the other player had not had on that facemask.&ldquo;We hate the facemasks so much.&rdquo; Davies continued, &ldquo;that we are ready to boycott the league. It&rsquo;s not that we are against eye protection; it is basically a good idea. But someone who is participating at this excellent level of hockey should have the right to decide for himself.&rdquo;Kris Kosta, the coach of the York Yeomen, feels that the facemask could have been introduced gradually, in much the same way that the rule requiring all junior and college players to wear a helmet once they made the NHL was implemented. Said Kosta: &ldquo;How can you ask players who have been playing hockey for 15 years without a facemask to all of a sudden make the adjustment and start wearing it.&rdquo;Another point of view is offered by Ron Watson, the coach at the University of Western Ontario, whose use of the cage/visor facemask prompted Guelph athletic director Gib Chapman to take his team off the ice. &ldquo;We feel that we are in the right.&rdquo; Watson said, &ldquo;and we will continue to use the comlbination model.&rdquo;&lsquo;Speaking of the University of Western Ontario. Dave Naudeau, a first-year law student there, and also a member of the varsity hockey team, recently completed a survey of the hockey players and coaches of the OUAA regarding their opinions of the mask.Ten of the 12 universities polled were more than willing to help Naudeau and replied promptly. Not so surprisingly though, the two universities who didn&rsquo;t let their players answer the questionaire were Wilfred Laurier and Windsor. It was the athletic directors from these two institutions who started the proceedings to railroad the original ruling through.The purpose of the Naudeau survey was not to bring about an instant reversal of the facemask rule but to point out that there are some areas that need more in-depth research and a deeper understanding of the whole situation by the OUAA&rsquo;s legislative committee. The motion passed lastMay was directed at two major concerns: 1. The safety of the players&rsquo; eyes, face and teeth and 2. The potential legal responsibility of the universities for providing adequate protective equipment.What Naudeau&rsquo;s investigation revealed was that the OUAA could absolve itself of any possible liability by providing the facemasks for use by the players and recommending that they be worn. So. by forcing the player into making a decision based on the OUAA&rsquo;s recommendation, the OUAA is well protected if the player decides not to wear the facemask, is injured as a result, and tries to prove negligence on the part of the OUAA. &#9632;

OUAA Teams Embroiled In Facemask Row

<div class="byline">BY VIRG FOSS</div>GRAND FORKS &mdash; If the University of North Dakota doesn&rsquo;t go on to win its third straight Western Collegiate Hockey Association title, becoming the first school in history to do that, it has only the National Hockey League to blame.For the Sioux, who share the WCHA lead with 16 games to go with Minnesota and Denver, may some day look back and wonder &ldquo;what if&rdquo; if that third straight MacNaughton Cup, symbolic of WCHA supremacy, doesn&rsquo;t stay in Grand Forks come March.No team in the WCHA has stocked pro rosters like the University of North Dakota the past two years. Included in that stockpiling were four players, three of them now in the NHL, who could have been with Sioux this year.They are defensemen Mickey Volcan (Hartford) and Howard Walker (Washington) and wing Doug Smail (Winnipeg). The fourth is goalie Bob Iwabuchi, property of the Minnesota North Stars but assigned to Baltimore of the Eastern Hockey League.Gino Gasparini, who has built the dynasty in his three years at North Dakota, is hardly the kind who&rsquo;ll lay the blame on defections to the pros if he fails to bring the third straight league title to UND in his three years on the job.Gasparini faced a major rebuilding job this year. Gone from his NCAA championship team of a year ago that posted a sparkling 31-8-1 record were eight seniors, including all-time Sioux leading scorer Mark Taylor, the college Player of the Year last season.The loss of defensemen Walker and Volcan riddled the defense, since Volcan passed up his last three years of college eligibility and Walker his last two to turn pro.North Dakota wasn&rsquo;t picked to win the WCHA. Minnesota was, in a unanimous vote by the coaches. So the fact that North Dakota is within striking distance going into the meat of the schedule after Christmas is a testimony to the coaching expertise of Gasparini and his ability to mould winning combinations.North Dakota&rsquo;s early-season success, which shows 13 wins in 18 games and an 8-4 league mark, is surprising even to the hockey-loving people of Grand Forks, who went into the season hoping for a first division finish.That the Sioux stand ready to deliver much more than that is perhaps the most startling story in the WCHA this season.Gasparini has just three seniors on the roster &mdash; defensemen Marc Chorney and Mark Berge and wing Paul Chadwick. And Berge isn&rsquo;t the veteran he appears. He was out of school for two years and wasn&rsquo;t on either of North Dakota&rsquo;s WCHA championships teams of the last two seasons.Success hasn&rsquo;t come easily to North Dakota. The superstars of the last two seasons are basically gone, either through graduation or to the pros.The season hardly started like the success story it is becoming. The Sioux dropped two or their first three games, including a pair of one-goal losses to Minnesota and another one-goal decision to Northern Michigan, the runnerup in the WCAAs to the Sioux last season.But that North Dakota is coming of age is reflected in the figures. Gasparini teaches defensive hockey, letting the offensive opportunities generate themselves through aggressive defensive play. It took this year&rsquo;s youngsters a while to digest that philosophy and put it into practice.Through North Dakota&rsquo;s first nine games, it gave up 48 goals for an average of 5.3 goals-against per game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01434/4471968-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="543" height="680"><figcaption class="caption-body">The NHL removed serveral of North Dakota&rsquo;s talented underclassmen, but Gino Gasparini has still produced a contender.</figcaption></div>But in the last nine. North Dakota has given up just 24 goals, exactly half that total, for a stingy 2.66 goals-against average. And it is no coincidence that North Dakota has won eight of its last nine games as aThe Sioux are getting outstanding play from freshman center Troy Murray, the leading contender for Rookie of the Year honors. He has 20 goals and 23 assists in North Dakota&rsquo;s 18 games to lead the team in scoring.Sophomore Glen White (17 goals), and juniors and Phil Sykes (14 goals) and Cary Eades (11 goals) have come into their own while Chorney has been the steadying influence on defense.North Dakota may not win its third WCHA title. But there are few in Grand Forks these days who would bet against them.WCHA NOTES - In limited nonleague games involving WCHA teams, the league came away with seven wins and one loss. North Dakota swept Bowling Green 9-3 and 4-1, Minnesota drubbed Dartmouth 7-2 and 9-2, Michigan State shaded Lake Superior State 5-2 and 3-2 and Duluth split with Princeton, winning 6-3 and then losing 1-0 in overtime despite 35 saves by goalie Bill Perkl&hellip; Michigan Tech is hoping a two-week layoff will help injured players Al Michalick, Brent DeWat, and Nick Schwartz get back into the lineup &hellip; When Michigan State blanked Notre Dame 1-0 recently, it was the first shutout for a Michigan State hockey team since the 1974-75 season, when Notre Dame was a 7-0 victim. &#9632;

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COLLEGE HOCKEY

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0029-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01384/4472047-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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VICTORIAVILLE College Scoreboard

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BROPHY</div>OSHAWA &mdash; Who wears sweater number 22, plays right wing and scores goals like there&rsquo;s no tomorrow? Mike Bossy, right? Wrong!It&rsquo;s Tony Tanti.A fourth round selection in last June&rsquo;s midget draft, Tanti is on a record scoring pace with the Oshawa Generals that should have him setting new marks for most goals by a rookie and most power play goals sometime around the three-quarter point in the season.After 31 games, Tanti had 46 goals and 27 assists for 73 points; good for third place overall in the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League. A left hand shot who plays on the right wing, Tanti has 21 goals on the power play.The league record for most goals by a rookie is 70, set by Wayne Gretzky in 64 games with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in 1977-78. The record for power play goals is 32, set by John Tavella, also with the Greyhounds, in 1975-76.Not overly big at 5-10 and 184 pounds, Tanti doesn&rsquo;t score goals by racing down the ice, through a maze of opposition players while doing pirouettes. Nor does he bull his way through big defensemen with rage in his eyes.Quite simply, Tanti is a garbage collector. Most of his goals are scored in scrambles from in front of the net where he simply scoops up a rebound and deposits it behind the goaltender.If he&rsquo;s such a great deal scorer, why did he go so late in the draft?&ldquo;Everyone thought he was too small,&rdquo; said Generals&rsquo; general manager Sherry Bassin. &ldquo;When we found out that he played at 181 pounds we decided to take him. The biggest thing about him is, he plays with the same intensity in our end as he does around the goal in the other team&rsquo;s end.&rdquo;Tanti was not a big scorer a year ago while playing with the St. Michael&rsquo;s Buzzers in the Metro Junior B Hockey League. In 37 games he had 31 goals and 27 assists, fourth best on his team.Although he was a little disappointed he didn&rsquo;t go higher in the draft, he has found the jump from Junior B to Major an easy one.&ldquo;In junior B, I found that when you touched the puck, you had everyone on the ice all over you,&rdquo; said Tanti. &ldquo;Here you have more room because guys play their positions. They give you room to do your thing.&rdquo;When opposition players stop giving Tanti room to do his thing, they have to answer to linemates Barry Tabobondung and Mitch Lamoureux. Tabobondung is one of the most rugged and improved players in the league while Lamoureux is not far behind in both categories. With 72 penalty minutes, Tanti has also shown no fear when it comes to fisticuffs.Still, scoring is what he does best and the thing that will make him a high draft pick in the next National Hockey League entry draft. A good student of the game, Tanti will listen to anyone willing to offer tips on how to score goals.&ldquo;I worked at a hockey school for goaltenders during the summer and I asked them what the hardest shots are to stop,&rdquo; Tanti said. &ldquo;They said the hardest are the quick shots so whenever I get the puck, I fire it right away.&rdquo;Oshawa coach Bill LaForge made each player write down their personal goals at the start of the season. Tanti submitted a paper with 30 goals and 35 assists as his goals.&ldquo;Now I just hope I can keep on playing the way I&rsquo;m playing and keep on scoring,&rdquo; said Tanti.SAULT STE MARIE - There is good news and bad news in Greyhounds&rsquo; country. The good news of course is that the Hounds are still in first place and John Goodwin is continuing to lead the league in scoring. He had two goals and three assists in a 10-3 win over Ottawa 67&rsquo;s.The bad news is that a fan threw an egg and hit 67&rsquo;s captain Randy Boyd in the face. Soo fans have been among the best and most supportive all season and don&rsquo;t need that type of behavior.KINGSTON &mdash; Scott Howson scored the winning goal late in the game as the Canadians edged the Brantford Alexanders 9-8. Kingston goalie Mike Moffat continues to have the best goals-against average with a 3.25 mark. He has a 17-9-2 personal record.OTTAWA &mdash; The 67&rsquo;s are having trouble but only with things they can&rsquo;t do much about &mdash; injuries. Against Sault Ste. Marie, the 67&rsquo;s were without Mario Cerri (flu), Fraser Wood (shoulder), John Linseman (broken hand) and Alan Hepple (leg). Sean Simpson rejoined the team as an overage player after failing to make the Chicago Black Hawks and their American League farm team in New Brunswick. He had five goals and seven assists in his first eight games back with Ottawa.PETERBOROUGH - Petes&rsquo; young defensemen Mike Posavad, Doug Speck, Brett Vance and Andrew Wright are all gaining valuable experience in the first half of the season and coach Dave Dryden hopes they will be a big asset in the second half. Larry Floyd continues to lead the team since returning from a shoulder injury that kept him out of the lineup for six weeks. He had three goals in his first game back and then scored one in each of the next two.SUDBURY &mdash; After winning two in a row, the Wolves turned around and lost four straight, keeping them in last place in the Leyden Division. Captain Mike Hockey had 16 goals and 22 assists in their first 32 games.NIAGARA FALLS &mdash; Flyers&rsquo; coach Paul Gauthier has no worries about his goaltending when Darren Cossar is between the pipes. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the best goalie in the league,&rdquo; offered Gauthier. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s only had one bad game all year and I can&rsquo;t even blame him for that one because he had the flu.&rdquo;WINDSOR &mdash; There pre some who insist that there are two Windsor Spitfires&rsquo; teams in the OMJHL &mdash; one that plays at home; the other on the road. At home, Spits are 12-5 with 105 goals for and 68 against. On the road however, they are a dismal 3-13 with 52 goals for and 96 against. Captain Ernie Godden has the league&rsquo;s second highest number of goals behind Tanti, with 39.TORONTO &mdash; Defenseman Bart Wilson is having a good season with, 11 goals and 21 assists. Fred Perlini had two goals in a 5-4 loss to the Flyers at Maple Leaf Gardens.KITCHENER &mdash; The Rangers put together an impressive four-game win streak (six wins in eight games) taking some of the pressure off coach Orval Tessier. Brian Bellows had three assists while goalie Steve Bienkowski made 28 saves in a 5-3 win over Toronto.LONDON &mdash; The Knights secured goaltender Mike Vezina from Ottawa for the $1,000 waiver price. Little Peter Reed is the most exciting player to watch in London. Although he stands only 5-4, Reed has 15 goals and 16 assists.BRANTFORD - Mike Bullard had three goals and six assists in his first nine games with the Alexanders after being sent back to Brantford from the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL. In a battle of the division last-place teams, Brantford topped Sudbury 5-2.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01428/4472085-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="558" height="862"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Ontario Hockey League, the name league which sent Don Beaupre and Roland Melanson to the pros, has a couple more outstanding prospects in Kingston&rsquo;s Scott Howson, above, who leads the loop in goals-against average and Niagara Falls&rsquo; Darren Cossar, below, who, according to his coach, Paul Gauthier, is the best backstop around.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02329/4472078-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="549" height="864"></div> &#9632;

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Generals’ Talented Youngster Tanti Scoring Goals At OHL Record Pace

LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSThe Kitchener Rangers were obviously impressed with rookie Brian Bellows the first time they laid eyes on him.The Ontario Hockey League team picked Bellows, a 16-year-old center from St. Catharines, Ont., as their No. 1 selection in the league&rsquo;s annual priority draft and promptly announced that the six-foot, 190-pounder would become the team captain.Bellows is the youngest captain in the entire OHL and the Rangers feel it was a key move putting the &lsquo;C&rsquo; on Bellows&rsquo; jersey. He has really responded on the ice in his first OHL season. In 32 games, he has scored 25 goals and assisted on 31 more for 56 points.The OHL picked Bellows as Player of the Week after his sensational performance for the Rangers in a recent three-game victory spree. Bellows led Kitchener to three straight wins on the strength of seven points, two of them goals. He sparked the Rangers to an 8-5 romp over Windsor, led the way in beating Sudbury 5-4 and set up three goals in a 5-3 win over Toronto.Hockey observers are keeping a watchful eye on young Bellows for the future. The scouts have already tabbed him as a sure-fire prospect for the NHL.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-03228/4472116-1-eng-US/f0030-032.jpg" title="f0030-03" width="497" height="908"><figcaption class="caption-body">BRIAN BELLOWS&hellip; Kitchener Rangers</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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OHL Player Of The Week

LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSThe New Westminster Royals are having their problems this season winning but it hasn&rsquo;t stopped 19-year-old Randy Wickware from carrying the torch for the Bruins.The New West team recently lost three games in four outings but Wickware was true value on the ice with a 10-point performance that earned him Player of the Week honors in the Western Hockey League.The rangy 6-2, 205-pound Bruins&rsquo; left winger has managed 50 points in 26 games despite the fact New Westminster has only 10 wins in its first 31 games.Wickware, who missed six games earlier this season with an injury, came up with a goal and three assists while the Bruins were losing twice to the Billings Bighorns. The next gameout, he had two goals and three assists in an 11-3 thrashing of Spokane and capped his 10-point week with a goal in a 5-3 decision, again over Spokane.With 15 goals in his first 26 starts, the Winnipeg-born Wickware is ranked among the WHL&rsquo;s leading 15 scorers.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01394/4472147-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="557" height="1050"><figcaption class="caption-body">RANDY WICKWARE&hellip; New West Bruins</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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WHL Player Of The Week

<div class="byline">BY GREGG DRINNAN</div>NEW WESTMINSTER - Muzz MacPherson&rsquo;s return to the Western Hockey League hasn&rsquo;t really been a rip-roaring success. But he&rsquo;s not at all discouraged.MacPherson, whose last WHL coaching job was with the Winnipeg Clubs (now Calgary Wranglers), has spent the past few seasons in such places as Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. and the Virginia cities of Hampton and Richmond.He headed West this past summer and signed on with the New Westminster Bruins, a team that finished last season&rsquo;s 72-game schedule with only 21 points on 10 wins and one tie.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re rebuilding,&rdquo; says MacPherson, whose Bruins won nine and tied one of their first 27 games this season. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt about that. At the same time, though, we don&rsquo;t have as much youth as people seem to think. We&rsquo;ve only got four 17-year-olds and one 16-year-old and at the start of the season, we only had four returning veterans.&rdquo;The one player who has made quite a difference with the Bruins is a veteran, but he isn&rsquo;t a returnee to New Westminster. John Neeld, a 20-year-old center, spent last season with the Seattle Breakers, where he picked up 97 points, but did not have his name come up in the National Hockey League&rsquo;s draft. Bruins&rsquo; general manager Tracy Pratt acquired Neeld in a pre-season deal and the veteran has supplied a lot of the Bruins&rsquo; offense.Neeld, with 66 points, is the WHL&rsquo;s third leading scorer. And the Bruins have scored just 134 goals.&ldquo;Neeld has been excellent, just excellent.&rdquo; said MacPherson. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s done a heckuva job. He really carries the play and is an offensive threat everytime he&rsquo;s out there.&rdquo;The Bruins will certainly get more offensive production out of 19-year-old Anthony McMurchy, a center whose NHL rights are owned by the Boston Bruins, once he totally recovers from a heel problem.BILLINGS &mdash; The hometown Bighorns got goals from five players in dumping the Lethbridge Broncos, 5-3. Then Marcel Frere scored twice and Jeff Zilkie had a goal and four assists as the Bighorns bounced the Broncos again, this time, 6-1. John Benns&rsquo; third goal the game, at 6:44 of overtime, efeated visiting New Westminsti 7-6. Jim McGeough tied the game for Billings with five seconds to play in the third period after the Bruins overcame a 5-0 deficit to take a 6-5 lead.BRANDON &mdash; Right winger Steve Patrick&rsquo;s second goal of the game, at 6:07 of overtime gave the Wheat Kings a 7-6 victory over New Westminster. Carl Mokosak, added one goal and set up three others, while Dave Chartier scored his 20th and 21st goals.CALGARY &mdash; Barry Brigley&rsquo;s goal early in the third period gave the visiting Wranglers a 7-4 lead and stood up as the winner in a 7-6 victory over Winnipeg. The next night, the Wranglers banged in six third-period goals, including the game&rsquo;s last four, and bumped Saskatoon, 8-4. Clint Fehr scored Calgary&rsquo;s first three goals. Fehr added three more, giving him 20, as the Wranglers dropped Victoria, 5-1.MEDICINE HAT &mdash; Ken Solheim scored twice, giving him a league-leading 40, as the home-town Tigers blasted Billings, 10-4. Solheim was then called up by the NHL&rsquo;s Chicago Black Hawks and he scored in his first outing, a 2-2 tie with Philadelphia.REGINA &mdash; The Pats finished off a superb six-game West coast road swing with a 6-4 victory over Seattle. Rob Babchuk scored twice for the Pats, while Brian Varga added his 30th goal and two assists, becoming the first WHL player to break 70 points. Regina won five of their six road games. Returning home, Dave Michayluk banged in three goals and Varga scored once and set up four others as the Pats got past New Westminster, 11-8. A 15-point week, resulted in Jock Callander being named the East&rsquo;s Player of the Week.SASKATOON &mdash; The Blades made coach Daryl Lubiniecki a winner in his first outing as they doubled visiting New Westminster, 10-5. Marc LeClair led the way with three goals &mdash; giving him 20 &mdash; and two assists while Rocky Trottier scored once and set up four others.WINNIPEG &mdash; The Warriers picked up 18-year-old center Randy Taylor from Seattle for future considerations. Taylor has eight goals and eight assists with the Breakers. Taylor earned two assists and Bobby Hull, Jr. had a pair of goals in their first games, but the Warriors lost 7-6 to visiting Calgary. A 5-4 home-ice victory over New Westminster lifted the Warriors past Saskatoon and out of the Eastern cellar. Mike Dunn&rsquo;s fifth goal of the year was the winner as the Warriors surprised the Tigers, 5-4, in Medicine Hat.PORTLAND &mdash; Kelly Rissling scored twice and set up another as the Winter Hawks dumped Seattle, 7-3, before 5,143 fans in Portland. Then the Winter Hawks tied a league-record as they blasted the Spokane Flyers, 18-4. That equalled the WHL record set in 1967-68 by the Estevan Bruins (now New Westminster) for the most goals in a game by one team. Defenseman Jim Benning paced the Hawks, with three goals and three assists. Ken Yaremchuk, after an eight-point week, was selected as the West&rsquo;s Player of the Week.SPOKANE &mdash; General manager Tom Gauthier moved in behind the Flyers bench, replacing rookie coach Buddy Bodman. Gauthier, though, didn&rsquo;t meet with much success his first three times out as the Flyers dropped a pair of home ice decisions &mdash; 10-4 and 10-1 &mdash; to Victoria and then absorbed that 18-4 pounding in Portland.VICTORIA &mdash; The Cougars spent a week-end in Spokane and hammered the Fivers 10-1 and 10-4. Nine unanswered goals, three by Paul Cyr, were the story in the opener, while Grant Rezansoff pumped in three in the second game. &#9632;

Rebuilding Bruins MacPherson’s Enjoyable Task

<div class="byline">BY HERB ZURKOWSKY</div>LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSCORNWALL &mdash; Last May, in a tiny Regina hockey rink, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League&rsquo;s Cornwall Royals stunned Canada by upsetting the Peterborough Petes for the Memorial Cup.Now they&rsquo;re trying to pull one over the world by proving they&rsquo;re the premier junior team in the world.The Royals are in the midst of performing in the World Junior Hockey Championships, Dec. 26-Jan. 2 in West Germany. In a group with Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Austria, the Royals were hoping to be one of the two top teams in the group and advance to medal-round play.Royals&rsquo; coach Bob Kilger, who talked to THE HOCKEY NEWS prior to leaving on Dec. 22, said he had mixed reactions over the tournament. On the one hand, Kilger said it&rsquo;s an honor representing Canada and looks forward to measuring the Royals&rsquo; abilities against what are in fact All Star teams.But on the other hand, Kilger and his players &mdash; many of whom are not from the Cornwall area &mdash; must spend a Christmas away from home. Kilger also has almost 50 percent of the Royals&rsquo; QMJHL season still to play upon returning from Europe and worries about the physical and emotional drain the tourney will have on his troops.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re certainly looking forward to the level of competition we&rsquo;ll be up against,&rdquo; Kilger said. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;m sure the players are too, but I also have mixed emotions. It&rsquo;s the holiday season and my players have been away from home for four months already. And we&rsquo;re basically a local team. But the Europeans are an All Star team with players brought together from various teams.&rdquo;&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really excited about the tournament, but I have some reservations because it does come at a bad time of the year. I have three boys [nine, seven and four] at home and Christmas is always a fun time and an important time from a family point of view. You become closer than at other times. Our family just determined we&rsquo;d make up for it the best way we could. We&rsquo;ll have an early celebration.&ldquo;It certainly is a unique opportunity. Not only is it an honor representing the local community and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, but we&rsquo;re also representing all of Canada.&rdquo;When Kilger talked about local teams, he was only partly correct. In truth, the Royals dropped five players and added seven from other QMJHL teams. Twenty players have made the trip to West Germany and Kilger is permitted to dress all 20.Kilger dropped goalie Joe Mantione for the championships, as well as Marc Lalonde, Steve Maloski, Gerard Peltier and Sandy Mitchell, all rookies who did not participate in the Royals&rsquo; banner season, but, as Kilger pointed out, Royals just the same.Kilger added goalie Corado Micalef from the Sherbrooke Beavers, defenseman Gilbert Delorme from the Chicoutimi Sagueneens and rookie Bill Campbell from the Montreal Juniors, plus forwards Denis Cyr from the Juniors, Guy Fournier from the Shawingan Cataracts and Jean-Marc Gaulin and Andre Chartrain from the Sorel Black Hawks.Campbell was a last-minute addition, replacing the Royals&rsquo; Dan Zavarise, who quit the team and has requested a trade.In explaining each player&rsquo;s selection, Kilger said: &ldquo;Based on Micalef&rsquo;s performance against us and other teams I felt he had a little edge. And he catches with his right hand and I wanted to throw the Europeans something with a different wrinkle.&ldquo;Delorme is a big, strong defenseman who handles the puck well and has one of the hardest shots in the league. I&rsquo;m hoping he&rsquo;ll be more effective on the larger ice surface.&rdquo;The fact Campbell is only 16 was easy to overlook. Kilger said, because of the poise the youngster has exhibited. Kilger said he likely would have selected Hawks&rsquo; Daniel Naud except for his knee injury.Kilger said he&rsquo;ll employ Cyr on right wing with QMJHL leading scorer Dale Hawerchuk, replacing Gilles Crepeau, unable to participate because he&rsquo;s overage.Kilger called Fournier an &ldquo;intelligent player&rdquo; who can play on power plays or kill penalties, while Chartrain and Gaulin, who play on a line with Chris Valentine, were selected so Kilger would have at least a part of a collective unit to ice against the Europeans.&ldquo;It was important to select players who would complement what the Royals already had,&rdquo; Kilger explained. &ldquo;Especially since the other players would have little time to practice with my team.&rdquo;Kilger said of extreme importance to the Royals is adjusting to the bigger ice surface as well as to European officiating. As anyone who watched the 1972 Team Canada-Soviet Union series knows, NHL players more than once lost their cool over penalty calls.&ldquo;No question we have to make damn sure we&rsquo;re at our Sunday School best,&rdquo; Kilger said. &ldquo;This is a great opportunity and challenge and certainly some individuals in the past have been so keyed up, they&rsquo;ve spoiled everything as a result of their actions.&rdquo;Kilger naturally won&rsquo;t make any predictions, but said even if the Royals placed dead-last among the eight competing teams, but everyone to a man performed to their capabilities, he&rsquo;d be pleased. Then again, placing in the top four wouldn&rsquo;t infuriate the former NHL referee in his rookie season with the Royals, either.&ldquo;I hope we go over there and play as well and as hard as we possibly can,&rdquo; Kilger said. &ldquo;Not only in how we handle the puck but in our checking skills, too. I hope we put the club way ahead of individual play.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be satisfied if we finish eighth as long as we get a good effort from each individual. I&rsquo;ll be proud of them. But I have to be realistic. I don&rsquo;t know what we&rsquo;ll be up against. I hope we&rsquo;re in the top four and have a crack at the medals.&rdquo;AROUND THE LEAGUE &mdash; The 1981 All Star game will be played at the Laval Sports Centre Jan. 21, pitting the Lebel Division against the Dilio Division &hellip; Since Montreal and Sorel have two players competing in the world championships, they, as well as the Royals, have been permitted to postpone games between Dec. 22-Jan. 4. &#9632;

Royals Eye Another Upset In West Germany

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WHERE NHL TEAMS PLAY

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THE NHL’S POINT RACE

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NHL SCOREBOARD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01405/4472348-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="241" height="361"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-0778/4472341-1-eng-US/f0034-072.jpg" title="f0034-07" width="242" height="358"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02331/4472334-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="553" height="2447"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03240/4472327-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="578" height="1403"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04154/4472320-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="576" height="2402"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-05113/4472313-1-eng-US/f0034-052.jpg" title="f0034-05" width="549" height="3437"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-0687/4472306-1-eng-US/f0034-062.jpg" title="f0034-06" width="543" height="415"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01383/4472299-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="556" height="1859"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02304/4472292-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="1160" height="1982"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03232/4472285-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="552" height="949"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-04186/4472278-1-eng-US/f0035-042.jpg" title="f0035-04" width="567" height="358"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01317/4472271-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="220" height="845"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02219/4472264-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="463" height="656"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-03159/4472257-1-eng-US/f0037-032.jpg" title="f0037-03" width="1155" height="681"></div> &#9632;

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NATIONAL LEAGUE SUMMARIES

BOSTONGoaliesCRAIG, JimVACHON, RogieDefenseDOAK, GaryMcCRIMMON, BradMELNYK, LarryMILBURY, MikePARK. BradREDMOND, DickCentersLALONDE, BobbyMacTAVISH. CraigMcNAB. PeterMILLER, BobRATELLE, JeanR. WingsCASHMAN, Wayne - CFOSTER. DwightMIDDLETON. RickMORRISON. DougO&rsquo;REILLY. TerryL. WingsCROWDER. KeithJONATHAN, StanKASPER. SteveBUFFALOGoaliesEDWARDS, DonSAUVE. RobertDefenseDUNN. RichieHAJT. BillPLAYFAIR, LarryRAMSEY, MikeRUFF. LindySCHOENFELD. JimVAN BOXMEER. JohnCentersHAWORTH. AlanLUCE. DonPERREAULT. GilSAVARD, AndreSMITH. DerekR. WingsDUDLEY, RickGARE. Danny - CSEILING. RicL. WingsHAMEL, GilesMcKEGNEY. TonyRAMSAY. CraigCALGARYGoaliesLEMELIN, RejeanRIGGIN. PatDefenseHOLT. RandyMARSH. Brad-CMURDOCH. BobRAUTAKALLIO. PekkaREINHART. PaulRUSSELL, PhilCentersCLEMENT. BillINGARFIELD. EarlNILSSON. KentPEPLINSKI. JimR. WingsMacMILLAN. BobMcKENDRY. AlexPLETT, WilliSMITH. BradL. WingsLAVALLEE, KevinLEVER. DonVAIL. EricWILSON, BertCHICAGOGoaliesBANNERMAN. MurrayESPOSITO, TonyDefenseBROWN, KeithFOX, GregHUTCHISON. DaveMURRAY. BobWILSON. DougCentersPATERSON. RickLYSIAK. TomKERR RegRUSKOWSKI, Terry-CSAVARD, DemsR. WingsHIGGINS. TimMARSH. PeterL. WingsBULLEY.TedROBIDOUX, FlorentSECORD, AlSEDLBAUER, RonSOLHEIM. KenSUTTER. DarrylCOLORADOGoaliesASTROM, HardySMITH. AlDefenseHUGHES. JackJOHANSEN. TrevorKITCHEN. MikeMcEWEN, MikeQUENNEVILLE. JoelRAMAGE, RobCentersBERRY. DougMALINOWSKI, MerlinMcKECHNIE, WaltSHEEHAN, BobbySMITH. BarryR. WingsDeBLOIS. LucienDELORME, RonMcDONALD, LannyROBERT, Rene-CVAUTOUR. YvonL. WingsATTWELL. BobbyCOOPER. EdGILLIS. MikeDETROITGoaliesGILBERT, GillesLOZINSKI. LarryDefenseHAMEL, JeanHUBER. WillieKORN, JimLARSON, ReedMILLER. PerryCentersKIRTON, MarkMAHOVLICH. PeteMcCOURT, DalePETERSON. BrentR. WingsFOLIGNO, MikeNEDOMANSKY. V.OGRODNICK. JohnPOLONICH. DennisL. WingsHICKS, GlennLABRAATEN, DanLYLE, GeorgeTHOMPSON. Errol - CWOODS. PaulEDMONTONGoaliesLOW, RonMIO. EddieDefenseCOFFEY. PaulFOGOLIN. LeeHUDDY, Charlie.HUGHES. JohnLOWE, KevinPRICE. PatSILTANEN. RistoCentersGRETZKY. WayneHAGMAN. MattiMESSIER. MarkMESSIER. MarkWEIR, StanR. WingsANDERSON. GlennBRACKENBURY, CurtMacDONALD, B. J. CMURDOCH. DonL. WingsHUNTER, DaveKURRI, JariSEMENKO. DaveHARTFORDGoaliesGARRETT, JohnVEISOR, MikeDefenseBARNES. NormHOWE. MarlyMclLHARGEY, JackSIMS. AlVOLCAN. MickeyCentersGALARNEAU, MichelKEON. DaveNACHBAUR. DonROGERS. MikeR. WingsMILLER. WarrenNEUFELD. RayROWE. TomSTOUGHTON. BlaineL. WingsBOUTETTE. PatDOUGLAS. JordyFIDLER. MikeFOTIU, NickHOWE. MarkLOS ANGELESGoaliesKEANS. DougLESSARD MarioDefenseABRAHAMSSON. THALWARD, DougHARDY. MarkKORAB, JerryLEWIS. DaveMURPHY, LarryWELLS. JayCentersBONAR. DanDIONNE, MarcelTERRION, GregUNGER. GarryR. WingsFOX. JimHOPKINS. DeanMURPHY. Mike-CTAYLOR. DaveL. WingsGOLDUP, GlennHARRIS, BillyJENSEN. SteveSIMMER. CharlieMINNESOTAGoaliesBEAUPRE. DonEDWARDS. GaryMELOCHE. GillesDefenseBARRETT. FredBRUMWELL. MurrayGILES, CurtHARTSBURG, CraigROBERTS. GordieSHMYR. Paul - CSMITH, GregCentersCARLSON, JackEAVES. MikeSHARPLEY. GlennSMITH. BobbyYOUNG. TimR. WingsANDERSSON. KentCARLSON. JackMacADAM, AlYOUNGHANS, TomZANUSSI. RonL. WingsCICCARELLI, DinoCHRISTOFF. SteveMcCarthy, TomPAYNE. SteveMONTREALGoaliesHERRON, DenisWAMSLEY. RickDefenseBAKER. BillENGBLOM, BrianGINGRAS. GastonLANGWAY. RodLAPOINTE, GuyROBINSON. LarrySAVARD, 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="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01363/4472520-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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MINOR SCOREBOARD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-05105/4472551-1-eng-US/f0037-052.jpg" title="f0037-05" width="531" height="1212"></div> &#9632;

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NHL, COLLEGES ON U.S. TV

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-04126/4472582-1-eng-US/f0037-042.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Penalties For NHL Teams

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01376/4472634-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"></div><h2>Visions Of Grandeur</h2>There&rsquo;s no doubt how George Gund feels about the future for his Minnesota North Stars in the NHL. Gund, who is vice chairman of the board, is attired in a giantsized western hat, complete with cigar and a miniature replica of the Stanley Cup as he contemplates what lies ahead for the much-improved North Stars. Gund became a part owner of the Stars when the NHL merged the Cleveland and Minnesota franchises in 1977.<h2>Shades Of The Old West</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02297/4472627-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="1362" height="1446"></div>Hats seem to be the in thing with NHL executives these days. Here&rsquo;s Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; president Michael Gobuty, left, and his general manager, John Ferguson, wearing their Western attire at a &ldquo;Country Night in the NHL&rdquo; party, which was a salute to the Calgary Flames, the Jets&rsquo; newest rival in Western Canada. Thousands of fans attended a recent game between the Flames and Jets in western outfits while country music blared in the background.<h2>A Tribute To A Star</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03226/4472620-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="1990" height="1395"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo by Ian MacAlpine</figcaption></div>Roger Doucet, the National anthem singer who has been performing before home games of the Montreal Canadiens at the Forum for the past 10 years, has been in attendance at many public tributes to athletes as a featured singer. But Doucet found himself on the receiving end recently when he was presented with a personal check for $25,000 at a special night in his honor. The ailing vocalist, who has been slowly recovering from brain surgery performed last spring, is shown, second left, with three of Montreal&rsquo;s top pro stars, who made the presentation to him From the left is Gerry Datillio, quarterback of the Montreal Alouettes, catcher Gary Carter of the Montreal Expos and defenseman-captain Serge Savard of the Canadiens.<h2>Slick Oiler</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-04162/4472613-1-eng-US/f0038-042.jpg" title="f0038-04" width="798" height="1391"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo by Sam Mitsugi</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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HOCKEY PEOPLE

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01355/4472665-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Photo By Ian MacAlpineVersatility gave Jim Peplinski a spot on the Flames&rsquo; roster and now he&rsquo;s been forced into a heavier playing load by the numerous injuries to his Calgary teammates.</figcaption></div>CALGARY &mdash; Searching for a silver lining, the man charged with supplying coach Al MacNeil with hockey players during the Calgary Flames&rsquo; current injury crisis can find at least one to get his club through its cloudy near-future.&ldquo;The kids have been getting more ice time,&rdquo; pronounces general manager Cliff Fletcher, when asked to look on the bright side. &ldquo;All the injuries we&rsquo;ve had may be a blessing in disguise. With people like Ken Houston and Guy Chouinard out, the younger players have been gaining vital experience. We should be that much stronger when the going gets tacky in February and March.&rdquo;At one point in early December the Flames had six veterans &mdash; Chouinard. Houston, Bob MacMillan. Don Lever. Randy Holt and Dan Bouchard - out of their starting lineup, five with injuries and Bouchard because of a dispute with management. Combined with veteran Bill Clement&rsquo;s sore knee anti rookie Brad Smith&rsquo;s swollen eye, the Flames went with as many as seven rookie forwards in their lineup for a week.MacMillan and Lever have since returned to stablize the front lines, but with Chouinard out until late January and Houston&rsquo;s status uncertain, at least three rookies are getting a chance to play regularly and show Fletcher that his confidence in them was not misplaced.While Denis Cyr has been returned to junior and Mike Dwyer and Bobby Gould to the minors, Jim Peplinski, Kevin Lavallee and Earl Ingarfield are all enjoying the luxury of fulltime duty, something that was denied them in the early season when everyone was healthy.Three Flames&rsquo; rookies are getting a chance to play regularly and show GM Fletcher that his confidence wasn&rsquo;t misplaced.Peplinski, in particular, is feeling the effects of having to replace the high-scoring Chouinard until the latter recovers from a separated shoulder.&ldquo;You get guys like Guy out, it means you have to dig down deeper.&rdquo; said Peplinski. a Renfrew, Ont. native, who was the Flames&rsquo; fourth-round selection in the 1979 NHL entry draft. &ldquo;It means the younger players on the team have to produce faster than anticipated. It means we have to start coming through right away.&rdquo;Captain of the Toronto Marlboros in his final year of junior, Peplinski possesses the leadership qualities that Fletcher likes to see in his young players. His versatility, more than any other factor, helped Peplinski make the hockey club in his first training camp. As a junior, he played right wing, but has demonstrated that he can play each of the three forward positions equally well.Right now, the Flames want him at center, where they feel his long reach and surprising quickness will be utilized best.Although he prefers center. Peplinski will acknowledge that the adjustment has not been easy.&ldquo;I was nervous at first,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d get the puck and I&rsquo;d want to get rid of it right away. Now I generally do something when I have the puck. I feel much more at ease because I can wheel a little more, handle the puck a little more. I feel it suits my style of play. &#9632;

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Flames’ Kids Receiving Valuable Experience

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01173/4472696-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Schmautz has been celebrating plenty of goals since finding a new lease on life as a member of the Vancouver Canucks</figcaption></div>VANCOUVER - The Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; most successful road trip of the season, in which they got seven of eight points, had two storybook endings starring veterans Dave Williams and Bobby SchmautzIt was hard to say which was more fitting, the goal by Williams in Toronto or the winner bagged by Schmautz in Boston, but certainly the former was more of a production.With the score tied 4-4 in the third period, Williams scored to put Vancover ahead in a game they eventually won 8-5 with Per-Olav Brasar getting the winning goal. Normally when Williams scores there is his traditional, well-known showmanship but a goal in his first trip back to Maple Leaf Gardens as a Vancouver scoring star brought on a special carnival act.Williams raced down the ice, rammed his stick between his legs and rode the shaft down the ice as though it were a horse in a rodeo. When somehow picked as a third star by the local media he repeated his act, this time pretending to fire off rounds from an imaginary gun.&ldquo;Bobby Schmautz was my producer and Stan Smyl my director,&rdquo; said Williams. &ldquo;I told the boys that if I drained one tonight I&rsquo;d have a new move for them.&rdquo;Williams also put up $100 for the winning goal, which Brasar tucked away, and the feeling on the Canucks that they can and should beat anyone kept growing.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got five or six guys on this team who can be quite physical and I&rsquo;ve been able to concentrate on scoring,&rdquo; said Williams, who had 18 goals after 34 games. At his present pace he would be up around 40 by the end of the year if opposition teams don&rsquo;t start paying him special attention, an unlikely prospect.Schmautz, meanwhile, waltzed into Boston and ruffled the feathers of Bruins&rsquo; managing director Harry Sinden, scoring the winner in a 2-1 game.It was both an exceptional and a lucky goal as the play was made when the Bruins&rsquo; Dick Redmond fell at the blueline as Williams and Schmautz broke in two-on-two. Schmautz, carrying the puck the whole time, was able to dodge Redmond and Brad McCrimmon went right for the goal with Williams, allowing Schmautz to improve his angle and eventually go upstairs on goalie Rogie Vachon.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s always nice to come back to Boston, especially when you end up getting the winner.&rdquo; said Schmautz, who was released by Bruins&rsquo; GM Harry Sinden during training camp. &ldquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t give him [Sinden] a wave or anyting like that. I wouldn&rsquo;t give him the satisfaction. I just didn&rsquo;t think that on the basis of training camp they would have let me go. I thought when I came in as a free agent [to Boston, at the beginning of this season] that I was to be given a fair chance to make the team and I don&rsquo;t think I was. I thought about quitting hockey but when I got the chance to come to Vancouver I thought I&rsquo;d take it and I&rsquo;m very happy I did. There&rsquo;s a lot of teams I wouldn&rsquo;t have gone to."The Schmautz-Williams-Brasar line has been going wonderfully well for Vancouver since Ivan Boldirev got hurt and after the injury to Thomas Gradin in Buffalo, when he was hacked down by John van Boxmeer. Vancouver was left with only one healthy center and Gerry Minor and Chris Oddleifson were used to fill in. Jerry Butler also saw some excellent shifts in the middle.Gradin was left with a hip pointer and Boldirev was just returning from a fractured cheekbone. The Canucks&rsquo; list of minor injuries is also long, with Colin Campbell having a fractured wrist, which should not keep him out more than three weeks, Lars Lindgren a broken finger and Rick Lanz has a neck problem which bothers him when he shoots. None of the injuries were considered that serious except that just about everyone on the team, including the coaches, got the flu.The injuries and illness forced management to bring up defenseman Mike Christie from their Dallas farm and he played fairly well in Vancouver&rsquo;s second home game, against Pittsburgh, since coming back from their successful four-game trip.The Canucks were a game over .500 on the road this season, and one of the contributing factors was their charter service in the east, which has been getting them into cities much earlier than when they used to wait for airline flights. &#9632;

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January 2, 1981

NHL’S SCORERS THIS WEEK

The Hockey News

Leafs Inconsistent Against New Division Rivals

Winnipeg Giveaways Prove Costly For McVie