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.

February 11, 1983

The Hockey News February 11, 1983

<div class="byline">BY JAY GREENBERG</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-02991/4769254-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Philadelphia rookie Mark Taylor, grandson of the legendary Cyclone Taylor, is a valuable asset for the Flyers.</figcaption></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Grandpa played three positions&mdash;defense, forward and rover. There were seven guys on the ice in those days. The rover sort of did what Ron Flockhart does now.Anyway, the extra man represented one more Ottawa Senator to beat, but legend has it that Cyclone Taylor skated through them all one day to score a goal. He did it backwards, too, or at least that&rsquo;s what they said. His grandson, Mark, tried to separate the fact from the fiction one day from a spot on Cyclone&rsquo;s knee, but the old guy was shifty, even in his 80s.&ldquo;He liked the story,&rdquo; Mark said. &ldquo;He never would exactly say whether it was true. Great man. He died just four years ago. He was 93-years-old and until the last year or so, when he fell in the shower and broke his hip, he was still playing golf every day.&rdquo;Let the record show that Mark Taylor&rsquo;s first game-winning goal in the National Hockey League was the stuff of another legend. He skated&mdash;backwards&mdash;through the entire roster of the Winnipeg Jets last week, to break a 2-2 third-period tie and charge the Flyers to a 5-2 victory.Taylor picked up the puck behind his own goal, sent three Jets sprawling with his first deke, stiff-armed two more at center, stickhandled past 10 more players who jumped off the bench, faked a goaltending immortal, Doug Soetart, to the ice, and backhanded the puck between his own legs with one second on the clock.You believe everything you read in the newspapers? Then maybe you&rsquo;d buy this: Bob McCammon, whose whoppers are beginning to challenge Fred Shero&rsquo;s, said Mark Taylor can bench press 400 pounds.&ldquo;What?&rdquo; said Taylor. &ldquo;Actually, it&rsquo;s a little closer to 300. Really, about 280. Gee, I only weigh 185.&rdquo;Okay, okay, the Flyer bubble inflated to 16-1-1 and McCammon&rsquo;s nose grew two inches. Your correspondent&rsquo;s schnozz is already too hefty to risk another lie.The Jets had tied the score, 2-2, on Bengt Lundholm&rsquo;s goal 6:04 into the third period.Taylor and Ilkka Sinisalo suddenly were two-on-one on defenseman Dave Babych. Taylor&rsquo;s first thought was to pass, but Thomas Steen hustled back in time to interfere with Sinisalo and take away that option.Taylor needed an extra stride to get a step outside Babych. &ldquo;I was in pretty deep,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I thought I was out of tricks.&rdquo;Instead, Taylor went to his backhand and sent the puck barely wide of Soetart&rsquo;s splitting pad and just inside the post. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth was that 6:37 remained on the clock.It tells you a lot about how the Flyers are living these days&mdash;that they win games on late goals by fourth-line utility players&mdash;but that doesn&rsquo;t tell you a lot about Taylor.The Kid, a former college player of the year, is no spring chicken, having played four seasons at the University of North Dakota and another two with the Maine Mariners.He hasn&rsquo;t got the the shot to be a big scorer, but he can make a play and his speed is an asset McCammon has put to splendid use.With Brian Propp, Taylor has been a part of one of the league&rsquo;s leading penalty-killing units. When Flockhart missed seven games with a bruised kneecap, Taylor chipped in seven points playing on a regular line.The Flyers are steadily working their way back to health but Taylor continues to make himself tough to ignore.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s an intelligent kid, a team player,&rdquo; said McCammon, which was no lie. &ldquo;He can fill a lot of utility roles. He has character. You can win championships with guys like him.&rdquo;Or if not actually win them, his is the type who keeps them from getting away. The Flyers lost a lot of games on a lot of little things a year ago and the Winnipeg victory was an example of how they have solidified themselves around the fringes with players such as Taylor and Evans.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m still getting a lot of ice time, even since everyone but Timmy Kerr has come back, and that&rsquo;s a good sign,&rdquo; Taylor said. &ldquo;This is a pretty strong team. I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m going to knock anybody out of the lineup.&rdquo;On a night when another Flyer with imressive bloodlines, Mark Howe, returned to the lineup from a four-game absence (bruised kidney), the defensive star was Frank Bathe. Ever hear about the time the Bather skated through the Montreal Canadiens backwards? Well, you&rsquo;re not going to.But Bathe, who has been written off more times than a bad investment on a tax return, continues to fool us all. Against Winnipeg, his play shoved Behn Wilson back to the bench and earned praise from McCammon.&ldquo;He knows his limitations and gets the job done,&rdquo; said McCammon. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s in the best shape of his career. He used to play at about 200 pounds. Now he&rsquo;s down to about 185 and it shows. He&rsquo;s worked harder on his conditioning and also become a health food eater.&rdquo;The Bather? The once fried-food king? Eating wheat germ? Turns out this was just another tall tale.&ldquo;Nah,&rdquo; said the Bather, &ldquo;all I&rsquo;ve really done is cut out the pizza.&rdquo;ICEBERGS&mdash;Pelle Lindbergh, who missed three weeks with a wrist sprain, resumed workouts. But as long as Bob Froese, whose eight-game winning streak ended in a 2-2 tie in Minnesota, kept playing well, the Wales Conference second-team goalie was left without a net. &ldquo;The way we&rsquo;re going I&rsquo;m not even changing socks, let alone goaltenders,&rdquo; McCammon said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll give Pelle some more practices to get him ready for the all-star game.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Flyer Utility Man Taylor Has Championship Genes

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div>BOSTON&mdash;It&rsquo;s only about 400 miles as la corneille flies from the Georges Vezina Centre in Chicoutimi, Que., to the Boston Garden, but it can be light years to a 19-year-old French hockey player.For one thing, he played junior hockey in Chicoutimi. It&rsquo;s the NHL in Boston. For another thing, a French boy has no need to speak English in Chicoutimi. In Boston, French and 75 cents get you a ride on the subway.But Luc Dufour, 19 years old and fresh out of Chicoutimi, is making it in Boston, both in hockey and in English, and Jan. 29 can be pinpointed as the day of the break-through.Dufour, the rookie left winger, rattled in three goals, his first National Hockey League hat trick, in a 7-3 victory over the Detroit Red Wings, and he handled his first mass assault by the press, if not with aplomb certainly with unexpected ease.The goals may have come easier than the answers to the questions.The first was a setup from Tom Fergus; the second a backhander from 20 feet that caught Wing goalie Greg Stefan by surprise; and the third was a 30-foot slap shot following a steal from a Detroit forward.The goals gave Dufour a total of 11 for the season, six of them coming in three games against the Red Wings.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a good shot, Luc,&rdquo; said Bruin coach Gerry Cheevers. &ldquo;Tonight sort of suggested to me that he&rsquo;s going to be a good goalscorer. That backhand goal, it takes a talented goalscorer to do that.&rdquo;Then, it was Dufour&rsquo;s turn to talk.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he said with a nervous laugh.&ldquo;Rattie, where are you?&rdquo; someone called but Jean Ratelle, who has handled the translations for Dufour in the past, was nowhere to be found.Finally, goalie Marco Baron who speaks English, French and Italian, stepped in to pose the first question and Dufour was off and running.&ldquo;Okay,&rdquo; he said, pulling himself together. &ldquo;Tom Fergus keep the puck in the corner. I call to him. He pass to me. I don&rsquo;t stop the puck. I try for the net and score.&ldquo;The second goal my best goal in the National League, I think, my backhand. I skate with the puck. I try to shot high and it&rsquo;s good.&ldquo;My third, I think the defense pass to the other guy and the guy lost the puck and I take the puck and I shot in the comer, a little shot. I score and I&rsquo;m very happy about this hat trick, my first hat trick.&rdquo;It was a magnificent performance for a youngster who could just about order a meal in English as late as last September.The Bruins are expecting a similar performance on the ice from Dufour, who was their second choice, 35th overall, in the 1981 draft of juniors. He had 43 goals for Chicoutimi in 1980-81 and 55 last year when Boston left him in junior.&ldquo;We know lie can score goals,&rdquo; said Bruin GM Harry Sinden back in training camp. &ldquo;And we know he&rsquo;s going to score them in the NHL. He lacks the knowledge of how to play his position. That&rsquo;s something that&rsquo;s teachable but you have to bring him into it slowly.&rdquo;&ldquo;Luc is an opportunist,&rdquo; said Cheevers, defending the teenager when the goals weren&rsquo;t coming, &ldquo;and he&rsquo;s a hardnosed kid who does a good job in your own end and along the boards.&rdquo;Hard-nosed, indeed. Over a stretch of five games in January, he was the Bruins&rsquo; leading scrapper, taking on, in order, Basil McRae of Quebec, Craig Hartsburg of Minnesota, Phil Housley of Buffalo and Reed Larson of Detroit.Dufour&rsquo;s development as an NHL scorer may also have been hampered by the Normand Leveille tragedy.Leveille, who was felled by a cerebral hemorrhage Oct. 23, ending his hockey career, was Dufour&rsquo;s closest friend on the Bruins and once his roommate in Chicoutimi. Of all the Bruins, Dufour took the tragedy the hardest.And now Dufour, who shared the difficulties and tribulations of the Chicoutimi-Boston connection with Leveille, is expected to take the place of his stricken friend as the big goalscorer the Bruins need.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011251/4769605-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="553" height="798"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bruin coach Gerry Cheevers, above, has been impressed with rookie Luc Dufour.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Columnists

Dufour Assumes Void Created By Leveille

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02817/4770174-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="713" height="590"></div><h2>BOSTON BRUINS</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011009/4770181-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="145" height="146"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2>BUFFALO SABRES</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03649/4770167-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="137" height="139"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-04510/4770160-1-eng-US/f0016-042.jpg" title="f0016-04" width="715" height="645"></div><h2>CALGARY FLAMES</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-05401/4770153-1-eng-US/f0016-052.jpg" title="f0016-05" width="164" height="142"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-06337/4770146-1-eng-US/f0016-062.jpg" title="f0016-06" width="708" height="551"></div><h2>CHICAGO BLACK HAWKS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-07311/4770139-1-eng-US/f0016-072.jpg" title="f0016-07" width="155" height="135"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-08290/4770132-1-eng-US/f0016-082.jpg" title="f0016-08" width="715" height="640"></div><h2>DETROIT RED WINGS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-09266/4770125-1-eng-US/f0016-092.jpg" title="f0016-09" width="170" height="118"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-10244/4770118-1-eng-US/f0016-102.jpg" title="f0016-10" width="710" height="611"></div><h2>EDMONTON OILERS</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-11230/4770111-1-eng-US/f0016-112.jpg" title="f0016-11" width="141" height="137"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-12212/4770104-1-eng-US/f0016-122.jpg" title="f0016-12" width="713" height="616"></div><h2>HARTFORD WHALERS</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-13197/4770097-1-eng-US/f0016-132.jpg" title="f0016-13" width="141" height="138"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-14189/4770090-1-eng-US/f0016-142.jpg" title="f0016-14" width="711" height="584"></div><h2>LOS ANGELES KINGS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-15178/4770083-1-eng-US/f0016-152.jpg" title="f0016-15" width="217" height="133"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-16174/4770076-1-eng-US/f0016-162.jpg" title="f0016-16" width="709" height="614"></div><h2>MINNESOTA NORTH STARS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-17166/4770069-1-eng-US/f0016-172.jpg" title="f0016-17" width="156" height="135"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-18159/4770062-1-eng-US/f0016-182.jpg" title="f0016-18" width="712" height="558"></div><h2>MONTREAL CANADIENS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-19150/4770055-1-eng-US/f0016-192.jpg" title="f0016-19" width="161" height="109"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-20130/4770048-1-eng-US/f0016-202.jpg" title="f0016-20" width="711" height="643"></div><h2>NEW JERSEY DEVILS</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-21123/4770041-1-eng-US/f0016-212.jpg" title="f0016-21" width="118" height="112"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-22121/4770034-1-eng-US/f0016-222.jpg" title="f0016-22" width="713" height="589"></div><h2>NEW YORK ISLANDERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-23118/4770027-1-eng-US/f0016-232.jpg" title="f0016-23" width="157" height="149"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-24116/4770020-1-eng-US/f0016-242.jpg" title="f0016-24" width="706" height="646"></div><h2>NEW YORK RANGERS</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-25111/4770013-1-eng-US/f0016-252.jpg" title="f0016-25" width="145" height="145"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-26108/4770006-1-eng-US/f0016-262.jpg" title="f0016-26" width="708" height="647"></div><h2>PHILADELPHIA FLYERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-2799/4769999-1-eng-US/f0016-272.jpg" title="f0016-27" width="168" height="122"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-2897/4769992-1-eng-US/f0016-282.jpg" title="f0016-28" width="711" height="614"></div><h2>PITTSBURGH PENGUINS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-2989/4769985-1-eng-US/f0016-292.jpg" title="f0016-29" width="158" height="151"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3089/4769978-1-eng-US/f0016-302.jpg" title="f0016-30" width="715" height="561"></div><h2>QUEBEC NORDIQUES</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3189/4769971-1-eng-US/f0016-312.jpg" title="f0016-31" width="142" height="141"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3283/4769964-1-eng-US/f0016-322.jpg" title="f0016-32" width="719" height="580"></div><h2>ST. LOUIS BLUES</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3383/4769957-1-eng-US/f0016-332.jpg" title="f0016-33" width="138" height="137"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3479/4769950-1-eng-US/f0016-342.jpg" title="f0016-34" width="710" height="640"></div><h2>TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3565/4769943-1-eng-US/f0016-352.jpg" title="f0016-35" width="164" height="165"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3657/4769936-1-eng-US/f0016-362.jpg" title="f0016-36" width="710" height="587"></div><h2>VANCOUVER CANUCKS</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3757/4769929-1-eng-US/f0016-372.jpg" title="f0016-37" width="113" height="117"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3834/4769922-1-eng-US/f0016-382.jpg" title="f0016-38" width="710" height="583"></div><h2>WASHINGTON CAPITALS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-3933/4769915-1-eng-US/f0016-392.jpg" title="f0016-39" width="189" height="106"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-4033/4769908-1-eng-US/f0016-402.jpg" title="f0016-40" width="711" height="639"></div><h2>WINNIPEG JETS</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01892/4769901-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="143" height="143"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02732/4769894-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="634" height="597"></div><h2>GOALTENDING STATISTICS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03569/4769887-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="572" height="3008"></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE SCORING

<div class="byline">BY GARY MUELLER</div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;Throughout all the recent talk about the St. Louis Blues moving to Saskatoon, the Blues players voiced the opinion that they&rsquo;d prefer to stay in St. Louis if they had a say in the matter.But after a 7-6 loss to the Calgary Flames in the Blues&rsquo; first home game after the announcement of the possible move, you had to start wondering whether the players would be saddened if they never again had to play a game in St. Louis.It was nothing against the city, you understand, but games in St. Louis didn&rsquo;t exactly bring out the best in the Blues. The loss to the Flames, on a goal by Lanny McDonald with only 18 seconds left to play, stretched the Blues&rsquo; home winless streak to six games&mdash;tying the team record set in 1972-73.Also, the Blues had won only two of 12 home games after losing to Calgary, at a time when the team had lost only two of their last 10 games.&ldquo;When you score six goals, you should have enough to win, especially at home,&rdquo; said the Blues&rsquo; Perry Turnbull, who scored three of the goals against Calgary.Indeed, six goals at home usually produces a victory. Never before in the history of the Blues had they scored six goals at home and lost&mdash;posting a 96-0-3 record at home in games in which they had scored three or more goals since the Blues joined the NHL in 1967.&ldquo;I thought our forwards played well,&rdquo; said Blues&rsquo; coach Barclay Plager.He didn&rsquo;t have to say what he thought of the Blues&rsquo; defensive play or the work of goaltender Rick Heinz, who surrendered six goals while facing only 19 shots in the 53 minutes he played after starting goalie Mike Liut was knocked out of the game when he was hit by a shot off the stick of Kevin Lavallee.&ldquo;That was the worst,&rdquo; said Heinz. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m embarrassed. What&rsquo;s wrong with me?&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had bad games before, but never anything like this. I work hard in practice, so I&rsquo;ll be ready when I get a chance. I don&rsquo;t know, maybe I try too hard, but it makes this that much more difficult to take. This is the worst I&rsquo;ve ever felt.&rdquo;Heinz was making only his second appearance since being recalled by the Blues on Jan. 4 after goalie Glen Hanlon had been traded to the New York Rangers.Liut, meanwhile, decided the time had come to switch to a helmet-and-cage style mask after requiring five stitches to close a cut high on his forehead after being hit by Lavallee&rsquo;s shot. That marked the third time this season that Liut had been knocked out of a game by a shot that hit him on his form-fitting mask.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been practicing with the cage for the last two months, so I&rsquo;m used to it,&rdquo; said Liut. &ldquo;I had decided that the next time I got dinged, I&rsquo;d make the change, but I&rsquo;m not going to throw the mask away. It&rsquo;s been through the wars with me, so I still might go back to it sometime. We&rsquo;ll have to see how the cage works out.&rdquo;The game that sent Liut looking for a cage mask and had Heinz wondering what was wrong with him, was an emotion-charged one as the Blues returned home after four road games, during which St. Louis was buzzing with talk of the team moving to Saskatoon.A crowd of 13,815&mdash;about 1,000 above the Blues&rsquo; average for the season&mdash;turned out and greeted the team with a standing ovation, but the Flames doused all the enthusiasm with McDonald&rsquo;s late goal.The latest chapter in the St. Louis saga has interests in the Seattle-Tacoma area talking with Ralston Purina, the Blues&rsquo; owner. A spokesman for the Seattle group said they would much rather acquire the Blues than wait for a weak expansion entry a couple of years down the road.That could be good news for the NHL. It&rsquo;s no secret that the Saskatoon bid has several major drawbacks&mdash;no suitable arena and a small population base&mdash;but Seattle will have a new facility completed before the fall and its population base is about 10 times that of Saskatoon.BLUENOTES&mdash;Turnbull&rsquo;s three goals against Calgary marked the second hat trick of his NHL career. He had scored four goals in an 8-4 victory over Toronto on Feb. 5, 1981&hellip;McDonald&rsquo;s winning goal with 18 seconds to go was the latest winning goal scored against the Blues since Toronto beat the Blues, 4-3, on March 24, 1982, on a goal by Miroslav Frycer with 12 seconds left to play&hellip;The loss to Calgary dropped the Blues&rsquo; record to 2-6-3 in home games when the attendance has been 12.000 or more. The Blues were 6-6-1 when the attendance was less than 12.000 &#9632;

Home Is Far From Sweet For The Blues

<div class="image-hero"><img title="Cover-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-01780/4771549-1-eng-US/cover-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

Cover-01

The Hockey News

In our next issue, we&rsquo;ll take an in-depth look at the Hartford Whalers, on and off the ice. While the Whalers are still struggling to improve on the ice, they&rsquo;re greatly responsible for many other things in Hartford, including a revitalized downtown area and vastly changing skyline.We&rsquo;ll look at some of the Whalers&rsquo; up and coming stars, including sophomore sensation Ronnie Francis. As well, we&rsquo;ll look at the successful Binghamton Whaler operation. As usual, we&rsquo;ll have our regular assortment of columns, features and statistics from the pro, minor, college and junior leagues. Don&rsquo;t miss it. &#9632;

Coming Next Issue

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div>MONTREAL&mdash;Ryan Walter seemed a little surprised.The Canadiens&rsquo; left winger, who has been in a slump of late, received some unexpected news as the Canadiens prepared for their third game of the season in the War Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo. For the first time in his career. Ryan Walter was going to play in a National Hockey League all-star game.The word came officially from John Ziegler, the NHL president, in a telegram Walter picked up after the Canadiens&rsquo; pre-game meal. Walter finished with 92 points in the voting, 20 more then runner-up Michel Goulet of the Quebec Nordiques.&ldquo;Certainly I think playing in Montreal has something to do with it.&rdquo; said Walter, acquired from the Washington Capitals with Rick Green in the much-discussed trade that sent Hab blueliners Brian Engblom and Rod Langway and forwards Craig Laughlin and Doug Jarvis to the Capitals. &ldquo;In Washington, we might get a couple of games on national TV. I recoenized it (the difference) playing here.&ldquo;Last season, Al Arbour picked John Tonelli for the all-star team as a fill. The reporters in Washington were upset. They thought that I should have been selected because I had more goals then he did. I guess that&rsquo;s as close as I have ever come.&rdquo;Walter&rsquo;s selection was not greeted with much enthusiasm, even in Montreal. The three best writers with the Canadiens admitted that Walter was not their No. 1 choice. All of them preferred Goulet, who has 36 goals with the Nordiques.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s about the only guy that I have seen enough to comment on.&rdquo; said Walter. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s played well. He&rsquo;s played well against us.&rdquo;After an excellent start. Walter&rsquo;s production has tailed off in recent weeks. Coach Bob Berry has even moved Walter and center Doug Wick-enheiser away from Guy Lafleur in hopes of generating some offense from all three.And Walter&rsquo;s agressiveness, or lack of it, has come under criticism from the ever-watchful Montreal media and fans.&ldquo;I think I have had a good first half overall,&rdquo; Walter admitted. &ldquo;But it is always tough for a player to know. I feel that from the beginning of the season through December, things went fairly well. The team was sure successful and that was important to me. I was hoping that I was contributing so I guess that pulled it together a bit.&rdquo;Walter feels that he may not be aggressive as he was with Washington because maybe he isn&rsquo;t getting challenged as much.&ldquo;I went and asked Bob Berry about it. He told me that if Guy (Lafleur) or Mark (Napier) gets in trouble, that I should stick my nose in. In Washington, I think teams felt they could intimidate us, that they would get two points if they took it to you and intimidated you. Teams come into Montreal, they know they have to skate hard and if they are in the penalty box, we are going to score on them.&ldquo;Fifteen minutes in penalties is not that many; I got 150 last year, but I think most of that was defending. I think that when you are the captain, you might be looked upon to do a little more backing up guys. Not that it should be like that, but it was in Washington.&rdquo;Walter&rsquo;s selection didn&rsquo;t dismiss the heat of those critics of the deal. Langway, who will be joining Walter on the Prince of Wales Conference all-star team Feb. 8 in Uniondale has been a tower of power on the Capitals&rsquo; defense and has provided the leadership with his captaincy.When the Capitals made their first appearances at the Forum on Jan. 29, Langway was selected the game&rsquo;s No. 2 star.The Capitals and Canadiens tied, 33, but the Canadiens considered themselves lucky because, for the most part, they were outplayed by a better disciplined team, one that is on the rise while the Canadiens seem to be in a state of wheel spinning.The Canadiens&rsquo; apologists say wait for the playoffs to see who got the better of the deal. That&rsquo;s because the Capitals are doing so well and right now, the Canadiens are behind the pace they set last year and are well out of first place in the Adams Division.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011191/4769223-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="552" height="972"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ryan Walter&rsquo;s selection to the allstar game has been questioned by some in Montreal.</figcaption></div>And while the 3-3 tie at the Forum will not be remembered for years to come by the hockey historians, it should be noted the Capitals did something they had never done before THE TRADE&mdash;earn a point in the Forum. They could have and maybe should have had two and as one Montreal player, who requested anonymity said: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s obvious from that game who got the better of the trade.&rdquo;He wasn&rsquo;t thinking about the Canadiens either.IN PASSING&mdash;Mark Napier&rsquo;s dispute with managing director Irving Grundman is over. Napier signed a long-term (three-year total) deal in Buffalo just after the Canadiens 7-3 loss to the Sabres&hellip;Defenseman Ric Nattress was dispatched to the Nova Scotia Voyageurs of the American Hockey League to get some playing time&hellip;Mark Hunter remains on the sidelines as his right knee is taking a long time to heal following surgery&hellip;Canadiens will be seen four times on Superchannel, the Ontario and Alberta regional Pay-TV channel. Montreal broadcaster Chris Cuthbert will serve as intermission host on the series that is produced by Canadian Sports Network. &#9632;

f0003-01

Hab Spotliqht Gets Walter All-Star Berth

<div class="byline">BY RICHARD FRIEDMAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011234/4769309-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The slump of New York Ranger forward Mike Rogers, left, coincides with the poor production of the entire team.</figcaption></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Ah, yes, streaks. The Rangers can tell you a thing or two about them.After losing 4-1 to the Canadiens, the Rangers extended their winless streak to eight games, the longest since November, 1980.There were several factors for the downward slide, principally a lack of offense. In the seven games ending with the defeat to Montreal, the Rangers scored just seven goals while being outshot, 229-149, by their opponents.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to break out of it and it&rsquo;s just a matter of getting the shots,&rdquo; said Mike Rogers, whose own scoring slump is a factor insofar as the overall team slump is concerned.Shooting was defintely the problem, and you didn&rsquo;t have to tell that to defenseman Bill Baker, the ex-Olympian. With 40 seconds left in the game against Montreal, Bill Baker dumped the puck to Rogers instead of taking a clear shot, repeating a sin of omission he had repeatedly observed during the previous two games.Baker atoned for his sins by scoring at 3:41 of the second period to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead in an away game in Pittsburgh. That goal proved to be the winner as neither team scored in the third, despite the Pens peppering Eddie Mio with 14 shots. The Rangers, conversely, could only muster a measley six shots.The next night, the Rangers returned home for a game against Chicago, which hadn&rsquo;t won in Madison Square Garden since Jan. 20, 1980.With the score tied at two in the third period, after the Rangers had received goals from Vaclav Nedomansky, the aging Czech who was acquired this season, waived and later re-acquired in a deal with St. Louis, and Rogers, New York opened up a two-goal lead courtesy of Anders Hedberg and Ron Duguay. It looked as though the Rangers were on their way to a two-game winning streak.Eighty seconds after Duguay&rsquo;s goal, Chicago&rsquo;s impressive rookie Steve Larmer scored his 28th goal of the season to whittle the Rangers&rsquo; lead to 4-3. Two minutes later, Dave Feamster tied the game with his fourth goal of the season, a 50-footer that eluded Ranger goalie Glen Hanlon.With 75 seconds left in the game, the Hawks&rsquo; Norris Trophy defenseman. Doug Wilson, capped a three-goal comeback to give the Hawks their first win in the Garden In three years.For the Rangers, it was simply a failure to assert any offensive drive. The Rangers tallied only seven shots in the third period&mdash;despite the two goals&mdash;and finished with a total of 26, four less than the Black Hawks.Now, the Rangers embark on their annual western road swing. Ranger coach Herb Brooks was asked what he would do to alleviate the pressure.&ldquo;Light-hearted practices, coupled with teaching situations,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Positive reinforcement. They&rsquo;re pressing and that&rsquo;s just part of the human nature aspect of all athletes. It happens to all clubs. I have to look at things in perspective with attitude and work ethic and I&rsquo;ve been happy with those things. We&rsquo;re just a little out of synch and it would be out of character for me to point fingers. We&rsquo;re not getting blown out. It&rsquo;s all part of the growing experience.&rdquo;Another ex-Olympian, Rob McClanahan, who has been through both bad and good times with Brooks, amplified on his coach&rsquo;s relatively soft hand with the team.&ldquo;If I read him right, Herbie will work you harder when you&rsquo;re winning than when you&rsquo;re losing,&rdquo; McClanahan said. &ldquo;When a kid spills his milk, you don&rsquo;t yell at him. He already knows he&rsquo;s made a mistake.&rdquo;One of several Rangers acknowledging the confidence crisis the team is fighting, McClanahan looked forward to the comraderie of the forthcoming two-week swing West.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re concerned,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;but we&rsquo;re not throwing in the towel. We&rsquo;re not giving up.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0004-01

Streaking Rangers Head In The Wrong Direction

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011093/4769340-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="287" height="337"></div><h2>The Refs Snap Back</h2>When I step on the ice, I&rsquo;m 50percent wrong no matter what I do.&mdash;referee Bryan Lewis.We strive for perfection. Then again, we&rsquo;d all like to be married to Bo Derek.&mdash;referee Ron Wicks.IT&rsquo;S EASY TO take pot shots at referees.Anyone can do it. You don&rsquo;t need a license to rap a ref. There&rsquo;s no age limit and, best of all, the refs can&rsquo;t hit back.That&rsquo;s why players, coaches, managers, owners and fans do it. If they could, educated fleas would do it. Even I do it.In the past month, I cursed (a) Andy van Hellemond; (b) Wally Harris and (c) Ron Fournier (not in order of importance) for their &ldquo;mistakes.&rdquo;Not that I was right, mind you, but it comes with the franchise. You watch hockey, you blast the referee. It&rsquo;s about as new as the invention of artificial ice and as fundamental as the puck.Ah, but is it fair? Now, there&rsquo;s the question.Answer. No, NO, NO! A thousand times, NOH Not unless the referees are allowed to whack back at us, their oppressors.Ladies and gentlemen, it&rsquo;s now whack-back time for the zebras. But before allowing the referees to take the offensive, we must first agree that hockey is the most difficult sport to officiate.Take my word for it, it is. Better yet, take Ron Wicks&rsquo; word. &ldquo;We have to be an athlete who also is a judge,&rdquo; says Wicks, &ldquo;and we travel 25 miles per hour on the ice while we&rsquo;re doing it.&rdquo;By comparison, officials in other sports have the softest of lives.A baseball umpire stands in one spot, his eyes riveted to home plate or a base. What a life. Why, a hockey ref covers more ground in a minute than an umpire does in an entire afternoon. Same in football where there seem to be more officials on the gridiron than blades of grass.We also must agree that today&rsquo;s hockey is 10 times tougher to officiate than when such legends as King Clancy and Red Storey patrolled the ponds. Maybe 50 times tougher. Here&rsquo;s why:Contemporary hockey is twice as fast as it was in the 1940s. The slapshot was non-existent then. Players never&mdash;NEVER&mdash;took ridiculous and insulting dives the way they do now, further confounding the officials.So, when you think about it, with almost half the action behind their backs, it&rsquo;s a miracle if a hockey ref is 75 per cent right on any given night.&ldquo;No,&rdquo; says Scotty Morrison, rajah of the referees, &ldquo;I expect our officials to be right on 90 per cent of their calls, up to 95 per cent.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s impossible to achieve absolute perfection. But there&rsquo;s an element that makes it tougher for us&mdash;the view of the fan compared to fans in other sports. On 90 to 95 per cent of the judgment calls (Was he hooked? Was he tripped?), it&rsquo;s a one-on-one situation that&rsquo;s wide open for the spectator to see. Compare that to football, where the fans really don&rsquo;t see what&rsquo;s going on because of all the bodies.&rdquo;The constant swirl, ebb and flow combined with non-stop action makes it difficult for a referee to make a precise, split-second decisiion that is satisfactory to 16,000 viewers, particularly if the call is against the home team.&ldquo;We see most everything on the ice.&rdquo; says Ron Wicks. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s how we react to it that causes the controversy, and makes it so easy to criticize. Determining whether an aggressive bodycheck is foul or legitimate is not always easy.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s why Wicks avoids reading newspaper reports of games until next summer. &ldquo;I save them until July. Then, I read all the comments from the coaches and players on my sun deck by the pool.&rdquo;One blast that Wicks will read is that he and his colleagues are &ldquo;inconsistent.&rdquo; It is the most repeated salvo of all those hurled at the officials. It is also defended by Morrison.&ldquo;If one of our officials had a different standard for his calls from one game to the next, I&rsquo;d be concerned. I&rsquo;ll hear some coach complain &lsquo;Joe Blow missed a tripping call in the second period. Boy, is he inconsistent.&rsquo; Well, maybe he did miss one call but surely that doesn&rsquo;t make the whole officiating system inconsistent or the particular referee inconsistent from game to game.&rdquo;Bruce Hood has blown an NHL whistle for 20 years and has heard the cries of inconsistency about 2,000 times. His answer is simple and irrefutable.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not robots, we&rsquo;re human beings.&ldquo;What matters is whether there&rsquo;s consistency from referee to referee. I think you&rsquo;ll find consistency in the work of Bryan Lewis, Wally Harris, Bruce Hood and the rest in terms of their individual work.&rdquo;Much of the heat turned on referees comes from players. Yet, take the perfect player, Wayne Gretzky, and you&rsquo;ll find that he makes more mistakes in a game than a referee. And the player is on the ice for 30 minutes, tops. The referee works 60.<h2>Cut My Arm Off</h2>&ldquo;THERE HAVE BEEN times,&rdquo; recalls Wicks, &ldquo;when I&rsquo;ve called penalties prematurely and wanted to cut my arm off. I&rsquo;ll own up to my mistakes but if a player gives me too much grief, I have a comeback: &lsquo;Has a guy ever gone around you to score a goal?&rsquo;&rdquo;Bruce Hood: &ldquo;I have a good way of shutting up a player when he gives me lip. I tell him, &lsquo;You critique my game and I&rsquo;ll critique your&rsquo;s and we&rsquo;ll see who makes the most mistakes.&rsquo; They usually have nothing more to say.&rdquo;Just for the sake of argument. I remind Hood of an episode involving his colleague, Ron Fournier. The ref whistled off a player for &ldquo;tripping&rdquo; when it was clear that the victim never fell, never even dropped to the ice. Hood was not impressed.&ldquo;Sure, we have mix-ups between a &lsquo;hook&rsquo; and a &lsquo;trip&rsquo;. Never mind whether the referee made the right description. The point is, it was a penalty. A mistake in terminology is not that big a deal.&rdquo;Bryan Lewis says the refs&rsquo; job has been complicated by the increase in the number of players taking dives. It has also been made more difficult by the sheer number of teams. It was easier to ref in a six-team league when the officials knew every player and his idiosyncracies.&ldquo;We have more &lsquo;actors&rsquo; now than ever,&rdquo; says Lewis, &ldquo;and that doesn&rsquo;t make life easier for us because we&rsquo;re exercising judgment all the time. &lsquo;Do I or don&rsquo;t I call it.&rsquo;&ldquo;My feeling is that we have to start a game being perfect and have to get better as the game goes along. But, the fact is. we do make mistakes. The trick is to keep our errors to an absolute minimum. I&rsquo;ve always felt that the easiest way out of a mistake is to admit it.&rdquo;Lewis suffers no migraines over the &ldquo;inconsistency&rdquo; charges. And will suffer none tomorrow, next month or next year.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard about that (inconsistency) since I started refereeing in the NHL 16 years ago,&rdquo; says Lewis. &ldquo;What can I say? It&rsquo;s part of the human element of the game. You have inconsistency among players, coaches and managers. It will always be there.&rdquo;<h2>Better Refereeing</h2>THAT DOESN&rsquo;T MEAN officials aren&rsquo;t trying to improve themselves. In addition to the constant scanning of videotapes, the refs are subject to training seminars and fitness exercises in season. In fact, more is being done to provide better refereeing than ever before. Whether it works or not is another story.&ldquo;In one month,&rdquo; says Morrison, &ldquo;we had a supervisor (referee&rsquo;s advisor) at 60 out of 125 games. That&rsquo;s almost 50 per cent. There was a time when no games were supervised.&rdquo;What&rsquo;s more, the officials have helped disinfect the game of its runaway goonism. The NHL, with some exceptions, is offering a more palatable product, in terms of clean play, this year than ever before.&ldquo;I think fighting will fade away like the straight stick,&rdquo; says Wicks. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I don&rsquo;t think most players want to fight.&rdquo;Scotty Morrison: &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve done a good job in minimizing fouls that take place as a result of indiscriminate use of the high stick, the vicious slash and the spear. Now, we&rsquo;re working on the restraining fouls&mdash;holding, hooking and interference. I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;ve maintained as tight a standard in that area as we could have. We&rsquo;ve still got quite a way to go with the restraining fouls.&rdquo;Is Morrison bothered by the criticism? Of course, he is. The man is human, but he&rsquo;s also a realist. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s been criticism of referees from the day the first puck was dropped and it&rsquo;s never going to change.&rdquo;It certainly won&rsquo;t change if the whistle-blowers are compelled to work under a system that is rooted in the 19th century. The modus operandi for refs has not changed in the decades that hockey has undergone its most dramatic revolution in speed and shooting. But the NHL, its owners, coaches and managers, believe the present system is best, so we have to live with it.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve worked under other systems,&rdquo; says Wicks. &ldquo;I handled games in Europe where they have the two-referee system. I think we ought to stick with one referee and two linesmen. I see no reason to change.&rdquo;When all is said and done; when the decibel counts of the referee-baiters subside; when all the collective obscenities are put to rest for the night, there is one definitive answer to those who would continue to curse the zebras.The answer is a question.Has anyone&mdash;Harry Sinden, Lou Nanne, Glen Sather, Herb Brooks, Don Perry, or the others who at one time or another have dumped on officials&mdash;come up with any better way to provide a more perfect refereeing system?Have John Ferguson, Harry Neale, Bob Pulford or Keith Allen delivered a blueprint for the brave new world of officiating?Ed Snider, Peter Pocklington. Anyone at all?&ldquo;None!&rdquo; snaps Scotty Morrison. &ldquo;Not one has provided any input for us as to ways to do it better.&rdquo;So, as we say in Brooklyn, if you can&rsquo;t put up, then shut up.Or, as Hall of Fame ref Mickey Ion observed in the definitive put-down of referee-baiters:&ldquo;There are 14,000 people in the building, but only one sane person&mdash;me!&rdquo; &#9632;

f0005-01

ON THE CONTRARY

<div class="byline">BY REYN DAVIS</div>WINNIPEG&mdash;Flattered and flustered. Dave Babych was lost for words. But he couldn&rsquo;t supress his chuckles of delight.The big defenseman had just learned of the fact that he had been selected to the Campbell Conference team for the National Hockey League&rsquo;s 35th annual All-Star Game at Nassau County Coliseum on Feb. 8.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty satisfying,&rdquo; he said, finally, after thinking about his reply for more than two minutes. &ldquo;I never watch myself play. I don&rsquo;t know what it is about my game other people like.&rdquo;Perhaps, it&rsquo;s his brutish strength, the cannonball shot, his powerful skating or his ability to handle a puck.&ldquo;You are looking at the guy who is going to become the premier defenseman in hockey,&rdquo; said Billy Sutherland, the assistant coach of the Winnipeg Jets in charge of the defense.Only 21, Babych has become the first member of the Jets to be elected to the mid-season all-star aggregation.He polled 96 out of a possible 150 points. Only Doug Wilson of the Chicago Black Hawks had more (144). But he was far ahead of his nearest challengers, namely Craig Hartsburg of the Minnesota North Stars and Paul Coffey of the Edmonton Oilers.It was only two years ago that a controversy developed when Babych&rsquo;s brother, Wayne, in the midst of a 50-goal season with the St. Louis Blues, was neither voted nor added to the Campbell Conference All-Stars. He was, however, a last-minute addition when someone else dropped out.&ldquo;Maybe this is their way of getting rid of any guilt feelings,&rdquo; said Babych, referring to the members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association who did the voting.Babych&rsquo;s modesty is genuine. After all, he still bears the scars of the 1980-81 edition of the Jets that won only nine games and went 30 in a row without a victory.Nicknamed &ldquo;Slug&rdquo; by his teammates. Babych is the quietest member of the team. He doesn&rsquo;t prod his teammates to work harder. Instead, he tries to compensate for their failing by working harder himself.&ldquo;I have never seen a player with his stamina.&rdquo; said Sutherland. &ldquo;The more he plays, the better he is. We have to play him every second shift.&rdquo;Winnipeg fans are gradually becoming more appreciative of Babych. They know he&rsquo;ll never terrorize opponents with his massive fists or his bone-crunching hits.There is nothing abrasive about his game. If he were a cowboy, he&rsquo;d wear a white hat. But heaven help the man who crosses him or a disadvantaged-teammate. He can be devastating.Rated first but selected second overall in the 1980 draft, Babych has gradually developed into a front-line defenseman. On the ice, he has broken the habit of trying to do everyone&rsquo;s job. Teammates now react to him rather than watch in awe.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d say the biggest difference in Dave, compared to years past, is the new intensity he has found.&rdquo; said Sutherland. &ldquo;He is starting to make things happen in his own way.&rdquo;He is an exceptionally strong skater. Earlier, the Jets went 33 games without giving up a shorthanded goal. The goaltending of Doug Soetaert, in particular, helped preserve the streak, but so did the hasty retreats of Babych, who caught many penalty killers in the midst of breakaways.&ldquo;You look at him and you wonder where the speed comes from,&rdquo; said Sutherland. &ldquo;But if you&rsquo;ll notice, he gains the most out of every stride. I love to watch him circle the net and pull away from a forward who is chasing him.&rdquo;BENCH BITS&mdash;Coach Tom Watt feels NHL referees are lying in wait for him following his outburst in Vancouver recently regarding the officiating of Bob Myers. &ldquo;It is peculiar to note that ever since my comments were made, we&rsquo;ve been the most penalized team in each of our games,&rdquo; said Watt, &ldquo;and we are the least penalized team in the league&rdquo;. He adamantly refuses to even think ofapologizing to Myers after calling him &ldquo;a cheater&rdquo;. &#9632;

All-Star Babych Ready To Join Elite Class

<div class="byline">BY GEORGE GROSS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011272/4769395-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="288" height="337"></div><h2>Lemaire And Sierre</h2>WHEN JACQUES LEMAIRE arrived in Sierre four years ago, the price of hockey tickets in this quiet B League town in the French part of Switzerland tripled in value.The people couldn&rsquo;t do enough for the former Montreal Canadians&rsquo; star. They showered him with money, gave him a white Mercedes convertible and a beautiful home. He did his share as player-coach of the team and everybody lived happily for a couple of years.Few love affairs last forever and the one between Lemaire and Sierre ended amicably when the ex-Habitant decided to return to North America and try his luck coaching on this continent.The good folks of Sierre were distraught. Short of grabbing Guy Lafleur or Michel Goulet, they couldn&rsquo;t picture signing anyone who could replace Lemaire. They got neither Lafleur nor Goulet, of course, but wound up signing Normand Dube and Marc Metivier, not exactly household names in North American hockey.But the Dynamic Duo of Sierre soon became heroes in their own right. This season, they&rsquo;ve scored 64 of Sierre&rsquo;s 152 goals, including a hat trick by Metivier, in a game which enabled Sierre to advance to a qualifying round for promotion to the Swiss A League.Dube, top scorer in the B League with 35 goals and 28 assists in 28 games, had a brief stint with Kansas City of the National Hockey League in the mid 70s, while Metivier&rsquo;s North American pro experience was limited to 78 games for the Nova Scotia Voyageurs.None of this matters to the good folks of Sierre, who flock to the arena, which is sold out for almost all games. If Sierre makes it to the A League, tickets will be as hard to come by as those for Stanley Cup games.<h2>Austria</h2>IMPROVED PERFORMANCES BY former Soviet star Alexander Yakushev enabled Kapfenberg to finish sixth in an eight-team league and escape the ordeal of having to play in a promotion-relegation tournament.Yakushev and his Soviet teammate Alexei Kostylev accounted for four goals in Kapfenberg&rsquo;s 8-4 win over Stadlau in the deciding game.Feldkirch finished on top of the championship standings with 40 points in 28 games, followed by Klagenfurt (37), Wiener EV (35) and Villach (33). The latter club boasts former Czechoslovak international Marcel Sakac in goal, while Wiener EV has Mike Fidler, formerly with Cleveland, Minnesota and Hartford in the NHL.<h2>Czechoslovakia</h2>AFTER A SURPRISING defeat in Kosice, Dukia Jihlava bounced back and trounced Bratislava, former team of the Stastny brothers, 6-1, to increase its lead to five points at the top of the standings.Jihlava has 47 points in 32 games, followed by Vitkovice (42), Ceske Budejovice (26) and Pardubice (35), while Slovan Bratislava (26) and Kladno (20) are at the bottom of the 12-team loop.Kladno was recently strengthened by the return of defenseman Frantisek Kaberle from Japan and they&rsquo;re also expecting forward Eduard Novak back from the Orient.Meanwhile, Buffalo Sabre general manager Scotty Bowman will be pleased to hear that Jiri Dudacek, the star winger whom he drafted last June, has returned to action with Kladno. Dudacek, who became ill with pneumonia prior to the season, has been sidelined since last fall.<h2>West Germany</h2>THE HEAD-TO-HEAD battle for championships honors in the West German Federal League continues between Landshut and Mannheim.After 31 games and with only five left to play, Landshut has 48 points, one more than Mannheim, with Rosenheim in third place with 43 points. The Cologne Sharks, former team of ex-NHLer Mike Walton, is fourth with 36.<h2>Sweden</h2>JUST AS IN Germany, the fight for top honors is very close in Sweden with Djurgarden on top despite a surprising 8-6 defeat at the hands of MoDo.Djurgarden has 39 points in 26 games, two ahead of Farjestad, the team of Torontonian Frank Neal, one of Sweden&rsquo;s best defensemen.AIK Stockholm is a distant third with 34 points and Brynas, former team of Toronto Maple Leaf defenseman Borje Salming, is sixth with 27.<h2>Finland</h2>AND TO MAKE it three close races in Europe, Jokerit has a two-point lead over Ilves in the Finnish National League.Jokerit has 42 points in 28 games, Ilves has 40 and IFK Helsinki, 5-2 losers to Jokerit, is in third place with 35 points. &#9632;

f0006-01

THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE

The International Hockey Weekly Founded in 1947Published by W.C.C. Publishing Ltd., 214 King St. West, Suite 314, Toronto, Ont. M5H 1K4<h2>The Pittsburgh Problem</h2>WHEN THE NATIONAL Hockey League governors sit down for their board meeting at the All-Star Game on Long Island, they have some heavy-duty items on the agenda. Foremost will be discussions, and possibly a decision, on the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; situation. It is at that time, we suspect, that a lot of questions will be answered.Are the Blues worth keeping in St. Louis? If so, can a local buyer be found? If they are to be sold to outside interests, can a city as small as Saskatoon support an NHL team? If yes, can they get a rink built on time? What about Seattle-Tacoma and Hamilton? Is there sufficient interest in either city to warrant NHL hockey. If Ralston Purina sells the Blues to the Saskatoon group, can the NHL prevent the move without opening up a messy legal affair?Heavy stuff, indeed. In fact, that&rsquo;s bound to take up so much time that the governors will hardly have a moment to chat about other interesting topics, such as an ultimate super series between the Stanley Cup champions and the top European team or devising some sort of reward that will make the 80-game regular season worth something, thereby ending the whining from top-place teams that get knocked out in the preliminary-round playoffs.But, if it is at all possible, while they&rsquo;re discussing the merits of Saskatoon&rsquo;s night life or St. Louis&rsquo; woeful television situation, the governors may want to set aside a few moments to discuss what looks to be their next headache&mdash;Pittsburgh.Please do not misunderstand. The Pittsburgh Problem, as it will be known henceforth, isn&rsquo;t as urgent as some of the others. The DeBartolo family, which owns the Penguins as well as the National Football League&rsquo;s San Francisco 49ers, has not stepped forward and announced the team is up for sale or should be moved. But realistically, can that day be too far off?First, a look at some facts, the same facts the NHL governors should be addressing.Attendance&mdash;According to THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; midseason report, which admittedly is unofficial, the Penguins drew 189,533 fans to their first 20 home games. That&rsquo;s 40,230 less bodies than at this time a year ago. Their average crowd this season is 9,477 and the Pens have earned the dubious distinction of recording the NHL&rsquo;s smallest crowd so far this season&mdash;6,278.On-ice product&mdash;With all due respect to the players and management, the Penguins are not a good hockey team. Fact is, they&rsquo;re not even a fair hockey team. At this writing, they were in the throes of a 12-game losing streak. After 51 games, the Penguins were tied for last place in the NHL&rsquo;s overall standings with 31 points, the same figure as the New Jersey Devils. Within their division, the Penguins were 22 points behind the New York Rangers and the final playoff spot. Only an eternal optimist would give the Pens a chance of making the playoffs. And for a team that is already suffering at the gate, no post-season action often provides the knockout punch.The economy&mdash;This is something the Penguins have no control over, but it is just one more headache they must contend with. Pittsburgh is a steel city. Steel is an industry in trouble right now. That does not bode well for the Penguins&rsquo; future.Anyway you figure it, the facts just don&rsquo;t add up to a winner&mdash;at the box office or on the ice. Therefore, the governors would be showing good foresight if, at the All-Star meetings, they requested a status report from Penguin governor Paul Martha. Since they&rsquo;re going to be discussing possible franchise moves and sales, the governors should know whether the DeBartolos can continue to support the Penguins in Pittsburgh.If the family can, then&rsquo;s there no problem and we stand accused of being alarmists. But if our hunch is correct, and the Penguins are indeed becoming one of the least viable NHL franchises, then the time to act is now. This is the time to come up with Plan A, B, C and so on.There&rsquo;s no sense in making a decision that will alienate folks in Seattle-Tacoma, Hamilton or Saskatoon when, in the not-too-distant future, there may be another team up for grabs.And recently, there have been whispers of NHL expansion sometime in the next few years. But surely the NHL must realize that to expand, they have to be certain that the existing 21 franchises are on solid ground.And that&rsquo;s why the NHL should take the necessary measures now to determine whether Pittsburgh will continue to house a big-league hockey team. &#9632;

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011227/4769474-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="285" height="337"><figcaption class="caption-body">DAVE HODGE&rsquo;S</figcaption></div>The recent tour of North America by the Soviet all-stars reconfirmed an opinion held since 1972&mdash;that Vladislav Tretiak is the best goaltender in the world.Apparently, that opinion is not shared by some in Europe who would qualify as hockey experts. The theory does exist that Canadians and Americans don&rsquo;t see enough of Tretiak to notice his bad games. Perhaps that&rsquo;s true, but the thing is, we don&rsquo;t see anyone else who has as many good games.Tretiak added to his North American credentials by allowing only four goals in four starts, a goals-against average of LOO that was helped by shutouts against Quebec and Montreal.Coincidental or not, the Soviets lost the two games in which Tretiak did not appear.The ideal way to poke a few holes in his reputation would be to determine the identity of his NHL counterpart, and go from there. So let&rsquo;s have it&mdash;who&rsquo;s the best goalie in the NHL?It is reasonable to assume the NHL couldn&rsquo;t decide that with a gun to it&rsquo;s head. Boston&rsquo;s Pete Peeters is the current rage, but how many votes would he have received at this time last year?Last season&rsquo;s Vezina Trophy winner was Billy Smith of the Islanders, and many would say he&rsquo;s now No. 2 on his own team, behind Roland Melanson.Andy Moog of the Edmonton Oilers would have to be considered one of the top NHL goalies this season, but last season, he wasn&rsquo;t even in the NHL.The last two times the NHL has tried to beat Tretiak and the Soviets with all its players available, the decision fell to Scotty Bowman to select the best goalie.In the 1981 Canada Cup, he used Don Edwards in a 7-3 victory during the round-robin portion of the tournament, but in the title game, he went with Mike Liut in an 8-1 loss.Coaching the NHL all-stars in the Challenge Cup of 1979, Bowman selected Ken Dryden for two starting assignments&mdash;a win and a loss&mdash;and in the crucial third game, he opted for Gerry Cheevers, who allowed six goals while his teammates were being blanked by Vladimir Myshkin, ironically a replacement for Tretiak.That was the one and only occasion that suggested the Soviets weren&rsquo;t completely sold on Tretiak, but it was also further proof that the NHL has seldom, if ever, during this era of hockey summit meetings, been convinced that it has the equal of Tretiak.You must go back to the first Canada Cup of 1976 to find the last time an NHL goalie truly outplayed Tretiak, and Rogatien Vachon was considered a surprise selection of Team Canada.Maybe our trouble is that we have too many goalies, with not enough difference between them to pick just one with any certainty. If Tretiak has benefit from all of his international experience, he&rsquo;s got a clear edge on any NHL netminder who could be asked to oppose him.That only speaks to the great difference in Soviet and NHL hockey. The Soviets are looking for the one goalie to beat the world. The NHL is looking for at least 21 good ones to help the league.Maybe the best NHL goalie is someone who stops pucks for a non-contending team, but just as Hartford&rsquo;s Greg Millen won&rsquo;t get a chance to prove it, by lining up with the NHLs best, neither will Tretiak be in a position to play behind the Hartford Whalers.So inexact is any measurement of a goalie&rsquo;s skills that Tretiak must be rated No. I on the basis of what he has shown here and abroad, during a lengthy career, albeit as part of a tremendous team.The only way to make a better judgment is to analyze him under conditions that apply to his NHL counterparts, and that&rsquo;s the fascinating side of the possibility that he might, someday, join the Montreal Canadiens.In that event, he&rsquo;d still have an edge over a lot of NHL goalies in terms of the support he could expect, but if he had weaknesses, they&rsquo;d show up over 80 games and, I venture to say, we probably wouldn&rsquo;t regard him with quite as much reverence.But I&rsquo;d be prepared to keep calling him the best in the world, until I saw someone else who qualified for that title, and if I don&rsquo;t see someone else now, I don&rsquo;t know how Tretiak&rsquo;s presence in the NHL would change anything.Unless, of course, it takes him 20 years to get here. &#9632;

f0008-01

GUEST SHOT

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div>The American Hockey League hasn&rsquo;t had an all-star game in more than 20 years and dosn&rsquo;t have any immediate plans to revive one, which Barry Meisel, one of THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; two AHL correspondents, Ends disturbing.The National Hockey League has one and the Central Hockey League has one, but the American Hockey League sees no value in a midseason all-star game.It&rsquo;s not that the AHL hasn&rsquo;t wrestled with the idea of staging an event. The subject does crawl into the league&rsquo;s agenda every so often, but the AHL chapter of the Professional Hockey Players&rsquo; Association and the league&rsquo;s front office can&rsquo;t agree on who should foot the bill.Both sides agree on one point: Neither wants to lose money.The CHL lost an estimated $6,700 in 1982 in its inaugural all-star affair, which included a banquet and the game at Salt Lake City, UT, between the Adams Cup Champion Golden Eagles and the CHL all-stars.Although they were not the champs last season, the Golden Eagles played host to the contest again this season. They drew 3,735 to the Salt Palace on Jan. 18 and tied the all-stars, 6-6, in overtime.&ldquo;If it was left up to me, I wouldn&rsquo;t have it,&rdquo; said AHL president Jack Butterfield. &ldquo;In the first place, we don&rsquo;t have a 12,000-seat building to put it in. They lost money last year, and they lost money this year. One basic problem is, in order for it to be successful, you&rsquo;ve got to have it on the weekend and what team is going to give up one of its weekend dates?&rdquo;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t even think losing 20 cents would be worth it,&rdquo; said AHL secretary and vice president Gordie Anziano. &ldquo;We told the players if they want it, they&rsquo;d have to sponsor it. They said they didn&rsquo;t want it.&rdquo;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it should be up to us,&rdquo; said Binghamton Whaler veteran Randy MacGregor, a member of the AHLs four-man PHPA executive board. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think the players association has the time nor the people to do it.&rdquo;If the league wanted to, an all-star game could be worked into the schedule in mid-January or early February. Two teams whose attendance perennially top the league, Rochester Americans and Maine Mariners, would be likely choices to play host to the game because of the size of their buildings: Rochester War Memorial (capacity 7,109); Cumberland (Maine) County Civic Center (capacity 6,734).Looking for maximum exposure and instant publicity? All the AHL would have to do is open the vote to the fans at the arenas of the league&rsquo;s 11 teams.Let the fans pick the starting team. The all-star coach&mdash;the one whose team had the league&rsquo;s best record two weeks before the date of the game&mdash;would choose the remaining players.The AHL fears that all-stars voted to the squad might be recalled by their NHL parent clubs before the game, diluting the quality of the game.&ldquo;We wouldn&rsquo;t want to have egg on our face,&rdquo; Anziano said.But one look around the league at the number of potential AHL all-stars who remain untouched by their majorleague teams tells you there&rsquo;s no problem there.MacGregor thinks the game would sell. &ldquo;I think it would go over big in a place like Rochester, as long as the fans could see Rochester playing in it. I don&rsquo;t think we could go to a North vs. South type format.&rdquo;Butterfield doesn&rsquo;t see any advantages to the game, which the AHL ran for approximately 15 seasons. &ldquo;The last all-star game we had was in I960 or &rsquo;61. We lost our shirts on them. My own personal options, I wouldn&rsquo;t recommend it to the governors.&rdquo;I would. There&rsquo;s no reason why the American Hockey League shouldn&rsquo;t take a chance, even if it costs each team some bucks. By reaching an all-time high of 13 teams in its 47th season, it has clearly established itself as the premier minor league. There&rsquo;s no reason why the AHL shouldn&rsquo;t want to add to its growing image as a progressive league.And who knows, maybe one day the CHL and AHL all-star teams could meet? Most importantly, an all-star game is one event fans in the host city love. Doesn&rsquo;t that count? &#9632;

SOME OTHER VIEWS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-03643/4769574-1-eng-US/f0009-032.jpg" title="f0009-03" width="299" height="350"><figcaption class="caption-body">FRANK ORR&rsquo;S</figcaption></div><h2>Different All-Stars</h2>WHEN THE NATIONAL Hockey League all-star game is staged on Long Island, the best players through the first half of the 1982-83 season will cavort in the inter-conference match.However, there are a variety of other all-stars who won&rsquo;t be recognized. To right that wrong, here are a few stars in an assortment of highly personal categories that never are included on the ballots.All-underrated&mdash;The guys who toil in anonymity but their coaches and mates know their value.Tom Lysiak, Chicago: Won&rsquo;t earn any all-star votes but how many NHL forwards are doing it all better these days.Kevin Lowe, Edmonton: It&rsquo;s easy for an efficient, solid player to get lost on a team with so much talent and flash and No. 99.John Ogrodnick, Detroit: A fine, two-way winger who would decorate any roster. A plus player on a struggling team who&rsquo;s a big part of any future the Wings have.Michel Goulet, Quebec: Does it all with quiet efficiency but is overlooked on a club led by the Stastny boys.Curt Giles, Minnesota: Another no-fuss, no-bother but very effective defenseman.Mike Milbury, Boston: Just a fine old pro who never is on as many lists of top backliners as he should be.All-Make A Little Go A Long Way&mdash;The guys who draw the maximum from limited talent.Brad Marsh, Philadelphia: He&rsquo;s slow, doesn&rsquo;t handle the puck especially well but I want him on my side.Paul MacLean, Winnipeg: Not any Mr. Slick but smart, strong and determined.Stan Smyl, Vancouver: Simply a great plugger who plays tough and has matured into a solid scorer.The Sutter boys: A fair amount of ability but it&rsquo;s obvious that determination is hereditary.John Tonelli, Islanders: About as smooth as gravel but an extremely effective winger for 200 feet of ice surface.<h2>Just Friendly Guys</h2>ALL-FRIENDLY&mdash;A few guys it&rsquo;s just fun to be around.Chico Resch, New Jersey: Just loves to bat the breeze, beat his gums, shoot the bull, whatever you want to call it.John Anderson, Toronto: An outgoing, gregarious man with a good sense of who he is and where he fits in the game.Charlie Simmer. Los Angeles: A fine, dry wit, excellent self-deprecating humorist. Almost missed out on an NHL career so he&rsquo;s obviously enjoying it.Larry Robinson, Montreal: Just a nice guy who takes the game but not himself, seriously.Darcy Rota, Vancouver: The word gregarious was invented just for him. So was friendly.All-Should Be Better&mdash;A few players who just never seem to play as well as they could with the talent they have.Kent Nilsson, Calgary: Has massive pure talent but uses it all only in flashes. Can do it all spectacularly when he&rsquo;s in the mood.Bobby Smith, Minnesota: He&rsquo;s been very good but it always seems he should be great. Hangs on to the puck too long, doesn&rsquo;t use players on the ice with him to the best advantage.Dale McCourt, Buffalo: He doesn&rsquo;t have great speed but he&rsquo;s smart and creative with the puck and has a good touch around the net. Somehow, though, his career has gone downhill after a good start.Real Cloutier, Quebec: He&rsquo;s a good player but it&rsquo;s all there for him to be great.Phil Russell, Calgary: Hit a certain level early in his career and stayed at it. His big game against the Soviets showed what he should have been more often.All-Funny&mdash;Guys in the game who like to laugh and make others giggle.Tom Watt, Winnipeg: First-rate raconteur and joke-teller.Tiger Williams, Vancouver: A master of the put-on. He&rsquo;s been in trouble because too many people have taken him seriously at the wrong time, failing to notice his tongue in his cheek.Bob MacMillan, New Jersey: Has a fine sense of the absurd, not a bad asset when you&rsquo;re a Devil.Bob Plager, St. Louis Blues&rsquo; advance scout: King of the one-liners, the Henny Youngman of the press boxes.Harry Neale, Vancouver GM: Master of superb original lines. Fast on his feet.<h2>Some Golden Oldies</h2>ALL-GOLDEN OLDIES&mdash;An all-star team of chaps well in their 30s, a who&rsquo;s who of the NHLs senior citizenry.Goal; Tony Esposito, Chicago, 39; Defense; Serge Savard, Winnipeg, 37; Brad Park. Boston, 34; Carol Vadnais, New Jersey, 37; Forwards: Walt McKechnie, Ivan Boldirev, Detroit, 35; Bobby Clarke. Philly, 33; Wayne Cashman, Boston, 37.All-Insightful&mdash;Some guys from whom you can get a good, honest look at themselves and the game.Bobby Clarke, Philly: Is there anyone who offers a better post-game analysis of a match?Steve Shutt, Montreal: Has a splendid perspective on himself. his team and the league.Al MacAdam, Minnesota: A gentleman of resonance who&rsquo;s one of the NHLs best interviews.Serge Savard, Winnipeg: A wise man, on the ice and off it. Has superb views on the way the game should be played, especially on the matter of violence.Fred Barrett, Minnesota: A solid citizen who&rsquo;s paid a high price with injuries. &#9632;

f0009-03

HOCKEY VIEWPOINT

<div class="byline">BY TIM MORIARTY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011208/4769543-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="668" height="625"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-02927/4769536-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="668" height="625"></div>Its official name is Nassau County Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The media shortened it to Nassau Coliseum and locals refer to it simply as the Coliseum. It was constructed at a cost of approximately $28 million to the county taxpayers on an abandoned U.S. Army airfield and opened for business in early 1972.It was here the New York Islanders grew from grimy-faced urchins to beaming Stanley Cup champions and now the Coliseum is being dressed in outings and flags for its role as host of the 1983 National Hockey League All-Star Game on Feb. 8.&ldquo;It should be an exciting game,&rdquo; Al Arbour said.He&rsquo;s slightly prejudiced, of course. As coach of the Islanders, who won their third straight Stanley Cup last spring, he was granted the honor of directing the Wales Conference team against the Campbell Conference all-stars, coached by Roger Neilson of the Vancouver Canucks.Most all-star games, whether in baseball, football, basketball or hockey, do not generate much excitement. They simply provide the fans with a chance to see their biggest heroes mingle and compete against each other on the same playing surface. However, there have been several NHL all-star games that provided memorable thrills for the fans. Some examples:In 1968 in Toronto, a third-period goal by Ron Ellis earned the defending Stanley Cup champion Maple Leafs a 4-3 victory over the All-Stars. Clarence Campbell, then the NHL president, called it &ldquo;one of the finest all-star games in history.&rdquo;Nobody disputed the statement. There were other eye-opening incidents that night, too. Tim Horton had the audacity to check Bobby Hull off his skates and onto the seat of his pants; Gordie Howe threw an elbow at Mike Walton, who retaliated with a swipe of his stick.In 1973 at Madison Square Garden in New York, Bobby On took a pratfall as he skated onto the ice for the pre-game introductions. A third-period goal by Bobby Schmautz, who a year earlier had been waived out of the NHL, earned the East a 5-4 win over the West. Greg Polis won a sports car as the game&rsquo;s MVP. He had skipped practice with the All-Stars to be with his wife, who gave birth to the couple&rsquo;s first child.In 1974 in Chicago, three defensemen were scratched from the East lineup because of injuries. Scotty Bowman, the East coach, sought help from Emile Francis, then coach of the Rangers, and was turned down. The pair engaged in a shouting match on the eve of the game, then continued it after the East lost, 6-4. &ldquo;Scotty Bowman has diarrhea of the mouth,&rdquo; Francis said. Garry Unger, who won a new car as MVP, announced, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll probably trade it for a dump truck.&rdquo;In 1975 in Montreal, Syl Apps Jr. became the first son of an all-star game performer to play in the event. And he wound up as the MVP when his two goals sparked the Wales Conference team to a 7-1 victory over the Campbell Conference. His father, Syl Sr., scored a goal and an assist for the Maple Leafs in the first all-star game in 1947, the year his son was born. Father and son poignantly posed for photographers after the game.In 1977 in Vancouver, Rick Martin beat Chico Resch with 1:56 left to play to give the Wales a 4-3 victory. It was Martin&rsquo;s second goal of the game and earned him a new car as the MVP. He promised before the game to share the car with Buffalo teammates Gerry Desjardins and Gil Perreault. &ldquo;You can have the tires,&rdquo; Martin told Desjardins.In 1978 in Buffalo, a goal by Martin tied the score at 2-2 and produced the first overtime in the game&rsquo;s history. The Wales emerged with a 3-2 victory on a weird sudden-death goal at 3:55 of overtime. Perreault got credit for the goal but it was Phil Esposito who accidentally deflected the puck behind Wayne Stephenson, his Campbell Conference teammate.In 1980 in Detroit, a record crowd of 21,002 turned out at the Joe Louis Arena to honor Gordie Howe, who was still playing hockey at the age of 51. He was given a three-minute standing ovation when he was introduced. It was one of the most dramatic moments in all-star history. Howe stood at center ice, mistyeyed and fidgety. &ldquo;I was kinda looking for a hole in the ice,&rdquo; he admitted later. He set up a goal by Real Cloutier in the final period that sealed the Wales&rsquo; 6-3 victory.The seating capacity at Nassau Coliseum is 15,230 and every seat will be occupied for this 35th all-star game. Les Wagner, the Islanders&rsquo; publicity director, reported that the final 1.100 tickets were gobbled up in less than three hours during a public sale one recent morning.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure we could have sold 20,000, if we had the seats,&rdquo; Wagner said. The ticket prices ranged from $20 to $30.The response from the media also approached record proportions, according to Rodger Gottlieb, director of information of the league&rsquo;s New York office. &ldquo;We had requests from almost 300 people,&rdquo; he said.That could present a problem. There are 130 seats in the Coliseum&rsquo;s high-rise press box and 75 additonal seats will be available in an auxiliary press section.The all-star dinner on the eve of the game will be held on the floor of the Coliseum. It is being staged as a benefit for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Officials hoped to sell 2,000 tickets at $200 each. The featured entertainer at the dinner will be Anne Murray, who occasionally interrupts her singing engagements to attend games at Maple Leaf Gardens. Those fans who are unable to afford the price of the dinner can purchase tickets for the concert for $12.50 and $15.At the dinner, Bill Torrey, the Islanders&rsquo; general manager, will receive the Lester Patrick award for outstanding service to hockey in the United States. The league&rsquo;s board of governors will meet prior to the dinner. Listed high on the agenda is a proposal to sell the St. Louis franchise and move it to Saskatoon. The game will be televised live by the USA Network and the Canadian Sports Network beginning at 7:30 p.m.<h2>All Star Teams</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-04514/4769529-1-eng-US/f0009-042.jpg" title="f0009-04" width="1117" height="903"></div> &#9632;

f0009-01

Departments

The Stars Will Be Out On Long Island

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-02983/4769636-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="286" height="336"><figcaption class="caption-body">BILL FLEISCHMAN&rsquo;S</figcaption></div><h2>Hey, Bus Driver</h2>&ldquo;A PLAYER WAS not traded for a bus.&rdquo;The words were pronounced emphatically, over the long-distance line, like a hungry man chomping on an ear of corn. &ldquo;A player,&rdquo; Victoria Cougar coach Dave Andrews said, &ldquo;was traded for a pick from our protected list of 25&hellip;The discussion on the bus took place during the same conversation. There were a couple of joking remarks made about associating the price of the bus, like, &lsquo;If you make that other trade with us, we&rsquo;ll give you a deal.&rsquo;Thanks for ruining a good story, Dave. Can you imagine the player, Tom Martin, enduring throughout his hockey career the fact that he was traded for a bus? Worse, imagine the ideas this deal would have given other general managers in hockey&hellip; &ldquo;Hello, Charlie, listen, we need a center and your Zamboni is falling apart. We have a spare Zamboni&mdash;how about a deal?&rdquo;As word of the Tom Martin-for-a-bus trade drifted east on the hockey underground, sports writers began drooling&mdash;more than they normally drool, that is. Conversations in NHL arena press rooms were interrupted by comments like, &ldquo;Geez, did ya&rsquo; hear about that trade in the Western League? One team traded a guy for a bus. What&rsquo;ll they think of next out there?&rdquo;Fortunately, calls to Dave Andrews in Victoria and John Hamilton in Seattle clarified the situation. Had the calls not been made, the player-for-a-bus story might have been embellished and actually given general managers a bad name.A key to this yarn is the Seattle Breakers&rsquo; purchase of a bus from the Victoria Cougars. According to Andrews, the Cougars&rsquo; coach, they used the bus for more than a year. Then, to the utter amazement of GM Fraser McColl&rsquo;s bank account, the Cougars were informed that there was the little matter of a $25,000 fee for importing the bus. It was a nice bus, but McColl didn&rsquo;t think it was that nice, so the vehicle was left in Port Angelis, Wash., while McColl went shopping for a buyer.Enter John Hamilton, the Seattle Breakers&rsquo; GM.&ldquo;We needed a bus,&rdquo; Hamilton said, &ldquo;because ours had blown up for about the fourth time. It was a natural. We bought the bus (for an estimated $35,000) and. if he (Martin) reports to them, we get a player from their list.&rdquo;<h2>Not Very Likely</h2>THE LIKELIHOOD of Martin, a fourth-round pick of the NHL&rsquo;s Winnipeg Jets in last year&rsquo;s entry draft, reporting to his hometown team of Victoria is about as good as Bill Torrey trading Mike Bossy for Chico Resch&rsquo;s toupee. Although Hamilton said whispers portrayed Martin as unhappy with his amount of ice time at University of Denver, a UD spokesman said Martin expects to remain with Ralph Backstrom&rsquo;s team. Through 26 games the 6-4, 200-pound Martin had five goals and 14 assists for 19 points.&ldquo;I think Tom can play in the NHL,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;Remember, he&rsquo;s a freshman and his style perhaps isn&rsquo;t as suited as some other players to U.S. college hockey. He&rsquo;s a big boy and somewhat of a grinder. He probably has a little trouble adjusting to the flow of the U.S. college game and every kid has a tough time going away to university, particularly the first term.<h2>Looking For Ink</h2>&ldquo;OBVIOUSLY, THIS made a great story,&rdquo; continued Andrews, who returned to Victoria, where he had been an assistant coach, last year during the playoffs. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had coverage from all over North America. But, from the player&rsquo;s perspective, it&rsquo;s unfortunate because he&rsquo;s been bothered by people all over the place.&ldquo;If you were gonna trade a bus, I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;d do it for a guy that&rsquo;s not even gonna report to you. If Tom Martin never plays for us, there is no trade and they&rsquo;ve still got the bus. But, if Tom does decide to return to junior hockey, we wanted his rights. I kind of think John was looking for a little ink on that whole story.&rdquo;While you&rsquo;d like to think even the most heartless GM wouldn&rsquo;t stoop to trading a player for a bus just for publicity, Hamilton is in an almost desperate situation in Seattle. His team is in fourth place, the NBA&rsquo;s Super-Sonics, despite a recent slump, are the big winter professional show in town, and Seattle&rsquo;s economy is the pits.&ldquo;We did not put a price on the kid&rsquo;s head,&rdquo; insisted Hamilton. &ldquo;Normally, when a player wants to play in his hometown, we try to work something out. He was in our farm system, you know&mdash;we paid his room and board.&rdquo;While trading a player for a bus would have been unique, even in hockey, a couple of similar circumstances come to mind. The draft pick the Philadelphia Flyers obtained from the New York Rangers when Fred Shero signed on as the Rangers&rsquo; GM coach was used to select Ken Linseman. And Rich Costello, the Flyers&rsquo; second draft pick in 1981, was included in the deal that brought Darryl Sittler to Philadelphia. Costello was a freshman at Providence College at the time. As Dave Andrews said, adjusting to your freshman year is tough enough without someone slipping you a message in Economics 101 that you&rsquo;ve just been swapped for Darryl Sittler.Anyway, John Hamilton says none of his players are worried that they could be traded next for a washing machine, or something.&ldquo;They haven&rsquo;t said anything about it.&rdquo; Hamilton said. &ldquo;They like the bus.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-02

HOCKEY WORLD

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT&mdash;Since his first day on the job as coach of the Detroit Red Wings, Nick Polano has preached the work ethic. He&rsquo;s a coach who admires a dedicated, determined, grinding hockey club and that&rsquo;s what he&rsquo;s trying to do with the Detroit Red Wings.On a winter night late in January, that&rsquo;s the kind of hockey team he watched at the Joe Louis Arena.Only that team wasn&rsquo;t wearing red and white.The Boston Bruins, the kind of team Polano relishes and the kind of team he hopes to build in Detroit, whipped the Wings 3-1 with almost boring precision.The Wings are on the way back, make no mistakes about that. They&rsquo;ve played some respectable hockey, often in defeat, and no longer are they hopeless. But against the Bruins, it was another matter. They were outclassed.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t be too critical of my club,&rdquo; Polano said. &ldquo;Our guys played as hard as they could. But they came up against a very close-checking team which covers very well in its own end. They never give you a second shot and the forwards back-check all the way back. But the Bruins have done that to better clubs than us this season.&rdquo;The Bruins got all three goals in the second period and it was over. When Stan Weir finally scored late in the game, it was Detroit&rsquo;s first goal in two games against the Bruins.The lack of scoring, except for December, has been a lingering problem.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve played well enough to win many games.&rdquo; Polano said. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;re not socring goals. The goals were coming easier in December. It was spread out more.&ldquo;We said when we came here that we&rsquo;d be a hard-working team and we&rsquo;d be hard to beat. They&rsquo;re playing hard. I just hope for their sake that it starts going into the net for them because it can get awfully frustrating when it doesn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;Polano put his three best forwards&mdash;Dwight Foster, a grinding-playmaking center, Danny Gare, a multi-purpose right wing, and John Ogrodnick, a high-scoring left winger&mdash;together on one line.&ldquo;I felt they could be a Production Line for us, that they&rsquo;d get the goals for us,&rdquo; Polano said. &ldquo;I still think they can be.&rdquo;The Foster-Gare-Ogrodnick unit was blanked against the Bruins, however, and Foster, who was averaging nearly a point-a-game since joining the club, was held without a point in his third straight (game.Foster and Gare have been together since Foster&rsquo;s arrival, first with Paul Woods on the left side, later with Mark Osborne.&ldquo;Ogrodnick compelments them, just as I thought Paul Woods would provide the checking and skating to complement Ivan Boldirev and Reggie Leach,&rdquo; said Polano, explaining his choice of a No. 2 line.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll continue to make changes until we find the right combinations. We&rsquo;ve been making changes all season and we&rsquo;ll keep doing it. With Boldirev, it&rsquo;s a case of getting him in shape. He wasn&rsquo;t playing very much in Vancouver and if we take him out of the lineup, it&rsquo;ll be a step backwards in getting him ready to play&rdquo;Polano was looking forward to the return of his two injured centers&mdash;veteran Walt McKechnie and rookie first-year pro Murray Craven.Meanwhile, two young wingers&mdash;Mike Blaisdell and Mark Osborne&mdash;have dropped down on the depth chart. Blaisdell dropped all the way down to the fourth line. He didn&rsquo;t play at all in Minnesota, and only a few shifts against the Bruins. Osborne remained the third-line left winger.WING WIRE&mdash;Remember all the pre-season talk about the realignment (Winnipeg&rsquo;s departure from the Norris Division) and what a great break it was for the Wings? It might be worth noting that the Wings, despite their fourth-place standing and overall improvement, still are behind last year&rsquo;s pace. And last season at this time, they were already well out of playoff contention&hellip;Veteran defenseman Greg Smith and Colin Campbell continued to see little action as Polano went with two defense pairings&mdash;Reed Larson and John Barrett, Jim Schoenfeld and Willie Huber. &#9632;

Polano Stresses The Work Ethic

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div>VANCOUVER&mdash;This West Coast city is a marvellous winter wonderland.The Canucks have only to win one game and that seems to be enough to lift the pall off the city.Take the recent 4-3 victory over the red-hot Edmonton Oilers on Vancouver ice. The Canucks weren&rsquo;t expected to do anything against the Oilers, who had beaten them by scores of 8-1 and 9-4 in the two previous meetings. Further, the Oilers had not lost in seven games, they had not lost to a Smythe Division team since Halloween and Glenn Anderson, who is from Vancouver, was riding the crest of a 17-game point-scoring streak.So, most of the capacity crowd expected to see the Canucks blown out. Still, they were there to see Wayne Gretzky and to see if their club had the gumption to stand up to what they felt was a drubbing above and beyond the call of duty in a previous outing.In that one, Gretzky had been given a penalty shot with the score 7-3 and after connecting, he gave it the old punch-the-air victory dance, something the Canucks thought was uncalled for. Then, there was the handclapping to the playing of the organ by a standing Ken Linseman at the bench and Gretzky&rsquo;s dash up the ice, which led to the ninth goal by Jari Kurri with two seconds left. In short, they gave it to the Canucks, but good.So when the scene switched back to Vancouver, there remained some mystery as to what the Canucks&rsquo; reacton might be. Well, they came out with twice the energy and scored perhaps their most important win of the year, just before they embarked on a rather long road swing&mdash;eight of their next 11, to be exact.The forwards had more jump and the club went with just four defensemen, but the main reason for the win was Richard Brodeur, the goaltender who seems chiefly responsible for just about every Canuck victory.Brodeur stopped 31 of 34 shots, many of them dazzling saves, as the Canucks were able to get the winning goal from defenseman Lars Lindgren in the last two minutes for the 4-3 win. To a team struggling to keep it&rsquo;s face out of last place, the two points were absolutely necessary.&ldquo;Brodeur was great,&rdquo; said Oiler coach and general manager Glen Sather. &ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s always great. He&rsquo;s always played well against us. Even in Edmonton, when we scored nine goals, I thought he could have been the first star of the game.&rdquo;With the way the Canucks have problems scoring, any time they are getting worse than 10th in the league standings defensively, they are obviously in trouble.Two of the Vancouver goals came from Doug Halward, but the winner was from the stick of Lindgren, who gained a small measure of revenge on the Oilers. On Nov. 20, it was Lindgren who inadvertently put the puck in his own net while trying to clear in the final seconds of a game in Edmonton, which ended in a 3-3 tie.&ldquo;It was nice revenge alright,&rdquo; said Lindgren. &ldquo;But I sure didn&rsquo;t want to be on the ice during those last 12 seconds. I thought they (the Oilers) were going to pass the puck to me.&rdquo;Humor was obviously back in the room of the Canucks, and should it stay, perhaps they might find the form that has been expected of them this year. So far, six games under .500, just hasn&rsquo;t been good enough, even in the wonderland of Vancouver, where one win cures all. &#9632;

Vengeful Canucks Surprise Their Own Fans

<div class="byline">BY STEVE SIMMONS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011224/4769715-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="293" height="345"></div><h2>Hockey In Saskatoon</h2>Voice from the back of the Calgary Flames&rsquo; bus: &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m running out of time here. I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m long for this team.&rdquo;&ldquo;It could be worse,&rdquo; someone else said. &ldquo;You could be traded to Saskatoon.&rdquo;Bob Plager, a scout with the St. Louis Blues, had lunch with Wild Bill Hunter at an Edmonton hotel last month.Said Plager: &ldquo;Is that arena of yours in Saskatoon going to be heated?&rdquo;&ldquo;Sure it is,&rdquo; Hunter said proudly.&ldquo;Then you should sell out,&rdquo; Plager said. &ldquo;The people will buy tickets in the winter just to stay warm.&rdquo;There&rsquo;s no truth to the rumor that people from Saskatoon ha ve no sense of humor. They have to ha ve a sense of humor just to live there.HOCKEY NIGHT IN Saskatoon? Somehow it just doesn&rsquo;t make sense, heated arena or not.The fact is, Ralston-Purina no longer wishes to own the St. Louis Blues, a collection of hockey players who are overrated, overpaid and underachievers. At one time, the Blues were a write-off, a $1-million a year loser that the company could bear. But the chairman of the board has changed, and so has the philosophy of the producers of Puppy Chow. The new chairman, William Stiritz, is ridding the corporation of everything that isn&rsquo;t in the black.In this case, you can color the Blues red.Reaction to the announcement that a Saskatoon group, led by promoter Bill Hunter, have all but purchased the Blues did not rest well with the St. Louis faithfuls. The reactions ranged from anger to disbelief. The city of St. Louis, longtime supporters of hockey, was in shock.In Saskatoon, reaction was that of blind optimism. Not realism. Realism says it can&rsquo;t happen. It isn&rsquo;t feasible. But let them have their fun for a day, or so. These are cold winters in Saskatchewan, and of cold winters are born warm and unrealistic dreams. It won&rsquo;t last long, I think.<h2>Realism And Hunter</h2>REALISM AND BILL Hunter have little in common. This is the same Hunter who started the World Hockey Association, despite disbelieveing millions. This is Bill Hunter, master salesman, who says when he promises something, he delivers. He claims the deal, for all intents and purposes, is made, that this isn&rsquo;t the ploy it appears.On the surface, it appears the Ralston-Purina people are advertising that their hockey club is for sale without even so much as purchasing an ad. Anheuser Busch, owners of the baseball Cardinals, and anything else it wants, was offered the Blues. After a quick perusal of the books, the Budweiser boys backed down.Now, it is up to the people of St. Louis&mdash;particularly the business community&mdash;to once again bail out a team that draws better than 10 other National Hockey League clubs but cannot turn a profit. It is all-out appeal time in old St. Loo.A while back, a group of diehard Blues&rsquo; fans, led by the mayor of St. Louis, met to discuss the possible loss of their hockey club. This, of course, brings back the memories of the Flames&rsquo; final days in Atlanta, when fans gathered in attempt to salvage a sport in their city. It didn&rsquo;t work, but at that time, Calgary was a viable alternative. Saskatoon, despite everything that&rsquo;s happened, doesn&rsquo;t appear to be.<h2>Don&rsquo;t Deserve It</h2>EVEN THE DEEP thinkers who run the NHL should be able to realize that. But don&rsquo;t give them too much credit. They don&rsquo;t deserve much.The sale, and possible transfer of the club will be discussed, and possibly voted on, at the league&rsquo;s board of governors meeting during all-star week on Long Island. &ldquo;The League,&rdquo; says president John Ziegler, &ldquo;is not in favor of franchise shifts.&rdquo; Four franchises have been shifted since 1976.Could all this be true? Are the Saskatoon Blues for real? Is this more than just the joke it appeared to be at first? Can Bill Hunter really pull this one off.?Frankly, I&rsquo;m from Missouri. You know, the show-me state.LEFTOVERS&mdash;When talking about the city that Burton Cummings sang about running back to, one must mention coach Dave King of the University of Saskatchewan. King, depending on who you listen to, is going to be the next coach of the Minnesota North Stars, Saskatoon Blues or Canadian Olympic team. Said King: &ldquo;My phone never stops ringing. Every time a job is open, some reporter figures I&rsquo;m the candidate. I don&rsquo;t know why.&rdquo;In the past year, King has turned down offers with the Edmonton Oilers and Philadelphia Flyers, and was rumored to turn down a job with the Detroit Red Wings.King, who is hardly in a pressure situation at the University of Saskatchewan, was recently asked about the pressure of coaching in the pros, after Glen Sonmor&rsquo;s resignation.&ldquo;What happened to Glen may make some leery,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It makes you think about the security in college hockey. But there has to be a tradeoff somewhere.&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t take a risk, you don&rsquo;t gain anything. You know what they say, &lsquo;High risk, high return&rsquo;.&ldquo;The pressure is something you have to accept. The thing is, you have to hope you&rsquo;re different. You have to think you can do it. You have to take that approach or I think it will eat you up. You have to think you&rsquo;re the exception.&rdquo; &#9632;

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THE WESTERN WORD

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER AND THN STAFF</div>At least six National Hockey League players are concerned about losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in off-ice investments. One of them, Nordique defenseman Price, tells BLUELINES that he could lose an estimated $100,000 but hopes to trim the losses to $40,000. Price adds that Danny Gare, Ron Low, Dave Lewis, Dave Semenko and Doug Hicks were also involved in the investment. The players hoped to reap profits buying land for recreation and speculation in California and British Columbia. Early reports indicate the promoter, with whom the players had invested the cash, had disappeared. Price insists that the chap, who grew up with him in B.C., is in Vancouver and attempting to cut the deficit&hellip;Skepticism keeps growing over Herb Brooks&rsquo; credibility. N.Y. Daily News&rsquo; Frank Brown chides the Ranger coach for flip-flop statements on goalie effectiveness. Last year, Brooks said shot number (saves) was unimportant. &ldquo;Brooks,&rdquo; says Brown, &ldquo;has spent the last few months saying the save percentage is an important statistic. Another well-informed New York source says a credibility gap has widened between Brooks and his players. The informant says Ranger players have been astonished at the coach&rsquo;s change in attitude after defeats and that it has seeped down to the team. The informant adds that many players are convinced Herb is planning to skip to Minnesota at season&rsquo;s end. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard,&rdquo; the tipster adds, &ldquo;that some Rangers wish he would leave now and get it over with.&rdquo; Meanwhile, Ranger fans have been needling Brooks with &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s Go North Stars!&rdquo; chants. And Lou Nanne-watchers note that the North Star GM has recently been less forceful in dismissing Brooks&rsquo; chances of coaching Minny next season&hellip; Kings have placed Mario Lessard and Doug Keans on waivers&hellip;Flyers are waiting for an excuse to send Bob Froese back to the minors. They want Pelle Lindbergh ready for the playoffs. Meanwhile, they reportedly are shopping Bunny Laroc-que&hellip;Darryl Sittier was taken aback when he received a wire from foe Harold Ballard congratulating him on his milestone 1,000th point. What Sittler didn&rsquo;t know was that it was sent by teammate Brad Marsh&hellip;Nordiques are eyeing the Sabres&rsquo; J.P. Sauve, who played junior for Quebec coach Michel Bergeron at Trois Rivieres. But a deal within the Adams Division is unlikely&hellip;Bob McCammon recalls that fired coach Larry Kish had told him at the season&rsquo;s start, &ldquo;The first thing we have to do is cut the telephone lines between Hartford and Philadelphia.&rdquo;&rsquo; Kish was furious over the Flyers-Whalers deals.Insiders report that both the Flyers and Whalers will eschew their long pants next season&hellip;Guy Carbonneau&rsquo;s desire&mdash;or lack of it&mdash;is a source of concern among the Canadiens&rsquo; brass&hellip;Pittsburgh scribes say it&rsquo;s virtually impossible to thaw the iceberg separating Eddie Johnston and Baz Bastien&hellip;Penguin fans have taken to wearing paper bag masks to show displeasure with the team&hellip;Behind the Blues&rsquo; problems is the fact that the original owner (Sid Salomon, Jr.) gave up the arena&rsquo;s concession and parking rights for 20 years for a $2-million, interest-free loan. Parking and concessions pulled in a $1.6-million profit last year that did not go to the hockey club&hellip;Despite denials from Le Colisee that none of the Stastny brothers are available, reports continue to circulate that Anton and Marian can be had&hellip;The Winnipeg buzz has Dale Hawerchuk, Morris Lukowich, Scott Amiel and Tim Watters among the Jets who might be involved in trades. Some speculate coach Tom Watt may be in trouble, too. Terry Ruskowski, Andy Moog and Real Cloutier are a few said to be sought by the Jets.Following Jim (6-3, 210-pound) Korn-Corrado (5-9, 160-pound) Micalef tiff, Wing coach Nick Polano labelled Korn &ldquo;a big phony&hellip;one day he&rsquo;s your buddy, the next day he jumps on your back&rdquo;&hellip;A wire service reporter says it was Ranger prexy Jack Krumpe who ordered the Blueshirts to show their faces before the media for post-game interviews after Craig Patrick and Herb Brooks had failed to get results&hellip;After Brad McCrimmon had been badly faked out and then returned to the bench, Bob McCammon got a big laugh with a sight gag. He picked up an athletic supporter and tossed it in McCrimmon&rsquo;s direction with the advisory, &ldquo;Brad, I think you lost this!&rdquo;&hellip;An NHL governor who has done some firing himself is reported to be under scrutiny from some powers above him over a job not-so-well-done&hellip;Current laughter in some press boxes: &ldquo;The Bruins as a team are making less than Rob Ramage!&rdquo;Sentiment among members of the Hartford media is that Larry Kish was not allowed enough time to turn the Whalers into a positive force in the Adams Division. Based on talk shows in Hartford area, reaction to the canning of Kish (by GM Larry Pleau) was negative. One fan was so incensed, he stopped his car on the highway, ran to a phone to protest the firing to a talk-show host, then ran back to his car to hear the replay. Pleau&rsquo;s permanence in the Whaler hierarchy remains a puzzle. &ldquo;(Whaler boss) Howard Baldwin has a lot of faith in a guy who&rsquo;s shown nothing,&rdquo; says Hartford Courant scribe. Despite his track record of failure, Pleau is expected to stay within the Whaler system in his search for a new coach&hellip;In head-to-head combat with big-league basketball in the same arena, the Devils are more than holding their own against the winning Nets at the Meadowlands Arena&hellip; At Madison Square Garden, the Rangers sell out every game while the Knicks are averaging only 10,000 in an 18,000-seat building&hellip;Latest Ron Duguay trade gossip in Manhattan has him possibly going to Buffalo for Tony McKegney, or Hartford for Blaine Stoughton. &#9632;

BLUELINES

<div class="byline">BY NEIL MILBERT</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0013-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011165/4769770-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Black Hawk rookie forward Troy Murray says the toughest thing about being a pro is the increase in off-ice resonsibility.</figcaption></div>CHICAGO&mdash;&ldquo;Right now, if he was in Chicago, he&rsquo;d be one of the four best players on the team. He&rsquo;d be devastating, especially in a small rink like Chicago Stadium.&rdquo;Those words were spoken a year ago by Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; general manager John Ferguson after Troy Murray, then a sophomore at the University of North Dakota, captained Team Canada and helped it win the world junior championships.Today, Troy Murray is in Chicago, alternating with Bill Gardner as center on the Black Hawks&rsquo; fourth line. But his impact has been less than devastating: four goals and five assists in 35 games.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s still an outstanding prospect,&rdquo; insists coach Orval Tessier. &ldquo;I just think in Troy&rsquo;s case, everybody put the cart before the horse.&ldquo;The experience factor wasn&rsquo;t taken into account. I consider college hockey on the level that he played to be just as good as Junior A. But he only played in college for two years not the full four.&ldquo;Troy is excellent at forechecking, hitting (body-checking), and skating. Where he has his problem is making plays and using his wingers.&rdquo;No relation to veteran Hawk defenseman Bob Murray, Troy was a third-round choice by Chicago in the 1980 draft after playing Tier II hockey for St. Albert.Encouraged by Hawk general manager Bob Pulford, he decided to enter North Dakota instead of turning pro. He was a good student and an excellent college hockey player.But following North Dakota&rsquo;s victory in the NCAA Tournament last spring, he decided to quit playing for room, board, and tuition and switch from the Sioux to the Black Hawk tribe. He joined the Hawks on the final weekend of the regular season and contributed one goal to the team&rsquo;s unexpected surge to the Stanley Cup semi-finals, appearing in seven of the 11 playoff games.But this season hasn&rsquo;t turned out the way Murray envisioned it would. &ldquo;I thought I&rsquo;d do better,&rdquo; he admits.&ldquo;If I had it to do over again, though, I&rsquo;d still do the same thing. I don&rsquo;t know how much more?&rsquo;d have learned as a hockey player in another two years of college. I also might not have pushed myself the way I&rsquo;ve started doing.&ldquo;My style is taking the body but I&rsquo;ve been lacking consistency. I&rsquo;m not utilizing the wingers enough when we come into the other team&rsquo;s zone. Here you don&rsquo;t have that extra second you had in college and you also have to adjust to the smartness of the defense.&ldquo;The biggest adjustment has been in lifestyle&mdash;being on my own and learning how to take care of my health and my financial responsibilities.&ldquo;In college, I lived in a dorm and we had meals everyday. Here, I didn&rsquo;t take care of myself the way I should have. I&rsquo;d miss meals and I wasn&rsquo;t eating the right things. At training camp, I had tonsilitis, early in the season I came down with colitis, and then in November tonsilitis again.&ldquo;It is also easier to get run down here because of the travel. In college, we&rsquo;d be gone Thursday and back Sunday and that was every other week. Now, we&rsquo;re on the go constantly.&rdquo;When Timmy Higgins suffered a broken index finger on his right hand in a mid-January fight with Detroit&rsquo;s Colin Campbell, Tessier experimented with Murray at right wing on the line with rookie center Steve Ludzik and left winger Curt Fraser.Ludzik and Murray are roommates in the Chicago suburbs and their roles on the ice during the experiment were akin to their household responsibilities.As a right winger, part of Murray&rsquo;s job was to mop up in the comers, while Ludzik did the catering with the puck. That&rsquo;s also they way they operate in their apartment.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m eating well now because Stevie and I have worked out an arrangement on meals,&rdquo; explains Murray. &ldquo;He does the cooking and I do the cleaning. He&rsquo;s a really good cook and also a neat person, so it&rsquo;s great for me.&rdquo;HAWK TALK&mdash;The Hawks&rsquo; have an appetizing schedule with lots of home cookin&rsquo; in the offing. From Feb. 6 through Mar. 6, the menu calls for eight home games and only four on the road (all Saturday engagements). &#9632;

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Hawks’ Murray Struggles With Life As An NHLer

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011206/4769801-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="545" height="973"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Gretzky isn't the only Edmonton Oiler player on the social circuit</figcaption></div>EDMONTON&mdash;For an outfit that&rsquo;s probably geographically located&mdash;over the Pole&mdash;closer to Moscow than southern resort cities, the Edmonton Oilers find their way around sunny climes quite well, thank you.Look no further than their most recent stopover in Los Angeles.Upon arrival in southern California&mdash;hot on the heels of a pair of 10-4 over-and-outs that left the National Hockey League&rsquo;s Norris Division top two seeds (Chicago Black Hawks and Minnesota North Stars) wondering what hit them&mdash;the Oilers took to the social circuit. Two nights after hitting town, they ran their unbeaten streak on the road to nine games (7-0-2), tying the Los Angeles Kings 3-3.But not before Wayne Gretzky and sidekicks Kevin Lowe and Mark Messier attended Hugh Hefner&rsquo;s Playboy Mansion for a dinner engagement. The following day after practice, the Oilers sent Gretzky on his way to the American Music Awards to rub shoulders with Kenny Rogers, while they attended a social engagement of their own. The idea, presumably, was to further emphasize that the runaway Smythe Division leaders are far from a one-man team, as some still naively believe.&ldquo;I feel like I&rsquo;m on a field trip,&rdquo; quipped defenseman Don Jackson as a cavalcade carrying the Oilers&rsquo; entourage snaked off L.A.&rsquo;s Wilshire Boulevard, through guarded gates and into Fremont Place&mdash;a secluded neigh-borhoood billed as &lsquo;PRIVATE!&rsquo;The Oilers then converged upon Muhammed Ali&rsquo;s $4-million mansion located across the street from Mick Jagger&rsquo;s humble abode and next door to a little brick hamlet the size of West Edmonton Mall that Jane Fonda has up for sale for walking-around money.The occasion was The Champ&rsquo;s 41 st birthday and the Oilers attended the function at Muhammad All&rsquo;s invitation through a member of his promotion entourage, Larry Messier. The fact that he is left winger Mark Messier&rsquo;s uncle, can be linked to the team&rsquo;s presence.The Oilers had a special chocolate cake decorated with boxing gloves, made up for the champ, and also presented him with a stick autographed by members of the NHL team. Ali may slur the odd word these days, the byproduct of a couple of decades spent in the professional ring following his gold medal Olympic victory in Tokyo in I960, but his wit is as quick as ever.&ldquo;I love your company, I admire your style. But to give a gift so cheap, please don&rsquo;t come back for a while,&rdquo; he said in touching off guffaws of laughter from his house guests.&ldquo;Acutally,&rdquo; he added in one of his few moments spent seriously during the Oilers&rsquo; entertaining visit to his home, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll cherish the stick (that carried the hand-written words &lsquo;The Greatest of All Time&rsquo;) and I&rsquo;ll put it on the wall in my basement (rumpus room).&rdquo;The ex-champ did reveal his Black Muslim plans for changing the world&rsquo;s religion, but for the most part he took to humoring the young Oilers, most of who had never seen him in the flesh.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never had so many white people in my house at one time,&rdquo; cracked Ali under the watchful eye of an entourage of bodyguards, hangers-on and family members. &ldquo;Any brothers on this team?&rdquo;When he spotted a grinning Grant Fuhr, the Oilers&rsquo; struggling goaltender who has since been assigned to the Moncton Alpines of the American Hockey League, Ali&rsquo;s eyes lit up like his birthday candles. He also went into his ring-made-famous Ali Shuffle, while a visit with the champ wouldn&rsquo;t be complete without heavyweight challengers stepping forth to shadow box with No. 1.When big Don Jackson tossed a jab dangerously close to his jaw. Ali quipped: &ldquo;If you dreamed about it (connecting), you had better wake up and apologize.&rdquo;He also singled out economy-sized NHL heavyweight king Dave Semenko and they mimickingly squared off, except Ali faked a punch and blew a mouthful of hot air at the big leftwinger. Sememko almost tumbled over in hysteric laughter.The Champ, he&rsquo;s something else.And, the Oilers, for a bunch of hayseeds, they get around. &#9632;

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Oiler ‘Havseeds’ Savor Date With Ali

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div>BUFFALO&mdash;Craig Ramsay comes up big on special nights.Early in January, Ramsay's good friend, Bill Hajt, was playing his 600th National Hockey League game. Ramsay and Hajt. both 31, are two of only three Sabres who played on the 1975 Stanley Cup finalist team.That night, the two combined on a goal starting Buffalo on its way to a 7-2 victory over Los Angeles. Ramsay scored the goal for his 600th NHL point.Late in the month, the Sabres played an important game against their Adams Division-rival Montreal Canadiens. Only four days before, the Sabres lost 4-1 to the Canadiens in Montreal.In this game, however, things were much different.They didn&rsquo;t start out promisingly for Buffalo, though. At the 3:25 mark, the Sabres&rsquo; Mike Foligno was sent to the penalty box.Thirty-one seconds later, Buffalo had a 1-0 lead.Ramsay scored a shorthanded goal.It was a fitting start to the veteran left winger&rsquo;s 900th NHL game, all with Buffalo. It not only started the Sabres on their way to a 7-3 drubbing of the Canadiens, it gave Ramsay the club record (26) for shorthanded goals. He shared the club mark with Don Luce, his former linemate and penalty-killing partner.&ldquo;Scoring a goal in my 900th game was a thrill,&rdquo; Ramsay said. &ldquo;I forgot about it being a shorthanded record until the announcement on the PA system. I did know that the next one would set a record and was kind of glad to beat Donnie. We had a lot of fun playing together.&ldquo;To tell you the truth, I didn&rsquo;t know it was my 900th game but I did know that it was coming up some time soon. I was just excited to score the goal and get ahead of Montreal.&rdquo;Ramsay is known more as a defensive specialist than a scorer. He played junior hockey for Peterborough in the Ontario Hockey League under Roger Neilson, along with Bob Gainey, Montreal&rsquo;s defensive ace.For years, Ramsay and Luce were the key operators giving Buffalo one of the top penalty-killing records in the NHL. The Sabres still are at or near the top of the league in that department and Ramsay plays a major role.He is one of those quiet, unobtrusive types who, as the saying goes, always comes to play. He&rsquo;s always there, in sickness and health, ready to do the dirty jobs, such as checking the opposition&rsquo;s big scorers.Such sharpshooters as Montreal&rsquo;s Guy Lafleur and Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders know what it&rsquo;s like to go against Craig Ramsay. The Montreal game was the 770th regular-season game in a row for Ramsay, the second longest streak in NHL history.Ramsay set up the goal that most people figure was the clincher in the Montreal game. In the final minute of the first period, he sent a pass from the comer to Andre Savard, about 30 feet straight out from the goal, and Savard drove a shot high into the net giving Buffalo a 3-0 lead.Ramsay also helped Buffalo kill off two consecutive penalties in the second period without giving up a goal.For his efforts, he received the game&rsquo;s first star.Gilbert Perreault played in the Montreal game and assisted on two goals after missing three contests because of a pulled muscle in his back.With Perreault out, the Sabres, who had a six-game winning streak going, travelled to Boston and lost, 4-0, then lost 4-1 in Montreal.They did come through with a 5-2 home-ice victory over Winnipeg, however, with rookie defenseman Phil Housley scoring three goals. All camevia the power play, which had not been working well on the road trip.The Sabres scored one power-play goal in the 7-3 win over the Habs. Perreault set it up with a cross-rink pass to Ric Seiling.That game marked the end of a scoring. drought, of sorts, for Seiling and other Buffalo players. Seiling had scored only two goals in his last 10 games.Lindy Ruff got his first goal in 25; games. 10 of which he was sidelined by&rsquo; an injury. Larry Playfair also scored, his first goal since Nov. 17. &#9632;

Ramsay Sets Club Record In 900th Game

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;It was just like old times at the Forum.For the first time since late last year, the Kings&rsquo; Triple Crown Line&mdash;the scourge of the National Hockey League two seasons ago&mdash;was back together again.Marcel Dionne. Charlie Simmer and Dave Taylor. The trio that accounted for a club record 161 goals in 1980-81. The group that will have to score a bundle of goals in order for the last-place Kings to make some kind of playoff move the second half of this season.Taylor, making his first appearance since fracturing his right wrist in Edmonton on Oct. 29. played remarkably well in a 3-3 tie against the Oilers and appeared surprisingly strong for a fellow who had missed 33 straight games.He didn&rsquo;t score a goal&mdash;just missing putting the Kings ahead from 25 feet with 2:25 to go&mdash;and he didn&rsquo;t collect an assist, but his mere presence on the ice made quite an impression.&ldquo;This morning at practice,&rdquo; Dionne said, &ldquo;was the first time in a long time we felt like a hockey team again. We had more size and more character than we&rsquo;ve had in a long while.&rdquo;Taylor was back, and so was 19-year-old Doug Smith, the scrappy center who had missed 34 games with his fractured left wrist. And bruisers Jay Wells and J.P. Kelly were playing their first games at home since going down with serious injuries.It&rsquo;s a wonder coach Don Perry recognized everybody.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s great to be back.&rdquo;&rsquo; said the weary Taylor, the Kings&rsquo; lone representative on last year&rsquo;s all-star team. &ldquo;And playing with these guys made it easier. We know pretty much what each other is going to do and we have some set plays that we use all the time.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011146/4769856-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="555" height="1024"><figcaption class="caption-body">As soon as Dave Taylor returned to the lineup, he lifted the Kings&rsquo; spirits.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;We can make moves without even thinking, just throw the puck around the boards and know that one of us is going to be there. It&rsquo;s great being back and great playing with Marcel and Charlie again.&rdquo;Taylor threw his weight around as though he had never been away&mdash;levelling 6-foot-4, 215-pound defenseman Randy Gregg before the game was two minutes old&mdash;and Perry later said he intended to keep the big line intact for a while.&ldquo;As long as they&rsquo;re playing well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ll keep them there indefinitely. I think we can get enough scoring from the other lines to do that.&ldquo;It sure is nice having everybody back. It was awfully tough for Taylor and Smith. Neither one had practiced regularly with the team, but I thought they both did a hell of a job just jumping in there like that.&rdquo;The return of Taylor and Smith left room in the stands for a few healthy bodies, namely Bernie Nicholls. Ulf Isaksson and Mike Murphy. Of the three, only Murphy had been very productive the last month and a half.Nicholls, the 21-year-old rookie who had gotten off to such a rousing start before suffering a knee injury, had managed to score only two goals in 19 games and sat out for the first time in his NHL career for reasons other than injury. Isaksson, the Swedish winger, had gone 21 straight games without scoring a goal.&ldquo;Ulf really hasn&rsquo;t been seeing that much ice time anyway,&rdquo; Perry said, &ldquo;and Bernie&rsquo;s been playing better, but not really as well as he can. It was not a hard decision with Smith coming back.&ldquo;Right now. we have so many people that it&rsquo;s going to be tough, but we don&rsquo;t want to move the guys we&rsquo;ve just gotten back in there too fast. Once we get our feet on the ground, though, we&rsquo;re going to have to move some people out. It&rsquo;s tough to practice with all these extra bodies.&rdquo;KING NOTEBOOK&mdash;Goaltender Doug Keans, recalled from New Haven, started four straight games and went 0-22 with a 4.02 average. Mike Blake was sent down when Keans was called up&hellip;General manager George Maguire said no trades were coming in the forseeable future and laughed at the reported deal sending goaltender Mario Lessard and defenseman Mark Hardy to Quebec for Anton Stastny and others. Such a trade seemed absurd, too, considering Hardy seems on the brink of becoming an allstar. Could this team afford to give up a quality blueliner? No way. &#9632;

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Taylor’s Back And So Is Triple Crown Trio

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div>EAST RUTHERFORD&mdash;&ldquo;I thought our big rivalry was supposed to be with the Rangers,&rdquo; commented Devils&rsquo; winger Bob MacMillan after New Jersey and the Philadelphia Flyers warred on the Spectrum Ice.For some reason, the Devils seem to bring out the worst in the Flyers&mdash;at least in terms of their temperament&mdash;and New Jersey&rsquo;s Jan. 25 battle at the Spectrum was marred by one of the very few benchclearing brawls of the season.Don&rsquo;t try to tell the Devils that the Flyers have changed their tactics.&lsquo;They&rsquo; ve done a great propaganda job on everybody,&rdquo; Devils&rsquo; goalie Chico Resch observed following a 5-1 loss to Philadelphia. &ldquo;But what they&rsquo;ve changed&mdash;except for tonight&mdash;is that they&rsquo;ve cut down on the brawling and the real obvious stuff.&ldquo;Hey, they still got those sticks up and they still get away with a lot,&rdquo; Resch said, &ldquo;and you can&rsquo;t almost blame them for using the tactics that work.&rdquo;Resch blames the officials more than the Flyers for the cheap-shot hockey which often occurs at the Spectrum.&ldquo;This building is tough to play in and tough to referee in.&rdquo; the Devils&rsquo; goalie observed. &ldquo;A referee has to take charge here or it&rsquo;s chaos and that&rsquo;s what we had tonight.&rdquo;Resch was referring to the work of referee Bruce Hood, who missed a great deal of what went on. While Glen Cochrane and Hector Marini were punching it out near center ice, Flyer winger Paul Holmgren charged the Devils&rsquo; bench in an effort to engage Garry Howatt in a rematch of an earlier squabble.The rest of the Flyers followed and, suddenly, there were 39 players pushing, shoving, and punching on the ice just in front of the Devils&rsquo; bench.Hood claimed he didn&rsquo;t see which Flyer left the bench first, so he didn&rsquo;t assess a double minor against Philadelphia or invoke a penalty which carries a three-game suspension to the first player off the bench who enters or starts an altercation.Assistant supervisor of officials John McCauley was at the game and also said he couldn&rsquo;t indentify the guilty Flyer and so&mdash;amazingly&mdash;when the teams were through yapping and shoving, the Devils didn&rsquo;t gain so much as a power-play advantage.&ldquo;Being in Philadelphia with Hood refereeing,&rdquo; noted Devils&rsquo; defenseman Rob Palmer, &ldquo;?m surprised we didn&rsquo;t come away shorthanded. After all, they only charged our bench with 20 guys.&rdquo;Devil&rsquo;s G-M coach Billy MacMillion grabbed Howatt and held him on the bench, so he was one of the few players who wasn&rsquo;t fined or penalized in the incident.Hood doled out 74 minutes in penalties but MacMillan was shocked that neither Hood nor McCauley, who spoke by phone with the referee during the 14minute delay, were able to identify the first culprit.&ldquo;Then he (Hood) blew it,&rdquo; MacMillan said. &ldquo;His job is to see who comes off the becnh first. That&rsquo;s supposed to be a serious concern in this league. We will request that the NHL office review the film.&rdquo;For most of the season, MacMillan has been remarkably supportive of officials, avoiding the temptation of blaming his team&rsquo;s troubles on the whistle-blowers. On this night, however, he answered quickly when asked if, except for the brawl, Hood had called a good game.&ldquo;No, defintely not,&rdquo; the coach answered. &ldquo;He let too many things go early. And, if someone is to take the brunt of what happened, I would think you&rsquo;d have to look in his direction.&rdquo;Resch sounded a note of warning to the league about letting the high-sticking continue. It is a warning that has gone unheeded before and probably will again, but he issued it just the same.&ldquo;When the referee doesn&rsquo;t do his job,&rdquo; Resch declared, &ldquo;?m always afraid that somebody is going to do something here that they really don&rsquo;t want to do&hellip;out of fear or selfprotection. When Howie punched Holmgren, Paul was taking a run at him. When you think you&rsquo;re going to get a stick or something, you don&rsquo;t just stand there to see what is going to happen next.&ldquo;?m not just talking about our team. I&rsquo;m saying this kind of stuff lowers the league so much. You have to wonder why the officials miss so much of the dangerous, obvious things.&ldquo;Look at the way the game before this one ended here. McCammon puts Cochrane, a defenseman, out for the last shift up on the wing against the Rangers&rsquo; Ron Duguay. What&rsquo;s that? Is that professionalism? Is that what our sport is supposed to be about?&rdquo;HOT STUFF&mdash;Resch extended a personal record against the Flyers by starting his 14th consecutive game. For the fourth straight game, he failed to set a franchise record for most career victories (29). Also for the fourth straight time, the Devils missed a chance to move up out of the Patrick Division cellar when they lost to Philadelphia&hellip;Rick Meagher returned to the lineup briefly against Washington but re-injured his bruised ribs in a 3-1 loss to the Capitals. &#9632;

Devils Lower The Boom On Hood

<div class="byline">BY JOHN GILBERT</div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;A team that lives by the specialty units must also be prepared to die by them. Or, in the Minneosta North Stars&rsquo; case, at least be fit to be tied by them.After coach Murray Oliver assumed the helm, the Stars promptly lost games to Edmonton and Boston. Then they turned around and beat Detroit and Hartford.Steve Payne and all-star defenseman Craig Hartsburg scored power-play goals in the 3-2 victory over Detroit, and when the Stars whipped Hartford, 7-2, Dino Ciccarelli, another all-star pick, and Neal Broten scored on power plays while Mike Eaves and Al MacAdam knocked in shorthanded tallies.At that point, in 48 games, the Minnesota power play was the most productive in the National Hockey League, with 61 goals scored during man-advantage situations. The NHL record is 99, scored last season by Pittsburgh. Since it was clicking at a 30 per cent plus rate, the power play was carrying the Stars.The 61 goals, in fact, were 31 percent of Minnesota&rsquo;s total of 204 goals at that point. The darker side of that statistic, of course, is that the Stars need power-play chances to survive because they don&rsquo;t score enough at even strength, an old familiar problem with the club.And there is always the chance the power play will dry up. It happened.Playing Oliver&rsquo;s new defensive-minded system, the Stars went to St. Louis and, against the Blues&rsquo; astute penalty-killers, the Minnesota power play was shut out, and the teams played to a tie. When the clubs played a return engagement at the Met Center, the Stars&rsquo; power play was blanked again, and St. Louis tied the game on a Perry Turnbull goal in the closing seconds.Philadelphia came to town next. The Minnesota power play was shut down for the third straight game, and for the third straight time, the Stars wound up tied, this time 2-2.Oliver&rsquo;s attempt at turning an offensive-minded team into a defensive-minded one seems a noble adventure, but in the first few games, it was an either-or proposition. Either the Stars scored goals or played defense, when Oliver&rsquo;s obvious intent is for some of both.The players generally like what Oliver has tried to do so far. Most of them feel some defensive tightening was necessary, and they all feel a little better about having some disciplined assignments to take care of.Meanwhile, the search goes on. While Oliver searches for the right combinations, reuniting the Broten-Ciccarelli-Tom McCarthy line, Stars&rsquo; GM Lou Nanne is searching for the next coach of the club.The most prominent names tossed around are Dave King and Herb Brooks, although Nanne has talked to others such as Pat Quinn and Brian Kilrea and said the list includes Gene Ubriaco, his Central Hockey League coach in Birmingham. &#9632;

Stars Live, Die By Specialty Units

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01911/4770260-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="531" height="830"><figcaption class="caption-body">When Alan Haworth arrived in Washington, he wasn't healthy and started slowly.</figcaption></div>LANDOVER&mdash;Alan Haworth joined the Washington Capitals, following his trade from Buffalo, with a severely sprained ankle that restricted his play during training camp at Hershey. He was not ready for the start of the season and, although he was in uniform most nights, results were a long time coming.It took Haworth nine games to score a goal. At mid-season, moving between right wing, center and the bench, he had six. A weekend home-and-home series with his old club, the Sabres, failed to provide the hoped-for spark. The Capitals lost both games and a scoreless Haworth had nothing to show but a pair of minuses.The following Monday, after a lengthy practice at Capital Centre. Haworth and coach Bryan Murray stood against the boards for more than a half hour, in quiet conversation.&ldquo;I just wanted to talk over a few things,&rdquo; Murray explained. &ldquo;Alan has been working hard, which is all I really ask of anyone, and perhaps he&rsquo;s been pressing a bit. I think he can make more of a contribution and I&rsquo;d especially like to see him increase his scoring.&rdquo;The next night, in a 4-1 home-ice victory over Philadelphia, Haworth was at right wing, with usual linemate Craig Laughlin on the left side and Bobby Carpenter, shifted from left wing, in the middle.He was moving the struggling Carpenter, Murray said, because he was &ldquo;trying everything I can to unscrew what&rsquo;s screwed up there. This is a chance for Bobby to get going offensively. With Craig and Alan, it should be a good hard-working, skating line.&rdquo;Murray could not have imagined the results. Over the first four games together, the trio accounted for eight goals. Haworth collected three goals and four assists, with a plus four rating.The big outburst came in Chicago, where Haworth rolled up a goal and three assists in a 6-4 victory over the Black Hawks. He was chosen No. 2 star behind the usual No. 1, goalie Al Jensen, marking Haworth&rsquo;s first star selection as a Capital.Murray made one more refinement in the line for a game with New Jersey, shifting Haworth to left wing and putting Laughlin on the right side. Haworth scored the opening goal in a 3-1 triumph and was robbed of another by Devil goalie Chico Resch, on a save so spectacular the goal judge turned on the red light prematurely.&ldquo;Alan is flexible&mdash;he&rsquo;s played both wings and center in the past, so I don&rsquo;t hesitate to use him at any forward position,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;That line is starting to do things. With a little more responsibility in our end. that will be a heck of a line in a month or so.&rdquo;As for Haworth, he was smiling, even more than when he returned to the Aud in Buffalo to be greeted by signs that included, &ldquo;We Still Love Ya, Alan Sweetie.&rdquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s different on the left side, but my speed compensates somewhat,&rdquo; said Haworth, a righthand shot. &ldquo;I think I was moved because Craig has been shooting really well on the right side. I&rsquo;ve been skating and hustling all along, but I was missing those chances before and I was getting down on myself.&ldquo;I had a good talk with Bryan and suddenly the puck&rsquo;s going in. I guess the Lord is on my side now.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Gaetan Duchesne had both the game winner and an empty-net goal against New Jersey. His 12 goals include six winners and both of the Capitals&rsquo; empty netters&hellip;Chris Valentine was returned to Hershey, although he had maintained a point-a-game pace. Jensen started six straight games and. despite a 3-3 record, he did not play badly in any of them. In a 5-4 loss to Quebec, Jensen stopped six of eight breakaways. &#9632;

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Capitals’ Haworth Goes On Scoring Tear

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div>HARTFORD&mdash;The rise and fall of Larry Kish is a reflection of an organization that cries out for leadership, both on the ice and in the highest sanctums of the front office.After 49 games as head coach of the Hartford Whalers, Kish was allowed to resign, a parting gesture by an organization that never really intends to hurt anyone, but that over the years has somehow claimed more lives than an average weekend traffic toll.To resurrect the Whalers, who have made three coaching changes in less than-24 months, and yet today stand near the bottom of the NHL, might require all the king&rsquo;s horses and all the king&rsquo;s men. The Whalers, who were 12-32-5 under Kish, have neither the horses nor the manpower. What they have&mdash;and what they must live with&mdash;is Larry Pleau.&ldquo;I can live with our mistakes and I can even live with the losing, but there&rsquo;s more to it than that,&rdquo; said Pleau, the club&rsquo;s director of hockey operations who has assumed coaching duties for the remainder of the season. &ldquo;Look, I&rsquo;m not going to bad-mouth Larry Kish. People&rsquo;s lives are involved. I&rsquo;m paid to take the heat. That&rsquo;s my job.&rdquo;Pleau, who handled both jobs while guiding the Whalers to a 21-41-18 record a year ago, is well aware that temperatures all around him are on the rise. An unwritten rule among general managers is that all are allowed to fire at least one coach. Pleau extinguished his free roll when he asked for Kish&rsquo;s resignation. When the bell tolls the next time, the GM, in most cases, need not ask for whom.&ldquo;I know what has to be done,&rdquo; Pleau said. &ldquo;The question is, can I do it or not?&rdquo;Pleau said what the Whalers most need is &ldquo;firm guidance on a consistent day-to-day basis.&ldquo;I know what my shortcomings were the first time I coached,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That experience wasn&rsquo;t wasted.&rdquo;On the other hand, perhaps Kish&rsquo;s was.Ballyhooed by Managing General Partner Howard Baldwin, who continues to tiptoe past one freshly-dug grave after another, upon arrival as &ldquo;the brightest young coach in the game today,&rdquo; Kish failed to last even one season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in a position where I have to say no comment,&rdquo; Kish said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a year-and-a-half left on my contract and I&rsquo;ve got to respect that income. What I&rsquo;m going to do is sit tight, but I&rsquo;ll be honest. I don&rsquo;t like the idea of not working.&rdquo;Kish is no longer a member of the Whalers&rsquo; organization.What Kish, who had spent 18 years trying to reach the NHL, discovered when he finally arrived was that most players are propelled by selfishness. Unlike the U.S. Army promotion that entices young people to &ldquo;Be&hellip;all that you can be,&rdquo; an NHL promotion might bugle, &ldquo;Get&hellip;all that you can get.&rdquo; The revelation disturbed Kish greatly.&ldquo;I really and truly didn&rsquo;t think that it would be this bad,&rdquo; is an observation that Kish repeated frequently, especially near the end.The question is, will those players who had trouble playing for Kish have the same trouble playing for Pleau?&ldquo;This (coaching change) does not solve the problem at all,&rdquo; Whaler Mark Johnson said.The Whalers cry out for leadership. Perhaps it&rsquo;s time that someone checked the oval office.&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t come in 19th,&rdquo; said Baldwin. late in October, without realizing that his team would have to rally to reach 19th. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve made a substantial investment in young players, which is why we lost $2 million last year even while making six. We signed some free agents, got Pienre Larouche from Montreal without giving up a body-we&rsquo;re doing what the &lsquo;elite&rsquo; teams have done. There&rsquo;s no question we&rsquo;ve got a much better team this season. Our fans may not be over-whelmed, but they&rsquo;ll be pleased.&rdquo;In retrospect, it&rsquo;s that sort of leadership that led the 7th cavalry to gallop into Little Big Horn.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02699/4770291-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="557" height="886"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Kish discovered that too many NHL players are propelled by selfishness.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0018-02

Pleau Puts Himself On Firing Line

<div class="byline">BY BOB DONNELLY</div>QUEBEC CITY-The accolades have always poured in for the Stastny brothers but now Michel Goulet is finally getting some much-deserved recognition.The Quebec Nordique left winger was recently reunited on a line with Peter Stastny and the change certainly didn&rsquo;t hurt the club&rsquo;s leading goal scorer. Goulet was elected as an all-star in the Prince of Wales conference through the first half of the season, further proof that reporters in other NHL cities have recognized the talents of the flashy skater and natural scorer.&ldquo;I am very happy about the all-star recognition, although I didn&rsquo;t really lose any sleep over my chances,&rdquo; said Goulet. &ldquo;I know there are many talented players in this league and I just try to take it one game at a time.&ldquo;You need talent, but you also need lots of hard work to be successful in the NHL. I went from 22 to 32 to 42 goals per season in the last three years and I hope I can still improve. I am not thinking right now about 50 goals for the season, but if I got that many, you can be sure that I would be happy.&rdquo;This is not the first time Goulet has played with Peter Stastny.&ldquo;I played half a season with Peter when he first arrived in the NHL two years ago,&rdquo; Goulet said. &ldquo;I know what he can do. Marian is also an excellent skater and playmaker. I know it (playing with Peter and Marian) has helped me. You really have to be ready to skate when you play with the Stastnys, but the good part is that they create so many openings on the ice. There always seems to be something happening when we are on the ice as a line.&rdquo;Meanwhile, Quebec coach Michel Bergeron once again stressed that the success of his team is often directly related to the scoring punch of the Stastny line. Now, Goulet has replaced Anton on the line with Peter and Marian.&ldquo;I think Goulet with Peter and Marian form one of the best lines in the NHL,&rdquo; Bergeron said. &ldquo;Anton has not been hurt by the change either because he is a better offensive player on a line with a center such as Dale Hunter.&ldquo;It is clear that the success of the Nordiques is closely related to the success of the Stastny brothers, but there is nothing strange about that. They lead the league in scoring, they control our power play and they get lots of ice time.&rdquo;After a disasterous road trip, where the Nordiques lost five games in seven days, the team responded and turned things around with five straight victories. Three of those victories came at home and two on the road. The fifth game of the winning series was a 6-3 triumph over the Winnipeg Jets, where the Stastny brothers picked up seven points including a goal apiece. Goulet also registered his 32nd and 33rd markers of the season.&ldquo;We turned it around because we are now playing solid defensive hockey,&rdquo; Bergeron said. &ldquo;We have been getting great goaltending from Dan Bouchard, who has been making the key saves and keeping us in the game when we need it. We have always been a strong team on offense and now we are playing well defensively.&rdquo;Goulet has also helped to turn it around with his scoring touch. He gets as many breakaways as any player in the league because he is such a great skater. He also kills penalties and is now seeing more time on the power play. It is to his credit that he has scored so many times this season without a regular spot on the Nordique power play,&ldquo;When we lost those five games on the road,&rdquo; said Goulet, &ldquo;we really played well, especially in the last two losses in Boston and Buffalo. If you combine those games with our current streak, we have now played seven strong games in a row. Things have also been going well for me since I started playing with Peter. We have been much stronger as a team lately. I have no personal objectives for this season, but I am just trying to improve as much as I can each year.&rdquo;Goulet is right on schedule. With increases of 10 goals for each season in the league. Goulet&rsquo;s next plateau is 52 goals. And on that count, he&rsquo;s ahead of schedule. &#9632;

Spotlight Beginning To Shine On Nords’Goulet

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01863/4770346-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Calgary Flame defenseman Steve Konroyd is the type of player who likes to stand up to opponents at the blueline.</figcaption></div>CALGARY&mdash;The timing could not be better.With Phil Russell out of the Calgary Flames&rsquo; line-up for an undetermined period of time because of a bruised knee, the pressure on defense was shifted to a pair of youngsters, 23-year-old Paul Reinhart and 22-year-old Steve Konroyd, who are rapidly developing into one of the premier tandems in the National Hockey League.Russell injured his knee in the first period of a game against Los Angeles, toppling over goaltender Don Edwards in an effort to chase down a loose puck. The Flames just do not have the depth to replace a player of his caliber.X-rays showed no ligament or cartilage damage, but Russell is limping noticeably and has a lot of pain.Until Russell is ready to return, Johnson is trying to get by with four defensemen. Sometimes, it looks like he&rsquo;s trying to get by with just two.Against Toronto, in the first game after Russell&rsquo;s injury, Reinhart and Konroyd played between 35 and 40 minutes.Reinhart moves the puck with precision. When he gets it, he seldom loses it. He is prone to the occasional giveaway, but with his time of possession, that is inevitable.Konroyd is a young Russell. He can play the man and move the puck. Playing beside Reinhart, he minimizes his offensive forays, but he can and does lead the rush if the ice opens up in front of him.&ldquo;Definitely, Steve is the most improved player on the team this year,&rdquo; said Lemelin. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s playing solid. Playing with Reinhart gives him more confidence, I think. Paul moves the puck, Steve stands up at the line. They complement each other very well.&rdquo;&ldquo;The extra ice time helps my confidence, for sure,&rdquo; said Konroyd. &ldquo;One of my problems is I have a tendency to panic when I pass the puck. I bring the stick back and slap it. That makes it tough on the guy getting the pass. When Paul gives you a pass, he puts it right on your stick.&ldquo;Phil says it all the time. If the first pass is good, we&rsquo;ll get it out easy. If the first pass is bad, we&rsquo;re bottled up, it seems like forever.&rdquo;As for Russell, he said he was encouraged by the results of the x-rays. It&rsquo;s just a good bruise,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When I got off the plane (from L.A.), I thought things could be a lot worse. It just means I&rsquo;ll start a program of rehabilitation. I&rsquo;ll take it day by day. With the wonderful drugs and cures that are available today, I could be back before you know it. One thing&rsquo;s for sure, I&rsquo;ll be wearing more protective padding on it when I play again.&rdquo;With Russell out, Johnson reinserted Pat Ribble into the line-up along with Jim Jackson to form another defense pair. Jackson, a right winger earlier in the season, actually played defense the last two years of his career. He had a half dozen shifts against the Kings when Reinhart went to the infirmary for stitches and, as Johnson put it, &ldquo;didn&rsquo;t look bad.&rdquo; Johnson also reunited the defense pair of Kari Kari Eloranta and Richie Dunn.Johnson bemoaned the loss of Russell because of the latter&rsquo;s excellent play of late.&ldquo;The chemistry with Russell and Kari Eloranta has been very good,&rdquo; said Johnson. &ldquo;Eloranta has played well and Russell has been on top of his game. With Reinhart and Konroyd, those four have been pretty good for us.&rdquo;Although both Dunn and Eloranta can move the puck, neither moves the man well, the reason Johnson split them up in the first place.Up front, Johnson is experimenting with a line of Doug Risebrough, Kent Nilsson and Kevin Lavallee. Nilsson, in this alignment, plays right wing, meaning he has played all three forward positions at one time or another this season.The way Johnson explains it: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve given Nilsson to Risebrough and Nilsson&rsquo;s had two good games in a row. Maybe he&rsquo;ll make it 12 in a row.&rdquo;Nilsson said he did not know what to think of the new line, saying: &ldquo;Wait 10 games, then I&rsquo;ll tell you.&rdquo;Risebrough. however, said the scoring chances the trio had in its first few outings showed the unit had loads of potential.&ldquo;Certainly those guys demand respect offensively,&rdquo; said Risebrough. &ldquo;That makes it easier for me. When we&rsquo;re coming out of our end, they&rsquo;re not covering me, they&rsquo;re covering Kent. In their end. they&rsquo;re saying: &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t let Lavallee get a shot. Defense, that is my job!&rdquo; &#9632;

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With Russell Sidelined, Young Flames Take Over

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div>TORONTO&mdash;In the midst of a season dominated by a life-and-death struggle with the Detroit Red Wings for the fourth and final playoff spot in the Norris Division, the Maple Leafs have experienced a few very pleasant surprises.Among them have been the play of Jim Korn, the giant-sized defenseman who has become a leader on the blueline for the club with his poise, solid hitting and ability to carry the puck out of the defensive zone. Another surprise has been Dan Daoust, the splendid splinter obtained along with Gaston Gingras from the Montreal Canadiens. Daoust has worked magic as a center for Rick Vaive and John Anderson on the club&rsquo;s big line with his hustle and heart and playmaking ability.But if you were to single out perhaps the biggest surprise on the Leafs this season, the player who came out of nowhere, you&rsquo;d have to be referring to Frank Nigro, a curly-haired right winger recently employed with Walt Poddubny and Peter Ihnacak.Nigro, soon to turn 23, played for the Leafs&rsquo; Central League farm team in Cincinnati last season, where he picked up 24 goals and 26 assists. A fifth-round 1979 draft choice, Nigro didn&rsquo;t figure to see too much duty with Rick Vaive, Mirko Frycer, Billy Harris and Rocky Saganiuk ahead of him on the right side.He started the season in St. Catharines for the Leafs&rsquo; American League club but was called up a few weeks later when Walt Poddubny was sidelined by a broken bone in his leg. Shortly after Poddubny returned to the lineup, Nigro, who scored his first NHL goal in Quebec City, returned to St. Catharines.&ldquo;The first time up, I was used on Greg Terrion&rsquo;s line, which was the checking line,&rdquo; Nigro said. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t get very many goals. When I went back to St. Catharines, they told me to work on my defense. All through junior, I&rsquo;d always been concerned with offense so I never really thought about defense before. Mainly, it&rsquo;s a matter of concentration, of going up and down your wing.&rdquo;Nigro played on St. Catharines&rsquo; top line with Bruce Boudreau and Reg Thomas, taking the place of Ron Zanussi, who was loaned to Sherbrooke. The goals began to go in for Nigro and in early December, when the Leafs began to make a number of player movements between Toronto and St. Catharines, he was summoned to replace Serge Boisvert.A short time later, Nigro found himself playing beside Ihnacak and Poddubny while Mirko Frycer was on the mend. It became a combination that has worked well for the Leafs and, upon Frycer&rsquo;s return, it was the Czech who moved to another line with Bill Derlago while Nigro stayed put.&ldquo;I think our line has played well together,&rdquo; Nigro said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been getting the chances. Peter likes to hold onto the puck which gives you a chance to break down the wing. Walt breaks for the net and can let if fly. I just try to get free with my speed.&rdquo;Since being recalled for the second time, Nigro has scored five times and added 10 assists in his first 25 games. He has such a good shot that he occasionally plays the point on the power play and he has that excellent speed combined with the instincts of a center.&ldquo;I played center in junior (for London), but my final year I broke my wrist and had a pin in it. I seemed to have trouble controlling the puck the way I wanted, but it seems that it was a mental thing. I played the wing in Cincinnati and I like it because you get more shots.&rdquo;&ldquo;Nigro has a great shot,&rdquo; said Leaf coach Mike Nykoluk. &ldquo;I just wish he&rsquo;d start hitting the net with it. In Calgary (a 3-1 loss), he had a great chance but he shot it into the goalie&rsquo;s pads. Maybe it&rsquo;s because he&rsquo;s been hurt in the past, he doesn&rsquo;t have the touch around the net. But he works hard, he can skate and he&rsquo;s only 22.&rdquo;&ldquo;When you&rsquo;re playing regularly it&rsquo;s a good feeling.&rdquo; Nigro admitted. &ldquo;You know you&rsquo;re going to go right back out there and have another chance. I&rsquo;ve been trying different things lately, like cutting into the middle. I think Peter is used to that with Mirko ad he looks for that.&rdquo;LOOSE LEAFS&mdash;The Leafs got their home record over 500 with a pair of come-from-behind victories over Pittsburgh and Buffalo. They trailed 2-0 on both occasions, answering Pittsburgh&rsquo;s lead with eight straight goals and battling Buffalo to take a 5-3 decision, which moved them within two points of fourthplace Detroit.<h2>PLAYER TRANSACTIONS</h2><h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>BOSTON&mdash;Mike Gillis, LW, returned to Baltimore of AHL.CALGARY&mdash;Steve Christoff, RW, returned from injury list.CHICAGO&mdash;Jack O&rsquo;Callahan, D, recalled from Springfield of AHL as replacement for Keith Brown, D, who is out indefinitely with shoulder separation. Dave Snopek, LW, recalled from Springfield and traded to Toronto in exchange for Rod Willard, LW. Willard was with St. Catharines. Bob Miller, C, signed as free agent after completing 25-game pro trial with Springfield. Miller is presently with Springfield.DETROIT&mdash;Danny Gare, RW, returned from injury list. Gilles Gilbert. G, assigned to Adirondack of AHL.EDMONTON&mdash;Grant Fuhr, G, assigned to Moncton of AHL. Dave Lumley, RW, sidelined with injury.HARTFORD&mdash;Mark Paterson D, recalled from Ottawa of OHL. Mike McDougal, LW, returned from injury list.LOS ANGELES&mdash;Jim Brown, D, recalled from New Haven of AHL. Brian MacLellan, LW, and Warren Holmes, C, sent back to New Haven.MINNESOTA&mdash;Dave Richter. D. recalled from Birmingham of CHL.NEW JERSEY&mdash;Garry Howatt, LW, returned from injury list. Dave Hutchison, D, and Jan Ludvig, RW, assigned to Wichita of CHL.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Mark Howe, D, and Brad Marsh, D, both returned from injury list. Bob Hoffmeyer, D. out of action for two weeks with sprained wrist.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Rod Buskas, D, Steve Gatzos, RW, and Pat Graham, LW, all recalled from Baltimore of AHL. Kevin McClelland, RW, sidelined for possibly rest of season with shoulder separation.QUEBEC&mdash;Michel Bolduc, D, recalled from Fredericton of AHL. Dave Shaw. D, recalled from Kitchener of OHL and later returned.ST. LOUIS&mdash;Alain Vigneault, D, recalled from Salt Lake of CHL.VANCOUVER&mdash;Ivan Hlinka, C, out indefinitely with back injury. Mark Kirton, C, and Anders Eldebrink, D, recalled from Fredericton of AHL.WASHINGTON&mdash;Chris Valentine, C, returned to Hershey of AHL.WINNIPEG&mdash;Paul MacLean, RW, returned from injury list.<h2>CENTRAL LEAGUE</h2>COLORADO&mdash;Jeff Lastiwka, G, and Grant Rezansoff, C, returned to Peoria of IHL. &#9632;

Nigro’s The Sleeper On Maple Leaf Roster

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0021-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01526/4770429-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">There are a wide range of items that fall under NHL licensing and to sell them, you. must go through proper channels.</figcaption></div>Webster&mdash;the dictionary man, not Tommy, the former Red Wing and New England Whaler player&mdash;defines a license as permission granted by competent authority to engage in a business, occupation or activity otherwise unlawful.A National Hockey League license then&mdash;the right to use the 21 logos and names of the NHL clubs as welt as the logo and name of the league&mdash;isn&rsquo;t a bad item to have a handle on. According to those in the know, the NHL is a premier property as a license entity. There are a couple of reasons.First, the popularity of the sport; and second, the widespread exposure it receives because of media coverage via newspapers, magazines, radio and television.Because it is such an attractive entity, the number of NHL licensees has reached into the hundreds, with several hundred individual items from jackknives to contests for trips to the AllStar Game available to the public.&ldquo;Prior to 1979, NHL licensing was done internally,&rdquo; said Steve Ryan, NHL vice president of marketing and public relations. &ldquo;Both U.S. and Canadian licensing were handled from New York. But with the popularity of hockey increasing, it became apparent that to keep up with this expanding market, it would take major expenditures in terms of money, personnel and time.&ldquo;The Board of Governors decided that we should look outside for a company to do the licensing and in 1979, after a thorough search. Licensing Corporation of America (LCA) was awarded the contract. They demonstrated a professional approach, an excellent staff, knowledge of the field and a firm commitment. It&rsquo;s a marketing partnership that we have with them and we have been pleased by the growth each year.&rdquo;In the licensing business in general there are what are referred to as &ldquo;hot&rdquo; properties and &ldquo;stable&rdquo; properties. An example of the latter would be the NHL. It&rsquo;s been around for more than 60 years, it&rsquo;s highly recognizable and it will be marketable next year and for decades following. An example of a hot property is E.T., the brightest star this side of Wayne Gretzky. It&rsquo;s highly marketable now but it&rsquo;s popularity is bound to decrease in the years to come.The optimum set-up, then, for a licensee would be to have a combination of hot and stable properties at his disposal, some of which are steady sellers over the years and others which might be extremely popular at the moment.Which of the two types of properties would be more attractive to a licensee? Bob Bell of LCA said, &ldquo;If I were to walk into my office on a Monday morning and be assured of having a hot property to sell, I&rsquo;d want to have it. But, realistically, from a business standpoint, you want to have a chance of paying out your investment over the years. Realistically, you can&rsquo;t build a business on one hot property. Actually, you should have both.&ldquo;The strength of a stable property is that it is an annuity,&rdquo; Bell added. &ldquo;There will be a base level of consumer demand for the product. Year-in and year-out, there is an awarenss of it and you can prepare a planning job around that fact.&rdquo;How then do people or companies become a licensee of the NHL When an idea is proposed in the United States, LCA will first decide into what category the product concept fits and then, where the property fits in relation to the NHLs overall marketing. After that, the company is evaluated to make certain that it can deliver the goods to the marketplace. In Canada, NHL licenses are obtained through Sports Representatives Ltd. of Toronto, a company which works with LCA.Ideas for products to be marketed are generally proposed to LCA and Sports Representatives, although sometimes the licensing companies might approach a manufacturer to make a certain item they believe would be popular.&ldquo;Regardless of who initiates the idea, we would send a letter to the company asking who they are, why they are interested in a license and what their product is,&rdquo; said George Gross Jr. of Sports Representatives. &ldquo;Then we send the prospective licensee an information sheet which helps us to find out several things such as if they are financially stable, if they will be able to provide adequate national distribution, what their quality control procedures are and what type of advertising they intend for the product.&rdquo;Sports Representatives would then discuss the licensee with LCA and a guarantee would be required to be applied against the royalties that the proposed item would generate.Next, contracts would be drawn up in New York with the standard contract calling for a one-year license plus a one-year option. But there&rsquo;s still more.&ldquo;We would then ask for an artwork sample of the idea,&rdquo; Gross said. &ldquo;The company would be asked to present the concept, then a sketch of it, followed by the final artwork. Next comes a pre-production model and then the final packaging.&rdquo;The licensing companies also view the concept for any trade marking that may be on it, for color and design. They also approve the advertising for the product and any merchandising that the inventor or manufacturer develops. After that, the licensee reports once a month on sales and pays a seven per cent royalty based on the wholesale selling price.&ldquo;The role of marketing is to sell the product to our fans,&rdquo; said Ryan. &ldquo;Licensing for us is a subtle form of advertising. You see a seven-year-old walking down the street in Edmonton wearing a hockey jersey. It&rsquo;s a testimonial to the growing popularity of the sport. It&rsquo;s an advertisement for hockey and for the league, a form of persuasion.&rdquo;You might say it is a license for success.<h2>NHL LICENSED PRODUCTS&hellip;In Canada</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01593/4770422-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="2462" height="3848"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01545/4770415-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="2431" height="1252"></div><h2>NHL LICENSED PRODUCTS&hellip;In United States</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02387/4770408-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="2435" height="705"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01499/4770401-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="2468" height="1989"></div> &#9632;

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NHL LICENSING

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div>You&rsquo;ve headed off to the department store in search of a new toque for little Billy of perhaps Sarah&rsquo;s talked you into taking her to your neighbourhood sporting goods store so she can try on an Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; jacket. Maybe you&rsquo;re doing a bit of window shopping after school when you spot a set of mugs that just happen to have the crest of Uncle Edgar&rsquo;s favorite team. He&rsquo;d love them.Step one: your interest has been aroused.Now, if these retail store owners have been heeding the advice of the companies that handle the marketing of National Hockey League properties in North America, then they probably have an entire segment of their store or department devoted to an NHL line of goods. And when a customer comes in to buy a hat, possibly he&rsquo;ll see a pair of socks or a game jersey that catches his eye. And the youngster buying the beer mugs for his uncle decides a Maple Leaf wastebasket would look good in his brother&rsquo;s room. Well, you get the idea.In Canada alone, more than 50 companies have been licensed to make more than 200 NHL-related items. These are generally divided into soft goods&mdash;mostly apparel including jackets, game jerseys, jogging suits, toques, baseball caps, underwear and even blanket sleepers for the 1999 junior star&mdash;and hard goods which include pucks, pennants,, wastebaskets, binoculars, glasses, etc.&ldquo;We encourage retailers to merchandise items together,&rdquo; says George Gross, Jr., of Sports Representatives Ltd., the company which grants NHL licenses in Canada. &ldquo;We suggest they take a group of similar licensed products, such as caps, jackets, jerseys, jeans and polo shirts and create a shop arena. That way, the consumer sees the special area, is drawn there and the result is often impulse buying.&rdquo;Sports Representatives and its United States counterpart. Licensing Corporation of America (LCA), do a great deal more than simply mentioning to retailers that it might be a good idea to create a special area or display in their store. These companies also provide point of purchase materials to be used in the displays, materials which feature the NHL crest and those of the individual teams.Or, through the NHL Players&rsquo; Association, they supply NHL players to take part in special events or promotions at the stores. There&rsquo;s also a photo display contest where retailers are given a chance to send in photos taken of their own boutique area and the display which is selected wins the store manager a trip to the AllStar Game and a chance to meet the NHL stars.Although the aid to retailers in both Canada and the United States is quite extensive, there is a marked contrast in approach when it comes to marketing NHL merchandise. In the U.S., the key word is regional marketing while in Canada a national marketing of the item is looked upon as the way to go.&ldquo;Rather than dealing with national chains, we go directly into the regional market,&rdquo; said Bob Bell of LCA. &ldquo;Wetry and find manufacturers who are capable of serving retailers in NHL cities. It parallels league (NHL) TV exposure. The greatest demand is in the northeast, midwest and upper midwest.&rdquo;In other words, the markets of Phoenix, New Orleans and San Diego, for example, aren&rsquo;t flooded with hockey-related products because the demand and the interest just aren&rsquo;t there.Canada is decidedly different.&ldquo;We want the market completely covered,&rdquo; explained Gross. &ldquo;We make sure that our licensee can supply the volume demanded. We check that they have the retail contacts for the big stores, Sears, The Bay, Eaton&rsquo;s. Then they have to have another quality line product to sell to discount chains like Woolco and Zeller&rsquo;s. We look for their regional contacts and even individual stores. At the same time, these licensees must be flexible enough to service NHL concession stands.&rdquo;Which means that if you live in Frozen Boot, Alta., you should have just as good a chance of getting some Wayne Gretzky shoelaces as the kid in Toronto. &#9632;

Proof Is In The Packaging

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div>A few years back, television viewers in Canada were asked to ascertain the identity of a shadowy figure in a football helmet, on the midst of a Canadian Football League game, the figure was shown during a razor blade company&rsquo;s commerical message and the viewers were supposed to send their guesses to the compnay. The person who properly identified the mystery player won an allexpenses paid Grey Cup weekend package, which included seats for the game at mid-field, accommodation in a posh downtown hotel, invitations to functions and assorted other benefits. Not a bad deal for the lucky contest winner; not a bad deal also for the company that connected itself with CFL audiences.That is an example of a national promotion, which is yet another aspect of-licensing. A promotional license is established when a large company ties itself into a league such as the NHL and employs it as a vehicle to sell their products. In some cases, it is the company that will approach the NHL or its licensing bodies in the U.S. and Canada. Of course, it also works the other way when those representing the NHL marketing firms will try to get a manufacturer interested in bringing a concept into the marketplace.But no matter how good the idea of the product or the company involved, the concept must be deemed marketable and the company must be stable enough to present it properly to the buying public.&ldquo;You can have a great idea for a product but the company has to meet certain requirements,&rdquo; said Bob Bell of the Licensing Corporation of America. &ldquo;The company has to have marketing strength and it has to have good distribution of the product as well.&ldquo;On the other hand, you might have a very strong company, the leader in its field, but the idea they have for a product might not be appealing to the NHL. It might not go along with its image.&rdquo;What kind of companies are taking part in NHL promotional licensing? Here&rsquo;s but a few of the current ones:General Foods, through its Post Cereals division. Inside the boxes of specially-marked cereals is a three-dimensional hockey card, part of a series which is in its second year. Players representing all of the 21 NHL teams are portrayed in brightly colored punchout collectables. A complete set is already valued at approximately $75 and the cereal company has had an incredible response from collectors looking to complete their sets.Texaco stations in the western Canadian provinces are offering NHL souvenir pucks for gas purchased.Schick, a razor blade company, is offering a cash prize in its NHL-related contest, which involves picking the winner of the Stanley Cup.Official designations are yet another kind of promotional licensing providing for a direct product link to the NHL. Examples of this are Canon, the official camera of the NHL, and Catelli, the official pasta supplier to the NHL.And so the marriage between large companies wanting to be connected with a popular sports property continues. When you think about it, the idea seems to be a very appealing one.Oh, by the way, I&rsquo;ve forgotten who that mystery player was, but I do remember the name of the razor blade company. &#9632;

Licensing: Profit By Association

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div>Throughout both their histories, Canada and the United States have always been hailed as a land of opportunity where free enterprise&mdash;at least in most cases&mdash;has been the rule. People willing to work hard with an idea could expect to promote it, sell it and live happily ever after as the cliche goes.By the same token, when an idea catches the public&rsquo;s fancy, there are always an overload of entrepreneurs ready, willing and able to jump on the bandwagon. They&rsquo;re eager to pick up a piece of the action, a slice of the pie.What the buying public wants, it gets, and there are plenty of &ldquo;businessmen&rdquo; waiting for the chance to make sure they get it.That&rsquo;s one of the reasons there are such things as patents, permits and licenses. Otherwise, whatever is deemed popular could be snapped up by people with the facilities to produce such a &ldquo;hot&rdquo; property and companies wouldn&rsquo;t be able to protect the raiding of their ideas and products.Nevertheless, when you&rsquo;re dealing with a consumer-oriented society, even during recessionary times, you can expect that some people are going to circumvent the laws or ignore them to stake a claim on the market. That means piracy and it&rsquo;s a considerable problem for the people trying to combat it, including the two companies that handle National Hockey League licensing.&ldquo;Generally, the bigger the property, the more likelihood of piracy,&rdquo; said George Gross, Jr., of Sports Representatives Ltd. in Toronto. &ldquo;Undoubtedly our biggest problem is with National Hockey League game jersey replicas.&ldquo;The NHL has an exclusive game jersey replica contract with Maska (which purchased Sandow, a competitor, within the last year), so any other jersey shouldn&rsquo;t be represented as an official NHL jersey, although some are.&rdquo;A spokesman for LCA, the Licensing Corporation of America, agreed that jersey replicas is the area where piracy of NHL properties most frequently occurred and added that it is much more of a problem in Canada, where a larger percentage of the population is interested in hockey.As far as fighting piracy directed against any of its licensees, LCA says they find out about the piracy, notify the infringer and ask them to stop. If that fails, they consider taking legal action.Of course, the first step is to find out about the piracy, something which isn&rsquo;t always easy to do. For instance, Gross mentions jersey piracy. &ldquo;Company X might be selling NHL jerseys. And they&rsquo;re selling them at cheaper prices because they aren&rsquo;t paying the royalties to the licensees. They&rsquo;re telling the customers, &lsquo;Sure, they&rsquo;re official NHL jerseys.&rsquo; But they aren&rsquo;t.&ldquo;Another case might be a retailer who has blank jerseys. They&rsquo;re in the same colors as the NHL teams and then they buy crests (illegally), put them on the shirts and sell them as NHL jersey replicas.&rdquo;Sports Representatives Ltd. recently had a court case involving a company selling crests. That&rsquo;s not permissible in the first place; no companies are allowed to sell loose crests of the NHL or its teams. Sports Representatives took the case before the courts and won. The company selling the crests admitted they were in the wrong and have since entered into an agreement with SRL to provide the crests through proper channels to retailers paying the royalty fees.With the success of the court ruling in favor of the protection of the licensees. Sports Representatives feels that the law is proving to be enough of a deterrent to potential pirates when the issue proceeds to a legal level. Still, it pays to be vigilant.&ldquo;We check three major areas for piracy,&rdquo; said Gross. &ldquo;First, the cresters and the selling of loose crests. Second, the manufacturers of jerseys which are crested and may be misleading the retailers (that they are receiving official replicas when they are not). Then, if no other leads have produced the pirates, we&rsquo;ll talk to the retailers. But we have a good relationship with our retailers, which we feel is important.&rdquo;So while the old business adage &ldquo;Buyer Beware&rdquo; is still a sound policy to follow, whether buying NHL T-shirts or real estate in Florida, it is a comforting feeling to know that there are safeguards assuring that the purchaser receives quality goods when they buy from the proper retailers. &#9632;

Modern-Day Pirates Pose A Big Threat

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EQUIPMENT PREVIEW

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div>NEW HAVEN&mdash;The New Haven Nighthawks have come alive in the Southern Division because they&rsquo;ve finally found the net.For the first 25 games of this season, the Nighthawks were skating through a time tunnel, scoring at a rate that best fit a team out of the &rsquo;60s. Three goals per game? New Haven forgot this is the &rsquo;80s, an age where defense is something you worry about when you&rsquo;re two men short.But coach Nick Beverly was patient, It wasn&rsquo;t his fault 16 of his team&rsquo;s first 25 games were on the road. And nobody could have predicted the injury-plagued parent Los Angeles Kings would pick apart his roster.So after a 9-14-2 start, the Nighthawks turned the New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum into their castle with an Il-game unbeaten streak (10-0-1).And the Hawks are scoring. After being held to two or fewer goals in eight of their first 25 games. New Haven has not scored fewer than three in the last 13. Welcome back to the high-scoring &rsquo;80s, fellas.They&rsquo;re doing it with balance. Defenseman Al Sims, with 49 points, is still the only Nighthawk in the top 20. No player has more than 19 goals, although nine have scored at least 10.Through the early part of the season, the Nighthawks could not fill a huge gap at center. Warren Holmes was consistently recalled to Los Angeles. Soviet-bom Victor Nechaev was a failure and was exiled to the Saginaw Gears of the International Hockey League.It took the addition of Dan Bonar, demoted from Los Angeles the last 10 games to rehabilitate himself, and free-agent Rick Shinske, and Blair Barnes&rsquo; switch from the wing to strengthen the middle.&ldquo;Blair was forced into the middle through necessity, and he responded well,&rdquo; Beverly said of the 22-year-old right winger who joined the organization in an off-season trade with Edmonton for Paul Mulvey. Barnes leads the team with 19 goals. &ldquo;He, (Phil) Sykes and (Dean) Jenkins have really clicked together.&rdquo;Beverly pointed to the development of his younger players as a reason for the Nighthawks&rsquo; turnaround.&ldquo;Our goaltending has been solid all along, even though we&rsquo;ve been shuffling with L.A.,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I feel the difference has been our younger players have sort of come into their own. Jim Brown and Howie Scruton on defense. Sykes, (Bill) O&rsquo;Dwyer and (Brian) MacLean up front. They&rsquo;ve really gotten untracked.&rdquo;Mike Blake and Doug Keans have played musical crossbars between Los Angeles and New Haven. Rookie Gary Laskoski, who walked into L.A.&rsquo;s camp and won a National Hockey League job, was demoted, then recalled when Blake suffered a knee injury. Beverly&rsquo;s goaltenders now are Paul Pageau and Dave Hainsworth, a former New Haven Blade from the defunct Eastern League who was was playing in a senior league in the New Haven area.The fourth-place Nighthawks (22-204) are riding a three-game winning streak. They won their only two games last week, both at home, 4-3 over Fredericton and 5-4 over Nova Scotia.SPRINGFIELD&mdash;The last-place Indians (17-27-3) enjoyed a rare enjoyable evening when they snapped a four-game losing streak with a 1-0 victory over Nova Scotia at the Springfield Civic Center.Not only did goalie Bob Janecyk kick out all 22 Voyaguer shots, he tallied an assist on Bob Miller&rsquo;s first-period, shorthanded goal. It was the first time all season the Vees had been blanked.Two nights later, the teams met again in Springfield. The Tribe outshot the Vees, 35-26, but goalie Greg Moffett stopped 34 and led Nova Scotia to a 3-1 victory.In a trade of minor-league left wingers, the parent Chicago Black Hawks sent Dave Snopek to Toronto for Rod Willard. The Black Hawks also singed Miller to a contract after he completed his 25-game tryout.Defenseman Miles Zaharko, who was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol when his car spun out of control and hit a mailbox, pleaded innocent. His pre-trial hearing is set for March.BINGHAMTON&mdash;The Whalers (1922-4) completed a three-game road trip by losing to Rochester, 8-5, and beating St. Catharines, 4-2.The Amerks-Whalers rivalry is one of the league&rsquo;s most intense, so the five fights and three game misconducts came as no surprise. The main event involved two mild-mannered fellows, Binghamton goalie Ken Holland and Rochester center Geordie Roberston, who dumped Holland behind the net as Randy Cunneyworth scored the eventual gamewinning goal.Third-period goals by Dave McDonald and Don Gillen lifted the Whalers over the Saints. The victory pushed Binghamton to within four points of the fifth-place Saints.ROCHESTER&mdash;After beating the Whalers, Rochester captain Mai Davis said it best: &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t like each other. That&rsquo;s they way it&rsquo;s supposed to be.&rdquo;The Amerks pounded Binghamton, 85, and Baltimore, 6-3, but then dropped two straight on the road. Aftrer scoring 106 goals in a span of 16 games, Fredericton allowed the Amerks one in winning, 5-1. The next night in Moncton. demoted Edmonton goalie Grant Fuhr made his AHL debut by stopping Rochester, 4-2.Despite the losses, the Amerks still held a 10-point lead over Hershey.HERSHEY&mdash;The Bears (25-21-1) completed a five-game road swing by whipping Sherbrooke, 6-2, tying Maine, 2-2, and losing to Adirondack, 6-5.Back in the Hersheypark Arena, the Bears were blanked by Red Wings&rsquo; goalie Larry Lozinski, 6-0.Tony Cassolato, back from a knee injury, scored three goals in the 6-5 loss. Center Chris Valentine returned from Washington and assisted on two of Cas-solato&rsquo;s goals.BALTIMORE&mdash;The 22-22-5 Skipjacks fell out of third by dropping three straight, but hopped back over New Haven with a 7-2 victory over Sherbrooke.After losing 5-4 to Maine, 8-4 to St. Catharines and 6-3 to Rochester, Baltimore romped over the Jets behind three Rob Gamer goals.The Pittsburgh Penguins recalled left winger Pat Graham and right winger Steve Gatzos.ST. CATHARINES&mdash;The Saints (21-25-4) split two games in a light week. They trounced Baltimore, 8-4, behind three Bruce Boudreau goals and lost to Binghamton, 4-2. Boudreau, the AHL&rsquo;s Player of the Week, regained the league scoring lead with 78 points, one more than Rochester&rsquo;s Robertson.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01447/4770626-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="552" height="1020"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Los Angeles Kings assigned Dan Bonar to New Haven to play himself into shape.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0035-01

Nighthawks Scoring Lots of Goals, Building Unbeaten String At Home

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div>PORTLAND&mdash;Andy Brickley addressed his options and made his choice. Some seven months later, he&rsquo;s happy and quite confident that he made the right decision.Brickley, the Maine Mariners&rsquo; rookie left winger stood at the crossroads last spring and looked down three avenues. He had completed his junior year at the University of New Hampshire as the leading scorer on the team and had earned a first team All-American berth. He could remain at UNH for his senior year, contend for another All-America scroll and. quite possibly, be considered for the Hobey Baker Award, presented annually to top collegiate player in the nation.There was the prospect of being selected in the draft of amateur baseball players in June or there was the option of foregoing his senior season to turn to professional hockey.Brickley had been selected in the 10th round of the 1980 draft by the Philaldel-phia Flyers. Late in the spring of 1982, he felt he was ready to wear the orange, black and white uniform.&ldquo;The reason I left, and I&rsquo;d have to say I that there were a lot of variables, but the biggest reason I left was timing,&rdquo; Brickley explained. &ldquo;Like anything in life, timing is the key. I thought it was the right time for me to leave. I didn&rsquo;t think that a fourth year of college hockey would benefit me as much as turning pro.&rdquo;Even though he is in the midst of an outstanding season, things didn&rsquo;t work out exactly as Brickley had planned.&ldquo;I felt I could step right in and play with the Flyers, because they needed help on the left side,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I felt I was ready to play right then.&rdquo;He failed to earn a berth with the Flyers in the pre-season and was sent to Portland to join Tommy McVie&rsquo;s young Mariners.He quickly swept aside the disappointment of not accomplishing his objective and became an important member of the Mariners&rsquo; attack. Through 48 games, he was the team&rsquo;s leading scorer with 20 goals and 58 points.&ldquo;Sure, there was that initial disappointment when I was sent down,&rdquo; Brickley admitted. &ldquo;I kind of expected it, I didn&rsquo;t play very well in the exhibition season, not as well as I can. Maybe I was a little out of shape or intimidated. I don&rsquo;t know. It was all new to me. After I got over the initial disappoointment, I realized, hey, I&rsquo;m in Maine, this is a great organization and a great place to play.&rdquo;McVie says he has seen the development of the Melrose, MA. native in the past four months and predicts Brickley will become a complete player.&ldquo;First of all, he&rsquo;s part of the (Gordie) Williams, Brickley-(Doug) Morrison line, which I think is one of the outstanding lines in the league,&rdquo; McVie said. &ldquo;Andy Brickley started out as a heck of a goal scorer and he&rsquo;s turned into a playmaker. If I didn&rsquo;t know and had to guess, I would say that he was only a goalscorer. He isn&rsquo;t selfish, though. He gives up the puck so well. Sometimes, I wish he would shoot the puck more.&rdquo;McVie says that his biggest concern with Brickley and the other young players on the Mariners is that they develop their checking.&ldquo;You have to be concerned with goals against if you are going to be a contending hockey club,&rdquo; McVie said. &ldquo;They talk about high scoring in the game now, but the teams that are winning still are concerned with defense.&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the use of scoring 50 goals if you are on for 75 against? You are a minus 25. Andy Brickley is a plus hockey player and that is important. What&rsquo;s more important is that it shows that that line is learning. The whole line is a plus line.&ldquo;What I&rsquo;m trying to do, because he wants to play in the National Hockey League, is to teach him to check. The rest of the things he can do. Checking is something you have to learn and I&rsquo;m trying to teach it to him and all the players.&rdquo;Considering his perfomances to date and the observations of Professor McVie, Brickley chose the right road last spring. He most certainly is a contender for the AHL&rsquo;s Rookie of the Year Award and is closing in on his goal of playing with the Flyers.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not saying anything about academics, but as far as hockey is concerned, I think he made the right decision,&rdquo; McVie said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think another year at New Hampshire would have done him any good. He had to get in with the big boys and learn his trade.&rdquo;ADIRONDACK&mdash;The Wings ended this road trip on a positive note with a 4-3 overtime win at Maine. Veteran Gilles Gilbert, sent down from Detroit for two weeks of rehabilitation, sparked the Wings with an outstanding effort in goal. Earl Ingarfield scored the game-winner.Gilbert was in goal for the Wings&rsquo; 6-5 win over Hershey and Larry Lozinski paced the club to its third straight win the next night when he blanked the Bears, 6-0, for his league-leading third shutout of the season. Tom Rowe picked up a hat trick.Defenseman Greg Joly suffered a knee injury against Maine and Brian McDavid was recalled from Kalamazoo to replace him.NOVA SCOTIA&mdash;Despite a 5-4 loss at Maine that allowed the Mariners to gain a second-place tie, Vees&rsquo; coach John Brophy considered the 3-3 road trip a success. All three of the losses were by a single goal.The Vees seem to be coming out of the doldrums, helped primarily by the return to form of Greg Paslawski, John Goodwin and Yvan Joly. All three slumped in early January.FREDERICTON&mdash;A 2-1-1 record during the week allowed the Express to hold its seven-point lead over the Mariners and the Vees.The highlight of the week was a 5-1 win over the Rochester Americans. Clint Malarchuk turned in a strong performance in goal to hold off the high-scoring Amerks.MONCTON&mdash;Goaltender Grant Fuhr was sent down from Edmonton and turned in a strong outing for a 4-2 win over Rochester in the Alpines&rsquo; only game of the week.SHERBROOKE&mdash;The Jets earned a 4-4 tie with Fredericton, but dropped games to Hershey and Nova Scotia.Brian Hayward remained with Winnipeg and was replaced on the Sherbrooke roster by Michel Morrissette, who had played with the Sherbrooke Beavers, and Yves Dechene, the top goalie in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League with Winston-Salem.Left winger Dan St. Laurent, a product of Trois Rivieres in the Quebec Major Junior League, was added to the Jets&rsquo; roster.MAINE&mdash;Brickley scored two goals in the Mariners&rsquo; 5-4 win over Nova Scotia that avenged a loss suffered a week earlier and moved the Mariners into a tie for second place with the Vees.The two goals enabled Brickley to become the fourth Mariner to score at least 20 goals this season. Gordie Williams leads the list with 24, followed by John Paddock (23), and Dave Michayluk and Brickley with 20 each. Five other players have a good shot at scoring at least 20 goals this year&mdash;Ross Fitzpatrick (19), Doug Morrison (18), Dan Held (15), Len Hachbom (14), and Wayne Schaab (12).Rookie Dave Brown leads the AHL with 279 penalty minutes and is well on his way toward breaking the team record of 320 minutes set by Glen Cochrane. &#9632;

Mariner Rookie Happy To Be On Pro Path

<div class="byline">BY PATRICK LYON</div>ERIE&mdash;When Dave Schultz, the repentent Broad Street Bully, became commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Hockey League last summer, he admitted that his new job wasn&rsquo;t going to be easy.And recent ACHL developments only serve to magnify that fact.Schultz, the former NHL penalty king who now abhors hockey violence, is under fire from one ACHL team ownqr as a result of two fan-related incidents in an eight-day period.The two incidents happened at the Erie County Field House, home of the Erie Golden Blades.Erie&rsquo;s rise to second place in the ACHL standings took a back seat to a pair of brawls, one involving the Carolina Thunderbirds and the other involving the Hampton Roads Gulls.The first incident happened on Jan. 7, when Carolina coach Rick Dudley and several Thunderbirds scuffled with several Erie fans with just 25 seconds remaining. From that battle, Thunderbird Greg Squires received a five-game suspension and Dudley a $100 fine.The second incident, eight days later, &ldquo;ocame just before the start of the third period of a game between Erie and Hampton. Two spectators were cut by hockey sticks and Hampton players Mike Breen and Mark Salvucci were later arrested.Therein lies the controversey. Schultz decided not to take any action against the players because he felt his ruling could be prejudicial to the legal proceedings. The commissioner decided to wait for word on the criminal charges before making any ruling.Schultz&rsquo;s position so incensed Blade president Doctor John Caruso that he announced that the Blades were suspending their ACHL operation.The Blades&rsquo; office remained shut ^ down for two days. Then, Caruso gave his players two options&mdash;either finish the season in Erie or disband the club because of the latest violence.Players voted unanimously to stay together as a team and complete the season, but Caruso says he is unsure of his future in hockey because of what he termed &ldquo;ineffective action&rdquo; by Schultz. Erie also stepped up its security forces in an attempt to thwart any future confrontations between players and fans.The league also held its Board of Governors meeting in Erie and Henry Brabham was elected president, replacing Dudley. The league also set up a playoff format, with the first and fourth teams playing each other while the second and third-place teams square off in the other playoff.On the ice, Paul Mancini, the hottest goal scorer in the circuit, saw his nine-game goal-scoring streak ended in a 5-1 win over Mohawk Valley. Mancini had hit for 37 goals in 39 games.The Blades were 5-1-1 in their last seven outings, including two 5-3 wins over the Thunderbirds. Erie became only the first team to beat the T-Birds twice this season.NASHVILLE&mdash;The South Stars celebrated their first road win in 21 tries with a 5-3 victory in Hampton. The win for the Stars broke a road streak that saw them go 0-16-4 before finally winning away from home.It wasn&rsquo;t all roses, however. On the way back from Hampton, the South Stars&rsquo; bus caught on fire at 4:30 a m., about 15 miles from Winston-Salem and they had to wait for another bus.CAROLINA&mdash;The line of Brian Carroll, Michel Lanouette and Dave Watson have been racking up the points during the T-Birds&rsquo; six-game winning streak.The trio accumulated 46 points in just five games with Carroll leading the way. He stretched his league-leading point total to 74 points after netting eight goals and 14 assists during a seven-game span.The T-Birds have been a big boxoffice hit in Winston-Salem, averaging more than 4,000 fans per game.MOHAWK VALLEY&mdash;Cutting down on needless penalties apparently made a big difference in the play of the Stars, who used a six-game win streak to move up quickly in the standings and into a fight for second place with the Blades.The Stars have the top two penalty leaders in Jim Beaton and Brian Gustafson, but with the penalty minutes held to a minimum, the Stars started to make their move.The Rob Clavette-Jeff Pyle-Justin Hanley line rang up 10 points in a 9-6 defeat of Virginia. Hanley also led the way with four goals and one assist in a 9-2 thrashing of Nashville. Pyle has 30 goals in 35 games and Ed Smith has 24 goals in 29 games.HAMPTON&mdash;In an administrative restructuring for the Roads Gulls, Sam B. Jacobs was appointed president, replacing Sandra Combs, who is now the team&rsquo;s league representative. Earle Hawkins added the duties of club treasurer to those of secretary.The Gulls were striving to overtake Virginia for fourth place but a 1-4-1 record in their last six games kept them in fifth spot.VIRGINIA&mdash;The Raiders were in their worst slump of the season as they were winless in eight games and carrying a seven-game losing streak. &#9632;

Commissioner Schultz Under Fire

<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div>SALT LAKE&mdash;Pat Hickey is a well-travelled journeyman pro hockey player who is still trying to make the grade in the NHL. Whether he does or not remains to be seen, but he was certainly the star of the Central Hockey League&rsquo;s all-star game.It was Hickey&rsquo;s second goal of the game, with 1:33 left in regulation time, that gave the Golden Eagles a 6-6 tie with the CHL all-stars and earned him the Most Valuable Player Award in the second annual mid-season affair, which drew 3,735 fans to the Salt Palace.For the second straight year, the allstar game went into overtime, but this time there was no scoring in the 10minute sudden-death extension. Last year, Joe McDonnell of the now-defunct Dallas Black Hawks scored in overtime to win it for the all-stars, 4-3.Dan Bolduc of Colorado put the allstars in front with an early short-handed goal, but Claude Julien tied it for the Eagles with 1:34 left in the first period. Alain Vigneault gave the Eagles a 2-1 lead early in the second. Darcy Regier of Indianapolis counted for the all-stars, but Rob Tudor made it 3-2 for Salt Lake two minutes later.Hickey promptly made it 4-2 for Salt Lake, but Birmingham&rsquo;s Warren Young and Tulsa&rsquo;s Mike Backman gained a 4-4 tie for the all-stars in the second period.John Markell scored for Salt Lake in the third, but Roy Sommers of Wichita tied the game with a two-man advantage. Pat Conacher of Tulsa put the all-stars ahead at 8:31 of the third period, only to see Hickey tie it up again in the closing minutes of the period.A capacity crowd attended the all-star banquet at the Salt Lake Hilton Hotel the previous night. Highlights were the appearance of National Hockey League president John Ziegler as a guest speaker, and an award to the CHL&rsquo;s new record holder for assists, Wichita&rsquo;s Richie Hansen, who was a member of the all-star squad.After the all-star break, the Eagles began a four-game road trip with 4-2 and 3-2 wins in Tulsa. But a 4-2 setback to Indy at a the State Fair Coliseum snapped a four-game win streak.Defenseman Jim Pavese was recalled by the parent St. Louis Blues during the course of the all-star banquet and played the next night in Quebec, having had only three hours sleep.COLORADO&mdash;The Flames moved into first place ahead of Indianapolis with three straight victories over Wichita. But the Checkers regained their lead with a win while Colorado was idle. The Flames are one back of Indy with 57 points, while Birmingham has 49, Sait Lake, 46, Wichita, 35, and Tulsa, 33.Pierre Rioux, who returned from the parent Calgary Flames, and Dan Bolduc shared the club scoring lead with 41 points, tied for 10th overall in the league. Randy Turnbull didn&rsquo;t add to his penalty total but still leads the league with 224 minutes to 211 for Tulsa&rsquo;s Mike Seide.INDIANAPOLIS&mdash;The Checkers had managed only a 4-10 record since peaking on Dec. 19, when they held a 13-point bulge over second-place Colorado. Losing every game on a five-game road swing ran their setback string to seven straight on the road. But the 4-2 home-ice win against Salt Lake, coupled with an earlier 4-3 home victory over Birmingham&mdash;who defeated them 6-2 and 4-3 in Birmingham&mdash;vaulted the Checkers back into first place.Rob Holland, in goal for the loss in Birmingham, had his goals-against average average swell to 3.04, but still leads the league. Teammate Kelly Hrudey, who recorded the win in Salt Lake, is next with a 3.18 GAA. Red Laurence, who is third overall in league scoring, leads the Checkers&rsquo; attack with 54 points, one more than Mats Hallin, who had been with the parent New York Islanders for a week.BIRMINGHAM&mdash;The South Stars trail arch-rival Indy, 9-6, in their 24-game season series,-despite winning two out of three games.Don Beaupre was in net for the South Stars&rsquo; 6-2 home-ice victory over Indianapolis, with Warren Young (two), Craig Homola, Keith Hanson and Dan McCarthy supplying the offense. In the Stars&rsquo; 3-1 loss, Dave Debol, Solheim and Hanson scored, with Beaupre recording the loss. Warren Skorodenski worked the 43 home-ice victory, with goals by McCarthy, Dobson, Bergloff and Glenn Hicks.Wes Jarvis had four assists to retain the CHL scoring lead with 59 points, four ahead of Young, who leads the league with 40 assists.Defenseman Dan Mandich and righ winger Ken Solheim were returned bj the parent Minnesota North Stars.WICHITA&mdash;Defender Mike Forbes was sidelined with pulled rib muscles and Dan Fascinato was recalled from Muskegon of the International Hockey League in a week in which the Wind suffered three losses&mdash;6-2,7-5 and 10-8&mdash;to Colorado.In the 7-5 loss, Colorado fired 44 shots at losing Wind goalie Steve Janaszak. Paul Miller and Kevin Maxwell scored the Wichita goals.TULSA&mdash;The Oilers, mired in last place, applied to the Securities Exchange Commission for permission to sell stock to the public and were granted permission.The Oilers outshot Salt Lake twice at home, but lost 4-2 and 3-2. Ken Kuzyk had three of the four Oiler goals for the week, with Mike Backman adding the other.Right winger George McPhee returned after six weeks with a back problem and Cam Connor, just arrived from the parent New York Rangers, was shelved with a lower back problem. &#9632;

Hickey Leads The Way In All-Star Game

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div>FORT WAYNE&mdash;The most valuable player in the International Hockey League just might be a chicken&mdash;at least at the box office. And in today&rsquo;s sour economy, empty seats are a more alarming statistic than goals against.A number of IHL cities have turned to the chicken as an answer to dwindling attendance. A famous chicken, none other than the nationally-known San Diego Chicken.In real life, the chicken is Ted Gian-noulas, a native of London, Ont., who grew up following the fortunes of the Fort Wayne Komets through powerful radio station WOWO and the play-byplay of Bob Chase, the voice of the Komets for more than a quarter of a century.The Chicken has played in four IHL cities already this season, several of them twice. And he&rsquo;s been playing before a full house.The Chicken&rsquo;s second appearance in Kalamazoo drew a sellout crowd of 9,209. He&rsquo;s scheduled for a third appearance late in the season.The Chicken also attracted the largest crowd ever to attend a hockey game in Fort Wayne, 8,402. The Chicken is scheduled for a return appearance in February and another sellout is expected.The Chicken has also performed in Toledo and Kalamazoo, with the same results. Few, if any, empty seats.The Chicken is scheduled for an appearance in Muskegon next and Mohawk president Dean Owen is hoping it performs the same magic.Meanwhile, here&rsquo;s what happened on the ice in the IHL.TOLEDO&mdash;The Diggers are on another hot streak, winning seven of their last eight. But they can&rsquo;t shake the persistent Fort Wayne Komets, who are also skating at a torrid pace. Toledo posted a pair of home victories during a light week of action. They eged Saginaw, 6-4, and Kalamazoo. 3-1. The victories kept Toledo a point in front of Fort Wayne in the East Divison. The Diggers have a 27-12-4 record for 58 points.Toledo&rsquo;s only loss in the last eight games was a 4-2 decision in Fort Wayne.FORT WAYNE&mdash;The Komets are skating along with a six-game unbeaten string, which includes three straight wins on the road. Second-year center Ron Leef and veteran Barry Scully have been pacing the Komet offense, which has pumped in 206 goals, second only to high-scoring Milwaukee.SAGINAW&mdash;The Gears introduced the first Soviet ever to play in the IHL, but it didn&rsquo;t alter the outcome for the struggling Saginaw club. Victor Nechaev, the first Soviet ever drafted by the National Hockey League, made his debut for the Gears in Muskegon, a game Saginaw lost 5-4. Nechaev was drafted by the Los Angeles Kings last June.The loss to Muskegon extended the Gears&rsquo; winless streak to eieht and it grew to 10 with subsequent losses to Toledo, 6-4, and Milwaukee, 6-5.FLINT&mdash;The Generals have sound living on the road much more enjoyable than at home. An extended road trip opened with a 4-1 win at Milwaukee, which snapped a six-game losing streak. Four of the losses came at home. The Generals followed the Milwaukee win with a 3-3 tie in Peoria. The modest spurt put Flint in a tie with Saginaw for last place in the East. Flint is now 16-20-6.MILWAUKEE&mdash;Milwaukee continues to skate far in front of its rivals in the West while staying close to East leaders Toledo and Fort Wayne. The Admirals had an even split during the week, losing to Toledo, 4-1, and winning over Saginaw, 6-5, both at home.KALAMAZOO&mdash;The Wings are still in the thick of the fight for a playoff berth, but the position is far from secure. They dropped three straight during the week, including a 5-4 loss to Fort Wayne at home. The other losses came on the road, at Muskegon in overtime, 5-4, and at Toledo, 3-1. The Wings have lost 20 games on the road, more than any other team in the league.PEORIA&mdash;The Prancers picked up just one point out of a possible four with a 3-3 tie at home with Flint. In the other start, the Prancers dropped an 8-3 decision at Fort Wayne. Peoria has a 15-22-8 record to share second place with Kalamazoo in the West.MUSKEGON&mdash;The Mohawks are on a roll right now. They&rsquo;ve lost just once in the last eight games and posted a pair of victories during the week. Losers of more one-goal decisions than any club in the league, Muskegon is now winning the close ones. The Hawks nipped Saginaw, 5-4, and Kalamazoo, 5-4 in overtime. Muskegon is now 13-23-6 and just five points behind Flint and Saginaw, the closest targets for an eventual playoff position. &#9632;

IHL Teams Hatch Up Deal With Chicken

<div class="byline">BY TOM BURKE</div>TROY&mdash;The goaltender. He can make or break you, as any hockey fan knows. It&rsquo;s not just a case of whether he stops a puck or two in a given game. It&rsquo;s what he does to the whole team.Let&rsquo;s face it. If you&rsquo;ve got a super netminder, you&rsquo;re going to be a happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care bunch out on the ice.On the other hand, if your man in the nets has occasional seizures of puck permissiveness, then you&rsquo;re likely to hear footsteps when there aren&rsquo;t any. You&rsquo;ll hold that pass or shot a split second too long, just to be sure. You&rsquo;ll hit the post and give up the breakaway in the last minute of play.That&rsquo;s the usual scenario. But occasionally a team does just the opposite.This has apparently happened to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Back in December, when the Engineers were bumping along witha 1-3 league record, coach Mike Addesa explained the team&rsquo;s woe by stating that RPI was a good club that had been getting terrible goaltending. It sounded more like your basic excuse because senior Gerry Fink and sophomore Scott Sauri had as much playing experience as about half of the RPI forward lines put together.But the young kids, particularly the first line of freshmen Adam Oates, Mark Jeoris, and George Servinis, have come along so well that the goaltending, while not of Vezina Trophy caliber, has been good enough to withstand nearly all comers. Enemy offenses still rev up occasionally, but only when the RPI attackers need a breather.Last week, RPI took a pair of games from Vermont, 3-0, in Burlington and 8-2 in Troy. Fink was in the nets both nights and stopped 20 shots per game. His UVM counterparts, Mike Mundorf on Friday (43 saves) and Greg Thygesen on Saturday (20 stops) were sufficiently occupied to keep Fink relatively untested. It was a little relief from the recent craziness in the Engineers&rsquo; games, for example, the 10-9 overtime win against New Hampshire and the 5-5, 10-6 sweep of Colgate the previous weekend.Servinis, Jeoris, and Oates combined for six ofRPI&rsquo;s 11 goals on the weekend, with Servinis netting a hat trick on Saturday. The Willowdale, Ont., native is second in the nation in points per game, and his linemates aren&rsquo;t far behind.That &ldquo;inconsistent&rdquo; label has been consistently thrown at goalies from Boston University, the former kings of the East, for the past three seasons. Jack Parker has nonetheless been pumping his senior netminder, Glenn Daskalakis, as one of the league&rsquo;s best this year. Against Clarkson, Glenn did a lot to boost his coach&rsquo;s claim.He turned aside 44 Golden Knight assaults in a 6-3 Terrier upset win at Walter Brown Arena. Fifteen of the stops came in the crucial second period when BU ran off four goals to none for their visitors. Freshman Paul Gerlitz ended up with a pair of goals on the evening.The Terriers and Daskalakis weren&rsquo;t so sharp earlier in the week when they dropped a 5-2 decision at Northeastern. Three power-play goals by the Huntington Hounds were the difference, as both Daskalakis and Mark Davidner made 24 saves.Dartmouth will not make the playoffs this year, but they should get some sort of award for the highest doctor bills in history. The Greenies lost sophomore Scott Berek, their leading scorer, in a game against Yale the week before last. Berek crashed into the boards and suffered a debilitating head injury in the last minute of play. He&rsquo;ll be okay, but not until next season, making him the sixth Dartmouth playerto unwillingly call it quits thus far.Dartmouth split a pair, blowing a 4-1 lead to Boston College in Hanover. The Eagles clawled back and won on Jim Herlihy&rsquo;s goal with 21 seconds to play. But the Green bounced back behind Bruce Cullen&rsquo;s pair to dump Brown, 7-2.Colgate&rsquo;s Jeff Cooper stopped 37 New Hampshire shots but it wasn&rsquo;t enough as the Wildcats edged the Red Raiders 3-2 in Durham. Dan Forget&rsquo;s goal, scored on a four-on-four situation with a minute to play, was the winner. Earlier, Colgate edged Princeton, 5-4 and defeated Hamilton, 8-4 in anon-league game. The Hamilton win ws Terry Slater&rsquo;s 87th career triumph as Colgate coach, making him the winningest mentor in Red Raider annals. This is his sixth season at the helm in the battle for the top of the ECAC West, Clarkson won a decisive 6-2 victory over St. Lawrence in Potsdam. The Knights jumped off to a 3-0 lead by 6:45 of the first period. Two of those goals were by Bruce McDonough. In all, Clarkson peppered Gray Weicker with 37 shots while holding the Larries to 19 in their third loss in a row.Yale slammed Maine, 11-2, to move to within percentage points of Harvard in the Ivy Division. Andy Deiss and Bill Nichols each had a hat trick for Yale while Bob Brooke scored twice. Cornell tied Princeton, 5-5, in Ithaca behind a hat trick by Duane Moeser. In a return engagement at Princeton, the Big Red shelled the home team, 7-0. Pete Hatyshak led the 45-shot barrage on Ron Dennis with three goals. &#9632;

RPI Forward Line Proving Hard To Defense

<div class="byline">BY VIRG FOSS</div>MADISON&mdash;And then there were two.The Western Collegiate Hockey Association race, which had been a four-way affair for much of the season, turned into a two-team race after Minnesota and defending champion North Dakota moved to the front of confrontations with the other leaders.Minnesota opened a two-point lead with three weekends of play remaining by nipping Minnesota-Duluth, 4-3, and 3-2 (in overtime) in Minnesota while North Dakota skated to a 2-2 overtime tie with Wisconsin before taking the rematch 3-1 in Madison.That gave Minnesota 29 points to 27 for North Dakota, 24 for Wisconsin and 20 for Minnesota-Duluth heading into the final stages of the race.Minnesota has the toughest schedule remaining. The Gophers must play at Denver and North Dakota the next two weekends before finishing at home with Wisconsin. North Dakota draws both Colorado College and Minnesota at home before finishing the season at Minnesota-Duluth.As expected, Minnesota had a struggle with Duluth. The Bulldogs have historically played well in Williams Arena and they did so again this time.The Gophers needed a goal by senior Butsy Erickson with 66 seconds left in regulation play to salvage the 4-3 victory in the opener.Earlier, Erickson had scored midway through the third period to bring the Gopherseven at 3-3 after Duluth&rsquo;s Gregg Moore had put the Bulldogs up 3-2 three minutes into the third period. Bob Mason continued his spectacular play in goal for Duluth with 41 saves to 32 for Minnesota&rsquo;s Paul Butters.It took a 50-foot shot by senior Steve Griffith, 3:40 into overtime, to pull the rematch out for Minnesota. Griffith&rsquo;s blast from just inside the blueline bounced off Mason and trickled into the goal to give the Gophers a much-needed sweep.In Madison, Wisconsin outplayed North Dakota slightly in the opener, but needed a goal by John Johannsen with 25 seconds left in regulation time to salvage a 2-2 tie in the opener.North Dakota took a 2-1 lead into the final minute of play on goals by Dusty Carroll and Dan Brennan, but Wisconsin pulled goalie Terry Kleisinger for a sixth attacker with 52 seconds left, then saw Johannson slap in the tying goal after a goal-mouth scramble with time running out to tie the game.John Casey was superb in goal for North Dakota with 34 saves to 21 for Kleisinger. Neither team seriously threatened to score in a cautiously-played overtime session.The Sioux were back on form the next night to take the 3-1 victory to extend coach Gino Gasparini&rsquo;s mastery over Wisconsin in Madison. In his five years as head coach at North Dakota, Gasparini&rsquo;s teams have lost just one game in Dane County Coliseum, where visiting teams seldom win in front of the 8,700 die-hard Badger fans who jam the building to capacity.Darren Jensen, who was in goal when North Dakota won NCAA titles in 1980 and 1982, played in that championship form in beating the Badgers. Jensen gave up goal to Wisconsin&rsquo;s Pat Flatley 36 seconds into the game on the first shot on net, then blanked Wisconsin the rest of the way with a 30-save performance. &#9632;

Two Teams Vie In WCHA Race

<div class="byline">BY JIM SCHNEIDER</div>NOTRE DAME&mdash;Spurred by a midweek announcement by athletic director Gene Corrigan that Notre Dame would be dropping ice hockey as a varsity sport following the close of the current season, the Fighting Irish swept Western Michigan 8-7 in overtime and 4-3 for their first Central Collegiate Hockey Association sweep this season.The sweep pushed Notre Dame into the playoff picture as the Irish now own the eighth and final playoff position with a month to go in the season.In other CCHA action, the top three teams in the standings gained sweeps with Bowling Green blasting Illinois-Chicago, 9-3, and 15-1 while Michigan State leaned on All-American goalie Ron Scott to sweep arch-rival Michigan, 3-1, and 2-1. Ohio State remained on the heels of MSU with a 6-2, 5-4 sweep of Miami.Northern Michigan used a series sweep against Ferris State to move into fourth place. The Wildcats beat Ferris State 4-2 and 7-0 in Marquette.Michigan Tech dropped into fifth place by splitting with Lake Superior. Tech took the opener 9-0, but the Lakers gained the split with a 5-4 overtime decision.Western Michigan jumped op the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame in the first period of the opener in Kalamazoo in the home-and-home series as the Broncos grabbed a 3-0 lead in the first seven minutes of play on a pair of goals by Lance I Johnston and a single by Dan Dorion.The Broncos held a 7-4 lead with less than four minutes to play when the Irish magic took hold with Rex Bellomy&rsquo;s shorthanded goal at 16:11. John Deassy cut the WMU lead to 7-6 at 17:37 and Kirt Bjork tied the game with his hat trick goal at 18:54.Deasey scored the winner, assisted by Steve Bianchi, at 1:44 of overtime.Notre Dame took a 3-0 lead in the rematch on goals by Bellomy, Brent Chapman and Bjork, but Western Michigan used a pair of Bob Bailey goals and a tally by Johnston to knot the game at 14:51 of the third period. Bianchi snapped the tie assisted by John DeVoe and Deasey at 16:03.Bowling Green retained its topranking in the weekly WDOM-Radio media poll by blasting Illinois-Chicago by a two-game total of 24-4 as coach Jerry York&rsquo;s Falcons used a pair of seven-goal periods to key the sweep.All-American center Brian Hills and sophomore defenseman Garry Galley each scored three goals and added three assists in the series, while Peter Wilson collected a three-goal hat trick in the opener and Dan Kane scored three goals in the second game for BG.Ken Stevens provided a bright spot for the Flames, scoring three of their four goals in the series.Michigan State All-American goalie Ron Scott allowed arch-rival Michigan a goal each game, stopping 45 shots in the series that was played in front of packed crowds each night in the home-and-home series.Goals by Rick Fernandez and captain Mark Hamway gave Michigan State its winning margin early in the second period of the opener, played before a record tying crowd of 6,793 fans in MSU&rsquo;s Munn Ice Arena.Michigan sophomore Paul Spring cut the margin to 2-1 at 8:19 of the second period, but MSU&rsquo;s Gord Flegel closed out the scoring at 4:47 of the third period. Scott made 27 saves in the opener while Michigan&rsquo;s Jon Elliott made 34 saves.The rematch in Ann Arbor was played front of a 8,113 fans in Yost Ice Arena with Michigan&rsquo;s Mark Chiamp exciting the crowd with 33 saves while Scott made 18 for MSU.Dan McFail gave MSU the early lead and the Wolverines gained a 1-1 tie on a shorthanded goal by freshman center Tom Stiles. Earlier, Robert Martin snapped the tie for Michigan State at 12:46 of the second period.The Pooley brothers of Ohio State accounted for five of the six goals in the opener and Gord Rivinaton paced a Buckeye rally with two goals in the third period for the sweep.Paul Pooley scored two goals and Perry Pooley scored another in the opener and assisted on two others as OSU scored four times in the second period for the win.Miami held a 4-2 loss after two periods of the rematch in Oxford, but the Buckeyes gained the sweep with Rivington scoring the winning goal at 18:01 of the third period. John Dougan collected both wins in goal for Ohio State making 40 saves in the home-and-home series.Northern Michigan senior Eric Ponath earned CCHA Player of the Week honors as he collected nine points in the series sweep against Ferris State.Ponath snapped a 2-2 tie at 9:10 of the third period of the opener as he scored two goals and added two assists to account for all the NMU scoring in the opener. Ponath accounted for all but two of NMU&rsquo;s 11 goals in the series.NMU&rsquo;s Jeff Poeschl made 34 saves to record the shutout in the second game as Ponath assisted on Dave Smith&rsquo;s winning goal at 8:13 of the first period.Ron Zuke and Steve Murphy each scored two goals to pace the offense for Michigan Tech as Mudge Tompsett made 15 saves to record his first career shutout.In the rematch. Tech jumped ahead 2-0 on Jim Bisset&rsquo;s fifth shorthanded goal of the season at 2:08 of the first period and a goal by Chris Cichocki at 12:23. But a pair of Steve Mulholland goals kept the Lakers in striking distance.Zuke&rsquo;s third goal of the series gave Tech a 4-3 lead at 9:36 fo the third period, but the Lakers tied the game after pulling goalie Joe. Shawhan as Wayne Vetero scored at 19:05. Vetero and Mulholland assisted on Nick Palumbo&rsquo;s overtime power-play goal after just 31 seconds of play in the extra session.CCHA NOTES&mdash;BG All-American Brian Hills collected three goals and three assists in the series against Illinois-Chicago to run his league-leading scoring totals to 30 goals and 63 points to set new single season records for CCHA play.<h2>College Scoreboard</h2><h2>ECAC CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Tue. Feb. 1)<h2>EAST REGION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01412/4770934-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="538" height="202"></div><h2>WEST REGION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02284/4770927-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="535" height="174"></div><h2>IVY REGION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-03196/4770920-1-eng-US/f0039-032.jpg" title="f0039-03" width="535" height="205"></div><h2>INDEPENDENT</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-04163/4770913-1-eng-US/f0039-042.jpg" title="f0039-04" width="536" height="57"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Princeton 5, Cornell 5Clarkson 6, St. Lawrence 2Colgate 5, Princeton 4Boston Coll. 5, Dartmouth 4Northeastern 5, Boston Univ. 2Boston Univ. 6, Clarkson 3RPI 3, Vermont 0Dartmouth 7, Brown 2Yale 11, Maine 2N. Hampshire 3, Colgate 2Cornell 7, Princeton 0RPI 8, Vermont 2NON-LEAGUE GAMESColgate 5, Hamilton 4<h2>LEADING SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-05129/4770906-1-eng-US/f0039-052.jpg" title="f0039-05" width="545" height="351"></div><h2>WCHA CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Fri. Feb. 4)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01185/4770899-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="539" height="208"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Minnesota 4, Minnesota-Duluth 3Minnesota 3. Minnesota-Duluth 2North Dakota 2, Wisconsin 2North Dakota 3, Wisconsin 1Denver 8, Colorado College 3Denver 8, Colorado College 7U.S. Nationals 6, Denver 2<h2>LEADING SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02113/4770892-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="544" height="658"></div><h2>CCHA CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Fri. Feb. 4)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0372/4770885-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="540" height="390"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Bowling Green 9, Illinois-Chicago 3Bowling Green 15, Illinois-Chicago 1Michigan State 3, Michigan 1Michigan State 2, Michigan 1Ohio State 6, Miami 2Ohio State 5, Miami 4Northern Michigan 4, Ferris State 2Northern Michigan 7, Ferris State 0Notre Dame 8, Western Michigan 7Notre Dame 4, Western Michigan 3Michigan Tech 9, Lake Superior 0Lake Superior 5, Michigan Tech 4<h2>LEADING SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0450/4770878-1-eng-US/f0040-042.jpg" title="f0040-04" width="544" height="417"></div><h2>ONTARIO CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Jan. 31)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0535/4770871-1-eng-US/f0040-052.jpg" title="f0040-05" width="538" height="416"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>York 8, Guelph 6Western 2, Laurier 1Toronto 16, Waterloo 3Brock 8, Queen's 3Laurentian 8, Ryerson 4Guelph 8, Windsor 5Brock 4, RMC 3Laurier 5, York 1McMaster 7, Waterloo 1Western 6, Queen's 2Laurentian 6 Ryerson 3Western 9 RMC 2<h2>QUEBEC CONFERENCE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0628/4770864-1-eng-US/f0040-062.jpg" title="f0040-06" width="537" height="203"></div><h2>Amateur Scoreboard</h2><h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Tue. Feb. 1)<h2>LEYDEN DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0724/4770857-1-eng-US/f0040-072.jpg" title="f0040-07" width="544" height="238"></div><h2>EMMS DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0820/4770850-1-eng-US/f0040-082.jpg" title="f0040-08" width="541" height="272"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Tue. Jan. 25London 6 at S.S. Marie 8Toronto 3 at Windsor 7Ottawa 6 at Kingston 4Thu. Jan. 27Belleville 3 at Windsor 7London 3 at Peterborough 5Kitchener 4 at Brantford 3Oshawa 9 at Cornwall 6Kingston 7 at North Bay 10Fri. Jan. 28Kingston 2 at S.S. Marie 4North Bay 4 at Sudbury 1Belleville 4 at London 3Oshawa 3 at Ottawa 5Peterborouth 1 at Kitchener 4Windsor 11 at Guelph 3Sat. Jan. 29Kingston 9 at Sudbury 6Cornwall 2 at Toronto 5Peterborough 7 at Belleville 9Sun. Jan. 30Windsor 6 at Kitchener 7Brantford 1 at Toronto 2<h2>LEADING SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0917/4770843-1-eng-US/f0040-092.jpg" title="f0040-09" width="542" height="327"></div><h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Tue. Feb. 1)<h2>EASTERN DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1017/4770836-1-eng-US/f0040-102.jpg" title="f0040-10" width="540" height="264"></div><h2>WESTERN DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1116/4770829-1-eng-US/f0040-112.jpg" title="f0040-11" width="540" height="209"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Tue. Jan. 25Medicine Hat 6 at Saskatoon 8Kamloops 3 at Prince Albert 13Victoria 6 at Nanaimo 8Calgary 3 at Seattle 1Wed. Jan. 26Kamloops 0 at Regina 9Calgary 4 at Portland 5Winnipeg 3 at Medicine Hat 4Prince Albert 4 at Lethbridge 5Fri. Jan. 28Medicine Hat 2 at Regina 5Kamloops 6 at Saskatoon 10Winnipeg 3 at Calgary 5Prince Albert 2 at Seattle 8Sat. Jan. 29Lethbridge 2 at Medicine Hat 5Prince Albert 4 at Portland 14Seattle 5 at Kelowna 6Nanaimo 6 at Victoria 5Sun. Jan. 39Regina 6 at Brandon 9Kamloops 2 at Calgary 3<h2>LEADING SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1214/4770822-1-eng-US/f0040-122.jpg" title="f0040-12" width="547" height="830"></div><h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Jan. 31)<h2>LEBEL DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1312/4770815-1-eng-US/f0040-132.jpg" title="f0040-13" width="546" height="206"></div><h2>DIUO DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-148/4770808-1-eng-US/f0040-142.jpg" title="f0040-14" width="540" height="178"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Mon. Jan. 24St. Jean 4 at Laval 0Quebec 2 at T-Rivieres 11Tue. Jan. 25Shawinigan 4 at Longueuil 5Wed. Jan. 26Verdun 4 at Hull 2Granby 4 at Laval 6Fri. Jan. 28Longueuil 2 at Chicoutimi 6Drummondville 3 at Quebec 7Hull 2 at Shawinigan 3T-Rivieres 5 at St. Jean 6Granby 4 at Verdun 11Sun. Jan. 30Laval 7 at Chicoutimi 2Granby 6 at Quebec 4Shawinigan 4 at St. Jean 3Hull 7 at T-Rivieres 10Drummondville 0 at Verdun 9<h2>LEADING SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-158/4770801-1-eng-US/f0040-152.jpg" title="f0040-15" width="547" height="294"></div> &#9632;

f0039-01

Notre Dame To Kill Its Hockev Proqram

<h2>Sat. Jan. 22</h2>The Peterborough Petes whipped the Brantford Alexanders 7-3 in the OHL Game of the Week with Derek Smith of the Petes scoring two goals, one of which won him the Panasonic Play of the Game award.Smith&rsquo;s second goal came in the second period on passes from Scott MacLellan and Doug Evans. It was the insurance goal for the Petes and came on a three-way passing play with MacLellan putting the puck on Smith&rsquo;s stick for the score.Sat. Jan. 29The Belleville Bulls let big Dave MacLean do it all in the OHL Game of the Week as the bruising Belleville forward scored four goals in a 9-7 victory over Peterborough in which he was also chosen for the Panasonic Play of the Game award.MacLean, who had been traded from Oshawa to Belleville earlier this season, scored his third goal early in the third period with the help of Dan Quinn and Marty McSorley when he tipped in a blueline drive from McSorley. Quinn started the play with a pass back to McSorley.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-167/4770965-1-eng-US/f0040-162.jpg" title="f0040-16" width="552" height="1173"><figcaption class="caption-body">DEREK SMITH Peterborough Petes</figcaption></div>Saluting the OHL individual stars with the Panasonic Play of the Game award is a brand new feature that will appear each week in THE HOCKEY NEWS. Be sure to watch for it. &#9632;

f0040-16

PANASONIC

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BROPHY</div>TORONTO&mdash;Four years ago, when commissioner David Branch announced the Ontario Hockey League would present the Bobby Smith Trophy to the player who best combines hockey ability and schooling, it was a move designed to show that most hockey players could, in fact, do more than chew gum and skate at the same time.For some reason&mdash;perhaps due to the way hockey players were portrayed in the hit movie Slapshot&mdash;some people still think of hockey players as something less than intelligent. Some people find it hard to believe junior hockey players can combine the rigors of playing in the OHL with getting a decent education.At no time during the OHL season does the importance of combining education with hockey come to the forefront &lsquo;more than during the month of January, when the league announces its Scholastic team; one player from each team who will be graded on his playing and thinking ability. One player from that select group will be awarded the Bobby Smith Trophy on Jan. 31 at the OHL all-star banquet in Belleville.&ldquo;The players are judged on their excellence on the ice as well as their excellence academically,&rdquo; said commisioner Branch. &ldquo;The NHL central scouting group rates the 15 players for their playing ability while a member of the Provincial Ministry of Education rates them scholastically. We put the two ratings? together to decide the winner.&rdquo;Past winners of the Smith Trophy include Steve Konroyd of the Oshawa Generals, now with the Calgary Flames; Doug Smith from the Ottawa 67&rsquo;s, now with the Los Angeles Kings and Dave Simpson of the London Knights, now in the New York Islander farm system.&ldquo;I think there is a misconception that a junior hockey player can&rsquo;t combine his education with a hockey career,&rdquo; said Branch. &ldquo;We have 83 per cent of our players registered in school. The provincial average for boys in the same age group is only about 50 per cent.&ldquo;This award gives us the opportunity to highlight the fact that players can, in fact, combine the two.&rdquo;This year&rsquo;s nominees for the Smith Trophy are: Mike Clayton, Belleville Bulls (63 per cent average in grade 13); Dave Gagner, Brantford Alexanders (75 per cent in first year university); Tony Vial, Cornwall Royals (62 per cent in grade 13); Mike Siltala, Kingston Canadiens (not available); Jim Quinn, Kitchener Rangers (83 per cent in grade 13); Scott Morrison, London Knights (not available); Don Young, North Bay Centennials (not available); Jeff Steffan, Oshawa Generals (73 per cent in grade 13); Don McLaren, Ottawa 67&rsquo;s (not available); Bob Errey, Peterborough Petes (73 per cent in grade 13); Richard Beaulne, Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (B average in college); Tony Marquis, Sudbury. Wolves (not available) and Jeff Triano, Toronto Marlboros (71.2 average in grade 13).OSHAWA&mdash;The Generals remain in first place in the Leyden Divison but are the first to admit they aren&rsquo;t playing well. They lost 5-1 to Peterborough and 4-2 to Toronto before taking their frustrations out on lowly Guelph, winning 9-6. Dave Gans had three goals in the win.OTTAWA&mdash;The 67&rsquo;s moved back into second place, a point out of first, with wins over Kingston, Brantford and Sudbury. Struggling Jeff Vaive scored two goals and three assists in the 6-4 win over Kingston while big Adam Creighton connected for four goals as they whipped the Wolves 14-4.PETERBOROUGH&mdash;The Petes had their seven-game winning streak (plus five-game road winning streak) snapped when they lost 4-3 in Cornwall. Peterborough defeated Brantford 7-3 and Oshawa 5-1 in a pair of home meetings. The Petes also became the first OHL team to ever beat the Central Junior A Hockey League Tier 11 all-stars when they won 8-5 in Brockville. The all-stars carried a 5-0-1 record against OHL teams into the annual affair.CORNWALL&mdash;Doug Gilmour scored two goals including the winner in the Royals&rsquo; 4-3 win over Peterborough. Brent Loney had three goals in their 11-3 victory over Guelph. Loney was later injured in a car accident and listed in satisfactory condition.TORONTO&mdash;The up and down Marlies put together a three-game winning streak with victories over Oshawa, Windsor and Kingston but then lost 7-3 to Windsor. Mario Simioni scored the overtime winning goal against Kingston.BELLEVILLE&mdash;The Bulls are getting better by the day. Dan Quinn scored three goals and Brian Small had a pair as they topped Kingston 9-4 and then it was Dave MacLean scoring in overtime to give Belleville a 6-5 win over the Soo.KINGSTON&mdash;The struggling Canadians dropped three consecutive games. Keith Knight had two goals in a 6-4 loss to the 67&rsquo;s and two more in a 5-4 loss to Toronto. Knight took a few years to get his feet firmly on the ground in the OHL, but has developed into a complete player.SAULT STE. MARIE&mdash;Kevin Conway scored two goals, giving him 50 on the season, and three assists while Gus Greco added three goals and two assists as the Hounds beat London 8-6. Goalie John Vanbiesbrouck made 48 saves in a 4-2 win over the Knights.KITCHENER&mdash;The Rangers split games with the Centennials, winning 8-5 at home and dropping a 6-2 decision in North Bay.BRANTFORD&mdash;The Alexanders lost 7-3 in Peterborough during the first of eight live broadcast OHL games on the Global Television network. They also lost 4-1 to Ottawa.LONDON&mdash;The Knights won in overtime!! In most cities, that wouldn&rsquo;t be news but with the Knights, it&rsquo;s almost enough to declare a civic holiday. It was their first overtime win against four straight defeats. Larry Trader scored the winning goal at 0:37 to give his team a 4-3 win over Sudbury.SUDBURY&mdash;Pat Verbeek and Hugh Larkin scored two goals each in a 14-4 loss to Ottawa.WINDSOR&mdash;The Spitfires split games with Toronto; winning 7-3 and losing 5-3. Claude Loiselle scored three goals and two assists in the win while linemate Paul MacDermid scored once and assisted on three others. The third member of the high scoring trio, Scott MacLellan, had a goal and two assists.GUELPH&mdash;The losses keep on piling up for the Platers. They were bombed 11-3 by Cornwall and lost 9-6 to Oshawa. Kirk Muller scored his 40th goal against Cornwall and added two assists.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01153/4770996-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="565" height="841"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former London Knight Dave Simpson won the Bobby Smith Trophy last season.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0041-01

OHL Players Learning More Than Hockey

<div class="byline">BY GREGG DRINNAN</div>CALGARY&mdash;We would like to turn the Memorial Cup into a real event&hellip;a happening,&rdquo; said Ed Chynoweth, president of the Western Hockey League.With that in mind, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association and the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League have decided to change the format of the Memorial Cup tournament.The trophy, emblematic of major junior hockey supremacy, debuted in 1919 and, since then, only league champions have qualified to compete in Memorial Cup finals or tournaments. In recent years, the champions of the Western. Ontario and Quebec Leagues have met in a three-team round-robin tournament that concluded with a one-game final.That will change, at least for one year, as an experiment allowing the host city&rsquo;s team entry into the tournament is conducted. The first clubl to gain entry under the new rule is the Portland Winter Hawks because, in 1983, the tournament will be held in that Oregon city, the first time it has been held outside of Canada.The Winter Hawks just may be the most successful major junior operation, on and off the ice. in the CMJHL. A year ago. the Winter Hawks won the WHL crown and finished third at the Memorial Cup tourney. This time around, in midJanuary, they were leading the WHLs Western Division, had the fourth-best record in the CMJHL and were playing before an average crowd of 5.783 in the Memorial Coliseum. Total attendance should go over 2(X).(XX) before the regular season ends&ldquo;We&rsquo;re pretty excited about it,&rdquo; added Chynoweth. &ldquo;We (the WHL) proposed it five years ago, although Ontario brought it up this time. And. like a lot of things, it&rsquo;s got its shortcomings and its good points.&rdquo;One of those shortcomings is that a team could lose out in the first round of its league playoffs and still qualify for the tournament as the host team.This winter, should Portland win the WHL championship, the team the Winter Hawks beat in the final will also move on to the Memorial Cup tournament. Should Portland be eliminated during postseason play, the eventual WHL champion will, of course, qualify.&ldquo;We could also end up with two WHL teams in the final,&rdquo; said Chynoweth. &ldquo;Or, next year, if the format continues, we could have two Ontario teams in the final.&ldquo;But. this has got financial advantages that the other format didn&rsquo;t have. We&rsquo;re not in this strictly for the money, but the host league guarantees all the expenses, and that&rsquo;s up around $100,000.&ldquo;The old way wasn&rsquo;t a financial disaster. either. We held it in Calgary in 1974 and sold out. We set an all-time record in 1977 in Vancouver and. in 1980. wc drew fairly well in Brandon and Regina.&rdquo;All games in the tournament will be played to a conclusion, which should do away with some of the confusion involved in formulating tie-breakers.It is expected that the four teams will play a single round-robin schedule. After that, the team with the fewest points will be eliminated, while the top club gets a bye into the final. The second-and third place clubs will meet in a one-game semi-final.CALGARY&mdash;Eight players scored goals as the hometown Wranglers bounced Kelowna 8-2. Barry Bracko got his 19th and 20th goals and Mike Vernon blocked 21 shots to earn his third shutout as the Wranglers opened a West Coast swing with a 5-0 win in Kamloops.LETHBRIDGE&mdash;Owner and general manager Dennis Kjeldgaard sold the majority of shares in the Broncos to coowner Ross McKibbon, who immediately took over as GM. McKibbon said he wasn&rsquo;t about to make any front-office changes and Kjeldgaard stayed on as an advisor. Ivan Krook had two goals and three assists and J.C. McEwan had two of each as the Broncos dumped visiting Medicine Hal 7-1. McEwan added two more goals in a 6-2 home-ice win over Kelowna.MEDICINE HAT&mdash;Al Conroy got his 20th and 21st goals and added three helpers, while defenseman Brent Meckling drew four assists, in a l()-6 home-ice win over Kelowna. Mike Lay got goals No. 29 and 30. while Ken Jorgenson added two goals and two assists. Richard Zemlak&rsquo;s two goals lifted the Tigers to a 4-2 win in Calgary. Kodie Nelson got his first WHL goal, while Meckling and Lay had two each in a 7-2 win in Prince Albert.REGINA&mdash;The Pats lost Nevin Markwart, their second-leading point man, with a separated shoulder. Dale Derkatch scored two goals and set up two others and John Bckkcrs had a goal and three assists as the Pats whipped visiling Brandon 10-2. Doug Trapps two goals sparked the hometown Pats to a 6-1 win over Prince Albert. Trapp&rsquo;s power-play at 19:44 of the third period gave the Pats a 4-3 win in Saskatoon. Regina scored three power-play goals in stretching its winning string to five games.SASKATOON&mdash;Perry Ganchar struck for five goals, giving him 37. as the Blades romped 12-3 in Prince Albert. Ross Lambert got his 20th goal in that win. The Blades lost 4-3 to visiting Regina. ending a nine-game winning streak. That was their second loss in their last 23 games, ended a 12-game home-ice winning skein and left their home record at 18-3-1.WINNIPEG&mdash;The Warriors opened their West Coast swing with an impressive 7-5 victory in Portland. John Benns scored twice, while Randy Gilhen set up four goals. Winnipeg then won 7-5 in Seattle, as Bruce Schmidt and Brad Blisncr each had a goal and two assists. That was Winnipeg&rsquo;s eighth straight win and its 13th victory in its last 14 games. One night later. Winnipeg lost 6-4 in Victoria. Cam Douglas got his 20th goal in a 6-5 overtime loss in Nanaimo.KAMLOOPS&mdash;Bruce Holloway&rsquo;s goal at 9:53 of the third period gave Kamloops a 3-2 win in Vancouver. Doug Kostynski got his 30th goal in an 8-6 loss in Nanaimo. Dennis Lcclair scored four times, giving him 30. while Jim Camazzola had two goals and four assists, as the Oilers hammered visiting Nanaimo 14-3. Kostynski had two goals and three helpers in that win. Dean Evason chipped in with a goal and four assists and Dean Clark set up four goals.KELOWNA&mdash;Doug Kyle had two goals and three assists and Mike Babcock had two of each in a 9-7 win over visiting Nanaimo.NANAIMO&mdash;Harry Mahood&rsquo;s third period power-play goal stood up as the winner in an 8-6 home-ice win over Kamloops. Mahood added goals No. 20 and 21 in a 9-7 loss in Kelowna. Jim McGeough&rsquo;s goal at 5:15 of overtime gave the Islanders a 6-5 win over visiting Winnipeg. Mitch Poulin tied the game with a shorthanded goal with only five seconds left in the third period. Mahood totalled two goals and three assists in that win.PORTLAND&mdash;Randy Heath scored three times, giving him 52, while Derek Laxda? got his first WHL goal, as the Winter Hawks bounced visiting Seattle 11-6.SEATTLE&mdash;Fred Ledlin scored twice and added three assists in a 9-6 win over visiting Portland. Alan Kerr and Dave Curry had two goals each.VICTORIA&mdash;Mark McLeary&rsquo;s goal at 6:32 of overtime gave the Cougars a 5-4 win in Seattle. Chris Crossman picked up his first goal. Fabian Joseph scored twice and Geoff Courtnail set up three goals as the Cougars got past visiting Winniepg 6-4. Rich Chernomaz, their top sniper with 49 goals, was on the shelf with torn knee ligaments.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01153/4771027-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="555" height="833"><figcaption class="caption-body">WHL president Ed Chynoweth says the Memorial Cup should be a real &lsquo;event&rsquo; this year.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0042-01

CMJHL Unveils New Cup Format

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0299/4771072-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="354" height="635"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALLAN MacINNIS Kitchener</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0370/4771065-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="356" height="636"><figcaption class="caption-body">HARRY MAHOOD Nanaimo</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0452/4771058-1-eng-US/f0042-042.jpg" title="f0042-04" width="348" height="628"><figcaption class="caption-body">ROBERTO LAVOIE Chicoutimi</figcaption></div><h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>The return of defenseman Allan Maclnnis to the Kitchener Rangers by the Calgary Flames a month ago was a bonus move as far as the Ontario Hockey League team was concerned.Maclnnis has been highly productive since he came back and his eight-point performance for the Rangers earned him the nod as the OHL&rsquo;s Player of the Week. Maclnnis, who scored five goals in the last three games, has 20 for the season. He has played a major role in the Rangers becoming a contender in the Emms Division race<h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>Harry Mtanood Isn&rsquo;t as small as some ot the Western Leagues mighty mites, but the Nanaimo Islanders&rsquo; right winger came up with the hottest week of any league player.At 6-foot-2, Mahood doesn&rsquo;t rank in the scoring class of league-leader Kelly Glowa (5-foot-9) or Dale Derkatch (5-foot-5), but he was a one-man show for Nanaimo as he turned in back-to-back five and six-point nights to become the WHLs Player of the Week. Mahood, a 195-pounder, had 16 points in his last four games.<h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>Roberto Lavoie is hoping he II get another crack at making the Harttord Whalers next fall after flunking his first trial at training camp last September.The 20-year-old right winger of the Chicoutimi Sagueneens won the nod as the QMJHL&rsquo;s Player of the Week after he scored three goals and set up six more for a nine-point night in a 10-2 Chicoutimi win. Signed as a free agent by the Whalers, Lavoie has 39 goals and 87 points this season in 37 games. &#9632;

f0042-02

Players of the Week

<div class="byline">BY HERB ZURKOWSKY</div>VERBUN&mdash;Quebec Major Junior Hockey League president Jean Rougeau, who abhors on-ice violence and has done his utmost to clean up the league, surprisingly said he plans no action over incidents in a Verdun-Trois-Rivieres game Jan. 23.As with most games involving the Draveurs, the scene resembled a game of roller derby, with players from both teams taking runs at one another and trying to provoke the opposition.Expecting a rough game, Juniors&rsquo; coach Pierre Creamer gave seldom-used enforcers Nick Giampersa and Benoit Richard regular shifts.When Giampersa, a right winger, came on for his second shift of the game, Draveurs&rsquo; interim coach Rene Marcel, replacing Mario Bazinet, who&rsquo;s in the midst of serving a 25-game suspension, responded by sending Sylvain Nantel onto the ice. Nantel has a total of 282 penalty minutes.After a faceoff, Nantel high sticked Giampersa, who retaliated immediately, pushing Nantel against the net and beating him up.The next preliminary involved Verdun&rsquo;s 6-foot-1 Steven Woodburn and Trois-Rivieres&rsquo; Domenic Bertoldi, who is 5-foot-9. Bertoldi went after Woodbum the last time the teams met, kneeing and blindsiding him, and it was time to settle the score.Woodbum got the first round underway by challenging Bertoldi to a fight, but the latter refused.Finally in the third period, with Bertoldi receiving a regular shift, he was again challenged by Woodbum. But this time Woodbum attacked the Draveur, giving him no opportunity to escape. Woodbum won a unanimous decision.Bertoldi, unpenalized, subsequently went to the bench, where he picked up a stick and threatened Woodbum. In the meantime, Nantel had to be restrained by his teammates from going after Woodburn.At that time, Richard, a defenseman, started harassing 16-year-old rookie Greg Choules, whose older brother, Ron, was acquired by the Draveurs from the Hull Olympics earlier in the week. Both Richard and Greg Choules were issued majors.But the elder Choules was determined to vent his anger against any Verdun player. He tried center Pat Lafontaine, but the 5-foot-10 QMJHL leading scorer was simply too fleet afoot, avoiding Choules when the play resumed.Finally, after relinquishing his pursuit, Choules was suddenly upended by defenseman Bill Campbell, another superb player who leads by example rather than by using his fists. Campbell, who&rsquo;s a draft choice of the Philadelphia Flyers, has yet to fight in three QMJHL seasons.Choules dropped his gloves, grabbed Campbell by the sweater and wound up. Campbell, still refusing to retaliate, merely stood in front of Choules and laughed. Choules shrugged his shoulders and skated away.Rougeau said no aspect of the game required disciplinary action to be taken.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing to talk about, there were only two or three fights in the whole game,&rdquo; Rougeau said. &ldquo;I admit the game was not what you would call beautiful&mdash;the Draveurs did some foolish things that shows they&rsquo;re undisciplined&mdash;but nothing out of the ordinary occurred.&rdquo; &#9632;

Quality Hockey The Loser In This Game

f0044-01

NATIONAL LEAGUE SUMMARIES

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01138/4771494-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Robert Shaver)</figcaption></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;Paul Gardner says his lack of goal scoring this season has nothing to do with having his jaw broken by two sucker punches thrown by Winnipeg Jet Jimmy Mann last season.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s bull,&rdquo; Gardner said. &ldquo;i haven&rsquo;t changed my style at all. Because I haven&rsquo;t scored goals, everybody&rsquo;s looking for something different. I scored goals when I came back from the Jimmy Mann thing last year, so I don&rsquo;t think anybody can attribute it to that.&rdquo;Gardner was the Penguins&rsquo; leading scorer with 26 goals and 27 assists in 43 games when the incident happened in a game in Winnipeg on Jan. 13, 1982. He had to have his jaw wired shut, took his meals through a straw for six weeks and missed 21 games.Wearing a football-type facemask, the 26-year-old Fort Erie, Ont., native scored 10 goals and six assists in the 16 games after the injury, and he led the NHL in power-play goals with 21. But this season. Gardner tallied only seven goals and 20 assists in his first 38 contests, and he appeared at times to shy away from the slot area where in previous season he scored most of his &ldquo;garbage goals&rdquo; on tip-ins and rebounds.&ldquo;I think I just lost my confidence,&rdquo; said Gardner, trying to explain his frustrating season. &ldquo;Early in the year, I had a lot of chances on goal. The puck just didn&rsquo;t seem to go in. You lose confidence around the net, you press and it just seems to build and build and build.&rdquo;Penguin coach Eddie Johnston agrees that Gardner had lots of chances early in the season but failed to capitalize on them.&ldquo;In the early part of the year, he must have had 40 or 50 shots,&rdquo; said Johnston. &ldquo;I mean chances that he's never had. and unfortunately the puck wasn&rsquo;t going in. When you start the season, you look at him for 35 or 40 goals minimum. That&rsquo;s what he&rsquo;s got to do for you.&ldquo;You look at our lineup during the course of the year, and you&rsquo;re looking for x-number of goals. You don&rsquo;t look for Paul Gardner to have six or seven goals after close to 50 games. You&rsquo;re looking for him to have around 25 at that time and picking up another 10 or 12 in the last 30 games.&rdquo;Last year, Gardner centered Pittsburgh&rsquo;s top line and power-play unit of Rick Kehoe and Pat Boutette. and the Penguins set an NHL record for powerplay goals in a season with 99. Like Gardner&rsquo;s own goal scoring, the Penguins&rsquo; power-play production has gone downhill this season and Johnston believes the two go hand-in-hand.&ldquo;I think that is the prime reason our power play hasn&rsquo;t been as strong as it has.&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;The Mann situation might have had an effect on him subconsciously because he got most of his goals from tip-ins. He&rsquo;s been more to the side of the net as opposed to being in front.&ldquo;The Mann thing could have an effect on him. We&rsquo;ve talked about it and he says no, so I have to go by what he says. For him to get 20 goals now. he&rsquo;s going to have to play extremely well and put a lot of pucks in the net.&rdquo;Gardner scored three goals in two games after Johnston reunited him with his old linemates.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a good feeling,&rdquo; said Gardner about playing with Kehoe and Boutette again after being shuffled around most of the season. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re playing with two fine players. Ricky Kehoe&rsquo;s a trememdous player. He&rsquo;s a sniper. If you get him a chance in the open he&rsquo;s going to put it in the net. Patty Boutette&rsquo;s a mucker and a grinder, and I think the three of us go well together.&ldquo;But again, I wasn&rsquo;t doing the job so Eddie had to try different things. It&rsquo;s hard any time you&rsquo;re not sure who you&rsquo;re playing with, you&rsquo;re not sure if you&rsquo;re not doing the job when you get out there.&ldquo;It definitely helps my confidence to play with those two guys. I played with them all last year and the start of this year. I don&rsquo;t know if it (scoring the three goals) can turn my season around. We need wins to tum my season around. But I hope we can continue to score some goals and contribute and win some hockey games.&rdquo;PENGUIN TRACKS&mdash;Defenseman Mario Faubert has decided to file for disability compensation from the NHL Players Association, officially ending his playing career. Faubert, 28, shattered two major bones in his left leg on Nov.18, 1981, while checking Mike Crombeen of St. Louis and hadn&rsquo;t played since. The seven-year NHL veteran was the Penguins&rsquo; fourth-round draft choice in 1974 out of St. Louis University. He scored 21 goals and 90 assists in 231 career games, and was coming off his best professional season when he was injured. He plans to return home to Valleyfield, Que.<h2>Player Of The Week</h2>On a team loaded with top scorers, young Michel Goulet may find himself somewhat overshadowed some weeks by the likes of the three Stastnys or Real Cloutier. But not this week.The 22-year-old right winger turned on all the jets as the Nordiques came off a 2-1-0 week to steal the team and the league scoring spotlight. Goulet scored five goals, including one game winner and produced eight scoring points to win the nod as THE HOCKEY NEWS NHL Player of the Week.With 36 goals, Goulet appears headed for a 50-goal year. He missed the milestone last season by only eight goals. &#9632;

f0047-01

Gardner Looks To Regain Scoring Touch

MONTREAL&mdash;Little Mats Naslund is a rookie in the National Hockey League this season and his presence as the leading point man in the Montreal segment of the Molson Cup three-star competition is truly surprising.Naslund, who has 19 goals for the Canadiens in his first year in the NHL, took the overall lead with 45 points, pushing Guy Lafleur off the top spot in the Montreal voting. Lafleur stood second with 40 but didn&rsquo;t rank in the top five for the third segment balloting, which Naslund won with 20 points.While Naslund was the surprise of the third segment three-star voting for the Molson Cup, the spectacular Wayne Gretzky of the Edmonton Oilers remained the overall point leader with 130. Here&rsquo;s how the voting went in the six Canadian cities:MONTREAL&mdash;Naslund led with 45 followed by Lafleur with 40, Guy Carbonneau, another rookie, and Doug Wickenheiser, with 45 each and veteran Steve Shutt fifth with 30.TORONTO&mdash;Hot scoring Rick Vaive continued to rise in the Maple Leafs&rsquo; three-star balloting as he gained 55 points to take a commanding lead over Miroslav Frycer, who had 40. The early leader, Peter Ihnacak, slipped to third place in a tie with John Anderson, each with 35 points. Dan Daoust had 30.WINNIPEG&mdash;Swedish star Willy Lindstrom was receiving some unexpected competition from fellow countryman, Thomas Steen, in the third segment voting, but Lindstrom still clung to the No. 1 spot with 60 overall points. Dave Babych was second with 50, followed by Doug Soetaert with 45. Steen tied Lindstrom for the third segment lead each with 15 points.CALGARY&mdash;For some strange reason, high-scoring Lanny McDonald didn&rsquo;t figure prominently in the top five third-segment voting but he was still the overall leader with 65 points, five ahead of Doug Risebrough. Kent Nilsson and Paul Reinhart were the co-leaders in the third segment with 15 points each but only Nilsson, with 40 overall, was close to McDonald.EDMONTON&mdash;It was another runaway for Gretzky in the Oilers&rsquo; three-star voting as the Edmonton scoring ace won the third segment easily and pushed his total to 130 points, 70 more than Mark Messier, who was second. Ken Linseman was third behind Gretzky and Messier with 55 points.VANCOUVER&mdash;Ivan Hlinka of the Canucks remained in the first place in the Vancouver three-star voting but only time will tell if he&rsquo;ll keep the No. 1 spot. Injured and forced out of the lineup, Hlinka led with 45 points followed by goalie Richard Brodeur and Thomas Gradin, each with 40. &#9632;

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February 11, 1983

Flyer Utility Man Taylor Has Championship Genes

Dufour Assumes Void Created By Leveille

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE SCORING

Home Is Far From Sweet For The Blues