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.

June 1, 1983

The Hockey News June, 1983

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div>EDMONTON&mdash;There&rsquo;s a matter of some unfinished business&hellip;which is why the smart money says Glen Sather&rsquo;s multi-purpose portfolio that includes president, general manager and coach with Edmonton Oilers will probably remain unchanged when the National Hockey League club opens training camp in September.&ldquo;One thing I hate to do is give up,&rdquo; Sather was saying less than 24 hours after the Oilers were sweept four games to none by the New York Islanders in the Stanley Cup final. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to stop when a job is still unfinished.&rdquo;&ldquo;My job definition is that I run the hockey club,&rdquo; added Sather, who would cherish to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup as a coach&mdash;an experience that by-passed him during 10 years as an NHL journeyman.&ldquo;I feel we can win a Stanley Cup. I feel if we hadn&rsquo;t played a team with the experience of the Islanders, we could have won one this year. The Islanders didn&rsquo;t make any mistakes. They didn&rsquo;t fold when the pressure was on.&rdquo;The Oilers breezed to the Campbell Conference championship with relative ease, posting an 11-1 record. Their only loss came during a 6-5 setback in Game Four of the Smythe Division final in Calgary. but they rebounded to send the Flames into summer two nights later with a 9-1 romp. While eliminating Winnipeg Jets, Calgary and Chicago Black Hawks, the Oilers outgunned their opponents 7433.Yet they ran smack-dab into a stone wall when along came goaltender Billy Smith and the defensive-minded Islanders. The Oilers, who actually held a territorial edge in play, wound up outscored 17-6. Included was a 2-0 shutout in Game One&mdash;the first time Edmonton was shut down in 99 games.Sather vows the Oilers&rsquo; first appearance in the Stanley Cup final won&rsquo;t be their last.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure all of the players feel we have a good enough team to win,&rdquo; Sather said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re determined to be there again. It&rsquo;s not a one-time shot in the dark.&rdquo;Sather was a member of the 1971-72 New York Rangers, a fat-cat outfit that did precisely what he was referring to after losing the Stanley Cup in six games to the Boston Bruins.&ldquo;Guys showed up 30-40 pounds overweight the next year,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m sure as hell not content the way things ended up for us this year. Our object from the beginning was to win the Stanley Cup&mdash;something which we haven&rsquo;t achieved yet.&rdquo;Assistant coach Ted Green, a member of the &rsquo;72 Cup-winning Bruins, figures the Oilers&rsquo; day will come.&ldquo;The Islanders had 11 regulars between the ages of 28 and 32,&rdquo; said Green. &ldquo;Of the guys we had playing in the final series, three are 28 (Lee Fogolin, Dave Lumley and Pat Hughes) and one is 32 (Willy Lindstrom). That makes a difference.&ldquo;Take three years off those figures and what age were the Islander guys? Twenty-six, 27, 28. At a young age, our guys gained one helluva an experience in these playoffs. They should progress at an earlier stage in their lives than the Islanders did.&rdquo;Wayne Gretzky, who concluded the playoffs with a record 38 points despite the fact he was limited to four assists against the Isles, points to the second period of the final game as a learning experience the Oilers had never gone through before.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011265/4926985-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="555" height="806"><figcaption class="caption-body">Glen Sather is determined to finish with 100 points next year and win the Cup.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;It may sound silly but that second period may go down as the greatest period in the history of our club,&rdquo; Gretzky said of Jari Kurri and Mark Messier scoring to pull the Oilers within one. although the Oilers eventually lost 4-2 with the Isles&rsquo; Ken Morrow supplying an empty-net goal. &ldquo;We were down 3-0 and it looked as if we were going to get blown out, but everybody dug down and fought back.&rdquo;Sather wasn&rsquo;t about to put the rap on Gretzky for the fact he slumped throughout the series. The most-gifted scorer the NHL has ever seen was held goalless. It marked the first time since October he had gone four games without scoring.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the unfortunate thing about a player who is pegged a superstar,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;When he scores goals, he gets bouquets. When he doesn&rsquo;t score, he gets harped upon. Well, Wayne didn&rsquo;t lose the Stanley Cup. We lost it as a team effort.&ldquo;Now, we&rsquo;ll come back determined. The standard has been set for ourselves&rsquo; 100 points, first in our division and to win the Stanley Cup.&rdquo;That looks good enough on paper. &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

Sather Says Oilers’ Business Is ‘Unfinished’

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0029-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01455/4927897-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">North Star Brian Bellows is one of many NHL players who comes from the Niagara Peninsula or played junior hockey there.</figcaption></div>Hockey and the Niagara Peninsula are synonymous&mdash;there&rsquo;s no better way to define it.After supporting junior teams such as the Teepees, Black Hawks and Fincups, St. Catharines became the home of the American Hockey League&rsquo;s Saints&mdash;Aum team of the Toronto Maple Leafs&mdash;at the start of the 1982-83.At the same time, Niagara Falls, which had long been a bastion of junior hockey with the Flyers, was left without a franchise after the team was shifted to North Bay for the 1982-83 season.St. Catharines&rsquo; acquiring of the Saints resulted from Leaf owner Harold Ballard&rsquo;s decision to fold his Central Hockey League franchise, the Cincinnati Stingers, at the conclusion of 1981-82 season because of heavy financial losses. Ballard was interested in owning his own American Hockey League franchise (the Leafs and Chicago Black Hawks jointly operated the AHL&rsquo;s New Brunswick Hawks) and St. Catharines, less than 100 miles from Toronto, seemed like a choice spot to set up shop.What seemed like a simple idea unfolded into a political quagmire. Ballard needed majority approval to gain acceptance into the AHL, but didn&rsquo;t get it on his first try. St. Catharines&rsquo; residents, hungry for hockey, protested the league&rsquo;s denial. After some in-house persuasion, the league voted on the matter again and St. Kitts was finally granted a franchise.The support didn&rsquo;t end when the city was awarded the franchise. If anything, the love relationship had just begun. So says mayor Roy Adams.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a great reaction, even by people who aren&rsquo;t hockey fans, because it makes people aware of St. Catharines,&rdquo; says Adams. &ldquo;The chamber of commerce and industry are supportive because this is it, we got it (the franchise).&rdquo;The Saints&rsquo; director of operations is Rudy Pilous, who coached the St. Catharines juniors in the &rsquo;50s when they were owned by the parent Chicago team and produced NHL Hall of Famers such as Pierre Pilote and Stan Mikita. Pilous, who&rsquo;s wife, Margaret, is from St. Kitts, is not surprised by the support both he and the team have received.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been tremendous, I knew they would be,&rdquo; says Pilous, who coached the NHL Black Hawks to the Stanley Cup championship in 1961. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been good to me&mdash;I&rsquo;ve had a pretty good track record&mdash;I&rsquo;m pleased.&rdquo;By Christmas, the Saints were in first place and Pilous admits the 3,100-seat Garden City Arena was filled to the brim and &ldquo;we were turning people away.&rdquo; But the parent Leafs, who were last in the league, started calling for help and Pilous says that was the turning point in the season.The Saints failed to make the playoffs as they finished in fifth place in the Southern Division. They did, however, provide the fans with plenty of entertainment. Center Bruce Boudreau had a running battle with Binghamton&rsquo;s Ross Yates for the league&rsquo;s scoring title. Yates eventually won the race and set an AHL record with 41 goals and 85 assists for 125 points, but Boudreau was only three points back with 50 goals and 72 assists.Boudreau garnered the coaches&rsquo; selection as the Southern Division&rsquo;s second team all-star center. Joining Boudreau on the second team was his linemate, left winger Reg Thomas, who finished ninth in league scoring with 35 goals and 57 assists for 92 points. Defenseman Dave Shand, who was called up by the Leafs for the playoffs, was also a second team all-star.While the Saints&rsquo; fans did not get to witness it, one of their players, Normand Aubin, was involved in one of the most unusual events in hockey history. Aubin, a center, was forced to don the goaltending pads in an away game in Adirondack when starting goalie Vince Tremblay had to retire because of an injury. Bob Parent, the team&rsquo;s other goalie, was suspended after receiving a match penalty in a game the previous night. Aubin entered the game midway through the first period and held the Wings goalless until the third period when they broke free for five goals and an eventual 6-3 win.Niagara Falls, meanwhile, is still acrimonious over the loss of the Flyers. Despite concessions by the city and a vast promotion campaign, mayor Wayne Thomson says the Flyers&rsquo; owner, Reg Quinn, was anxious to move his club elsewhere.Thomson says the city is seeking an OHL franchise and is currently talking with the Sudbury Wolves and Brantford Alexanders.Niagara Falls, which Thomson proudly admits is a &ldquo;hockey city,&rdquo; has had an illustrious array of players suit up for the Flyers. Among those who&rsquo;ve graduated to the NHL are: Gary Domhoefer, Don Marcotte, Terry Crisp, Jim Schoonfeld, Wayne Maxner, Derek Sanderson, Terry O&rsquo;Reilly, Bernie Parent, Rick Ley, Don Lever, Doug Favell, Jean Pronovost, Steve Atkinson, Eric Vail, Jim Lorentz, Brad Seiwood and Tom Webster.Some of the more recent products to the pro ranks are: Mike Gartner, Mark Osborne, Ron Meighan, Steve Ludzik, Kevin McClelland, Pat Graham, Daryl Evans, Steve Larmer, Nick Ricci, Mark Renaud, John Gibson, Lou Francheschetti. Bob Froese and Mark Looken.Besides Mikita and Pilote, others NHLers who&rsquo;ve played for the Hawks include the Hull brothers. Bobby and Dennis, Marcel Dionne and Ken Hodge.And yet, the pride and joy of St. Catharines has to be Brian Bellows, who, as a member of the Kitchener Rangers, captained his team to the Memorial Cup in 1982, was chosen as the junior Player of the Year and was chosen second overall by the Minnesota North Stars in the 1982 entry draft. There are those who say Bellows is destined to become the North Stars&rsquo; leader, while North Star GM Lou Nanne has already labelled his prize right winger an &ldquo;untouchable.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Niagara Peninsula Has Hockey In Its Veins

<div class="byline">BY MILT DUNNELL</div>The elders of the National Hockey League don&rsquo;t actually bury their heads among the frozen pucks in the ice bucket. The things they do just make it look that way.They simply can&rsquo;t understand those unreasonable wretches at Ralston Purina, who are hitting them with a $20-million lawsuit over the NHL refusal to permit the sale of the St. Louis Blues to those hockey nuts in Saskatchewan.What did they expect? Ralston Purina made it plain enough they were through with hockey. It had cost them a bundle. The Blues had closed up shop. Emile Francis, their president, general manager, coach and drum beater, had bailed out and come down in Hartford.So, when the Ralston Purina people had an opportunity to get $13 million of their money back, by selling to Wild Bill Hunter and his disciplines, they were not going to let the fat cats of the lodge tell them they couldn&rsquo;t sell their own property.Now, the NHL faces double jeopardy&mdash;from the U.S. courts and from the bureaucrats of the anti-combines division in Ottawa. They&rsquo;re trapped between Bad Billy Smith and the goalpost.If they paid any attention to what has been going on outside their own goal crease, the NHL governors would know that big league sport has been getting a bloody nose in the courts. It always has been in deadly fear of the politicians, who make the kind of noise that appeals to the votersThe NHL, which has a terrible record in court&mdash;it wins about as frequently as the Leafs win in Boston&mdash;claims to have assurance that it can win this heat.It had the same assurance that its old reserve clause in the player&rsquo;s contract would stand up in litigation. The reserve clause meant that, once a player had signed, he belonged to that club until he was sold, traded or the coroner drafted him. That was only fair, the NHL maintained, because the club had spent its money on his development.There was no way a player with that kind of obligation to an NHL team could go over the wall to the upstart World Hockey Association. It came as a terrible shook to the NHL when the courts ruled that Bobby Hull could go from Chicago to Winnipeg. After that, they went in droves.If the mighty National Football League couldn&rsquo;t force Al Davis to keep his Raiders ip Oakland, where they were selling out, how does the much less mighty NHL expect to keep the Blues in St. Louis, where they&rsquo;re out of business?The next litigation should come from the NHL Players&rsquo; Association. It has a lot of members, who presently have no employer. And it&rsquo;s not their fault. They have no employer because the league has put them in that position. If there is to be no hockey in St. Louis&mdash;and the NHL governors won&rsquo;t permit sale of the club to the Saskatoon group&mdash;which way do they look, come pay day?This article first appeared in the Toronto Star. &#9632;

Blues’ Players Getting Short End Of Goalstick

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01477/4928076-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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KOHO

Our next issue will be devoted to a wrap-up of the National Hockey League entry draft, scheduled for June 8 at the Montreal Forum.For the first time ever, it looks as though an American will be selected No. 1 overall and we&rsquo;ll have an in-depth feature on the increasing quality of young American hockey players. You&rsquo;ll find out that an American going No. 1 overall is far from a fluke and that it&rsquo;s going to be happening a lot more in the immediate future.As well, we&rsquo;ll have the complete draft list for each of the 21 teams and a special section on adult hockey. Don&rsquo;t miss it.<h2>To The Reader</h2>The newstand price of THE HOCKEY NEWS is now $1.50. The increase, only the second in more than five years, is necessary primarily because of increased distribution costs such as trucking and other freight charges.Subscription prices for THE HOCKEY NEWS are now $14.95 for 24 issues, $19.95 for one year (37 issues), $34.95 for two years (74 issues) and $46.95 for three years (111 issues).We apologize for any inconvenience these increases may cause any of our readers, but even at these higher rates, we believe that THE HOCKEY NEWS continues to be good value. We hope you continue to read our newspaper and, as always, we welcome your comments. &#9632;

Coming Next Month

<div class="byline">FRANK ORR&#x2019;S</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011210/4926902-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="288" height="341"></div><h2>The Big Sweep</h2>THE STANLEY CUP final between New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers, the series everyone wanted for all the marbles, was a disappointment.What&rsquo;s that? You did&rsquo;t want an Islander-Oiler final. Well, which team, other than perhaps Chicago Black Hawks, did you want to represent the Campbell Conference against the Islanders? And the Isles&rsquo; four-game of sweep of the Oilers, while extremely convincing, was mild compared to the annihilation of the Hawks by the Edmonton team.Under the format in which the conference champs meet in the final and the make-up of the conferences at this point in history, the NHL was fortunate that the Oilers popped up as the foes for the kings. Another thrilling Vancouver Canuck appearance in the final would have been too much for the heart strings of hockey fans.The final had all the ingredients of a dandy&mdash;the young, upstart team with as much pure hockey talent as any club assembled in recent years against the old-hound champs, who had showed some signs that they had slipped considerably.The outcome wasn&rsquo;t the result of the Oilers&rsquo; not being ready to win. It had much to do with the fact that the Islanders weren&rsquo;t ready to lose. Championships, it seems, are very much like elections: It&rsquo;s not so much that someone wins; it&rsquo;s more a case of somebody losing. This spring, the Islanders had no idea what the word &ldquo;loser&rdquo; meant.One of team sport&rsquo;s cliches really applies: It&rsquo;s not so much the things you do right that win for you, it&rsquo;s what you do wrong that beats you.Well, the Islanders&rsquo; eyesight remains perfect. It&rsquo;s tough to remember a team making as few mistakes over a four-game stretch as the Isles did in the final. When things went even slightly off-kilter, goalie Billy Smith was there to cover up the blunder.Of course, in New York, where everything has to be the best, biggest or whatever hyperbole is necessary, the press immediately tagged the Islanders as the best club in NHL history. That, of course, is the silliest argument there is, a waste of space.Suffice to say that the Islanders are a superb team and if any club was any better in its own zone, well, I haven&rsquo;t seen it.<h2>The Big Stick</h2>THE BEST THEATRE of the final was provided off the ice, a fine bit of high farce centered on Smith, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, and Oiler manager-coach Glen Sather.The setting on the day after the first game would have fitted nicely on a stage. Sather was perched on his desk, accusing Smith of being a hatchet-man and a scythe-swinger and a bit of a sadist for dinging the Oilers&rsquo; Glenn Anderson on the knee.Sather obviously was trying to psyche up his own team or get Smith whipped up into a lather. If the latter result was Sather&rsquo;s target, then he miscalculated badly.Smith&rsquo;s use of the stick is a carefully-calculated ploy designed to unsettle opponents. Battlin&rsquo; Billy has worked the act beautifully. He wants the world&mdash;especially those on opposition teams&mdash;to believe that he&rsquo;s about half crazy, an unpredictable semi-loony.There&rsquo;s a bit of Gaylord Perry in Smith. Perry generates much talk about whether he throws a spitball and goes through antics that create the impression he&rsquo;s loading the ball. If Perry can get the batters thinking about the spit and not the ball, then he&rsquo;s more effective.If Smith can make opponents edgy about moving close to his crease, then he&rsquo;s ahead of the game.When told of Sather&rsquo;s charges, Smith was simply magnificent.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think Sather would show so little respect for the press by trying to get you to believe such garbage,&rdquo; Smitty ranted.Well, as the gay Siamese twins said when they passed another pair on the street: &ldquo;It takes two to know two.&rdquo;<h2>The Oilers&rsquo; Future</h2>THE OILERS ARE a splendid collection of young talent. Fill a couple of small holes, add some maturity and the team should be a champion. But, of course, the step from where the Oilers are now to the throne room is a large one.A couple of clubs that appeared to be in the same place as the Oilers when they lost the final&mdash;Buffalo Sabres in &rsquo;75 and Minnesota North Stars in &rsquo;81&mdash;fell back into the pack.A problem facing the Oilers in taking the next step ahead is the fact that they play in the Smythe Division, a sector in which they&rsquo;re the only team that reached the .500 mark.Also, no club in the division surrendered fewer than 300 goals, which indicates the Oilers don&rsquo;t encounter large amounts of tough defense.The Oilers&rsquo; assistant coach John Muckler pointed out the fact in the team&rsquo;s dressing room after the sweep.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not shooting down the teams in our division because we had some very entertaining games with them,&rdquo; Muckler said. &ldquo;But I wish we played more times during the season against the islanders, Boston, Buffalo, Montreal and Philadelphia because they&rsquo;re the strong checking teams.&rdquo; &#9632;

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HOCKEY VIEWPOINT

<div class="byline">BY TIM MORIARTY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011230/4926954-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Veteran netminder Billy Smith, winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs&rsquo; MVP, basks in the glow of another Stanley Cup victory. Smith says he wants to finish his NHL career with the Islanders and doesn&rsquo;t believe he will be traded, as some reports predict.</figcaption></div>LONG ISLAND&mdash;This was several hours after the Islanders had wrapped up their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup championship before a bellowing, raucous crowd at Nassau Coliseum. Now the team had gathered for a victory party at the Marriott Hotel across the parking lot from the Coliseum. Near the end of the festivities, Bryan Trottier shook a friend&rsquo;s hand and said, &ldquo;This is the greatest&hellip;I&rsquo;m very proud of this team. I&rsquo;m very proud of what we accomplished.&rdquo;Pride.The Islanders had it when they won their first Cup in 1980, but it never was more evident than this spring.On the eve of his team&rsquo;s fourth game against the Oilers in the finals, coach Al Arbour said, &ldquo;If we can do it (sweep), the guys will have to be proud of themselves.&rdquo;The Islanders did it, and they were proud.Proud because they came back from a desultory regular season. Proud because they beat the teams with the best overall records (Bruins and Oilers) en route to the title. And proud because so many believed the Islanders&rsquo; reign was about to end.For those reasons, nothing the Islanders did in the past offered as much satisfaction as their wipeout of the Oilers. They limited the highest-scoring team in history to six goals in four games and held Wayne Gretzky to four assists.The Islanders&rsquo; sweep of the Oilers restored their greatness after a season of trouble and doubt. Billy Smith provided the Islanders with great goaltending and earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP and Mike Bossy contributed five game-winning goals, a playoff record.Mostly, though, the Islanders&rsquo; fourth Cup belonged to Arbour, who guided the team through crisis after crisis during the regular season. After 100 regular-season and playoff games stretched over eight wrenching months, the coach&rsquo;s glare melted.&ldquo;We had our ups and downs,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We had to fight through a lot of problems&hellip;But I never lost faith in the guys.&rdquo;Pride.The Islanders don&rsquo;t dispute their place alongside the Montreal teams that won five consecutive Cups from 1956-60 and four straight from 1976-79. In fact, the Canadiens&rsquo; record now provides an immediate incentive for the Islanders.&ldquo;Our guys are never satisfied,&rdquo; said Bill Torrey, the Isles&rsquo; general manager. &ldquo;Who knows how long they&rsquo;ll keep it up.&rdquo;Torrey is never satisfied, either. The man who built the Islanders will spend the summer examining the team&rsquo;s roster and considering possible trades. Several forwards could be in danger of losing their jobs, especially since Greg Gilbert and Mats Hallin were impressive during their brief appearances during the regular season. Among the defensemen, rookies Paul Boutilier and Gord Dineen appear ready for full-time duty.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021015/4926947-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="953" height="1087"><figcaption class="caption-body">With the Stanley Cup firmly in his grasp, Islander coach Al Arbour, usually a reserved individual, whooped it up in the dressing room.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03668/4926940-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="946" height="1089"><figcaption class="caption-body">Islander captain Denis Potvin celebrates by hugging his father Armand, who despite being gravely ill, made the trip to Long Island.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-04386/4926933-1-eng-US/f0003-042.jpg" title="f0003-04" width="919" height="1087"><figcaption class="caption-body">While being interviewed on Hockey Night in Canada, Islander center Butch Goring receives a champagne shower courtesy of Mike McEwan.</figcaption></div>The Islanders goaltending is solid&mdash;and that presents a problem for Torrey. Should he trade Smith, who is 32 and has a magnificient 73-24 playoff record? Or will Torrey unload Roland Melanson, 22, who shared the William Jennings Trophy with Smith for fewest goals allowed during the season and is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the league&rsquo;s best goalie?It&rsquo;s possible that either Smith or Melanson could be replaced by Kelly Hrudey, the most coveted player in the Isles&rsquo; minor-league system. Hrudey, 22, led the Indianapolis Checkers to their second straight Central Hockey League championship, compiling a 2.64 goals-allowed average in the playoffs.Smith has admitted in the past that he &ldquo;expects to be traded someday.&rdquo; However, he adopted a different tact after this year&rsquo;s playoffs. &ldquo;I want to stay here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They know I can do the job, and I don&rsquo;t think they&rsquo;re going to do anything with me.&rdquo;Said Melanson: &ldquo;I laugh when people ask about trades. I&rsquo;m not going to worry about Bill Smith or Kelly Hrudey. I&rsquo;m going to worry about myself.&rdquo;&ldquo;Sometimes we even surprise ourselves,&rdquo; Butch Goring said. If you took a poll at the start of the finals, how many of us do you think would have predicted four straight&mdash;or no goals for Gretzky?&rdquo;The Islanders&rsquo; oldest player (33) shrugged and added: &ldquo;A lot of people thought we were too old and too slow. We shut them up.&hellip;I&rsquo;m not much for comparisons. Maybe we could whip those (Montreal) teams from the &rsquo;50s, then the teams from the &rsquo;90s will kick our butts. But what we did, well, it was a terrific accomplishment for us in this day and age.&rdquo;Pride.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m blessed with a group of players who are unique,&rdquo; Arbour said. &ldquo;They take pride in themselves&hellip;I think they believe in me and I believe in them&hellip;This was our greatest achievement because of the injuries we suffered.&rdquo;Knee injuries hampered five players during the playoffs&mdash;Trottier, Ken Morrow, Stefan Persson, Dave Langevin and Clark Gillies. Morrow, Langevin and Gillies underwent arthroscopic surgery, yet all three played in the Islanders&rsquo; series-clinching 4-2 victory over the Oilers. Gillies set up the game&rsquo;s first goal by Trottier and Morrow contributed the Islanders&rsquo; final goal of the season, scoring into an empty net.&ldquo;All those injuries&hellip;a lot of us shouldn&rsquo;t have played,&rdquo; Trottier said. &ldquo;We put our futures on the line, but it was worth it.&rdquo;Pride.NOTES&mdash; The Islanders&rsquo; fourth victory parade was not held until five days after their clinching win over the Oilers, but the delay did not dampen the enthusiasm of the fans. Police estimated that upwards of 100,000 spectators lined the parade route on Hempstead Turnpike&hellip;Arbour, feeling &ldquo;totally drained,&rdquo; was examined by the team&rsquo;s internist, Dr. George Gilbert, and was found to be suffering from exhaustion. The coach was warned to stay in bed for 24 hours and not attend the team&rsquo;s private party thrown by club owner John O. Pickett two nights after the clincher&hellip;Seven Islanders postponed leaving on a Puerto Rican vacation, courtesy of management, in order to visit President Reagan at the White House. They were Trottier, Smith, Persson, Bossy, Denis Potvin, Bob Bourne and John Tonelli&hellip;The Isles&rsquo; slogan has been changed from &ldquo;GO 4 IT&rdquo; to &ldquo;STRIVE FOR FIVE.&rdquo;. &#9632;

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The Cup-Winning Islanders’ New Motto Is, ‘Strive For Five’

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div>LANDOVER&mdash;The Washington Capitals, who felt compelled to go with three defensemen in crucial Stanley Cup playoff games, have come up with the man they consider capable of making a fourth.Peter Andersson, who twice has played for Sweden in the World Championships, agreed to a multi-year contract with Washington and immediately was tabbed for a key role on the power play, the team&rsquo;s major liability in the playoff loss to the New York Islanders.&ldquo;Maybe Peter Andersson and Darrer Veitch (injured most of the 1982-83 season) will be what we need to make the power play go,&rdquo; Caps&rsquo; GM David Poile said. &ldquo;Rod Langway, Brian Engblom and Scott Stevens can kill the penalties and handle the defensive situations. Now I hope we&rsquo;ll get the offensive play we&rsquo;ve lacked back there.&rdquo;Andersson, 21, has been coveted b) Washington since he was drafted in the ninth round in 1980. However, he repeatedly rejected offers by the Capitals and instead stayed at home, enhancing his reputation while playing with Bjorkloven (eight goals, 16 assists in 34 games last season) and the Swedish National team.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know the background, because I wasn&rsquo;t here then, but I think maybe Peter, when drafted, knew he wasn&rsquo;t ready for such a big move and wanted a couple of years to grow,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;The national team experience certainly helped him and he is confident now that he can make it. He wanted to come.&ldquo;He has all the qualities to be a defenseman of the &rsquo;80s. His skating is excellent, his passing and shooting are good. He gets the puck out of his own end and gets the play moving. I have to take the cautious approach and say there will be an adjustment period&mdash;most Europeans need one. But we&rsquo;re going to go with him.&rdquo;Andersson, 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, is the fifth Swedish player to join the Capitals. Bengt Gustafsson has been a standout for four seasons, but three others&mdash;Rolf Edberg, Leif Svensson and Roland Stoltz&mdash;returned home after disappointing National Hockey League trials.The failure of that trio, along with the Capitals&rsquo; poor competitive position in previous seasons, is believed to have been a key factor in Andersson&rsquo;s earlier refusals to join the NHL team.Andersson is considered one of the top young prospects in international hockey and Gunnar Nordstrom, columnist for the Swedish paper, Expresson Stockholm, called him &ldquo;undoubtedly the best Swedish defenseman&rdquo; in the recent World Championships.Jack Button, the Capitals&rsquo; director of player personnel, said, &ldquo;Peter Anders son is a fine young man and he will be an outstanding NHL defenseman once he adapts to the difference in play.&rdquo;After announcing Andersson&rsquo;s signing, Poile went to Portland, Ore., for the Memorial Cup.&rsquo; He also attended the Stanley Cup luncheon to discuss a possible deal with other NHL GMs.&ldquo;Peter Andersson was my No. 1 priority,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;Now that he has signed, I can turn to other things. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re short in forwards and I&rsquo;d like to acquire one or two. Just about any of our forwards is available if I can make the right move.&rdquo;Since Poile dealt away perennial Capital heroes Ryan Walter and Rick Green a week after assuming his job last summer, current Capitals and their fans were advised that Poile wasn&rsquo;t kidding this time, either. &#9632;

Caps Strengthen Defense With Addition Of Swede

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021180/4927047-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg"></div>THE INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY WEEKLYFounded in 1947 by Kenneth W. McKenzieTHE HOCKEY NEWS, (ISSN 0018-3016) is published weekly except monthly June through September by W.C.C. Publishing Ltd., 85 Scarsdale Road, # 100, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3B 2R2 (416) 445-5702. In U.S. c/o W.C.C. Publishing Corp., 850 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022.&ldquo;YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $1995 in the U.SA $1995 in Canada. $34.95 in Foreign Countries. Send all Canadian and Foreign subscription orders to THE HOCKEY NEWS. P.O. Box 13035. Postal Station A. Toronto. Ont M5W 1V7. U.S. subscription requests should be mailed to Box 904 Buffalo. N. Y. 14240 Please allow 4-6 weeks for processing.SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE HOCKEY NEWS. 85 Scarsdale Road #100, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3B 2R2. Second Class mail Rgistration No. 1327. All inquiries pertaining to subscriptions should be addressed to Subscription Dept., The Hockey News, 85 Scarsdale Road, #100, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3B 2R2.IN THE UNITED STATES: Second class postage paid at New York. NY and at additional mailing officesU.S. POSTMASTER send address change to The Hockey News. P. O. Box 904. Buffalo. N.Y. 14240<div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031014/4927040-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="53" height="40"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div>Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations &#9632;

f0004-02

The Hockey News

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011130/4927078-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="287" height="338"></div>We have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.&mdash;Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 1940.We will have to work very hard.&mdash;Al Arbour, 1983.<h2>Game Of War</h2>HOCKEY IS A war-game on ice. With that in mind, the New York Islanders&rsquo; triumph at Uniondale can best be compared to the Battle of Britain in 1940 and the Battle of Midway in 1942.In its scope and meaning, the Isles&rsquo; destruction of the Edmonton Oilers is metaphorically linked to Britain and Midway, two crossroads of modem warfare.Consider the parallels: First, the Battle of Britain. Early in the summer of 1940, the Nazis blitzed the Allies out of France. Adolf Hitler believed he would soon sail across the English Channel and dictate the British surrender terms.The Oilers devastated the Winnipeg Jets, Calgary Flames and Chicago Black Hawks. &ldquo;Listening to the Edmonton talk,&rdquo; says Boston Bruin defenseman Mike Milbury. &ldquo;you had to think the Oilers were going to waste the Islanders.&rdquo;With a mighty air force the Germans pulverized England. Britain was reeling and wounded. On September 15, 1940, Winston Churchill asked Air Vice Marshal Keith Park, &ldquo;What other reserves have you?&rdquo; Park told the Prime Minister. &ldquo;There are none.&rdquo;Wayne Gretzky, Glenn Anderson, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe and Jari Kurri gave the Oilers unmatched Firepower. They were ready for the kill. Grievously wounded, the Islanders were running out of reserves. Stefan Persson, Dave Langevin, Ken Morrow, Clark Gillies, Billy Carroll, Bryan Trottier and Mike Bossy were all injured in one form or another. To some neutral observers, the Islanders appeared ready to surrender.&ldquo;England,&rdquo; said the quitting French in July 1940, &ldquo;will have her neck wrung like a chicken.&rdquo; But the undermanned Britain took the enemy&rsquo;s best blows and exploited its precious few assets to advantage.In Game One. the Oilers tried to batter the Islanders into submission. At the start, Mark Messier tossed a decapitation crosscheck at Tomas Jonsson. Messier later pulverized Anders Kallur with a vicious elbow. With Bossy sidelined, the Isles attack produced only one goal but they craftily learned to husband their assets. They took the first round.The Nazis thought Great Britain&rsquo;s morale would crumble under the incessant bombing. They made plans for &ldquo;Operation Sea Lion&rdquo;&mdash;the Invasion of England.Like the British in 1940, the 1983 Islanders remained calm under the disciplined leadership of Al Arbour, their Churchill. On the other side, panic was evident as Glen Sather blew his cool before the second game. &ldquo;Sather,&rdquo; says Mike Milbury. &ldquo;did himself and his team a disservice.&rdquo; The Islanders took the second round.As The Battle of Britain unfolded, the English still faced overwhelming odds and were expected to crack. But the Germans misjudged them and the Axis intelligence&mdash;like Oiler planning&mdash;was filled with errors.For two periods of Game Three, the Oilers mercilessly strafed Billy Smith but produced only one goal. Super-weapon Gretzky was jammed. In the third period, the Isles Spitfires and Hurricanes outshot the invaders. The third round went to the Isles.On September 17, 1940 the Nazis announced: &ldquo;The enemy air force is by no means defeated; on the contrary, it shows increased activity. The Fuhrer, therefore, decides to postpone (Operation) Sea Lion indefinitely.&rdquo;On May 17, 1983 the battered Trottier, the tonsil-plagued Bossy, the limping Gillies and the bruised Persson were by no means defeated. On the contrary, they showed increased activity. Trottier, Bossy and John Tonelli smashed through for First-period goals. The Final score was 4-2. The war was over. The Islanders had won it.Second: The Battle of Midway. Like the Battle of Britain, the Battle of Midway pitted a battered group of warriors against one of the most formidable armadas in history. American battleships had been wiped out at Pearl Harbor. A carrier, the Yorktown, had been so badly battered at Coral Sea it was thought three months of work would be necessary to ready it for battle again. But the Yorktown was repaired in less than two days.Dave Langevin was the Yorktown of the Islanders. His wounded knee had been reduced to one ligament. It was said he would never play hockey again. Yet, Langevin limped into battle and, like the Yorktown, was decisive in the ultimate victory.Entering the Battle of Midway, the Japanese were confident to the point of cockiness. They thought the Americans could be intimidated. They misread the genius of Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, a very quiet man. Spruance could have been Al Arbour.&ldquo;Arbour out-coached Sather by a wide margin,&rdquo; said coach Paul Arseneault of the Canadian university Concordia Stingers. &ldquo;The Islanders were prepared to play three different ways. The Oilers could play only one.&rdquo;One by one, the Oilers&rsquo; Glenn Anderson, Jari Kurri, Kevin Lowe, Ken Kinseman and Paul Coffey were erased as major offensive threats. Edmonton&rsquo;s great offense, like the grandiose Japanese fleet, was reduced to nothingness.There was one other pertinent resemblance between the British and Americans in the Second World War and the Stanley Cup champions. All three of them always won one battle&mdash;the last.<h2>No Cups For Edmonton</h2>THERE ARE THOSE who believe that someday the Oilers will win the Stanley Cup. Do not believe it. As long as Glen Sather runs the Oilers, they can be stopped.The Oilers remind me of two baseball teams and Gretzky reminds me of one baseball player.First, the Oilers are the Boston Red Sox of the mid and late 1940s&mdash;on paper one of the best baseball teams of all time. Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Rudy York, Pinky Higgins, Bobby Doerr, Tex Hughson. They hit, the the Oilers score. They were supposed to win 10 World Series in a decade. They won zip. They went seven games against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1946, lost the finale, 4-3, and still haven&rsquo;t won the Series.Wayne Gretzky is Ted Williams&mdash;a winner, but not a champion. That&rsquo;s an important distinction. One season Williams hit .406, better than anybody has ever done since. But Williams has no World Series ring and Gretzky, with all his style and grace, may never have a Stanley Cup ring.The Edmonton Oilers are also the Philadelphia Phillies of 1950, otherwise known as &lsquo;The Whiz Kids&rsquo; because, like the Oilers, they were kids and they could whiz. They ran like rabbits and pitched like Prometheus-times-ten.Richie Ashbum, Dick Sisler, Eddie Waitkus, Del Ennis and Mike Goliat won them a pennant. The pitchers&mdash;Robin Roberts, Jim Konstanty and Ken Heintzelman&mdash;were supposed to deliver the World Series.They played the New York Yankees in the 1950 World Series. The Yankees, similar to the Islanders, had been there before. And similar to the Islanders, the Yankees read all the &lsquo;Whiz Kid&rsquo; hype. They digested it and then deposited the same in the nearest spittoon, where it belonged.After every loss, the Phillies&rsquo; lockerroom echoed with the same alibis that sounded like the drone of bagpipes; same as we heard from Glenn Anderson and Glen Sather. &ldquo;If, if, if&hellip;&rdquo; They iffed until the cows came home. The Yanks beat &rsquo;em, 1-0, then, 2-1, then, 3-2. A faesmile of the Oilers, the Phils kept promising, &ldquo;Hey, we&rsquo;ll get &rsquo;em next time.&rdquo; Next time came and the Yankees wrapped it up, 5-2. Four games. Out! Oilers. Four games out!The Phillie &lsquo;Whiz Kids&rsquo; were as arrogant as the Oilers, if that&rsquo;s possible. They promised a Series win next year. But there was no next year. It never came for those Phillies and it will never come for the Oilers as long as Sather is coaching. Nor will it ever come if Gretzky persists in taking the dives and then bawling to the officials. Nor will it come if the Oilers play the same guttersnipe hockey&mdash;Gretzky, Kurri and a few clean ones excluded&mdash;played by their glory-less leader when he was tramping around the NHL.<h2>Billy Smith Perspective</h2>EVERY SPRING BILL Smith delivers an unchallengable declaration to his bosses: &ldquo;Doi ever let you down?&rdquo; The answer has been identical through the playoff finals of 1980 (vs. Pete Peeters); in 1981 (vs. Gilles Meloche and Don Beaupre); in 1982 (vs. Richard Brodeur) and 1983 (vs. Andy Moog). He never, ever, lets them down.On performance, Smith now must be classified with the all-time greats. He&rsquo;s a better playoff goalie than Terry Sawchuk, Glenn Hall, Bill Duman and Frankie (Mister Zero) Brimsek. Take my word for it; I&rsquo;ve seen them all, many times.As a stylist, Smith cannot match the textbook splits of a Jacques Plante or the angling of Ken Dryden, nor the cool of Turk Broda. But neither Plante, nor Dryden nor Broda ever kept their respective teams in a game as Smith did in Game One of the finals.The 1983 finals demonstrated that Smith beats Broda in the clutch and he is more than Dryden&rsquo;s equal. I cannot imagine Plante ever coming up with as many big saves as Smith in as many tough situations.Critics say Smith is dirty. That&rsquo;s a laugh. Ten times more vicious uncalled slashing takes place on the other 185 feet of ice than in the vicinity of his crease. Smith has become a convenient scapegoat, has hurt no one in three years and, as any coach will tell you, would be welcome on 20 other NHL teams, no questions asked.<h2>About The Isles</h2>THAT THE ISLANDERS have now won 16 straight playoff series clearly lifts them over the Montreal (five-straight Cups) Canadiens of 1956-60 (10 straight series). &ldquo;The Islanders,&rdquo; says Hall of Fame referee Bill Chadwick, &ldquo;are the greatest team I&rsquo;ve ever seen.&rdquo; The Habs&rsquo; five-straight Cup-winners may have had more front-line power&mdash;Maurice and Henri Richard, Dickie Moore, Bernie Geoffrion, Jean Beliveau, Bert Olmstead&mdash;but the Canadiens didn&rsquo;t have the good grinders. The Canadiens had two top defensemen in Doug Harvey and Tom Johnson but just average backliners after that. The Isles defense corps as a unit is head-and-shoulders over that Hab crew. Emile Francis, who has seen them both, says the 1983 Islanders would beat the 1956-60 Canadiens in a best-of-seven series. &#9632;

f0005-01

ON THE CONTRARY

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT&mdash;Jimmy Devellano can&rsquo;t quite comprehend the situation and there are probably a lot of others with the same sentiments.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s ludicrous&hellip;imagine the New York Islanders picking ahead of the Red Wings,&rdquo; said Devellano, general manager of the Wings.The four-time Stanley Cup champion Islanders have the New Jersey Devils&rsquo; top pick in this month&rsquo;s National Hockey League&rsquo;s entry draft. Of course, the Islanders are picking ahead of other have-nots, too, and not just Detroit.What brings all this on are rumors that the Wings are still trying to trade for the No. 1 pick in the draft and a shot at Pat Lafontaine, the junior whiz from Verdur who grew up and learned his hockey ii suburban Waterford, just north of Detroit.The Wings have the No. 4 pick overall and as much as they&rsquo;d like to upgrade their position in the draft, Devellano said it&rsquo;s not likely.&ldquo;No, not really,&rdquo; Devellano said when asked if he thought Lafontaine was within the Wings&rsquo; grasp.&ldquo;Obviously, we have had discussions with the people ahead of us. Two of those teams are Minnesota and the Islanders and they don&rsquo;t really want to trade. Neither does Emile Francis (of Hartford).&ldquo;Lou Nanne has said publicly that he would not take Reed Larson or John Ogrodnick even-up for the No. 1 draft and, besides, we wouldn&rsquo;t make that deal.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure we&rsquo;re not going to get a player just as good on the fourth pick.&rdquo;Meanwhile, Devellano continues to explore trade possibilities and other offseason matters, such as Larson&rsquo;s impending free agency. He&rsquo;ll become a free agent on July 1.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve offered him a real nice multiyear deal,&rdquo; Devellano said. &ldquo;Reed and his representative (attorney Ron Simon) have decided to test the free-agent waters. There&rsquo;s no ill-feeling or anything like that. They just want to see what&rsquo;s out there.&rdquo;Larson is clearly one of the Wings&rsquo; two best players (Ogrodnick being the other) and there&rsquo;s no denying his talent has still not reached its pinnacle. But he&rsquo;s been stuck with one of the NHL&rsquo;s worst teams since coming into the league in 1976-77 and never received the recognition he deserves. The only thing keeping Larson from perennial all-star recognition and a possible Norris Trophy as the outstanding defenseman is a good team.Look what a change of scenery did for Mark Howe.But the NHL&rsquo;s method of compensation forces interested teams to think again before signing a free agent. As good as Larson is, a team might not be willing to give up two No. 1 draft choices.This is Larson&rsquo;s second try in the free-agent market. Ted Lindsay, the Wings&rsquo; former GM, signed Larson to a hefty four-year contract in 1979. Last season, the 26-year-old from Minneapolis became only the third defenseman in NHL history&mdash;the others being Bobby On and Denis Potvin&mdash;to score 20 or more goals in four consecutive seasons.Devellano said trade talks with a number of teams continue but that there is nothing imminent.A trade of a blockbuster nature is widely-rumored. But Devellano said that the Detroit player most often mentioned, defenseman Willie Huber, isn&rsquo;t as available as people think.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not going to give him away,&rdquo; Devellano said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s too good a hockey player. We have to get equal value if somebody wants him.&rdquo; &#9632;

Winos Don’t Expect To Land Lafontaine

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-07" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-07136/4927206-1-eng-US/f0006-072.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0006-07

NHL Playoff Picture

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03629/4927161-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="505" height="109"></div>It was billed as The Dream Series, the high-flying offense of the Edmonton Oilers against the experience and defensive grit of the New York Islanders. By the time it was over, however, the Oilers&rsquo; dream finish turned into a nightmare and the Islanders captured their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup by sweeping the first four games.No one expected such a quick final, but then no one expected the Islanders to show near-perfect form after a mediocre regular season. Even in the semi-finals against the Boston Bruins, the Islanders fell victim to inconsistency.The big story of the final was the netminding of Billy Smith, who despite his reputation as a notorious stick man. may well go down in hockey history as the best &ldquo;money&rdquo; goaltender ever.So, for the Islanders it&rsquo;s another summer of celebration. For the Oilers, it&rsquo;s a summer of &ldquo;wait til next year.&rdquo;The following are capsule reports of the four games:<div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011311/4927175-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="149" height="142"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2>ISLANDERS vs EDMONTON</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02956/4927168-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="131" height="130"></div>Game One: Veteran netminder Billy Smith held a hot hand as the New York Islanders stunned the Edmonton Oilers 2-0 at the Northlands Coliseum.There was no question that Smith&rsquo;s invincibility turned the tide for the Islanders. Smith stopped 35 shots in shutting down the awesome Edmonton offense, the first time the Oilers had been blanked by an opposing NHL team since March 12, 1981, a span of 198 games. Ironically, Smith was the culprit the last time it happened to the Oilers.&ldquo;This one was special. I guess I played my heart out,&rdquo; said Smith after Edmonton&rsquo;s second loss in 12 playoff games. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great feeling. But, to be honest, they missed a few. It was a wonderful way to start off a playoff series.&rdquo;With Smith frustrating the Oilers, the Islanders didn&rsquo;t need much offense to win the game. Duane Sutter&rsquo;s eighth playoff goal at 5:36 of the first period was enough. Defenseman Ken Morrow scored into the empty Edmonton goal with 12 seconds left.The Oilers clearly were the aggressors but the Islanders were superb in their own end of the rink, taking away the slot area from the Edmonton shooters. On this night, it was truly a case of the defense beating the offense.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2>Tue. May 10</h2>ISLANDERS 2, EDMONTON 0First PeriodIslanders 1 &mdash; D. Sutter 8 (Bourne, Persson) 5:36.Penalties &mdash; Morrow (NYI) 1:15; Hunter (Edm) 3:21; Persson (NYI) 9:44; Smith (NYI) 11:10; Anderson (Edm) 11:19; Hunter (Edm) 14:57; Potvin (NYI) 15:07; Linseman (Edm) 15:34.Second PeriodNo scoring.Penalties &mdash; Jonsson (NYI) 0:39; Nystrom (NYI) 9:27.Third PeriodIslanders 2 &mdash; Morrow 3 19:48.Penalties &mdash; Jonsson (NYI) 0:51; Gillies (NYI), Lumley (Edm) 3:18; B. Sutter (NYI), Anderson (Edm) 4:27.Attendance: 17,498.(Islanders lead best-of-seven series 1-0)Game Two: The Oilers began to have their doubts that a powerful offense was enough to overcome the Islanders in the Stanley Cup final.For the second straight game, the Oilers carried the play but came up short, losing 6-3.The close-checking Islanders continued to master the faster-skating Oilers with the help of another solid goalkeeping performance from Billy Smith, who handled 33 shots compared to 25 for Edmonton&rsquo;s Andy Moog. Moog did not have a good game and it contributed to the Oilers being caught up in another frustrating night in which the Islanders&rsquo; experience was rapidly taking over.A three-goal assault in the first period forced the Oilers into a catch-up situation and, while they managed to close the gap to 3-2, they couldn&rsquo;t overcome the Islanders, who forced them into errors and gradually took over the play the rest of the way.Brent Sutter led the Islanders with two goals, his eighth and ninth of the playoffs. Tomas Jonsson, Bob Nystrom, Mike Bossy and Bob Bourne notched the other New York goals. Dave Semenko, Glenn Anderson and Jari Kurri were the Edmonton scorers.Wayne Gretzky assisted on two of the goals to raise his playoff points total to 36 for a new record. Mike Bossy held the old mark of 35.But Gretzky drew more attention by confronting Billy Smith after the Islander goaltender swung his stick and hit Gretzky in the leg. Smith later claimed it was a love tap, but Gretzky and the Oilers obviously felt differently. The game closed on a sour note when Oiler Dave Lumley intentionally speared Smith in the chest, a retaliatory move which only served to make the stick-swinging incidents take precedent over the fact that the Islanders once again did a masterful job of shutting down the Oiler offense.<h2>Thu. May 12</h2>ISLANDERS 6, EDMONTON 3First PeriodEdmonton 1 &mdash; Semenko 1 (Roulston, Huddy) 8:39.Islanders 2 &mdash; Jonsson 2 (D. Sutter, B. Sutter) 14:21.3 &mdash; Nystrom 7 (Trottier) 17:55.4 &mdash; Bossy 16 (Potvin) 19:17.Penalties &mdash; B. Sutter (NYI) 2:36; Linseman (Edm) 4:44; Hughes (Edm) 5:17; Kallur (NYI) 5:51.Second PeriodEdmonton 5 &mdash; Kurri 6 (Anderson, Gretzky) 5:07.Islanders 6 &mdash; Bourne 7 (D. Sutter) 8:03.7 &mdash; B. Sutter 8 (Morrow) 8:41.Penalty &mdash; Jonsson (NYI) 14:50.Third PeriodEdmonton 8 &mdash; Anderson 10 (Fogolin, Gretzky) 4:48.Islanders 9 &mdash; B. Sutter 9 (D. Sutter, Jonsson) 14:11.Penalties &mdash; Persson (NYI) 11:22; Kurri (Edm) 13:14; Trottier (NYI) 13:27; Smith (NYI) major 17:56; Lumley (Edm) maior 19:24.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-04418/4927154-1-eng-US/f0006-042.jpg" title="f0006-04" width="505" height="108"></div>Attendance: 17,498.(Islanders lead best-of-seven series 2-0)Game Three: The pendulum continued to swing with the New York Islanders as they chalked up their third straight victory over the Edmonton Oilers, winning with ease 5-1, and putting them within one game of clinching their fourth straight Stanley Cup.Four unaswered goals in the final period all but blew the Oilers out of the series as they dropped behind 3-0 in the best-of-seven final. The Islanders again held the upper hand as goalie Billy Smith turned in another strong effort, kicking out 32 of the 33 shots the frustrated Oilers fired at him. The game was reminiscent of the first two in which the Oilers were repelled by Smith almost every time they had the puck. Smith managed to blank Edmonton ace Wayne Gretzky for the third straight time and the disappointment of not scoring was beginning to show.Anders Kallur, Bob Bourne, Ken Morrow, Duane and Brent Sutter were the marksmen for the Islanders. Third-period goals by Bourne and Morrow less than a minute apart broke the 1-1 game wide open and the Islanders skated away with another win when the Sutters connected twice in the closing four minutes of play. Jari Kurri scored the lone Edmonton goal in the second period on a power play, one of the few times the Oilers had been able to score in the series with the man advantage.<h2>Sat. May 14</h2>EDMONTON 1, ISLANDERS 5First PeriodIslanders 1 &mdash; Kallur 3 (Bossy, Morrow) 19:41.Penalties &mdash; Messier (Edm), B. Sutter (NYI) 4:01; Anderson (Edm) 5:16.Second PeriodEdmonton 2 &mdash; Kurri 7 (Gretzky) 1:05.Penalties &mdash; Bourne (NYI) 0:54; Potvin (NYI) 3:42; Lane (NYI) 7:31; Hunter (Edm) 10:32.Third PeriodIslanders 3&mdash;Bourne 8 (Persson, Langevin) 5:11.4 &mdash; Morrow 4 (Trottier, Kallur) 6:21.5 &mdash; D. Sutter 9 (Bourne, B. Sutter) 16:43.6 &mdash; B. Sutter 10 (Potvin, D. Sutter) 19:42.Penalties &mdash; Bourne (NYI) 8:39; Hunter (Edm) 18:33.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-05340/4927147-1-eng-US/f0006-052.jpg" title="f0006-05" width="494" height="110"></div>Attendance: 15,317.(Islanders lead best-of-seven series 3-0)Game Four: The amazing New York Islanders took their place in Stanley Cup playoff history by sweeping the Edmonton Oilers to win their fourth straight NHL playoff championship and become only the third team to achieve the feat.Highlighted by the remarkable goalkeeping of Billy Smith, the Islanders wrote an end to the young Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; Cup dreams by defeating them 4-2.The Islanders became the first U.S. team to win four consecutive Cups as they ranked alongside the Montreal Canadiens, who won five times from 1956 to 1960 and four times from 1976 to 1979. No other team in NHL history, other than the Islanders and Canadiens, has been able to win the Cup four consecutive years.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-06244/4927140-1-eng-US/f0006-062.jpg" title="f0006-06" width="1160" height="1547"><figcaption class="caption-body">New York Islander winger Bob Nystrom, a strong playoff performer, celebrates with the Stanley Cup held high over his head.</figcaption></div>Smith, who was in hot water constantly throughout the series for his incidents with Wayne Gretzky and Glenn Anderson of the Oilers, also emerged as the big playoff hero for the Islanders. He won all four games, held the Oilers to seven goals&mdash;none by Gretzky&mdash;to come up the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs, the first goalie to win the award since Bernie Parent of Philadelphia in 1975.The Islanders wasted little time laying claim to their fourth consecutive Cup as they scored three times in the space of one minute and 37 seconds midway in the first period. Even though the Oilers battled back to narrow the New York lead to 3-2, they never scored again as Smith held them off in the third period with some miraculous saves.Bryan Trottier, John Tonelli, Mike Bossy and Ken Morrow, into the empty Edmonton net at 18:51 of the third period, were the Islander scorers. Bossy scored what proved to be the game winner, his fifth of the playoffs, as he also took his place in playoff scoring history. It was his second series-winning goal of his career, making him only the sixth player to ever record the milestone. Toe Blake. Jean Beliveau, Henri Richard, Jacques Lemaire and Bobby Orr did it before him. Bossy finished as the top goal scorer of the playoffs with 17.Jari Kurri and Mark Messier, with his 15th, counted the Edmonton goals. Gretzky earned an assist to finish with 38 points, tops in the playoffs, but the young superstar was the picture Of dejection when the game ended, having failed to score once against Smith in the four games.<h2>Tue. May 17</h2>EDMONTON 2, ISLANDERS 4First PeriodIslanders 1 &mdash; Trottier 8 (Gillies, Bossy) 11:02.2 &mdash; Tonelli 7 (Nystrom) 11:45.3 &mdash; Bossy 17 (Trottier) 12:39.Penalties &mdash; Coffey (Edm) double minor, B. Sutter (NYI) double minor 2:16; Gillies (NYI) 7:40; Lumley (Edm) 9:54.Second PeriodEdmonton 4 &mdash; Kurri 8 (Gretzky) 0:35.5&mdash; Messier 15 (Fogolin, Coffey) 19:39.Penalties &mdash; Bourne (NYI) 2:44; Lowe (Edm) 11:34; Jackson (Edm), Gillies (NYI) 11:41; Kallur (NYI) 12:19.Third PeriodIslanders 6 &mdash; Morrow 5 18:51.Penalties &mdash; Jackson (Edm) 5:10; Jonsson (NYI) 8:16; Anderson (Edm) major 8:26; Trottier (NYI) 10:18.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011169/4927133-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="505" height="113"></div>Attendance: 15,317.(Islanders win best-of-seven series 4-0) &#9632;

f0006-03

Battlin’ Billy Leads Islanders To Fourth Cup

IT WAS BILLED as the Dream Series. It was supposed to be the best Stanley Cup final match-up in more than a decade. It had the hockey world buzzing like it hadn&rsquo;t buzzed in a long, long time.But when it was all said and done, when Denis Potvin hoisted the Cup and took his annual stroll around Nassau Coliseum, it was nothing less than a major disappointment. The Dream Series had become something of a nightmare.Oh, the on-ice performances were great. The New York Islanders&rsquo; four-game sweep of the Edmonton Oilers was not to blame. Although the series was two or three games shorter than most of us so-called experts figured, it still provided some outstanding entertainment. Billy Smith&rsquo;s heroic clutch goaltending efforts. The Isles&rsquo; determined forechecking and textbook defense. The Oilers&rsquo; relentless offensive thrusts and undying spirit in the face of an omnipotent champion.We can only hope that a retrospective of the 1983 final will include the aforementioned highlights, but it&rsquo;s more likely that the recently-concluded Stanley Cup final will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.It will be remembered for Oiler coach Glen Sather bleating about the nasty stick habits of Billy Smith, which, in this instance anyway, were nothing to get worked up over.It will be remembered for Oiler superstar center Wayne Gretzky standing face-to-face with Smith in Game Two after the latter struck the former on the pant leg with his goalie stick.It will be remembered for Oiler winger Dave Lumley spearing Smith in the chest, apparently evening the score for the hit on Gretzky.It will be remembered for the shoddy journalism by non-hockey writers and editors in Edmonton, specifically the Edmonton Journal&rsquo;s front-page feature entitled: PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1, a blazing red headline riddled with bullet holes and an accompanying story that quoted an unnamed person calling Billy Smith &ldquo;a creep.&rdquo;It will be remembered for Billy Smith acting as if he had been shot in the face in Game Four when, in reality, he had been hardly touched on the mask by the tip of Glenn Anderson&rsquo;s stick.It will be remembered for referee Andy van Hellemond giving Anderson a five-minute major when everyone who saw the replay knew that Smith was faking it.It will be remembered for NHL president John Ziegler making the Conn Smythe Trophy (playoff MVP) presentation to Smith, praising him for his exemplary behavior in leading the Islanders to their fourth consecutive Cup.It will be remembered for Smith who, after accepting the award on national television in the United States and Canada, told professional hockey&rsquo;s largest single audience that he was indeed faking it and that van Hellemond had indeed been made to look foolish.The Stanley Cup final is supposed to be a showcase for the entire sport. Thanks to the ranting of Sather and the raving of Smith, it wasn&rsquo;t. Neither man needs to indulge in these childish antics. Sather has done a fine job of building the young Oilers into an NHL power, one that is destined to challenge for many more Stanley Cups. Smith is the best &ldquo;money&rdquo; goaltender in the game today, maybe of all time.Yet both men chose to take hockey&rsquo;s finest moment and try to cheapen it with their two-bit theatrical performances. It started to become like some vaudeville routine or carnival sideshow.Worse yet, the Stanley Cup final attracts viewers that may not normally watch NHL hockey. The finals of any major league, be it baseball, the NFL or NBA, draw the casual observor and his impressions of the championship can either induce him to continue being a fan or realize he was right all along not to be an avid disciple of that sport.Anyone who watched and listened to Billy Smith, with the league president on his shoulder, do a disservice to the game on national television could hardly have any respect for NHL hockey.That&rsquo;s unfortunate because the Islanders are great and classy champions, as dominant as any one team can be in any professional sport. The Oilers, too, are a great team that lacks only maturity.After Sather&rsquo;s tirade between Games One and Two in Edmonton, Islander coach Al Arbour, who epitomizes Islander class, noted that the Stanley Cup final was being turned into &ldquo;a Ringling Bros, circus.&rdquo;We hate to admit it, but Arbour&rsquo;s observation was right on the money. &#9632;

Step Right Up

<div class="byline">BY AL STRACHAN</div>Most Canadians are naturally disappointed that Saskatoon was not successful in its attempt to acquire a National Hockey League franchise.From this long-time proponent of an all-Canadian league (league, not division), there will be no suggestion that an NHL team in Saskatoon is not a worthwhile concept.On the other hand, it is difficult to understand the total inability of most Canadians to comprehend the NHL&rsquo;s reasoning in turning down the Saskatoon application.Even a week after the fact, a number of misconceptions concerning that Saskatoon franchise continue to be aired. Statements have been made that simply do not bear close examination. Here are some of those statements and the reasons their validity is suspect:A Saskatoon franchise would be a lot better for the NHL than franchises such as Pittsburgh.The Pittsburgh franchise is definitely a thorn in the side of the NHL. For that matter, so is the St. Louis franchise. But, if it were your side, would you rather have the thorn extracted or would you prefer to have it replaced by another thorn? The NHL chose extraction. They would rather see St. Louis fold than have it replaced by a shaky Saskatoon franchise.The Saskatoon franchise wasn&rsquo;t shaky. It had lots of financial backing.That is only partly true and that was the big problem. The Saskatoon promoters had backers, all right, but there were severe limitations. Two huge loans would have had to have been repaid before the year was out. Furthermore, there was no single person to come forward and say, &ldquo;Look, don&rsquo;t worry. I&rsquo;ve got millions of dollars and I&rsquo;m willing to put them into the team if unforeseen problems crop up.&rdquo; The Saskatoon backer with the highest profile was Bill Hunter, but he didn&rsquo;t invest any money. He simply stood to gain 25 per cent of the club if the deal went through. _The Saskatoon franchise had the backing of the Saskatchewan Government, and, even though there was a lien on the franchise, that was simply good business.But what happens if the arena, which was supposed to be built in world-record time, didn&rsquo;t meet the deadline? What happens if a miscalculation or a strike sees the building unfinished when the Saskatoon winter starts? The team could easily spend an entire year playing in the Regina Agridome, which isn&rsquo;t even as big as the Calgary Corral. The Calgary people made allowances for a small arena; the Saskatoon people didn&rsquo;t. What happens if the roof collapses as happened in Hartford and Philadelphia? The result of any of these disasters could be a financial debacle and the Government would have to get involved. The NHL governors shuddered at the prospect.Saskatoon has 18,500 requests for season tickets. The gurantees success.Requests for season tickets became a matter of civic pride in Saskatoon. If you didn&rsquo;t make a request, you were worse than an Easterner. The NHL governors weren&rsquo;t convinced that the support would last.Saskatoon is hockey country. People know hockey and they&rsquo;ll show up to watch it.Winnipeg is hockey country, too, just as much as Saskatoon is. And just as Saskatoon expects to do, Winnipeg enjoyed sellouts when the NHL first came to town. But, now, the Jets average about 3,000 empty seats a game. The Jets didn&rsquo;t even come close to selling out their playoff game in April, even though Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers provided the opposition. And there are more people in greater Winnipeg than there are within a 180mile radius of Saskatoon.Hockey interest in Saskatoon is much greater than it is in many NHL-represented areas of the United States.True enough. But, if one per cent of Los Angeles residents went to NHL games, the Kings would draw more than 70,000 a game. If 10 per cent of Saskatoon residents went to NHL games, the team would draw 15,000. Saskatoon boosters say this is an unfair comparison. They say you have to consider a 180-mile radius. Okay, let&rsquo;s do it. That still provides only one-tenth of the population of Los Angeles. Hockey interest is indeed higher in Western Canada, but it has to be if the club isn&rsquo;t to go bankrupt. Saskatoon is painted into a comer by that population base.-If interest were to wane even slightly, the club would be in trouble.This team would raise money by public subscription and be owned by the people.What&rsquo;s wrong with that? Petro-Canada is owned by the people, too. So is the Post Office. So is the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. Do the people of Saskatoon really want a club that costs as much as Petro-Canada, is as efficient as the Post Office and loses as much money as the CBC? Anyway, all hockey clubs are owned by people who own shares in Ralston Purina Corp. This argument is a red herring.It&rsquo;s a Canadian game and we shouldn&rsquo;t be treated this way by Americans.Right. So why do we let many of our best players go to U.S. teams? Why did our Government remove the tax incentives that encourged hockey players to stay in Canada? Why do we let the U.S.-controlled NHL keep Canada&rsquo;s best players in the NHL playoffs every spring while the nation is being embarrassed at the World Championships?If we really want hockey to become Canadian again, there are a lot more important issues than hockey in Saskatoon. Let&rsquo;s deal with them first. Let&rsquo;s make the game Canadian again, then we&rsquo;ll easily be able to put a club in Saskatoon.This article first appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail &#9632;

Making Game Canadian Is No. 1 Priority

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div>MONTREAL&mdash;Bob Berry was relieved of his coaching duties with the Montreal Canadiens on April 13. Thirty-eight days later, the new coach of the Canadiens was&hellip;Bob Berry.While his re-appointment to the Canadiens&rsquo; hot seat was not a total surprise, it did not meet with the full approval of the Montreal media. There were those who would have rather seen Jacques Lemaire, who was named as assistant coach, brought in as the No. 1 man. Already there are those who are suggesting that Berry better win because Lemaire is right behind him, ready to take over.Berry, Lemaire and Jacques Laperriere, Berry&rsquo;s other assistant, were introduced at a downtown news conference with Berry wearing the same suit he wore when he first grasped the Montreal coahcing reins on June 8, 1981.&ldquo;I would have been happier with a five-year contract,&rdquo; Berry said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m satisfied with the two they have given me.&rdquo;Berry&rsquo;s two assistants were also given two-year deals.Just how Berry planned to use Laperriere and Lemaire was not decided by the time the introductions were made to the media, but it is expected that Laperriere would be behind the bench and coaching the defense as he did for much of the second half last year, while Lemaire would remain upstairs taking notes in the press box.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t interested in the head coaching job,&rdquo; said Lemaire, 36, who coached this past season with the Longueuil Chevaliers, finalists in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.&ldquo;I feel I can contribute a lot. I&rsquo;ll be looking at the way the team and individuals are playing. When you are behind the bench, there are a lot of things a coach doesn&rsquo;t see.&rdquo;One of the main problems Berry had with former managing director Irving Grundman was the lack of say in trades made by the club. While he will not be in a position to block a deal under the new management, he will at least be asked to give his opinion.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not asking for a veto, just an opportunity to give an opinion,&rdquo; Berry noted. &ldquo;This has been more or less guaranteed.&rdquo;Berry made it quite clear last season that he had not been let in on the controversial deal which saw the Canadiens send all-star defensemen Rod Langway and Brian Engblom to the Washington Capitals, along with Doug Jarvis and Craig Laughlin, for Ryan Walter and Rick Green. What hurts is that Lang way enjoyed his best season in the NHL last season and is one of two finalists for the Norris Trophy as the league&rsquo;s best defensemen.&ldquo;I looked over what had happened with the Canadiens during the last two seasons and I believe that Bob was the best man for the head coaching job,&rdquo; said GM Serge Savard. &ldquo;I asked myself whether the Canadiens would have been eliminated in the first round (by Buffalo) if Bob had had a say in the trades.&rdquo;Savard also noted that the appointment of Berry would not be totally accepted by fans or the media, but noted that he was not going of allow himself to be influenced by either party.&ldquo;I think we have one of the finest coaching staffs in the NHL,&rdquo; Savard added, while Berry noted that the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres and Quebec Nordiques had coaching triumvirates.The majority of the Canadien players seemed satisfied with the recent decisions, including outspoken Guy Lafleur, who promised to do his talking on the ice in 1983-84 instead of in the newspapers.&ldquo;I was worried about what was going on in the front office,&rdquo; Lafleur said. &ldquo;They made trades last year that cost us key defensemen and forwards, too.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m impressed with what has been done so far. I&rsquo;m going to talk less in the papers and more on the ice.&rdquo;But some players should not get too comfortable because Berry and Savard have already gone through a lengthy analysis of the team personnel.&ldquo;We discussed which players we would like to get and which players we would like to get rid of,&rdquo; Berry said, refusing to expand on the remark.Berry left Montreal following the news conference to return to Los Angeles to clear up some personal business before coming back to Montreal two weeks before the June meetings.He looked relieved to be back&hellip;although it seemed as though he had never been away, despite the fact he had been given some scouting duties by team president Ronald Corey the day he swept out the front office.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d see you all again after April 13,&rdquo; Berry said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad things worked out.&rdquo;IN PASSING&mdash;The feeling is that with Berry back, Rejean Houle wil be forced into retirement and Chris Nilan will be dispatched elsewhere. Nilan had two open confrontations with Berry last season and the two are not the best of friends&hellip;Ryan Walter had a preliminary discussion with Savard in regard to a new contract&hellip;There is speculation that Jacques Plante will be the goaltending coach for the Canadiens next fall.. The Canadiens are expected to play their mid-week home games at 7:35 with the possibility that Saturdays could be switched from 8 p.m. also.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011236/4927309-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="552" height="933"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Berry won&rsquo;t get a chance to veto trades, but he will offer an opinion.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Berry’s Re-Appointment Draws Criticism

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>CALGARY&mdash;One European player joined the fold in May.Another at the end of next season&mdash;maybe.Cliff Fletcher, Calgary Flames&rsquo; GM, returned from the World Championships in West Germany with the news that Haken Loob, the club&rsquo;s hottest prospect, signed a contract with the National Hockey League team.That was the good news. The bad news is defenseman Pekka Rautakallio has elected to remain in Finland for another season.Rautakallio told Fletcher that he would be available April 1 of next year for sure. Because 1984 is an Olympic year, the Olympic hockey championships in February replace the world championships on the international hockey calendar.Accordingly, Rautakallio would become available once the Finnish season ends.&ldquo;He has a long list of commitments in Finland,&rdquo; reported Fletcher. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t feel it would be practical to come back next season.&rdquo;Fletcher said the Flames may or may not be interested in Rautakallio under his conditions.&ldquo;It would depend entirely on our situation then&mdash;how our defense is, whether we have anyone injured, whether he could still help us.&rdquo;Rautakallio will turn 30 in July.As for Loob, a right winger with the speed and scoring touch of Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; Mats Naslund, the long negotiations finally came to an end.Loob did not play for Sweden in the World Championships because of a broken collarbone. Nevertheless, Fletcher used the opportunity to negotiate a release with Loob&rsquo;s club team, Farjestads. Once that release was worked out, once the release from the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation was worked out, the Flames made the long-awaited announcement official.Loob, 23, a ninth-round choice in the 1980 entry draft, set a Swedish Elite Division record last season, accumulating 71 points in just 36 games.Loob signed a multi-year deal. Terms were not disclosed.Assistant GM Al MacNeil scouted Loob, a 5-foot-10 right winger, earlier this season and came away impressed.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to say bad things about him based on the games I saw him play,&rdquo; said MacNeil. &ldquo;The first time I saw him, he scored three and assisted on two more.&rdquo;Physically, MacNeil compared Loob to the Flames&rsquo; left winger Kevin Laval lee.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s stocky,&rdquo; said MacNeil. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good skater. He sees the ice. He likes to play the give-and-go. He&rsquo;s got all the basic tools of the scorer.&ldquo;The adjustment for him will be from the big ice in Europe to the 200-by-85 ice surface here. He&rsquo;ll probably find the guys get to him faster than he&rsquo;s used to. That&rsquo;s the area where he&rsquo;ll have the biggest correction or adjustment. If he does it, he&rsquo;ll be a pretty good player for us.&rdquo;MacNeil said Loob, unlike a lot of Swedish players, plays with &ldquo;pretty good intensity.&ldquo;He looks like he competes,&rdquo; said MacNeil. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what we have to be going after. Guys that don&rsquo;t compete will find themselves left by the wayside.&rdquo;Coach Bob Johnson said he does not intend to move Kent Nilsson from right wing back to center, meaning Loob and Nilsson will not play together on the same line. At least, not right away.IN BRIEF&mdash;The Flames committed a large public relations gaffe when they launched their season-ticket campaign for the new Olympic Saddledome. They reduced the prices of their tickets from $25 a seat to $19, $15. $11 and $8. Thinking they would have a hard time selling out the l6,200-seat building, they allowed all current season-ticket holders, about 8,000 people in all, to double the number of their seats. Many took advantage of the offer, leaving the people who purchased options on new seats and people on the lengthy waiting list staring at seats in the top third of the building. City newspapers were inundated with angry calls from people who felt they were misled or cheated by the team. The Flames&rsquo; owners convened an emergency meeting of the board to deal with the problem, although as this issue went to press, no resolution had been announced.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011289/4927340-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="557" height="706"><figcaption class="caption-body">Finnish defenseman Pekka Rautikallio says he won&rsquo;t be available until April 1.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Flames Welcome Loob To Fold

<div class="byline">BILL FLEISCHMAN&#x2019;S</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021000/4927371-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="291" height="341"></div><h2>Hail To The Isles</h2>THE ISLANDERS WIN a remarkable fourth consecutive Stanley Cup and you wonder where to begin a tribute to them?One temptation is to start comparing the Islanders to the only other teams to win at least four Stanley Cups in a row, the Montreal Canadiens of 1956-60 and 1976-79. But such comparisons will prove nothing. Montreal had great teams; the Islanders are a great team.Another temptation is to stomp on the Edmonton Oilers. After the Oilers had skated through Winnipeg and Calgary and then thoroughly demolished a good Chicago team, many people were picking the Oilers to embarrass the Islanders. Your faithful correspondent did not, I humbly note, join the masses leaping on to the Edmonton bandwagon. The implication was that Wayne Gretzky and friends would leave the three-time champion Islanders begging for mercy. Instead, the Oilers&rsquo; fans are importing the old Brooklyn Dodgers slogan, &ldquo;Wait &rsquo;til next year.&rdquo;You should wager your most prized Gordon Lightfoot album that either next year, or some year very soon, the Oilers will win a Stanley Cup. By then, it is assumed, the Oilers will have gained the necessary maturity to be champions. It is one thing to be cocky; it is another thing, however, not to strut. It won&rsquo;t matter to Glen Sather, who sets the tone for the Oilers, but there are more than a few people in hockey&mdash;general managers, coaches, players and press&mdash;who didn&rsquo;t exactly shed tears when the Oilers were swept by the Islanders.<h2>Team-Work Won It</h2>MORE ON SATHER and the Oilers later. This is a tribute to the Islanders, by far the most dominant team in professional sports. The emphasis is on team. The Islanders have great players&mdash;Bossy, Trottier, Potvin and yes, whether you like him or not, Billy Smith. But it is the team concept that has carried them to their summit. Just when they need it, along comes the line of the Sutters, Duane and Brent, and Bob Bourne. And there&rsquo;s Bob Nystrom, once again performing like a thoroughbred in the playoffs. And there&rsquo;s Ken Morrow, living in the dream world of an Olympic gold medal and four Stanley Cups, blossoming into an all-star caliber defenseman.This is a team that cares about each other, a final ingredient that so many talented teams in all sports never discover. The Islanders are Denis Potvin&rsquo;s father, Armand, battling cancer, hurrying to Long Island for the fourth game of the finals and again sharing in the Cup celebration. The Islanders are Bryan Trottier, normally the least emotional player on the club, leading the cheering fans in Nassau Coliseum. &ldquo;This was the most emotional Cup,&rdquo; Trottier said later. &ldquo;I wanted to tell the fans, &lsquo;We&rsquo;re the best.&rsquo; We belong to the fans. They&rsquo;re part of us. The Cup belongs to Long Island. They helped us win it. They pay dam good money for their tickets. We owe it to them to share the Cup.&rdquo;Can you imagine many spoiled baseball players talking like that about their fans? As much as it can in a business, the Islanders&rsquo; management cares about its team, too. General manager Bill Torrey often acts like an aloof college professor, but he cares. And Al Arbour rarely smiles but you know that inside he feels as close to these players as a coach can.<h2>A Class Act</h2>ALLOWING FAMILIES INTO the locker room is another special touch the Islanders have included. To the press, Stanley Cup celebrations are just another locker room to visit for interviews and then flee to the trusty computer to write another story. But to the families, especially the children, sharing a Stanley Cup celebration with the Bossys and Trottiers and Potvins is something they&rsquo;ll treasure forever. The Islanders have never been &lsquo;Flashdance&rsquo; on ice&mdash;they&rsquo;re more AT & T, but it works and it is all class.Well, maybe not all. Billy Smith&rsquo;s act detracts from the Islanders&rsquo; otherwise superb style. As the goaltender on the Isles&rsquo; four Cup champions, Smith will be remembered as one of the greatest pressure goalies ever. Sadly, people will also add, &ldquo;He was great, but, why did he have to act like he was trying out as an extra in &lsquo;Conan the Barbarian?&rsquo;&rdquo; Still, to long-time, stick-swinging Smith watchers, his outbursts against the Oilers were mild. Even teammates who have condemned some of Smith&rsquo;s previous stickwork were puzzled by the Oilers&rsquo; outraged reaction because this time they didn&rsquo;t think Smith was wrong.While the Islanders were puzzled, the rest of us were amused. I remember thinking, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s done it again&hellip;he has psyched out an opponent.&rdquo; Instead of concentrating on scoring goals, the Oilers were concentrating on trying to poke holes in Smith. Sather also fell for Smith&rsquo;s suffered act and wound up looking foolish when he waited until the day after the series opener, then demanded that Smith be suspended. The Islanders were correct in reminding Sather that &ldquo;this is the Stanley Cup finals, not the Ringling Brother Circus.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-02

HOCKEY WORLD

<div class="byline">BY BOB DONNELLY</div>QUEBEC&mdash;Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; president Marcel Aubut came back empty-handed from the recent World Championships in West Germany. He did, however, maintain a high profile during his European visit, according to reports on the wire service agencies. Aubut reportedly attended all of the Czeckoslovakian games.The Nordiques currently have four Czech players on their negotiation list, including the multi-talented Jiri Lala, who had nine goals and five assists in the tournament. Quebec still has one year to sign these players, then they are eligible to be drafted by any National Hockey League team.One thing clear is that it is much more difficult to convince Czech players to jump the team today than it was a few years ago.There is still evidence Quebec has ties with Czechoslovakian players&mdash;Darius Rusnak, Ladislav Svozil and Fran Cernik have already signed with the Nordiques, but have yet to come to Canada. These contracts were deposited with the National Hockey League before agreements were made with the Czech Hockey Federation concerning the possibility of their players coming to North America.Some of the aforementioned names have also surfaced in trade rumors while Quebec awaits the entry draft later this month.Quebec will draft 11th overall and the team priorities remain the same as last year: a good center and more help on defense. However, this year the Nordiques plan to draft the best player available in the opening round, no matter what position he plays. After that, Quebec will concentrate on a center and defenseman.&ldquo;We will not make up our final list until early in June,&rdquo; says Quebec director of recruiting Martin Madden. &ldquo;We may concentrate on players with junior elegibility remaining and let them stay with their teams for a year or two. You never know what to expect in the draft and who will actually be available when your turn comes. We have our priorities, but that may change according to what the other teams do before us in the first rounds.&rdquo;The Nordiques let forward Dale Hunter and defenseman Randy Mooller play an extra year in junior before they made the jump to the NHL. Coach Michel Bergeron seems convinced that Quebec will not be able to trade to improve the team significantly. The best way, therefore, is to draft and develop those players.The future of forwards Marc Tardif and Real Cloutier remains unresolved. Cloutier will soon be a free agent, with compensation if he jumps to another team.Tardif, who has one year remaining on his contract, says if the team wants him, &ldquo;then I am ready to play out my contract. If, on the other hand, the team feels I am no longer in a position to contribute, then I am ready to see what they have to offer. I think my experience can help, both on the road and at home.&rdquo;These hardly seem to be the words of someone causing problems to team morale. &#9632;

Nords Czech Out European Talent

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011179/4927426-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011262/4927457-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Cashman, who is the only active player in the league to play in the six-team era, is scheduled to retire.</figcaption></div>BOSTON&mdash;It is destined to be one of the great hockey trivia questions.Who was the last survivor of the old six-team league to play in the NHL?As of now, the answer is Wayne Cashman of the Boston Bruins.Cashman, who will be 38 on June 24, played his last game for the Bruins April 24 in the seventh game of the Buffalo playoff series that was won, 3-2, by Brad Park&rsquo;s overtime goal.Two other surviving players of the sixteam era played their final games only a couple of weeks earlier&mdash;Carol Vadnais on April 3 for the New Jersey Devils and Serge Savard on April 9 for the Winnipeg Jets.Cashman has not formally announced his retirement yet but indications are that it will come sometime during the summer. He has hinted at it broadly, particularly after he had failed to see action in the Bruins&rsquo; semi-final series with the Islanders.&ldquo;This will likely be my last year,&rdquo; he said in mid-season after he had been relegated to fourth line duty and little of that.&ldquo;I think the decision has already been made for me,&rdquo; he said later on when he failed to dress for several games so that players nearly 20 years his junior could get some ice time.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t talked to Wayne about it,&rdquo; said GM Harry Sinden. &ldquo;It will probably be one of our first orders of business. I don&rsquo;t know what his personal plans are but I hear by the grapevine that he is about to retire.&rdquo;Cashman, who played in 1,027 regular season games, second only to John Bucyk&rsquo;s 1,436 with the Bruins, has a full schedule lined up for his post-hockey career.He owns a 35-acre horse farm, called &ldquo;Our Goal,&rdquo; in Middleboro, some 30 miles south of Boston, and he has worked with Campbell Communications of Plymouth, which produces the Bruin radio broadcasts and has extensive cable TV interests.Another veteran Bruin whose retirement is anticipated yearly by everyone except the player himself is Brad Park, who turns 35 on July 6.&ldquo;It seems everybody is more worried about it than lam,&rdquo; said Park when the question was put to him for the fifth or sixth consecutive year.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had an enjoyable year. I&rsquo;m as healthy as I&rsquo;ve been in a long time. I feel pretty good. I&rsquo;ll see how things are in two or three months. I&rsquo;ll have a talk with Harry to see what my role will be next year. I don&rsquo;t want to be a backup guy.&rdquo;&ldquo;He and I haven&rsquo;t spoken yet,&rdquo; said Sinden, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m going to tell him I want him to play next season.&rdquo;The betting is that Park, despite nine operations and other surgical procedures on his knees, will be back for at least one more shot at the great prize that has eluded him, the Stanley Cup.Another question mark in the Bruins&rsquo; future will not be answered until the club meets again at training camp in September.It&rsquo;s going to take at least that long to get a line on Terry O&rsquo;Reilly, who underwent surgery Jan. 3 to repair tom ligaments in his left knee.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s coming along good but it&rsquo;s going to take a long time,&rdquo; said O&rsquo;Reilly. &ldquo;The doctor said I&rsquo;m on an eight-month to a year program right now. It&rsquo;s a very conservative program.&ldquo;What happens at training camp depends on how quickly I come along and how strong it feels. The ligaments in there are sewn together and they have to stay tight. If I overwork the knee it stretches the repairs and the knee gets sloppy. So far it&rsquo;s strong.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month now.&rdquo;WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN&mdash;Backup goalie Marco Baron, who was replaced by Mike Moffat as the importance of the playoff games increased, may also have played his last game for the Bruins. His agent, Steve Freyer of Sports Advisors, has been given permission by the Bruins to shop his client around the league. The Bruins have signed Tony Fiore, the center who was their eighth-round draft choice in 1982 and scored 66 goals for Flint in the International Hockey League last season. He was at the Bruin rookie camp last fall but did not get into any of the pre-season exhibition games. &ldquo;He may be the player we need to score goals,&rdquo; said Sinden. &ldquo;I know the calibre of the IHL isn&rsquo;t that great but if you score that many goals you have to have some kind of touch around the net&rdquo;&hellip;Bruin fans couldn&rsquo;t understand the voting for the Adams Trophy given to the Coach of the Year. Gerry Cheevers got one more first-place vote than the winner, Orval Tessier of Chicago. Eleven members of the voting panel failed to give the Boston coach even one of their three votes. &#9632;

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Cashman Ready To End Career And Start Anew

<div class="byline">BY JOHN GILBERT</div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;The Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; hopes of leading the National Hockey League during the season went awry, but there is no question the North Stars command the NHL spotlight now that the playoffs are over.The Stars would be the hot topic if they had to (a) find a coach (b) decide on their choice for the No. 1 pick overall in this month&rsquo;s entry draft or (c) entertain serious thoughts of a major trade.The fact that the North Stars are up for all three possibilities thrusts them squarely into the off-season spotlight.As spring finally pushes the last stubborn remnants of a lingering chill in Minnesota, general manager Lou Nanne is examining his options and making his mind up.In the Twin Cities, one columnist is urging Nanne to hire Fred Shero as coach. Another continues to push for University of North Dakota coach Gino Gasparini. Some are behind Herb Brooks and, of course, Stan Fischler suggests that Nanne is a wacko if he doesn&rsquo;t hire Don Cherry.Despite all the speculation, the best bet is that the leading contender for the job is Pat Quinn, the former Flyer coach who is still under contract to the Flyers but is studying law. If Nanne can talk him into coaching, he is probably the No. 1 choice at this point.A strong second choice is Eddie Johnston. Nanne has requested permission from Pittsburgh to talk to Johnston and if the Penguins give the OK, Johnston and Quinn would be the frontrunners.A solid third candidate is Bill Mahoney, who coached at Adirondack last season, and a candidate Nanne has already talked to&mdash;with Detroit&rsquo;s permission, of course. A fourth legitimate candidate going into the home stretch might be Billy MacMillan, depending upon New Jersey&rsquo;s plans for him.&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll have a coach set by the draft,&rdquo; said Nanne. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll have made my choice by the first of June and I hope to have the coach named before the draft. I&rsquo;m not that concerned.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking for a coach who is hard-working, strong-willed, able to relate to people but also make a stand as the boss. He&rsquo;ll need a good knowledge of the game.&rdquo;Nanne&rsquo;s prototype coach is Al Arbour. He did say that whatever coach comes in, it is a certainty that Murray Oliver and J.P. Parise will be the assistant coaches. If a prospective coach said he didn&rsquo;t want those two as assistants, &ldquo;then he wouldn&rsquo;t get the job as coach.&rdquo;As for the draft, Nanne herded all his scouts together to go over a potential list of 150 names. There is a gap, though, between the top two and the 20th. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t much care about those going between three and 20,&rdquo; said Nanne, &ldquo;because we pick first, then we won&rsquo;t get anybody until after the 20th pick.&rdquo;The choice of the top two is easy, Pat Lafontaine and Brian Lawton. It is a virtual certainty that the North Stars will select Lawton with their first pick overall barring a last-minute change of mind.Then there is the chance of trading the first pick.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got four or five legitimate offers for that pick,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;I expect several more.&rdquo;If somebody wants the first pick, the price is high, but negotiable, Nanne said.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of those deals where we&rsquo;ll come out OK,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;We can do nothing and still win by having the first pick.&rdquo; &#9632;

Spotlight Shines On North Stars

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER AND THN STAFF</div>Despite Ralston-Purina&rsquo;s lawsuit against the National Hockey League, the bid to keep the Blues in St. Louis refuses to die. One potential supporter of the St. Louis move has pledged $ 1 million for the club but says he&rsquo;s been told to sit tight by NHL officials until after June 1. At that point, he tells BLUELINES, Ralston-Purina may be in a legally sound position to consider options other than the Saskatoon bid. A member of the Keep-The-Blues-in-St. Louis group says he was told by a Ralston-Purina attorney that R-P &ldquo;will consider various options&rdquo; in June. That could mean reconsideration of the bid made by the St. Louis committee. Meanwhile, a Tacoma-Seattle group continues to quietly move in the direction of a bid for an NHL franchise, be it the Blues, the Winnipeg Jets, who are financially strapped, or an expansion club. Word has it that tne Sea-Tac people have about $6.5 million now and are in no rush to get the club for next season. A year later would suit them fine. A multi-millionaire with hockey interests who is familiar with the Northwest tells BLUELINES: &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t put a team in Tacoma(site of the new arena). It would have to be in Seattle. Tacoma is like Oakland.&rdquo; Some influential NHL governors share the view. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s important for us to be in the right cities,&rdquo; says one NHL boss, &ldquo;and Tacoma is not one of them.&rdquo; Others disagree, noting that the new rink is a short drive from Seattle.The long-awaited Sports Illustrated X-ray of NHL union boss Al Eagleson is involving some of the most intense investigation ever done on a hockey story. SI even dispatched a prober to Europe for checks on aspects of the Eagle&rsquo;s operation. Eagleson learned of the SI investigation weeks before the story made print and, according to a magazine source, tried to nip it in the bud&hellip;Oiler p.r. man Bill Tuele disturbed some of his colleagues when he sent copies of a memo he sent to NHL veep Steve Ryan about improving league p.r. In a return letter, Ryan cuffed Tuele for not sending copies to the NHL&rsquo;s publicists Rodger Gottlieb and Mike Griffin&hellip;North Star insiders whisper that rookie Brian Bellows already is running the Minny locker room. One newsman reported that Bellows at first had refused to talk to him because Brian had mistakenly believed that the writer-in-question had written negatively about teammates Bobby Smith and Tim Young&hellip;Flyers are hinting at moves toward deemphasizing accent on brawn and seeking out good little men such as the Rangers&rsquo; Mark Pavelich. Philly GM Keith Allen is eyeing 5-foot-5 Maine Mariner Steve Tsujiura. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t discount these (little) guys after seeing what that s.o.b. (Mark) Pavelich can do,&rdquo; Allen confides&hellip;Although Orval Tessier has made it seem that he&rsquo;s boss of his Black Hawks, some players have outflanked him. One reporter tells a story about how Tessier broke up an interview between himself and Denis Savard the day of a playoff game, declaring that it (the interview that day) was contrary to team policy. The journalist tells BLUELINES: &ldquo;As soon as Tessier walked out of sight, Savard said: &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s go around the comer and do the interview.&rsquo; And we did!&rdquo;Tessier has lost points with other members of The Fourth Estate. &ldquo;He points fingers at players when his club loses and he takes the credit for himself when they win,&rdquo; says the Black Hawk-watcher&hellip;The advent of the Emile Francis regime in Hartford could rekindle a potential Red Wing-Whaler deal hinted late in the season by Detroit&rsquo;s Jimmy Devallano. J.D. said he had a blockbuster in mind. The word in Hartford was that the Wings were after 20-year-old center Ron Francis and were willing to package Willie Huber or Reed Larson, Mark Osborne, Corrado Micalef, Mike Blaisdell, Paul Woods and Greg Smith&hellip;The Guy Lafleur-to-Switzerland-as-a-player rumor refuses to die&hellip;Ranger insiders report that Herb Brooks was furious with the club&rsquo;s TV analyst, Phil Esposito, because the latter went on the air predicting that the Islanders would win the Stanley Cup.Lou Nanne tells BLUELINES he offered the North Star coaching job to Don (Grapes) Cherry. Asked about it. Cherry replied: &ldquo;Nno comment!&rdquo; One source adds that Cherry was not keen on having J.P. Parise and Murray Oliver&mdash;Nanne&rsquo;s pals&mdash;lurking in the background as assistant coaches. Nanne disputes claims that he interferes too much with his coaches. &ldquo;I keep a greater distance from my coaches than most other general managers in the league,&rdquo; Nanne insists to BLUELINES. Others disagree. A former North Star employee now free-lancing in the Rangers organization says of Nanne: &ldquo;The difference between Louis and a Bill Torrey is that Torrey knows how to delegate authority. Nanne tries to do everything himself&hellip;A reliable NHL insider whispers that Herb Brooks had told Craig Patrick to unload Ron Duguay before the season starts.,. Ed Westfall, a former teammate of Glen Sather and now the Islanders&rsquo; color commentator, accused Sather of poor coaching strategy-psychology in the finals.A small but significant group of Hartford hockey critics believes that John Cunniff did well enough in his late-season stint behind the bench that he rates a shot as the head coach&hellip;Rocket Richard says he once phoned Wayne Gretzky kidding The Kid about thinking he was twice as good as The Rooket. Adds Richard: &ldquo;Gretzky could have played in any era but he will not fight. In my day I didn&rsquo;t start any fights, but I had to retaliate to protect myself. You had to take care of yourself because nobody else would do it for you&rdquo;&hellip;Oilers are said to have a problem involving the Messier family. Mark is now regarded as the best left winger in the league but his dad, Doug, according to league sources, has failed to win the club&rsquo;s confidence with his handling of the AHL Moncton Alpines. What to do about the edler Messier without damaging the younger one remains the puzzle. &#9632;

BLUELINES

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0013-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011191/4927536-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Winger Paul Cyr, coming off his rookie season, may be the sniper that the Sabres need to round out their lineup for the 1983-84 season.</figcaption></div>BUFFALO&mdash;With the Sabres making a surprisingly good showing in the Stanley Cup playoffs and their No. 1 farm club, the Roohester Americans, winning the American Hockey League&rsquo;s Calder Cup, hopes of Buffalo hockey fans are high for next season.Players who spent part or most of the season with the parent club were key performers in the playoffs for the Amerks.Jacques Cloutier played every game in goal, winning 12 and losing four. Right winger Sean McKenna set a Calder Cup record for goals with 14. Center J.F. Sauve set playoff records for both points, 28, and assists, 21. Bob Mongrain, Gary McAdam, Mike Moller, Kai Suikkanen, Geordie Roberston and Jere Gillis all contributed.Jim Wiemer, the forward-turned-defenseman, who was up with the Sabres for one Stanley Cup playoff game, won two Calder Cup contests with overtime goals.All of these players should help make next September&rsquo;s training camp an interesting one. Besides these, the Sabres will have two first-round picks from the 1983 draft.There was plenty of competition for jobs in the 1982 camp but it should be even more competitive next fall.The Sabres&rsquo; young defense proved itself when the Sabres swept the playoff series against Montreal and extended Boston to overtime in the seventh game of the division finals. The forwards showed good balance but coach Scotty Bowman&rsquo;s team still lacks a big scorer.Nobody on the club scored 40 or more goals in 1982-83 and only two, Tony McKegney and Gil Perreault, scored 30 or more. McKegney led the club with 36.Only three others&mdash;Dale McCourt, Mike Foligno and Gilles Hamel&mdash;scored 20 or more.The Sabres&rsquo; principal need seems to be a strong shooter who can come through with 50 goals; a forward who worries the opposing goaltenders when he is on the ice.Paul Cyr, a 19-year-old rookie who played less than half the season with the Sabres, looks as though he might become a real scorer. Cyr has a powerful, heavy shot but in his first pro season he lacked accuracy. Too many of his slapshots were off the net.Yet, in one game, Cyr scored three final-period goals against Boston in a 3-2 Buffalo victory. Dave Andreychuk, another 19-year-old rookie, looked good around the net but he needs to improve his skating and other skills.Andreychuk is one of a deep group of centers who will be vying for jobs next season.Perreault, McCourt, Andre Savard and Brent Peterson all are back, along with Tony McKegney, who divided his time between center and left wing.Perreault played left wing much of the time and Savard played both wings. Sauve, Mongrain and Randy Cunney worth of the Roohester club are other possibilities. They all have been up with the Sabres before, so it&rsquo;s possible one or more of this trio could be used to work a deal.Five left wingers return, counting McKegney but not Perreault. Craig Ramsay, Lindy Ruff and Hamel all played on the left side, along with Cyr.Ric Seiling and Mike Foligno are the only right wingers who played regularly through the season. Steve Patrick and Mai Davis were the others on the right side during the playoffs. McKenna and Moller, both of whom played more than half of the season with Buffalo, should make strong bids to stick this time.Bowman used two rookies, Phil Housley, 19, and Hannu Virta, 20, when he went with four defenseman in the playoffs and they showed that they not only have offensive skills, they can play good defense.Mike Ramsey, who emerged as a fine all-around defenseman last season, and veteran Bill Hajt were the other two. Larry Playfair missed most of the Boston series because of an elbow injury. He is expected back for a regular job.John Van Boxmeer played both defense and right wing in the playoffs.Dave Fenyves, who came up to Buffalo from Roohester late in the season, will be a contender for a regular job and Wiemer looks like a prospect for the backline, as does Kari Suaraniemi for Roohester.Phil Myre, who is 34 years old, was Bob Sauve&rsquo;s backup in goal during the playoffs, so it seems logical that Cloutier will return to divide the netminding duties with Sauve, who did outstanding work againt Montreal and Boston.There has been talk that Bowman will go for Tom Barrasso, the Massachusetts high school goaltending star, in the draft if he still is available when the Sabres get their pick, which is fifth (from a trade with Los Angeles). Bowman says this isn&rsquo;t likely, although the Sabres also own the 10th pick overall and the guessing is that he may nab the goalie then. &#9632;

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NHL And AHL Playoffs Make Sabres Optimistic

<div class="byline">BY DICK BEDDOES</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011241/4927591-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="288" height="340"></div><h2>Kings Of Hockey</h2>ON THE NIGHT of May 17, a Tuesday, the New York Islanders bundled up the Edmonton charms and crystal balls, the soggy old Alberta tea leaves and voodoo powders and Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s magic wand and heaved the entire mess into Long Island Sound.The Islanders don&rsquo;t believe in miracles or ghosts. They only believe in Santa Claus, pronounced William John Smith.Gretzky&rsquo;s magic and Glen Sather&rsquo;s incantations and Andrew Moog&rsquo;s goalkeeping sorcery had taken the Oilers to the championship of the Campbell Conference and put them in the Stanley Cup final.Their flying carpet carried them as far as a shot at the Islanders. But you don&rsquo;t beat the Islanders with a witch&rsquo;s broomstick or Gretzky&rsquo;s magic wand.Not the Islanders, when the Stanley Cup is to be defended. For the fourth successive time they are the hockey kings of North America. Theirs is a charm nobody has broken since 1979.As it should be at the championship level, the title was won by the better team that deserved to win.The Oilers romped through the Campbell Conference with the loss of one game in 12. The Islanders were more seriously challenged in the Wales Conference and came out of a robust six-game final with Boston bruised and limping.So the prize was there for the Oilers to grab. They had the first two games in their own rink before more than 17,000 live fans and millions more on partisan Canadian television.Chauvinistic pride was reflected in the cover story of Maclean&rsquo;s, which claims to be Canada&rsquo;s national magazine. &ldquo;Gretzky&rsquo;s Magic,&rdquo; Maclean&rsquo;s bawled in reporting how the Oilers are fashioning &ldquo;a dynasty.&rdquo;<h2>Majority Wanted Edmonton</h2>EVEN THE MORE realistic THE HOCKEY NEWS, which tells more about the game in one scoring summary than the entire brooding board of Maclean&rsquo;s editorial staff, couldn&rsquo;t resist asking a cover question about the Oilers, &ldquo;BOUND FOR GLORY?&rdquo;Thus, with perhaps 90 per cent of Canada&rsquo;s fans and most of the nation&rsquo;s publications rooting for them, the Oilers did not deserve to win.They lost the first two games in their own arena. They couldn&rsquo;t solve the hot goaltending of Mr. Smith. They couldn&rsquo;t conquer a team that was hampered by crippled knees holding up competitors such as Langevin, Gillies and Trottier.Pretenders who lose in such circumstances do not deserve the crown.&ldquo;But look how close they made the four games they lost,&rdquo; cried Brian Hall, a cheerleader who casts sports for an Edmonton radio station, CJCA.All the more reason to say the Oilers didn&rsquo;t deserve the Cup. When a team gets hammered, 10&mdash;0, there&rsquo;s nothing to do but forget it. Lose a game by that monstrous margin and you were never in the game.When the game is there to be won, though, you&rsquo;re supposed to win it. All four games in the Cup final were close, there to be won. The Oilers didn&rsquo;t win any of them. That made them non-champions.What the weary Islanders did was check the Oilers as they are rarely checked in the Campbell Conference. The Islanders reflected hockey&rsquo;s best four-letter word, work.<h2>Stopped Gretzky&rsquo;s Magic</h2>THE WINNERS WORKED to shut down Edmonton&rsquo;s passing lanes, particularly in the New York zone. They worked to make certain the Oilers did not own the slot area in front of the New York net.With the slot shut off, Gretzky&rsquo;s passing magic from behind the New York net was neutralized. Many Edmonton shots were, therefore, from difficult, low-percentage angles and, it says here, Bill Smith plays the angles better than anyone since Bernard Parent was tending goal in Philadelphia.Mr. Smith also inspired cry-baby bleats out of the Oilers when he used his stick to bludgeon enemy shooters in tight. Some of the bleats came out of the Edmonton coach, Glen Sather, who should know better. As a defensive forward who played nine journeyman seasons in the National Hockey League, Sather should know that whacking is part of the sport.Edmonton&rsquo;s collective composure was damaged wher Sather was unable to curb his temper. Contrast his un coachly behaviour with the serenity of Alger Arbour, the Islander leader who, like his team, never moves out of his style to be sensational.William Torrey, the Islander general manager, put ii best about Arbour. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got an adult running this club,&rsquo; Torrey says.The adults, hurt as they were, gave Edmonton&rsquo;s precocious moppets a hockey lesson in a four-game sweep. The adults also beat Edmonton three times during the schedule.When you&rsquo;re winless in seven games against the champion Islanders, the Oilers can find cheer only in two defiant words. Next year. &#9632;

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BEDCLOTHES

<div class="byline">BY JAY GREENBERG</div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Ed Snider says the offer of the Pittsburgh general manager&rsquo;s job that Bob McCammon clutched in front of him was a nudge, not a gun.&ldquo;He said he had an offer that from his family&rsquo;s standpoint he didn&rsquo;t think he could turn down,&rdquo; said the Flyers&rsquo; executive board chairman. &ldquo;Anybody has the right to talk to other possible employers if they&rsquo;re approached. It&rsquo;s what you do about it afterwards that determines whether it&rsquo;s ethical or not.&ldquo;If I thought Bob McCammon was sneaky or was using this as a wedge I wouldn&rsquo;t want that kind of person as general manager. He didn&rsquo;t ask for Keith Alien&rsquo;s job.&ldquo;What the Pittsburgh offer did was cause us all to think about what we really wanted and really only changed our timetable. Bob was going to be general manager a few years down the road anyway. I am absolutely convinced that Keith Allen is doing what he really wants to at this time. We talked and everything just meshed.&rdquo;The result was the passing of an era. Allen, for 13 years the glue that held the Flyers together, will spend the final two years of his current deal as a contract negotiator and advisor to the Sniders and McCammon. McCammon, 42, stays on as coach and moves up from assistant GM into Alien&rsquo;s chair.It is a seat of nails placed directly in front of a fireplace stoked by a sometimes impulsive, always demanding, owner, but Allen&rsquo;s backside was always just hard and soft enough at the right times to make it comfortable.Testimonies to his success are the two Stanley Cup champions, six regular-season divisional titles, four appearances in the finals and seven in the semi-finals. Allen impressively built those two champions from scratch, but the greater trick may have been the gradual turnover since that has kept the Flyers among the league powers without benefit of a high draft position.&ldquo;I know I will lean on him a lot,&rdquo; McCammon said of Allen.And you can be certain the new GM said that sincerely. Allen and McCammon trust in each other&rsquo;s personnel judgment remained unflinching even during the year&rsquo;s of McCammon&rsquo;s banishment back to Maine of the American Hockey League.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll handle the contracts,&rdquo; said Allen, &ldquo;and advise Bob. But the trades are his baby now.&rdquo;Allen, 59, who had hinted earlier this season about retiring following the 198485 season, insisted he was ready to step up and slow down his pace.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been telling you guys I&rsquo;ve been winding down,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to have less pressure. The young turks can take over. I&rsquo;m at a stage where I think I can be helpful in a lot of areas.&rdquo;Snider is serious about the wishes of a more meaningful international championship and wants Allen to formulate and lobby a plan.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m excited about that,&rdquo; said Allen. &ldquo;1 think a series like that would generate a lot of revenue on world television. The potential is staggering.&ldquo;I did ask for another year on my contract after the season ended, but that was for financial reasons. This came up a little more quickly than anticipated, but I&rsquo;m ready for it. We&rsquo;ve been spending more and more time down at the shore (Long Beach Island) preparing our place there to move permanently.&rdquo;There was little question McCammon seriously considered the Pittsburgh offer. Obviously it played a big factor in his early promotion, but whether McCammon used it depends on how you define the term.&ldquo;I think my dealings with the Penguins were on the up and up,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think anybody who had the opportunity would have done what I did.&ldquo;If it was a power play, it was bad as some of the ones I&rsquo;ve run on the ice. Pittsburgh represented an interesting challenge taking over a last place team and building a winner. There are lower expectations there. In that way I think the easier way out would have been to leave.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never been unhappy with the Flyers&rsquo; organization. If they had said to me &lsquo;stay another year and we&rsquo;ll make a decision then about the general manager&rsquo;s job,&rsquo; I would have done it.&rdquo;&ldquo;We met Wednesday, I asked for the night to make my decision. I had already decided to stay when they offered me the general managership Thursday.&rdquo;The reaction of the Flyer loyalists to the announcement will fall mostly in the range between disappointment and indifference. McCammon was a tough, post-Fred Shero sell on the fans the first time around and if he won points with last year&rsquo;s fine regular season, Cagey&rsquo;s credit rating plummetted with the Ranger disaster.Coaches who have won championships have failed to get GM jobs. This guy gets upset in three striaght and Snider turns over the keys to him. From that viewpoint, the Flyer decision was startling, but not if you understand just how deeply Allen and Snider believe in McCammon.&ldquo;It became clear to us many years ago that he was general managing material,&rdquo; said Snider. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll coach as long as we think the club is making progress, but I don&rsquo;t think what happened in the playoffs is any reflection of his managership capabilities.&ldquo;He was essentially a rookie NHL coach last year. He made some mistakes, which he admits to and I&rsquo;m sure we will all profit from the experience.&ldquo;We aren&rsquo;t like the Penguins, who have no depth in their organization and feel they have to go ouf and try to pry away other team&rsquo;s coaches. We can&rsquo;t always dictate the timing or circumstances, this is a example of that, but in this organization we groom people for positions and plan ahead.&ldquo;While McCammon was at Maine it became more and more clear to us just how good a judge of talent he is. He just kept hitting the mark on who was going to make it and who wasn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;McCammon&rsquo;s contract is believed to be in the $150,000 range and probably runs for five years. While Bobby Clarke will certainly have a job in the organization when he retires, he obviously is not going to step quickly into the GM job.&ldquo;First of al, I think he&rsquo;s a remarkable physical specimen who&rsquo;s going to play longer than people think,&rdquo; Snider said of Clarke. &ldquo;But when the time comes we&rsquo;ll set down with Bobby and see what he&rsquo;d like to do and what McCammon would like him to do.&rdquo;In the meantime, there are more immediate loose ends to take care of. McCammon would not identify the assistant coaching candidate he was going to interview but it is believed to be Ted Sater, a coach of a Swedish First Division team who helped out briefly at training camp last September. &#9632;

McCammon Gets Keys To Philly’s Future

<div class="byline">BY NEIL MILBERT</div>CHICAGO&mdash;When Mt. Orval erupted, there was method to his madness.Several times this season, 49-year-old rookie coach Orval Tessier met the press with lava on his lips after his Black Hawks failed to live up to his towering expectations.But the blasts by the glowering inferno seemed to bring out the best in the players and, because of their efforts on the ice, that led to Tessier being named Coach of the Year by both the National Hockey League and THE HOCKEY NEWS.Chicago&rsquo;s 104-point season was its best since 1972-73 when Billy Reay&rsquo;s club piled up 105 points. When Edmonton put an abrupt end to the season by sweeping the Campbell Conference championship series in four games, it was the first time Tessier&rsquo;s team had a losing streak longer than two games.&ldquo;I hate to lose but the other 75 per cent (of his tirade) is for motivation,&rdquo; Tessier revealed in the wake of his heart-transplant tirade during the Oiler series. &ldquo;For me, it has worked.&ldquo;If it isn&rsquo;t working you don&rsquo;t do it. There&rsquo;s nothing personal. Some of the guys I&rsquo;ve been the hardest on might be the people I&rsquo;d like most to sit down and have lunch with.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not that much different than a lot of other coaches. It&rsquo;s just that I&rsquo;m different from what people are used to in Chicago.&ldquo;I grew up near Montreal (in Cornwall, Ont.) when Toe Blake was coaching the Canadiens. He had maybe the greatest array of superstars hockey has ever seen&mdash;Jean Beliveau. Rocket Richard, Boom-Boom Geoffrion, Doug Harvey, Dickie Moore, Jacques Plante and the other great ones.Blake never stopped giving it to them and he never gave an inch. They all thought he was a so-and-so, but they won five straight Stanley Cups.&ldquo;He never stopped giving it to them and he never gave an inch. They all thought he was a so-and-so, but while they were thinking it they were winning five straight Stanley Cups. I don&rsquo;t see Chicago with five Stanley Cups.&rdquo;In their 57-year history, the Hawks have captured the Stanley Cup only three times.&ldquo;Scotty Bowman was the most hated man in Montreal,&rdquo; Tessier continued. &ldquo;That didn&rsquo;t stop the Canadiens from winning four straight Stanley Cups for him. How many have they (the Canadiens) won since he went to Buffalo?&ldquo;When I was a player and didn&rsquo;t play well, I didn&rsquo;t expect my coach to say: &lsquo;Oh, Orval just had an off-night.&rsquo;&ldquo;Would I have kept my credibility if I had said after the second game in Edmonton that we played well both nights but we were just unlucky and that&rsquo;s why we were coming back to Chicago two games behind?&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t motivate players by finding excuses for them. If I ever see that I&rsquo;ve lost the ability to motivate, I&rsquo;ll get out of coaching.&rdquo;At the Stanley Cup luncheon on Long Island, where Tessier was named NHL Coach of the Year, he told those assembled that too many people took his tirades the wrong way.&ldquo;They say life begins at 39,&rdquo; Tessier said. &ldquo;For me, it began at 49.&ldquo;Much has been made of some of things I&rsquo;ve said. When you know me, you know I&rsquo;m a poor loser. Sometimes you say things and regret them. But then some guys saw what I was saying as big news. If you know me, you know it&rsquo;s not.&rdquo;Black Hawk general manager Bob Pulford, who also attended the luncheon, said he has no intention of trying to put a gag order on Tessier.&ldquo;No, that&rsquo;s Orval&rsquo;s way,&rdquo; Pulford said. &ldquo;I never did it (berate players) but I didn&rsquo;t hire him to be me. Orval says more in one interview than I say in an entire season.&rdquo;HAWK TALK&mdash;Joan Wirtz, wife of Black Hawk president Bill Wirtz, died of cancer on May 21 in a Chicago hospital. She was 55. Mrs. Wirtz was chairman of Women of Maryville, an organization which helps to raise funds for Maryville Academy, a home for underprivileged children in the Chicago suburbs.&ldquo;She was a loving and inspirational lady who always went out of her way to make you feel you belonged,&rdquo; said Marylin Esposito, wife of Hawk goalie Tony Esposito and another founder of Women of Maryville. &#9632;

Mt. Tessier Bound To Erupt Once Again

<div class="byline">BY REYN DAVIS</div>H&B Louisville HockeyH&B Louisville HockeyWINNIPEG&mdash;The first indication that not all was well with the Winnipeg Jets financial picture was when an ad in the Toronto Globe and Mail indicated shares in the financially-strapped franchise could be had for the right price.It turned out that the ad was indeed real and the person who placed it there was Michael Gobuty, one of the founding members of Eight Hockey Ventures, Inc., which bought the team from the public in 1978 and financed its way into the NHL a year later. Gobuty, who himself has fallen on some hard financial times, apparently was asking for at least $1 million for his shares, but many believed he&rsquo;d be lucky if he got half that amount.Now comes word that the Jets have received offers from the cities of both Hamilton and Seattle-Tacoma to assume possession of the club. However, Jet president Barry Shenkarow, while admitting the club was losing &ldquo;substantial amount of money&rdquo; said the Jets would attempt to remain in Winnipeg.Shenkarow is banking on a new arena, which would be included in a proposed $400-million complex that, if approved, would revitalize Winnipeg&rsquo;s downtown core.Should the building of the arena fail to materialize, so might the Jets.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had inquiries from other cities, but we want to keep the team in Winnipeg,&rdquo; Shenkarow said. &ldquo;The team was bought by our group and that was our intent. But you can only lose so many millions of dollars before you say to yourself, &lsquo;My civic duty has been exhausted.&rsquo;&ldquo;Ralston-Purina is a typical example. That&rsquo;s the perfect example. They bought the team (the Blues) and they kept it in St. Louis. They say they&rsquo;ve lost $19-million. They&rsquo;re a huge corporation and they&rsquo;ve had enough.&ldquo;Our intent is to keep the team in Winnipeg, but, certainly, we&rsquo;re going to have to stop losing the money that we&rsquo;re losing.&rdquo;Although Shenkarow wouldn&rsquo;t provide the figures, some sources say the Jets lost more than $500,000 this year despite receiving $500,000 as a concession when the team switched divisions.The Jets&rsquo; problem, like the Blues in St. Louis, is that they don&rsquo;t receive any revenue from parking or concessions.The Seattle-Tacoma group that is interested in shifting the Blues to the West Coast would be equally interested in acquiring the Jets if the purchase price were suitable, says Mike Parker, a member of the Seattle-Tacoma group.Meanwhile, it has become increasingly apparent that the Jets&rsquo; captain, Dave Christian, is destined to become a free agent on July 1.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re comfortable with the offer we&rsquo;ve made him,&rdquo; said general manager John Ferguson. &ldquo;If it comes down to arbitration, it won&rsquo;t bother me.&rdquo;Christian wants his salary doubled. A five-year contract for $1-million has been mentioned.Negotiations have broken off. Ferguson has insulted Christian&rsquo;s agent, Mark Perrone of Boston, suggesting he has a small clientle and, consequently, no firm handle on the market value of players. Christian has remained aloof of all discussions.But, while the Christian case worsened, the Jets announced the signing of defenseman Tim Watters for three more years plus an option.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t hard when you&rsquo;re dealing with an agent (Norm Caplan) who has his finger on the pulse of the market place,&rdquo; said Ferguson.Watters, a 22-year-old who played for the Canadian Olympic team in 1980 and attended Michigan Tech, has become a mainstay on the Jets&rsquo; defense. Exciting in his rookie season, Watters has developed into a poised professional.The man responsible, he says, is Serge Savard, his teammate for the past one and-a-half seasons and now the GM of the Montreal Canadiens.&ldquo;He helped me settle down,&rdquo; said Watters. &ldquo;At one time, my legs were going 100 miles an hour and I wasn&rsquo;t thinking. Now I&rsquo;m more in control of myself.&rdquo;Watters and his wife now reside in Winnipeg.&ldquo;We love the city,&rdquo; said Watters. &ldquo;It has all the attractions of a big city and the friendliness of a small one. It&rsquo;s perfect for us.&rdquo;The next player expected to sign is right winger Paul Mac Lean. Similar to Watters, he is entering his option year. &#9632;

Winnipeg Receives Offers To Move Team

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;Uh, oh, here we go again.The off-season has barely begun and already the injury jinx which plagued the Kings this past year has struck again.Right winger Dave Taylor, who missed 33 games with a fractured right wrist, rebroke the same bone during the World Championships in West Germany and underwent surgery on May 28 to repair the damage.Taylor apparently broke the wrist again during the first game of the tournament but didn&rsquo;t know it. He continued to play after a medical examination there failed to show a fracture. Taylor continued to experience pain, however, after returning to California and the injury was diagnosed by team physician Dr. Vince Carter.A bone graft was performed at California Hospital and the healing process is expected to take between 14 and 16 weeks, followed by a rehabilitation period.It wasn&rsquo;t known if the one-time all-star would be ready for the Oct. 5 season opener.Despite playing in only 47 games this year, Taylor still finished fifth among King scorers with 21 goals and 37 assists.Taylor&rsquo;s injury comes in the midst of an abundance of King trade rumors that have been circulating for a month and a half.Management has said it does not intend to begin the 1983-84 season with the same cast which stumbled to a last-place finish in the Smythe Division last season and failed to make the playoffs for the first time in 10 years. Both general manager George Maguire and coach Don Perry have been adamant about the need for a goaltender and/or defenseman&mdash;preferably both.It&rsquo;s fast becoming put up or shut up time.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been talking to just about everybody,&rdquo; said Maguire, who failed to shed much light on the subject but did add something could happen shortly after the June 8 entry draft.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not going to trade somebody just to make the newspaper people happy, though. We&rsquo;re looking for value, not just an exchange of bodies.&rdquo;Maguire wouldn&rsquo;t comment on the rumor of Larry Murphy and Steve Bozek going to Philadelphia for Bob Froese and Behn Wilson, except to say, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s no truth to that right at the present.&rdquo;Translation: it could happen.&ldquo;For sure we&rsquo;d like a goaltender and a defenseman,&rdquo; Maguire said, &ldquo;but it isn&rsquo;t easy making a quality deal. That trade is just a rumor. I think it started in Philly. There&rsquo;s nothing to it at this point.&rdquo;As for the draft, the Kings are without a first-round pick for the second year in a row, having dealt this one to Buffalo in the ill-fated Rick Martin deal of three years ago.In fact, the Kings don&rsquo;t have a No. 2 pick, either, that one going to Montreal in exchange for Rick Chartraw. So the Kings won&rsquo;t draft until the third round, where their first pick will be the 47th overall.The Kings will draft 13 players, with two picks in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds and one each in the next six.&ldquo;Except for the first five or six pick it&rsquo;s a very thin draft,&rdquo; Maguire said &ldquo;I&rsquo;m of the opinion it amounts to next to nothing as far as players who can stop right into the league and play.&rdquo;The Kings feel they selected two first rounders last year in 19-year-old de fenseman Mike Heidt (Calgary Wranglers of the Western Hockey League) and 18-year-old center Dave Gans (Oshaw; Generals of the Ontario Hockey League) Heidt, a No. 2 pick (27th overall) and Gans, a No. 4 pick (64th overall), both had strong seasons with their respective junior clubs and have been signed to contracts.Heidt collected 30 goals and 65 assists for Calgary and was a Western League all-star. Gans had 41 goals and 64 assists for Oshawa, which advanced to the Memorial Cup finals before losing to Portland.&ldquo;Heidt had a very good year and I think Gans was the premier player in the Memorial Cup,&rdquo; Maguire said. &ldquo;He might have won the MVP except that his team lost.&rdquo;Heidt&rsquo;s junior eligibility has expired, which means he&rsquo;ll be playing for the Kings or their New Haven farm club this coining season, while Gans still has a year remaining. It&rsquo;s either the Kings or Oshawa again for him.Maguire doesn&rsquo;t plan to rush either.&ldquo;Sometimes you can push a player beyond his capabilities and we don&rsquo;t intend to do that,&rdquo; he said.Both players, especially Heidt, are expected to get long looks in training camp come September.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011042/4927670-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="553" height="780"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Taylor broke his wrist again during the recent World Championships.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Taylor’s Broken Wrist Bad News For Kings

<div class="byline">BY RICHARD FRIEDMAN</div>NEW YORK&mdash;Mining a vein of hockey tradition on the one hand and tapping formerly unorthodox sources of talent on the other, the Rangers unveiled the first pieces of what is likely to be a &ldquo;new look&rdquo; when training camp opens in September.The link to the past was the signing of former Ranger Carol Vadnais as assistant coach. The window on the future was the signing of a college star&mdash;Michigan State goalie Ron Scott&mdash;and two Swedish forwards&mdash;Jan Erixon and Peter Sundstrom&mdash;from an increasingly rich lode of amateurs, who will challenge the traditional source of new talent, the Canadian junior system, more and more in future years.By appointing Vadnais as coach, the Rangers have plucked a National Hockey League veteran who found his role&mdash;both with the New Jersey Devils and the Rangers&mdash;as being a tutor.&ldquo;Even when I was playing, I was doing the talking,&rdquo; recalled Vadnais, 37, of his seven seasons with the Rangers alongside considerably-younger backliners such as Tom Laidlaw and Dave Maloney.&ldquo;I started thinking about coaching two years ago. I&rsquo;m going to tell them what I think is right and I want them to tell me if they think I&rsquo;m wrong.&rdquo;Vadnais began his career with the Montreal Canadiens and played with the California Seals and Boston Bruins before coining to the Rangers in 1975 with Phil Esposito in the trade that sent Brad Park and Jean Ratelie to Boston. Last fall, he was taken by the New Jersey Devils in the waiver draft, in a move that shocked both Vadnais and the Rangers.&ldquo;I was not the answer for the Devils,&rdquo; said Vadnais, who was called up on to fill a role with that team that was inappropriate, to say the least, for a defenseman of his age. He was frequently paired with rushing defensemen and could not provide the leadership on the last-place team that he will provide to the improving Rangers.Given his release in mid-May by the Devils, Vadnais could conceivably appear in uniform for the Rangers under emergency conditions, but general manager Craig Patrick indicated that was only a remote possibility.Vadnais replaces Walter Tkaczuk, who stepped down as assistant coach to devote more time to his family and to considerable business interests back home in Ontario. While Tkaczuk made significant contributions to offensive aspects of the game, ranging from faceoffs to the power play, coach Herb Brooks&rsquo; assistants&mdash;goaltender coach Wayne Thomas is the other&mdash;are now defensively inclined.Vadnais&rsquo; retirement after 16 seasons in the National Hockey League leaves Boston&rsquo;s Wayne Cashman as the NHL&rsquo;s last link with the pre-1967 six-team league. However, Cashman&rsquo;s retirement is imminent.Scott, a free agent who posted a 3.08 goals-against average at Michigan State, steps into a crowded goaltender situation that Patrick indicated would be less congested by the time training-camp opens.Presumably, that means that the long-expected retirement of John Davidson will come to pass&mdash;J.D. is likely to be a broadcaster this fall&mdash;although the fates of free-agent goalies, Ed Mio, Steve Baker and Rick Strack, has yet to be determined.&ldquo;A little competition will bring out my best in training-camp,&rdquo; said the 5-foot-8, 155-pound Scott. &ldquo;I know there are a lot of goalies here and I&rsquo;m perfectly prepared to start in the minors.&rdquo;Thomas, according to Patrick, is &ldquo;in love&rdquo; with Scott&rsquo;s style&mdash;the Michigan State grad is mobile and steady on his feet&mdash;but in the past being appointed as the Rangers&rsquo; &ldquo;goalie of the future&rdquo; was like receiving the kiss of death. Steve Weeks, Doug Soetaert and Baker can attest to that.In Erixon and Sundstrom, said one long-time European observer, the Rangers have landed &ldquo;typical Swedish players, good skaters and well-educated. They have the right attitude and know what&rsquo;s expected of them. It won&rsquo;t be a holiday coming here.&rdquo;They will have to fight for jobs, of course, but Patrick said that the extra time they spent in Europe after being drafted in the second and third rounds in the 1981 NHL entry draft made them &ldquo;more mature than they were a year ago.&rdquo; Erixon is about to turn 21 and Sundstrom 22. They&rsquo;re both 6-footers and each has played all three offensive positions, although they are likely to play on either wing here. Erixon, a 190-pounder, played for Skelleftea of the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation and Sundstrom, a 180-pounder, for Bjork-loven of the same league.In the recent World Championships in West Germany, Erixon was impressive with his shot and Sundstrom, a playmaker, was on a line with the Capitals&rsquo; Bengt Gustafsson and the Canadiens&rsquo; Mats Naslund. His brother, Patrik, just scored 23 goals and 23 assists in his rookie year with the Vancouver Canucks.Meanwhile, the Rangers&rsquo; first-round pick from the 1981 draft. University of North Dakota defenseman James Patrick, still is deciding whether to turn pro or play for the 1984 Canadian Olympic team.The two new Swedes were shown around New York by Anders Hedberg, who now expects to return in the fall after expressing some doubt following the playoffs. While Hedberg does not expect any problems in coming to terms with GM Patrick&mdash;technically, he too becomes a free-agent on July 1&mdash;his former linemante, Ulf Nilsson, finally acknowledged publicly that his career is over, a fact that has been obvious for months.The Rangers have yet to make an official announcement on the injury-plagued Nilsson&rsquo;s retirement&mdash;he now is working for a soft-drink company&mdash;but it is likely that they will soon be making an announcement on Hedberg&rsquo;s return. Patrick seemed anxious to have the 32-year-old right winger back.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01918/4927701-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="560" height="864"><figcaption class="caption-body">After one season with New Jersey, Carol Vadnais is back in the Ranger fold.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Vadnais Joins Rangers As Assistant Coach

DETROIT&mdash;Black Jack Stewart, one of the toughest defensemen of the 194050 era of the National Hockey League, is dead at age 66.A member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, Stewart died May 26 at Henry Ford Hospital after losing a battle with cancer.Stewart, who was selected to the NHL&rsquo;s All&mdash;Star team five times in his 12-year big-league career, played 10 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings and was a member of the Wings&rsquo; 1942-43 and 1949-50 Stanley Cup teams. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1964.Stewart finished his career with Chicago after leaving Detroit. He played in 565 games and had 765 penalty minutes before retiring after the 1951-52 season. Stewart also played in 80 Stanley Cup playoff games.In recent years he had become a racing steward at Brandywine race track in Wilmington, DE. &#9632;

Black Jack Dead At 66

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0018-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01942/4927756-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Although he suffered two injuries to his left knee, Gary Nylund showed promise in the games he played.</figcaption></div>TORONTO&mdash;&ldquo;We&rsquo;re hoping to come up with another Gary Nylund,&rdquo; said Maple Leaf coach Mike Nykoluk, looking ahead to the National Hockey League&rsquo;s entry draft later this month. &ldquo;We like Gary&rsquo;s attitude and the way he handled himself. But it&rsquo;s a question mark whether we can find someone like that or they might take awhile to develop.&rdquo;A year ago the Leafs had the third choice in the draft and selected Nylund, a strapping defenseman from Portland Winter Hawks of the Western Hockey League, after the Boston Bruins chose Gord Kluzak and the Minnesota North Stars opted for Brian Bellows.Although Nylund was limited to only 16 regular season games for the Leafs because of a injury to his left knee in training camp and another injury to the same knee late in the season, he displayed remarkable composure in the games he played and seemed to be showing all of the signs that he will soon become a solid National Hockey League prospect. He skated well, moved the puck smartly and he banged people with authority.This year the Leafs will have the seventh choice in the draft after finishing 15th overall in the standings. Minnesota will have first pick thanks to a trade with Pittsburgh, which wound up last in the league. The Hartford Whalers pick second while the Stanley Cup-winning Islanders have third pick from New Jersey in exchange for Bob Lorimer and Dave Cameron. Then it&rsquo;s Detroit. Buffalo, which holds the rights to Los Angeles&rsquo; first pick after trading Rick Martin and then New Jersey, which got a first-round pick back when they traded Rob Ramage to St. Louis.Then it&rsquo;s the Leafs&rsquo; turn and their most pressing need is for a big winger who can score. The Leafs have Rick Vaive (51 goals) and Mirko Frycer (25 goals) on the right side and John Anderson (31 goals) and Walt Poddubny (28 goals) on the left flank, but they could still use a big shooter on either wing.Although this year&rsquo;s draft isn&rsquo;t expected to match last year&rsquo;s in terms of the depth of quality players who can step right into the league, there should still be some pretty good players available when the Leafs&rsquo; turn comes around. American-born forwards Brian Lawton and Pat Lafontaine are expected to be gobbled up in the first two or three selections in the draft, but players such as Andrew McBain, Adam Creighton, Sylvain Turgeon and Lane Lambert might be there for the Leafs to choose.McBain, a right winger who played for North Bay, Turgeon, a left winger with Hull, and Lambert, a right winger from Saskatoon, were all-star selections in the Ontario. Quebec and Western Leagues, respectively. Creighton is a 6-foot-6 center from Ottawa who is likened to Bobby Smith of the North Stars.The Leafs also must consider Oshawa right winger John MacLean, who helped get his team into the Memorial Cup final. MacLean. who is an excellent all-around player, blossomed in his second year in the OHL and peaked when Oshawa began its drive towards the OHL championship and its Memorial Cup tournament berth.Whether or not the Leafs are able to add a player who can make their club right away, Nykoluk feels the club has turned the comer towards becoming contenders.&ldquo;We accomplished a lot this past year and the players deserve credit,&rdquo; Nykoluk said. &ldquo;There were tough moments for them as well as myself and (assistant coach) Dan Maloney, but they hung in there and emerged as a good hockey club.&ldquo;We ve stabilized the situation here. The players have acquired a spirit and now they want to stay here and play here. We don&rsquo;t want to disrupt things (by making too many changes). We want to put it all together with a good attitude and a willingness to work.&ldquo;Our club matured an awful lot in the series against the North Stars. We&rsquo;ve come a long way and found that we can be competitive against the top teams in the league. This (coming) year, we&rsquo;ll be finding out how far this is going to carry over.&ldquo;We had a lot of injuries at the end of the season, so if our players are healthy next year we&rsquo;ll see how it goes. You can never tell with injuries, when you&rsquo;ll get them. But our goaltending is going to be strong with (Mike) Palmateer and (Rick) St. Croix. Our defense is going to be a little bit better. (Gary) Nylund should be back.&ldquo;We have to look on the bright side of things. Our team should be better and hungrier.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Leafs Eyeing Junior Draft Hoping For Nylund-Type

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div>EAST RUTHERFORD&mdash;The New Jersey Devils gave up 338 goals and lost 49 games last season, so they were far from satisfied with their defense corps. But GM Billy MacMillan admits he has a lot of &ldquo;patchwork&rdquo; to do because both Tapio Levo and Carol Vadnais will be missing next season.On May 4, the Devils revealed Levo will play in Finland next season and, 11 days later, MacMillan announced he had decided not to exercise an option on the 1983-84 portion of Vadnais&rsquo; termination contract. Vadnais. in turn, signed on as assistant coach with the New York Rangers.Since Levo (-41) and Vadnais (-32) owned the worst two plus-minus ratings among the Devils&rsquo; defensemen, some observers have suggested MacMillan has already improved the club through subtraction, but that&rsquo;s not the way he adds things up.&ldquo;Both Tapio and Carol made contributions to our first season in New Jersey,&rdquo; MacMillan said, &ldquo;but both, in their own way, were playing under difficult circumstances.&rdquo;The 26-year-old Levo was the Devils&rsquo; top-scoring defenseman and fourth over all on the low-scoring team with seven goals and 40 assists in 73 games. He owns a crackling shot from the point, passes well and was an asset as a point man on the power play but, at even strength, was a defensive liability.Vadnais, who will be 38 in September, collected two goals and seven assists in 51 games but never really fit in with the young, rebuilding Devils.&ldquo;Vad was all ready to play his final season with the Rangers, to take one more shot at going to the finals with a team that was considered a contender and then we took him in the waiver draft,&rdquo; MacMillan recalled. &ldquo;It was a trying year for him but he helped as best he could.&ldquo;Tapio made his decision for family reasons. I had a good meeting with Tapio at the World Championship tournament and I told him we didn&rsquo;t want him back if it was just for another contract. I told him we would have to have a bigger commitment from him. mentally and physically.&ldquo;Who knows, he might even want to come back again after next season. We all know it is difficult for a European player, especially on a team that isn&rsquo;t winning very often. His English was improving, he was making progress. He has talent; there&rsquo;s no doubt about that.&rdquo;Levo was the main target of some harsh words from teammate John Wensink late last season and there is little doubt that he was unpopular with many of the Devils because of what they perceived as a disparity between his salary and the level of his &ldquo;involvement.&rdquo;With Levo and Vadnais and Dave Hutchison (32 games last season) out of the picture. MacMillan is left with a relatively thin defense corps of Bob Lorimer, Mike Kitchen, Murray Brumwell, Joel Quenneville and Rob Palmer.He is counting heavily on Joe Cirella and Ken Daneyko to make the jump from junior hockey to the NHL. but defense is the most difficult position for a rookie to play and he will be shopping for at least one experienced defenseman&hellip;just in case.Cirella, who struggled through 65 NHL games two years ago and played in two games before being returned to Oshawa Generals of the Ontario Hockey League this season, benefitted greatly and MacMillan is confident he is now ready.Cirella, 20, collected 13 goals and 55 assists in only 56 games for the Generals and was a Memorial Cup all-star.Daneyko accumulated similar statistics while playing for the Seattle Breakers of the Western Hockey League. In 69 games, the 6-foot, 195-pounder collected 17 goals and 43 assists and, just as importantly, made giant strides defensively.&ldquo;We believe Cirella and Daneyko are two of the finest defense prospects in junior hockey,&rdquo; MacMillan said, &ldquo;and we&rsquo;ve got two more&mdash;John Hutchings and Alan Hepple&mdash;a year, maybe less, behind them.&rdquo;Vadnais understood the Devils&rsquo; committment to youth.&ldquo;Their decision on me isn&rsquo;t really surprising,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to face facts; it&rsquo;s a kid&rsquo;s game now&hellip;and I&rsquo;m no kid.&rdquo;Vadnais was happy with both the business and personal finishing touches to his impressive career.&ldquo;They paid me off,&rdquo; he reported. &ldquo;I got a pretty good lump sum. I signed two one-year termination contracts, so it was a pretty unusual deal. New Jersey treated me very farily. I did what I could do and they thanked me for it.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no grief, no bitterness on my part.&rdquo;HOT STUFF&mdash;A rushing defenseman who played briefly at left wing, Vadnais scored 20 or more goals twice in his career (22 in 1975-76 and 24 in 1969701 &#9632;

Devils Go With Youth On Defense

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div>HARTFORD&mdash;Larry Pleau, the man the Hartford Whalers said would be king two years ago, will be a jack, at the least.Pleau, whose position as director of hockey operations was eliminated in the club&rsquo;s latest restructuring act that began on the Ides of March and threatens to last through the summer, has announced that he will stay with the Whalers in a lesser capacity, namely, assistant general manager.&ldquo;What people don&rsquo;t realize is that I&rsquo;m a better person today than I was two years ago,&rdquo; said Pleau, who ascended to the throne April 1, 1981. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been rough at times, sure, but the truth is, I&rsquo;ve enjoyed it. I&rsquo;ve learned a lot.&rdquo;Pleau is hoping to learn more as a member of the Whalers&rsquo; team. That was a primary reason, he said, that he decided to accept his new position under new president-GM Emile Francis.&ldquo;Emile Francis has been involved in the game for a long time.&rdquo; Pleau said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure that I can learn from his experience and knowledge.&rdquo;Francis said that Pleau was &ldquo;the only person considered&rdquo; for the role of assistant GM.Francis, who signed a five-year contract May 2, said Pleau will be involved in &ldquo;every phase of the operation,&rdquo; including players contracts, scheduling and scouting NHL. American League and junior teams.&ldquo;I feel the assistant GM post is extremely important to a hockey team,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;Larry was the only person considered for the position and will be a liason between the parent club and the farm team. There&rsquo;s all kinds of work to be done and I&rsquo;m confident Larry will do it.&rdquo;Pleau&rsquo;s trusted assistant, Bob Crocker, also has been retained under the Francis regime. Crocker has been named director of hockey administration, a newly created post and a tributary of the Whalers&rsquo; seemingly unending name game.&ldquo;Emile said that we&rsquo;re the three management people,&rdquo; Crocker said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s up to us to get the job done.&rdquo;If that&rsquo;s true, Francis may not recruit as many of his former employees, all of whom currently are holding their lunch in St. Louis while the National Hockey League decides how to cope with the Blues, as anticipated.No matter how many inventive titles the Whalers may come up with, there simply can&rsquo;t be jobs for everybody.The most urgent issue is the hiring of a coach, but Francis apparently has placed that task on the back-burner, to be dealt with some time after the entry draft.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not imperative that we have a coach before the draft,&rdquo; Francis said.The only name that has surfaced since Francis&rsquo; arrival is Jack Evans, a 55-year-old coach who has worked under Francis over the years, including the last four seasons in Salt Lake City, the Blues&rsquo; minor-league affiliate.The Whalers&rsquo; search for a coach has taken on an eerie similarity to the recently concluded search for a new president. While Evans ultimately may not be the choice, his name&mdash;and no one else&rsquo;s&mdash;keeps popping up, just as the name of Emile Francis kept appearing time and time again for the role of president. That decision, as it turned out, wasn&rsquo;t a mystery and the selection of a coach may not be one either.There are others, though, such as what will happen to John Cunniff, Rick Ley, Jack Mcllhargey and Jacques Caron, as well as a five-man scouting staff headed by Bill Dineen and how much actual impact Francis will have in reputed areas of expertise, such as marketing and advertising.There are rumblings also that Gordie Howe may be given an upgraded role and that son, Marty, may be returned to the Whalers from the Boston Bruins.Andre Lecroix&rsquo;s position of director of community affairs has been abolished, so his future is cloudy.Other possible return guests include Larry Kish, who was fired by Pleau as coach after 49 games, but who still has another year left on his contract and defenseman Fred Arthur, who currently is attending medical school.The Philadelphia Flyers insisted on a clause when they traded with Hartford for Arthur that would give them a 1984 third-round draft pick if Arthur should decide to retire, which he did early last season when he learned he was headed for the minors. Arthur may think he has a chance to make the Whalers&mdash;or at least a better chance than making the Flyers&mdash;and may decide to give hockey another try.Medical school will still be there after $80,000-a-year jobs have vanished.The puzzle is by no means completed, but Pleau, the first Whaler and Crocker, the faithful servant, are in the fold.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01883/4927811-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="550" height="792"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Pleau accepted the assistant GM job and said he would learn from it.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Pleau, Crocker Stay In Hartford

<h2>FIRST ROUND</h2>1. Minnesota (from Pittsburgh)2. Hartford3. NY Islanders (from New Jersey)4. Detroit5. Buffalo (from Los Angeles)6. New Jersey (from St. Louis)7. Toronto8. Winnipeg9. Vancouver10. Buffalo (from Calgary)11. Quebec12. NY Rangers13. Calgary (from Buffalo)14. Washington15. Pittsburgh (from Minnesota)16. NY Islanders17. Montreal18. Chicago19. Edmonton20. Hartford (from Philadelphia)21. Boston<h2>SECOND ROUND</h2>22. Pittsburgh23. Hartford24. New Jersey25. Detroit26. Montreal (from Los Angeles)27. Montreal (from St Louis)28. Toronto29. Winnipeg30. Vancouver31. Buffalo (from Calgary)32. Quebec33. NY Rangers34. Buffalo35. Montreal (from Washington)36. Minnesota37. NY Islanders38. Calgary (from Montreal)39. Chicago40. Edmonton41. Philadelphia42. Boston &#9632;

NHL DRAFT ORDER

<div class="byline">By BOB MCKENZIE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01741/4927842-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian Lawton, a center at St. John&rsquo;s Prep School in Rhode Island, is the No. 1 prospect availabe in the NHL&rsquo;s annual entry draft.</figcaption></div>If you take a look at the top prospects available in the National Hockey League&rsquo;s entry draft, scheduled for June 8 at the Montreal Forum, two points come immediately to mind.First, it&rsquo;s a thin year for defensemen. A year ago, four of the first six picks (Gord Kluzak, Gary Nylund, Scott Stevens and Phil Housley) were defensemen and all four made the jump from junior or high school to the NHL. This year, the top-rated defenseman is Laval&rsquo;s Bobby Dollas and the 6-foot-2, 219 pounder is ranked 12th overall by NHL Central Scouting. The possibility exists that not one defenseman from this draft may be capable of playing in the NHL next season.The second most obvious fact is that good prospects need not be Goliaths. Of course, size and strength are still key factors in success&mdash;witness the New York Islanders&rsquo; roster&mdash;but a significant number of the first-round prospects don&rsquo;t boast formidable physical statistics.Verdun Junior scoring sensation Pat Lafontaine, ranked No. 2 overall by Central Scouting, is 5-foot-9, 170 pounds. Peterborough Pete center Steve Yzerman, ranked third overall by Central Scouting, is 5-foot-11, 175 pounds. Brantford&rsquo;s Dave Gagner, ranked eighth, is 5-foot-10, 182 pounds; lOth-ranked Russ Courtnall of the Victoria Cougars is 5-foot-9, 163 pounds and Portland&rsquo;s Alfie Turcotte, rated 11th, is 5-foot-9, 163 pounds.There are, naturally, a number of behemoths available. First-round prospect Adam Creighton of Ottawa is 6-foot-6, 205 pounds. North Bay&rsquo;s Andrew McBain, rated sixth, is 6-foot-1, 190 pounds and the University of New Hampshire&rsquo;s Normand Lacombe, ranked seventh, is 5-foot-11, but he weighs 206 pounds.&ldquo;I guess a player like Denis Savard has shown that you don&rsquo;t have to be huge to be successful,&rdquo; says Bob Stellick, who assists Central Scouting chief Jim Gregory. &ldquo;The game has changed over the last few years and there seems to be a place for the smaller player, as long as he is quick and strong or has some other attributes.&ldquo;As for the defensemen, that&rsquo;s just a cyclical thing. Some years, it&rsquo;s good for defensemen. This year, it&rsquo;s a good year for forwards, especially centers.&rdquo;Indeed. The four top-ranked players, Rhode Island high school phenom Brian Lawton, Lafontaine, Yzerman and Hull&rsquo;s Sylvain Turgeon are all centers.It&rsquo;s also a good year for Americans. Lawton and Lafontaine, a St. Louis native who grew up in Detroit, are expected go one-two to Minnesota and Hartford, respectively. Turcotte, who played his minor hockey with Lafontaine in Detroit, is another American expected to go in the first round.And as if that isn&rsquo;t enough, the toprated goalie in the entire draft is 6-foot-3, 195-pound Tom Barrasso. who played high school hockey in the Boston area for Acton-Boxboro High School.The following is a brief list of some of the top prospects available when the 21 NHL teams sit down on June 8 at the Forum and select 252 players from around the world:Brian Lawton&mdash;Two years ago, it was Bob Carpenter. Last year, it was Phil Housley. This year, Brian Lawton is the U.S. high school star who appears to be ready to jump to the NHL. Scouts say he is strong in every facet of the game and, at 6-feet, 178 pounds, is physically prepared.Pat Lafontaine&mdash;Rewrote the Quebec League scoring statistics. Small but fast and has plenty of hockey sense. Plays the same style as Denis Savard and has an excellent touch around the net. He&rsquo;s the most exciting player available.Steve Yzerman&mdash;Intelligent player who works both ends of the ice diligently. Good attitude. Had a mediocre playoff but scouts say he&rsquo;s still the best player available in the Ontario League. Played for Canada&rsquo;s national junior team.Sylvain Turgeon&mdash;A creative player with the scoring touch. His strongest point is his skating and at 5-foot-11, 190 pounds, he is strong enough to handle the rough going. Also played for Canada&rsquo;s national juniors.John MacLean&mdash;The Oshawa General right winger, 6-feet, 193 pounds, is probably the most improved draft prospect this season. Has burning desire and competitive instincts as well as lots of natural ability. Came to the fore after Oshawa lost underagers Tony Tanti and Dave Andreychuk.Andrew McBain&mdash;Size and strength are biggest attributes. Played right wing for North Bay but may be a natural center. Some scouts question his goal-scoring potential but he&rsquo;s excellent in the comers and in front of the net.Normand Lacombe&mdash;This University of New Hampshire star right winger is physically overpowering and has a good shot. However, some scouts suggest he&rsquo;s inconsistent and lacks intensity.Dave Gagner&mdash;The Brantford Alexander center is fast and smart with the puck. Scouts say he must learn to use his wingers more. Tries too hard to do it himself, but he is blessed with good puckhandling skills.Cam Neely&mdash;A strong Memorial Cup performance didn&rsquo;t hurt the 6-foot-1, 185-pound Portland Winter Hawk right winger. He&rsquo;s a real mucker, but scored 56 goals this past season. If he has a weakness, it&rsquo;s being a step slower than some of the other top prospects.Other first-round prospects include: Winter Hawk center Alfie Turcotte; Laval&rsquo;s Dollas; Ottawa center Adam Creighton; Saskatoon right winger Lane Lambert; Peterborough left winger Bob Errey; Regina left winger Nevin Mark-wart; Lethbridge defenseman Gerald Diduck; Peterborough defenseman Sean Evans; Kitchener center John Tucker and Chicoutimi right winger Yves Heroux.Barrasso tops the goaltenders&rsquo; list, followed by Brantford&rsquo;s Alan Bester, Harvard&rsquo;s Grant Blair and the University ol Minnesota&rsquo;s Frank Pietrangelo.NOTES&mdash;Western Hockey League scoring ace Dale Derkatch, the Regina Pat star who stands only 5-foot-4 and weighs only 140 pounds, is ranked 52nd by NHL Central Scouting&hellip;For the most part, Central Scouting&rsquo;s workload has waned. The Bureau employs nine fulltime scouts as well as nine part-timers and, of course, numerous &ldquo;birddogs&rdquo; in Canada, the United States and Europe. &#9632;

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The Draft: A Bad Year For Defensemen

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01515/4927928-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"></div>Last year, Winnipeg Jet general manager John Ferguson gave the Molson-NHL Slo-Pitch Classic a lot of credibility when he appeared as a head-table guest at the luncheon. On the field, he gave the many fans a little entertainment as he suited up for the Jets and collected a hit on this trip to the plate. This year, Ferguson and the Jets will be back in Niagara Falls for the tournament, although he says he&rsquo;ll limit his role to pinch-hitting duties. &#9632;

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HIGH-FLYING JET

<div class="byline">BY GEORGE GROSS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01490/4927959-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="290" height="339"></div><h2>Soviets Eyeing Sarajevo</h2>WHEN DR. GUNTHER Sabetzki, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation stepped up to the microphone at Munich&rsquo;s Olympic Hall and said, &ldquo;I hereby close the 1983 ice hockey World Championships,&rdquo; he also brought the curtain down on the 1982-83 European hockey season.But as far as members of the Soviet Union&rsquo;s national team is concerned, it&rsquo;s a case of &ldquo;don&rsquo;t plan any extended vacations.&rdquo;The reigning world champions from the Soviet Union will be back on skates in two weeks to start training for the 1984 Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, February 7-19.It&rsquo;s this kind of preparation that has assured the Soviets of the last five&mdash;and 19th overall&mdash;world championships, tying Canada for most gold medal efforts in the 75-year history of th IIHF.Another reason why they&rsquo;re so keen on making certain they win the Olympic gold in &rsquo;84 is the shocking surprise they suffered three years ago at Lake Placid, when an unheralded but totally dedicated United States team, superbly coached by Herb Brooks, upset the Soviets and captured the gold.This time around the Soviets will be heavily favored, with only one team&mdash;Czechoslovakia&mdash;given any chance of upsetting them. This is based on the experience from the recent World Championship finals in Munich, where the youthful Czechoslovaks and Soviets played one of the finest hockey games seen anywhere at anytime while battling to 1-1 tie. Canadian observers, mostly from National Hockey League teams, were impressed to the point where they said openly that if that&rsquo;s what European hockey was all about, they were ready to buy it. In fact, if they had been able to, they&rsquo;d have kidnapped both teams and transplanted them into the NHL.One of the secrets of the Soviet success goes back to the days of ol&rsquo; Jack Adams, the former general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, under whose leadership the Motor City team went from title to title. Ol&rsquo; Jack didn&rsquo;t believe in stagnating and changed his championship teams every year by either making a trade or bringing up a young player from the minors. &ldquo;You have to keep the players on their toes all the time,&rdquo; he used to say.The Soviets don&rsquo;t say it in so many words, but they act in similar fashion. They, too, have a habit of replacing them with young ones. This year they went without such established international warriors as defenseman Valeri Vasiliev, for years one of the world&rsquo;s premier blueliners, forwards Victor Shalimov and Vladimir Golikov.And even though they won this year&rsquo;s World Championship rather easily by thrashing Team Canada, 8-2, they&rsquo;re not going to stand still. As coach Victor Tikhonov said before departing Munich: &ldquo;I would have made more changes even for this year&rsquo;s championship, but there wasn&rsquo;t sufficient time. You always have to keep some veterans on the team who help calm down over-anxious youngsters. But for the Olympic Games in Sarajevo, we&rsquo;ll be going without several of our established players.&ldquo;We won&rsquo;t have Alexander Maltsev, Victor Shluktov, Sergei Kapustin and Helmut Balderis. They&rsquo;ll be replaced by our young players, who&rsquo;ll be ready to play for our Olympic team. Among them are Viktor Tjumenev, Nikolai Drozdetsky, Alexander Kozhevnikov&mdash;if he regains his form&mdash;and youngsters such as Svitlov and Simjonov, just to name a few.&rdquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt the Soviets will come well prepared and eager to take the gold back to the Kremlin. But then, didn&rsquo;t they have the same plans at Lake Placid in 1980? Of course they did, but the Americans, with help from a partisan crowd, ruined all their plans.It could happen again, but it&rsquo;s not very likely. The team that has, perhaps, the best chance of pulling a Lake Placid is Czechoslovakia. They have a young, extremely well-coached team. Their tutors, Ludek Bukac and Frantisek Nevesely, molded these youngsters into a cohesive unit which, because of its inexperience, teetered on the brink of elimination from the finals before playing up to the form the coaches expected of them.As it turned out, the Czechoslovak team, spearheaded by the superb goaltending of Jiri Kralik and the brilliance of Jiri Lala up front, defeated Sweden, 4-1, Canada, 5-4, and held the Soviets to a 1-1 draw.Two other teams have an outside chance of making things uncomfortable for the Soviets at Sarajevo&mdash;Canada and the United States.United States collegians have done it before and could do it again, thanks to the tremendous strides hockey has made not only in American colleges, but also high schools. The impressive way with which the U.S. won the recent world B tournament in Tokyo gave an indication of what this team, stocked predominantly with college players, could be capable of.Canada, too, has a chance, providing Dave King remains at the helm as head coach. One of the finest hockey men to arrive on the international scene in years, King has the ability to lead athletes&mdash;amateurs or pros. He proved it in the 1983 world tournament where he got the most out of a combination of amateurs and pros not only on, but also off the ice.But to be realistic and with all respect to the Swedes, Finns, West Germans, Italians, Poles, Yugoslavs, Austrians and Norwegians who&rsquo;ll also compete at Sarajevo, the gold medal battle will be between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, with the U.S. and Canada capable of an upset. &#9632;

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THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;After more than two months of performing the duties as general manager of the Penguins&mdash;without the actual title&mdash;Eddie Johnston has now been officially awarded the job, title and all.But for a while there, one had to wonder if E.J., who coached the Penguins this past season to a last-place finish in the 21-team National Hockey League, was going to get the position that he coveted.In mid-May, Penguin vice-president and general consel Paul Martha said the search for a GM had been narrowed to three people, including Johnston. Martha refused to identify the other two candidates, but he indicated then that they were under contract to other NHL clubs.&ldquo;The NHL rules on tampering have made it very difficult, if not next to impossible, to make direct contact with these people,&rdquo; Martha said then. &ldquo;But I think we can have this cleared up by the NHL meetings (June 5-8 in Montreal). There&rsquo;s no guarantee we&rsquo;ll meet the deadline, though.&rdquo;Well, just days after Martha&rsquo;s comments, a story broke that said Bob McCammon, coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, was the leading candidate to take over the Penguins&rsquo; dual portfolio. But just as that story was peaking, the Flyers called a press conference to announce that McCammon will assume the dual post in Philadelphia. That same day, the Penguins announced Johnston would be their general manager.Reports indicate that Johnston will give the coaching post to Lou Angotti, who coached the Pens&rsquo; AHL farm team in Baltimore last season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been getting a lot of help from the other general managers around the league who played with me and against me,&rdquo; said Johnston, who first assumed the Penguins&rsquo; GM duties after the death of Baz Bastien in an automobile accident March 15.Since then, Johnston has been going about the day-to-day tasks as GM. He has been conducting contract talks for previously drafted but unsigned junior players and with agents representing several players already on the Penguin roster. Johnston also has talked about scheduling with the league office and he is working with Penguin director of player personnel, Ken Schinkel, and the club&rsquo;s scouts, analyzing junior prospects for this month&rsquo;s draft.Johnston never hesitated to make it known that he coveted the GM&rsquo;s job on a permanent basis.&ldquo;I want the job and I&rsquo;m confident I can do it well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I know our organization and you want to get some continuity and keep it going. I also know a lot of the young general managers in the league. I played against them, which I think helps a lot. I&rsquo;ve only been out of the game (playing) five years and I think I&rsquo;m able to evaluate.&ldquo;The one thing is that you want to keep everything going the right way. And once again, we&rsquo;re talking about continuity. You have to know your personnel; you have to know what you need to improve your hockey club. These are the things that I think are pluses for me.&rdquo;The Penguins finished last in the overall standings but won&rsquo;t enjoy the reward of picking first in the entry draft. Pittsburgh swapped first-round picks with Minnesota in a deal that saw the Penguins acquire rookie defenseman Ron Meighan and forward Anders Hakansson from the North Stars for forward George Ferguson. The Penguins will pick in Minnesota&rsquo;s spot (15th) in the draft.&ldquo;Right now it looks like Minnesota got the better of the deal,&rdquo; said Johnston. &ldquo;But nobody figured that we&rsquo;d finish where we were, so only time will tell. IfMeighan comes on and plays as well as we think and everybody else thinks, then I think that in the long run we&rsquo;re going to get the benefit of the draft. If you had to pick Meighan now, after the first half year he had in junior, he&rsquo;d be the best player in Canada.&rdquo; &#9632;

Pens Elevate Johnston From Coach To GM

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0033-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01446/4928014-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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CUPOLO’S

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0034-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01504/4928045-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Orbit Hockey Skates Professional Models

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01454/4928107-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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CUPOLO’S NORTH AMERICA’S HOCKEY SPECIALIST

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01401/4928138-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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JOFA DYNAFORM

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01466/4928169-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Canadien

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01437/4928200-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Bauer

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01193/4928231-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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CUPOLO’S SPORTS

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div>H&B Louisville HockeyH&B Louisville HockeyROCHESTER&mdash;And on the eighth day they put down their sticks and gloves and helmets and celebrated. They climbed aboard trucks and open cars and rode through the streets of Rochester to acknowledge the cheers of some 15,000 people who gathered at the curbs to honor the 1983 Calder Cup champion Americans.Four days later, the festivities, incorporated into the city&rsquo;s annual Lilac Festival, were still underway.&ldquo;The celebration has been an unbelievable experience for all of us because there really was a lot of pressure during the course of the year to win in Rochester&mdash;for all of us,&rdquo; Amerk coach Mike Keenan said after his club swept past the Maine Mariners in four games to win the American Hockey League championship.&ldquo;The fans here have gone beyond all expectations as far as celebrations are concerned. The Calder Cup is the city&rsquo;s cup, die fan&rsquo;s cup. There probablly were 10,000 there to celebrate with the team on Friday and it&rsquo;s been a non-stop celebration since.&rdquo;The Amerks needed just four games and seven days to dispose of the Northern Division champion Mariners and return the Calder Cup to Rochester for the first time since 1968&mdash;a 15-year absence. Rochester won its home games, 3-2 and 4-3, and wrapped up the title with 5-1 and 3-1 victories at Portland, ME.Although Keenan, understandably, preferred not to single out the performance of any one player, at least three Amerks stood above the rest of their teammates on the statistics sheet.Forwards Jean-Francois Sauve and Sean McKenna established league records in scoring to spark the offense, while goalie Jacques Cloutier, with the help of the Amerks&rsquo; sound defensive game, recorded a scintillating 1.75 goals-against average in the finals. Sauve cracked the longstanding record of points in the playoffs with 28 in 16 games. The previous standard of 25 was shared by Butch Goring (Springfield, 1971), Bob Rivard (Baltimore, 1972) and Morris Stefinaw (Nova Scotia, 1973). En route to that record, Sauve picked up 21 assists to surpass the mark of 19 established by Adirondack&rsquo;s Pete Mahovlich in 1981.McKenna, the young right winger who played on a line with Sauve and left winger Jere Gillis, scored 14 goals in the playoffs, including six against the Mariners, to surpass the record of 13 set in 1964 by Cleveland&rsquo;s Joe Szura.Cloutier played all but 26 minutes of the playoffs and recorded a 12-4 record and a 2.84 goals-against average.Perhaps the most telling statistics were the ones fashioned by the Amerks&rsquo; power-play and penalty-killing units. Against the Mariners, Rochester killed off all 11 power plays and in their last 23 shorthanded situations in the playoffs, the Amerks allowed just one goal. With a man advantage, Rochester converted on 21 of 50 chances, a sparkling 42 per cent efficiency rating.Rochester made its way to the finals with victories over Binghamton and New Haven. The Nighthawks rallied from i 3-1 deficit to force a seventh game before succumbing and Keenan credits that workout for setting the Amerks on the right course in the finals.Rochester clinched the title on May 20 at Portland and flew back to Rochester on May 21. An estimated 1,000 people met them at the airport and police estimate that between 10,000 and 15,000 people turned out for the 45-minute parade that wound its way to city hall for a ceremony.Keenan admitted that he gained even more satisfaction from the sweep of the Southern Division, overall points and Calder Cup titles because it meant that the team had come full circle since his appointment as coach in 1980. In his first year behind the Rochester bench, the Amerks did not make the playoffs.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very special because I&rsquo;ve seen the franchise here grow,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;The first year, we had 51 players and about 75-80 changes. Last year we had somewhere around 37 players and about 55 changes or so. It shows the strength of the organization (Rochester is owned by the Buffalo Sabres) and the job Scotty Bowman has done. This year I think we had approximately 31 players and probably around the low 40s as far as changes are concerned.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01160/4928262-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="554" height="877"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rochester&rsquo;s J.F. Sauve established a playoff record with 28 points in 16 games.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Continuity In Sabres’Organization Helps Rochester Take League Title

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div>SPRINGFIELD&mdash;It&rsquo;s the same old story. The American Hockey League waits to see if the Central Hockey League will survive, while the expansion rumors of winter turn into dead ends of spring.When the NHL meets in Montreal June 6-8 for its Congress meetings, the AHL will wait for a CHL announcement. If the league does not operate next season, New Jersey, Calgary, Minnesota, New York Rangers, New York Islanders and the Blues (wherever they may be) will need a place to nurture its young.But AHL expansion in 1983-84? League secretary Gordie Anziano isn&rsquo;t counting on it.&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t appear we&rsquo;re going to have any new clubs,&rdquo; Anziano said. &ldquo;If you listen to the rumors, you&rsquo;d think we&rsquo;re going to add two or three new teams. But nobody appears as if they&rsquo;ll appear in Montreal and request a franchise. If they are, they&rsquo;ve kept it a secret.&rdquo;The New Jersey Devils were affiliated with the CHL&rsquo;s Wichita Wind last season, a franchise that has already moved to Billings, MO. New Jersey was reportedly interested in buying an AHL franchise closer to home, but vice-president of hockey operations Max McNab says no decision has been made.&ldquo;We were reasonably happy in Wichita,&rdquo; McNab said. &ldquo;We have to sit down and decide how far to go financially.&rdquo;Calgary was rumored to be talking about a dual affiliation with Montreal in Nova Scotia, but general manager Cliff Fletcher says the Flames are happy with their CHL team in Denver.&ldquo;When Irving Grundman was GM (in Montreal), he called me to see what interest I had in that. I advised him I had no interest. We have over 50 players under contract. We need our own team.&rdquo;The New York Rangers spent the last nine years in the AHL before jumping to Tulsa of the CHL last season. Director of hockey opeartions Craig Patrick says the Rangers don&rsquo;t necessarily have a preference toward either league.In Minnesota, GM Lou Nanne admitted the North Stars have talked to Chicago about a dual affiliation in Springfield, &ldquo;but we&rsquo;ve talked to about five different teams in the AHL. We haven&rsquo;t decided yer&rdquo;And that&rsquo;s the bottom line. In hockey&rsquo;s version of musical chairs, the music won&rsquo;t stop until June 6-8 in Montreal. If the CHL survives, AHL off-season franchise activity is unlikely. But should the CHL fold, no NHL team will want to be left without a place for its minor leaguers to sit.Bill Adler, the CHL&rsquo;s director of information, emphatically denied a rumor which would have the CHL merging with the International Hockey League. If the CHL survives, it will survive alone.&ldquo;The only way our league will operate is with six franchises,&rdquo; Adler said from the league&rsquo;s office in Dallas. &ldquo;Until June 6, we don&rsquo;t have any definite ideas.&rdquo;Although no CHL-affiliated teams have talked directly with the AHL, Anziano says his league is ready to incorporate any and all.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not trying to put anyone out of business, but we haven&rsquo;t been successful by sitting on our hands,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We told the NHL teams that aren&rsquo;t with us that if they&rsquo;d like to be, to get going and let us know.&rdquo;Meanwhile, the Boston Bruins, who do not believe in operating their own farm team, will drop their shared affiliation with the Pittsburgh Penguins and the AHL Baltimore Skipjacks in favor of a new agreement with the Washington Capitals and Hershey Bears.BITS &rsquo;N BITES&mdash;According to Anziano, the league&rsquo;s playoff pool was close to $300,000, the largest it&rsquo;s ever been&hellip;The AHL meetings are scheduled for Lake Tahoe, NE, June 27-July 1&hellip;Moncton Alpines are considering entering into a dual affiliation next season, with New Jersey rumored to be on its list&hellip; Bruce Landon has agreed to a three-year deal as GM of the Springfield Indians&hellip; Adirondack Red Wings have 10 players&mdash;including Eric Vail and Greg Joly&mdash;who become free agents. Two others, Dennis Polonich and Bill Hogaboam, are entering their option years. Coach Bill Mahoney will be back, but there will be a new and younger look in Glens Falls&hellip;Amerk coach Mike Keenan, who led Rochester to its first Calder Cup since 1968, was almost fired in November when the Amerks lost six straight. Keenan, working with the guillotine over his head in the final year of a three-year contract, did a magnificent job. Two moves, moving Geordie Robertson from right wing back to his original position at center and transforming left winger Jim Wiemer to defense, played a huge part in Rochester&rsquo;s regular- and post-season success. If Keenan, who is one of a couple finalists for the g head coaching position at the University of Toronto, does not return to Rochester, assistant coach Phil Myre is reportedly next in line for the job&hellip;St. Catharines left winger Reg Thomas, Saints&rsquo; center-assistant coach Bruce Boudreau, Springfield left winger Louis Begin and Adirondack right winger Bobby Crawford are among those reportedly being offered contracts to play overseas. &#9632;

Expansion Not Likely To Happen In ’83-84

<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div>H&B Louisville HockeyH&B Louisville HockeyINDIANAPOLIS&mdash;Veteran defenseman Bruce Affleck, who joined the Checkers with only eight games left in the regular schedule, received the Max McNab Trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the playoffs, as Indy won the Adams Cup for the second straight year, beating Birmingham five games to two in the best-of-nine finale.Affleck, a 29-year-old Denver University product from Salmon Arm, B.C., played in Europe this past season, after spending the previous two seasons with the Checkers. He also spent a year each with Salt Lake and the Dallas in the Central Hockey League after a five-year National League career with the St. Louis Blues.Affleck beame the first defenseman to win the McNab Trophy in the eight-year history of the award. He didn&rsquo;t score a goal in 13 playoff games, but had 18 assists, only one shy of the CHL playoff record set by Denis Houle for Salt Lake in 1981. Affleck had been honored twice with the Bobby Orr Trophy as the CHL&rsquo;s Most Valuable Defenseman&mdash;in 1979-80 with Dallas and 1980-81 with Indianapolis.The Checkers did not have an easy time winning the Cup. After splitting the first two games at home, they trailed two games to one when Birmingham won Game Three at home. But Indy won four in a row, two of them in overtime.Game Six, in the State Fairgrounds at Indianapoldid not end until 6:08 of the second overtime, when Scott Howson&rsquo;s rebound shot in the second overtime period won it, 3-2, for the Checkers. Dave Simpson&rsquo;s opening Checker goal had been answered by Wes Jarvis in the first period for Birmingham. Bob Boileau put the Stars in front in the third, but Ron Handy scored for Indy with 2:29 left in regulation time to force the overtime.Back in Birmingham for Game Six, the Checkers rode Glen Duncan&rsquo;s hat trick to a 7-2 Cup-clinching triumph. Warren Young opened the scoring for Birmingham with only 33 seconds left in the first period, but Indy took charge as Kevin Devine, Simpson and Duncan counted in the second. Duncan added two more in the third, followed by Red Laurence and Howson, with Boileau getting the Stars&rsquo; last tally.Kelly Hrudey was in the Checker goal for six of the seven games in the finals, missing only Game Four in Birmingham. Mario Lessard worked all but the opening period of Game One for the South Stars. Hrudey wound up with a playoff-leading average of 2.04 for 10 postseason games, while Lessard had a 3.30 GAA.Laurence led all playoff scorers with 11 goals and 11 assists, while Howson had 12 goals to lead that category and finished one back of Laurence with 21 points. Third-place on the chart went to Simpson with seven goals and 20 points, while Affleck was fourth with 18.Laurence had five power-play goals in the playoffs, Howson four and Simpson three. Birmingham&rsquo;s Steve Martison was the playoff penalty-leader with 80 minutes in 13 games.&ldquo;The myth that the first time is the greatest is just not true,&rdquo; said Creighton after the Cup was clinched. &ldquo;The second time is every bit as pleasant.&rdquo;Actually it was Creighton&rsquo;s third Adams Cup victory. He won it in 1973 with the Omaha Knights. Only three other CHL coaches have three Cup triumphs. Fred Shero did it with St. Paul in 1965 and Omaha in 1970-71. Bobby Krown had three champions in Dallas, (1969, &rsquo;72 and &rsquo;74) and Jack Evans had three with Salt Lake (1975, &rsquo;80 and &rsquo;81). Indianapolis became the fourth CHL team to claim back-to-back Adams Cup championships. The first was Oklahoma City (1966-67) and the others were Omaha (1970-71) and Salt Lake (1980-81).Meanwhile, in league headquarters in Dallas, with only two of the six CHL members definitely set for the 1983-84 season, president Bud Poile is hoping some answers will emerge from the NHL&rsquo;s June meeting in Montreal.Teams committed for the forthcoming season are the champion Checkers, backed by the four-time Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders, and the Colorado Flames, ready for their second season with the Calgary Flames.Owner Art Teece of the Salt Lake Golden Eagles expected to sign an agreement with the Saskatoon owners, carrying over his contract with the St. Louis Blues. But when the NHL executives vetoed the Blues&rsquo; sale to the Saskatoon group, that left a lot of questions in the air.The Tulsa Oilers have moved their operations to Expo Square (the State Fair complex) and were planning to install ice-making machinery in the Pavilion there. But the Oilers&rsquo; one-year contract with the New York Rangers was not renewed and the Rangers are reported to be looking elsewhere.Wichita Wind owner Larry Gordon announced recently he is pulling his team out of the league, but there has been no word from the parent New Jersey Devils. Gordon asked the Devils to look into the possibilities of relocating in either Phoenix or Billings.Birmingham, in spite of a strong showing on the ice, had financial woes all season. The parent Minnesota North Stars are reportedly seeking another location.&ldquo;The franchise owners&mdash;New York, New Jersey and Minnesota&mdash;have not advised me they will not return to the same cities next season,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;Until the NHL clubs make up their minds, the CHL is sort of left dangling.&rdquo;Subjects on the agenda for the CHL&rsquo;s June meetings in Montreal are the reduction of the regular schedule from 80 games to 70 and the scheduling of home- and-home games by each CHL team with the U.S. Olympic team. Those games would count in the CHL standings, as did similar games in 1979-80. &#9632;

Indianapolis Repeats As League Champs

<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>FINALS<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01159/4928369-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="508" height="80"></div>(Rochester wins best-of-seven series 4-0)GAMES COMPLETEDFri. May 13Maine 2 at Rochester 3Sun. May 15Maine 3 at Rochester 4Wed. May 18Rochester 5 at Maine 1Thu. May 19Rochester 3 at Maine 1<h2>SEMI-FINALS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02115/4928362-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="508" height="80"></div>(Maine wins best-of-seven series 4-2)<h2>FINAL PLAYOFF LEADERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0393/4928355-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="530" height="485"></div>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0473/4928348-1-eng-US/f0043-042.jpg" title="f0043-04" width="521" height="125"></div>(Toledo wins best-of-seven series 4-2)GAMES COMPLETEDFri. May 6Milwaukee 2 at Toledo 4Sat. Ma 7Milwaukee 1 at Toledo 4Tue. May 8Toledo 2 at Milwaukee 3Thu. May 11Toledo 3 at Milwaukee 7Fri. May 13Milwaukee 4 at Toledo 16Sat. May 14Toledo 5 at Milwaukee 1FINAL PLAYOFF LEADERS<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0563/4928341-1-eng-US/f0043-052.jpg" title="f0043-05" width="512" height="358"></div> &#9632;

f0043-01

MINOR SCOREBOARD

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div>TOLEDO&mdash;Bill Inglis is a rarity among coaches&hellip;at least that&rsquo;s according to his assistant, Tony Piroski.&ldquo;Ninety per cent of coaches in hockey want to be in the limelight when they win,&rdquo; said the Goaldiggers&rsquo; assistant coach. &ldquo;When they lose, they want the players to be in the limelight. Bill is exactly the opposite. That&rsquo;s why the players respect him so much.&rdquo;Inglis may not like the limelight but he can hardly stay out of its glow any longer. The soft-spoken former coach of the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League is celebrating his second straight championship since taking over a team that was so bad it was hard to find them in the standings.The Diggers took the title by beating Western Division leader Milwaukee in five games, the final one a convincing 5-1 victory in Milwaukee. The Diggers won the regular-season championship with 113 points.The Diggers also won both the league and playoff titles last year, giving general manager and part owner Bill Beagan a perfect 2-0 record in the two years he has been in control of the franchise.The victory was especially sweet for Ron McNair, Dirk Graham, Dave Falkenberg, Paul Tantardini and Mike Labianca. They were all members of that ill-fated 1980-81 team Inglis inherited. If this is the best team Toledo has ever had during its long history in the International Hockey League, the 1980-81 unit had to be the worst. But Inglis turned things around a year ago and made things even better this trip.&ldquo;The big horse, that&rsquo;s what he is,&rdquo; Tantardini says of Inglis. &ldquo;Our winning, it comes down to the coach. He knows who should play in every situation. He&rsquo;s been successful. Anything he says goes. Guys don&rsquo;t even question him. He treats everybody like a human being. He&rsquo;s definitely the best coach I&rsquo;ve ever played for.&rdquo;The clincher against Milwaukee came in Milwaukee after the Admirals had fought back from a 2-0 deficit to tie the series with two straight wins in Milwaukee.But, Game Five was the key. The Diggers overwhelmed the Admirals 16-4 and Milwaukee apparently never recovered. Toledo exploded for six goals in the first period, added seven more in the second and closed out with a modest three in the third period.Graham, Brian Kinsella and Gordon MacFarlane led the assault with hat tricks. Commenting on the rout afterwards, defenseman Paul Mercier said: &ldquo;It was like tick-tack-too. There&rsquo;s not that much that a team can do when everybody is going so well for us like that.&rdquo;Milwaukee, which led the league in goals, only ignited its offense once. That was in Game Four, which Milwaukee won 7-3. The Ads built a 7-1 lead before Toledo launched a comeback&mdash;albeit a weak one. Milwaukee&rsquo;s other victory was a 3-2 thriller.Toledo&rsquo;s offense was the surprise. The Diggers won most of the season with defense, anchored by goalie Lorne Molleken. Molleken had the best goals-against average in the league and the average didn&rsquo;t suffer any in the playoffs.In the six games against Milwaukee, Molleken had two one-goal games and one in which he allowed just a pair. He did not play the third period of the 16-4 rout, taking a rest while Paul Billings filled in. &#9632;

Inglis Given Praise As Diggers Win

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BROPHY</div>H&B Louisville HockeyH&B Louisville HockeySUDBURY&mdash;The Wolves&rsquo; new coach, Billy Harris, doesn&rsquo;t want to make any promises about the coming Ontario Hockey League season, but he does feel the fans of Sudbury have waited long enough to have a competitive hockey team.If nothing else, he wants his 1983-84 Wolves to be more competitive at home and he will do everything in his power to make sure they are as soon as possible.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no way I can try to sell the fans on a three-year plan,&rdquo; said Harris, who guided the Wolves&rsquo; for the final month of last season.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we can expect the fans to be any more patient than they have already been. We&rsquo;ll probably start the season with a very young team but if they aren&rsquo;t winning, we&rsquo;ll have to make changes. The big thing is to start winning our home games.&ldquo;We have to give the fans entertaining and winning hockey.&rdquo;Harris, who has coaching experience at the professional and international level, said he wouldn&rsquo;t be able to form any pre-season game plan until he had a chance to evaluate the talent on the team. He also said he hopes to scoop a few good young players in the midget draft.&ldquo;We had a press conference up here last week and it wouldn&rsquo;t have made sense for me to come out saying we&rsquo;ll have a fast-skating, hard-hitting team and then go to training camp and find we don&rsquo;t have the personnel that could play that style,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The big thing I want is a team that plays hard for 60 minutes. If we&rsquo;re down 5-2 going into the third period, we&rsquo;ll still be working hard.&ldquo;During the past few years here, if the Wolves were trailing by a few goals after two periods, they didn&rsquo;t have the confidence to make a comeback.&rdquo;Harris is confident hockey will once again become popular in in Sudbury.Perhaps the coach with the toughest job of selling hockey is Joe Contini, new bench boss of the Guelph Platers. Contini, who played 68 games in the National Hockey League with Colorado Rockies and Minnesota North Stars, must try to turn around the team that won seven games and lost 63 last season as the OHL&rsquo;s latest expansion franchise.The Platers scored a mere 246 goals, while allowing 555.Contini was known as an aggressive, hard-nosed type in junior when he played with Hamilton and St. Catharines Fincups; a player who would go through a brick wall to get a job done.Another new coach with his work cut out for him is Rick Comacchia of the Kingston Canadians. Comacchia earned the reputation as an excellent hockey coach with St. Mike&rsquo;s junior B&rsquo;s the past few seasons and must now try to bring fans back to the Kingston Arena.Canadians&rsquo; fans haven&rsquo;t had much to cheer about the past few seasons. Last year Kingston finished 24-45-1.London Knights have hired Don Boyd, a former coach in the Western Hockey League, as both general manager and coach. Boyd replaces Paul McIntosh, who was fired after the Knights were swept by the Brantford Alexanders in the first playoff round.Boyd started the past season as coach of the WHL&rsquo;s Regina Pats but quit in February for what was termed &ldquo;philosophical differences&rdquo; between himself and GM-governor Bob Strumm.The Knights also annouced that the team&rsquo;s former GM, Bill Long, has been promoted to vice-president of hockey operations.The OHL Board of Governors granted conditional approval for the sale of the Windsor Spitfires from Fred Sorel to an Ottawa-based group led by John McHale. Those reported to be among McHale&rsquo;s group are ex-pro and former Philadelphia Flyer coach Pat Quinn and Bob Boucher. Boucher is apparently being tabbed as coach and general manager of the Spits.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01147/4928424-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg" title="f0044-01" width="557" height="727"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sudbury coach Billy Harris will stress the importance of winning at home.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Harris Vows One Thing As Coach: Make Wolves More Competitive

<div class="byline">BY MORRIS DALLA COSTA</div>PORTLAND&mdash;The city of roses and now the city of champions.It may never be the same again.As strange as it seems, Portland was the site of the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League championship, the Memorial Cup tournament. It was the first time the championship was held outside Canada and like all things down in the United States, it was done big and done well. When it was over, Portland became the first American city to own the Memorial Cup and the Portland Winter Hawks supporters yelled long and loud.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t believe what this means for hockey in Portland,&rdquo; said Cathy Rossini of the Western Hockey League, one of the organizors of the event. &ldquo;There are thousands of people celebrating. It&rsquo;s wonderful.&rdquo;Wonderful could have been the response the people of Portland gave the Memorial Cup. Early in the week the Memorial Cup was one of the furthest things from the mind of Portlandites. As the week progressed, the Winter Hawks made their city take notice. More than 54,000 fans attended the eight games, a total of 9,527 for the final game. Portland fans, like their city, stand apart from any other group of people. They were ferociously partisan, supportive and loud.&ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;t hear yourself think on the bench,&rdquo; said Oshawa Generals&rsquo; coach Paul Theriault. &ldquo;It really unnerved us.&rdquo;Portland took Theriault&rsquo;s Generals apart 8-3 in the final game after having beaten them 10-5 in the round-robin part of the competition. As the final minute of the hockey game ticked away the fans began chanting &ldquo;USA&rdquo;. Of the 20 players on Portland&rsquo;s roster, 17 are Canadians, three are Americans.Appropriately, one of these Americans, Alfie Turcotte, captured the tournament&rsquo;s most valuable player award.&ldquo;It feels like it did a couple of years ago when the U.S. team beat the Russians in the Olympics,&rdquo; Turcotte said. &ldquo;I was watching television and I felt a shiver run up my spine. You can&rsquo;t believe the feeling we got standing at center ice with the Memorial Cup and listening to those fans shout.&rdquo;&ldquo;Our fans mean a lot to us,&rdquo; said the Hawks&rsquo; center Ken Yaremchuk. &ldquo;Winning this was important to us but we won it for our fans. It means a lot to junior hockey.&rdquo;Portland made it to the final with a round-robin record of two wins in three games. Their only loss was a 9-3 setback to Lethbridge Broncos, a meaningless game in which the Hawks sat out Yaremchuk and starting netminder Mike Vernon. The Generals also finished at 2-1 and had to defeat Verdun Juniors 7-5 in a semi-final game to make it to the final. Lethbridge Broncos were eliminated from the early team.The tournament was not without it&rsquo;s share of controversy. For the first time, the Memorial Cup tournament had four teams, instead of the traditional three. Portland, as the host team, was admitted automatically. It had lost in five games to Lethbridge in the WHL final. A tussle between Lethbridge and Portland over the services of Calgary Wranglers&rsquo; netminder Mike Vernon provided the tournament with a second story line. But Portland Winter Hawks&rsquo; coach Ken Hodge wasn&rsquo;t concerned about his club&rsquo;s win appearing cheap.&ldquo;If the press wants to tarnish the win they can go on ahead and do it,&rdquo; said Hodge. &ldquo;But what we have here, we have for a lifetime and our families have for a lifetime. No one can take that away from us. We earned it.&rdquo;While detractors attempt to dump on Portland, one fact remains indelibly etched on the minds of those who saw the tournament. Portland was the best team of the four who attended.&ldquo;They were the best team in the tournament. They beat Oshawa twice and it takes some good club to do that,&rdquo; said Theriault.Portland did it with outstanding speed and offensive power.&ldquo;We win hockey games with offense,&rdquo; said Hodge. &ldquo;We have 20 players on our roster and we don&rsquo;t have a checking line. We don&rsquo;t believe in checking. This is the most team speed we&rsquo;ve ever had and I believe this team is one of the best ever assembled.&rdquo;The fans of Portland love the wide-open style of play. They aren&rsquo;t enamored with the bump-and-grind approach. One of hockey&rsquo;s big selling points in Portland is the speed and quickness of the game.&ldquo;They are the fastest team I&rsquo;ve ever seen,&rdquo; said the Generals&rsquo; defenseman Norm Schmidt. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t anyone in the Ontario Hockey League to match them.&rdquo;The other big winner at the Memorial Cup was Pat Lafontaine, who played with Turcotte last season on Detroit Compuware midgets. Lafontaine was selected as the CMJHL player of the year over Cornwall Royals&rsquo; Doug Gilmour and Kamloops Junior Oilers&rsquo; Dean Evason.Two Winter Hawks made the tournament all-star team, too. Yaremchuk and winger Randy Heath, joined the Generals&rsquo; goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz, defenseman Joe Cirella and winger John MacLean, along with Verdun&rsquo;s blueliner Jerome Carriere.Vernon was selected as the tournament&rsquo;s top netminder, while Generals&rsquo; Dave Gans was selected as the most gentlemanly player.The success the tournament encountered at the gate may make the CMJHL take a close look at including a host club at every Memorial Cup tournament.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s face it, everyone likes to play in front of big crowds,&rdquo; said Hodge. &ldquo;If the host team isn&rsquo;t included you won&rsquo;t be playing in front of a full arena. Having the host team in just adds to the tournament.&rdquo;Next year the tournament is scheduled for an OHL center. It&rsquo;ll have to go some to top Portland. Portland was the first U.S. city to have a professional hockey team. That was in 1912. Now they are the first team outside Canada to hold the Canadian junior hockey championship.&ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened is that it&rsquo;s brought hockey back to the U.S.,&rdquo; said Rossini. &ldquo;We were hoping for a good tournament and good response. We got it.&rdquo; &#9632;

Winter Hawks Come Up Smelling Like Roses

H&B Louisville HockeyH&B Louisville Hockey<h2>MEMORIAL CUP</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-0299/4928486-1-eng-US/f0044-022.jpg" title="f0044-02" width="547" height="186"></div>GAMES COMPLETEDSat. May 7Oshawa 0. Lethbridge 2Portland 7, Verdun 6Sun May 8Portland 10, Oshawa 5Verdun 4, Lethbridge 3Mon. May 9Lethbridge 9, Portland 3Tue. May 10Oshawa 5, Verdun 1SEMLRNALSThu. May 12Oshawa 7, Verdun 5FINALSSat May 14Portland 8, Oshawa 3(Portland wins Memorial Cup)<h2>CENTENNIAL CUP</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-0364/4928479-1-eng-US/f0044-032.jpg" title="f0044-03" width="553" height="123"></div>(North York wins best-of-seven series 4-9)GAMES COMPLETEDAbbotsford 6 at North Yorii 9Tue. May 10Abbotsford 5 at North York 0Thu. May 12Abbotsford 3 at North York 10Fri. May 13Abbotsford 2 at North York 10(AM games played in Toronto) &#9632;

f0044-02

AMATEUR SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0045-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01124/4928517-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0045-01

<div class="byline">BY BEN KUZMA</div>H&B Louisville HockeyH&B Louisville HockeyPORTLAND&mdash;The Portland Winter Hawks won the Memorial Cup with a convincing 8-3 victory over the Oshawa Generals and when the fun on the ice was over, the partying had just begun.The Winter Hawks, who became the first American-based team to capture the Canadian major junior hockey championship with their defeat of the Ontario Hockey League champion Generals, celebrated their triumph in style.Sure, there was the customary champagne enthusiastically imbibed by the overjoyed Winter Hawks&mdash;the youngest team ever to claim the Memorial Cup&mdash;but there was more&mdash;such as a fun in the sun trip in reward for capturing the Cup on home ice.Three days after earning the elusive Memorial Cup which eluded Portland&rsquo;s grasp last season, the Winter Hawks departed on a well-earned, eight-day holiday to the Bahamas. The May 7-14 Memorial Clup extravaganza, painted green by organizers who knew in advance it would be a financial success, was a golden moment for the Winter Hawks.You can also color Portland&rsquo;s triumph brown, as in a deep tan. And that&rsquo;s just about how the Generals, Western Hockey League champion Lethbridge Broncos and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champion Verdun Juniors feel, a little browned off at allowing Winter Hawks to claim the Canadian championship.After all, the Winter Hawks got into the four-team tournament by the most convenient manner, the backdoor. Sure, they won the Western Division and were tough all year before falling to Lethbridge in the league final. But an experiment to ensure the Memorial Cup would be a financial success in granting the Winter Hawks a host berth was the type of insurance the Winter Hawks were banking on. And they cashed in.It&rsquo;s easy to forget how Lethbridge stunned the defending champion Hawks in taking the best-of-seven WHL final series 4-1. But it is easy to recall just how potent the Winter Hawks were all season. They established a new season mark for team goals in one season. In the end it would prove the Winter Hawks&rsquo; biggest blessing.&ldquo;We believe over the 72-game schedule that we were the best team in the league,&rdquo; commented Portland general manager Brian Shaw. &ldquo;We finished 29 points ahead of Lethbridge. For one week they (Broncos) were a better team but when the chips were down there was no doubt who the better team was.&ldquo;We did it with speed and precision passing. We had so much speed and balance that we didn&rsquo;t have to match line for line. I think the other clubs thought it would be a shootout at the OK Corral when they played us. But we proved we could play defensive too.&rdquo;The high-scoring Winter Hawks took the short route to the final with a 7-6 victory over Verdun and a convincing 10-5 drubbing of Oshawa. With Lethbridge falling 8-2 to Oshawa and 4-3 to Verdun, the Winter Hawks earned a quick berth into the championship final.Lethbridge did gain a measure of revenge by stopping Portland 9-3 in a meaningless matchup. Oshawa then closed the round-robin play with a 5-1 win over Verdun. Oshawa earned a berth in the final with a 7-5 semi-final decision over Verdun.In the final, the Winter Hawks wasted little time gaining the upper hand before 9,527 partisan fans. Cam Neely, who finished the game with a hat trick, got Portland off to a fast start at 2:34. Less than four minutes later Alfie Turcotte, named the tournament&rsquo;s MVP, staked Portland to a 2-0 advantage.The Winter Hawks were never in trouble. They skated to a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes, were up 5-2 heading into the final period and then added three more.Richard Kromm, Kelly Hubbard, Ray Ferraro and Randy Heath potted other goals for Portland, which outshot Oshawa 48-31. Mike Vernon of Calgary Wranglers, who caused some tournament dissension by opting to suit up in the Cup with Portland rather than Lethbridge, which earned the right to ask for his services, was steady and named the event&rsquo;s top netminder.Dale DeGray. John MacLean and Todd Hooey scored for the Generals.Portland fell victim to a vengeful Lethbridge club which was already out of the running when the teams hooked up in the round robin. The Winter Hawks were 2-0 and heading for the final while the Broncos, winless in two games, were heading for an early exit yet hoping to gain a measure of revenge.The Broncos saw their hopes fade in a 4-3 loss to Verdun after opening with an embarrassing 8-2 loss to Oshawa.With the Memorial Cup settled, attention is now being focused on the National Hockey League entry draft and developments within the WHL.NHL Central Scouting, headed by Jim Gregory, ranks American centers Pat Lafontaine of Verdun and Brian Lawton of Mt. St. Charles High School in Providence, R.I., as the top two NHL prospects, respectively. Lafontaine was named Molson&rsquo;s Canadian Major Junior Hockey Player of the Year at the Memorial Cup.Right winger Neely of Portland is ranked ninth, while center Russ Courtnall of Victoria Cougars is 10th. Portland&rsquo;s center Turcotte is seeded 11th, while right winger Lane Lambert of Saskatoon Blades is ranked 14th. Lethbridge defenseman Gerald Diduck and left winger Nevin Markwart of Regina Pats are also considered first-round picks. &#9632;

Portland Celebrates Championship In Style

<div class="byline">BY HERB ZURKOWSKY</div>MONTREAL&mdash;He was a fighter until the end, but after numerous professional victories and two years of ridding the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) of its chippy image, Jean Rougeau has lost his toughest battle.Rougeau died May 25 at 10:55 p.m. from liver cancer at Hopital Saint-Luc. The former wrestling champion had been in a coma for a week. He celebrated his 54th birthday in April.Rougeau, who only recently resigned as QMJHL president, astounded doctors with his will to live.His malady was first diagnosed in December, 1981, after he complained of feeling weak. After numerous exhaustive tests, Rougeau was informed he had an intestinal problem and cancer. Two weeks later he was operated on to remove 12 inches of his large intestine. His liver was inoperable.One doctor, at that time, told Rougeau he only had a few months to live. Another was more specific&mdash;he had until June 14, 1982.The so-called medical experts missed by close to a year.Due to the painful chemotherapy treatments he had been taking for the better part of 18 months, Rougeau sold his Laurentians&rsquo; restaurant and moved into his parents&rsquo; north-end Montreal home. He also spent considerable time with his brother, Jacques, in Miami.But Rougeau continued an active life until the end, administering the QMJHL until April and even finding the time to writer his memoirs, along with ghostwriter Therese Vigeant, which were published last winter by Les Editions Quebecor.The book was launched at a lavish news conference attended by many of Rougeau&rsquo;s friends, including Qeubec Premier Rene Levesque.Rougeau wanted to make hockey his career but wasn&rsquo;t proficient enough as a goaltender, so turned instead to wrestling.He captured numerous championships while establishing attendance records of better than 18,000 spectators at the Forum. He also packed crowds into the Paul Sauve Sports Centre in suburban Rosemont.Upon retiring from wrestling Rougeau purchased, managed and coached the QMJHL&rsquo;s Laval Nationals&mdash;the forerunners of the Voisins. In Laval, he tutored prolific scorer Mike Bossy, now a member of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s New York Islanders.He succeeded Marcel Robert as QMJHL president in 1981, establishing a scholarship fund and ensuring that all players attended school.But he gained the most fame for cleaning up the league&rsquo;s image&mdash;he suspended former Trois-Rivieres&rsquo; coach Marie Bazinet for 25 games this season after repeated acts of hooliganism by the Draveurs&rsquo; players&mdash;and returning the game to the skaters, as evidenced by the recent final between the Verdun Juniors and Longueuil Chevaliers.Rougeau is survived by his wife, two daughters, his parents and a brother.John Horman, QMJHL vice president, said a committee of five will now be formed, seeking the league&rsquo;s sixth president.The committee will recommend one applicant to the board of governors, who then vote at the league&rsquo;s annual meetings in August. Until then, Horman will serve as interim president&mdash;and he didn&rsquo;t rule out the possibility that he&rsquo;d seek the post.The NHL&rsquo;s Quebec Nordiques have purchased the QMJHL&rsquo;s Quebec Remparts from owner Bernard Belanger for $200,000. The team lost $135,000 this season. Belanger will remain on the Remparts&rsquo; executive board and the team will continue playing out of the Colisee. Michel Morin could be appointed the new coach and general manager, replacing Fred Dixon and Gilles Courteau. Morin was fired by the Chicoutimi Sagueneens this season.The NHL&rsquo;s entry draft, scheduled for June 8 at the Forum, will no doubt feature several selections from the QMJHL. Among the players who should be chosen are: Pat Lafontaine, the Verdun Juniors&rsquo; center who led the league with 104 goals; Sylvain Turgeon, a center with the Hull Oluympics who scored 54 goals; defenseman Bobby Dollas of the Laval Voisons, a superb rookie who anchored the team and also contributed 61 points; right winger Yves Heroux, who has size (6-foot-1, 190 pounds), a good scoring eye and a knack for scoring goals. &#9632;

QMJHL’s Boss Rougeau Loses Bout With Cancer

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FINAL PLAYOFF SCORING

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GOALTENDING LEADERS

LONG ISLAND&mdash;It has taken 10 years but Lanny McDonald of the Calgary Flames has finally received some long overdue recognition.After being overshadowed for the last decade by some of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s best right wingers, McDonald was named the winner of the Bill Masterton Trophy as the NHL player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. For the veteran Calgary sharpshooter, it was justification for years of determination and hard work.The 30-year-old McDonald ranks as one of the league&rsquo;s most productive modern-day players with a career total of 385 goals, despite the fact he has spent most of his hockey lifetime playing with mediocre teams. McDonald was selected by the Professional Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association, which originated the award in 1968.McDonald was one of five finalists for the Masterton Trophy. He beat out Charlie Simmer, Darryl Sittier, Tony Esposito and Ken Houston. McDonald was one of two post-season awards&rsquo; winners announced at the Stanley Cup luncheon on Long Island. Orval Tessier of the Chicago Black Hawks was the other as he was selected winner of the Jack Adams Trophy as NHL Coach of the Year. Tessier, who lifted the Black Hawks into a top title contender this past season in his rookie year as an NHL coach, was chosen over Bryan Murray of Washington and Boston&rsquo;s Gerry Cheevers in a very close vote. Tessier collected 96 points to Murray&rsquo;s 87 and 85 for Cheevers.Defenseman Charlie Huddy of Edmonton was also honored as the best plus-minus player in the league this season. He received the Emery Edge Trophy after finishing the season with a plus 62. In addition, Emery presented individual awards to the leading plus players on each of the 21 league teams.Meanwhile, the NHL has introduced a new format to determine its awards winners with the announcement that two finalists have been declared in all categories. The eventual trophy winners will be announced at a gala June 7 theatre-like presentation at Montreal&rsquo;s Place des Arts during the annual NHL meetings.Here&rsquo;s how the awards&rsquo; picture looks with the two final candidates in each category:Hart Trophy (most valuable player)&mdash; Wayne Gretzky of Edmonton and Boston&rsquo;s Pete Peeters.Norris Trophy (best defenseman)&mdash; Mark Howe of Philadelphia and Washington&rsquo;s Rod Langway.Calder Trophy (rookie of the year)&mdash; Phil Housley of Buffalo and Steve Larmer of Chicago.Selke Trophy (best defensive forward)&mdash;Philadelphia&rsquo;s Bobby Clarke and Jari Kurri of Edmonton.Lady Byng Trophy (sportsmanship, playing ability)&mdash;Mike Bossy of the Islanders and Boston&rsquo;s Rick Middleton.Vezina Trophy (best goalie)&mdash;Peeters and Roland Melanson of the Islanders.Members of the Professional Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association will conduct the voting for the awards except in the case of the Vezina Trophy, which will be decided by a vote of the NHL&rsquo;s general managers.It&rsquo;s conceivable the NHL will have two repeat trophy winners this season with Gretzky considered the best bet in the awards race to keep his hold on the Hart Trophy. The Edmonton superstar is up against Boston goalie Peeters but Gretzky&rsquo;s superlative season is likely to make him the choice of the hockery writers as MVP winner for the fourth straight year. Gretzky led the NHL in scoring with 196 points and was instrumental in the Oilers reaching the Stanley Cup finals for the first time this season. Peeters also turned in an outstanding season with league-leading 2.36 GAA and eight shutouts for the Bruins.Middleton, who won the Lady Byng Trophy last season, could do it again but he&rsquo;s in for a dogfight with Bossy as his opponent. Both players were superb this past season. Bossy led the Islanders in scoring with 118 points and scored 60 goals, third best behind Gretzky and McDonald. Middleton had 49 goals and 96 scoring points but his two&mdash;way play was a big factor in the Bruins&rsquo; success this season.There will be new winners in the Norris, Selke and Vezina categories. None of last season&rsquo;s recipients are even candidates this year. Langway and Howe will battle for the Norris, won by Chicago&rsquo;s Doug Wilson in 1981-82. Housley and Larmer will wage a close fight for the Calder because of the fact both first-year players were brilliant in their rookie season. Housley, who logged an average 40 minutes a game on the ice for Buffalo, had 66 points while playing defense. Larmer was the top rookie scorer with 90. Last year&rsquo;s Calder winner was Dale Hawerchuk of Winnipeg.Clarke and Kurri are the finalists for the Selke Trophy, which honors the best defensive forward in the NHL. Bob Gainey, who had a four-year strangehold on it when it was first presented, and last year&rsquo;s winner, Steve Kasper, did not figure in this year&rsquo;s voting. The selection of Clarke for a major trophy award is the first for the flamboyant captain of the Flyers since 1976 when he won the Hart. He was the winner of the Lester Patrick Trophy in 1980 but figuring in the Selke voting is his first recognition of a playing award since the Philadelphia Stanley Cup years of the mid 70&rsquo;s when the veteran center was the driving force behind two title wins. Kurri, one of the better European players to emigrate to the NHL, was the high-scoring left winger on Gretzky&rsquo;s line with Edmonton. Clarke, despite his 33 years, led the Flyers with 85 scoring points. Kurri counted 104, fourth best on the Edmonton team this season.Billy Smith and Melanson will receive the Bill Jennings Trophy in Montreal for leading their team to the NHL&rsquo;s best defensive record. But Melanson will have ag tough time convincing the selectors he was a better goalie than Peeters for the Vezina. In the only other award presentation, Gretzky will get the Art Ross Trophy for the third straight year as league scoring champion.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/c0004-01167/4928672-1-eng-US/c0004-012.jpg" title="C0004-01" width="557" height="884"><figcaption class="caption-body">Calgary&rsquo;s great goal-scorer Lanny McDonald won the Bill Masterton Trophy.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/c0004-02101/4928665-1-eng-US/c0004-022.jpg" title="C0004-02" width="2464" height="3005"></div> &#9632;

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June 1, 1983

Sather Says Oilers’ Business Is ‘Unfinished’

Niagara Peninsula Has Hockey In Its Veins

Blues’ Players Getting Short End Of Goalstick

KOHO