The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.

December 7, 1984

The Hockey News December 7, 1984

<div class="byline">By Bruce Hood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011200/5207606-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="342" height="442"></div>Q: Over the past decade a trend is developing with respect to the goalkeeper increasing his physical involvement in the game&mdash;a topic of many pros and cons. Unlike any other player, however, he remains on the ice after the assessment of a minor or major infraction.Could you give some insight on the reason(s) for the existence of the current rule, and share your thoughts concerning its relevance in the game today?John Colford Cos Cob, CTA: It would be very interesting to have a situation where the goalkeeper who received a penalty actually went to the penalty box to serve it. He could be replaced in the net by the backup goalie, and the team would play one man short. However, it cannot happen this way because the penalized goalkeeper could not come onto the ice and would have to wait for a stoppage should the penalty terminate while play is in progress.Your observations about the goalkeeper increasing his physical involvement is a good one, and more and more goalies leave their crease to play the puck and, when they do, are subject to being body-checked, as is any player, or to give a body check as some do.The contact with the goalie in his crease is a bit much, though, and I think a larger crease area would eliminate a lot of this.Q: If a team pulls its goaltender and subsequently a penalty shot is awarded to the opposing team, who, if anyone, will tend the net against the penalty shot?Mike Kramer Winnipeg, Man.A: The goalkeeper (or the substitute goaltender) would be permitted to return to the ice to defend the penalty shot and must be ready to take his position immediately with no warmup allowed.Q: Hockey refereeing seems so subjective and inconsistent&mdash;what&rsquo;s called in the first period isn&rsquo;t called in the third period. Do you agree? Doesn&rsquo;t this lead to a rougher period if players know the calls won&rsquo;t be as strict?Richard Chamberlin Okemos, MIA: This is an ongoing question in the game of hockey that draws various reactions. The term &ldquo;setting the standard,&rdquo; whereby a referee lets the players know how he is going to call the game from the first drop of the puck by the penalties he calls, is a valid observation.A flagrant foul, whether it be a restraining foul or more aggressive type such as highsticking or slashing, must be called at any time in the game, and the players know this by the standard the referee establishes in his game. The fine line of &ldquo;judgment&rdquo; comes into play on those marginal infractions that take place&mdash;and maybe moreso in the third period.If you want your question answered, write to:ASK THE REFEREE6455 Northram Drive, Suite 100Mississauga, Ont.LAV 1J2All letters will be read, but only those published will be answered. Personal responses are not possible. &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

ASK THE REFEREE

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div>BUFFALO&mdash;Although the Buffalo Sabres may be off to a sluggish start with a record of 9-8-2 in their first 19 games, there is at least one player who is off to a flying start.Center Dave Andreychuk has 10 goals and 14 assists, and is continuing the torrid pace he found in the latter part of his 38-goal, 80-point season in 1983-84.&ldquo;I wanted to get off to a good start this season,&rdquo; said the 21-year-old, who is in his third season with the Sabres. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t get off to a good start last season and that is something I wanted to avoid this year.&rdquo;There is one thing which has made a big difference this season.&ldquo;I think the main thing is that I had more confidence this time than I did last year at this time,&rdquo; said Andreychuk, who is using that confidence on the power play, with six goals and seven assists. &ldquo;Last season at this time I didn&rsquo;t know if I would be playing regularly or not.&ldquo;This year I knew I would be playing regularly and that has helped a lot.&ldquo;I also went to a couple of more power skating schools over the summer as well. Plus, I worked out with weights, so I think I came to camp this season ready both mentally and physically.&rdquo;One of Andreychuk&rsquo;s biggest strengths is his ability to position himself in front of the net and take advantage of his 6-foot-3, 200-pound frame.&ldquo;There is no doubt that I&rsquo;m going to be more successful in front of the net than any place else on the ice,&rdquo; said Andreychuk, who scored 38 goals and 80 points last season for the Sabres. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have great skating speed, like a Gil Perreault on this team, so I have to use other things to my advantage, and one is my reach. I have a reach that I was bom with. I can hold the puck out and away from me when an opponent is hanging on me, or I can take a swipe at the puck if I&rsquo;m in front of the net and sometimes hit it before the other guy does.&ldquo;But I have to use my reach to my advantage.&rdquo;Right winger Mike Foligno, one of Andreychuk&rsquo;s frequent linemates during the early part of the season, has seen a tremendous change in the lanky center since last season.&ldquo;He has another year under his belt and I think he now realizes how much he means to this team,&rdquo; Foligno said. &ldquo;He is able to do so many things with the puck.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s like a little magician. He can put a puck up on its side and put it into the net. And he has the uncanny ability to take a puck and knock it out of the air with his glove and in one motion place it on the ice and then shoot it into the net. He&rsquo;s done that a lot so far this season.&ldquo;The one big thing to his advantage is his reach. It&rsquo;s unbelievable. He can be standing at one side of the net and reach around to the other side for the puck and almost be able to put it in.&ldquo;His big reach is one of the longest I&rsquo;ve ever seen in the NHL. And he has got to keep using it to his advantage to be effective.&rdquo;SABRE POINTS&mdash;Defenseman-left-winger Lindy Ruff returned to action against the New York Rangers, Nov. 21, after being sidelined with a separated shoulder suffered in Detroit, Oct. 26&hellip;The Sabres had their goal-scoring streak on the power play stopped at 18 games by the Rangers. They scored at least one goal in their first 18 games this season, including 19 in their last 10 games before meeting the Rangers&hellip;The Sabres continue to have problems on the road, with only one win and a tie in 10 games. At home, the Rangers are almost unbeatable&hellip;The Washington Capitals finally snapped coach Scott Bowman&rsquo;s streak over their team in Landover, MD, when the Caps defeated the Sabres 3-2, Nov. 16. Before that loss, Bowman (counting his days with Montreal, too) had never lost to the Caps, a record of 42-0-3.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011306/5208187-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="588" height="939"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Andreychuk has a long reach which he knows he has to use to be effective.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Andreychuk Reaches For The Stars

<h2>NOVEMBER</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-07110/5209686-1-eng-US/f0031-072.jpg" title="f0031-07" width="524" height="368"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-08100/5209679-1-eng-US/f0031-082.jpg" title="f0031-08" width="525" height="233"></div><h2>DECEMBER</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-0986/5209672-1-eng-US/f0031-092.jpg" title="f0031-09" width="529" height="149"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-1073/5209665-1-eng-US/f0031-102.jpg" title="f0031-10" width="537" height="410"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-1161/5209658-1-eng-US/f0031-112.jpg" title="f0031-11" width="522" height="409"></div> &#9632;

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NHL GAMES TO COME

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0031-05" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-05158/5209627-1-eng-US/f0031-052.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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NHL TEAM ROSTERS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="Cover-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-01814/5210048-1-eng-US/cover-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">BLACK HAWK ROOKIE ED OLCZYK (Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>Featuring&hellip;&bull; Why A Puck Should Be 12 Inches Wide&bull; Full-Color Photo Essay&bull; The Pros And Cons Of Hockey FightsAND&hellip;&hellip;New Wave Europeans Strike Back &#9632;

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CHICAGO IT’S EDDIE O’S KING OF TOWN

THE COVER STORY&hellip;&hellip;Page 7When the crowd at the venerable Chicago Stadium begins rocking, it is a sight and sound to behold. It holds even more meaning for 18-year-old Ed Olczyk, who just happens to be a hometown Chicago boy who is realizing a dream come true by skating for. the NHL Black Hawks.THE MAGAZINE&hellip;&hellip;Page M1Eight pages of colorful, entertaining material that&rsquo;s something a little different. The Lighter Side of Hockey, a probing interview with fired Vancouver Canuck coach Bill LaForge, Don Cherry and the new-wave Europeans exchange barbs The Pros and Cons of Fighting.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011242/5207427-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="548" height="663"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-021013/5207420-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="545" height="647"></div> &#9632;

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The Hockey News

In next week&rsquo;s issue, we&rsquo;ll take a look at the Hartford Whalers and the development of the franchise.No longer are the Whalers considered an easy two points and we&rsquo;ll examine their evolution to a team of solid performers with a few stars such as Mark Johnson, Sylvain Turgeon and Ronnie Francis.And we&rsquo;ll also take a look at the coming world junior championships in Finland, with a report on both Team Canada and Team USA.All that and more. Don&rsquo;t miss it. &#9632;

NEXT WEEK IN THN

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div>VANCOUVER&mdash;Twenty games as a coach in the National Hockey League isn&rsquo;t enough time to prove success or failure, and everyone should remember that about Bill LaForge.LaForge has been offered a job as associate coach with the Vancouver Canucks, the team that fired him, Nov. 21, but he has declined the offer.Suffice to say that in another time, perhaps another place, or even with the same team, LaForge will succeed. He believes in success so much, it&rsquo;s incomprehensible he will let such a setback seriously hamper his career.LaForge was just not ready to come in and handle the problems of the Canucks. If he&rsquo;d taken the job in Philadelphia that may have arisen had he not already been committed to Vancouver, things might have been different.But after 187 days as coach, general manager Harry Neale had to fire him. Neale had to do it to save his own skin. Had he not acted, the Griffiths family, owners of the Canucks, would have acted on him.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;We&rsquo;ve been off to a slow start before, but I wouldn&rsquo;t call this a slow start. I&rsquo;d call it no start.&rsquo;</blockquote>Neale will step in behind the bench again as he did last year when Roger Neilson was fired nine months ago. He coached the day of the firing (Nov. 21), a 6-4 drubbing to the Calgary Flames.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t make a mistake with Bill LaForge the man, I made it in thinking his coaching style was right for our club,&rdquo; said Neale. &ldquo;Obviously, some of this is my fault. We&rsquo;ve been off to a slow start before, but I wouldn&rsquo;t call this a slow start. I&rsquo;d call it no start.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had too many of our top players below form. Can you think of two or three of our players who are going at anywhere near their potential?&rdquo;The firing of LaForge followed a 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues at home, a shocking abomination in terms of performance and effort from the Canucks.&ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t play a lot better, ownership will be looking for a new coach, a new manager and a lot of new players,&rdquo; Neale said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t have to be (legendary Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; coach) Dick Irvin to figure that out.&rdquo;LaForge, meanwhile, was somewhat stunned with the news, although he acted rather calmly afterward. After attending the news conference of his own firing, he then went to the game that night with Arthur Griffiths, the Canucks&rsquo; assistant to the chairman, and was seen around the bench area before the game. He then flew back to Vancouver on the team plane.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very disappointed, but I can&rsquo;t say I&rsquo;m surprised,&rdquo; LaForge said. &ldquo;I think the players gave their all for me. Maybe one or two guys weren&rsquo;t playing that well, but I don&rsquo;t think that was their fault.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t do anything differently if I had to do it again. In fact, if I was the guy coming in right now, with 60 games to play, I&rsquo;d still be looking for 50 wins. I&rsquo;ve always been one to set my sights high.&rdquo;Neale cited LaForge&rsquo;s attempt to play a wide open game, seemingly to ignore defense, as one of the reasons for the problems with the team.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t turn on the tap wide open and win unless your water is a heli of a lot hotter than anyone else&rsquo;s,&rdquo; said Neale. &ldquo;And our isn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;In moving behind the bench, Neale ignored associate coach Ron Smith as a replacement, something that happens with regularity here.&ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;d like to have the job, but there&rsquo;s two ways of looking at it,&rdquo; said Smith. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not going to come out of this right away, at least I don&rsquo;t think so. And Harry feels it&rsquo;s not fair for me to have to work through this by myself. It&rsquo;s disappointing not to be given the job, but in the 32 games Harry and I worked under this setup last season, it worked well for me. I had all kinds of responsibility, running the practices and having lots of input. The only thing I didn&rsquo;t have&hellip;was the credit or blame and the salary.&rdquo;Smith didn&rsquo;t feel he could give LaForge that much advice when he came in, tending to stay in the background and let the new coach come in and try his ideas.&ldquo;I stayed in the background because he was coming in fresh and I thought he should make his own decisions,&rdquo; said Smith. &ldquo;It took me two years with Roger and Harry before I would interfere and say, &lsquo;Look, this is what I think we should be doing in such a situation.&rsquo;&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011297/5207482-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="594" height="1049"><figcaption class="caption-body">Harry Neale shouldered some of the responsibility for the Canucks&rsquo; feeble start.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Style Cited As Reason For LaForge’s Firing

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011321/5207513-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">&ldquo;THAT THIRD LINE NEVER PASSES! &ldquo;</figcaption></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;The Los Angeles Kings acquired Steve Shutt specifically to improve their power play&mdash;the worst in the National Hockey League&mdash;and it didn&rsquo;t take long for the 32-year-old veteran to do his thing.In his first game with the Kings, Nov. 21, Shutt clicked on the power play, as Los Angeles swamped New Jersey, 8-1, to stretch their unbeaten string to seven games.&ldquo;The goal was nice, but I&rsquo;m especially glad we won the game,&rdquo; said the former first-round pick of Montreal who played 12 seasons for the Canadiens before they traded him to the Kings, Nov. 18, for future considerations. &ldquo;If we had blown it, they&rsquo;d all be pointing a finger at me.&rdquo;Shutt, who set a record for left wingers when he scored 60 goals in 1976-77 and entered this season tied for 21 st overall in all-time goal scoring with 406, still thinks he has some mileage left.&ldquo;I feel that I can still contribute to this team&rsquo;s performance,&rdquo; said Shutt, who was used sparingly this season and had only two goals in 10 games at the time of the trade. &ldquo;I felt that I could still play (in Montreal), and I want to prove that.&rdquo;King general manager Rogie Vachon, the onetime Canadien, feels Shutt&rsquo;s experience will help the Kings.&ldquo;Mainly, we feel he can help on the power play, one area we&rsquo;ve really been struggling in,&rdquo; Vachon said.But that is about the only area in which the Kings have been struggling, and much of the credit for the team&rsquo;s success is going to first-year coach, Pat Quinn.&ldquo;Pat&rsquo;s always positive,&rdquo; said center Bernie Nicholls, who is among the league&rsquo;s top 10 in scoring. &ldquo;In the past, the coaches would get down on us when we made a bad play or lost a game. A coach gets down, the players get down. I&rsquo;m telling you, it makes a difference. Even when we were losing, he told us we were doing a lot of good things. We just weren&rsquo;t doing them for the whole game. He said what we were doing was going to work.&ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t yell. He tells you you made a mistake, but he doesn&rsquo;t pull you out of the lineup. He tells you what you did wrong, tells you what you should have done. Then he sends you back out there.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the best coach I&rsquo;ve ever had. I thought Roger (Neilson) was a great coach, but&hellip;the game is so simple and Pat just lays it out for you. I didn&rsquo;t understand how easy my job was until he just laid it out for me.&rdquo;The Kings haven&rsquo;t been doing anything extraordinarily fancy during this trip through Fantasyland, just playing your basic hockey. Take out the man, clear the slot, work like a fiend along the boards, control the play at centre ice.Quinn had said he didn&rsquo;t want &ldquo;any Fancy Dans&rdquo; on his team the day he was hired and, except for rookie goalies Bob Janecyk and Darren Eliot, who have played like magicians at times, he hasn&rsquo;t had any.&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t just go out there and skate all over the place and expect to win. We&rsquo;re not that good,&rdquo; Nicholls said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to play hard for 60 minutes.&rdquo;Marcel Dionne, an emotional man, has been excited before but never like this. He credits &ldquo;the new blood&rdquo; in the front office&mdash;Quinn, Vachon and assistant Mike Murphy&mdash;for the turnaround.&ldquo;We had some talent, but there was no direction,&rdquo; Dionne said. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t play like this in the past because no one ever gave the guys any direction, any confidence. We needed that.&ldquo;I think we can do what Washington did two years ago,&rdquo; he said, referring to the Caps&rsquo; improved record. &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t forget the kids (rookie defenseman Craig Redmond and Garry Galiey). They&rsquo;ve helped make us a pretty mobile team. We were a standing-still team before.&rdquo;Quinn, obviously, is excited, too. But he&rsquo;s remained on an even keel since the season began, during the dismal start as well as during the streak.&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t afford to become too enamored with our success,&rdquo; Quinn said. &ldquo;What we&rsquo;re doing now is beyond what we should have expected and&hellip;I don&rsquo;t want it to end, but there are some teams out there who have been underestimating us and we have to be realistic.&rdquo; &bull;<h2>The Snowbirds</h2>JOFA EntriesYou can submit a player for consideration for the JOFA Minor Player Showcase. Just enclose a photograph, along with all the pertinent information and mail to: JOFA SHOWCASE, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont. M3B 2R2. &#9632;

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Shutt Opens Another Door For Hot Kings

<h2>Minor Hockey Showcase</h2>David Piirto is a 13-year-old forward who plays for the Oak Ridges team in the Oak Ridges (Ont.) Minor Hockey Association.The eighth-grade student admits playing his first year as a bantam is a little different from his former pee wee days because bodychecking is permitted in the older age bracket. However, he&rsquo;s enjoying it and, according to his coach, making the transition nicely.In previous years he played defense, but has made the switch from the backline to forward and caught on to his new position easily since going to a summer hockey school in nearby Richmond Hill.The 5-foot-4,120-pound player dreams of one day playing pro hockey with the Edmonton Oilers.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021228/5207544-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="559" height="940"><figcaption class="caption-body">David Piirto</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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JOFA

Marcel Dionne has always been one to express an opinion on issues he thinks are important. In this case, minor hockey is the topic, and as far as he&rsquo;s concerned, it is not, to say the least, very good.&ldquo;I think the minor hockey system (today) stinks,&rdquo; said Dionne, the 33-year-old captain of the Los Angeles Kings and fourth on the National Hockey League&rsquo;s all-time points list.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s too much emphasis on scoring and passing. I think it&rsquo;s important to enjoy it and have a good time. Not every youngster is going to make it.&ldquo;For the youngsters who don&rsquo;t have the skill, hey, just go out there and have a good time and dedicate yourself. Don&rsquo;t take a back seat to anybody, just give the effort and enjoy it.&ldquo;To me, minor hockey is the camaraderie, the relationship with friends, and sometimes you make friends for life. But to be a hero, it&rsquo;s a small, small portion and I think you should dedicate yourself to a great sport and have a great time.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031048/5207575-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="723" height="999"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marcel Dionne played games in minor hockey with thousands of people watching.</figcaption></div>Dionne, who grew up in Quebec and played against people such as Guy Lafleur and Gil Perreault, said it was not ususual for crowds of up to 5,000&mdash;and sometimes double that&mdash;to attend the province&rsquo;s big minor hockey tournaments. But while the games were competitive, there was lots of kinship.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;You learn from losing. I feel I&rsquo;ve become a better person. I feel for youngsters. You can be a frontrunner all your life and have everything catered to you.&rsquo;</blockquote>&ldquo;Sure there was a lot of competition, but there was more closeness,&rdquo; Dionne said. &ldquo;Now, it&rsquo;s really competitive. Why put pressure on the youngsters at that early stage in their lives, when they&rsquo;ll have pressure for the rest of their lives? They should enjoy it. They should contribute to helping each other and having a good time. Winning isn&rsquo;t everything.&ldquo;You learn from losing. I feel I&rsquo;ve become a better person. I feel for youngsters. You can be a frontrunner all your life and have everything catered to you. But as a youngster you have to understand that there are times that are hard and it makes you better. Parents should sometimes understand that, especially the ones who have kids that don&rsquo;t have the skills.&ldquo;I was on teams where there were players who didn&rsquo;t have a lot of skills, and it was tough for them. But they came along and talked and were part of the team because coaches felt that way.&rdquo;Dionne, who has always possessed an abundance of skills, said his parents didn&rsquo;t pressure him when he was younger.&ldquo;My parents never pushed me and said. &lsquo;You have to do this,&rdquo;&rsquo; Dionne said. &ldquo;They were positive. They followed it a lot and inspired me a lot and came all the time and made sure I was a good boy.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Minor Hockey Flashback: Marcel Dionne

Here&rsquo;s what was happening 20 years ago this week in hockey:&bull; Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; 28-year-old center, Henri Richard, joined the league&rsquo;s 200-goal club.&bull; Ted Lindsay, 39, who came out of a four-year retirement to rejoin the Detroit Red Wings, said he would not play another year, no matter what happened.Here&rsquo;s what was happening 15 years ago this week in hockey:&bull; After reconsidering retirement, NHL All-Star goalie Glenn Hall reported to the St. Louis Blues for his 15th season.&bull; Stafford Smythe was installed as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Harold Ballard became the new executive vice-president after being unseated at an August meeting of the team&rsquo;s board of governors. &#9632;

THIS WEEK…20 Years Ago

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-02882/5207668-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="386" height="443"></div>How times change. Just last season Adam Creighton made his debut in the National Hockey League with the Buffalo Sabres at the tender age of 18. No big deal. Just another underage junior trying to make his mark in the NHL.But 35 years before that, 1948 to be exact, Creighton&rsquo;s father, Dave, made his debut in the NHL with the Boston Bruins, also at age 18.The same age, but a different reaction.&ldquo;It was very unusual for a kid of my age to make it in the NHL at that time,&rdquo; recalled the elder Creighton, who played in the NHL for 12 seasons (1948-1960) with the Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Black Hawks and New York Rangers. &ldquo;It was tough being 18 and playing in the NHL.&ldquo;The average age for most guys on the Bruins at the time I joined them was about 27 or 28. Because of my age I was mostly a loner. There was nobody even close to my age to chum around with.&ldquo;It was sort of tough when all the rest of the guys went out for beers after a game and I would go out for a milkshake.&rdquo;Creighton went on to explain that life on the ice was just as tough as it was off it.&ldquo;Going into the NHL was a whole new experience for me,&rdquo; said Creighton, a center who played on the first team in the 1952 NHL All-Star game. &ldquo;The first NHL game I ever saw was the first NHL game I ever played in.&ldquo;You weren&rsquo;t given any special treatment either. If I made a mistake, I might end up sitting on the end of the bench for the rest of the game, or for a couple of games. And sometimes with no explanation. Nothing.&rdquo;But Creighton survived, managing to score 20 goals three times in his NHL career. His best season came in 1957-58 as a member of the Rangers, when he scored 17 goals and 35 assists, good for 11th spot in the NHL scoring race.And what did it get him?&ldquo;I was left on the Rangers&rsquo; unprotected list after the season and was picked up by the Montreal Canadiens,&rdquo; said Creighton. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why (Ranger) coach Phil Watson left me and some other guys, including goalie Gump Worsley, unprotected.&ldquo;I soon found out that Montreal had no plans for me on their team. Canadien general manager Frank Selke even told me that they had just picked me up to teach Phil a lesson. They did it just for the laughs.&ldquo;I know there was no love lost between Phil and the Canadiens. He hated them. Phil would do anything to beat them.&ldquo;But I didn&rsquo;t think it was right that these guys should be playing with a player&rsquo;s life like that. Not just to have some fun.&rdquo;But Creighton has certainly had the last laugh. Today he, along with another partner, owns three golf courses&mdash;in Tampa and Orlando, FL and Welland, Ont.&ldquo;I certainly didn&rsquo;t make the money that the players do today,&rdquo; said Creighton, 54, who resides in Tampa. &ldquo;I began investing my money in apartment buildings when I played in New York.&ldquo;I later took that money and invested it in a golf course, then another, then another.&ldquo;But it was that apartment investing in the beginning that kept me from spending my money. I couldn&rsquo;t spend it if I had it invested.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-03616/5207661-1-eng-US/f0005-032.jpg" title="f0005-03" width="1219" height="888"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Creighton had to settle for milkshakes when he started his pro career, because he wasn&rsquo;t old enough to drink beer.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Making Pro Debut Early Runs In Creighton Family

1. What Toronto Maple Leaf player was awarded two penalty shots during the 1983-84 season?2. Which Vancouver Canuck forward attended the University of Denver on a baseball scholarship?3. Name the Pittsburgh Penguin forward who is part Algonquin Indian?4. Which NHL team has had more coaches than seasons?5. Name the only left winger selected first overall in the NHL entry draft.6. Which NHL team holds the playing rights to Soviet defenseman Alexi Kasatonov?7. What Boston Bruin forward shared the NHL lead in goal scoring with Bobby Hull at 39 in 1959-60?8. What former Colorado Rockie captain was bom in Texas?9. Name the first pick overall in the 1975 entry draft?10. Against which club did the New York Islanders record their first league victory?Answers in next week&rsquo;s issue.<h2>Last Week&rsquo;s Trivia Answers</h2>1. Chicago Black Hawks.2. Matti Hagman.3. Bill Gardner, Chicago.4. Kelly Hrudey, New York Islanders.5. Marcel Dionne.6. Toronto, 1, Minnesota, 0.7. 10.8. Gord Lane.9. Pat Price, Quebec.10. Bill Riley. &#9632;

TRIVIA

<div class="byline">BY BOB DUFF</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-04408/5207723-1-eng-US/f0005-042.jpg"></div>that the NHL players with the highest goals-per-game average for one season are: &#9632;

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Did You Know…

THE INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY WEEKLY Founded in 1947 by Kenneth W. McKenziePUBLISHERDean HeineBUSINESS MANAGERTony DobranowskiEDITOR IN CHIEFBob McKenzieEDITORIAL DIRECTORCharlie HalpinASSISTANT EDITORPern LefkoCONTRIBUTING EDITORSStan Fischler. Frank OrrDIRECTOR ADVERTISING SALESDanny LewickiADVERTISING SALES MANAGERRanch GreenADVERTISING SERVICES MANAGEREsther SumkaADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVESFor Canadian Consumer Advertising Only Call:CCMC, Cliff Kivell. 287 MacPherson Ave.Toronto. Ontario M4V IA4(416) 928-2909SUBSCRIPTION STRVICES MANAGERPatricia BackNEWSSTAND SERVICES MANAGEREsther SumkaCIRCULATION DEPARTMENTJudy HartmanRosanne TaninoAC COUNTING DEPARTMENTTom MoffatMary CarubiaSPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGERHughes MarketingHockey News Bookshelf(416) 499-8227ADVERTISING AND EDITORIAL OFFIC ES85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100Toronto. Ontario. CanadaM3B 2R2(416) 445-5702EXECUTIVE OFFICE850 Third AvenueNew York. New York10022NEWSSTAND DISTRIBUTORDistributed nationally by Disticor101 Duncan Mill Rd. Suite 1.4Don Mills. Ont. M3B IZ3(416) 449-6430THE HOCKEY NEWS, (ISSN 0018-3016) is published weekly except monthly June and bimonthly July and August 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. 10022.40 ISSUE SUBSCRIPTION RATES $24.95 in the U.S A. $24.95 in Canada. $54.95 in Foreign Countries. Send all Canadian and Foreign subscription orders to THE HOCKEY NEWS. PO Box 13055. Postal Station &lsquo;A&rsquo;. Toronto. Ont. M5W IV7. U.S. subscription requests should be mailed to Box 904. Buffalo. N.Y. 14240. Please allow 4-6 weeks for processingSEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO HIE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Road #100. Toronto. Ontario. Canada M3B 2R2. Second (lass mail Registration 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. N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. U.S. POSTMASTER send address change to: The Hockcy News. P.O. Box 904. Buffalo. N.Y 14240Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations &#9632;

<div class="byline">Frank Orr</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011382/5207778-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="376" height="440"></div>THE FACT CALGARY FLAMES improved noticeably late in head coach Bob Johnson&rsquo;s second season (1983-84) and even more in his third should demonstrate something or other to the men who hire and fire coaches in the National Hockey League.Johnson generally is regarded as one of the best half-dozen hockey coaches on the planet. If he needed considerable time to engineer an improvement in a club that already was around the. 500 mark, then coaches of lesser ability and experience than Badger Bob can&rsquo;t be expected to turn around the puny teams assigned to them in a similar time frame before the men who hired them desert the bandwagons.Thus, it would be a nifty idea if impatient owners and, on rare occasions, save-my-own-butt general managers, weighed the situation carefully before wielding the chopping block.Johnson not only needed two seasons to instruct the Flames in how he feels the game should be played; he needed that much time to make the changes in the club&rsquo;s roster that could produce an upturn in fortunes. Only seven players on the team this season were there when Badger Bob took over in 1982.Being granted the time to assemble the workers who can (a) play the coach&rsquo;s system or (b) play at all, is a luxury few coaches are ever afforded. Usually, they&rsquo;re expected to work miracles with the players who have failed for the two previous coaches who took a shot at making Beef Wellington out of turkey.Two coaches have been replaced this season&mdash;Bill LaForge by Harry Neale with the Vancouver Canucks and Bill Mahoney by Glen Sonmor with the Minnesota North Stars.LaForge had about as much chance for success as an igloo builder in the Bahamas.He had no NHL exposure in his career at all, just a bit of time in junior hockey, and even men such as Johnson and Tom Watt, with long backgrounds in college hockey, needed time to learn the ebb and flow of the pro game.LaForge had junior success with rather rowdy, aggressive clubs, then took over a finesse team in the NHL, which was about the same as placing Attila the Hun at the helm of an army of hairdressers.The Canucks&rsquo; injury list reached epic lengths, too.But, obviously, the Canuck owners figured those were just piddly bumps on the road that should have caused no trouble for LaForge.The Canucks obviously knew the way LaForge worked and the type of players he needed to make his approach a success when they hired him. But did anyone at the ownership level of that franchise think that LaForge had to be granted enough time, say two seasons, to build his type of team while learning the NHL ropes himself?When he couldn&rsquo;t tum Thomas Gradin into Glen Cochrane and master the big league in a month, LaForge was canned.The Minnesota situation is something similar. When Sonmor&rsquo;s personal problems forced him to give up the coaching job 22 months ago, Mahoney was hired. His aim was to inspire a slick team to play with some discipline and devotion to defensive hockey, an ambition not unlike trying to teach mules to waltz.The team did win the Norris Division playoffs, an achievement about the same as not drowning in a cup of water, but was going nowhere fast this fall when Mahoney was dumped and Sonmor, his personal life in order, reclaimed the job.In moving back behind the bench, Sonmor has some chance for success because he takes over a team he helped to construct, first as coach and then as director of player development during his sabbatical.He wants the club to play high-tempo, offensive hockey, something the Stars have the personnel to do. But somewhere along the line, Sonmor will benefit from the factor that cost Mahoney the job&mdash;the stress on defensive play that Star players didn&rsquo;t like.One coach who has been granted the luxury of having the roster adjusted to suit his approach is Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; Jacques Lemaire, an assistant and head man with the team since the start of the &lsquo;83-84 season. In that span, GM Serge Savard has changed 13 players on the roster and none of the new chaps don&rsquo;t function well within the system Lemaire wants to use.That&rsquo;s why Lemaire is more fortunate than many of the other new coaches who have taken NHL jobs in the past year. Not many of them will be granted time to build a roster that suits their purposes. &#9632;

f0006-01

The Coaches’ Big Enemy Is Time

<div class="byline">BY JEFF Z. KLEIN AND KARL-ERIC REIF</div>Consider Tom Barrasso. At 19, winner of the Vezina Trophy last season as the National Hockey League&rsquo;s outstanding goaltender, the Calder Trophy as its best rookie, a first-team All-Star. His goals-against average for Buffalo was 2.84. The cover of THE HOCKEY NEWS of Sept. 21, 1984, asks: &ldquo;Is he the best goalie in hockey?&rdquo;On Oct. 27, Barrasso is sent down to the Rochester Amerks of the American Hockey League.Consider Allan Bester. At 20, plucked from obscurity to play goal last year for last-place Toronto. Little heralded outside Maple Leaf Gardens. Bester finishes with a goals-against average of 4.35. The Nov. 9, 1984 cover of THE HOCKEY NEWS displays his picture with the caption: &ldquo;Leafs&rsquo; Last Line of Defense.&rdquo; Perhaps it should read, &ldquo;First, Last and Only Defense.&rdquo;Who was better last year?Bester.The awards, the records, the leagueleading stats, all go to a goaltender from a winning team, an outstanding defensive team. He may or may not actually be the best goaltender in the league. But playing for a losing team, a defenseless team, even the league&rsquo;s best goaltender will never compile glittering numbers, nor receive the accolades his play might otherwise earn.And so a new and fair statistic must be conceived and applied to reward the long-suffering goalies who perform often spectacularly, yet too often in vain, for weak and lacklustre sides, a statistic which takes into account the ceaseless barrage too many valiant netminders are obliged to brave.At last, there is the welcome device of a new formula for rating goaltending performance. It is the Perseverance Index, and it is elegant in its simplicity. What it boils down to is success measured against workload.Many factors were considered for inclusion in the formula, but all except efficiency and shots-on-goal were eventually discarded as irrelevant or superfluous.Goals-against average, the popular and traditional yardstick for gauging goaltending performance, is obviously unfair. It is an indicator of a team&rsquo;s performance, not of a netminder&rsquo;s ability. Barrasso&rsquo;s teammate. Bob Sauve, is a textbook example. Sauve compiled a goals-against average of 3.00 and shared the Vezina Trophy while minding the nets for fine defensive teams in Buffalo between 1976 and 1981. Dealt to the inept Red Wings mid-way through &lsquo;8182, Sauve was shelled for 4.19 goals a game in Detroit. He returned to Buffalo for &lsquo;82-83, and over the last two years compiled a GAA of just 3.47.Goals-against, furthermore, is redundant, since it is a direct by-product of shots faced and efficiency.Efficiency&mdash;saves divided by shots on goal&mdash;is a far better statistic than goals-against average, and is one of the pillars of the Perseverance Index. Yet efficiency alone will not suffice, for it inevitably deteriorates as shots multiply: A goaltender for a bad team may perform brilliantly in facing four shots in rapid succession, turning aside the first three but finally beaten on the fourth, and so his efficiency declines, time and again.The difference between efficiency rating among any number of goaltenders is often so small it seems meaningless. Would you trade for a goalie with an efficiency of 87.72 per cent because your own had a figure of 88.68 percent? And somehow, the efficiency is so cold and clinical a number, unable to convey the courage and humanity of an art and an endeavor which by its very nature presupposes eventual failure.Some further element, then, must be included to take into account the quality of the team for which each netminder steadfastly mans the goal. This is best expressed in shots. The simple and obvious fact is that more shots eventually mean more goals. The six NHL teams which allowed the fewest shots last year were all among the top seven in goals-against. The Leafs and Pittsburgh, on the other hand, were 20th and 21st, respectively, in both categories among the 21 NHL clubs.Could quality of shots be determined? Although individual teams do chart this statistic, it is kept pretty much secret, and it is a subjective figure. We felt that, in the end, the number of shots on goal both included and presupposed quality of shots&mdash;a team that gives up a large number of shots generally gives its opponents not only more scoring opportunities but also correspondingly better ones.It remained only to properly combine the two principals&mdash;workload, in terms of shots-on-goal&mdash;and success, expressed in efficiency. Much research and experimentation were invested in an effort to proportion the minute but critical differences in efficiency percentages to the broader fluctuations in shot totals, so as not to give too much weight to one variable or the other, and thus produce a fair and accurate and realistic rating system.<h2>Perseverance Index</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02997/5207809-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="587" height="1102"></div>If you&rsquo;ve got your calculator handy, the final equation multiplies efficiency by six, and then adds average shots on goal per game. To make this new figure more accessible and attractive, it is then divided by six and the decimal point shifted, to put it on a scale where 1000, for all practical purposes, represents perfection.Panic and scepticism in some quarters of the Niagara Frontier aside, Barrasso&rsquo;s demotion to the AHL was a very temporary thing. Despite what has been a rough start in his sophomore season, Barrasso is a fine goaltender indeed. But even during his superb rookie campaign in &lsquo;8384, Barrasso faced an average of less than 27 shots a game. Buffalo allowed the fourth-fewest shots in the NHL last year, and there&rsquo;s not a goaltender anywhere who wouldn&rsquo;t consider playing goal for Buffalo, Boston or Washington a cushy job.Standing between the pipes for Toronto, Pittsburgh or New Jersey, however, seems more like a punishment designed by the Spanish Inquisition. Bester saw more than 37 shots-a-game last season.Without denegrating excellent goaltending by puckstoppers on good teams, here at last in the Perseverance Index is the hope of numerical recognition for be-seiged and beleaguered goalers, who must nightly fend off salvo after salvo, striving to keep their bungling club in the game, or holding the fort for the offensive dreadnoughts of this modem era of NHL air-hockey who pay little attention to their own end of the ice. &#9632;

f0006-02

Leaf Goalie Faced At Least 10 More Shots A Game

<div class="byline">BY NEIL MILBERT</div>Home is where the heart is.A young man sits in the stands in the Montreal Forum and watches intently as the Canadiens go through their morning workout for a game later that day against Chicago.Far from his suburban Chicago home, on Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., Ed Olczyk can think of no other place that he&rsquo;d rather be than on the road with the Black Hawks.Life on the road is nothing new to this 18-year-old rookie who plays right wing for the Hawks. But life in the National Hockey League is still a novelty. And the kid who had his heart set on playing in the NHL can&rsquo;t get enough of it.&ldquo;I like to come out and watch the other teams practise,&rdquo; said Olczyk. &ldquo;I can study the other players, and it&rsquo;s interesting to see the way other teams practise.&ldquo;Playing in the NHL is just as hard as I thought it would be. All of the players belong. Some are blessed with speed and shooting ability; others have tremendous toughness. But they all belong.&rdquo;A quarter of the way through the season, there is no doubt that Ed Olczyk, despite his youth, also is in the right place at the right time. Black Hawk general manager Bob Pulford thought it would be this way. And so did coach Orval Tessier after getting his first look at Olczyk during training camp.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to be a great one,&rdquo; predicted Tessier, following Olczyk&rsquo;s first exhibition. &ldquo;At age 17, he played extremely well in the Olympic Games, and at age 18 he was outstanding in the Canada Cup. If he can play that well against the best in the world, he can play for the Chicago Black Hawks.&rdquo;For virtually all of the young season, Olczyk has been skating on a line with 22-year-old center Troy Murray and 26-year-old left winger Curt Fraser. They seem to be bringing out the best in one another. Fraser is making a powerful comeback following knee surgery that caused him to miss 51 games last season. Meanwhile, after taking two seasons to find himself, Murray is playing the way NHL scouts envisioned when he led Team Canada to the world junior title and North Dakota to the U.S. National collegiate championship in 1982.Olczyk has been both a beneficiary of their success and a contributor to it. All three have played outstanding, two-way hockey. They ranked second to the Denis Savard-Al Secord-Steve Larmer line in team scoring, and they&rsquo;re second to none in the plus-minus ratings.&ldquo;I think we complement one another,&rdquo; said Olczyk, who had seven goals, seven assists and a rating of plus-five going into the Montreal game on Nov. 22. &ldquo;We work hard, we like the rough going and we seem to make things happen. If there&rsquo;s any kind of a tussle, Curt and Troy step right in there on my behalf and I try to do the same for them.&ldquo;Playing right wing has been a tough adjustment because I played center all my life until last year on the Olympic team, when I was put on the wing. There also has been an adjustment to staying on my wing on Mr. Tessier&rsquo;s system.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s different than when I was on the Olympic team (Diaper Line) with Pat LaFontaine and David Jensen. Then, we were encouraged to use our imaginations, and I did a lot of moving from side to side.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve really been working on my defensive play. At the start of the season, I set a long-term goal: I want to be known as a good, all-around hockey player.&ldquo;By no means am I cocky. But I&rsquo;m satisfied with the way my shooting and passing are coming along. People knock my skating, but I get there. I&rsquo;ve only been used on the power play once or twice, but we&rsquo;re getting our share of goals at equal strength.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011231/5207840-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="995" height="1497"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ed Olczyk was born in suburban Chicago, but admits he&rsquo;s still getting used to playing at home.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I realize I have to be patient because I&rsquo;m still going through a learning experience.&rdquo;Ironically, the native Chicagoan feels much more comfortable on the road than at Chicago Stadium, which is perhaps the most intimidating rink in the league for an opposing team.&ldquo;Actually, the Met Centre (home of the arch-rival Minnesota North Stars) still feels like home ice forme,&rdquo; Olczyk said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve played many more games there than I have in the Stadium, and that&rsquo;s where we practised when I was on the Olympic team and also with the U.S. in the Canada Cup.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s pressure playing in the NHL, but I think there was more pressure playing for the U.S. Olympic team. We had shoes to fill that were impossible to fill, and we were playing against the best in the world in a no-win situation.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad I decided not to try to play junior hockey (with he Toronto Marlboros of the Ontario Hockey League) after the Olympics. I just wanted to rest, reflect on the Olympics and spend some time with my family after having been away for almost two years.&rdquo;Olczyk left home to play for the Stratford (Ont.) Cullitons Jr. B team in the 1982-83 season and had 50 goals and 92 assists in just 42 games.&ldquo;I had been away before, but that was the big move that prepared me for my career in the NHL,&rdquo; saidOlczyk. &ldquo;Theother time I was away for a great length of time was when I was 12 years old and played on a U.S. baseball team that made a friendship tour of Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.&ldquo;We played about 100 games in three months. I was a pitcher, catcher and a shortstop. My dad always thought that I&rsquo;d be a better baseball player than a hockey player, and probably he was right because he knowns both sports. But deep down I loved hockey more.&ldquo;When I went to Stratford, I was living in a new country with a new family and it was my responsibility to handle my own money and make certain I kept up with my school work. If I hadn&rsquo;t gone there, I wouldn&rsquo;t have been prepared for what playing on the Olympic team entailed. I also feel I benefitted from the Canada Cup. I wasn&rsquo;t signed when it came around and I was thinking about college&mdash;it was a toss-up between North Dakota and Wisconsin.&ldquo;Then, I just put everything aside to concentrate on the Canada Cup. I played mostly on a line with Bob Carpenter and Brian Lawton. We did well and I was our team&rsquo;s leading scorer. Then one day my agent, Bill Watters, called and said he had worked everything out with Mr. Pulford and I was to come to Chicago and sign my contract.&ldquo;I was the happiest guy in the world. Playing in the Canada Cup gave me a lot of confidence going into training camp with the Hawks. Bob and Brian also encouraged me. Bob was the first American picked high in the draft and Brian was the first number one. They came into the league right out of high school, which was a lot harder than doing it the way I am.&rdquo;Early in the season, the Washington Capitals beat the Hawks in Chicago, and Carpenter watched as his teammates initiated Olczyk into life in the NHL.&ldquo;Our defensemen were doing the same thing to him that the ones on other teams did to me as a rookie,&rdquo; said Carpenter. &ldquo;Just like me, he will have to know where not to go, so they can&rsquo;t grab his stick and hem him in and take him out of the play.&ldquo;It won&rsquo;t take long for Ed to learn the ropes. He&rsquo;sgoingtobean outstanding hockey player.&rdquo;Pulford, who has taken almost a paternal interest in Olczyk ever since he was a midget, had to wheel and deal to draft him third overall in June.It required sending goalie Bob Janecyk to Los Angeles so that the Kings would surrender their third choice to the Hawks and draft in Chicago&rsquo;s sixth slot instead. It also meant trading right winger Rich Preston and defenseman Don Dietrach to New Jersey for right winger Bob MacMillan to make certain the Devils kept their hands off Olczyk when they drafted second.Pulford is convinced that all this maneuvering will pay major dividends.&ldquo;I spoke to Lou Vairo (Olczyk&rsquo;s coach with the Olympic team) about Ed,&rdquo; said Pulford at the contract-signing ceremony in August. &ldquo;In Lou&rsquo;s opinion, Ed will be a 50-goal scorer in the National Hockey League in a few years and for many years after that.&ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s going to be a great player. We&rsquo;re proud that he&rsquo;s a Black Hawk.&rdquo;And for the gregarious Eddie O, as he&rsquo;s getting to be known, the feeling is most certainly mutual. &bull; &#9632;

f0007-01

Eddie O Creates A Stir In The Windy City

<div class="byline">BY JOHN GILBERT</div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;The three monkeys of fable and legend, Hear-No-Evil, See-No-Evil, Speak-No-Evil, protected themselves from knowing what was going on without realizing the futility of their actions.The Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; goaltenders are not covering their eyes, ears or mouths, and they are all aware of their somewhat precarious position.With the acquisition of Roland Melanson from the New York Islanders for a first-round draft pick in 1985 or, if certain conditions are met, in 1986, the Stars have three goalies. In New York, Melanson was part of a similar situation, and it didn&rsquo;t work, although it took a long time to resolve it.The North Stars, however, are not expected to wait as long the Islanders, and have made that perfectly clear.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t worry about it,&rdquo; said 34-year-old veteran Gilles Meloche, who won two games against Toronto the week of the trade. &ldquo;I talked to (coach) Glen (Sonmor) and all he said was he wouldn&rsquo;t go with three. I&rsquo;ve just got to go out and play my best.&rdquo;Don Beaupre, 23, is serving a six-game suspension for whacking Buffalo&rsquo;s Ric Seiling, but he too had his own thoughts about the trade.&ldquo;You have the feeling something is going on, all right,&rdquo; Beaupre said. &ldquo;It caught us by surprise when the trade for Melanson was made. Unless some other deal has already been worked out, it sort of tells you that somebody didn&rsquo;t think Gilles and I could do the job.&rdquo;If North Star general manager Lou Nanne is going to make a trade, it seems doubtful Melanson would be part of it. Nanne idolizes the Islanders, and has said he thinks Melanson is one of the best young goalies around&mdash;despite a 4.94 goals-against mark this season in six games with the Islanders. Granted, the Islanders are off to a shaky start in goals-against, but they are still one of the NHL&rsquo;s best outfits in the concept of team defense.In his first start, against New Jersey, Melanson gave up two goals on the first three shots he faced, and was booed by the Met Center crowd. Later, the Stars rallied from a 4-2 deficit to overcome the Devils 5-4 in overtime. The everpositive Sonmor praised Melanson for shutting down the Devils after it was 4-2, but the Stars outshot them 38-29.Meanwhile, Meloche played well in victories over Toronto before and after the Jersey game, so the Stars won three in a row for the first time all season. But that may not be cause for printing up Stanely Cup tickets.If deposed coach Bill Mahoney was not a staunch supporter of Meloche, Sonmor&rsquo;s history is that he was not overly impressed by Beaupre in his previous coaching tenure two years ago.STAR NOTES&mdash;Dino Ciccarelli remains sidelined with a shoulder injury, his third injury this season after being remarkably injury-free in past seasons&hellip;Brad Maxwell&rsquo;s feared cracked rib was just a bad bruise and he will return sooner than expected&hellip;Paul Holmgren returned after a 10-game suspension., One of the strangest lineup changes was the removal of Mark Napier from regular duty. He and Dennis Maruk had been the two most consistenly impressive forwards from the start of the season, whether killing penalties or in regular duty. Some scouts from other NHL teams ranked Napier as the Stars&rsquo; No. 1 left winger, but he was not dressed for three consecutive games, and the trade speculation included his name, too. &#9632;

Three’s Too Many In North Stars’ Net

The International Hockey Weekly Founded in 1947Published by W.C.C. Publishing Ltd.85 Scarsdale Road, #100, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3B 2R2.<h2>The Net Result</h2>WITH THE National Hockey League season having passed the one-quarter mark, one of the most frequently heard complaints so far concerns the new type of goal nets.They are called MEGG-NETS, named for their inventor, Dennis Meggs of Ayr, Ont. They differ from the old traditional nets&mdash;moored to the ice by two long pins that extended up through the hollow goal posts&mdash;in that they are secured to the ice by a magnetic plate.This magnetic plate, the force of which can be adjusted up or down to suit the level of play (i.e. less magnetic strength for younger, lighter players), allows the net to be knocked free of its moorings should an onrushing player make significant contact.It was figured that this system, unanimously endorsed and accepted by the NHL rules committee and subsequently the board of governors, would be a tremendous safety feature.And it is. But that hasn&rsquo;t stopped some from criticizing the introduction of the new nets.There have been complaints that the net is too easily knocked off its moorings, that opportunist goalies&mdash;Boston Bruin Pete Peeters is considered the most flagrant offender&mdash;displace the net when it best serves their purpose.And, of course, that indeed happens. Professional athletes, whenever possible, will use every advantage they can get. And, in this case, it means pushing the net out of place, which is an irritant that fans and opposing players just don&rsquo;t need.All of which sounds as if this is a critique of the new MEGG-NETS. But it isn&rsquo;t and those who are critical of Meggs&rsquo; invention should think twice before they voice any objections.Here&rsquo;s why. On Nov. 24 at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto forward Jim Korn, in full flight, was hauled down and, while flat on his back, crashed full speed and shoulder-first into the goalpost.As it is supposed to do, the net came free of its moorings. Since Korn struck the post with such velocity, he still sustained a shoulder separation.The point, however, is that had the old net been in place, Korn would most certainly have suffered a more serious&mdash;perhaps even careerending&mdash;injury.Let&rsquo;s face it, the new nets&rsquo; safety factor far outweighs the annoyance factor. And besides, as long as the officials strictly enforce delay-of-game penalties to guilty goaltenders, that negative aspect can be minimized.Enough criticism already.Dennis Meggs for J4an of the Year. &#9632;

I APPRECIATE THE fact that Bob McKenzie (THN Editor&rsquo;s Notebook, Nov. 9, 1984: Will Caplan&rsquo;s Death Crumble The Empire?) took the time to write the article (on the death of Norm Caplan and the effect on the Caplan-Kaminsky player agent empire).However, I must reassure THN readers and all of our player/clients that we shall do everything in our power to continue to fulfill our obligations and carry on business as before.To leave them with a contrary impression, which is possible from the column, would be terribly unfair.Arthur C. Kaminsky New York, NY<h2>PROTESTING RACISM</h2>I must strongly protest the use of the derogatory term, &ldquo;jap,&rdquo; in an article in the Nov. 2, 1984, issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS.As I find the term &ldquo;jap&rdquo; offensive, I would assume it would be unacceptable to your many North American readers who are of Japanese descent.I am unable to understand why a respected journal such as yours which is, I am sure, read by young people can allow such blatant use of not only a racist term like &ldquo;jap,&rdquo; but also make offensive reference to &ldquo;a Samurai hockey player&rdquo; using the allegory of a hockey player who &ldquo;uses a stick&hellip;when the opponent&rsquo;s back is turned.&rdquo;Unfortunately, much to my embarrassment, I have recently sent a Nisei (Japanese Canadian) friend of mine a year&rsquo;s subscription to THE HOCKEY NEWS. He is a student in Japan and teaches English. Consider his embarrassment when his students read this unfortunate reference.Bill Reiter Burnaby, B.C.<h2>A DAVE MALONEY FAN</h2>Recently, I attended a New York Rangers&rsquo; open practice in Rye, NY. I am an avid Ranger fan and always will be, and I also believe that the open practice is a marvelous idea because it gives the fans a chance to see their team and, most of all, all of the proceeds go to charity.But on the radio, the announcer said that the Rangers would be available afterwards to sign autographs and, to confirm this, I telephoned the Ranger Hotline number. The man I spoke to said, &ldquo;Yes, the Rangers will sign autographs, it&rsquo;s part of the show.&rdquo;Well, I was just one of the many disappointed fans, when the Ranger practice was cut shorter than usual, and all of the players left the ice and never returned, not to mention not signing any autographs. All of them departed, except for one single Ranger, and that was number 26, Dave Maloney.Maloney graciously stayed on the ice and signed many autographs, talked to the fans, and even patiently posed for pictures.I would just like to thank Mr. Maloney for his kindness and consideration. He put a smile on a lot of peoples&rsquo; faces and gave a memorable day to many. Your fellow teammates could learn a lot from you. You are a credit to your profession both on the ice and off. After that day, I was not only a New York Ranger fan, I was also a Dave Maloney fan.Ms. Joanne Rogan Elmont, NY<h2>RANGER FANS LACK CLASS</h2>On Nov. 9,1984, eight of my friends and I attended the New York Islander-New York Ranger game at Madison Square Garden. After the game, we waited for the Islanders to exit so we could wish them our best.Unfortunately, waiting with us were approximately 50 New York Ranger fans. They began to verbally abuse us and our team and, at one point, threw glass, beer bottles, beer cans, bottle caps and even beer itself. A majority of them were drunk and we found it rather disgusting when men in their 40s began to insult us, since we are 17-year-old girls.These same fans threw the items previously mentioned at the Islander bus as it was leaving, and New York Ranger Nick Fotiu even had to come out of the Ranger dressing room to tell the vicious fans to calm down.All of this just proves that those Ranger fans have no class.Eileen Bermingham Woodhaven, NY<h2>LET&rsquo;S SATURATE</h2>I live in north-central Pennsylvania, and here we receive two and occasionally three games a week on TV. The cable USA Network (which does a very good job telecasting the games) and New York&rsquo;s WOR channel hardly constitute a threat of over-saturation at all.So let&rsquo;s encourage Carling O&rsquo;Keefe and the others to continue to seek broadcasting rights. The hardcore fan can&rsquo;t lose by having more games on TV and maybe the &ldquo;luke-warm&rdquo; fan&rsquo;s attention can be caught, especially now that the other major sports ratings have started to stall.Scott R. Rider Williamsport, PA &#9632;

FAN FORUM

<div class="byline">Jim Kernaghan&#x2019;s Guest Shot</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011316/5207943-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="346" height="449"></div>It is only about 30 minutes from center ice at Boston Garden to the Lawrence Alternatives Correctional Centre.For Craig McTavish, though, there are light years between the venerable Garden and the tum-of-the-century reform facility. The distance is immeasurable. They are worlds apart.This is not really his world. His world is Lowell University some 15 minutes west, where he established many school scoring records while on a hockey scholarship.His world is to the south, in the midst of mercantile and maritime Boston, at the Garden, where he finally cracked the Bruins&rsquo; lineup two seasons ago.It is difficult for MacTavish, the Bruin left winger, to verbalize the sweep of emotions and the depth of remorse that has enveloped him since last Jan. 26. That was the fateful evening after a few beers with the boys that left many lives altered forevermore.It was on that evening that MacTavish, travelling home for dinner, struck the rear bumper of a car driven by Kim Radley of West Newfield, MA. Her car went out of control and she was critically injured. Shortly afterward, she died.MacTavish was charged with vehicular homicide and decided to plead guilty and pay whatever the courts exacted from him. He was sentenced to a year in jail without the prospect of parole.He is halfway through that sentence. He will be freed May 13. He is in superb condition but will begin skating immediately to prepare for his return to hockey. Somewhere. He will not forget.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s something you just can&rsquo;t explain,&rdquo; he said of bearing responsibility for someone else&rsquo;s death. &ldquo;You have to live with it yourself to realize how it feels. You just can&rsquo;t imagine it. You try to rationalize it but you can&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s something that will always be there and you just have to accept it.&rdquo;MacTavish wants no sympathy from anyone. He accepts his responsibility, wants to pay his debt and get on with his life. He wants no publicity, but realizes his experience could be of benefit to somebody else.His life at the moment is not intolerable.MacTavish arises each day at 4:50 a.m. and prepares breakfast at the grill for the 60 or so inmates at the centre. He is finished at 8 a.m. and spends the remainder of the day in the gym, jogging or studying toward his business degree at Lowell.He undergoes a grilling himself, too, at local schools where he speaks to classes about the costs of alcohol abuse. He doesn&rsquo;t like it much, and while he is not a spellbinding speaker (&ldquo;Captive, not captivating&rdquo;), he gets through to the kid&rsquo;s.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not naive enough to think I can help every kid,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I remember what I was like at that age. But it could help some.&ldquo;In ways, it has helped me, too. I&rsquo;m not afraid of anything people might ask. People will ask you anything. They don&rsquo;t care. But I think it has been good that I can get it out in the open. I didn&rsquo;t want to talk about it before.&rdquo;But that therapeutic approach has its limits. Once he is free, MacTavish realizes reporters will want to know everything about his experiences. He will stick to anything concerning hockey and that&rsquo;s it.He said the support of his parents and family, of his friends and of the Bruins has been of inestimable help.&ldquo;Boston has a reputation of standing behind its players in all kinds of adversity and the players, too, have a reputation for being a close-knit group,&rdquo; MacTavish said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s evidenced by the record, the performance on the ice. A lot of teams have a lot of talented players but their record doesn&rsquo;t show it. The guys have really been terrific.&rdquo;Most of the Bruins have visited him. MacTavish recalls defenseman Gord Kluzak saying that at least he wasn&rsquo;t injured, that he could stay in shape. Shortly after, Kluzak suffered a knee injury that will sideline him for the balance of the season.MacTavish&rsquo;s teammates are candid about the episode.&ldquo;He accepted responsibility for his actions and I have a great deal of respect for how he did it,&rdquo; said Boston captain Terry O&rsquo;Reilly. &ldquo;Some people might have tried to wriggle out of it, but he pleaded guilty. You hate to see an example set, but a young lady was killed. If it can save others down the road&hellip;&rdquo;Defenseman Mike O&rsquo;Connell, Mac-Tavish&rsquo;s friend and roommate, was equally ambivalent.&ldquo;I have to look at it two ways,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s my friend and it&rsquo;s unfortunate he couldn&rsquo;t have done community service without the jail. But, if it was my daughter&hellip;&ldquo;It was an accident and I know he feels sorry for what he did. He stood up and took the high fastball where a lot of people wouldn&rsquo;t have. He said he did something wrong and took what they had to give him.&rdquo;The first part of his sentence was spent at Salem, a state pen, where the slamming of a metal door behind him the first time was a sort of devastating counterpoint to the judge&rsquo;s gavel when he was sentenced.He had no trouble with the hardened convicts, finding that many wanted to talk hockey. After a couple of months, he was removed to the less stringent Lawrence centre.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in the best shape of my life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m running, cycling, working out in the gym. It isn&rsquo;t hockey shape, but as soon as I get out, I&rsquo;ll be on skates.&rdquo;He is a free agent without compensation. He wants to return to the Bruins, although there is some speculation within management that the fans might react unfavorably.His lawyer, Bob Murray, has had discussions with other teams. Whatever happens, MacTavish wants to play hockey.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m confident I can come back and play,&rdquo; he said.His life isn&rsquo;t grim. When a teammate brought in a VCR, a fellow inmate broke him up by saying, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m here for, stealing 14 of those.&rdquo;He laughed about the guy who contrived a complicated scheme to escape, which involved climbing over a roof and down a drainpipe.&ldquo;You can walk out of here,&rdquo; he chuckled.Despite the relative freedom, urinalysis checks are taken at random for possible substance abuse. Break any of the rules and you will land back in a state slammer.So it goes with Craig MacTavish, who longs for the day he will be out and skating, when his only penance will be his own personal one. &#9632;

f0008-01

Talking Helps MacTavish Cope With Pain

<div class="byline">BY TIM MORIARTY</div>LONG ISLAND&mdash;Bill Torrey kept his promise. The Islander general manager insisted last summer that the dethroned Stanley Cup champions would not carry three goaltenders this season.&ldquo;I have to do something,&rdquo; Torrey said. &ldquo;But, when, how, with whom, which one? It&rsquo;s going to be a difficult decision.&rdquo;When the season opened, the Islanders still had Bill Smith, Roland Melanson and Kelly Hrudey on their roster. Torrey was shopping around, but didn&rsquo;t like what the other teams were offering. He put Melanson and Hrudey on the waivers list with the right of recall, got some nibbles and pulled them back.Then Torrey sat down with an old friend, general manager Lou Nanne of the Minnesota North Stars, and they completed a deal for Melanson. In return, Nanne turned over the North Stars&rsquo; No. I draft pick in 1985 or 1986 to the Islanders.Melanson, 24, received news of the trade when he showed up early for an Islander practice. He was pedaling an exercise bike when coach Al Arbour called him into his office and told the him he had been traded to the North Stars.After wishing Melanson good luck, Arbour watched awkwardly as Melanson started stuffing some equipment into a travel bag.&ldquo;You want to practice with us?&rdquo; Arbour asked.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if I should,&rdquo; Melanson replied.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s up to you,&rdquo; the coach said.Melanson shrugged, put on his practice pads and mask, and joined the Islanders, who were now his former teammates, for a brief workout.&ldquo;It was like a last hurrah,&rdquo; Melanson said. &ldquo;Besides that, I needed the work.&rdquo;That was the main complaint of Melanson, Smith and Hrudey for the past year&mdash;a lack of work. All had been unhappy with Arbour&rsquo;s triple-platoon system, which had been forced upon the coach when Hrudey was promoted from the minors last season.The Melanson deal presumably changed all that. Instead of three unhappy goalies, the Isles now have two contented goalies. After bidding farewell to Melanson, Smith and Hrudey smiled their way through interviews.&ldquo;I feel like I dodged the bullet,&rdquo; said the 33-year-old Smith, an original Islander. &ldquo;I guess this means I&rsquo;m going to have to dress for every game. Jeez, I was going to ask for a week off over Christmas.&rdquo;Then, turning serious, he added: &ldquo;Everybody expected this would happen to one of us sooner or later. It was just a matter of time and who it would be&hellip;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been hard for Al to keep all three of us playing and happy. He&rsquo;s had to juggle us, and all of us kept getting off the track. This should make things easier.&rdquo;Hrudey nodded his head in agreement. Though the 23-year-old didn&rsquo;t grumble as much as Smith and Melanson about being platooned, he had been unhappy, too.&ldquo;I feel like 2,000 pounds have been lifted off my back,&rdquo; Hrudey said. &ldquo;Rollie and I are good friends, and it&rsquo;s sad to see him go. But this should help all three of us. Rollie will get a chance to play a lot of games with the North Stars and I guess this makes me a genuine backup man now&hellip;&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a lot more relaxed. It&rsquo;s a lot easier to go out there now and realize if you let in a bad goal your job isn&rsquo;t on the line.&rdquo;Some Islanders, though, wondered why Torrey didn&rsquo;t acquire immediate help instead of accepting a draft pick for Melanson.&ldquo;I thought he might trade for a defenseman,&rdquo; Bob Bourne said. &ldquo;But Bill Torrey knows what he&rsquo;s doing.&rdquo;Added team captain Denis Potvin: &ldquo;With all the injuries we&rsquo;ve had, Torrey might make another deal. It wouldn&rsquo;t suprise me.&rdquo;The Islanders, meanwhile, ran off three straight victories after the trade and took off on a four-game swing through western Canada with a seven-game unbeaten streak (6-0-1).Smith was in goal for victories over Washington and Buffalo, and was unbeaten in six consecutive games, all at home. Hrudey, in his first start after the trade, turned back the Caps on their home ice to run his record to 4-2-1.ON THE ISLE&mdash;Mike Bossy continued his incredible sniping. He had 24 goals in 20 games. When Wayne Gretzky scored his record 92 in 1981-82, he didn&rsquo;t reach 24 until his 23rd game&hellip;The Sutter brothers also were contributing. Brent scored twice against the Capitals and Duane had a pair against the Sabres&hellip;Rookie defenseman Gerald Diduck is looking more relaxed since coach Al Arbour paired him with Denis Potvin. &#9632;

Two’s Company Agrees With Isles’ Goalies

<div class="byline">Stan Fischler&#x2019;s</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011357/5207998-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="372" height="444"></div>Bullbleep journalism!&rdquo;Herb Brooks exhaled.&ldquo;Bullbleep journalism!&rdquo; Brooks repeated. And to hammer home the point, Brooks yelled it one more time as he slammed the door on Steve Hanks, editor of the New York Sports magazine.The episode took place across the corridor from the Ranger dressing room at Madison Square Garden. It was short and snappy, but adilly as media-management confrontations go, and we&rsquo;ll get to it in a minute.But first, the point&mdash;Herb Brooks&rsquo; point&mdash;&rdquo;bullbleep journalism.&rdquo; If you listen to hockey people, there&rsquo;s a lot of it going around. Maybe you&rsquo;ve heard some of these shouts:&bull; Tom Barrasso versus Sports Illustrated: Barrasso says SI had it wrong. He never said he wasn&rsquo;t surprised to have won both the Calder and Vezina Trophies. He was so mad he threatened to sue SI. Barrasso&rsquo;s agent, Bill Watters, told him to cool it, be nice, and hope that SI does a story on him every week. Barrasso still thinks it was &ldquo;bullbleep journalism.&rdquo;&bull; Jimmy Devellano versus Joe Rumormonger: Jimmy D. nearly went through the roof of Joe Louis Arena when he heard a Detroit newsguy report that the Red Wings planned to deal John Ogrodnick and Corrado Micalef to the Sabres for Paul Cyr, Jacques Cloutier and Hannu Virta. Not only was the report scurrilous, seditious, silly and stupid, but Jimmy D. figured he&rsquo;d be on the south end of a lynch rope if he pulled the trade. &ldquo;Bullbleep journalism&rdquo; is what Jimmy D. thinks of it.&bull; Scotty Bowman versus Larry Felser: Bowman has a problem. There&rsquo;s only one newspaper in Buffalo, The News, and its sports editor, Felser, likes him as much as he does poison ivy. When Bowman dispatched Barrasso to Rochester, Felser said the Sabre boss made a mistake&mdash;he should have sent himself and brought Jim Schoenfeld up to coach the Sabres. Bowman figured it was &ldquo;bullbleep journalism.&rdquo;Ah, but the Brooks-Hanks battle is the real beaut. A couple of witnesses tell me it was the best one-act melodrama on Broadway all year.(A little background music, maestro. Some distant thunder rumbling in from stage right.)It started when Hanks asked Minnesota writer John Gilbert to author a Brooks piece for the November-December issue of New York Sports. Gilbert agreed and knocked off a neat profile (&ldquo;Gardener of the Garden&rdquo;), delivering new insights into the complex coach.&ldquo;I wanted a little more balance than Gilbert gave me,&rdquo; says Hanks. &ldquo;There were certain issues (Brooks&rsquo; relationship with Ranger general manager Craig Patrick) that our readers want to know about and weren&rsquo;t covered. I suggested that Gilbert talk to some New York writers.Gilbert disagreed and submitted a manuscript without any comment from New York media types. Now comes the sticky part. (Heavy on the organ music, maestro. A few bolts of lightning from stage left.)Hanks decided that he would insert a few paragraphs (&ldquo;I owed it to my readers&rdquo;) about the Brooks-Patrick scenario. He spoke to a New York-area writer for a daily paper, who told him&mdash;among other things&mdash;&rdquo;there&rsquo;s a definite tension&rdquo; between Brooks and Patrick.The anonymous informant delivered a few other anti-Brooks comments (&ldquo;&hellip;he sometimes manipulates the writers into writing negative stuff about a player he doesn&rsquo;t like. Last year Nick Fotiu was the best example of that.&rdquo;) Hanks took the statements and inserted three paragraphs worth of the unflattering Brooks material in the middle of the story.He never told Gilbert about the change and assumed that the author would not object.&ldquo;I had asked him to include New York stuff,&rdquo; Hanks explains. &ldquo;In fact, I gave him the names of writers to call and hoped he would. Since he didn&rsquo;t, I made the changes. Because of the nature of the material (it was just straight quotes) and since it was a matter of days &lsquo;til deadline, it was my judgment that it was not necessary to get Gilbert&rsquo;s permission. It is my magazine.&rdquo;Advance copies of the issue were available early in the season. By sheer coincidence, Gilbert got his copy when the North Stars were visiting the Rangers in New York. Gilbert tells me he was outraged when he read the piece and noticed the inserts. &ldquo;If you deal irresponsibly (as Hanks did),&rdquo; says Gilbert, &ldquo;you deserve to get slapped. It was a bush-league way of operating.&rdquo; Gilbert informed Brooks that, unknown to him, liberties had been taken with the story.A few weeks later, Hanks was orchestrating a photo session with James Patrick, Pat LaFontaine and Kirk Muller, the three New York-area rookies who were to appear in a story in a coming issue of New York Sports. The picture-taking was being held before an Islander-Ranger game at Madison Square Garden. Unknown to Brooks, the photo session was being held in the very room he holds his post-game press conference.Unknown to Hanks, Brooks occasionally drops into that room for a pre-game breather.Muller was late arriving to the Garden so the photo session was delayed long after the scheduled time. Suddenly, the door flew open and Brooks entered. He was both surprised and curious about all the cameras arranged by photographer Bruce Bennett.&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this for?&rdquo; Brooks asked.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re shooting pictures for New York Sports,&rdquo; said Bennett.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to get my hands on the editor of that rag,&rdquo; snapped the coach.Hearing that, Hanks came forward and revealed that he, in fact, was the editor. Brooks turned livid.&ldquo;What gives you the right to take someone&rsquo;s story and turn it around?&rdquo; he demanded.Witnesses say that before Hanks could reply, Brooks showered him with a torrent of criticism. And when Hanks tried to explain his viewpoint, Brooks argued that all the magazine was trying to do was stir up controversy.&ldquo;It was bullbleep journalism,&rdquo; the coach concluded and stormed out of the room.Hanks acknowledges that he should have contacted Gilbert about the insert, but defends his pursuit of the &ldquo;other side of the story&rdquo; and insists that he merely was serving the best interests of his magazine and his readers by obtaining the additional material.&ldquo;For Brooks to suggest that I did it to stir up controversy is ridiculous,&rdquo; counters Hanks. &ldquo;If that were the case, I would have written a much more controversial title to the story than &lsquo;Gardener Of The Garden,&rsquo; and I would have gone out of my way to get more publicity, which I didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;So, why the fuss?Gilbert believes he was unfairly duped. Brooks believes that Hanks acted in an underhanded manner in order to sell magazines. And Hanks believes Brooks and Gilbert overreacted.&ldquo;Herb was angry because he doesn&rsquo;t want to see anything negative written about him,&rdquo; Hanks charges. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the trouble with him and the trouble with a lot of people in this business. You praise them 99 times but, God forbid, you write a little negative item and they go crazy.&rdquo;Was it &ldquo;bullbleep journalism?&rdquo;Here are the key issues:&bull; Was Gilbert deceived? Yes.&bull; Did Hanks have an obligation to present a more complete picture of Brooks? Yes.&bull; Did Hanks act in bad faith? No.The bottom line is this. The Herb Brooks-Craig Patrick issue is very relevant. Recently, New Jersey columnist Walt MacPeek raised the issue once again. Which only goes to prove that Brooks-Patrick remains fodder for the fact mongers. And when all is said and done, the battle between the mud-disturbing media and media-manipulating management will go on as long as ice remains slippery.30-SECOND THIRD DEGREE&mdash;Kevin Lowe, of the Edmonton Oilers, will you please take the stand:Q: Mario Lemieux is being hailed as the next Wayne Gretzky. Compare them.LOWE: &ldquo;They have different size and different skating styles. Gretz attacks at you very quickly, whereas Lemieux seems a little slower and lethargic. Both handle the puck well and have that &lsquo;sixth sense. I saw Lemieux set up a goal with the kind of pass Gretzky would normally make. Mario is gonna be a great player, but he still has to prove himself.&rdquo;Q: Are the Oilers cocky or have they mellowed?LOWE: &ldquo;The mistake people make about us is thinking we&rsquo;re cocky. We&rsquo;re confident, and a lot of people mistake confidence for cockiness. We try not to be cocky, but if teams do get that impression, well, it&rsquo;s a &lsquo;too-bad&rsquo; sort of thing. There&rsquo;s a reason for our confidence: we feel we&rsquo;re the best hockey team there is&mdash;and we haven&rsquo;t mellowed.Q: Don Cherry says there are too many Europeans in the NHL. What about it?LOWE: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a silly remark. What we want to do is make hockey the best possible game. To do that, you have to have the best players from around the world. The NFL and NBA, they don&rsquo;t have to worry about getting talent from overseas because it all comes from the States. Same with baseball. But that&rsquo;s not the case with hockey. So, if the Europeans can come over and help our game, by all means, bring &lsquo;em over.&rdquo;Q: On the Oilers&rsquo; Stanley Cup ring there&rsquo;s a carrot with a bite taken out of it. It&rsquo;s supposed to have a secret meaning. What&rsquo;s it all about?LOWE: &ldquo;Sorry, we want to keep that secret among ourselves. But, think of this: carrots are used for incentive. That&rsquo;s a hint. But I&rsquo;m not going to reveal the exact meaning. That&rsquo;s pretty special to us.&rdquo;Q: How much does it bother you that the Oilers don&rsquo;t get the recognition they might if the club was based in New York City?LOWE: &ldquo;If we were playing in New York it would be an altogether different story in terms of the amount of press we&rsquo;d get. But because Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s on our team, we don&rsquo;t lack for recognition and everybody&rsquo;s going to remember us. But you can compare the kind of attention we get with the Raiders of the NFL. They&rsquo;ve been successful over the years, but the Giants get more publicity. So do the Cowboys. We&rsquo;re like the Raiders. We got out there and do our job. If we get ink, that&rsquo;s great.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-01

The Best Of Bull Going Round The League

The&rsquo;American Hockey League&mdash;on the advice of its legal counsel&mdash;has changed its stand and will allow Ross Lambert to sign a contract with the Nova Scotia Oilers.Lambert, a 21-year-old right winger, was prevented from joining the Oilers for a month because he was found to be in violation of the league&rsquo;s controversial bylaw 8a. That rule, which was adopted in December, 1983, prohibits players who competed in the AHL in one season and went to Europe the next season from returning to the league in the same season.Lambert played for the Moncton Alpines last season, but signed to play in West Germany this season after he failed to land a job with any of the 21 NHL organizations. After playing in just one regular-season game, he ran into contract problems and returned home to Canada. Nova Scotia general manager Larry Kish then offered him a contract, but the league&mdash;on two separate votes of the board of governors&mdash;refused to grant him a waiver from the bylaw.Boston attorney Brian Burke, Lambert&rsquo;s representative, was preparing to launch a legal challenge to the bylaw when league officials notified him on Nov. 20 that Lambert had been granted permission to play in the league.&ldquo;Obviously, I&rsquo;m thrilled,&rdquo; Burke told Mike Kane of the Schenectady (NY) Gazette. &ldquo;I think the league again, as it did in the (Mike) Busniuk situation earlier this year, has acted in a reasonable manner. I&rsquo;m happy for Ross Lambert.&rdquo;In February, the AHL granted an exemption to each of the league teams to sign a player from Europe. Busniuk joined Maine.Gord Anziano, the AHL vicepresident and secretary, said that the league officials will meet to discuss the bylaw in December, and decide whether it should be kept or revised.A 20-year-old B. C. hockey player is being held in Czechoslovakia on three charges of assault and hooliganism after an attack on a 78-year-old arena usher in Prague.Alain Harvey Chatlain. a member of the Nanaimo Clippers of the British Columbia Junior Hockey League, was arrested on Nov. 18 and charged the following day with &ldquo;intentional assault causing serious impairment of health,&rdquo; &ldquo;hooliganism resulting in heavy personal injury,&rdquo; and &ldquo;assault on an official.&rdquo;The usher&rsquo;s left eye was &ldquo;smashed beyond repair,&rdquo; said an official with Canada&rsquo;s external affairs department, which has been called in to assist the hockey player.Chatlain, whom team officials say was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident, is being held in Prague until the case is resolved, a process which could take several months.If convicted, Chatlain faces a minimum penalty of 18 months and a max-imum of five years.For the first time in eight years, a Soviet hockey team will play in Maple Leaf Gardens.The Soviets will play Team Ontario Dec. 21, one of five regional midget elite teams from across Canada participating in a total of 10 games against the Soviet team. The Ontario team, consisting of elite players under 17 years of age, will be coached by York University coach Dave Chambers. It will play the Soviets again Dec. 13 at Ottawa Civic Centre.&ldquo;Harold Ballard (owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs) wanted to make sure it would be beneficial to the development of amateur hockey in Canada (before he consented),&rdquo; Murray Costello, president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, told Lois Kalchman of the Toronto Star.Ballard has banned Soviet hockey teams from playing at the Gardens since the 1976 Canada Cup, because of his views against their country&rsquo;s affairs in world politics.&ldquo;Ballard asked who was going to gain by it and was told the money would go into our program for development in Canada,&rdquo; Costello said. &#9632;

American League Allows Lambert To Play

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div>MONTREAL&mdash;Mark Hunter sometimes chuckles when he looks over his statistics for the 1982-83 and 1983-84 National Hockey League seasons.&ldquo;Maybe they should just combine the two into one,&rdquo; he suggested once.Even if you did that, Hunter&rsquo;s games-played total would be well shy of 80. It&rsquo;s hard to believe the 22-year-old from Petrolia, Ont., is actually playing his fourth season with the Montreal Canadiens.Hunter&rsquo;s medical problems were the topic of discussion several times during the two previous seasons. On Dec. 23, 1982, he ran into his brother Dale in a game in Quebec City and the result was knee cartilage damage which forced him to miss all but one game for the remainder of that campaign.Last year, Hunter was injured in a game against the Edmonton Oilers in late October as he banged into an Edmonton defenseman. The collision resulted in more knee surgery and another year of frustration for the youngster from the Ontario farmbelt of southwestern Ontario.&ldquo;It took me a little while to get going at the start of this season,&rdquo; Hunter admitted. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m playing more now and I think the coach has more confidence in me. We all have to contribute to the team. There is a long season ahead to show that I can play on this team.&rdquo;Hunter was in the Canadiens&rsquo; starting lineup opening night in Buffalo, but found himself in the designated-sitter role against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Montreal&rsquo;s home opener, Oct. 13. Since then, he has been used a great deal by coach Jacques Lemaire.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got one of the better shots on the team,&rdquo; Lemaire said. &ldquo;He has to use it more. He could be a 30-goal scorer for us.&rdquo;Hunter admitted that Lemaire has spoken to him about using his heavy shot more frequently and he fully understands where his coach is coming from. During the Canadiens&rsquo; successful road trip to western Canada, Hunter found himself used extensively alongside newly-acquired Ron Flockhart and Mike McPhee, and he responded by potting the game-winning goal in Vancouver.Hunter was the Canadiens&rsquo; first choice (seventh overall) in the 1981 NHL entry draft and was a regular almost from the start. He scored 18 times and assisted on 11 others in his first season, playing 71 games. Unlike one-time roommate Doug Wickenheiser, Hunter had the confidence of ex-coach Bob Berry.The following season, Hunter had eight goals in just 31 games. Last season, he appeared 22 times, scoring six goals. He was a solid performer for the Canadiens in the playoffs and that earned him a new two-year contract with the team.&ldquo;When you come back from injuries it&rsquo;s not the same,&rdquo; Hunter admitted. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t have the same confidence in yourself. My knee wasn&rsquo;t 100 per cent when I did come back. This summer, I had the full summer to get back in shape. Playing game after game like I have this year develops confidence, and you start doing the little things and you get more chances to score.&rdquo;Hunter said he and his linemates will give the Habs a good line.&ldquo;I think our line is going to help out because Ron has such good speed,&rdquo; Hunter noted. &ldquo;He opens things up for Mike and me. He doesn&rsquo;t have to do any comer work, and we can get the puck to him. He seems to be in the open because he has such good speed.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know whether Ron would play with Mike and I or not. I thought he might be put with Guy Lafleur. Jacques put us together, and I&rsquo;m glad he did because things have clicked so well. We got some important goals on the trip.&rdquo;Hunter admitted that he has not changed his style to adjust to Flockhart. Until the deal was made, Hunter was playing a good deal with Bobby Smith, whose style is definitely different.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t change my style,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He opens things up more for me with the puck. The defense has to back in more. It now seems like I have time to make a move. Before sometimes I was running out of time.&rdquo;With Hunter doing well on an individual basis and the Canadiens off to an excellent beginning to the 1984-85 season, life all of a sudden has become much more bearable for the youngest of the hockey-playing Hunter brothers.IN PASSING&mdash;The departure of Steve Shutt for Los Angles leaves the Canadiens with just five players who performed on their last Stanley Cup winner in 1979&mdash;Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson. Bob Gainey, Mario Tremblay and Pierre Mondou. Shutt had no bitterness towards Montreal management, noting they handled the deal in a &ldquo;first class&rdquo; way&hellip;Coach Jacques Lemaire split up the defensive pair of Craig Ludwig and Rick Green, moving the latter alongside Tom Kurvers and Ludwig with Chris Chelios. The move came after the embarrassing 6-4 loss to the Maple Leafs, Nov. 19, the first Toronto victory on Forum ice since March 24, 1976&hellip;Larry Robinson earned his 500th NHL career assist in the loss against the Leafs. Robinson is the fifth defenseman in the league to reach that plateau. &#9632;

Healthy Hunter Has Reason To Be Happy

<div class="byline">BY REYN DAVIS</div>WINNIPEG&mdash;One of Canada&rsquo;s most famous landmarks suits the Winnipeg Jets perfectly.Crusty old Maple Leaf Gardens, so clean and debonair, has been a haven in the National Hockey League for the Jets, unbeaten there since 1980.&ldquo;Maybe we should trade buildings with Toronto,&rdquo; joked Barry Long, the Jet coach, noting that the last time his team lost in the Gardens was March 19, 1980.Since then, the Jets have put together a string of nine wins and one tie. The most recent win, 5-3, on Nov. 17, marked the beginning of a weekend sweep of the professional teams owned and maligned by Harold Ballard.Less than 24 hours later, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League would bring the city its first Grey Cup in 19 years by trouncing Ballard&rsquo;s Hamilton Tiger Cat 47-17 on a frozen field in Edmonton.Thrown into ecstasy, the city celebrated for three days and as many nights with the Jets joining in the toasts toward their kindred brothers across the street.The Jets, despite their dominance of Toronto, are still inherently weak in one regard. Back in the Smythe Division, where the competition is extremely tough, the team pays a price for its abundance of small and mild-mannered players.Ron Wilson, Doug Smail, Morris Lukowich and Murray Eaves are smurf-like clones. Brian Mullen, Paul Pooley and Bengt Lundholm are light and un-aggressive.Fast as they are, they do wear down. Teams that are unable to catch them are often easy prey. But when the slugging starts along the boards, the Jets fare poorly.Long, for one, feels there is a need for at least two more mucker-style wingers. But muckers who can play are a prized commodity around the NHL.In Toronto, however, the smurfs were large as life. Wilson, who is Long&rsquo;s handiest player, started plays that led to two goals and made the defensive play of the season, dropping to block a shot with the Winnipeg net yawning and the rest of the Jets drifting off to sleep.Goaltender Brian Hayward was hopelessly out of position after one save, followed by a shot that struck the goalpost. Jim Benning had an empty net in front of him.Suddenly, Wilson threw himself across the front of the goal, stopping the shot with his arm. He seemed tocome out of nowhere.&ldquo;Ball hockey,&rdquo; said Wilson, describing the derivation of his diving block that caused a trigger-happy Toronto goal judge to flash his light prematurely.So, too, did Lukowich distinguish himself. Considered a pure goal scorer by general manager John Ferguson, the sparingly-used Lukowich came off the bench to score the winning goal, so artistically arranged by Thomas Steen, the scorer of a brilliant goal earlier in the game.&ldquo;Steen is our best player in all three zones&mdash;defensive, neutral and offensive,&rdquo; said Long. &ldquo;He is an outstanding hockey player. We were not the same hockey club for two games while he wrestled with the flu. He is one player we can not do without.&rdquo;The husky Swede has been riding a high ever since the Canada Cup, in which he was the leading goal scorer with seven in eight games.&ldquo;The Canada Cup did a lot for my confidence,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s made me a better player.&rdquo;All tend to agree.BENCH BITS&mdash;A muscle pull in his thigh has slowed Dale Hawerchuk. He could not take a regular shift after the first period in a 7-5 loss to the Oilers in Edmonton. It was the Jets&rsquo; 18th loss in a row to Wayne Gretzky and Co. &ldquo;The Oilers beat you in so many ways,&rdquo; moaned coach Barry Long, accepting yet another loss grudgingly. &ldquo;I guess that&rsquo;s why they are the Stanley Cup champions.&rdquo;&hellip;Perry Turnbull is playing again after suffering a knee injury Oct. 21. He marked his return with a goal in Edmonton. &#9632;

Jets Need Method To Sow Garden Seeds In Smythe

<div class="byline">Joe Falls</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011331/5208101-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="364" height="443"></div>LET&rsquo;S PLAY THE rating game. You give me a subject and I&rsquo;ll rate it for you. We&rsquo;ll give it one to 100 with 65 as the passing grade:&bull; Gerry Chee vers&mdash;85 per cent. I like this man&rsquo;s style, his understanding of the game and his ability to get his players to play the way he wants. He has a real flair for the game&mdash;a lot of color. Before he&rsquo;s done, he could be the best coach in the league.&bull; Magnetic nets&mdash;50 per cent. I don&rsquo;t like them. They can be moved too easily when the play gets furious in front of the goalie. The officials should start cracking down now and handing out penalties so the players know they can&rsquo;t be messing with the way the game is played. But a lot of safety is involved, so the nets should stay.&bull; Clarence Campbell&mdash;95 per cent. They will never find another president as good as this one.&bull; Offsides&mdash;0 per cent. I never met an offside that I liked.&bull; European-style play&mdash;70 per cent. I&rsquo;ve never figured out what this is and I don&rsquo;t think it matters unless you&rsquo;ve got a lot of guys named Boris and Ivan and Sergei playing for your team. Give me Chinese checkers anytime.&bull; Hitting the post&mdash;50 per cent. It&rsquo;s like hitting the crossbar. I don&rsquo;t see it half the time and I&rsquo;m amazed at how the guys on TV call it all the time.&bull; Kate Smith&mdash;100 per cent. How can you give any other mark to somebody who sang God Bless America so beautifully? I like to sing in my car, and everytime I sing God Bless America, I think of Kate Smith and the Philadelphia Flyers. I envy the guys who got a chance to write about those teams.&bull; Kamloops&mdash;90 per cent. Any place that has a team named the Kamloops Blazers has to get a high mark.&bull; Boston Garden&mdash;100 per cent. Another perfect mark because whenever I think of this place&mdash;even when I drive past it in the summer when I&rsquo;m in town with the Tigers&mdash;I think of cold Saturday afternoons in January, February and March, and the Bruins playing at home, and the place filled with people and smoke, and everybody sitting close to the ice, and Terry O&rsquo;Reilly working in the comers and trying to get the puck out to Rick Middleton, who was trying to muscle the defenseman away from the front of the net so he can get into position to take his shot. The Boston Bruins are my idea of how the game of hockey should be played.&bull; Fights&mdash;11 per cent. I don&rsquo;t even like them in the ring when they&rsquo;re not wearing helmets.&bull; Harold Ballard&mdash;90 per cent. A score which I&rsquo;m sure will not be accepted by the Toronto writers. Sorry, guys, I don&rsquo;t have to live with the man, and so I am fascinated by his bleatings and his bombasts, not to mention his golden locks.&bull; Hockey Night In Canada&mdash;98 per cent. And the best way to watch it is in your pajamas in the den with the lights out and a piece of cinnamonapple cake and coffee at your side. The only reason it&rsquo;s not 100 is that some nights there are only Twinkies around the house.&bull; Denis Potvin&mdash;85 per cent. Don&rsquo;t know the man and see him only when the New York Islanders are in town or on television. But I always find myself seeking him out when he&rsquo;s on the ice and enjoying the way he works with the puck before it ever gets into the enemy zone. This is the mark of a truly fine player. I&rsquo;m almost ready to give him the Brad Park Award.&bull; Airplane landings in the middle of the winter while covering the NHL&mdash;6 percent. I guess I&rsquo;m just a worry wart. I always want the landings and takeoffs to cotne out even. Odd numbers bother me.&bull; Mrs. Ron Duguay&mdash;110 per cent. No comment is necessary. &#9632;

f0012-01

Duguay’s Wife Is Best In The Rating Game

<div class="byline">BY PERRY LEFKO</div>TORONTO&mdash;There isn&rsquo;t any coach who wouldn&rsquo;t love to have a good hour or so of practise each day, but somettimes the travail&rsquo;s of the National Hockey League schedule make it impossible.Or, in the case of the Toronto Maple Leafs, five games in seven nights with only one win.&ldquo;Whatever our problem is, we&rsquo;re certainly not going to find it in one practice,&rdquo; said Leaf coach Dan Maloney, after his team lost the fifth game of the tiresome stretch, 4-2 to Minnesota, Nov. 24, at Maple Leaf Gardens. Three days before that in Minnesota, the Stars pounded the Leafs 7-1.If the Leafs&rsquo; standing wasn&rsquo;t bad enough&mdash;last in the Norris Division and second-worst overall in the league&mdash;they have to contend with injuries, too. Left winger Jim Korn is out for two weeks with a disclocated shoulder, while Gary Nylund is on the shelf for a week with a concussion. Both injuries occurred in the second game against the Stars. Greg Terrion hurt his knee in practice and is out indefinitely. Already the Leafs are missing Peter Ihnacak (knee) and Bill Stewart (ankle), and it&rsquo;s possible replacements will have to be called from Toronto&rsquo;s farm team in St. Catharines.Korn suffered his mishap when he cut in on North Star goalie Gilles Meloche and crashed into the post. Only five days earlier, in a game against Montreal which the Leafs won 6-4, Korn had done the same thing, but barrelled into Hab goalie Steve Penney.The second time he was not as fortunate, although the magnetic nets, which the Leafs were the first to use last year and are now mandatory in the league, cushioned the blow.&ldquo;If ever there was a time to plug those nets, that was it,&rdquo; said Maloney. &ldquo;That (the collision) could have ended the guy&rsquo;s career.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;We&rsquo;re working hard and getting so many good chances but the puck is not going in the net.&rsquo;</blockquote>As for Nylund&rsquo;s injury, Maloney was asked if there was any damage to the defenseman&rsquo;s oft-injured left knee, and the coach nervously responded, &ldquo;No, not that.&rdquo;Meanwhile, in the Leafs&rsquo; dressing room, the players lamented about the team&rsquo;s hard times.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re working hard and getting so many good chances, but the puck&rsquo;s not going in the net,&rdquo; said Bob McGill, who started off the season on defense and is now being used as a fourth-line winger. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little disheartening.&rdquo;Jim Benning, who is in his fourth year with the team, has been through similar periods, but has been using his experience to calm some of the younger players&mdash;though Benning is only 21.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough on the younger guys, because they&rsquo;ve never been through it before,&rdquo; Benning said. &ldquo;I just tell them to work hard and to have a good attitude.&rdquo;Perhaps the one thing which is hurting the Leafs more than scoring&mdash;and lack of stopping it in some cases&mdash;is inconsistency. In a game against Detroit, Nov. 23, the Leafs were down 6-3 in the third period and mounted a comeback with two goals in the final two minutes. But the clock ran out on them, just as it did in the second game against Minnesota.&ldquo;As far as Detroit is concerned, that&rsquo;s the team we have to gun for right now,&rdquo; said McGill. &ldquo;We play them six more times, and I don&rsquo;t think we should lose any of them. That&rsquo;s 12 points.&rdquo;In their minds the Leafs may think they can do it, but it&rsquo;s going to take a lot of hard work and an equal amount of good fortune to make McGill&rsquo;s words come true.LEAFLETS&mdash;Rookie Al lafrate, a product of Livonia, MI, recorded his first NHL goal in the Montreal game, then continued his good play of late with a goal and an assist in his homecoming in the Detroit game. Russ Courtnail, another rookie, broke out of a goal slump with one against Montreal and two against Detroit&hellip;Of Minnesota&rsquo;s first seven wins this season, four were against the Leafs&hellip;Rumors continue to be whispered about a Leaf trade involving Borje Salming. &#9632;

Bad News Plagues Leafs As Injuries Cut Lineup

<div class="byline">BY RICH FRIEDMAN</div>NEW YORK&mdash;Shortly after the start of the New York-New Jersey Devil game at Madison Square Garden, Nov. 18, the Rangers collectively voiced a groan for Don Maloney.The oft-injured left winger broke his leg. already immobolized by a brace, and his ankle when Devil defenseman Bruce Driver fell on him.Maloney underwent surgery that night and a pin was inserted in his leg to keep the fracture in place. Ranger orthopedist, Dr. Norman Scott, said Maloney&rsquo;s surgery was not career threatening, but it&rsquo;s doubtful he&rsquo;ll return to the lineup before the playoffs.&ldquo;My leg was pinned, there was no place I could go,&rdquo; Maloney told Frank Brown of the New York Daily News from his hospital room. &ldquo;Then I heard this crunch.&rdquo;All the Rangers were feeling the loss, but Don&rsquo;s brother Dave, who was close to tears in the dressing room, was more visibly upset.&ldquo;Everything is so frustrating when you see something like that happen,&rdquo; Maloney said. &ldquo;It should happen to somebody else; it should happen to me&hellip;God, I hate this game some times. &ldquo;For Herb Brooks, it was was another mishap in a string of injuries which has sidelined Mark Pavelich, Ron Greschner, Simo Saarinen and Mark Osborne.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011256/5208156-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="592" height="911"><figcaption class="caption-body">Don Maloney&rsquo;s injury is serious, but not enough to put an end to his career.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;You could just feel the whole bench going &lsquo;Uhhh,&rsquo;&rdquo; Brooks said of Maloney&rsquo;s injury. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean that as an excuse, but it was just a sickening type of thing. Donnie kills penalties, plays the power play and is obviously our best at left wing. He&rsquo;s a highly respected guy. It hurts you tangibly and intangibly.&rdquo;The Rangers lost the game, 6-0. and immediately after the call went out for reinforcements. Robbie Ftorek and Chris Kontos were summoned from the New Haven Nighthawks, and Ftorek. with the team&rsquo;s second goal, helped the Rangers end a four-game losing streak with a 3-2 victory at home over the Buffalo Sabres, Nov. 22.&ldquo;Robbie brings a lot of things to a hockey game,&rdquo; Brooks said of the 5-foot-9, 175-pound veteran. &ldquo;His play down there warranted it (Ftorek was tied for the Nighthawks&rsquo; lead with nine goals and was 9-7-6 in 17 games), and our injuries required we take a look at him. He&rsquo;s got a certain air&mdash;those intangibles.&rdquo;All this does not necessarily mean that Ftorek will still be here come playoff time. With the return of all the injured players, he might not have a spot on the roster but he may have played a significant role in getting the team into post-season play.Ftorek, a savvy center, has played with five National Hockey League and World Hockey Association teams in a 12-year career, and last September accepted a demotion to New Haven as part of the business.&ldquo;I went to the minors because that&rsquo;s where they wanted me to help the kids,&rdquo; he said.Ftorek admitted he isn&rsquo;t making any changes in his style now that he&rsquo;s back at the top level.&ldquo;I see myself coming here to be Robbie Ftorek, and that&rsquo;s all it can be.&rdquo; he said as he uncharacteristically lingered in the Ranger dressi ng room after his homecoming. &ldquo;I look to give suggestions, pat guys on the back, and the guys know me.&rdquo;And then came the words which are said al 1-too-hollowly by too many professional athletes, be they youngsters or 32-year-old veterans: &ldquo;You try to give 100 per cent, wherever you play or whoever you&rsquo;re playing.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;After the loss to the Devils, Barry Beck said it&rsquo;s up to him, as the Rangers&rsquo; captain, to put the team back on track. &ldquo;You shouldn&rsquo;t lose 6-0 at home to the Devils. It&rsquo;s gonna take an effort on everybody&rsquo;s part, especially mine. We&rsquo;re not cohesive enough, the fans are disappointed in the hockey we&rsquo;re playing and we&rsquo;re disappointed in ourselves.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0013-01

Rangers Will Miss Maloney In Many Ways

<div class="byline">Jay Greenberg</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021025/5208218-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="336" height="503"></div>THE NEW YORK Islanders, with a gravely ill defense and showing telltale signs of senility, came to the Philadelphia Spectrum, Nov. 18, for one of their three or four annual checkups.The Flyers haven&rsquo;t always represented the Mayo Clinic the last five years, but you can ask the Islanders: The Spectrum is still a pretty good place to get a second opinion on exactly how you&rsquo;re doing.So the examination began. And there were the Islanders defusing the young, hot and bubbly Flyers with a 19-shot third period and pulling out a 3-3 tie. There was Bryan Trottier, two games removed from a long absence from a thigh muscle pull, looking like, well, Bryan Trottier.There was Denis Potvin, appearing better than he has in at least a year, gliding up the slot for a power-play goal. There was John Tonelli, as ever the land shark, and Mike Bossy and Brent Sutter making Pelle Lindbergh dizzy.Send the patient home, doctor. All the tests are normal. The Islanders have been faking it.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d say we&rsquo;re showing a little progress,&rdquo; said Islander general manager Bill Torrey, his bow tie strutting again. &ldquo;I think its reasonable to assume that having Trottier back makes a bit of a difference.&rdquo;&ldquo;A lot of guys are starting to play better,&rdquo; Bob Bourne said. &ldquo;But if we&rsquo;re like a car, Bryan is like the coil that starts the engine. It&rsquo;s still a good car, but without him we&rsquo;re just a mediocre team.&rdquo;Suddenly the Islanders, who had kept their heads above. 500 only on the strength of hot starts by Brent Sutter and Bossy, were unbeaten in six games. Their goals-against, an unconscienable 80 in 17 games, was creeping down to a more Islander-like level. The gravedancers, gathering for a ball to celebrate the once-champion&rsquo;s decline, had better set a rain date.&ldquo;I think we&rsquo;re going to be there in the end again,&rdquo; Bourne said. &ldquo;Obviously Bill Torrey thinks so, because he hasn&rsquo;t broken us up. I really think we have a good shot at winning another (Stanley) Cup if we&rsquo;re healthy.&rdquo;That is a very big if. Ken Morrow has had his knee repaired and the Isles are holding their breath to see what February, and the defenseman&rsquo;s return, will bring. Dave Langevin limps on bad knees and shaky shoulders. Potvin, a shadow of his former self in last year&rsquo;s playoffs, is battling the far side of 30 and hypertension. Bourne, Bob Nystrom, Clark Gillies and Butch Goring and Billy Smith are all over 30. Al Arbour&rsquo;s heir apparent, Brian Kilrea, has been hired as an assistant coach. This is likely Al&rsquo;s swan song.The numbers and the knees suggest that the Isles probably have just one shot left, but if Arbour, a proven master of such craft, can preserve them through March, it&rsquo;s still a pretty good one. Logic suggests that after this spring, it may take a year or three for the Islanders to get back into position.Not that this is a prediction on any long-term decline. The Isles are already one season into a transition that is almost guaranteed to keep them in the top third of the league for a long time.Defensemen Tomas Jonsson, Paul Boutilier and Gerald Diduck, centers Pat LaFontaine and Brent Sutter, winger Pat Flatley, and goalie Kelly Hrudey represent a good nucleus. Trottier and Bossy are still in their primes. Tonelli is only 27.But the Isles can&rsquo;t replace Potvin, not in one body, anyway, and it&rsquo;s going to take years before any kid will mature to the point where he can be as valuable as a Morrow. The Islander defense is a very real concern.Yet it wasn&rsquo;t surprising at all that when Torrey finally cleared his big three-goaltender muddle by sending Roland Melanson to Minnesota, a defenseman didn&rsquo;t come in return. Torrey would have gladly taken the right, good, young one, but they are hard to pry loose, so he accepted the next best thing, a No. 1 draft choice.Melanson, though young, established and obviously talented, still figured to be the one to go all along. Kelly Hrudey is less proven, but the Isles have believed all along that he was a better long-term prospect than Melanson.Billy Smith had reached the stage where he had more value in an Islander uniform than as trade bait. Nobody was going to give up a good player or a high pick for a goalie approaching 35. And besides, with the Isles retaining a chance to win one more this year, it made no sense at this time to move Billy on.Through the New York Ranger, Washington and Montreal series last spring, Smitty was as good, if not better, than ever. It would be dumb not to take another shot at a fifth Cup with a goalie who has already won four as long as the jury is still out as to whether Smith has really begun to decline. Bill Torrey is not a dumb man.With Hrudey, Torrey has retained a future. And with Smith and some good health, the Islanders may yet have a present, their one for the thumb this spring. &#9632;

f0014-02

All It Took Was Trottier To Breathe Life Into Isles

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011226/5208249-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg"></div>A potential fist fight between New York Ranger coach Herb Brooks and New Jersey counterpart Doug Carpenter was narrowly averted in the bowels of Madison Square Garden following the second period of their Nov. 18 game. According to witnesses, Brooks was infuriated because Carpenter yanked goalie Ron Lowe with only two seconds left in the second period, with the Devils owning a 5-0 lead. (Ranger broadcaster Phil Esposito commented on the air that the Devils were rubbing it in.) When Brooks barked at Carpenter, the Devil coach went after him, only to be separated by Nick Fotiu. &ldquo;Herb yelled down at Doug that it was a horsebleep move (pulling the goalie at 5-0),&rdquo; Devil spokesman Larry Brooks tells BLUELINES. &ldquo;Dougie responded with choice words, and then Nicky moved in and walked Carpenter down the hall towards the Devils&rsquo; room.&rdquo; Oiler boss Glen Sather says Carpenter was right. &ldquo;The name of the game is to win,&rdquo; Sathertells BLUELINES,&rdquo; and the way to win is to score as many goals as you can&hellip;Minnesota general manager Lou Nanne tells BLUELINES that the &ldquo;mysterious&rdquo; chewed-up carrot on the Oilers&rsquo; Stanley Cup ring has no secret meaning whatever. Slats (Edmonton boss Glen Sather) might want people to think it does,&rdquo; says Nanne, &ldquo;but it has no meaning at all. Just another Sather routine.&rdquo;&hellip;A CBC documentary about Harold Ballard, based on Bill Houston&rsquo;s new book on the Leaf boss, may be in the works. The film would feature a history of Maple Leaf Gardens. A producer has taken a year&rsquo;s option on the movie rights.&rdquo;Former Canuck coach Roger Neilson, now with the Chicago Black Hawks, plugged bypassed assistant Ron Smith as a good choice to pilot the beleaguered Vancouver Canucks. Appearing in British Columbia, Neilson opined, &ldquo;I know a few of the (Canucks) players felt that he (Smith) would have made an excellent coach and I certainly feel he would have.&rdquo; Neilson says he was surprised his ex-boss Harry Neale opted for the now-fired Bill LaForge. &ldquo;I thought there were some other guys who were possibly better qualified because he (LaForge) really hasn&rsquo;t got any experience other than junior hockey&hellip;Hall of Famer Gordie Howe was quietly miffed over some Boston Garden fine print that prevented him from stepping on the ice to present the Emery Edge Award to the Bruins&rsquo; Ray Bourque in pre-game ceremonies&hellip;Devil rookie Kirk Muller is still having trouble acclimatizing himself to the Big Apple. He was an hour-and-a-half late for a photo session in Manhattan after getting stuck in traffic. When the reporter asked him for his phone number, Muller apologized that he had the number but forgot the New Jersey (201) area code&hellip;Washington&rsquo;s high command is miffed over low rating Ranger broadcaster Sal Messina gave Capital goalies Pat Riggin and Al Jensen. A former pro goalie, Messina says the Caps would have beaten the Islanders in the 1984 playoffs were it not for mediocre netminding. To that, Cap mentor Bryan Murray notes that Al Jensen was an All-Star and Pat Riggin produced the NHL&rsquo;s top goals-against mark. Messina says he&rsquo;s not impressed&hellip;Asked who he believes would be most qualified to vote for the All-Stars, the Oilers&rsquo; Paul Coffey tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;The coaches&hellip;New Jersey Devils&rsquo; assistant coach Lou Vairo got a laugh during the club&rsquo;s recent slump when he said his team could see the light at the end of the tunnel. &ldquo;The only problem,&rdquo; adds Vairo, &ldquo;is that the tunnel runs from here to Europe.&rdquo;&hellip;Former Flyer coach Fred Shero no longer harbors doubts that Bob Clarke is tough enough to be a general manager, and has a story to prove it. &ldquo;Bill Barber walked into Clarke&rsquo;s office and said, &lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t had a raise in five years. What do you say?&rsquo; Clarke replied, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s why you&rsquo;re still here. Next question.&rdquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Scuttlebut is that if the Red Wings make a coaching change the new mentor will be Bill Mahoney, always highly-regarded by Detroit general manager Jimmy Devellano-&hellip;Former St. Louis Blues&rsquo; coach, Red Berenson, now with the University of Michigan, says: &ldquo;If a kid goes to college, the pro teams don&rsquo;t have to pay him, but he&rsquo;s still playing hockey and getting better.&rdquo;Supermodel Carol Alt explains her happy marriage to Ranger Ron Greschner. &ldquo;Ron is very understanding of my job. He gives me freedom to move about and do what I have to do. He also provides constant companionship. There is always someone around with whom I can discuss what&rsquo;s on my mind, to provide consolation when I need it.&rdquo; Says Greschner: &ldquo;I married my best friend. A year ago, I was lonely. I did not have a family life. Now I have one.&rdquo;&hellip;Herb Brooks suggests that the NHL conduct a study to determine why there has been an increase in hockey injuries&hellip;Linesman Ray Scapinello was awarded the Boston Garden Gallery Gods trophy. Fans do it annually to their choice of the most competent official&hellip;Before Bill Mahoney was given the hook in Minnesota, goalie Don Beaupre had mentioned to a reporter that Mahoney had &ldquo;a little more laid-back attitude than he did last season. His first season he tried to do so much at one time.&rdquo;&hellip;Boston&rsquo;s Ken Linseman compares Larry Bird of the basketball Celtics to his former Oiler teammate, Wayne Gretzky. &ldquo;They both have that overall sense of everything happening around them.&rdquo;&hellip;Marv Albert is celebrating his 20th anniversary as the radio voice of the Rangers. &ldquo;Although there are differences between now and my rookies days,&rdquo; says Albert, &ldquo;one aspect remains the same. I still feel that special chill for the big games.&rdquo;<h2>BEAVER TALES &#9632;</h2>

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BLUELINES

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div>BOSTON&mdash;The good news in Boston, in the face of three losses and a tie in five games, is that Barry Pederson is back in the lineup.And, for the first time this season, coach Gerry Cheevers has been able to put together two scoring lines with the potential to carry the Bruins through the season.Pederson missed the first 16 games of the season when he suffered a spinal fracture of the metacarpal bone in his right hand while trading punches with Quebec&rsquo;s Mario Marois in an exhibition game, Nov. 2.While he was out, the Bruins acquired Charlie Simmer from the Los Angeles Kings and put all their scoring eggs in one basket by aligning him with Ken Linseman and Rick Middleton.But that is exactly what the Bruins didn&rsquo;t want over the long run of the sea-son, not after the Montreal Canadiens exposed the frailties of the one-line theory in the playoffs last spring by eliminating Boston in a three-game sweep.Pederson returned to the lineup against New Jersey, Nov. 15, and Cheevers was able to string together two lines, each with the potential of scoring 100 goals, two games later.Pederson, a 46-goal scorer two years ago, was back at center with his old linemate, Middleton, once a 51-goal scorer, at right wing and Louis Sleigher, just in from Quebec, on the left side.Sleigher has never scored more than 15 goals in any one season, but he has never played with a Pederson or a Middleton before.Simmer, who twice scored 56 goals for the Kings, and Linseman, a 92-point man three years ago in Philadelphia, were kept together with Keith Crowder (35 goals two years ago) at right wing.&ldquo;We figured Sleigher and Crowder would give us darned good comer men on each line,&rdquo; said Cheevers.The two lines played together for a full game for the first time, Nov. 21 in Philadelphia, which the Bruins hope will be a key date in the 1984-85 season.Meanwhile, Pederson was rounding quickly into game shape. After three games, it seemed like he had never been away.In his second game back, a 5-3 loss to the Flyers, he took a draw in the Philly end, got the puck back to Ray Bourque, who rifled a shot off Middleton&rsquo;s skate and into the net. It was Pederson&rsquo;s first point of the season.In the third game, a 4-3 loss to Philadelphia, he and Middleton were killing a penalty when they broke out on a two-on-one, just like the old days, and Pederson beat goalie Pelle Lindbergh for his first goal of the season.&ldquo;I had no trouble with the hand,&rdquo; said Pederson after his first game back. &ldquo;I was just trying to find my place out there. My biggest problem was running around trying to find out where everybody was.&ldquo;The one bad part of the injury was that it happened in training camp, so it&rsquo;s not like I&rsquo;m coming back after a hit in January when I&rsquo;m in good shape. I wasn&rsquo;t in top shape when I got hurt, so it may take a little longer to get back.&ldquo;The doctors say with most bone injuries it takes six to eight weeks to be 90 per cent healed. The last 10or20percent is going to take six months to a year to get completely healed. Everyone is very optimistic about the way everything went.&ldquo;You know, that was the first injury I have had that kept me out of a game. I only missed three games before, and that was because of the flu. Even in minor hockey or junior I never missed a game because of injury.&ldquo;Then I had my first operation last summer to take the calcium out of my shoulder. The the hand. That&rsquo;s enough to last me for the rest of my career.&rdquo;And he&rsquo;s through with fighting, at least for the time being.&ldquo;The big guys are safe,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I definitely can&rsquo;t get my glove off for a while. It&rsquo;s too risky.&rdquo;WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN&mdash;General manager Harry Sinden acknowledged that he has been talking to the New York Rangers about a deal involving defenseman Dave Maloney. &ldquo;His name has been bandied around,&rdquo; said Sinden. &ldquo;and it&rsquo;s still possible.&rdquo; &#9632;

Pederson’s Return Gives Bruins Two Scoring Lines

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>CALGARY&mdash;The many injuries of Mike Eaves have come full circle. Eaves&rsquo; first-ever injury was a dislocated shoulder. It came in a high-school game in Windsor. He was 16.Twelve years later, the same shoulder is still causing him problems, after dislocating it in a Canada Cup exhibition game. Twice already Eaves has returned to the Calgary Flames&rsquo; lineup and both times he&rsquo;s determined that it hadn&rsquo;t healed sufficiently for him to play.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re treating it like a new injury,&rdquo; said Eaves, &ldquo;because it had healed completely the first time.&rdquo;Eaves&rsquo; current run of bad luck is just one more chapter in a frustrating litany of injuries that have dogged him throughout his career.Four years ago, Eaves had a series of concussions, the third of which put him out of action for the balance of the year.Three years ago, after leading Team USA in Canada Cup scoring. Eaves developed a back problem. He missed nine games, played seven, missed 10 more, played eight, missed three and then finally went to Toronto for the same operation&mdash;to shrink a herniated disc&mdash;that Paul Reinhart had last seasonThe next year was relatively injury free, but then last season, Eaves&rsquo; first with Calgary, he missed 13 games with a broken foot and six more with a knee injury. In the final game of the playoffs, Mark Messier&rsquo;s charge fractured his thumb, forcing him to go under the knife once again.&ldquo;I do as much as I can,&rdquo; said&rsquo;Eaves, discussing how he keeps himself occupied during his repeated convalescences. &ldquo;Then I have to let Mother Nature do her thing. I try to keep my mind occupied either by taking a course or getting into books&mdash;philosophy, self-help, some of the classics&mdash;stuff that&rsquo;s thought provoking, as a change of pace. Hockey is so demanding mentally that when it&rsquo;s taken away, it&rsquo;s good to fill that void with other stuff.&rdquo;Ironically, it is the injuries to Eaves, plus the continuing absences of Doug Risebrough and Lanny McDonald, that have thrust the versatile Reinhart into a familiar role of designated utility man. Coach Bob Johnson has used Reinhart to plug whatever the current leak in the Flames&rsquo; dike happens to be.In a year in which the Flames had lost over 100-man games to injuries by the start of December, Reinhart had given the Flames unprecedented flexibility.When Jim Jackson broke his ankle and Charlie Bourgeois was the team&rsquo;s only spare player, Reinhart moved up front. When Eaves returned from a dislocated shoulder. Reinhart moved back to defense. When Eaves reinjured his shoulder, Reinhart moved up front again.After starting the season on right wing, Reinhart then played 10 consecutive games on defense. Since then, he has played two games at center, three on defense. one at center, one on defense, then two more at center.Confused? It gets worse. Reinhart started the season playing mostly defense, but was moved up front on the power play. Now that Reinhart&rsquo;s playing mainly up front, he&rsquo;s manning the point on the power play. The only place Reinhart hasn&rsquo;t played is goal. In Detroit, when both Reggie Lemelin and Don Edwards suffered minor injuries, that alternative conceivably occurred to Johnson.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s something I&rsquo;ve always done and 1&rsquo;11 continue to do,&rdquo; said Reinhart. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t bother me. The only thing is, you prepare yourself differently for one or the other position and then they change you. That can be frustrating. You set your mind to play a certain way, and then two minutes before the game they change you.&rdquo;Reinhart&rsquo;s versatility is a matter of interest because so few professional hockey players can make the transaction so smoothly. Only a handful of players alternate between defense and forward in the NHL, and usually they do so to hide a weakness, a defensive deficiency.When the Flames move Reinhart around, they do so from a position of strength. On the evidence of his start, Reinhart is playing some of the most consistent, error-free hockey of his career.&ldquo;One of the criticisms I hear all the time is how my defensive play is lacking,&rdquo; said Reinhart. &ldquo;To me, my defense hasn&rsquo;t lacked that much. A big part of my game is defense, as a forward or a defenseman. People think if you can move from defense to forward you&rsquo;re an offensive player, and that isn&rsquo;t necessarily true.&ldquo;This is my best start. I have more confidence in my ability than ever before. I feel myself becoming better all the time. I think that&rsquo;s the result of playing for a good team. I&rsquo;m the kind of player who rides on the crest of a team that&rsquo;s playing well. This is a classic example of what&rsquo;s happened. We skate better, we practise better, we prepare better and it shows in the way we play.&ldquo;We are never going to lose a game because we&rsquo;re not prepared.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011103/5208304-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="583" height="829"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Reinhart has been used on forward and defense to compensate for others&rsquo; injuries.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Eaves’ Injury Verifies Reinhart’s Versatility

<div class="byline">Steve Simmons</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02880/5208335-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="362" height="430"></div>GLEN SONMOR WASTED little time in answering. There was simply a quick question and a quick answer.He&rsquo;d been away too long.When he walked away from the job of coaching the Minnesota North Stars, it was because Sonmor was losing&mdash;not games, but a battle with alcoholism. Now he is back, the returning hero, ready to put the broken pieces of the fallen Stars together again.He has already put his life back together. The rest should come easy for one of hockey&rsquo;s most dedicated, enthusiastic and likeable men. All of his friends and fans are cheering for him again.When Sonmor was named the coach of the Stars a few weeks back, the first reaction among those who know him was. &ldquo;1 hope he knows what he&rsquo;s doing,&rdquo; or, &ldquo;I hope he doesn&rsquo;t start again.&rdquo;Sonmor has heard the whispers, knows of the innuendos, of the concerns many have about his past. He thanks those for caring but insists his problems are behind him, and because he is Glen Sonmor and sincere, you believe him. You have to. He is an alcoholic, and there is no cure for alcoholism. Only self-control.&ldquo;My little 80-year-old mother in Toronto is worried about me,&rdquo; the 55-year-old Sonmor said. &ldquo;She figures I&rsquo;ll go off drinking again. But that&rsquo;s the way it works.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t had a drink in two years.&ldquo;I just have to live my life, day by day, and enjoy it for that. My wife isn&rsquo;t worried. Like most wives, she knows I have to do what I have to do. Things in my life are so much better than they were.&ldquo;When you&rsquo;ve had this illness and you&rsquo;ve won, you feel good about it. You feel good about yourself.&rdquo;There are those who believe that North Stars, a team with more gripers than snipers, are the kind of club that could force a coach to drink. Because of too-high expectations, that might be true. But in truth, the North Stars were at their best with Sonmor behind the bench. Just as Lou Nanne belongs as their general manager, Sonmor belongs as the North Star coach.He was the coach who took them to the Stanley Cup finals, strangely a curse the team has been forced to live with. Even when he forced himself to step down after 39 games of the 1982-83 season, Sonmor had the Stars playing well.They haven&rsquo;t been that strong since.And now he takes over a team in desperate shape. He takes oVer a moping group that has as much trouble scoring goals as stopping them. The bubbling Sonmor, whose enthusiasm can be contagious, wants to put fun back into the Stars&rsquo; playbook.He wants players to play their game, not an inflexible, unbending system. He wants Dino Ciccarelli to score the way he can. He wants Neal Broten and Dennis Maruk to open up the game the way they can. If Sonmor has shown any ability as a coach, it has been his ability to conform to the talents of his players. Once, he was known as a &ldquo;goon coach,&rdquo; but those days are gone.So Sonmor returns, and with him return the memories of what led to his unfortunate resignation. It wasn&rsquo;t that he looked lost, but he looked like he didn&rsquo;t belong. He loves to travel from city to city, to shake hands, to stir the pot, and yes, he even likes to talk to writers, renewing acquaintances, telling stories.Sonmor had left the Stars&rsquo; bench with a serious problem to alleviate and a broken nose to heal. The end had come in Pittsburgh. Sonmor was drinking again. He got into a fight in a bar and apparently was badly beaten up. It was the signal, however painful, that it was time for sobriety again.This is all behind him now. This will be a test, not only for the North Stars, but for their coach.Sonmor has already defeated his most difficult adversary. But it&rsquo;s a battle he&rsquo;ll continue to fight and, knowing Glen Sonmor, it&rsquo;s a battle he&rsquo;ll continue to win.After his greatest victory, an on-ice victory the North Stars may accomplish will pale in comparison.Tip of the pen to Vancouver Sun columnist James Lawton for the superb work he did on Tiger: A Hockey Story, the strange story of Tiger Williams. Lawton has again shown himself to be a masterful wordsmith, the rare writer who could translate Williams into Tigerese.The book itself is an enjoyable read, if not slanted in the usual, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m right, everyone else is wrong,&rdquo; attitude that permeates books of this genre. The only oddity is the assumption on Williams&rsquo; part that he was traded from Vancouver to Detroit because of the publication.That&rsquo;s odd because Williams was kind, perhaps too kind, to the Canucks and, in particular, their management. Why was he so kind?&ldquo;I like Harry Neale,&rdquo; Tiger said. &#9632;

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Sonmor Returns To Face Different Kind Of Battle

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div>Louisville HockeyLouisville HockeyEDMONTON&mdash;Another National Hockey League coaching position has become open&mdash;with widespread ramifications in the offing.Which is to say&mdash;albeit in an indirect fashion&mdash;the ever non-commital Glen Sather is coming to closer grips with his ultimate decision: to coach or not to coach the Edmonton Oilers.Not that Sather will completely relinquish the reins to assistant John Muckier during the current NHL season, but with Muckier&rsquo;s contract expiring in June&hellip;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m going to coach next year,&rdquo; revealed Sather, dangling the proverbial carrot.The Oilers&rsquo; president-general manager has been forever reluctant to make the final decision. In the meantime, he&rsquo;s left Muckier waiting in the wings for the third year.With the dismissal of Bill LaForge in Vancouver, further light has been cast upon the Oilers&rsquo; situation.But, it doesn&rsquo;t necessarily stop there. Should Vancouver GM (now coach, too) Harry Neale not turn the dismal Canucks around by the end of the season, chances are there will be a dual position open on the West Coast.Sather&rsquo;s saying there&rsquo;s no connection with Muckier, who has drawn rave reviews from non-Edmonton players on Team Canada for helping regain the Canada Cup in September.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s absolutely nothing in my mind about that,&rdquo; said Sather, who nevertheless knows the day or reckoning is near at hand.&ldquo;He has to make that decision,&rdquo; said Muckier, who made it known upon his arrival here that his number one priority is to eventually become head coach of the team. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what it has always gotten down to.&rdquo;Would Muckier consider leaving should the matter remain unresolved at the season&rsquo;s end?&ldquo;You never say never, but my priorities haven&rsquo;t changed since I came here,&rdquo; said the 49-year-old native of Paris, Ont. &ldquo;I know when Slats (Sather) steps down I&rsquo;m going to be the next coach of the Oiler hockey club and, at this time, I want it.&rdquo;Under the present situation, Vancouver is out. The NHL&rsquo;s tampering rules dictate in this regard.&ldquo;It could cost them a draft choice,&rdquo; said Muckier, who worked in the Vancouver organization before coaching the Oilers&rsquo; farm team in 1982. &ldquo;The obvious answer to that is, &lsquo;No,&rsquo; nobody&rsquo;s talked to me.&rdquo;Sather&rsquo;s reluctance to step down could be traced to his last coaching appointment, which turned out to be a disaster. Bryan (Bugsy) Watson was fired after 18 games (4-9-5) in 1980-81. Ironically, a home-ice loss to Vancouver spelled the end of Watson&rsquo;s coaching career.&ldquo;Bryan was trying to be too independant about a lot of things,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;Our system is built on trust and reliance with each other.&rdquo;Has the failed Watson experiment become an albatross for Muckier?&ldquo;I think so,&rdquo; said Muckier. &ldquo;How long have I been here? I think Slats knows me by now.&ldquo;But my experience has taught me one thing: not to be too anxious and too ambitious. If you have confidence you can do a job, it&rsquo;ll happen. And, it&rsquo;s not as if I&rsquo;m going to jump off a bridge if it doesn&rsquo;t come about. But, I know in my own mindI can coach in the NHL&hellip;And I will! I have no doubt of that.&rdquo;Muckier said he hasn&rsquo;t discussed the matter with Sather since the season opener in Los Angeles, and stressed nothing could be settled until a contract is negotiated.&ldquo;But as far as I&rsquo;m concerned, I don&rsquo;t see this as a problem,&rdquo; he said.In the meantime, although nothing is official, Sather has frequently been absent from practices&mdash;with additional responsibility designated to Muckier and fellow assistant Ted Green.&ldquo;This breaks the monotony for the players,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;It gives them another opinion. But this doesn&rsquo;t mean I&rsquo;ll coach any less.&rdquo;That said, he revealed he plans on missing a number of games in the future. He&rsquo;s already skipped some post-game media questions, leaving that chore to Muckier and Green.&ldquo;I like to see them get more credit for the team&rsquo;s success,&rdquo; explained Sather. &ldquo;I find the less I&rsquo;m around, the more involved they have to become.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to coach this team forever. It&rsquo;s healthy to make changes, although it&rsquo;s unhealthy to make drastic changes. John, Teddy and I are very compatable. Even when I step down from coaching, I might not step away completely. Maybe I&rsquo;ll be an assistant coach.&rdquo;President-GM-assistant coach?&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I have an ego so big that if John wanted to coach the team, I couldn&rsquo;t take direction from him,&rdquo; Sather said. &#9632;

Muckier Waits For The Word From Sather

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div>WASHINGTON&mdash;Scott Stevens is determined to become the best defenseman in the National Hockey League. He has little patience with anyone or anything that stands in the way of that goal.After 18 games, Stevens&rsquo; statistics were most impressive. He was leading the Washington Capitals with a plus-10 rating and ranked third in scoring with 14 points. Also, indicative of his impatience, he had collected two game misconducts.All of Stevens&rsquo; temper tantrums did not occur in game situations. He is intense in practice, too, and on one occasion coach Bryan Murray ordered both him and defenseman Timo Blomqvist off the ice to avoid hostilities.Stevens, foiled on three consecutive close-range shots, broke his stick on the ice and threw the shaft into the net. When Blomqvist said something, Stevens wanted to fight him. Murray quickly got in between, and ordered them off the ice when they persisted.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m serious in games and I&rsquo;m serious in practice,&rdquo; Stevens said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to be serious in practice or you tend to relax, and that&rsquo;s not good. I usually get mad at myself, but this time I missed those three shots and Timo said something.&rdquo;As an example of Stevens&rsquo; anger with himself, in another practice session he chopped Larry Murphy&rsquo;s skate as he backpedalled and was sitting on the ice when the shooter scored. He threw his stick, then rose and kicked his helmet before heaving a water bottle against the wall.&ldquo;Scott doesn&rsquo;t like to be outplayed in any situation,&rdquo; Murray commented.A lengthy fight involving the New York Rangers&rsquo; Tomas Sandstrom and Tom Laidlaw cost Stevens his first game misconduct. After that, he remained on good behavior until an incident on Long Island prompted a costly outburst.Stevens was cross checked to the ice by Pat Flatley moments before Brent Sutter scored the goal that gave the New York Islanders a 5-3 lead in a game that finished that way. Stevens complained so bitterly to referee Kerry Fraser that he was ejected.&ldquo;That was the third time in the game I was blind-sided,&rdquo; Stevens said. &ldquo;When somebody knocks you down from behind, you&rsquo;ve got no chance. They do it deliberately to give them a man advantage, and they got away with that one and scored a goal even though Fraser was standing right there.&rdquo;Stevens got a chance to relieve his frustrations in the next contest, at Pitt-sburgh, when Murray started him at left wing. In the first period, Stevens moved into the slot and whipped a backhander past goalie Denis Herron. It duplicated an exhibition-game feat at Minnesota when Stevens, in his only other start on the wing, also scored in the first period.&ldquo;I like playing the wing, because it gives me a chance to hit people,&rdquo; Stevens said. &ldquo;On defense, you&rsquo;re usually the guy getting hit, because you have to be careful you don&rsquo;t take yourself out of the play when you hit somebody. You have to skate more on the wing, but I don&rsquo;t mind that. I still want to be a defenseman, though.&rdquo;Murray wishes Stevens were twins, because he would like to use him at both positions. Although he often puts Stevens on the wing during a power play, he indicated the Pittsburgh contest was a one-shot deal.&ldquo;Scott goes to the net better than many of the forwards on our team,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;His natural instincts are remarkable. I&rsquo;d love to use him on the wing because I think he&rsquo;d really stir things up, but he&rsquo;s just too valuable on defense to consider it.&rdquo;Although Stevens&rsquo; statistics reflect the caliber of his play, as a perfectionist he naturally was dissatisfied with the Capitals&rsquo; 6-7-5 start.&ldquo;This season has been frustrating,&rdquo; Stevens said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been playing pretty well the last few games, but we don&rsquo;t seem to be getting any breaks. We&rsquo;ve been taking some bad penalties and we can&rsquo;t do that and win.&ldquo;We started out trying to score too much, but now we seem to be back into the form that made us so successful last year. It&rsquo;s a long season and I&rsquo;m sure we&rsquo;ll come back.&rdquo; &#9632;

Stevens Plays One Style-Seriously

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div>EAST RUTHERFORD&mdash;Rick Meagher, Doug Sulliman and Rich Preston had shadowed some of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s most explosive goal scorers, killed penalties for coach Doug Carpenter and breathed life into the New Jersey Devils&rsquo; power play.But, in losing an embarrassing 11-2 rout to the New York Rangers at the Meadowlands Arena on Oct. 25, a spark lit the Devils&rsquo; trio. As the Rangers scored nine consecutive goals, the Devils burned as Herb Brooks&rsquo; troops ran up the score while giving exaggerated high-fives after each goal.&ldquo;That bothered us a lot,&rdquo; recalled Meagher, the 11-year veteran who is playing the best hockey of his six NHL seasons.Revenge was sweet. When the Devils met the Rangers again on Nov. 18 at Madison Square Garden, it was Meagher&rsquo;s line which did the celebrating. The trio combined for four goals and four assists, with Preston leading the charge with three goals and four assists.Ironically, Carpenter&rsquo;s praise after the 6-0 blowout did not center on his line&rsquo;s offensive accomplishments, but rather on their defense.&ldquo;That line has been our most consistent defensively al) season,&rdquo; said the rookie coach.Primarily by Carpenter&rsquo;s design, the Meagher-Sullivan-Preston unit has picked up the label of New Jersey&rsquo;s &ldquo;defensive line.&rdquo; However, during the club&rsquo;s recently-completed six-game road trip, in which it fashioned a 2-4 record with victories over Patrick Division rival Pittsburgh and the Rangers, the Devils received offensive firepower from that line.&ldquo;They can put any label they want on us,&rdquo; said Sulliman. who has already surpassed his entire goal-scoring total of last season in Hartford. &ldquo;If they tag us with a defensive label that doesn&rsquo;t mean we only play defense. That&rsquo;s just somebody&rsquo;s opinion. Ricky and Richie work so hard, and Ricky has such great speed that we&rsquo;re bound to have offensive chances.&rdquo;&ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t consider us a defensive line,&rdquo; added Preston. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t think about just defense. You&rsquo;ve got to play offense, too.&rdquo;Sulliman has been the most productive of the three, scoring eight goals and three assists in 19 games, while making his mark on New Jersey&rsquo;s power play.&ldquo;It really helps my confidence,&rdquo; said Sulliman, who has three power-play goals. &ldquo;1 went through an odd season being cast as a defensive forward last year. It was a frustrating year not getting the chance to play offensively. It&rsquo;s really nice getting the chance to see the puck go in the net.&rdquo;Preston, the oldest of the trio at 32, brought a reputation as a talented penalty-killer and solid defensive player with him from Chicago. But he has shown his skills as a two-way threat for the Devils. In 19 games, he has collected five goals and four assists, including one goal on the power play.&ldquo;Rich Preston is a totally dedicated player,&rdquo; said Carpenter. &ldquo;He works hard along the boards, in front of the net and is a very strong person for his size (5-foot-l 1, 185 pounds). He wins battles for the puck along the boards, and he&rsquo;s the type of player who sacrifices himself for the good of the team.&rdquo;Meagher, who played with Sullivan in Hartford, entered this season with his job on the line. His scoring figures are 2-8-10 in 12 games, but he has been a catalyst all season.&ldquo;The fact that we&rsquo;re regarded as a defensive line makes us think about defense,&rdquo; said Meagher, &ldquo;and every time the opposing big line comes on, it seems like we&rsquo;re on the ice against them. I don&rsquo;t mind getting labelled a good defensive player at all. I don&rsquo;t mind playing that defensive role, but I always knew our line could score. Sully has had 29 goals (with Hartford) and proven himself, and Preston is proving himself again now.&rdquo;HOT STUFF&mdash;Dave Cameron has impressed Maine coach Tom McVie with his desire to work his way back to the Devils&hellip;The triumph over the Rangers ended the Devils&rsquo; nine-game winless streak (0-7-2)&hellip;Rookie Mitch Wilson taught Boston&rsquo;s Mats Thelin a lesson when he hammered the Bruin rookie in a fight, Nov. 15&hellip;Bob Lorimer has been playing steady defense despite a fractured left foot&hellip;John MacLean did not make the final three stops in road trip after suffering a deeply bruised shoulder against the Rangers&hellip;Ron Low was shelled in an 8-1 loss to the Kings in L.A., but was in goal for both road triumphs. &#9632;

Devils’ Trio Does Its Job Regardless Of Any Label

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div>Louisville HockeyLouisville HockeyPORTLAND&mdash;Tom McVie can&rsquo;t resist making the analogy in that thundering lass voice of his.&ldquo;I like to think of John as Gary Cooper,&rdquo; McVie says as he glances at John Paddock, his coaching partner with the Maine Mariners this season. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a Gary Cooper-type guy and I&rsquo;m a Charles Bronson-type of guy, and Bronson&rsquo;s better looking.&rdquo;The comment, which Paddock probably has heard more than a couple of times recently, brings a smile to his face. It&rsquo;s a typical McVie remark, the kind he&rsquo;s honed over three decades as a professional player and coach, one that&rsquo;s snappy and, more important, to the point. It paints a perfect picture of this coaching marriage that has brought together a wiry, gruff-sounding veteran of many battles, and a lanky, soft-spoken, fair-haired younger man, who is not nearly as glib.A year ago, McVie was the coach of the Mariners and Paddock was the team captain. Paddock succeeded McVie at Maine when the latter was promoted to New Jersey last November and led the Mariners to the Calder Cup. Everything was moving along smoothly until early this summer when McVie turned down an offer to stay with the Devils and decided to return to Maine. Suddenly, Paddock&rsquo;s seemingly secure position with the Mariners was in jeapordy.The Devils solved that problem by naming Paddock the Mariners&rsquo; assistant coach. But McVie took it a step further in September when he insisted that Paddock be named the Mariner coach, too. No assistant coach. No co-coach. It&rsquo;s coach Tom McVie and coach John Paddock. It&rsquo;s a wise public relations move that is paying off nicely on the ice as well.&ldquo;I knew that with me going back to Maine, that there were going to be quite a lot of people feeling bad for John,&rdquo; McVie said. &ldquo;Like I was sort of the villain going back. And John had done a good job. But you have to remember that those people are the same people who were on John&rsquo;s back a few months before (when the Mariners were struggling).&ldquo;The thing is, the decision was made because I don&rsquo;t feel I got demoted. Mr. McMullen (John McMullen, the Devil chairman) and I talked it over, and what he and I were talking about just did not work out. So I said that I would go back and work with John and develop hockey players.&rdquo;McVie and Paddock have divided the responsibilities. Paddock handles the offense, while McVie works with the defense and the goaltenders. Both men participate in the practice sessions and both are behind the bench during games. McVie believes that it allows the players to receive more specialized instruction and also frees him to spend some time with his administrative work as the team&rsquo;s general manager.&ldquo;I think that John and I, with such different personalities, that we are the best coaching tandem in all of hockey: today,&rdquo; McVie said. &ldquo;You will have a tough time convincing Scotty Bowman of that because he is closing in on 600 wins and I&rsquo;m closing in, in the NHL, on 100 wins. But what I&rsquo;m saying is that Tom McVie and John Paddock are the best coaching tandem in all of pro hockey.&rdquo;While that may be an honor earned by default&mdash;there hasn&rsquo;t been a co-coaching arrangement in the sport in a couple of years&mdash;McVie&rsquo;s point is quite clear: the partnership is working, and the Mariners&rsquo; 8-6-3 record after 17 games is a testament to that success.Paddock, who maintains more of a personal relationship with the players than McVie does, is pleased with the chance to have more input.&ldquo;I knew that I wasn&rsquo;t going to be just a &lsquo;yes man,&rsquo; but I was prepared to take the assistant coach&rsquo;s role, handle the odd practice, maybe be in the press box and not be as involved as much,&rdquo; Paddock said. &ldquo;I was prepared to do all of that, so in that way, I guess you could say that it has worked out better than I expected. I knew that it was going to work out good. I knew that we would get along, or I wouldn&rsquo;t have taken it.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s further along for me coaching. I&rsquo;m more involved than I say have thought I would be last June.&rdquo;McVie is confident that the partnership will yield a bountiful harvest for the New Jersey organization&ldquo;Hopefully, I&rsquo;m not just developing players for the Devils, but I would like to think I&rsquo;m also developing a coach,&rdquo; McVie said.&ldquo;What he can do is take all of the things he likes about me and use them. And the things he doesn&rsquo;t like, he can just forget,&rdquo; McVie continued as a smile worked its way across his face. &ldquo;Of course, he might end up with nothing.&rdquo;AROUND THE DIVISION&mdash;Fredericton opened a six-point leader over Adirondack. Sherbrooke and Maine by putting together a 4-0-1 streak. All but one of the wins were earned on the road. Veteran Richard Brodeur, assigned by Vancouver earlier in the month, gained a 4-4 tie at St. Catharines in his first start for the Express. Quebec returned defenseman Claude Julien and Vancouver sent Neil Belland back to Fredericton&hellip;Adirondack goalie Ed Mio gained some revenge for a 12-0 loss to Maine on Nov. 4 when he blanked the Mariners 4-0 at Glenn Falls. Mio has won three of four starts since the lopsided loss with a goals-against average of 2.22&hellip;Nova Scotia released veteran right winger Tim Harrer after seven games. Marc Habscheid and Larry Melnyk were recalled by the Edmonton Oilers. Defenseman Jim Playfair returned from the injured list., Five of Moncton&rsquo;s seven losses on the road have been by one goal. The Golden Flames, who are 5-3 at home, stand fourth in the league in average attendance with 3.403, an improvement of over 800 per game from last year&hellip;Sherbrooke has had its problems holding leads. The Canadiens have outscored their opponents 34-22 in the first period and 20-18 in the second, but have been outscored 26-11 in the third period.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01936/5208438-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="589" height="899"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tom McVie classifies himself as the Charles Bronson of the Mariners&rsquo; coaching tandem.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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The Maine Difference Is Coaching

<div class="byline">BY DICK BAKER</div>BINGHAMTON&mdash;The Binghamton Whalers already had an eight-goal lead when Dean Evason got his first and biggest goal of the season.&ldquo;It really didn&rsquo;t mean anything to the team, but personally it got the monkey off my back,&rdquo; said Evason of the Whalers&rsquo; 10th goal in an early season 10-1 rout at Springfield.Evason, who had over 300 points in his last two years of junior, had only three points in his first eight American Hockey League games before that first goal turned around his season.But then he had 16 points (six goals, 10 assists) in his next eight games, including Springfield, to lift his total to 20 points.During one stretch, Evason had gone five games without a point.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Evason had over 300 points in his last two years of junior, but only three points in his first eight American League games.</blockquote>&ldquo;It takes a while to get accustomed to the league,&rdquo; Evason explained of the slow start.Last season, Evason was a hero for Kamloops of the Western Hockey League. His goal with only 12 seconds remaining in regulation time enabled Kamloops to avoid elimination in Game Six of the best-of-seven playoff finals against Regina. Kamloops went on to win the game in overtime, took Game Seven to capture the league crown and advanced to the Memorial Cup. where it finished third in the four-team tournament.Evason has sparkled at center on a line with left winger Paul Fenton (11 goals by Thanksgiving) and right winger Kevin Dineen (12 goals). The F-E-D line was forcing a deficit in the opposition&rsquo;s plusminus figures.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we really have one big gun on this team,&rdquo; said Evason of the top-scoring squad in the loop. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not really flashy. We&rsquo;re more of the bump-and-grind type.&rdquo;The Whalers have averaged nearly four and a half goals-per-game with the bruise &lsquo;em style. However, they weren&rsquo;t depending just on the friendly confines of their own smaller ice surface to do it. They were 5-5 in their first 10 road games.The Evason name can still be found in the Western Hockey League. His brother. Dan, who&rsquo;s nicknamed Heavy, is the assisant coach of the Brandon Wheat Kings.&ldquo;He (Dan) got the name when he was 5-foot-9, 220 pounds,&rdquo; Evason said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s still big. I&rsquo;ve been looking for the record (He&rsquo;s Not Heavy, He&rsquo;s&rsquo;My Brother), for a Christmas present but I haven&rsquo;t found it yet.&rdquo;But he&rsquo;s obviously found his scoring touch. And the Binghamton Whalers have been wrapping up some victories with it.DOWN SOUTH&mdash;While the Rochester defense was hurt by recalls, rookie blueliner Heike Leime continued to shine. Leime had a team-leading plus-17 entering Thanksgiving week. Leime, from Finland, has been much more physical than most players who come over from Europe. He developed a desire to play in North America by reading THE HOCKEY NEWS as a youngster. The Amerks, meanwhile, have cooled off a bit, going 3-4-1 in the next eight games after an 11-0 start. Five of those games were at home&hellip;Gary Yaremchuk had five points in two games for St. Catharines, which went 3-0-2 at home before losing&hellip;New Haven&rsquo;s Robbie Ftorek was recalled by the New York Rangers, along with Chris Kontos&hellip;Baltimore goaltender Jon Casey stretched his record to 5-1-1 with a 6-2 victory over Sherbrooke, Nov. 21. The Springfield Indians improved their mark to 6-11-2 with back-to-back wins over Maine&hellip;The Whalers bought out the contract of goaltender Paul Flicker after they tried unsuccessfully to place him in Salt Lake City. &#9632;

Evason Holds Hot Hand For Bingo

<div class="byline">BY BILL PICKETT</div>Louisville HockeyLouisville HockeyPEORIA&mdash;The Peoria Rivermen took advantage of home ice early in the season to record a six-game unbeaten streak and take the lead in the West Division.Then the roof caved in&mdash;or make that the ice-making machinery broke down&mdash;at the Civic Center.Peoria was 4-0-1 at home before the ice plant broke down because of a faulty valve and the Rivermen were forced to postpone two home contests originally scheduled for the week of Nov. 11.&ldquo;We had only four home games scheduled for November.&rdquo; noted Rivermen coach Pat Kelly, &ldquo;and now we&rsquo;re down to just two.&rdquo;The washed out games will be rescheduled.As a result of their ice problems, the Rivermen were playing just their second game in 11 days when they visited Indianapolis, Nov. 16, for a battle of first-place teams. Both Peoria and the Checkers shared the West lead going into that game.The Rivermen scored twice in the third period for a 4-2 victory, and the same clubs headed for Peoria, where the Civic Center ice plant had been repaired.John Goodwin&rsquo;s hat trick sparked a 10-3 rout of the Checkers and opened up a four-point lead for Peoria over the second-place Checkers, Nov. 17, but the visitors came back the next night behind goaltender Rob Holland for a 4-0 triumph, snapping the Peoria home unbeaten streak at six games&mdash;five wins and a tie.Those two games took care of Peoria&rsquo;s November schedule at home.The Rivermen made their first venture to the Far West, Nov. 20, and suffered a 5-3 setback at the hands of the Salt Lake City Golden Eagles. That loss dropped Peoria below the. 500 mark on the road, as they entered the game with a 2-2-2 away record.&ldquo;After playing just two games in 11 days, we were looking at six games in eight days, four on the road,&rdquo; Kelly said.He was confident, however, that the Rivermen were up to the task.After 13 games and a 7-3-3 record, Peoria headed for Salt Lake City with the second-best offense in the IHL. The Rivermen were averaging 4.45 goals-per-game, second only to Flint&rsquo;s output of 4.60.Much of Peoria&rsquo;s success came on the power play, where the Rivermen were converting 25.6 per cent of their opportunities. They made good on 11 of 45 chances, with Goodwin. Dave Mac-Queen and Mark Botell each netting a pair of power-play goals. Only Flint&rsquo;s mark of 27 per cent topped Peoria&rsquo;s.And the Rivermen had the stingiest defense in the league. They were giving up three goals a game, anchored by the steady play of Rick Heinz and Bunny Larocque in goal.Heinz earned six of Peoria&rsquo;s first seven victories, lost two games and tied one while compiling a 2.75 goals-against average, fourth-best in the IHL. Before an injury forced Larocque to the sidelines, he was unbeaten with a 1-0-2 record and had given up but 2.84 goals a game.&ldquo;Our goaltending and defense has been working especially well,&rdquo; explained Kelly, adding, &ldquo;our offense has been doing its job as well.&rdquo;Mike Prestidge was the team scoring leader after 13 outings with seven goals and I2assists. His 19 points earned him a tie for the league-scoring leadership with Scott McCleod of Salk Lake City (4-1519).Evans was second to Prestidge in Peoria scoring&mdash;and tied for fifth in the league&mdash;with 17 points (four goals, 15 assists). Brian Shaw was the leading goal-scorer for Kelly as the team headed west. Shaw had eight goals and five assists.IHL NOTES&mdash;Salt Lake City&rsquo;s Kurt Kleinendorst, with five goals and three assists, was IHL Player of the Week for the period of Nov. 12-18. Kleinendorst was one of four players with hat tricks during that period. The others were John Goodwin of Peoria, Kevin Robinson of Milwaukee and Dave Nicholls of Flint&hellip;Indianapolis captain Kevin Devine passed the 400-game mark as a Checker, Nov. 17. Teammate Garth MacGuigan reached that mark, Nov. 23&hellip;Charlie Skjodt and Neal Coulter scored two goals each as Rob Holland blanked Peoria 4-0, Nov. 18, to halt the Rivermen&rsquo;s unbeaten home streak., Fort Wayne released goaltender Dave Parro and forwards Rod Willard and Wayne Prestage&hellip;Don Murdoch is on Muskegon&rsquo;s injured reserve list, as is defenseman Jay Miller. Both are expected to miss four to six weeks of action. &#9632;

Peoria Forced To Put Home Games On Ice

<div class="byline">BY PAT LYON</div>SALEM&mdash;The struggling Virginia Lancers are hoping to find some relief at home.The Lancers were without a home for the early part of the season, as they awaited completion of their new $3.5 million, 3,400-seat Lancer Lot Sports Complex.Player-coach Paul O&rsquo;Neil and his team were forced to play their first seven games on the road, and the travelling life didn&rsquo;t agree with them as they suffered seven consecutive losses.The team was eagerly looking forward to their home opener on Thanksgiving night, but that, too, was scratched when the lighting system failed to arrive on time. That forced the postponement of two more home games, and they were tentatively slated to open Nov. 29 against Pine Bridge.&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s tough for any team to play seven games on the road and then try and play a home game when you haven&rsquo;t won any games yet,&rdquo; said O&rsquo;Neil. &ldquo;This is just something you have to deal with. We knew ahead of time this would happen and, hopefully, we&rsquo;ll start winning a few games now.&rdquo;Practice time has been rare for the Lancers, who have been doing nothing but travelling for the first few weeks of the season. They are finally getting some practice time in their new building, which should help them get back on the right track.When completed, the facility will house an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Nautilus, racquetball facilities, restaurant and business offices of Lancer owner Henry Brabham.Meanwhile, on the ice, Ron Carter is off to a fast start for the Lancers with 18 points, including two hat tricks. Lee Blossom is just a step behind with 17 points.AROUND THE LEAGUE&mdash;Teams are taking aim at the Carolina Thunderbirds, who started off with nine consecutive victories. Coach Rick Dudley is getting exceptional play from his goaltenders and defenseman, along with strong performances from his rookies. Dudley added rookie Ed Christian to the roster and dropped Don Sockwell. Christian is the brother of Dave Christian of the Washington Capitals&hellip;The Erie Golden Blades were playing two players short with two members of the club departing the scene. Erie veteran Stan Gulutzan left after two games to return to Nashville, while rookie John Lex was forced to quit for medical reasons. Another Blade veteran, Paul Mancini, scored a goal in his first seven games before being kept off the scoreboard by Pine Bridge., Pine Bridge is the talk of the league with player-coach Frank Perkins guiding his crew to five wins in their first seven games. The Bucks won only 25 games last season and finished last. Goalie Ray Leblanc is emerging as one of the top rookie goaltenders&hellip;Mohawk Valley had only one win in its first eight games, but player-coach Rick Suwek felt that could be turned around quickly. Suwek was given permission from commissioner Ray Miron to look on his own for assigned pros. With the Stars hurting in terms of experience, two or three veterans could put them back in the chase. &#9632;

Struggling Lancers Look For Relief To Road Woes

<div class="byline">by selling subscriptions to THE HOCKEY NEWS?</div>THE HOCKEY NEWS needs sales help. Our goal is to add 10,000 new readers to THE HOCKEY NEWS this year&hellip;and we think you can help us. And, we can help with your cash flow. We have some interesting ideas we&rsquo;d like to discuss with you on ways to use THE HOCKEY NEWS as a fund raiser, for schools, booster clubs, you name it.If this type of at-home or after-hours job has appeal to you, give Trish a call at THE HOCKEY NEWS (416) 445-5702. &#9632;

STUDENTS? SCHOOL TEAMS? DO YOU HAVE SPARE TIME? HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE EXTRA CASH

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01795/5208565-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="759" height="572"></div>If the palms of your hockey gloves are worn-out or torn&mdash;don&rsquo;t throw those gloves away! Do what the pro hockey stars do. Send them to us. We&rsquo;ll replace those torn palms with our fabulous FlexPalm.With FlexPalm you&rsquo;re in complete control of the stick. You&rsquo;ll play like you never played before!FlexPalm is so unique, so different, so unusual that it was granted patents by both the Canadian and U.S. governments.It is made of an extremely soft but very tough. horsehide that&rsquo;s perspiration and water repellent. So it stays soft, stays flexible. You never have to dunk a FlexPalm in hot water to soften it! This means you don&rsquo;t have to fight stick slippage. You&rsquo;re more comfortable, more relaxed and more in control!Now you know why the big league stars send their gloves to us. Do what they do. We&rsquo;ll replace both your worn-out palms with our FlexPalm for only $49.95. Please enclose check or money order, or BankAmericard, Visa and Master Charge accepted. Please give your card number and expiration date. We&rsquo;ll return your gloves within two weeks. Prepaid.FlexPalmSINCE 1954&copy; 1980BRUCKER GLOVE CO., INC.6949A La Tijera Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045 &#9632;

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Don’t throw away your gloves!

<div class="byline">BY BOB DONNELLY</div>QUEBEC CITY&mdash;When he came to the Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; training camp this year, Bruce Bell was expected to make a good impression and then go back to the Hamilton Steelhawks of the Ontario Hockey League. But the rookie defenseman impressed Quebec coach Michel Bergeron with his potential on offense and earned a regular spot on the roster, as well as extra service on the power play.&ldquo;He is only 19 and he can handle all the ice time he is getting,&rdquo; said Nordique coach Michel Bergeron of Bell. &ldquo;We were lucky to have him with us in October and early November this season. His progress has been incredible since the start of the season. You rarely see a rookie play with such confidence.&rdquo;Through training camp and the first few regular-season games, Bell says he was looking at it simply one day at a time.&ldquo;I came in thinking that if I played well I had a good shot at making it this year, although nothing was definite,&rdquo; Bell said. &ldquo;I was just trying to work hard and play as well as I could.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t really counting the games until I got to 10. I just wanted to keep playing well enough to make sure I would still be there the next day. I just wanted to be satisfied that I had given it my best shot and I was ready for whatever would happen.&rdquo;Drafted in the third round from Brantford (later moved to Hamilton) of the OHL in 1983, Bell had lots of ice time as a junior, and he now feels he is ready to cope with the pressures of playing in the NHL.&ldquo;When I started to get lots of ice time in Quebec, I started to feel the pressure a little, especially playing in front of our fans,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I felt the pressure, and even if I can&rsquo;t read the French papers, I. knew they were talking about me. On the other hand, I didn&rsquo;t let that bother me too much, because I&rsquo;ve seen many players written about one day and gone the next. The guys on the team kidded me a lot, but it wasn&rsquo;t all that bad.&rdquo;Bergeron has been searching for three years for a defenseman to play the point on the power play. He has often used Jean-Francois Sauve on the right side in the last two seasons, and now has Bell on the other point. Bell makes mistakes, but Bergeron still likes the way he carriers the puck.&ldquo;In junior, through my last two seasons I played often on the power play,&rdquo; Bell said. &ldquo;The main difference is that last year in Brantford I was on the right side. It&rsquo;s a bit more difficult now playing the left side, but I&rsquo;m out there and that&rsquo;s what counts.&rdquo;Does he feel the extra pressure on the power play?&ldquo;You have to be prepared to take chances when you are out there,&rdquo; Bell said. &ldquo;You are there to create scoring opportunities when you are playing with the man advantage. You can&rsquo;t achieve that simply by moving the puck around a lot. You have to be ready to break for the openings when you see them.&ldquo;I actually feel a little more confident playing the power play because we have the advantage. That gives us a little more room. My coach has confidence in me and I&rsquo;m trying to do what he wants.&rdquo;While Bell is gaining popularity in Quebec, both among the fans and members of his own team, he still has a couple of fans back home in Toronto he hasn&rsquo;t forgotten.&ldquo;Will you please say hello to my mom and dad in the story,&rdquo; he asked.Consider it done.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01591/5208596-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="593" height="839"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bruce Bell has been given a good workload with the Nordiques and has handled it well.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0021-01

Nordique Rookie Answers Pro Bell

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02333/5208641-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="289" height="375"></div><h2>TOURNAMENTS</h2>UBERTY JUNIOR INVITATIONAL Tournament. Junior B & C, April 5,6,7,1985. Contact Henry Hubert (603) 880-6151.ELKS CENTRAL CANADA 21st annual peewee hockey tournament Feb. 21, 24, 85, &lsquo;A&rsquo; Event&mdash;Major Pee Wee AA teams. &lsquo;B&rsquo; Event &lsquo;Pee Wee A&rsquo;A&rsquo; teams. &lsquo;C&rsquo; Event&mdash;Minor Pee Wee teams. Write: Elks Hockey Tournament, P.O. Box 366, Thunder Bay, Ont. P7C 4V9. (807) 623-3200.<h2>BOOKS</h2>HOCKEY BOOKS, GUIDES, programs. New, used, scarce. Free list. BOOK, Box 547, Streetsville, Ont., L5M 2C1.<h2>TOURNAMENTS</h2>PEPSI-BUFFALO &lsquo;Tournament of Champions&rdquo;. April 15-28 Novice&mdash;Midget, House League&mdash;&ldquo;AAA Teams&rdquo;. Write Holiday Twin Rinks, 3465 Broadway, Buffalo, NY, 14227. (716) 685-3660.APRIL CLASSICINTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENTOPEN TOURNEY<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-03187/5208634-1-eng-US/f0021-032.jpg" title="f0021-03" width="864" height="204"></div>RI SPORTS CENTER, P.O. Box 874, Woonsocket, Rl. 02895 Phone: (401) 762-1588&mdash;Manager: Jim Parrillo<h2>PUBLICATIONS</h2><h3>ATTENTION COLLECTORS</h3>A complete set of THE HOCKEY NEWS (37 issues) for the 1983-84 season is available. ONE SET ONLY. $2.50 per issue. First come, first served. Write: THE HOCKEY NEWS, Dept. MC, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Toronto, Ont. M3B 2R2<h3>FIRST ISSUES OF HOCKEY NEWS</h3>Perfect reproduction of the very first issue ever published of THE HOCKEY NEWS. Dated October 1, 1947, this 16 page issue is a MUST for every collector&mdash;$19.95.Also available are bound copies of the first two seasons, 1947-48 and 1948-49, 35 issues comprise each season. Perfect condition and neatly bound&mdash;$125.00 for each season.Classic Reproductions, 2 Billingham Road, Suite 302, Toronto, Ont., M9B 6E1<h2>MISCELLANEOUS</h2><h3>GAME JERSEYS</h3>20 page catalog of NHL-WHA-AHL-NFL-CFL-NASL-MISL-NBA-CBA-ABA-Baseball-Japanese Baseball-WFL and more. Includes actual game jersey (worn by the player) and replica. Football helmets also. Send $4.00 to:Sports Jerseys Unlimited, 99 Katherine Road, Downsview, Ont.M3K 1J5 Canada&ldquo;Free decal set with list and $2.75 credit.<h3>HOCKEY, BASEBALL, FOOTBALL</h3>Card sets. Collectibles. Free price list on request. Rich Unruh, P.O. Box 509, Faro, Yukon, YOB 1K0.<h2>MISCELLANEOUS</h2>PORTABLE SKATE SHARPENERS for sale. New 37 lb. portable machines Complete for $800 (612)482-8932.GOALTENDER WANTED: Jr. or Sr. hockey experience preferred. Phone George (306) 469-2013 or Richard (306) 469-2173.ONTARIO JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE STATS: Available 3 &times; per year. Includes player profiles, league news and stats. $100 for all 3. Send cheque or money order. Payable to:Ontario Junior Hockey League, c/o Jim Warden, Secretary, 16 Flintridge Road, Scartxtrough, Ont. M1P 1C1 (416) 752-3172<h2>MISCELLANEOUS</h2>HOCKEY NEWS Back Issues circa &lsquo;61&mdash;&lsquo;67. Five assorted $10. MacKay, 1662 Juniper, Prince Georae. B.C., V2L 1N5.<h2>MERCHANDISE</h2>AUTHENTIC GAME JERSEYS; Several teams available. Send self-addressed envelope with 20&rsquo; postage for large listing. Murf Denny, Box 127, Brule, Wl 54820.CUSTOM EMBROIDERED EMBLEMS&mdash;Cloisonne&rsquo; enameled pins. Your design, low minimum, excellent quality, free booklet. A.T. Patch Co., Dept. 124, Littleton, NH 03561, (603) 444-3423.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-04139/5208627-1-eng-US/f0021-042.jpg" title="f0021-04" width="1827" height="1121"></div> &#9632;

f0021-02

The Classified

<div class="byline">BY TOM BOGGIE</div>ST. LAWRENCE&mdash;After finishing the 1983-84 season with a 10-10 league record and missing the Eastern Colleges Athletic Conference playoffs, St. Lawrence coach Mike McShane knew he had to make some changes. His goaltending had been erratic and he needed a gamesaver, even though three of his goaltenders were returning for the 1984-85 season.Enter one Scott Yearwood.In the year of the goaltender in the ECAC, Yearwood could easily be the sleeper of a very talented freshman class. After splitting time with sophomore Adolph Brink in three non-league games, Yearwood got his feet wet against ECAC champion Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before 4,900 hostile fans in Houston Field House.&ldquo;After last year, we felt we needed to go out and look at goalies,&rdquo; said McShane of the recruiting philosophy that brought Yearwood to St. Lawrence. &ldquo;We had seen his team (the Dixie Beehives of the Metro Junior B League) play quite a bit and we liked Scott. He had good reflexes and he&rsquo;s a good athlete. He&rsquo;s a winner.&rdquo;He proved that against RPI. Facing one of the most potent offenses in the East, Yearwood had the Engineers in his back pocket. At times, he looked up and down and side to side in the Saints&rsquo; net to repeatedly stymie the Engineers, but he certainly got the job done. For his effort, Yearwood was named the initial ECAC Player of the Week.&ldquo;You really never know with a goalie,&rdquo; said McShane. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like he was the MVP of his league and everyone was after him. But we felt Scott was right for what we wanted. He&rsquo;s going to develop into a good college goalie.&rdquo;It would be hard to convince the Engineers that Yearwood hasn&rsquo;t already established himself.&ldquo;He really challenged them a couple of times,&rdquo; said McShane. &ldquo;He came out and made a couple of poke checks and from where I was, I didn&rsquo;t expect it from him.&rdquo;Yearwood is another example of what is becoming a regular recruiting line from Mississauga, Ont., to St. Lawrence. In the last two years, McShane has plucked the Gerrie brothers. Bill and Mike, out of that area, and this year added Yearwood and classmates Peter Buckeridge and Brad McKee, who played instrumental roles in the Saints&rsquo; quick 4-0-1 start. Yearwood may be the find of the year. Anyone who can go into Troy and beat the Engineers in his first complete college game must have some talent.&ldquo;He certainly put a smile on my face,&rdquo; said McShane.But opposing teams shouldn&rsquo;t get the impression that the Saints are going to be a pushover when Yearwood isn&rsquo;t in goal. Just for good measure. Brink posted his first career shutout against Vermont the night after the St. Lawrence-RPI game.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t sure if Scott was going to be a starter for us,&rdquo; McShane admitted. &ldquo;But I wouldn&rsquo;t have recruited him if I didn&rsquo;t think he could come right in and play. It&rsquo;s still early in the season, but I&rsquo;m very pleased with him.&rdquo;ECAC NOTES&mdash;The first full weekend of ECAC competition saw a number of new faces playing starring roles. Another rookie goalie to keep an eye on is freshman Doug Dadswell of Cornwall. Dadswell, who played for Pickering, Ont., Junior Bs last year, had 23 saves in a 5-3 win over Princeton and came off the bench the next night to spark a 6-4 win over Army. The Big Red had trailed 3-1 in that game&hellip;Brown junior Al Randaccio of Buffalo, NY recorded the first hat trick of his career to lead the Bruins to an 8-1 victory over Dartmouth&hellip;Colgate goalie Jeff Cooper tied Guy Lemonde&rsquo;s record of 39 career victories when he shutout Princeton. 3-0, on Nov. 18. The shutout was the fifth of Cooper&rsquo;s career&hellip;Mark Benning scored the game-winning goal in Harvard&rsquo;s 3-1 victory over rival Yale&hellip;The first full weekend of league action also produced three penalty shots. At RPI, Clarkson goalie Jamie Falle stopped Bob DiPronio. The other two penalty shots were teed up at Cornell&rsquo;s Lynah Rink. Tim O&rsquo;Shier of Princeton converted for the Tigers the first night, but Duanne Moeser of Cornell missed his chance against Army&hellip;The attendance at RPI for its two-game series against rivals St. Lawrence and Clarkson was a combined 10,384, including a field house record of 5,484 against Clarkson&hellip;Army goalie Jim Stenson got more than his share of work against Cornell, as he made 55 saves. &#9632;

McShane Finds Sleeping Beauty In Goal

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01682/5208734-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="557" height="525"><figcaption class="caption-body">SCOTT FUSCO Harvard</figcaption></div><h2>ECAC</h2>The Harvard Crimson has rolled away to a fast 4-0 start in the ECAC Conference, and former U.S. Olympician Scott Fusco is providing the offensive punch for the leaders.Fusco was chosen as the ECAC Performer of the Week after he scored three goals and set up three more in Harvard&rsquo;s 5-4 win over Army and 4-3 victory against Princeton.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02485/5208727-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="445" height="521"><figcaption class="caption-body">WAYNE COLLINS Bowling Green</figcaption></div><h2>CCHA</h2>Bowling Green is battling back after a somewhat slow start in the CCHA Conference race, and one of their big early-season victories was sparked by senior goaltender Wayne Collins.The Falcons&rsquo; netminder, selected as the CCHA Performer of the Week, stopped 43 shots, as Bowling Green upset top-ranked Michigan State 4-3.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03373/5208720-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="563" height="529"><figcaption class="caption-body">COREY MILLEN Minnesota</figcaption></div><h2>WCHA</h2>The Minnesota Golden Gophers are atop the WCHA Conference with a 10-2-2 record, and center Corey Millen is part of the reason.Millen, who played with the U.S. Olympic team, is a sophomore who scored three goals and assisted on four more in an 8-2, 4-2 sweep of Boston College to win the nod as the WCHA Performer of the Week.THE BAUER PERFORMERS OF THE WEEK &#9632;

f0022-01

Bauer FIT FOR PERFORMANCE

<div class="byline">BY TOM BURKE</div>BOSTON&mdash;All he knows is that it seems to work. Bruce Racine doesn&rsquo;t know why, but he doesn&rsquo;t want to stop.Next time you&rsquo;re watching the Northeastern Huskies play hockey, and action is stopped for a faceoff anywhere but deep in the NU end, get a load of Racine, the freshman goaltender from Metcalfe, Ont. Rather than patiently waiting in his crease, Racine will be roaming around the left-wing comer in his own end, peering down at the ice, looking for young female fans through the plexiglass, churning up ice chips with his skates and sweeping them into little piles. with his stick&mdash;anything, it seems, but concentrating on the game.Racine has won the top goaltending job from Huntington Hound senior Jim Marshall, with a 5-2 record in seven games, including an 8-2, 5-4 sweep of Maine, Nov. 16-17. He doesn&rsquo;t seem like the superstitious type, but he has preferred the little wandering ritual ever since he broke out of a slump last year when playing for the Hawkesbury Junior B team back home.&ldquo;I just saw the other goalie doing it, so I started doing it during a game,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We won the game, so I kept it up.&rdquo;So much for methods to the madness.Racine was a late addition to this year&rsquo;s Husky squad, a freewheeling bunch of swashbucklers who needed a good bit of defensive help. He was debating whether to go into Major junior in Quebec last August when his coach, former Northeastern forward Doug Harvey, told him about an immediate opportunity to go to Boston and play in the new Hockey East Association.Marshall was ready to go for his final college campaign, but another under-classman wasn&rsquo;t doing the job in summer school and would be ineligible. Accord. ing to Northeastern coach Femie Flaman, the Hounds were eyeing Racine for a year from that time anyway, but they put on a three-man forecheck once they knew Marshall would be the only returnee.It was not a very tough decision for Racine to come to NU. Harvey was all for it, and Brian Kilrea, who was coaching the Ottawa 67s at the time, told him that he would be heading for a high-scoring league if he opted for major junior. That argument clinched things. Racine enrolled in August.In the Maine series, Flaman broke the pattern of alternating his goalies and went with Racine both games. He stopped 18 shots the first night and 20 the second. Maine tried to play cautiously and nearly stole the game the second evening, leading 4-2 in the third period. The ubiquitous Rod Isbister tied the score with 2:33 to go in regulation, setting the stage for freshman Dave O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s first collegiate goal at 5:08 of the extra period.Eight players were ejected for fighting in the game. Maine&rsquo;s Peter Maher had a hat trick, but Isbister was the offensive star of the series, adding to his Hockey East scoring lead with three goals and four assists.Maine coach Shawn Walsh wasn&rsquo;t pleased with his team&rsquo;s third period in the first game, when NU pulled away with five consecutive goals. But he took some consolation in the lopsided score, noting that NU might relax a bit more than they would after a one-goal win. He was right, and Maine nearly pulled off the split.HOCKEY EAST NOTES3&mdash;Boston College&rsquo;s league lead didn&rsquo;t last long after their big win over Boston University. The Eagles fell behind early and dropped a 7-5 decision to Lowell. John Shumski and Rob Badger each scored twice for the Chiefs. Providence took over the first place with a 3-3 tie and a 3-2 win against Minnesota, the country&rsquo;s top-ranked team, at Schneider Arena. The first game was a waltz and the second a gang war, with a total of 88 minutes in penalties. &ldquo;I think Minnesota got kind of caught up in our game and didn&rsquo;t play their own style,&rdquo; said PC coach Steve Stirling. &ldquo;If you let them carry the puck into your zone and set up, bingo. It&rsquo;s on somebody&rsquo;s stick in front and then in the net. We had to take control of the play in the neutral zone and slow them down there. I actually don&rsquo;t think we played super hockey, but we were consistent the whole weekend.&rdquo; Goalie Chris Terreri and center Tim Army were once again the heros for PC. Army had a goal and three assists while Terreri, with 38 and 28 saves, respectively, has played every game for the 6-4-1 Friars&hellip;Boston University was blasted 6-0 by Toronto, then rebounded for a 5-4 non-league win. Freshman Jeff Sveen had two scores against the Blues. &#9632;

Racine Can’t Break Restless Habit

<div class="byline">BY BILL CRAWFORD</div>BIG RAPIDS&mdash;Ferris State College hockey coach Dick Bertrand had just) watched his Bulldog team lose two Central Collegiate Hockey Association games to Lake Superior State at home, and he didn&rsquo;t mind voicing some of his frustration.&ldquo;More and more, you rack your brain on Monday morning after a weekend like we just had,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You look at how hard you worked all week, how ready the team was on Thursday, and then you look at how they played and how things turned out.&ldquo;Getting swept at home is hard to digest. You want to win at home, take two at home, and split on the road. That&rsquo;s how every college team looks at the schedule. It&rsquo;s nearly impossible to sweep on the other guy&rsquo;s ice. Michigan State is a powerful team and couldn&rsquo;t take two from us in our building. Neither could Illinois-Chicago. But we were not ready for the Lake Superior series. We didn&rsquo;t play our game.&rsquo;&rsquo;Bertrand is in his third year at Ferris State and isn&rsquo;t happy with the progress to date.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re at a snail&rsquo;s pace to what I wanted at this point,&rdquo; he said &ldquo;We are an unknown in the world of college hockey and we need to work harder to make ourselves a name. We did a poor job of recruiting the past two years and we&rsquo;re almost starting over again now. Recruiting is the name of the game in college hockey. If you don&rsquo;t have the horses, you don&rsquo;t have the team. But we&rsquo;re changing that now.&rdquo;Bertrand replaced a pair of younger assistant coaches with the more experienced Peter Esdale, 38, who coached in Alberta and at Dalhousie University before joining Ferris State. He was Coach of the Year in the Atlantic Universities Athletic Association in 1981-82 and his knowledge and background, plus solid work ethic, should help FSU bring in the type of talent required to improve the program.Joining Esdale is Tom Coolen, 30, who worked extensively with the Canadian Olympic program and at the University of New Brunswick.&ldquo;We need these guys,&rdquo; said Bertrand. &ldquo;We need to go out and get some players who will help us turn it around a bit. We&rsquo;re not that far off. We lack great talent and depth, so we have to work very hard at the game and, when we don&rsquo;t, it all falls down around us. We should have done better so far, but our upperclassmen have disappointed us and the youngsters are carrying too much of the load. They aren&rsquo;t ready for that role.&rdquo;Bertrand has changed his systems three times already in the season but nothing works consistently.&ldquo;The key is the togetherness, the work,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t work really hard and don&rsquo;t have a common goal, we&rsquo;re done. We aren&rsquo;t talented enough to overcome the lack of effort. We can&rsquo;t afford to play the other team&rsquo;s game because then we quit mucking, quit hustling and we&rsquo;re in trouble.&rdquo;Bertrand came to Ferris State from Cornell, where he built a successful reputation as both a coach and player. His teams were 229-104-9 over 12 seasons, featuring 11 post-season appearances. At Ferris, his teams are 34-38-7 over two campaigns. His combined. 644 win percentage is fifth best among active college coaches.The Bulldogs were picked by many pre-season experts to finish in the top four in the nine-team CCHA this season, but they haven&rsquo;t played with any consistency.They are led by 25-goal man Graham Craig, junior winger Paul Couture, who had 23 goals last season, senior goaltender Rob Hughston, senior defenseman Brad Hildestad and senior winger Tim Wendt.But the Bulldogs are basically a freshman-sophomore team and they&rsquo;re having trouble meshing right now.&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t that we can&rsquo;t play well,&rdquo; Bertrand said. &ldquo;We played very well and beat a good Michigan State team, and we came from behind by just plain outworking Chicago (scoring five unanswered goals in the final period to win 7-4), and we&rsquo;ve played well in spurts. But we are too inexperienced on defense and too short of big gunners to let up, ever. We have to work, work, work all the time, and we must want to work hard. We&rsquo;ll struggle this season I think. We&rsquo;ve got a lot of coaching, a lot of teaching to do in order to get where we should be right now. The competition in this league is too tough&mdash;there are too many Michigan States and Chicagos and Lake Superiors with improving programs. You&rsquo;ve got to be ready to play hard each week, or get beat.&ldquo;Our kids, too many of them, have never heard of triangulation or turn-ups&hellip;they&rsquo;re raw talents, with little coaching behind them. We&rsquo;ve got to muck, to hustle, to hit all the time, if we&rsquo;re to be successful. It&rsquo;s coming, but it falls short too often right now. We&rsquo;ve got to go out this season and work hard, on and off the ice. We need to do some serious recruiting and some serious teaching.&rdquo;CCHA CHATTER&mdash;Former Ferris State standout defenseman Jim File was recently released by the Indianapolis Checkers of the International League and is looking for a place to play. He is eyeing possible opportunities in North America and Europe. File was all-CCHA twice while at Ferris, a steady, talented performer, but ran into the old &ldquo;no contact, no-play game&rdquo; at Indy&hellip;Western Michigan defenseman Ron Pesetti separated a shoulder against Bowling Green State and required surgery. He&rsquo;s out indefinitely&hellip;BG&rsquo;s Mike Natyshak injured a shoulder too, but shouldn&rsquo;t miss much, if any, action&hellip;Michigan ended a six-game tailspin when it beat Illinois-Chicago 7-6 in overtime&hellip;Lake Superior&rsquo;s sweep of Ferris State was its first road sweep in nearly two full seasons, since taking two at Ohio State in 198283. The Lakers&rsquo; beleaguered goaltending earned some respect when Randy Exelby stopped 52 shots and allowed but three goals, improving his average to 3.28, eighth best in the CCHA. Right winger Keith Martin scored his eighth, ninth and 10th goals against Ferris State. &#9632;

Ferris State Hasn’t Moved With The Times

<div class="byline">BY VIRG FOSS</div>DULUTH&mdash;It&rsquo;s one thing to win a league championship and another thing to come back and successfully defend it.That&rsquo;s the lesson the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs learned early this season when they sputtered off to a 0-3-1 start in defense of their Western Collegiate Hockey Association crown.But since the troubles in the early going, the Bulldogs have righted them-selves and were undefeated in their next eight games, four of those wins coming in the WCHA.A year ago, Duluth finished with its best record (29-11-2), while winning the league crown for the first time and finishing second in the nationals, losing the historic four-overtime game to Bowling Green.But instead of helping Duluth this year, last year&rsquo;s success hurt the Bull-dogs in the early going, according to coach Mike Sertich.&ldquo;I think the trouble we had at the beginning was that we were a little complacent after last year&rsquo;s success,&rdquo; Sertich said. &ldquo;We deviated from our work ethic which had gotten us to the top, both the players and myself.&rdquo;Duluth&rsquo;s season turned around on a trip to Boston University, picked by the media to win Hockey East. The troubled Bulldog team went into Boston and were on their way to another defeat, trailing 3-1 in the second period.But Duluth battled back for a 6-6 overtime tie, then stung the Terriers 3-2 the next night.&ldquo;We played pretty well out there,&rdquo; Sertich said. &ldquo;Before then, we had been struggling. I think what that series did for us was give us confidence, show us we could play with an excellent team like Boston Unversity.&rdquo;Now the Bulldogs are displaying the same type of magic that propelled them to glory a year ago.&ldquo;I think we came together as a team at Boston,&rdquo; Sertich said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never minded losing if you lose despite a good effort. But early in the season, we just gave away a couple of the games we lost.&rdquo;And the Bulldogs learned that success one season doesn&rsquo;t guarantee it&rsquo;ll come again next year.&ldquo;We really didn&rsquo;t expect the slow start,&rdquo; Sertich said. &ldquo;I think we all thought that we&rsquo;d pick up from where we left off last year. It was a new role for us and I didn&rsquo;t do a good job preparing the team mentally for that.&rdquo;A couple of familiar names in the WCHA&mdash;goalie Rick Kosti and forward Bill Watson&mdash;are helping the Bulldogs rise slowly to the top. Kosti, who had the best goals-against average in the league a year ago, has improved to a 3.44 mark this year, fifth best in the league, after he too got off to a slow start. And Watson, the WCHA scoring champion last year, has moved into sixth place among league scorers with six goals and 11 assists in eight games.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been playing well,&rdquo; Sertich said of Watson, &ldquo;but all teams are looking out for him.&rdquo;Meanwhile, another club that&rsquo;s begun to make some noise in the WCHA is North Dakota. The Sioux, similar to the Bulldogs, started slowly, losing three of their first four league games. Since then, North Dakota is unbeaten in its last six games and, with a 6-3-1 league record, is within striking distance of Minnesota, which has led the league from the start of the year.North Dakota is getting solid offensive output from veterans such as Chris Jensen, Perry Berezan, Jim Archibald and Brian Williams, and sound defensive play from veterans Brad Berry, Glen Klotz, Scott Sandelin and Tim Loven.But newcomers have made their mark, too, most noticeably center Tony Hrkac, who led the Ontario Junior Hockey League in scoring last year while playing for the Orillia Travellers. Hrkac, a St. Louis Blues&rsquo; draft pick last year, has popped in eight goals and added eight assists in 12 games to rank as one of UND&rsquo;s top offensive threats.Sophomore Greg Strome and freshman Scott Brower have provided sound goaltending of late, with Brower registering UND&rsquo;s first shutout of the season, making 16 saves in a 11-0 pounding of New Hampshire.So as the Sioux and the Bulldogs ride along on their streaks, it&rsquo;s apparent that Minnesota may face a race for the league title after all.WCHA NOTES&mdash;Wisconsin is winless in its last 10 meetings with Minnesota-Duluth, after dropping a pair of games to the Bulldogs (4-2 and 6-1). The Badgers lost all eight meetings with Duluth a year ago and are 0-2 against them this year&hellip;Tony Granato, a sophomore center from Downers Grove, IL, is off to a fast start with Wisconsin. He has 13 goals in 12 games while no other Badger has more than six&hellip;Tom Rothstein, Minnesota&rsquo;s leading scorer last year, recently got his first goal of the year after missing the early part of the season with an injury. Minnesota&rsquo;s Pat Micheletti and Duluth&rsquo;s Bill Watson have long streaks going. Micheletti has scored in 29 consecutive games and Watson 26&hellip;Ata recent North Dakota game, a fan won a $ 17,000 car by shooting a puck through a four-inch hole in the net from 90 feet away. Earlier, Sioux captain Jim Archibald had given Chuck Daniel, who won the car, tips on how to shoot the puck if his name ever came up in the contest-&hellip;There&rsquo;s been one penalty shot in the WCHA this season and that failed when Minnesota goalie John Blue stopped Colorado College&rsquo;s Brent Gropp. &#9632;

Bulldogs, Sioux Back On Track

<h2>HOCKEY EAST CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Tue. Nov. 27)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01664/5208890-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="531" height="235"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Mon. Nov. 19Boston College 11, Holy Cross 2Tue. Nov. 20Lowell 4, Northeastern 3Fri. Nov. 23Min.-Duluth 6, New Hampshire 2Colorado Coll. 4, Providence 3Minnesota 8, Boston College 2N. Michigan 6, Maine 3Lowell 2, Mich Tech 1Sat. Nov. 24Boston Univ. 3, Northeastern 1Min-Duluth 2, New Hampshire 1Providence 10, Colorado Coll. 1Minnesota 4, Boston College 2N. Michigan 6, Maine 4Mich Tech 3, Lowell 2<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02467/5208883-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="530" height="236"></div><h2>WCHA CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Fri. Nov. 30)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03319/5208876-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="527" height="263"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Fri. Nov. 23Colo. College 4 at Providence 3Mich. Tech 1 at Lowell 2Min-Duluth 6 at New Hampshire 2Boston College 2 at Minnesota 8N. Michigan 6 at Maine 3Illinois-Chicago 4 at Denver 8RPI 6 at North Dakota 7Yale 6 at Wisconsin 7Sat. Nov. 24Colo. College 1 at Providence 10Mich. Tech 3 at Lowell 2Min-Duluth 2 at New Hampshire 1Boston College 2 at Minnesota 4N. Michigan 6 at Maine 4Illinois-Chicago 4 at Denver 8RPI 8 at North Dakota 2Yale 3 at Wisconsin 2<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-04197/5208869-1-eng-US/f0024-042.jpg" title="f0024-04" width="530" height="263"></div><h2>CCHA CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Thu. Nov. 29)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-05148/5208862-1-eng-US/f0024-052.jpg" title="f0024-05" width="533" height="296"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Fri. Nov. 23Ferris State 6 at Ohio State 3Lake Superior 1 at Michigan 0Mich State 4 at Bowling Green 1W. Michigan 4 at Miami 7Illinois-Chicago 4 at Denver 8Sat. Nov. 24Bowling Green 4 at Mich State 3Ferris State 3 at Ohio State 6Lake Superior 6 at Michigan 3W. Michigan 6 at Miami 3Illinois-Chicago 2 at Denver 5<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-06124/5208855-1-eng-US/f0024-062.jpg" title="f0024-06" width="534" height="325"></div><h2>ECAC CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Tue. Nov. 27)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-07106/5208848-1-eng-US/f0024-072.jpg" title="f0024-07" width="530" height="380"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Sun. Nov. 18Princeton 0 at Colgate 3Army 4 at Cornell 6Yale 7 at Dartmouth 4Brown 2 at Harvard 7Fri. Nov. 23Dartmouth 4 at Princeton 5Harvard 5 at Army 4Sat. Nov. 24Harvard 4 at Princeton 3Dartmouth 4 at Army 3<h3>NON-LEAGUE GAMES</h3>RPI 8, North Dakota 2Wisconsin 7, Yale 6Yale 3, Wisconsin 2North Dakota 7, RPI 6Clarkson 4, RIT 2Holy Cross 4, Brown 2Toronto 7, Cornell 2<h3>EMPIRE CUP TOURNAMENT</h3>St. Lawrence 3, Vermont 2Union 6/Colgate 3Consolation finalVermont 2, Colgate 1Championship finalSt. Lawrence 7, Union 1(St. Lawrence wins tournament)<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-08100/5208841-1-eng-US/f0024-082.jpg" title="f0024-08" width="530" height="209"></div><h2>ONTARIO CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Nov. 26)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-0993/5208834-1-eng-US/f0024-092.jpg" title="f0024-09" width="533" height="408"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>York 6, Toronto 2Laurier 5, Brock 1Laurentian 6, Ryerson 1Brock 4, Queen&rsquo;s 3Laurentian 7, RMC 5Waterloo 7, Guelph 5Laurentian 6, RMC 1<h2>ONTARIO COLLEGES</h2>(Standings on Mon. Nov. 26)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-1085/5208827-1-eng-US/f0024-102.jpg" title="f0024-10" width="529" height="267"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Seneca 12, Humber 3Sheridan 5, Georgian 3Canadore 7, Sheridan 2St. Clair 6, Seneca 5Humber 5, Canadore 4Centennial 5, Georgian 4St. Clair 13, Conestoga 3<h2>CANADA WEST CONFERENCE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Nov. 26)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-1183/5208820-1-eng-US/f0024-112.jpg" title="f0024-11" width="529" height="176"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Alberta 7, Saskatchewan 3Saskatchewan 6, Alberta 3UBC 9, Calgary 5UBC 3, Calgary 1Calgary 8, Lethbridge 3Saskatchewan 6, Calgary 5Calgary 5, Saskatchewan 3Alberta 8, UBC 4Alberta 8. UBC 4UBC 4, Lethbridge 1UBC 7, Lethbridge 2Calgary 3, Alberta 2Alberta 5, Calgary 1Saskatchewan 13, Lethbridge 2Saskatchewan 5, Lethbridge 0Alberta 6, Lethbridge 0Alberta 15, Lethbridge 3Alberta 3, Saskatchewan 1Alberta 7, Saskatchewan 3UBC 6, Calgary 5Calgary 5, UBC 4Alberta 5, UBC 4Alberta 7, UBC 5Lethbridge 7, Calgary 5Calgary 8, Lethbridge 4<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-1275/5208813-1-eng-US/f0024-122.jpg" title="f0024-12" width="533" height="323"></div> &#9632;

f0024-01

HOW THEY STAND

<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Wed. Nov. 28)<h3>SOUTHERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-1550/5208998-1-eng-US/f0024-152.jpg" title="f0024-15" width="543" height="232"></div><h3>NORTHERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-1647/5208991-1-eng-US/f0024-162.jpg" title="f0024-16" width="537" height="208"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Wed Nov. 21Fredericton 3 at Adirondack 2Sherbrooke 2 at Baltimore 6Springfield 7 at Maine 4Hershey 6 at Moncton 0Binghamton 2 at Rochester 5Thu. Nov. 22Rochester 4 at Binghamton 4Heshey 4 at Fredericton 6Fri. Nov. 23Rochester 0 at Baltimore 12Maine 5 at New Haven 2Adirondack at Nova Scotia (ppd)St. Catharines 3 at Sherbrooke 2Sat. Nov. 24New Haven 3 at Binghamton 9Adirondack 3 at Fredericton 4Baltimore 4 at Maine 6Nova Scotia 5 at Moncton 7St. Catharines 1 at Springfield 3Sun. Nov. 25Adirondack 6 at Moncton 1Baltimore 4 at New Haven 2Hershey 4 at Nova Scotia 7Springfield 2 at Rochester 4Binghamton 4 at St. Catharines 3Maine 4 at Sherbrooke 1<h2>ATLANTIC COAST LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Wed. Nov. 28)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-1743/5208984-1-eng-US/f0024-172.jpg" title="f0024-17" width="549" height="181"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Wed. Nov. 21Erie 3 at Carolina 5Pine Bridge 5 at Mohawk Valley 3Thu. Nov. 22Pine Bridge 4 at Erie 1Carolina at Virginia (ppd)Fri. Nov. 23Virginia 0 at Pine Bridge 6Sat. Nov. 24Carolina 5 at Erie 3Mohawk Valley at Virginia (ppd)<h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Nov. 26)<h3>LEYDEN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-1364/5208977-1-eng-US/f0024-132.jpg" title="f0024-13" width="532" height="236"></div><h3>EMMS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-1455/5208970-1-eng-US/f0024-142.jpg" title="f0024-14" width="528" height="262"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Tue. Nov. 20Oshawa 5 at Kingston 4Kitchener 6 at London 7Wed. Nov. 21Cornwall 7 at Belleville 6Thu. Nov. 22Toronto 2 at Peterborough 1S.S. Marie 4 at Windsor 2Sudbury 7 at Hamilton 5London 5 at Guelph 2Fri. Nov. 23North Bay 1 at Kitchener 8Kingston 6 at Ottawa 2S.S. Marie 5 at London 6Sudbury 5 at Guelph 6Windsor 7 at Toronto 5Peterborough 4 at Oshawa 4Sat. Nov. 24Peterborough 5 at Belleville 6Kingston 6 at Toronto 13Sun. Nov. 25Ottawa 1 at Oshawa 4Sudbury 0 at North Bay 0S.S. Marie 6 at Kitchener 4London 6 at Cornwall 9Hamilton 4 at Kingston 2<h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Tue. Nov. 27)<h3>EASTERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01500/5208963-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="538" height="267"></div><h3>WESTERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02346/5208956-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="536" height="208"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Mon. Nov. 19Lethbridge 5 at Brandon 4Tue. Nov. 20Medicine Hat 1 at Prince Albert 7Regina 3 at Kamloops 10Lethbridge 7 at Moose Jaw 4Wed. Nov. 21Medicine Hat 4 at Saskatoon 3Regina 4 at Kelowna 5Prince Albert 7 at Brandon 2New Westminster 5 at Portland 3Thu. Nov. 22Regina 2 at New Westminster 4Victoria 3 at Seattle 6Fri. Nov. 23Calgary 2 at Lethbridge 3Saskatoon 2 at Prince Albert 6Victoria 7 at Portland 6Kamloops 3 at Kelowna 4Sat. Nov. 24Lethbridge 2 at Medicine Hat 7Regina 5 at Seattle 4Brandon 4 at Saskatoon 2Moose Jaw 2 at Calgary 7Victoria 2 at New Westminster 5Sun. Nov. 25Medicine Hat 3 at Calgary 6Regina 5 at Portland 7Brandon 1 at Prince Albert 8Moose Jaw 6 at Lethbridge 5Kamloops 9 at Victoria 0Seattle 6 at Kelowna 5<h2>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Wed. Nov.28)<h3>EAST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-03225/5208949-1-eng-US/f0029-032.jpg" title="f0029-03" width="533" height="149"></div><h3>WEST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-04158/5208942-1-eng-US/f0029-042.jpg" title="f0029-04" width="534" height="180"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Tue. Nov. 20Peoria 3 at Salt Lake 5Wed. Nov. 21Muskegon 4 at Toledo 5Milwaukee 3 at Indianapolis 4Thu. Nov. 22Toledo 3 at Fort Wayne 7Peoria 6 at Salt Lake 7Fri. Nov. 23Milwaukee 4 at Muskegon 10Peoria 3 at Hint 8Salt Lake 0 at Kalamazoo 3Fort Wayne 5 at Indianapolis 6Sat. Nov. 24Hint 5 at Fort Wayne 4Salt Lake 3 at Muskegon 4Indianapolis 1 at Kalamazoo 7Milwaukee 4 at Toledo 2Sun. Nov. 25Salt Lake 3 at Flint 7Kalamazoo 4 at Milwaukee 2Indianpolis 3 at Toledo 2<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-05137/5208935-1-eng-US/f0029-052.jpg" title="f0029-05" width="535" height="234"></div><h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>(Standings on Mon. Nov. 26)<h3>LEBEL DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-06112/5208928-1-eng-US/f0029-062.jpg" title="f0029-06" width="538" height="178"></div><h3>DILIO DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-0794/5208921-1-eng-US/f0029-072.jpg" title="f0029-07" width="535" height="239"></div><h2>GAMES COMPLETED</h2>Mon. Nov. 19T-Rivieres 6 at Chicoutimi 8Longueuil 4 at Laval 5Tue. Nov. 20St Jean 5 at Longueuil 6Wed. Nov. 21 Verdun 4 at Hull 5Quebec 1 at T-Rivieres 5Fri. Nov. 23Laval 2 at Drummondville 3Chicoutimi 5 at Granby 4Verdun 11 at Quebec 3T-Rivieres 4 at St. Jean 5Sun. Nov. 25T-Rivieres 4 at Longueuil 3Hull 4 at Quebec 7Drummondville 3 at Shawinigan 4Granby 5 at Verdun 8 &#9632;

f0024-15

Minor Scoreboard

<div class="byline">BY JOHN HERBERT</div>Louisville HockeyLouisville HockeyPETERBOROUGH&mdash;Peterborough Petes have often been too good for their own good.The Petes, perennial contenders in the Ontario Hockey League, are once again knocking on the first-place door in the Leyden Division, despite losing underage players to the National Hockey League. They&rsquo;re doing it with a strong defense, two good, young goalies and 11 players who are 47 years old.The Petes will &ldquo;graduate&rdquo; only four players unless the NHL picks their roster clean.General manager-coach Dick Todd, whose been in the Peterborough organization the past 12 seasons, had his young club in first place after 18 games with a 12-6 record, and playing without Derrickek Smith, who is with the Philadelphia Flyers this season, and Steve Yzerman, who is still eligible for junior but enters his second season with the Detroit Red Wings.Over the years, the Petes have remained a very strong club while losing Yzerman, Smith, Bob Errey, Tom Fergus, Larry Murphy and other underage players. Todd has mixed emotions about finding good, young talent in the midget draft, only to develop it and then lose it prematurely to the NHL.&ldquo;The business we&rsquo;re in, in major junior, is to develop players for the NHL,&rdquo; Todd said. &ldquo;But from a coaching point of view, it&rsquo;s devastating to lose a player. Fans also want a winner and they want good players.&ldquo;From what junior hockey is all about, it&rsquo;s a very positive factor in selling a new prospect coming to Peterborough, because they&rsquo;ll be presented in a good light to the pros by coming from a good junior environment with a proven record for producing NHL players.&rdquo;Losing underage juniors is a problem all OHL teams have learned to live with since the NHL began drafting underage juniors, but some have learned to carry on successfully. Unfortunately, the fans haven&rsquo;t totally accepted the NHL practice of taking the best young stars just as they bloom into junior drawing cards.Attendance has been the OHL&rsquo;s main problem the past few seasons.Peterborough has missed the playoffs only once since the era of sponsorship ended in 1967, and have appeared in three Memorial Cups in the intervening years, winning once. The program had produced coaches such as Roger Neilson, Gary Green and Mike Keenan. It has also produced pros such as Bill Gardner, Keith Acton, Mark Kirton, Bob Gainey, Doug Hal ward and Craig Ramsay.Todd attributed the Petes&rsquo; good fortune over the years to scouting and stability within the organization of the team, now in its 29th season of major junior competition.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s always continuity with personnel, either at the ownership level or right down through coaching and training,&rdquo; Todd said. &ldquo;We have turned over coaches, but the scouts have stayed, like Paul Goulet who was with us for 14 years before he left five years ago to work for the Buffalo Sabres.&rdquo;The Petes&rsquo; scouting is now split between assistant coach Jacque Martin, and three scouts. Norm Bryan has done the majority of scouting in Toronto and the Western Ontario area since Goulet&rsquo;s departure. The results have continued to be good, and the Petes rate as one of the most consistently strong clubs year after year, a tribute to their non-profit community ownership. No other team has been as successful over the long haul.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t want to say that, but I feel that way,&rdquo; Todd said.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;The business we&rsquo;re in, in major junior, is to develop players for the NHL.&rsquo;</blockquote>One of the big men for the Petes so far this season has been forward Scott Tottle, who led the team in scoring after 18 games with 13 goals and 24 assists. Returnee Mark Teevens, captain Randy Burridge, Darren Treloar and Brad Aitken all were into double figures in goals. But the Petes&rsquo; main strength and depth is on defense with Shawn Evans (109 points last year), Terry Carkner, Ian Armstrong, Bruce Shoebottom and Larry Shaw.Goalie Kay Witmore, 17, had the OHL&rsquo;s second-best average at 3.14.Shoebottom&rsquo;s plight is an interesting one because he broke both legs in his first two seasons in the league. Fully recovered this season, he is making a major contribution and is regarded as one of the most rugged individuals in the league.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re still the only team without an overage, and if we make an improvement in that area, we&rsquo;d be happy to do so,&rdquo; Todd said.Tottle played on a line with Yzerman and Errey as a rookie, producing 25 goals and 49 assists. Adjusting to new linemates Doug Evans and Dave Reid last year, Tottle finished 10th in league scoring and tied for second in goals with 63.This year, with Teevens and Kris King, other teams have paid more attention to Tottle, who is the only graduating forward.&ldquo;I played a game in Sudbury and they had a guy checking me,&rdquo; Tottle said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;d never move, just follow me around. He wouldn&rsquo;t even go in to forecheck. He&rsquo;s just follow me. It gets frustrating, but you have to leam to take it.&rdquo;OHL NOTES&mdash;In other Leyden Division happenings, Belleville&rsquo;s Darren Gani tied a team record with a sevenpoint performance against Kingston&hellip;Oshawa coach Paul Theriault and Kingston coach Rick Comacchia were ejected by referee Greg Madill for yelling and screaming at each other and threatening to cause bodily harm in a game in Oshawa. They were later suspended for one game. Kingston&rsquo;s Scott Metcalfe and Oshawa&rsquo;s Petr Kopta were suspended indefinitely for their parts in an altercation in the same game&hellip;Toronto Marlies began to close ground on the Petes, building an 11-5 record&hellip;In the Emms grouping, Detroit Red Wings returned last year&rsquo;s OHL Rookie of the Year, Shawn Burr, to Kitchener Rangers&hellip;North Bay Centennials set a team record with their ninth consecutive win and stretched an unbeaten string to 10&hellip;London Knights continued to roll with their 13th win in 14 games. Centennial goalie Pete Abric retained and improved his OHL leading average to 2.90.WRONG MOVE&mdash;OHL commissioner Dave Branch said he had never been contacted by a Barrie group trying to land either the Sudbury or Kingston franchise.TELEVISION UPDATE&mdash;The OHL Game of the Week will begin Jan. 12 with London at Kitchener, while a new addition to the 10-game television package this season will be the OHL All-Star game, Feb. 9, also at Kitchener. The proposed Quebec versus OHL All-Star game has been scrubbed for this year.TRADE TALK&mdash;Soo Greyhounds, well in command with an 18-5 record, may not be finished shopping. They tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain Don Biggs and Gary McColgan from Oshawa. But Oshawa shipped McColgan to the Hamilton Steelhawks for Todd Francis and a fourth-round draft pick. &#9632;

Stability Has Always Been Petes’ Strength

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01580/5209067-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="560" height="563"><figcaption class="caption-body">KAY WHITMORE Peterborough</figcaption></div><h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>Defense has been a big part of the Peterborough Petes&rsquo; game this season in their rise to the top of the Leyden Division race, and much of the credit goes to goaltender Kay Whitmore.The 17-year-old netminder won the nod as OHL Player of the Week after he allowed seven goals in three games, as the Petes moved into first place with a 12-6 record. Whitmore has won 10 of 14 starts, posted a shutout and has the second best goals-against average, 3.14.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02381/5209060-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="555" height="566"><figcaption class="caption-body">CLIFF RONNING New Westminster</figcaption></div><h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>Cliff Ronning didn &lsquo;t miss winning the Western Hockey League scoring title by all that much last year, but this season he appears to be determined to make it.The 19-year-old center of the New Westminster Bruins, who was drafted in the ninth round in 1984 by St. Louis Blues, was picked as the WHL Player of the Week after a 10-point performance.Ronning has 24 goals in 19 games, tops for the WHL, and is also closing in on the overall scoring lead.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03255/5209053-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="554" height="565"><figcaption class="caption-body">GUY ROULEAU Longueuil</figcaption></div><h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>The Longueuil Chevaliers are not exactly a powerhouse this season in the Quebec Hockey League, ranking seventh among 11 teams, but it&rsquo;s no fault of Guy Rouleau.The little center came up with seven goals in three games to raise his season record to 43 in 33 starts and was selected QHL Player of the Week for the third time this season.Rouleau has scored at least one point in all 25 Longueuil games and has jumped into first place in the scoring race with 76 points.At the end of the current season. THE HOCKEY NEWS will select a Micron Junior Player of the Year. &#9632;

f0025-01

MICRON JUNIOR PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

<div class="byline">BY BEN KUZMA</div>Louisville HockeyLouisville HockeyEDMONTON&mdash;Make no mistake about it. As much as football accomplishments have captured the hearts of sports fans in the Alberta capital, the fact remains Edmonton is still a hockey town.Five consecutive Grey Cup championships by the Edmonton Eskimos could not equal the euphoria which gripped this city last May when Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers finally captured a Stanley Cup championship.Even during Grey Cup Week &lsquo;84, hockey talk still commanded its share of the sports spotlight. And not all of it was of the National Hockey League variety. The possibility of major junior, which once reigned supereme in Edmonton, returning has quickened the pulse of the city&rsquo;s amateur sports community.You see, there was once another Oiler team which used to dominate the sports pages and pack fans into the Edmonton Gardens. Edmonton Oil Kings were often looked upon as the class of the Western Canada Hockey League. Names such as Gamet Bailey, Billy Moores, Don Spring, Don Kozak and Darcy Rota became synonymous with junior hockey success. They were household names in a city where the game thrived at the amateur level.The Oil Kings won the Memorial Cup in 1966 and captured WCHL league titles in the 1970-71 and 1971-72 seasons. Although the Oil Kings moved to Portland in the 1976-77 season to become the Western Hockey League Winter Hawks, the major junior flame in Edmonton was never really extinguished. There remained ardent believers who professed junior hockey would return to Edmonton, with the right conditions and commitments.Vic Mah is one of those believers.The prominent Edmonton businessman. a past president of the Oil Kings, is spearheading a movement to obtain a WHL franchise for Edmonton. It&rsquo;s been an ongoing project for Mah, who initially sought an expansion club but has his sights set on hopefully relocating an existing franchise.There are positive signs a major junior team could call Edmonton its new home as early as next season. One reason is franchises in financial trouble. Another is genuine interest in the Edmonton sporting community, while still another is the city&rsquo;s new 5,000-seat Agricom hockey complex. But the most significant is Mah.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;The move could be implemented next season, but it&rsquo;s not the sort of way we want to go about it.&rsquo;</blockquote>Mah has been involved in various Edmonton amateur sports endeavors since 1960. He knows the hurdles which must first be cleared if Edmonton wants to successfully house a junior club.&ldquo;A good building and community participation are important,&rdquo; said Mah. &ldquo;We intend to sell shares to the public and get the community involved in the team&mdash;that&rsquo;s very important.&ldquo;It (franchise) is not for someone to go in and try to make money. The only way to make it work is to get the support of the community and have them become shareholders.&rdquo;Mah appears to have two options going for him. If defending WHL champion Kamloops Blazers, who became a totally community-owned team last summer, decide to leave the British Columbia city, Mah could move them to Edmonton. In purchasing $12,000 in shares in the Blazers, Mah was given first right of refusal if the Blazers ever decide to move.A more realistic approach appears to be for Mah to obtain a struggling Eastern Division club. Blazer attendance is up and the community is showing signs it wants to retain the franchise rights.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to take the team out of Kamloops,&rdquo; said Mah, even though plans to remodel the city&rsquo;s arena could add fuel to the fire of discontent in Kamloops. &ldquo;I want the team to stay there. There are other teams in trouble and it&rsquo;s no secret who they are.&ldquo;Everyone knows I&rsquo;m looking for a team. They&rsquo;ll come to me when they&rsquo;re ready.&rdquo;Rumors have the troubled Calgary Wranglers looking elsewhere in the 1985-86 season. The Wranglers, who are finding it increasingly difficult to play second fiddle to the NHL Calgary Flames, are not drawing well.&ldquo;It (the move) could be implemented next season, but it&rsquo;s not the sort of way we would go about it,&rdquo; said WHL president Ed Chynoweth. &ldquo;If we put one team in Edmonton we&rsquo;d want one in Calgary, too.&rdquo; &bull;Ironically, Edmonton and Calgary had one of the best rivalries in junior hockey when the Oil Kings and Centennials were members of the WCHL.&ldquo;Again it might be a good benefit to Calgary to have a rivalry with Edmonton,&rdquo; said Chynoweth. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve talked to the people in Calgary and they&rsquo;re not discouraged. They hope to weather the storm until we get into the real hockey months. It&rsquo;s too early to push the panic button.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;d be a fool to tell you (attendance) doesn&rsquo;t affect me. It&rsquo;s down across the league and certainly there&rsquo;s some concern from my standpoint.&rdquo;One thing that doesn&rsquo;t concern Chynoweth is Mah. He considers Mah a credible businessman and the best thing Edmonton has going for it to get a WHL club in Alberta capital.&ldquo;Not only is Vic a good friend of mine, he&rsquo;s an excellent and respected businessman,&rdquo; Chynoweth said. &ldquo;I know he&rsquo;s putting a plan together first to see if there&rsquo;s interest in local ownership. I think it&rsquo;s a tremendous way to see if there&rsquo;s any interest in major junior hockey in Edmonton.&rdquo;And what of a plan to obtain an existing franchise as opposed to an expansion team?&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t get a vote on these things, but certainly anybody wanting a franchise today to be successful is better off buying an existing franchise,&rdquo; said Chynoweth. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t enough talent to go around.&ldquo;The straight goods of the matter is Vic has to get back to us as to what his desires are.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01613/5209098-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="586" height="861"><figcaption class="caption-body">League president Ed Chynoweth would like to see another Edmonton-Calgary rivalry.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0026-01

Mah Eyeing Edmonton For Western League

<div class="byline">BY BOB ELLIOTT</div>HULL&mdash;Will hockey&rsquo;s famous 99 own another junior team?It could happen&hellip;make that probably will happen&hellip;next season, in fact.Wayne Gretzky and his associates are giving the Hull Olympiques a serious look.Gretzky owned 49 per cent of the Belleville Bulls of the Ontario Hockey League for two seasons before selling his interests back to team president Robert Vaughan last May.However, the city-owned Hull team is only one of the junior clubs Gretzky is interested in.Charlie Henry, of Ottawa, who represents Gretzky in business dealings and was involved with the Belleville operation, has been following the Olympiques.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of the better franchises around,&rdquo; said Henry.The Olympiques proved that in a recent 5-4, third-period win over divi-sion-leading Verdun, before a crowd of 4,350 at the Bob Guertin Arena in Hull. It was the largest turnout in the building since the Hull-Sherbrooke playoff series seven years ago.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking around, and sure Wayne&rsquo;s interested in the Olympiques,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;re not even close to making an offer.&rdquo;The Olympiques have been owned by the city of Hull for more than three years, when the club was known as the Festivals and owned by Paul Grant. Last season it ran up a $180,000 deficit.Hull mayor Michel Legere is interested in selling the team and is anxious to meet with Gretzky or his representative. The city turned down a $125,000 offer from an Aylmer businessman last May, although Legere was in favor of accepting it.The hockey people running the team have a resolution from city council to operate the team until June.Legere suggested that he could meet Gretzky, or his agent, in Toronto later this month when the Edmonton Oilers are in town to play the Maple Leafs.Henry had told coach Pat Bums that Gretzky will be getting in touch with him. The Olympiques employees are anxious to know just how interested the Great One is.&ldquo;Wayne did a good job for junior hockey the two years he was involved in Belleville,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;There always was the understanding (between Gretzky and Vaughan) one had the option to buy out the other. It was a good deal for both. We&rsquo;ve been looking for the past six months, back to the Canada Cup training camp.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had some discussions with them and they&rsquo;re interested.&rdquo;ACROBATIC AVERILL&mdash;Hull goalie Steve Averill stopped 19 of 21 shots in the second period of Olympiques&rsquo; 5-4 thrilling win over Verdun, the club&rsquo;s seventh-straight on home ice. Eric Lamontagne broke the tie with the winning goal with less than six minutes remaining.NOT SO FAST&mdash;The Olympiques drafted two players, John O&rsquo;Donnell and Zaras Diakiwski, from the defunct Plattsburgh team. O&rsquo;Donnell played one game before it was discovered he was over age. Hull won the game but was not penalized because the league office had okayed O&rsquo;Donnell&rsquo;s playing card which stated he was only 19. Diakiwski, of New York City, has been demoted to Gatineau Ambas-sadeurs of the Central Junior Hockey League. &#9632;

Gretzky Has Olympiques On Shopping List

<div class="byline">BY AL MORGANTI</div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Again and again you hear that the regular season is meaningless, and then you look up to see that two coaches have already been fired before the season reached the quarter pole.Thus, the regular season must count for something. And in some places, such as Philadelphia this season, it counts more than others, which is why the Flyers had reason to be heartened by their 13-4-3 record and nine-game unbeaten streak (7-0-2) as the season reached its first road marker, the quarter pole.Before the season began there were a lot of questions about the club as it faced its first season in the post-Bobby Clarke era with a new coach, Mike Keenan, a rookie general manager, Clarke, and three rookies, Peter Zezel, Derrick Smith and Rick Tocchet.If that wasn&rsquo;t enough change, Clarke shocked Philadelphia when he traded away veteran center Darryl Sittler to Detroit for Murray Craven on the eve of a new season. The Flyers were already supposed to struggle a bit, and then the trading of Sittler made people think the struggle might be even more difficult.The Flyers&rsquo; management inisisted it still had a nucleus of solid players and good &ldquo;kids,&rdquo; but not even they would have been bold enough to anticipate the kind of start the Flyers have kicked off.After watching his team beat the Boston Bruins 4-3, at the Spectrum on Thanksgiving Eve, Clarke enjoyed a rare Thanksgiving meal at home, before journeying to Buffalo the following night where the Flyers beat the Sabres, 4-2. Combined with an earlier tie at the Aud, the Flyers have three out of a possible four points out of Buffalo this season.The club cooled off a bit the next night in Hartford, but it still came back three times from two-goal deficits to gain a 4-4 tie with the Whalers, as Tocchet had his biggest game of the season with two goals. Perhaps even more notable was the decision of Keenan to start Pelle Lindbergh in goal for the ninth consecutive game, the second in two nights and third in the past four.Lindbergh, who is thriving on the work, responded by running his own personal unbeaten string to 12 games (9-0-3) during which he recorded a 2.44 goals-against average.However, the Flyers&rsquo; start has not been a case of Lindbergh bailing them out of hopeless situations, or one scorer carrying them to wins. Rather, it has been a well-coached team approach which has been easier to carry out because of efforts from their leading scorer Tim Ken, who had 20 goals over the first 20 games; Mark Howe, who has been exceptional at defense; and Brian Propp, who has been the most consistent forward.In addition to that, the Flyers are getting better-than-anticipated efforts from the kids, especially Craven, who has filled in at center while the Flyers played four of six games without three regular centers&mdash;Dave Poulin (groin), Len Hachborn (sprained wrist) and Zezel (broken hand)&mdash;who were all out with injuries.&ldquo;The biggest thing about our start is not the points, or the wins,&rdquo; said Clarke. &ldquo;The biggest thing is the way the team is playing.&ldquo;The most impressive aspect so far has been our discipline. We knew we were young coming into the season, and we wanted to see how we reacted under pressure.&ldquo;Of course, we always want to win, and we were concerned about getting points, but not as concerned about how we were going to play. I wouldn&rsquo;t say the points are a bonus, because the object is always to win every game, but at this stage they weren&rsquo;t everything.&rdquo;The nice thing about the points is that the early stockpile has taken away any negative feelings the club might have had about slipping down past the Islanders, Rangers and Capitals, and scuffling with Pittsburgh and New Jersey while it got its act together.In fact, when they looked up at the quarter pole, the Flyers had amassed 30 points for a three-point lead over the New York Islanders (30-27) with a game in hand. The view from the top was one the Flyers had enjoyed for 32 consecutive days at the 20-game marker.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t really judge the Patrick Division yet,&rdquo; said Keenan after the tie in Hartford. &ldquo;You know, we haven&rsquo;t even played the Rangers yet.&rdquo;And that might be the bottom line. It&rsquo;s nice to get off to a great start, but the fans in Philly are really interested in what happens in April.Besides, when you still haven&rsquo;t played the Rangers it&rsquo;s still early&hellip;very early.NOTES&mdash;Brad McCrimmon, who is not known for his offensive skills, has the Flyers longest point-scoring streak with points in 12 consecutive games&hellip;The Flyers have sold out the Spectrum in their past six consecutive games&hellip;The Flyers sat out defenseman Thomas Eriksson for two consecutive games and used Miro Dvorak who has played in only seven of the first 20 games&hellip;Center Ron Sutter has started to play much better after a slow start, but his twin brother, Rich, continues to struggle and was placed on a fourth line with Dave Brown and center Ray Allison for a couple of games&hellip;Murray Craven made two exceptional passes to set up goals in the win against the Bruins, and then made another good pass to set up a goal by Tim Kerr in Buffalo. &#9632;

Philly Flying High After First-Quarter Mark

<h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>BOSTON&mdash;Brian Curran, D, sidelined with Charley horse.BUFFALO&mdash;Lindy Ruff, D, back from injury list.CALGARY&mdash;Bruce Eakin, C, and Joel Otto, C, recalled from Moncton of AHL. Mike Eaves, C, returned to injury list with shoulder problem.CHICAGO&mdash;Ken Yaremchuk, RW, assigned to Milwaukee of IHL for conditioning.DETROIT&mdash;Brad Park, D, and Danny Gare, RW, back from injury list. Shawn Burr, C, returned to Kitchener of OHL.EDMONTON&mdash;Lee Fogolin, D, back from injury list. Larry Melnyk, D, recalled from Nova Scotia of AHL.HARTFORD&mdash;David Jensen, LW, assigned to Binghamton. Paul Fricker, G, released as free agent after Whalers bought out his contract.LOS ANGELES&mdash;Daryl Evans, LW, assigned to New Haven. Mike Heidt, D, and Dave Chartier, D, both released from Toledo of IHL as free agents. Heidt has gone to Switzerland to play and Chartier has returned to school.MINNESOTA&mdash;Tom Hirsch, D, recalled from Springfield of AHL. Mike Sands, G, and Dirk Graham, RW, returned to Springfield. Lome Molleken, D, recalled by Minnesota and returned to Springfield. Miroslav Maly, D, recalled from Baltimore of AHL and reassigned to Springfield of AHL.NEW JERSEY&mdash;John MacLean, RW, sidelined with shoulder injury. Hannu Kampurri, G, recalled from Fort Wayne of IHL and reassigned to Maine of IHL.NY RANGERS&mdash;Simo Saarinen, D, out indefinitely with torn knee ligaments. Robbie Ftorek, C, and Chris Kontos, LW, recalled from New Haven of AHL. Larry Patey, C, assigned to New Haven.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Dave Poulin, C, out with pulled groin. Craig Piette, RW, signed to pro contract. Tim Young, C, recalled from Hershey of AHL. Paul Guay, RW, returned to Hershey of AHL.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Mitch Lamoureux, C, re-called from Baltimore of AHL.QUEBEC&mdash;Pat Price, D, returned from injury list. Claude Julien, D, and Roger Haeg-glund, D, returned to Fredericton of AHL.ST. LOUIS&mdash;Bernie Federko, C, sidelined for three games with ankle injury.TORONTO&mdash;Jim Korn, LW, sidelined two weeks with separated shoulder. Gary Nylund, D, out one week with concussion. Greg Terrion, C, out indefinitely with knee injury. Craig Muni, D, returned to St. Catharines of AHL.VANCOUVER&mdash;Doug Halward, D, back from injury list. Neil Belland, D, returned to Fredericton of AHL.WASHINGTON&mdash;Al Jensen, G, sidelined with pulled muscle in thigh. Bob Mason, G, recalled from Binghamton of AHL. Gaetan Duchesne, LW, assigned to Binghamton of AHL.WINNIPEG&mdash;Perry Turnbull, LW, back from injury list.<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>NOVA SCOTIA&mdash;Tim Harrer, RW, re-leased as free agent.<h2>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>FORT WAYNE&mdash;Dave Parro, G, Rod Willard, RW, and Wayne Prestage, RW, all released outright.MUSKEGON&mdash;Don Murdoch, RW, and Jay Millar, placed on injury reserved list for six weeks.TOLEDO&mdash;Mike Lawlor, D, Ed Christian, LW, Gasper Paul, LW, and George Finn, RW, all released outright. &#9632;

PLAYER TRANSACTIONS

<h2>Mon. Nov. 19 TORONTO 6, MONTREAL 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01583/5209513-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="535" height="833"></div><h2>CALGARY 4, LOS ANGELES 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02409/5209506-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="538" height="771"></div><h2>Tue. Nov. 20 CHICAGO 2, QUEBEC 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03292/5209499-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="533" height="769"></div><h2>WASH. 3, ISLANDERS 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-04210/5209492-1-eng-US/f0028-042.jpg" title="f0028-04" width="537" height="767"></div><h2>ST. LOUIS 5, VANCOUVER 1</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-05177/5209485-1-eng-US/f0028-052.jpg" title="f0028-05" width="535" height="741"></div><h2>Wed. Nov. 21 BOSTON 3, PHILADELPHIA 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-06153/5209478-1-eng-US/f0028-062.jpg" title="f0028-06" width="537" height="681"></div><h2>HARTFORD 2, DETROIT 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-07143/5209471-1-eng-US/f0028-072.jpg" title="f0028-07" width="536" height="741"></div><h2>BUFFALO 2, RANGERS 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-08133/5209464-1-eng-US/f0028-082.jpg" title="f0028-08" width="534" height="681"></div><h2>N. JERSEY 1, LOS ANGELES 8</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-09126/5209457-1-eng-US/f0028-092.jpg" title="f0028-09" width="543" height="1007"></div><h2>WASH. 3, PITTSBURGH 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-10123/5209450-1-eng-US/f0028-102.jpg" title="f0028-10" width="534" height="566"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-11115/5209443-1-eng-US/f0028-112.jpg" title="f0028-11" width="531" height="271"></div><h2>TORONTO 1, MINNESOTA 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-12111/5209436-1-eng-US/f0028-122.jpg" title="f0028-12" width="539" height="1039"></div><h2>WINNIPEG 5, EDMONTON 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-13103/5209429-1-eng-US/f0028-132.jpg" title="f0028-13" width="545" height="950"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-0883/5209422-1-eng-US/f0029-082.jpg" title="f0029-08" width="531" height="148"></div><h2>VANCOUVER 4, CALGARY 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-0978/5209415-1-eng-US/f0029-092.jpg" title="f0029-09" width="544" height="737"></div><h2>Thu. Nov. 22 PITTSBURGH 3, HARTFORD 9</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1070/5209408-1-eng-US/f0029-102.jpg" title="f0029-10" width="545" height="909"></div><h2>CHICAGO 2, MONTREAL 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1165/5209401-1-eng-US/f0029-112.jpg" title="f0029-11" width="535" height="355"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1259/5209394-1-eng-US/f0029-122.jpg" title="f0029-12" width="542" height="359"></div><h2>Fri. Nov. 23 PHILADELPHIA 4, BUFFALO 2</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1352/5209387-1-eng-US/f0029-132.jpg" title="f0029-13" width="539" height="763"></div><h2>ISLANDERS 5, WASH. 1</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1448/5209380-1-eng-US/f0029-142.jpg" title="f0029-14" width="536" height="646"></div><h2>NEW JERSEY 4, MINNESOTA 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1544/5209373-1-eng-US/f0029-152.jpg" title="f0029-15" width="532" height="440"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1642/5209366-1-eng-US/f0029-162.jpg" title="f0029-16" width="539" height="440"></div><h2>TORONTO 5, DETROIT 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1740/5209359-1-eng-US/f0029-172.jpg" title="f0029-17" width="545" height="824"></div><h2>ST. LOUIS 3, CALGARY 1</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1838/5209352-1-eng-US/f0029-182.jpg" title="f0029-18" width="536" height="616"></div><h2>WINNIPEG 5, VANCOUVER 1</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1933/5209345-1-eng-US/f0029-192.jpg" title="f0029-19" width="536" height="351"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-2028/5209338-1-eng-US/f0029-202.jpg" title="f0029-20" width="542" height="526"></div><h2>Sat. Nov. 24 CHICAGO 2, BOSTON 1</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-2128/5209331-1-eng-US/f0029-212.jpg" title="f0029-21" width="541" height="472"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-2224/5209324-1-eng-US/f0029-222.jpg" title="f0029-22" width="537" height="148"></div><h2>PHILADELPHIA 4, HARTFORD 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-2323/5209317-1-eng-US/f0029-232.jpg" title="f0029-23" width="545" height="854"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01566/5209310-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="529" height="212"></div><h2>BUFFALO 3, ISLANDERS 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02442/5209303-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="541" height="940"></div><h2>DETROIT 4, MONTREAL 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03342/5209296-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="540" height="699"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04246/5209289-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="536" height="88"></div><h2>RANGERS 3, QUEBEC 8</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-05191/5209282-1-eng-US/f0034-052.jpg" title="f0034-05" width="536" height="847"></div><h2>NEW JERSEY 5, PITTSBURGH 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-06164/5209275-1-eng-US/f0034-062.jpg" title="f0034-06" width="532" height="491"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-07150/5209268-1-eng-US/f0034-072.jpg" title="f0034-07" width="531" height="238"></div><h2>MINNESOTA 4, TORONTO 2</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-08141/5209261-1-eng-US/f0034-082.jpg" title="f0034-08" width="539" height="790"></div><h2>ST. LOUIS 6, EDMONTON 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-09128/5209254-1-eng-US/f0034-092.jpg" title="f0034-09" width="540" height="963"></div><h2>WINNIPEG 9, LOS ANGELES 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-10125/5209247-1-eng-US/f0034-102.jpg" title="f0034-10" width="531" height="639"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-11116/5209240-1-eng-US/f0034-112.jpg" title="f0034-11" width="535" height="498"></div><h2>Sun. Nov. 25 MONTREAL 4, BOSTON 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-12112/5209233-1-eng-US/f0034-122.jpg" title="f0034-12" width="548" height="1256"></div><h2>QUEBEC 3, RANGERS 2</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-13103/5209226-1-eng-US/f0034-132.jpg" title="f0034-13" width="530" height="296"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01535/5209219-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="533" height="328"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02427/5209212-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="536" height="88"></div><h2>CHICAGO 0, WASHINGTON 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03340/5209205-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="542" height="268"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-04278/5209198-1-eng-US/f0035-042.jpg" title="f0035-04" width="538" height="382"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-05229/5209191-1-eng-US/f0035-052.jpg" title="f0035-05" width="534" height="88"></div><h2>CALGARY 4, VANCOUVER 2</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-06208/5209184-1-eng-US/f0035-062.jpg" title="f0035-06" width="531" height="264"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-07196/5209177-1-eng-US/f0035-072.jpg" title="f0035-07" width="542" height="381"></div> &#9632;

f0028-01

NATIONAL LEAGUE SUMMARIES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01575/5209596-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"></div><h2>GOALTENDING STATISTICS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01523/5209589-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="577" height="2288"></div><h2>GOALTENDING LEADERS GOALS AGAINST AVERAGE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02362/5209582-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="562" height="236"></div><h2>MOST WINS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-03265/5209575-1-eng-US/f0031-032.jpg" title="f0031-03" width="563" height="235"></div><h2>SAVE PERCENTAGE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-04197/5209568-1-eng-US/f0031-042.jpg" title="f0031-04" width="560" height="237"></div> &#9632;

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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE SCORING

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-06127/5209717-1-eng-US/f0031-062.jpg" title="f0031-06" width="534" height="295"></div> &#9632;

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USA Network 1984 NHL

<div class="byline">BY RON COBB</div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;The St. Louis Blues were one of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s least injured teams last season, but they had reason to wonder if the pendulum was beginning to swing the other way when center Bernie Federko was knocked out of action, Nov. 20.Federko, the Blues&rsquo; leading scorer with six goals and 19 assists, was expected to miss at least three games because of a severly bruised left ankle. The injury occurred, ironically, when goaltender Mike Liut was making his first start after being sidelined for two weeks because of back spasms.The Blues were thankful that Feder-ko&rsquo;s injury wasn&rsquo;t any more serious than it turned out to be. He was hurt when a shot by defenseman Rob Ramage from the point hit him during the Blues&rsquo; 5-1 victory over the Canucks in Vancouver.Although X-rays after the game were negative, Federko was ordered by trainer Norm Mackie to have the ankle reexamined when it remained aggravated the following morning. But the second tests backed up the first.&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t lose him,&rdquo; said coach Jacques Demers of Federko. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s our bread and butter offensively. When he went down, it was the closest I&rsquo;ve come to having a heart attack.&rdquo;The loss of Federko, even if only for a week, created a void on a team that was 18th in the league in goals scored and isn&rsquo;t blessed with offensive depth. His spot in the lineup was taken by Alain Lemieux, who hadn&rsquo;t seen action in two weeks.When Federko was injured, the Blues were showing signs of snapping out of a streak of inconsistency that had characterized their play for a half dozen games. Beginning with a 5-2 victory over Calgary Nov. 3 in St. Louis, the Blues were alternately good or bad in successive games: 6-3 loss on Long Island, 6-2 win at Pittsburgh, 6-0 loss at Philadelphia, 1-1 tie at Boston, 7-3 loss to Quebec in St. Louis and 4-2 win over Quebec in St. Louis.The victory over Vancouver broke that pattern, but not until Ron Caron, the club&rsquo;s director of hockey operations, had begun to lose patience.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sick and tired of watching stupid plays,&rdquo; he said after the 7-3 loss to Quebec. &ldquo;If the people we have can&rsquo;t do the job, I&rsquo;ll go get other guys.&rdquo;Demers responded to the loss by conducting a three-hour practice in which he met with each player individually.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe in the yo-yo type of thing where one day you&rsquo;re high on them and the next day you&rsquo;re down,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But when we don&rsquo;t play well, they&rsquo;re going to know about it.&rdquo;Right winger Joe Mullen&rsquo;s second career hat trick carried the Blues to victory over Quebec, and then right-winger Mark Reeds scored the first hat trick of his career as the Blues beat the Canucks.The victory in Vancouver got the Blues off on the right foot on their longest hip of the season and improved their road record to 4-5-1.&ldquo;It was so important to start off well on the road,&rdquo; said Demers, noting that 14 of the Blues first 21 games were away games. &ldquo;If we started like we did last year, we&rsquo;d be history by December.&rdquo;Road trips were a nightmare for the Blues early last season, when they were 0-11-2 before winning their first road game, Dec. 7, at Toronto. &#9632;

Federko Won’t Be On The Shelf For Long

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;The Pittsburgh Penguins have an early-season favorite for National Hockey League Rookie of the Year.No, he&rsquo;s not one of Pittsburgh&rsquo;s three first-round picks in June&rsquo;s entry draft: Mario Lemieux, Doug Bodger or Roger Belanger. He&rsquo;s 28-year-old Warren Young.Warren who?Warren Young.In his first 14 games this season. Young scored 13 goals, including six two-goal games, and added five assists. He led the Penguins in goals and points, and led the NHL in shooting percentage (46.4).Just who is Warren Young and why has it taken him so long to make an impression in the NHL?Young was California&rsquo;s fourth choice in the 1975 draft and played two seasons at Michigan Tech. He led the Eastern Hockey League in goals with 53 and tallied 106 points in 1979-80, before signing with the Minnesota North Stars in October, 1981 as a free agent.After playing only five games for Minnesota over two seasons, Young signed with the Penguins in August, 1983, on the recommendation of Gene Ubriaco, who coached him three of his four minorleague years. Ubriaco now coaches the Baltimore Skipjacks, Pittsburgh&rsquo;s farm club in the American Hockey League.&ldquo;At the time they had a lot of left wingers in the Minnesota organization,&rdquo; said Young, explaining why he failed to stick with the North Stars. &ldquo;It was tough to break into the lineup.&ldquo;I tried hard and did as well as I could every year. I always hoped for a chance but it didn&rsquo;t happen, so I moved over here.&rdquo;Young played 15 games for the Penguins last season, but he spent most of the year in Baltimore, scoring 25 goals and adding 38 assists.This season the 6-foot-3, 195-pounder reported to training camp as a center, which he also played in the Minnesota organization, but was switched to left wing by coach Bob Berry.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been worried every year I came to camp,&rdquo; Young said when asked whether he thought he would make the Penguins. &ldquo;This year was a little different. I was a lot more relaxed. I don&rsquo;t know what the reason would be, but things just seemed to go a little better for me.&rdquo;Berry placed Young on a line with Lemieux at center and Wayne Babych on the right wing, and Young&rsquo;s responded well.&ldquo;The minute he (Lemieux) gets the puck, all I have to do is break to find an opening and that puck&rsquo;s going to be there,&rdquo; said Young. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t ask for a better center to play with. He can really get you the puck.&rdquo;Berry agrees with Young, but thinks the latter is comparable to Charlie Simmer, who also blossomed late.&ldquo;Mario has been a big factor with Warren, but Warren&rsquo;s worked extremely hard,&rdquo; Berry said. &ldquo;If you go back a number of years in Los Angeles, they must have gone through 15 or 20 left wingers looking for someone to play with Marcel Dionne until they finally came up with Charlie Simmer.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right to say it&rsquo;s Mario, but Warren Young has worked very hard to accomplish what he has this year. Apart from scoring goals, Warren&rsquo;s played very, very well without the puck. There&rsquo;s no reason why he can&rsquo;t go on all year.&rdquo; &#9632;

Penguins’ Rookie A Late Bloomer

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0032-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01552/5209796-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg"></div>HARTFORD&mdash;For the Boutettes, Pat and Betsy, remembering when they left Hartford isn&rsquo;t a problem. They&rsquo;ve got their own reminder.&ldquo;I was pregnant when the arbitration thing came down,&rdquo; Betsy said. &ldquo;And I had the baby early.&rdquo;Today, the Boutettes&rsquo; only child, a daughter named Jackie, is three-and-a-half years old.Boutette, a 5-foot-8, 175-pound winger, left the Hartford Whalers on June 15, 1981, and moved to the Pittsburgh Penguins as part of compensation for the Whalers&rsquo; signing of free-agent goaltender Greg Millen., Kevin McClelland, who has since moved to Edmonton, was also lost by the Whalers in the last arbitration case of its kind.On Nov. 16, Boutette moved back.&ldquo;Can you believe it?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This is proof that you never know in this game.&rdquo;Boutette, 32, was acquired from Pittsburgh for the rights to Ville Siren, a 20-year-old Finnish defenseman who was the 23rd pick overall in the 1983 draft. That was a bright day for the Whalers, what with Sylvain Turgeion, David A. Jensen and Siren all arriving in the same draft. Now this, one couldn&rsquo;t help thinking, is how to build a hockey team.But Turgeon has been slowed with a pulled stomach muscle. Jensen was goalless through the first 17 and now Siren belongs to Pittsburgh.Trading a 20-year-old defenseman for a 32-year-old left winger looks suspiciously like a quick-fix remedy. Just the sort of thing that has retarded the Whalers&rsquo; progress through six National Hockey League seasons.Whaler general manager Emile Francis, however, chose to roll the dice.&ldquo;There are many hidden problems when you deal with a European player,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Siren wasn&rsquo;t available last year and he&rsquo;s not available this year. He&rsquo;s in the army. Plus, there&rsquo;s a good deal of money involved.&rdquo;Francis began to cool on Siren in September.&ldquo;We had him all lined up to come to training camp,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Then his team started screwing around. He was supposed to come for two weeks, Then it was one. And they wanted a money guarantee if he got hurt. Finally we said, the hell with it.&ldquo;You have to pay some pretty serious bucks just to get him over here and there&rsquo;s no guarantee he could come here and play. Plus, he was balking at a twoway contract. I wouldn&rsquo;t want to sign him to anything but a two-way.&rdquo;Making towmorrow-for-today trades has been part of the Whalers&rsquo; act since they joined the NHL. In this deal, however, Francis flat-out rejected the charge.&ldquo;(Mark) Paterson&rsquo;s a young defenseman, too,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;At least I know where he&rsquo;s going to be tomorrow. We have control. In Siren&rsquo;s case, who knows?&rdquo;Boutette, meanwhile, is hoping that the second time around in Hartford will be as sweet as the first. He scored 124 points in 127 games as a Whaler after arriving on Christmas Eve, 1979, in a one-for-one trade for Bob Stephenson.&ldquo;That was a good year and a half.&rdquo; said Boutette, who turns 33 in March. &ldquo;The Whalers treated me well. There are a lot of ups and downs in this game, but it&rsquo;s great to be going back somewhere you&rsquo;re wanted, especially since it&rsquo;s a place you&rsquo;ve been before. It picks up your life. Hartford&rsquo;s a good town with good people.&rdquo;The price for Boutette looks steep, however. Good young defensemen are hard to come by.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got young defensemen,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;What we need is a different chemistry up front. Boutette can still skate and he works like hell. Coming back here has got to be a plus because he never wanted to leave in the first place. &ldquo;Boutette scored 28 goals and 80 points for Hartford in 1980-81, his best season in an 11-year career that includes 724 games, 165 goals, 439 points and 1,303 penalty minutes. Last year he scored just 40 points, however, and this year he had but one goal&mdash;shorthanded&mdash;in 15 games. The overriding question is, can he still play?&ldquo;No problem, Boutette said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a little left.&rdquo;Boutette understands the game.&ldquo;Us old guys are always the first to get the axe,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Pittsburgh was going pretty much with kids, so I figured something might be up. But I never figured Hartford. What the Whalers said by trading for me was, &lsquo;We want you.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s a nice feeling. I&rsquo;m really looking forward to it.&rdquo;And so is the rest of the family. Betsy and Jackie.&ldquo;She&rsquo;s like a little monkey,&rdquo; Betsy said of her daughter. &ldquo;Just like Pat.&rdquo;<h2>Player Of The Week</h2>The surprise of the season has to be the amazing play of the Los Angeles Kings, but it&rsquo;s no surprise that one of the reasons for their newfound success is the play of captain Marcel DionneDionne, one of the oldest players in the National Hockey League at age 33, earned Player of the Week honors after scoring four goals (including a hat trick against Calgary) and adding three assists in three games.Dionne, who played a major role in the Kings&rsquo; recent acquisition of Steve Shutt, is averaging better than a point a game and is proving his usual leadership. &#9632;

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Boutette Has Reminder Of Former Whaler Days

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT&mdash;It&rsquo;s not what John Barrett had in mind, or Lane Lambert, or any member of the Detroit Red Wings.This was supposed to be a season of progress, a season to put another building block on the foundation.Instead, through a quarter of the National Hockey League season, it was a disappointment to the players, the staff and the ownership as injuries, discontent and frustrations piled up higher than victories.Barrett, the 26-year-old defenseman who is coming off his finest season, expected even better&mdash;for himself and his team&mdash;after emerging as a solid, majorleague defenseman in his sixth professional season. He&rsquo;s the Wings&rsquo; basher on the blue line, their most punishing body checker. Barrett, similar to the Wings, is off to a limping start, but through no fault of his own.He&rsquo;s been hobbled by injuries. First, a broken right hand and later a Charley horse limited him to only seven of the Wings&rsquo; first 15 games.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve only played one (complete) game in four weeks,&rdquo; said Barrett, who was rewarded during the off-season with a four-year contract after putting together his best NHL campaign in 1983-84. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to believe this is happening.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s how Lambert feels, too.Coming off a 20-goal rookie season, big things were expected of the 20-year-old right winger. In fact, coach Nick Polano went so far as to suggest he could be on the threshold of a 35 or 40-goal season. But maybe that was putting too much pressure on the young man who had only one goal through 17 games.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t pinpoint it,&rdquo; Lambert said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;m doing something terribly wrong, or what. I&rsquo;m getting chances. They&rsquo;re just not going in.&rdquo;As a result, Lambert isn&rsquo;t getting the ice time he did last season.&ldquo;Anytime you&rsquo;re not putting the puck in the net, naturally the ice time is not going to be there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s my own fault. I have to work out of it and then I&rsquo;ll get the ice time.&rdquo;Polano acknowledged Lambert&rsquo;s struggle.&ldquo;I just think that he worked so hard all summer to get ready that he may have overworked himself, if there is such a thing,&rdquo; Polano said.&ldquo;His hands aren&rsquo;t nice and loose like last year. He appears to be tight. He&rsquo;s been getting enough ice time to work his way out of it.&ldquo;Sometimes taking a young player out relieves the pressure. When Kelly Kisio was struggling last year, we took him out of a game in Boston and let him watch from the press box. He came back and finished strong.&rdquo;Kisio, a 23-goal scorer as a rookie, is another of the Wings who can&rsquo;t seem to find the handle on things this season. He had just three goals in 16 games and got number four in the final minutes of regulation to give the Wings a 3-3 tie in Minnesota, Nov. 17, for their first point on the road this season after eight straight losses.But while the Wings got a point, they lost a couple more defensemen&mdash;Reed Larson and Larry Trader, the rookie who had been playing so well&mdash;to rib injuries. The availability of both was on a game-to-game basis.With Milan Chalupa and Brad Park already sidelined, plus Barrett&rsquo;s injury, the Wings have five ailing defensemen.The Wings also finally got around to returning rookie Shawn Burr, the No. 1 draft choice, to his junior club in Kitchener of the Ontario League.Burr, a pleasant, unpretentious young man with a sense of humor, was relieved that a decision finally was made, one way or the other.He was used sparingly in only nine games and needed regular work to develop his skills. At 18 and only a year out of midget, Burr wasn&rsquo;t ready for the NHL.&ldquo;It was a good experience,&rdquo; Burr said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s getting to know what they expect of you. It was a thrill to be here. Hopefully next year I&rsquo;ll be out there playing.&rdquo; &#9632;

Disappointments Mount For Red Wings

National League Rookie Leaders<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1499/5209858-1-eng-US/f0034-142.jpg" title="f0034-14" width="499" height="357"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1595/5209851-1-eng-US/f0034-152.jpg" title="f0034-15" width="499" height="353"></div> &#9632;

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BOSTON&mdash;Pederson 2, Bourque 5, Blum 1, Fergus 11, 12, Middleton 10, Kasper 2, 3, 4, O&rsquo;Connell 7, Crowder 5. Winning goals&mdash;Kasper.BUFFALO&mdash;Perreault 8, 9, 10, Cyr 2, 3, Foligno 6, 7. Winning goals&mdash;none.CALGARY&mdash;Nilsson 9, 10, Maclnnis 5, Kromm 9, 10, Peplinski 5, 6, Loob 7, 8, 9, Beers 7, 8, 9, Tambellini 10, 11. Winning goals&mdash;Tambellini, Loob.CHICAGO&mdash;Lysiak 3, Secord 5, 6, Sutter 8, D. Wilson 5, Savard 9. Winning goals&mdash;Secord.DETROIT&mdash;Sittler 1, 2, 3, Yzerman 7, 8, 9, Lambert 2, Duguay 11, Kisio 5, 6, Gare 5, Boldirev 9, Cernik 2, Ogrodnick 11. Winning goals&mdash;Yzerman, Gare.EDMONTON&mdash;Ha bscheid 2, 3, Hunter 3, 4, Sherven 8, Gretzky 19, 20, 21, Kurri 20, 21, 22, Coffey 7, Hughes 4, Krushelnyski 8. Winning goals&mdash;Kurri 2.HARTFORD&mdash;Malone 2, 3, 4, Boutette 2, Johnson 5, 6, 7, 8, Crawford 7, Robertson 3, 4, Currie 2, Siltanen 4, Tippett 3, Neufeld 7. Winning goals&mdash;Malone.LOS ANGELES&mdash;Dionne 8, 9, 10, 11, Nicholls 13, 14, 15, Fox 7, MacLellan 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Smith 7, Taylor 9, Sykes 6, Shutt 3, LaPointe 1. Winning goals&mdash;Fox, MacLellan.MINNESOTA&mdash;Broten 4, Payne 7, 8, McCarthy 4, 5, 6, Maruk 9, Plett 3, Acton 4, 5, Solheim 5, Bjugstad 4, Hartsburg 6, Bellows 9, 10, Lawton 2. Winning goals&mdash;Payne, Hartsburg, Lawton.MONTREAL&mdash;Nilan 3, Smith 6, 7, Mondou 4, Walter 5, 6, 7, Gainey 6, 7, Carbonneau 4, 5, Naslund 8, 9, 10, 11, Ludwig 2, Chelios 3. Winning goals&mdash;Carbonneau, Naslund.NEW JERSEY&mdash;Higgins 8, Gagne 5, Broten 3, 4, 5, Verbeek 6, Meagher 2, Ludvig 3, Bridgman 3, Sulliman 8. Winning goals&mdash;Bridgman.NY ISLANDERS&mdash;LaFontaine 6, Trottier 2, 3, 4, 5, B. Sutter 15, 16, Persson 1, Bossy 23, 24, 25, Boutilier 7, D. Sutter 7, 8, Hallin 2, 3. Winning goals&mdash;B. Sutter, Boutilier, Hallin.NY RANGERS&mdash;McPhee 6, Ftorek 1, 2, Rogers 7, 8, Larouche 7, Kontos 1, Hedberg 8. Winning goals&mdash;Rogers.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Propp 13, 14, Sinisalo 9, Kerr 19, 20, Ron Sutter 3, Howe 7, 8, Tocchet 4, 5, Smith 5, Carson 4. Winning goals&mdash;Kerr, Ron Sutter.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Bullard 8, 9, Young 15, 16, Mantha 6, Taylor 1, Fox 2, Lamoureux 1, Shedden 7. Winning goals&mdash;none.QUEBEC&mdash;Cote 4, Savard 5, 6, Goulet 13, 14, 15, Rochefort 3, Gillis 4, P. Stastny 9, McKegney 10, A. Stastny 10, 11, Sauve 1, Hunter 3. Winning goals&mdash;Goulet, P. Stastny, Hunter.ST. LOUIS&mdash;La Val lee 5, Reeds 3, 4, 5, Sutter 9, 10, Wickenheiser 5, 6, Gilmour 5, 6, Pettersson 8, Mullen 9, Lemieux 1, Levie 2. Winning goals&mdash;Reeds, Gilmour.TORONTO&mdash;Frycer 9, 10, lafrate 1, 2, Daoust 5, Korn 4, 5, Courtnall 3, 4, 5, Derlago 7, Gavin 2, Vaive 11, Anderson 4. Winning goals&mdash;Courtnail.VANCOUVER&mdash;McNab 7, 8, Sundstrom 5, Kirton 1, Skriko 5, Smyl 8, Halward 2, Lemay 8. Winning goals&mdash;none.WASHINGTON&mdash;Erickson 6, Carpenter 13, 14, Gartner 12, 13, Stevens 2, 3, Laughlin 2. 3, Christian 4, Veitch 1, Murphy 1. Winning goals&mdash;Laughlin.WINNIPEG&mdash;Turnbull 2, MacLean 5, 6, 7, 8, Mullen 7, 8, 9, Boschman 5, 6, 7, 8, Hawerchuk 10, 11, 12, Lundholm 5, Steen 6, Smail 8, Babych 2. Winning goals&mdash;Hawerchuk, Smail.HAT TRICKS&mdash;Reeds (StL), Dionne (LA), MacLellan (LA), Naslund (Mtl), Kasper (Bos), I each.OVERTIME WINNERS&mdash;Goulet (Que), Hartsburg (Min), I each. &#9632;

NHL SCORERS THIS WEEK

(Standings on Tue. Nov. 27)<h2>CAMPBELL CONFERENCE</h2><h3>NORRIS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1693/5209934-1-eng-US/f0034-162.jpg" title="f0034-16" width="530" height="179"></div><h3>SMYTHE DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1785/5209927-1-eng-US/f0034-172.jpg" title="f0034-17" width="532" height="177"></div><h2>WALES CONFERENCE</h2><h3>ADAMS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1881/5209920-1-eng-US/f0034-182.jpg" title="f0034-18" width="533" height="177"></div><h3>PATRICK DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-1977/5209913-1-eng-US/f0034-192.jpg" title="f0034-19" width="535" height="210"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Mon. Nov. 19Toronto 6 at Montreal 4Calgary 4 at Los Angeles 5Tue. Nov. 20Chicago 2 at Quebec 3 (OT)Washington 3 at NY Islanders 5St. Louis 5 at Vancouver 1Wed. Nov. 21Boston 3 at Philadelphia 4Hartford 2 at Detroit 4Buffalo 2 at NY Rangers 3New Jersey 1 at Los Angeles 8Washington 3 at Pittsburgh 3 (OT)Toronto 1 at Minnesota 7Winnipeg 5 at Edmonton 7Vancouver 4 at Calgary 6Thu. Nov. 22Pittsburgh 3 at Hartford 9Chicago 2 at Montreal 3Fri. Nov. 23Philadelphia 4 at Buffalo 2NY Islanders 5 atWashington 1New Jersey 4 at Minnesota 5 (OT)Toronto 5 at Detroit 6St. Louis 3 at Calgary 1Winnipeg 5 at Vancouver 1Sat. Nov. 24Chicago 2 at Boston 1Philadelphia 4 at Hartford 4 (OT)Buffalo 3 at NY Islanders 6Detroit 4 at Montreal 6NY Rangers 3 at Quebec 8New Jersey 5 at Pittsburgh 3Minnesota 4 at Toronto 2St. Louis 6 at Edmonton 7Winnipeg 9 at Los Angeles 5Sun. Nov. 25Montreal 4 at Boston 7Quebec 3 at NY Rangers 2 (OT)Chicago 0 at Washington 5Calgary 4 at Vancouver 2 &#9632;

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THE NHL SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0034-20" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-2068/5209986-1-eng-US/f0034-202.jpg"></div><h2>NORRIS DIVISION</h2><h2>SMYTHE DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-2158/5209979-1-eng-US/f0034-212.jpg" title="f0034-21" width="1099" height="184"></div><h2>ADAMS DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-2253/5209972-1-eng-US/f0034-222.jpg" title="f0034-22" width="1104" height="184"></div><h2>PATRICK DIVISION</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-2350/5209965-1-eng-US/f0034-232.jpg" title="f0034-23" width="1106" height="225"></div> &#9632;

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How NHL Teams Rate

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-08174/5210017-1-eng-US/f0035-082.jpg" title="f0035-08" width="556" height="1032"></div>There are few players in the National Hockey League who dare to wear the dreaded number 13. It is considered unlucky, but Bob Brooke of the New York Rangers obviously feels differently.Brooke, the solidly-built member of the U.S. Olympic team in 1984, asked for the number immediately after his stint in Sarajevo.He did not, however, make a direct route to the Rangers. His rights were owned by the St. Louis Blues, but they traded them to the Rangers after they decided not to meet Brooke&rsquo;s salary demands.Brooke, a native of Melrose, MA, immediately made an impression with size (6-foot-2, 185 pounds) and his muscle.Brooke, who will celebrate his 24th birthday on Dec. 18, also brought along an impressive background in education, having studied at Yale.After the Olympics, he was in the unique position of choosing between a lucrative career in hockey or a perhaps more lucrative career in the business community. &#9632;

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Chrysler Rookie Spotlight

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="m0001-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0001-012/5210100-1-eng-US/m0001-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Don Dixon)</figcaption></div>The first wave was actually just a trickle.In the summer of 1973, in a dramatic move to rebuild a team that finished out of the playoffs, the Toronto Maple Leafs imported two hockey players from Sweden&mdash;Borje Salming and Inge Hammar strom. In a year in which the Leafs had traded a popular goal tender, Bernie Parent, but added three players in the first round of the amateur draft, the new Swedes received only nominal attention, most of it because of their curiosity value.That is, until they started to play.One man, the gangly Salming, stood out especially. To the people who watched the improving Leafs through the mid-&rsquo;70s, Salming was perhaps the most complete&mdash;and certainly the most underrated&mdash;defenseman in the National Hockey League. One had to watch Salming each game to appreciate him. What he did was never ordinary and frequently spectacular.Eventually, the word got out. If one man could be so effective so quickly, then there had to be a large pool of untapped hockey talent waiting for the NHL to explore.It is 11 years later and now the trickle has become a torrent. The second wave of Europeans, the ones who were discovered by everybody looking for the next Salming, are no longer a curiosity. Indeed, it is the teams without a European on their roster, the ones who missed out on this new source of talent, that are the objects of NHL scrutiny.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0004-012/5210093-1-eng-US/m0004-012.jpg" title="m0004-01" width="954" height="1258"></div>Today, there are more Europeans than ever in the NHL&mdash;Swedes, Finns, Czechs, even one West German, New Jersey Devil rookie Uli Hiemer. By the start of the season, 11 per cent of the players in the NHL were born overseas. Briefly, even a Russian, Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; draft choice, Viktor Nechaev, played. He didn&rsquo;t make it, but it wasn&rsquo;t because of his nationality, He just wasn&rsquo;t good enough. Some day, the Devils hope Viacheslav Fetisov, who is good enough, will play for them in the NHL.Clearly, the barriers and old prejudices towards Europeans are breaking down. However, the process has been gradual and in no way is complete. Players from Europe and specifically players from Sweden bore a stigma almost from the day they arrived.Of Hammarstrom, Salming&rsquo;s partner in pioneering, Leaf owner Harold Ballard once said, &ldquo;He could go into the corner with a dozen eggs and come out with none broken.&rdquo;Ballard&rsquo;s comment bred the &ldquo;chicken Swede&rdquo; sterotype, one that was perpetuated by people called Grapes and Tiger and the proponents of what three guys in funny glasses once called &ldquo;old-time hockey.&rdquo;Of all the issues that Europeans deal with, it is the questions about their courage that rankle the most.&ldquo;I look back on when Ulf Nilsson and Anders Hedberg broke in with the Winnipeg Jets,&rdquo; said Capital center Bengt Gustafsson. &ldquo;They had to take tremendous amounts of abuse. People jumped them and they took it. People kept at it because they wouldn&rsquo;t hit back. The word spread that you could get away with plenty against the European player.&ldquo;But then these teams started to get hurt on the power play. And they learned that that kind of stuff got some other players involved, like me. I like playing close. They run me, I like it a lot. It means they&rsquo;re out of position and I can hit an open man.&rdquo;&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t as goon-like as before,&rdquo; agreed Oiler Willy Lindstrom, a member of the original Swedish invasion. &ldquo;I remember my first exhibition game in Denver. They dropped the puck and a fight broke out and someone broke Ulf&rsquo;s (Nilsson) nose. I said to Mats Lindh, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m playing my two years and getting out of here.&rdquo;Needless to say, Lindstrom did not. Nor did the others that broke the ground for their countrymen. The news of their success gradually made its way home and influenced the new generation of Europeans. Typified by Montreal Canadien Mats Naslund, Vancouver&rsquo;s Patrik Sundstrom, Calgary&rsquo;s Hakan Loob and Boston&rsquo;s&mdash;yes, that&rsquo;s the Boston Bruins, one of the last NHL teams to get on the European bandwagon&mdash;Mats Thelin, they are tougher, stronger and more adept at playing the North American style.As more and more Europeans came to North America and more and more North Americans went overseas to play, the game cross-pollinated. Ours added more finesse. Theirs added more body contact.Accordingly, the second wave of imports adapted to life in the NHL much more rapidly than their predecessors. Naslund made the NHL&rsquo;s all-rookie team in his first year. So did Loob. Thelin moved right onto the Bruins&rsquo; blue line and played effectively. Tomas Sandstrom is one of New York Rangers&rsquo; leading scorers.&ldquo;The second generation was more exposed to the North American style at an earlier age,&rdquo; said Ranger Anders Hedberg. &ldquo;When I grew up, the opportunity to play pro wasn&rsquo;t there. We were looking to play in the national (Elite) league and for the national team. The players are different too. The game changed over there the last 10 years. They&rsquo;re more used to the physical play.&rdquo;&ldquo;We&rsquo;re used to playing against Canadian players since the time we&rsquo;re 16 or 17,&rdquo; added Naslund. &ldquo;We played them in the world championships and got experience that way.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0004-02/5210086-1-eng-US/m0004-022.jpg" title="m0004-02" width="1058" height="1483"><figcaption class="caption-body">Edmonton&rsquo;s Flying Finn, Jari Kurri, says more NHL teams are playing the European style and that helps.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0004-03/5210079-1-eng-US/m0004-032.jpg" title="m0004-03" width="1030" height="1484"><figcaption class="caption-body">Even the Bruins, not famous for their dealings with Europeans, have Swedish defenseman, Mats Thelin;</figcaption></div> &#9632;

m0001-01

…OF THE NEW WAVE EUROPEANS

Despite the fact that, on Nov. 21, 1984, Bill LaForge was fired as coach of the struggling Vancouver Canucks, an argument could be made that his is a story of success. Think not? Well, five years ago the Edmon ton nati ve was a recreation director and hockey coach on the Enoch Indian Reserve in Alberta.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0001-022/5210138-1-eng-US/m0001-022.jpg" title="m0001-02" width="490" height="675"><figcaption class="caption-body">BILL LAFORGE</figcaption></div>Now, a cynic might suggest that is where LaForge will have to go for his next coaching job. But there is more to this man than meets the eye, certainly more than the Canucks&rsquo; 4-14-2 record at the time of his firing indicates.This interview, conducted by THN Editor-in-Chief Bob McKenzie, took place on Nov. 7, exactly two weeks before Vancouver GM Harry Neale fired LaForge. But since the Canucks had a paltry 2-10-0 record then, there were plenty of rumors concerning LaForge&rsquo;s dismissal.In the following edited transcripts, LaForge, who at 33 was the youngest coach in the NHL this season, offers some insightful commentary on the possibility of being fired and life as a rookie pro coach, as well as his often notorious past as one of the winningest coaches in Canadian major junior hockey for the past four seasons.That past includes two stormy one-year stints with the Oshawa Generals&mdash;the Ontario League suspended him for 50 games for a physical altercation with an opposing coach and player&mdash;and the Regina Pats of the Western League, two immensely successful seasons with the Kamloops Junior Oilers, including a trip to the Memorial Cup last May, and the now-legendary story of how he once ate a live lizard.This has been a year of ups and downs for LaForge. The WHL title with the Junior Oilers was quickly followed by his signing on with the Canucks. The joy of those accomplishments, however, was tempered by a personal tragedy when his sixth-month old daughter died shortly after the Memorial Cup in late May. And then came the horrendous start with the Canucks and the subsequent firing.But LaForge, the father of one son and three daugh ters, keeps a positive outlook on life and maintains he&rsquo;s the type of guy who can bounce back from just about anything.THN: You were quoted as saying that, by November, you&rsquo;d have the Canucks thinking Stanley Cup and that you found it difficult to accept anything less than 50 wins.BL: I still do.THN: But&rsquo;s it November and you&rsquo;re 210-0.BL: It doesn&rsquo;t change how I think at all. I felt 50 wins was possible. When that doesn&rsquo;t become possible, then you shoot for 45.THN: Fifty losses looks more realistic than 50 wins right now. What&rsquo;s happened since the time you were so optimistic?BL: Nothing. I&rsquo;m still optimistic. Every break or opportunity has not gone our way, it&rsquo;s probably gone the opposite. That hasn&rsquo;t made any difference on my opinions as far as goals for the hockey team. And if we ended up with 40 losses, I&rsquo;d still set my goal&mdash;50 wins&mdash;the same next year.THN: The Canucks have had a terrible string of injuries. Is that the reason you&rsquo;re off to such a bad start or are there other problems?BL: I think it&rsquo;s injuries, plus a new coach, plus a new coach with a new assistant coach and plus we didn&rsquo;t get many breaks. It wasn&rsquo;t lack of hard work. I think there were a few mistakes on my part, maybe underestimating the league. It&rsquo;s mostly because of injuries, though.THN: You say you underestimated the league. How?BL: I just think about some of the teams, like Edmonton and Calgary, and the overall depth they&rsquo;ve got. They can put four lines out there and every one is capable of scoring, of making you back pedal and making you think about who&rsquo;s up next.THN: Do you think you&rsquo;ll be fired?BL: I don&rsquo;t think much about it. Personally, I only worry about the pressure I put on myself. I&rsquo;m my own worst critic and the guy that spends the most time questioning myself. I don&rsquo;t worry about being fired because it&rsquo;s part of being a coach. If you let that bother you, then you won&rsquo;t wake up in the morning and perform to your best capabilities.THN: But doesn&rsquo;t it bother that you, worked so hard to get to the NHL and all of a sudden you&rsquo;re 2-10-0 and there&rsquo;s talk that your job is on the line?BL: No, if they decide I can&rsquo;t do the job here, it won&rsquo;t be the end of the world. I know tomorrow I&rsquo;ll get a job back in coaching somewhere at some level and I&rsquo;ll work my way back up here (the NHL) again. I have no doubts whatsoever.THN: There&rsquo;s obviously a lot of heat&mdash;from the media and the fans in Vancouver&mdash;on you. Is it tougher on, say, your family than on you?BL: Well, (laughs),! think of my (10-year-old) son at school and he had a pretty good line. He was getting razzed by some kid who said I was going to lose my job. My son said to him, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s okay. They can&rsquo;t fire him from being my Dad. I think my family realizes that I love them, despite the hockey. Hockey is never on the same scale as the family.THN: Are you still completely confident in your abilities as a coach, despite all that has happened and the possibility you could get fired?<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0003-012/5210131-1-eng-US/m0003-012.jpg" title="m0003-01" width="1539" height="1565"><figcaption class="caption-body">&lsquo;I can go tomorrow and coach a midget team in Alberta and it&rsquo;s not going to have any effect on how I cope with things as a human being. &lsquo;</figcaption></div>BL: Yes, I&rsquo;m more confident now than I was in August or September. Now I know I can definitely do it. That might seem funny for a guy who is 2-10, but I feel that way.THN: Is there a big difference dealing with men in the NHL instead of kids in junior hockey?BL: I think it&rsquo;s a lot similar. I think the star players on your team (in pro) are a lot different. You don&rsquo;t spend as much time talking to them, one on one, as you would in junior. I think the average player still appreciates a chance to sit down and talk with the coach and find out where he fits in the team picture.THN: You came into the NHL with some different notions. The first one that comes to mind was dividing your training camp into three teams&mdash;Pride, Hustle and Desire&mdash;which garnered a lot of media attention and a fair bit of criticism. How do you think the players reacted to that type of thing?BL: I think they realized those are the things you need to be successful I think they still realize if we don&rsquo;t have them, we&rsquo;re in trouble. Sure, it caused a lot of controversy, but really, those are the things everyone needs to be successful in the world whatever you&rsquo;re doing, not just playing hockey. I&rsquo;m not worried about getting the axe here, because I know I&rsquo;ve got those things and I can go tomorrow and coach a midget team in Alberta and it&rsquo;s not going to have any effect on how I cope with things as a human being.THN: Are you saying that if you&rsquo;re fired, you&rsquo;d just want to get right back into coaching, at any level?BL: Yeah, they wouldn&rsquo;t have to worry about paying out my contract, I can tell you that. It wouldn&rsquo;t be a bottom line thing for me. I would get a job coaching as soon as possible. I coach because I want to coach. I don&rsquo;t perceive the National Hockey League as the thing. I want to coach, I love the game and I&rsquo;m here because of that reason. I&rsquo;m not a coach because I&rsquo;m in the NHL. I&rsquo;m a coach, period.THN: You&rsquo;re 33, the youngest coach in the NHL. Did you ever set a timetable for yourself, that yob had to be in the NHL by a certain time.BL: When I left Enoch five years ago to coach in Oshawa, I said I&rsquo;d be in the NHL in five years.THN: Did you really believe that?BL: Yeah, I totally believed it. You&rsquo;ve got to remember that five years ago right now I was coaching a Junior B team on an Indian reserve outside of Edmonton. I never knew one person in tier two, major junior or pro hockey. And here I am, coach of the Vancouver Canucks. If you want an incredible journey, that&rsquo;s as good as any one. That&rsquo;s why if they say tomorrow, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re fired&rsquo;, I&rsquo;ll go out and start working my way back. I think that given the time&mdash;Harry told me it&rsquo;d take until Christmas to even get my feet wet&mdash;I know I can do it.THN: When you went to the Oshawa Generals, it was the start of notoriety for you. You carried the tough-guy reputation to Regina and really, you became one of the best known and notorious junior hockey coaches in Canada. Was that done by design?BL: No, not really. But I guess I gave everyone a lot to write about. When I was suspended for 50 games from the OHL, a lot of people thought that was going to hurt me. I have to admit it probably helped my career. It got me known pretty quick. Fifty games, just like 50 wins, eh? Maybe that&rsquo;s where I get the 50 figure from.THN: Based on the year in Oshawa, you were accused of coaching a goon hockey team. Is that a fair assessment?BL: No, I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve ever coached a goon team. A goon team to me is one that will spear and butt end. My teams wanted to win at all costs. But by no means did I ever send out someone to spear or hurt another player.THN: But there was a helluva lot of fighting and running goaltenders through the end boards.BL: Oh yeah, there was. I thought goalies were fair game. I didn&rsquo;t like seeing them coming out to play the puck. We definitely took a lot of penalties and brawls erupted as a result.THN: You&rsquo;re most famous&mdash;or infamous&mdash;for the Peterborough Pete incident, which put you in the national spotlight. What happened?BL: I was in my office during the pregame warm-up and I was told they were fighting on the ice. I went out there and saw (Pete coach) Dave Dryden on the ice and he was, I&rsquo;m sure, just pulling one of my players off one of his guys. But he had a hold of my player and the Peterborough player started taking advantage of the situation. So I went out and grabbed Dryden and we tussled, but there were no punches thrown. It was reported&mdash;and the report went on the wire across Canada&mdash;that we went toe to toe, but we didn&rsquo;t. When the altercation broke up, I went back to the office and on the way, Doug Evans stuck me with his stick. I threw him to the ground, no doubt about that, but I didn&rsquo;t hit anybody.THN: You were given a 50-game suspension for that. Was it fair?BL: I didn&rsquo;t think I should have gotten any more than Dave Dryden. What he&rsquo;d get? Four or eight? But (OHL commissioner) Dave Branch thought otherwise and that&rsquo;s all that matters.THN: After a successful, but stormy, year with Regina, you went to Kamloops. At that point, did you feel you had to tone down the tough guy image and prove you could coach a team that didn&rsquo;t require the intimidating physical presence?BL: Yeah, I did. I wanted to prove I wasn&rsquo;t just an intimidating coach. Every team I coached, I had a great power play. In Regina, we were over 30 per cent on the power play and over 90 per cent on penalty killing. We could afford to play rough because we were good on both special teams. But no one noticed that.THN: That sounds an awful lot like the Philadelphia Flyers when they won their two Stanley Cups, doesn&rsquo;t it?BL: Yeah, definitely. If I had an idol team, it was definitely the Flyers&hellip;I just thought I was a better coach than I was being given credit for. My teams were being called goons and I knew they weren&rsquo;t.THN: So after only four years in junior, culminated with a trip to the Memorial Cup, you jumped directly to the NHL. In retrospect, do you feel that you went into it a little too rah-rah, too optimistic or idealistic?BL: I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m rah-rah at all. That&rsquo;s blown out of proportion. I may have different ideas, but it&rsquo;s a simple hard work approach. I believe in slogans and people criticize me for that. Well, if you don&rsquo;t want to believe in the PHD thing, fine, don&rsquo;t believe in it. I don&rsquo;t keep bringing it up. In fact, after training camp, I never mentioned it again. But some of the players did.I&rsquo;m not a rah-rah guy. I&rsquo;m a down-to-earth guy who doesn&rsquo;t pull any punches. If you&rsquo;re waiting for the big pep talk every night, you&rsquo;re in the wrong place.When I go to bed each night, I say my prayers and put that day aside. You can&rsquo;t dwell on it. Nothing is past as yesterday&rsquo;s defeat or victories. That&rsquo;s how I look at it.THN: Is this period with the Canucks your worst in hockey?BL: No, it was worst in Oshawa at first. We were 1-9-1 and we were just playing terrible.But I saw good things then just as I do now. I look at Thomas Gradin and Patrik Sund-strom. I didn&rsquo;t really know what kind of people they were going to be because they&rsquo;re hard to communicate with. They&rsquo;re not Canadians. Now, just after 12 games, am I starting to feel comfortable around these guys. Petri Skriko, the kid from Finland, can hardly speak English. On this team, we&rsquo;ve got French Canadians, Czechs, Swedes, Finns and North Americans. Those are a lot of different cultures. When you&rsquo;re talking to the team, you start wondering if the French Canadian guy is getting the same message as the Czech or the Swede or the Finn. It was helluva lot easier in junior with a bunch of kids from Western Canada.THN: All things considered, do you think the reputation you&rsquo;ve got is fair?BL: Well, I don&rsquo;t know how I can ever complain about the image, good or bad. It was the image that helped to get me here so fast. I&rsquo;m sure there are some guys out there with lily-white images who have coached for 20 years and never gotten the opportunity I&rsquo;ve received. I can&rsquo;t complain. I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m Attila of the Hun. I think I&rsquo;m a fair guy, a pretty easy-going guy.I know most of the guys that play with me think I&rsquo;m alright. A week won&rsquo;t go by that I don&rsquo;t&rsquo; get a phone call from a player I&rsquo;ve coached who wants some advice. I really pride myself on the friendships I&rsquo;ve made in the past years. Like Doug Bodger, for example. He sent me a new van when he got drafted in the first round by Pittsburgh. Mind you, it was a little dinky toy. He had it all painted up in Vancouver colors and a Canuck sticker on it. He wrote me a beautiful letter thanking me for the year we had in Kamloops. I used to kid him that when he got drafted in the first round, he&rsquo;d have to buy me a new van. Sure as hell, I&rsquo;ve got the van. It&rsquo;s on my desk.THN: One of the things you&rsquo;ve become most famous for is the eating of a Eve lizard. What&rsquo;s the story on that?BL: I was working construction and we caught this lizard. We had a foreman who was a real grouch, nothing ever made him happy. We stuck it in a sandwich in his lunchbox. He went to eat the sandwich and it popped out and he screamed his head off. It was right in the lunchroom in front of everybody so he went to the supervisor and wanted to have us fired. I said, &lsquo;What&rsquo;s the big f&hellip;&hellip;deal, for $50, I&rsquo;ll eat the thing.&rsquo; There was $50 on the table in no time. I was only 18, so what was I going to do? Back down? No way. I ate it. No big deal. I ate one half, then the other half. The guys almost died, (laughs) I have to admit I went out after and tried to throw up, but I couldn&rsquo;t. It was just one of those things. Hey, that was a long time ago. Fifty bucks was 50 bucks. That was a lot of money. I should have said 500 bucks cause I probably would have got that from the guys, but it&rsquo;s in the past, I can&rsquo;t do anything about and I don&rsquo;t worry about that kind of stuff.THN: Are you still basically the same guy you were 18 years ago?BL: Yeah, I&rsquo;d always do anything to win. I was of average talent, but I&rsquo;d work harder than anybody else. I&rsquo;m a lot wiser now. When you&rsquo;re young, you fly off the handle more. I&rsquo;m a little less bothered by things now.THN: The death of your baby daughter earlier this year must have made it very difficult for you coming into a new job in the NHL?BL: She died the week after the Memorial Cup. All through the playoffs, she had good days and bad days. But that is all in God&rsquo;s hands. I guess it&rsquo;s taught me to be thankful for the four healthy children I&rsquo;ve got.So tomorrow, if I&rsquo;m not the coach of the Vancouver Canucks, I know that the day after that I&rsquo;ll still be Bill LaForge, a person, proud of the family I&rsquo;ve got, proud of what I&rsquo;ve done, what I&rsquo;ve accomplished. &#9632;

m0001-02

The Interview: Bill LaForge

<div class="byline">By Jeffrey Lieberman</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0002-012/5210169-1-eng-US/m0002-012.jpg" title="m0002-01" width="982" height="1371"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Illustration by R.T. Pie)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;My sports editor doesn&rsquo;t know or care about hockey at the best of times. &ldquo;&mdash;U.S. reporter quoted in THE HOCKEY NEWS editorial, Sept. 21, 1984.I&rsquo;m outraged, America. Hockey may be the national sport of Canada, but it&rsquo;s rarely accused of challenging the American stand-bys of baseball and football.Why not? What&rsquo;s wrong? Baseball and football have action. Hockey has more action. Baseball and football have speed and strategy. Hockey has more speed and strategy. So what&rsquo;s the problem? Why are those big network bucks being laundered into Foul-Ups, Bleeps and Blunders? We&rsquo;re in trouble, folks. I&rsquo;m talking lost revenues.What to do? The sport, itself, is sound enough. Knock an insignificant black disc into a bunch of netting. Yawn. What we need is spice. Easier said than done&mdash;to wit, my modest 10-point proposal.1. Have you ever tried following that miserable little puck? Forget it. No one can. And on TV&hellip;forget it! Try following the puck on a 10-inch portable.What to do? Simple. Enlarge the puck. A 12-inch diameter should do. Keith Jackson, who once went silent during the closing seconds of a Montreal-Boston telecast due to &ldquo;an undisclosed ailment,&rdquo; later learned to be &ldquo;puck eye,&rdquo; will be back. An NBC white paper, Hockey: Forget It!, revealed that commentators and viewers were simply unable to follow the action. No more excuses. Bring on Howard Cosell.2. Let&rsquo;s stop taking the game so seriously. Inject a bit of levity. Baseball and football players seem to be having fun. Hockey players snarl. That&rsquo;s depressing. Let&rsquo;s put the &ldquo;yuk&rdquo; back into hockey. Design skates with breakaway blades. Use unbalanced pucks. Watch the crazy passes and bounces. Encourage fans to pour onto the rink after a big game, as is common in other sports. Picture, if you will, 5,000 crazed lunatics on ice. What action! What fun! The networks, I promise you, will eat it up. During faceoffs, toss the puck up, a la basketball, rather than down. The wild swinging and shopping should be hysterical.3. Americans love statistics. Most can&rsquo;t count to 12 without their Apple computer, but can easily compute earned run averages and passing percentages. Even fans with no interest in hockey love numbers. Let&rsquo;s be realistic. Hockey stats are boring. Shots on goal. Great stuff. New stats are a must. How about a scarring ratio? Stitches given divided by stitches taken. Love it! Hello, CBS.4. Humanize the goalie. Every year, we design new pads. Padding on padding on padding. And masks! He looks like a building. We need people out there, not office space. Viewers need someone to relate to&hellip;someone with whom they can sympathize. The little guy alone against the big, cruel world. Viewers relate to human beings&hellip;sensitive, fragile, human. Forget the padding and masks. We&rsquo;re going for the bucks. Protection is a necessary sacrifice. For the good of the sport, I want a small, frail human being in goal&hellip;cold, scared, alone. What could be more pitiful? Now add a 6-foot-5, 250-pound muscle-bound center from Saskatoon, firing a 12-inch puck point blank at 110 miles per hour, and watch the fun. That&rsquo;s entertainment!5. Billy Martin, Earl Weaver and others have made names for themselves and generated tremendous press coverage for their teams by their on-field showmanship. Hockey coaches, on the other hand, are a sorry, lethargic lot, standing glumly behind the players&rsquo; bench, chewing gum, pacing and looking bored., C&rsquo;mon guys! Get on the stick! Throw equipment. Throw snowballs. Throw tantrums. Let&rsquo;s kick a little ice! Watch for replays on World News Tonight.6. Exposure. If Joe Namath can sell pantyhose, Guy Lafleur can hawk Oil of Olay. And who but Peter and Anton Stastny would be better for Doublemint (i.e. Double-Czeching)? Let&rsquo;s go after the kids with Saturday morning cartoons: Boxcar Hospodar Meets the Cabbage Patch Kids. I&rsquo;m drooling. Are you?7. To your average baseball fan, nothing compares with the thrill of catching an errant foul ball. Sadly, few pucks ever leave the hockey rink. A small adjustment is essential&mdash;the glass around the rink goes. With the added incentive of catching an authentic 12-inch NHL puck, attendance and fan interest should rise dramatically. And imagine the thrills of watching a winger bodychecked into the third row! The soaring TV revenues should more than cover personal injury settlements.8. What&rsquo;s in a name? Plenty. The Super Bowl! The World Series! The Stanley Cup? Excuse me while I wretch. Forget it. A joke. Inspires chuckles, not respect. We need Scar Wars! That, folks, will pre-empt Love Boat.9. Parity has worked for football; it can work for hockey. The best play the best, the worst play the worst. Break up the Edmonton Oilers into two new teams and realign them into a Gretzky Conference. They play only each other. Let&rsquo;s nip this dynasty in the bud.Everyone finishes the regular season in a dead tie. At least then, the playoffs make sense. Rather than eliminating a few teams, everyone gets to play! Dump the five-and-seven-game series. First rule of television: keep the viewer&rsquo;s attention. Let&rsquo;s take the football approach again (nothing succeeds like success) and have a one-game playoff round. Winner takes all. For the loser, it&rsquo;s back to Moose Jaw. Interest remains at a peak and the finals are met with Super Bowl enthusiasm. Thank you. I know it&rsquo;s brilliant.10. Petition your congressman. Write your senator. Let&rsquo;s have hockey named the national sport. Lobbyists, under my supervision, wine and dine politicians from Washington to Fresno. Hit the lecture circuit. Call Phil Donahue. Put hockey back on the tube. Or at least get me the recognition I deserve. Do it today&hellip;for hockey.Jeff Lieberman is a Philadelphia attorney, who claims to be a writer and freelance terrorist for the Sports underground (U.S. branch), representing hordes of loyal hockey fanatics in the United States. &#9632;

m0002-01

Ten Sure Ways To Sell Hockey In The U.S.

ROBERT LETH, 31, has a hockey record, but you won&rsquo;t find his name in the NHL Guide. That&rsquo;s because his record is the kind you put on a turntable.Leth, president of Puck Records in Toronto, has produced a digitally-recorded 10-song rock album with hockey as the theme.After writing the songs with Howard Helm, Leth enlisted the Team Rock All-Stars, a collection of rock musicians&mdash;Steely Dan drummer Bernard Purdie, Triumph&rsquo;s Gil Moore, The Good Brothers, to name a few&mdash;and and Toronto-area hockey personalities&mdash;Rick Vaive, Reid Bailey, Brian Glennie, Jim McKenny&mdash;to record the album.Vaive, the Maple Leaf captain, even sings lead vocals on a tune called Penalty Box Blues.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s actually quite a good singer,&rdquo; Leth says of Vaive. &ldquo;He does an Elvis-type imitation so that song was written especially for him.&rdquo;Leth says he&rsquo;s not interested in making any money on the project, which is being used strictly as a fund raiser for minor hockey.He&rsquo;s soliciting minor hockey groups to buy the album and sell it instead of the traditional chocolate bars or draw tickets.&ldquo;We&rsquo;d have to sell 40,000 albums to the hockey groups just to break even on our side,&rdquo; Leth says. &ldquo;We did this because we&rsquo;re all hockey parents. My 10-y ear-old son is a goalie and the songs are for and about kids playing hockey.&rdquo;Leth intends to come out with another hockey rock album next season.Rock on&hellip;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0002-022/5210200-1-eng-US/m0002-022.jpg" title="m0002-02" width="982" height="682"><figcaption class="caption-body">TEAM ROCK: Vaive And Leth</figcaption></div><h2>Big Or Small, We&rsquo;ve Got Them All</h2>HERE IT IS, the long and the short of it in the National Hockey League:Tallest Player: Five behemoths tie for this honor. They are: Minnesota&rsquo;s Dave Richter, Ranger Willie Huber, Philadelphia&rsquo;s Dave Brown; Winnipeg&rsquo;s Jim Kyte and Buffalo&rsquo;s Adam Creighton, all 6-foot-5.Shortest Player: Quebec&rsquo;s J.F. Sauve, 5-foot-6.Heaviest Player: Ranger Willie Huber and Philadelphia&rsquo;s Tim Kerr, tied at 225 pounds.Lightest Player: A three-way tie, at 150 pounds, between goaltenders Don Beaupre (Minnesota), Allan Bester (Toronto) and Frank Caprice (Vancouver).Oldest Player: Detroit&rsquo;s Brad Park and New Jersey&rsquo;s Glenn (Chico) Resch, both 36.5 years old.Youngest Player: Chicago&rsquo;s Ed Olczyk, 18.3 years old.And just so you know, the average NHL player is six feet, 189.1 pounds and 25.4 years old. &#9632;

m0002-02

Vaive Sings A New Tune

<div class="byline">By Don Cherry as told to Stan Fischler</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="m0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0005-01/5210231-1-eng-US/m0005-012.jpg"></div>People say I don&rsquo;t like European hockey players, but that&rsquo;s not true.I like them a lot&mdash;as long as they play for European teams.It&rsquo;s just that I like Canadian and American hockey players better. (No offense Borje, Anders and Jari).Seriously, I have great respect for those Swedes, Czechs and Finns. They&rsquo;ve shown me that they can skate like the wind, put the puck in the net and, as a group, have great hockey sense.You don&rsquo;t expect me to sit here and tell you that Kent Nilsson or Anders Hedberg or Jari Kurri are lousy hockey players. I&rsquo;m not that foolish.However, when it comes to comparing Europeans with North American players, I must produce a big but.During the National Hockey League&rsquo;s regular season, people such as Mats Naslund, Thomas Gradin and the rest of the Scandinavians play like gang busters. They&rsquo;re dynamite.Now here comes the but. But, on the Don Cherry Scale of Values, what really matters is how a hockey player performs in the playoffs. You know as well as I that guys can get away with some loafing and stuff during the regular season but the real hockey players show their stuff in April, when it counts. There&rsquo;s no higher compliment for a big leaguer than to say, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a playoff player.&rdquo;Now, you tell me the name of one top-notch European who had a good playoff last year.Take the Edmonton Oilers and look at what Jari Kurri has scored in nine Stanley Cup final games? Why, I could kick in two goals playing alongside Wayne Gretzky.What I&rsquo;m saying is this: if you give me a choice between a slick European such as Kurri and a mucker in the mold of John Tonelli, I&rsquo;ll take Tonelli and win a lot of games.Now, that does not make me anti-European. What I&rsquo;m saying is that I am pro-American and proCanadian.My real beef is over the preferential treatment the Europeans get over the North Americans. The Detroit Red Wings grab a couple of Czechoslovakian players and they have to pay a pile of money to the Czech Hockey Federation.So, the Czechs come to camp competing with the Canadian and American kids. Let&rsquo;s say, for the sake of argument, the Canadian has a better camp. You would think the Canadian kid would have a spot locked up, but it doesn&rsquo;t happen that way. What happens is that the NHL clubs have such a great investment in the Europeans that they favor them. That&rsquo;s my gripe.They&rsquo;re not as good as our kids but our kids get sent down, and I&rsquo;m totally against the unfairness of it all and I don&rsquo;t see why we should bend over backwards for them.Another thing that tees me off is the double standard we have toward North Americans and Europeans. When we deal with our homegrown players these days, we say they&rsquo;re over-the-hill by the time they&rsquo;re 28. But when it comes to the Europeans we say they&rsquo;re just developing by 28. Make up my mind, fellas!Oh, I know that the pseudo-intellectuals of the NHL think I&rsquo;m a nut, but they can&rsquo;t seem to make the distinction I make between the purity of hard work and style without substance.The pseudo-intellectuals say I&rsquo;m too red-necked. Well, I&rsquo;ve got news for them: the term red-neck has its derivation in the 19th century, when farmers toiled long and hard in the fields, and their necks got red from the sun.When it comes to hockey and Europeans versus North Americans, yeah, I&rsquo;m a red-neck, and I&rsquo;m proud of it. &#9632;

m0005-01

‘I’m A Red-Neck And Proud Of It’

<div class="image-hero"><img title="m0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0007-012/5210297-1-eng-US/m0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Minny&rsquo;s Dino Ciccarelli sizes up the situation.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0007-02/5210290-1-eng-US/m0007-022.jpg" title="m0007-02" width="1409" height="870"><figcaption class="caption-body">St. Louis Blue captain Brian Sutter is a study in intensity.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0007-03/5210283-1-eng-US/m0007-032.jpg" title="m0007-03" width="509" height="616"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0007-04/5210276-1-eng-US/m0007-042.jpg" title="m0007-04" width="505" height="611"><figcaption class="caption-body">For Toronto&rsquo;s Rick Vaive and Buffalo&rsquo;s Phil Housley, right and far right, respectively, the eyes have it.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0007-05/5210269-1-eng-US/m0007-052.jpg" title="m0007-05" width="1407" height="841"><figcaption class="caption-body">New York Ranger Dave Maloney appears set to enter the fray.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/m0007-06/5210262-1-eng-US/m0007-062.jpg" title="m0007-06" width="1389" height="1949"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hartford&rsquo;s Ray Neufeld looks for some divine intervention.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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December 7, 1984

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