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.

May 1, 1987

The Hockey News May 1, 1987

<div class="byline">BY BEN KUZMA</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01484/5086053-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="114" height="106"></div>KAMLOOPS, B.C.&mdash;There is something to be said for compromise.The emotional waters which run between Kamloops Blazers&rsquo; center Rob Brown and coach Ken Hitchcock were not always still, in fact, they were turbulent at the start of the 1985-86 Western League season.But Brown and Hitchcock learned to understand each other, accept each others&rsquo; idiosyncracies and get on with the task at hand.The Blazers won the WHL last season with Brown and Hitchcock living in better harmony. And this season, Brown rewrote the record book while Hitchcock guided Kamloops to its fourth consecutive first-place showing in the West Division.For their tolerance and talent, Brown and Hitchcock were rewarded with the league&rsquo;s most prestigious awards. Brown was named player of the year, Hitchcock coach of the year.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Hitch and I are all ways going to have our differences.&rsquo;</blockquote><blockquote class="pullQuote">&mdash;Brown</blockquote>For Brown, a fourth-round Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; draft, his fourth and possibly final season in the WHL won&rsquo;t soon be forgotten.The 5-foot-11, 182-pound Brown established new standards for career points (522), career assists (343), single-season assists (136) and singleseason points (212) in this, his fourth WHL season.But maturing both on and off the ice ranks right up there with the 19-year-old&rsquo;s scoring feats.&ldquo;I respect Hitch a lot. He&rsquo;s a great coach.&rdquo; said Brown. &ldquo;He knows the players that can win for him and he gets them.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had my differences all my career with him and for a while there (1985-86) it looked like I was going to go to the Ontario League. But we sat down and we got everything out.&ldquo;Hitch and I are always going to have our differences. We&rsquo;re going to argue. There are things I don&rsquo;t like about him and things he doesn&rsquo;t like about me. But when we get on the ice, when the game&rsquo;s on, I know without him coaching our team is not going to win and he knows without me playing we&rsquo;re not going to win.&rdquo;Even though Brown enjoyed a spectacular season, there have been drawbacks&mdash;two of them, in fact.First, he wasn&rsquo;t chosen for Canada&rsquo;s national junior team. And second, an ankle injury suffered in the final regular-season game kept Brown out of the playoffs until the fifth game of the division final. It proved costly as the Blazers fell behind 4-1 in the best-of-nine series with Portland Winter Hawks.The national team disappointment left the laid-back Brown perplexed. He was the top scorer at the summer camp looked upon as the criteria for selection to the main camp. Yet he wasn&rsquo;t invited.Aside from the usual knocks on Brown&mdash;he&rsquo;s not big enough and doesn&rsquo;t skate well enough&mdash;the fact he doesn&rsquo;t eat, sleep and drink the game 24 hours a day may have been the deciding factor.In short, if you&rsquo;ve got a rigid team mold, Brown won&rsquo;t fit it.&ldquo;Once the game&rsquo;s over I like to do my own thing,&rdquo; said the St. Albert, Alta, native. &ldquo;When I&rsquo;m on the ice it&rsquo;s a totally different thing. When it comes down to the final two minutes in a tie game, I know Hitch would have me out there.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m the type of player who&rsquo;s going to go out and take command. I&rsquo;m going to score the winning goal when we need it.&rdquo;As expected there were many who came to Brown&rsquo;s defense. The fact that a player who missed the first eight WHL games and still managed to collect 76 goals and 136 assists in 64 games wasn&rsquo;t on the national team left more than just Brown shaking his head.&ldquo;On emotion maybe he shouldn&rsquo;t have been there (national team),&rdquo; said Hitchcock, &ldquo;but on skill he&rsquo;s the first guy you pick. How many nights did he take off?&rdquo;While Brown has caught just about everybody&rsquo;s eye, it&rsquo;s taken Hitchcock a little longer to get credit. And if the paying of dues has anything to do with it, well, Hitchcock has paid them. He was a unanimous choice in voting by his peers.In his third season behind the Kamloops bench, Hitchcock racked up 55 wins with a team that made a dozen roster changes from the previous season.&ldquo;The award means a lot because of the guy (Dune McCallum) it&rsquo;s named after,&rdquo; said Hitchcock. &ldquo;He was the consummate team coach of those great Brandon teams and to be in his select company means a lot.&ldquo;I thought last year was the best job I did as a coach. I think this year a lot of credit should go to my assistants Don Moores and Don Hay. They became more involved in running the team.&rdquo;Meanwhile, Brown was also named the West Division&rsquo;s top player. Other division honors went to Glen Wesley of Portland (top defenseman), Dennis Holland of Portland (top rookie), Dave Archibald of Portland (most sportsmanlike) and rookie Dean Cook of Kamloops (leading goalie).Named to the West Division&rsquo;s first all-star team were goalie Drago Adam of New Westminster, Wesley, Greg Hawgood of Kamloops, Brown, left winger Brent Hughes of Victoria and right winger Robin Bawa of Kamloops.On the second team were goalie Peter Fry of Victoria, defensemen Chris Joseph of Seattle and Mike Berger of Spokane, center Glen Goodall of Seattle, left winger Ken Priestlay of Victoria and right winger Ron Shudra of Kamloops.The East Division all-star teams and award winners were to be named at a later date.WHL WEEK&mdash;Kamloops was in danger of being eliminated earlier than anticipated after a 9-5 home-ice loss to Portland put the defending WHL champions down 4-1 in the best-of-nine West Division final. Rob Brown had two goals and three assists in a losing cause after returning from his ankle injury. Portland won the opener 8-6, dropped the second game 6-3 and then rebounded with 7-3 and 9-5 win-s&hellip;In the East Division, Saskatoon won the opener of the best-of-seven division final with Medicine Hat 4-1 before dropping game two by a 5-4 count. &#9632;

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The Juniors

Kamloops Duo Earns Top League Honors

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02116/5086448-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="553" height="920"><figcaption class="caption-body">Terry Ruskowski, above, had respect for coach Bob Berry&rsquo;s hockey systems.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01175/5086455-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="126" height="114"></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;To a man, the Pittsburgh Penguins had been expecting coach Bob Berry and assistant Jim Roberts to be fired.But that does not mean Berry&rsquo;s former players endorsed the moves.&ldquo;After three years, this team hasn&rsquo;t made playoffs and we need changes somewhere,&rdquo; center Mario Lemieux said. &ldquo;And when they make changes, it&rsquo;s always the coaches who get fired.&ldquo;But they did a good job with players we have. It&rsquo;s hard to criticize them.&rdquo;&ldquo;When a team doesn&rsquo;t do as well as expected, the first guys to get the axe are the coaches,&rdquo; captain Terry Rus-kowski said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the unwritten rule.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s too bad those were the circumstances this time around. They&rsquo;re very good coaches.&rdquo;&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll certainly be sorry to see them go,&rdquo; left winger Randy Cunneyworth said. &ldquo;They gave me an opportunity to break into this league.&rdquo;Penguin vice-president Paul Martha, who made the decision to replace Berry and Roberts, said they were fired because he &ldquo;had lost confidence&rdquo; in their ability to get the Penguins into the playoffs.The Penguins have not qualified for post-season play since 1981-82. They finished two points out of fourth place in the Patrick Division last season, four points this year.Martha said Berry likely would have been retained had the Penguins made the playoffs, but apparently did not consider that Lemieux missed 17 games with a knee injury and bronchitis, or that injuries routinely stripped the lineup of key players such as Rus-kowski and defenseman Moe Mantha for protracted periods.&ldquo;When we were missing Moe Mantha, that was a lot of offense,&rdquo; Rus-kowski said. &ldquo;And with Mario out, we were missing almost the whole team.&ldquo;Without the injuries, we could have had at least 10 more wins and we would have been way up there in the standings.&rdquo;Ruskowski, like most of his team-mates, said Berry&rsquo;s shortcoming was as a communicator, not a coach.&ldquo;They have a very good system. I agree with their system, like it a lot. He and Jimmy had very good practices.&ldquo;The only thing is, maybe Bob could have more communication with the players.&rdquo;Given the number of young prospects such as Zarley Zalapski, Rob Brown, Dave McLlwain and Lee Giffin who figure to move into the Penguins&rsquo; lineup in the near future, Berry&rsquo;s successor likely will have strong credentials as a teacher.Among the early candidates are Paul Theriault of the Ontario League&rsquo;s Oshawa Generals, Terry Crisp of the American League&rsquo;s Moncton Golden Flames, Gene Ubriaco of the AHL&rsquo;s Baltimore Skipjacks, and Washington Capital assistant coach Ron Lapointe. Ubriaco is the only one Martha would publicly acknowledge.And so Berry, who suffered through the arduous early stages of the Penguins&rsquo; rebuilding plan, will not be around to enjoy whatever benefits eventually are reaped.He made the sacrifices, but will get none of the satisfaction.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we have anything to be ashamed of,&rdquo; Berry said. &ldquo;I really believe this team is headed in the right direction.&rdquo;But wherever the Penguins are going, they will get there under new leadership.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>PEN POINTS&mdash;Defenseman Norm Schmidt was to undergo back surgery which is expected to sideline him until at least late November-&hellip;Paul Martha said no decision has been reached on the $2 across-the-board raise in ticket prices the Penguins are considering. &#9632;

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Fired Berry Had The Support Of His Players

<h2>PLAYOFF STANDINGS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01171/5086386-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="537" height="448"></div><h2>CAMPBELL CONFERENCE</h2>PRELIMINARY ROUNDDivision Semi-Finals<h3>NORRIS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02104/5086379-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="530" height="106"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>WED. APR. 8TORONTO 1 AT ST. LOUIS 3THU. APR. 9TORONTO 3 AT ST. LOUIS 2SAT. APR. 11ST. LOUIS 5 AT TORONTO 3SUN. APR. 12ST. LOUIS 1 AT TORONTO 2TUE. APR. 14TORONTO 2 AT ST. LOUIS 1THU. APR. 16ST. LOUIS 0 AT TORONTO 4<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0376/5086372-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="530" height="106"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>WED. APR. 8CHICAGO 1 AT DETROIT 3THU. APR. 9CHICAGO 1 AT DETROIT 5SAT. APR. 11DETROIT 4 AT CHICAGO 3SUN. APR. 12DETROIT 3 AT CHICAGO 1Division Semi-Finals<h3>SMYTHE DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0462/5086365-1-eng-US/f0041-042.jpg" title="f0041-04" width="530" height="106"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>WED. APR. 8LOS ANGELES 5 AT EDMONTON 2THU. APR. 9LOS ANGELES.3 AT EDMONTON 13SAT. APR. 11EDMONTON 6 AT LOS ANGELES 5SUN. APR. 12EDMONTON 6 AT LOS ANGELES 3TUE. APR. 14LOS ANGELES 4 AT EDMONTON 5<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0551/5086358-1-eng-US/f0041-052.jpg" title="f0041-05" width="530" height="106"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>WED. APR. 8WINNIPEG 4 AT CALGARY 2THU. APR 9WINNIPEG 3 AT CALGARY 2SAT. APR. 11CALGARY 3 AT WINNIPEG 2SUN. APR. 12CALGARY 3 AT WINNIPEG 4TUE. APR. 14WINNIPEG 3 AT CALGARY 4THU. APR. 16CALGARY 1 AT WINNIPEG 6<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0645/5086351-1-eng-US/f0041-062.jpg" title="f0041-06" width="382" height="400"></div><h2>WALES CONFERENCE</h2>Division Semi-Finals<h3>ADAMS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0742/5086344-1-eng-US/f0041-072.jpg" title="f0041-07" width="530" height="106"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>WED. APR. 8QUEBEC 2 AT HARTFORD 3THU. APR. 9QUEBEC 4 AT HARTFORD 5SAT. APR. 11HARTFORD 1 AT QUEBEC 5SUN. APR. 12HARTFORD 1 AT QUEBEC 4TUE. APR. 14QUEBEC 7 AT HARTFORD 5THU. APR. 16HARTFORD 4 AT QUEBEC 5<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0833/5086337-1-eng-US/f0041-082.jpg" title="f0041-08" width="530" height="106"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>WED. APR. 8BOSTON 2 AT MONTREAL 6THU. APR. 9BOSTON 3 AT MONTREAL 4SAT. APR. 11MONTREAL 5 AT BOSTON 4SUN. APR. 12MONTREAL 4 AT BOSTON 2<h3>PATRICK DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0923/5086330-1-eng-US/f0041-092.jpg" title="f0041-09" width="532" height="108"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>WED. APR. 8NY RANGERS 3 AT PHILADELPHIA 0THU. APR. 9NY RANGERS 3 AT PHILADELPHIA 8SAT. APR. 11PHILADELPHIA 3 AT NY RANGERS 0SUN. APR. 12PHILADELPHIA 3 AT NY RANGERS 6TUE. APR. 14NY RANGERS 1 AT PHILADELPHIA 3THU. APR. 16PHILADELPHIA 5 AT NY RANGERS 0<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1021/5086323-1-eng-US/f0041-102.jpg" title="f0041-10" width="532" height="108"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>WED. APR. 8NY ISLANDERS 3 AT WASHINGTON 4THU. APR. 9NY ISLANDERS 3 AT WASHINGTON 1SAT. APR. 11WASHINGTON 2 AT NY ISLANDERS 0SUN. APR. 12WASHINGTON 4 AT NY ISLANDERS 1TUE. APR. 14NY ISLANDERS 4 AT WASHINGTON 2THU. APR. 16WASHINGTON 4 AT NY ISLANDERS 5SAT. APR. 18NY ISLANDERS 3 AT WASHINGTON 2Division Finals<h3>NORRIS DIVISION TORONTO VS DETROIT</h3>TUE. 21 AT DETROIT; THU. 23 AT DETROIT; SAT. 25 AT TORONTO; MON. 27 AT TORONTO; WED. APR. 29 AT DETROIT; FRI. MAY 1 AT TORONTO; SUN. MAY 3 AT DETROIT.<h3>SMYTHE DIVISION WINNIPEG VS EDMONTON</h3>TUE. APR. 21 AT EDMONTON; THU. APR. 23 AT EDMONTON; SAT. APR. 25 AT WINNIPEG; MON. APR. 27 AT WINNIPEG; WED. APR. 29 AT EDMONTON; FRI. MAY 1 AT WINNIPEG; SUN. MAY 3 AT EDMONTON.<h3>ADAMS DIVISION QUEBEC VS MONTREAL</h3>MON. APR. 20 AT MONTREAL; WED. APR. 22 AT MONTREAL; FRI. APR. 24 AT QUEBEC; SUN. APR. 26 AT QUEBEC; TUE. APR. 28 AT MONTREAL; THU. APR. 30 AT QUEBEC; SAT. MAY 2 AT MONTREAL.<h3>PATRICK DIVISION NY ISLANDERS VS PHILADELPHIA</h3>MON. APR. 20 AT PHILADELPHIA; WED. APR. 22 AT PHILADELPHIA; FRI. APR. 24 AT NEW YORK; SUN. APR. 26 AT NEW YORK; TUE. APR. 28 AT PHILADELPHIA; THU. APR. 30 AT NEWYORK; SAT. MAY2 AT PHILADELPHIA.<h2>SEMI-FINALS</h2><h3>WALES CONFERENCE</h3>GAME ONE MAY 4, GAME TWO MAY 6; GAME THREE MAY 8; GAME FOUR MAY 10, GAME FIVE MAY 12, GAME SIX MAY 14; GAME SEVEN MAY 16.<h3>CAMPBELL CONFERENCE</h3>GAME ONE MAY 5; GAME TWO MAY 7; GAME THREE MAY 9; GAME FOUR MAY 11; GAME FIVE MAY 13; GAME SIX MAY 15; GAME SEVEN MAY 17.<h3>STANLEY CUP FINALS</h3>If either conference final goes six or seven games, the Cup final dates are aslollows:GAME ONE MAY 20; GAME TWO MAY 22, GAME THREE MAY 24; GAME FOUR MAY 26; GAME FIVE MAY 28; GAME SIX MAY 30; GAME SEVEN JUNE 1.If both conference finals go only four games, the cup final begins May 14, with ensuing games every other day. If both conference finals go only five games, the cup final begins May 16 with ensuing games every other day. &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

STANLEY CUP SCOREBOARD

<h2>Tue. Apr. 14</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01208/5086240-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="561" height="2719"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02133/5086233-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="555" height="1730"></div><h2>Thu. Apr. 16</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0389/5086226-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="543" height="943"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0465/5086219-1-eng-US/f0040-042.jpg" title="f0040-04" width="553" height="1742"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0549/5086212-1-eng-US/f0040-052.jpg" title="f0040-05" width="550" height="1191"></div><h2>Sat. Apr. 18</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0642/5086205-1-eng-US/f0040-062.jpg" title="f0040-06" width="544" height="496"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0737/5086198-1-eng-US/f0040-072.jpg" title="f0040-07" width="538" height="481"></div><h2>WORLD TOURNAMENT</h2><h3>Fri. Apr. 17</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0832/5086191-1-eng-US/f0040-082.jpg" title="f0040-08" width="545" height="560"></div><h3>Sat. Apr. 18</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0928/5086184-1-eng-US/f0040-092.jpg" title="f0040-09" width="541" height="529"></div> &#9632;

f0040-01

NHL SUMMARIES

In next week&rsquo;s May 8 issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS, we will take a look at the National Hockey League awards up for grabs and who the leading contenders for each of them are.There are a number of interesting races shaping up, not the least of which is for the Calder Trophy (rookie of the year) and the Vezina Trophy (top goaltender).In rookie balloting, no fewer than three players&mdash;Los Angeles Kings Luc Robitaille and Jimmy Carson and Philadelphia Flyer goalie Ron Hextall&mdash;are legitimate candidates.And as for the Vezina, the experts see it coming down to a two-man race, involving Hextall and Hartford Whaler netminder Mike Liut.Plus, we&rsquo;ll have complete updates on the Stanley Cup playoffs as well as first-rate coverage of the World Championships in Vienna. &#9632;

NEXT WEEK

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021036/5084307-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="348" height="435"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Dryden</figcaption></div>There&rsquo;s not a lot wrong with the International League that a name change wouldn&rsquo;t rectify.Not that commissioner Bud Poile is contemplating one. It&rsquo;s just that for years, the league has been associated more with mayhem than magic on ice. Casual fans have cast a wary eye towards the &lsquo;I&rsquo;. Even aspiring professionals, have considered with dread the possibility of playing in professional hockey&rsquo;s lowest minor league.Well, the times have changed.Sure, the league remains firmly fixed below the American League, and sure the league has its share of hitmen, but its status is definitely on the rise.In the opinion of the National Hockey League, anyway.The IHL is expected to play a larger and larger role in player development, helping to fill the void left behind by the Central League&rsquo;s demise several years ago.This past season, only the St. Louis Blues had their top farm club in the IHL (at Peoria). Poile expects more teams to take root next season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been told that we can expect to have five clubs as No. 1&rsquo;s (top NHL affiliates),&rdquo; said Poile. &ldquo;Calgary in Salt Lake, Minnesota in Indy, Peoria in St. Louis, Chicago in Saginaw and New York Rangers in Denver.&rdquo;Considering Denver, for one, doesn&rsquo;t even have a franchise yet, Poile could be accused of being a touch optimistic. But, why not, he has reason.The &lsquo;I&rsquo; is coming off what is believed to be its best season ever in terms of attendance. More than 1.2 million fans watched the league&rsquo;s nine teams this year&mdash;an average of 3,263 per game. That&rsquo;s an increase of better than 400 a game.Calibre of play, with 70 players assigned by NHL teams, has increased, while craziness has generally decreased. The IHL still features the most penalty minutes of all three leagues, but its 51.5 minutes-per-game average is only slightly higher than the AHL&rsquo;s 49.1. (The NHL&rsquo;s average is 45.3.)Not that there isn&rsquo;t room for improvement. It boggles the mind that somebody could accumulate a world-record 648 penalty minutes in one season, as Kevin Evans of Kalamazoo did this season.But, Poile had the good sense to banish Andy Ristau earlier this year. He&rsquo;s the guy who was involved in a recent pre-game brawl between Hershey and Rochester in the AHL.Poile, who helped put together the Broad St. Bullies in Philadelphia, says there is a place for tough guys in the game, but not at the expense of good players.The two seem to be living in harmony, with the heavily-penalized (and aptly-named?) Muskegon Lumberjacks winning the East Division and middle-of-the pack Fort Wayne Komets leading the West.&ldquo;Sure you can have your heavies,&rdquo; says Poile, &ldquo;but you&rsquo;ve got to have some good hockey players, too.&rdquo;Hopefully, in the future, there will be even more of the latter and less of the former.<h2>Hockey Hijinks Paul Wieland</h2>Paul Wieland, undeniably, has a sense of humor.That has probably been a priceless asset over the past two years for the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; director of communications.If he weren&rsquo;t laughing so much, he might be crying&mdash;considering the hard times Buffalo has fallen upon.Almost as hard as the falls a good number of hockey people have taken over the years on April 1. That&rsquo;s the date of Wieland&rsquo;s annual April Fool&rsquo;s Day press release.Nobody does it better. Of course, nobody else does it.Since 1975, when Wieland announced the Sabres were planning a training camp in Honduras&mdash;to further the growth of Central American hockey&mdash;he has been pulling the wool over the hockey world&rsquo;s eyes.Invariably, people believe what they see and hear through the media. As do journalists themselves, who have faithfully reported such news as the introduction of check-o-grams ($250 for a Sabre to bodycheck an unsuspecting friend any place, any time), Sabre honor guards at weddings and complete computerization of Sabre hockey&mdash;right down to the programming of player movements on the ice.In 1982, Wieland promoted Buffalo as America&rsquo;s hockey team, with the help of the White House (much to its surprise). He commissioned an artist to design a bogus Time magazine cover, which included the assurance a presidential proclamation inside named the Sabres, &ldquo;America&rsquo;s Team.&rdquo;White House stationery was added for effect.As usual, Wieland&rsquo;s unwitting public fell for it hook, line and sinker. But the White House failed to see any humor in the situation, so Wieland decided against mixing politics and sport too closely in the future.He has remained, however, the funniest front-office man in the NHL.His plots, which have tripped up countless media people, are usually grand schemes&mdash;witness his creation and cable production of The Hockey Net television satellite&mdash;but are sometimes as simple as conjuring up a bumper sticker with Japanese script.&ldquo;Think Stanley Cup&rdquo; were the words few would understand&hellip;except for Taro Tsujimoto, the Tokyo center drafted in 1974. The Sabres, bored with late-round proceedings, borrowed the name of a local business and announced him as their selection.The gag lasted until training camp, where a dressing room stall was set aside for him.In what rates as something of a changing of the guard, this year&rsquo;s release (promoting Sabre Meadows, a real estate development for Buffalo players and their fans) was conceived by assistant public relations director Budd Bailey.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011266/5084300-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="1453" height="2022"><figcaption class="caption-body">Chris Chelios and goalie Brian Hayward celebrate after Montreal Canadiens clinched the Jennings Trophy with an 8-2 victory over New York Rangers on the final night of the regular season.</figcaption></div>But, Wieland, a 48-year-old Buffalo native who has been with the Sabres since their origin, hasn&rsquo;t bailed out on his favorite pastime.He is still committed to hockey hijinks, because as he says, &ldquo;I enjoy being in the sandbox of life.&rdquo;<h2>Numbers Game Jennings Title</h2>It figures a refugee from the world of baseball (and its insidious number of numbers) would tip us off to this one.THN copy editor Richard Beales, whose labor is hockey and labor of love baseball, wondered recently what would have happened had Montreal ended the regular season with the lowest goals-against average and Philadelphia the fewest goals against.That was a very real possibility, since GAA is based on 60-minute games and the advent of regular-season overtime means that all 21 teams no longer finish with the same number of minutes played.So, a team can give up more goals but still have a lower GAA. Calgary, for instance, permitted the 11th-most goals but because of fewer minutes played than Pittsburgh and St. Louis, finished with the 13th-best GAA.We asked NHL director of information Gary Meagher what would have happened were Montreal and Philadelphia in a similar situation.That very point had been raised and it was decided the NHL would remain true to the wording of the Jennings honor, which goes &ldquo;to the goalkeepers&hellip;for the team with fewest goals scored against it.&rdquo;Philadelphia, then, in the circumstances outlined above, would have been awarded the Jennings. Why should they, pointed out Meagher, be penalized for deciding their games more often within regulation time? Mind you, the counter-argument is that overtime goals are in included in goals-against totals.As it was, the Flyers collapsed in game 80 (giving up nine goals against the Islanders); allowing the Canadiens to sneak past them in both categories (2.91 to 3.03, 241 to 245).Curiously, despite the NHL&rsquo;s insistence that goals against and not goals-against average are of paramount importance, Calgary is the 13th team listed in end-of-season league statistics, and not 11th.A small point, but there is the matter of consistency.<h2>&lsquo;Good Coach&rsquo;-Terry Crisp</h2>Quote of the week:&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s be honest, Terry Crisp (as a coach) has proven nothing in the NHL&hellip;So Terry Crisp has no right to demand the moon. But I also have enough faith in myself that I&rsquo;m a damn good coach and that eventually I will prove it.&rdquo;&mdash;Moncton coach Terry Crisp, page 33. &#9632;

f0003-02

Departments

Beauty In ‘I’ Of Beholder

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011295/5084338-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="338" height="467"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jay Greenberg</figcaption></div>EVERY SPRING, AS the drama of each playoff series is played to its conclusion, we could just congratulate the winners, note that they did a fine job of converting the breaks they received and eagerly look forward to the next round.But noooooooo. Not in any paper I&rsquo;ve ever worked for. Or not in too many I&rsquo;ve ever read, either. Nobody gets off that easily, pal. As many as four members of the losing team, but preferably only one, had to&hellip;CHOKE. ARRRRRRRGGGH Yes sir, CHOKE. Dry-mouth, sweaty-palmed, gonna-throw-up, somebody-else-has-gotta-do-it-because-I-have-to-go-the-bathroom choke. Give &lsquo;em the Heimlich maneuver. Cut through their tracheas to remove that apple. And while you&rsquo;re at it, do a heart transplant, too.Here in Philadelphia, we used to wait a series or two before noting that Brian Propp was not challenging any of Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s playoff goal-scroing records. Now we start off with Propp key for Flyers vs. Rangers in game one tonight. And then go from there.Why. we haven&rsquo;t seen such a miserable playoff failure since Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier, were absolute can&rsquo;t-stand-the-pressure disgraces in 1978 and 1979. Or at least since that overrated Wayne Gretzky let us all down so much in 1983, the first year the Oilers made it to the finals.And now I hear this Kevin Dineen kid in Hartford, who, now that I think about it, always struck me as a gutless wimp who couldn&rsquo;t play under pressure, was being frustrated by Quebec. Montreal sweeps Boston again? Where was Ray Bourque again?He was trying, undoubtedly, and getting more attention from the league&rsquo;s best defensive team than say, Allan Pederson, did. And getting bumped and checked and frustrated and, no doubt, hearing about it on the talk shows.I remember when the Islanders had pigged out to Toronto and the Rangers in consecutive years and they were never, ever going to win unless they started over and made big changes. Bill Torrey made one. He traded for a good second-line center in Butch Goring. All of a sudden the choke artists began winning every game they played in overtime. Three months later they owned the first of four consecutive Cups.Watching the Flyers try to squeeze through its first-round playoff series with the Rangers made for another interesting example. The Flyers have gone out in the first round four of the last five years.So here they were, after a 100-point season in which they looked little better than average from December on, back in the position of having to prove they&rsquo;could play under pressure.The fact they they were facing their Ranger tormentors again only added to the anxiety. They had just won a hearts-in-their-throats fifth game to go up 3-2, when a generic question about the Flyers&rsquo; tentative first period tapped right into Mark Howe&rsquo;s heart.&ldquo;Sure it was nerves,&rdquo; said Howe. &ldquo;After what it&rsquo;s been through, this team is nervous. There&rsquo;s so much pressure. Take Brian Propp, he&rsquo;s starting to hear again about how he hasn&rsquo;t scored in the playoffs. But he&rsquo;s working hard and he&rsquo;s getting chances (10 shots that night) and he had as much to do with us winning tonight as anybody on the team.&ldquo;Brian has become a scapegoat and that&rsquo;s unfair. When we haven&rsquo;t won, it&rsquo;s because he hasn&rsquo;t scored, but when we win we always stress it&rsquo;s as a team. But he has to hear it when we&rsquo;ve lost and it just keeps building up on him and up on him. Sure it has to affect him.&ldquo;The one year we went to the finals he was our leading scorer in the playoffs. Then he didn&rsquo;t score against Edmonton and everybody blamed him. Tim Kerr was out, Dave Poulin had busted ribs and that didn&rsquo;t help Brian either, but nobody wanted to hear that.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough on Brian and here we are expected to go to the finals again and that gets tough on us, too. The talent in this league gets closer every year, a lot of series are won because a team gets hot goaltending or gets hot on its power play. The difference between winning and losing is so small. And when you don&rsquo;t win, it can be just one of those things. Timing and the breaks mean everything.&rdquo;Propp had one goal in five games as Howe spoke. He was however, playing as hard as Howe said. The Flyers ahead 3-2, looked like they might be able to win without him busting loose.So it had to be a Ranger, at least until they had a chance to get the series tied again, who was failing. Ah, here was just the man: Walt Poddubbny, an 87-point scorer, without a point in five games. Didn&rsquo;t they used to say in Toronto that Poddubny disappared in the playoffs?&ldquo;It&rsquo;s got me frustrated and bleeped off more than anybody,&rdquo; said Poddubny. &ldquo;I feel like I&rsquo;m not holding up my end of the bargain.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m having a tough series and I know it. Marcel Dionne is having a tough series and Tomas Sandstrom is, too. And we&rsquo;re the last people you&rsquo;ve got to tell.&rdquo;But always the first people to hear it. The playoffs are without question the most exciting time of year. Also, the crudest. &#9632;

f0004-01

Columnists

Coping With The Cruel Kiss Of The Playoffs

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021210/5084369-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="122" height="118"></div>UNIONDALE, N.Y.&mdash;Stanley Cup history will never forget 73 saves by a goaltending machine named Kelly Hrudey. It will forever remember 128 minutes, 47 seconds of hockey by a giddy band of New York Islanders and a terribly depressed group of Washington Capitals.At 1:55 a. m. on Easter Sunday at the Capital Centre, six hours and 15 minutes after the Islanders and Washington Capitals faced off in game seven of their wonderful Patrick Division semifinal series on Saturday night, Pat LaFontaine banked a 45-foot slap shot off the left goal post and into Bob Mason&rsquo;s net, ending the longest National Hockey League game in 44 years.LaFontaine&rsquo;s goal, on assists from Gord Dineen and Ken Leiter at 8:47 of the fourth 20-minute sudden-death overtime period, advanced the Islanders to the Patrick Division finals against the Flyers.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll remember it the rest of my life,&rdquo; Duane Sutter said.The goal did not just give the Islanders an exhausting 3-2 victory over the Caps in the fifth-longest game in NHL history. It did not just place the 1987 Islanders alongside the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, the 1975 Islanders, and the 1985 Islanders as teams that have rallied from the brink of playoff elimination by winning three straight games.What this triumph did was allow an overachieving collection of under-dogs&mdash;which once trailed the favored Capitals three games to one&mdash;to escape the mystique of its four-time Stanley Cup predecessors.The 1987 Islanders can now stand alone.The only problem was, at 2 o&rsquo;clock on Easter Sunday morning nobody could stand at all.&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ask me anything about the first five periods, because I&rsquo;ve forgotten already,&rdquo; said Hrudey, the series hero, who slumped in his locker with a look of dazed disbelief dripping from his face. &ldquo;I thought it was a dream. I never thought I could face 75 shots and let in two goals. I hope you don&rsquo;t expect me to do that again. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.&rdquo;The Capitals outshot the Islanders 75-57. Bob Gould was credited with 12 of Washington&rsquo;s shots, six in the second overtime period. Referee Andy van Hellemond and linesmen John D&rsquo;Amico and Ron Finn skated every second of the marathon.&ldquo;It was like running a marathon,&rdquo; said Islander trainer Craig Smith, who dispensed potassium tablets and oxygen in the dressing room between overtime periods and high-carbohydrate drinks on the bench.With 5:23 remaining in regulation, when this was just another great playoff game, Bryan Trottier slipped a 15-foot backhand between Mason&rsquo;s skates to tie the game 2-2.Washington had taken a 2-1 lead at 18:45 of the second period on a goalmouth shot by Grant Martin, the rookie&rsquo;s first NHL goal. It came on Washington&rsquo;s 24th shot, which meant that Hrudey stopped the Capitals&rsquo; last 51 shots in a span of 90:02.&ldquo;I looked up at the shot clock one time,&rdquo; Mason said. &ldquo;I saw (Hrudey) had made about 70 saves like that and I had made 50 or so. I felt like I hadn&rsquo;t done anything.&rdquo;Mason couldn&rsquo;t do anything about LaFontaine&rsquo;s winner. Dineen faked a slap shot from the top of the right circle that froze Rod Langway, then ambled down right wing and behind Mason&rsquo;s net.Dineen whirled into the left circle and shot. Kevin Hatcher blocked the shot, which slid to the blue line. &ldquo;I was going back to cover for Gordie,&rdquo; LaFontaine said. &ldquo;When the puck came to me, I just slapped it and hoped I&rsquo;d get it on net.&rdquo;ON THE ISLE&mdash;What made the series triumph more amazing is that Isles were without center Brent Sutter (groin) for the entire series, right winger Mike Bossy for games three to seven, defenseman Denis Potvin (back) for games five to seven, and defenseman Brian Curran (groin) for games six and seven. &#9632;</div>

f0004-02

Isles Outlast Capitals In Marathon Decider

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031033/5084400-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="156" height="92"></div>LANDOVER, Md.&mdash;Few who saw it will ever forget. Try as they may, the 20 members of the Washington Capitals will never push the memory of the longest game in 44 years from their minds.When Pat LaFontaine scored for the New York Islanders after 68 minutes and 47 seconds of sudden-death overtime early Easter Sunday, he was ending the longest Stanley Cup playoff game since Toronto downed Detroit 3-2 in a 1942-43 semi-final game. He also was finishing the Capitals&rsquo; 13th season, yet another cruel blow in the improbable history of a luckless franchise.The Capitals fired 75 shots at New York&rsquo;s Kelly Hrudey and put only two past him. Yet they never trailed until the end. First Mike Gartner and then Grant Martin gave Washington leads in the seventh and decisive game of the Patrick Division semi-final series. But Patrick Flatley and Bryan Trottier, with only 5:23 left in regulation time, pulled the Islanders even.Both teams had innumerable chances to end it, before Gord Dineen&rsquo;s shot in the fourth overtime was blocked by Kevin Hatcher and caromed directly to LaFontaine, who wound up and lined New York&rsquo;s 57th shot off the post and into the Washington net.While the Islanders piled atop LaFontaine, the Capitals never moved. A team that had led by three games to one, in the first season of best-of-seven preliminary rounds, had managed to let another slip away.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t see the shot,&rdquo; said Capital goalie Bob Mason. &ldquo;All I heard was a clank and I thought it might have come out. Then I saw them jumping and I saw the light and I felt just empty. I&rsquo;m frustrated. I can imagine how everyone else felt.&rdquo;Seven periods of hockey left the players drained, both physically and mentally.This was no case of teams sitting back waiting for a break. Washington had 39 shots in overtime, the Islanders 36. Bob Gould put 12 shots on goal, six in the second extra period, when the Capitals launched 17 at Hrudey. After that, the younger Islanders seemed to come on while the Capitals faded.Mason won his first two playoff starts on Long Island, including a shutout, to give Washington a 3-1 lead. Pete Peeters played well in game five at Capital Centre, but Hrudey was sensational&mdash;and the Islanders, outshot 42-24, kept the series going with a 4-2 triumph.Mason returned to the nets for game six, only to find many of his teammates out to lunch. Mason faced 20 shots in the first period, a Washington playoff record, and limited the Islanders to a 2-0 lead on two rebounds. The Capitals bounced back to take a 3-2 lead and seemed headed for the clincher, but three straight Washington giveaways were turned into goals and the Islanders prevailed 5-4 to force the historic seventh game.The 68:47 of overtime marked the fifth longest in Stanley Cup history. The game began at 7:38 p.m. on Saturday and finally ended at 1:56 a.m. Sunday.CAPSULES&mdash;The Capitals were not shut out all season, but they were blanked over the last 90 minutes by Kelly Hrudey&hellip;Washington play-byplay man Ron Weber, in his 1,073rd straight Caps&rsquo; broadcast, was on the air from 7:15 p.m. to 2:19 a.m. &#9632;

f0004-03

Long Night’s Journey Into Mourning

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011167/5084431-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Michel Goulet was the object of a death threat in Hartford, but it was Peter Stastny, inset, who killed the Whalers with an overtime goal in game six.</figcaption></div>Badaboum boogied at center ice at Le Colisee, while in a corridor behind Quebec&rsquo;s dressing room, team president Marcel Aubut and general manager Maurice Filion did the same.If it had been a dance contest, Badaboum, the team&rsquo;s mascot, would have lost.&ldquo;This is great, this is great,&rdquo; Aubut yelled.And so it was, for the Nordiques and the province. Not only would a Quebec-Montreal series rekindle old competitive fires, it was sure to generate enough dollars to keep the breweries that control the respective teams from crying in their beer.The Nordiques, who finished fourth in the Adams Division with 72 points, eliminated the Hartford Whalers, who finished first with 93, by rallying from a 2-0 deficit to win four straight games.The series had a little bit of everything: a controversial ending to game one, hat tricks by Peter Stastny, Michel Goulet and John Ogrod-nick, a wild prediction by goaltender Mario Gosselin that just happened to come true, nonstop verbal baiting by coach Michel Bergeron, climaxed by Ulf Samuelsson&rsquo;s game misconduct and suspension, a death threat, a bomb scare, a record 202 penalties for a record 611 minutes and a sea of white as 15,383 Quebecois dressed up like Good Humor men and women to support their heroes in game six.The series was good, bad and mostly ugly. But in the end, Quebec won because a special athlete&mdash;Pet-tah Stastny&mdash;broke free in a special spot of a special game, and naturally, did something special.Like beat Mike Liut for the series-winner at 6:05 of overtime.&ldquo;I was so happy that we got the Whalers in the first round, so there would be the possibility to get our revenge,&rdquo; Stastny said.Last year the fourth-place Whalers swept the injury-riddled, division-champion Nordiques three straight in a best-of-five series. After the Whalers won the first two in Hartford this year, it looked as if they might do it again.The Nordiques were underdogs, to begin with, and in game one, they caught a terrible bounce. Ogrodnick beat Liut in a tied game just before or just after the final buzzer. It was so, so close. With time standing still, referee Ron Hoggarth conferred with goal judge Arthur Reichert and linesman Ron Finn, and the goal was disallowed.Paul MacDermid&rsquo;s overtime goal won it for the Whalers 3-2, after which Bergeron went bonkers.&ldquo;It was a human mistake, like it always is,&rdquo; said Bergeron, who implied none too subtly that Hoggarth, Reichert, Finn and the National Hockey League in general were out to get him and the Nordiques. &ldquo;I love old people. I really do. But their reaction time is slow.&rdquo;Reichert, 75, probably spent the rest of the series praying that the Whalers wouldn&rsquo;t win in seven so that he wouldn&rsquo;t wind up being the only senior citizen in North America ever to be refused a drink at the Chateau Frontenac&rsquo;s piano bar. As it turned out, his prayers were answered.After Hartford went up 2-0 with a 5-4 win, the series returned to Quebec for what many thought would be the Nordiques&rsquo; last stand, including Bergeron, perhaps Filion, and certainly many of the players.Aubut, obviously, was concerned.&ldquo;We are all friends and we trust each other,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There is no jealousy. Maurice has been here since day one, and Michel and Gilles (Leger) and the rest, well, there has never been a problem.&rdquo;Rank not only has its privileges, but its obligations.&ldquo;If there is to be a change, I am the guy who will do it,&rdquo; Aubut said. &ldquo;But I can tell you right now, I don&rsquo;t want to do it. Our people haven&rsquo;t lost their abilities in the last 24 hours. We must keep things in perspective. We still think we can beat Hartford.&rdquo;Gosselin, a 23-year-old French dynamo from Thetford Mines, Que., was sure of it.In French newspapers, he made betting services everywhere wince when he publicly advised the Quebecois to &ldquo;bet their farms&rdquo; on the Nordiques in game three, and he didn&rsquo;t stop there.&ldquo;We will win both games on the weekend, beat them in Hartford and then wrap things up back here in game six,&rdquo; Gosselin said.Then he went out and stopped 57 of 59 shots in games three and four as Quebec posted 5-1 and 4-1 victories to even the series. Stastny had a hat trick in game three, Goulet had one in game four.Bergeron was in his glory.&ldquo;This is the first time in 16 years of coaching that I&rsquo;ve ever had to win five games to win a series.&rdquo; he said.Not only were the Whalers playing right into his hands by taking one mindless retaliatory penalty after another, Bergeron claimed center stage himself in game four. He enticed Samuelsson, the Whalers&rsquo; all-star defenseman, to make an obscene hand gesture at him that produced a game misconduct, Samuelsson&rsquo;s second of the series that carried with it a one-game suspension.Samuelsson sat out game five. Goulet, who clearly was enjoying the role of underdog after so many years of playing top dog, was told by a phone caller to the Sheraton Hotel in Hartford that he had better sit out, too.&ldquo;The same voice called three times and said, &lsquo;You will be killed tonight,&rsquo;&rdquo; Goulet said. &ldquo;I thought it was (Clint) Malarchuk. He likes to do funny things. It was a very strange thing.&rdquo;Goulet, who had 49 goals this year after seasons of 53, 55, 56 and 57, acted playfully throughout.&ldquo;Everyone in Hartford is thinking Stanley Cup,&rdquo; he said with an impish grin, &ldquo;but first they must come through Quebec.&rdquo;At 27, Goulet seems to have found a peaceful kind of maturity. He took more than a few good-natured runs at the Whalers.&ldquo;This is the first time they are supposed to win something,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Now they know how we have felt. They are learning a lesson that all teams that are thinking Stanley Cup must.&rdquo;Which is?&ldquo;To win four series like this, you have to win the first.&rdquo;When Ogrodnick netted his hat trick by beating a struggling Liut 67 seconds from the end for the winner in a 7-5 decision in game five, the Nordiques were flying.Until they got to Bradley International Airport for a chartered flight home, that is.A bomb scare, received via telephone by air traffic controllers at Bradley, delayed the Nordiques for two-and-a-half hours, but couldn&rsquo;t unravel Bergeron.Asked if such a delay might affect his team&rsquo;s concentration, Bergeron said, &ldquo;If the plane blows up, yes. If not, no. But if it does blow up, you will be witness to the most beautiful funeral in the history of the province.&rdquo;Not only can Bergeron wax poetical, he can coach, too.He slowed the speedy Whalers with agitation tactics that included holding, interference and some downright nasty fighting. The Whalers fell for the ploy, hook, line and sinker. Bergeron solved the two-year riddle of how to stop Kevin Dineen by checking him with the Alain Cote-Paul Gillis-Mike Eagles line and defenseman Robert Picard, who had a marvelous series. Dineen spent much of the first five games in the penalty box and had more black eyes&mdash;one, compliments of Randy Moller&mdash;than points&mdash;none.Dineen answered the final bell with two goals and one assist as the Whalers built a 4-1 lead in game six. But when Dean Evason speared Basil McRae, the last senseless deed in a series of senseless deeds by the Whalers, and was ejected, the tide turned.Stastny and Jason Lafreniere scored powerplay goals, sandwiched around an evenstrength strike by Ogordnick, to forge a 4-4 tie. Overtime ensued.After a faceoff in the Whalers&rsquo; end, Moller hit Dale Hunter, who sent Stastny away with as pretty a 55-foot, backhanded pass as you&rsquo;ll ever see.&ldquo;I stopped skating,&rdquo; Hunter said. &ldquo;There couldn&rsquo;t be a better hockey player going down alone than Pete. I was just glad it was him and not me.&rdquo;When Stastny slipped the puck past Liut at the left post, it closed the book on one of the more unlikely and dramatic comebacks in playoff history.&ldquo;In a tight division like this,&rdquo; Stastny said with an eye toward Hartford, &ldquo;a little satisfaction can work to your advantage.&rdquo;Ah, satisfaction.They stared long and hard at a haunting memory, a miserable season and, down 2-0, pending disaster. But in the end, the Quebec Nordiques finally found theirs.For more on the series, see page 18. &#9632;

f0005-01

AT LAST!

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011349/5084462-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="333" height="452"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stan Fischler</figcaption></div>I have never met Gerry McNamara, general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. It may be too late, but suddenly I feel a terrific urge to help him preserve his job.Nothing personal, mind you; just the nagging feeling that this man is getting the short end of the stick&mdash;if any end at all&mdash;from the piranhas in the Toronto newspapers.Few hockey executives in recent memory have suffered the indignities heaped upon him by the media as McNamara has in the past two months. That includes Herb Brooks, Ted Sator and Craig Patrick, who absorbed some heavy flak from the Manhattan branch of the Professional Hockey &ldquo;Routers&rdquo; Association.In Toronto, the heavy artillery began firing in earnest at McNamara last month. The assault guns, disguised&rdquo; as typewriters, were manned by Jim Hunt of the Sun, Al Strachan of the Globe and Mail and Jim Proudfoot of the Star, which shows you how ecumenical they can be in good old T.O. The headlines on their columns give you an idea of the gang-up.Sun: &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s hope Leafs miss playoffs.&rdquo;Globe: &ldquo;Leafs trying to light firing under McNamara.&rdquo;Star. &ldquo;Ballard must dump McNamara.&rdquo;It reads like wolfpack journalism and smells like something out of Curly, Larry and Moe. In fact the Toronto trio might be as funny as The Three Stooges, were it not for Strachan&rsquo;s insidious implication that the Leafs were clearly trying to lose their way out of a playoff berth&mdash;just to force McNamara&rsquo;s exit.Now when you&rsquo;re talking about professional hockey players deliberately losing hockey games&mdash;especially in the homestretch&mdash;you&rsquo;re treading on pretty thin journalistic ice.&ldquo;The Toronto players,&rdquo; wrote Strachan on March 24th, &ldquo;are on the horns of a major dilemma. They would like to make the playoffs, but they don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s worthwhile if it means another year of McNamara as general manager.&rdquo;If true, that&rsquo;s heavy stuff. Heavy enough for NHL president John Ziegler to launch a probe and, first of all, demand evidence from Strachan.Selling out your team for some hidden reason implies the dirtiest word in sports: &ldquo;dumping.&rdquo; In this case the purpose is supposedly getting McNamara fired, or to employ Strachan&rsquo;s words, &ldquo;they don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s worthwhile&rdquo; (to make the playoffs) because of McNamara. Perhaps it was true, but where&rsquo;s the evidence? Occasionally, mutinous situations are backed up by quotes, even anonymously to support the premise.Such was the case in the episode when Herb Brooks allegedly called Barry Beck a &ldquo;coward.&rdquo; And during the anti-Ted Sator uprising last season, a number of Rangers were quoted, albeit anonymously, on specific points of dislike over Sator.If Strachan has statements&mdash;even a single quote&mdash;from Maple Leafs players, they were conspicuously absent from the piece. Nevertheless, I took Strachan at his word and watched with interest to see how the Leafs were, as the Globe told me, &ldquo;Trying to light firing under McNamara.&rdquo;Frankly, Wendel Clark & Co. did it in a very curious way: they won hockey games. Not long after Strachan&rsquo;s column, the mutiny against McNamara included major wins over the Edmonton Oilers and Winnipeg Jets.Still, there was time for the Leafs to get McNamara the hell out of there, simply by blowing a playoff berth. A loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in the final match of the regular season at Maple Leaf Gardens would have helped. In what was the Leafs&rsquo; biggest win of the season, they prevailed 3-1 and made the playoffs.Some mutiny. They reached the playoffs for the second year in a row, a claim that cannot be made by the Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota North Stars, Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres, to name a few.If Leafs were so anxious to get McNamara axed, they surely could have helped the cause in their second playoff game at St. Louis. The Blues rebounded to tie the score late in the third period and were&mdash;or so it seemed&mdash;charging to victory. Yet Rick Lanz, a player obtained by McNamara during the season, scored the winner for Toronto in overtime. And the Leafs rallied again to tie the Blues two games apiece after being down 2-1. Some mutiny.You want the truth? There&rsquo;s no mutiny against McNamara, except in the minds of some Toronto writers who&rsquo;d be delirious with joy at his demise. What there is, quite simply, is what you find, more or less, in 21 out of 21 NHL dressing rooms, at one time or another&mdash;bitching.Players gripe about money, about practices, about the weather and, of course, about their coach and GM. At Maple Leaf Gardens, the bitching was at its loudest under the Punch Imlach dictatorship during the 1960s. Coincidentally, Leafs won four Stanley Cups under Punch&rsquo;s iron fist.The anti-coach decibel count was even higher a few years later in Montreal. You wouldn&rsquo;t believe some of the griping directed at Scotty Bowman. All the mutinous Canadiens did was win a lousy five silver mugs while cringing under the Bowman whip.The beautiful part is that McNamara, like Imlach and Bowman, doesn&rsquo;t cosy up to his critics. No phony-baloney let&rsquo;s-make-friends-over-lunch, Mr. Nice Guy stuff for him, even if it means having the big guns trained on him.&ldquo;Once a reporter is unfair to me,&rdquo; McNamara said in a recent telephone interview, &ldquo;he doesn&rsquo;t exist to me anymore.&rdquo;McNamara&rsquo;s burden is twofold: he doesn&rsquo;t believe in the Jacques Demers, public relations-at-all-costs school of hockey management. On top of that, he must shoulder some of the problems caused by his irascible owner, Harold Ballard, who will lock writers out of his dressing room at the drop of a key.&ldquo;My feeling is that if I do something wrong, criticize me,&rdquo; McNamara explained. &ldquo;But don&rsquo;t criticize me just because you don&rsquo;t like me, or because we don&rsquo;t let you in the dressing room. I don&rsquo;t run roughshod over anyone. Everyone gets an equal opportunity with me.&rdquo;McNamara often has been painted by the Toronto media as irrational and overemotional. Perhaps. But on the phone he sounded perfectly reasonable in discussing his problems with the press.&ldquo;My biggest problem is that I won&rsquo;t compromise myself,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Not for anyone&mdash;and that gets me into trouble.&rdquo;As any Toronto fan would, the Leafs GM becomes furious at the suggestion that his players wouldn&rsquo;t put out because of a dislike for him.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s ludicrous,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;These players are the ones who were brought along in the organization by me. I know all of the kids and they know that I&rsquo;d go to the wall for them.&rdquo; The thought has crossed McNamara&rsquo;s mind that his critics are unhappy with the Leafs progress. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m doing a good job,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;m happy with myself.&rdquo;Is McNamara unfairly dumped on by the Toronto media? He mentions a game at Capital Centre on March 13th as an example.&ldquo;We were beaten 10-2, but all they (reporters) talked about was the Washington power play. But we were playing with only three men on the ice because of two major penalties. Sure, we got beaten, but the next night we came home to play the Flames and they had the hottest team in the league at the time.&ldquo;It was a big game for us, in the stretch, and we beat them; which says something about our hockey club.&rdquo;Yes, it certainly does. And one thing it says is that the Leafs didn&rsquo;t go into the tank to get the GM fired. Contrary to media expectations&mdash;and hopes, I might add&mdash;they made the playoffs.So who&rsquo;s &ldquo;dumping&rdquo;&mdash;the players or McNamara&rsquo;s critics? &#9632;

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‘Mac’ Attacks Most Unfair To Leaf GM

<div class="byline">BY AL MORGANTI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02974/5084493-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="554" height="868"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Tocchet emerged as a big shooter for the Flyers against New York.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03636/5084500-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="146" height="108"></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;No matter what happens in the coming weeks, the Philadelphia Flyers have assured themselves that they don&rsquo;t have to go through another summer of answering questions about why they can&rsquo;t beat the New York Rangers in the playoffs.And at least for one spring, they aren&rsquo;t going to have to check the TV news and newspapers to see what&rsquo;s going on in the playoffs.Because the Flyers are still in them.That&rsquo;s right. All those people who were so sure Philadelphia couldn&rsquo;t undo the so-called Ranger jinx got an eyeful at Madison Square Garden in the final game of the series where the Flyers crushed New York 5-0.Thus, they advanced to the second round of the playoffs against the New York Islanders&mdash;the same second step they needed in 1985 when they beat the Rangers in the first round, and then the Isles on the way to the Stanley Cup finals.And just like 1985, they are having injury problems in the playoffs. Only this time, the injuries are happening earlier.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>The victory over the Rangers, which clinched the series 4-2, came at a very high cost. Already missing forwards Ron Sutter (bad back) and Ilkka Sinisa-lo (broken foot), the Flyers suffered the loss of captain Dave Poulin (cracked rib), and Murray Craven (broken foot).Poulin and Craven were expected to be out at least 10 to 14 days, and possibly up to three weeks. In addition, defenseman J.J. Daigneault suffered a sprained ankle earlier in the series and would be lost for another week.If you&rsquo;ll recall, Poulin was also hampered in the spring of 1985 when he played the final with a flak jacket to protect injured ribs, forward Tim Kerr was hobbled with a bad knee, and defenseman Brad McCrimmon had a separated shoulder.But there is also a bright similarity to 1985&mdash;the play of goalie Ron Hextall, who looks as if he might lead the club as the late Pelle Lindbergh did two springs ago.The shutout by Hextail in the sixth game was his second of the series. And you&rsquo;ve got to know that there were more than a few people who wanted to see Hextall&rsquo;s peformance in a playoff series before believing his rookie talents.Over the course of the six games. Hextall gave up only 13 goals.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a great deal of confidence in Ron Hextall,&rdquo; said Flyer coach Mike Keenan, &ldquo;and I think his confidence level will continue to grow as the playoffs continue.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got great leadership qualities.&rdquo;The Flyers also got strong performances from Mark Howe and Brad Marsh, who scored two goals in the series, tying his output for the regular season.&ldquo;There was a bit of a revenge measure in this series,&rdquo; said Marsh. &ldquo;We couldn&rsquo;t help but read and hear the things people were saying about us having troubles with the Rangers in the playoffs.&ldquo;So, this really feels good. Especially since we beat them here in Madison Square Garden.&rdquo;Also on the list of series heroes were Rick Tocchet, who scored five goals, and Peter Zezel, who came back from a knee injury to play a key role in games two through six.But perhaps the biggest star was Derrick Smith, whose dogged checking helped limit Ranger forward Tomas Sandstrom to just one goal in the series, and kept New York&rsquo;s leading scorer, center Walt Poddubny, off the score sheet altogether.Before the series began, Tocchet was given a pep talk by veteran goalie Chico Resch, who was around the New York Islanders when they were developing into a dynasty.&ldquo;Chico told me that guys like Bobby Nystrom and Clark Gillies weren&rsquo;t heard from an awful lot for scoring goals in the regular season,&rdquo; said Tocchet, &ldquo;but when the playoffs began, they turned into big guns.&ldquo;He told me the playoffs were different, and that a guy like me could be a big factor. He told me to just keep doing what I was doing&mdash;digging, and things would happen.&rdquo;And they did.PHILLERS&mdash;Due to all the injuries, and the fact that the Flyers&rsquo; American League team in Hershey was eliminated, the Flyers called up 10 players including Don Nachbaur, Brian Dobbin, Al Hill, and goalie Darren Jensen. &#9632;

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Flyers Clear Their First (And Worst) Hurdle

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011202/5084531-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="116" height="119"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;The &ldquo;Enough Waiting&rdquo; sign in the New York Ranger dressing room had a piece of tape over it.But the assembled athletes found it very difficult to comply with another message. &ldquo;Turn Every Negative into a Positive,&rdquo; as they discussed their April 16 playoff exit.Following their third straight sub-500 season, their fifth straight fourthplace finish and their 47th straight nonStanley Cup-winning playoff, the Rangers didn&rsquo;t have too many positives to fall back on.Even though the Philadelphia Flyers overwhelmed the Rangers by 3-1 and 5-0 scores in the final two games to capture their first-round series in six games, Ranger general manager and interim coach Phil Esposito saw a closer series.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;If he (Esposito) tried too hard to make something good happen, then at least he tried.&rsquo;</blockquote><blockquote class="pullQuote">&mdash;Larouche</blockquote>&ldquo;We were damn close,&rdquo; he contended, &ldquo;but give Philadelphia credit. They shut us down.&rdquo;Losing was not the only Ranger disappointment. It was the way they lost.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we played very well in the whole series,&rdquo; left winger George McPhee declared. &ldquo;If we had played well, we would have beaten them. They&rsquo;re hurting up the middle.&ldquo;If our power play had worked at 25 per cent or even 20 per cent,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;we&rsquo;d have beaten them.&rdquo;A four-for-35 power-play flop was a big factor in New York&rsquo;s failure and so was the combined two-goal production from Walt Poddubny, Tomas Sandstrom, Marcel Dionne and Tony McKegney.The fact that seven of the top 11 scorers gone from the Ted Sator-coached 1986 Ranger team which overachieved all the way to the semifinal round were not present this spring, also caused considerable second-guessing about Esposito&rsquo;s 14-trade revamping.When asked about his flurry of deals, Esposito called it &ldquo;a dumb question.&rdquo;&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t take anything back,&rdquo; he growled. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t take anything back in this life.&rdquo;As badly as Ranger left winger Don Maloney felt about the onset of his premature summer vacation, he seemed to feel even worse for his boss.&ldquo;You&rsquo;re going to get everybody and his brother jumping out of the woodwork now, looking at everything Phil tried to do with 20-20 hindsight,&rdquo; Maloney predicted. &ldquo;Now it looks like everything was a mistake.&ldquo;But we don&rsquo;t believe that in this dressing room. I firmly believe we have more talent this year than we had last year. At the end of the year though, we just didn&rsquo;t jell.&rdquo;Center Pierre Larouche was also upset with those who were critcial of Esposito&rsquo;s drastic Ranger re-make, which transformed them into the fifth highest-scoring team in the league during the regular season&hellip;and also into the oldest team in the league.&ldquo;If he (Esposito) tried too hard to make something good happen,&rdquo; the veteran center stressed, &ldquo;then at least he tried. Remember, we were not in such good shape when he took over.&rdquo;BIG APPLESAUCE&mdash;Adding up a season of too many changes: Rangers used a team-record 46 players&hellip;Regular-season coaching records: Phil Esposito (25-19-0), Ted Sator (5-104), Tom Webster (4-7-4) and the assistant-coaching tandem of Ed Giacomin and Wayne Cashman (0-20)&hellip;A May 6 physical exam will determine if Webster can coach next season&hellip;Right wing-center Kelly Kisio was set to undergo shoulder surgery after missing the last two playoff games&hellip;Chris Jensen, who finished the season at New Haven (AHL), will also undergo shoulder surgery&hellip;Ron Duguay, Curt Giles, Willie Huber and Pierre Larouche were among the Rangers&rsquo; best playoff performers-&hellip;Giles suffered a fractured elbow in game five&hellip;Rookie defenseman Terry Carkner appeared in only one Ranger playoff but went to New Haven of the American League and scored an over-time goal which the kept Nighthawks&rsquo; playoff hopes alive&hellip;Four Rangers went to Vienna for the World Championships. Goalie John Vanbiesbrouck joined Team USA, goalie Bob Froese and defenseman James Patrick joined Team Canada and Tomas Sandstrom reported to the Swedes&hellip;Esposito also listed goaltending and the play of rookies Jeff Jackson and Stu Kulak as playoff plusses. &#9632;

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Trades Fail To End Rangers’ Playoff Famine

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011285/5084562-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div>I NOTICED HAROLD BALLARD asked the question &ldquo;Why do you want a hockey team in Los Angeles anyway?&rdquo; in response to the Kings&rsquo; desire to switch divisions with the Maple Leafs (THN, April 3).Immediately my anti-Ballard feelings flared to new heights until I realized that this &ldquo;antiwarmth&rdquo; feeling is undoubtedly held by a great majority of hockey people today.It seems that all the northerners think they&rsquo;re the only ones that can have hockey just because their climates allow for natural skating surfaces. Well how many games are played outdoors in Canada? I can&rsquo;t speak for Los Angeles, but Dallas only has one hockey league and one real ice rink (not counting the other two located in shopping malls) yet we sold out Reunion Arena last Sept. 30th when the Oilers and Red Wings played an exhibition game.Since there were no representatives of the NHL brass at the game, I put it to Mr. Ballardor any other doubting polar bear to ask any member of the Oilers or Red Wings if they didn&rsquo;t think they were playing in an NHL city. Every time the announcer would explain stoppages in play he was met with great yells of &ldquo;We know already.&rdquo; The crowd also did not cheer just because Gretzky was there. The Red Wings received equal applause when they scored. People even knew the right time to clap during the organ spirit rousers.So I am making a personal invitation to every NHL big wheel to come to the next Dallas game. It could be Philadelphia and Edmonton next fall. Hopefully then, hockey will become an all-climate sport that will take it out if its&rsquo; refrigerator of isolation and into the public sunshine enjoyed by the other pro sports.Kirtland Sennas, Austin, TX<h2>CZECH MATE</h2>Greetings from Czechoslovakia to THE HOCKEY NEWS!My name is Milan Toth and I am 21 years old. I live in a small town named Surany, a town of 1,500 people.I am interested in your overseas ice hockey and I collect materials about the game. I would like write to some people who are interested in ice hockey and I hope we can exchange some information about the sport, some other hobbies and about life in our countries.Thanks very much for your help. Looking forward to some answers from new friends.Milan Toth, Leninova 2 CS-94201 Surany Czechoslovakia<h2>CBC ON WRONG CHANNEL</h2>The Canadian Broadcasting Corportation (CBC) really blew it when they lost Dave Hodge over his criticism of network policy. Hodge made his comments shortly after the Philadelphia-Montreal overtime game on Mar. 14.Hodge is entitled to his opinion and he shouldn&rsquo;t be canned for giving his opinion.Cutting off an exciting game with minutes to play was stupid!You&rsquo;d think it would be no big deal to delay the national news by five or 10 minutes to show the game to its conclusion. After all, CBC has stuck with Montreal Expo baseball games during long rain delays, and when the game went several extra innings and hours over the time limit. Why the shabby treatment for hockey?CBC has already lost too many class people from Hockey Night In Canada (Danny Galli-van, John Davidson, Ralph Mellanby, Jim Hughson), and now they&rsquo;ve lost the best sports host in the business.Edward Leslie, Edmonton, AB &#9632;

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Dallas Hockey Deserves Its Moment In The Sun

Let your voice be heard. Send your comments to Fan Forum, THE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 2R2. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

FAN FORUM

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021077/5084617-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="389" height="444"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob McKenzie</figcaption></div>BY THE END of April, a crown attorney in Montreal will have decided whether there is sufficient evidence to charge three members of the Montreal Canadiens with sexual improprieties involving minors.Regardless of his findings, the damage has already been done.A Quebec City radio station revealed the names of the three players who have been the subject of an investigation by Montreal police.Their names, while not known to the general public (outside of Quebec City, presumably), are common knowledge within the hockey community.Their reputations, fairly or unfairly, have been besmirched.But then that&rsquo;s just the way it is.Ask Glen Sather and the Edmonton Oilers. Last spring, a Sports Illustrated article charged that several unnamed Oiler players were linked to cocaine use.The furor became so great that NHL president John Ziegler and NHL Players&rsquo; Association executive director Alan Eagleson joined forces at a Stanley Cup press conference to denounce the story (and THN&rsquo;s handling of it). They felt compelled to come to defense of hockey, they said, because the innuendo tainted every NHL player.While you shouldn&rsquo;t expect the same grandstand performance from the duo this year, there&rsquo;s not much question that the Canadiens enter their Adams Division final against the Quebec Nordiques with something of a cloud hovering over them.That it was a Quebec City radio station which originally broke the story and that the rivalry between the two clubs is so fierce does not bode well for the cloud breaking up.Only when the investigation ends and no charges are laid will that happen. Even then, there are no guarantees reputations will remain intact.Call it the price one pays for being a professional athlete.&ldquo;I try to tell the kids we sign that along with the money and fame a contract gives them, they get a pretty big responsibility, too,&rdquo; says Toronto player agent Rick Curran. &ldquo;They have to realize they&rsquo;ve become a public figure and everything they say and do will be monitored, and quite often reported.&rdquo;Curran&rsquo;s rival in the agent business, Don Meehan of Toronto, echoes those sentiments.&ldquo;You would think something like that (warning players to act responsibly or face frightening consequences) would be self-evident,&rdquo; Meehan says, &ldquo;but I guess it&rsquo;s not.&ldquo;And when a situation like the one in Montreal arises, no, you can be sure that it isn&rsquo;t fair the way it&rsquo;s being handled (in the media). But if there&rsquo;s a lesson to be learned, it&rsquo;s that it does happen that way.&rdquo;Both Curran and Meehan, who between them scoop up the majority of prime talent available in each year&rsquo;s entry draft, strive to have their clients stay on the straight and narrow upon arrival to pro hockey.It doesn&rsquo;t happen in every instance, but they both advocate a billeting system for their rookie pros.&ldquo;Being 18 or 19 or 20 with a lot of money and a lot of free time can, in some situations, be inviting trouble,&rdquo; says Curran.&ldquo;By staying with a family, the way Jimmy Carson and Luc Robitaille did in Los Angeles, there&rsquo;s some continuity. There&rsquo;s some responsibility there to be in at a decent hour and act as you would if you were at home with your own family.&rdquo;Of course, there is only so much an agent, substitute family or team management can do to protect the players from themselves.Ultimately, the onus is on the player.And if from time to time, the player&rsquo;s image is tainted because of exaggerated gossip or inaccurate rumors or a false alarm in the media, the player can, unfortunately, do little to change it. He may take solace in only one thing.The grief, humiliation and weight of public opinion he faces is a mere pittance compared to the world of woe he could walk in if charged, and convicted, of a real crime. &#9632;

f0008-02

A Pro Player’s Image Is Aiways On Thin Ice

<div class="byline">COMPILED BY RICHARD BEALES Copy Editor</div>Quebec crown prosecutor Serge Authier was expected to decide by the end of April whether to press charges against three members of the Montreal Canadiens, who are alleged to have engaged in sexual improprieties with minors.Authier was examining allegations that the players were joined by two girls, aged 14 and 15, for a party following the Canadiens&rsquo; final regularseason game in New York.Sources say the girls involved were at Dorval airport at 1:30 a.m., greeting the Canadiens&rsquo; charter flight from New York. The three players are alleged to have taken them to a party where they stayed most of the night.The girls&rsquo; parents filed complaints with police the next day.The story was broken by a Quebec City radio station, CHRC, three days after the Canadiens finished sweeping the Boston Bruins in the Adams Division semi-final. The radio station named three Montreal players.The Canadiens&rsquo; managing director, Serge Savard, indicated the team might go ahead with legal action in response to the CHRC report.&ldquo;The Quebec City radio station has published a news item directed at certain players of our team when the investigation is not complete,&rdquo; Savard noted, &ldquo;and when one does not know if charges will be laid.&ldquo;I sincerely believe in the innocence of the players involved&hellip;and, in due course, the club and the players will exercise all available legal recourses against those who have shown such a high degree of irresponsibility.&rdquo;A Canadian Press report, which was picked up from the Montreal Gazette, quoted Savard as saying he knew &ldquo;who how and why the story came out&rdquo; and that the disclosure was made on purpose to put pressure on the Canadiens. Savard denied making the comments.Several Montreal reporters knew about the alleged incident but did not report it, because charges had not been laid.The Crown had not decided whether charges are warranted, because the girls told police they lied to the players about their ages.The girls, who were interviewed by one Montreal radio station, have also told authorities they would not be willing to testify in court.Canadien head coach Jean Perron told reporters that publicity over the incident had not hurt the Canadiens&rsquo; morale as they prepared for the Battle of Quebec against the Nordiques.&ldquo;The fellows are very positive,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They are not hiding behind closed doors.&rdquo;The Canadiens&rsquo; players declined to elaborate on the incident.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather not comment on it,&rdquo; veteran defenseman Larry Robinson said. &ldquo;Number one, I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s going on and number two, I don&rsquo;t think it is anybody&rsquo;s business but our own.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re a team here. As a group of guys, anything that is said or done about the team affects all of us.&rdquo;<h2>QUEBEC WINS CUP</h2>Tournament MVP Reg Savage scored two goals, including the winner, to lead the Richelieu (Que.) Riverians to a 6-2 triumph over the Notre Dame Hounds (Wilcox, Sask.) in the title game of the Air Canada Cup, April 18 in Gloucester, Ont.Savage was named the national midget championship tourney&rsquo;s best player, after scoring 11 goals and assisting on eight others in seven games.Martin Lefebvre also scored two goals for the Riverians in the title game, to go with singles by Yannick Chiasson and Serge Simard.Scott Pellerin and Troy Winch scored for Notre Dame.The consolation title was won by the Calgary Buffalos, who downed Sudbury Burgess 8-2.Earlier in April, Edgewood, R.I., won the U.S. midget hockey championship at Lewiston. Maine, with a 6-2 title game victory over Detroit Little Caesars.Tournament MVP David Emma, who scored four goals in the title game, spearheaded Edgewood&rsquo;s 5-0 record with 10 goals and six assists. Emma is headed for Boston College next year.<h2>MCDONNELL COACH</h2>Joe McDonnell, who replacedTom Barrett as coach of the Ontario League&rsquo;s Kitchener Rangers with five games left in the season, has been officially named coach of the team for next season.McDonnell, who was an assistant coach before Barrett&rsquo;s resignation, coached the Rangers for their final five regular-season games and their losing playoff series with the North Bay Centennials.<h2>IIHF BANS HONORED?</h2>International hockey suspensions could soon be honored in the National Hockey League, if a precedent-setting agreement is signed.According to the Toronto Globe and Mail, International Ice Hockey Federation president Gunther Sabetzki said his organization plans to sign an agreement with the NHL which would see sanctions issued by one group upheld by the other.&ldquo;If for example, a player from the NHL strikes a referee in the world tournament and is suspended for life, then he would be suspended for life from the NHL as well,&rdquo; Sabetzki said.In separate reports, Sabetzki rejected suggestions that he reduce penalties dealt to Soviet and Canadian junior teams for their part in a benchclearing brawl Jan. 4 in Piestany, Czech.Virtually all players from both teams were banned from international competition until after the 1988 Calgary Olympics.<h2>HARDY CUP NIXED</h2>Due to financial difficulties, the east-west final of the Hardy Cup&mdash;given annually to Canada&rsquo;s top, intermediate team&mdash;has been cancelled.The country was instead left with two Hardy Cup winners. New Brunswick-Quebec border team Miramichi-Gagnon downed Smiths Falls, Ont., 5-2 in the fifth game of their best-of-seven series to win the eastern title, while Stony Plain, Alta., took Weybum, Sask., in a best-of-five western final.<h2>ALLAN CUP FINALS</h2>The senior team from Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s hometown will be vying this year for the Allan Cup, emblematic of senior hockey supremacy in Canada.The Brantford (Ont.) Mott&rsquo;s Clama-tos defeated the St. John&rsquo;s (Nfld.) Caps 3-2 in the sixth game of the best-of-seven eastern final, winning the best-of-seven series 4-2.The Clamatos, a team spiked with ex-NHLers such as Rocky Saganiuk, Stan Weir. Don Edwards and Stan Jonathan, will face off for the Cup against Nelson, B.C., which defeated Moose Jaw 4-1 in the best-of-seven western final. &#9632;

Habs Face Charges In Teenage Sex Scandal

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011325/5084672-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="369" height="417"><figcaption class="caption-body">Frank Orr</figcaption></div>VIENNA&mdash;STEVE YZERMAN&rsquo;S CHOICE of a place to spend spring&mdash;Detroit over this historic, beautiful Austrian city&mdash;might seem a little strange. But there are extenuating circumstances.Yzerman is the splendid Red Wing center and that team is occupied by the Stanley Cup playoffs, which makes it a little difficult for Yzerman to be involved with Team Canada in the World Championships here.But Yzerman was talking about another trip to the worlds, a hasty jaunt to Prague in 1985 to bolster the team after the Wings had been humiliated by the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the playoffs.&ldquo;I got the call after we had lost the third game 8-2, and our fans, with some justification, had booed the hell out of us,&rdquo; Yzerman said. &ldquo;I had just had it with hockey for that season, or so I thought, but when Alan Eagleson called me to go to Prague, I couldn&rsquo;t say no.&ldquo;It turned out to be a wonderful experience. The team did well, winning a silver medal (behind Czechoslovakia). We beat the Russians and had a lot of fun. I learned a great deal of hockey and I got the chance to see a place I never would have visited on my own. I hope the guys who are there this season have the same good experience.&rdquo;To National Hockey League players on teams that miss the playoffs, a big downer because only five of 21 clubs qualify for that futility group, participation in the world tournament with Canada, U.S., Finland or Sweden is a consolation prize.Teams that exit quickly from the playoffs supply the late additions to the teams, notably the Canadian squad.The NHL season was an especially bitter one for Minnesota North Stars, who won only three of their last 16 games in the schedule to miss the playoffs. A single win would have lifted them past Toronto Maple Leafs and into the Stanley Cup tournament.But Keith Acton. 29, had only positive feelings about the experience. It&rsquo;s his first try at international competition and he attacked it with much enthusiasm.&ldquo;The season was a really sour experience in Minnesota.&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s just no way we shouldn&rsquo;t be in the playoffs but we&rsquo;re not and that hurts. But some truly unusual things happened with our team that we all want to forget.&ldquo;Sure, being inolved with Team Canada helps not to think about it, certainly not as bad as trying to have a holiday or going home and thinking about it. But more than that, I&rsquo;m looking on it as a very positive experience.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never had a chance to participate on a team like this and I&rsquo;ve never played on a European-size hockey rink against the best from other contries. Other guys have told me that international play is like nothing else they&rsquo;ve ever experienced and that when the anthems are played, you have a lump in your throat.&ldquo;Playing for my country is a completely new experience I&rsquo;m really looking forward to it. It was a bit of a surprise to find out how gung-ho all the players on the team were. I figured there might be a little bitterness after the NHL season. But there was none of that, only the attitude that we should do our best to accomplish something good.&rdquo;The international &ldquo;veteran&rdquo; on the Team Canada roster is one of its youngest, 21-year-old Kirk Muller of the New Jersey Devils. He was a member of the Canadian Olympic team in &lsquo;84, played on Team Canada at the worlds in &lsquo;85 (Prague) and &lsquo;86 (Moscow), and Rendezvous &lsquo;87 against the USSR nats in Quebec.&ldquo;Of course, my first aim is to have the Devils in the playoffs and go a long way,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But since that hasn&rsquo;t happened, although we&rsquo;re getting closer, Team Canada helps to ease the pain of not making it.&ldquo;My international experience has helped me to be a better player because it&rsquo;s given me work against all sorts of situations. Playing for Dave King again will be great, too.&rdquo;King is the coach of Team Canada this season. He is head coach of the Canadian national team and was there in &lsquo;84 when the Canucks made the final four after beating the much-publicized U.S. team in the opening game of the event at Sarajevo. &#9632;

f0010-01

Canadians Eager To Play At World Tournament

<div class="byline">BY REYN DAVIS</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021019/5084703-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="105" height="109"></div>WINNIPEG&mdash;Flexing their newfound muscles, Winnipeg Jets turned their attention to Edmonton Oilers and the Smythe Division final.&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be a fast, physical series,&rdquo; said Wayne Gretzky, delighted to see the Jets rather than Calgary Flames. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;ll be dirty.&rdquo;Jim Kyte is not making any promises.&ldquo;It will be a physically-grinding series,&rdquo; said the Winnipeg defenseman. &ldquo;We have so much energy.&ldquo;We won&rsquo;t be denied.&rdquo;This resolve the Jets exhibit has no precedent.Buoyed by their six-game dismissal of the Flames, they advanced to the second round of Stanley Cup playoffs.This is not their first trip to the Smythe Division final. Two years ago, they met the Oilers in the final and bowed out in four games.But, as they are quick to point out, the Jets were missing their Gretzky&mdash;notably Dale Hawerchuk, whose broken ribs were a sore reminder of the price paid in beating Calgary.Why should Winnipeg watchers be so encouraged this time?This team, unlike any other Jets&rsquo; team since the World Hockey Association, has the confidence of the public.People, pure and simply, can picture them beating the Oilers.Feeding off friendly fans dressed in white, they have developed a confidence, if not an ego, to go on to bigger and better things.Bob Johnson, the Calgary coach, thinks the Jets can win but he places conditions on their chances.&ldquo;The big question is, can they make the total commitment that they had against us?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If they can, they can win.&ldquo;They were the best team we&rsquo;ve played against this year.&rdquo;While the Jets dominated the Flames during the regular season, going 6-2-0, they were considerably less successful (3-5-0) against the Oilers.Gretzky and Co. won 4-3 in Edmonton on Nov. 26, 7-4 in Winnipeg on Dec. 10,6-1 in Edmonton on Dec. 12, 5-3 in Winnipeg on Jan. 21 and 5-4 in overtime in Edmonton on March 31.The Jets won 5-3 in Winnipeg on Oct. 12. 2-1 in Edmonton on Dec. 23 and 5-2 in Winnipeg on Feb. 22.What gives Dan Maloney the notion that his team can upset the Oilers?&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve learned a lot watching Calgary play Edmonton,&rdquo; he said.Undoubtedly, Maloney thinks he has the team to physically impede the Oilers and force mistakes.To the surprise of many, the Jets were assertive against the Flames, a team that owns the Oilers.&ldquo;A lot of people had wondered if we could handle the rigors of a long series against Calgary&mdash;one of the NHL&rsquo;s toughest teams,&rdquo; said Maloney.&ldquo;This proved we can.&rdquo;BENCH BITS&mdash;Defenseman Jim Kyte applauded the courage and efforts of Calgary center Joel Otto. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a competitor,&rdquo; he said of the 6-foot-4, 220-pound forward. &ldquo;He came back from a knee injury and did well. I hate playing against him.&rdquo;&hellip;The Flames&rsquo; powerplay&mdash;the NHL&rsquo;s best during the regular season&mdash;was 5-for-28 against the NHL&rsquo;s No.1 penalty-killing unit. Daniel (The Bandit) Berthiaume handled the Jets&rsquo; goaltending duties in all six games and he performed sensationally. &ldquo;People across the country can see that we have a good team, too&mdash;a team that can go far in the playoffs,&rdquo; he said. &#9632;</div>

f0010-02

Kyte Insists Winnipeg Jets ‘Won’t Be Denied’

<div class="byline">BY JEFF BLAIR</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-03672/5084734-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="133" height="118"></div>CALGARY&mdash;You didn&rsquo;t need a college degree to figure out why the Calgary Flames lost to the Winnipeg Jets in the Stanley Cup playoffs, but defenseman Neil Sheehy wrapped his Harvard-educated mind around the question anyway.&ldquo;The Jets were a team built specifically with the idea of being able to beat us,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When you think about it, it&rsquo;s a lot like us a year ago against the Edmonton Oilers.&rdquo;While some folks around the National Hockey League may have been surprised at the Jets&rsquo; 4-2 Smythe Division semi-final series win, Flames&rsquo; fans were not.Winnipeg&rsquo;s 6-1 home-ice win in the sixth and final game only drove home that which had been obvious throughout the 1986-87 regular season&mdash;the Jets simply owned the Flames.Winnipeg won six of eight regularseason meetings between the two. outscoring Calgary 38-20 in the process.Their pop-gun power play (the NHL&rsquo;s third-worst with a 17.3 percent efficiency rating), became a dynamo against the Flames in the regular season, humming along at 28.3 per cent. Conversely, the Flames had the league&rsquo;s best power play (25.2 per cent), but against Winnipeg all season long they were able to score just six goals in 38 chances (15.8 per cent).Those trends carried over to the playoffs. The Flames went the equivalent of the last four full games without a power-play goal. The Jets had nine.The Jets had the size to go toe-to-toe with the Flames in the comers and in front of the net. They wore the Flames down with a tight-checking, disciplined style resembling that of the Montreal Canadiens in their defeat of Calgary in last year&rsquo;s Cup finals.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re the best team we&rsquo;ve faced all season long,&rdquo; Flames&rsquo; head coach Bob Johnson said after game six, which Calgary lost decisively 6-1. &ldquo;Against us, the chemistry was there right from the start. Their centermen were outstanding, completely neutralizing us. So were their defensemen.&ldquo;Their goaltending was great. And the key is, they never lost one of those guys to injury&mdash;not one.&rdquo;The Flames, on the other hand, were never completely healthy. Center Steve Bozek missed the first two games with back spasms, while tough winger Nick Fotiu sat out the entire series after surgery to repair a groin injury.Defenseman Al Maclnnis bruised his thigh during game two and missed games three and four. Another defenseman, Jamie Macoun, spent five days in hospital in Winnipeg with a bruised kidney and spleen suffered in game three.As if that wasn&rsquo;t enough, Paul Reinhart went down in the third period of the fourth game, with a deep gash above his left knee. He returned to finish the game, won 4-3 by the Jets, but was not available for games five and six. &#9632;</div>

f0010-03

Calgary Crashes And Burns As Edmonton Did Last Year

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Assistant Editor</div>It took more than six hours, but Pat LaFontaine finally brought to an end the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in the early hours of Easter Sunday.LaFontaine scored on a turnaround slap shot at 8:47 of the fourth overtime period to give the New York Islanders a 3-2 win over the Washington Capitals in the seventh and deciding game of their Patrick Division semi-final series.His goal represented a climactic conclusion to more than 68 minutes of overtime&mdash;which combined with 60 minutes of regulation time to comprise the fifth-longest game ever played.The game, which began at 7:30 p.m. April 18 and ended just before 2 a.m. April 19, missed by six seconds being the fourth-longest but was more than 50 minutes short of the longest (116:30 of overtime) played between the Montreal Maroons and Detroit Red Wings in 1936.LaFontaine, the Islanders&rsquo; best player down the stretch this year, will be remembered much as Detroit&rsquo;s Mud Bruneteau is for ending that record marathon.His shot from just inside the blue line eluded Capitals&rsquo; goalie Bob Mason, who was outstanding in overtime after a shaky first 60 minutes at the Capital Centre.Kelly Hrudey, the winning goalie who held New York in the game during regulation, stopped 73 of 75 shots, Mason 54 of 57. There were a total of 75 shots during overtime.Bryan Trottier sent the game into extra time with a backhand goal at 14:37 of the third period.The loss was a bitter setback for coach Bryan Murray&rsquo;s favored Capitals, who were expected to eliminate the injury-decimated Islanders, especially after taking a 3-1 lead in games.But the Islanders, minus Mike Bossy, Brent Sutter and Denis Potvin (three of their top six players), accomplished the fourth upset of the first round by maintaining their status as the National Hockey League&rsquo;s best overtime team ever.New York improved its record to 22-7 in overtime games, a winning percentage of. 760. No other team has a mark significantly better than. 500.Next on the agenda for coach Terry Simpson and his Islanders were the Philadelphia Flyers, who shook off the New York Rangers 4-2.Ron Hextali earned his second playoff shutout of the year in the series-clinching 5-0 win. The Flyers endured some anxious moments along the way, losing games one and four to revive memories of past playoff collapses against the Rangers.Meanwhile, fireworks were expected in the fraticidal Adams family where the Montreal Canadiens and Quebec Nordiques&mdash;called by Michel Bergeron, the most intense rivalry in all of sport&mdash;are meeting once more.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011212/5084793-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="539" height="921"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pat LaFontaine ended a sevenperiod seventh game with his overtime goal.</figcaption></div>And as if the natural animosity weren&rsquo;t enough to stir tremendous emotions, two extraordinary circumstances hyped the start of the Adams Division final series.Quebec, after their worst season since 1979-80, shocked divisionchampion Hartford Whalers in six games&mdash;finally winning on Peter Stastny&rsquo;s overtime goal.And it was announced three unidentified Montreal players, fresh from a sweep of the Boston Bruins, were under investigation for sexual improprieties with minors. (See Notebook, page 9.)Think La Guerre du Quebec needed the extra fuel for their fire?Hardly.Each of their playoff meetings have been memorable if not full of monumental hockey.Two seasons ago, Stastny eliminated the Canadiens with an overtime goal. The year before, Montreal upstaged Quebec after a disgusting brawl engulfed the sixth and final game. And two years previous to that, the Nordiques came of age in their third NHL season when Dale Hunter sidelined the Habs with an overtime goal just 22 seconds into the first extra period.Round four promises to be just as interesting, with defending Stanley Cup-champion Montreal opening the series on a 13-game winning streak and Quebec finally playing good hockey.The Nordiques, powered by their three big scorers and the goaltending of Mario Gosselin, lost the first two games of the series before winning four straight.Michel Goulet, Stastny and John Ogrodnick, whose apparent gamewinner in the opener was disallowed because time had run out, each scored hat tricks to account for three victories.Stastny, the splendid captain injured part of this season, scored twice in the final 5-4 win, including the third overtime marker of his career.There were other upsets, albeit more mild than Quebec&rsquo;s and the Islanders&rsquo;. Winnipeg Jets proved their regular-season dominance of the Calgary Flames was no fluke, eliminating them 4-2 with a convincing 6-1 triumph and setting up a Smythe Division final with the Edmonton Oilers. And Toronto Maple Leafs dispatched the St. Louis Blues to the sidelines with a 4-0 victory that gave them a 4-2 series triumph.Rookie goalie Daniel Berthiaume was outstanding for Winnipeg, outplaying Calgary netminder Mike Vernon&mdash;upon whose shoulders the Flames piggybacked to the Stanley Cup finals last year.Edmonton sidelined Los Angeles Kings with four consecutive wins after losing in the opener.Another goalie, Ken Wregget, was instrumental as Toronto arranged a meeting with Detroit Red Wings in the Norris Division final. The Leafs, who had the league&rsquo;s fourth-worst defensive record during the regular season, allowed 12 goals in six games.Detroit knocked out Chicago Blackhawks in four straight games.<h2>Road To The Stanley Cup</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-02922/5084786-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="377" height="182"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-03680/5084779-1-eng-US/f0011-032.jpg" title="f0011-03" width="389" height="399"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-04547/5084772-1-eng-US/f0011-042.jpg" title="f0011-04" width="391" height="225"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-05445/5084765-1-eng-US/f0011-052.jpg" title="f0011-05" width="2958" height="1263"></div> &#9632;

f0011-01

Islanders Impose Capital Punishment

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011298/5084824-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="553" height="1131"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Coffey, out with a sore shoulder against L.A., was expected back for round two.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021088/5084831-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="115" height="119"></div>EDMONTON&mdash;To the Edmonton Oilers, a &ldquo;perfect 10&rdquo; referred not to Bo Derek but to their own unblemished 10-0 Stanley Cup playoff record against the Winnipeg Jets.But three successive series sweeps meant little to general manager-head coach Glen Sather as the Oilers and Jets prepared for a collision in the best-of-seven Smythe Division final.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no pyschological edge anywhere.&rdquo; Sather stressed, after the Oilers dispatched the Los Angeles Kings in five games and the Jets took one more match to dispose of the Calgary Flames.&ldquo;These are two very good teams getting ready to play each other in the playoffs&hellip;and the less said about it the better. That&rsquo;s my attitude.&rdquo;While the normally loquacious Sather disappeared, another key member of the Oilers was scheduled to resurface for the Winnipeg series.Paul Coffey was expected to return to Edmonton&rsquo;s blue line after missing four preliminary-round games with a strained shoulder.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>&ldquo;I had a cortisone shot one day last week and I could barely lift my arm the next day, but it feels good now,&rdquo; said Coffey, who had been working with old partner Charlie Huddy in preparation for the Jets.Coffey said the gap between the Oilers and Jets has narrowed since their last post-season collision two years ago&mdash;a four-game sweep led by his four goals and four assists.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re a good skating team and we can be assured of one thing against Winnipeg&hellip;it&rsquo;ll be good hockey,&rdquo; said Coffey. &ldquo;They have a big guy in (Dale) Hawerchuk. We have Wayne (Gretzky). They&rsquo;ve had good goaltending and so will we.&ldquo;You&rsquo;re never assured of a win in a playoff series. There was more distance between us and Winnipeg in past playoff years. We&rsquo;ve got to be on our high horse to beat them.&rdquo;Having Coffey in the lineup shouldn&rsquo;t hurt, although the Oilers were 19-2-4 without the two-time Norris Trophy winner this season, including 4-0 in the playoffs.With 10 goals and 10 assists in 10 post-season games against the Jets, the 25-year-old was second only to Gretzky (11 goals, 14 assists) in career playoff scoring against Winnipeg. Jari Kurri (eight goals, seven assists) and Mark Messier (five goals, 10 assists) were next in line.Though the Jets had yet to win a playoff game against the Oilers, they held Edmonton to a narrow 5-3 advantage in the regular-season series.Gretzky warned not to place too much stock in past performances.&ldquo;Calgary couldn&rsquo;t beat us either, and they knocked us off last year,&rdquo; he reasoned. &ldquo;Calgary got on a roll and beat us fair and square. Then they got a taste of that this year.&rdquo;All the more cause to be wary of the Jets, cautioned Oiler center Craig MacTavish.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t wait to get out of this (bleeping) division,&rdquo; he cussed. &ldquo;This has got to be the toughest division in the league. It&rsquo;s the one everybody here is most worried about.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had trouble with Calgary, and Winnipeg beat Calgary. Doesn&rsquo;t that tell us they&rsquo;re going to be tough?&rdquo;The consensus was that goals would be considerably harder to come by against the defensive-minded Jets. That, in turn, meant the Oilers aimed to cut down on the 20 goals allowed in the first round.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a little high,&rdquo; admitted Andy Moog. &ldquo;We have to cut that by a goal a game.&rdquo;Both Moog and Grant Fuhr confessed to sloppy play against the Kings.&ldquo;Whoever gets to play has to stop the puck,&rdquo; Fuhr said, &ldquo;and can&rsquo;t give up any soft goals. Plus, we have to make the big save. If we eliminate the soft goals and make the big save, it&rsquo;ll make a big difference. But, you have to eliminate one to make the other effective.&rdquo;IN THE CREASE&mdash;With the Nova Scotia Oilers out of the American League playoffs, Edmonton recalled five farmhands as standbys&mdash;Normand Lacombe, Shawn Evans, Kelly Buchberger, Wayne Van Dorp, Mike Moller and goalie Daryl Reaugh. Moller had been with the parent club throughout the L.A. series, but was reassigned to the minors for Nova Scotia&rsquo;s final playoff games&hellip;Fifty-two goals were scored in the L.A.-Edmonton series, topping by two the Stanley Cup record for two teams in a five-game set, established by the Kings (27) and Oilers (23) in 1982. &#9632;

f0012-01

Oilers’ Perfect Record On Line Against Jets

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03732/5084862-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="406" height="460"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Simmons</figcaption></div>BOB BERRY IS unemployed. Eddie Johnston isn&rsquo;t.Lome Henning is unemployed. Lou Nanne isn&rsquo;t.Terry O&rsquo;Reilly isn&rsquo;t sure he wants to continue as coach of the Boston Bruins. Harry Sinden isn&rsquo;t sure he wants him.Bob Pulford won&rsquo;t be coaching the Blackhawks next season. He will be managing them.The Vancouver Canucks are suing the league they are a part of to allow their general manager, who is quietly acting as their general manager, to act as their GM without the act. Get it?Neither does anyone else.And when last I heard, old Tom Watt was saying he&rsquo;d be coaching the Canucks next season. Imagine that. He said it had something to do with a contract.Letter to Tom Watt: Please talk to Messrs. Henning and Berry. Soon.And in New Jersey, that fine-tuned team of Max and Doug, McNab and Carpenter, will be back as a tag team next season, no doubt with the same success of those Saturday afternoon interchangable wrestlers who always lose to the Killer Bees.Life is wonderful in the NHL, where the clutch-and-grab season has now begun and the meaninglessness of the regular season ended. For those who say the regular season isn&rsquo;t meaningless, look no further than the struggling Calgary Flames, who employed Brett Hull and Joe Nieuwen-dyk on their first forward lines against the Winnipeg Jets.But we digress.Everywhere you look these days, coaches are being fired. Bob Pulford did something Bill Wirtz should have done a long time ago. Pulford, the GM, fired Pulford, the coach. Wirtz, the lobbyist who finagled early entry for John Ziegler in the Hockey Hall of Fame, probably should have got rid of both.Both it&rsquo;s a general manager&rsquo;s world. If the team isn&rsquo;t good enough, the coach gets fired. If it really gets drastic, the GM gets fired. And if all that takes place and winning doesn&rsquo;t, heaven forbid someone might look in the direction of an owner.Hence the fact E.J. Johnston is still employed today but dour Bob Berry isn&rsquo;t. But I have a theory here: Should anyone who trades for Pat Riggin be allowed to keep his job for long? I think not.Johnston kept his job because he was smart enough to finish last and draft Mario Lemieux. Berry lost his because he wasn&rsquo;t smart enough to get the most out of the rest of the Penguins who aren&rsquo;t Mario Lemieux.In Minnesota, lunacy reigns as always. Lome Henning, who seemed to discipline the Stars last year, was given the heave-ho with two games left in the regular season&mdash;just enough time for nice-guy Glen Sonmor to take over and lose both.Sonmor has been the Stars&rsquo; coach about 100 times the last few years and you wonder what&rsquo;s going on.And now I read that Lou Nanne has health problems, which is unfortunate. A season of watching his North Stars would make anyone sick.And you have to feel for poor Harry Sinden, whose Bruins get eliminated every year by the Canadiens. Times are tough for the Bruins. They&rsquo;ve been licking their chops all season long, waiting for Vancouver Canucks to hand over the first draft pick.And then, with a week to go, when all was lost, the Canucks decided they didn&rsquo;t like Harry. They didn&rsquo;t want him to have Pierre Turgeon. They didn&rsquo;t want him to have Brendan Shanahan. They didn&rsquo;t want him to have anything.So the Canucks went out and won, and stuck it to Harry where it hurt the most. They let Buffalo and New Jersey pass (hem in the draft race.The Adams Division Sabres will get Turgeon. The Bruins, picking third, will get someone else.And in the standings which really count, Terry Crisp has taken over from Don Cherry to lead in the who&rsquo;s-going-to-be-coaching-which-team-next department.Funny thing, it never got Cherry hired. &#9632;

f0012-03

And The Lunacy Continues In The World Of Coaching

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011224/5084893-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="163" height="110"></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;In the end, right up until the bitter end, the Los Angeles Kings simply weren&rsquo;t good enough, weren&rsquo;t deep enough.In the end, the Kings paid the piper for finishing in fourth place and drawing this most distasteful first-round assignment.The Edmonton Oilers are obsessed with recapturing the Stanley Cup and, based on their performance in this series, look like they can do it.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re going to be awfully difficult to beat,&rdquo; King coach Mike Murphy said.Any other opponent and there&rsquo;d be no need to lug the sand wedges out of storage. The Kings would be practising somewhere today and playing somewhere tomorrow.On the ice.Just getting into the playoffs isn&rsquo;t good enough anymore, not in the Smythe Division where the Oilers still rule.&ldquo;If we had been playing anybody else&hellip;our goal right now is to move up in the standings so we can avoid having to play a preliminary series with this team,&rdquo; Murphy said after the 5-4 loss in Edmonton that eliminated the Kings from the best-of-seven series 4-1.They didn&rsquo;t go quietly, fighting back from 1-0, 3-1 and 5-3 deficits in game five, but they went just the same.&ldquo;We played very, very good hockey,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very proud of this team. We kept battling. We&rsquo;re very competitive now. We&rsquo;re going to get better. I like the team we have.&rdquo;Tom Laidlaw, who didn&rsquo;t know what to expect in his first series as a King, was quite impressed. He and Bobby Carpenter were acquired from the Rangers, March 10, for Marcel Dionne.&ldquo;When I came here,&rdquo; Laidlaw said, &ldquo;I thought it would be a situation where the guys were just happy to score a lot and get the season over with. That isn&rsquo;t the case at all. These guys want to win very badly. I&rsquo;m proud to be a member of this team.&rdquo;It is a tribute to the Oilers&rsquo; considerable skill that, even with Wayne Gretzky reduced to the ranks of ordinary Joe in the finale, they were still able to find a way to win.Gretzky amassed two goals and 13 assists in the first four games, but was held without a point, without a shot, by shadow Phil Sykes in the final game.&ldquo;I take my hat off to Phil Sykes,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;He is a courageous young man. (Shadowing Gretzky) isn&rsquo;t always a pleasant show for the fans, but we went to Edmonton to win a game.&rdquo;It was the first time in the series that the Kings put a shadow on Gretzky, who, if he&rsquo;d gone into the concession stands for a hot dog, would have had to buy one for Sykes.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t a real, real tough situation for me because everybody else played so well,&rdquo; Sykes said. &ldquo;The guys eliminated people he normally passes to. It&rsquo;s a tough way to go out. Everybody stayed poised. We played with control for most of the series.&rdquo;Esa Tikkanen and Glenn Anderson each scored two goals, including one each in the third period to snap a 3-3 tie. Mark Hardy scored his first goal since Jan. 3 to cut Edmonton&rsquo;s lead to 5-4, but it was as close as the Kings would come.&ldquo;I always hate the end of a season, regardless if you go down fighting,&rdquo; said Bernie Nicholls, who starred throughout the series and led the Kings with two goals and five assists. &ldquo;I still feel bad it&rsquo;s over.&rdquo;In losing four consecutive games following a 5-2 victory in the opener, the Kings permitted 13, six, six and five goals despite playing reasonably good defense. Game two was an aberration, but the Oilers still packed too much of an offensive wallop.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m proud of the guys,&rdquo; goalie Rollie Melanson said. &ldquo;Except for in the second game, we played the best we could play. We didn&rsquo;t give in to anything.&rdquo;ROYALTIES&mdash;Rookie Luc Robitaille left for Vienna, where he was to play for Team Canada at the World Championships. Teammates Jimmy Carson. Bryan Erickson and Bobby Carpenter also made the trip overseas but to play for Team USA&hellip;The Kings and Oilers combined for 52 goals, a record for a five-game series. The same teams scored 50 in 1982&hellip;Bob Bourne and Morris Lukowich played on termination contracts and could become free agents without compensation this summer. The Kings aren&rsquo;t expected to re-sign Lukowich. Bourne, a valuable asset on and off the ice, wants a minimum of a two-year contract. L.A. may balk at that and he may wind up in Vancouver&hellip;Kings will draft sixth overall in June and will likely pick a defenseman. &#9632;

f0013-01

Kings’ Goal To Avoid The Oilers Next Year

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>Several of Terry O&rsquo;Reilly&rsquo;s friends would not be shocked if he gave up the Bruins&rsquo; coaching job. &ldquo;The thing that made him so great as a player is going to kill him behind the bench,&rdquo; says one pal. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s so emotionally involved that the losses tear him apart. I just can&rsquo;t see him coaching very long.&rdquo;&hellip;An attempt to speed up NHL games will come from an unexpected source when league officials soon receive a &ldquo;time-out&rdquo; plan from ESPN exec Bruce Connal, who handles the network&rsquo;s game of the week. What Connal proposes is that the current mandated six to seven 30-second TV timeouts be changed to only three one-minute breaks. &ldquo;The current system is ridiculous,&rdquo; Connal tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;because it disrupts the flow of the game. By having only three one-minute timeouts, we&rsquo;d give the game more continuity while putting more coaching into the game. Also, the broadcasters would be able to do more in-depth analyzing.&rdquo;Sabres insider wnispers mat Dave Andreychuk was less of a help to the club than his stats indicate and vice versa with Mike Ramsay. The word on Andreychuk is that he doesn&rsquo;t work nearly as hard as he might, whereas Ramsay overdoes it to the point of exhaustion&hellip;Sabres are expected to deal Tom Barrasso and launch 1987-88 with Darren Puppa&hellip;Clark Gillies tells BLUELINES he&rsquo;d like another season in Buffalo but awaits word from the high command&hellip;Glen Sather on his motivational philosophy: &ldquo;If you set goals lower than the top, you&rsquo;re just giving players an excuse.&rdquo;&hellip;Warren Skorodenski is burdened with the worst possible nickname for a goaltender, &ldquo;Skoragainstme.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03706/5084931-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="340" height="565"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Andreychuk</figcaption></div>Anti-Mike Keenan sentiments once again have surfaced in Philly. One report has the Flyers&rsquo; coach inspiring some of the most intense wrath among his players since arriving on Broad Street, matching Keenan&rsquo;s rookie season when, as Mark Howe puts it, &ldquo;he nearly had a rebellion on his hands.&rdquo;&hellip;Former NHLer Brian Spencer says he has received more than 500 letters at the Palm Beach (Fla.) County jail since being arrested last January in connection with the 1982 shooting of Michael James Dalfo. Spencer, who has pleaded innocent, says he answers all of his mail. &ldquo;Just hearing from people makes a cloudy day go away,&rdquo; he adds. Spencer&rsquo;s address is Pouch 188, Palm Beach County Jail, West Palm Beach, Fla. 33409. Ex-NHLers Dave Keon and Rick Martin have visited Spencer.Phil Esposito tells BLUELINES that not even a Stanley Cup win for his Rangers would bring him back as coach next season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never had so many emotional lows in my life,&rdquo; says Espo. &ldquo;Let the other lunatics do it.&rdquo;&hellip;Jacques Demers tells BLUELINES that Lorne Henning&rsquo;s firing still leaves him surprised. &ldquo;I thought Lome had the Minnesota puzzle all figured out. The bottom line is that the team simply couldn&rsquo;t go half a season without Neal Broten &ldquo;&hellip;Isles&rsquo; asst, coach Bob Nystrom says he&rsquo;d like to return to the same position next season. &ldquo;It took me a long time to adjust to the new job,&rdquo; says Ny. &ldquo;At the beginning, I may have been overly critical but as the season wore on I began feeling more comfortable in the job.&rdquo;Few but Canuck insiders were aware that defenseman Garth Butcher helped break up an airline baggage-stealing racket in Winnipeg before the season ended. &ldquo;I was at the (Winnipeg) airport baggage carousel looking for my bag,&rdquo; Butcher tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;All of a sudden, out of the comer of my eye, I noticed some guy wheeling away a cart loaded with baggage with my valise in it. We got the cops and they nailed him. When the police went to his house they found a whole bunch of stolen suitcases.&rdquo;&hellip;If Bruins&rsquo; defenseman Mike Milbury pursues the Cornell University coaching job, he can expect competition from former Minnesota coach Brad Buetow, who is now with U.S. International in San Diego.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04501/5084924-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="339" height="590"><figcaption class="caption-body">Garth Butcher</figcaption></div>When Red Sox ace Roger Clemens caused a stir in Beantown over his salary demands, he had a sympathizer in the Bruins&rsquo; Steve Kasper. &ldquo;People look at $500,000 and think, &lsquo;Gee, how can you turn down all that money?&rsquo; But, tell me, if you were in a job that was normally worth $50,000 or $40,000 and the boss wanted to pay you only $20,000, would you take it? Clemens happens to be skilled in a occupation that, while it doesn&rsquo;t mean you&rsquo;re a better person than anyone else, demands public attention and consequently, pays big dollars.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0014-03

O’Reilly Suffering As An NHL Coach

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021006/5084962-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="559" height="1215"><figcaption class="caption-body">Right winger Cam Neely is one of the few untouchables on the Boston Bruins.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011277/5084969-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="112" height="115"></div>BOSTON&mdash;What&rsquo;s black and yellow and plays golf in April?Why, the Boston Bruins, of course. (See editorial cartoon, pg. 8.)That&rsquo;s the kind of joke making the rounds that general manager Harry Sinden does not appreciate. For the fourth straight year, his Bruins teed off in April after losing to the Montreal Canadiens in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.Now it&rsquo;s Sinden&rsquo;s turn to tee off.Predictions are that there will be wholesale changes in the club that has made the playoffs 20 years in a row-one short of the record held by the Canadiens&mdash;but has not won the Cup in 15 years and hasn&rsquo;t been a real contender for eight.One who will be back, for another season at least, is Sinden himself. He has a year left on the contract for the job he has held since October, 1972.&ldquo;Harry is running the hockey club,&rdquo; said Bruins&rsquo; president William Hassett. &ldquo;I have a great deal of confidence in him. In the weeks to come, he&rsquo;ll make recommendations about the future. I&rsquo;ll take an active role in judging but I think Harry is outstanding at what he does.&rdquo;If Sinden knows what he is going to do, he isn&rsquo;t saying.&ldquo;We have the break-up reception coming,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Any comments from me as to what we might be planning aren&rsquo;t appropriate right now.&rdquo;The first items on the agenda are talks with coaches Terry O&rsquo;Reilly and John Cunniff and, one by one, the players.Will O&rsquo; Reilly be back as head coach? There is no definitive answer to the question yet but the general impression is that he will not return. His youngest son, Evan, is still ailing and the long road trips were agonizing.There undoubtedly will be trades&mdash;some of them big ones if Sinden can make the arrangements&mdash;with only defenseman Ray Bourque, probable winner of the Norris Trophy, right winger Cam Neely and possibly 20-year-old goalie Bill Ranford listed as untouchable.Some of the key parts of the Bruins machine are aging as the new breed of hockey players go. Rick Middleton will be 34 next season, Charlie Simmer 33, Mike Milbury 35, Reed Larson and Thomas Gradin 31, and Dwight Foster, 30.The Bruins will have two choices in the first round of next June&rsquo;s draft, the third (by way of Vancouver) and the 14th overall. The underage draft being what it is, it is unlikely they will get anyone that will help immediately.Injuries played a role in the fact that the Bruins finished third in the Adams Division and faded quickly in the play-offs. Over the regular season, they lost 390 man-games to various injuries, including full 80-game seasons by defenseman Gord Kluzak and winger Louis Sleigher. Both are doubtful for next year.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard Kluzak is doing &lsquo;rather well,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Sinden. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t know if &ldquo;rather well&rsquo; is good enough. &lsquo;Rather well&rsquo; has been going on for a year now. It hasn&rsquo;t changed an awful lot.&rdquo;Kluzak, 23, the No. I draft pick five years ago, has had three arthroscopic procedures on his left knee in the past nine months and still can&rsquo;t skate without pain.Sleigher, 28, has had surgery twice in a year for muscle tears in his groin and also skates in pain. &ldquo;&lsquo;Unknown&rsquo; is the word for Louis,&rdquo; said Sinden.Down on the farm, the Bruins have several promising forwards, all of whom have been seen and evaluated over the past year or so. The best of the lot probably are Bob Sweeney, the big (6-foot-3, 210-pound) centerman from Boston College who had two goals and four assists in 14 games with the big club, and little (5-foot-9, 180-pound) Randy Burridge, who had 17 goals in 52 games two years ago.Last year&rsquo;s top draft choice, Craig Janney, has a couple of years to go at Boston College and probably will play in the 1988 Olympics, but the Bruins are counting on big things from Bob Joyce (fourth round, 1984), a 50-goal right winger out of North Dakota, and Swedish center Tommy Lehmann, a free-agent signing.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a bleak picture,&rdquo; said Sinden. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not what we want it to be, but it&rsquo;s not bleak.&rdquo;</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN&mdash;The Bruins&rsquo; longest win streak of the season was seven games; the longest losing streak, five&hellip;Rick Middleton scored goals in six straight games in March, high for the team. &#9632;

f0014-02

Sinden One Of Few Bruins Certain To Return In ‘87-88

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011078/5085000-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Craig Hartsburg of the Minnesota North Stars was the early lynchpin on defense for Canada&rsquo;s entry at the World Championships.</figcaption></div>VIENNA&mdash;On the day before Team Canada opened the World Championships against Team USA, coach Dave King put his team&rsquo;s prospects squarely in perspective.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s an unknown quality about this team,&rdquo; said King. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s going to happen. You don&rsquo;t know how they&rsquo;re going to come together, how they&rsquo;re going to play together. So it&rsquo;s not the opponent that you&rsquo;re uncertain about, it&rsquo;s the uncertainty of your own team.&ldquo;I have no idea how we&rsquo;re going to play. You can&rsquo;t anticipate that. It just comes together.&rdquo;Three games into the tournament, King had received his answer: The team was coming together just fine, thanks.Canada opened with a 3-1 win over the U.S. and followed up with a 1-1 tie against Czechoslovakia and 6-1 victory over Switzerland, all but clinching a place in the medal round by securing five of a possible six points.The Canadian team played two men short of the roster limit against the U.S., so that they could add players from the five first-round playoff series that went beyond five games. That decision represented a calculated risk because it forced Canada to use only five defensemen.Two players&mdash;Minnesota North Star Craig Hartsburg and Pittsburgh Penguin Doug Bodger&mdash;played every other shift as the team stuck to King&rsquo;s game plan and kept everything simple. Hartsburg was especially brilliant, controlling the pace of the game with a precision that won him the player-of-the-game award.One day later, the first of the Canadian reinforcements&mdash;Hartford Whaler Kevin Dineen&mdash;arrived, giving them a full complement of forwards against the powerful Czechoslovakian team.It took the strangest goal of Tony Tanti&rsquo;s five-year career&mdash;a dipping, curving knuckler from outside the blue line&mdash;with 15 seconds remaining for Canada to get a wholly deserving single point against Czechoslovakia.Tanti&rsquo;s goal came with goaltender Sean Burke on the bench for a sixth attacker and capped a stunning performance by a Canadian team that had been together exactly 10 days.The play began when Tanti, substituting for Burke, tried to dump the puck into the comer. Tanti&rsquo;s slow easy shot dipped with the effectiveness of a Phil Niekro knuckleball and caught Czechoslovak goaltender Dominik Hasek looking the wrong way.Czechoslovak coach Jan Starsi acknowledged that &ldquo;the result was just&rdquo;&mdash;even though it took a pure fluke to get that result.&ldquo;I thought he hit either a wedge or a nine-iron,&rdquo; said King, analyzing Tanti&rsquo;s chip-in. &ldquo;I told him he&rsquo;d better go back to replace his divot.&rdquo;&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t see it until it was past the goalie,&rdquo; said Tanti. &ldquo;I just wanted to put it into the far comer to get it to the guys breaking in. It dropped two or three feet. Then I saw the net move.&rdquo;From Canada&rsquo;s perspective, the second highlight of the first week&rsquo;s action was the play of goaltender Sean Burke, a New Jersey Devils&rsquo; prospect. In the end, only two members of Canada&rsquo;s national team&mdash;Burke and defenseman Zarley Zalapski&mdash;were included on the World Championship team. Wally Schreiber, a forward, made the trip to Vienna, but was dropped from the roster before the opener.Burke started ahead of the more experienced Pat Riggin and saved the game against Czechoslovakia with two brilliant stops on Vladimir Ruzicka breakaways. On the first, Ruzicka deked to the backhand, but Burke followed him all the way across the crease and deflected his backhand shot wide. On the second, Ruzicka tried to go between his legs, but Burke stood his ground, relying on his large frame to block the shot.&ldquo;Halfway through the game, I said to myself: &lsquo;Who owns that guy&rsquo;s rights?&rsquo; He played a heck of a game in goal for us,&rdquo; said Dineen.Canada completed its 23-man roster by adding Calgary Flame defenseman Paul Reinhart as well as New York Ranger goaltender Bob Froese and defenseman James Patrick. Reinhart, who missed the Flames&rsquo; last two playoff games with a deep laceration above his knee, joined the team on spec. He needed medical clearance from the Canadian doctors before the Flames would allow him to play.Considering that the majority of Team Canada&rsquo;s players were chosen from among the NHL&rsquo;s also-rans, the spirit and attitude of the team were excellent.&ldquo;From the first practice, you could tell everybody was getting along well and everybody wanted to work for each other,&rdquo; said Burke. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the big thing. The biggest compliment you can give a teammate is to work hard for him.&rdquo;&ldquo;Playing in the NHL is our job, our livelihood,&rdquo; said North Star center Keith Acton. &ldquo;Our first priority is to make the Stanley Cup playoffs and do as well as we can in that. For whatever reason, that has not happened for each and every one of us here. So this gives us an opportunity to salvage something. We&rsquo;re competitive people. We have pride. This is one way to get some fulfillment out of the year.&rdquo;In the victory over the Swiss, Tanti led the way with a pair of third-period goals. Heading into the final period, Team Canada held a 2-1 lead but a four-goal outburst&mdash;started at the 47-second mark by Tanti and concluded eight minutes, 10 seconds later by Acton&mdash;iced the game.Bodger, Barry Pederson and Dino Ciccarelli had the other Canadian goals. &#9632;

f0016-01

Canadians Pass First Test

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>VIENNA&mdash;The way coach Dave Peterson saw it, all was not lost for the United States&mdash;even though his team lost its two games on the first weekend of play at the World Championships.&ldquo;There are five games to go and 10 points at stake,&rdquo; said Peterson. &ldquo;Ten points would get you into the medal round. Sometimes, eight points will get you in the medal round.&rdquo;Ten or eight? Team USA had no choice.It would have to be the latter after the Americans dropped an 11-2 decision to the Soviet Union in their third outing.The U.S. lost its opener to Canada 3-1, then followed with a penalty-filled 5-2 defeat to Sweden. Against the Swedes, Soviet referee Nikolai Morozov handed the Americans the majority of the penalties, something that prevented them from getting or sustaining any momentum in the game.&ldquo;We were stronger today (versus Sweden) than we were against Canada,&rdquo; said Peterson, &ldquo;but we took too many penalties. I don&rsquo;t think we always played wisely. I thought the referee not only was very weak, but also very unfair. He saw only one team, the team in white. He called a very poor game.&rdquo;A team full of Soviets was the Americans&rsquo; undoing in their third game. Only Aaron Broten and collegian Craig Janney scored goals in the double-figure rout.Unlike the Canadian team, which filled all but two places on the 23-man roster with National Hockey League players, the U.S. played six college players in each of the first two games and were in a position to rotate two others into its lineup.As a result, the Americans were not taking a win-at-all-costs philosophy into the tournament. If the U.S. finish in the top six, and provide its would-be Olympians with some valuable international experience, then they will meet one of their primary goals, said Peterson.The U.S. used an all-college line&mdash;Tony Granato (Wisconsin), Clark Donatelli (Boston University) and Lane McDonald (Harvard)&mdash;plus Boston College center Janney and defenseman Brian Leetch and Wisconsin goaltender Mike Richter. They also had BU&rsquo;s Scott Young and BC&rsquo;s Kevin Stevens in reserve.Peterson predicted that the U.S. team would improve as the tournament progessed and its NHL players became more comfortable with each other.Los Angeles Kings Bobby Carpenter, Jimmy Carson and Bryan Erickson as well as Chicago Blackhawk Ed Olczyk and New York Ranger John Vanbiesbrouck netminder were all last-minute additions.The recruits were obviously no help in the Soviet debacle&mdash;Vanbiesbrouck didn&rsquo;t dress as Chris Terreri and Mike Richter suffered the bombing&mdash;but should make them more competitive in remaining games against less imposing competition.&ldquo;Plus, it&rsquo;s important to finish in the top six in terms of your schedule for the Olympics,&rdquo; said Peterson. &ldquo;If you were to finish seventh or eighth, you could get three other strong teams in your pool. One wouldn&rsquo;t get into the medal round. So even if we&rsquo;re not playing for medals (in the World Championship), there&rsquo;s a lot at stake for us.&ldquo;We could have had an all-pro team if we&rsquo;d chosen too. Our philosophy was to get some kids here for experience.&rdquo;After three days of competition, the Soviet Union was atop the standings with a 3-0-0 record. It was followed by Czechoslovakia and Canada (both 2-0-1), Sweden (2-1-0), West Germany (1-2-0), Finland (1-20) and the U.S. and Switzerland (both 0-3-0). &#9632;

Americans In Hole After Three Losses

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01948/5085055-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Montreal Canadien defenseman Chris Chelios was the best of the Habs during their four-game sweep of the Bruins.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02766/5085062-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="130" height="91"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;If there had been an award for the most valuable player in the Adams Division semi-final series between the Canadiens and the Boston Bruins, it likely would have gone to Chris Chelios.While there is no one on this Canadiens&rsquo; team who is capable of being a one-man show, the 25-year-old native of Chicago came mighty close.Playing aggressively and confidently, Chelios enjoyed some of the finest moments of his career in the third and fourth games of the series at the Boston Garden.&ldquo;I got some lucky shots and some breaks,&rdquo; said Chelios, a member of Team NHL at Rendez-vous &lsquo;87. &ldquo;When the team is going well and playing the way we are, it&rsquo;s a lot more fun playing out there.&rdquo;Chelios scored a shorthanded goal and added two assists in game three. In game four, his goal late in the first period tied the score 1-1 and seemed to further discourage the depressed Bruins.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;The only way our team can do well is if we are disciplined. We have a good mixture of players and everyone knows what his role is. We go out there and not try to do too much.&rdquo;</blockquote><blockquote class="pullQuote">&mdash;Chelios</blockquote>But it was the defensive play of Chelios that impressed most. He was a Tasmanian devil on ice, darting to and fro, breaking up a rush here, delivering a punishing body check there.&ldquo;No. 1 is defensive play,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;They had me and Craig Ludwig playing against the scoring line in Boston&mdash;(Cam) Neely, (Thomas) Gradin and (Rick) Middleton. Playing with Craig, we are getting to know each other more and more. We didn&rsquo;t play a lot together during the season but, defensively, I think Craig and I communicate well. The whole team is working well together and that helps a lot too.&rdquo;Ludwig and Chelios crossed up the Bruins and observers alike, by not sticking to preconceived notions of offensive and defensive roles. There were moments in the Boston series when Ludwig lugged the puck and Chelios covered up.&ldquo;The coach has told us that they want the defense to follow the play a little more,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;If there is a chance, they want us to be able to take advantage of it. Craig can go up with the play just as well as anybody else.&rdquo;Chelios could stand to gain more than personal satisfaction from a good playoff season. He and agent Don Meehan of Toronto have a date this summer with managing director Serge Savard, to negotiate a deal longer than the one-year contract agreed upon for the 1986-87 season.There were times during the first half that Chelios struggled, but in the last month there was little doubt that he and Ludwig have been the dominant forces on the Montreal defense. Chelios has been doing it ail&mdash;playing a regular shift, killing penalties and taking a turn on the power play. He loves the ice time and it has shown.However, the key to the Canadiens&rsquo; success is team discipline, not flashy, individualistic play. That has suited him fine.&ldquo;The only way our team can do well is if we are disciplined.&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We have a good mixture of players and everyone knows what his role is. We go out there and not try to do too much. Our team is a hitting team and we have to hit to be succesful.&rdquo;The Canadiens didn&rsquo;t take Boston lightly, he insisted, despite their four-decade playoff success story.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m scared going into every playoff.&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough not to get nervous. We have played Boston every time since I&rsquo;ve been here (four years). We&rsquo;ve got to be on the ball all the time.&ldquo;I think we went into that series scared. We were nervous, not to the point where we were tight on the ice. We played with discipline.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s the same formula that brought the Canadiens a 23rd Stanley Cup last season. Montreal&rsquo;s No. 24 hopes it will result in championship No. 24 this spring.IN PASSING&mdash;The Montreal players received a two-day rest from practice, but returned for a gruelling 90minute workout in preparation for the Adams Division final&hellip;Not many of the players expressed a preference for Hartford or Quebec as an opponent, although goaltender Patrick Roy said he would rather play Quebec. &#9632;

f0017-01

Canadiens’ No. 24 In Hunt For Cup No. 24

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0018-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01977/5085100-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Francis acknowledges the Whalers would have been better off had they concentrated on hockey, not &ldquo;the other stuff.&rdquo;</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02737/5085107-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="115" height="115"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div>HARTFORD&mdash;The Hartford Whalers&rsquo; championship season ended not with a whimper, or astonishingly, a whistle, but with a bang.And another bang, and a bang, bang. Four of them in a row. All losses.When Peter Stastny, sent away by a perfect pass from Dale Hunter, broke behind defensemen Dave Babych and Joel Quenneville and beat goaltender Mike Liut with a forehanded shot from the doorstep, the Whalers&rsquo; Stanley Cup plans were short-circuited officially.In game six of the opening round.Stastny&rsquo;s goal at 6:05 of overtime gave the fourth-place Quebec Nordi-ques their fourth straight victory over the first-place Whalers and a 4-2 win in a series that, incredibly, was the most-penalized in National Hockey League history.The Whalers? The least-penalized team in the NHL this year? With a handful of forwards who could ride in the Kentucky Derby without a weight allowance? Involved in the most penalized series of all time?Stop it.The Whalers wouldn&rsquo;t, or couldn&rsquo;t, and that&rsquo;s the primary reason they&rsquo;re on the sidelines today.&ldquo;We have no one to blame but ourselves,&rdquo; Ron Francis said. &ldquo;Ittook us five games to get it through our thick heads that the secret was to just play hockey and forget about the other stuff. All we can do is chalk it up to experience.&rdquo;Coach Michel Bergeron&rsquo;s game plan, which worked perfectly, was obvious from the moment the puck was dropped in game one. To slow down the speedy Whalers, the man nicknamed Le Petit Tigre instructed his Nordiques to clutch, grab and say some downright nasty things whenever they had the chance, which was often. The Whalers, most notably, Kevin Dineen, who was scoreless in the first five games, responded with their sticks and fists.And that&rsquo;s the way it went, period after period, game after game. The Nordiques would act and the Whalers would react, many times stupidly.Bergeron and Quebec seemed to be one jump ahead all series.&ldquo;The most disappointing part is that we know that the Nordiques are not the better team,&rdquo; said Dave Tippett, one of the Whalers&rsquo; few shining lights. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s something we&rsquo;re going to have to live with all summer.&rdquo;The Whalers jumped to a 2-0 lead in Hartford after catching a major-league break in game one when John Ogrod-nick&rsquo;s apparent game-winner at the buzzer was disallowed.In game three at Quebec, Stastny had a hat trick in a 5-1 verdict that featured 243 penalty minutes. Dave Semenko got a game misconduct for high-sticking Robert Picard and then showering Paul Gillis with punches. The Nordiques got a power-play goal.In game four, Michel Goulet had a hat trick in a 4-1 decision and Ulf Samuelsson picked up his second game misconduct of the series (and an automatic one-game suspension) for demonstratively telling Bergeron what he could with his French charm.Afterwards, coach Jack Evans said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m disappointed in the result, but I&rsquo;m not disappointed in the way our team played.&rdquo;In game five, Ogrodnick had a hat trick in a 7-5 victory, beating Liut with 67 seconds left for the game-winner.In Liut&rsquo;s defense, he has set a high standard for himself. But this time around, he failed. His 2-4 record with a 4.52 goals-against average is not misleading. He gave up a bevy of early goals and several late goals, although one was disallowed.In game five, Dineen cross-checked Stastny at the bench and Ray Ferraro slashed Goulet at center ice almost simultaneously, thereby giving the Nordiques a 5-on-3 advantage, which they turned into two goals.&ldquo;I cost the team big-time,&rdquo; Ferraro said.In game six, the Whalers built a 4-1 lead and then Dean Evason speared Basil McRae and was ejected. It was the last great mental blunder by the Whalers in a series of mental blunders.&ldquo;We should look at this as a valuable lesson,&rdquo; Tippett said. &ldquo;To win, we&rsquo;ve got to learn to take a punch in the head or a slash in the back. To be a great team, that&rsquo;s what you have to do. We&rsquo;re not a great team yet.&rdquo;WHALER SCUTTLEBUTT&mdash;There were 202 penalties for 611 minutes in all, with the Whalers collecting 104 for 317. The 1976 Flyers held the previous record of 92 penalties for 295 minutes. Vancouver and Chicago had 560 minutes in the 1982 conference finals.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-04355/5085093-1-eng-US/f0018-042.jpg" title="f0018-04" width="1166" height="1121"><figcaption class="caption-body">Defensive forward Dave Tippett hopes Hartford will learn from the painful experience of losing to the underdog Nordiques.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0018-01

‘No One To Blame But Ourselves’: Francis

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03528/5085138-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="380" height="468"><figcaption class="caption-body">Barry Meisel</figcaption></div>FORTY NHL BITS you would not have believed possible when the season began on Oct. 9:1) Marcel Dionne becoming a Ranger.2) The Pat Quinn affair.3) Bryan Trottier&rsquo;s guest editorial, a candid critique of the refs that cost him $1,000.4) Rendez-vous &lsquo;87. The hockey, the city, the week. As good as everybody thought it would be, it was better.5) Joe Murphy, the NHL&rsquo;s No. 1 draft pick overall in 1986. playing five games for Detroit.6) Ted Sator being fired by the Rangers (no, not this part) and becoming a candidate for coach of the year by lifting the Buffalo Sabres back into playoff contention.7) Brian (Spinner) Spencer charged with murder in West Palm Beach, Fla.8) Scotty Bowman without a job.9) David Poile firing Bobby Carpenter.10) Carpenter becoming a Ranger.11) Pittsburgh&rsquo;s 7-0-0 start and 23-38-12 finish.12) Tomas Sandstrom (40) scoring more goals than Mike Bossy (38).13) Walt Poddubny scoring as many points (87) as Bryan Trottier.14) John Vanbiesbrouck (3.64) finishing with a worse goals-against average than Glen Hanlon (3.18).15) Daniel Berthiaume (18-7-3, 3.17) finishing with a better record and goals-against average than Grant Fuhr (22-13-3, 3.44).16) Pat Verbeek (17) scoring more power-play goals than Wayne Gretzky (13).17) Gilbert Perreault scoring as many goals (9) in 20 games before retiring as Joey Kocur did all season.18) Winnipeg 6-2-0 vs. Calgary, Calgary 6-1-1 vs. Edmonton, Edmonton 5-3-0 vs. Winnipeg.19) Reijo Ruotsalainen on the same power play as Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier and Paul Coffey.20) Ron Duguay becoming a Ranger.21) Montreal&rsquo;s Brian Hayward and Patrick Roy winning the Jennings Trophy because the Flyers&rsquo; Ron Hextall yielded nine goals to the Islanders on the final day of the regular season.22) Craig Berube playing in more games (seven, 57 PIMs) than Brett Hull (five games, one goal).23) The Devils playing a game in front of 334 fans. (Now don&rsquo;t be nasty, it snowed.)24) Buffalo playing its lungs out down the stretch, almost catching Quebec for a playoff spot, and still finishing 21st to earn the first overall pick in 1987. Justice does triumph.25) Gretzky scoring only 183 points.26) Detroit finishing second in the Norris Division.27) St. Louis finishing first.28) Toronto in the playoffs.29) Minnesota out of the playoffs.30) Bob Froese becoming a Ranger.31) Six legitimate all-star centers (Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Dale Hawerchuk, Doug Gilmour, Steve Yzer-man, Mark Messier) and only three spots on the ballot.32) Five legitimate all-star right wingers (Tim Kerr, Jari Kurri, Dino Ciccarelli, Joey Mullen and Kevin Dineen) and only three spots on the ballot.33) Only two legitimate all-star left wingers (Michel Goulet, Luc Robitaille), but a third spot on the ballot that must be filled.34) Joey Mullen losing a penalty-shot goal because he used an illegal stick.35) Ron Hextall&rsquo;s 104 penalty minutes.36) Phil Esposito behind the Ranger bench in a tuxedo on New Year&rsquo;s Eve at the Garden.37) Edmonton&rsquo;s brief late November boot camp, run by Sergeant Sather after the Oilers&rsquo; slow start.38) The John Brophy-Jacques Demers feud.39) Brian Curran having a better season on defense than Paul Boutilier.40) Parity.Now a word about parity. Be careful not to mistake it with mediocrity. Parity is a wonderful concept in any sport when the quality of the games matches the competitiveness of the standings.Too often that isn&rsquo;t the case, especially when your schedule is 840 games long. The NHL is toeing a fine line. Parity worked this season, but it might not again in 198788.Only Edmonton and Philadelphia finished with more than 100 points. Only Buffalo, New Jersey and Vancouver finished with fewer than 70.It is one thing to watch evenly-matched teams such as St. Louis (10th overall with 79 points) and Detroit (11th over-all with 78 points) when they are playing a skilled and exciting style.It is quite another when they aren&rsquo;t. The key is not making sure everybody finishes 35-35-10. It is making sure the 35-35-10 teams are worth watching. &#9632;

f0018-03

Who Would Have Believed Caps’ Firing Of Carpenter?

THE HOCKEY NEWS is inviting all of Canada to its fourth annual Awards Luncheon, June 18 in Toronto.No, THN did not find the largest banquet room in the world, but it has teamed up with The Sports Network to televise the prestigious event that honors outstanding achievement at all levels of hockey&mdash;from the youth leagues right up to the National Hockey League.TSN will produce a one-hour telecast that will be shown in prime time on the day of the banquet. In total, the banquet telecast will be shown three times in a 24-hour period on the all-sports pay-TV channel which boasts more than one million subscribers across Canada.&ldquo;We felt this was the year we had to do something extra to honor the award winners,&rdquo; said THN publisher and general manager Michael Lawton. &ldquo;Our agreement with TSN means that many more hockey fans across the country will see their favorite players honored. I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s any question that this year&rsquo;s banquet will be the best yet.&rdquo;A total of 11 awards will presented at the luncheon. They are as follows:THN-TRANSAMERICA LIFE NHL PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Voted on by readers of THN, this award goes to the National Hockey League&rsquo;s outstanding player.THN-NHL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Voted on by readers of THN, this award goes to the National Hockey League&rsquo;s outstanding rookie.THN-NHL EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR: Voted on by correspondents of THN, this award goes to the National Hockey League individual (i.e. general manager, front-office personnel) considered the league&rsquo;s most outstanding executive.THN-NHL COACH OF THE YEAR: Voted on by correspondents of THN, this award goes to the National Hockey League coach deemed to have done the best job behind the bench over the course of the past season.THN-LABATT&rsquo;S INTERNATIONAL PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR: Chosen by THE HOCKEY NEWS, this award goes to the North American (player, coach, general manager or executive) deemed to have made the most significant contribution at the international level during the past season.THN-MINOR PRO PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Chosen by THE HOCKEY NEWS and its minor pro correspondents, this award goes to 1986-87&rsquo;s outstanding minor pro player.THN-MINOR PRO COACH OF THE YEAR: Chosen by THE HOCKEY NEWS and its minor pro correspondents, this award goes to the year&rsquo;s top minor pro coachTHN-MICRON JUNIOR PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Chosen by THE HOCKEY NEWS and its major junior correspondents, this award goes to the player deemed to be most outstanding at the major junior level.THN-BAUER COLLEGE PLAYERS OF THE YEAR: Chosen by THE HOCKEY NEWS and its college and university correspondents, this dual award goes to the top players in U.S. college and Canadian university hockey.THN-JOFA-TITAN MINOR HOCKEY PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Chosen by a draw from all entries submitted to the THN-JOFA-TITAN Minor Showcase feature, which ran for 22 consecutive weeks in THN, this representative award goes to a North American youth player who embraces the qualities of sportsmanship and dedication to the game.THN-ITECH KING CLANCY MEMORIAL AWARD: Chosen by THE HOCKEY NEWS, this award is named in honor of the first and only winner of THN-ITECH Hall of Fame Award. Last year, Francis Michael (King) Clancy was named the outstanding retired hockey personality who continued to contribute to the game. After Clancy&rsquo;s death last November, THN and ITECH decided to re-name the award in honor of his memory.On the pages that follow, we&rsquo;ll take a closer look at each of the awards, including a short list of the candidates vying the respective honors.Two finalists in each category, with the exception of THN-ITECH King Clancy Award and THN-JOFA-TITAN Minor Hockey Player of the Year, will be announced in the May 29th issue of THN.Winners will be announced at the banquet June 18 in Toronto, with complete coverage on The Sports Network and in the July 31st issue of THN. &#9632;

THN Teams Up With TSN For Annual Awards

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01910/5085193-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rookie-of-the-year candidate Ron Hextall earned two shutouts for the Flyers in their first-round series with the New York Rangers.</figcaption></div>What can you say about a gifted player whose points total fell off by 32 in one season?That he slumped badly? That he let his team down when it needed him most?Well, if the player you&rsquo;re talking about is Wayne Gretzky&mdash;whose points total did indeed fall by 32, from 215 last year to 183 this season&mdash;the usual criteria can be thrown out the window.For a 183-point season is truly incredible. In fact, nobody but Gretzky has ever topped 152.That&rsquo;s why the Edmonton Oiler superstar, winner of the Art Ross Trophy for the eighth consecutive year, is also the leading candidate to earn his eighth straight selection as THE HOCKEY NEWS NHL Player of the Year.No player has emerged as a clear-cut No. 1 challenger, but several have had decent seasons and could stand a chance of usurping The Great One. They include:RAYMOND BOURQUE: The odds-on favorite to win the Norris Trophy as best defenseman, Bourque is to the Boston Bruins what Gretzky is to the Oilers. He&rsquo;s an exceptional skater, a fine passer and a creative force on the ice. His offensive numbers (2372-95 in 78 games) were the best among NHL rear-guards this year.DOUG GILMOUR: When coach Jacques Demers bolted St. Louis for the Detroit Red Wings, pundits suggested the Blues had lost their heart. Not so. With the longterm absence of injured captain Brian Sutter and shorter absence of Bernie Federko, Gilmour emerged as the consummate team leader, with his pesky checking, nifty playmaking and opportunistic shooting. Not even his fine statistics (42-63-105 in 80 games) do justice to his overall contribution.DALE HAWERCHUK: In this great revival year for the Winnipeg Jets, no player has been more prominent than Hawer-chuk. The big center scored consistently all year long, and kept the Jets within shouting distance of Smythe Division rivals Edmonton and Calgary. On the year, he contributed 47 goals and 53 assists for an even 100 points, marking the fifth time in six NHL seasons he cracked the century barrier.MARIO LEMIEUX: After a fast start which saw him score 31 points in his first 11 games, Lemieux returned to the world of mortals. A knee injury kept him out of the lineup for the better part of a month and, when he returned, it took him a while to work off the rust. Lemieux finished with a flourish, however, spearheading Pittsburgh&rsquo;s late but unsuccessful drive for a playoff berth. He ended the season tied for third in scoring with 53 goals and 54 assists for 107 points, in just 63 games.STEVE YZERMAN: Already selected as one of THN&rsquo;s comeback players of the year, Yzer-man took over the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; captaincy at the tender age of 21 and blossomed into a complete player. He&rsquo;s gifted on offense (31-59-90 in 80 games) and, like the rest of his Red Wing teammates, he&rsquo;s a fine checker as well. Yzerman&rsquo;s leadership skills get high praise from Detroit coach Jacques Demers, who compares him to Sutter of the Blues.The race for the THN-NHL Rookie of the Year, meanwhile, has strayed significantly from the two-man contest it once was. Philadelphia&rsquo;s Ron Hextall and Los Angeles&rsquo; Luc Robitaille have both enjoyed excellent freshman campaigns, but their unspectacular second halves have allowed other contenders to creep into the picture.Any one of five freshman may legitimately challenge for the award:BRIAN BENNING: Easily the league&rsquo;s best freshman defenseman. Benning, 20, was drafted 26th overall in 1984, but didn&rsquo;t really begin to emerge as a topflight blueliner until last year, as a member of Canada&rsquo;s national squad. The Blues felt they couldn&rsquo;t afford to be without him another year, so they recalled him, and he repaid them with 13 goals and 36 assists in 78 games.SHAWN BURR: The best new defensive forward to join the NHL in years. Detroit coach Jacques Demers won&rsquo;t hesitate to use the 20-year-old in tight-checking, game-on-the-line situations against the opposition&rsquo;s best forwards. This potential future Selke Trophy winner can also score&mdash;he had 22 goals and 25 assists in 80 games.JIMMY CARSON: The other half of the Kings&rsquo; joint entry, Carson&rsquo;s strong play has been overshadowed by the goal-scoring feats of Luc Robitaille. Still, there are many who feel the 18-year-old center from Michigan may be the better of the two. Carson was drafted No. 2 overall last year and lived up to his billing, with 37 goals and 42 assists in 80 games.RON HEXTALL: The combative 23-year-old Philadelphia Flyer netminder established himself as the No. 1 man with an early-season shutout of Edmonton. While his play turned more erratic as the year wore on, his regular-season numbers&mdash;3.00 goals-against average&hellip;902 save percentage and a league-leading 37 wins&mdash;were outstanding.LUC ROBITAILLE: One of two excellent freshmen from the Los Angeles Kings, Robitaille showed up the critics who said he was too slow for the NHL by scoring 45 goals and 39 assists in 79 games. The emergence of the 21-year-old left winger, L.A.&rsquo;s ninth choice in the 1984 entry draft, made it far easier for Kings&rsquo; management to trade veteran Marcel Dionne. &#9632;

f0019-01

Gretzky MVP Favorite; Rookie Race Open

Only five teamsin National Hockey League history registered a greater one-season turnaround than the Detroit Red Wings this year, under coach Jacques Demers.Demers&rsquo; Wings picked up 78 points in 80 games, an astounding 38 more than last year. The team led the Norris Division standings for most of the second half of the schedule, until a late-season mini-slump left them one point behind St. Louis.The last time a team rebounded as quickly as this year&rsquo;s Wings, the coach was named THE HOCKEY NEWS NHL Coach of the Year. That was in 1981-82, when Tom Watt resurrected the Winnipeg Jets from a 32-point campaign the year before to an even 80 points in 80 games.Demers&rsquo; achievement in his first year with Detroit ranks him as a top contender for the award. Strong arguments could also be advanced for St. Louis&rsquo; Jacques Martin, Winnipeg&rsquo;s Dan Maloney and Hartford&rsquo;s Jack Evans. Let&rsquo;s look at the candidates:JACQUES DEMERS: Maybe it&rsquo;s just coincidence, but it seems every time Jacques Demers takes over a team, that team rediscovers pride in effort. The Red Wings are just the most recent example. In 1975-76, Demers took over the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Associtaion and changed them from stumb-lebums (18-57-3 the year before) to a solid hockey team (35-39-6). In 1983-84, he assumed control of the St. Louis Blues after a messy ownership change, which saw the team miss the entire NHL entry draft. Inexplicably, the team improved&mdash;from 65 points to 71, and the next year from 71 to 86. No wonder the Red Wings shelled out big bucks and have risked a lawsuit to get him.JACK EVANS: The Hartford Whalers&rsquo; coach is another whose 1986-87 achievements have been overshadowed by the success of the flamboyant Demers. The Whalers showed they were on the brink of greatness last year, when they made the playoffs for the first time since 1980 and challenged Montreal for the Adams Division title. Evans didn&rsquo;t let the team fall into flash-in-the-pan status. He worked his players hard and they responded, with a first-place finish in the black-and-blue Adams Division.DAN MALONEY: Here&rsquo;s a surprise candidate. One always had the feeling the hard-nosed Maloney could be a good NHL coach in his days with Toronto, but the Maple Leafs&rsquo; thin lineup left him frustrated and with a poor win-loss record. Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; GM John Ferguson saw the potential, however&mdash;and when Maloney refused to sign Toronto&rsquo;s lowball offer, he snapped him up. The result? Aturnaround of 29 points, from last year&rsquo;s 2647-7 record to this year&rsquo;s 40-32-8.JACQUES MARTIN: While the Blues&rsquo; executive gnashed its teeth at the loss of Demers, Martin slipped in quietly, and guided the Blues to a first-place finish in the Norris Division. Martin, just one year out of coaching major junior hockey, didn&rsquo;t institute sweeping changes. Wisely, he built on the foundation Demers left him. The Blues of Martin are every bit the tough, tight-checking team they were as the Blues of Demers&mdash;with about as much success.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01768/5085224-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="559" height="945"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jacques Demers has helped transform the Red Wings into a much-improved team.</figcaption></div>Unlike the THN Coach award, the THN NHL Executive of the Year award produces no clearcut favorite. Until the Vancouver Canucks staged their late-season surge&mdash;thus depriving the Boston Bruins of the No. 1 choice in the entry draft with the pick they obtained in a trade with the Canucks&mdash;it looked like Bruin GM Harry Sinden would be a clear-cut winner.Some of the leading candidates for this year&rsquo;s executive award are:MARCEL AUBUT: His Nordiques were near-washouts on the ice this year, but Aubut should be considered for this award because of his work in other areas. His brainchild, Rendez-vous &lsquo;87, turned into a first-class extravaganza of hockey, entertainment and rich cultural expression. The NHL owes a debt to him because of that alone.JIM DEVELLANO: Jacques Demers has been getting most of the credit for turning around the Red Wings, but don&rsquo;t forget whose idea it was to secure the coach at any cost. Detroit&rsquo;s trades this year (John Ogrodnick, Doug Shedden and Basil McRae to Quebec for Brent Ashton, Mark Kumpel and Gilbert Delorme, Chris Cichocki and a 1987 third-round draft choice for Mel Bridgman, and Randy Ladouceur to Hartford for Dave Barr) have worked out nicely, but their key draft choice (Joe Murphy No. 1 overall last summer) has not. Still, Jimmy D has to be considered for giving Demers the raw material with which to work.CLIFF FLETCHER: Patient building and careful craftsmanship by GM Fletcher have made the Flames into a perennial Stanley Cup contender. Draft choices such as Mike Vernon, Brian Bradley, Joe Nieuwendyk and Brett Hull have started to blossom, while veterans from past trades (John Tonelli, Doug Risebrough and Lanny McDonald) have provided allimportant leadership. Fletcher&rsquo;s only trade this year&mdash;Dan Quinn to Pittsburgh for Mike Bullard&mdash;rates as a saw-off.SERGE SAVARD: Like Fletcher, Montreal Canadien managing director Savard has built a contender through drafts and trades. Until the midway point of the season, everyone was saying Montreal&rsquo;s Stanley Cup championship last spring was a fluke. They&rsquo;re not saying that now. The Habs, playoff terrors as usual, have struck it rich with their young kids (Claude Lemieux, Patrick Roy and Stephane Richer among them), and received poised efforts from old vets such as Larry Robinson, Bob Gainey and Bobby Smith. That&rsquo;s Savard&rsquo;s doing. He remembers the way things were done when he was a player, and has adapted the winning formula to the new Habs.HARRY SINDEN: The Bruin boss made three noteworthy moves this past year. In the summer, he obtained Tom McCarthy from Minnesota and swapped disgruntled center Barry Pederson to the Canucks for winger Cam Neely and the Canucks&rsquo; first pick next year (third overall). While Pederson enjoyed a fine season (24-52-76 in 79 games), Neely (36-36-72 in 75) emerged as a two-way star. The third pick won&rsquo;t net the Bruins Pierre Turgeon but they might get Brendan Shanahan of London. Sin-den&rsquo;s other move&mdash;firing Butch Goring as coach and replacing him with Terry O&rsquo;Reilly&mdash;paid temporary dividends. Had O&rsquo;Reilly been able to skip the Bruins past Montreal in the first round of the playoffs, he would have made his boss look like a genius. &#9632;

f0020-01

Demers Surges To Head Of Coaching Class

At the end of the season, they stood like Siamese twins, er, make that triplets&mdash;one point apart in the International League scoring race. Ron Handy of Indianapolis, Jock Callander of Muskegon and Jeff Pyle of Saginaw are all contenders for the THN Minor Pro Player of the Year Award.Over in the American League, the candidates are two guys who can really fire the puck&mdash;Tim Tookey of Hershey and Brett Hull of Moncton&mdash;and one guy who can stop it&mdash;Daren Puppa of Rochester.Here&rsquo;s why each should be considered:JOCK CALLANDER: The Muskegon center registered his third straight 100-plus-point season with the club, turning in career highs in goals (54), assists (82) and points (136). Callander came to life during Muskegon&rsquo;s amazing stretch drive, which at one point saw them win 13 games in a row.RON HANDY: Though the Indianapolis Checkers finished under. 500 (37-38-7) and in fourth place in the IHL West Division, Handy shone throughout. In his first year in the IHL, he led the scoring race for most of the year before being nosed out by Callander and Pyle at the end. Still, his 55 goals led the league, and his 135 points were impressive.BRETT HULL: The son of the Golden Jet brought his own brand of rocket fuel to the American League. In just 67 games with the Moncton Golden Flames, Hull connected for 50 goals and 42 assists, earning himself a playoff stay with the parent Calgary Flames.DAREN PUPPA: Only one obstacle stands between Puppa and a successful career in the NHL&mdash;Tom Barrasso of the Buffalo Sabres. Meanwhile, Puppa has been determined to make the best of his stay with Buffalo&rsquo;s AHL farm club in Rochester, posting a league-leading 2.80 goals-against average for the Southern Division champs.JEFF PYLE: The Saginaw forward rose steadily from the pack to eventually claim his share of the scoring title. A fine playmaker, his 136 points included a leagueleading 87 assists.TIM TOOKEY: The Hershey Bear was front and center on the American League&rsquo;s top line, striking for 124 points, far and away the best total in the AHL. His 73 assists were also a league-best, and his 51 goals placed him second, behind Adirondack&rsquo;s Glenn Merkosky.In the race for THN-Minor Pro Coach of the Year, Sherbrooke&rsquo;s Pierre Creamer and five former NHLers&mdash;Rick Ley, John Van Boxmeer, Larry Pleau, Rick Dudley and Robbie Laird (he played one game for Minnesota in 1979-80, all you trivia buffs)&mdash;lead the pack.Their records tell you they can all coach, too:PIERRE CREAMER: Creamer taught his troops a thing or two about timing. As the AHL race heated up, the Sherbrooke Canadiens sizzled, winning 21 of 23 games to nail down the pennant with 102 points.RICK DUDLEY: The former ace of the World Hockey Association&rsquo;s Cincinnatti Stingers is now a respected coach with the IHL&rsquo;s second-year Flint Spirits. Dudley led the team out of its expansion diapers to a fine third-place showing (42-33-7) in the East Division.ROBBIE LAIRD: Laird&rsquo;s greatest accomplishment was getting his Fort Wayne Komets to keep their concentration on the ice, and not be bothered by a slew of office activity, which included the team being placed in receivership. Under Laird, the Komets finished first overall in the IHL with 104 points.RICK LEY: The Muskegon Lumberjacks, under Ley, pulled a similar number to Creamer&rsquo;s Canadiens. The &lsquo;Jacks passed four teams in the IHL&rsquo;s East Division standings with a record 13-game win streak, finishing first in the division with 99 points, second overall to the Fort Wayne Komets.LARRY PLEAU: Pleau&rsquo;s Binghamton Whalers were the only team in the AHL South more stingy than Van Boxmeer&rsquo;s Amerks, They gave them a good run for the crown, too, finishing second by only one point.JOHN VAN BOXMEER: Any team with Van Boxmeer is tough defensively, and the Rochester Americans are no exception. The Amerks finished with the second-best goals-against average in the AHL South, and topped the standings with 101 points. &#9632;

Major Efforts Highlight The Minor Pro Race

The scoring champions from each of Canada&rsquo;s three major junior leagues&mdash;Western, Quebec and Ontario&mdash;are among the top candidates for the THN-Micron Junior Player of the Year.Rob Brown of the Kamloops Blazers, Marc Fortier of the Chicoutimi Sagueneens and Scott McCrory of the Oshawa Generals all ran away and hid with the scoring races in their leagues. All would be deserving winners of the award.So would Pierre Turgeon of the Granby Bisons and Joe Sakic of the Swift Current Broncos. Both are eligible for this year&rsquo;s NHL entry draft, and both are expected to be high first-round selections.<blockquote class="pullQuote">The leading candidates for Junior Player of the Year are Rob Brown, Joe Sakic, Scott McCrory, Dave McLIwain, Pierre Turgeon and Marc Fortier.</blockquote>Dave McLIwain of the North Bay Centennials, the Ontario League&rsquo;s second-place scoring finisher, must also be considered.Let&rsquo;s take a closer look:ROB BROWN: The 19-year-old Blazer star continued to display the most amazing scoring skills in junior hockey, shattering records for points (212) and assists (136) in a single Western League season. Brown, a fourth-round selection of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1986 draft, could make the varsity next year after two consecutive stellar seasons with Kamloops.MARC FORTIER: Even though the Quebec League is traditionally much more offensive-minded than the other two major junior loops, Fortier&rsquo;s numbers (66-135201) still look mighty impressive. The 21-year-old center was never drafted, but the Quebec Nordiques had the good sense to sign him as a free agent.SCOTT McCRORY: This has been the year of the Oshawa Generals, and nobody has been more responsible for the Memorial Cup host team&rsquo;s success than McCrory. A 12th-round pick of the Washington Capitals last summer, the 20-year-old center scored 51 goals and a leagueleading 99 assists for 150 points&mdash;31 better than second-place finisher McLIwain.DAVE McLLWAIN: One of the sparkplugs on the ill-fated Canadian national junior team, McLIwain led the Ontario League in scoring for a while this season, before giving way to McCrory. The 19-year-old, a ninth-round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins last year, is also expected to make a strong bid to stick with the Penguins next year.JOE SAKIC: In just his first year of major junior, Sakic quickly became a crowd favorite at Swift Current&rsquo;s Centennial Civic Arena. The slick 18-year-old center took charge in the second half of the season, ending the campaign with 60 goals and 73 assists. He&rsquo;s rated as an early first-round pick at the entry draft.PIERRE TURGEON: Turgeon, 18, has been the most talked-about junior to come out of Quebec since Mario Lemieux. The gifted puckhandler and playmaker, who scored 69 goals and 85 assists this year for Granby, is expected to go either first or second overall in this year&rsquo;s NHL entry draft. &#9632;

Scoring Champions Contend For Award

One of the minor hockey players pictured on this page or one of the many more who submitted an entry to the TITAN JOFA Minor Hockey Showcase this past season, will be chosen as the THN-TITAN JOFA Minor Hockey Player of the Year for 1986-87.The winner representing youth hockey across North America, will receive an all expense paid trip to attend the fourth annual THN Awards Luncheon, June 18th in Toronto.Plus, the lucky winner chosen from all Showcase entries will receive a complete line of TITAN JOFA hockey equipment, a photoengraved plaque and a $500 donation to the charity of his or her choice.Both TITAN JOFA and THN would like to thank all those who submitted entries, making the Showcase program a resounding success.TITAN JOFA is proud to be associated with, and be a booster of youth hockey in North America.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01655/5085457-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">BEN SMITH Plattsburgh, NY</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02466/5085450-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">MICHAEL ARSENAULT Stoney Creek, ON</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03360/5085443-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">GORDIE SCHAEFFLER Rochester, Ml</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-04265/5085436-1-eng-US/f0022-042.jpg" title="f0022-04" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">CHRIS MEOAK East Lansing, Ml</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-05215/5085429-1-eng-US/f0022-052.jpg" title="f0022-05" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">JAMIE POWERS North Bay, ON</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-06172/5085422-1-eng-US/f0022-062.jpg" title="f0022-06" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">JEFF ROSEWICZ Parma, OH</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-07151/5085415-1-eng-US/f0022-072.jpg" title="f0022-07" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">COREY DANYLUK Sterling Heights, MI</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-08136/5085408-1-eng-US/f0022-082.jpg" title="f0022-08" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">AMANDA DAWN GODIN Medicine Hat, AB</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-09127/5085401-1-eng-US/f0022-092.jpg" title="f0022-09" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">TIMMY ALLISON Swarthmore, PA</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-10116/5085394-1-eng-US/f0022-102.jpg" title="f0022-10" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">STEVEN ADAIR Harris, SK</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-11111/5085387-1-eng-US/f0022-112.jpg" title="f0022-11" width="553" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">TERRY LAMIRANDE Elliot Lake, ON</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-12104/5085380-1-eng-US/f0022-122.jpg" title="f0022-12" width="505" height="547"><figcaption class="caption-body">RICHARD PARK Los Angeles, CA</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-1396/5085373-1-eng-US/f0022-132.jpg" title="f0022-13" width="505" height="547"><figcaption class="caption-body">DENNIS ARCHIBALD Chilliwack, BC</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-1487/5085366-1-eng-US/f0022-142.jpg" title="f0022-14" width="550" height="556"><figcaption class="caption-body">SIMON DESJARDINE Grand Bend, ON</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-1584/5085359-1-eng-US/f0022-152.jpg" title="f0022-15" width="550" height="552"><figcaption class="caption-body">ERIC ORTLIP St. Louis, MO</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-1676/5085352-1-eng-US/f0022-162.jpg" title="f0022-16" width="550" height="552"><figcaption class="caption-body">BRIAN BOUCHER Woonsocket, RI</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-1769/5085345-1-eng-US/f0022-172.jpg" title="f0022-17" width="550" height="552"><figcaption class="caption-body">PATRICK McKEE Cap Pete, NB</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-1868/5085338-1-eng-US/f0022-182.jpg" title="f0022-18" width="550" height="552"><figcaption class="caption-body">JAY PANZER Grand Forks, ND</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-1968/5085331-1-eng-US/f0022-192.jpg" title="f0022-19" width="550" height="553"><figcaption class="caption-body">JAY HERBERT Troy, NY</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-2066/5085324-1-eng-US/f0022-202.jpg" title="f0022-20" width="550" height="553"><figcaption class="caption-body">JAIMEE SHEEHY Largo, FL</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-2162/5085317-1-eng-US/f0022-212.jpg" title="f0022-21" width="550" height="553"><figcaption class="caption-body">KORI PEARSON Neepawa, MB</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-2253/5085310-1-eng-US/f0022-222.jpg" title="f0022-22" width="550" height="553"><figcaption class="caption-body">BRYAN KRALL Sparwood, BC</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-2348/5085303-1-eng-US/f0022-232.jpg" title="f0022-23" width="550" height="553"><figcaption class="caption-body">GARY BENOIT Hinton, AB</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0022-01

MINOR HOCKEY SHOWCASE AWARDS TITAN JOFA

It used to be that meaningful and exciting international hockey events were few and far between.Today, though, world-class international competition has been woven into the everyday fabric of hockey.For example, in a 12-month span from February, 1987, to February, 1988, hockey aficionados have already been treated to Rendez-vous &lsquo;87 and the current 1987 World Championships. Coming up on the menu is the 1987 Canada Cup, the 1988 World Junior Championships and, last but certainly not least, the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary.Labatt&rsquo;s and THN are proud to co-sponsor the International Personality of the Year Award, which goes to the (North American) player, coach or executive who has made a truly significant contribution to hockey at the international level.Last year&rsquo;s winner was National Hockey League star Marcel Dionne, in recognition of his enormous and repeated contributions to Team Canada entries at the World Championships each April.The year before that, NHL veteran star John Tonelli copped the award for his incredible performance in the 1984 Canada Cup.This year, the race is wide open.No fewer than four candidates have emerged from Canada&rsquo;s national team.General manager-coach Dave King, who continues to earn worldwide respect for his expertise, is of course a good possiblity.As are three of his players, netminder Sean Burke, defenseman Zarley Zalapski and forward Wally Schreiber.Burke, the New Jersey Devils&rsquo; goaltender of the future, established himself as one of the outstanding young goalies in the world during this, his first year in the program. He also helped Team Canada get off to a strong start at the 1987 World Championships in Vienna.Zalapski, too, joined that version of Team Canada. Earlier in the season, at the prestigious Izvestia tournament in Moscow, the first-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins was chosen the tourney&rsquo;s top defenseman.In addition to his on-ice efforts, Zalapski has been an inspiration for the program, resisting several tempting offers to join the Penguins.As for Schreiber, he joined the program from the International League and proceeded to become King&rsquo;s biggest offensive threat, scoring 39 goals and 37 assists in 68 games, tops on the team.Any of the three players or King would be worthy recipients of the award, although they will no doubt get strong competition from a number of other sources.That includes the personnel of the U.S. national junior team and Canada&rsquo;s ill-fated entry at the World Junior Championships in Czechoslovakia. Plus, members of both Team Canada and Team USA at the current World Championships will also be eligible.And we would be remiss to overlook the performances by North American players in Rendez-vous &lsquo;87. Wayne Gretzky, Dave Poulin and Kevin Dineen are three players who come immediately to mind as deserving of consideration. &#9632;

Race Is Wide Open For International Award

The King is gone, but he&rsquo;s not forgotten.Which explains why the Hall of Fame Award has been changed to THE HOCKEY NEWS-ITECH King Clancy Memorial Award.And while the name has changed, the intent of the award remains the same as when the fiery little Irishman stole the show at last year&rsquo;s THN Awards Luncheon in Toronto.It was the first year for the award, which goes to an individual who, long after actually playing or coaching the game, continues to give something to the sport of hockey, day in and day out.Naturally, King Clancy fit that bill.In his life of hockey, King did it all and continued to do so until complications from surgery last November took his life.It was decided immediately by THN and ITECH that it was only fitting to retire the Hall of Fame Award and replace it with the King Clancy Memorial Award.One of Clancy&rsquo;s last public appearances was at last year&rsquo;s Awards Luncheon and he used the platform to voice his opinions on how clutching and grabbing was killing hockey. He urged hockey&rsquo;s administrators to allow the talented players to play the game as it should be.&ldquo;King epitomized what the award was all about,&rdquo; says ITECH president Robin Burns, himself a former pro player. &ldquo;Presenting it to him that day was one of the greatest moments of my life. I&rsquo;ll never forget it. I&rsquo;ll never forget King.&rdquo;ITECH, which produces state-of-the-art facial and neck protection for all sports, including hockey, is a company on the leading edge of equipment manufacturing. But it is also committed to recognizing hockey&rsquo;s proud past.Hence, its involvement with the award.Such is also the thinking behind the ITECH-sponsored Hockey Memories Page, which was published in THN throughout the 1986-87 season.The Hockey Memories Page consists of two stories. One is a profile of a well-known ex-pro or hockey personality who&rsquo;s still involved in the game today. The other is a feature story that relates to some aspect of adult or oldtimer hockey in general.&ldquo;We wanted to create a special place in THE HOCKEY NEWS for adult- and oldtimer-related material,&rdquo; says Burns. &ldquo;There are so many individuals who are playing adult hockey, whether it&rsquo;s recreational or competititve.&ldquo;The point is that we want to do something to recognize those players who have simply refused to give up the game just because they&rsquo;re getting older. They may not be as fast as they used to be, but that doesn&rsquo;t stop them from playing the game they love. That&rsquo;s the attitude we&rsquo;re trying to recognize, both with the Hockey Memories Page and the King Clancy Memorial Award.&rdquo;The Clancy Memorial Award winner, selected jointly by THN and ITECH, will be announced in the May 29th issue of THN along with two finalists in all other award categories.The winner is expected to be present when he is honored at THN Awards Luncheon, June 18 in Toronto.The winner will not only receive a photo-engraved plaque, but a $500 cheque to be donated to the charity of his choice. &#9632;

Introducing The King Clancy Memorial Award

It&rsquo;s a testament to the quality of U.S. college hockey this year that three of the four top candidates for the THN-Bauer Player of the Year award were still playing meaningful hockey, long after the Final Four tournament was over.North Dakota&rsquo;s Tony Hrkac and Cornell&rsquo;s Joe Nieuwendyk were both playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs, while Boston College&rsquo;s Brian Leetch was in Vienna skating for the U.S.&rsquo;s World Championship entry.The fourth candidate, Wayne Gagne of Western Michigan, had a stint with the Canadian national team.Here&rsquo;s a rundown on each of the candidates:WAYNE GAGNE: The Western Michigan Bronco standout is a wheelhorse defenseman. He led all Central Collegiate Hockey Association scorers with 68 points on 12 goals and 56 assists in 32 games for a. 500 Western Michigan team.TONY HRKAC: This was a career year for the Fighting Sioux center. As a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association champions, Hrkac merely did it all. in 48 games overall, Hrkac scored a nationalrecord 116 points (46-70) and was named winner of the Hobey Baker award as the nation&rsquo;s top college hockey player. Soon after the Sioux&rsquo;s championship victory in Detroit, Hrkac took his magic act to the St. Louis Blues.BRIAN LEETCH: Boston College&rsquo;s freshman defenseman emerged as a dominant player in Hockey East this year, leading all rearguards with eight goals and 31 assists in 30 conference games (9-38-47 in 37 games overall).JOE NIEUWENDYK: Though he played for the sub-500 Cornell Big Red, Nieuwendyk emerged as a champion in his own right, scoring 24 goals and 24 assists for 48 points in 22 games. He was named to the NCAA east all-America team for the second year in a row, then joined the Calgary Flames for late- and post-season action.In Canada, meanwhile, some outstanding university players were staking their claim on the Canadian version of THN-Bauer Player of the Year award.The four leading candidates, all finalists for the Sullivan Trophy as outstanding university player in Canada, are:PAUL GEDDES: The Calgary Dinosaur forward set a new scoring standard of 69 points (32-37)&mdash;despite playing during the entire Christmas break, as a member of Canada&rsquo;s gold medalwinning Spengler Cup team.DON McLAUGHLIN: The Toronto Blues&rsquo; scoring whiz set an Ontario Universities Athletic Association record with 68 points (24-64) and was named to the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Association all-star team.DAVE QUIGLEY: The winner of the Sullivan Trophy enjoyed an outstanding season in the nets for the Moncton Blue Eagles of the Atlantic Universities Athletic Association. Quigley won 14 games and lost two, while posting a. 911 save percentage and 2.74 goals-against average. Next year, he could wind up with in the Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; organization.MARK READE: While the McGill forward&rsquo;s scoring totals (8-17-25 in 18 games) didn&rsquo;t match those of the other two high-scoring Sullivan nominees, he was unmatched as an on-ice leader. Reade inspired a 4-12-2 McGill team to a first-round Quebec University League upset over the 13-4-1 Ottawa GeeGees. He was also named to the all-Canadian team. &#9632;

Varsity Award Candidates Still Going Strong

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01588/5085560-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="551" height="1167"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shawn Anderson showed signs of considerable promise late in the season.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02412/5085567-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="117" height="116"></div>BUFFALO&mdash;The Buffalo Sabres will be selling their future to fans again this summer.That could be promising in that the Sabres, by virtue of their anemic 2844-8 record just did edge out the New Jersey Devils for the No. I pick in the June entry draft.Though no one in the organization has gone on record regarding the pick, it&rsquo;s believed the Sabres are more than mildly interested in Pierre Turgeon, the talented center from Granby in the Quebec League.Turgeon, of course, would be infinitely more marketable than anything the past two seasons have to offer.For the second time in as many seasons. the Buffalo Sabres finished dead last in the Adams Division and failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs.Unlike the 1985-86 season when the team finished at. 500 and with 80 points, this edition of the team Scott Bowman built set a franchise record for most losses in a season (36) and tied a club record for most losses on the road (26). It also established a club record for most goals against (308).The 64 points gained was also the third-least successful campaign in club history and bettered by just a single point the total accumulated by the first Sabre team ever. That 1970 expansion team earned 63 points but played two fewer games. The 1971-72 club set the record low of 51 points (also in 78 games) but lost 43 games to this team&rsquo;s 44.Despite the dismal finish Sabre general manager Gerry Meehan, Bowman&rsquo;s replacement, says the team still has a core of good players and that by building around that core the team can be upgraded.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s clear we have needs,&rdquo; said Meehan. &ldquo;I still believe we have some core talent for a good hockey team here, but it&rsquo;s also clear we need a few other things as well.&rdquo;With that in mind what follows is a brief look at this year&rsquo;s team.Offense: The Sabres again failed to place one player among the league&rsquo;s top 20 scorers. There was no 40- or 50-goal scorers and only one 30-goal scorer(Mike Foligno, 30exactly). The left wing contingent of Dave Andreychuk, Paul Cyr and Clark Gillies, combined, failed to score 50 goals. Only three other forwards hit for 20 or more goals (rookie Christian Ruuttu, 22, and veterans Wilf Paiement, 20, and Andreychuk, 25).Outlook: Some depth at center but an appalling lack of scoring on the wings.Defense: Mike Ramsey and Phil Housley are givens. The rest of the unit is in a state of flux but not without hope. Rookies Joe Reekie and Shawn Anderson saw significant playing time this year and appear to be capable NHL performers. Anderson, the fifth player taken in last June&rsquo;s entry draft, was showing considerable promise until he was sidelined by a pair of shoulder injures.Tom Kurvers, acquired from the Montreal Canadiens for a second-round praft pick in 1988, struggled at times but was a contributor as was late-arrival Lee Fogolin from Edmonton.Outlook: Lots of youth, precious little experience. Sabres still need more size, toughness, puckhandling ability and experience here.Goaltending: No better, no worse than the team as a whole. Tom Barras-so had high highs and low lows during the season and was often yanked in critical games. He also finished poorly down the stretch. Jacques Cloutier was about the same. Rookie Daren Puppa showed promise in Rochester but failed to win in the three starts he made this season.Outlook: Puppa, by everbody&rsquo;s account, can play in the NHL. which makes the Sabres three deep at the position. If the Sabres do try to deal, this is where the strength lies.SABREPOINTS&mdash;Former first-round draft pick Paul Cyr finished the season with just 27 points, a total that equaled the output of his rookie season. Cyr played 73 games this year. In 1982-83, he played 36. Cyr&rsquo;s goal production (11), was also the lowest in his NHL career. &#9632;

f0026-01

Sabres Short Of Firepower On The Wings

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03341/5085598-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="104" height="103"></div>VANCOUVER&mdash;The Vancouver Canucks and Pat Quinn won the first battle in their suit against the National Hockey League, but the war had just begun.Mr. Justice Wallace Oppal of the British Columbia Supreme Court rejected NHL arguments that, because the league is not incorporated, the Canucks can&rsquo;t sue it in hopes of negating their fine of $310,000 and Quinn&rsquo;s suspension from the league.The fine and suspension came in the aftermath of Quinn signing a contract to be president and general manager of the Canucks and accepting a $ 100,000 signing bonus while still under contract to coach the Los Angeles Kings in late December.NHL president John Ziegler expelled Quinn, had an investigation conducted and after receiving its findings, suspended him from the NHL until after annual league meetings in mid-June and from coaching the Canucks until 1991.Despite the Canucks&rsquo; first win in court, the NHL was far from finished with its arguments against the worthiness of the case. Vancouver lawyer Winton Derby, representing the league, also contended that the Canucks&rsquo; action should be dismissed, because the team hasn&rsquo;t yet exhausted all procedures of appeal available within the league.If the Canucks obtain the permission of the Kings, court was told, they are permitted to appeal the fine and Quinn&rsquo;s suspension directly to Ziegler.With the NHL&rsquo;s motions came a torrent of data, including the complete investigation report by NHL general counsel Gil Stein and the details of Quinn&rsquo;s contract with the Canucks&mdash;which includes a Mercedes, arrangements for a house, golf club membership, loan of nearly $50,000 and just about every other perquisite one could imagine.Quinn also had a clause in his contract&mdash;similar to the one he had in the old L.A. deal&mdash;which said he is free to negotiate with another team as of Aug. 31, 1991. His salary starts at $200,000 (U.S.) and progresses upwards to $267,095 in the final year, not the $400,000 that was originally reported.The NHL also charged that the language in Quinn&rsquo;s L.A. contract did not give him the right to sign with the Canucks and that the Kings were never told of his $100,000 Vancouver signing bonus.The Stein investigation alleged that Kings&rsquo; owner Dr. Jerry Buss called Quinn in a last-ditch effort to keep him with the team. Buss is said to have made a counter-offer to the executed Vancouver contract, offering the same as the Canucks, plus bonuses that &ldquo;could add up to $1 million per year.&rdquo;The investigation said Quinn listened to the offer. But after conferring with his legal representatives, Quinn cut off the discussions.It was also said that the Griffiths family, which owns the Canucks, at no time saw Quinn&rsquo;s contract with the Kings, until the deal had been struck.&ldquo;Despite the fact that the Canucks have relied solely upon the representations of Quinn, (Richard) Babush and (Morris) Chucas (Quinn&rsquo;s legal representatives) that Quinn is free to contract with Vancouver,&rdquo; the investigation continued, &ldquo;neither the employment contract nor side letter contain any representation or warranty by Quinn that his signing with Vancouver is not a breach of his L.A. contract.&rdquo;When Quinn met with L.A. general manager Rogie Vachon Dec. 26, the investigation concluded, &ldquo;he (Quinn) did not disclose the signing bonus ($100,000). Quinn says he has already agreed to a contract but has insisted that it be kept confidential, so he&rsquo;ll be able to finish the season in L.A. and not disrupt the season. Quinn does not offer to step down as coach. The reason Quinn feels the news should be kept from the public is: &lsquo;Because I had a job to do and I felt it would interfere with my ability to do my job if the public knew about it.&rsquo; &ldquo;Stay tuned&hellip;VAN LINES&mdash;Pat Quinn sold his L.A. home and has been househunting in Vancouver as well as scouting around the league, usually sitting in the stands as any fan might. He has, however, also been seen in a press box or two&hellip;The Canucks will have the third and eighth picks overall in the supplemental draft for college players, to be held June 13, the same day as the entry draft in Detroit. &#9632;</div>

f0026-03

Canucks, Quinn And NHL Are Battling And Tattling

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0027-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01551/5085629-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg"></div>The Molson Slo-Pitch Challenge is being staged on the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario for the seventh straight year.Last year&rsquo;s tournament attracted 20 teams, including 17 National Hockey League clubs, an NHL Alumni team, an NHL scouts team and another featuring referees and linesmen.In the past six years, more than 300,000 people have watched their favourite NHL players trade their sticks for baseball bats during a weekend that provides a great deal of entertainment, along with a high degree of competitiveness.Over 250 NHL players, along with thousands of fans, are expected to visit the Niagara Region June 18-21, to participate in one of the best off-ice events staged in connection with the NHL. Host cities will be Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Welland and Thorold. Proceeds raised from the Slo-Pitch tournament help charities and amateur sport in the Niagara Peninsula.Each team entered in the tournament is guaranteed three games&mdash;one on Friday and two on Saturday. The top eight teams enter the quarterfinal round on Sunday in Niagara Falls and a winner is declared later that day in the single knockout tournament. In addition to the actual tournament schedule there are entertaining exhibition matches and a home runhitting contest.Along with the action on the field there are a series of activities which take place during the weekend:&bull; Opening Ceremonies Dinner on Thursday evening, June 18.&bull; Gala Auction of hockey memorabilia to be held after the Opening Ceremonies Dinner on Thursday.&bull; The 7-Up Golf Tournament on Friday, June 19.&bull; Dance with the Stars on Saturday, June 20.The Toronto Maple Leafs, led by MVP winner Walt Poddubny and first baseman Rick Vaive, triumphed in the &lsquo;86 tournament with a 15-4 victory over the NHL Alumni. Over 13,000 people turned out at Oakes Park, Niagara Falls, to witness the playoff rounds and final game.Last year&rsquo;s tournament featured one of the most successful events introduced in the six-year history&mdash;the inaugural annual 7-Up NHL Golf Tournament. In its initial year as part of the gala Molson weekend the golf tournament raised close to $20,000 for Muscular Dystrophy and the Ontario Special Olympics.Three golf courses in the Niagara Region played host to almost 300 participants&mdash;including various corporate and private enthusiasts, as well as over 100 NHL stars past and present and NHL linesmen and officials.For advance ticket sales to this year&rsquo;s tournament and other activities send your postal money order or bank draft to:Molson NHL Slo-Pitch Challenge 5034 Victoria Avenue, Niagara Falls, ON L2E 4E1 &#9632;

f0027-01

NHL Stars Come Out To Play At Molson Slo-Pitch Tourney

<div class="byline">BY DARREL ZARY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01559/5085660-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Humboldt assistant captain Neil Clark is one-half of the Wendel Clark connection on the Broncos. He&rsquo;s a cousin of the Toronto Maple Leaf star left winger. Don Clark, Wendel&rsquo;s brother, is assistant Coach of the Broncos. (Photo by Jeff Bunko. Humboldt Journal)</figcaption></div>HUMBOLDT, Sask.&mdash;It is known to some as the prairie hometown of Hall of Fame netminder Glenn Hall. Others recognize it as the home of what may be the world&rsquo;s most famous hockey pool.The bottom line is that Humboldt, Sask., is hockey crazy&mdash;the biggest-thinking little place (pop. 5,200) in Canada.And from May 1-9, the Humboldt Uniplex will play host to the national championship Centennial Cup, emblematic of Canadian Tier II junior supremacy.Agriculture may be the town&rsquo;s staple, but Tier II hockey has become big business. And that&rsquo;s why such a small center, relatively speaking, is home to the national championship.The Humboldt Broncos, a 17-year member of the Saskatchewan Junior League, are a community-owned team. Three years ago, it was like any other club that had fallen on hard times.The Broncos finished the 1983-84 season in eighth place, second last in the league, and $80,000 in debt.But with a little time, a lot of effort, some prairie determination, good business sense and, above all else, an air of professionalism, the Broncos reversed their fortunes, both on the ice and at the bank.Two consecutive SJHL titles and a glowing bank statement bear witness to it.&ldquo;We have learned from what other people were doing,&rdquo; said Bronco director of hockey operations Dr. Terry Henning.&ldquo;We learned from what Prince Albert did (four Centennial Cup titles under the guidance of current New York Islander coach Terry Simpson). If you are going to have an operation that is going to be successful, you have to go out and get the right people and you have to be able to raise money and spend money.&rdquo;Those qualities arrived in the form of a triumvirate&mdash;general manager and coach Bernie Lynch, marketing manager Brent Stebbings and head scout Ian McDonnell.The first big problem was to reverse the financial slump. Enter Stebbings, who by the time the 1985-86 season was over, had erased the $80,000 debt and had the Broncos showing a profit of $160,000.&ldquo;We expect to make a profit (this year) of around $100,000,&rdquo; said Stebbings of the club that has an average annual budget of $400,000.That profit figure could be higher but as Stebbings said, &ldquo;We have employees covering all apsects of the operation whereas a lot of junior operations depend on volunteer help.&rdquo;Stebbings is the only fulltime marketing manager in the league and the Broncos also boast a fulltime GM-coach, scout and secretary.Most of the credit for bailing out the Broncos financially goes to a hockey pool which has gained national acclaim. The concept was not a new one in Saskatchewan, but Stebbings and the Broncos took it to new heights.The Saskatchewan town of Kenaston, even smaller than Humboldt, had been successful with a local pool effort. The Broncos went national, offering potential poolsters a windfall of $25,000 if they could select a team of 25 National Hockey League players and finish the season with the highest point-scoring totals.More than 2,000 entries, at $100 each, were received by the Broncos. After paying out total prize money ($70,000) and advertising costs, there was a $ 120,000 profit. That was so successful that Stebbings quickly introduced a Stanley Cup playoff draft along the same line. Chalk up another $140,000 to the bottom line.The pools, which figure to net the Broncos more than $200,000 this year, have not only become the lifeblood of the franchise, but put the town on the map and allowed it to play host to the Centennial Cup.The Broncos, upon being awarded the tournament, were guaranteed a berth as the host team. But they hardly can be described as back-door qualifiers, having won the SJHL title and playing off against the Richmond (B.C.) Sockeyes for the western championship.The Sockeyes, the British Columbia Junior League champions who are coached by former NHLer Orland Kurtenbach, knocked off the Alberta Junior League-champion Red Deer Rustlers to earn the berth available to the western titlist. Humboldt eliminated Manitoba-champion Selkirk Steelers. Regardless of the outcome of the Richmond-Humboldt series, both teams are Centennial Cup-bound.The Ontario and Atlantic region representatives had yet to be decided. Pembroke Lumber Kings, champions of the Central Junior League, and the Sudbury Nickel Centre Power Trains, Northern Ontario winners, were tied 1-1 in their best-of-seven Ontario final. In the east, the Dartmouth (N.S.) Fuel Kids were up 2-0 on the Charlottetown Best Seller Jr. Abbies, coached by another ex-NHLer, Forbes Kennedy.In addition to the games, a kickoff banquet, May 1, will feature NHL vice-president Scotty Morrison as the keynote speaker. On May 8, at an awards banquet, retired hockey broadcaster Danny Gallivan will do the honors.While Stebbings has been busy securing the team&rsquo;s financial future and tending to off-ice matters related to the Centennial Cup, McDonnell and Lynch have taken care of the on-ice product. They hope it results in Humboldt&rsquo;s first national championship.McDonnell&rsquo;s job is to get the talent, Lynch molds it.McDonnell has a global market in recruiting players. Of the 23 players on this year&rsquo;s roster, 14 are from outside of Saskatchewan.Of the prize recruits, two stand above the rest&mdash;Bill McDougall, a 20-year-old center from Toronto, and Patrick Backlund, a goaltender from Lulea, Sweden.McDougall erased a long-standing singleseason point record of 168, set in 1975-76 by Melville Millionaire Brian Propp, who is now a star with the Philadelphia Flyers.The North Michigan University-bound McDougall finished the regular season with 83 goals and 104 assists for 187 points in 61 games.Backlund caught the eye of McDonnell while tending net for Sweden&rsquo;s under-17 national team in last year&rsquo;s Esso Cup in Quebec. Backlund, eligible for this year&rsquo;s National Hockey League entry draft, joined the Broncos and became the league&rsquo;s top netminder with a 3.39 goals-against average.Lynch, who was the head coach of Norway&rsquo;s national team, has held up his end of the deal, too. In his first season, 1983-84, he looked on as the Broncos finished with an unacceptable 2340-1 record. Since then, Lynch&rsquo;s Broncos have a record of 148-21 with two consecutive SJHL titles. &#9632;

f0028-01

Broncos Buck Junior Trend

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Assistant Editor</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01549/5085691-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="142" height="130"></div>TORONTO&mdash;John Brophy had a message for Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; coach Jacques Demers within moments of the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; finest hour this season.&ldquo;Tell the man in Detroit with the mustache (Demers) the miracle has just happened,&rdquo; gloated Brophy after his Leafs eliminated the St. Louis Blues with an impressive 4-0 shutout.The Leaf coach, who has worked hard to maintain a bitter rivalry with Demers all year, was referring to a remark attributed to the Detroit coach late in the regular season.Demers was quoted as saying it would take a &ldquo;miracle&rdquo; for the Leafs to make the playoffs. Later, the reporter who recorded the statement called Brophy to tell him Demers wasn&rsquo;t talking about the Leafs after all.The damage had been done.And more is likely to follow. The Leafs and Red Wings are meeting in the Norris Division final series.So complete was Toronto&rsquo;s victory over St. Louis&mdash;the Leafs won the final three games to capture the series 4-2&mdash;there was an irresistable urge to check the heavens for divine intervention on the Leafs&rsquo; behalf.In large part the miracle-worker was goalie Ken Wregget, who allowed just two goals in the final three games and only 12 over the six-game series.At least one fan at the jam-packed and fired-up Maple Leaf Gardens recognized Wregget&rsquo;s contribution.&ldquo;Wregget for God,&rdquo; read his sign.And while Gerry McNamara, a devout Christian, wasn&rsquo;t around to comment on the legitimacy of Wregget&rsquo;s candidacy, the general manager was doubtlessly thanking God for the 23-year-old goalie.Wregget, himself, was thanking his teammates and fans, crediting the former with tremendous support and the latter with helping color the Blues blue.&ldquo;It was like trying to shoot the puck through 16,000 people,&rdquo; Wregget said of the task before St. Louis.Or at least six, as assistant coach Garry Lariviere could ice six healthy and competent defensemen for the first time in months, with the return of Chris Kotsopoulos (who&rsquo;d been out 38 games with a groin pull).Toronto rallied from game deficits of 1-0 and 2-1 to win the series and gain some revenge for last year&rsquo;s seven-game elimination inflicted by St. Louis.Appropriately, the series-winning goal was scored by one of Toronto&rsquo;s working stiffs, not one of its flamboyant forwards.In a series made noteworthy by the grinding work ethic of Mike Allison and superb shadowing job on Blues&rsquo; star Doug Gilmour by Dan Daoust, it was Brad Smith&mdash;the people&rsquo;s choice&mdash;who scored the first goal in game six.Smith took an excellent breakaway pass from Wendel Clark, outwaited a sprawling Greg Millen, and deposited his first goal of the playoffs at 2:55 of the first period.That was all Wregget needed, as the Leafs blanketed St. Louis&mdash;a style of play they promise to employ against the Red Wings.Their commitment couldn&rsquo;t be questioned against the Blues. Team defense was clearly uppermost on the Leafs&rsquo; minds. That was one reason no Toronto player scored more than two goals in the series.The game-winners were provided not by any of Toronto&rsquo;s eight 20-goal scorers but by defenseman Rick Lanz (three goals on the season), Daoust (four). Allison (seven) and Smith (five). Between them, they only got 19 goals.LEAFLETS&mdash;Toronto won the season series 5-2-1, recording their only two shutouts of the season against the Red Wings. Allan Bester, who had both of them, surrendered just one goal in his first three games versus Detroit. But there was little doubt Ken Wregget would get the call in the series opener&hellip;Right winger Gary Leeman was knocked out for the season with a cracked kneecap in game five&hellip;Wendel Clark, much maligned for his passing skills, earned two first-rate assists in the final game. That gave him two goals and three assists, to lead all Leafs in points. &#9632;</div>

f0030-01

Acts of Wregget Decisive For Maple Leafs

<div class="byline">BY JEFF GORDON</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02403/5085722-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="119" height="115"></div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;With a strong 12-6-5 finish in their last 23 games, the St. Louis Blues were able to steal the Norris Division crown from the Detroit Red Wings and salvage an injury-wracked regular season.They went into their first-round playoff series with plenty of confidence. But all they came out with was frustration.Toronto goaltender Ken Wregget and a pesky band of Maple Leaf checkers held the Blues to 12 goals in six games&mdash;just two in the last three, all Blues losses.It was fitting Wregget clinched the 4-2 series victory with a 4-0 shutout in the sixth game. He left the Blues ex-asperated and disappointed.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what the answer is,&rdquo; said center Doug Gilmour, who was held to two goals and two assists after a 105-point season. &ldquo;They shut me out. Somebody has to do it. I did it all year. But I can&rsquo;t go back and change it now.&rdquo;Right winger Mark Hunter, who was suffering a shoulder strain that knocked him out of one game and limited him for the rest, was held to three assists. Greg Paslawski scored the only goal from right wing in the series.&ldquo;It was starting to feel better the last couple of games,&rdquo; Hunter said. &ldquo;I could have scored a couple of times. Excuses are for losers. Everybody else plays hurt. It was my turn. I had to play with it.&ldquo;But it hurt the right side. We had one goal between us, and that&rsquo;s where our goals came from all year. It just disappoints me. I got hurt at the end. I could have helped more.&rdquo;The quick exit from the playoffs tainted the Blues&rsquo; division title, which was the sixth in their 20-year history.&ldquo;I always said the regular season doesn&rsquo;t mean anything,&rdquo; goaltender Greg Millen said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the playoffs that matter. It was nice to get first place, but this is what counts.&rdquo;Defenseman Rob Ramage agreed.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just a bitter pill to swallow,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Nobody cares about the regular season. The post-season is what matters in the NHL.&rdquo;Last year the Blues got within a game, within a couple of goals of playing for the Stanley Cup. This year, with largely the same cast of characters, their season ended abruptly.&ldquo;Last year it seemed we got all the breaks,&rdquo; Millen said. &ldquo;This year we didn&rsquo;t. But they beat us soundly in our building and they beat us soundly here (Maple Leaf Gardens).&rdquo;&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t fault the guys&rsquo; effort,&rdquo; added center Bernie Federko. &ldquo;But it has to be effort in the right direction. Maybe it was backward instead of frontward.&rdquo;Rookie coach Jacques Martin was disappointed with the results but not the effort.&ldquo;We gave it our best,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We lost three games by agoal, which tells you how close the series was. Ken Wregget was superb. &ldquo;BLUENOTES&mdash;In the first three games of the series, the Blues had 19 power plays to Toronto&rsquo;s 10 and outscored them 5-1 with the man advantage. But they didn&rsquo;t score another power-play goal in the series. &ldquo;They (the Leafs) killed one of the best power plays in the league.&rdquo; observed Detroit Red Wing coach Jacques Demers-&hellip;Left winger Ron Flockhart didn&rsquo;t play in the series and. with his contract entering the option year, he seemed destined to migrate to a new team this summer&hellip;Rookie centers Tony Hrkac and Cliff Ronning split the fourth-line work, setting them up for interesting training-camp competition. The Blues finished the season with six centers, counting the unproductive Doug Wickenheiser and defensive specialist Rick Meagher, who played mostly at leftwing. &#9632;</div>

f0030-02

First Place Meaningless, Blues Ousted

<div class="byline">BY JERRY ZGODA</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01502/5085753-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="127" height="109"></div>BLOOMINGTON, Minn&mdash;General manager Lou Nanne and his Minnesota North Star scouts never figured they&rsquo;d be in this position&mdash;sitting, watching the playoffs from the outside and trying to figure out who are the best four or five players available in the 1987 entry draft.Throughout the past season, the Stars&rsquo; scouts operated on the assumption that they would select somewhere in the middle of the pack. But the Stars&rsquo; March collapse dumped them out of the playoffs and now Nanne, while he waits to name a new coach, is scurrying to adjust the team&rsquo;s draft list. The Stars have the fourth overall pick this year.&ldquo;We never dreamed we&rsquo;d end up in this position,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;At least we know we&rsquo;re going to get a great player and, picking fourth, we&rsquo;ll get to pick for a position, but we&rsquo;d rather not be in this position. I&rsquo;d rather pick 21st (spot of the first-place finisher) every year.&rdquo;As the first round of the playoffs wound down, Nanne returned from a five-day vacation in Mexico. He prepared to scout a couple of junior teams and to meet with co-owners George and Gordon Gund to discuss a new coach and the past season. While Nanne said he hadn&rsquo;t made any decisions about coaching candidates, speculation continued that it&rsquo;s only a matter of time before Herb Brooks is named.Meanwhile. Nanne already started thinking about the draft, letting the possibilities roll through his mind.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be an interesting, interesting draft.&rdquo; saidNanne. &ldquo;Before, everybody figured that (Pierre) Turgeon was far and away No. I. Now, from what I hear, some people are questioning that. We&rsquo;re going to have a shot at every position. There are three good centers, a good goaltender, five good defensemen. I&rsquo;d like to have all of them.&rdquo;The Stars&rsquo; late-season performance suggests that they could use someone at every position. They still need a big center, a big. physical defenseman and they are starting to consider goaltending as one of their pressing needs.At the top of the list of centers is Turgeon from Granby, London&rsquo;s Brendan Shanahan and Portland&rsquo;s Dave Archibald. &ldquo;One of them could be available when we pick,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;All of them are big and all are very close to being able to play right now.&rdquo;Among the defensemen are Portland&rsquo;s Glen Wesley, Medicine Hat&rsquo;s Wayne McBean, Peterborough&rsquo;s Luke Richardson, Seattle&rsquo;s Chris Joseph and Granby&rsquo;s Stephane Quintal.&ldquo;Richardson teases you the most with his abilities. Quintal (6-foot-4, 225 pounds) is the biggest, Wesley is the most ready to play right now and McBean may end up being the best of all of them,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re looking for a defenseman, it&rsquo;s going to be a close call between them.&rdquo;But perhaps the biggest gamble of all would be to take Chicoutimi goalie Jimmy Waite, whom Nanne calls the &ldquo;highest-rated goalie since Grant Fuhr.&rdquo;Don Beaupre&rsquo;s roller-coaster season and Kari Takko&rsquo;s late-season collapse has put Waite firmly in Nanne&rsquo;s mind. &ldquo;This guy really is in the (Tom) Barrasso-Fuhr category,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;He won&rsquo;t be around past the fifth pick.&rdquo;The Stars&rsquo; disastrous performance also puts them into prime position for the October waiver draft. If last year&rsquo;s rules remain unchanged, the Stars, plus the other four non-playoff teams, could choose unprotected players to their heart&rsquo;s content without having to drop anyone off their protected list.STARDUST&mdash;North Star director of player development Glen Sonmor and administrative assistant Murray Oliver were in Hamilton, Ont., to watch Canada&rsquo;s World Championship team play the Canadian national team in a tune-up for the two-week tournament. to be held in Vienna. Among the stars for the World team in that game were North Stars Dino Ciccarelli and Keith Acton. Ciccarelli had a goal and three assists and Acton had three goals. &ldquo;All of our guys played great,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;Why couldn&rsquo;t they have played like that the last month of the season? I don&rsquo;t understand them.&rdquo; &#9632;</div>

f0031-01

Stars’ Nightmare Yields Dreamy Draft Spot

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02385/5085784-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="561" height="543"><figcaption class="caption-body">Defenseman Harold Snepsts says Detroit is the best team in the Norris Division.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01524/5085791-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="151" height="101"></div>DETROIT&mdash;The Detroit Red Wings are accustomed to having days off in April. But for a different reason.They were off nine days this time for the best of all reasons&mdash;they swept their Norris Division semi-final series over the Chicago Blackhawks.&ldquo;Preferably, five or six days would be better,&rdquo; veteran defenseman Mike O&rsquo;Connell said. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;ll take it. It&rsquo;ll give the aches and pains time to go away.&rdquo;Coach Jacques Demers gave the Wings three days off before reassembling the team to prepare for the Norris Division finals.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;I think we&rsquo;ve reached our peak now and we have to keep it going.&rsquo;</blockquote><blockquote class="pullQuote">&mdash;Snepsts</blockquote>&ldquo;The boys had some time off, a little rest and now it&rsquo;s time to get back to work,&rdquo; Demers said.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll work hard and we&rsquo;ll be ready to play when the time comes. A little rest does everybody good but now we&rsquo;ll get our minds back on what we have to do.&rdquo;Toronto or St. Louis in the finals? The Red Wings didn&rsquo;t care.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to play the same way no matter who we play,&rdquo; Bob Probert said.Harold Snepsts is concerned about the Red Wings, not the opponents. Maybe &ldquo;concerned&rdquo; isn&rsquo;t the right word. He&rsquo;s excited and intrigued by his hockey club.&ldquo;Anything can happen with this club,&rdquo; said Snepsts, who played on a nondescript (below. 500) Vancouver club which reached the Stanley Cup finals in 1982.&ldquo;I think we&rsquo;ve reached our peak now and we have to keep it going.&rdquo;The key to sweeping the Blackhawks, Snepsts said, was &ldquo;shutting down the power play (O-for-17) and getting the lead.&rdquo; The Wings scored the first goal in each of the four games, and they did it quickly.&ldquo;We could play our game that way,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That first goal is really important in the playoffs.&ldquo;We still believe we are probably the best team in the division. It was a heartbreaker to lose the division title. We weren&rsquo;t going to be satisfied if we didn&rsquo;t win one round. Now we&rsquo;ll goon to the next one.&rdquo;With every intention of winning that, too.WING WIRE&mdash;Jacques Demers said a rumor that he missed out on a $ 100,000 bonus when the Wings failed to finish first in the Norris Division is just that&mdash;a rumor and no more. &ldquo;Where do these things start?&rdquo; Demers asked. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing like that at all.&rdquo; Demers acknowledged that, like the players, he has various bonuses written into his contract. &ldquo;But $100,000? It&rsquo;s nowhere near anything like that.&rdquo;&hellip;Rookie defenseman Rick Zombo made a belated playoff debut in game four against the Blackhawks, his hometown team. Zombo is a native of DesPlaines, Ill., a Chicago suburb. &ldquo;Now I can go to the beaches with my Red Wings shirt and not worry about it,&rdquo; he said.&rdquo; And it&rsquo;ll be a lot easier at school for my sister. I sent her my Adirondack Red Wings pullover. She wears it to (high) school. Now she doesn&rsquo;t get any lip service.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0032-02

Red Wings’ Confidence Peaking In Playoffs

<div class="byline">BY MIKE PERRICONE</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03258/5085822-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="125" height="115"></div>CHICAGO&mdash;In the wake of the Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; second straight playoff disaster, general manager Bob Pulford says the time for loyalty is past.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel I owe anyone anything now,&rdquo; Pulford said. &ldquo;If something comes up and we can improve our hockey team, I have no qualms about doing it.&rdquo;Hawk president William Wirtz went even further. He said the Hawks&rsquo; loss to Detroit was &ldquo;an embarrassment&rdquo; following the 1986 sweep by Toronto in the first round. Wirtz launched a tirade against unnamed players.&ldquo;I heard Al Secord say the other day that players expected management to trade them after last year,&rdquo; Wirtz said. &ldquo;Maybe they are mistaking niceness for weakness. They&rsquo;ll get the message very clear.&ldquo;We know who the players are from that last game against Detroit and from the year before. Especially that last game in Toronto. (The Hawks&rsquo; season ended with a 7-2 loss to the Leafs last year.)&ldquo;I have no interest in them. They know that I know. We&rsquo;re going to trade them at our command, not theirs. These guys are under contract.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to discuss that any further. I don&rsquo;t want to name any names and run down their market value. They&rsquo;ll find out when their name is in the paper saying they&rsquo;ve been traded.&rdquo;Wirtz said the Hawks would have &ldquo;a whole new coaching staff.&rdquo; Pulford, who is stepping down as coach in a pre-arranged move, said the status of co-coach Roger Neilson would be determined by the new coach. Pulford said Neilson was free to pursue other opportunities.Pulford said the Hawks would have &ldquo;six new faces or something like that&rdquo; next season. He also said left wingers Everett Sanipass and Daniel Vincelette would be brought in from the Quebec League and installed on the Hawks &ldquo;unless they fall flat on their faces.&rdquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s fair to say there are no untouchables,&rdquo; Pulford said. He added there are some players who are less likely to be traded, indicating centers Denis Savard and Troy Murray as players the Hawks would prefer to keep.Pulford and Wirtz both agreed the top two priorities are finding a coach and acquiring a goaltender. Murray Bannerman, a regular for five seasons, appears headed elsewhere.Wirtz said he had a list of 11 coaching candidates. He denied that former Pittsburgh coach Bob Berry was the leading candidate, though Pulford said the Hawks would talk to Berry. The only other candidate Wirtz would indirectly confirm was Terry Crisp of Moncton in the American League.Pulford and Wirtz said the Hawks stood pat following their 1986 playoff loss to Toronto because of injuries to key players (Troy Murray and Curt Fraser), and because they weren&rsquo;t sure the loss was a true reflection of their team. After this season, Wirtz says he knows how the Hawks&rsquo; angry fans feel.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re just as disgusted as we are,&rdquo; Wirtz said. &ldquo;Those fans know who produces and who does not.&rdquo;HAWKS NOTES&mdash;Left winger Al Secord and center Troy Murray are members of Team Canada at the World Championships, Ed Olczyk of Team USA&hellip;A sprained right knee kept defenseman Doug Wilson from joining Canada&rsquo;s entry&hellip;With their playoff sweep by Detroit, the Hawks have won a playoff series in only four of Bob Pulford&rsquo;s 10 years as general manager. They lost the first round in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1986 and 1987. They were swept in five of those years: 1978 (Boston), 1979 (NewYork Islanders), 1981 (Calgary), 1986 (Toronto) and 1987 (Detroit). &#9632;</div>

f0032-03

Chihawk Owner Embarrassed By Loss

<h2>TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE&hellip;</h2>1. What NHL team won the Djurgardens tournament in Sweden in 1980?2. Name the last team to lose its first playoff game and still win the Stanley Cup.3. Who were the first former NHL goaltenders to oppose each other as NHL coaches?4. What Ontario city will play host to this year&rsquo;s Memorial Cup?5. What trophy goes to the senior hockey champions of Canada?6. When was the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; last losing season prior to 1986-87?7. Who coached the Sabres that year?8. When was the Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; last winning season.?9. What NHL team scored only 33 goals in 44 games in 192829?10. Where did Minnesota&rsquo;s Keith Acton play his major junior hockey?<h2>ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ</h2>1. Washington Captials.2. Montreal, 1971.3. Gerry Cheevers and Ed Johnston, Nov. 9,1980.4. Oshawa.5. The Allan Cup.6. 1973-74.7. Joe Crozier.8. 1975-76.9. Chicago Blackhawks.10. Peterborough. BONUS ANSWER: Bronco Horvath.<h2>BONUS QUESTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-04154/5085853-1-eng-US/f0032-042.jpg" title="f0032-04" width="556" height="897"><figcaption class="caption-body">BONUS: Name this former NHLer who lost the scoring title by one point to Bobby Hull in 1959-60.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-04

THN HOCKEY TRIVIA

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01474/5085884-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="125" height="122"></div>MONCTON, N.B.&mdash;Every time a coach is fired in the National Hockey League, the phone rings at Terry Crisp&rsquo;s house.If it&rsquo;s not an NHL general manager, it&rsquo;s an inquisitive media member.When the Boston Bruins fired Butch Goring earlier this season, Crisp, the Moncton Golden Flames&rsquo; coach and general manager, was one of the candidates considered as a replacement. A few weeks later, he was in New York to be interviewed for the Ranger job. It was widely speculated that he was in line for the opening in Buffalo.And when the Pittsburgh Penguins fired Bob Berry the week after the regular season ended, the phone started ringing again.&ldquo;It was driving us nuts,&rdquo; Crisp said, his mock seriousness shredded by laughter. &ldquo;My wife, Sheila, nearly tore that phone off the wall.&rdquo;Crisp wants an NHL job&mdash;the right NHL job&mdash;in the worst way. After six seasons in the Ontario League and two more in the American League, he says he is ready to step up.Two years ago, after leading the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds to a 5411-1 record, Crisp wanted to jump straight to the NHL.&ldquo;They told me I couldn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When I was coaching in junior, all the professional people told me that you can&rsquo;t go from junior to the National League. They told me that enough times that I started to believe it.&ldquo;So I said, &lsquo;I did all I wanted to do in junior and it was time to move on, so I&rsquo;ll coach in the American League.&rsquo; Suddenly, when I move to the American League, Mr. (Terry) Simpson goes from Prince Albert to the NHL and Jacques Martin goes from Guelph to the NHL.&ldquo;Now they say maybe you can go from junior to the NHL. What it tells me is that they&rsquo;re not too sure what they want.&rdquo;Crisp knows what he is after: security and a reasonable chance for success. He says he won&rsquo;t walk away from the Calgary-Flames&rsquo; organization for a one-year contract. Length of contract was a factor that brought an end to his negotiations with the Rangers.&ldquo;I keep saying I hope and I want to be there,&rdquo; Crisp said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m with an organization, with Mr. Cliff Fletcher and the Calgary Flames, that is very loyal. To me, loyalty in the coaching end of it is the main factor you&rsquo;re looking for. I think Cliff Fletcher has only let go of one coach in all the years he&rsquo;s been a general manager. That&rsquo;s quite a loyalty factor. You hitch onto one of those and you don&rsquo;t want to be in too big a hurry to jump off, which I&rsquo;m not.&ldquo;For me to leave the Calgary organization, it&rsquo;s going to take a very good offer and a very good loyalty or stability factor for a while.&rdquo;Still, even after 13 years as a pro player, two as an assistant at Philadelphia and eight as a head coach, Crisp knows he can&rsquo;t write his own ticket. He&rsquo;s aware that he is gaining a reputation for being too particular.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s be honest, Terry Crisp (as a coach) has proven nothing in the NHL,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I appreciate that fact as much as anybody. So Terry Crisp has no right to demand the moon. But I also have enough faith in myself that I&rsquo;m a damn good coach and that eventually I will prove it.&ldquo;I also know that if I am going to the NHL, I&rsquo;m going to go with a lot of confidence in myself and know what I want and what I&rsquo;m worth up there. I&rsquo;m happy where I am. The nice part about my situation is that I have a good job with a great organization. I don&rsquo;t have to go anywhere if I don&rsquo;t want to.&rdquo;But he wants to and he will go somewhere. To Pittsburgh or Vancouver or Boston or Minnesota, or maybe to the Rangers. Somewhere.The general manager that cuts a deal with Crisp will hire an intense, colorful. fast-talking man who played for three of the most successful NHL coaches of the last 25 years&mdash;Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour and Fred Shero&mdash;and claims he stole something from each one.He will get a guy who made the Greyhounds one of the top teams in the league and was named the OHL&rsquo;s top coach twice. He&rsquo;ll get a guy whose junior graduates include Ron Francis, Doug Shedden, John Vanbiesbrouck, Rick Tocchet, Gord Dineen, Jim Pavese, Bob Probert, Dave Hannan, Wayne Presley and Jeff Beukeboom.That GM will sign a man who desperately wants to advance to the top position in his profession but isn&rsquo;t blinded by ambition.Or mesmerized by the sound of a telephone ringing.AROUND THE DIVISION&mdash; Nova Scotia avoided a sweep at the hands of division-champion Sherbrooke with a 4-3 victory in the fourth game of their playoff series&hellip;Moncton and Adirondack have engaged in an unpredictable set. The Flames won the opener 4-3, with two goals in the third period, including a 60-footer by Bob Bodak. Adirondack coach Bill Dineen turned to rookie goaltender Randy Hansch in the second game and evened the series with a 5-4 victory. Hansch played another strong game as the Wings won the third game at Moncton, 3-1. Adirondack&rsquo;s penaltykillers handled all nine of Moncton&rsquo;s power plays. &#9632;</div>

f0033-01

The Minors

Crisp Will Answer NHL Bell On His Terms

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01538/5085915-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="124" height="118"></div>HERSHEY, Pa.&mdash;Mitch Lamoureux knows how Jari Kurri and Mark Messier must feel.The Hershey Bear winger&rsquo;s offensive abilities are almost a secret around the American League, because of the large shadow cast by Lamoureux&rsquo;s teammate, scoring champion Tim Tookey.Tookey&rsquo;s linemates, Ross Fitzpatrick and Ray Allison, have also earned a healthy dose of opposition respect.The guy left clutching the American Express card is Lamoureux, who finished as the AHL&rsquo;s fourth-leading scorer this season with 43 goals and 89 points.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;I get a fair share of the limelight.&rsquo;</blockquote><blockquote class="pullQuote">&mdash;Lamoureux</blockquote>Consider that Lamoureux finished with more points than Adirondack&rsquo;s 54-goal scorer Glenn Merkosky, and more than either Fitzpatrick or Allison. Yet when it&rsquo;s time to cast all-star ballots, Lamoureux will receive few votes, if any.But he doesn&rsquo;t seem to mind his low profile.&ldquo;I get a fair share of the limelight,&rdquo; said Lamoureux, who was named second-team all-star in 1982-83, after scoring 57 goals as a Baltimore Skipjack rookie. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough coming to a team that has had a successful line. You&rsquo;re not going to break them up.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m not forgotten. I&rsquo;ve been killing penalties and I&rsquo;ve been on the power play.&rdquo;And, like his rookie-of-the-year campaign in 1982-83, he did most of his damage the last half of the season. Lamoureux collected 49 points in the final 30 games this season, including a 15-game stretch in February in which he had 35 (21-14).But this year&rsquo;s Lamoureux model is leaner and meaner. He has shed 10 pounds and has a more determined attitude.&ldquo;I felt I was going nowhere in the Pittsburgh organization,&rdquo; said Lamoureux, an eighth-round pick in 1981 by the Penguins. &ldquo;I needed a change, a new start and a new opportunity.&rdquo;So he played out his option last season and shopped around. It didn&rsquo;t take long before Philadelphia general manager Bobby Clarke called.&ldquo;It was like a fresh start,&rdquo; Lamoureux said. &ldquo;It was a new atmosphere. Philadelphia and Hershey are both classy organizations and they made me feel right at home. There was no petty stuff like in Pittsburgh.&rdquo;There was also no country-club atmosphere. Lamoureux, who checked into training camp at 190 pounds, was told to get down to 177 by Jan. 6.&ldquo;He had to lose it,&rdquo; coach John Paddock said. &ldquo;It was going to cost him a lot of money if he didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;Lamoureux has been at 177 since early January. Since then, his best meals have been AHL teams.Before dropping the weight, Lamoureux had 12 goals and 29 points in 37 games. He followed with his 15-game hot streak, including five-point games against New Haven and Maine.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s much quicker now,&rdquo; Paddock said. &ldquo;I wanted to get him a (10-pound) weight jacket so he could wear it once and see the difference, but I couldn&rsquo;t get one.&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s the biggest difference in his game, that and the change in atmosphere.&rdquo;Lamoureux suffered through a miserable year in Baltimore last season, scoring just 22 goals as the Skipjacks finished last and out of the playoffs for the first time since his rookie season.&ldquo;My wife was pregnant and she was in Pittsburgh last season,&rdquo; Lamoureux said. &ldquo;It was just a rough year for me. I didn&rsquo;t play well and my mind was elsewhere.&rdquo;This season, his sights have been focused on the rink and the team. Hockey is fun again and the rink is more than just a place of business.AROUND THE SOUTH&mdash;Her shey met division champ Rochester in the first round, and trailed 3-1, with the fifth game being played at Rochester-&hellip;After a rather tame playoff opener. Hershey and Rochester fought during warmups for game two at the Buffalo Aud. Nine players&mdash;five from Hershey&mdash;received game misconducts. The league then issued suspensions. Hershey&rsquo;s Greg Smyth was shelved for the rest of the series for spearing Rochester&rsquo;s Andy Ristau, who also took a beating from Jeff Brubaker in the event&rsquo;s main bout. Brubaker and Kevin Maxwell were suspended for two games and Ristau for one. In addition, all nine players receiving game misconducts were fined $500 by the league&hellip;New Haven&rsquo;s drive to save the Nighthawks stood at 651 season tickets, 19 days after the Los Angeles Kings threatened to suspend the franchise if season-ticket sales didn&rsquo;t reach 1,300 in 30 days. &#9632;

f0034-01

Lamoureux Thrives In Second Banana Role

<div class="byline">BY BILL PICKETT</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02420/5085946-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="94" height="104"></div>INDIANAPOLIS&mdash;Goaltending has traditionally been one of the International League&rsquo;s strengths.The 1986-87 season proved no different as four goalies were named to the regular-season all-star team.Jeff Cooper of Muskegon, the league&rsquo;s top goaltender with a 3.30 goals-against average, and Peoria&rsquo;s Darrell May finished in a tie for first-team honors in voting by the league&rsquo;s coaches.Ray LeBlanc of Flint, second to Rob Holland of Milwaukee in victories with 33, and Darren Pang of Saginaw, tied for second-team honors.There was also a tic at left wing on the first team, with Fort Wayne&rsquo;s Steve Salvucci and Dave Michayluk of Mus-kegon sharing the position.Jock Callander of Muskegon is the first team center, Flint&rsquo;s Jim Egerton is at right wing and the coaches named Greg Tebbutt of Saginaw and Jim Burton of Fort Wayne to defense.In addition to LeBlanc and Pang, the second team includes Indianapolis center Ron Handy, Jeff Pyle of Saginaw at left wing, Todd Hooey of Salt Lake City on the right flank and Jayson Meyer of Flint and Bill Schafhauser of Kalamazoo on the blue line.Individual league awards, such as MVP and top rookie, will be announced later.May, last season&rsquo;s most valuable player, had 26 of the 31 Peoria victories. In 58 games he finished fifth in the IHLwitha3.75 goals-against average.Cooper, who had a record of 23-21-1 for East Division-winning Muskegon, edged Fort Wayne&rsquo;s Alain Raymond by four one-thousandths of a point for the best goals-against mark. His average was 3.300. Raymond, who gave up a goal in the last minute and a half of Fort Wayne&rsquo;s regular season-ending game against Peoria, finished with 23 wins and 3.304 goals-against average.Callander, who trailed the Checkers&rsquo; Handy almost all season in the scoring race, picked up a goal and two assists in his final game to pass Handy and tie Pyle for the scoring championship.Callander had 136 points, including 54 goals; Pyle had an assist in his final game to give him 136 points including a league-high 87 assists.Handy was the leader in goals with 55.Peoria was the only team which missed the Turner Cup playoffs. The Rivermen finished ninth overall with 31 victories and 71 points, nine points less than Kalamazoo, the No. 8 team.Coach Rob Laird&rsquo;s Komets won the Huber Trophy as regular-season champions for the second straight year, as well as the Ken Ullyot Trophy for being best in the West. Muskegon claimed the Gallagher Trophy as East champion for the second year in a row.The first round of the Turner Cup playoffs got under way April 15 with defending-champion Muskegon matched with fourth-place Kalamazoo and No. 2 Saginaw playing No. 3 Flint in the East.The Komets opened against fourthplace Indianapolis and second-place Salt Lake City played host to Milwaukee in the West Division openers.I-LITES&mdash;Flint established Spirit franchise records for wins (44), points (91), and goals by an individual (52 by Jim Egerton)&hellip;Named MVPs on their respective teams were Brent Jarrett of Kalamazoo. Steve Salvucci of Fort Wayne and Ron Handy for Indianapolis. &#9632;</div>

f0034-02

IHL Has Glut Of All-Star Goaltenders

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01509/5085977-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="130" height="64"></div>TORONTO&mdash;For a young man who didn&rsquo;t play organized hockey until he was 13, and failed to make the Ontario League on his first try, Todd Hawkins has come a long way.All the way to the all-star team, in fact.After two years of distinguishing himself more for his fighting than finesse, the Belleville Bulls&rsquo; overage right winger emerged as a scoring star this season.Hawkins led the Bulls with 87 points&mdash;among them 47 goals, more than twice as many as he scored over his first two seasons.He also earned 187 penalty minutes&hellip;and a measure of respect from league coaches who voted him to the second all-star team.The Oshawa Generals, predictably, were heavily represented with three players and coach Paul Theriault named to the first team and single players to the second and third squads.Oshawa is playing host to the Memorial Cup (May 9-16) this year, after beating North Bay Centennials in a seven-game Super Series.Hawkins&rsquo; rise to all-star status rates as one of the most unexpected developments of the year. He scored just 21 goals and 29 assists&mdash;combined&mdash;over his first two OHL seasons. What stood out more than his scoring punch was his knockout punch&mdash;he also earned 289 penalty minutes.&ldquo;But he was a role player for us those first two years,&rdquo; said Belleville Bulls&rsquo; coach-general manager Larry Mavety. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t ask him to score. He improved a lot from his first season to his second and Vancouver noticed.&rdquo;</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">Todd Hawkins blossomed into an all-star in his third season.</blockquote>The Canucks took a flyer on him as a 19-year-old, selecting him in the 11th round of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s 1986 entry draft.&ldquo;I think that did a lot for his confidence, being drafted,&rdquo; said Mavety, who acquired Hawkins from Ottawa after he failed to make the 67&rsquo;s as a 17-year-old. &ldquo;Whatever, he got a chance to play more and be a leader and he responded. He&rsquo;s got a helluva shot and he made that work for him.&ldquo;But basically he was the same kid, working hard in practice and on every shift during the games. If Vancouver is patient with him and if he keeps working hard, he can be a good pro. Because he started so late, he&rsquo;ll probably always be behind the others, but he can overcome that, and has so far, with hard work.&rdquo;The Generals, who set a franchise record with 101 points en route to their first-ever pennant, placed the line of center Scott McCrory, right winger Lee Giffin and left winger Derek King on the first team.Scoring champion McCrory (51-99150), King (53-53-106) and Giffin (31-69-100) formed the highest-scoring unit in the OHL this year.The Generals, who were playing the Peterborough Petes for the Leyden Division championship, also had defenseman Petri Matikainen selected to the second team and goaltender Sean Evoy to the third.Rounding out the first team were Peterborough goalie Ron Tugnutt and defensemen Bryan Fogarty of the Kingston Canadians and Kerry Huffman of the Guelph Platers.Shawn Simpson of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds was the second-team goaltender, while Darryl Shannon of the Windsor Spitfires joined Matikainen on defense. Center Dave McLIwain of the North Bay Centennials was joined by teammate Nick Kypreos, a left winger, and Hawkins on the second unit.Coach Bert Templeton, whose North Bay squad lost to Oshawa in the Super Series but was meeting Windsor in the Emms Division final series, was also picked for the second unit.Joining Evoy on the third team were defensemen Bill Houlder of North Bay and Brian Chapman of Belleville. London Knights&rsquo; center Brendan Shanahan, Kitchener Ranger left winger David Latta and Ottawa 67&rsquo;s right winger Frank DiMuzio rounded out the third team. Ottawa&rsquo;s Brian Kilrea was named coach.NOTEBOOK&mdash;Despite the fact their teams missed the OHL playoffs this season, both Mayne Maxner and Guy Blanchard figure to have their jobs back again in 1987-88. When asked if Maxner would be back, London owner Howard Darwin answered, &ldquo;Of course, why shouldn&rsquo;t he be?&rdquo; As for Blanchard&rsquo;s future in Sudbury, Wolves&rsquo; director of operations Marcel Bedard said he will be offered another contract as coach and general manager&hellip;When Peterborough goalie Kay Whitmore blanked the Oshawa Generals 1-0 on April 14, in the opening game of the Leyden Division final, it was his fourth career shutout against the Generals. Mark Freer scored the game&rsquo;s only goal&hellip;Windsor finally lost a game in the playoffs, losing to North Bay 3-2 in the first game of the Emms final, April 13. Wayne MacPhee scored the winner for North Bay in overtime&hellip;That ended an eight-game playoff winning streak for the Spitfires and interim coach Jim Rutherford. Windsor swept Sault Ste. Marie and Hamilton, each in four straight games, before meeting North Bay. &#9632;

f0035-01

OHL Coaches Bullish On All-Star Hawkins

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02405/5086022-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="340" height="430"><figcaption class="caption-body">SCOTT McCRORY Oshawa</figcaption></div><h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>Scott McCrory won the Ontario League scoring title this season with 150 points and now that the playoffs are under way, he certainly hasn&rsquo;t lost his touch.The Oshawa Generals&rsquo; center, drafted by Washington, was picked OHL Player of the Week after he racked up 10 points in three playoff games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03321/5086015-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="340" height="430"><figcaption class="caption-body">DAVE McLAY Portland</figcaption></div><h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>The Portland Winter Hawks are the hot team in the Western League playoffs and so is left winger Dave McLay.The 20-year-old McLay, whose NHL rights are owned by Philadelphia, was named WHL Player of the Week after collecting eight points in the division finals against Kamloops. He had 17 playoff points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-04266/5086008-1-eng-US/f0035-042.jpg" title="f0035-04" width="340" height="430"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARIO BRUNETTA Laval</figcaption></div><h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>One of the big reasons for the Laval Titan&rsquo;s success this season in the Quebec League has been the goaltending of Mario Brunetta.The 20-year-old netminder, who was drafted by the Quebec Nordiques, got the nod as QMJHL Player of the Week after he twice stopped the favored Longueuil Chevaliers.At the end of the current season, THE HOCKEY NEWS will select a Micron Junior Player of the Year. &#9632;

f0035-02

MICRON JUNIOR PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

<div class="byline">BY RICK MAYOH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02365/5086084-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="173" height="129"></div>LAVAL, Que,&mdash;The excellence of Laval Titan goaltender Mario Brunetta had the Longueuil Chevaliers on the verge of elimination in the Quebec League&rsquo;s LeBel Division final series.&ldquo;Brunetta has been pretty hot,&rdquo; said Chevaliers&rsquo; coach Guy Chouinard, after his team fell behind 3-0 in the best-of-seven showdown. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t taken the lead at all in the series and we&rsquo;ve just about doubled their shots on net. He&rsquo;s been the key.&ldquo;I guess he&rsquo;s peaking at the right time and proving he can play under pressure.&rdquo;A 6-foot-3, 180-pound native of Quebec City, Brunetta had backstopped his club to 4-3, 3-2 and 4-1 victories over the Chevs.&ldquo;I started slowly but by the end of the season my reflexes and concentration were better,&rdquo; said Brunetta, an eighth-round pick of the Quebec Nordiques in 1985. &ldquo;Now I&rsquo;m at the top of my game. My communication with the defense is good and the forwards have been backchecking well.&ldquo;I play the angles. I like to challenge the shooters but sometimes I take too many penalties.&rdquo;&ldquo;He&rsquo;s aggressive,&rdquo; Chouinard said. &ldquo;He lets you know if you&rsquo;re in front of him and he plays the puck well with his stick. He does everything you want him to.&rdquo;Both teams emerged from the modified round-robin quarter-finals with 53 records.&ldquo;Nobody expected to be up 3-0,&rdquo; said Laval coach Claude Therien. &ldquo;Brunetta has been great. Whenever we get a lead, everybody is confident in front of him.&rdquo;Laval jumped to a 3-0 lead in the opening game, led 2-1 in the second and 4-0 in the third.&ldquo;(Longueuil goalie) Bobby Desjardins doesn&rsquo;t allow many bad goals but he doesn&rsquo;t look as sharp as he did during the regular season,&rdquo; said Therien. &ldquo;We always seem to be scoring on rebounds.&rdquo;Therien, who took over the club from Jacques Noel in mid-November, said Brunetta&rsquo;s season has paralleled the team&rsquo;s&mdash;up and down.His 4.51 goals-against average (2725-4) was third in the league, behind the league-leading Desjardins (3.25, 37-14-4).&ldquo;March was horrible,&rdquo; continued Therien. &ldquo;We did a little better at the start of the playoffs going 2-2, then the fifth, sixth and seventh games of the quarter-finals we got rolling with two wins over St-Jean and a win against Hull to put us in the (league) semifinal.&rdquo;The line of Mike Gober, Sylvain Couturier and Simon Gagne did most of the damage against Hull, with five goals and eight assists in an 8-6 decision.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re all 200 pounds and we forecheck well,&rdquo; said Couturier, a Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; fourth-round selection.Couturier missed the second game of the semi-finals against the Chevs because of his father&rsquo;s death.The unit continued to be a dominant force against Longueuil with six of the Titan&rsquo;s 11 goals. Left winger Gober (12-13-25), a St. Louis native obtained from the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs, was fourth in playoff scoring, while center Couturier (11-14-25) was fifth and Gagne (8-11-19) ninth.Laval&rsquo;s potent offense also includes Luc Beausoleil, sixth in QMJHL regular-season scoring (65-87-152), and center Francois Guay, a Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; eighth-rounder, who was eighth (52-77-129).Rookie center Rob Murphy (35-5489) is expected to be selected in the middle of the first round at this summer&rsquo;s NHL entry draft.Longueuil&rsquo;s defensive effectiveness has been reduced by nagging shoulder and ankle injuries to Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; sixth-round defenseman Donald Dufresne, but Chouinard was not making any excuses.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve probably had more guys that wanted it than we have. We&rsquo;ve had to come from behind all the time and it&rsquo;s tough.&rdquo;QUEBEC CACHE&mdash;The Shawinigan Cataractes had a 2-1 lead in their hard-fought Dilio Division final with the Chicoutimi Sagueneens. The Cats&rsquo; Robert Page scored four goals in a 10-7 opening win, then teammate Serge Pepin struck for the winning goal 5:12 into overtime in a 6-5 victory. Regular-season and playoff scoring leader Marc Fortier of the Sags, who had nine goals and 27 assists in 11 post-season matches, scored the winning goal 12:48 into overtime to give Chicoutimi a 6-5 decision in game three. &#9632;

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Brunetta Superb In Semi Showdown

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01421/5086122-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01494/5086115-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="3105" height="3225"></div><h2>GOALTENDING</h2>ALL GOALS AGAINST A TEAM IN ANY GAME ARE CHARGED TO THE GOALTENDER OF THAT GAME FOR PURPOSES OF AWARDING THE BILL JENNINGS TROPHYWON-LOST-TIED RECORD IS BASED UPON WHICH GOALTENDER WAS PLAYING WHEN THE WINNING OR TYING GOAL WAS SCOREDEMPTY-NET GOALS ARE NOT COUNTED IN PERSONAL AVERAGES BUT ARE INCLUDED IN THE TEAM TOTAL AND THE SHOT(S) IS INCLUDED IN THE GOALTENDER&rsquo;S SHOTS AGAINST (SA) TOTAL (GP) GAMES PLAYED IN (MIN) MINUTES PLAYED (AVG) 60 MINUTE AVERAGE (GA) GOALS AGAINST (SA) SHOTS AGAINST (PCT) SAVE PERCENTAGE &#9632;

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The Hockey News NHL PLAYOFF REPORT

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01464/5086153-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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SCOREBOARD

<h2>TORONTO vs DETROIT</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1028/5086292-1-eng-US/f0040-102.jpg" title="f0040-10" width="715" height="369"></div><h2>WINNIPEG vs EDMONTON</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1127/5086285-1-eng-US/f0040-112.jpg" title="f0040-11" width="713" height="372"></div><h2>QUEBEC vs MONTREAL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1225/5086278-1-eng-US/f0040-122.jpg" title="f0040-12" width="715" height="376"></div><h2>NY ISLANDERS vs PHILADELPHIA</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1323/5086271-1-eng-US/f0040-132.jpg" title="f0040-13" width="709" height="338"></div> &#9632;

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Playoff Opponents’ Records

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0041-11" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1121/5086417-1-eng-US/f0041-112.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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The Hockey News Classified (416) 445-5702

<div class="byline">By Bruce Hood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0386/5086486-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="365" height="448"></div>Q: On March 7, in a game between Montreal and Edmonton, penalties were called against both teams with approximately three minutes left in the game. Montreal received a minor and Edmonton a double minor but Montreal went on a power play right away. I feel they should have played four aside for two minutes at which time the Canadiens would have a power play for the remaining minute or so of the game, unless they scored. Why would this power play start right away? Edmonton ended up scoring a shorthanded goal.Terry Chickness, New Glasgow, NSA: The system you recommend is the way the rule used to be applied before it was changed a number of years ago. The reason for the change was because teams were taking advantage when a team was a man short. The opposing team would send out a player on the power play to get involved&mdash;usually in front of the net&mdash;and invariably a player from each team would be sent off. This created a 4-on-3 situation and easier opportunity to score a goal. Now, minors cancel one another out. Only an uneven distribution of penalties, as in the case you described, results in a power play.Q: Has a game ever been forfeited because one team has refused to begin play. If so, when was it, and what team(s) were affected?David E, Darragh,&nbsp; Peoria, AZA: To my knowledge, this has never happened. The National Hockey League has a firm standard&mdash;the game must be played and under no circumstance will the referee halt proceedings. Also no protests are allowed as each team is held responsible to meet all requirements before putting its players onto the ice.Q: I have been a hockey fanatic for many years, but I saw something that I don&rsquo;t quite understand during the Jan. 18 game between the Flyers and Islanders in Philly, where a &ldquo;bench-clearing brawl&rdquo; broke out. New York&rsquo;s Brian Curran was given a minor for leaving the penalty box, fighting major and game misconduct. My question is: How could he get a minor for leaving the box when no other penalty was assessed to him? Why was he in the box in the first place?It appeared that referee Dave Newell was going to call a penalty on Curran but with all of the mayhem he forgot to make the initial call. Is it possible for a player to get a penalty for leaving the box without having another infraction already called on him?Jim Hatzas,&nbsp; Reading, PAA: As you can understand, when an incident of this nature takes place, the penalties are not always that easy to decipher. The three officials must do their best in as short a time as possible to determine the infractions and assess the proper penalties.If a player leaves the penalty box during a stoppage and during an altercation on the ice, then he is subject to a minor plus a game misconduct. If he is first to leave the bench&mdash;before any player leaves his players bench, he will receive a double minor plus a game, and a three-game suspension. If Curran had been put into the box, even though the referee may not have told the timekeeper of a penalty yet, he cannot come out, especially during an altercation, or he is subject to all the normal penalties.It you want your questions answered, write to:ASK THE REFEREE16 Martin StreetMilton, Ont.L9T 2P9All questions will be considered, but only those published will be answered. Personal responses are not possible. &#9632;

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ASK THE REFEREE

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0467/5086517-1-eng-US/f0042-042.jpg" title="f0042-04" width="87" height="84"></div>EAST RUTHERFORD&mdash;Throughout his rookie season in the National Hockey League, Anders Carlsson made very little noise both on and off the ice.The left winger scored only two goals in 48 games for the New Jersey Devils and was equally as quiet in the dressing room and on the team bus.It was after the Devils&rsquo; season had been completed and Carlsson returned to skate with the Swedish national team at the World Championships that the 26-year-old left winger drew the most attention with statements, reportedly made to a Swedish newspaper, condemning coach Doug Carpenter.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not certain where I&rsquo;m going to play next season, but one thing is for sure: I will not play for the Devils under the same coach,&rdquo; Carlsson said in reference to Carpenter.Although Carlsson was not available for further comment, general manager Max McNab and Carpenter were.&ldquo;I guess things have changed somewhat,&rdquo; said Carpenter. &ldquo;I thought that you had to prove yourself and then demand but some people, I guess, demand before they prove. You can only go by what you see and he only scored two goals.&ldquo;People can say whatever they want, whether it&rsquo;s rational or justifiable. I guess he must have thought it was. If you have two goals and 18 assists I think you&rsquo;re going to be hiding somewhere. If he had gotten 20 or 30 goals it&rsquo;d be different.&rdquo;McNab, who feels he has not been treated fairly by the press himself this year, gave Carlsson the benefit of the doubt.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard a lot of wild things come out of Sweden&rsquo;s newspapers,&rdquo; said the GM. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to remember that reporters from all over the world are gathering for these events and there are different languages and different motivations involved. You know, they&rsquo;d like to have Carlsson stay over there next season because he&rsquo;s a good player.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not putting any stock in those reports until I hear something directly from Anders or his agent and, so far, there has been no such indication.&rdquo;There has been off-the-record talk for two years that Carpenter&rsquo;s relationship with European players was tense. Uli Hiemer has indicated he felt extra pressure to perform for his coach and Jan Ludvig has been critical of a lack of ice time from Carpenter. In both cases the comments came when things were going bad and there was the normal friction between coach and player.In Carlsson&rsquo;s case, however, it seemed that Carpenter tried especially hard to get the native of Galve going.Carlsson, New Jersey&rsquo;s fifth choice in the 1986 entry draft, went 20 games without scoring a goal for the Devils. With seven assists over that period he was sent to Maine of the American League on Jan. 5, where he worked with Tom McVie. The Devils recalled Carlsson on Jan. 18 and he extended his streak to 23 games without a goal, before scoring his first NHL goal at Madison Square Garden against the Rangers on Jan. 26. He finished the season with 2-18-20 in 48 games.Carpenter denied there has been any trouble in his relationship with European players.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s absolutely incorrect. I don&rsquo;t care what kind of player or where he comes from or what he does, if he can help the New Jersey Devils hockey team then do you think I&rsquo;m foolish enough to take away 30 per cent of our scouting area?&rdquo; asked Carpenter. &ldquo;Thirty per cent of the players come from Europe and 70 per cent come from North America. Are we going to cut ourselves down to 70 per cent when we&rsquo;re trying to rebuild a franchise? Anybody that says that is looking for excuses.&rdquo;The question remains, then, was Carlsson a victim of the Swedish media or was he looking for excuses?HOT STUFF&mdash;Devils&rsquo; director of player personnel Marshall Johnston on the draft, where New Jersey will be choosing second: &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t eliminated anybody in that top group of seven or eight. We&rsquo;re still watching, we&rsquo;re still interviewing people who have known these young men since they were eight years old. We&rsquo;re still keeping an open mind.&rdquo; &#9632;</div>

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Carpenter Can’t Understand Rookie Carlsson’s Criticisms

<div class="byline">BY LARRY HUMBER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01175/5086555-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1215/5086548-1-eng-US/f0041-122.jpg" title="f0041-12" width="578" height="581"></div><h2>ACROSS:</h2>1. Coach and general manager pictured (6).4. Hamilton-born netminder (6).9. He was among the most active NHL netminders with 52 appearances last season (7).10. Rebound (5).11. Former Blues&rsquo; netminder Wakely (5).12. Former Swedish national team member who was a first-team NHL all-star in 1976-77 (7).13. Nickname of Regina&rsquo;s Western League entry (4).15. Blueliner taken first by Vancouver in the 1980 draft (4).18. Veteran North Star who appeared in all 80 games for Hartford in 1979-80 (7).21. Toronto arena,&mdash;Leaf Gardens (5).23. Former Ranger Vadnais (5).24. Surprise winner of the 1936 Olympic hockey championships (7).25. Birthplace of Flames&rsquo; Nick Fotiu, Island (6).26. He was among the WHA&rsquo;s all-time penalty minute leaders (6).<h2>DOWN:</h2>1. Floyd Smith was this club&rsquo;s first captain (6).2. How NHL teams travelled before expansion (5).3. Nickname of late Hall of Famer Eddie Shore, &ldquo;The Edmonton (7).5. Be outstanding (5).6. Leaf winger who began his NHL career with Los Angeles (7).7. First player taken in the 1979 NHL draft (6).8. Last Avco Cup winners (4).14. Randy Gregg&rsquo;s school (7).15. He twice netted the Cupwinning goal for Canadians (7).16. Brawl (6).17. Calgary-born Flame (6).19. Rearguard with expansion Kings (5).20. Reserves (4).22. This Hall of Famer was named the NHL&rsquo;s most valuable player in 1943-44 (5).Crossword solution in the Classified Section on page 41. &#9632;

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CROSSWORD

<h2>30 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Dick Irvin, one of the greatest coaches ever, passed away after a long battle with leukemia. During a brilliant 26-year coaching career, Irvin&rsquo;s teams won four Stanley Cups&mdash;three with the Toronto Maple Leafs and one with the Montreal Canadiens. He was also one of the game&rsquo;s great innovators. In 1930-31, Irvin introduced the system of rotating three lines. He also experimented with rotating his goalkeepers every seven or eight minutes but that idea wasn&rsquo;t as successful.&bull; Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings won the Hart Trophy as the league&rsquo;s most valuable player for the third time in his career. He joined the select company of Howie Morenz and Eddie Shore, who won the award three and four times, respectively. The Red Wing superstar also won the Art Ross Trophy after topping the league in scoring with 89 points.&bull; Conn Smythe, builder of the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; empire, bowed out of the hockey scene with three major appointments. First, the 62-year-old Smythe named his son, Stafford, to head up a seven-man committee formed to run the Maple Leafs. He also moved coach Howie Meeker up to the job of general manager and named Billy Reay his successor.<h2>25 YEARS AGO</h2>&bull; Springfield Indians of the American League won the Calder Cup for the third straight time. The Indians, owned by former NHL great Eddie Shore, became the first American League team to win three in a row.&bull; In a victory party outside Toronto City Hall, more than 50,000 fans came out to cheer the Maple Leafs after their Stanley Cup victory. It was the largest reception for a sports team in the city&rsquo;s history. &#9632;

THIS WEEK…

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02126/5086610-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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THE WAY WE WERE

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div>Larry Cahan survived for 23 years as a professional hockey player, but he never knew a more emotional moment than his first National Hockey League game, in the 1954-55 season.Cahan, a native of Fort William (now Thunder Bay), Ont., was lining up on the blue line at Maple Leaf Gardens&mdash;the same rink he had heard described, but never seen, countless times on radio by the legendary Foster Hewitt.&ldquo;I was shocked,&rdquo; he recalled, &ldquo;especially since it was my first game in the NHL. There I was, a member of the Maple Leafs, playing with and against some of those same players I had heard about on the radio.&ldquo;Guys like Gordie Howe, all of a sudden, came to life right in front of me.&rdquo;Cahan recovered sufficiently from his rookie awe to play with four NHL teams&mdash;Toronto, the New York Rangers, Oakland Seals and Los Angeles Kings&mdash;and, near the end of his career, parts of two years with the World Hockey Association&rsquo;s Chicago Cougars.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03104/5086641-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="547" height="857"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Cahan</figcaption></div>In time, the defenseman became a respected veteran himself. He was named captain of both the Kings and the Cougars, making him one of only handful of players to hold that post in both the NHL and WHA,In 665 NHL games. Cahan scored 38 goals, 92 assists and 698 penalty minutes. He collected one goal and 10 assists in 73 WHA games.Twice in his career, he was rescued from the minors by hockey drafts. The first came in 1967 when the NHL doubled in size, and he was picked up by the Seals in the expansion draft. Then in 1972, when it looked like Cahan would finish his career again in the minors, the WHA came along and he was drafted by the Cougars.Cahan recalled his days with the Seals and coach Bert Olmstead, who was named to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1985.&ldquo;Bert would have made a great marine sergeant,&rdquo; Cahan said. &ldquo;He was just a little too tough as a coach. I&rsquo;ll never forget that first year (196768). I knew what kind of a guy Bert was. But there were others on the team that didn&rsquo;t. And it was quite a shock for some of those guys.&rdquo;Today, at 53, Cahan works in sales for Prudential Financial Services in Vancouver. He resides in nearby Burnaby with his family. &#9632;

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May 1, 1987

Kamloops Duo Earns Top League Honors

Fired Berry Had The Support Of His Players

STANLEY CUP SCOREBOARD

NHL SUMMARIES