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 22, 1987

The Hockey News May 22, 1987

<div class="byline">COMPILED BY RICHARD BEALES Editorial Staff</div>It is a transaction that can take place only on paper.Swift Current Bronco left winger Peter Soberlak plays in the Western League; Oshawa General center Kevin Miehm in the Ontario League.Inter-league trading isn&rsquo;t permitted, but Soberlak and Miehm have nevertheless exchanged places&mdash;on the National Hockey League Central Scouting Bureau&rsquo;s final ratings list for the 1987 entry draft.The confidential rankings, obtained by THN. show Soberlak and Miehm to be among the biggest winners and losers in terms of changes from CSB&rsquo;s ratings in February.The two players switched places, Soberlak moving from the No. 30 spot to No. 14 and Miehm, from 14 to 30.Of course, the ratings may ultimately prove to be insignificant. CSB is merely a general indicator and its ratings do not take into account individual team preferences or the team&rsquo;s order of selection.Therefore, the order players are chosen on draft day, June 13 at Detroit&rsquo;s Joe Louis Arena, will be significantly different than CSB&rsquo;s list.Still, it&rsquo;s a barometer of sorts.On that basis, the stock of Miehm plummeted further than any of the players who were ranked in the top 21 of CSB&rsquo;s February listing.Others who fell out of the first round include Longueuil Chevalier defenseman Yves Racine, No. 13 to No. 28, Granby Bison defenseman Eric Desjardins, No. 17 to No. 23, Swift Current defenseman Ryan McGill, No. 18 to No. 31, and Ottawa 67&rsquo;s center Andrew Cassels, No. 21 to No. 29.The biggest drop posted by a player who remained in the first round belonged to Kitchener Ranger defenseman Darren Rumble, who was No. 8 in February but is now No. 13.The biggest gain was posted by North Bay Centennial right winger Keith Osborne, who jumped from No. 35 to No. 17. Other big gains were made by Soberlak, No. 30 to No. 14, Prince Albert defenseman Gord Kruppke, No. 28 to No. 16, Laval Titan center Rob Murphy, No. 25 to No. 15, and Belleville Bull defenseman Bryan Marchment, No. 29 to No. 20.Granby Bison center Pierre Turgeon holds down the No. 1 overall spot, a position he has occupied since the beginning of the season.The CSB final ratings, with February&rsquo;s ranking in brackets, are as follows:1. Pierre Turgeon (1), C, Granby; 2. Brendan Shanahan (2), C, London; 3. Dave Archibald (4), C, Portland; 4. Glen Wesley (5), D, Portland; 5. Chris Joseph (3), D, Seattle; 6. Wayne McBean (6), D, Medicine Hat;7. Bryan Fogarty (10),D, Kingston; 8. Luke Richardson (7), D, Peterborough; 9. Jody Hull (12), C-RW, Peterborough; 10. Joe Sakic (11), C, Swift Current; 11. Stephane Quintal (9), D, Granby; 12. Adam Burt (15), D, North Bay; 13. Darren Rumble (8), D, Kitchener; 14. Peter Soberlak (30), LW, Swift Current; 15. Rob Murphy (25), C, Laval; 16. Gord Kruppke (28), D, Prince Albert; 17. Keith Osborne (35), RW, North Bay; 18. Jeff Ballantyne(20), D, Ottawa; 19. John McIntyre (16), C, Guelph; 20. Bryan Marchment (29), D, Belleville; 21. Bryan Deasley (19), LW, Univ, of Michigan.In the goaltender rankings, Chicoutimi&rsquo;s Jimmy Waite, who rode the bench through much of the Quebec League playoffs, remains No. 1. He is expected to be selected in the first round of the draft.Rounding out the top goalies, in CSB order, are Medicine Hat&rsquo;s Mark Fitzpatrick, Cornwall&rsquo;s Rick Tabaracci, Oshawa&rsquo;s Jeff Hackett. Shawinigan&rsquo;s Francois Gravel, Windsor&rsquo;s Petering and Saskatoon&rsquo;s Mark Reimer.<h2>BRAWL MARS CUP</h2>A bench-clearing brawl, involving a face-slapping female spectator, led to fines and suspensions after the first game of the Memorial Cup.Winger Ron Stem of the Longueuil Chevaliers and defenseman Shane Doyle of the Oshawa Generals were each suspended for one game, and both clubs were fined $250.Tournament officials also fined the host Ontario League $5,000 for lack of crowd control.After the final buzzer of the game, won 3-2 by Oshawa, Stem jumped Oshawa&rsquo;s Gordon Murphy and started swinging. Doyle rushed off the bench to Murphy&rsquo;s aid.After the fight broke up and Stem had left the ice, a woman hit Doyle with a glove and then slapped his face.Stem returned to the ice and another brawl ensued.The fights marred a good contest, Oshawa&rsquo;s first of two victories in its first two games. Jeff Daniels, Derek King and Sean Williams staked Oshawa to a 3-1 lead, before Longueuil&rsquo;s Marc Bureau closed out the scoring. Stern scored the other Chevs&rsquo; goal.In the second game of the double round-robin opening round, Oshawa topped the Medicine Hat Tigers 5-3.The Generals trailed 3-2 going into the third period, but rebounded on goals by Barry Burkholder. Lee Giffin and Brian Hunt. It was the second goal of the game for Giffin, while the other Generals&rsquo; marker went to Jim Paek. Though Medicine Hat peppered Jeff Hackett with 45 shots, Guy Phillips (with two goals) and Ron Bonara were the only Tigers to beat him.<h2>NHL REVIEWS OWNERSHIP</h2>The NHL&rsquo;s board of governors has voted to form a committee for the purpose of studying public ownership of franchises.A proposal by Edmonton Oiler owner Peter Pocklington to sell part of his club to the public spurred the board into creating the committee. As it stands, Pocklington&rsquo;s proposal must be approved by 75 per cent of the league board.Board chairman William Wirtz and president John Ziegler will appoint members of the study committee, whose report is expected to be ready this September.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011282/5178801-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="563" height="865"><figcaption class="caption-body">Portland&rsquo;s Dave Archibald finished the year No. 3 on the Central Scouting list.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0009-01

Departments

Turgeon Still The One For NHL Scouts

<h2>10 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Following a WHA playoff victory by his Houston Aeros over Winnipeg Jets, Gordie Howe said he was &ldquo;99 and 9/10 ths percent sure&rdquo; he wasplaying his last season as a professional hockey player. In fact. Howe played three more seasons, including a brief return to the NHL as a member of the Hartford Whalers. When asked by reporter if the victory made him feel younger, the 49-year-old Howe replied, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m down to about 48 now.&rdquo;&bull; Jiggs McDonald, Atlanta Flames&rsquo; publicity director and play-by-play announcer, received harsh criticism for promoting Willi Plett as rookie of the year. His publicity campaign was successful, however. Plett won the Calder Trophy.&bull; Glen Sather, now president, general manager and coach of the Edmonton Oilers, took the first step to that multi-tiered job by accepting a one-year contract to coach the team. At the time, Sather was ending his 10-year NHL playing career.&bull; The top picks available for the Amateur Draft were made public, with Barry Beck rated No. 1. Beck, a huge defenseman for the New Westminister Bruins, was touted as the next dominant defenseman in the NHL. Dale McCourt, a high-scoring forward from the Ontario League and Robert Picard, a solid defenseman from the Quebec League, rounded out the top three. The Colorado Rockies made Beck their first pick (second overall), while the Detroit Red Wings took McCourt (first overall) and the Washington Capitals drafted Picard (third overall). Also available in the draft, but not as highly rated, were Mike Bossy, John Anderson and Greg Millen. &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUE

THIS WEEK…

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011193/5178560-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="358" height="467"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jay Greenberg</figcaption></div>THE STORY OUT of Pittsburgh said Paul Martha had &ldquo;lost faith&rdquo; in Bob Berry&rsquo;s ability to get the Penguins into the playoffs. So he fired him.Let&rsquo;s see, what else is new and exciting? My grass is growing again because it&rsquo;s spring and I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;re all excited about that. A dog bit a guy down the street at about the same time Montreal eliminated Boston again. No news there.Wait, hold on&hellip;word is coming in from Edmonton&hellip;wait a minute, we have to hold for confirmation&hellip;yes, it&rsquo;s true. The Red Wings have just iced the puck again. And&hellip;my gosh, they just did it again. And again. I&rsquo;m reeling.In the midst of all this excitement, a coach firing doesn&rsquo;t strike me as any big deal. These people who stand behind benches are insignificant, nothing but specks of dust in the universe. Well, maybe Michel Bergeron is in his own constellation. But with that singular exception, coaches aren&rsquo;t worthy of a whole lot of thought.Berry, who has been coach of three NHL teams, will find a fourth sooner or later. 1 assume he&rsquo;ll eat in the meantime. I&rsquo;m supposed to get all excited about this?I&rsquo;m underwhelmed. Which is the whole intention of the people who do the firing. They put us to sleep with their self-serving rationa-lizations and make us miss the point.Well, not me, pal. Not this time. I&rsquo;m not falling for that same old trick. In fact I&rsquo;m going to borrow the iob of Cindy Himes, the Penguins&rsquo; very capable public relations director, fora minute here (Cindy, you can have it back it in another few paragraphs) and rewrite the release about Berry&rsquo;s firing. It should have read:YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio&mdash;Edward J. Debartolo Sr., the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, today announced that he has not lost faith in vice-president and general counsel Paul Martha.&ldquo;Despite the fact that Paul was in charge throughout all the years that the late Baz Bastien was running this franchise down to the point where the best it could do for an entire season was 38 points, I blame the people who have had to dig out of the mess for the last three seasons.&rdquo; said DeBartolo. &ldquo;They are responsible for the team&rsquo;s failure to make the playoffs.&ldquo;Berry is an extremely competent, but not particularly charismatic coach, who did not have good enough players to get the team into fourth place this season. However, he won seven straight games in October, thereby allowing us to create the illusion that the failure to win in March was his fault.&ldquo;In allowing Martha to express his concerns about the team&rsquo;s direction under Berry, I have hereby taken the decision to hire and fire the coach out of the hands of general manager Eddie Johnston.&ldquo;This should not be quite as embarrassing to Johnston, who is responsible for making this team respectable again, as it was three years ago when I chased Bob MrCammon reluctantly promoting Johnston. But it&rsquo;s close.&ldquo;I have thus created suspicion-that E.J. is the next to go. Unless, of course, Phil Esposito makes some more trades to enable us to finish fourth next season.&ldquo;Despite the fact that Mr. Martha appears to have had no positive impact on this organization over the years, except for an attempt to move us to the Norris Division that was wisely hooted down by our fans, I remain solidly behind him.&ldquo;We can always find another coach. But Paul Martha is why the Penguins will always be the Penguins. Some day, I may even figure out why.&rdquo;Now, I don&rsquo;t want all you fans out there to think that only the Pittsburgh mess has thus been cleared up. Actually, the more I look around the league, the more convinced I am that everything is going to be okay with your favorite team, too.Bob Pulford has gotten to the real problem in Chicago. It was his coaching, not his managing. The Hawks&rsquo; performance this past season had nothing to do with the bad defense Pulford put together or the goaltending problem that for years he refused to acknowledge. Now that he&rsquo;ll have another coach he can blame, Pully will have time to straighten all those things out.And now that Phil Esposito has straightened out the horrible mess Ted Sator left in New York, he can hire somebody whose forward-thinking ideas are compatible with his own. Like Black Jack Stewart.It doesn&rsquo;t really matter, though, what any of these guys do. You can always fire a coach with one hand, while the broom in the other is sweeping your dirt under the rug. You can probably hide it there for at least two more years.These coaches, these people who put in lazy 12-hour days, whose employment is guaranteed for the gravy ride of at least three years, who are at the mercy of either stubborn or impulsive general managers, and who naively believe that the same 19-year-old kid he is suffering with will still be his to coach at 25, are contemptible.Though I suspect that most of them are better at what they do than the people who fire them, coaches are not worthy of our consideration.Another fly hit the NHL windshield. In Pittsburgh. Could have been anywhere. What&rsquo;s the big deal? &#9632;

f0005-01

Columnists

Another Coach Fired…So What’s The Big Deal?

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0029-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01496/5180088-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0029-01

STANLEY CUP SCOREBOARD

In next week&rsquo;s May 29 issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS, which is the last of our weeklies, we&rsquo;ll look at the final 1987 Stanley Cup contenders and the&rsquo;l 9 other National Hockey League teams that, in the end, were just pretenders.For them the season might be over, but the year isn&rsquo;t. There&rsquo;s still plenty to occupy them, and we&rsquo;ll tell you about that.Plus, we&rsquo;ll keep you abreast of all else happening in the NHL, especially on the coaching scene. where vacancies exist with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks and New York Rangers. To keep you up to date on the best up-and-comers among coaches, we&rsquo;ll present a who&rsquo;s who of NHL candidates.There&rsquo;s also the Memorial Cup wrap-up after a new Canadian major junior champion has been crowned in Oshawa, Ont.Don&rsquo;t miss all that, plus more next week&rsquo;s May 29 issue of THN. &#9632;

NEXT WEEK

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011290/5178529-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="346" height="467"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Dryden</figcaption></div>Rick Ley is aiming to become the first coach since Ted Garvin left Port Huron in 1973, to move directly from the International League to the National Hockey League.&ldquo;I really believe that I&rsquo;m ready,&rdquo; said Ley, whose Mukesgon Lumberjacks were ready for their third staight appearance in the Turner Cup final.The Lumberjacks swept Saginaw 4-0 to earn a berth in the IHL championship series. They are meeting Salt Lake in the finals.Ironically, Ley&rsquo;s success in the playoffs may do just as much harm as good to his chances of landing an NHL job. While others are out promoting themselves with the coachless Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks and New York Rangers, Ley is on the shores of Lake Michigan, working on a game plan to win his second Turner Cup in three years.He&rsquo;s been promised interviews with Pittsburgh and New York, but even he admits the early candidates usually get the longest looks.Ley has been prominently mentioned in association with the Vancouver Canucks, largely because of his close friendship with new general manager-president Pat Quinn&mdash;Ley&rsquo;s old partner on the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; blue line and fellow car pooler.But, the 38-year-old native of Orillia, Ont., isn&rsquo;t as confident of a Canuck connection being established as are the speculators.&ldquo;I would say the chances of me coaching the Vancouver Canucks are very slim,&rdquo; said Ley, seemingly more aware than most that Tom Watt is still the coach on the West Coast. &ldquo;The only chance I would have is if Tom were to step down.&rdquo;Ley does not anticipate that.What makes Ley different than most NHL candidates is his stubborn belief in the IHL as a springboard to the big time. While others gravitate toward the Western, Ontario, Quebec or American Leagues, Ley stays in Muskegon, where he&rsquo;s also a part-owner with Larry Gordon.A junior hockey team would be hard-pressed to pay Ley as much as he&rsquo;s making in the IHL. He wonders, anyway, about the NHL&rsquo;s fickleness. Sometimes, a coach is considered directly from junior. Sometimes he&rsquo;s not.Ley wouldn&rsquo;t look at the American League as a promotion, either. &ldquo;To me, it&rsquo;s not a step up. It&rsquo;s a step sideways,&rdquo; said Ley, who was forced to retire from the Hartford Whalers in 1980-81, following his fifth knee operation.What would be a step up for the former THN minor-league coach of the year is a place in the sun, the NHL. Ex-IHL coaches Bob McCammon, Nick Polano and Don Perry progressed to NHL head coaching jobs, but not without intermediate stops.Ley&rsquo;s next stop, he hopes, is the NHL, where he&rsquo;d like a chance to prove himself&hellip;and erase the damage done by Garvin, who lasted just 11 games (2-8-1) with the Red Wings.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021053/5178522-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1436" height="1812"><figcaption class="caption-body">A former Hartford captain and assistant coach, Rick Ley&rsquo;s No. 2 is retired as are Gordie Howe&rsquo;s No. 9 and Johnny McKenzie&rsquo;s No. 19.</figcaption></div><h2>Draft Rivalry-Player Agents</h2>Some of the most interesting battles fought out at the NHL entry draft have nothing to do with the 21 teams.They are between the two most influential agent firms in the business&mdash;Newport Sports Management and Branada Sports Group. For the past two years, there has been an unspoken and (generally unfriendly) competition to see whether Don Meehan of Newport or Bill Watters and Rick Curran of Branada fare better at the draft.First-rounders are the most obvious measuring stick.Last year, the scorecard read eight for Meehan (a career high) and just three for Watters and Curran (a career low). The year before, Newport and Branada each had six.Advantage Meehan.Especially when you consider both the 1985 (Wendel Clark) and 1986 (Joe Murphy) first overall choices were his clients.Curran expects this will be a comeback year for Branada. He has hopes seven of his players will be chosen in the first round, with two others having an outside chance. Meehan doesn&rsquo;t expect to match last year&rsquo;s total. He&rsquo;s looking for at least five of his guys to go among the first 21, with two others solidly placed in the top 42.&ldquo;I consider Don to be our principal competition,&rdquo; said Curran, a 34-year-old ex-college hockey player. &ldquo;Last year he beat us for the first time.&rdquo;In 1979, Branada&rsquo;s final year of association with Alan Eagleson, and 1980, the first year Watters and Curran were on their own, they had nine first-rounders&mdash;the most ever for a firm.Meehan came tantalizingly close with eight.His rise, in just four-and-a-half years, has been remarkable, and largely based on strength in Western Canada.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve gone from zero players to 40 in the NHL,&rdquo; said Meehan, a 36-year-old exuniversity football player.He&rsquo;s unlikely to have the No. 1 choice this year. Pierre Lacroix of Montreal represents Pierre Turgeon and he&rsquo;s certain to be chosen by Buffalo.Branada has highly-touted Brendan Shanahan, a good prospect for No. 2, and Glen Wesley but Newport has the western threesome of Dave Archibald. Wayne McBean and Chris Joseph.Keep an eye out for these players on June 13 at the draft in Detroit, and their representatives. You may even want to keep track of who&rsquo;s with who.You can be sure they will.<h2>TV Pet Peeves-Ever Wonder?</h2>Andy Rooney and 60 Minutes move over. Make room for Steve Dryden and 60 Seconds.This week&rsquo;s topic is television hockey. Forgive my regionalism, but Port Credit (Ont.) doesn&rsquo;t get ESPN or any of the American team&rsquo;s cable networks.Did you ever wonder why:&#9633; TV talking heads ask questions to which there are no interesting answers, such as, &ldquo;Geez, you&rsquo;re sweating a lot. Is it hot out there?&rdquo;&#9633; Hockey Night in Canada used Phil Collins&rsquo; song, &ldquo;In the Air Tonight,&rdquo; asabackdrop for opening visuals in the final game of the Toronto-Detroit series? Do you think they know the tune is all about one of Collins&rsquo; friends drowning, while another acquaintance &ldquo;would not lend a hand.&rdquo;?&#9633; Football, baseball and basketball seem to have an abundance of excellent color commentators and hockey doesn&rsquo;t, with the notable exception of John Davidson&mdash;the Tony Kubek of hockey?&#9633; Tough questions, except for those asked by Dave Hodge, are invariably coated in sugar, loaded with apologies and full of escape clauses?&#9633; They call it a reverse angle when cameras show replays from a viewpoint on the other side of the rink? To me, that&rsquo;s just &ldquo;a-view-from-the-other-side-of-the-rink&rdquo; angle. If it were truly a reverse angle, wouldn&rsquo;t Bob Gainey (No. 23) be Claude Lemieux (No. 32) on the replays?&#9633; Intermission features are about as hardhitting as Buddy Biancalana?&#9633; They updated the classic opening theme of Hockey Night in Canada?&#9633; Hockey broadcasts must get in at least four or five shots of gorgeous girls every game? That&rsquo;s sophomoric&mdash;a college kid with a camera, as THN copy editor Richard Beales would say.&#9633; Replays always end before the part you want to see?&#9633; Danny Galli van, the most dignified play-by-play commentator ever and the man who gave us the &ldquo;Savardian Spinnerama,&rdquo; retired?<h2>&lsquo;Isn&rsquo;t Biafra&rsquo;-Michel Bergeron</h2>Quote of the week:&ldquo;We really have to put an end to all this business of players wanting to leave Quebec. This is the third year in a row that such a thing has happened. We&rsquo;ve always been good enough to do everything possible to please our players, but enough is enough. Quebec isn&rsquo;t Biafra or Alaska&mdash;it&rsquo;s an extraordinary place to play hockey in.&rdquo;&mdash;Coach Michel Bergeron, page 5. &#9632;

f0003-01

Next Stop…The NHL

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-02876/5178591-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="173" height="134"></div>QUEBEC CITY&mdash;The futures of John Ogrodnick and Basil McRae, both obtained in a Jan. 17 trade from the Detroit Red Wings, are in limbo.Ogrodnick is said to be dissatisfied with life as a Quebec Nordique, while McRae, a free agent, has decided to shop himself around the National Hockey League.Ogrodnick redeemed a sub-par second half with an inspired performance in the playoffs. But the day after the Nords&rsquo; elimination by the Montreal Canadians, he refused to comment about his future with the team.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a subject that I don&rsquo;t want to talk about right now,&rdquo; the left winger said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather think about it.&rdquo;But if he were anxious to return, wouldn&rsquo;t he be pleased to talk about it? Not necessarily, according to a source high in the Nordiques&rsquo; organization. It seems Ogrodnick needs to be told that he&rsquo;s wanted and that he isn&rsquo;t really sure if he did the job that was expected of him. According to the source, it&rsquo;s all a question of confidence. If Ogrodnick feels appreciated, he&rsquo;ll be back in a Quebec uniform next season.&ldquo;I really loved playing in Quebec,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great hockey town. And I had loads of fun in the playoffs, having the chance to play with such a talented group of players.&ldquo;The only regret I have is not having played any better when I first got here. I was really upset at the time at leaving Detroit.&rdquo;Ogrodnick needs only to talk with coach Michel Bergeron to know how much he was appreciated.&ldquo;John proved during the playoffs,&rdquo; Bergeron said, &ldquo;that he was a very important player in our organization. We really can&rsquo;t afford to lose him. Not a player with his talents.&ldquo;We really have to put an end to all this business of players wanting to leave Quebec. This is the third year in a row that such a thing has happened. We&rsquo;ve always been good enough to do everything possible to please our players, but enough is enough.&ldquo;Quebec isn&rsquo;t Biafra or Alaska&mdash;it&rsquo;s an extraordinary place to play hockey in. And John is an extraordinary hockey player.&rdquo;General manager Maurice Filion agreed.&ldquo;We are going to do everything we possibly can to keep John Ogrodnick in Quebec,&rdquo; said Filion.&ldquo;There is no truth to the rumor that John has asked me to trade him to another team. As far as I&rsquo;m concerned, John Ogrodnick is here to stay. He was shaken up by the trade, but he seemed genuinely happy to be with us in the latter part of the season. And to prove it, his production really picked up.&rdquo;As for McRae, Filion tendered a contract which agent Bill Watters termed &ldquo;very reasonable.&rdquo; But when the GM learned the winger planned to shop around, he withdrew his offer.&ldquo;When Basil will have made the rounds, my offer will still stand,&rdquo; Filion said. &ldquo;I only withdrew it for business reasons. I don&rsquo;t have to stand around and wait for him.&ldquo;But I respect Basil&rsquo;s decision to test the market. It&rsquo;s his given right and I understand him. But you have to understand that the offer that I made was more than adequate&hellip;It even had a clause that stipulated that he would receive no pay cut should he (McRae) ever be sent down to the minors.&rdquo;NORDIQUE NOTES&mdash;Defense-man Tommy Albelin, a member of the world championship Swedish national team, will be in Quebec next week with his agent to negotiate a contract with the Nordiques. The 22-year-old is &ldquo;more than ready for the NHL,&rdquo; according to Maurice Filion. And Gilles Leget, the Nords&rsquo; director of player development, who was in Vienna for the tournament, said the 6-foot-1, 195-pounder was probably the best defenseman in the tournament. Albelin will replace Risto Siltanen, who has already left for Switzerland, where he&rsquo;ll play for Berne next season. &#9632;

f0005-02

Ogrodnick Isn’t Talking About His Future

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Associate Editor</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011375/5178622-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Fournier is the last NHL official to call a man-advantage penalty in overtime during the playoffs. He called one against the Blues&rsquo; Rob Ramage on April 7,1984.</figcaption></div>The reticence of National Hockey League referees to grant power plays in overtime during the playoffs is closer to refusal than reluctance.That much is indisputable after a THN survey of 109 overtime games, as listed in the NHL Official Guide and Record Book, during the 10 seasons from 1978 to 1987&mdash;including 11 games this year.There were several remarkable and revealing findings, perhaps none more so than the length of time since last an overtime man-advantage penalty was called during the NHL playoffs.As of May 11, it was more than three years ago&mdash;April 7, 1984. Forty-three overtime games ago. Nearly 352 cumulative minutes ago.The equivalent of almost six complete games without a power play.Other findings include:&bull; Just eight power plays have been granted in 10 years. Two of them lasted only 23 seconds.&bull; Forty-seven of those overtime games lasted more than seven extra minutes, one-third of an ordinary period&mdash;a reasonable time frame in which to expect a man-advantage penalty to be called in usual circumstances. Twentyseven of the 109 ended in less than two extra minutes.&bull; The total length of overtime, in the 109 games, was 871 minutes and 37 seconds, about 14.5 games.&bull; Eighteen of the 43 overtime games since April 7, 1984 lasted more than seven extra minutes.&bull; Only twice have power-play goals decided overtime games in the past decade, once in 1979 and once more in 1980. Six power plays since then have yielded nothing.&ldquo;You gotta&rsquo; be kidding,&rdquo; said Hartford Whalers&rsquo; general manager Emile Francis, after hearing a recitation of the facts.&ldquo;That is incredible,&rdquo; added Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; general manager Lou Nanne. &ldquo;Once that comes out, I&rsquo;m sure people will have something to say.&rdquo;Among those reached by THN, what people had to say was mostly supportive of the status quo.Few of the general managers and players contacted for comment suggested referees should be harder on overtime offenders.&ldquo;My opinion is, let the players decide the overtime unless a penalty is glaring,&rdquo; said Winnipeg GM John Ferguson, voicing a common sentiment.&ldquo;It would decimate me to lose an overtime game on a power-play goal,&rdquo; said Jimmy De-vellano, Detroit&rsquo;s GM.Permit the players, said most, to settle the outcome six-on-six or five-on-five.Referees, evidently, share that feeling, although fans frustrated by late-game leniency likely don&rsquo;t.Since St. Louis Blues&rsquo; defenseman Rob Ramage was penalized by Ron Fournier at 6:22 of the second overtime period in a game wid&rsquo; Detroit, nothing but coincidental penalties have been called and even those have been few and far between.Ramage has no recollection of his small part in hockey history.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t remember it all,&rdquo; said Ramage, who doesn&rsquo;t exactly rate with Mud Bruneteau of the Detroit Red Wings in NHL overtime lore. It was Bruneteau whose goal ended 116:30 of overtime in 1936, the longest game ever.By the way, through nearly six overtime periods in that game between Detroit and the Montreal Maroons, just one power play was granted.The pattern had been established. And it&rsquo;s a tradition that Andy van Hellemond upheld April 18, when he officiated 68:47 of overtime between the New York Islanders and Washington Capitals.Four coincidental penalties and one misconduct were called, all in the second extra period. Manpower was unaffected.&ldquo;I thought van Hellemond did a great job,&rdquo; said Ferguson. &ldquo;He was very inconspicuous.&rdquo;The referee, himself, stands strongly and proudly behind his performance.&ldquo;Asa referee, you can sense when the players want to play hockey and when they don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said van Hellemond. &ldquo;These guys wanted to play hockey. If you see they&rsquo;re getting away from that, like they did briefly in the second overtime period, then you have to assert your-self.&rdquo;When asked about the overwhelming proof &lsquo;hat officials back off on granting power-play opportunities in overtime, van Hellemond backed off not an inch.&ldquo;The Capitals-Islanders game was the longest.overtime since 1943,&rdquo; said the veteran official. &lsquo;Neither team had a power play in four overtimes and at no time did I feel a scoring chance was taken away from either team.&ldquo;So, it just goes to show you that if the longest overtime game since 1943 can be played without a power play, it&rsquo;s perfectly reason-able (any overtime game can be).&rdquo;Lou Franceschetti of Washington admitted that were he a television viewer watching the Easter Epic, he would have had difficulty believing no man-advantage penalties were called&mdash;but, as a player, he agreed wholeheartedly with the way the overtime was called.But Franceschetti pointed out if there is an advantage to officials easing up in extra time, it falls to the lesser-skilled team because it can do much more of what is normally unacceptable to stop the better-skilled skaters.&ldquo;When you publish those figures,&rdquo; said van Hellemond of the facts compiled by THN, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s going to be a great outcry for us to start calling penalties in overtime. You (as a referee) have to exercise common sense.&rdquo;Any outcry may have to come from outside the game. While St. Louis GM Ron Caron and David Poile, his Washington counterpart, both acknowledged more penalties could legitimately be called in overtime, the general feeling among GMs and players alike was that games are best settled at even strength.Ramage, Rick Vaive of Toronto, Randy Moller of Quebec and Franceschetti of Washington shared that view, among players.&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t want to lose a game on a cheap call.&rdquo; said Vaive. &ldquo;Every overtime I&rsquo;ve played in, a lot a more could be called, but it isn&rsquo;t. You live with it.&rdquo;Quite contentedly, apparently.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think penalties should be called unless a player is intending to hurt someone,&rdquo; said Moller, &ldquo;or a guy&rsquo;s got a clear-cut breakaway and he&rsquo;s hauled down.&rdquo;To millions of TV viewers, that&rsquo;s close to what happened to Shayne Corson of the Montreal Canadiens in the first game of the Montreal-Philadelphia semi-final series. Corson got in behind the Flyers&rsquo; defense but was dragged down.Referee Terry Gregson, who would later be in perfect position to make a great call on Ilkka Sinisalo&rsquo;s overtime winner, didn&rsquo;t call a penalty.&ldquo;On a play like that I can see them calling a penalty,&rdquo; said Corson, &ldquo;but I wouldn&rsquo;t want to see a cheap penalty called.&rdquo;After the game, Corson&rsquo;s second-guessing was centered more on himself than Gregson.&ldquo;The most disappointing part was sitting in the dressing room afterwards, thinking what if I was a little stronger on the puck.&rdquo;He didn&rsquo;t ask, &ldquo;what if&rdquo; a penalty had been called?John McCauley, director of officiating, had no complaints with Gregson&rsquo;s non-call.&ldquo;No, no way,&rdquo; said McCauley, when asked if a penalty was deserved. &ldquo;It never entered my mind.&rdquo;One GM, who preferred anonymity, strayed from the mainstream and said referees are guilty of too many non-calls and excessive leniency in overtime.&ldquo;This is the only sport that would tolerate it,&rdquo; he said about widespread acceptance of the &lsquo;anything-goes&rsquo; philosophy in overtime. &ldquo;They still call fouls in overtime in basketball. They call pass interference in the 10-minute (NFL) overtimes.&rdquo;McCauley, who insists players are more cautious in overtime (though the players contradict this), disagrees with the contention hockey is somehow different than its professional sports brethren.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t buy that hockey is the only sport that operates this way. If it&rsquo;s the bottom of the ninth, with a full count, you can be damn sure an umpire isn&rsquo;t going to end the game on a called strike that&rsquo;s borderline. It&rsquo;s got to be right down the middle.&rdquo;Independent confirmation in other sports is hard to come by. The National Basketball Association and National Football League don&rsquo;t keep statistics on overtime offieiating. Nor does Elias Sports Bureau, the New York City number-crunchers.McCauley also addressed the most common cliche associated with referees&mdash;that being, they don&rsquo;t want to be the ones to decide a game. The obvious counter-argument is that by not making calls, they are deciding the game.The GM, citing error by omission, put it this way: &ldquo;Fear of failing will lead to some referees failing even more.&rdquo;McCauley, we can safely assume, loathes such talk of fear.&ldquo;No official wants to be involved in the outcome of a game,&rdquo; said McCauley. &ldquo;Now, a non-call can decide a game. We are aware of that. We understand and agree with that&hellip;and if there&rsquo;s a blatant situation, it will be dealt with. But it has to be very obvious.&rdquo;Apparently, through 109 overtime games over 10 years, there have been only eight &ldquo;very obvious&rdquo; infractions worthy of a power play. &#9632;

f0006-01

The Powerless Period

<div class="byline">BY BOB MCKENZIE Editor-in-Chief</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011224/5178653-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Referee Terry Gregson is assailed by Montreal&rsquo;s Chris Chelios after awarding a goal to the Philadelphia Flyers in game one.</figcaption></div>Crisis, what crisis?Talk to a National Hockey League official about this year&rsquo;s Stanley Cup playoffs and he won&rsquo;t even admit to a growing crescendo of controversy, never mind a Crisis.&ldquo;This is tame,&rdquo; maintains NHL director of officiating John McCauley.Tame, he insists, in spite of no fewer than six controversial goal-related calls, including:&bull; An apparent St. Louis Blue goal by Mark Reeds disallowed in game two of a preliminary series with the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was followed by a non-call against the Leafs (Peter Ihnacak carrying the puck in his hand), which led directly to Toronto&rsquo;s tying goal by Wendel Clark and an eventual Leaf victory.&bull; The Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; winning goal by Thomas Steen that was scored as time expired in the second period of game two against the Calgary Flames in the preliminary round.&bull; A similar play in game one of the Hartford-Quebec preliminary series when Quebec&rsquo;s John Ogrodnick&rsquo;s last-second goal was dis-allowed and the Whalers went on to win in overtime.&bull; An apparent Montreal Canadien goal by Claude Lemieux that was never awarded in their 2-1 game-two Adams Division final loss to the Nordiques.&bull; The biggest furor of the playoffs, the disallowing of a Quebec Nordique goal scored by Alain Cote, a potential winning score, in a game-five loss against the Canadiens.&bull; Philadelphia&rsquo;s winning goal by Ilkka Sinisalo late in game one of the Wales Conference final against Montreal.The close calls, regardless of who&rsquo;s right or wrong, have sparked:&bull; A renewed enthusiasm, led by Nordique president Marcel Aubut, for utilizing instant replays to aid on-ice officials.&bull; Allegations by at least three prominent individuals&mdash;Quebec coach Michel Bergeron, Boston GM Harry Sinden and Philadelphia coach Mike Keenan&mdash;that the league favors the Montreal Canadiens and officiating reflects this bias.&bull; The apparent benching of one of the league&rsquo;s most highly-rated officials (Kerry Fraser) for his work in the Montreal-Quebec series.&ldquo;When I say it&rsquo;s tame,&rdquo; McCauley adds, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m comparing it to other years. Back in the mayhem days (of the mid-1970s), it was worse, way worse.&ldquo;A lot of the complaining you hear today, it&rsquo;s the coaches or GMs using the media to intimidate the officials. It doesn&rsquo;t work, but it contributes to the feeling that there&rsquo;s a lot of controversy when there really isn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;Senior NHL referee Andy van Hellemond concurs with his boss and gets specific.&ldquo;It was worse during the 1974 finals,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;In fact, that is how our (NHL Officials&rsquo;) Association came about, because Harry Sinden criticized and questioned the integrity of (referee) Art Skov.&rdquo;In a celebrated incident in the Flyers&rsquo; 1-0 Cup-winning victory over the Bruins, Skov called a holding penalty on Boston&rsquo;s Bobby Orr with only 2:22 remaining. It effectively killed the Bruins&rsquo; chance of evening the score.Since then, the officials have grown used to having their work and integrity questioned, but that isn&rsquo;t to say they accept it.&ldquo;The thing that bothers me,&rdquo; says van Hellemond, &ldquo;is that things are said and done, then the excuse is that they (coaches, GMs and players) were &lsquo;frustrated.&rsquo; That doesn&rsquo;t wash with me.&ldquo;We are under as much pressure as them. We must remain calm. What if we acted like they did and then said, &lsquo;Oh, geez, I was frustrated.&rsquo;?&rdquo;Van Hellemond concedes, though, that the stakes are high at this time of the year.&ldquo;Think about it,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We play the whole regular season and eliminate five teams. Then, in the space of 10 days, we eliminate eight teams. The pressure on everyone is great.&rdquo;No more so than on the officials.&ldquo;What I&rsquo;ve seen since I broke in eight years ago,&rdquo; says Toronto&rsquo;s Rick Vaive, &ldquo;is an increase in the controversy surrounding officials. With the players bigger and stronger, they just can&rsquo;t cover the game&hellip;Maybe the time has come when (video replays) can be used on disputed goals.&rdquo;Nordique defenseman Randy Moller says he &ldquo;thinks overall the refereeing is adequate,&rdquo; but adds it was &ldquo;better my first couple of years.&rdquo;Perhaps Detroit GM Jimmy Devellano sums it up best when he says, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have an answer and neither does anyone else. I hear the bitching and complaining (at the GMs&rsquo; meetings) but I don&rsquo;t hear any answers.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0007-01

Officials Accustomed To Controversy

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-02867/5178684-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="393" height="451"><figcaption class="caption-body">Al Strachan</figcaption></div>THIS YEAR&rsquo;S PLAYOFFS have not been pleasant for the National Hockey League&rsquo;s officials.Almost every series has seen a violent dispute concerning a decision made by a referee or linesman, and there have even been suggestions of intentional favoritism.Naturally, this development is not met with unbridled ecstacy at the league level.The playoff weeks generally comprise a happy, profitable, high-profile period for the league. But the acrimony and controversy that have dominated the scene this year have detracted from what should be the high point of the season.Can the problem be solved? Of course it can.Will the NHL solve it? Ah, that&rsquo;s another question altogether.The solution, you see, requires a financial commitment. Or, to put it another way, it requires the spending of money. And that&rsquo;s something the NHL is never in a rush to do, even if&mdash;as in this case&mdash;the integrity of the game is at stake.Most of the controversies could have been solved by an instant-replay system&mdash;an instantreplay system that should be made available to the officials.The reason that we have most of these controversies is that the instant replay is available to everyone except the officials down at ice level.Fans sitting at home watching a goal scored against the Calgary Flames by the Winnipeg Jets, for instance, can see that the green light signifying the end of the period goes on before the puck enters the net. But the referee, having no access to a slow-motion frame-by-frame replay, does his best and calls it as he sees it. He allows the goal.In Hartford, linesman Jim Christison, doing his job as well as it can be done, anticipates a similar play and rules that John Ogrodnick&rsquo;s apparent game-winner for the Quebec Nordiques was a millisecond too late. But back in Quebec, a television station with a timer and slow-motion replay contends that there was half a second left when the puck went in.What about the goal that the St. Louis Blues scored against the Toronto Maple Leafs? It was a foot over the line. The replays showed that clearly. But the referee didn&rsquo;t see it, and the goal was disallowed. The decision cost the Blues the game and perhaps a spot in the divisional finals.Did the Montreal Canadiens score another goal in game two of the divisional finals&mdash;the one they lost 2-1 to Quebec? The Canadiens say that replays showed they did. But neither referee Terry Gregson nor the goal judge saw it and therefore Gregson made the only call he could make. He disallowed the goal.Replays aren&rsquo;t going to put an end to controversy. In the opening game of the conference finals between Montreal and the Philadelphia Flyers, for instance, Gregson allowed a hotly-disputed goal in overtime. But he was right there, saw exactly what happened and ruled that the puck had never been frozen. A replay wouldn&rsquo;t change his mind.Similarly, Kerry Fraser&rsquo;s controversial call to disallow Alain Cote&rsquo;s goal in game five of the Montreal-Quebec series would be allowed to stand. Those are simply judgment calls by the officials and as such, will invariably spark debate.But replays could solve a lot of problems that are inevitable in a game that&rsquo;s as fast as hockey and played on such a large surface.A couple of years ago, with great flourish, the league allocated $500,000 to improving officiating. Some of that money was spent on a study of instant replays, specifically, the instant replay of purported goals.Eventually, the idea was scrapped. Not because it was not feasible, but because it was too expensive. The installation of league-operated equipment would be more costly in some arenas than in others because of different building designs. Governors who were facing big bills voted against instant replays.But in the playoffs, league-operated equipment isn&rsquo;t necessary. All games are being televised. The league officials could have access to replays provided by local television crews.Granted, this is not a perfect solution. But it&rsquo;s in place in the National Football League and more fans approve than disapprove.Football is a lot slower than hockey and it has three times the number of officials available to watch the action. But the NFL found a way to get access to some sort of instant replay because they saw it as necessary.It&rsquo;s every bit as necessary in hockey&mdash;especially in the playoffs. &#9632;

f0007-02

TV Replays Would Settle Many Controversies

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011309/5178715-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div>JAY GREENBERG&rsquo;S COLUMN, Devils&rsquo; Honorable Streak&rdquo; (THN, Aprjl 10), made me sick. I don&rsquo;t know what kind of conscience you have, Mr. Greenberg, but it surely can&rsquo;t have too high a price.Granted, 1 would have wanted to be coach or GM of the Devils during the final weeks of the season, but I would most certainly have played the games the same way.I realize I can&rsquo;t speak for all fans, but the Devils being a &ldquo;boring&rdquo; team wouldn&rsquo;t stop me from supporting them. That the team would purposely play its way into last place would stop me.I applaud the Devils&rsquo; management and coaching staff for not giving up. If Doug Carpenter had coached his way into the NHL cellar, how could the Devils&rsquo; respect their coach in the future? He would lose his credibility as a coach, and having lost that, what would be left?As a frequent Devils&rsquo; fan. I would rather see my club lose with dignity, than sell out for a &ldquo;franchise player.&rdquo; Maybe the Devils won&rsquo;t be at the top of the Patrick Division next year, but I wouldn&rsquo;t give a dime to see a team play who would sell itself into the cellar for a draft pick.Max McNab and Doug Carpenter may not have a winning team, but they have their selfrespect. No matter what you think Mr. Green-berg, this is worth much more than a draft pick.Anita Kinsella, Carlstadt. NJ<h2>REPLAY RUMBLINGS</h2>As a hockey fan, I would like to offer my input to the NHL. We all know it is just a matter of time before replays come into the game, especially after the results of a couple of playoff games this season.I feel the best way to start on the replays is to give each team an allowance for one replay per game and only on a disputed goal. In most games, this situation would not come about. But, if it did, at least a team would have a chance.I also don&rsquo;t believe a penalty is necessary if a team calls for a replay and is wrong. It&rsquo;s punishment enough for the team to have used up its only chance to dispute a goal.The referee should make the decision on this matter after viewing the play at the penalty box. I suggest they try this in the Canada Cup next fall and during the pre-season games next season.Terry Chickness, New Glasgow, NS<h2>DUDLEY GETS HIS DUE</h2>Hooray for coach Rick Dudley! This man deserves to be coach of the year. Since being hired as coach of the International League&rsquo;s Flint Spirits in May of 1986, this man brought about the biggest turnaround of any hockey club in the &ldquo;I.&rdquo;This man took a last-place team in 1985-86 to fourth place overall in 1986-87 with 26 more wins than the previous year&rsquo;s team. His team earned 53 more points than in 1986. Along with the wins and points, there was a 40 per-cent increase in attendance this season.Coach Dudley had to overcome many obstacles, among them the death of friend and player-assistant coach Frank Perkins. He has done so and, in the process, helped provide fans with numerous thrills. Hooray for Rick Dudley.Pam Taylor, Flint. Ml &#9632;

f0008-01

Devils Give Up Top Pick But Keep Their Integrity

Let your voice be heard. Send your comments to Fan Forum, THE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont. 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/f0008-021092/5178770-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="430" height="447"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob McKenzie</figcaption></div>IF YOU HAVE ever watched a National Hockey League general manager watch his team in action, then you have no doubt drawn one inescapable conclusion.The inmates run the asylum.Before the puck is dropped, the GM appears a perfectly rational human being, capable of carrying on basic social functions. Well, most of them&hellip;But as soon as the game begins, the GM is transformed into a raving, foaming-at-the-mouth maniac, who also just happens to be a paranoid schizophrenic to boot.He&rsquo;ll bang his fist on the counter top, he&rsquo;ll spew obscenities. He may even toss chairs, jump up and down, turn crimson and storm along the press box runway.And that&rsquo;s at an exhibition game.Come playoff time, it gets downright dirty. Or at least it did the night during this year&rsquo;s Stanley Cup playoffs when one GM displayed his displeasure by repeatedly spitting on the press box floor.The objects of disfavor, of course, are the officials&mdash;one referee and two linesmen whose missions in life are to make the lives of GMs miserable.If the antics were to end at the same time as the game, it wouldn&rsquo;t be so bad.Often, the tirades continue. The GM, perhaps inspired by his wild-eyed coach, gets around to questioning the officials&rsquo; integrity as neutral arbiters.The common theme of this year&rsquo;s playoffs, as espoused first by Quebec coach Michel Bergeron and then Boston GM Harry Sinden, is that the league favors the Montreal Canadiens.The implication is that the league instructs the officials to screw the Habs&rsquo; opposition.Which is laughable. First, because it&rsquo;s simply not true. Second, because it is the GMs, via the board of governors, who ultimately decide the parameters of how games should be officiated.&ldquo;The sad part of it all,&rdquo; says NHL referee Andy van Hellemond, &ldquo;is that these GMs can&rsquo;t get together and decide what they want.&ldquo;One guy wants everything called. One guy wants nothing called. One guy wants it in the middle. Either way, you&rsquo;re a loser. The bottom line is that these guys, as a group, don&rsquo;t know what they want.&rdquo;Actually, that&rsquo;s not true. What they want is their team to win. They want it so bad, they can&rsquo;t see straight.The bottom line may actually be that these guys are incapable of believing in the concept of neutrality. They can&rsquo;t fathom what they can&rsquo;t experience firsthand.Which doesn&rsquo;t make it any easier for van Hellemond and his colleagues, who must endure the slings and arrows. Imagine that the very essence of your profession was openly questioned and criticized. Or ridiculed!&ldquo;We have no rebuttal to that,&rdquo; says van Hellemond. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have a public relations department looking out for us. It hurts.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care who wins. When someone suggests an official is favoring one team over another, all I can say is that it&rsquo;s ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. The men making those claims wear their hearts on their sleeves.&rdquo;And their feet in their mouth.Officials need not worry about making the same mistake. Rarely do they respond to the charges. They are instructed to refer all media inquiries to the league office, where the issue is handled in a low-key fashion or permission to interview the officials is granted.One has to wonder sometimes if this policy only serves to give the criticisms more credence. An unanswered challenge, if you will.But van Hellemond, the senior NHL referee in number of games worked, has been around this block before and realizes the pros and cons of speaking out.&ldquo;Sometimes,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;you wonder if you should even bother saying anything, defending yourself. Some people will just say we&rsquo;re crying&hellip;it comes out all wrong.&ldquo;Besides, our job is to officiate the game. When we come to the rink, we come to do the job as professionals.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0008-02

It’s Laughable To Think The Officials Are Bias

Announcement<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-02954/5178832-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="560" height="769"></div>MICHAEL A. LAWTON, Publisher and General Manager of THN, is pleased to announce the appointment of Steve Dryden to the position of Associate Editor, effective May 1.Steve Dryden, who graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa in 1981, has been an assistant editor at THN for two years. In that time, he has distinguished himself both as an editor and writer.This appointment recognizes and acknowledges his commitment and dedication to the quality of THN, which serves the hockey public of North America.Reporting to THN Editor-in-Chief Bob McKenzie, Steve will assume managerial responsibilities, supervising the day-to-day operations of the editorial department. &#9632;

f0009-02

The Hockey News

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011351/5178863-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="354" height="451"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stan Fischler</figcaption></div>Why don&rsquo;t you write something nice about the Flyers?&rdquo;The voice belongs to Ed Snider&mdash;who just happens to run the Philadelphia team that, world wide, gets so many people mad at it.&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you have something in your gossip column (BLUELINES) about the players being unhappy with Mike Keenan?&rdquo;This comes from Reg Higgs, an aide to Keenan, the coach who so infuriates folks that Phil Esposito calls him a &ldquo;jerk.&rdquo;&ldquo;Ron Hextail didn&rsquo;t really tell you that he deserves to be rookie of the year? He wouldn&rsquo;t say a thing like that.&rdquo;The third man in my chorus of questioners is Rodger Gottlieb, the club&rsquo;s propaganda minister.What does all this mean? It means that Snider&rsquo;s troops are once again on the defensive. On Broad Street, the Bullies believe they&rsquo;re being picked on by Li&rsquo;lOl&rsquo; Me.Which means it&rsquo;s time to put the Flyers in their place, otherwise known as proper perspective.Let&rsquo;s start at the top, with Snider. His beef is that not enough nice things are said about his team.Actually, that&rsquo;s Snider&rsquo;s problem. The Flyers have been dumped on for a dozen years, with good reason. A decision was made by Snider, five years after his club was born. Tired of being mauled by bashi-bazooks like the Big, Bad Bruins, the Flyers decided to enlist enforcers. By 1975, Dave (The Hammer) Schultz, Bob (Hound) Kelly, plus assorted other bangers and talented scorers who were almost as mean as the bangers, had delivered two Stanley Cups to The Spectrum. They were well-deserved Cups, I might add.Snider knew exactly what he was doing and the reverberations are still being felt today. He developed a winner, but he also created an NHL monster known as the Broad Street Bullies.The Flyers were not persecuted throughout the league for nothing. They actively pursued the hit-&rsquo;em-in-the-head-and-ask-questions-later philosophy throughout the 1970s. When Schultz and Kelly became expendable, they imported Dave Hoyda and Paul Holmgren.Snider is no dope. He knows the hockey business and show business, too. He understands that there are &ldquo;good guys&rdquo; and &ldquo;bad guys.&rdquo; More important, the world loves to pay money to see Darth Vader, Frankenstein and Dave Brown.More than any other club in hockey history, Snider&rsquo;s Flyers have willingly played the heavy. No other NHL outfit has so assiduously made nastiness a part of its game plan. It is Flyer hockey, spoon-fed to the Spectrum crowd and endorsed by the Philadelphia media.That said, the Flyers are not without their good points:Nice I: No team works harder than the Flyers.Nice II: The Flyers have one of the classiest off-ice organizations in the NHL, and some of the classiest players&mdash;off-ice.Nice III-V: Mike Keenan has an excellent moustache. So do his aides, EJ. McGuire and Reg Higgs.Nice VI: Bob Clarke deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and has set the tone for the Flyers&rsquo; superb work ethic.Nice VII: Philly deserved to finish first in the Patrick and reach the Cup semi-finals.Unfortunately, the nice things about the Flyers are often clouded by the club&rsquo;s paranoia. When Higgs approached me about the reports regarding player unhappiness with Keenan, 1 told him these stories had been freely circulating for some time. In fact, THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; Walt MacPeek ran a column on April 12, in the Newark Star-Ledger, headlined &ldquo;Many Flyers rumored unhappy with Keenan.&rdquo;Consider the following excerpt:&ldquo;Some Flyers, believe it or not, do not like the way their coach sends them out on the ice with the instructions to fight or &lsquo;get&rsquo; players from opposing teams. The insult to their professionalism is just that much more hard to accept when he makes an assistant, usually Paul Holmgren, relay the orders, as was rumored to be the case last spring, when Brown was told to run John Vanbiesbrouck into the crossbar.&rdquo;In the opening playoff round, Esposito was infuriated with a similar episode, when Brown was dispatched to the ice and immediately engaged the Rangers&rsquo; George McPhee in a fist fight.&ldquo;The way the Flyers play,&rdquo; Espo tells me, &ldquo;I may have to go out and sign four goons this summer. And I can do it, too.&rdquo;Keenan doesn&rsquo;t buy that. He doesn&rsquo;t bat an eyelash, nor does a hair on his moustache quiver, when he insists that his club bears no resemblance to the Bullies of yesteryear.&ldquo;Esposito has a &lsquo;holier-than-thou&rsquo; attitude,&rdquo; Keenan responds.Well, somebody is suffering from a severe case of astigmatism&mdash;and it isn&rsquo;t Esposito. Too many people have seen Dave Brown step out on the ice for one apparent reason and one apparent reason only&mdash;to punch out people. It&rsquo;s no mirage, no accident.Not that Keenan is all bad. For example:Nice Keenan I: He likes bicycle-riding. So do I.Nice Keenan II: His wife, Rita, is a very sweet woman.Nice Keenan III: He can be a brilliant tactician.Nice Keenan IV: He&rsquo;s confident and competent.As for goalie Ron Hextali, he&rsquo;s ideal for the Flyers. He&rsquo;s a latter-day Bill Smith, manning the net like Atilla the Hun. And the way hockey is played these days, he may have the right idea.Hextail, by the way, vehemently and unequivocally denies he ever proclaimed that he deserved the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year.&ldquo;I never said a word about it,&rdquo; Hextall said. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t even told my wife I deserve it.&rdquo; In a taped TV interview on the New York Sports Nightly show, Hextall discussed the difficulty of playing goal&mdash;but didn&rsquo;t suggest that should give him an edge in the rookie race between himself, Luc Robitaille and Jimmy Carson.I&rsquo;ll accept that. He&rsquo;s too nice.Nice Hextall I: He talks straight. I like his candor.Nice Hextall II: You have to admire a player who will sit down with a journalist after a reporter has criticized him. That proves he has class.Nice Hextall III: He&rsquo;s fast becoming a superior goaltender and may even be a great one, if he doesn&rsquo;t behead someone first.Clearly it&rsquo;s not difficult to say nice things about the Flyers. They have much to commend, but Snider is out of his bird if he expects nonPhiladelphians to love the Flyers&rsquo; act.Snider knows precisely what he&rsquo;s choreographed, from the replays on the overhead Spectrum screen, to the continued pursuit of brutish types, like Craig Berube and Darryl Stanley. He does it because it sells on Broad Street.Is Snider wrong? Not if you&rsquo;re a pragmatist. His Flyers finish first, they fill The Spectrum and they fill his pockets. &#9632;

f0010-01

There Are Nice Things About Flyers

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021038/5178894-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="173" height="133"></div>BOSTON&mdash;Stop Ray Bourque and you stop the Boston Bruins, conventional wisdom has it.But the all-star defenseman wasn&rsquo;t the only target of the Montreal Canadiens, during their annual bouncing of Boston from the Stanley Cup playoffs.&ldquo;Beyond Ray, Cam Neely was our other major concern,&rdquo; said Montreal tough guy Chris Nilan. &ldquo;He was unbelievable. I felt bad for him when it was over; I felt bad for Bourque, too.&rdquo;More than a month after the Canadiens swept the Bruins in the Adams Division semi-final, Bourque and Neely were still being mentioned in the same breath.Word had it that Neely and Bourque were the only two untouchables in what is expected to be a major upheaval.Few Bruins ever rose so quickly in the estimation of Bruin fans and management as Neely in his first year with Boston since being acquired in a trade with Vancouver.The 22-year-old right winger&mdash;who won the annual Gallery Gods Award as the most popular player among fans in the upper balcony of Boston Garden&mdash;was the only player whose performance cheered general manager Harry Sinden as the Bruins were being swept.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big part of this team,&rdquo; Sinden said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big part of the future. He&rsquo;s got some very interesting possibilities for the future, I&rsquo;ll tell you. He could be something&hellip;He is something.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s probably as good a bodychecking forward as ever came into this league. It&rsquo;s very hard to match up any player in many, many years with him, in that area.&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t expect him to score the way he did. We thought Cam would get us 25 goals; he got us 36. We knew he was as tough a player as the league has at the moment.&ldquo;He bodychecks, he takes very few penalties, he&rsquo;s a very clean player. Nothing cheap-shot about him at all. He&rsquo;s a force.&rdquo;Neely was just about the only force Boston had in the playoffs, leading the team in scoring with five goals and an assist. He scored three of the team&rsquo;s four power-play goals.It was a fine end to his best-ever season&mdash;36 goals and 36 assists in 75 regular-season games, after only 51 goals and 53 assists in his previous three years combined.And he accomplished it all while suffering through family crises.His mother, Marlene, 47, underwent surgery for bowel cancer in November. After she returned home from the hospital, Neely&rsquo;s father Mike, 49, was diagnosed as having a brain tumor. He&rsquo;s being treated with cobalt and has a good chance of beating the disease.Neely&mdash;plus Vancouver&rsquo;s first draft pick in 1987&mdash;came to Boston last summer, in exchange for disgruntled center Barry Pederson. Even without the pick, third overall, the deal would rank as one of Sinden&rsquo;s best, and there have been a lot.Of the 34 players who wore Bruin jerseys in 1986-87, only 15 came by way of the entry draft. Four of the team&rsquo;s top five scorers&mdash;Neely, Charlie Simmer, Rick Middleton and Tom McCarthy&mdash;were obtained in trades.WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN&mdash;The Bruins were reported close to reaching agreement on placing an American League development team in Portland, Maine&hellip;Harry Sinden has joined Quebec coach Michel Bergeron in alleging that NHL officials favor Montreal. &ldquo;There is a tremendous agreement in the league,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that when Bergeron or I speak out, it is selfserving. They say Montreal never complains. That&rsquo;s because they&rsquo;ve never had anything to complain about. They&rsquo;ve got 190 calls to go before they get one against them, so why should they complain?&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-02

Neely Favored By Gallery Gods And Sinden

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Associate Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011232/5178939-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="680" height="1482"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marty McSorley was a surprise hero in Edmonton&rsquo;s 2-1 win over Detroit.</figcaption></div>Nobody has ever denied Pelle Eklund is a marvelously creative hockey player for the Philadelphia Flyers.But a natural goal-scorer in the National Hockey League? Forget it.Through 72 regular-season games this year, the 24-year-old Swede accounted for just 14 goals. Last year, his rookie season, he had 15.In the Flyers&rsquo; first 15 playoff games this season, Eklund was their leading scorer&mdash;entirely on the strength of his playmaking ability.He&rsquo;d scored just one goal to go along with 12 assists.And then Eklund suddenly emerged as a sensation during Week V of the playoffs, bookending Ron Hextall&rsquo;s outstanding goaltending with standout scoring&mdash;five goals in two games against the Montreal Canadiens.The explosion, and Philadelphia&rsquo;s two victories at the Montreal Forum, put the defending Stanley Cup champions in danger of an earlier-than-expected exit from the playoffs.Philadelphia, which split the first two games at The Spectrum, led the Wales Conference final series 3-1. The Flyers won the opener 4-3 on Ilkka Sinisalo&rsquo;s overtime goal and lost the second 5-2.Eklund was helping to fill a void left by the absence of sharpshooter Tim Kerr. The fourtime 50-goal scorer, whom Eklund teams with on the power play, was out with a shoulder injury.Captain Dave Poulin (ribs) was also out of the lineup, but the Flyers, as they have all year with a patchwork lineup, still played winning hockey.Unbelievably, Eklund&rsquo;s five-goal outburst against the league&rsquo;s best defensive team was just one shy of the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; production against the Detroit Red Wings in games two and three.The most prolific-scoring lineup in NHL history could squeeze just six goals&mdash;one of them into an empty net&mdash;past the Detroit defense in recording 4-1 and 2-1 victories to take a 2-1 lead in their Campbell Conference championship series.Detroit, like Los Angeles did in the first round of the playoffs, defeated Edmonton in the series opener. This time the score was 3-1.So suffocating was the Red Wings&rsquo; defense, Wayne Gretzky had just one assist to show for three games. Bob Probert, meanwhile, had two goals for Detroit and the Oilers&rsquo; Marty McSor-ley, one, the winner in game three with just 36 seconds left to play.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-02933/5178932-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="1462" height="1064"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; Pelle Eklund had just one playoff goal before scoring five in two games against the Montreal Canadiens.</figcaption></div><h2>Road To The Stanley Cup</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-03686/5178925-1-eng-US/f0011-032.jpg" title="f0011-03" width="2981" height="1556"></div> &#9632;

f0011-01

Eklund Explosion Highlight Of Week

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011324/5178970-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="372" height="436"><figcaption class="caption-body">Frank Orr</figcaption></div>TWO STYLES OF hockey are played on the planet earth, the National Hockey League approach on ice surfaces approximately 200 feet long and 85 feet wide and the European variety on ice 215 by 100.Of course, large segments of the two &ldquo;games&rdquo; are identical but after watching the game on the large ponds for three weeks at the World Championships in Vienna, the conclusion arrives slowly that the differences between the world and the NHL are vast, too.Somewhere in the middle is a hybrid variety of the game that would combine the very best of the two schools into an even better game. But it&rsquo;s not likely to happen because NHL ice surfaces simply won&rsquo;t be made larger.Not that a swing to the big-pond style of hockey played in Europe and the Olympic Games is the answer for the NHL. However, the pros sorely need more ice, say, another six to eight feet in both width and length.Two reasons exist for that proposal. The obvious one is that there simply isn&rsquo;t enough room on the major-league ponds for the young giants who play the game these days. When the NHL rinks were built that set the standard of 200 by 85, defensemen weighed 175 pounds, forwards were 155 or 160 and they had plenty of room.Now, players over 6 feet and 200 pounds are the rule, not the exception, and they just don&rsquo;t have enough space to cavort. They&rsquo;re quicker and stronger, too, most hitting the NHL with long involvement in sophisticated conditioning programs. Too much muscle is crammed into too little space and that&rsquo;s one reason why injury lists have reached alarming lengths. Too many times, there&rsquo;s no way to escape the bonebusting hit, especially along the fence.Larger ice also would give an edge to the players who should have it&mdash;those with the most skill and pure ability. Too often in the NHL, a high level of those attributes is no advantage because no space, not even a small amount, exists in which to gain the advantage those skills can supply.On the big ice, skill is a must, especially the ability to make and take a pass and quickness on skates. If a player has a weakness, it&rsquo;s exposed very quickly.The Canadian and U.S. squads in the World Championships comprise players who are not always from the elite of the NHL. Most, though, are front-line NHL players, the backbone to their teams, good big-league workers. However, the player who does well in the NHL because he works hard, dogs the puck and keeps it in front of him and exists in the middle of the play, not on its fringes, often has problems on the big ice because there&rsquo;s some stone in his hands. Flaws in skill, which can be hidden by effort in the NHL, move front and center on big ice.An NHL scout at the world tournament claimed that watching players in big-ice hockey and trying to evaluate them for NHL-sized rinks was very difficult.&ldquo;The European hockey now is not a nocontact sport, at least not nearly as much as it once was,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But there&rsquo;s a far bigger fringe to the play, an area where the physical challenge isn&rsquo;t as constant, on the big ice. In the NHL now, everything is close-quarters combat and the player who can&rsquo;t handle that on a consistent basis must be damned good on the power play if he wants to keep a job.&rdquo;After three weeks of large-ice hockey, a certain cultural shock was experienced in returning to the series between Montreal Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers, two of the largest, most aggressive &ldquo;banger&rdquo; teams in the NHL. A square foot of ice that isn&rsquo;t physically contested simply doesn&rsquo;t exist when those clubs play.But that&rsquo;s the style of hockey the North American fan wants, the bang-bang, drive-for-the-net approach, not the spread-out game too often produced on big ice.But somewhere in the middle sits the ideal game that combines the best of the two schools&mdash;a high skill level with enough room in which to employ it but not the wide open spaces that subtract the constant physical contact the NHL fan wants.Unfortunately, we&rsquo;ll never see it. To make the ice larger would mean taking away a few top-priced seats and, for heaven&rsquo;s sake, one former NHL owner&mdash;Harry Omest&mdash;tried to cut down the size of the benches to get in more of those. &#9632;

f0012-01

The Middle Ground Would Be Hockey Heaven

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021107/5179001-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="173" height="127"></div>HARTFORD&mdash;Ever since Peter Stastny accepted Dale Hunter&rsquo;s pass at the blue line and broke in alone on goaltender Mike Liut, things have not gone well for the Hartford Whalers.The Adams Division champions were eliminated from the playoffs prematurely, losing to Quebec in six games in the opening round. Okay&mdash;in competitive sports, these things happen. But who could have foreseen what would happen next?First, president-general manager Emile Francis emptied his gun at a hostile season-ending press conference, primarily at Quebec coach Michel Bergeron and the Greater Hartford media, 45 members of which covered the Quebec series.Second, Pat LaFontaine, whom the Whalers bypassed in the 1983 draft in favor of Sylvain Turgeon, emerged as a genuine hero for the New York Islanders in the playoffs. Turgeon, the highest draft pick in the Whalers&rsquo; National Hockey League history, was selected second, one choice ahead of LaFontaine.Third, the circus&mdash;literally&mdash;came to town in Binghamton, N.Y., thereby depriving the Whalers&rsquo; American League affiliate of home ice in its playoff series against Rochester. The Amerks, playing four times at home, eliminated the AHL Whalers in six games.Fourth, Scott Young, the Whalers&rsquo; No. 1 draft pick last June, tested positive for the drug ephedrine at the World Championships in Vienna and was banned for 18 months by the International Ice Hockey Federation. The Boston University winger, who took two Sine-Aids for a cold, will appeal the ruling that has jeopardized his opportunity to play in the 1988 Olympics.And fifth, the Connecticut State Attorney General&rsquo;s office announced that it would investigate the legality of the Whalers&rsquo; 50-game season-ticket plan for next season. One day later, the Whalers dropped the plan, which would have included the mandatory purchase of tickets to five Canada Cup games.&ldquo;When you get the state attorney general breathing down your neck, it&rsquo;s pretty hairy,&rdquo; said Howard Baldwin, the Whalers&rsquo; chairman and managing general partner. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to wait for them to make a decision. I wanted to go ahead and do it myself.&rdquo;Baldwin said he would poll the season-ticket holders to determine the level of support for the Canada Cup games.&ldquo;We have to sell 7,500 tickets for each of the five games,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If the response indicates we will not achieve that figure, we will cancel the event.&rdquo;The original 50-game package included 40 regular-season games, five Whalers exhibitions, three Team USA games in the six-nation Canada Cup tournament and two Team USA exhibitions.Season-ticket holders, staring at rates of $ 1,025, $850, $800 and $450, squawked. When the attorney general jumped over the boards, the Whalers retreated.The Team USA games have been scheduled in Hartford between Aug. 19 and Sept. 4.&ldquo;The purpose of bringing the Canada Cup games to Hartford was to provide our season-ticket holders with world-class hockey,&rdquo; said Baldwin, who made a $600,000 verbal commitment to Canada Cup organizer Alan Eagleson for the rights to the games.Individual Canada Cup tickets have been priced at $30, $27, $25 and $20.The poll of season-ticket holders, which was to be determined by May 11, could save both Baldwin&rsquo;s plan and the games. &#9632;

f0012-02

Season-Ticket Holders Balk At Canada Cup

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03744/5179032-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="178" height="130"></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;Other than de-scribing themselves as &ldquo;innocent bystanders&rdquo; for four months, the Los Angeles Kings have said little about the Pat Quinn affair.Documents filed by the National Hockey League with the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Vancouver, however, show that the Kings do not believe Quinn was legally free to negotiate and eventually sign with the Vancouver Canucks last December.The documents were filed April 7 in response to a Vancouver suit that is aming to dismiss league president John Ziegler&rsquo;s penalties, meted out last January against the Canucks and Quinn.The Canucks were fined $310,000. Quinn was expelled from the NHL until after the Canucks and Kings completed their seasons, suspended from becoming general manager for Vancouver until after the June league meetings, and banned from coaching the Canucks until the 1990-91 season.The Kings were fined $130,000&mdash;$10,000 for each day they permitted Quinn to continue as coach after he told them last Dec. 26 of his signing with Vancouver.Included in the documents filed by the league&mdash;which is seeking to dismiss Vancouver&rsquo;s suit&mdash;are an affidavit of NHL legal counsel Gilbert Stein and a copy of his confidential report to Ziegler, and copies of Quinn&rsquo;s contracts with the Kings and Canucks.Quinn, while in the final year of his three-year contract as Kings&rsquo; coach, signed a five-year deal on Dec. 24 to become president and general manager of the Canucks.Quinn and his attorneys claim he was legally and ethically free to negotiate a future contract with another team because a) the Kings failed to exercise one of two options that would have bound him to the team, and b) because of a clause that prohibited the Kings from filing his contract with the league, preventing them from filing tampering charges.The Kings had until Oct. 1, 1986 to retain Quinn as coach for another year at $225,000, or to make him coach and general manager for three years at $200,000, $215,000 and $225,000.According to the documents, the Kings didn&rsquo;t have to exercise either option.Stein, in his report, said, &ldquo;As for the Kings&rsquo; failure to pick up Quinn&rsquo;s option, the contract provides: &lsquo;Nothing herein contained is intended to require club to make election of either of the options.&rsquo; Nor does the contract preclude the Kings from filing a notice of employment form with the League.&rdquo;According to the documents, the Kings were asked not to file the contract by Morris Chucas, who is one of Quinn&rsquo;s attorneys, in order to allow him to negotiate a settlement with the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers fired Quinn as coach in 1982 and were still paying him when the Kings approached him about coaching in 1984.Stein&rsquo;s report said the Flyers and Quinn settled for $50,000, after Quinn reached a contract agreement with the Kings. According to the documents, Flyers&rsquo; controller Donn Patton said Philadelphia would not have made that deal, had it known Quinn had found another job.According to the documents, Kings&rsquo; general manager Rogie Vachon advised Quinn as early as last July that: they wanted to begin negotiations on a new contract; discussions began in September; Quinn was offered a two-agreement was reached to in November concerning length (three years) and salary ($200,000, $215,000 and $230,000).When asked to sign the contract in November, according to Stein&rsquo;s report, Quinn said he needed time to review it with his attorneys, because he was pondering his future. Quinn gave Vachon a similar response, according to the documents, as late as Dec. 22&mdash;after he had already agreed in principle to the Canucks&rsquo; offer and two days before he would sign with them.According to the documents, Kings&rsquo; majority owner Jerry Buss offered to match Vancouver&rsquo;s contract on Jan. 8 with one of his own, a five-year deal with bonuses worth an additional $1 million per year. Quinn had already signed with the Canucks and accepted a $100,000 signing bonus, but, according to Stein&rsquo;s report, said he would listen to the offer. Quinn called attorney Richard Babush, who told Quinn he was committed to Vancouver and couldn&rsquo;t even talk to Buss.The Kings, meanwhile, have filed a grievance with the NHL, seeking compensation from Vancouver. The matter is expected to be heard by the board of governors in June. &#9632;

f0012-03

Kings Claim Quinn Wasn’t Free Man

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011250/5179063-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="175" height="129"></div>DETROIT&mdash;Neither of them is bur-dened with a big reputation but Lee Norwood and Gilbert Delorme have been a big part of the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; playoff defense.With little fanfare.Much was made of Joey Kocur&rsquo;s shadowing job on cousin Wendel Clark in the Detroit-Toronto series.Left unsaid was that every time Clark appeared on the ice after singlehandedly beating Detroit in game three, so did Whack and Hack&mdash;Norwood and Delorme.The Leafs didn&rsquo;t win another game, as Detroit rebounded from a 3-1 deficit with three straight victories.&ldquo;I wanted them against Clark and Rick Vaive,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;Both are physical. I knew Lee and Gilly could handle that.&rdquo;Three games into the Campbell Conference, the Red Wings were down 2-1 to the powerful Edmonton Oliers, but it wasn&rsquo;t due to a lack of effort by Norwood and Delorme.More accurately, it was largely due to their play that the Wings had one win to show for their efforts.The Red Wings&rsquo; dynamic duo on defense played 35-minutes-plus in a 3-1 victory in game one. That&rsquo;s 35-minutes-plus. With the emphasis on plus.&ldquo;The only thing we&rsquo;re sure of is (that) it was under 60 minutes,&rdquo; said Don MacAdam, the Wings&rsquo; assistant coach.And with Darren Veitch (knee) and Harold Snepsts (shoulder) still sidelined with injuries, their ice time was due to increase. Veitch, injured in game one, underwent arthroscopic surgery and. was declared out for the season.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know where we&rsquo;d be without them,&rdquo; Demers said of Norwood and Delorme. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been unbelievable.&rdquo;After all, this is a team doing it largely with defense.&ldquo;Lee&rsquo;s a good player, good offensively and good defensively,&rdquo; Delorme said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s perfect for me. I stay home and if he wants to, he goes. He&rsquo;s tough, physically, and I like that. I play like that, too. He&rsquo;s strong and mean.&rdquo;&ldquo;When Veitch got hurt, we had to be out there every second shift. I can&rsquo;t complain. I&rsquo;ve never played that much in my career. I&rsquo;m happy for the chance.&rdquo;Norwood said their success is based on the mutual enjoyment of playing with each other.&ldquo;Gilly is intense,&rdquo; Norwood said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been known to be a little intense myself. It&rsquo;s just one of those things. It fell together.&rdquo;Norwood reached the Campbell Conference finals last season with the St. Louis Blues. Demers traded for him during the off-season, then acquired Delorme, another of his former defensemen in St. Louis, from Quebec in January.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel that fatigued,&rdquo; Norwood said. &ldquo;I felt it more last year. We&rsquo;re both big, strong, over 200 pounds. We take care of ourselves. We&rsquo;re both in good shape.&ldquo;Last year in the playoffs, I did a lot of fighting for the club. Here, 1 don&rsquo;t have to do it all. In St. Louis, we had to keep guys like Rob Ramage on the ice and I had to take on Calgary&rsquo;s big guys. And I don&rsquo;t have any injuries this year.&rdquo;Norwood and Delorme were two of the reasons Detroit had given Edmonton all it could handle through three games.The Wings limited the high-powered Oilers to seven goals in three games. They blanked Wayne Gretzky in two of those games, allowing him just one assist in the other game. That&rsquo;s one point in three games for The Great One.The Wings earned a split in Edmonton (winning 3-1 and losing 4-1). then lost a heartbreaker at home in game three when Marty McSorley scored the winning goal with 36 seconds left against Greg Stefari.Stefan played the first three games against Edmonton but Demers was planning to turn the goaltending chores for game four over to Glen Hanlon, star of the Norris Division final against Ton nto.I cannot blame Greg Stefan one bit,&rsquo; Demers said.WING TIPS&mdash;Bob Probert was coming of age in the playoffs, scoring Detroit&rsquo;s only goals in games two and three. &#9632;

f0013-01

This Red Wing Defense Pairing Never Rests

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>Rumblings are still being heard in Calgary over the Flames&rsquo; early playoff demise. The centerpiece of considerable talk is Lanny McDonald, who poses a real problem for management. The high command realizes that Lanny&rsquo;s wheels are gone and he can&rsquo;t get his shot away as he did in his productive years. The problem is that McDonald is so well-liked that fans would resent any attempt to give him the hook. Sources indicate that Mac will return for more big bucks but, as one insider tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll turn into another Darryl Sittier: a hanger-on who doesn&rsquo;t have it anymore.&rdquo; The Flames will be less reluctant to unload John Tonelli, whose fat contract makes him difficult to deal. Friends say J.T. would prefer playing for a N.Y.-area team near his Long Island estate. Tonelli&rsquo;s most likely terminal would be Madison Square Garden.Rangers will make a big pitch to Barry (Bubba) Beck in an attempt to lure him back to Manhattan&hellip;Former NHL ref Art Skov runs a sports trophy store in Windsor, Ont. He recalls the night he missed a flight to Pittsburgh and had to drive through a snowstorm to reach the Civic Arena. The game had already started, with linesman Will Norris acting as ref. &ldquo;I got on the ice in the third period,&rdquo; Skov recalls, &ldquo;and, all of a sudden, a fight breaks out. One of the players says, &lsquo;Skov, you should have stayed home. Before you got here, Norris had everything under control.&rsquo;&rdquo;&hellip;Larry Robinson says the current Canadiens aren&rsquo;t as good as some of the earlier Cup-winners, but he rates the present outfit as &ldquo;rock-solid.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011301/5179101-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="333" height="487"><figcaption class="caption-body">Barry Beck</figcaption></div>Flyers have objected to stories suggesting player dislike for Mike Keenan&rsquo;s tough coaching. Well-placed sources say the anti-Keenan remarks have no basis and that the Philly coach has, in fact, lightened up considerably since his rookie season&hellip;Blues&rsquo; GM Ron Caron has a theory on the lessening effectiveness of &ldquo;home-ice advantage.&rdquo; He claims that it has much to do with the fact that there are more new faces in the league than ever. &ldquo;In the old days,&rdquo; Caron tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;teams were built around seniority, so you had players with the same club for eight, nine years. These players would get used to their home rink and play better there. Nowadays, there&rsquo;s more player movement and younger players, and they aren&rsquo;t as accustomed to home ice as the others were.&rdquo;Kings&rsquo; owner Jerry Buss came close to buying the San Diego Padres. The idea was to use the baseball team as a source of programming for Buss&rsquo; cable network. Prime Ticket&hellip;Claude Lemieux is among several superstitious Canadiens. He changes gloves after the first period. Before every game, goalie Brian Hayward touches the right post, but not the left. While studying at Cornell, Hay ward was a practitioner of self-hypnosis, but has since given it up&hellip;Most interviewed hockey player in New York during the past month has been Robert (Pops) Burgess, the 80-year-old pastor who plays organized hockey at least twice a week. A native of Hamilton, Ont., the great grandfather tells BLUELINES that in his heyday he teamed with some of Ontario&rsquo;s top pros, including Guy Roach, who later starred in the Eastern League with the Washington Lions&hellip;Feisty Boston Bruin center Ken Linseman isn&rsquo;t the only NHLer nicknamed &ldquo;The Rat.&rdquo; Turns out I the Oilers&rsquo; Esa Tikkanen got the same moniker&mdash;only in Finnish&mdash;when he played in Helsinki. His ex-GM, Frank Mowberg, offers a good explanation: &ldquo;Esa&rsquo;s teammates loved him as a player, but not always as a companion. He is very outspoken about other people&rsquo;s talent&mdash;or lack of talent-.&rdquo;&hellip;Winnipeg Free Press columnist Scott Taylor takes a pretty good run at Scotty Bowman, who went from Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; overseer to Hockey Night In Canada color commentator. &ldquo;Bowman, who spent his entire career in Buffalo going out of his way to be a total jerk to the media, has landed one of the plum media jobs in Canada.&rdquo;Usually it&rsquo;s the players who have retirement parties, but in the case of Sherri Carroll, wife of the Red Wings&rsquo; Billy Carroll, it was different. The Detroiter wives tossed a bash for Sherri, whose husband is packing it in this summer to go into the construction business&hellip;Ranger Larry Meinyk on hockey pools: &ldquo;When I talk to my buddies at home, I give them hell because they never pick me. I tell them I&rsquo;m good for 20 points a year, but they still never pick me.&rdquo;&hellip;One of the best press box laughs was provided by the Washington Times&rsquo; Dave Fay, upon learning that the Flyers had signed Tony Horacek, a 177 penalty-minute man in the Western League. &ldquo;They were hesitant to sign him,&rdquo; chirped Fay. &ldquo;The Flyers weren&rsquo;t sure he was aggressive enough.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021021/5179094-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="336" height="481"><figcaption class="caption-body">Esa Tikkanen</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0014-01

Flames In Quandary Over Veteran Stars

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03718/5179132-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="175" height="130"></div>EDMONTON&mdash;Adaptability and Marty McSorley kept the Edmonton Oilers on course for their third Stanley Cup final appearance in four years.Refugees from the National Hockey League&rsquo;s low-rent Norris Division, the Detroit Red Wings were busy patting themselves on the back for stifling the potentially-prolific Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; offense.But they were still trailing the Campbell Conference championship series 2-1.&ldquo;Detroit doesn&rsquo;t create any chances for themselves,&rdquo; said Oilers&rsquo; co-coach John Muckier, about the strictly-defensive philosophy of Detroit coach Jacques Demers. &ldquo;Everything is prevent and they&rsquo;re waiting for us to selfdestruct.&rdquo;Muckier vowed the Oilers weren&rsquo;t about to shoot themselves in the foot.&ldquo;The last two games we&rsquo;ve been very patient and have been doing the things we must do to win games,&rdquo; said Muckier. &ldquo;The scores have been close, but we&rsquo;ve had more than ample opportunities to open things up.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t want to have to play that way every night&hellip;That&rsquo;s a boring way of playing.&rsquo;&mdash;Muckier</blockquote>Only Greg Stefan, according to Muckier, stood beween the Oilers and a healthier margin of victory. The question was: How long could the standout Detroit goaltender continue to&rdquo; plug the dike?&ldquo;Mr. Stefan,&rdquo; admitted Muckier, &ldquo;has closed the door on us.&rdquo;Muckier, who has long been preaching defense to the Oilers, figures Detroit carries this sort of thing from the sublime to the ridiculous.&ldquo;I just don&rsquo;t know how you win under those conditions,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t want to have to play that way every night. That&rsquo;s a tough way of playing. That&rsquo;s a boring way of playing. I think it puts a burden on his team. It&rsquo;s got to be work to them. It can&rsquo;t be fun.&rdquo;The Wings vowed they weren&rsquo;t going to change. Win, lose or head back to Edmonton down 3-1, Detroit wasn&rsquo;t going to Wing it with the Oilers. Run and gun isn&rsquo;t in Demers&rsquo; bible on the Oilers.In game three, Edmonton won by the skin of Marty McSorley&rsquo;s teeth. But, the way Muckier saw it, the Wings didn&rsquo;t exactly provide the Oilers with fits.&ldquo;Once they tied the score, they didn&rsquo;t forecheck any more,&rdquo; said Muckier of Bob Probert&rsquo;s goal with two-and-a-half minutes remaining in the second period. &ldquo;They sat back and said, &lsquo;Hey, they&rsquo;re going to make a mistake and we&rsquo;re going to win it.&rsquo; That seems to be their whole philosophy. They&rsquo;re not going to open up. They believe if they&rsquo;re within two (goals), they still have a chance.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard for me to realize how Detroit could play this way and play well for whatever the number of games it&rsquo;s going to take to complete this series. Somewhere along the line, you have to think they&rsquo;re going to make a mistake and we&rsquo;re going to blow one game wide open. We keep on thinking that. Whether that&rsquo;s going to happen or not, I don&rsquo;t know.&ldquo;I mean, Stefan can&rsquo;t play any better than he&rsquo;s playing,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I bet you this is the best series he&rsquo;s played since he&rsquo;s been in the NHL. I never thought he was as good a goalkeeper as he&rsquo;s shown in this series. He&rsquo;s really impressed me.&rdquo;Muckier admitted the Oilers had to convert to the Red Wings&rsquo; style after Detroit won game one 3-I. &ldquo;We gambled in the first game, but we&rsquo;ve adjusted by doing things we really don&rsquo;t want to do. But we have to if we&rsquo;re going to win.&ldquo;In the third period Saturday (game three), Detroit was even drawing back their lone forechecker. Playing that style of hockey, they&rsquo;re always going to be close. They cut down on our opportunities.&rdquo;Muckier also confessed that not too long ago the Oilers wouldn&rsquo;t have been able to adapt to the Wings&rsquo; defensive style.&ldquo;Two or three years ago, I don&rsquo;t think we could have done this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But our club has learned they have to do certain things to win and they&rsquo;re capable of doing it. Which is a mature hockey club.&rdquo;IN THE CREASE&mdash;Defenseman Randy Gregg was expected back for game four, although back spasms kept him out of game three&rsquo;s third period-&hellip;The Oilers were still without blueliner Craig Muni, out with a bruised kidney. &#9632;

f0014-03

Maturity Gives Edmonton Strength In Wings’ Series

<div class="byline">BY AL MORGANTI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011222/5179163-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="172" height="133"></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;In their relatively short history of 20 years, the Philadelphia Flyers have accumulated an impressive list of achievements.But this 20th-anniversary edition of the Flyers had put itself on the verge of accomplishing something no other Flyer team has been able to manage. They had put themselves on the verge of knocking the Montreal Canadiens out of the playoffs.In two previous series (1973 and 1976), the Flyers won just one of nine games against the Habs.The Flyers found themselves in that enviable position because they visited the hallowed Montreal Forum, and ran the Habs out of the place. They completed a two-game torching of the Forum when Pelle Eklund scored one of the prettiest goals of the season on his way to a hat trick, and the Flyers thumped Montreal 6-3.Thus, the Flyers took a 3-1 lead in this best-of-seven semi-final playoff series, and took a giant step toward the Stanley Cup finals. And they came back to Philadelphia for a fifth game at the Spectrum, where they could wrap up the series.All right, so the two victories in Montreal didn&rsquo;t officially doom the Habs. Indeed, it&rsquo;s true the Flyers had a similar lead against the New York Islanders and were dragged into seven games.And, yes, both Detroit and the Islanders came back from similar deficits to win playoff series in this playoff spring which has been marked by comebacks and road triumphs.But the Flyers were certainly sitting pretty after what they did at the Forum. Making them look even prettier was the fact they did it without center Dave Poulin (ribs) or right winger Tim Kerr (shoulder).&ldquo;No disrespect to Dave Poulin,&rdquo; said Montreal defenseman Larry Robinson, &ldquo;but I wish he would get back in the lineup so we could see less of Eklund.&rdquo;Robinson had seen enough of Eklund in games three and four&mdash;especially in game four when the veteran defenseman was on the ice for all three of Eklund&rsquo;s goals. He was also on for five of the Flyers&rsquo; six goals, including the last four.The Flyers had gone up to Montreal lucky to get a split at home, and it looked as if they were going to get run out of the Forum in game three, when Montreal took a 2-0 lead in the first period, outshooting the Flyers 21-8.But, inspired by Ron Hextall&rsquo;s fabulous goaltending, they stormed back to win 4-3 as Eklund scored twice and assisted on another goal. And two nights later, they withstood a similar comeback attempt by Montreal.After building a 2-0 lead, the Flyers watched as the Habs tied it 2-2 midway through the second period. However, they got a huge boost when Eklund scored his first goal of the night on a sensational play late in the second period, giving them a 3-2 lead which they took into the third period.Eklund, who wound up with his first career hat trick, took a pass from Brian Propp at the Montreal blue line, split the Montreal defensive pair of Robinson and Petr Svoboda, and knocked the puck past Patrick Roy, giving the Flyers a 3-2 lead which they never gave up.&ldquo;We played badly in the second game in Philly (and lost),&rdquo; said Brad Marsh. &ldquo;And we played badly in the third game, but we won&mdash;we wanted to take advantage of that break.&rdquo;They took advantage mostly because of a combination of two events&mdash;the decision by coach Mike Keenan to insert Eklund on a line between Brian Propp and Rick Tocchet; and the decision by Montreal coach Jean Perron to switch from goalie Brian Hayward to Roy, the local hero who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP last spring.Roy hardly looked like an MVP in game four, and he wasn&rsquo;t even around when Eklund finished off the Habs when he completed his hat trick against goalie Brian Hayward.At the beginning of the series, the Flyers felt they had an edge in goal. That had been borne out. Hayward looked shoddy in game three, and Roy was shaky in the fourth.Another advantage the Flyers expected was the ability to play a stronger third period. In the three regularseason games, they outscored Montreal 7-1 in the third period, and it continued in the first three playoff games. They won each third period 2-1.In the fourth game they outscored Montreal 3-1 in the third period, including two goals by Eklund, to enjoy a whopping season edge of 16-5 in the third period.But the biggest edge was a 3-1 lead in games. &#9632;

f0015-01

Hextall, Eklund A Formidable Combination

<div class="byline">BY NEIL CAMERON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011099/5179194-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Richmond coach Orland Kurtenbach is doused with champagne after his Sockeyes won the Centennial Cup in Humboldt, Sask.</figcaption></div>HUMBOLDT, Sask.&mdash;It wasn&rsquo;t Lord Stanley&rsquo;s silver, but winning the Centennial Cup represented a golden moment for Richmond (B.C.) Sockeyes&rsquo; coach Orland Kurtenbach.&ldquo;This is right at the top with anything I&rsquo;ve done,&rdquo; said the former National Hockey League player and coach, champagne-drenched and leaning on the wall outside the Sockeyes&rsquo; dressing room.&ldquo;And it&rsquo;s almost 30 years ago to the day that I was playing for Flin Flon (Man.) when we won the Memorial Cup.&rdquo;In between, the native of nearby Cudworth spent 13 years playing on four NHL teams. None of them won a Stanley Cup, including the Vancouver Canucks, whom he later coached.His Sockeyes filled a lengthy championship void.Thanks to outstanding goaltending by Frank Romeo and a three-goal performance from Jason Phillips, Richmond defeated the Humboldt Broncos 5-2 on May 9 to win the Canadian Tier II junior equivalent of the major junior Memorial Cup.Playing before a decidedly partisan crowd at the Humboldt Uniplex, the Sockeyes led 2-0 after the first period on goals by Phillips and Dave Thomlison. Curtis Chamberlin scored in the second for the Broncos.Paul Rutherford and Phillips made it 4-1 for Richmond in the third period, before the teams traded late goals, including an empty-netter from Phillips.The Sockeyes advanced to the championship game by beating the Pembroke (Ont.) Lumber Kings 9-3 in the semi-finals.The Sockeyes were forced into that game after the Broncos pasted them 6-1 in the round-robin portion of the eight-day tournament. Humboldt advanced on a bye after posting a perfect 3-0 round-robin record. Richmond was 2-1.The final-game score could easily have been reversed, had Romeo not stopped 44 Bronco shots. He was named MVP of both the game and the tournament. The Sockeyes had only 18 shots at Humboldt&rsquo;s Bruce Hoffert.Romeo stopped 18 third-period shots, including several from Humboldt sharpshooter Bill McDougall. McDougall broke Brian Propp&rsquo;s 197576 single-season Saskatchewan Junior League scoring record this year, with 83 goals and 187 points. Romeo held him pointless in the final.Humboldt coach Bernie Lynch was bitterly disappointed. The preparation this town of 5,000 went through to host the Cup was extensive. All of it was in anticipation of a national title.He was especially upset with an apparent Humboldt goal that was disallowed by referee Rob Fehr in the third period and would have tied the score 2-2. Seconds later, Rutherford put Richmond ahead 3-1 on a play that Lynch said was offside.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want it to seem like sour grapes, because that&rsquo;s hockey&mdash;and it&rsquo;s a great game because that&rsquo;s how it goes sometimes,&rdquo; said Lynch, who said he has been considering coaching offers from both the Western and Ontario Leagues.&ldquo;But I think the calls were bad and they really hurt our team.&rdquo;The 20-year-old Phillips, a 6-foot, 175-pounder who used to play for the Western League&rsquo;s Victoria Cougars, was the top scorer in the tournament with six goals and three assists in the four Richmond games.Phillips won a spot at left wing on the all-star team beside centerman McDougall (4-3-7) and right winger Duncan Ryhorchuk (2-2-4), also of the Broncos. Rob Rice of the Broncos and Matt Hervey of Richmnond were the defensemen chosen and Pembroke&rsquo;s Grant Robb the goalie.NOTEBOOK&mdash;Despite his success. Orland Kurtenbach indicated he wouldn&rsquo;t be returning behind the bench next year. A successful insurance broker, he also has plans to open a golf range in White Rock, B.C&hellip;Pembroke finished the round-robin with a 1-2 record and the Dartmouth (N.S.) Fuel Kids, an 0-3 mark&hellip;Penticton Knights, another British Columbia team, won the Cup last year. &#9632;

f0016-01

Sockeyes Sock It To ’Em

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02751/5179225-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="559" height="959"><figcaption class="caption-body">Patrick Roy was the victim of a poor effort by his Montreal Canadien teammates.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01999/5179232-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="174" height="131"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;When the 1987 regular season ended, Patrick Roy was adamant about the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; expectations for repeating as National Hockey League champions.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs on television,&rdquo; Roy said.But the winner of last year&rsquo;s Conn Smythe Trophy found himself closer to his living room than Edmonton&rsquo;s Northlands Coliseum or Detroit&rsquo;s Joe Louis Arena after four games of the Wales Conference final series.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;I was lousy. It&rsquo;s a shame&hellip;I thought our guys played so well.&rsquo;&mdash;Hayward</blockquote>The Canadiens were down 3-1 in their best-of-seven series against the Philadelphia Flyers, with the unhappy prospect of playing game five in The Spectrum at Philadelphia.The complexion of the Wales Conference final changed quickly from games two to four. The Canadiens returned triumphantly from Philadelphia after splitting the first two games of the series, including an impressive 5-2 victory in game two.Hometown prognosticators puffed their chests and predicted a sweep by the Canadiens on Forum ice and then a victory back in Philadelphia. The Stanley Cup finals were almost a certainty.At the beginning of game three, it appeared as though they would be right. Montreal bombarded Ron Hextail with 21 shots, but led only 2-0 after 20 minutes.Meanwhile, the Flyers were ready to chip away. Outhustling Montreal to every loose puck in the middle session, the Flyers popped two goals behind Brian Hayward. Then, in the third, they outscored the Canadiens 2-1 and skated off the ice with their second 4-3 victory of the series.&ldquo;I was lousy,&rdquo; said Hayward, who allowed four goals on 18 shots. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a shame because I thought our guys played so well. I feel I let them down.&rdquo;Hayward, a star in the Adams Division final against Quebec, carried his excellent play into the first two games against Philadelphia.While it would be easy to pin the blame on him for game three, the fact is that three of the Philadelphia goals were scored from point-blank range. After the first period, the Canadiens as a whole allowed themselves to be outplayed in every aspect, not only goaltending. If Hayward was &ldquo;lousy,&rdquo; he had lots of company.Naturally, there was a clamor for a goaltending change and, when Montreal skated out for game four, they were led onto the ice by Patrick Roy.When they left the ice at the end of the game, it was Hayward leaving the net dejectedly. He replaced Roy in the third period after the Flyers moved into a 4-2 lead en route to a 6-3 victory.The Flyers maintained their hex on Roy, who was 0-3-1 lifetime (including playoffs) against Philadelphia.&ldquo;Roy tried his best, but it wasn&rsquo;t enough,&rdquo; said coach Jean Perron. &ldquo;You need to be very strong and make the big saves. I thought Roy could come back and change the momentum, but it did not work out that way.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t blame him for the loss. It was my move and I&rsquo;ll take full responsibility for it.&rdquo;Roy had the misfortune of playing behind the Canadiens in their worst game of the 1987 playoffs.The easy chair in Roy&rsquo;s living room awaited him.IN PASSING&mdash;Brian Skrudland and Sergio Momesso were derricked from the Canadiens&rsquo; lineup for game four. Skrudland appeared weak from a bout with the flu that kept him out of games three and four of the Adams Division final&hellip;They were replaced by Stephane Richer and Kjell Dahlin. Richer scored the Habs&rsquo; second goal. &#9632;

f0018-02

Netminding Turns Shaky On Habs

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03540/5179263-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="176" height="130"></div>VANCOUVER&mdash;Pat Quinn was finally unveiled to the media here, and made a big first impression with his candid comments.Not only did he criticize some of coach Tom Watt&rsquo;s moves, he also showed a natural&mdash;but potentially costly&mdash;lack of familiarity with players on the Vancouver Canucks, a team he is running officially only as president until June 15, when he can take over as the general manager of record.After questioning Watt&rsquo;s philosophy of going with three lines and using far too few players&mdash;something the Canuck players complained about all season&mdash;he proceeded to talk about &ldquo;big guys Jim Sandlak and Dave Lowry not playing, despite the fact the team finished 19th.&rdquo;While it&rsquo;s true Watt played Sandlak infrequently, Lowry played regularly. The fact Quinn was unaware&rsquo; of this was not surprising. It simply pointed out the difficulty he will have as general manager, in making any type of trade this off-season.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be awfully tough for Pat to make any sensible deals,&rdquo; said former Canuck GM Harry Neale, now a Hockey Night in Canada commentator. &ldquo;Unless you&rsquo;ve seen a guy play 25 to 30 games, you&rsquo;re guessing. I don&rsquo;t know how many times Pat&rsquo;s seen them play, but it&rsquo;s probably not enough.&rdquo;Quinn, aware of the problem, said &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not coming in here with a hatchet. I want to evaluate people in the front office and then do the coaches and players. But I tell you 1 will make the changes and I will get people out of here that won&rsquo;t fit in, that won&rsquo;t see this club as a trust given to us by the people of Vancouver.&rdquo;If he&rsquo;s planning to sell any tickets, a change in the coaching department might be advantageous.Jack Gordon is to become an advisor, presumably because the club still has to pay the final year of his general manager&rsquo;s contract. And assistant to the chairman Arthur Griffiths is heading downtown, vacating his office at the Pacific Coliseum.Director of player development Darcy Rota appeared to be in limbo. Quinn said he&rsquo;ll be bringing in an &ldquo;addition in that area.&rdquo;The GM-in-waiting also expressed a desire to get out of the Fredericton farm team sharing arrangement with Quebec.&ldquo;We still have a year and an option to run on our contract there,&rdquo; Quinn said, &ldquo;so it may be some time before we can take action. But you have to look at developing your own players, even if it costs money.Quinn says the team &ldquo;needs two centers right away.&rdquo; Lack of size and depth on defense are other acknowledged areas of concern, but Quinn&rsquo;s words on young players must be encouraging to Portland Winter Hawk center Dan Woodley, who now has a chance of getting into the lineup before he&rsquo;s 30.&ldquo;By &lsquo;spending some money&rsquo; I don&rsquo;t mean rushing out and making stupid signings,&rdquo; said Quinn. &ldquo;But we have to explore the free-agent market and we&rsquo;ll probably have to expand our scouting. We can&rsquo;t wait for the draft.&ldquo;I want to know if our scouts are going to the schools, talking to the teachers and parents of these kids&mdash;or laying around in bed all day until the game that night,&rdquo; said Quinn, who plans to model the Canucks after the Philadelphia organization. &ldquo;We have to increase our coverage and be as thorough as possible.&rdquo;VAN LINES&mdash;The Canucks will proceed with their suit against the NHL, over the league-imposed fines resulting from their signing of Pat Quinn, and hope to get into court by late summer or early fall&hellip;Quinn&rsquo;s main off-season contractual concerns will be Richard Brodeur, Doug Lidster and Garth Butcher. &#9632;

f0018-03

Quinn Emphasizes Club Development

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01930/5179294-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="176" height="132"></div>CALGARY&mdash;The celebration lasted a couple of days, then it was back to business for Calgary Flames&rsquo; right winger Hakan Loob.Loob, one of the stars of Sweden&rsquo;s first world championship in 25 years, returned to Calgary less than a week later to prepare for surgery on his right shoulder. The problem isn&rsquo;t new, but it became so bad this season&mdash;sometimes the shoulder would pop out in the middle of the night&mdash;that Loob finally decided to have it surgically repaired.&ldquo;I think they&rsquo;re going to shorten the ligament,&rdquo; said Loob, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t know for sure. Sometimes, when you have a bad shoulder as I do, the bone&rsquo;s been damaged too. Then they have to take bone pieces from other places on your body like your hip to repair it. Then the surgery gets more complcated than if it&rsquo;s just the ligaments. Either way, it will be a three-to-four months recovery process, so probably no Canada Cup for me. Not the way it looks now.&rdquo;So, the World Championships likely represented the extent of Loob&rsquo;s international play this year, something he places a high premium on. Loob wasn&rsquo;t happy in 1985 when the Flames&mdash;worried about his shoulder&mdash;stopped him from playing in the Prague tournament, so he made the most of his 1987 appearance.In the three medal-round games, Loob played sensationally on a line with Tomas Sandstrom and Bengt Gustafsson. That helped him salvage something out of his disappointing 1986-87 season. After scoring no fewer than 30 goals in each of his first three National Hockey League seasons, Loob finished the past year with 18 goals. He scored only four after Christmas before a broken baby finger kept him out of the Flames&rsquo; lineup for the last month of the regular season.As a result, Loob called his turnaround in the World Championships unbelievable.&ldquo;It was a matter of being more enthusiastic. I got into almost a state of boredom in Calgary. Nothing really happened for me. The team played well. Because I played on the fourth line all the time, I didn&rsquo;t feel like really going for it. It&rsquo;s a bad feeling, but after playing 30 games like that, it&rsquo;s really hard to concentrate. You need something extra I guess.&rdquo;Loob had a preliminary meeting in Vienna with general manager Cliff Fletcher&mdash;to discuss his future in the organization. He was scheduled to meet with Fletcher and coach Bob Johnson again once he got out of the hospital.Contrary to rumors that circulated around him all year, Loob said his first choice was to play in Calgary again next year.&ldquo;I really want to go back there,&rdquo; said Loob, while in Vienna, &ldquo;but if they didn&rsquo;t believe in me, it doesn&rsquo;t make a hell of a lot of sense to play there. Like I said before, I&rsquo;ve got (three) years left on my contract. I really like it there. It&rsquo;s always been good to me and I tried to do my best. We&rsquo;ll see what happens.&ldquo;The best thing you can do is talk it out, not keep it inside.&rdquo;Understandably, Loob&mdash;one of the finest pure talents in the game today&mdash;wants to make a bigger contribution to the Flames&rsquo; cause. Playing most of the season behind Joey Mullen, Lanny McDonald and Tim Hunter on the right side, Loob found himself reduced to playing mainly on the Flames&rsquo; special teams.Loob&rsquo;s play in the World Championships must have put one eyewitness&mdash;Fletcher&mdash;on his side. Now if he can only convince Johnson to expand his role.IN BRIEF&mdash;Assistant coach Pierre Page has engaged an agent, Art Kaminsky, to explore possible openings for a head coaching position around the NHL. Page has a year left on his contract&hellip;The Flames have offered Roger Johansson, a fourthround choice in the 1985 draft, a contract for next year. Johansson is thinking about it. GM Cliff Fletcher said Johansson was getting pressure from his club team, Farjestads, to play one more year in Sweden&hellip;Fueling speculation that there will be changes in the organization&mdash;despite finishing third overall in the league this year&mdash;Fletcher said to expect &ldquo;a reasonable amount of news on our team in the next two months&hellip;trade-wise, signingwise, everything.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0019-01

Loob Looks For Assurances About Future

<div class="byline">BY REYN DAVIS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02692/5179325-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="173" height="132"></div>WINNIPEG&mdash;A challenge awaits Rick Bowness as he returns home to Moncton, N.B.Always upbeat and willing to share his thoughts, Bowness, 32, leaves his position as assistant coach of Winnipeg Jets to become the coach and director of hockey operations for the organization&rsquo;s American League farm team in Moncton.&ldquo;When I came here (Winnipeg) four years ago,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;my first injection was enthusiasm. Now, I feel I can offer some expertise.&rdquo;Ultimately, Bowness wants to coach in the NHL. By going to Moncton, he&rsquo;s being put in custody of the organization&rsquo;s best prospects, its future.&ldquo;I wanted the right man there,&rdquo; said general manager John Ferguson. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have five or six sure-fire major leaguers in Moncton looking to move up one more notch.&rdquo;For four years, Bowness urged, cajoled, plotted, applauded, watched, listened and chirped behind the Jets&rsquo; bench as an assistant to Barry Long, Ferguson and Dan Maloney.Bowness wore headsets that kept him in constant communication with Bill Sutherland, another assistant coach, situated in the press box.&ldquo;He (Bowness) was the guy who got us going&hellip;the guy who kept us all awake,&rdquo; said Ron Wilson, the penalty-killing specialist and the team&rsquo;s most senior man.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s learned a lot from being an assistant. He got along with everyone. I know he liked me as a player and had a lot of say in my being here.&rdquo;The Jets will consider hiring a second assistant coach after the draft. For now, the scheme is to have Sutherland work with Maloney behind the bench, with Bruce Southern (currently a scout) spotting from the press box.Bowness said he knows what&rsquo;s in store for him.The fans of Moncton have had a contending team, supported by players from Calgary and Boston. They had a hero, Brett Hull, who, as a rookie, scored 50 goals.What can they expect next season?&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be a young team with a number of rookies and players who are coming out of college,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have a few experienced guys, too.&rdquo;Seven players have decent chances of making the Jets&mdash;defensemen Peter Taglianetti and Bobby Delias, and forwards Pat Elynuik, Ryan Stewart, Roger Ohman, Jan Ingman, Peter Douris and Randy Gilhen.Dollas (1983), Stewart (&lsquo;85) and Elynuik (&lsquo;86) were all first-round draft choices while Ohman (&lsquo;85), Douris (&lsquo;84) and Ingman (1981, by Montreal) were second-rounders. Taglianetti was a third-round pick in 1983.Dollas, Taglianetti, Douris and Gilhen have performed superbly in the AHL with Sherbrooke.Gradually, the Jets have begun to stockpile their talent.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have to rush a player like in years before,&rdquo; said Ferguson. &ldquo;If he can&rsquo;t quite crack our lineup right now, we have somewhere he can go and develop into the pro we think he will be&hellip;under the watchful eye of Bowness.&rdquo;BENCH BITS&mdash;Three university goaltenders are entering the Jets&rsquo; organization and two appear to be leaving. Dave Quigley (Moncton), Tom Draper (Vermont) and Bob Essensa (Michigan) are all expected to turn pro. Steve Penney wants to be traded and Marc Behrend is playing out his option&hellip;A number of the Jets are considering the purchase of a quality race horse to run at Assiniboia Downs. &#9632;

f0019-02

Rick Is Jets’ Moncton Bowness Baby

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01788/5179356-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="173" height="131"></div>EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.&mdash;Dur ing his 15 years as hockey coach and five years as athletic director at Providence College, Lou Lamoriello resisted at least four offers to coach in the National Hockey League.He preferred his security as college administrator over the glamor of pro hockey.Security and power in the Devils&rsquo; front office are apparently the two ingredients with which John McMullen successfully lured Lamoriello to New Jersey on April 30. Although Lamoriello did not indicate plans for immediate changes as club president, it is assumed that heads will roll if the Devils do not start next season with a bang.Coach Doug Carpenter, who has one year remaining on his contract, and general manager Max McNab, whose knowledge from 41 years in the game will be vital to Lamoriello&rsquo;s break-in period, are not on the chopping block&mdash;for now.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;ll be making any more changes before training camp,&rdquo; said McMullen, the owner whose patience and checking account have both grown thinner. &ldquo;When the decisions come due, you really need two or three opinions. If we do have to make a coaching change next year, I&rsquo;ll talk to people in the organization&mdash;just like Max and Bob (Butera, the expresident) have always talked to me. Sometimes I&rsquo;ll even bring in the individual involved.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll probably be seeking outside assistance in marketing and in a ticket promotion program but nothing else at this time.&rdquo;At least until Lamoriello, a nononsense type, gets his feet on the ground.&ldquo;My approach is simple,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;I have no preconceived notions. It&rsquo;s only a matter of time before I make recommendations to Dr. McMullen.&ldquo;I know how to win. I don&rsquo;t want to put that mildly. There is a price you have to pay to win. You can get used to losing.&rdquo;The Devils, who finished last in the Patrick Division and will draft second in the entry draft, have gotten used to losing. Fans have been told to be patient while the team&rsquo;s young players developed, but the time has come for results.&ldquo;I certainly think the foundation is here,&rdquo; Lamoriello said. &ldquo;It took tremendous concentration to do what the Devils have done and not trade off the future. Max really has to have a strong constitution to do what he did He had a lot of offers which would&rsquo;ve made people temporarily happy, but they would&rsquo;ve been trades which would not have been good for the future of the franchise.&rdquo;Those words may have made McNab nervous. He&rsquo;s been around long enough to know words of praise often precede a pink slip.HOT STUFF&mdash;Though Lou Lamoriello praised Max McNab&rsquo;s restraint in not dealing away the club&rsquo;s future, the Devils are thinking of dealing their No. 2 pick. Rather than selecting one of the top-rated two forwards (Pierre Turgeon and Brendan Shanahan), they are leaning toward one of four junior defensemen they have been monitoring closely. That could allow the Devils to trade their No. 2 pick to a club like Boston, which covets Shanahan, for a quality player, and still land their defenseman by using Boston&rsquo;s No. 3 selection. Montreal would also be willing to deal for Turgeon if the Sabres took Shanahan. &ldquo;We might say something publicly about the draft if Buffalo would,&rdquo; said McNab&hellip;With luck, the Devils could have Finnish find Janne Ojanen in N.J. by next year&rsquo;s playoffs&hellip;Lamoriello had offers to coach the Devils in 1982 and the Flyers before Mike Keenan. &#9632;

f0020-01

I Know How To Win,’ Says New President

<div class="byline">BY MIKE PERRICONE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-04243/5179387-1-eng-US/f0020-042.jpg" title="f0020-04" width="549" height="1291"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Blackhawks have asked Buffalo about the availability of goalie Tom Barrasso.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03372/5179394-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="175" height="134"></div>CHICAGO&mdash;Anybody got a spare coach? Or goaltender? Call the Chicago Blackhawks.The Hawks&rsquo; No. I priority is signing a new coach, because general manager Bob Pulford doesn&rsquo;t want to spend any more time behind the bench. After that, the Hawks are out for the best netminder available. It&rsquo;s still early in the game, but so far they&rsquo;re just looking.Pulford journeyed to Vienna for the World Championships to get a look at Dominik Hasek, the Czechoslovakian national team goalie who was picked 199th overall by the Hawks in the 1983 entry draft.Hasek was the all-star goaltender at the tournament. But the Hawks haven&rsquo;t had any luck other years at springing Hasek, and this year was no different.Before leaving for Vienna, Pulford spoke to the Buffalo Sabres about Tom Barrasso, and he was expected to begin pursuing that course again. He&rsquo;s been candid about the need for another goaltender.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to look very seriously around the league at other teams,&rdquo; Pulford said, &ldquo;and we&rsquo;re going to have to look very seriously at the draft. You might improve your goaltending, but you probably won&rsquo;t get a No. 1 goaltender.&rdquo;Jimmy Waite of Chicoutimi is considered the best goalie available in the draft.Pulford has said the Hawks &ldquo;can&rsquo;t afford&rdquo; another season like the one just posted by veteran Murray Bannerman. He did hold out the possibility that if Bannerman &ldquo;gets himself straightened out&rdquo; and plays well intraining camp next season, he might be able to play again.Bannerman, on the other hand, figured on playing elsewhere next season.&ldquo;From everything that&rsquo;s been said, it doesn&rsquo;t look good,&rdquo; Bannerman said. &ldquo;The thing is, there aren&rsquo;t any No. 1 goaltenders out there that somebody is just going to give away.&rdquo;While the search for a goaltender has just begun, the search for a coach was continuing. Pulford had his second talk with University of North Dakota coach Gino Gasparini on May 5, this time at Chicago Stadium. Gasparini later met with Hawk president William Wirtz. The first contact had been at Grand Forks, N.D.Pulford also met at Chicago Stadium with Terry Crisp, coach at Moncton in the American League. Gasparini, Crisp and Calgary Flames&rsquo; assistant coach Bob Murdoch are regarded as the frontrunners for the Hawks&rsquo; coaching vacancy.&ldquo;I know they have a few guys other than me they&rsquo;re also interested in,&rdquo; said Crisp, who is also interested in the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; opening. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like Pully said, &lsquo;Crispie, you&rsquo;re one of the candidates I want to talk with.&rsquo; He was very forthright.&rdquo;HAWK TALK&mdash;Left winger Curt Fraser was the honorary chairman of a 6.5-kilometer charity bike-a-thon, to be run in Chicago, May 31, for the benefit of diabetes research. Fraser, who will pedal the course himself, is a diabetic&hellip;Hawk GM Bob Pulford also scouted Finnish left winger Jari Torkki in Vienna. Torkki was selected in the sixth round, 115th overall, in the 1983 entry draft. &#9632;

f0020-04

Chicago Searches For Coach, Goalie

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02534/5179425-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="356" height="406"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Ulmer</figcaption></div>SOMEWHERE, NESTLED DEEP in the Central Security Agency&rsquo;s electronic brain there is a file on me.Nothing too unusual, just an average pattern of political, religious and social habits&mdash;except for one attentiongrabbing glitch.&ldquo;Admitted Habophobic.&rdquo;In Canada, the Montreal Canadiens are the nation&rsquo;s most visible sign of success. Criticizing Wayne Gretzky is widely considered an idiot&rsquo;s indulgence but it is generally tolerated.Criticism of the Canadiens is not.The Canadiens are this country&rsquo;s most powerful, glamorous and successful business; they stand above regional loyalties. &ldquo;At least the Cup stayed in Canada,&rdquo; is a summertime slogan from coast to coast.As the playoffs wound down to four survivors, I once again faced the possiblity of a Montreal Stanley Cup and I&rsquo;ve had enough.Forget nationalism. I&rsquo;m sick of them. I&rsquo;m sick of their colors. I&rsquo;m sick of Claude Mouton announcing yet another goal over the Forum&rsquo;s public address system. Most of all, I&rsquo;m sick of the smugness that surrounds Montreal followers.If sports is indeed a religion, Montreal followers are the most pious of churchgoers. They assume the Gods of hockey reside on St. Catherine Street, the better to smile on their charges.Seasons when &ldquo;Win Stanley Cup&rdquo; is an item on the calender left undone, are merely aberrations to be corrected the following year.Les Canadiens sont la (the Canadiens are there) is a familiar slogan in Montreal. No one has to ask where there is.Hab fans consider my resentment a sign of poor parenting. They reason that I&rsquo;d have had a fighting chance at good judgment had my parents shown the sense to settle in Quebec, instead of the Southern Ontario corridor.Geography played a part in my Habophobia. Growing up a Leaf fan in the Harold Ballard era meant looking outside hockey for absolutes.Cheering for the long-suffering Leafs may be an exercise in penance but at least it teaches humility. Leaf fans, bless &lsquo;em, aren&rsquo;t burdened by smugness.Personally, I think Howie Morenz went a little far when, according to Canadiens&rsquo; legend, he died because he could no longer play for the team.Only Montreal fans could believe the 1970-1971 California Seals finished last because the Canadiens wanted them to. The Seals&rsquo; last-place finish allowed the Canadiens to use the fledgling club&rsquo;s first overall draft choice to snare Guy Lafleur. Montreal fans fail to mention that while Habs&rsquo; GM Sam Pollock improved Los Angeles by sending them Ralph Backstrom, the trade did nothing for Pittsburgh, Vancouver and Detroit, who finished ahead of the Seals but behind the Kings.When the Canadiens&rsquo; 23 Stanley Cups are flouted, no one mentions the NHL loophole that gave the Habs the top two territorial choices in Quebec until 1970.Say what you want about the Leafs, but their supporters wouldn&rsquo;t have ransacked Carlton Street had the team&rsquo;s leading scorer been suspended for such a minor offense as punching out an official.And what about Al MacNeil? How many teams turf their coach for winning the Stanley Cup because he didn&rsquo;t adhere to dressing-room politics.I admit it, I savored a nasty little thrill when Lafleur turned his back on the club last year, after he was offered a wage of $75,000, the salary of a &ldquo;simple clerk.&rdquo;And yes, I remember snickering when Ken Dryden decided to go to law school.Steve Simmons became one of my favorite columnists recently when he noted that this year&rsquo;s version of the team has worked hard to debunk the myth of &ldquo;firewagon hockey&rdquo; with their clutch-and-grab style.It may be sour grapes, but when was the last time a disputed call by a referee cost the Montreal Canadiens a, playoff series? Alain Cote would like to know. The Nordique player&rsquo;s disallowed goal in game five of this year&rsquo;s Battle of Quebec helped the Canadiens to oust Quebec. I won&rsquo;t even go into Don Cherry.Wayne, Mess and Slats, all is forgiven. The hockey world needs the humility of the Edmonton Oilers.Mike Ulmer covers sports for the Burlington (Ont.) Spectator, which is about 350 miles west of the Montreal Forum&mdash;a fair hike, but maybe still too close for him. &#9632;

f0020-02

Only Among Montreal Fans Must You Endure Smugness

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02330/5179456-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="554" height="793"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Cashman, above, and Ed Giacomin won&rsquo;t be considered for the Ranger coaching job.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01587/5179463-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="170" height="130"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Scratch the names Wayne Cashman and Ed Giacomin from the New York Rangers&rsquo; coaching sweepstakes.General manager Phil Esposito has revealed that last year&rsquo;s assistant coaches won&rsquo;t be considered for the vacant head coaching job. but shed little other light on the situation. His list of candidates, he said, is a lot longer than most people would guess.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m doing a lot of research,&rdquo; Esposito said from his Madison Square Garden office. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m in no hurry. This is a very important decision for our organization.&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t make any kind of a decision until I interview eight to 10 people. Then, maybe we&rsquo;ll bring back four or five for a second interview and then, two or three for a third.&rdquo;Although Esposito was pleased with the work of Cashman and Giacomin as assistants, he doesn&rsquo;t think it would be fair to throw such a big job at them.&ldquo;After going through it myself (he replaced Tom Webster on an interim basis after Webster&rsquo;s ear ailment flared up), after learning how difficult it is, I am looking for a man with head coaching experience. NHL, college, junior hockey or minor leagues&hellip;but I&rsquo;d like a guy who has been on his own for four or five years.&rdquo;Esposito acknowledged that he has already talked to three candidates, but he won&rsquo;t mention names. The experience of the Rangers&rsquo; Gulf and Western basketball brethren, the New York Knickerbockers, seems to have given Esposito a good idea of how not to conduct business.Almost every day in the New York media, Madison Square Garden Corporation president Richard Evans has taken a beating for his handling of the Rick Pitino-Don Nelson-Larry Brown public guess-athon.All three are candidates to fill the Knickerbockers&rsquo; coaching vacancy.&ldquo;The Knicks&rsquo; situation has no bearing on our search,&rdquo; Esposito said. &ldquo;I have received strong support from Richard Evans and I keep him abreast of every development. &ldquo;In the recent past, Ranger coaches and GMs have sparred openly&mdash;both Fred Shero and Herb Brooks with Craig Patrick, and Ted Sator with Esposito.Esposito inherited Sator as coach from previous management and, when he found their hockey philosophies didn&rsquo;t merge well, he let Sator go in favor of Webster. Then, Webster&rsquo;s health forced him to resign.&ldquo;I feel especially bad for Tom,&rdquo; Esposito said, &ldquo;because I still believe he was the right man for the job. I look back on my first season sometimes and it seems that everything that could go wrong did go wrong.&rdquo;Webster will remain as part of Esposito&rsquo;s staff at least until the Rangers hire another coach, but it is likely he will return to coach the Ontario League&rsquo;s Windsor Spitfires, the team he left for New York.BIG APPLESAUCE&mdash;University of North Dakota coach Gino Gasparini was the most prominent figure to acknowledge he had an interview set up with Phil Esposito&hellip;Esposito said Wayne Cashman and Ed Giacomin will return as assistant coaches only if the new coach wants them, and that other positions will be found for them if he does not&hellip;Pete Mahovlich was rumored to be Esposito&rsquo;s choice as coach of the Rangers&rsquo; new International League team in Den ver&hellip;Esposito said the new coach will get a two-year contract because &ldquo;that&rsquo;s as far as my contract goes.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0021-02

Field Still Large In Ranger Coaching Derby

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01676/5179494-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="175" height="133"></div>UNIONDALE, N.Y.&mdash;Of the 29 New York Islanders on the team&rsquo;s playoff roster, four become free agents (with compensation) and 16 will enter their option years on June I.General manager Bill Torrey has some work to do.Pat LaFontaine and Gerald Diduck will become Group 1 free agents. That means if another team signs them after June 1, compensation must be agreed upon between the Islanders and the signing team.If the teams cannot agree, each team submits a proposal and binding arbitration applies. That&rsquo;s how the Islanders got Brian Curran for Paul Boutilier from Boston last summer.LaFontaine, who joined the Islanders directly from the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, had the best year of his short career. He scored a career-high 38 goals, which tied him with Mike Bossy for the team lead. He scored 19 power-play goals, killed penalties and emerged as an offensive dynamo.LaFontaine, who is 22, doesn&rsquo;t want to leave Long Island&mdash;he&rsquo;s getting married this summer&mdash;and most probably won&rsquo;t. But Torontobased agent Don Meehan will have an interesting summer with Torrey. Meehan represents LaFontaine, Diduck and Toronto&rsquo;s Steve Thomas, a coveted left winger who also becomes free on June I.Randy Boyd and Steve Konroyd are Torrey&rsquo;s Group II free agents. If they are signed by another team after June I, the Islanders have the right to match the new contract and retain rights. If they refuse, they are compensated with players and/or draft picks based on a formula agreed upon between the NHL and the players&rsquo; association. The higher the players&rsquo; new salary, the greater the compensation.Bossy, Neal Coulter, Gord Dineen, Patrick Flatley, Greg Gilbert, Ari Haanpaa, Dale Henry, Tomas Jonsson, Alan Kerr, Rich Kromm, Mikko Makela, Ken Morrow, Denis Potvin, Billy Smith. Brent Sutter and Duane Sutter are all entering their option years.Bossy, whose sore back and slightly torn left knee felt better at the end of the playoffs, still plans to play next season and then retire.Potvin is leaning that way, too.Smith wants to play three more years. He said as early as November that he wanted to tack another two-year contract onto his option year and would accept a trade if the Islanders weren&rsquo;t interested.Torrey has a few players whose status he needn&rsquo;t concern himself with this summer.Two years left (one plus option): Bob Bassen, Curran, Brad Dalgarno, goalie Kelly Hrudey, Brad Lauer, Ken Leiter and Randy Wood.Three years left (two plus option): Goalie Marty Wakelyn.Five years left (four plus option): Bryan Trottier.In his final 1986-87 State-of-the-Isles address to reporters, which followed a 10minute speech to his players on break-up day, Torrey reminded the Islanders that they had been pushed back to reality by the 5-1 game seven loss to the Flyers. The 1987-88 regular season must not be a repeat of this year&rsquo;s erratic season, he said.Referring to game seven. Torrey said: &ldquo;For practical purposes, next year began at 10:40 of the first period (when the Flyers scored the second of two straight shorthanded goals). That was a gentle reminder. We lost a game and we lost it bad. They wiped us.&rdquo;First-year coach Terry Simpson, who has one year remaining on his two-year contract, allowed publication of pre-season predictions that he kept stuffed in an office drawer.During training camp, Simpson guessed his team would score 327 goals. They scored 279. From Bossy, he predicted 50 and got 38. From Trottier, he predicted 30 and got 23. From Brent Sutter, he predicted 30 and got 27. From Potvin he predicted 15 and got 12.He was far too optmistic with Greg Gilbert (15,6), Tomas Jonsson (15,6), Rich Kromm (20,12), Duane Sutter (20,14) and Mikko Makela (30,24).Only one player scored more than Simpson thought. LaFontaine scored 38, not 35 as Simpson had guessed. &#9632;

f0022-01

Busy Summer Ahead For Islanders’ GM Torrey

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02481/5179525-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="175" height="132"></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;If the Pittsburgh Penguins, as is their custom, spend all of next spring on the golf courses of North America, it will cost the franchise more than just public affection.The Penguins, who have missed the Stanley Cup playoffs for five consecutive seasons, have introduced a marketing tool believed to be unprecedented in the National Hockey League.The concept is called &ldquo;Playoff or Payoff,&rdquo; and offers season-ticket buyers a $ 1 rebate on tickets for each of the 40 home games next season if the Penguins fail to make the playoffs for the sixth consecutive year.Full, partial and 15-game seasonticket buyers who make their purchase by July 1 will be eligible for the rebate.The plan was announced in conjunction with a $2 increase on all tickets, except those in the top rows of the balconies, which will go up by $1.50.The increase will make the Penguins&rsquo; most expensive at-the-gate ticket next season $21, the cheapest $11.And while a full season-ticket buyer can save up to $120 by purchasing before July I, the proposed rebate is &gt; largely a symbolic gesture intended to lessen the impact of the price hikes. Forty dollars barely covers the cost of two tickets.&ldquo;Obviously, it&rsquo;s a token,&rdquo; Penguin vice-president Paul Martha acknow-ledged. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s never pleasant to raise ticket prices, and it was an indication we&rsquo;re willing to go a little bit if our fans are willing to go a little bit.&ldquo;Personally, 1 am abundantly confident we&rsquo;re going to make the playoffs, so the fact we offer something in the form of a rebate back to our loyal fans, I have no problem with that.&rdquo;Martha said the increases were necessary to bring the Penguins closer to fiscal parity with the rest of the Pat rick Division&mdash;never mind that physical parity has been eluding them for the better part of two decades.The Penguins&rsquo; financial problems are compounded by their lack of significant local television revenue, a key source of income for most of their divisional rivals.&ldquo;We hope (the fans) understand the theory and the philosophy behind why we&rsquo;re raising our ticket prices,&rdquo; Martha said.Martha said he expects the price hikes to generate only a minor backlash among the paying populace, which turned out in record numbers during the 1986-87 season.&ldquo;I think there may be a little bit, but our research&mdash;and we waited for a period of time until we had developed our research after the season, to see exactly where we would be&mdash;indicates although everyone&rsquo;s not going to be happy with a price increase, it may not be fatal.&ldquo;In other words, the reaction of our fans may not be as severe (as expected).&rdquo;PEN POINTS&mdash;The Penguins hoped to name a coach to replace Bob Berry, who was fired last month, by mid-May. Terry Crisp remained the overwhelming favorite. The Penguins apparently have trimmed the list of prospective sites for their primary farm team to Baltimore, where they have operated the Skipjacks for several seasons, and Muskegon, an affiliate for the past two years&hellip;The Civic Arena Corp, was still negotiating for a game between the U.S. and Soviet Olympic teams at the Civic Arena next winter, and was investigating the possibility of a U.S.-Canada game. &#9632;

f0022-02

Playoff Rebate Accompanies Price Increase

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0023-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01612/5179556-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Retired rearguard Bill Hajt remembers the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; 10-game road unbeaten streak in 1983-84 as a career highlight.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02419/5179563-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="173" height="127"></div>BUFFALO&mdash;After 14 years on the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; blue line, Bill Hajt has retired from the game.In a fashion that reflected his career style, both on and off the ice, Hajt went quietly and without fanfare.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not offical yet (that won&rsquo;t happen until July) but I&rsquo;ve retired,&rdquo; said the man who was the last active link with the 1974-75 squad that made Buffalo&rsquo;s lone Stanley Cup final appearance. &ldquo;The team knows I&rsquo;m retired.&rdquo;The action was hardly unexpected.Hajt, 36, played in just 23 games for the Sabres this past season (no goals, two assists) and nearly all of them were in the beginning of the campaign. Later in the season, a groin injury kept him out. Still later, it was clear he was the odd man out.Sabre general manager Gerry Meehan thanked Hajt for his many years of service, not all of which were appreciated.&ldquo;For many years he did not really get the credit he deserved,&rdquo; said Meehan. &ldquo;He was an unselfish and unspectacular player and because of that he never truly got the recognition that went to some other players with more flash.&ldquo;Except for last year (1986-87)&mdash;when he really didn&rsquo;t figure in our plans as much as in previous seasons&mdash;he was always an anchor of stability for us, a steady reliable player who always gave his best and never asked for special treatment. A very, very reliable player.&rdquo;Looking back on his career, Hajt takes a good deal of pride in the fact that he was a Sabre from beginning to end.Hajt was the Sabres&rsquo; third-round pick (33rd overall) in the 1971 draft, behind Rick Martin and Crain Ramsay. He spent the 1972-73 season with Cincinnati, then the Sabres&rsquo; American League affiliate. He played 66 games with the Swords in 1973-74, before joining the Sabres for six games. His first full NHL season was 1974-75.Hajt lists that year as his most memorable, and not just because the team went to the finals.Most people think of Rene Robert&rsquo;s overtime goal&mdash;that eluded Bernie Parent and found the Philadelphia Flyers net in the &ldquo;fog&rdquo; game&mdash;as the Sabres&rsquo; highlight in that series, but the Sabres wouldn&rsquo;t have reached overtime were it not for Hajt.&ldquo;Most people don&rsquo;t remember, but I scored the goal that forced the overtime,&rdquo; recalled Hajt. &ldquo;It was quite a thrill for me.&rdquo;Understandably so, in that Hajt, always a defensive stalwart, but never known for his offensive gifts, scored only two playoff goals in his career. The second one did not come until 1984-85, a full decade later.Looking back on that 1974-75 team, Hajt sided with most Sabre fans and insisted that team might well have won the series had it not been for the brilliance of Parent. He had a different view of why the Sabres failed to remain a playoff contender in the ensuing years, however.&ldquo;We lost Rick Dudley (to the World Hockey Association), and later we traded Larry Carriere (to Atlanta) for Jacques Richard. We lost a lot of character and heart there and we got nothing for them. It seems we never recovered from that. We never found the players to fill those two spots and, as our players got older, the nucleus seemed to get away.&rdquo;Hajt was twice chosen to play in the NHL all-star game (1981 and 1985), but missed both games because of injuries.He remains proud to have been part of the 1983-84 team that set the league record of 10 consecutive wins on the road.The disappointments?&ldquo;Not winning the Cup,&rdquo; said Hajt. &ldquo;Not ever getting back to the finals again. Not making the playoffs the past two seasons.&rdquo;SABREPOINTS&mdash;Bill Hajt holds the team record for most games played by a defenseman (854) and is second, behind Jerry Korab on the all-time scoring list at his position (244 to Korab&rsquo;s 283)&hellip;The Sabres still have not revealed who they will pick No. 1 overall in the upcoming entry draft, but there is considerable speculation that it will be Pierre Turgeon&hellip;Goaltender Tom Barrasso has been linked to several off-season trade rumors. Bar rasso said at season&rsquo;s end that he did not wish to be traded. Among teams rumored to have made inquires regarding Barrasso are the Chicago Blackhawks and Washington Capitals. &#9632;

f0023-01

Hajt Quietly Calls It A Career With Sabres

<h2>TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE&hellip;</h2>1. Who holds the Stanley Cup record of 14 career shutouts?2. What three current NHL coaches were in the 1980 Memorial Cup?3. What American-born NHLer was the Hart Trophy winner in 1924-25?4. Where did he hail from?5. When was the last season in which no shutouts were recorded in the Stanley Cup playoffs?6. Which NHL head coach scored tnree Stanley Cup overtime goals in his career?7. What two NHL players have scored 19 goals in one playoff year?8. Who scored Montreal&rsquo;s Stanley Cup-winning goal last season?9. Two players with the same surname scored Stanley Cupwinning goals 10 years apart for the same team. Name them.10. What player had two overtime goals in last year&rsquo;s Stanley Cup playoffs?<h2>ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ</h2>1. Jacques Plante. 2. Bryan Murray (Regina), Doug Carpenter (Cornwall), Mike Keenan (Peterborough). 3. Billy Burch. 4. Yonkers, N.Y. 5.1958-59.6. Terry O&rsquo;Reilly. 7. Reg Leach (1975-76); Jari Kurri (1984-85). 8. Bobby Smith. 9. Jean-Claude Tremblay (1967-68); MarioTremblay (1977-78). 10. ClaudeLemieux. BONUS ANSWER: Anders Hedberg.<h2>BONUS QUESTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03305/5179594-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="549" height="900"><figcaption class="caption-body">BONUS: After a spectacular career in the WHA, this Swedish-born forward played four seasons with the Rangers.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0023-03

THN HOCKEY TRIVIA

<div class="byline">BY JERRY ZGODA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01657/5179625-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="552" height="658"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mark Pavelich, above, is certain Herb Brooks will get the North Stars in shape.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02460/5179632-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="174" height="134"></div>BLOOMINGTON, Minn.&mdash;Herb Brooks will answer a lot of questions among Minnesota North Stars players when training camp opens in September.But there&rsquo;s one thing the players know already&mdash;there will be some changes when it comes to conditioning.That much has been obvious from Brooks&rsquo; first days as the Stars&rsquo; new coach. In the first move reflecting Brooks&rsquo; philosophy, the North Stars hired a strength and conditioning coach who will work with players to prevent injuries and increase skating speed.Former Minnesota high school coach Larry Hendrickson, 45, will lead an 18-week optional conditioning program, which includes three workouts a week.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not doing this because we&rsquo;re interested in hockey players becoming track stars or weightlifters,&rdquo; Brooks said. &ldquo;We just want hockey players to become better hockey players&hellip;Everything we will do will have a clear purpose. There has to be a reason for everything and conditioning is one of those things. We&rsquo;re not giving them a program just so they have something to do. I want to help them as players help them lengthen their careers, make more money, and help the team&rsquo;s success at the same time.&rdquo;Center Mark Pavelich, who is expected to play in Switzerland next season, knows things will be different for the Stars this season.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll get them in shape, there&rsquo;s no doubt about that,&rdquo; said Pavelich, who played the final month of the season with the Stars. &ldquo;1 was a little surprised with the practices, they were kind of easy, this year&hellip;He&rsquo;ll push them to get the most out of each player. Some players say you can&rsquo;t push NHL players like you can in college, but I don&rsquo;t know if that&rsquo;s true.&ldquo;You can push yourself as far as you want to go. You can keep up with his pace, but after years of being under someone else who&rsquo;s been less strict, a lot of players find it hard to adjust to Herb.&rdquo;One-on-one meetings with Brooks are already giving players an idea what he will expect. Brooks met with about a dozen players during his first two weeks on the job and plans to meet with every player before the summer is over.&ldquo;I want to introduce the importance of our summer training program and to let them know my philosophies and what makes me tick,&rdquo; Brooks said. &ldquo;But also to let me know what they expect and how 1 can make them better athletes. We want to produce an environment where we can bring the organization real close together out of that communication type of thing. I want them to go into the summer with a clean bill of mental health.&ldquo;I sincerely believe the players here realize there&rsquo;s got to be a strength of association. There&rsquo;s an intangible power that can be generated when we all work together, when we respect another&rsquo;s opinion, personality, looks, hopes. When we all do it, that logo on the front of the sweater is more important than the name on the back.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s plenty of room for individual expression. There&rsquo;s got to be; they&rsquo;re very gifted athletes and they cannot be suffocated.&rdquo;STARDUST&mdash;The North Stars said they sold 60 season tickets during the first five days of their season-ticket drive after Herb Brooks was hired. &#9632;

f0024-01

Brooks Has One Condition Of Employment

<div class="byline">BY JEFF GORDON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03313/5179663-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="173" height="130"></div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;When St. Louis Blues&rsquo; general manager Ron Caron left town to scout the Memorial Cup championships, the junior championship had to share his itinerary with trade talk.Once again, Caron has been making a full-scale attempt to land left wingers. He doesn&rsquo;t know if Brian Sutter, Eddy Beers or Kent Carlson will be able to play next season.But there is a fellow in Caron&rsquo;s backyard who is dying to help out the Blues&mdash;Perry Turnbull, the disgruntled Winnipeg Jet, ex-Blue and current St. Louis resident.Caron made a pitch for Turnbull during the season, but Jets&rsquo; general manager John Ferguson nixed the deal when Paul MacLean was injured. Caron said Ferguson then suggested Turnbull would be available after the season.Tumbull has maintained the condominium in St. Louis which he rented to Mark Hunter and then Doug Evans during the past few seasons. Turnbull&rsquo;s wife is from St. Louis and they own a travel agency here.&ldquo;I know everybody in town wants to see Tumbull come back here,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been getting calls from his friends&hellip;This guy scored 35 goals (actually 34 in his best season, 198081) for the Blues, but he didn&rsquo;t do it for Jacques Martin. There is no doubt he will be made available. They are trying to trade him. I just don&rsquo;t know if I want him or not.&rdquo;Tumbull was the Blues&rsquo; No. 1 pick in 1979, the second player taken overall. From 1980 to 1983, heaveraged33 goals a season for the Blues. Then he was shipped to the Montreal Canadiens for Greg Paslawski, Doug Wick-enheiser and Gilbert Delorme during the 1983-84 season.The Canadiens then dealt him to Winnipeg for Lucien DeBlois. Tumbull scored 22 and 20 goals for the Jets in two seasons, but scored just one goal in 26 games this year after undergoing pre-season shoulder surgery.With his career on the slide, Tumbull reportedly asked out of Winnipeg this season. In the playoffs, he suited up just once.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the reason why he didn&rsquo;t play,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;He told his coach he wanted to go. Bobby Plager went up and scouted that (Oilers-Jets) series for two games and he didn&rsquo;t dress. I&rsquo;m disappointed. They played a kid named Iain Duncan from Bowling Green.&rdquo;Turnbull, who makes about $170,000 a season, could apparently be had for next to nothing. But Caron was waiting to see who else was available before making another bid for the ex-Blue.During the season, Caron offered a No. 1 pick for the Canadiens&rsquo; Mike McPhee but was rebuffed. He is looking for a solid, all-around left winger who could kill penalties, fit into the Blues&rsquo; grinding style and perhaps help on the power play.As June 1 approached, Caron was forced to weigh his other left wing options. He was leaning toward offering Ron Flockhart a new contract and offering termination contracts to Beers and Carlson, who missed last season after undergoing back operations.Then Beers and Carlson would come to camp hoping to prove themselves healthy enough to play. And if they played, Caron could then offer them contracts for beyond the 1987-88 season. If Caron didn&rsquo;t offer them termination deals, Beers and Carlson would enter their seasons with the option for one more year.&ldquo;There is no doubt the Blues need one or two left wingers,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;Beers and Carlson don&rsquo;t look too good. Sutter looks good, but it&rsquo;s not a certainty he&rsquo;ll return.&rdquo;BLUENOTES&mdash;Coach Jacques Martin hired a conditioning consultant to test the Blues after the season and help formulate off-season conditioning programs. Martin also got new weight training equipment and set up a larger exercise room during the season. Until this year, the Blues had to scatter to various health clubs and clinics to work out&hellip;The Blues again committed to Peoria of the IHL and promised to send a larger contingent of players next season&hellip;Right winger Jim Vesey, a college division all-America from Merrimack College, was considering turning pro with the Blues instead of returning for his senior year. &#9632;

f0024-03

Blues Hunting For Wingers, Could Bring Back Turnbull

<div class="byline">By Bob Duff</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-04194/5179694-1-eng-US/f0024-042.jpg" title="f0024-04" width="443" height="451"></div>Q: I&rsquo;m a new subscriber to THE HOCKEY NEWS. NHL statistics are vital to me But when 1 get my paper, the stats are six days old. Can you give me the name and address of the statistician for THE HOCKEY NEWS?Paul Aingat, Eskimo Point. NWTA: Paul, we get our stats here at THN directly from the NHL itself each Monday on the day wc print the paper. Delivery time is what&rsquo;s keeping you from your precious stats. Anyway, you can contact the NHL at the following address: National Hockey League, 960 Sun Life Building, 115 Metcalfe Street, Montreal, Que., H3B 2W2Q: Please explain the rules for awarding a plus or minus to a player during a game?Timothy G. Roesing, Giensidc. PAA: Plus-minus statistics are calculated by giving a playera plus when on the ice for an even-strength or shorthanded goal scored by his team. A player receives a minus if on the ice for an even-strength or shortf.anded goal scored by the opposition.Q: Could you please tell me where to write to Rob Brown of the Kamploops Blazers?C. Serene, Pittsburgh, PAA: Brown, whose Blazers were recently eliminated from the Western League playoffs by Portland, can be reached at the following address; Kamloops Blazers. 737 Victoria St., Kamloops, B C. V2C 2B5Q: The regulation size of an NHL rink is 200 feet by 85 feet. Are there any current NHL rinks which do not meet this standard? Also, what arc the dimensions of the old Madision Square Garden?Edward F. Flynn, New York, NYA: There are three rinks that do not measure up to the standard&mdash;Boston Garden (191 by 83), Buffalo&rsquo;s Memorial Auditorium (196 by 85) and Chicago Stadium (185 by 85). The dimensions of the old Madison Square Garden were 186 feet by 86 feet. &#9632;

f0024-04

ASK THE DUFFER

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0025-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02376/5179725-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">This year, Sherbrooke hasn&rsquo;t had to make do without Serge Boisvert, who tasted champagne from the Stanley Cup last spring.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01574/5179732-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="172" height="128"></div>ROCHESTER, N.Y.&mdash;John Van Boxmeer of Rochester and Pierre Creamer of Sherbrooke, opposing coaches in the American League finals, are looking at this year&rsquo;s playoffs from a different perspective&mdash;behind the bench.Last season, both watched the Calder Cup carnival from the stands, scouting for talent and answering questions after their teams failed to qualify for post-season play.Rochester had opened the 1985-86 season with a 21-6-3 start, but crumbled to sixth place by season&rsquo;s end because of injuries, recalls and inexperience.Sherbrooke, hurt by recalls to Montreal late in the season, didn&rsquo;t get a chance to defend the Calder Cup title it won in 1984-85.&ldquo;It was very frustrating not making the playoffs,&rdquo; said Van Boxmeer, &ldquo;considering the fact that when we started the season last year we had such an awesome roster and it looked like it was going to be a pretty promising year.&ldquo;Then all of a sudden, with injuries and recalls, we ended up with nothing.&rdquo;Except bad memories. But the Amerks have erased those with a banner 1986-87 season. They won the Southern Division title for the first time in four years, then knocked off Hershey and Binghamton to reach the finals for the first time in three years.&ldquo;Last year, everyone was questioning my coaching ability,&rdquo; said Van Boxmeer. who replaced Jim Schoenfeld as Amerks&rsquo; skipper during the &lsquo;8485 season. &ldquo;They probably thought that maybe this guy has no business being a coach.&ldquo;When it&rsquo;s your first full season and your team doesn&rsquo;t make the playoffs, there&rsquo;s going to be a lot of second-guessing and speculation on your future.&rdquo;Many Rochester fans were angry at Van Boxmeer for letting favorites like Gcordie Robertson, Val James and Lou Crawford go to different organizations two years ago. Losing and failing to make the playoffs didn&rsquo;t help his status among the War Memorial faithful.&ldquo;This is a tough city to coach in,&rdquo; Van Boxmeer said. &ldquo;Every city is tough when you&rsquo;re losing, but when you&rsquo;re getting 7,000 people in the building, there are more people questioning you.&ldquo;You start to wonder, what am I doing in this job? You see signs in the building, &lsquo;Fire the Coach,&rsquo; &lsquo;Dump the Coach,&rsquo; and you wonder&mdash;is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life? Is the aggravation worth the rewards?&ldquo;But when you have a good team, and you have players that come to play every night and are team players that want to win and want to work, then it&rsquo;s all worth it.&rdquo;Creamer knows the feeling, too. In 1984-85, his Canadiens scraped to finish in a tie for third in the Northern Division, barely securing a playoff spot. Then, with the addition of juniors Stephane Richer, Patrick Roy and Bobby Dollas from the junior ranks, the Canadiens got hot in the playoffs and won the Cup by beating Baltimore in the finals.&ldquo;The coach is only as good as the players he&rsquo;s got,&rdquo; Creamer said.Last season, the Canadiens finished next to last, but Creamer expected the worst when Montreal recalled Claude Lemieux, John Kordic and Serge Boisvert late in the season. All three had their names engraved on the Stanley Cup after Montreal clipped Calgary in the finals.&ldquo;I knew that my chances of making the playoffs were very, very thin after losing them,&rdquo; Creamer said. &ldquo;You have to face those things sometimes.This year the high-scoring Boisvert has remained with Sherbrooke.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to put extra pressure on myself and say, &lsquo;1 have to win all the time.&rsquo; It depends on the horses we&rsquo;ve got&mdash;and for us, the horses weren&rsquo;t there last year.&rdquo;Most were in Montreal, a fact Creamer readily accepted.&ldquo;The farm team has to suffer for the big club,&rdquo; Creamer said. &ldquo;If we&rsquo;re not doing that, if the big club is thinking about the small club, then I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s right.&ldquo;Our priority as a farm club is to develop hockey players. Our responsibility is to make sure the guys we have here are learning and playing good hockey.&rdquo;Creamer has done his job. Sherbrooke allowed the league&rsquo;s fewest goals and led the league with 50 wins and 102 points. It earned home-ice advantage in the finals after ousting Nova Scotia and defending-champ Adirondack, each in five games.The Canadiens got the early jump on their second title in three years by beating the Amerks 7-5, in game one of the finals.&ldquo;Like I told the players,&rdquo; Creamer said, &ldquo;when you&rsquo;re playing hockey in May, it&rsquo;s a sign of a great season.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0025-02

The Minors

Last Year’s Also-Rans This Year’s Finalists

<div class="byline">BY BILL PICKETT</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03252/5179763-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="151" height="130"></div>SAGINAW, Mich.&mdash;Say &ldquo;playoffs&rdquo; to Darin Sceviour and his eyes light up&mdash;then he lights up the goal lamps behind opposing netminders.A year ago, he joined the Saginaw Generals late in the season from Nova Scotia of the American League and set a franchise playoff record, with eight goals in 11 games.He was even hotter this season.The 21-year-old right winger from Red Deer, Alta., rejoined the Generals in January. In 10 Turner Cup playoff contests, he upped that record to 10 goals.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s just something about playoffs,&rdquo; said Sceviour, Chicago&rsquo;s fifth pick, 101st overall, in the 1984 entry draft.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a different kind of hockey compared with the regular season. I don&rsquo;t know if I do anything different, it&rsquo;s hard to say. Basically, I guess our line (with Brad MacGregor and Guy Jacob) was quick. We played very well.&rdquo;Sceviour had 82 goals in three seasons with Lethbridge of the Western League, before Chicago assigned him to Nova Scotia for the 1985-86 season. He scored four goals in 31 games, then joined Saginaw, where he added nine goals in 24 games.Earlier this season, Sceviour was at training camp in Calgary with the Canadian national team, when he tore a muscle near the top of his hip. That kept him out of action for a month, but he was able to join Saginaw at the start of the year.He skated himself into shape and picked up 13 goals in 37 games, as Saginaw claimed second place in the East Division behind Muskegon.In the opening playoff round, Sceviour scored the tying and winning goals, as the Generals eliminated Flint in game six. A year earlier, he scored the winning goal in overtime in game six, as Saginaw sidelined Kalamazoo.The 5-foot-10 winger was deadly accurate against Flint, scoring on seven of 33 shots. Against Muskegon, he struck three times in 19 shots.Despite Sceviour&rsquo;s success, the Generals bowed to the Lumberjacks in four straight games.One of the main reasons for their lack of success against the defending Turner Cup-champion Lumberjacks was lack of punch on the power play, after a good series against the Generals.&ldquo;We were 50 per cent on the power play against Flint,&rdquo; coach Dennis Desrosiers said, giving much of the credit to veteran defenseman Greg Tebbutt.But Tebbutt missed games two and three against Muskegon, when he went home to attend his father&rsquo;s funeral.Muskegon won 4-1, 6-3, 4-3 in-overtime, and 7-1.In the West Division finals, the Salt Lake Golden Eagles shocked the regular-season champion Fort Wayne Komets by eliminating them in five games.The two teams split a pair of 3-2 games at Fort Wayne, but the Golden Eagles exploded for 5-3, 9-3 and 5-4 victories in the Salt Palace.The best-of-seven Turner Cup finals, between the Lumberjacks and the Golden Eagles, started May 9 in Muskegon.I-LITES&mdash;Saginaw&rsquo;s Michel Mongeau earned the Longman Trophy as rookie of the year, in voting by league coaches. In 76 games with the Generals, Mongeau had 95 points, including 42 goals&hellip;Goaltender Ray LeBlanc of Flint won the McKenzie Trophy, as U.S.-bom rookie of the year. He won 33 games for the Spirits (who won a total of 42) and was second to Milwaukee&rsquo;s Rob Holland in wins. Holland had 34&hellip;IHL commissioner Bud Poile says any plans to include Kansas City in the league next season are off. &ldquo;We were trying to work a deal with them and the L.A. Kings,&rdquo; said Poile, &ldquo;but the Kings are going to stay in New Haven.&rdquo; He indicated there still was a possibility Toledo would rejoin the league next season. &ldquo;As of now we&rsquo;re looking only to Denver and, perhaps, Toledo as far as expansion next season is concerned,&rdquo; he said. &#9632;

f0025-03

Saginaw’s Sniper Sceviour Thrived In Playoff Action

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01606/5179794-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="176" height="135"></div>GLENS FALLS, N.Y.&mdash;Without fanfare or objection, the American League has decided to cut its rosters by two players for the 1987-88 season.Instead of dressing 18 skaters and two goaltenders, teams will be limited to 16 and two, under a measure approved recently by the AHL&rsquo;s board of governors. The measure, generated by the league&rsquo;s development committee, passed by a vote of 12-1. Sherbrooke Canadiens (Montreal&rsquo;s affiliate) voted against the proposal.The change in roster size is, in large part, intended to appease unhappy National Hockey League sponsors and halt the loss of parent teams to the International League. Four teams that operated affiliates in the AHL this season&mdash;Calgary, Chicago, Minnesota and the New York Rangers&mdash;are moving to the IHL next year.The IHL has a similar 16-skater limit.Curiously, though, the loss of the four will not affect the size of the AHL. In fact, the league is likely to have 14 members, up from the current 13, for the first time in its history.The status of the Baltimore Skipjacks, the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; affiliate, remains in question. If the Skipjacks return, the league will grow to 14 teams. The new city is Utica, N.Y., where the New Jersey Devils are placing a team.A significant change, with the departure of the four NHL teams, is the return to single affiliations. During the 1986-87 season, seven clubs had two NHL parents. In 1987-88, only two teams&mdash;Binghamton (Washington and Hartford) and Fredericton (Vancouver and Quebec) will have two sponsors.AHL governors began work on adjustments in operating policy during the Rendezvous &lsquo;87 break in the NHL schedule, when it became apparent that at least two teams would move to the IHL.&ldquo;The basis behind the whole thing is that there are some teams that are leaving the American League to go look at other options,&rdquo; said Neil Smith, Adirondack&rsquo;s general manager and a member of the development committee.&ldquo;There were a lot of complaints around the league that people were not concerned enough with development. They were saying that it wasn&rsquo;t acting as much as a development league as it was as a win-loss situation.&rdquo;The dissatisfied members&rsquo; major complaint was that it had become neccessary to sign older players for their AHL teams to make them competitive. They said that the AHL veterans were an unneccessary expense and often occupied roster spots that should go to young players still considered prospects.&ldquo;What has happened is that we don&rsquo;t want to lose too many of our sponsors, our NHL affiliates, so we asked ourselves, what could we do?&rdquo; said Smith. &ldquo;First of all, we want to take care of the teams that are in the league and have a real commitment; and second, (we want) to stop anybody from leaving. We don&rsquo;t want to lose franchises.&ldquo;The second consideration was, with teams leaving, that means more teams are going to go with single sponsors. As a single sponsor, it&rsquo;s pretty tough to now put in 22 players when you&rsquo;re all by yourself. We&rsquo;ve been doing it in Adirondack for a long time and are used to it, but there are teams that aren&rsquo;t used to it and didn&rsquo;t want to start doing it.&rdquo;Smith says the roster cut will affect clubs three ways.&ldquo;First, when you can only dress 16 and two,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;obviously, prospects are going to play&mdash;because you can&rsquo;t play your veterans and leave your prospects sitting in the stands. It takes away that tempation.&ldquo;The second thing is that you don&rsquo;t have to go out and sign guys to be competitive. Everybody is going to be playing prospects against prospects, basically. When you do that, we all should be pretty competitive as long as we&rsquo;ve drafted okay.&rdquo;The third factor, according to Smith, is that teams hit by injuries and recalls won&rsquo;t find themselves playing against opponents with five or six more skaters. Smith says a team with 13 or 14 skaters can compete against 16. That generally isn&rsquo;t the case with 20-man rosters.AROUND THE DIVISION&mdash;Maine Hockey Partners, the group headed by former Maine Mariners&rsquo; president Ed Anderson, announced that it had signed a five-year player development agreement with the Boston Bruins. While it is possible that the team will continue to be called the Mariners, the club will switch to the Bruins&rsquo; black and gold uniforms&hellip;The addition of Utica&mdash;and the retention of New Haven, Maine and Baltimore&mdash;is likely to force the AHL to realign its divisions. One proposal has seventeam East and West divisions. Springfield and New Haven would move to the East with Maine, Sherbrooke, Moncton, Fredericton and Nova Scotia. That would allow Adirondack and Utica to be in a division with Binghamton, Rochester, Newmarket, Hershey and Baltimore&hellip;Glenn Merkosky and Geordie Robertson, Adirondack&rsquo;s scoring leaders the past two seasons, are heading to Europe. Merkosky, who scored 54 goals last season, will play in West Germany. Robertson has agreed to play for a team in Switzerland. &#9632;

f0026-01

AHL Clubs Cut To 16 Skaters, Two Goalies

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02420/5179825-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0026-02

The Hockey News Classified

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01570/5179856-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="174" height="132"></div>GUELPH, Ont.&mdash;Guelph Platers have a new lease on life, a new coach and an age-old problem.Well, hardly a problem&hellip;but a topic of conversation, anyway.The Platers, who recently came to terms on a five-year lease at Memorial Gardens, went from having the OHL&rsquo;s youngest coach to its oldest.But neither the old guy (the new coach) nor the young guy (the old coach) put much emphasis on age. And for that matter, neither does anyone involved with him.Floyd Crawford, who has been involved in hockey as player and coach for close to 50 years, has signed a two-year contract with the Platers.He replaces 25-year-old Rob Holody, the Plater general manager who took over the coaching duties before Christmas, following the firing of Gary Spoar.&ldquo;You&rsquo;re only as old as you feel,&rdquo; said the amiable Crawford, &ldquo;and I don&rsquo;t feel old. Age is only a number.&rdquo;While refusing to give his exact age&mdash;&rdquo;I&rsquo;ve got nine kids and I&rsquo;m not quite sure of any of their ages&rdquo;&mdash;Crawford did laughingly admit to being older than any other current OHL coach.Holody, who masterminded Guelph&rsquo;s Memorial Cup triumph of 1986 as a 24-year-old GM, said age was never a factor in his search for a coach.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a life-long hockey man, a hard-working honest gentleman who&rsquo;s had success at the minor and major junior levels.&ldquo;Dad (Platers&rsquo; owner Joe Holody) and I are very excited and feel very fortunate to have landed Floyd. Age has nothing to do with anything.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Old is a state of mind and I like Floyd&rsquo;s state of mind very much.&rsquo;&mdash;Joe Holody</blockquote>Crawford coached the-Cornwall Royals to a 34-30-2 record in 1984-85, his first season with the club. The mark remains the best the Royals have put together since entering the OHL from the Quebec League in 1981.But fewer than two months into the 1985-86 season, Crawford quit as Royal coach to protest the dismissal of his friend Gord Wood as the team&rsquo;s director of player personnel. He acted as an assistant coach for his hometown Belleville Bulls for the remainder of the season and guided a midget club this past year.&ldquo;I will tell you something,&rdquo; Wood said, following the hiring of Crawford by the Platers. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll have that team in good shape if the players know what&rsquo;s good for them.&ldquo;Floyd&rsquo;s a hockey man&hellip;A guy who knows his stuff. He&rsquo;s fair but tough. He knows how to relate to the young kids. And I&rsquo;ll tell you something else&mdash;if the players don&rsquo;t put out, it won&rsquo;t be a happy time in Sleepy Hollow.&rdquo;Wood, who spent 15 years with Cornwall, and who is now with the Kingston Canadians as an assistant general manager, scoffed at the mention of Guelph having the league&rsquo;s oldest coach.&ldquo;None of that amounts to a hill of beans,&rdquo; he snapped. &ldquo;I know coaches in this league&mdash;younger guys who are supposed to have all of the brains&mdash;but some of them wouldn&rsquo;t know a hockey stick from a pile of horse&hellip;.&rdquo;At any rate, Crawford takes over a team which slid to sixth place and a first-round playoff exit, following its Memorial Cup championship of 1986.But the man who has three sons playing pro hockey&mdash;Bobby with the Washington Capitals&rsquo; organization, Marc with the Vancouver Canucks, and Louis with the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; organization&mdash;said he feels good about the Plater organization as a whole.&ldquo;One of the reasons that 1 took the job was because of the great respect 1 have for the Holodys and the entire group there&hellip;They&rsquo;ve got a top scouting staff, which I&rsquo;m certain will provide me with the best available players. And we have some good ones coming back.&rdquo;Meanwhile, Joe Holody, the Plater owner, announced he has reached agreement with the city of Guelph on a five-year lease at the 4,000-seat Memorial Gardens.Holody had threatened to sell the team to investors from Owen Sound or Niagara Falls if he didn&rsquo;t get a better deal from the city.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s just say that the new deal is a heck of a lot better than the one we got when we came into the league five years ago,&rdquo; said Holody. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m comfortable with the new deal and happy that we were able to keep major junior hockey in Guelph.&rdquo;Holody, like his his son, expressed delight at having Crawford as his new coach.&ldquo;If the circumstances had have been right, Floyd would have been the coach last season,&rdquo; said Holody. &ldquo;But in that we didn&rsquo;t know if we&rsquo;d be in Guelph for more than a year, I didn&rsquo;t feel it would be fair to ask Floyd to uproot his family and move here from Belleville.&rdquo;The elder Holody laughed out loud when asked what he thought about having the OHL&rsquo;s oldest coach.&ldquo;Old? Who in the heck is old? Floyd&rsquo;s not old. Floyd is only a great guy and a great coach.&ldquo;Hell, old? He can have the job forever if he wants it&hellip;for the rest of his life. And I&rsquo;ll bet you, young man. that he&rsquo;ll be around a long time.&ldquo;Old? Would you call your father old? Old is a state of mind and I like Floyd&rsquo;s state of mind very much.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK&mdash;The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, plagued by dwindling attendance in the past two years, have placed an advertisement in THE HOCKEY NEWS for a public relations-marketing director&hellip;Despite rumors that have him moving elsewhere, Bill LaForge will apparently return for another season as coach and general manager of the Hamilton Steelhawks. Steelhawk defenseman Dennis Vial said LaForge told all of the players at the year-end banquet that he&rsquo;d be back in &lsquo;87-88. &#9632;

f0027-01

The Juniors

Everything New Is Old Again With Platers

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02367/5179901-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="363" height="462"><figcaption class="caption-body">DEREK KING Oshawa</figcaption></div><h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>Oshawa won the league championship in a seven-game showdown with North Bay and the man who provided the offensive punch was Derek King.The Generals&rsquo; left winger scored 1 7 times in the playoffs and counted two game-winning goals. He earned the nod as OHL Player of the Week.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-03238/5179894-1-eng-US/f0027-032.jpg" title="f0027-03" width="354" height="468"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARK PEDERSON Medicine Hat</figcaption></div><h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>Center Mark Pederson sparked the Medicine Hat Tigers&rsquo; comeback win to grab the championship in the final seven-game series with Portland.Pederson scored five times in the last four games as the Tigers overcame a 3-1 deficit and won the series 4-3. Pederson was picked WHL player of the Week.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-04163/5179887-1-eng-US/f0027-042.jpg" title="f0027-04" width="360" height="462"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARC SAUMIER Longueuil</figcaption></div><h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>The Longueuil Chevaliers breezed to the league title against Chicoutimi, winning in five games as right winger Marc Saumier led the charge.Saumier, the playoff MVP, counted 14 points in the five-game final and was chosen QMJHL Player of the Week. He had 41 points in 20 playoff games.At the end of the current season, THE HOCKEY NEWS will select a Micron Junior Player of the Year. &#9632;

f0027-02

MICRON JUNIOR PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

<div class="byline">BY BEN KUZMA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01577/5179932-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="174" height="130"></div>CALGARY&mdash;Calgary Wranglers may not have been a hot item on the ice this Western League season, but they&rsquo;ve certainly been a hot commodity off it.The financially-strapped Wranglers, who finished seventh in the eightteam Eastern Division with a 23-46-3 record, are expected to be sold and relocated next season.The Wranglers could move to Lethbridge or even Tri-Cities, Wash., which is bidding for a franchise.While the Lethbridge interest has been known for some time, the TriCities venture is a new angle in this franchise game.And what makes the game most intriguing is the fact the Wranglers have allegedly been for sale since the middle of the season, yet WHL board chairman Brian Shaw said he has not received official notification that owner Brian Ekstrom has actually put the team on the market.But that hasn&rsquo;t stopped parties from knocking on the Wranglers&rsquo; door.A 4,500-seat arena is being constructed in the Tri-Cities area of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, located 160 miles west of Spokane. Arena builder Jess Beltin has expressed interest in having a major tenant, namely a WHL club, occupy the facility next season.Shaw, also general manager of Portland Winter Hawks, would like to spearhead a drive to have a WHL team in place by next season, providing the Tri-Cities facility would be ready in time.As expected, there are several hurdles to clear. A party must first be found to purchase the Wranglers, the transaction must be approved by the board of governors and front-office positions would have to be filled.But Shaw is confident that could all be done in a hurry.&ldquo;If we can be guaranteed it (arena) will be ready in time you&rsquo;ll see a stampede,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;New Westminster has been in touch too (with Tri-Cities) and as early as a year ago Victoria was looking there, too.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m not going to jump on the bandwagon until I see something that guarantees the building will be ready.&rdquo;Shaw added there could be a problem even though the consensus is the Wranglers are for sale. The elusive Ekstrom has not officially said so.&ldquo;Somebody has to say they&rsquo;re for sale,&rdquo; Shaw said. &ldquo;He (Ekstrom) has not returned my calls and who knows, he may have an ace up his sleeve we don&rsquo;t know about.&rdquo;The WHL was checking into the TriCities interest. League president Ed Chynoweth was scheduled to visit the site and meet with the contractor.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a geographically good location,&rdquo; said Chynoweth of the Tri-Cities area, which has a population of 175,000. &ldquo;The league wouldn&rsquo;t have a problem with the location. At this point, the Tri-Cities is premature, they don&rsquo;t have a facility. But I&rsquo;m prepared to look the thing over.&rdquo;In Lethbridge, the facility is there, but it&rsquo;s going to take convincing to bring a WHL franchise back to the southern Alberta city.Lethbridge was left without a WHL team when the Broncos were sold and relocated in Swift Current, Sask., last summer. But a group of Lethbridge businessmen has been lobbying for another franchise and believes the Wranglers will be sold to them.&ldquo;If we&rsquo;re going to get this thing going for next season we&rsquo;ve got to have the team right now,&rdquo; said Lethbridge consortium member Joe Feller. &ldquo;Am I optimistic about getting the team? Oh yeah, very. I think things will be worked out soon.&rdquo;&ldquo;I think the move is imminent.&rdquo;Not everybody would welcome such a move.&ldquo;I think there are other places it (franchise) should go,&rdquo; responded Shaw. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s in the best interests of the league to go to Tri-Cities. Lethbridge has already proved it can&rsquo;t support a team.&rdquo;If the Wranglers do relocate in Lethbridge, there is speculation the Victoria Cougars will move to Tri-Cities and an expansion franchise will be awarded to Victoria.WHL WEEK&mdash;Medicine Hat Tigers, the WHL&rsquo;s version of the Cardiac Kids, did it again in the league championship series to earn a berth in the Memorial Cup. After falling behind 2-1 and 3-2 in the best-of-seven series with Portland Winter Hawks, the Tigers rallied to force a seventh game on home ice. It was no contest as the Tigers cruised to a 7-2 triumph, with Ron Bonora and Mark Pederson each scoring twice. Medicine Hat, which last captured a WHL crown in 197273, was down 2-1 in games to both Saskatoon Blades and Moose Jaw Warriors in earlier series and compiled a 4-0 playoff mark when facing elimination. Pederson led Medicine Hat in the playoffs with 19 goals in 20 games. &#9632;

f0028-01

The Wrangling Is On Over Calgary Franchise

<div class="byline">BY RICK MAYOH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02403/5179963-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="174" height="131"></div>OSHAWA, Ont.&mdash;Longueuil Chevaliers&rsquo; goaltender Bobby Desjardins figures that if he isn&rsquo;t selected in the 1987 National Hockey League entry draft, it won&rsquo;t be for lack of exposure.The spectacular 5-foot-5, 155-pound goalkeeper was representing the Quebec League in a Memorial Cup for the third consecutive year.With his third QMJHL club.&ldquo;I kept thinking, &lsquo;If I go to the Memorial Cup one more time, they can&rsquo;t miss me,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Desjardins, who helped the Shawinigan Cataractes reach the championship game in 1985, then took the Hull Olympiques to the title match in 1986.Chevaliers&rsquo; coach Guy Chouinard, whose National Hockey League career spanned 10 seasons, was also making his third trip to the Memorial Cup. Chouinard, who skated for the Quebec Remparts in the 1974 and 1975 national major junior title tournaments, credited Desjardins with the Chevs&rsquo; QMJHL championship.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s probably the main reason we finished first this year,&rdquo; said Chouinard. &ldquo;After winding up 10th last season (among 10 teams), we had to build a winning attitude and he brought that to the team. From Day 1, he was outstanding. The team relied on him and he was a real confidencebuilder. He was our MVP this year.&rdquo;Chouinard described Desjardins as a reflex goalie, similar in style to Mario Gosselin of the Quebec Nordiques.&ldquo;He won&rsquo;t come out to challenge that much and he uses his glove a lot. He&rsquo;s got a lot of confidence and he likes to play a lot. People are always saying he&rsquo;s too small, but I think he&rsquo;s proven he can play. I really think he deserves to be drafted.&rdquo;Desjardins won the Jacques Plante Trophy as the QMJHL&rsquo;s top goalie in 1985-86, after posting a 29-12-0 record and 3.32 goals-against average with Hull. The previous year with Shawinigan, he missed being eligible for the trophy by fewer than two games, but led non-qualifying goaltenders (less than 2,200 minutes of playing time) with a 3.43 average.Desjardins led the QMJHL again this season with Longueuil, compiling a 32-14-4 record and 3.27 average.He said this year&rsquo;s Memorial Cup was different: &ldquo;In the first two, we were relying on one big line. With Shawinigan, it was Sergio Momesso, Mario Belanger and Marc Damphousse. And even though we had a pretty good defense in Hull, we depended on Luc Robitaille and Guy Rouleau.&ldquo;This year is more balanced, and defense is what we relied on to win. We played a system with the third man always high (in the slot) and cleared the puck out of our own zone fast.&rdquo;Backed by a defense that includes Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; 1985 sixthrounder Donald Dufresne, potential NHL first-rounder Yves Racine, big (6-foot-2, 192-pounds) Don McGrath, Andre Brassard, Guy Darveau, Alex Fortin and Michel Thibodeau, the Chevs allowed only 237 goals this season. That was 50 fewer than the total allowed by the Granby Bisons, the QMJHL&rsquo;s next-best defensive team.Although Longueuil didn&rsquo;t have any players among the league&rsquo;s top 10 scorers during the regular season, the line of Marc Saumier (15-26-41), Marc Bureau (17-20-37) and Mario DeBenedictis (16-19-35) wound up second, fifth and sixth, respectively, in playoff scoring.The Chevaliers captured the best-of-seven QMJHL championship by beating the Chicoutimi Sagueneens in five games, capped by a 10-4 win in which Longueuil scored eight consecutive goals.&ldquo;Longueuil was better balanced and their defense was stronger,&rdquo; said Chicoutimi coach Gaston Drapeau.QUEBEC CACHE&mdash;Sags&rsquo; center Marc Fortier set a league record for playoff assists with 40 and added the post-season scoring title to his regular-season crown, with 51 points in 19 games. &#9632;

f0028-02

Goalie Quebec League’s Lucky Charm

<h2>Mon. May 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02342/5180057-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="564" height="838"></div><h2>Tue. May 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-03222/5180050-1-eng-US/f0029-032.jpg" title="f0029-03" width="540" height="174"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-04155/5180043-1-eng-US/f0029-042.jpg" title="f0029-04" width="546" height="566"></div><h2>Wed. May 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-05134/5180036-1-eng-US/f0029-052.jpg" title="f0029-05" width="548" height="496"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-06110/5180029-1-eng-US/f0029-062.jpg" title="f0029-06" width="554" height="310"></div><h2>Thur. May 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-0792/5180022-1-eng-US/f0029-072.jpg" title="f0029-07" width="552" height="758"></div><h2>Fri. May 8</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-0882/5180015-1-eng-US/f0029-082.jpg" title="f0029-08" width="560" height="612"></div><h2>Sat. May 9</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-0977/5180008-1-eng-US/f0029-092.jpg" title="f0029-09" width="550" height="438"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1069/5180001-1-eng-US/f0029-102.jpg" title="f0029-10" width="540" height="298"></div><h2>Sun. May 10</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1164/5179994-1-eng-US/f0029-112.jpg" title="f0029-11" width="546" height="786"></div> &#9632;

f0029-02

NHL SUMMARIES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01569/5180119-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0030-01

The Hockey News NHL PLAYOFF REPORT

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0032-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01546/5180150-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0032-01

SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0033-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01490/5180181-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg"></div><h2>Book Reviews</h2><h3>Search For the Lost Art</h3>It&rsquo;s been said that stickhandling is a lost art. The purpose of this book is to help you find it. &ldquo;Search For The Lost Art&rdquo; is an easy-to-follow guide to improve your stickhandling ability. Gone are the days when young hockey players played from dawn till dusk on frozen ponds. No longer does a player have to stickhandle through what seems like hundreds of players to get to the opposition&rsquo;s goal. &ldquo;Search For The Lost Art&rdquo; will show you some of those techniques that seem to be long lost.With the aid of &ldquo;Tootsie,&rdquo; a colorful cartoon character, author Real Turcotte will take you through with step-by-step diagrams how to improve your stickhandling for lefties or righties. The ideal tool for the hockey player who constantly finds the puck somewhere other than on the end of his stick.<h3>Ballard</h3>The book that Harold Ballard never wanted to see in print. This is the unauthorized biography of the outrageous owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Author William Houston has provided us with a seldom seen look behind the closed doors of Maple Leaf Gardens. The Toronto Maple Leafs were once a Canadian institution but now are regarded as a circus by many observers, with Ballard as the ringmaster. The book chronicles Ballard&rsquo;s rise to power from a life-of-the party type in the Roaring Twenties to a multi-millionaire in the Eighties.The book is divided into two parts. The 83-year-old Ballard&rsquo;s life story and his infamous dealings with the media. You&rsquo;ll read about Ballard&rsquo;s relationships with the Smythe family (previous Leaf owners), King Clancy, his players, his coaches, and, of course, the reporters.Close attention is paid to the many on-going fueds that have been developed over the years as Ballard came to public prominence.Harold Ballard has often stated that his dream is to win the Stanley Cup. Many people believe all he cares about is himself. Read &ldquo;Ballard&rdquo; and make up your own mind.<h3>Offside</h3>Although never one to shy away from controversy, Stan Fischler has outdone himself this time. He calls it as he sees it. In &ldquo;Offside&rdquo; he se2 the National Hockey League as a &ldquo;propaganda machine&rdquo; and goes about trying to rip it down. The author goes behind-the-scenes to give us a look at the NHL&rsquo;s power brokers. Fischler speaks his mind. How officials are ruining the game by playing favorites on the ice. How the league tries to censor commentary from the broadcast booth. How too much money gained too fast is ruining the game. This re-spected hockey expert simply does not pull any punches. Fischler has been a keen hockey observer for 35 years. He knows the game and everyone involved in its operation. He reveals things about players, coaches, owners, agents, managers and league officials that no one involved in the game likes to hear. Except the fans! &#9632;

f0033-01

BOOK LOCKER

<div class="byline">BY MURRAY TOWNSEND</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01559/5180233-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="508" height="565"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jean Perron</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02436/5180226-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="515" height="560"><figcaption class="caption-body">Michel Bergeron</figcaption></div>Don Cherry says the best way to judge a coach is by how well he does in the playoffs.His reasoning is that when the games are most important, and there is more preparation time, the coach&rsquo;s bearing on the outcome of games is greatest.Listed below are all current NHL coaches, or those that finished the season as coaches in the cases of Bob Pulford (Chicago), Phil Esposito (Rangers) and Bob Berry (Pittsburgh), and their all-time playoff winloss records, both as favorites and underdogs.A favored team is one that had more points&mdash;or wins, if the teams were tied&mdash;during the regular season than its opponent.Coaches&rsquo; playoff records include all series up to this season&rsquo;s conference finals. The highly-emotional. Michel Bergeon leads all current coaches with five series victories as an underdog. Jean Perron of Montreal, meanwhile, had yet to lose a series. As a benchmark, the great Al Arbour had a 28-9 record, including a 10-7 mark in series the New York Islanders were not favored to win.<h2>Playoff Coaching Records</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03336/5180219-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="774" height="660"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04241/5180212-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="350" height="587"><figcaption class="caption-body">Glen Sather</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0034-01

Bergeron Achiever In Underdog Role

<div class="byline">BY JEFF Z. KLEIN AND KARL-ERIC REIF</div>Unless the Edmonton Oilers develop into a dynasty, there appears to be one record safe from Wayne Gretzky&mdash;most points scored in Stanley Cup final series.Gretzky has scored 21 points in three final series, typically remark-able production for No. 99 but a long way from Jean Beliveau&rsquo;s mark of 62 in 12 finals with the Montreal Canadiens.Players listed in the chart below appeared in final series from 1939 (the first year of best-of-seven finals) to 1986. The number of series, goals, assists and points to each&rsquo;s credit is included. For comparative purposes, career totals of the topscoring current players, whose teams stood a chance of making this year&rsquo;s finals, are also listed.<h2>Final Series Scoring Leaders (1939-86)</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-05186/5180278-1-eng-US/f0034-052.jpg" title="f0034-05" width="581" height="628"></div><h2>Leaders Among This Year&rsquo;s Conference Finalists</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-06159/5180271-1-eng-US/f0034-062.jpg" title="f0034-06" width="566" height="265"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-07146/5180264-1-eng-US/f0034-072.jpg" title="f0034-07" width="1133" height="1143"><figcaption class="caption-body">Red Kelly</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0034-05

Beliveau Top Gun

<div class="byline">BY LARRY HUMBER</div>&bull; Number of times player from a non-Cup-winning team has cap-tured the Conn Smythe Trophy, which goes to the outstanding playoff performer: 3. (The Red Wings&rsquo; Roger Crozier in 1966, the Blues&rsquo; Glenn Hall in 1968 and the Flyers&rsquo; Reg Leach in 1976).&bull; Number of players aged 35 or older on the rosters of the 21 NHL teams at the beginning of the 1986-87 season: 8.Number of such players on the roster of the 1967 Maple Leafs, Toronto&rsquo;s last Cup winners: 7 (George Armstrong, Johnny Bower, Tim Horton, Red Kelly, Marcel Pronovost, Terry Sawchuk and Allan Stanley).&bull; Number of Americans who have coached a Stanley Cup-winner:1 (Bill Stewart, coach of the 1938 Cup-winning Chicago Blackhawks).&bull; According to Hall of Fame curator Lefty Reid, amount of time the reigning Stanley Cup champions are allowed to keep the trophy after winning it: 2-3 weeks.&bull; According to Pat Croce, physical conditioning consultant to the Philadelphia Flyers, percentage of professional athletes who should be able to bend their legs back and touch their heels to their backsides: 100&bull; Pierre Turgeon&rsquo;s weight in pounds at 12 years of age: 200. &#9632;

Age-Old Question Answered By Leafs

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-08137/5180333-1-eng-US/f0034-082.jpg" title="f0034-08" width="176" height="135"></div>LANDOVER, Md.&mdash;After the Washington Capitals were eliminated by the New York Islanders, general manager David Poile made a statement that was widely greeted with derision.&ldquo;Everybody talked about how the; Islanders were missing Denis Potvin, Mike Bossy and Brent Sutter, but nobody seemed to pick up on the fact that we were missing Craig Laughlin, John Barrett and, in the last game, Alan Haworth,&rdquo; Poile said.Recognizing the disbelief in the eyes of his audience, Poile was quick to add that he was not comparing the players&rsquo; abilities, merely pointing out that the Capitals were running short of bodies.If anything, the series against the Islanders confirmed the Capitals&rsquo; lack of depth.Until the trade that brought Mike Ridley and Kelly Miller to Washington Jan. 1, the Capitals were pressed to put three solid lines on the ice, never mind four. Even after their acquisition, there were nights when Washington dressed seven defensemen and, in the absence of a 12th forward, Garry Galley, Scott Stevens and Kevin Hatcher saw duty on the wing.When Haworth was unable to play in the deciding game, the Capitals summoned center Grant Martin from Binghamton. Martin filled in capably, but he already has been found wanting in the long run, is completing a termination contract and expects to play in Europe next season.The Capitals&rsquo; major problem over the past five years, other than their inability to survive for long in the playoffs, has been their drafting position. When they pick 15th on June 13, they will be exercising their highest selection since 1982, when they drafted Stevens fifth overall.Nobody is writing off subsequent first-rounders Hatcher, Yvon Corriveau and Jeff Greenlaw, but none of them looked like a game-breaker this season. Second-round picks Steve Leach, John Druce and Steve Seftel loom as possibilities for future depth, no more.The Capitals tried to inject some youth last fall, but players such as Greenlaw, Corriveau, Leach and Paul Cavallini were unable to make the big step. David Jensen and Ed Kastelic stayed around, but neither made much of a contribution. The only plus was Michal Pivonka, who gave glimpses of bigger things to come.With some of the older players showing signs of decline, Poile faces a major task this summer of acquiring depth and convincing certain holdov ers that they can be replaced.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re a team not blessed with much depth. We have four lines at best and we need contributions from all the forwards to win close games,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;We have to continue to strive to get more depth.&ldquo;We want to stay within the organization as much as possible. We have some prospects and some competition. Some guys are going to be pushed. We will not start the season next year with the same team that finished this season. Maybe we will carry more players at the start to see who are best and create more internal competition.&ldquo;My feeling is let&rsquo;s wait and see what we have next year. Are Yvon Corriveau and Stephen Leach ready to play? Is Paul Cavallini good enough? Is our first-round pick good enough? Can Jeff Greenlaw (who had a back injury this year) come back and play? Is our philosophy of carrying 21, the fewest in the league, right or should we carry more and create more competition?&ldquo;If things don&rsquo;t start well, maybe we&rsquo;ll make more changes. The most critical time is November, when you know what you have. That&rsquo;s when our assessment of the team will be made* for sure.&rdquo;CAPSULES&mdash;-The Capitals hired Frank Costello, strength coach at the University of Maryland, to plan theis summer fitness programs. One of Costello&rsquo;s first projects was winger Craig Laughlin, who injured a knee in the first playoff game and was scheduled for extensive rehabilitation because he does not want to wear a brace next season&hellip;Defenseman Larry Murphy was the Capitals&rsquo; Emery Edge winner at plus-25. Murphy also led the club in scoring with 81 points. &#9632;

f0034-08

Washington Wants To Sink To New Depth

<div class="byline">BY LARRY HUMBER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01528/5180371-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"></div><h2>ACROSS:</h2>1. Late NHL President Clarence Campbell, who is pictured, also served the league in this capacity (7).4. Nickname of the NHL&rsquo;s 197677 penalty leader (5).7. A goal requiring little effort on the part of the scoring team (4).8. Trips (8).10. He succeeded Bobby Smith as Calder Trophy winner (3,7).12. He topped the Canucks in scoring this past season (5).13. Maple Leaf drafted fifth overall by Vancouver in 1979 (5).14. One of four Whalers who appeared in all 80 games this past season (3,7).18. Birthplace of netminders Allan Bester and Frank Caprice (8).19. Hockey great Schmidt (4).20. Blues&rsquo; public relations director Mathieu (5).21. Removes (7).<h2>DOWN:</h2>1. First name of the second Smythe Trophy winner (5).2. Number of goals netted by Wayne Gretzky in his first NHL season (5,3).3. Go in (5).4. Sabre who began the past season with the Canadiens (3,7).5. Home of the 1971 Allan Cupwinning Hornets (4).6. Substitute (7).9. Hetopped all rookies with 84 points this past season (10).11. Vancouver was one for the 1982 Cup (8).12. Handles (7).15. Cover the ice with water between periods (5).16. All-American signed by Detroit in June of 1985 (5).17. An Ontario League division (4).<h2>CROSSWORD SOLUTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03345/5180364-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="568" height="564"></div> &#9632;

f0035-01

CROSSWORD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02421/5180402-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Center Don Raleigh of the New York Rangers accepts the Frank Boucher Trophy as the most popular Ranger for the 1951-52 season, Raleigh&rsquo;s best in the National Hockey League. He scored a career-high 61 points on 19 goals and 42 assists, both season highs for him.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0035-02

THE WAY WE WERE

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div>This line was picture perfect.On a wall in Marty Howe&rsquo;s Connecticut home hangs a historic photo&mdash;taken on March 12, 1980.It was moments before a Detroit-Hartford game at the Red Wings&rsquo; Joe Louis Arena when Marty, Mark and Gordie Howe lined up together, first for a picture, and then the opening faceoff to become the only father-sons line in National Hockey League history.&ldquo;Gordie was normally a right winger and, instead, was playing center,&rdquo; recalled Marty Howe. &ldquo;I was a defenseman but that night I was the right winger. Mark was on the left side.&ldquo;We were out on the ice long enough to get the photo taken and have the puck dropped. Shortly after that we were on the bench and the line was never used again.&rdquo;Few other moments during Marty&rsquo;s 12-year career in the World Hockey Association (Houston, Hartford) and NHL (Hartford, Boston), measured up to that special homecoming.Gordie, of course, played 25 years in Detroit. And his boys learned their hockey there, before leaving for Toronto to play with the Marlboros in the Ontario Hockey Association.After two years of junior hockey, Marty was drafted in the 14th round of the WHA draft by the Houston Aeros. Marty, Mark and Gordie all eventually joined the Aeros as a package deal.It marked the first time in pro hockey history that a father-sons combination appeared together.After two Avco Trophy championships with the Aeros the trio moved its act to Hartford, where they were signed as free agents.Although Marty was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1974 NHL entry draft and later had his rights traded to Detroit, he didn&rsquo;t play in the NHL until the senior league absorbed the WHA in 1979.Marty&rsquo;s 1979-80 NHL debut, with Hartford, was shortened when he broke his arm and missed most of that first season.&ldquo;It was a real bad break,&rdquo; said Marty, who was on the ice when Gordie scored the final goal of his 32-year career during the 1980 playoffs. &ldquo;It was such a bad break that it affected my shooting ability for the rest of my career. I didn&rsquo;t have a strong shot after I returned from the injury.&rdquo;Howe retired in 1985.Today, at 33, he works as a real estate agent in Hartford. He is also part-owner of an investment firm in Detroit. Marty resides with his wife in Glastonury, Conn.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03334/5180433-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="556" height="1413"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marty Howe</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0035-03

Howe About This Combo?

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Associate Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01504/5180488-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="174" height="141"></div>TORONTO&mdash;The question came from left field, the answer from the heart&mdash;two of them, in fact.Moments after game six of the Toronto-Detroit series, a television reporter asked&mdash;for reasons known only to him&mdash;if Maple Leaf coach John Brophy feared for his job.&ldquo;How can you ask that?&rdquo; replied Brophy, his voice rising. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m here trying to win a series. I&rsquo;m not worried about my job.&rdquo;As it turned out, he didn&rsquo;t have to worry.Two days after the Maple Leafs were eliminated by Detroit in game seven, Toronto owner Harold Ballard embraced Brophy with his checkbook.Ballard and Brophy agreed to a three-year contract, believed to be worth in excess of $100,000 a year.Brophy, who took over the Leafs last summer after guiding St. Catharines of the American League, was entering the second year of a minorleague deal.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Coach John Bro-phy insists there&rsquo;s nothing wrong between him and GM Gerry McNamara, despite late-season suggestions to the contrary.</blockquote>The contract renewal didn&rsquo;t come as a surprise.After Ballard vetoed a suggestion by general manager Gerry McNamara to fire Brophy late in the season, it was clear the coach had the owner&rsquo;s support.McNamara was signed to a four-year contract last fall, so the two will remain together, although sources say there are still hard feelings on Brophy&rsquo;s part.The coach denies them.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing wrong between Gerry and me,&rdquo; insisted Brophy.Ballard&rsquo;s allegiance to Brophy represented a shift from his behaviour of last summer, when he criticized coach Dan Maloney for Toronto&rsquo;s loss to St. Louis in the Norris Division finals.Ultimately, those words&mdash;and his refusal to give Maloney a long-term contract&mdash;led to Maloney quitting Toronto and joining the Winnipeg Jets.Brophy&rsquo;s Leafs lost the final three games of the Detroit series this year, but he didn&rsquo;t lose Ballard&rsquo;s confidence.&ldquo;I think we played as hard as we could against Detroit,&rdquo; said Brophy, who was missing five first-string players by year&rsquo;s end.Under Brophy, the Leafs improved from 57 points last year to 70 this season. He figured Toronto was closer to a.500 club gone sour because of injuries.He acknowledged, however, that inconsistency was as much of a problem as injuries.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t be a mile high one game and two miles deep in the ocean the next,&rdquo; said Brophy, who didn&rsquo;t point any fingers, but could have, at several of his players&mdash;among them hot-and-cold forwards Russ Courtnall and Steve Thomas.The Leafs&rsquo; principal needs now, said Brophy, are for a sixth National Hockey League-calibre defenseman and another right winger.A groin injury to Chris Kotsopoulos left Brophy with just Borje Salming, Al lafrate, Rick Lanz and Todd Gill as reliable defensemen for the latter part of the season.On the right side, the Leafs have Rick Vaive and Gary Leeman as regular starboarders, and will move Mark Osborne back to left wing.Mirko Frycer, a right winger out most of the year with various ailments, is not a Brophy favorite and will almost certainly be traded during the offseason.LEAFLETS&mdash;Defenseman Bob McGill is another Leaf whose days may be numbered. He appeared in only three playoff games. John Brophy even used farmhard Terry Johnson ahead of McGill for game seven against Detroit&hellip;Left winger Steve Thomas and goalie Allan Bester are both free agents. Both will be offered contracts. Thomas will command a good salary, and attract bids from American-based teams paying in U.S. funds&hellip;Assistant coach Garry Lari-viere, whose responsibility is the Leafs&rsquo; defenseman, also has a new three-year contract&hellip;Center-winger Mike Allison is building a cabin near his hometown of Fort Frances in northwestern Ontario&hellip;Guy Kinnear. the head trainer, agreed to a one-year deal. &#9632;

f0036-01

Toronto’s Brophy Gets Three-Year Contract

<div class="byline">BY JEFF HUBBELL</div>The Sultans of Swat?Well, maybe they aren&rsquo;t a collection of Babe Ruths, but even the &lsquo;Bambino&rsquo; would have to say that three tournament championships in four years is quite an accomplishment for any group of ball players.They are the Toronto Maple Leafs, champions in 1986, and looking to hang onto the stranglehold they&rsquo;ve had on the Molson Slo-Pitch trophy.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a good ball club,&rdquo; said team manager Rick Sutcliffe, no relation to the Chicago Cub pitcher of the same name. &ldquo;I think we&rsquo;re in for a good summer.&rdquo;Some of the faces have changed from last year, the inevitable result of seasonal trades.Walt Poddubny, one of the most gifted players for the Leafs last year, has gone to the New York Rangers. In his place will be Mark Osborne, a big winger that Toronto received in a later exchange with the Rangers. This will be his second year at the tournament. Last year the New York Rangers played for the first time.&ldquo;A group of us got together,&rdquo; said Osborne, &ldquo;to ask the owners of the team (Gulf and Western) if we could put together a team for the tournament.Osborne is looking forward to the tournament, but does have his concerns. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how well the team is going to do without Poddubny,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;But,&rdquo; he added with a wink, &ldquo;Mike (Allison, the ex-Ranger acquired in the Poddubny trade) and I ought to make up for that.&rdquo;The Leafs, however, will have some old standbys on hand. Rick Vaive and Dan Daoust will be on the diamond, as will Greg Terrion. Terrion had been to every tournament except last year, when his sister-in-law arranged her wedding for the same weekend.Another Leaf who will be playing is Wendel Clark, who missed last year&rsquo;s games with tonsillitis. Sutcliffe said he believes Clark will be a major component in the Leafs&rsquo; game.Last year, the Leafs stormed through the series, winning with such lopsided scores as 15-4 over Boston, 11-4 over Quebec, 23-4 over the NHL refs, 15-4 against the NHL Alumni, a close 19-14 over Chicago, and 12-4 over their Norris Division arch-rivals, the Detroit Red Wings.Brad Smith was there to help down his former teammates. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been there every year since it started,&rdquo; said Smith, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ve been on two championship teams.Smith, arguably the most popular Maple Leaf with the fans over the last two years, said he is being groomed for the pitcher&rsquo;s position.&ldquo;I think the fans realy enjoy it,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;It gives them a chance to see players in a different light, when they&rsquo;re relaxed and there&rsquo;s no pressure.&rdquo;No pressure?&ldquo;Well, you want to go out there and win, sure. I think that&rsquo;s true of any sportsman whether he&rsquo;s playing softball or tiddly-winks.&rdquo;But, he insisted, there&rsquo;s no on-ice bitterness to carry over from the season into the tourney, not even from his nemesis, Harold Snepsts of the Detroit Red Wings.&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t put any salt on the baseball and stuff it into his mouth, if that&rsquo;s what you mean.&rdquo; &#9632;

Leafs Are League Champions—In Slo-Pitch

<div class="image-hero"><img title="s0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0003-01/5180543-1-eng-US/s0003-012.jpg"></div>Fan attendance during the tournament and its related events is a major factor in the overriding success of this tournament and the amount of net proceeds that are raised for charities. However, without the financial and promotional support of the major sponsor, Molson Ontario Breweries Ltd., and the many other fine associate sponsors, the event would simply never take place.It is with due cause that we should offer our sincere thanks to these sponsors and recognize their efforts toward making the seventh Molson NHL SloPitch Challenge what we hope will be a great success.<h2>MAJOR SPONSOR</h2>Molson Ontario Breweries Ltd.<h2>ASSOCIATE SPONSORS</h2>&bull; Seven-Up&bull; Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Recreation&bull; Ford Motor Company&bull; Minolta and Minolta Tower&bull; Bauer&bull; Canadian Tire&bull; Easton Sports&bull; Cooper Canada&bull; Cupolo&rsquo;s Sports&bull; Petro-Canada Inc.<h2>MOLSON ONTARIO BREWERIES</h2>As the major sponsor of the tournament Molson will present the Molson Cup to the championship winning team.Past Molson Cup winners1986: Toronto Maple Leafs1985: Los Angeles Kings1984: Toronto Maple Leafs1983: Toronto Maple Leafs1982: Los Angeles Kings1981: Detroit Red Wings<h3>GAME TIMES</h3>Past Molson Cup winners. 1986: Toronto Maple Leafs 1985: Los Angeles Kings 1984: Toronto Maple Leafs 1983: Toronto Maple Leafs 1982: Los Angeles Kings 1981: Detroit Red Wings GAME TIMESThe Molson NHL Slo-Pitch Challenge games begin Friday, June 19 at 6:00 p.m. at the following parks: Oakes Park-Niagara Falls Thomas Street Park-St. Catharines Memorial Park-Welland McMillan Park-ThoroldAll parks will play host to games on Saturday, June 20. The top eight teams from regular play will enter a playoff format on Sunday. All playoff games on Sunday will take place at Oakes Park in Niagara Falls with the first quarter-final game slated to begin at 10:00 a.m.At press time, 18 teams had already indicated they would be participating at the &lsquo;87 tournament. At the conclusion of the Stanley Cup playoffs it is hoped that further commitments will be reached with additional teams.<h2>TOURNAMENT EVENTS.</h2>Along with the action on the field there are a series of activities which take place during the weekend. The &ldquo;Opening Ceremonies Dinner&rdquo; kicks off the weekend festivities on Thursday evening, June 18. The dinner will be held as in the past, at the Niagara Falls Arena at a cost of $25 per person or $200 for a table of ten.Immediately following the dinner there will be the &ldquo;Auction&rdquo; of NHL memorabilia. Those people attending the dinner will receive a complimentary auction ticket. Separate auction tickets may be purchased at a price of $7.Friday morning begins with the second annual Seven-Up/NHL golf tournament. The event is open to the public and those wishing the opportunity to play alongside an NHL player or member, may do so by booking in advance through the Molson NHL SloPitch Challenge office. The cost is $200 per player. All players receive a wide array of merchandise and the opportunity to win some fantastic prizes.Saturday evening is the annual &ldquo;Dance With The Stars&rdquo;. This year&rsquo;s dance features &ldquo;1964 The Beatles&rdquo;, formerly known as Beatlemania. The dance tickets are available at $10.For advance ticket sales to this year&rsquo;s tournament and all other events please call or write:Molson NHL, Slo-Pitch Challenge, 5034 Victoria Avenue, Niagara Falls, Ontario, L2E 4E1, (416) 357-5770<h2>NO PERSONAL CHEQUES WILL BE ACCEPTED &#9632;</h2>

s0003-01

TOURNAMENT SPONSORS

<div class="byline">BY JEFF HUBBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="s0004-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0004-014/5180574-1-eng-US/s0004-012.jpg"></div>Back in 1812, American visitors to Niagara Falls, Ont., were greeted with volleys of British musket fire.Fortunately, Niagara has grown more accustomed to tourists. Which is wonderful because, as a tourist place, Niagara Falls is tough to beat. There are the falls themselves of couse, giant cascades that have drawn starry-eyed honeymooners for decades. There are amusement parks, museums, historical sights and, a short drive away, fine vineyards.And if you&rsquo;re a hockey fan, don&rsquo;t miss being there June 18-21. That&rsquo;s the weekend of the seventh annual Molson/NHL SloPitch Challenge, held in Niagara Falls, nearby St. Catharines, Thorold, and Welland.The past six Slo-Pitch tournaments have been well-attended. Robert Kier of the Ontario Ministry of Tourism said the Slo-Pitch tourney attracted 300,000 visitors, most of them from the U.S.But what about those nameless behind-the-scenes workers? Somebody has to organize this affair.&ldquo;It gets hectic because you&rsquo;re doing just about everything in the four weeks before the event,&rdquo; said Teresa Bell of the Bell Travel Group. &ldquo;It all goes great guns. I mean, at this time of the year (playoffs) a lot of teams really aren&rsquo;t thinking of Slo-Pitch yet. It&rsquo;s all arranged at the very end, and it&rsquo;s a bit hectic.&rdquo;But if Bell&rsquo;s job is crammed into a few short weeks, tournament arrangements continue all year. Hotel rooms are often booked a year in advance by tour groups, many by &lsquo;repeaters&rsquo;&mdash;people who enjoyed the tournament so much they planned their return a year in advance.Jack Bell&mdash;Teresa&rsquo;s co-worker (and AHL referee from 1959-69) happily accepts the extra work.&ldquo;We want the business,&rdquo; he laughed. &ldquo;In terms of dollars, it&rsquo;s not so big, but the spinoffs and the publicity are very good.&ldquo;We will do 300 people and 1,200 room-nights. It&rsquo;s a hell of an enormous undertaking, but I still can&rsquo;t believe how well everything goes.&rdquo;Not everything goes smoothly, however.Last year, West German-born New Jersey Devil defenseman Uli Hiemer ran into unexpected problems.&ldquo;He only speaks a little English,&rdquo; said Bell, &ldquo;so we sent a driver to pick him up. He had to stand around with a big sign hanging on him so Hiemer could find him.&rdquo;Hiemer, who had never played Slo-Pitch before, ended up batting.580.Few of the tourists are from as far away as Heimer, but they do come from all corners of North America. The Maritimes, California, Florida and the Yukon have all sent contingents.One, Carolyn Schweitzer, is from just across the river in Tona-wanda, N.Y. This is her second visit.&ldquo;I came last year with the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; booster club,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I heard about how much fun it was from other booster club people and thought I&rsquo;d go.&ldquo;I enjoy baseball, and it&rsquo;s fun to watch all these professional hockey players play softball.&rdquo; &#9632;

s0004-01

Tourney Draws Fans From Across Continent

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="s0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0005-014/5180605-1-eng-US/s0005-012.jpg"></div>What do computers, runners, cellular telephones, head-set walkie-talkies and the media have to do with the upcoming Molson Slo-Pitch Challenge? Plenty.They all form the communications part of the tournament, held each year in the Niagara region of southern Ontario. They form a big part of the behind-the-scenes operation for the four-day event.Some of the most important pieces of information that fans and players like to know are the team and player statistics. The man in charge of statistics, Dean Bayne, explained what is involved in keeping the books.&ldquo;We keep both team and individual stats for everyone involved in playing in the tournament on a limited basis,&rdquo;-he said. &ldquo;All of the stats are kept on computers and are available at a moment&rsquo;s notice. Such stats as home runs, batting averages and other offensive stats and defensive stats are kept, because awards are handed out in these categories.&ldquo;Probably the most important piece of information we keep is that which is used for tie-breakers concerning the championship round of the tournament. Team stats are kept for that reason. Usually the first tie-breaker is taken from the stats kept from head on competition.&ldquo;I arrange for scorekeepers to keep scores and stats for each game at each park,&rdquo; Bayne said. &ldquo;As soon as a game is finished the stats are compiled, with the scores called into a central location. Then the stat sheets are taken by a runner to the same location, where the information is fed into a computer.&ldquo;And those two teams that stats were kept for will not play another game, until the stats are completed and out for that prior game.&rdquo;It is certainly a more complex system than that used when the tournament began seven years ago.&ldquo;In the beginning it was just a few hours on a weekend,&rdquo; said Bayne, who has been involved in the Molson Slo-Pitch Challenge since its inception. &ldquo;Now it takes over 200 hours. We used to be able to keep the stats manually. Now, I don&rsquo;t know what we would do without the computers.&rdquo;But there is still a very human element to the tournament as well. Dave Lamb is in charge of the people affectionately known as &ldquo;runners.&rdquo; They play a very important role, especially this year when they will be &ldquo;wired for sound.&rdquo;&ldquo;We have runners within the ball parks and runners who travel from park-to-park,&rdquo; stated Lamb. &ldquo;We have about 60 FM head-set walkie-talkies that they use to communicate to each other.&ldquo;And, for the first time this year, we will have cellular telephones to use. We&rsquo;ve come a long way since the beginning when we used a ham radio set-up.&rdquo;The final part of the communications system comes from the local media that cover the events of the tournament. The man in charge of this is Rick Jeanneret.&ldquo;All three of the Buffalo television stations cover it, as well as CBC television, CHCH-TV and Hockey Night In Canada,&rdquo; said Jeanneret. &ldquo;Most of the local radio stations from the Southern Ontario pennisula as well as a few from Buffalo cover it as well.&ldquo;Add to that the newspaper reporters and photographers from both sides of the border and you will soon see that this isn&rsquo;t just any other ordinary event.&ldquo;You have to remember that there are athletes from all over the North American continent participating in this tournament.&rdquo; &#9632;

s0005-01

Communications, Statistics Play Major Role

<div class="byline">BY JEFF HUBBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="s0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0006-014/5180636-1-eng-US/s0006-012.jpg"></div>Ask a National Hockey League player about &ldquo;golf season&rdquo; and he&rsquo;ll usually snarl, thinking you&rsquo;re making a reference to his team&rsquo;s quick exit from the playoffs.But if you ask him about the annual Molson-7-Up-NHL golf tournament, he&rsquo;ll break into a smile instead.On June 19, hockey players will happily be divoting Niagara region golf courses for charity, in the second annual tournament. Spectators, of course, are welcome.&ldquo;Last year, the tournament was pretty successful,&rdquo; said organizer Steve Katzman. &ldquo;We raised in the neighbourhood of about $16,000-18,000&mdash;although, to be honest, we were aiming at $25-30,000. But, you see, last year was such a rush job because it was our first time and, well, we had to shop around and didn&rsquo;t have the experience setting it up.&ldquo;This year is quite different. We&rsquo;ve had more time to organize and we hope to clear $32,000.&rdquo;The golf tournament was the brainchild of Slo-Pitch tournament organizer Bob Lavelle. He felt that some of the older players, especially the ones with families had a lot of demands on their time, and would need an extra incentive to stay at the SloPitch tournament.And so, with help from 7-Up, the golf tournament was born.For $200, potential Arnold Palmers&mdash;in pairs with NHL players&mdash;spend a day at either Willo Dell (Niagara Falls), Bridgewater Country Club (Fort Erie) or the International Country Club (Stevensville) golf courses.There, they play 18 holes (with refreshments), head back to Niagara Falls Arena for dinner.For their $200, players will also receive a golf jacket, sweater, shirt, mug, towel, tees and ball markers, and are eligible for prizes at the dinner.And play isn&rsquo;t limited to businessmen, said Katzman.&ldquo;Some are executives, and some are just regular &lsquo;Joes&rsquo; who want to play with a hockey player. One guy who was here had it given to him as a birthday present by his father.&rdquo;Last year, the tournament attracted players like Marcel Dionne, Rod Langway, Ed Olcyzk, Doug Wilson, Lanny McDonald and Mike Foligno.&ldquo;We had to stay up all night to put together the foursomes,&rdquo; said Lavelle. &ldquo;The tough part was that some of the guys who originally declined to play in the golf tournament got so fired up from the enthusiasm of the others players that they changed their mind at the 11th hour, called us up and said &lsquo;can I play?&rsquo;&ldquo;The Slo-Pitch is great, but profits are strictly at the mercy of the weather. Golf is a much cleaner, that is, less muddy when wet, game, and we clear $100 per man in profit.&rdquo; The money goes to two charities&mdash;Muscular Dystrophy (7-Up), and the Special Olympics (NHL).The Golf Tournament received continent-wide publicity last year, when 7-Up presented its cheque on the annual Jerry Lewis MD Telethon.&ldquo;There will be a third annual tournament,&rdquo; said Katzman.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll learn from our mistakes and correct them next year, just like we&rsquo;ve been correcting last year&rsquo;s mistakes this year.&rdquo;Make no mistake about it. This year&rsquo;s golf tournament shouldn&rsquo;t be missed. &#9632;

s0006-01

Golf Tournament’s Bigger, Better This Year

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="s0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0007-014/5180667-1-eng-US/s0007-012.jpg"></div>Twenty teams, including 17 from National Hockey League clubs, participated in the Molson Slo-Pitch Challenge last year. An NHL Alumni team, an NHL scouts&rsquo; team and another featuring NHL officials also participated.What possessed these more than 250 individuals to spend four days out of their summer in Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Welland and Thorold, Ont.? Would you want to spend your Bummer vacation time with thousands of hockey fans wanting to talktoyou or get yourauto-graph?The players must want to do it, because they have come out year after year for the past six seasons. And each year, the tournament has become bigger and better.Don Lever, a veteran of 15 NHL seasons, has participated in the tournament since its inception. He never thought that it would last as long as it did.&ldquo;I can remember back to the first year,&rdquo; said Lever, presently a member of the Buffalo Sabres organization. &ldquo;There were only a few teams involved and it lasted for just the weekend. I really thought at the time that it would never last more than a couple of years. I just thought it would be tough.&ldquo;But it has survived and the guys love it. The main reason why is because the people running the tournament make it so easy for players like myself to get in and out without any problems.&rdquo;But Lever reminded everyone that there is a bottom line to the whole tourney.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re there to help raise money for charities,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s our No. 1 goal. The rest is extra.&rdquo;The NHL Alumni team has become a power to be recognized in the tourney. Last year, it went to the championship game before losing. Former NHL star Fred Stanfield, a member of the NHL Alumni softball team, knows that many people were surprised that the Alumni team did as well as it did.&ldquo;When it comes to baseball, I would have to say that we are pretty even with the rest of the teams in the tournament,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re there to have fun and to win some games as well.&rdquo;Even the officials&rsquo; team is part of the camaraderie. Where else would you find referees mingling with the same athletes they&rsquo;ve penalized? You would think it would be like mixing oil and water, but according to former NHL referee Bryan Lewis, it isn&rsquo;t that way at all.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a change of scenery for both sides,&rdquo; Lewis said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re no longer on the fie together with NHLteams and talk and chat about things other than hockey.&rdquo;Lewis summed up the feeling, when he told the story of how his youngest daughter reacted when he accepted a job supervising officials this year.&ldquo;She didn&rsquo;t even congratulate me,&rdquo; said Lewis. &ldquo;All she asked me is if this meant we might not be going to the Slo-Pitch tournament this year. She was planning on going and didn&rsquo;t want to miss it.&rdquo; &#9632;

Search for your favorite player or team

May 22, 1987

Turgeon Still The One For NHL Scouts

THIS WEEK…

Another Coach Fired…So What’s The Big Deal?

STANLEY CUP SCOREBOARD