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 29, 1987

The Hockey News May 29, 1987

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Associate Editor</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011227/5161615-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Claude Lemieux, attacked by Ed Hospodar to touch off a post-warmup brawl during the Wales Conference final, mixes it up in front of Philadelphia goalie Ron Hextall.</figcaption></div>Call it deja-vu.Just shy of two full years ago, Wayne Gretzky was under the gun after a decidedly ordinary, and much-criticized, opening-game performance against the Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup finals.With the Edmonton Oilers trailing 1-0 in the best-of-seven series, No. 99 responded with game two&rsquo;s first goal and a superb all-round effort.The Oilers ended up winning four straight to capture their second consecutive Stanley Cup.Heading into game one of this year&rsquo;s rematch between Edmonton and Philadelphia, Gretzky was under the microscope again&mdash;this time for uncommonly unproductive play against the Detroit Red Wings.In the five games it took Edmonton to subdue the Norris Division champions, the seven-time scoring champion contributed just two assists.He hadn&rsquo;t scored a goal since the Oilers eliminated Winnipeg. Gretzky had just two others against Los Angeles.So, it was, remarkably, with something to prove that Gretzky set out to dominate proceedings against Philadelphia on May 17. He scored the game&rsquo;s opening goal, set up the winner by Paul Coffey and delivered an assortment of superb passes&mdash;including the best of the night, one he directed from behind the net with his skate.Afterwards, Gretzky credited a new pair of skates and an inspiring performance by Boston Celtic superstar Larry Bird during the National Basketball Association playoffs earlier in the day with helping him turn up the level of his game yet another notch.By the way, two years ago, a revitalized Gretzky scored six goals and four assists in the final three games of the series.Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson also scored for the Oilers, while Flyer playoff stars Rick Tocchet and Brian Propp replied for Philadelphia, which was repeatedly stymied by goalie Grant Fuhr. Flyer goalie Ron Hextall, a playoff standout, was outplayed on this night.Apart from a highly-predictable scrap between Philadelphia&rsquo;s Dave Brown and Edmonton&rsquo;s Kelly Buchberger, the game was tame&mdash;a pleasant departure from the excessive aggressiveness of Philadelphia&rsquo;s semi-final victory over Montreal.It was, apparently, with an eye toward the pre-game brawl between the Flyers and Canadiens in game six, that Oilers&rsquo; coach Glen Sather inserted Buchberger into the lineup.The Stanley Cup opener was Buchberger&rsquo;s first game in the National Hockey League. The Nova Scotia Oiler bruiser collected 257 penalty minutes (25 majors) in 70 American League games this year.Philadelphia was without defenseman Ed Hospodar and would be without the fringe fighter for the rest of the playoffs after he was suspended for precipitating the disgraceful pregame Flyer-Canadien battle.The NHL fined both teams a total of $24,500 in addition to banning Hospodar.NHL president John Ziegler may invoke more penalties and the Montreal police department has launched its own investigation into the sorry affair. &#9632;

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Departments

Nifty No. 99 Turns Up Level of Play

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BOOK LOCKER

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0033-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01488/5162920-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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SCOREBOARD

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03713/5161853-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="119" height="120"></div>BOSTON&mdash;Statistically, it was the seventh best in the National Hockey League behind an injury-riddled defense but general manager Harry Sinden is not satisfied with the Boston Bruins&rsquo; goaltending.&ldquo;Between Doug Keans and Bill Ranford, it&rsquo;s not the type of goaltending that can win the Stanley Cup,&rdquo; said Sinden, who has been juggling goalkeepers in and out of the Boston net ever since Gerry Cheevers retired at the end of the 1979-80 season.Except for one brilliant season, in which Pete Peeters won the Vezina Trophy and propelled the Bruins to the Stanley Cup semi-finals in 1983, all have come up short and the jury is still out on Ranford, the latest prodigy.&ldquo;I think Bill Ranford&rsquo;s development is just about what it should be but he was put in a position to play a lot of hockey,&rdquo; said Sinden.&ldquo;I think we were all excited about what he did the previous year at the end of the season and expected him to be perhaps the all-star goalie this year. I was included in that (group). Perhaps we shouldn&rsquo;t have.&ldquo;I thought Terry (O&rsquo;Reilly, the Bruins&rsquo; coach) did an excellent job the way he used him and, in the next year or two we&rsquo;ll know what we have or what we think we have on our hands. His future is, we think, very, very good.&rdquo;Until then, what happens?&ldquo;Doug Keans filled in and actually played more hockey than we thought he&rsquo;d play,&rdquo; said the Bruins&rsquo; boss. &ldquo;He was adequate.&ldquo;We acquired Roberto Romano in mid-season&hellip;He played very well for Pittsburgh in the first 25 games of the year.&rdquo;Ranford wound up the 1986-87 campaign playing 41 games with a 3.33 average. Keans appeared in 36 games with a 3.34 mark. Romano allowed six goals in his one game, against Hartford, as a Bruin.&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Sinden, &ldquo;we have three graduating (college) seniors next year, all of whom have varying reputations and different styles.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Between Keans and Ranford, it&rsquo;s not the type of goaltending that can win the Stanley Cup.&rsquo; &mdash;Sinden</blockquote>&ldquo;The one with the best reputation is Norm Foster of Michigan State, who has led his team to the NCAA finals all the time he&rsquo;s been at the school. He has a good chance to turn pro but whether he can go in the NHL right away it&rsquo;s hard to tell.&ldquo;And then we have Terry Taillefer, also graduating from Boston University, whose style is somewhat different from Foster&rsquo;s in that he&rsquo;s a more orthodox, standup, angle-type goalie. That style lends itself to being a top NHL goalie.&ldquo;The other one is a kid name Chris Olson, out of the University of Denver, who we don&rsquo;t know much about. He&rsquo;s a big kid, 6-foot-4 or something like that. We picked him up in the new supplemental draft last year. We&rsquo;re not quite sure how good he is.&rdquo;There is a chance the Bruins may use the No. 3 draft pick they acquired from Vancouver for Barry Pederson to pick a goalie from the junior ranks, namely Jimmy Waite of Chicoutimi in the Quebec League.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a possibility,&rdquo; Sinden admitted. &ldquo;Most people have him as the best goaltender in the draft. But whether or not we&rsquo;d go for a goaltender with the third pick is something we&rsquo;re going to have to discuss at great length. I don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;ll last through the first dozen or eight picks.&rdquo;One of the raps against Waite is that he was benched during the Quebec League playoffs.&ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t playing well and he couldn&rsquo;t stop the puck at that point,&rdquo; said Sinden. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been the story of goaltenders for years and years. What you see today is not neccessarily what you get tomorrow.&rdquo;WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN&mdash;Bruins have signed Swedish center Tom Lehmann, 23, who they coveted last summer but could not shake free from his contract in Sweden. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a great center with a lot of skill,&rdquo; said Sinden. &ldquo;What he doesn&rsquo;t have right now is experience in the NHL and it&rsquo;s that ingredient, experience, that we hope he&rsquo;ll get next year.&rdquo;&hellip;If you&rsquo;re interested in a home in the Boston area, take a look at former Bruin coach Butch Goring&rsquo;s house in suburban Andover. It&rsquo;s on the market for only $625,000. &#9632;

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There’s Still Uncertainty Surrounding B’s Goalies

In our June 19 issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS, which will coming your way in two weeks, keep an eye out for our Stanley Cup wrap-up. We&rsquo;ll take a close look at the new Stanley Cup champions, and the reasons for their ascendency to the National Hockey League&rsquo;s highest perch.Will it be the Edmonton Oilers for the third time in four years or will it be the Philadelphia Flyers for the first time since 1975.Plus, we&rsquo;ll examine the coming NHL entry draft, the highlight of the off-season. This year&rsquo;s crew of draft-eligible players includes Granby smoothie Pierre Turgeon and London workhorse Brendan Shanahan. Also available is Medicine Hat defenseman Wayne McBean, who was named most valuable player at the Memorial Cup in Oshawa, Ont.Don&rsquo;t miss any of it in the June 19 issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS. &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUE

NEXT WEEK

Fred Shero is considering a return to hockey coaching.But not in North America, where he became the National Hockey League&rsquo;s best-known coach by leading the Philadelphia Flyers to consecutive Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975.Shero has had preliminary discussions with the Tilburg Trappers, a Dutch club team.&ldquo;I-would like to get back into coaching,&rdquo; said the 61-year-old Shero, who expected a decision shortly on whether he would be coaching in the Netherlands next season.Shero, a radio commentator on New Jersey Devil games the past several years, last coached in the NHL nearly seven years ago. After leaving the Flyers for New York, he coached the Rangers two-plus years before his dismissal Nov. 22, 1980.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011286/5161188-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="342" height="469"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Dryden</figcaption></div>His regular-season career winning percentage of .612 (390-225-119) is exceeded only by Toe Blake and Scotty Bowman in NHL history.Shero said that after his parting of the ways with the Rangers, at which time he confessed to drinking problems, he had a couple of opportunities to coach in the NHL but illness (a battle with cancer) robbed him of whatever chances he had.He&rsquo;s not quite back up to his coaching weight of 180 pounds but Shero is a long way from the 115 pounds he weighed when he was sickest.Over the years, he has emerged as somewhat of a hockey guru&mdash;studying the game from vantage points as a player, coach and broadcaster.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a very cerebral guy,&rdquo; says New York Rangers spokesman John Halligan, a longtime friend of Shero. &ldquo;He sees a lot of things that other people don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;Considering his stature, it&rsquo;s surprising Shero&rsquo;s wisdom hasn&rsquo;t been sought out more regularly in recent years. When you consider the dominant place he once occupied, he almost seems an outcast, or at the very least, well out of the mainstream now.Shero said that he&rsquo;s enjoyed his radio work, but admits something is missing&mdash;the anxiety associated with having a vested interest in the outcome of games.&ldquo;For 40 years I went to bed at night worrying,&rdquo; said Shero. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not worrying anymore. And I&rsquo;d sooner worry at night.&rdquo;He might get that opportunity. Lou Vairo, who came to know the former NHL bench boss as an assistant coach with the Devils, recommended Shero for the job in Tilburg.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a tremendous hockey man,&rdquo; said Vairo, who will be coaching in Italy during the 1987-88 season. &ldquo;I think Freddy would be a great coach there.&rdquo;<h2>Jr. Brawling-Memorial Cup</h2>Distasteful as the infamous Piestany Punch-Up was at the World Junior Championships, the incident itself escaped excessive criticism.Instead, most commentators focused on the International Ice Hockey Federation&rsquo;s bungling of the whole affair. Incredibly, the Canadians emerged as heroes to some&mdash;victims of those sneaky Soviets who lured them into the brawl, deliberately derailing Canada&rsquo;s bid for a gold medal.A British Columbia radio station actually went so far as to present Team Canada members with gold medals. Dr. Gunther Sabetzki, president of the IIHF, took a different view&mdash;insisting Canadians were champions only of fighting.Of the two extreme viewpoints, Sabetzki&rsquo;s was closer to the truth. Both the Canadian and Soviet teams disgraced themselves on that January day.The game-ending, bench-clearing brawl was an embarrassment for Canadian and Soviet junior hockey, yet Sabetzki&rsquo;s decision to overrule the IIHF&rsquo;s own rules captured most of the headlines.It allowed Canadians to rationalize unacceptable behaviour.There were, however, no convenient copouts available to Canadian major junior hockey on May 9, when the first game of the Memorial Cup championship concluded with a 20-on-20 incident between the Oshawa Generals and Longueuil Chevaliers.That made it two straight for Canadian major junior hockey in major tournament games.But not to worry, the Memorial Cup disciplinary committee came down hard on the participants. It fined the host Ontario League $5,000 for failing to exercise better crowd control. A female fan had been allowed to take a swipe at one of the Generals. There was nothing said about failure to exercise player control.Also featured in the year&rsquo;s showcase event were spitting and head-butting incidents, a dreadful three-hour 6-0 game between Longueuil and Medicine Hat, that was filled with endless scrums and scraps, and a four-fight finale between Medicine Hat and Oshawa.This is junior hockey at its best?A delicious irony, pointed out by London (Ont.) newspaperman Jim Cressman, emerged from the championship game when Dean Chynoweth was ejected from the game after his second fight. Chynoweth&rsquo;s father, Ed, is not only president of the Western League but president of the newly-named Canadian Hockey League&mdash;the umbrella group for all of major junior hockey.Somehow, it was appropriate.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021049/5161181-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1435" height="2070"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former Flyer mentor Fred Shero shares a podium with former New York Ranger Anders Hedberg during the coach&rsquo;s tenure with the Rangers.</figcaption></div><h2>Seeking Work-Jack Birch</h2>Jack Birch has an image problem, however reluctant he is to admit as much.The unemployed coach, perceived as unyielding with players, is the only one of the three New York Ranger coaches fired earlier this year who is still out of work.Ted Sator, the head coach, landed on his skates in Buffalo. Reg Higgs, an assistant in New York along with Birch, is with Philadelphia in the same capacity.That leaves Birch&hellip;who is out to change his solitary status.What does an ex-assistant coach do when he gets fired? Well, if you&rsquo;re Birch, you get a satellite dish installed on your cottage in Grand Bend, Ont., and watch 10 to 14 games a week.&ldquo;I would start (watching games) on the east coach and work my way west,&rdquo; says Birch, who devoted most of 1986-87 studying the NHL&rsquo;s 21 teams in hopes of parlaying that knowledge into future employment.He has been talking with various teams, but nothing firm has come of his efforts. One reason may be his reputation for arrogance. An agent noted, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s not a people person.&rdquo;Birch thinks the rap is undeserved and would like to see it changed.&ldquo;One thing I&rsquo;ve always demanded of myself and the players I&rsquo;ve coached,&rdquo; says Birch, &ldquo;is performance&hellip;It&rsquo;s not like I&rsquo;m expecting it out of them for my sake. I&rsquo;m expecting it for their sake.&rdquo;He thinks that coaches are unfairly blamed for sour relations with players.&ldquo;(Canadian national team coach) Dave King told me once,&rdquo; recalled Birch, &ldquo;&lsquo;When you&rsquo;re telling a player something he wants to hear, you&rsquo;re a good communicator. When you&rsquo;re telling him something he doesn&rsquo;t want to hear, you&rsquo;re a bad communicator.&rsquo;&rdquo;Birch is out to prove he&rsquo;s closer to the first, than the second.<h2>&lsquo;Very Happy&rsquo;-Bengt Gustafsson</h2>Quote of the week:&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s really $1 million, I must be very happy.&rdquo;&mdash;Bengt Gustafsson on speculation about his contract with the Capitals, page 20. &#9632;

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Dutch Treat For Shero?

MAYBE I SHOULD be used to it by now. I&rsquo;ve covered the Flyers for 12 years and the National Hockey League for 13. I&rsquo;ve seen them fight during games, after games, on the ice, in the penalty box, and even in the corridors. Once I even saw Mike Milbury hitting a fan at Madison Square Garden with a shoe.But I couldn&rsquo;t believe it when Eddie Hospodar started hitting Claude Lemieux. Pardon my naivete, but I just couldn&rsquo;t believe it.Even though I recognized that Hospodar&rsquo;s unpredictabilty is one of the very reasons the Flyers re-signed him last summer, even though I knew hockey players take their superstitions very seriously, it never crossed my mind that the ridiculous right of Lemieux to shoot the puck into the Flyers&rsquo; warmup net would be absurdly challenged to the point where there would be a fight over it.The next day&rsquo;s papers had all the appropriate words. &ldquo;Disgusting.&rdquo; &ldquo;Appalling.&rdquo; &ldquo;Shameful.&rdquo; Couldn&rsquo;t argue with any of them.Still, I was somewhere between &ldquo;disappointed&rdquo; and &ldquo;sickened,&rdquo; and having a hard time putting my finger on which, when Ken Rappoport from the Associated Press put the word in my mouth.&ldquo;I thought it was depressing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A great game like that and I left thinking that the fight had ruined it.&rdquo;I&rsquo;m as tired of the debate over fighting as I am about the fighting itself. Hockey players have sticks in their hands and often good reasons to get angry with each other. But what happened at the Forum in game six was so far removed from having anything to do with the actual competition that there is not the slightest way you can excuse it.It was obnoxious. It deserves every bit of criticism it gets. I believe I am part of a majority that likes the game enough to overlook its obvious faults. But the question persists: Why does the NHL continue to put itself in the position of making people do that?Hospodar&rsquo;s suspension for the rest of the playoffs was correct. If you are looking for the reason this one started, he&rsquo;s your guy.To blame Lemieux and Shayne Corson for going back onto the ice is silly. What they did was a little childish maybe, but essentially harmless.There are a number of people who still believe Mike Keenan plotted the whole thing, but &lsquo;that&rsquo;s reaching, too. Hospodar had dressed for the warmup for four of the six games of the series. Keenan had the choice of dressing either he or Daryl Stanley as a sixth defenseman. It is his usual procedure not to make final lineup decisions until after the skate.I&rsquo;ve seen Keenan roll out his heavyweights for no better reason than spite at the end of lost games. But I can&rsquo;t imagine him thinking he could intimidate a well-armed Canadien team in a pre-game skate at that point of the series. If it was all planned, somebody forgot to tell Doug Crossman, who rushed back on the ice wearing shower slippers.Having dirtied their own bed over the years, however, the Flyers have to sleep in it. They have sometimes given you the worst to think about them, so its nobody&rsquo;s fault but their own when imaginations run wild.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011314/5161219-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="330" height="461"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jay Greenberg</figcaption></div>What Hospodar did was neither calculated nor really vicious. About five punches into it, when it was obvious Lemieux wasn&rsquo;t fighting back, it looked like Hospodar was beginning to wonder exactly what he was doing.And what was that? Making a knee-jerk reaction reflective of a mentality that a decade&rsquo;s worth of rules changes has not legislated out of the game. Maybe it can&rsquo;t be, I don&rsquo;t know.I do know Hospodar, who rationalized his actions after the game, has been humiliated by this. Whether he ever admits how wrong he was publicly is another thing.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t defend what happened,&rdquo; said Chico Resch, who has done smarter things in his 38 years than persist in the foolishness that led up to the ugliness.&ldquo;It was wrong. So is losing your temper behind the wheel of your car when somebody cuts you off on the highway.&ldquo;We got so caught up in it. It became important to us. Eddie hadn&rsquo;t been playing (Resch hadn&rsquo;t been either) and it was something he could do for his team.&ldquo;The only thing I thought about when we went back out chasing Corson and Lemiuex was not to let them score. I threw my stick to stop them. I never thought it would wind up a fight.&rdquo;This was like the fraternity hazing that goes too far and winds up with somebody getting hurt. The victim? Hockey. Again.The league punished the right guy in this case, Hospodar, with one of its hands. With the other it continues to beat itself.The fines and suspensions, unless Brain O&rsquo;Neill suddenly and dramatically got tougher, are tokens. O&rsquo;Neill does what he can, within the precedents that he has had a hand in setting, to give the public an impression the league will not tolerate these things. In reality, they are merely discouraged. And that&rsquo;s as far as it will go until enough owners are convinced the league has a larger image problem.Otherwise, long ago it would have passed rules that would have eliminated any reason for teams to keep a guy around who thought his way of helping win a playoff series was to beat up somebody after the warmup.If that sounds a little harsh, then let&rsquo;s try a softer version, provided by Hospodar, himself. &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s that important to Lemieux, then it&rsquo;s important,&rdquo; said Hospodar. &ldquo;Everyone is looking for a little edge.&rdquo;All he did was put another knife in the game&rsquo;s image. When is it going to bleed enough for the league to finally make it stop? &#9632;

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Columnists

NHL Left With Blood On Its Hands…Again

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021222/5161250-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="143" height="103"></div>DETROIT&mdash;The Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; impossible dream turned out to be just that.The Edmonton Oilers, their sights riveted on a third Stanley Cup championship in four years, lost the seriesopener before winning four straight to claim the Campbell Conference championship.The Oilers won the decisive fifth game against the Red Wings 6-3 at Northlands Coliseum, on a pair of goals by Mark Messier.The Wings pushed the mighty Oilers like nobody expected them to be pushed in the series. Every game was a battle, a survival test. To their credit, the Oilers endured. The two players most responsible for their success were Messier and goaltender Grant Fuhr.Messier and his linemates, Glenn Anderson and Kent Nilsson, were the dominant offensive force in the series; Fuhr the key defensive element.Messier dictated the outcome of game five by scoring the tying and winning goals as the Oilers rallied from a 3-1 deficit.Anderson had five assists as the unit produced 11 points to scuttle the Wings.Messier snapped a 3-3 tie at 4:48 of the third period. He fought off a check by Shawn Burr in front of the Detroit net, kicked the puck out of his skates and onto his stick before nudging it past goalie Greg Stefan. The tying goal was a sight to behold with two of the NHL&rsquo;s swiftest and most talented skaters, Anderson and Messier, making the play at full flight.&ldquo;Just too much Messier, as far as I&rsquo;m concerned,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;A great player.&rdquo;Messier also scored two goals in Edmonton&rsquo;s other home victory, a 4-1 triumph in game two.The Wings limited another great player, Wayne Gretzky, to two assists in the five games, an incredible feat by any measure.There were no regrets in the Wings&rsquo; dressing room.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Right up to the last minute&hellip;we gave it our all.&rsquo; &mdash;Yzerman</blockquote>&ldquo;We had a great season,&rdquo; said Steve Yzerman, the Red Wings&rsquo; young captain.&ldquo;Right up to the last minute of the last game, we gave it our all. I&rsquo;m proud of my team. I&rsquo;m proud to be a Red Wing again.&rdquo;Revived by a new coach, Jacques Demers, the Wings went from 21st and last among NHL teams a year ago to the final four in 1987.They improved from 40 points to 78 and missed a first-place finish in the Norris Division by the slimmest of margins&mdash;one point&mdash;when they were beaten by the eventual winner, St. Louis, on the final night of the regular season.But the Wings went on to win the Norris Division playoff title. They did it by becoming only the fourth team in NHL history to rebound from a 3-1 deficit to win a playoff round. They blanked Toronto 3-0, in the seventh and deciding game of that series.The Wings&rsquo; performance against the Oilers wasn&rsquo;t always pretty, but it was almost always effective. They did what they had to, all they could do.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing but a positive feeling here,&rdquo; Gallant said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll come back to training camp with our heads up high.&ldquo;We went as far as we can go.&rdquo;Stefan, who was in goal for the Wings&rsquo; victory in game one, returned for the finale. He played four of the five games, yielding to Glen Hanlon in game four.&ldquo;We came close,&rdquo; Stefan said. &ldquo;Yet we were far away.&ldquo;We really believed we had a good chance, especially after the first game. We got beat by a better club.&rdquo;The Wings won the series opener 3-1, and although the Oilers responded with four straight victories of their own, it was never easy.They won game two 4-1 at the Northlands Coliseum before sweeping a pair at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.Marty McSorley&rsquo;s goal with 36 seconds left in game three produced a 2-1 victory. Game four also ended with a narrow one-goal triumph for Edmonton, 3-2, when Gretzky set up Mike Krushelnyski&rsquo;s game-winner.&ldquo;We gave it our best shot,&rdquo; Demers said, destined to be coach of the year. &ldquo;I know that&rsquo;s a cliche, but it&rsquo;s true. This team worked hard. It never quit and that&rsquo;s all a coach can ask for.&ldquo;I want to make this clear: It was not a fluke season. We did not overachieve. I think we are for real. Now we have to add a little more talent to become even more competitive, to move into the 80-point level. What we need is a couple of more players.&rdquo; &#9632;

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There’s Pride In Being A Red Wing Again

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011188/5161281-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="135" height="96"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;Throughout the 1987 Stanley Cup playoffs, the defending champions had been digging holes for themselves.On the night of the sixth game of the Wales Conference final, they fell into another and could not get out of it.&ldquo;We gave the Flyers three goals tonight,&rdquo; said center Guy Carbonneau shortly after Philadelphia defeated Montreal 4-3 in the sixth game of the Wales Conference final. &ldquo;We couldn&rsquo;t hold on to a 3-1 lead in our own building. We lost three games in our own building&hellip;we lost this series ourselves.&rdquo;What will not be forgotten about the last night of the season for the Canadiens was a pre-game brawl which brought the National Hockey League down to the level of the Federal League of Slapshot fame.What most of the Canadiens want to forget is the fact that they returned to the Forum tied 1-1 in the best-of-seven seried and promptly dropped two games in front of their fans. After a 5-2 victory in Philadelphia in game five, there was still hope. However, the Canadiens chances of winning their 24th championship died of selfinflicted wounds.&ldquo;Our undoing was certainly games three and four,&rdquo; said Bobby Smith. &ldquo;We couldn&rsquo;t get a leg up on them. We couldn&rsquo;t get ahead of them (in the series) after splitting with them in the first two games of the series.&ldquo;We did the same thing against Quebec but we managed to get our necks out of the noose and win four of the next five and win the series.From the youngest, rookie forward Shayne Corson, to the oldest, defenseman Larry Robinson, the pain of the defeat was obvious.While Robinson had tears of joy last season in Calgary last spring, there were tears of frustration on the final night of the 1986-87 season.&ldquo;I still think we had a better-balanced club,&rdquo; Robinson said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got two good goaltenders. Most of the time we went with six defense. We had four good lines. I thought we were the better club. We beat ourselves as much as they beat us.&ldquo;Give them credit, they fought right to the end. They have some spunky guys that never say die and that basically was the difference in the series.&rdquo;Robinson did not feel the pre-game brawl had anything to do with the Canadiens inability to hold on to their lead.Corson, who was a major participant, agreed with Robinson.&ldquo;We have a superstition which we have done for the last 35 games and the playoffs,&rdquo; Corson said. &ldquo;I give the puck to Pepe (Claude Lemieux) and he puts it in the open net. It&rsquo;s a superstition. We didn&rsquo;t want anything like the brawl to happen.&rdquo;Corson said he felt defenseman Ed Hospodar hooking him as he handled the puck en route to the empty Philadelphia goal.&ldquo;I put the puck in the net and I felt something going over the top of me,&rdquo; Corson said. &ldquo;It was a stick or a glove or something. I just started skating towards the bench and I heard a big roar. I turned around and I guess he did the same thing to Pepe.&ldquo;I was pretty shocked. I think it was a little vicious in the way they did it.&ldquo;It happened but that&rsquo;s not why we lost the game. We lost the game in the 60 minutes we played on the ice.&rdquo;IN PASSING&mdash;David Maley&rsquo;s days with the organization are numbered. The former University of Wisconsin star, who was part of the Stanley Cup championship team last spring, was sent home by Sherbrooke coach Pierre Creamer after missing a team meal prior to game three of the Calder Cup championship against Rochester&hellip;Mats Naslund (7-15-22) led the Canadiens in post-season play while Larry Robinson (7-13-20) was next&hellip;The Canadiens used five defensemen&mdash;Robinson, Craig Ludwig, Chris Chelios, Petr Svoboda and Rick Green for the final two games of the series against the Flyers&hellip;Chelios, who is getting married at the end of June, is expected to be invited to the Team USA Canada Cup training camp. Ludwig, who ran his water skiing school in Eagle River, Wisc., rather than accept an invitiation in 1984, is not expecting an invitation this time around&hellip;The Canadiens have re-acquired center Alfie Turcotte, whose contract they purchased from the Edmonton Oilers. &#9632;</div>

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‘We Lost This Series Ourselves’: Carbonneau

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div>&ldquo;Messier has that unbeatable spirit. He&rsquo;s like a thoroughbred galloping in the wind. He gets that look in his eye&hellip;&rdquo; &mdash;Glen Sather, May 13, 1987.The Detroit Red Wings have seen that look.Once too often, for the likes of coach Jacques Demers.&ldquo;There was too much of Messier as far as I&rsquo;m concerned,&rdquo; Demers said, as the thoroughbred galloped over the Red Wings and sent them to the National Hockey League&rsquo;s summertime promised land. Messier&rsquo;s tying and winning goals led the Edmonton Oilers from a 3-1 deficit to a 6-3 victory and the Campbell Conference championship.Through three rounds of the Stanley Cup tournament, Messier emerged as Edmonton&rsquo;s leading candidate for the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The honor was bestowed upon the Edmonton native in 1984, the Oilers&rsquo; first Stanley Cup conquest.Messier was the ringleader this year, as the Oilers compiled a 12-2 post-season record and he racked up 23 points for a share of the playoff scoring lead with Wayne Gretzky.Messier&rsquo;s 10 goals usually came at key critical points along the way.The first was a shorthanded effort in game two against Los Angeles. It was Messier&rsquo;s eighth career playoff goal while killing penalties, pulling him into a tie with Gretzky and Eddie Westfall.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02988/5161319-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="679" height="1459"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kent Nilsson has learned to respect the steely gaze of linemate Mark Messier.</figcaption></div>In game three, he put the Oilers ahead to stay (3-2) and, when the Kings pulled within one (4-3), he scored again. In game five, his goal snapped a 1-1 tie as the Oilers went on to win 5-4, eliminating the Kings.After assisting on what was to be the winning goal in game three against Winnipeg, he drove home the backbreaker, the 4-1 goal in a 5-2 win.Fifty-two seconds into game two against the Red Wings, he opened the scoring by bursting down the right wing and unloading a 30-foot wrist shot in full flight. Fifty-seven minutes and 46 seconds later, he connected for a similar goal, breaking open a tense 2-1 struggle. The rushes were vintage Messier, combining the grace of a ballet dancer with the brute strength of an out-of-control locomotive.Then came the equalizer and winner in game five.&ldquo;I think Messier summed it all up,&rdquo; Oilers&rsquo; manager-coach Glen Sather said of the 26-year-old, who has also assisted on four winning goals during post-season play. &ldquo;He seems to have that unbeatable spirit&mdash;like a galloping thoroughbred in the wind. He gets that look in his eye&mdash;I&rsquo;ve only seen it once before, from Rocket Richard&mdash;but Mark has it even more. He gave everyone that look in the dressing room and away he went&hellip;&rdquo;Calgary Flames&rsquo; coach Bob Johnson said Messier is the prototypical player of the &rsquo;80s.&ldquo;I just want to win,&rdquo; said Messier, not particularly interested in talking about himself. &ldquo;I just want to do anything it takes to win. Last year was a big disappointment and I don&rsquo;t think we should be going overboard in what we&rsquo;ve done yet. We haven&rsquo;t won the Stanley Cup yet.&ldquo;Our biggest hill is out there to climb. We&rsquo;ve won a trophy and we&rsquo;ve put up another pennant. But to think we&rsquo;ve accomplished something&hellip;We still haven&rsquo;t done what we set out to do.&rdquo;Messier&rsquo;s new linemate, Kent Nilsson, spoke of the burly center&rsquo;s eye-of-the-tiger look.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011370/5161312-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="1449" height="1715"><figcaption class="caption-body">Past Conn Smythe-winner Mark Messier is the NHL&rsquo;s ultimate power forward, combining skill with enormous strength for the Oilers.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;He just looks at you,&rdquo; said Nilsson. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you, he has a helluva look. One of those looks at you, and you know you better get going. He&rsquo;s the guy who gets everybody going. He brought out a lot in me.&rdquo;Nilsson issued the ultimate compliment to Messier.&ldquo;He is the best overall player in the world, &ldquo;said Nilsson. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say he&rsquo;s the best player in the world because Wayne Gretzky is. But, Mark Messier is the best overall player.&ldquo;Nobody can play against him. He&rsquo;s so strong. He&rsquo;s so strong, it&rsquo;s unbelievable. He has such incredible balance on skates.&rdquo;Messier has long lived in Gretzky&rsquo;s shadow, but come the playoffs he seldom plays second fiddle to anyone.&ldquo;Mark has long been our inspirational leader,&rdquo; said Gretzky. &ldquo;Because of his style and the way he plays, he gets injuries. But he didn&rsquo;t have any all year. And he&rsquo;s had a great year.&ldquo;Because he&rsquo;s so big and strong, if he can&rsquo;t go around you, he&rsquo;ll go through you&hellip;He&rsquo;s so powerful.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very lucky to have him in my comer. We complement each other. He probably does more for my game than people realize. We don&rsquo;t play together, but he has a lot to do with my success.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question, he&rsquo;s a leader on this club&mdash;and a major force.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Don’t Mess With Mark

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Dick Chubey</div>EDMONTON&mdash;While Mark Messier has been drawing raves for his play, teammate Paul Coffey has faded quietly into the background this playoff season.It took 10 games for Coffey to score his first 1987 Stanley Cup playoff goal, and he wasn&rsquo;t accepting congratulations afterwards.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t the one who wrote myself off as a goal-scorer,&rdquo; he scowled, after clicking for the Oilers&rsquo; first goal in game five against Detroit.The goal was the first in 19 playoff games over two years for Coffey, who broke Bobby Orr&rsquo;s single-season record for goals, with 48 in 1985-86.&ldquo;Paul was rewarded with that goal because he was the best defensive player on the ice in game four in Detroit,&rdquo; Wayne Gretzky said.Coffey made it two straight games with a goal when he contributed the winner in game one of the final series with Philadelphia.The playoffs&mdash;in particular, the first two rounds&mdash;haven&rsquo;t been really kind for Coffey. He missed 20 regular&mdash;season games&mdash;two 10 flgame segments&mdash;with back spasms, then was forced to sit out the final match when he bruised his left shoulder.(Still, Coffey collected 17 goals and 50 assists in 59 regular-season games.)As luck would have it, he suffered a bruised right shoulder in game one of the playoffs. That kept him out four more games. He was also held pointless through the first five games of the playoffs in which he did participate.&ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t think about it, but it was different, no doubt,&rdquo; the 25-year-old said. &ldquo;But, if I didn&rsquo;t have any points and we were losing, I&rsquo;d be upset because I&rsquo;d think, maybe, I wasn&rsquo;t doing my job.&ldquo;But, it isn&rsquo;t needed from me. The way we&rsquo;re playing has been unreal&mdash;a total effort from 20 guys. We&rsquo;re getting important goals up front, so I may as well stay back and play defensively.&ldquo;As long as you don&rsquo;t get scored upon, you&rsquo;re doing your job. If you don&rsquo;t get scored against, you know you&rsquo;re going to win hockey games.&rdquo;That emphasis on defense came down from manager-coach Glen Sather at the beginning of the season.&ldquo;At the start of the year, he told me goals and assists don&rsquo;t mean anything,&rdquo; said Coffey. &ldquo;Gretz was told the same thing. Gretz is playing great now defensively. He&rsquo;s playing good when he doesn&rsquo;t have the puck.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what it takes to win.&rdquo; &#9632;

Different Role For Coffey

<div class="byline">BY AL MORGANTI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011219/5161374-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">When the Philadelphia Flyers lost key players, such as Tim Kerr, super subs Tim Tookey, top inset, and Don Nachbaur, bottom inset, filled in admirably. The strong supporting cast was a major reason the Flyers made it to the Stanley Cup final.</figcaption></div>If you really want to check out the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; depth chart, you&rsquo;d do well to invest in some sonar equipment.We&rsquo;re talking deep depth here. This is a job for Jacques Cousteau. Not only do you have to check out the guys in the Spectrum locker room, but it&rsquo;s guys from down in Hershey, and even further down who&rsquo;ve helped push the team into the Stanley Cup finals for the second time in three seasons.And before you get to the bottom, you might as well start at the top. Check it out; they&rsquo;ve even got depth in the coaching department with coach Mike Keenan, assistants E.J. McGuire, Paul Holmgren, Bill Barber, Reg Higgs, Bernie Parent, and even a full-time videotape coordinator, Mike Finnochiaro.Obviously, this club believes in strength in numbers.All right, so they lost the first game of the Stanley Cup finals to the Edmonton Oilers 4-2. Not to worry. Keenan had over 35 players available to shake up the lineup.&ldquo;Before the season even began,&rdquo; said Keenan recently, &ldquo;we realized that winning the Stanley Cup might develop into an endurance contest.&ldquo;We looked at last season, and we saw that both Montreal and Calgary got there, partly because they had a lot of bodies. It&rsquo;s getting to the point where the last guys standing win the Cup.&rdquo;All Keenan had to do to prove his point was submit a list of the Flyer playoff schedule. The first game against the Oilers was the 20th his team had played in 40 nights.And there was no easy section of road in that path. It started with the spooky Rangers, who have always been a playoff problem for the Flyers, and then it got worse.Imagine this&mdash;if the Flyers win the Cup, they will have had to defeat every team that has won the Cup since they last won it in 1975; the Islanders, the Canadiens, and the Oilers.And if they do this, it will be a tribute to the depth of the organization. Heck, even if they don&rsquo;t do it, the fact that they got so far is in itself a tribute to the organization.This is a team which was without its leading scorer, Tim Kerr, for the entire semi-final series; its captain Dave Poulin for virtually two entire series; penalty-killer Murray Craven for two series and spare defenseman J.J. Daigneault for an extended period, too.Poulin and Kerr had such long-term injuries, that people tend to forget how devastating a loss they should have been. When you think of it, the loss of those two would be like the Oilers losing Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier.But the Flyers have this history of compensating for the loss of key players. Even when they went to the finals in 1985 they were without Brad McCrimmon (shoulder), Kerr was hobbled with a knee injury and Poulin hampered by a bruised rib.In the absence of such regulars, other players play different roles. The lines get shifted to compensate for missing persons&mdash;and somehow the team wins.&ldquo;Part of the reason we can blend so well,&rdquo; said Keenan, &ldquo;is that our guys plays on different lines and different combinations through the season.&ldquo;That way, in the event of an injury, we&rsquo;ve got people familiar with that position.&rdquo;And part of the reason Keenan can substitute people is the organizational depth. Keenan can go down to a guy like Lindsay Carson, and ask him to play any forward position, knowing he&rsquo;ll get a good effort.He can take a core of about seven forwards, and then mix in the likes of Scott Mellanby, Dave Brown, or even Darryl Stanley (who plays both forward and defense).Beyond that, he can dip into his minorleague pool, and come up with Al Hill, Don Nachbaur or Tim Tookey, who won five consecutive face-offs late in the final game against Montreal.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve always believed that our minorleague players can help us,&rdquo; said Flyers&rsquo; general manager Bob Clarke. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lesson that we&rsquo;ve learned.&rdquo;If you don&rsquo;t believe it, just look to the fact that the club used a record 46 players this season. Once again, they were racked by injuries, and once again they dipped into the minor leagues.By the end of the season, players like Nachbaur, Hill, and Tookey had been called up, along with junior players Kerry Huffman and Glen Seabrooke, and a lengthy list of others.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a lot of guys contributing,&rdquo; said Barber. &ldquo;We try to train our guys, so that we feel they can step up and give us a hand.&rdquo;Perhaps the best example of the Flyers&rsquo; extraordinary depth is in goal. Remember, it was only a year ago that a guy named Bob Froese was a legitimite candidate for the Vezina Trophy. And less than a year later, the Flyers were able to trade Froese.Why?Because they had a kid named Ron Hextall in their system.Think of it this way. There are teams which haven&rsquo;t had even one star goalie in the past 15 or 20 years. Then look at the Flyers, who suffered the loss of Pelle Lindbergh in November of 1985.Lindbergh, who died in a car crash, was a Vezina Trophy winner, and the loss of a talented goalie like that would have devastated most clubs. But here are the Flyers, only two years later in the Stanley Cup finals with Ron Hextali.Fact is, they didn&rsquo;t pull Hextall out of thin air, they pulled him out of their depth chart, which is the same place they hope to pull out a third Stanley Cup championship. &#9632;

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Strength In Numbers

It may qualify as ancient history&mdash;especially after the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; 4-2 victory in game one over the Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup final&mdash;but it was the Flyers who won the regular-season series, 2-1, between the two teams.Incredibly, the two clubs last met on Dec. 28, making game one of the finals their first meeting of this calendar year.Below, you will find the details of the team&rsquo;s three meetings:<h2>PHILADELPHIA vs EDMONTON</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-02863/5161405-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="703" height="207"></div>GAME ONE SCORERS: Pha&mdash;Sutter, Zezel. EdmKurri. WG-Zezel.Winning goalie&mdash;Hextall (P). Losing goalie&mdash;Fuhr (E).Shots: Philadelphia 30, Edmonton 22.GAME TWO SCORERS: Pha-Poulin, Propp, Hospodar, Zezel, Mellanby. WG-Mellanby. Edm: Gretzky, Messier.Winning goalie&mdash;Hextall (P). Losing goalie&mdash;Fuhr (E).Shots: Edmonton 29, Philadelphia 26.GAME THREE SCORERS: Edm-Gretzky 2, Kurri 2, Messier, MacTavish. WG-Gretzky. Pha&mdash;Crossman 2, D. Smith, Sutter.Winning goalie-Moog (E). Losing goalie&mdash;Hextall (P).Shots: Edmonton 26, Philadelphia 22.Total series scorers:Edm-Kurri 3, Gretzky 3, Messier 2, MacTavish 1.Pha-Crossman 2, Sutter 2, Zezel 2, Poulin, Propp, Hospodar, Mellanby, D. Smith. &#9632;

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The Regular-Season Series

I AM ANOTHER hockey fan who is fed up with Al Strachan.While other sports writers who make outrageous statements (i.e. Stan Fischler) throw some humor into their columns, Strachan sounds like he actually believes what he writes.In Strachan&rsquo;s column (May 8, THN) he implies that first-round upsets in the NHL playoffs are leading millions of fans to believe that the NHL season is virtually meaningless.He says that for every happy Toronto Maple Leafs fan, there is a St. Louis Blues fan saying: &ldquo;What good did it do my Blues to work hard and finish first, only to get knocked off by a last-place team that clearly floated through a good part of the season.&rsquo;&rsquo; This is a perfect example of a rash and ridiculous Al Strachan comment.The Blues barely won first place and were beaten fairly in a best-of-seven series by a better team. Any fan who can&rsquo;t accept this is just a sore loser. Al is just upset because the Leafs proved him wrong again.Strachan states, &ldquo;The maddening part of all this is that the solution is so simple. Cut the number of playoff qualifiers to 12 and give the first-place teams a bye in the opening round.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s Al&rsquo;s mind that is simple. Cutting the number of teams is not going to eliminate upsets or make things more fair. What happens to a team that works hard all season long only to miss first place by one point? Then, they have to play a tough seven-game series while the first-place team rests. Is that fair, Al?We could eliminate that problem by cutting the number of teams to eight or four. How about the top three teams overall making the playoffs and giving the first-place team a bye? Or we could eliminate the playoffs altogether and the &ldquo;greedy pigheaded owners&rdquo; could go broke.Dean Frado, St. Catharines, ON<h2>FREE FIGHTING</h2>I just got finished reading a letter in the &ldquo;Fan Forum&rdquo; by Kenneth Jermyn, who said the referees should assess an automatic game suspension and $500 fine to any player who fights (THN, May 8). That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Fighting is part of the game. If players were afraid to fight in fear of being ejected and fined, they would find other ways to relieve their frustration. They would slash and high-stick which could cause serious and permanent injury.If anything, the penalty should be lighter, but if that&rsquo;s not possible leave it be.Hockey is the greatest sport in the world. If the referees had even more power to intervene, it would take away from an otherwise exciting game.Jeff Hatley Sr., Pennsauker, NJ<h2>CLARKE NO SAINT</h2>Frank J. Viola&rsquo;s fawning and unctuous adulation of Bobby Clarke (THN, May 8) mysteriously doesn&rsquo;t salute the Flyer GM as one of the premier cheap-shot artists in NHL history. OF Bobby was a master at watching for the referee to turn away before sucker-sticking opponents. Then, this &ldquo;fierce competitor&rdquo; would get one (or more) of the Philly goon squad to defend him should he be called to task for his mousey play. I will admit, however, that he was an ideal captain for a team that had such players as Dave (the Ball-Peen Hammer) Schultz and Bill (Swan Dive) Barber.If Clarke exemplifies what the Hockey Hall of Fame is all about, Mr. Viola, then I&rsquo;ll keep the kids at home and save the price of admission.Dennis C. Whitehead, Marquette, MILet 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;

NHL Playoff Thoughts Raise THN Reader’s Ire

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011304/5161460-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0008-01

Elston

THE QUESTION WAS posed during a Memorial Cup game in Oshawa, Ont.&ldquo;How,&rdquo; a National Hockey League scout was asked, &ldquo;can a guy like Tony Joseph be drafted this year?&rdquo;It has been suggested by those in the know that Joseph, the Oshawa Generals&rsquo; 6-foot-4, 205-pound forward, has a fair chance of having his name called on June 13 at the NHL entry draft in Detroit.Ordinarily, that would come as no surprise, even though Joseph collected no points, but 26 penalty minutes and a one-game suspension for spitting in his only Memorial Cup game appearance.More than 250 players are selected each year and although Joseph&rsquo;s penalty numbers (138 minutes in the regular season, 98 in the playoffs) dwarfed his offensive output (two goals, five assists in 44 regular-season games, no goals, no assists in 19 playoff games), his physical stature alone would seem to guarantee him a place somewhere in the mid-to-late rounds.This year, though, is different. If Joseph is to be drafted, it must be in the first three rounds.That is due to new draft eligibility regulations as outlined in the NHL&rsquo;s collective bargaining agreement signed last summer.Never before have draft choices been so cherished. In effect, there are two separate drafts this year&mdash;Nos. I through 63 and Nos. 64 through 252 being secondary.Maybe Joseph won&rsquo;t be drafted. All we can be certain of is that if he is, it must be amongst the top 63 players.So, the question must be asked again. How can an NHL team use one of its crucial first three selections to claim a player who receives only limited ice time in junior and who, so far anyway, is more menacing to opposing skaters than opposing goaltenders?&ldquo;Look at just about any NHL team,&rdquo; says the scout, offering the answer. &ldquo;Shane Churla in Hartford, Dave Brown in Philadelphia, Jay Miller in Boston, Gord Donnelly in Quebec, John Kordic in Montreal. The list goes on&hellip;&ldquo;Those players play a role for their teams. They&rsquo;ve become important. If a team doesn&rsquo;t have a player like that, then maybe that&rsquo;s going to be a priority (for that team) in the draft. If they can fill that void on their team and it only costs them a third-round pick, it&rsquo;s worth it.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021087/5161491-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="389" height="443"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob McKenzie</figcaption></div>Which would explain why Joseph may be taken.And which also tells you something about the game of hockey today.In the vernacular, they&rsquo;re called goons. On a personal level, the label is generally unfair. But there has to be a quick, easy way to describe a player whose skill level is poor but whose physical presence is overwhelming.What we are seeing today is a proliferation of goons.It is, as the scout points out, like the nuclear arms race.&ldquo;If one team doesn&rsquo;t have one,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;they have to get one to neutralize or cancel the other team&rsquo;s (goon).&rdquo;Naturally, if one team deploys two goons, then proliferation occurs as other teams scurry to boost their arsenal.So much is this like the arms race that we even have a coach calling for detente.Montreal&rsquo;s Jean Perron, illustrating just how low the game sinks from time to time, said he would withdraw his hit man, Kordic, from the lineup if Quebec&rsquo;s Michel Bergeron would do the same with Donnelly.Bergeron graciously declined, realizing perhaps his medium-range missiles would be no match for Chris (Knuckles) Nilan.It&rsquo;s gotten to the point where if a goon increases his skill level so he&rsquo;s capable of playing every day, as is the case with Nilan, the club must go out and get another goon (Kordic) to allow the first goon to concentrate on playing the game the way it is meant to be played.Absolutely goony, isn&rsquo;t it?If Tony Joseph is drafted this year, it will be as much a statement about the way the game is played today as it will be about the way he plays. &#9632;

f0008-02

Matching Muscle In Pro Hockey’s Arms Race

<div class="byline">COMPILED BY RICHARD BEALES Editorial Staff</div>Police from the Montreal Urban Community are investigating the brawl prior to game six of the Wales Conference final between the Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers.Videotapes of the incident were requested from Hockey Night In Canada. Police may question some of the players involved in the skirmish, which lasted close to 10 minutes and delayed the start of the game by 15 minutes.The brawl began after Shayne Corson of the Canadiens shot a puck into an open Philadelphia net, after the majority of Flyers had left the ice. Corson, accompanied by teammate Claude Lemieux, was carrying out what had become a noteworthy superstition for the Canadiens during the playoff season.The Flyers&rsquo; Ed Hospodar then attacked Lemieux, a move which drew most of the players from both teams back on the ice.NHL executive vice-president Brian O&rsquo;Neill assessed fines totalling $24,500 the day after the brawl, and suspended Hospodar for the Stanley Cup final series. All players who came on the ice during the incident were fined $500.Goaltenders Ron Hextall of Philadelphia and Brian Hayward of the Canadiens did not take part.Hospodar, Flyer goaltender Glenn Resch, Corson and Lemieux were fined $500 each for returning to the ice at the outset of the incident.Five players from Philadelphia&mdash;Dave Brown, Rick Tocchet, Don Nachbaur, Darryl Stanley and Hospodar&mdash;and four Canadiens&mdash;Corson, Chris Nilan. Larry Robinson and Mike McPhee&mdash;were fined an additional $500 apiece for fighting.It is expected that NHL president John Ziegler will also assess fines to the management of both teams for failing to control their players.Last season, the Canadiens were fined $21,000 for a post-game brawl in game four of the Stanley Cup final at the Forum.<h2>CUP IN HARTFORD</h2>The Hartford Civic Center will host only three Canada Cup games instead of five as originally planned, Hartford Whalers&rsquo; president Howard Baldwin has announced.An Aug. 24 exhibition game between Team USA and the U.S. Olympic team and two Canada Cup games&mdash;USA vs. Finland, Aug. 27, and USA vs. USSR, Sept. 4&mdash;will be played at the arena.An exhibition game between Canada and the USA, and a tournament game between the USA and Sweden have been dropped by Hartford.The team originally planned to include all five games as part of a 50-game season-ticket package, but withdrew the plan when the office of the Connecticut Attorney-General announced the legality of the plan would be investigated.Baldwin then said a poll would be taken of the Whalers&rsquo; 9,200 seasonticket holders. If fewer than 7,500 indicated interest, Baldwin said, the games would be cancelled.The poll &ldquo;was running 50-50,&rdquo; Baldwin said, when he decided to hold the three-game package regardless.The three games, none of which are mandatory purchases for season-ticket holders, will be offered to the subscribers at a reduced rate, Baldwin said.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re very, very pleased we are able to have these three games,&rdquo; Baldwin said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a risky venture. I&rsquo;m now hoping the community will respond to this&hellip;Our plan was not to have it (the Canada Cup series) at all, but we settled on this modified version.&rdquo;Canada Cup tournament organizer Alan Eagleson was unavailable for comment on where the other two games would be played.<h2>BROWN TOP PLAYER</h2>For Rob Brown, the pain of watching the Memorial Cup from the stands was lessened somewhat by his selection as Canadian Major Junior hockey player of the year.Brown, whose favored Kamloops Blazers were eliminated from Memorial Cup contention by the Portland Winter Hawks, was named winner of the award over Ontario League representative Scott McCrory of Oshawa and Quebec League rep Marc Fortier of the Chicoutimi Sagueneens.Brown set new Western League marks for assists (136) and points (212) in one season, en route to his second consecutive scoring title.A fourth-round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1986, he will attend the Penguins&rsquo; camp next fall.<h2>OLYMPIC DRAWS</h2>The Canadian team will be a heavy favorite to make the medal round at the 1988 Calgary Olympics, while the United States rates as even money at best.Using the results of the recent World Championships in Vienna as a guide, Olympic organizers placed Canada in the &ldquo;A&rdquo; pool with surprise gold medal-winner Sweden, Finland. Switzerland, Poland and France.In the &ldquo;B&rdquo; pool, the United States must contend with the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, who placed second and third, respectively, at Vienna. The surprisingly strong West Germans will also be in the pool, as will Austria and Norway.Three teams from each pool advance to the medal round.The preliminary round schedule (all Mountain times) is as follows:Saturday, Feb. 13&mdash;Czechoslovakia vs. West Germany, 2:30 p.m.; Norway vs. Soviet Union, 4:30 p.m.; Austria vs. United States, 6:30 p.m.Sunday, Feb. 14&mdash;Sweden vs. France, 10:30 a.m.; Poland vs. Canada, 2:30 p.m.; Switzerland vs. Finland, 6:30 p.m.Monday, Feb. 15&mdash;Norway vs. West Germany, 2:15 p.m; Soviet Union vs. Austria, 6 p.m.; United States vs. Czechoslovakia, 6:15 p.m.Tuesday, Feb. 16&mdash;Sweden vs. Poland, 10 a.m.; Canada vs. Switzerland, 2 p.m.; Finland vs. France, 6:15 p.m.Wednesday, Feb. 17&mdash;West Germany vs. Austria, 2 p.m.; Czechoslovakia vs. Norway, 2:15 p.m.; Soviet Union vs. United States, 6:15 p.m.Thursday, Feb. 18&mdash;France vs. Poland, 2 p.m.; Switzerland vs. Sweden, 2:15 p.m.; Canada vs. Finland, 6:15 p.m.Friday, Feb. 19&mdash;Czechoslovakia vs. Austria, 2 p.m.; West Germany vs. Soviet Union, 2:15 p.m.; United States vs. Norway, 6:15 p.m.Saturday, Feb. 20&mdash;Finland vs. Sweden, 1 p.m.; Canada vs. France, 2:15 p.m.; Poland vs. Switzerland, 6:15 p.m.Sunday, Feb. 21&mdash;Soviet Union vs. Czechoslovakia, 1:30 p.m.; Austria vs. Norway, 5 p.m.; West Germany vs. United States, 6:15 p.m.Monday, Feb. 22&mdash;Finland vs. Poland, 10 a.m.; Sweden vs. Canada, 2 p.m.; France vs. Switzerland, 6:30 p.m.<h2>GIRL WINS IN COURT</h2>A 14-year-old Toronto girl has won yet another victory in her legal battle to play hockey on a boys&rsquo; team.A board of inquiry will be appointed by the Ontario Human Rights Commission to probe Justine Blainey&rsquo;s sexual discrimination complaint. The Ontario Hockey Association wanted to see the commission&rsquo;s decision to appoint the board quashed, but the Supreme Court of Ontario dismissed the OHA&rsquo;s application.The commission decided last December to refer the case to a formal board of inquiry.Blainey won a place on the Etobicoke Canucks team of the Metropolitan Toronto League, but was barred from the team by the OHA. &#9632;

Police Investigating Canadien-Flyer Brawl

Homestretch playoff thoughts&hellip;&bull; Not many personalities can survive the build-up Jacques Demers received this year&mdash;and avoid a letdown&mdash;but this guy is more than amazin&rsquo;. He&rsquo;s worth every pizza Mike Hitch is paying him.&bull; The most outrageous missed call of the playoffs belongs to Terry Gregson. He gave the Oilers a power play in the third period of game two of the Detroit-Edmonton series. A bit later, with the score 2-1 in favor of the Oilers, Gil Delorme was dumped into the Oilers bench (Foul No. I) where he was held for several seconds (Foul No. 2). Nothing was called. A power play could have put the Wings back in the hunt.&bull; Broadcasting for ESPN, Mike Liut keeps saying, &ldquo;The Oilers are skating tonight.&rdquo; What else do you do on ice&mdash;ski? Sled? Of course they&rsquo;re skating. Every team skates.&bull; The best forgotten big save of the playoffs belongs to Bob Mason of the Capitals, who stopped the Islanders&rsquo; Bob Bassen on a clean breakaway in sudden-death of the marathon seventh game.&bull; Now there can be no doubt; had Calgary played Edmonton in the playoffs, the Oilers would have been history.&bull; No aspect of hockey has made more impressive advances than the U.S. collegians. Example I: Lou Lamoriello, for years the hockey guru at Providence College, becomes president of the Devils. Example II: Gino Gasparini of the University of North Dakota becomes one of the most sought-after coaches on the continent.&bull; I give Serge Savard a lot of credit for several moves, but none more than the deal for Brian Hayward.&bull; If Marcel Aubut has the clout he displayed with Rendez-Vous &rsquo;87, he should be able to right some of the wrongs perpetrated against his Nordiques.&bull; Things I Wish I Could See But Won&rsquo;t 1: Tom Webster handling the Rangers for one playoff round.&bull; Not having forgotten that the Blues finished first in the Norris, I&rsquo;m casting my Hart Trophy ballot for Doug Gilmour.&bull; Dave Poulin&rsquo;s seventh-game comeback against the Islanders&mdash;he wore a flak jacket to protect broken ribs&mdash;ranks with the NHL&rsquo;s alltime best. Especially when you consider that Poulin won the game, and the series, with his first-period play.&bull; Since I don&rsquo;t like to keep secrets, I&rsquo;ll tell you I voted for Ron Caron as executive of the year.&bull; Hall of Fame Travesty I: There is absolutely no justification for Keith Allen&rsquo;s exclusion from the &ldquo;Builders&rdquo; category. The Flyers&rsquo; original coach and builder of their double-Stanley Cup team has been as much responsible for the Flyers continued high standing as anyone. He&rsquo;s more qualified than a dozen &ldquo;Builders&rdquo; and should have been inducted long ago.&bull; We certainly have waited a long time for Terry Crisp to get an NHL job, haven&rsquo;t we?&bull; Here&rsquo;s hoping the Buffalo Sabres re-sign Clark Gillies and that Bob Bourne joins the Vancouver Canucks.&bull; Things I Wish I Could See But Won&rsquo;t II: John Muckier as a head coach&mdash;just to find out whether there&rsquo;s any substance under that hair style.&bull; Several speed records were set this spring by supporters of Phil Esposito turning on him just because his Rangers went out in six games to Philly.&bull; There&rsquo;s something to the theory that Wayne Gretzky is virtually immune from bodychecking. The proof is Dale Hawerchuk&rsquo;s last playoff game that sent The Great One reeling. So what? Mike Bossy, Denis Savard and Mario Lemieux take crap like that all the time with no fuss or fanfare.&bull; Let&rsquo;s face it: The enlarged crease has done nothing to curtail goalie-running. It&rsquo;s become standard operating procedure with some teams and reinforces the need some teams feel to add protective goons to their rosters.&bull; My prize for &ldquo;Most Impressive Loser&rdquo; in the playoffs goes to Mike Gartner. Bob Mason is runner-up.&bull; Has anyone figured out why Mike Ridley plummeted from hero to has-been inside a seven-game series?&bull; Just a thought but maybe hockey would be a better game if the goalies were forbidden from leaving the crease altogether, the way it was before 1954.&bull; Best journalistic move of the year was the Toronto Sun&rsquo;s grabbing of Steve Simmons from the Calgary Herald. It&rsquo;s like Rod Langway going from Montreal to Washington. (Steve is making a lot of the T.O. opposition look bad.)&bull; But dumping on ref Kerry Fraser, as Steve did (THN, May 15), is patently unfair. Everyone with half a brain realizes that the officiating system stinks, but the problem extends far above and beyond the zebras themselves: That is, to the owners and the president. If the truth be known, nobody really knows what&rsquo;s going on&mdash;and that includes the players.&bull; Gil Delorme was nothing short of heroic for the Red Wings.&bull; I would like to hear Jacques Demers come out and say something nice about his GM, Jimmy Devellano. I mean really nice. This would do my heart good.&bull; The Swedes continue to confound. Tomas Sandstrom disappeared on the Rangers while Pelle Eklund merely saved the Flyers. Guess they&rsquo;re just like Canadian and American hockey players.&bull; If you count the playoffs, Ron Hextall has to be rookie of the year.&bull; It wasn&rsquo;t a bad season for rookie coaches when you consider that Terry Simpson and John Brophy advanced to second playoff rounds and Jacques Martin orchestrated a fine homestretch comeback.&bull; Still, I think Harold Ballard is going to regret handing Brophy that three-year contract on the basis of the playoff sprint alone.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011346/5161546-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="334" height="445"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stan Fischler</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0010-01

Poulin Performance One For The Books

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-03675/5161577-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="559" height="1258"><figcaption class="caption-body">GM Phil Esposito Isn&rsquo;t offering any coach a contract longer than two years.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021033/5161584-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="119" height="119"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Being head coach in the Big Apple&mdash;is it really such a plum job?Phil Esposito mulled the question over for a few seconds before answering&hellip;and that, in itself, is unusual.&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t really think there is anything different that makes this job more attractive than being an NHL coach in any other city,&rdquo; the New York Ranger general manager replied.&ldquo;In fact, there are some negatives to it, because of the press&mdash;there are more reporters here than any place else&mdash;and because of the way I want the press handled.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve started something here&mdash;being open and co-operative,&rsquo; &lsquo;Esposito said, &ldquo;and I want whoever comes in to follow that path.&rdquo;Although the team&rsquo;s 34-38-4 record and its first-round playoff exit were disappointing, Esposito did carry out his pledge to improve relations with the media.The GM not only took the time to be available himself, he generally created a more public-relations-conscious atmosphere in the Ranger locker room, opening up the &ldquo;off-limits&rdquo; lounge when players reverted to their postgame hide-and-seek sessions.Although the Ranger GM is a positive thinker who frequently sings the praises of New York, he does not try to hide the fact that there are some negatives.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>The Rangers&rsquo; age (a league-leading average of 27.11 at the end of the season), lack of recent coaching continuity and its poor record in the draft do not fill applicants with the same optimism which Esposito expresses.The past is another problem.The Rangers are a team which has not played .500 hockey in three seasons, has not finished first in its division since 1942 and has not won a Stanley Cup since 1940.It would appear that Esposito&rsquo;s stated desire to win while building is another factor which may scare off some candidates&hellip;and there is also the matter of a two-year contract.&ldquo;There have been some guys already who have told me that they would need a three-or a five-year contract to coach here,&rdquo; Esposito said. &ldquo;I just scratched them right off my list. Nobody is going to get a five-year contract. I&rsquo;ve only got two left myself.&rdquo;Esposito said he has interviewed seven candidates and has another six men lined up for talks.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s going slower than I anticipated,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot more interviewing to do&hellip;unless somebody jumps out at me. So far, that just hasn&rsquo;t happened.&rdquo;BIG APPLESAUCE&mdash;The Ran gers will probably announce the signing of their 1985 first-round pick, Ulf Dahlen, in the near future&hellip; Phil Esposito said minor-league wingers Paul Fenton and Gordie Walker will get &ldquo;long looks&rdquo; in training camp. &ldquo;We had too many closed minds in training camp last fall,&rdquo; he added, referring to Ted Sator and staff&hellip;The Rangers will probably sign some free agents from junior hockey, including goalie Drago Adam, a Western League all-star from New Westminster. &#9632;

f0010-03

Coaching Rangers No Easy Task, Espo Says

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-02929/5161646-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0011-02

Road To The Stanley Cup

THE GAME OF ice hockey, indeed, is an unusual one, full of contradictions and twists in numbers that no other sport can match. In both the way the game is played and the structure of the National Hockey League, unpredictability has very fertile fields in which to grow.This spring&rsquo;s Stanley Cup playoffs have supplied an assortment of examples of the game&rsquo;s fickle nature and, in some instances, its downright daffiness.As always, the playoffs have featured what can be called, for the want of a better word, upsets. That means the team that (a) had the better talent, and (b) most people figured would win lost a series. Clubs that were superior over the 80-game schedule lost to teams that had not been as good over the long haul.Hartford Whalers had a dandy season and appeared to be the solid team that would be good in the playoffs. Calgary Flames appeared ready for another Cup run. This appeared to be the spring when Washington Capitals had a big chance to win the Patrick Division. But none of those teams made it to the final four.Edmonton Oilers were heavily favored to breeze easily past Detroit Red Wings in the Campbell Conference final. Sure, the Wings had demonstrated character and tenacity in scrapping back from a 3-1 deficit to oust Toronto Maple Leafs but, after all, they had won the puny old Norris Division, a sector in which no team played at the .500 level. When they ventured outside the friendly Norris spa, the Wings were a sure bet to be annihilated, especially by a team with a skill arsenal to equal the Oilers&rsquo;.Okay, so the Oilers did beat the Wings in five games but it was no laugher. Every game was in doubt until close to the finish and, once again, one of the game&rsquo;s most appealing features was demonstrated strongly. If the game was such that every favorite won, that there was no way for the team with the inferior talent to win any matchup, if tactics and execution occasionally couldn&rsquo;t overcome sheer talent, the game would have little, maybe no, appeal.Few NHL teams, perhaps none, have ever had as much pure ability as the Oilers. The percentage of the most skilled players in the league on their roster probably never has been matched. They deepened that talent pool this season by adding two extraordinarily gifted and experienced players in Kent Nilsson and Reijo Ruotsalainen.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011319/5161677-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="371" height="409"><figcaption class="caption-body">Frank Orr</figcaption></div>Now, match that lineup on paper against the Red Wing roster, which has a modicum of front-liners but is mainly retreads and role players, and there appeared to be no way that an Oiler breeze could be avoided.Except for one thing! In no other sport can preparation, tactics and execution by an inferior team nullify the skill edge of a superior team the way it can be done in hockey.Jacques Demers and his staff had the Wings outfitted with a simple, basic system designed to keep the Oilers away from the net and reduce to a minimum the space in which they could operate. Jet planes, after all, need at least a bit of runway before they can take off.The K-I-S-S (Keep It Simple, Stupid) approach is one Demers can get across to a team remarkably well. He keeps his player expectations realistic at all times and creates a system for them to use well within the boundaries of their capabilities.Thus, a team as talented and sophisticated as the Oilers can be chopped down to size by a club that plays a very simple game effectively. Had the Wings owned one more good sniper, a player who could have produced the occasional surprise goal, the series would have been even more difficult for the Oilers.In similar situations in the past, the superior team has allowed itself to be frustrated by an approach similar to the one the Wings employed. However, in what some could view as a surprise&mdash;it really is indicative of growth&mdash;the Oilers coped with the tactics very well. In fact, they probably welcomed the Wing style.Instead of fighting it, the Oilers played the same way, delivering the most disciplined defensive hockey the club ever has played.Think not? Did you ever figure you would go away from a hockey arena in May thinking of the great defensive game Wayne Gretzky played? &#9632;

f0012-01

Daffiness And Detroit: The 1987 NHL Playoffs

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021103/5161708-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="557" height="804"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Playfair has missed almost as many games as he&rsquo;s played for Los Angeles.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03741/5161715-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="166" height="107"></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;In a career fraught with peaks and valleys, Larry Playfair is facing his biggest challenge: Making a comeback from reconstructive surgery on his left knee.&ldquo;I expect to be playing again by next Christmas,&rdquo; the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; defenseman said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question in my mind I&rsquo;m going to bounce back from this thing.&rdquo;It would take a minor miracle for Playfair to return that quickly. Team physician Dr. Steve Lombardo performed the surgery on Feb. 19 and said this type of operation usually requires one year for rehabilitation.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;There&rsquo;s no question in my mind I&rsquo;m going to bounce back from this thing.&rsquo; &mdash;Playfair</blockquote>Yet Playfair has been doing so well in therapy, he may just beat those odds.&ldquo;When it first happened, I thought for sure that I would miss the whole (1987-88) year,&rdquo; said Playfair, who will be 29 on June 23.&ldquo;But things have come along pretty fast. I&rsquo;ve got the brace off now and I expect to start running in a few days. I really feel good about it.&rdquo;Dr. Lombardo took a piece of ligament from the front of Playfair&rsquo;s knee and used it to repair the anterior cruciate ligament. The surgery was similar to that performed on former Los Angeles Laker Mitch Kupchak a few years ago. Kupchak eventually returned to the basketball floor and later discussed his comeback with Playfair.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very encouraged by that,&rdquo; Playfair said. &ldquo;Basically, he told me what to expect during my rehabilitation and encouraged me to do everything necessary for me to come back.&rdquo;Playfair has been working out with weights and on a stationary bike two hours a day, five days a week. It&rsquo;s a boring, sometimes painful regimen, but Playfair is obsessed with making a successful comeback.Acquired from Buffalo in January 1986, the 6-foot-4,210-pounder wants to prove the Kings made a good move.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m anxious to get back and have a good year,&rdquo; said Playfair, who was acquired with Sean McKenna and prospect Ken Baumgartner in exchange for Doug Smith and Brian Engblom.Due to two knee injuries and a shoulder injury, he&rsquo;s missed nearly as many games (60) as he&rsquo;s played (83) since becoming a King.Playfair missed the final 17 games of the 1985-86 season with a knee injury, and had that and a shoulder ailment repaired in surgery following that season.His troubles began in the Kings&rsquo; 33rd game this past season when he collided with Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Terry Ruskowski along the boards on Dec. 17. He played in only four of the club&rsquo;s final 52 games, counting playoffs.Playfair missed 11 games as he recovered from arthroscopic surgery performed on Jan. 2, then suffered serious damage to the knee in only his second game back. That happened Jan. 31 in Montreal.&ldquo;If I was coming off my rookie year. I&rsquo;d be a lot more concerned,&rdquo;said Playfair. &ldquo;I know what I can do and I don&rsquo;t think the time off will take much away from my game. Dr. Lombardo operated on my shoulder last year and I didn&rsquo;t have a single problem with it, so I have the utmost confidence in him as well.&rdquo;ROYALTIES&mdash;As of mid-May, coach Mike Murphy still hadn&rsquo;t been signed to a new contract. He&rsquo;d been offered a one-year deal, but the financial arrangement hadn&rsquo;t been worked out&hellip;Winger Tiger Williams was expected to be ready for camp after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery to repair minor damage accumulated over the years&hellip;Goalie Bob Janecyk was wearing a brace to protect a stretched ligament in his right knee. He played in only seven games this past season, victimized by injuries and illnesses. &#9632;

f0012-02

‘Back By Christmas,’ Injured Playfair Vows

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-04453/5161746-1-eng-US/f0012-042.jpg" title="f0012-04" width="101" height="103"></div>VANCOUVER&mdash;Frank Griffiths is majority owner of both the Vancouver Canucks and British Columbia Television network, but even his clout wasn&rsquo;t enough to swing a Vancouver-market TV deal for the hockey team last year.To most, this seemed preposterous&mdash;but with the Griffiths empire committed to the concept of separate management, it wasn&rsquo;t so hard to believe.BCTV has a top-rated news hour at 6 p.m. and didn&rsquo;t want road games cutting in on that programming. The Canucks said they didn&rsquo;t want to give away their product or televise just home games, a situation which would have cut severely into the gate. As a result, a grand total of seven Canuck games reached homes and bars in the Vancouver area.The Canucks have always felt the telecast of home games would result in diminished box office appeal, so when they continued to keep rights fees high, BCTV walked.Now, it&rsquo;s new president/general manager Pat Quinn&rsquo;s job to sort out the mess. He and Arthur Griffiths, assistant to the chairman, have made it a priority to get the club back on television, where many feel the games are virtually a commercial for the product in any case.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re just waiting for the schedule before we sit down and talk with BCTV and see if we can&rsquo;t work something out,&rdquo; said Arthur Griffiths, who moved downtown to the Western Broadcast Sales offices and out of the hockey offices at the Pacific Coliseum.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to know exactly what games and times we are dealing with before any kind of package can be worked out.&rdquo;The Canucks, now smarting from both poor ticket sales and television revenue, will have to back off on their asking price to get a deal with BCTV.Two other stations in the market&mdash;CKVU, the station that carried the Global playoff coverage, and KVOS, a U.S. border station&mdash;have also ex-pfessed interest. That may get BCTV moving, because Canuck games would give either of the two smaller stations some legitimacy in the Vancouver market. As poorly as the Canucks have performed, they are still the No. 1 sports team in town.&ldquo;I think you can look for the situation of last year to change,&rdquo; said Frank Griffiths, who rarely interferes with the management of either operation.The loss of the preceeding year&rsquo;s $1-million BCTV dollars was at least half the reason the club lost $2 million this past season. A reversal of the situation can quickly get the club back into the economic picture.&ldquo;I think, basically, the operation should pay for itself,&rdquo; the chairman said. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t get into the hockey business to make money. We are in it to contribute to the community in which we have had some success. But large losses like that I don&rsquo;t feel are acceptable.&rdquo;Still, Griffiths said he wouldn&rsquo;t consider selling the club if the losses were to continue.VAN LINES&mdash;Pat Quinn has expressed a passing interest in free-agent goaltender Ed Belfour from the University of North Dakota and Canadian Olympic team forward Claude Vilgrain. but neither have received offers yet&hellip;CKNW radio, the station that hired Dave Hodge, has fired Garry Monahan as color man for Jim Robson on the club radio broadcasts. &#9632;</div>

f0012-04

Canucks Hoping To Settle TV Fiasco

<div class="byline">BY BOB MCKENZIE Editor-In-Chief</div>If Bill LaForge ever gets another opportunity to coach in the National Hockey League, his experience with the Vancouver Canucks will have taught him at least one lesson.&ldquo;Next time,&rdquo; says LaForge, fired by the Canucks after only 20 games in the 1984-85 season, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll make sure the ice is a little more frozen before I walk on it.&rdquo;Fat chance.In the world of coaching, thin ice is an occupational hazard, even for those believed to be capable of walking on water.Ask Bob Berry or Lome Henning. They fell through into the chilly waters of unemployment in Pittsburgh and Minnesota, respectively.In Chicago, general manager Bob Pulford grew tired of treading water, but he managed to get back to dry land before going down for the count. Meanwhile, ex-New York Ranger coach Tom Webster discovered, much to his chagrin, that he wasn&rsquo;t medically fit to start the trek across the pond.As a result, this spring&rsquo;s hockey spotlight has had to be shared. In some quarters, the NHL coaching derby has received as much attention as the Stanley Cup playoffs themselves.There are three head-coaching positions available&mdash;with Chicago, New York Rangers and Pittsburgh. A fourth is a definite possibility in Vancouver&mdash;where Tom Watt is rumored headed for a front-office job. And a fifth might yet open up in Los Angeles&mdash;where some hockey insiders think contract difficulties between the Kings and Mike Murphy indicate the Kings&rsquo; are reluctant to sign Murphy.Three, maybe four or five, openings and oh-so-many men to fill them.So far, Moncton Golden Flame coach Terry Crisp is coaching no fewer than three teams. So is University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux coach Gino Gasparini.But since it&rsquo;s only one man to a team, there are others in line. So many of them, in fact, that you can&rsquo;t tell the coaching candidates without a program.Here&rsquo;s a who&rsquo;s who of NHL head-coaching candidates. Fear not if this year&rsquo;s positions are filled before you&rsquo;ve finished reading it. Just clip it out, post it on the fridge, cross off those who obtained gainful employment and wait.It won&rsquo;t be long before more vacancies open up.<h2>READY FOR PRIME TIME</h2>PIERRE CREAMER: Aside from being Mike Bossy&rsquo;s brother-in-law, he&rsquo;s established himself as a fine coach. A solid member of the Montreal Canadien organization. Creamer first coached the Verdun Junior Canadiens and is now with the Sherbrooke Canadiens. After five games of the American League final, he was one win away from his second Calder Cup title in three years.TERRY CRISP: When a report surfaced that Viktor Tikhonov was finished as coach of the Soviet national team, it was only logical to think Crisp was the No. 1 candidate to replace him. For the past year, he seems to have been the leading candidate for every job that has opened up. He&rsquo;s your basic no-frills coach who credits Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour and Fred Shero as his biggest influences He has served successful apprenticeships in major junior (Sault Ste. Marie) and the minors (Moncton). Pittsburgh or Vancouver are the likely destinations.GINO GASPARINI: If the rumors ring true, coach of the NCAA-champion Fighting Sioux will trade one Indian head for another, that of the Chicago Blackhawks. Gasparini, a fixture at UND for the past 20 years (11 as an assistant and the last nine as head coach), will have to get a good deal to make a move. In addition to coaching at UND, he&rsquo;s the athletic director.RICK LEY: He has one Turner Cup (International League championship) to his credit and was gunning for another this year, although his Muskegon Lumberjacks trailed Salt Lake City 3-2 in the final. Some say the former NHL defenseman is destined to join his friend Pat Quinn in Vancouver. It would surprise no one if he gets an assistant coaching post in the NHL before getting a head man&rsquo;s job.RON LAPOINTE: A distinguished major junior career with Shawinigan of the Quebec League earned this colorful coach an assistant&rsquo;s job with the Washington Capitals. After two years as Bryan Murray&rsquo;s understudy, he feels he&rsquo;s ready to step up a notch. He was interviewed for the Pittsburgh job, but is expected to be a bridesmaid&mdash;this time.RON MASON: His qualifications for the job are as good or better than anybody else&rsquo;s. Is his heart really in it, though? That&rsquo;s the question that is being asked of the successful Michigan State University coach. He runs what is arguably the most prestigious college hockey program in North America and he&rsquo;s very choosy about the environment he works in. He, too, was interviewed for the Penguin job and would be a good bet to get it if he really wanted it.BOB MURDOCH: The former NHL defenseman has spent the last five seasons as an assistant coach with the Calgary Flames. His name was prominently mentioned in the Chicago job search and while his tutoring under Calgary&rsquo;s Badger Bob Johnson will stand him in good stead, he may have to wait a little longer. That&rsquo;s fine with him, though. He&rsquo;s in the NHL and happy to be a member of the Flames&rsquo; family&mdash;for now.PIERRE PAGE: Like Murdoch, Page is gainfully employed as an assistant with the Flames. He has retained agent Art Kaminsky to beat his drum and of all the coaching candidates up for grabs, Page may be the least heralded but most qualified. He coached eight years of Canadian university hockey at Dalhousie, coached minor pro in the &lsquo;I&rsquo; and has been an NHL assistant, all the while earning a reputation as a student of the game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-02914/5161784-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="717" height="1043"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gino Gasparini is widely expected to be coaching in the NHL, probably Chicago, next season. Photo by Eric Hylden</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011245/5161777-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="1441" height="1333"><figcaption class="caption-body">No matter what the coaching job, Terry Crisp&rsquo;s name always rises to the top. He is considered a strong candidate for the Pittsburgh post. Photo by Steve Somerville</figcaption></div><h2>READY FOR PRIME TIME BUT NOT YET AVAILABLE</h2>DAVE KING: As soon as the 1988 Olympics are over, Canadian coach Dave King, assuming he doesn&rsquo;t sign on with Hockey Canada for another tour of duty, will be available. He is regarded by most as the best coach available outside the NHL. Some might say, he&rsquo;s the best coach in all of hockey, but that remains to be proven.<h2>NOT QUITE READY FOR PRIME TIME</h2>RICK DUDLEY: The former pro started at the bottom, coaching in the Atlantic Coast League, where he put together the dynastic Carolina Thunderbirds. From there, he moved to the &lsquo;I&rsquo; and guided the sophomore Flint Spirits to a competitive season. Known as a coach who can do a lot with very little, his name has already begun surfacing in the NHL.PAUL THERIAULT: With an enviable track record in junior, mostly with the Oshawa Generals, Theriault appears ready to make the move to the pro ranks. His name was prominently mentioned for the Pittsburgh job, but while he&rsquo;s a good candidate for promotion to pro, it&rsquo;s more likely to be the minor pro variety or perhaps an NHL assistant&rsquo;s post.WAYNE THOMAS: His Salt Lake City Golden Eagles were one game away from the Turner Cup title, giving even more credibility to the ex-NHL goalie and New York Ranger assistant coach as a quality head man. Minnesota&rsquo;s Herb Brooks has said he&rsquo;d be interested in getting Thomas as part of the coaching staff in Minny.<h2>FREQUENTLY MENTIONED BUT NOT LIKELY TO BE HIRED</h2>LARRY PLEAU: Outstanding minor-league coach who knows the value of developing players. But an ill-fated association with the Hartford Whalers, primarily as GM, may tarnish his overall repuation and there are too many fresh faces out there to choose from.GENE UBRIACO: Another coach who has likely advanced as far he&rsquo;s going to, Ubriaco coached the Penguins&rsquo; affiliate in Baltimore last season. He was interviewed for the Penguin job but insiders suggest it was more a courtesy call than anything else.<h2>WINNERS WHO HAVEN&rsquo;T TOSSED HAT IN YET</h2>BERT TEMPLETON: The North Bay Centennial coach&rsquo;s track record indicates he&rsquo;s a winner who knows the game. Plus, he&rsquo;s much wiser now than when he took an American League job at Nova Scotia (1980), when his style rubbed the right people the wrong way. Since returning to junior, Templeton has mellowed a bit.PAT BURNS: His name was whispered briefly by NHL people this year, which means that if the Hull Olympiques&rsquo; coach is interested, he&rsquo;s probably a couple of years away from making a move. Colorful and emotional, he&rsquo;s also considered technically sound.KEN HITCHCOCK: Is the NHL ready for a coach who weighs in excess of 300 pounds? If he&rsquo;s the winningest coach in major junior hockey, it&rsquo;s a possibility. Hitchcock has become a fixture with the Kamloops Blazers and while he doesn&rsquo;t fit the stereotype image of what a coach should look like, especially since he had his head shaved, how long can he go on before seeking a new challenge?<h2>THEY WERE THERE BUT NOW THEY&rsquo;RE NOT</h2>BRIAN KILREA: An assistant with the New York Islanders, Kilrea was passed over when Al Arbour stepped down. Now, he&rsquo;s back in Ottawa with the 67&rsquo;s and it would appear his chances for an NHL job are history. But with the Killer, you never know.BILL LAFORGE He admits it&rsquo;s a tough road, but one that he&rsquo;s willing to drive again. His 20-game stint with Vancouver was an unmitigated disaster but adds that he has learned a lot since then and is confident he can do the job in the NHL. &#9632;

f0013-02

Will They Sink Or Swim?

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>Charges of NHL favoritism for the Canadiens&mdash;particularly one late-season comment by Mike Keenan&mdash;could produce a response from NHL president John Ziegler. Keenan, Harry Sinden, Michel Bergeron and a Whaler official have criticized what they perceive as a pro-Habs tilt on the league&rsquo;s part. Keenan went a step further and linked it to the NHL office and veep Brian O&rsquo;Neill (the league warden) being based in Montreal and so close, geographically, to the Forum. &ldquo;The Keenan business is under review,&rdquo; an NHL spokesman tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;but there won&rsquo;t be a decision until the playoffs are over. &ldquo;&hellip;Minnesota sources report that Lorne Henning will receive more than $250,000 the next two years on his contract.Gripes over refereeing will be high on the governors&rsquo; agenda at their next meeting, with cries for reform coming from such divergent places as St. Louis (Ron Caron) and Quebec. Nordique boss Marcel Aubut, one of the most influential NHL leaders, says officiating is costing the league &ldquo;all its credibility.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Ranger George McPhee is part of a secret celebrity softball league starring Hollywood&rsquo;s Al Pacino, among other notables. The North Stars&rsquo; Brian MacLellan, who&rsquo;s on McPhee&rsquo;s team, needled George for popping out with men on base. &ldquo;McPhee,&rdquo; quips MacLellan, &ldquo;is our designated rally-killer!&rdquo; Pacino, McPhee & Co. play in a remote comer of Westchester County. Carly Simon is among the spectators.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011296/5161822-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="341" height="554"><figcaption class="caption-body">George McPhee</figcaption></div>Lou Vairo, who will be coaching in northern Italy next season, tells BLUELINES that Jacques Demers&rsquo; success formula is very simple: &ldquo;He treats his players like human beings.&rdquo; Vairo, who coached Pat LaFontaine on the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, predicts that Pat &ldquo;will be a franchise player&rdquo; within two years&hellip;Mark Pavelich&rsquo;s agent, Art Kaminsky, takes issue with charges that the late-starting North Star is a hockey mercenary. &ldquo;If he were a mercenary,&rdquo; Kaminsky tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;why would he leave behind hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary by leaving the Rangers (1985-86) and not playing in the NHL most of 1986-87? I can assure you that compensation at Dundee (Scotland) hardly compares with the Rangers or North Stars.&rdquo; Pav left over a matter of sincere principle to him.&rdquo;Ed Snider, the Flyers&rsquo; board chairman, has few friends among Ranger fans. In an interview with the N.Y. Post&rsquo;s&nbsp;Hugh Delano, Ed says, &ldquo;They are a total disgrace to the game of hockey. I hate this place (Madison Square Garden), I hate this city (New York), and I hate the Rangers because of their fans. The fans&rsquo; vulgarity is uncontrolled and undisciplined by the Garden.&rdquo;&hellip;Rogie Vachon on the future of his Kings: &ldquo;We have a five-year plan and we&rsquo;re on year three now, and we&rsquo;re ahead of schedule.&rdquo; Vachon concedes that L. A. fans want results&hellip;Red Wing success has deflected happy rays on to GM Jimmy Devallano who, for the most part, has been overlooked by the media, which has deified Jacques Demers. Devellano confides to friends that some media hostility is rooted in his protection of former coach Nick Polano, who became assistant GM. Later, the popular Brad Park and Polano became estranged and Park&rsquo;s friends became Jimmy D&rsquo;s foes.Dave (Hammer) Schultz has added four limousines to his fleet in Cherry Hill, N.J. After watching a loosely-officiated opening Habs-Flyers playoff game, Schultz asked: &ldquo;Where were those guys (refs) when I needed them?&rdquo;&hellip;A rumor bruited about in the west has Jari Kurri opting for a Swiss hockey job next season&hellip;Glen Hanlon, a passionate baseball fan, is rooting for the Twins this year&hellip;The buzz on Broadway is that Gino Gasparini&rsquo;s asking price to leave his University of North Dakota job for the Rangers came to a five-year deal at $250,000 per, as well as housing&hellip;One NHL executive tells BLUELINES he&rsquo;s hoping a pre-season game will be played in Atlanta &ldquo;to test the waters once again and see how the fans react.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021016/5161815-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="338" height="566"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Schultz</figcaption></div>The Jets&rsquo; Jim Kyte reveals that because of his auditory nerve degeneration there&rsquo;s a possibility that he could lose all his hearing as he grows older. Kyte still smiles through. &ldquo;Nobody&rsquo;s perfect,&rdquo; he says. Because he wears a hearing aid, Kyte is invariably the subject of digs. &ldquo;When I played junior,&rdquo; he recalls, &ldquo;one guy used to call me &lsquo;Radio Shack&rsquo; all the time.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Although he was bypassed this season, Chihawk legend Tony Esposito is expected to make it into the Hockey Hall of Fame next year&hellip;A concern in Washington is how long Rod Langway can continue operating at a star level, now that he&rsquo;s 30 years old&hellip;Brett Hull on his contacts with Hall-of-Famer dad, Bobby Hull: &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t talk as much as we should. His schedule is so hectic.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0014-01

Keenan Comments Being Investigated

<h2>TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE&hellip;</h2>1. Which Detroit Red Wing played in last year&rsquo;s Canadian Amateur Golf Championship?2. Name the last team to go through the entire Stanley Cup playoffs without losing a road game.3. Which three current Philadelphia Flyers played in the 1980 Stanley Cup final?4. Who was the first pick in the 1966 NHL amateur draft?5. Name the first NHL goaltender to post a 30-win season.6. What team won the Memorial Cup in 1939, 1940 and 1944?7. What season was the Memorial Cup switched from a best-of-seven series to its current round-robin format?8. Where is the 1988 Centennial Cup slated to be played?9. Which two Detroit Red Wings played in last year&rsquo;s Memorial Cup?10. Name the three WHA teams coached by Jacques Demers.<h2>ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ</h2>1. Darren Veitch. 2. Montreal Canadiens, 1965-66.3. Brian Propp, Glenn Resch and Al Hill. 4. Barry Gibbs. 5. Alex Connell, Ottawa (1925-26). 6. Oshawa Generals. 7. 1971-72. 8. Pembroke, Ont. 9. Jeff Sharpies and Steve Chiasson. 10. Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Quebec. BONUS ANSWER: Don Saleski.<h2>BONUS QUESTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04504/5161884-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="531" height="887"><figcaption class="caption-body">BONUS: This former NHLer, nicknamed &lsquo;Big Bird,&rsquo; was on two Stanley Cup-winning teams.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0014-04

THN HOCKEY TRIVIA

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011217/5161915-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="133" height="118"></div>CALGARY&mdash;It is a spring that Jamie Macoun would like to forget.The roughest month of his five-year National Hockey League career began in the second week of April, when an errant stick jabbed him in the belly, resulting in a bruised kidney and spleen that put him in hospital for almost two weeks and on the sidelines for the rest of the Calgary Flames&rsquo; season.That was scary. Then came something even scarier. Just three weeks after getting his release from hospital, Macoun was back in again, this time after miraculously surviving a spectacular car crash on Calgary&rsquo;s Deerfoot Trail early on May 12.The accident occurred when Macoun&rsquo;s sports car&mdash;heading south around 2 a.m.&mdash;spun out of control and turned over, trapping the 25-year-old defenseman inside for more than 40 minutes as rescuers tried to pry him out of his vehicle.His left arm, pinned between the ground and the roof of the demolished car&mdash;a Datsun 280ZX&mdash;suffered a deep cut that prevented doctors from determining if it was broken. He also suffered a series of bruises and other lacerations.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a guardian angel looking afterhim,&rdquo; said Const. Brian Holmes, one of the first officers on the scene.According to police, the accident occurred when Macoun&rsquo;s car crossed over three lanes of highway, jumped over the center boulevard and headed into the oncoming northbound traffic. Macoun&rsquo;s car sideswiped an approaching vehicle, rolled over and came to rest on its roof with the Flames&rsquo; defenseman trapped inside.Paramedics were forced to work gingerly to remove him from the vehicle because of the precarious positioning of his arm.Police took a blood sample from Macoun and sent it the RCMP Edmonton crime lab to be tested for its blood-alcohol content. No charges had been laid pending the test results, which could take two weeks or more.The only thing known about his activities that night was that he&rsquo;d played in a slo-pitch softball game.Macoun was under heavy medication for the first week after the accident and was unavailable for comment.General manager Cliff Fletcher, who visited with him four days after the accident occurred, discussed Macoun&rsquo;s condition with his doctors and reported that the major area of concern was his injured arm.&ldquo;The doctors were vague about it,&rdquo; said Fletcher. &ldquo;They say it could be two or three weeks before they know whether he&rsquo;ll be ready for the start of training camp.&rdquo;In describing Macoun&rsquo;s condition, Fletcher said: &ldquo;His head is totally bandaged. They had to sew on half his ear. His elbow is exposed. It&rsquo;s a severe injury, but it doesn&rsquo;t pose any longterm problems. He has bruises and scratches all over his body, plus a concussion. But the only concern is his left arm. Time will cure all his other injuries and hurts.&rdquo;Luckily for Macoun, the accident did not aggravate either the spleen or kidney injuries he suffered in the Winnipeg series. The Flames&rsquo; team doctors were in to see him the day after the accident and found both organs had escaped further damage.IN BRIEF&mdash;In Vienna, at the World Championships, Cliff Fletcher began negotiations to bring two Czechoslovakian hockey players&mdash;Jiri Hrdina and Igor Liba&mdash;to North America. In his discussions with with Czechoslovakian officials, Fletcher asked that Hrdina, who will be 30 next February, be made available to the Flames for the coming season. Fletcher said he was prepared to let Hrdina leave the Flames for a month to play for Czechoslovakia in the Olympics if he could get Hrdina to report to the Flames&rsquo; training camp in September&hellip;Liba&rsquo;s availability was something of a surprise because he is only 26. Even if the Flames do not get him until September, 1988&mdash;just before his 28th birthday&mdash;Liba would be the youngest player ever given permission to leave Czechoslovakia to compete in the NHL. In the past, the Czechoslovakian Ice Hockey Federation has not released players until they were over 30 years of age&hellip;Fletcher also touched base with Chris Biotti, the team&rsquo;s first-round choice in the 1985 entry draft, to discuss his plans for the coming season. Biotti, a candidate for the 1988 U.S. Olympic team, spent much of his sophomore season at Harvard University trying to rehabilitate a serious knee injury. &#9632;</div>

f0015-01

Car Crash Sends Macoun Back To Hospital

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Associate Editor</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02874/5161977-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Vincent Damphousse gave Toronto an indication of even better things to come with a strong first season in the NHL.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011094/5161984-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="143" height="130"></div>TORONTO&mdash;Gerry McNamara, it can safely be said, does not share the loquacity of Lou Nanne.But when it comes to the subject of Vincent Damphousse, he&rsquo;s relatively effusive in his praise.&ldquo;He has the prospects of being an excellent player,&rdquo; said McNamara, the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; general manager who selected Damphousse fifth overall in the 1986 entry draft.Damphousse collected 21 goals and 25 assists in his rookie season, handled his defensive responsibilities surprisingly well and played with a maturity far beyond his 19 years.Jimmy Carson of the Los Angeles Kings, second choice in the 1986 draft, was the only same-aged first-year player to outscore Damphousse, who also scored big points with Leaf management.Not that anything else was expected.&ldquo;It certainly wasn&rsquo;t a surprise to us,&rdquo; said McNamara, who was sold on Damphousse, both on and off the ice, last year.&ldquo;What struck us when we interviewed him before the draft in Montreal,&rdquo; continued the GM, &ldquo;was the way he handled himself even though his first language is French.&rdquo;In the National Hockey League, you don&rsquo;t score or set up goals in French or English (or Swedish, Finnish and Czechoslovakian for that matter).And the Leafs expect Damphousse will be doing plenty of that during his career.A terrific playmaker, he gives the Leafs their most creative potential. But he played left wing, rather than center, most of the season. Overloaded at center, coach John Brophy decided Damphousse would give the team balance on the portside.The Montreal native played the wall well enough for a freshman and still managed to furnish some superb setups.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a pretty good playmaking left winger,&rdquo; said McNamara.Brophy has said Damphousse may be switched to center next year.Damphousse, who takes most everything in stride, is indifferent.&ldquo;Really, I don&rsquo;t care,&rdquo; said Damphousse, who doesn&rsquo;t think his talents automatically make him a center. &ldquo;There are a lot of good left wingers in the league. We have about eight centers on our team.&rdquo;Ice water seems to course through his veins every bit as much as beneath his skates. He isn&rsquo;t the kind to swing between wild mood shifts.Uncommon calmness and maturity are his trademarks. Not even a pair of lengthy goal-scoring droughts unnerved him.&ldquo;I feel I had a good season,&rdquo; said Damphousse. &ldquo;I had a few slumps through the season. But that&rsquo;s normal for a rookie.&rdquo;It took the former Laval Titan 13 games to score his first NHL goal. And he went one stretch of 17 games without a goal. In the other 50 he played, Damphousse scored 21 times.Billeting with a local family, he adapted well to Toronto, and the NHL, where he was one of just three 1986 first-rounders to play regularly this past year. (Carson and former Laval linemate Jocelyn Lemieux of St. Louis were the others.)</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>Increased upper body strength is a priority for Damphousse, whose lack of NHL-level strength was apparent.&ldquo;That will come with age,&rdquo; assured McNamara.And a weighlifting program Damphousse will be following this summer.In terms of muscle content, the NHL is most certainly not the Quebec League, where Damphousse scored 45 goals and 110 assists in 1985-86.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a big difference,&rdquo; he acknowledged. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I want to do the weights.&rdquo;Damphousse could also stand to improve his skating.But if skating and strength need upgrading, his instincts don&rsquo;t. They are firmly in place, as is Damphousse in the Leafs&rsquo; future plans.LEAFLETS&mdash;Vincent Damphousse contributed one goal and five assists in 13 playoff games&hellip;Ad vised that Damphousse and Wendel Clark represented two first-rate first-rounders in a row, Gerry McNamara corrected his interrogator. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s four in a row,&rdquo; he said, adding center Russ Courtnail (1983), the team&rsquo;s leading scorer this past year, and defenseman Al Iafrate(1984) to that list. Gary Nylund, now with Chicago, was Toronto&rsquo;s top pick in 1982. Toronto is picking seventh overall on June 13 in the 1987 draft, only the second time in seven years they have picked so low. &#9632;

f0016-02

Maple Leafs Delighted With Damphousse

SAUNTERING THROUGH ANOTHER Stanley Cup season, and leaving my sense of humor behind, it occurred to me that&hellip;&bull; As large as his contract is, Jacques Demers has proved to be underpaid with the Red Wings. How much was Demers worth to the Wings this season? Try a minimum figure of at least $5 million. That&rsquo;s how much the Red Wings will take in from eight additional home playoff dates, not to mention increased regular-season attendance, concession and souvenir sales. At $200,000 or more a season, depending on whom you talk to, Demers was a steal for the Wings.&bull; The No. 1 mistake made by goaltenders today is lifting their sticks from the ice too often. Watching Stanley Cup replay after Stanley Cup replay, it becomes evident that this is something about which coaches and goalies alike should be concerned.Speaking of goaltenders, if Ron Hextall wants to play like a goalie, defenseman and forward all wrapped into one package, then he shouldn&rsquo;t throw a fit every time an opposing player hits him. If he wants to be part of the play, he&rsquo;ll have to take the hits.&bull; With either Grant Fuhr or Ron Hextall in goal, Montreal Canadiens would have won another Stanley Cup.&bull; There is an NHL rule preventing a player from stepping in the goal crease. The penalty, simply for lining up in the crease, is interference. But it&rsquo;s never called.Why?&bull; While the Calgary Flames were wondering what happened to their defense upon elimination, two former Flame defensemen&mdash;Steve Konroyd and Brad Marsh&mdash;were playing awfully well for other clubs. The players obtained in return? The long-ago-departed Mel Bridgman and current Flame John Tonelli.&bull; The blazing question on Long Island is: What should the Islanders do with Mike Bossy? Some say trade him. Some say keep him. Apparently, Bossy will only play one more season. Also, he is building a house outside Montreal. If I were Bill Torrey, I think I&rsquo;d trade him, only because getting something for him now is a lot better than getting nothing for him when he quits a year from now.&bull; After all of the abuse Irving Grundman took for the trading of Rod Langway, someone should say something nice about old Irving. The two players he received in that famed deal with the Washington Capitals&mdash;Rick Green and Ryan Walter&mdash;are among the reasons for the Canadiens&rsquo; success these past two playoff seasons.&bull; If this were 1988, Dave King would be the center of attention in the coaching job wars.&bull; If the Pittsburgh Penguins choose either Wayne McBean or Glen Wesley in the coming entry draft, by the year 1990, they&rsquo;ll have a defense of Doug Bodger, Zarley Zalapski, Jim Johnson and one of this year&rsquo;s best. That may turn out to be the best crew in the NHL.&bull; Phil Esposito has to be smiling slightly these days. After hearing about Reijo Ruotsalainen all winter long, he can finally see one thing: Rexy may be with the Oilers, but he isn&rsquo;t helping them much.&bull; Memo to Paul Coffey: Go back to the old style. You were much more fun to watch.&bull; Memo to media: Please place a moratorium on quoting Kevin Lowe. I think I&rsquo;ll jump off the top of the Skydome if I see one more Kevin Lowe interview in any of Canada&rsquo;s official languages. There are many interesting Oilers. Lowe just happens to be one of them.&bull; Memo to Kerry Fraser: You&rsquo;re right, I&rsquo;m wrong. The Sports Network&rsquo;s replay does show that you didn&rsquo;t err in disallowing the goal Quebec scored against Montreal.&bull; Second memo to Kerry Fraser: I still don&rsquo;t understand how you fell asleep on the first disallowed goal that night.&bull; Memo to NHL: There is nothing wrong with the referees in the league. There is nothing wrong with the NHL rulebook. All you have to do is let one administer the other.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03678/5162015-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="393" height="465"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Simmons</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0016-03

Detroit’s Miracle-Worker Has Earned His Big Bucks

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01964/5162046-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="123" height="120"></div>UNIONDALE, N.Y.&mdash;The New York Islanders&rsquo; 1987-88 season has begun.Al Arbour, the vice-president of player development, and coach Terry Simpson joined the scouting staff at the Memorial Cup tournament in Oshawa, Ont.General manager Bill Torrey, who has one assistant coach, four free agents and 16 option-year candidates to negotiate with, spent two weeks following the team&rsquo;s elimination from the Stanley Cup playoffs meeting with players and getting paperwork out of the way. He. too, attended the Memorial Cup.While players flew south to Florida for vacations, north and west to their families in Canada, or east to their European homelands, the brass prepared for step one of their off-season plan.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be getting together,&rdquo; Torrey said before he left for Oshawa. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have some meetings, make our assessments, and then take it from there.&rdquo;</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">Bill Torrey has a busy summer ahead of him. One of his biggest tasks will be signing Pat LaFon-taine.</blockquote>The Islanders&rsquo; front office long ago earned its reputation for patience and thoroughness because it rarely made hasty decisions. Although Torrey did admit that he planned to sit down and negotiate a new contract with assistant coach Bob Nystrom, he revealed nothing about the 20 players whose contracts need to be discussed.Torrey wouldn&rsquo;t even admit how important it is for him to re-sign free agent Pat LaFontaine. Agent Don Meehan and Torrey had scheduled a meeting, the first of what figures to be an interesting series of summertime sitdowns.&ldquo;Oh, Patty wants to stay,&rdquo; Meehan said from his Toronto office. &ldquo;I think Bill and I will have pretty good discussions. I&rsquo;m optimistic. I don&rsquo;t have any reason to feel worried.&rdquo;Early in the season, it was learned that Meehan hoped to get LaFontaine a three- or four-year pact worth close to $200,000 per year. In December that seemed farfetched.But LaFontaine emerged in the second half as one of the Islanders&rsquo; most dangerous scorers. He finished with 38 goals and 32 assists. He scored another five goals and seven assists in an outstanding 14-game playoff season.He improved defensively, the aspect of his game that still needs work. He became a reliable faceoff man and penalty-killer. He shed an unfair &ldquo;injury-prone&rdquo; label by playing in all 94 regular-season and playoff games, something, only Bryan Trottier and Duane Sutter did.He also became a team leader by accepting on-ice responsibility with Brent Sutter injured, and producing at both ends of the ice.ON THE ISLE&mdash;Defensemen Steve Konroyd, Gerald Diduck and Randy Boyd are also eligible for free agency this summer&hellip;According to GM Bill Torrey, no Islander needed off-season surgery&hellip;Mike Bossy did color commentary during the Edmonton-Detroit series for a Quebec TV station&hellip;Nassau Sports&rsquo; fiscal year ends on June 30, so it won&rsquo;t be until July that the Islanders will determine if they made money in 1986-87. Torrey said the organization still owes &ldquo;not more than $7 million&rdquo; to the NHL for franchise rights and the Rangers for territorial indemnity&hellip;The Islanders, who had a joint minor-league working agreement with Minnesota last season, are considering moving their minorleague affiliate from Springfield of the American League to an International League city. Torrey is waiting to see how many other teams pull out of the AHL for IHL affiliations. It&rsquo;s likely that wherever Isles go this season, they&rsquo;ll go alone. &#9632;

f0017-01

Isles’ Management Gets Down To Brass Tacks

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01783/5162077-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="155" height="92"></div>LANDOVER, Md.&mdash;If David Poile does not win executive-of-the-year honors this spring, the Washington Capitals&rsquo; general manager should at least be given an award for perseverance.Poile spent countless hours in his efforts to lure Bengt Gustafsson back from Sweden and, in the end, his hard work paid off.Gustafsson, the 6-foot, 190-pound forward who left Washington for the shorter Swedish season this year, has signed a new deal to return to the Capitals. The pact was reportedly for slightly less than $1 million over two years.Gustafsson&rsquo;s signing was officially announced May 18, in a press conference at the Swedish embassy. The 29-year-old forward was not at the conference himself, but was connected by phone hook-up.He will play for Sweden in the coming Canada Cup series, but said the 1988 Calgary Olympics&mdash;which he&rsquo;ll miss because of his NHL status&mdash;aren&rsquo;t that important to him, at his age.Sweden&rsquo;s World Championship victory in Vienna ranked as the highlight of his career.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the kind of thing you dream about,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but you never really think it will happen.&rdquo;Gustafsson wouldn&rsquo;t confirm figures about his new contract, but said, &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s really $1 million, I must be very happy.&rdquo;Capitals&rsquo; coach Bryan Murray was among those who was pleased to see Gustafsson return to the fold.&ldquo;Bengt is a top player,&rdquo; Murray said, &ldquo;who can be effective in offensive and defensive situations. Gus has the ability to help people to play to the best of their abilities.&rdquo;For Poile, the signing was the culmination of a lot of hard work.In February. Poile, team president Dick Patrick and owner Abe Pollin visited Sweden in a bid to persuade Gustafsson to return at the conclusion of the Swedjsh season. They failed, largely because Gustafsson was named captain of the Swedish national team for the World Championships.In early May, Poile and coach Bryan Murray traveled to Vienna to watch Gustafsson lead Sweden to its first world title in 25 years. Naturally, he again tried to lure Gustafsson back for next season.&ldquo;His goal was to play for his country in the World Championships&hellip;and he was the captain and leader of the Swedish team. Their big line of Gus, Hakan Loob of Calgary and Tomas Sandstrom of the Rangers was probably the best in the tournament.&ldquo;Anybody who saw Gus&rsquo; contribution to the gold medal had to be aware of what his loss meant to the Washington Capitals. Since the World Championships ended, there has been a parade in Stockholm and a party in his home town of Karlskoga. It was a huge achievement for such a small country and Gus was one of the major reasons why it happened.&rdquo;Gustafsson played with Bofors in the Swedish Second Division this season, combining hockey with a public relations job in a munitions firm. However, Bofors was not competitive and the regular season was a disaster.Gustafsson had three options for next season: Join Farjestads of the Swedish Elite Division, at a relatively low salary; Play elsewhere in Europe, which would have paid more but not carry the burden of NHL travel and schedule; Rejoin the Capitals.&ldquo;It is my thought that he could play here for the next two years,&rdquo; Poile said, &ldquo;and still have the other options available to him.&rdquo;CAPSULES&mdash;A major off-season objective for David Poile is the acquisition of somebody who can inject some life into the power play. After ranking 18th during the regular campaign, the Capitals converted only two of 36 chances in the playoffs. &ldquo;When you look at our overall effort, there were so many games we could have put away with one more power-play goal,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;In the playoffs, it was the difference between winning and losing.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Both Poile and agent Brian Burke expressed confidence that a new contract would be negotiated for goalie Bob Mason, before he becomes a free agent without compensation on July L. The Capitals complete their joint agreement with Hartford in Binghamton next season, then expect to stock their own minorleague club. &#9632;

f0020-01

Gustafsson Welcomed Back In Washington

TWO CLEAN-CUT and polite young Americans, former Olympic teammates who were cast as opposing central figures in the greatest Stanley Cup playoff game in years, are going to make a lot of money this summer.Pat LaFontaine, 22 and a New York Islander, is about to become a Group I free agent (the team that signs him will be required to compensate the Islanders). He scored the goal on Easter Sunday, at 68:07 of overtime, that settled game seven of the Patrick Division semi-finals.Bob Mason, 26 and a Washington Capital, will be a free agent without equalization. He had no chance to stop LaFontaine&rsquo;s 45-footer that grazed the right wing goal post. It was the 57th shot he faced over six hours and 15 minutes in the fifth-longest game in NHL history.LaFontaine is going to re-sign with the Islanders. Mason will probably elect to return to the Capitals. Both will be paid handsomely for returning.What a wonderful world. Sometimes the good guys win big.If you can wade through the unending platitudes, the incessant compliments, theempty cliches, Pat LaFontaine is a pleasure to be around. He has excellent manners, is genuinely friendly, and has avoided contracting the &ldquo;all-that-matters-is-me&rdquo; syndrome that affects so many athletes.Ask him about his impending marriage and he&rsquo;ll ask you about yours. Hell, the guy even apologized for winning a game of table hockey at the Lester B. Pearson Airport in Toronto.LaFontaine, who joined the Islanders after the 1984 Olympics, played out the option year of his first pro contract because general manager Bill Torrey and agent/lawyer Don Meehan couldn&rsquo;t agree on what the center with the world of potential was worth.It was a valid point. LaFontaine had remarkable moves, blazing speed and a velvet touch. He was also defensively unschooled, 5-foot-10, 177 pounds, and injured for chunks of his first two full years.In 1986-87, LaFontaine emerged. Look past the 38 goals and 32 assists and the 94 games played&mdash;all 80 in the regular-season and all 14 playoff games in 25 nights. He became one of the Islanders&rsquo; most feared weapons.Is he worth $200,000 per? I think so, but that&rsquo;ll be tough for Meehan to gauge because LaFontaine&rsquo;s free agent group provides for agreed-upon or arbitrated equalization.Translation: If the Red Wings sign LaFontaine, the Islanders could ask an arbitrator for Steve Yzerman. Not too many teams will want to bid on LaFontaine and gamble on losing valuable property. It&rsquo;s too risky.Mason&rsquo;s luckier, although he didn&rsquo;t feel too lucky when he heard LaFontaine&rsquo;s shot clunk off the goalpost and splat onto the ice behind the goal line last month.Rather than play out his option in 1986-87, Mason elected to sign a termination contract with the Caps last summer. After agent/attorney Brian Burke spent last June seeking a better deal (that&rsquo;s a provision in the collective bargaining agreement when termination contracts are offered), Mason accepted a salary believed to be worth $100,000 from GM David Poile.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02531/5162108-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="384" height="470"><figcaption class="caption-body">Barry Meisel</figcaption></div>Only the Edmonton Oilers offered Mason a contract when Burke went shopping. It was a two-way deal, providing one salary for major-league play, another for the minors.There wasn&rsquo;t too much interest in Mason, either, when he was playing goal for the University of Minnesota-Duluth from 1981-83. He wasn&rsquo;t drafted. When Tom Barrasso said no to the Olympic program, Mason made the U.S. team as Marc Behrend&rsquo;s backup.He played well enough during the nats&rsquo; season and Olympic tournament to command a three-year (plus the end of the 1983-84 season) contract worth an estimated $400,000 as a free agent.Mason spent much of his three pro seasons in the minors and didn&rsquo;t emerge until this season. He was 20-18-5 with a 3.24 goals-against average and .890 save percentage for the Caps. Then in the playoffs against the Islanders he was 2-2 with a 1.75 GAA and .937 save percentage.It&rsquo;s apparent that Mason&mdash;an intelligent guy who impressed a lot of people this spring with his goaltending and his conduct after the heartbreaking defeat&mdash;likes performing under pressure.His coach said it late in the season. Mason didn&rsquo;t disagree.Pressure? He stopped 54 shots in that marvelous four-OT game and put his name on people&rsquo;s lips. Now it&rsquo;s open season. The Devils, who almost had him in 1983, are nuts if they don&rsquo;t go after him again. So are the Chicago Black Hawks and Los Angeles Kings.Burke, though, plans to negotiate with Poile before bids are officially permitted to be tendered. Mason wants to stay in Washington and play behind Rod Langway and Bryan Murray&rsquo;s defense-oriented system.Nevertheless, just the threat of free agency should hike Mason&rsquo;s value significantly.Good for him. &#9632;

f0020-02

American Free-Agent Stars Set To Cash In On Yankee Dollar

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03370/5162139-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="127" height="120"></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;Change has been the only constant during the turbulent early weeks of the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; off-season.The Penguins, who severed their ties with coach Bob Berry and assistant Jim Roberts in mid-April, did likewise with their Baltimore farm team a month later.The American League Skipjacks had been the Penguins&rsquo; top minorleague affiliate for five seasons.While the Penguins did not immediately announce a replacement for Baltimore, the favorite appeared to be the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the International League.The Penguins have been sending players to Muskegon for two seasons, and transplanting their top farm team from the AHL to the IHL would follow the pattern set by other National Hockey League clubs this spring.The New York Rangers recently switched their team from New Haven, Conn., to Denver, and the Calgary Flames are expected to move from Moncton, N. B., to Salt Lake City.Earlier this spring, the Penguins considered keeping their farm team in the AHL, but shifting it from Baltimore to Portland, Me.However, Portland, formerly home to the New Jersey Devils&rsquo; top farm team, will be affiliated with the Boston Bruins during the 1987-88 season.The Penguins still could reach an agreement with Portland, but the number of players they could send there obviously would be limited.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s something we have to consider,&rdquo; said Penguins&rsquo; vice-president Paul Martha. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;ve worked with Boston before (in Erie) and we know they don&rsquo;t have too many players.&rdquo;The Penguins&rsquo; decision to leave Baltimore apparently was prompted by the high costs of operating a minorleague team in a major-league city, with the consequent low revenues and high expenses.Martha said Skipjack officials were talking with two NHL teams, neither of which he would identify, in an effort to keep professional hockey in Baltimore.Coincidentally, Baltimore coach Gene Ubriaco was one of five coaching candidates interviewed by Martha and Penguin general manager Eddie Johnston.The others were Terry Crisp (the early and heavy favorite), Washington Capitals&rsquo; assistant coach Ron Lapointe, Binghamton (AHL) Whalers&rsquo; coach Larry Pleau and Michigan State University coach Ron Mason.The Penguins were scheduled to announce their choice shortly after Johnston returned from the Memorial Cup.Johnston said he was impressed by Pleau during their interview, and acknowledged he has &ldquo;a heck of a track record.&rdquo;Mason, who coached Penguin center Craig Simpson at MSU, said he had &ldquo;only a passive interest&rdquo; in the Penguins&rsquo; opening.PEN POINTS&mdash;Zarley Zalapski, the Penguins&rsquo; No. 1 pick in the 1986 entry draft, said he will consider playing for the Penguins early next season, since pros will be allowed to compete in the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary. &#9632;</div>

f0020-03

Penguins Drydock Skipjacks In AHL

<div class="byline">BY MIKE PERRICONE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02328/5162170-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="560" height="612"><figcaption class="caption-body">GM Bob Pulford&rsquo;s popularity in Chicago has taken a turn for the worse.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01583/5162177-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="123" height="115"></div>CHICAGO&mdash;Chicago Blackhawk general manager Bob Pulford has promised several personnel changes before next season, but now is the time he must act.Pulford has less than a month before what he figures to be an arbitrary deadline&mdash;the entry draft, June 13 in Detroit.&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t make a move at the draft, it gets a lot harder after that,&rdquo; Pulford said.Pulford says &ldquo;we have some good players&rdquo; that he expects to be able to market. He says that left wingers Everett Sanipass and Daniel Vincelette will play in Chicago next year &ldquo;unless they fall flat on their faces,&rdquo; which might make a left winger such as Al Secord available on the trade market.Pulford has set his second priority, after finding a coach, as getting a goaltender. He has spoken to Buffalo general manager Gerry Meehan about Tom Barrasso, and sources say the Hawks have made some inquiries about Edmonton&rsquo;s Andy Moog, who will become a free agent this summer.It would take a major deal to land Barrasso, and a first-round draft choice as compensation for signing Moog.But there is a major question yet to be answered: Are Pulford&rsquo;s players as marketable as he thinks they are? The answer will have a large bearing on how much he is able to re-shape the Hawks for next season.For example, if you were bom in the 1950s, you might be a rising young business executive. Or you might be a hockey player on the way down. And the Hawks have too many players in that second category.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>The Hawks currently have 10 players on their roster who were bom in the 1950&rsquo;s. Only two NHL playoff teams had more: the Los Angeles Kings, with 11; and the New York Rangers, with 14.None of these three teams lasted past the first round of the playoffs, and none finished with a winning record during the regular season&rsquo;.Pulford spent the week of May 9-16 in Oshawa at the Memorial Cup. It was at the Memorial Cup in 1984 that he struck his deal with Los Angeles general manager Rogie Vachon for the first-round draft pick that allowed the Hawks to choose local product Ed Olczyk.Pulford knows that Chicago&rsquo;s fans are demanding changes for next season, and he knows that his, and his team&rsquo;s standing with the fans has never been in poorer shape. He knows it will take a major effort to regain the connection.&ldquo;There is one way to do it,&rdquo; Pulford said. &ldquo;Arthur Wirtz (the Hawks&rsquo; late owner), who was a great man, once told me the only way to do that is to put the product on the ice. If we win, the fans will come.&rdquo;The fan pressure on Pulford was borne out by a reader poll in the Chicago Sun-Times. Only 25 per cent of respondents wanted him to stay; 75 per cent wanted him replaced. Pulford and the Hawks have their work cut out for them. &#9632;

f0021-02

Chihawks Considering Pre-Draft Moves

Edmonton Oiler center Wayne Gretzky was a unanimous selection at center ice for the annual THN first all-star team, while Boston Bruin defenseman Raymond Bourque was a near-unanimous choice.Gretzky collected the maximum 84 points, three for each first-place vote on the 28 ballots submitted by THN contributors and staff. Points were awarded on a 3-2-1 basis for first, second and third choices (6-5-4-3-2-1 for the six defensemen selections).Pittsburgh superstar center Mario Lemieux was a distant second to Gretzky, with 32 voting points.Bourque topped the voting for defensemen with 162 of a possible 168 points, while Mark Howe of Philadelphia nailed down the second spot on the first all-star team with 132.Races were also tight at right wing&mdash;Jari Kurri of Edmonton polled 50 points to 48 for Tim Kerr of Philadelphia&mdash;and in goal&mdash;70 points for Philadelphia&rsquo;s Ron Hextall to 56 for Hartford&rsquo;s Mike Liut.Michel Goulet of Quebec was named to the left wing spot with 74 points, close to twice as much support as that attracted by Los Angeles rookie Luc Robitaille (40).Gretzky, who won his seventh straight scoring championship with 183 points, is also the odds-on favorite to win the Hart Trophy for the eighth straight year.Bourque, the most dominant rearguard in the league this year, scored 95 points and led the Bruins to a respectable third-place showing in the tough Adams Division.Hextall, one of the favorites for the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year, gave Philadelphia the solid netminding they needed to capture the Patrick Division title.Howe missed several games with a back injury, but still led all defensemen with a plus-57. He&rsquo;s an outstanding all-round player, with sound defensive and offensive (15-43-58) skills.Kurri, Gretzky&rsquo;s right winger, finished second in the scoring race with 108 points on 54 goals and an equal number of assists.Goulet was one of the brightest spots on a disappointing Nordique team. He missed his customary 50 goals by one, but still finished eighth in scoring (49-47-96).The second and third teams, with vote point totals, are are as follows:<h2>SECOND TEAM</h2>GOAL&mdash;Mike Liut, Hartford, 56; DEFENSE&mdash;Larry Murphy, Washington, 56; Al Maclnnis, Calgary, 48; CENTER&mdash;Mario Lemieux, Pittsburgh, 32; RIGHT WING&mdash;Tim Kerr, Philadelphia, 48; LEFT WING&mdash;Luc Robitaille, Los Angeles, 40.<h2>THIRD TEAM</h2>GOAL&mdash;Grant Fuhr, Edmonton, 15; DEFENSE&mdash;Ulf Samuelsson, Hartford, 35; Rick Green, Montreal, 23; CENTER&mdash;Mark Messier, Edmonton, 19; RIGHT WING&mdash;Dino Ciccarelli, Minnesota, 38; LEFT WING&mdash;Gerard Gallant, Detroit, 18.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01674/5162222-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="719" height="585"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Gretzky</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02480/5162215-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="719" height="585"><figcaption class="caption-body">Raymond Bourque</figcaption></div><h2>The Hockey News All-Star Teams</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03370/5162208-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="1373" height="595"></div> &#9632;

f0022-01

Gretzky Headlines THN Stars

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-04270/5162253-1-eng-US/f0022-042.jpg" title="f0022-04" width="721" height="737"></div>Is eight enough for Wayne Gretzky?The Edmonton Oiler superstar center didn&rsquo;t enjoy his best season ever in 198687, but his league-leading 183 points and on-ice leadership combined to make him a candidate for his eighth straight selection as THE HOCKEY NEWS-Transamerica Life NHL Player of the Year.Gretzky and Boston Bruin defenseman Raymond Bourque, a strong candidate for the Norris Trophy as best defenseman, are the two finalists for this year&rsquo;s THN-Transamerica Life award, as selected by a fan vote.Bourque, every bit as valuable to the Boston Bruins as Gretzky is to the Oilers, led all defensemen in goals (23, tied with Washington&rsquo;s Larry Murphy), assists (72) and points (95).The top player award is one of 12 to be presented at the fourth annual THN Awards Luncheon, June 18 at the Harbour Castle Hilton Convention Centre in Toronto. Each winner receives a photoengraved plaque and $500 donation to the charity of his choice.The Sports Network, Canada&rsquo;s pay-TV sports channel, will carry a one-hour prime-time show the same day as the banquet.Other awards and their finalists are:<h2>THN NHL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR</h2>(Chosen by fans)RON HEXTALL: The scrappy Philadelphia Flyer netminder led the league in wins (37) and save percentage (.902), while finishing third in goals-against average (3.00).LUC ROBITAILLE: A ninth-round draft choice of the Los Angeles Kings in 1984, Robitaille showed all he needed was a couple more years of junior seasoning to emerge as a star. The left winger led all rookies with 45 goals and 84 points.<h2>THN-GTC GROUP</h2>NHL EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR(Chosen by THN correspondents)MARCEL AUBUT: The Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; president was the driving force behind Rendezvous &rsquo;87, and then watched his Nordiques rebound from a disappointing regular season in the playoffs.JIMMY DEVELLANO: The Detroit Red Wing GM sparked the team&rsquo;s remarkable comeback season by signing coach Jacques Demers and trading for the role players&mdash;Dave Ban, Brent Ashton, Mark Kumpel, Gilbert Delorme&mdash;the team needed.THN-TSN NHL COACH OF THE YEAR(Chosen by THN correspondents)JACQUES DEMERS: The Detroit Red Wing mentor has earned a reputation for squeezing the most out of his players. This year, he took over a team that had 40 points in 1985-86 and-turned it into a division champion.DAN MALONEY: After two mediocre seasons as coach in Toronto, Maloney signed with the Winnipeg Jets in the off-season and restored the club to its former prominence, engineering a jump from 59 points to 88 this year.<h2>THN MINOR PRO PLAYER OF THE YEAR</h2>(Chosen by THN)JOCK CALLANDER: Callander&rsquo;s late-season surge gave him a share of the International League scoring title (136 points, on 54 goals and 82 assists) and, more importantly, helped Muskegon Lumberjacks to the East Division crown.BRETT HULL: Son of Bobby, the young right winger&rsquo;s shot has become as feared as his father&rsquo;s. Hull ended the season with the Calgary Flames, after scoring 50 goals and 42 assists in 67 games for the AHL&rsquo;s Moncton Golden Flames.<h2>THN MINOR PRO COACH OF THE YEAR</h2>(Chosen by THN)PIERRE CREAMER: Creamer took the Sherbrooke Canadiens, who finished out of the American League playoffs in 1985-86, to the league&rsquo;s best record with 102 points.ROBBIE LAIRD: Last year&rsquo;s runner-up in this category to John Paddock of Hershey, Laird&rsquo;s Fort Wayne Komets fought off strong opposition from Muskegon to finish with the International League&rsquo;s best record (104 points).<h2>THN-MICRON JUNIOR PLAYER OF THE YEAR</h2>(Chosen by THN)ROB BROWN: For the second straight year, the Kamloops center dominated the Western League scoring race. A fourth-round draft choice of the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1986, he led the WHL in goals (76), assists (136) and points (212).MARC FORTIER: A hard-working center with the Quebec League&rsquo;s Chicoutimi Sague-neens, Fortier has added offense to his strong checking repertoire. His 135 assists and 201 points led the league.<h2>THN-BAUER CANADIAN UNIVERSITY PLAYER OF THE YEAR</h2>(Chosen by THN)PAUL GEDDES: The University of Calgary star led the Canada West Universities Athletic Association in goals (32), assist (37) and points (a record 69).DAVE QUIGLEY: The winner of the Sullivan Trophy as Canadian university MVP, Quigley enjoyed a fine season in net for the Moncton Blue Eagles. He posted a 14-2 record, .911 save percentage and 2.74 goals-against average.<h2>THN-BAUER U.S. COLLEGE PLAYER OF THE YEAR</h2>(Chosen by THN)WAYNE GAGNE: A superb offensive defenseman, Gagne led the Central Collegiate Athletic Association with 68 points, on 12 goals and 56 assists. His playmaking skills were a bright point in a mediocre Western Michigan season.TONY HRKAC: Winner of the Hobey Baker award as U.S. collegiate MVP, Hrkac led the nation in scoring with 79 points, on 34 goals and 45 assists. He continued to shine in the postseason, leading North Dakota to the national crown.THN-LABATT&rsquo;S INTERNATIONAL PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR(Chosen by THN)SEAN BURKE: The New Jersey Devils&rsquo; goalie of the future established himself as a dependable puckstopper in his first year with the Canadian national team program. Burke also played well for Canada at the World Championships in Vienna.ZARLEY ZALAPSKI: The Pittsburgh Penguins are anxious to get the talented defenseman, but he&rsquo;s committed to the Canadian Olympic program. Zalapski was named the top defenseman at the Izvestia Tournament in Moscow.In addition to those awards, two other presentations will be made.The THN-ITECH King Clancy Memorial Award will go to a recipient who, long after establishing himself as a prominent hockey figure, continues to give to the game.The other award is the THN-TITAN-JOFA Minor Player of the Year, a representative honor which goes to a youngster who submitted an entry to the weekly TITAN-JOFA Showcase this past year. &#9632;

f0022-04

Bourque Out To End Streak

<div class="byline">BY JERRY ZGODA</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01609/5162284-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="124" height="111"></div>BLOOMINGTON, Minn.&mdash;To hell with the image, Lou Nanne said. He doesn&rsquo;t care anymore.Nanne used to care about the image&mdash;the one of Lou the meddler, who overruled and smothered his coaches. He said he cared enough that it helped lead to the Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; disastrous 1986-87 performance. The problem, Nanne said, was that communication with coach Lome Henning broke down totally because Nanne was concerned that people would think he was meddling.&ldquo;I did a terrible job last year,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;I was at fault. I let things slip and I shouldn&rsquo;t have. I should have insisted on being more involved. I wanted to make sure I wasn&rsquo;t giving any players any crutches; I wanted them to know Lome was calling the shots on the ice. But it was wrong. I didn&rsquo;t know what was going on.&rdquo;Now, with Henning fired, Nanne said he is going to be as involved as he has ever been, even if longtime friend Herb Brooks, another strong-willed individual, is his coach.&ldquo;I now know enough to go by what is right,&rdquo; said Nanne, who will be entering his ninth season as the North Stars&rsquo; general manager. &ldquo;I know I don&rsquo;t meddle. I&rsquo;m tired of that stuff.&rdquo;One of the key points of Nanne&rsquo;s new long-term franchise plan, which he developed this spring at the request of co-owner Gordon Gund, is improving communication throughout the organization.&ldquo;It won&rsquo;t be just coach-general manager communication,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be with all of the staff&mdash;scouts, coaches, everybody. Everybody&rsquo;s going to know who&rsquo;s doing what and where and we will discuss as an organization what we need. It won&rsquo;t be daily meetings, but I plan to sit down with Herbie on game days and discuss who&rsquo;s playing, who&rsquo;s sitting and why.&rdquo;Both Nanne and Brooks, who have known each other for more than two decades, downplay suggestions that they won&rsquo;t be able to get along. &ldquo;We both want it to work and we both like each other,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;Everything will be fine.&rdquo;Nanne&rsquo;s biggest concern is his health. He lost 12 pounds in the final 10 days of the season, as the Stars failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 1979. After the season ended, Nanne checked himself into the Mayo Clinic for a two-day physical examination.After the first morning&rsquo;s tests, Nanne was all but convinced he was going to quit his general manager&rsquo;s job. A doctor scared him by saying he was doomed if he didn&rsquo;t cut back on his travel schedule and calm his nerves.&ldquo;I was as good as gone (from the job) after I heard that,&rdquo; Nanne said.But retirement plans were put on hold after the results were in from the afternoon tests. Nanne&rsquo;s heart rate astounded doctors, especially considering he hadn&rsquo;t exercised regularly in nine years. Despite his recent health problems, the GM&rsquo;s performance on some tests told doctors that he still had an athlete&rsquo;s heart.Nanne&rsquo;s prescription for this coming season is a regular exercise program and two four-day vacations during the season.&ldquo;They just want me to get away to anywhere a couple of times,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;ll help, but I have to learn how to handle game situations better. I can&rsquo;t keep getting as upset as I have been. It doesn&rsquo;t do any good.&rdquo;STARDUST&mdash;Lou Nanne is interested in fielding a full International League team in Indianapolis, Milwaukee or Kalamazoo next season. He is holding discussions with officials of each city. The Stars are planning to pull out of their affiliation with Springfield in the American League, although they may loan some of their older players to the AHL&hellip;Nanne said he doesn&rsquo;t expect any problems signing Brian Lawton and Todd Bergen, who both played out their options last season and are free agents with compensation. Nanne wouldn&rsquo;t comment on the future of veteran Brad Maxwell, who is also a free agent&hellip;Nanne is expected to try hard to sign Minnesota-born goaltender Bob Mason, who signed a termination contract with Washington last season and now is a free agent without compensation. &#9632;</div>

f0023-01

Nanne Won’t Be Hands-Off GM Next Year

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01653/5162315-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="561" height="834"><figcaption class="caption-body">Emile Francis, above, got a vote of confidence from Whaler chairman Howard Baldwin.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02458/5162322-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="116" height="113"></div>HARTFORD&mdash;Hartford Whaler chairman Howard Baldwin, who called Emile Francis &ldquo;the best man in all of professional hockey,&rdquo; put his money where his mouth was by signing the president/general manager to a new five-year contract.The deal, worth an estimated $1.25 million, will keep Francis in control of the team until the conclusion of the 1992-93 season. Francis&rsquo; original five-year contract, which he signed in 1983, will not expire until the end of next season.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t think of anything I&rsquo;d rather be doing,&rdquo; the Cat said, &ldquo;and I can&rsquo;t think of a place I&rsquo;d rather be doing it in than right here in Hartford.&rdquo;Thus, the 60-year-old GM will have six more years of doing what he wants.&ldquo;Four years ago,&rdquo; said Baldwin, also a managing general partner, &ldquo;I stood here, quivering and shaking&mdash;ashen, really&mdash;after going through two or three years of great difficulty. I announced then that we were able to hire what I considered to be not only the best man available, but the best man, period, in all of professional hockey.&rdquo;Baldwin has stated several times that he hopes Francis will stay in Hartford &ldquo;forever.&rdquo;&ldquo;When we signed Emile, we made commitments to the community and he made commitments to the community,&rdquo; Baldwin said. &ldquo;As far as I&rsquo;m concerned, Emile&rsquo;s gone well above and beyond fulfilling those commitments. He and I both know we don&rsquo;t have the ultimate yet, but both he and I know we&rsquo;re going to get it.&rdquo;Under Francis, the Whalers have improved in each of his four seasons, climbing from 45 points in 1982-83 to 93 and an Adams Division championship this year. Francis won the NHL Executive of the Year Award from both THE HOCKEY NEWS and The Sporting News last season, after the Whalers compiled 84 points and qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 1980.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>&ldquo;Emile&rsquo;s enthusiasm is incredible,&rdquo; Baldwin said. &ldquo;I remember the first time I went on a road trip with him. At the end, he&rsquo;s carrying this huge Samonsite suitcase and I&rsquo;m dragging, barely able to keep up. I wondered what he did&mdash;back himself into a plug at night to keep charged up?&rdquo;At the press conference where the signing was announced, Francis said the sun had come out for the first time since the Whalers were eliminated by Quebec in the opening round of the playoffs.&ldquo;To Quebec&rsquo;s credit, they did what they had to do to win,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t mentioned this before, but when we had (tough guy) Torrie Robertson, we never had a problem with them. This year, without Torrie, it was different.&rdquo;Robertson missed most of the season with a severely broken leg; He is expected to resume his career in the fall.Francis, who repeated his plan to extend the contracts of coach Jack Evans and assistant Claude Larose sometime &ldquo;around the June draft,&rdquo; has never won a Stanley Cup.&ldquo;Winning that Cup has consumed me since the first time I put on a pair of skates,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;In the years I&rsquo;ve been running hockey clubs, I&rsquo;ve spent a good three-quarters of the time trying to build a club to the point of being competitive.&ldquo;When I was with the Rangers, they had missed the playoffs nine of 10 years. I went to St. Louis and they had an older club that had to be built from scratch. In Hartford, I had to do practically the same thing. You don&rsquo;t build a club in the space of a year.&rdquo;With four years in and six more just ahead, Francis should have enough time to achieve his goal in Hartford.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to be good to win a Cup and you&rsquo;ve got to be lucky,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve gained three things in the last four years. We&rsquo;ve made the team respectable, we&rsquo;ve made it competitive on a regular basis and we&rsquo;ve moved into a position where we can challenge the best teams in the NHL.&ldquo;Are we good enough to win the Cup? We won&rsquo;t find that out until next year.&rdquo;WHALER SCUTTLEBUTT&mdash;Thirteen players are entering their option years&mdash;Mike Liut, Ronnie Francis, Joel Quenneville, Sylvain Turgeon, John Anderson, Doug Jarvis, Steve Weeks, Dave Semenko, Shane Churla, Wayne Babych, Bill Gardner and a couple of minorleaguers&mdash;so Emile Francis will be busy this summer&hellip;Francis said he is interested in signing defenseman Mike McEwen, who could become a free agent June 1&hellip;Rick Peckham and Gerry Cheevers were retained as broadcasters when the Whalers and WHCT-TV in Hartford announced a three-year contract to telecast a minimum of 25 games a year. &#9632;

f0024-01

‘Best Man In Hockey’ Signs Five-Year Pact

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-04193/5162353-1-eng-US/f0024-042.jpg" title="f0024-04" width="555" height="809"><figcaption class="caption-body">The NHL&rsquo;s John McCauley won&rsquo;t enter into a public debate on officiating.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03311/5162360-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="113" height="111"></div>QUEBEC CITY&mdash;Rendez vous &rsquo;87 was merely the first on Marcel Aubut&rsquo;s list of earth-shaking projects.Next on the agenda for the Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; dynamic president is a campaign to revamp the National Hockey League&rsquo;s system of training and selecting referees.The subject has been on Aubut&rsquo;s mind for the past couple of seasons, but developed into a full-fledged passion during this year&rsquo;s playoffs because of &ldquo;all the close calls that have gone the wrong way.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always had the reputation of being a missionary in the National Hockey League,&rdquo; Aubut said, &ldquo;and it doesn&rsquo;t seem likely that I&rsquo;ll lose that reputation. I have an awful lot to do in the next few years.&ldquo;I had said that after Rendez-vous it would be my turn to take advantage of all the good things in life and spend a lot more time with my family. But I&rsquo;ve come to the conclusion that I&rsquo;ll have to wait a little longer before I can take care of myself.&rdquo;For starters, he&rsquo;d like to see the NHL commit itself to the use of instant replays in deciding controversial calls. But, that&rsquo;s only the beginning.&ldquo;We have to rebuild the whole refereeing system. And we&rsquo;ll start from scratch if we have to.&ldquo;One way we could do this is by publicizing the referee&rsquo;s job in the NHL as a little more glamorous than it is pictured nowadays. There are lots of young athletes who can skate as good as anybody else, who are intelligent and who have lots of good judgment. But they don&rsquo;t have the size to play in the NHL. Why couldn&rsquo;t these young men, who know the game as well as anybody else, become referees?&ldquo;If a whole lot of kids fight for jobs as referees, the competition between the men in black and white would be very fierce. It would be like it is for hockey players. If you play bad, you&rsquo;re sent down to the minors. And if you do good, you make it to the big leagues.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s how the referee selection should be handled,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;We have so few referees that they know whatever they do on the ice, they&rsquo;ll have their job the next night. In fact, they don&rsquo;t give a hoot. They are the bosses on the ice. They control everything the way they see fit. They even apply the rules they want to. And you can&rsquo;t say a word to them.&rdquo;Referees are becoming too complacent, he claimed.&ldquo;What we have to do is create pressure at the roots,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;No one should have his job for life. If the referees are rated and sent to the minors if they do a bad job, then we would have more regularity on the ice.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve paid dearly for all the mistakes the officials have made this year. But I guess that&rsquo;s the price you have to pay if you want things to get done. The National Hockey League has never been the preventive type. It&rsquo;s always reacted after something bad has happened.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>&ldquo;And since the beginning of the playoffs, too much has happened. Bad calls were made in the Winnipeg-Calgary, Quebec-Hartford and Quebec-Montreal series. Enough is enough!&ldquo;Referees shouldn&rsquo;t be in a position where they can decide the outcome of a game. And they certainly can&rsquo;t be in a position where they can decide the future of general managers, coaches and even players. And they shouldn&rsquo;t be in a position where they can cost your team millions of dollars. That&rsquo;s not at all why we pay them!&rdquo;NHL officiating director John McCauley said Aubut&rsquo;s argument would probably be discussed at the league executive level.&ldquo;The place to discuss that is not in THE HOCKEY NEWS,&rdquo; McCauley said. &ldquo;&hellip;They (Aubut and other critics) can discuss it anywhere they want. I&rsquo;ll discuss it in the confines of the officiating study committee.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0024-04

Replays, Better Refs Needed—Aubut

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01571/5162391-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="111" height="112"></div>BUFFALO&mdash;Mike Foligno has &ldquo;bumped&rdquo; more than a few people in his National Hockey League career. More than a few people have &ldquo;bumped&rdquo; him back.None, however, ever wore a striped shirt. Until Vienna.It was in Vienna, during the World Championships, that Foligno&rsquo;s run-in with Soviet referee Nikolai Morozov nearly sparked an international incident.The collision took place in the second medal-round game between Team Canada and Czechoslovakia. Foligno, the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; winger who served as captain of Team Canada, was in the process of arguing (vehemently) a point with Morozov.According to observers on the scene, Morozov actually grabbed Foligno&rsquo;s sweater and began to shake him. Eventually, he shoved him away.&ldquo;The one thing that stayed in my mind was, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t hit him,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Foligno in recounting the incident. &ldquo;I knew I was going to get thrown out of the game, but I didn&rsquo;t want to do anything to increase the chances that I would be barred from the next game. We still were in contention for a medal then and I didn&rsquo;t want to do anything to jeopardize that.&rdquo;Canada had forced a 2-2 tie with the Czechs early in the third period, when Morozov suddenly became a factor in the game.The referee, who first gained fame in North America because of his daily skates with Soviet teams playing in North America, called seven of the game&rsquo;s final nine penalties against Team Canada, including three consecutive interference calls. Two of those calls led to power-play goals and despite being outshot 33-17, the Czechoslovaks went on to win the game 4-2.Foligno was involved in one of those interference calls, but he said he chalked it up to unfair officiating and chose not to speak out.Minutes later, however, Foligno said Morozov absolutely enraged the entire Canadian contingent with a controversial delay-of-game call directed at Kirk Muller. Foligno said Muller, his linemate through much of the tournament, momentarily left the faceoff circle to position a defenseman when Morozov, without warning, cited the New Jersey centerman for the delay. At that point Foligno said he simply exploded and chased Morozov halfway across the ice.&ldquo;I went right after him, but when I got there I didn&rsquo;t touch him,&rdquo; recalled Foligno. &ldquo;He just grabbed me and then he shoved me back four or five feet. I started yelling at him in Italian (the native language of Foligno&rsquo;s mother)-, which I think he understood a little. He certainly seemed to understand more of it than English. He obviously didn&rsquo;t like what I said.&rdquo;Foligno said he was shocked when Morozov shoved him, and though the idea of retaliating did, momentarily, cross his mind, he resisted.&ldquo;I remember talking to Al (Team Canada director Alan Eagleson) after the game and telling him I was sorry I got so involved and that I hoped he wasn&rsquo;t mad at me.&ldquo;I had to laugh though because he said: &lsquo;Mike, I&rsquo;m just sorry you didn&rsquo;t punch the S.O.B.&rsquo;&rdquo;Afterwards, when Sweden beat Canada, 9-0 and edged the Soviets for the gold based on goal differential, Canada left itself open to the charge of throwing the final game to Sweden, in a calculated attempt to deny the Soviets the gold.Foligno said that in the end. Team Canada was happy that Sweden won out over the Soviets, but insisted the Canadian team did not lay down for the Swedes.&ldquo;We were in a no-win situation, but we didn&rsquo;t go out there to lose,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We have too much respect for the game to do something like that.Long a supporter of international competitions, Foligno indicated he was discouraged by what he&rsquo;s seen the past two years. He deflected questions about his possible future participation, but did sound a warning.&ldquo;They have to try and work something out that will keep the politics out,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How you do that, considering the countries involved, I don&rsquo;t know. It&rsquo;s never been done before.&rdquo;SABREPOINTS&mdash;Sabre center John Tucker, felled by back surgery late in the season, is involved in an extensive rehabilitation program. Tucker started the program immediately after having a cervical disc removed and was said to have progressed so rapidly that he would have been able to dress for the playoffs had the Sabres qualified. &#9632;</div>

f0025-01

Push Came To Shove For Canada’s Foligno

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02418/5162422-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="556" height="1148"><figcaption class="caption-body">David Maley was derricked from Sherbrooke&rsquo;s lineup after missing a team meal.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01602/5162429-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="126" height="118"></div>BALTIMORE&mdash;John Haas feels like a skipper without a ship, a Skipjack without a team.Haas, the Baltimore Skipjacks&rsquo; governor the past three seasons, has been frantically seeking a major-league affiliation for the 1987-88 season. He&rsquo;s been doing that since May 11, when the Pittsburgh Penguins informed him they wouldn&rsquo;t be returning for a sixth season.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve made a million phone calls,&rdquo; said Haas, a Baltimore clothing manufacturer and one of about 20 local owners who had a joint venture with the Penguins for the past five seasons. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing good to report, but nothing bad.&rdquo;The Penguins broke the relationship for business reasons, after hinting in early April they were looking around for a better deal.They haven&rsquo;t said yet where they&rsquo;ll have their minor-league team next season, but it appears they&rsquo;ll move to Muskegon in the International League. It&rsquo;s also possible they&rsquo;ll team up with Boston in Portland, Me., and remain in the AHL.Either way, it doesn&rsquo;t help Haas or the Skipjacks.&ldquo;I think it all came down to a business decision,&rdquo; said Haas, whose Skipjacks missed the playoffs&mdash;and that all-important post-season revenue&mdash;for the second straight season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m faced with business decisions every day. They probably were looking at it as what&rsquo;s best for the Pittsburgh Penguins.&rdquo;That left the people in Baltimore scrambling for a National Hockey League affiliate. There aren&rsquo;t too many available at this late date.Three teams mentioned as possibilities for Baltimore&mdash;Chicago, Minnesota and Vancouver&mdash;appear to have other commitments.Chicago is prepared to split with Edmonton in Nova Scotia, and is close to a deal with Saginaw in the IHL. Minnesota won&rsquo;t be back with the New York Islanders in Springfield, but North Star general manager Lou Nanne said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be in the IHL, that&rsquo;s all I can tell you.&rdquo;That leaves Vancouver, which still has a year remaining on its agreement with Quebec in Fredericton. But new Canuck GM Pat Quinn is said to be unhappy about not having a say in who coaches the Express.&ldquo;With the changes in the rules in the AHL (16 skaters and two goalies on rosters instead of 18 and two), it may not serve with the original contents of the contract,&rdquo; said Quinn, who planned to question the Nordiques about the agreement. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s premature for me to explore any of those avenues. We have a partnership in Fredericton.&rdquo;The Skipjacks have one other option, although it seems unlikely.&ldquo;It has been suggested that the NHL clubs pull together,&rdquo; said AHL vicepresident Gordie Anziano, &ldquo;and chip in two or three players each to give to Baltimore to save the franchise.&rdquo;The only thing the people in Baltimore can do is wait and hope for the best.&ldquo;Our office staff is totally committed until the end of June,&rdquo; Haas said. &ldquo;We are pretty committed to having a team next year.&rdquo;And if they don&rsquo;t?&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to continue breathing, but I&rsquo;d be disappointed. We worked pretty hard for this team and we have a good loyal bunch of fans. We don&rsquo;t want to sit out a year.&rdquo;The Skipjacks had the best road attendance in the league this season. At home, they were seventh best in the 13-team league, averaging 3,382 a game&mdash;an increase of 474 from the previous season.&ldquo;We have a good core of hockey fans,&rdquo; Haas said. &ldquo;In our last two games we drew 8,200 and 5,000 people&mdash;and those games didn&rsquo;t mean a thing (in terms of the playoffs).&rdquo;But Haas said he realizes he can&rsquo;t control the situation. Baltimore can be without hockey for the first time in six years.&ldquo;It could happen,&rdquo; Haas said. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell you what the NHL teams are going to do. But I now we won&rsquo;t work as an independent team. We have to work with an affiliate.&rdquo;AROUND THE SOUTH&mdash;Sherbrooke and Rochester split the first four games of the Calder Cup final series, combining for a whopping 39 goals&hellip;Sherbrooke&rsquo;s David Maley and Marc Behrend were both sent home by the team for missing a team meal. There has been no official suspension, said Sherbrooke official Lyne Malboeuf, but the players won&rsquo;t be back in uniform for the rest of the finals&hellip;Gene Ubriaco, Baltimore&rsquo;s coach the past four seasons, was interviewed for the Pittsburgh and New York Rangers&rsquo; coaching jobs&hellip;Binghamton Whaler coach Larry Pleau also had an interview with Pittsburgh, and Sherbrooke&rsquo;s Pierre Creamer has reportedly been approached&hellip;Rochester coach John Van Boxmeer has agreed to a two-year contract extension to coach the Amerks through the 198889 season.</div><div style="clear: both;"> &#9632;</div>

f0026-02

The Minors

Skipjacks Trying To Rig A New Affiliation

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01567/5162460-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="123" height="122"></div>UTICA, N.Y.&mdash;Playing Faust in this tale is Frank DuRoss. Playing the Devil are, well, the New Jersey Devils.It&rsquo;s a story of moving an established American League franchise with an enviable history to a city with a long, but checkered past in the sport. It&rsquo;s a story of money and promises and great expectations and, naturally, a deal with the Devil, err, Devils.DuRoss, a 36-year-old businessman whose varied interests include an asbestos removal company and horse breeding, has become a sports savior of sorts in his hometown. Two years ago, before he had ever attended a game, he led a group that purchased the city&rsquo;s troubled Atlantic Coast League franchise and kept it alive. The Mohawk Valley Comets, after an 0-8 start this past season, went on to the ACHL playoff final, where they lost in seven games to Virginia.Now, they&rsquo;ve lost their ACHL team.The Comets were just starting their mid-season turnaround with a new coach and a host of different players when DuRoss and friends went looking for a bigger challenge: to obtain an AHL franchise for Utica, a city in central New York located approximately halfway between Albany and Rochester, and 48 miles east of Syracuse.&ldquo;We defmtely believe that the market is ripe here for a good, steady, consistent league,&rdquo; DuRoss said. &ldquo;In the past, there have been so many in and out. The big question here every spring and fall has been, &lsquo;Is there going to be a league?&rsquo; Obviously, that&rsquo;s not a problem in the American Hockey League.&rdquo;DuRoss and partners began their search in December and talked with represtatives of several clubs. Eventually, they found the Devils, who were growing increasingly dissatisfied with the expense of operating the Maine Mariners at Portland, Me.Shortly after completion of the season&mdash;Maine&rsquo;s 10th in the AHL and its first out of the playoffs&mdash;the Devils announced they were leaving for Utica. Subsequently, long-time Mariners&rsquo; president Ed Anderson purchased a dormant AHL franchise owned by the Winnipeg Jets, signed a working agreement with the Boston Bruins and will continue to operate in Portland.The Devils sold part of their franchise to the Utica investors, agreed to a five-year contract with the Utica Memorial Auditorium and began the job of hiring personnel to handle marketing and sales.Tom McVie will be the coach and general manager of the Devils&rsquo; as yet un-named affiliate. McVie has been a member of the Devils&rsquo; organization since 1982.&ldquo;A portion of it is locally owned and we feel that is to our benefit and to their benefit,&rdquo; Arnold said. &ldquo;I think local ownership always does better than some distant, out-of-state ownership.&rdquo;Professional hockey has been a staple in the Utica market for nearly 50 years. The best-known and longest-lasting of the teams to operate in the area was the Clinton Comets of the old Eastern League.Utica&rsquo;s chances of landing an AHL franchise were greatly enhanced when a major rehabilitation project was undertaken to refurbish the 30-year-old Memorial Auditorium, which seats 4,050. More than $1 million was spent in 1986 and additional capital improvements are planned, including the purchase of a new scoreboard.Arnold says location and a favorable contract were elements of the deal the Devils couldn&rsquo;t refuse. Utica is less than three hours by bus from Rochester, Binghamton and Glens Falls. &#9632;</div>

f0027-01

Devils Cut Deal With Utica To Cut Costs

<div class="byline">BY BILL PICKETT</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02365/5162491-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="96" height="106"></div>SALT LAKE CITY&mdash;After a miserable regular season at the Salt Palace, home was again sweet home for the Salt Lake Golden Eagles in the playoffs.Coach Wayne Thomas&rsquo; squad turned in the second-worst home record in the league during the season (22-19-0, with nine overtime losses), but the Turner Cup playoffs offered a new season and a chance to start with a clean slate.It took the Golden Eagles six games to get past Milwaukee in the first round, and they won two of three games in the Salt Palace to get the job done.Against highly-favored Fort Wayne, the regular-season champions, the Eagles continued their home-ice domination of the Komets.Salt Lake permitted Fort Wayne just one point (for an overtime loss) in six games at the Salt Palace.The hex continued in the second playoff round as the Eagles, after a split of the opening two games at Fort Wayne, swept three straight at home.That put Salt Lake City into the Turner Cup finals for the first time in their three International League seasons.Salt Lake faced the task of stopping Muskegon from claiming a second straight Turner Cup. More than that, they faced a Lumberjack team which had won three of four games in the Salt Palace en route to a 5-3 advantage in the regular season.But the Golden Eagles split the first two games at Muskegon, then rode Tim Ferguson&rsquo;s wrist shot in overtime to victory in the first game back in Salt Lake. In game four, the second in Salt Lake, eight different Eagles scored in an 8-7 victory, running Salt Lake&rsquo;s home playoff record to 7-1.Thomas&rsquo; high-flying Eagles weren&rsquo;t able to apply the knockout punch in their final game at home, however, and the Lumberjacks forced a fifth back in Muskegon with a 5-2 decision May 17, sparked by Jock Callander&rsquo;s hat trick.That narrowed the Golden Eagles&rsquo; advantage to 3-2 in the best-of-seven championship series.Thomas didn&rsquo;t read too much into the sudden home-ice turnaround, nor into the prospect of playing the final two games in Muskegon.&ldquo;We started the season pretty terribly on the road,&rdquo; Thomas recalled. &ldquo;But the last half of the season we did pretty decently. We won 10 of our last 14 on the road, so we&rsquo;re comfortable on the road.&rdquo;I-LITES&mdash;Muskegon&rsquo;s Jim McGeough had 14 goals in 14 playoff games, including a hat trick in the &lsquo;Jacks 8-7 loss May 16. Jock Callander had two goals in that contest, and a hat trick of his own a night later in Muskegon&rsquo;s 5-2 win&hellip;By game five, league-leading goaltender Jeff Cooper of Muskegon had yet to make an appearance in the playoffs. He was hurt late in the season and rookie Frank Pietrangelo filled in admirably, winning 11 of 13 games for the Lumberjacks&hellip;Phil Wittliff will devote all his energies to his duties as executive vice-president and general manager of the Milwaukee Admirals. He has given up his post as Admirals&rsquo; coach. The leading candidate for the coaching job appeared to be associate coach Kevin Willison&hellip;Talks intensified between Muskegon GM Larry Gordon and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Pittsburgh dropped its affiliation with Baltimore of the American League and Gordon hoped the National Hockey League team will make Muskegon its minor-league affiliate. &#9632;</div>

f0027-02

Home-Ice Turnaround Sparked Eagles

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0027-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-03237/5162522-1-eng-US/f0027-032.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0027-03

The Hockey News Classified (416) 445-5702

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01573/5162553-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The triumphant Medicine Hat Tigers hold aloft the Memorial Cup after defeating Oshawa Generals 6-2 in the final game. (Photo by walter Passarella)</figcaption></div>OSHAWA, Ont.&mdash;Bryan Maxwell finally has the Memorial Cup ring that eluded him 14 years ago.As a rookie defenseman with the Medicine Hat Tigers in 1972-73, Maxwell was a part of the Western League team that made it to the national championship but lost to eventual-champion Toronto Marlboros.In 1986-87, Maxwell made it back to the Memorial Cup, again as a rookie&hellip;but this time as coach of the Tigers.With Maxwell calling the shots back of the bench, Medicine Hat defeated the hometown Oshawa Generals 6-2, to win the first Memorial Cup in the 40-year history of the Saskatchewan franchise.&ldquo;Memories from when I played in the Cup as a player were with me all week,&rdquo; said an elated Maxwell, a former National Hockey League defenseman. &ldquo;The thoughts were the same&hellip;The pressures as great. But the results were different this time.&rdquo;The Tigers were beaten 5-3 by Oshawa in their first game of this year&rsquo;s tournament, but came back to win their next three, all against the Quebec League-champion Longueuil Chevaliers. The Tigers&rsquo; two-game, total-goals semifinal triumph over the Chevaliers put them into the championship game and gave them another crack at the Generals.The Tigers controlled the Generals from the start of the nationally-televised winner-take-all contest.They took advantage of a shaky Oshawa goalie, rookie Jeff Hackett, to take a 2-0 lead before the game was nine minutes old. And while Oshawa twice motored back to within a goal, that&rsquo;s as close as the Tigers would let them get.Clearly, the Tigers were the better team. They outplayed the Generals by a greater margin than the 34-32 shots-on-goal totals indicated. And Medicine Hat&rsquo;s passing and skating skills were superior to Oshawa&rsquo;s.&ldquo;We played just an average game, but Medicine Hat was excellent, the better team today,&rdquo; said a tearful Oshawa coach Paul Theriault. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s give them credit&hellip;I&rsquo;ve never seen a big team that can skate as fast.&rdquo;The Tigers&rsquo; balance did in the Generals. With scoring leaders Mark Pederson and Neil Brady unable to generate a point between them, the Tigers got a two-goal performance from Trevor Linden who, at 17, was the youngest player in the tournament.Guy Phillips, Dale Kushner, Rob DiMaio and Ron Bonara also scored for the Tigers, while defenseman Keith Van Rooyen, one of four Tiger overagers, contributed three assists.The defensive play of Van Rooyen, a former OHLer with the Hamilton Steelhawks and Sudbury Wolves, and Wayne McBean was a key in the game.Van Rooyen was the first star in the game, and McBean, projected as a high pick in this year&rsquo;s NHL entry draft, not only made the tournament all-star team but was Memorial Cup MVP as well.&ldquo;Our defense as a whole played a heck of a game, a heck of a series,&rdquo; praised Maxwell. &ldquo;We shut Oshawa&rsquo;s big line down pretty well in this game.&rdquo;Maxwell was referring to the Generals&rsquo; high-scoring unit of center Scott McCrory, left winger Derek King and right winger Lee Giffen. While McCrory, playing with a bruised kneecap, scored Oshawa&rsquo;s only two goals of the game&mdash;both on power plays&mdash;King and Giffen were ineffective.&ldquo;They beat us that first game but didn&rsquo;t outplay us,&rdquo; said McBean. &ldquo;Their goalie (Hackett) played pretty well in that game. But we got to him early (in the final).&rdquo;McBean, while happy with his eye-catching performance, shrugged off the MVP award.&ldquo;We won the Memorial Cup as a team. Awards are nice, but it&rsquo;s a team effort&mdash;and the showing of one or two guys is not what won it for us.&rdquo;The game featured two draft-eligible goalies rated second and fourth by the NHL&rsquo;s Central Scouting Bureau heading into next month&rsquo;s draft.But while Medicine Hat&rsquo;s Mark Fitzpatrick, the No. 2-rated goalie behind Chicoutimi&rsquo;s Jimmy Waite, was sharp. Oshawa&rsquo;s Hackett wasn&rsquo;t.Theriault was being criticized in media quarters for going with the rookie while overager Sean Evoy sat on the bench.And even while Hackett struggled, Theriault refused to go to the bench for Evoy, a Hartford Whalers&rsquo; draft who had a 32-6-1 record this season, including a win over Longueuil in his only Memorial Cup apearance.&ldquo;It was a difficult decision, starting Jeff over Sean,&rdquo; said Theriault. &ldquo;But Jeff had played well in the win over Medicine Hat.&ldquo;I thought about making the change to Sean during the game, but decided to stick with our game plan.&rdquo;Which, obviously, didn&rsquo;t work. The Tigers were the better club. They skated, passed, and checked better than the Generals, and got the big saves in goal.&ldquo;What a feeling,&rdquo; summed Maxwell. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s indescribable. We won the Cup and we&rsquo;re getting those Memorial Cup rings, and the ownership is taking us to Florida on vacation.&rdquo;For Maxwell, a 14-year wait was over.NOTEBOOK&mdash;Five Tigers made the six-player all-star team&mdash;center Jeff Wenaas, left winger Dale Kushner, right winger Guy Phillips, defenseman Wayne McBean and goalie Mark Fitzpatrick. The only non-Tiger all-star was Oshawa defenseman Gord Murphy&hellip;While McBean took the Stafford Smythe Memorial Trophy as tournament MVP, Fitzpatrick won the Hap Emms Trophy as best goaltender. The other award-winner was Oshawa&rsquo;s Scott McCrory, who took the George Parsons Trophy as most gentlemanly player. &#9632;

f0028-01

The Juniors

Tigers Terrific

<div class="byline">BY STEVE KEATING</div>OSHAWA, Ont.&mdash;The 1987 edition of the Memorial Cup turned out to be more headache than hoopla, more problem than party.In fact, one of the biggest problems for visiting fans was finding a party.With Memorial Cup headquarters based at a Toronto hotel (Oshawa simply didn&rsquo;t have the facilities to accommodate the event), a large number of fans and participants were forced to commute, putting a damper on any spontaneous celebrations and excitement.Most Oshawa drinking and eating establishments reported little or no difference in business, leaving many Memorial Cup fans scratching their heads at the lack of activity.However, the biggest complaints were heard from local hockey fans.Because the preliminary round was announced as a double round-robin format, Oshawa General fans were expecting to see their team four times. A sudden format change had Oshawa playing only three games&mdash;leaving many fans, especially those who had purchased ticket packages, upset and angry.With Oshawa assured a berth in the final with a perfect record of 3-0, Cup organizers wanted to avoid the controversy that befell the 1980 Memorial Cup in Regina.That year, the Peterborough Petes already had a berth in the final. They dropped a 5-4 decision to Cornwall; however, resulting in cries of foul as the decision eliminated the tougher Regina Pats. Still, Cornwall defeated the Petes in the final.To assure Oshawa would have no hand in deciding its own opponent, organizers went with a two-game, total-goal series between Longueuil and Medicine Hat to determine the other finalist.Fans who purchased ticket packages were also irritated to discover that they were paying a dollar more per ticket than those who bought their tickets at the window game day.Several disgruntled fans were so upset that they took their complaints to the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Affairs, which said it planned to look into the matter.In a goodwill gesture, Cup officials decided there will be some form of refund available.On the ice, other than the final itself, the tournament lacked excitement.The Cup began on an auspicious note when the Ontario League was fined $5,000 for poor crowd control, after a bench-clearing brawl erupted at the end of game one, between the Longueuil Chevaliers and Generals.Longueuil&rsquo;s Ronnie Stern and Oshawa&rsquo;s Shane Doyle were the main combatants. Each later one-game suspensions, but it was a female fan&mdash;who climbed on to the ice and threw a glove at Oshawa coach Paul Theriault&mdash;who received the most notoriety.The Generals were also involved in the only other contest featuring game suspensions. Oshawa&rsquo;s Tony Joseph was given a game off for spitting, while Medicine Hat&rsquo;s Mark Kuntz was suspended for head butting Oshawa&rsquo;s Scott Mahoney. &#9632;

Memorial Cup Lacked Usual Excitement

<div class="byline">BY STEVE KEATING</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02340/5162608-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="558" height="953"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ontario League player of the year Scott McCrory scored twice in the final game.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01494/5162615-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="126" height="53"></div>OSHAWA, Ont.&mdash;Oshawa General coach Paul Theriault and general manager Sherry Bassin had only one remaining goal in their junior hockey careers&mdash;to win a Memorial Cup.Both men still have that goal.For the second time in five years, they watched their shared dream of a Canadian junior hockey championship turn into a nightmare. The Generals dropped a 6-2 decision to the Medicine Hat Tigers in front of nearly 4,000 fans, who crammed into Oshawa Civic Auditorium in hopes of watching the Generals win their first Cup in 43 years.The Theriault-coached Generals met a similar fate in the 1983 Cup, losing 8-3 to the host Portland Winter Hawks.This year, the 36-year-old Theriault had hoped the Memorial Cup would be his crowning achievement&mdash;something he would be able to parlay into a professional coaching assignment.But following the devastating loss, a disconsolate and tearful Theriault refused to discuss the future or the past.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to comment on my future right now,&rdquo; offered Theriault, whose stiff back, wrenched in a squash game earlier that week, added to the pain. &ldquo;I just want to spend some quality time with those players in the dressing room and show them how much I appreciate their effort. You should never analyze or say anything under the emotion of the moment.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t think about things like my future now, or (search) for reasons why this happened. But there has to be a reason for this. I don&rsquo;t know what that reason is&mdash;I&rsquo;ll just have to wait and see.&ldquo;You just have to believe that this is part of some plan, that there is a reason for this and that something better is waiting around the comer.&rdquo;In clinical terms, the reasons for Oshawa&rsquo;s failure were quite evident.The Generals were outmuscled, out-skated and outhustled&mdash;particularly in the first period, when Medicine Hat opened up a 3-1 lead, putting Oshawa in a hole that turned out to be its grave.There was a brief attempt at a comeback. A pair of power-play goals by Scott McCrory pulled Oshawa to within one, but a second-period, powerplay marker by Dale Kushner restored the Tigers&rsquo; two-goal edge. For the Tigers, it was their first-ever Cup victory.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>&ldquo;We were skating in sand and they were skating on ice,&rdquo; Theriault continued. &ldquo;But you can&rsquo;t take anything away from Medicine Hat. They (the Tigers) proved to be real champions.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt that their fourth goal was the turning point. Had we scored, it would have been tied and the momentum swings back our way&mdash;but they came back with a power-play goal and that really seemed to take the stuffing out of us.&rdquo;McCrory, who played in pain all week after bruising his right kneecap against Longueuil, agreed with Theriault.&ldquo;We were really going at them and then that incident happened,&rdquo; said McCrory of the second-period collision between Oshawa&rsquo;s Dean Morton and Medicine Hat goalie Fitzpatrick.Morton picked up a minor for charging, in addition to a major for fighting with Dean Chynoweth, and Kushner scored on the ensuing power play.For McCrory, the Ontario League&rsquo;s player of the year, it was a tough week. He not only lost the Memorial Cup but the Canadian player-of-the-year award, won by the Western League&rsquo;s Rob Brown of Kamloops.&ldquo;To lose two championships in less than a week,&rdquo; said McCrory, &ldquo;is not the way I wanted it.&rdquo;Theriault raised a few eyebrows when he decided to go with rookie netminder Jeff Hackett instead of veteran Sean Evoy.Hackett had played in the majority of Generals&rsquo; playoff contests during their drive to the final, but it was Evoy who was Theriault&rsquo;s ace in the hole.Hackett, who faced 34 shots, was ordinary. At the other end, Medicine Hat&rsquo;s Mark Fitzpatrick was often spectacular, handling 32 shots.&ldquo;That was the most difficult decision I had to make coming into today&rsquo;s game,&rdquo; the coach said. &ldquo;Both have been fabulous and won big games for us all year, but it&rsquo;s a decision we had to make and we went, with Hackett. I thought Hackett was tremendous. You can&rsquo;t blame a 6-2 loss on him.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0029-02

The Dream Turns Into A Nightmare

<div class="byline">BY FRED PLETSCH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-04154/5162646-1-eng-US/f0029-042.jpg" title="f0029-04" width="557" height="865"><figcaption class="caption-body">Longueuil&rsquo;s Ronnie Stern was both a big winner and big loser at the Memorial Cup.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-03221/5162653-1-eng-US/f0029-032.jpg" title="f0029-03" width="126" height="66"></div>OSHAWA, Ont.&mdash;Longueuil Chevaliers were five-time losers at the Memorial Cup&hellip;but they didn&rsquo;t go away empty-handed.Because the only thing they won at the week-long tournament was a 50-50 draw.Team captain Ronnie Stem pocketed $1,220 one night while serving a one-game suspension for his role in a wild brawl between Longueuil and Oshawa Generals moments after the Cup-opening game came to an end.As the Chevaliers headed home with an embarrassing 0-5 record, Stern was the only Longueuil player to emerge from the tournament richer for the experience.The Quebec League champions were outscored by a cumulative score of 22-8, including a 6-0 drubbing in the first game of their semi-final totalgoals series with the Medicine Hat Tigers.They lost 3-1 in the second, for a combined setback of 9-1, officially bringing to an end yet another ill-fated QMJHL Memorial Cup bid.A QMJHL club last won the national championship in 1981, when the Cornwall Royals prevailed, but not since 1971 has a Quebec-based team won the Cup.That was the year Guy Lafleur&rsquo;s Quebec Remparts were Canadian champs.Guy Chouinard, the Longueuil coach who played on the Remparts from 1972 to 1974, was humbled by the poor showing of his team.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very difficult for me to swallow,&rdquo; said the 30-year-old former National Hockey Leaguer. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind losing at all if you work hard and know you&rsquo;ve given your best.&ldquo;But we had a lot of guys, leaders on our team this year, that should&rsquo;ve done a better job handling the situation. Those guys just didn&rsquo;t show up. I don&rsquo;t know for what reason but maybe they&rsquo;ll wake up in two or three weeks knowing we could&rsquo;ve done a better job than this and, who knows, won it.&rdquo;</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>The tournament format gave them that chance, albeit undeserved.After an 0-3 round-robin start, a pair of losses to the host Generals (3-2 and 6-3), plus a loss to Medicine Hat (4-2), the Chevaliers were given an automatic berth in the semi-finals when Oshawa won its first three games&mdash;thus earning a bye into the final game.In game one of the two-game showdown, Longueuil found the lanes to the Medicine Hat net closed to traffic by an imposing Tiger defense that averaged 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds per man.Medicine Hat goalie Mark Fitzpatrick breezed to just the fifth shutout in tournament history, blocking 19 harmless shots.The second half of the semi-finals was both anti-climatic and academic with the Chevaliers trailing by six goals before the opening face-off.Goalie Bobby Desjardins, making his third straight Memorial Cup appearance after representing Hull and Shawinigan the two previous years, said size was Longueuil&rsquo;s principal shortcoming, and a physical style the main advantage for Oshawa and Medicine Hat.&ldquo;In Ontario and the West they play the body a lot more than we do in Quebec,&rdquo; said the 1985 Memorial Cup all-star netminder, who is no Ron Hextall himself at 5-foot-5.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing else to say except some of our guys were scared and when you&rsquo;re scared you just don&rsquo;t do your job. Honestly, I don&rsquo;t think Medicine Hat had such a great team. Oshawa had a good team, a respectable team but I think we should&rsquo;ve been in the final against the Generals.&rdquo;It was the absence of the Quebec League&rsquo;s trademark firepower that ultimately led to Longueuil&rsquo;s downfall. Right winger Mario De Benedicts was the only Chevalier to score twice in the tournament.Team scoring leader Marc Bureau managed just one goal and three points in five games, while center Martin Desjardins, a 100-point man in the regular season drew just one assist.Chouinard refrained from pinning the blame for the dismal showing on individual players, but he did single out the scrappy Stem for praise.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why Vancouver hasn&rsquo;t signed him yet,&rsquo;&rsquo; said Chouinard of the Canucks&rsquo; 1986 fourth-round choice. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a big heart, he wants to play hockey and he&rsquo;ll get all my help in getting to the NHL.&rdquo;Stern, who set a rather dubious Memorial Cup record with 69 penalty minutes, spoke on behalf of his teammates when he summed up the rise and fall of the Chevaliers.&ldquo;One week we&rsquo;re skating around the ice with the Quebec championship trophy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and the next week we&rsquo;re left with this, embarrassed.&rdquo;If Stem&rsquo;s dignity took a beating, his wallet didn&rsquo;t.&ldquo;At least I&rsquo;m not going home empty-handed,&rdquo; he said with a chuckle, thinking of his 50-50 windfall. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;d much rather have the Memorial Cup than $1,200.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0029-04

Chevs Had 50-50 Chance In Semi-Finals

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01566/5162691-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01515/5162684-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="3059" height="3203"></div> &#9632;

f0030-01

NHL PLAYOFF REPORT

<h2>Mon. May 11</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01541/5162757-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="539" height="708"></div><h2>Tue. May 12</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02395/5162750-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="541" height="707"></div><h2>Wed. May 13</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03263/5162743-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="542" height="707"></div><h2>Thu. May 14</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-04156/5162736-1-eng-US/f0032-042.jpg" title="f0032-04" width="543" height="708"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-05101/5162729-1-eng-US/f0032-052.jpg" title="f0032-05" width="532" height="95"></div><h2>Sun. May 17</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-0677/5162722-1-eng-US/f0032-062.jpg" title="f0032-06" width="543" height="618"></div> &#9632;

f0032-01

NHL SUMMARIES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0032-16" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-1625/5162889-1-eng-US/f0032-162.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0032-16

STANLEY CUP SCOREBOARD

<h2>Sat. May 9</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-0764/5162858-1-eng-US/f0032-072.jpg" title="f0032-07" width="542" height="763"></div><h2>Sun. May 10</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-0857/5162851-1-eng-US/f0032-082.jpg" title="f0032-08" width="539" height="150"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-0947/5162844-1-eng-US/f0032-092.jpg" title="f0032-09" width="545" height="772"></div><h2>Mon. May 11</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-1042/5162837-1-eng-US/f0032-102.jpg" title="f0032-10" width="540" height="174"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-1135/5162830-1-eng-US/f0032-112.jpg" title="f0032-11" width="543" height="984"></div><h2>Tue. May 12</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-1234/5162823-1-eng-US/f0032-122.jpg" title="f0032-12" width="547" height="735"></div><h2>Wed. May 13</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-1331/5162816-1-eng-US/f0032-132.jpg" title="f0032-13" width="535" height="176"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-1428/5162809-1-eng-US/f0032-142.jpg" title="f0032-14" width="541" height="649"></div><h2>Thu. May 14</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-1525/5162802-1-eng-US/f0032-152.jpg" title="f0032-15" width="537" height="263"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02345/5162795-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="534" height="410"></div><h2>Sat. May 16</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-03247/5162788-1-eng-US/f0033-032.jpg" title="f0033-03" width="542" height="839"></div> &#9632;

f0032-07

MEMORIAL CUP TOURNAMENT SUMMARIES

<div class="byline">BY JEFF GORDON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02434/5162951-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="555" height="787"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Caron thought defenseman Brian Benning, above, was undervalued by pro scouts.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01555/5162958-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="115" height="115"></div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;Ron Caron is a great believer in starting from scratch, which is just what he did when franchise-saver Harry Omest hired him to run the St. Louis Blues in 1983.&ldquo;I realized when I came to the hockey team, there were something like 52 or 55 names on the list,&rdquo; general manager Caron said. &ldquo;Some of them were just not good enough. The Blues had a very successful minor pro team in Salt Lake City, they had a good relationship with the owner up there. But we were drafting 18-year-olds, and those 18-year-olds can&rsquo;t play on your minor pro team.&ldquo;We felt there was an absence of good prospects in college,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There was one top guy (Matt Christensen) drafted by the people before us, and that guy got sick.&rdquo;(Christensen, a University of Minnesota-Duluth star, suffered two strokes in February, 1986.)So Caron decided to scrap the minor-league team, clearing the shelf of players who couldn&rsquo;t progress past Salt Lake City.He left his cupboard bare and focused on the future, pressuring himself to deliver an outstanding 1984 draft that would start a new talent cycle.And he succeeded. After trading the No. 1 pick to Montreal for Rick Wamsley, Caron and scouting director Ted Hampson came up with defenseman Brian Benning and center Tony Hrkac in the second round.Benning was the National Hockey League&rsquo;s top-scoring rookie defenseman and Hrkac won the Hobey Baker Award this season, after leading North Dakota to the National Collegiate Athletic Association title. They lead the Blues&rsquo; new wave of talent.With Benning, Caron said, &ldquo;the big question was whether he&rsquo;d be available. I couldn&rsquo;t believe he was. The NHL scouts did not get the right book on Brian Benning. I saw Brian Benning play when he was 16. I hired his dad, a fireman in Edmonton, as a bird dog for the Canadiens. I knew the family well.&rdquo;As for Hrkac, Caron said, &ldquo;he had talent, we liked him and we wanted to draft him. We knew he was going to college and that was a plus. He had to go to the right place. That&rsquo;s very important.&rdquo;Caron stole Cliff Ronning in the seventh round, picking up a spare offensive center who gave the Blues a lift in the season&rsquo;s third quarter, after Bernie Federko broke his jaw.Hampson, a small center himself in his NHL days, liked Ronning a lot and made a case for him. &ldquo;It was like a trial,&rdquo; said Caron, who played devil&rsquo;s advocate. &ldquo;I was saying, &lsquo;What do you want this guy for?&rsquo; I wanted him to work hard to pick his guy. I wanted to make sure he was sure.&rdquo;Defenseman Robert Dirk, picked in the third round, was impressive enough at Peoria (International League) to compete for a job next season. Goaltender Alan Perry, also picked in the third round, figures to play for Peoria after a knee injury abbreviated his season at Belleville of the Ontario League.&ldquo;Alan started the season in Peoria and the team was struggling,&rdquo; Hampson said. &ldquo;We thought it would be better to send him to junior hockey, but he got hurt as soon as he got there. Then he had a good showing in the playoffs there. He curbed a lot of his roaming tendencies. He stayed in the net a lot better.&rdquo;Other promising picks from &rsquo;84 include Scott Paluch, a defenseman at Bowling Green who had 51 points in 45 games last season; right winger Jim Vesey, who had 58 points in 35 games for Merrimack College; and right winger Steve Tuttle, who emerged at the University of Wisconsin with 31 goals in 42 games. All three will be seniors in 1987-88.Tuttle &ldquo;blossomed as a scorer this year,&rdquo; Hampson said. &ldquo;He showed his potential as a scorer in Tier II junior, then he didn&rsquo;t show it his first two years at Wisconsin.&rdquo;Vesey is an interesting sleeper, a sniper who dominated at a lower level of collegiate play. Now he needs to round out his game.&ldquo;This guy,&rdquo; Caron said, &ldquo;he will be a player, don&rsquo;t be surprised. Who knows&mdash;he may want to come out and turn pro?&rdquo;BLUENOTES&mdash;Three more prominent prospects, drafted in 1985 and 1986, are center Nelson Emerson (26-35 in 45 games at Bowling Green, defenseman Mike Posma (12-31 in 35 at Western Michigan) and goalie Pat Jablonski (22-14-2, 3.30 at Windsor). Emerson and Posma will be entering their sophomore seasons and Jablonski is expected to turn pro with Peoria&hellip;The Blues will be affiliated with Peoria of the IHL for another season and Ron Caron expects to supply about 10 players. Within three years, about the time it would take for expansion to drain the talent pool, he hopes to supply an entire team in the IHL.</div><div style="clear: both;"> &#9632;</div>

f0034-02

Caron’s Rebuilding Patience Is Paying Off

<div class="byline">By Bruce Hood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03334/5162989-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="363" height="448"></div>Q: I have been following hockey throughout the &rsquo;80s and playing hockey the last few years. In a high school championship game this past season, I encountered a rule that confused me and I felt to be wrong. Our opposing team had a player in the penalty box in the last few minutes of the game. One of my teammates was on a breakaway and was pulled down from behind and awarded a penalty shot. He scored, and we tied the game. But I&rsquo;m confused about whether a two-minute penalty would have resulted if he had missed. Since he did score, the question never came up. Still, the other player&rsquo;s penalty was cancelled. That was decided after the referee took time to read the rule book. My question is, should two penalties have been nullified because of one goal? The first penalty had not expired. We won the game in the second overtime!Kevin Zielmanski, Pittsburgh, PAA: The penalty shot was issued to restore a scoring opportunity that had been taken away, due to a foul committed by the opposing team when it was a man short. If the player scored on the shot, as he may have on the original play, then a minor penalty can be wiped out as a result.The key here is that if he hadn&rsquo;t scored, there would not have been a further minor penalty assessed. Obviously, the player in the box would have remained to serve the rest of his penalty.Q: If a player scores on a penalty shot, is it credited as a power-play goal?Christopher Loach, Calgary, ABA: Only if the team was shorthanded at the time the penalty was assessed.Q: It is my understanding that a goaltender can not use black tape on the knob of his stick. I would like to know why.Cheryl Wendt, Norwalk, CAA: Goalies must use white tape so that the knob is not mistaken for the puck being in the net. While on the subject of butt ends, have you ever heard of the &ldquo;Billy Smith rule?&rdquo; Named for the New York Islanders&rsquo; goalie, it came about because Smith used to put a knob on his stick only part-way up the shaft, leaving a couple of inches of bare stick. He would use the exposed portion of the stick to impede (and sometimes impale) opposing players. The rule states that the knob must be right at the end and must not be less than half-an-inch thick.If you want your questions answered, write to:ASK THE REFEREE16 Martin StreetMilton, Ont.L9T 2P9All questions will be considered, but only those published will be answered. Personal responses are not possible. &#9632;

f0034-03

ASK THE REFEREE

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04239/5163020-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="90" height="92"></div>EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.&mdash;He won more games in a single season than any goalie in franchise history&mdash;24, shattering Chico Resch&rsquo;s five-year-old mark by eight&mdash;but Alain Chevrier knows there&rsquo;s no such thing as job security with the New Jersey Devils.Chevrier will report to training camp as the Devils&rsquo; No. 1 goalie, a distinction he earned with a 24-26-2 record and 4.32 goals-against average. Yet he realizes changes are likely to come from new president Lou Lamoriello. Whisper has it that Chevrier&mdash;or anyone else&mdash;may simply be a stop-gap until Sean Burke arrives for good from Team Canada.The picture has not changed all that drastically for Chevrier since he won a job in camp two years ago as an unknown from Miami (Ohio) University and the Fort Wayne Komets.&ldquo;My first year it was (a) given that Chico was going to be here,&rdquo; recalled Chevrier. &ldquo;There was a job opening for a backup to Chico and I wasn&rsquo;t favored for that job. There was Karl (Friesen) and Sam (St. Laurent), too, but I won the backup job. Last year the starting job was open and I thought I had the inside track at it.&ldquo;I came to training camp and played well. There was a lot of pressure on me. I responded well to it. Next year I feel a little more secure, which I think I should, but there&rsquo;s still a lot of pressure.&rsquo;&rsquo;Even though he also set a franchise record for most consecutive victories (four) and emerged as the team&rsquo;s first-half MVP during the Devils&rsquo; 16-14-2 start, Chevrier said he was &ldquo;not really&rdquo; satisfied with his sophomore season.&ldquo;Sure I did better than I&rsquo;ve ever done,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m still not happy. We didn&rsquo;t make the playoffs. I thought perhaps my goals-against (average) could have been lower, my save percentage higher, my number of losses lower and my number of wins higher.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think anybody on that team can be satisfied with their individual effort. We never achieved our goal of making the playoffs.&rdquo;&lsquo;Few people knew that Chevrier played most of last season with numbness in his right hand, creating problems in holding on to his stick. It was not serious, he insisted, but it was annoying at a position which requires total concentration.On April 29, six days after his 26th birthday, Chevrier underwent surgery to repair the hand. Dr. Joel Grad made a two-inch incision in Chevrier&rsquo;s palm and removed scar tissue around nerves in the goalie&rsquo;s right wrist. The affected nerves controlled feeling in his right ring finger, middle and index fingers and thumb.&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you notice how much I dropped my stick?&rdquo; asked Chevrier. &ldquo;Sometimes I didn&rsquo;t have any feeling in my hand. It was going numb and I wasn&rsquo;t feeling my fingers. It wasn&rsquo;t constant but it happened a lot when I was holding a hockey stick or driving a car or holding a soda can. It was an annoyance. It was never really a factor.&rdquo;The surgery, to relieve the affliction named &ldquo;carpal tunnel syndrome,&rdquo; was a success, and Chevrier said he would report to camp in better shape and more anxious to play than ever before.&ldquo;A goalie takes so much of the credit and blame,&rdquo; said the native of Cornwall, Ont. &ldquo;A goalie can have three or four good years and, if his fifth is not up to par, people say he&rsquo;s inconsistent. I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m a hot-and-cold type of goalie. I had a couple of bad streaks this year. That one streak in January, when I got pulled in three games straight, could&rsquo;ve been called the low point for me. But I think I&rsquo;m pretty consistent overall.&rdquo;He is also No. 1&hellip;at least for the time being.HOT STUFF&mdash;Uli Hiemer, the talented 24-year-old West German defenseman who never reached his full potential in three seasons with the Devils, signed a lucrative three-year contract to play in Dusseldorf. The Devils chose not to pick up Hiemer&rsquo;s option. Hiemer scored six goals and 14 assists in 40 games last season, and was minus-six. &#9632;</div>

f0034-04

Record-Setting Puckstopper Is No. 1 But For How Long?

<div class="byline">BY LARRY HUMBER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01525/5163051-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"></div><h2>ACROSS:</h2>1. Pictured Canuck holds the club record for goals in one year, with 45 (4,5).8. First name of the Canadien who succeeded Frank Mahovlich as Calder Trophy winner (5).9. Hockey novel penned by Scott Young, it was also a movie (4,3).10. Bruin whose wife was once featured in Playboy magazine (6).11. Hold (6).12. Trophy awarded to the NHL&rsquo;s plus-minus leader, Edge (5).14. Ties (5).17. Ranger netminder originally drafted by St. Louis in 1978 (6).19. Howie Meeker was the 194647 winner of this trophy (6).20. Crouched (7).21. Veteran of 16 NHL seasons, the last with Edmonton in 198283 (5).22. Center signed as a free agent by Montreal in 1983 (9).<h2>DOWN:</h2>2. Fred Shero coached this Central League club to two Adams Cups (5).3. Gives up (6).4. Former Canadien hopeful Turcotte (5).5. He appeared in 75 or more games for the Rangers four times from 1970 to 1975, Ted (6).6. Played poorly or ineffectively (7).7. Number worn by netminders Grant Fuhr and Billy Smith (6, 3).11. He was the first player taken in the 1981 NHL entry draft (9).13. Center acquired by Boston in exchangeforTom Fergus (7).15. Saskatchewan birthplace of veteran winger Morris Lukowich (6).16. This Blackhawk assistant also played for Chicago for 11 seasons (6).17. Flame forward previously with the Rangers (5).18. He netted 30 goals for Winnipeg in 1984-85 (5).Crossword solution in Classified Section on page 27. &#9632;

f0035-01

CROSSWORD

<h2>10 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Montreal Canadiens won their 20th Stanley Cup by sweeping the Boston Bruins in four straight games. Jacques Lemaire scored the Cup-winning goal in overtime. The championship was the first of four in row for the Canadiens. Montreal&rsquo;s superstar right winger Guy Lafleur won the Conn Smythe Trophy as he topped all playoff scorers with nine goals and 17 assists for 26 points.&bull; Eddie Westfall of the New York Islanders was awarded the Masterton Trophy. The award winner, chosen by the Profesional Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association, goes to the National Hockey League player who most exemplifies perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to the game of hockey.&bull; Hockey&rsquo;s royal family was on the move. Gordie Howe and his sons, Mark and Marty, were signed by the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association. The Howes had spent the previous four years with the Houston Aeros.&bull; Robbie Ftorek of the WHA&rsquo;s Phoenix Roadrunners made history by becoming the first American to be named MVP in a major hockey league. Ftorek scored 117 points for the last-place Roadrunners.&bull; The American League announced plans to expand in the 1977-78 season. Two new franchises were added in Portland, Me. and Hampton, Va., bringing the total to eight teams. &#9632;

THIS WEEK…

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02418/5163106-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marcel Bonin was only 5-foot-9, but he packed a lot of muscle on his 175-pound frame. The left winger scored 11 playoff goals in his career, including the Stanley Cup winner for Montreal, against Toronto in 1959. He also played for Detroit and Boston. The Montreal native retired in 1962 after nine years and 97 regular-season goals in the National Hockey League.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0035-02

THE WAY WE WERE

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div>Bruce MacGregor will always have a warm spot in his heart for the Detroit Red Wings, the team he played for throughout the 1960s.But when the Red Wings met the Edmonton Oilers&mdash;MacGregor&rsquo;s current employers&mdash;in the Campbell Conference final series this month, old loyalties died easily.&ldquo;There aren&rsquo;t many people left with Detroit who were there when I played,&rdquo; said MacGregor, who played for 14 seasons in the National Hockey League with Detroit and the New York Rangers, and two more years in the World Hockey Association with the Alberta Oilers.&ldquo;Although I&rsquo;m still pulling for the Oilers, I have a lot of great memories of Detroit.&rdquo;MacGregor had a fair scoring touch, but didn&rsquo;t get much of a chance to use it early in his career. The right winger paid his dues in a checking role and penalty-killer. His defense improve, but his offense suffered.Then Ted Lindsay came into MacGregor&rsquo;s life and changed his playing style completely. The star left winger, who returned in 1964-65 after four years of retirement, saw untapped potential in MacGregor.&ldquo;Ted was the best thing to happen to the Red Wings and myself at that point,&rdquo; said the native of Edmonton. &ldquo;Ted gave me confidence on and off the ice.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03331/5163137-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="545" height="1348"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bruce MacGregor</figcaption></div>&ldquo;He was a big influence in the lockerroom. His style of play rubbed off on the team. Ted believed in playing in the other team&rsquo;s zone. Be offensive. The defense would take care of itself.&ldquo;Although he may have only been with us for a year, what a year it was. &ldquo;Teamed on a line with Lindsay, MacGregor&rsquo;s statistics improved. After scoring only 28 goals through his first three-and-a-half seasons in Detroit, MacGregor tallied 21 times in 1964-65. Following Lindsay&rsquo;s retirement, MacGregor was teamed with Paul Henderson and Norm Ullman to form the HUM Line, a productive scoring unit.But the good times didn&rsquo;t last, either for the Red Wings or MacGregor. Everything started going downhill, he said, when Ned Harkness took over as coach.&ldquo;He came from the college ranks,&rdquo; MacGregor said. &ldquo;He knew nothing about the NHL or the team. He couldn&rsquo;t put his college philosophy into a veteran lineup like we had.&ldquo;Actually I can&rsquo;t blame the whole thing on Ned. I also blame a guy by the name of Jimmy Bishop who, I believe, hired Ned. Whatever it was, it was the downfall of the Red Wings&rsquo; organization.&rdquo;After 10 seasons with the Red Wings, MacGregor finished his NHL career with three-and-a-half productive seasons as a Ranger. Two years later, after he reached the 250-goal plateau (combined NHL and WHA) as a member of the Oilers, he retired.Today, at 46, MacGregor is the assistant general manager of the Oilers. He and his wife reside in Edmonton. His son, Brad, plays in the Chicago Blackhawk organization. &#9632;

f0035-03

MacGregor Loyal Oiler Now

<div class="byline">BY REYN DAVIS</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01499/5163168-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="109" height="113"></div>WINNIPEG&mdash;No matter what his general manager may think, Barry Shenkarow is satisfied with the present playoff system.The president and governor of Winnipeg Jets cannot agree with John Ferguson&rsquo;s contention that the top eight teams in each conference should meet in playoffs with the No. 1-place squad playing No. 8, No. 2 meeting No. 7, and so on.Shenkarow is Ferguson&rsquo;s boss, however, and the fact he doesn&rsquo;t agree suggests the way Winnipeg would vote if certain zealots in the National Hockey League try to change the present format.Ferguson is upset because the Jets had to meet two of the top five teams in the NHL in the opening two rounds of playoffs.&ldquo;You have to set your goals,&rsquo;&rsquo; said Shenkarow. &ldquo;Make up your mind you&rsquo;ll win the Stanley Cup. There are 21 teams out there. You go out and you beat them.&ldquo;If you play 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7 and so on, we would have been playing Chicago. They weren&rsquo;t a picnic, either. (Ed. Note&mdash;Chicago lost four straight playoff games to Detroit.) Who&rsquo;s to say the Norris Division won&rsquo;t have four or five strong teams in a year or so.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;The system is as good as any ever devised. You have to go out and win.&rsquo; &mdash;Shenkarow</blockquote>&ldquo;I think the fans like this system. The best way to advance in the playoffs is to finish on top of your division and be injury-free.&ldquo;The system is as good as any ever devised. You have to go out and win.&rdquo;Shenkarow was pleased with the Jets&rsquo; performance this season.&ldquo;The players have re-acquired their confidence,&rsquo;&rsquo; he said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve shown they are capable of having a 90-point season and winning the Stanley Cup. I&rsquo;m sure Fergie will want to do some fine-tuning. But the nucleus of a winning team is there.&rdquo;This year&rsquo;s team posted its secondbest record (40-32-8), won its second-ever playoff series and sent the city into a tizzy with fanciful notions of a crack at the Stanley Cup.Winnipeg has demonstrated that it can support a team and its owners can even turn a profit.Earnings in excess of $1 million will be reported by Hockey Ventures Inc. on 1986-87 operations.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be in the black, let&rsquo;s put it that way,&rdquo; said Shenkarow, who can recall six seasons when the team swam in a sea of red ink.On another matter, Shenkarow, who sits on the NHL&rsquo;s expansion committee, admits to being pro-expansionist. He predicted the NHL will move to several American cities in the near ture if Canadian-based governors in the NHL are given more voting power. &ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be very serious discussions over a lot of voting matters.&rdquo; said Shenkarow. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think theCanadians will work for expansion if the two-thirds-or-better majority is put in jeopardy.&rdquo;Shenkarow noted that Canadian teams have historically represented one-third of the NHL.&ldquo;In the days of the six-team league, two were from Canada,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Today there are 21 teams and seven are Canadian.&rsquo;&rsquo;Shenkarow named some of the prospective cities.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to see teams in Seattle and San Francisco, Houston and Dallas, Hamilton and Milwaukee,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Maybe even Atlanta and Miami. Atlanta wants hockey again. Miami is eager, too. And Florida is the fastest-growing state.&rdquo;Shenkarow favors a 24-team NHL with six clubs in each division, and he can picture a 28-team league in the far future.&ldquo;Milwaukee is one of the most interesting,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They have the building and the ownership in place.&rdquo;The Jets were themselves an expansion team in 1979 when they were admitted to the NHL along with the Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques and Hartford Whalers&hellip;a 3-to-l split in favor of Canadian teams. &#9632;

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May 29, 1987

Nifty No. 99 Turns Up Level of Play

BOOK LOCKER

SCOREBOARD

There’s Still Uncertainty Surrounding B’s Goalies