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.

January 8, 1988

The Hockey News January 8, 1988

<h2>15 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; After being hit in the ankle by the puck 11 times in one game against Atlanta, Minnesota North Star defenseman Tom Reid took action. He devised a pair of leather anklets as protection. The new equipment quickly caught on with defense-of the day.&bull; Toronto Maple Leaf defenseman Bob Baun was forced to retire in the midst of his 17th NHL season, after suffering a neck injury. Doctors told Baun he was chancing paralysis if he continued to play. Baun, who played for Toronto, Oakland and Detroit, scored 37 goals and 187 assists in 964 regular-season games.<h2>35 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Boston Bruin rookie defenseman Bob Armstrong was nicknamed &lsquo;Beau Brummel&rsquo; by Boston Record hockey writer Bill Grimes. Armstrong, a bachelor, earned the nickname for his taste in tailored flannel suits. The moniker was later shortened to &lsquo;Beau.&rsquo; Armstrong played 11 years for the Bruins, beginning in 1950.&bull; The Toronto Maple Leafs were taking precautions against a rash of lower back injuries by reinforcing the backs of their hockey pants with foam-rubber padding. It didn&rsquo;t help them much in the standings, however. Toronto finished in fifth place with a 27-30-13 record and missed the playoffs. &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUE

THIS WEEK…

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01592/5384177-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="181" height="133"></div>BUFFALO&mdash;It is said that a hockey team must learn to take the good with the bad.With that in mind, the Buffalo Sabres are likely to accept what&rsquo;s happening to John Tucker.And welcome what&rsquo;s happening to Jacques Cloutier.Tucker, one of the Sabres&rsquo; more talented players, began yet another comeback Dec. 19 in Memorial Auditorium.It lasted about a dozen shifts. Tucker, 23, was coming off a 16-game layoff with a knee injury when Montreal Canadien captain Bob Gainey took him into the boards. The force of the collision caused Tucker to suffer a mild separation of his right shoulder.It was his second major injury of the season and his-fourth in two years. Before this latest setback. Tucker had successfully rehabilitated himself after undergoing major back surgery. Before that, he suffered a separation of his left shoulder. His next return date has yet to be set.That&rsquo;s the bad news. The good news is the play of Cloutier.Once clearly the odd-goaltender out in the Sabres&rsquo; three-man system, Cloutier didn&rsquo;t just get his foot back in the door with his work against the Canadiens.He kicked it down.Making his first start in just over a month, Cloutier steered the Sabres to a 2-2 tie with the Habs at the Aud on Dec. 18. He did it with an all-world performance in the third period during which the Habs outshot Buffalo 18-3. Cloutier followed up that performance with a 2-1 win the next night at the Forum, ending Montreal&rsquo;s nine-game unbeaten streak and 14-game unbeaten streak in the Forum.In the two games, Cloutier allowed just three goals on 79 shots and clearly established himself as a contender in the team&rsquo;s goalie derby.Cloutier, 28 on Jan. 3, got the start when Tom Barrasso came up with a mysterious thigh injury after a 3-3 tie at Boston. Barrasso performed abmirably in that game but then informed coach Ted Sator he was injured. X-rays taken three days later failed to pinpoint the problem, but the Sabres decided to hold Barrasso out of the two weekend contests with the Habs.Barrasso&rsquo;s loss, however, was Cloutier&rsquo;s gain and he played so well the first night that he bounced Daren Puppa out of a scheduled start the following evening.Cloutier knew the score.&ldquo;The way it&rsquo;s been going I knew I&rsquo;d better do something or it would be back to sitting for a month, either on the bench or even in the stands,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;I still want to play.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;The Sabres are well represented in the NHL rookie scoring race by Ray Sheppard, Pierre Turgeon and Calle Johansson. Through 30 games, Sheppard was in third place with 13 goals and 25 points. Turgeon, who has begun to fade as a goal-scorer (no goals since a two-goal outing Nov. 22 at Los Angeles), was in fourth place by virtue of his leagueleading 16 assists, to go along with seven assists. Johansson, a defenseman, remained in the top 10 (ninth overall) with 17 points (two goals, 1st assists) in 26 games. Johansson vying for the top spot among rookie defenseman with St. Louis Blue Robert Nordmark.<h2>SABRES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 19: Don McSween, D, recalled from Rochester (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Christian Ruuttu, Pierre Turgeon, Doug Smith, Adam Creighton.LW&mdash;Dave Andreychuk, Lindy Ruff, Paul Cyr, Bob Logan.RW&mdash;Mike Foligno, Ray Sheppard, Scott Arniel, Mark Napier, Kevin Maguire.LD&mdash;Don McSween, Uwe Krupp, Richie Dunn.RD&mdash;Calle Johansson, Ed Hospodar, Phil Housley.G&mdash;Jacques Cloutier, Daren Puppa.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Shawn Anderson. D, ankle, day-to-day.Tom Barrasso, G. thigh, day-to-day.Steve Dykstra. D. knee, day-to-day.Clark Gillies. LW, knee, indefinite.Bob Halkklis. D, ankle, day-to-day.Jan Ludvig, RW, knee, indefinite.Joe Reekie. D, knee, indefinite.John Tucker. C. shoulder, indefinite. &#9632;

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Tucker Down And Out, Cloutier Up And In

<div class="byline">BY GRANT McGINNIS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-02894/5383298-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="577" height="1062"><figcaption class="caption-body">Winnipeg Jet defenseman Randy Carlyle responded positively to being benched</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011271/5383305-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="177" height="135"></div>WINNIPEG&mdash;It was an unfamiliar position to say the least, one Randy Carlyle hopes he must never get used to.Carlyle, once known around the Winnipeg Arena as the Jets&rsquo; &lsquo;Minister of Defense,&rsquo; found himself presiding over a much lowlier station Dec. 18 at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. He was &lsquo;Minister without Portfolio&rsquo;&mdash;parked firmly at the end of the Winnipeg bench, where his main duty was opening and closing the gate.Carlyle, a former Norris Trophy winner as the league&rsquo;s top defenseman and a veteran in his 12th NHL season, skated only once in the first two periods.But to his credit, he took the benching in stride, was a vocal leader on the bench and came back in the third period with his finest 20 minutes of hockey this season&mdash;a year in which he and the Jets have slumped badly in the past six weeks.His play in the third helped the Jets battle back from a 4-1 deficit and earn a rare point in Edmonton, the result of a 5-5 tie.&ldquo;I think they were saving me for the third period,&rdquo; the 31-year-old native of Sudbury joked the next day. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. It was just one of those things.&ldquo;They decided maybe I should watch the game for a couple of periods. That&rsquo;s the way it goes. It&rsquo;s been a long time since it&rsquo;s happened to me.&rdquo;Carlyle&rsquo;s last stint on the bench was several years ago in Calgary, where ironically enough, he and fellow veteran Mario Marois were simply brutal in a 5-4 loss to the Flames two nights before the Edmonton benching.This time around, the move paid dividends for current Winnipeg coach Dan Maloney. It seemed to inspire the whole hockey club while sending a message that veterans, like rookies, could be punished for the kind of play which has been displayed with alarming frequency in recent times.&ldquo;Randy, even though he wasn&rsquo;t playing, was on the bench behind the guys, helping the defensemen out as they came off the ice,&rdquo; said Maloney, obviously pleased with himself for making the much-needed move. &ldquo;He put in a great performance in the third period. He came out and played the way he&rsquo;s capable of playing and it gave us a tremendous lift.&rdquo;Carlyle, who admits he has struggled in the past month, took his demotion in stride.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not gonna&rsquo; sit there and sulk about it,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a.job to do with this hockey club. I&rsquo;ve got to contribute in any way possible and if I&rsquo;m not out on the ice, there are other ways to contribute.&ldquo;Hopefully, I&rsquo;ll be out on the ice.&rdquo;Two nights later, the Jets met the New Jersey Devils in Winnipeg and Carlyle got all the ice time he could handle. The message of his benching and its subsequent results carried over as the Jets were more physical, more disciplined and more effective than at any time in weeks.The result was a 4-1 win. the team&rsquo;s first victory by more than one goal in 44 days, the same length of time the Jets had gone winless outside the Smythe Division.&ldquo;It certainly is a good feeling to win again,&rdquo; said Maloney of the win that ended a five-game winless streak. &ldquo;You know, we&rsquo;ve played as well as this in the past and somehow we&rsquo;ve let it slip away. It&rsquo;s nice to get that confidence factor back in our team.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Winnipeg general manager John Ferguson was busy trying to make trades all week (&ldquo;Somebody has to be the Christmas Grinch,&rdquo; he said) and managed two transactions. First, he acquired defenseman Paul Boutilier from the New York Rangers and then traded former first-round draft choice Bobby Dollas to Quebec for winger Stu Kulak&hellip;Boutilier played one game for Winnipeg&rsquo;s American League farm team at Moncton (he was plus-six in a 10-4 victory) and then went home to think things over. Boutilier, who has skated with five teams this season, has been suspended for refusing to play in Moncton&hellip;Center Ron Wilson recorded his 200th NHL point against the New Jersey Devils&hellip;Winnipeg&rsquo;s shorthanded goal total jumped to four during the week. Wilson struck for his first of the season in Calgary and Dale Hawerchuk and Doug Smail had one each against New Jersey&hellip;Defenseman Tim Watters suffered a strained right knee in a collision with Edmonton&rsquo;s Kevin Lowe and would be out 10 days. &bull;<h2>JETS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 16: Paul Boutilier, D, acquired from the New York Rangers for a fifthround draft choice in 1989 and future considerations. Boutilier assigned to Moncton (AHL).Dec. 17: Bobby Dollas, D, traded to Quebec for left winger Stu Kulak. Kulak cleared waivers and assigned to MonctonDec. 18: Paul Boutilier, D, suspended for refusing to play for Moncton.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Dale Hawerchuk, Thomas Steen, Laurie Boschman, Ron Wilson.LW&mdash;lain Duncan, Doug Smail, Steve Rooney, Gilles Hamel, Jim Nill.RW&mdash;Paul MacLean, Hannu Jarvenpaa, Ray Neufeld, Andrew McBain.LD&mdash;Randy Carlyle, Dave Elletl, Jim Kyte.RD&mdash;Mario Marois, Peter Taglianetti, Brad Barry.G&mdash;Eldon (Pokey) Reddick, Daniel Berthiaume.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Fredrik Olausson, RD, shoulder surgery, Jan. 15.Tim Watters, RD, strained knee, Jan 1. &#9632;

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Carlyle Became ‘Minister Without Portfolio’

<h2>Wed. Dec. 16</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-088/5385179-1-eng-US/f0048-082.jpg" title="f0048-08" width="620" height="648"></div><h2>Thur., Dec. 17</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-097/5385172-1-eng-US/f0048-092.jpg" title="f0048-09" width="606" height="634"></div><h2>Sat., Dec. 19</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-106/5385165-1-eng-US/f0048-102.jpg" title="f0048-10" width="614" height="596"></div> &#9632;

f0048-08

IZVESTIA TOURNAMENT SUMMARIES

No hockey team can build for the future without a strong system to develop top prospects, unless its general manager is an absolute magician at the trade table. For that reason, we&rsquo;ve devoted our next issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS to looking at the best young prospects in the system of each NHL team.And we&rsquo;ll also look at some of last year&rsquo;s prospects who are now carving names for themselves at the NHL level. No one rookie has yet jumped into the position of Calder Trophy favorite at this point in the season, but it&rsquo;s a deep freshman crop.Calgary&rsquo;s Brett Hull and Joe Nieuwendyk, Buffalo&rsquo;s Pierre Turgeon and Ray Sheppard, and St. Louis&rsquo; Tony Hrkac all have legitimate shots at the rookie of the year award. Read all about them and other top newcomers&mdash;and enjoy all of our regular features&mdash;in the Jan. 15 edition of THE HOCKEY NEWS. &#9632;

NEXT WEEK

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011338/5383115-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="723" height="923"><figcaption class="caption-body">Phil Esposito</figcaption></div>Plenty of behind-the-scenes maneuvering took place prior to Ray Bourque&rsquo;s bestowal of his No. 7 jersey to Phil Esposito at Boston Garden. Too little credit has been given Bruin GM Harry Sinden, who originally insisted that Bourque continue wearing No. 7. Bourque was quite willing to accept that but was encouraged by his agent, Steve Freyer, to confront Sinden on the issue. The two had a meeting at the Garden after which Sinden acceded to Bourque&rsquo;s wishes. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d love to take credit for it,&rdquo; Freyer tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;but it was Harry who was gracious about it.&rdquo; In addition to delighting the multitude, the gesture also helped warm Sinden&rsquo;s once-cool relationship with Hall-of-Famer Bobby Orr, who felt very strongly about wanting Bourque to give up the seven. Orr had been unhappy with Sinden ever since the Bruins unloaded him to Chicago in 1976. Friends of On point out that Bobby&rsquo;s resentment toward Sinden was more institutional and that Orr has come to understand that the Bruin problem was centered more on the stewardship of former club president Paul Mooney.<h2>FROSTY THE SILENCER</h2>One of the best stories told by the Bruins attending the Esposito night&mdash;Ken Hodge, John McKenzie, Gary Doak and Don Marcotte were among them&mdash;was how the Bruins beat the Kings in a six-game playoff in 1977. &ldquo;It was the sixth game in L.A.,&rdquo; recalls Wayne Cashman, &ldquo;and they were getting ready for a big pre-game hype with a guy to forcefully sing the anthem the way Kate Smith did in Philadelphia. It was really going to get the Kings going. Sure enough, the guy starts singing and you could tell the place was ready to go mad and get the Kings going. But, then, all of a sudden, there was silence. The singer&rsquo;s lips were moving but you couldn&rsquo;t hear a word. There was confusion galore. Then, I looked over to the side and saw a big smile on (Bruin trainer) Frosty Forristal&rsquo;s face and I realized what had happened. He cut the wire to the mike. We then went out and got three goals before the Kings could turn around, and (we) won the series!&rdquo;<h2>MURPHY HAD SUPPORTERS</h2>Robbie Ftorek&rsquo;s chances of resurrecting the Kings will depend, in part, on his ability to win over the dissident bloc of players which never wanted Mike Murphy fired. One King tells BLUELINES that Murphy was less of the club&rsquo;s problem than GM Rogie Vachon who never supplied the coach with players he requested. Insiders say Ftorek was charismatic with his minor leaguers and one rival Smythe Division official tells BLUELINES he fears Ftorek will shore up the Kings&rsquo; defense enough to make them a playoff team. The press, however, may not take to Robbie&rsquo;s no-nonsense, abrupt style. He already angered ESPN by gassing a pregame interview before his NHL coaching debut.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021085/5383108-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1489" height="1828"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ray Bourque gave up his No. 7, in favor of 77, to honor Phil Esposito, the Bruin superstar who first brought great fame to the sweater number.</figcaption></div><h2>PARENTS FOREVER GRATEFUL</h2>What happens to the man&rsquo;s business when a successful player agent like Brian Burke chucks repping to become the Canucks&rsquo; director of hockey operations? &ldquo;In my case it was different than most,&rdquo; Burke tells BLUELINES. &ldquo;I charged by the hour so I sent out my final bills and that was it. I didn&rsquo;t sell my practice.&rdquo; Many of Burke&rsquo;s former clients have been taken over by Detroit-based Bob Goodenough, former captain of Harvard&rsquo;s hockey team. These include Bob Mason, Brett Hull and Tom Kurvers. Burke tells BLUELINES he never would have become an attorney had it not been for his Providence College coach Lou Lamoriello, now the Devils&rsquo; president. A math and history major at PC, Burke learned that Lamoriello had registered him for the law admission tests. &ldquo;I had no intentions of going,&rdquo; Burke tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;but Lou said, &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll go, or I&rsquo;ll drag you down there.&rsquo; I wound up going to Harvard Law School for which my parents are eternally grateful to Lou.&rdquo;<h2>MILLER TAKEN TO TASK</h2>Although the NHL doesn&rsquo;t release salary figures for refs and linesmen, BLUELINES learns that a linesman of three years experience earns $30,000 a year and salaries climb from there&hellip;Obscene gestures delivered by NHLers in front of a crowd angers Boston Herald col-umnist Joe Fitzgerald so much he went public in his condemnation: &ldquo;As for you, Jay Miller, and any other Bruin inclined to publicly give the finger to an opponent, it&rsquo;s not only offensive to customers and bad for the image; it&rsquo;s stupid!&rdquo;&hellip;Retired for more than a decade, former NHL ref Lloyd Gilmour runs a restaurant named NHL (Nanaimo Harbor Lights) in the British Columbia city. Gilmour recalls that he was twice reprimanded by NHL president Clarence Campbell, once for calling Canadiens coach Claude Ruel &ldquo;Porky Pig&rdquo; and another time for belting out former NHL coach Fred (No Kid) Glover outside a dressing room.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03705/5383101-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="716" height="925"><figcaption class="caption-body">Harry Sinden</figcaption></div><h2>ZIEGLER GETTING STRONGER?</h2>The Canadian columnists critical of NHL prexy John Ziegler earn nothing more than sardonic chuckles in the New York office when they suggest the prez has lost power among the league&rsquo;s governors. In fact, Ziegler is stronger than ever, according to insiders who point to recent legislation enacted at the Florida meetings. These include Ziegler&rsquo;s increased fining power&hellip;The NHL&rsquo;s Montreal office is drawing chuckles from off-ice officials for a goof. It has shipped red ties to the officials who wear them proudly at games they work. Unfortunately, the new ties have the NHL emblem upsidedown&hellip;Speaking of goofs, the Flames&rsquo; pocket calendar schedule included, for the first time, the month of September so that Calgary&rsquo;s exhibition games could be listed. According to the Flames, September has 31 days, not 30, the way most figure. Club VP Leo Omest accepts responsibility, telling BLUELINES with a smile, &ldquo;I was thinking of the Jewish calendar.&rdquo;<h2>&lsquo;I AM NOT A&hellip;&rsquo;</h2>The Habs&rsquo; Claude Lemieux became the first NHLer of the season to let an expletive slip over the airwaves during an interview about his abrasive behavior on the ice. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; snapped Lemieux, &ldquo;I am not a s&mdash;t-disturber.&rdquo; Since the telecast was live, Lemieux&rsquo;s purple description was aired&hellip;Broadcaster Dick Irvin tells BLUELINES he has virtually completed the manuscript for his upcoming book, Now Back To You, Dick, slated for fall publication. Irvin says he&rsquo;s including a story about a unique event involving his father, Hall-of-Famer Dick Irvin, Sr. &ldquo;Dad played for the Winnipeg Monarchs senior team in 1915,&rdquo; Dick, Jr. recalls, &ldquo;and they went on to win the Allan Cup. Unbelievably, the city of Winnipeg honored the team by giving each of the players a motorcycle.&rdquo; Irvin, Sr. became an expert motorcyclist and after enlisting in the Canadian Army, he was dispatched to France as a motorcycle courier. &ldquo;My father was right in the thick of the war, carrying dispatches to and from the front lines on his motorcycle. But, ironically, he suffered only one injury in the war; he was kicked in the head by a horse!&rdquo; &#9632;

f0003-01

Departments

THE NUMBERS GAME

IT&rsquo;S LONELY OUT here on the Devils&rsquo; slump watch. Time hangs heavily on your hands.Five years of staring at paint dry numb the senses. The Mike Kitchen era ends, the Uli Hiemer era begins. The silence is so eerie your ears begin to roar.Doug Sulliman swings back and forth, up and down the ice in front of you, like a pendulum. And your eyes begin to get heavy. Very heavy. Now you are asleep, though your eyes are wide open. The voice of Max McNab rattles in your brain, but the message is subliminal: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll get back to you,&rdquo; says Max.The Devils have started well this year. They always do. But usually by the time you had to figure out whether they really were any good, it was apparent they weren&rsquo;t.This year, however, the start is too fast and lasts too long to ignore. So you examine Claude Loiselle for cracks, and probe the inner recesses of Bruce Driver&rsquo;s mind. These Devils are talking about hanging tough, but do they really have character?Give them a Rorschach test. If Aaron Broten, who has been a Devil longer than anybody, replies that the ink stain looks like a) the Devils&rsquo; 1984-85 season or b) Tapio Levo, then you know its the same old Devils. If he says, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what the Islanders are going to look like when we&rsquo;re done with them,&rdquo; then you know it&rsquo;s a whole new bailgame in North Jersey.With improvement comes excitement. But also skepticism. Proven contenders run up impressive home records and you say. &ldquo;Hey that&rsquo;s what the good teams do.&rdquo; The Devils start off fast again and you say, &ldquo;Yeah, but they&rsquo;re 12-21 at home.&rdquo;When the Devils leave on a five-game western swing, the question is not whether they will come back with two wins or three wins, but whether they will come back at all.They did last time but with only three points out of ten. Then they lost a tough one in Quebec, got a tie in Philly, but as usual might as well have saved the tunnel tolls out to Long Island.The walls, disguised as the Flyers, Penguins and Capitals, appear to be closing in. Is the spell breaking?Maybe, maybe not. What is for sure is that Doug Carpenter&rsquo;s orange hair has smoke coming out of it. This is because someone just asked him about The Slump.It is not one of his favorite subjects.&ldquo;Every time we lose a game,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I get asked, &lsquo;Is this The Slump?&rsquo; I&rsquo;m sick of it. We&rsquo;ll be hearing it up until Game 90.&ldquo;This team has a chemistry our others did not. Having (Patrik) Sundstrom gives me a checking line for the first time. We have size we didn&rsquo;t have before.&ldquo;The players who have been here have learned a lot. It&rsquo;s a tough sell on high draft picks coming out of junior to play defense, but we had some success early (this season) and now they&rsquo;re buying it.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011362/5383146-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="336" height="468"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jay Greenberg</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I do know that late in the last few seasons when we were pretty well out of the playoff race, it was never hard to get these guys ready to play a game. They are an extremely dedicated group. There have been nights the last few years that I have felt sorry for them. They deserve success.&rdquo;God would have blessed those early Devils for their diligence. They were decidedly tasteless and colorless, but to their credit they were odorless, too. They didn&rsquo;t absolutely stink out the joint too often and were clearly trying the best they could.And now it is December, and this year&rsquo;s team is still over.500. This, without having added an impact player since last season. The evidence mounts that pokey old Max was laying a real foundation after all.Five No. 1 picks from the last six drafts currently are in the Devils&rsquo; lineup. So is Pat Verbeek, a third-round acorn that fell off the tree and grew. Sean Burke may be the goalie of the future, but Alain Chevrier sure looks like a pretty good goalie right now.But Max was a collector of talent. What the Devils really needed was a manager. Enter Lou Lamoriello, not afraid to trade a developing Greg Adams for Sundstrom, to make some moves to fill some roles.But without the 100-point scorer or the quarterback on defense, how good can the Devils become? &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; says Carpenter, and now his hair has actually burst into flames. &ldquo;I have no idea. If you don&rsquo;t think we can win with what we have, then you can&rsquo;t blame us if we don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;He says it takes nine months to make a baby. But the truth is these Devils, who came from Denver as an abortion, have been gestating longer than Rosemary&rsquo;s kid.You don&rsquo;t believe in these Devils, they&rsquo;ll tell you where you can go. Right to where Devils live. Where this franchise has been.In the meantime, we are still standing out here, binoculars glued to Jack O&rsquo;Callahan, waiting for The Slump. We&rsquo;re not saying here that we have any doubts that the Devils are for real.But we would like to get back to you on that. &#9632;

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Columnists

Devils Go From Hell To Heaven—For Now

<div class="byline">BY GYLE KONOTOPETZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031068/5383177-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="581" height="764"><figcaption class="caption-body">Lanny McDonald has been playing left wing, in hopes of getting more ice time.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021254/5383184-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="180" height="136"></div>CALGARY&mdash;When Lanny McDonald&rsquo;s offices were on Carlton Street back in the 1970s, the young Toronto Maple Leaf would regularly visit Terry Crisp on Broad Street during the winter months.Crisp was a lousy host. To be frank, he was a bully&mdash;a fiercely proud Broad Street Bully.&ldquo;Yeah, they (Broad Street Bullies) hung together pretty well as a team,&rdquo; McDonald said of the Philadelphia Flyers, whose roster included a scrappy center named Crisp. &ldquo;They were like a pack of wolves. That&rsquo;s when (anthem singer) Kate Smith was in her heyday. It was difficult for anybody who entered their (Flyers&rsquo;) domain.&rdquo;As the head coach of the Calgary Flames, Crisp is on McDonald&rsquo;s side now, but Hanna, Alta.&rsquo;s most famous moustache said that the coach isn&rsquo;t so much unlike the player.&ldquo;He gave everything he had as a player and now he demands the most out of everybody,&rdquo; said McDonald. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t take no for an answer. It&rsquo;s his way or the highway.&rdquo;The reunion of the Broad Street Bully and the toast of Maple Leaf Gardens has been an interesting one. Crisp has been burdened with the unenviable task of dealing with a celebrated athlete in the twilight of his career.Early in the season, the 34-year-old McDonald noted &ldquo;nobody&rsquo;s sacred&rdquo; on Crisp&rsquo;s team. The winger found himself in the press box for five of the team&rsquo;s first 34 games.Lately, the former 66-goal scorer has been assigned to left-wing chores on the fourth line, a humbling role for someone who scored 479 goals in his first 1,000 NHL games as a right winger.&ldquo;After 15 years, it&rsquo;s a hell of an adjustment,&rdquo; McDonald said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll just take it one game at a time, one shift at a time. It requires an awful lot of concentration.&rdquo;Crisp said McDonald has handled the transition well. &ldquo;He said, &lsquo;Coach, I&rsquo;m willing to do whatever you want me to as long as it helps the team.&rsquo; He said, &lsquo;Let me know if you want me to play left wing so I can practise it.&rsquo; We&rsquo;re going to be using him on both wings.&rdquo;Crisp&rsquo;s no-nonsense approach has created anxiety among the Flames&rsquo; cast of 14 quality forwards.But the former Bully really had players looking over their shoulders, after scratching both McDonald and John Tonelli from a road game in Pittsburgh, with the Flames unbeaten in nine games (they lost 5-1 to the Penguins).What irritated Tonelli about his night off was the reason given: Too old for an 80-game season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not old!&rdquo; stammered Tonelli, 30. &ldquo;People think I&rsquo;m older than I am. I&rsquo;ve been playing pro for so long (since 1975 with the Houston Aeros of the WHA), that people think I&rsquo;m 34 or 35.&rdquo;Tonelli, who aged considerably last spring when coach Bob Johnson deleted him from the lineup for three of Calgary&rsquo;s six playoff games against the Winnipeg Jets, continued to plead his case.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired of hearing about how old I am. I hate that label. I&rsquo;ve been labelled as an old player ever since I got here (Calgary). Joey (teammate Mullen) is older than 1 am (by 25 days). He doesn&rsquo;t get nagged about his age.&ldquo;I understand his reasons but I can&rsquo;t accept them. I disagree with him. My legs feel good. I&rsquo;m healthy.&rdquo;Crisp said Tonelli&rsquo;s argument doesn&rsquo;t take into account his style of play.&ldquo;If you look at the type of player Joey Mullen is, he&rsquo;s the Mercedes that has been on the highway,&rdquo; said Crisp. &ldquo;Tonelli&rsquo;s the Chevy with all the hard miles. The way he plays wears you down.&rdquo;Crisp retired before Tonelli made his NHL debut with the New York Islanders in 1978, but the rookie NHL coach remembered the youthful McDonald like it was yesterday.&ldquo;He was a hard-nosed hockey player. And, he had a good shot, that snapshot. Our team was always leery of his shot. He was an honest player on and off the road. Playing in our building (Spectrum) was not a haven, but Lanny would be one of the few players (Leafs) who stood out.&rdquo;Asked if he could recall an altercation with McDonald on the ice, Crisp chuckled and quipped: &ldquo;My mother didn&rsquo;t raise any fools!&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Rookie sensation Joe Nieuwendyk scored his 14th goal in 15 games and his 21st of the year as Calgary fell 6-3 to Los Angeles Dec. 20. That put Nieuwendyk on a 58-goal pace. Only one other rookie in NHL history, Mike Bossy, has reached the 50-goal plateau. Bossy had 53 goals for the New York Islanders in 1977-78.<h2>FLAMES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Joe Nieuwendyk, Mike Bullard, Joel Otto, Carey Wilson, Steve Bozek.LW&mdash;Jim Peplinski, Gary Roberts, John Tonelli, Lanny McDonald.RW&mdash;Joey Mullen, Hakan Loob, Brett Hull, Tim Hunter, Colin Patterson.LD&mdash;Gary Suter, Brian Glynn, Neil Sheehy.RD&mdash;Brad McCrimmon, Al Maclnnis, Ric Nattress.G&mdash;Mike Vernon, Doug Dadswell.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Perry Berezan, pulled groin, indefinite.Jamie Macoun, nerve damage in arm and shoulder, indefinite.Paul Reinhart, back spasms, indefinite. &#9632;

f0004-03

Crisp’s Old Foe Is Now His Oldest Player

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-02916/5383215-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Oiler left winger Glenn Anderson was working hard but the puck wasn&rsquo;t bouncing for him. He went scoreless in five games.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011243/5383222-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="177" height="134"></div>EDMONTON&mdash;The thinking was deep, as the Edmonton Oilers contemplated their three-game winless streak.&ldquo;Santa Claus will be coming in about an hour,&rdquo; mused grey-thatched cocoach John Muckier, in anticipation of the impending annual children&rsquo;s Christmas skating party. &ldquo;Maybe he&rsquo;s got something for us.&rdquo;His eyes all aglow, manager-coach Glen Sather piped: &ldquo;Will he bring us a power play?&rdquo;The ailing power play wasn&rsquo;t the only cause for concern as the Oilers found themselves in unfamiliar territory, pursuing the front-running Calgary Flames in the NHL&rsquo;s Smythe Division. But, having gone 2-for-14 (14 per cent) over their last three games (0-2-1) and 7-for-52 (13 per cent) during 10 games (5-4-1), it would be a decent place to start.Don&rsquo;t forget, this is a power play that was operating at close to 40 per cent early in the season.&ldquo;It would help if somebody would go to the net,&rdquo; suggested Muckier. &ldquo;A power play has to operate together. All five guys have to be on the same wavelength. And, you&rsquo;ve got to be able to read defenses.&rdquo;Newcomer Craig Simpson was the only Oilers&rsquo; forward employed on the power play&mdash;or at even strength, for that matter&mdash;who seemed willing to stand in traffic. Little wonder Simpson had 10 goals, since coming over from Pittsburgh. All eight on the road, including three on the power play, had come from the edge of the crease.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a little zone out there that&rsquo;s 10 feet by 10 feet,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;You&rsquo; ve got to go in there and muck.&rdquo;Sather added the Oilers also seem reluctant to shoot while operating with the man advantage.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve worked on the power play in practice every day since training camp,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;We practise it more than anything. But. we&rsquo;re not scoring goals, because we don&rsquo;t seem to want to shoot the puck.&rdquo;Sather admits he&rsquo;s tinkered with the idea of changing the personnel&hellip;but not for long.&ldquo;You put your best shooters in the big shooting positions. We&rsquo;ve got guys on this team who have scored 50 and 60 goals. They&rsquo;ll come out of it, but only if the big shooters start shooting.&rdquo;The high-priced help has not fared well with the extra man.Mark Messier popped seven powerplay goals during the first three weeks of 1987-88 and led the Oilers with 10, but hadn&rsquo;t scored one in December. Wayne Gretzky and Glenn Anderson each had six, Jari Kurri just two. Anderson and Kurri were in their usual Yuletide positions in the coaches&rsquo; doghouse.Anderson hadn&rsquo;t found the mark in five games and had just four goals in his last 17 starts.&ldquo;Glenn&rsquo;s working hard,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll get some goals, but he&rsquo;s got to get himself out of it. There&rsquo;s no magic to get anybody going.&rdquo;Sather provided his traditional state-of-the-union address on team concept.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s attitude,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t rely on yourself. You&rsquo;ve got to do it as a team. Nothing&rsquo;s changed.&rdquo;But everything has changed.They&rsquo;d won 19 games&mdash;all but three of them at the expense of teams with losing record. Seven of the 12 losses were against.500-or-better teams. And, the toughest part of the road schedule is still to come.&ldquo;There are a lot of good teams,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;The league has never been better.&rdquo;Until last season, the Oilers have never been challenged in their division, let alone find themselves losing ground in pursuit.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see how long they can go,&rdquo; Craig MacTavish said of the Flames. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long year, there&rsquo;s plenty of hockey left. We&rsquo;ve got a good team, there&rsquo;s no doubt of that. They&rsquo;ve got a good team. We&rsquo;ll see down the stretch.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Rookie goalie Daryl Reaugh made his starting debut Dec. 19 vs Hartford and performed heroically, facing 41 shots as the Oilers lost 4-3&hellip;The Whalers&rsquo; victory was their first ever in the NHL at Northlands Coliseum. Every NHL team has now won at least once in each opponent&rsquo;s building. &ldquo;Great! Wonderful!&rdquo; scowled Reaugh, his voice dripping with sarcasm when informed it was up to him to defend the NHL&rsquo;s last frontier. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know that. But, that&rsquo;s over with now.&rdquo;<h2>OILERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Craig MacTavish, Craig Simpson.LW&mdash;Esa Tikkanen, Glenn Anderson, Mike Krushelnyski, Dave Hannan, Steve Graves.RW&mdash;Jari Kurri, Kevin McClelland, Marty McSorley, Normand Lacombe.LD&mdash;Kevin Lowe, Steve Smith, Charlie Huddy.RD&mdash;Craig Muni, Jeff Beukeboom, Moe Mantha.G&mdash;Grant Fuhr, Daryl Reaugh.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None. &#9632;

f0005-02

Oilers’ Power Play Less Than Sum Of Parts

CHRYSLER CANADA IS THE EXCLUSIVE SPONSOR OF THE DODGE-NHL PERFORMER OF THE WEEK, MONTH AND YEAR AWARDS<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011425/5383267-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="576" height="556"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021020/5383260-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="157" height="157"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03663/5383253-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="564" height="816"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mario Lemieux</figcaption></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; center Mario Lemieux, who recorded 12 points (5-7-12) in four games and led his club to three straight divisional wins, was named Dodge Performer of the Week for the period ending Dec. 21. Lemieux, who leads the NHL in goal-scoring with 30, edged out teammate left-winger Randy Cunneyworth and Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; goaltender Ron Hextali to capture the honor.The Dodge and Chrysler Canada divisions of Chrysler Motors will donate $500 to the Bethel Park High School Hockey Club in Pittsburgh. The Dodge and Chrysler Canada divisions of Chrysler Motors also sponsor the Performer of the Month and the Performer of the Year Awards, for which the latter receives the Dodge vehicle of his choice.Lemieux, a 22-year-old native of Montreal, began the week by recording two assists in a 5-2 loss to Philadelphia (Dec. 15). He netted two goals and added an assist in a 7-4 win at New Jersey (Dec. 17), before adding seven points in a back-to-back series with the New York Rangers. In Pittsburgh (Dec. 19), Lemieux registered a goal and two assists en route to a 4-3 victory, while in an 8-4 win the following night, he recorded four points (2-2) for the sixth time this season and the 21st time in his four-year career.Cunneyworth recorded seven goals in four games (72 9), while Hextali registered a 3-0-0 record and a 3.00 average. &#9632;

f0006-01

DODGE NHL PERFORMER OF THE WEEK

Bryce Bilquist has one dream in life&mdash;to be an NHL goaltender.But the 11-year-old from the border town of Creighton, Sask., knows dreams don&rsquo;t just happen. He keeps in top form by playing goal for two teams&mdash;the Flin Flon (Man.) Bombers Tier II reps, and the Stamps house league club. His coaches are Glen Petersen and Brian Bortis.He works hard in the summers, too. He&rsquo;s attended goalie schools and clinics in both Prince Albert, Sask., and Flin Flon. Bryce hopes one day to attend the Penticton (B.C.) Goalie School, where Grant Fuhr of the Edmonton Oilers is an instructor.The Grade 6 student at Creighton School enjoys all sports, computers, math and music. His favorite NHL team is the Philadelphia Flyers and his favorite player the Flyers&rsquo; combative goalie, Ron Hextall.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-03606/5383336-1-eng-US/f0007-032.jpg" title="f0007-03" width="545" height="1126"><figcaption class="caption-body">BRYCE BILQUIST</figcaption></div>You or someone you know can be part of the TITAN-JOFA Minor Hockey Show-case. Just send a photograph, along with biographical information (age, height, weight, team, coach&rsquo;s name, school and grade, as well as favorite NHL team and player) to: TITAN-JOFA SHOWCASE, C/O THE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont. All entries submitted will be eligible for selection as THN/TITAN-JOFA Minor Hockey Player of the Year &#9632;

f0007-03

PLAYER OF WEEK JOFA TITAN

THE PAUL COFFEY trade is just another example of the Pittsburgh Penguins mortgaging their future by trading away young talent&mdash;the kind of management practice that resulted in a 38-point season for the team in 1983-84.In return they received a 26-year-old defenseman who missed 21 games last year with back problems, and whose claim to fame is racking up points on a team (Edmonton) featuring four of the 10 best forwards in the league. His courage was questioned by the team owner. Coffey&rsquo;s love for the game is such that he sat out 21 games because he wasn&rsquo;t making enough money.Pittsburgh gets a 30-year-old third-line player (Dave Hunter) and a minor-leaguer (Wayne Van Dorp). Both have as much future as an Edsel.The Penguins gave up young stars Craig Simpson and Chris Joseph, defenseman Moe Mantha and Dave Hannan&mdash;who probably had the best work ethic on the team.With Joseph teaming with Zarley Zalapski on the power-play point, the 1988-89 Penguins would have been an incredible team. Too bad nobody will ever see it.The trade once again verifies the incredible shortsightedness of a losing organization. All the Penguins are capable of is barely making the playoffs.Jeffrey Stewart, Coraopolis. Penn.<h2>BALLARD MUST GO</h2>Toronto Maple Leaf fans have been at the mercy of an autocrat for too long. One man&rsquo;s power, self-interest, general incompetence and total lack of concern for the ticket-buying public has affected the quality of life of many.It has often been said that Harold Ballard pays the checks. Really? In fact. Leaf fans are re-sponsible for Ballard&rsquo;s revenues through gate receipts, concessions, souvenirs and advertising. The Leafs aren&rsquo;t Ballard&rsquo;s team, he merely has all the power.The Leafs are properly the property of the Toronto hockey community. And that community has suffered too long.John Vidovich, Ottawa, Ont.<h2>DEFENDING HELMETS</h2>On Tuesday, Dec. 8, I witnessed Philadelphia&rsquo;s Brad Marsh taken off the ice on a stretcher as a result of his head colliding with the glass in a game against Boston.So, I find Stan Fischler&rsquo;s column on helmetless players (THN, Dec. 18) rather hard to take. The point of helmets is not to engender the use of high sticks. Helmets are added insurance against injury. In this sense Fischler is right. They are not complete protection, but only insurance.But he is wrong to equate helmetlessness with respect. The reason for the respect given helmetless players is due to their proven ability to play in the NHL year after year.Nor is the simple equation&mdash;when the helmets come off the sticks will come down&mdash;true, either. I admit many young players have bad stick habits, but these won&rsquo;t disappear if helmets are removed. What is needed is better enforcement of high-sticking penalties at the lower levels.Even if helmets detract a bit from the &lsquo;personality&rsquo; of the game, I find it a small price to pay for keeping players on the ice and out of the hospital.Justin London,&nbsp; Syracuse, N. Y.<h2>DARTS AND LAURELS</h2>Though I enjoy THN very much, I find cartoonist Elston and columnist Dave Molinari unfunny and uninteresting.If I want laughs, I&rsquo;ll turn to Stan Fischler. At least he&rsquo;s not boring.William J. Lloyd, Philadelphia, Penn. &#9632;

Penguins Goofed Again In Big Trade For Coffey

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011358/5383391-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0008-01

ELSTON

I HAD SEVERAL good ideas for a column this week. What you&rsquo;re about to read isn&rsquo;t one of them. But with this being THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; 40th anniversary issue, I felt obliged to write something about the publication and its past.If I sound a little flip, you have my apologies. It&rsquo;s just that THN history is not a subject with which I&rsquo;m comfortable.Maybe it has something to do with the fact that when Ken McKenzie gave birth to THN in Mon-treal in 1947, my birth was still T-minus nine years and counting.Maybe it&rsquo;s because as a youngster, I was more interested in The Hardy Boys than THE HOCKEY NEWS. Don&rsquo;t get me wrong, I wouldn&rsquo;t miss Hockey Night in Canada for anything and, like most Canadian kids, I started skating when I was three and playing hockey when I was five.I just didn&rsquo;t read THE HOCKEY NEWS. In fact, truth be known, I didn&rsquo;t become a regular THN reader until I was into my twenties and in the hockey-writing business. At 25, I became the vastly under-qualified and inexperienced editor-in-chief of THN (June, 1982).I still feel guilty when I talk to readers who tell me how they still have every issue ever published. I cringe when someone relates a childhood story of anxiously awaiting the arrival of THN each week.I have absolutely no connection or link to this newspaper&rsquo;s past.Except in name.If Ken McKenzie and I were related, the odds of one McKenzie following another at THN would be good. But we&rsquo;re not, not even remotely.Even this superficial connection of surnames has, at times, been discomforting for me. When I took the job in 1982, the publisher asked me how I would feel about changing my name.I told him I liked it and would just as soon keep it. He agreed, but suggested a campaign to let the hockey community know I was not related to Ken McKenzie.Ken, who became a multi-millionaire with his sale of THN a few years earlier, has rubbed more than a few people the wrong way since &lsquo;47. In fact, there was a definite stigma attached to the Ken McKenzie years at THN. Writers who felt they were shortchanged by McKenzie. Businessmen who didn&rsquo;t like his hard-line ways.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021114/5383422-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="392" height="444"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob McKenzie</figcaption></div>In a word, Ken McKenzie was cheap, the stuff of which legends are made. I can say this without offending Ken because he was proud of it. Frank Orr tells a great story of how McKenzie was verbally abused by Dick Beddoes in a crowded press room. Beddoes launched into a tirade about how McKenzie was more interested in making a buck than advancing the cause of journalism.When Beddoes was finally finished, McKenzie gleefully put his arm around Beddoes and said, &ldquo;Dick, I&rsquo;d like to congratulate you on your powers of perception.&rdquo;It was no secret.&rsquo;Under Ken McKenzie, THN was a much better business than it was a news paper.That, as I see it, is the skeleton in THN&rsquo;s closet. We love to celebrate our history, but at the same time we arrive at the office every day trying to live it down.On the other hand, many long-time THN readers were never aware of all that. Many remember only the joy THN has brought them over the last 40 years and consider its history as a warm and reassuring recollection.Then there is Ken McKenzie himself. The Professional Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association won&rsquo;t induct him into the media section of the Hockey Hall of Fame because he wasn&rsquo;t a journalist per se. The NHL won&rsquo;t consider inducting him into the Builders&rsquo; category because it feels he belongs in the media section.His chances for induction in either part of the Hall are non-existent. And that&rsquo;s a shame, because for all his shortcomings, real or imagined, the man did do something to advance the game of hockey in North America.I don&rsquo;t begrudge the man his due.I just can&rsquo;t help but feel it&rsquo;s my duty to point out that he has nothing to do with today&rsquo;s THN. And, no, he isn&rsquo;t my dad. &#9632;

f0008-02

Reluctantly Broaching Subject Of THN History

<div class="byline">BY KARLO BERKOVICH Editorial Staff</div>To linesman Ron Asselstine, wearing a helmet in the National Hockey League is smart.And anyone who thinks otherwise is not. Especially THN columnist Stan Fischler.&ldquo;This guy should come out of the Dark Ages,&rdquo; said Asselstine, who telephoned THN to register his outrage at Fischler&rsquo;s Dec. 18 column, which among other things, labeled helmets &ldquo;stupid.&rdquo;&ldquo;Maybe Fischler ought to come down to the ice and watch a puck whiz by a guy at 100 miles an hour,&rdquo; Asselstine said. &ldquo;But he wouldn&rsquo;t have the jam (courage) to go on the ice without one (helmet).&rdquo;Asselstine also took exception to Fischler&rsquo;s choice of words in discussing the death of Bill Masterton. The Minnesota North Star died Jan. 15, 1968, after hitting his head on the ice the night before during a game with the Oakland Seals.&ldquo;Whether a helmet,&rdquo; wrote Fischler, &ldquo;would have saved Masterton&rsquo;s life is a moot point but this much is certain: his death scared a number of NHLers and in no time at all the helmet rush was on.&rdquo;&ldquo;To discuss Bill Masterton&rsquo;s life as a &lsquo;moot point&rsquo;&mdash;a man&rsquo;s life is not a &lsquo;moot point,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Asselstine. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the part that really burned me up.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011319/5383453-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="579" height="785"><figcaption class="caption-body">Linesman Ron Asselstine is a firm believer in the value of wearing a helmet.</figcaption></div>Asselstine disputed the claim that helmets lead to increased stickwork.&ldquo;Serious head injuries don&rsquo;t come from hockey sticks. They come from pucks, or from hitting your head against the ice,&rdquo; said Asselstine. He cited, as examples, Masterton and referee Mike Noeth, who suffered a scalp laceration and concussion Nov. 7 after a collision with Minnesota defenseman Craig Hartsburg.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t go on the ice without a helmet for $1 million a year,&rdquo; said the linesman.Asselstine said suggestions that helmetless players get more respect&mdash;Winnipeg&rsquo;s Randy Carlyle was quoted as saying that&mdash;and are more recognizeable are ridiculous.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a crock, because I was in Los Angeles when Tiger Williams cross-checked Randy Carlyle into the boards and damn near broke his neck,&rdquo; Asselstine said. &ldquo;As far as the fans, people recognize Wayne Gretzky and Larry Robinson and all of the great players with helmets.&rdquo;<h2>COURT APPEARANCE</h2>Oshawa General center John Andersen was scheduled to appear in a Cornwall (Ont.) court Dec. 29 to facea charge of unlawfully causing bodily harm as a result of an incident in an Ontario League game Dec. 12.Andersen, 19, threw his stick into the crowd at the Cornwall Civic Complex, striking Bob Blanchard, a season-ticket holder for 10 years who was sitting behind the Generals&rsquo; bench. Blanchard, 44, lost four teeth and was cut for eight stitches.In Cornwall, the stands are raised and set back about 10 feet from the players&rsquo; benches.Andersen, who is in his fourth OHL season, received a game misconduct and automatic two-game suspension. The OHL placed him under indefinite suspension pending an investigation.The 6-foot, 185-pound Andersen served a total of 43 penalty minutes his first three seasons in the OHL. He earned 30 penalty minutes in his first 28 games this season, during which he scored 13 goals and 13 assists.<h2>OKAY USA!</h2>The U.S. national team was having an easy time against a Soviet Select team comprised mainly of Leningrad Army players from the Soviet League. Leningrad finished third behind champion Moscow Red Army and second-place Moscow Dynamo last season.Team USA won six of the first seven games in an eight-game tour against the Soviets, improving its overall 1987-88 season record to 28-13-4 through Dec. 20. After splitting the first two games (8-5 win, 6-4 loss) Team USA won five straight games&mdash;13-2, 9-1, 7-3, 5-2 and 9-7&mdash;heading into the tour&rsquo;s final game Dec. 22 at Lake Placid.<h2>BITS AND PIECES</h2>Soviet Union hockey director Vyacheslav Koloskov said his country is ready to begin an annual world championship hockey tournament against the Stanley Cup winners, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported from Moscow Dec. 17. However, Alan Eagleson said such a series would likely only be held every four years-&hellip;Meanwhile, Soviet star Igor Larionov criticized the Soviet system that forces players to live and train in camps for 11 months of the year. Most of that time is spent away from their families. His view was seconded by former Soviet great Alexander Yakushev&hellip;Minnesota North Star right winger Dino Ciccarelli pleaded innocent to two counts of indecent exposure Dec. 16 in Hennepin County District Court in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minn. The plea was entered by his lawyer, William Mauzy. A pre-trial hearing was set for Jan. 20. Ciccarelli was charged Nov. 30 by police, who said he appeared outside his home wearing only a sweatshirt.Iserlohn, the West German first division team which wore uniforms advertising Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi&rsquo;s Green Book, has gone bankrupt and was dissolved by owner Heinz Weifenbach. The West German Sports Federation banned the team from advertising the Green Book, which outlines Gadhafi&rsquo;s political philosophy of socialism and radicalism. The team was promised $900,000 for wearing the uniforms&hellip;Michigan Tech scored five power-play goals while Minnesota&rsquo;s Paul Broten served a five-minute spearing penalty during a WCHA game Dec. 19 at Minnesota. Michigan Tech won the game 11-3&hellip;The Danville Fighting Saints and Michigan Stars of the All-American League merged under the Danville name in December. The two teams, both owned by Danville businessman Robert Nagy, were losing money. Nagy felt a merger would give the AAHL six strong franchises.<div class="sidebar"><h2>Holiday Break</h2>THE HOCKEY NEWS will not publish the week of Dec. 28, but will return Jan. 4. &#9632;</div>

f0009-01

Helmet Column Criticized By Official

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>MOSCOW&mdash;Can lightning strike twice?For Canada&rsquo;s Olympic hockey team to win the gold medal at the 1988 Winter Games, it will likely have to.The first bolt game crashing down in the early evening of Dec. 19, when the Canadian Olympic team upset the Soviet national team 3-2 at the Izvestia Tournament. The game marked Canada&rsquo;s first win in the Soviet Union since the 1972 summit series and its first-ever win over the Russians in this tournament.The setting was the same as in &lsquo;72&mdash;the Luzhniki Sports Palace&mdash;and, except for the fact that the chicken wire behind the goals has been replaced by plexiglass, all the history associated with Paul Henderson&rsquo;s dramatic winning goal was in place.Two third-period goals by Ken Berry, and Sean Burke&rsquo;s brilliant goaltending, represented the difference for Canada. Apart from a half-dozen roster changes, the Soviet national team was the same as the one that pushed Canada&rsquo;s best professionals to the limit in the 1987 Canada Cup.Two things set the Izvestia win apart: one, that it came on the larger, international-sized ice; and two, that it came on the Soviet&rsquo;s home rink.Understandably, the Canadian team was elated by the turn of events. In cluding a 2-1 win over West Germany and 3-2 win over Sweden&mdash;the Canadians lost 3-1 to Czechoslovakia&mdash;they were leading the tournament after four rounds. A win or tie against Finland in the tournament finale would give them the gold medal.Berry, a member of the 1980 Olympic team, tried to put the match in perspective: &ldquo;I think the thing that&rsquo;s most satisfying is you want to go into February as the underdog, but you have to make yourself believe that anything&rsquo;s possible, that what happened in 1980 with the U.S. team could happen to us.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not promising a medal or anything. Far from it. But I think, I hope, we showed a few people back in Canada that we do have the horses in the dressing room to do it. The guys have worked a long time, some of them two or three years and they wouldn&rsquo;t mind a little credit for the hard work they&rsquo;ve put in.&rdquo;The win played out a script that Canada will have to follow throughout the winter Olympic games. It began with Burke in goal. Earlier in the tournament, Burke stole a 3-2 win over Sweden in a game where Canada was outshot 40-14. Against the Soviets, he played even better, as Canada was outshot 38-19.Burke stopped everything in the last 38 minutes but his Soviet counterpart, Vitaly Samoylov, crumbled under the Canadian attack. &#9632;

Canadians Record A Shocking Upset

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011274/5383508-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"></div>Forty years of excellence on ice.That&rsquo;s what THE HOCKEY NEWS is honoring during our 41st season of covering the hockey world.From Gordie Howe to Bobby Hull to Bobby Orr to Wayne Gretzky, the stars have been many, as have the magical moments. In this, our 40th anniversary issue. THN reviews some of the game&rsquo;s great memories since 1947.We&rsquo;ve chosen four players of the decade, each of them coinciding with 10-year periods in our past.Howe, the Detroit Red Wing legend, is the standard-bearer for 1947-48. our first year of publication, to 1956-57. Hull, the Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; blond bomber, represents the decade from 1957-58 to 1966-67.Orr. the star-crossed superstar whose career with the Boston Bruins and Chicago was cut short by knee injuries, is the choice for 1967-68 to 1976-77. And the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; Gretzky, most prolific scorer in hockey history, was the sport&rsquo;s dominant figure from 1977-78 to 1986-87.Writer Howard Berger outlines some of their accomplishments and takes a capsule look at each of the decades, as well as where the game is now. He also reviews THN&rsquo;s past, charting our growth from 1947 to 1987.In addition. THN has chosen all-startcams for each decade, rating players on long-term impact and dominance at their positions. You&rsquo;ll find each of these on this page. We wonder if you&rsquo;ll agree.But first a little background on our picks.In goal for our first team (1947-48 to 1956-57) is Terry Sawchuk. who won three Vezina Trophies, and backstopped Detroit to four Stanley Cups and seven straight regular-season titles during this period. Had we been in publication a decade earlier. Bill Duman would have been our goalie. He was a first-team all-star and Vezina winner six of his seven seasons in the NHL, including 1948-49 and 1949-50&mdash;the final two years of his career.Manning the blue line arc Red Kelly, first winner of the Norris Trophy (1953-54). and Doug Harvey, a perennial Norris winner. Five times during the decade they teamed up on the first all-star team.Howe, Mr. Hockey, got the nod over Maurice Richard, although the latter was an all-star all 10 years and Howe just eight times. The Red Wing, however, won five scoring titles and three MVP awards. Ted Lindsay. Howe&rsquo;s linemate, is our all-star and a first-teamer eight of the 10 years. Center posed more of a problem. No one player owned the position for the entire decade. Milt Schmidt. Elmer Lach. Ted Kennedy and Sid Abel were all considered but we settled on Jean Beliveau, who didn&rsquo;t enter the league on a fulltime basis until 1953-54&mdash;but made a strong impact.For our second decade (1957-58 to 1966-67), Glenn Hall got the nod in goal over Jacques Plante, although the latter netminder was a Vezina winner four times to Hall&rsquo;s once during this period. Hall didn&rsquo;t have the supporting cast of Plante, but Mr. Goalie did have the support of all-star voters&mdash;eight times making it to the first or second team.Harvey, who made the Norris his own much as Orr did later, is on defense again (although he barely played the final four years of the decade)&mdash;joining Hull and Howe as the only players to make two of THN&rsquo;s decade all-star teams. This time. Harvey is accompanied by Pierre Pilote, the heady rearguard who won three Norris Trophies and made the all-star team eight straight years.Howe, named to the NHL all-star team 18 of our first 20 years, is at right wing again. Andy Bathgate was among the right wingers who played in Howe&rsquo;s shadow. Hull, a thee-timc 50-goal scorer during the decade, is our choice at left wing over Frank Mahovlich&mdash;a player who could have become Hull&rsquo;s teammate had the Toronto Maple Leafs accepted an offer of $1 million for him. Stan Mikita nosed out Beliveau at center, dominating the second half of the decade (three scoring titles) even more thoroughly than Beliveau did the first.During THN&rsquo;s third decade (1967-68 to 197677). Ken Dryden came upon us&mdash;making impossible stops and leaning on the butt-end of his stick. Four Stanley Cup championships gave Dryden the edge over Tony Esposito, Eddie Giacomin and Bernie Parent.Orr, a first all-star eight of the 10 years, and Brad Park team on the blue line. Guy Lapointe is but one other defenseman who excelled during this period.Two of Guy Lafleur&rsquo;s three scoring championships were earned during our third decade, giving him the edge over Howe and Yvan Cournoyer among others. Hull, an annual all-star and World Hockey Association trend-setter in Winnipeg. outdistanced Rick Martin on the port side.Phil Esposito left all others, including Bobby Clarke, behind at center.Choosing a dominant goalie for 1977-78 to 1986-87 was no easier for us than NHL all-star selectors, who picked nine different first all-star netminders and 17 men to fill out the 20 slots over the decade. Only Dryden, twice a first all-star, plus Tom Barrasso and Mike Liut, both first and second picks, were repeat choices.We settled on Billy Smith, the nasty netminder who helped the Islanders to four consecutive Stanley Cups and made the bulk of his playoffrecord 132 appearances. Grant Fuhr, a Stanley Cup and Canada Cup hero, finished behind him.Defense posed a huge problem, considering some of the players left off the list&mdash;Paul Coffey. Larry Robinson. Mark Howe and Rod Langway&mdash;are almost as imposing as our two selections&mdash;Raymond Bourque and Denis Potvin. Bourque has made the all-star team every year of his career and Potvin is the highest-scoring defenseman in history.A pair of 50-goal gunners flank the only option at center&mdash;Gretzky. Left winger Michel Goulet&rsquo;s string of 50-goal seasons ended at five last year when he scored 49. And right winger Mike Bossy. whose career is in jeopardy over a back injury. failed to hit the 50-goal mark for the first time in 10 years. Jari Kurri was a candidate at right wing.Among the players left in Gretzky&rsquo;s wake were Mario Lemieux. Mark Messier, Bryan Trottier, and Marcel Dionne.<h2>HOCKEY HEROES</h2>Gordie Howe is congratulated by coach and former linemate Sid Abel during his big years in Detroit. owe, Wayne Gretzky (inset left), Bobby Hull (inset right), and Bobby Orr are THN&rsquo;s players of the decades.<h2>1947/48-1956/57</h2>G&mdash;Terry Sawchuk (Detroit, Boston)D&mdash;Doug Harvey (Montreal)D&mdash;Red Kelly (Detroit)C&mdash;Jean Beliveau (Montreal)LW&mdash;Ted Lindsay (Detroit)RW&mdash;Gordie Howe (Detroit)<h2>1957/58-1966/67</h2>G&mdash;Glenn Hall (Chicago)D&mdash;Doug Harvey (Montreal, Rangers)D&mdash;Pierre Pilote (Chicago)C&mdash;Stan Mikita (Chicago)LW&mdash;Bobby Hull (Chicago)RW&mdash;Gordie Howe (Detroit)<h2>1967/68-1976/77</h2>G&mdash;Ken Dryden (Montreal)D&mdash;Bobby Orr (Boston, Chicago)D&mdash;Brad Park (Rangers, Boston)C&mdash;Phil Esposito (Boston, Rangers)LW&mdash;Bobby Hull (Chicago, Winnipeg)RW&mdash;Guy Lafleur (Montreal)<h2>1977/78-1986/87</h2>G&mdash;Billy Smith (Islanders)D&mdash;Raymond Bourque (Boston)D&mdash;Denis Potvin (Islanders)C&mdash;Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton)LW&mdash;Michel Goulet (Quebec)RW&mdash;Mike Bossy (Islanders) &#9632;

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SUPERSTARS ON ICE

The birth of THE HOCKEY NEWS coincided with the birth of a legend in Detroit.THN&rsquo;s first year of publication, the 1947-48 season, was Gordie Howe&rsquo;s second in the NHL. Within three years, both were well established in the hockey world&mdash;THN off the ice.Howe on it. Howe and Detroit dominated THN&rsquo;s first decade&mdash;ending in 1956-57&mdash;as Jolly Jack Adams&rsquo; Winged Wheelers won four Stanley Cups and seven regular-season championships.After one season of apprenticeship in the minor-league outpost of Omaha, Neb., Howe joined the Red Wings and began a 33-year career which earned him status as one of professional sport&rsquo;s greatest athletes.In the prime of his early pro days, the tall, sturdy native of Floral, Sask., helped the great Detroit club of 195152 achieve what may stand forever as the NHL&rsquo;s most incredible playoff sequence&mdash;an eight-game Stanley Cup sweep of Toronto and Montreal.Supported by the reliable defense of Leonard (Red) Kelly, Bob Goldham and Marcel Pronovost, 22-year-old netminder Terry Sawchuk stymied opposition shooters throughout the playoffs. He did not permit a single goal during four games at the Detroit Olympia, and just five pucks eluded him on enemy ice. Sawchuk&rsquo;s 0.62 playoff goals-against average still stands as a record.&ldquo;That Detroit team could have gotten by on talent alone,&rdquo; says Howe, &ldquo;but we also had a closeness that was unparalleled during my NHL career. There was great friendship among the players, the wives, even the children&mdash;and while it may sound corny, that bond was an essential part of our success.&rdquo;As the late 1940s became the early 1950s, Howe developed into hockey&rsquo;s most dominant player. Through four consecutive seasons (1951-54), he was the NHL&rsquo;s leading scorer, due in no small part to playing on the &lsquo;Production Line&rsquo; with Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay.Howe was like a locomotive; he owned the right side of the rinkblending brute strength and offensive talent. He earned total respect.Howe&rsquo;s courage and determination were never so apparent as in the 1950 playoffs. During a semi-final series against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Howe mistimed a check on Toronto&rsquo;s Ted Kennedy and plunged face-first into the boards at the Olympia.He suffered a fractured nose and cheekbone, and a brain concussion that required overnight emergency surgery and left the great right winger in peril for several days.Howe&rsquo;s emergence was just one of many highlights over the course of the decade.In 1947, NHL president Clarence Campbell worked with owners and players to devise hockey&rsquo;s pension plan. That same season, 1947-48, saw the advent of the annual All-Star Game, matching the best NHL players against the previous year&rsquo;s Stanley Cup champions.In the first game, Toronto lost to the All-Stars 4-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens. But the All-Stars and Chicago lost Bill Mosienko when he fractured his left ankle.Mosienko later left a happier mark on league history. In a late-season game between New York and Chicago, Mar. 23, 1952, he beat Ranger goalie Lome Anderson at 6:09, 6:20 and 6:30 of the third period. Mosienko&rsquo;s three goals in 21 seconds are an NHL record.Other highlights of THN&rsquo;s first decade include;&bull; Bill Barilko&rsquo;s overtime goal to win the 1951 Stanley Cup for Toronto. The Leaf defenseman was killed in a plane crash later that year.&bull; Maurice (Rocket) Richard&rsquo;s 325th career goal&mdash;Nov. 8, 1952 vs. Chicago at the Montreal Forum&mdash;which broke ex-Canadien Nels Stewart&rsquo;s record for most career goals. Richard beat Al Rollins for the milestone tally.&bull; Campbell&rsquo;s suspension of Richard for the duration of the 1955 season after he attacked Boston&rsquo;s Hal Laycoe with his stick, and linesman Cliff Thompson with his fists. That spawned the infamous &lsquo;Richard Riot&rsquo; in downtown Montreal on St. Patrick&rsquo;s Day. &#9632;

A Perfect Blend Of Strength, Skill

When Maurice Richard became the first NHL player to score 50 goals in one season&mdash;on the final night of the 194445 regular season&mdash;Bobby Hull was a six-year-old in Pointe Anne, Ont.Through an entire generation, the Rocket&rsquo;s mark stood as the pinnacle of offensive achievement in professional hockey. When the record finally tumbled, the young lad from Pointe Anne had developed into a superstar left winger for the Chicago Blackhawks.Hull&rsquo;s curly blond locks, intimidating slapshot, dazzling rink-length forays, and gregarious nature made him hockey&rsquo;s most prominent figure from 1957-58 to 1966-67.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Nobody rushed me so I kept pushing the puck ahead&hellip;&rsquo; &mdash;Hull</blockquote>Montreal&rsquo;s Bemie Geoffrion scored 50 in 1960-61, and Hull tied the mark the following season, it wasn&rsquo;t until March 12, 1966, that 50 goals became yesterday&rsquo;s standard. On that night, &lsquo;The Golden Jet&rsquo; scored No. 51 against the New York Rangers. He ended the season with 54 goals.&ldquo;I scored my 50th goal against Detroit and we then went into an awful slump and were shut out for three consecutive games,&rdquo; Hull recalls. &ldquo;We played New York in a rare Saturday game at Chicago Stadium and were losing, 2-1, in the third period when Lou Angotti dropped a pass at the Ranger blue line.&ldquo;Nobody rushed me so I kept pushing the puck ahead towards the slot and finally decided to let &lsquo;er go. Eric Nesterenko skated in front and screened (goalie) Cesare Maniago. I only got the heel of my stick on the puck&mdash;it was one of the worst slapshots ever&mdash;but it slid into the net along the ice.&ldquo;The 22.000 fans at the Stadium gave me such an ovation, I had goosebumps on me the size of robin&rsquo;s eggs. After about 10 minutes, I began to get kind of embarrassed, but it truly was one of my most thrilling moments.&rdquo;Other highlights from a very significant decade included:&bull; Montreal goalie Jacques Plante donning a mask for the first time after being hit in the face by an Andy Bathgate shot, Nov. 1, 1959.&bull; Gordie Howe&rsquo;s 545th goal (Nov. 10, 1963), breaking Richard&rsquo;s career regular-season mark before a home crowd at the Olympia. Howe beat Montreal&rsquo;s Charlie Hodge for the milestone tally.&bull; Montreal&rsquo;s record five-year Stanley Cup reign (1955-56 to 1959-60), and Toronto&rsquo;s three-year Cup streak (1961-62 to 1963-64).&bull; The decision, announced June 25,1965, to expand the NHL to &ldquo;cities of major-league status in the United States and Canada.&rdquo; In February, 1966, franchises were awarded to groups in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul and San Francisco-Oakland. All were to begin play in 1967-68.&bull; Boston defenseman Bobby Orr&rsquo;s first NHL goal, against Lome (Gump) Worsley of Montreal, at Boston, Oct. 23, 1966.&bull; Goalie Terry Sawchuk&rsquo;s remarkable performance, at 38, in backstopping Toronto to the 1966-67 Stanley Cup, the final championship of the six-team era. Sawchuk, who earlier that season became the first goalie to record 100 career regular-season shutouts, helped the Leafs beat Chicago and Montreal en route to the Cup.&bull; The biggest trade of the decade, maybe ever. Chicago sent Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield to Boston for Gilles Marotte, Pit Martin and Jack Norris, May 15, 1967. Esposito would go on to score more goals than any center in NHL history. &#9632;

‘Golden Jet’ Shattered 50-Goal Mark

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011349/5383587-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">There were times when opposition players such as Chuck Lefley of Montreal, took extraordinary measures to stop Bobby Orr.</figcaption></div>The Bobby Orr years really numbered but 10, but what glorious years they were.Knee troubles eventually forced No. 4 from the game, but the memories left behind from 10 years with Boston and three injury-filled seasons with Chicago are plentiful.None is as vivid as his Stanley Cupwinning goal in 1970.The player of the decade, for 196768 to 1976-77, Orr thoroughly owned the 1969-70 season&mdash;climaxing his brilliance with the overtime marker that ended the Boston Bruins&rsquo; 29-year Stanley Cup drought.Orr changed the game forever. With marvellous skating, puckhandling and shooting skills, he was an integral part of the Boston attack. His penchant for lugging the puck deep into enemy territory established a new pattern in the game.He emphasized this point with a mind-boggling exhibition in 1969-70. The Bruins featured prolific scorers such as Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge, Johnny Bucyk and John McKenzie, but it was Orr who made a mockery of the record book. He scored 33 goals and 87 assists to lead the NHL in scoring, a previously-unthinkable achievement for a defenseman.Orr helped Boston establish a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven final round against St. Louis. Game four at the Boston Garden went to overtime, tied 3-3. Forty seconds into the extra period, the dramatic ending materialized.From the right-wing comer. Boston center Derek Sanderson spotted On-sneaking into the slot and feathered him a pass. Orr tapped the puck through goalie Glenn Hall&rsquo;s legs and was catapulted through the air in a spectacular swan-dive, courtesy of a check by St. Louis defenseman Noel Picard.&ldquo;That was surely the most thrilling moment of my NHL career,&rdquo; says Orr, &ldquo;but the thrill wouldn&rsquo;t have been lessened had one of my teammates scored the goal.&ldquo;As far as it being a script-like ending to the season&mdash;I&rsquo;ve never really thought of it that way, but I can see the analogy. I had a year in which everything bounced right for me and was lucky enough to score the Cup-winner. It&rsquo;s a moment 1&rsquo;11 always cherish.&rdquo;Orr also scored the winner in Boston&rsquo;s 1972 Stanley Cup conquest of the New York Rangers. A chronic knee ailment limited his dazzling career to parts of 13 seasons&mdash;the last three with Chicago. His record of 915 points for defensemen was finally surpassed last season by New York Islander veteran Denis Potvin.The decade of 1967-77 was a busy one. Other highlights include:&bull; Rapid expansion of the NHL to 18 members. The six-team enlargement of 1967 was followed by the additions of Vancouver and Buffalo in 1970; New York Islanders and Atlanta in 1972; Kansas City and Washington in 1974.&bull; The death of Minnesota North Star forward Bill Masterton in January, 1968, of massive head injuries suffered in a game against Oakland. He is the only NHL player to ever die as the result of an on-ice accident.&bull; The Summit Series of September, 1972, between Canadian-born NHL players and the Soviet national team. It was won by Canada&rsquo;s Paul Henderson with 34 seconds remaining in the eighth and deciding game.&bull; The formation, in 1972-73, of the 12-team World Hockey Association, which raided the NHL for players and lured Bobby Hull away from Chicago for $1 million.&bull; The Philadelphia Flyers becoming the first post-1967 expansion team to win the Stanley Cup. Refining intimidation to an art form, the Flyers brawled their way to titles in 1974 and &lsquo;75.&bull; The first Canada Cup series, in 1976. The six-nation event was won by Canada, with a team that may have been the greatest of all time. The Canadian team included Orr. Esposito, Hull, Marcel Dionne, Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson and Potvin. &#9632;

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This Orr Was More Valuable Than Gold

Trying to isolate Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s crowning achievement is like choosing a single best line from Shakespeare.Since his debut as an NHL player with the expansion Edmonton Oilers in 1979-80, Gretzky has plowed a swath through the record manual. According to the 1987-88 Official NHL Guide and Record Book, Gretzky holds 43 regular-season and playoff standards, 26 more than Gordie Howe, his hero.The most dominant player in the game today, and choice as player of the decade from 1977-78 to 1986-87, Gretzky regards the following memories most affectionately:&bull; The night of Dec. 30, 1981, in Edmonton, when he scored five goals against Philadelphia to reach the 50-goal mark in just his 39th game of the season. It smashed the old record for fastest 50 goals&mdash;set in 50 games by Maurice (Rocket) Richard in 1944-45 and equalled by Mike Bossy in 198081.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Those were all great moments but I think breaking Phil Esposito&rsquo;s record was the most significant.&rsquo; &mdash;Gretzky</blockquote>&bull; The night of Feb. 24, 1982, in Buffalo, when he beat Sabres&rsquo; goalie Don Edwards for his 77th goal of the season, breaking the NHL singleseason mark set by Phil Esposito of Boston in 1970-71. He finished the season with 92 goals.&bull; The night of Jan. 11, 1984, at Chicago, when his empty-net goal at 19:58 of the third period prolonged a record point-scoring streak that would later reach 51 games (Oct. 5, 1983 to Jan. 27, 1984). During that stretch, he earned 61 goals and 92 assists.&ldquo;Those were all great moments but I think breaking Phil Esposito&rsquo;s record was the most significant,&rdquo; says Gretzky. &ldquo;Very few people figured that 76 goals in one season would ever be sur-passed but I was lucky enough to be on the right team at the right time.&ldquo;The play was kind of flukey. I got the puck off a Buffalo player near center ice and had a partial breakaway. I had to shake off (Sabre defenseman) Richie Dunn, who was one stride behind me, so I pulled the puck to my forehand and fired it through Edwards&rsquo; legs.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t a very spectacular goal I but it sure was a moment that I&rsquo;ll cherish the rest of my life.&rdquo;Esposito was at the Memorial Auditorium that night and he emceed a short ceremony on the ice immediately following Gretzky&rsquo;s milestone goal.&ldquo;People say you have to be talented and God-gifted to break long-standing records and I suppose there is truth in that,&rdquo; says Gretzky. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll never forget Espo&rsquo;s first words after I scored that night. He congratulated me and said, &lsquo;Wayne, you had to really work hard for this record. &lsquo;&ldquo;That meant a lot to me and it really summarized what my teammates did in helping me set the record. Every one on the Oilers had a hand in it.&rdquo;The past decade in the NHL has been prominent in many different ways. It featured:&bull; The four-year Stanley Cup dynasties of the Montreal Canadiens (197679) and New York Islanders (198083).&bull; The merger, in 1978-79, of the Cleveland Barons and Minnesota North Stars. The addition to the NHL, a season later, of four teams from the defunct World Hockey Association&mdash;the Oilers, Winnipeg Jets, Hartford Whalers and Quebec Nordiques.&bull; The transfer in 1980-81 of the Atlanta Flames to Calgary and, in 1982-83, the Colorado Rockies to New Jersey.&bull; The return, for one final NHL season of Gordie Howe. At 52 years of age, he scored 15 goals and 26 assists in 80 games for the Whalers in 197980.&bull; The Oilers&rsquo; rise to power. Led by superstars Gretzky, Paul Coffey, Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson and Grant Fuhr, the Oilers won Stanley Cups in 1984, &lsquo;85 and &lsquo;87.&bull; The string of nine NHL seasons in which Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders scored at least 50 goals (1977-86).&bull; Three Canada Cup tournaments. In 1981, the Soviet Union humiliated Team Canada 8-1 in the championship game. In &lsquo;84, Canada won a memorable semi-final against the Soviets and went on to beat Sweden in the best-of-three title round. And this past autumn, a goal by Mario Lemieux with 1:24 left to play gave Canada a victory over the Soviets in the thrilling best-of-three final. &#9632;

Great Gretzky: Greatest Scorer Of All

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011141/5383642-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marcel Dionne says the level of competition is the best it&rsquo;s been during his 17-year National Hockey League career.</figcaption></div>A magazine that previewed the 1968-69 National Hockey League season posed a significant question to its readers.Just one season after the NHL had doubled in size from six to 12 teams, the magazine contained a full-length story entitled &ldquo;Is NHL expansion really paying off?&rdquo;Basing its notion primarily on the frenzied reaction of St. Louis fans during the 1968 Stanley Cup playoffs, the magazine gushed with praise for the expansion project, calling it a giant success.Hindsight, however, suggests that the publication was premature in its treatment of the subject. In fact, only one paragraph in the entire story dealt with the ultimate goal of hockey expansion: Competitive balance throughout the NHL.That, noted Clarence Campbell, would take time and the late president warned, &ldquo;the fan will have to be patient, as well as charitable, while the league goes through its birth pangs.&rdquo;No one&mdash;perhaps not even Campbell, himself&mdash;envisioned the &ldquo;pangs&rdquo; would last 20 years. But only now is the league close to achieving parity.&ldquo;There is more balance in the NHL this year than in any season since expansion.&rdquo; says Keith Allen, executive vice president of the Philadelphia Flyers&mdash;the club&rsquo;s original coach in 1967-68.&ldquo;Until now, there was always a handful of weak teams that were out of the playoff race by Christmas-time, but this year, all the divisions are fairly strong and competitive.&ldquo;The talent pool and coaching methods have finally caught up with expansion&hellip;20 years later.&rdquo;It is a welcome circumstance.&ldquo;Throughout most of my career, if a strong team played a weaker team, the result was almost automatic,&rdquo; says New York Rangers&rsquo; center Marcel Dionne, a 17-year NHL veteran. &ldquo;The good team went into the game with an attitude of invincibility and the bad team wanted only to avoid embarrassment. The result was usually predictable.&ldquo;That situation hardly ever exists today. The difference between good and not-so good isn&rsquo;t as evident and you must always work extremely hard to win a hockey game.&ldquo;The league has never been this competitive during my career.&rdquo;Many agree that the prime contributor to league-wide parity has been the custom, in recent years, of retaining valuable draft picks.NHL general managers have seen the wisdom of people such as Sam Pollock, Bill Torrey and Allen, who built championship teams by resisting short-term benefits for long-term stability.Torrey&rsquo;s New York Islanders suffered through a shameful expansion season in 1972-73&mdash;winning only 12 of 78 games. Within five years, however, a succession of talented draft picks had the Islanders in a strong contending position.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Scouting has become much more balanced and know-ledgeable&hellip;. Teams do a lot more homework nowadays.&rsquo; &mdash;Torrey</blockquote>&ldquo;The year Denis Potvin was available (1973), I received numerous excellent trade offers from GMs around the league,&rdquo; recalls Torrey. &ldquo;Emile Francis of the Rangers approached me on a regular basis that season and once offered me six fairly good players for my No. 1 draft choice.&ldquo;But, I steadfastly realized that all the great teams in hockey had been self-developed and I stubbornly rejected all offers. &ldquo;The New Jersey Devils have become a latter-day New York Islanders. After deal ing high draft choices in their years at Kansas City and Denver, the Devils have held onto their top picks and are improving rapidly.Kirk Muller, Pat Verbeek, Craig Wolanin, and Brendan Shanahan&mdash;all obtained through the draft&mdash;could one day be the core of a championship team.&ldquo;Scouting has become much more balanced and knowledgeable,&rdquo; says Torrey. &ldquo;When I put our team together in the 1970s, European players were all free agents and now they have to be drafted. Teams do a lot more homework nowadays.&rdquo;Current-day hockey has also greatly benefited from the impact of superstar Wayne Gretzky.&ldquo;He has brought a tremendous image to the game,&rdquo; says Detroit&rsquo;s Mel Bridgman, a 13-year NHL veteran.&rdquo; The kids try to emulate him and so do a number of fellow NHLers.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t remember the number of times I&rsquo;ve seen him do something in a game and then tried it myself the next day during practice. He&rsquo;s a great ambassador for the game and hockey is lucky to have him.&rdquo;Gretzky, too, is lucky&hellip;to be playing at a time when hockey is riding a competitive crest once more. &#9632;

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Competitive Balance—21 Years Later

<div class="byline">BY HOWARD BERGER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01999/5383673-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">A young Bobby Hull reads THN during our early years. The Chicago Blackhawk superstar left winger must have enjoyed the cover story that week. Hull was the first player to score more than 50 goals in a single NHL season.</figcaption></div>Through 40 years of publication and more than 1,500 weekly and monthly issues, the names haven&rsquo;t changed.It is still THE HOCKEY NEWS and there is still a McKenzie setting down editorial policy. In 1947, it was Ken McKenzie; in 1987, it is Bob McKenzie.They aren&rsquo;t related by blood but they are blood relatives. For both, hockey will always be in their blood, as it is the millions of people who have read the publication since Ken McKenzie and Will Cote scraped together nearly $400 to launch their paper.Forty years later, the worth of THN is measured not in hundreds of dollars but millions.&ldquo;Ken McKenzie deserves abundant credit for having the foresight to start this publication and it&rsquo;s a crime that he&rsquo;s not in the Hockey Hall of Fame.&rdquo; says current editor-in-chief Bob McKenzie.&ldquo;But to be honest, the Ken McKenzie years had a certain stigma attached to them and that is something we&rsquo;ve endeavored to change. THE HOCKEY NEWS is no longer a one- or two-man operation in a broom-closet office in Montreal. We are now a large group of publishing professionals and we weren&rsquo;t always perceived that way, with good reason, through the Ken McKenzie era.&rdquo;Indeed, THN has matured in both appearance and editorial policy. In the beginning, it served primarily as a 16-page publicity vehicle for the National Hockey League. It has since grown into a 40-page publication that informs its readers through candid views of high-profile writers and columnists around the league.&ldquo;We have tried for a more thorough and complete approach to covering stories than at any previous time,&rdquo; says Bob McKenzie. &ldquo;We feel the paper should appeal to hockey fans in general&mdash;not just the ones who want to read about their favorite teams.&rdquo;Like any other publication that has withstood the test of time, THN has a storied legacy. A paper devoted solely to hockey was the brainstorm of McKenzie and Cote.&ldquo;We met while in the service in 1946 and really hit it off,&rdquo; McKenzie recalls. &ldquo;When Clarence Campbell became NHL president in September of &lsquo;46, he hired both of us for the Montreal head office: me as the league&rsquo;s information officer, and Will as a clerk.&ldquo;We both regularly read The Sporting News publication out of St. Louis which, at the time, covered only pro baseball, and we thought it&rsquo;d be a great idea to start a hockey paper. Mr. Campbell gave us his blessing, provided the NHL didn&rsquo;t have to get involved in the finances, and we were on our way.&rdquo;McKenzie and Cote gathered together a total of $383.81 between them and began circulating 60,000 flyers to hockey fans across North America in the summer of 1947. For subscription rates of $2 in Canada and $3 in the U.S., fans received 30 weekly issues&mdash;beginning with the first issue, Oct. 1, 1947.&ldquo;We had 3,450 paid subscribers more than two months before the first issue,&rdquo; McKenzie recalls. &ldquo;That gave us enough for our initial production cost and we churned out 5,000 on the first press run&mdash;working all night long to get it completed. It was quite a job.&rdquo;&ldquo;Monday night was a killer in the early days,&rdquo; recalls Len Bramson, THN editor from 19491960. &ldquo;We&rsquo;d work right through till Tuesday morning and I remember coming back from the printer with my hands just caked in black ink. But we always got the paper out on time and I have great memories from those days.&rdquo;Forty years later, Mondays remain publication days but the paper is now based in Toronto, not Montreal.The early editions featured articles from each of the six NHL cities and covered the minor pro leagues&mdash;providing summaries and stories from the American, Western and International hockey circuits.McKenzie never questioned THN&rsquo;s classification as a &ldquo;house organ&rdquo; for the NHL. He was, after all, in a Catch-22 situation as THN editor and the league&rsquo;s publicity voice.&ldquo;If the NHL didn&rsquo;t approve of the publication, it could have easily put me out of business,&rdquo; says McKenzie. &ldquo;Mr. Campbell felt that people did not want to read negative or controversial stuff and I had no choice but to follow his instructions.&rdquo;Occasionally, a member of the NHL establishment would take exception to a particular article and voice disapproval to McKenzie and the league office.&ldquo;Conn Smythe once called it a &lsquo;scandal sheet,&rsquo;&rdquo; McKenzie laughs. &ldquo;He cornered me in the press room at Maple Leaf Gardens and really gave me hell. I also got a lawyer&rsquo;s letter from Eddie Shore one year when he was running the Springfield Indians but nothing ever came of it. &ldquo;McKenzie guided THN through expansion in 1967&mdash;&rdquo;the best thing that ever happened to the paper&rdquo;&mdash;then bought out Cote in September, 1968.He continued to write a weekly column called &ldquo;Passing The Puck&rdquo; and he travelled throughout the newly-expanded NHL, pounding the beat for subscribers and advertisers. It was a glorious time for THN.&ldquo;Between 1967 and 1975, the NHL expanded from six to 18 teams and that solidified the paper from a business standpoint,&rdquo; recalls McKenzie, who watched circulation almost double from a pre-expansion figure of 44,000.&ldquo;I remember travelling to the six new expansion cities in 1967 and selling copies (for five cents). Philadelphia and Oakland really went for it while the other four teams weren&rsquo;t that enthusiastic. But in time, the paper really caught on all over the league and the subscription base grew immensely.&rdquo;Today, circulation is 115,000. Nearly 85,000 are subscribers.To go along with THN, McKenzie initiated three other long standing publications: Canadian Football News, (1951-1974); Hockey Pictorial (1955-1979) and Hockey World (1966-1975)&mdash;all produced monthly.In August, 1972, a phone call from Don Wall of the Whitney Communications Corporation in New York City prompted a series of business meetings that inspired McKenzie to sell majority interests in his newspaper. After 11 months of negotiations. W.C.C. purchased 80 per cent of THN.McKenzie stayed on as a consultant publisher until 1980, when W.C.C. bought the remaining 20 per cent. Wall took over as publisher and brought Tom Murray with him from New York City as editor-in-chief. When Murray returned to New York in the summer of 1982,Toronto native Bob McKenzie replaced him.A second change of ownership occurred in the summer of 1986 when W.C.C. sold the paper to G.T.C. Group Transcontinental Ltd. of Montreal. Soon after, publisher Michael Lawton joined the firm.Lawton oversees the 40 weekly issues each year, plus publication of THN YEARBOOK (since 1977), THN ENTRY DRAFT PREVIEW (since 1986) and the brand-new INSIDE HOCKEY.THN also has a television presence, lending its name and editorial support to a half-hour program seen weekly on The Sports Network in Canada.Over the years, much has changed at THN. Nobody has witnessed more of that than Charlie Halpin, who began as a part-time worker, took over from Bramson as editor in 1962, and became a full-time staffer in 1968. He will retire in April after 25 years&mdash;18 as editor&mdash;with the paper.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s been a big change in THE HOCKEY NEWS, a big change,&rdquo; says Halpin, who has taken part in the production of nearly 1,000 issues. &ldquo;Today&rsquo;s HOCKEY NEWS is more a voice in hockey. I don&rsquo;t think the old HOCKEY NEWS was a voice. We just reported what the NHL did, we didn&rsquo;t say what the NHL should do. But it was a good publication. And people shouldn&rsquo;t lose sight of the fact it took the old HOCKEY NEWS to put the present HOCKEY NEWS where it is today.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0017-01

THN Marks 40th Anniversary

THEY CAN OPEN the National Hockey League&rsquo;s closed dressing room doors but they can&rsquo;t open some of its closed minds.That&rsquo;s a dilemma facing the few women beat reporters in the NHL. They really have come a long way in terms of acceptance, but total acceptance is not yet theirs.Maybe it never will be. Total respect, though, would be a good trade-off. And for the most part, that&rsquo;s how the women are treated. With respect.There are still incidents of ignorance, however. The kind that make it more difficult for, say, Helene Elliott of Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.), to do her job than Walter MacPeek of the StarLedger (Newark, N.J.) his. Both cover the Rangers.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s admit it, it&rsquo;s an awkward situation,&rdquo; says Elliott. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re brought up that girls are in girls&rsquo; rooms and boys are in boys&rsquo; rooms.&rdquo;Elliott and other women reporters in the NHL cross up that convention on a daily basis. Sometimes, their presence is not appreciated. Elliott, for instance, is accused of voyeurism from time to time.&ldquo;My standard line when guys say I&rsquo;m peeping,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;is that I&rsquo;m looking you in the eyes and I know the eye color of every player in this room. One Ranger tested me once.&rdquo;She got the answer right.A simple solution, of course, is for the players to cover up. Ron Duguay of the Rangers wears a bathrobe in the dressing room. When the New York Cosmos were operating in the North American Soccer League, they issued bathrobes to all their players.The final formal barrier intended to block women reporters from entering league dressing rooms fell this season when the Toronto Maple Leafs relented and instituted an open-door policy.Faced with the prospect of women in his dressing room last year. Leaf owner Harold Ballard closed the doors to everyone. That way Ballard kept women out, and met with league provisions that require equal access be granted to all reporters&mdash;men and women alike. There are no women on the Leaf beat. The measure was aimed at an occasional member of the visiting media.Recently, when Elliott walked into the Leafs&rsquo; dressing room in Toronto, her arrival was marked by sophomoric jeering. To the uninitiated, it seemed immature and unprofessional. But, to Elliott, it was all in a day&rsquo;s work.&ldquo;What happened in the Leafs&rsquo; dressing room was nothing,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;When the Leafs were on the Island the week before that, I went into the dressing room there and civilization didn&rsquo;t crumble.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011040/5383704-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="341" height="470"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Dryden</figcaption></div>&ldquo;It helped that (former Rangers) Mike Allison and Mark Osborne were there and Eddie Olczyk, too. Somebody said, &lsquo;Oh, another peeper,&rsquo; or something like that. I just pretended to yawn, which they thought was kinda&rsquo; funny.&ldquo;And Mark Osborne said, &lsquo;Ah, she&rsquo;s seen them all, already. Don&rsquo;t worry about her.&rsquo; &ldquo;Olczyk is among those players who doesn&rsquo;t worry.&ldquo;Everybody has a job to do,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;A reporter is a reporter. It doesn&rsquo;t matter (if they&rsquo;re male or female).&rdquo;Sexism isn&rsquo;t limited to the dressing room. Every bit as infuriating as pouting players are patronizing members of management, whose responses to legitimate questions are more condescending than conducive to writing good stories. And Ballard isn&rsquo;t the only owner to interfere. In the past, Ed Snider of Philadelphia has arbitrarily barred her from the dressing room.When Elliott worked at the Sun-Times in Chicago, she wasn&rsquo;t allowed in the Blackhawks&rsquo; dressing room. She can go in now, but after one game this year, someone suggested, &ldquo;Get the f&hellip;..broad out of here.&ldquo;Which I didn&rsquo;t particularly appreciate,&rdquo; remembers Elliott. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ve been doing this beat long enough and know enough players in the league that that doesn&rsquo;t happen very often.&rdquo;Resiliency helps, when it does.&ldquo;There are times when I feel like screaming and crying but you can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;You have to be tough and realize this is a business. You can&rsquo;t break down in tears if you&rsquo;re frustrated.&rdquo;Elliott just wants to be treated like the rest of the reporters. She doesn&rsquo;t like the feeling of being singled out because of her gender&mdash;whether or not it&rsquo;s to her advantage.Several years ago, when she was doing a story on women&rsquo;s professional basketball, one team was going to let her in the dressing room but not her male colleague.Elliott declined.All she wanted then, as now, is the opportunity to compete on a equal basis with other reporters. &#9632;

f0018-01

Women Reporters Just Want To Do Their Jobs

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03560/5383735-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="581" height="728"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rollie Melanson ate his pregame muffin and was brilliant against the Flames.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02787/5383742-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="185" height="135"></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;Life in the National Hockey League&rsquo;s most remote outpost certainly has its advantages, namely the sun, sand and surf.But its disadvantages, as in the grueling travel, probably outweigh the advantages.Never were their travel problems more apparent than in a recent home-and-home series with the Calgary Flames.Unable to get a charter flight out of Los Angeles following a 4-1 loss to Calgary on Dec. 19, a Saturday night, the Kings were scheduled to depart at 7:50 the next morning for the return engagement in Alberta that evening.Some not-so-funny things happened on the way out of the Forum.Wake-up calls came early&mdash;as early as 5:30 a.m. for some in the club&rsquo;s party. Compounding their misery, the Kings sat for two-and-a-half hours at Los Angeles International Airport before departing. The airplane that finally whisked them away had been grounded in Phoenix by heavy fog.A nice way to begin a pivotal three-game excursion through Smythe Division country.It was 4:45 p.m. by the time coaches and players, many without personal belongings lost in transit, cleared Canadian customs and checked into their hotel.Plenty of time to wolf down plates of spaghetti, then rush to the Olympic Saddledome for a 7:35 game.It was hardly the first time the Kings had encountered such problems and most likely it won&rsquo;t be the last. Yet with little sleep, little nourishment and plenty of frazzled nerves, the team dug down and actually dominated the Flames on the way to a 6-3 victory.The Saddledome, it must be pointed out, has never been a kind to the Kings, who went into the game with a lifetime record of 3-12-2 there.Also, the win was only their second in 12 games, their second in 13 on the road&mdash;snapping a five-game road losing streak.Even more amazing was the fact that the Kings, despite a rocky 9-21-4 record, were merely three points behind the fourth-place Vancouver Canucks.&ldquo;I have to admit, with the travel and all, I didn&rsquo;t expect us to dominate the way we did,&rdquo; Jimmy Carson said. &ldquo;We showed a bit of character. I think we played this one on adrenalin, emotion and maybe necessity. This is a very important stretch for us. We&rsquo;ve got to put some wins together.&rdquo;New coach Robbie Ftorek, getting his first dose of life in a division where only one direct flight&mdash;to Vancouver&mdash;links the Kings with enemy cities, isn&rsquo;t one for making excuses.&ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t matter,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just the way it is. Some day it will happen to another team.&rdquo;Perhaps, but not as often as it seems to happen to the Kings.&ldquo;I had a muffin after we left Salt Lake City,&rdquo; netminder Rollie Melanson said of his sole nourishment during the all-day flight. Ever since contracting food poisoning on a flight last year, he&rsquo;s been hesitant to eat airline food.&ldquo;Goes to show you how much of this game is mental, I guess.&rdquo;Paul Fenton, who scored a pair of goals, including the game-winner, dismissed the effects of the trip.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think we were dragging. Everyone has to travel,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a part of the game. It really wasn&rsquo;t any big deal.&rdquo;Melanson&rsquo;s performance was a big deal. He had gone 0-2-2 with two nodecisions since his previous win, an 8-7 relief job against Quebec five weeks earlier.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a long road,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s been a lot of criticism steered my way. But I&rsquo;ve been going through this for four or five years. I&rsquo;m a big boy. I can pick myself up.&ldquo;A lot of games where I got blown out, it was like I was staring down a rifle. The way we were giving away the slot, it wouldn&rsquo;t have mattered who was in goal.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Bob Bourne was one of eight Sportsmen and Sportswomen of the Year selected by Sports Illustrated for their charitable activities. Boume and his wife, Janice, raise funds for the Spina Bifida Foundation and the New Interdisciplinary School for Handicapped Children. The couple&rsquo;s oldest son, seven-year-old Jeffrey, is afflicted with spina bifida, a congenital spinal disease&hellip;Mike Allison scored a goal in his first game, a 7-5 win over Edmonton, after being acquired from Toronto in exchange for Sean McKenna. His first goal in 16 games this season sparked a comeback from a 5-4 third-period deficit&hellip;Grant Ledyard re-injured his left leg in the Calgary game and was awaiting results of X-rays. Ledyard sprained his left ankle early in training camp and missed 17 of the Kings&rsquo; first 20 regular-season games. &ldquo;Just when it was almost all the way back, too,&rdquo; he said&hellip;Phil Sykes, recovering from a severe groin injury that sidelined him for 26 games, is ready to return to lineup&hellip;Right winger Paul Guay was called up from New Haven&hellip;The Kings were having trouble scoring power-play goals, going 3-for-34 in a recent stretch.<h2>KINGS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 18: Glen Currie. C, recalled from New Haven.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;limmy Carson. Bernie Nicholls. Mike Allison. Glen Currie.RW&mdash;Dave Taylor, Jim Fox. Bryan Erickson, Paul Guay.LW&mdash;Luc Robitaille, Bobby Carpenter, Paul Fenton, Phil Sykes, Joe Paterson.RD&mdash;Tom Laidlaw, Steve Duchesne.LD&mdash;Mark Hardy, Jay Wells, Larry Playfair.G&mdash;Glenn Healy, Bob Janecyk, Rollie Melanson.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Bob Bourne. C, sprained knee, indefinite.Dean Kennedy. D, broken finger, indefinite.Grant Ledyard. D, ankle, indefinite.Tim Tookey, C. knee surgery, March 5. &#9632;

f0018-03

Travel Travails Fail To Ground L.A. Kings

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01830/5383773-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="583" height="998"><figcaption class="caption-body">John LeBlanc starred in the Canadian university ranks before turning pro.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02560/5383780-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="178" height="133"></div>VANCOUVER&mdash;When the Vancouver Canucks made their cuts going into the season, one of the surprise departures to Fredericton&mdash;apart from Jim Sandlak&mdash;was left winger John LeBlanc.After all, the. 23-year-old former Canadian university player of the year had proven all there was to prove in the American League. And the Canucks, as always, were weak at left wing. Yet there he was, shipped to the Express again, after scoring 40 goals last season for a poor Frederiction club.&ldquo;I was disappointed to say the least,&rdquo; LeBlanc said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether I was overconfident at training camp, but once I got back down there I realized that nothing is guaranteed. I realized I had to work and keep working to stay in the National League.&rdquo;With the plague of injuries hitting the Canucks, management called LeBlanc back up and he&rsquo;s quickly made the most of his chance. In fact, he&rsquo;s changed the attitude of coach Bob McCammon.&ldquo;I think John is here to stay,&rdquo; McCammon said. &ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s a National League scorer. Some guys need a few chances to score, other guys seem to need eight. This guy doesn&rsquo;t need many.&rdquo;LeBlanc scored two goals against the Oilers in his first game up and had four in his first four games. The others came in Hartford and Boston.&ldquo;It was my first trip to the Boston Garden and it was fun, particularly in practice,&rdquo; said LeBlanc. &ldquo;You look up at the Bruin and Celtic banners hanging from the rafters and it certainly provides motivation.&rdquo;He may have been looking up at the wrong time; an errant stick during the game provided him with a 14-stitch reminder of the visit.The acquisition of LeBlanc was a feather in the cap of former general manager Jack Gordon who, along with former coach Tom Watt, decided to go hunting for talent in the Canadian universities. With Mike Ridley and Rob Whistle still on everybody&rsquo;s mind, the Canucks signed LeBlanc to a contract when everyone else was offering him tryouts and nothing more.LeBlanc&rsquo;s hot start has taken a little bit of the pressure off and allowed him to play his game.&ldquo;Up here there is a lot less running around than down in the American League,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Here, you have to play your position more or less up the wing or, if you don&rsquo;t, it doesn&rsquo;t take long for the other team to score.&ldquo;I find I&rsquo;m getting lots of chances and that is always a good sign. I&rsquo;m confident that with scoring opportunties, the goals will naturally follow.&rdquo;Meanwhile the Canucks are struggling along with its three-goalie system.It was reduced to a two-man system temporarily when Richard Brodeur pulled a groin muscle. But he was ready again and it was back to a battle for ice time between rookie Kirk McLean, Brodeur and Frank Caprice, the latter of whom had one of the league&rsquo;s best goals-against averages at 2.18.NOTES&mdash;The Canucks, coming off a 3-3 tie at home to Hartford, continued to sport a dreadful home record of 4-8-3 despite playing very well on the road. In order to get that road feeling, the Canucks stayed in a Vancouver hotel before one game. When that didn&rsquo;t work, they used black helmets on top of their gold uniforms&hellip;Barry Pederson scored a pair of goals against Hartford in his first game back after suffering whiplash in a car accident.<h2>CANUCKS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 18: Ron Stern. RW, assigned to Flint (IHL); Ian Kidd, D, and Jim Agnew, D, assigned to Fredericton (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Barry Pederson, Dan Woodley, Doug Wickenheiser, Greg Adams.LW&mdash;Dave Saunders, John LeBlanc, Craig Coxe, Steve Tambellini.RW&mdash;Petri Skriko, Rich Sutter, Stan Smyl, Jim Sandlak.LD&mdash;Randy Boyd, Jim Benning, Darryl Stanley.RD&mdash;Doug Lidster, Garth Butcher, Dave Richter.G&mdash;Kirk McLean, Richard Brodeur, Frank Caprice.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Dan Hodgson, C, fractured leg, out for seasonWillie Huber. RD, strained knee, indefinite.Larry Melnyk. LD, eye injury, day-to-day.Tony Tanti, RW, broken bone in foot, indefinite. &#9632;

f0020-01

LeBlanc Not Shooting Blanks Since Call-Up

<div class="byline">BY KEITH GAVE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02510/5383811-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jacques Demers, above, nearly came to blows with Minnesota coach Herb Brooks during a game Dec. 18 in Detroit.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01719/5383818-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="181" height="135"></div>DETROIT&mdash;The Teamsters Union may have a bone to pick with Detroit Red Wing coach Jacques Demers.Offended at being called a &ldquo;truck driver,&rdquo; Demers nearly came to blows with Minnesota coach Herb Brooks during a game Dec. 18.So what&rsquo;s so bad about being a truck driver?&ldquo;He called me a milk truck driver, and he was wrong,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;I used to drive a Coke truck.&rdquo;The two coaches, separated by plexiglass boards and about a two-foot gap on one side of the rink at Joe Louis Arena, approached one another. An angry Demers got up onto the bench and appeared to be heading over toward Brooks. But Wings&rsquo; assistant coach Don MacAdam and player Mel Bridgman held him back as Brooks smiled sardonically and said, &ldquo;C&rsquo;mon. C&rsquo;mon.&rdquo;&ldquo;First time I ever tried to stop a brawl,&rdquo; Bridgman said.Later, neither coach harbored any lingering ill-feelings. In fact, each seemed a bit embarrassed about it. Brooks didn&rsquo;t want to talk about it, and Demers described Brooks as &ldquo;a winner going through some tough times&hellip;He was doing the same thing I was doing, sticking up for my players. I just think he was trying to light a fire under his team.&rdquo;It didn&rsquo;t work. The incident occurred midway through the game with the score tied 3-3. The Wings scored five straight goals and won 8-3.Earlier in the week (Dec. 14), Demers shattered his glasses after he flung them at referee Denis Morel, following a 4-3 loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.Demers complained that New York&rsquo;s Tomas Sandstrom took a dive when Wings&rsquo; defenseman Jeff Sharpies was whistled for holding.Worse, Sandstrom skated by the Wings&rsquo; bench and laughed after the call. Even worse, former Red Wing John Ogrodnick scored the gamewinning goal on the power play to break a 3-3 tie late in the third period.Sandstrom said he chuckled when Demers angrily told him, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to get you on my team.&rdquo;&ldquo;I laughed,&rdquo; Sandstrom said. &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t play for you anyway.&rsquo; &ldquo;The next morning, Demers laughed about the incident, too.&ldquo;Yeah, we tried to get him, and I told him I wouldn&rsquo;t want him,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s a hell of a hockey player, and he could play for me any day. And you know, I think he would like to play for me.&rdquo;In a frustrating week, Demers got a little good news when he heard forward Brent Ashton&rsquo;s eye injury was mending well. Ashton was injured Dec. 12 in Montreal, when the Canadiens&rsquo; Ryan Walter lost his balance and brought his stick up, catching Ashton on the right eye.Doctors first thought the retina was detached. It wasn&rsquo;t, and Ashton was released from a Montreal hospital after a two-day visit. When he returned&mdash;and the Wings were shooting for Dec. 23&mdash;Ashton said he would be wearing a face shield.NOTES&mdash;After a quarter-season scoring slump, center John Chabot went through an 11-game stretch in which he scored 14 points on five goals and nine assists, including a five-point night (one goal and four helpers) in a 6-1 rout of Washington&hellip;Chabot was elevated to the second scoring line between Petr Klima and Brent Ashton, in the absence of Adam Oates, sidelined with an abdominal muscle pull. Ashton&rsquo;s place was taken by Dave Barr, back after missing 17 games with a separated shoulder.<h2>RED WINGS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 14: Harold Snepsts, D, recalled from Adirondack (AHL).Dec. 17: Doug Houda. D, and Steve Martinson, LW. assigned to Adirondack.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Steve Yzerman, John Chabot, Shawn Burr, Murray Eaves.LW&mdash;Gerard Gallant, Petr Klima, Mel Bridgman, Joe Murphy.RW&mdash;Bob Probert, Dave Barr, Tim Higgins, Joe Kocur.LD&mdash;Doug Halward, Lee Norwood, Harold Snepsts, Jeff Sharpies. Steve Chiasson.RD&mdash;Mike O&rsquo;Connell, Rick Zombo, Darren Veitch, Gilbert DelormeG&mdash;Greg Stefan, Glen Hanlon.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Brent Ashton, LW, eye, day-to-day.Adam Oates, C. groin, day-to-day.Rick Zombo, shoulder, day-to-day &#9632;

f0022-02

Demers Ends Rough Week In Fighting Form

THE SWEETEST CHRISTMAS story I&rsquo;ve heard involves a hockey player named Chris Cichocki and his girlfriend, Michelle Elliott.It begins during the summer when Cichocki, a Devils&rsquo; prospect, is driving his car along an Interstate highway near Detroit. Michelle is alongside him when, suddenly, a wheel on the auto loosens and slips off before Chris can control the careening vehicle.In the crash. Michelle, 22, suffers a broken leg and wrist as well as two broken vertebrae in her neck. Chris, 24, escapes without major injuries.That Michelle survived is chalked up as &ldquo;a miracle.&rdquo;&ldquo;Right now,&rdquo; he explains, &ldquo;she has a rod in her leg from the hip to the knee. Because of the injury to her vertebrae, Michelle had to be in a halo (traction) for three months. Now, she&rsquo;s wearing a collar. She&rsquo;s doing a lot better.&rdquo;The happy ending to all this misfortune is Cichocki&rsquo;s response&mdash;and that&rsquo;s my treasured Christmas memory of 1987. He has asked Michelle to marry him although her physical future remains clouded and most guys, in similar circumstances, would have conducted an orderly romantic retreat.&ldquo;I want to be with her forever,&rdquo; he says from Utica, where he is with the American League Devils. &ldquo;We plan to get married a year from this summer.&rdquo;Chris Cichocki not only leaves us with a lesson in love and goodwill but also in values; something to remember in 1988.<h2>LEARN FROM PAST MISTAKES</h2>The Department of Stupidity is hard at work in Boston where a bunch of dim-witted finaglers are planning to dismember a national sports monument.I&rsquo;m talking about the treasured home of the Bruins, Boston Garden, truly a landmark among North American arenas. Unfortunately, a bunch of developers have been pressing Beantown Mayor Ray Flynn to raze &ldquo;The Gahden&rdquo; and replace it with one of those phony-baloney formica-type super-rinks, of which Madison Square Garden is the absolute worst.If Boston Garden is replaced it will be no less a tragedy than if Maple Leaf Gardens or the Montreal Forum were knocked down. Opened on Nov. 20, 1928, The Garden is as wonderful a place to watch hockey as any rink on the continent.Mayor Flynn has three proposals before him, two from developers who would raze the rink and build a new one, and a third which would do what they did so well in Montreal&mdash;preserve and refurbish a landmark. Hopefully, the proper Bostonians will make the proper decision and not do the dumb thing Gulf and Western did in New York.There was once a magnificent Madison Square Garden just a block from Times Square which easily could have been fixed up in 1966 for a couple of million dollars. Instead, G & W tore it down&mdash;in addition to razing the superb Pennsylvania Station&mdash;and built the new Garden over the wrecked station.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01700/5383849-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="328" height="441"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stan Fischler</figcaption></div>A few weeks before opening the new Garden in 1968, MSG moguls invited hockey writers Tim Moriarty, Gerry Eskenazi and me on a grand tour of the round building, thinking we&rsquo;d &ldquo;ooh and ahh&rdquo; over it. An hour later we informed them that: (a) They forgot to install a press box; (b) The sightlines were awful; (c) The escalator capacity was inadequate; and (d) The rink stunk.Wonderful new Madison Square Garden hasn&rsquo;t even been up for two decades and G & W has declared what we knew from the start, that it&rsquo;s a bummer and now G & W wants to tear it down and start all over again.Bostonians, let that be a lesson to you!<h2>ANOTHER GOAL-SCORING GOALIE</h2>Overlooked in the excitement over Ron Hextail&rsquo;s open-net goal early this month is the fact that Chuck (Bonnie Prince Charlie) Rayner is the only goaltender in history known to skate the length of the rink to score on a breakaway.The Hall-of-Famer, who played with Ron&rsquo;s grandfather, Bryan Hextail Sr. of the Rangers, accomplished the feat in 1942 during a game featuring army teams sprinkled with NHL stars. This was before the rule prohibiting goalies from skating over the center red line. Still hale and hearty in Winnipeg, Rayner remembers his breakaway goal as if it happened two minutes ago.&ldquo;There was a scramble in our end,&rdquo; he recalls, &ldquo;and the puck hit me in the chest and bounced out in front. I went out to get it and noticed there was no one between me and the other goalie so I went with it.&rdquo;(Rayner is too modest to reveal that he was the best skating goalie in NHL history and often was stationed at the blue line during Ranger power plays by coach Frank Boucher.)&ldquo;Before I knew it, I was in on the other goalie, who was pretty darn good. He came out at me and kept coming so I went around him and put a little wrist shot in about a foot from the top corner of the net.&rdquo;When Rayner returned from the Canadian Armed Forces to the Rangers, he almost scored an open-netter a la Hextali at the old Madison Square Garden.&ldquo;We were playing the Maple Leafs and had a one-goal lead in the last minute when Toronto coach Hap Day pulled his goalie, Turk Broda. I got hold of the puck, just like Hextall, and fired it down the ice. For a few seconds it looked like it was going right in but the puck swerved at the last second. I always figured I would have had it if it hadn&rsquo;t been for the lousy Garden ice.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0024-01

A Christmas Lesson In Living And Loving

<div class="byline">BY JERRY ZGODA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02491/5383880-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="177" height="132"></div>BLOOMINGTON, Minn.&mdash;The Minnesota North Stars have begun to resemble their International League farm club in Kalamazoo.Take a glance at the lineup for the Stars&rsquo; fifth straight loss, a 3-1 decision at home to New Jersey: goaltender Jon Casey, defensemen Chris Pryor and Al Tuer, left winger George Servinis and right winger Mitch Messier. Injuries and poor performances by big-leaguers have led to their call-ups.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to show the guys down in Kalamazoo that they will be rewarded,&rdquo; coach Herb Brooks said, &ldquo;plus, we&rsquo;ve had some holes to fill.&rdquo;How much of a reward it is to play for the Stars these days is debatable, but there&rsquo;s no questioning the holes. Defenseman Craig Hartsburg is out because of a separated shoulder, hence the presence of Tuer. The loss of defenseman Curt Giles to a bruised hand, and the imminent release or demotion of Ron Wilson, combined to bring Pryor back to the NHL.Left winger Scott Bjugstad was out until February because of torn knee ligaments suffered in a 3-2 loss to Chicago. That brought up first Larry DePalma (himself sidelined, with a bruised bicep), then Servinis. And Messier was summoned after Bob Brooke once again was shifted back to defense.Casey, Tuer, Servinis, Messier and rookie center Dave Archibald were the Stars&rsquo; only saving graces against the Devils. Casey was splendid at times, stopping 32 of 35 shots. Tuer scored the Stars&rsquo; only goal of the game, his first in 49 NHL career games. Servinis, Archibald and Messier played on a line that showed more life than any of the Stars&rsquo; proven units.&ldquo;The new guys played fine; that&rsquo;s not the problem,&rdquo; said Brooks, whose team outshot the Devils 6-1 in the first six minutes, then was outshot 27-4 over the next period and a half. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t shoot the puck like we mean it. We&rsquo;re not going to the net like we mean it.&rdquo;The night before, the Stars&rsquo; losing streak went to four games when they gave up five third-period goals in an 8-3 loss at Detroit. The focal point of the evening was a second-period tussle in which Brooks and Red Wing coach Jacques Demers started after each other but were restrained.The scuffle was part emotion and part two coaches&rsquo; attempts at inspiration. &ldquo;It was emotion on my part when he called me a milk-truck driver,&rdquo; said Demers, who drove a Coca-Cola truck before his professional coaching days.In the game before that, against Chicago. the Stars lost Bjugstad when he fell to his knees and was knocked backward.The Stars also got bad news about another left winger. Medical tests revealed veteran Steve Payne&rsquo;s neck injury is being caused by bone spurs that have grown onto the spinal cord. Doctors have given Payne three options: Have spinal-fusion surgery now and his playing days are over; play with the pain as long as possible and then have surgery; retire now and face a 50-50 of needing surgery sometime in his life.Payne said he was going to take a couple of weeks to consider the options, but all signs pointed to retirement.Wilson&rsquo;s days with the Stars also appeared over. He was placed on recallable waivers, as general manager Lou Nanne tried to drum up some trade possibilities. Wilson passed right through and was relegated to skating with the Stars&rsquo; injured players. He did not make the trip to Detroit and was benched for the Jersey game.Wilson said he expected the Stars to buy out the remainder of his contract, which expires after this season. He then would investigate opportunities in Europe, where he played for five seasons before joining the Stars last year. But Nanne, who previously said he would talk with Wilson after Christmas, said he had no plans to meet with the player.&ldquo;If there&rsquo;s not something that he&rsquo;d rather do, we&rsquo;ll either keep him around or send him to the minors,&rdquo; Nanne said.NOTES&mdash;Brian Bellows&rsquo; two goals against Detroit increased his team-leading total to 22, three ahead of Dino Ciccarelli&hellip;The day of the Jersey game didn&rsquo;t start any better than it ended for Herb Brooks. The coach left the Stars&rsquo; hotel in Detroit early in the morning, planning to catch a flight an hour earlier than the team. He boarded a plane headed for Minneapolis and woke up when the plane landed. &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;Are we in Minneapolis already?&rsquo; and somebody said, &lsquo;We&rsquo;re in Milwaukee. This isn&rsquo;t a nonstop.&rsquo; Stupid.&rdquo; He arrived later in Minneapolis, after the rest of the team.<h2>NORTH STARS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 17: Larry DePalma, LW, recalled from Kalamazoo (IHL).Dec. 19: Ron Wilson, D, cleared waivers: Chris Pryor, D, George Servinis, LW, and Mitch Messier, RW, recalled from Kalamazoo.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Dave Archibald, Brian Lawton, Keith Acton, Neal Broten.LW&mdash;Brian Bellows, Basil McRae, George Servinis, Brian MacLellan.RW&mdash;Dirk Graham, Dino Ciccarelli, Terry Ruskowski, Mitch Messier, Richard Zemlak.LD&mdash;Frantisek Musil, Gordie Roberts, Al Tuer.RD&mdash;Bob Rouse, Curt Giles, Bob Brooke, Pat Price.G&mdash;Kari Takko, Jon Casey.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Don Beaupre, G, pulled groin muscles, Dec. 26.Scott Bjugstad, LW, torn knee ligaments, mid-February.Larry DePalma, LW, brusied bicep, day-to-day.Craig Hartsburg, D, separated shoulder, indefinite.Tom Hirsch, D, shoulder, indefinite.Dennis Maruk, C, foot tendons, Dec. 30. &#9632;

f0024-02

Minor-Leaguers Only Bright Spots On Stars

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Associate Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01612/5383911-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="586" height="1545"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ken Wregget hasn&rsquo;t been playing well, and Leaf fans have voiced their disapproval.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02403/5383918-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="175" height="145"></div>TORONTO&mdash;As the holiday season came upon us, Ken Wregget had fallen victim to the worst kind of Christmas giving.The giving up of bad goals.The Maple Leaf netminder struggled terribly as Toronto limped through the Yuletide season without confidence, Borje Salming, Chris Kot-sopoulos, Wendel Clark and Mirko Frycer.And sometimes, it seemed, Wregget.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just not clicking right now,&rdquo; said Wregget. after Chicago whipped the Leafs 6-2, Dec. 19. Toronto outshot the Blackhawks 41-29.Four of the goals looked stoppable.&ldquo;Things aren&rsquo;t going too well,&rdquo; said the downcast 23-year-old. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve definitely played better. I think I&rsquo;ve reached an all-time low.&rdquo;Maple Leafs fans agreed, booing him in his last two home appearances.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not pleasant at all,&rdquo; acknowledged Wregget.The loss to Chicago dropped the goalie&rsquo;s record to 7-12-2 and represented his sixth loss in seven starts. He was lifted in the other, a game Dec. 7 against Detroit, when the Leafs rallied to win in overtime with the help of relief goalie Allan Bester.Wregget last won a game Nov. 24 on Long Island.It seemed likely the losing streak would last an entire month. With only two more games before Christmas, Bester was sure to start at least one of them&mdash;probably both.Toronto coach John Brophy conceded Wregget was going through hard times but admonished the fans: &ldquo;When the team doesn&rsquo;t play well in front of anybody, I don&rsquo;t feel it&rsquo;s fair to pick out one guy and start jumping on him.&rdquo;Wregget has been Toronto management&rsquo;s choice as No. 1 goalie for most of the past three years. And if he hasn&rsquo;t always justified their faith during the regular season, he has in the playoffs.The last two years, Wregget has been a playoff standout. In 1986-87, his.921 save percentage was the best of the six goalies to appear in more than 10 post-season games.But his regular-season efforts have not always measured up. In fact, Bester has usually had better numbers, if not the confidence of management.This year, Wregget&rsquo;s numbers included a 4.44 goals-against average and.862 save percentage, Bester&rsquo;s a 3.25 GAA and.895 SA (plus a 6-5 won-loss record).It has been an exercise in frustration for Bester since his spectacular arrival in 1983-84, when the 19-year-old goalie charmed Toronto with spectacular saves although the Leafs finished 19 games under.500.&ldquo;I would like to play more,&rdquo; said Bester. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had a lot of shots (opportunities) here. Maybe I haven&rsquo;t taken advantage of them.&rdquo;What he hadn&rsquo;t been given this year was the chance to get on a roll. After Wregget ran up a 3-4 record over the first seven games of the season, Bester started and won two straight games&mdash;including a 4-0 shutout of Pittsburgh.Yet, Wregget was back in goal for a win over Chicago.The two of them alternated for 10 games, but then it was back to Wregget for six straight. And so it has gone. After 32 games, Bester had started twice in a row but twice. Never three times.Last year, he had a stretch of four starts once. It was Wregget who started 17 of 18 games down the stretch.Bester doesn&rsquo;t like the role of spectator.After beating the New York Rangers 4-3 Dec. 12, he was upset when told by a reporter that he probably wouldn&rsquo;t be starting the next night in Chicago.Wregget surrendered five goals in that game.Bester was back in for a 5-3 win over Washington at home Dec. 15. He played again Dec. 18 in Washington, but this time the Leafs lost&mdash;despite a solid effort by Bester.Brophy went back to Wregget against Chicago and the result was a discouraging loss&mdash;both for the goalie and his teammates, who took a lot of shots but didn&rsquo;t play with much spirit.Except for the Christmas spirit of goodwill to their fellow man.NOTES&mdash;Mirko Frycer banged up his knee against Washington, after scoring goals in five of his previous six games&hellip;Sean McKenna, acquired from Los Angeles for Mike Allison, was playing right wing on a checking line with Mark Osborne and Dan Daoust&hellip;Osborne scored in consecutive games after going 18 games without a goal&hellip;Chris Kotsopoulos is expected to be out a lengthy period of time with a recurring groin injury. He missed a good part of last season, including most of the playoffs, with the same problem&hellip;Wendel Clark, sidelined with back spasms, is skating again but no date of return has been set.<h2>MAPLE LEAFS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 15&mdash;Mike Stothers, D, assigned to Newmarket (AHL).Dec. 17&mdash;Chris McRae, RW, recalled from Newmarket.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Russ Courtnail, Tom Fergus, Dan Daoust, Greg Terrion.LW&mdash;Al Secord, Vincent Damphousse, Mark Osborne, Dave Semenko.RW&mdash;Ed Olczyk, Gary Leeman, Sean McKenna, Peter Ihnacak.LD&mdash;Luke Richardson, Todd Gill.RD&mdash;Al lafrate, Rick Lanz, Dale DeGray.G&mdash;Allan Bester, Ken Wregget.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Wendel Clark, LW, back spasms, indefinite.Mirko Frycer, RW, knee, indefinite.Chris Kotsopoulos, D, groin muscle, indefinite.Borje Salming, D, back, day-to-day.Brad Smith. RW. back, indefinite. &#9632;

f0025-01

Troubled Wregget Reaches ‘All-Time Low’

<div class="byline">BY JAY GREENBERG</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01651/5383977-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Keeping track of what team Bobby Carpenter is on could be a tough job in 1988, according to THN oracle Jay Greenberg.</figcaption></div>What is the meaning of this hockey life? Alas, after a while it all begins to look like the Los Angeles Kings in their own end. We&rsquo;re confused, disoriented, searching like Phil Esposito for something better.Where are we headed? Who are we? Why is Claude Lemieux different from the rest of us? Who is Joe Reekie and what does he want?We decided the answers are in the stars. So this time, for our New Year&rsquo;s Preview, we&rsquo;ve turned towards the heavens for astrological guidance.We looked past Mars, even out beyond Glenn Anderson, to uncharted constellations. We searched light years to the Blackhawks&rsquo; next shutout, and came upon not only the secrets of the universe, but an envelope full of money marked for Pat Quinn.We see it all so clearly now. Come with us for a journey into the near future:Jan. 15: Philadelphia Flyer right winger Tim Kerr continues to outpoll all Wales Conference right wingers in fan all-star voting. This is considered a great surprise not only because Kerr has not played a single game the entire year but because he is not French-Canadian.&ldquo;If I ain&rsquo;t startin&rsquo;, I ain&rsquo;t departin&rsquo;,&rdquo; says Claude Lemieux, who is in second place. &ldquo;I deserve it. Kerr gets hurt once and he lets it carry him through the entire year. I get hurt every game.&rdquo;Lemieux is particularly distraught that he is the only French-Canadian in the entire league who is not leading the balloting at his position.Jan, 21: Goalie Ron Hextali scores his second goal of the season in a 6-4 Philadelphia victory over Edmonton. The goal is a 165-foot bank shot off Kevin McClelland&rsquo;s nose and into the empty net. It is considered even more unusual than Hextall&rsquo;s first goal because it came at 16:11 of the first period with both sides skating at full strength.Asked what he was doing on the bench when there was no delayed penalty being called, Grant Fuhr says, &ldquo;You expect me to stay in there when Steve Smith has the puck behind the net? You crazy, man? I could have gotten hurt.&rdquo;Hextail takes the goal in stride. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m starting to like this,&rdquo; he says.Jan. 20: Scandal rocks the NHL with discovery of irregularities in the all-star voting process. The Globe and Mail asks whatever happened to the pronunciation of the &lsquo;T&rsquo; at the end of Lane Lambert&rsquo;s name when he began playing in Quebec City. Lambert has passed Mats Naslund in the left, wing balloting. &ldquo;It beats moi,&rdquo; says Lambert, who denies being bom in Mel-fort, Sask.Jan. 22: A 54-year-old Burnaby, B.C., man is found hanged to death in a washroom of Vancouver&rsquo;s Pacific Coliseum. Higby (Hy) Stick, the last known fan of the Vancouver Canucks, is discovered clutching an NHL allstar ballot with Petri Skriko&rsquo;s name punched in. There is a fleur-de-lys taped to his chest. Foul play is suspected.Police investigators estimate that Mr. Stick had been dead for three weeks. Asked how the body could have gone undetected for so long, Canuck president Arthur Griffiths shrugs. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t been drawing very well,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and to be frank, we&rsquo;ve been a bad team for so long, we didn&rsquo;t smell anything out of the ordinary.&rdquo;Jan. 28: The all-star balloting is completed.Campbell Conference: Defensemen Mario Marois, Winnipeg and Steve Duchesne, Los Angeles; Left wing Luc Robitaille, Los Angeles; Center Denis Savard, Chicago; Right wing Claude Kurri, Edmonton; Goaltender Grant LeFuhr, Edmonton.Wales Conference: Left wing Michel Goulet, Quebec; Right wing Claude Lemieux, Montreal; Goaltender Patrick Roy, Montreal; Center Mario Lemieux, Pittsburgh; Defensemen Normand Rochefort, Quebec and Paul Cafe, Pittsburgh.Feb. 2: The NHL all-star game is moved from St. Louis to Saskatoon. A group headed by Bill Hunter and local Saskatoon businessman Joe Isuzu pledge to have an 18,000-seat arena built in time for the game the following week.&ldquo;You have our word on it,&rdquo; says Hunter.Feb. 9: The first NHL all-star game ever to be played outdoors has to be shortened due to severe weather conditions. The end came when substitute starter Bob Froese made a save. Because he was the last person to touch the puck, Froese was awarded the game&rsquo;s only goal and taken immediately to the Hockey Hall of Fame, where no statue of him was necessary.The game goes into the record books not with an asterisk, but an accent aigu. The absence of anglophone players is not noticed because all members of the media, wowed by the spread the Nordiques put out a year ago at Rendez-vous, are in Quebec City eating.Feb. 13: Hextall does it again, this time skating to center ice to backhand the puck between Allan Bester&rsquo;s legs in a 5-2 Philadelphia victory over Toronto. Hextall has now passed Frank Bathe on the all-time Flyer scoring list and is only two points behind Brian Propp for the club lead.&ldquo;I trust his judgment,&rdquo; said Keenan, asked if Hextail might be wandering from the net a bit too much.March 3: The Los Angeles Kings, mired in last place in the Smythe Division, petition the board of governors for a move to the Norris Division. &ldquo;It makes sense,&rdquo; says Kings&rsquo; GM Rogie Vachon. &ldquo;We can fly directly to all those midwestem cities, but not to all the Smythe Division cities in Canada.&rdquo;The Kings say they will have to go out of business if the league doesn&rsquo;t approve the move. The place where it says &lsquo;Visitors&rsquo; on The Forum scoreboard began smoking from overuse and the club can no longer afford to get it fixed.March 4: Emboldened by the league&rsquo;s decision to allow Los Angeles to emigrate to the Norris Division, the Canucks ask if they can go, too. &ldquo;Sure, with the Kings gone we can finish last again if we stay,&rdquo; says Arthur Griffiths, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s just not the same finishing last if you can&rsquo;t do it behind Los Angeles.&rdquo;The league approves the switch.March 5: The Calgary Flames ask the NHL if they can move to the Norris Division, too. &ldquo;Why should anybody else get to win all those games?&rdquo; asks Flame GM Cliff Fletcher. &ldquo;We want some too.&rdquo; When the league gives its okay to the Calgary switch, the New York Rangers and Buffalo Sabres also make the same request.March 14: NHL trading deadline passes with a flurry of activity.Minnesota acquires the rights to former Philadelphia and Hartford defenseman Fred Arthur, who quit the game to attend medical school in 1982. &ldquo;I can put out a power play now of Arthur, Todd Bergen, Mark Pavelich and Bill Nyrop,&rdquo; says Lou Nanne. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get enough of these hockey players who don&rsquo;t want to play hockey.&rdquo;Bobby Carpenter is traded again, this time from Los Angeles to Chicago. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to be a great one, but I just didn&rsquo;t think it was going to happen here,&rdquo; says Vachon.Twelve hours later, Chicago trades Carpenter to Toronto for Gary Leeman. &ldquo;Bobby Carpenter has a lot of potential, but we can&rsquo;t afford to wait any longer,&rdquo; says Bob Pulford, the Blackhawk GM.Six hours after that, Toronto moves Carpenter to Buffalo for Scott Amiel. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m geting tired of hearing about Carpenter&rsquo;s potential,&rdquo; says Gerry McNamara, the Toronto GM. &ldquo;We have to win now.&rdquo;March 17: Hextail scores his 40th goal of the season in a 13-11 Flyer loss to Chicago. All the Hawk goals are scored into an empty net as Hextail plays the point on the Flyer power play.Asked if Hextall&rsquo;s pursuit of goals isn&rsquo;t getting out of hand, Keenan says, &ldquo;How can you criticize just us? All our goals were scored into an empty net, too.&rdquo;Told that the Chicago goal was not empty but actually manned by Darren Pang, Keenan says, &ldquo;Oops, must have missed him.&rdquo;March 26: Hextall becomes the first NHL goalie to score 50 goals in one season when he beats Winnipeg&rsquo;s Pokey Reddick on a penalty shot.&ldquo;Five games left,&rdquo; says Hextall, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;m only five goals behind Gretzky.&rdquo;The 17-5 Flyer loss, their 36th in a row. does not put a crimp in their playoff hopes. Everybody else in the league has moved to the Norris Division and the Flyers have all four Patrick Division playoff spots to themselves.April 2: Shame is brought upon the game I once again in a pre-game brawl. Buffalo&rsquo;s Ed Hospodar discovers that Claude Lemieux calls his mother exactly 30 minutes before every game from a payphone outside the visiting locker room at the Forum.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s our phone,&rdquo; says Hospodar, &ldquo;and it&rsquo;s my job to guard it.&rdquo;Lemieux is tipped off and gets to the phone 10 minutes early. When Hospodar arrives, Lemieux asks to borrow a dime and the enraged Hospodar begins hitting the Montreal player over the head with the telephone receiver.Both locker rooms empty into a direct-dialing frenzy until referee Andy van Hellemond shows up with his cellular car phone and calms everybody down.John Ziegler calls Hospodar&rsquo;s actions &ldquo;reprehensible&rdquo; and suspends him for 10 minutes. He also orders all calls to Hospodar held for six months.April 3: Hextall&rsquo;s hat trick beats Washington 17-16, and ends Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s reign as NHL scoring champion. Asked if Hextali has revolutionized the game. Gretzky shrugs.&ldquo;Not necessarily,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen a lot of trends come and go. Just because I&rsquo;ve been wearing goalie pads since February doesn&rsquo;t mean all the players will.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01604/5383970-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="724" height="1428"><figcaption class="caption-body">Will Jacques Demers order pizza from Domino&rsquo;s?</figcaption></div>The NHL regular season is now completed with all 20 Norris Division teams having finished with sub.500 records. Asked whatever became of the great Edmonton Oilers, the greatest scoring machine in NHL history. Glen Sather says. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t blame it on trading Coffey. Pittsburgh finished behind us.&ldquo;I just think we got caught up in the change of styles to the Norris Division. I was asking too much of Mark Messier, wanting him to play like Lee Norwood.&rdquo;Since the pairings are a hopeless mess, Ziegler cancels the playoffs and declares Soviet Red Army the Stanley Cup champion.Asked how he could treat the oldest trophy in North American team sports with such cavalier disregard. Ziegler replies. &ldquo;Better Red than Dead.&rdquo;June 13: A fistfight breaks out at the entry draft when five teams attempt to use the New York Rangers&rsquo; second-round pick. Quebec. Philadelphia. Minnesota. St. Louis and Los Angeles all claim that Phil Esposito traded the choice to them and all have Tony McKegney on their roster to prove it.&ldquo;I think I should get the pick.&rdquo; says Nanne. &ldquo;After all. Phil traded it to me twice.&rdquo;June 16: The NHL board of governors takes further action to eliminate brawling. Brian O&rsquo;Neill firmly refuses any further discipline on two New Jersey Devils who attempted to climb over the glass after Pittsburgh fans threw beer on them.O&rsquo;Neill defends his actions saying. &ldquo;We want to get fighting off the ice and into the stands where it belongs.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02396/5383963-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="718" height="1402"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Hextall is headed for a 50-goal season.</figcaption></div>The league also announces it is going ahead with expansion. Applications from Hamilton, Dallas, Milwaukee and Seattle are rejected in favor of collectives from Moscow, Leningrad, Vladivostok and Chernobyl.The Chernobyl team will be called the &lsquo;Roentgens&rsquo; and will play all its games on the road until 2025 when it will be safe to enter the town again.&ldquo;I get a glow just thinking about it,&rdquo; says Ziegler. The new Soviet teams will all be grouped together in the Stalin Division.September 5: Phil Esposito, who a year ago cancelled the Rangers&rsquo; annual exhibition games against Philadelphia because they always turned into 585-penalty-minute free-for-alls, announces that he won&rsquo;t play the Flyers during the regular season either. The Rangers will play those seven games against their Colorado farm club. John Ziegler says they will count in the standings. &ldquo;If we allow games against the Soviets to count.&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Then we&rsquo;ll count anything.&rdquo;Oct. 3: There are new allegations about Jacques Demers. The NHL is stunned to learn that he once took money for coaching the St. Louis Blues.&ldquo;Not true,&rdquo; says former owner Harry Ornest. &ldquo;I never paid him, or anyone else for that matter. one cent.&rdquo;The Detroit News produces Demers&rsquo; phone records for the past five years. The newspaper reports that on May 13, 1987, while coaching the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup semi-finals, Demers ordered a Domino&rsquo;s Pizza.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-03257/5383956-1-eng-US/f0027-032.jpg" title="f0027-03" width="728" height="1412"><figcaption class="caption-body">Lane Lambert will be at the center of a controversy.</figcaption></div>Demers denies the charge.Oct. 6: The News publishes an interview with the deliverywoman who brought the pizza to Demers&rsquo; house. &ldquo;I remember distinctly,&rdquo; says Ann Chovy, a 15-year employee of the Domino&rsquo;s chain. &ldquo;It took us more than 30 minutes to get there because Demers insisted upon meeting the truck in the woods.&ldquo;I offered him the standard $3 discount for not meeting our half-hour guarantee and he said, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s all right, Joe Murphy is later than this all the time.&rsquo; &ldquo;Confronted with the evidence. Demers breaks down. &ldquo;I am not a liar,&rdquo; he says.&ldquo;Cheeeeese,&rdquo; says Red Wing owner Mike Hitch, &ldquo;something like this gets in the paper and it just mushrooms.&rdquo;Nov. 8: Dave Brown, encouraged by favorable reviews of the routine he performed at a Philadelphia comedy club during his suspension for high-sticking Tomas Sandstrom, decides to continue it as a sideline to his hockey career.&ldquo;Why did Tomas Sandstrom cross the road?&rdquo; says Brown in his opening joke. &ldquo;He closes with, &lsquo;How many Tomas Sandstroms does it take to screw in a lightbulb?&rsquo; &ldquo;&ldquo;Funnier than Jay Leno. The brightest new face in comedy,&rdquo; reviews THE HOCKEY NEWS.Nov. 15: Enraged that the Flyers and Brown are making light of the high-sticking incident, Esposito sends a video tape of Brown&rsquo;s comedy routine to Brian O&rsquo;Neill. O&rsquo;Neill forwards them to The Tonight Show and Brown is booked as a guest host.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-04173/5383949-1-eng-US/f0027-042.jpg" title="f0027-04" width="720" height="1416"><figcaption class="caption-body">NHL president John Ziegler cracks down on phone violence.</figcaption></div>Nov. 28: &ldquo;That Brown keeps me in stitches,&rdquo; says Bruin tough guy Jay Miller after Brown knocks him out without throwing a punch. Miller collapsed to the ice holding his side during a confrontation along the boards. Brown had dropped his gloves, grabbed a microphone and said: &ldquo;So the farmer told Sandstrom, &lsquo;Yes, you can spend the night here. But I have three daughters&hellip;&rsquo;&rdquo;Dec. 3: Brent Peterson of the Hartford Whalers makes NHL history by taking his one millionth faceoff. This is particularly noteworthy because Peterson, who has played for 20 of the NHL&rsquo;s 21 teams, in his 10 years in the league, has never taken a shot on goal.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just proud to have contributed in any way I can,&rdquo; says Peterson. Asked if just once he wished one of his coaches would have let him play a full shift that involved some play in the netural zone, Peterson says, &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;When Ziegler drops the plaque he is about to give Peterson to mark the milestone, Peterson pulls the momento back to the point and skates to the bench.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a fantastic honor,&rdquo; Peterson says. &ldquo;But I couldn&rsquo;t have done it without all those linesmen. They&rsquo;re the guys who dropped all those pucks. Without them, I wouldn&rsquo;t have had a job.&rdquo;Dec. 15: The NHL, Canucks and Pat Quinn reach an out-of-court settlement on the 163rd lawsuit they had filed against each other. All fines will be rescinded, but Quinn will continue to be barred from coaching the Kansas City Scouts until 1999.Dec. 31: Readers picket the offices of THE HOCKEY NEWS demanding that it refuse to publish Jay Greenberg&rsquo;s ridiculous New Year&rsquo;s preview any longer. Editor-in-chief Bob McKenzie responds by trading Greenberg, three bad Dave Brown jokes, and the rights to Minor Hockey Flashback to Buffalo for Bobby Carpenter.&ldquo;It has become painfully obvious to us,&rdquo; says McKenzie, &ldquo;that Greenberg has not fulfilled his potential.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0026-01

A Fearless Forecast

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01623/5384008-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="168" height="172"></div>When the Canadian Olympic hockey team takes to the Saddledome ice against Poland on Valentine&rsquo;s Day, a whole country will be ready to fall in love.And the CTV network is ready to play matchmaker on Feb. 14, bringing Dave King&rsquo;s young club into millions of homes for its first game of the 1988 Olympics. The network will follow the Canadian team throughout the Games, telecasting every preliminaryround contest and (expected) medal-round game involving the host country.Broadcast veteran Dan Kelly will handle the play-by-play, with Ron Reusch and retired NHL veteran Brad Park providing color commentary.Though CTV will be at all of Canada&rsquo;s games, there&rsquo;s no guarantee they&rsquo;ll be shown in full. That, says CTV domestic producer Ed Mercel, depends on the degree of drama in other events happening at the same time.Mercel, who describes the Olympics as a &ldquo;nine-ring circus,&rdquo; says his team will constantly be making on-the-spot decisions as to what events should be carried, and when.&ldquo;By virtue of the fact that hockey is a two-and-a-half hour telecast, it makes it difficult to carry it all uninterrupted,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If we&rsquo;ve got a 27-0 score, we&rsquo;re going to look desperately for someplace else to go. But for all of the planning and thinking, when push comes to shove, (the decision) is usually all there in front of you. Usually, the choice is very easy.&rdquo;Mercel says the network&rsquo;s policy is to carry as much live as possible, with special emphasis on Canadian medal-contenders.&ldquo;My intention and plan is to do as much updating on our programming as humanly possible,&rdquo; he adds.Still, it&rsquo;s a good bet that Canada&rsquo;s Feb. 18 game against Finland and its Feb. 22 game against Sweden&mdash;both medal contenders&mdash;will be carried almost entirely. Preliminary-round games against Poland, France and Switzerland are more likely to be lopsided.Mercel says the network will also carry games involving other countries, but those games won&rsquo;t be decided on until the Olympics are under way. Much depends, he says, on which games and which teams become more important as the tournament progresses.&ldquo;Obviously, we&rsquo;re going to see a lot of the U.S., because they&rsquo;re mostly in prime-time (all five American prelimary-round games start at 6:15 p.m. or later Mountain time) and mostly in the Saddledome.&rdquo;Canadians won&rsquo;t be so fortunate. Four of five preliminaryround games involving Canada start between 2 and 2:30 p.m. The timing, especially for eastern Canadians, who are two or three hours ahead, isn&rsquo;t the best.&ldquo;It does hurt, but we have no choice,&rdquo; Mercel admits. &ldquo;But we are planning coverage. It&rsquo;s some-thing we&rsquo;ve had to live with.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0028-01

CTV To Cover Canadian Olympians’ Games

<div class="byline">BY JEFF GORDON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01537/5384039-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="180" height="134"></div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;The St. Louis Blues bottomed out Dec. 5 when they played 60 minutes of listless hockey at home and lost 3-2 to the New York Rangers.That was their fourth loss in five games. It left them 9-14-2 and in last place in the Norris Division. Unamused, coach Jacques Martin cancelled the Blues&rsquo; day off and made them skate for nearly two hours before their Christmas skating party.The Blues faced a seven-game stretch which featured six road games. It was sink-or-swim time&mdash;and the Blues managed to re-surface with a 4-0-3 unbeaten streak to escape the Norris Division cellar.&ldquo;This was more than a good trip,&rdquo; Blues&rsquo; captain Brian Sutter said. &ldquo;It was just a great trip.&rdquo;Center Bernie Federko agreed. &ldquo;I think everybody was writing us off on the road trip,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We showed everybody that we&rsquo;re not only a hardworking team, but we can be a successful team on the road as well. Everybody was busting their butt. Now everybody knows we can win games when we work hard.&rdquo;The Blues rallied for a 4-4 tie at Detroit with two third-period goals. They rallied from a quick 2-0 deficit to tie the Islanders in New York. They rallied from an even quicker 3-0 deficit to stun the Bruins 7-5 in Boston.They also shut out Hartford, won for the third straight time in Minnesota, handled Pittsburgh at home and battled Washington to a 1-1 tie at the Capital Centre.Goaltender Rick Wamsley was instrumental, allowing just three goals in &lsquo;a string of three victories. Center Doug Gilmour came to life, trimming his plus-minus rating from minus-21 to minus-14.After generating no points in his first 12 games, Perry Turnbull moved to left wing on the Federko line and delivered five points in seven games. Led by Sutter, Gilmour and Rick Meagher, the Blues&rsquo; penalty-killers rose to No. 2 in league rankings. They snuffed out 14 of 16 penalties against Boston and Washington in a 27-hour span.And there was more. The Blues began playing more consistently, working from shift to shift instead of lapsing into 10- and 20-minute lulls. What caused the Blues&rsquo; transformation?&ldquo;That&rsquo;s confidence in yourselves,&rdquo; Sutter said. &ldquo;It has nothing to do with togetherness. We&rsquo;ve been together. This is what happens when you win. You get confidence in everybody around you.&rdquo;Are the Blues on track? Martin said they&rsquo;ve been on track most of the season. &ldquo;Losing those first four games really hurt the hockey club,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;After that 0-4 start, every time we lost one or two games, people were saying this hockey club was in trouble. I&rsquo;ve always liked the chemistry on this team.&rdquo;But despite their seven-game unbeaten streak, the Blues know they can&rsquo;t relax.&ldquo;When you go five or six or seven games, then you have to go 10,&rdquo; Sutter said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re still around.500. We&rsquo;re not a great hockey team.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Blues&rsquo; GM Ron Caron has cooled on Winnipeg Jet right winger Paul MacLean. Apparently, Jet GM John Ferguson was asking for defenseman Rob Ramage in return&hellip;With Perry Turnbull revived at left wing, veteran Ron Flockhart was scratched for seven games and counting. Though he has improved his defensive play, Flockhart doesn&rsquo;t play a tough game&mdash;and Martin is putting a premium on toughness&hellip;A collision with Bryan Trottier put defenseman Charlie Bourgeois on the shelf for more than a week with a slightly separated shoulder&hellip;Greg Paslawski returned to the lineup at right wing, but was drawing only light fourth-line work&hellip;Rick Wamsley&rsquo;s shutout of Hartford was his second of the season and his eighth career. Then he shut out Washington for more than 57 minutes in his next outing&hellip;Rob Ramage got his 300th career assist against Boston.<h2>BLUES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Bernie Federko, Doug Gilmour, Rick Meagher, Tony Hrkac.LW&mdash;BrianSutter, Gino Cavallini, Perry Turnbull, Doug Evans, Ron Flockhart.RW&mdash;Mark Hunter, Tony McKegney, Herb Raglan, Greg Paslawski, Todd Ewen.LD&mdash;Brian Benning, Paul Cavallini, Gaston Gingras.RD&mdash;Rob Ramage, Tim Bothwell, Robert Nordmark.G&mdash;Greg Millen, Rick Wamsley.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Charlie Bourgeois, D, slight shoulder separation, Dec. 26. &#9632;

f0029-01

Drownina Blues Get Hold Of Life Preserver

AROUND JUNIOR HOCKEY clubs coached by that splendid old warrior, the late Eddie Bush, the words heard most often were: Keep both hands on the stick, and the stick on the ice.&ldquo;Rod, if you can show me how you can snare a pass with that stick up by your ear. you can carry it there all the time and if you can go a whole season without getting a dumb penalty for a stick foul, you can keep it there,&rdquo; said Bush to Rod Gilbert, at the time a wonderful Guelph Biltmore junior player.When he was inducted into the Hall Of Fame, Gilbert reminisced about his three seasons under Bush before going on to a fine National Hockey League career with the New York Rangers.&ldquo;In junior hockey. Busher harped about not keeping our sticks on the ice,&rdquo; Gilbert recalled. &ldquo;When I had a few years in the NHL, I realized he was right. Keep your stick on the ice and you not only are ready for a pass but you don&rsquo;t get dumb penalties.&rdquo;The NHL&rsquo;s crackdown on stick infractions (especially the restraining fouls), and ensuing complaints about the penalties from players and executives, is probably inspiring a few chuckles from Eddie Bush.If the game had heeded Bush&rsquo;s warnings about keeping sticks on the ice, there would be fewer problems with the way hockey is played and officiated. The NHL&rsquo;s problem with the way sticks are deployed is a major one, a woe to which the answer is a long deprogramming of a conditioned reflex. The hockey stick has become a weapon, used for far too many things not involving the puck.To say that back in the six-team NHL days there were no two-handers, spearings in the stomach and cross-checks to the backs of necks is wrong. But hockey sticks spent much more time on the ice and if the adjective &ldquo;good&rdquo; could be applied to the old days, the use of sticks for the game&rsquo;s pure skills was the &ldquo;good&rdquo; part of it.Of course, it&rsquo;s an easy explanation for the number of stick fouls to say that because players wear helmets and face shields now, the workers aren&rsquo;t as careful about whacking where it hurts. Perhaps there&rsquo;s a faint bit of validity to that theory but it&rsquo;s far too simplistic.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01615/5384070-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="377" height="419"><figcaption class="caption-body">Frank Orr</figcaption></div>The big reason why stick fouls are so prevalent in the game today is that using the lumber to check is the easiest approach, the one that requires the least amount of skill.To play in the NHL during the six-team days players needed skill in all areas of the game, not just in possession of the puck. Sure, the Rangers, Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins, who went through long stretches with dreadful teams, often had many skaters who were not defensively efficient. But to play on a good team meant being able to check and that part of the game was a skill as carefully developed as passing the puck.Checking in those days didn&rsquo;t mean high-sticking, tripping, hooking or slashing an opponent. It meant using the body to impede a foe&rsquo;s progress.Development of the defensive skills to a high degree meant that a small player, a Dave Keon or Henri Richard, true artists when not in possession of the puck, could check a much larger man, a Jean Beliveau or Gordie Howe.But because defensive play has degenerated, first, into a punch in the mouth and then into a boring succession of stick fouls and interference, the game has suffered. The art of clean, open-ice bodychecks has also slowly vanished as sticks have come up&mdash;and to throw a stickdown, clean hit means wood in the face.The crackdown on stick fouls at the bigleague level is a fine idea and abandonment of it because of all the whining would be wrong. But where the stick-on-the-ice campaign needs to be stressed is at the youngest possible levels of the game. Kids who wave their gads around or use the wood solely as a defensive instrument should be sent home until they learn the proper way to play. &#9632;

f0030-01

Stick To Hockey As It Was Meant To Be Played,

<div class="byline">BY MIKE PERRICONE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02447/5384101-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="179" height="135"></div>CHICAGO&mdash;For a little guy, Darren Pang is carrying a big load.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the Messiah,&rdquo; Chicago Blackhawk coach Bob Murdoch said. But though Murdoch was laughing, he wasn&rsquo;t being entirely humorous.At 5-foot-5 and 150 pounds, Pang looks like a stick boy, and his teammates call him &lsquo;Spanky.&rsquo; But he has been giving the Hawks goaltending on par with any in the NHL.He made five straight starts from Dec. 12 to Dec. 20. The Hawks were outshot 185-146. but Pang still won three straight games and allowed just 10 goals plus an empty-netter.Facing an average of 37 shots per game, he lost the first start to Washington, beat Toronto, then beat Minnesota and Toronto, both on the road, then lost to Boston at Chicago Stadium. His first victory over Toronto ended the Hawks&rsquo; eight-game losing streak. At Minnesota, he ended the Hawks&rsquo; miserable road streaks of 12 straight losses, and 15 straight winless games (014-1).&ldquo;He&rsquo;s our big stopper in there,&rdquo; Murdoch said.At least temporarily. Pang has supplanted Bob Mason as the Hawks&rsquo; primary goaltender. Mason, who signed as a free agent for a reported $ 1 million, was lifted in three of his last four starts.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just taking it day-by-day, game-by-game,&rdquo; Pang said. &ldquo;Right now the situation is that we&rsquo;re going well.&ldquo;Bob Mason is working hard, and (goaltending coach) Wayne Thomas is working hard with him. He&rsquo;s got a great attitude.&rdquo;Pang took the opportunity to lower his goals-against average to 3.77 and improve his record to 6-9-0. And he raised his save percentage to an impressive.901, one of the league&rsquo;s best. All this while facing an average of 38.2 shots per game this season.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s on top of his game,&rdquo; Murdoch said. &ldquo;He handles the puck very well. He helps the defense. He clears rebounds very well. He has an excellent glove hand, and he&rsquo;s a very, very quick player.&ldquo;All through this, he&rsquo;s kept his enthusiasm. He has a great personality. The guys like him and they respond to him. And he&rsquo;s playing well.&rdquo;Pang, 23, is a rookie who served a three-year apprenticeship in Milwaukee, Saginaw and Halifax. He wasn&rsquo;t drafted after playing junior in Ottawa, and signed with the Hawks as a free agent in September, 1984. He has maintained a fresh perspective.&ldquo;I just got a letter from my old high school principal,&rdquo; Pang said after losing to Boston. &ldquo;He said. &lsquo;Now I know why you missed all that school.&rsquo; &ldquo;NOTES&mdash;Steve Larmer scored the 200th goal of his career Dec. 19 at Toronto. It was a shorthanded goal, his fourth of the season&hellip;Defenseman Doug Wilson was still sidelined with a shoulder problem that has been difficult to diagnose. &ldquo;I keep hoping it just a pinched nerve, and I&rsquo;ll wake up some morning and it&rsquo;ll all be gone,&rdquo; said Wilson, in his 11th season with the Hawks&hellip;The Hawks&rsquo; penaltykilling remained among the best in the NHL. But without Wilson at the point, the power play slipped into a 7-for-48 slump (14.5 percent)&hellip;The Hawks played 20 of their first 32 games on the road. Their road record: 4-15-1. They had a three-game homestand at the end of December and a four-game homestand early in January&hellip;Defenseman Keith Brown has been recovering more quickly than expected from knee surgery, and hopes to return by February.<h2>BLACKHAWKS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Denis Savard, Troy Murray, Brian Noonan, Steve Ludzik, Mike Stapleton.LW&mdash;Curt Fraser, Dan Vincelette, Everett Sanipass, Dave Mackey.RW&mdash;Steve Larmer, Rick Vaive, Mark LaVarre.LD&mdash;Gary Nylund, Glen Cochrane, Jim Playfair.RD&mdash;Bob McGill, Bob Murray, Marc Bergevin, Rik Wilson.G&mdash;Bob Mason, Darren Pang.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Keith Brown, D, knee surgery, Feb. 1.Wayne Presley. RW, knee surgery, Mar. 1.Duane Sutter, RW, right knee cartilage, indefinite.Steve Thomas, LW, pulled groin, indefinite.Behn Wilson, pulled groin, day-to-day.Doug Wilson. D, shoulder strain, indefinite. &#9632;

f0030-02

Pang Eases Hawk Hunger For Goaltending

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01561/5384139-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="596" height="787"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shayne Corson&rsquo;s goal against Quebec was his first on home ice this season.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02390/5384146-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="182" height="134"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;Larry Trader has become the forgotten Canadien.Ever since he arrived in Montreal in the Oct. 13 deal which sent Gaston Gingras to the St. Louis Blues, Trader has gone about his business virtually unnoticed.A five-week stay in sick bay didn&rsquo;t help the Barry&rsquo;s Bay, Ont., native. Trader suffered a knee injury in Boston Nov. 12 and did not return to action until Dec. 19 against the Buffalo Sabres.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think the knee is ever totalPl rehabilitated,&rdquo; saidTrader. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s close enough, though, that it won&rsquo;t bother me.&rdquo;Trader was ready to return sooner but, with the Canadiens in the midst of a prolonged unbeaten streak and coach Jean Perron sticking with a five-defenseman plan, there was no place to play him.&ldquo;You have to stay in shape,&rdquo; Trader said. &ldquo;The guys who aren&rsquo;t playing, I think, have to work twice as hard just to stay in shape.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard mentally as well. You have to stay up mentally every day as if you are playing. That&rsquo;s the toughest part.&rdquo;Trader is the No. 7 defenseman on the team. He dislodged Scott Sandelin, who seemed assured of the job. Now Sandelin is in Sherbrooke, but Trader still is not certain what his future holds.He tried not to think about the possible negatives while he sat out with Mike Lalor, the No. 6 man.&ldquo;I just wanted to work hard and strengthen myself on the upper body,&rdquo; Trader said. &ldquo;I never really thought about it.&rdquo;Then there was the speculation that Trader would find himself back with the Canadian Olympic team, exactly where he was this time last year while a member of the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; organization. With the Olympics only a couple of months away, excitement is growing, but Trader would prefer not to go that route.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to stay here,&rdquo; Trader said. &ldquo;I have learned a lot since I have been here and I think I can learn a lot more. Every player&rsquo;s dream is to play in the National Hockey League. That&rsquo;s what I want to do.&ldquo;But the Olympic program is a once-in-a-lifetime shot. It wouldn&rsquo;t be a major disappointment for me either.&rdquo;Trader, a third-round draft choice by Detroit in 1981, knows that with Chris Chelios due to come back earlier than anticipated from a broken little finger, there might be a few more non-playing nights than he would like. Still, the tutelage of former Norris Trophy winner Jacques Laperriere has improved his game, and he wants to continue improving.&ldquo;I think the biggest thing I have noticed here, in comparison to other teams I have played on, is that they teach you little things.&rdquo; Trader said. &ldquo;They point out things they noticed in previous games, and little things that you do, and they tell you how to do it right.&ldquo;The keys have been on playing defense&mdash;how to take the guy out without taking yourself out of the play and how to clear the front of the net properly without getting yourself tied up.&ldquo;You also learn how to win. There is so much history and tradition here-&hellip;guys like Bob Gainey and Larry Robinson have been here through the winning years and that kind of attitude carries over to Guy Carbonneau and Ryan Walter. They pick it up from Bob and Larry, and people like Shayne Corson and Mike Lalor pick it up from those guys. It just keeps snowballing.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-03286/5384132-1-eng-US/f0031-032.jpg" title="f0031-03" width="590" height="782"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Smith&rsquo;s 11-game pointscoring streak was snapped in a loss to Buffalo.</figcaption></div>Trader, who felt he was never really given a chance to show his wares for the Blues, is content with his lot right now. He has taken a step upward in his hockey career and would like to continue in the same direction.NOTES&mdash;Bobby Smith had an 11-game point-scoring streak snapped Dec. 19 in a 2-1 home-ice loss to Buffalo&hellip;The loss to the Sabres also snapped Montreal&rsquo;s nine-game unbeaten string and 14-game home-ice unbeaten mark&hellip;Shayne Corson scored his first home-ice goal of the season in a 5-4 victory over Quebec Dec. 16&hellip;Both Stephane Richer and Larry Robinson were bothered by sore wrists in recent games, but nothing serious enough to sideline them. Richer led the NHL with six game-winning goals&hellip;Canadien defenseman Petr Svoboda, who defected from Czechoslovakia in 1984, officially became a Canadian citizen in a pre-game ceremony Dec. 19.<h2>CANADIENS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 17&mdash;Perry Ganchar, RW, traded so Pittsburgh for future considerations.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Shayne Corson, Bobby Smith, Guy Carbonneau, Brian Skrudland.LW&mdash;Mats Naslund, Ryan Walter, Bob Gainey, Mike McPhee.RW&mdash;Stephane Richer, Claude Lemieux, Chris Nilan, Sergio Mornes-so, Kjell Dahlin, John Kordic.LD&mdash;Craig Ludwig, Mike Lalor, Larry Trader.RD&mdash;Larry Robinson, Rick Green, Petr Svoboda.G&mdash;Patrick Roy, Brian Hayward.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Chris Chelios, D, broken little fingei on left hand, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0031-01

Forgotten Canadien Learning How To Win

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03289/5384208-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="392" height="466"><figcaption class="caption-body">Barry Meisel</figcaption></div>MONDAY, DEC. 14 was the 68th day of Mike Bossy&rsquo;s lost season. And it was a good day.When he woke up in his Jericho, L.L, condominium, his back wasn&rsquo;t attacking the rest of his body. That&rsquo;s the first thing he checks each day.Two hours of therapy&mdash;he reports to his therapist at 8:30 a.m. each Monday, Wednesday and Friday&mdash;didn&rsquo;t knock him out.There was a decent movie on cable that afternoon, hot coffee in the kitchen. Lucie, his wife of 10 years, spared him the struggle of wrestling with two bags of groceries. And he was home at 2:30 p.m. to greet Tanya, his five-year-old, when she returned from kindergarten.But a lot of days haven&rsquo;t been so kind to the New York Islanders&rsquo; superstar on sabbatical. Bossy turns 31 next month and he still has no idea if he&rsquo;ll play another NHL game, score another NHL goal, take another of the thousands of NHL hits that the doctors think helped cause the deterioration of two discs in his lower spine.&ldquo;I go through periods of time where I look to the future and think of coming back,&rdquo; Bossy said on Day 68. &ldquo;Where am I now? In between.&ldquo;Last week I was sort of in the give-up-and-forget-about-it stage. I guess it runs on how my back is. There are times that, for no apparent reason, it will just be worse and get me into having that kind of attitude.&rdquo;Not since Oct. 5, the day Islander GM Bill Torrey announced his superstar right winger would sit out 198788, has Bossy come close to feeling well enough to play again.&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m getting more scared as time goes on,&rdquo; he said, resting comfortably on the plush leather sofa in a den that has become his roost. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just wondering if I&rsquo;ll be able to come back. If I&rsquo;ve gone through a year, or if I come back next September, which would be 14 months (it would actually be 16 months since he last skated)&hellip;I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;ll want to keep playing if I&rsquo;ve sat out for that long.&rdquo;Therapy has made Bossy&rsquo;s body stronger, if you overlook the first stages of a spongy belly that inactivity and hearty home-cooking have spawned. But he&rsquo;s not sure if therapy has helped his back.&ldquo;Actually I feel worse now than I did during the summer,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I guess you could say that&rsquo;s normal because I&rsquo;m doing something now. During the summer I wasn&rsquo;t doing anything.&rdquo;That something is the thrice-weekly program with his therapist. The routine begins with Bossy lying on heat for 10 minutes. It continues with a series of stretching exercises and concludes with a full circuit of Nautilus machine exercises. Each night, Bossy completes a set of free-weight exercises at home.&ldquo;Not for one minute was it just concentrating on the back, aside from the times I was really sore,&rdquo; Bossy says of the program. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s happened a couple of times. The theory is that they want me to get as strong as I can, total body strength, to compensate for the problem that I may have in the disc area. Up until now, what she&rsquo;s noticed is I&rsquo;m physically a lot stronger than when I started, which is only normal because I hadn&rsquo;t done anything for four or five months.&rdquo;Bossy&rsquo;s program is overseen by Dr. Jeffrey Minkoff, the Islanders&rsquo; team physician, who confers regularly with the therapist, trainer Craig Smith and Torrey. From the very beginning, Torrey said he and his staff wouldn&rsquo;t comment publicly on Bossy&rsquo;s progress.Torrey believes that Bossy will be helped by not having to think of his progress on a day-to-day basis. Bossy can&rsquo;t help but think about how he&rsquo;s doing every time his back cries out in pain.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just so used to the pain now, that it&rsquo;s like second nature. I don&rsquo;t buckle over in two when I do something, but I can feel a strain. It hurts to breathe sometimes. It&rsquo;s no big deal, it&rsquo;s just that it&rsquo;s always there.&rdquo;And so is the question: Will he ever be well enough to return?&ldquo;First of all, I wouldn&rsquo;t come back unless I knew that my back had gone through a heavy exercise program to know that my back was okay. And then, it would be scary.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve thought about it at times, and I wonder. I watch games now. Probably because of the condition that I&rsquo;m in, I wonder if I&rsquo;ll be able to keep up.&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s probably just the way I&rsquo;ve always been. I&rsquo;ve always wondered how well I&rsquo;d do.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0032-03

Islander Star Contemplates Whether He’ll Ever Return

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02434/5384239-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="177" height="136"></div>QUEBEC CITY&mdash;No one ever accused Ron Lapointe of being small-minded when it comes to player personnel.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want any more small players on my team,&rdquo; the Nordiques&rsquo; new coach said, minutes after Quebec traded 5-foot-10, 180-pound right winger Stu Kulak to Winnipeg for defenseman Bobby Dollas. &ldquo;I have enough. And enough is enough.&rdquo;Kulak, pegged at the start of the season as a tough guy, couldn&rsquo;t do the job, Lapointe said.The size factor came into play Dec. 16, the coach added, in the Nordiques&rsquo; 5-4 loss to the Montreal Canadiens.&ldquo;We lost all of our battles along the boards,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and that&rsquo;s where the game unfolded.&ldquo;We have enough small players, and that&rsquo;s why I don&rsquo;t want any more. Unless a player is as talented as a Joe Sakic (Quebec&rsquo;s first-round pick in &lsquo;87 who is now with Canada&rsquo;s national junior team) or has as much grit as Mike Eagles, I&rsquo;d prefer a big fellow. A very big fellow.&rdquo;Dollas, 22, fits that particular bill. A first-round pick (14th overall) in the 1983 entry draft, Dollas stands 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds. In 26 games with Moncton of the American League, he had four goals and 10 assists. Kulak was 1-1-2 in 14 games in Quebec.Dollas was assigned to Fredericton as soon as the deal was struck, but he may not stay there long.&ldquo;I know Bobby very well,&rdquo; said Lapointe. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big fellow who&rsquo;ll give us more depth at the blue line. He was playing very good hockey in Moncton and we&rsquo;ll try and build up his confidence.&rdquo;Dollas has played just 56 games in the NHL, earning no goals, five assists and 66 penalty minutes.When Kulak was traded, Lapointe said the Nords would probably wait a little while before calling up anyone from the farm&mdash;but that changed when right winger Lane Lambert suffered a broken finger Dec. 20.&ldquo;Now we don&rsquo;t have much choice,&rdquo; said Lapointe. &ldquo;But we still don&rsquo;t know who we&rsquo;ll recall.&rdquo;The best bet would be Trevor Stien-burg, the Nords&rsquo; first draft pick (15th overall) in 1984. Stienburg, injured most of the past two seasons, is a 6-foot-2, 200-pound right wingercenter.&ldquo;Trevor deserves a chance to show his stuff in the NHL, said Lapuint &ldquo;but other guys could also come and help us. Mike Hough is one of them.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Alan Haworth scored a goal on Dec. 20, his first since Nov. 9. &ldquo;I had my chances, but I just couldn&rsquo;t put it in,&rdquo; the center said&hellip;Jason Laf-reniere, sent down to the minors Dec. 3, will probably be in Fredericton until thenewyear. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to stay there another little while,&rdquo; said Ron Lapointe. &ldquo;We want to make a player out of him and we want to do it right. The intensity just isn&rsquo;t there. That&rsquo;s what we want to correct.&rdquo;&hellip;Rumors have Jocelyn Lemieux, Claude&rsquo;s kid brother and the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; first pick in the 1986 entry draft, coming to Quebec. Lemieux was recently demoted to Peoria Rivermen of the International League.<h2>NORDIQUES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 17: Stu Kulak, RW, traded to the Winnipeg Jets for Bobby Dollas, De Dollas assigned to Fredericton (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Peter Stastny, Alan Haworth, Paul Gillis, Jeff Jackson.LW&mdash;Michel Goulet, Gaetan Duchesne, Mike Eagles, Terry Carkner.RW&mdash;Anton Stastny, Alain Cote, Gord Donnelly.LD&mdash;Normand Rochefort, Steven Finn.RD&mdash;Robert Picard, Randy Moller, Jeff Brown, Tommy Albelin,G&mdash;Mario Gosselin, Mario Brunetta.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Stephane Guerard, D, arthroscopic surgery, right knee, indefinite.Lane Lambert, RW, complex fracture of second finger on left hand, indefinite. &#9632;

f0032-02

Nordiques’ Mentor Thinks Big In Deal

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01528/5384270-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="590" height="748"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bruin Jay Miller credits his offensive improvements to an increase in ice time.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02373/5384277-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="180" height="135"></div>BOSTON&mdash;Jay Miller is not accustomed to a lot of media attention. But then again, he isn&rsquo;t used to scoring two goals in a game, either.Was he looking for a hat trick? Miller, whose 123 penalty minutes in 33 games spells out clearly his role on the Boston Bruins, looked askance at the questioner.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not what I look for,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I go out there and try to get a couple of good hits and if the puck happens to be on my stick in front of the net, I&rsquo;ll try to put it in.&ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t try to get the three goals or the two or the one. I just try to get a couple of assists or a couple of good hits in and get the team going.&rdquo;His two goals in the Bruins&rsquo; 7-5 loss to St. Louis on Dec. 19 were typical Miller goals&mdash;if there is such a thing for a guy whose NHL career goal total rocketed to eight after the game.One of them, using his stick like a pool cue. he rammed under goalie Greg Millen during a scramble in front of the net. The second, he tipped in defenseman Glen Wesley&rsquo;s soft shot from the blue line.He was most proud of the second score, his fourth of the season.&ldquo;Since he (Wesley) got here,&rdquo; said Miller, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ve worked on him taking a wrist shot instead of a slap shot. It kind of paid off tonight.&ldquo;Glen got it nice, walked across the blue line and gave a nice little wrist shot. I happened to be screening the goalie and tried to tap it.&ldquo;Usually, I try to stop the puck instead of tipping it but this time it happened to go in the net.&rdquo;Miller, a local boy from suburban Natick and the University of New Hampshire, was signed by the Bruins as a free agent in September of 1985.He was signed for one purpose&mdash;to provide the team with some muscle up front and raise an occasional fist in anger. Anything else is considered gravy.This season, along with the beef, he&rsquo;s providing more and more gravy. His second goal this year was the game winner in a 3-2 decision over Toronto Nov. 11.&ldquo;How come a player of your, er, reputation is suddenly scoring goals?&rdquo; asked a diplomatic Toronto writer after the game.&ldquo;You mean a goon,&rdquo; said Miller pleasantly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been working extra hard, not only lately but in the 2-1/2 years I&rsquo;ve been here.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m still a fourth-line left winger, but they want me to play this year. They don&rsquo;t want me sitting on the bench.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve worked hard. I&rsquo;ve lost 15 to 20 pounds (down to 205) and got my speed back to where it was in college.&ldquo;The big thing is that I&rsquo;m playing now. Last year, I played maybe two or three shifts a game. Now, I&rsquo;m getting three or four a period and that allows me to get into the flow.&ldquo;I hear the goon talk but I wouldn&rsquo;t be here if I couldn&rsquo;t play the game. I might be an average or better-than-average fighter but that&rsquo;s not going to keep me in the game.&ldquo;I think I can be like Chris Nilan on the Canadiens and the more you play, you get better and better. It&rsquo;s all ice time. I&rsquo;m still a fourth-line winger. I&rsquo;ve just gotten a few more breaks, that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;From the start of the season, Miller has been playing left wing on a line with Billy O&rsquo;Dwyer at center and Willi Plett, another physical presence, on right wing.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying some new systems now,&rdquo; said Miller after his offensive show against the Blues. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re dumping and running. Willi goes in or Billy goes in and takes the man.&ldquo;We have one man high and I happened to be the guy high two different times tonight. We&rsquo;ve been doing it all year. It just happened to go in this time.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Bruin Ken Linseman and Doug Gilmour of St. Louis combined to set an NHL record, for the two quickest goals, in the last minute of the Blues&rsquo; 7-5 victory. With the goalie pulled, Linseman scored at 19:50 to make it 6-5. On the ensuing faceoff at center ice, Gilmour took a shot instead of going for control and the puck slid into the empty Bruin net. Only two seconds elapsed for a goal at 19:52. The old record was four seconds, set originally by Pittsburgh and Atlanta in 1977 and equalled on five occasions after that&hellip;After the loss to St. Louis, the Bruins had the third-best record in the NHL (41 points) and the worst power play with only 31 goals in 198 opportunities.<h2>BRUINS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Ken Linseman, Steve Kasper, Bob Sweeney, Billy O&rsquo;Dwyer.RW&mdash;Cam Neely, Keith Crowder, Willi Plett, Lyndon Byers.LW&mdash;-Rick Middleton, Randy Burridge, Geoff Courtnail, Jay Miller.RD&mdash;Ray Bourque, Reed Larson, Michael Thelven, Frank Simonetti.LD&mdash;Gord Kluzak, Glen Wesley, Allen Pedersen.G&mdash;Reggie Lemelin, Doug Keans.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Tommy Lehmann, C, left knee sprain, Jan. 2.Nevin Markwart, RW, left shoulder surgery, Feb. 27.Tom McCarthy, C, right knee sprain, indefinite. &#9632;

f0033-01

Goals Threaten Miller’s ‘Goon’ Reputation

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01605/5384308-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="180" height="129"></div>HARTFORD&mdash;The mood and the message have changed in Hartford.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t claim to be the best team,&rdquo; said general manager Emile Francis at the club&rsquo;s December press luncheon. &ldquo;If anybody was to stand here and promise you the Stanley Cup, he&rsquo;d have to be out of his cottonpicking mind.&rdquo;For the last two or three seasons, Hartford has led the NHL in promises, so much so, in fact, that advertisers last year were building trophy cases to store the Cup. Promotions this year point to the Whalers climbing back to the top of the Adams Division.Through the years, Francis and the brass have deflected none of the praise and have done nothing to discourage burgeoning hopes.Until now.Perhaps it wasn&rsquo;t Cup fever that prompted Hartford&rsquo;s Downtown Council to fete the Whalers with a parade two seasons back, but it was something close.In short, all the dreams appeared to be alive in Hartford. After a 13-13-6 start, however, the dreams and the goals have been scaled downward.&ldquo;The only thing I&rsquo;ll tell you is that we&rsquo;re going to have a competitive hockey club and people are going to get their money&rsquo;s worth when they come to see us play,&rdquo; Francis said.An 0-5-0 start sobered the legions of Whale supporters and rankled Francis, who promised there would be major changes if the team continued to hover around the.500 mark.As the NHL season approached the half-mile pole, Francis hadn&rsquo;t pulled the trigger.&ldquo;I sure as heck won&rsquo;t promise anything like winning the Cup because I know what the odds are,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to be good and you&rsquo;ve got to be lucky.&rdquo;Francis simply hasn&rsquo;t had much luck in finding cures for a 40-38-8 run that dates back to last Christmas.&ldquo;When you get in a rut, your main objective is to get the best out of the players you&rsquo;ve got,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;If that doesn&rsquo;t work, you go to the minor and try the players there. Next you make a trade.&ldquo;But if you make a trade just for the sake of making one, you&rsquo;re generally sorry. When you&rsquo;re going bad and you trade, you usually end up getting a rowboat for a battleship.&rdquo;Considering that the Whalers haven&rsquo;t been on anything close to a roll since last year&rsquo;s 18-9-5 start that catapulted them to the divisional title, Francis hasn&rsquo;t been in a position to deal when the team was going well.&ldquo;We never claimed to be the best team in the league, but maybe one of the better teams,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The past two years is as close as I&rsquo;ve seen to parity since before the first expansion. We won&rsquo;t build a team like Edmonton here in Hartford in four or five years. It&rsquo;s just not possible anymore.&rdquo;Francis claims, however, that the Whalers aren&rsquo;t that far away from the Oilers.&ldquo;There are one or two really good teams, and you can take the rest a put them in a hat,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;To be successful, you have to be prepared to fight your pants off every night.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Mike Liut signed a three-year-plus-one contract that includes the current season. Liut, who will turn 32 on Jan. 7, is the NHL&rsquo;s highest-paid goaltender at roughly $450,000 per year. Liut, sidelined earlier with back spasms, made eight straight starts at one point this year and 16 of 18. &ldquo;Liut is one of the most important acquisitions in the history of the Hartford Whalers,&rdquo; GM Emile Francis said. Liut has 18 career shutouts, third among current goaltenders. He is two behind Billy Smith and Gilles Meloche. Liut was in goal for a 4-3 win over Edmonton Dec. 19, the Whalers&rsquo; first ever against the NHL Oilers at Northlands Coliseum. They went into the game 0-11-2 at Edmonton.<h2>WHALERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Ronnie Francis, Dean Evason, Ray Ferraro, Brent Peterson.LW&mdash;Sylvain Turgeon, Paul Lawless, Dave Tippett, Dave Williams, Torrie Robertson.RW&mdash;Kevin Dineen, John Anderson, Paul MacDermid, Mike Millar, Mark Reeds.LD&mdash;Joel Quenneville, Dana Murzyn, Randy Ladouceur.RD&mdash;Dave Babych, Ulf Samuelsson, Scot Kleinendorst, Sylvain Cote.G&mdash;Mike Liut, Steve Weeks.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Stewart Gavin, RW, torn ankle ligaments, indefinite. &#9632;

f0034-01

Stanley Cup Fever Not What Ails Whalers

<div class="byline">BY AL MORGANTI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01570/5384339-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Tocchet, shown avoiding a check from Edmonton&rsquo;s Kevin Lowe, was victimized by a Nick Fotiu locker-room prank.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02452/5384346-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="179" height="137"></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Philadelphia Flyers are letting the good times roll&mdash;on and off the ice.Even when they were making their Stanley Cup bids in two of the past three seasons, the Flyers never seemed to be having as much fun winning as they did during an 11-game span in late November and December.Not only did the Flyers have smiles on their, faces due to a 9-0-2 record over the 11 games&mdash;catapulting them to within three points of first place in the Patrick Division&mdash;but there were other reasons for great, big belly laughs.Just more proof that the game is much more fun when you&rsquo;re winning.Although he&rsquo;s played a very minor role on the ice, veteran winger Nick Fotiu has become the major figure in the Flyers&rsquo; dressing room&mdash;and just about anywhere on a road trip. All the Flyers are looking to Fotiu, if for no other reason than they don&rsquo;t want to turn their back on one of the NHL&rsquo;s premier practical jokers.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s come to the\ point where nobody can sleep on a plane ride,&rdquo; said Flyer captain Dave Poulin. &ldquo;You just never know what Nick is going to do. &ldquo;Certainly, the Flyers haven&rsquo;t been sleeping during the latest stretch of games. After beating the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Dec. 15, they proceeded to knock off the New York Islanders in back-to-back games, Dec. 17 in Philadelphia and Dec. 19 on Long Island.The win against Pittsburgh raised their record to.500 for the first time since the seventh game of the season, while the two wins over the Islanders made the Flyers a very near, and real, threat to the first-place Isles.Getting into first place will be only slightly more enjoyable than the airplane ride that took the Flyers from Winnipeg to Pittsburgh. It was during the first leg of that trip that Fotiu picked out a seemingly dangerous target for a practical joke&mdash;coach Mike Keenan.Keenan is known as the Darth Vadar of coaches. Playing a practical joke on Keenan is akin to giving Scotty Bowman a hot foot.While Keenan snoozed on the plane, Fotiu filled the coach&rsquo;s shoes with shaving cream. It worked perfectly as Keenan stepped right into the mess, and walked rather gingerly for the remainder of the trip.Before that little incident, Fotiu had somehow managed to tie general manager Bob Clarke to a barrier at the Winnipeg airport, and Clarke looked like a pit bull trying to escape a leash.&ldquo;The coaches and general manager are part of the team, too,&rdquo; said Fotiu. &ldquo;I just treat everybody the same.&rdquo;&ldquo;I hope Nick never tries to go to sleep,&rdquo; said Poulin, &ldquo;because there are a lot of guys who want to get even with him.&rdquo;Included on that list is Rick Tocchet, the Flyers&rsquo; burly right winger who got the surprise of his life when he used a hair dryer after a game at the Spectrum. Instead of blowing just warm air, the dryer spit out about a pound of talcum powder all over Tocchet&rsquo;s wet hair. Thank you, Nick Fotiu.It appeared that Keenan took the first path of revenge. When Fotiu arrived at his locker after the pre-game skate in Pittsburgh, he found his shoes glued to the wall, his pants sewn together, and every button missing from his shirt.Keenan was the suspected culprit, but if he did make the assault, he certainly had an army of willing accomplices.&ldquo;They forget that they&rsquo;re dealing with the master,&rdquo; said Fotiu. &ldquo;This is war.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;With Brad Marsh out of the lineup for a few games because of a concussion, rookie Kerry Huffman played well, scoring goals in two successive games&hellip;Rookie defenseman Greg Smyth also played regularly over a four-game stretch&hellip;Wearing a helmet in the wake of the concussion, Marsh returned for the first game against the Islanders&hellip;The Flyers&rsquo; power play struck for four goals in seven advantages during the victory at Long Island&hellip;The 11-game unbeaten string was the longest for the Flyers since a 13-game winning streak two seasons ago.<h2>FLYERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 16: Brian Dobbin, RW, returned to Hershey (AHL).Dec. 18: Craig Berube, LW, returned to Hershey.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Dave Poulin, Ron Sutter, Peter Zezel.RW&mdash;Rick Tocchet, Scott Mellanby, llkka Sinisalo, Dave Brown.LW&mdash;Brian Propp, Murray Craven, Derrick Smith, Lindsay Carson, Nick Fotiu.LD&mdash;Mark Howe, Brad Marsh, Kerry Huffman, Greg Smyth.RD&mdash; Doug Crossman, Kjell Samuelsson, Bill Root, J.J. Daigneualt.G&mdash;Ron Hextall, Mark Laforest.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Tim Kerr, RW, repeated shoulder surgery, indefinite. &#9632;

f0035-01

Flyers Put On Happy Face—On And Off Ice

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01545/5384377-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="180" height="135"></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;It is a piece of cloth weighing perhaps one-half ounce and covering about nine square inches.But so far as Pittsburgh Penguin coach Pierre Creamer is concerned, it had become too much of a burden for center Dan Quinn.Consequently, Creamer stripped-slump-ridden Quinn of the &lsquo;A&rsquo; that represented his alternate captaincy before the Penguins&rsquo; 31st game of the season.Quinn, disappointed at losing his position, was even more dismayed by the way Creamer handled the change from Quinn to left winger Dave Hunter.&ldquo;I still haven&rsquo;t been told by him it was done,&rdquo; said the 22-year-old after his first game without the alternate captaincy, a 7-4 win over New Jersey on Dec. 17.A Hockey Trip To Moscow:&ldquo;I came in (the dressing room) and saw a patch over it. I thought it was handled unprofessionally, so therefore, I&rsquo;m a little upset by it.&rdquo;Creamer said he made the switch&mdash;a seemingly radical one, given that Quinn&rsquo;s only offense appeared to be suffering through a slump&mdash;to help Quinn regain the form that produced 28 goals and 43 assists in 64 games after being acquired from Calgary last November.&ldquo;I took it to have him play his game,&rdquo; Creamer said. &ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s putting a little bit too much pressure on (himself). He&rsquo;s young.&rdquo;A day before Quinn lost his alternate captaincy, he was one of a handful of players required to do extra work at the practice that followed a 5-2 loss to Philadelphia.&ldquo;I was disappointed the way things were handled (that day) in practice, and today just compounded it,&rdquo; Quinn said.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s just trying to punish me. I haven&rsquo;t been playing well and I know that&hellip;It shows very little commitment to the decision he made at the beginning of the year.&rdquo;During the final weekend of the exhibition season, Creamer named right winger Dan Frawley captain and Quinn and Mario Lemieux the alternates.Lemieux succeeded Frawley after Frawley suffered a serious knee injury, and Lemieux&rsquo;s &lsquo;A&rsquo; was given to defenseman Paul Coffey.Although upset by Creamer&rsquo;s decision&mdash;and subsequent failure to inform him of it&mdash;Quinn said he does not plan any rash action, such as asking to be traded.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never been like that. I&rsquo;m never going to quit. I like these guys and I&rsquo;m going to do whatever I can to help my teammates.&rdquo;Creamer professed to be impressed by Quinn&rsquo;s play in his first game without the &lsquo;A.&rsquo; &ldquo;He wants to prove to me he&rsquo;s a good hockey player and he played like last year.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;We have to play as a team and Danny Quinn is important to our team&hellip;&rsquo; &mdash;Creamer</blockquote>But it is unlikely he will regain his former position.&ldquo;We will see,&rdquo; Creamer said. &ldquo;I always say it&rsquo;s a happy decision when you choose from a lot of good guys.&rdquo;Despite the doubts implicit in his decision. Creamer insisted he still recognizes Quinn&rsquo;s value to the Penguins.&ldquo;We have to play as a team, and Danny Quinn is important to our team if he plays the good way. If he doesn&rsquo;t play the good way&mdash;as he has recently&mdash;it&rsquo;s hard for us.&rdquo;Almost as hard as it is for Quinn to understand&mdash;and accept&mdash;the way Creamer handled an unusual situation.NOTES&mdash;The Penguins were 7-1-1 in their first nine games with defenseman Paul Coffey. They were 1-2 in the three games he missed with a bruised knee and thigh&hellip;Right winger Perry Ganchar, whom the Penguins ac-quired from Montreal, captained the Sherbrooke Canadiens when Pierre Creamer was coach&hellip;The Pengur sent rookie center Rob Brown, who had six goals in 20 games despite limited ice time, to the Canadian national junior team&hellip;The Penguins, who have struggled badly against Patrick Division opponents in recent years, were 9-6-3 in their first 18 against Patrick teams this year, including 3-0-2 against the New York Rangers.<h2>PENGUINS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 14: Rob Brown. C, assigned to Canadian national junior team; Phil Bourque. D. and Scott Gruhl, LW. recalled from Muskegon (IHL).Dec. 16: Dwight Mathiasen, RW, assigned to Muskegon, Lee Giffin, RW, recalled.Dec. 17: Perry Ganchar, RW, acquired from Montreal for future con-siderations.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Mario Lemieux. Dan Quinn. Dave McLIwain, Chris Kontos.LW&mdash;Randy Cunneyworth, Dave Hunter, Wayne Van Dorp. Charlie Simmer, Mark Kachowski. Scott Gruhl.RW&mdash;Jock Callander, Troy Loney, Lee Giffin, Perry Ganchar.LD&mdash;Paul Coffey, Jim Johnson, Chris Dahlquist, Phil Bourque.RD&mdash;Rod Buskas, Norm Schmidt, Randy Hillier, Dave Goertz.G&mdash;Gilles Meloche, Pat Riggin.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Doug Bodger. D, sprained knee, day-to-day.Bob Errey, LW, broken wrist, indefinite.Dan Frawley. RW. knee surgery, indefinite.Jimmy Mann, RW, elbow surgery, indefinite.Ville Siren, D. broken foot, indefinite &#9632;

f0036-01

Quinn Dismayed At Handling Of Lost ‘A’

NEWS ITEM: Soviet officials want National Hockey League teams to tour Moscow and Leningrad in September, 1989.MOSCOW&mdash;Muscovites are used to waiting in line. They queue up to buy vodka and mandarin oranges and just about everything else they need in their daily lives. But I&rsquo;ll bet Russian caviar to rubies that nowhere in Moscow will you find any line longer than the one of NHL players trying to pass on a trip to the Soviet Union.Life on the Marriott circuit just doesn&rsquo;t prepare you for the realities of Soviet existence. You cannot drink tap water. You cannot dial home direct. Calls must be booked hours in advance. You cannot get food after 11 p.m. What you do get may not qualify as food either.Beds resemble army cots. They&rsquo;re 36 inches across. There&rsquo;s no USA Today. The alphabet is cyrillic, so there&rsquo;s no point in walking around with an address written out in English because it will not correspond to any street sign you&rsquo;ll see; even the correct one.This is a country where they can lose your luggage transporting it from the lower lobby to the main lobby; 36 steps in all.Canada&rsquo;s Olympic hockey team, here for the Izvestia tournament, may have been in a better position to adapt than anybody else. They play here every year. But even they&rsquo;re running into roadblocks.The first night in, coach Dave King wanted to call a practice to overcome the effects of jet lag. He was told the team&rsquo;s equipment was mistakenly sent to another arena. So they waited. One hour later, they found it&mdash;stacked outside the rink where they were all along.NHLers aren&rsquo;t accustomed to such inconveniences.&ldquo;They&rsquo;d just hate it,&rdquo; says Brian Bradley, a center on the Olympic team who has played with the Calgary Flames. &ldquo;Maybe they will come over once, but once the guys are over here, they&rsquo;ll never come back. Never. I just can&rsquo;t see how the older guys would stand it. They&rsquo;d be teed off from one day to the next.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02409/5384408-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="397" height="454"><figcaption class="caption-body">Eric Duhatschek</figcaption></div>Bradley played 40 games for the Flames last season before joining the Olympic team. Just about everybody on the team reiterated Bradley&rsquo;s point; that life in the NHL does not prepare you for the Sport Hotel.&ldquo;The worst hotel in Canada isn&rsquo;t as bad as that place-,&rdquo; said Bradley. &ldquo;If that hotel were in Canada, it would go out of business in one day. This whole place, you have to see it to believe it. I know when I get home, people will ask: &lsquo;What&rsquo;s it like over there?&rsquo; And I&rsquo;ll tell them&mdash;but I don&rsquo;t know if I can get it across properly. I mean, we&rsquo;re not getting tortured or anything, but it&rsquo;s really different. I know I never want to come back. Once is enough for me. &ldquo;Bradley&rsquo;s view of Moscow may be colored by the fact that he suffered a severe case of food poisoning the second day here. The quality of the food is perhaps the major adjustment North American players would have to make.Unless they brought in their own food&mdash;something the Western community here does&mdash;the players would be forced to do without many items they take for granted: fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, steak. Because the water&rsquo;s bad, you brush your teeth with Schweppes club soda, imported from Finland. Then there&rsquo;s the boredom.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s not much to do when you&rsquo;re not playing,&rdquo; said Gord Sherven, formerly of the Minnesota North Stars and Edmonton Oilers. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t go to a movie. You can&rsquo;t go out for supper. You can&rsquo;t order in food. It&rsquo;s a change. It&rsquo;s something you have to adjust to. It would be very interesting to see how they would adjust.&ldquo;I know the first day we got here, everybody was saying: &lsquo;Seven more sleeps to go,&rsquo; things like that. I&rsquo;m sure NHL players would think the same way. If you were to look at it that way, you could say maybe none of them would adjust. But after a few days, you learn to like the food a little. You have to. It&rsquo;s all there is. You sleep a little better. You adjust to the atmosphere. I would say at the start, the vast majority wouldn&rsquo;t be happy. In fact, they&rsquo;d probably hate it. This is my fifth trip over. I&rsquo;m enjoying it more every time.&rdquo;Marc Habscheid, who also played for Minnesota and Edmonton, thought the experience might not be a bad thing for some NHL players.&ldquo;If you looked at it in the short run, a lot of people would say: &lsquo;The hotel&rsquo;s this, the food is that.&rsquo; But over here, you get to see the flip side of the coin. All of a sudden, you&rsquo;re thinking: &lsquo;We have it pretty good over there.&rsquo; Maybe it doesn&rsquo;t matter as much that your steak&rsquo;s well done instead of medium rare. You should just be happy for what you get.&ldquo;I think it will broaden some players&rsquo; horizons and open their eyes a little. It could make you not only a better hockey player, but a better person. I know it&rsquo;s done it for me.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0036-02

A Hockey Trip To Moscow:Once Is Considered Enough

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01473/5384439-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="190" height="134"></div>UNIONDALE, N.Y.&mdash;When he first heard the Islanders&rsquo; new contract offer last summer, Mikko Makela was unimpressed.It wasn&rsquo;t that general manager Bill Torrey had insulted the 22-year-old Finnish right winger. It was just that in his first two NHL seasons, Makela had scored 16 and 24 goals.Big numbers are worth big money. Makela&rsquo;s weren&rsquo;t.&ldquo;Of course Torrey offered me a great contract for what I had done,&rdquo; Makela said. &ldquo;He was right to offer me that he did. I just think I can do better than what I&rsquo;ve done.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t played well yet. First of all I have to play well, then I think we can talk about contracts.&rsquo; &mdash;Makela</blockquote>And so Makela, through his Winnipeg-based agent, Don Baizley, decided to play out his option. Makela can become a free agent with equalization this summer. He can also elect to return to Finland, where his former team, Ilves, would love to have him back.That&rsquo;s not likely to happen, though. Makela loves Long Island, the Islanders and the NHL.&ldquo;I hate to use the term &lsquo;No chance,&rsquo;&rdquo; Baizley said from his Winnipeg office. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s part of our game plan.&rdquo;Makela&rsquo;s game plan is simple. He wants to excel like he did in Finland, when he scored 42 goals in 71 games over two seasons for Ilves. He wants some bargaining power before Baizley begins bargaining again.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t played well yet,&rdquo; Makela insists. &ldquo;First of all I have to play well, then I think we can talk about contracts.&rdquo;Makela, whose father Matti played soccer on the Finnish national team, is too hard on himself. He often does not see what others see in him. In one recent 14-game stretch, he scored 14 goals to give him 18 for the season. He skated as well in those 14 games as he has at any time since he came to North America.&ldquo;You think so?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see that. Honest. I think I can work harder, do so much better.&rdquo;&ldquo;He always thinks like that,&rdquo; Torrey said. &ldquo;He has high expectations of himself.&rdquo;By anyone&rsquo;s expectations, Makela&rsquo;s contract push has begun. The quiet guy teammates call &ldquo;Miksa&rdquo; has become a fixture on Bryan Trottier&rsquo;s right. He is a regular on the Islanders&rsquo; power play and, for the first time in three years, is killing penalties.&ldquo;If he keeps playing,&rdquo; said coach Terry Simpson, &ldquo;he&rsquo;ll keep playing.&rdquo;If only the rest of the team would keep playing. The Islanders&rsquo; perch atop the Patrick Division grew thin after the Flyers swept a home-and-home series, 4-3 in Philadelphia and 5-4 at Nassau Coliseum. Those defeats left the Islanders 4-6-1 in 11 games after a 14-5-1 start.&ldquo;Yeah, I guess we&rsquo;re pressing,&rdquo; Steve Konroyd said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s still early to say, but we&rsquo;re not playing the kind of hockey we were 15 games ago.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Denis Potvin move past Rod Gilbert into 20th place on the all-time scoring list with his 1,022m career point. Henri Richard is 19t with 1,046&hellip;Three 1987 draftees&mdash;defenseman Dean Chynoweth (firs round), goalie Jeff Hackett (second and center Rob DiMaio (sixth)&mdash;wer selected to the Canadian nations junior team.<h2>ISLANDERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 14: Dale Henry, LW, recallec M&gt;m Springfield (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Bryan Trottier, Bob Bassen, Pat LaFontaine, Randy Wood.LW&mdash;Greg Gilbert, Rich Kromm Brad Lauer, Dale Henry.RW&mdash;Mikko Makela, Alan Kerr, Patrick Flatley, Brad Dalgarno.LD&mdash;Steve Konroyd, Denis Potvin, Brian Curran.RD&mdash;Gord Dineen, Gerald Diduck, Tomas Jonsson, Ken Morrow.G&mdash;Kelly Hrudey, Billy Smith.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Derek King, LW, fractured left wrist indefinite.Ken Leiter, D, strained groin, day-to-day.Brent Sutter, C, non-displaced fracture of right thumb, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0037-01

Makela Gambles On Good Production Year

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02433/5384477-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="559" height="723"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hershey coach John Paddock was happy to build his defense around Fenyves.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01551/5384484-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="182" height="138"></div>Dave Fenyves began this American League season in the same rink as he ended last season, but there was no feeling of deja vu.Fenyves, claimed by Philadelphia in the NHL waiver draft after he was left unprotected by Buffalo, played his first game for the Hershey Bears in early October at Sherbrooke. Hershey fell behind by five goals in the first period and ended up losing to the Canadiens by one.No doubt, he was thinking about happier times at the Sherbrooke Sports Palace. Five months earlier, the defenseman skated around the ice surface with the Calder Cup&mdash;moments after the Amerks stunned Sherbrooke to win the championship.Fenyves would have been starting his eighth season in the Buffalo organization, had the Sabres not dropped him from their protected list after claiming Ed Hospodar from the Flyers. In those eight years, he played just 148 NHL games.The 27-year-old is missed in Rochester.&ldquo;You hate to see him go,&rdquo; said Amerks&rsquo; coach John Van Boxmeer, who made Fenyves captain midway through last season. &ldquo;Not only was he a quality defenseman, but he was a leader.&ldquo;I think the organization thought he was a fifth or sixth defenseman. And Dave is a guy who needs to play a lot. Being a fifth or sixth guy, he won&rsquo;t get the ice time.&rdquo;Fenyves&rsquo; sixth season with the Amerks was his best. A steady, reliable defenseman, he was a second-team all-star and top candidate for the Eddie Shore Award which goes to the league&rsquo;s top rearguard. That honor went to Binghamton&rsquo;s Brad Shaw.The Flyers haven&rsquo;t done much to boost his ego this year. They returned him to the Bears after a two-week trial during their dreadful start. Then, they claimed Bill Root&mdash;a veteran defenseman like Fenyves&mdash;on waivers from the St. Louis Blues.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s always tough when the organization goes and picks up a player instead of giving someone in the organization a chance to go up,&rdquo; said Fenyves. &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s their decision.&ldquo;Any time a team is having a tough time, you always expect them to pick up extra players to try and shake things up a bit.&rdquo;Fenyves gained attention in the playoffs. After a punchless 22 points (6-16) in 71 games during the regular season, Fenyves collected 15 points (3-12) in 18 Calder Cup games and was selected playoff MVP.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t appreciate his talents until-the playoffs,&rdquo; said Hershey coach John Paddock, whose team was ousted in the quarter-finals by Rochester.&ldquo;You build around a defense and, last year, we had a young defense.This year, they&rsquo;re only a year older, but when you add in Fenyves&hellip;he&rsquo;s someone to build around.&ldquo;He makes very few mistakes. He doesn&rsquo;t get rattled and always plays the man and gets the puck out of your zone.&rdquo;The way Paddock figures it, Fenyves would have stuck with the Flyers had his timing not been off by a few weeks.&ldquo;I told him before he left that they&rsquo;re looking for one of the younger players to make it up there,&rdquo; Paddock said. &ldquo;But if you go up there and they get it turned around while you&rsquo;re there, I can&rsquo;t see you coming back.&rdquo;Fenyves was returned before the Flyers took off. So, he&rsquo;s back in the AHL. But he doesn&rsquo;t resent the move from Buffalo to Philadelphia.&ldquo;I felt it was good to get a chance with another organization and start off with a clean slate,&rdquo; Fenyves said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a change of atmosphere that I needed. I felt like it was a dead-end street with the Buffalo organization.&ldquo;At the time, they wanted to go with younger players and defensemen, and it didn&rsquo;t seem like I&rsquo;d get a chance, so it was time for a move.&rdquo;Fenyves&rsquo; offensive success has carried over from the playoffs. In 25 games for the Bears, he had 20 points (3-17). His career high is 22 points.Part of the reason for his success is that Paddock uses him on the power play&mdash;an opportunity he seldom had in Rochester.&ldquo;I think teams are always looking for players with offensive talent,&rdquo; Fenyves said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m still hoping I&rsquo;ll get a chance there (Philadelphia). I don&rsquo;t know how long I&rsquo;ll be able to wait, but it&rsquo;s something I&rsquo;m still working toward.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to keep plugging away and hopefully I&rsquo;ll get somebody&rsquo;s attention and get a chance to play. It&rsquo;s just a matter of getting with the right team at the right time.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03349/5384470-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="1184" height="2425"><figcaption class="caption-body">Lost to the Rochester Americans in the NHL&rsquo;s waiver draft, Dave Fenyves has steadied a young defensive corps with the Bears.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0038-02

The Minors

Hershey Bear Fenyves Hasn’t Given Up Hope

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Paul Abramowitz</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-04268/5384515-1-eng-US/f0038-042.jpg" title="f0038-04" width="180" height="136"></div>Blair MacDonald has known better weeks.First, the new Fredericton Express coach was delayed by the Air Canada ground workers&rsquo; strike and unable to get to town for the team&rsquo;s Dec. 12 game. Quebec scout Simon Nolet and player-assistant coach Marc Crawford concluded their interim coaching jobs with a 5-4 win over Nova Scotia and 4-1 record.Then MacDonald, one of the most popular Express players during the team&rsquo;s 1982-83 Northern Division championship season, waited a day for the team to join him in Toronto. They took the bus together for that night&rsquo;s game in Rochester.MacDonald&rsquo;s luggage never arrived, however, so he wore Crawford&rsquo;s suit during a 5-3 loss to the Amerks.Two nights later, things began to look up. MacDonald, who replaced Ron Lapointe when the latter took over the Quebec Nordiques, won his first game, 5-1 at Newmarket. But the trip home the next day wasn&rsquo;t easy&mdash;a snowstorm forced the Express to stay over in Chatham, N.B., about a two-hour ride from Fredericton.&ldquo;Everything has gone so fast,&rdquo; said MacDonald, 34, who was working in coaching clinics in Western Canada when he got the call to coach for the rest of this season.MacDonald, who once scored 46 goals playing on a line with Wayne Gretzky in Edmonton, had planned to coach in the Pacific Northwest League, but the semi-pro loop never materialized.&ldquo;I noticed there was a change in Quebec,&rdquo; MacDonald said. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t sure whether Quebec had someone lined up in their system. Then Marc Crawford called to see if I was interested. This is a good break for me.&rdquo;MacDonald, a player-coach in Europe for three years after his year in Fredericton, inherited a first-place team.<h2>BEVERLEY VALLEYS</h2>New Haven&rsquo;s interim coach, Nick Beverley, was having a rough time after taking over for Robbie Ftorek, who now wears the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; crown.The Nighthawks lost their first four games under Beverley, all on the road.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re working to expedite the transition to a new coach,&rdquo; said Beverley, a scout for the Kings who previously coached the Nighthawks for three-and-a-half seasons. &ldquo;Realistically, the sooner the better. I&rsquo;m not saying that just for myself, I&rsquo;m saying it from the perspective of the team.&rdquo;The Nighthawks hoped to have a full-time coach by the time they returned home Dec. 20, after a five-game road trip. One of the candidates mentioned was former Nighthawk coach Don Perry, who left the team for L.A. during the 1981-82 season and was replaced by Beverley. Perry coached the Kings until the &lsquo;83-84 season.<h2>BOUTILIER A HAWK</h2>The Moncton Hawks added defenseman Paul Boutilier, who was traded to the Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; organization from New Haven and the New York Ranger organization for a fifth-round pick in 1989 and future considerations. Winnipeg is Boutilier&rsquo;s fifth NHL affiliation&hellip;Los Angeles sent center Bob Kudelski to the Nighthawks and recalled right winger Paul Guay&hellip;Nighthawk center Brian Wilks underwent shoulder surgery and is lost for the season. &#9632;

f0038-04

New Express Coach Has Eventful Debut

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01520/5384553-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="596" height="898"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Richard broke the AHL record for consecutive games with points scored.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02362/5384560-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="183" height="136"></div>Mike Richard will never be confused with &lsquo;The Rocket,&rsquo; but he has created his own image as a feared scorer.On Dec. 20, the 21-year-old rookie Binghamton Whaler center extended his consecutive-games scoring streak to 30, eclipsing the league record of 28 set in 1981-82 by another Binghamton forward, Bob Sullivan.The NHL record of 51 games was set by Wayne Gretzky during the 1983-84 season.After being shut out by Springfield and Sherbrooke in the third and fourth games of the season, Richard launched the streak Oct. 18 in a 4-3 loss at Rochester. He&rsquo;d been on a roll ever since, with 25 goals and 28 assists in 30 games. Sullivan accumulated 23 goals and 24 assists during his streak.He tied Sullivan on Dec. 18 with a shorthanded goal at Newmarket, and broke the record one night later with a goal and an assist against the Amerks at home. He reached 30 games on Dec. 20 with another one-and-one peformance in the Whalers&rsquo; 4-4 tie at Utica.In 34 games, Richard had a leagueleading 28 goals. His 57 points were second only to Sherbrooke&rsquo;s Gilles Thibaudeau, who had 64 through 35 games.Richard was never drafted and does not appear in the 1987-88 NHL register of professional hockey players. He signed as a free agent with Washington last summer after playing his junio overage year with the Toronto Marlboros.An image problem? No longer.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-03268/5384546-1-eng-US/f0039-032.jpg" title="f0039-03" width="590" height="894"><figcaption class="caption-body">Goaltender Darcy Wakaluk does more than score goals. He&rsquo;s a big winner for Rochester.</figcaption></div><h2>AMERKS CLIP WINGS</h2>There is one AHL arena where the Adirondack Red Wings cannot beg. borrow or steal a victory&mdash;the War Memorial at Rochester.Since joining the league in 1979, the Wings have won just two games at Rochester: their first visit in October, 1979, and on April Fool&rsquo;s Day, 1981. Since that last victory, the Red Wings are 0-16-2, including 14 straight losses.<h2>ADIRONDACK SHUFFLE</h2>Adirondack coach Bill Dineen was again doing a juggling act to keep the undermanned Wings competitive.For their Dec. 11-12 series with Rochester, the Wings had 14 skaters, two under the AHL limit. In their next outing, Dec. 15, they knocked off Hershey with 13 skaters. At the same time, parent-club Detroit had healthy extra players for games against Montreal and the Rangers.Baltimore didn&rsquo;t stage a turnaround during its six-game homestand. The Skipjacks are 1-4-1 since settling in at the Baltimore Arena. After losing their first 18 games of the season, the Skipjacks went 2-7-5. Their second win, 7-5 over Utica at home, came Dec. 18.A week after he became the first AHL goaltender to score a goal, Rochester&rsquo;s Darcy Wakaluk was named AHL player of the week. Wakaluk defeated Adirondack twice and Fredericton once to improve his record to 17-6-2 and lower his goals-against average to 2.93&hellip;Newmarket signed veteran center Dave Gans, 23. Gans, a free agent, scored 52 goals in 81 games with Toledo in the International League in 1984-85. The past two seasons (35 and 17 goals) he split time with Hershey and New Haven. &#9632;

f0039-01

Rookie Sets Consecutive-Game Points Mark

<div class="byline">BY BOB WAGNER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-05178/5384591-1-eng-US/f0039-052.jpg" title="f0039-05" width="588" height="1096"><figcaption class="caption-body">George Servinis led the International League in shorthanded goals with four,</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-04219/5384598-1-eng-US/f0039-042.jpg" title="f0039-04" width="159" height="135"></div>The International League is again looking at expansion to the west.Less than a year after the Colorado Rangers were approved as the second team west of the Great Lakes&mdash;Salt Lake Golden Eagles are the other&mdash;the league is looking to give them a little company.The rest of the league is bunched, more or less, in the east, with Milwaukee in Wisconsin. Peoria in lllinois, Fort Wayne in Indiana, and Flint, Muskegon and Saginaw in Michigan. Both the Rangers and Eagles pay not only their own bills but underwrite travel subsidies for the rest of the IHL.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve met with interested parties in Phoenix and Kansas City,&rdquo; commissioner Bud Poile said on a recent western swing. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve met with managers of the arenas, and there is a definite interest in having IHL teams there.&rdquo;Two former IHL clubs no longer operating, Toledo and Indianapolis, are beginning to stir again. And Erie, Penn., which until this year had a franchise in the suspended Atlantic Coast League, has expressed a definite interest in joining the &lsquo;L&rsquo;That makes a 14-club league if all the parts fall into place.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m planning to meet with Virgil Gladieux (who holds franchise rights) in Toledo,&rdquo; said Poile. &ldquo;And Larry Woods, the owner in Indianapolis, hopefully will be attending our semi-annual meeting Feb. 8 or 9&mdash;the date asn&rsquo;t been set yet&mdash;in St. Louis.&ldquo;Erie is planning to make application to our league at the St. Louis meeting and Steve Stroll&mdash;he was the owner of the Erie franchise in the nowdefunct ACHL&mdash;will be there.&rdquo;The IHL made its strongest move ever toward credibility this season when five franchises became aligned with NHL clubs as their No. 1 affiliates, raising the league total to six.<h2>CASEY COMING ON</h2>Jon Casey was the No. 1 goaltender in the American League in 1984-85 when he posted a 2.63 goals-against average and recorded four shutouts for the Baltimore Skipjacks.But until this year, Casey&rsquo;s GAA has not been below 3.88 since. Last season, it was 4.45 in 31 games with Indianapolis and 4.36 in 11 games with Springfield of the American League.Now, the 25-year-old netminder is showing signs of revival in goal for the Kalamazoo Wings. He was named IHL player of the week for winning all three of his starts and posting his first shutout in three years, stopping all 33 shots in a 4-0 victory over Flint Dec. 12. He was called up by the parent Minnesota North Stars two days later as an emergency replacement for Don Beaupre, out with a groin injury.Steve Guenette of Muskegon also registered a shutout Dec. 12, turning aside 22 shots in a 3-0 blanking of the Peoria Rivermen. He had the lowest GAA in the IHL (2.79) and an 8-1-1 record.<h2>SALTY CHAPS</h2>The Golden Eagles have been involved in 89 fights in 33 games. Stu Grimson, league leader in penalty minutes with 197, had been in 20 fights&hellip;Right winger Rich Chernomaz of Salt Lake was off on another scoring spree after seeing his 14-game streak (12-9-21) broken by Peoria Dec. 3. He scored points in four starts through Dec. 12.The struggling Milwaukee Admirals slipped a Dec. 5 victory over Kalamazoo between two five-game losing streaks. To make matters more embarrassing, the Ads were credited with just nine shots, three in each period, in a 7-1 loss at Saginaw Dec. 12&hellip;The exodus of players from the East Division-leading Muskegon Lumberjacks continued. Pittsburgh called up veteran left winger Scott Gruhl and defenseman Phil Bourque.Newly-arrived center Dave Gagner of Kalamazoo and defenseman-turned-right winger Glen Johannesen of Peoria recorded hat tricks the week of Dec. 7&hellip;Peoria center-right winger Ron Handy led the IHL in scoring (24-26-50), total goals and first goals (six) and shared honors in power-play goals with Kalamazoo&rsquo;s George Servinis. Each had eight. Servinis&rsquo; four shorthanded goals topped the IHL. &#9632;

f0039-05

IHL Is Looking To Expand In The West

<div class="byline">BY JIM CRESSMAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01248/5384629-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pittsburgh Penguin Rob Brown, snubbed by Canada&rsquo;s national junior team last year, was happy to get a second chance. (Photo by John stennes)</figcaption></div>The center will be forced to cope with terrible food, unaccustomed accommodations, Christmas in a country that doesn&rsquo;t recognize a God, and a mile of international red tape.But Rob Brown couldn&rsquo;t be happier.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really excited about this,&rdquo; Brown said of the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; decision to loan him to Canada&rsquo;s national team for the World Jr. Championships, Dec. 26-Jan.4.This tournament represents a unique opportunity for Brown.Last year, the Kamloops Blazers&rsquo; center was left off the team, despite being well on the way to establishing a Western League scoring record with 212 points.Canadian coach Bert Templeton didn&rsquo;t pick Brown, who was later named top major junior player in the country. This year, Dave Chambers is behind the bench, and Brown is welcome.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a lot to prove to people who didn&rsquo;t think I could play international hockey,&rdquo; said Brown, a fourth-round pick of the Penguins in the 1986 NHL entry draft. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t had the easiest time in Pittsburgh. It&rsquo;s been up and down. There are times when I&rsquo;ve played a lot and times when I haven&rsquo;t played very much.&ldquo;The Penguins felt this would give me a good chance to play and work myself back into game shape. When the tournament&rsquo;s over, I&rsquo;ll be going back to Pittsburgh.&rdquo;Brown had six goals and three assists in 20 games with the Penguins.Two other young players have also been made available by their NHL clubs. The Edmonton Oilers loaned defenseman Chris Joseph (0-7-7 in 22 games with the Penguins and Oilers), who played last year in Czechoslovakia, and the Los Angeles Kings offered rearguard Wayne McBean (0-1-1 in 24 games).Both were first-round draft picks in 1987&mdash;McBean fourth overall by the Kings, Joseph fifth by Pittsburgh.Chambers has only four players back from last year. Besides Joseph, they are goalie Jimmy Waite of Chicoutimi, defenseman Greg Hawgood of Kamloops and Theoren Fleury of Moose Jaw.&ldquo;We have a chance for a gold medal,&rdquo; said Chambers, who has taken a year off from duties as athletic director at York University in Toronto. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re very young defensively but we can score goals.&rdquo;His assistants are Ken Hitchcock of Kamloops and Jean Begin of the QMJHL&rsquo;s Drummondville Voltigeurs.Dave Chambers replaces Templeton as head coach, after the North Bay Centennials&rsquo; mentor was suspended from international competition following the infamous bench-clearing brawl between Canada and the Soviet Union at last year&rsquo;s tournament in Piestany.Both teams were banished from the tournament for their brawl and all records of their participation were stricken from the final standings.That permitted the United States to move up one position, but U.S. head coach Terry Christensen said the fourth-place finish wasn&rsquo;t a bonus to the Americans, who won the bronze medal at the 1986 championships in Hamilton, Ont.&ldquo;Our finish wasn&rsquo;t very pleasing, considering we beat the Russians and the Czechs,&rdquo; said Christensen, who assumes control of the team after serving as an assistant for two years. &ldquo;We were in the medal hunt until the last game, when we were blown out (8-0) by Sweden.&rdquo;U.S. medal chances this year are questionable, considering only two players have returned. They&rsquo;re forwards Darren Turcotte of the North Bay and Lee Davidson of reigning NCAA-champion North Dakota.&ldquo;What&rsquo;s hurt us the most is it&rsquo;s an Olympic year and a lot of the players who played with us last year aren&rsquo;t available,&rdquo; said Christensen, an assistant coach with the Michigan State Spartans.Among those Olympians are defensemen Brian Leetch, Greg Brown and Scott Young, also a defenseman. Others who have decided to stay with their college or junior teams are defensemen Todd Copeland (Michigan) and Adam Burt (North Bay), center Dave Capuano (Maine) and right winger Tom Fitzgerald (Providence).Turcotte, the New York Rangers&rsquo; sixth pick in the 1986 draft, only recently returned to the Centennials&rsquo; lineup following shoulder surgery in the summer. He was playing some games with the Olympic team before joining the junior team.Turcotte scored 30 goals and 4^ assists in 55 Ontario League games last year.Christensen, assisted by Steve Sedarchuk of Boston College and Dean Blais of North Dakota, expects offensive punch from Mike Modano of Prince Albert and Jeremy Roenick of Thayer Academy, two hot prospects for the 1988 entry draft.Goaltending, of course, is a key position. The U.S. has Jason Glick-man, a Chicago native playing with Hull, and Damian Rhodes, a freshman starter at Michigan Tech.&ldquo;For any team to have success in world tournaments, you have to have outstanding goaltending,&rdquo; Christensen said. &ldquo;Look at the history of Canada. Whenever they&rsquo;ve done well, they&rsquo;ve had people up front but they&rsquo;ve also had outstanding goaltending.&rdquo;<h2>NATIONAL TEAM ROSTERS</h2><h3>CANADA</h3>FORWARDS&mdash;Warren Babe, Kamloops; Rob Brown, Pittsburgh; Dan Currie, Sault Ste. Marie; Rob DiMaio, Medicine Hat; Theoren Fleury, Moose Jaw; Adam Graves, Windsor; Jody Hull, Peterborough; Sheldon Kennedy, Swift Current; Trevor Linden, Medicine Hat; Mark Pederson, Medicine Hat; Mark Recchi, Kamloops; Joe Sakic, Swift Current.DEFENSEMEN&mdash;Dean Chynoweth, Medicine Hat; Eric Desjardins, Granby; Greg Hawgood, Kamloops; Chris Joseph, Edmonton; Marc Laniel, Oshawa; Wayne McBean, Los Angeles; Scott McCrady, Medicine Hat. (One defenseman to be cut.)GOALTENDERS&mdash;Jeff Hackett, Oshawa; Jimmy Waite, Chicoutimi.<h3>UNITED STATES</h3>FORWARDS&mdash;Lee Davidson, North Dakota; Joe Day, St. Lawrence; Ted Donato, Harvard; David Emma, Boston College; John LeClair, Vermont; Kip Miller, Michigan State; Mike Modano, Prince Albert; Jeremy Roenick, Thayer Academy; Steve Schiefele, Boston College; Mike Sullivan, Boston University; Darren Turcotte, North Bay; C. J. Young, Harvard.DEFENSEMEN&mdash;Ted Crowley, Lawrence Academy; Kevin Dean, New Hampshire; Rob Mendel, Wisconsin; Kris Miller, Minnesota-Duluth; Matt Schneider, Cornwall; Randy Skarda, Minnesota.GOALTENDERS&mdash;Jason Glickman, Hull; Damian Rhodes, Michigan Tech. &#9632;

f0040-01

The Juniors

He’s No Longer Browned-Off

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01204/5384660-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="180" height="134"></div>From last to first in seven weeks&mdash;it&rsquo;s time for a Royal celebration in Cornwall.On Oct. 22, the Royals were 1-8, last in the Leyden Division. By Dec. 15 they were 18-11-2, tied for first with Peterborough. The Petes (18-9-2) held two games in hand.The Royals, whose unbeaten streak reached 10 (9-0-1) in a 1-1 tie with the Petes at home Dec. 14, were on a roll thanks partly to an undrafted overage captain, an Oshawa Generals&rsquo; refugee and two Sault Ste. Marie Greyhound castoffs.&ldquo;Life been pretty pleasant here the past few months,&rdquo; said coach and general manager Orval Tessier. &ldquo;It sure beats the way I felt in October.&rdquo;Tessier, who felt so bad then that he took a three-day leave of absence during the fall, credits the leadership of overage captain Larry Mitchell and the play of 19-year-olds Darren Colbourne, Steve Bisson, and Bobby Babcock for the turnaround.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a team effort, lots of hard work, but I&rsquo;d hate to think where we&rsquo;d be if we hadn&rsquo;t got Larry as an overage and the other kids in trades,&rdquo; Tessier said.Mitchell, a five-foot-11, 185-pound right winger, finally made the OHL at 19 last season. The wait was worth it. He led the Royals in scoring with 3942-81 totals in 66 games.After 31 games this season, Mitchell was in his now-accustomed spot atop the team scoring list, with 23 goals and 24 assists.Right winger Colboume was acquired early last season from Oshawa for a sixth-round midget draft choice. On Oct. 29, he scored four goals and six assists in a 13-3 win over Toronto, an outburst that contributed to 16-22-38 totals in 31 games.Bisson and Babcock came over from the Soo this season in separate trades. Bisson, Montreal&rsquo;s seventh pick in the 1986 NHL entry draft, was acquired in exchange for 18-year-old right winger Glen Johnston. Babcock was obtained for defenseman Steve Hemiman, 19, Cornwall&rsquo;s first pick in the 1985 midget draft.&ldquo;Our defense was spotty, to put it mildly, early in the season,&rdquo; said Tessier. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s been very solid since we got Steve and Bobby, and since Mathieu Schneider returned from the Montreal Canadiens.&rdquo;Schneider, the Habs&rsquo; fourth pick in the 1987 draft, was returned to Cornwall Oct. 19. In his first 23 games with the Royals this season, Schneider had 13 goals and 22 assists.<h2>CRACKDOWN CONTINUES</h2>OHL commissioner David Branch has laid down the law again.Branch slapped Kitchener Ranger left winger Craig Booker with a 15-game suspension for high-sticking London Knight center Tim Taylor in the face Dec. 1.Taylor, 18, suffered a fat lip but was not sidelined as a result of the incident. Branch, however, ruled that Booker, 19, intended to injure Taylor.Taylor had 31 goals in London&rsquo;s first 31 games, helping the Knights to a surprising 21-7-3 record and first place in the Emms Division.The suspension was the latest of several Branch has handed out this year.Another matter before the commissioner concerns John Andersen, the Oshawa General charged with unlawfully causing bodily harm in the wake of a stick-throwing incident Dec. 12 in Cornwall.Anderson was given a game misconduct after a stick was thrown into the stands and hit a fan, knocking out four of his teeth and cutting him for eight stitches.(For more on the fallout from that incident, check Notebook on page 9.)<h2>LUCE IN SUDBURY</h2>Sault Ste. Marie coach and general manager Don Boyd recalled defenseman Rod Thacker, 19, from waivers when London claimed the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; draftee (10th pick, 1986). Boyd said he decided to keep Thacker and use him at left wing. Earlier, Boyd switched 19-year-old Brian Hoard from right wing to defense. Hoard has developed into one of the Soo&rsquo;s top four blueliners&hellip;Sudbury Wolves signed 19-year-old free-agent goalie Scott Luce. Luce, who started last season at Colgate University before flings this season with the Guelph Platers and Western League&rsquo;s Medicine Hat Tigers. &#9632;

f0041-01

Royals Charge From Worst To Tie For First

<div class="byline">BY KEN JUBA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02133/5384691-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="180" height="131"></div>It&rsquo;s taken five years, not all of them pleasant, but Ken Virige has finally become the all-everything Calgary Dinosaur.With 16 goals and 15 assists in 15 games this year, the fifth-year forward has rewritten Calgary&rsquo;s record book, taking over as the career leader in goals (68), assists (101) and points (169).So when did Vinge make the transformation from a modest-scoring junior with the Western League&rsquo;s Calgary Wranglers to a sniper with the Dinosaurs?&ldquo;I really think it comes from being a good defensive player,&rdquo; Vinge explained. &ldquo;In junior, I was known as a defensive forward, and I&rsquo;ve worked hard on defense here. I like to think I&rsquo;m clever with the puck, but I&rsquo;m not especially gifted. I think by playing good defense, the offensive chances just open up.&rdquo;Vinge joined Calgary when the team was at its worst, 3-21 in 1983-84. His consistent improvement has matched the Dinos&rsquo;, now the No. 1 team in Canada.&ldquo;When I think of Kenny, that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ll remember,&rdquo; said Calgary coach George Kingston. &ldquo;He was there through the thin and the thick and one played hard every game. There have gen a lot of five-year players, but Ken stablished that he&rsquo;d be there every game. That&rsquo;s why he has set all the records.&rdquo;The 5-foot-10, 185-pounder had a look-see tryout with the New York Rangers in 1986, but sees his hockey future in Europe, not the NHL. Those plans, however, are secondary to leaving Calgary with a CIAU title.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s really fuelling myself and the team this year,&rdquo; said Vinge. &ldquo;This is my last chance, and I want a championship this year.&rdquo;<h2>NOT SO PERFECT</h2>A perfect 10? Not quite.The Regina Cougars finished the first half with a road record of 0-10, and are in the Canada West basement with a record of 3-11.&ldquo;We expected to be around.500,&rdquo; said coach Al Murray. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not that we&rsquo;ve played that poorly, but our goaltending situation has hurt us.&rdquo;The Cougars lost last year&rsquo;s No. 1 man, Rod Houk, to the Regina Pats of the Western League, and Jim Nadon, Houk&rsquo;s successor, to mononucleosis. In 14 games, Regina has surrendered 103 goals, an average of more than seven per game.Still, Murray hasn&rsquo;t written off the season, with Manitoba and the fourth playoff spot only eight points away.&ldquo;Our new players have been around the league once now,&rdquo; says Murray, &ldquo;and they know what to expect. We should have Jim back in the second half and we&rsquo;ve got 10 of 14 games at home, so that should make a difference. We still think the playoffs are within our grasp.&rdquo;<h2>BRACKO&rsquo;S BIG NIGHT</h2>Calgary&rsquo;s Barry Bracko scored six goals, but the Dinos dropped a 10-9 overtime decision to Alberta in the final Canada West game before Christmas. &ldquo;The last time 1 scored six goals was in peewee,&rdquo; said Bracko&hellip;Alberta&rsquo;s Sid Cranston added to his leagueleading points total (14-24-38) with a pair of goals, including his third gamewinner of the year, against Calgary. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had an exceptional first half,&rdquo; said Bear coach Clare Drake. &ldquo;The past two years he&rsquo;s been injured and in and out of the lineup. Last year he had a very heavy academic load and missed some practices. This year, everything&rsquo;s just fallen into place.&rdquo;The Bears kept a heavy schedule during the break, playing in the Dinosaur tournament&mdash;with host Calgary, York, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Windsor&mdash;and the Viking Cup, put on by Camrose Lutheran College from Dec. 31 to Jan. 5. Teams from Russia, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Finland will also be competing&hellip;Manitoba scheduled a pair of games against St. Cloud (Minn.) Huskies, and Regina was to play two games against Minnesota&rsquo;s Concordia College. &#9632;

f0041-02

The Colleges

Fine First Half Leads Vinge To Three Dinosaur Records

<div class="byline">BY GREGG DRINNAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01211/5384722-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="182" height="134"></div>Bobby Clarke is Rob Krauss&rsquo;s inspiration.&ldquo;When I got diabetes, I looked at Clarke as a personal idol.&rdquo; said Krauss, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound Lethbridge Hurricane defenseman listed as the Western League&rsquo;s No. 3 draft-eligible prospect in ratings issued by NHL Central Scouting Nov. 20.Despite being a diabetic, Clarke symbolized the grit and determination of the Philadelphia Flyers for 15 seasons before taking over as the team&rsquo;s general manager after the 1983-84 season. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame last June.Krauss&rsquo;s condition was diagnosed in 1981.&ldquo;When they told me I had diabetes, I was scared, definitely,&rdquo; said Krauss, who takes daily insulin injections.&ldquo;But it doesn&rsquo;t matter any more. It&rsquo;s a handicap to a point, but it has never restricted me.&rdquo;Krauss, 18, had four goals and 13 assists, with 108 penalty minutes, after 31 games. A THREE-POINT WINWho says all you get for a win is two points?A4-2 victory at Prince Albert Dec. 8 accomplished three things for the Swift Current Broncos: It extended their winning streak to five games; moved the club past the Raiders into first place in the East Division and earned head coach Graham James a working vacation at the league&rsquo;s inter-division AllStar Game Jan. 12 in Kamloops.Coaches, whose teams had the most points after playing 29 games each, were chosen to direct the East and West teams.The Broncos went into their 29th game, at Prince Albert, trailing the Raiders&mdash;who had already played 29&mdash;by one point.Ironically, five days later the Raiders beat the Broncos 5-4 in Swift Current to reclaim first place. But it was too late for Prince Albert coach Rick Wilson&rsquo;s all-star aspirations.The West Division team will be coached by Ken Hitchcock of the Kamloops Blazers. East Division allstar players will be announced Jan. 5, West Jan. 6.<h2>BREAKING UP IS HARD</h2>This could be the break-up of a very successful partnership.As of Dec. 15, the Saskatoon Blades were 34-6 in their last 40 games in the Saskatoon Arena, a 50-year-old facility affectionately known as the &lsquo;Old Bam.&rsquo; This season, they were 13-1 in their cramped (185-by-85-feet) arena and 6-11-2 on the road.&ldquo;We seem to have some magical touch here,&rdquo; said Saskatoon coach Marcel Comeau.In mid-February, the Blades will be moving from the 3,304-seat Arena to 8.000-seat Saskatchewan Place, whose dimensions are 200-by-85-feet).<h2>VICTOR VICTORIA</h2>The Victoria Cougars were roaring along at a 13-3-1 clip as of Dec. 13&hellip;Moose Jaw center Theoren Fleury became the 19th WHLer to reach the 400-point mark when he scored a shorthanded goal in a 6-2 loss, to Regina Dec. 12&hellip;Seattle center Victor Gervais scored on a penalty shot 26 seconds into overtime for a 4-3 win at Kamloops Dec. 12. The shot was called when Gervais was hauled down on a breakaway by Blazer defenseman Greg Hawgood. &#9632;

f0042-01

Krauss Is Motivated By Former Flyer Great

<div class="byline">BY RICK MAYOH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02149/5384753-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="183" height="135"></div>A difficult travel schedule makes the Chicoutimi Sagueneens the Quebec League&rsquo;s equivalent of the NHL&rsquo;s Los Angeles Kings.Chicoutimi, located about 125 miles (200 kilometres) north of Quebec City and 280 miles (450 km) northeast of Montreal, is about as isolated from its QMJHL rivals as the Kings are from theirs.But unlike the Kings, who often cite long trips as a factor in poor road records (3-12-2 after 17 games this year), the Sagueneens thrive away from home.Chicoutimi won a team-record five straight road games between Nov. 25 and Dec. 9. The streak, part of a teamrecord nine consecutive victories, contributed to a run of 10 wins in 11 games that pushed the Sags (23-12-1) into the overall league lead over LeBel Division pace-setter Hull (22-14-2) as of Dec. 16.Chicoutimi, which held an eightpoint lead over second-place Trois-Rivieres in the Dilio Division standings, was the league&rsquo;s best road team at 11-7-1. A 12-5-0 record at home placed them second behind Hull (14-3-1) in that category.<h2>A TITANIC TRADE</h2>Rob Murphy has the size&mdash;he&rsquo;s 6-foot-3, 200 pounds&mdash;but the Laval Titan wanted more toughness.So, Laval traded the Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; second-round pick in the 1987 entry draft and a fourth-round midget draft choice to the Drummondville Voltigeurs.The Titan received four players and two draft picks in return. The deal was made Dec. 12.Going to Laval were left wingers Patrick Flynn (6-foot-2, 210 pounds) and Nicolas Beaulieu (6 feet, 200), right winger Sylvain Naud (5-foot-10, 164), defenseman Christian Lalumiere (6-foot-1. 194), plus sixth- and seventh-round 1988 midget draft picks.Flynn. 18, earned two assists and 33 penalty minutes in 15 games with Drummondville. Beaulieu. 19, was 18-18-36-123 in 29 games, Naud, 17, 5-12-17-25 in 27 games and Lalumiere, 18, 5-2-7-6 in 11 games.Murphy, a strong two-way center who scored 35 goals and 54 assists in 70 games as a rookie last season, had 11 goals and 27 assists in 27 games with Laval this year.&ldquo;Both teams got what they wanted,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;Laval needed some big, tough guys, and Drummondville needed more of a finesse player.&rdquo;<h2>MORE MOVES</h2>The Shawinigan Cataractes obtained center Dany Duclos, 18, left winger Stefan Camire, 18, and right winger Daniel Payan, 17, an affiliated player with the LaSalle Jr. AA team, from the Verdun Jr. Canadiens Dec. 14 for defenseman Eric Courchesne, 19, and the rights to defenseman Stephane Levigne, 19. Levigne retired at the start of the season, claiming a lack of interest in junior hockey.New York Rangers called up overage St-Jean defenseman Stephane Brochu Dec. 7 and assigned him to Colorado of the International League. Brochu, the Rangers&rsquo; ninth-round pick in 1985, scored four goals and 35 assists and earned 88 penalty minutes in 29 games with St-Jean. &#9632;

f0042-02

Chicoutimi Thrives On Road To Stay Atop Dilio Division

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-03112/5384798-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="380" height="476"><figcaption class="caption-body">GUY GIROUARD Hamilton</figcaption></div><h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>Defenseman Guy Girouard, 20, of the Hamilton Steelhawks scored two goals and nine assists in three games. Girouard scored twice and assisted on five goals in a 10-1 rout of Oshawa Dec. 18Girouard improved his totals to 10 goals and 31 assists in 32 games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0487/5384791-1-eng-US/f0042-042.jpg" title="f0042-04" width="380" height="479"><figcaption class="caption-body">ERIC PINARD Chicoutimi</figcaption></div><h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>Chicoutimi right winger Eric Pinard, 19, scored six goals and one assist to lead his team to wins over Trois-Rivieres and Drummondville. Pinard improved his totals to 31 goals and 34 assists in 33 games.Pinard scored three goals in each of Chicoutimi&rsquo;s victories.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0573/5384784-1-eng-US/f0042-052.jpg" title="f0042-05" width="356" height="480"><figcaption class="caption-body">GRANT TKACHUK Saskatoon</figcaption></div><h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>Saskatoon left winger Grant Tkachuk scored five goals and five assists for 10 points in three games.Tkachuk, 19, improved his season totals to 29 goals and 22 assists for 51 points in 34 league games. &#9632;

f0042-03

MICRON JUNIOR PLAYERS OF THE WEEK FOR DEC. 14-20

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Virg Foss</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01208/5384829-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="179" height="131"></div>Herb Boxer has coached the Michigan Tech Huskies for just two seasons, but he&rsquo;s already matched one career mark of 555-game winner John Maclnnes, Tech&rsquo;s mentor for 26 years:Number of losing seasons&mdash;two.But fear not. Tech is on the rise again. The Huskies, who have either been in last place or tied for last in the Western Collegiate Association three seasons in a row, are finally turning the comer under Boxer, a 40-year-old Tech graduate who is patiently rebuilding the program.A two-game road sweep of defending NCAA-champion North Dakota (Dec. 11-12) moved Tech into fourth place in the WCHA with a 9-9-1 record. It was Tech&rsquo;s first road sweep in the WCHA since 1981 and the first time the Huskies swept UND in Grand Forks since the 1974-75 season. That was the last time Tech won an NCAA title.<h2>WISCONSIN PEAKING</h2>Wisconsin is another team on the rise. The Badgers, winners of four NCAA titles since 1973, have posted a fine 12-6 league record despite playing what may have been the toughest schedule in college hockey&hellip;Minnesota-Duluth&rsquo;s unbeaten streak at home is over. Denver beat coach Mike Sertich&rsquo;s Bulldogs 6-2 in Duluth Dec. 12, snapping Duluth&rsquo;s six-game winning streak at home&hellip;North Dakota senior center Steve Johnson leads the nation in scoring with 44 points (15 goals, 29 assists) in 20 games&hellip;Michigan Tech has nine players who posted 3.0-or-better grade-point averages in the classroom for the fall term. &#9632;

f0043-01

Dog Days Over For Huskies

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Tom Boggie</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03128/5384860-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Michigan Tech goalie Frank Furlan keeps his cool amidst heavy traffic, including North Dakota&rsquo;s Grant Paranica (22). The Huskies are competitive in the WCHA this year, after experiencing recent hard times.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02153/5384867-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="180" height="126"></div>There&rsquo;s more to St. Lawrence goaltender Paul Cohen than statistics.Through the Saints&rsquo; first 10 games, Cohen&rsquo;s numbers were less than spectacular&mdash;an.850 save percentage and a 4.20 goals-against average&mdash;but a 31-save performance in a 2-1 victory against Clarkson silenced most of his critics.Cohen, a junior from Hamilton, Ont., who was an understudy to Scott Yearwood for the last two years, has emerged as the Saints&rsquo; top goaltender and has proven he won&rsquo;t be the weak Jink in the Saints&rsquo; march to the NCAA playoffs.His performance against Clarkson pushed his save percentage to.870 and lowered his goals-againstto3.96. Because of his efforts, St. Lawrence was able to win in Potsdam, N.Y., for the first time in 20 games, dating back to 1981.<h2>QUICK START FOR COLGATE</h2>Colgate, off to its best start since the 1962-63 season, completed the first semester of its schedule with a 9-1 mark. The Red Raiders hit the break with a seven-game winning streak&hellip;Goalscoring is again a problem for Brown. The Bruins lit the light just 24 times in their first nine games. Mike Langton and Rod Pritchard led the way with four each&hellip;Among the many freshmen to keep an eye on this season is Army rookie Rob Tobin. The center led the Cadets in goals with eight in 12 games, one ahead of sophomore winger Rich Sheridan&hellip;Clarkson is still trying to figure out how to win on the road. The Golden Knights hit the break at 5-6 and were 0-4 away from Walker Arena. &#9632;

f0043-03

Cohen Emerges

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Larry Mahoney</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0499/5384898-1-eng-US/f0043-042.jpg" title="f0043-04" width="181" height="135"></div>The Northeastern Huskies&rsquo; best Hockey East rivalry is not with crosstown neighbors Boston University and Boston College, but the Maine Black Bears.The teams have gone 1-1-2 against each other this season. Each won a two-goal game on the other&rsquo;s ice. Twelve of their last 13 meetings have been decided by a margin of two goals or less. Six have gone into overtime.Maine has gone 19-7-1 at its Alfond Arena over the last season-and-a-half, but the Huskies are 2-0-2 there, including a 2-2 league tie Dec. 11 and 5-3 non-league victory the following night.&ldquo;Whenever we play Maine, everybody gets up for it,&rdquo; said Northeastern senior center Kevin Heffernan. &ldquo;The crowd up there raises the intensity level. When you play Maine, you&rsquo;ve got to be gung-ho.&rdquo;Northeastern holds an 8-4-2 edge over the Bears in Orono and a 17-6-3 margin overall.<h2>KING OF THE HILL</h2>Maine sophomore goalie Scott King has returned to the top of the league&rsquo;s goaltending statistics with his 3.02 goals-against average. King set a Hockey East record last year with a 3.06 GAA&hellip;Providence&rsquo;s Gord Cruickshank was the league&rsquo;s leading scorer through Dec. 14, with 11 goals and nine assists&mdash;and just six penalty minutes. He averaged 50 minutes in each of his first three seasons.BC&rsquo;s Danny Shea, with 155 career points, moved into 11th place on the league&rsquo;s all-time scoring list&hellip;New Hampshire freshman standout Chris Winnes had his nine-game scoring streak stopped by Providence in UNH&rsquo;s 5-2 loss Dec. 9. &#9632;

f0043-04

Rivalry Heats Up

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Bill Crawford</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0588/5384929-1-eng-US/f0043-052.jpg" title="f0043-05" width="179" height="135"></div>The MSU Spartans were up 3-1 on Ferris State Dec. 11 at Munn Arena, and the Bulldogs hadn&rsquo;t won in seven games. The Spartans would breeze through this one and head to Ferris the next night to complete a four-point Central Collegiate Association weekend, right?Wrong. Ferris wiped out MSU&rsquo;s lead with goals by Dean Cowling and Rod Schluter in the first four minutes of the third period. Then, after Mike O&rsquo;Toole restored the Spartans&rsquo; lead, John dePoureq and Mike Lalonde connected 43 seconds apart to propel the Bulldogs to a 5-4 win.In the second game of the MSU series, Ferris was outshot 46-18 but still managed a 1-1 tie, on Andy Black&rsquo;s deflection past Jason Muzzatti with 44 seconds left.<h2>PALUCH TIES MARK</h2>Scott Paluch of Bowling Green tied alumnus Brian McKee for the school&rsquo;s all-time goalscoring lead among defensemen, when he potted his 40th against Princeton&hellip;Lake Superior&rsquo;s Mark Vermette regained the national goalscoring crown when he scored three times against Ohio State Dec. 11-12, giving him 23 for the year&hellip;Michigan&rsquo;s Mike Moes and Miami&rsquo;s Todd Harkins turn into scoring machines when their teams meet. Moes was 1-8-9 in four games against Miami, 3-16-19 overall. Harkins was 4-2-6 against Michigan, 5-4-9 overall&hellip;John Perpich is the head coach at Ferris State, not Bob Mancini as mistakenly reported in the Dec. 11 issue of THN. Mancini is an assistant coach. &#9632;

f0043-05

Bulldogs Barking

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0044-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01173/5384974-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01148/5384967-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg" title="f0045-01" width="3125" height="3665"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01146/5384960-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="3131" height="3249"></div> &#9632;

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The Hockey News NHL STATISTICAL REPORT

<h2>TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE&hellip;</h2>1. What Detroit Red Wing led the NHL in penalty minutes in 1940-41 and 1942-43?2. What goaltender had two 15-shutout seasons in his NHL career?3. Name the first goaltenders to share the Vezina Trophy.4. What team ended a string of five straight Stanley Cup final appearances by missing the playoffs?5. Name the only first-round pick from the 1971 NHL amateur draft still playing in the league.6. Name the two Philadelphia Flyer captains who later played for the Pittsburgh Penguins.7. Which two members of the New York Islanders&rsquo; 1979-80 Stanley Cup championship team went on to become NHL coaches?8. Who won the NHL scoring title in 1959-60,1961-62 and 1965-66?9. Who was the last player besides Wayne Gretzky to lead the NHL in both regular-season and playoff scoring the same year?10. What team finished last in the NHL every season from 1960-61 through 1964-65?<h2>ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ</h2>1. Jimmy Orlando. 2. Alex Connell, Ottawa, 1925-26 and 1927-28.3. Johnny Bower and Terry Sawchuk, Toronto, 1964-65.4. Montreal, 1969-70. 5. Marcel Dionne. 6. Lou Angotti, Ed Van Impe. 7. Butch Goring, Boston; Lome Henning, Minnesota. 8. Bobby Hull. 9. Guy Lafleur, Montreal, 1977-78. 10. Boston Bruins. BONUS ANSWER: Al Hamilton.<h2>BONUS QUESTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0920/5385134-1-eng-US/f0047-092.jpg" title="f0047-09" width="575" height="913"><figcaption class="caption-body">BONUS: His number (3) is the only one which has been retired by the Edmonton Oilers.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0047-09

THN HOCKEY TRIVIA

<h2>Mon., Dec. 14</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01166/5385103-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg" title="f0047-01" width="618" height="754"></div><h2>Tue., Dec. 15</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02114/5385096-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg" title="f0047-02" width="620" height="2711"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0382/5385089-1-eng-US/f0047-032.jpg" title="f0047-03" width="616" height="302"></div><h2>Wed., Dec. 16</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0465/5385082-1-eng-US/f0047-042.jpg" title="f0047-04" width="616" height="3201"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0548/5385075-1-eng-US/f0047-052.jpg" title="f0047-05" width="624" height="2050"></div><h2>Thur., Dec. 17</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0637/5385068-1-eng-US/f0047-062.jpg" title="f0047-06" width="618" height="2016"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0733/5385061-1-eng-US/f0047-072.jpg" title="f0047-07" width="606" height="1240"></div><h2>Fri., Dec. 18</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0823/5385054-1-eng-US/f0047-082.jpg" title="f0047-08" width="602" height="696"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-01126/5385047-1-eng-US/f0048-012.jpg" title="f0048-01" width="626" height="2789"></div><h2>Sat. Dec. 19</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-0286/5385040-1-eng-US/f0048-022.jpg" title="f0048-02" width="612" height="728"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-0357/5385033-1-eng-US/f0048-032.jpg" title="f0048-03" width="622" height="3555"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-0446/5385026-1-eng-US/f0048-042.jpg" title="f0048-04" width="626" height="2082"></div><h2>Sun., Dec. 20</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-0532/5385019-1-eng-US/f0048-052.jpg" title="f0048-05" width="632" height="1456"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-0622/5385012-1-eng-US/f0048-062.jpg" title="f0048-06" width="610" height="3585"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-0718/5385005-1-eng-US/f0048-072.jpg" title="f0048-07" width="622" height="1330"></div> &#9632;

f0047-01

NHL SUMMARIES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0049-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-01119/5385210-1-eng-US/f0049-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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The Hockey News SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0050-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-01122/5385241-1-eng-US/f0050-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Bauer College ScoreBoarD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0051-01104/5385321-1-eng-US/f0051-012.jpg" title="f0051-01" width="290" height="294"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0051-0278/5385314-1-eng-US/f0051-022.jpg" title="f0051-02" width="424" height="367"></div>The Calgary Flames are being fuelled by rookie power.The Smythe Division team has been neck-and-neck with Edmonton all season long for first place, thanks largely to the play of freshmen Joe Nieuwendyk and Brett Hull. Nieuwendyk led all first-year NHLers in scoring with 32 points on 20 goals and 12 assists, while Hull stood second with 27 on 15 goals and 12 assists.Here&rsquo;s how the overall standings looked for the six Canadian teams participating in the Molson Cup balloting:<h2>CALGARY</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0051-0351/5385307-1-eng-US/f0051-032.jpg" title="f0051-03" width="609" height="291"></div><h2>EDMONTON</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0051-0441/5385300-1-eng-US/f0051-042.jpg" title="f0051-04" width="604" height="291"></div><h2>MONTREAL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0051-0526/5385293-1-eng-US/f0051-052.jpg" title="f0051-05" width="611" height="285"></div><h2>TORONTO</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0051-0622/5385286-1-eng-US/f0051-062.jpg" title="f0051-06" width="601" height="294"></div><h2>VANCOUVER</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0051-0716/5385279-1-eng-US/f0051-072.jpg" title="f0051-07" width="611" height="290"></div><h2>WINNIPEG</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0051-089/5385272-1-eng-US/f0051-082.jpg" title="f0051-08" width="608" height="334"></div> &#9632;

f0051-01

Rookies Lead Calgary Team In Cup Votes

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0052-01111/5385352-1-eng-US/f0052-012.jpg" title="f0052-01" width="188" height="138"></div>LANDOVER, Md.&mdash;Washington Capitals were holding so many meetings, it was suggested that they give up their National Hockey League franchise and apply for membership in the Kiwanis Club.After a 5-3 defeat in Toronto on Dec. 15, the players closed the dressing room door and discussed their problems.The next night, it was coach Bryan Murray who did the talking, after the second period of a 6-1 loss at Detroit. Murray deliberately let the proceedings go beyond the start of the third period, drawing a minor penalty for delay of game, to &ldquo;get their attention.&rdquo;Returning home, the Capitals were subjected to a glut of meetings, one commencing at 7 p.m. on Dec. 17 and running well into the night.On Dec. 18, before the Capitals played Toronto on home ice, owner Abe Pollin and team president Dick Patrick visited the team&rsquo;s dressing room, gave the players a vote of confidence and inspired enough emotion for the Capitals to defeat the Maple Leafs 4-2.Still, the game went down to an empty-net goal and there were obvious unresolved problems, with ownership&rsquo;s display of confidence conflicting rather sharply with general manager David Poile&rsquo;s previously-announced plan for &ldquo;re-evaluation&rdquo; of the team&rsquo;s situation following the Dec. 26 game against Philadelphia.Considering the dearth of talent in the Capitals&rsquo; farm system, limiting Poile&rsquo;s other options, it became obvious that Murray is in jeopardy unless there is a sharp turnaround.When the media reported Poile&rsquo;s &ldquo;re-evaluation,&rdquo; which sounded suspiciously like an ultimatum, it noted the obvious fact that it is easier to fire a coach than 20 players. It also pointed out that while the Capitals&rsquo; annual early-season flops have been overcome in the past, the situation is more crucial now because of the improvement shown by long-time doormats Pittsburgh and New Jersey.Some Capital Centre fans, not especially pleased with Murray&rsquo;s defensive style and lack of playoff success, proceeded to get under Murray&rsquo;s skin.After the victory over Toronto, Murray said. &ldquo;For five years now we&rsquo;ve gone through this. It&rsquo;s not pleasant, it&rsquo;s not fun and I don&rsquo;t enjoy the catcalls from the stands. But I believe in this team.&rdquo;Murray&rsquo;s feelings were displayed in more naked fashion following a 1-1 tie against St. Louis on Dec. 20. Asked how he felt about an upcoming road trip to Quebec and Montreal. Murray said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be glad to get out of here. Since you guys set me up, all I hear coming out of the stands is &lsquo;Three more games, Murray. Three more games.&rsquo; &ldquo;For his part, Poile said, &ldquo;As I&rsquo;ve said before when we&rsquo;ve gone through hard times. I am not considering a coaching change at this time. Right now. I&rsquo;m interested in winning games and the coaches are working hard to right the ship.&rdquo;Asked whether he expected the coaching staff to be part of Poile&rsquo;s reevaluation, Murray replied, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure we all will be. When a team performs the way we&rsquo;ve performed, the whole situation has to be looked at. The way we&rsquo;re going, playing with such inconsistency, you have to wonder why the work level at least isn&rsquo;t where it should be.NOTES&mdash;Team captain Rod Langway, forced out of action by a ruptured disc in his lower back, joined coach Bryan Murray behind the bench, in a role Langway described as &ldquo;a cheer leader.&rdquo; If his improvement continued, Langway&rsquo;s return was pro jected for Jan. 1. He skated with the team in practice and stayed afterward for extra work, but was forbidden from taking part in any contact drills&hellip;Lou Franceschetti&rsquo;s first goal of the season, with 2:54 left in regulation time, enabled the Capitals to tie St. Louis, 1-1. Since the team Christmas party was scheduled an hour after the afternoon game, Franceschetti was described in one newspaper as &ldquo;the man who saved Christmas.&rdquo;<h2>CAPITALS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 14: Mike Posavad, D, acquired on waivers from St. Louis and assigned to Fort Wayne (IHL).Dec. 15: Mike Posavad, D, announces retirement.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Dale Hunter, Dave Christian, Bob Gould, Michal Pivonka.LW&mdash;Bengt Gustafsson, Kelly Miller, Greg Adams, Lou Franceschetti.RW&mdash;Mike Gartner, Peter Sund-Strom, Craig Laughlin, Ed Kastelic.LD&mdash;Scott Stevens, Greg Smith, Bill Houlder.RD&mdash;Kevin Hatcher, Larry Murphy, Garry Galley.G&mdash;Clint Malarchuk, Pete Peeters.<h3>INJURIES</h3>John Barrett, D, fractured left kneecap, indefinite.Rod Langway, D, ruptured disc in back, Jan. 1.Mike Ridley, C, strained ligament in right knee, Jan. 5. &#9632;

f0052-01

Inconsistent Capitals ‘Meet’ Their Match

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0052-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0052-0267/5385383-1-eng-US/f0052-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0052-02

The Hockey News Classified

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0053-0280/5385414-1-eng-US/f0053-022.jpg" title="f0053-02" width="598" height="1000"><figcaption class="caption-body">Coach Michel Bergeron threatened to pare six players from the Ranger roster.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0053-01115/5385421-1-eng-US/f0053-012.jpg" title="f0053-01" width="186" height="136"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Sounding ever so much like Ebenezer Scrooge, New York Ranger coach Michel Bergeron threatened to send five or six of his players to the International League, after the Rangers humbugged their way through a lost weekend against Pittsburgh.&ldquo;I told them (his players) that we have 26 players and we want to keep 20,&rdquo; an angry Bergeron said after his team&rsquo;s second loss to the Penguins in 24 hours. &ldquo;Too bad if it&rsquo;s Christmas.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to make decisions. Sometimes you&rsquo;ve got to make some changes.&rdquo;Very little changed from Dec. 19 in Pittsburgh, when the Rangers outshot the Penguins 46-25 and still managed to lose 4-3, to Dec. 20, when they outshot the Penguins 50-32 and were routed 8-4 at home.&ldquo;We had 50 shots on goal and scored only one goal at even strength,&rdquo; Bergeron complained. &ldquo;We need guys who are willing to pay the price at even strength. It&rsquo;s time to give a chance to other players.&rdquo;What other players Bergeron was referring to remained a mystery, especially since he had already tried 35 different players in the first 33 games.It has been clear since training camp that Bergeron is uncomfortable with a small Ranger team which seldom plays forceful, combative hockey.Against the Penguins, Bergeron was so desperate for size and muscle that he moved rookie defenseman Mark Tinordi to left wing and then promised to put Jeff Brubaker back into the lineup again after the big, slow left winger sat out five of seven games.Among other things, the Penguins took the Rangers&rsquo; best player, Tomas Sandstrom, off the ice with four minor penalties in the second game of their sweep. Bergeron believes opponents take too many liberties with his team.A lack of toughness has haunted the former Nordique coach all season, as evidenced by his overreaction to a crosscheck to the head on Norm Maciver by New Jersey&rsquo;s Jim Korn, in a 9-3 Ranger victory on Dec. 16.&ldquo;I hate that. I hate that. That&rsquo;s what I hate in hockey!&rdquo; said Bergeron&rsquo;s. &ldquo;Next time we play them (Dec. 26), there will be Rudy Poeschek, Jeff Brubaker and (Mark) Tinordi. I&rsquo;m not sure he will crosscheck Tinordi. Anyway, I&rsquo;d like to see it.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s 9-3 and Korn tries to kill somebody. I hope the league will do something about that. They (league officials) wait and wait&hellip;What are they waiting for? For somebody to get killed?&rdquo;Korn&rsquo;s crosscheck, which was not captured on videotape, was blatant and unnecessary but did not appear to be anywhere near as dangerous as Bergeron suggested. The fact that he reacted the way he did may have revealed more about his perception of the Rangers&rsquo; vulnerability than it did about the specific incident.One game earlier, the Ranger coach was unhappy with the way Detroit&rsquo;s Bob Probert bashed and thrashed his way around Garden ice in a 4-3 New York victory. On that occasion, however, he admitted that he would love to have a player like Probert in his lineup.&ldquo;We are missing some things,&rdquo; Bergeron observed.The search goes on.NOTES&mdash;The Rangers led 3-0 after 7:55 of the first period in their crushing Dec. 20 loss to Pittsburgh and, amazingly, were outshooting the Penguins 13-0 after 11:30&hellip;Referee Terry Gregson disallowed apparent goals by Walt Poddubny and Mike Donnelly in that game. He also gave the Rangers nine power-play chances, three of them five-on-threes&hellip;After 33 games, Marcel Dionne was tied for the team lead in scoring (19-19-38), but also owned the worst plus-minus rating (minus-12)&hellip;The Rangers&rsquo; 4-3 loss at Pittsburgh on Dec. 19 left them with a 3-12 mark in one-goal decisions.<h2>RANGERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Dec. 15&mdash;Norm Maciver, D, recalled from Denver (IHL).Dec. 16&mdash;Paul Boutilier, D. traded to Winnipeg for a fifth-round draft choice in 1989 and future considerations.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Marcel Dionne. Kelly Kisio, Ron Duguay. Ulf Dahlen, Steve Nemeth.LW&mdash;Walt Poddubny, John Ogrod-nick, Jan Erixon, Jeff Brubaker.RW&mdash;Tomas Sandstrom, Lucien DeBlois, Brian Mullen, Mike Donnelly.LD&mdash;Jari Gronstrand, Ron Gres-chner, Mark Tinordi.RD&mdash;James Patrick, David Shaw, Mtchel Petit.G&mdash;John Vanbiesbrouck. Bob Froese, Ron Scott.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Pierre Larouche. C, pinched nerve in lower back, indefinite.Don Maloney, LW, groin, Dec. 26.Jim Pavese. D, groin, indefinite. &#9632;

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January 8, 1988

THIS WEEK…

Tucker Down And Out, Cloutier Up And In

Carlyle Became ‘Minister Without Portfolio’

IZVESTIA TOURNAMENT SUMMARIES