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.

September 30, 1988

The Hockey News September 30, 1988

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011011/5645351-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Departments

HOCKEY STICK ANALYSIS

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031096/5644630-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="540" height="1264"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bruin defenseman Gord Kluzak could be missing from four to six weeks.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021298/5644637-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="150" height="121"></div>BOSTON&mdash;While golfing three weeks before training camp, Gord Kluzak squatted to line up a putt and was reminded that his career hangs by a ligament or a cartilage.&ldquo;I felt something go,&rdquo; said the Boston Bruin defenseman. &ldquo;1 didn't think much about it at the time but it collected a lot of fluid on it and it&rsquo;s given me some pain since then"On Sept. 17, eight days after training camp opened, the 24-year-old underwent an arthroscope on his left knee&mdash;the eighth surgical procedure since his pro career began in 1982&mdash;and the word was he would be on the shelf for four to six weeks.Kluzak&rsquo;s situation sent a collective shudder through the Bruins at training camp because he has missed two of the last four full seasons due to surgery on his left knee. He underwent four arthroscopic procedures during the 1986-87 season to correct a damaged left kneecap, which was sucked into the knee area and reduced mobility the joint by 50 per cent.Kluzak skated on the opening day of training camp Sept. 9. It appeared whatever happened that day on the golf course was not serious.But the fluid continued to build up and the pain refused to go away, so after much deliberation Bruin physician Dr. Bert Zarins performed the arthroscope and removed a piece of cartilage the size of a dime.The cartilage was taken from above Kluzak&rsquo;s troublesome kneecap where it attaches to the thigh bone, leaving him with the possibility of bone rubbing against bone.&ldquo;It's something nobody really considered,&rdquo; said Kluzak. &ldquo;They thought the problem was in the joint. 1 don&rsquo;t know what this is going to mean. It&rsquo;s just a very uncertain situation.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s frustrating. My knee felt so darned good all summer. I&rsquo;ve been able to play racquetball and basketball and things I wouldn't even have considered a couple of years ago.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really been feeling much stronger and 1 put in a lot of work building my leg strength this summer and then to have this little problem.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m used to them. I don&rsquo;t have a normal knee joint any more. I know 1 can anticipate that little circumstances like this are going to frustrate me for the rest of my career.&rdquo;The loss of Kluzak for even a brief period of time 1s a blow to the Bruins because he is an integral part of their defense. He played 66 regular-season (6-31-37) and 23 playoff games (4-8-12) last year, after missing all of 1984-85 and 1986-87 because of knee injuries.&ldquo;They say everything should be okay,&rdquo; said Bruin general manager Harry Sinden. &ldquo;But we just have to wait and see what happens. Nothing is guaranteed.&rdquo;Sinden is also concerned about the persistent groin injury&mdash;classified as a 'right abdominal strain&rsquo;&mdash;that kept left winger Nevin Markwart out of all but 25 games last season and persisted throughout the summer.&ldquo;The strange thing about Nevin&rsquo;s injury,&rdquo; said Sinden, &ldquo;is that part of it was caused by one leg being a bit longer than the other.&ldquo;Everybody has one leg a bit longer but with Nevin&rsquo;s the difference was a bit too much and he couldn&rsquo;t heal the damned injury. They got him a lift to put in one shoe and they thought it healed.&rdquo;But it hadn't and Markwart was among five Bruins, including Kluzak, who missed the opening of training camp with a variety of ills.The others were center Bob Sweeney, recovering from hernia surgery for the second straight year, left winger Moe Lemay, who had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee Sept. 6, and center Gord Cruickshank, who injured his left ankle.Cruickshank, a rookie center from Providence College, faces possible surgery to reconstruct a deteriorated bone in his ankle. He could be lost until March.NOTES&mdash;Jeremy Jacobs, the Buffalo entrepreneur who has owned the Bruins for the past 13 years, paid a rare visit to camp on Sept. 9&hellip;Defenseman Ray Bourque will be the Bruins&rsquo; lone captain after sharing the honor with right winger Rick Middleton the past three seasons&hellip;Middleton set an Oct. 1 cut-off date for offers to play in Europe. If nothing materializes, he may wind up as an assistant coach with the Bruins. &#9632;

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Kluzak Undergoes Surgery For Eighth Time

The 1989 TPS (Tournament Players&rsquo; Series) line of hockey sticks is proving to be the most popular stick ever offered by Louisville Hockey.The TPS is being used by a number of NHL players and is available in the following player patterns&mdash;Steve Yzerman (Detroit), Dale Hawerchuk (Winnipeg), Ron Francis (Hartford), Shayne Corson (Montreal) and Pat Verbeek (New Jersey).The TPS features a slightly-rounded handle for better feel. offering greater playability. The handle is fibreglass-reinforced (with an outside birch veneer for that wood feel), to give both stiffness and the light weight required by the better player.The exclusive Louisville Fibre-Shield blade is on all TPS models, making this stick last longer. The Fibre-Shield blade consists of Kevlar (the same material used in bullet-proof vests) strands along one side, as well as along the running surface, offering the optimum in durability. The other side of the blade features 100-per-cent graphite strands to provide extra stiffness for those harder shots.Rounding out the line is a TPS-JR with the same components as a TPS, only in an intermediate stick. The TPS-JR is available in the Hawerchuk and Yzerman models. A new replacement blade is also being offered with the exclusive Fibre-Shield Kevlar/graphite combination.<h2>Louisville puts great care into its G Lite goal sticks.</h2>NHL and OHL goaltenders have come to know Louisville as the leader in the goal-stick area. Louisville has taken the same hand-craftsmanship and quality put into the making of its goaltenders&rsquo; sticks, and put it into all the goal sticks it produces.The G Lite model is a super? lightweight ash/aspen mode with white, black and gold cosmetics. The G Lite is available in either straight or curved models. The 2625 Pro model comes in many color combinations, and features a Kevlar wear bar along the goal blade, running surface and up the paddle.The 1989 season at Louisville has seen the TPS, goalies&rsquo; and all other models proving more popular than ever.Louisville&hellip;the Centre of Attention.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01704/5645551-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="556" height="1274"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shayne Corson (left) and Francis both use Louisville&trade; sticks.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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TPS—Louisville’s Most Popular Stick Ever

Will the homework in June pay off during the regular season?In a nutshell, that's what the NHL's Calder Trophy&mdash;awarded to "the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the National Hockey League"&mdash;is all about as the draft picks of summers past line up for a shot at the trophy.Those with the inside track for this year's award figure to be Boston's Craig Janney and New Jersey's Sean Burke, who Impressed in season-ending stints last season. THN will examine their Calder chances and those of other top rookies in its next issue.We'll also provide a look at who could be the future Calder candidates&mdash;top prospects for the 1989 entry draft.And, of course, you'll get minor pro and junior league wrap-ups, our roster of outstanding columnists and much, much more in the Oct. 7 edition of THE HOCKEY NEWS. &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUE

NEXT WEEK

<div class="byline">Jay Greenberg</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011417/5644599-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="360" height="461"></div>I HAVE A DREAM that there will come a time when a referee will never have to call a penalty.I have a dream that Dale Hunter will someday turn his stick into a plowshare, while Glenn Anderson converts his into a pruning hook. I have a dream that natural enemies like Tom Watt and Ron Hoggarth will lie down together, although hopefully not in the same bed.I have a dream that hockey players will be on the honor system and Ron Sutter will turn himself in for five minutes every time he impales Mario Lemieux. Referees will wear yellow shirts and skate up and down the ice as little more than casual observers. Oh, that&rsquo;s already happened? Never mind, then.I have a dream that, before they die, Don Koharski and Jim Schoenfeld will dunk doughnuts together. I have a dream that referees will finally be treated with respect by the players, who will perform to the best of their ability but always within the rulebook.Of course, I&rsquo;m the same guy who had a dream that I saw Kjell Samuelsson in pink tights doing Swan Lake. So you may laugh at my utopian fantasies, but I do not apologize for them. I see myself as a man of great vision&mdash;well, at least it&rsquo;s better than Bob Hall&rsquo;s&mdash;who quests for a better world.The coache and managers of 21 NHL teams went to Chicago during the last week of August in the hopes of reaching a greater understanding of the men who cost them games, their jobs, their careers. An NHL team has yet to lose a contest it couldn&rsquo;t blame on the officiating. And yet here were coaches who have chased referees down runways, and referees who have ratted on coaches to Brian O&rsquo;Neill, reaching out towards each other.Everybody who was there said it was beautiful. John McCauley blew his old whistle to &ldquo;We Are the World,&rdquo; while Jim Gregory hummed &ldquo;Give Peace a Chance.&rdquo; These two stinkin&rsquo; zebra lovers&hellip;er, excuse me, great administrators&hellip; laid everything out for the coaches and general managers: What will be called. What won&rsquo;t be called. And why.&ldquo;I thought it was a tremendous meeting,&rdquo; said McCauley, the league's director of officiating. &ldquo;We put together manuals and films for them. Both sides made a constructive effort to understand interpretations.&rdquo;The stricter enforcement begun last season on orders from the owners stands. If it takes two or three years for the players to adjust, then so be it.High-sticking that causes an injury can get you a game misconduct now. The context of the action is no longer any excuse. You carry your stick high at the risk of being put out of the game.Interference, that most nebulous of all hockey fouls, was addressed. If you have body position away from the puck, then it is not interference to make your opponent go around you. You may hit and run, but failure to release within a second or two will gain you two minutes in the penalty box.Boarding and charging penalties, tortures to those who see the good, hard hit disappearing from the game, were defined. &ldquo;If the player has no defense against the check, it has to be penalized,&rdquo; said McCauley. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think anybody ever complained about a penalty called on a hit from behind.&rdquo;The officials have ratified a new contract with the league that theoretically rewards them for performance. General managers, who under the old bargaining agreement had a 25-per-cent say in the evaluation of each official&rsquo;s work, will no longer be asked for their opinion. Only the league judges these people now.The officials won a promise from the league that they will be able to leave the ice at the end of a period or game without having a coach or general manager in their face. They may also dress and leave without having to traverse a fuming general manager in the hallway.&ldquo;They (officials) are out of bounds,&rdquo; said McCauley. &ldquo;If people have complaints, they should use league management people.&rdquo;In turn, the GMs and coaches were assured those aren&rsquo;t rolls of doughnuts that some of the referees are carrying under their shirts. McCauley said appearances notwithstanding, his men are in condition.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t turn our back on (weight problems),&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You have to remember the girdle the officials wear may make a guy look 30 pounds heavier, depending on his build.&rdquo;The Chicago sessions ended in a spirit of ecumenism. Referees can earn more for getting it right. So they will. Players have a better idea of what to expect this year, so their behavior will improve. Penalties will be down, frustration will be down. The game will be uplifted.The opening of the season promises an unprecdented era of good feeling between the officials, the players and the coaches. It might even be November before Bryan Murray utters a single word as Andy van Hellemond skates past the Capitals&rsquo; bench.Michel Bergeron won&rsquo;t be standing on the boards screaming until at least January, and Tom Watt won&rsquo;t accuse anyone of cheating at least until Feb. 1. That door to the officials&rsquo; dressing room in Buffalo won&rsquo;t feel the wrath of Harry Sinden&rsquo;s foot until playoff time at the earliest.Hockey can be a beautifully-played game in August. This is the year the opening of the season won&rsquo;t ruin things.I&rsquo;d stick around and talk about this some more, but I have a love-in scheduled for 2 p.m., and a shipment of good karma to pick up at 4. So my brothers, I&rsquo;ll leave you with this: Until the day comes that Kerry Fraser can melt down his whistle, all we are saying is, &ldquo;Give peace a chance.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Columnists

All We Are Saving Is, ‘Give Peace A Chance’

<div class="byline">BY TOM McMILLAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011308/5644675-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The trend these days is to hire emotional ex-players as coaches, such as Paul Holmgren in Philadelphia and Brian Sutter in St. Louis. Next year? Who knows?</figcaption></div>As if miracles never cease, no National Hockey League team has fired its head coach for almost three months now.But don&rsquo;t worrySomewhere out there is a fretting general manager with a pathetic roster and an itchy trigger finger. Sooner or later&mdash;probably by late October or early November&mdash;another coach will get dumped &ldquo;for the good of the team."It is always for the good of the team. During Mike Keenan&rsquo;s four seasons in Philadelphia, he whipped the Flyers to three division titles, two appearances in the Stanley Cup finals and an average yearly haul of 47.5 wins. Keenan won almost as many games in one season (53) as the Pittsburgh Penguins did from 1982 to 1985 (58).Yet this bastion of the bench was fired in May for the grievous sin of having a team which, according to his boss. Flyer general manager Bob Clarke, lacked zip.&ldquo;It (coaching turnover) is a very serious problem in our business,&rdquo; says Detroit Red Wing coach Jacques Demers, who is one of the lucky ones&mdash;canned just once in 17 years. &ldquo;When a coach like Mike Keenan gets fired, a coach who over the last 10 to 12 years has been one of the very best in hockey&hellip;you think, &lsquo;What is going on?&rsquo;Lunacy, that&rsquo;s what.NHL teams have made coaching changes 54 times in the last five years.Granted, not all of them were firings. Demers skipped from St. Louis to Detroit for big bucks. Al Arbour and Bob Johnson left the New York Islanders and Calgary Flames, respectively, on their own terms. Pat Quinn bolted Los Angeles for Vancouver.And then there were the GMs&mdash;Scott Bowman, John Ferguson and Bob Pulford among others&mdash;who made coaching changes only to go behind the bench themselves before finally hiring another victim.But most of those 54 turnovers, 33 to be exact, were firings. Or if not firings, not-so-gentle pushes.In the past five years then, there has been an average of about 10 coaching changes, six of them firings, per year.From opening day of last season to opening day this season&mdash;assuming there are no training camp purges&mdash;10 changes were made. All but Jean Perron's departure from Montreal were the result of firings. One could argue that his was, too.Those are frightening numbers in a sport where the players have gathered increasing power. When this season begins, only two of the league&rsquo;s 21 coaches will have been with their teams for more than two full seasons.The reigning deans of NHL coaches are Edmonton&rsquo;s Glen Sather, entering his 10th season, and Washington&rsquo;s Bryan Murray, entering his eighth. Sather has the added security of being president and general manager of the Oilers and is unlikely to fire himself, even if he fails to win his fifth Cup in six years. Murray just keeps dodging bullets.&ldquo;It sounds good to say you want stability&mdash;-that&rsquo;s always a goal,&rdquo; says David Poile, GM of the Capitals, who have lived and then died in the playoffs with Murray since he took over for Gary Green in 1981. &ldquo;You want that all the way down the line in an organization to be successful. The GM, the coach, the players, the marketing people, the PR people.&ldquo;Stability instills loyalty but that&rsquo;s a very idealistic statement. Now I'll give you a contra; diction. Sometimes it&rsquo;s healthy to make changes. &rsquo;&rsquo;There were rumbles of change in Washington late last spring, after the Caps failed once more to survive the Patrick Division playoffs. Team president Dick Patrick said, "I&rsquo;m disappointed, let down and frustrated.&rdquo; But Murray has been welcomed back to fulfill the final year of his contract and try to win a Cup with Rod Lang-way, Mike Gartner and Scott Stevens at his side.Others were not as lucky.So it is that Brian Sutter in St. Louis, Paul Holmgren in Philadelphia, Pierre Page in Minnesota, Gene Ubriaco in Pittsburgh and Pat Burns in Montreal have been chosen for first-year coaching terms. And Keenan? He was hired in Chicago, where Bob Murdoch was fired, ignominiously, to make. room.Four others&mdash;Larry Pleau in Hartford, Robbie Ftorek in L.A., Jim Schoenfeld in New Jersey and Ron Lapointe in Quebec&mdash;are starting the season with their clubs for the first time. They were early-, mid- or late-season replacements in 1987-88.Nine more&mdash;Terry O&rsquo;Reilly in Boston, Ted Sator in Buffalo, Terry Crisp in Calgary, Demers in Detroit, Terry Simpson with the Islanders, Michel Bergeron with the New York Rangers, John Brophy in Toronto, Bob McCammon in Vancouver and Dan Maloney in Winnipeg&mdash;-have two years or less service with their clubs.Only Sather and Murray exceed the two-year barrier.&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t speak well of our business,&rdquo; Poile says. &ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo;Everyone in the NHL recognizes the problem, but no one has a solution because the bottom line is winning. And every year there are 20 losers.Not long after Keenan was deep-sixed in Philadelphia Philadelphia, Perron &rsquo;resigned&rsquo; from the Habs. That wiped out two-thirds of the Team Canada coaching staff from the 1987 Canada Cup.You wonder what the Soviets think.&ldquo;I still can't believe a guy like Mike Keenan was fired,&rdquo; says Bob Berry, who lost two head-coaching jobs himself before resurfacing this season as an assistant in St. Louis. &ldquo;He certainly had some talent to work with&mdash;I mean, you can&rsquo;t make chicken salad out of chickens&mdash;&mdash;but he molded that team. Led them. And he was sacrificed. That&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s happening."Certain teams have a knack for this firing stuff. The Bruins have had four coaches since 1980. The Sabres have had seven, including Scotty Bowman twice. The poor Penguins are working on their fifth coach in the last seven years. They promoted Eddie Johnston to general manager after he led them to the worst record in the league (18-53-9 in 1982-83).And this past summer, Ubriaco was hired by the Penguins after guiding the talent-thin Baltimore Skipjacks to an American League-worst 13-58-9 record. Along the way, Baltimore set nine AHL futility records, including longest losing streak (15 games). Wouldn't you know it? Ubriaco&mdash;overlooked in the past after excellent seasons&mdash;gets his first NHL opportunity following his least successful season.You figure out the plethora of hirings and firings. Nobody else can.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an embarrassing trend&mdash;something which, as a league, we&rsquo;d like to reverse." says Lou Nanne. president of the Minnesota North Stars and the team&rsquo;s ex-GM. "And what we're doing. I think, is hurting ourselves. We might not be attracting the best people in the long run. We might be scaring some good coaches away.&rdquo;Suffice to say, Nanne and his North Stars have contributed greatly to the disaster, changing coaches six times since 1982&mdash;from Glen Sonmor to Murray Oliver to Bill Mahoney to Lome Henning to Sonmor again to Herb Brooks to Page. Brooks was fired last spring, then re-interviewed for his own job.&ldquo;And it&rsquo;s undoubtedly costly,&rdquo; says Nanne, who has been paying as many as three head-coaching salaries at the same time.Of course, a change in coaches can often pay quick dividends in the playoff stretch. Take New Jersey. Schoenfeld, hired 50 games into the season Jan. 26 after Doug Carpenter was dismissed, helped the long-forlorn Devils sneak into the playoffs in the Patrick Division on the last night of the season. The next thing you knew. they were playing for the conference title.&ldquo;All these changes aren&rsquo;t healthy for our league, but in our case, we didn&rsquo;t think we had much choice," says New Jersey GM Lou Lamoriello. &ldquo;At the time we did it. we felt our players had to be held accountable for our record, too. But it&rsquo;s like they say. You can&rsquo;t fire 20 (players).&ldquo;Then, once the change was made&mdash;and 1 think this is important&mdash;we wanted to give our coach some security. We wanted to give him all the support systems, all the mechanisms he needed to win.&rdquo;But for every Jersey scenario there are 20 Pittsburghs&mdash;changes which make little difference in the short term and lead, consequently, to more changes. Berry was fired shortly after the 1986-87 season. His story is revealing.The Penguins were among the worst hockey teams ever assembled when Berry came aboard to replace Lou Angotti in 1984. They couldn&rsquo;t have won the 'B' pool at the World Championships.Within two seasons&mdash;thanks mostly to Mario Lemieux&mdash;the Penguins doubled their point total from 38 to 76 and came within two points of a playoff spot in the Patrick Division. But they were still building for the future. At the '86 draft, they overlooked a quick-fix left winger such as Vincent Damphousse, who went on to score 21 goals as a rookie with Toronto, and instead grabbed mouth-watering defensive prospect Zarley Zalapski. They did this with Berry&rsquo;s blessing, even though Zalapski had committed to Canada&rsquo;s Olympic team for the next two years.It was a wise decision for the future of the team and also one of the many reasons Berry lost his job. Imagine how many goals Damphousse might have scored on Lemieux&rsquo;s left flank. Today, Zalapski is the far more tantalizing player, a budding star. But Damphousse may have helped lift the Penguins into the playoffs in 1986-87, thereby preserving Berry&rsquo;s job.&ldquo;Coaching these days is obviously not an ideal situation for someone who goes in and puts as much time and effort and homework into it as we do,&rdquo; Berry says. &ldquo;You end up worrying about things you can control&mdash;goals against, penalty killing, whatever. But a lot of times it comes down to the things you can't control.&ldquo;A lot of times, in obvious situations, the coach is a scapegoat. That&rsquo;s just a fact."Typical of the Penguins. Pierre Creamer replaced Berry and. by most accounts, couldn't figure out if the puck was blown-up or stuffed. Statistics say he led Pittsburgh to its best record since 1978-79. but he was fired after a near-mutiny in the last two months of the season.Two months later, when Creamer got his pink slip, he lashed out at his former troops, saying, "The players needed a big dummy for not making the playoffs and they chose me.&rdquo;Which leads us to another boiling topic: Palace revolts.Pittsburgh isn't the only city where dissatisfied players helped seal the fate of their coach. Check Philadelphia. Check Montreal."I think it's happened a lot of places." Demers says. "Players think if they lose five of seven or eight of 10. then the coach will be gone.&rdquo;But it's still the GM who makes the final decision."Sometimes, we. as executives, have to stand up and face the players," Lamoriello says.But the players won in Montreal, where Perron was gone after a tumultuous season with the players, and the second-best record in the league at 45-22-13. They won in Philadelphia, where Keenan was snipped loose despite a four-year record of 190-102-28. Keenan's relentless disciplinary tactics and mind games were tolerated when the Flyers were making trips to the finals every other season. But when they were eliminated in the first round of the divisional playoffs?See ya later."I think it all boils down to a lack of emotion,&rdquo; Flyer defenseman Mark Howe said. "He took the heart out of a lot of players.&rdquo;As a result, the NHL&rsquo;s newest trend is to hire young, emotional ex-players, who understand the modern-day athlete and keep him motivated. Schoenfeld did it in Jersey. O&rsquo;Reilly led the Bruins to the finals against Edmonton. Now, along comes Holmgren in Philadelphia and Sutter in St. Louis, trying to light fires under their former teammates.&ldquo;When I was athletic director at Providence (College)," says Lamoriello, &ldquo;I had to have 24 coaches for 24 teams&mdash;and 1 learned right away that every coach doesn't fit every team. Especially today. You just can&rsquo;t pick anybody.&ldquo;It depends whether you have a young team or a veteran team. Sometimes you might just want a guy to direct. Sometimes you want to motivate.&ldquo;All of us are looking for chemistry these days. I think we had it last year with Schoenfeld. And Boston certainly had it with Terry O'Reilly.&rdquo;Will the trend continue? Probably.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re like any other business&mdash;we go in cycles,&rdquo; Poile says. &ldquo;What happens is you copy people who&rsquo;ve had success.&rdquo;Hence the popularity of player-turned-coach.&ldquo;The feeling now is you need a coach the players can relate to&mdash;someone they remember from his playing days,&rdquo; Lamoriello says.That is fine, of course, until the young, emotional coaches start losing. Then another trend will begin. GMs will get nervous. Coaches will be fired.What can the league do about it? One high-ranking team official, who requested anonymity, suggests a little self-reflection among front-office types.&ldquo;Maybe we should look at ourselves a little bit more,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not really fair to keep firing guys because we&rsquo;re not doing our jobs, now is it?&rdquo;<h2>COVER PHOTO I.D.</h2>Following is a list of fired NHL coaches who appear on the front-cover photo collage:FIRST ROW: Left to right, Jacques Martin (St. Louis), Bob Murdoch (Chicago), Andre Savard (Quebec), Ted Sator (N.Y. Rangers), Jean Perron (Montreal), Mike Keenan (Philadelphia).SECOND ROW: Pierre Creamer (Pittsburgh), Butch Goring (Boston), Gerry Cheevers (Boston), Jim Schoenfeld (Buffalo), Lorne Henning (Minnesota), Barry Long (Winnipeg).THIRD ROW: Bob Berry (Pittsburgh), Tom McVie (New Jersey), Bill Mahoney (Minnesota), Doug Carpenter (New Jersey).FOURTH ROW: Brad Park (Detroit), Herb Brooks (N.Y. Rangers), Bob Berry (Montreal), Don Perry (Los Angeles), Harry Neale (Detroit), Jack Evans (Hartford).FIFTH ROW: Billy MacMillan (New Jersey), Mike Nykoluk (Toronto), Tom Watt (Vancouver), Mike Murphy (Los Angeles), Orval Tessier (Chicago), Herb Brooks (Minnesota).<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011491/5644668-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="1454" height="2305"><figcaption class="caption-body">Montreal's Pat Burns not only has to contend with the vagaries of coaching in the NHL, but must also deal with the Canadiens' tradition of greatness.</figcaption></div><h2>TURNOVERS</h2>What's the difference between being an Olympic torch carrier in Seoul, South Korea and a coach in the National Hockey League?Not much. except maybe the torch carrier is safer.All he has to dodge are firebombs. Pity the poor coach who must avoid being fired.The list below, a team-by-team breakdown of coaching changes over the last five years with their number of turnovers in parentheses, suggests a coach can&rsquo;t help but be burned.BOSTON: Gerry Cheevers, Harry Sinden, Butch Goring. Terry O'Reilly (3).BUFFALO: Scott Bowman. Jim Schoenfeld, Bowman. Craig Ramsay, Ted Sator (4).CALGARY: Bob Johnson. Terry Crisp (1).CHICAGO: Orval Tessier, Bob Pulford, Bob Murdoch, Mike Keenan (3).DETROIT: Nick Polano. Harry Neale. Brad Park, Jacques Demers (3).EDMONTON: Glen Sather (0)HARTFORD: Jack Evans, Larry Pleau (1).LOS ANGELES: Don Perry, Rogie Vachon, Roger Neilson. Pat Quinn. Mike Murphy. Robbie Ftorek (5)MINNESOTA: Bill Mahoney. Lorne Henning. Glen Sonmor. Herb Brooks. Pierre Page (4)MONTREAL: Bob Berry. Jacques Lemaire. Jean Perron. Pat Burns. (3).NEW JERSEY: Bill MacMillan. Tom McVic, Doug Carpenter. Jim Schoenfeld CJ).N.Y. ISLANDERS: Al Arbour. Terry Simpson (1).N.Y. RANGERS: Herb Brooks, Craig Painck. Ted Sator. Tom Webster. Phil faposito, Michel Bergeron (5).PHILADELPHIA: Bob McCammon. Mike Keenan. Paul Holmgren (2)PITTSBURGH: Lou Angotti, Bob Berry. Pierre Creamer. Gene Ubriaco (3).ST. LOUIS: Jacques Demers. Jacques Martin. Brian Sutter (2)TORONTO: Mike Nykoluk. Dan Maloney, John Brophy (2).VANCOUVER: Harry Neale, Bill Laforge. Tom Watt, Bob McCammon (3).WASHINGTON: Bryan Murray (0).WINNIPEG: Tom Watt, John Ferguson, Barry Long, Ferguson. Dan Maloney (4). &#9632;

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Life On The NHL Firing Line

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011333/5644706-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="153" height="118"></div>BUFFALO&mdash;When the sign went up indicating the doctor was in, it wasn&rsquo;t long before center Doug Smith and defenseman Joe Reekie were out.Smith, 25, and Reekie, 23, were both on the sidelines after the first week of the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; training camp.The Sabres, on advice of their medical staff, would not allow them to practice when the team opened camp Sept. 10 at Sabreland. Four days later. Sabre general manager Gerry Meehan announced Smith was suspended for failing a team physical. One day later, it was announced Reekie was out indefinitely. He also failed the physical.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;I had an accident. That&rsquo;s unfortunate, but it happened and now I&rsquo;m ready to play again.&rsquo; &mdash;Smith</blockquote>Smith, who injured his left shoulder and collarbone in an off-season auto accident, disputed the assessment.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very surprised (at the Sabres&rsquo; decision),&rsquo;&rsquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been working out all through August. I&rsquo;ve been skating and I&rsquo;ve added 25 pounds in upper body strength. I had an accident. That&rsquo;s unfortunate, but it happened and now I&rsquo;m ready to play again. I&rsquo;m surprised by the position they&rsquo;ve taken. I&rsquo;m fine.&rdquo;Larry Kelly, Smith&rsquo;s Ottawa-based agent and lawyer, said he would take the matter to arbitration. Meehan, who would not comment on the medical factors involved in the club&rsquo;s decision, said he expected Kelly&rsquo;s action and would abide by an arbitrator&rsquo;s decision.Reekie&rsquo;s future is likely more clouded than Smith's. He fractured his left kneecap last season and though he skated for more than two months on his own, he was not given medical clearance to play. After waiting several days, the club announced Reekie will be out indefinitely. There was no immediate word on whether Reekie, entering his third season with Buffalo, would also be suspended. Reekie said earlier that he felt fit and expected to practise. Once he was ruled ineligible, however, he declined comment.Meehan stressed Reekie&rsquo;s situation was different than Smith&rsquo;s, because the forward&rsquo;s injury occured while he was not in service to the club. The suspension means Smith will not be paid. The No. 2 pick overall in the 1981 entry draft said he has two years remaining on his contract.Kelly said damage to Smith&rsquo;s shoulder/collarbone area is not significant enough to keep him from participating in workouts. He also said the injury has been repaired surgically and that Smith&rsquo;s physician has determined the rehabiliation process is far enough along to enable Smith to resume his career.&ldquo;Doug is a proven professional and it&rsquo;s our position he should be able to compete in the first regular-season game,&rdquo; said Kelly.NOTES&mdash;Jan Ludvig suffered a mild sprain to his left knee in a scrimmage game. Ludvig was hipchecked on the same blue line where he went down on the last day of training camp last season. That injury led to a season-long series of knee problems and two operations for Ludvig, but a club spokesman said the latest injury was not as serious. He was expected back Sept. 24. Before he left the ice, Ludvig sought out and pummelled left winger Mikael Andersson. It was Andersson who hit Ludvig with what appeared to be a clean check&hellip;Rookie winger Grant Tkachuk suffered an injury to his left eye when hit in the face with a puck the first day of camp. Tkachuk is not expected to return until at least mid-October&hellip;Second-year center Pierre Turgeon led all scorers with seven goals through the first week of scrimmages. Turgeon also got into a scrap with tough-guy defenseman Ed Hospodar, but both players emerged unscathed. &#9632;

f0007-01

Smith Suspended Over Off-Season Injury

LET&rsquo;S HOPE WE can all hear the chant &lsquo;Guy, Guy, Guy' from the rooftop of Madison Square Garden. It will be great to see Guy Lafleur on skates again, flying down the right wing. I'm sure he's worth 25 goalsI believe his old club. Montreal, made a mistake by not giving him a chance at its training camp. Let&rsquo;s face facts, Montreal has had a lacklustre offense since Guy Lafleur retired. I sure hope Lafleur proves Montreal wrong.Derek Rogers,&nbsp;Kingston. Ont.<h2>JARI, JARI, JARI</h2>I, for one, was thrilled to see Wayne Gretzky traded. I realize I am in a minority because I wanted Gretzky out of Edmonton, but I honestly think it will be better for the Oilers in the long run. Now the players who were overshadowed by No. 99 will have an opportunity to experience the limelight.I believe Jari Kurri will play even better than before. It&rsquo;s about time Kurri got more publicity and attention. Just watch how spectacular Kurri is this season. He'll have a lot more room without being in Gretzky&rsquo;s shadow.Andrea McDonald,&nbsp;Halifax. N.S.<h2>ON EVEN GROUND</h2>Now that Wayne Gretzky is wearing a King jersey and doesn't have the likes of Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson and Craig Simpson around him, it will be interesting to see what he does this year. He'll have roughly the same amount of talent around him as Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh and will finish second in the scoring race again.Joe Brannagan,&nbsp;Bentwaters, England<h2>FAMILY AFFAIR DENIED</h2>Hockey's thousands of fans have been enjoying the games on ESPN the past few years. So what does the NHL do? It gives the TV coverage to a company, who like the NHL, does not care about the fans throughout the country.To add further insult, the NHL and Sports-Channel gave the fans a song and dance about Prime Ticket in California or other &lsquo;local&rsquo; coverage. Well, this Prime Ticket is not available in northern California and unless you have a local NHL team, there is no local coverage.So the NHL is apparently not interested in building up the interest in hockey on a truly national scale. I guess it can afford to ignore the tremendous potential of this market. How foolish.I am also terribly angry with the NHL for another reason. Hockey on ESPN was a family affair. We enjoyed it immensely. The coverage was excellent. I have utter disdain for the NHL for cutting us off from the only sport we enjoyed as a family.Les Clements, Modesto, Calif.<h2>SWITCHED OFF</h2>The NHL has forgotten one important point in granting TV rights to SportsChannel. Hard to believe, but there are hockey fans outside New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Not all of us have the opportunity to live near an NHL city. My friends and 1 must drive to St. Louis or Pittsburgh (5&frac12; or 7 hours) to see a game, which we often do.ESPN has done an excellent job covering hockey and we have appreciated its efforts to promote the sport. I can honestly say I watched 99 per cent of the games ESPN carried&mdash;yes, even those late-night Los Angeles games. The playoff coverage was superb. Now, because SportsChannel won&rsquo;t be serving ESPN&rsquo;s broad market area, we&rsquo;ll never see another game on TV.No more hockey nights in Lexington. NHL, you deserve a game misconduct for selling us out.Diana Epling, Lexington, Ky.Let your voice be heard. Send your comments to Fan Forum, THE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont. M3B 2R2. Include home and business phone numbers. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

Les Canadiens Will Regret Lafleur’s Return To NHL

<div class="byline">Bob McKenzie</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021155/5644761-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="387" height="441"></div>BROWSING THROUGH THE hockey department store:DEP&rsquo;T OF TRADE: If the big St. Louis Blues-Calgary Flames trade has you puzzled, you&rsquo;re not alone.The consensus is that the Flames received far more (Doug Gilmour, Mark Hunter, Steve Bozek and Michael Dark) than they gave up (Mike Bullard, Craig Coxe and collegian Tim Corkery).But a member of the Edmonton OIier front office is incredulous because he maintains the Blues never once called the Oilers about Gilmour."Wouldn't it make sense for the Blues to call and tell us that they're close to a deal with Calgary and ask what we're prepared to offer?" Says the Oiler.Edmonton, like Calgary, has enough warm bodies with talent to make a good pitch, especially when the transaction could ultimately alter the balance of power in the Smythe Division.Another insider, though, suggests the free-spending Flames were willing to part with something the thrifty Oilers, even with the $15-million Wayne Gretzky payoff, wouldn't conider-$ 150,000 in cold, hard cash.DEP'T OF TRADE II: Let's not be too quick to condemn St. Louis GM Ron Caron for the Gilmour trade.At last season's trade deadline, The Professor' moved defenseman Rob Ramage and goalie Rick Wamsley to the Flames for Brett Hull and Bozek.It was a steal, we said, guaranteeing Calgary the Stanley Cup.Well, the Flames didn't win the Cup and as this season gets under way, Hull gives the Blues the explosive scorer from the wing they desperately require. Ramage and Wamsley give the Flames added depth, but suddenly this deal doesn't look so lopsided.Could we be wrong about the Gilmour transaction, too?NOTHING-TO-BE-ASHAMED-OF DEP'T: The NHL's playoff format-16 of 21 teams making it to post-season play-takes a brutal beating each and every spring.Where are the knockers now that the Major League Baseball season is winding down?With runaways in three of the four divisions and the snakebitten Boston Red Sox looking as though they're ready to nail down the American League East, the ball season has been brutally boring in all but a handful of cities.Major League Baseball's playoff format may have integrity, which the NHL's admittedly doesn't, but at least the hockey season creates a little excitement in the final days.Witness New Jersey's incredible drive last March and early April. And look at the 1988-89 schedule for a hint of things to come.In the final week of the regular season, 28 of 37 games arc between division rivals, which provides for exciting possibilities.DEP'T OF ODDS'N'ENDS: Hartford Whaler hopeful Jody Hull, a star with the Peterborough Petes, drives a car with a license plate that reads 'PANDA.' That's in reference to his being described, unflatteringly, in THN's 1987 Draft Preview as a "big, Panda bear." Since then, he's used the remark as a motivational tool. Friends of the family once presented him with a giant stuffed Panda. He has obviously learned to grin and bear the critieism &hellip; Don't you think this is Bryan Murray's make-it-or-break-it year with the Washington Capitals? He's on the last year of his contract and, surely, Capital management's infinite patience must be wearing thin. If Murray can't get the Caps at least out of the Patrick Division playoffs this year, a change would seem to be inevitable&hellip; Given Wendel Clark's tenuous health (bad back), some were surprised that the Toronto Maple Leafs were so quick to settle contract negotiation. Clark had been seeking a multiyear deal worth about $300,000 per season and threatened to play out hi option. But he settled on one year, plus an option, worth about $250,000 per season. A healthy Clark is worth all of that, but what if the bruising winger's back problems are chronic? &#9632;

f0008-02

One-Stop Shopping In The Department Store

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011421/5644792-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0008-01

Elston

<div class="byline">COMPILED BY JEFF HALE </div><div class="byline">Editorial Staff</div>Canadian Amateur Hockey Association president Murray Costello lashed out at the International Ice Hockey Federation&rsquo;s move to suspend members who challenge IIHF decisions through the courts.The idea was discussed during the IIHF&rsquo;s annual meetings Sept. 4-9 on the island of Majorca, Spain, but no action was taken. If accepted, the rule would not be implemented until 1990.&ldquo;They are trying to keep hockey problems within the hockey fraternity,&rdquo; said Costello, who is Canada&rsquo;s member on the IIHF disciplinary committee. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t just arbitrarily do that. You can&rsquo;t just vote yourself power and say that&rsquo;s the way it will be in hockey and nothing else will happen."The IIHF proposal stems from an incident at the 1987 World Championships in Vienna, where Finland protested the eligibility of West German player Miroslav Sikora and the IIHF took away two victories from West Germany. Sikora played for Poland at the 1977 World Junior Championships. The IIHF decision was based on a rule which states once a player represents one country at a world championship, he is ineligible to play for another at a future event. But West Germany obtained a court injunction to have the four points restored and the IIHF voted to honor the injunction.&ldquo;They don&rsquo;t want courts of the land to be able to step in and say you have to let a player play,&rdquo; Costello told Canadian Press. &ldquo;They want everybody to follow the IIHF rules and if anybody goes to court, they will be suspended.&ldquo;I told them they can&rsquo;t do that. I told them we&rsquo;re living in a time of individual rights&hellip;a person has the right to go to the court of the land and you can&rsquo;t deny them those rights.&ldquo;We told them we couldn&rsquo;t defy a court order in Canada,&rdquo; added Costello. &ldquo;You have to listen to the courts.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011374/5644830-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="550" height="972"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former Canadian Olympian Serge Boisvert will play in the Swiss league this season.</figcaption></div>In other international hockey news, Canada was awarded the 1991 World Junior Championships, although Costello said no site has been selected. The 1986 championship was held in Hamilton, Ont.This year&rsquo;s championship will be in Anchorage, Alaska, Dec. 26-Jan. 4. The 1990 tournament will be in Helsinki, Finland. Future sites were also decided for the World Championships. In 1990, it will be in Bem, Switzerland and in 1991 in Finland. The 1989 World Championships will be in Stockholm April 15-May 2.<h2>HOCKEY CRAZY</h2>A record crowd is expected for a hockey game in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay area Oct. 2 when the Los Angeles Kings and Detroit Red Wings play an exhibition. All 13,950 tickets for the Oakland Coliseum Arena were sold out in 80 minutes on Aug. 21,12 days after Wayne Gretzky was traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles. The previous record for a Bay area crowd was 12,404 during the 1963 Western League final between Seattle and San Francisco. A 1986 exhibition between the Calgary Flames and New York Rangers attracted 11,000.<h2>U.S. HALL INDUCTEES</h2>Richard Desmond and Larry Ross will be enshrined at the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minn., Oct. 8.Desmond, a Dartmouth College goalie who played on silver medal-winning national teams at the 1950 World Championships and 1952 Olympics is being inducted in the players&rsquo; category.Ross will be inducted in the coaches&rsquo; category. He coached 31 years at International Falls High School in Minnesota, posting a 566-169-21 record and winning six state titles. Twelve of his players have played in the NHL, including Washington Capital defenseman Neil Sheehy and Quebec Nordique goalie Bob Mason.Their inductions bring the U.S. Hall&rsquo;s total membership to 69.<h2>OVERSEAS ROLL CALL</h2>As NHL camps made their cuts, European teams awaited a chance to sign import players to their rosters. Among players heading overseas were: American League center Alain Lemieux, 27, who was expected to play with Karpat of the Finnish League; former Montreal Canadien and Canadian Olympic right winger Serge Boisvert, 29, who signed with Davos of the Swiss League; veteran AHLer Ray Allison, 29, who joined Olten of the Swiss League; Colgate University center Rejean Boivin, 22, who signed with Assat in Finland; and St. Lawrence University left winger Tim Lappin, 24, who joined Streatham of the English League.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-02986/5644823-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="547" height="970"><figcaption class="caption-body">Neil Sheehy is one of 12 NHLers to play for U.S. Hockey Hall-of-Famer Larry Ross.</figcaption></div><h2>TOP BRITISH PLAYER</h2>Ian Cooper, a right winger from Durham Wasps of Britain&rsquo;s Premier League, attended the Calgary Flames&rsquo; training camp after being selected Young British Player of the Year in 1987-88.The 19-year-old was 48-49-97 in 33 games with Durham last year.The award, co-sponsored by the Alberta government, the Alberta consulate-general in Britain, the Calgary Flames and the Ice Hockey News Review, a British publication, is in its third year. The prize is a training-camp tryout with the Flames.Cooper, 6-foot-l and 180 pounds, follows previous winners, goalie Martin McKay (1986-87) and center Tony Hand (1985-86). McKay&rsquo;s tryout was with the Flames, but since Hand was chosen 252nd overall in the 1986 NHL entry draft by the Edmonton Oilers, his tryout was with Edmonton. Both returned to Great Britain, although Hand played briefly for the Western League&rsquo;s Victoria Cougars.The Flames were not expected to offer Cooper a contract. He went pointless in In two rookie games. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not that far out of place,&rdquo; said Calgary spokesman Mike Burke. &ldquo;He has some hockey talent.&rdquo;<h2>BITS AND PIECES</h2>The 1989 Hockey East championship tournament was awarded to Boston College&rsquo;s new 7,884-seat Conte Forum on Sept. 6. The tournament is March 10-11 and the winner will receive a bye into the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament- .. Jacques Beauchamp, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame&rsquo;s media wing, died Sept. 17 at the age of 61. Beauchamp worked for Le Journal de Montreal, covering the Montreal Canadiens during the 1950s&hellip;Music video producer Edd Griles, who has worked on video productions for pop music stars Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis and Sheena Easton, was named Sept. 7 to produce a history of the New York Rangers.<h2>OVERHEARD</h2>&ldquo;I think my job is to protect (Marty) McSorley.&rdquo;&mdash;Los Angeles King Wayne Gretzky. &#9632;

f0009-01

Costello Raps IIHF Over Courts Rule

<div class="byline">Stan Fischler</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011461/5644861-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="336" height="442"></div>MIKE BOSSY LIVES in a state of suspension, literally and figuratively, sometimes on adopted Long Island, other days in his native Montreal.He doesn&rsquo;t know whether he&rsquo;ll play hockey again or if he&rsquo;ll turn to broadcasting, or whatever. And if, by some miracle, he does skate once more in the bigs, he knows not where.But Bossy, at age 31, is certain of a few things&mdash;He&rsquo;s leaving New York for good in December; his back still hurts; and his autobiography, Boss&mdash; The Mike Bossy Story, hits the stands&mdash;not to mention a few egos&mdash;in October.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t mean for the book to be controversial,&rdquo; says Bossy over coffee at a restaurant across from Nassau Coliseum, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m sure some people will see it differently.&rdquo;One of them will be hockey powerbroker Alan Eagleson, whom Bossy dissects. Another sure not to give the book rave reviews is Islander coach Terry Simpson.&ldquo;I talk about Eagleson and his ego trips, particularly with the Canada Cup,&rdquo; says Bossy, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t think what I&rsquo;ve said hasn't been said in some way before.&rdquo;Simpson, for whom Bossy played only one (1986-87) season, emerges in Bossy&rsquo;s look at what will likely be his final year, when his back begin really hurting. The Isles had come off a stunning playoff win over Washington and seven-game loss to Philadelphia after having valiantly rallying from a 3-1 deficit to tie the series.Bossy sets the scene at a farewell team meeting with Simpson delivering a final til-next-fall message to the troops. &ldquo;Terry lectured us for 15 minutes about how we shouldn&rsquo;t be happy,&rdquo; Bossy recalls between sips of coffee. &ldquo;He finished by wishing us a sh&mdash;summer. At the time, I thought it was pushing it a little too far.&rdquo;Yet, upon reflection, Bossy adds, &ldquo;I think he was trying to relay (the message) that he wasn&rsquo;t going to accept the fact that we lost to Philadelphia and that we shouldn&rsquo;t accept it either.&rdquo;Bossy allows that his view is colored by the fact he played his entire career but for that one season under Al Arbour.&ldquo;Al,&rdquo; adds Bossy, &ldquo;never said anything like that. And I can&rsquo;t remember leaving Long Island at any time feeling the way I felt that day (after the Simpson talk.)&rdquo;Bossy confesses he finds book-writing about 100,000 times harder than scoring goals. &ldquo;First of all,&rdquo; he reveals,&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t that keen on doing a book but I was persuaded that I should. When I got started, the toughest thing was remembering details of incidents. Barry Meisel (Bossy&rsquo;s ghostwriter) pushed me hard on that.&rdquo;When Bossy refused the Isles&rsquo; offer of a personal services contract this summer, he became available to 20 other NHL clubs. Every owner but one passed on him; that being Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s employer, Bruce McNall, who phoned and suggested that Boss team with The Great One.&ldquo;It was nice, in a way, to get the phone call because Bruce was the only guy who showed any interest in me since June. 1 didn&rsquo;t turn him down but I told him that, with my bad back, it was impossible for me to accept his offer if I couldn&rsquo;t go back and play at 100 per cent."Assuming he doesn&rsquo;t play, Bossy will resume his career&mdash;the one he launched last spring in the playoffs&mdash;as a hockey analyst on TV. He enjoys it, though he allows he was burned by the Red Wings during their Campbell Conference final series against Edmonton.&ldquo;I had kept saying earlier in the series how well Bob Probert was playing for Detroit,&rdquo; he remembers, &ldquo;and how Probert had turned his life around (after bouts with alcoholism) and then I was made a fool of. They found out in Edmonton that he had been drinking.&rdquo;Bossy has other opinions. He suggests the Rangers could finish first in the Patrick Division this season. One reason he advances is that the Blueshirts won the Walt Poddubny-Normand Rochefort deal.&ldquo;Poddubny may have scored 40 goals (actually 38),&rdquo; says Bossy, &ldquo;but he doesn&rsquo;t play like a 40-goal-scorer. He&rsquo;s not there when it really counts.&rdquo;If it sounds like Bossy likes the chances of Michel Bergeron&rsquo;s club, it does not mean that Mike likes Le Petit Tigre. Mike has a long memory from his playing days with Laval of the Quebec League. He will never forget when Bergeron coached Trois-Rivieres.&ldquo;This is the guy who last year was screaming at Dave Brown for what he did to Tomas Sandstrom&mdash;and I don&rsquo;t for a minute condone it&mdash;but I can remember all the times when Bergeron sent his goons out after me.&rdquo;After a year of unsuccessful back therapy on Long Island, Bossy is trying one last treatment before calling it a career. He sees a specialist in Montreal once a week but says there&rsquo;s been no meaningful improvement. How the ailment developed is a mystery but it might well have been a product of dirty NHL play which Bossy has been decrying for a decade.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s too much violence in the game,&rdquo; he insists, &ldquo;and it should be dealt with. I&rsquo;m talking about things like hitting from behind and crosschecking in front of the net.&ldquo;Drug and alcohol problems should also be dealt with but I don&rsquo;t exactly know what they should do about a problem like the one the Red Wings had last spring. The way you hurt players is with money and some of these guys should be banned. For example, a guy like (suspended-for-drug-use) Lawrence Taylor (of the football Giants) makes me mad. I&rsquo;m thinking of all the lesser-known players who dedicate themselves to the sport and then have to take a backseat to guys like that.&rdquo;Bossy takes a backseat in to nobody. He will be remembered as the supreme artist who played according to the rulebook; who was the first since Rocket Richard to score 50 goals in 50 games and who helped the Islanders to four straight Stanley Cups.Asked how he would like to be remembered, Bossy replies, &ldquo;As a guy who would have scored 50 or more goals ten years in a row but didn&rsquo;t, due to injury. I could have but I didn&rsquo;t because I got hurt.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-01

Bossy Opens Book On Hockey Happenings

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-03716/5644892-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="555" height="975"><figcaption class="caption-body">Chris Chelios doesn't want to dwell on the discontent of Montreal's '87-88 season.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021111/5644899-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="153" height="113"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;Chris Chelios has a reputation.And it&rsquo;s not a very good one.There are those who consider him one of the black sheep among the Canadiens flock. French-language radio commentator Yves Letourneau went so far as to call defensemen Chelios and Petr Svoboda and center Shayne Corson &ldquo;bums&rdquo; in a commentary just before training camp started. That drew the ire of coach Pat Bums and upper-level management. Chelios didn&rsquo;t like it either.He&rsquo;s heard all the comments, all the accusations, by now.Some have speculated it was Chelios, 20-41-61 in 71 games last season, who drove former Canadien coach Jean Perron out of the organization.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to say anything bad about Jean Perron,&rdquo; said Chelios, 26. &ldquo;Things didn&rsquo;t work out. It&rsquo;s no secret that there were some problems with him and the players and I had a few things. That&rsquo;s part of the game and you have to live with it.&ldquo;We thought we should have had a better season than we did. It wasn&rsquo;t just the playoffs. There were things that worked up to that. I think (Montreal managing director) Serge Savard had to make a change and it all worked out for the best.&rdquo;There has been heat on the Canadiens in general and on Chelios in particular since their five-game elimination from the playoffs by the Boston Bruins in last year&rsquo;s Adams Division final.Chelios, who had three goals and an assist in 11 playoff games, was the object of media darts because of his alleged involvement in a curfew-breaking incident prior to the opening game of the playoffs.Overlooked is the fact Chelios has reached star stature among NHL defensemen during his four-year career with Montreal. He&rsquo;s talented and competitive, but there are times when the native of Chicago gets a little hyper on the ice.&ldquo;I think with the players and the management I feel I have a good relationship,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I have any problems at all with that.&ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened has happened. You learn and you live. You can&rsquo;t look back, you have to look ahead. I have to concentrate on playing good hockey.&ldquo;I think a lot of guys have a lot to prove this year. We had an excuse with Perron last year. Now we have a lot of guys who have to step out and prove themselves.&rdquo;Chelios has to be prepared to take a stronger leadership role on the Canadien defense. With 37-year-old Larry Robinson back for what is expected to be his last season with the Canadiens, Chelios must assume more of Robinson&rsquo;s responsibilities. That means avoiding things like misconducts for throwing an opponent&rsquo;s stick into the stands&mdash;as he did during game five of the Adams Division final against Boston.&ldquo;I think in my four years here, I have done well and the team has done well,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;The main thing is the team has done well. Now I&rsquo;m just looking forward to a fresh start and to get things going.&rdquo;Chelios and coach Pat Bums crossed paths in Chicago when Bums was there for an NHL meeting and Chelios was passing through en route to Montreal from a San Diego holiday. No doubt they will speak again before the season gets underway.He wants to earn the players&rsquo; respect,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;If you work hard, 1 think he is going to appreciate it.&ldquo;Pat knows we had our problems last year. He doesn&rsquo;t want anything to hinder our hockey.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Finnish rookie defenseman Jyrki Lumme has pleased management with his performances in training camp scrimmages&hellip;Defenseman Rick Green signed a one-year deal. He has stated this will be his final season.. Larry Robinson and his agent, Don Cape, met with managing director Serge Savard Sept. 14, but Robinson will still play out his option&hellip;Hustling right-winger Mike Keane has impressed many at the Canadiens training camp while Andrew Cassels, the Canadiens&rsquo; first-round choice, 17th overall, in the 1987 entry draft, has been inconsistent. &#9632;

f0010-03

Chelios Wants To Focus His Concentration

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>If you&rsquo;re wondering what kind of coverage hockey will get in the 1992 Winter Olympics via the CBS Network, the answer is very likely the best-ever. The reason is that CBS Sports prexy Neal Pilson is a hockey nut from away back. He broke in watching the Rangers&rsquo; old farm team, the New York Rovers, play Sunday afternoon games at Madison Square Garden. Pilson played the game himself at Hamilton College and became a coach when his son, Michael, played for the National Deaf Team. &ldquo;It was more stimulating coaching than watching,&rsquo;&rsquo; says Pilson. CBS already has begun planning for its 1992 coverage and will focus on U.S. amateur hockey as never before. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be talking to young kids, coaches, and players to find out what&rsquo;s going on in their sport,&rdquo; he adds.Eating habits of the St. Louis Blues figure to change dramatically this season, now that Macki Shilstone is their nutrition-physical conditioning guru. Shilstone, who previously has worked with baseball playmrs Ozzie Smith and Vince Coleman and boxer Michael Spinks, puts it this way: &ldquo;Eating right is the difference between winning and injury. If a hockey player eats the wrong foods and doesn't replenish the appropriate energy systems and he&rsquo;s forced into stress situations. He&rsquo;s an accident waiting to happen. After a summer of megadeals and a few of the smaller variety, Flames' GM Cliff Fletcher still has never come close to a swap with his arch-rival, Edmonton&rsquo;s Glen Sather. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t even talk,&rdquo; Fletcher explains.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011331/5644937-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="345" height="584"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kevin Lowe</figcaption></div>Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s Edmonton Oiler pals were vastly amused by the fact that, as a follow-up to his deal, he was invited on the Tonight Show, guest-hosted by Jay Leno. Wayne&rsquo;s former mates chuckled over the fact that it always had been no secret that one of the Great One&rsquo;s ambitions was to get an invitation from regular host Johnny Carson. &ldquo;Several years ago,&rdquo; Kevin Lowe tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;our club was in Quebec City and after that we had a couple of days off. Sure enough, Wayne got a call from Carson to come on the show. He asked me to go with him and I did, but there was quite a flight problem to get there in time and then back to Minnesota for our next game. Still, everybody on the Oilers was excited for Wayne and we headed for Chicago where a change of planes was necessary. By the time we landed at O&rsquo;Hare Airport there was a tremendous snowstorm going on and we got word that no flights were going to L.A. and wouldn&rsquo;t be for some time. It was awful because Wayne was so anxious to be there. Then, he got an idea&mdash;Why not rent a private Lear jet? We found out soon enough that we could get one but it would cost something like five or six grand. Wayne decided he&rsquo;d do it if the NHL was willing to pick up about half. After all, this would be tremendous nationwide publicity for the league and Wayne didn&rsquo;t need the coverage. But the guy at the league office refused and we never made it to Carson.&rdquo;&hellip;Meanwhile, considerable pressure is being put on Janet Jones-Gretzky. Beth Ann Krier of the Los Angeles Times complained in print, "After initially agreeing to an interview, Janet repeatedly postponed it, then cancelled altogether and finally agreed again. She later called to apologize for the delays.&rsquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-02981/5644930-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="344" height="567"><figcaption class="caption-body">James Patrick</figcaption></div>A 50,000-square-foot office building is being built outside the Capital Centre&rsquo;s main doors, to house the Pollin&rsquo;s 300 employees. &ldquo;An organization our size can&rsquo;t afford to stand still,&rdquo; says Capitals&rsquo; governor Abe Pollin. Recently, Pollin and a partner bankrolled the future college costs of 55 local fifth-graders&mdash;a tuition program costing more than $325,000&hellip;The NHL&rsquo;s first Stanley Cup highlight film produced in the past four years, deals candidly with touchy subjects such as the Jim Schoenfeld-Don Koharski uprising and the Boston Garden Cup final blackout. The 55-minute film will be sold in video form and also includes non-playoff material such as the Gretzky saga. Phoenix Communications produced the show.A reliable Blues&rsquo; insider tells BLUELINES there was no question Doug Gilmour was going to be a Ranger (James Patrick to St. Lou as part of the multi-player swap) but that the exchange was botched up by one of the player agents involved in the negotiations&hellip;Paul Fichtenbaum, former hockey editor at Sport magazine, has moved to a similar position with Sports Inc. mag&hellip;Bruins&rsquo; coach Terry O&rsquo;Reilly and his wife, Lourdes, snorkeling off the coast of Puerto Rico this summer, encountered one of the sea&rsquo;s most ferocious creatures, a barracuda. &ldquo;Lourdes took off,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Reilly recalls, &lsquo;but I kind of stayed there, looking it in the eye. It was about four feet long, and it reminded me of (former Bruin) Bobby Schmautz. You know, sort of thin and harmless looking&mdash;until it opened its mouth!&rdquo; &#9632;

f0011-01

Olympic Hockey ’92 To Get Big Coverage

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-04555/5644968-1-eng-US/f0011-042.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former Ranger Walt Poddubny expects to continue his high-scoring ways if employed on the Nordique power play.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-03703/5644975-1-eng-US/f0011-032.jpg" title="f0011-03" width="161" height="120"></div>QUEBEC CITY&mdash;Some players&mdash;John Ogrodnick is a notable example&mdash;just can&rsquo;t adjust to playing in Quebec City.Walt Poddubny is not one of them. Unlike Ogrodnick, who was traded to the New York Rangers after many complaints about life in Quebec City, Poddubny has brought with him a cheerful demeanor.He agreed to a three-year contract, plus an option year, for undisclosed terms Sept. 9, another chapter in his love affair with the Nords.&ldquo;As soon as we started talking business,&rdquo; said Poddubny, &ldquo;I realized that the Nordiques wanted me badly. (General manager) Martin Madden made that very clear. So I didn&rsquo;t hesitate one second and accepted their terms.&rdquo;Poddubny, traded from the Rangers to Quebec Aug. 1 along with defensemen Jari Gron-strand and Bruce Bell for defenseman Normand Rochefort and center Jason Lafreniere, was shaken at first by the unexpected move.&ldquo;But I want to make things clear,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was the trade itself that stunned me and not the fact that I was going to Quebec. Don&rsquo;t get me wrong on that.&ldquo;I had just had the two most proluctive seasons of my career (175 points over 152 games) and (Ranger general manager) Phil Esposito had practically told me no way he would trade me.&rdquo;&ldquo;But all that is in the past right now. I already feel at home in my new surroundings and new uniform.&rdquo;Poddubny, 28, said he considers his better years ahead of him. He&rsquo;s convinced he can score 50 goals for the Nords.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll try to score as many as possible,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Especially if I&rsquo;m used on the power play with players of the calibre of Peter Stastny and Michel Goulet.&ldquo;But on the other hand, I also know that the Nords brought me here in order to make it to the playoffs. Teamwork comes first.&rdquo;Quebec coach Ron Lapointe said Poddubny will play center, &ldquo;where we&rsquo;ll get the most out of him.&rdquo;Poddubny was also pleased to learn Lapointe wants him to play on a line with all-star left winger Goulet. The other winger will likely be tough guy Gord Donnelly.NOTES&mdash;Defenseman Jeff Brown is the only Nordique who will play out his option this season. But contract negotiations won&rsquo;t end completely. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll keep on talking,&rdquo; said Brown, whose agent is Alan Eagleson- &hellip;Goalie Mario Gosselin signed a one-year contract with an option Sept. 7&hellip;Defenseman Greg Smyth broke two small bones in his right hand during the first week of training camp. He&rsquo;ll be in a cast until the last week of September but should be ready for the season opener Oct. 6 at Hartford. &#9632;

f0011-04

Ex-Ranger Poddubny Pleased About Becoming A Nordique

<div class="byline">BY JEFF JACOBS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03791/5645006-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="549" height="913"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marc Laforge, above, scored a one-punch knockout of Tom Martin during training camp.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011433/5645013-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="154" height="114"></div>HARTFORD&mdash;When the Hartford Whalers made defenseman Marc Laforge their second choice, 32nd overall, at the 1986 entry draft, Laforge declared himself a member of the Sudbury chapter of the Torrie Robertson Fan Club.The Whalers accepted that remark as a harbinger of a most bellicose future.At the Whalers&rsquo; Lake Placid, N.Y. training camp two years later, Sud-bury-native Laforge made left winger Robertson, the Whalers&rsquo; all-time penalty leader (1,280 minutes over Five seasons), look like a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.Given his three-year junior career in the Ontario League with the Kingston Canadians and Sudbury Wolves, it wasn&rsquo;t entirely unexpected.Fifteen games into last season, the 6-foot-2, 212-pound Laforge, who developed a reputation for brawling, went haywire. On Nov. 6, in a game against Guelph at Sudbury, Laforge ignited a bench-clearing brawl by going on a punching rampage from opponent to opponent.When it finally ended, he had beaten up eight players, and reportedly left one with a broken nose.&ldquo;Not sure about the broken nose,&rdquo; Laforge said. &ldquo;I never saw the medical report. If anybody&rsquo;s getting an upper hand on one of my players, it&rsquo;s my job to step in and help him out. If I get beat up, so be it.&rdquo;Laforge didn&rsquo;t get beat up, but was suspended for two years by OHL commissioner Dave Branch. He publicly apologized for the incident two days later at a press conference.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t really that bad on me,&rdquo; Laforge said. &ldquo;I felt more sorry for my parents. What I do on the ice doesn&rsquo;t reflect on them. They&rsquo;re good people. It&rsquo;s not their fault their son is an idiot on the ice sometimes.&ldquo;With all the stuff about violence in hockey, I think they were just waiting to get a scapegoat. And 1 was the perfect guy because of my past. I thought it was severe. But he (Branch) has got a job to do and he thought it was good for the league.&rdquo;Although he continued to practise with Sudbury, this pre-season will provide Laforge, 20, with his first competition in nearly a year. He was expected to play in a few Hartford exhibition games, though on Sept. 16 he was reassigned to the Binghamton Whaler camp at Lake Placid. He is expected to start the season with the American League Whalers, but Hartford is convinced he&rsquo;ll find his way into the NHL within a couple of years.Laforge is not a polished defenseman. But the Whalers didn&rsquo;t expect Ray Bourque when they drafted him. They took him because he&rsquo;s mean. Even this year, there will be a temptation to call him up for, say, a rough &rsquo;n tumble game in Boston Garden.Laforge made his mark early at training camp when left winger Tom Martin squared off with him. Laforge landed a lightning bolt to the jaw that knocked out Martin for a few scary moments. Laforge stood there shouting a few obscenities.&ldquo;1 was out cold,&rdquo; said Martin, who was fine the next day.&ldquo;As he was coming around, we asked Tommy if he remembered the Spinks-Tyson fight,&rdquo; fitness coach Moe Johnson said. &ldquo;He did. We said, &lsquo;Well, you were Spinks.&rsquo;What Laforge said he learned from his suspension is the difference between fighting and going wacko.&ldquo;I know now there&rsquo;s a fine line you have to walk between playing tough and checking out.&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m no good if I get suspended 50 games a year. I&rsquo;ve been taught a lesson.&rdquo;Hartford general manager Emile Francis said five teams called him after the incident wishing to acquire Laforge. Hartford director of player evaluation Dave McNab said Laforge&rsquo;s agent, Rick Curran, told him 15 teams contacted Curran about signing Laforge if the Whalers didn&rsquo;t. There are reports Indianapolis Ice coach Archie Henderson&mdash;a noted bad boy when he was a player&mdash;wants Laforge on his International League team, which has a working agreement with the Whalers.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just happy to be back in hockey,&rdquo; Laforge said. &ldquo;A lot of guys go through the minors. If 1 have to be an idiot on the ice for two hours a day, that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m going to do. Off the ice, I&rsquo;m a mellow guy, sort of shy. I don&rsquo;t fight. But my hockey job is to be kind of a goof.&ldquo;Maybe in the OHL 1 was a tough guy, but I haven&rsquo;t fought anybody in the NHL. I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;m tough or not. I might be a wimp.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Defenseman Adam Burt, the Whalers&rsquo; second choice, 39th overall, in the 1987 entry draft, sustained a slight shoulder separation Sept. 13 in a collision with center Paul MacDermid. He was expected back by the last week of September. The Whalers shifted camp from Lake Placid to the Hartford Civic Center on Sept. 17. &#9632;

f0012-03

Laforge Makes His Presence Felt In Camp

<div class="byline">Steve Simmons</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021192/5645044-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="408" height="463"></div>THE LAST MAN who had the job made himself sick over the state of the Minnesota North Stars.The new general manager has already dealt with a summer of headaches and has woken up on more than one morning wondering what he did to deserve all this.&ldquo;There have been a few mornings when I&rsquo;ve said to myself, &lsquo;So you wanted to be a general manager?&rsquo; confessed Jack Ferreira, the new North Stars&rsquo; boss.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll admit, it&rsquo;s been a tough go so far. But to be honest, with all the adversity and controversies, I haven&rsquo;t regretted it for a minute.&rdquo;The brush fires began before he was ever hired and haven&rsquo;t stopped burning.On the day he flew into Bloomington to accept the position as North Stars' general manager, Ferreira picked up a Minneapolis newspaper and learned his best defenseman. Craig Hartsburg, wanted to be traded.Maybe that was a sign that none of this was right, a sign that so much destruction has previously taken place that no one man equipped with a hose and an ax could put these fires out.Slowly and quietly. Jack Ferreira went to work. He settled any differences that occurred with Hartsburg. He hired Pierre Page, a smart coach from a strong organization (Calgary) who understands something about winning, something the North Stars have rarely understood.He&rsquo;s attempted to build an organization, his organization, the right way, with his own people, without having to deal with the hangers-on who had become old faces in Minnesota in the past.But for making all the right moves organizationally, there are still problems. Big problems.There is Dino Ciccarelli, who last season couldn&rsquo;t keep out of trouble on or off the ice. Dino thinks he&rsquo;s a superstar. He wants to be paid like one.His agent. Ron Salcer of Los Angeles, likes to do his negotiating in print instead of private. Ferreira doesn&rsquo;t.What has occurred in the interim is this: the Stars have made an offer to Ciccarelli which they deem fair.So fair, in fact, that only two right wingers in the league, Jari Kurri and Dave Taylor, would earn more than Ciccarelli. The numbers would put Ciccarelli in the top 20 in his profession financially, but somehow he wants more.So Dino waits. His agent squawks. And Ferreira anxiously wonders what to do next.&ldquo;Nobody&rsquo;s beating the doors down for Dino,&rdquo; said Ferreira, who has all but advertised that Ciccarelli was available. "The offers&hellip;haven&rsquo;t been acceptable.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s one off-ice problem Ferreira would like to settle But there is another that&rsquo;s even more bothersome.It centers on Mike Modano, the center picked first in last June&rsquo;s entry draft. The Stars and Modano&rsquo;s agent, Howard Gourwitz, have been unable to come to any contractual agreement.Ferreira has structured and restructured and altered offers and admits a sense of frustation over the situation. It is the typical no-win scenario. Everyone&rsquo;s losing.Modano&rsquo;s not in camp, and not gaining experience. The Stars don&rsquo;t get the opportunity to see their first-round pick in camp. The player doesn&rsquo;t get paid.And while the North Stars went through their first week of training camp in Kalamazoo, Ferreira left camp for Detroit to meet with Modano. To make yet another offer, yet another plea.&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s really hurt the kid,&rdquo; said Ferreira, who thought Modano was 50-50 to make the club. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve told his parents 1 think he&rsquo;s making a mistake.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve offered to take this thing to an arbitrator and let him determine it. They&rsquo;re asking for figures way out of line.&rdquo;This business was supposed to be about hockey, but Ferreira surrendered all that when he traded in his scouting ticket and upgraded to the GM&rsquo;s office. Training camp as a scout is normally a pleasant time. You watch your draft picks. You trade stories. You evaluate players. Your busy season hasn&rsquo;t even begun.Jack Ferreira would like nothing better than to watch his hockey team practise and play&mdash;to get to know the players, something that only comes from being around.&ldquo;That was the part I was really looking forward to. I&rsquo;ve tried to make that a priority to watch and get to know the players. I&rsquo;ve tried not to allow it to interfere with everything.&rdquo;But he can&rsquo;t.For in the backdrop of training camp, a star of the future and a star of the present sit out. and a team with Stars in its name so badly needs its stars on the ice. &#9632;

f0012-02

Good Old Days Of Camp Just A Memory For Ferreira

<div class="byline">BY AL MORGANTI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011346/5645075-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="550" height="848"><figcaption class="caption-body">Four-time 50-goal scorer Tim Kerr has the snap back in his wrist shot.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-02975/5645082-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="156" height="118"></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Even holdouts by two veteran defensemen couldn&rsquo;t spoil the upbeat training camp mood as the Philadelphia Flyers prepared for the 1988-89 season.Neither the absence of Doug Crossman, nor that of Willie Huber could upset the good feeling as the Flyers worked out for their first season under coach Paul Holmgren.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say it&rsquo;s like everything being new,&rdquo; said right winger Rick Tocchet, who signed a four-year deal worth just over $1 million, Sept. 11. &ldquo;But it is like a fresh start. I guess a breath of fresh air.&rdquo;For players such as Tocchet, center Peter Zezel, center Derrick Smith and goalie Ron Hextali, this is their first NHL training camp without the demanding and successful Mike Keenan, now coach of the Chicago Blackhawks.&ldquo;The whole general atmosphere is really great,&rdquo; said captain Dave Poulin. &ldquo;I get a real feeling that people can&rsquo;t wait to get started.&rdquo;Crossman and Huber aren&rsquo;t so anxious. After Crossman announced Sept. 8 he wanted out of Philadelphia, it was Huber&rsquo;s turn to take the stage. Unlike Crossman, who wants out for personal reasons, Huber wants more money.The Flyers offered Huber a contract of undisclosed length for approximately $150,000, about a $100,000 pay cut, and Huber decided to stay home. According to Flyer general manager Bob Clarke, there is room for negotiation, but it doesn&rsquo;t sound as if the Flyers consider Huber an integral part of their plans. He was 9-22-31 in 56 games overall last season and 4-9-13 in 10 games with the Flyers, his third team, after stints with the Rangers and Vancouver in 1987-88.Clarke continued to praise defensemen Gord Murphy (8-20-28 in 62 games), Jeff Chychrun (0-5-5 in 55) and John Stevens (1-15-16 in 59), all of whom played at the Flyers&rsquo; American League affiliate in Hershey last season.But the most pleasant sight on the first day of camp was right winger Tim Kerr, who looked fully healed for the first time in a year.Over the summer Ken bulked up to about 235 pounds&mdash;he was down to 206 when he tried to return from shoulder surgery last spring&mdash;and appears to have some snap back in his wrist shot.By all accounts, Kerr&rsquo;s left shoulder is nearly fully recovered. Both Kerr and the Flyers express certainty Kenr will be 100 per cent, but Kerr is waiting for the team to back up those words with a new contract.Since last winter, the team has been negotiating a new deal with Kerr&mdash;who is entering the fourth year of a five-year deal that pays between $320,000 and $340,000 per season&mdash;but talks have stalled.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s sending out a very good message,&rdquo; said Kerr. &ldquo;Obviously, they still have some doubts about me, otherwise, why wouldn&rsquo;t this deal be done?&ldquo;Maybe I have to prove myself again. I&rsquo;m not worried about that, I&rsquo;m sure of myself.&rdquo;Kerr was trying to land a contract worth over $400,000 per season.NOTES&mdash;The Flyers announced right winger Scott Mellanby signed a three-year contract. It&rsquo;s worth $160,000 per season&hellip;Right winger Dave Brown was the only player entering his option year still unsigned, but said he was close to completing a deal&hellip;The Flyers were also trying to work out a contract for center Murray Craven, who has two years remaining on a contract which calls for about $135,000 per season. &#9632;

f0013-01

Flyers Upbeat Despite Missing Defensemen

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011414/5645120-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="555" height="777"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dale Hunter wore short hair last year, but arrived at camp in a ponytail.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021100/5645127-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="167" height="121"></div>LANDOVER, Md.&mdash;Yvon Corriveau finally looks as though he belongs&mdash;in his fourth Washington Capital training camp.Corriveau, the Capitals&rsquo; No. 1 draft pick in 1985, has maintained the effort he showed during the second half of last season, when he was promoted from Binghamton and responded with 10 goals and a plus-17 rating.During early scrimmages, the left winger displayed a scoring touch, made full use of his 215 pounds in driving to the net. and did not hesitate to drop the gloves, twice exchanging punches with defenseman Pat Beauchesne. Among a series of crunching Corriveau checks was one that put defenseman Jeff Ballantyne out of action temporarily with a sprained knee.A 54-goal scorer for the Toronto Marlboros in 1985-86, Corriveau had a reputation as an undisciplined sniper who often broke too soon for the opponent&rsquo;s goal and left a hole defensively. But he laid that to rest during a 20-game stretch last winter when he was not on the ice for a single opposition score.In adding 10 pounds to his 6-foot-2 frame, Corriveau apparently gained considerablm strength without forfeiting quickness. During off-ice agility drills more suited to men with a lower center of gravity, Corriveau posted the fastest time of all 60 players in camp.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a little heavier, butl feel stronger,&rdquo; Corriveau said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m quicker in the tests, maybe because I&rsquo;m older (21) and my body has filled out. I played a lot of ball hockey this summer and I was busy doing the program (strength coach) Frank (Costello) set up for us. Then the week before I came here I went to a conditioning camp in Thorold (Ontario).&rdquo;Corriveau laughed when he recalled his first Washington training camp in 1985: &ldquo;I can remember when I was an 18-year-old coming here. The first year I saw the pros, like Rod Langway, and I was just in awe of them.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04522/5645113-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="558" height="781"><figcaption class="caption-body">Left winger Yvon Corriveau added 10 pounds without sacrificing any speed.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Now, I&rsquo;m just like a normal player. It&rsquo;s so different. A couple of years&rsquo; experience gives you a jump. I look at the young guys now and I see where I&rsquo;ve got the jump on them.&rdquo;The Capitals concede that Corriveau&rsquo;s development probably was hindered two years ago, when he started the season in Washington, was used sparingly and eventually was sent back to the Marlies. Later, he was further disillusioned when the Canadian national junior team cut him loose.&ldquo;Last year I started in Binghamton and that was a big plus for me,&rdquo; said Corriveau, who had 15 goals and 14 assists in 35 games with the American League Whalers, then 10 goals and nine assists in 35 games with the Caps. &ldquo;1 got a whole bunch of ice time there (Binghamton), then I came up and had a pretty good season. I&rsquo;m happy with myself now and I&rsquo;ve got my confidence back. I&rsquo;m excited about this year&rsquo;s camp.&rdquo;Although Geoff Courtnail has been added to the left side, it remains the Capitals&rsquo; weakest position. Management hopes Corriveau will continue to impress. With Greg Adams gone to Edmonton in the Courtnail deal, Corriveau could be an important physical presence in front of the net.&ldquo;Yvon obviously has a chance to play a lot,&rdquo; said coach Bryan Murray. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s one of the young players who has to continue to improve and score points for us.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Goaltender Pete Peeters, about to enter the option year of his contract, agreed to a one-year extension&hellip; The biggest man in Caps&rsquo; camp was defenseman Mark Hatcher, Kevin&rsquo;s brother, at 6-foot-7 and 269 pounds. Mark last played for Milwaukee of the International League in 1985-86 and was working as a carpenter before making his comeback-&hellip;Center Dale Hunter, who featured a crew cut a year ago, showed up this time with hair so long his wife tied it in a ponytail when Hunter went to meet teammates at the airport&hellip;Center Reggie Savage, the Capitals&rsquo; No. 1 draft choice this past summer, was impressive despite a lingering groin problem that apparently resulted from overwork at the Canadian junior camp. &#9632;

f0014-01

Corriveau Grows Into Bigger Role With Caps

<div class="byline">Dave Molinari</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03770/5645158-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="358" height="459"></div>TOUGH AS IT might be to believe, we seem to have survived Armageddon.Nearly two months have expired since Aug. 9&mdash;The Day The Earth Stood Still&mdash;and things are still surprisingly tranquil here in the Western Hemisphere.The planet hasn&rsquo;t altered its direction of rotation. You can still see sunrises out the same window as before. And geez, all indications are cartographers are going to continue including Edmonton on their maps.Seems the world wasn&rsquo;t turned upside down when Wayne Gretzky was traded, after all.Could that possibly mean we have reached the point where someone can dare to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the deal that sent Wayne Gretzky to Los Angeles was not an act of treason but (shudder) a simple business transaction?More complicated and interesting than buying a loaf of bread or trading in the old family station wagon, perhaps, but certainly of a similar nature.In the most rudimentary terms, what we had was a businessman&mdash;Oiler owner Peter Pocklington&mdash;carrying out a business deal with one of his peers&mdash;Bruce McNall of Los Angeles.Pocklington transferred ownership of some business holdings&mdash;Gretzky, Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski&mdash;to McNall in return for two players, three draft choices and enough money to pave a road from Alberta to Anaheim with loonies. (That&rsquo;s the $1 Canadian coin, not a social commentary.)But in the geyser of emotions that spewed forth in subsequent days, it was widely held Pocklington had sent away not just a hockey player, but a Canadian icon.But for all Wayne Gretzky is, he never was and never will be&mdash;despite those howls from so many&mdash;a Canadian treasure.A Canadian citizen, sure. A modest and wondrously skilled athlete, certainly. An exemplary role model for youngsters, absolutely.But sorry, folks, Gretzky wasn&rsquo;t one of his country&rsquo;s greatest natural resources. Canada has such things in breathtaking abundance, from the Mari-times to the Pacific.But its resources are to be found in the oil reserves below the earth, in the wheat fields that spill across the prairies, in the humbling majesty of the Rockies.National treasures don&rsquo;t have much use for locker rooms and skate-sharpening machines.It is to be understood if such reasoning escapes devotees of the Oilers, those who reveled in Gretzky's marvelous skills for so long.They have lost the opportunity to witness one of the extraordinary athletes of this or any other era on a regular basis and might only be able to dream about the enduring greatness the Oilers might have attained over the next few years with Gretzky around.But the beauty of the Pocklington-McNall transaction is it has a third partner, who has absolutely no need to be silent.That party is the Edmonton citizenry, the people who indirectly&mdash;but quite realistically&mdash;paid Gretzky&rsquo;s salary, along with those of everyone else in the Oiler organization.If those people could not have their say about whether the trade was made, they surely can put a lasting stamp of disapproval on it.They can refuse to attend games. They can refuse to watch or listen to broadcasts. They can boycott every item adorned with an Oiler logo.Anything to cut off the cash flow of the man whose business sense has so outraged them.They are drastic steps, to be sure. But if they seem too radical, perhaps the Gretzky trade wasn&rsquo;t quite the outrage so many proclaimed it to be.What the fans must realize they cannot accomplish, for better or worse, is to undo what Pocklington and McNall did in August.What they must do, for their own benefit, is to place the events of that August day in proper perspective.For Wayne Gretzky is no less a player, certainly no less a Canadian, because he will be playing for a U.S.-based team.Being traded to a team located somewhere other than one&rsquo;s native country&mdash;even if the trade was made at the player&rsquo;s request&mdash;is hardly tantamount to renouncing one&rsquo;s citizenship, let alone an act of sedition.It&rsquo;s just that this time, it wasn&rsquo;t quite business as usual. &#9632;

f0014-03

Can’t Call Deal An Outrage Until Fans Boycott Oilers

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011310/5645189-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="154" height="120"></div>EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.&mdash;Will Janne Ojanen be the next Finn to make an impact in the National Hockey League?After a sizzling start in training camp, the temptation is to look at the 20-year-old center as the next Jari Kurri or Christian Ruuttu. But the Devils still aren&rsquo;t sure how good Ojanen really is, or if the native of Tampere, Finland, can even make the team this year.&ldquo;I think he has a chance to make this team, but that&rsquo;s a question for Jimmy (Schoenfeld),&rdquo; said Devil assistant director of player personnel David Conte. &ldquo;One thing with Jim is he&rsquo;s open-minded. He uses a merit system. Ojanen and Neil Brady (from Medicine Hat of the Western League) have kind of stepped to the head of the class among rookies, tempered by the fact that it&rsquo;s early.&rdquo;In his first three rookie games, Ojanen scored five goals and had an assist. Reporting to his first NHL camp at 6-foot-2, 202 pounds, the Devils&rsquo; third selection, 45th overall in the 1986 entry draft, quickly opened some eyes.&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t really know what to expect,&rdquo; said assistant coach Bob Hoff-meyer, who handled the rookie game coaching duties. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s played excellent in all the offensive zones and we&rsquo;ve had him killing penalties. Still, it&rsquo;s different competition than he&rsquo;ll face with the big club. We&rsquo;ll see if he adjusts stepping up the ladder.&rdquo;The soft-spoken Ojanen was pleased.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy with the way I&rsquo;ve played. I&rsquo;m satisfied. But there are many good centers here. I hope I have a chance, but I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;He does not have clear sailing. The Devils have four proven centers in Kirk Muller, Patrik Sundstrom, Claude Loiselle and Mark Johnson, along with two promising players in Swede Anders Carlsson and Brady.Ojanen, never recognized as a goal-scorer like Ruuttu or Kurri, made great strides last season playing internationally.While his role was minimal, Ojanen played on Finland&rsquo;s Canada Cup team last September, along with teammates such as Kurri, Ruuttu, Reijo Ruotsa-lainen, Timo Blomqvist, Jari Gronstrand, Esa Tikkanen, Raimo Helminen and Petri Skriko. Just 19, with two seasons playing for Tappara in the Finnish National League, Ojanen scored a goal and an assist in five Canada Cup games.At the World Junior Championships in Moscow last year, Ojanen was 6-5-11 in seven games as Finland finished third with a 5-1-1 record behind Canada and the Soviet Union.In February, Ojanen represented Finland at the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary. He started the Olympics as the fourth-line center, but when Helminen got hurt, Ojanen moved up and scored two goals with an assist in eight games as Finland captured the silver medal. The Finns were 3-1-1 in the preliminary round and 3-1-1 in the medal round, one point behind the Soviets. Finland was the only team to defeat the Soviets, though the USSR had already clinched the gold medal.&ldquo;Ina pressure cooker like the Olympics, he performed well enough,&rdquo; said Conte. &ldquo;He scored goals in the last two games against the Czechs and Russians.&rdquo;&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t play that much,&rdquo; recalled Ojanen. &ldquo;The highlight was when we beat the Russians. That last game (a 2-1 victory over the Soviets on Feb. 28) was great.&rdquo;Conte said size and strength will work in Ojanen&rsquo;s favor and help him keep pace with NHL competition.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a little bit of (Calgary center) Joe Nieuwendyk and a little bit of (New York Ranger center) Ulf Dahlen in him,&rdquo; Conte suggested. &ldquo;This might rub some people the wrong way, but in a sense there&rsquo;s also a little Phil Esposito in him.&rdquo;"He&rsquo;s not a real smooth skater,&rdquo; added Hoff-meyer, &ldquo;but he always seems fast enough to be where he has to be. He&rsquo;s strong in traffic. He takes the hits and gives hits.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Gord Mark, once considered among the Devils&rsquo; most promising young defensemen, walked out of training camp Sept. 12 and voluntarily ended his pro hockey career. &ldquo;I just wasn&rsquo;t having fun any more,&rdquo; said Mark, 24. A veteran of 55 NHL games over two seasons (3-7-10), the Devils&rsquo; fourth pick in the 1983 entry draft returned home to Irma, Alta., where he will farm some newly-purchased land-&hellip;New Jersey general manager Lou Lamoriello&rsquo;s telephone invitation to training camp for defenseman Jack O&rsquo;Callahan may have been a tip-off negotiations with Soviet defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov were bogging down once more. &#9632;

f0015-01

Ojanen Hopes To Finn-ish Camp As A Devil

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02957/5645220-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="559" height="705"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Coffey says the Penguins remind him of the Oilers of the early 1980s.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011200/5645227-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="143" height="120"></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;Paul Coffey has the NHL single-season record for goals by a defenseman (48 in 1985-86) and owns three Stanley Cup rings.But the Pittsburgh Penguin defenseman insists he is not the kind of guy to put numbers on things.Never mind it was the numbers on his paycheck&mdash;which Coffey figured were entirely too low&mdash;that led to the trade that brought him to Pittsburgh last November.While Coffey has objectives as he prepares for his first full season with the Penguins, he has not translated them into statistics.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t put numbers on things, but I do set goals for myself,&rdquo; Coffey said. &ldquo;I think any hockey player or any person in life should always be goal-oriented.&ldquo;I think if I play as well as I can and help the team, I&rsquo;ll be able to put good numbers up.&rdquo;He piled up some impressive totals last season&mdash;15 goals and 52 assists in 46 games&mdash;but missed 13 games because of injuries and needed time to get acclimated to surroundings strikingly different from those he left in Edmonton.&ldquo;Last year was a tough situation for me, coming into Pittsburgh No*. 24 without any game experience and having to play,&rdquo; Coffey said.&ldquo;Then having my knee injury&hellip;the three or four months I was here, I really, really enjoyed it. It made me look forward to (the coming season) that much more.&rdquo;Probably not as much, however, as the Penguins&rsquo; new management team is looking forward to Coffey.&ldquo;Like everybody else, I watched Edmonton to see (Wayne) Gretzky, but ended up watching Coffey,&rdquo;coach Gene Ubriaco said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s anything he can&rsquo;t do.&rdquo;&ldquo;I consider Coffey the best defenseman in hockey,&rdquo; general manager Tony Esposito said. &ldquo;I always have.&rdquo;Esposito might have a less-than-objective perspective, but few dare deny Coffey is among the most gifted offensive defensemen in league history.Suffice to say the Penguins have no plans to perform even minor alterations to Coffey&rsquo;s style, although his work in the defensive zone rarely invokes comparisons to Rod Lang way.&ldquo;Paul Coffey does what he does best,&rdquo; Esposito said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to try to make him a defensive specialist. He creates things and makes things happen when he&rsquo;s out there.&rdquo;Coffey&rsquo;s breathtaking abilities were hampered somewhat by the knee injury, which obliged him to undergo arthroscopic surgery during the offseason.A rehabilitation program that included running sprints, swimming and riding an exercise bike appears to have yielded a complete recovery.&ldquo;I feel great right now,&rdquo; Coffey said.If his health is good, his attitude is even better.Shortly after reporting to suburban Mt. Lebanon for the start of workouts, Coffey proclaimed: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never looked forward to the start of a training camp more than I&rsquo;ve looked forward to this one.&rdquo;The reasons, he said, are the volatile variables which could enable the Penguins to contend for a Patrick Division championship or leave them out of the playoffs for the seventh consecutive spring.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m excited about the possibilities, what could happen to this team,&rdquo; Coffey said. &ldquo;You go to camp with the Edmonton Oilers, you always knew you were going to be a good team. You always knew you were going to make the playoffs.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>&ldquo;But with this team&hellip;it reminds me of the Oilers six or seven years ago. In &rsquo;81, &rsquo;82, &rsquo;83, when we came into camp, the sky was really the limit for our hockey team.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not saying we&rsquo;ve got a Stanley Cup team here, but in my mind, we&rsquo;ve got a good hockey club and if we get everybody going in the right direction with the right attitude, a lot of things can happen.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Center Mario Lemieux and defenseman Paul Coffey missed the first day of camp because of an appearance in Toronto on behalf of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police antidrug program&hellip;Larry Kelly, agent for center Dan Quinn, who is entering his option year, said Quinn will leave the Penguins after this season if he doesn&rsquo;t get a new contract: &ldquo;If he&rsquo;s forced to play out his option, there&rsquo;s no way in the world he&rsquo;ll sign with Pittsburgh.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip; Rookie goalie Bruce Racine, another Kelly client, was the only player who did not report to camp because of a contract problem&hellip;Ontario scout Doug Woods resigned at the end of August and joined the Toronto Maple Leafs on a part-time basis. He will be replaced temporarily by college scout Greg Malone. &#9632;

f0016-02

Coffey Lets Numbers Fall Where They May

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03728/5645258-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="154" height="120"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Bob Froese faces the issue squarely, unflinchingly, as though he were lining up a routine shot from the blue line. The New York Rangers&rsquo; veteran goalie can see the writing on the wall and it plainly says: &ldquo;Goodbye.&rdquo;The almost daily trade rumors which follow the Rangers all include his name, as the rapid development of U.S. Olympic team goalie Mike Richter appears to give general manager Phil Esposito one more layer of insurance than he had a year ago.John Vanbiesbrouck&rsquo;s swift recovery from surgery on his left wrist and the presence of veteran minor leaguer Ron Scott support the belief Froese is destined to be traded.&ldquo;I hear and read all the rumors and it gets to the the point where you&rsquo;ve got to start thinking there might be something to them,&rdquo; Froese acknowledged during the first week of Ranger training camp.Unlike the difficult days in December of 1986 when Philadelphia dealt a disgruntled Froese to New York for Kjell Samuelsson and a second-round draft choice, the former Jennings Trophy winner feels no bitterness.&ldquo;Phil has treated me well,&rdquo; Froese stressed, &ldquo;and if there is an opportunity where he thinks he can improve the team and I would be, in some people&rsquo;s estimation, good bait to make a deal, well, that is what he has to do. That&rsquo;s his job.&rdquo;Froese&rsquo;s role last season was reduced considerably from the year before when he appeared in 28 of 48 games as a Ranger (14-11-0).Instead of sharing the job with Vanbiesbrouck, Froese appeared in only 25 of 80 games (8-11-3) under Michel Bergeron and, more significantly, took the ice for only seven of the Rangers&rsquo; final 32 games (3-2-1).&ldquo;I know they don&rsquo;t need two first-string goalies,&rdquo; Froese said with a shrug. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing I can do. Whatever happens is fine with me.&rdquo;One of the most common rumors is Froese is going to the Los Angeles Kings for center Bernie Nicholls.The popular, good-natured native of St. Catharines, Ont., looked sharp in the opening week of Ranger training camp, despite the fact he was trying out a set of new, lightweight goalie pads.&ldquo;I know something may happen but all I can do is try to concentrate on doing my best right here,&rdquo; Froese said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t let yourself be distracted. The game is hard enough with-out that.&rdquo;Two months ago, Froese was considered an untouchable because of Vanbiesbrouck&rsquo;s serious wrist injury. Initial estimates placed his return in mid-December but he made a remarkable recovery in time for the start of training camp.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not 100 per cent,&rdquo; Vanbiesbrouck admitted, &ldquo;but I can do the job. My problem is not going to be stopping the puck, it will be handling it. Getting the full strength back in my left wrist will take a little time.&rdquo;Vanbiesbrouck and Froese have more than peacefully co-existed for two years and their mutual respect has been an asset to morale on the team.&ldquo;Froesey is my teammate and an important part of this team,&rdquo; Vanbiesbrouck said, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;m not going to speculate on what might happen. (Wayne) Gretzky was traded so anybody can go but I would hate to see somebody who is so well liked and so capable leave our team.&rdquo;Froese is a competitor and would like a larger role but he has not complained or questioned management since his arrival. It is obvious he doesn&rsquo;t plan to start now.&ldquo;Moving my family is the down side of all this and leaving all the friends I&rsquo;ve made would be tough,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;At the same time, I knew when I came here that John was the No. 1 guy in goal and I accepted that. It&rsquo;s all in their hands.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Bob Froese yielded the first goal of training camp to 37-year-old comeback Hall of Famer, Guy Lafleur. The former Monteal star consistently ranked among the best Ranger forwards through the first week. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think any of us expected him to be this outstanding,&rdquo; said Phil Esposito. &ldquo;To say that we are enthused is an understatement.&rdquo;&hellip;Coach Michel Bergeron and Phil Esposito were delighted with the hospitality in Trois-Rivieres. Lafleur&rsquo;s presence helped draw more than 3,000 fans for most scrimmages&hellip;Ranger captain Kelly Kisio had until Sept. 26 to decide whether or not to accept a contract offer or play out his option&hellip;Pierre Larouche officially announced his retirement Sept. 14. &#9632;

f0016-03

Froese Accepts Likelihood Of Trade

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02817/5645289-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Center Bryan Trottier has no objections about shifting to left wing. He was used there during his junior career.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011049/5645296-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="152" height="120"></div>UNIONDALE, N.Y.&mdash;Terry Simpson&rsquo;s plan went awry before it was even under way.During the summer, the New York Islander coach figured since free-agent Finn Raimo Helminen&rsquo;s best position is center, and incumbent centers Brent Sutter and Bryan Trottier play so well along the boards, why not experiment in training camp with either Sutter or Trottier on the wing?But when the 24-year-old Helminen complained of pain around his left hip the first day of camp, neurological tests were taken. Doctors discovered a muscle deficiency in his left hip and buttocks. So two days after camp began, Helminen was off skates and on a 10-to-14 day rehabilitation program.&ldquo;That sort of delays the decisions that have to be made,&rdquo; Simpson said.Until Helminen returned, Sutter and Trottier were still centers.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t mind at all,&rdquo; Trottier said about playing left wing. &ldquo;My first year in junior (in Swift Current of the Western League) I played defense, then got beat twice in 40 seconds one-on-one by (future NHLer) Tom Lysiak. So my coach threw me on left wing. In one sense, it&rsquo;d be exciting.&rdquo;Simpson said Sutter would be the first guy he&rsquo;d move.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do whatever Terry thinks is best for the team,&rdquo; said Sutter, the team captain. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m not a right wing. I&rsquo;m a center. If it helps the team be stronger, I&rsquo;m all for it. But who&rsquo;s to say I&rsquo;ll be the same as a right wing as I am a center?&ldquo;And the thing that bothers me is some of the best players in the league are centers. Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Hawerchuk, Stastny, Savard, Yzerman. The advantage our team has is that both at home and on the road. Trots or I could play against those guys, making it tougher for teams to juggle lines against us.&rdquo;Sutter wasn&rsquo;t being difficult or selfish, just pragmatic. Simpson&rsquo;s plan isn't carved in stone and is only preseason tinkering so far. There are many variables yet to be played out.Helminen could fail to make the team or he could beat out Bob Bassen as the fourth-line center. Rookies Todd McLellan, Tom Fitzgerald or Rob DiMaio could surprise everybody.Meanwhile, right winger Mike Bossy, who hasn't made an official retirement announcement, said his sore back feels better after seven sessions with a new therapist in Montreal. Bossy has moved back to his Long Island condominium and will commute to Montreal for at least four more sessions. &ldquo;A lot of muscle pain has gone down. " he said.Bossy is no longer an Islander. He and Islander general manager Bill Torrey haven&rsquo;t spoken since July 1, when Bossy rejected the team&rsquo;s personal services contract of three years for $500 an appearance, with no minimum number of appearances. He hasn&rsquo;t skated since May 2, 1987. If he does heal enough to try to play again, he&rsquo;s free to sign with any team.Bossy said he will continue commuting to Montreal &ldquo;as long as I continue making progress. If I continue to feel better, the next step is to work out with weights. If I can work out, then maybe I can start skating. But the minute 1 regress, then that&rsquo;s it. If I can&rsquo;t work out, lift, ride the bike, then the program doesn&rsquo;t follow any more.&rdquo;What will probably then follow is the retirement announcement.NOTES&mdash;The NHL&rsquo;s investigation into right winger David Volek&rsquo;s sixmonth suspension for alleged steroid use in his native Czechoslovakia &ldquo;just sits there&rdquo; said NHL president John Ziegler, because correspondence from the International Ice Hockey Federation could not be read. &ldquo;It was so garbled I couldn&rsquo;t read it,&rdquo; said Ziegler. Volek has looked excellent in camp on a line with center Brent Sutter and various left wingers&hellip;Goalie Billy Smith is experimenting with the light leg pads popularized by Boston&rsquo;s Reggie Lemelin&hellip;l988 U.S. Olympian Todd Okerlund was forced to retire because of recurring pain in his knee, surgically repaired two years ago. &#9632;

f0017-02

Simpson’s Isles Aren’t Able To Wing It Yet

Hockey sticks as we know them today are a long way removed from the crude instruments first used to push a puck on ice.Aluminum, fiberglass, graphite, and even machine manufacturing of sticks are all relatively recent innovations. when you consider the sport of hockey probably had its roots in the 17th century.Today&rsquo;s hockey is directly related to a couple of games played popularly in Canada&rsquo;s maritimes in the mid-19th century: Hurley, played on both ice and field by settlements of Irish immigrants, and Ricket, a variation on shinny. Both required players to use sticks to score goals on a net.To fully understand the evolution of the stick, says Ed Grenda, director of the International Hockey Hall of Fame in Kingston, Ont., one must first get a feeling for how the game has evolved.&ldquo;The game had an interesting beginning in the Halifax-Dartmouth (Nova Scotia) area,&rdquo; Grenda says. &ldquo;There was a game called Ricket which was similar to the game of hockey. And there was the game of Hurley, as well. And in the United States there was a game called Ice Polo. The sticks used in these games were similar to the field-hockey sticks used in England at the time.&rdquo;The sticks were hand-carved, usually of solid ash. The blade was more of a hook, curving upward at both the tip and the heel. Puck-control, needless to say, was not as much of a factor in those days.By 1875, the actual game of hockey was in its infancy. And in Montreal, advances to equipment were being made.&ldquo;We can trace the first sticks used exclusively for ice hockey to this period,&rdquo; Grenda says. &ldquo;The field-hockey stick was being developed into the stick as it now stands, but it still had the round heel.&ldquo;Ash was the most popular, but it was very heavy. And the sticks were fairly short, like field-hockey sticks. Players crouched over; hockey then did not in any way approach the speed of today&rsquo;s game.&rdquo;Though hockey was picking up poularity in other parts of the country. Nova Scotia was still recognized as the place to get sticks.&ldquo;Even here in Kingston,&rdquo; Grenda says, &ldquo;when the game (first recorded contest in that city, between Queen&rsquo;s University and Royal Military College) was played in 1886, there was talk of going to Halifax to acquire sticks.&rdquo;For the balance of the century, there was little change. The game continued to be played at a leisurely pace. Sticks were changing slightly, however. The blade was being straightened out and the shaft began to get longer.Special sticks for goaltenders were developed as the century turned. Unlike today&rsquo;s models, however, these had a bulge on only one side of the shaft, not both.About this time, the Shearer mill in Montreal began manufacturing sticks. The concept of assembly-line hockey sticks, just about fully-accepted by 1920, changed the game for good.The early Shearer sticks were unusual, to say the least.Describes Grenda: &ldquo;The shaft, instead of going directly to the heel, had a slight bend to it. It came out and around like a golf putter. And the blades were fairly wide, wider than today&rsquo;s.&rdquo;Certainly, they were durable.&ldquo;These early sticks lasted a long time. Some lasted players for three or four years.&rdquo;Sticks continued to be one-piece jobs until the 1940s, though experimentation with separated, laminated blades and shafts was started a decade earlier.&ldquo;Players wanted a lighter stick,&rdquo; Grenda explains, &ldquo;but a harder wood for the blade (than the shaft). By then, speed was an important element of the game.&rdquo;The two.-piece, laminated stick &ldquo;really changed the history of the game.&rdquo; Other innovations followed in the years to come&mdash;warped blades for faster, more unpredictable shots, multi-layered sticks of wood and synthetics, aluminum shafts&mdash;all in the name of excellence on ice.In the pages that follow, you&rsquo;ll see how far the stick really has evolved since the early days. &#9632;

Sticks Have Evolved Since The Early Days

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01890/5645396-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg"></div>Too many times out there on the ice, the only thing that stands between you and a goal isn&rsquo;t just the goalie.It's your stick.So try our stick for a change. The Easton aluminum shaft HX 4905. It&rsquo;ll give you the lighter feel and handling consistency wood can never deliver. Shot after shot. Game after game.It&rsquo;ll give you more stability in the shaft than wood. None of that &ldquo;whippy&rdquo; action or twisting during the shot. Result? More accuracy!It&rsquo;ll give you better balance than wood. For quicker shots and less shaft fatigue. It&rsquo;ll give you the flexibility of changing your blades (all made to NHL specs) without changing your stick And like more and more NHL players who play Easton, it&rsquo;ll give you a better shot at being your best. The Easton HX 4905 aluminum hockey stick.Whether you can beat that guy in the nets next time down the ice&hellip; is really all in I your hands now.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02600/5645389-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="837" height="104"></div>You supply the talent. We supply the stick.Easton Sports, Inc., 577 Airport Blvd., Burlingame, CA94010 Easton Sports Canada, 9670 Route Transcanadienne, Ville St-Laurent, PQ, H4S1V9<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01663/5645382-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="3126" height="3700"></div> &#9632;

f0020-01

If you want to beat this monster you better carry a strong stick.

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01774/5645427-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg"></div>We at Torspo pride ourselves on quality. Each and every Torspo stick is hand-made, and is personally quality-tested at all stages of manufacturing. With quality also comes durability, feel, balance and most importantly, great value. Torspo is conscious of today&rsquo;s rising costs to play hockey, therefore we are committed to making our sticks with durability built in. Torspo sticks last longer and play longer.<h2>Torspo Pro 2000</h2>Used by Mats Naslund (Montreal Canadiens) and Mark Osborne (Toronto Maple Leafs) as well as many other NHL and top European players, including members of the Soviet national team such as Sergei Makarov and Vladimir Krutov. The Pro 2000 will meet every criterion that the best players in the world demand. Torspo has integrated birch, glassfibre, and graphite to produce the ultimate hockey stick available today.<h2>Torspo Pro 1000 Glass Fibre</h2>The Pro 1000 Glass Fibre is basically of the same construction as the Pro 2000. The graphite laminations were taken out and the fibreglass inlay is thickened to give it more rigidity. The same blade patterns as the Pro 2000 are available in the Pro 1000 Glass Fibre. Black shaft with white graphics.<h2>Torspo Ultra</h2>The name Ultra best describes the features of this model. Torspo developed the Ultra with these requirements in mind:&bull; The Ultra had to be extremely light.&bull; It had to be extremely durable.&bull; It had to have tremendous &ldquo;feel.&rdquo;We succeeded in every way. It is extremely durable, yet allows the player to feel the puck and have superb control.The Ultra uses a new type of light wood core in the shaft. This special core is what makes the stick so incredibly light.The blade of the Torspo Ultra consists of nine laminations, five of wood and four of fibreglass lams set inside the blade (not just wrapped), resulting in the most durable blade in hockey today.<h2>Pro 500</h2>Still our most popular model, this stick offers tremendous durability along with the feel and balance demanded by today&rsquo;s hockey players. The shaft is a box construction type made of 100-per-cent birch and epoxy glue. Its blade is also a nine-lamination blade consisting of birch and fibreglass and is available in the same four patterns.<h2>Pro 6000 Goal Stick</h2>The shaft of the Pro 6000 is a catapult shaft. This type of shaft is very flexible, which allows the stick to cushion the rebound and help in puck clearing. The shaft is a birch-laminated box type. The blade has ABS plastic on the bottom. The 6000 is available in left curve only.For North American distribution contact:In Canada:Torspo Sports Canada Inc., 405 Hall Ave., Unit 3, Renfrew, Ontario, K7V 2S6. (613) 432-5856.In U.S.:Robin Burns Enterprises Inc., Swanton Rd., St. Albans, Vermont, 05478. 1-800-247-4639, 1-802-524-9095. &#9632;

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All Torspo Sticks Hand-Made With Quality

For close to 30 years, the name Christian has been synonomous with the name of hockey.In 1960, it was the heroics of brothers Roger and Bill Christian which led the USA Olympic team to its first gold medal in ice hockey. Ironically, it was that same Christian name that surfaced in 1980 when an underdog USA Olympic team won the gold medal in Lake Placid. This time it was Bill&rsquo;s son, Dave Christian, whose phenomenal play led the USA team to victory and captured the hearts of hockey fans around the world.Today, while Dave Christian continues to play a large role in the Washington Capitals&rsquo; offensive attack. Bill and Roger Christian have also remained involved in the game, in another respect. Christian Bros, manufacture some of the finest hockey sticks in the world, for players of all ages, from peewees to professionals.What started out as a small family-operated business more than 24 years ago, has blossomed into a very successful business which has seen the Christian name become a standard in their native USA, Canada, Europe and other parts of the world.Christian Bros, have long been known for their quality, craftsmanship and dedication to the game of hockey. But the Christian name now represents another very important facet of the business&mdash;innovation.Through extensive research and development, Christian Bros, have introduced some new concepts to the hockey market. Included is the new Superstick 2000, with Christian&rsquo;s exclusive Supergrip, a new concept that allows the player to get a better grip and prevent his hands from slipping on the shaft.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01697/5645458-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="553" height="928"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Christian</figcaption></div>Also new is the Christian Pro Aluminum stick, a model featuring excellent feel&mdash;strongly resembling that of a wood stick&mdash;and precision balance. Available in two stiffness levels, this new shaft has a textured finish that has become the preference of many NHL professionals. Christian Bros, have also been chosen as the exclusive manufacturers of goal sticks with the Curtis Curve handle, a concept that has been accepted by many professional goaltenders.It is because of these very important traits that the Christian name is becoming very familiar in the very competitive Canadian marketplace, where the company&rsquo;s products are being distributed by Jelinek Sports of Oakville, Ont.&ldquo;The Christian name has become one that is being asked for, more and more, by hockey players,&rdquo; says Tim McClure, product manager for Jelinek Sports. &ldquo;I think that, because of the quality and craftsmanship Christian Bros, put into each and every stick, players get that very important psychological feel other sticks do not have.&ldquo;Some of the new concepts they have come up with at the factory are going over very well,&rdquo; McClure adds. &ldquo;Because they continue to play the game and are actively involved in the day-to-day operations, the slogan &lsquo;Hockey Sticks Made By Hockey Players&rsquo; remains very fitting.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Christian: Hockey Sticks Made By Hockey Players

Selecting a hockey stick is one of the most personal decisions a player can make.If the stick doesn&rsquo;t have the right &ldquo;feel&rdquo; for you, your play will suffer. But what constitutes the right &ldquo;feel&rdquo;? Nobody knows for sure. It varies so much by the individual, it&rsquo;s impossible to label.What&rsquo;s more important is defining, for yourself, what the right &ldquo;feel&rdquo; means to you.Guy Charron, a 12-year NHLer who&rsquo;s now an assistant coach with Canada&rsquo;s national team, has known a lot of players in his time. And each one, it seems, had his own personal definition for &ldquo;feel.&rdquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s almost each to his own,&rdquo; Charron says. &ldquo;The way the player skates, the way the lie (angle of the blade) touches the ice, makes a big difference. So does the weight.&ldquo;When I played, I preferred a lighter stick. But I&rsquo;m told Wayne Gretzky likes a heavier stick. So who knows?&rdquo;Another ex-pro now in the coaching business is Tom Webster. Webster, who played 11 years in the NHL and WHA and now coaches both the Ontario League Windsor Spitfires and Canada&rsquo;s national junior team, agrees the right &ldquo;feel&rdquo; is most important. But beyond that, he has definite preferences, which he passes on to his players.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01752/5645496-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="547" height="916"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tom Webster</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I liked stiffness in the shaft,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;And I liked a longer stick. A shorter stick keeps your head down too much. Now, as a coach, I like my players to use a longer stick.&ldquo;And I always get my defensemen to use a big blade for intercepting pases and blocking shots.&rdquo;One of the best-ever defensemen in the NHL, recently-retired New York Islander superstar Denis Potvin, picks up on Webster&rsquo;s philosophy.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always felt the longer the blade I had, the more opportunity I had to pick up loose pucks,&rdquo; Potvin says. &ldquo;As a defenseman, that was very important to me.&rdquo;So, as with Webster, was length.&ldquo;For a long time, 55 inches was the maximum length of a stick in the NHL,&rdquo; Potvin says. &ldquo;I found that too short. They extended it to 58 inches (in 1980) and that was ideal for me. I used a 57-inch stick.&rdquo;But again, &ldquo;feel&rdquo; is the most important factor.&ldquo;You really have to feel comfortable with the stick,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The idea, really, is to be able to skate normally and have all of it seem as one&mdash;the body, the stick and the puck.&rdquo;One of the greatest technicians in the game&mdash;ex-player, ex-coach, ex-TV analyst Howie Meeker&mdash;specializes in advice to youngsters. And he offers this tip to the younger player on how to tell if a stick is right for him:<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02529/5645489-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="553" height="911"><figcaption class="caption-body">Denis Potvin</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Once you&rsquo;ve decided on what kind of a stick you&rsquo;re going to buy, in what price range, you Une up a dozen of them in the rack,&rdquo; Meeker says.&ldquo;Pick each one up, two-thirds of the way up the handle, and bounce it in your hand. Once you&rsquo;ve gone through that dozen sticks, there will be only three or four that feel good. Take those ones and do it again. You should be left with only one you like.&rdquo; like.The outspoken Meeker maintains, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s because, of every 12 hockey sticks manufactured, eight are dogs and four are good ones.&rdquo;Unlike Webster, Meeker recommends a stick with plenty of flexibility in the shaft.&ldquo;You should always get the lightest stick and the one that&rsquo;s most flexible in your hands,&rdquo; he says. Young players in particular don&rsquo;t have the upper body strength to handle a stick with a stiff shaft, like most of the pros use, Meeker maintains.Neither do many adults.&ldquo;The worst thing in the world is for the adult to buy a stick recommended by a pro,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;because the handle has to be flexible. It&rsquo;s the only way to get &lsquo;feel.&rsquo; I&rsquo;d pick up a Guy Lafleur or a Steve Shutt stick and it would feel like a crowbar with a blade at the bottom.&rdquo;Another tip for kids, from Meeker: Before you follow the advice of experts like Webster or Potvin too literally, make sure you can handle a long blade. Most can&rsquo;t, and too long of a blade will only lead to cumbersome play.But above all, get the stick that &ldquo;feels&rdquo; right. &#9632;

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Stick’s ‘Feel’ Vital, But Hard To Define

There&rsquo;s a new attitude out there among the hockey stick-buying public:Price be damned. I want the best.It wasn&rsquo;t always that way. There used to be a time when the hockey stick market was price-sensitive. If a manufacturer put out a stick for $12.99, he could I be sure half his business would be scooped by the guy who was selling for $12.49.Not any more.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re dealing mostly with adult hockey people, and they&rsquo;re demanding the best hockey stick they can get for their money,&rdquo; says an executive of a stick-manufacturing company.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re giving a better-value product than we were, say, 15 years ago,&rdquo; adds the spokeman of another company. &ldquo;And the consumer is aware of it. They&rsquo;re buying our better, most expensive sticks. They want a better-performing, longer-lasting product.&rdquo;Top sticks are selling now for $20 or more&mdash;with no guarantee they won&rsquo;t break on the first shift, as sticks are occasionally given to do. And specialty sticks, like those with aluminum shafts, can run almost to $50.So what&rsquo;s the big deal? What makes today&rsquo;s top-line sticks so superior&mdash;and so in demand?For one thing, they weigh less. Today&rsquo;s recreational players feel they&rsquo;ve got an edge with a lighter stick&mdash;say, 20 ounces for top-of-the-line, as opposed to 24 with a medium-grade product.Flexibility in the shaft is also in demand. But manufacturers walk a fine line when they try to add flexibility without losing strength.&ldquo;Everyone is constantly looking for new ways to strengthen the sticks, with new flexibility in the shaft,&rdquo; another company&rsquo;s spokesman says. And that takes time and research.All sorts of materials are used in today&rsquo;s multi-layered, laminated sticks&mdash;graphite, fiberglass, plastics&mdash;and finding that right combination costs money.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think the consumer realizes how high-tech his hockey stick is, the number of man-hours that go into it,&rdquo; the executive says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an engineer&rsquo;s product, with all sorts of materials in it, that&rsquo;s trying to imitate the feel of wood.&rdquo;The old formula&mdash;go to the pros for advice on what makes a reaaly good stick&mdash;is no longer a sure-fire approach, one spokesman says.&ldquo;The consumer today is much more knowledgeable. About blade designs, for instance. He has decided on which blade design he wants, and the company is finding out from him what he wants. Before, we used to go to the pros for advice, and assume people would want what they wanted.&ldquo;But the consumer&rsquo;s got his own idea about what he wants.&rdquo;The result: Greater market feedback, but only to a point. Too much money spent on re-search and development can do in a company working on a tight margin.&ldquo;The manufacturers are respondingas much as they can to the demands,&rdquo; says one, &ldquo;without doing too much in research. The market is so competitive, we can&rsquo;t all charge what we want to charge for our products, and put it back in research and development.&rdquo;But the research goes on. Already, aluminum shafts have had a major impact in the market. And, given the move to the high-end market, one major aluminum stick manufacturer likes his prospects.&ldquo;People are upgrading as usual,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and we&rsquo;ve seen the surge of the aluminum stick.&rdquo;But not to the exclusivity of wood, wood blends or what could be the newest wave in sticks&mdash;synthetics.Says one manufacturer: &ldquo;You&rsquo;re going to see, though there are still hits and misses in this area, manufacturers continuing to strive toward the goal of having a totally synthetic stick. Someday, you&rsquo;ll see a stick totally without wood.&rdquo;Already, he says, a completely synthetic goalie stick has been tested, for likely market release in 1989. It&rsquo;s lighter than any other goalie stick out there, he says, and as much as 10 times more durable.But the bottom line, for now, is: The quality is there. And you can have it, if you&rsquo;re willing to pay the price. &#9632;

Stick Buyers Now Want Best Available

Victoriaville is one of the best-known manufacturers of high-performance hockey sticks in Canada. After a major fire last year, Victoriaville has built a new manufacturing facility, replacing older machinery with new and more highly advanced equipment. The result of this new equipment will be shown through even higher-quality products.Victoriaville has continued to emphasize research and development in order to produce a high-quality stick. This has resulted in the optimum combination of stiffness, weight, balance and feel, with balance being the key to the ultimate stick.<h2>Ultravic 4050</h2>For 1988-89, Ultravic 4050 is the flagship of the Vic line. The 4050 shaft provides an excellent lightweight feel and yet the necessary stiffness and strength from a fibreglass/wood core construction that promotes higher puck velocity. The blade on the 4050 is laminated ash with fibreglass and graphite wrap. Several blade shapes and curves are available including various pro patterns. The excellent performance of this stick is proven by the fact that many NHL and AHL pros are switching to-the Ultravic 4050.<h2>Provic 3050</h2>A new addition for 1988-89, this stick features a well-balanced 13-ply vertical laminated shaft with a medium flex factor.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01653/5645582-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="560" height="1434"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Gartner Victoriaville User</figcaption></div><h2>Pro Vic Goal</h2>The outstanding design of this goal stick has proven to be one of the finest and most popular in the game today. This professional-quality stick features a multi-laminated shaft, a glass reinforced fin that is tapered to exacting standards for a performance flex, and a thin graphite-and-glass-wrapped ash blade providing strength and durability. This stick is noted for its lightweight feel and is available in straight or curved models.<h2>Vic 5000 Aluminum</h2>New for the 1988-89 season, this stick features a stiff yet very lightweight, balanced aluminum shaft. The aluminum shaft has straight sides promoting a very comfortable and precise grip. The Vic replacement blade has been carefully designed for this shaft with extra strength from our graphite and glass wrap. &#9632;

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Victoriaville’s Back—And Better Than Ever

Howie Meeker is finally taking it easy.The guy that couldn&rsquo;t sit still or stop saying &lsquo;golly gee whiz&rsquo; while analysing hockey games for North American television viewers, take it easy? It&rsquo;s true. He&rsquo;s retired. The man who harped on finishing the check is finished.The Sports Network, for whom Meeker worked more or less regularly since 1984, wants him to reconsider. But Meeker is concerned he can no longer handle the pace.&ldquo;The travel really got to me last year,&rdquo; says Meeker, who worked about half of the 47 regular-season and playoff games TSN covered. &ldquo;Getting up at the crack of dawn Monday to catch a flight back east for a game that night, then up again early Tuesday to come home (Parksville, B.C.)&hellip;it was two days before I&rsquo;d recover. I talked to TSN about maybe just doing guest shots, maybe a couple of games before Christmas and a couple after.&rdquo;So call Meeker, 65, semiretired. He plans to spend the rest of his time travelling, fly fishing, reading and &ldquo;just puttering around.&rdquo;But you can bet that if he goes back on air for a guest shot, he&rsquo;ll take some. Meeker was never one to pull punches.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01678/5645613-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="528" height="1336"><figcaption class="caption-body">Howie Meeker</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I never could understand professionals making plays that shouldn&rsquo;t be made by amateurs,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Besides, you have to be controversial, otherwise you&rsquo;re dead on TV. You have to get the guys in the bar arguing back and forth.&rdquo;Meeker, the NHL rookie of the year in 1946-47 when he scored 27 goals, played eight seasons for the Toronto Maple Leafs and was a member of four Stanley Cup teams.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t any good, though,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I stayed in the NHL because I played a disciplined game. The only time I was a pro was when I didn&rsquo;t have the puck. My brain stopped when I had it.&rdquo;But that brain worked when he went to the bench, as Meeker became a student of the game. Years later, that knowledge was received by viewers of Hockey Night In Canada.Through all the bombast, Meeker always delivered the goods. He worked on HNIC telecasts from 1971 to 1987, and also did a stint on NBC during that network&rsquo;s telecasts of NHL games in the early 1970s.He wasn&rsquo;t pleased with his work last season, which was another factor in his decision to stop describing the game&rsquo;s x&rsquo;s and o&rsquo;s with the telestrator.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t as consistent as I used to be,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I think I had lost a bit, and I&rsquo;m not sure the quality of my performance was as consistent as the performance of the people I was working with.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll miss it. It was great fun. If I do guest shots now find then, it&rsquo;ll ease the withdrawal.&rdquo; &#9632;

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By Golly, It Really Is True: TV Analyst Meeker Retires

The East Coast Hockey League is playing its role as phoenix cautiously and with an eye on the bottom line.The new five-team league, which will open training camps Oct. 20 and begin a 60-game regular-season Oct. 28, is a descendant of the Atlantic Coast Hockey League, which folded after the 1986-87 season and the All-American Hockey League, which folded after one season in 1987-88.Originally a six-team league&mdash;a Toledo, Ohio group dropped out&mdash;the ECHL is comprised of teams in Erie, Penn., Knoxville, Tenn., Winston-Salem, N.C., Johnstown, Penn., and Vinton, Va. The teams in Winston-Salem and Vinton, known as the Carolina Thunderbirds and Virginia Lancers, were members of the All-American League. The Erie group comes via the ACHL. Each group paid a $5,000 entry fee.ECHL league spokesman Jim Riggs said the league was careful to study the ashes from which it was built.&ldquo;We wanted to make sure we had a firm financial base,&rdquo; said Riggs. &ldquo;You think in September and October everything is hunky-dory and sometimes it&rsquo;s not.&rdquo;The league stuck to this principle when Toledo failed to meet a Labor Day deadline about arena arrangements and was forced to pull out of the ECHL. Toledo couldn&rsquo;t make rental payments on a home arena and asked for an extension. It wasn&rsquo;t granted.In order to ensure a steady supply of players, ECHL teams are trying to form affiliations with teams in the American and International Leagues, the minor-pro circuits which serve as farm teams to NHL clubs.&ldquo;We know in this day and age the player doesn&rsquo;t filter down,&rdquo; said Riggs. &ldquo;If we affiliate, we&rsquo;re going to get access to some of the free-agents at AHL and IHL camps.&rdquo;The Carolina team has already announced an affiliation with the IHL&rsquo;s Flint Spirits.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a real&mdash;how should I say it?&mdash;going-after of the U.S. college players,&rdquo; said Riggs. &ldquo;There are a lot of college players out there who are very good and have moved on to the minor-pros.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had an unbelievable response,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;There wasn&rsquo;t a lot of press about it (the league) and we&rsquo;ve had a lot of calls from players and even agents now. The word&rsquo;s getting around now.&rdquo;For more information on the East Coast League, telephone (919) 748-0919. &#9632;

New Pro League Is Very Cautious

<div class="byline">Randy Smith</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01664/5645668-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="410" height="472"></div>KEHOE&rsquo;S SPORTSWEAR SHOP stands on Main Street of Lake Placid, N.Y., across from the Amos Marcy Hotel, two doors down from the Country Kitchen.In its front window, a tape of the 1980 Winter Olympics plays on a large television&hellip;and plays and plays, sometimes as long as 24 hours a day.Even at 2 a.m., more than eight years removed from U.S. hockey&rsquo;s grandest night, the sight of goaltender Jim Craig looking for his father is sure to move the odd passer-by.It is the one hockey game that never ends.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how many tapes we&rsquo;ve gone through over the years,&rdquo; said Ann-Mari Kehoe, the store&rsquo;s proprietor. &ldquo;But if we turn it off, like we do sometimes during the summer afternoons when the sun shines in the window, people come in and ask us why it&rsquo;s off.&rdquo;The tapes have outlived countless players, not to mention that lowliest of NHL creatures, the poor head coach.&ldquo;If we could get the Olympics now, I'd never have to work another day the rest of my life,&rdquo; Kehoe said. &ldquo;With our imprinted sportswear, we&rsquo;ve got all the right stuff. In 1980, we were selling jewelry.&rdquo;Ask almost anyone where they were on Feb. 22, 1980, and they&rsquo;ll remember. Such references are usually reserved for colossal tragedies like Pearl Harbor and the day President Kennedy was assassinated.Few sporting events ever achieve that kind of notoriety, but the Soviet-American hockey confrontation in the 1980 Olympics stands as the game that time will never forget.&ldquo;I was 16 back in Sweden,&rdquo; said Ulf Samuelsson, who was in Lake Placid recently for the Hartford Whaler training camp. &ldquo;1 watched the game with my family. It was great.&rdquo;An interview with U.S. Olympian Mark Johnson appeared on the TV in Kehoe&rsquo;s store window, causing Samuelsson to remark, &ldquo;Mark looks the same.&rdquo;However, thanks to two goals by Johnson and a later one by Mike Eruzione, the hockey world will never be the same. The sport is infinitely richer because of what happened that night in Lake Placid.Saying the USA&rsquo;s 4-3 victory over the Soviet Union was like David beating Goliath wouldn&rsquo;t be quite accurate. It was more like David's little brother beating Goliath.The names of the Russian stars are no less intimidating today than they were then. All were there&mdash;Krutov, Makarov, Kasatonov, Tretiak and Fetisov. How a group of college kids defeated such a team&mdash;the Russians outshot the U.S.A, 39-16&mdash;is the stuff books, dreams and yes, Al, even miracles are made of.The sleepy village of Lake Placid, set snug in the Adirondack Mountains with a population of less than 3,000, remembers.&ldquo;We closed off Main Street,&rdquo; Kehoe said. &ldquo;It was one big party, like the Fourth of July or Mardi Gras. People were chanting, &lsquo;U-S-A, US-A,&rsquo; and hugging one another. It went on like that all night. People were screaming and saying the funniest things.&rdquo;According to an Associated Press report, one fan&mdash;with an eye on the Soviet Union&rsquo;s invasion of Afghanistan&mdash;yelled, &lsquo;To hell with Afghanistan. Let them have Afghanistan. We&rsquo;ve got the gold.&rsquo;Ah, the gold.The first time someone walks into the Olympic Center, it&rsquo;s almost as if he just discovered some himself. The reaction is always the same.&lsquo;So, this is where it happened,&rsquo; he thinks, flashing back to his own personal memories. Even now, a feeling of warmth, a rekindling of the human spirit, if you will, overwhelms the visitor.The place is so small for such an enormous event to have taken place there. The estimated attendance for the U.S.S.R-U.S.A game was 6,500.The hockey world was different then. The NHL&rsquo;s Norris Division, for example, was comprised of Montreal, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Hartford and Los Angeles, a cross-country setup that had geographers scurrying to double-check their maps. Atlanta played in the Patrick Division, while Minnesota and Toronto played in the Adams.Until Feb. 6, 1980, Hartford played in Springfield, Mass.And you think the NHL&rsquo;s divisional alignment today is confusing.All teams stopped, however, for one night, when the American kids beat the Russians.&ldquo;Nothing will ever be able to top that, Johnson said. &ldquo;It was the greatest moment of my life.&rdquo;It was the greatest moment of a lot of lives.Thanks to Kehoe&rsquo;s of Lake Placid, it is threatening to live forever.&ldquo;Our tape is the most popular show in town,&rdquo; Ann-Mari Kehoe said. &ldquo;If Lake Placid gets the Olympics in 2000, it&rsquo;ll still be running.&rdquo;What a lovely thought. &#9632;

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A Soft Spot For A Long-Running Game Show

<div class="byline">BY RICK MATSUMOTO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02507/5645699-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="157" height="134"></div>TORONTO&mdash; The Toronto Maple Leafs may finally have found a player who understands coach John Brophy.&ldquo;Sometimes, when he starts yelling and screaming, you have to let it go in one ear and out the other,&rdquo; chuckled Craig Laughlin.The sturdy right winger signed with his hometown Leafs after the Los Angeles Kings offered him a termination contract, making him a free agent without compensation.&ldquo;I played for Broph in Nova Scotia (American League Voyageurs) and I know what to expect,&rdquo; said Laughlin, 31. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good coach. He&rsquo;s demanding, but if you make a mistake while giving 100 per cent he&rsquo;s not going to hold it against you.&rdquo;Many of the Leafs recoiled at Brophy&rsquo;s hard-nosed methods last season and several lashed out at him at the end of the year.The most outspoken was Miroslav Frycer, and it was his eventual departure to the Detroit Red Wings that created an opening for Laughlin.&ldquo;When we traded Frycer for Veitch we were down a right winger,&rdquo; explained general manager Gord Stel-lick. &ldquo;Craig&rsquo;s a Toronto boy who wanted to come home and he&rsquo;s the(steady kind of guy we needed.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got the right sort of temperament for our team.&rdquo;&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been a winner and I want to continue to be a winner,&rdquo; Laughlin said. &ldquo;I feel this team has a good nucleus. It&rsquo;s kind of like Washington was when I first started there. If we can get 30 to 40 wins this year, things can start to happen.&rdquo;Laughlin was the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; I7th choice, 162nd overall, in the 1977 entry draft, out of Clarkson University. He returned to school to complete his education and didn&rsquo;t turn pro until 1980 when he scored 32 goals for the Habs&rsquo; AHL farm team, the Voyageurs.When he netted 14 in 26 games with the Vees the following season he was promoted to the Canadiens for the final 36 games, and scored a respectable 12 goals. But before he could start his first full season in Montreal, he was dealt to the Washington Capitals as part of a multi-player trade that sent Rod Lang-way to Washington and Ryan Walter to the Habs.Laughlin spent three seasons as a defensive winger before bursting out as a 30-goal scorer in 1985-86. He scored 22 the following season, but then, according to Laughlin, the Caps relegated him to a checking role.&ldquo;They felt I had over-achieved, &rsquo; &rsquo; he said. &ldquo;They thought I was really only a 10-15 goal scorer. And when 1 went to camp they treated me like a marginal player and I found myself on the fourth or fifth line.&ldquo;Last year they told me right at camp that I shouldn&rsquo;t expect to play regularly; that I was only going to see spot duty. I asked them to trade me.&rdquo;The Caps obliged on Feb. 9, 1988, sending Laughlin to L.A. for defenseman Grant Ledyard.Laughlin went to camp with the Leafs as one of two right wingers pencilled in for starting jobs. And he was a standout early in camp on a line with center Tom Fergus and left winger Al Secord.Thirty-goal scorer Gary Leeman was tabbed for the right side on the No. 1 line, while Laughlin was slotted for a spot on the third unit.&ldquo;The right wing spots on the second and fourth lines are crying for someone to jump up and take them,&rdquo; said Stel-lick.The Leafs will undoubtedly be seeking a goal scorer for the second-line spot.NOTES&mdash;The Maple Leafs will likely not have a captain as long as Harold Ballard lives. The club&rsquo;s 85-year-old owner said on Sept. 14 that he didn&rsquo;t want one. &ldquo;Show me one example of a captain of any team in the league making a difference in the club,&rdquo; Ballard said. The last Leaf captain. Rick Vaive, was stripped of the &lsquo;C&rsquo; two seasons ago after sleeping in and missing practice before a game in Minnesota&hellip;Craig Laughlin, who suffered a minor charley horse in an intra-squad scrimmage, did not accompany the team on its exhibition season-opening western swing. Also staying home were left wingers Wendel Clark (back injury), Mark Osborne (mononucleosis) and Chris McRae(cracked bone in hand), center Peter Ihnacak and defenseman Botje Salming&hellip;McRae injured his right hand in a fight with second-round draft pick Tie Domi during the first week of camp&hellip;First-round pick Scott Pearson, a left winger, and right winger Derek Laxdal were impressive in camp. Laxdal has played the last two seasons with Newmarket of the American League&hellip;Left winger Joe Sacco, Toronto&rsquo;s fourth pick in the 1987 draft from Medford (Mass.) high school, has been named to the U.S. national team for the World Jr. Championships Dec. 26 to Jan. 4 in Anchorage, Alaska. &#9632;

f0034-02

Laughlin Knows All About Life With Brophy

<div class="byline">BY KEITH GAVE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01631/5645730-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="158" height="119"></div>DETROIT&mdash;The Detroit Red Wings are about to find out whether Joe Murphy can play in the NHL.Though he has done little to deserve such a lofty position, Murphy, a natural center, will start the the season at left wing on Detroit&rsquo;s top line with center Steve Yzerman and right winger Bob Probert.The first player selected in the NHL's entry draft in 1986, Murphy has yet to establish himself as an NHL player. He has 10 goals and 10 assists in 55 career games spread over two seasons.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Now he won&rsquo;t be able to come back and say we didn&rsquo;t give him a shot.&rsquo; &mdash;Demers</blockquote>Red Wing coach Jacques Demers said he is taking a chance elevating Murphy to Detroit&rsquo;s top line.&ldquo;He hasn&rsquo;t done anything to earn it,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;This is a heck of an opportunity for him.&rdquo;But Murphy insists he is ready.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question about it,&rdquo; he said.Murphy, who will be 21 on Oct. 16, tried to avoid training-camp interviews. After two seasons of disappointing play, he is gun-shy around the media. He would rather let his work speak for itself.&ldquo;I know I&rsquo;ve got the skill level to play in this league,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll just keep working. Things will pay off.&ldquo;When you draft somebody No. 1 overall, you&rsquo;ve got to give him a chance. This is my third year now, and I think it&rsquo;s time for me to come in and do the job. I know I&rsquo;m ready. My big thing is not losing confidence, and I haven&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;ve got a lot of confidence in my ability.&rdquo;So does Demers, who said Murphy&rsquo;s off-season marriage and added maturity have helped the Michigan State grad cope with the demanding life of a professional athlete.&ldquo;He seems in very solid shape,&rdquo; said Demers, who sent Murphy down to Detroit&rsquo;s American League affiliate in Adirondack his first season because he missed a team flight for an exhibition game. &ldquo;I definitely think he has a totally different approach to the game now, a professional approach.&rdquo;Demers said the June 13 trade of left winger Brent Ashton to Winnipeg for right winger Paul MacLean was made largely to open up a spot for Murphy.&ldquo;Now he won&rsquo;t be able to come back and say we didn&rsquo;t give him a shot,&rdquo; Demers said.In his first two professional seasons, Murphy&rsquo;s playing time was irregular. His play was inconsistent and his standing with Detroit fans tumbled as Jimmy Carson&mdash;the suburban Detroiter passed over by the Wings in 1986&mdash;has excelled in the NHL.This year then, is his big chance. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question about that,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;Joe Murphy had the unfortunate situation of playing behind Gerard Gallant, Petr Klima and Brent Ashton in our lineup. That&rsquo;s why we made the deal (Ashton for MacLean) to open a spot for him. I told him we would do that to give him a chance to play, and we did.&rdquo;Murphy has no goals in mind for this season, other than living up to his own expectations. But playing next to Yzerman for any length of time should enable him to score 30 goals.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;The thing is, no one knows what I&rsquo;m going to do. But I think I can surprise some people.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Familiarity may indeed breed contempt this season, especially between the Red Wings and Norris Division-rival St. Louis Blues. In Detroit&rsquo;s exhibition season opener, Sept. 16 at Joe Louis Arena, referee Bob Hall called 180 minutes in penalties, 97 to Detroit. He called a total of 57 penalites in the game, 30 to Detroit. There were eight fights. The Blues wort 5-2. It was the first of three exhibition games between the teams, who meet eight times during the regular season. Last season the Red Wings defeated the Blues in five games to win the Norris Division final&hellip;Coach Jacques Demers is confident right winger Paul MacLean will score 40 goals for the fourth consecutive season. Demers said MacLean will see duty on the power play. &#9632;

f0035-01

Wings Hand Murphy A Golden Opportunity

<div class="byline">BY JERRY ZGODA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01601/5645761-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="152" height="112"></div>BLOOMINGTON, Minn.&mdash;The rashes were bad. The 27-day flu was terrible. The uncertainty was worse.Minnesota North Star left winger Curt Fraser had been through knee surgery and shoulder surgery before, but never had he experienced something like the viral infection that sickened and side lined him for most of last season.&ldquo;My body was doing crazy things and the thing that made it so bloody frustrating is that nobody knew what was,&rdquo; Fraser said. &ldquo;I had the strangest things&mdash;little dots all over me like the measles, the flu every week. When I first got it (early October), I had all the flu symptoms for 27 straight days. Somebody should have known right there that something was really wrong.&rdquo;But it was months before doctors diagnosed the problem as chronic mononucleosis, which had been complicated by Fraser&rsquo;s diabetes. It was not diagnosed until after Fraser had been traded from Chicago for right winger Dirk Graham on Jan. 2. Fraser played 10 games for the Stars before he decided he could play no more. His totals for the year: A miserable five goals and seven assists in 37 games.&ldquo;I just drained myself,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;1 shouldn&rsquo;t have played. It was awful. When I talked to (then-general manager) Lou Nanne right after the trade, 1 told him right there that something did not feel right. Maybe 1 should have got myself tested right there. Maybe I should have known my body better. But 1 figured the harder I worked, the more it would get out of my system. I almost ruined my body totally. I had to start over from scratch this summer.&rdquo;Fraser returned home to Vancouver last winter and stayed there, resting and eventually working his way back. He reported to training camp this season and, at age 30, finished first among all players in physical testing. He measured in at 6-foot-2, 207 pounds, five-percent body fat, and produced one of the top scores in oxygen consumption tests.&ldquo;I really worked hard on everything just to get back,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;After what I went through, it was a real reward just to be able to come to camp healthy. It&rsquo;s funny. Last year, I felt so bad. Now, I sure don&rsquo;t feel like I&rsquo;m 30. I feel like I&rsquo;m about 24.&rdquo;He also felt like he&rsquo;d been transferred to a brand new team. If many North Star fans forgot or never knew that he was there last year, Fraser doesn&rsquo;t blame them.&ldquo;This is a new start and especially with the new management team in here (general manager Jack Ferreira and coach Pierre Page), it almost seems like I was never here,&rdquo; Fraser said.&ldquo;Maybe some people have forgotten about Curt Fraser, but he&rsquo;s going to mean an awful lot to this team,&rdquo; Page said.For Fraser, the goal now is to produce the kind of year he felt he should have had last year. Seasons like the 25, 29 and 25-goal seasons he strung together from 1984-85 through 1986-87 for Chicago.&ldquo;Last year should have been my best year ever, &rsquo; &rsquo; said the native of Cincinnati. &ldquo;I played (for Team USA) in the Canada Cup and I was in great shape at training camp. Then I got sick and it put me back so far THE HOCKEY NEWS couldn&rsquo;t find me. I know it&rsquo;ll be tough coming back, but I&rsquo;ve never backed away from a challenge.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;General manager Jack Ferreira reported no progress in ending the holdouts of the team&rsquo;s all-time leading scorer Dino Ciccarelli and No. 1 draft pick Mike Modano. Ferreira suspended Ciccarelli, effective Sept. 10, and was fining him $250 for each day missed. The Los Angeles Kings seemed to have lost interest in Ciccarelli, leaving Pittsburgh as the most logical possibility should Ferreira deal the right winger. Ferreira continued to talk with Modano&rsquo;s agent, Howard Gourwitz, but Ferreira was not optimistic of signing Modano. &#9632;

f0036-01

Rash Is Gone, But Fraser’s Itching To Play

<div class="byline">BY MIKE PERRICONE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02442/5645792-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="152" height="120"></div>CHICAGO&mdash;Jeremy Roenick decided college wasn&rsquo;t for him after all.But after showing up late, with the high visibility of a first-round draft pick who carries a new contract, he knew he would face plenty of tests in training camp with the Chicago Blackhawks.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure (the Hawks&rsquo; players) will test me,&rdquo; Roenick said after arriving at Chicago Stadium on Sept. 13 to sign a three-year contract. Camp opened Sept. 9 at Chicago Stadium.Roenick had to catch up on a battery of medical tests before facing his examinations on the ice.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure they (other players) look at kids coming out of high school as thinking they&rsquo;re great,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think when I first get out there, they&rsquo;re going to test me.&ldquo;And I hope they do, because then they might accept me more. I certainly don&rsquo;t want everybody to hate me. I hope they do test me, so they see 1 can meet their standards. And I&rsquo;m sure they&rsquo;ll test me right from the beginning.&rdquo;Roenick, 18, was the Hawks&rsquo; first-round draft pick in June from Thayer Academy in Massachusetts. Though undersized it 5-foot-101/2, 170 pounds, he was regarded as the best skater in the draft, and the Hawks hoped he would be the long-range solution to their lack of depth at center behind Denis Savard and Troy Murray.But a summer of &ldquo;talks&rdquo; apparently had stalled when Roenick did not report for the opening of training camp, and told the Hawks he was accepting a hockey scholarship to Boston College. He actually moved on to campus for a week before deciding he &ldquo;wanted the hockey environment more than the school environment.&rdquo; He admitted he wasn&rsquo;t too crazy about all the homework and study demanded in college.Hawk general manager Bob Pulford had said the team had not been able to assure Roenick he would play in the NHL this season. Pulford claimed the club had not &ldquo;negotiated&rdquo; with Roenick, to keep his college elibility from being jeopardized.But Roenick&rsquo;s family engaged a &ldquo;legal advisor,&rdquo; Neil Abbott of Boston. Abbott said an agreement on terms was worked out &ldquo;around Labor Day. &rsquo; &rsquo; Neither Abbott nor the Hawks would disclose terms of the deal, but it is estimated at about $300,000 (U.S.) including a signing bonus, with an agreement to pay for Roenick&rsquo;s education at Boston College. Roenick, of course, has passed up his scholarship and his college hockey eligibility.Roenick also said the Hawks made no guarantees he would play for them, and he was prepared to go to Saginaw of the International League if necessary. As an American who has never played major junior hockey, he is not bound to be returned to a junior team if the Hawks do not keep him. The Quebec League&rsquo;s Hull Olympiques took Roenick 32nd overall in the QMJHL draft May 28.Hawk coach Mike Keenan was pleased but noncommittal.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re all excited by the opportunity to have a look at him this year,&rdquo; Keenan said. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t be able to tell you anything until I&rsquo;ve seen him play&rdquo;The Hawks make no secret they feel they need another center. They acquired checking pivot Mike Eagles from Quebec in July for goaltender Bob Mason. But Pulford said he is considering &ldquo;three possibilities&rdquo; trading for a center.NOTES&mdash;Hawk GM Bob Pulford said he had expressed interest in both center Doug Gilmour, who was traded by St. Louis to Calgary, and right winger Dino Ciccarelli, who was demanding a new contract from Minnesota and listed Chicago as one of the teams to which he would like to be traded. The reply from both the Blues and North Stars, Pulford said, was that a deal would not be made within the Norris Division&hellip; Right winger Dirk Graham agreed to terms with the Hawks, reported to camp on time, and shrugged off his attempt at free agency as &ldquo;something I had to try to take advantage of.&rdquo; Graham had filed for free agency, contending the Hawks missed the Aug. 10 deadline for a written contract offer. But NHL president John Ziegler ruled the Hawks had retained Graham&rsquo;s rights by making a verbal offer, which Graham and his agent. Bob Murray, had acknowledged&hellip;The Hawks expected a crowd of 12,000 for the Blackhawk Alumni Association&rsquo;s game against the Hollywood All-Stars at Chicago Stadium, scheduled for Sept. 17. The game was to be followed by a Hawk intra-squad game. All proceeds were to go to charity, and to the Alumni Association&rsquo;s scholarship fund for its annual award to the most deserving high school hockey player in the Chicago area. &#9632;

f0036-02

Roenick Attempts Big Jump From High School To NHL

<div class="byline">BY JEFF GORDON</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01520/5645823-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="145" height="120"></div>ST. LOUIS&mdash; When Bob Berry heard his old friend, &lsquo;Professor&rsquo; Ron Caron, general manager of the St. Louis Blues, was looking for a coach this summer, he was determined to make sure his pitch got through.The former Los Angeles, Montreal and Pittsburgh coach, who played for Caron in the Canadiens&rsquo; farm system, found Caron&rsquo;s private phone number. One day Berry arose at 5:30 a.m. in his Manhattan Beach, Calif., home and snuck a phone call through.Berry&rsquo;s tenacity paid off nearly a month later when Caron hired him to be Brian Sutter&rsquo;s chief assistant coach.&ldquo;He wanted to be head coach,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;He sent in his resume, the best he could find. But there was nothing I didn&rsquo;t know about him. I&rsquo;ve known him since he was 15.&rdquo;Caron didn&rsquo;t want Berry as head coach, but he set aside the coaching job at the Blues&rsquo; International League-affiliate at Peoria in case Berry couldn&rsquo;t land something else. Then when Sutter emerged as the leading Blues&rsquo; coaching candidate, Caron figured Berry and his 311-292-100 NHL record would be a wonderful asset to the fiery ex-captain.Berry came aboard and ex-Chicago assistant Wayne Thomas got the Peoria job. Berry met the only standard Sutter had established for his assistant coach: Having a good NHL background.&ldquo;He brings with him a basketful of experience,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d say our guy needs him. He has a very creative mind.&rdquo;Berry, who turned down a coaching job with Fredericton of the American League last season, signed a two-year contract. He helps Sutter structure practices and arrange special teams.He figures to help Sutter, an emotional leader, survive the twists and turns every team takes through an 80-game season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just happy to be back into it,&rdquo; Berry said. &ldquo;Hockey isn&rsquo;t my life, but I know it&rsquo;s what I do best. With my experience, I feel I have a lot to offer the organization. I&rsquo;m just very excited to be back in coaching.&rdquo;He is still bitter about being fired by Pittsburgh after finishing fifth in the 1986-87 season.&ldquo;We took a team that had 38 points and two years later we had 76 points (actually 72),&rdquo; Berry said. &ldquo;If you took stock that was worth $38 and two years later it was worth $76, most people would be happy with that.&rdquo;One awkward aspect of Berry&rsquo;s appointment was the Sept. 5 acquisition of Calgary center Mike Bullard, a player in Berry&rsquo;s doghouse at Pittsburgh.The two had a shouting match during a Penguin practice, prompting Berry to clean out Bullard&rsquo;s locker and have him dealt to the Flames.Can they get along now?&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think what happened in Pittsburgh is a great concern,&rdquo; Berry said. "Coaches and players are going to have their ups and downs. When Mike&rsquo;s name came up, I had no hesitation taking him back. Mike has had some problems, but those are in the past.&rdquo;Berry had a long talk with Bullard after trading him to Calgary.&ldquo;Talking to Bob, I realized what I had done wrong and what I had to do to correct myself,&rdquo; Bullard said.&ldquo;I was younger then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Bob and I had our differences, but we&rsquo;re both professionals. I&rsquo;m on a new team. Bob&rsquo;s on a new team. I matured a lot in the past two years. I hold no grudges. Bob and I are in St. Louis with the same goals&mdash;to win.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;General manager Ron Caron couldn&rsquo;t sign center Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour. the Blues&rsquo; top draft choice, ninth overall. He will play at Michigan State this season&hellip; St. Louis&rsquo; 1987 No. 1 pick, right winger Keith Osborne of the Ontario League&rsquo;s North Bay Centennials, missed last season&rsquo;s camp with a broken wrist but was impressive in early scrimmages. He will return to North Bay, but could provide a post-season boost. &#9632;</div>

f0037-01

Berry Adds Pluck To Blues’ Coaching Staff

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02381/5645854-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="144" height="114"></div>VANCOUVER&mdash; Perhaps the Vancouver Canucks are finally ready to cash an entry draft lottery ticket.The talk of training camp on Vancouver Island has been a winger picked in the 11th round of the &rsquo;86 draft, 217th overall. His name is Todd Hawkins and he&rsquo;s not only pounding people, he&rsquo;s putting the puck in the net when given the opportunity.It was too early in the season to determine whether the former Belleville junior would be able to stick up front, but he certainly showed a quality the Canucks can use. He&rsquo;s tough.In the first four days of training sessions he had four fights and injured&mdash;-not seriously&mdash;two veteran players. He put a stick to the throat of Jim Sandlak and delivered a crunching check to defenseman Mickey Volcan.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if he&rsquo;s here to make friends,&rdquo; said coach Bob McCammon. &ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s here to make the team. He doesn&rsquo;t pick his spots, he plays the same with everybody. He&rsquo;s an ingredient that a hockey team needs. From my standpoint, obviously I hope he&rsquo;s ready to do it. He&rsquo;s a legitimate tough guy.&rdquo;Hawkins had 512 minutes in penalties with Flint last season. At camp, he took a dislike to Terry Johnson, a veteran defender who asked the Canucks for a tryout during the summer. He also hammered Larry Melnyk in a fight, all presumably in a desperate attempt to be noticed.&ldquo;When you fight veterans like that they&rsquo;ve got to notice you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This is my third camp so 1 have to stand out and do more than the other guys. That was accidental with Sandlak. 1 was off-stride and my stick came up just under the windpipe. It was a clean check on Volcan. He was coming out with his head down.&rdquo;Whether or not Hawkins can keep up the pace toward the start of the regular season remained to be seen. But for the moment, McCammon was content to call him the positive &ldquo;suprise&rdquo; to date.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m like a Terry O&rsquo;Reilly kind of player,&rdquo; said Hawkins, a 5-foot-ll, 195-pounder from Kingston, Ont. &ldquo;I go in there bump-and-grind and get the odd goal. If I can score some goals it&rsquo;s a bonus. And I can score goals. I had 47 goals in my last year of junior with Belleville (In 1986-87, as an over-ager).&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t consider myself to have a mean streak but if something happens that I don&rsquo;t think is right, I&rsquo;m going to help out and stick up for my teammates. I stand in there. You&rsquo;re going to get beat on any given night. There&rsquo;s a lot of guys a lot bigger than me but if you can take a couple of shots and give a couple of your own, then you&rsquo;re all right.&rdquo;The Canucks have traditionally had small forwards, and a player like Hawkins would be a help if he could skate well enough to play on any kind of regular basis.NOTES&mdash;The Canucks announced the signing of Tony Tanti to a four-year contract after relatively tame negotiations over the summer. Tanti indicated he didn&rsquo;t wish to play his option year without a contract and the parties announced their new deal two days before the exhibition schedule was to begin. Tanti, coming off five straight seasons of 39 or more goals, was in an excellent bargaining position despite the team&rsquo;s lack of success and reportedly got graduating deals in the $350,000-per-year range&hellip;The Canucks, looking to staff their own International League team in Milwaukee this year, brought 70 players to their camp to sift through job applicants&hellip; Daryl Stanley has already begun his trip on the injury carousel, missing a few days with a sprained ankle. He was out with five seperate injuries last season&hellip;Bob McCammon insisted he&rsquo;ll keep just two goalies this season, leaving Frank Caprice, Steve Weeks, Troy Gamble and Kirk McLean battling for the two NHL jobs. &#9632;</div>

f0037-02

Hawkins Bouncing Bodies In Bid For Job

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03381/5645885-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="550" height="868"><figcaption class="caption-body">Oft-injured center Perry Berezan was the fittest Flame in training camp.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02471/5645892-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="148" height="124"></div>CALGARY&mdash;The first time Gary Suter saw Paul Ranheim play, he was impressed&mdash;as is everyone&mdash;with his great speedThat happened during the 1984-85 season, Suter&rsquo;s last year at the University of Wisconsin, when St. Louis-native Ranheim broke in as a freshman center-left winger.Ranheim, Calgary&rsquo;s second choice, 38th overall, in the 1984 entry draft, could get there all right, but he couldn&rsquo;t always put it in the net. Three years playing for Badger coach Jeff Sauer changed all that. His goal total rose from 11 in 42 games during 1984-85 to 36 in 44 last season.Suter and Ranheim crossed paths almost daily last summer in Madison, Wis., site of the university&rsquo;s campus and the Suter family&rsquo;s sporting goods store. The Flames&rsquo; all-star defenseman came away impressed with what he saw.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s matured,&rdquo; said Suter. &ldquo;He can put it all together. Before, he went too fast for his mind and too fast for his hands. He&rsquo;s like a carpenter, he knows how to use all his tools.&rdquo;Ranheim&rsquo;s development&mdash;36 goals, 26 assists, 62 points in 44 games&mdash;was not lost on the Flimes, a team perennially on the lookout for left-wing talent. Accordingly, the Flames decided togivethe6-foot, 195-poundRanheim a little special grooming. Following last year&rsquo;s college playoffs, the Flames brought him to Calgary for an extended orientation period. They did the same with Joe Nieuwendyk in 1987, Brett Hull in 1986 and Perry Berezan in 1985.Theoretically, the chance to practice, travel and train with the team in spring makes the adjustment period easier for a first-year player in September.&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s an indication that they&rsquo;re going to give you a good look,&rdquo; said Ranheim. &ldquo;But there are no guarantees. You have to come in and prove you can play.&rdquo;&ldquo;It helped him,&rdquo; said coach Terry Crisp. &ldquo;He seems to be very comfortable out there. He knows his surroundings, he knows the guys. So he comes in with nothing to do but play hockey.&rdquo;&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got it all,&rdquo; said Suter, a Wisconsin alumnus. &ldquo;Speed, size, strength, that Badger jump. He&rsquo;s American and he&rsquo;s from Wisconsin. Naturally, he&rsquo;s a good player.&rdquo;It didn&rsquo;t hurt to start with good line-mates either. The Flames put Ranheim on a line with Joel Otto and Joey Mullen for the team&rsquo;s training camp mini-tournament. Two days into scrimmages, Ranheim and Mullen were atop the leader board with three goals and three assists each.&ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t seem to be scared of traffic,&rdquo; said Mullen. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s getting himself in a good position to score goals. That&rsquo;s the name of the game, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;A second rookie getting good reviews early was St. Lawrence University product Peter Lappin, the Eastern College Athletic Conference player of the year last season after scoring 16 goals and 36 assists in 52 games. Lappin, 22, earned a long, hard look by going 16-12-28 in 19 playoff games last season for Calgary&rsquo;s International League-affiliate at Salt Lake City and winning the playoff most valuable player award.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s my first camp, so I plan to go out there and hopefully score some goals and play steady defense and get a shot at the big team," said Lappin. who played center for St. Lawrence but is listed at right wing on the Calgary depth chart.The 5-foot-11, 180-pound Lappin received a chance to play with newly-acquired center Doug Gilmour during scrimmages. "He has a work ethic second to none," said Crisp of Lappin. "He and Gilmour complement each other well. I love the way he fights his way into position and I love the way Gilmour gets him the puck."Salt Lake coach Paul Baxter compared Lappin to Mullen."He has many of the same qualities," said Baxter. "He's gifted around the net. He has the ability to score from in tight. He can get through an opening and get to the net."The comparisons to Mullen extend beyond their respective scoring abilities.Like Mullen, Lappin was not drafted out of high school. Like Mullen, Lappin completed a full four-year, U.S. college program. Mullen signed with the St. Louis Blues as a free agent. Lappin was chosen by the Flames in the second supplemental draft, introduced in 1986 by the NHL to limit bidding on U.S. college free agents.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>Both players broke into pro hockey by playing in Salt Lake City, Mullen from 1979 to 1981, Lappin last spring.Just how much more time Lappin spends in the minors depends upon two things: How well he does during the exhibition schedule and how many of the team's six, NHL-calibre right wingers actually play on the right side. Listed on the depth chart ahead of Lap-pin were Mullen. Hakan Loob, Mark Hunter, Tim Hunter. Shane Churla and Lanny McDonaldNOTES&mdash;Defenseman AI Maclnnis owns one of the top harness horses in Alberta In six starts, his two-yearold pacer Ride The Curl won four times and finished third twice, more than quadrupling Maclnnis's original investment of $5,000 &hellip; Center Perry Berezan, bedeviled by inJuries throughout his career, was the fittest player in camp according to team testing. Defenseman Gary Suter was second. &#9632;

f0038-03

Ranheim Grabs Early Spotlight For Calgary

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-04296/5645923-1-eng-US/f0038-042.jpg" title="f0038-04" width="169" height="114"></div>LOS ANGELES-The Los Angeles Kings are no longer Team Anonymous.Training on Vancouver Island has always been a rather tranquil experience for the Kings, who have been setting up shop in Victoria off and on since 1970.The arrival of Wayne Gretzky changed that.At least a dozen reporters from throughout Canada joined the usual two Los Angeles beat writers on the scene for workouts beginning Sept 10."It's nice to be under the microscope for a change,'' said captain Dave Taylor, a King since the 1977-78 season.Gretzky, of course, was the main attraction. Acquired from the Edmonton Oilers on Aug. 9, the 27-year-old superstar was swamped with requests for interviews.His presence for workouts on two consecutive days in the Juan de Fuca Recreation Center drew capacity crowds of I, I 00 fans. Adults paid $2 and children $1 to attend those sessions. All proceeds were donated to the local minor hockey association.Many of the same fans had already paid $20 for tickets to the Kings' Sept. 17 pre-season game with the Vancouver Canucks at 4,875-seat Victoria Memorial Arena, which was sold out. Tickets cost $9 for last year's game and there were some empty seats then.One of the Kings' biggest headaches figured to be choosing which preseason games Gretzky would sit out. Games with the Canucks in Duncan, B. C., and in Portland also were sell-outs, and general manager Rogie Vachon acknowledged Gretzky couldn't be expected to play them all.The Kings play nine pre-season games, including two at the Forum."We're going to have to be very picky." Vachon said. "He's probably going to play in half (the games). We have to be careful he doesn't get hurt.''<blockquote class="pullQuote">'It's nice to be under the microscope for a change.' -Taylor</blockquote>Gretzky's first workout created a logjam of cheering and screaming fans inside the Juan de Fuca lobby that spilled outside to the parking lot. Eluding a defenseman's bodycheck might have been easier for Gretzky, who signed hundreds of autographs while walking 50 feet to the dressing room.He skated onto the ice to more cheers and screams. His No. 99 was familiar, his and the Kings'-new black and white practice sweater was not.Three hours later, following an on-ice interview with reporters, Gretzky needed an escort to the team bus for the trip back to the hotel."I was a little surprised," Gretzky said, "but Canada's a great hockey country. I don't think everybody was here to watch Wayne Gretzky. There are some good hockey players on this team."But the building was nearly deserted 1&frac12; hours later when the last contingent of Kings completed its session. When Gretzky left, so did the fans."When I came off the bus, they were clapping," left winger Paul Fenton said of his group's arrival. "Then I realized I was right behind Wayne and it wasn't for me."Gretzky has been skating with a variety of wingers, including Fenton and Bob Carpenter on the left. Dave Taylor, Brian Wilks, center Bernie Nicholls and defenseman Petr Prajsler have played on the right side.Gretzky was most at peace when on the ice.&ldquo;It's been a hard summer for me and my wife," he said. "She deserves a medal. But now I just want to do what I love to do most, play hockey. Once I get on the ice, I'm going to put the rest of this out of my mind.&rdquo;NOTES-Wayne Gretzky hadn't yet signed the eight-year $20-million contract he and Kings' owner Bruce McNall agreed to in August&hellip; Right winger Bob Bourne, the 1988 Masterton Trophy winner, retired Sept. 8 and will pursue business opportunities in the Kelowna, B.C., area. He is 34 &hellip; Goaltender Doug Keans, who began his career in the Kings' organization but spent the last five years with Boston, was invited to camp on a tryout basis as an unsigned free agent-&hellip; Center Dan Gratton, L.A.'s second choice (10th overall) in the 1985 entry draft, put his right arm through a window at his home in an off-season accident and is expected to miss eight weeks. He needed 70 stitches to close the wounds &hellip; General manager Rogie Vachon had talked to Min-nesota about disgruntled right winger Dino Ciccarelli and to Philadelphia about holdout defenseman Doug Crossman &hellip; Defensemen Steve Duchesne and Jay Wells will play out. their options unless they reach contract agreements by Sept. 25. &#9632;

f0038-04

Vancouver Island Love-In Excites Team Anonymous

<div class="byline">BY BOB WAGNER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02400/5645954-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Art Teece, owner of the Turner Cup champion Salt Lake Golden Eagles, would like some western neighbors in his division.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01573/5645961-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="132" height="115"></div>A new playoff format should offer more suspense in the race for the International League&rsquo;s Turner Cup in 1988-89.The system is designed to reward first-and-second place finishers and make it possible for two teams from the same division to meet in the final round.The top two teams in both the East and West Division will be seeded No. 1 through No. 4 on the basis of total points.The other four playoff entrants, regardless of division, will be decided by total points. The ninth and l0th-place teams, overall, will not advance to the playoffs.In the opening round, the top-seeded team will meet No. 8, No. 2 will play No. 7 and so on. The seedings will continue throughout the playoffs, with top seeds pairing off with lower seeds as they advance. Previously, playoffs remained intra-divisional for the first two rounds, making it impossible for two teams from the same division to play in the finals. An East vs. West championship game is no longer a sure thing.&ldquo;There was nothing wrong with the old format,&rdquo; said Kalamazoo general manager Bill Inglis. &ldquo;We just thought it (the new format) would be something different for the fans.&rdquo;If the new format was applied to the 1987-88 season, Muskegon (126 points), Fort Wayne (100), Denver (91), and Salt Lake City (88) would have been seeded as the top four. The rest of the field would have been Sagi-naw (97), Flint (93), Kalamazoo (86) and Peoria (75).First-round pairings would have been Muskegon-Peoria, Denver-Kalamazoo, Fort Wayne-Flint, and Salt Lake-Saginaw. Kalamazoo, moved to the last spot in the West for the playoffs of the then nine-club league as replacement for Milwaukee (49 points), did play Denver last season but the other first round pairings were Muskegon-Flint, Saginaw-Fort Wayne, and Peoria-Salt Lake.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2>LOOKING WEST</h2>The ever-optimistic Art Teece, owner of the Salt Lake City Golden Eagles, says the IHL should expand its West Division to include Phoenix, Ariz., and Kansas City, Mo.Teece voiced this idea before the IHL&rsquo;s Sept. 14 board of governors meeting that approved the transfer of ownership of the Denver franchise from Dennis Champine to Denver Partners, Inc., represented by Richard Gerry, one of a new ownership trio.Phoenix tried to make an application this year, but couldn&rsquo;t secure ice or an NHL affiliation.As far as Teece is concerned, expansion in the west is more than a dream, one whose realization would make the IHL &ldquo;the strongest league in minor league hockey.&rdquo;Milwaukee, Peoria and reborn Indianapolis will play in the West Division this season but the addition of Kansas City would mean that one of the trio would join long-time IHL members Flint, Fort Wayne, Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Saginaw in the East Division.Teece wants to build a strong base of western teams to foster interest in that division. His Salt Lake City franchise has won the Turner Cup the last two years and fan interest is growing. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve sold 1,200 season tickets, more than double last year,&rdquo; said Teece, &ldquo;and that&rsquo;s the most since we left the Central Hockey League. Last year we averaged about 4,200 a game.&rdquo;<h2>THOMAS NOT BITTER</h2>Wayne Thomas is an IHL coach again after serving one season as goaltender assistant coach of the Chicago Blackhawks in the NHL last season. Two seasons ago, he led Salt Lake to a Turner Cup championship.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not bitter,&rdquo; said Thomas, who was fired after coach Bob Murdoch was replaced by Mike Keenan. Thomas will coach the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; affiliate in Peoria this season.&ldquo;You realize you&rsquo;re not in control,&rdquo; Thomas added. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re there for that term and if they choose to terminate it, that&rsquo;s it. I don&rsquo;t like the way it was done, although my name was pretty much kept out of it, but I don&rsquo;t like what they did to Bob Murdoch. The people who sign the checks have control of that.&rdquo;Thomas has noticed changes in the IHL even during the short time he was away from the league.&ldquo;The league has changed over two years from an A league to AAA, basically,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Before, St. Louis supplied Peoria with eight guys. This year they will supply a team.&ldquo;They want to satisfy the need for development but also want to put in a winning team.&rdquo;<h2>ALL-STAR APPROVAL</h2>The IHL board of governors has approved Kalamazoo as the site of a proposed all-star game Jan. 18. Commissioner Bud Poile is negotiating with Team Canada for a game against an IHL all-star team. The last league all-star game also was held in Kalamazoo, in 1984. The IHL defeated the U.S. Olympic team 6-4. &#9632;

f0039-02

The Minors

IHL Plants Seeds For A New Playoff System

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-04244/5645992-1-eng-US/f0039-042.jpg" title="f0039-04" width="556" height="1072"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former Los Angeles and Detroit goalie Darren Eliot is trying out with Maine.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-03300/5645999-1-eng-US/f0039-032.jpg" title="f0039-03" width="155" height="121"></div>The first stage of Mike Cole&rsquo;s plan to raise the American League&rsquo;s profile is close to completion.The AHL marketing director is working on a deal with SportsChannel New England to televise a league game of the week.&ldquo;There are a few logistic(al) things we have to work out,&rdquo; said Mitchell Freund, vice-president and general manager of Boston-based SportsChannel New England. &ldquo;I think there&rsquo;s a good chance that it&rsquo;ll work out, possibly for this season.&rdquo;The games would be televised on SportsChannel New England and four of its sister cable stations, in New York, Florida, Philadelphia and Chicago. Cole said he&rsquo;s hoping a schedule of 10 to 15 tape-delayed broadcasts will begin in mid-January.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking at a potential of 100 million viewers from this exposure,&rdquo; Cole said. &ldquo;That would be excellent. To go from nowhere to that would be impressive and great for the league.&rdquo;Several teams have games televised on local stations. Tapes of those games would be sent to SportsChannel New England.Cole also is planning to have a weekly highlight show on SportsChannel and The Sports Network in Canada. Cole said he was approached by two Toronto men, John Graham and Richard Pyman, about the idea. The show would originate in Toronto. Cole said he hoped the show would start in the middle of November.&ldquo;There would be highlights, but the show would also have features to add some flavor to it,&rdquo; Cole said.<h2>EXPLORING A LOOPHOLE</h2>AHL bylaw 29, otherwise known as the European Rule, takes effect this season, but teams are already taking advantage of a loophole.The rule requires players returning from outside North America to sign a standard player&rsquo;s contract, and then be subject to a waiver period of 72 hours. Teams can claim those players for the waiver price of $1,000.But if a player is signed before the start of the season and then heads over to Europe, he doesn&rsquo;t have to clear AHL waivers once he returns.Hershey Bears have signed two players from last year&rsquo;s Calder Cup championship team, left winger Ross Fitzpatrick and center Mitch Lamoureux. Fitzpatrick is playing in Vienna and Lamoureux in Italy. The Rochester Americans have signed center Grant Martin, who went to Finland.<h2>TRYOUTS UPDATE</h2>Goalie Darren Eliot and left winger Carl Mokosak are trying to earn spots with the Maine Mariners. Eliot, a free agent, was 23-11-7 for Adirondack last season with a 3.34 goals-against average. He was released by the Detroit Red Wings after being involved in a curfew-breaking drinking session on the eve of the fifth game of the Campbell Conference final in Edmonton. Mokosak, formerly Pittsburgh Penguin property, played for Muskegon of the International League, where he was 29-37-66 in 81 games. He had 308 penalty minutes. Mokosak&rsquo;s younger brother, John, a defenseman, signed with Detroit as a free agent and will play in Adirondack&hellip;Newmarket&rsquo;s rugged right winger Leigh Verstraete was invited to Hartford&rsquo;s training camp, but declined. Verstraete is still recovering from a broken leg suffered last January while playing in Binghamton. &#9632;

f0039-04

AHL Close To SportsChannel Deal

<div class="byline">BY ED WILLES</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01293/5646030-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Russ Farwell is arguably the best general manager in junior hockey, but he couldn't get a sniff of interest when he tried to land NHL employment.</figcaption></div>Eighteen-year-old Russ Farwell knew he wanted to be a hockey man moments after he was chewed out by Western Canada hockey legend Scotty Munro.Huh?Never mind. Let Farwell tell the story of his meeting with Munro, the former owner, general manager and life force of the Calgary Centennials.&ldquo;I was working at a hockey school and he was at one of the sessions,&rdquo; recalls Farwell, now 32. &ldquo;Some of the guys didn&rsquo;t show up and I ended up running it by myself.&ldquo;I guess 1 worked the guys pretty hard, or harder than they were used to. After the session, he (Munro) came in and gave it to me pretty good in his very flamboyant style. Then he left. A minute later he stuck his head back in the door and said, &lsquo;By the way, that was a helluva session.&rsquo;&ldquo;It was like a light went on.&rdquo;From that curious moment, Farwell launched a career distinguished by diligence and intelligence. He won consecutive Memorial Cup championships (1987 and 1988) and recorded a mind-boggling 281-135-16 mark (.675 winning percentage) in six seasons as general manager of the Medicine Hat Tigers.Given that record; his knack for spotting and developing young talent; and his reputation as a savvy trader, Farwell is generally regarded as the best GM in Canadian junior hockey.But this summer, his career took a new turn. Farwell&rsquo;s association with the Tigers came to an abrupt end during the off-season. Citing &ldquo;philosophical differences&rdquo; with owner George Maser, the native of Calgary resigned. Sixteen days later, after he failed to generate any interest in the pro ranks, Farwell resurfaced as general manager of the Western Division&rsquo;s Seattle Thunderbirds.&ldquo;I looked around and I realized there was potential for huge benefits in Seattle,&rdquo; says Farwell. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s likely going to be the next place for NHL expansion.&rdquo;The challenges of the new job have helped ease the sting of a difficult summer for Farwell. The decision to leave Medicine Hat, where he started his major junior career as a 26-year-old neophyte in 1982, was not easy.&ldquo;It hurt,&rdquo; Farwell says. &ldquo;We worked very hard to build that (franchise). It had all my attention for six years.&rdquo;Farwell&rsquo;s falling out with Maser revolved around his contract, a deal which called for a low-base salary and percentage of the team&rsquo;s profits. He quickly discovered no one gets rich in junior hockey.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t sign that kind of deal again,&rdquo; says Farwell. &ldquo;I was one of the three lowest-paid general managers in the league last year. 1 read where George couldn&rsquo;t understand why I&rsquo;d leave. He knows very well why I left.&rdquo;Following his resignation, Farwell tried the NHL. His name surfaced in Chicago and Minnesota. The Philadelphia Flyers, whom Farwell once scouted for, were thought to be interested. But there were no offers.He then sought a job as a coach and general manager in the American League.&ldquo;There were no calls,&rdquo; says Farwell. &ldquo;Everyone was nice and polite until I mentioned I wanted to coach. Then they got scared.&rdquo;Yet, he is far from discouraged.&ldquo;When I move, I don&rsquo;t plan to go back,&rdquo; says Farwell. &ldquo;If it takes a little longer to get there. that&rsquo;s fine.&rdquo;When it became apparent Farwell would have trouble landing a job in professional hockey. Thunderbird owner Earl Hale came courting. It didn&rsquo;t take Farwell long to accept Hale&rsquo;s offer. The contract, a multi-year deal, gives Farwell the opportunity to buy into the Thunderbirds before the 1989-90 season.Contract aside, Farwell decided Seattle is a city ripe with potential. Despite a dreary history of losing (two playoff appearances in the last five seasons), the Thunderbirds have always drawn well at the 4,141-seat Seattle Center Arena. This season they will play five games in the 14,000-seat Seattle Coliseum, home of the National Basketball Association&rsquo;s Seattle SuperSonics.The situation in Seattle presents Farwell with many of the same challenges he confronted in Medicine Hat, where he went after a four-year coaching apprenticeship with the Tier II Centennials and brief tenure in Billings of the WHL.The Tigers were coming off a seventh-place finish when Farwell took over the team prior to the 1982-83 season. (Seattle placed fifth with a 25-45-2 record last year.) Faced with a rebuilding job of considerable proportions in Medicine Hat, he immediately traded for 16-year-old center Al Conroy, who would become the Tigers&rsquo; all-time scoring leader. During the season. Farwell traded Glenn Kulka, who went on to become a defensive tackle with the Canadian Football League&rsquo;s Toronto Argonauts, for Mark Lamb, who led the Tigers in scoring over the next two seasons.&ldquo;Those two players gave us instant credibility,&rdquo; Farwell says.They also bought time. With respectability insured, Farwell started signing and developing younger players. He tapped into the fertile Calgary market and came out with defensemen Gord Hynes, Dean Chynoweth, Wayne McBean and Scott McCrady, and center Neil Brady.He also took advantage of the Medicine Hat minor hockey system, grabbing such players as center Jeff Wenaas, left winger Mark Pederson, and right winger Trevor Linden, second pick overall in the 1988 draft by the Vancouver Canucks.After that first season, the team never finished worse than second in the Eastern Division. In his six years there, the Tigers sent 16 draft choices to NHL camps.Farwell cemented his fine reputation with a series of shrewd trades. The 1987 Memorial Cup team included Dale Kushner, Rob DiMaio, Keith Van Rooyen, Rocky Dundas, Ron Bonora and Kirby Lindal, who all came to the Tigers via trade. In 1988, the Tigers dealt for Cal Zankowski, Ryan McGill, Darren Taylor and Neil Wilkinson and repeated as national champions.&ldquo;He always seems to wait out who he&rsquo;s dealing with,&rdquo; says Kamloops Blazer head coach Ken Hitchcock. &ldquo;Even if it&rsquo;s a panic situation, no one knows it&rsquo;s a panic situation.&rdquo;Don&rsquo;t count on panic setting in with the Thunderbirds. Farwell has brought along coach Barry Melrose, who guided the Tigers to the 1988 Memorial Cup in his first year. Farwell doesn&rsquo;t have a master plan in place as much as a commitment to change the losing attitude that has permeated the club. One means of doing so is putting emphasis on youth.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to raise your own,&rdquo; he says.One of Farwell&rsquo;s key 17-year-olds is highly-touted right winger Lindsay Vallis, who is expected to be among the top players chosen in the 1989 entry draft.Other veterans he&rsquo;ll be relying on are center Glen Goodall, center Victor Gervais, defenseman Darcy Simon and goalie Danny Lorenz.Still, the team is not yet ready from prime time. It is Farwell&rsquo;s job to get them there. &#9632;

f0040-01

The Juniors

Back To The Drawing Board

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Ed Willes</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02195/5646061-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="154" height="118"></div>Tim Speltz became the Medicine Hat Tigers&rsquo; third general manager in two months when he replaced Wes Phillips on Sept. 9. Phillips resigned after a month and a half on the job to look after his business concerns in Brooks, Alta.On July 20, Phillips was hired to replace Russ Farwell, who resigned 16 days earlier after six seasons in command. The Tigers won back-to-back Memorial Cup championships under Farwell in 1987 and 1988. Farwell is now the general manager of the Seattle Thunderbirds.A 30-year-old native of Medicine Hat, Speltz has been the general manager of the Medicine Hat Tigers of the Alberta AAA midget league for the past five seasons.He was approached about the job when Far-well resigned after a dispute with Tiger owner George Maser. At the time. Speltz decided to pursue a business opportunity. When that opportunity fell through and the position became vacant for a second time, Speltz accepted Maser&rsquo;s offer.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve looked at it for a couple of years,&rdquo; Speltz said. &ldquo;It got to the point here I couldn&rsquo;t turn it down.&ldquo;As far as the business and organization, that won&rsquo;t be a problem,&rdquo; Speltz added. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m basically new to the hockey part. I don&rsquo;t have much in the way of experience compared to some of these guys.&rdquo;Speltz signed a one-year deal with the Tigers. The Tigers also have a new coach in Ron Kennedy. Kennedy replaced Barry Melrose.<h2>RINK RUNNETH OVER</h2>The Tri-Cities Coliseum, under construction for the Tri-Cities Americans, is running &ldquo;well over $1 million&rdquo; above its original $7 million cost but Americans&rsquo; owner Ron Dixon promises to finish the new buildingThe Americans, who played in New Westminster as the Bruins last season, are a first-year WHL franchise located in western Washington. The Tri-Cities are formed by Kennewick, Pasco and Richland in Washington state.The new rink is being built in Kennewick and is expected to be completed for the Americans&rsquo; Nov. 20 home opener. The team opens with 18 straight road games.<h2>BLADES FINED</h2>The WHL fined Saskatoon $2,500 following incidents which occurred during last spring's Eastern Division final against the Medicine Hat Tigers. The incidents revolved around Blade center Kevin Kaminski, who was seen directing obscene gestures at WHL officials. In addition to the fine, the Blades were ordered to post a $7,500 good performance bond for the 1988-89 season. Kaminski has also been suspended for the first five games of the WHL regular season, to be served when he returns from the Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; training camp. Kaminski will be on probation for the duration of the season. &#9632;

f0040-02

Keening Track Of Tiger GMs Difficult

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01240/5646092-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="153" height="110"></div>The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds are staying put.Amid reports the Greyhound ownership group of New York Ranger general manager Phil Esposito, Paul Pacifico and Angelo Bumbacco was entertaining offers from a Hamilton group to move the franchise, the Greyhounds ended up going nowhere.Sault mayor Joe Fratesi ended a week of speculation Sept. 14 by announcing the city would help the team on its rent at the Sault Memorial Gardens.&ldquo;The Greyhound owners had indicated they were having financial problems and asked for a break from the city,&rdquo; said Fratesi. &ldquo;I brought the matter to city council and the answer was simple&hellip; if the Greyhounds are in trouble, let&rsquo;s help them.&rdquo;Bumbacco, governor of the Greyhounds, said the team has lost more than $400,000 over the last two seasons. He said details of the agreement with the city still have to be worked out, but the Greyhounds will receive &ldquo;a substantial break from the city" on the current rental agreement which calls for 20 per cent of gate receipts.Bumbacco said the team wasn't close to moving to Hamilton, despite what newspaper reports said. One report said the Greyhounds were asking $l million for the team. The Hamilton group was led by realtor Mario Cupido and lawyer Jack Pelech.&ldquo;It's been blown out of proportion," said Bumbacco. &ldquo;First of all, Mario Cupido approached us about selling the team. No price tag was ever mentioned. And I told Cupido that even if they did make us an offer. I&rsquo;d bring it back to the Sault and give anyone there a chance to match the offer before we ever moved.&ldquo;But it was our intention all along to ask the mayor for a break in the rent. We never did and don&rsquo;t want to leave the Sault. The Hamilton people are just embarrassed they don't have a team there (after the Steelhawks moved to Niagara Falls). If they want one. get an expansion franchise. We're staying in the Sault."The Hamilton group said they will apply for an expansion team next season.<h2>SPITS IN FLAMES</h2>The Spitfires are bracing for a crash landing in Windsor.The defending Ontario champions, who came within a game of winning the Memorial Cup last spring, are in for a complete overhaul.Windsor's top six scorers from last season are gone. The only big gun likely to return is left winger Darrin Shannon. who finished seventh (33-41-74 in 43 games). Shannon. Pittsburgh&rsquo;s first-round 1988 draft pick, wasn&rsquo;t expected to stick with the Penguins."Yeah, I guess you could say we&rsquo;re in for a comedown after last season's highs,&rdquo; said first-year general manager Terry McDonnell, promoted from assistant GM during the off-season. &ldquo;But I think we can be competitive."Gone from last season&rsquo;s team, which led the OHL with a 50-14-2 record, are center Kelly Cain (57-76-133), center Mike Wolak (42-72-114), left winger David Haas (60-47-107), defenseman Brad Hyatt (24-64-88), defenseman Darryl Shannon (16-70-86) and right winger Jean-Paul Gorley (37-40-77).&ldquo;We knew a year ago that we&rsquo;d pay this year for taking a run at it all,&rdquo; said McDonnell, who takes over from Jim Rutherford, now the director of hockey operations for Compuware, the Detroit-based firm which owns the Spitfires.&ldquo;Some teams are mediocre year after year. But we stocked up with vets last season and went for it. Now there&rsquo;s rebuilding to do and I wouldn't change a thing from what we did last year even if I could.&rdquo;At least one Spitfire rival isn't ready to count them out though."They picked up a good defenseman in getting (Jason)York(in a trade with the Niagara Falls Thunder) and don&rsquo;t forget they&rsquo;ve got (Peter) Ing (30-7-1. 3.18 goals-against average) back in goal." said London Knights&rsquo; coach-general manager Wayne Maxner."Sure, they've lost some players. But don&rsquo;t let anyone from Windsor turn on the crying act.&ldquo;McDonnell and Rutherford have been turning on the tears but it&rsquo;ll be 75 degrees in Sault Ste. Marie on Christmas Day before those guys settle for anything less than a playoff spot.&rdquo;<h2>TORTI SENT HOME</h2>The once-promising career of North Bay Centennial left winger Sloan Torti has temporarily ground to a halt.Torti, 18. was sent home to Brantford by Centennial coach Bert Templeton to await a possible trade.&ldquo;Right now he&rsquo;s in limbo and that&rsquo;s all I'm saying." said Templeton tersely.A second-round draft choice by Kingston in 1986, Torti was obtained by North Bay before the start of last season for center Darcy Cahill.Torti was only 5-9-14 in 33 games with the Centennials last season. Cahill, who was North Bay&rsquo;s first pick in 1986, was second on Kingston in scoring (27-41-68 in 66 games). &#9632;

f0041-01

City Takes The Bite Off Hound Departure

<div class="byline">BY HERB ZURKOWSKY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02157/5646123-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="154" height="97"></div>The ownership of Laval Titan has become a family affair.The Morissettes&mdash;brothers Jean-Claude. Regis, Leo-Guy, Jocelyn. Georges and brother-in-law Michel&mdash;paid in excess of $300,000 for control of the Laval Titan.The Quebec League franchise has lost close to $200,000 since 1985. including slightly more than $100,000 last year, despite advancing to within one game of the league finals.&ldquo;We love hockey and are willing to sweat for the Titans,&rdquo; Jean-Claude Morissette explained. "Now we can *be the masters of our own destiny.&rdquo;But first the new owners must find a replacement for general manager Richard Lafreniere. who advised the Morissette family of his plans to resign by the end of September when the regular season begins.Lafreniere's assistant, Fabien Chouinard, a former assistant to QMJHL president Gilles Courteau. was expected to inherit the GM&rsquo;s portfolio.Jean-Claude and Regis Morissette were two of 12 Titan shareholders last season. The Morissettes expressed interest then in taking control of the franchie but were rebuffed.As this season approached, however. it became clear that at least half of the shareholders were losing interest in the Titan. Jean-Claude approached president Fernand Deveau in early September and a deal was quickly consummated.The Morissettes, all multi-millionaires thanks to family-run construction. roofing, insulation and hostelry businesses, are equal partners in the team.Regis will replace Deveau as president of the Titan while Jean-Claude will continue as governor.The new owners denied the team could suffer from having &lsquo;too many cooks in the kitchen,&rsquo; should each Morissette decide he wants his two cents worth of input.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been in business 15 years and we&rsquo;ve always been together," said 42-year-old Jean-Claude. &ldquo;We do have disagreements but we settle and solve them and keep rolling. I don't foresee any special problems.&rdquo;Final decisons will be reached by Jean-Claude and Leo-Guy, an ad hoc hockey committee whose responsibility it will be to keep in regular contact with the general manager.This hockey committee must be consulted on all major player transactions and has the power to veto any potential trade.Any decisions regarding coach Paulin Bordeleau. however, will be left to the GM.With the Titan on its fourth coach and about to hire its third GM in a year&mdash;all but one of the changes were the result of resignations&mdash;the Morissettes talk of bringing stability to the franchise.Lafreniere, meanwhile, said it was becoming increasingly difficult to juggle his hockey duties with his career as the dean of studies at a Montreal-area private school.&ldquo;In my heart I have to leave." said Lafrienere. who replaced Jocelyn Guevremont as GM last January. &ldquo;I can't spend 30 to 40 hours a week on the Titan. I don't have that time."Lafreniere said he would be willing to remain with the team in a minor capacity, such as consultant. &#9632;

f0041-02

Morissettes Spend $300,000 To Purchase QMJHL’s Titan

<h2>TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE&hellip;</h2>1. Who scored the Washington Capitals' first-ever goal?2. Who holds the Pittsburgh Penguin team record for shutouts in a season (6)?3. Which team spent $75,000 to purchase six players from Detroit in August, 1951?4. Who was Philadelphia's first draft choice in 1969, ahead of Bobby Clarke.5. What goalie was included in six-player deals in 1967 and 1969?6. What current NHL coach was involved in a six-player trade between Buffalo and Detroit in December, 1981?7. How many times was Walt McKechnie traded?8. What team traded five players to the New York Rangers to get Andy Bathgate in February, 1964?9. What Norris Trophy-winning defenseman was sold by Montreal to the Rangers in June, 1961?10. Who did California receive from Montreal for the first pick in the 1971 NHL entry draft (Guy Lafleur).<h2>ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ</h2>1. Jim Hrycuik. 2. Les Binkley (1967-68). 3. Chicago, for George Gee, Jim McFadden, Max McNab, Jim Peters, Claire Martin and Clarence (Rigs) Raglan. 4. Bob Currier. 5. Jack Norris. 6. New Jersey coach Jim Schoenfeld. 7. Seven. 8. Toronto. 9. Doug Harvey. 10. Chris Oddleifson and Ernie Hicke. BONUS ANSWER: Danny Grant.<h2>BONUS QUESTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-03116/5646154-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="540" height="958"></div>BONUS: He was the first Minnesota North Star to win the Calder Trophy. &#9632;

f0041-03

THN HOCKEY TRIVIA

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0042-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01253/5646192-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shifty center Bernie Federko (left) will begin a team-record 13th season with the Blues on Oct. 6 when St. Louis opens its 1988-89 schedule at Min nesota against the North Stars.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01255/5646185-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="3030" height="2673"><figcaption class="caption-body">Northlands Coliseum is likely to be buzzing on Oct. 19, when former Oiler Wayne Gretzky makes his first on-ice appearance in Edmonton as a member of the Los Angeles Kings.</figcaption></div><h2>STARTING TIMES OF NHL GAMES FOR 1988-89 SEASON</h2>BOSTONWeeknights&hellip;&hellip;&hellip;&hellip;............................................ 7:35 p.m.Saturdays and Sundays.................................7:05 p.m.Matinees..............................................................1:35 p.m.BUFFALOWeeknights................................................................. 7:35 p.m.Sundays........................................................................7:05 p.m.Matinees.......................................................................1:05 p.m.Except Sat. Dec. 31................................................. 7:05 p.m.CALGARYMondays through Fridays....................................... 7:35 p.m.Saturdays and Sundays......................................... 6:05 p.m.Except Mon. Oct. 10................................................6:05 p.m.Sun. Apr. 2....................................................1:35 p.m.CHICAGOAll Games....................................................................7:35 p.m.Except Matinees.........................................................1:35 pDETROITWeeknights and Saturdays.......................... 7:35 p.m.Sundays.............................................................. 7:05 p.m.Matinees..............................................................1:05 p.m.EDMONTONWeeknights........................................................ 7:35 p.m.Saturdays and Sundays................................ 6:05 p.m.Except Sun. Feb. 5......................................... 2:05 p.m.HARTFORDWeeknights and Saturdays.......................... 7:35 p.m.Sundays.............................................................. 7:05 p.m.LOS ANGELESAll Games&bdquo;................................................................. 7:35 p.m.Except Mon. Feb. 20................................................ 1:05 p.m.MINNESOTAAll Games....................................................................7:35 p.m.Except Matinees.........................................................1:35MONTREALWeeknights................................................................. 7:35 p.m.Saturdays.............................. 8:05 p.m.Sundays....................................................................... 7:05 p.m.NEW JERSEYAll Games....................................................................7:48 p.m.Except Sat. Dec 3, Sat. Mar. 18..........................1:38 p.m.Sun. Jan. 15, Sun. Mar 5.......................................5:08 p.m.NEW YORK ISLANDERSWeeknights........................................ 8:05 p.m.Saturdays and Sundays......................................... 7:05 p.m.Except Sat. Jan. 7, Sat. Feb. 4,Sat. Feb. 18............................................................... 5:05 p.m.NEW YORK RANGERSAll Games....................................................................7:35 p.m.Matinees...................................................................... 1:35 p.m.PHILADELPHIASundays....................................................................... 7:05 p.m.All other nights.................................................7:35 p.m.Except Sat. Nov. 12, Sat. Dec. 10,Sat. Mar. 11......................... 1:05 p.m.Sat. Jan. 28....................................... 11:05 a.m.Sun. Feb. 19......................................1:35 p.m.PITTSBURGHAll Games....................................................................7:35 p.m.Except Matinees........................................................ 2:35 p.m.QUEBECAll Games....................................................................7:35 p.m.Except Matinees........................................................ 2:05 p.m.Sun. Jan. 8................................................... 8:05 p.m.ST. LOUISMondays through Saturdays................... ...7:35 p.m.Sundays..................................... 6:05 p.m.TORONTOWeeknights................................................................. 7:35 p.m.Saturdays.....................................................................8:05 p.m.Sundays....................................................................... 7:05VANCOUVERWeeknights................................................................. 7:35 p.m.Saturdays.....................................................................5:05 p.m.Sundays....................................................................... 7:05 p.m.Except Mon. Oct. 10, Fri. Nov. 11,Mon. Dec. 26.............................. 7:05 p.m.Sun. Oct. 30 ..................................... 2:05 p.m.WASHINGTONSaturdays and Mondaysthrough Thursdays......................................... 7:35 p.m.Fridays..........................................................................8:05 p.m.Matinees...................................................................... 1:35 p.m.Except Sun. Jan. 22..............................................12:00 p.m.Sun. Mar. 26................................................5:05 p.m.Wed Nov. 23............................................. 8:05 p.m.WINNIPEGMondays through Fridays....................................... 7:35 p.m.Saturdays and Sundays......................................... 7:05 p.m.Matinees...................................................................... 2:35 p.m. &#9632;

f0042-01

NHL SCHEDULE

<h2>NHL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01194/5646223-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg" title="f0044-01" width="576" height="574"></div>EXHIBITION RESULTSFRI, SEPT. 16MONTREAL 5, BOSTON 2LOS ANGELES 3, VANCOUVER 3 (OT)CALGARY 5, TORONTO 4 (OT)ST. LOUIS 5, DETROIT 2WINNIPEG 8, MONCTON (AHL) 0NY RANGERS 3, EDMONTON 3 (OT)MINNESOTA 4, TEAM CANADA 1SAT, SEPT. 17MONTREAL 5, QUEBEC2VANCOUVER 7, LOS ANGELES 4TORONTO 4, EDMONTON 2NY ISLANDERS 3, PHILADELPHIA 2HARTFORD 11, WASHINGTON 7CALGARY 4, MINNESOTA 3PITTSBURGH 5, NY RANGERS 2SUN, SEPT. 18PHILADELPHIA 4, NY ISLANDERS 0QUEBEC 8, HARTFORD 5BUFFALO 4, WASHINGTON 3 (OT)CHICAGO 4, DETROIT 1PITTSBURGH 5, NEW JERSEY 3MINNESOTA 3, WINNIPEG 2VANCOUVER 4, TEAM CANADA 1EXHIBITION SCORERSFRI, SEPT. 16MONTREAL (5)&mdash;BOBBY SMITH 2, BRENT GILCHRIST. SHAYNE CORSON. JOSE CHARBONNEAU. BOSTON 12)- CAM NEELY, GLEN WESLEY.LOS ANGELES I3)-DAVE TAYLOR, TIM TOOKEY, DEAN KENNEDY. VANCOUVER(3)&mdash;ROB MURPHY, DOUG LIDSTER, PAUL LAWLESS.WINNIPEG (8)&mdash;HANNU JARVENPAA 2. DARREN BOYKO. ANDREW McBAIN, BRENT ASHTON, MARKKU KYLLONEN; RANDY CARLYLE, IAIN DUNCAN. MONCTON |AHL)-N0 SCORINGST. LOUIS (5)&mdash;GREG PASLAWSKI, MIKE BULLARD, HERB RAGLAN, TONY HRKAC, DOUG EVANS. DETROIT (2)&mdash;DENNIS HOLLAND, GERARD GALLANT.CALGARY (5)&mdash;JIRI HRDINA, BRAD McCRIMMON, HAKAN LOOB, JOEL OTTO, STEPHANE MATTEAU. TORONTO (4)&mdash;DEREK LAXDAL 2, GARY LEEMAN, AL SECORD.EDMONTON (3k-CRAIG SIMPSON, SELMAR ODELEIN, JIMMY CARSON. NY RANGERS (3k-NORMAND ROCHEFORT 2, BRIAN MULLEN.MINNESOTA (4)&mdash;BRIAN DePALMA, WALLY SCHREIBER, DAVE GAGNER, MARC HABSCHEID. TEAM CANADA (1)&mdash;BRYAN DEASLEY.SAT, SEPT. 17MONTREAL (5)&mdash;STEPHANE RICHER 2, MIKE McPHEE, CHRIS CHELIOS, BOBBY SMITH. QUEBEC (2)&mdash;PETER STASTNY, GAETAN DUCHESNE.VANCOUVER (7k-JOHN LEBLANC 2, KEN BERRY 2, RONNIE STERN, DAN WOODLEY, RICH SUTTER. LOS ANGELES (4k-BOB CARPENTER 2, CRAIG DUNCANSON, BERNIE NICHOLLS.NY ISLANDERS (3)&mdash;BRAD DALGARNO, PAT LaFONTAINE, ALAN KERR. PHILADELPHIA (2k-TERRY CARKNER, DAVE BROWN.HARTFORD (11k-SYLVAIN TURGEON 4, JOEL QUENNEVILLE 2, RAY FERRARO 2, JOHN ANDERSON, LARRY TRADER, RON FRANCIS. WASHINGTON (7)&mdash;MICHAL PIVONKA, NEIL SHEEHY, MIKE RIDLEY, BENGT GUSTAFSSON, MIKE RICHARD, DAVE CHRISTIAN, STEVE LEACH.TORONTO (4k-VINCENT DAMPHOUSSE 2, SCOTT PEARSON, RICK LANZ. EDMONTON (2k-KEITH ACTON, CRAIG SIMPSON.CALGARY (4k-THEOREN FLEURY 2, PETE LAPPIN, JIM PEPLINSKI. MINNESOTA (3k-DAVE ARCHIBALD 2, DUSAN PASEK.PITTSBURGH (5k-BOB ERREY 2, MARIO LEMIEUX, PHIL ROURQUE, ROB BROWN. NY RANGERS (2)&mdash;NORMAND IOCHEFORT, TONY GRANATO.SUN., SEPT. 18PHILADELPHIA (4)&mdash;NICK KYPREOS, KERRY HUFFMAN, BRIAN DOBBIN, PELLE EKLUND. NY ISLANDERS (0)&mdash;NO SCORINGQUEBEC (81&mdash;DAVE LATTA 2, JEFF BROWN, JOE SAKIC, MARC FORTIER, STEVE FINN, PETER STASTNY, KEN McRAE. HARTFORD (5)&mdash;DALLAS GAUME 2, LARRY TRADER, SCOTT YOUNG, TOM MARTIN.BUFFALO &laquo;)&mdash;JEFF PARKER, PIERRE TURGEON, ANDREW MacVICAR, MARK NAPIER. WASHINGTON (3)&mdash;BOB GOULD 2, KEVIN HATCHER.CHICAGO (41&mdash;DALE MARQUETTE, DIRK GRAHAM, DAN VINCELETTE, DENIS SAVARD. DETROIT (1)&mdash;ADAM GRAVES.PITTSBURGH (5)&mdash;CHRIS DAHLQUIST, STEVE GOTAAS, WAYNEVAN DORP, MITCH WILSON, DAVE HUNTER. NEW JERSEY (31&mdash;ANDERS CARLSSON, MURRAY BRUMWELL, CLAUDE LOISELLE.MINNESOTA (31-DUSAN PASEK, CRAIG HARTSBURG, BRIAN MacLELLAN. WINNIPEG (2)&mdash;FREDRIK OLAUSSON, DAVE ELLETT.VANCOUVER (41&mdash;GREG ADAMS, PAUL REINHART, DAVE BRUCE, ROBERT NORDMARK. TEAM CANADA-ERICAUBERTIN, DAVE McLAY, GRAEME BONAR.<h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>EXHIBITION RESULTSWED., SEPT 14PETERBOROUGH 5 AT BELLEVILLE 11LONDON 2 AT GUELPH 3THUR., SEPT. 15BELLEVILLE 5 AT CORNWALL 1OTTAWA 3 AT KINGSTON 2TORONTO 2 AT PETERBOROUGH 4KITCHENER 4 AT WINDSOR 0FRI., SEPT. 16NORTH BAY 2 AT KINGSTON 2 (OT)WINDSOR 8 AT KITCHENER 5GUELPH 4 AT LONDON 2NIAGARA FALLS 2 AT PETERBOROUGH 7SUDBURY 5 AT S.S. MARIE 2SAT., SEPT. 17NORTH BAY 3 AT BELLEVILLE 6TORONTO 4 AT NIAGARA FALLS 4 (OT)SUN., SEPT. 18OTTAWA 2 AT BELLEVILLE 6KINGSTON 6 AT CORNWALL 6WINDSOR 5 AT NIAGARA FALLS 7KITCHENER 5 AT LONDON 2S.S. MARIE 5 AT SUDBURY 4OSHAWA 3 AT TORONTO 4<h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>EXHIBITION RESULTSWED., SEPT. 14CHICOUTIMI 7 AT DRUMMONDVILLE 1LONGUEUIL 1 AT LAVAL 4THUR., SEPT. 15VERDUN 1 AT LONGUEUIL 10FRI, SEPT. 16TROIS-RIVIERES 5 AT CHICOUTIMI 3VICTORIAVILLE 7 AT DRUMMONDVILLE 5CORNWALL (OHL) 4 AT GRANBY 4 (OT)LAVAL 4 AT SHAWINIGAN 7VERDUN 5 AT ST-JEAN 8SUN, SEPT 18LAVAL 6 AT LONGUEUIL 5CHICOUTIMI 6 AT TROIS-RIVIERES 1DRUMMONDVILLE 3 AT VICTORIAVILLE 10GRANBY 2 AT ST-JEAN 10<h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>EXHIBITION RESULTSTHUR, SEPT. 15PORTLAND 10 AT VERNON 6 (BCJHL) 6FRI, SEPT. 16LETHBRIDGE 6 AT SPOKANE 5REGINA 9 AT PRINCE ALBERT 3SASKATOON 6 AT BRANDON 5SWIFT CURRENT 9 AT MOOSE JAW 5PORTLAND 1 AT KAMLOOPS 5TRI-CITIES 3 AT SEATTLE 3 (OT)SAT, SEPT. 17MOOSE JAW 4 AT SWIFT CURRENT 5SASKATOON 2 AT BRANDON 3SEATTLE 2 AT VICTORIA 4SPOKANE 3 AT MEDICINE HAT 5TRI-CITIES 2 AT KAMLOOPS 8SUN, SEPT 18SASKATOON 6 AT REGINA 4PORTLAND 1 AT KAMLOOPS 7SEATTLE 2 AT VICTORIA 7SPOKANE 5 AT LETHBRIDGE<h2>NHL TRANSACTIONS</h2>BOSTON&mdash;Sept. 9: Frank Simonetti, D, Bill Kopecky, LW, Jim Newhouse, LW, did not report to training camp. Sept. 13: Bob Derany, G, Kevin Houle, RW, Tim Flanigan, G, Joe Lunny, LW, Quintin Brickley, RW, Bob Fowler, D, Brian McKinnon, C, Doug Jones, D, released. Sept. 14: Darren Eliot, G, added to training camp roster. JURIES&mdash;Gord Kluzak, D, left knee inflammation, day-to-day. Nevin Markwart, LW, right abdominal strain, indefinite. Bob Sweeney, C, hernia surgery, indefinite. Moe Lemay, LW, right knee arthroscopy, indefinite.BUFFALO&mdash;Sept. 13: Doug Smith, C, suspended indefinitely after failing physical. INJURIES&mdash;Adam Creighton, LW, knee, Sept. 24. Joe Reekie, D, knee, indefinite. Grant Tkachuk, LW, eye, indefinite. Jan Ludvig, RW, sprained knee, day-to-day.CALGARY&mdash;Sept. 9: John Bekkers, RW, announced he would not report to camp. Sept. 16: Bryan Deasley, LW, reassigned to Team Canada. Brent Bakza, LW, released. Sept. 19: Kevin Ingalls, D, released. INJURIES&mdash;Martin Simard, RW, arthroscopic surgery on right knee, Sept. 26.CHICAGO&mdash;Sept. 16: Mike Dagenais, D, returned to Peterborough (Ontario League). Cam Russell, D, returned to Hull (Quebec League). Trevor Dam, RW, returned to London (OHL). Daniel Maurice, C, returned to Chicoutimi (QMJHL). INJURIES&mdash;Glen Cochrane, D, back, day-today.DETROIT&mdash;Sept. 16: Serge Anglehart, D, returned to Drummondville (QMJHL). Guy Dupuis, D, returned to Hull (QMJHL). Glenn Goodall, C, returned to Seattle (Western League). Bill White, G, released. INJURIES&mdash;Steve Chiasson, D, groin, day-to-day.EDMONTON&mdash;Sept. 10: Martin Gelinas, LW, signed multi-year contract. Sept. 11: Francois Leroux, D, signed multi-year contract. Sept. 14: Normand Lacombe, RW, Jim Wiemer, D, Keith Acton, C, signed multi-year contracts. Sept. 15: Craig Simpson, LW/RW, signed multi-year contract. Sept. 16: Tony Fairfield, RW, returned to University of Calgary. Gavin Armstrong, G, returned to Spokane (WHL). Len Barrie, RW, returned to Victoria (WHL). Tim Tisdale, C, returned to Swift Current (WHL). Cam Brauer, D, returned to Regina (WHL). Trevor Sim, C, returned to Seattle (WHL). Tim Flanagan, C, and Duane Joyce, D, released. Sept. 17: Jeff Beukeboom, D, and Steve Smith, D, signed multi-year contracts.HARTFORD&mdash;Sept. 11: Kevin Dineen, RW, Roger Kortko, C, Grant Jennings, D, Ed Kastelic, LW, Tom Martin, LW, signed two-year contracts with option. Sept. 16: John Devereaux, C, Tad Merritt, D, Tim Foley, D, John Torchetti, LW, Tim Hrynewich, LW, John Urbanic, D, Mike Prestidge, C, Darin Fridgen, LW, and Joe Ferras, C, released. Ross McKay, G, Sean Evoy, G, Marc Laforge, D, Corey Beaulieu, D, Martin Burgers, D, Jim Culhane, D, Wally Niewchas, D, Reid Williams, D, Brian Chapman, D, Darren Semple, D, John&nbsp;McLean, D, Jean-Marc MacKenzie, C, Chris Brant, LW, Chris Govedaris, LW, David Rowbotham, LW, Roger Kortko, C, Gary Callaghan, C, Todd Krygier, C, Brent Regan, C, Terry Yake, C, Wayde Bucsis, RW, Todd Channell, RW, Jody Hull, RW, Kerry Laviolette RW, assigned to Binghamton camp. INJURIES-Adam Burt, D, slightly separated left shoulder, Sept. 23.LOS ANGELES&mdash;Sept. 8: Bob Bourne, C-LW, retired. Sept. 9: Mike Krushelnyski, C, signed multi-year contract. Sept. 10: Marty McSorley, RW, and Larry Playfair, D, signed multi-year contracts. Sept. 18: John Gladiator, D, and Jean-Eric Landry, LW, signed tryout contracts. INJURIES&mdash;Rollie Melanson, G, pinched nerve in neck, day-to-day. Mark Fitzpatrick, G, bruised knee, day-to-day. Jim Fox, RW, knee surgery, indefinite. Dan Gratton, C, cut right arm, Nov. 15. Steve Richmond, D, separated shoulder, indefinite.MINNESOTA&mdash;Sept. 13: Suspended Dino Ciccarelli, RW, retroactive to Sept. 10, for failing to report to camp. INJURIES&mdash;Bob Brooke, C, slight shoulder separation, Sept. 20.MONTREAL&mdash;Sept. 8: Patrick Roy, G, signed two-year contract, plus option. Claude Lemieux, RW, signed three-year contract, plus option. Darrin Baker, G, Jean-Claude Bergeron, G, Steve Bisson, D, Eric Charron, D, Wayne Gagne, D, Brad McCaughey, D, Stephane J.G. Richer, D, Lyle Odelein, D, Neil Carnes, C, Ron Chyzowski, C, Marc Saumier, C, Rocky Dundas, RW, Maurice Mansi, RW, Henri Marcoux, RW, Jim Nesich, RW, Martin Nicoletti, RW, Mario Roberge, RW, Michel Couvrette, LW, Martin Olivier, LW, Martin St-Amour, LW, Darren Taylor, LW, assigned to Sherbrooke. Dave Kunda, D, returned to the University of Guelph. Sept. 9: John Kordic, RW, Bob Gainey, LW, signed one-year contracts, plus option. Sept. 16: Darrell May, G, assigned to Peoria (International League). Sept. 18: Francois Chartrand, RW, Eric Legros, C, Barry McKinlay, D, Michel Mongeau, C, and Martin Olivier, LW, released. Rick Green, D, signed one-year contract, plus option. INJURIES&mdash;Mark Pederson, LW, concussion, day-to-day. Brian Hayward, G, strained left thumb, day-to-day.NEW JERSEY&mdash;Sept. 12: Gord Mark, D, voluntarily left camp. INJURIES&mdash;Dan Dorion, RW, wrist, day-to-day.N.Y. ISLANDERS&mdash;Sept. 9: Chris Pryor, D, signed two-year contract. Sept. 15: Todd Okerlund, RW, retired.N.Y. RANGERS&mdash;Sept. 12: James Patrick, D, signed contract. Sept. 13: Lucien DeBlois, C, signed contract. Sept. 14: Normand Rochefort, D, signed contract. Pierre Larouche, C, announced retirement. Sept. 15: Shaun Clouston, LW, returned to Portland (WHL). Murray Duval, LW, returned to Spokane (WHL). Daniel Lacroix, LW, returned to Granby (QMJHL). Troy Mallette, C, and Peter Fiorentino, D, returned to Sault Ste. Marie (OHL). Dennis Vial, D, and Mike Rosati, G, returned to Niagara Falls (OHL). Drago Adam, G, released. INJURIES&mdash;Mark Tinordi, D, arthroscopic surgery on left knee, Oct. 6. James Latos, RW, re-injury of right shoulder, indefinite.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Sept. 11: Scott Mellanby, RW, and Rick Tocchet, RW, signed multi-year contracts. Sept. 18: Chris Stapleton, RW, Darrell Ingham, RW, Mike Snell, RW, Mike Wurst, LW, Chris Levasseur, LW, Bill Powers, C, Mike McGrath, D, and Todd Morgan, D, released.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Sept. 17: Don Pancoe, D, returned to Niagara Falls (OHL). Mark Major, LW, returned to North Bay (OHL). Daniel Gauthier, LW, returned to Victoria (WHL). Troy Mick, LW, returned to Portland (WHL).QUEBEC&mdash;Sept. 7: Mario Gosselin, G, Max Middendorf, RW, signed contracts. Sept. 9: Walt Poddubny, C, signed contract. Sept. 13: Stephane Fiset, G, and Daniel Dore, RW, signed contracts. INJURIES&mdash;Walt Poddubny, C, abdominal injury, day-to-day.ST. LOUIS&mdash;Sept. 10: Bernie Federko, C, signed two-year contract. Sept. 13: Tony McKegney, LW, signed two-year contract. Kent Carlson, D, Scott Harlow, LW, Ernie Vargas, C, signed one-year contracts. Sept. 15: Paul Cavallini, D, Gaston Gingras, D, Gordie Roberts, D, and Rob Whistle, D, signed multi-year contracts. Shane MacEachern, C, Terry MacLean, C, Ernie Vargas, C, Mike Wolak, C, Joe Stefan, C, Kevin Miehm, C, Marc Dumont, LW, Scott Harlow, LW. Darin Smith, LW, David O'Brien, RW, Keith Osborne, RW, Jim Vesey, RW, Kent Carlson, D, Rob Whistle, D, Scott Paluch, D, Dominic Lavoie, D, Robert Dumas, D, Rob Fournier, G, and Mark Staub, G, assigned to Peoria (IHL). Michael MacNeil, C, released. Sept. 17: Tony Twist, D, and Kelly Chase, RW, assigned to Peoria (IHL). INJURIES&mdash;Doug Evans, LW, and Robert Dirk, D, groin pulls, day-to-day.TORONTO&mdash;No transactions. INJURIES&mdash;Wendel Clark, LW, back, indefinite. Mark Osborne, LW, mononucleosis, indefinite. Craig Laughlin, RW, Charley horse, day-to-day. Chris McRae, LW, broken bone in right hand, indefinite.VANCOUVER&mdash;Sept. 18: Mickey Volcan, D, David Gourlie, D, Tom Karalis, D, Rick Herbert, D, Ken Carlson, D, and Kevin MacDonald, D, Brad Palmer, LW, Jason Phillips, LW, Dwaine Hutton, LW, James Burnett, RW, Ray Woodley, G, released. Steve Herniman, D, returned to Sault Ste. Marie (OHL). Jeff Sirkka, D, returned to North Bay (OHL). INJURIES&mdash;Ray Staszak, RW, shoulder, indefinite.WASHINGTON&mdash;Sept. 9: Pete Peeters, G, agreed to one-year contract extension. Sept. 13: Dave Christian, RW, signed four-l year contract. Sept. 15: Dave Farrish, D, invited to camp for tryout. Rob Krauss, D, returned to Lethbridge (WHL). Devon Oleniuk, D, returned to Kamloops (WHL). INJURIES&mdash;Michal Pivonka, LW, bruised shoulder, day-to-day. Rod Langway, D, strained left thigh, day-to-day.WINNIPEG&mdash;Sept. 17: Rupert Meister, G, returned to West Germany. Brian Hunt, C, and Tony Joseph, RW, returned to Oshawa (OHL). Nevin Kardum, C, returned to York University. Frank Furlan, G, returned to Tri-Cities (WHL). Kyle Galloway, D, returned to University of Manitoba. Ron Jones, RW, returned to Windsor (OHL). Sept. 19: Teemu Selanne, RW, returned to Jokerit, Finland. &#9632;

f0044-01

SCOREBOARD

SEPTEMBERWednesday 21Los Angeles vs. Vancouver..... Portland, Ore.Edmonton vs. Toronto.............. MLGBoston vs. NY Islanders.......... Hamilton, Ont.New Jersey vs. Hartford.......... Civic CenterCalgary vs. Minnesota.............. Met CenterBuffalo vs. Detroit..................... Joe Louis ArenaThur. 22Montreal vs. Pittsburgh........... Civic ArenaQuebec vs. Toronto.................. Kitchener, Ont.Buffalo vs. Washington............ Norfolk, Va.Winnipeg vs. Calgary................ SaddledomeDetroit vs. St. Louis.................. Indianapolis, Ind.New Jersey vs. Philadelphia.... Richmond, Va.NY Rangers vs. Vancouver..... San Diego, Calif.Friday 23Boston vs. Philadelphia............ SpectrumHartford vs. Washington......... Roanoke, Va.Detroit vs. Buffalo..................... Mem. AuditoriumVancouver vs. Winnipeg.......... Winnipeg ArenaChicago vs. Edmonton............. North. ColiseumSaturday 24Pittsburgh vs. Montreal............ ForumBoston vs. NY Islanders.......... Nassau ColiseumQuebec vs. Hartford.................. Civic CenterPhiladelphia vs. Washington... Capital CenterChicago vs. St. Louis................ Kansas City, Mo.NY Rangers vs. New Jersey.... Byrne ArenaEdmonton vs. Minnesota......... Met CenterSunday 25Pittsburgh vs. Montreal............ Rimouski, Que.Los Angeles vs. Winnipeg........ Winnipeg ArenaToronto vs. Newmarket............ Newmarket, Ont.Detroit vs. St. Louis.................. Houston, TexasQuebec vs. Philadelphia........... Hershey, Penn.Minnesota vs. Chicago............. Chicago StadiumNew Jersey vs. NY Rangers.... MSGMonday 26Cdn. National vs. Calgary........ SaddledomeTuesday 27Detroit vs. Toronto.................... MLGNY Rangers vs. NY Islanders... Nassau ColiseumHartford vs. New Jersey........... Byrne ArenaPittsburgh vs. Edmonton.......... Dallas, TexasPhiladelphia vs. Quebec........... Le ColiseeChicago vs. Minnesota............. Kalamazoo, Mich.Winnipeg vs. Los Angeles....... San Diego, Calif.Wednesday 28Montreal vs. Sherbrooke.......... Sherbrooke, Que.Winnipeg vs. Los Angeles....... ForumNY Islanders vs. NY Rangers... MSGChicago vs. Minnesota............. Met CenterPhiladelphia vs. Boston...... Portland, Me.Thursday 29NY Islanders vs. Quebec......... Le ColiseeWashington vs. Philadelphia... SpectrumBuffalo vs. New Jersey............ Byrne ArenaWinnipeg vs. Vancouver......... Seattle, Wash.Minnesota vs. Edmonton........ North. ColiseumFriday 30Boston vs. Montreal.................. ForumCalgary vs. Los Angeles.......... Sacramento, Calif.Toronto vs. Buffalo................... Mem. AuditoriumNY Islanders vs. Quebec.......... Chicoutimi, Que.Hartford vs. NY Rangers......... MSGOCTOBERSaturday 1NY Islanders vs. Montreal....... ForumCalgary vs. Los Angeles.......... ForumToronto vs. Quebec.................. Le ColiseeBoston vs. Washington............ Capital CenterHartford vs. Pittsburgh............. Civic ArenaDetroit vs. Winnipeg................. Oakland, Calif.Edmonton vs. Chicago............. Milwaukee, Wis.Minnesota vs. Vancouver........ Sacramento, Calif.Philadelphia vs. Hershey......... Hershey, Penn.Sunday 2Montreal vs. Quebec................. Le ColiseeDetroit vs. Los Angeles............ Oakland, Calif.Buffalo vs. Toronto................... MLGWashington vs. Boston............ Worcester, Mass.NY Rangers vs. Hartford.......... Civic CenterEdmonton vs. Calgary.............. Saddledome 4*New Jersey vs. Pittsburgh....... Muskegon, Mich.St. Louis vs. Chicago................ Chicago Stadium &#9632;

NATIONAL LEAGUE PRE-SEASON SCHEDULE

<div class="byline">BY GRANT McGINNIS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-02121/5646278-1-eng-US/f0046-022.jpg" title="f0046-02" width="554" height="787"><figcaption class="caption-body">A new off-season regimen for lain Duncan has made him the hit of training camp.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01166/5646285-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="147" height="118"></div>WINNIPEG&mdash;Winnipeg Jet left winger Iain Duncan has made a lasting impression in his first National Hockey League training camp, something he didn&rsquo;t give himself an opportunity to do in his rookie season.Last summer, Duncan blew a knee while camping out in the weight room at Bowling Green State University, trying to get big enough to stick in the NHL. He got big enough all right, so big that when he finally did make it to Winnipeg, he found the weight room off limits and NHL speed out of his reach.This summer, the Jets made certain Duncan&mdash;named to the 1987-88 NHL all-rookie team after scoring 19 goals and 42 points in 62 games&mdash;followed the team&rsquo;s training program to the letter.&ldquo;We were in constant contact with him, either myself or (assistant coach) Billy Sutherland or (trainer) Charlie Badcock,&rdquo; said coach Dan Maloney. &ldquo;We wanted him stronger, we wanted him quicker but we didn&rsquo;t want all that bulk muscle on him. It took him a good month to six or seven weeks to get that off last year.&rdquo;The plan worked.Duncan has been a smash hit at Winnipeg&rsquo;s training camp in Moncton, N.B., home of the Jets&rsquo; American League affiliate. Duncan, who is listed at 200 pounds in the NHL&rsquo;s Official Guide and Record Book, now weighs 180, according to the Jets&rsquo; office. He looked like a new man and was playing like it, with five goals in early training camp scrimmages to lead the team.&ldquo;I think Iain Duncan&rsquo;s camp now is as good or better than he played all last year,&rdquo; said Maloney. &ldquo;Certainly, the fact that he came in here healthy and the fact that he didn&rsquo;t train like a football lineman this summer, it&rsquo;s really helped him. He&rsquo;s in good trim and playing very well.&rdquo;Duncan made a name for himself last season playing alongside Jet captain Dale Hawerchuk on Winnipeg&rsquo;s top line for a good portion of the season. His bump-and-grind style complemented Hawerchuk&rsquo;s finesse and earned the 23-year-old Toronto native some respect around the league.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not so sure I wanna say I made my spot last year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m sure the teams in our division know that I&rsquo;m coming when the puck&rsquo;s dumped down into their comer. I&rsquo;m not gonna back down from anyone and if I can keep doing that, maybe if 1 can stake some ground for myself on the left side and in the comers, it could be a lot better year.&rdquo;That Duncan should make it as an NHL front-liner is somewhat of a surprise in itself. Selected in 1983 in the seventh round, 139th overall, Duncan slowly improved his game at Bowling Green.This summer was no exception, as the improvement continued.&ldquo;I went to skating school. The Jets wanted me to go there and I said &lsquo;Sure,&rsquo; Duncan said. &ldquo;I think it did help me. I&rsquo;m not sure. I feel a lot better, I feel like I&rsquo;m skating a lot better.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;A trio of Finns was drawing good reviews in the first week of the Jets&rsquo; training camp. Right winger Teemu Selanne, chosen 10th in the first round of the 1988 draft, appears ready to step into the NHL but was scheduled to return to military duty Sept. 19. Defenseman Teppo Numminen is a shoo-in for a job while big winger Markku Kyllonen was making a strong run for spot with a grinding, physical style&hellip;Early in camp, veteran goalie Pokey Reddick was the best of a very good group of goaltenders. Returning starter Daniel Berthiaume was at the bottom of the pile&hellip;Veteran left winger Doug Smail has filed for arbitration&hellip;Right winger Pat Elynuik, Winnipeg&rsquo;s 1986 first-round pick, seventh overall, twisted a knee and was out for 10 days. Elynuik is expected to stick with the Jets.</div><div style="clear: both;"> &#9632;</div>

f0046-02

Duncan’s Play A Weight Off His Shoulders

<div class="byline">BY LARRY HUMBER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01184/5646323-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg"></div><h2>ACROSS:</h2>1. Trophy captured by pictured King a record seven times (3,4).4. Laurie Boschman's birthplace.7. Corner.8. The Canadlens led all NHL teams by going this number of consecutive home games without a loss last season.10. It was appropriate the Oilers wound up with this many points during Wayne Gretzky's last season with them.12. New Jersey's Broten.13. Takes part in a game.14. One of seven 50-goal scorers in the NHL last season.18. This NHL team's best season was in 1950-51, when it amassed 101 points (3,5).19. He coached 18 'Across' that memorable campaign.20. The Blues' building, St. Louis.21. He was with Montreal from 1963 to 1967 and then again from 1971 to 1977.<h2>DOWN:</h2>1. The first player listed in the 1987-88 NHL Register.2. Barrie Stafford and Lyle Kul-chisky are the Oilers'.3. He was among the NHL's leading scorers in 1955-56.4. Former Oiler named WHA rookie of the year in 1976 (4,6).5. Heckle.6. Nickname of the 1982 Memorial Cup winners.9. The only player born outside Canada to have his number retired by an NHL team (4,6).11. Capitil Centre site.12. The Edmonton Oilers were once known as the Oilers.15. He was involved in the swap that made a Wing of Frank Mahovlich.16. Bruce McNall's hockey team.17. Trophy awarded the NHL's plus-minus leader, Emery&mdash;.<h2>CROSSWORD SOLUTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01165/5646316-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg" title="f0045-01" width="578" height="568"></div> &#9632;

f0047-01

CROSSWORD

<h2>10 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; NHL executive vice-president Brian O&rsquo;Neill levied fines totalling $5,200 as a result of a brawl between the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Frank Beaton of the Rangers was fined $1,100 and received a one-game suspension for being the first player to leave his bench. Rangers Nick Fotiu, Ron Duguay, Dave Maloney and Lucien DeBlois and Flyers Mel Bridgman, Jim Cunningham. Dave Hoyda. Ken Linseman, Andre Dupont, Paul Holmgren and Glen Cochrane were each fined $100.&bull; The Los Angeles Kings, who had already lost free-agent goalie Rogie Vachon to the Detroit Red Wings, prevented free-agent center Butch Goring from jumping to the WHA by signing him to a five-year contract at $250,000 per year. Goring considered an undisclosed offer from the Edmonton Oilers.<h2>20 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Right winger and team captain George Armstrong announced his retirement from the Toronto Maple Leafs at age 38. It was his second such announcement and was as short-lived as the first. Armstrong returned and played three more seasons, finally retiring after the 1970-71 season. He finished with 296 goals, 417 assists and 713 points in 1,187 games, all with Toronto. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1975. He recently rejoined the Leafs as scout and assistant general manager.&bull; The Los Angeles Kings traded goalie Terry Sawchuk to the Detroit Red Wings for center Jimmy Peters. Sawchuk became a Red Wing for the third time 'and compiled a 3-4-3 record and 2.62 goals-against average during the 1968-69 season. Peters had 10 goals and 15 assists in 76 games for the Kings. &#9632;

THIS WEEK…

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02129/5646378-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Glenn Hall (left), Billy Dea (middle) and John Bucyk Decatch up on the news as they while away some spare time during the mid-1950s. At the time, the three former Edmonton Flyer junior stars were Decatch troit Red Wing teammates. The trio was broken up in three separate trades in 1957.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0047-02

THE WAY WE WERE

<div class="byline">BY HOWARD BERGER</div>Despite two major disappointments in his career, defenseman-turned-coach Rick Ley has learned to cope and bounce back.The 39-year-old Ley&rsquo;s most recent downer came when he was passed over for the vacant Pittsburgh Penguin coaching job. Ley was coaching the Penguins&rsquo; International League affiliate at Muskegon, where he won a league championship in 1985-86. The Penguins eventually hired Gene Ubriaco as their coach.Ley has since landed on his feet as head coach of the Milwaukee Admirals&mdash;Vancouver&rsquo;s IHL affiliate.Ley&rsquo;s first disappointment came in the summer of 1972 at the beginning of a seven-year war between the NHL and the World Hockey Association.After establishing himself as a reliable defenseman in three seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ley received a lucrative contract offer from the WHA&rsquo;s New England Whalers, worth about $90,000 a season.But he wanted very badly to stay in Toronto."I was making $26,000 a season with the Leafs and they offered me only a $4,000 raise,&rdquo; Ley recalled. &ldquo;When New England came across with triple that amount, on a personal-services contract, there really was no decision to be made.&rdquo;Ley was not the only Leaf to leave for the WHA. He was joined in New England by Toronto blueline mates Brad Selwood and Jim Dorey. Leaf center Jim Harrison jumped to the Alberta Oilers, and goalie Bernie Pa-rent to the Miami Screaming Eagles, who resurfaced as the Philadelphia Blazers without playing a game in Florida.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0397/5646409-1-eng-US/f0047-032.jpg" title="f0047-03" width="546" height="1284"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Ley</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I think the root of the whole problem was the Leaf organization did not take the WHA seriously,&rdquo; Ley said.&ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t believe that New England had made me such a substantial offer so I brought the contract in to show King Clancy. But they still wouldn&rsquo;t budge.&ldquo;That was pretty sad because I really wanted to stay in Toronto. I had grown up north of the city (in Orillia) and considered it a privilege to play so close to home.&ldquo;But there was no way I could turn down New England&rsquo;s offer.&rdquo;As a result. Ley became a WHA pioneer. With defense partner Ted Green, the former Boston Bruin tough guy, Ley and the Whalers skated to the first WHA playoff crown, defeating Ottawa, Cleveland and Winnipeg along the way.&ldquo;We had a close-knit bunch of guys on that team, Ley said. &ldquo;Teddy and I clicked really well together and we became close friends off the ice. It was a very enjoyable situation.&rdquo;Ley remained with New England through the WHA&rsquo;s seven-year duration, scoring 35 goals and 210 assists in 478 regular-season games. He also played for Team Canada, represented by WHA all-stars, in an eight-game series against the Soviet Union in 1974. The USSR won the set 4-1-3.After the NHL-WHA merger in 1979, Ley played one full season with Hartford before tearing up his knee prior to an April, 1980, playoff game at the Montreal Forum.He retired 16 games into the 1980-81 season and began his coaching career with Binghamton of the American League and Mohawk Valley of the Atlantic Coast League. He joined Muskegon in 1984-85 and posted four-year totals of 205-119-4. He was named IHL coach of the year in 1985-86.Ley had 12 goals and 72 assists in 310 NHL games, all with Toronto. &#9632;

f0047-03

Ley Wanted To Stay A Leaf

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-0360/5646440-1-eng-US/f0048-032.jpg" title="f0048-03" width="550" height="1100"><figcaption class="caption-body">Oiler winger Craig Simpson moved into Wayne penthouse apartment.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-01133/5646447-1-eng-US/f0048-012.jpg" title="f0048-01" width="148" height="120"></div>EDMONTON&mdash;When Wayne Gretzky left for Los Angeles, he insisted on being accompanied by tough-guy defenseman Marty McSorley.You didn&rsquo;t hear Edmonton Oiler right winger Alan May kicking up a fuss.McSorley&rsquo;s departure could be the 6-foot-1, 215-pound May&rsquo;s ticket for NHL employment. At the Oiler training camp he didn&rsquo;t waste any time getting down to business.May, acquired by the Stanley Cup champions March 8 from the Boston Bruins for left winger Moe Lemay, dropped the gloves on three occasions during the first day of camp. Twice he tangled with Kevin McClelland and also had a bout with Steve Dykstra.&ldquo;May&rsquo;s a tough kid,&rdquo; said Ron Low, coach of the Oilers&rsquo; Cape Breton farm team in the American League. &ldquo;He takes the body all the time. And he fights the big guys.&rdquo;Playing for the Maine Mariners and the Sydney-based Nova Scotia Oilers of the AHL last season, May was 18-12-30 in 73 games, with 411 penalty minutes.In a three-game look-see with the Bruins, May accumulated an additional 15 minutes.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s how we grew up,&rdquo; said May, 23, who was born in nearby Barrhead, Alberta, but raised in Edmonton. &ldquo;We were always competitive. If somebody was better, you'd give &rsquo;em a punch. All the kids I know who play hockey are the same.&ldquo;We found out we had to do a bit extra with the mitts because our talents were suspect. All the kids from my age group went further because of that.&rdquo;May played 61 games with Maine before he was dealt to the Oilers and wound up with Nova Scotia. As fate would have it, Nova Scotia met Maine during the playoffs.A fight broke out involving all players on the ice.&ldquo;Three of their guys were ganging up on one of our guys, so I went over,&rdquo; said May. &ldquo;I was close to their bench and (Maine coach) Mike Milbury grabbed at me, so I grabbed his tie.&rdquo;May wound up in the Maine players&rsquo; box with his former coach, a chap for whom he has the utmost respect.&ldquo;But if you want to win,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you have to do anything.&rdquo;The following day he ran into Milbury again. The circumstances were much more cordial.&ldquo;We shook hands and were talking to each other again,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re a lot along the same lines.&rdquo;Despite NHL efforts to clean up the game. May said tough guys are here to stay.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re trying to get rid of high-sticking, but everybody wants a hard hitter,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Every time you see a fight, 18,000 people are standing-&hellip;maybe 200 don&rsquo;t stand.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Left winger Craig Simpson, a 56-goal man in 1987-88, signed' a multi-year contract on Sept. 15. Terms were not disclosed. Simpson has moved into Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s penthouse apartment&hellip;Center Jimmy Carson quickly realized training camp is different in Edmonton. &ldquo;The pace is much quicker. It&rsquo;ll take a little time to adjust. But this will make me a better hockey player,&rdquo; said Carson&hellip;Left winger Martin Gelinas, the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; No. 1 draft choice who was acquired in the Gretzky trade, signed a multi-year deal with the Oilers, as did defenseman Francois Leroux, Edmonton&rsquo;s No. 1 pick last June&hellip;Among the hopefuls at the Oilers&rsquo; camp was Brad MacGregor, son of Oiler assistant general manager and former NHLer Bruce.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>Printed in Canada &#9632;

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September 30, 1988

HOCKEY STICK ANALYSIS

Kluzak Undergoes Surgery For Eighth Time

TPS—Louisville’s Most Popular Stick Ever

NEXT WEEK