Search for your favorite player or team
© The Hockey News. All rights reserved. Any and all material on this website cannot be used, reproduced, or distributed without prior written permission from Roustan Media Ltd. For more information, please see our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
October 7, 1988
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.
McMaster Is On A Mission
Where Sam Mc Master goes, success is usually quick to follow and the long-suffering hockey fans in Sudbury hope that holds true this season. The new general manager of the Sudbury Wolves says he's never been involved with a hockey team that has missed the playoffs. This would not be a good year to start a new trend. But even someone as eternally optimistic as Mc Master must see a big job ahead. In the Wolves, the 44-year-old major-junior-GM-turned-NHL-scout-turned-junior-GM again has inherited a team that hasn't won a post-season game since 1980, has made the playoffs only once since then and sports the worst cumulative regular-season record among major junior franchises over the last eight seasons. Since 1980-81, Sudbury's record is 156-369-15. The Wolves were a woeful 17-48-1 last season, better than…
Calder Trophy Preview
Sean Burke made an easy stick save on the question, deflecting it neatly and directing the rebound out of danger. "What do you call a rookie who isn’t really a rookie?” he was asked. “That’s a good question—one you've got to answer," he replied. The NHL says that to qualify as a Tookie, a player may not have played more than 25 games in any single preceding regular season. The NHL says the winner of the Calder Memorial Trophy goes "to the player selected most proficient in his first year of competition in the National Hockey League.” Eligibility might be clearer if the league said first full year of competition, but that’s not Sean Burke’s problem. Nor is it a worry for Boston center Craig Janney or his linemate, left winger Bob Joyce.…
Lafleur’s Comeback Cause For Celebration
GUY LAFLEUR COMMITTED himself to our memories four years ago. He's not a player anymore, he’s a plaque. And if his attempt to play again strikes many of us as being off the wall, it is largely because he is in the process of being mounted on one. It is where he belongs. He is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, damn it. There are those of us who think he should act like a Hall of Famer by resuming what great stars of storied franchises are expected to do: Shake hands. This is not a column about Guy Lafleur’s comeback. It is about the way we look at it. Or, more specifically, it is about the way we believe we are looking at it while we are only looking…
Messier Must Grab The Torch From Gretzky
THERE'S AN UNFORTUNATE tendency in professional sport to talk about teams in terms of one man. For years, people said the Oilers were Wayne Gretzky, that Gretzky was personally, solely and ultimately responsible for every Oiler success. To a lesser degree, you also heard it about Mario Lemieux and the Penguins, Steve Yzerman and the Red Wings, Denis Savard and the Blackhawks and Dale Hawerchuk and the Jets. As is the case for many truisms, this one isn’t. One thing you learn from nine years of living in and around a pro hockey team is how important and how fragile team chemistry can be. Too many times, you measure a player’s contributions only by his goals and assists, by his plus-minus figure, by his wins and his save percentage. So you overlook the 28-point…
Made possible with the support of
