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 21, 1990

The Hockey News September 21, 1990

<div class="byline">BY MURRAY TOWNSEND</div>Bob Gainey, who is Minnesota&rsquo;s new coach heading into the season, has a chance to become a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame after his stellar 16-season career with the Montreal Canadiens. But being a great player doesn&rsquo;t always translate into being a great coach.Just ask Ted Lindsay or Brad Park. Lindsay (with a.224 winning percentage) and Park (.230) are first and second on the list of Hall-of-Fame players with losing coaching records since 1960.There have been 43 coaches in NHL history who had been inducted into the Hall of Fame as players. Only 16 managed winning records as coaches.The charts below list the records of Hall-of-Fame players who have coached since 1960.The first list has those coaches with winning percentages below.500 and the second chart lists those with records above.500.Coaching is a tenuous profession&mdash;especially in Los Angeles where they have had 9 different coaches since the 1979-80 season.The final chart lists the number of coaches and general managers each team has had since the last expansion in 1979-80.Coaches with more than one tour of duty with the same team were only counted once.<h2>LOSING GROUND</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-03102/5749095-1-eng-US/f0047-032.jpg" title="f0047-03" width="870" height="274"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0472/5749088-1-eng-US/f0047-042.jpg" title="f0047-04" width="864" height="250"></div><h2>WINNING WAYS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0552/5749081-1-eng-US/f0047-052.jpg" title="f0047-05" width="864" height="256"></div><h2>REVOLVING DOOR</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0642/5749074-1-eng-US/f0047-062.jpg" title="f0047-06" width="873" height="880"></div> &#9632;

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THE NHL

COACHES’ HALL OF SHAME

The Chicago Blackhawks went with four goalies during the 1989-90 regular season, but their most effective stopper in the playoffs was a fifth one, Ed Belfour. Jacques Cloutier, Greg Millen, Alain Chevrier and Jim Waite each saw seasonal duty, yet when the playoffs came. Belfour had a 2.49 goals against average and.915 save percentage in nine games. Belfour was with the Canadian national team most of the year.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02416/5748344-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="717" height="424"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jacques Cloutier</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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DEPARTMENTS

NUMBERS

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div>Mats Sundin, the first pick of the 1989 entry draft, fed up with the way he was being treated by his Swedish Elite League team Djurgarden, packed his bags and left Stockholm with Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; general manager Pierre Page and chief scout Pierre Gauthier Sept. 5.The impromptu visit to Quebec was supposed to be a secret, but the story soon made the Swedish and Quebec press. Sundin refused to speak with the media, leaving that to his Bostonbased agent, Mark Perrone.At first it appeared Sundin came to Quebec to start his career with the Nordiques. But both the Nords and Perrone said Sundin left Sweden to discuss his future.&ldquo;The big problem in Sweden is that players can&rsquo;t be represented by agents, so Mats has taken it into his own hands,&rdquo; said Page. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the one who has stood up to defend the rights of Swedish players. I respect him very much for that. He&rsquo;s shown lot&rsquo;s of maturity for a kid of 19.&rdquo;Meanwhile, Djurgarden officials were fuming. Chairman Ake Bergdahl lost his cool when Sundin told him he was leaving.&ldquo;You have Sundin and you can keep him,&rdquo; said Bergdahl. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll never play hockey again in Europe. He&rsquo;s barred from playing here. He agreed to terms for a new contract and now he just turns around and leaves for Quebec.&rdquo;Shortly after making the statements, Bergdahl admitted he overreacted. Bergdahl said Sundin would have to approach him before he would talk to the player.The big question mark remains the contract Sundin signed with Bergdahl in May 1989, a few weeks before he was drafted by the Nords.According to Djurgarden officials, the contract is valid. But both the Nordiques and Perrone think the deal, which has three years to run, is invalid. Perrone said certain oral promises made to Sundin when he signed the contract have not been met nor put in writing. No one was saying what those promises were.&ldquo;The Djurgarden people have in their possession a document that they think is a valid contract,&rdquo; said Perrone. &ldquo;And they are the ones who contacted John Ziegler to act as mediator in the matter. They are the ones who are uneasy.&rdquo;On Sept. 7, Sundin left Quebec with Perrone and then settled in for a few days in Boston.&ldquo;And nobody will decide Mats future except Mats himself,&rdquo; said Perrone. &ldquo;Not John Ziegler, not the Nordiques and not the Djurgarden people.&rdquo;The most silent party in the affair was the Nordiques. The club maintained nothing was negotiated between them and Sundin during his stay in Quebec.&ldquo;All we wanted when the whole story started was to make sure that Mats Sundin would be well represented in the planning of his future,&rdquo; said Page. &ldquo;We know he wants to play one more season in Sweden and we approve of his decision. What we want is not to wait for him for three years.&ldquo;If Mats wants to come here and play for the Nordiques, fine with us. But we wouldn&rsquo;t mind him playing one more season back in the Swedish Elite League.&rdquo;Page said there was a 50 per cent chance Sundin would play in Quebec this season. But he stressed he didn&rsquo;t want to rush things.Whatever happens, it appeared Sundin&rsquo;s career with Djurgarden is over. If he does return to Sweden, it would likely be with Sodertalje, which has asked Djurgarden to loan them Sundin&rsquo;s contract for a year.At the end of the lease, he would return to Djurgarden. A transaction of a similar nature involving ex-New York Ranger Peter Wallin was worked out between the two teams about 10 years ago.<h2>QUEBEC</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Sept. 7: Trevor Sttenburg, RW. signed contractSept. 9: Kip Milter, C. and Darin Kimble, RW, signed contracts. &#9632;

SUNDIN’S IMPROMPTU VISIT CAUSES A STIR

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01266/5748809-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="472" height="626"><figcaption class="caption-body">DAVE MOLINARI</figcaption></div>Rob Brown was a pretty popular guy around North America at this time last season, at least with the folks who immerse themselves in hockey pools.He was coming off a 49-goal season, seemed like a fixture on Mario Lemieux&rsquo;s line and looked to be a pretty sound investment for any pseudo-general manager looking for a big pointproducer.Never mind that he was among the most-hated opponents in the NHL, that Rangers goalie John Vanbiesbrouck had labeled him &ldquo;a goalsuck&rdquo; and not many people disagreed. So what if his brassy tongue infuriated opponents even more than his platinum hands? Here was a kid who could score goals while wearing a body cast.And maybe he could, but Brown couldn&rsquo;t do much of anything last season with the body he had, let alone the head that sat on his shoulders.The 33 goals and 80 points he had would be a career year for a lot of guys, but those numbers were only about half as high as many people&mdash;including Brown&mdash;expected him to put up last season.His performance fluctuated between apathetic and abysmal, with only an occasional burst of promise. It was embarrassing and, as it turns out, motivating.For when Brown reported to the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; training camp this month, he wasn&rsquo;t nearly the man he used to be. He was 11 pounds under the 197 he had checked in at last fall and had pared his body-fat percentage from 16 to 11.3.In case you&rsquo;ve ever wondered: Yes, the man does have ribs. They&rsquo;re actually visible.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never been this far ahead of schedule in my entire career,&rdquo; Brown said.And he&rsquo;s never strayed so far off track as he did last season. It reached a point where most opponents didn&rsquo;t even bother cheap-shotting Brown. Why try to neutralize somebody who&rsquo;s more of a threat to his team than yours?&ldquo;It was an up-and-down year,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;There were times when I showed spurts, where I&rsquo;d go on big streaks, and then there were times when I wouldn&rsquo;t do anything for games (at a time).&ldquo;I seemed to be in the doghouse most of the year and, especially at the end of the year, I wasn&rsquo;t playing. I was on the fourth line. It was really frustrating.&ldquo;I figured with the season I had last year and how disappointed I was, I didn&rsquo;t want to go through that again.&rdquo;So he reported to the Civic Arena in late July and spent the next few weeks sweating and straining and making a whole new impression on his bosses.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m impressed with the way Rob Brown has worked this summer,&rdquo; Pittsburgh GM Craig Patrick said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s improved his body fat immensely in the summer months, which is usually difficult to do because you don&rsquo;t have someone standing over you, making you work all the time.&rdquo;No, Brown was prodded from within, by the pride and competitive instincts that had been blunted by illusions that success was a given.The early results were impressive. During pre-camp scrimmages, he skated like, well, like an NHL player. Quite an accomplishment for a guy who usually looked like he was skating on sand. Uphill.&ldquo;On the ice, I don&rsquo;t feel it as much as it can be seen, apparently,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;I notice when I go around people that I&rsquo;ve got a lot more speed.&rdquo;Ponder that last sentence for a moment. Think about Rob Brown actually skating around someone, even in an informal scrimmage. If that&rsquo;s possible, are you still so sure the sun will rise in the east tomorrow?Now, consider the damage Rob Brown could do this season if his flabby body and attitude remain bad memories. He probably won&rsquo;t get his old spot alongside Lemieux back&mdash;Joey Mullen likely will be penciled in there&mdash;but Brown has a goal-scoring gift that cannot be denied.No opponent can harness him as effectively as Brown can stop himself. The key is for Brown to cease being an impediment to his own progress, and it seems as if that is happening.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m pleased with his attitude,&rdquo; Patrick said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very pleased with his attitude. And he&rsquo;s going to have to maintain that attitude to have a nice career in the National Hockey League. Hopefully, with Pittsburgh.&rdquo;Brown spent most of the summer on the trading block, but appears to have worked his way off of it. His next objective is to become a player Pittsburgh wouldn&rsquo;t dare to part with. &#9632;

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COLUMNISTS

BROWN LEAN, MEAN AND KEEN

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011280/5747163-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="575" height="601"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pierre Turgeon</figcaption></div>In next week&rsquo;s issue of The Hockey News, we will take a look at a National Hockey League team that always seems to be on the cutting edge of victory, only to cut short its title aspirations at the crucial moment.Like so many other years, the Buffalo Sabres seem poised for greatness this season&mdash;much like their star center Pierre Turgeon. Obviously dissatisfied with their chemistry, the Sabres performed major off-season surgery by dispatching Phil Housley and acquiring superstar center Dale Hawerchuk.But will it get them past old nemesis such as the Boston Bruins? We&rsquo;ll examine that question and more on an enigmatic franchise.Speaking of enigmas, we&rsquo;ll also profile former Sabre great Gil Perreault on the eve of his induction to the Hall of Fame. As bright as his star shone, there&rsquo;s reason to believe he, like the Sabres, could have been even greater. All that and a complete preview of the 1990 Hall-of-Fame ceremonies in the Sept. 28 issue of The Hockey News.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-021045/5747156-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="562" height="593"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gil Perreault</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

NEXT ISSUE

Another NHL season is upon us and with that comes another 21 exhibition games with teams from the Soviet Union.Since the influx of Soviet players&mdash;Sergei Makarov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Alexander Mogilny, etc.&mdash;the magic of playing clubs such as the Central Red Army has died. The general public is no longer interested in paying sums of money to attend these games and supporting the Soviet hockey association.Has the NHL approached the players and asked if they want to participate in these games? Players are risking injury in what are, in essence, meaningless games.If the NHL wants to play the Soviets, the only viable alternative would be to play an all-star challenge series&mdash;such as Rendezvous &rsquo;87 in Quebec. Failing that, the league should simply wait until 1991 when the true world championships will be played, the Canada Cup.Murray Mitchell Ottawa. Ont.<h2>HE&rsquo;S A STAR</h2>I wish you would have elaborated on the release of Glenn (Chico) Resch from the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; organization. TUN is my only source for hockey information since moving to Florida where ice can only be seen when experiencing Sea World&rsquo;s &ldquo;Penguin Encounter.&rdquo;I&rsquo;ve been a New Jersey Devils&rsquo; fan since their inception, and in the early days Chico was the sole source of inspiration. I would hate to think that the last note on such an illustrious Patrick Division career would be found in the &ldquo;Transactions&rdquo; section of your paper.Steve Fabian&nbsp; Indiatlantic, Fla.(Ed. note: Resch, the Flyers&rsquo; goalie instructor last season, has taken a similar position with the Minnesota North Stars.)<h2>NEW IDEA</h2>After considering all arguments on fighting in the NHL, the most convincing has yet to be noted. The biggest reason to keep fighting in the game is made by U.S. collegiate hockey, where fighting leads to an automatic ejection.At every whistle during college games the pushing and shoving begins and this drags on continuously-If you want to discourage fighting, let the players fight and don&rsquo;t stop the play. Let the players fighting decide the importance of that particular engagement. If one player leaves the fight and is chased, penalize the pursuer to a greater extent. But don&rsquo;t call any penalties until a regular stoppage.Jeffery Hollady&nbsp; Ann Arbor. Mich.<h2>BAY BOOSTER</h2>I just moved from the California Bay Area back to New York, and I must say that although the Golden Seals were a failure, the love for the game in that area couldn&rsquo;t be stronger.Every year fans in San Fransisco and San Jose look forward to seeing teams come to the Bay for pre-season games. Last year, tickets were sold out for three games in a matter of hours.Maybe the Gunds (brothers George and Gordon, owners of the Bay Area expansion team) aren&rsquo;t a deserving pair, but San Francisco and San Jose definitley are.Jason Saverino&nbsp; Middletown. N. Y.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011433/5747194-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="554" height="576"><figcaption class="caption-body">Trading Bobby Smith was a mistake by the Habs, says a reader.</figcaption></div><h2>A MISTAKE</h2>As a die-hard Montreal Canadiens fan, I would like to express my displeasure at Serge Savard&rsquo;s decision to trade Bobby Smith back to Minnesota.Bobby was a valuable member of the team for seven years, and being an experienced center, he would have contributed a lot this year as well.As it stands right now, Bobby will probably play the next two seasons in Minnesota and the Canadiens won&rsquo;t be seeing anything in return for him for a while. Getting a fourth-round pick was like trading him away for nothing.Gary Lauzon&nbsp; Winnipeg, Man.<h2>MINOR ADDRESSES</h2>Could you please run the addresses of the league offices for the American, International and East Coast leagues.Blaine Stork&nbsp; Maple Creek, Sask.American Hockey League 425 Union St.West Springfield, Mass.01089International Hockey League 3850 Priority Way South Dr.Suite 104 Indianapolis, Ind.46240East Coast Hockey League P.O. Box 310 Vinton, Va.24179Make your feelings known. Send your comments to:&nbsp;Letters, The Hockey News,&rsquo;85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont., M3B 2R2.&nbsp;Include home and business phone numbers. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

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SOVIET SERIES AN EXERCISE IN BOREDOM

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021159/5747225-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="524" height="616"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOB MCKENZIE</figcaption></div>The NHL has never claimed its drug policy is fair.But tough? Oh my, yes, the NHL revels in being tough. If you have heard president John Ziegler, you know what I mean.He offers a steely look, delivers his words sternly and with great conviction: &ldquo;Our policy is simple. Use illegal drugs and you lose your privilege to play in the NHL.&rdquo;He should, but never adds the postscript: &ldquo;For as long as I see fit.&rdquo;Don Murdoch was suspended for one year. That sentence was commuted to 40 games. Ric Nattress was suspended one year, paroled after 30 games. Borje Salming was given one year, and told to serve eight games. Bob Probert, the NHL&rsquo;s most serious offender, was expelled indefinitely and reinstated about a year later, which pretty much coincided with his release from prison.Fact is, the NHL doesn&rsquo;t have a true drug policy. It has a president who uses his allencompassing, for-the-good-of-the-game powers to pass judgments.At best, this &ldquo;policy&rdquo; is a public relations function to rival the &lsquo;Just Say No&rsquo; campaign. At worst, it is insensitive, perhaps inhuman, an ignorant approach that treats a debilitating illness as if it were a garden-variety transgression at the workplace.After seven years of dancing with the devil, Edmonton Oiler goaltender Grant Fuhr doesn&rsquo;t need 40 or 60 or even 80 games without pay. The man has, or had, a serious illness that requites, or required, medical rehabilitation.In the NHL, that is strictly his problem. The league absolves itself of any responsibility.What a terrible waste of the game&rsquo;s most precious resource&mdash;a talented player.Even if Fuhr had wanted to step forward and seek help in the early years, he wouldn&rsquo;t, for fear of disciplinary action. The league, meanwhile, has no first-strike policy to nip drug problems in the bud. Just what the NHL, including the many players who want no part of a legitimate policy, is afraid of, I&rsquo;m not sure.The NHL&rsquo;s blind-eye policy&mdash;dealing only with the unfortunate few who get caught&mdash;encouraged Fuhr to stay lost in a blinding snowstorm. So many knew the score, but without a drug-testing program were powerless to act.The league would do well to consider the firm-but-fair drug policy employed by the National Basketball Association. If an NBA player comes forward and admits to his problem, he gets three strikes.Strike one permits him to go to a treatment center (at the expense of the team and at full salary) for at least one month or until he&rsquo;s been screened to rejoin the team.Strike two is another visit to the treatment center (at the expense of the club but while suspended without pay).Strike three is a lifetime ban, with a window for reinstatement after two years.If a player doesn&rsquo;t voluntarily admit his problem and is caught in league-sponsored drug testing, he faces an immediate strike three. A total of eight NBA players have been banned for life.You can see, though, the NBA&rsquo;s thinking. It encourages its sick and weak to come forward. Only when a player has refused two life preservers, does he truly lose his privilege to play. And then the NBA lowers the boom with more than tough talk.If the NHL suspends Fuhr for a year or less, it is only administering a band-aid to a festering wound that really requires early identification, treatment and support. And if the NHL were to live up to all its tough talk and suspend Fuhr for more than a year&mdash;heaven forbid&mdash;it would be abandoning a talented young man who was never really permitted a formal chance to repent.Either way, it seems a callous disregard for a valued employee, a virtual virtuoso of netminders.Suspend Grant Fuhr? For what, being human? &#9632;

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SUSPEND GRANT FUHR? FOR WHAT, BEING HUMAN?

&#9632; Video replays. The time has come to employ them on disputed goal calls only for both the regular season and playoffs. It&rsquo;s a concept that only gets broad support at playoff time. NHL governors would be wise not to let the enthusiasm for the project die in the ambivalence of the pre-season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03752/5747256-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="374" height="376"></div>&#9632; Al Secord and Paul Reinhart. You couldn&rsquo;t find two players who approached the game from such opposite ends of the spectrum. But vive la difference. Secord represented a fearsome combination of toughness and scoring talent. Reinhart was as smooth as silk, a joy to watch. They can retire knowing they&rsquo;ve left us with some cherished memories. &#9632;

f0003-03

CHEERS

&#9632; New eligibility requirements for the Calder Trophy. The league didn&rsquo;t want to discriminate against Soviets, so it ruled against hockey&rsquo;s aged. Under the recent rule change, no one 26 or older can be top rookie. Experience, not age, should the criteria used to disqualify bastard rookies.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-04418/5747287-1-eng-US/f0003-042.jpg" title="f0003-04" width="369" height="376"></div>&#9632; New hockey card manufacturers. We&rsquo;re thrilled to have them on the scene, but couldn&rsquo;t they have been more careful? An odd mistake is one thing&mdash;we&rsquo;ve been known to make a few ourselves&mdash;but many of the new cards we&rsquo;ve seen are rife with grievous factual and spelling errors. Raymond Borque? These cards should be dealt with. &#9632;

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JEERS

<div class="byline">BY THN STAFF</div>All-star defenseman Al MacInnis and the Calgary Flames reached an agreement on a new four-year, $4-million contract on Sept. 10.Detailed terms of the pact were not released but the deal does include a $150,000 bonus if Maclnnis wins the Norris Trophy as the league&rsquo;s top defenseman. Were he to collect on that, his annual salary would also increase $150,000 per year for the remainder of the contract.Before reaching the new agreement, Maclnnis was going into his option year at a salary of $500,000.It makes the 27-year-old the fourth-highest paid defenseman in the league, behind St. Louis&rsquo; Scott Stevens ($1.3 million per year), Boston&rsquo;s Ray Bourque ($1.25 million) and Chicago&rsquo;s Chris Chelios ($1.2 million).<h2>A NEW LEAGUE?</h2>The proposed North American Hockey League will hold its first organizational meeting Sept. 15 in Cleveland to discuss plans for starting play in October, 1991.Founder Gordon Stenback said there would be representatives from Anaheim, Cal., Saskatoon, Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, Cleveland, Hamilton, Cincinnati and Indianapolis at the meeting. Stenbeck said he hoped to award at least four franchises at the meeting with two more to be awarded in October.&ldquo;This league is going to be better than the American and International League,&rdquo; Stenback said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be a salary cap higher than what theirs is. We think we have strong enough people to put teams in where there already is a team.&rdquo;The IHL has teams in Phoenix and Indianapolis while the East Coast League has a team in Cincinnati.The franchise fee is $1.25 million, with $1 million of it being a performance bond which will remain in escrow. The money could be used only in case of a financial emergency.&ldquo;I would say our goal of October, 1991 is very realistic,&rdquo; said Stenback, who added he learned a valuable lesson from the Global League which failed to start up this year as planned. &ldquo;I learned not to toot my horn too much and say I&rsquo;m going all over the world.&rdquo;<h2>NAME GAME</h2>The Bay Area expansion team has gone back to the sea for a nickname, but this time they&rsquo;ve opted for a little tougher image.Home to the California Golden Seals in the late &rsquo;60s-early &rsquo;70s, the area&rsquo;s 1991-92 expansion franchise will be known as the &ldquo;Sharks.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021309/5747325-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="596" height="246"></div>That name came second in popularity to the &ldquo;Blades&rdquo; in a name-the-team contest, but franchise officials felt Sharks was more appropriate. More than 2,300 entries from across North America were considered.Team colors, uniform design and long-term city-name are expected to be announced in the next two or three months. The Sharks will begin regular-season home play next year at the Cow Palace in Daly City, Calif., just outside of San Francisco.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011436/5747318-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="702" height="666"><figcaption class="caption-body">Al Maclnnis is the NHL&rsquo;s fourth-highest paid defenseman.</figcaption></div><h2>GARDENS PROBE</h2>Harold Ballard may be gone, but the controversy lives on.The longtime Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; owner, who died this past April, made headlines recently when it was discovered he had been selling Gardens&rsquo; property for personal gain over a 19year period.Maple Leaf Gardens, which began a probe after a former employee came forward with information and money, is seeking $275,000 from Ballard&rsquo;s estate. That figure breaks down into $100,000 in lost revenue, $100,000 in interest and $75,000 for the investigation.Included among the items from which Ballard illegally profitted are team equipment and tickets.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s regrettable it had to come out at this time,&rdquo; said Gardens&rsquo; lawyer Roseanne Rocchi.&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t do much for the memory of Mr. Ballard.&rdquo;<h2>KSU APPLIES</h2>Kent State University, which currently ices a Division I independent team, could be a member of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association as early as the 1992-93 season.Kent State athletic director Paul Amodio and hockey coach Bill Switaj made a formal presentation about their school and program to the CCHA Council (member school&rsquo;s athletic directors and faculty representatives) during its annual meeting, Aug. 12-13 in Harbor Springs, Mich. The council is expected to take a formal vote on adding the Golden Flashes in January 1991 at the NCAA Convention in Nashville, Tenn.Currently, the CCHA has nine members teams in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. Kent State is located in Kent, Ohio, 30 miles south of Cleveland, and would seem to be a logical geographic fit as a tenth CCHA entry. The last team to join the CCHA was Illinois-Chicago in 198283.<h2>OFFICIAL MOVE</h2>Referee Dave Newell, a 23-year NHL veteran, joined the league&rsquo;s officiating management team as a coach Sept. 6.Newell, 45, will direct his time assisting the younger officials in the development program and will supervise and assist at the NHL level as well.&ldquo;With Dave&rsquo;s on-ice experience, we feel he will be a valuable asset to our development program,&rdquo; said Bryan Lewis, the NHL&rsquo;s director of officiating.&mdash;With a file from Matt Carlson. &#9632;

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MacINNIS SIGNS $4-MILU0N DEAL WITH FLAMES

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>The NHL refuses to outlaw fighting but it has placed a fisticuffs embargo on the latest official league Stanley Cup film. The Quest For The Silver Dream. Produced by the New York-based Phoenix Communications Group, the movie details 1990 playoff highlights but it doesn&rsquo;t include any footage of the first-round New York Islanders-New York Rangers brawl. &ldquo;We left it out for a combination of factors,&rdquo; says NHL spokesman Stu Hackel. &ldquo;The video was running long, so there was a time problem and that particular incident had no bearing on the outcome of the game. And the NHL is not in the business of marketing fisticuffs. It&rsquo;s not one of the great things we&rsquo;re promoting about the game.&rdquo;&hellip;Peter Stastny is quietly celebrating the 10th anniversary of his defection from Czechoslovakia. A decade ago, Peter and brother Anton attended their first NHL training camp following their cloak-and-dagger exit from behind the Iron Curtain. The move, engineered by Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; boss Marcel Aubut, later brought the third Stastny brother, Marian to the NHL. &ldquo;That move helped save the franchise,&rdquo; says Aubut. &ldquo;We showed we&rsquo;d have credibility, were competitive and would win right away. The franchise could have been shaky if we weren&rsquo;t close and competitive at the start,&rdquo;<h2>FOXY VIDEO</h2>The Boston Bruins went big-time with their 1990 highlight video, Reach For The Stars, signing Hollywood&rsquo;s Michael J. Fox for the narration. &ldquo;Having Michael do it brings something special to our game,&rdquo; says producer Joe Curnane. &ldquo;Too bad the ending (Edmonton winning) wasn&rsquo;t better.&rdquo; Fox agreed to do the flick because of his close friendship with right winger Cam Neely&hellip;One-time Islanders&rsquo; prospect Peter McGeough, who had been advised by medics he&rsquo;d never walk again after fracturing and dislocating vertebrae in his mid-back during a 1988 game, is now able to walk with special ankle braces. &ldquo;People are happier with the way I am than I am,&rdquo; says McGeough, who was nearly killed after becoming tangled with Nicolas Beaulieu of Cape Breton in an AHL game. &ldquo;I know I&rsquo;m never going to play in the NHL, but I just want to be what is normal for me. I want to surf, to play tennis or softball. I can play now but not the way I used to.&rdquo;<h2>NO VOMITING</h2>Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; strength coach Pat Croce marvels at the difference between players at today&rsquo;s training camps and those a decade ago. &ldquo;Dry land training didn&rsquo;t exist then,&rdquo; says Croce. &ldquo;A player simply played hockey to get in shape. In those days guys would party and fish in the offseason. They&rsquo;dcome into camp, practise and throw up. Now, every player eats right, works out and does dry land.&rdquo;&hellip;After rescuing pro hockey for Minnesota, then selling his portion of the North Stars to Norman Green over a difference of opinion, Howard Baldwin hopes to complete a fulllength hockey film on which he&rsquo;s worked for years. It&rsquo;s called Red Line and deals with Russian-American hockey relations.<h2>MONEY TALKS</h2>New Halifax Citadels&rsquo; coach Clement Jodoin is getting a second pro chance after being brought down with Pierre Creamer in 1988 during one of the many Pittsburgh Penguin purges. Jodoin, then an assistant under Creamer, says the experience was good for him. &ldquo;I learned a lot with the Penguins,&rdquo; he explains,&rdquo;mostly that pro hockey is a business. It&rsquo;s dollars and tickets and you have to perform-.&rdquo;&hellip;Calgary Flames&rsquo; GM Cliff Fletcher on the escalating salary danger: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re entering a very critical decade. If salaries keep increasing, it&rsquo;s difficult to predict the future of some of the franchises in the smaller markets&mdash;and I&rsquo;d include Calgary in that category.&rdquo;<h2>NET VIOLATION</h2>Ivan Lendl is more active than ever in the Hartford Whalers&rsquo; affairs, both on and off the ice. The tennis ace plays goal in the club&rsquo;s new 30-second TV commercial stopping shots from various Hartford sharpshooters. Lendl, who aided the exit of top draft pick Bobby Holik from Czechoslovakia, will be the rookie&rsquo;s financial advisor&hellip;Letters to Bruins&rsquo; seasonticket holders touts Boston Garden as &ldquo;the single most famous arena in America.&rdquo; But to be sure fans don&rsquo;t get hung up on the proud lady of Causeway Street, the memo assures the new Garden will have &ldquo;all the excitement, tradition and mystique that&rsquo;s always made the old Garden something special.&rdquo; Meanwhile, fans are assured of &ldquo;premium seating&rdquo; in the new Garden. Club seats will range from $7,540 to $8,500 per seat, per year. The new Garden is targetted for a 1993 opening although rumors persist the recession has put its debut in jeopardy.<h2>SOUR FLOWER</h2>As for the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; blueprint to erect a new arena and abandon the historic Forum, Guy Lafleur says,&rdquo;Business is business. They (Canadiens) don&rsquo;t give a bleep for history and tradition anymore.&rdquo;&hellip;St. Petersburg Times columnist Hubert Mizell enthuses over the fact the NHL has two expansion prospects in his area, St. Pete and Tampa. &ldquo;This time,&rdquo; warns Mizell,&rdquo;hockey should click in the south. We southerners could be romanced into craving Wayne Gretzky and his game. Hockey is a foreign language to much of Dixie but no matter how slowly we talk, we tend to be fast learners. You need us, NHL, and vice-versa.&rdquo; &#9632;

FIGHTING BANNED FROM NHL VIDEO

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011338/5747380-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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ELSTON

<h2>JOE MURPHY</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-02974/5747411-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="551" height="1200"></div>Born: Oct. 16, 1967, London, Ont. Height: 6-foot-1. Weight: 190 pounds. Team: Edmonton Oilers. Position: Left wing. Acquired: Traded from Detroit in 1989.Career highlight: &ldquo;Winning the Stanley Cup last season. That&rsquo;s the dream of every player, and it&rsquo;s such a hard thing to do. And making a contribution (14 points in 22 playoff games) made it that much more satisfying.&rdquo;Boyhood hero: Bobby Orr. &ldquo;I always wanted to be a defenseman growing up because of him. I went to Bobby Orr&rsquo;s hockey school, collected his hockey cards and his posters. Of course, it made me a Bruins&rsquo; fan. too.&rdquo;Favorite visiting city: Vancouver. &ldquo;With the mountains and the ocean, the scenery there is just really beautiful.&rdquo;Favorite actor: Gene Hackman.Favorite TV show: ESPN&rsquo;s SportsCenter. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t watch much TV.&rdquo;Favorite pro teams outside of hockey: Chicago Bulls (NBA); Detroit Lions (NFL); Toronto Blue Jays (Major League Baseball).If he was NHL president for a day: &ldquo;I&rsquo;d do something to cut down on travel, though I&rsquo;m not sure what. I&rsquo;d also work on getting more exposure for the league in the U.S.&rdquo;Ideal evening: &ldquo;Having dinner with my wife Julie, going waterskiing on the lake at our cottage, then going for a hot tub.&rdquo;Person in history he&rsquo;d most like to meet: U.S. President-George Bush. &ldquo;I just think it would interesting to spend a day with the leader of the country. &#9632;

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PRO FILE

f0006-01

CENTER OF ATTENTION

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011400/5747501-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="491" height="624"><figcaption class="caption-body">STAN FISCHLER</figcaption></div>It&rsquo;s been nearly a year since Viacheslav Fetisov made the cover of Sports Illustrated and the pride of the Volga was being billed as the next Bobby Orr.In the months since then, life has been just to the left of hectic for Fetisov. At various times, he was: a) Punched in the mouth by Wendel Clark; b) Cross-checked in the back of the head by Dale Hunter; c) Credited with putting New Jersey in the playoffs; and d) Discredited for not putting the Devils in the Patrick Division finals.Talk to Fetisov today and you find the comrade both relaxed and enthused. He examines 1989-90 with remarkable calm and insight, admitting he wasn&rsquo;t fully ready for the NHL grind.&ldquo;I would approximate my performance to about sixty to seventy per cent of my total capability,&rdquo; Fetisov says. &ldquo;Before I came to the NHL I had been used to playing for one team with steady linemates who understood me perfectly. The games which I played there were more of a unit style as opposed to the individualistic games of the NHL.&ldquo;Yes, I expected it to be difficult (in 198990) but not as difficult as it was for me. That&rsquo;s the main reason I didn&rsquo;t play to my full potential.&rdquo;Fetisov does not suffer amnesia when someone discusses the NHL&rsquo;s rough edge and his encounters with Clark and Hunter, the latter of whom nearly beheaded him in the playoffs.&ldquo;This (talking of the rough stuff) definitely cannot go on any longer,&rdquo; Fetisov asserts. &ldquo;Something has got to change. The hockey I played for years was different from the hockey in the NHL. That&rsquo;s why corrective measures must be taken into our plan. I believe it will strengthen my game and that of my partners.&rdquo;And speaking of partners&mdash;as in Alexei Kasatonov&mdash;Fetisov was the centerpiece of one of the NHL&rsquo;s most bizarre scenarios last season. Fetisov and Kasatonov were the only Devils who spoke Russian yet neither talked to the other because of differences dating back to the Soviet Union.&ldquo;Some time ago,&rdquo; Fetisov admits,&rdquo;we were great friends. But this can happen to anyone; an American, a Swede or anyone else. People develop long-term friendships and break them over some reason. As far as my reaction to his arrival, it was negative for the following reason; at that time the team played well and the six main defensemen played successfully. There was, in my opinion no reason to change anything.&ldquo;But I want to be honest; Alexei fit into the team very well. We found something common in our game. We understood each other from the start, but this was only our job. A job should not affect a relationship. Maybe in some moments the relationship did affect our game. Maybe our game would have been more productive if our relationship was closer. Kasatonov only played half a season and played well. I&rsquo;m sure this coming season will be more successful.&rdquo;Fetisov kept close tabs on his former Soviet Army teammates, Sergei Makarov, Vladimir Krutov and Igor Larionov. He particularly empathized with Vancouver&rsquo;s Soviets who failed to play to their advance notices.&ldquo;They mostly had the same difficulties I did,&rdquo; Fetisov says. &ldquo;For example Krutov&rsquo;s family was not allowed to leave Russia. He had to go back, get permission for his family&rsquo;s release. He just did not have enough time to prepare fully. Makarov had the most success of our group but even he did not get as much ice time as he was used to getting back home.&ldquo;Still, Sergei was the best of the rookies and deservingly won the CalderTrophy according to the NHL rules. On the other hand we cannot consider ourselves rookies because we played against other national teams and have a great deal of experience. It&rsquo;s right that the rule has been changed.&rdquo;Fetisov and his wife, Lada, often visit Manhattan not to mention the huge Russian community in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, near Coney Island.&ldquo;I like New York,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I was bom and raised in Moscow and I&rsquo;m used to big-city noise. I&rsquo;ve been to Greenwich Village and Chinatown. These are very unusual places you will not see in other countries. I like to see the shows and especially enjoyed &lsquo;Meet Me In St. Louis.&rsquo;&ldquo;My favorite singers are Madonna, Janet Jackson and Bon Jovi. I can&rsquo;t name them all because the variety is too wide. I can watch MTV all day.&rdquo;Nothing has been more interesting than watching Fetisov assimilate into America. The free enterprise system appeals to him as much as a good bodycheck.&ldquo;In this country,&rdquo; he says,&rdquo;if a person has the talent and will-power to work&rsquo;hard, he can become anything he wants to be. To me, this is beautiful.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0009-01

FETISOV SPEAKS HIS MIND

<h2>OILERS</h2>The Oilers took last-minute signees Kenny (the Rat) Linseman and the good doctor Randy Gregg to Europe for a four-game exhibition swing. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad Kenny&rsquo;s back, I&rsquo;ve always liked him,&rdquo; said Oilers&rsquo; coach John Muckier. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a case of whether he can get his legs back to where they were three or four years ago. He&rsquo;ll get a good opportunity with us, he&rsquo;ll play a lot of exhibition games. Whether he&rsquo;s a part-time player or a full-time player, we&rsquo;ll have to wait and see. If Kenny shows he can play he&rsquo;ll give us more depth.&rdquo;&hellip;Gregg, meanwhile, turned down an offer from the Pittsburgh Penguins to re-sign with the Oilers. &ldquo;Pittsburgh made a very, very nice offer,&rdquo; said the Edmonton native,&rdquo;but, then again, I was an Oiler fan long before I was an Oiler player so again you&rsquo;re willing to sacrifice financially to play in Edmonton.&rdquo; Gregg signed a one-year deal with a raise on his $275,000 annual contract, though the pact was for less money than the Penguins offered&hellip;Rookie goalie Mike Greenlay replaced Grant Fuhr on the European trip. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got no complaints,&rdquo; said Greenlay, who nevertheless wished the circumstances could have better. &ldquo;But, that&rsquo;s out of my hands.&rdquo;<h2>FLAMES</h2>Traditionally, training camp isn&rsquo;t the most pleasant month in the NHL, but after last year&rsquo;s September tour of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, the Calgary Flames were thankful of a more conventional pre-season schedule. In retrospect, some players believe they spent too much time overseas playing tourist and not enough time getting ready for the season. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t for a lack of effort on the part of the Czech or Russian organizers either,&rdquo; said defenseman Jamie Macoun. &ldquo;They tried to give us the best they could. Unfortunately, they missed out on a lot of the stuff. They were giving us things you might want to eat once a month at a very expensive restaurant&mdash;caviar, smoked sturgeon, salted roast beef&mdash;for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Plus, there just wasn&rsquo;t enough water. I think that put us behind for weeks.&rdquo;&hellip;Provided he comes back completely healthy, center Joe Nieuwendyk is the favorite to replace Brad McCrimmon as team captain. Also in the running are Doug Gilmour, Al Maclnnis and Gary Roberts.<h2>KINGS</h2>Golden Pheasant, a colt co-owned by Kings&rsquo; owner Bruce McNall and center Wayne Gretzky, won the Arlington (Ill.) Million and $600,000 first prize Aug. 31. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always taken a liking to this horse because he was the first one I ever owned,&rdquo; said Gretzky, who owns a piece of 11 thoroughbreds with McNall. Golden Pheasant is expected to run in the $2 million Breeders Cup Turf in New York Oct. 27&hellip;Right winger Bob Kudelski, who played out his option last year and became a free agent with compensation, hasn&rsquo;t been able to come to terms on a new contract and is headed for arbitration.<h2>CANUCKS</h2>Troy Gamble, the Canucks&rsquo; 23-year-old goaltending prospect, made a serious commitment to his waistline before training camp. Gamble pared nearly 15 pounds off the chubby body that he carried to camp last year. He admitted it probably cost him a chance to stick with the Canucks. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s put it this way&mdash;I reported in the low 200s last year,&rdquo; Gamble said. &ldquo;I had been to Europe, I got married, my wife was pregnant and I did not train hard-.&rdquo;&hellip;While Gamble is shedding pounds, Igor Larionov is loading up. The jockey-sized Soviet center has added about 12 pounds to his weight of last season to improve his stamina. &ldquo;I was exhausted,&rdquo; admitted Larionov, who was bounced around like a pinball in his first NHL season. &ldquo;But now I am up to 76-77 kilos (167 pounds), all muscle.&rdquo; Larionov weighed only 155 pounds at the end of his first NHL season&hellip;Vladimir Krutov, who returned to Vancouver Aug. 22, kept his new slimmed-down physique under wraps. He didn&rsquo;t appear at any of the Canucks&rsquo; informal shinny sessions before the start of training camp&hellip;Despite a 20th-place finish, an increase in ticket prices and a sleepy off-season that didn&rsquo;t produce a trade, the Canucks still expect to have more than 10,000 season ticket holders for the second year in a row.<h2>JETS</h2>The Winnipeg Jets will have to wait at least another 12 months to catch a glimpse of Teemu Selanne in their revamped uniform. Selanne, the Jets&rsquo; No. 1 draft choice in 1988 (10th overall), was scheduled to make a two-week appearance at the Jets&rsquo; Saskatoon training camp but Jokerit of the Finnish Elite Division, Selanne&rsquo;s current employer, pulled the plug at the last minute. &ldquo;We were looking forward to having him at camp. Teemu was really looking forward to training camp because they didn&rsquo;t let him come last year,&rdquo; said Jets&rsquo; GM Mike Smith. Selanne had returned from nine months of rehabilitation following a broken leg suffered in a game in Finland last October. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s playing well but I don&rsquo;t think that has anything to do with it,&rdquo; said Smith, who was openly angry about the situation&hellip;The Jets have added yet more muscle to their organization with the signing of left winger Steve Martinson. The 31-year-old native of Minnetonka, Minn., signed with Winnipeg Aug. 29 after spending the past two seasons in the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; organization. The 6-foot-1-inch, 205-pound winger is the latest banger to join the Jets who already signed Darryl Stanley this summer and still boast Shawn Cronin and Gord Donnelly. &#9632;

RAT AND DOCTOR JOIN OILERS

Sept. 28, 1972: Left winger Paul Henderson scored at 19:26 of the third period to lift Canada to a 6-5 win over the Soviets in Moscow. The win gave the Canadians a four games to three victory in the eight-game exhibition series, with one match ending in a tie. Henderson ended his 13-year career in 1980 with the Atlanta Flames. He had 236 goals and 477 points in 707 regular-season games, also playing for Detroit and Toronto.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021002/5747556-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="623" height="414"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Henderson</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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FLASHBACK

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div>Glen Sather figures the Grant Fuhr bashing has gone far enough, and the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; general manager isn&rsquo;t crazy about the badmouthing he&rsquo;s received himself.Sather chided the beleaguered goaltender&rsquo;s former wife, Corrine, for raking Fuhr over the coals as a result of cocaine abuse allegations that first appeared Aug. 31 in the Edmonton Journal. Sather said Corrine&rsquo;s timing&mdash;she went public just days after Grant re-married&mdash;was impeccable.&ldquo;A vindictive ex-wife is getting even, because she&rsquo;s saying she&rsquo;s watching out for his life,&rdquo; charged Sather. &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t happen to believe that.&ldquo;If she isn&rsquo;t being vindictive, why didn&rsquo;t she do it six, seven, eight months ago, not just a few days after he gets re-married?&rdquo;Corrine told the Journal her motives behind going public were pure.&ldquo;My sole purpose in talking about this is to have Grant take a step into recovery,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My objectives would be to save his life and hopefully have a healthy parent for the kids.&rdquo;As well as being skeptical of Corrine Fuhr&rsquo;s reasons, Sather was also upset over abuse he&rsquo;s taken over the Fuhr matter.&ldquo;First of all, from the information I&rsquo;ve been given on substance abuse, it&rsquo;s very difficult to identify and, secondly, we don&rsquo;t have a mandate to force anyone to take a test unless they ask for it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I contacted (NHL president John) Ziegler and he said we don&rsquo;t have the right to do that.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like you can lead a horse to water, but you can&rsquo;t make it drink.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve confronted Grant several times on this matter.&rdquo;In the short term, Sather said the Oilers will await Fuhr&rsquo;s Sept. 26 hearing with Ziegler in Toronto.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll abide by whatever decision the league makes.&rdquo;Fuhr has stated he&rsquo;s been clean of illegal drugs for more than a year since spending a week in a Florida substance abuse center.&ldquo;But, I know denial is one of the things people who have substance abuse go through,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll probably need counselling, but it&rsquo;s difficult to force him to do something he may not want to do.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011485/5747587-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="560" height="818"><figcaption class="caption-body">Petr Klima can relate to what Grant Fuhr is experiencing.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;As a GM, I can&rsquo;t suspend Grant on allegations and rumors. This is something the league has got to do. Only the president can suspend him after an inquiry.&rdquo;Petr Klima identifies with Fuhr&rsquo;s plight.On Aug. 23 the Oilers&rsquo; left winger spent a night in a suburban Detroit jail and was ordered to pay $3,610 in fines, court costs and fees. He&rsquo;s lost his drivers&rsquo; licence and he&rsquo;ll also spend the next three years on probation&mdash;with the possibility of the third year in jail&mdash;as a result of four alcohol-related offenses on the 1989 U.S. Memorial Day long weekend.&ldquo;It took me a long time to realize I had a drinking problem,&rdquo; said Klima, who regularly attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.&ldquo;If you&rsquo;ve got a problem and you want to deal with it, it&rsquo;s going to stick with you all your life,&rdquo; said Klima. &ldquo;You have to take it one day at a time and the first few steps he has to take on his own.&ldquo;If he didn&rsquo;t admit he has a problem, he&rsquo;d be on the streets in two years,&rdquo; added Klima. &ldquo;If he doesn&rsquo;t want to help himself then nobody can help him. He has to do it on his own. This is his problem, but we&rsquo;ll be there behind him.&ldquo;Obviously, we can go together to meetings and if he needs to talk with someone, I&rsquo;ll be there. He doesn&rsquo;t have to hide anything any more.&rdquo;Klima said Fuhr should concentrate on the future.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no sense looking in the past,&rdquo; said the 25-year-old. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got to get cleaned up and come back to play hockey.&rdquo;<h2>EDMONTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Aug. 31: Randy Gregg, D. signed one-year contract, and Ken Linseman, C. signed two-year contract. &#9632;

f0010-01

SATHER. KLIMA EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR FUHR

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>His philosophy of life could be summed up in three little words&mdash;what, me worry?&mdash;and it&rsquo;s served him well.For years, people doubted Mike Vernon&rsquo;s ability to play goal in the NHL&hellip;until he helped win a Stanley Cup for the Calgary Flames.One year later, some of the doubters are back. Just about every analysis of the Flames and their chances for the upcoming season centers on goaltending.Vernon spent three separate stretches on the disabled list last season with back problems. Upon his return to the lineup, just in time for last season&rsquo;s upset playoff loss to the Los Angeles Kings, Vernon did not display the singularly effective net-minding that helped the Flames win it all in 1989.Perhaps the most haunting moment came in the final game when Mike Krushelnyski&rsquo;s chip shot in double overtime drifted just past Vernon&rsquo;s outstretched glove and skittered over the goal line, eliminating the Flames in the first round.The goal made every post-season highlight film and maybe cost Terry Crisp his job as the team&rsquo;s coach. Had the Flames won that night and forced the series to seven games, who knows how last season would have ended?Who knows? Who cares?<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021126/5747618-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="566" height="558"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Vernon wouldn&rsquo;t mind a lighter workload.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not the type of guy who dwells on it,&rdquo; said Vernon. &ldquo;It eats me that we lost and didn&rsquo;t play well, but the fact is, that was last year and this is this year and now you&rsquo;ve got to rebuild and get yourself mentally back together.&rdquo;Mentally back together and physically back together.Vernon said his chronic back spasms were not troubling him as training camp opened.&ldquo;I have some theories about what&rsquo;s wrong with it and the doctors have some theories, but I&rsquo;m the one who has to live with it. So I have to go about it the way I feel comfortable. I&rsquo;ve been seeing a chiropractor. I&rsquo;ve been working out, playing golf waterskiing and it hasn&rsquo;t botherec me.&rdquo;So is the problem gone?&ldquo;Basically, I think my spine was just out of line. When you&rsquo;re out of line, the muscles react differently From a goaltender&rsquo;s position, there is a lot of stress from the neck down to the lower back. I think that&rsquo;s basically what caused the spasms and the discomfort.&rdquo;In Crisp&rsquo;s regime, Vernon shouldered the goaltending load for the Flames. Rick Wamsley really only ever got to play when Vernon could not. In hindsight, Vernon thought maybe fewer starts would enhance his effectiveness.&ldquo;Look at last year,&rdquo; said Vernon. &ldquo;I missed close to two months and still got into 47 games. That&rsquo;s a heck of a work load if you consider our travel schedule. You do have to be 100 per cent healthy when you&rsquo;re playing. If you&rsquo;re five per cent off, well, players have to play hurt, but eventually, it catches up to you.&rdquo;Vernon actually completed last season with the second-best goals-against average of his career (3.13) but that was about half-a-goal-a-game worse than his 1989 GAA (2.65) which earned him runner-up to Patrick Roy in the Vezina Trophy race. &#9632;

f0010-02

‘WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN’ OF NO CONCERN TO VERNON

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div>If Larry Robinson finds the same kind of success on the ice this season that he enjoyed on the polo field during the summer, his second year as a Los Angeles King will be a lot more satisfying than his first.The 39-year-old defenseman played forward on a Montreal-based polo team that won all 13 of its matches and was getting ready to play in a roundrobin tournament leading to the world championships in Lexington, Ky., in late September.Robinson, of course, had to cut short his polo season in order to report to Kings training camp in Hull, Que.&ldquo;I still had a lot of fun. But if the team does well, I&rsquo;ll feel like I was a part of it,&rdquo; said Robinson, whose polo teammates included former Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; star Steve Shutt.Robinson has been playing polo for five years and says the off-season activity helps to keep him in shape, though he broke his leg in a polo-related accident in 1987 and missed the first 27 games of the &rsquo;87-88 season when he was still a Canadien.&ldquo;Except for that one unfortunate mishap, I&rsquo;ve had no problems whatsoever,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Hey, polo is like hockey on horseback.&rdquo;Robinson owns seven horses, six of which he kept on a 31/2-acre spread he owned near his home in St. Lazare, Que. The land and the house were sold this summer. Robinson, his wife and two children have moved into a home he recently purchased in the San Fernando Valley, north of downtown Los Angeles.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got our own home here now and we pretty much consider ourselves southern Californians,&rdquo; said Robinson, who will ship six of his horses to Florida for the winter. The other is kept at a stable in Palm Desert, Calif.Robinson feels more relaxed heading into his second season in Los Angeles than he did after ending his 17-year relationship with the Canadiens and signing a three-year, $1.65 million-deal with the Kings.&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be easier in that you&rsquo;re established here. I don&rsquo;t have to worry about moving and schooling and stuff like that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Knowing the guys you&rsquo;re playing with is also a big plus.&rdquo;While Robinson was the second leading scorer among Kings&rsquo; defensemen with seven goals and 39 points in 64 games, he hit a stretch during the season&rsquo;s second half when nearly every pass he attempted seemed to be turned into an opposing goal.&ldquo;He started to press,&rdquo; coach Tom Webster said. &ldquo;I think Larry&rsquo;s biggest problem was that he tried to do too much. That&rsquo;s because he cares so much, wants to win so badly. He was trying to make perfect passes, trying to stickhandle through teams. Then he got hurt and kept it to himself.&rdquo;Robinson played with a pulled groin down the stretch because, he said,&rdquo;We had so many guys out with injuries that I felt I had to try. I kept playing and wound up aggravating it more and more.&rdquo;A bout with food poisoning shortly before the playoffs began forced him to the sidelines. &ldquo;Put me on my back for a few days, which is probably what I needed,&rdquo; said Robinson, who responded with a solid performance in the Kings&rsquo; upset of Calgary in the first round.Webster doesn&rsquo;t intend to overwork Robinson this year. He plans to give him, Dave Taylor, 34, and John Tonelli, 33, an occasional respite from games and practices. They could sit out as many as 20 games.That&rsquo;s fine with Robinson, but he said,&rdquo;If the team is struggling, or if you run into injuries, you&rsquo;ve got to go with who&rsquo;s available.&rdquo;One thing Robinson will never do is second-guess his decision to leave Montreal for Los Angeles.&ldquo;I have no regrets whatsoever,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a great experience for me. Not only did I find out that there i life after the Montreal Canadiens, but this probably has lengthened my career by a couple of years. Certainly nothing would fulfill me more than to win another Stanley Cup.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011347/5747649-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="558" height="1122"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Robinson doesn&rsquo;t regret his decision to leave Montreal.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0011-01

HORSE-PLAY OVER, ROBINSON GETS SERIOUS

<div class="byline">BY GRANT McGINNIS</div>One year ago, Sergei Kharin would have been making history. Today, he cares only about making the Winnipeg lets.Clearly, the lot of the Soviet hockey player in North America has changed and the arrival of Kharin &lsquo;he Jets&rsquo; 12th-round draft choice in 1989 (240th overall), has been greeted with about as much excitement as the arrival of any other anonymous late-rounder.Kharin (pronounced Har-EEN) arrived in Canada Sept. 1. The 27-year-old right winger is a 10-year veteran of the Soviet Wings. He has not been signed to an NHL contract and the Jets have created few expectations for him.&ldquo;I know very little about him,&rdquo; confessed Jets&rsquo; coach Bob Murdoch. &lsquo;&lsquo;There&rsquo;s a certain advantage to that.&rdquo;Kharin arrived in condition and ready to play.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been here many times and right now, he&rsquo;s in very good shape,&rdquo; said Kharin&rsquo;s agent and interpreter, Mark Gandler of New York who also represents New Jersey&rsquo;s Alexei Kasatonov. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been on the ice since June 25, working out twice a day on ice and once a day with weights.&rdquo;The obvious question for Kharin is his adjustment to North American hockey, a task which proved most trying last winter for Soviet players with far greater international reputations than his.His answer was straightforward and confident.&ldquo;I have been here many times&mdash;15 I believe&mdash;so it will definitely be easier to adjust,&rdquo; Kharin said. &ldquo;But it will still be a tough camp. I&rsquo;ve been told NHL camps are tough camps. I don&rsquo;t believe that it is going to be a problem for me. I rely on my own strengths and my own play. I believe I have enough experience to compensate for what else was lacking in my ex-teammates&rsquo; play. I can grow from their experience and try to use it.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a little bit nervous. But I am excited. If I weren&rsquo;t excited or enthusiastic, I would not come.&rdquo;Kharin took to the ice for the first time in Winnipeg Sept. 2 in an informal scrimmage with several local players including more than a dozen members of the Jets.Winnipeg assistant coach Terry Simpson was there.&ldquo;I guess he&rsquo;s sort of what you&rsquo;d expect,&rdquo; Simpson said after the brief preview. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got good skills. He passes well. He&rsquo;s got a good sense of the ice. If you picture him in a Soviet situation I guess he&rsquo;d be typical.&ldquo;I guess everyone is just waiting to see how he fits in with the competition. There is opportunity here for him.&rdquo;Should he impress at camp, Kharin will be in a battle with the likes of Mark Kumpel, Doug Evans and Phil Sykes for employment.&ldquo;We have 60 players coming to camp. All of them have a legitimate chance of turning pro in this organization,&rdquo; Murdoch said. &ldquo;It remains to be seen how good this Kharin is.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll keep the 13 or 14 best forwards regardless of position. If he&rsquo;s capable of playing in the National Hockey League, he&rsquo;ll be given an opportunity too.&rdquo;Kharin, although he stands just 5-foot-8 and weighs less than 170 pounds, feels he is suited to the NHL.&ldquo;I like the physical games,&rdquo; said Kharin. &ldquo;Always my best games were played in North America. It&rsquo;s probably why I was drafted. I was always scoring goals and I seem to enjoy this type of game. I get up for it.&rdquo;<h2>WINNIPEG</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Aug. 30: Shawn Cronin, D, signed mul-b-year contract.Aug. 29: Sieve Martinson. L.W, signed multi-year contractSept. 4: Jett Parker, C, and Moe Man-tha, D. signed contracts &#9632;

SOVIET HOPEFUL JUST A FACE IN THE CROWD

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BEAMISH</div>The Vancouver Canucks knew they weren&rsquo;t getting a longterm guarantee when they drove defenseman Paul Reinhart out of Calgary Flame general manager&rsquo;s Cliff Fletcher&rsquo;s used-car lot two years ago.It&rsquo;s just that the Canucks didn&rsquo;t figure on Rhino&rsquo;s transmission falling out so soon.Two days before the start of training camp, the Canucks&rsquo; hopes for 1990-91 were dealt a blow when the 30-year-old Reinhart, regarded as the team&rsquo;s premier quarterback, announced his retirement.Coach Bob McCammon tried to put on a brave face.&ldquo;Maybe three years ago losing Rhino would have caused me more grief,&rdquo; McCammon said. &ldquo;Now we have a lot of kids coming along. Good teams usually build around youth, then they grow from that. But let&rsquo;s be honest, I&rsquo;d rather have Rhino.&rdquo;Simultaneously, a second Canuck defenseman, Larry Melnyk, bom six weeks after Reinhart in 1960, announced his retirement because of a deteriorating back condition.In contrast to Melnyk, an honest worker who had to struggle to make it in the NHL, Reinhart was regarded as a superior talent whose skills far exceeded his commitment to the game. The rap was that he played when the spirit moved him, and it only moved him when there were playoff bonuses attached.The longtime Flame played with an agonizing back condition and it seemed to be especially painful whenever the Canucks faced an arduous road trip in economy class. In one instance, Reinhart&rsquo;s rehabilitation was spent on a golf course in Palm Springs while his teammates trudged like a defeated army through the snows of the U.S. northeast.McCammon permitted Reinhart the option of setting his own agenda for practice. Yet there was no denying Reinhart could be a virtuoso with the puck when he wanted to be.In his two years in Vancouver, interrupted by bouts of down time, Reinhart produced back-to-back 57-point seasons. Last year, Canuck fans voted him to the franchise&rsquo;s 20-year &ldquo;Dream Team,&rdquo; even though Rhino had yet to play a full season in Vancouver.Canuck GM Pat Quinn knew Reinhart was playing on borrowed time when he acquired Rhino and utility man Steve Bozek from the Flames for a third-round draft choice in September 1988.Quinn got two useful seasons from Reinhart, but he was hoping to get at least a third while his youthful defense corps matured. Quinn turned down several deals for Reinhart at the trading deadline last year, one that would have seen Jeff Beukeboom and or Kelly Buchberger and Glenn Anderson headed to Vancouver from Edmonton for Reinhart&rsquo;s services.Hindsight says Quinn should have jumped at any deal while he had the chance. Now Rhino is history.&ldquo;We were willing and tried to convince Paul to stay on in a part-time basis,&rdquo; Quinn said. &ldquo;But, through a point of personal pride in his performance, he didn&rsquo;t feel he could give the best under those circumstances.&rdquo;Rhino, who through wise investments has assured himself of a comfortable hockey afterlife, was nonetheless saddened to be leaving.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a great career for me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There have been a lot of highlights. The last two years (in Vancouver) have been the best. When I go to bed at night, I&rsquo;ll have a little bit of a smile on my lips.&rdquo;Is that a smile&hellip;or a smirk?<h2>VANCOUVER</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Sept. 5: Paul Reinhart. D. and Larry Melnyk, D. retired.Sept. 6: Jim Sandlak. RW. signed two-year contract. Davo Mackey, LW. obtained from Minnesota tor future considerations &#9632;

REINHART PULLS SELF OFF THE ROAD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011360/5747728-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="512" height="619"><figcaption class="caption-body">STEVE DRYDEN</figcaption></div>The original Hero was a woman who inspired such devotion her earnest suitor drowned in a bid to reach her side.Today, it&rsquo;s some of our heroes who are drowning. The NHL should inquire about a volume discount on life preservers.A sampling of transgressions we have learned about over the past two seasons:&#9633; Grant Fuhr used cocaine for seven years.&#9633; Petr Klima spent a night in jail for drunk driving.&#9633; Chris Chelios is accused of urinating outside a bar.&#9633; Gary Suter became embroiled in a scuffle with undercover police.&#9633; Scott Stevens, Geoff Courtnail, Neil Sheehy and Dino Ciccarelli were implicated in a sex scandal.&#9633; Peter Ihnacak was charged with assaulting his wife.&#9633; Bob Probert served a prison sentence for drug smuggling.&#9633; Al Maclnnis faced charges after a late-night brawl.So great is the temptation to suggest we don&rsquo;t need another hero. But to do so would reinforce the special status we accord athletes in our society. Further affirmation is not necessary. Our athletes are already regarded as sporting gods.They live on pedestals higher than any penthouse we provide for them by helping pay for stratospheric salaries. They are beyond our grasp. And that&rsquo;s just the way we like it. Because if we could touch them we would discover the awful truth: They are of flesh and blood.Prone to the same frailties as us all.Mike Marshall, the ex-pitcher who shook up the Major League establishment during a superb career, always insisted we were mistaken to cast athletes as heroes. The iconoclast argued that the real heroes aren&rsquo;t athletes who appear and disappear in the time it takes for a fastball to travel 60 feet and six inches.The overwhelming majority are simply entertainers. No more. No less.No, the real heroes are those who make a-difference in our lives every day. If we must have heroes, and that seems a natural instinct, why not look to doctors, educators, coaches or other community leaders?It was a year ago that I got my first new hero in years.He was a funny-looking guy who&mdash;gasp&mdash;wore clogs. I thought he looked pretty silly until I discovered he was the man who opened up my father&rsquo;s chest, pulled out his heart and made breathing on a long-term basis possible.I was introduced to him. But within a day I had forgotten this man&rsquo;s name. This man who saves lives for a living.And yet I carry around, in my wallet, the picture of a man who made saves for a living. Ex-NHL goalie Charlie Hodge was one of my heroes.And to this day, I can identify 90 per cent of the players in the 1966-67 Topps set of NHL cards simply by catching a glimpse of the individual players&rsquo; hairlines. (It&rsquo;s a great party favorite.) We do not easily relinquish our sporting heroes.They have become so deeply ingrained in our culture.Maybe the medical associations could do the same for their doctors. Perhaps they could put out card sets. Everyone else is. Pro Set, Topps, O-Pee-Chee, Score, Upper Deck, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, the World Wrestling Federation&hellip;Surely some all-star doctors could get together and publish their own set. Imagine the action shots. Ah, but let&rsquo;s be honest, most collectors would rather have a Dave Keon card than one featuring Michael Keon, the Ottawa heart surgeon.Our choice of heroes is so ironic. We choose men and women gifted in pursuits most of us consider recreational. The guy sitting next to you at the office is probably just as worthy of your admiration as any pro athlete. Okay, so it&rsquo;s not quite as exciting to watch him record that entry in the books as it is to watch Patrick Roy record yet another shutout.Let&rsquo;s just keep things in perspective.So very few athletes are truly heroes. Nor should we expect them to be. They are not obliged to be role models. We have no right to expect that of them. We have the right to expect them to play hard on the ice. That&rsquo;s it.Grant Fuhr did not let down the Edmonton Oilers. Nor their fans. Bob Probert did not sabotage the Detroit Red Wings. Nor their fans. The four Capitals did not undermine the Washington Capitals. Nor their fans.They let themselves down. That&rsquo;s all. That is more than enough. &#9632;

f0013-01

REMEMBER, OUR HEROES ARE OF FLESH AND BLOOD

<h2>FLYERS</h2>Center Mike Ricci, the Flyers&rsquo; first-round pick (fourth overall) in last June&rsquo;s draft, came to terms on a contract on Sept. 4. Terms of the contract were not disclosed. Also signing on the eve of training camp&mdash;Sept. 5&mdash;was left winger Pat Murray. Ricci was the Canadian Major Junior Hockey player of the year. Murray is a three-year veteran of Michigan State University&hellip;Jukka Seppo, the Flyers&rsquo; second-round pick in the 1986 draft, declined to attend training camp. Seppo, a center/left winger from IFK, Finland, scored 42 points in 39 games last year but does not feel he is physically mature enough for the NHL. He was also slowed by injuries last year&hellip;Goalie Ron Hextali had not reached a settlement on his yearlong contract dispute as of Sept. 4 but team officials said he was scheduled to take his physical on Sept. 6, an indication he would report to training camp&hellip;Trainer Dave Settlemyer resigned Aug. 31 and was replaced by Gary Smith.. Right winger Rick Tocchet, who is trying to re-negotiate his contract, reported to training camp on time but hinted he may not play in the team&rsquo;s first pre-season game if a settlement hasn&rsquo;t been reached.<h2>PENGUINS</h2>Center Mario Lemieux&rsquo;s brother, Alain, was among the 67 players invited to the Penguins&rsquo; training camp. Lemieux, who was given a tryout by GM Craig Patrick, played for St. Louis, Quebec and Pittsburgh before going to Finland during the 1988-89 season. He did not play last year&hellip;Only three players at the Pens&rsquo; camp were bom outside North America. They are forwards Randy Gilhen (West Germany) and Jaromir Jagr (Czechoslovakia) and defenseman Jim Paek (South Korea). Fifty Canadians and 14 Americans were invited.<h2>ISLANDERS</h2>After a brief delay caused when a U.S. immigration official turned down his travel application, David Volek ultimately received the go-ahead and spent a month in his native Czechoslovakia. It was his first trip home since defecting in 1988. Volek said the immigration examiner had been &ldquo;nasty&rdquo; to him and his family, but that a lawyer called high-ranking immigration officials and arranged for the Voleks to travel only two days behind schedule. As for his homeland, Volek said it was not very different from the country he left&mdash;despite the overthrow of the communist government. &ldquo;Things aren&rsquo;t going to change overnight,&rdquo; he said&hellip;Mick Vukota also toured Europe during the off-season, visiting Paris and staying with relatives in Sweden, West Germany and Belgium&hellip;Rich Kromm, one of 13 left wingers on the Islanders&rsquo; roster, said he had an offer to return to play in Europe for a second straight year. But the promise of a wide-open training camp with the with Islanders persuaded him to give the NHL another try. &#9632;

FLYERS’ TOP PICK RICCI SIGNS DEAL

A center for four teams between 1972-73 and &rsquo;83-84, Wayne Merrick, 38, is involved in several business ventures including an air filtration company and a racquetball club on Long Island. Merrick, who played on four Stanley Cup-winning New York Islander teams, remembers the first one best. &ldquo;I never ever thought I&rsquo;d win one,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why it was so satisfying.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-02982/5747783-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="589" height="408"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Merrick</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0013-02

THEN & NOW

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE FISH</div>The clock is always ticking in hockey. Not just during the games but on every player&rsquo;s personal timepiece.Time works against the aging veteran who tries to squeeze one more year out of his NHL career. But it can also work against a young player who attempts to get his foot in the door.Since the draft limit was lowered to 18-year-olds, the player development process seems to have accelerated. If a player hasn&rsquo;t made it to the NHL by age 20 or 21, the odds are working against him.That&rsquo;s why the upcoming season is such a critical one for players like the Flyers&rsquo; Len Barrie.Barrie was drafted in the 6th round in 1988 by the Edmonton Oilers, not that long ago in some peoples&rsquo; books. But Barrie was never signed by the Oilers and last Feb. 7 signed as a free agent with the Flyers.The 6-0, 193-pound centef turned 21 in June. He&rsquo;s coming off a spectacular season at Kamloops of the Western League in which he was the scoring leader with 85-100-185 totals.With that sort of achievement in his portfolio, Barrie came to the Flyers&rsquo; training camp on Sept. 5 with the attitude that this is a make or break season.New assistant coach Ken Hitchcock, who coached Barrie at Kamloops last season, said that was the proper approach to take. Barrie came through with a big season at age 20 and Hitchcock expects a repeat this year.&ldquo;When you&rsquo;re 20 years old, you basically have one year of hockey,&rdquo; Hitchcock said. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t make it, you&rsquo;re done, finished.&ldquo;He had unreal pressure on him last year. He knew this was it. The Oilers had kind of cast him adrift. He knew if he didn&rsquo;t have an outstanding year, his career was over.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what he dealt with. He knew he had to come out of the gate smokin&rsquo; or nobody was going to be interested in him.&rdquo;The reason Barrie was a bit slow to blossom was because the team he played for from 1987 to &rsquo;89 (Victoria) did not have the talent to bring out his skills, said Flyers&rsquo; general manager Russ Farwell&mdash;who was also in the WHL last season as Seattle&rsquo;s GM.&ldquo;He has always been a top player but nothing that jumped out at you,&rdquo; Farwell said. &ldquo;Once he moved into a program that was well-run, he went right to the head of the pack. He responded to the good coaching.&rdquo;Barrie made some other significant changes in his game. He dropped his penalty minutes down to 108 last year after averaging 174 the three previous years. And he made a conscientious effort to keep his weight near 200 pounds.Hitchcock isn&rsquo;t certain all these factors will be enough to earn Barrie a job with the Flyers but he believes the opportunity will be offered.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure he&rsquo;s ready to step in and play yet. But he&rsquo;s dedicated and he&rsquo;s got his weight down where he wants it. He&rsquo;s down between 190 and 195,&rdquo; said Hitchcock. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s dedicated fitness-wise for the first time because it&rsquo;s never been a major concern of his.&rdquo;Barrie, who is married and has a young daughter (Victoria), said he will take the same approach to this year as last year.&ldquo;If I hadn&rsquo;t been traded to Kamloops last year, I wouldn&rsquo;t have played,&rdquo; Barrie said. &ldquo;It almost came to that. But Kamloops treated me really well and it worked out all right.&rdquo;Barrie&rsquo;s attitude remains positive.&ldquo;Some kids say their dream is to play in the NHL,&rdquo; said Barrie. &ldquo;My dream is to play in the NHL and win.&rdquo;<h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Sept. 4: Mike Ricci, C, signed contract.Sept. 5: Pat Murray. LW. signed contract. &#9632;

MAKE OR BREAK SEASON FOR21-YEAR-OLD CENTER

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div>Mario Lemieux&rsquo;s back has given him almost no trouble since his surgery in midJuly. The roster has been upgraded by several off-season moves. Optimism around the Civic Arena might be at unprecedented levels.But as is so often the case with the Pittsburgh Penguins, there is a dark cloud obscuring&mdash;and threatening to consume&mdash;any silver linings that happen to pass through.The Penguins, like most teams, had some frustrating contract negotiations during the summer, but it&rsquo;s safe to assume few franchises made so little progress with so many key players.As the team entered training camp Sept. 7, management still had not signed the likes of Paul Coffey, Kevin Stevens, John Cullen and Mark Recchi, all of whom are about to enter their option year.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been working at this for the last six months and it&rsquo;s not very encouraging,&rdquo; said Tom Reich, Coffey&rsquo;s agent. &ldquo;The negotiations are not going well.&rdquo;The talks with Coffey were complicated by the $5,145 million deal free agent Scott Stevens signed with St. Louis, a contract that skewed the salary structure for NHL defensemen.The Penguins contend Stevens&rsquo; contract has no bearing on Coffey&rsquo;s talks; Coffey and Reich contend that deal, along with the one Raymond Bourque signed with Boston for a similar amount, have established new parameters for salaries.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve made very generous overtures at this point,&rdquo; said Penguins&rsquo; general manager Craig Patrick,&rdquo;but unfortunately, for the time being, we&rsquo;re at an impasse.&rdquo;Reich described Coffey as &ldquo;a veteran player who&rsquo;s been screwed around and underpaid his whole career.&rdquo; Coffey, 29, led NHL defensemen in points (103) and salary ($450,000) last season, while finishing near the bottom of the league with a minus-25.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011435/5747838-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="556" height="526"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kevin Stevens and Pittsburgh are far apart on a new contract.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;With all the good things they&rsquo;ve accomplished this off-season&mdash;and boy, there were some significant things, including (assembling) a strong front office&mdash;I can&rsquo;t believe they&rsquo;re taking the position they&rsquo;re taking,&rdquo; Reich said. &ldquo;Unless they really don&rsquo;t mind getting rid of Paul.&rdquo;There&rsquo;s been no firm indication the Penguins plan to trade Coffey, and it&rsquo;s even more unlikely they will part with key young players such as Stevens, Recchi and Cullen.But Jay Grossman, Stevens&rsquo; agent, said the Penguins have been unwilling to pay what he considers reasonable money for his client&rsquo;s services.A few days before camp opened. Grossman said the Penguins had &ldquo;not put a serious proposal on the table,&rdquo; and that &ldquo;their offers are not even close to where we want to be.&rdquo;Several players and agents said the Penguins appear to have different salary standards for players under contract to them and those from other teams. They say the team is tight-fisted with its own personnel, but generous with offers to free agents such as Bryan Trottier (who accepted) and Randy Gregg (who re-signed with Edmonton).&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve turned around and shut off the faucet,&rdquo; Grossman said. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t speak for anybody but Kevin, but it seems guys like Kevin, John Cullen and Recchi are in the same boat. These are guys who have produced for this team.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0014-01

STORM FRONT LOOMS LARGE

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div>Claude Lemieux was getting worried. Training camp was fast approaching and the scrappy right winger could not bear to spend another season with the Montreal Canadiens in coach Pat Burns&rsquo; doghouse.Lemieux had asked Serge Savard to trade him several times dating back to the 1988-89 season, but the Montreal general manager had not been offered enough in return.&ldquo;I got very scared. I was after Mr. Savard almost every day on the phone trying to find out what was going on,&rdquo; said Lemieux.Finally, just hours before Savard and the Canadiens boarded a flight for their exhibition tour of the Soviet Union, a deal was completed in which Lemieux was traded to the New Jersey Devils for supremely-talented but injury-prone left winger Sylvain Turgeon.&ldquo;I waited all summer for this trade,&rdquo; said Lemieux, who was in New Jersey skating informally with his teammates less than 24 hours after the Sept. 4 swap of 25-year-old Quebec natives. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very happy going to a city I&rsquo;m positive I&rsquo;m going to love to play in. This is a team I wanted to play for and that&rsquo;s the truth.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be a complete change and that&rsquo;s what I needed. I didn&rsquo;t want to go to a city where hockey is so important. With the Devils, there are so many basketball, football and baseball teams around that hockey is not as important for the people in New Jersey as it is in Montreal. I needed to go to a place where I could walk on the street with my wife and kid and be left alone. Live a normal life.&rdquo;More importantly, he needed to get away from Burns. Their longstanding feud started when Bums fined and suspended Lemieux for one game in 1988-89 for missing a curfew in St. Louis. Later that year he was embarrassed when Burns would not allow therapist Gaetan Lefebvre on the ice to attend to Lemieux&rsquo;s injury.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really want to make any comments about the Montreal people, Serge Savard or Pat Burns,&rdquo; Lemieux said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s behind me. All lean say is I had my problems and I asked for a trade a year ago and I asked again this summer. I really look forward to a new start and I don&rsquo;t want to get involved with what happened.&rdquo;Ironically, Turgeon suffered a tear in his abdominal wall similar to the injury that kept Lemieux out of the lineup for 41 of Montreal&rsquo;s first 42 games last season. While Lemieux recovered following Nov. 1 surgery to post 8-10-18 totals in 39 games, Turgeon&rsquo;s health is less certain. It is likely to be late November before he plays for the Canadiens.Turgeon was 30-17-47 in 72 games last season for the Devils but only played in one of six playoff games because of the injury. He has twice missed half of a season due to injuries.&ldquo;I was shocked at the trade. It was a surprise,&rdquo; said Turgeon. &ldquo;I think the Devils were worried about my injury and they wanted a guy who can play right away.&rdquo;More to the point, the Devils wanted a player who could stir up trouble and add some muscle to a team that went down meekly in the first round of the 1990 playoffs.&ldquo;Claude&rsquo;s going to be a player that other teams are not going to want to play against,&rdquo; said Devils&rsquo; GM Lou Lamoriello. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way he played in his division and that&rsquo;s his reputation.&rdquo;With 576 penalty minutes in 281 career NHL games, Lemieux is an aggressive type of player known for stirring up trouble.&ldquo;I know if I want to be at my best have to play hard and be physicale That&rsquo;s a big part of my game, Lemieux said. &ldquo;I like to take the body. I&rsquo;m not a goon and I&rsquo;m not; excellent fighter, but I can take care myself.&rdquo;<h2>NEW JERSEY</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Aug. 28: Craig Billington. G. assigned to Canadian national team. Janne Ojanen, C, assigned to Tampere of Finnish Elite League. Paul Ysebaert, C. signed multi-year contract.Sept. 4: Sylvain Turgeon. LW. traded to Montreal for Claude Lemieux. RWSept. 6: Bob Brooke. C. traded to Winnipeg for Laurie Boschman. C &#9632;

TRADE MAKES LEMIEUX’S WISH COME TRUE

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div>Rangers&rsquo; take-it-or-leave-it offer of approximately $420,000 a season for two years, plus incentives which could add about $75,000.Smith, who has declined to carry on his end of the dollar debate in the media, has maintained the Rangers&rsquo; right to match any offer by another club and insisted he intends to sign Ogrodnick.Since Smith has already signed Mike Gartner, who has played only 22 games as a Ranger, to a two-year deal worth more than $1.1 million, Oppenheim wants to know why Ogrodnick, who scored 43 goals last season for the Rangers and not for the Minnesota North Stars, is not entitled to a similar payday.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d be surprised if John plays for the Rangers this season,&rdquo; said Oppenheim. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re trying to make some kind of an example out of him for what reason I don&rsquo;t know.&ldquo;(Smith) says now that he doesn&rsquo;t even want to hear any more proposals. What kind of treatment is that? Bob Probert got better treatment than that. John played every game, was the plus-minus leader (plus-11), never got into trouble&hellip;what&rsquo;s going on?&ldquo;I guess they think John is going to put his tail between his legs, come back and say, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m sorry. Pay me what you want.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s not going to happen.&rdquo;<h2>N.Y. RANGERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Sept 4: Jody Hull. RW. signed contract. &#9632;

YOUNGSTER QUITS WHILE VETERAN SITS

<div class="byline">BY MARK HERRMANN</div>For all their intentions of strengthening their future, the New York Islanders showed they still recognize the value of an accomplished past.That is why the team leaning toward youth reached for a distinguished veteran, defenseman Craig Ludwig. The 29-year-old was acquired from Montreal in a trade for 25-year-old defenseman Gerald Diduck Sept. 4.&ldquo;Although we are giving up a little in age, we are gaining invaluable experience,&rdquo; said Islanders&rsquo; general manager Bill Torrey.The trade was a sign the Islanders are not writing off the present and they are re-evaluating the players who arrived just after the Stanley Cup years. Diduck, the second of two first-round picks in 1983 and a six-year veteran, never fulfilled management&rsquo;s expectations.Diduck&rsquo;s best season was two years ago when he was 11-21-32 in 65 games and showed signs of being an accomplished two-way player. But the Islanders were disappointed with his performance last season when he was 3-17-20 in 76 games.At the same time, Torrey insisted the trade is another step in the youth movement. &#9632;

LUDWIG BRINGS EXPERIENCE TO YOUNG DEFENSE

<div class="byline">BY DAVE SELL</div>Capitals signed two players who played last season in Czechoslovakia. Defenseman Jiri Vykoukal and right winger Peter Bondra arrived in Washington Aug. 24 and each signed three-year contracts.Vykoukal, 19, was a second-team all-star at the 1989 World Junior Championships in Alaska and played Czechoslovakian team in the recently-completed Goodwill Games. Vykoukal apparently has no further contractual obligations to Sparta Praha, for whom he played last season. However, Bondra&rsquo;s is a more complicated tale.First, contractually, his situation appears similar to that of Jergus Baca, the defenseman who reached an agreement with Hartford in July. Like Baca, Bondra played for Kosice in the Czech Elite League.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure this will be a problem,&rdquo; Capitals general manager David Poile said in the first days after the signing. &ldquo;Bondra has a contract with his team in Kosice, but in our opinion, the contract is not valid for a number of reasons. We&rsquo;ll deal with the NHL and see what happens.&rdquo;Whatever the NHL eventually decides, Bondra said he thinks the contract is invalid because it was signed two years ago when Czechoslovakia was ruled by a restrictive communist government. That contract with Kosice, Bondra said through an interpreter, runs through 1999.&ldquo;Because of the changes in the government, I feel the definition of the contract has changed,&rdquo; Bondra said. &ldquo;The changes have meant the freedom to move out.&rdquo;Bondra&rsquo;s contract situation isn&rsquo;t the only tangled issue. Technically, he is still a Russian.Bondra was bom in the Ukraine to a Slovak father and Polish mother. When he was three years old, the family moved to Slovakia.Thus, Bondra grew up in Czechoslovakia, but does not have citizenship. He still carries a Soviet passport. He said that if he had stayed in Czechoslovakia for another year or so, he would have been able to gain citizenship in that country. Asked what he considers himself to be regardless of the paperwork he said,&rdquo;Slovak.&rdquo;Because Bondra was not a citizen, he was not able to play on any of the Czech national teams. So, though he said he had played in some games elsewhere in Europe, this is his first trip to North America. It is also at least a partial explanation for why the 22-year-old Bondra was not drafted until the Capitals made him their ninth-round choice-Bondra, 6-feet and 180 pounds, shoots left but played right wing for Kosice. Last season, he was the third-leading scorer in the Czech Elite League. He scored 29 goals and 17 assists in 42 games.Vykoukal has more international experience. Though the Capitals list him at 5-foot-l1, they are being a bit generous and he will need to put on some pounds. Vykoukal was the Capitals&rsquo; ninth-round pick in 1989. Jack Button, the Capitals&rsquo; director of player personnel, visited Czechoslovakia this summer and the negotiations were completed at the Goodwill Games.&ldquo;Right now, the really good players in the Czech league are all going across the border,&rdquo; Vykoukal said. &ldquo;By going to the NHL&mdash;which is better than the Czech league&mdash;I could improve even more. Going to the NHL was an opportunity.&rdquo;Though Vykoukal has three prior trips to North America, neither he nor Bondra speaks much English. A translater has been with the two since they arrived and will stay through the first week or two of training camp. By then, some of what the pair are learning in English classes will hopefully kick in.<h2>WASHINGTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Aug. 31: Robin Bawa, RW. signed contract. &#9632;

ONE OF TEAM’S CZECHS MAY BOUNCE

Lorne (Gump) Worsley was the last of a dying breed.For 21 seasons, 930 games, more than 50,000 minutes, Worsley tended goal without a mask&mdash;a feat most stoppers today wouldn&rsquo;t consider for a second.&ldquo;When I started playing, the mask didn&rsquo;t even exist,&rdquo; said Worsley, who played with the New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens and Minnesota North Stars during a career that started in 1952 and ended in &rsquo;74.&ldquo;Then one day, Jacques Plante came on the ice wearing this funny thing on his head. I&rsquo;m looking at him from the other end of the ice trying to figure out what he&rsquo;s up to. Before you know it, everyone had a mask on.&rdquo;More than 20 years later, the goalie mask has entered a new dimension. All but gone are the Plante-style fiberglass shields that made the likes of Gilles Gratton and Gary Simmons celebrities more for their artwork designs than their puck-stopping talents.Most professional goaltenders today are opting for the cagecombination mask, an idea that combines the groundwork design of Plante and the standard helmet-and-cage mask worn by minorhockey players.&ldquo;Three-quarters of the goalies in the NHL are wearing the cagecombination,&rdquo; said Greg Harrison, a long-time designer of masks. &ldquo;The other quarter is either waiting for their order to come through or they simply won&rsquo;t try them.&rdquo;Harrison and his Toronto-based company, The Mask, design and produce masks for 70 goalies in the National, American and International leagues. The cagecombination goes beyond the fashion statement of the fiberglass shield and the cumbersome hel-met-and-cage alternative.&ldquo;Each mask is custom made to fit just the one person,&rdquo; Harrison said. &ldquo;The face is moulded and the mask is built around it.&rdquo;The cage combination has a front and back piece with a reinforced welded stainless steel cage around the facial area. The feature most impressive about the cage combination is that there are no flat areas on the mask that would allow a puck to hit flush.&ldquo;In all my time designing these, I haven&rsquo;t heard of any injuries&hellip;not one,&rdquo; Harrison said. &ldquo;There are no pressure points and because the mask is made based on each person, there&rsquo;s no slapping around of the head inside the mask.&ldquo;Any puck that hits the mask deflects off regardless of the angle it came.&rdquo;Harrison started designing masks in 1970 and first came up with the cage combination in &rsquo;77 for Dave Dryden. It didn&rsquo;t make Dryden stops pucks anything like his brother Ken, but it probably put him in a safer environment.Most NHL goalies today have gone to Harrison for their special design. At this level of the game, it&rsquo;s notlikely they would choose an off-the-shelf mask any more than they&rsquo;d settle for an off-the-rack suit.&ldquo;The biggest mistake they could make is to go to a one-size-fits-all mask,&rdquo; Harrison said. &ldquo;It just fills in the space with foam. It&rsquo;s not safe.&ldquo;If I strictly made one-size-fits-all masks, I&rsquo;d be making a lot of money.&rdquo;Chris Terreri of the New Jersey Devils, John Vanbiesbrouck of the New York Rangers and Mark Fitzpatrick of the New York Islanders are the latest stoppers who have moved over to the cagecombination.There are still a few, like Glen Healy of the Islanders and Kelly Hrudey of the Los Angeles Kings, who prefer the helmet-and-cage mask, but it is believed only one professional goalie last season&mdash;Sam St. Laurent of the Detroit Red Wings&mdash;went with the old-style fiberglass shield. &#9632;

A NEW DIMENSION FOR THE GOALIE MASK

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011031/5748024-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02754/5748017-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="1457" height="1975"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01906/5748010-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="1469" height="1556"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02608/5748003-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="1499" height="1448"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01714/5747996-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="1517" height="1130"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02464/5747989-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="1435" height="1062"></div> &#9632;

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HOCKEY PRODUCT ANALYSIS

Cooper, the world&rsquo;s largest manufacturer of protective hockey equipment, enters the decade of the 1990s with an exciting state-of-the-art hockey line. Central to the composition of Cooper&rsquo;s hockey line are the simple but powerful concepts of air suspension, lightweight comfort and exciting styling.Cooper introduces the exciting new TF100 Techniflex hockey glove in 1990. The Techniflex features pre-curved fingers and precurved back. The Techniflex is the first hockey glove that fits your hand exactly, following the contours of your wrist and fingers. The TF100 is available in a limited supply this fall. Check with your local Cooper-authorized hockey store.The popular AllStar Series, designed for recreational senior and junior players, has a whole new look for the 1990 season. The AllStar&rsquo;s will now feature Cooper&rsquo;s exclusive Tuffstuff covering for improved durability and pre-curved fingers for greater fit and flexibility. Bold new graphics, and short cuff designs on the senior models, give the AllStar series a contemporary look.In shoulder pads, Cooper is introducing the second generation Defender shoulder pads with a key improvement being the addition of an adjustable air suspension liner for added comfort and protection. Both styles of Defender shoulder pads, the SBD Pro and SBD Pro II will feature Cooper&rsquo;s air suspension liner and, in addition, all Defender shoulder pads will be available in extra large sizes to fit even the largest players. Also available in extra large sizes will be the popular Cooperall upper-body protectors, the CSB Pro and GSB2.The SB100 shoulder pad is a new product designed to meet the performance needs of the serious competitive players. The pad features the same high-impact shoulder caps used in the Defender, and combines those with a lightweight comfortable lace-up arch pad to give excellent protection in the critical shoulder blade area.In elbow pads, Cooper is introducing the second generation Flexlight series for the top-level player. This new pad will also feature an adjustable air suspension liner for added comfort and protection. Bold blue graphics and binding give the pads a clean contemporary appearance.For senior and junior recreational players, Cooper introduces the EK16-18 series, and the EK10-12 series. Both series feature lightweight comfortable protection required for the recreational player.Cooper also introduces two new models of hockey pants in 1990. The HP100 is designed for all top levels of hockey and features Cooper&rsquo;s best protection in hockey pants. The exclusive Armourfoam Protection System in the critical hip and thigh areas provide unsurpassed protection while Cooper&rsquo;s unique foam-molded waistband provides added protection and a European style fit. The HP100 is designed as a two-piece pant, making shell replacement convenient. This top-level pant is currently being worn by most Major Junior A Players, a strong testimonial to the performance of the HP100.The HP1 is designed for the small beginner hockey player. This lightweight pant provides all the required protection for the beginner player in the critical tailbone, hip, kidney and thigh areas. &#9632;

COOPER MOVES INTO THE 1990s

After two years of intensive research and development, sherwood has unveiled its novative and revolutionary new ockey gloves featuring the Sher-rip finger design.Developed by Georges Guil-ault of Sherwood, the gloves are nique. Having played profession-I hockey himself for many years, Guilbault was well aware of the problems players had of holding on to a stick with the conventional glove design. It was a problem that had been on his mind for a long time, and he had an idea of how to solve it. Developing the idea himself, the result was a glove with rounded, rather than squared fingers. The shape is &ldquo;like a banana&rdquo; which allows the fingers to cling naturally to the stick immediately with no break-in, and hence much less effort. The player&rsquo;s grip is much more secure, as well.Furthermore, the gloves offer full protection and look &ldquo;very classy&rdquo;, says Guilbault.There are seven models in the collection, and every glove bears the NHLtrademark, under the NHL on-ice program. The Platinum Series 5060 is an all-leather pro glove with a cowhide palm. There is a 15.5-inch and a 14.5-inch model. The Platinum Series 5055 has a Clarino palm, and is half leather. The Gold Series 5040 is a 15-inch senior glove with cowhide palm and knit-poly material. The Silver Series 5020 is a 13-inch glove with cowhide palm and knit-poly material construction. The Bronze Series 5010 is a 12-inch nylon/PVC glove and the Copper Series 5005 is a 10-inch nylon/PVC glove.The design is extremely light, yet offers great protection. The gloves will be made at the same plant as the Rawlings product, for quality control.&ldquo;We are very proud of these gloves,&rdquo; says Georges Guilbault. &ldquo;When I was playing, I saw how hard it was to break in new gloves, especially for the small kids. Their hands just aren&rsquo;t strong enough to flex the stiff leather on conventional gloves, so they can&rsquo;t hold and feel the stick properly. Feel is strategic to playing ability.&ldquo;I had the idea for a long time. The rounded, layered and precurved design results in very small fingers, not the bulky fingers of other models. The whole glove is only four and a half inches across the fingers, considerably smaller than the standard glove, yet with the same protection.&rdquo;The new Sherwood gloves will be priced slightly higher than the Rawlings models. Strong advertising support is planned, with the logo being eagle talons about to strike, for a very dynamic image that evokes the sure grip of the Sher-Grip gloves.Sherwood has at least 40 to 50 professional players using the gloves, including Guy Lafleur and players of the Canadiens&rsquo; AHL affiliate, and response has been great.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01790/5748079-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="578" height="487"><figcaption class="caption-body">Guy Lafleur is one player using the new Sherwood gloves.</figcaption></div><h2>RAWLINGS GLOVES</h2>Sherwood, which recently acquired the Rawlings hockey product line, has a complete line of Rawlings gloves for the international market. Some of the models have been redesigned, and the line has been scaled down from 23 to 13 models. There are two categories of gloves: The high-end Magnum series and midrange Master series. The six colours of the NHL are available, and the gloves are available in any colour needed by a team client. The gloves are sized from 15.5-inch models to 10-inch models. This is the only Rawlings gear to be offered by Sherwood this year, as the protective products are being analyzed for improvements, which will likely be seen next season. &#9632;

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SHER-GRIP REVOLUTIONALIZES HOCKEY GLOVES

Finally a product has been developed that will significantly reduce spinal injuries in contact sports.&ldquo;Few people realize that the spine has less natural protection than the head,&rdquo; says Dr. Howard Fisher, the Canadian chiropractor who invented the Back Strip. &ldquo;If you wouldn&rsquo;t play a contact sport without a helmet, you shouldn&rsquo;t be playing it without spinal protection.The Back Strip is especially effective for children involved in contact sports, where the potential for spinal injury is high.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03325/5748110-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="572" height="544"></div>Dr. Fisher says he designed the Back Strip to absorb the sharp initial impact of a blow and spread the focus of the traumatic force over a wider area of the back.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the diffusion of the force of the blow that greatly reduced the chance of injury to the vulnerable spinal region,&rdquo; Dr. Fisher says.The ideal piece of protective equipment for an athlete must meet very important criterion: the athlete must be confident that he is fully protected but must never be conscious of the equipment. In short, the device must be light, flexible and non-cumbersome. The Back Strip fits this criterion extremely well.&ldquo;We did not report any injury directly related to low-velocity trauma among our users of the Back Strip,&rdquo; says Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; trainer Jacques Lavergne. &ldquo;The Nordiques and I feel free and are very enthusiastic to recommend Back Strip to any hoc player of any level who cares al his or her back health.&rdquo; &#9632;

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SPINAL PAD REDUCES INJURIES

pads has been extended into a new high-tech shinguard line. Leading the way is the FSG375 Air featuring the protective Shin Flex design constructed of high-density engineered plastic. The Shin Flex design offers superior flexibility at the knee allowing the skater a fuller more natural stride. The FSG275 Air and FSG175 round out a quality line of Flak shinguards.Flak will also hit the ice with a completely new line of hockey pants in 1991. The FP275, FP175 and FP75 all feature new internal padding systems with the emphasis on lightweight and better fitting parts. The FP275 will be substantially lighter than previous offerings and will feature a tapered fit. The FP175 mid-range pant features revised kidney protection while maintaining the popular blow moulding internals. The FP75 is a scaled down version of the FP275.Flak shoulder pads continue to supply the protective edge that the very best demand. Flak will introduce three new jacket-style shoulder pads in 1991. The FSP300, FSP250, FSP100 all feature the unique Flak &lsquo;Air&rsquo; system and improved fit and protection in the shoulder. The new moulded shoulders will prevent these pads from shifting up on the body. The FSP300 and FSP100 feature extended fronts while the FSP250 is a short front model. &#9632;

FLAK MAKES AIR-TIGHT CASE FOR DEFENSE

All Flak hockey gloves from the all-leather FG401 short cuff to the nylon FG200 are completely reconstructed for 1991. All Flak hockey gloves will feature &lsquo;preshaped&rsquo; backrolls and fingers. The &lsquo;pre-shaped&rsquo; construction will allow for a &lsquo;ready to use&rsquo; feel from the first faceoff.Once again, 1991 is going to be a bigger and better year for Flak by Bauer products. Every product in every category is either new or improved, solid proof of Bauers ongoing dedication to today&rsquo;s hockey player. It&rsquo;s the kind of commitment to superior products that makes Flak an air-tight case for your defense.<h2>FLAK Bauer</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01774/5748165-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="579" height="1446"><figcaption class="caption-body">Los Angeles King captain Dave Taylor favors Flak by Bauer.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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EVERY PRODUCT IS NEW OR IMPROVED

Buying equipment for a child playing his first season of hockey may seem to mean mortgaging the house to pay for it&mdash;but it need&rsquo;nt be.Sure, there are parents out there who will go and spend a fortune on top-of-the-line equipment for an eight-year-o[d who will likely grow out of it shortly. But the smart parent will judge the level of play of the league, the size of the players and how much protection is needed and go from there.&ldquo;How old the child is, the size and the calibre of play have a huge impact on equipment,&rdquo; says Hal Lewis, the director of bylaws and regulations for the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not necessary to get a pair of (top-of-the-line) skates when another pair would do.&ldquo;There is a lot of good equipment on the market that is inexpensive but then you can spend a fortune,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If someone is on a Volkswagen budget they shouldn&rsquo;t drive a Mercedes.&rdquo;An informal survey of the local sporting goods store can give a parent a quick understanding of the Volkswagens and Mercedes of the hockey equipment market.It&rsquo;s important to properly equip the child and as the child grows replace worn equipment with equipment that is appropriate for the level of play. The cost later can vary depending on whether the player is going to play recreational hockey or is a potential professional.To equip a child from scratch can cost anywhere from about $500 (Cdn.) to as high as $1,500, estimates Lewis. So obviously it is important to shop around.The beginner player can get skates for anywhere from $50 to $150 and then as they grow into adult sizes the cost can grow to over $200, says Mike Tadgell, the product manager at Canstar&mdash;the makers of Bauer skates and Flak equipment.At the sporting goods store, shinpads can be found for the young player for under $20 or for as much as $50 with the adult sizes costing as much as $130. And the pants can be bought for $30 with top-of-the-line pants going for as much as $100. The adult size pants can cost more than $150.Some of the equipment resembles armor and the price can vary depending on the protection afforded.The cost of elbow pads and shoulder pads can vary a lot as well. The most inexpensive elbow pads can be found for young players for about $10 or can cost as much as $30. The adult sizes are around $90. Shoulder pads for kids can cost from $30 to $100 with the adult sizes being about $200.Gloves are some of the more specialized equipment players can get. Gloves for the young player can cost from $30 to $90 depending on whether they are all-leather or only partially leather. Once the child grows into adult sizes the gloves can cost as much as $200.The helmet is standard equipment with models selling for between $30 and $70. The facial protection attached can vary. A cage can cost about $20 where a clear visor can cost about $35.The important consideration when buying equipment is adequate protection. &ldquo;Any CSA approved helmet will give the individual adequate protection,&rdquo; says Lewis.Buying that protection doesn&rsquo;t mean it should be expensive. Surprisingly, the equipment manufacturers agree that it shouldn&rsquo;t cost a fortune to equip a child for his first season of hockey.&ldquo;It is sort of a myth that hockey is expensive,&rdquo; says Tadgell. &ldquo;If you shop around and have a couple of kids usinq hand-me-downs, it doesn&rsquo;t need to be expensive.&rdquo;In fact many leagues have used equipment sales or swap meets before the season starts. But the important thing is the quality of the equipment.&ldquo;(Used equipment) is a great idea because the kids grow so fast,&rdquo; says CCM&rsquo;s director of marketing Mike Jacques. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great way to start outfitting but the main thing is to get good quality equipment that fits.&rdquo;But another important thing to consider is to buy the equipment to fit the level of play.<h2>EDGECARE MK II</h2>Edgecare Limited has announced that their popular MK II Skate Sharpener is now manufactured from heavyduty 10-gauge enamel coated steel.Priced economically at $469, the Edgecare MK II Skate Sharpener is designed to be affordable for either individuals or teams, so that they can take care of their own skate sharpening. The Edgecare saves money, cuts out time waiting in line-ups at the rinks, and all those trips to the sports store. But most important, owning an Edgecare MK II means perfectly sharpened skates for every game.Precision made, the Edgecare MK II performs up to the standards of much more expensive machines in use at rinks and sports stores. And it&rsquo;s completely portable, too&mdash;take it with you on those road trips.Using the Edgecare Skate Sharpener, anyone can sharpen skates perfectly with very little practise&mdash;it even comes with a informative 27-minute training video.The Edgecare is backed by a 15-day no-risk &ldquo;satisfaction or your money back&rdquo; guarantee.For more information, call 1800-265-3878 toll free, or write to Edgecare Limited, P.O. Box 363, Station S, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5M 4M9. &#9632;

EQUIPMENT SHOULD FIT THE LEVEL OF PLAY

Outfitting an NHL player for equipment 20 years ago was much like going to your local department store and buying a ready-made suit off the rack: It did the trick, even if it wasn&rsquo;t a perfect fit.Today, however, it&rsquo;s strictly Hugo Boss.Equipment managers and trainers around the league have had to develop a tailor&rsquo;s mentality when sizing players for protective gear. The correct fit means everything.&ldquo;We set about an hour and-a-half aside per player for proper fitting,&rdquo; says Philadelphia Flyer trainer Gary Smith. &ldquo;You can have the greatest equipment in the world, but if it isn&rsquo;t in the right place (on the body), it won&rsquo;t do what it&rsquo;s designed to do.&ldquo;This is why it&rsquo;s critical for youths not to wear hand-me-downs. They have to get the right size.&rdquo;Smith says the move towards perfect sizing has gone hand-inhand with innovations in equipment style. He feels the single biggest improvement over the years is the type of cushioning the manufacturers are building into the gear.&ldquo;The resiliency in shoulder pads, elbow pads and shin pads has really increased,&rdquo; says Smith. &ldquo;The materials they&rsquo;re using now are lightweight, but they absorb a lot more pressure. In hockey, there&rsquo;s a lot of contact with the boards, sticks, bodies and pucks. With the improved cushioning, less force is getting through to the players&rsquo; bodies.&rdquo;Also helping to absorb shock is an air system&mdash;similar to the one used in the much-publicized running shoes&mdash;whereby a layer of air is pumped between the player&rsquo;s body and equipment, providing a cushioning effect.Smith says he strongly encourages pro players to change their equipment every year to a year-and-a-half because of wear and tear. He doesn&rsquo;t always meet with success, however.&ldquo;Some players become really comfortable with a piece of equipment and don&rsquo;t want to get rid of it,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;When I was the trainer at the University of Minnesota we had a kid (Bart Buetow, who went on to play football with the New York Giants and is the brother of Colorado College hockey coach Brad Buetow) who loved the feel of the stick. He wore out the palm of his gloves and wouldn&rsquo;t take a new pair.&ldquo;In a game, (Buetow) took a shot and his stick splintered. He had a piece of the stick stuck in his hands, but I couldn&rsquo;t get it out with a pair of tweezers, so I sent him down to the doctor&rsquo;s room.&ldquo;He returned in 15 minutes and played the rest of the game. I later found out the splinter was three inches long.&ldquo;He was still stubborn about changing his gloves after that, though.&rdquo;Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; trainer Jim Piz-zutelli has also run across players who need coaxing to take new equipment.&ldquo;Mike Foligno&rsquo;s a guy who&rsquo;s been around a long time. He&rsquo;s gotten used to a certain kind of equipment; he liked the old style,&rdquo; said Pizzutelli.&ldquo;But gradually, Foligno grew to accept the new equipment.&ldquo;Gilbert Perreault was a different story. I was here for his last two years with the Sabres. I think the equipment he was wearing was older than I was,&rdquo; said the 35-year-old trainer.While some players become attached to old equipment, others prefer to stick to a certain style, even if it doesn&rsquo;t offer the best protection.&ldquo;A lot of the guys like to wear the short-cuff glove,&rdquo; says Toronto Maple Leaf equipment manager Brian Papineau. &ldquo;That leaves their forearm area very vulnerable to sticks and pucks.&ldquo;What we do for them is take a piece of material (called orthoplast), put it in some hot water and mold it to the player&rsquo;s body. We attach it to the end of the elbow pad as an extension. We also use extensions on shoulder pads.&rdquo;All three trainers feel injuries have decreased as a result of the innovations, but agree there&rsquo;s room for improvement. &#9632;

TRAINERS MEASURE UP TO THE CHALLENGE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01704/5748258-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">New Louisville Pro Goaler chest and arm protector.</figcaption></div>Louisville Hockey has expanded into the protective equipment category with a wide offering of products.The Douglas Air Cushion system introduced last year will remain the same with the Defender and Wingman models, except this year they will feature prominent Louisville TPS (Tournament Players Series) markings. New this year will be the TPS Lite Shoulder pad (S-XL), a pro-style dual flex knee pad, and a lycra-elastic elbow pad; all with the dual air system.Along with the high-tech air cushioned TPS protective equipment, Louisville will also be offering a Competitive Series with XLT markings. This series will also contain a lightweight elbow pad (three sizes) plus a high impact foam padded knee pad in five sizes.Along with the NHL quality pro leather TPS glove offered, 1990 will also bring a nylon version TPS glove (five colors), complete with a clorino palm in both 14-inch and 12-inch sizes. Rounding out the glove line will be a Steve Yzerman Autograph Series in a fastback style. The fastback model will be available in four colors and three sizes.Louisville will be showing a topend European-style hockey pant complete with embroidered Louisville and TPS markings. This two-system high-density polyethylene-protected pant comes in five styles along with a custom program to suit any team. In addition to the TSP line, there will be mid-range Competition Series pants in four colors.For the goaltender, Louisville is introducing a professional quality chest and arm protector in four vivid colors. In addition, a deluxe chest-arm protector with a back protector will be offered in white. A TPS goal pant with high density foam and polyethylene components provide maximum protection, with a lightweight effect.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02494/5748251-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="1190" height="1343"><figcaption class="caption-body">The new TPS European-styled pants.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03350/5748244-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="1167" height="1156"><figcaption class="caption-body">TPS pro leather gloves are worn by several NHLers, including Steve Yzerman and Pat LaFontaine.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0028-01

LOUISVILLE: A WIDE VARIETY OF NEW PRODUCTS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01609/5748289-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="544" height="625"><figcaption class="caption-body">ERIC DUHATSCHEK</figcaption></div>I sat down to write this the day after watching Crosby, Stills and Nash perform in concert.It&rsquo;d been a couple of days since somebody in Edmonton wrote Grant Fuhr could be banned from the NHL for life after admitting to seven years of substance abuse and I thought: No, that isn&rsquo;t right.There was David Crosby on stage, witty, wry, in fine voice, giving every indication that after two decades marred by every conceivable screwup, he may possibly, hopefully, finally be living clean and sober.I wondered: Did anybody ever talk about banning Crosby for life? No. It&rsquo;s a free country. Once Crosby straightened out his life and did his time, he was free to sing Marrakesh Express for the bazillionth time.In many ways, pro athletes are like pop stars&mdash;they make more money than you or I ever will see. They live a life in the spotlight. Sometimes, that means living on the edge. Sometimes, it means falling over the edge.No one in my profession can absolutely, positively state the NHL doesn&rsquo;t have a drug problem. As a reporter, you walk a tightrope. You need to get close enough to players so you&rsquo;re not writing about ghosts, but stay far enough away to ensure perspective and objectivity.Accordingly, you don&rsquo;t see them in social situations, but you do dine with them on the road, travel with them in the wee hours when people are as vulnerable and exposed as you&rsquo;re going to see them. In my 11th year of covering the NHL, I believe hockey is, on balance, a clean game; that while there may be a certain amount of alcohol abuse, there&rsquo;s very little drug abuse.So when president John Ziegler gets around to hearing Fuhr&rsquo;s case, I hope he isn&rsquo;t overcome by the misguided belief he needs to punish the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; goaltender.Lawyers who act as judges sometimes think that way.Yes, get Grant Fuhr help so he can clean up his life. Sure, suspend himself until such time as he does. But don&rsquo;t, because of some misguided notion that he should be punished, ban him from the game.Getting a chance to see David Crosby perform after all these years got me thinking. The man they call Cocoa deserves a chance to entertain his fans again, too&mdash;once he gets his life back together.Which, I think he will.There&rsquo;s too much talent there to see wasted like this.Predictions are the bane of a sportswriter&rsquo;s existence, but also a ton of fun. So without further ado, some thoughts on the 1990 season.&#9632; Parity was last year&rsquo;s favorite buzzword, but I say we ain&rsquo;t seen nothing yet. Consider that four of the league&rsquo;s top five teams last season&mdash;Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens&mdash;all took backward steps in the off-season, losing key players (Joey Mullen, Brad McCrimmon, Jari Kurri, Fuhr, Brian Propp, Chris Chelios, Mats Nas-lund, Bobby Smith) to teams ready to close the gap-Of the leaders, only the Buffalo Sabres really helped themselves by acquiring Dale Hawer-chuk and to me, their defense corps looks vulnerable after Mike Ramsey.As a result, I&rsquo;d say there&rsquo;s about 18 teams with a chance to finish with between 75 and 88 points.Equality? Super parity? No, just mediocrity.&#9632; Montreal and Minnesota will pay dearly for their trips to the Soviet Union in the early going. The Flames came back from three weeks on last year&rsquo;s European Vacation and then stumbled through the first half like so many Clark Griswalds. One word of advice: Don&rsquo;t drink the water in Leningrad. Try not to breathe the air. And if you get desperate for a North American fix, visit the Baskin Robbins store just off Red Square.&#9632; In less than a month, some Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; players will whine about the length and complexity of Bob Johnson&rsquo;s practices. The bitching and complaining will be obvious to everybody except Johnson, who will just keep working, trying to make a mediocre team much, much better.&#9632; Mike Ricci will be the steal of the 1990 entry draft. The Flyers lucked into him the way the Detroit Red Wings lucked into Steve Yzer-man. People wanted a reason to look past Ricci and half-a-season of playing injured, plus the development of others, gave them that chance. The same thing happened to Yzerman his draft year. Yzerman got the last laugh and so will Ricci. He may never score goals like the Detroit captain, but he will help Philadelphia restore that lost Flyer ethic. &#9632;

f0029-01

DON’T BAN FUHR FOR LIFE

<h2>BLACKHAWKS</h2>Legendary Soviet netminder and Hall-of-Fame inductee Vladislav Tretiak signed a contract Sept. 6 to work as a goalie intructor and a scout with the Hawks this season. Tretiak, 38, played on three Olympic gold-medal winning teams for the Soviets before retiring after the 1984 Games in Sarajevo. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s achampion,&rdquo; said coach-GM Mike Keenan of Tretiak. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a world-class athlete, and he&rsquo;s a winner. When he played he was the best in the world.&rdquo;&hellip;Defenseman Bob McGill was expected to miss the first two weeks of training camp after breaking his right foot Aug. 30 during a workout in Toronto. The Blackhawks entered training camp down two defensemen as Doug Wilson was still recovering from surgery to tighten ligaments in his right ankle July 27. Wilson was expected to be ready for the season Oct. 4 against the Rangers&hellip;For the second year in a row, the Hawks have increased ticket prices across the board. Prices now range from $45 to $12. In the last two seasons, the Hawks have raised their ticket prices by an average of 50 per cent.<h2>MAPLE LEAFS</h2>Czechoslovakian goalie Robert Horyna arrived at Toronto&rsquo;s training camp Sept. 8. Horyna, the Leafs&rsquo; eighth round pick in June&rsquo;s draft, arrived with former Leaf goalie Jiri Crha who arranged to get the 20-year-old netminder released from the remaining seven months of his military commitment. Horyna played last season with Dukla Jihlava and was part of the national team this season before telling team officials he planned to play in Toronto&hellip;Right winger Rob Pearson, one of Toronto&rsquo;s three first-round picks in the 1989 entry draft, had his hopes of cracking the Leafs&rsquo; opening night lineup dashed when he suffered a broken collarbone in his first practice of the year with the Ontario League&rsquo;s Belleville Bulls. Pearson, who finished third in scoring on the Bulls last season with 48 goals and 88 points in 58 games, was expected to be out of action until at least mid-October&hellip;Defenseman Al lafrate, still recovering from off-season knee surgery, skated without problems on the first day of training camp and even scrimmaged for about 30 minutes.<h2>NORTH STARS</h2>Owner Norman Green is spending $2.5 million for improvements at the Met Center. A $1-million videoreplay system will be in place by the start of the season as will luxury seating around the upper perimeter of the west end. The Observatory Club, a private dining facility that lost money regularly, has been replaced by the Founders Club, a collection of 120 seats that cost $4,000 each and include tickets for every event in the arena. The Owner&rsquo;s Suite has been opened and will feature 50 seats costing $6,000 each. Twenty private boxes at the east end have been sold for $50,000 each. Green is also recovering all of the Met Center seats, but only 4,000 will be done in time for the start of the season&hellip;The North Stars&rsquo; and visiting team&rsquo;s dressing rooms have also been remodeled.<h2>RED WINGS</h2>Bob Probert went to training camp with one cloud over his head: Immigration officials had yet to rule on his deportation appeal. The Wings remained optimistic the Immigration and Naturalization Service authorities would rule in his favor. An INS judge in Chicago deported Probert after he was convicted and imprisoned for importating cocaine into the United States in March, 1989. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve made some strides, but there&rsquo;s not a final resolution and there may not be until we&rsquo;re into camp,&rdquo; said GM-coach Bryan Murray&hellip;Center Keith Primeau. the Red Wings first pick&mdash;second overall&mdash;in the June draft, signed a five-year contract. Terms of the contract were not released&hellip;Murray&rsquo;s biggest task in training camp is to sort out the team&rsquo;s goaltending situation. The Wings brought nine goalies to camp, including Tim Cheveldae, the team&rsquo;s best goalie last season, and three others with considerable NHL experience: Backup Glen Hanlon, oft-injured Greg Stefan, and free-agent acquisition Alain Chevrier.<h2>BLUES</h2>Captain Rick Meagher, the Selke Trophy winner last season, may not return to the Blues until late November or early December. Meagher, 36, tore ligaments in his right knee during the Norris Division finals against Chicago last season and underwent surgery May 1. He&rsquo;s been undergoing therapy and recently was given clearance to start running. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to be patient, but it&rsquo;s frustrating,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Sometimes it feels good, and sometimes it feels awful.&rdquo; Meagher said he&rsquo;s gotten encouragement from Gord Kluzak of the Boston Bruins. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had 11 knee operations, I don&rsquo;t know why anyone would go through that,&rdquo; Meagher said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad this didn&rsquo;t happen to me the second year of my career.&rdquo;&hellip;Blues&rsquo; orthopedic surgeon. Dr. Jerome Gilden, said goalie Curtis Joseph is completely recovered from surgery to tighten ligaments in his left shoulder, the result of the dislocation he suffered in the fifth game of the Norris Division semifinals against Toronto. &ldquo;Everything looks good,&rdquo; Gilden said. &ldquo;Curtis comes in with full range of motion. All he needs is to improve his timing. His arm is stable. He&rsquo;s strong. He&rsquo;s doing 50 pushups. How many can you do?&rdquo;&hellip;Right winger Herb Raglan also has completely healed from a broken wrist and surgery that kept him out all of last season. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t foresee any problem with it,&rdquo; Raglan said. &#9632;

LEGEND TO COACH HAWKS’ GOALIES

<div class="byline">BY KEITH GAVE</div>With the numbers he posted last season, Joe Kocur&rsquo;s value to the Red Wings cannot be understated. But neither can his role as an emerging leader on a team that had as many problems in the dressing room as it did on the ice last season.The team&rsquo;s annual media tour around the state of Michigan in late August was designed to accentuate the positive after a disappointing season that ended without a playoff berth. Hence, the presence of promising second-year youngsters like goaltender Tim Cheveldae and defenseman Yves Racine. New coach and general manager Bryan Murray was also aboard.But none of them except Kocur could speak about the many ills that beset the team last season, among them team chemistry that was destroyed by too much tinkering. As a group, the Wings were divided into several cliques, a problem they couldn&rsquo;t overcome even on the ice.Kocur could have chosen not to speak about the problem. But it is his nature to invite confrontation and bring it to its knees, a quality that makes him a leading candidate to inherit the &lsquo;A&rsquo; left behind by the retired Mike O&rsquo;Connell. Murray said he has no plans to change the on-ice leadership; Steve Yzerman will remain captain for the fifth straight season with Gerard Gallant an alternate.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01695/5748375-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="567" height="607"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Kocur knows his role on the team is one of intimidation.</figcaption></div>Whether or not he wins the other &lsquo;A&rsquo;, Kocur&mdash;because of the respect he has earned from his teammates&mdash;will play a key role in helping bring together the various factions on the team for a single purpose.&ldquo;In any sport&mdash;any job really&mdash;you have certain people who you like a little better. That&rsquo;s the way society is,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But the good teams, the great teams, all play through it. The minute the puck is dropped, we have to be able to put all that stuff aside. We have to be a family out there.&rdquo;As for himself, Kocur understands that his duties probably will change little under Murray. Last season, spent mostly patrolling Steve Yzer-man&rsquo;s right flank, Kocur Scored career highs in goals, 16, and points, 36. He also led the team with 268 penalty minutes.Murray, who is fond of the physical game, may be looking for Kocur to score more knockouts than goals this season. It is unlikely he will be teamed with Yzerman again. Murray believes Yzerman deserves to play with the team&rsquo;s best wingers, and one of the many things he&rsquo;s hoping to find in training camp is a scoring winger to play on Yzerman&rsquo;s right side.&ldquo;I know my role,&rdquo; Kocur said. &ldquo;No matter what line I&rsquo;m on, whether it&rsquo;s with Steve Yzerman or Shawn Burr, it&rsquo;s intimidation, playing aggressive. My role doesn&rsquo;t change.&rdquo;Wherever he winds up, Kocur won&rsquo;t lose sight of the mission. He is interested only in winning. And he is optimistic about the coming season.&ldquo;Even if they didn&rsquo;t make changes, a new season is a new life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But with a new coach, who is also the general manager, it will be food for everybody.&ldquo;But that&rsquo;s going to take a lot of hard work, very few injuries and a little luck.&rdquo;<h2>DETROIT</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Sept. 7: Keith Primeau. C. signed five-year contract. &#9632;

f0030-01

KOCUR LOOKS TO BUILD ON SUCCESSFUL SEASON

<div class="byline">BY MARK HARDING</div>Ron Duguay remembers what it was like to score 30 goals in a season and he likes the feeling.It was a yearning for that special rush from putting the puck in the net that prompted Duguay to play in West Germany last season after spending 12 years in the NHL.Now, after re-discovering his lost touch around the net, Duguay remembers the satisfaction and excitement of the playing in the NHL and wants to return.The Toronto Maple Leafs, with nothing to lose and everything to gain, have opened the door for Duguay to return to the big-time. They just hope he brings his former scoring knack with him.&ldquo;I still feel I have something to give,&rdquo; said Duguay, who reported to Toronto&rsquo;s training camp Sept. 7 on a tryout basis. &ldquo;Last year in West Germany I got back to some basics. It was only 22 games, but it was a chance for me to regain some of the confidence I&rsquo;d lost.&rdquo;With 11 goals in those 22 games, Duguay said he felt he had regained both his confidence and his ability to put the puck in the net, prompting him to seek a return to his former stomping grounds in the NHL.&ldquo;The first team I wanted to try was Toronto,&rdquo; said Duguay, a native of Sudbury, Ont. &ldquo;Being able to wear the blue and white of the Leafs will be like a dream come true for me.&rdquo;Just how long that dream lasts is open to debate. Some observers think he won&rsquo;t see the end of camp. Others think he can help the Leafs at either center or right wing or as a penalty killer.It is likely in the role of the latter that Duguay stands his best chance of finding permanent work with the Leafs&mdash;a job that doesn&rsquo;t require the offensive skills that he wanted to hone in West Germany.&ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t matter,&rdquo; said Duguay. &ldquo;All I want is an opportunity to play. I&rsquo;m not a powder; I&rsquo;m not somebody whose going to whine about lack of playing time. I don&rsquo;t care if I only play one shift a game, as long as I can have a role and contribute.&rdquo;It doesn&rsquo;t seem all that long ago Duguay was an 89-point man in the NHL, having achieved the mark in 1984-85 with the Detroit Red Wings. But beginning with a 48-point season the following year with the Wings, his production bottomed out as he became employed in strictly checking roles with Pittsburgh, the New York Rangers and Los Angeles.In his last two seasons before heading to Mannheim, Duguay saw duty primarily on the fourth line with the Kings. The thought of scoring rarely, if ever, entered his head.&ldquo;With a team like that, with all the offense we had, scoring was the furthest thing from my mind,&rdquo; said Duguay, the Rangers&rsquo; second choice, 13th overall, in the 1977 entry draft. &ldquo;Still, I thought I did a good job in the role they had assigned me to.&rdquo;It was therefore a considerable shock to the 33-year-old forward when the Kings released him prior to last season.&ldquo;Very disappointing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I thought I&rsquo;d be used in the same role again but they obviously had other ideas and wanted to get some of their younger people into the lineup.&rdquo;Ironically, that same situation prevails in Toronto, where general manager Floyd Smith wants to give the Leafs&rsquo; future a long, hard look today.&ldquo;Like I said, I don&rsquo;t expect to be the No. 1 center on the team,&rdquo; said Duguay. &ldquo;I consider myself a good utility man to have around.&rdquo;<h2>TORONTO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Sept 4: Brad Marsh, D. Dave Retd, LW. Mike Stevens, LW. Mike Jackson. LW, Doug Shedden. C. Greg Walters, C, Greg Johnston. RW, signed contracts. &#9632;

DUGUAY’S REGAINED THAT NHL FEELING

<div class="byline">BY GARY OLSON</div>Bay Area general manager Jack Ferreira is a man who stands behind the deals he makes.In two years as GM of the Minnesota North Stars, the only trade that earned him real criticism and second-guessing from fans, media and hockey people was the March 6 deal that sent Mike Gartner to the New York Rangers for Ulf Dahlen and a fourthround draft pick (which turned out to be Cal McGowan, a center for Kamloops of the Western League).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01641/5748437-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="570" height="676"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jack Ferreira wants to take Ulf Dahlen for his Bay Area team.</figcaption></div>The Stars, you see, hadn&rsquo;t clinched a playoff spot, there were only 13 games left in the season and Gartner had 34 goals and 70 points, about twice as many as Dahlen brought from New York.&ldquo;This is not a trade that should be judged today,&rdquo; Ferreira said at the time. &ldquo;This is a trade that should be looked at two or three or five years down the road.&rdquo;It didn&rsquo;t help that the soon-to-be 31-year-old Gartner was part of the deal that sent goal-scoring whiz and local favorite Dino Ciccarelli to the Washington Capitals. Reduced to its simpliest form, that means Ciccarelli, an exciting, fiery Italian, was swapped for Dahlen, a slow-footed, strong-on-the-puck Swede. (The other part of the Ciccarelli-Gartner deal was defenseman Bob Rouse to Washington for fellow rearguard Larry Murphy).Dahlen, 23, had replaced one of the NHL&rsquo;s fastest skaters and hottest scorers in Gartner and the Twin Cities were still getting used to the idea that Ciccarelli was gone.&ldquo;Ulf Dahlen isn&rsquo;t as good a player as Mike Gartner, but we&rsquo;re a better team,&rdquo; then-coach Pierre Page said after the deal. &ldquo;You try to figure this one out.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02443/5748430-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="566" height="631"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Clarke has a full season to decide on the deal.</figcaption></div>Dahlen didn&rsquo;t need that kind of pressure last year and he doesn&rsquo;t need the kind of pressure he&rsquo;s going to get this year, either.Ferreira made a deal with the Stars as the sale from George and Gordon Gund to Howard Baldwin and Morris Belzberg was in the works. He&rsquo;d happily take Dahlen to the Bay Area in &rsquo;91 and give the Stars any one of the kids (players with fewer than 50 NHL games at the end of last season) and allow Minnesota to protect 17 veterans (15 skaters, two goalies) instead of 16.The offer is on the table just waiting for North Stars&rsquo; GM Bob Clarke to say,&rdquo;yes&rdquo; or &ldquo;no&rdquo; after the season. It&rsquo;s Minnesota&rsquo;s choice.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not really fair that Ulfie&rsquo;s been put in that spot but the reality of the situation is that he&rsquo;s there and has to make the best of it,&rdquo; Clarke said.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a good place for a player to be but everyone in professional sports knows that trades are a possible part of their future.&rdquo;Dahlen was still in Sweden and could not be reached for comment. Clarke said he would tell him about the deal before the start of training camp. &#9632;

f0031-01

DAHLEN ARRANGEMENT A CURIOUS DEAL

<div class="byline">BY DAVE LUECKING</div>Last year, at his first St. Louis Blues&rsquo; training camp, Guy Hebert was an unknown out of tiny Hamilton College, a Division II school in Clinton, N.Y.He was so unknown that no one was quite sure how to pronounce his name. Was it pronounced Frenchstyle, Ghee A-bare? Or was it English, Guy HE-Bert?Hebert, a 5-foot-8, 180 pound goalie from Troy, N.Y., prefers the French for hockey, and that French name became something of a household name for hockey fans tuned into the Goodwill Games this summer.Hebert starred Tor the U.S. team, almost leading a reprise of the Miracle On Ice 10 years ago. He was 3-1, with a 2.75 goals-against average, losing only to the Soviet Union in the gold-medal game.That performance, coupled with his steady improvement last season, has moved him ahead of Pat Jablonski on the Blues&rsquo; depth chart. Hebert, not Jablonski, traveled as the Blues&rsquo; third goalie in their pre-season trip to Dusseldorf, West Germany. Incumbents Curtis Joseph and Vincent Riendeau also made the trip overseas.&ldquo;An expected surprise,&rdquo; said Hebert, 23, an eighth-round pick in 1987. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just great. I&rsquo;m grateful to get a chance.&rdquo;He said the same thing last season when he got to go on a pre-season trip to western Canada after impressing the Blues in camp workouts. He made the most of his chance, allowing one goal on 31 shots over three periods in games against Winnipeg and Chicago.He also earned a professional contract, signing a three-year deal. The Blues assigned him to Peoria of the International League, but he didn&rsquo;t play until the Blues&rsquo; traded Greg Millen in December.After that, he appeared in 30 games for the Rivermen and was 7-13-7, finishing with a better GAA than the more experienced Jablonski (4.36 to 4.85). Jablonski, also 23, was the Blues&rsquo; sixth-round choice in 1985 and is entering his third year with the organization.&ldquo;At training camp last year, I had no idea where my future was going, but things seemed to work out well,&rdquo; Hebert said. &ldquo;I learned a lot under (Peoria coach) Wayne Thomas. Playing for an NHL goalie, you&rsquo;ve got to learn some tricks.&rdquo;Hebert learned them well enough that he received an invitation to try out for the U.S. team at the Goodwill Games. Blues&rsquo; general manager Ron Caron said he was not surprised by Hebert&rsquo;s performance.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01681/5748468-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="559" height="605"><figcaption class="caption-body">Goalie Pat Jablonski is now fourth on the depth chart.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;He played very well,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;He came within 21 seconds of a gold medal. That&rsquo;s not bad&hellip;the Goodwill Games aren&rsquo;t as meaningful as the Olympics, but any time you play different countries it means something.&rdquo;It meant a lot to Hebert, who was living a dream that began 10 years earlier. When Jim Craig draped himself in a United States flag after leading the U.S. hockey team to the gold medal in the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y., Hebert, age 13 at the time, savored every moment.&ldquo;Every kid in America visualized himself as one of those players,&rdquo; Hebert said. &ldquo;Seeing Jim Craig, you couldn&rsquo;t help but try to put yourself in his shoes.&rdquo;Although Hebert missed a chance to make like Craig and drape the flag around himself&mdash;the Soviets tied the gold-medal game with 21 seconds left in regulation, then won in an overtime shootout&mdash;he had no regrets.&ldquo;It was very disappointing to lose, for us and the 17,000 or 18,000 fans in the stands,&rdquo; he said,&rdquo;but we came within 21 seconds of beating the Soviets in a major championship.&rdquo;That, in itself, was a miracle.&ldquo;Absolutely,&rdquo; Hebert said. &ldquo;It was a big thrill. I&rsquo;ve always dreamed of playing in the Olympics, and this is probably the closest I&rsquo;ll ever get. It&rsquo;s a definite accomplishment.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0032-01

GOODWILL GOALTENDER EXPERIENCES OWN MIRACLE

<div class="byline">BY TIM SASSONE</div>Not too long ago the Chicago Blackhawks boasted one of the NHL&rsquo;s top lines in Denis Savard, Steve Larmer and Al Secord.Now only Larmer remains.Secord became the third Hawk veteran to announce his retirement this off-season when he called it a career Aug. 28.In all, the Hawks headed into training camp minus four of their veterans from last year. Secord, Bob Murray and Duane Sutter all have retired while Savard was traded to Montreal last June.Secord, 32, decided to retire after the Hawks failed to offer him a new contract for 1990-91. He plans to remain in the Chicago area and pursue a career as a commercial airline pilot.&ldquo;I know I&rsquo;m capable of playing another three years, but I felt it was time for a career change,&rdquo; Secord said. &ldquo;I have different reasons for doing this. One was age, and I&rsquo;ve been told the airlines take a harder look at potential pilots when they reach 34. As you get older your priorities change. In the long run, I think this will be better for me.&rdquo;Secord had hoped to play at least one more season with the Hawks. When that didn&rsquo;t work out he was cgntacted by representatives from Quebec and Vancouver but decided to let go of hockey and turn his attention toward a career in aviation.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02491/5748499-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="563" height="664"><figcaption class="caption-body">Al Secord is one of two Hawks to have a 50-goal season.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;The only place I would have played is in Chicago,&rdquo; said Secord, who contacted then general manager Bob Pulford immediately after last season to see where he stood. &ldquo;I talked to Pully twice before July I and he let it be known that I probably wouldn&rsquo;t be back. Before July I, if they had said they wanted me back I would have come back. But then in July, I got my commercial (pilot&rsquo;s) license and that changed my mind.&rdquo;GM-head coach Mike Keenan explained the Hawks decided not to retain Secord because of the organization&rsquo;s move toward youth.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t that he couldn&rsquo;t help us,&rdquo; Keenan said. &ldquo;We just felt we were starting into a little more transition as far as youth is concerned. Al, Duane Sutter, Denis Savard and Bob Murray all were 29 or older.&rdquo;While Secord might have lost a step or two in the last few years, he did score 14 goals in 1989-90 in just 43 games. But he was not the physical force he once was on left wing.As he did much of last season, it appears Wayne Van Dorp will again fill the enforcer role for the Hawks.&ldquo;Van Dorp&rsquo;s a younger man and a bigger man,&rdquo; Keenan said.Secord leaves Chicago as the only Hawk in history other than Bobby Hull to score 50 or more goals in one season. Secord had 54 goals in 198283. In eight seasons with the Hawks, Secord scored 213 goals, good for 12th place on the club&rsquo;s all-time list.It was Secord&rsquo;s hard work ethic and belligerent style that made him one of the most popular Blackhawks of the last decade.&ldquo;I think for the amount of talent I had, I had to work harder than anyone else to accomplish the same things,&rdquo; Secord said. &ldquo;I think the people who went to games were also hard workers and they saw I was doing the same thing they were, which was basically working hard to support their families.&rdquo;Secord said the fan support and playing in the electric atmosphere of Chicago Stadium are the things he&rsquo;ll remember most of his 13-year NHL career which included eight seasons with the Hawks as well as stints in Boston, Toronto and Philadelphia.&ldquo;The Stadium itself, its aura, the loudness and fan support, and being able to play with Denis Savard and Steve Larmer are probably the biggest things I&rsquo;ll remember,&rdquo; Secord said. &#9632;

f0032-02

SKY’S THE LIMIT FOR SECORD

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN OKLOBZIJA</div>The American League has given the city of St. John&rsquo;s, Nfld., a set of conditions that must be met before an expansion franchise is granted.St. John&rsquo;s has a five-year working agreement with the Minnesota North Stars, but the city of 161,000 first must be granted an AHL franchise for operation in the 1991-92 season.St. John&rsquo;s city manager Frank Power and the city&rsquo;s head of the parks and recreation department. Guy Bradbury, made a 45-minute proposal to the AHL&rsquo;s board of governors during a meeting Aug. 29-30 in Sydney, N.S. The city would own the franchise.&ldquo;They had a rather elaborate and very well-done presentation and afterward we set the terms and conditions for granting them a franchise,&rdquo; AHL vice president Gordie Anziano said.Anziano, members of the board and the St. John&rsquo;s group would not disclose the conditions, but it is known that AHL owners want travel costs subsidized.St. John&rsquo;s is about 1.000 miles from New York State, where five teams are located. Air travel would be the only way to the island and the flight from Halifax to St. John&rsquo;s is about an hour and a half.<h2>AHL</h2>The board believes weather could be a problem, because there is no option to travel by bus. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re fogged in or snowed in, you can&rsquo;t get off the island,&rdquo; Rochester general manager Randy Scott said. &ldquo;At least if you&rsquo;re snowed in somewhere like Newmarket, and you have to get to Maine, you can bus. It&rsquo;s a bad trip, but you can do it.&rdquo;Power says it&rsquo;s nothing to worry about.&ldquo;If you have a snowstorm in Rochester, you&rsquo;re not going anywhere,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you have a snowstorm in Toronto, or Sydney, you&rsquo;re not going anywhere. The information we have is that flights in and out of here are 96 per cent (on time).&rdquo;<h2>AIRLIFT RULE</h2>The league hopes that it has finally found a way to prevent players from playing in Europe, then returning to the league late in the season.Under by-law changes adopted in the meeting in Sydney, players not signed to AHL contracts who return from Europe during the season must be in residence oren route by Jan. 8. If not, they are ineligible to play during that season.In the past, teams scrambling to make the playoffs or loading up for the playoffs signed players well into March.Teams will still be allowed to sign a player before the season and loan him to a European team, but that player must clear waivers before the season. If he is claimed by another AHL team, he must report immediately.&ldquo;Say Rochester signs a player and Springfield claims him, and the player says: &lsquo;Hey, I&rsquo;m going to Europe,&rsquo;, that&rsquo;s fine, you can go, but you can&rsquo;t come back,&rdquo; league-vice president Gordie Anziano said.The only exception is for players with three or fewer years of experience. They can be loaned to a European team and still return.<h2>YINGST NAMED</h2>Doug Yingst, currently Hershey&rsquo;s assistant general manager, has been named director of hockey operations for the Bears. Yingst will handle hockey matters for the club when president and general manager Frank Mathers resigns after the season. Jay Feaster was named Mathers&rsquo; successor as GM last month&hellip;Bill Purcell has been named assistant coach of the Newmarket Saints. Included in a variety of coaching stops were back-to-back Turner Cups he won with Kalamazoo in 1978 and &rsquo;79. &#9632;

ST. JOHN’S GIVEN SET OF CONDITIONS FOR TEAM

<div class="byline">BY BILL PICKETT</div>San Diego Gulls&rsquo; general manager Don Waddell has picked up several players from last year&rsquo;s Phoenix Roadrunners&rsquo; squad as well as a former NHLer to stock his new team.The former Roadrunners became available when Los Angeles agreed to stock the Phoenix franchise.The latest former Roadrunner to sign was defenseman Dave Korol. Korol, 25, had one goal and 12 assists in 62 games last season.Korol is the 11th player to sign with the Gulls. He joins former NHL defenseman Steve Dykstra and right winger Darren Lowe on the Gulls. Dykstra, who has played with Buffalo, Edmonton, Pittsburgh and Hartford. has piled up 545 penalty minutes in 217 NHL games. Lowe was with Waddell&rsquo;s Flint Spirits last season where he had 31 goals and 66 points.&ldquo;With his NHL experience, (Dykstra) brings a lot to us in terms of leadership,&rdquo; Waddell said. &ldquo;He definitely will add some muscle to our lineup.&rdquo;Lowe joins Robbie Nichols and Jim McGeough at right wing for the Gulls, who have also signed three left wingers: Charlie Simmer (who&rsquo;ll also act as assistant coach), Taylor Hall and Carl Mokosak.Others on the San Diego roster are center Larry Floyd and defensemen Al Tuer and Pete Dineen.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01604/5748554-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="556" height="694"><figcaption class="caption-body">Darren Lowe joins a handful of ex-Roadrunners in San Diego.</figcaption></div><h2>BALANCING ACT</h2>Expansion in the 1HL has brought more to the league than just three new cities&mdash;Albany, Kansas City and SanSalt Lake and first-year Phoenix, for instance, hooked up 24 times in the 1989-90 campaign. That gets old pretty quick for both the players and the fans.The Golden Eagles and Roadrunners will meet just 16 times this year, each team with eight home games. The only other teams which will meet that often in 1990-91 will be Kalamazoo and Muskegon.That scheduling isn&rsquo;t bad, considering those franchises hope to build on natural geographic rivalries to bring out the fans. Salt Lake and Phoenix are two of the westernmost teams in the league and Kalamazoo and Muskegon are both in Michigan.The 11-team league will have five franchises in the East Division: Carryovers from last season will be Muskegon, Kalamazoo and Fort Wayne&mdash;the former Flint franchise.The defending Turner Cup champion Indianapolis Ice have been moved into the East. The expansion Albany Choppers&mdash;the former Fort Wayne franchise&mdash;round out the East.Salt Lake, Milwaukee, Peoria and Phoenix remain in the West, along with newcomers Kansas City and San Diego.<h2>BLADES OILED</h2>The Edmonton Oilers announced Sept. 6 that they have signed an affiliation agreement with the Kansas City Blades for 1990-91. As part of the agreement, the Oilers will supply a minimum of four players to the Blades.The Oilers are the second team to agree to secondary affiliation with the Blades. The Hartford Whalers signed an agreement in late August. &#9632;

f0033-01

GULLS PICK UP BIRDS OF A FEATHER

<div class="byline">BY ROB VANSTONE AND RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0034-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01688/5748585-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Packed arenas are becoming more and more common for junior teams across Canada. The OHL had an increase of 16.7 per cent in attendance in 1989-90.</figcaption></div><h2>MAJOR JUNIOR HOCKEY IS ON THE RISE&hellip;</h2>The NHL is banking on increased fan interest to fuel expansion in 1992. But the NHL isn&rsquo;t the only league having an increase in popularity&mdash;major junior hockey is experiencing a boom right in the NHL&rsquo;s backyard.The Western and Ontario Leagues are drawing record crowds and the marquee players&mdash;such as possible Vancouver Canuck Petr Nedved and Oshawa General Eric Lindros&mdash;heading into the 1990-91 season suggest those records might not last long.The Quebec League doesn&rsquo;t draw the same number of fans as the other two members of the Canadian League but league president Gilles Courteau remains optimistic.Helping increase the popularity of junior hockey is an increase in the television coverage.Last season, The Sports Network carried 10 CHL games and the Global network carried 10 OHL games. Global will again carry 10 games this season while TSN is looking to increase its coverage.The average viewership for the TSN games was about 160,000. The best result was a game involving Lindros&rsquo; Generals and the Peterborough Petes on Feb. 5. That game drew 248,000 viewers.&ldquo;We had a good response,&rdquo; says Rick Brace, vice-president of progamming at TSN. &ldquo;The ratings were adequate. They didn&rsquo;t rival NHL games or Major League Baseball, but we&rsquo;re satisfied.&rdquo;Brace added TSN is considering expanding the junior package in the form of a longer coverage of the season, perhaps into the playoffs this year.The advent of an official junior hockey card across Canada has also stimulated interest among the younger crowd. Oshawa, the defending Memorial Cup champions, boasts pheno-minal hockey-card sales.In fact, a company called Seventh Inning Sketch is offering cards for all three CHL leagues this season.&ldquo;Eric Lindros was the spark that got things going,&rdquo; says Doug Trudell of Seventh Inning Sketch. &ldquo;His notoriety along with the likes of Mike Ricci, Keith Primeau and Owen Nolan, and Petr Nedved out west has heightened the awareness of junior hockey cards.&rdquo;Seventh Inning Sketch is in the second year of a contract with the CHL to be the sole producers of official hockey cards. The company will debut its first full junior card set in late October.Identifying that face on the cardboard with the players on the picture tube benefits the entire circuit. Having more junior games televised has an impact on the league&rsquo;s popularity and increased popularity can only help where it matters&mdash;in attendance.Mention attendance to WHL president Ed Chynoweth and a smile crosses his face.Chynoweth is only too happy to discuss tum-stile-related matters. And no wonder, since the WHL has established attendance records the past two seasons.&ldquo;Over the past few years, we&rsquo;ve marketed our product better and presented it better,&rdquo; Chynoweth says.Nowhere is the league&rsquo;s success more evident than the Pacific Northwest, where three franchises&mdash;the Seattle Thunderbirds, Portland Winter Hawks and Tri-City Americans&mdash;are thriving.Seattle was the attendance success story of the 1989-90 season, drawing 181,211 customers for a per-game average of 5,034. That&rsquo;s a total increase of 66,189 over 1988-89.Portland, which received a WHL franchise in 1976, has attracted 6,000-plus crowds for much of the 1980s. Tri-City, with a capacity of 6,010, has sold out 55 of its 72 games during its first two seasons in Washington.For the record, the WHL attracted 1,677,423 spectators last season for an average of 3,328 per game. In 1988-89, it drew 1,641,279. By comparison, 1,148,206 fans took in WHL games during the 1984-85 season.Chynoweth&rsquo;s biggest concern is the East Division franchises, particularly those in smaller centers. The Moose Jaw Warriors (seating capacity: 3,012), Prince Albert Raiders (3,105) and the Swift Current Broncos (2,275) are no match for locales like Seattle and Portland.&ldquo;The day the big centers get in a position to dominate the smaller teams, we&rsquo;ve got a problem,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Our league can continue to be a good league, but only if it wants to be a good league together.&rdquo;The WHL isn&rsquo;t the only league with a big center looking for success in 1990-91. The OHL is banking on Lindros&mdash;already being touted as the No. 1 pick in the &rsquo;91 entry draft.Lindrosmania and the double dose of network television exposure last season put the OHL in an enviable marketing position.&ldquo;Certainly the big-time exposure went a long way towards us setting attendance records,&rdquo; OHL marketing director Ted Baker says.On a league-wide basis, attendance in the OHL increased 16.7 per cent over the previous year to a record 1,350,000 through the turnstiles for an average of 2,727 per game. Moreover, 13 of the 15 teams saw an attendance hike with Kingston leading the way at a 60 per-cent jump.Kitchener finished first in attendance followed by Sudbury. Oshawa, with Lindros for half a season, was fifth.Baker attributes the attendance increase to the league being featured on the TV networks.OHL president Dave Branch adds that the style of play and big-name players, not to mention the TV coverage and hockey-card boom, creates a conducive atmosphere for success.&ldquo;The number of quality coaches, managers and star players is probably at its most competitive level,&rdquo; Branch says. &ldquo;There are five or six important factors that led to such a big season.&rdquo;Moreover, the arrival of Lindros to the Generals in January boosted attendance figures everywhere.&ldquo;Sure, Lindros is a valuable commodity,&rdquo; noted Baker. &ldquo;But the fact of the matter is the league is picking up everywhere you look.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s such a competitive league,&rdquo; Baker says. &ldquo;Not only on the ice, but in marketing and promoting.&rdquo;So where does the OHL go from here.&ldquo;The league has reached a whole new awareness level,&rdquo; Branch says. &ldquo;The idea right now is to deal with our success and progress from there. There&rsquo;s still a lot to be done.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0034-01

BUSINESS IS BOOMING

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Herb Zurkowsky</div>If the Ontario and Western Leagues are the bellwethers of the Canadian Hockey League, then the Quebec League is the weak link.Consider that regular-season attendance in the QMJHL has decreased in five of the last six seasons, plummeting from 723,052 in 1983-84 to 539,212 last year&mdash;an average of 1,400 per game.As well, no QMJHL team has captured the Memorial Cup since 1981 when the Cornwall Royals took their second consecutive title. The last Quebec-based team to win the Cup was the Quebec Remparts in 1971.And only 14 QMJHL players were selected in last June&rsquo;s NHL entry draft, a decrease of two from the previous season which was also considered a lean draft year. But the &rsquo;90 draft saw two players&mdash;Hull&rsquo;s Karl Dykhuis (16th overall) and St-Hyacinthe&rsquo;s Martin Brodeur (20th overall)&mdash;selected in the first round where none were taken in the previous season&rsquo;s first round. In fact, only twice since 1984 have as many as 22 Quebec League players been taken in the draft.These statistics make QMJHL president Gilles Courteau bristle. But Courteau, the eternal optimist, predicts that brighter days are ahead.Courteau, who refuses to dwell on the past, says increasing the league&rsquo;s attendance is his primary concern.&ldquo;I know that (people in the OHL and WHL) are really concerned with the Quebec League. They want to see us with a better draft and gates,&rdquo; Courteau admits. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t think we are the weak link of the CHL. We are part of the CHL.&ldquo;A lot of things hurt our attendance, especially NHL games. On TV you can have one game per night seven days a week.&rdquo;This may be true, but the QMJHL in general and its individual teams in particular do little, if anything, to promote and market their product.&ldquo;We rely on the media. We don&rsquo;t advertise and that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re going to have to do,&rdquo; admits Laval governor Jean-Claude Morrissette.Despite consecutive President Cup championships and Memorial Cup appearances, Morrissette saw his team&rsquo;s attendance decrease from 47,443 spectators to 36,145 last season&mdash;an average of 1,033 fans per game. Morrissette says the Titan lost in excess of $100,000 last season.&ldquo;We need money. When you lose money you don&rsquo;t do it (advertise),&rdquo; Morrissette says.Courteau believes a potential deal that would see between 10 and 15 league games televised provincially by the Reseau des Sports cable network will go far toward promoting the QMJHL.&ldquo;Our marketing is our product on the ice,&rdquo; Courteau says. And he believes that product is improving.One indicator is that as many as 25 QMJHL players could be selected in next June NHL draft in Buffalo, he says.Potential first-round blue-chippers are: Martin Lapointe, RW, Laval; Francois Groleau, D, Shawinigan; Patrick Poulin, LW, St&mdash;Hyacinthe; Eric Lavigne, D, Hull; Rene Corbet, LW, Drummondville; Philippe Boucher, D, Granby; Marcel Cousineau, G, Beauport and Martin Brochu, G, Granby. &#9632;

…BUT QUEBEC A WEAK LINK

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01655/5748640-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Oshawa&rsquo;s Jarrod Skalde and Scott Hollis celebrate the Generals&rsquo; Memorial Cup championship last season. The Generals are aiming for No. 1 again this season.</figcaption></div>Parity is again evident in the Ontario League.No less than six teams are legitimate threats to represent the OHL at next May&rsquo;s Memorial Cup playdowns.To be sure, the defending OHL and Memorial Cup champion Oshawa Generals have the guns to defend. No OHL team, however, has won back-to-back titles since the Montreal Jr. Canadiens turned the trick in 1969 and &rsquo;70.&ldquo;You look at this league,&rdquo; said Ottawa 67s coach and general manager Brian Kilrea,&rdquo;and there are at least six teams that I see with a shot at going to the Memorial Cup.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s Oshawa, Peterborough, Belleville, Sudbury and London. And I think we&rsquo;ve strengthened ourselves where I think we can take a run at it,&rdquo; said Kilrea, who directed the 67s to the Memorial Cup title in &rsquo;84.Sherry Bassin, GM of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, is no stranger to Memorial Cup competition, having piloted Oshawa to berths in &rsquo;83 and &rsquo;87. He agrees with Kilrea&rsquo;s assessment of the top contenders.&ldquo;You can add Owen Sound and North Bay in there too. It&rsquo;s all up for grabs this year,&rdquo; Bassin said.Top to bottom: Predicted order of finish with last season&rsquo;s record in parentheses. Leyden Division: 1. Oshawa (42-20-4); 2. Peterborough (37-23-6); 3. Sudbury (36-23-7); 4. Belleville (36-26-4); 5. Ottawa (38-26-2); 6. North Bay (23-35-8); 7. Cornwall (24-38-4); 8. Kingston (42-21-3). Emms Division: 1. Owen Sound (2831-7); 2. London (41-19-6); 3. Niagara Falls (23-39-4); 4. Kitchener (38-21-7); 5. Sault Ste. Marie (18-42-6); 6. Windsor (17-41-8); 7. Hamilton (11-49-6); 8. Detroit (expansion team).Five reasons why Oshawa will win the league title: 1. Strength down the middle with Jarrod Skalde, Eric Lindros and Dale Craigwell; 2. A solid defense led by Jan-Paul Davis, Brian Grieve and overager Paul O&rsquo;Hagan; 3. Goaltending with Memorial Cup hero Fred Brathwaite; 4. The coaching of Rick Comacchia, who turned down an offer to join the Chicago Blackhawks; 5. Thirteen returning players with depth at every position.Bom leaders: 1. Lindros. &ldquo;He could be playing in the NHL right now,&rdquo; Comacchia said; 2. Skalde. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an all-around player who does everything well,&rdquo; said Belleville coach-GM Larry Mavety; 3. John Slaney, D, Cornwall. &ldquo;He could have a Bryan Fogarty-type season,&rdquo; Mavety said; 4. Rick Corriveau, D, London. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the best defenseman in the league when he sets his mind to it,&rdquo; Windsor GM Wayne Maxner said; 5. Mike Torchia, G, Kitchener. &ldquo;He should be the best goalie in the league this year,&rdquo; Maxner said.Top guns: 1. Lindros. Cleary the best player in the OHL; 2. Skalde. Could be the league&rsquo;s second-best offensive threat; 3. Chris Taylor, C, London. Had 105 points as a 17-year-old last season; 4. Brett Seguin, C, Ottawa. Had league-high 80 assists last season; 5. Jason Firth, C, Kitchener. Had 100 points last season.Future pros: 1. Lindros (again); Has created the most excitement since the entry draft was introduced. 2. Dennis Purdie, RW, London; 3. Terry Chitaroni, C, Sudbury; 4. John Porco, C, Belleville; 5. Firth.Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Hamilton has moved from the Leyden Division to the Emms; North Bay and Sudbury have moved from the Emms to the Leyden; Danny Flynn has gone from Belleville&rsquo;s coach/GM to assistant coach/GM in the Soo; Larry Mavety is over from Kingston to replace Flynn; Randy Hall, former Niagara Falls assistant, is now head coach in Kingston; Maxner, deposed from London, is now in Windsor replacing Terry McDonnell, who is now assistant GM with the new Detroit Ambassadors; Gary Agnew, a former assistant, is now London&rsquo;s coach/GM; Benny Rogano is an assistant in Hamilton; and Wayne Daniels replaces Frank Jay as Oshawa GM.Never a dull moment: 1. Flynn. &ldquo;This is my fourth year in the league and I&rsquo;m with my third team. When I moved here from Nova Scotia, I said I wanted to see Ontario, but this isn&rsquo;t the way I expected to do it.&rdquo; 2. Windsor coach Brad Smith received a 20-game suspension in January after his team was involved in an altercation in a December game. In reviewing the incident league commissioner Dave Branch said he thought Smith had sent his players out to deliberately start fights. In a hearing Smith admitted as much to Branch. 3. Smith (again). After being hit with a fine for the incident, Smith phoned Branch and asked if he could pay the fine with his Visa card; 4. Maxner. &ldquo;All I did in London for three season was make the owners money&mdash;and they fired me. Maybe I made them too much money and they had to pay too much income tax and that&rsquo;s why they got mad and fired me.&rdquo; 5. Hamilton left winger David Ritchie. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to double my goalscoring output this season. Wait, you better not write that down. I only got two last year.&rdquo;Who are these guys? 1. Porco. Has 160 points in two seasons, but rated in just the third-round among prospects&mdash;without getting drafted two years running; 2. Torchia. Singlehandedly, he almost led Kitchener to an upset Memorial Cup win. Finished the season playing 36 straight games, but still wasn&rsquo;t drafted; 3. John Spoltore, C/LW, North Bay. Had 82 points last season, but a lack of toughness prevented him from being drafted; 4. Maxner. Had finishes of second, third and first, but was still fired by London owners Al Martin and Bob Willson; 5. Seguin. &ldquo;He led the league in assists last season, but nobody knows who he is,&rdquo; said his coach, Kilrea.And for the defense: 1. Drake Berehowsky, Kingston. Was a first-round pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs despite playing just ninegames due to a knee injury; 2. Slaney. The best pure offensive defenseman since Paul Coffey; 3. Corriveau. If he keeps his weight down, could be the best blueliner in the league; 4. Adam Bennett, Sudbury. Big, strong, tough and skilled with a deadly shot from the point; 5. Mike Speer, Owen Sound. Has lost 20 pounds from last year when he was one of the best in the league.Looking out for No. 1: 1. Torchia. Great glove hand and stamina; 2. Jeff Wilson, Windsor. With Kingston last season, he had the best goals against average in the OHL; 3. Mike Lenarduzzi, Sault Ste. Marie. The first OHL goalie to be picked in the NHL draft this year&mdash;third round to Hartford; 4. John Tanner, London. Big stand-up goalie with great mobility; 5. Peter McGlynn, Ottawa. Small, but quick and technically outstanding.Fabulous freshmen: 1. Kris Draper, C, Ottawa. The 19-year-old is over from the Canadian national team; 2. Ilpo Kauhanen, G, Cornwall. The 17-year-old played for the Finnish national junior team last season; 3. Todd Warriner, C, Windsor. Most people feel the Spitfires got the best player available in this year&rsquo;s draft; 4. Jarrett Reid, C, Sault Ste. Marie. More than one OHL GM has pegged him as the league&rsquo;s next Steve Yzerman; 5. Jeff Bes, C, Hamilton. The slick pivot has the potential to win the OHL scoring title before he&rsquo;s through, says OHL Central Scouting Bureau chief Sheldon Ferguson.<h2>OHL</h2>Len Devuono a 19-year-old defenseman with the Kitchener Rangers, was scheduled to appear in provincial court Sept. 21 to answer a charge of assault causing bodily harm. The alleged incident, involving a 19-year-old female, took place outside a Kitchener roadhouse on Aug. 29. Devuono was acquired by the Rangers from the Belleville Bulls for a sixthround draft choice this summer. He played 30 games for the Bulls last season before being sent home in January for alleged office misdeeds&hellip;Rob Pearson, who had 48 goals and 88 points for Belleville last season, is on the shelf until at least Oct. 5 with a cracked collarbone. Pearson, 19, injured the collarbone Aug. 30&mdash;the day the Bulls opened training camp. A first-round draft pick of Toronto in &rsquo;89, he led the Bulls with 174 minutes in penalties&hellip;Cornwall Royals&rsquo; GM Orval Tessier is predicting big things for rookie goalie Ilpo Kauhanen. Kauhanen, 17, who played for the Finnish national junior team last season, joined the Royals via scout Peter Schneider, father of Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; rearguard Mathieu Schneider. &ldquo;Mr. Schneider has a connection in Finland who tipped us off about Ilpo,&rdquo; Tessier said. &ldquo;From what I&rsquo;ve seen, Ilpo has the potential to be one of the best goalies to play in this league in many, many years.&rdquo;&hellip;Detroit&rsquo;s Pat Peake, the first player chosen in this year&rsquo;s midget draft, injured his wrist in training camp Aug. 31 and was expected to be lost to the Ambassadors until late September. &#9632;

f0035-01

GENERAL ELECTRIC

<div class="byline">BY HERB ZURKOWSKY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01622/5748671-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Laval&rsquo;s Martin Lapointe is a potential league MVP this season as the Titan defend their title. Laval will be hard pressed to fight off the challenge from College Francais.</figcaption></div>They say good things come in threes. Well, the number three could figure prominently this season in the Quebec League.The Laval Titan, for one, will attempt to become the first team in QMJHL history to capture three consecutive President Cups.College Francais, for another, will also attempt to reach the summit&mdash;in only its third year of existence.Despite the credo of the Morrissette family&mdash;the Titan&rsquo;s owners&mdash;to win at all costs, College Francais should be the team to sip champagne.College Francais has a balanced attack, led by the troika of: left winger Sylvain Fleury (50-74124), a New York Islanders&rsquo; draft choice; right winger Robert Guillet (32-40-72), a Montreal draft pick; and center David St. Pierre (33-2457).As well, College Francais&rsquo; 255 goals against was the second fewest in the QMJHL last season. Despite the graduation of Stephane Perron and the waiver draft loss of Denis Cloutier to Beauport, an abundance of qualified defensemen remain. The four veterans are Martin La-jeunesse, Yan Arsenault, Nichol Cloutier and Etienne Lavoie. And in net, Jean-Francois Gagnon (3.50 GAA in 39 games) will be the No. 1 goalie.Top to bottom: The predicted order of finish with last season&rsquo;s record in parentheses. 1. College Francais (39-29-2); 2. St. Hyacinthe (3529-6); 3. Shawinigan (38-30-2); 4. Drummondville (14-55-1); 5. Trois-Rivieres (44-26-0); 6. Laval (37-30-3); 7. Hull (36-29-5); 8. Chicoutimi (34-33-3); 9. Granby (20-49-1); 10. St. Jean (30-36-4); 11. Victoriaville (42-23-5); 12. Beauport (expansion team).Born leaders: 1. Steve Larouche, C, Chicoutimi: By far the league&rsquo;s best scorer; 2. Martin Brodeur, G, St. Hyacinthe: &ldquo;If he&rsquo;s not the MVP this year he&rsquo;s not far from it,&rdquo; said his coach. Norman Flynn; 3. Felix Potvin, G, Chicoutimi: If nothing else, the Toronto draft choice has proved the last two years he&rsquo;s not allergic to rubber, playing in 127 of a possible 140 games for mediocre teams; 4. Pierre Sevig-ny, LW, St. Hyacinthe: &ldquo;If he had been drafted by anyone but Montreal, he&rsquo;d be playing in the NHL this year,&rdquo; said Granby coach John Paris; 5. Martin Lapointe, RW, Laval.Top guns: 1. Larouche: Scored 66 goals and 90 assists last season in Trois-Rivieres, where he was unhappy being the co-star with Yanic Perreault; 2. Fleury: Tallied an impressive 124 points on a defensive team that stresses fundamentals; 3. Sevigny: Should improve on his 47-72-119 totals; 4. Perreault, C, Trois-Rivieres: Another unhappy camper, Perreault should increase his 51-63-114 totals now that Dany Dube is out and Gaston Drapeau is in as coach; 5. Denis Chalifoux, C, Laval: He could score 50 with Lapointe setting him up.Future pros: 1. Lapointe: Can score, skate and plays physically as well, he should be an almost certain first rounder; 2. Perreault: An awkward skating style has held him back two consecutive years but shouldn&rsquo;t now that he&rsquo;s eligible in all rounds of the entry draft; 3. Patrick Poulin, RW, St. Hyacinthe: Last season&rsquo;s first overall midget draft choice struggled at times, scoring 25 goals and 26 assists, but at 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds, he has the size; 4. Francois Groleau, D, Shawinigan; Voted the league&rsquo;s defensive rookie of the year, he&rsquo;s smart and good with the puck; 5. Philippe Boucher, D, Granby: He can score and he&rsquo;s big at 6-foot-3 and 180 pounds.Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: With an expansion franchise granted to Beauport, the league reverts to two divisions. College Francais, Granby, Hull, Laval, St. Hyacinthe and St. Jean are in the Robert Lebel Division, while Beauport, Chicoutimi, Drummondville, Shawinigan, Trois-Rivieres and Victoriaville comprise the Frank Dilio Division.The new coaches are in Chicoutimi (Joe Canale); Drummondville (Jean Hamel); Laval (Jean-Maurice Cool); Trois-Rivieres (Gaston Drapeau) and Victoriaville (Gilbert Perreault), along with former Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; assistant Alain Chainey being named Beauport&rsquo;s first coach.Never a dull moment: 1, Vigneault: A rising star with tremendous potential, the Hull coach frequently taunts opposing players; 2. Flynn: A Vigneault clone, the St. Hyacinthe coach accused Todd Gillingham, one of his former players, with providing the Laser with secret information during last year&rsquo;s playoffs against Trois-Rivieres&mdash;only to admit it was a ruse following the Draveurs&rsquo; elimination; 3. Gilles Courteau: The league president tells it like it is and isn&rsquo;t afraid to step on toes; 4. Charlie Henry: Hull&rsquo;s general manager will talk to five journalists over the course of a day and provide each one with a different answer to the same question; 5. Joe Hardy: The Shawinigan coach is a great motivator and gives reporters good copy&mdash;especially at playoff time.Who are these guys? Some underrated players include: 1. Fleury: Has scored 225 points in two seasons yet remains unheralded; 2. Alain Tardif, RW, Victoriaville: An excellent defensive player, he had 27-42-69 totals in 55 games last year; 3. Eric Brule, D, Chicoutimi: The glue of his team&rsquo;s defense corps; 4. Mario Therrien, LW, Granby: Only played 31 games last year, scoring 8 goals and 12 assists, but does everything well yet is almost invisible on the ice; 5. Bruno Villeneuve, RW, Hull: A small player who can score (34-50-84 totals in 61 games), he could dominate now that he&rsquo;s no longer playing in Andrew McKim&rsquo;s shadow.And for the defense: Despite the QMJHL&rsquo;s offensive tendencies, there are some standout rearguards, including: 1. Patrice Brisebois, Drummondville: An offensive machine, he&rsquo;ll have to concentrate on his own zone more with the Voltigeurs; 2. Karl Dykhuis, Hull: Plays one-on-one as well as anyone; 3. Groleau: Will be a superstar once he improves his skating; 4. Brule: An offensive defenseman (12-60-72 totals in 70 games) he must learn to join the attack only when the opportunity arises; 5. Remi Belliveau, Granby: Not stylish, but works good on his side and is good in the defensive zone.Looking out for No. 1: Top goalies include: 1. Brodeur: An all-around player who does everything well; 2. Potvin: If he ever gets a good team in front of him, watch out; 3. Eric Raymond, Laval: Is at his best under pressure; 4. Pierre Gagnon, Victoriaville: Made Tigres&rsquo; fans forget about Stephane Fiset last year; 5. Andre Boulianne, Shawinigan: Should excel now that he doesn&rsquo;t have to share time with Dominic Roussel.Fabulous freshmen: Top rookies: 1. Rene Corbet, left winger, Drummondville: A pure scorer in midget, will he continue in major junior?; 2. Boucher: Can score and has size; 3. Martin Gendron, right winger, St. Hyacinthe: A skilled player, good skater, puckhandler and natural scorer; 4. Stephane St. Amour, right winger, St. Jean: A good two-way player who loves to play physical; 5. Marcel Cousineau, goaltender, Beauport: Plays the angles well, challenges the shooter and has a good glove hand.<h2>QMJHL</h2>Rookie defenceman Dean Melanson, St. Hyacinthe&rsquo;s third-round midget draft choice last May, had a close call at the Laser training camp. Melanson was cut for 20 stitches under his chin&mdash;one centimetre from his jugular&mdash;by the skate of Francois Paquette. Paquette, who was attempting to throw a check, lost his balance. As he did, his blade went under Melanson&rsquo;s visor. Fortunately, Laser team physician Pierre Noisseux was on the scene. He stopped the bleeding and rushed Melanson to hospital&hellip;If the Montreal Canadiens and Minnesota North Stars were less than enthused about training in Moscow, College Francais couldn&rsquo;t have been happier over its trip to France. Team owner Louis Portal, as a reward for last season&rsquo;s 39-29-2 record, took 25 players and coach/general manager Gerard Gagnon to Briancion, a small town of 6,000 located in the French Alps, for 10 days of training between Aug. 9-19. College Francais won both exhibition games it played, 16-3 against Briancion and 4-3 over France&rsquo;s national junior team. Upon its return to Canada, College Francais was undefeated (6-0-1) in seven preseason games. &ldquo;For camp it was a good experience,&rdquo; Gagnon reported. &ldquo;Not necessarily better because you can&rsquo;t play enough games, but for team spirit it was the best experience. The guys had the opportunity to establish relations.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0036-01

COLLEGE FRANCAIS GRADUATES TO HEAD OF CLASS

<div class="byline">BY ROB VANSTONE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01537/5748702-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kimbi Daniels had 43 goals last season in what was an off-year for him. Daniels should rebound and be one of Swift Current&rsquo;s leaders on the way to the title.</figcaption></div>Look for the Swift Current Broncos to win their second Western League title this season.Maybe.After all, the age of parity has arrived. Swift Current, which won the Memorial Cup two seasons ago, is as good a guess as any, since no team appears poised to dominate.Top to bottom: Here&rsquo;s a predicted order of finish, with last season&rsquo;s record in parentheses, East Division: 1. Swift Current (29-39-4), 2. Prince Albert (38-33-1), 3. Saskatoon (33-345), 4. Regina (34-31-7), 5. Medicine Hat (3238-2), 6. Brandon (28-38-6), 7. Lethbridge (5117-4). 8. Moose Jaw (28-41-3); West Division: 1. Spokane (30-37-5), 2. Kamloops (56-16-0), 3. Seattle (52-17-3), 4. Portland (24-45-3), 5. Tri-City (39-28-5), 6. Victoria (5-65-2).Five reasons why Swift Current should win the league title: 1. A gifted crew of forwards, led by centers Kimbi Daniels, Geoff Sanderson and Andy Schneider; 2. Good, young defensemen; 3. The Broncos are likely the best pure-skating team in the league; 4. Coach Graham James knows what it takes to win. He led the Broncos to the Memorial Cup title in 1989; 5. There may be a lack of experience on defense and in goal, but James has a knack for filling voids when necessary.Born leaders: These players should be in a race for most valuable player honors, assuming they aren&rsquo;t retained by NHL teams: 1. Petr Nedved, C, Seattle. The finest pure talent in the league. Picked second overall in the 1990 NHL draft by the Vancouver Canucks; 2. Pat Falloon, C, Spokane. As smooth as they come. A top prospect for the &rsquo;91 draft; 3. Sanderson, C, Swift Current. Selected in the second round (36th overall) by Hartford in June. Great all-around skills; 4. Scott Scissons, C, Saskatoon. Like Sanderson, excels in every facet of the game. The New York Islanders&rsquo; first-round pick, sixth overall, in June; 5. Trevor Kidd, G, Brandon. A franchise player like Nedved. Calgary selected him 11th overall in &rsquo;90.Top guns: Potential scoring champions include: 1. Nedved. Had 65 goals and 145 points as a WHL rookie last season; 2. Falloon. Produced 60 goals and 124 points as a 17-year-old last winter; 3. Brian Sakic, C, Tri-City. The WHL&rsquo;s highest returning scorer, with 53 goals and 152 points last season. A superb playmaker; 4. Daniels. Had 43 goals last season during what was considered an off-year. May snipe over 70 in an on-year; 5. Mike Sillinger, C, Regina. Could be in for a big season if he doesn&rsquo;t make the Detroit Red Wings, who picked him 11th overall in &rsquo;89. Has had 53 and 57 goals (131 and 129 points) the last two seasons.Future pros: NHL scouts will keep close tabs on these players. All are eligible in the 91 draft: 1. Brent Bilodeau, D, Seattle. Combines size (6-foot-4, 210 pounds) and offensive skills (14 goals, 43 points as a rookie); 2. Falloon. A tad undersized at 5-foot-10, 185 pounds, but he possesses rare offensive skills; 3. Richard Matvichuk, D, Saskatoon. Registered 32 points in 56 regular-season games, then had two goals and eight assists in 10 playoff encounters.; 4. Jeff Nelson, C, Prince Albert. Recorded 87 and 97 points during first two WHL seasons; 5. Scott Niedermayer, D, Kamloops. He was outstanding as a rookie last season, with 14 goals and 69 points in 64 games.Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Many familiar names have changed positions over the summer. Terry Simpson resigned as Prince Albert&rsquo;s coach/GM to become an assistant coach with the Winnipeg Jets. Simpson was replaced by Rob Daum, his assistant last season; Kamloops coach Ken Hitchcock took a similar path, moving to the Philadelphia Flyers as an assistant coach. Hitchcock was replaced by Tom Renney; Russ Farwell, a successful GM with Medicine Hat and Seattle, was named Philadelphia&rsquo;s GM. Seattle coach Peter Anholt will now see double duty, handling player personnel; GM Kelly McCrimmon succeeded an ailing Doug Sauter as Brandon&rsquo;s head coach. McCrimmon replaced Sauter on an interim basis in January; Tim Speltz, whose contract as Medicine Hat&rsquo;s GM was not renewed, succeeded outgoing owner Vic Fitzgerald as Spokane&rsquo;s GM. Speltz was replaced in Medicine Hat by Jack Shupe, who hired ex-NHL defenseman Tim Bothwell to replace the deposed Ron Kennedy behind the bench; Lethbridge GM Wayne Simpson (Terry&rsquo;s brother), who left the Hurricanes to become a scout with the Minnesota North Stars, was replaced by Bob Bartlett; Lyle Moffat, Victoria&rsquo;s head coach at the end of last season, became the GM. Rick Hopper was named the Cougars&rsquo; head coach and director of hockey operations.Never a dull moment: The WHL boasts some colorful personalities. For example: 1. James, who always has press types chortling, on goaltender David Bell: &ldquo;Ask not for whom the Bell goals. He goals for me.&rdquo; On a lackluster performance: &ldquo;We were awful. If Via Rail had that many passengers, they wouldn&rsquo;t be shutting down.&rdquo; 2. Daniels, the oft-maligned forward rivals his coach for one-liners: &ldquo;Sometimes I think Andrew Dice Clay is my press agent.&rdquo; 3. Lethbridge coach Bob Loucks. He&rsquo;s a former professional wrestler (remember Little Brutus?) who provides candid, thoughtful answers to even the most banal questions. 4. Regina coach Brad Tippett. Isn&rsquo;t nearly as irrepressible as James, but comes up with the occasional gem. One night, Tippett saw fit to criticize the Pats&rsquo; communicative skills: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to read minds. Unfortunately, we don&rsquo;t have Kreskin in our lineup.&rdquo; 5. Spokane defenseman Kerry Toporowski. He&rsquo;s not one for punchlines, just punches. Led the WHL with 384 penalty minutes last season. With misconducts included, that total mushrooms to a staggering 624.Who are these guys? The WHL&rsquo;s most underrated players are: 1. Ray Whitney, C-RW, Spokane. His 53 goals seemed like an afterthought compared to teammate Falloon; 2. Kyle Reeves, C, Tri-City. Scored a quiet 68 goals last season; 3. Kevin Riehl, C, Medicine Hat. Recorded 38 goals and 85 points last season, but didn&rsquo;t get much attention. 4. Brad Rubachuk, LW, Lethbridge. Scored 37 goals last season, to the notice of few. His goal total, enough to lead two other teams, was eclipsed by six teammates; 5. Kelly Chotowetz, D, Regina. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll play well 69 out of 72 games,&rdquo; Tippett said. &ldquo;In the other three, he&rsquo;ll have bronchitis and a broken leg.&rdquo;And for the defense: Expect these players to be among the WHL&rsquo;s top defensemen: 1. Darryl Sydor, Kamloops. Quaterbacks the attack. Had 95 points in 67 games last season; 2. Niedermayer, Kamloops. He and Sydor give Kamloops the best defensive foundation in the league; 3. Stewart Malgunas, Seattle. Underrated. Was on Canada&rsquo;s &rsquo;90 world junior championship team; 4. Brent Thompson, Medicine Hat. 5. Terry Hollinger, Regina. Scored 57 points last season, but went undrafted&mdash;again.Looking out for No. 1: The elite stoppers are: 1. Kidd. Named the top goalie in major junior last season; 2. Corey Hirsch, Kamloops. Had a 3.82 goals-against average in 63 games; 3. Dusty Imoo, Lethbridge. His 3.58 GAA was the best of any WHL regular last season. Should return as a 20-year-old; 4. Chris Osgood, Medicine Hat. Coming off a standout rookie season (4.42 GAA); 5. Byron Dafoe, Portland. His 5.11 GAA of last season is deceiving.Fabulous freshmen: Here are some rookie-of-the-year candidates: 1. Dean Zayonce, D, Victoria. The 20-year-old captained the Vemon Lakers to the &rsquo;90 Centennial Cup Tier II title; 2. Dan Blasko, D, Kamloops. One of two Czechoslovakian recruits on the Blazers; 3. Jiri Kloboucek, C, Kamloops. The other Czech; 4. Lance Burn\s, C, Lethbridge. A 16-year-old from Caroline, Alta.&mdash;the home of figure skater Kurt Browning. He&rsquo;s bigger (6-foot-3), tougher and has better scoring abilities than Browning; 5. Louis Dumont, C, Regina.<h2>WHL</h2>The Western League has decided to toughen its stance on checking from behind, while giving referees more judicial power over high sticking infractions. Beginning this season, players who receive a major penalty for hitting from behind will automatically be assessed a game misconduct. If the referee deems the check is a deliberate attempt to injure, a match penalty will also be given. Major high stick infractions, meanwhile, will no longer result in game misconducts unless they are deliberate. Accidental injuries will now carry a double-minor penalty&hellip;Swift Current Broncos&rsquo; center Kimbi Daniels paid a impromptu visit to the drugstore Aug. 27. Daniels required 20 stitches to his head after another vehicle ran a red light and bounced his car into the drugstore. Daniels, 18, also suffered bruised ribs and shoulder, but he was ready for the opening of the Broncos&rsquo; training camp. &lsquo;&lsquo;The car went three-quarters of the way into the drugstore, like in a movie,&rdquo; Daniels said. &ldquo;I remember being hit. but I don&rsquo;t remember going into the drugstore. I guess I missed my moment&rsquo; of being Burt Reynolds.&rdquo;&hellip;Although center Mike Sillinger bypassed the Regina Pats training camp, he denied rumors of a trade request. Sillinger, who was selected 11th overall by the Detroit Red Wings at the &rsquo;89 NHL entry draft, left for Flint, Mich., on Sept. 3 to attend a power-skating clinic prior to Detroit&rsquo;s main camp. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t made any request to be traded,&rdquo; said the 19-year-old center. &ldquo;If I wanted to be traded, I&rsquo;d be telling you.&rdquo; &#9632;

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BRONCO BUSTING

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01625/5748740-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01590/5748733-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="3131" height="3600"></div> &#9632;

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MAJOR JUNIOR HOCKEY SCHEDULES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01307/5748778-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01254/5748771-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="3087" height="3684"></div> &#9632;

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CLASSIFIED

<h2>CANADIENS</h2>Right winger Stephane Richer finally came to terms with the Canadiens Sept. 4. Richer, the Habs&rsquo; leading scorer last season with 51 goals, signed a one-year contract plus an option for a reported $750,000. With signing and performance bonuses, it&rsquo;s believed he&rsquo;ll earn close to $1 million this season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very satisfied,&rdquo; said Richer. &ldquo;I got what I wanted and now I can go to training camp with a clear head.&rdquo;&hellip;Coach Pat Burns, with many of his players&mdash;including defenseman Petr Svoboda, left winger Shayne Corson, center Guy Carbonneau and goaltender Patrick Roy&mdash;in the middle of contract hassles, had a message for his team when they left for Sweden. &ldquo;I told the players I wouldn&rsquo;t accept anybody not giving all he&rsquo;s got because he&rsquo;s not satisfied with what the team&rsquo;s offered him,&rdquo; Savard said. &ldquo;The situation is simple. We&rsquo;re going to Europe to work and play hockey. What goes on at the negotiating table doesn&rsquo;t concern me. My job is to win. &ldquo;&hellip;Svoboda has vowed this will be his last season in Montreal. Svoboda, entering the option year of his contract, threatened to boycott the Canadiens&rsquo; trip to Europe before deciding to go. &ldquo;No matter what. I&rsquo;m out of here at the end of the season,&rdquo; Svoboda said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have any respect left for them. I can&rsquo;t stay here. The final offer Savard made to my agent can&rsquo;t be serious. There&rsquo;s a big gap between the team&rsquo;s offer and our demand.&rdquo;<h2>BRUINS</h2>Having handed multi-million dollar deals to Ray Bourque and Cam Neely that raised the Bruins&rsquo; payroll some 20 per cent, GM Harry Sinden was feeling far less generous toward Craig Janney. The Bruins&rsquo; top center has a year and an option left on his contract, at no more than $200,000 per year, but wants a big raise. Said Sinden: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re really and truly miles apart.&rdquo; Said Janney&rsquo;s agent Bob Murray: &ldquo;What he&rsquo;s looking for is to be paid a fair salary.&rdquo;&hellip;Sinden gave in and offered unsigned draft pick Wes Walz a guaranteed one-way contract. Walz initially balked at Sinden&rsquo;s one-year offer and threatened to play another year in Lethbridge in the Western League, but the two sides came to an agreement on a four-year deal&hellip;Bruins&rsquo; coach Mike Milbury and right winger Chris Nilan played small parts in an episode of the new Fox network show Against the Law. The episode is tentatively slated to air Oct. 14&hellip;Former Bruin forward Dave Donnelly, who played last year in Europe, and ex-Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; defenseman Kent Carlson, were invited to camp on a tryout basis.<h2>WHALERS</h2>Mikael Andersson, who coach Rick Ley has labeled his No. 1 left winger, was a little behind his teammates as training camp opened. Andersson, who had off-season surgery on his left knee, was able to skate but did not scrimmage until a week after the beginning of camp. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s still some soreness after summer surgery in Sweden. I started skating in late August, but only easy,&rdquo; Andersson said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s still a little stiff. &ldquo;&hellip;Paul Cyr, who has missed the past two seasons with knee problems, has left the New York Rangers and will attend the Whalers&rsquo; camp as a free-agent tryout. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got 10 left wings trying out for four spots,&rdquo; GM Ed Johnston said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a real grab bag.&rdquo;&hellip;Johnston said he received a letter from NHL president John Ziegler notifying him the Czechoslovakian hockey federation had protested the signing of defenseman Jergus Baca to a contract. The Czechoslovakians maintain he still has a year left on his contract with Kosice. Baca claims he was forced to sign under the old communist regime and the Kosice contract therefore is invalid.<h2>SABRES</h2>The Sabres made some last minute additions to training camp inviting former Pittsburgh Penguin Dan Frawley and former draft choices Ian Boyce and Jiri Sejba to camp. Free agent Dwaine Hutton, a former International League player who was out of hockey last season also was invited as was Chris Panek, a local player. Sejba, a former draft pick (ninth round, 1985) from Czechoslovakia. will vie for a spot at left wing. Boyce was the Sabres&rsquo; pick in the third round of the 1989 supplemental draft. The left wing from the University of Vermont was the 19th player taken overall in that draft. He played in Europe last season&hellip;Brad May, the Sabres first pick in the 1990 entry draft&mdash;14th overall&mdash;underwent successful arthroscopic surgery for tom knee ligaments and is projected to have a full recovery&hellip;Buffalo&rsquo;s longest road trip of the season will be in the pre-season. The team plays five games-&mdash;at Quebec, Orlando, Phoenix (twice against different opponents) and Albany in nine nights. The Sabres&rsquo; longest in-season road trips are for four games (twice).<h2>NORDIQUES</h2>Center Kip Miller ended his one-day holdout from training camp to sign a two-year plus-option contract Sept. 9. The 1990 Hobey Baker winner from Michigan State was a fourthround draft pick in 1987. The 5-foot-10, 175-pound Miller led the NCAA in scoring last season with 48 goals and 101 points in 45 games&hellip;Right wingers Trevor Stienburg and Darin Kimble also signed new deals with the Nords. Stienburg signed Sept. 7, Kimble Sept. 9&hellip;Disgruntled defenseman Joe Cirella has renewed his request to be traded. Center Claude Loiselle, like Cirella a former New Jersey Devil, said he wouldn&rsquo;t mind staying if things improved in Quebec. &#9632;

RICHER SIGNS DEAL FOR $750,000

&hellip;Brian MacLellan of the Calgary Flames defied medical disorders as a youth to make it to the NHL. As a child. MacLellan contracted Legges Perthes and was told he may never walk correctly. He also suffered a broken neck while playing junior hockey MacLellan helped Calgary&rsquo; win the Stanley Cup in 1989.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02193/5748864-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="971" height="529"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian MacLellan</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0042-02

DID YOU KNOW…

<div class="byline">BY STEPHEN HARRIS</div>Raymond Bourque joined the growing rank of NHL millionaires Aug. 31, signing a new four-year deal worth roughly $5.1 million.After two months of intense and sometimes testy negotiations, Boston Bruins&rsquo; general manager Harry Sin-den tore up the remainder of Bourque&rsquo;s existing contract&mdash;two years at about $500,000, plus an option year&mdash;and made the three-time Norris Trophy winner the league&rsquo;s top-paid blueliner.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01273/5748895-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="560" height="678"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ray Bourque is relieved to be returning with a new contract.</figcaption></div>Bourque reportedly will receive a base salary of $1.1 million, with deferred payments bringing $140,000-a-year for five years starting in 1996.The new pact, which also includes incentives, is worth slightly more than the bonanza free agent Scott Stevens reaped from St. Louis, the signing that sent shock waves throughout the league.Soon after the deal was done, the 29-year-old Bourque headed out from his Rosemere, Que., home for a training run. He left behind a note for his wife, Chris, with three words that signaled a change in their lives and would make headlines the next day in Boston.The note read: &ldquo;Honey, we&rsquo;re millionaires.&rdquo;&ldquo;I&rsquo;m feeling great about things right now,&rdquo; said Bourque. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy things got settled before camp. I&rsquo;m going back to Boston with a contract. That&rsquo;s a relief for me and my family. I&rsquo;ve been waiting for this all summer. It took a long time to work out, but it&rsquo;s worth it.&rdquo;At times this summer, the attempt at re-writing the contract may not have seemed worth it. Bourque was criticized by members of the Boston media for failing to honor his existing contract. But Bourque&rsquo;s detractors failed to recognize it was Sinden who offered to re-open the deal and bring his star player&rsquo;s salary in line with the fast-changing NHL pay scale.Sinden admitted he never guessed he&rsquo;d have to go so high with Bourque, and top right winger Cam Neely, who a few days earlier inked a re-written contract worth $3.65 million for four years.&ldquo;I talked with Cam and Ray about doing something,&rdquo; said Sinden. &ldquo;But I never anticipated what happened. I could have said no and invited chaos. I probably could have lived through it, but I capitulated. I made all the sacrifices.&ldquo;Fortunately, we&rsquo;re talking about our two best players and our two best guys. I felt if it wasn&rsquo;t Ray and Cam,God knows how I would have handled it.&rdquo;Bourque, who was adamant about renegotiating, recognized the talks were tough on both sides.&ldquo;This wasn&rsquo;t easy,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was tough for me and tough for Harry. I know both of us didn&rsquo;t enjoy it. But in this situation, it was sort of out of our control. I&rsquo;m just happy we were able to resolve this.&ldquo;At the beginning, I really didn&rsquo;t think it was going to get done. It was up and down, up and down.&rdquo;It ended on an up note. For Bourque and for the Bruins.<h2>BOSTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Aug. 30: Mail DelGuidice, G. signed contractAug. 31: Ray Bourque, D. signed four-year contract.Sept. 6: Wes Walz, C, signed four-year contract. &#9632;

f0043-01

BOURQUE FINALLY JOINS MILLIONAIRE’S CLUB

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLY</div>Rick Vaive and Pierre Turgeon are at opposite ends of the pro sports age spectrum, but the two Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; forwards are standing on the threshold of a financial dream.All they have to do is wait.&ldquo;My gut feeling, what I really want to do is sign,&rdquo; said Vaive, 31. &ldquo;My priority is to sign a new contract with the Buffalo Sabres, but I&rsquo;ve discussed it with my agent and we can&rsquo;t ignore my options.&rdquo;The combination of a salary explosion and the NHL&rsquo;s quirky compensation rules give Vaive and Turgeon some interesting options. In the wake of the dramatic salary increases obtained by St. Louis Blues&rsquo; Brett Hull and Scott Stevens, players and agents have been watching the market. Many have delayed signing in an attempt to be better able to read it.Vaive is entering the option year of his contract and under the current collective bargaining agreement can play out that option and position himself to be a free agent with very few restrictions.Turgeon, just 21 and already a 100-point man, could also play out his option and be a Category I free agent&mdash;a player with less than five years experience and under the age of24. In previous years those players almost never moved, but the stakes are higher now. Should Turgeon seek to sign with another club, that club would have to start trade talks with the Sabres. If the two sides failed to reach an agreement, each team would have to submit an offer to an arbitrator. The arbitrator&rsquo;s decision would be final.With the advent of expansion and the stunning acquisition of Stevens by St. Louis (perhaps for five No. 1 draft choices) that now seems to be an acceptable risk for many teams. An expansion team&mdash;the Bay Area Sharks, perhaps&mdash;could sign Turgeon and then offer Buffalo almost everything it has. Since that would be next to nothing (except draft choices and used North Stars) the exchange would definitely be in the new team&rsquo;s favor.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01200/5748926-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg" title="f0044-01" width="560" height="916"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Vaive wants to see what the market is before signing.</figcaption></div>Sabres&rsquo; general manager Gerry Meehan said the team will do everything in its power to sign all players and both Vaive and Turgeon are expected to sign, but Meehan acknowledged the climate&mdash;brought on by the St. Louis deals&mdash;is different.&ldquo;You have two guys on a team making in excess of $2.5 million a year. That is really a (financial) burden for a lot of teams,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A lot of players are expecting their contracts to follow suit. I&rsquo;ve talked to a lot of teams that are not making much headway.&rdquo;In recent days, more players have signed new deals&mdash;Ray Bourque and Cam Neely in Boston, Mike Gartner in New York and others. The market appears to be settling out.Still, Vaive and Turgeon were waiting.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve played this game since I was 19, and sure, I&rsquo;ve made pretty good money in comparison to most people,&rdquo; Vaive said. &ldquo;But a hockey player never made money like a football player, and certainly not like a baseball or basketball player, and you only get so many years in the game. For a lot of those years, the money was good, not great. At my age, this could be my last chance at a great contract. I&rsquo;d be a fool not to at least wait and see what happens.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0044-01

VAIVE AND TURGEON WEIGHING OPTIONS

<div class="byline">BY JEFF JACOBS</div>After the first 100-point season of his career, exactly how much is Ronnie (Franchise) Francis worth to the Hartford Whalers?It&rsquo;s a good question.And as August turned to September, it was a question nobody was prepared to answer.Multi-million dollar money has been flowing in St. Louis, Boston and Montreal, but it hasn&rsquo;t even begun to trickle in Hartford for Francis.Francis scored 101 points and set the franchise record with 69 assists last season. His base salary was $350,000. While certainly not a shabby sum, it pales in comparison to what Brett Hull, Cam Neely and Denis Savard pulled down this summer.It&rsquo;s not even the highest on the Whalers. Mike Liut, traded in March to Washington, made $455,000 last season. Kevin Dineen, who signed a four-year deal in 1989 worth in excess of $2 million, including deferments, is the top paid Whaler.&ldquo;At this point in my career, I don&rsquo;t want to sell myself short,&rdquo; said the 27-year-old, nine-year NHL veteran. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;m sure they don&rsquo;t want to overpay me. But with Brett Hull, Scott Stevens, the new collective bargaining talks next summer and expansion, the rules are changing.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s sure an interesting time to come up for a new contract, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;As general manager Ed Johnston went home to Pittsburgh for the LaborDay weekend, however, no one could say Francis&rsquo; important contract talks had been anything more than a yawn.If Francis plays out his option, he&rsquo;ll make $370,000 this season on the final year of a four-year contract.The only offer the Whalers made came in June to cover themselves contractually by NHL rules. It was a two-year deal for $400,000 next season.&ldquo;Not a serious offer,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re waiting for one.&rdquo;&ldquo;We&rsquo;re waiting for a counteroffer,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s their turn.&rdquo;Johnston announced publicly during the final week in August he heard through &ldquo;the grapevine&rdquo; that Francis was playing out his option. A negotiating ploy to get things moving? Maybe.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01170/5748957-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg" title="f0045-01" width="558" height="836"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Francis feels the Whalers can win it all this season.</figcaption></div>At any rate, Francis&rsquo; agent, Frank Caputo, confirmed he was sending in official notification of Francis playing out his option a few weeks before the September deadline. But Caputo immediately pointed out that this was merely a formality and that, as a matter of course, he always sends in his option-year papers early.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking forward to dealing with Eddie and the Whalers,&rdquo; Caputo said. &ldquo;Nothing abnormal has happened. Even if this takes into the fall, we think we&rsquo;ll get something worked out. We&rsquo;ve been watching all the other major deals in the NHL. We&rsquo;ve been doing our research and our homework first.&ldquo;The most important thing is not that we have it done by training camp, but that we get a fair contract.&rdquo;Whether or not he plays out his option, Francis is looking for big things from the Whalers this season.&ldquo;This will be my 10th year in Hartford and it&rsquo;s the first time I can honestly say I&rsquo;m excited about our chances to win it all,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;I feel we&rsquo;re that close.&ldquo;We took a lot of flak for finishing fourth in our division (last season), but people forget that we were seventh overall. I really believe we&rsquo;re not far away.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to let these negotiations affect my play. I&rsquo;m going to let Frank worry about it. I&rsquo;ll worry about hockey.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0045-01

MR. FRANCHISE POISED TO GRAB THE BIG BUCKS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01192/5749012-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg" title="f0047-01" width="424" height="607"><figcaption class="caption-body">STEVE SIMMONS</figcaption></div>It was there in the New York papers, one sentence at the back of the sports section, buried beside the horse racing results and the classified ads.The Vancouver Canucks announced the retirement of Paul Reinhart and Larry Melnyk.Just like that. One sentence. Larry Melnyk and Paul Reinhart lumped together, as though they belonged in the same sentence, let alone the same league.Perhaps Larry Melnyk&rsquo;s NHL career was worth little more than a sentence but surely Reinhart&rsquo;s deserved more.One sentence doesn&rsquo;t begin to speak of the talent and of the pain and of the intellect of one of the most confusing, intriguing and purely skilled players of the past decade.The same day, in a Buffalo newspaper, Paul Reinhart&rsquo;s retirement received two sentences. The first said he was finished. The second listed his career statistics. That was it. The same two sentences appeared in USA Today.And I couldn&rsquo;t help but thinking that something was wrong here.Maybe because I&rsquo;ve known Paul Reinhart for the past 11 years I thought he deserved better.Maybe because I&rsquo;d spent so much time trying to understand him and sometimes defending him that my sensibilities were bothered by this apparent slight.I&rsquo;ve seen Paul Coffey and Raymond Bourque at their best, and at his best, Paul Reinhart was their equal. And that was the problem. He wasn&rsquo;t their equal very often.He was there and then he wasn&rsquo;t. One game in, one game out. One year in, one year out.Eleven years of wondering, now gone. And Paul Reinhart&mdash;who finishes his career with 133-426-559 totals in 648 regularseason games&mdash;has no trophies to show for it, no all-star berths, nothing to truly signify what he was, and what he could have been.A Hall of Famer who won&rsquo;t be.Once, a while back, I asked Wayne Gretzky which defenseman he found most difficult to play against.&ldquo;Paul,&rdquo; he answered without hesitation.&ldquo;Coffey?&rdquo; I asked.&ldquo;No Reinhart,&rdquo; he responded.He knew what Reinhart could do and he knew he didn&rsquo;t do it often, and like most of us, he didn&rsquo;t know why. That was before the back injury slowed Reinhart down. That was before he had an excuse, even if he didn&rsquo;t need one.Before Reinhart ever felt a twinge in his spine, you knew he was different. But you didn&rsquo;t always know why.Some professional athletes are like little boys and never grow up, but Reinhart wasn&rsquo;t one of them. He grew up. Too fast. There was no little boy in him. He was sharp and analytical and he provoked thought among those around him.Perhaps that&rsquo;s what troubled him so. Perhaps he spent too much time thinking.Once, during a training camp, Reinhart expressed disgust at the state of the NHL.&ldquo;Look at this camp,&rdquo; he told me while he played for the Calgary Flames. &ldquo;All our draft choices are 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds. They&rsquo;re all giants but none of them have any skills.&rdquo;That bothered him because he believed in the purity of hockey, and it bothered him because he liked the game and so often despised the way it was played in the NHL.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d love to have played for the Oilers,&rdquo; Reinhart said on the day he retired. &ldquo;The way they played, those guys had carte blanche. That was hockey, the way I love it.&rdquo;But he was never an Oiler, only a Flame and a Canuck.In Calgary, he was asked to do less than he wanted to. In Vancouver, he was asked to do more.Somehow, the mix was never right. Paul Reinhart should have left the game as a legend, but quietly, he has simply walked away. Steve Simmons is a feature writer-columnist for the Toronto Sun. &#9632;

f0047-01

A LEGEND THAT NEVER WAS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02135/5749043-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Leo Boivin, during the twilight of an 18-year NHL career in the late 1960s, gets some handy work done by Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; doctor John Finley. Boivin, a native of Prescott, Ont., played 1,150 regular-season games, more than half with Boston, but was never on a Stanley Cup winner.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0047-02

WAY WE WERE

<div class="byline">BY CHRIS STEVENSON</div>The flashing red light on his answering machine said it all.Sylvain Turgeon spent seven hours on the road between Cape Cod and his home in Cedar Knoll, N.J., Sept. 4.When he walked in the door of his home, the 25-year-old left winger saw the light.&ldquo;The light on my answering machine was flashing like crazy and I said to myself, &lsquo;Uh, oh, something is up,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Turgeon.The messages were from his agent&mdash;letting him know he had been traded by the New Jersey Devils to the Montreal Canadiens for Claude Lemieux&mdash;and from a number of newspaper reporters wanting to get his reaction to the deaf.&ldquo;It was a surprise, but I&rsquo;m very happy about the move to Montreal,&rdquo; said Turgeon, a native of Noranda, Que., a mining town 300 miles northwest of Montreal.&ldquo;My family is from around there, the language&hellip;it will be nice,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;As a kid I always looked up to the Canadiens. Henri Richard, (Guy) Lafleur, even Serge Savard was playing then. It&rsquo;s an honor to play with them.&ldquo;I recognize hockey is a religion there. They call them Les Glorieux. When I was a kid I always dreamed of wearing that sweater.&rdquo;Unfortunately for Turgeon and the Habs. that probably won&rsquo;t be until sometime in November.The brittle Turgeon, whose seven-year NHL career has been interrupted five times by serious injury, is sidelined until then after undergoing a hernia operation in Montreal Aug. 23.That latest problem dates back to March 22 when he pulled his groin. After it failed to heal over the summer, Dr. Real Lemieux operated, finding a small hole in a stomach muscle and repairing it.The Habs quietly checked out the status of Turgeon&rsquo;s health with Dr. Lemieux before going ahead with the deal.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t hesitate to make the deal,&rdquo; said Montreal GM Serge Savard. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m convinced Sylvain will find his form. It&rsquo;s not a big injury.&rdquo;Turgeon, the second pick in the NHL draft in 1983 by the Hartford Whalers, also had surgery in November of &rsquo;86 to repair a stomach muscle tear. That was followed by a broken arm suffered at Team Canada&rsquo;s training camp in August of &rsquo;87, an ankle injury in February &rsquo;88 and a separated left shoulder in December &rsquo;88 that caused him to miss 36 straight games.His down time led to bad blood in the Hartford dressing room where he endured racial barbs and was stuck with derisive nickname &ldquo;Toad.&rdquo;There were whispers that he couldn&rsquo;t play hurt and was more interested in not how many goals he scored but how he looked scoring them.Turgeon dismissed the episode.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s over now, history,&rdquo; said Turgeon, who was dealt to New Jersey in June 1989. &ldquo;The members of a team have one thing in common and that&rsquo;s playing hockey.&rdquo;Though injured, Turgeon was by far the best offer Savard received for Lemieux.The Turgeon-for-Lemieux deal capped a frenetic day of activity for Savard who also dealt veteran de fenseman Craig Ludwig, 29, to the New York Islanders for defenseman Gerald Diduck, 25, and signed nine players to contracts before jetting off for the Habs training camp in Sweden and the Soviet Union.<h2>MONTREAL</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Aug. 31: Denis Savard, C, signed a four-year contract.Sept. 4: Stephane Richer, RW. Brian Hayward. G, Sylvain Lefebvre, D. Eric Desjardins. D, Lyle Odelein, D, Stephan Lebeau, C. Todd Ewen, RW, Mike Keane. RW, and Mark Pederson, LW, signed contracts. Claude Lemieux, RW. traded to New Jersey for Sylvain Turgeon. LW. Craig Ludwig, D, traded to New York Islanders for Gerald Diduck. D.Sept. 6: J. J. Daigneault, D, signed one-year contract Charles Poulin, C, and Robert Guillet, RW. signed three-year contracts. &#9632;

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September 21, 1990

COACHES’ HALL OF SHAME

NUMBERS

SUNDIN’S IMPROMPTU VISIT CAUSES A STIR

BROWN LEAN, MEAN AND KEEN