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 27, 1991

The Hockey News September 27, 1991

<h2>PETER SIDORKIEWICZ</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-021017/5968927-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="544" height="1174"></div>Born: June 29, 1963, Dabrown Bialostocka, Poland. Height: 5-foot-9. Weight: 180 pounds. Position: Goaltender. Team: Hartford Whalers. Acquired: Traded from Washington, March 12. 1985.Career highlight: &ldquo;Just making it to the NHL. After four years in the minors, I didn&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d ever get there. I&rsquo;d watch the NHL on TV, but to find out you&rsquo;re finally one of them, it&rsquo;s a great feeling.&rdquo;Best hockey quality: &ldquo;Consistency. I don&rsquo;t do anything really well skill-wise, but I somehow keep my team in the game.&rdquo;On a goaltender&rsquo;s personality: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re definitely a different breed. We&rsquo;re different because so much rides on our shoulders. It&rsquo;s fun though because you&rsquo;re always the center of attention. It&rsquo;s like the pitcher in baseball, everything revolves around you.&rdquo;Most embarrassing moment: &ldquo;Last year&rsquo;s playoffs against Boston when we had a 1-0 lead. They went to dump it in and 1 left the net to stop it along the boards. It hit one of our player&rsquo;s skates and I was caught in no man&rsquo;s land. Before I knew it, everything got past me. 1 felt awful because that was one of the turning points in the series.&rdquo;Hardest player to stop: &ldquo;Mario Lemieux. He&rsquo;s so big. he has got a long reach and it&rsquo;s unbelievable what he does with the puck. He could fake you three times out of your jockstrap before you knew what happened.&rdquo;On life in the NHL: &ldquo;It&rsquo;sagreat way to make a living. You have an idea what it&rsquo;s like in junior and in the minors, but once you get here, it&rsquo;s better than you thought it.&rdquo; &#9632;

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DEPARTMENTS

PRO FILE

Sept 18, 1984: Team Canada right winger Mike Bossy scored at 12:29 of overtime to give Team Canada a 6-5 win over Sweden in Game 2 of the best-of-three CanadaCup final. Bossy&rsquo;s goal, his fifth of the tournament, gave Team Canada their second Canada Cup victory. Team Canada won the first game 5-2.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02485/5970446-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="609" height="399"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Bossy</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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COLUMNS

FLASHBACK

<h2>Mon., Sept.9</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1247/5971000-1-eng-US/f0043-122.jpg" title="f0043-12" width="582" height="948"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1344/5970993-1-eng-US/f0043-132.jpg" title="f0043-13" width="584" height="1010"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1444/5970986-1-eng-US/f0043-142.jpg" title="f0043-14" width="583" height="485"></div><h2>Wed.,Sept.11</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1540/5970979-1-eng-US/f0043-152.jpg" title="f0043-15" width="590" height="499"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1637/5970972-1-eng-US/f0043-162.jpg" title="f0043-16" width="577" height="251"></div><h2>Thur., Sept. 12</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1733/5970965-1-eng-US/f0043-172.jpg" title="f0043-17" width="587" height="710"></div><h2>Sat.. Sept. 14</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1828/5970958-1-eng-US/f0043-182.jpg" title="f0043-18" width="585" height="964"></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

<h2>PENGUINS</h2>Pittsburgh coach Bob Johnson, who underwent brain surgery at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh Aug. 30, received a relatively rare treatment Sept. 11. The treatment, known as &ldquo;gamma knife,&rdquo; uses beams of radioactive cobalt-60 to attack the target area. The procedure is not expected to change Johnson&rsquo;s long-term prognosis, which Civic Arena Corp, president Paul Martha described as &ldquo;not good.&rdquo;&hellip;Four free agents&mdash; Mark Recchi, Kevin Stevens, Ron Francis and Scott Young&mdash;remained unsigned as the second week of training camp approached&hellip;Those players weren&rsquo;t the only ones without contracts. Many staff members, including assistant coaches Rick Paterson and Rick Kehoe, were working under expired deals.<h2>FLYERS</h2>Murray Craven ended a three-day holdout when he reported to training camp Sept. 10. Craven is upset with contract negotiations and requested an option contract. &ldquo;If a deal can&rsquo;t be reached, I&rsquo;ll be looking to be traded,&rdquo; said Craven. Nine other Flyers filed for option contracts including Claude Boivin, Steve Duchesne. Ken Wregget, Mark Pederson. Kerry Huffman, Corey Foster, Reid Simpson, Bill Armstrong and Brian Dobbin. Ron Sutter, who held out for one day, is among a group of six who did not file and could go to arbitration if a deal is not reached by Sept. 25 (the others are Pete Peeters, Dave Fenyves, Norm Lacombe. Derrick Smith and Dale Kushner)&hellip;Murray Baron ended a four-day holdout Sept. 11 when he signed a new contract, believed to be two years plus an option. Terms were not disclosed, but the defenseman was said to be asking for a deal in the $250,000 per year range.<h2>DEVILS</h2>Randy McKay, awarded to the Devils along with Dave Barr as compensation for Detroit&rsquo;s signing of Troy Crowder, said unlike Scott Stevens, he was not bitter about the arbitrator&rsquo;s decision. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been expecting it, sort of. My name was circulating in the papers, so that helped. It wasn&rsquo;t a total shock. I look at it like a trade. It&rsquo;s a forced trade. I&rsquo;m actually looking forward to a chance here.&rdquo; GM Lou Lamoriello asked for Bob Probert as compensation.. Ken Daneyko remained a holdout. &ldquo;New Jersey will dictate how long Kenny holds out,&rdquo; agent Ron Salcer said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve asked them to make us a serious offer, but their actions are a lot different than their words. Their words tell us they want Kenny very badly, but they say they just can&rsquo;t pay him yet. Lou Lamoriello has been very loyal to Alex Kasatonov, who has been there for a year and a half. That&rsquo;s great for Kasatonov, but we&rsquo;re asking that Kenny be treated the same way because he has done everything that has been asked of him.&rdquo;<h2>ISLANDERS</h2>Following a flareup of the serious illness that sidelined him almost all of last year, Mark Fitzpatrick will be out indefinitely, the Islanders announced early in training camp. The 22-year-old goaltender will undergo therapeutic exercises in an attempt to loosen his swollen arms, hands, feet and legs. He also will resume doses of prednisone, a cortisone-type medication that cleared up his swelling and allowed him to make a comeback last season. Fitzpatrick realizes there is no cure for his illness, eosinophilia myalgia syndrome (EMS), although some patients apparently have simply overcome it. He also knows the medicine has potentially harmful side effects. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like I&rsquo;ve got my back to the wall and it&rsquo;s not like I&rsquo;ve got a whole bunch of options,&rdquo; he said.<h2>CAPITALS</h2>Rod Langway agreed to a new two-phase, six-year contract that should allow him to finish his playing career and move into an undefined role in the organization. The agreement, announced Sept. 6, includes a playing portion, which is a year and an option. The non-playing part covers four years, but there are mechanisms for extending both. If, after two years, Langway wants to continue playing and he&rsquo;s not in the Capitals&rsquo; plans, he can try to sign with another team. The non-playing portion would still be in effect, whenever he completed his playing career. Langway made $342,500 and $75,000 in deferred compensation last season. Under the new deal, his advisors will likely spread the money over the length of the deal. Indications are he&rsquo;d average about $250,000 to $275,000 per season&hellip; Right winger Dino Ciccarelli decided to report to training camp after all. His agent, Ron Salcer, suggested Ciccarelli might boycott workouts to bring about a better deal on his contract.<h2>RANGERS</h2>The injury bug bit the Rangers early. Goalie Sam St. Laurent suffered a sprained left knee in the team&rsquo;s exhibition opener and was expected to miss six weeks. Right winger Steven Rice was also injured in that contest, suffering a separated right shoulder. He&rsquo;ll be out three weeks&hellip;Center Mark Janssens, who underwent offseason shoulder surgery, will not return until about a month into the season&hellip; Several players have changed numbers due to off-season moves; Joe Cirella changes to No. 6 with the departure of Miloslav Horava; Kris Kinghas shifted to 19, freeing No. 12 for Tim Kerr; Adam Graves gets 11, which was vacated by the departureof Kelly Kisio. Sergei Nemchinov was given No. 13, and Tony Amonte retained No. 33 now that Bob Froese has retired. &#9632;

THE NHL

JOHNSON RECIEVES RARE THERAPY

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN DUPONT</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011325/5968693-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="537" height="613"></div>Artur Irbe is a Californian now, which is about as far left of Latvia as anyone can get. That&rsquo;s not a political statement, although Irbe, less than a week into pulling on the fresh new shirt of the San Jose Sharks, hasn&rsquo;t been timid about making less-than-affectionate remarks about the old country.&ldquo;It has been a 50-year struggle,&rdquo; Irbe said in his first news conference, as interpreter Peteris Bins translated, &ldquo;where Latvia has been under the shoe sole of the Soviet Union.&rdquo;The world is changing, with world leaders deposed at the 6 o&rsquo;clock news, and whole political parties folded up and left without a ruble to rub by the 11 o&rsquo;clock wrap-up report.Who&rsquo;s in charge? What countries have claimed independence? What once-communist-controlled wedge of a continent can now be enlightened by the blue jeans and hamburgers of the Western world?&ldquo;If the Gang of Eight had been successful,&rdquo; said Irbe, referring to the recent failed coup in the Soviet Union that led, in part, to Latvia&rsquo;s bold move to independence, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d be on a train to the Gulag encampment instead of here in San Jose to play hockey.&rdquo;There has been a lot made of principle before the start of this 1991-92 NHL season. Most of it has been about money.Players who saw free agency as their personal cash cow for the most part found their pastures not so green. Many of them stood around and pointed to higher salaries paid to different players and said, &ldquo;Why not me?&rdquo; Some remained out of training camp. Some threatened to go to Europe. They beat their chests and pouted if the best offer that came their way was for, say, a paltry $450,000.And one, Eric Lindros, had his father saying in early September that even $5 million wouldn&rsquo;t bring his son to Quebec City.We live in a strange time, don&rsquo;t we?&ldquo;One afternoon,&rdquo; said Irbe, recalling his final days in Latvia, &ldquo;a suspicious character wandered into my apartment and wanted to know about buying sugar rationing coupons.&rdquo;Everyone who shoots a puck, bounces a ball or shows up fat and breathless with a tennis racket for the weekend should file away Irbe&rsquo;s words. Who knows if he&rsquo;ll be a star for the Sharks, or, for that matter, ever play in the NHL. No matter. There is a message in what he is saying, and it shouldn&rsquo;t have to be endorsed by some sporting goods company or high-energy drink for us to understand.Like all of us who have lived within the law in the U.S. and Canada, Irbe is a free man. Unlike most of us, though, he has lived most of his 24 years being told where to live, how to play and virtually how to think. During his news conference, he felt compelled to ask if anyone minded if his wife, Anita, &ldquo;cruised the room&rdquo; while he answered questions. What a strange thing to ask. What a strange thing to feel it had to be asked.Principle? For 50 years, hockey players, like all citizens of Irbe&rsquo;s country, haven&rsquo;t been able to say boo about principle. Greener pastures and cash cows? In Latvia? Say the wrong the thing, ruffle a few feathers, and a suspicious character could come knocking on your door.Yes, it&rsquo;s too bad about Scott Stevens. He thought he was in St. Louis to stay, and then got whacked across the kisser when told he was the compensation for the Blues signing Brendan Shanahan away from New Jersey.And, okay, if I were Mark Messier, I&rsquo;d feel I&rsquo;m worth twice my salary and I&rsquo;d like to bolt the cold plains and lukewarm cash of Northern Alberta.But, remember, both Stevens and Messier are working for a million dollars or more. Pat LaFontaine doesn&rsquo;t like what the Islanders pay him, either, but $500,000 a year doesn&rsquo;t exactly make him an indentured servant. These are not men living in an oppressive society. No one is forcing them to play. No one is threatening them, or anyone else in the NHL, with an express train to encampment if they decide not to play hockey and live free of all their cash, and their freedom to make it.Artur Irbe is not the first freed man to come here and live a free life. And, the way things looked at today&rsquo;s 6 a.m. report, he won&rsquo;t be the last. He will make the most of his moment.&ldquo;I will use it as a positive step to spread the word about Latvia and the independence movement,&rdquo; he said.And we should all use it as a reminder. Kevin Dupont is a hockey writer for the Boston Globe. &#9632;

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IRBE’S ORDEAL PUTS THINGS IN PROPER PERSPECTIVE

<div class="byline">BY THN STAFF</div>If the Russians expect the Detroit Red Wings to cough up a hefty development fee for Vladimir Konstantinov, they better be ready to properly negotiate the release of other Red Army players Detroit would like to add to its lineup.Wings&rsquo; executive vice-president Jim Lites, who traveled to Budapest, Hungary, to sign Konstantinov and escort him to Detroit, confirmed Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov had hired a New York lawyer in an attempt to get the wings to pay $200,000 to $350,000 for Konstantinov.&ldquo;Asking ain&rsquo;t getting,&rdquo; said Lites, who added that dealing with the Russians in these matters is very frustrating.&ldquo;The only time the Russians want to talk about it is after the fact,&rdquo; he said, meaning that they get eager to talk only after the Wings have successfully brought the players to Detroit.&ldquo;They always want to sell the horse after he&rsquo;s out of the barn. They don&rsquo;t return phone calls. They don&rsquo;t return wires or cables we send them. They never follow through. Now, all of a sudden, they want to. But the only way we would be willing to talk with them about a fee is in the context of an arrangement that would include a decision about Viacheslav Kozlov or Dimitri Motkov.&rdquo;A Kozlov, a center, was Detroit&rsquo;s third-round pick in 1990. Motkov, a defenseman, was a fifth-round pick in June. Both played for the Russians in the Canada Cup tournament.The Wings are equally exasperated with the Swedes over a similar fee for defenseman Niklas Lidstrom, who said he would join the Wings as soon as the Swedes were eliminated from the Canada Cup tourney.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re literally oceans apart,&rdquo; Lites said. &ldquo;The Swedes are impossible to deal with. They want seven times more than has ever been paid to a Swedish team for a player.&rdquo;The going rate is about $140,000, usually paid in installments with a clause that provides for a return of some cash if the player fails to make the NHL team. The Wings, Lites said, have offered to pay the fee in a lump sum and let the Swedes keep all the money if Lidstrom doesn&rsquo;t make it.Vasteras, Lidstrom&rsquo;s Swedish team, was demanding $1 million and the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation was threatening to ban Lidstrom for life if the ransom isn&rsquo;t paid.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s like getting thrown out of the Moose Lodge, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; Lites joked.<h2>BREWER OUT</h2>Fomer NHL defenseman Carl Brewer as broken away from a Canadian group of former NHLers suing the NHL over a pension dispute.Brewer, who played with Detroit, St. Louis and Toronto for 12 seasons from 1957-58 to &rsquo;79-80, helped initiate the fight 18 months ago. But he was removed from the Professional Hockey Pensioners Association by former player Keith McCreary and Norma Shack. He didn&rsquo;t elaborate on the reason for the split.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve known something was up for some time, but I never expected it was going to come to this,&rdquo; Brewer said.Brewer said he plans to join the American players involved in a similar dispute.The group of former NHLers is suing the NHL over millions of dollars in pension surplus alleges was misallocated by the league.<h2>COLONIAL UPDATE</h2>The Colonial Hockey League Board of Governors finalized plans for the 1991-92 season Sept. 13 at a meeting in Flint, Mich.The league has adopted NHL rules and will use top Ontario League and National Collegiate Athletic Association officials for the inaugural season which begins Oct. 15.The league&rsquo;s playoff format was also decided. The first round will see the first place finisher take on the third-place team, while the second-place team will play the fourth. Each series will be a best-of-seven affair. The two winners will meet in a seven-game league championship series.League president Bob Myers also announced the formation of an expansion committee to meet with groups who have expressed interest in joining the league.The five-team CHL will have franchises in Brantford, Thunder Bay, St. Thomas (Ont.), and Flint and Fraser, Mich.<h2>HAPPINESS IS&hellip;</h2>The number of players dissatisfied with their contract situations is seemingly at an all-time high. In order to keep track of who&rsquo;s holding out, who wants out and who wants more, we&rsquo;ve put together a comprehensive &ldquo;Unhappy Camper&rdquo; list. The players&rsquo; status is in parentheses:Boston: Glen Wesley (Olympic team threat, re-signed).Calgary: Doug Gilmour, Jim Kyte, Ric Natress (all in camp and going to arbitration).Chicago: Ed Belfour (free agent without contract, had not reported because of Canada Cup commitment); Brian Noonan (one-day holdout, re-signed).Edmonton: Glenn Anderson (renegotiate, holdout); Petr Klima (trade, in camp); Mark Messier (trade, had not reported because of Canada Cup commitment); Craig Simpson (arbitration, had not reported); Esa Tikkanen (free agent without contract, had not reported).Hartford: Todd Krygier (free agent without contract); Pat Verbeek (renegotiate, holdout).Minnesota: Neal Broten (free agent, signed contract in Germany).Montreal: Andrew Cassels (free agent without contract, had not reported); Shayne Corson (playing out option); Russ Courtnall (arbitration, had not reported because of Canada Cup commitment); Mike McPhee (renegotiate, in camp).New Jersey: Sean Burke (trade, had not reported because of Canada Cup commitment); Ken Daneyko (renegotiate, had not reported); John MacLean (renegotiate, in camp); Kirk Muller (renegotiate, walked out of camp).N.Y. Islanders: Pat LaFontaine, Brent Sutter (trade, had not reported because of Canada Cup commitments).N.Y. Rangers: Mark Hardy (arbitration, in camp).Philadelphia: Murray Baron (re-signed, returned after four-day holdout); Murray Craven (trade, in camp); Ron Sutter (renegotiate, returned after one-day holdout).Pittsburgh: Ron Francis, Mark Recchi, Kevin Stevens, Scott Young (free agents with out contracts, had not reported).Quebec: Eric Lindros (trade, unsigned draft pick not in camp).San Jose: Ray Whitney (unsigned draft pick, playing in Germany).Washington: Dino Ciccarelli (renegotiate, in camp).Winnipeg: Phil Housley (playing out option, in camp).&mdash;With a file from Keith Gave. &#9632;

EUROPEAN SHOPPING SPREE COSTLY VENTURE FOR WINGS

Fair compensation? The arbitrator&rsquo;s decision to award all-star defenseman and team captain Scott Stevens to New Jersey as compensation for St. Louis&rsquo; signing of Brendan Shanahan was outrageous. These players are in no way comparable. Clearly, then, this was done for two reasons:1. To punish the Blues for their aggressiveness in signing top talent such as Brett Hull, Stevens and now Shanahan;2. To scare other teams from delving into the free-agent market.President John Ziegler and Co. deserve every mess they&rsquo;ve created (expansion fiasco, alumni lawsuit, CBA breakdown) and are making it tougher and tougher to be a fan of this tin-can league.Players&rsquo; strike? Bring it on. The NHL deserves it!Matt Vogl&nbsp;Milwaukee, Wisc.<h2>STRIKING OUT</h2>Bob Goodenow and the Players&rsquo; Association are in for a rude shock if they are foolish enough to call a strike.North America is in a serious recession and even playoff contenders in my area&mdash;the New York Rangers and Hartford Whalers&mdash;had a dropoff in attendance last year.I have been a union man for my entire career. Speaking from experience, I can assure the players they won&rsquo;t get public support if they go on strike.Furthermore, they will be replaced by strikebreakers and some of the fringe players may never regain their jobs. Working people who struggle to make ends meet have little sympathy for million-dollar bonus babies and the NHL players&rsquo; union.Ed Mulrenan&nbsp;Waterbury, Conn.<h2>SAY GOODBYE</h2>Free agency in the NHL has come to a crashing and painful end.Teams sign free agents to add to the team. If a team wants to make a trade, that&rsquo;s what it will do, at least maintaining control over which players it will lose.What team will again risk signing a high-profile, talented free agent of the calibre of Brendan Shanahan, knowing that the uncontrollable risk is to lose a high-profile, talented player of the calibre of Scott Stevens?Shanahan is wonderful and I was delighted to carry him on my rotisserie team last year, but in the real world it is easier to find a solid winger than it is to find one of the league&rsquo;s top defenseman.For just that reason, it is doubtful the Blues would have been willing to trade Stevens for Shanahan even up. The Blues and Shanahan may suffer miserably for their decision to venture into the free-agent market.Say good bye to free agency.Mel Powell&nbsp;Los Angeles, Calif.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011487/5968772-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="558" height="697"><figcaption class="caption-body">Scott Stevens knows the pros and cons of the free agent issue.</figcaption></div><h2>KEENAN GOOFED</h2>I was under the impression the Canada Cup gave hockey fans the opportunity to watch the world&rsquo;s most exciting and talented players compete against one another.So why was Steve Yzerman forced to watch and eventually cut from Team Canada. Is Yzerman not in the class of Dirk Graham, Brent Sutter or Shayne Corson?Coach Mike Keenan blamed Yzerman&rsquo;s exclusion on a poor training camp. Perhaps Yzerman said it best when he said he felt he had a better training camp than Mark Messier, who strolled into camp a day before the first game, thus avoiding a month of gruelling practices.Regardless of what Keenan believes, he is not bigger than the game, and this is not the &ldquo;Keenan Cup&rdquo;. It is the Canada Cup and fans deserve to see the greatest players in the world participate.Brad Godin&nbsp;Windsor, Ont.<h2>FINNISH BIAS</h2>It may seem like a cheap shot to quote your omniscient Canada Cup preview, but your words&mdash;&rdquo;Picking Team Finland to finish sixth is the closest thing to a sure bet in this tournament&rdquo;&mdash;reflect rather well NHL prejudice against Finnish hockey players.How else can anyone explain the New Jersey Devils putting center Janne Ojanen sixth on their depth chart, or that great young defenseman Janne Laukkanen, a 1991 Quebec Nordique draft pick, is playing in front of 3,000 Finnish fans rather than fighting for the Calder Trophy, or that Edmonton can&rsquo;t afford to pay Jari Kurri or Esa Tikkanen what they&rsquo;re worth?Timo Kanerva&nbsp;Tampere, FinlandMake your feelings known. Fax us your comments at&nbsp;(416) 445-0753&nbsp;or write to&nbsp;Letters, The Hockey News, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont., M3B 2R2&nbsp;in Canada. In the U.S., write to&nbsp;Letters, The Hockey News, P.O. Box 904, Buffalo N.Y., 14240-9947. Include home and business phone numbers. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

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SPLIT OPINION ON NHL PLAYER STRIKE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021342/5968803-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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ELSTON

&#9632; Troy Mallette and Randy McKay. It&rsquo;s refreshing to hear a couple of players are &ldquo;just happy to be playing in the NHL.&rdquo; Both Mallette and McKay were awarded to their new teams (Edmonton and New Jersey) as compensation for free-agent signings&mdash;a process to which we&rsquo;re opposed. But we&rsquo;re certainly not opposed to two guys who don&rsquo;t get much ink expressing their contentment.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031135/5968841-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="359" height="369"></div>&#9632; Jamie Macoun. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for the Team Canada defenseman to pack his golf bags and enjoy the rest of the summer away from the rink after learning he had no chance of seeing any action in the Canada Cup. Yet, the veteran persevered.&#9632; Brett Hull. The golden Brett laid a not-so-golden egg by word and by deed in the Canada Cup. Hull, who had just two goals entering the second game of the final. said &ldquo;he didn&rsquo;t care&rdquo;, it was just a &ldquo;pre-season tournament&ldquo;, and that when he doesn&rsquo;t get enough ice time his &ldquo;attitude goes out the window.&rdquo; Wonder if he&rsquo;d feel the same way if he was the scoring leader?<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-04942/5968834-1-eng-US/f0004-042.jpg" title="f0004-04" width="348" height="358"></div>&#9632; Training camp holdouts. Football, yes, basketball, maybe, and baseball most certainly, but not hockey&hellip; it&rsquo;s not supposed to be this way. We&rsquo;re not laying the blame on the players or owners. It&rsquo;s just we thought, well, our sport was different. &#9632;

f0004-03

DEPARTMENT

CHEERS JEERS

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>At least one NHL executive says the only way to solve the league&rsquo;s future fiscal crisis is revenue sharing. He says wealthy clubs&mdash;namely Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit and the New York Rangers&mdash;must recognize the financial situations of smaller franchises like Winnipeg, Hartford and Quebec. &ldquo;If this league wants to retain 22 franchises and not lose any, some serious economic re-evaluation must be done,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Revenue sharing, so each team gets an equal share of the pie, is the only answer. But I&rsquo;m afraid we have too many selfish owners to make that dramatic a change.&rdquo;&hellip;The Rangers haven&rsquo;t heard the last of. Art Friedman. Friedman, the longtime Rangers&rsquo; statistician, was recently fired by the team. He&rsquo;s now planning a law suit against Madison Square Garden. &ldquo;The grounds are age discrimination, libel, defamation of character and slander,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s now in the hands of my lawyer and if we don&rsquo;t get a settlement at the next meeting, we&rsquo;re going to court.&rdquo;<h2>ANGRY PROF</h2>St. Louis GM Ron Caron says judge Ed Houston&rsquo;s compensation ruling in the Troy Crowder case is unfair. Caron feels the fact the Red Wings were able to retain Bob Probert&mdash;the player the Devils asked for shows the league is out to punish the Blues. According to Caron, the retention of Probert&mdash;along with recently arrived Troy Crowder&mdash;means Detroit will be more intimidating for St. Louis&hellip;Caron is rumored to be in the market for pesky Oiler Esa Tikkanen. Tikkanen does an exceptional job of checking Blues&rsquo; sniper Brett Hull&hellip;Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour and Curtis Joseph remain Caron&rsquo;s top trading possibilities&hellip;TV analyst and ex Ranger John Davidson has been mentioned as a candidate for the vacant Rangers&rsquo; presidency. But sources say Davidson is content with his broadcasting pursuits&hellip;Sources within the players&rsquo; union say one mistake made in the pre-Bob Goodenow NHLPA days was the failure to establish a significant strike fund last year&hellip;Some members of the NHLPA say the most strategic move to frighten the owners is to play out the regular season and strike immediately before the playoffs. Meanwhile, sources close to the owners believe a lockout remains a viable move to crack Goodenow early in his regime.<h2>CAPITAL GAINS</h2>It hasn&rsquo;t taken Jaromir Jagr long to learn capitalism. The Czechoslovakian forward was recently asked to pose for a major card company. Jagr asked how much he&rsquo;d get for it. When told $2,000, Jagr said: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the starting price, then what?&rdquo;&hellip;The late Punch Imlach receives harsh treatment in Darryl Sittler&rsquo;s autobiography. which hits the stands late next month. Sittler accused the Leafs&rsquo; GM of preaching 1960s hockey in 1984. Allan Turowetz, who collaborated with Sittler on the book, disclaims suggestions Sittler had a personal vendetta against Imlach. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a reflection on a clash of ideas and is not meant as an interpersonal putdown,&rdquo; says Turowetz&hellip;Expect to see hands-on treatment at the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; training camp this year. New coach Ted Green is very straight-forward when it comes to getting his ideas across, a former NHLer says. &ldquo;Ted has one of the worst tempers in hockey and he&rsquo;ll grab a player who crosses him,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You can tell when he gets that mean look in his eye. When he was a player (Bruins) and that happened, sometimes they&rsquo;d have to call off the practice.&rdquo;<h2>ERIC THE AVERAGE</h2>With all the Eric Lindros furor, one strong demurer is filed in this NHL scout&rsquo;s report: &ldquo;Apart from his obvious assets, his skating will remain average. His willingness--maybe even eagerness&mdash;to fight everyone means he&rsquo;ll be going up against the Troy Crowders and Joey Kocurs. Sooner or later, he&rsquo;ll wind up breaking a hand or wrist.&rdquo;&hellip;Kevin Dineen appeared on the verge of being traded by the Whalers but new coach Jim Roberts interceded. Roberts believes Dineen can score 40 goals this season.<h2>NOT GUILTY</h2>Cam Neely absolves Ulf Samuelsson of deliberately trying to injure him during the playoffs last spring. Neely&rsquo;s thigh injury will keep him out until November. While prevailing thought suggested Neely was hurt in Game 3 of the Wales Conference finals in a collision with the Penguin, Neely said it happened in the final game&mdash;and he was to blame. &ldquo;I tried to get him and this time he was in the comer,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I had him all lined up, but he likes to duck, and when he ducked, my left thigh went into his knee.&rdquo; Neely admits he was at fault, but he&rsquo;s not crazy about the way Samuelsson plays the game. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t respect the way he plays,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I know there are guys who don&rsquo;t like some things I do, but if I upset some-body, I&rsquo;m willing to back it up and he&rsquo;s not.&rdquo;&hellip;Now comfortably back in New Jersey, Soviet Slava Fetisov has been telling teammates about his close call during the Russian coup attempt. His apartment was near the Tass Building which was surrounded by tanks. Fetisov was prepared to take arms against the hard-liners, especially since a friend knew of a stash of machine guns. &ldquo;He had a machine gun arsenal,&rdquo; Fetisov said. &ldquo;I thought I was going to be there, so&hellip;&rdquo; Soon after the coup dissipated, Slava, his wife, Lada and infant daughter, Anastasia, returned to their New Jersey home. &#9632;

REVENUE SHARING SOLVES CRISIS

<div class="byline">BY RAND SIMON AND AL MORGANTI</div>For the first time since the first Collective Bargaining Agreement in 1967, there is no contract between the NHL and its Players&rsquo; Association.The Sept. 15 deadline for the old CBA passed with neither a strike nor a lockout as both sides expressed a desire to keep talking. But NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow was not optimistic after the union failed to accept a detailed owners&rsquo; proposal just one hour before the midnight deadline.&ldquo;At times, things have been positive,&rdquo; said Goodenow. &ldquo;But this proposal sets the tone for some very difficult negotiations.&rdquo;With the seven players who were in Montreal reporting to their respective training camps the next day, there was no end in sight to the dispute.The players say there has been some compromise on both sides, but they&rsquo;re far apart&mdash;especially on the key issue of free agency.The players are reportedly asking for unrestricted free agency for players with 10 years or more experience. The owners are seeking to make the rules of free agency more restrictive.Neither a strike, nor a lockout, seemed likely as the deadline passed and one of the longest negotiating sessions ever lasted until 5 a.m.A players&rsquo; strike would have little effect on the owners during the exhibition season, while the owners don&rsquo;t want to do anything that will jeopardize the elaborate celebrations surrounding the league&rsquo;s 75th anniversary. Numerous special events are planned for the early part of the season.For the most part, NHL president John Ziegler remained tight-lipped about the proceedings. He did say, however, there were three possibilities&mdash;a strike, a walkout, or continued talks.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011395/5968896-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="547" height="845"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rep Mike Gartner says player demands aren&rsquo;t being met.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;It is our intention to resume negotiations at a early date that is mutually convenient,&rdquo; he said in a prepared statement. &ldquo;Meanwhile, it&rsquo;s business as usual.&rdquo;Goodenow, meanwhile, was pleased the owners wanted to continue talking after the deadline passed. But his, and the players&rsquo;, overall mood, was one of disappointment that the two sides weren&rsquo;t closer to an agreement.&ldquo;We feel there has been some definite movement on both sides,&rdquo; said New York Ranger Mike Gartner. &ldquo;But, in the latest proposal, the negatives far outweigh the positives. The latest proposal left us disappointed&mdash;not necessarily in their effort&mdash;but in the results of certain issues that haven&rsquo;t been properly addressed.&rdquo;Gartner summed up the union&rsquo;s position on tree agency by saying: it is our goal to take the mystery out of free agency. We are not asking for total free agency. Their proposal as a whole restricts certain areas that we have rights for now.&rdquo;Both sides are showing solid support for their positions. The owners, without a television contract in the U.S. to provide revenue, say the players must understand the tough economic realities the league is facing.Says L.A. Kings&rsquo; owner Bruce McNall: &ldquo;Remember, the economy has not been great, what with the recession, the fact that we don&rsquo;t have a TV contract yet, and the fact that the salary escalation has been huge (over the past few seasons). Some of the owners are trying to figure out just how the players are looking for more (money.) There is only so much money that comes into the system. Some people are confusing the arena end of the business with the hockey end of the business.&rdquo;The players say they are tired of making concessions and of being given proposals which appear to promise one thing and then deliver another.&ldquo;We believe the business of hockey is on the upswing,&rdquo; said Goodenow. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got serious questions about the economic data we have received.&ldquo;It seems as though things have really slowed down with this last proposal from the owners.&rdquo;The 22 team representatives have been kept abreast of negotiations by the union. They have been told that training camps are to proceed as usual until further notice.As the days after the expiration of the contract passed, neither side seemed interested in taking the first step which would lead to a work stoppage. &#9632;

f0005-01

CBA DEADLINE PASSES BUT TALKS WILL CONTINUE

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011574/5968958-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Team Canada rallied around injured captain and fallen star Wayne Gretzky.</figcaption></div>The second-guessing had begun in earnest.Had Mike Keenan loaded up with too much toughness and not enough talent? Wouldn&rsquo;t Steve Yzerman look good playing against a team of American NHLers in the final? Without Wayne Gretzky, who was there to provide offense?It was the third period of Game 2 in the Canada Cup final and suddenly Canada was no longer a sure bet against Team USA. Canada had won Game 1 and led 2-0 in Game 2 when the Americans emerged from their lethargy and pulled even.Now, the U.S. was on the power play, the game within its grasp. The puck slid along the blue line and U.S. defenseman Gary Suter couldn&rsquo;t handle the puck.Team Canada&rsquo;s Steve Larmer raced free of the pack on a shorthanded breakaway, faked U.S. goalie Mike Richter to his knees and backhanded the puck between his legs. It was his second goal of the game. Two seconds remained in a boarding penalty to Canada&rsquo;s Steve Smith.&ldquo;I was just trying to figure out how to put it in the net,&rdquo; said Larmer. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a goal I&rsquo;ll remember for a long, long time.&rdquo;Moments after Larmer&rsquo;s goal, the TV camera was fixed on Suter, capturing a cruel irony as he sat on the bench. Two nights earlier, Suter had knocked Gretzky out of the tournament with a blindside hit.And now the Americans were out of the tournament.After going undefeated during the roundrobin and eliminating Sweden in the semifinals, Canada overcame some anxious moments to sweep the United States 4-1 and 4-2.It has been 30 years since Canada last won an official world championship but this triumph marks the fourth time Canada has won the unofficial world championship in 15 years.&ldquo;In view of the fact most of the NHLers play in this tournament,&rdquo; said Team Canada coach Keenan, &ldquo;in my opinion it is the world championship of hockey.&rdquo;Canada has now lost just once in 20 tournament games ! it lost the last round-robin match in &rsquo;84 against the Soviet Union). By the time goalie Bill Ranford carried the Canada Cup around Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ont., Sept. 16, just as noteworthy as those who celebrated alongside him were those who didn&rsquo;t.Missing from the Canadian lineup were the two best players in the world, Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, the best defenseman, Ray Bourque, and the two best goalies, Grant Fuhr and Patrick Roy.It went deeper than that.Six of the seven highest-scoring players in the NHL last season were Canadian. None of them were in the Cup-clinching lineup. Gretzky was sidelined with a back injury, Adam Oates was cut, Mark Recchi and John Cullen declined tryout invitations, Joe Sakic was also cut and, most shockingly of all, Yzerman was an extra player who left of his own accord.Keenan&rsquo;s player selections drew repeated criticisms, but in the end, he was vindicated.&ldquo;I never had one moment of doubt (about the players chosen),&rdquo; said Keenan.Neither the United States, nor the Soviet Union&mdash;Canada&rsquo;s principle competition&mdash;iced their strongest teams possible. That Canada was hit even harder by player injuries and absenteeism, yet still prevailed, says all you need to know about the state of Canadian hockey.With the Soviet Union softened up by the current events of history and absence of three top skaters (including Pavel Bure, the latest hockey player to leave the country) and Team USA without several of its top players (among them power forward Kevin Stevens) and top coach (Bob Johnson), Team Canada was too deep for its opponents.Tournament organizer Alan Eagleson suggested Canada would be represented by two teams if the Soviet Union could not participate. It was a bad idea. Not that Canada could not have supplied a second championship contender. But had Canada been a dual entry, it would have reduced the event from the premier measuring stick of global hockey supremacy to that of a nothing more than a pre-season tournament.Certainly, that&rsquo;s the way Team USA&rsquo;s Brett Hull saw it. That might explain his performance. Hull and Mike Modano led Team USA, which recorded the most round-robin victories (four) and tied Canada for first place, in assists.The two also shared tempered enthusiasm about the tournament.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no comparison (between this and the Stanley Cup),&rdquo; said Modano. &ldquo;The Stanley Cup is what you&rsquo;re raised to win. You&rsquo;re honored to play in a tournament like this but it&rsquo;s not the end of the world. I&rsquo;m certainly not going to lose any sleep over it.&rdquo;Despite Hull&rsquo;s uninspired play, the U.S. could compete with Canada at the star level. It was at the support level of secondary stars that the Americans suffered by comparison. There just aren&rsquo;t enough of them&mdash;yet. Nor is there enough variety in those they have. Grinders are stars, too, but you wouldn&rsquo;t know it to look at the American lineup.&ldquo;We knew that they were probably a better grinding team and had more physical presence,&rdquo; said Team USA assistant coach Jay Leach who said his team&rsquo;s strategy was to &ldquo;out-quick&rdquo; Team Canada.Though he said Team USA didn&rsquo;t play its best hockey of the tournament in the finals, Leach praised Canada and particularly Mark Messier who he said was able to raise his level of play after Gretzky went down.Meanwhile, Canada had more first-rate players than they could accommodate. Ultimately, Team Canada was not comprised of all the best players but the best players for the job. &ldquo;The guys have done a great job in this room,&rdquo; said Ranford, the tournament MVP. &ldquo;Others may be more talented but there&rsquo;s a weird chemistry going on here.&rdquo;Only two players stood above the rest&mdash;Gretzky and Ranford. No. 99 was clearly the No. 1 player. Gretzky said that he has never played better and it was hard to disagree. Until Suter catapulted Gretzky into the end boards at 8:48 of the second period in Game 1 at Montreal, there was no stopping him. No penalty was called by referee Don Koharski.Gretzky left the game with Canada leading 2-0. The following day, it was announced he would not play again in the tournament he led in scoring with four goals and eight assists.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not only losing our best player,&rdquo; Ranford said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re losing the best player in the world.&rdquo;The latter point is debatable. Barely four months ago, Lemieux led the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Stanley Cup. Four years ago, he and Gretzky led Team Canada to the Canada Cup. &mdash;J emieux scoratTJ 1 goals in nine games at the &rsquo;87 toUfnamem. He scored nine more in six pre-toumament games that year. Had the two been together again, the results likely would have been devastating. They may yet get that opportunity. Gretzky hinted he would be willing to play one more Cup tournament after back spasms forced him to miss the final game.The possibility exists, however, this will be the last Canada Cup as we know it. The Soviet Union has undergone radical change and Canada faces the prospect of a new relationship with Quebec.Lemieux may be the leader of Team Quebec in four years time. Only two Quebecers&mdash;Luc Robitaille and Eric Desjardins&mdash;were members of the &rsquo;91 team.There would surely have been four had Lemieux and Roy received medical clearance. But Roy&rsquo;s absence and that of Fuhr cleared the way for Ranford, the Oilers&rsquo; netminder who led Edmonton to the Stanley Cup in 1990.Ranford was sensational. He dominated the round-robin, stopped 30 shots as Canada eliminated Sweden 4-0 in one semifinal and blocked 27 more in Game 1 against Team USA.&ldquo;The way he&rsquo;s playing right now,&rdquo; Team Canada and Oiler teammate Messier said, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s nobody better (in the world).&rdquo;Nor was there a better team than Canada.<h2>NOTES</h2>Tournament most valuable player Bill Ranford led a group of three Team Canada members on the Canada Cup all-star team. Joining goaltender Ranford on the team were defensemen Al Maclnnis (Canada), Chris Chelios (USA) and forwards Wayne Gretzky (Canada), Jeremy Roenick (USA) and Mats Sundin (Sweden)&hellip;Team USA defenseman Brian Leetch missed Game 2 of the final with a hip pointer suffered with five minutes to play in Game 1. Leetch was hit by a skate as he cut across the Team Canada slot after making a spinning move&hellip;Team Canada remains undefeated against Team USA in Canada Cup competition. In the eight games between the clubs, Canada is 7-0-1, including 3-0 in this tournament. The three losses were the only ones Team USA suffered in the tournament&hellip;Despite missing all but a period and-a-half of the final, Gretzky was the leading scorer with four goals and eight assists. Steve Larmer, who led all players with six goals, including three in the final, finished second in the scoring race with 10 points. &#9632;

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CANADIANS RALLY TO DEFEAT TEAM USA

<div class="byline">BY DAMIEN COX</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011421/5968989-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Eric Lindros has been placed at the center of Canada&rsquo;s French-English crisis.</figcaption></div>Eric Lindros did not seem to be having fun, at least not to the degree an 18-year-old with the world seemingly at his feet should be.It was Sept. 6, and Lindros was hurriedly donning a shirt and tie before boarding the bus for Team Canada&rsquo;s final two Canada Cup round-robin games in Montreal and Quebec City. Given the intense publicity that has dogged the personable teenager all summer because of his stated disinterest in joining the Quebec Nordiques after they selected him first overall in the June entry draft, it was not surprising Lindros appeared to be feeling the heat.&ldquo;Quebec City is just not for me,&rdquo; mumbled the wondrously talented man-child, almost to himself, as he struggled to unleash a clean white dress shirt from it&rsquo;s pins and wrapping.The choice of words was appropriate. To Lindros, a young man still trying come to grips with the economic, political and social realities of adult Canadian society, it really does seem to be that simple.To virtually everyone else, however, /&rsquo;affaire Lindros is much more complex. It has become a multi-headed monster, with some commentators focusing on the hockey subplot and others the business element, the only common link being that everyone has a comment.But the most controversial aspect of the Lindros saga is that it has been defined in many quarters as a French-English issue, the latest skirmish in the long-running struggle between Canada&rsquo;s two solitudes.To those who define this as the primary storyline in Eric Versus The Nords, Lindros has become the latest example of English-Canada&rsquo;s inherent distaste for its francophone brothers. Or, turned the other way around, the latest example of French Canada feeling rejected by the anglos.While Canada struggles to unify its francophone and anglophone components, Lindros has become an example to many French-Canadians as to why such dreams of national unity are patently unrealistic.The Canadian media&mdash;in particular by hostile elements of the Quebec media corps&mdash;has almost exclusively opted to define the situation in just those terms. But the question remains; Does this analysis make any sense?As with most issues, it depends on who you ask.Lysiane Gagnon, a Quebec-based columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail, recently compared the Lindros-Nordique dispute to the infamous stomping of the Quebec flag by a small Ontario town, or Sault Ste. Marie&rsquo;s decision to reject official bilingualism. Tangible, grassroots issues like these, she argued, are more meaningful to Quebecers than user-unfriendly national debates like the Meech Lake Accord. Meech Lake, of course was Prime Minister Brian Mulroney&rsquo;s failed attempt to bring Quebec into the constitutional fold.&ldquo;L&rsquo;affaire Lindros is of a similar nature,&rdquo; wrote Gagnon. &ldquo;It is personalized, spectacular and easier to grasp than the constitutional intricacies.&rdquo;Gagnon said &ldquo;on hotlines and in workingclass pubs, Lindros has become the symbol of English Canada&rsquo;s traditional scorn for Quebec.&rdquo;Ken McRoberts, a Quebec political specialist at York University, says the angry response from many Quebecois is perfectly understandable.&ldquo;They feel he has been offered a good job, but doesn&rsquo;t think Quebec City is good enough,&rdquo; said McRoberts. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a symbol people can identify with, and adds to the impression that English Canada doesn&rsquo;t see Quebecers as equals.&rdquo;McRoberts said the combination of hockey and a whiff of French-English turmoil can be a potent force in Quebec.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t underestimate these incidents. People still refer to the Maurice Richard riot (of 1955), and everybody knows it was (NHL president) Clarence Campbell the anglo who expelled him.&rdquo;Some of the criticism aimed in Lindros&rsquo; direction seems to have a malicious personal bent mixed in with francophone resentment to English Canada.Rejean Tremblay, a spicy columnist for La Presse in Montreal, unflatteringly referred to Lindros as a self-proclaimed &ldquo;eighth wonder of the world.&rdquo; Adding a tone of stereotyping, Tremblay said Lindros was a &ldquo;beautiful prototype of the 18-year-old Ontarian male: bulging muscles and a (blank) head.&rdquo;Others, however, aren&rsquo;t so sure an 18-year-old hockey player who doesn&rsquo;t want to play in Quebec City constitutes a legitimate French-English controversy.Hugh Thorburn, a political science professor at Queen&rsquo;s University in Kingston, Ont., believes the Quebec media has engaged in a clever manipulation&mdash;or misrepresentation&mdash;of Quebecois sentiments.&ldquo;A lot of people in Quebec have made up their minds to separate. This is a good tool for them to use to achieve that end,&rdquo; said Thorburn. &ldquo;This is all kind of cynical. It doesn&rsquo;t represent real feeling. Public opinion is being manipulated.&ldquo;I just don&rsquo;t think it matters what an 18-year-old kid who doesn&rsquo;t know much about anything says.&rdquo;It is indeed coincidental&mdash;if not hypocritical&mdash;that among those who have generated much of the furor against Lindros have been committed separatistes, individuals intent on rejecting English Canada who are nonetheless outraged because an anglophone Ontarian won&rsquo;t embrace French Canada.NHL superstar Wayne Gretzky said the political-racial slant to the I &lsquo;affaire Lindros is not the fault of the burgeoning superstar.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think Eric has turned this into a political situation,&rdquo; said The Great One. &ldquo;The people of Quebec did that.&rdquo;A key indication that the screaming, insulting headlines and inflammatory stories directed at Lindros and his family in recent months may have not have accurately reflected the mood of the Quebec populace came when Lindros finally made his long-awaited appearance at Le Colisee Sept. 9 when Team Canada took on the Soviets.Lindros was greeted with boos, but not thunderingly so, by the Quebec City faithful. Rather than hatred or bitter resentment, they seemed to be expressing a collective disappointment that Lindros seems destined not to help rescue the Nordiques from the hockey wilderness. But even their subdued reaction to Lindros was given a French-English spin by some. &ldquo;Canadian journalists were surprised, even bowled over,&rdquo; wrote columnist Claude Bedard of Le Journal de Quebec. &ldquo;The ones from Ontario were disappointed, very disappointed.&rdquo;While some took offence at Lindros&rsquo; stance from a purely racial standpoint, others consider his disinclination to play in Quebec City insulting in the worst way. By saying he found Quebec City too small, uncomfortable for an anglophone, away from the center of NHL attention and less cosmopolitan than Montreal, Lindros unwittingly evoked strong responses of civic pride from citizens of La Vielle Capitale.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s certainly insulting to be treated this way, like we&rsquo;re some kind of backwater,&rdquo; said Jean Furois, president of the Nordiques&rsquo; fan club. &ldquo;At least we&rsquo;re not Oshawa, at least we&rsquo;re an NHL city and a real hockey-loving one.&rdquo; Even Nordiques&rsquo; defenseman Randy Velischek seemed to take offence at the perceived putdown of the provincial capital. &ldquo;The impression he&rsquo;s giving is that Quebec is a Gulag,&rdquo; said Velischek.Under a headline in Quebec City daily Le Soleil that read &ldquo;Lindros: Pretentious, disdainful and arrogant,&rdquo; columnist Maurice Dumas ripped the young star for his stated reasons for not wanting to play in Quebec City.&ldquo;Next thing he&rsquo;ll be complaining about the black spruce and the mosquitoes. He certainly doesn&rsquo;t hold us in very high esteem. He thinks we&rsquo;re living in the third world,&rdquo; wrote Dumas.Lindros and his family tried determinedly to simply avoid the French-English debate in the months following the June draft. In recent weeks, however, the family has fought back against the allegations that they are overtly antiFrench.&ldquo;I have nothing against the city of Quebec, nothing against the French people and nothing against the Nordiques, but I believe I should be able to decide where I spend my career,&rdquo; said Lindros in a highly-charged press conference prior to his appearance at Le Colisee with Team Canada Sept. 9. The night before in Montreal, he told reporters, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s not political and it&rsquo;s not racist. I like the French people and I like the culture. Its just not a place I want to spend my career.&rdquo;Despite those statements, Lindros and his parents also made it clear many of their main concerns about having him join the Nordiques were political, cultural and linguistic in nature.Part of the problem the Lindros family has created for itself is a feeling that they have not been forthright with Quebec hockey fans from the beginning. When asked the day before the draft, Lindros said he had not ruled out any one NHL city. After the draft, he said it was up to his agent Rick Curran and the Nordiques to strike a deal. Recently, however, Lindros let it be known that he told the Nords as early as May 12, long before the NHL draft, that he would never agree to a contract with the Nords.&ldquo;We did not want to embarass or hurt the Quebec organization,&rdquo; said Carl Lindros in explaing the smokescreen strategy, adding that it was felt by keeping Lindros&rsquo; true intentions private, the Nords would have more room to facilitate a trade with another NHL club.In defense of Lindros and his family, however, the situation has been created by the Nordiques who, like Phil Esposito and the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds before them, refused to accept Lindros&rsquo; private pleas not to draft him. &#9632;

f0007-01

SEPARATE CONCLUSIONS

<div class="byline">BY GARY LOEWEN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011504/5969020-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Bossy has been on skates just three times since retiring.</figcaption></div>Some mornings, when he wakes up to an excruciating ache in his back, Mike Bossy wonders whether his decade in the NHL was worth the long-term agony.&ldquo;There are days when I ask myself that question, days when I&rsquo;m having a lot of pain,&rdquo; the former New York Islander said.&ldquo;But then I tell myself there are a lot of people worse off than me and they didn&rsquo;t have a chance to enjoy the career that I did.&rdquo;On Sept. 23, Bossy will reap a reward for his distinguished career when he is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Ottawa.Other inductees include Bossy&rsquo;s long-time New York Islander teammate Denis Potvin, along with Bob Pulford, Clint Smith, Scott Bowman and Neil Armstrong.These days, Bossy, 34, does public relations work for a number of companies and plays golf when his lower back allows.&ldquo;Even golf stirs it up. I go to a chiropractor when it gets real bad and he brings it under control but never gets rid of it,&rdquo; Bossy said.While he claims he has more good days than bad, Bossy has given up any hope of skating again.He has skated three times since retiring and had so much pain for the next few weeks that he won&rsquo;t give it another try.The injury to his back arrived mysteriously and the cause of the pain was never conclusively diagnosed. It&rsquo;s no better, no worse than when he retired four years ago.The ailment struck at a practice during the 1986-87 season, Bossy&rsquo;s last one in the NHL. The right winger was bent over at the waist, resting after a skating drill. When he straightened up, Bossy felt an unbearable jolt of pain in his lower back.&ldquo;I had had back pain before but it was muscular. This was a lot different,&rdquo; he said.Bossy missed 17 games because of the injury and finished with just 38 goals&mdash;the first time in his career that he failed to score 50. The persistent injury prevented him from playing the following season, and the Montreal native was forced to retire prematurely.He left the game with an armload of honors and trophies. On a personal level, Bossy was a five-time first-team all-star and finished with 573 goals, sixth on the all-time list. He won a Calder Trophy, a Conn Smythe and three Lady Byngs.At the team level, he was part of an Islander dynasty that won four consecutive Stanley Cups from 1980 through &rsquo;83.&ldquo;There were times you didn&rsquo;t see Bossy for 58 minutes but he&rsquo;d score two goals in the final two minutes of a game we&rsquo;d win 3-2,&rdquo; Islander general manager Bill Torrey said.Torrey described Potvin as the cornerstone and Bossy as the final piece of the puzzle in the Islander dynasty.Both players were first-round picks, Potvin in &rsquo;73 and Bossy in &rsquo;77.But unlike the highly-regarded Potvin, Bossy wasn&rsquo;t accorded much respect on draft day. He was taken 15th overall by the Isles behind players such as Jere Gillis, Mike Crombeen and Trevor Johanson.But Bossy quickly proved that he could stand up to the rigors of the NHL and still put the puck in the net. He clicked for a whopping 122 goals over his first two seasons, silencing the naysayers.&ldquo;I felt revenge when I was younger, trying to prove to everybody they were wrong about me. Later on, it wasn&rsquo;t something that motivated me,&rdquo; Bossy said.&ldquo;You look at draft choices today and there are still mistakes being made. It&rsquo;s hard to know how a player will develop, how he&rsquo;ll adapt.&rdquo;Bossy, an anti-violence advocate since even before his back injury, has a couple of concerns with the way the game is evolving.&ldquo;What bothers me the most is the fighting,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t find it a necessity. And, obviously, high-sticking and hitting from behind&mdash;any type of hockey that is illegal and can result in an injury.&ldquo;In the 10 or 12 playoff games I watched last year, I could have counted 15 or 20 incidents where dangerous bodychecks were handed out.&ldquo;It comes down to players having respect for other players.&rdquo;And while players are getting larger and stronger, Bossy sees a decrease in creativity and imagination.&ldquo;Minor hockey is geared toward developing everyone the same way,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t see real nifty players come into the league anymore.&rdquo;Pulford, who played 16 years in the NHL and won four Stanley Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs (1962, &rsquo;63, &rsquo;64, &rsquo;67) will join Bossy and Potvin.Smith, 78, will be inducted in the veteran&rsquo;s category. He spent 11 seasons with the New York Rangers (1936 to &rsquo;43) and the Chicago Blackhawks (1943-47), scoring 161 goals and 236 assists.Bowman, the winningest coach in NHL history, is being recognized in the builder&rsquo;s category. Bowman compiled 739 wins against 327 losses and 210 ties during a 20-year coaching career with St. Louis, Montreal and Buffalo.Bowman is currently director of player development and recruitment for the Pittsburgh Penguins.Armstrong will become the 12th on-ice official to be inducted.In the media category, long-time New York Post reporter Hugh Delano will receive the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award. Bruce Martyn, the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; play-by-play announcer since 1964-65, will be awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award. &#9632;

f0008-01

BOSSY DOESN’T REGRET PAIN IN THE BACK CAREER

<div class="byline">STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011453/5969051-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="469" height="631"></div>The Big Lie is being heard again; fighting is on its way out in the NHL.I wish I had a dollar for every duplicitous down-with-goonery proclamation made by some of the NHL&rsquo;s most important people.This summer Mike Keenan, obviously overwhelmed by his Team Canada position, spouted some nonsense about a Brave New Hockey World where fisticuffs would be taboo.Mind you, this was from the Blackhawks&rsquo; leader whose club merely clobbered its way to a league-leading 2,412 penalty minutes last year.Not that Keenan is alone. When Wayne Gretzky finds it convenient&mdash;usually when Marty McSorley is 400 miles away&mdash;The Great One mounts the nearest soapbox to tell us fighting is almost as bad for hockey in the U.S. as a visit from the Winnipeg Jets.Both Keenan and Gretzky are full of applesauce.If the truth be known, fighting is as vital to contemporary hockey as helmets, jockstraps and the blue line, maybe more so.After all, the blue line is not making $360,000 a season. That, my friends, is the conservative estimate of Troy Crowder&rsquo;s salary. The radical guess is about 400 grand per.Let me tell you something about Troy Crowder. In the two years of our acquaintanceship, I found him to be one of the more likeable and intelligent (off-the-ice) players in captivity since the advent of Pat LaFontaine. Troy is, as they say in Marina del Rey, a sweetheart.A hockey player? The jury&rsquo;s still out. Playing on a line with Laurie Boschman and Al Stewart early last year, Crowder betrayed the brand of offensive promise that Mick Vukota, Craig Berube and Alan May have from time to time. The total was six goals and nine points in 59 games.Don&rsquo;t let Mike Keenan kid you, fighting is just as important this morning as it was when Dave (Hammer) Schultz played for the Flyers.Proof I: Craig Berube, who tallied eight goals and 17 points last year, was getting $120,000 and $130,000 in his last two Philadelphia years.He just signed a new deal with Edmonton for $290,000 and $295,000.Proof II: Darin Kimble was an obscure Nordiques&rsquo; winger until he punched Crowder to his knees last year. &ldquo;Kimble was going nowhere before that,&rdquo; says one respected NHL TV analyst. &ldquo;Suddenly, the Blues couldn&rsquo;t get him fast enough.&rdquo;It is virtually an NHL imperative that a club arm itself with at least two fighters per team.Pacifist Gretzky, in addition to McSorley, has Jay Miller and John McIntyre around to duke it up.The Sharks wasted no time bringing in 6-foot-4, 220-pound Craig Coxe into the fold and the heavyweight makes no bones about his job.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m an experienced, quote, tough guy,&rdquo; Coxe says. &ldquo;My role is to bring toughness and strength to the club, not let our guys get bullied or run. And when a problem arises, I&rsquo;ll stand up and take care of that problem to the best of my ability.&rdquo;Like the Basil McRaes and Chris Nilans of the world, Coxe recoils at the goon label.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t consider myself a goon,&rdquo; he insists.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never been suspended for anything crazy or ludicrous. I&rsquo;ve gotten a lot of penalty minutes but not an overabundance. I fight when fighting has to be done; sometimes when it doesn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;The fighting issue remains a sensitive one both to the league and individual teams. Realists know fisticuffs have been a part ofhockey since Day 1 and intimidation has won many a Stanley Cup.When the Canucks drafted toughie Alex Stojanov last June, the Vancouver high command got reamed for goonism in some quarters.Director of hockey operations Brian Burke believes it&rsquo;s a bum rap. In fact, he took computer in hand and banged out a rebuttal to those who would put down their pugilist. Burke even wrote a column in the Vancouver Province to set the record straight.&ldquo;Some of the critics don&rsquo;t understand toughness,&rdquo; says Burke. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like any other part of hockey in that you need to have it on your team.But toughness without ability to go with it means nothing.&ldquo;Critics in other cities can talk about us building a &lsquo;goon&rsquo; team. That&rsquo;s not accurate by any standard. But we will also see in two or three years how much those other teams enjoy coming to Vancouver.&rdquo;Thus, it would be appreciated if the Keenans and Gretzkys not tease us with their Utopian nonsense. NHL reality is Troy Crowder earning more than 300 grand. Period.Stan Fischler is a freelance writer based in New York City. &#9632;

f0009-01

PACIFISTS LISTEN UP:FIGHTING IS HERE TO STAY

&hellip;Former NHL linesman John D&rsquo;Amico has appeared in more Canada Cup tournament games than any other official? D&rsquo;Amico appeared in 25 tournament games before he tired from the NHL after the the &rsquo;87-88 season. Referee Kevin Collins was the active leader with 21 games prior to the final this year.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021032/5969082-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="941" height="501"><figcaption class="caption-body">John D&rsquo;Amico</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0009-02

DID YOU KNOW…

<h2>KINGS</h2>Owner Bruce McNall has reportedly made an offer to the Quebec Nordiques in an attempt to acquire the rights of the No. 1 pick in the 1991 draft, Eric Lindros. The Boston Globe reported that McNall and GM Rogie Vachon have put together a package which includes left winger Luc Robitaille, defenseman Rob Blake, goaltending prospect Robb Stauber and a considerable amount of cash&hellip;Bob Kudelski admits he&rsquo;s still &ldquo;a little bitter, a little angry&rdquo; over the Craig Muni hit that tore the medial collateral ligament in his right knee during last year&rsquo;s playoff series with Edmonton. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to rant and rave and say I&rsquo;m going to get him,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m not going to let that happen again.&rdquo; A veiled threat? &ldquo;Take that anyway you want,&rdquo; said Kudelski, who will wear a brace for the time being even though the knee is healthy again&hellip;Dave Taylor, who turns 36 in December, is close to agreeing to a new one-year (plus option) contract. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re talking about reducing my role to maybe 60 or 65 games, but I still feel I can contribute,&rdquo; he said.<h2>OILERS</h2>After the Czechoslovakian national team missed the Canada Cup playoffs, Oiler draft picks Martin Rucinsky and Josef Beranek left the team and caught a plane for Edmonton with agent Rich Winter. They called their families from Toronto to inform them they were mulling the move over. Later they called from Edmonton to say it was done. Rucinsky is out six weeks with a broken collarbone suffered when he was jolted by Eric Lindros at the Canada Cup, while Beranek was expected on the ice for training camp Sept. 13. Pavol Ucen, vice-president of the Czech and Slovak Ice Hockey Federation, has sent a letter to NHL president John Ziegler protesting the arrival of the duo in Edmonton. He wants them returned to their Litvinov club. &ldquo;It is robbery,&rdquo; said Ucen. &ldquo;They have valid contracts and it is a violation of the existing agreement with the NHL.&rdquo;<h2>SHARKS</h2>Getting to training camp turned out to be a frightening experience for center Mark Pavelich. While traveling to Northern California from Minnesota, Pavelich was involved in a traffic accident. Pavelich said he was sleeping when his friend lost control of their truck. Both awoke when the truck began flipping. Pavelich, who played for the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team in 1980, said neither were seriously injured. &ldquo;We were lucky,&rdquo; Pavelich said. &ldquo;I just got a little scratch on my elbow.&rdquo;&hellip;Center Murray Garbutt reported to training camp with a separated shoulder that required surgery. Garbutt is expected to be sidelined six to eight weeks&hellip; Although he was part of the roster for Team USA in the Canada Cup tournament, right winger Brian Mullen left the tournament early to report to training camp. Mullen decided to report after not playing in any games in the round-robin.<h2>JETS</h2>Fisticuffs were, somewhat surprisingly, scarce during the opening week of training camp. In fact, the first fight occurred on Day 4, between forwards Mark Kurnpel and Doug Evans&hellip;Defenseman Phil Housley reported to training camp despite rumors he wouldn&rsquo;t in order to force progress towards a new contract. Housley is entering his option year-&hellip;Kumpel signed another contract with the Jets organization. This season, he&rsquo;s ticketed for Moncton (AHL) as a playing-assistant coach&hellip;Jets&rsquo; GM Mike Smith has said nothing about Soviet forward Evgeny Davydov, a Jets&rsquo; draft pick who was left off the Soviet national team for the Canada Cup because he wouldn&rsquo;t sign to play three years with Red Army. Davydov&rsquo;s contract runs out at the end of this season.<h2>FLAMES</h2>After 14 months of unsuccessfully searching for an outside buyer, Norman Green has decided to sell his 18 per cent interest in the Calgary Flames to his five former business partners. Harley Hotchkiss, the team&rsquo;s new governor and one-fifth owner, said: &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve agreed verbally on &lsquo;an arrangement with Norman and we&rsquo;re moving to formally conclude it. So the deal is essentially done and both parties are happy with it.&rdquo; Hotchkiss refused to provide details on the selling price. Green originally asked for $13.5 million for his share of the club. Originally, Green planned to donate eight per cent of his Flames&rsquo; shares to a pair of charities&mdash;Special Olympics and the Hockey Hall of Fame. &ldquo;Mechanically, it was an impossible thing to do,&rdquo; said Green. &ldquo;It was a good having a charity own a piece of a sports team but it just wasn&rsquo;t workable. So we&rsquo;re going to do something for Special Olympics for all the trouble we put them through and make a financial contribution in a pretty major way.&rdquo;<h2>CANUCKS</h2>Left winger Alex Stojanov, the Canucks&rsquo; first-round pick last June, had a short training camp after dislocating his shoulder in his second scrimmage&hellip;Two years after drafting him, the Canucks finally saw defenseman Jason Herter in the flesh. GM Pat Quinn was not impressed and told reporters Herter should have turned pro a year ago rather than remain at the University of North Dakota. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re happy he&rsquo;s here,&rdquo; said Quinn. &ldquo;The decision he made is going to help him get on the track to developing to the point where he could possibly be a NHL player one day.&rdquo; In Herter&rsquo;s defense, his progress has been slowed by knee and groin injuries. &#9632;

McNALL MAKES OFFER FOR LINDROS

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div>Shortly after reporting to training camp for his 20th NHL season, Larry Robinson made it clear it will be his last.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve prepared myself mentally,&rdquo; said the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; defenseman, who turned 40 in June. &ldquo;I kind of thought, had we won the Stanley Cup last year, maybe that would have been it. I&rsquo;d love nothing better than to win a Stanley Cup here. I&rsquo;d like to be around for the first one.&rdquo;Robinson was a member of six championship teams with the Montreal Canadiens, the last one coming in 1986. He became a free agent following the 1988-89 season and Signed a three-year, $1.65 million contract with the Kings.Robinson produced seven goals and 39 points in 64 games during his first season with the Kings, but was often a defensive liability. He had trouble keeping up with the Smythe Division&rsquo;s quicker pace.&ldquo;The biggest problem I had,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;was I tried to do too darned much.&rdquo;Robinson&rsquo;s offensive numbers dropped to one goal and 23 points in 62 games last season, but the improvement in his overall game was phenomenal. He surprised many critics who considered him washed up by playing solidly in his own end while showing an occasional flash of his once-formidable offensive skills.&ldquo;I got a lot more satisfaction out of last year than the year before,&rdquo; said Robinson, who is third among defensemen in all-time scoring with 945 points. &ldquo;I just felt a lot more at home. I knew exactly what my role was and I stuck to it.&rdquo;Part of Robinson&rsquo;s role continues to be using his experience to help the Kings&rsquo; young defensemen.&ldquo;Maybe if someone is struggling,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I think of myself as be of the guys, not a 20-year veteran. I never talk to a guy as a rookie, but as another hockey player. I think we all try to talk to each other as much as possible.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011522/5969137-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="549" height="607"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Robinson&rsquo;s defensive play improved last season.</figcaption></div>Robinson believes too much emphasis is being placed on his age.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t even think about it. It&rsquo;s something I can&rsquo;t change,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;People have been talking about my age for a long time, even when I&rsquo;m playing polo (in the summer). The truth is, I feel so good, it&rsquo;s scary. My legs feel very strong. It&rsquo;s just going to be a matter of getting my timing back.&rdquo;Still, Robinson isn&rsquo;t taking anything for granted.&ldquo;I take these camps pretty seriously,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;tcome here with the attitude that I have a job locked up. Everybody here is trying to make the club and it&rsquo;s still going to be up to management to decide who does.&rdquo;Robinson has yet to come to grips with what he&rsquo;ll do after his playing career ends. He&rsquo;d like to stay in hockey in some capacity and has had come vague discussions about that with Kings&rsquo; owner Bruce McNall and general manager Rogie Vachon.&ldquo;Actually, I think Bruce wants me to play another five years,&rdquo; he said, laughing.&ldquo;I just can&rsquo;t see getting a 9-to-5 job, sitting in an office and answering the telephone,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m an outdoors person. All our lives we&rsquo;ve dealt with hockey, then all of a sudden to get into another area&hellip;that can be difficult.&ldquo;I would love to work with young kids, whether that be in scouting or whatever. But I think it would be interesting to travel and talk to kids and their families. But we really hasn&rsquo;t sat down and said this is what&rsquo;s going to happen. We&rsquo;ll just have to wait and see.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-01

ROBINSON SAYS THIS YEAR WILL BE HIS LAST

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>On the day before he went into the hospital to have a brain tumor removed, Bob Johnson was engaged in an animated conversation about his former center with the Calgary Flames, Joel Otto.When told how Otto&rsquo;s play in the second half last season dropped off a little, Johnson sounded surprised: &ldquo;Really? Otto. He&rsquo;s a good player. He&rsquo;s my captain. I like Otto.&rdquo;During the Canada Cup, there has been a lot to like about the big center.Now only does Otto center Team USA&rsquo;s checking line, he also checked in with four goals in six games leading up to the final against Canada.This could be a pivotal year for Otto. After years of being the prototypical NHL power forward&mdash;big yes, but possessing surprisingly good foot speed&mdash;Otto is at something of a crossroads in his career. He turns 30 Oct. 29 and he&rsquo;s playing out his option in the hopes of boosting his market value after a so-so 1990-91 campaign.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011375/5969168-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="543" height="574"><figcaption class="caption-body">Otto is playing out his option with the Flames.</figcaption></div>For years, under Cliff Fletcher, Otto&rsquo;s name was the first teams would enquire about in trade talks. Fletcher steadfastly refused to give him up, knowing as long as the Edmonton Oilers have Mark Messier in the lineup, the Flames needed someone to play a physical game.Then last year, Otto&rsquo;s name came up less and less which, ironically, prompted speculation the Flames would move him in the summer. But it didn&rsquo;t happen. They&rsquo;re sticking with him.In the Canada Cup tournament, Otto demonstrated he possesses the leatership qualities the Flames want in a six-year veteran. He just doesn&rsquo;t lead in a vocal manner.Mow&rsquo;d he get to be captain?&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; replied Otto, with a sheepish grin. &ldquo;I guess with Janney, LaFontaine and Roenick, they wanted someone who could help out as a defensive center. All I know is, I&rsquo;m very proud to wear it.&rdquo;The Flames began to get some of their players back after the semifinal round of the Canada Cup. Rookie Swede Thomas Forslund, plus a pair of Czechs, Robert Reichel and Frank Musil, checked into one of the more volatile training camps ever held in Calgary.Fletcher&rsquo;s 11 years at the helm, not a single key player who was on the roster Sept. 1 played out his option.The longest any dispute ever dragged out was four days into camp&mdash;last season when Dana Murzyn finally signed his new pact.Not so this year. Three players filed for salary arbitration&mdash;Doug Gilmour, Ric Nattress and Jim Kyte&mdash;and four others&mdash;Otto, Stephane Mat-teau, Kevan Guy and Tim Sweeney&mdash;decided to play out their options.Gilmour, an 81-point man last season, has been frank about his unhappiness over the way negotiations have progressed.Discussing his decision to go to arbitration, Gilmour said: &ldquo;At least you know whatever happens, you have a contract. You win you have a contract, you lose you have a contract.&ldquo;What I want more than anything, is to be a big part of this team, an impact player. If they want me to give that up for a defensive style, for a less amount, well, I don&rsquo;t know. If they want a certain role, they&rsquo;ll still have to pay me the money. I&rsquo;ll do it for a price.&rdquo;There had been some suggestion Gilmour&rsquo;s offensive role would be scaled down in order to get Reichel, a second-year pro, more ice time. &#9632;

f0011-01

FUTURE NOT OTTO-MATIC FOR BIG, BAD JOEL

<div class="byline">BY ELLIOT PAP</div>It appears only a matter of time until Pavel Bure joins former Soviet linemates Alexander Mogilny and Sergei Fedorov in the NHL.Bure, 20, his younger brother Valeri and father Vladimir left their homeland earlier this month and were holed up in the Manhattan Beach, Calif., home of player agent Ron Salcer when reporters discovered them Sept 14.&ldquo;The family has left the Soviet Union with the intention of staying here,&rdquo; said Salcer. &ldquo;Our game plan is to have Pavel play with the Vancouver Canucks and Valeri (a 17-year-old forward) play junior with Spokane of the Western League.&rdquo;The only snag in the scenario is Pavel Bure&rsquo;s contract with the Central Red Army. He reportedly has one year remaining.&ldquo;Pavel has come over with the intention of playing in the NHL and we will do everything in our power to make it happen,&rdquo; said Salcer Sept. 15. &ldquo;We are expecting an answer (on Pavel&rsquo;s contractual status) from NHL president John Ziegler in the next 24-48 hours. Right now we can&rsquo;t talk contract with the Canucks until we get clearance. We do not foresee having any problems with immigration.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011472/5969199-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="713" height="674"><figcaption class="caption-body">Soviet Pavel Bure is determined to play in Vancouver this year.</figcaption></div>Canucks&rsquo; director of hockey operations Brian Burke met with the Bure family in Los Angeles but, according to Salcer, it was only a social visit.&ldquo;Brian wanted to meet the family and let them know Vancouver is very happy Pavel is here,&rdquo; said Salcer.Meanwhile, WHL president Ed Chynoweth said his league would welcome the younger Bure and does not foresee any contractual reason why Valeri cannot play.&ldquo;If he has any of his brother&rsquo;s talent, he will be a welcome addition to our league,&rdquo; said Chynoweth. &ldquo;Bobby Brett (Spokane co-owner) is a friend of Ron Salcer&rsquo;s and that&rsquo;s how the connection was made.&rdquo;Pavel Bure was drafted by the Canucks in 1989 amid a swirl of controversy. As an 18-year-old, he was thought to be eligible in only the first three rounds. The Canucks picked him in the sixth (113th overall) claiming he had played enough games at the senior level to make him eligible. Protests followed before Bure was declared Vancouver property on the eve of the 1990 draft.Publicly, Canuck management maintained that Bure would not likely become available&mdash;at the earliest&mdash;until after the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.Canuck center Igor Larionov, who played one season with Bure on the Red Army team, was stunned by Bure&rsquo;s arrival in North America.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m surprised. I&rsquo;m really surprised,&rdquo; said Larionov. &ldquo;I was talking to the Soviet media just before the Canucks&rsquo; training camp (Sept. 7) and nobody knew anything about this. I thought Bure still had one year left on his hockey contract but I think his army service is finished.&rdquo;Bure is unquestionably a highly skilled player but, in light of the Vladimir Krutov fiasco, it seemed pertinent to ask Larionov whether Bure would fit in with the Canucks.&ldquo;I played with Pavel Bure just one year and hewasonly 17then,&rdquo;saidLarionov. &ldquo;Hewasa good guy, good personality. But I haven&rsquo;t seen him in a couple of years and it&rsquo;s hard to say if he has changed. He&rsquo;s a big star now and sometimes people can change from 17 years old to 20 years old.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0012-01

BURE POISED TO JUMP ABOARD

<div class="byline">BY TIM CAMPBELL</div>Nobody&rsquo;s saying three strikes and you&rsquo;re out. But Stu Barnes had better get a hit on the next pitch he sees.It&rsquo;s the third time around at training camp for Barnes, the Jets&rsquo; first pick (fourth overall) in the 1989 draft.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve put a lot of pressure on myself,&rdquo; Bames said. &ldquo;I always do when I come to training camp because I want to stick around. The first couple years I came here, I was probably a little naive thinking I&rsquo;d stay around.&rdquo;Barnes&rsquo; reputation&mdash;at least, the one the Jets drafted him for&mdash;is offense. Big offense. The Edmonton native, who turns 21 Christmas Day, was a prolific point-producing center with his Western League club in Tri-City. He had 101, 141 and 144 points in three seasons from 1987 to 1990.At his first two pro camps, nobody questioned Barnes&rsquo; offensive abilities. But NHL players are rarely one-dimensional.So nearly a year ago, Barnes agreed to shift the emphasis of his game from offense to defense. To perfect his defensive skills, he played last season with Dave King&rsquo;s Canadian national team.&ldquo;I think having spent a year with the national team and working on my game quite a bit, I hope that will be the turning point,&rdquo; Barnes said, having managed 22 goals and 49 points in 53 games last season.Barnes&rsquo; size (5-foot-10, 175 pounds) and his defense are not insignificant shortcomings. That&rsquo;s why the Jets, though enthused about his progress last season.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s still a step,&rdquo; said Jets&rsquo; new coach John Paddock. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s say the organization would be more disappointed if he&rsquo;s not in the lineup a year from now.&rdquo;But Paddock isn&rsquo;t selling Bames short. In fact, he sees the coming season as an ideal situation for Bames to make the step.&ldquo;With Thomas (Steen) and Troy (Murray), I think it&rsquo;s better for him to make the team because he doesn&rsquo;t have to be put into a position where he can&rsquo;t succeed,&rdquo; Paddock said. &ldquo;He won&rsquo;t be on the spot in the last five minutes of a game, with pressure to do something. This way, there&rsquo;s not the great risk of ruining his confidence. He can leam from those guys and get acclimatized to the NHL.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021211/5969230-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="708" height="735"><figcaption class="caption-body">Playing behind Thomas Steen takes the pressure off Stu Barnes.</figcaption></div>The process has at least begun without a hitch.&ldquo;So far, pretty good,&rdquo; Bames said, after demonstrating his scoring skills in the first few days of scrimmages. &ldquo;Camp has been pretty tough so far. He (Paddock) has got us working pretty hard in practice.&rdquo;Barnes agreed Murray and Steen&rsquo;s experience can only help.&ldquo;Having two guys like that, who are important players and who will lead the way is going to make it easier for guys down the line,&rdquo; he said.Bames is an atypical Jets&rsquo; prospect. Most prospects on general manager Mike Smith&rsquo;s have opted to play for their national teams season: Dan Ratushny for Canada, Teemu Selanne for Finland, Keith Tkachuk for the U.S. and Alexei Zhamnov for the Soviet Union.&ldquo;I talked with Dave King at the end of last season and he knew I was there to get here,&rdquo; Bames explained. &ldquo;All along I was in that situation to get to Winnipeg and play in the NHL.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0012-02

BARNES HOPES HIS THIRD TIME’S LUCKY

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div>Slowly things are coming back together for the team in turmoil&mdash;the Edmonton Oilers.After a week of disruptions that followed a summer of discontent, arbitrator&rsquo;s compensation has been settled in the New York Rangers&rsquo; signing of free agent center Adam Graves. And free agent Esa Tikkanen appeared on the verge of inking a new contract.NHL arbitrator Judge Edward J. Houston ruled in favor of the Rangers, awarding the Oilers&rsquo; left winger Troy Mallette. Edmonton had sought Steven Rice, captain of Canada&rsquo;s gold medal-winning world Canadian junior team, and rugged winger Louis DeBrusk from the London Knights.&ldquo;In the guidelines that spell the arbitration ruling, you can ask for draft choices, proven players or unproven young players,&rdquo; said Oilers&rsquo; general manager Glen Sather. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure by asking for two players, he felt we were seeking too much. I&rsquo;m sure he didn&rsquo;t know much about the two players either.&ldquo;In fact, I&rsquo;m certain he didn&rsquo;t know anything about them.&rdquo;Mallette was a sure thing.&ldquo;We knew we&rsquo;d be given Mallette, but we decided we&rsquo;d go for a calculated risk,&rdquo; added Sather. &ldquo;Every time you go to arbibration, it&rsquo;s a calculated risk.&rdquo;Graves and Mallette had similar statistics in 1990-91. Graves had seven goals and 18 assists. Mallette scored 12 goals and assisted on 10 others.Mallette is anything but unhappy to be an Oiler.&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t complain about playing anywhere in the NHL,&rdquo; said the 6-foot-2, 190-pounder. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad everything is over. With my name in the papers every day it was hard to go to camp. You&rsquo;re going out there saying, &lsquo;Geez, I&rsquo;m working my butt off. Is it worth it because I&rsquo;m doing it for a team I might not be with in a couple of days?&rsquo; &ldquo;Coach Ted Green is enthused by Mallette&rsquo;s outlook.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one nice thing I like about the guy already,&rdquo; said Green. &ldquo;For a young guy, he made a very intelligent statement when questioned by the New York media about coming to Edmonton.&rdquo;When speculation arose, Mallette said he liked New York and wanted to stay there, but he loved to play hockey and would come to Edmonton if he was awarded to the Oilers.That statement was in stark contrast to one by Darren Turcotte, who said he would rather go back to school than come to Edmonton.&ldquo;Out west we need men to play hockey,&rdquo; said Green.As far as Tikkanen is concerned, the Oilers have offered a six-year deal worth $5-6 million, according to owner Peter Pocklington.&ldquo;I think we&rsquo;ve come to a meeting of the minds,&rdquo; said Pocklington. &ldquo;I agreed to the money and told (agent) Rich (Winter) that&rsquo;s the limit.&rdquo;Winter has tried to secure a no-trade clause in Tikkanen&rsquo;s contract, but Pocklington nixed the proposal.&ldquo;Unfortunately we have to adhere to a standard players&rsquo; contract,&rdquo; Pocklington said. &ldquo;Nobody gets a no-trade contract.&rdquo;&ldquo;He loves the city and wants to stay here as long as he can,&rdquo; said Winter, who added Tikkanen flew home to Helsinki after Team Finland lost in the Canada Cup playoffs. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll return to Edmonton with his family when the deal is offcially done.&rdquo;Immediately after the Finns were thumped 7-3 by Team USA, Tikkanen said: &ldquo;I got what I wanted. I&rsquo;m happy. We have a few little things to take back. But, from what I&rsquo;ve heard, everything should work out and me in place.&ldquo;I love Edmonton. It&rsquo;s the best hockey town I&rsquo;ve ever seen.&rdquo;Winter and Sather were also slated to discuss the contract of holdout defenseman Craig Muni. Sather was scheduled to meet with Craig Simpson&rsquo;s agent/father Don Sept. 20 to discuss the holdout left-winger&rsquo;s contract.While Simpson&rsquo;s father is in Japan on business, the free agent hasn&rsquo;t been at camp and is reportedly skating with the London Knights of the Ontario League.Also still AWOL at last report is Gren Anderson, who has been seeking to have his $380,000 contract salary bumped to $700,000. &#9632;

MALLETTE SUPPORTS ARBITRATOR’S RULING

<div class="byline">BY MIKE WEAVER</div>New life was breathed into veteran defenseman Doug Wilson when the Chicago Blackhawks granted his wish by trading him to the San Jose Sharks Sept. 6.&ldquo;This makes me feel like a young rookie again,&rdquo; said the 34-year-old Wilson, who played 14 seasons for the Blackhawks and has appeared in six NHL All-Star Games. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m getting a fresh start.&rdquo;Wilson, the Norris Trophy winner as the NHL&rsquo;s best defenseman during the 1981-82 season, wanted a fresh start because of a strained relationship with Chicago coach-general manager Mike Keenan, who is entering his fourth season with the Blackhawks. Wilson had a no-trade clause in his contract with the Blackhawks but requested the trade to the Sharks, who obtained him in exchange for right winger Kerry Toporowski and a second-round pick in the 1992 draft.&ldquo;The relationship I had with Mike Keenan wasn&rsquo;t conducive to me playing good hockey or being happy,&rdquo; Wilson said.The Sharks are counting on Wilson to provide experience and leadership to a young defensive corps that includes only two other defensemen older than 24.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re getting a proven all-star and a player I still consider to be among the top 10 defensemen in the league,&rdquo; Sharks&rsquo; GM Jack Ferreira said. &ldquo;This is another indication that we&rsquo;re trying to make this team as competitive as possible, and I think we&rsquo;ve taken a big step.&rdquo;Wilson, who also is expected to be a key power-play performer for the Sharks, said several other teams (the New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings were among the most aggressive) expressed interest in obtaining him. But he said he told the Hawks to deal with the Sharks, and added he is looking forward to helping mold the team&rsquo;s young defensemen.&ldquo;When I was a rookie, I roomed with Stan Mikita,&rdquo; said Wilson, whose 779 career points rank fourth on Chicago&rsquo;s all-time scoring list. &ldquo;He taught me a lot about hockey and a lot about life. I&rsquo;d like to pass some of that along.&rdquo;The trade reunited Wilson, who says he plans to play for three or four more seasons, with former Chicago teammate and defensive partner Bob McGill. And McGill, 29, said Wilson will be a welcomed addition.Sharks&rsquo; coach George Kingston said Wilson gives the team a much-needed touch of credibility.&ldquo;When you have a Doug Wilson, you know you have a marquee player,&rdquo; Kingston said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be a great role model on and off the ice, and he&rsquo;ll show the younger players what it takes to be successful in the NHL.&rdquo;Still, Kingston said he wasn&rsquo;t thrilled about giving up Toporowski.&ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t want to lose Kerry Toporowski,&rdquo; Kingston said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good young player with a bright future. But you have to give up something good to get something good.&rdquo;The Sharks could afford to part with Toporowski because they have several other players cut from the same mold. Toporowski is known for his toughness, which earned him 505 penalty minutes in the Western League last season.Wilson, one of six players in the NHL today not wearing a helmet (he was in the league before helmets became mandatory in 1979), said he visited with McGill several times before telling the Blackhawks to deal with the Sharks.&ldquo;Bob is a very good friend,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;I talked to him a lot. and he had nothing but first-class things to say about the team and the area. That made a big difference.&rdquo;So far, Wilson has liked what he has seen of the Sharks.&ldquo;This is not a brand new team with no players who have been in the league before,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re a step above that. If everybody molds together and stays enthused, we&rsquo;re going to surprise some people. We&rsquo;re going to make it happen here.&rdquo;If they do, Wilson will have a good reason to feel young again. &#9632;

WILSON’S EXPERIENCE WILL AID YOUNG REARGUARDS

What he didn&rsquo;t win as a player, he has watched being won several times as a broadcaster. But John Davidson would trade all his Stanley Cup Final appearances for a win in 1979.The New York Rangers surprised many people that spring by advancing to the Stanley Cup finals against the power-house Montreal Canadians. Although they weren&rsquo;t expected to win, Davidson still has a bitter taste about the 4-1 series&rsquo; loss.&ldquo;Nobody really expected us to do anything, but we fought and clawed our way to the finals,&rdquo; says Davidson, who also played for the St. Louis Blues.New York took out the Los Angeles Kings in two straight games, and then proceeded to eliminate the Philadelphia Flyers (4-1) and the New York Islanders (4-2).&ldquo;Many people forget,&rdquo; recalls Davidson, &ldquo;that we were the last team to beat the Islanders before they went on their run of four consecutive Stanley Cups.&rdquo;Despite losing the final, Davidson&rsquo;s stellar play in the Ranger net earned him a lot of support for playoff MVP, but he went on to finish second to the Canadiens&rsquo; Bob Gainey in the voting for the Conn Smythe Trophy.Davidson is now a Rangers&rsquo; broadcaster for Madison Square Garden (MSG) Network in New York, and his memories of 79 still haunt him in the booth.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been involved in several final series as a commentator, and when they&rsquo;re all done, you know you have done your best as a broadcaster,&rdquo; Davidson explains. &ldquo;But you always know that you came up short when you had the chance as a player.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011472/5969309-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="561" height="648"><figcaption class="caption-body">John Davidson finished second for the Conn Smythe Trophy.</figcaption></div>Coming up short is something &ldquo;J.D.&rdquo; has not done while in the broadcast business.During his last season (1982-83), Davidson made a few guest appearances on television while suffering through injuries. But it was his stint on a Toronto Maple Leaf telecast that got him his break.&ldquo;Don Wallace was the (Toronto) producer at the time, and he invited me to Calgary to work with him,&rdquo; he said.Over the next two years, Davidson worked over 120 games on various Canadian networks, including Hockey Night In Canada.Although it&rsquo;s not something he had planned on doing, he loves it nonetheless.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s something I really enjoy, and I get my summers off, just like when I played,&rdquo; he said.Davidson uses his vacation to support several different charities while participating in about 25 charity golf tournaments.&ldquo;It allows me to support some worthwhile causes, while doing something I enjoy,&rdquo; he said.The former first-round pick of St. Louis in 1973, the 6-foot-3 Davidson played two seasons with the Blues before being traded to the Rangers in 1975, where he went on to play 222 games, amassing a career record of 93-90-14, and compiling a 3.58 goals-against average, along with seven shutouts. Davidson now resides in peaceful (&ldquo;You have to chase the deer off of your front lawn&rdquo;) Armonk, N.Y., just a one hour drive from Madison Square Garden.His broadcast career has allowed him to work with several hockey greats, including Bob Cole (&ldquo;Very intense man, who is worn out after a game&rdquo;) and the late Dan Kelly (&ldquo;A special man to work with&rdquo;). Davidson, along with Mike Emrick, will be providing CBS&rsquo; hockey coverage of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, a challenge Davidson is eagerly awaiting.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve covered World junior tournaments in Hamilton and Finland before, and I&rsquo;m really looking forward to spending three weeks in France in February,&rdquo; he said.Davidson, who worked on the Canada Cup for CTV (Canada), considers himself a lucky man to still be involved in hockey.&ldquo;Some people say I&rsquo;ve got the best job in hockey, and I think they&rsquo;re right,&rdquo; he said. &#9632;

f0014-01

DAVIDSON’S SUCCESSFUL TV CAREER WASN’T PLANNED

Heaven.That&rsquo;s the best way to describe Les 4 Glaces (The Four Rinks)&mdash;an upscale hockey complex for recreational players in the Montreal suburb of Brossard.The brainchild of Quebec entrepreneur Leo Bourgault, Les 4 Glaces was designed to give recreational players the best facilities available in which to enjoy their sport.Constructed between 1979 and 1984, the $12.5 million facility is Quebec&rsquo;s only four-rink hockey facility. The first two rinks were built in 1979 at a cost of $2.9 million, including the land. Two more were added in 1984.Les 4 Glaces has numerous extras you won&rsquo;t find in a standard hockey complex. Bourgault has spared no expense to make recreational players feel like kings.Some of the highlights: 16 dressing rooms that are cleaned and deodorized after every game; a lower level bar serving players immediately after games; a bartender that comes into the dressing rooms to take individual drink orders (everything from soft drinks to cold beer); an area where players can saw their sticks down to size; shelving units for hockey bags and equipment; stick racks; 80 TVs covering several sporting events scattered throughout the complex; and an upper-level restaurant offering a panoramic view of the four ice surfaces. The restaurant seats up to 500 people.Instead of placing seats around each rink&mdash;a practise many private owners regret because they&rsquo;re expensive and hard to clean&mdash;Les 4 Glaces has no rinkside seats. Ample seating is provided in the restaurant, so there&rsquo;s no access to the ice unless you&rsquo;re a player.Bourgault has also instituted a rule forbidding players to bring food into dressing rooms. Beverages and food are only allowed in the restaurant.Bourgault got the idea to build his upscale recreational complex in 1979. A former professional player in Europe, he played in several first-class European arenas that outclassed their North American counterparts. He decided to bring the concept to Canada.&ldquo;People have been very impressed with what we&rsquo;ve done,&rdquo; Bourgault said. &ldquo;They can see when they walk in that I&rsquo;ve worked hard. You walk around here and you can see the detail.&rdquo;Today, Les 4 Glaces runs its own league in the winter&mdash;La Ligue des 4 Glaces with A, B, C and D divisions.The league has 3,500 players and another 500 spares who are called when the regulars are away. There&rsquo;s also a summer league. In addition, Les 4 Glaces is home to several industrial leagues for such companies as IBM, Bell and Hydro Quebec.Women&rsquo;s hockey is also popular. Les 4 Glace operates a 16-team women&rsquo;s league every season. &#9632;

HOCKEY HEAVEN ALIVE AND WELL IN QUEBEC

<div class="byline">DAVE MOLINARI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011358/5969364-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="454" height="631"></div>It is almost impossible to project the impact Bob Johnson&rsquo;s absence will have on the Pittsburgh Penguins and their efforts to defend the Stanley Cup this season.But it seems like &ldquo;monumental&rdquo; and &ldquo;overwhelming&rdquo; might be pretty good words to start with. And those probably understate the situation.Still, Johnson&rsquo;s ailment might be an even bigger setback for hockey in the U.S. He has been the game&rsquo;s most visible, vocal supporter in the U.S., a man whose knowledge of hockey might have been surpassed only by his enthusiasm for it.He has long been part of the tight inner circle that governs hockey in the States. There are critics who contend some other members of that group shouldn&rsquo;t be allowed to organize a company picnic, let alone a national sports program.But few, if any, ever disputed Bob Johnson&rsquo;s credentials and qualifications, perhaps because anyone who did was making a public show of his ignorance.The brain tumors that, barring a medical miracle, have ended Johnson&rsquo;s coaching career were a cruel personal blow to those who knew and worked with Johnson. But they also blind-sided hockey&rsquo;s future in the U.S.Johnson was fond of saying that, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great day for hockey.&rdquo; It never mattered if it was a weekend or a weekday, mid-July or the middle of winter.The Badger was right, because he made it be a great day for the game. And it&rsquo;s hard to believe it will never be quite as good again.A few other Small Thoughts at Large that emerged while trying to remember if the event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas this month is an outdoor hockey game between Los Angeles and the New York Rangers or a heavyweight fight between Marty McSorley and Joey Kocur:&#9632; Is there anything more exciting than exhibition games? With the exception of baseball and watching someone else fish, of course.&#9632; There is no question Eric Lindros was 100 per cent correct when, in defending his decision not to play for the Quebec Nordiques, he said people in nearly every profession are allowed to choose the place where they will work.What went unmentioned is there aren&rsquo;t many occupations in which a person can earn millions of dollars without receiving a minute of higher education. Or, in the case of some athletes, without even completing high school.Clearly, Lindros has the right to do everything within his means to avoid playing in Quebec, if that is what he wants. Just as the Nordiques have the right to let him sit and stagnate for the better part of two seasons before they deal his rights.That&rsquo;s the potential for two years in which Lindros will be risking a career-ending injury without an NHL contract to fall back on every time he pulls on his skates.It is a pity, for Lindros&rsquo; sake, that he had to be drafted by a team that has so little appeal to him. Conversely, do you really believe a young Wayne Gretzky, fresh out of Brantford, Ont., was ecstatic about starting his career in places like Indianapolis and Edmonton? Or that Mario Lemieux, after growing up in Montreal, was overcome by joy at being drafted by Pittsburgh?Someone should let Lindros know the world just isn&rsquo;t a perfect place. And there are a lot greater hardships than receiving a truckload of money to play hockey in a place that doesn&rsquo;t conform to your specifications.&#9632; People in some organizations are rewarded with new contracts after winning a Stanley Cup. Not so in Pittsburgh, where many staff members haven&rsquo;t even received ones to replace those that expired during the off-season.Just think of that as the latest evidence that, while owner Edward J. DeBartolo&rsquo;s biggest contribution to hockey in Pittsburgh was keeping the franchise there through difficult times, his second biggest will be selling it.&#9632; As long as top management, fans and, to some extent, the media in New York demand any rebuilding program for the Rangers be completed in no more than 216 hours, the 1940 chant so popular at Nassau Coliseum figures to remain appropriate&mdash;and accurate.&#9632; There is no question the New Jersey Devils are a better team since they were awarded Scott Stevens as compensation for Brendan Shanahan. They might even be the early favorite to win the Patrick Division.But internal turmoil has been a staple in New Jersey in recent seasons, and bringing in a player with Stevens&rsquo; contract won&rsquo;t do much to further locker-room bliss.The Devils have suppressed salaries for a long time, but you can safely assume players like Kirk Muller and John MacLean will not be pleased knowing their gross income is considerably lower than Stevens&rsquo; tax bill.Dave Molinari covers the Penguins for the Pittsburgh Press. &#9632;

f0015-01

JOHNSON’S AILMEN SETBACK FOR U.S. HOCKEY

Last season, St. Louis Blues&rsquo; defenseman Glen Featherstone scored his first NHL goal in his 87th career game. Three other active players with at least 40 career games are still looking for their first NHL goal: Winnipeg&rsquo;s Rudy Poeschek. 70; Quebec&rsquo;s Tony Twist, 51; and Vancouver&rsquo;s Jim Agnew, 41.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-02952/5969419-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="618" height="414"><figcaption class="caption-body">Glen Featherstone</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0015-02

NUMBERS

<div class="byline">BY FRANK BROWN</div>As Alexei Kovalev took the first bite out of his bacon cheeseburger at the hotel restaurant in Armonk, N.Y., it was 3:30 a.m., on his internal body clock.And it had been quite a day, only the latest in the Rangers&rsquo; Russian revolution.At Buffalo last June, general manager Neil Smith made Kovalev the first Soviet ever claimed in the first round of an NHL entry draft. Later in the summer, he signed Soviet center Sergei Nemchinov. Later still, he invited Spartak defenseman Viacheslav Llvayev (a ninthround Rangers&rsquo; pick last June) and his coach, the heralded Alexander Yakushev, to visit training camp.And Smith even travelled to Moscow in August to open a dialogue with the directorate of Kovalev&rsquo;s club team, Moscow Dynamo. From those meetings, with team president Alexander Steblin and coach Vladimir Yurzinov, an unheard-of arrangement emerged: the 18-year-old right winger was permitted a one-week visit.Kovalev had been in the U.S. before&mdash;he&rsquo;d even been in New York before. But this was different, this was the start of his acclimatization to the place that will be his hockey home&mdash;sooner, preferably not later.Kovalev emerged from customs at Kennedy Airport, carrying his equipment bag and a bundle of hockey sticks as heavy as a bundle of trees. He was then driven to the Rangers&rsquo; training base in Rye.Kovalev&rsquo;s eyes got as big as pucks when coach Roger Neilson led the tour from the sparkling weight room&mdash;complete with a neon Rangers&rsquo; crest on the wall&mdash;to the dressing room, to the video room, and then to the equipment room.Of course Dynamo headquarters in Novogorsk boasts the same features. Dynamo has won the past two championships of the Soviet National League, replacing Red Army at the top.Kovalev was ushered to a vacant cubicle in the comer of the empty dressing room. He sat next to Bernie Nicholls on the left, rookie Tony Amonte on his right. Soviet center Sergei Nemchinov, extremely impressive in the early stages of training camp, was one stop over.Equipment man Tim Paris emptied Kovalev&rsquo;s equipment bag and went over every item. The 6-foot-1, 189-pound forward would require Rangers&rsquo; pants to replace the battered Dynamo blue. He needed red, white and blue gloves. And his elbow pads had to go&mdash;so did his sticks, which were better suited to supporting telephone wires along a highway.Silently, Kovalev watched Paris wedge a blade into an aluminum stick. Kovalev wanted the longest blade with the lowest lie, and was given a loan from the box of Tony Amonte&rsquo;s blades.&ldquo;The reception was unbelievably warm,&rdquo; Kovalev said, through interpreter Mark Gandler of the Manhattan law firm Richards & O&rsquo;Neil. &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t get over the attention Tim (Paris) paid me and how interested he was in taking care of me.&rdquo;In his new gear&mdash;but his old skates&mdash;Kovalev impressed his teammates in his first practice.&ldquo;Now that&rsquo;s beauty,&rdquo; said defenseman James Patrick, marvelling at Kovalev&rsquo;s skating ability. &ldquo;Sergei (Nemchinov) can skate, but this guy is unbelievable. He just dances out there. It&rsquo;s like he&rsquo;s floating above the ice.&rdquo;At Kovalev&rsquo;s first news conference, right winger Tie Domi had a question of his own, referring to Kovalev&rsquo;s speed: &ldquo;Ask him if his skates run on batteries.&rdquo; &#9632;

GARDEN VISIT IMPRESSES KOVALEV

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE FISH</div>If this is the year the Philadelphia Flyers are to do a successful rebuilding job, Mike Ricci must be considered the cornerstone of the foundation.That might be putting a lot of weight on a 19-year-old&rsquo;s shoulders but Ricci acts like he doesn&rsquo;t mind the extra load.Last year was a seven-month period of adjustment for Ricci, the Flyers&rsquo;No. 1 (fourth overall) selection in the 1990 draft.After a slow start, including an 11-game absence due to a broken finger. Ricci came on to score 21 goals and show why eventually he will be one of hockey&rsquo;s stars.This year the Flyers are looking for bigger and better things. They expect Ricci to step up and take more of a leadership role, both on and off the ice.Coach Paul Holmgren has even entertained the notion of breaking up the No. 1 line of Ricci-Rick Tocchet-Pelle Eklund to give his team more balanced scoring.The feeling is that Ricci will no longer need two established stars on his flanks to perform at a high level over the long haul.For example, Ricci was centering a line of Brad Jones and Mark Pederson during a training camp scrimmage.&ldquo;With the year he had and all the roles we had him in, he&rsquo;s a seasoned veteran really,&rdquo; Holmgren said. &ldquo;His leadership just comes naturally. He tries hard every practice. He&rsquo;s always working on the things he has to do to make himself better.&rdquo;Ricci spent a good deal of time under the wing of veteran center Keith Acton last year. Now that he has learned the ropes, Ricci should blossom into a force around the league this season.The Flyers think so much of Ricci that they have already said they will not discuss him or Tocchet in any trade talks.Ricci realizes this could be the year he helps the Flyers reverse their fortunes. The idea is to not put too much pressure on himself. After all, he&rsquo;s still only the equivalent of a college freshman playing in the best hockey league in the world.As the current training camp unfolds, Ricci has already assumed a bigger presence. Rookie players are beginning to look at him as one of the few legitimate stars on a team that is in the process of rebuilding.&ldquo;As you feel more comfortable about where you&rsquo;re playing, you start acting more like yourself and worry less about what&rsquo;s going on around you,&rdquo; Ricci explained. &ldquo;I think it helps if you stay loose and try to be a leader.&rdquo;Ricci is determined to be more consistent this year. Like most rookies, he had bad nights mixed in with the good. He&rsquo;s trying to cut down on the number of bad ones.&ldquo;Consistency and off-ice conditioning are the two big things. I learned more about lifting weights, working out and what it takes to keep your cardiovascular (conditioning) up, which is what this game is a lot about.&rdquo;The fact that he is so young still plays on his mind from time to time. There were situations in the offensive zone last year when his stick felt like it weighed a hundred pounds and the puck was made of lead.Nerves, no doubt.&ldquo;I played through that all year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Hopefully, I can just loosen up this year and play as well as I can. You come here the first year and you expect so much of yourself. This is your dream. I was a little tight but I had two great linemates and they kind of overshadowed that. Now, if I can loosen up and play my game, I know I can help the team more.&rdquo; &#9632;

RICCI LIVING UP TO EXPECTATIONS

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div>Captain Kirk has vanished.Angry over stalled contract renegotiations with general manager Lou Lamoriello, Kirk Muller walked out of the New Jersey Devils&rsquo; training camp Sept. 16and asked for a trade.Muller, who is entering the option year of his contract that would pay him $350,000 this season, joined defenseman Ken Daneyko as the Devils&rsquo; two holdouts.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a little disappointed it has come to this,&rdquo; Muller said from his home. &ldquo;Basically, I just hope we can keep talking. I&rsquo;d rather not say anything else at this point.&rdquo;Agent Gus Badali was more direct. He said Muller was looking for a new contract comparable to those of Philadelphia&rsquo;s Rick Tocchet and Boston&rsquo;s Cam Neely. Both players earned $750,000 last season.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re basing our requests on the salaries of a number of players I feel have Kirk&rsquo;s stats, his character and his leadership all incorporated in a certain mold. I know what their salaries are. Two of the players are Rick Tocchet and Cam Neely,&rdquo; Badali said from his Toronto office.Muller was second to John MacLean in scoring among Devils last season with 70 points (19 goals, 51 assists). Neely scored 91 points for the Bruins (51 goals, 40 assists) while Tocchet led the Flyers in scoring with 71 points (40 goals, 31 assists).&ldquo;Negotiations with Lou have sort of indicated they have hit their level,&rdquo; Badali said. &ldquo;We feel even though it is Kirk&rsquo;s option year, by playing out his option in New Jersey there will be no change next year as far as negotiations go. Therefore, we&rsquo;d like to give New Jersey the opportunity to make a move (a trade) now so we can negotiate with another club or at least play out our option with another club expecting more of a reward at the end of the year.&rdquo;Asked if he was concerned about bad feelings between Muller and the Devils, Badali said: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m always concerned about that. I don&rsquo;t like it. This is not something we really want to do, but we have to do what is best for the player. Kirk has been a very good New Jersey Devil and we were hoping something could be done to stay there, but it doesn&rsquo;t look like it can.&rdquo;Muller appeared in all 80 games for the fourth straight season. He has played in a franchise-record 321 consecutive games, the third-longest active streak in the league. Drafted first in 1984 (second overall to Mario Lemieux), Muller is the first Devil to reach the 500-point plateau.Devils&rsquo; owner John J. McMullen looked at Muller&rsquo;s decision diplomatically.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather not comment about it. That&rsquo;s not my department,&rdquo; McMullen said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not the only team in hockey with unsigned players or players not in camp. It&rsquo;s a very unsettled time for the NHL.&rdquo;Claude Lemieux, Bruce Driver, Chris Terreri and MacLean are all unhappy with their current contracts.&ldquo;No hard feelings for Lou,&rdquo; Badali said. &ldquo;We understand the difficulty of trying to figure out the salary structure right now. But I can only go on the basis of putting Kirk in the same caliber of some other players and the salaries they are making.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not surprised so many players have walked out (around the league) because of the uncertainty of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. If you are a free agent some people are making more than established stars. Therefore the salaries being offered to non-free agents aren&rsquo;t as good as what lesser players are making. That&rsquo;s why so many players are reacting the way they are.&rdquo;Badali discounted the long-held belief that Muller expected to be the highest-paid Devil.&ldquo;That was not anything put in by us,&rdquo; Badali said. &ldquo;If that was the case, that was their doing. It was not constructed that Kirk had to be the highest-paid player on the team.&rdquo; &#9632;

DISGRUNTLED MULLER DECIDES TO TAKE A WALK

<div class="byline">BY MARK HERRMANN</div>Year after year, the same question arises in the New York Islanders&rsquo; training camp regarding the same people: Is this the season (fill in a name) finally breaks through?The answer is obvious by the fact the question is repeated so regularly. The organization, adamant about building from within, has been waiting a long time for some of its draftees to develop. As training camp opened in the Albany region, the Islanders still were hoping for some long-overdue deliveries.&ldquo;Sometimes you see guys hit a certain level and never get past it,&rdquo; Isles&rsquo; general manager Bill Torrey said. &ldquo;Then, you&rsquo;ll see another guy who, all of a sudden, finds his career taking off. That&rsquo;s the assessment that has to be made and it&rsquo;s a difficult thing.&rdquo;Reaching that next level has been an even more difficult accomplishment for several seasoned Islanders who have been stuck in a rut on the fringe of the roster, or trapped on a treadmill that shuttles them back and forth from the minors.&ldquo;This is it,&rdquo; left winger Brad Lauer said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to make or break, I think. It&rsquo;s my sixth year.&rdquo;Lauer is one of those players who is able to make the Islanders&rsquo; only because it is a weak squad. He has just 37 goals in 251 NHL games.Lauer returned from Humboldt, Sask., in arguably the best shape of his career. He also shed any illusions he might have had about his career.&ldquo;I think I know what my role is,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m more of a defensive forward. My approach to the games this year will be different than past years. I&rsquo;ve tried to do too much and I&rsquo;d always think too much about it. I&rsquo;m just going to go out and do the best I can do, to the best of my ability.&rdquo;It is hard, though, to relax when there is a sense of urgency about a career. Lauer shares that feeling with many other Islanders who are still trying to establish themselves.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011142/5969522-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="708" height="791"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brad Lauer knows this is a make or break season for him and his teammates.</figcaption></div>To varying degrees, Wayne McBean, Jeff Finley, Dean Chynoweth, Rob DiMaio, Brad Dalgamo, Hubie McDonough and Tom Fitzgerald all are asking themselves the same questions.&ldquo;This is the first time they&rsquo;ve ever told me what they want my role to be,&rdquo; said Fitzgerald, the team&rsquo;s No. 1 draft pick in 1986. &ldquo;They see me as a defensive forward, either at wing or center. That&rsquo;s fine with me. The more ice time I get, the more goals I can get.&rdquo;&ldquo;Sometimes, if you&rsquo;re enough of a pain in the neck on defense, that&rsquo;s how you get goals,&rdquo; coach Al Arbour said.Part of the problem might be that too many of the Islanders are trying to fill that same defense-oriented role. No matter how much ice time they receive, it is not likely any of them will blossom into 40-goal scorers.They all believe they can become legitimate and permanent NHL players, although they hear the clock ticking.Lauer is not quite ready to establish his own 1,200-acre grain farm, like the one he works on during summers. &ldquo;Basically, I&rsquo;m going to keep doing this for as long as I can, until they kick me out,&rdquo; he said.Fitzgerald echoed another common theme when he said: &ldquo;It has been four years. It&rsquo;s time.&rdquo; &#9632;

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PLUGGERS SEARCHING FOR NEXT PLATEAU

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINAR</div>Ken Priestlay never doubted he had a place in the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; plans. Which is why he did everything possible to get out of the organization.The place where Priestlay seemed to fit into the Sabres&rsquo; scheme was in Rochester, site of the Sabres&rsquo; American League affiliate. A nice enough place, perhaps, but not a town where Priestlay wanted to spend his career.And he feared that was his destiny if he didn&rsquo;t get away from the Sabres.So Priestlay joined the Canadian national team last fall, and remained there until the Penguins acquired his rights in exchange for right winger Tony Tanti March 5.He was nothing more than an interested observer during the Penguins&rsquo; charge to the Stanley Cup, but figures to play a fairly prominent role in their effort to defend it.Pittsburgh management thought enough of Priestlay to protect him in the expansion draft rather than Randy Gilhen, a solid defensive forward and positive force in the dressing room.Their faith seems justified in the early days of training camp, when Priestlay piled up seven points during a three-day tournament to tie for the team lead and earn a piece of the tournament MVP honors.Scoring a lot in the early days of camp won&rsquo;t necessarily translate directly into regular-season success, but Priestlay figures he&rsquo;ll get a legitimate shot at landing a job with the Penguins, which he contends is more than ever happened in Buffalo.As evidence, he points to the 1988-89 season, when he had 56 goals and 93 points in 64 games with the Americans, but was back in Rochester at the start of the following season.&ldquo;It didn&rsquo;t matter what I did down there (Rochester) and what the guys did up there (Buffalo),&rdquo; Priestlay said. &ldquo;I was going down, no matter what.&rdquo;Priestlay sat out training camp last fall, hoping to force the Sabres to trade him. When that didn&rsquo;t happen&mdash;and when Buffalo protected him in the waiver draft&mdash;Priestlay bolted to the Canadian national team.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02853/5969553-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="709" height="732"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ken Priestlay is finally getting a shot at a job with the Penguins.</figcaption></div>His primary objective was to force a trade, but he insists he was prepared to stay with Team Canada through the 1992 Olympics if necessary.&ldquo;I only signed on for one (year), hoping that I was going to get traded,&rdquo; Priestlay said. &ldquo;But there was no hesitation (about going back for another) if I didn&rsquo;t get traded. It was a great program, and I benefited a lot.&rdquo;There has been no shortage of quality centers in Buffalo in recent years&mdash;guys like Pierre Turgeon, Dale Hawerchuk and Christian Ruuttu&mdash;but the depth chart is no less imposing in Pittsburgh. With the Penguins, Priestlay finds himself alongside the likes of Mario Lemieux, Ron Francis and Bryan Trottier.&ldquo;All these guys are players who at one time&mdash;or now&mdash;were among the best in the world,&rdquo; Priestlay said. &ldquo;Even Jiri Hrdina&hellip;you can learn a lot from those players.&rdquo;There are no guarantees, of course, but Priestlay is the front-runner to fill the job created by Gilhen&rsquo;s departure. His precise role hasn&rsquo;t yet been defined, but Priestlay isn&rsquo;t concerned with the particulars at this point. He&rsquo;s pleased simply to have an NHL job in his immediate future.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just glad I&rsquo;m out of Buffalo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a new situation, so I&rsquo;ll just make the best of it.&rdquo; &#9632;

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PRIESTLAY WON’T GET BUFFALOED ANYMORE

<div class="byline">BY DAVE SELL</div>When people talk about the magical cities of the free world, Hartford is rarely included with the likes of Paris, London and New York.But for Randy Burridge, Hartford is one of the most magical cities in the world.&ldquo;He has made a career out of Hartford,&rdquo; said current Capital, former Whaler and fellow left winger Dave Tippett.Burridge was acquired by the Washington Capitals from the Boston Bruins for right winger Steve Leach June 21.In 359 regular season games, he had 108 goals and 223 points. Nice numbers, but hardly worth a bust in the Hall of Fame. But in 37 games against the Whalers, Burridge has 22 goals and 32 points. It&rsquo;s a shame the Capitals only play Hartford three times per season.But that doesn&rsquo;t matter if the puck goes in the net, which is what the Capitals are hoping happens when Burridge and the puck get together. He had 31 goals in 1988-89 for Boston, seven more than the 24 Kelly Miller and Kevin Hatcher had to tie for the Caps&rsquo; team lead last year.&ldquo;I would say I think he can get to the 30-goal range, whether mid-30s or a little above,&rdquo; said coach Terry Murray, who got 11 goals and 30 points out of Leach last season. &ldquo;I know he&rsquo;s capable. He goes hard to the net and has a good touch. He&rsquo;s not a big guy, but he has a big heart and a low center of gravity.&rdquo;But will Burridge be a sniper when his opponent isn&rsquo;t wearing a green jersey with a fish tail?The Capitals, who need more scoring, chose not to enter the free-agent market this summer, despite the fact scorers were available at the right price.This season, Burridge represents the only major change.In 1987-88, the 25-year-old Fort Erie, Ont. native had 27 goals and 55 points in 79 games. In &rsquo;88-89, he had 31 goals and 61 points in 80 worker. And he&rsquo;s responsible in his own end. But was that 31-goal season a fluke? Burridge doesn&rsquo;t think so.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03593/5969584-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="707" height="652"><figcaption class="caption-body">Randy Burridge had 31 goals his best year with Boston.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough to put a number down, but I think I can reach that point,&rdquo; Burridge said. &ldquo;Everybody wants to score goals, but I also want to play the style of Randy Burridge. They traded for me because of the way I worked and the way I played the game. I don&rsquo;t want to get too far from that point.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to get stereotyped that way. I had two good years of 31 and 27 goals, and then got hurt two years. I feel, especially last year, that the Bruins stereotyped me as the-good-two-way-player-who-can-score-sometimes. But they never gave me a shot on the power play, even when the power play was going bad. That&rsquo;s frustrating.&rdquo;Burridge has played out his option, but filed for arbitration. Last season, he made $220,000 and this year&rsquo;s salary will be determined by an arbitrator if agent, Anton Thun, can&rsquo;t reach a deal with general manager David Poile. &#9632;

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BURRIDGE EXPECTED TO BEEF UP OFFENSE

Ask any hockey dad about their first hockey stick, and it will probably look a lot like this: a strong wooden shaft with a fat blade that had absolutely no curve, and probably weighed about 20 pounds.The weight may be an exaggeration, but the description is not. In the &ldquo;old days&rdquo; of hockey it didn&rsquo;t matter what your stick looked like, as long as you could put the puck in the net, you were a star. But just like everything else in life, the hockey stick has been the subject of many changes over the past 15 or 20 years.The traditional wooden shafts are still around, but the overall look and feel of the stick has been revamped to suit the everchanging needs of the game of hockey.The shafts are lighter than ever before, and are still able to withstand the beatings given to them by heavy-hitters such as Al Maclnnis and Brett Hull.While the wooden sticks undergo their changes, the &rsquo;90s has seen the aluminum stick become a major part of the stick market. Made famous by The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, the aluminum sticks, with their replaceable blades are fast becoming a favorite of both professional players and recreational enthusiasts.Aluminum sticks were even a part of some controversy in the NHL last year. Some NHL goalies were saying TV lights in the arenas were reflecting off Gretzky&rsquo;s aluminum shaft, thereby allowing him to distract the goalie and collect more points. While some will say Gretzky&rsquo;s record should speak for itself, the manufacturer (Easton) still had to dull the shaft to satisfy his opponents.Colors have also come into play in stick manufacturing. The cosmetic look of a stick is now as important to some people as the durability of the stick itself. It is not an uncommon sight for NHL observers to see a pro player using a stick that matches their team colors, and this is carrying on down into minor hockey. Youngsters are now using sticks with bright green and pink tinges on them, colors hockey purists never expected to become part of the game.For most parents, the word option is associated with a car purchase. But, as they venture out into sporting goods stores this winter, they&rsquo;ll quickly realize there are as many options on a hockey stick as there were when buying the family station-wagon. &#9632;

STICKS IN THE ’90s - IT’S ANYTHING GOES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011067/5969660-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02773/5969653-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="1455" height="2534"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01808/5969646-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="1483" height="2474"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02548/5969639-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="1473" height="2474"></div> &#9632;

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STICK PRODUCT ANALYSIS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01942/5969691-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former Bruin Dave Christian has his name on a lot of sticks.</figcaption></div>With over 25 years of experience, Christian Bros. Hockey Sticks continues to be a large player in the hockey stick industry.As has been the case for the past 10 years, Christian continues to increase its market share worldwide, especially in the very competitive Canadian market place.The reason for their success is simple according to Tim McClure, product/marketing manager for Jelinek Sports (Christian&rsquo;s exclusive Canadian distributor).&ldquo;Christian is a family business and the principles of the company ensure products with their name don&rsquo;t leave the factory unless it is top quality&rdquo;, he says. &ldquo;Because of their involvement in the day-to-day business, they are very quick to pick up on problems and correct them. As players try the sticks, they find that they appreciate the balance, responsiveness and overall feel.&rdquo;Christian Bros, continues to display one of the company&rsquo;s strongest characteristics: Innovation.For the 1992 season, Christian has introduced the 2020 Excell to the Canadian market place. It is a light-weight, yet very stiff stick used by a number of NHL professionals.Cosmetically, Christian has color co-ordinated the shaft with their popular Diamond Design blades on the 2020 Excell and SS2000 models.With the aluminum market strengthening, Christian Bros., one of the first companies to introduce the aluminum-shafted stick, have introduced the new &ldquo;chrome look&rdquo; C-7009 Realite. This shaft is stiff, yet much lighter than other aluminum shafts. Christian Bros, also manufacture replacement blades for the aluminum shafts.The Christian &ldquo;Pro-Rite&rdquo; replacement blades are not only &ldquo;best sellers&rdquo; in stores throughout Canada and the U.S., but they are the choice of many of the NHL&rsquo;s hardest shooters, including Brett Hull.The company also continues to endorse and support the war against drugs by adding brief messages on stick shafts. Messages such as &ldquo;Just Say No To Drugs&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Choice for Me&hellip;Drug Free&rdquo; have been accepted by coaches, parents, fans and the many NHL players who are using the Christian product.More and more professional players in Canada, the U.S. and Europe have taken notice of Christian&rsquo;s reputation for quality, craftsmanship and service. It&rsquo;s for these reasons that the list of satisfied professional customers continues to grow.Some of the game&rsquo;s brightest stars have chosen to use Christian products, including: Ed Belfour, Jon Casey, Don Beaupre, Jaromir Jagr, Craig Janney, Luke Richardson and Andy Moog, who plays with the very unique Curtis Curve.&ldquo;We feel Christian Bros, can make a stick that is ideally suited for every type of player&mdash;from the 2020 Excell to the original Pro 1000,&rdquo; says McClure. &ldquo;There is no substitute for craftsmanship and feel in a stick and this is important to a player because a stick is really an extension of himself.&rdquo;As Dave Christian of the St. Louis Blues says: &ldquo;The Christians are still playing the game and making hockey sticks, so the motto lives on&mdash;Hockey Sticks Made By Hockey Players.&rdquo;Watch for The Hockey News NHL (SEASON PREVIEW) in an upcoming issue in October. &#9632;

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INNOVATION KEEPS CHRISTIAN COMPETITIVE

Sherwood brings a new dimension to the personalized hand-crafted hockey stick.For many years, Sherwood has taken pride in satisfying the demands of pro hockey players.More than 1,000 professional hockey players worldwide request their personal hockey stick pattern from Sherwood. This &ldquo;tradition&rdquo; has proven the high standard of quality produced by our exclusive special order pattern department.Sherwood offers all their respective dealers an enhanced pro pattern program in order to follow in the trend of professional players.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01709/5969729-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="540" height="1228"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Larmer is one of Sherwood&rsquo;s happy customers.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02381/5969722-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="552" height="1189"><figcaption class="caption-body">Boston&rsquo; Ray Bourque is front and center with his Sherwood.</figcaption></div>Sherwood is proud to present for the 1992 season, a complete program for retail which includes a &ldquo;Bonanza Pack Program&rdquo;, 10 top NHL all-star players&rsquo; personal models.These models will be offered in the P.M.P. 7000 feather-balanced model. &#9632;

f0021-01

SHERWOOD STICKS IT TO THE COMPETITION

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN SNOW</div>Fine hockey players are like artists. They construct works of wonder in their own unique way on a landscape of ice.Put generic sweaters on Denis Savard, Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux and it still wouldn&rsquo;t take long for the casual hockey fans to recognize their styles.Like an artist, each player has his own special style. All the varying styles are performed with instruments. The difference is, Gretzky&rsquo;s paintbrush is five feet long with a laminated shaft and a fiberglass blade.Every player in the NHL is very particular when it comes to the type of sticks that they use. Sure, you may see Steve Yzerman and Theo Fleury using Louisville sticks, but upon closer examination of each individual tool, you are likely to find two very different products.Stick manufacturers are able to manipulate a stick in many ways so it will suit the individual needs of each player. From the subtle changes such as curve size and stick length, to shaft stiffness and varying lies, players are able to dictate their options to the company in an effort to maximize their on-ice performance.Gretzky, the greatest artist of all, is quite particular about the type of stick he uses. He has almost no curve, just a little hook right at the end of his blade.Gretzky uses the smallest lie possible. (Lie is the angle made where the shaft and the blade meet). His lie 4 gives him the ability to skate as close to the ice as a possible. And the shaft of his stick is extremely stiff.A couple other stars are completely different.Dale Hawerchuk of the Buffalo Sabres started his career using a lie-10 stick. This enabled him to control the puck in tight quarters, to dipsy-doodle almost through players while standing nearly right on top of the action.Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins, on the other hand, uses a very large, whippy stick. It&rsquo;s very flexible and has a high lie.What do some of the game&rsquo;s other top shooters prefer? Here&rsquo;s a look.&#9632; Steve Yzerman of the Detroit Red Wings, similar to Gretzky, prefers a low lie stick (between four and five) even though their skating and puck-handling styles are completely different. Yzerman likes a medium stiffness shaft.&#9632; Brett Hull of the St. Louis Blues, likes a stiff stick, but not quite as stiff as Gretzky&rsquo;s. If he can score 158 goals in two seasons, he probably has the right stick.&#9632; Al Maclnnis of the Calgary Flames, whose slapshot is probably the hardest in the NHL, chooses a stick with an enormous curve. It has to have an open-faced heel and be extra stiff.&#9632; Ray Bourque of the Boston Bruins, who has won four straight Norris trophies, uses a stick with a relatively small curve. The stick is extra stiff and extra light.&#9632; Paul Coffey of the Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins prefers an extra light, extra stiff stick for those long shots-&#9632; Russ Courtnall of the Montreal Canadiens is known for his explosive burts of speed between the bluelines. His sticks are also unique. He asks for sticks with extra stiff handles.&#9632; Brian Leetch of the New York Rangers requests sticks with extra stiff shafts and extra curve with a big-toed blade.All this is quite a change from the days of old-time hockey, when a stick was just a piece of lumber with a blade on it. Today&rsquo;s player is a newer, pickier breed, who picks out stick patterns as if they are ordering meals at take-out restaurants.Call them artists, though. I sounds good. &#9632;

NHL PLAYERS STICK WITH LUMBER THEY LIKE

Louisville, the progressive hockey stick manutacturer, located in Wallaceburg, Ont. enters the &rsquo;91-92 season offering its greatest selection ever in player patterns, colors and lies.Celebrating their 25th anniversary of hockey stick manufacturing (combined with 100-plus years experience in wood bats), Louisville continues to become a larger player in the hockey stick (and equipment) industry.Louisville has increased its market share in both Canada and the U.S., especially over the past two years. Recognizing the quality and craftsmanship manufactured in every Louisville stick, the Louisville TPS and TPX have become a favorite among top NHL players.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01744/5969784-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="575" height="885"><figcaption class="caption-body">Louisville celebrates its 25th year of making hockey sticks.</figcaption></div>Superstars such as Steve Yzerman, Pat LaFontaine, Dale Hawerchuk and Adam Oates have been using the stick for years, with recent signees including Theo Fleury, Joe Sakic and Mark Messier.Manufacturers of aluminum bats, Louisville has taken this technology one step further and will be introducing an exclusive designed aluminum shaft to go along with their already popular replacement blade.This revolutionary handle will be introduced within the next few weeks, with excellent test feedbacks from NHL superstars already using an aluminum stick. &#9632;

f0023-01

LOUISVILLE TO INTRODUCE ALUMINUM SHAFT

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN SNOW</div>Contrary to popular belief, the glove and blocker are no longer the most important tools of the trade for professional goaltenders.Sure, the facemask has become incredibly important, what with Brett Hull and Al Maclnnis rifling slapshots heard around the hockey world.But what about the goalie stick? Billy Smith or Greg Stefan might tell you you&rsquo;re supposed to use it as a scithe to clear away opponents around the crease, but there&rsquo;s more to it than that.Just ask Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; goaltender Ron Hextali, the first stopper to actually score a goal by shooting the puck the length of the ice&mdash;not once but twice.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01714/5969815-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="557" height="676"><figcaption class="caption-body">Vincent Riendeau likes a stick with a straight blade.</figcaption></div>The last few years have seen an increasing number of goalies become the third defenseman in their own end, enabling their offensive units to break out faster than ever before.With more and more offensive emphasis being put on goalies, stick companies are producing goal sticks that are lighter, which in turn makes it easier for the goalie to swivel it around and handle the puck.The new generation of goalies require things such as ash handles, and open curves on their sticks to allow them more control when given the opportunity of moving the puck to their teammates.Just like forwards and defensemen, today&rsquo;s goalies need their sticks to be perfect so they are able to be at the top of their game and do what they&rsquo;re forced to with the puck.The younger goalies took the cue from Smith and Hextail, and are learning how to handle the puck, as well as stopping it. It is innovations like this that will keep the stick companies busy, and make hockey a faster game.Some of the NHL&rsquo;s brightest young goaltenders request special items from manufacturers on their sticks. Here are just a few.&#9632; Ed Belfour of the Chicago Blackhawks is quite adept at handling the puck when it&rsquo;s shot in around the corners. He demands a light model stick that has excellent balance. With this type of stick, he doesn&rsquo;t hesitate to sprawl around the ice when need be, get up and dish the rebound off to a teammate.&#9632; Jon Casey of the Minnesota North Stars has a similar stick toBelfour&rsquo;s. Casey&rsquo;s stick doesn&rsquo;t rely so much on balance as it does light weight. When you play as often and handle as many pucks as Casey, it&rsquo;s important you&rsquo;re not lugging around a giant Redwood.&#9632; Chris Terreri of the New Jersey Devils also prefers a lightweight stick, but what&rsquo;s most important to him is finding a stick with a good feeling handle.&#9632; Vincent Riendeau of the St. Louis Blues isn&rsquo;t particularly picky about balance or weight in a stick.But hand him a warped stick and you&rsquo;re skating on thin ice. Riendeau likes a blade that is perfectly straight.He may never shoot a puck down ice and score a goal, but he does a fine job stopping it. &#9632;

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GOALIES SKATE SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG STICK

There are two types of hockey sticks on the market to-day&mdash;gaudy and unfinished. Bending Branches has come up with a third choice. A design that blends the natural beauty of the wood with the sleek line of the stick. Each stick has a tough, durable protective finish&mdash;a classic look usually reserved for fine furniture.All Bending Branches sticks meet high standards of excellence. The models all feature Ash blades wrapped with reinforced fibreglass so they can deliver more power pershot. The high quality finish seals in stability, stabilizes the flex and preserves essential stiffness. Each stick is individually electronically tested to determine its flex and stiffness, and given the Flextron Rating Number that insures consistant shaft flex. You won&rsquo;t have to flex ten or fifteen sticks to find one you like&mdash;you can select a stick based on its rating and be confident it wll give you consistant high performance.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01771/5969846-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="334" height="243"></div> &#9632;

f0026-01

SPORTING GOODS DEALERS CHOICE: BEST QUALITY

The Falcon Stealth is the most hi-tech hockey stick on the market today. The Stealth is made with advanced composite materials developed for the military&rsquo;s Stealth Technology program. These materials are an aerospace grade high-modulus graphite weave and aluminum that is bonded together with Falcon proprietary resin systems. This lightweight stick provides for a powerful shot time after time.The Falcon Pro 10000 is the lightest aluminum shaft on the market. This ultra light shaft is made of a high quality aerospace grade 7178 aluminum alloy. It offers a consistent feel and shot performance.The Falcon JR PRO 8000 is an aluminum shaft with a junior blade. The shaft will also accomodate senior blades. These shafts are available in the following colors: Red, Blue, Green, Black, Silver, Purple, Smoke Grey and Gold. &#9632;

FALCON HAS LANDED

Kitchener, a Canadian hockey stick company, established in 1967 by owner Ben Pastway, and still a family business, will, during the 1991-92 season, be celebrating 25 years of custom hockey stick production.Long recognized as an innovator in production machinery, materials and design specifications, ranging from superheel and spectra to stiffness rated moulded fibreglass handles, Kitchener has again delivered a line with enhanced features for this playing season.With an improved quad-post reinforcement system and a new moulded glass formulation, Kitchener&rsquo;s full range of fibreglass sticks for the 1991-92 season will be stiffer, lighter and more durable than ever before. Kitchener has also perfected a process by which fibreglass is feathered across the heel area of the stick to reduce torsional deflection, thereby increasing both the accuracy and power of slapshots, while improving control over passes.Kitchener is also offering a broader range of blade shapes and curves at the recreational and professional price and performance levels.Said Pastway: &rsquo;We don&rdquo;t pay pro players to use our product, nor do we pay the NHL license fee to advertise at that level. Without that exposure, we concentrate on just macing sticks that meet and exceed players performance expectations&rdquo;. &#9632;

KITCHENER STICKS; DURABILITY FIRST

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0027-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01719/5969925-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">After not getting an invitation to San Jose&rsquo;s training camp, Ron Handy retired.</figcaption></div>If NHL players go on strike, there apparently won&rsquo;t be hockey in the American League, either.While minor-league baseball was played when major leaguers went on strike in 1981, that won&rsquo;t be the case in hockey.&ldquo;I would think that if the NHL players go on strike, we&rsquo;d be right behind them,&rdquo; said Larry Landon, head of the Professional Hockey Players Association, which represents minor-league players.The PHPA&rsquo;s contracts with the AHL and the International League both expired after the 1990-91 season. Negotiations have been going.The NHLPA and the PHPA are separate organizations. Once a player leaves the NHL dressing room for assignment to a minor-league team, his union becomes the PHPA, Landon said.The AHL has made no contigency plan if there is a strike, and the possibility of a walkout wasn&rsquo;t discussed at the board of governors meeting in August.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re operating on the basis that we&rsquo;ll cross that bridge when we come to it,&rdquo; AHL vice-president Gordie Anziano said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s probably not the best way to go about it, but then again, we can&rsquo;t panic because there&rsquo;s not much we can do about it.&ldquo;There are just not enough non-unionized players around to form a league. We may be innocent bystanders but we may suffer.&rdquo;The PHPA has several concerns for its players. The association puts together medical and dental insurance packages and ensures quality travel and playing conditions.The PHPA is attempting to implement a pension plan for long-time minor-leaguers, though the owners haven&rsquo;t been too receptive.&ldquo;Minor-league hockey players have never Wd a pension,&rdquo; Landon said. &ldquo;A player such as Jody Gage (who has played 12 seasons with Adirondack and Rochester) has put in a number of years and has nothing to show for it in a pension.&ldquo;The owners are somewhat reluctant but we&rsquo;ve had pension experts studying this for the past nine months and we want to show the owners that it is feasible.&rdquo;<h2>AHL</h2>Goalie Norm Foster, who was loaned to Cape Breton from the Boston Bruins last season, became an Oiler Sept. 11. Foster was acquired for future considerations. He was 15-14-7 with a 3.67 goals-against-average for Cape Breton last year and had a 2-1-0 record with a 4.57 GAA feith Boston&hellip;Cape Breton forwards Dan Currie and Max Middendorf re-signed with the parent Edmonton Oilers&hellip;Winger Graeme Townshend, who played in Maine last season, signed as a free agent with Capital District.<h2>IHL</h2>Snubbed by the San Jose Sharks in what was probably a last attempt to play in the NHL, veteran IHL center Ron Handy announced his retirement.Sixth on the league&rsquo;s all-time list of active scorers before making his decision, Handy had 42 goals and 39 assists in 64 games for Kansas City last season. He had hoped for an invitation to San Jose&rsquo;s camp this year, but one was never offered.&ldquo;That might have changed things, if there was an NHL contract out there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m 28 now and a lot of the NHL teams are going with younger kids.&rdquo;Handy played in 14 games over two seasons with the Islanders and Blues, but will be best remembered for his skills as one of the IHL&rsquo;s best playmakers and goalscorers. He had three straight 100-plus point seasons for Indianapolis and Peoria in the late 80s, including a 55-80-135 season for the Ice in 1986-87.He has returned to Indianapolis, where his wife has a job as school teacher. The Ice will be showing all of their home games on TV this season and Handy has been interviewed for the color analyst&rsquo;s job.&ldquo;That way. I&rsquo;ll still be involved with hockey,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It came down to the fact the fun really wasn&rsquo;t there anymore. I mean. I&rsquo;ve played hockey for a long time. Now it&rsquo;s time for something else.&rdquo;The coaching search dragged on for the Muskegon Lumberjacks, who a week after the start of training camp were still waiting fora replacement for Blair MacDonald. Of course, the Penguins didn&rsquo;t have a head coach themselves at that point.The Lumberjacks were faced with the possibility of being coachless for their Sept. 20-21 home exhibition games against Indianapolis. Phil Russell, an assistant to MacDonald last season, was assisting again in camp and was considered the front-runner.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re a long way off from the first game of the regular season,&rdquo; president Larry Gordon said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not concerned yet. I will be if we get to four or five days from the start of the season and nothing has been done.&rdquo;Milwaukee signed two free agents who formerly played for the Admirals. Defenseman Randy Boyd, who won the Governors Trophy in 1988-89 as the IHL&rsquo;s best defenseman before playing the past two seasons in Europe, signed, as did former NHL defenseman Ian Kidd, who had five goals and 26 assists for the Admirals last season&hellip;Fort Wayne re-signed veteran left winger Scott Gruhl. The IHL&rsquo;s leading active and fifth all-time leading scorer, had 23 goals and 47 assists for the Komets last season-&hellip;When Calgary promoted Salt Lake City assistant coach Jamie Hislop, the Flames replaced him with former Golden Eagles&rsquo; defenseman Jim Leavins. In 1987-88, when he was selected a second-team IHL all-star, Leavins helped the Golden Eagles to the TurnerCup championship.<h2>ECHL</h2>Richmond president-GM Allan Harvie will do anything within the rules to give his team a winning edge.As Harvie watched Hampton Roads eliminate the Renegades in the first round of the East Coast League playoffs last season en route to the Riley Cup, he couldn&rsquo;t help but notice the Admirals&rsquo; stamina.He was so impressed, he hired Curtis Brackenbury Sept. 10 as an assistant to coach Dave Allison and put the former NHL player in charge of his team&rsquo;s conditioning. Brackenbury held the same job with Hampton Roads the last two seasons.&ldquo;There is absolutely no question the Admirals were the best-conditioned team in the ECHL last season,&rdquo; Harvie said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re looking for from Curtis for this season. Conditioning.&rdquo;Brackenbury signed as a free agent with Philadelphia in 1972. His 11-year pro career included four seasons in the NHL with Quebec, Edmonton and St. Louis. After he retired in 1982, Brackenbury&rsquo;s interest turned to physical fitness and sailing.Two clubs stepped up efforts to boost ticket sales. Nashville Sept. 6 announced the hiring of David Nivison, 25, to oversee group sales and assist in sales and marketing for the Knights. Nivison, a native of Winslow, Me., graduated from the University of Maine and holds a masters degree from the U.S. Sports Academy in Daphne, Ala. The Knights have sold more than 800 season tickets&hellip;Toledo added Tim Mouser, 33, to its front-office staff Sept. 7. Mouser left the Sheraton Westgate in Toledo to become director of sales, marketing and promotions for the expansion Storm. Mouser is a graduate of State University of New York at Geneseo, where he was a goaltender for four seasons. He is familiar with minor-league hockey, having played for the Peoria Prancers (IHL) in 1983-84&hellip;Erie&rsquo;s season-ticket sales reached 1,006 and Gary Thomas, marketing and media relations director for the Panthers, projects the record number to reach between 1,100 and 1,200 by next month. &ldquo;Advertising is up,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We increased the number of pages in our program from 48 to 72 last season and we&rsquo;re going to have 112 pages this season. We&rsquo;ve also sold all our dasherboards for the first timeCincinnati hired Steve Benoit as trainer and equipment manager and Don Helbig as assistant public relations director and merchandising manager Sept. 11. Benoit was formerly a goaltender with Baltimore and Winston-Salem in the defunct Atlantic Coast League&hellip;All-Star goalie Dean Anderson, who led the league with a 2.95 goals-against-average and won a record 27 games for Knoxville last season, went to camp with Quebec. Former Cherokees coach Don Jackson is now a Nordiques&rsquo; assistant&hellip;Mike Hassman, a left winger and two-time NCAA Division HI All-American at Moorhead (Minn.), signed a tryout contract with Dayton Sept. 9. &ldquo;From all indications, he is a very good player with a terrific shot,&rdquo; Bombers&rsquo; coach Claude Noel said. Hassman, a native of Regina, Sask., scored 103 goals during his four-year career and twice led the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in scoring.&mdash;With files from Kevin Oklobzija, Adam Teicher and Nick Gates &#9632;

f0027-01

STRIKE OUT

<div class="byline">BY BRIAN COSTELLO AND RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01749/5969956-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Should phenom Eric Lindros suit up for the Generals, they&rsquo;d be very hard to beat.</figcaption></div>First thought was to write this season preview with a disclaimer at the bottom. Something like&hellip;URGENT GENERALS&rsquo; WARNING: The return of superstar Eric Lindros to Oshawa of the Ontario League could be hazardous to the success of other teams.How hazardous? Even without Lindros, the Oshawa Generals will be a good, solid club with as many as 17 players returning from a 100-point season. With Lindros and his exponential ability back for another season, the only thing that may stop the Generals is a duffle bag of kryptonite.Lindros, for those who haven&rsquo;t heard the word, has refused to report to the Quebec Nordiques, who made him the first pick overall in June&rsquo;s NHL entry draft. Unless the Nordiques trade his rights, Lindros has vowed to return to major-junior hockey following the Canada Cup.&ldquo;He may return, but I don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;ll be in junior long,&rdquo; one OHL coach said. &ldquo;Something will be done. Something has to be done. He&rsquo;s already good enough to play on any NHL team.&rdquo;So how complete can a season preview be when you &lsquo;re not sure if the single most dominant junior player can come or go on a whim? We&rsquo;ll take Eric&rsquo;s word. He said if he&rsquo;s not traded he&rsquo;ll be back. And the Nordiques have said they won&rsquo;t trade him.Top to bottom: Predicted order of finish with last season&rsquo;s record in parentheses. Leyden Division: 1. Oshawa (47-13-6); 2. Sudbury (33-28-5); 3. North Bay (40-23-3); 4. Peterborough (33-26-7); 5. Kingston (15-47-4); 6. Ottawa (39-25-2); 7. Cornwall (23-42-1); 8. Belleville (38-21-7).Emms Division: 1. London (38-25-3); 2. Sault Ste. Marie (42-21-3); 3. Windsor (33-29-4); 4. Detroit (11-50-5); 5. Guelph (17-43-6 in Hamilton); 6. Niagara Falls (39-18-9); 7. Kitchener (28-30-8); 8. Owen Sound (13-48-5).Five reasons why Oshawa will win the league title: 1. Lindros; 2. No other team has anyone comparable to Lindros; 3. Coach Rick Comacchia. Not necessarily better than all the other coaches, but a great stabilizing mentor. If you can&rsquo;t get along with him or see his way&hellip; 4. The goaltending tandem of Fred Brathwaite and Mike Fountain. When one&rsquo;s off, the other is hot. And both are usually pretty good; 5. Several good young players are brought in each year to take over the torch. Watch for guys like Troy Sweet, Markus Brunner, Craig Lutes, Jason Arnott and Neil Iserhoff this season.Disclaimer: Should Lindros not return to Oshawa this season, the Generals would fall behind Sudbury and North Bay.Born leaders: 1. Lindros. Would you want anyone else to lead your team? 2. Justin Morrison, C, Kingston. Whatever has to be done, he&rsquo;ll do it; 3. Steve Staois, D, Niagara Falls. Outgoing personality makes him a natural; 4. Pat Peake, C, Detroit. A quiet leader, he doesn&rsquo;t buckle under pressure; 5. Chris Taylor, C, London. Feisty and indefatigable.Top guns: 1. Lindros. If he can outscore all but six or seven players at the Canada Cup, how hard can it be to win another OHL scoring title?; 2. Taylor. The runner-up to Lindros in scoring last season with 50 goals and 128 points; 3. Brett Seguin, C, Ottawa. Like Taylor, he&rsquo;s looking for his third straight 100-point season. Mr. Assist-maker could also be the league&rsquo;s first 100-assist man since Bryan Fogarty had 108 in 1988-89; 4. Guy Leveque, C, Cornwall. Little guy quietly did it all for the Royals last season; 5. (tie) Cory Stillman, C, Windsor. Last year&rsquo;s rookie-of-the-year award winner is a slick playmaker; Todd Simon, C, Niagara Falls. He was third in the league with 51 goals and 125 points last season, but may be hardpressed to match those numbers with new linemates.Future Pros: 1. Lindros. He should be a pro 10 times over already; 2. Alex Stojanov, RW, Guelph. The big bruiser is custom-made for the NHL; 3. Glen Murray, RW, Sudbury. The Bruins may not want to hide him in junior too long; 4. Derian Hatcher and Drake Berehowsky, D, North Bay. The Twin Towers are just about ready for prime time.Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Hockey is dead for the third time in Hamilton and back for the second time in Guelph. The woeful Dukes became the Storm&hellip;Four teams have new coaches: John Lovell replaces Marc Crawford in Cornwall, Rick Tarasuk replaces Len McNamara in Owen Sound, Paul Cook replaces Randy Hall in Kingston, and in Guelph, Ron Ivany takes over for Jerry Andreatta who was in Hamilton&hellip;New general managers are: Jim Rutherford taking over from Tony MacDonald in Detroit, Royals&rsquo; president Willy Wise adding GM chores from Crawford in Cornwall, and Mike Kelly guiding the Storm in their first season.Who are these guys?: 1. Dennis Purdie, RW, London. He probably should have been an NHL draft pick, but slipped through. Good two-way player; 2. Chad Penney, LW, North Bay. He was just days too young to be drafted in 1991. Look for him to make a big impact and expand on last year&rsquo;s total of 33 goals; 3. Ralph Intranuovo, C, Sault Ste. Marie. The 5-foot-7, 155-pounder creates more chances for himself than anyone else in the league; 4. Jake Grimes, C, Belleville. He&rsquo;s more than just a pretty name; 5. Kirk Maltby, RW, Owen Sound. He quietly scored 34 goals and 66 points for a struggling Platers&rsquo; team last season.And for the defense: 1. John Slaney, Corn wall. He can do many amazing things on the ice. If all goes well, he may even challenge for the scoring crown; 2. Staois. Clever and talented; 3. Hatcher and Berehowsky. More than 1216 feet and 450 pounds to get past on the Cents&rsquo; blue line; 5. Mark Visheau, London. He&rsquo;s nothing flashy, but gets the job done.Looking out for No. 1: 1. Mike Torchia, Kitchener. The best line of defense in the league; 2. Ron Bertrand, North Bay. He&rsquo;ll take the Centennials a long way this season; 3. Andrew Verner, Peterborough. He took the starting job from Todd Bojcun last season. It&rsquo;s his to keep this year; 4. Mike Lenarduzzi and Kevin Hodson, Sault Ste. Marie. How can you go wrong with this platoon of 19-year-olds; 5. Dan Ryder, Sudbury. The 18-year-old San Jose draft pick is already in his. fourth year with the Wolves.Fabulous freshmen: 1. Chris Pronger Chris Pronger, A Peterborough. A strapping rearguard who waW bargain sixth-round draft pick for the Petes. A take-charge defender; 2. Todd Harvey, C, Detroit. The first pick overall in 1991 Priority Selection. He&rsquo;ll add a lot of pepper to the Ambassadors&rsquo; game; 3. Chris Gratton, C, Kingston. He comes from a big hockey family. Has excellent instincts; 4. Matt Mullin, G, Windsor. He has been so impressive, the Spitfires may deal returnee Todd Hunter and make Mullin their No. 1 man; 5. Todd Bertuzzi, C, Guelph. A powerful pivot who loves to bang in the comers. Good shot and speed as well.Did you hear about the tough guys?: 1. Lindros. Ask Ulf Samuelsson. Ask Martin Rucinsky. Ask Tomas Sandstrom. Lindros is also the best bonecrusher in the league; 2. Stojanov. Went toe-to-toe with Lindros and dgk well. He plays with a sour disposition; 3. Potomski, LW, London. He&rsquo;s rock-solid in thecomers. Great strength and stamina; 4. Morrison. As they say, it&rsquo;s not the size of the dog in the fight, it&rsquo;s the size of fight in the dog. He&rsquo;s a scrappy worker; 5. Shayne Antoski, LW, North Bay. He&rsquo;s sometimes mild-mannered. It&rsquo;s best not to wake him.<h2>OHL</h2>The North Bay Centennials have had their share of suspenseful moments already this season. First they had all-star defenseman Derian Hatcher. Then they lost him. Then they had him again. Now they&rsquo;re just waiting. Hatcher informed the Centennials in late August he wouldn&rsquo;t be attending training camp because of plans to play for the U.S. Olympic team this season. He tried out but was cut. But beforereturning to North Bay, Hatcher is trying to crack the roster of the Minnesota North Stars, who drafted him eighth overall in 1990&hellip;Cornwall Royals&rsquo; overage left winger Rival Fullum will be lost to the club until Christmas after having surgery on his right knee to repair a torn ligament. Fullum was injured during training camp&hellip; If center Luigi Calce can survive the final few cuts of the Owen Platers, he&rsquo;ll be one of the lowest OHL draft picks ever to make a team in his first attempt.Calce was selected in the 17th round, 255th overall from the Mississauga midget Blackhawks&mdash;just 30 picks from the end of the draft. &ldquo;There are still a few cuts to go, but he has looked good,&rdquo; Platers&rsquo; coach Rick Tarasuk said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very feisty. He plays with a lot of heart. That could do it for him.&rdquo;&hellip;A rash of injuries may slow the Sudbury Wolves out of the starting gate this season. Left winger Jason Young has a separated shoulder, center Terry Chitaroni has a lower back and rib problem and center Brandon Convery has a serious muscle pull in his leg. The Wolves are without nine players who are off at pro caps&hellip;The hottest line of the pre-season may be in Detroit where right winger Mark Donahue, left winger Ryan Mendrift and center Todd Harvey have nine points apiece in five games. &#9632;

f0028-01

GENERAL ALERT

<div class="byline">BY LANCE GOSHKO</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0029-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01652/5969987-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Raiders are extremely deep up the middle, led my Mr. Consistency Jeff Nelson.</figcaption></div>The only thing missing from the Prince VI Albert Raiders&rsquo; ark this Western League season is actor Harrison Ford as coach. The Raiders have as many as 17 players returning from last year&rsquo;s team, making them early favorites to find, and win, the coveted Memorial Cup.The Raiders went overseas to hire coach Mike Fedorko&mdash;apparently Ford was asking for too much money. It&rsquo;s the only major change the team has made.Fedorko, a former World Hockey Association player, spent 12 seasons playing and coaching in Italy, Holland, France and Scotland. He was a member of the 1976 Memorial Cup champion Hamilton Fincups.&ldquo;The No. 1 thing we have to do is utilize the returning talent,&rdquo; Fedorko says. &ldquo;We have to ^reate a team-type concept. We&rsquo;re not worried |bout who contributes points, we&rsquo;re going to win as a team.&rdquo;Even though the Raiders are the clear favorites, they&rsquo;re not as favored as the Seattle Thunderbirds to qualify for the Memorial Cup tournament. The T-Birds host the event May 9-17 and receive an automatic bye.Top to bottom: Predicted order of finish with Jast season&rsquo;s record in parentheses. West Division: 1. Kamloops (50-20-2); 2. Seattle (42-26-4); 3. Tri-City (36-32-4); 4. Spokane (48-23-1); 5. Portland (17-53-2); 6. Tacoma (expansion team); 7. Victoria (10-59-3).East Division: 1. Prince Albert (38-29-5); 2. Swift Current (40-29-3); 3. Lethbridge (45-21-6); 4. Medicine Hat (40-27-5); 5. Saskatoon (29-41-2); 6. Brandon (19-51-2); 7. Moose Jaw (31-39-2); 8. Regina (37-32-3).Five reasons why Prince Albert will win the league title: 1. Offense led by centers Jeff Nelson, Dean McAmmond and Dan Kesa&mdash;that&rsquo;s scoring punch on three lines. They accounted for 250 points last season and may be close to 400 this year; 2. Special teams. Raiders&rsquo; power play was fifth best (26.8 per cent), penalty killing was third (78.7 per cent); 3. Intimidation at Prince Albert&rsquo;s Communiplex. The Raiders H^ere 21-11-4 at home last season and will be even better this year; 4. Defense led by veterans Darren Van Impe, Darren Perkins and Troy Hjertaas. All three play it tough and provide offense; 5. Goaltending. Travis Laycock is one of the best. His 3.77 goals-against average ranked fourth.Born leaders: 1. Pat Falloon, C, Spokane. If the San Jose Sharks don&rsquo;t get him first, Falloon will be a huge force&mdash;even though his partner in crime, Ray Whitney, is playing in Germany; 2. Darryl Sydor, D, Kamloops. An explosive offensive talent who will improve on his 27 goals and 105 points from last season if he&rsquo;s returned by Los Angeles; 3. Scott Niedermayer, D, Kamloops. Sydor&rsquo;s clone. His achievements were overshadowed somewhat by Sydor, but he grabs his share of the spotlight; 4. Nelson. How rflo you improve upon a 56-game scoring streak and a 120-point season? 5. Tyler Wright. C, Swift Current. The Broncos traditionally have one dominating player each season (Joe Sakic, Sheldon Kennedy, Kimbi Daniels). Wright keeps the run alive with a 50-goal, 100-point plus season.Top guns: 1. Falloon. The pure-goal scorer had 64 goals and 138 points last season. Those numbers could look modest eight months from now; 2. Sydor. The WHL record for points in a season by a defenseman is 140 (Cam Plante. Brandon, 1983-84). Only the Kings may prevent Sydor from busting that; 3. Nelson. He&rsquo;s the leader on a high-scoring team. You can bank on him scoring a couple points each game; 4. Vladimir Vujtek, C, Tri-City. The talented Czechoslovakian made a big impression as a rookie with 26 goals in 37 games. He&rsquo;ll pile up more big numbers; 5. Zac Boyer, RW. Kamloops. The Chicago Blackhawk draft pick has a gift around the net.Future pros: 1. Falloon. He&rsquo;s good enough to make the Sharks, but they may hold off on him for a year; 2. Sydor. The Kings have been known to return signed 18-year-olds to junior. They did with Wayne McBean when it was apparent he had learned all he could in Medicine Hat; 3. Niedermayer. The first-round pick of New Jersey is a year away from prime time. He&rsquo;s an excellent puck handler with speed to burn; 4. Rob Niedermayer, C, Medicine Hat. Scott&rsquo;s younger brother is in his second season with the Tigers and is projected to be a top-three pick in the 1993 NHL entry draft; 5. Steve Konowalchuk, C, Portland. He compiled excellent stats (43 goals and 92 points) on a horrible team last season.Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Former NHL goalie Glenn Resch replaces Rick Kozuback as coach-GM of Tri-City. Mike Busniak is cocoach&hellip; Tacoma hired former Saskatoon coach Marcel Comeau for its inaugural season. Comeau directed Blades to Memorial Cup final in 1989&hellip;Former NHLer Brent Peterson is Portland&rsquo;s director of player personel, replacing Brian Shaw who takes on a lighter role&hellip;Lome Molleken moves up road from Moose Jaw to Saskatoon, replacing Bob Hoffmeyer as coach-&hellip;Mike Babcock replaces Molleken in Moose Jaw&hellip;Kamloops loses assistant coach Ed Dempsey, while Regina replaces assistant Roman Duplessis with Al Bomba and Dale Vossen. Medicine Hat adds Kelly Carson as an assistant.Who are these guys?: 1. Konowalchuk. His stats will explode with better linemates. His play alone could move the Winter Hawks into a playoff spot; 2. Donevan Hextali, LW. Prince Albert. The best rookie in the league last season; 3. Rob Niedermayer. He was the youngest player in major-junior last season. Great skating and vision has brought comparisons to former Raider Mike Modano; 4. Louis Dumont, RW. Regina. Speedy on-ice instigator had 34 goals and 83 points playing on a No. 2 line; 5. Dody Wood, C, Seattle. His talents aren&rsquo;t restricted to physical play&mdash;272 penalty minutes. He had time enough to score 28 goals and 65 points in 69 games.And for the defense: 1. Sydor and Niedermayer. Kamloops can be an average team or a great team depending on the return of both defensemen; 2. Richard Matvichuk, Saskatoon. Matvichuk is the anchor for Saskatoon&rsquo;s rebuilding defense. He managed 13 goals and 36 assists on offense-weak Blades; 3. Brent Bilodeau, Seattle. Mammoth 6-foot-4, 221-pound rearguard is the stay-at-home type; 4. Frank Evans, Spokane. Led the league with a plus-72 last season. He&rsquo;s a playmaker who pocketed 12 goals and 62 points and is the key to a revamped defense; 5. Shane Peacock, Lethbridge. Good rushing defenseman with budding offensive capabilities. He was fifth among defensemen scoring with 12 goals and 62 points.Looking out for No. 1: 1. Scott Bailey, Spokane. Had to endure playing behind Trevor Kidd second half of last season. Now he&rsquo;s No. 1; 2. Corey Hirsch, Kamloops. Was tops in the league in goals against and second in league voting for top goaltender; 3. Chris Osgood, Medicine Hat. Osgood sparkled in playoffs and was a division all-star. He&rsquo;s not afraid to use his stick on crease intruders; 4. Travis Laycock, Prince Albert. Laycock played 38 games and kept the Raiders winning when the team was not playing well in the second half; 5. Dale Masson, Kamloops. Will push Hirsch for top spot.Fabulous freshmen: 1. Ashley Buchberger, RW, Swift Current. He&rsquo;s only 16, but is 6-foot-2, 205 pounds. He plays it tough and is gifted with the puck. Lots of intangibles; 2. Rick Girard, C, Swift Current. Broncos&rsquo; coach-GM Graham James figures Girard to be a 100-point player. Girard&rsquo;s game is speed with great hands around the net; 3. Paul Buczkowski, LW, Saskatoon. Aggressive 16-year-old plays same style as former Blade, Wendel Clark. Buczkowski should add spark to a sagging offense; 4. Craig Geekie, D, Brandon. Geekie has smarts, an accurate shot and moves the puck well. He had 19 goals and 44 points in 36 midget games last season; 5. Paul Kariya, C, Victoria. He&rsquo;d easily be No. 1 if he wanted. The five-foot-11, 165-pounder was captain of Canada&rsquo;s under-18 team at the Phoenix Cup in Tokyo this summer. Unfortunately for the Cougars, Kariya has said no thanks and will play Tor Tier II Penticton. He may turn up if a better offer comes along. He had 112 points as a rookie in Penticton last year.Did you hear about the tough guys?: 1. Kerry Toporowski, D, Spokane. He&rsquo;s the No. 1 contender, with 505 penalty minutes last year, not including misconducts; 2. Cam Danyluk, LW, Spokane. A strong competitor in the clutch; 3. Jason Bowen, LW, Tri-City. He&rsquo;s a hulking figure at 6-foot-4, 230 pounds; 4. Clayton Norris, RW, Medicine Hat. A southpaw who challenges anyone and everyone; 5. Kent Staniforth, D, Moose Jaw. He has the look of a pugilist.<h2>WHL</h2>Swift Current&rsquo;s Chris Herperger is back playing hockey. The 17-year-old center was checked head-first into the boards during a game against the Prince Albert Raiders last October, sustaining a broken sixth vertebra. Doctors said the bone extended outwards instead of into the spinal column&mdash;which probably meant the difference between recovery and being crippled for the rest of his life. After being off skates more than nine months, Herperger played his first game Sept. 6 against the Moose Jaw Warriors. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t even think about (my back),&rdquo; Herperger said. &ldquo;It was hard to believe. I felt a little adrenalin flowing. I was a little nervous, but because of the game, not the neck.&rdquo; Herperger hadn&rsquo;t registered a point in two games back, but he passed a test fighting with an opponent. &ldquo;He kind of pulled my neck and I didn&rsquo;t feel anything,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That was encouraging-.&rdquo;&hellip;The Victoria Cougars traded goalie Kevin Koopman to Swift Current for a 1992 bantam draft pick. Koopman, 20, accounted for seven of Victoria&rsquo;s 10 wins last season and had a 5.97 goals-against average. &ldquo;My last four years I&rsquo;ve been on terrible teams,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This is my last year and the last kick at the can for a Memorial Cup.&rdquo;&hellip;The Kamloops Blazers added a fourth overage player to their training camp with the arrival of center Mike Seaton Sept. 9. Seaton was acquired from Prince Albert for future considerations. He was returned the same day from the camp of the San Jose Sharks. Seaton joins Zac Boyer, Ryan Harrison and Shane Green in the battle for three overage spots with the club. &#9632;

f0029-01

P.A. ANNOUNCEMENT

<div class="byline">BY KEN WARREN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01745/5970018-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marcel Cousineau and the second-year Harfangs will only get better in 1991-92.</figcaption></div>Five months later they&rsquo;re still talking revenge.Robert Lebel Division coaches talk as one in their desire not to be outdone by their Frank Dilio Division counterparts. Not the way they were last season.Drummondville and Chicoutimi, both from the Dilio Division, advanced through the playoffs to the Memorial Cup last May, while Lebel teams were shut out.Lebel coaches vow it won&rsquo;t happen again, but the task is tougher&mdash;only one team will board the plane for Seattle next May.As always, hope springs eternal this will be the year the Quebec League finally wins the Memorial Cup. There appears to be but two strong candidates&mdash;Hull and Drummondville. Here&rsquo;s a look how things shape up in the QMJHL this season.<h2>LEBEL DIVISION</h2>1. Hull: The Olympiques figure they&rsquo;ve been burned for years by the NHL, the QMJHL and the Olympic team.This summer they took matters into their own hands, pillaging American colleges of talent.Jim Campbell and Sylvain Lapointe&mdash;second-and fourth-round draft picks of the Montreal Canadiens&mdash;started the season in Hull. Joe Crowley, an Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; second-round pick, also opted for the Olympiques instead of an American college.The defensive corps&mdash;led by Washington Capitals&rsquo; second-round choice Eric Lavigne&mdash;is talented, albeit young.The only apparent stop sign to an Olympiques&rsquo; trip to a championship series is whether they get steady defenseman Robert Melanson and stellar goaltender Yanic Degrace back as overage players.Coach Alain Vigneault went into the season confident&mdash;as confident as 1987, when the Olympiques last played in the Memorial Cup.2. Laval: As impossible as it seems in junior hockey, the Laval Titan managed to maintain a near dynasty the past five seasons.They came within a game of their third consecutive Memorial Cup appearance last year and are once again contenders.Something must be said for putting a gun to the head of coaches&mdash;the Morrissette brothers have had five the past two seasons. The newcomer this year is Bob Hartley, who had overwhelming success in Tier II hockey.The Titan have their defensive base set with Eric Raymond in goal and Daniel Arsenault and Benoit Larose on defense. Up front are high-scoring wingers Martin Lapointe and Jean Blouin. If Denis Chalifoux could ever be coaxed back to junior as a 20-year-old, watch out.3. College Francais de Verdun: The club moved from Longueuil during the summer, but that shouldn&rsquo;t have any effect on the talent coach Gerard Gagnon has at his disposal.Robert Guillet, David St-Pierre and Martin Tanguay combined for 226 points last season. What can they produced with another year&rsquo;s experience?For toughness, look no further than Etienne Lavoie (407 penalty minutes) and Donald Brashear (195 PIM). Brashear can even put the puck in the net. Verdun would seem to have enough depth in goal, although perhaps not enough experience.Regardless, College Francais figures to once again be one of the league&rsquo;s most exciting clubs.4. Granby: The Bisons missed the playoffs by two points last season. They could make it by the same amount this year.A tad more experience and emphasis on offense should put the Bisons over the top. Last year, they were second to Victoriaville&mdash;which shouldn&rsquo;t count anyway&mdash;in fewest goals scored.Marc Rogers may be the league&rsquo;s best two-way player and with help could reach the 100-point plateau. Philippe Boucher, who quarter-backed the Bisons power play as a rookie last season, should log his usual 40 minutes per game.Patrick Grise and Mario Therrien must emerge as legitimate scoring threats.Rest assured, if the Bisons don&rsquo;t make the playoffs, it won&rsquo;t be because they&rsquo;re being pushed around. Coach Paris has had enough cheap shots and says the Bisons won&rsquo;t back down.5. St-Hyacinthe:: Offense isn&rsquo;t a problem.Charles and Patrick Poulin (no relation) are two of the most dangerous snipers in the league. The question is how they will work without Pierre Sevigny around. Martin Gendron and Hughes Laliberte need to produce more than a point-a-game pace.But defense may be a question mark. Beyond Dean Melanson, the Laser don&rsquo;t have much depth. The defensive questions should present new coach Pierre Petroni with too much to handle.6. St-Jean:: You know things are bad when you need overagers to come back just to stay competitive. That&rsquo;s the situation new Lynx coach Norm Flynn faces.Exactly what the Lynx will do if goalie Patrick Labrecque and versatile forward Trevor Duhaime don&rsquo;t return as 20-year-olds remains a mystery.Anticipating the worst, the Lynx invited 12 goalies to camp. Even if scoring replacements are found for Martin Lefebvre and Y98:187 yvan Corbin, the Lynx don&rsquo;t figure to have much chance.<h2>DILIO DIVISION</h2>1. Drummondville: There is good reason for optimism in Drummondville.What can you expect from a team that made it to the Memorial Cup and lost only a couple of players for this season?The Kid Line&mdash;Rene Corbet, Roger Larche and Claude Jutras&mdash;is back, with NHL camp experience to boot. High scoring forward Eric Plante figures to explode this season with the attention devoted to the Kid Line.The Volts lost Patrice Brisebois, the Canadian Hockey League defenseman of the year. But watch for hard-hitting Dave Whittom and Stephane Desjardins to step up into the void.Don&rsquo;t think the Volts will be outcoached&mdash;former Sherbrooke Canadiens&rsquo; bench boss Jean Hamel signed a three-year deal over the summer. Drummondville should walk to the division title.2. Shawinigan: Shawinigan stands alone with Drummondville in at least one category&mdash;people talk more about who&rsquo;s returning than who&rsquo;s gone.Experience is the Cataractes&rsquo; strength.Veteran defensemen Francois Groleau, Marc Tardif and Richard Hamelin should help overager goalie Johnny Lorenzo plug the dike. Steve Dontigny could have a big year on offense.Alain Sanscartier, who took over from Joe Hardy as coach midway through last season, straightened out the club&rsquo;s discipline problems and got the Cats into the playoffs. Given a full year, Sanscartier should be able to move Shawinigan a couple steps further.3.Chicoutimi:: The holes are obvious.Gone is Felix Potvin, the premiere QMJHL goalie the past two seasons. Gone is-Steve Larouche, the slick center who scored 76 points in 45 games a year ago. Gone are the Sags&rsquo; top six point getters.Those in the background need to move to the forefront this season for the Sags to remain near the top of the division. Nevertheless, coach Joe Canale&rsquo;s defensive-oriented approach is bound to take some lumps before the season is through.4. Beauport: The expansion Harfangs were so successful their first season, they have undue pressure this year.Beauport missed the playoffs by a mere point in their inaugural season, creating hopes they can finish as high as second this time around.But the Harfangs are young and went through last season with the opposition facing the pressure. That should reverse this year. Nonetheless, the Harfangs are blessed with talent.Top scorers Eric Cool and Simon Toupin will unquestionably pass the century mark in points.Matthew Barnaby, who had 262 penalty minutes a year ago, is the policeman. Marcel Cousineau is one of the most promising goalies in the league. WBeauport may start slow and charge late. But they still have to live with the worst nickname in junior hockey.5. Trois Rivieres: Yanic Perreault is in the Toronto chain. Todd Gillingham is in the Calgary chain. And Paul Brousseau wants to be anywhere but Trois Rivieres.So much for the QMJHL&rsquo;s top-scoring line a year ago.The Draveurs are in trouble. There doesn&rsquo;t appear to be enough depth to carry Trois Rivieres into the playoffs.Come Christmas, they might be looking over their shoulder at the Tigres. Then again, they may have to look up to find Victoriaville.6. Victoriaville: One thing you can count on; The Tigres will be an improved club.Then again, how can you not improve on A 10-59-1 record (for baseball fans, that&rsquo;s a 15u winning percentage).There were so many problems with Victoriaville last season, the Tigres&rsquo; roar was a whine. Coach Gilbert Perreault was sick and disinterested by Christmas; overager Alain Tardif bolted the club in March; and The Tigres set a league futility mark.But in hockey, futility has its rewards. The Tigres is Alexandre Daigle, touted as the next Eric Lindros. Daigle ran away with the Quebec midget AAA scoring title last season, despite playing with a broken wrist the final four months.While Daigle is being asked to light a fire under the young Tigres roster, management also seems more secure. Former Quebec Nordique Pierre Aubry signed a two-year deal to coach the Tigres. His task is merely to make them competitive. &#9632;

f0030-01

HULL-ABALOO

<h2>OHL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01689/5970126-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="557" height="3402"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02460/5970119-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="571" height="3510"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-03329/5970112-1-eng-US/f0031-032.jpg" title="f0031-03" width="575" height="3502"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-04248/5970105-1-eng-US/f0031-042.jpg" title="f0031-04" width="574" height="2113"></div><h2>WHL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-05198/5970098-1-eng-US/f0031-052.jpg" title="f0031-05" width="521" height="1311"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-06163/5970091-1-eng-US/f0031-062.jpg" title="f0031-06" width="555" height="3514"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01733/5970084-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="540" height="3494"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02515/5970077-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="524" height="3488"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03352/5970070-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="531" height="928"></div><h2>QMJHL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-04231/5970063-1-eng-US/f0032-042.jpg" title="f0032-04" width="559" height="2470"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-05161/5970056-1-eng-US/f0032-052.jpg" title="f0032-05" width="571" height="3482"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-06130/5970049-1-eng-US/f0032-062.jpg" title="f0032-06" width="564" height="3482"></div> &#9632;

f0031-01

CANADIAN MAJOR JUNIOR SCHEDULES

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01652/5970157-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="502" height="623"></div>The best American hockey team ever assembled walked through a hotel lobby in Detroit last week and a teenaged girl wonderered aloud: &ldquo;Are you guys a team, or something?&rdquo;A man wearing a Team USA blazer nodded accordingly.&ldquo;What team?&rdquo; she asked.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re the American hockey team,&rdquo; said the man in the blazer, his buttons almost bursting with pride.&ldquo;Olympics?&rdquo; she inquired.&ldquo;No, Canada Cup,&rdquo; he said even prouder.&ldquo;Canada Cup?&rdquo; the teenager repeated quizzically, then nodded. &ldquo;Canada Cup? Never heard of it.&rdquo;.And so began a week for America&rsquo;s greatest hockey team playing in the world&rsquo;s greatest hockey tournament. The Canada Cup is big. Big in Canada. In the Soviet Union. In Sweden. In every hockey playing country in the world. Except one. The U.S.It wasn&rsquo;t difficult for me to determine this. No shrieking teenager had to convince me. It was apparent from the start of the tournament.The newspaper I work for assigned me to cover Team USA during the Canada Cup. Quickly, I found out how lonely a job this would be. The media throng assigned to Team USA was me. I was the scrum. The entire entourage.Not a single American newspaper thought enough of the Canada Cup to staff the American team.This I found strange, even in these recessionary times. Almost every major American newspaper staffs the World Cup of soccer. This is done despite the fact the majority of Americans despise soccer. This is done even though Americans appear to play soccer about as well as the Soviets play football.But the Canada Cup is essentially the World Cup of hockey, without the name. Without similar prestige.And while Americans don&rsquo;t exactly love hockey&mdash;okay, they like it in Minnesota, Michigan and parts of New England&mdash;it is a sport they play reasonably well at the world level.But still no coverage. Nowhere.&ldquo;Not a lot of people know we&rsquo;re out there,&rdquo; said Ed Olczyk, an American who earns his living in Winnipeg. &ldquo;I think that makes us closer as a team. It makes it more of a mission thing. It&rsquo;s us against the world. That&rsquo;s how we view it.&rdquo;Still, in the U.S. the Canada Cup has an image problem. Heck, it even has an image problem in the homes of some of the American players. Try, as one player told me, to explain to your wife how you&rsquo;ll be spending your August away from home. That&rsquo;s a case you have no chance of winning.Doug Brown told a different story. Brown, who plays for the New Jersey Devils, married into a sporting family. His father-in-law is Wellington Mara, majority owner of the New York Giants. He understands sports. His family understands sport.It&rsquo;s this Canada Cup business they don&rsquo;t quite fathom.Brown tried to explain to his father-in-law why he was abandoning his daughter and infant grandchild and their brand new home for much of the summer. The conversation, if you will allow some paraphrase, went something like this:&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the Canada Cup?&rdquo; Mara asked.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s sort of the world championship of hockey,&rdquo; said Brown.&ldquo;What do you mean it&rsquo;s sort of the world championships?&rdquo;&ldquo;Well it isn&rsquo;t the world championships, but the best teams are in it?&rdquo;&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you play in the World Championships in Finland last May?&rdquo;&ldquo;Yeah, but that&rsquo;s a different World Championship.&rdquo;&ldquo;Hmm. Well is it the World Championship or isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;&ldquo;Well, the Canada Cup isn&rsquo;t the World Championship but it&rsquo;s the only tournament in the world where the best players play.&rdquo;&ldquo;Let me get this straight. The best players don&rsquo;t play in the World Championships? But the best players play in the Canada Cup, which isn&rsquo;t the World Championships.&rdquo;The conversation continued. Neither side made any real progress. What was determined, however, was that Doug Brown, who isn&rsquo;t one of the best players in the world, played in the World Championship and in the Canada Cup and was not paid for his participation in either.Now try explaining that to your millionaire father-in-law.The days of American miracles on ice are over; the level of hockey having leapt so substantially in the U.S. But the level of hockey consciousness has not kept pace.Perhaps the next miracle on ice will be exposure. American hockey, for one, deserves it. Steve Simmons is a feature writer/columnist for the Toronto Sun. &#9632;

f0033-01

LONELY IN HOCKEY AMERICA YOU SAY?…PITY

<h2>BRUINS</h2>Group I free agent defenseman Glen Wesley re-signed with the Bruins Sept. 10, accepting a one-year pact worth $450,000, plus incentive bonuses for scoring, all-star and Norris Trophy votes. He&rsquo;ll test the free agent market again next summer, when he hopes a new CBA may produce player movement. &ldquo;There are a lot of unhappy players,&rdquo; said Wesley of the myriad 1990 free agents who drew little or no interest&hellip;After four years in the organization, goalie Norm Foster was dealt to Edmonton Sept. 10, leaving Matt DelGuidice and John Blue to battle Reggie Lemelin for the No. 2 spot&hellip;In the 1&frac12;-mile run on the first day of camp. Blue led the Bruins with a terrific 7:59&hellip;The Bruins expect Bobby Carpenter, whose career was in doubt after he shattered his left kneecap last season, to be in the opening night lineup&hellip;The Bruins had hoped to have second-round pick Josef Stumpel in camp, and GM Harry Sinden thought he had it arranged&mdash;only to learn the big winger has signed contracts with four European teams.<h2>WHALERS</h2>Whalers&rsquo; GM Ed Johnston dealt Sylvain Cote to Washington Sept. 8 for a 1992-second round pick and didn&rsquo;t exactly have praise for him afterward: &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t improving. I&rsquo;ve been trying to move him since I got here. He was not a big enough impact player offensively or defensively.&rdquo; Free agent Todd Krygier remains a hold-out. Said Johnston: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to worry about a 13-goal scorer.&rdquo; Said Krygier: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a low blow. He made me sound like the worst player in hockey.&rdquo;&hellip;Doug Houda&rsquo;s new contract is worth $240,000 this year and $265,000 next&hellip; Adam Burt&rsquo;s recent deal, meanwhile, is worth $250,000 and $270,000&hellip;Owner Richard Gordon on all the tumultous in camp: &ldquo;It has been crazy, but we&rsquo;re in Fat City compared to some teams. Look at Pittsburgh. Look at Edmonton.&rdquo;<h2>SABRES</h2>The Sabres have signed former Calgary Flames&rsquo; draft choice and Harvard University scoring star Peter Ciavaglia, a Western N.Y. native. The smallish Ciavaglia has been among the top scorers in exhibition games&hellip;The Sabres&rsquo; rookies lost an exhibition game 5-1 Sept. 12 to the Toronto Maple Leafs rookies at Newmarket, Ont. Rookie Brad May had the Sabres&rsquo; lone goal&hellip;Right winger Donald Audette, attempting to come back from major reconstructive knee surgery, is being given a look at left wing on a line with Pierre Turgeon and Alex Mogilny&hellip;Benoit Hogue, felled with a back injury during the playoffs last season, has been a hold out at camp in recent days because of back flareups&hellip;Sabres&rsquo; coach Rick Dudley said the team reported in exceptional shape and only one player came in at a lower-than-expected aerobic rate. He declined to name him&hellip;The Sabres signed Bob Flemming, a free agent who had been out of hockey the past three seasons. Flemming played for Dudley at Flint in the IHL in 1987-88. Flemming had one goal in 22 games, but had 122 penalty minutes.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-03331/5970188-1-eng-US/f0033-032.jpg" title="f0033-03" width="544" height="644"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sabre Donald Audette hopes to come back after knee surgery,</figcaption></div><h2>CANADIENS</h2>Turner Stevenson, the hulking winger from the Seattle Thunderbirds who was the Habs&rsquo; top pick last year, has impressed the Canadiens with his improved skating. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a dominate player,&rdquo; said director of scouting Andre Boudrias&hellip;The first cuts from the Habs&rsquo; training camp were a group of Quebec juniors: Victoriaville goaltender Frantz Bergevin; defenseman Sylvain Lapointe of Hull; center Charles Poulin of St-Hyacinthe and left winger Yves Sarault of St-Jean&hellip; Alain Cote was the first injured player at camp when he suffered a groin pull&hellip;The oft-injured Sylvain Turgeon (19 games last season) showed up in great shape and in a combative mood. He dropped the gloves and went at it with Brent Gil christ during one intrasquad game. Turgeon was rumored to be close to signing a new deal with the Habs.<h2>NORDIQUES</h2>Defenseman Alexei Gusarov arrived at the Nordiques&rsquo; camp shortly after the Soviets were eliminated from the Canada Cup&hellip;Soviet defenseman Mikhael Tatarinov flew back home to help his wife move. Tatarinov&rsquo;s wife, Natasha, suffered a broken arm while chasing her son, Vladimir. Tatarinov was expected to arrive Sept. 17&hellip;Alexander Karpovtsev, Quebec&rsquo;s seventh pick (158th overall) at the 1990 draft and a member of the Moscow Dynamo, is at training camp. Dynamo officials agreed to an exchange program with the Nords that will see a Nords&rsquo; coach go to the USSR for a few weeks next year. Karpovtsev will stay until Sept.20.. Marc Fortier, Stephane Morin, Owen Nolan and Scott Pearson were the best players during the first five days of training camp&hellip;John Kordic has been a disappointment. Kordic was forced to sit out for a few days after injuring his hand in a fight. &#9632;

f0033-03

WESLEY RE-SIGNS WITH BRUINS

Before this year&rsquo;s Canada Cup, Team Finland was easily the worst team in tournament history. Christian Ruuttu&rsquo;s Finns were winless in its 15 games. But after the five-game round robin this year. Finland had a 2-0-2 record. In their first 15 games, the Finns averaged 6.4 goals against per game. After the round robin this year, they averaged 2.6 GAA.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02452/5970219-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="563" height="410"><figcaption class="caption-body">Christian Ruuttu</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0033-02

ODDITIES

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div>It&rsquo;s no surprise the Eric Lindros situation has been the hottest topic in the Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; camp.But there&rsquo;s another story that shouldn&rsquo;t go unnoticed&mdash;the status of defenseman Bryan Fogarty.Fogarty, 22, seen by many a few years back as the heir apparent to Pittsburgh&rsquo;s gifted offensive defenseman Paul Coffey, has faded into the background. The main reason: His battle with alcoholism. Fogarty became so mixed up by last season, he simply lost control.But while many may have written him off, Nords&rsquo; management hasn&rsquo;t. And Fogarty says he&rsquo;s ready to have the kind of season that made him the top junior player in the country a few years back.&ldquo;This is the best shape I&rsquo;ve been in since my first year in pro hockey,&rdquo; said Fogarty, who had 13 goals and 32 assists in 90 NHL games before this season. &ldquo;I weigh the same as I did in my last season in Niagara Falls (Ontario League). I&rsquo;m having fun again. I&rsquo;m not burdened like I was last year.&rdquo;Fogarty said he trained hard in the off-season, in the hopes of getting his career back on track.The Brantford, Ont., native was the Canadian major junior player of the year in 1989 after scoring 47 goals and 155 points for Niagara Falls. But he had problems dealing with NHL pressure.To help Fogarty deal with alcoholism, general manager Pierre Page arranged a meeting with Montreal Expos&rsquo; ace Dennis Martinez the day before training camp. Martinez is also a recovering alcoholic.&ldquo;I contacted David Dombrowski, the Expos&rsquo; GM,&rdquo; explained Page, &ldquo;and Martinez didn&rsquo;t hesitate in accepting. I read a while back Martinez had said it was never too late to get back on track, that in his case, it was his son who finally woke him up. I thought right away of Bryan. I though! Martinez could get him to understand a little more about his problems. And was I dead on.&rdquo;Visibly impressed by the meeting, Fogarty seems like a changed person compared to last year.&ldquo;I simply loved my chat with Dennis,&rdquo; Fogarty said. &ldquo;He told me everything, his life, the lost years, and especially his battle over the past seven years to avoid a relapse. He&rsquo;s a very proud man, a great athlete. We&rsquo;ve even exchanged phone numbers.&rdquo;Fogarty&rsquo;s eyes light up when he talks about El Presidente.&ldquo;That man was way down there,&rdquo; Fogarty said. &ldquo;But he took control of his life and now he&rsquo;s one of the best pitchers in the big leagues. He&rsquo;s quite a role model. He might even come see me play a game.&rdquo;An admitted alcoholic, Fogarty understands the battle rages on day in and day out.&ldquo;You&rsquo;re never cured,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one day at a time in my books. I can&rsquo;t promise anything for tomorrow.&rdquo;But Page is convinced his young star-to-be is on track.&ldquo;He has acknowledged his problem and he&rsquo;s accepting the help offered by his close ones,&rdquo; said Page. &ldquo;That wasn&rsquo;t quite the case at the beginning of summer. So Bryan has now made it through step No. 2. He still has a long way to go. What&rsquo;s important now is that he be successful over a long period of time.&rdquo;The &ldquo;new&rdquo; Bryan Fogarty is eager for the season to start.Rumors suggested Fogarty spent the whole summer at the renowned Hazelton detoxification center in Minnesota. But that wasn&rsquo;t exactly true.&ldquo;I was in Minnesota, but I actually spent about 10 minutes at the center,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I stayed at my counsellors&rsquo; home for about six weeks. It was my decision in the first place to go over there and it helped me an awful lot.&rdquo;Following his treatment, Fogarty traveled extensively. He made stops in Los Angeles, Florida. and than went to Europe with his girlfriend. He spent five weeks visiting London and Malta.&ldquo;I really relaxed and unwound,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was great.&rdquo;Now it&rsquo;s back to business for Fogarty. The Nords plan to monitor his progress with daily blood and urine tests. &#9632;

SPECIAL MEETING HELPS FOGARTY

<div class="byline">BY JEFF JACOBS</div>The gap between the Hartford Whalers and left winger Pat Verbeek turned out to be wider than the biggest contract in club history.And that whopping $600,000 difference was large enough for Verbeek, the Whalers&rsquo; leading goal scorer the past two seasons, to walk out of training camp Sept. 13.Verbeek&rsquo;s agent Tony Abbatine, who sent two proposed deals to general manager Ed Johnston Sept. 11, confirmed the proposed averages for both to be $1.3 million a year.Both deals included a signing bonus. One is a two-year plus option contract and the other is for three-years plus an option.Abbatine&rsquo;s demand is a sign of the times in the NHL: To this point, Kevin Dineen, who signed in 1989, has the largest salary in club history at about $500,000 a year.Abbatine says the Whalers improved their offer from $600,000 to $700,000 during his meeting with GM Johnston Sept. 10. But he said no further improvement was forthcoming.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why my advice was for Pat to leave camp,&rdquo; Abbatine said. &ldquo;I saw nothing that would lead me to believe they were interested in closing the gap. And we&rsquo;re not giving these numbers as a high-ball only to drop to $ 850,000.&rdquo;Because he is under contract, Verbeek, who is in his option year, is subject to daily fines.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired of getting paid by bonus,&rdquo; said Verbeek, who made $270,000 last season. &ldquo;I believe our proposal is fair.&rdquo;Owner Richard Gordon, meanwhile, said he is willing to open his financial books for free-agent center John Cullen.Agent Ron Salcer wants to make Cullen among the top five-paid centers in the NHL. Denis Savard was fifth last season at a reported $1,085 million. Cullen, who made $130,000 last year, says the &ldquo;Whalers have offered $800,000.&ldquo;What he (Abbatine) asked for will never happen,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;It makes your head rattle. It&rsquo;s shocking.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01739/5970274-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="721" height="724"><figcaption class="caption-body">Left winger Pat Verbeek scored 159 goals in the last four seasons.</figcaption></div>Abbatine said Verbeek has the numbers to prove he should be with the top paid wingers in the sport.&ldquo;If you look at the other wingers in hockey in the last four, five years&mdash;offensively and defensively&mdash;our argument is that Pat Verbeek might be the leading left winger in the NHL,&rdquo; Abbatine said.Verbeek, the only player in the NHL to lead his club in both penalty minutes and goals the last two seasons, finished third in all-star voting last season behind Los Angeles&rsquo; Luc Robitaille and Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Kevin Stevens. He has 159 goals the past four years, a 40-goal annual pace.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not Pat Verbeek&rsquo;s fault the marketplace has become more volatile and salaries have spiraled,&rdquo; said Abbatine, a baseball agent getting involved in the NHL for the first time.Said Gordon: &ldquo;Winnipeg, the Whalers&hellip;we&rsquo;re not one of the big guys in this league. Yes, absolutely I&rsquo;ll let them see our books. In fact. I&rsquo;ve just got audited statements back. Pat Verbeek and John Cullen are great players and we want them both here. But I think you&rsquo;ve got to draw the line as to what threatens your franchise.&rdquo;Full disclosure or not, Abbatine said it doesn&rsquo;t change his bid. &#9632;

f0034-01

VERBEEK LEAVES CAMP OVER CONTRACT SQUABBLE

<div class="byline">BY STEPHEN HARRIS</div>Days before the opening of the Bruins&rsquo; 1990 training camp, rookie center Wes Walz ended a summer-long contract squabble and signed his first pro contract.Offering the speed and offensive creativity then-coach Mike Milbury badly wanted, Walz landed a good contract&mdash;and more pressure than most players will ever feel.Barely out of his teens, with just two NHL games on his resume, Walz was billed as the savior. He was virtually handed the No. 2 center&rsquo;s job, and was expected to share the scoring load with Craig Janney.All the big plans set the kid up for a major fall.&ldquo;We all had high hopes,&rdquo; said Milbury, now the assistant general manager. &ldquo;But he didn&rsquo;t do the job. He had a very forgettable year.&rdquo;Playing less and less as the season wore on, and finally ending up in Maine (American League), Walz contributed just eight goals and eight assists in 56 NHL games.Walz admits the pressure affected him.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t deal with it very well,&rdquo; he said.Plainly disappointed by Walz&rsquo; efforts last season, Milbury is candid in his criticism.&ldquo;Obviously, his own expectations were as high as ours, because he sat there all summer before he got the contract he wanted,&rdquo; Milbury said. &ldquo;But he came in and it just didn&rsquo;t work out.&ldquo;Fortunately for us, Ken Hodge came along and gave us what we expected from Walz. That was our bonus.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what happened to him. Maybe it was too much pressure. Maybe he didn&rsquo;t get the right sort of coaching. I hope that&rsquo;s what it was. I hope I just did a (bleep) job with him, and all of a sudden he&rsquo;ll blossom under (new coach) Rick Bowness.&ldquo;We want to see a change in his approach to playmaking. He felt he could continue to make the same plays he made in junior; he kept trying to make the difficult play, and he just kept giving away the puck.&ldquo;I want to see him make the simple play. Just drive wide and use his speed, of which he has sovery much. That&rsquo;s why you get excited about him, because he has that sheer, raw acceleration.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02541/5970305-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="702" height="564"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Bruins are counting on Wes Walz to rebound from a poor &rsquo;90-91.</figcaption></div>Milbury got his first peak at that acceleration when Walz burst down the Calgary Flames&rsquo; zone during his two-game call-up two seasons back, took a pass and snapped in a wrist shot for his first NHL goal.Those two games went a long way toward the rookie&rsquo;s big contract&mdash;and the big pressure.But Walz wants badly to recapture the feeling of those games.&ldquo;There was no pressure on me at all,&rdquo; said Walz. &ldquo;Nobody expected anything from me. I just relaxed, had fun and played the games.&ldquo;It was,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;sort of the feeling I have now.&rdquo;Indeed, with the media spotlight focused elsewhere and few preconceived notions about him, Walz&mdash;who has bulked up to a solid 5-foot-l 1, 185 pounds&mdash;hopes to fulfill those high hopes&mdash;even if it&rsquo;s one year late. He was a standout in the first week of this year&rsquo;s camp.&ldquo;There were a lot of negative things that happened last year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I got a chance to play as much as I&rsquo;d like. But I understand why. When I did play, I didn&rsquo;t play as well as I can. I had no problem with Mike. It was my fault.&ldquo;This year, I&rsquo;m sort of coming in with a different attitude.&rdquo;And no pressure. &#9632;

f0034-02

WALZ HOPEFUL HE’LL BLOSSOM AS A SOPHOMORE

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div>On Jan. 14, 1991, Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; goaltender Daren Puppa recorded two assists in a game. It was a career high, and pretty much the lone highlight of his season. Puppa was the winningest goalie in the league (31) the previous season. He had a 2.89 goals-against average and a .903 save percentage to go with the wins, so the 1990-91 season was a major disappointment.Back injuries were the biggest problem. Puppa appeared in just 37 games last season. He won 15 games while his GAA rose to 3.38 and his save percentage dropped to 885. Most of the time, he was hurting.&ldquo;If you&rsquo;ve ever had a sore back, you&rsquo;ll know exactly what I&rsquo;m talking about,&rdquo; Puppa said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t do anything normally when your back&rsquo;s sore. The simplest things in life become hard. After a while it&rsquo;s just more of a mental thing than physical. It weighs on you to the point that everything you do, you&rsquo;re constantly thinking it&rsquo;s going to hurt your back.&rdquo;Puppa spent the summer trying to put those fears behind him. He took treatment five days a week at the Canadian Back Institute in Niagara Falls, Ont., during the off-season.In addition to the therapy, he immersed himself in a strength and conditioning program&mdash;one that put special emphasis on the muscles that support the back.Puppa also learned techniques to prevent future back problems. Now he wants to get back to the top echelon in the NHL and leave his problems behind.&ldquo;The results have been great,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It needed to be done and it was a lot of hard work, but right now it&rsquo;s probably as strong as it has ever been in my life.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01704/5970336-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="700" height="819"><figcaption class="caption-body">An off-season exercise program helped Daren Puppa strengthen his back.</figcaption></div>That&rsquo;s something that appeals to the rest of the Sabres and the coaching staff.&ldquo;If you know you have a stopper back there, you tend to play with more pizzazz,&rdquo; said coach Rick Dudley.Dudley is looking for more from his goaltending and defense this year. The Sabres had the worst goals-against total of any playoff team in the Adams Division last season (278). Whether or not he can change that with improved goaltending and defense&mdash;or more puck control from the offense&mdash;remains to be seen. But whatever the case, the Sabres need the confidence Puppa, at the top of his game, provides.&ldquo;We had times when we had a bad goal and it would just demoralize the guys,&rdquo; said associate coach John VanBoxmeer. &ldquo;A bad goal can happen to anybody, but when Daren was healthy they were very rare. When he&rsquo;s at his best, he makes the big save and the guys tended to feed off that. It gave them a heck of a lot of confidence going the other way.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0035-01

PUPPA AIMING TO GET BACK ON TOP

<div class="byline">BY CHRIS STEVENSON</div>he Montreal Canadiens took off for the Rocky Mountains and Banff, Alta, for training camp, but there was no getting away from the rocky road that awaits them back in Montreal.Only six regulars (Patrick Roy, Mathieu Schneider, Alain Cote, Denis Savard, Mike McPhee and Guy Carbonneau) are under contract this season.Russ Courtnall, last year&rsquo;s leading scorer, is taking the team to salary arbitration.Shayne Corson, the leading scorer in the playoffs, is playing out his option.Andrew Cassels, who led the team in rookie scoring, failed to report to camp. The free agent was on the verge of signing a one-year contract with a team in either Italy or Switzerland.Like most other NHL clubs, most of the talk when it comes to the Habs is about money.Montreal managing director Serge Savard has begun chipping away at the mountain of contracts that must be negotiated, signing Schneider to a four-year deal worth an estimated $1.7 million US.It&rsquo;s believed the 22-year-old, who&rsquo;s coming off a spotty year&mdash;his first full season which saw him score just 30 points in 69 games&mdash;will make $400,000 this season and cash in a $100,000 signing bonus.He made $120,000 last season.Is that too much to pay a kid with only one full year, and not a great one at that, under his belt?Savard doesn&rsquo;t think so. He was willing to pay out a little more to get Schneider&rsquo;s name on a long-term deal.Schneider becomes one of the few Habs in the club&rsquo;s long history to sign a new deal in which he&rsquo;ll be paid in U.S. dollars. Players traded from American-based teams to Canada are paid in U.S. dollars for the life of their existing contract, but are usually paid in Canadian money on new deals.It&rsquo;s believed former Hab Bobby Smith was another rare Canadien to be paid with Uncle Sam&rsquo;s greenbacks.&ldquo;When they made the deal in U.S. dollars, that&rsquo;s what brought the deal together,&rdquo; said Schneider who signed the contract two days after reporting to camp.Schneider, who played out his option last season, said he never wanted to leave Montreal.The same can&rsquo;t be said for Cassels.The 22-year-old center, the Habs&rsquo; top pick (17th overall) in 1987, was poised to join a team in either Switzerland or Italy for the upcoming season.Cassels, a former Ontario League scoring champ and league MVP, has been disappointed with his playing time in Montreal.He was the Habs&rsquo; top freshman scorer with 25 points in the 54 games he played.&ldquo;Andrew is disappointed this is the way he has to go,&rdquo; said Larry Kelly, Cassels&rsquo; Ottawabased agent. &ldquo;But he was adamant he was not going back to Montreal.&rdquo;Courtnail, meanwhile, was looking for a new deal that would pay him in the neighborhood of $800,000 a year to start, about $300,000 more than what Savard is willing to pay.The case will go to an arbitrator who can choose either the number put forward by Courtnall, the one proposed by Savard or come up with one of his own.Corson was willing to take a bolder step and play out his option, taking the route followed by captain Guy Carbonneau.Carbonneau wound up signing a four-year deal worth more than $3 million.Corson would like a deal similar to that signed by Stephane Richer last season which paid him $750,000 plus bonuses. &#9632;

SCHNEIDER THE HABS’ YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

<div class="byline">BY JEFF GORDON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01668/5970391-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="463" height="590"></div>In a capitalistic society, we applaud companies which plow profits back into the product to build a better future. Competitiveness within the rules makes for a better world.So why have the St. Louis Blues become outlaws within the NHL? Shouldn&rsquo;t the NHL be more concerned about the shameless asset stripping by Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; owner Peter Pocklington?Yes, the Blues had the audacity to sign a few free agents and reward their stars with a piece of the action. They gave Brett Hull a $7.1-million contract, thus driving up the salary expectations of every other 86-goal scorer in the league. They had the nerve to give free agent Scott Stevens a Chris Chelios-like contract.Then the Blues offered free agent Michel Goulet a $2.9-million contract&mdash;okay, that was nuts&mdash;and Dave Christian a $1,775-million deal. The latter signing did less to damage the pay scale than the offers the Flyers, Red Wings and Rangers gave Charlie Huddy, Ray Sheppard and Adam Graves respectively.Why are the Blues taking the heat? Perhaps they missed that meeting on collusion in Buffalo.Word has it teams aren&rsquo;t supposed to deal with Blues&rsquo; GM Ron Caron anymore. This makes Blues&rsquo; fans happy. St. Louis finished with 105 points last season, its Peoria farm team won the International League&rsquo;s Turner Cup and more prospects will arrive in April. Why should the Blues share? They did their charity work for this decade by reviving the Canucks.When the Blues signed Christian this summer. the Bruins charged them with tampering. It seems he may have signed two contracts with the Capitals or something, but the Bruins eventually dropped their claim.When the Blues signed Shanahan, the league took a month to investigate his contract and then said it found nothing wrong. Maybe Shanahan signed two contracts or something. This stuff has been going on for years (see Christian) but suddenly there was outrage.Let&rsquo;s face it, the World Wrestling Federation runs a tighter ship than the NHL. The WWF does a lot better on television too, but that&rsquo;s a different column.The Devils were aghast when the Blues signed Shanahan. Hey, somebody had to. Since the Devils let him slide into free agency, he must not have fit into their plans.Still, GM Lou Lamoriello argued Shanahan was his best player (forgetting, for the moment, he still employed Kirk Muller and John MacLean) and won Blues&rsquo; defenseman Scott Stevens in arbitration.We could go on all day about Judge Edward J. Houston&rsquo;s arbitration ruling, which read like the Devils&rsquo; presentation and was devoid of independent analysis. But we won&rsquo;t. Many players and fans smelled a set-up and we&rsquo;ll leave it at that.The hated Caron was being generous when he offered forward Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour, goaltender Curtis Joseph, and potential No. 2 and No. 3 draft picks for Shanahan.Look at the Devils&rsquo; roster. Count the holes up front. Notice the age and declining production. Brind&rsquo;Amour has better offensive skills than Shanahan did at this point in his career (he scored 110 points in his first two seasons to Shanahan&rsquo;s 76).With goaltender Sean Burke unsigned, unhappy and unproductive, Caron graciously offered Joseph. The Devils were mortified. They said they didn&rsquo;t need a goaltender (they did). They said Joseph was injured (he isn&rsquo;t). The said Joseph was overpaid (compared to who? Ron Hextali?) and would burden them with a one-way contract.Of the 41 goaltenders who played at least 2,400 minutes the last two season, Joseph had the eigth-best save percentage. Caron wasn&rsquo;t trying to dump his trash in New Jersey.Instead of getting two prospects and two good picks, the Devils got Stevens. That&rsquo;s great, except Stevens could cost the Devils up to $1.5 million a year in salary, plus $600,000 more in deferred payments.Owner John McMullen must be squirming. After all, he stripped down his Houston Astros to squeeze a few more bucks from them before bailing out. He isn&rsquo;t exactly a win-at-all-costs guy-Rugged defenseman Ken Daneyko walked out of the Devils&rsquo; camp after getting just a $10,000 raise to $200,000. With Stevens on the payroll, MacLean and Muller will want their salaries multiplied.We wish the Devils luck.The Blues will survive regardless. They want to win. They have room for another millionaire on their roster and they will strike again. And the caterwauls of old-guard NHL executives will again be heard across North America.But the Blues are the last thing this league needs to worry about.Jeff Gordon covers the Blues for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. &#9632;

f0036-01

THE BRENDAN SHANAHAN RULING? IT WON’T HURT BLUES

<h2>BLUES</h2>The Blues rejected a rumor that they plan to send center Adam Oates, defenseman Paul Cavallini and winger Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour to Quebec for Eric Lindros. Blues&rsquo; GM Ron Caron called the rumor &ldquo;irresponsible.&rdquo; Blues&rsquo; president Jack Quinn also refuted the rumor, saying the Blues were &ldquo;monitoring&rdquo; the Lindros situation&hellip;Goalie Curtis Joseph hasn&rsquo;t been bothered by the trashing he took from New Jersey GM Lou Lamoriello in arguments against the Blues&rsquo; proposal in the Brendan Shanahan compensation case. Joseph sparkled in his first exhibition game, shutting out Detroit on 16 shots in 32 minutes 29 seconds of the Blues&rsquo; 3-2 victory Sept. 14. The game was Joseph&rsquo;s first since suffering a knee sprain Feb. 28. &ldquo;I felt in control,&rdquo; Joseph said. &ldquo;It was a good game to play. I was very anxious. I haven&rsquo;t played for six months. &ldquo;&hellip; Free-agent tryout Mark Bassen, the brother of Blues&rsquo; center Bob Bassen, has impressed the Blues&rsquo; staff in camp with his solid work ethic. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way he was described to us, and that&rsquo;s why he&rsquo;s here,&rdquo; assistant coach Bob Berry said.<h2>NORTH STARS</h2>In a continued effort to lure Neal Broten back from Germany, the North Stars&rsquo; latest offer includes carrying Broten and his family on the team&rsquo;s medical and dental plan through 2005, the end of his deferred salary payments. The out-of-pocket cost to the team is estimated at $65,000&hellip;The North Stars&rsquo; exhibition game Sept. 17 at the St. Paul Civic Center will include a reunion of the World Hockey Association&rsquo;s Minnesota Fighting Saints&hellip;Steve Maltais. one of the players the North Stars got from Washington in the deal that sent Shawn Chambers to the Capitals, had arthroscopic knee surgery Sept. 8 to remove tom cartilage from his knee. He skated for the first time Sept. 12 and was to rejoin practice within a few days&hellip;Owner Norman Green visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for a two-day physical exam.<h2>RED WINGS</h2>Steve Yzerman on why he was cut from Team Canada: &ldquo;He (Mike Keenan) said I had a bad camp and that I had all these bad habits. I don&rsquo;t agree with it, but I don&rsquo;t really care. If that&rsquo;s the worst it gets, I think I can handle it. It&rsquo;s not the end of the world.&rdquo; And after watching Team Canada play several games, Yzerman acknowledged he may not have fit into Keenan&rsquo;s lineup. &ldquo;It seemed like he just wanted a bunch of guys who were willing to run around for 30-second shifts like a Chinese fire drill,&rdquo; Yzerman said&hellip;Defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov, the former Central Red Army captain who came to the U.S. the week before camp, got his H-l work visa from the Immigration and Naturalization Service before the pre-season was a week old&hellip;Greg Stefan and Glen Hanlon, who not long ago formed Detroit&rsquo;s one-two punch in goal, have landed jobs that will keep them in hockey. Hanlon is working as a roving goaltending consultant for the Vancouver Canucks. Stefan will work as a color analyst for the Detroit Ambassadors&rsquo;TV games.<h2>MAPLE LEAFS</h2>Maple Leaf GM Cliff Fletcher continued his efforts to pry goalie Grant Fuhr from Edmonton when the Leafs went to Northlands Coliseum for an exhibition game Sept. 12. The game ended in a 4-4 tie. Fletcher and Oilers&rsquo; GM Glen Sather met before, during and after the game, in which Fuhr stopping 36 shots and was first star. Leaf winger Vince Damphousse, one of the players frequently mentioned in Leaf-Oiler trade rumors, was second star&hellip;While the Leafs have had little success on trips through Death Valley in recent times, the Oiler tie combined with a 6-2 win in Calgary the night before constituted a fine start to the exhibition season for the Leafs&hellip;Free-agent defenseman Curtis Hunt, signed out of the Vancouver minor league chain, has been impressive, and has been involved in several training camp fights&hellip;Andrew McKim, runner-up to Philadelphia Flyer center Mike Ricci as Canadian junior hockey&rsquo;s player-of-the-year in 1990, is in the Leaf camp on a try-out. The 5-foot-6 forward has a shot of playing with the Leaf AHL farm club in St. John&rsquo;s, Nfld&hellip; If Eric Lindros returns to junior hockey with othe Oshawa Generals, some of the Generals&rsquo; home games may be held at Maple Leaf Gardens this season.<h2>BLACKHAWKS</h2>The Blackhawks opened their preseason schedule Sept. 14 by dropping a 5-3 decision to the Detroit Red Wings in Detroit. The Hawks&mdash;who were without most of their top scoring forwards&mdash;got goals from Greg Gilbert. Adam Creighton and Brian Noonan&hellip;Goaltender Jimmy Waite, who&rsquo;s battling Dominik Hasek and Greg Millen for the No. 2 job behind Ed Belfour wasn&rsquo;t sharp&hellip;Left winger Dan Vincelette. in his second tour of duty with the Hawks, has had a good camp. Vincelette, 24, passed up a chance to play in France this season to give it another shot with the Hawks. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to go without finding out if I can play in the NHL,&rdquo; he said. Said associate coach Darryl Sutter: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s still a kid with promise.&rdquo;&hellip;Defenseman Bryan March-ment has decided to wear jersey No. 2 this season. Newly acquired John Tonelli will wear 25 for now. Tonelli may switch to No. 72&hellip;The Hawks might switch Steve Thomas from left wing to right wing. The Hawks plan to use him frequently with left winger John Tonelli and center Adam Creighton. &#9632;

CARON SHOOTS DOWN RUMOR

<div class="byline">BY TIM SASSONE</div>This is a make or break season for Jimmy Waite.Either he makes it as a goaltender with the Chicago Blackhawks, or he says he&rsquo;ll be forced to break his ties with the organization.&ldquo;If I go back to the minors, I&rsquo;m in my option year, and I won&rsquo;t be back for sure next season,&rdquo; said the 22-year-old Waite, who was drafted No. 1 (eighth overall) by the Hawks in (p7 to be their goaltender of the future. &ldquo;If that happens, I hope they trade me. Nothing against Chicago, but if they&rsquo;re not going to play me, I won&rsquo;t sign.&rdquo;Should Waite play out his option, he would become a Group I free agent next summer.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it would be big compensation for me because I will have been in the minors for three years,&rdquo; he said.Waite was the minor-pro player of the year two seasons ago at Indianapolis when he went 34-14-4 with a 2.53 goals-against average and led the Ice to the International League championship.Indianapolis last year he split time with Dominik Hasek, but still went 26-18-4.For Waite, this figures to be his big opportunity to stick with the Hawks. Neither Ed Belfour nor Hasek were around for the start of camp because of their involvement in the Canada Cup, and with the free agent Belfour having contract troubles, he&rsquo;s expected to be a holdout once the tournament ends.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m aware they won&rsquo;t be around for a while,&rdquo; Waite said. &ldquo;If I want to make the team I&rsquo;ve got to play well right away. I can&rsquo;t wait until next week.&rdquo;According to associate coach Darryl Sutter, Waite will get plenty of chances to prove himself in the exhibition season.&ldquo;We all want to see as much of Jimmy Waite as we can,&rdquo; Sutter said. &ldquo;If I was Jimmy, I&rsquo;d be pretty excited about it.&rdquo;Of the Hawks&rsquo; goaltending picture, Sutter said: &ldquo;Based on Belfour&rsquo;s contract situation, until it&rsquo;s resolved, it&rsquo;s pretty wide open.&rdquo;Belfour recently rejected a Hawks&rsquo; offer of $600,000 for one season.&ldquo;They expect us to pay Eddie like Patrick Roy,&rdquo; said Hawks&rsquo; senior vice-president Bob Pulford. &ldquo;But Patrick Roy has played well for five seasons, and you know he&rsquo;s going to continue.&rdquo;At training camp last year it was Belfour. Waite. Hasek and Greg Millen all fighting for the No. 1 job. While Belfour enjoyed by far the best camp and won the job outright, Waite played poorly and never gave himself much of a chance.&ldquo;Eddie had a great camp and deserved to start,&rdquo; Waite said. &ldquo;Sure, I thought about how if I would have had a good camp maybe I&rsquo;d have been in Eddie&rsquo;s place, but I can&rsquo;t worry about that now. Last year I was too concerned about the other guys and not about myself. This year I&rsquo;m worrying about myself.&rdquo;Waite did get to Chicago last year, but only for one game. He beat Detroit 3-2 Dec. 23.&ldquo;All I&rsquo;m asking for is a chance during the season to prove myself, not get a game here and a game there,&rdquo; Waite said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s tough. I&rsquo;ve had two good seasons at Indy. If I had two bad years I&rsquo;d say I didn&rsquo;t deserve the chance.&rdquo;If and when Belfour shows up, he&rsquo;s expected to keep the No. 1 job unless he falls flat on his face. That would leave Waite and Hasek to battle it out for the backup role.&ldquo;I would be happy to play 25-30 games here. That&rsquo;s all right with me,&rdquo; Waite said. &ldquo;Eddie Belfour has the No. 1 job, but he can&rsquo;t play 70 games again. I&rsquo;m just fighting for a spot to stay in Chicago.&rdquo; &#9632;

JIMMY SAYS HE WON’T WAITE MUCH LONGER

<div class="byline">BY KEITH GAVE</div>You can&rsquo;t expect to get a battleship for a canoe.With that blunt admonishment, NHL arbitrator Edward Houston rejected New Jersey&rsquo;s demand of Bob Probert and ruled the Red Wings must send right wingers Dave Barr and Randy McKay as compensation for Detroit&rsquo;s signing of free agent Woy Crowder.The loss of Probert, however remote, would have been tragic, Wings&rsquo; coach-general manager Bryan Murray said.&ldquo;Obviously, it would have been devastating if we had lost Bob Probert,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Especially considering what has happened in his life and the support fans have given him here in Detroit. I suspected we made the right offer. Thank goodness it worked out.&rdquo;Probert, who is having a great camp, breathed a solemn sigh of relief when Murray told him he was staying put.^&rdquo;It&rsquo;s a relief for myself,&rdquo; said obert, who confessed he was uncomfortable knowing there was even the slightest chance he would be up-rooted at an arbitrator&rsquo;s whim. &ldquo;The possibility was there. It was a 50-50 chance. I&rsquo;m glad I&rsquo;m still here, but I feel for the guys who have to leave. It&rsquo;s a shame.&rdquo;Crowder signed a three-year contract with the Wings worth $275,000 per season. The Wings tried to make a deal with the Devils until the final moment, but were unable to reach an agreement on what was fair compensation for Crowder.The Wings felt New Jersey GM Lou Lamoriello was shooting high during compensation talks in hopes of forcing Detroit into making a bad trade.Still, Murray said he was interested in continuing trade talks with Lamoriello. Detroit, using center Jimmy Carson as the centerpiece of its package, was interested in acquiring goalie Sean Burke, but Murray said Lamoriello&mdash;who has publicly acknowledged he was trying to deal Burke&mdash;was refusing to consider trading him to the Wings.Meantime, Wings&rsquo; players mourned the loss of two popular teammates.&ldquo;Both are really good guys,&rdquo; said Shawn Burr, the Wings&rsquo; player representative. &ldquo;I talked with Randy just before he left. He was pretty upset, confused. As a player rep, I can say it&rsquo;s obvious the system doesn&rsquo;t work.&rdquo;Crowder agreed.&ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t free agency,&rdquo; he complained. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just a trade through someone else&rsquo;s eyes, and it&rsquo;s not a fair deal. They had to give up a good, tough forward and one of their other top forwards.&rdquo;McKay, 24, actually had more fighting majors and penalty minutes (183-182) than Crowder last season. Barr, 30, was the team&rsquo;s top-scoring right winger last season with 18 goals and 40 points in 70 games.Probert, 26, is a former NHL all-star entering his sixth NHL season. Last season, he had 16-23-39 totals with 315 penalty minutes and a 1-1 record in fights with Crowder.On opening night in New Jersey, Crowder caught Probert by surprise with a punch that opened a 13-stitch gash under Probert&rsquo;s right eye. In a rematch at Joe Louis Arena in late January, the two heavyweights squared off again. This time, Probert manhandled Crowder, leaving little doubt about his ranking as the league&rsquo;s top heavyweight.During the first week of training camp, there were many fights, including one between Probert and defenseman Dennis Vial, who suffered a fractured right thumb. Crowder, who signed with the Wings partly for the opportunity to improve his overall skills, was not involved in any of them, though he was challenged a few times by some of the young turks in camp. Crowder promised he would fight when the time comes.He&rsquo;d better. That&rsquo;s why the Wings brought him to Detroit. &#9632;

RULING LEAVES PROBERT RELIEVED

<div class="byline">BY DAMIEN COX</div>When you look at the team characteristics that shaped the Toronto Maple Leafs and their awful 57-point season last year, the first question is obvious.Where did all the goals go?From a team record 337 scores in the 1989-90 campaign, the Leaf offense produced just 241 last season, a discouraging drop of more than 25 per cent. The Leafs went from being one of the most prolific scoring clubs in the NHL to one of the least in a matter of months.And once you begin to examine that issue, a second immediately comes to mind.Where did Gary Leeman go?The 27-year-old right winger went from 51 goals to just 17, a drop of 34, or more than a third of the overall team decline. Twenty-five games on the injury list with a shoulder injury accounted for much of Leeman&rsquo;s drop, but, truth be known, he didn&rsquo;t play that well in the 52 matches in which he did participate.The problems seemed endless. After an uneasy relationship with coach Doug Carpenter, Leeman deteriorated drastically until Carpenter got the boot 11 games into the season. Leeman&rsquo;s pal Ed Olczyk was dealt to Winnipeg on the same day he suffered his shoulder injury in a game against the Chicago Blackhawks. Difficulties with teammates John Kordic and Al lafrate made life in the Leaf dressing room a daily soap opera. And one .500 season in eight years with the losing Leafs had become unbearable.&ldquo;I was fed up with the situation here,&rdquo; said Leeman. &ldquo;The season was a write-off and it was tough on everybody. But maybe I was focused on because of the 50-goal season the year before.&rdquo;Then, after being one of the original invitees to Team Canada&rsquo;s training camp in preparation for the Canada Cup, Leeman was among the first axed by coach Mike Keenan in midAugust.With all these negative experiences under his belt, no one could have blamed Leeman if he came to Toronto&rsquo;s training camp in Newmarket, Ont., a bitter and discouraged young man.Instead, he reported with a new upbeat, live-and-let-live attitude and an intention to alter his image. Not to mention a new moustache.&ldquo;I think I may have been unfairly portrayed in the past,&rdquo; said Leeman, who has been labelled everything from selfish to greedy to disruptive over the past two seasons. &ldquo;Maybe I haven&rsquo;t done everything right either, but I&rsquo;m not going to try and be something I&rsquo;m not.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to focus on being a positive person, and not let things drag me down. Maybe I worried too much about too many things before.&rdquo;A summer of vacationing and water-skiing at his cottage near Port Severn, Ont., helped take Leeman&rsquo;s mind off hockey. But the hiring of Cliff Fletcher as Leaf hockey czar also seems to have made an appreciable difference.&ldquo;Sure, I feel more positive with Cliff around. People are talking nicely about the management now, instead of always shooting them down,&rdquo; he said.Things got off to a good start for Leeman at the Leaf camp when his team won $500 and an afternoon off from practice by virtue of capturing the championship game of Toronto&rsquo;s intrasquad competition during the first week of camp.Fletcher is looking for improved offensive totals from at least three Leafs&mdash;Leeman, Daniel Marois (39 goals in 1989-90, 21 last year) and Vincent Damphousse (33 to 26)&mdash;to enhance Toronto&rsquo;s chances in the tough Norris Division.&ldquo;If those three show significant improvement, we should add 60 goals to our offense,&rdquo; says Fletcher. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s vital.&rdquo;An injury-free season from left winger Wendel Clark would help as well, but Clark went down in the first week of camp with a rib injury after arriving with a sore knee suffered in Team Canada&rsquo;s training camp.Clark played 63 games last season, which was high considering he had participated in just 81 over the previous three seasons combined.The rib injury was not considered serious. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re just making sure,&rdquo; said Clark. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a whole month of training camp.&ldquo; &#9632;

LEEMAN SEEKING TO RECHARGE BATTERIES

<div class="byline">BY GARY OLSON</div>Hockey fans in Minnesota finally have a reason to be happy. Bobby Smith is back.Sure, he came back from a seven-year hiatus in Montreal a year ago. But that wasn&rsquo;t the Bobby Smith North Stars&rsquo; fans came to love as the team&rsquo;s first pick in the 1978 draft.The Bobby Smith who showed up at training camp last year was a statesman, a player easing into the end of his career.&ldquo;I went along with the prevailing attitude that it was going to be great to have Bobby Smith back in Minnesota, that he would be great in the dressing room and would help Mike Modano mature,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t push myself to be a dominant force on the team. I was too easily satisfied.&rdquo;Statesman Smith was not the player North Stars&rsquo; fans had looked for&mdash;or wished for. They wanted the guy who won the Calder Trophy in &rsquo;79. The guy who led the team to the Stanley Cup finals in &rsquo;81. And the guy who scored 43 goals and 114 points the next year.Even coach Bob Gainey tired of the new Mr. Smith and, as time ran out on the season, benched his former Montreal teammate.&ldquo;There was a point in the new year when Bobby became more determined offensively,&rdquo; Gainey said, being generous in not tying Smith&rsquo;s turnabout to the benching. &ldquo;Late in the season and through the playoffs, he proved he deserves a chance to play the role he has played through his entire career, the role as a dominent offensive force. I don&rsquo;t see any reason he couldn&rsquo;t have an entire season like he had in the playoffs.&rdquo;Smith scored eight goals&mdash;five gamewinners&mdash;and 16 points in 23 playoff games, about half his regular-season totals.&ldquo;At one point late in the season, I pushed myself to influence the game and the results were dramatic and immediate and I had a lot more fun,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;I played 10 of the last 13 (regular-season) games and played well. Maybe no one else noticed, but I was getting chances in each game and my linemates were getting chances. That was a set-up for the playoffs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01670/5970549-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="709" height="825"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Smith hopes last season&rsquo;s playoff success will continue.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to try to ease out of my hockey career; I&rsquo;m going to keep the throttle to die floor. I know the time will come when it&rsquo;s over, but I&rsquo;d rather have one big disappointment than spread the disappointment over several seasons.&ldquo;I have a different attitude this year. I expet to be a player who influences the game rathw than a guy who goes along with the flow.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an exciting time for me. I&rsquo;ve played 13 seasons in the NHL. But I learned late last season and in the playoffs that I can still have an influence on this game. When I see Jimmy Connors and Carl Lewis and Nolan Ryan doing the things they&rsquo;re doing, I know I can still play this game.&ldquo;Guys today look after themselves better than they did years ago. There&rsquo;s no reason a guy 33 years old can&rsquo;t play this game.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t expect the same treatment I got when I was 22 or 23 years old, but I&rsquo;m excited about the season. I have a different attitude from the start and I&rsquo;m ready to have a big season.&rdquo;Make that, another big season. &#9632;

f0038-01

NEW ATTITUDE HAS SMITH SHOOTING FOR THE STARS

<div class="byline">BY DAVE LUECKING</div>Before the devastating loss of Scott Stevens on an arbitrator&rsquo;s controversial decision, the Blues had projected rookie Jason Marshall as their fifth or sixth defenseman.The plan was to bring him along slowly, allowing their 1989 No. 1 draft pick to learn the ropes from Stevens and the rest of the Blues&rsquo; defense.So much for the best laid plans.That plan, as well as many others, went out the window Sept. 3 when Judge Edward J. Houston awarded Stevens&rsquo; rights to New Jersey as compensation for the Blues&rsquo; signing of Brendan Shanahan.As a result, the Blues may have to formulate a new Marshall plan. Their No. 1 pick in 1989&mdash;a righthanded shot who can play the left side&mdash;may have to step into Stevens&rsquo; spot among the top four defensemen.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about that,&rdquo; said Marshall, who&rsquo;s 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just trying to do the best I can. There are some excellent players (in camp), and everyone&rsquo;s battling for a spot.&rdquo;Whether Marshall steps into a prime role is merely conjecture at this point. Stevens may challenge his forced move in the courts, a possibility which has kept Blues&rsquo; general manager Ron Caron from pursuing a replacement, an experienced veteran, at this point.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt we&rsquo;re looking for a possible transaction of some kind, but until the Stevens&rsquo; case is completely terminated, we&rsquo;re not in a hurry to make any moves,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a big hole, and that&rsquo;s a mild statement. But right now, the purpose is to identify values. We can do this and see how great the need for an additional defenseman is.&rdquo;Marshall&rsquo;s play could dictate that need. The Blues have been raving about him since the end of last season, when he went from his junior team in Tri-Cities (Western League) and stepped right into the Peoria Rivermen&rsquo;s run to the International League&rsquo;s Turner Cup.&ldquo;I think he can play in the NHL,&rdquo; said Bob Plager, Peoria&rsquo;s coach last season and the Blues&rsquo; director of player development. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s up to the staff whether he needs more work in the minors, more ice time to work on things.&rdquo;In Peoria, Marshall, 20, would be under the watchful eye of ex-defenseman Harold Snepsts, the former NHL cult hero who retired after last season to replace Plager in Peoria.&ldquo;Harold&rsquo;s a great teacher,&rdquo; said Plager, who didn&rsquo;t have much time to teach Marshall last season. &ldquo;It was the time of year, the playoffs, where I just had to let him play.&ldquo;I was pleased how he played. He killed penalties. He was up in the last minutes of games. We played a lot of overtime games, and he played as much as any other defenseman.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s invaluable experience. I showed a lot-of confidence in him, but he showed me a lot. If I didn&rsquo;t think he could play, I wouldn&rsquo;t have played him.&rdquo;Marshall was grateful to get the chance.&ldquo;It really worked out,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was just happy to play for a good team.&rdquo;Now, Marshall has an opportunity to play with the Blues. He&rsquo;s both excited and nervous about the possibility.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little scary,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Last year, I came in not knowing what to expect, but now I know what it&rsquo;s all about, and I&rsquo;m a little nervous. I&rsquo;ve had time to think about it.&rdquo;Last year, Marshall didn&rsquo;t even think he w^ going to camp. He was bound for the Universi&rdquo; of Michigan, but changed his mind a week before camp.He was understandably nervous until Blues&rsquo; coach Brian Sutter paired him with Stevens, who served as Marshall&rsquo;s mentor.&ldquo;I was in awe,&rdquo; Marshall said. &ldquo;I just watched him. He was incredible.&rdquo;On and off the ice.&ldquo;He was really nice to me,&rdquo; Marshall said. &ldquo;He helped calm me down. He made me feel real comfortable. I can&rsquo;t thank him enough. I wish he were here.&rdquo;Marshall&rsquo;s not alone in that thought, but Stevens&rsquo; absence enhances his chances to quickly play a prime role.&ldquo;I want to do better than I did last year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Everyone&rsquo;s nervous coming into camp. You look around to see how other guys atfl doing, and you want to do better. Maybe this added pressure will make me get going.&rdquo; &#9632;

FRESHMAN MARSHALL HAS BIG SHOES TO FILL

<h2>NHL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01344/5970653-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="506" height="287"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02228/5970646-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="502" height="343"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-03162/5970639-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="1159" height="1636"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Sakic&rsquo;s Nords got a jump winning two exhibition games</figcaption></div><h2>OHL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-04128/5970632-1-eng-US/f0040-042.jpg" title="f0040-04" width="525" height="1680"></div><h2>WHL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-05108/5970625-1-eng-US/f0040-052.jpg" title="f0040-05" width="586" height="240"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0694/5970618-1-eng-US/f0040-062.jpg" title="f0040-06" width="533" height="859"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0785/5970611-1-eng-US/f0040-072.jpg" title="f0040-07" width="1161" height="1129"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Ottawa 67&rsquo;s got a boost with the return of Brett Seguin.</figcaption></div><h2>QMJHL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0876/5970604-1-eng-US/f0040-082.jpg" title="f0040-08" width="572" height="784"></div> &#9632;

f0040-01

SCOREBOARD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0966/5970712-1-eng-US/f0040-092.jpg" title="f0040-09" width="620" height="818"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1065/5970705-1-eng-US/f0040-102.jpg" title="f0040-10" width="589" height="820"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1162/5970698-1-eng-US/f0040-112.jpg" title="f0040-11" width="588" height="821"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1258/5970691-1-eng-US/f0040-122.jpg" title="f0040-12" width="584" height="819"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1355/5970684-1-eng-US/f0040-132.jpg" title="f0040-13" width="580" height="819"></div> &#9632;

f0040-09

NHL STARTING TIMES

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01284/5970750-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="544" height="874"><figcaption class="caption-body">After a threat to go to the Olympics, Bruin Glen Wesley signed.</figcaption></div><h2>BOSTON</h2>Sept. 10: Free-agent Glen Wesley, D, signed one-year contract. Norm Foster, G, traded to Edmonton for future considerations. Marcel Cousineau, G, Mike Parson, G, Chris Harvey, G, Chris Lariviere, D, Rick Allain, D, Eric Reisman, D, Chris Grassie, D, Jack Capuano, D, Mark Krys, D, Mike Golden, C, Shayne Stevenson, C, Matt Glennon, C, Jim Vesey, RW, Brian Ferreira, RW, Ted Miskolczi, RW, Lou Crawford, LW, Mike Rossetti, LW, Steve Rooney, LW, and Clark Donatelli, LW, assigned to Maine (AHL). Brock Woods, D, Shawn Rivers, D, Ray Skinner, D, Guy Perone, C, Andy Bezeau, LW, and Dave MacIntyre, LW, released.<h2>BUFFALO</h2>None.<h2>CALGARY</h2>None.<h2>CHICAGO</h2>None.<h2>Detroit</h2>Sept. 12: Claude Barthe, D, Derek Booth, D, Greg Bignell, D, Jody Prasnik, D, Gregg Nicol, LW, Don Stone, LW, and Don Oliver, RW, assigned to Toledo (ECHL); Mark Myles, RW, returned to Peterborough (OHL).<h2>EDMONTON</h2>Sept. 12: Chris Joseph, D, signed two-vear contract.<h2>HARTFORD</h2>Sept. 8: Sylvain Cote, D, traded to Washington for second-round draft pick. Sept. 9: Terry Yake, C, signed multi-year contract. Sept. 10: Doug Houda, D, signed multi-year contract.<h2>LOS ANGELES</h2>Sept. 14: Rick Berens, LW, Don Granato, LW, Eric Lemarque, LW, Denis LeBlanc, C, Brett Seguin, C, Jason Knox, D, Kip Noble, D, Sean Basilio, G, released. Daniel Rydmark, C, Pauli Jaks, G, returned to Swedish League.<h2>MINNESOTA</h2>Sept. 8: Brett Barnett, D, Craig Endean, LW, and Mark Felicio, G, assigned to Dayton (ECHL). Laurie Billick, D, returned to Tacoma (WHL). Ken Blum, C, returned to Guelph (OHL). Pierre Gagnon, G, returned to Drummondville (QMJHL). Shayne Green, RW, returned to Kamloops (WHL). Alastair Still, RW, returned to Kingston (OHL). Jamie Bound, G, and Jim Powers, C, released. Sept. 12: Shane Churla, RW, signed four-year contract.<h2>MONTREAL</h2>Sept. 7: Mathieu Schneider, D, signed four-year contract. Sept 12: Charles Poulin, C, returned to Hull (QMJHL). Yves Sarault, LW, returned to St-Jean (QMJHL). Sylvain Lapointe, D, returned to Hull. Frantz Bergevin, G, returned to Victoriaville (QMJHL).<h2>NEW JERSEY</h2>None.<h2>N.Y. ISLANDERS</h2>None.<h2>N.Y. RANGERS</h2>Sept. 15: Barry Young, D, returned to Sudbury (OHL). John Vary, D, returned to Kingston (OHL). Darcy Werenka, D, returned to Lethbridge (WHL). Viacheslav Uvayev, D, returned to Moscow Dynamo.<h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2>Sept. 11: Murray Baron, D, signed contract<h2>PITTSBURGH</h2>Sept. 11: Jim Paek, D, Gordie Roberts, D, and Bruce Racine, G, siqned contracts.<h2>QUEBEC</h2>None.<h2>ST. LOUIS</h2>Sept. 16: Brennan Maley, D, and Dan Rolfe, D, released.<h2>SAN JOSE</h2>None.<h2>TORONTO</h2>Sept 10: Mike Krushelrtyski, LW, signed contract.<h2>VANCOUVER</h2>None.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02183/5970743-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="1167" height="1581"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rod Langway&rsquo;s capital investment was signing a six-year deal.</figcaption></div><h2>WASHINGTON</h2>Sept. 6: Rod Langway, D, signed six-year contract. Sept. 10: Nick Kypreos, LW, signed contract.<h2>WINNIPEG</h2>Sept. 8: Troy Murray, C, signed multi-year contract. Sept. 10: Randy Carlyle, D, signed one-year contract. &#9632;

f0041-01

NHL TRAINING CAMP TRANSACTIONS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-03136/5970802-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="741" height="984"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-04111/5970795-1-eng-US/f0041-042.jpg" title="f0041-04" width="737" height="984"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0598/5970788-1-eng-US/f0041-052.jpg" title="f0041-05" width="748" height="987"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0690/5970781-1-eng-US/f0041-062.jpg" title="f0041-06" width="742" height="982"></div> &#9632;

f0041-03

NHL PRE-SEASON SCHEDULE

<div class="byline">BY RAND SIMON</div>The man who coached Team USA to the Canada Cup final entered the tournament a virtual unknown and left it much the same way. Tell people that Taylor has been coaching United States national teams since 1981 and the response is something like, &ldquo;Really? How come I&rsquo;ve never heard of him before?&rdquo;That&rsquo;s what coaching Yale University for 15 years can do for one&rsquo;s profile. After all, Yale isn&rsquo;t exactly Wisconsin or Michigan State when it comes to producing NHL players.But Taylor doesn&rsquo;t mind the lack of recognition. He said he&rsquo;s content to continue coaching at the Ivy League school in New Haven, Conn. While he realized coaching some of the best players in the world at the Canada Cup puts him in the spotlight, he has no immediate ambitions about moving up in the coaching world.&ldquo;Lots of people have asked me about the future,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I haven&rsquo;t thought about it. Out of respect and honor for Bob Johnson, I haven&rsquo;t looked past the Canada Cup.&rdquo;The one career goal Taylor does admit to is to coach the U.S. Olympic team. He was one of four men interviewed for the job to coach the 1992 team in Albertville, France, but was passed over in favor of Dave Peterson. The decision was widely criticized considering Peterson&rsquo;s lack of success in recent international tournaments.&ldquo;Since I had wanted the job, it was a disappointment to me,&rdquo; said Taylor. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not bitter or angry, though. It was decided Dave Peterson is the best man. But, that&rsquo;s a dream of mine, to be an Olympic coach.&rdquo;Taylor&rsquo;s involvement with USA hockey dates back to the 1981 World Championships in Sweden. Even before that he was attending hockey schools run by Johnson and Peterson.His love for the game runs deep and he wished the Canada Cup got more exposure in the U.S. Not for himself, but for the effect it would have on increasing hockey awareness in America.Taylor&rsquo;s respect for the man he replaced as Team USA coach runs so deep he has done virtually nothing to change the system Johnson put in place for the team. Taylor&rsquo;s reluctance to make changes to his lines or his strategy was criticized by some.But it is Taylor&rsquo;s philosophy that once a team has been put together, the coach shouldn&rsquo;t tinker too much with it.&ldquo;When coaching great players, you&rsquo;ve got to give them every opportunity to play,&rdquo; said Taylor. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the No. 1 priority. I&rsquo;ve always said a coach is there to point the ship in the right direction and keep it on course. I&rsquo;ve always tried to do that.&rdquo;Because of the pre-tournament expectations placed on Team USA, Taylor&rsquo;s job was doubly difficult. Not only did he have to step in for Johnson in mid-tournament, he had to win.And Taylor did win&mdash;except against Canada. But Taylor gained a new measure of respect from players who appreciated the tough circumstances he stepped into.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard as a college coach to come in and gain command and control over professional hockey players,&rdquo; said Team USA winger Randy Wood, who played for Taylor at Yale. &ldquo;I thought he did an excellent job. It will help him adjust more easily if he decides to get into the professional ranks as a coach.&rdquo;Team USA assistant general manager Art Berglund said Taylor was the natural choice to take over the team when Johnson was diagnosed as having cancer Aug. 29. Only a handful of players on Team USA hadn&rsquo;t played for Taylor at some point in an international tournament. So while Taylor may be unknown to fans, he isn&rsquo;t to the players.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing wrong with being a head coach at Yale,&rdquo; said Berglund. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a knowledgeable, stable personality who is a high-quality coach.&rdquo; &#9632;

TAYLOR’S STAY IN LIMELIGHT WILL BE BRIEF

<h2>CANADA CUP</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01311/5970927-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="583" height="1318"></div><h2>CANADA</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02231/5970920-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="582" height="756"></div><h2>UNITED STATES</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03195/5970913-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="581" height="157"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-04131/5970906-1-eng-US/f0043-042.jpg" title="f0043-04" width="585" height="577"></div><h2>SWEDEN</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-05116/5970899-1-eng-US/f0043-052.jpg" title="f0043-05" width="586" height="680"></div><h2>FINLAND</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0693/5970892-1-eng-US/f0043-062.jpg" title="f0043-06" width="580" height="647"></div><h2>SOVIET UNION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0783/5970885-1-eng-US/f0043-072.jpg" title="f0043-07" width="581" height="270"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0871/5970878-1-eng-US/f0043-082.jpg" title="f0043-08" width="589" height="355"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0964/5970871-1-eng-US/f0043-092.jpg" title="f0043-09" width="1741" height="2037"><figcaption class="caption-body">Theoren Fleury provided spunk and two assists against the Soviets in round-robin action</figcaption></div><h2>CZECHOSLOVAKIA</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1057/5970864-1-eng-US/f0043-102.jpg" title="f0043-10" width="591" height="260"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1151/5970857-1-eng-US/f0043-112.jpg" title="f0043-11" width="581" height="356"></div> &#9632;

f0043-01

CANADA CUP ’91

<div class="byline">BY TONY FITZ GERALD</div>Team Finland came to the Canada Cup this year with one objective&mdash;to change their image.Traditionally, Team Finland has come to the Canada Cup and had one heck of a party, then departed without winning a game.&ldquo;We wanted to change the Team Terrible that we have been called all along,&rdquo; said Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; center Christian Ruuttu. &ldquo;We were a lot more professional. The last Canada Cups have been more like a tourist trip for us over here, but now those tourist trips are a thing of the past.&rdquo;As a result of their funloving history, few fans expected great things from the Finns in this Canada Cup. But they turned out to be the biggest surprise of the tournament.&ldquo;We succeeded more than anybody expected,&rdquo; said Ruuttu Sept. 11 after Finland lost 7-3 to Team USA in the sudden-death semifinal. &ldquo;Even though we lost 7-3, the score did not tell the story of the game.&ldquo;We had a good tournament and i the guys going back to Finland can go back with their heads held high this time. We feel very proud of ourselves.&rdquo;In 1987, Finland exited the Canada Cup without a win, but this year they finished in third place with an impressive 2-2-1 record.&ldquo;Nobody expected us to do well come close to reaching the semifinals,&rdquo; said right winger Jari Kurri, who will be joining Wayne Gretzky in Los Angeles after the tournament. &ldquo;We have to be the surprise team of the tournament and we have to be pleased with our result.&ldquo;People were always counting us out and that gave us a jump. We were ready to come here and play this time. We had a good bunch of guys, good chemistry&mdash;all the tools.&rdquo;Kurri said for the first time in a long time. Team Finland played better as a team.&ldquo;We still had fun. but it was a different kind of fun,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We had fun playing the games, not jusS after them. We all had jobs to do and we did it.&rdquo;Petri Skriko, another NHL veteran who played six seasons in Vancouver before being dealt to Boston, said an important ingredient this year was the team&rsquo;s start.&ldquo;There wasn&rsquo;t anybody who gave us a chance,&rdquo; said Skriko, a veterai of 16 Canada Cup games. &ldquo;A lot of people underestimated the team saying we didn&rsquo;t do this, we don&rsquo;t have that.&ldquo;We came here without pressure because nobody expected anything from us, so we just played. That tie against Team Canada in the first game was a big, big boost. That gave us a lot of self-confidence.&rdquo;Armed with confidence, they went into Game 2 against Czechoslovakia and emerged with a 1-0 victory.&ldquo;We got a couple of little lucky bounces, but that&rsquo;s what you need in a good tournament,&rdquo; said Skriko.The Finns had been together since Jb early August. Right from the start,&rsquo; they wanted to improve their overall Canada Cup record.&ldquo;We were close right from the start,&rdquo; Skriko said. &ldquo;Players did not mind losing ice time if it was going to benefit the team. That was a big difference this year.&ldquo;This was the best Finnish team I have ever been involved with. Everybody did their job and nobody complained. This was a big step for Finnish hockey.&rdquo;Many of the team members headed to their NHL training camps, others returned to Finland, but they all left with a feeling of accomplishment.&ldquo;Finnish hockey is more mature now than ever before,&rdquo; Ruuttu said. &ldquo;Hockey is a profession now. It is no longer at the amateur level.&rdquo; &#9632;

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September 27, 1991

PRO FILE

FLASHBACK

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JOHNSON RECIEVES RARE THERAPY