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.

October 21, 1994

The Hockey News October 21, 1994

<div class="byline">By Stan Fischiar</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011365/6731893-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Cam Neely thinks all teams in the NHL should be as thrifty as his. (Photo by Jim Leary/BBS)</figcaption></div>Furious over the International League&rsquo;s intrusion into NHL markets in Detroit and Chicago, one NHL general manager told Bluelines there&rsquo;s a movement afoot to sever all developmental ties with the league next season if it doesn&rsquo;t cease its relentless move onto NHL turf. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s about time we stopped talking about it in the boardrooms and let them know publicly what we think,&rdquo; the GM said. The 17-team IHL, which uses shoot-outs to break tie games, grew by four teams this season. Nine NHL teams currently have their primary affiliations with teams in the IHL&hellip;Florida Panthers&rsquo; president Bill Torrey is among the more vocal executives in the collective bargaining agreement battle. &ldquo;We sold 94 per cent of our tickets last year,&rdquo; Torrey said, &ldquo;and we had the second-lowest payroll in the league. And we still lost $3 million. And that&rsquo;s not including start-up costs, just normal operating expenses for 12 months. People didn&rsquo;t talk about it before, but now it&rsquo;s time to lay the cards on the table.&rdquo; Pressed as to how a team with such a high percentage of tickets sold could lose so much, Torrey claims it&rsquo;s because of low ticket prices and little television money. &ldquo;If I could charge $100 a ticket and know that I&rsquo;d still sell out,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;then I wouldn&rsquo;t want a salary cap either. But I can&rsquo;t keep jacking up our ticket prices and expect the fans to keep coming.&rdquo;<h2>On God&rsquo;s squad</h2>Keith Brown, who lists The Bible as his favorite book, said he turned to religion nine years ago after learning of the death of Pelle Lindbergh in an auto crash. The Panthers&rsquo; popular defenseman said the tragedy inspired him to become more introspective. &ldquo;I realized it could have been me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Death is so evident. But if you know Jesus Christ, you go to eternity.&rdquo; While playing for the Chicago Blackhawks, he was approached by a a woman suffering from Cystic Fibrosis who asked him if he would volunteer to help the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. He has been involved ever since. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve played hockey since I was seven, but there are things in life that are more important.&rdquo;&hellip;Ken Daneyko of the New Jersey Devils claims Alexei Kovalev of the New York Rangers is too good a hockey player to be so dirty a hockey player. And he&rsquo;s right.<h2>Hasek & Havel</h2>Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; goalie Dominik Hasek held a meeting with one of the world&rsquo;s most prominent politicians during the off-season. Hasek huddled with Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech Republic, at a Chicago pub when the Central European leader recently visited Chicago. &ldquo;They talked about a lot of things,&rdquo; said Czech journalist Jan Smid, a friend of both. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re personal friends.&rdquo;&hellip;If Blaine Lacher can stop pucks on a major-league level, he&rsquo;ll be as popular in Boston Garden as Ron Hextall was in his first two years at The Spectrum. Lacher&rsquo;s boiling point is just slightly lower than Steven Segal&rsquo;s.<h2>Picture perfect</h2>At least Bruce McNall hasn&rsquo;t lost his sense of humor. After participating in the annual team photo, the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; president added that he posed for one photo, &ldquo;with a number and one without.&rdquo; McNall faces a possible prison sentence for bank fraud&hellip;How many fans do you know who can properly pronounce Sandis Ozolinsh properly the first time?&hellip;One of Canada&rsquo;s sleeper hit hockey books, Heroes, A History of the Western Hockey League, was written by a 37-year-old Winnipeg security officer who works the graveyard shift. Richard M. Lapp, wrote it as a labor of love, but the book already is in its second printing. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m hopeful that the book will help me get a job in hockey,&rdquo; said Lapp who wants to be a scout.<h2>Cam&rsquo;s solution</h2>Cam Neely insists a salary cap would be unnecessary in the NHL if all clubs follow the Boston Bruins&rsquo; prudent fiscal methods. &ldquo;You look at some of the teams that control their payrolls-like the Bruins-and look after themselves and you won&rsquo;t have to have a salary cap,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The owners hand out the money and they want us to fix that. They should fix it themselves by controlling the owners who spend more.&rdquo;&hellip;Right or wrong? The more money hockey players make, the unhappier they seem to be. If they&rsquo;re not unhappy, they&rsquo;re worried sick about what the next guy is making. &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

NHL may cut ties with loop that uses shootouts

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0029-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01788/6732319-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Tim Parker)</figcaption></div>NHL affiliates are listed under IHL team names &#9632;

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INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

<div class="byline">By Boy Cummings</div>Nestled in a new market and and hampered by multi-million dollar losses its first two seasons, the Tampa Bay Lightning would figure to be one team that could ill afford for the season not to begin on time. But the NHL&rsquo;s decision to postpone the start of the 1994-95 campaign will apparently have little effect on the financial stability of the Lightning.Team officials said the day-to-day operations will continue as usual during any prolonged break.&ldquo;This is not the death of a season, it&rsquo;s merely a postponement,&rdquo; said Lightning vice-president Mel Lowell. &ldquo;The ramifications to the Lightning as a business are actually very minimal and the reason for that is the majority of our expenses are player generated.&ldquo;We will suffer a loss of revenues. But at the same time we will not be making the player-related expenditures we usually make and those represent the major portion of our expenses.&rdquo;Lightning governor David LeFevre said player-related expenditures account for approximately 80 per cent of the Lightning&rsquo;s costs. He refused to say how much the team actually spends, but said the player payroll portion, including minor leaguers, works out to about $14 million.By contrast, the Lightning takes in about $20.5 million during its 41-game home schedule, LeFevre said. That includes money earned from ticket sales, food and novelty concessions, parking and radio and television contracts.The figure does not include money earned from the NHL&rsquo;s TV and marketing deals, but LeFevre said the team&rsquo;s overall revenues are almost equal to its expenditures.&ldquo;When you get right down to it. it&rsquo;s pretty much a wash for us,&rdquo; said LeFevre, whose club posted an operating loss of nearly $5 million for the second straight season in 1993-94. &ldquo;From a hockey standpoint, it all pretty much evens out. So the short term is not a problem for us at all. It&rsquo;s a blip on the radar screen.&ldquo;In fact, we recognized this (work stoppage) could happen and we have prepared for it. We&rsquo;re not in a panic situation here because there&rsquo;s no need to be. We don&rsquo;t plan any layoffs. In fact, we&rsquo;re adding staff members for the new building and for various departments.&rdquo;ONE MORE TIME: David LeFevre finally admitted Oct. 5 the Lightning will not be opening the 1995-96 season in its new home.Facing a 17-month construction schedule, builders are expected to be working on the Lightning&rsquo;s arena until well into next season, meaning the team will spend a fourth season in the ThunderDome in St. Petersburg.Team officials said the club has discussed the need for dates in the ThunderDome during the 1995-96 season.NOTEBOOK: The Lightning acquired 29-year-old defenseman Tom Tilley from the St. Louis Blues Oct. 6 for center Adam Creighton. Tilley has four goals and 42 points in his 174-game NHL career&hellip;Jason Wiemer&rsquo;s NHL career was officially put on hold as a result of the work stoppage. Wiemer came to terms with the Lightning on a three-year deal Oct. 4, but because of the postponement, the team sent him back to junior to keep him playing and in shape. He is expected to return to Tampa Bay when the season begins.<h2>TAMPA BAY</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Oct, 4: Jason Wiemer, LW, signed three-year contract, remains in Portland (WHL) Oct 6: Adam Creighton, C, traded to St, Louis for Tom Tilley, D<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Brian Bradley, Chris Gratton, Denis Savard LW&ndash;John Tucker, Petr Klima, Mikael Andersson, Rob Zamuner, Gerard Gallant.RW&ndash;Jim Cummins, Danton Cole, Marc Bureau, Rudy Poeschek.LD&ndash;Marc Bergevin, Eric Charron, Enrico Ciccone.RD&ndash;Shawn Chambers, Chris Joseph, Roman Hamrlik, Tom Tilley.G&ndash;Daren Puppa J.C, Bergeron.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None. &#9632;

Bottom line unaffected by league labor crisis

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzija</div>They are young players with bright futures, players who did everything asked of them.They came to camp, impressed bosses and earned jobs with NHL teams. For many, it was an end to American League apprenticeships.Then came the lockout. Suddenly, there were no NHL jobs. So back came Nathan LaFayette of the Vancouver Canucks, Jason Dawe of the Buffalo Sabres and dozens of others.&ldquo;The (coaches) told me it would be good to go down, stay in shape and keep my timing,&rdquo; said Dawe, a right winger who earned an NHL job in February and was impressive in camp.At least 39 players were assigned to AHL clubs because of the postponement. Their NHL careers are on hold, just like the NHL season.But at least they&rsquo;re playing.&ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t skated in five or six days and it&rsquo;s amazing how fast it leaves you,&rdquo; LaFayette said after his first practice with the Syracuse Crunch Oct. 6. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s better to be playing than sitting.&rdquo;There&rsquo;s another benefit to being in the AHL-paycheque every two weeks.Players did have some choice. If there were dues-paying members of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association last season, they could have told their clubs they weren&rsquo;t going to the minors.But the NHLPA realizes it was smarter for the players to report.&ldquo;The consensus is it&rsquo;s in the best interests of those guys to go back and play,&rdquo; said Steve McAllister, NHLPA media relations manager. &ldquo;We pretty well left it up to the players.&rdquo;The AHL is a big benefactor. More skilled players means a higher quality of play.The lockout may have an even greater effect off the ice, though. For the first time, AHL highlights are being shown on cable sports networks such as ESPN and The Sports Network. ESPN2 is filling time slots reserved for NHL games with AHL and International League games.&ldquo;The lockout is doing exactly what we have been trying to do without the lockout and that&rsquo;s increase the exposure and focus on the league,&rdquo; said AHL president Dave Andrews. &ldquo;The exposure will get people out to our games that maybe weren&rsquo;t aware of our league before.&rdquo;Early ratings for the ESPN2 games were rather poor. The Oct. 1 debut, Syracuse at Binghamton Rangers, had a 0.3 rating, which translates to about 50,000 homes. The IHL game between the Denver Grizzlies and Houston Aer-os Oct. 2 had the same rating.But most people weren&rsquo;t aware the games were even on, so ESPN is reserving judgment.&ldquo;We never project ratings and we said all along we&rsquo;d do it for a while, then re-evaluate,&rdquo; said network spokesman Diane Lamb.The box-office impact also won&rsquo;t be known until November. While the league drew a total of 101,415 for 17 games on opening weekend-an average of 5,996 and an increase of 1,570 per game compared to last season-officials say the lockout had no effect.Where the AHL may capitalize is with NHL fans in Buffalo, Hartford, Montreal Philadelphia and Ottawa. AHL games are just a short drive away and cost about $ 10.While the short-term effects are positive, some league executives believe they will be hurt by a long NHL lockout.&ldquo;Between the baseball strike and the hockey postponement, fans overall, instead of seeking alternatives are seeking alternatives to sports,&rdquo; said Steve Donner, president of the Rochester Americans and former vice-president of marketing for the Tampa Bay Lightning.Said Andrews: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re so closely affiliated with the NHL, if the lockout is long term, I don&rsquo;t think it will help us. Our players are very much motivated by the chance to move up.&rdquo; &#9632;

Little brother AHL filling hockey gap

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011484/6731146-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="504" height="790"><figcaption class="caption-body">Columnists differ on Bob Goodenow&rsquo;s stance. Page 6</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-04678/6731139-1-eng-US/f0002-042.jpg" title="f0002-04" width="500" height="790"><figcaption class="caption-body">Oilers question Bill Ranford&rsquo;s injury. Page 18</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03907/6731132-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="718" height="1203"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rob Niedermayer is eager to make up for a poor finish to 1993-94. Page 26</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-021224/6731125-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="506" height="830"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Carpenter is happy to be a Devils&rsquo; grinder. Page 25</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-05493/6731118-1-eng-US/f0002-052.jpg" title="f0002-05" width="504" height="832"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kevin Dineen handles turmoil well. Page 25</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-06375/6731111-1-eng-US/f0002-062.jpg" title="f0002-06" width="1233" height="2739"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hot ticket: Brett Hull&rsquo;s Blues dispute seat-price survey. Page 39 (Photo by Tim Parker)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Only Al knows where Al is.&rdquo;&ndash;Boston coach Brian Sutter said the team hasn&rsquo;t known Al Iafrate&rsquo;s whereabouts since the defenseman left camp. Page 11.&ldquo;This would never happen in Russia. They tell you to go play in Siberia, you play in Siberia. &ldquo;&ndash;Detroit&rsquo;s Vladimir Konstantinov on how the Soviets avoided labor conflicts. Page 38. &#9632;

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QUOTABLE

<div class="byline">By Steve Dryden Editor-in-Chief</div>NHL Players&rsquo; Association members customarily receive union due refund cheques each fall. This year they were dispensed earlier than usual, as reported in our Oct. 14 issue, and in larger amounts because of the lockout. The maximum was about $6,000-two years worth of dues. Signing bonuses are also being paid during the work stoppage. That represents a substantive cushion for some players. They also received $2,500 each for attending training camp. Meanwhile, Dallas Stars&rsquo; goalie Andy Moog said the players have contemplated staging a Canada Cupstyle tournament during a prolonged work stoppage. The games would be played in non-NHL cities and feature players from American-based teams against those on Canadian-based teams. &ldquo;There might be a situation where funds are needed to be generated,&rdquo; Moog said. &ldquo;But, obviously, that&rsquo;s something down the road.&rdquo;&hellip;Seen recently: A Tragically Hip T-shirt emblazoned with a logo in the shape of the NHL emblem. The Hip is one of Canada&rsquo;s hottest bands and, probably, the music world&rsquo;s most fervent hockey fans. It composed the haunting 50 Mission Cap. the story of Bill Barilko&rsquo;s death. Lead singer Gord Downie is Harry Sinden&rsquo;s godson. There&rsquo;s no word on whether the shirtmakers paid royalties to the NHL&hellip;Speaking of which, don&rsquo;t be misled by news $1 billion (U.S.) worth of NHL-licensed product was sold last year. The league&rsquo;s share of those nine figures is about $40 million-out of which comes the cost of running NHL Enterprises. Each team receives about $1 million in licensing money. The NHL Players&rsquo; Association also shares in the revenues, most of it related to trading cards. Their cut is around $20 million&hellip;NHLPA Be A Player apparel is hot. Requests for the snappy clothing line are coming in from all over North America because of the recent publicity bonanza. Players are seldom seen without some form of NHLPA identification. Executive director Bob Goodenow gets credit for coming up with the slogan, &ldquo;Be A Player.&rdquo;&hellip;The NHL has provided the union with what it considers a complete package of revenue disclosure from the 1992-93 season. It has more than 250 line entries per team and includes affiliate-entity revenues. The latter is where teams are expected to acknowledge transfers from one pocket to the other-a common practice among sister companies to share the wealth and minimize taxable income. NHL officials say no request was made for additional information. Not included are individual teams&rsquo; profit-and-loss statements&hellip;There have been reports the only thing holding back expansion is settlement of the CBA. League vice-president Jeff Pash denied that. He said no expansion committee has been struck and it has not been put on the board of governors&rsquo; agenda for its December meeting in Florida. A long list of contenders for expansion include Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, Charlotte, N.C., Portland, Ore., Seattle-Tacoma, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Denver, San Diego, Orlando and Milwaukee&hellip;The life of a hockey reporter is glamorous, indeed. Toronto-based Canadian Press writer Al Adams jetted to New York for Oct. 5 labor meetings. He worked all day and deep into the night and didn&rsquo;t get to his hotel until 1 a.m. Adams was told his reservation had been cancelled, although he had a guaranteed late arrival. He went to New York&rsquo;s Associated Press office and called around the city for a room. He finally found one. For $300. Since he was scheduled to leave that morning, he decided a room rate of roughly $100 per hour was excessive. Adams returned to AP, killed a couple of hours and took the first flight to Toronto. On his way home, his taxi was sideswiped by a hit-and-run driver. Adams got the driver&rsquo;s license number, but had to walk the rest of the way home&hellip;Recreational players at Centre Ice in suburban Toronto were surprised when they saw Brad May in an industrial league game. The Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; left winger played one game in a Toronto no-contact league. His team lost and May lost a friendly bet with his brother, Daryl, who outpointed the NHLer 1-0. The opposition paid extra attention to May, who played played it safe on defense. &ldquo;Every time I touched the puck, they played hard,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They had three guys on me.&rdquo; May signed a four-year, $4.6-million contract this past summer after can&rsquo;t take hockey away from us. It doesn&rsquo;t have ownership of the world&rsquo;s greatest game. We do. playing out his option in 1993-94 and becoming a Group I free agent. Those sympathetic to management point to May&rsquo;s contract as evidence the pendulum has swung too far in the players&rsquo; favor. May scored a career-high 18 goals last season and is regarded as a potential first-rate power forward. But he has yet to prove himself. &ldquo;I played out my option and I had a lot of leverage,&rdquo; May said. &ldquo;I could have moved without Buffalo having any control.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Contract language is an issue you haven&rsquo;t heard much about, but it will eventually be a hot topic of debate between the NHL and NHLPA. The league doesn&rsquo;t want guaranteed contracts or option-year contracts, but wants two-way contracts. They view all three as inflationary. Guaranteed contracts prevent teams from dumping players without paying at least one-third the remaining value of the contract for those under 26 and two-thirds for those over 26&hellip;The worst nightmare of NHL team scouting departments has come true: Frontoffice personnel has time on their hands. All GMs, assistant GMs, coaches, assistant coaches, trainers, stick boys, president, assistants to the president, etc., will be out scouting and formulating opinions. That means hassles for full-time scouts&hellip;NHL vice-president Brian Burke, one of the league&rsquo;s point men in labor negotiations, has had his contract extended through the 1995-96 season. Burke&rsquo;s name is mentioned every time there is a general manager&rsquo;s opening in the league. This announcement should end such speculation-for a couple of months anyway&hellip;An NHL source said it&rsquo;s premature to speculate on whether on-ice officials will be paid beyond 45 days in the event of a lockout. A clause in the collective bargaining agreement reached last year says referees and linesmen continue to receive paychecks 45 days into a strike. There is no specific provision for a lockout&hellip;Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; defenseman Jamie Macoun said Oct. 1 could be remembered as the day hockey died. He is wrong. Hockey didn&rsquo;t die on the first day of the NHL lockout. It survives and thrives on patches of ice and pavement all over the world. The NHL can&rsquo;t take hockey away from us. It doesn&rsquo;t have ownership of the world&rsquo;s greatest game. We do.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011639/6731222-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="366" height="367"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021308/6731215-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="379" height="565"><figcaption class="caption-body">Andy Moog</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03858/6731208-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="1193" height="1931"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brad May made a guest appearance for a Toronto industrial team.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-04472/6731201-1-eng-US/f0003-042.jpg" title="f0003-04" width="382" height="570"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian Burke</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Player cash still flowing

<div class="byline">Compiled by THN staff</div>Gordon Juckes, one of hockey&rsquo;s most influential men of the 1960s, died Oct. 4 in London, Ont., at the age of 80.Juckes held the position of executive director of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association for 10 years and helped initiate the involvement of professional Canadian players in to the World Championship in 1970.It was Juckes&rsquo; lobbying that prompted the International Ice Hockey Federation to allow nine pros to play on Canada&rsquo;s roster in games against the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Canada won a tournament in Russia, but was then banned from competition in the 1972 Winter Olympics.Juckes then went straight to Soviet authorities and negotiated an agreement that would-with the involvement of NHL Players&rsquo; Association executive director Alan Eagleson-lay the groundwork for the 1972 Summit Series. That battle evolved into the Canada Cup and eventually the involvement of professional players in Olympics.When the NHL expanded from six to 12 teams in 1967, Juckes said the fact 10 were based in the U.S. would reduce Canada to a &ldquo;gigantic hockey slave farm.&rdquo; He said the expansion was the &ldquo;final sellout&rdquo; of Canadian hockey as a sport by the pros.Juckes initiated Minor Hockey Week in Canada, is a lifetime member of the CAHA and I1HF, was inducted into Canada&rsquo;s Sports Hall of Fame and Hockey Hall of Fame and is a member of the Order of Canada.A memorial service was scheduled for Melville, Sask., for Oct. 11.U.S. REGROUPING: The U.S. went on the offensive and got burned in the World Junior Championships last year. Jeff Jackson doesn&rsquo;t want to see that happen again.Perhaps that&rsquo;s why he didn&rsquo;t name the likes of Bryan Berard and Deron Quint to his initial list of members for the U.S. national junior team, which will play in the WJC Dec. 26 to Jan. 4 in Red Deer, Alta.The U.S., racked by dissension, finished sixth at 1-5-1 last year.Berard, a 17-year-old defenseman compared to Brian Leetch. is playing for the Detroit Jr. Wings of the Ontario League. He&rsquo;s a top prospect for the 1995 entry draft. Quint, a second-round choice of the Winnipeg Jets in 1994, plays for the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western League.Both have plenty of time to prove themselves and will likely make the final roster. But Jackson, who coaches Lake Superior State University, wasn&rsquo;t about to make guarantees.&ldquo;Last year&rsquo;s team had an influx of offensive defensemen and we have the same problem this year,&rdquo; Jackson said. &ldquo;I like offensive defensemen, but we also need balance.&rdquo;Named to the team on defense were three players from the University of Minnesota-Mike Crowley, Brian LaFleur and Rick Mrozik. Joining them were Rory Fitzpatrick of the OHL&rsquo;s Sudbury Wolves and Ashlin Halfnight of Harvard.Named to the forward spots were Jon Battaglia (Lake Superior). Reg Berg (Des Moines-U.S. Jr. League), Adam Deadmarsh (Portland-WHL), Mike Grier (Boston University), Sean Haggerty (Detroit-OHL), Kevin Hilton (Michigan), Jamie Lan-genbrunner (Peterborough-OHL), Richard Park (Belleville-OHL) and Landon Wilson (North Dakota).Absent from the list was Jason Bonsignore, chosen fourth overall by the Edmonton Oilers. The center performed poorly on last year&rsquo;s team and said he soured on the program.Jackson said Bonsignore has had a change of heart since.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s in Jason&rsquo;s hands,&rdquo; Jackson said. &ldquo;If he wants to play, I&rsquo;ll be expecting a call from him-not from his agent, not from the Edmonton Oilers, but from Jason Bonsignore.&rdquo; &#9632;

Juckes pioneered pro involvement in world action

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div>With polite regret, Jean Beliveau turned down the opportunity to be Canada&rsquo;s next governor general.The opportunity was presented to the former NHL great by Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien. Beliveau retired as senior vice-president, corporate affairs with the Montreal Canadiens in August of 1993. He joined the Canadiens&rsquo; front office following his retirement in 1971.Beliveau, 63, and his wife Elise had dinner at 24 Sussex Drive (the PM&rsquo;s residence) with Chretien, the prime minister&rsquo;s wife Aline and some mutual friends Sept. 27.&ldquo;I was very tempted to accept,&rdquo; Beliveau said. &ldquo;It is one of the toughest decisions a person can face when your country calls on you. It&rsquo;s difficult to turn the opportunity down.&rdquo;It wasn&rsquo;t the first time Beliveau&rsquo;s name has been connected to politics. As charming and distinguished off the ice as he was graceful and determined on it during a splendid 20-year Hall-of-Fame career, Beliveau said various political groups have come calling.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been trying to get me into politics for years,&rdquo; Beliveau said. &ldquo;It started when I was a player back in the late sixties. (Former) prime minister (Brian) Mulroney asked me twice if I would be a member of the Senate. Five years ago, when Ray Hnatyshyn was named governor general my name was (also) mentioned for the job. I also heard, through very good sources, my name was mentioned 10 years ago when Jeanne Sauve was named (governor general).&rdquo;Beliveau said family obligations prompted him to turn down the calling. His only child, daughter Helene, is a 37-year-old widow with 10- and eight-year-old daughters.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011585/6731277-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="572" height="895"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jean Beliveau says even players should have to scale back.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;When I take any job, I have total commitment to it,&rdquo; Beliveau said. &ldquo;To leave the Montreal area for Ottawa for five years (length of the governor general&rsquo;s term of office), I would feel like I was abandoning my daughter and granddaughters. My daughter lives close to us and my wife and I like to help out as much as we can.&rdquo;Beliveau was one of the best centers to play in the NHL. He was already a great player when he left the Quebec Aces senior team to play for the Canadiens. Le Gros Bill scored 507 goals and 1,219 points in 1,125 games. He led the Canadiens to 10 Stanley Cup champions and was team captain for nine years.Beliveau recalls all his experiences in a new book, Jean Beliveau: My Life In Hockey to be released Oct. 28. He will soon embark on a six-week, coast-to-coast promotional tour.Beliveau resists the political urge to ride the fence when discussing the current NHL labor problems.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt the owners made this mess by giving players so much in previous agreements,&rdquo; Beliveau said. &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s hard for the owners to take things back. But the players have to realize every business has had to scale back. I don&rsquo;t think hockey can afford to give players any more than they are being given now. The players&rsquo; union must realize this.&rdquo;Beliveau favors a rookie salary cap.&ldquo;The Eric Lindros contract was a big mistake, followed closely by the Alexander Daigle contract,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My first loyalty will always be to players, but having worked in management for 20 years I now see the other side, too.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0005-01

Beliveau declines political posting

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div>International League teams entered a high-stakes waiting game to see which team, if any, will be the first to bite at the NHL&rsquo;s tantalizing lure.Detroit Vipers&rsquo; coach Rick Dudley confirmed at least 20 NHL players since the summer have expressed interest in playing for the team, among them are Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; star Doug Gilmour, Buffalo Sabre and Vezina Trophy winner Dominik Hasek, Ed Belfour of the Chicago Blackhawks and Washington Capitals&rsquo; holdout defenseman Kevin Hatcher. The Vipers averaged 19,000 fans through their first two home games and will have 60 games on television this year, making the expansion team an attractive locale for bored NHLers.Minnesota Moose director of player development Glen Sonmor said his team tried to get former Minnesota North Stars Mike Modano and Neal Broten of the Dallas Stars and Phil Housley of the Calgary Flames in uniform for their opening weekend games. All were interested, but risk-of-injury concerns scared them away.Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; defenseman Marty McSorley enquired about playing with the Las Vegas Thunder, where his brother Chris is assistant coach, if the NHL season does not open by Oct. 15.The widespread opinion is the first big-name player to step on the ice will open the floodgates.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s quite possible, but it wouldn&rsquo;t be us,&rdquo; Dudley said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not going to fire the first shot, though we&rsquo;re probably in a better position to do it than anybody else.&rdquo;Dudley says reports of the Vipers offering Hatcher several million dollars to play this season are wrong. &ldquo;We offered to make him the highest paid player in the league, but that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;The Vipers&rsquo; average salary of about $60,000 puts them in the middle of the league. Dudley said. Team averages are close to $1.2 million.But for all the talk and rumor, an NHL influx seems unlikely. While IHL general managers say they would be remiss if they didn&rsquo;t keep up with the Joneses, they acknowledge NHL players would have a disruptive influence on their teams.The league&rsquo;s fear is multi-faceted. Competitive balance would be drastically altered by the entry of a few star NHL players, particularly since the 10 NHL-affiliated teams would be hard-pressed to match the possible reach of non-affiliated clubs.The league also risks alienating fans dismayed by the exodus of talent once the NHL season begins, said IHL vice-president/communications Tim Bryant.&ldquo;The NHL players could see some short-term fan interest, but when they leave it could leave the fans disenchanted,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If we bring on NHL salaries we have to drive up ticket prices, and that&rsquo;s not consistent with the philosophy that has been working for us the last 50 years.&rdquo;Whether the players would be permitted to play under law is another matter. The NHL would seek to prevent players, arguing their contracts are still valid despite the work stoppage. Section 6 of the standard player&rsquo;s contract specifically provides teams the right to take legal action aimed at stopping contract players from suiting up with other teams.That provision may be respected in the short term by the courts, but over time the NHL&rsquo;s position would weaken. A person can&rsquo;t be enjoined from earning a living indefinitely, which the league has acknowledged.University of Toronto sports law professor Gordon Kirke said if a player went to a league outside the NHL. it would violate his NHL contract. A team seeking to rid itself of an expensive contract could argue in court to have the player&rsquo;s NHL contract declared void, he said. &#9632;

IHL eyes NHL bait, but hesitant to bite

<div class="byline">By Tony Gallagher</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011760/6731363-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="375" height="532"></div>The NHL Players&rsquo; Association is like most other organized labor groups. It would like to receive an appropriate share of the money it is earning for its owners. And the collective bargaining agreement that has been in place allows for the law of supply and demand to determine that compensation.It&rsquo;s amusing to see owners who made fortunes as capitalists trying to artificially control the market through a salary cap to keep from hitting the poor house.Commissioner Gary Bettman, on one hand, says teams would be sharing a collective loss, then admits the league is in fact making money.But by introducing the owners as the poor guys, the league starts down a slippery slope of reason.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021200/6731356-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="569" height="839"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Clarke</figcaption></div>If NHL teams are a losing proposition, why do outstanding business minds such as Wayne Huizenga and Michael Eisner cheerfully leap into it? Isn&rsquo;t it odd the rumored price for the next expansion teams likely in Atlanta and Portland is about $75 million? What a great world we live in when non-profitable businesses appreciate in value.The Vancouver Canucks recently stated they made just over $600,000 in 1993-94, a year when they hosted 12 post-season games. Does this mean if they hadn&rsquo;t made the playoffs they were going to have lost between $5-10 million? The playoff money by most NHLPA opinions pushed the Canucks&rsquo; revenue near $50-million for the season. With a payroll of just $13 million, how on earth could they possibly have lost money or made just $600,000 as they claim? Surely such a business should fire its president.Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; owner Mike Hitch is fond of mentioning how salaries have skyrocketed. The players are indeed happy with the progress of wages and are not crying foul despite the most restrictive agreement in pro sports.But the pizza baron fails to point out he purchased his Wings in 1981 for $3 million and the price of his investment now is somewhere in excess of $95 million. Not bad for a team in a league supposedly drowning in red ink.The owners claim they need help in order to save the small markets. We Canadians are particularly touched by their sudden interest in the well-being of the game our land so loves. Forget John McMullen shouting: &ldquo;To hell with small markets, that&rsquo;s not what this is about.&rdquo;You will remember this is the same group which gave Peter Pocklington carte blanche to move his team to Minnesota without a transfer fee. Where was their concern then?The owners and their general managers claim there is a mood of mistrust among the players. How could this possibly be? Why wouldn&rsquo;t anyone trust Bruce McNall? Why wouldn&rsquo;t you trust Pocklington, who defaulted on one of the largest loans in the history of Alberta? Why wouldn&rsquo;t you trust Mike Keenan, or if you trust Mike, Neil Smith? Why wouldn&rsquo;t you trust Pat Quinn, a man who took money from the team he was playing that January, 1987 night?Bob Clarke left a valid contract to go from the Philadelphia Flyers to Minnesota North Stars. Ditto Minnesota to the Florida Panthers. Ditto Florida back to Philadelphia. Steve Stavro is having his purchase of Maple Leaf Gardens challenged by the Public Trustee. Need we go on to Norm Green?Bettman asserted the league has gone from relative profitability four years ago to a much tougher present. Odd? We must have been away in those profitable years. Wasn&rsquo;t John Ziegler trying to tell us during that period how much money the league was losing with his tears and charts? Was Bettman calling John a fibber?Nobody is saying the owners&rsquo; labor costs have not risen. Nor are the players saying there aren&rsquo;t problems in the league that need to be addressed. What they are saying is they feel they&rsquo;ve made a genuine attempt to address the owners&rsquo; concerns. They are less certain the owners have been so genuine.Tony Gallagher is a hockey writer for the Vancouver Province. &#9632;

f0006-01

How can players trust NHL owners?

<div class="byline">By Steve Dryden</div>Unhappily, baseball has found a way of insinuating its way into the hockey world.Consider: Some games last year got so tangled up in the neutral zone they were as dull as anything ever witnessed on a diamond. That&rsquo;s going some.Consider: It was a former baseball owner who lashed the hardest hit of stalemated negotiations. Ex-Houston Astros&rsquo; and current New Jersey Devils&rsquo; boss John McMullen questioned Bob Goodenow&rsquo;s intelligence after one bargaining session.Consider: Goodenow and Gary Bettman are now both oh-for-two in hockey labor negotiations. Neither has reached agreement on a labor agreement without a work stoppage.Consider: The NHL Players&rsquo; Association believes the NHL is trying to hit a home run-a charge the league denies-rather than settle for an extra-base hit.Consider: If both sides don&rsquo;t choke up a little bit, protect the plate and settle for trying to get the ball into play, we&rsquo;re headed for the ultimate symbol of baseball.A lengthy shutdown.One week before the NHL&rsquo;s deadline/start-up date it appeared impossible play would begin Oct. 15. So little progress had been made, there was virtually no hope enough common ground could be reached in time for NHL commissioner Bettman to open the season.A range of issues remained unresolved, including the most contentious of all&mdash;a revenue-sharing system that spreads the wealth and limits salary growth.The players were expected to table a new proposal when talks resumed Oct. 10. The NHL scheduled a meeting of it board of governors Oct. 11 to discuss the NHLPA&rsquo;s latest proposal and determine a course of action.Its last proposal called for a 5.5-per-cent tax on team payrolls and gate receipts to raise a pool of money for distribution among low-revenue teams.The NHL calls its re-allocation and distribution system &ldquo;R2-D2.&rdquo;One thing is certain from an NHLPA perspective: This &ldquo;R2-D2&rdquo; is no friendly, little robot dedicated to preserving all that&rsquo;s good in the player universe. The union rejected two NHL proposals Oct. 5, both featuring the league&rsquo;s first-ever accommodations for gate-sharing as part of revenue-sharing plans.It was significant the NHL included gate sharing, but its proposal was lightyears removed from the NHLPA&rsquo;s 50-50 tax split on gate receipts and payroll.Neither of the league proposals was acceptable to the players who believe the tax rate ultimately acts as a cap aimed squarely at the highest-spending teams in the league. Among them are the St. Louis Blues, Detroit Red Wings and New York Rangers-each a high-revenue team whose spending habits have helped drive up the overall market.NHL teams are obliged to keep pace with league-wide standards. Many teams, including most Canadian clubs, view that as a financially exhausting pursuit. Bettman said more than half of the league&rsquo;s 26 teams are losing money.Boston Bruins&rsquo; general manager Harry Sinden said rising salaries have run over teams with the force of Chevrolet. He fears a Mack truck is on the road ahead.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03738/6731408-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="379" height="509"></div>Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; president Marcel Aubut said the Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets, Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo Sabres would lose a combined $40 million this year under the current deal.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t think the business is going down,&rdquo; Goodenow said before submitting the union&rsquo;s new proposal, &ldquo;and if it does go down, then our salaries will reflect it.We&rsquo;re willing to take that risk. We think hockey is in an upward mode.&rdquo;Owners say they are destined for a meltdown if a market correction isn&rsquo;t initiated. But in the face of those gloom-and-doom forecasts, franchise values continue to climb. And the players continue to fiercely protect their turf and oppose league plans-despite the offer of a guarantee they will receive no less in salaries than what they get now.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want a salary cap, we don&rsquo;t want a percentage of the gross,&rdquo; Goodenow said. &ldquo;The trade-off for (a guarantee) is we&rsquo;ll give you a cap underneath. We don&rsquo;t want a minimum or a guarantee. We&rsquo;ll let the market decide.&rdquo; Frustration has mounted during the collective bargaining process and tempers have flared.&ldquo;I have no hope that we&rsquo;re going to be able to reach an agreement,&rdquo; McMullen said Oct. 5. &ldquo;The most important thing of all when you deal with a union is to have an intelligent leader-and we didn&rsquo;t have one today.&rdquo;Bettman said the remark was inappropriate. Goodenow responded that something else McMullen said during meetings was more significant.&ldquo;Do you know what John McMullen said in the meeting?&rdquo; Goodenow told the Toronto Sun. &ldquo;He said, &lsquo;To hell with the small-market teams. That&rsquo;s not what it&rsquo;s about.&rsquo; &ldquo;Sinden hammered away at Goodenow, whom he labels the &ldquo;enemy&rdquo; of hockey.&ldquo;No matter what you do,&rdquo; Sinden said, &ldquo;no matter what you try, no matter what compromise position you come up with, no matter what effort you make to address what he sees as problems, they will be rejected until you finally get down to his position.&rdquo;&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been called a moderate or a dove, but right now I&rsquo;m feeling very much like a hawk,&rdquo; said Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; owner Howard Baldwin, who joined Sinden, McMullen, Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; governor Ronald Corey and Bettman&rsquo;s team in ownership&rsquo;s first appearance at the bargaining table.Sinden said NHL owners were outfoxed by Goodenow in 1992 when a last minute settlement ended a 10-day players&rsquo; strike and saved the post-season.&ldquo;Mr. Goodenow has a different group of people to deal with this time,&rdquo; Sinden said. &ldquo;We will never capitulate.&rdquo;It would have been more appropriate had the union leader announced the players will never &ldquo;capitulate.&rdquo; NHL insistence on a tax system that, in the players&rsquo; estimation, is nothing more than a salary cap dressed up in a skirt and blouse remains the major stumbling block to an agreement.The league tax is part of an overall system that includes stricter arbitration and contract language, an entry-level system of compensation and more liberalized free agency. Even the lure of greater freedom of movement hasn&rsquo;t moved the players.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-04453/6731401-1-eng-US/f0006-042.jpg" title="f0006-04" width="512" height="538"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011600/6731394-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="1783" height="1477"><figcaption class="caption-body">Players are united in their fight against the league in collective bargaining agreement negotiations. (Photo by John Giamundo/BBS)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;If you have a salary cap,&rdquo; said NHLPA vice-president Kelly Miller, &ldquo;then what&rsquo;s the sense of having free agency? You&rsquo;ve seen the movement in basketball where they have free agency. They have a salary cap, so there is no movement.&rdquo;The league says its system isn&rsquo;t a cap; it&rsquo;s a drag on salaries.The latest NHL proposals, turned back by the players, were projected to raise about $20 million in re-allocation funds. More important to the players was the tax bite that would hit the league&rsquo;s highest-spending teams.First, the league proposed a tax-credit system. Here&rsquo;s how it would work:Teams would be taxed three per cent on gate receipts. That total, say $600,000 on $20 million in gate revenues, would act as a tax credit against a payroll tax faced by teams exceeding the trigger point-$14 million (U.S.).Using the above numbers, a team&rsquo;s trigger point would be raised by about $2.4 million (the tax on an overage of that amount would be about $600,000) to $16.4 million. Teams could spend up to that much on players without paying any tax.The players rejected the proposal, in part, because they believe teams would dump salaries to get under or near the trigger point. The NHL counters the NHLPA&rsquo;s 5.5-per-cent tax system is more likely to cause salary dumping because 22 of 26 teams pay more.Second, the league proposed a revised plan with a &ldquo;dollar-one&rdquo; tax-a tax that applies to the entire payroll, not just the surplus. Here&rsquo;s how it would work:Teams would be taxed three per cent on gate receipts and payroll from dollar one, starting at a marginal rate of .5 per cent for the first million (i.e. $5,000), increasing by that amount for each incremental $1 million up to $14 million (the last $1 million would be taxed at a rate of seven per cent, totalling $70,000) and then rising five per cent per incremental $325,000 up to a maximum marginal tax rate of 122 per cent on payrolls at or above $21.5 million.What would teams pay? The greatest of three numbers: the result of gate receipt tax minus payroll tax; the result of payroll tax minus gate receipt tax; or gate receipt tax alone.Again, the players declined-presumably because the hit on trend-setting, high-spending teams was still high.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s clearly a system that will cap salaries,&rdquo; Goodenow said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s our position. That has been our position and that will be our position.&rdquo;Determining what a team such as the Blues, who unofficially led the league in September payrolls at $23.5 million, would pay under the second proposal is difficult because transition-period clauses are unknown.Details of the last NHL proposals are sketchy because they are covered by a confidentiality agreement signed by both parties. Information on gate receipts is a privileged piece of information in the NHL, but it&rsquo;s known there is a wide variance between the teams. Top-level teams take in 2-1/2 to three times as much as low-level teams.After the Oct. 5 meeting, an NHL propaganda blitz included several contentions:&#9633; Player salaries have increased 60 per cent in signings since the end of 1993-94.&#9633; The union failed to inform its membership the league has offered five ways of guaranteeing player salaries will not fall below the current floor.&#9633; The league has provided the union with the most comprehensive financial reporting document ever submitted during the collective bargaining process.Most alarming was a suggestion players and agents didn&rsquo;t understand the league had offered a hard floor. There was evidence not everybody on the players&rsquo; side understood that part of the NHL proposal and some agents said they would call Goodenow for clarification.Goodenow said he informed the players of the guarantee in a handout.The NHL also produced a memorandum from the 1992 CBA that indicates Goodenow agreed to discuss an National Basketball Association-style cap by September, 1993. Goodenow said he agreed to the stipulation as a face-saving (if not job-saving) gesture for then-NHL president John Ziegler and that a plan to form a joint economic study committee was never executed.What could be executed next is the NHL season.It is in serious jeopardy.The league says its objective is to put a drag on escalating salaries. The players say it&rsquo;s too much of a drag. Fans all over the hockey world simply say, &ldquo;What a drag.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0006-03

Season hangs in the balance

<div class="byline">By Larry Brooks</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-021079/6731446-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="377" height="534"></div>I do not believe that hockey players make too much money. I do not believe that one should feel sorry for even a single NHL owner.What I do believe is the system proposal submitted by the NHL in its collective bargaining negotiations with the NHL Players&rsquo; Association makes perfect sense and that the players should stop dealing in righteous and empty No Cap! sloganeering and negotiate with an open mind for the collective good of their league.So far, they have not.NHL players have never bargained in a free market. Compensation; equalization; drafts; waivers. They&rsquo;re part of the deal in team sports.The concept of a luxury tax replacing the compensation and equalization inhibitions in the hockey market entices me. The establishment of a minimum payroll using designated revenue from the tax fund entices me. It is not a cap.I am telling you that if a minimum payroll of, say, $12.5 million had been established for this season, Slava Fetisov, incredibly unemployed, would be playing today for a team under the minimum.I am telling you that if a tax had been the only restriction on freeagent signings this summer, Mike Richter, Stanley Cup winning goaltender, would have had more than one team with which to negotiate.I am telling you that if a tax is the only impediment to signing prospective free-agent prize Scott Niedermayer next summer, the bidding will open at $2 million per. The Florida Panthers are under the minimum; how much would they pay to unite the Niedermayer brothers?If the current system remains in effect, the Group I free agent will sign with the New Jersey Devils for $1 million per season if he&rsquo;s fortunate and wins arbitration.I am neither an &ldquo;owners&rsquo; guy&rdquo; nor a &ldquo;players&rsquo; guy.&rdquo; I have no vested interest in the outcome of these negotiations. But it is clear to this &ldquo;hockey guy&rdquo; that this CBA must ensure the collective strength of the league, which may not equate to continued spiraling income for the players and certainly does not equate to the New York Rangers using the Edmonton Oilers of the world as farm clubs.I believe it is vital for the league&rsquo;s unique character that as many teams as possible survive in Canada even if that means the average player salary reaches just $775,000 and not $900,000 in the next three years.If players can&rsquo;t find an ethical, public trust basis for which to keep teams in smaller, less-profitable markets, they can surely agree it is in their own best interest to keep teams where they are so that new markets in the U.S. are reserved for expansion teams.If cities such as Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte. Houston and Seattle-Tacoma become receptacles for the Hartford Whalers, Winnipeg Jets, Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques Nordiques and Calgary Flames, then which cities are left for expansion teams that create jobs and prolong careers of veterans?In hockey, it isn&rsquo;t simply big market/small market. It&rsquo;s also good lease/bad lease, own the building/rent the building. The Devils are a bigmarket team that rents with a bad lease. John McMullen will make money when he sells the Devils, but no sane capitalist will buy that team and keep it in New Jersey.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-03693/6731439-1-eng-US/f0007-032.jpg" title="f0007-03" width="570" height="846"><figcaption class="caption-body">John McMullen</figcaption></div>What of the writers and broadcasters and players who implore the owners to run their teams as businesses? Excuse me, but aren&rsquo;t these the same people currently screaming at the top of their lungs for the Rangers to &ldquo;give Messier what he wants!&rdquo;Wait a second. Are all of the players really going to stop skating so that the Rangers can buy the Stanley Cup every year?This league proposal makes sense. This taxation concept with its designated funds not only ensures the viability of the NHL, it ensures its growth. No one is victimized. Let the baseball players stay out; this isn&rsquo;t their fight.NHL players, the only thing you have to fear is (Don) Fehr himself.Larry Brooks is a hockey writer for the New York Post. &#9632;

f0007-02

League’s proposal makes sense

As a member of the NHLFA (NHL Fans&rsquo; Association) I feel its about time for a change.We demand caps on ticket prices, caps on food and drink prices and the right to trade arena attendants and security personnel to other sections. We demand profit sharing for cable television revenues with credits to our cable bills.If our demands are not met, we will be forced to support baseball. Hmmm, I mean basketball. Well&hellip;all right football, if we have to.Brett Donde, Long Beach, N. Y.<h2>Let&rsquo;s speak up</h2>As a longtime dedicated hockey fan, I see the day when the average fan will be deprived of seeing the game in person.After seeing the player salaries in your Sept. 30 issue, one has to wonder just when the players and owners will have enough money. Owners and players are well on their way to pricing themselves out of business.Through all of this, fans have stood by passively. Maybe it&rsquo;s time to speak up before it&rsquo;s too late.Please send your comments to Zig Mintha, Box 651. Eganville, Ont., Canada, KOJ 1TO. Your responses will be sent to the players and the owners to remind them that they&rsquo;re biting the hand that feeds them.Zig Mintha, Eganville, Ont.<h2>Cap ticket prices</h2>Forget the salary cap. How about a ticket-price cap?It would be great to see a clause in the next collective bargaining agreement acknowledging who really makes money for both the players and the owners-the fans.It would even help the small markets. I bet attendance in places such as Hartford would increase with a lower cost of admission. Any businessperson knows getting customers into the store is the most important step.Both sides in this issue are looking quite greedy right now and this would be a public relations coup.In the meantime, I&rsquo;ll continue holding my breath.John Tranchina, New Brunswick, N.J.<h2>Bye, NHL</h2>An open letter to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman:I would like to personally congratulate you for severely crippling the world&rsquo;s greatest sport.Why are you locking out the players? They promised not to strike this season. But remember, the fans are also being locked out.I believe you have consciously and maliciously brought the labor situation to an impasse to try to force the NHL Players&rsquo; Association into an unfavorable position.When you were asked about giving your final offer, you said: &ldquo;If I had given my last, best offer and they rejected it, where would we be?&rdquo; Just when will you give your final of-fer-January?I hold you responsible for this. I will not be back. The Chicago Wolves of the International League will now get my business-even if they have the stupid shootout rule in case of ties.William Cummings, Barrington Hills, Ill.<h2>Don&rsquo;t blow it</h2>Another open letter to Bettman:Gary, don&rsquo;t blow it. Under your direction, the NHL has made terrific strides in broadening its appeal and improving the image of the game.Now the NHL owners are putting everything that you have accomplished at risk. Why? To support a handful of under-capitalized owners in minor league cities-Hartford and Winnipeg are good examples-and to try to break a union that has been one of the most flexible and cooperative in pro sports.So what&rsquo;s it going to be, Gary? You face a choice at this critical juncture. You can be remembered as the Bud Selig of hockey: an overmatched mouthpiece for the most militant and least competent of the owners. Or you can be remembered as the man who demanded the owners confront reality and put their own house in order for the good of the game.Here&rsquo;s one lifelong fan hoping you make the right decision.Lawrence B, Stollar, Annandale Va.<h2>Joke not funny</h2>Once again, NHL vice-president Brian Burke has shown he has no guts in making a ruling. His three-game suspension on Shawn McEachern for slashing Calle Johansson during last year&rsquo;s playoffs is a complete joke.Why don&rsquo;t we just go back to the good old days of John Ziegler? At least he didn&rsquo;t make anyone believe he was competent or serious when he made a ruling.Jeffrey Chen, Rockville, Md.Make your feelings known. Fax us your comments at&nbsp;(416) 445-2501&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 Letters, The Hockey News, P.O. Box 904, Buffalo, N.Y., 14240-9947. Include home and business phone numbers.&nbsp;THN&nbsp;reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

Don’t force us to support football

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011653/6731501-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0008-01

ELSTON

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><h2>NHL tough guy has big heart</h2>1. Kelly Chase Spends lockout running hockey school for developmentally handicapped in St. Louis.2. Jocelyn Thibault Records shutout for Sherbrooke upon lockout-related return to junior hockey.3. Batting 1.000 Major junior teams in Detroit, Brandon, Kamloops undefeated.4. Burke staying on NHL extends senior V-P Brian Burke&rsquo;s contract through 1995-96 season.5. NHL players of week All defensive-defenseman who otherwise don&rsquo;t receive recognition.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021287/6731532-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="568" height="748"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kelly Chase</figcaption></div><h2>Leave theatrics to Hollywood</h2>1. Negotiating theatrics Nevermind posturing for the media, just get a deal done.2. Thieves Some high-profile NHLers would steal jobs of low-paid minor-leaguers during lockout.3. Road kill Quebec League&rsquo;s Val d&rsquo;Or Foreurs 0-8-0 in first eight road games.4. In-fighting Edmonton Oiler management, players snipe at each other over sincerity of injuries.5. Syracuse Crunched AHL team blows leads of four and three goals in tie and loss. &#9632;

f0008-02

PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011572/6731570-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Quebec Nordiques need instant results from Peter Forsberg. (Photo by John Giamundo/BBS)</figcaption></div>Paul Kariya didn&rsquo;t make much of an impression in his first ever NHL game, except for the ones in the boards.He learned quickly how opponents treat uninitiated talent. They throw pointed elbows at every turn. They flatten you against the boards. The Dallas Stars&rsquo; welcoming committee pounded the Mighty Duckling of Anaheim at every opportunity.&ldquo;The first game was pretty rough, they were trying to test me,&rdquo; Kariya said. &ldquo;I got a few high shots at my head and it also didn&rsquo;t help that we didn&rsquo;t have either Stu Grimson or Todd Ewen in the lineup.&rdquo;Then the adaptation process kicked in. Mighty Ducks of Anaheim coach Ron Wilson discovered it isn&rsquo;t wise to send his meal ticket onto the ice without muscle on the bench. The meal gets eaten. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like Stu says, his job is to create a safe working environment,&rdquo; said Anaheim general manager Jack Ferreira.With the right protection, Kariya has shown he can be a productive worker. The fourth pick in the 1993 entry draft led the Ducks in pre-season scoring with three goals and eight points in seven games.He was one of eight rookies to lead his team in scoring. Doug Barrault of the Dallas Stars; Zigmund Palffy of the New York Islanders; Pavol Demitra of the Ottawa Senators; Alexander Selivanov of the Tampa Bay Lightning; Mike Peca of the Vancouver Canucks; and Viktor Kozlov and Jeff Friesen of the San Jose Sharks were the others.Other prominent first-year players include Quebec Nordique Peter Forsberg, Anaheim defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky, Toronto Maple Leaf rearguard Kenny Jonsson, New York Islanders&rsquo; forward Brett Lindros and Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; goalie Jamie Storr.Things got better for Kariya after his first game. He quickly discovered he could do more by getting rid of the puck and using his speed before single-minded defensemen had any chance of catching him in close quarters.The 20-year-old Vancouver native led Canada in scoring last year at the World Championships and the Olympics, but said the NHL is a different game. &ldquo;Everything here happens so much quicker.&rdquo;As the exhibition scheduled progressed, Kariya began to find the seams on the ice and gain confidence, scoring shorthanded breakaway goals in games against Dallas and the Vancouver Canucks.He started clicking with linemates Anatoli Semenov and fellow rookie Valeri Karpov. They spoke Russian on the bench. Kariya rushed.An example of Kariya&rsquo;s skill came against the Boston Bruins in the last pre-season game. He had three assists, including one on the winning goal, in a 4-3 Anaheim victory.He was being hounded in the comer by Raymond Bourque when he whirled and lofted a blind backhand pass across the ice, past a pile-up in front of the net. &ldquo;over the junk&rdquo; and onto Karpov&rsquo;s stick.Karpov easily scored Anaheim&rsquo;s fourth goal. Players on the Anaheim bench stood in awe.&ldquo;It was an impossible pass,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;You thought, like at times some of the passes (Wayne) Gretzky makes, he couldn&rsquo;t have seen that.&rdquo;Talking about it later. Kariya couldn&rsquo;t remember which pass Wilson was referring to because he made a few similar ones in the same game. But have no doubt: Kariya knew what he was doing. &ldquo;Yeah,&rdquo; he assured, &ldquo;it wasn&rsquo;t that hard.&rdquo;<h2>ROOKIE DINNERS ON THESE GUYS</h2>Peter Forsberg and Paul Kariya will likely battle for the Calder Trophy. If one of them wins, at least there will be something to distinguish them. Kariya and Forsberg have the same agent in Don Baizley and identical contracts. Below are the top 10 contracts for 1994-95 rookies. Included are draft year and position, durations of contracts including option years, and average yearly salary in the NHL in millions of dollars (m).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021112/6731563-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="750" height="416"></div> &#9632;

f0009-01

Baby Duck Kariya leads rookie cast

The class ot 1994-95 was ready for class until the school decided to extend summer holidays.Sixty-three rookies were ready to start the season and the Calder Trophy race before the postponement. To be eligible for the Calder, a player must not have played 25 games the previous season or six games in each of the previous two seasons.We have excluded the Calder age requirement that players be under 26ANAHEIM Paul Karlya, LW, 20. Won Hobey Baker award as top U.S. college player in 1993.Valeri Karpov, RW, 23 Boyhood idol was Sergei Makarov.Oleg Tverdovsky, D, 18, Second overall pick in 1994 draft has great speed.John Littey, RW, 22. Played for U.S. in 1994 Olympics.BOSTON Mariusz Czerkawski, RW, 22. Scored three goals lor Bruins in 1994 playoffs.Blaine Lacher, G, 24. Shut out Philadelphia in pre-season.John Gruden, D, 24. Strong skater was 199394 NCAA West All-America.Buffalo Viktor Gordiouk, LW, 24. Improved defensive play earned roster spot.Denis Tsygurov, D, 23, Tough player broke jaw playing over summer in Russia.Calgary Jason Muzzatti, G, 24. Allowed eight goats In only NHL game last seasonVesa Viitakoski, LW, 23. Was captain of Finnish world junior team in 1991.Chicago Brent Grieve, LW, 25, Playing for third NHL team in past yearSergei Krivokrasov, RW, 20. Once-poor fitness level much Improved.Dallas Todd Harvey, C, 19. Was assistant captain of 1994 Canadian junior national team.Janko Varvio, RW, 22. Finesse scorer started last season in Dallas.Detroit Tim Taylor. Center, 25 1993-94 AHL leading scorer will be defensive rote player.Jason York, D, 24. 1994 first-team AHL allEdmonton Fred Brathwaite, G, 21. Had 3.54 average in 19 games with Oilers last year.Todd Marchant, C, 21, Acquired from Rangers lor Craig MacTavish.Roman Oksiuta, RW, 24. Came to Oilers in Kevin Lowe trade.David Oliver, RW, 23. Led team with our preseason goalsFlorida Doug Barrault, RW, 24. Scored 36 goals with Cincinnati In IHL last seasonHartford Marek Malik, D, 19. 6-foot-5, 185-pounder Chris Pronger&rsquo;s bookend.Los Angeles Matt Johnson, LW, 18. Fought Stu Grimson twice in pre-season game.Jamie Storr, G, 18. Fighting for spot with Kelly Hrudey, Robb Stauber.Montreal Donald Brashear, LW, 22. 34 PIM. four points in 14 games last seasonGerry Fleming, LW, 27. 6-foot-5, 240-pound behemoth had 188 PIM in 46 AHL games last year.Brian Savage, C, 23. Scored two goals for Canada in 1994 Olympics.Turner Stevenson, RW, 22. Big bruiser adds toughness along boards.New Jersey Ben Hankinson, LW, 25, Strong winger scored one goal in 1994 playoffsDavid Emma, C, 25. Five goals in 15 Devil games last yearJim Dowd, C, 25. Chosen 149th overall in 1987 draft.Islanders Yan Kaminsky, LW, 23. Good preseason game against Devils secured spot.Brett Lindros, RW, 18 Will wear No. 75, his Year of birth.Jamie McLennan, G, 23. Had 2.84 average in 22 games last year.Zigmund Palffy, LW, 22. Outstanding playmaker should finally break through.Rangers Darren Langdon, LW, 23 New tighter on block hails from Deer Lake. Nfld.Joby Messier, D, 24. Sprained left knee hampered training camp.Ottawa Pavol Demitra, C, 19, Natural goal scorer played with Alexei Yashin in camp.Radim Bicanek, D, 19. Relumed to OHL&rsquo;s Belleville Bulls during lockout.Claude Savoie, RW, 21. 70-goal scorer in junior Impressed with defensive game.Philadelphia Vladislav Boulin, D, 22. Likes to play physical, pins forwards in comer.Patrik Juhlin, RW, 24. Played with Eric Lindros on top line in pre-seasonChris Therien, D, 22. Good lateral movement in 6-foot-5, 237-pound giant.Pittsburgh Len Barrie, C, 25, Improved conditioning has helped quicknessChris Tamer, D, 23 Pointless in 12 games with Penguins last season.Quebec Adam Deadmarsh, RW, 19 Rugged forward had 24 pre-season penalty minutes.Peter Forsberg, C, 21. Should be one of Nord-iques&rsquo; best-immediately.St. Louis Dennis Chasse, RW, 24. Four goals, three fights in six pre-season gamesDenny Felsner, RW, 24 If stays healthy, will be expected to score.Craig Johnson, LW, 22. Good skater in line for checking-line duty.San Jose Jeff Friesen, C, 18, 11th overall pick in 1994 has been pleasant surprise.Viktor Kozlov, LW, 19. Sixth pick in 1993 has great size, on-ice visionAndrel Nazarov, LW, 20 6-foot-6, 230-pounder needs to be more physical.Michal Sykora, D, 21. Has size, speed, good shot from point.Tampa Bay Alexander Selivanov, RW, 23. Drafted by Flyers this year, traded two months later.Jason Wiemer, LW, 18. Had 96 points. 236 PM tor Portland in WHL last season.Toronto Kenny Jonsson, D, 20. Puckhandling, skating abilities impressive.Todd Warmer, LW, Injury at beginning of camp hampered progress.Vancouver Mike Peca, RW, 20. One of Canucks&rsquo; best players in camp.Washington Jason Allison, C, 19. Concern is skating, great with puck.Ken Klee, D, 23 Won five-way battle tor last defenseman spot.Olle Kolzig, G, 24. Was MVP of AHL playoffs last seasonWinnipeg Arto Blomsten, D, 29 Played 10 seasons for Djurgarden in Swedish League.Michal Grosek, RW, 19. Was on Jet bubble when lockout hit. &#9632;

Freshman class waits to crack books

<div class="byline">By Jay Greenberg</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011631/6731625-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="380" height="534"></div>What a magnanimous gesture it was for the players to offer to give up the privilege of striking so they could continue to take 61 per cent of the NHL&rsquo;s gross revenues.What great concern they show for the future of the game by wanting to keep the rinks open and the turnstiles moving at a greater cost than too many owners can afford.What a Machiavellian, personally motivated, know-nothing-and-care-nothing-for-the-game Gary Bettman must be to want to bring costs under control before teams have to be sold, moved or folded.I&rsquo;m sorry, but we all have our breaking point. I reached mine when Brad May, a winger who scored 18 goals last season, became a $1-million-a-year player.Gary Bettman? The bottom-line-transfixed, wouldn&rsquo;t-know-Mario-Lemieux-from-Jocelyn-Lemieux basketball guy who needlessly provoked an officials&rsquo; strike a year ago? Bettman is the kind of guy who, if it served his purposes, would unblinkingly insist to you Brett Hull is Jody Hull. As a person, he might be a bad fit for a white horse and a flowing white robe. But he is the only Messiah hockey has.It&rsquo;s understandable if players don&rsquo;t want to hear it. I don&rsquo;t even want to write it. I have heard tales of Bettman temper tantrums in his days as the don&rsquo;t-you-dare-cross-me keeper of the National Basketball Association salary cap. I saw first-hand how Bettman threw his first serious offer to the NHL officials last November with you-had-better-take-it-or-you&rsquo;ll-regret-it contempt.The NHL commissioner warned the officials not to negotiate through the news media, then walked outside and handed reporters a grid that compared his offer to what officials were making in the other sports.The NHL officials were secretly relieved to see that offer. If Bettman had not insulted them, their next counter would have been very close to the eventual settlement. The strike served the new commissioner&rsquo;s ego, nothing else.I sided with the officials because they were badly underpaid in relation to their importance. Entry level and trainee&rsquo;s salaries were so ridiculously low many promising amateur officials could not consider a career change.The players, however, are well past the point of being underpaid. Thus, the salary cap NHL Players&rsquo; Association executive director Bob Goode-now has allowed to become a dealbreaker is really only an ego breaker for himself.The cap is not a principle worthy of a shutdown. There are already restrictions on movement and for the good of the game there always will be, so to make the cap a deal-or-no-deal issue is to box the players and the game into a comer.Instead, the players should be seeking as high and soft a cap as they can get without missing too many paychecks. The next CBA should allow for each team to designate one franchise, cap-exempt, player and if the owners want a five-year deal, the Association should insist on the right to re-open after two or three, just to make sure it isn&rsquo;t accepting less than the market will bear.Owners being owners, will hide whatever revenues they can. So if the players accept a cap or a tax or however it is defined in Bettmanspeak, they should not make the mistake of their football brethren by not securing a share of the league&rsquo;s licensing money.The players should then hammer away for less equalization and more freedom at a younger age, all the while thinking the way real unions do: If you save franchises in Edmonton, Calgary, Quebec City and Winnipeg, four more U.S. cities will be open for expansion franchises, which will mean more jobs.In the meantime, the players should grow up and realize Bettman isn&rsquo;t unilaterally fighting this battle over the objections of Bill Wirtz and Ed Snider. Of course, it was petty and even counter-productive for Bettman to cut out the training camp per diem, but that&rsquo;s making a mountain out of a molehill in light of salaries that have almost tripled in the last four years.With the sport poised to boom in the U.S., obviously this is not a great time for a shutdown. But next year wouldn&rsquo;t figure to be a better time, either. One October schedule played in the void left by the baseball strike isn&rsquo;t going to open or close the NHL&rsquo;s window of growth.So I don&rsquo;t really have to like Bettman to see he is a convenient target, not the real enemy. In 1978, the last time the NHL&rsquo;s books were so badly out of balance, the NHLPA put its money where its mouth was, financing the abandoned Cleveland Barons through the end of the season.Sixteen years later, the players only play to the grandstand while keeping a concealed gun stuck in the game&rsquo;s ribs. Shame on them. &#9632;

f0010-01

Players holding game hostage

<div class="byline">By Michael Ulmer</div>In a game sometimes punctuated by brutal violence, Chris Chelios is among the meanest of the junkyard dogs. He hits harder and less judiciously than any player.Last year was his third straight season of over 200 penalty minutes. He was suspended for eight games, four for abuse of an official and four for gouging the eye of Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; defenseman Dana Murzyn during a punch-up. He paid a total of $80,708 in fines.Where players often nurse feelings of persecution from officials in private, Chelios talks of it openly. After being suspended in the Murzyn incident, Chelios said he felt referees Kerry Fraser, Denis Morel and Bill McCreary picked on his team, the Chicago Blackhawks.That mix of passion and recklessness on the ice and off has given the NHL one of its most controversial and charismatic figures. One defenseman the past decade, Boston Bruins&rsquo; Ray Bourque has achieved more than Chelios, a two-time Norris Trophy winner and a three-time all-star.A native of Chicago, Chelios is an American with a Canadian&rsquo;s passion for the game. And when the season was postponed and he was faced with the prospect of not playing, he delivered a verbal two-hander to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman that was described nicely as ill-chosen, more bluntly as idiotic.&ldquo;I took it pretty tough and pretty personal that we weren&rsquo;t going to be playing hockey on time,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;Call it panic, call it anger, it&rsquo;s just something I&rsquo;ve never had to deal with before.&rdquo;That rage manifested itself into a bizarre television interview on the eve of the lockout.&ldquo;If I was Gary Bettman, I&rsquo;d be worried about my family,&rdquo; said Chelios. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d be worried about my wellbeing now. Some crazed fans, or even a player-who knows?-they might take matters into their own hands and figure they get him out of the way and things might get settled.&rdquo;In a bitter twist of irony, the player who was so upset the season wasn&rsquo;t starting on time likely won&rsquo;t be in the lineup when it finally begins. He faces a possible suspension and fine for his outburst.Chelios was sorry about the remarks almost as soon as they were out of his mouth. That evening, he tried to contact Bettman to apologize and spoke to NHL counsel Jeff Pash and league vice-president Brian Burke. The next day, he apologized to Bettman and Blackhawks&rsquo; owner Bill Wirtz.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021211/6731656-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="952" height="1947"><figcaption class="caption-body">Chris Chelios vows to make up for his threatening remarks. (Photo by Jim Leary/BBS)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;All I can do is apologize,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no way I would wish anything bad on anybody or their family. It was never meant to be a threat, just a comment. A very bad comment.&rdquo;The quote almost knocked Tom Reich. Chelios&rsquo; agent, out of his seat in a New York hotel room.&ldquo;I characterized this as tackling a guy 10 yards out of bounds with forearm to the head,&rdquo; Reich said. &ldquo;This was something way beyond the bounds of behavior and Chris understood that.&ldquo;Chris wears his heart on his sleeve. He does not censor his thoughts very well and he is very excitable but that&rsquo;s just part of his makeup. Chris has so many friends because he has a good heart.&rdquo;Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; left winger Luc Robitaille said it&rsquo;s necessary to understand the man behind the comments.&ldquo;You have to know him,&rdquo; Robitaille said. &ldquo;Telling Chris Chelios he can&rsquo;t play hockey is like cutting off his arm. Nobody wants to play more than he does.&rdquo;The only bright side of the lockout for Chelios is it has given him time to help out at the hockey school his five-and three-year-old sons attend.&ldquo;The thing that has helping me the most, my boys have started hockey,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going on the ice and helping out their instructors. I&rsquo;m around the rink, around kids, and it&rsquo;s pretty well where I want to be right now.&rdquo;Chelios is active in children&rsquo;s charities in the Chicago area through his Chelly&rsquo;s Children foundation for disabled children.&ldquo;I do want to be a role model for kids because I love kids,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I made a mistake and I know I&rsquo;ll make up for it because I&rsquo;ll do just about anything for hockey. People who know me know what kind of person I am.&rdquo;Controversy and Chelios seem an inseparable tandem. His name will surface later this season in another off-ice development. He is being sued by his former agent Don Meehan, for non-payment of funds. None of Chelios, Meehan or Reich would comment.&ldquo;Time,&rdquo; Chelios said, &ldquo;always seems to heal anything.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-02

Ultimate warrior

<div class="byline">By Mike Loftus</div>He heard the rumblings about it in his native Finland over the summer, but Mikko Makela chose to ignore them.He knew there was a chance the NHL season might be delayed by the lack of a collective bargaining agreement, but he concentrated more on how he was going to make the most of his second chance in the NHL.&ldquo;I heard there was a possibility this might happen,&rdquo; Makela said shortly after he and the Bruins practised for the last time before NHL commissioner Gary Bettman postponed the season&rsquo;s start until Oct. 15, &ldquo;but I didn&rsquo;t really believe it. In fact, I still don&rsquo;t believe it.&rdquo;Ironically, the possibility of a lockout gave the 6-foot-1, 194-pound left winger a chance to test a new philosophy. He adopted the new approach upon leaving the NHL after spending 1990-91 with the Buffalo Sabres. Unhappy at being traded twice in less than a year, he left the league and returned to Finland.&ldquo;I learned then there are things you can&rsquo;t control, so there&rsquo;s no sense in worrying about them,&rdquo; Makela said. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s going to happen is going to happen and all I can do is go out and play my best. That&rsquo;s all I can control.&rdquo;Makela played well during training camp. He was one of the Bruins&rsquo; most visible players during their week-long series of scrimmages early in camp, and continued to have his moments in his exhibition games.&ldquo;We thought Mikko had a great camp,&rdquo; said assistant general manager Mike O&rsquo;Connell. &ldquo;There were a few worries when he was signed about how well he&rsquo;d play after three years out of the league, but he worked hard and played well. Mikko was a player in this league when he first got here and we think we got pretty much the same player. He can help us.&rdquo;Makela, who scored 76 goals in his first three seasons as a New York Islander (1985-86 through a 36-goal season in &rsquo;87-88), wasn&rsquo;t as impressed as O&rsquo;Connell, but he was satisfied.&ldquo;My camp and exhibitions were okay,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Nothing spectacular, but nothing terrible. I think I proved I can still play in this league, although I would like to have done more.&rdquo;Makela signed as a free agent in May after spending the past three seasons overseas. He played in the Swedish Elite League last year, as well as for Finland in the Olympics and World Championships.In six pre-season games, Makela had just one goal on 13 shots.&ldquo;I should have scored more than just once,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I had a lot of chances and that shows you&rsquo;re doing the right things. The only time you&rsquo;re worried is when you&rsquo;re not getting chances.&rdquo;LET&rsquo;S GO: Mike O&rsquo;Connell, hired as president-general manager Harry Sinden&rsquo;s assistant during the off-season, was perhaps more anxious than anyone for the season to get started.&ldquo;We still have work to do daily,&rdquo; said O&rsquo;Connell, a former player and assistant coach, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s frustrating. It just gets irritating.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s frightening it has come to this: The season&rsquo;s supposed to be starting, and all you hear is money talk. I&rsquo;m concerned about the game.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Most of the Bruin players returned to their off-season homes when the two-week postponement was announced. Some had plans to work out during the lockout. Bryan Smolinski (Michigan State), Blaine Lacher (Lake Superior) and John Gruden (Ferris State) all left to work out with their former college teams.Coach Brian Sutter on the whereabouts of Al lafrate, who left the team early in training camp to rehabilitate a surgically repaired knee on his own: &ldquo;Only Al knows where Al is.&rdquo;<h2>BOSTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Adam Oates, Bryan Smolinski, Jozef Stumpel.LW-Marius Czerkawski, Mikko Makela, Ted Donato, Brent Hughes.RW-Cam Neely, Glen Murray, Steve Leach, Steve Heinze, Marc Potvin.LD-Don Sweeney, Alexei Kasatonov, John Gruden, Jon Rohloff.RD-Ray Bourque, David Shaw, Jamie Huscroft, Paul Stanton.G-Blaine Lacher, Vincent Riendeau, John Blue.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Al lafrate, D, left knee surgery, indefinite, Cam Stewart, LW, strained right knee ligament, indefinite. &#9632;

Anxious Makela puts return on hold

No one should be considered versatile until he can measure up to the standards of Francis Michael (King) Clancy.For 65 of his 83 years, Clancy was involved in professional hockey-as an all-star player, referee, coach and until the day he died in 1986, vice-president of the Toronto Maple Leafs.This season&rsquo;s Itech Hockey Memories looks back at the previous winners of The Hockey News-Itech King Clancy Memorial Award since the King won the first award in 1986.Born in 1903, Clancy grew up playing hockey on Ottawa&rsquo;s Rideau Canal, Magazines stuffed into the legs of his pants for pads, he played with a homemade puck of molded baked gelatin.Clancy signed his first pro deal with the Ottawa Senators in 1921, His salary was $800 a season for three years plus a $100 bonus.Alternating between positions-including goaltender in emergencies-Clancy was an instant hit with the fans, Weighing just 125 pounds, he often cruised inside the opposition&rsquo;s blueline, making him one of the original rushing defensemen.Clancy was traded to the Toronto Maple, Leafs in 1930, became a four-time all-star and helped them win a Stanley Cup in 1932.He played in Toronto six season retired at the age of 33 with career statistics of 137 goals and 280 points in 592 games, The King later joined the Montreal Maroons as coach, He had just a 6-11-1 record before resigning, The team folded the next season.Clancy then found employment in the NHL as a linesman and before long he was promoted to referee, serving for 11 seasons.The King tried his hand at coaching again in 1949, guiding the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; farm team in Cincinnati and Toronto&rsquo;s farm club in Pittsburgh, He guided the Pittsburgh Hornets to the Calder Cup in 1952 and the league final the next season.Clancy followed that up with NHL coaching stints with the Maple Leafs in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, During his entire career at different positions, he was regarded as one of the most colorful personalities in the game.King was the right-hand man of Maple Leafs&rsquo; owner Harold Ballard through the 70s and mid-80s until his death in 1986.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011474/6731711-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="572" height="1022"><figcaption class="caption-body">King Clancy was involved in hockey until the day he died.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0011-01

Clancy encompassed spirit of award

<div class="byline">By Jim Kelley</div>For Petr Svoboda, the NHL&rsquo;s on-going labor impasse is more than a dispute, It&rsquo;s also a roadblock to redemption.&ldquo;The last year and a half hasn&rsquo;t been fun,&rdquo; said the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; defenseman, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had problems with my knee, I&rsquo;m not using that as an excuse, but there were problems, I couldn&rsquo;t play (at the end of the playoffs last season) because of it, I would never quit on this team.&rdquo;Svoboda was stung by reports last spring that he gave up during the first-round series with the New Jersey Devils, A survivor of reconstructive surgery to repair his anterior cruciate ligament, Svoboda said he reinjured the knee about two weeks before the playoffs started.&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t want to say too much about it because people really don&rsquo;t want to hear about it,&rdquo; Svoboda said, &ldquo;but I want people to know that I didn&rsquo;t quit.&rdquo;Svoboda vowed to win over critics.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve worked really hard this off-season-usually six days a week-and for the first time in the last year and a half, my legs feel really good,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got some jump back and I really feel good about playing again.&rdquo;Svoboda, who came to Buffalo in a 1992 trade with a reputation as an offensive defenseman, has just five goals in 113 games as a Sabre, He is anxious to make his 10th NHL season a good one.&ldquo;Except for the first 20 games or so, the fans here haven&rsquo;t really seen what I can do,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I want to show them.&rdquo;OFF LIMITS: The Sabres had planned on getting together for informal skates during the first days of the work stoppage, but that all changed after a half dozen of them attended a union meeting in Toronto.&ldquo;Some guys wanted to be able to go out there,&rdquo; said Doug Bodger, the team&rsquo;s assistant player rep, &ldquo;But we made a pact that nobody would skate during this period, We agreed everybody should be in the same boat, Biking, running or Rollerblading is fine, but we don&rsquo;t want anybody skating.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: A rumor the Sabres&rsquo; American League affiliate, the Rochester Americans, would play in Buffalo was quickly squashed.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve not even discussed it,&rdquo; said Sabres&rsquo; vice-president Gerry Meehan&hellip; Several Sabre veterans said they would open their Buffalo-area homes to younger players who have been living out of hotels since camp.<h2>BUFFALO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Pat LaFontaine, Derek Plante, Bob Sweeney, Dave Hannan.LW&ndash;Yuri Khmylev, Craig Simpson, Brad May. Rob Ray, Randy Wood.RW&ndash;Alexander Mogilny, Donald Auderte, Wayne Presley.LD&ndash;Petr Svoboda, Doug Houda. Ken Sutton.RD&ndash;Doug Bodger. Craig Muni. Richard Smehlik. Denis Tsygurov.G&ndash;Dominik Hasek. Grant Fuhr.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None. &#9632;

Svoboda to team’s fans: ‘I didn’t quit’

<div class="byline">By Viv Bernstein</div>The Hartford Whalers are turning to the late, great Soviet machine to add firepower to their offense this season.The five-man unit-joining an forward line with a defensive pairing-will make it&rsquo;s debut in Hartford. Coach Paul Holmgren plans to use the No. 1 line of Andrew Cassels centering Geoff Sanderson and Pat Verbeek along with the defensive pairing of Chris Pronger and Glen Wesley as a unit.It harkins back to the days of Vladimir Krutov-Igor Larionov-Sergei Makarov on a front line with defensemen Alexei Kasatonov and Viacheslav Fetisov when the Soviets dominated international hockey.&ldquo;The Sharks had Larionov and Makarov together and had Jeff Norton and Sandis Ozolinsh on defense and were successful,&rdquo; Whalers&rsquo; assistant Kevin McCarthy said.&ldquo;Get your best together as much as possible,&rdquo; Holmgren said. &ldquo;Find the chemistry. A light went on in my head. It makes a lot of sense.&rdquo;The Whalers hope the move will improve an offense that generated just 227 goals last season. Both Cassels, who went from 86 points in 1992-93 to 58, and Sanderson-89 to 67-are looking to rebound.&ldquo;Sandy and Cass should be reborn,&rdquo; McCarthy said. &ldquo;They had their best years when Paul was coaching two years ago.&rdquo;Keys to the success are Pronger and Wesley. Acquired from the Boston Bruins, Wesley is expected to be the No. 1 defenseman.&ldquo;The good players can crank it up another level when they have to,&rdquo; Holmgren said. &ldquo;And this guy Wesley has more gears than the average Joe.&rdquo;AGNEW RETIRES: Defenseman Jim Agnew, making a comeback bid after retiring last season with left knee problems, retired again Oct. 5.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m done now,&rdquo; Agnew said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s it. It won&rsquo;t hold up to play. I tried as hard as I could.&rdquo;Agnew, 28. underwent reconstructive surgery on his left knee after injuring it in the first practice at the Whalers&rsquo; 1993 camp. He immediately retired, but after arthroscopic surgery in the spring, asked the Whalers for an invitation to camp this season.But Agnew injured the knee in a Sept. 22 exhibition game. After being assigned to Springfield of the American League, he was hit again in a practice Sept. 28. The ligaments in his left knee continued to stretch with each hit, loosening the knee.NOTEBOOK: Hartford gave William Dowling, agent for Igor Chibirev, permission to contact teams interested in the center. Chibirev was suspended for failing to report to Springfield&hellip;Rookie defenseman Marek Malik, who made the roster out of camp but was assigned to Springfield when the season was postponed, sustained a shoulder injury with the Falcons. He could be out until mid-November.<h2>HARTFORD</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Oct 5: Jim Agnew, D, retired.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Andrew Cassels, Darren Turcotte, Jimmy Carson, Mark Janssens.LW&ndash;Geoff Sanderson, Andrei Nikol-ishin, Robert Kron, Ted Drury, Paul Ranheim, Jim Storm.RW&ndash;Pat Verbeek, Jim Sandlak, Jocelyn Lemieux, Steve Rice.LD&ndash;Chris Pronger, Alexander Godynyuk, Frantisek Kucera.RD&ndash;Glen Wesley, Adam Burt, Brad McCrimmon.G&mdash;Sean Burke, Jeff Reese.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Jeff Chychrun, D, concussion, indefinite, Kevin Smyth, LW, left thumb surgery, indefinite. &#9632;

Five-man unit part of plans

<div class="byline">By Dave Molinari</div>Ulf Samuelsson might not be the most-despised player in the NHL anymore, but he&rsquo;s at least on the short list of finalists.Samuelsson is the viewed as the consummate arch-villain in many arenas around North America. That&rsquo;s because while he knows all about the NHL rulebook, he often obeys only the laws of professional survival.Nonetheless, he is the type of player invariably adored by the home crowd, and so it is in Pittsburgh. Samuelsson&rsquo;s rugged, unrelenting style has made him a fan favorite at the Civic Arena since his earliest days with Penguins.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011494/6731790-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="568" height="836"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pittsburgh knows it would be tough to replace Ulf Samuelsson.</figcaption></div>To hear Samuelsson tell it, he is equally enamored of playing in Pittsburgh. He is entering the option year of his contract, but Samuelsson insists he is intent on remaining with the Penguins-and that he might even reject a more lucrative offer from another team to do so.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going into these negotiations with it in my mind that I want to stay in Pittsburgh,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We still have a winning team. We have the potential to win the Cup again. That&rsquo;s the bottom line.&ldquo;I think you see that in all sports now. People are making those choices. I agree with a lot of these players in basketball and football who are making those decisions. I can honestly say I feel that way.&rdquo;Samuelsson is earning $800,000, in the final year of his contract and his next deal likely will feature a sevenfigure salary.He said negotiations with the Penguins &ldquo;are going in the right direction,&rdquo; and realizes Pittsburgh would not find it easy to replace the element of toughness Samuelsson provides.&ldquo;Ulfie plays hard,&rdquo; coach Ed Johnston said. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re in his way, he&rsquo;s going to run over you.&rdquo;Samuelsson didn&rsquo;t play in any preseason games after straining his right knee running into teammate Larry Murphy on opening day of camp.That injury won&rsquo;t cause him to shy away from collisions when the season starts.&ldquo;To be attractive (as a free agent),&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t take a year off.&rdquo;GARDEN ON HOLD: The Penguins weren&rsquo;t the least bit pleased about the NHL&rsquo;s labor dispute delaying the start of the season, but it did have one tiny benefit.It got them out of an Oct. 3 date at Madison Square Garden when they would have been uncomfortable witnesses to the New York Rangers&rsquo; Stanley Cup banner-raising ceremony.&ldquo;We got to do it twice and it&rsquo;s a great feeling for the home team,&rdquo; center Ron Francis said. &ldquo;For the visiting team, it&rsquo;s not much.&rdquo;Especially when the visiting team is compelled to watch the celebration of an opponent for whom it doesn&rsquo;t particularly care. And even though the Penguins aren&rsquo;t in New York&rsquo;s division anymore, Pittsburgh has no more bitter rival than the Rangers.Still, Francis and teammates suggested the Penguins might have been better off if they had been forced to endure New York&rsquo;s night of revelry.&ldquo;When we played that game&rdquo; said defenseman Larry Murphy, &ldquo;the sting would be so bad that it would be the first step toward returning the Cup back to Pittsburgh.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Left winger Kevin Stevens, on the battle of semantics over what caused the start of the season to be pushed back: &ldquo;They say it&rsquo;s a delay or a postponement, but it&rsquo;s a lockout,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not stupid. Some of us might be, but we&rsquo;re not that dumb.&rdquo;&hellip;One of the earliest victims of the NHL labor dispute was the Penguins&rsquo; annual carnival, which had been scheduled for Oct. 8. Howard Baldwin, the team&rsquo;s chairman of the board, said the event, which had been held the previous two years, was canceled because of uncertainties stemming from the work stoppage.<h2>PENGUINS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Ron Francis, John Cullen, Martin Straka.LW&ndash;Luc Robitaille, Kevin Stevens, Shawn McEachern, Jim McKenzie.RW&ndash;Jaromir Jagr, Joe Mullen, Tomas Sandstrom, Doug Brown, Markus Naslund.LD&ndash;Ulf Samuelsson, Grant Jennings, Greg Hawgood.RD&ndash;Larry Murphy, Kjell Samuelsson, Peter Taglianetti, Greg Brown.G&ndash;Tom Barrasso, Ken Wregget.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None. &#9632;

f0013-01

Much-hated Ulfie would love to stay

<div class="byline">By Herb Zurkowsky</div>The optimism prevalent in the early days of the NHL labor conflict has been replaced by pessimism around the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; camp.&ldquo;It could be long,&rdquo; said Jean-Jacques Daigneault, the Canadiens&rsquo; player representative. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no way this can be resolved (by the proposed Oct. 15 start-update).&rdquo;Added captain Kirk Muller: &ldquo;The guys are disappointed and less optimistic. I was optimistic about Oct. 15, but now I feel it&rsquo;s going to be a long battle.&rdquo;Canadiens&rsquo; president Ronald Corey saw things differently. He said the dispute could be settled by Oct. 15-provided the players&rsquo; desire to have a new collective bargaining agreement in place is sincere. But Corey cautioned the players must adopt a different position and make concessions.&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t have to take six months,&rdquo; said Corey, part of the committee that joined commissioner Gary Bettman in negotiations in New York during the first week of October. &ldquo;It can go much faster if the two sides want it.&rdquo;Corey said in the 1993 fiscal year ending last March, which included the Canadiens&rsquo; Stanley Cup run when they hosted 11 playoff games, the Forum made a profit of $8.5 million. Incorporated in that total was the Canadiens&rsquo; $5-million share of expansion money and revenue from all entertainment events held at the Forum.Corey said the actual profit the hockey team made was a lot closer to $2.5 million. &ldquo;And that was with a very successful year. If that&rsquo;s what the Canadiens do with sellout crowds you can understand the business is tough.&rdquo;Conversely, profits for the upcoming fiscal year ending next March will be between $1.5 million and $2 million, Corey said, because the club played host to only three playoff games last season.WHAT GIVES?: Canadiens&rsquo; general manager Serge Savard recently signed left winger Vincent Damp-housse to a four-year, $10-million deal, but defended his actions in light of the labor dispute.Savard said U.S. anti-trust laws prohibit owners from uniformly setting salary levels.But Canadiens&rsquo; players contend owners are sending mixed messages through their actions.&ldquo;Basically, it sends the message there is some money somewhere,&rdquo; Jean-Jacques Daigneault said. &ldquo;I have no doubt some teams are in difficulty, but hockey is in a growth mode and it will be for coming years.&rdquo;Daigneault pointed to the NHL&rsquo;s lucrative TV contracts.&ldquo;If teams say they&rsquo;re in financial trouble, we have no doubts,&rdquo; Daigneault said. &ldquo;But the future is bright. Some wealthy people have bought franchises.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Hockey never started for the players, but the cameras rolled for Mathieu Schneider. On the day the start of the regular season was being delayed, Schneider was at the Forum to film a television commercial for a Montreal-based clothing company he represents.<h2>MONTREAL</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;John LeClair, Kirk Muller, Brian Savage, Jim Montgomery, Paul DiPietro.LW&ndash;Vincent Damphousse, Pierre Sevigny, Gerry Fleming, Benoit Brunet, Mario Roberge.RW&ndash;Mike Keane, Brian Bellows, Oteg Petrov, Ed Ronan.LD&ndash;Yves Racine, Mathieu Schneider, Peter Popovic, Jean-Jacques Daigneault.RD&ndash;Eric Desjardins, Patrice Brisebors, Bryan Fogarty, Lyle Odetein.G&ndash;Patrick Roy, Ron Tugnutt<h3>INJURIES</h3>Gilbert Dionne, LW, pulled groin, indefinite. &#9632;

Player rep Daigneault predicts long labor pains

<div class="byline">By Chris Stevenson</div>It looks like Radek Bonk will keep spinning his wheel of fortune in Las Vegas.The third pick overall in the June draft, Bonk rejected a Senators&rsquo; contract offer of about $4.5 million (Cdn.) for three years after a couple of days of intense negotiations. He&rsquo;ll play this season for the Las Vegas Thunder of the International League for about $200,000 (U.S.).The deal was apparently rejected because too much of the money was allocated to the latter years of the contract. By that time, the Senators will be in the new Palladium and will presumably have access to more revenue.&ldquo;Radek has told them, &lsquo;Thanks, but no thanks,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Bonk&rsquo;s agent, Michael Barnett. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s committed to play in Las Vegas until next summer. I think the NHL loses because of this&hellip;not just the Ottawa Senators.&rdquo;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to talk about what (Ottawa) offered me,&rdquo; Bonk said. &ldquo;The bottom line is they didn&rsquo;t make the contract we wanted. That&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m here. I don&rsquo;t want to say anything bad about anyone.&rdquo;Senators&rsquo; general manager Randy Sexton thought his deal, which came close to what second overall pick Oleg Tverdovsky received from the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, was good enough to secure Bonk.&ldquo;We negotiated long and hard,&rdquo; Sexton said. &ldquo;We were close. There were some things we thought were accepted that hadn&rsquo;t been accepted.&rdquo;Sexton said he thought Bonk&rsquo;s father, Jaroslav, wouldn&rsquo;t give his final approval to the deal.STAYING UP: Sophomore center Alexandre Daigle won&rsquo;t be going back to his junior team.Randy Sexton was advised by the NHL Daigle could be sent to the Victoriaville Tigres for the duration of the work stoppage, but he doesn&rsquo;t want the 19-year-old back with the Quebec League team.&ldquo;We want him to take his game to a new level. I don&rsquo;t think he can do that by going backwards,&rdquo; Sexton said.There&rsquo;s also the risk of injury, accidental or intentional.&ldquo;What if some knucklehead down there decides to run his head through the boards?&rdquo; Sexton said.The Senators would consider sending Daigle to the Canadian national team once the length of the work stoppage becomes clearer.NOTEBOOK: Alexei Yashin has an agreement to play with Moscow Dynamo, his former team in Russia, if the NHL work stoppage lasts past Oct. 15. &ldquo;I might demand a release fee,&rdquo; Randy Sexton said. &ldquo;Why not? We had to pay a release fee to them.&rdquo;&hellip;Goalie Craig Billington has been offered a job picking up balls at a golf course near his off-season home in Florida should the lockout drag on.<h2>OTTAWA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Alexei Yashin, Alexandre Daigle, Troy Murray.LW&ndash;Randy Cunneyworth, Dave Mc-Llwain, Sylvain Turgeon, Bill Huard, Claude Boivin.RW&ndash;Pat Elynuik, Scott Levins, Gene Davydov, Dave Archibald.LD&ndash;Kerry Huffman, Jim Pack, Dennis Vial, Chris Dahlquist, Norm Maciver.RD&ndash;Brad Shaw, Sean Hill, Steve Konroyd, Dmitri Filimonov.G&ndash;Cratg Billington, Damn Madeley.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Phil Bourque, LW, fractured vertebrae, indefinite, Troy Mallette, LW, broken right thumb, indefinite. &#9632;

Bonk turns down $4.5 million; will play season in Las Vegas

<div class="byline">By Kevin Johnston</div>Most players are upset when they hear they&rsquo;re being sent back to junior hockey-particularly if they played the previous season in the NHL.But Jocelyn Thibault couldn&rsquo;t have been happier. The 19-year-old goalie was thrilled to be returned to the Sherbrooke Faucons of the Quebec League for the duration of the NHL work stoppage.&ldquo;This is probably the best thing that can happen to me,&rdquo; Thibault said. &ldquo;I have to continue progressing and what better way to do so than by playing hockey?&rdquo;He&rsquo;ll get ample opportunity to do just that with Sherbrooke, where he starred in 1992-93 before being selected 10th overall by the Nordiques. Sherbrooke coach Guy Chouinard is thrilled to have Thibault.&ldquo;And who wouldn&rsquo;t be?&rdquo; Chouinard said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anyone in his right mind who would close the door on a kid as talented as Jocelyn.&rdquo;Normally a junior-aged player returned to junior would have to stay the whole year, but there is a special dispensation because of the work stoppage. Adam Deadmarsh, who made the Nordiques in training camp, was dispatched to the Portland Winter Hawks of the Western League for the duration of the labor dispute.Thibault had an up-and-down rookie season, posting an 8-13-3 record with a 3.31 goals-against average. At one point in training camp, Nordiques&rsquo; coach Marc Crawford said Thibault still hadn&rsquo;t secured a roster spot. A few nights later, he looked very ordinary against the Washington Capitals in a 6-1 loss.&ldquo;Marc&rsquo;s words took me by surprise.&rdquo; Thibault said. &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s behind me now. I know they want me in Quebec.&rdquo;With Stephane Fiset as the No. 1 man and Thibault pegged as the backup, Garth Snow was assigned to the Cornwall Aces of the American League. He was not happy.&ldquo;When Marc Crawford told me I was going down,&rdquo; Snow said, &ldquo;I felt as if a train had just run over me. I can play in the NHL, I can be a winner at this level.&rdquo;NO QUARTER: Nordiques&rsquo; defenseman Craig Wolanin doesn&rsquo;t see the NHL Players&rsquo; Association backing down.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll never accept anything close to resembling a salary cap,&rdquo; Wolanin said. &ldquo;If we do, it would be the beginning of the end.&rdquo;Wolanin also questioned the owners&rsquo; motives in protecting the smaller market teams such as the Nordiques.&ldquo;If they are keeping a team like ours from moving elsewhere,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s because they want to keep that city open for possible investors. There are four to six cities ready to buy into NHL hockey, so you can&rsquo;t say our league is having difficulties.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Despite the fact he&rsquo;s on a one-way contract, defenseman Janne Laukkanen was not recalled from Cornwall to save money. &ldquo;We want Janne to adapt to North American hockey as quickly as possible,&rdquo; said Nordiques&rsquo; general manager Pierre Lacroix. &ldquo;The investment is worth it.&rdquo;<h2>QUEBEC</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Oct, 3: Jocelyn Thibault, G, assigned to Sherbrooke (QMJHL), Adam Dead-marsh, RW, assigned to Portland (WHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Mike Ricci, Claude Lapointe.LW&ndash;Wendel Clark, Chris Simon, Valeri Kamensky, Martin Rucinsky.RW&ndash;Owen Nolan, Andrei Kovalenko, Scott Young, lain Fraser, Paul MacDer-mid.LD&ndash;Steven Finn, Alexei Gusarov, Curtis LeschyshynRD&ndash;Uwe Krupp, Sylvain Lefebvre, Craig Wolanin, Adam Foote.G&ndash;Stephane Fiset.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Bob Bassen, RW, separated right shoulder, indefinite, David Karpa, D, broken right wrist, indefinite. &#9632;

Thibault happy in junior

<div class="byline">By Robyn Norwood</div>Bob Corkum cleaned his pool. Coach Ron Wilson cleaned off his desk.That was how limbo began as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim dug in during the postponement to the start of the NHL season.Some players went home for the duration of the dispute. Some, such as right winger Todd Ewen, didn&rsquo;t have that option. He and his family rented their home in St. Louis to new Blues&rsquo; defenseman Doug Lidster, so it was occupied.Center Patrik Camback returned home to Sweden, but agent Neil Abbott said he has advised Carnback to &ldquo;sit tight&rdquo; and see what happens in the labor dispute instead of pursuing possible playing opportunities.&ldquo;The primary reason he went back to Sweden is just pure economics,&rdquo; Abbott said. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t have a place to live here and doesn&rsquo;t want to take a lease when he doesn&rsquo;t know how long this will last.&ldquo;The goal is to play here, not in Europe. If the NHL isn&rsquo;t going to play, I&rsquo;ll re-evaluate. Right now the idea is to sit back and wait.&rdquo;General manager Jack Ferreira said Carnback cannot play abroad because he&rsquo;d be violating his contract. Abbott calls that &ldquo;a difficult legal issue,&rdquo; but said in the case of a prolonged lockout, he believes players would have a legal right to seek employment elsewhere.Wilson worried not all players would keep in shape on their own during the wait, but most said they intended to work out at local fitness centers.Wilson, who spent what would have been opening night watching his daughter Lauren play high school volleyball, passed time at home some evenings and signed on to a computer network to read the day&rsquo;s labor news on the sports wire. During the day, he and assistants Al Sims and Tim Army organized their offices far beyond their normal state.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s really nothing for us to do except play ping pong,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to be very good.&rdquo;MINOR ADJUSTMENT: Rookie right winger John Lilley made the Ducks&rsquo; team, but was sent to the San Diego Gulls of the International League when the lockout began for conditioning purposes-and so he can draw a salary.Lilley was scheduled to make $180,000 in Anaheim, but will draw on his $35,000 minor-league salary while with the Gulls.NOTEBOOK: Teams must pay signing bonuses despite the lockout, but Anaheim doesn&rsquo;t owe Paul Kariya the next installment on his $2.25-million signing bonus this season until July. He received $1 million in September.<h2>ANAHEIM</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Anatoli Semenov, Bob Corkum, Stephan Lebeau, Shaun Van Allen, Pat-rik Carnback.LW&ndash;Paul Kariya, Garry Valk, Peter Douris, Stu Grimson, Tim SweeneyRW&ndash;Valeri Karpov, Joe Sacco, Todd EwenLD&ndash;Bobby Dollas, Randy Ladouceur, Robert Dirk, Myles O&rsquo;Connor.RD&ndash;Tom Kurvers, Don McSween, David Williams.G&ndash;Guy Hebert, Mikhail Shtalenkov.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Steven King, RW, right shoulder rehabilitation and left shoulder soreness in-definite, Jim Thomson, RW, left shoulder rehabilitation, indefinite. Oleg Tverdovsky, D, pulled groin, day-to-day. &#9632;

Ping pong table popular while others are at bargaining table

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div>Michael Nylander was the first Calgary Flame to leave the country following the postponement of the NHL season. Nylander went home to Sweden following the team briefing on the collective bargaining talks.Nylander&rsquo;s fiancee, Christine, stayed behind in Sweden with their two-month-old baby during training camp. Just before leaving to go home, Nylander admitted he wasn&rsquo;t sure what to do with himself now that a lengthy work stoppage is a real possibility.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s cheaper for me to go home,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t rent a place (in Calgary). I sold my car in Hartford and I was going to buy one here, but I didn&rsquo;t because of this (labor) thing.&ldquo;The best way for me is to go home and live in my apartment and practise with my team in Sweden (Huddinge). I have everything there. Maybe I can play somewhere.&rdquo;If the postponement drags on indefinitely, that will be an interesting call on the part of the Flames and the NHL. Currently, the league is operating on the assumption only players who are projected as minor-leaguers should be sent down.Nylander played four games with the Springfield Indians last season in his Hartford Whalers&rsquo; days, so he did make a cameo American League appearance. Moreover, he sat out four of seven Flames&rsquo; playoff games.On the other hand, Nylander was second in NHL exhibition scoring, with 12 points in seven games. Presumably, the Flames would not want to send Nylander to the Saint John Flames of the AHL, but maybe they could loan him to a European team.&ldquo;They can loan you,&rdquo; Nylander said. &ldquo;If I played for a German team, the German team would pay. The only thing is, how would the league respond to that?&rdquo;General manager Doug Rise-brough was non-committal, other than to say with Nylander&rsquo;s inexperience (fewer than three pro seasons), he can be assigned anywhere without having to clear waivers.Nylander, 22, is not among the hockey wealthy. At $260,000 (U.S.), he remains one of the lowest-paid players on the team.BAD BACK: Joe Nieuwendyk isn&rsquo;t playing hockey these days, not because of the lockout, but because of a mysterious back problem that surfaced in training camp.In what should have been the first week of the season, Nieuwendyk was in Los Angeles, consulting Dr. Robert Watkins, a back specialist.Nieuwendyk was there to seek a second opinion since the back spasms that had been plaguing him for a month weren&rsquo;t going away.According to Nieuwendyk, Watkins confirmed the diagnosis-a disc problem in the lower back-but amended his therapy program.&ldquo;They gave me a rehab program to strengthen my back,&rdquo; he said.Nieuwendyk is optimistic he can make a full recovery, but had no immediate plans to start skating.NOTEBOOK: Surgery to repair cartilage in goalie Andrei Trefilov&rsquo;s right knee was successful, but he figured it will be late October before he is ready. If the NHL season hasn&rsquo;t resumed at that point, chances are the Flames will send him to Saint John.<h2>CALGARY</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Robert Reichel, Michael Nylander, Joel Otto, Kelly Kisio.LW&ndash;Gary Roberts, Paul Kruse, Mike Sullivan.RW&ndash;Theo Fleury, Ron Stem, Wes Walz, Sandy McCarthy.LD&ndash;Zarley Zalapski, Steve Chiasson, Frank Musil, Roger Johansson, Dan Keczmer.RD&ndash;Phil Housley, James Patrick, Trent Yawney, Kevin Dahl.G&ndash;Trevor Kidd<h3>INJURIES</h3>Joe Nieuwendyk, C, back spasms, indefinite, Andrei Trefilov, G, tom knee cartilage, indefinite. &#9632;

Nylander first to skip town

<div class="byline">By Mike Weaver</div>Rob Gaudreau has gone from being a rookie sensation two years ago to nothing more than a spare part on the San Jose Sharks this season.The Sharks made that clear by leaving the right winger available for the NHL waiver draft, which was postponed Sept. 28.&ldquo;Out of respect for him, this is a way to keep him in the league,&rdquo; said Sharks&rsquo; director of operations Dean Lombardi. &ldquo;To sit on him now wouldn&rsquo;t do either of us any good.&rdquo;Gaudreau scored 23 goals in 59 games in 1992-93, including 14 in his first 15 outings. He slumped to 15 goals in 84 games last season while cast in a defensive role behind Sergei Makarov, Ulf Dahlen, Pat Falloon and Jeff Odgers at right wing.&ldquo;Gaudreau is good enough to play in this league, but we&rsquo;re in good shape at that position,&rdquo; Lombardi said. &ldquo;On our right side, it would be difficult to find a spot for him.&rdquo;Gaudreau said he wouldn&rsquo;t mind a change. His playing time was limited to special teams at the end of last season, much to his chagrin.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to spend a career like that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to play here because I love the area. But I want a regular shift.&rdquo;Lombardi shopped Gaudreau around, but found no takers. So the decision was made to make Gaudreau available in the waiver draft as a favor to him. Clearing waivers might mean a trip to the minors.EN ESPANOL: When the season begins, the Sharks will become the fourth team in the league to offer radio broadcasts of games in Spanish.San Jose station KLOK, which reaches about 1.2 million Hispanics in and around the Bay Area, will broadcast all home games in Spanish. All Sharks games are broadcast in English on a 12-station network.Erwin Higueros will handle play-by-play duties and will be joined by analyst Hugo Sahagun.The Los Angeles Kings, Florida Panthers and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim are the other three teams to offer radio broadcast in Spanish.For the record, the Spanish word for Sharks is Tiburones.NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Mike Rathje underwent abdominal surgery Oct. 3 to repair a stomach-muscle problem that sidelined him for all of training camp. He&rsquo;s not expected back until early December&hellip;Center Slava Butsayev is sidelined until early November after undergoing elbow surgery to remove bone chips, and center Fredrick Nilsson is out until January after undergoing reconstructive surgery on his left shoulder. He dislocated it during a pre-season game against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim Sept. 14.<h2>SAN JOSE</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;lgor Larionov, Todd Elik, Jeff Friesen, Jamie Baker.LW&ndash;Johan Garpenlov, Gaetan Duchesne, Viktor Kozlov, Bob Errey, Ray Whitney.RW&ndash;Sergei Makarov, Ulf Dahlen, Pat Falloon, Jeff Odgers, Rob Gaudreau.LD&ndash;Jeff Norton, Vlastemil Kroupa, Shawn Cronin, Ilya Byakin.RD&ndash;Sandis Ozolinsh, Tom Pederson, Jay More.G&ndash;Arturs Irbe, Jimmy Waite, Wade Flaherty.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Slava Butsayev, C, elbow surgery, Oct 27 Dale Craigwell, C, broken right ankle, indefinite, Fredrick Nilsson C, dislocated left shoulder, indefinite, Mike Rathje, D, abdominal surgery, indefinite. &#9632;

One-time rookie hit Gaudreau may waive goodbye to team

<div class="byline">By Dan Barnes</div>Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; general manager Glen Sather and his two top players, Bill Ranford and Doug Weight, are having a painful disagreement on the issue of their health.NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told the NHL Players&rsquo; Association all 26 teams would pay signing bonuses and injured players during the postponement. Then in an Oct. 3 directive, he then told teams not to start paying players anything until Oct. 15.&ldquo;But it looked like Slats wasn&rsquo;t going to pay us anyway, so it doesn&rsquo;t matter,&rdquo; said Ranford, a $3-million-a-year goalie who has back spasms.&ldquo;All I saw was the fax from Bettman saying signing bonuses and injured players should be paid. I&rsquo;m injured. The doctor says I&rsquo;m injured and whatever happens, happens.&rdquo;Sather wasn&rsquo;t aware of any injury.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s new to me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;As far as I know he&rsquo;s fine. I saw him in the dressing room. He was walking around. There were no problems.&rdquo;Oilers&rsquo; trainer Ken Lowe said Ranford is suffering spasms caused by a sprained lower back and the injury occurred in the last pre-season game. Lowe said he wasn&rsquo;t sure Ranford would have been able to play in the Oilers&rsquo; postponed opener against the Vancouver Canucks Oct. 2.Based on 13 pay periods over the course of the season, Ranford would stand to be paid about $115,000 for one week&rsquo;s work.Weight, who will make $200,000 (U.S.) this year, sustained a bruised and twisted ankle during an exhibition game in Las Vegas. He said he had injured ligaments, but Sather said he believed Weight was fully recovered.&ldquo;How long is a guy hurt for?,&rdquo; Sather asked. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not hurt forever. He has rehabilitated his ankle. I don&rsquo;t think there is anything wrong with him. Didn&rsquo;t he play in the (Oiler alumni) golf tournament?&rdquo;Weight hasn&rsquo;t put a skate on since spraining the ankle in camp.&ldquo;If he doesn&rsquo;t want to pay me, he doesn&rsquo;t have to. I feel I should be getting paid. I am injured but if it&rsquo;s going to be a big deal, I don&rsquo;t want to get paid,&rdquo; Weight said.Goalie Fred Brathwaite had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Oct. 5 to repair a cartilage tear and should be paid accordingly. Lowe said he expects Brathwaite would be sidelined until late October. Defenseman Adam Bennett had knee surgery and is out indefinitely.&ldquo;If somebody is legitimately hurt, we&rsquo;re going to pay him,&rdquo; Sather said.NOTEBOOK: Alexander Kerch sits in a Sydney, N.S. hotel room, a victim of the NHL postponement. Kerch was recalled Sept. 28 in a costcutting move that was not announced to the media. He was assigned to the Cape Breton Oilers of the American League on a $235,000 one-way contract early in camp, but was recalled after the postponement.The NHL&rsquo;s labor unrest shut down efforts to sell season tickets. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t get that far into the radio and newspaper stuff we were going to do,&rdquo; said assistant GM Bruce MacGregor. Sales have been few and far between and the season ticket total still stands at about 8,000.<h2>EDMONTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Sept, 28: Alexander Kerch, LW, recalled from Cape Breton (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Jason Arnott, Scott Thornton, Vladimir Vujtek.LW&ndash;Shayne Corson, Dean McAm-mond, Scott Pearson, Louie DeBrusk, Alexander Kerch.RW&ndash;Kelly Buchberger, Kirk Maltby, Mike Stapleton.LD&ndash;Luke Richardson, Bryan Marchment, Boris Mironov, Gord Mark.RD&ndash;Fredrik Olausson, Nick Stajdu-har, Igor Kravchuk.G&ndash;Injured.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Fred Brathwaite, G, knee surgery, Oct, 26, Adam Bennett, D, knee surgery, indefinite, Bill Ranford, G, back spasms, day-to-day, Doug Weight, C, sprained left ankle, day-to-day. &#9632;

Sather questions injuries

<div class="byline">By Kick Sadowski</div>The Los Angeles Kings are one of the few teams in sports on which it&rsquo;s all right for a player to be satisfied with being No. 2.This is, of course, if the player in question is a center. On this club, No. 99 is No. 1.After Wayne Gretzky, the Kings are banking on three centers-Robert Lang, Kevin Todd and Pat Conacher-who each have spent more time in the minor leagues than in the NHL.Lang, the youngest of the bunch at 23, seems confident that he can be an effective No. 2 center, and probably will be given the job for as long as he can handle it. Coach Barry Melrose believes Lang is capable of producing 20-30 goals and 75-80 points.&ldquo;Of course I would like to be the No. 2 center,&rdquo; said Lang, who had nine goals and 19 points in 32 games last season. &ldquo;I think I can do that. I&rsquo;m not going to be scared if they give me the chance.&rdquo;Lang grew up in Teplice, an industrial city of about 150,000 in the Czech Republic. He played four seasons for Litvinov in the Czech League and for the 1992 Olympic team.But Lang, a seventh-round draft pick in 1990, struggled at first with the more physical brand of the North American game as well as with the English language.He laughs about it now, but Lang says his conversations with teammates at training camp two years ago were limited to speaking with Ukranian-bom defenseman Alex Zhitnik. Both spoke Russian.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011158/6732020-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="726" height="936"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Kings hope Robert Lang can develop into a 20-30 goal man in the NHL.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I had to pick up English very quick,&rdquo; Lang said. &ldquo;It was hard, but I had to do it. I would go with the guys everywhere, to lunch and sometimes dinner. Plus I would watch TV. It&rsquo;s hard at first, but you can pick up words if you try a little bit.&rdquo;A bigger problem was adjusting to the smaller ice surfaces and the physical nature of NHL games. Lang, who stands 6-feet-2 and has bulked up to 204 pounds, was in the Kings&rsquo; 1992-93 opening-night lineup, but seemed lost as the season progressed. He failed to score a goal in nine games, was scratched for eight of the next nine and was dispatched to the Phoenix Roadrunners in the International League.The Kings wanted him to play more physically and work on his defense. Lang finished the year with Phoenix and began last season there, picking up 11 goals and 35 points in 44 games.&ldquo;The best part of my game is with the puck,&rdquo; Lang said. &ldquo;The worst part is in the defensive zone. But it&rsquo;s getting there.&rdquo;HARD-LINERS: The Kings blasted NHL commissioner Gary Bettman for postponing the start of the season and predicted a lengthy work stoppage.Rick Tocchet said Bettman &ldquo;is not one of my favorite guys right now. He thinks we&rsquo;ll crack. He thinks we&rsquo;ll come crawling back. I would love to sit and listen to the 26 owners and see how many of them agree with what he has done. I really think he wanted to shut the whole thing down. I&rsquo;m sure he cringed at the thought of this two-week period.&rdquo;Tony Granato said he was so angry, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t even want to call him &lsquo;Mr. Bettman&rsquo; the way he is going about things.&rdquo;Barry Melrose shed some humor on the subject when asked if he&rsquo;d ever been involved in a lockout. &ldquo;I locked myself out of my house once when I lost my key,&rdquo; he said.NOTEBOOK: Goaltender Jamie Storr, the Kings&rsquo; first-round draft pick in June, and winger Matt Johnson, the team&rsquo;s second-round pick, signed contracts Sept. 30. Storr was given a three-year, $2.6-million deal and Johnson a four-year, $1.5-million deal&hellip;Johnson underwent arthroscopic surgery Oct. 3 to remove a cyst and trim tom cartilage in his right knee.In a surprising move, the Kings assigned winger Rob Brown to Phoenix Sept. 30. &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t one of our top 20 players,&rdquo; said general manager Sam McMaster&hellip;The Kings acquired winger Eric Lacroix, defenseman Chris Snell and a 1996 fourth-round draft pick from the Toronto Maple Leafs Oct. 3 for centers Kelly Fairchild and Guy Leveque and wingers Shayne Toporowski and Dixon Ward. Lacroix and Snell were assigned to Phoenix.<h2>LOS ANGELES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Sept, 30: Rob Brown, LW, assigned to Phoenix (IHL), Matt Johnson, LW, and Jamie Storr, G, signed multi-year contracts, Storr returned to Owen Sound (OHL), Oct 3: Kelly Fairchild, C, Guy Leveque, C, Shayne Toporowski, RW, and Dixon Ward, RW, traded to Toronto for Eric Lacroix, LW, Chris Snell, D, and 1996 fourth-round draft pick, Lacroix and Snell assigned to Phoenix.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Wayne Gretzky, Robert Lang, Kevin Todd, Pat Conacher.LW&ndash;Dan Quinn, Mike Donnelly, Warren Rychel, Gary Shuchuk.RW&ndash;Jari Kurri, Rick Tocchet, Tony Granato, John Druce.LD&ndash;Alex Zhitnik, Darryl Sydor, Charlie Huddy.RD&ndash;Rob Blake, Michel Petit, Marty McSorley, Donald Dufresne.G&ndash;Kelly Hrudey, Robb Stauber<h3>INJURIES</h3>Troy Crowder, RW, neck strain, indefinite, Matt Johnson, LW, right knee surgery, indefinite. &#9632;

f0019-01

Lang hopes to become No. 2 by trying harder

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div>During last spring&rsquo;s Stanley Cup playoffs, Vancouver Canuck captain Trevor Linden won a lot of admiration for his leadership and courageous play.He was an inspiration on the ice and a model of co-operation in the interview room.His image never looked better. But that image took a battering after he made some ill-chosen remarks on the lockout.Asked if he felt players&rsquo; salary demands were pushing ticket prices out of the reach of families, Linden replied: &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t suggest taking a family of five to the game unless you can afford it. It&rsquo;s expensive. Take your family of five to the fair. That&rsquo;s what we did when I was a kid.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s just the way it is. If people feel the prices are too expensive, don&rsquo;t come to the games.&rdquo;Linden was roundly criticized for the comments, which some felt were callous and insensitive. The 24-year-old Medicine Hat, Alta., native then attempted to clarify his remarks.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s unfortunate the way it came out because I didn&rsquo;t mean it that way,&rdquo; Linden said. &ldquo;What I meant is that when families do things together, they go to the beach, they go on picnics, they go to the fair.&ldquo;When the NHL came to Calgary, we never went to a game as a family. My brothers and I would go with my dad on a rotating basis.&rdquo;Ironically, the Canucks promoted a &ldquo;Trevor Linden Family Night&rdquo; during the pre-season, with tickets going for $15 apiece.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01943/6732058-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="732" height="1071"><figcaption class="caption-body">Trevor Linden says it&rsquo;s impractical for families to attend NHL games together.</figcaption></div>NO LEY-WAY: Stung by a five-game suspension to start his Canucks&rsquo; coaching tenure-it starts when the regular season does-Rick Ley feels it&rsquo;s time for the NHL re-assess rule 66, subsection (u).Under the rule, Ley automatically sits for five games because winger Gino Odjick was charged with leaving the bench to join an altercation during a pre-season game Sept. 12. Odjick was suspended without pay for 10 games. The club was fined $10,000 and Ley was levied a $1,000 penalty.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02648/6732051-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="731" height="1070"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Ley was exonerated, but still has to serve a five-game suspension.</figcaption></div>The part which galls Ley is that Odjick was coming off the ice on a change, then re-entered the play as teammate Joe Charbonneau was being roughed up at the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; bench.Rule 66 was applied because Odjick&rsquo;s substitution, Sergio Momesso, had entered the play and Odjick was technically deemed to be on the bench.&ldquo;To me, there is a grey area there,&rdquo; Ley said. &ldquo;The rule says Gino has to leave the bench, but he was never on the bench. If he wasn&rsquo;t on the bench, he really wasn&rsquo;t under my control. The sad part is I was exonerated in the ruling, yet I&rsquo;m still suspended.&rdquo;Odjick also felt Ley didn&rsquo;t deserve such a harsh penalty.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really unfair to Ricky,&rdquo; Odjick said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like he sent me off the bench or anything.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Canucks sent second-year pro Nathan LaFayette to the Syracuse Crunch of the American League for the duration of the lockout&hellip;Canuck owner Arthur Griffiths was lost for words when asked what would be a desirable financial return on operations. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t any idea. I&rsquo;ve never sat down in 15 years and said I want to make five, 10 or 15 per cent. Basically, it&rsquo;s fly by the seat of your pants.&rdquo;<h2>VANCOUVER</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Oct 4: Nathan LaFayette, RW/C, assigned to Syracuse (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Trevor Linden, Clift Ronning, John McIntyre.LW&ndash;Greg Adams, Geoff Courtnall, Sergio Momesso, Shawn Antoski, Gino Odjick.RW&ndash;Pavel Bure, Martin Gelinas, Tim Hunter, Joe Charbonneau.LD&ndash;Bret Hedican, Dave Babych, Dana Murzyn, Brian Glynn, Adrien Plavsic.RD&ndash;Jeff Brown, Jyrki Lumme, Jiri Slegr.G&ndash;Kirk McLean, Kay Whitmore.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Gerald Diduck, D, off-season foot surgery, indefinite. &#9632;

f0022-01

Linden backtracks on controversial comments

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0024-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01920/6732089-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Dudley, Peter Ciavaglia and Mark Hardy are among watched Vipers this season. (Photo by Allen Einstein)</figcaption></div>All Rick Dudley tried to do was ice a competitive first-year team in the International League. Damned if he didn&rsquo;t put together the best team in the world.With NHL Zambonis up on blocks, the Detroit Vipers inherit the title of the world&rsquo;s No. 1 team from the Stanley Cup-champion New York Rangers.That&rsquo;s the consensus of NHL pro and European scouts contacted by The Hockey News. We opened the doors of the hockey world to our panelists, encouraging them to pick any team in the world-from Albany of the American League to Zug of the Swiss League.The Vipers were No. 1 skating backwards.One of four IHL expansion teams, the Vipers signed a collection of solid minorleaguers, many with NHL experience, to instantly become the favorite to dethrone the defending-champion Atlanta Knights.&ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t another team in the world outside the NHL that comes close to the Vipers,&rdquo; said one pro scout.&ldquo;They have it all-scoring, defense, goaltending, experience, toughness and an unlimited budget,&rdquo; said another.The Vipers are the latest toy for William Davidson who also owns the National Basketball Association&rsquo;s Detroit Pistons and Detrot Neon of the Continental Indoor Soccer League.Dudley didn&rsquo;t do cartwheels when informed his team was ranked No. 1 in the world, but took the opportunity to plug his league.&ldquo;There are some very good teams in the IHL, we just happen to be one of them&rdquo; Dudley said. &ldquo;Look at how Las Vegas did against NHL competition in the pre-season. They lost by a goal to the Chicago Blackhawks and by two goals to the Edmonton Oilers.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we would be embarrassed by any NHL team whether it&rsquo;s Ottawa or Pittsburgh. No NHL team would overwhelm us.&rdquo;The Vipers attracted IHL-record crowds of 20,182 and 18,248 in their first two home games at the Palace in Auburn Hills.Dudley laughed when told many hockey people believe the Vipers are trying to buy a championship. It was rumored they signed 28 players at an average salary of $100,000 which would have made a mockery of the league&rsquo;s desire to keep total team payrolls to around $1.1 million.&ldquo;Try about $61,000 per player,&rdquo; Dudley said, &ldquo;which puts us eighth or ninth in the league.&rdquo;Dudley knows all about winning in the minor leagues, having guided the San Diego Gulls to a 62-12-8 record two seasons ago. He wants a quick team that plays sound defensively and, if he can borrow a page from his own playing career, competes with grit. Two of the team&rsquo;s top players are polar opposites in terms of age and experience. There is captain Ron Wilson, a 38-year-old veteran of 832 NHL games, and 17-year-old Petr Sykora, a top-ranked prospect for the 1995 draft.Wilson made an instant impact, scoring three goals and five points in Detroit&rsquo;s first two games. Sykora, a Czech import, scored two goals and an assist. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve played on teams where we hope to win every game,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;This team expects to win every game.&rdquo;Defenseman Mark Hardy, a playing assistant coach and veteran of 915 NHL games, is out with a hernia, but will anchor the blueline. The Vipers also signed 19-year-old center Miroslav Satan, an Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; pick in 1993 who scored 32 goals in 30 games with Dukla Trencin of Slovakia&rsquo;s top league.The rest of Dudley&rsquo;s do-rights are hardly household names-Joe Day, Peter Ciavaglia, Darryl Williams, Dale DeGray, Gord Hynes, Dennis Smith and David Haas among them. But they are solid and dependable minor-leaguers. Rick Knickle, hockey&rsquo;s Crash Davis at 34, has the inside track on the No. 1 goaltending job.Here&rsquo;s the remainder of our top 10:2. Jokerit Helsinki (Finland): Last season&rsquo;s Finnish Elite League champion-and Teemu Selanne&rsquo;s former team-is led by Czech import and fine playmaker Otakar Janecky. The strength of Jokerit is its defense, led by Mika Stromberg, who scored 17 goals and eight assists with a team-leading 53 penalty minutes in 48 games last season. Teenage whiz Janne Niin-imaa will be a leader on Finland&rsquo;s World Junior Championship entry. If Selanne re-joins his old team, as he has hinted he might should the NHL lockout drag on, Jokerit will give the Vipers a run for Davidson&rsquo;s money.3. TPS Turku (Finland): One of the best teams outside the NHL is led by the best player outside the NHL in Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; prospect Saku Koivu. Still, it is top scorer and threetime Olympian Esa Keskinen whom the players on TPS look to for leadership. Former NHLer Hannu Virta leads the defense on a well-conditioned team that checks at both ends of the ice.4. Providence Bruins (American League): The Bruins led the AHL at the gate last season averaging 8,872 fans per game, despite the fact they finished last in their division. They went on a free-agent signing binge by acquiring Tim Tookey from the Hershey Bears, hard-nosed defenseman Phil Von Stefenelli and center Sandy Moger from the Hamilton Canucks and defenseman Jeff Serowik from the Cincinnati Cyclones of the IHL.5. Atlanta Knights (IHL): The defending champions lost three of their top six scorers, but remain a powerhouse. Solid in goal with Mike Greenlay, the Knights welcomed Russian Alexander Selivanov who led the Tampa Bay Lightning in pre-season scoring and was sent down so he could collect a paycheque. He&rsquo;ll return to the NHL when the season begins. Atlanta signed twin New York Ranger picks Chris and Peter Ferraro and Aaron Gavey and Drew Bannister should contribute immediately.6. Las Vegas Thunder (IHL): The Thunder was a good team to begin with; signing young star Radek Bonk makes it great. The third player chosen in last year&rsquo;s NHL draft, Bonk elected to play a second season in the &lsquo;I&rsquo; rather than sign with the Ottawa Senators for less than he feels he&rsquo;s worth. Bonk joins a cast of ex-NHLers including Mark Habscheid, Andrew McBain, Jim Kyte, Bob Joyce and Clint Mal-archuk. Come to think of it, the Thunder probably has more NHL experience than some NHL teams.7. Djurgarden (Sweden): What to do? Djurgarden not only lost its top scorer in Mariusz Czerkawski to the Boston Bruins, it also lost its sex symbol. To the rescue: Shampoo Knutsen. Norwegian import Espen Knutsen, is an exciting offensive-minded player who earned his nickname because his hair is at shoulder length. Captain Charles Berglund leads a mature squad that spreads its scoring out and pays strict attention to defense.8. Portland Pirates (AHL): A good mix of toughness and overall scoring was the formula the Pirates used to claim the AHL crown last season. The addition of German import center Stefan Ustorf, Washington&rsquo;s third choice in the 1992 draft, and Martin Gendron, who led the Quebec League in playoff goals with 21, give them additional punch. When things get dull, tough-guy Kerry Clark can entertain the crowd by moonwalking the length of the ice.9. Milwaukee Admirals (IHL): The Admirals have pieced together the type of team fans love and NHL pro scouts hate. They have a host of career minor-leaguers who excel at this level, but have little NHL potential. Tony Hrkac, who will earn $175,000 this season, Brian Dobbin and Fabian Joseph will be the offensive leaders and Jim Hrivnak, with 85 games NHL experience, should provide solid goaltending.10. Lada Togliatti (Russia): The bulk of last season&rsquo;s Russian championship team returns. An older team with a Lada experience, Togliatti plays a classic European puck-control style-they carry the puck out of their zone and into the other team&rsquo;s end. Dominik Hasek has nothing on Lada goalie Alexei Marjin. He allowed just 57 goals against in 35 appearances for a 1.85 goals-against average.Honorable mention: We considered placing the Kamloops Blazers of the Western League among the top 10 since they are far and away the best team in major junior hockey, but after a reality check, we decided they deserve up-and-comer status. &#9632;

f0024-01

WORLD BEATERS

<div class="byline">By Rich Chere</div>Bobby Carpenter&rsquo;s days as a youthful, goalscoring phenom ended almost a decade ago. But his dreams of playing on a Stanley Cup winner remain alive with the New Jersey Devils.Carpenter, whose career was saved last season when he came to the Devils&rsquo; training camp on a free-agent tryout basis, maintained a spot high on coach Jacques Lemaire&rsquo;s depth chart with his willingness to sacrifice personal numbers for team success.The 31-year-old veteran of 13 NHL seasons found a niche shutting down the opponents&rsquo; top offensive line, as well as teaming with Tom Chorske as the club&rsquo;s premier penalty-killing forwards.&ldquo;Statistics don&rsquo;t concern me,&rdquo; Carpenter said. &ldquo;Unless you play regularly on the power play, you&rsquo;re not going to be a big goal-scorer.&ldquo;For me, it&rsquo;s a challenge to go out and stop a Mario Lemieux. It&rsquo;s not easy. When I was a goal-scorer (he scored 53 goals in 1984-85 for Washington), I thought it was easy to be a checker. It&rsquo;s hard. And, as a penalty-killing unit, I think Tommy (Chorske) and I play well together.&rdquo;So well that Carpenter did not have to win a job in training camp this year. It was quite different from a year ago, when his entire career hung in the balance.Carpenter was a free agent without compensation in the summer of 1993. His unhappy 1992-93 homecoming season with the Washington Capitals, he felt, was nothing more than a publicity stunt by the Caps designed to take the heat off trading Dino Ciccarelli.&ldquo;I think the Capitals did a lot of damage to my career,&rdquo; Carpenter said.If that&rsquo;s true, his season with Devils helped revive it.&ldquo;I knew I&rsquo;d get a fair shot with the Devils,&rdquo; Carpenter said. &ldquo;I knew they wouldn&rsquo;t string me along. If I couldn&rsquo;t play here, I couldn&rsquo;t play anywhere. I would get on my horse and ride off into the sunset.&rdquo;Carpenter says he has some unfinished business before thinking about retirement.&ldquo;It has been a great career so far, but winning it with a team like this would be icing on the cake,&rdquo; Carpenter said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the only thing missing.&rdquo;COSTLY DECISION: In a Sept. 29 memo sent to all NHL teams, league commissioner Gary Bettman said injured players would be paid during the two-week delay of the season opener.When Bettman changed his mind Oct. 4, it was costly to three injured Devils. Scott Stevens, nursing a sprained ankle, would&rsquo;ve been paid $200,000 for the two-week period while John MacLean (bruised foot) would&rsquo;ve gotten $75,000 and Chris Terreri (pinched nerve in his neck) $42,857.&ldquo;Personally, the ankle isn&rsquo;t doing as well as I&rsquo;d like,&rdquo; said Stevens, whose four-year, $17.1-million contract pays him $2.8 million this season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had an X-ray and it&rsquo;s not broken, but a sprain can last a long time.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Goalie Martin Brodeur said the team&rsquo;s deadline for re-signing him was pushed back to when the season opens. Brodeur vowed to play out his option rather than answer contract questions all season&hellip;Ten Devils&rsquo; players attended the union meeting in Toronto Oct. 1, the largest team contingent.<h2>NEW JERSEY</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Alexander Semak, Jim Dowd, Bobby Carpenter, Bobby Holik, David Emma.LW&ndash;Valeri Zelepukin, Corey Millen, Tom Chorske, Mike Peluso, Ben Hankinson.RW&ndash;John MacLean, Stephane Richer, Claude Lemieux, Bill Guerin, Randy McKay.LD&ndash;Bruce Driver, Tommy Albelin, Scott Niedermayer.RD&ndash;Ken Daneyko, Jaroslav Modry, Jason Smith.G&ndash;Martin Brodeur, Peter Sidorkiewicz.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Scott Stevens, D, sprained ankle, day-to-day, Chris Terreri, G, pinched nerve in shoulder, indefinite. &#9632;

Carpenter happy to be plumber

<div class="byline">By Wayne Fish</div>Kevin Dineen already had a large serving of adversity on his plate when training camp started.First, the Philadelphia Flyers 30-year-old right winger was coming off June shoulder surgery. Dineen was only in town two days when he had to surrender the captaincy to Eric Lindros. No surprise or shame there. Everyone knew the change was coming, but players do have pride.Then came trade rumors. Because Flyer captains have a habit of getting traded, the media had Dineen ticketed for teams in three different zones. To his credit, Dineen kept working hard and was fitting well into coach Terry Murray&rsquo;s defense-oriented system.After weathering all that, Dineen broke his left thumb in a Sept. 24 pre-season game. He will be sidelined until early November.There is no guarantee Dineen would have a job waiting for him when he is ready for action. Rookie Patrik Juhlin played well enough to challenge for the third-line right side spot behind Mikael Renberg and Mark Recchi.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t sure what my role was before this (injury),&rdquo; Dineen said, &ldquo;and this certainly isn&rsquo;t going to do me any good.&rdquo;Murray said Dineen gave as good an effort as could be expected during the pre-season, but was vague about the veteran&rsquo;s role.&ldquo;Dineen is a guy you&rsquo;d play in almost any situation,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;He was good away from the puck, good defensively and of course he&rsquo;s still a good leader.&rdquo;Last season&rsquo;s shoulder problems and a flare-up of Crohn&rsquo;s disease held Dineen to 19 goals, second lowest total in his 10-year career.LONG WAIT: The season delay couldn&rsquo;t have come at a worse time for rookie Patrik Juhlin.Juhlin, one of the heroes of Sweden&rsquo;s Olympic gold medal last winter at Lillehammer, played well down the stretch in the pre-season and was slotted for right wing on the third line.The Flyers said they didn&rsquo;t want him to go to the Hershey Bears of the American League because he&rsquo;s above that caliber of play and Sweden can&rsquo;t use NHL players during the work stoppage.&ldquo;I looked forward to the start because it&rsquo;s my dream to play in the NHL,&rdquo; Juhlin said. &ldquo;Now I don&rsquo;t get the chance.&rdquo;Juhlin, 24, is taking the same route as fellow Swede Mikael Renberg, who also waited several years before coming to play in North America. A second-round pick in 1989, Juhlin played seven years in the Swedish Elite League.He led Sweden at Lillehammer with seven goals in eight games.NOTEBOOK: As pre-season ended, veteran Dave Brown and Phil Crowe were sharing ice time on fourth-line right wing. Crowe was a busy physical player in the pre-season&hellip;Brown and Kevin Dineen were among veteran players who opened their homes to young players as the work stoppage began.The players&rsquo; intention not to skate during the first two weeks of October concerned Terry Murray. &ldquo;Everyone has to take a professional approach. At some point, this will be over and they&rsquo;ll have to play games and, as a player, you need to be ready for that.&rdquo;<h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Erlc Lindros, Rod Brind&rsquo; Amour, Craig MacTavish.LW&ndash;Josef Beranek, Shjon Podein, Brent Fedyk, Rob DiMaio.RW&ndash;Mikael Renberg, Mark Recchi, Patrik Juhlin, Dave Brawn, Phil Crowe.LD&ndash;Rob Zettler, Shawn Anderson, Jeff Finley.RD&ndash;Dimitri Yushkevich, Ryan McGill, Kevin Haller.G&ndash;Ron Hextall, Dominic Roussel.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Kevin Dineen, RW, broken left thumb, indefinite, Garry Galley, D, sore shoulder, day-to-day, Mark Lamb, C, bruised foot, day-to-day, Stew Malgunas, D, sore left knee, indefinite. &#9632;

Former captain Dineen not fazed by adversity

<div class="byline">By Rick Carpiniello</div>Matteau! Matteau! Matteau!That call, from play-by-play man Howie Rose, will go down as one of the most memorable in New York Rangers&rsquo; history.And with it, Stephane Matteau became an instant hero. He scored his second double-overtime goal of the Eastern Conference finals against the New Jersey Devils, propelling the Rangers to the Stanley Cup final.It took a while for Matteau to realize his accomplishment.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t even know I scored in Game 7. I thought it deflected off (Esa) Tikkanen,&rdquo; Matteau said. &ldquo;I was just happy to be part of it all, to be honest.&rdquo;Over the summer, Matteau returned to his hometown of Rouyn-Noranda, Que., only to find himself in a Stanley Cup parade. At first, he was surprised at the smallish turnout. Soon he figured it out.&ldquo;The whole town was in the parade,&rdquo; Matteau said.Now, Matteau wants to forget all the hero talk, the lockout talk and the Mike Keenan talk and focus on defending the Cup.And while he gained confidence playing for Keenan after his trade from the Chicago Blackhawks, he thinks little will change under new coach Colin Campbell.&ldquo;If I play as well as I can play, I&rsquo;ll play like (Keenan) played me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But if I&rsquo;m not playing good, (Campbell) won&rsquo;t play me. I won&rsquo;t be any different if it&rsquo;s my call.&rdquo;BANNER BANTER: Rangers fans, some of whom stood in line for 13 hours to buy tickets to the home opener against the Pittsburgh Penguins, were more than a little angry about the postponement.The Rangers were scheduled to raise the Stanley Cup banner Oct. 3. If an agreement is reached by the Oct. 15 deadline, the home opener and the ceremony will be Oct. 20 against the Los Angeles Kings. The Oct. 3 tickets can be used for what is now, at best, an unceremonious makeup game with the Penguins.NOTEBOOK: The suspension of play also apparently suspended the Rangers&rsquo; negotiations with Mark Messier and Mike Richter. The day before the lockout, Richter had agreed in principle to a four-year deal worth about $10.7 million. Yet he remained unsigned. Messier and the Rangers, it was felt, were close enough to sign a last-minute contract before the opener. That, too, has been stalled by the postponement of the regular season. Messier, who attended team players&rsquo; meetings after the lockout, planned to return to his home in Hilton Head, S.C&hellip;The Rangers still have not finalized a deal which would enable free agent Glenn Anderson to rejoin the team in the second half of the season after spending the first part with the Canadian national team.<h2>N.Y. RANGERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Petr Nedved, Sergei Nemchinov, Mike Hudson.LW&ndash;Stephane Matteau, Mark Osborne, Nick Kyp-reos, Mike Hartman.RW&ndash;AIexei Steve Larmer, Brian NoonanLO&ndash;Brian Leetch, Jay Wells, Mattias Norstrom, Barry Richter.RD&ndash;Jeff Beukeboom, Alexander KarpovtsevG&ndash;Mike Richter, Glenn Healy.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Glen Featherstone, D, sprained neck, day-to-day, Greg Gilbert, LW, sprained knee, day-to-day, Adam Graves, LW, inflamed back disc, indefinite, Joey Kocur, RW, right shoulder surgery, indefinite, Kevin Lowe, D, left shoulder surgery, indefinite, Joby Messier, D, sprained left knee, indefinite, Eddie Olczyk, C, bruised hand and sprained ankle, day-today, Sergei Zubov, D, sprained left knee, indefinite. &#9632;

Unlikely hero Matteau wants to get on with season

<div class="byline">By Dave Fay</div>Washington Capitals&rsquo; coach Jim Schoenfeld has a nice situation on his hands-two talented centers who are battling each other to be No. 1.Joe Juneau signed an $8.2-million contract over the summer to become the richest Cap ever. He missed some time in training camp with an injury, but still scored four points in five games.Pat Peake will make $210,000 this season, was switched from right wing to center and had six points in five games.&ldquo;Right now Pat Peake is our best center,&rdquo; Schoenfeld said at the end of camp.Peake thought that was &ldquo;the funniest thing I&rsquo;ve heard all camp.&rdquo;Juneau wasn&rsquo;t amused. &ldquo;If Pat Peake is going to have more points than me at the end of the season, he&rsquo;s going to have to have 130 of them,&rdquo; he said.It&rsquo;s a situation coaches love, players competing for a pecking order.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what you want,&rdquo; the coach said. &ldquo;Every game you want each line pushing the other.&rdquo;Juneau operated at a handicap. Schoenfeld spent all camp trying to find the proper wingers for the talented center. Dimitri Khristich ended up on the left and Kelly Miller on the right.Peake played most of the pre-season with excenter Steve Konowalchuk on the left and Keith Jones on the right. It was a line that clicked immediately, scoring nine goals and 21 points, almost a quarter of the team total. They were plus-13 as a unit.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nice compliment to be called No. I, but it&rsquo;s Joe who&rsquo;s going to be under the microscope and the one other teams will be checking hard,&rdquo; Peake said. &ldquo;That means we need more than one line.&rdquo;WAITING, HOPING: Coach Jim Schoenfeld was as frustrated as anybody that the season didn&rsquo;t start on time.&ldquo;Everybody in the game is disappointed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We all want to play hockey, that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re in business for. However, there are two sides with some grave differences that have to be worked out.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just another hurdle is the way I look at it, another obstacle for us to overcome. Through my experience in life when you overcome obstacles you&rsquo;re better for it.&rdquo;A former player with the Buffalo Sabres, Boston Bruins and Detroit Red Wings, and now on the other side, the coach said he wasn&rsquo;t tom either way.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re right in the middle,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re neither player nor are we management. We really know very little from either side.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Kevin Hatcher decided against playing with the Detroit Vipers of the International League. He practised and played a pre-season game with the independent team. But that doesn&rsquo;t mean he&rsquo;s considering returning to the Capitals. Not even close. There&rsquo;s still bad blood between Hatcher and Washington general manager David Poile. &ldquo;Nobody wants to sign him,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;He has had all summer to sign. If Detroit&rsquo;s so interested, why don&rsquo;t they sign him?&rdquo;&hellip;Unsigned 1993 first-round draft pick Brendan Witt stands to be a big financial loser if a new collective bargaining agreement contains a rookie salary cap. He has rejected all Capital offers for the past 16 months and returned to the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western League.<h2>WASHINGTON</h2><h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Joe Juneau. Dale Hunter, Pat Peake, Jason Allison.LW&ndash;Dimltn Khristich. Michal Pivonka, Steve Konowalchuk, Craig Berube. Randy Burridge.RW&ndash;Kelly Miller, Peter Bondra. Keith Jones. Todd Krygier.LD&ndash;Joe Reekie. Calle Johansson, John Slaney.RD&ndash;Jim Johnson, Sylvain Cote.G&ndash;Don Beaupre. Rick Tabaracci, Olie Kolzig.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Rob Pearson, RW, broken right thumb, indefinite. Dave Poulin, C, sprained left knee, indefinite. &#9632;

Coach likes competition at center

<div class="byline">By Dave Joseph</div>Rob Niedermayer is looking to recapture the magic.He knows it&rsquo;s out there. He knows he had it. First, as the fifth overall pick in the 1993 entry draft and then early last season as the Panthers&rsquo; rookie phenom, collecting 14 points in his first 20 games.But on Nov. 18, on a night he was playing one of the most physical and aggressive games of his young career, Niedermayer crashed into the boards behind the Panthers&rsquo; net. The injury report said separated right shoulder, but failed to mention shattered confidence.&ldquo;I never felt comfortable after that,&rdquo; the 19-year-old said. &ldquo;Before the injury, I felt like I was getting better with every game. But when I came back (after 15 games), I just seemed to stay at one level. It was frustrating, very frustrating, and it just went down from there.&rdquo;The center spent much of the remainder of the season on the bench. In the 45 games he played after the injury, Niedermayer managed only four goals and eight assists. In his final 32 games, he scored once and was scratched twice in the final two weeks of the season.&ldquo;(The coaches) told me I wasn&rsquo;t doing anything wrong, but that I was not as much a factor as I was before,&rdquo; Niedermayer said. &ldquo;Down the stretch, the coaching staff lost confidence in me. I had lost confidence.&rdquo;After spending the summer sheep hunting near his family&rsquo;s home in Cranbrook, B.C., Niedermayer is eager to return to past form once the NHL season gets the green light. The Panthers are eager to see it.&ldquo;Rob is real quick, an excellent skater,&rdquo; said general manager Bryan Murray. &ldquo;But for us to be a touch better than last year, we need him to make an impact on this team from Day 1.&rdquo;Niedermayer believes one of his problems after coming back from the injury was a lack of aggressiveness. During pre-season, the 6-foot-2 Niedermayer didn&rsquo;t shy away from banging people around. He also reported to camp a leaner 195 pounds. &ldquo;And I feel quicker,&rdquo; he said.Niedermayer realizes a lot will be asked of him this season. Along with centers Stu Barnes and Jesse Belanger, Niedermayer will be the focus of the Panthers&rsquo; offense.&ldquo;After a year in the league, after a year of playing regularly for the first time, I think we should all be counted on more,&rdquo; Niedermayer said. &ldquo;I know I&rsquo;m looking to contribute more.&rdquo;STARTING SMALL: Bryan Murray made his first deal as Panthers&rsquo; GM Oct. 4 when he acquired defensemen Robert Svehla and Magnus Svensson from the Calgary Flames for a third-round pick in 1996 and future considerations.Svehla, 25, and Svensson, 31, signed multiyear contracts with the Panthers, but won&rsquo;t be available until they play their contracts out with club teams. Svehla will play for Malmo in Sweden, Svensson with Davos in Switzerland.NOTEBOOK: Goalie Mark Fitzpatrick&rsquo;s trial on aggravated assault charges against his estranged wife has been delayed until Nov. 14 so his attorneys could take more time getting depositions. Fitzpatrick, 25, has pleaded not guilty to the July 13 charge.<h2>FLORIDA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Oct, 4: Robert Svehla, D, and Magnus Svensson, D, obtained from Calgary tor a third-round pick in 1996 and future considerations, Svehla and Svensson signed multi-year contracts.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Rob Niedermayer, Stu Barnes, Brian Skrud-land, Jesse Belanger.LW&ndash;Dave Lowry, Jeff Daniels, Mike Hough, Bill Lindsay.RW&ndash;Scott Mellanby, Bob Kudelski, Jody Hull, Andrei Lomakin.LD&ndash;Geoff Smith, Brent Severyn, Peter Andersson, Brian Benning.RD&ndash;Keith Brown, Randy Moller, Joe Cirella, Gord Murphy.G&ndash;John Vanbiesbrouck, Mark Fitzpatrick.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None. &#9632;

Sophomore Niedermayer eager to prove he’s back

<div class="byline">By Jett Williams</div>Zigmund Palffy knows where the net is. Because of that, the right winger knows where his place is, too.That&rsquo;s on Long Island, playing for the New York Islanders. He led the team in goal-scoring during the preseason with seven in eight games.It hasn&rsquo;t been easy for Palffy to find his place in the NHL, or North America for that matter.Palffy was the Islanders&rsquo; second-round draft choice in 1991. At the end of training camp that season, the coaching staff decided to send him north to the Islanders&rsquo; American League affiliate, the Capital District Islanders. The idea was he would gain experience playing the style of North American hockey.Instead, Palffy wanted to go back to his native Slovakia and play the season with Dukla Trencin. After much consternation and negotiation, the Islanders allowed him to return home.Last season, he came to camp with his girlfriend and in a different frame of mind. When the Islanders assigned him to the Salt Lake Golden Eagles of the International League, Palffy happily reported.Palffy earned a place on the Islanders roster this season, but was assigned to the Denver Grizzlies of the IHL during the postponement.He has a magic way with the puck and could provide the scoring the team needs, along with the kind of excitement that fans crave.&ldquo;He has been the best player on the ice,&rdquo; said coach Lome Henning. &ldquo;He earned a very legitimate shot on this team.&rdquo;Palffy was the leading scorer in the Lillehammer Olympics last February, with three goals and seven assists for the Slovak team. He was the third-leading scorer for the Eagles with 25 goals and 57 points in 57 games.&ldquo;Ziggy in years past was kind of maybe, maybe, maybe,&rdquo; said general manager Don Maloney. &ldquo;His play at Salt Lake was spotty last year, but there were times when he absolutely dominated a game. You can see this year he looks different. He looks determined.&rdquo;LINDROS NO. 75: Brett Lindros, the No. 1 draft choice who signed with the Islanders Oct. 1, will wear No. 75. It took some thought to come up with it, according to his father and agent, Carl.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big player and we wanted a big number,&rdquo; Carl said. &ldquo;Single digit numbers don&rsquo;t look good on big guys. We wanted a number that wasn&rsquo;t used often, that would stand out, like Eric&rsquo;s 88.Of course, 1975 is his birth year and the last two digits of our home telephone number are 75. When players are announced it&rsquo;s usually numerically, so Brett would come just in front of Pierre Turgeon, who wears 77.&ldquo;All of this took about five minutes to figure out,&rdquo; Carl said with a grin.NOTEBOOK: Assistant general manager Darcy Regier was given the added title of director of player personnel Oct. 4 and Bert Marshall replaced Gerry Ehman as head scout. Ehman, in his 20th year with the Isles, was named an assistant to GM Don Maloney.<h2>N.Y. ISLANDERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Oct 1: Zigmund Palffy assigned to Denver (IHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Pierre Turgeon, Ray Ferraro, Travis Green, Ron Sutter.LW&ndash;Marty McInnis, Benoit Hogue, Troy Loney, Derek King, Dave Chy-zowski, Yan Kaminsky, Brian Mullen.RW&ndash;Steve Thomas, Brett Lindros, Pat Flatley, Brad Dalgarno, Mick Vukota.LD&ndash;Darius Kasparaitis, Dennis Vaske, Rich Pilon, Scott Lachance.RD&ndash;Bob Beers, Vladimir Malakhov, Dean Chynoweth.G&ndash;Jamie McLennan, Tommy SoderStrom.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None. &#9632;

Determined Palffy shows he’s ready for Show

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01896/6732288-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01891/6732350-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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SCOREBOARD

<div class="byline">By Stan Fischiar</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01823/6732388-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="378" height="537"></div>It&rsquo;s time for Stan The Answer Man, If your question is not included it only means that Bob Goodenow intercepted the query: no doubt mistaking it for another proposal for a salary cap.Q: Is the postponement to the start of the NHL season really a New York Islanders&rsquo; plot to undermine New York Ranger fans&rsquo; joy over unfurling their Stanley Cup banner?Moishe Messier, Manhattan, N, Y.A: Our operatives are almost certain Denis Potvin plotted the whole thing, Another explanation is this: Everything bad that has happened to the Blueshirts since June is no more than a retroactive Curse on the Rangers for fooling around with the Stanley Cup as if it were a NerfbalLQ: Is Toronto Sun columnist Christie Blatchford right when she says she can tell NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is evil because he wears dopey-looking (New York-style) tassled shoes?Thomas McCann, St, Tom, Ont.A: You can tell a book by its cover, but you can&rsquo;t tell a commissioner by his loafers, By the way, you should see Bettman&rsquo;s mittens.Q: If the NHL ever resumes play this season, who will most benefit from the delay?Teresa Gregson, Thereisnojustice, Pa.A: The Ottawa Senators, They&rsquo;re still undefeated and tied for first.Q: Will officiating improve this year now that NHL vice-president Brian Burke has added high-tech training methods for the referees?Ima Zebra, Hialeha, Fla.A: As sure as the sun rises in the west.Q: Who&rsquo;s better, Wayne Gretzky or Mark Messier?Davey Hart, Shelton, Wash.A: Doug Gilmour.Q: Who are the most likely players to have a better season than anyone expected?Mel Poolie, Pickaringer, Ont.A: Start with Ray Whitney of the San Jose Sharks, proceed to the Sergei Brylin of the New Jersey Devils and conclude with Darryl Sydor of the Los Angeles Kings.Q: Is hockey really Canada&rsquo;s game or can it be shared by Americans as well?William Clinton, Washington, D.C.A: Hockey is too precious a commodity to be shared by know-nothing Yankees who have only been playing the sport since the 19th century, But sometime in the 21st century the pushy characters south of the 49th parallel just might get the hang of it and then you can call it North America&rsquo;s game.Q: How can the Boston Bruins be expected to make the playoffs without a goaltender?Samuel Adams, Revere, Mass.A: Never underestimate the guile of Bruins&rsquo; general manager Harry Sinden, If he doesn&rsquo;t have Grant Fuhr or Glenn Healy by Christmas then there is no Santa Claus.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02540/6732381-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="570" height="918"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jacques Demers</figcaption></div>Q: Is this the year Jacques Demers exhausts all his credit cards and the Montreal Canadiens start yawning instead of listening to him?Mrs, S, Savard, Montreal, Que.A: Sacre bleu! Demers has been grossly underestimated ever since Harry Ornest hired him in 1983 to coach the St, Louis Blues, Demers is the Mae West that keeps the otherwise unfloatable Canadiens above the NHL waters.Q: What have we learned from the suspension-lockout?Ed Nostradamus, Yellowknife, N.W.T.A: That Gary Bettman wears tassle shoes and is a New York lawyer. &#9632;

f0031-01

Lockout simply plot by Islanders

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzija</div>When Steve Larouche told the Atlanta Knights during the off-season he wanted to leave, the International League&rsquo;s Turner Cup champions weren&rsquo;t too happy.Larouche, 23, was the leading scorer during the Turner Cup playoffs last spring with 16 goals and 26 points, He also was 11 th in regular-season scoring with 43 goals and 96 points.&ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t want to release me at first,&rdquo; said Larouche, who wanted out of his IHL contract to pursue another shot at the NHL with the Ottawa Senators.&ldquo;But I wanted a chance to play in the NHL and Ottawa made me an offer, It was better for me to go to Ottawa.&rdquo;The Knights decided not to block Larouche&rsquo;s NHL dream, but they requested compensation, which came from Ottawa in the form of defenseman Derek Mayer.Atlanta is Tampa Bay&rsquo;s farm team, but the Lightning showed no interest in Larouche and he didn&rsquo;t have an NHL contract, With Ottawa, he has the NHL contract, though he started the season with the American League&rsquo;s P.E.I, Senators.Ottawa made no promises, but did offer opportunity, And when you have the NHL&rsquo;s worst record (14-61-9), few jobs are safe, Larouche know&rsquo;s that.&ldquo;When the sent me down, they told me to work hard, that you never know what will happen, that guys will get a chance because they want to turn things around,&rdquo; Larouche said.The fourth-year center has never played an NHL game, A second-round pick (41st overall) of the Montreal Canadiens in 1989, Larouche played his first two pro seasons with the Fredericton Canadiens, scoring 56 and 92 points in 1992-93 before going to Atlanta.He&rsquo;ll have the chance to put up impressive numbers with P.E.I, His wingers are Michel Pi-card, a 41-goal scorer for the Portland Pirates last season, and rookie Daniel Guerard, Ottawa&rsquo;s fourth-round pick in 1992.&ldquo;Another French Connection,&rdquo; Larouche said of the unit.It&rsquo;s just as productive on an AHL scale, too, Larouche scored four goals and assisted on two others in P.E.I.&rsquo;s opening-night 8-4 victory over the Cape Breton Oilers, He was held scoreless by the Oilers in a 3-2 loss the next night, but had six shots, including two breakaways.&ldquo;Sometimes the puck doesn&rsquo;t want to go in,&rdquo; Larouche said, &ldquo;One night you&rsquo;re very hot, the next night you&rsquo;re not, The first night, the fourth goal I had an open net; Michel made a great pass, But they don&rsquo;t ask how, they just ask how many.&rdquo;FAST TRIFECTA: The goals came quickly for the Binghamton Rangers in their home opener Oct, 1 against the Syracuse Crunch.Michael Stewart, Scott Malone and Jeff Nielsen scored three in a span of just 24 seconds, a team record and just three seconds shy of a 32-year-old AHL mark.The three goals erased a 4-1 Crunch lead and propelled Binghamton to a 6-4 victory.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t anything spectacular and it wasn&rsquo;t like it was Wayne Gretzky or Jari Kurri, it was just guys who got the puck in and worked their tails off,&rdquo; Rangers&rsquo; captain Craig Dun&ndash; canson said.NO KNOCKOUT PUNCH: Former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe has a minor ownership share in the Syracuse Crunch, but his team so far lacks the knockout punch.The Crunch had a 6-2 lead after two periods against the Albany River Rats in their home opener Sept, 30, but settled for a 7-7 tie, then squandered the 4-1 lead in Binghamton and losing 6-4.SIMON SAYS: Rochester Americans&rsquo; center Todd Simon went wild on the opening weekend, scoring five goals and eight points in two games.Four of his goals came on the power play, including all three in an 8-2 victory over the Hershey Bears Oct, 1, His efforts earned him player-of-the-week honors.&ldquo;Sometimes you get the bounces, sometimes you don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; the third-year center said, &ldquo;I just hope things keep going my way.&rdquo;AHL TIDBITS: Springfield Falcons&rsquo; rookie Dale Junkin scored his first AHL goal on a penalty shot Oct, 1 against Worcester IceCats&rsquo; goalie Wayne Cowley at 7:23 of the third period, However, the IceCats rallied for a 5-5 tie on Walt Poddubny&rsquo;s goal with 13 seconds remaining, thrilling the sellout crowd of 10,256.Former Hershey star Tim Tookey had two goals and two assists as the Providence Bruins defeated the Bears 5-4 on opening night. &#9632;

Larouche bolts ‘I’ for NHL, but winds up on AHL farm

<div class="byline">By Dave Eminian</div>The International League brought showtime to ESPN2 in its debut on the cable network Oct, 2.The host Denver Grizzlies skated out of a bear cave that was positioned in the zamboni entrance, then skated past the Houston Aeros 43 in a shootout while playing under a sign that read: &ldquo;Hockey is out of hibernation.&rdquo;Marketing is definitely out of hibernation in the IHL, where commissioner Bob Ufer could be seen skating and shooting on videotape during this telecast, Nothing was off-limits.ESPN2 had microphones on Houston coach Terry Ruskowski during the game, as well as Denver defenseman Doug Crossman, The camera went into the dressing rooms between periods.Some of those fans assembled at McNichols Arena were watching this game from a hot tub located behind the glass at ice level.Opening weekend marked three crowds that landed in the league&rsquo;s top 15 all-time: the Detroit Vipers pulled in 20,182 and 18,248 spectators on consecutive nights; Denver opened with 16,215 fans at McNichols; the Fort Wayne Komets produced a sellout crowd of 8,103 and the Cincinnati Cyclones packed in close to 9,500 fans.The league&rsquo;s first-week average was 10,540, with several major markets still to open.ESPN2 announced additional IHL tele-casts-contingent upon the NHL labor situation.The network was scheduled to air Fort Wayne at Detroit Oct, 8, and the defending champion Atlanta Knights at the expansion Minnesota Moose Oct, 12.Additional games include: the Phoenix Roadrunners at Milwaukee Admirals Oct, 19; Las Vegas Thunder at San Diego Gulls Oct, 20; Milwaukee at San Diego Oct, 27; and Phoenix at Houston Oct, 29.LURING BONK: Radek Bonk couldn&rsquo;t get the money he wanted from the Ottawa Senators, so he&rsquo;ll have to settle for being one of the bestpaid players in the IHL.Bonk rejected a three-year, $4.8-million contract offer from the Senators Oct, 5 and signed with Las Vegas this season for about $200,000, He was in the lineup for the Thunder&rsquo;s Oct, 7 game against San Diego.Although there is an escape clause that would allow Bonk to play in the NHL this season, he said he is committed to playing for the Thunder through 1994-95.&ldquo;I love Las Vegas and I&rsquo;ll play here; that&rsquo;s fine with me,&rdquo; Bonk told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll stay here all season, I&rsquo;ve given my word and I&rsquo;ll stay, There&rsquo;s no reason for me to leave, I won&rsquo;t go back on my word because (the Thunder) has treated me so well.&rdquo;Meanwhile, there is growing speculation Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; defenseman Marty McSorley intends to play with the Thunder if the NHL dispute continues beyond Oct, 15, A source with the team said McSorley and the team have already agreed to terms, McSorley&rsquo;s brother Chris is an assistant coach with the Thunder.I-OPENERS: The Kansas City Blades signed former Boston Bruins&rsquo; center Ken Hodge on the eve of their season opener and also got 6-foot-5, 230-pound left winger Andrei Nazarov and defenseman Michal Sykora on assignment from the San Jose Sharks.Detroit lost veteran defenseman Mark Hardy until early December when he underwent surgery to repair a hernia Oct, 6&hellip;Atlanta figured out a way to give its fans a share in the Turner Cup title it won last season, The Knights were scheduled to issue replica championship rings to the first 8,000 spectators with reserved tickets at their Oct, 8 opener.The Indianapolis Ice visited the local zoo and ended up winning a best-of-three tug-o-war with an elephant as part of a public service campaign for the zoo&hellip;Chicago Wolves&rsquo; executive vice-president Wayne Messmer has fully recovered from last spring&rsquo;s gunshot wound to the neck, He is scheduled to sing the national anthem at the Wolves&rsquo; home opener Oct, 14 and eventually the Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; anthem.Las Vegas is pursuing another Radek, this one named Radek Dvorak, a 17-year-old right winger from the Czech Republic, Dvorak is a 6-foot-4, 205-pound, hard-hitting prospect whom Las Vegas general manager Bob Strumm projects to go in the top 10 in the 1995 NHL draft, Negotiations have slowed because Dvorak sustained a broken thumb.The Peoria Rivermen launched their new remote-controlled, gift-dropping in-arena blimp at the Oct, 1 home opener against the Milwaukee Admirals. &#9632;

Network TV exposure puts league in spotlight

<div class="byline">By Bandy King</div>The postponement of the NHL season will have little, if any, impact on the East Coast League, according to commissioner Pat Kelly.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t see it affecting our league much,&rdquo; Kelly said, &ldquo;The only thing that could happen is a slight trickle-down effect of players to our league, If some NHL guys go play in the American or International leagues, there could be some AHL and IHL players sent to our league.&rdquo;Kelly said some ECHL club owners are concerned their teams might be assigned some AHL or IHL players, forcing them to cut players who would have made their teams.&ldquo;Then when the lockout is over,&rdquo; said Kelly, &ldquo;our teams are going to lose those AHL and IHL players, and suddenly, they&rsquo;re going to have to find players, again.&ldquo;That could be difficult, since a lot of guys cut from our league will go to the Central or Colonial Leagues, And we have an agreement with those leagues that we won&rsquo;t take their players.&rdquo;Kelly noted the NHL lockout, combined with the major-league baseball strike, should help early-season attendance figures in the ECHL and other minor leagues.&ldquo;If people want to see hockey, there might not be much choice,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;In the ECHL, we already have a great opportunity by not having to go head-to-head against baseball&rsquo;s playoffs and World Series on TV for the first time ever.&ldquo;If the (National Basketball Association) goes out, we might be the only (area) sport going.&rdquo;Kelly, who has spent 36 years in different levels of hockey operations, said the NHL&rsquo;s labor strife couldn&rsquo;t have come at a worse time.&ldquo;To me, hockey is at it&rsquo;s highest peak ever&hellip;on an all-time high,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a shame this has to happen now, But I think you could see it coming, All the high-dollar contracts-100 guys are making more than $1 million this season-have gotten out of line.&ldquo;I blame the owners, players and agents, Unfortunately, the fans end up paying.&rdquo;MEET THE BOSS: Hampton Roads Admirals&rsquo; president Blake Cullen ran into New York Yankees&rsquo; owner George Steinbrenner whileattending a minor league baseball game in Columbus during the ECHL meetings.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying to talk George into coming into our league,&rdquo; Cullen said, &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;George, you&rsquo;ll love our league, We have a salary cap.&rsquo; &ldquo;Cullen knows Steinbrenner from two decades of front-office work in major-league baseball.MARSHALL DONE: Two-time ECHL allstar defenseman Paul Marshall has decided to hang up the skates.Marshall, 27, spent the past two seasons with the Birmingham Bulls, registering 34 goals and 157 points in 130 games, He spent two seasons in the International League with the San Diego Gulls and Kalamazoo Wings before joining the Dayton Bombers of the ECHL in 1991-92. &#9632;

Lockout’s trickle-down effect may bump players

<div class="byline">By Jim Cressman</div>Ron Gilmore wants to know why the Ontario League isn&rsquo;t investigating the high-sticking incident that left his son with major mouth injuries.Dave Gilmore, 20, the London Knights&rsquo; captain, was struck in the mouth with a high stick during a game against the Owen Sound Platers Sept, 30 in London.Gilmore lost one lower tooth and two more that are in jeopardy have been wired, He has undergone two root canals with three more scheduled and there was damage to the underlying bone, Four upper teeth need capping.It isn&rsquo;t known when Gilmore will return to the lineup.Ryan Mougenel, the Plater whose stick contacted Gilmore&rsquo;s mouth, received a double minor for high-sticking, OHL commissioner Dave Branch said referee Dave Cassidy reported the incident to the league, &ldquo;and in the view of the official, the contact was purely accidental, We talked to the linesman and it wasn&rsquo;t careless use of the stick, That&rsquo;s why we chose to take no action.&rdquo;If the high stick had been deemed careless, it would have been a major penalty, an automatic game misconduct and a review by Branch.Knights&rsquo; coach-general manager Mike Fed&ndash; orko called Ted Baker, OHL director of hockey operations and referee-in-chief, and wanted to send the videotape to the league.&ldquo;But (Baker) said he was not interested,&rdquo; Fed-orko said, &ldquo;He said the league policy is you don&rsquo;t send the tape in unless requested.&rdquo;Ron Gilmore said that&rsquo;s not good enough for him, He said the league should be interested when a player sustains this type of injury, accidental or not.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel very comfortable with what the other young lad received,&rdquo; Gilmore said, &ldquo;Even if it was accidental, which it probably was, I still don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s right.&ldquo;I was thinking about seeing my lawyer, I know what the game is like, but there comes a time when you don&rsquo;t feel comfortable with what has happened, There has been a lot of pain, If something like this happens at work, you&rsquo;re compensated, But with David, I don&rsquo;t see anything happening.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m willing to give that young gentleman (Mougenel) the benefit of the doubt, but you have to have control of your stick, I can&rsquo;t believe only four minutes was called when my son was laying on the ice and there was blood every-where.&rdquo;Platers&rsquo; coach Jerry Harrigan said Mougenel &ldquo;feels bad about what happened, but it definitely was accidental.&rdquo;TRUE WORTH: The Hartford Whalers&rsquo; failure to sign first-round draft pick Jeff O&rsquo;Neill is the Guelph Storm&rsquo;s gain.O&rsquo;Neill had four goals and 10 points in three games for the week ending Oct, 2 and was named OHL player of the week.After leaving the Whalers&rsquo; camp over the contract impasse, O&rsquo;Neill had five goals and 13 points in six games.HOME SWEET HOME: Richard Rochefort enjoyed his homecoming Oct, 2.The Sudbury Wolves&rsquo; first-round draft pick scored two goals in a 5-2 victory over the defending league champion Centennials in North Bay.Rochefort, a North Bay native, played Jr, B for the Waterloo Siskins and informed all teams in writing before the draft he&rsquo;d report to only one team, That team turned out to be the Wolves.RETURN OF LAFRANCE: The Oshawa Generals got a huge boost when the Kalamazoo Wings of the International League returned forward Darryl Lafrance for an overage season, Lafrance is the Generals&rsquo; active career points leader with 224, including 92 goals, Lafrance was drafted 121st overall by the Calgary Flames in 1993. &#9632;

Father contemplates legal action over high stick

<div class="byline">By Stuart Cowan</div>The Quebec League&rsquo;s Sherbrooke Faucons got a surprise when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman postponed the start of the season.As a result, the Quebec Nordiques sent 19-year-old goalie Jocelyn Thibault back to Sher-brooke to stay in shape, Thibault, who spent last season with the Nordiques, was the Quebec League&rsquo;s MVP in 1992-93 after posting a 3414-5 record, three shutouts and a 2.99 goals-against average with the Faucons.Thibault didn&rsquo;t disappoint the 4,239 hometown fans who showed up for his first game Oct 6 against the Chicoutimi Sagueneens, He made 23 stops to pick up a shutout in a 2-0 victory over the Sagueneens and their goaltending star Eric Fichaud, who stopped 33 shots.&ldquo;At my age the important thing is to play as much as possible to develop to the maximum,&rdquo; Thibault told the Journal de Montreal. &ldquo;Forget about money and the pressure&hellip;I&rsquo;m not broke and I don&rsquo;t have a family to support, This return is an investment in my future and the money lost I&rsquo;ll regain at some other point.&rdquo;The Sherbrooke fans greeted the goalie with chants of &ldquo;Thibault! Thibault!&rdquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not something we expected,&rdquo; said Faucons&rsquo; coach Guy Chouinard, &ldquo;but for him it&rsquo;s the best scenario, He&rsquo;ll get to play and practise every day and when the lockout is over he&rsquo;ll go back up, Knowing Jocelyn the way I do there&rsquo;s one thing he loves and that&rsquo;s play hockey.&rdquo;While it might be a good scenario for Thibault, it&rsquo;s bad news for Sherbrooke&rsquo;s other two goalies-Luc Belanger, 19, and Jean-Sebastien Aubin, 17, both of whom were playing well.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tough situation for our other two, but I&rsquo;ve explained the situation to them,&rdquo; Chouinard said, &ldquo;Jocelyn also told them both individually he&rsquo;s not here to take their jobs, that he&rsquo;s here because of the (lockout).&rdquo;BIG RETURN: Alain Rajotte made his debut behind the Granby Bisons&rsquo; bench in a 8-4 win over the Hull Olympiques Oct, 2.Rajotte, who coached College Francais last season, and Laval Titan coach Michel Therrien were each suspended the first 10 games of the season for their part in a fight during a pre-season match, Therrien returned to Laval in a 8-3 win over the Halifax Mooseheads Oct, 3.The Bisons were 5-4-1 without Rajotte, while the Titan was 7-2-1 without Therrien.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to be back,&rdquo; Rajotte said, &ldquo;I was dying little by little every night watching in the stands, Now I can breathe a little easier.&rdquo;Rajotte, who is an assistant coach with Canada&rsquo;s national junior team, said he regrets what happened between him and Therrien.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s something I never thought I could do during a game,&rdquo; Rajotte said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something that should never happen in sports and it&rsquo;s something I won&rsquo;t ever repeat, for sure.&rdquo;Meanwhile, Granby center Serge Aubin was player of the week for the period ending Oct, 2, He had two goals and 15 points in three games.EXPANSION SUCCESS: The expansion Halifax Mooseheads continued to be the early-season surprise after completing a gruelling 18-day, nine-game road trip with a 4-3-2 record.The Mooseheads returned to Halifax in first place in the Dilio Division with a 6-3-2 record.The Mooseheads traded Czech defenseman Lubomir Jandera, their No, 1 pick in this year&rsquo;s European draft, to Hull for 17-year-old goalie Antoine Marceau.ENCORE SEASON: Right winger Patrick Deraspe, who had 49 goals and 102 points last season, returned to the Beauport Harfangs as a 20-year-old after attending the Nordiques&rsquo; camp and a stint with the Cornwall Aces of the American League&hellip;Hull center Sebastien Bordeleau was held off the scoresheet for the second straight game in a 8-4 loss to Granby Oct, 2, Bordeleau, who led the league with 15 goals and 36 points in 11 games, picked up only one point in his last four games, all Hull losses.Shawinigan Cataractes&rsquo; goalie Yannick Gagnon picked up his second shutout in a 4-0 win over the Val d&rsquo;Or Foreurs Oct, 3, The loss was Val d&rsquo;Or&rsquo;s fourth in a row and dropped the Foreurs&rsquo; record to 2-10-0, Val d&rsquo;Or was 0-8-0 on the road while being outscored 64-14. &#9632;

Thibault goes back to roots

<div class="byline">By Rob Vanstone</div>Jason Wiemer vows he will not be corrupted by new-found wealth.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if the money has really hit me yet,&rdquo; said Wiemer, an 18-year-old left winger with the Western League&rsquo;s Portland Winter Hawks, after signing a deal with the NHL&rsquo;s Tampa Bay Lightning, &ldquo;When it comes down to it, I&rsquo;m the same guy.&rdquo;Wiemer was returned to Portland after signing a three-year deal with Tampa Bay, which picked him eighth overall in the 1994 entry draft, His contract calls for salaries of $500,000, $600,000 and $650,000 (U.S.), plus a $700,000 signing bonus.The Kimberley, B.C., native was returned to the major-junior ranks because of the NHL&rsquo;s labor dispute, He is subject to recall when the labor problems are resolved.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a little bit disappointed,&rdquo; Wiemer said, &ldquo;To make the team and then have this happen is unfortunate, but that&rsquo;s the way it goes, Life is full of adversity, You have to play through.&ldquo;Hopefully this will get settled as soon as possible and I&rsquo;ll have a chance to go back up there, In the meantime, I want to help the Winter Hawks.&rdquo;Wiemer had 45 goals, 96 points and 236 penalty minutes in 72 games for Portland last season, His performance obviously impressed Tampa Bay.&ldquo;I went there with the goal of making the team,&rdquo; Wiemer said, &ldquo;When you want to make the team and you work for it, you have a better chance than if you go there with the attitude of having a good camp, But I guess I was a little surprised when I made it.&rdquo;MORE MONEY MATTERS: Like Jason Wiemer, fellow 18-year-old Jeff Friesen made a quick impact in the NHL.Friesen made the San Jose Sharks and signed a four-year, $3.2-million (U.S.) deal.The agreement calls for an average annual salary of $600,000, plus an $800,000 signing bonus.San Jose picked Friesen 11th overall in the 1994 draft after his 51-goal, 118-point season with the Regina Pats, The Sharks asked him to remain in San Jose after the postponement.&ldquo;San Jose made the decision to keep me here,&rdquo; Friesen said, &ldquo;I listened to them, They want to keep me here, get me settled and see what happens.&rdquo;Friesen had seven points, including two goals, in seven NHL pre-season games.&ldquo;Jeff went to camp so well prepared that, not only did he earn a roster spot, he made it impossible for them to do anything but keep him,&rdquo; said Mike Barnett, Friesen&rsquo;s agent.LET&rsquo;S MAKE A DEAL: The Canadian Hockey League, which oversees the major-junior ranks, struck an agreement in principle with the NHL regarding the recall of junior-age players following the dispute.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing fancy,&rdquo; said Ed Chynoweth, president of the CHL and the WHL, &lsquo;The NHL has identified a number of draft choices who are signed and some of them are close to making NHL teams.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve agreed that for a signed player, should things start up after a work stoppage, teams will have seven days to recall a player, Then they&rsquo;ll be treated the same as if it was the start of the year.&rdquo;In other words, an NHL team would be free to retain an underage player, But if the team decided to return the player to junior, he could not rejoin the NHL club except in an emergency situation, This could apply to 17 CHL players.&ldquo;For unsigned players,&rdquo; Chynoweth said, &ldquo;teams would have 72 hours to recall them and sign them, Otherwise, they&rsquo;d come back to us.&rdquo;Ryan Smyth is one of those unsigned players, The Edmonton Oilers returned Smyth to the Moose Jaw Warriors after he spent training camp and pre-season with the NHL team, Edmonton picked Smyth sixth overall in June.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to cut down Moose Jaw, but my first choice is Edmonton, naturally,&rdquo; said Smyth, 18, &ldquo;With the lockout, all I want to do is play hockey and have fun.&rdquo; &#9632;

Locked out of Tampa Bay, Wiemer waits in Portland

<div class="byline">By Larry Mahoney</div>For one, it&rsquo;s a homecoming, For the other, a baptism.Hockey East&rsquo;s two first-year coaches are 49-year-old Jerry York, returning to his alma mater at Boston College, while 34-year-old Paul Pooley debuts at Providence College.York, a Watertown, Mass., native, was a center at BC, class of 1967, He coached Bowling Green State University for 15 years before replacing Steve Cedorchuk this season.Pooley, a 1984 graduate of Ohio State University, was an assistant coach at Lake Superior State University the previous three years, The Lakers won two national titles during that span and were second to Maine the other year.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m excited,&rdquo; York said, &ldquo;To return to the area you grew up in and to coach at your alma mater gives you the best of both worlds.&rdquo;Pooley calls his situation &ldquo;a big challenge because it&rsquo;s my first head coaching job.&ldquo;Now that I&rsquo;m running the show, I&rsquo;ll be responsible for covering all of the details,&rdquo; said Pooley, who will bring plenty of ideas garnered under Laker coach Jeff Jackson.York inherits a BC program that hasn&rsquo;t finished above fifth place the past three seasons, Previously, BC won six of the first seven Hockey East regular-season championships.York intends to emphasize speed-something the Eagles have lacked the past few years.&ldquo;Who wins the Indianapolis 500 every year? The fastest car, Who wins the Kentucky Derby? The fastest horse,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the same in just about every sport, I like to play an up tempo game with a quick transition.&rdquo;Pooley comes from a Lake Superior State program that has been very effective defensively, The Lakers have been among the nation&rsquo;s leaders in goals-against average.&ldquo;I believe if you play great defense, you frustrate your opponents and it leads to turnovers,&rdquo; said Pooley, who played 15 NHL games for the Winnipeg Jets a decade ago.The Exeter, Ont., native, said he considers Hockey East a &ldquo;good league.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve had a tremendous success rate, Maine and Boston University have been right up there (nationally) and, last year, they had four teams in the NCAA tournament.&rdquo;NEW SUPERVISORS: Hockey East appointed two front-office personnel during the off-season, Brendan Sheedy is the new supervisor of officials and Tim Burton is director of marketing and media relations.Sheedy is a former ECAC referee and a Merrimack College graduate, He replaces Dana Hennigar, who retired after 10 years.Burton is a Northeastern University grad and formerly worked with the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.BURNING MIDNIGHT OIL: The Maine Black Bears&rsquo; annual season-opening midnight practice attracted an estimated 1,500 spectators Oct, 3.Maine coach Shawn Walsh said it was the best-ever turnout for a Sunday night-Monday morning midnight practice. &#9632;

York, Pooley different in debuts

<div class="byline">By Tom Boggie</div>Traditions abound in college hockey, ranging from the annual Beanpot Tournament in Boston to the ringing of the bell after each goal at Clarkson University.Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, tradition begins before the first puck hits the ice.Each year, many students spend their first month on the Troy, N.Y., campus camped outside the student union, waiting in what has become known as &ldquo;The Hockey Line&rdquo; to purchase season tickets.On the morning tickets go on sale, the school&rsquo;s pep band awakens the students in line with music, while the college president, athletic director and coach serve coffee and doughnuts.Although there is no need for camping out to ensure a ticket, it has become RPI&rsquo;s lore and each year, new students keep the tradition alive.The practice began in the early 1970s, when competing fraternities wanted the best seats in Houston Field House, In those days, the field house, a renovated airplane hanger, had huge pillars supporting the structure and there were many obstructed-view seats around the arena.That first year, students camped in the basement of the old student union, but the next year, they were moved outside, The field house was renovated in the early 1980s and the pillars removed, but The Hockey Line remained intact.Many students now wait in line from the time they arrive on campus in late August until student tickets go on sale the first week in October, One student is able to hold as many as eight spots for his group, ensuring members of the group don&rsquo;t miss class time.The Hockey Line gained national attention in 1985, the year the Engineers won the national title, Jumping on the championship bandwagon, many students went back in line the day after the Engineers won the title in Detroit.That Hockey Line remained intact throughout the spring and summer and lasted 180 days.&ldquo;I remember going down to the student union to pick up newspapers in the summer and some of the guys in the line would be sitting in wading pools, trying to stay cool,&rdquo; said Al Shibley, who was the RPI sports information director in 1985, &ldquo;Those guys stayed there all summer.&rdquo;LONGER SEASON: One of the changes in the ECAC this season will be an expanded, 32-game schedule for many of its members.The ECAC has operated with a maximum of 30 games since 1984, the year the league was trimmed from 17 teams to 12, But athletic directors approved an expansion to 32 games.&ldquo;With the extra games, we will increase nonleague play and this will allow fans to once again see old rivals return to their buildings,&rdquo; said Joe Bertagna, executive director of hockey for the ECAC, &ldquo;This also opens the door to the possibility of an interlocking schedule arrangement with a rival conference.&rdquo;The double round-robin league schedule remains intact, creating 22 league games. &#9632;

Camping out tradition part of RPI hockey lore

<div class="byline">By Chris Miller</div>The St, Cloud State Huskies bobbed around the middle of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association standings their first four years in search of respect as a fledgling Division I team.The established teams in the league gave the Huskies that respect this season, WCHA coaches, in a pre-season poll, made St, Cloud State the favorite to win the league title.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a surprise,&rdquo; said Huskies&rsquo; coach Craig Dahl, whose team got five of 10 first-place votes to edge the Minnesota Golden Gophers, &ldquo;I thought Minnesota, with both their goalies back and their great freshmen&hellip;I voted them No, 1.&rdquo;St, Cloud State had 134 points in the poll, two more than Minnesota, Defending champion Colorado College Tigers (110) were third and Northern Michigan Wildcats (96) fourth.St, Cloud State lost only two regulars, including goalie Grant Sjerven, from a fourth-place team that was the WCHA playoff runner-up, But Neil Cooper, a sophomore slated to take over in goal this fall, instead will sit out the season after breaking his leg in an automobile accident in September, Freshman Brian Leitza, who played for Sioux City in the U.S, Hockey League last season, takes over No, 1 goalie.&ldquo;As Brian goes, we&rsquo;ll go,&rdquo; Dahl said, &ldquo;But we&rsquo;ll help him, We have good depth-with seven guys who scored 10 or more goals-and all our defensemen are back, So we have the pieces.&rdquo;Defenseman Kelly Hultgren led the Huskies last season with 37 points and St, Cloud had the best balance in the league-12 players had 18 or more points, St, Cloud was especially strong at home, 16-1-3 at the National Hockey Center.WILSON IN SPOTLIGHT: WCHA coaches tabbed sophomore right winger Landon Wilson of the North Dakota Fighting Sioux as pre-season MVP favorite.The 6-foot-2, 205-pounder was a first-round 1993 draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs, His rights were traded to the Quebec Nordiques in the off-season, Skilled, strong and tough, Wilson led the Sioux with 18 goals and 33 points in 35 games as WCHA rookie of the year.Pre-season favorite for top rookie is Minnesota defenseman Mike Crowley, a standout at Bloomington Jefferson, helping it to three straight Minnesota state high school titles.WINNERS REMAIN: Colorado College won the regular-season title last season, but af-ter falling to last-place Michigan Tech Huskies in the first round, wasn&rsquo;t picked for the NCAA tournament, That won&rsquo;t happen again.&ldquo;The league champions are now protected,&rdquo; said Northern Michigan coach Rick Comley, chairman of the NCAA hockey committee, &ldquo;The rules have been changed to guarantee spots to two teams from each of the four leagues in the (NCAA) toumament-the regular-season champion and the playoff champion.&rdquo;Colorado College went from last place in 1992-93 to first in 1993-94 under first-year coach Don Lucia while playing its final season in the ancient Broadmoor World Arena. &#9632;

St, Cloud due some respect

<div class="byline">By Matt Carlson</div>If you plan on following the Central Collegiate Hockey Association&rsquo;s &ldquo;Road to the Joe&rdquo; this season, you&rsquo;ll need a map.Because Kent State folded its program last spring, the league&rsquo;s playoffs, which culminate in the CCHA tournament at Detroit&rsquo;s Joe Louis Arena March 18-19, have added turns and twists.The league&rsquo;s 10 members, plus affiliate Alaska-Fairbanks Nanooks, will be seeded in postseason play, Here&rsquo;s how the playoffs will work:&#9633; The Nanooks play a single game against the l0th-place finisher March 7, The winner of that contest advances to the playoffs.&#9633; The top five regular-season finishers will host the best-of-three sets, with the first-place team hosting the 10th, second hosting ninth, etc.&#9633; Alaska-Fairbanks wins the preliminary game, each of the top five teams has the option of facing the Nanooks or the weakest remaining CCHA member, For example, the No, 1 seed could choose the No, 9 regular-season finisher or the Nanooks.&#9633; After the best-of-three series, the two lowest survivors meet in a single elimination game.&#9633; The winner of the game, plus the top three survivors will compete in the CCHA tournament.Next season, when Alaska-Fairbanks joins as a full member, the system will be streamlined, The top eight finishers will make the playoffs and square off in best-of-three series.CAUGHT IN THE DRAFT: Fifteen CCHA players were selected in the 1994 NHL entry draft.At the top of the list was Michigan Wolverines&rsquo; sophomore left winger Jason Botterill, who scored 21 goals and 40 points in 37 games as a freshman, The Dallas Stars picked him 20th overall, Michigan State sophomore defenseman Tony Tuzzolino was taken in the fifth round by the Quebec Nordiques.Meanwhile, 13 incoming freshmen were chosen by NHL clubs, They include: Michigan State left winger Mike Watt (second round, Edmonton Oilers); Michigan center Robb Gor-don (second round, Vancouver Canucks); Miami Redskins&rsquo; right winger Adam Copeland (fourth round, Edmonton); Michigan center Matt Herr (fourth round, Washington Capitals); Michigan State defenseman Tyler Harlton (fourth round, St, Louis Blues); Michigan State defenseman Jon Gaskins (fifth round, Edmonton); Michigan goalie Marty Turco (fifth round, Dallas); Lake Superior State left winger Jon Battaglia (sixth round, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim), Lake Superior center Terry Marchant (sixth round, Edmonton); Notre Dame Fighting Irish center Steve Noble (eighth round, St, Louis Blues); Michigan center Bill Muckalt (ninth round, Vancouver); Lake Superior goalie John Grahame (ninth round, Boston Bruins); and Michigan State defenseman Kevin Harper (10th round, St, Louis). &#9632;

Quirky playoff scenario has Nanooks in circles

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01848/6732659-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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CLASSIFIED

<div class="byline">By Kevin Dupont</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01717/6732697-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="381" height="533"></div>The hottest comer in Boston is not third base for the Red Sox, nor can it be found in the city&rsquo;s infamous and sleazy Combat Zone.Jump in a Boston cab, ask the driver to take you where the action is and don&rsquo;t be surprised if he drops you off at the crease in Boston Garden, On any given night during the season, the Boston Bruins&rsquo; goal is the city&rsquo;s worst of times, its best of times, its most torturous of places, What else would you expect in a red-light district?For most of the 1970s, virtually all of the 1980s and the better part of the 1990s, the Bruins have been seeking a franchise goalie, They had Hall-of-Famer Gerry Cheevers for their Stanley Cups of 1970 and &rsquo;72, For the bulk of the remaining 20-plus seasons, though, they&rsquo;ve been without a clear-cut No, 1 netminder, which is also to say they&rsquo;ve been without a Stanley Cup, Funny how that works.Oh, there have been some sweet interludes, In the late &rsquo;70s, Gilles Gilbert could be brilliant one day, a motheaten bolt of Black & Gold the next, Pete Peeters was a mainstay for a good chunk of the &rsquo;80s, followed by the Reggie Lemelin-Andy Moog tandem, a solid duo that bridged the &rsquo;90s.However, let us not forget the likes, in no particular order, of Marco Baron, Roberto Romano, Daniel Berthiaume, Rogie Vachon, Jim Craig, Pat Riggin, Cleon Daskalakis, Matt DelGuidice, Jim Pettie, Norm Foster, Mike Moffat, Doug Keans, Ron Grahame and Jim Stewart, Overall, a very mixed lot.Daskalakis got out of the chill and now sells chili around New England, Stewart had a five-goal, one-period debut in 1979-80 that instantly turned into a five-goal, one-period career, The best that can be said of the also-rans is that the congenial Grahame eventually was traded to the Los Angeles Kings for the first-round pick that turned out to be Ray Bourque.Here in the fall of 1994, the revolving door in the Bruins&rsquo; net is running at warp speed, With Jon Casey and his Technicolor Five Hole allowed to cut his own deal with the St, Louis Blues in the off-season, the Bruins opened up their cage to all bidders: no reasonable offers refused, Any Boston-area kid with a spare Halloween mask was an immediate candidate, if not suspect.By the end of training camp, Vinny Riendeau, Blaine Lacher and Evgeny Ryabchikov all were left standing, And the winner (s)?&ldquo;I knew you&rsquo;d ask me that,&rdquo; said head coach Brian Sutter, &ldquo;We were supposed to fly to Montreal to start the season and all three were still with us, All I can tell you is, based on what we saw in training camp, all three showed they could do the job, We knew what Vinny could do and we liked what we saw of the two kids.&rdquo;In short, the 1994-95 season will start (we think) as an apt summation of nearly the past quarter-century in the Boston net, Who&rsquo;s in goal? No one really knows and it could be that way much of the season, All three could do the job, All three might be Marco Baron waiting to happen.Riendeau is the ex-Detroit Red Wing who played regularly for Sutter in St, Louis, Lacher played last season for the National Collegiate Athletic Association champion Lake Superior Lakers, leaving campus a year early as a free agent for the promise of $1 million over four years, Ryabchikov was the Bruins&rsquo; first pick in the June draft, A castaway, a collegian and one of Mother Russia&rsquo;s orphans.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02505/6732690-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="574" height="838"><figcaption class="caption-body">Evgeny Ryabchikov</figcaption></div>If one of the three has a slight edge, it goes to Lacher, Late in training camp, during an exhibition game in Las Vegas, the fiery Albertan came racing out of his net and tried to goad the Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; Bernie Nicholls into a brawl, Nicholls wasn&rsquo;t interested, But there was a touch of Billy Smith there that caught management&rsquo;s eye.Riendeau? Ryabchikov? Lacher? Perhaps one of the three will be a Vezina candidate five months from now, Then again, there&rsquo;s always room out there on the chili sales trail, the opening to the on-ramp exactly 24 square feet and framed in red pipes. &#9632;

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Who’s tops Boston’s red-light district?

<div class="byline">By Michael Ulmer</div>Jamie Storr&rsquo;s tale is a study in time travel, For him, the future was supposed to be now.Storr&rsquo;s play in training camp forced the Los Angeles Kings to adopt an ungainly three-goalie strategy that kicks off when the season gets underway.Had the NHL&rsquo;s regular season started Oct, 1 as scheduled, Storr would have been one of the league&rsquo;s more intriguing stories, a goalie with a shot at being the first 18-year-old since Tom Bar-rasso skipped high school in 1983 for the Buffalo Sabres to grab a No, 1 job.More importantly for the Kings, Storr has the makeup to be their first homebrewed franchise goalie, Kings&rsquo; general manager Sam McMaster believes Storr could do for the Los Angeles what Patrick Roy has done for the Montreal Canadiens; Kirk McLean for the Vancouver Canucks; Mike Richter for the New York Rangers.&ldquo;He could fall into that category where he helps take the team to another level,&rdquo; McMaster said.The Kings signed Storr to a three-year, $2.6-million deal and have pledged to make him the wild card in a mix that includes incumbent Kelly Hrudey and last year&rsquo;s back-up, Robb Stauber.&ldquo;We want to see if he&rsquo;s better than what we have,&rdquo; McMaster said, &ldquo;and we can&rsquo;t do that unless we try him.&rdquo;Right now, if McMaster wants to see him, he will be obliged to go to Owen Sound, Storr was returned to his Ontario League team to wait out the lockout.Storr originally balked at going back to junior and said he wanted to play in the International League, He said he still may do that if the lockout extends beyond Oct, 15.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to look at the bright side,&rdquo; Storr said, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t play right away, but I&rsquo;m that much closer to my dream, I&rsquo;ve got a big part of it out of the way in getting signed, Now I don&rsquo;t have to worry about that.&rdquo;The company line entering training camp was Storr would eventually be returned to the OHL, That may still prove to be the case when the season resumes, but Storr&rsquo;s credible performance in the pre-season-he posted a 2-1-0 record in five appearances-was enough to prompt a rethink.&ldquo;We were very pleased with three of Jamie&rsquo;s games and the other two were average,&rdquo; McMaster said, &ldquo;But for a player jumping from junior to the NHL, his camp was outstanding.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-03390/6732728-1-eng-US/f0037-032.jpg" title="f0037-03" width="959" height="1951"><figcaption class="caption-body">Competitive Jamie Storr doesn&rsquo;t believe in playing just for fun. (Photo by Bailey)</figcaption></div>Any accolade has to be tempered with a word on Storr&rsquo;s age, Even for a player long accustomed to playing against older competition, Storr&rsquo;s ascension to the NHL has been mercurial.He has won four international gold medals including one from last year&rsquo;s World Championships, where he was Team Canada&rsquo;s third-stringer, Storr was voted the best goalie at the 1994 World Junior Championships and was the first goalie chosen at the 1991 OHL draft as well as last year&rsquo;s NHL entry draft, All this for a kid who turns 19 on Dec, 28.Nothing in life is pre-ordained, but it&rsquo;s worth noting Storr was the only kid in his Brampton, Ont., neighborhood with a puck shooting machine in his basement, His father, James, discovered a love of goaltending at 29 and put his contracting business aside to devote himself exclusively to playing goal, Despite hours of practice and stints with as many teams and leagues as the clock would allow, James Storr&rsquo;s career petered out at the Sr, A level.He did get a chance to play in a Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; scrimmage in the late 1970s.&ldquo;I asked Johnny Bower for a tryout with the Leafs,&rdquo; Storr recalled, &ldquo;I told him I was already better than the goalies he had and by the end of the year I planned on being better than Tretiak, He told me to bring him an 18-year-old with my heart.&rdquo;James Storr delivered the goods, but it&rsquo;s the Kings, not the Maple Leafs, who have benefitted, Jamie is sound tech-nically, but his greatest asset is his competitiveness.&ldquo;You try to stay inside the roles, but sometimes you go outside,&rdquo; Jamie said, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way I played everything, I don&rsquo;t like playing for fun, I like playing to win, I think one of the worst things you can ever do is play and not keep score, There&rsquo;s no sense in playing.&rdquo;As much as anything, it&rsquo;s that competitiveness that has prompted the Kings&rsquo; to reasses Storr&rsquo;s future.&ldquo;Jamie has played all over the world and he&rsquo;s a very mature young man,&rdquo; McMaster, said &ldquo;We&rsquo;re assuming he can handle the pressure of the day-to-day NHL life.&ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t overreact and doesn&rsquo;t get down if they score a goal on him, He&rsquo;s one of the few goalies we believe can make this jump.&rdquo; &#9632;

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L.A, Storry begins

<div class="byline">By Keith Gave</div>In a pre-season game between the St, Louis Blues and Detroit Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena, Blues&rsquo; defenseman Tony Twist brought his stick up on Wings&rsquo; antagonist Vladimir Konstantinov, clipping him under the left eye for a half-dozen stitches.&ldquo;Did you do that?&rdquo; Wings&rsquo; tough guy Darren McCarty asked Twist.&ldquo;Yeah, what are you going to do about it?&rdquo; Twist countered.McCarty dropped his gloves and delivered a haymaker to Twist&rsquo;s mouth, opening a gash from his upper lip to his nose that required 25 stitches to close.End of discussion, And it effectively ended the concern over how secure the Wings will be in the absence of Bob Probert, Probert was signed as a free agent by the Chicago Blackhawks in July.In his second season, McCarty inherits Probert&rsquo;s role as Detroit&rsquo;s chief enforcer, But those duties may be diminished in a game where fighting is rarely used as a tactic by coach Scotty Bowman.The Wings, who admit they too often looked toward Probert to handle all the dirty work, speak today in terms of team toughness.Fighting is almost passe, Wings&rsquo; forward Ray Sheppard believes.&ldquo;I just don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a real integral part of the game anymore,&rdquo; Sheppard said, &ldquo;You still need toughness, but that&rsquo;s not necessarily being a good fighter, Dino Ciccarelli is a very, very tough hockey player, Guys who block shots, they&rsquo;re tough players.&ldquo;The way the game is today, you just can&rsquo;t intimidate anybody anymore, That stuff is over, Nobody&rsquo;s afraid of anybody anymore.&rdquo;Not even Probert.&ldquo;A great example of that was the guy we had here,&rdquo; Sheppard said in a reference to his former teammate, &ldquo;The last couple of years, nobody was afraid of him.&rdquo;BOGEY MEN: Golf season came early for the Red Wings, a team used to playing winter rules on the courses with those first-round playoff eliminations.Two days after what was supposed to be their opening night at Joe Louis Arena, several Wings were golfing instead of having a morning skate and then boarding Red Bird One for a two-game trip out west.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve skated hard for 27 days and it didn&rsquo;t do any good,&rdquo; said Wings&rsquo; player representative Terry Carkner, &ldquo;So we&rsquo;re putting the bags aside and hoping for the best.&rdquo;Wings players would work out on their own, Carkner said, &ldquo;like we do the off-season.&rdquo;Scotty Bowman was concerned, but resigned to the situation, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the same for every team,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and there&rsquo;s really nothing you can do about it.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Captain Steve Yzerman, rehabilitating from off-season back surgery, is optimistic he&rsquo;ll be ready to play Oct, 15, but isn&rsquo;t too hopeful the season will start, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d say there&rsquo;s no optimism at all among the players,&rdquo; Yzerman said&hellip;Vladimir Konstantinov was amazed at the labor problems that threatened the NHL season, Then again, he grew up under the thumb of tyrannical Red Army coach Viktor Tikhonov, &ldquo;This would never happen in Russia,&rdquo; Konstantinov said, &ldquo;They tell you to go play in Siberia, you go play in Siberia.&rdquo;<h2>DETROIT</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Sergei Fedorov, Keith Primeau, Kris Draper, Greg Johnson. Mike Sillinger.LW&ndash;Slava Kozlov. Shawn Burr, Mike Krushelny-ski, Tim Taylor, Micah Aivazoff.RW&ndash;Dino Ciccarelli. Ray Sheppard. Martin Lapointe. Darren McCarty.LD&ndash;Paul Coffey, Nicklas Lidstrom, Mark Howe, Mike Ramsey. Terry Carkner.RD&ndash;Vladimir Konstantinov. Bob Rouse. Bob Halkidis, Jason York.G&ndash;Mike Vernon, Chris Osgood<h3>INJURIES</h3>Sergei Bautin, D, torn left knee ligaments. indefinite, Steve Yzerman, C, back surgery, Oct. 15. &#9632;

McCarty on patrol if necessary

<div class="byline">By Mike Heika</div>Peter Zezel is sure of one thing-he&rsquo;s happy to be a Dallas Star.The center, acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs as part of a free-agent compensation package for right winger Mike Craig, isn&rsquo;t sure whether he&rsquo;ll be used in an offensive or defensive role, but he is sure he will be used.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m prepared to do just about anything they ask,&rdquo; Zezel said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking forward to playing that first game, to getting things rolling. Even that first exhibition game at Reunion Arena I was a little nervous, just to see how fans would react. But I&rsquo;m ready to go now.&rdquo;Zezel sees the move as one that could be a boost for his career. The 29-year-old Toronto native had seen his ice time diminish after three plus season with the Leafs and now he is hoping to become a regular contributor in a offense that spreads the minutes evenly.Still, what those contributions will be is a up in the air. Zezel skated most of the pre-season with left winger Dave Gagner and right winger Russ Courtnall-a solid second line with offensive intentions.During the end of camp, he was moved onto an experimental line with Alan May and Jarkko Varvio. Gagner was shifted to a line with Mike Modano and Trent Klatt.&ldquo;If I can play my defensive game, which I&rsquo;ve been doing the past couple of years, that&rsquo;s great,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If I can play a little more offense, that&rsquo;s a bonus.&rdquo;He finished the pre-season with two goals and five points in six games. He said his offensive skills will take some time to refine.&ldquo;Once you&rsquo;ve been in a defensive role, it&rsquo;s hard to adjust,&rdquo; Zezel said. &ldquo;Even if you&rsquo;re on offense, you&rsquo;re always thinking defense first. It takes a while to fit in and get your timing down.&rdquo;EXPANDING THE GAME: The Stars are adding a second sheet of ice to their practice facility in Irving and hope to be up and running by November.Also in the plans are three new rinks to help make hockey more accessible to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The Stars are studying plans that would put recreational rinks in at least three strategically-placed locales.Team president Jim Lites estimates youth leagues at StarCenter turned away more than 500 kids this year.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a huge demand for this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Our long-term goal is to get everyone playing hockey and that&rsquo;s where we&rsquo;re heading.&rdquo;Lites said each new rink would take about six months to construct.NOTEBOOK: Goalies Andy Moog and Darcy Wakaluk most likely will work as a tandem this year, coach Bob Gainey said. The two did nothing to separate themselves in the preseason, both were spectacular. Moog was 1-0-3 with a 2.15 goals-against average and .935 save percentage. Wakaluk was 2-1-0 with a 2.88 average and .908 save percentage. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s one area where we&rsquo;re going to expect even more than we did last year,&rdquo; Gainey said.Single-game Stars&rsquo; ticket holders were allowed to exchange their tickets from postponed games for cash. The policy differed from most NHL teams who said they&rsquo;d honor such tickets for make-up games.<h2>DALLAS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Mike Modano, Peter Zezel, Neal Broten, Dean Evason.LW&ndash;Trent Klatt, Dave Gagner, Brent Gilchrist, Alan May.RW&ndash;Jarkko Varvio, Russ Courtnall, Paul Broten, Shane Churla.LD&ndash;Mark Tinordi, Derian Hatcher, Craig Ludwig.RD&ndash;Grant Ledyard, Paul Cavallini, Doug Zmolek.G&ndash;Andy Moog, Darcy Wakaluk.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Richard Matvichuk, D, torn left knee ligaments, out for season, Mike McPhee, LW, arthroscopic knee surgery, day-to-day. &#9632;

Rejuvenated Zezel looks forward to offensive role

<div class="byline">By Tim Sassone</div>Rich Sutter has been there before and doesn&rsquo;t like it any better this time around.For the second year in a row, Sutter was left unprotected in the waiver draft, this time by the Chicago Blackhawks. Last year, it was the St. Louis Blues who failed to protect Sutter and he was snatched by the Hawks.Sutter, 30, didn&rsquo;t want to leave the Blues then and he doesn&rsquo;t want to leave the Hawks now. In fact, if he&rsquo;s claimed by another club once the draft is held, he isn&rsquo;t sure he&rsquo;ll report.&ldquo;I have a family that means the entire world to me and I&rsquo;m not sure I&rsquo;m prepared to move them again,&rdquo; said Sutter, who has played for five clubs during his 12-year NHL career. &ldquo;This is something I can&rsquo;t control and I don&rsquo;t want to say too much more until something happens. I just hope to God that it doesn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;Sutter said he was told he would be among the 18 skaters protected, but when the Hawks&rsquo; list was announced his name wasn&rsquo;t on it. It&rsquo;s believed it came down to a decision between protecting Sutter or defenseman Greg Smyth, though coach Darryl Sutter-Rich&rsquo;s older brother-denied that was the case.&ldquo;It had nothing to do with those two,&rdquo; Darryl Sutter said. &ldquo;Last year, we didn&rsquo;t have enough defensemen. You need eight NHL defensemen today. If you look around at organizations that have depth, it&rsquo;s on defense. If you leave those guys out there, you&rsquo;re going to lose them.&rdquo;There has been talk the Blues may be interested in reclaiming Sutter, which might ease the hurt a little since Sutter loved living and playing in St. Louis.&ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t want to leave here. This is too good a team and my heart is here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It hurts to think about it. It hurts to think you&rsquo;re protected and at the last minute learn you&rsquo;re not.&ldquo;But that&rsquo;s what happens when you have other people controlling your life. A lot of things in this game aren&rsquo;t fair.&rdquo;The Sept. 28 waiver draft was postponed and will be rescheduled following a labor settlement.TOUGH TALK: The Hawks had planned to practise during the lockout at a rink partly owned by Jeremy Roenick, but those plans changed.&ldquo;If (the owners) could take such drastic actions by locking us out, we&rsquo;re going to take drastic actions and take (time) off,&rdquo; said Roenick, the team&rsquo;s union representative.Though most players planned to work out on their own, they realize they would soon fall out of game shape.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s their problem, not ours,&rdquo; Roenick said.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Bob Probert began his rehab for substance abuse in Van Nuys, Calif., Oct. 3. The program at the ASAP Family Treatment Center will last a minimum of 28 days. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re very happy with his progress,&rdquo; said general manager Bob Pulford. &ldquo;He has been going to meetings and working very hard at it.&rdquo;&hellip;Jeremy Roenick&rsquo;s Oct. 1 deadline for receiving a new contract came and went. His agent, Neil Abbott, said the new deadline is the start of the season.Pulford informed Hawks&rsquo; front-office employees there would be no layoffs during the lockout&hellip;Vocalist Wayne Messmer, shot in the throat during a robbery attempt not far from Chicago Stadium in April, will sing anthems at all home games this season.<h2>CHICAGO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Jeremy Roenick, Bernie Nicholls, Brent Sutter, Christian Ruuttu.LW&ndash;Patrick Poulin, Paul Ysebaert, Brent Grieve, Rich Sutter.RW&ndash;Tony Amonte, Joe Murphy, Dirk Graham, Darin Kimble.LD&ndash;Gary Suter, Steve Smith, Cam Russell, Keith CarneyRD&ndash;Chris Chelios, Eric Weinrich, Greg Smyth.G&ndash;Ed Belfour, Jeff Hackett.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Tony Horacek, LW, pulled rib cage muscles, day-to-day. &#9632;

Unprotected Rich Sutter prays he’s not drafted

<div class="byline">By Dave Luecking</div>In an industry where ticket revenue pays the player salaries, it seems appropriate the team with the highest payroll would have the highest ticket prices.Team Marketing Report, a sports industry newsletter out of Chicago, reported recently the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; average ticket price is the highest in the league at $42.21, almost nine dollars more than the league average of $33.66. The report concluded hockey has the highest average ticket price of the major pro sports.The Blues&rsquo; payroll is the NHL&rsquo;s highest at $23.5 million.Team president Jack Quinn did not appreciate the dubious daily double. He contested the report on tickets.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s an erroneous report,&rdquo; Quinn said. &ldquo;Los Angeles has seats at $200. There are three levels of suites in Chicago that are higher than ours. There is a $75 top ticket price in Toronto.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know where these guys are coming from.&rdquo;The newsletter did not include the cost of so-called premium seats. It also didn&rsquo;t factor in discounts on season tickets or the lack of availability of certain seats because of seasonticket sales.&ldquo;We have very, very few tickets available at $55,&rdquo; Quinn said. &ldquo;Most of them were sold as (season tickets) for $50.&rdquo;The Blues&rsquo; season-ticket prices range from $19 to $50. Their single-game ticket prices range from $27.50 to $55.00, a 40.7 per-cent increase over last season.Quinn said nine teams have more expensive seats at the high end-Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers, Los Angeles Kings, Chicago Blackhawks, Pittsburgh Penguins, San Jose Sharks, Vancouver Canucks, Montreal Canadiens and Calgary Flames. He also attributed the Blues&rsquo; higher prices to the move to a new home. When the season begins, the Blues will begin play in their new home, the $135-million Kiel Center.&ldquo;At the old Arena, we had the loges that hang down from either end,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have those seats here. We have very good sightlines.&rdquo;The good sightlines exact a high premium. According to the newsletter, two fans attending a game, buying four hot dogs and four beers, sharing a program and parking in the garage would pay $109.42.ON ICE: Although players around the league vowed not to skate during the lockout, several Blues took to the ice for a good cause Oct. 4.Kelly Chase, Curtis Joseph, Brendan Shanahan and Kevin Miller took part in a hockey program set up by Chase and St. Louis-based real estate developer Tony Sansone Jr. for developmentally disabled players of all ages. There are 20 players in the Gateway Hockey Program, ranging in age from 11 to 30.&ldquo;They couldn&rsquo;t skate last year when we started,&rdquo; Chase said. &ldquo;Now they fly around. And they own me. They&rsquo;re so lovable, it&rsquo;s unbelievable.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Adam Creighton was reunited with Mike Keenan when the big center was acquired from the Tampa Bay Lighting Oct. 6 for defenseman Tom Tilley. Creighton scored 34 goals under Keenan with the Chicago Black-hawks in 1989-90.<h2>ST. LOUIS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Oct, 6: Tom Tilley, D, traded to Tampa Bay for Adam Creighton, C.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Craig Janney, Guy Carbonneau, Esa Tikkanen, Peter Stastny, Greg Parks, Igor Korolev.LW&ndash;Brendan Shanahan, Kevin Miller, Vitali Prokhorov, Philippe Bozon, Craig Johnson, Tony Twist, Basil McRae.RW&ndash;Brett Hull, Denny Felsner, Denis Chasse, Kelly Chase, Vitali Karamnov.LD&ndash;Steve Duchesne, Murray Baron, Bill Houlder.RD&ndash;AI Maclnnis, Rick Zombo, Doug Lidster.G&ndash;Curtis Joseph, Jon Casey.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None. &#9632;

Team president Quinn ticked off at ticket report

<div class="byline">By Damien Cox</div>It&rsquo;s amazing what three years and some success can do for a business relationship.When Cliff Fletcher first arrived on the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; scene in June, 1991, he was forced to fight a battle with then Maple Leaf Gardens&rsquo; director Steve Stavro to keep his job. Stavro, angling to take over the Gardens and Leafs, felt Fletcher was given too much authority, but was hamstrung by protective provisions in Fletcher&rsquo;s five-year contract.Since then, relations between the two has improved along with the team&rsquo;s fortunes, and Oct. 4 Stavro-now chairman of the Gardens-gave Fletcher a three-year contract extension through 1999.&ldquo;Realistically, when this contract expires, that will probably be it,&rdquo; Fletcher said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be 63, and to finish up my career as a Toronto Maple Leaf would just be terrific.&rdquo;Stavro&rsquo;s lawyer, Brian Bellmore, said the Leafs had no intention of letting Fletcher leave town at the end of the 1995-96 season.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s one of the top executives in the league in terms of experience and effectiveness,&rdquo; Bellmore said. &ldquo;What Cliff has done is restore out team and our building to the pre-eminence the fans in Toronto deserve.&rdquo;TRADING PLACES: The Leafs want no part of any league-wide paralysis.Cliff Fletcher swapped center David Sacco to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim for right winger Terry Yake just three days before the season was postponed. Then two days after NHL commissioner Gary Bettman put the season on hold Fletcher made another deal.This one involved seven players and the Los Angeles Kings, with the most notable name being Kings&rsquo; left winger Dixon Ward.The Leafs sent grinding left winger Eric Lacroix and defenseman Chris Snell, the top defenseman in the American League last season, and a 1996 fourth-round draft pick to the Kings for Ward, center Guy Leveque, junior enforcer Shane Toporowski and University of Wisconsin center Kelly Fairchild.While Ward has more NHL experience than the rest of the players combined and gives the Leafs depth at forward, Fletcher said the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Toporowski was the key ingredient in the swap.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the type of player we&rsquo;ve been looking for,&rdquo; said Fletcher of the 19-year-old who plays for the Western League&rsquo;s Prince Albert Raiders. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a young physical forward who we think also has a lot of talent.&rdquo;Either Ward or Leveque will be loaned to the Canadian national team, with the other heading to St. John&rsquo;s of the American League. Fairchild will remain in university after being runner-up for the Hobey Baker Award last season.NOTEBOOK: The Globe and Mail reported center Doug Gilmour was rebuffed in his attempt to join the Detroit Vipers of the International League during the NHL lockout. Vipers&rsquo; coach-GM Rick Dudley reportedly didn&rsquo;t want to disrupt his lineup&hellip;Forward Mats Sundin said he may return to Sweden until the NHL season starts.Defenseman Kenny Jonsson was demoted to St. John&rsquo;s the day before the season was post-poned, but stayed in Toronto to have dental surgery. The youngster was hit in the mouth by a puck in his first exhibition game.<h2>TORONTO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Oct, 3: Eric Lacroix, LW, Chris Snell, D, and 1996 fourth-round draft pick traded to Los Angeles for Dixon Ward, LW, Guy Leveque, C, Shane Toporowski, RW, and Kelly Fairchild, C, Oct, 4: Cliff Fletcher, general manager, president, chief operating officer, agreed to contract extension.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Doug Gilmour, Mike Ridley, Mike Eastwood.LW&ndash;Dave Andreychuk, Mats Sundin, Bill Berg, Ken Baumgartner, Dixon Ward.RW&ndash;Nikolai Borschevsky, Mike Gartner, Mike Craig, Terry Yake, Guy Leveque.LD&ndash;Dave Eilert, Jamie Macoun, Todd Gill.RD&ndash;Dmitri Mironov, Garth Butcher, Drake Bere-howsky.G&ndash;Felix Potvin, Damian Rhodes.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Kent Mandervilte, RW, broken left wrist, indefinite &#9632;

Fletcher locked in until 1999

<div class="byline">By Tim Campbell</div>The group that&rsquo;s trying to spearhead the building of a new arena in downtown Winnipeg is battling the usual obstacles.Not only is time running short-Manitoba Entertainment Complex Inc.&rsquo;s option to purchase the majority shares of the Winnipeg Jets runs out May 1-but the group has run up against Winnipeg&rsquo;s politicians.MEC, a group of 44 local business leaders, headed off a potential disaster last June when it convinced Jets&rsquo; president Barry Shenkarow to give it until May, 1995 to put together a plan to construct a new arena. The agreement also included the transfer to MEC the right to purchase the privately-held shares of the team (64 per cent) for $32 million.If there&rsquo;s no plan in place for a new arena by May, Shenkarow will be free to sell or move the club under the deal he cut with Manitoba&rsquo;s provincial government, the city and private investors in 1991. The Jets&rsquo; president has said if there is no new arena, he won&rsquo;t keep the team in Winnipeg and the two levels of government would have to fund his losses until 1997 under the terms of the 1991 agreement.Construction needs to begin by next summer for a building to be completed by 1997, the year the deal runs out.The MEC group has hired specialists and is ready to launch a marketing campaign to sell luxury suites and club seating in a $110-million, 16,000-seat arena. To get its program underway, it has asked Winnipeg&rsquo;s city council to guarantee $3.7 million of an $8-million private-sector capital fund. The money would be recovered in the sale of the Jets or it would become part of the cost of construction.City councillors were stalemated, however, and would not authorize the funds at first look. They&rsquo;ll reconsider the motion in mid-October. In the meantime, they&rsquo;ve called for yet another public meeting Oct. 8 so that any interested parties can have their say-again.There is not widespread support for public funding of a new arena, so Mayor Susan Thompson and the 15 councillors are being very cautious with an election only 12 months away.A meeting between MEC and Thompson Sept. 30, however, gave MEC the go-ahead for the marketing campaign.GOING HOME?: Jets&rsquo; right winger Teemu Selanne has indicated he&rsquo;s interested in returning to Finland to play for Jokerit, his old team, if the NHL&rsquo;s labor dispute turns into a long lockout.Teammate Teppo Numminen said he&rsquo;s also interested in such a plan, mainly because he hasn&rsquo;t played since last February, when he broke his thumb.Both players said they&rsquo;d wait at least until the Oct. 15 deadline before considering such a move.NOTEBOOK: About a dozen Jets&rsquo; worked out during the lockout with a daily game of pickup basketball at the downtown YMCA&hellip;Following the lead of the Vancouver Canucks, the Jets have leased a hyperbaric chamber. The high-pressure oxygen tank speeds recovery from some injuries and has already been put to use in the rehabilitation of defenseman Dave Manson&rsquo;s groin pull.<h2>WINNIPEG</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&ndash;Alexei Zhamnov, Dallas Drake, Thomas Steen, Randy Gilhen, Mike Eagles, Luciano BorsatoLW&ndash;Kerth Tkachuk, Darrin Shannon, Russ Romaniuk, Kris King.RW&ndash;Teemu Selanne, Nelson Emerson, Sheldon Kennedy, Tie Domi.LD&ndash;Igor Ulanov, Darryl Shannon, Brent Thompson.RD&ndash;Teppo Numminen, Stephane Quintal, Dean Kennedy, Arto Blomsten.G&ndash;Tim Cheveldae, Stephane Beauregard.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Dave Manson, D, groin pull, Oct, 15. Wayne Mc-Bean, left wrist surgery, indefinite. Neil Wilkinson, D, fractured left thumb, Nov, 10. &#9632;

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October 21, 1994

NHL may cut ties with loop that uses shootouts

INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

Bottom line unaffected by league labor crisis

Little brother AHL filling hockey gap