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 28, 1994

The Hockey News October 28, 1994

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div>When Crunch time came, Nathan La Fayette found himself cornered by a dilemma.The Vancouver Canuck center was assigned to the parent club&rsquo;s American League affiliate in Syracuse-the team is called the Crunch-after NHL commissioner Gary Bettman locked out the players Oct. 1.La Fayette had clearly demonstrated during last spring&rsquo;s playoffs that he was an NHL player, not a minor leaguer. The only reason he was being assigned to Syracuse was to keep active during the lockout.However, by playing on the farm and collecting his full one-way salary of $225,000 (U.S.), La Fayette would not be suffering any hardship while his teammates fought the league. He stood to gain all the benefits without sacrificing a paycheque.&ldquo;It was a sticky situation,&rdquo; agreed La Fayette, who called the NHL Players&rsquo; Association to seek its blessing. &ldquo;I wanted to make sure they knew I still supported the union. I made sure it wouldn&rsquo;t be taken the wrong way and that the solidarity was there. It wasn&rsquo;t as if I went to the Canucks and said, &lsquo;Send me down&rsquo;.&rdquo;Canucks&rsquo; captain and NHLPA rep Trevor Linden said there would be no grudge held against La Fayette, who was given the option by Vancouver management of refusing the assignment.&ldquo;Do we have a problem with Nathan going down? Absolutely not,&rdquo; Linden said. &ldquo;He was going to stay in Vancouver with us, but the situation changed once the team found out we weren&rsquo;t going to be skating.&rdquo;La Fayette summed up his twist in fortunes with a philosophical shrug.&ldquo;Under ordinary circumstances I would be in the NHL,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but everything this year is out of the ordinary.&rdquo;VOICE SILENCED: Jim Hughson, the new voice of the Canucks, is beginning to feel like the man with the little black cloud hovering overhead.Hughson was hired away from TSN, Canada&rsquo;s all-sports TV network, where he did Toronto Blue Jays baseball and NHL hockey.He missed his final 21 Blue Jays&rsquo; assignments because of the players&rsquo; strike and then rolled straight into the NHL lockout.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether I should feel jinxed, feel sorry or feel guilty for having shut down two sports,&rdquo; said Hughson, trying to retain his sense of humor.&ldquo;People have joked to me that I&rsquo;d better not apply for the (Vancouver Grizzlies&rsquo;) basketball job because they&rsquo;ll go out for sure.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01897/6735166-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="578" height="852"><figcaption class="caption-body">Nathan La Fayette is one Canuck still being paid to play.</figcaption></div>Hughson gave up the TSN post, in part to spend more time with his family. He suddenly found himself with all the time in the world.&ldquo;By doing one sport instead of two, I planned to have more time for the family,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Quite ironically, this will be the longest break I&rsquo;ve had in eight years.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: In an attempt to save money during the lockout, the Canucks told all their scouts to stay close to home. &ldquo;No overnight stays and no flights,&rdquo; said director of hockey operations George McPhee&hellip;The Canucks&rsquo; coaching staff was looking into setting up some clinics or seminars for the area&rsquo;s minor-hockey coaches.Canuck management decided not to send the coaches on any scouting assignments, ostensibly to prevent a possible skewing of the data on their reports&hellip;Left winger Geoff Courtnall and younger brother Russ of the Dallas Stars are starting a new business venture, a celebrity fishing tournament to be held next summer in the Queen Charlotte Islands, off the northern British Columbia coast.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02596/6735159-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="576" height="804"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gone fishing: Geoff Courtnall is starting a celebrity tournament.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

Demotion OK for La Fayette

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div>While the majority of players saw only paychecks that weren&rsquo;t coming and the possibility of as much as a year without NHL hockey, Frank Musil viewed the NHL lockout as an opportunity.Until the NHL season resumes, Musil&rsquo;s goal is to play in the Czech league. With that in mind, he booked plane tickets home for a number of different dates in October. Provided he gets the NHL Players&rsquo; Association&rsquo;s blessing, he will return to Prague to wait out the remainder of the collective bargaining negotiations.&ldquo;For the majority of people, home is here-Canada or the United States,&rdquo; Musil said, &ldquo;but not for us. Hopefully, I can pursue my career over there. It&rsquo;s not a money issue. I want to play. You get to a stage where six months off could hurt you.&rdquo;No, money would not be the reason for Musil to return. Sparta Prague contacted him early in the postponement and offered him the equivalent of about $1,000 a week for play-roughly one per cent of his NHL salary.When Musil defected from the former Czechoslovakia in 1986, he did so thinking he could never go home again. Unless the NHL takes legal action to prevent him from doing so, it looks as if he can.&ldquo;That part would be like a dream come true,&rdquo; Musil said. &ldquo;When I left in &rsquo;86, I was considered a criminal. Now, I go home and I&rsquo;m considered a hero. It would be a tremendous lift for the league if the young guys like (Jaromir) Jagr and (Robert) Reichel could come back and play. It would bring the interest back. Czech hockey is in a tough situation now. Maybe this can help us.&rdquo;If he can&rsquo;t play on a club team, there&rsquo;s always the Czech national team. That way he could play in the Deutschland Cup in November, the Izvestia tournament in December and the World Championships in the spring.&ldquo;It could be a hell of a World Championship this year,&rdquo; Musil said, &ldquo;because quite a few players are talking about going back. Plus, it&rsquo;s in Sweden, which is always nice.&ldquo;I want to play here, but if I can&rsquo;t play here, I&rsquo;ll play at home and be happy about it. We can be with our friends and the kids can be with their grandparents. They don&rsquo;t get to see them that often.&rdquo;In the days leading up to commissioner Gary Bettman&rsquo;s announcement the league would not open Oct. 15, Musil spent the time working out with his teammates at Lindsay Park, a local fitness facility.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a weird feeling,&rdquo; Musil said, &ldquo;because you go to Lindsay Park every day and push yourself to stay in shape, but that routine is not there. Somewhere, inside of you, you carry that hope that something will get done. Then you hear something like this (announcement) and it sets you back. The only positives in this deal is that you get to be with your family.&rdquo;UNION MAN: German Titov is a Russian with limited knowledge of English. Now in his second season with the Flames, what does he know about the standoff between owners and players?Not much, acknowledged Titov.&ldquo;I just follow the Players&rsquo; Association&rsquo;s decision. I know they are talking for everybody. These guys are more experienced than I am.&rdquo;It turns out Titov is actually a pretty strong union man. Speaking through interpreter Slava Lener, he said that he is acting as an advisor to the new players&rsquo; association being formed in his native Russia. According to Titov, the Russian association is in its infancy.NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Roger Johansson, who signed with the Flames in July, became the second player to leave town. He departed immediately after Gary Bettman&rsquo;s Oct. 11 press conference and hopes to catch on with Leksand, his former team in Sweden&hellip;The Flames are wavering on the matter of whether to send any additional players to the Saint John Flames of the American League. The primary candidate would be left winger Sandy McCarthy, who has a $36,000 minor-league clause in his contract. &#9632;

Musil can go home again

<div class="byline">By Damien Cox</div>With the NHL and its players locked in a nasty labor fight, the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; top guns are looking for work.Both captain Doug Gilmour and forward Mats Sundin said they&rsquo;re looking to ply their trade elsewhere until the NHL&rsquo;s regular season begins.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not the money. I just want to play,&rdquo; Gilmour said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m determined to try and play. I want to be on the ice. I just don&rsquo;t know where.&rdquo;The league advised clubs Oct. 12 not to block players from working elsewhere during the lockout.Gilmour actually contacted the Detroit Vipers of the International League soon after the season was postponed Oct. 1. The Vipers apparently turned him down at the time.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to play somewhere,&rdquo; Gilmour said. &ldquo;My main concern is that if I was injured when the NHL started up again, I&rsquo;d feel like I&rsquo;d let down the fans, my teammates and the organization.&rdquo;General manager Cliff Fletcher said if Gilmour were injured playing elsewhere he wouldn&rsquo;t get paid once the season got going.&ldquo;He wants to play to keep in shape as much as possible,&rdquo; said Fletcher, who met with Gilmour during the lockout. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s not a risk-free thing.&rdquo;Sundin was negotiating to join Djurgarden, his former club in the Swedish Elite League. But the International Ice Hockey Federation said it wouldn&rsquo;t allow its teams to sign NHL players.&ldquo;Mats is back in Sweden working out and seeing how things unfold,&rdquo; said Sundin&rsquo;s agent Mark Perrone. &ldquo;(Djurgarden) would be happy to have him back.&rdquo;MAJOR LOSSES: Company president Cliff Fletcher announced Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd., would lose at least $15 million if the entire season is wiped out.&ldquo;Hopefully hockey will be played,&rdquo; Fletcher said. &ldquo;But the worst-case scenario would not be very nice.&rdquo;The Gardens made a $6.2-million profit in its most recent fiscal year on revenues of more than $62.5 million. More than $46 million of that revenue came directly from hockey operations.Fletcher said the Gardens will have to consider laying off workers if the lockout continues into November.Meanwhile, financial reports indicated Fletcher earned more than $940,000 in salary-including a $127,000 bonus-last year as the club&rsquo;s chief operating officer, president and GM. Chief executive officer and board chairman Steve Stavro hasn&rsquo;t received a dime in salary in the past three years. Stavro is locked in a legal battle over control of the Gardens and NHL franchise.Fletcher recently signed a contract extension that will take him into 1999, but terms of the deal were not disclosed.NOTEBOOK: Left winger Kent Manderville is expected to start drawing paychecks because he was injured when the NHL lockout began. Manderville is still recovering from a broken scaphoid bone on his left hand sustained in last spring&rsquo;s playoff series against the Chicago Blackhawks&hellip;The Leafs signed center Kelly Fairchild and assigned him to their American League affiliate, the St. John&rsquo;s Maple Leafs. Fairchild was acquired from the Los Angeles Kings after refusing to sign with the California team.The Leafs were considering loaning forward Dixon Ward, also acquired from the Los Angeles Kings, to the Canadian national team, but changed their minds.Damien Cox is a hockey writer for the Toronto Star.<h2>TRANSACTIONS</h2>Oct. 7: Kelly Fairchild. C, signed contract and assigned to St. John&rsquo;s (AHL). &#9632;

Top stars itching to play

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011654/6734471-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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ELSTON

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div>Sitting poolside at the stately Wayne Manor, overlooking the city of Los Angeles, Matt Johnson had to pinch himself. &ldquo;&lsquo;This is it&rsquo; I thought,&rdquo; said the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; rookie enforcer. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t get better than this.&rdquo; Excuse the 18-year-old for being just a little awestruck. Being asked to move into Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s home has that effect on kids. A few months earlier Johnson was a second-liner for the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario League, considered the toughest player in junior hockey. He scored 13 goals and 37 points with 233 penalty minutes in 50 games last season.Now the 6-foot-5,225-pound left winger has established himself as a legitimate challenger for the NHL&rsquo;s heavyweight crown, having tried and beaten established tough guys (Stu Grimson twice, Jim McKenzie) in pre-season bouts. He signed a three-year contract with the Kings and was penciled in to start the season in the NHL. Then came the lockout and the invite from Gretzky. &ldquo;The third week of training camp I was in the weight room one day when Wayne came up to me and said, &lsquo;Hey kid, why don&rsquo;t you go ask Jamie (Storr) if you and him want to move in with me,&rsquo;&rdquo; Johnson said. &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t believe it. It took me half an hour to convince Jamie I wasn&rsquo;t pulling his leg.&rdquo; The two jumped at the opportunity and were made to feel part of the family. The Great Host even provided the rookies with a car. Storr has since been returned to the Owen Sound Platers of the OHL and Johnson is ticketed back to Peterborough where he will continue to rehab a sore knee before playing with the Petes until the NHL season kicks off&hellip;Sixteen years ago another 19-year-old member of the Petes, Stuart Smith, was called up to play four games with the Hartford Whalers.Smith&rsquo;s roommate? Gordie Howe&hellip;Former St. Louis Blues&rsquo; general manager Ron Caron pleads no contest to the charge the free-spending Blues drove NHL salaries sky high. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve done nothing but follow the rules,&rdquo; said Caron, now the Blues&rsquo; executive vice-president. &ldquo;We live in a free world; we all operate for a purpose.&rdquo;&hellip;Dallas Stars&rsquo; coach-GM Bob Gainey said the philosophy of today&rsquo;s NHL Players&rsquo; Association is something he can&rsquo;t understand. Gainey said it has changed 180 degrees from when he was a player only five years ago. &ldquo;We were based on protecting jobs and protecting the middle guy. They are based on working for the top players and then getting the trickledown.&rdquo;&hellip;The NHL may be shut down, but some of hockey&rsquo;s biggest names-Gretzky, Bowman and Clark-are still at it. Brent Gretzky, Jack Bowman and Kerry Clark, brothers of Wayne Gretzky, Scotty Bowman and Wendel Clark are all thriving. Each makes a decent living from the game and none could be accused of riding on his brother&rsquo;s coattails. Jack Bowman is a scout with the Buffalo Sabres, Kerry Clark a hardnosed right winger with the Portland Pirates of the American League and Brent Gretzky a third-year pro center with the Atlanta Knights of the International League. Jack Bowman played junior hockey with the Montreal Junior Canadiens (on a line with Henri Richard) and refereed in the Quebec League for 13 years. He joined the Sabres in 1976 and became a full-time scout with the team in 1986, a few months before Scotty was fired from the team. &ldquo;A lot of people probably thought I was only with the team because of Scotty, but after he was fired they kept me on so they must like something about the work I do,&rdquo; said Jack, who scouts about 200 games a season. Kerry Clark, 26, is in his seventh season of pro hockey and has not given up hope of joining Wendel in the big leagues. He scored a goal and an assist with 34 penalty minutes in five pre-season games with the Washington Capitals this season, but was assigned to the Pirates where he&rsquo;ll earn $55,000. In 380 career minor league games Clark has 60 goals, 125 points and 1,813 penalty minutes. Brent Gretzky, 22, played 10 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning last season, including an historic encounter against Wayne, scoring once and drawing two assists. He&rsquo;s playing out his option this season&hellip;Bob Tindall, who served as co-ordinator of scouting for the Boston Bruins since 1983, has been named the team&rsquo;s director of pro scouting and development. He&rsquo;ll follow players in the Bruins&rsquo; system as well as scouting NHL games. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t have to drag my winter boots out of the closet as often this winter,&rdquo; said Tindall, who joined the Bruins as a part-time scout in 1973. Gordie Clark becomes the Bruins&rsquo; director of scouting&hellip;Let&rsquo;s get this straight; Rick Dudley turned down a chance to sign the best hockey player in the world, Doug Gilmour, because he said he didn&rsquo;t want to disrupt his Detroit Vipers&rsquo; lineup. After attracting more than 18,000 fans for each of their first two home games, the Vipers were at the 10,000-mark for their next two&hellip;If there is no NHL hockey this season, what impact would that have on the 1995 entry draft? That&rsquo;s what one director of player personnel is wondering. Selection in the draft-scheduled for Winnipeg, June 17&mdash;is supposed to be determined by the first-ever draft lottery. Five teams with the fewest point totals will be eligible for the No. I overall pick since the winning team cannot move up more than four positions in the draft order. But if there is no season, will there be a lottery? And, if so, will last season&rsquo;s Nos. 1 and 2 (Florida Panthers and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim) be eligible for the first pick since they finished 16th and 20th overall, respectively? For the record, the worst five teams were the Ottawa Senators (last overall), Winnipeg Jets, Hartford, Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles&hellip;That barbaric custom of shaving rookies continues as the 21st century approaches. Prospective Winnipeg defenseman Deron Quint was shaved during training camp. Quint, now back with the Western League&rsquo;s Seattle Thunderbirds, took it in stride. &ldquo;It kind of brings you closer to the team,&rdquo; he said&hellip;The &lsquo;I&rsquo; is running the risk of becoming the &lsquo;Eye-Sore League&rsquo; if it continues to play mad scientist with the game-wildly experimenting with rules and equipment. Take the Firepuck-please! Designed to make hockey more television friendly with its silver stripe on the outside and yellow reflective material on the top and bottom, it was actually harder to follow on the tube. Word is the 1HL is considering using two pucks in future games, reasoning fans will love the increased scoring. On the drawing board? Relaxing rules that require players to wear skates to make the game more accessible to millions of Americans who have never skated&hellip;Some NHL teams are cutting back on scouting as a result of the lockout, telling their men to attend local games only; no overnight stays. If that trend grows, the far-flung WHL is the most likely of all leagues to be under-scouted.Scouts earn an average salary of $50,000. Add another $50,000 for a normal travel budget. So far, there has been no word of any layoffs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011657/6734285-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="370" height="368"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021454/6734278-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="383" height="572"><figcaption class="caption-body">Matt Johnson</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031206/6734271-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="1194" height="1936"><figcaption class="caption-body">Doug Gilmour&rsquo;s offer to join the IHL&rsquo;s Detroit Vipers was rejected.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-04978/6734264-1-eng-US/f0004-042.jpg" title="f0004-04" width="383" height="568"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Gretzky</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Living with Great One

<div class="byline">By Steve Dryden</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011586/6734330-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-021139/6734323-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="382" height="512"></div>Finally, a solution to the NHL&rsquo;s problems.No debate over salaries (escalating or otherwise) and no difference in markets (big or small). Lockouts are great equalizers, aren&rsquo;t they? Nobody plays. Nobody pays.The second NHL labor disruption in 30 months could last anywhere from 30 days to 30 months to 30 years to hear the experts tell it. Officially, it passed the 30-hour mark Oct. 16. Gary Bettman&rsquo;s first postponement-Oct. 1 through Oct 14-came to an end without a new collective bargaining agreement and little progress.The NHL commissioner did not formally acknowledge the league was locking out its players, but there was no denying the obvious Oct. 15 when game No. 78 of NHL season No. 78- the Chicago Blackhawks vs. the Quebec Nordiques-wasn&rsquo;t played. Blackhawks&rsquo; superstar Jeremy Roenick expected to spend that night in the company of eight-day-old daughter Brandi, not Nordiques&rsquo; checking specialist Bob Bassen as scheduled. The committed unionist said better Brandi than the owners. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s not as cranky as them,&rdquo; he said.Roenick is better-positioned than most colleagues. He has earned hefty wages during a five-year NHL career and continues to receive endorsement money this season. No players had requested interest-free loans from the NHL Players&rsquo; Association war chest, but maintaining high morale on the front lines promises to be one of executive director Bob Goodenow&rsquo;s trickiest challenges. Players will be torn between allegiance to their union and their bank books. The average 1994-95 NHL salary is expected to be at least $600,000 (U.S.), an average of more than $3,000 per day of the regular season. Their first paychecks were due Oct. 15.No games had yet been cancelled and the NHL called the delay an indefinite postponement, but it couldn&rsquo;t be long before the NHL began announcing cancellations-and putting the pressure on players. A stalemate was declared Oct. 11 by Bettman when the board of governors rejected the union&rsquo;s latest offer, calling it a &ldquo;step backward.&rdquo;&ldquo;The proposal is clearly not a step backward,&rdquo; Goodenow said. &ldquo;Clearly, what we learned from today is the owners&rsquo; agenda is to extract from the players a number of concessions to restucture the game in the owners&rsquo; favor.&rdquo;One day earlier, the NHLPA said it offered an &ldquo;olive branch&rdquo; with its new tax proposal and had gone the &ldquo;extra mile.&rdquo; It may have, but there remained 500 air miles between the NHL and NHLPA-the distance between respective head-quarters in New York and Toronto. No new meetings were scheduled.At the center of the dispute is a tax system meant to slow down the salary spiral and provide money for low-revenue teams. The NHLPA&rsquo;s second tax proposal called for a graduated dollar-one tax on payroll and straight three per-cent rate on gate receipts.The payroll portion is applied to the 16 highest-revenue teams at rates ranging from seven to one per cent: seven per cent for teams ranked one through four in NHL revenues (i.e. New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins and Los Angeles Kings in 1993-94); five per cent for teams five through eight; three per cent for teams nine through 12; and one per cent for teams 13 through 16.The NHL, which has transition and grandfather clauses that limit 1994-95 liability, also proposes a payroll tax and three-per-cent gate tax. Its levy rises in increments of 0.5 per cent for each $1 million up to team trigger points (at least $15-16 million this season), at which time it increases five per cent for every additional $325,000. Also part of the NHL tax system is a guarantee salaries will not fall below current levels and teams will be required to meet minimum payrolls.If the two taxes were applied to the trend-setting 1994-95 St. Louis Blues-who have projected gate receipts of $27 million and a payroll of $23.5 million this season-the NHL tax would be 50 per-cent higher than the NHLPA levy: $3 million vs. $2 million.That difference in taxes on high-spending teams is viewed as a salary cap by the players. Bettman called it an inhibition, not a prohibition, to team spending because no maximum has been established. &ldquo;We have said from day one that the minimalistic approach their tax represents doesn&rsquo;t work as a means of keeping players&rsquo; salaries from escalating rapidly,&rdquo; Bettman said.The NHL tax would not only rein in free-spending teams, but ultimately penalize teams who have assembled talented lineups through diligence and good judgment. If a team&rsquo;s hockey department does too good a job, its accounting department faces a heavy payroll tax. Players must be paid commensurate with their skills and talented teams could exceed practical payroll limits as a result of their own excellent work. Such a development would reverse a trend of recent years.Instead of, for example, the Edmonton Oilers acting as a farm club for the New York Rangers, high-spending teams forced to ease their tax burden could become farm teams for traditionally low-spending teams forced to increase their payrolls. That would be in keeping with Bettman&rsquo;s oft-stated desire for the NHL to have 26 competitive teams. But would it lead to mediocrity and wouldn&rsquo;t the whole system smack of, gasp, socialism?&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not socialism, it&rsquo;s competitive balance in league sports,&rdquo; said NHL vice-president Jeff Pash. &ldquo;The whole thing that makes league sports attractive and distinguishes them from other forms of entertainment is that it takes not just two teams to put on a game, but a whole league full of teams to put on a competitive season. You can&rsquo;t do that if you have a league of haves and have-nots.&rdquo;Bettman announced the board of governors unanimously decided not to open the season unless there is a new CBA in place-even if the players are willing to play in the absence of one.&ldquo;Until the union is willing to address our needs,&rdquo; Bettman said, &ldquo;and come back to us with a system that is sensible and allows us to grow, there seems to be little common ground. There had been much speculation we were going to get a comprehensive proposal yesterday. We didn&rsquo;t. We got an adjustment in the tax rate, the gate receipt rate went from 5.5 to 3 per cent and the payroll tax rate was raised from 5.5 to seven on the highest team. There was absolutely no movement on new proposals&hellip;In that regard, the players simply want to maintain the status quo.&rdquo;That should hardly be considered a surprise given the league&rsquo;s intent. Players are getting the better of owners for the first time in NHL history. They are reluctant to surrender their position, although common sense says it is in everybody&rsquo;s best interests to strike a deal.The tools of compromise may lie in a series of non-tax issues. They are smaller, crucial issues where tradeoffs could be found. Experienced NHL negotiators say discussions over free agency, arbitration, guaranteed contracts, an entry-level system and, perhaps, roster limits, could jump-start talks and produce a collective drag on salaries.First, it&rsquo;s accepted a new player reservation system is destined to go into effect and free agency will be liberalized once players pass through an entry-level phase. What shouldn&rsquo;t be accepted by the players, though, is the assumption big contracts await free agents. Two factors mitigate against that: The salary-cap/restraint system being debated and the laws of supply and demand.The reason current free agents receive so much money is there are so few of them. Why else would Bob Rouse, a sturdy and unspectacular defenseman, get $4.2 million to sign a four-year contract with the Red Wings? A glut of free agents would depress the market.Second, arbitration will be restructured. It is a key element in keeping a level paying field, but the owners feel too many players are eligible and unrealistic wage levels are set by a privileged few. If not for arbitration all teams wouldn&rsquo;t be compelled to meet league wage standards. A player on the Oilers is entitled to the same paycheck as a player of comparable skill with the Rangers, but isn&rsquo;t guaranteed that without safeguards in the system.Third, guaranteed contracts are a matter of some contention. The new NHL-imposed standard player&rsquo;s contract gives teams the right to terminate players at their discretion. Players fear that will lead to capricious cost-cutting and have routinely been negotiating guarantees into their contracts.Owners say, let the strong survive-the basic tenet of a free-market system-and argue the old and weak (players not performing up to salary levels) will be protected by waivers and two-way contracts. Guaranteed contracts aren&rsquo;t always fair to general managers, but they certainly contribute to payroll predictability. That&rsquo;s hardly a big plus for GMs, but it isn&rsquo;t a big hardship.Fourth, the prospect of an entry-level compensation system has been widely debated by players and is an issue on which they appear willing to compromise. A rising tide raises all ships, but owners are more concerned about it than players. It&rsquo;s hard to convince a long-time NHLer to wait for the trickle-up effect of a young buck signing for big bucks. Ten top newcomers to the league-including Peter Forsberg of the Quebec Nordiques and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim&rsquo;s Paul Kariya-will earn an average of $1.2 million if they play full seasons.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011761/6734316-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="574" height="876"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marty McSorley says the status quo wouldn&rsquo;t be a victory.</figcaption></div>An eleventh player, 1994 first overall pick Ed Jovanovski, would lift the average if he signed with the Florida Panthers before the Oct. 15 NHL-imposed freeze on signings and negotiations. Unsigned players face the possibility of an entry-level salary system being in place by the time negotiations are permitted again.This is a high priority for the league, which is proposing a rookie salary pool or scale.Fifth, Bettman included two roster measures in his Sept. 1 rollbacks. Teams were allowed to dress only 17 skaters and two goalies for exhibition games (instead of 18 and two) and regular-season rosters were set at 22 (instead of an unlimited number). Reducing rosters reduces NHL player costs and jobs, but it can also serve to distribute talent more evenly around the league if high-priced taxi squads are eliminated.Bettman has consistently said the players want to keep existing rules in place as long as possible because they are skewed in their favor. Goodenow said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve done everything we can to make sure this would be an uninterrupted season and everything we&rsquo;ve done is rejected. Gary says he doesn&rsquo;t want to take things away from the players, but the status quo is totally unacceptable. There&rsquo;s a real contradiction there. This is really an attack on the players.&rdquo;Oddly, the CBA has long been considered one-sided in the owners&rsquo; favor. Reality is shrewd negotiating and application of the rules by those on the player side have combined to get the most out of what is a restrictive system. The NHL says drastic measures are necessary now because player costs consume 61 per cent of total league revenues and the league has gone from a collective profit of $50 million five years ago to a collective loss of $37 million in 1993-94.&ldquo;The present system,&rdquo; said Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; owner Barry Shenkarow, &ldquo;is destroying the entire league-small markets, big markets and medium markets.&rdquo; There is a kernel of truth in what Shenkarow contends, but he is painting too bleak a picture. Nobody has come forward from the NHLPA to dispute the league&rsquo;s most significant claims: Salary increases are outstripping revenue growth and profits are on the decline. But it must be remembered many teams are profitable and promise to be moreso when forecast increases in broadcast, stadium, merchandising and licensing income kick in.&ldquo;They have painted status quo to be such a huge victory for the players,&rdquo; said NHLPA vice-president Marty McSorley. &ldquo;Everybody remotely informed about the game knows that revenues have taken off dramatically and they&rsquo;re going to continue to.&rdquo;Some teams currently in the red are budgeting for black ink in the near future. The Buffalo Sabres, for example, have confounded observers with an incongruous big-payroll, low-revenue combination this season. But they&rsquo;ve sold equity in the team to get through budgeted shortfalls over the next two seasons. Then the Sabres are scheduled to move into Crossroads Arena (for the opening of 1996-97) and are expecting to become, in the words of vice-president Gerry Meehan, &ldquo;marginally profitable.&rdquo;In the meantime, while the lockout goes on, everybody is losing: Players, owners, fans and the thousands of people whose livings depend upon the NHL. Bettman called the board of governors debate that shot down an Oct. 15 start &ldquo;gut-wrenching.&rdquo;It was stomach-turning for millions of hockey fans, who haven&rsquo;t seen a real NHL game since June 14, the day the Rangers won their first Stanley Cup in 54 years. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t surprised or sad,&rdquo; Roenick said of the board decision. &ldquo;I prepared myself for a two-to-three-month layoff.&rdquo; Asked if he was working out in anticipation of return to work, Roenick answered grimly.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing to stay in shape for.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0005-01

At stake is ’94-95 season

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021201/6734361-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg"></div>NHL and NHLPA tax proposals tabled Oct 5 and Oct. 10, respectively, are combined payroll and gate receipt taxes applied to the league&rsquo;s top 16 revenue-earning teams. The NHLPA taxes team payrolls from dollar one in groups of four: seven per cent for the four top teams (Rangers, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, not necessarily in that order); five per cent for the second group; three per cent for the third; and one per cent for the fourth. This amount is added to a flat tax of three per cent on gate receipts for a total NHLPA tax of $20.2 million. Most of the funds generated under the NHLPA tax would be disbursed in subsidies to low-revenue teams in Winnipeg ($5.9 million). Hartford ($4.6 million). Edmonton (3.0 million). Tampa Bay ($975,000) and Washington ($765,000). The NHL uses a graduated dollar-one tax of .5 per cent for every dollar up to the league average ($14 million). Past that trigger point, the rate increases by five per cent to a maximum rate of 122 per cent for every additional $325,000. Gate revenues are taxed all three per cent. Each team&rsquo;s net NHL tax is the greater of payroll tax minus gate tax. gate tax minus payroll tax or gate tax alone. The NHL model raises $19.3 million for a league reallocation and distribution fund. Listed in the accomnaying tables are 1993-94 team payrolls. NHL payroll tax. NHLPA payroll tax. 1993-94 NHL team gate receipts, NHL gate tax, NHLPA gale tax, net NHL tax and combined NHLPA tax. Figures listed arc in thousands of U.S. dollars unless indicated as millions (M). Figures are not precise due to rounding. &#9632;

f0006-02

NHL, NHLPA BARGAINING TAX PROPOSALS

<div class="byline">By THN staff</div>NHL fans unite-and seek representation.As the NHL regular-season postponement becomes a lockout, the ire of hockey fans is being transformed in some instances into lawsuits.Brantford, Ont., businessman Mike Lewicki filed a class-action lawsuit in Ontario Court against the NHL, team owners and commissioner Gary Bettman.He&rsquo;s seeking $450 million in damages &ldquo;on behalf of fans, arena employees, concession workers, anyone who suffered financial losses because the NHL won&rsquo;t allow games to be played.&rdquo;Lewicki, who manufactures chicken cages, had planned to sell memorabilia at Toronto Maple Leaf games. He plans on hand delivering the legal notice to NHL head office in New York, at which point the league has 40 days to respond or default.Lawyers in New Jersey and New York, meanwhile, are preparing to file lawsuits against the league and a group called FANS Inc., has requested an invitation to attend the next collective bargaining talks as observers.The group had yet to receive a response.LEAGUE DIRECTION: The NHL issued a nine-page memorandum to member teams giving them direction on matters arising from the league lockout/postponement.It told teams no contracts could be signed or salary negotiations undertaken past Oct. 15; injured players must be paid during a lockout; teams are not permitted to call up minor-league players to avoid paying salaries; on-ice officials will receive paychecks for at least 45 days; and a formal policy on ticket refunds will be formulated by Nov. 1.TROTTIER TROUBLE: Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; assistant coach Bryan Trottier filed for Chapter 7 protection under the U.S. bankruptcy code.In court papers, the former New York Islander great listed assets of $141,629 and debts of $9,498,897 to 23 creditors-some of whom had invested in Trottier&rsquo;s ice rink business in Port Washington, N.Y.That business, BT Skating Corp., was foreclosed earlier this year by a New York bank and is in receivership.Trottier, a past president of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association, played on six Stanley Cup championship teams with the Islanders and Penguins. He is the sixth-leading scorer in NHL history with 1,425 points in 18 seasons.GUILTY PLEA: An accountant for Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; president Bruce McNall pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns and financial statements to help McNall get more than $150 million in loans.Robert J. Houston, 44, was the second McNall associate to plead guilty in connection with a bank loan fraud investigation. About a dozen McNall associates, along with the former chairman of the NHL board of governors, are reportedly negotiating pleas.MLG LAWSUIT: Jim Devellano and Harry Ornest, minority share-holders of Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. are suing millionaire grocer Steve Stavro over his attempt to take over the Gardens.A statement of claim filed Oct. 12 said the takeover &ldquo;unfairly disregarded the interests of shareholders.&rdquo;Devellano is a vice-president with the Detroit Red Wings and Ornest formerly owned the St. Louis Blues. The two also applied to join a lawsuit against Stavro launched by a group of charities that is also fighting the takeover attempt.DANDY ANDY: Six-time Stamey Cup winner Glenn Anderson is one of five players to join Canada&rsquo;s national team.The 34-year-old free agent without compensation wanted to play for Canada&rsquo;s Olympic team last season, but the NHL wouldn&rsquo;t allow him to break his contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He was later traded to the New York Rangers.The agreement allows Anderson to return to the NHL as a free agent in time for playoff action.Other national team newcomers are free agent Yannick Dube, and prospects Keli Corpse (Montreal Canadiens), Jean-Francois Jomphe (Mighty Ducks of Anaheim) and Marc Terris (San Jose Sharks). &#9632;

Fed up fans take legal action

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011601/6734416-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Winnipeg Jet star Teemu Selanne will play in his native Finland. (Photo by Tim Parker)</figcaption></div>The best of times are a memory, the worst yet to come. But for now, when it comes to getting paid, NHL players live in times of confusion.Consider:&#9633; Players with injuries, those who couldn&rsquo;t participate even if there were games, are the only ones earning their salaries. That is, until they get healthy.&#9633; The two players making the most money-Peter Forsberg of the Quebec Nordiques and Paul Kariya of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim-have never played a regular-season NHL game. They&rsquo;ll each receive $2.2 million this season in signing bonuses.&#9633; One of the best players in the game, Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; center Doug Gilmour, has trouble finding a hockey team anywhere in the world that will play him, never mind pay him.NHL commissioner Gary Bettman sent a memo to league governors and general managers giving permission for players to play elsewhere, but the International League, the preferred destination of North American players, has said they would be unwelcome.Hence Gilmour&rsquo;s quandary, having already been turned down in his attempt to play for the IHL&rsquo;s Detroit Vipers, and that of other players looking to suit up.&ldquo;I have no doubt that players are looking,&rdquo; said Ottawa Senators&rsquo; GM Randy Sexton, &ldquo;but who&rsquo;s going to take them?&rdquo;But in the IHL, there are seven independent teams run by independent thinkers. There&rsquo;s nothing stopping them from taking whoever they want until the end of the lockout.When told about Bettman&rsquo;s memo. IHL commissioner Bob Ufer said it wouldn&rsquo;t change his position that mercenary NHLers would do the league harm. &ldquo;Agents were bringing players to our GMs before Gary did that anyway,&rdquo; he said.The IHL doesn&rsquo;t currently have the power to stop member clubs from signing new players if they choose, although Ufer said he would re-evaluate it if it became a problem.Despite the fact International Ice Hockey Federation president Rene Fasel said NHLers are not welcome on European teams, the Finnish Elite League will be happy to take the displaced players.&ldquo;We will welcome our players back with open arms,&rdquo; Kai Hietarintu, I1HF treasurer and president of the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation told Canadian Press. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t deny our fans the chance to see our (star) players who go to North America.&rdquo;Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; right winger Teemu Selanne signed a game-by-game contract to play with Jokerit in Finland, with the blessing of Jets&rsquo; owner Barry Shenkarow and others were expected to join him. There was also speculation that Jari Kurri of the Los Angeles Kings would also join Jokerit.The scenario raises a raft of legal questions, including whether players who gave their promotional rights to their NHL clubs would continue to be paid that portion of their contracts. Toronto sports lawyer Gordon Kirke said he believes Wayne Gretzky would receive promotional monies from the Kings because of the structure of his contract, but the question is still open for many players.&ldquo;You&rsquo;re trying to plow through new territory,&rdquo; said Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; assistant general manager Bill Watters. &ldquo;Each situation that comes up you have to tread very carefully.&rdquo;What to do? Hope for a settlement, Watters said, and the rest, &ldquo;just leave to the lawyers.&rdquo;As money gets tight, players can expect lockout checks from the NHL Players&rsquo; Association on a per-need basis in the form of interest-free loans, said NHLPA spokesman Steve McAllister. None had asked for help as of Oct. 14.Players on Canadian teams are out of luck for unemployment insurance, said Norm King, a spokesman with Human Resources Development Canada. Employees not working because of labor negotiations are not eligible to receive benefits.U.S. unemployment insurance regulations differ from state to state. Professional athletes are ineligible in Washington, D.C., but players in New York state could collect $300 per week if the lockout lasts longer than 49 days. &#9632;

f0007-01

Players explore where they can play for pay

Memo to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Players&rsquo; Association executive director Bob Goode-now:I&rsquo;ve decided I don&rsquo;t want the NHL season to begin until mid-January. I&rsquo;m tired of the misinformation, the deceit, the greed. Nothing would please me more than to see the players and owners losing a few hefty bags of cash.Don&rsquo;t rush into anything. Please reach an agreement that will enable both sides to line their pockets with more money than any hockey fan could ever dream of having. But again, no hurry.Why? Because the NHL&rsquo;s regular season has no meaning anyway.Memo to the CBC:Help me and hockey fans across Canada. Yes, I&rsquo;m sick of the labor dispute, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean I don&rsquo;t enjoy my Saturday night viewing fix.Take me back to my childhood when a work stoppage meant nothing more than a linesman taking a second to patch up a troublesome spot on the ice.Show me some old-time games.I want to see the 1975 Montreal Canadiens-Red Army classic. I want to see Game 7 of the Montreal-Boston Bruins semifinal in 1979. I want to see Darryl Sittler riddle Dave Reece to the tune of 10 points. I want to see the Philadelphia Flyers and Buffalo Sabres in the fog.Anything. Just show me.Philip Wolf,&nbsp; Nanaimo, B.C.<h2>Some honeymoon</h2>I have been a loyal fan of the Calgary Flames since their days in Atlanta.I have always wanted to take a trip to watch them at the Saddledome and I thought I had that chance this year. I was married Oct. 15 to a wonderful girl who also loves hockey. We planned our wedding and honeymoon carefully around the Flames&rsquo; home schedule.We had tickets for three home games that we&rsquo;ll never get to see. C&rsquo;mon owners and players, get your heads out of the sand and make a deal.Bob Facteau, Auburn, Mass.<h2>Fans unite</h2>Once again, NHL players and owners are ignoring the fans.That has happened because no organization exists to represent us. The fans and players know we&rsquo;ll keep coming back because we love the game.I think the fans should form an alliance to speak on our behalf. No longer would the NHL and NHLPA be able to ignore the fan.I invite anyone interested in becoming part of the NHL Fans&rsquo; Alliance to write to me at 313 Jackson Place NW, Calgary, Alta., T3K 1S2. Please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope.Gordon Twigg,&nbsp; Calgary, Alta.<h2>No class</h2>I take issue with the headline on your story about Sergei Fedorov in the 1994-95 Hockey News Yearbook.Any player who would use his stick to viciously club another player on the head-as Fedorov did to Jayson More of the San Jose Sharks during the 1994 playoffs-is definitely not a &ldquo;Class Act.&rdquo;Gregory Crawford,&nbsp; Medford, Mass.<h2>What&rsquo;s wrong?</h2>You know something is terribly wrong with the NHL season when it&rsquo;s the middle of October and Chris Chelios hasn&rsquo;t been suspended yet.Bob Heckel,&nbsp; Raleigh, N.C.<h2>J.C. was star</h2>I am writing to you to underline what I believe is one of the great unjustices in the game: the absence of Jean-Claude Tremblay from the Hockey Hall of Fame.Tremblay is considered by many to be one of the most innovative players to put on skates. Unfortunately, he paid dearly for his decision to jump to the World Hockey Association.Louis Dumas, Cairo, Egypt<h2>LeClair helps out</h2>To the young fan who grouped NHL players as selfish and greedy (THN, Oct. 15), I would like to inform him this isn&rsquo;t always the case.For the last two years, John LeClair of the Montreal Canadiens has held a charity golf tournament for charities in his state of Vermont and has raised almost $100,000. This money goes to minor hockey, help for battered women and children, children with cancer and many other deserving projects.There are many others like LeClair. There are some really fine people in the NHL and I hope this young man realizes they&rsquo;re not all greedy.Joe Grim,&nbsp; Fairfax, Vt.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&nbsp;Letters, The Hockey News, P.O. Box 904, Buffalo, N.Y., 14240-9947. Include home and business phone numbers. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

Gary & Bob: Don’t rush into new deal

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><h2>Mr. Zero takes show on road</h2>1. Jason Saal Detroit Jr. Red Wings&rsquo; goalie wins six straight, five victories coming in road games.2. Yanic Perreault Man who wants to be King early IHL scoring leader with seven goals, 13 points.3. Teemu Selanne Winnipeg star offers to donate pay from Jokerit to charity.4. Charity duffers Capitals. Mighty Ducks putter around golf course for charity.5. Athlete of week Jet enforcer Tie Domi spied playing basketball, football and soccer.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021288/6734502-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="564" height="749"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ed Olczyk</figcaption></div><h2>NHL tactics hit incredible low</h2>1. Bush league NHL teams call up career minor-leaguers to save a few pennies during lockout.2. IHL Firepuck Harder to follow on TV than good, old-fashioned black puck on white ice.3. Just say nothing) Detroit Vipers&rsquo; P.A. announcer Kurt Nile says, &ldquo;Here they go&rdquo; at start of fights.4. Eddie O-No NHL should bend rule, put Ranger Ed Olczyk&rsquo;s name on Stanley Cup.5. Prince George Cougars Change of scenery hasn&rsquo;t helped Western League&rsquo;s sadsacks. &#9632;

f0008-02

PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011573/6734533-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Theoren Fleury is hoping for a 150-point pace this season. (Photo by Scott Levy/BBS)</figcaption></div>There were times, Theoren Fleury admits, when he simply went through the motions.The Calgary Flames&rsquo; right winger knew it. So did his teammates. Not to mention Flames&rsquo; coach Dave King, who grew so exasperated at one point last season, he benched Fleury for half a game.Fleury did his job, or so he thought at the time, but not much more. What the heck, his production remained at an acceptable level and his popularity with the Flames&rsquo; faithful continued to escalate. &lsquo;He could have gone on like that indefinitely and when he hung up his skates for good, say 10 years from now, hope his statistics were good enough to earn him a spot in the Hall of Fame. Fifteen seasons of scoring at his average pace would leave him at about the 600-goal, 1,300-point plateau.In spite of all his accomplishments, Fleury grew dissatisfied. Even last season-when he was second on the Flames in regular-season scoring, led them with 10 points in seven playoff games and wore the &lsquo;C&rsquo; as team captain in the absence of Joe Nieuwendyk-Fleury wasn&rsquo;t happy. His personal life was a mess and he was unfulfilled as a player.Changes were necessary.&ldquo;No question there was a point in my career where complacency was a problem,&rdquo; the 26-year-old Fleury said. &ldquo;So many good things happened to me so quickly-winning the Stanley Cup, scoring 50 goals in a season, playing in two NHL All-Star Games. I guess you could say I didn&rsquo;t handle the success too well.&rdquo;Now, in the midst of great change in his life, he&rsquo;s looking to remedy that. This past summer he ended a long-time relationship with his girlfriend Shannon Griffin-they have a six-year-old son, Joshua-and devoted vast amounts of time to off-ice conditioning. His golf game took a beating-he has slipped from being a scratch player to owning a six-handicap-but that&rsquo;s a small price to pay when you&rsquo;re trying earnestly to be the best hockey player you can be.If the Flames choose to take advantage of his determined effort to become a more complete player, to take his game to the next level, fine. If not, he&rsquo;ll move on to the highest bidder. Fleury is playing out his option and wants to set himself up with a contract that leaves him financially set for life. If he works after his playing career is completed, he wants it to be by choice; not because he has to.His preference is to remain with the Flames, who must also come to terms with Nieuwendyk, Joel Otto and Robert Reichel. Neither Fleury nor his agent Don Baizley will say how much he&rsquo;s hoping to sign for, but a contract in the $2-million-a-season range would put him in the range of Teemu Selanne, Keith Tkachuk, Phil Housley and Joe Juneau.&ldquo;You have to put your priorities in order,&rdquo; said Fleury who was scheduled to earn $870,000 in his option year. &ldquo;I feel I have put myself in the position of securing a good contract. You have to ask yourself why you play this game. Obviously because we love it, but also to secure your financial future.&rdquo;Fleury was an instant hit, especially with Calgary fans, when he joined the Flames midway through their Stanley Cup season in 1988-89, scoring 14 goals and 34 points in 36 games. Who could resist the little guy who played with the ferociousness of a jungle beast?At 5-foot-6 and 160-pounds, Fleury is the NHL&rsquo;s smallest forward and, pound for pound, one of the league&rsquo;s most powerful. Competitors will notice he&rsquo;s stronger now, having spent the off-season working with Canadian decathlete Rich Hesketh as his personal trainer. The two worked to improve Fleury&rsquo;s speed and quickness.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not his size that is deceiving, it&rsquo;s his strength,&rdquo; said Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; defenseman Luke Richardson. &ldquo;People see a small, little guy out there, but if you ever saw him with just a T-shirt on, he&rsquo;s a stocky, solid man. In tight, he&rsquo;s tough to play against because he&rsquo;s built so low to the ground and also because he has quick feet. He&rsquo;s so slippery.&rdquo;His best season was 1990-91 when he placed eighth in league scoring with 51 goals and 104 points playing on a line centered by Doug Gilmour.It became apparent that season, Fleury produces best when he has someone with whom to play give-and-go. He hasn&rsquo;t had that person since Gilmour was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in January of 1992, but hopes he has found another in Michael Nylander.The two worked magic in the pre-season. Fleury led NHL scorers with six goals and 13 points in six games and Nylander tied for second with four goals and 12 points in seven games.Only the lockout, Fleury insists, kept him from showing people he truly is new and improved.Is a 150-point pace this season out of the question for a player whose career high is 104? Don&rsquo;t count it out, he cautions. And if he only maintains his previous pace, he&rsquo;d settle for a greater contribution to the team in terms of leadership.Since winning the Cup in 1989, the Flames have failed to win a playoff round. If Fleury is to blame, it certainly isn&rsquo;t because he failed to produce offensively. He has been the Flames&rsquo; leading scorer in their past three playoff appearances.&ldquo;The most important thing to me now is earning the respect of my teammates,&rdquo; Fleury said. &ldquo;To me, contributing to the team more than in terms of the points I produce is important. I want to be recognized as a leader.&rdquo;Flames&rsquo; general manager Doug Risebrough, the man who must eventually put a dollar value on Fleury&rsquo;s contribution, is looking for the same thing. Risebrough refers to Fleury as a high-risk, high-return player; the type who can make you pull your hair out because the risks he takes sometimes backfire and the type who can make you sit back in awe when everything falls into place.&ldquo;All players go through a transition in understanding there are certain things that illustrate leadership,&rdquo; Risebrough said. &ldquo;One is an open commitment to the team. In Theo&rsquo;s case, the time is right for that to happen now. If he does not demonstrate a commitment to the team, he could lose credibility as a leader. We&rsquo;ve started to see commitment from him.&rdquo;Fleury has always had more admirers than detractors. Included among them is St. Louis Blues&rsquo; coach-GM Mike Keenan, who picked Fleury for the 1991 Canada Cup team. Fleury was a key contributor for Canada&rsquo;s winning entry.&ldquo;I admire his competitiveness,&rdquo; Keenan says. &ldquo;His strength is his high skill level. Plus he has a lion&rsquo;s heart. That more than makes up for his size.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0009-01

The Commitment

<div class="byline">By Tim Sassone</div>Even as late as mid-August, Dirk Graham wasn&rsquo;t sure if he wanted to play hockey anymore.The Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; 35-year-old captain had a disappointing and rocky 1993-94 season and he didn&rsquo;t know if he wanted to go through it all again.Graham missed 17 games with a separated shoulder and returned just in time to be part of the Hawks&rsquo; second consecutive first-round playoff failure.He took the defeat hard and considered hanging up his skates after 15 professional seasons. He considered it almost up until the start of training camp. Then he got the itch again.&ldquo;I wanted to see how my body healed and if the fire was still burning inside to play,&rdquo; Graham said. &ldquo;It really wasn&rsquo;t until two or three weeks (before camp) that I decided to come back. The game is still fun for me.&rdquo;Well, most of the time.&ldquo;The last couple of seasons have been really disappointing, losing in the first round,&rdquo; Graham said. &ldquo;It seemed like it was a constant battle to keep the team together with all the changes we made.&rdquo;&ldquo;My expectations were high last year. I felt we had a chance to go a long way. It took me a long time to get over the disappointment, but eventually you do.&rdquo;Some of the decisions management made over the summer to sign free agents Bernie Nicholls, Bob Probert and Brent Grieve also helped persuade Graham to return for at least one more season.Graham thinks adding those three players to the mix that included last season&rsquo;s late acquisitions Gary Suter, Tony Amonte and Paul Ysebaert could make for an interesting year at the United Center-provided there is a season.&ldquo;This is a very talented team now,&rdquo; Graham said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s probably the most talented team we&rsquo;ve had since I&rsquo;ve been in Chicago. But talent doesn&rsquo;t always win hockey games. We&rsquo;ve got to make sure we maintain the same work ethic. We&rsquo;ve got to make sure the talent gets put in the right direction&rdquo;Graham at right wing and 32-year-old center Brent Sutter again anchor the Hawks&rsquo; checking line, although coach Darryl Sutter knows he&rsquo;ll be in trouble if he must play the two veterans as much as he did last year.Sutter was forced to use his brother and Graham in many more situations than he wanted because some of the younger players such as Patrick Poulin. Sergei Krivokrasov and Jeff Shantz didn&rsquo;t progress as the coaching staff had hoped.&ldquo;I understand the situation,&rdquo; Graham said. &ldquo;The young guys have to play. Last year I think Darryl waited for the kids to step up and they didn&rsquo;t. I don&rsquo;t think he wanted to play us as much as he did.&rdquo;&ldquo;I think we&rsquo;ll have reduced roles, but that means the kids will have to step up and take advantage of their opportunity.&rdquo;BRIGHT SPOT: Jeremy Roenick was able to find something good about the lockout.Because of the labor dispute, Roenick was able to be present the morning of Oct. 8 when his wife, Tracy, gave birth to the couple&rsquo;s first child, a girl, Brandi Taylor.If the season had been on. Roenick would have been in Dallas preparing for a game that night against the Stars.&ldquo;Tracy had the baby after only three hours of labor and I never would have been able to fly home in time,&rdquo; Roenick said.Meanwhile, Roenick, who once suggested he might have an interest in playing for the International League&rsquo;s Chicago Wolves during the lockout, has no intention of playing anywhere.NOTEBOOK: Owner Bill Wirtz said plans still call for Chicago Stadium to be tom down in November. An auction of Stadium memorabilia was scheduled for Oct. 15 to help raise funds for the demolition. &#9632;

Fire still burns for captain Dirk

<div class="byline">By Keith Gave</div>Mike Hitch wants the world know his Detroit Red Wings are not for sale.In a rare wide-ranging interview with the Detroit Free Press, the Wings&rsquo; owner said he was irked at reports he is thinking of selling the franchise.&ldquo;I think those rumors are planted,&rdquo; Hitch said. &ldquo;I think people start those rumors for their own personal reasons and I can&rsquo;t for the life of me figure out why they would do that or who may have started them.&ldquo;But just the way they ferment leads me to believe that there are people out there who want to start something like that and the press picks up on it.&ldquo;Whether people want to show some disruption in our franchise or if they feel by doing something like that it might open it up for people who are interested in buying, I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;He also doesn&rsquo;t know why there is so much speculation captain Steve Yzerman will be traded.He said he wasn&rsquo;t aware of any friction between Yzerman and coach Scotty Bowman, who last season reportedly advised former general manager Bryan Murray to trade the star center.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a subject that has never been brought up and I&rsquo;ve talked to Scotty at length,&rdquo; Hitch said.&ldquo;In fact, I keep telling Scotty, &lsquo;You haven&rsquo;t seen the real Steve Yzerman yet,&rsquo; because, unfortunately, he was injured last year. I explained to him how Steve can dominate games. Just wait and see.&rdquo;It looks as though Bowman will have a while to wait because of the labor stalemate. Hitch, who for seven years was a member of the NHL committee that dealt with the union, is as frustrated as anyone.Hitch, in fact, became so exasperated with NHL Players&rsquo; Association executive director Bob Goodenow during the last round of talks, he decided to quit the committee.&ldquo;I figured that I served a lot of years on that committee, including a year of real intense negotiations with Bob Goodenow,&rdquo; Hitch said. &ldquo;And to be totally honest with you, I couldn&rsquo;t reach Bob. I couldn&rsquo;t do the job and we couldn&rsquo;t get a contract so I figured, let somebody else try.&ldquo;It was nuts. It made me feel like kind of a babe in the woods. I never had to deal with anything like that. Labor negotiations were new to me.&rdquo;84 POSSIBLE: Despite what he views as an impossible situation at the bargaining table, ever-optimistic Red Wings&rsquo; senior vice-president Jimmy Devellano believes the NHL can complete an 84-game schedule this season.&ldquo;I feel that if we get started in November and we let the playoffs go into July, we can play the full schedule,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just a personal opinion.&ldquo;We have a lot of buildings around the league that have air conditioning now. And you get rid of teams fairly quickly in the playoffs. I would be for anything to get in a full season and I haven&rsquo;t given up.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011591/6734588-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="574" height="936"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Yzerman isn&rsquo;t on the trade block, Mike Hitch says.</figcaption></div>But Devellano also sees little common ground among the negotiators.&ldquo;The differences are night and day,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lot like baseball. You have one side that needs control over costs because costs outstrip revenue growth. The other side wants salaries to keep increasing. That makes it impossible to compromise.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Like many of his teammates, Wings&rsquo; player representative Terry Carkner was treating the lockout like a vacation. While others golfed or traveled, Carkner was visiting his family in Kingston, Ont. He said the players are braced for the worst. &ldquo;All along, the players have been told by Bob (Goodenow) the owners have a very hard-core agenda that they&rsquo;re sticking to,&rdquo; Carkner said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re getting a much clearer idea of their agenda now. They&rsquo;ve come out prepared for a fight, to do everything they can to put a salary cap in place.&rdquo; Carkner believes the owners have underestimated the players. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re taking away the passion we have for the game we love. Every player has worked so hard to make it, that when we do get our backs against the wall we come out fighting and defend ourselves.&rdquo;<h2>TRANSACTIONS</h2>Oct. 7; Martin Lapointe, RW, assigned to Adirondack (AHL). &#9632;

f0012-01

Team, Yzerman not for sale: Hitch

<div class="byline">By Dave Luecking</div>Adam Creighton had his best years in the NHL under Mike Keenan with the Chicago Blackhawks.So after the Tampa Bay Lightning tossed him out on the scrap heap of the unprotected list for the waiver draft, Keenan thought he might be able to salvage him with the St. Louis Blues.In the first trade since his league suspension ended, the Blues&rsquo; coach-general manager acquired Creighton from the Lightning for spare defenseman Tom Tilley.While Tilley viewed the trade as a chance to play-Keenan said Tilley wouldn&rsquo;t have played much in St. Louis-the trade is a chance for Creighton to recapture his best days.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011495/6734619-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="576" height="834"><figcaption class="caption-body">Adam Creighton was exposed by Tampa for the waiver draft.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I had my best years with Mike,&rdquo; Creighton said. &ldquo;He got the best out of me. It was tough playing for him, but when I look back, I don&rsquo;t remember the tough times. I remember what I accomplished.&rdquo;Creighton, 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds, was a big kid with a lot of potential when the Chicago Blackhawks acquired him from the Buffalo Sabres for Rick Vaive in 1988.The 1989-90 season was Creighton&rsquo;s best. He played 80 games and established career highs with 34 goals and 70 points. He also racked up a career-high 224 penalty minutes.He dropped to 51 points and 135 penalty minutes in 73 games the next season, but had 12 points in 11 games when he and Steve Thomas were traded to the New York Islanders for Brent Sutter and Brad Lauer early in the 1991-92 season.After Creighton and Keenan parted company, Creighton&rsquo;s career nosedived. He had 24 points in 66 games with the Islanders, who left him unprotected in the expansion draft.Tampa Bay picked him up, but Creighton had only 39 points in 83 games in the Lightning&rsquo;s inaugural season and 20 points in 53 games last season, when he often found himself seated in the press box.When asked what had happened to Creighton&rsquo;s career since they parted company, Keenan said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to say&hellip;(but) he has all the potential in the world.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be placed in an environment where he can bring those things about. He&rsquo;s at the point in his career where he has to take advantage of it.&rdquo;Creighton&rsquo;s arrival creates a crowd at center for the Blues. Creighton joins Craig Janney, Guy Carbonneau, Esa Tikkanen and Peter Stastny.SHANAHAN UPSET: Brendan Shanahan, the Blues&rsquo; assistant player representative, accused NHL commissioner Gary Bettman of trying to break the union by rejecting the players&rsquo; latest proposal.&ldquo;For Gary Bettman to react the way he did leaves me no other conclusion than his sole intention is to break the union,&rdquo; Shanahan said. &ldquo;Mr. Bettman and the owners could force us to sit out the entire season.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a situation where the two sides will stare each other down and wait for the other to blink. We have to buckle down for a long, cold winter.&rdquo;But the cold reality is that those big paychecks that have resulted from the NHL&rsquo;s rapid salary escalation the last few years won&rsquo;t be coming in.&ldquo;We know and the owners know, that they have a lot more money than us,&rdquo; said Shanahan, who signed a five-year, $15-million contract in June. &ldquo;Generally, we&rsquo;re not multimillionaires and we don&rsquo;t have means of earning money other than our skills as players. They do and they&rsquo;re going to try and break us.&ldquo;The owners are trying to go back to the days when they were the only ones who recognized sports as a lucrative money-maker-a time where the players shut up and didn&rsquo;t ask questions and spilled their blood for nothing but a team jacket.&rdquo;Shanahan said owners may eventually benefit from the lockout, but he feared the sport would be damaged.&ldquo;The hit they&rsquo;ll take on revenue would be made up 10-fold if Bettman got the players to agree to a salary cap,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But the game of hockey is getting hurt.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Blues opened the doors to their new home, the $135 million Kiel Center, hosting an open house Oct. 8 and 9. More than 38,000 people toured the building, testing the seats and sampling the concessions. Another 1,000 paid $5 each to take part in skating sessions&hellip;If the lockout persists, the Blues might import their Peoria Rivermen farm team to St. Louis to play an International League game. &#9632;

f0013-01

Creighton buys in to Keenan magic

<div class="byline">By Mike Heika</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011579/6734650-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Neal Broten was asked to play for the IHL&rsquo;s Minnesota Moose.</figcaption></div>Caoch Bob Gainey claims the Dallas Stars need a big forward. Team president Jim Lites says the franchise needs something even bigger.While dealing with the challenges of selling hockey in a new area during a work stoppage, Lites keeps one goal clearly in sight.&ldquo;Everything we do, in one way or another, is focused on a new building,&rdquo; Lites said. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t be successful in Reunion Arena, long-term. It&rsquo;s a good building to watch a game, it&rsquo;s pretty and has good sightlines. But financially, we can&rsquo;t survive there.&rdquo;Lites said both the Stars and the National Basketball Association&rsquo;s Dallas Mavericks have outgrown the 14-year-old structure. Both franchises are looking at a new arena with 20,000 or more seats and luxury boxes.&ldquo;We have every intention of being in a new arena by 1997-98,&rdquo; Lites said.Several Dallas-area communities are trying to lure the teams into the suburbs. Lewisville, north of Dallas, is making the biggest push and Mavericks&rsquo; owner Donald Carter purchased a 75-acre parcel of land there earlier this year. Nearby Irving also has launched a plan that would include an arena adjacent to Texas Stadium, home of the National Football League&rsquo;s Dallas Cowboys.Arlington, home of baseball&rsquo;s Texas Rangers, is also said to be interested in coming up with a plan.Lites said the Stars and the Mavericks are giving Dallas the inside track.&ldquo;We would like to be in downtown Dallas,&rdquo; Lites said. &ldquo;We just can&rsquo;t be there in that arena.&rdquo;Despite a rocky relationship in their first season of sharing Reunion Arena, the Mavericks and Stars are in the same camp on when, where and how a new facility will be built.&ldquo;We communicate with the Mavericks and I think we both understand we need to be in the same building,&rdquo; Lites said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had a year to live with each other and we&rsquo;ve grown to understand we don&rsquo;t really impact each other.&ldquo;We can live together just like they do in Chicago and New Jersey and Boston and Florida.&rdquo;Plans range for a facility in the $100 million to $184 million price range. Lites said everything right now is speculation, but he has seen some plans he likes.&ldquo;There are plenty of ways it can get done and we&rsquo;re going to study all of them,&rdquo; Lites said.MOOSE CALL: Former Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; coach Glen Sonmor contacted Neal Broten and Mike Modano about the possibility of playing games for his International League expansion team, the Minnesota Moose.Sonmor offered $1,000 a game and Broten said the idea was to kick off the opening weekend Oct. 7 with some festivities that would feature the two Minnesota heroes.&ldquo;It was just a deal for a couple of games, that&rsquo;s all he wanted, to kick the team off,&rdquo; Broten said. &ldquo;But I really didn&rsquo;t think it would be fair to go in there when some other guy had worked for the job.&ldquo;We all decided it wouldn&rsquo;t work.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Craig Ludwig is an elite softball player in his native Wisconsin in the summer. During the work stoppage, he has been visiting the batting cage on a daily basis and said he has made a few phone calls about playing in a tournament or two. &ldquo;Nothing has really come of it so far, we&rsquo;ll just have to wait and see,&rdquo; he said&hellip;The Stars said they are making plans to lay off some of their 60 full-time employees if the lockout drags on. &#9632;

f0014-01

Team determined to get new arena

<div class="byline">By Tim Campbell</div>The storyline has been constant: Hello, John Paddock, general manager; goodbye Europeans.Paddock indeed has altered the Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; chemistry, but lo and behold, the newest prospect he&rsquo;s pumping is from across the ocean.&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t do anything to hurt his chances, in our eyes,&rdquo; Paddock said about training camp for right winger Michal Grosek, a 19-year-old from the Czech Republic. &ldquo;He would have started the season with us.&rdquo;Expectations on Grosek have been high since the minute he set foot in Winnipeg at training camp last season, just months after he&rsquo;d been drafted in the sixth round. At 6-foot-2,200 pounds, he has plenty to offer the Jets. During the NHL lockout, Grosek is playing with the American League&rsquo;s Springfield Falcons.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m impressed with his combination of ability and size, also his improvement and feeling comfortable with being in North America,&rdquo; Paddock said. &ldquo;I guess what makes him most appealing to us is that we need some size on the wings and he gives us that with some ability. He&rsquo;s not ready to be an impact player yet, but he&rsquo;s big and he has got that ability.&rdquo;He also has a reputation of being something of a problem child. He did nothing to shed that label while playing with the Tacoma Rockets of the Western League last season.The Jets are aware of the problem and tried to tackle it head-on during the summer by sending Grosek to a month-long hockey school in Camrose, Alta., that also teaches life skills.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a softer, more trusting person,&rdquo; said Randy Carlyle, Jets&rsquo; director of player development. &ldquo;We stressed to the people in Camrose that he needed to learn the team game. In junior, he placed all his emphasis on goals, assists and penalty minutes. And from all the reports we had from Tacoma, he was very selfish.&ldquo;So many penalties he took last year were unnecessary. He thought he was tough just because he took penalties. We had to sell him a whole new line of thought.&rdquo;Paddock has seen progress in Grosek and thinks he may turn out to be a steal.&ldquo;If it weren&rsquo;t for that baggage scaring some people off, he&rsquo;s a second-round pick,&rdquo; Paddock said. &ldquo;Some people in some organizations wouldn&rsquo;t want their name attached to him, they were that afraid of him.&ldquo;But he&rsquo;s probably the best player we took that year.&rdquo;LISTLESS IN WINNIPEG: Time hasn&rsquo;t been on the side of some Jets&rsquo; players during the work stoppage.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m losing my mind I&rsquo;m so bored all the time,&rdquo; said left winger Darrin Shannon, who admitted keeping himself busy was a chore.&ldquo;(We&rsquo;ve) been at the gym most days, riding the bike, playing some basketball, indoor soccer a few times,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Some guys have gone fishing the odd day and some have even gone hunting.&rdquo;Shannon said the NHL Players&rsquo; Association&rsquo;s go-ahead to start skating again should relieve some of the frustration.&ldquo;I know all the guys want to get back on the ice to keep their conditioning up, that&rsquo;s the easiest way and really the only way to do it,&rdquo; he said.NOTEBOOK: The Jets laid off two employees until the season gets underway, a part-time office staffer and equipment assistant Mike Romani. &#9632;

Stop the presses: Team high on kinder, gentler European Grosek

<div class="byline">By Stan Fischlar</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011366/6734729-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Trading Kevin Hatcher to Detroit would be good for David Poile. (Photo by Jim Leary/BBS)</figcaption></div>The Buffalo Sabres have quickly joined the St. Louis Blues as the teams most disliked by fellow NHL owners. The Sabres recently renegotiated contracts for Pat LaFontaine (five years, $22.5 million) and Dominik Hasek (three years, $8 million plus incentives). One team president told Bluelines, &ldquo;The Sabres like to complain about being in a small market, yet they now have the third highest payroll in the NHL.&rdquo; When the Sabres capitulated to Hasek&rsquo;s demands, while still holding Grant Fuhr as a trump card, eyes began rolling at NHL headquarters in Manhattan, not to mention other league outposts&hellip;Look for Brian Burke to assume an even more prominent role in NHL affairs in the next year. The league&rsquo;s vice-president-whose contract was extended through 1995-96&mdash;is the only answer to critics who claim that the NHL front office lacks &ldquo;hockey people.&rdquo;&hellip;Keith Primeau for Kevin Hatcher makes sense if you&rsquo;re David Poile. but not Jimmy Devellano.<h2>Joke&rsquo;s on them</h2>The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim&rsquo;s first season will be chronicled in a soon-to-be-released book titled Rocking The Pond by Dean Chadwin. In the book, Chadwin suggests Alexei Kasatonov got turned off the Mighty Ducks when teammates hit him in the face with a cream pie on his 34th birthday last season. Kasatonov found the incident &ldquo;confusing and troubling.&rdquo; Chadwin also asserts Ducks&rsquo; coach Ron Wilson believes the shootout would be a natural substitute for fighting in the NHL. &ldquo;People like one-on-one confrontations,&rdquo; Wilson said in the book. &ldquo;Hockey&rsquo;s one-on-one confrontation is fisticuffs. So turn it into a goalie and a shooter. There&rsquo;s the battle right there and that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s going to be on sports highlight shows at night. The shootout that won the game, not the fight that happened in the first period.&rdquo;&hellip;For those who believe that the NHL has gone mad, the answer is, yes. But it&rsquo;s mad as in Mad magazine. The humor publication not only has a resident hockey expert, Amy (High Stick) Vozeolas. but is negotiating with New York Rangers&rsquo; goalie Mike Richter to join the monthly as its NHL consultant for future hockey features. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be talking to Mike once they start playing again,&rdquo; Vozeolas told Bluelines. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying to get hockey mentioned in Mad as much as I can.&rdquo;<h2>Money troubles</h2>If Scotty Bowman plans to learn from the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; playoff disaster, he might want to consult with Sheldon Kennedy. The former Wing and current Winnipeg Jet claims Detroit, &ldquo;had a very selfish team, contract-wise&rdquo; and at playoff time, the Wings were playing for themselves, not the team&hellip;With the NHL so interested in image, it&rsquo;s surprising that the league&rsquo;s television geniuses haven&rsquo;t figured out that commissioner Gary Bettman neither photographs well nor appears at ease on television. Both problems can be remedied, but one wonders what the troops are waiting for.<h2>IHL no WHA</h2>International League commissioner Bob Ufer denies repeated charges his league is en route to becoming the second World Hockey Association. &ldquo;The WHA thought that a way to elevate itself was to go after marquee players and that&rsquo;s why they failed,&rdquo; Ufer said. &ldquo;Salaries start to go out of whack and you forget where you started. The way we get fans into our arenas is to have a helluva hockey game, not with 40 ex-National League players. How many NHL marquee players actually put fans in the seats? Five, 10?&rdquo;&hellip;At the age of 29, Dan Quinn is ready for a career season. erasing the bad-mouthing of the past six years&hellip;Joey Juneau is talking 130 points this season, which is about 30 more than he&rsquo;ll get.<h2>Now appearing&hellip;</h2>Neil Smith revealed to Bluelines an untold story of the Stanley Cup&rsquo;s odyssey this spring. The hunk of silverware actually attended a Bar Mitzvah with the New York Rangers&rsquo; general manager. &ldquo;My attorney&rsquo;s son was having the affair,&rdquo; Smith said, &ldquo;and there were about 400 people attending the Bar Mitzvah. When I got to the door, I told someone, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve brought along an extra friend, Stanley.&rsquo; With that, we wheeled out a table with the Stanley Cup sitting on top. Man, it did magical things to the people, even the Islanders&rsquo; fans who were there.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0016-01

Generous Sabres making enemies in league

<div class="byline">By Jim Kelley</div>Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; left winger Randy Wood is optimistic a deal between the NHL and the NHL Players&rsquo; Association will eventually get done.Even if it means he leaves town.&ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;m in kind of an odd position.&rdquo; said the veteran forward. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sort of out there, waiting.&rdquo;Wood was the only player of note left exposed by the Sabres for the waiver draft. When it was postponed, Wood, the Sabres representative to the NHLPA, was in the somewhat embarrassing position of being the spokesman for the team while also on the verge of being divorced from it.&ldquo;It is kind of difficult,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but everything&rsquo;s kind of strange these days. We&rsquo;ll just have to wait and see what happens.&rdquo;Wood. 31, has a much clearer position on the current work stoppage. Despite NHL commissioner Gary Bettman&rsquo;s words to the contrary, he sees the players as being locked out.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s basically the same thing,&rdquo; Wood said of the postponement. &ldquo;We have no organized practice. Everyone&rsquo;s on their own for the next couple of weeks.&rdquo;Despite that, Wood is optimistic the two sides can accomplish something in the near future even if a return to hockey means he&rsquo;ll likely leave the Sabres.&ldquo;I said all along both sides want to have a season,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an important common theme that both sides have. As long as we can continue to both want an NHL season, I think a deal is going to be worked out in the next couple of weeks.&ldquo;I think the positive part about it is the season is still salvageable. They talked about completely locking out and negotiations breaking off and it hasn&rsquo;t gotten to that point.&rdquo;Though virtually every player rep the Sabres ever had has been cut, traded or waived. Wood said he didn&rsquo;t think his being left exposed to the waiver draft was a punitive action on behalf of the club.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t think so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just a spokesman who relays information to the rest of the guys. If it wasn&rsquo;t me it would be someone else. I&rsquo;m sure they realize that.&rdquo;ON THE ROAD: The Sabres haven&rsquo;t completely shut down operations. Coach-general manager John Muckier continues to evaluate talent at the minor and major junior levels.Muckier has taken in several Rochester Americans&rsquo; games in the American League and has scouted other teams as well.&ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t finished our (NHL) team yet,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We still have certain needs and we&rsquo;re always looking for players who can fill them.&rdquo;Muckler is searching for some added size at the forward positions and a stay-at-home-defenseman.Scouting the minor leagues doesn&rsquo;t necessarily turn up players who can fill those roles, but having a good grasp of another team&rsquo;s organizational depth can aid in making a good transaction.NOTEBOOK: Many of the Sabres have taken off for their off-season homes now that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has prolonged the work stoppage. Some players, such as goalie Dominik Hasek, have been working out with the Buffalo Blizzard of the National Professional Indoor Soccer League. Hasek isn&rsquo;t intending on signing a contract with the team, but he grew up playing soccer in his native Czechoslovakia and is highly skilled as both a goalie and forward in the game. &ldquo;Right now it&rsquo;s a means by which he can stay in shape and it doesn&rsquo;t hurt us,&rdquo; said Jim May, the Blizzard&rsquo;s general manager.Sabres&rsquo; management met with players during the postponement, but not to influence negotiations, said executive vice-president Gerry Meehan. He said the club has kept up a dialogue with the players reminding them the practice facility is open if they want to use it. He also wanted to keep them aware of situations regarding contractual arrangements and any new league rulings&hellip;Center Dale Hawerchuk technically remains suspended. Hawerchuk walked out of camp just hours before Bettman declared the season wouldn&rsquo;t open on time. Hawerchuk had been attempting to negotiate a new contract. &#9632;

Settlement likely to signal Wood’s demise

<div class="byline">By Mike Loftus</div>The Boston Bruins, like every other club, will be concerned about their players&rsquo; physical condition when and if the season ever begins.At least two members of the team will be in tip-top shape when that day comes. Unfortunately, they won&rsquo;t be players, but coach Brian Sutter and his assistant Tom McVie.&ldquo;We still go to the rink every day,&rdquo; said McVie, in his 22nd season as a coach. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got Brian in great shape and I think I might be in the best shape of my life. There&rsquo;s nothing else to do, so I&rsquo;m putting us both through a training program.&rdquo;McVie has always been something of a fitness guru, even when it wasn&rsquo;t a major part of coaching. One of his assignments in Boston is to work with players coming off injuries.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard these days,&rdquo; McVie said. &ldquo;On a normal day, I go into the dressing room to get everyone stretched before they go on the ice. Now there&rsquo;s just this big, empty room.&ldquo;But I go every day, put on my coaching uniform and wait for Brian to come in. We&rsquo;ll talk for a while, then work out together.&rdquo;McVie, 62, doesn&rsquo;t mind showing off results, either. He walks around the Bruins office inviting people to hit him in the stomach.He learned long ago to keep busy when times were tough.&ldquo;I was coaching Washington and it was the first time I ever got fired,&rdquo; said McVie, who was dismissed by Abe Pollin in 1977-78. &ldquo;I was used to working 16-, 17-hour days and I loved it. Then I just stopped.&ldquo;After about four or five weeks, my nerves were shot. I was so hurt, and I was mad at Abe, and I was worried about my wife and my kids because I had no job. Eventually, it was like I was just a vegetable.&rdquo;McVie learned that putting his body in motion kept his mind occupied.&ldquo;One day I went out and ran for a mile,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The next day I said to myself &lsquo;Come on. A mile?&rsquo; I started to run longer and pretty soon I was up to a 10-mile run. When I was running I wasn&rsquo;t as mad, I wasn&rsquo;t as hurt.&ldquo;It felt like I accomplished something. By the time (John Ferguson) called and asked me to come to Winnipeg, I was ready to go.&rdquo;McVie coached the Jets to the World Hockey Association championship in 1978-79.The lesson? &ldquo;When things aren&rsquo;t going the way you want, you&rsquo;ve got to stay busy and positive,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;Eventually, something&rsquo;s going to come up, and you&rsquo;ve got to be ready.&rdquo;EMPLOYMENT STATUS: Team president/general manager Harry Sinden said the club had no immediate plans to reduce staff.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have a lot of turnover here,&rdquo; Sinden said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll try to stick with these people as they&rsquo;ve stuck with us through the years, but it can&rsquo;t go on forever. We have no income, and heavy expenses.&rdquo;Sinden said the team&rsquo;s scouts were still working, but were confined to their own region and instructed to keep expenses to a minimum.He also said the Bruins were eliminating the three or four spare players normally kept with the club&rsquo;s American League affiliate at Providence.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve told them it&rsquo;s going to happen and they&rsquo;re upset,&rdquo; Sinden said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t blame them. My suggestion was that they call Bob Goodenow.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Bruins distributed their 1994-95 media guide, which features a painting by Greg Hargreaves to commemorate their final season at Boston Garden. Hall of Famers Eddie Shore, Milt Schmidt, John Bucyk, Phil Esposito, Bobby Orr and future member Ray Bourque are featured. &#9632;

McVie, Sutter maintaining mental, physical regimen

<div class="byline">By Dave Molinari</div>It says something about Howard Baldwin&rsquo;s relationship with his team that, less than a week into the NHL&rsquo;s lockout, he offered to let his players have an outside expert examine the franchise&rsquo;s financial books. At his expense, no less.And it&rsquo;s even more revealing the Pittsburgh Penguin players saw no need to take the owner up on the offer.Baldwin said he was willing to give the players access to those records because he wanted to make the point &ldquo;no one is deceiving them.&rdquo;Pittsburgh&rsquo;s players, however, countered they hadn&rsquo;t really considered the possibility Baldwin would try to pull a fast one on them.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very confident that if we saw the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; books, there would be nothing to hide,&rdquo; said defenseman Larry Murphy, the team&rsquo;s player representative. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just the way Howard operates. He&rsquo;s straight-forward; there&rsquo;s no hanky-panky.&rdquo;Baldwin&rsquo;s warm relationship with his players held up through the early days of the lockout, probably because he has made two-way communication with them a priority since he and his partners bought the franchise nearly three years ago.&ldquo;Howard has a lot of respect for the players in our organization, their thoughts and their feelings,&rdquo; said center Ron Francis. &ldquo;I think the players feel the same way about Howard.&rdquo;&ldquo;Some owners look down on their players and say, &lsquo;Who cares about them?&rsquo;&rdquo; said defenseman Peter Taglianetti. &ldquo;But he treats us on an even keel and I think that&rsquo;s what makes this team nicer than a lot of other teams.&rdquo;Even after the lockout began, Baldwin said he was &ldquo;not one bit mad at our guys,&rdquo; and openly encouraged them to &ldquo;stick together and do what&rsquo;s in their best interests.&rdquo;That doesn&rsquo;t mean he sees everything from the players&rsquo; perspective. After the NHL Players&rsquo; Association flatly rejected two offers from the owners, Baldwin said he was &ldquo;totally baffled&rdquo; by the players&rsquo; approach to the negotiations.And he was adamant that, while hockey might suffer some short-term damage from this dispute, it is imperative the owners look out for the league&rsquo;s fiscal future.&ldquo;Of course this is a negative thing,&rdquo; Baldwin said, &ldquo;but it would be a lot more negative for me to be face-to-face with you all in two or three years saying, &lsquo;This franchise can&rsquo;t go on any longer.&rsquo; &ldquo;A week into the lockout, general manager Craig Patrick acknowledged the team made a small profit last season.He also said Pittsburgh&rsquo;s payroll has risen from $9 million to $18 million in the nearly three years since Baldwin and his group bought the franchise. That, said Baldwin, explains why the team&rsquo;s financial outlook is cloudy at best.&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t keep raising prices,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If we have any price increase at all, they&rsquo;ve got to be modest, at best. And we&rsquo;re not alone.&rdquo;SQUEEZE PLAY: Howard Baldwin&rsquo;s involvement in the collective bargaining agreement negotiations might have cost him a chance to purchase the Pittsburgh Pirates.Baldwin, who was invited to sit in on the talks during the first week of October, failed to meet an Oct. 7 deadline imposed by the city of Pittsburgh for submission of bids to purchase the baseball team.Baldwin did pass along a letter reiterating his interest in buying the team, but his request for an extension of the deadline was rejected by the city.Nonetheless, Baldwin did not seem bitter about what happened.&ldquo;Right now, my No. 1 priority is the Penguins and getting hockey played in Pittsburgh,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If the city feels it has to go forward in its process without me, I understand completely and I&rsquo;m not offended at all.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m not going to change my position. I&rsquo;m still interested in the Pirates, but first things first.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: As the lockout dragged into its second week, the Penguins&rsquo; coaching staff prepared to join the team&rsquo;s scouting staff, at least temporarily. Coach Ed Johnston and assistants Rick Kehoe and Bryan Trottier were ticketed for trips to see American and International League games&hellip;Ron Francis, who rarely has a harsh word on any subject, reacted angrily to a lockout being called when the NHL&rsquo;s popularity is enjoying a growth spurt: &ldquo;To do this at this time is absolutely asinine,&rdquo; Francis said. &#9632;

Love-in continues despite lockout

&ldquo;So,&rdquo; the unschooled reporter asked a source, &ldquo;what exactly has Red Storey done in his lifetime?&rdquo;Ten minutes later the reporter interrupted, &ldquo;Okay, how about telling me the things he hasn&rsquo;t done. That might be quicker.&rdquo;The list of Storey&rsquo;s occupations is truly impressive: a player in pro hockey, football, lacrosse, baseball; an official in all of the above; broadcaster; author; dinner speaker.And the man performed all of his tasks with flair.For his lifetime of achievements and the work he did after retiring, Storey was named the 1986-87 recipient of the THN/Itech-King Clancy Memorial Award.Storey, 76, left an indelible impression on the sporting world in 1938 as a member of the Toronto Argonauts. In the fourth quarter of the Grey Cup game, he scored a record three touchdowns.True to form, the Barrie, Ont., native was most proud of his play on defense that day.After football, Storey was a defenseman in the old Eastern League and and played in the Quebec Senior League with the Montreal Royals.As a star lacrosse player in the 1940s, he set a Quebec League record by scoring 12 goals in one game.A knee injury put a premature end to Storey&rsquo;s playing pursuits, but not before he was offered tryouts with the Chicago Bears and New York Giants of the National Football League, the NHL&rsquo;s New York Rangers and baseball&rsquo;s Philadelphia Athletics.Storey then embarked on another chapter in his life, becoming an NHL referee in 1950. A falling out with league president Clarence Campbell led to Storey&rsquo;s controversial resignation nine years later.Still, he had accomplished enough to earn induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1967. He&rsquo;s also a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame and was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1992.His &ldquo;less active&rdquo; years included stints as a broadcaster with Hockey Night in Canada and on Montreal radio station CKGM.More recently, Storey wrote a book on his life titled Red&rsquo;s Story. He continues to travel the speaker&rsquo;s circuit and referees at charity hockey events.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011159/6734832-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="570" height="1018"><figcaption class="caption-body">Red Storey once scored 12 goals in a pro lacrosse game.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Red’s Story full of activities in all sports

<div class="byline">By Kevin Johnston</div>Everyone concedes the fans are the biggest losers in the NHL&rsquo;s current labor dispute, but they&rsquo;re not the only ones.Just ask Stephane Fiset.The Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; goaltender was the winner of a hard-fought battle in training camp to secure the team&rsquo;s No. 1 job.But the lockout has forced him to the sidelines while the two men he beat out for the job-Jocelyn Thibault and Garth Snow-are playing regularly.Thibault, 19, was returned to the Sherbrooke Faucons of the Quebec League while Snow was sent to the Nordiques&rsquo; American League affiliate, the Cornwall Aces.Nordiques&rsquo; coach Marc Crawford, who had named Fiset his Game 1 starter before the lockout, said he would likely have to rethink his decision if and when the NHL season starts.&ldquo;If the season did start rather abruptly after a long work stoppage,&rdquo; Crawford said, &ldquo;it would be logical on our part to use the goalies who worked during the conflict.&ldquo;The goaltender is a lot like the pitcher in baseball. When the season starts, we ask the pitchers to give four or five good innings and that&rsquo;s all. And in hockey, the goalie also is the one who takes the most time to get his timing back.&rdquo;That wasn&rsquo;t great news for Fiset, but Snow, who was disappointed at being demoted, knows what his challenge is.&ldquo;I may have an advantage because I&rsquo;m playing,&rdquo; Snow said. &ldquo;But I have to play well and that&rsquo;s the bottom line. If Jocelyn and myself don&rsquo;t perform where we are right now, it may be detrimental. So it&rsquo;s up to us. Winning and performing well is always the bottom line.&rdquo;Cornwall coach Bob Hartley, meanwhile, gave Snow a vote of confidence.&ldquo;He did the job last spring and I know he&rsquo;ll do it again,&rdquo; Hartley said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s in the driver&rsquo;s seat. Only he can decide where he wants to go.&rdquo;&ldquo;All I have to do is prove that Bob is right,&rdquo; Snow said. &ldquo;I still think I belong in the NHL. What happened was disappointing. Things didn&rsquo;t work out the way I wanted them to. But that&rsquo;s behind me now.&ldquo;I still maintain that I did well enough to stay in Quebec. So now I&rsquo;ll do what I have to and see what happens. And who knows what will happen when the labor problems are settled. I might get an interesting phone call.&rdquo;TEAR JERKER: Nordiques&rsquo; union representative Sylvain Lefebvre took the NHL&rsquo;s rejection of the players&rsquo; Oct. 11 counter-proposal hard.&ldquo;I really thought we were getting closer,&rdquo; Lefebvre said. &ldquo;But now (commissioner Gary) Bettman says we have gone backwards. I don&rsquo;t understand. I could have cried.&rdquo;Lefebvre was incredulous that Bettman felt the NHL Players&rsquo; Association was dragging its feet.&ldquo;Bob Goodenow and the members of our committee have been working their tails off 24 hours a day to get things back on track,&rdquo; Lefebvre said. &ldquo;But I guess that isn&rsquo;t enough.&ldquo;The owners have been working on their proposals for months now. They have a clear agenda. It&rsquo;s normal that it takes time coming from us. We need the time to react and readjust.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Nordiques are impressed with Finnish defenseman Janne Laukkanen&rsquo;s progress at Cornwall, particularly his physical play. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s happy, communicating with everyone,&rdquo; Bob Hartley said. &ldquo;It shows that he wants to adapt to our game.&rdquo;&hellip;Paul Brousseau, a second-round pick in 1992, was switched from right wing to center and is showing some progress with the Aces. Brousseau played some games at center during Nordiques&rsquo; training camp. &#9632;

Work delay could cost Fiset No. 1 assignment

<div class="byline">By Jett Jacobs</div>Suffice it to say that Hartford Whalers&rsquo; owner Peter Karmanos will never be a member of the Bob Goodenow fan club.After NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced Oct. 11 the league had rejected the NHL Players&rsquo; Association&rsquo;s latest proposal, Karmanos vented his frustration and targeted his venom directly at Goodenow.&ldquo;(Goodenow) is very arrogant,&rdquo; Karmanos said. &ldquo;I believe he has an agenda that is not in the players&rsquo; interest.&rdquo;Karmanos and Goodenow go back to their days in their hometown of Detroit. Karmanos invested $8 million over 15 years to build a youth hockey empire with Compuware Corp., and Goodenow lived and worked there when he was a player agent.Karmanos said he believes Goodenow, who played hockey at Harvard and went on to the International League, holds some lingering resentment toward the NHL because many Americans of his age group didn&rsquo;t get a chance to play in the NHL.&ldquo;I feel Bob&rsquo;s a reflection of the American frustration a lot of people of his age felt,&rdquo; Karmanos said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not making a judgment on that feeling, but I also think it&rsquo;s being reflected in his dealings with the NHL. And that&rsquo;s not the players&rsquo; agenda.Karmanos also said he had some bad dealings with Goodenow when he was an agent.&ldquo;Goodenow was supposed to help us find an NHL team,&rdquo; Karmanos said. &ldquo;He used to send us bills in the thousands of dollars every month just for sending us clippings on newspaper articles. He assured us because of his connections in hockey he would be able to get us an NHL team and we should continue paying those bills even though they were ridiculous.&ldquo;We told him no. He said, &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll never get a hockey team if I&rsquo;m not on your side.&rsquo; Nothing illegal, just terribly arrogant.&rdquo;Goodenow called Karmanos&rsquo; statements absurd.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question I wasn&rsquo;t good enough to make the NHL,&rdquo; Goodenow said. &ldquo;To suggest that is a reflection of my frustration is so far-fetched. For Pete to suggest it has any reflection on what I&rsquo;m doing today is clear that he is grasping at straws.&ldquo;Pete and (Whalers&rsquo; general manager) Jim Rutherford came to me for my opinion on franchises and expansion. They asked me to introduce them to people for opportunities. I agreed to. I never assured them I&rsquo;d get them a team. That&rsquo;s ludicrous.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01816/6734887-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="568" height="932"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jim Rutherford said the Whalers stand to lose millions this year.</figcaption></div>Karmanos, meanwhile, didn&rsquo;t have much good to say about the NHLPA&rsquo;s proposal.&ldquo;The NHLPA&rsquo;s last proposal doesn&rsquo;t do ding-dong for hockey and they know it,&rdquo; Karmanos said. &ldquo;They make proposals that are totally nonsensical and do not address any of the issues.&rdquo;AGNEW RETIRES: He fought the good fight, but defenseman Jim Agnew has been forced to retire because of repeated problems with his left knee.Agnew, 28, missed all last year after blowing out his knee in the first training camp scrimmage. Coming out of retirement, Agnew made it through camp, but was hit in the side of the knee Sept. 22 in a game against the Ottawa Senators. After being sent to the Springfield Falcons of the American League, his knee gave out again in practice.&ldquo;Last year I had doubts about retiring,&rdquo; said Agnew, who&rsquo;ll receive the entire $250,000 of the last year of his contract. &ldquo;Now, I don&rsquo;t have any doubts. It just kept getting worse and worse.&rdquo;Agnew is considering an offer to keep working for the Whalers, with a broadcast position one possibility.NOTEBOOK: An unscientific Hartford Courant poll about the labor dispute drew 100 responses. Sixty readers came down on the side of the owners, 20 were with the players and 20 voiced disagreement with both sides&hellip;Jim Rutherford said the Whalers will lose between $8 million and $10 million this season if the games are played. It&rsquo;s estimated they could lose up to $6 million if they aren&rsquo;t played, including $2 million in signing bonuses and various buyouts. After the Compuware accountants looked at the club, it was determined the Whalers lost $13 million last year. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s hard cash,&rdquo; Rutherford said. &ldquo;No paperwork tricks.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0021-01

Karmanos rips into NHLPA’s Goodenow

<div class="byline">By Herb Zurkowsky</div>The Montreal Canadiens will lose between $13 million and $15 million this season if no games are played, according to team president Ronald Corey.And that, Corey cautioned, is a distinct possibility. Corey said it could take anywhere from &ldquo;three weeks or a full year&rdquo; to end the labor conflict and have a new collective bargaining agreement in place.Corey acknowledged the Canadiens&rsquo; potential deficit is enormous, but said he is prepared to absorb the loss.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a substantial loss, but that&rsquo;s the price we&rsquo;ll pay,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We have no choice. We have to solve the problem.&rdquo;Corey was willing to appear on a Montreal French-language television program with Jean-Jacques Daig-neault, but the Canadiens&rsquo; player representative declined.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t argue with Ronald Corey&rsquo;s books,&rdquo; Daigneault said. &ldquo;And if he shows something, I probably wouldn&rsquo;t understand because I don&rsquo;t have a background in finance or economy.&rdquo;Although Daigneault said he can&rsquo;t dispute the figures, that doesn&rsquo;t necessarily mean he believes all the information, either.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not saying I believe his figures, I&rsquo;m only saying I can&rsquo;t argue with them.&rdquo;Corey said the financial records of each NHL team have been made available to the union, but the offer to examine the books has been declined.&ldquo;They know the losses are true losses,&rdquo; Corey said.Corey said player salaries and bonuses have escalated by 165 per cent in the last five years, adding over the same span the NHL has gone from a $50 million profit to losses of $70 million.Canadiens&rsquo; general manager Serge Savard, meanwhile, has admitted he and others who sign players to enormous deals are partly responsible for the situation, but continues to claim the system must be altered.Savard said 200 contracts were deposited with the NHL Players&rsquo; Association last July and the average raise was 54 per cent over the previous year.Savard said were the Canadiens to make a $2-million profit this season, that profit would have to be absorbed in the signing of Finnish star Saku Koivu, the team&rsquo;s first-round draft pick in 1993.Until games are officially cancelled, Corey and all the owners can keep all money deposited by season-ticket subscribers, plus the accrued interest.The gate from an average Forum game is between $500,000 and $550,000 from ticket revenue alone, Corey said.SCOUT&rsquo;S HONOR: Canadiens&rsquo; coach Jacques Demers went on a week-long scouting mission, taking in four games involving Montreal&rsquo;s American League affiliate, the Fredericton Canadiens.Demers told Serge Savard upon his return he is available for additional scouting duties at junior and college games.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a hockey person,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like not to work. I&rsquo;m glad for the opportunity to do something instead of hanging around and doing nothing.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Dion Darling, a defenseman playing for Fredericton, signed a three-year contract. The 20-year-old, selected 125th overall in 1993, will add size if he ever makes it to Montreal. He stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 205 pounds. Darling, chosen 125th overall in the 1993 draft, played for the Spokane Chiefs and Moose Jaw Warriors of the Western League last season. He also played 12 games with the Wheeling Thunderbirds of the East Coast League.<h2>TRANSACTIONS</h2>Oct. 11: Dion Darling, D, signed multi-year contract. &#9632;

Losses could reach $15 million this year

<div class="byline">By Chris Stevenson</div>Brian Downey, toiling in obscurity in the low minors, was an unlikely victim in the war between the NHL and NHL Players&rsquo; Association.In a move calculated to get the attention of NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow, the Senators recalled Downey from the Thunder Bay Senators of the Colonial League Oct. 10.The move backfired into a public relations mess for the Senators, who were roundly criticized for being cheap and hard-hearted in singling out Downey, a local kid making $35,000 who isn&rsquo;t even a member of the NHLPA.&ldquo;If I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn&rsquo;t do it,&rdquo; said Senators&rsquo; general manager Randy Sexton. &ldquo;I feel badly we ruined his Thanksgiving. That was never our intention. There&rsquo;s an expression that you have to take a hit to make a play. We thought other teams were going to participate and we wanted to be a good partner.&rdquo;The same day, the Boston Bruins recalled three players from their American League farm team.&ldquo;Ray Shero (Ottawa assistant GM) left me a message saying I could either come to Ottawa and not be paid or stay in Thunder Bay and not be paid,&rdquo; Downey said.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to get the call to Ottawa, but to get the call in this situation&hellip;I don&rsquo;t know what they&rsquo;re thinking. I don&rsquo;t know why they would do this.&rdquo;The Downey situation was resolved when he accepted a buyout from the Senators and was released.&ldquo;The buyout (for $18,000 U.S.) is what I want,&rdquo; said Downey, who turned down a similar offer in the summer. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got no future in this organization. I wasn&rsquo;t going to get called up to P.E.I or the NHL.&rdquo;Said Shero: &ldquo;I think this is the best thing for both parties. This was not a money issue. It never was.&rdquo;BIG LOSERS: Senators&rsquo; principal owner Rod Bryden said a cancellation of the season would cost the Senators $15 million.Those losses include the expense of operating the club&rsquo;s scouting department, paying front office staff and servicing the team&rsquo;s debt load, which includes interest payments on the club&rsquo;s franchise fee and money borrowed for the $200 million Palladium.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re disappointed we&rsquo;re not playing hockey,&rdquo; Bryden said. &ldquo;The club will require more capital in order to offset the cash effect of, say, half a season or more (lost).&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather not have to find $15 million to keep the franchise viable, but if I have to, I&rsquo;ll do it.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Rod Bryden defended the signing of Alexandre Daigle to a five-year, $12.25-million contract, which many GMs think contributed to the salary spiral. &ldquo;It may be that Daigle&rsquo;s contract, at the end of five years, may have proved to have been too high. That&rsquo;s the risk owners take and players do not. We acted in what we thought were our best interests.&rdquo;&hellip;Daigle awaited word on his eligibility to return to junior during the lockout. If the NHL grants permission, he&rsquo;ll play for the Victoriaville Tigres of the Quebec League. (For more on Daigle, see page 43.)Center Alexei Yashin is looking at playing with the Las Vegas Thunder of the International League for the duration of the lockout, but contract terms had not been resolved. He was offered about $1,000 a game, but that&rsquo;s not good enough, according to his agent Mark Gandler. &ldquo;Alexei will not play for $1,000 a game,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;d rather play for Moscow Dynamo for nothing. He&rsquo;s not going to sell himself short.&rdquo;<h2>TRANSACTIONS</h2>Oct. 10: Brian Downey, LW. recalled from Thunder Bay (CHL). Oct. 11: Downey released. Oct. 13: Alexandre Daigle, C. returned to Victoriaville (QMJHL). &#9632;

Downey’s NHL dream turns into PR nightmare

<div class="byline">By Kevin Allen</div>As the NHL lockout continues, card companies have to be wondering whether the hobby will be collecting dust instead of cards.&ldquo;We have heard baseball has had a lot of returns.&rdquo; said Ted Saskin, director of licensing for the NHL Players&rsquo; Association. &ldquo;And if we aren&rsquo;t playing, that is certainly a negative.&rdquo;No one doubts hockey card sales will be hurt by the absence of games. But no one is quite sure how much. The only basis of comparison is the baseball season cancellation, after which baseball card sales were left stranded on first.&ldquo;Baseball is never good in Winnipeg,&rdquo; said Winnipeg dealer James Winkler. &ldquo;But when baseball stopped, it was next to nothing. When you talked to people down south or in the east, they told you the same thing.&rdquo;Fleer spokesman Ted Taylor is very concerned about the hockey situation because of what he sees happening in baseball. Collectors have turned to older cards.&ldquo;People are making money hand over fist in the old stuff.&rdquo; Taylor said. &ldquo;The poor guy is the dealer. We have already sold to him. and he&rsquo;s eating it.&rdquo;But Winkler isn&rsquo;t convinced hockey card sales will drop off to nothing, even if there is a lengthy lockout.&ldquo;Overall, sales may be down, but to be honest, hockey cards will always sell in Canada,&rdquo; Winkler said.But no one is quite sure what will happen in the United States, especially in the newer hockey areas, such as Texas and Florida. &ldquo;Call me in two weeks and I&rsquo;ll know more,&rdquo; said Rick Dudley, senior vice-president of NHL Enterprises. &ldquo;Right now I&rsquo;m not going to panic.&rdquo;Dudley&rsquo;s hope is that because the NHL is in the midst of a growth boom, there is enough momentum to keep sales brisk. &ldquo;Kids are still playing the game,&rdquo; he said.According to Saskin, the lockout comes at a time when card companies were reporting better than expected orders for the fall product.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure what will happen,&rdquo; said Parkhurst president Brian Price. &ldquo;But the fun of collecting will start to wane if there are no games, no hot rookies. That&rsquo;s the fun of collecting.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01921/6734966-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="572" height="808"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Juneau can&rsquo;t get very hot if he&rsquo;s not playing this season.</figcaption></div>Parkhurst, issued by Upper Deck, has an added problem. &ldquo;Crash the Game&rdquo; insert cards have specific teams and regularly-scheduled games on the back. If a collector&rsquo;s team wins on one of the dates on his card, he can win a silver-foiled version of the insert set. If both of his teams win on both dates on the card, he can redeem for a gold-foiled version.According to Upper Deck spokesman Rich Bradley, any game that isn&rsquo;t played on its original date is considered to be a win for the card holder. Thus, the longer the lockout lasts, the more silver and gold insert sets Upper Deck will be giving out to collectors.&ldquo;We are trying to make the cards worth something,&rdquo; Bradley said, &ldquo;because the fans are the loser when the games aren&rsquo;t played.&rdquo;According to Winkler, the absence of hot players worries him most.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no player of the month. Players sell well when they get hot,&rdquo; Winkler said. &ldquo;Last year, it was Sergei Fedorov. The year before it was Teemu Selanne. There won&rsquo;t be any players who get eight goals in four games. That helps sales.&rdquo;Reacting to requests by card companies, the NHLPA has allowed licensees to use 36 rookies in their sets, even though those rookies were denied an opportunity to play their first games by the lockout. Under usual practice, they would be excluded from sets because they wouldn&rsquo;t officially be considered NHLPA members until they play their first game. (See page 26 for a list of players.)A work stoppage doesn&rsquo;t have to spell doom for all card products. For example, the Leaf Ltd., baseball set debuted after the season was cancelled and the product has doubled in price.Price said he was convinced when the product hit the market it would never sell with baseball over for the season. &ldquo;I was wrong,&rdquo; Price said.If the dispute continues into December or the season is cancelled, companies will be faced with the decision whether or not to go ahead with update sets or other products. After all, there won&rsquo;t be much to update if there isn&rsquo;t a season.As usual, fans and collectors are big losers in the dispute.&ldquo;Collectors out there are very unhappy,&rdquo; Taylor said. &ldquo;People feel like they&rsquo;re being had.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0024-01

Prolonged lockout spells trouble for hobby

<div class="byline">By THN staff</div>While the NHL and NHL Players&rsquo; Association continue to play games, 35 players won&rsquo;t have to play any to get their first NHL card.The NHLPA announced Oct. 7 it will allow 36 rookie players to be included in licensed card sets this season. Normally, a player cannot be included on a card until he has played one NHL game, but the labor disruption prompted the NHL to make an exception.The ruling comes as a godsend to the licensees, who were faced with regular and update series with no NHL rookie cards. That would have made them about as exciting as an Ottawa Senators intrasquad game.&ldquo;With the lockout, we didn&rsquo;t think it would be appropriate to penalize our licensees,&rdquo; said Chris Malone, the NHLPA&rsquo;s associate director of licensing.The NHLPA received permission from each of the players and the cards will include photos from the pre-season. Malone said players who signed contracts with an NHL team and were good bets to start the season in the NHL were included.Here&rsquo;s a team-by-team listing of the players:Anaheim: Paul Kariya, LW; Valeri Karpov, RW; Oleg Tverdovsky, D.Boston: Jon Rohloff, D.Buffalo: None.Calgary: Cory Stillman, C.Chicago: None.Dallas: Todd Harvey, C; Mark Lawrence, RW.Detroit: Jamie Pushor, D.Edmonton: David Oliver, RW.Florida: None.Hartford: Andrei Nikolishin, LW.Los Angeles: Kevin Brown, RW; Matt Johnson, LW; Jamie Storr, G.Montreal: Valeri Bure, RW; David Wilkie, D.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01896/6735004-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="582" height="810"><figcaption class="caption-body">Here&rsquo;s an example of what you&rsquo;ll see in Pinnacle&hellip;</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02590/6734997-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="578" height="808"><figcaption class="caption-body">&hellip;and here&rsquo;s what O-Pee-Chee will have to offer.</figcaption></div>New Jersey: Cale Hulse, D; Brian Rolston, C.Islanders: Brett Lindros, RW.Rangers: None.Ottawa: None.Philadelphia: Vladislav Boulin, D; Patrik Juhlin, LW; Chris Therien, D.Pittsburgh: None.Quebec: Adam Deadmarsh, C; Peter Forsberg, C; Janne Laukkanen, D.St. Louis: Craig Johnson, LW.San Jose: Jeff Friesen, C.Tampa Bay: Aaron Gavey, C; Jason Wiemer, C.Toronto: Brandon Convery, C; Eric Fichaud, G; Kenny Jonsson, D; Todd Warriner, LW.Vancouver: Jassen Cullimore, D.Washington: Jeff Nelson, C.Winnipeg: Ravil Gusmanov, LW; Nikolai Khabibulin, G.One notable player missing from the list is Viktor Kozlov of the San Jose Sharks. The NHLPA said it is working on getting approval from player agents to get more rookies on the list.MOVING ON: Steve Charendoff, who spearheaded the hockey efforts for Classic cards, is leaving the Mount Laurel, N.J.-based card company.Charendoff, 31, will join Fleer where his new job will be to seek out new licenses and properties as well as to develop trading card lines for the company&rsquo;s non-sports entities.Charendoff has been with Classic since 1991 and helped develop the company&rsquo;s first draft pick set. Classic does not have an NHL license, but has rights to images in the Canadian Hockey League, the minor leagues, national teams and Europe. The company will be coming out with a CHL set later this season.BLUES FOR SALE: The St. Louis Blues auctioned off parts of then-old home, the St. Louis Arena. The Blues will move into the $135 million Kiel Center once the season begins.Individual seats sold for $35-a bargain considering some single-game seats in their new home will be more expensive. The scoreboard sold for $1,200 and the Zamboni went for $2,700. The Chicago Stadium had a similar auction scheduled for Oct. 15. &#9632;

f0026-01

NHLPA gives licensees green light for rookies

<div class="byline">By Ken Campbell</div>If the primary aim for a hockey card is to look good, this year&rsquo;s Fleer Ultra might be the best card set ever produced.But for collectors who actually look to cards for information and statistics, these cards will seem a lot like the Landers sisters: They&rsquo;re drop-dead gorgeous, but there&rsquo;s not much beyond that.Which isn&rsquo;t necessarily bad, because these cards look so good you can look beyond the shortcomings.First, the photography is outstanding. There are very few soft or static shots in the set and they are all well cropped. It&rsquo;s hard to believe the same company that cropped the photos for last year&rsquo;s PowerPlay set could do such a good job with photography this year. Many of the shots also show emotion in the subjects.But there&rsquo;s not just quality photography in this set, there&rsquo;s also quantity. Each card contains at least four pictures of the player-one full body shot on the front and two full-body and one head shot on the back.The goaltender cards are especially appealing. Half of the horizontally-designed card features an action shot of the goaltender and the other half a close-up photo that allows you to see the goalie&rsquo;s mask.The cards are gold-foil stamped on the front and back. The only thing that detracts from the look is the size of the Fleer Ultra logo.Self promotion is one thing, being gaudy is another.Fleer obviously didn&rsquo;t have to break the bank to pay researchers, since the cards have very little in the way of information. Aside from the perfunctory vital information, the only statistics that are available are last season&rsquo;s statistics and NHL totals.The exception is in the subsets, all of which are excellent. Of particular interest is the 10-card Sergei Fedorov Performer Highlights subset which goes into surprising detail on Fedorov&rsquo;s defection at the 1990 Goodwill Games.Of course it helps that Fedorov is a spokesman for the company.The Fedorov set, along with the All-Star Game subset, Award Winners and Scoring Kings effectively combined aesthetics and substance.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03466/6735035-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="582" height="814"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sergei Fedorov is prominent in Fleer Ultra&rsquo;s Series I set.</figcaption></div>Like Score and Parkhurst, Fleer got caught with several prominent players in the wrong uniforms. Bernie Nicholls, Petr Nedved, Wendel Clark, Al Maclnnis and Mats Sundin all appear with their new teams, but wearing their old uniforms. If the company had the time to change the team names on the cards, didn&rsquo;t it have time to remove them from the sets completely?The collation in the set was exemplary. One box produced the entire 250-card regular set and more than 30 chase cards. Each pack contained one insert card. &#9632;

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Fleer’s Series I picture perfect

<div class="byline">By Ken Campbell</div>Parkhurst has some big plans for its next novelty card set. Following up on the huge success of the 1956-57 Missing Link issue last year, the company will be reviving the Tall Boys concept with a 1964-65 set.The strength of the Missing Link set, which took the hobby by storm last year, should alone make this issue a success.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think any of us had any idea that Missing Link would do as well as it did,&rdquo; said Parkhurst president Brian Price. &ldquo;It was the first time in a long time that something came out for the sake of collecting.&rdquo;The set is due out the first week in December and will feature the oversized 21/2-by-411/16-inch cards that were introduced by Topps in 1953-54. The set is probably the most popular of all-time, but wasn&rsquo;t duplicated until last year when Fleer tried it with mediocre results.Price now owns the patent on the Tall Boys name and will use it to produce the 1964-65 issue.Price admits there&rsquo;s a risk in doing another retrospective set. The Geritol crowd was good for one issue, but is doing another set too much of a good thing?&ldquo;Not if you make the product better than the last one,&rdquo; Price said. &ldquo;I believe that this product is better than the Missing Link and if we come up with another it will be better than this one. I would rather stop doing this than come out with something that doesn&rsquo;t win.&rdquo;The set will consist of 132 player cards plus inserts and will feature players from all six NHL teams who played in the 1964-65 season. The Future Stars subset will include Derek Sanderson and Bernie Parent of the Niagara Falls Flyers, Gerry Cheevers of the Rochester Americans, Rogie Vachon and Jacques Lemaire of the Montreal Jr. Canadiens and Ken Hodge of the St. Catharines Black Hawks.When the company produced its Missing Link set, much was made of the fact that it excluded Ron Hurst, who played 14 games for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1956-57.But Price said Parkhurst never professed to include every player who played that season and hadn&rsquo;t intended to include Hurst in the first place. The only player the company wanted and wasn&rsquo;t in the set was Don Simmons. Parkhurst, who paid each player $2,000, couldn&rsquo;t come to terms with Simmons.The company, meanwhile, has discontinued its Parkhurst Authenticated line of hockey memorabilia.Price said the project wasn&rsquo;t worth the effort and expense. But the fact it ran into a contractual problem with one of its players and his agent sealed its fate.&ldquo;I also didn&rsquo;t want a huge organization,&rdquo; said Price, a dentist who formerly owned a national chain of dental offices. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been to that dance before and I didn&rsquo;t like it.&rdquo; &#9632;

Parkhurst will turn clock back again with set

<div class="byline">By Al Morganti</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01855/6735097-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="378" height="534"></div>For most fans, hockey&rsquo;s labor dispute is just another shrug of the shoulders. Once again a Bentley and a Rolls Royce have had a fender bender in front of the place where you sweat out your living eight hours a day. Do you really care?Well, you do to the extent that the NHL provided entertainment. And it was a heck of an entertaining show before the curtain came down last spring. That curtain has never been re-opened (which might be the price for seeing the New York Rangers end their 40-year drought.)The most maddening part of this whole mess is that most fans don&rsquo;t really care who is right or wrong. All they really care is that the games have stopped and after about a week of philosophical discussions concerning a salary cap, it gets way too boring to discuss.But here is something for the players to think about-what is it worth to be employed in a job you enjoy?It is a simple question which is neither naive, nor insulting. It is not a question borne of hero worship, nor does it have its genesis in the sappy suggestion that millions of people would do your job for nothing.It is simply a suggestion that if it does come to give and take, is it not worth to give a little more than you absolutely have to for the simple reason that you actually like what you do? Forget the money and forget all the trappings that go along with the life of a pro athlete and get back to the very basic idea that you enjoy your work.After watching many years of hockey on all levels, I have always noticed it is the one sport where the fun really begins on the ice after the structured practice. That is when the players wheel around and have fun just playing the game.It sure doesn&rsquo;t look like hard work. It looks more like fun-and it is not a sign of union weakness to admit that you really like your job.I would certainly hope that one of the biggest hardships of this situation has nothing to do with money and a whole lot to do with missing going to work. As somebody who also gains an economic advantage from the sport-and quite frankly, from the talents of the players who play the game-I know that I miss reporting on the games, the trades, the human interest stories.Nothing personal, but I just know that whenever there is another report on the status of negotiations, there is hardly a single soul who is not directly involved in the process who really cares about any issue save this: When will they play?Again, this is in no way is a suggestion NHL Players&rsquo; Association executive director Bob Goodenow and the union bend over backwards to accept what they truly believe is an unfair deal just because they happen to have a nice job. In fact, if the players have a firm belief they are in the right, they ought to be holding a united front.As union members, that is their prerogative, their right, their duty. However, they should not get caught up in the union mentality as it pertains to steel workers, auto workers, manufacturers.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02533/6735090-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="566" height="885"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Goodenow</figcaption></div>There has to be something to be said for getting up in the morning and looking forward to going to work. There has to be some part of the equation which says that money isn&rsquo;t the entire part of the equation.Just imagine that you are a professional athlete making $2 million a year, and you are offered $3 million a year to work on an auto assembly line. The chances are you would have a longer career on the assembly line, and have much less risk of suffering a serious injury.But would it be worth the extra million a year? I don&rsquo;t think so.The issues in this problem are varied and complex. There is the question of believing what is being presented as fact by the owners, and suggestions of a hidden agenda on either side of the fence.Still, if I were a player I would not lose sight of one major aspect of my life: It&rsquo;s a helluva job. &#9632;

f0027-01

Factor joy of playing into CBA

<div class="byline">By Michael Ulmer</div>AI Iafrate played the last games of the 1993-94 season in constant pain. He says he doesn&rsquo;t want to remember those games as the last of his NHL career.During every stoppage in play in the Boston Bruins&rsquo; playoff series against the New Jersey Devils, he would always be in motion, flexing his left knee, skating in tiny circles like a player afraid to stop.Whenever he stopped, his left knee hurt tremendously. And when the Bruins stopped playing hockey after losing to the Devils in six games, lafrate had surgery on the tom cartilage in his knee.Fast-forward to training camp this fall. After only a few days in camp, lafrate left the Bruins when a member of the training staff asked him to skate. The Bruins maintain they asked him to skate for five minutes to get an idea of how much more rehabilitation would be required.A month later, he still hadn&rsquo;t spoken to team officials and even if the lockout ended right away, he wouldn&rsquo;t leave his Livonia, Mich., home for Boston until his knee was 100 percent.Iafrate said he hurt the knee late in the season and aggravated it in the Devils&rsquo; series. He said the Bruins don&rsquo;t care that he performed hurt and should have told him he risked further injury.&ldquo;Whoever was involved, they knew what should have been done.&rdquo; lafrate said. &ldquo;Did it make my knee much worse to play? Oh yeah. I&rsquo;m not a doctor, but I believed someone had an idea what was going to happen.&rdquo;Bruins general manager Harry Sinden said the team never forced lafrate to play last year during the playoffs or any other time.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t remember whether we used a knife or a gun to force him to play,&rdquo; Sinden joked. &ldquo;Not only would we not ask our injured players to play, it&rsquo;s always up to the player. You can&rsquo;t force a player to play.&rdquo;Iafrate said he wants Bruins&rsquo; fans to know he isn&rsquo;t faking an injury and didn&rsquo;t leave camp on a whim. He said he regrets the decision to play in the playoffs and holds the Bruins responsible.&ldquo;Playing hurt is one thing, playing injured is another,&rdquo; lafrate said. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re injured, you should be diagnosed as being injured. Just because you&rsquo;re a tough guy and can take the pain, you should be informed that the pain you&rsquo;re taking could have adverse effects.&rdquo;The injury, lafrate said, was much more extensive than originally believed.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-03345/6735128-1-eng-US/f0027-032.jpg" title="f0027-03" width="955" height="1869"><figcaption class="caption-body">Al lafrate says he won&rsquo;t return to Boston until he&rsquo;s 100 per cent. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/BBS)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have been playing to begin with and since I was. the tracking of my knee was off,&rdquo; lafrate said. &ldquo;When I got hit and fell on my kneecap, my kneecap kind of rubbed a hole through the trochlea (part of the system that governs knee movement). It wore right through that, right down to the nerve.&rdquo;But Dr. Bill Clancy, who performed the surgery on lafrate, said the trochlea problem resulted from wear and tear, not any one incident. He did say Iafrate&rsquo;s knee had significant damage. Clancy also operated on Iafrate&rsquo;s knee when he injured it in 1989 with the Toronto Maple Leafs.&ldquo;He plays his heart out and he&rsquo;s worried. I would be,&rdquo; Clancy said. &ldquo;Is this a career ending injury? I don&rsquo;t think so. If he was going to play hockey for another six or seven years, it might be. If he&rsquo;s going to play another two or three years, I think the chances are very good he&rsquo;s going to be fine.&rdquo;At the core of the question is whether the Bruins knew how badly lafrate was hurt before he was allowed to play.&ldquo;They will never admit they know that when you&rsquo;re playing with one injury if it&rsquo;s subsequently going to affect something else,&rdquo; lafrate said. &ldquo;They know, but won&rsquo;t tell you because they don&rsquo;t want to be liable.&rdquo;Sinden didn&rsquo;t suspend lafrate, even though he was AWOL. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to fight with him about this,&rdquo; Sinden said, &ldquo;I just want him to get better.&rdquo;Iafrate&rsquo;s agent, Rick Curran, said he didn&rsquo;t know what the Bruins knew of Iafrate&rsquo;s injury, but considered the request of Iafrate to skate a misunderstanding.&ldquo;Harry concurred it was a serious injury and agreed AI would not have to skate until Al was ready,&rdquo; Curran said. &ldquo;It was a misunderstanding and I&rsquo;m not sure that whoever asked him to go realized Harry had given him his word he wouldn&rsquo;t have to skate until he absolutely had to.&rdquo;Neither Curran nor lafrate anticipate a grievance or trade request. Iafrate is entering the option year of his contract so this season is a vital one to him.When he contemplates returning, lafrate said, he will listen to no voice but his own.&ldquo;If someone&rsquo;s not going to take care of me and I have to be a hard ass to take care of myself,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m going to be.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0027-03

Great skate debate

<div class="byline">By Dan Barnes</div>He was nine again.He was an awestruck kid in an NHL rink. But this time it was Winnipeg, not Vancouver. And this time he was out there. He was in the wrong uniform. The number was all wrong, 42, but it was training camp. And he was actually playing against the Jets, not watching his Montreal Canadiens take on the Vancouver Canucks.And it was Wednesday, Dec. 17, 1980 at the same time.That&rsquo;s the kind of night Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; rookie right winger David Oliver had in the Winnipeg Arena during the pre-season, when he shoveled a fortunate rebound into the Jets&rsquo; net for a 2-2 draw.It was the kind of goal he has scored 100 times in college and junior, even more often in his mind. But it was also the kind of goal he&rsquo;d never scored before that night; an NHL goal.&ldquo;Right place at the right time,&rdquo; he said.There could be no more right place for him. It was the same kind of night that hockey gave him almost 14 years ago when his dad took him and a buddy from Courtenay, B.C., on the island into Vancouver for their first NHL game.&ldquo;We met Howie Meeker on the ferry on the way to the game,&rdquo; Oliver recalled. &ldquo;He told us to meet him after the game. He took us into the Canadiens&rsquo; room. We got autographs and met the players. It was great.&rdquo;Fourteen years from now the memory of his first NHL goal, albeit one in exhibition, will be just as clear. But for now, he has to concentrate on the games he plays for the Cape Breton Oilers in the American League.He led Edmonton with four preseason goals and would have started the season on the first line, patrolling right wing for Jason Arnott and Shayne Corson. But he was shipped to Cape Breton Sept. 30 because of the lockout and failed to score in his first three AHL games. Goals are what will get him a ticket back.Garbage goals, goal-scorer&rsquo;s goals, rebounds, tip-ins, point blasts, five-holes, empty-netters.And he&rsquo;ll have to do it with a whole lot fewer chances every night than he was given at the University of Michigan where he laughed about averaging six to 14 shots a game. He might not get that in a two weeks, even in the minors. But he makes the most of his chances. His release is a blur. Part of it is natural talent. Much of it is practice.In a 1989 playoff game somebody whacked him on the arm and broke his wrist.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01789/6735197-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="570" height="846"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shayne Corson says players do keep abreast of issues.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;That summer I&rsquo;d shoot hundreds of pucks a day to strengthen it back up,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;I work at it too and a lot of it&rsquo;s mental. A lot of guys look up and see the goalie when they shoot. I look up and see net. You&rsquo;ve got to find a hole. You&rsquo;ve got to visualize him not being there and up here you&rsquo;ve got to think a lot quicker.&rdquo;He had more time in Michigan and his statistics were good. He was the Wolverines&rsquo; premier sniper. He played the point on the power play and let it fly from there. His speed gave him chances, too. And his touch made it count.Like in the final game of the Great Lakes Invitational tournament at Detroit&rsquo;s Joe Louis Arena, the biggest tournament of the year, except of course for the National Collegiate Athletic Association finals.The Wolverines and Maine were tied 1-1 late in the third period when Oliver grabbed the puck near the Bears&rsquo; line, tipped it past the defenseman, went in one-on-one with Garth Snow and buried the winner.He still calls it the biggest goal he has ever scored.LEARNING THE ISSUES: Oiler general manager Glen Sather maintains too many players don&rsquo;t understand what the NHL&rsquo;s labor strife is all about. However, his players disagree.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s our life so we better know what&rsquo;s going on,&rdquo; said Shayne Corson. &ldquo;After going through the (strike) and now the lockout, you pay attention more. You&rsquo;re a bit older and you understand what it means to the league and the players.&ldquo;The association keeps us well-informed. I know what the main issues are, obviously arbitration and the salary cap on rookies are two of the biggest ones.&rdquo;Bill Ranford is the team&rsquo;s player representative and his phone lines and fax machine are buzzing nightly. He thinks the Oilers are better informed now than they were during the strike.&ldquo;No doubt in my mind,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The strike two years ago was a real eye-opener for a lot of guys. A good example is the fact we had 102 representatives at the meeting in Toronto. Out of 700 guys, that&rsquo;s a good showing.&rdquo;There are conference calls after every media conference and association proposal.&ldquo;We receive faxes every single day,&rdquo; Ranford said.NOTEBOOK: Left winger Alexander Kerch left Cape Breton Oct. 9 to return to his home in Latvia, where he will stay at least until the NHL labor mess is resolved. He was recalled by the Oilers Sept. 28 in a cost-cutting move. The 27-year-old, who was scheduled to make $235,000 on a one-way contract, had stayed in Sydney, N.S.Oilers&rsquo; right winger Zdeno Ciger is apparently still playing for Dukla Trencin in Slovakia, despite the Oilers&rsquo; attempts to have him suspended because he&rsquo;s under contract here. The matter is still under investigation by the International Ice Hockey Federation.<h2>TRANSACTIONS</h2>Oct. 12: Andrew Verner, G, loaned to Canadian national team. &#9632;

f0029-01

Oliver’s twist of bad fate lands him in Cape Breton

<div class="byline">By Robyn Norwood</div>The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim made a bundle in their first season-in the neighborhood of $9 million, the Los Angeles Times reported.And Anaheim was poised to ride the wave to another profitable year. After netting $21.7 million at the gate last season and spending $9.2 million on player salaries, they expected another good year with 12,500 season tickets and a payroll that remains well below the league average.Duck fans are so enthusiastic the average crowd during the pre-season was 16,576. They continued to snap up regular-season tickets even after the start of the season was in doubt.So why is this franchise supporting the NHL lockout?&ldquo;We have a very high incentive to play this season,&rdquo; said team president Tony Tavares, who admits the Ducks will &ldquo;pay a very dear price&rdquo; for the dispute. &ldquo;But that incentive is a shortterm incentive versus a need for systemic change for the league to make sure the league is flourishing in the future.&rdquo;In other words, Tavares thinks it&rsquo;s worth postponing profits to control the growth of salaries and protect future profits. And he knows that with the Walt Disney Co., coffers behind them, the Ducks can ride out a very long lockout.Ducks&rsquo; management has been an outspoken opponent of salary escalation-particularly for rookies. But after criticizing the Ottawa Senators and Hartford Whalers, they then signed Paul Kariya to a deal that some other teams consider part of the problem.Tavares and general manager Jack Ferreira are now citing media pressure among the reasons they signed Kariya to a three-year $6.5-million deal. More to the point was the fact they desperately needed to improve a lackluster offense and the organization wasn&rsquo;t going to have a shot at a player as special as Kariya for some time. So instead of waiting to see what collective bargaining would bring, they opened their wallets.&ldquo;No. 1, we would have had to wait and see what was going to happen and that would have meant Paul would not be with us,&rdquo; Tavares said. &ldquo;That was the key issue. We felt we had to improve and he could improve our club dramatically. Nobody should read into it that I don&rsquo;t believe a (rookie) salary cap can get done.&rdquo;Kariya has already collected the first million of his $4.8 million signing bonus.FORE!: On Day 10 of the lockout, Mighty Ducks&rsquo; players and management laid down their arms and picked up their putters for a charity tournament at nearby Tustin Ranch Golf Club.Captain Randy Ladouceur said the players felt that Disney GOALS, a youth hockey and academic program, was well worth supporting. Stu Grimson said &ldquo;they&rsquo;re not part of this labor dispute.&rdquo;NHL Players&rsquo; Association caps and shirts were ubiquitous-players consider them necessary attire for TV interviews-but Jack Ferreira staged a counter-attack by wearing a black cap with an orange NHL logo.The oddest sight of the day was the presence of Terry Yake, who is in limbo after being traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs Sept. 28. With the season on hold, he was told he needn&rsquo;t report right away, and he stayed behind to pack and join his former teammates on the golf course.NOTEBOOK: Center Patrik Carnback was among the players seeking to play in Sweden, agent Neil Abbott said. It was unclear if the Swedish Elite League was going to welcome NHL players&hellip;Coach Ron Wilson was planning to help coach players with the Ducks&rsquo; International League affiliate San Diego Gulls, perhaps even joining them on the road. &#9632;

Padded coffers make dispute easier to swallow

<div class="byline">By Rick Sadowski</div>The 50-goal seasons and individual awards are in the past, but Jari Kurri remains a valuable player for the Los Angeles Kings.At the age of 34, the smooth-skating Finn is arguably the team&rsquo;s best defensive forward, can play all three forward positions and can still reasonably be expected to produce about 30 goals and 80 points.Kurri has averaged 27 goals and 75 points in three seasons with the Kings and last year finished third on the team with 31 goals and 77 points in 81 games. He tied Wayne Gretzky for the club lead in shorthanded goals with four, while contributing 14 power-play goals.Assuming there is a 1994-95 season, Kurri will enter it as the 10th leading goal-scorer of all time with 555 goals. His 1,267 career points make him the highest-scoring European player in NHL history.While the Kings have been criticized for signing him to a two-year, $4.05-million contract last summer, Kurri&rsquo;s importance to the team shouldn&rsquo;t be overlooked.He is a legitimate Selke Trophy candidate. Forget about the fact he was minus-24 last year because in his case, statistics really do lie. He remains one of the few Kings&rsquo; forwards who can still be effective without the puck.&ldquo;(Defense) has always been a big part of my game,&rdquo; Kurri said. &ldquo;Even when I scored 70 goals, I felt it was important to be strong at both sides.&rdquo;Certainly Kurri understands the Kings must improve their team defense drastically from last season, when they gave up 322 goals and ended with a 27-45-12 record. Only the Ottawa Senators and Winnipeg Jets were worse defensively.&ldquo;You look at the numbers and there&rsquo;s no question we have to do better,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I like to look ahead instead of looking back.&rdquo;Which isn&rsquo;t to say Kurri doesn&rsquo;t still enjoy the offensive part of the game. He acknowledges it&rsquo;s a lot more fun to play with the puck on your stick than without it.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m not going to say I have to get 40 or 50 goals to have a good year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;As long as I stay healthy, I&rsquo;ll get my goals and points.&rdquo;Kurri has a unique way of describing what&rsquo;s in store for the Kings once the season begins.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re starting really low this year, starting in the basement,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We have to improve and move up one floor at a time, get up to the living room and the bedroom and so on.&rdquo;PAYROLL PROBLEMS: The Kings used millions of dollars in advance money for playoff tickets to partially meet their payroll last spring, the Los Angeles Times reported.The paper also said the Kings, just five weeks before meeting the Montreal Canadiens in the 1993 Stanley Cup final, needed an emergency loan of $2.8 million to meet the payroll and pay team suppliers.Former majority owner Bruce McNall, who remains team president, defaulted on an interest payment due to the Bank of America the day before Game 1 of that championship series, the paper said.The information was gleaned from court papers concerning McNall, who is expected to plead guilty to four criminal counts stemming from his banking practices. McNall sold 72 per cent of the team in May for $60 million, all of which went to cover a bank loan, and his remaining 28 per cent has since been turned over to a bankruptcy trustee.NOTEBOOK: Postponing the start of the season beyond Oct. 15 cost the Kings a five-game homestand, but also jeopardized a seven-game, 12-day road trip the last two weeks of October. They still had a six-game homestand in November and another in March&hellip;Coach Barry Melrose said he figured he would be driving his family crazy during the lockout. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t be around the house too much,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;because my wife isn&rsquo;t used to having me around. Maybe that&rsquo;s why our marriage has worked out so well.&rdquo; &#9632;

Kurri remains valuable as defensive stalwart

<div class="byline">By Mike Weaver</div>This is a lousy time to be a rookie in the NHL. Just ask San Jose Sharks&rsquo; center Jeff Friesen.After being the 11th overall pick in the NHL entry draft in June, Friesen earned himself a roster spot with the Sharks by being one of the team&rsquo;s best players during training camp.But because of the labor problems that have put the NHL season on hold, Friesen&rsquo;s reward was a trip back to junior hockey.The Sharks returned Friesen, 18, to the Regina Pats of the Western League Oct. 12 after NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced the NHL season won&rsquo;t begin until a new collective bargaining agreement is in place.&ldquo;This is so disappointing,&rdquo; said Friesen, who signed a contract worth about $3.2 million over four seasons (including a signing bonus of about $800,000). &ldquo;It&rsquo;s terrible for the game to see this lockout. To go through that long road to get here and then not get to play is very frustrating.&rdquo;Friesen won the right to play in the NHL by spending his summer at the camp operated in Minnesota by Sharks&rsquo; director of personnel Chuck Grillo before coming to training camp without a contract and earning a roster spot.Friesen had two goals and seven points in seven exhibition games to share the team lead with fellow rookie Viktor Kozlov. He would have started the season on a line with Kozlov and Pat Falloon.&ldquo;How do you explain to a kid that he made your team, but has no place to play?&rdquo; Sharks&rsquo; director of operations Dean Lombardi wondered aloud. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know what to say to him.&rdquo;Lombardi said Friesen was returned to juniors because it is important he be playing somewhere. Friesen couldn&rsquo;t be assigned to the minors because he has junior eligibility.&ldquo;He needs to be playing and this is our only option,&rdquo; Lombardi said.STAR SEARCH: The NHL&rsquo;s labor strife is particularly upsetting to the Sharks because San Jose is the site of this season&rsquo;s All-Star Game, which is scheduled to be played Jan. 21.If the entire season is cancelled or if it starts too late for the All-Star Game to be played, the city could be left out in the cold.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been nervous about the All-Star Game for a couple of weeks,&rdquo; said Sharks&rsquo; president Art Savage. &ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t start the season until December or January, it could affect the game.&rdquo;Savage said the Sharks might lobby to get the game next season if it has to be cancelled this season. But so far, neither the team nor the league has made any plans.&ldquo;Plans are on pace for the game to be played on that date,&rdquo; said NHL spokesman Gary Meagher.Sharks&rsquo; chief operating officer Greg Jameson said the team is continuing to plan as though the game will be played as scheduled.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what the point of no return is, but I know we haven&rsquo;t come to it yet,&rdquo; Jameson said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re still moving ahead as planned.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Because the NHL season is in limbo, the Sharks assigned defenseman Vlastimil Kroupa to the Kansas City Blades of the International League. The Sharks also plan to send rookie left winger Viktor Kozlov to Kansas City as soon as they can work out an insurance arrangement that would allow them to assign Kozlov to the Blades without having to pay him his full NHL salary. Kozlov signed a one-way contract with the Sharks during the summer&hellip;Sharks&rsquo; president Art Savage said the team has no immediate plans to lay off employees because of the labor disruption.Sharks&rsquo; defenseman Jeff Norton, the team&rsquo;s union representative, said about half the players on the club&rsquo;s roster were planning to leave the Bay Area and return to their off-season homes after it was announced the start of the season would be postponed indefinitely.<h2>SAN JOSE</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Oct. 12: Jeff Friesen, C, returned to Regina (WHL). Vlastimil Kroupa, D, assigned to Kansas City (IHL). &#9632;

Friesen wins NHL job, trip back to Saskatchewan

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01884/6735331-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="380" height="533"></div>In September, he watched the early days of the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; training camp in Banff. Then came a call from an old friend, Jack Ferreira, inviting him to Anaheim to offer his perspective on the Mighty Ducks.Next, he spent a week at the Olympic Saddledome, watching his old team, the Calgary Flames. Once the NHL schedule ground to a halt, Pierre Page began taking in junior games. One day, he turned up for a Canadian national team workout and the coach, Tom Renney, asked him to come on the ice and work with his players.On the day he&rsquo;s returning this call, Page is in the midst of five days in Michigan, helping out a friend on a U.S. college team.This is how Page plans to spend his sabbatical. At 46, after what he describes as an amicable split with the Quebec Nordiques, Page set two goals for his season away from the rink. One is to learn as much as he can. Two is to do all the things he couldn&rsquo;t do when immersed in a hockey season.That means skiing in the mountains once the snow falls. In August, he went sailing to the Magdalen Islands with the Nordiques&rsquo; team doctor. In September, he went into the Alberta bush on horseback with a friend from the oil-patch taking supplies to elk hunters.The two trips were made on opposite sides of the country, but they taught Page the same lesson: patience. It&rsquo;s not a commodity he has traditionally had in abundance.&ldquo;You go four miles an hour on a horse. Sailing is seven miles an hour,&rdquo; Page said. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t have patience before you go sailing, you learn to be patient. If nothing else, you learn to relax.&rdquo;A year ago, he was coach and general manager of one of the NHL&rsquo;s young, rising teams. Things began badly in training camp when Steve Duchesne held out. Goaltender Ron Hextall was never replaced. Owen Nolan missed the better part of the season. Mats Sundin&rsquo;s offense slipped badly.After the Nordiques missed the playoffs, owner Marcel Aubut decided Page was spreading himself too thinly and asked him to opt for one job or the other.Others would probably have said yes and stayed on. However, the single-minded Page was determined to do both. Page remains the antithesis of the people who are content to drift along, going wherever the currents and eddies of life take them. Page knows what he wants and usually figures out how to get it.&ldquo;I was always a coach,&rdquo;&rsquo; he said. &ldquo;I waited 16 years to be a coach in the NHL. It was my dream. I went to Quebec for the challenge and I enjoyed it. We had a lot of good people, but we had a lot of inexperienced people. We didn&rsquo;t split the tasks the way we probably should have. I didn&rsquo;t do myself justice as a coach in Quebec &ldquo;So he moved back to Calgary, rented Bob Murdoch&rsquo;s home and decided to catch his breath. Of course, Page&rsquo;s definition of a breather is different than most.Apart from the consulting he&rsquo;s doing for old friends, he will do some pro scouting for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He also signed on to do some Flames&rsquo; radio commentary.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02610/6735324-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="569" height="837"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pierre Page</figcaption></div>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I picked Calgary,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I knew I&rsquo;d enjoy it. There&rsquo;s a lot of hockey going on. The Canadian national team is there. The World Junior is in Red Deer (Alta.). The Memorial Cup is in the west. If you&rsquo;re going to use it as a year of recharging, Calgary is as good a place as any.&rdquo;Even if he plans to spend the year on the sidelines, Page is troubled by the labor impasse. Day after day, he reads about modified offers that are immediately rejected and offers one suggestion to the warring sides. Forget the negotiations until you can learn to trust one another.&ldquo;Maybe they should attack the real issue-who they trust and who they don&rsquo;t trust. If the problem is people lying, then they should attack that problem.&ldquo;As soon as they establish trust, I&rsquo;m sure they&rsquo;re going to solve some of their problems.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0032-01

Page’s year off not an off year

<div class="byline">By Cynthia Lambert</div>The first time Larry Gordon saw Petr Sykora play, in his mind&rsquo;s eye he saw Wayne Gretzky.The odds are, Sykora-projected by some as the first overall entry draft pick in 1995-was having the same vision.&ldquo;When I was young, I would see Wayne Gretzky on TV,&rdquo; said Sykora, the 17-year-old who has a starring role with the International League&rsquo;s, Detroit Vipers. &ldquo;I say then, &lsquo;I want to be the same kind of player&rsquo;. I like him, his great passing. He is smart, so smart.&rdquo;Gordon, general manager of the IHL&rsquo;s Cleveland Lumberjacks, first saw Sykora play when the Czech native was a young teen. And while the Gretzky comparison is premature, it isn&rsquo;t without basis. As GM of the Edmonton Oilers in 1979, Gordon helped sign Gretzky to his first NHL contract.&ldquo;Petr was only 14 or 15 when I first saw him in what was then Czechoslovakia, but he was playing against older players,&rdquo; Gordon said. &ldquo;But he stood out even at that age.&ldquo;His (top asset) is his passing ability. He&rsquo;s uncanny. He had a lot of skill even then. He reminded me a lot of Wayne Gretzky. I see the similarities.&rdquo;NHL scouts will contend similarities are there, too, but they&rsquo;re far from ordaining Sykora the next Great One. In fact, Sykora may not even be the best prospect for the 1995 draft to come out of Detroit. Some are contending Bryan Berard, a defenseman for the Detroit Jr. Red Wings of the Ontario League is the more likely to go first overall.&ldquo;So far Berard has been more impressive for my money,&rdquo; said an NHL scout who has seen both of them play this season. &ldquo;Sykora hasn&rsquo;t been as dominant as I thought he would be.&rdquo;Other early prospects for No. 1 overall are defenseman Wade Redden of the Western League&rsquo;s Brandon Wheat Kings; defenseman Aki-Petteri Berg of TPS Turku in Finland; and center Radek Dvorak of Bude-jovice in the Czech Republic.Sykora made his North American debut and became the youngest player in IHL history last season when he played 13 games for the Lumberjacks. He had four goals and nine points.Knowing that in all likelihood he&rsquo;d only have Sykora&rsquo;s services for the 1994-95 season, Gordon decided not to sign him.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03426/6735362-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="958" height="1831"><figcaption class="caption-body">Petr Sykora is making $100,000 this season at the age of 17. (Photo by Allen Einstein)</figcaption></div>However, Gordon retained the first right of refusal on Sykora. Rick Dudley, GM and coach of the Vipers, was more than willing to take Sykora for a season and acquired him for cash and future considerations.Dudley then signed Sykora to a $100,000 base salary and a package of bonuses that should pay him many more thousands of dollars. In turn, he should attract fans, much like Sykora&rsquo;s good friend, Radek Bonk, did with the Las Vegas Thunder last season.Bonk was also paid a base salary of $100,000 last season with performance bonuses that put him well over that mark.&ldquo;It was more a purchase for us,&rdquo; Dudley said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t plan on having him with us next year.&ldquo;But our philosophy is to have a Petr Sykora every year. We plan on at least attempting to bring in a player like him as often as we can.&rdquo;Of course, that&rsquo;s easier said than done and there have already been some rough patches with Sykora. After collecting two goals and an assist in his first two games this season, Sykora was scratched from a game. The Vipers claim it was because of fatigue.Still, Dudley and Vipers&rsquo; management are confident they&rsquo;ll see big returns on their investment.&ldquo;When we talked about bringing Petr here, people already knew about him. For our purposes it has worked very, very well. He has been very very marketable. You need that in Detroit. You&rsquo;ve got Barry Sanders with Lions, the Red Wings have (Steve) Yzerman and (Sergei) Fedorov. We have something very special with Petr.&rdquo;Sykora is uncomfortable being compared to Gretzky at this stage of his career, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean his aspirations aren&rsquo;t similar.&ldquo;Wayne, there is only one Wayne Gretzky,&rdquo; Sykora said. &ldquo;I am Petr Sykora. I want to play the best Petr Sykora can.&ldquo;But I think I will not be the No. 1 pick. I only think about next month, not next year. I would like to be No. 1, but I must work hard every day in practice and in every game. Then, maybe I can.&rdquo;The biggest hurdles for Sykora will be lasting power to play a full IHL schedule and the ability to handle the fanfare and attention-not to mention the scrutiny of NHL scouts.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that will be a problem,&rdquo; Dudley said. &ldquo;Petr wants to be a star. Half of being a star is being able to handle it. He&rsquo;ll be fine.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0032-03

Looking out for No. 1

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzija</div>The American League&rsquo;s board of governors rejected a proposal that would have temporarily increased game rosters from 16 skaters to 18.Under the proposal, more young players would have been able to play during the NHL lockout. Because of the lockout, more than 40 players that would have started the season in the NHL were sent to AHL teams.The arrival of those players means that several clubs have an excess of bodies. It also means that some young prospects now must sit.For the proposal to pass, 12 &lsquo;yes&rsquo; votes were needed, but sources said only 11 were received. Teams that must sign their own players to fill out their rosters apparently led the opposition and gathered the required five &lsquo;no&rsquo; votes. Among teams that sign some or all of their own players: the Portland Pirates and Worcester IceCats.The league refused to discuss the issue, saying it is a private matter. Members of the board of governors were told to decline comment.A 300 GAME: Rochester Americans&rsquo; coach John Van Boxmeer won his 300th game in an 8-2 victory over the Hershey Bears Oct. 1.His Americans&rsquo; career began in December, 1984 and was interrupted only by a two-year stint as associate coach with the parent Buffalo Sabres in 1990-91 and &rsquo;91-92.&ldquo;Like any other milestone, you&rsquo;ll appreciate it more later, but when you go into Hershey and beat them convincingly, it does make the game stand out,&rdquo; said Van Boxmeer, whose eight-year record was 301-247-68.Fred (Bun) Cook holds the AHL record with 636 wins from 1937 to 1956 with the Providence Reds and Cleveland Barons.There was a time when Rochester fans didn&rsquo;t think Van Boxmeer would ever see 50 victories. During a injury-filled, non-playoff season of 1985-86, fans hung a banner at the War Memorial that read, &ldquo;Dump Boxie, not the puck.&rdquo;&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure many thought I&rsquo;d never see this milestone, including me,&rdquo; he said.AT IT AGAIN: Marc Laforge&rsquo;s AHL rap sheet seems endless, what with a 10-game suspension for cross-checking Don Biggs in the face in 1991-92, to lesser suspensions for high sticking, and on and on.Assigned to the Cape Breton Oilers following the NHL lockout, Laforge added to his disciplinary file Oct. 7. Coming onto the ice for a line change, Laforge went directly to the St. John&rsquo;s Maple Leafs&rsquo; bench and speared Ken Belanger, touching off a six-player brawl.The incident came as Cape Breton&rsquo;s Dennis Bonvie was being treated by a trainer. Bonvie was hit hard by a legal check from Belanger.Laforge received a six-game suspension for coming off the bench to fight.&ldquo;He has to be the most suspended player in the modem history of the league,&rdquo; said AHL vice-president Gord Anziano.Laforge&rsquo;s teammates Darcy Martini and Claude Jutras each were given three-game suspensions for joining the altercation. For St. John&rsquo;s, Ryan VandenBussche received six games-three for joining the altercation, three for physical abuse of linesman Pat McClus-key-while Belanger and Guy Lehoux got three games for joining the altercation.BLOWING A FUSE: Providence Bruins&rsquo; goalie Evgeny Ryabchikov, a rookie from Russia, showed intense emotion following a 5-4 overtime loss to the Adirondack Red Wings Oct. 9.Mike Casselman&rsquo;s shot deflected off the shaft of Andrew McKim&rsquo;s stick and into the net with 11 seconds remaining in overtime, giving the Red Wings the victory. Providence had forced overtime on a goal with 14 seconds left.Ryabchikov broke his stick over the cross bar, causing half of it to fly over the end glass, and he then threw the other half into the stands. He was assessed a game misconduct.NICE PROBLEM: Some teams hope the NHL lockout will help them at the gate. The St. John&rsquo;s Maple Leafs expect no gains, however.Why? All 3,200 seats are sold through season tickets. Only standing room tickets are available on a game-to-game basis.&ldquo;It wouldn&rsquo;t matter if Doug Gilmour was playing, there still wouldn&rsquo;t be a seat in the building,&rdquo; said team spokesman Peter Hanlon.AHL TIDBITS: Portland goalie Byron Dafoe was loaned to the Phoenix Roadrunners of the International League to be a temporary replacement for injured Andre Racicot. The move allows Dafoe and Pirates&rsquo; rookie Jim Carey to each play about 15 games in the first six weeks&hellip;Adirondack Red Wings&rsquo; right winger Andrew McKim was player of the week after scoring five goals and five assists in three games. &#9632;

Reserves’ hopes dashed as rosters remain at 16

<div class="byline">By Dave Eminian</div>The Las Vegas Thunder delivered on their vow to sign center Radek Bonk in time for their Oct. 7 home opener.And they may not be stopping there.The Thunder&rsquo;s next coup may be focused on Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; defenseman Marty McSorley.&ldquo;Yes, we have talked to Marty and we will consider (signing him),&rdquo; Thunder coach-general manager Bob Strumm said. &ldquo;If it makes good sense from a business standpoint, I think it&rsquo;s something we would want to do. We have to consider whether signing an NHL player would mean an additional 3,000 fans in the stands.&rdquo;McSorley was a guest of honor at Las Vegas&rsquo; opening weekend and he received a standing ovation from the 12,000-plus spectators at Thomas and Mack Center Oct. 7. McSorley&rsquo;s brother Chris is an assistant coach with the Thunder.Bonk, meanwhile, produced two assists, 14 penalty minutes and nine shots on goal in his first two games.The International League&rsquo;s reigning rookie of the year, who was the Ottawa Senators&rsquo; No. 1 pick-third overall-in the 1994 NHL entry draft, signed a one-year contract, reportedly worth $200,000 to return to the independent Thunder team.Strumm said that deal allows Bonk to escape if he should later reach agreement with Ottawa. The contract is also back-loaded, meaning the longer he stays in Las Vegas the more money he collects.&ldquo;We built our team without Bonk in mind,&rdquo; Strumm said. &ldquo;Obviously, we felt he would be in the NHL, so adding him is a real injection to our team.&rdquo;Several IHL teams were eying possible NHL players as the labor fight continued through mid-October. League sources said the Detroit Vipers were ready to make a concerted pitch for Ottawa center Alexei Yashin.Does that mean there is an IHL-NHL war on the horizon?&ldquo;I think a few signings are good for the league and no one I know is getting out of hand with these signings,&rdquo; Strumm said.&ldquo;No one is trying to compete with the NHL in terms of player salaries. But I think our total product, our entertainment, our ticket pricing, is already better than anything that the NHL can offer.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see a flood of NHL players coming into the IHL (if the labor fight continues). There might be some interest from independent teams, but I think there will be maybe a half-dozen (NHL) players come down at most. You have to be careful in signing these guys because it&rsquo;s assumed they&rsquo;ll be leaving soon and that can affect your team.&rdquo;ALL FIREPUCKED UP: The Firepuck, a trademark invention of Donald Klassen in Lake Elmo, Minn., was tested in the ESPN2 telecast of the Oct. 12 game between the Atlanta Knights and Minnesota Moose.The puck has a silver stripe around the outside and yellow reflective material on the top and bottom. Special camera lighting tracks the puck and allows it to be viewed better on television.Klassen, who tested the puck at the IHL All-Star Game in Fort Wayne last season, said then that each puck was worth about $100 in manufacturing costs.Goaltenders playing in that All-Star Game said the only noticeable difference in the Firepuck was that the coating on it made it feel slicker than normal, causing it to be difficult to handle.I-OPENERS: IHL sources say ESPN2 is paying the league $75,000 for each game it telecasts during the NHL lockout&hellip;The league is booming into the mainstream media, including a feature in the Oct. 9 New York Times and an upcoming project by three Sports Illustrated writers who visited teams in Las Vegas, Detroit and Atlanta.The Peoria Rivermen scored a franchise-record six goals in the first period of their 8-1 win over the Chicago Wolves Oct. 9&hellip;Fort Wayne Komets&rsquo; coach Bruce Boudreau ordered two-a-day practices for his team after its 0-4-0 start tied the 1992-93 club for worst in franchise history. That &rsquo;92-93 team, by the way, went 49-27-6 and captured the Turner Cup championship after going undefeated in the playoffs.The Kansas City Blades are 22-3-1 in home games in which there are at least 10,000 spectators at Kemper Arena&hellip;Fort Wayne defenseman Carey Lucyk played his 600th career game as a member of the Komets Oct. 7. &#9632;

McSorley next in line to join Bonk in Vegas?

<div class="byline">By Randy King</div>Last season, it was Manon Rheaume and Erin Whitten. Now another masked female has found her way to the East Coast League.Kelly Dyer, who backed up Whitten on the U.S. women&rsquo;s national team, is one of five goaltenders battling for a spot in the Richmond Renegades&rsquo; pre-season camp.Dyer, 27, played seven games for the West Palm Beach Blaze of the Sunshine League last season, posting a 1-0-0 record with a 5.44 goals-against average and .819 save percentage.Richmond general manager Craig Laughlin assured everyone this is no publicity stunt.&ldquo;She has a legitimate chance to make the team,&rdquo; Laughlin said. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s not Manon Rheaume. She&rsquo;s a lot bigger (5-foot-ll, 160 pounds). Big goalies have a chance to play.&rdquo;Rheaume and Whitten aren&rsquo;t back in the ECHL this season. Renegades&rsquo; coach Roy Sommer was admittedly apprehensive at first.&ldquo;I thought it was one of those (publicity) ploys,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but she has come in and done real well. I&rsquo;m kind of surprised. She stands right in there&hellip;she has stopped point-blank shots.&ldquo;She&rsquo;s a longshot to make the team. But she has changed my philosophy.&rdquo;POINTS AND POINTERS: More and more clubs are asking veteran players to combine regular shifts with assistant coaching duties.Since early September, at least seven of the league&rsquo;s 18 clubs have either signed an International or American League veteran or bumped an existing veteran on its roster to a player-assistant coaching post.Under a new league rule, only $350 of the player-assistant&rsquo;s salary counts against a club&rsquo;s weekly allotted cap of $6,000. So in essence, it enables teams to pick up or retain a veteran they likely Would not be able to afford due to the cap.Richmond began the trend when it signed 35-year-old Scott Gruhl, the all-time leading goal-scorer in IHL history. Taking Richmond&rsquo;s cue, the Roanoke Express signed Derek Laxdal. an eight-year AHL veteran who played parts of six NHL seasons from 1984-91. Both veterans are players first and coaches second.Other teams following suit were: Birmingham Bulls (Jerome Bechard); Charlotte Checkers (Shawn Wheeler); Columbus Chill (Jason Smart); Toledo Storm (Nick Vitucci) and Wheeling Thunderbirds (Tim Tisdale).EARLY PICK: Pre-season favorite Charlotte&rsquo;s pre-season camp includes nine players who spent time last season in either the IHL or AHL&hellip;Roanoke signed former Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; goalie prospect Dave Gagnon, recently cut by the Minnesota Moose of the IHL. Gagnon is a two-time ECHL playoff MVP.The Erie Panthers traded captain John Vary and center Brian Shantz to the Tallahassee Tiger Sharks for two former ECHL all-stars-goalie Francis Ouellette and center Scott Burfoot. &#9632;

Dyer aims to pick up where Rheaume, Whitten left off

<div class="byline">By Stuart Cowan</div>Pierre Aubry became the first coaching casualty of the Quebec League season when he was fired by the Val d&rsquo;Or Foreurs after a 2-13-0 start. He was replaced by Norman Flynn.Val d&rsquo;Or management decided to replace Aubry after a 8-2 loss to the Laval Titan Oct. 10 extended the Foreurs&rsquo; losing streak to seven games. The Foreurs were 0-11-0 on the road.A dismal defense (97 goals against in 15 games), weak offense (34 goals) and tough schedule (only four home games in 15 starts) spelled the end for Aubry, the original coach of the second-year Val d&rsquo;Or franchise.Val d&rsquo;Or finished with a league-worst 17-541 record in its first season.&ldquo;Now was the time to make the decision, before it got too late and while we still have a chance to make the playoffs,&rdquo; said Foreurs&rsquo; general manager Michel Georges. &ldquo;I look at Chicoutimi and they&rsquo;ve only got two more wins than us. That&rsquo;s only four points and we&rsquo;ve still got 57 games to play. It was better to make the decision now than to wait until after Christmas.&rdquo;Georges said the relationship between Aubry and his players had begun to deteriorate.To make matters worse, Val d&rsquo;Or&rsquo;s top player-Stephane Roy, the first overall pick in the 1993 midget draft-admitted he had begun to play for himself and not the team.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to think you&rsquo;re a Foreur,&rdquo; said Roy, the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; third-round pick in this year&rsquo;s NHL draft. &ldquo;But when you&rsquo;re losing 7-2 after the second period, you&rsquo;re now Stephane Roy. You&rsquo;re playing for yourself and the scouts.&rdquo;Aubry didn&rsquo;t think he was given a fair chance to turn the Foreurs around.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s fair to gas the coach after a month and a half of the season,&rdquo; he said.Aubry, who was in the second year of a two-plus-one contract, will continue to be paid until the end of the season.Aubry&rsquo;s replacement, Flynn, was the first QMJHL coach to be fired last season, when he was relieved of his duties with the St-Jean Lynx after the team got off to a 9-12 start.&ldquo;Norman has drive and character,&rdquo; Georges said. &ldquo;The players need to be shaken up a little and Norman is the type of guy to do it.&rdquo;Flynn knows he is taking on a big challenge.&ldquo;From the outside it looks like the team lacks confidence and is playing very bad defensively,&rdquo; Flynn said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to have to start by trying to improve the defensive play. I don&rsquo;t know what system they were using, but I&rsquo;m going to get them playing my system and working within their abilities. I think everybody was trying to do too much.&rdquo;TURNSTILES SPINNING: The postponement of the NHL season has resulted in a boon at the QMJHL turnstiles. Between Oct. 3 and 9, average attendance was 2,217, which is 766 more than the previous week.The busiest turnstiles are in Halifax, where the expansion Mooseheads drew 20,844 fans to four home games, a 5,211 per-game average.There has also been a lot to cheer about in Halifax as the Mooseheads boasted a 3-1-0 record at home and were in first place in the Dilio Division with a 7-4-2 record.The most successful expansion team in league history was the Longueuil Chevaliers, who finished with a 37-29-4 record in 1982-83.NOTEBOOK: Laval&rsquo;s win over Val d&rsquo;Or Oct. 10 extended the Titan&rsquo;s unbeaten record at home to 7-0-1&hellip;After picking up a 2-0 shutout victory over the Chicoutimi Sagueneens in his first game with the Sherbrooke Faucons Oct. 6, Jocelyn Thibault lost his next two starts, 3-2 to the Victoriaville Tigres and 6-4 to the St-Hyacinthe Laser, leaving him with a 3.05 goals-against average.Daniel Briere, Drummondville&rsquo;s first-round pick in this year&rsquo;s midget draft, had yet to be held off the scoresheet in the Voltigeurs&rsquo; 14 games, accumulating 12 goals and nine assists. &#9632;

Dreadful start leads to demise of Foreurs’ Aubry

<div class="byline">By Rob Vanstone</div>Western League president Ed Chynoweth isn&rsquo;t optimistic about a quick resolution to the NHL&rsquo;s labor problems.&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s going to be a long time until somebody blinks,&rdquo; said Chynoweth, who also presides over the Canadian Hockey League.&ldquo;The NHL won&rsquo;t have the pressure on them until January. I was told the NHL had told its governors to prepare for a 50-game schedule. We&rsquo;ll see where it goes from there.&rdquo;It was going nowhere, as of mid-October.NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced Oct. 11 the start of the regular season was being postponed indefinitely after collective bargaining talks with the NHL Players&rsquo; Association remained at a stalemate.&ldquo;The one area the players don&rsquo;t seem to acknowledge or address is that, eventually, there&rsquo;s going to be a loss of jobs,&rdquo; Chynoweth said. &ldquo;You can cut it any way you want.&rdquo;Might the NHL&rsquo;s labor woes create more interest in the major-junior ranks?&ldquo;In some areas, it might help us,&rdquo; Chynoweth said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a far bigger point to this. The game is what will suffer. People have not paid much attention to what&rsquo;s good for the game.&rdquo;During the early stages of the postponement, Chynoweth reached an agreement with The Sports Network to televise two additional CHL games across Canada. TSN&rsquo;s CHL package doesn&rsquo;t usually begin until January.&ldquo;From our end, exposure is always good,&rdquo; Chynoweth said. &ldquo;I used to be from the old school where blackouts were the only solution. Blackouts did a lot of good for the Canadian Football League&hellip;&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have a few of our sweethearts who say, &lsquo;Geez Ed, you&rsquo;re going to allow them to televise? On Friday night? That&rsquo;s our best night.&rsquo;&rdquo;WE KID YOU NOT: The Kamloops Blazers lost at home. Honest.The Spokane Chiefs defeated Kamloops 5-2 Oct. 10 to end the Blazers&rsquo; regular-season home-ice winning streak at 33 games-a run which dated back to last season.Kamloops was chasing the WHL record of 38 consecutive home-ice victories. The New Westminster Bruins set that record between March 18, 1973 and Oct. 6, 1974.Spokane also handed the Blazers its first defeat of the season. The defending Memorial Cup champions had won their first six games.LOSS LEADERS: The Prince George Cougars stumbled out of the gate, losing their first eight games.The dreadful start gave the Cougars only one victory in their last 18 regular-season games, dating back to the 1993-94 campaign.Owner Rick Brodsky moved the Cougars from Victoria to Prince George after 199394.MAJOR TRADE: The NHL&rsquo;s Hartford Whalers returned Ivan Vologjaninov to the Lethbridge Hurricanes after a free-agent tryout. But the 20-year-old right winger never got anywhere near Lethbridge.The Hurricanes promptly dealt Vologjaninov-who had 48 and 37 goals the past two seasons-to Kamloops for left winger Mike Josephson, 18. Vologjaninov had three goals and one assist in his first two games.COLIN LONG DISTANCE: The Regina Pats lost their leading scorer when Colin Foley left for a tryout with the East Coast League&rsquo;s Greensboro Monarchs. Foley promptly cracked Greensboro&rsquo;s opening-day roster.The 20-year-old center had six points in Regina&rsquo;s first four games. He spent the previous four seasons with the Portland Winter Hawks.&ldquo;I enjoyed my time here (in Regina),&rdquo; Foley said. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s my fifth year in the league and it&rsquo;s time to look for something new.&rdquo;The blow of Foley&rsquo;s departure was softened when the Pats learned left winger Jeff Friesen was returning from the San Jose Sharks for the duration of the NHL lockout.The NHL first-round draft pick cracked San Jose&rsquo;s opening-day lineup, but with a lockout expected to stretch into November, the Sharks thought he would be better served returning to active duty. &#9632;

Chynoweth foresees long lockout

<div class="byline">By Jim Cressman</div>Jamie Langenbrunner knew he risked being branded a traitor in a land that lives and dies with its college hockey.But choosing the Ontario League&rsquo;s Peterborough Petes last season over a scholarship with the University of Minnesota was something Langenbrunner had to do.The real job, however, was convincing his mother Peterborough, a 17-hour drive from his home in the Duluth suburb of Cloquet, really wasn&rsquo;t such a bad place.&ldquo;There were a lot of myths that junior hockey is goon hockey,&rdquo; said Langenbrunner, who has picked up where he left off his rookie season, leading the Petes in scoring through seven games with five goals and 13 points.Langenbrunner was third in OHL rookie scoring last season with 33 goals and 91 points. He was the top scorer on a team that struggled through its worst season in club history.He was the top Minnesota high school player in 1992-93 and was the Dallas Stars&rsquo; second-round selection in the 1993 NHL draft. Stars&rsquo; general manager and former Pete Bob Gainey suggested Langenbrunner go to the OHL.But there was that matter of convincing his mother. Patrice Langenbrunner came armed with a long list of questions when she met with Petes&rsquo; general manager Jeff Twohey.&ldquo;She said &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve got concerns that have come up in talking to some people&rsquo; and then she pulls out a list of questions,&rdquo; Twohey recalled. &ldquo;A lot of the questions came from coaches who clearly wanted Jamie. She had been painted this picture the OHL was like the movie Slap Shot.&ldquo;It was also a tremendous blow for him to leave his home state, but one thing I give the kid credit for is he&rsquo;d made up his mind.&rdquo;Langenbrunner, who will play for the U.S. at the 1995 World Junior Championship, said although the Petes won only 15 games last season, it was a good growing experience.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d never had to play with adversity. My high school team was 26-2 (in &rsquo;92-93),&rdquo; he said.What also made the Petes attractive was that playing for them allowed Langenbrunner to sign a five-year contract with the Stars and collect $160,000 in signing bonus money, something he wouldn&rsquo;t have been able to do in college.PERFECT START: The Detroit Jr. Red Wings got off to a 6-0-0 start and one of the reasons was goalie Jason Saal.And that perfect record wasn&rsquo;t easy as five of his wins came on the road. Saal was player of the week for the period ending Oct. 9.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re pleased, but we haven&rsquo;t booked our plane tickets for Kamloops (site of the 1995 Memorial Cup),&rdquo; Jr. Wings&rsquo; coach-GM Paul Maurice said.Detroit is one of the league&rsquo;s least penalized teams.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a few guys who can take care of themselves if they have to, but for the most part, we&rsquo;d rather they just play,&rdquo; Maurice said.The Wings&rsquo; first loss came Oct. 8 when they fell 6-4 to the Niagara Falls Thunder.TURNSTILE TALE: The NHL labor dispute is having a favorable impact on OHL attendance. Although official numbers were not available, league commissioner Dave Branch said crowds are &ldquo;well ahead&rdquo; of last season&rsquo;s pace.The Jr. Red Wings attracted 8,800 for their home opener on the same night the Detroit Vipers were setting an International League attendance record of 20,182 for their opener 40 miles up the road in Auburn Hills.SOCK IT TO EM: It wasn&rsquo;t planned, but the Samia Sting sported an old-style uniform Oct. 9 against the Kingston Frontenacs. The players wore black sweatpants instead of the traditional socks.The Sting were caught with their socks off when they were left on the locked bus and the driver went for a walking tour of the city before the game. The Sting lost 4-1.HAPPY HOMECOMING: Goalie Shawn Silver, formerly with the Sudbury Wolves, made 57 saves in the Owen Sound Platers&rsquo; 6-1 win in Sudbury Oct. 7. Silver was obtained early in the season from the Windsor Spitfires. &#9632;

Langenbrunner proves Mom doesn’t know best

<div class="byline">By Chris Miller</div>Good news: College games should be played more cleanly, skillfully and quickly this season. Bad news: That could mean a raft of penalties will be called.The Western Collegiate Hockey Association is making a concerted effort to reduce interference infractions. In previous seasons, it had been just talk. Now it&rsquo;s action.&ldquo;I believe coaches and officials are on the same page and we&rsquo;re going to stand firm,&rdquo; said WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod. &ldquo;The players will have to adjust. We&rsquo;ve got to return skating, passing, the skill, the flow to the game.&ldquo;The style of the college game has gravitated to the pro style-a non-skill type of game. Players get over the red line, dump it in and head in to hit people. That&rsquo;s offense? That&rsquo;s not the type of game we want.&rdquo;The power brokers of the four National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I leagues agreed to clean up the game and met with the NCAA rules committee to seal that bond.The WCHA had discussions between referees and coaches to identify the problems. Fans can expect to see interference strictly enforced and stick-foul penalties increase. Coaches have promised to warn their players and players are expected to heed the warnings.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t need more rules-we just need to play by the rules,&rdquo; McLeod said.McLeod, the Minnesota-Duluth athletic director who replaced the retired Otto Breitenbach as commissioner, quickly made moves.Former supervisor of officials Ron Foyt, who had a reputation for being combative with coaches, was not rehired and Greg Shepherd, a gregarious referee consistently rated among the league&rsquo;s best officials, replaced him.OPEN SPACES: With Wisconsin widening the surface at Dane County Coliseum, four of the WCHA&rsquo;s 10 rinks are Olympic-sized.With rules reverted to mandate 4-on-4 or 3-on-3 play during coincidental penalties, there should be lots of room for players to operate.Alaska-Anchorage, Minnesota and St. Cloud State also have 200-feet-by-100 playing surfaces. Wisconsin&rsquo;s is 200-by-97.Colorado College will make it five teams in a couple years with games played at the Olympic-sized Air Force Academy.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s an adjustment for teams like ours who play on a smaller surface and rely on a physical game,&rdquo; said Northern Michigan coach Rick Comley. whose team has been dominant at Lakeview Arena. &ldquo;With four Olympic-sized rinks, where there&rsquo;s not much hitting.&rdquo;TV TIME: The WCHA has long been criticized for lack of a TV deal on a cable network, something the CCHA and Hockey East have.With the impending NHL lockout, Bruce McLeod went directly to ESPN and proposed scheduled NHL telecasts on ESPN and ESPN2 be replaced by WCHA games.McLeod believes a long work stoppage in the NHL could work in the WCHA&rsquo;s favor.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d hate to see the NHL shut down, but if it is, we&rsquo;d like to fill a void on TV,&rdquo; he said. &#9632;

Players will face new set of rules

<div class="byline">By Matt Carlson</div>When it comes to football and basketball, Notre Dame and Ohio State are two of the biggest names on the college scene.Yet the hockey programs at the two schools have been treated as stepchildren. Notre Dame&rsquo;s Division I program was only recently restored. Ohio State, a Central Collegiate Hockey Association power in the early 1980s, has lumbered near the bottom the past few years.However, athletic administration changes at the two schools have Notre Dame Fighting Irish coach Ric Schafer, Ohio State Buckeyes&rsquo; coach Jerry Welsh and their programs looking up.At Notre Dame, a new athletic director, Michael Wadsworth, will succeed Richard Rosenthal next August. Wadsworth, a Toronto native, is Canada&rsquo;s ambassador to Ireland. Although he played football at Notre Dame from 1963-65, Wadsworth&rsquo;s nationality includes a hockey-friendly attitude.Under the current administration, the Fighting Irish have received improvements at their home arena, the Joyce Fieldhouse.In Columbus, sweeping athletic department changes and the promise of a new 21,000-seat multi-purpose arena have Welsh smiling.&ldquo;The school announced plans to build the arena by 1998,&rdquo; Welsh said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll share it with the basketball teams, which might create scheduling problems. But that&rsquo;s a problem I&rsquo;ll take.&rdquo;The Buckeyes&rsquo; current rink, the 1,400-seat OSU ice arena, is the CCHA&rsquo;s least luxurious facility. However, the new OSU athletic administration, led by athletic director Andy Geiger, has committed funds to improving the building.The Buckeyes also will play five home games this season at the 5,000-seat Ohio State Fairgrounds Coliseum. In two games there last season, OSU attracted an average of 3,600 fans.CCHA ON TV: The CCHA will receive the most coverage of any Division I league with Prime Network&rsquo;s college hockey Game-of-the-Week package.Eight of Prime&rsquo;s 16 regular-season broadcasts feature CCHA match-ups. Meanwhile, the network, which feeds 22 cable affiliates across the U.S., also will air all three CCHA tournament games March 18-19.INSTANT IMPACT: If the Michigan Wolverines are to have a successful season, their rookies will have to become impact rookies.Coach Red Berenson said center Robb Gordon from Powell River of the British Columbia Jr. League-a second-round draft pick of the Vancouver Canucks-&ldquo;had the kind of potential&rdquo; to make the same impact recently graduated center Brian Wiseman did as a freshman.Berenson also said that he expects forwards Matt Herr and Bill Muckalt to come on by the end of the season.Meanwhile, goalie Marty Turco starts on equal footing with senior Al Loges (only 11 games college experience).&ldquo;Whoever ends up No. 1 remains to be seen,&rdquo; Berenson said. &#9632;

Irish, Buckeyes on rebound

<div class="byline">By Larry Mahoney</div>Hockey East has adopted a shootout for the first time ever.If a game is still tied after the five-minute overtime, each team will receive one point and the shootout winner will pick up an extra point.&ldquo;I have mixed emotions,&rdquo; said Merrimack coach Ron Anderson. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a purist. I wasn&rsquo;t an advocate until I saw it in an East Coast League game. It&rsquo;s exciting for the fans. I&rsquo;m anxious to see how it goes.&rdquo;Boston University coach Jack Parker said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be exciting. I had been against it until we received a penalty shot in a game last year. The crowd went nuts. It&rsquo;ll be great for the fans. I&rsquo;m glad it won&rsquo;t decide the game or affect your NCAA record.&rdquo;New Hampshire Wildcats&rsquo; coach Dick Umile said. &ldquo;The games themselves are exciting, but a tie can leave a sour taste in your mouth. Now we&rsquo;ll have the added excitement of a shootout. And you&rsquo;ll see the most skilled players.&rdquo;Parker said it will force coaches to have tryouts to determine a pecking order for shooters.IN HIBERNATION: The University of Maine Black Bears will be without their best forward this season. The National Collegiate Athletic Association ruled that Mike Laten-dresse&rsquo;s academic eligibility has expired.The swift-skating all-Hockey East second-team selection was deemed a partial qualifier when he enrolled at Maine in 1991. Since he didn&rsquo;t meet all the eligibility requirements, he was entitled to only three seasons of eligibility. He had also played four games of major junior, which cost him another year of eligibility.Latendresse led the Black Bears with 20 goals and 39 points in 33 games last season, thus concluding his abbreviated two-year career with 41 goals and 90 points in 79 games.Latendresse was &ldquo;disappointed and frustrated&rdquo; by the news. He said he had known a year ago the NCAA would hand down this ruling, he would have sought a pro contract.He intends to remain in school and work towards his degree. The 5-foot-10, 160-pound Montreal native also plans to continue lifting weights &ldquo;so I&rsquo;ll be ready if anything happens.&rdquo;The loss of Latendresse will be felt.&ldquo;He might have been the best forward in the league,&rdquo; Jack Parker said. &ldquo;Losing him will hurt their power play and penalty killing. He was the best offensive threat in penalty-killing situations in the league.&rdquo;HODGE INELIGIBLE: Merrimack will be without its top-scoring defenseman, Dan Hodge, for the first semester. Hodge was ruled academically ineligible by the school for the first semester. The senior defenseman had nine goals and 31 points in 37 games last year.BACK TO ONE: The league went back to a single-game series for the quarterfinals. A year ago, it was a best-of-three. The eighth- and ninth-place teams play a qualifier prior to the quarterfinals for the right to play the No. 1 seed. &#9632;

No longer fit to be tied: Loop goes to shootouts

<div class="byline">By Tom Boggie</div>Brian Mueller admits he had a little extra incentive prior to beginning his junior year at Clarkson University last season.The defenseman from Liverpool, N.Y., had hoped to land a spot on the U.S. Olympic team, but was among the early cuts. So, instead of going to Lillehammer, Norway, he returned to Clarkson and proceeded to tear up the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference.&ldquo;That was like a shot in the butt,&rdquo; Mueller said. &ldquo;I wanted to show people I could perform at a high level. I figured I could look at it two ways. Either I could think my career was over or I could use it as a positive.&rdquo;Given that extra incentive, Mueller had a career season. He was the highest-scoring defenseman in the nation with 17 goals and 56 points in 34 games and earned first-team East all-America honors. Now a senior. Mueller is ready for an encore performance.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m shooting for more,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I want to go out and play every game like it&rsquo;s my last one.&rdquo;&ldquo;Brian will dominate in the ECAC and college hockey in general,&rdquo; said Clarkson coach Mark Morris. &ldquo;He is not only a great playmaker, but a finisher as well.&rdquo;There was speculation the 5-foot-ll, 215-pound Mueller wouldn&rsquo;t return for his final season, instead signing with the Hartford Whalers, who picked him in the seventh round of the 1991 draft. But Mueller decided he would be better off completing his collegiate eligibility.&ldquo;We talked, but it just wasn&rsquo;t the right time,&rdquo; Mueller said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it was the right time for either of us.&rdquo;Besides, Mueller and his teammates still have some unfinished business. The Golden Knights lost to RPI in the semifinals of the ECAC tournament last year and weren&rsquo;t selected to the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, despite a 20-win season.&ldquo;We knew we had to win the (the ECAC tournament) to get a bid,&rdquo; Mueller said. &ldquo;But we didn&rsquo;t feel we performed up to expectations.&rdquo;JOE&rsquo;S JOB: Joe Bertagna, the ECAC&rsquo;s executive director of hockey, will be doing a lot of double duty this season.The former Harvard goalie was named goaltending coach for both the Boston Bruins and the Milwaukee Admirals of the International League. Both positions are part-time and won&rsquo;t interfere with Bertagna&rsquo;s ECAC duties.Bertagna played goal for the Admirals in the 1975-76 season and served as the Bruins&rsquo; goalie coach from 1986-91.GOOD KNIGHTS: ECAC coaches selected Clarkson as their pre-season favorite. The Golden Knights received seven of a possible 12 first-place votes in the annual coaches&rsquo; poll.Harvard received four first place votes while Vermont received one. &#9632;

Mueller back for more after proving his worth

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01799/6735633-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01718/6735664-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Zigmund Palffy is among the top playmakers with six assists.U of Michigan grad David Roberts is playing well in Peoria. (Photo by Tim Parker)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01782/6735695-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rugged defenseman Bryan McCabe had six assists in five games. (Photo by Tim Parker)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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WESTERN LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01747/6735726-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Islander draft pick Todd Bertuzzi is off to a two-point per game start. (Photo by Scott Levy/BBS)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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ONTARIO LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01450/6735757-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Quebec Nordique prospect Jocelyn Thibault was 1-3-0 in four games with the Sherbrooke Faucons.Sebastien Bordeleau, HullEric Daze, Beauport (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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QUEBEC LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0041-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01373/6735788-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Calgary prospect Jesper Mattson</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0041-01

SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0042-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01379/6735819-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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CLASSIFIED

<div class="byline">By Stan Fischler</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01399/6735857-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="375" height="531"></div>By far the dumbest move made during the current labor war was the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; decision to sign Dominik Hasek to an $8-million, three-year deal.Forget about the fact Hasek is 29, played only one full year (58 games) and still could turn into a latter-day Steve Penney. Consider this: the Sabres held Grant Fuhr as a trump card, even if the Czech checked out for the entire season. So, what was the big rush to overpay Hasek? Is he that great an attraction?But more to the point is the ratio of Hasek&rsquo;s value in relation to his salary. Just how many more fans does a Hasek bring to the Aud than Fuhr? Maybe 200 on a good night.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02280/6735850-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="572" height="925"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jeremy Roenick</figcaption></div>And even more to the point, how many of today&rsquo;s ever-growing number of millionaire players actually put fans in the seats? Answer: Very few. Most spectators come to arenas to see a team, not a player.A quarter-century ago Bobby Orr demonstrated one performer actually could pack a house all by himself. The Bruins&rsquo; wunderkind could walk into a mausoleum like Oakland&rsquo;s rink and every pew would be occupied because he was Bobby Orr.Since Orr&rsquo;s retirement, only one player-Wayne Gretzky-has come close to duplicating that charisma quotient. But even in The Great One&rsquo;s prime, he lacked the totality of Orr&rsquo;s draw-ability. Mario Lemieux might have come close to the Orr-plateau had he been more flamboyant, but he&rsquo;s a lousy salesman.Are there any contemporaries who come even remotely close to being seat-fillers? A half-dozen, maybe. But none will guarantee a capacity crowd in Hartford or Washington the way Orr would have in his prime.Gretzky is the single biggest draw in the NHL today despite the motley Los Angeles Kings around him. He spent a decade craftily building the most positive image possible for a superstar and has the numbers to reinforce his lure. But The Great One&rsquo;s appearance might generate a few thousand fans to a game on any given night, no more.Mark Messier ranks second among fan draws. (Lemieux is excluded during his sabbatical). His appeal has as much to do with personality as ability. Figure Messier for adding a couple of thousand more customers.Third place is a toss-up between Eric Lindros and Brett Hull. In three short years, Lindros has become an articulate spokesman, team captain and, arguably, the most skilled big man since Lemieux. His looks give him instant sex appeal, which means a couple of thousand will come out to see Lindros on any given night.I originally planned to list Pat LaFontaine and Jaromir Jagr ahead of Hull. But LaFontaine&rsquo;s status remains indefinite and Jagr has failed to emerge far enough out of his shell.Hull is a special case. How many children of superstars make it big themselves? Like his dad, Brett oozes appeal, can talk your ear off and offers a curious kind of good looks.Among the goalies, Patrick Roy is still king and has the most allure. He&rsquo;s competent, quirky, likeable and worth a thousand or so extra fans.Right behind is a group of which each has a unique attractiveness, but not enough overall pizzazz to merit top billing. Most of all, I&rsquo;m thinking of Doug Gilmour and Jeremy Roenick. If his team had allowed him to eschew his helmet, as Roenick requested last year, he could have made the top of the list. But if he keeps talking as well as he plays, he&rsquo;ll be there soon. Gilmour is a curious case. His star quality is stratospheric in Canada, but as far as Stateside fans are concerned, he might as well be Kirk Muller.Alex Mogilny, Pavel Bure, Teemu Selanne, Brian Leetch, Scott Stevens, Ray Bourque, Chris Chelios, Steve Yzerman, Pierre Turgeon and Mike Modano all add to the fan base on any given night, but not to any significant extent. Mike Keenan can out-draw the whole lot of them.Bottom Line: A rink-filler such as Orr comes along once every quarter-century and we&rsquo;re still waiting for the next one to arrive. &#9632;

f0043-01

Only Orr could fill seats in Oakland

<div class="byline">By Michael Ulmer</div>For a moment, Alexandre Daigle is puzzled.He has been asked if returning to the Quebec League&rsquo;s Victoriaville Tigres could rekindle the bad on-ice habits that led to an up-and down rookie season in the NHL.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t thought about that,&rdquo; Daigle said. &ldquo;I will not think to be lazy, I want to work hard and be an example for the young guys.&rdquo; Then he chuckles at the irony. &ldquo;Actually, I&rsquo;ll be a veteran.&rdquo;It is, in fact, a typical answer for Daigle. It begins with a disarming honesty, fades into optimism and finishes with humor.The Senators moved to return Daigle to junior, pending Canadian Hockey League approval Oct. 17, to get him some game action and regain his confidence in the wake of a shaky rookie season.Daigle wasn&rsquo;t included on the Senators&rsquo; original list of junior-aged players who could be returned to their teams during the labor dispute. He can&rsquo;t go to the minors because he still has Canadian Hockey League eligibility.The Senators were seeking permission from the league to send Daigle back to the QMJHL.&ldquo;Maybe it will help my confidence if I have some good games,&rdquo; Daigle said. &ldquo;This way, I will have a step ahead of everybody else when the season starts.&rdquo;Critics say it was a move the Senators should have made last year. Daigle made only a minor impact on NHL score-sheets, but thanks to a $12.25-million, five-year contract, he was hellacious on the NHL&rsquo;s freshman salary grid.Daigle scored 20 goals, recorded 51 points and finished sixth in scoring among NHL rookies. But after a good start, he scored only five goals after the all-star break. Aside from an encouraging eight-point run in seven games late in the year, he was invisible through most of the second half.Worse yet, Daigle showed up at training camp this season in mediocre shape and snoozed through the team&rsquo;s first half a dozen exhibition games. He would have been zero for the exhibition season had he not bagged a goal in his final pre-season game.An Ottawa newspaper ran a headline that listed Daigle as MIA, (Missing in Action) and for the first time in his pro career, Daigle incurred a spate of media criticism for his play.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03231/6735888-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="958" height="1942"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Senators believe Alexandre Daigle&rsquo;s moves are predictable. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/BBS)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;His first five games were terrible,&rdquo; said coach Rick Bowness. &ldquo;He played better the last couple of games, but it&rsquo;s no coincidence, the harder we worked him, the better shape he got in, the better he played.&rdquo;If Daigle&rsquo;s confidence is down, he still has plenty to spare. The ups and downs on the way to stardom, are, to listen to Daigle, just that.&ldquo;I stopped reading the newspapers, that was my first step,&rdquo; Daigle said, &ldquo;but I think I deserved that (criticism) because I was not playing at the top of my game.&rdquo;Easily lost in the babble over Daigle&rsquo;s salary is the fact that aside from Jason Arnott the rookies who outperformed Daigle last season were much older. Arnott was the only 18-year-old to outscore Daigle and the top two finishers in the rookie scoring race, Mikael Renberg of the Philadelphia Flyers and Daigle&rsquo;s teammate Alexei Yashin, were two years and nine months and 16 months older, respectively.&ldquo;Last year, no matter what we still played him, let him kill penalties and let him play the power play on nights where he had no business being out there,&rdquo; Bowness said. &ldquo;But you pat him on the back and say, &lsquo;Look, you&rsquo;re improving, you&rsquo;re getting more experience, let&rsquo;s keep going out there.&rsquo; The important thing is, he&rsquo;ll get better every year.&rdquo;While the Senators hope a stint in junior will continue the rebuilding job begun on Daigle&rsquo;s game, they have muted optimism about the trip.&ldquo;His natural habit in junior was to go down (the right) side and beat everybody and in the NHL, you can&rsquo;t do that,&rdquo; Bowness said. &ldquo;You have to use tactics on the attack, but he didn&rsquo;t have the experience or the confidence to do that. He came down one side far too often.&ldquo;With the pre-scouting in the NHL, teams were prepared for it-waiting for it.&rdquo;Daigle left for Victoriaville and planned on retracing the steps that landed him at the top of the 1993 draft class. He planned to stay with the same family which billeted him in major junior, but the real fun will come with the chance to strut what he has learned in the pros.&ldquo;I want to play,&rdquo; Daigle said. &ldquo;Victoriaville is a good place to play. Right now I&rsquo;m in Ottawa, just riding the bike. I don&rsquo;t want to keep on doing the Tour de France.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0043-03

Alexandre the OK

<div class="byline">By Dave Fay</div>The Washington Capitals claim they lost $8 million last season and without expansion monies from two first-year teams, that figure might have surpassed $9 million.Even with normal paper shuffling that goes on with most teams-parking, concessions, merchandising going into a different pocket, but under the same umbrella-the club&rsquo;s loss would have been in the vicinity of $6 million and the figures are hardly in dispute.The $8 million figure was supplied by club president Dick Patrick and first appeared in the Washington Post.The mathematics are simple. From gate receipts and broadcast revenues, the team took in $19.43 million. The team&rsquo;s payroll amounted to $15.48 million, leaving a operating surplus of $3.95 million.However, while player salaries are the single biggest budget item, they are not the only item. One team source estimated the cost for scouting, administration, travel, lodging, rent for US Air Arena, etc., comes to about $13 million, which accounts for the deficit.The Capitals are one of three sports entities controlled by Abe Pollin. The others are the National Basketball Association&rsquo; Bullets and the arena. Technically, all are different companies.The Caps pay rent to use the arena, a paper transaction, but nonetheless a reflection on the bottom line. The club receives no revenue from parking, concessions or luxury boxes-they go to the arena. It receives what little money comes from licensed merchandising, but it is unclear whether it gets revenue from board advertising.While creditability questions have been raised over accounting procedures-one official estimated non-gate and broadcast revenues would bring in $2 million annually tops-there is no question the team is deep in the red.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think any of the plans would solve our problems overnight.&rdquo; Patrick told the Post, referring to various labor proposals. &ldquo;We need self-help: Sell tickets, get paying customers.&rdquo;The average price of a Capitals&rsquo; ticket last season was $20.91, one of the lowest in the league. However, the team played to only 69 per cent of capacity.WAITING IT OUT: The coaching staff-Jim Schoenfeld, Keith Allain and Tod Button-sit in their office day-by-day doing what everybody else is doing-waiting out the lockout.There are only so many times one can study the same film or go over now dog-eared reports on physical conditioning.&ldquo;Am I missing it? Big time,&rdquo; Allain said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an indescribable feeling, to not be doing what we&rsquo;re supposed to be doing. And not to know when you&rsquo;ll be able to do it. If you&rsquo;re injured and told you won&rsquo;t be able to play for two weeks, at least you know you&rsquo;ll play in two weeks. But the whole idea of not knowing makes it all a little bit worse.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Jason Woolley played 10 games for the Capitals last season, scoring a goal and going plus-2, before a series of abdominal muscle tears forced him out of the lineup. He finished the season conditioning with the Portland Pirates of the American League. This fall he was assigned to Portland outright, refused to report and demanded a trade. He was waived through the league, went unclaimed and was released. He signed with the Detroit Vipers of the International League.Center Dave Poulin, who sprained his left knee just before camp started, continues to work out daily in the Caps&rsquo; facilities. He would probably be able to play soon, but hasn&rsquo;t received medical clearance because it&rsquo;s not a priority at the moment.The Caps&rsquo; alumni golf tournament produced $33,000 for the Children&rsquo;s Inn, a hostel for families visiting children in a hospital&hellip;Hockey Week in Washington, a week-long event for amateur teams, drew 32 clubs and more than 500 players.<h2>TRANSACTIONS</h2>Oct. 7: Jason Woolley, D, released &#9632;

Club claims bottom line has red ink

<div class="byline">By Jeff Williams</div>At the end of training camp last year, the New York Islanders assigned Jamie McLennan to the Salt Lake Golden Eagles of the International League because they didn&rsquo;t think he could be Ron Hextall&rsquo;s backup.Just before camp ended this year the Islanders shipped Hextall to the Philadelphia Flyers for goalie Tommy Soderstrom. They did so because they had enough confidence in McLennan that he could be their No. 1 goalie.While coach Lome Henning says it will be a battle for the No. 1 spot between Soderstrom and McLennan, Soderstrom is coming off a disappointing season while McLennan is coming off the season of his life. McLennan has one pad up in the race.You can credit Hextall in two ways for making McLennan highly regarded. Cynically, you could say his spotty performance last season gave McLennan the chance to be No. 1. Optimistically, you could say Hextall&rsquo;s advice to his kid backup made a world of difference.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say enough about Ron Hextall,&rdquo; McLennan said. &ldquo;His character, his work ethic, his desire for the game. He&rsquo;s a very classy individual. He really pushed me.&rdquo;In 1992, McLennan stood out in camp as a 21-year-old fighting for a goalie slot with Glenn Healy and Mark Fitzpatrick. Despite a heady showing, the coaching staff felt he needed the maturity of another year in the minors.When he came to camp in September of 1993, both Healy and Fitzpatrick were gone and the Islanders were looking to either McLennan or Danny Lorenz to prove one of them could be Hextall&rsquo;s backup. Both failed miserably and the job went to Tom Draper.&ldquo;I had a poor camp and I didn&rsquo;t deserve to make the team,&rdquo; McLennan said. &ldquo;I had to go down and sharpen my skills.&rdquo;The Islanders recalled him Jan. 5 and two days later he registered a victory over the Calgary Flames. He posted a record of 8-7-6 with a goals-against average of 2.84 and save percentage of .905.Strangely, he&rsquo;s still considered a rookie, having played only 22 games last season.&ldquo;The most important thing Hextall did was to show Jamie what the NHL work ethic was,&rdquo; said goalie coach Bob Froese. &ldquo;Hexie brought him up a notch.&rdquo;PLAYERS, OWNERS MEET: Islander management and five players sat down Oct. 7 to discuss their concerns in the labor talks.According to general manager Don Maloney, management asked for the meeting. From the management side were Maloney, co-chairmen Steve Walsh and Bob Rosenthal and chief operating officer Ralph Palleschi. While all players were invited to come, those who did were Troy Loney, Pat Flatley, Derek King, Ray Ferraro and Mick Vukota.&ldquo;We wanted to understand from our players what their concerns were,&rdquo; Maloney said. &ldquo;My biggest concern was our players not understanding or getting the right information on whether we have been forthright on our finances.&rdquo;&ldquo;It was a frank discussion,&rdquo; Ferraro said. &ldquo;I went in not knowing what to expect. They were forthright about what they told us. They did not show us their books, but they talked about a range of numbers for what their budgets were.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Mark Gandler. the agent for defenseman Darius Kasparaitis, is looking into finding his client temporary employment in the IHL until the labor dispute is settled. &ldquo;There is some interest from several teams,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t just want any player, but someone who has some star quality. Darius can bring fans to the game and they enjoy his style of hockey.&rdquo; Gandler detects hesitancy on the part of IHL GMs to sign NHL players. &ldquo;I think once someone does, then the floodgates will open.&rdquo;<h2>TRANSACTIONS</h2>Oct. 13: Brett Lindros, RW, returned to Kingston (OHL). &#9632;

McLennan thanks Hextall for big chance at top spot

<div class="byline">By Rich Chere</div>It was a pitiable way for a brilliant hockey career to end.After a stellar career in the Soviet Union and five trail-blazing seasons with the New Jersey Devils, Viacheslav Fetisov found himself without an NHL team. Months before there was a lockout by NHL owners, Fetisov faced his own personal lockout.Too deep at defense and unwilling to pay Fetisov what would&rsquo;ve been $690,000 after the required 15 per-cent raise, the Devils chose not to re-sign the 36-year-old free agent.Fetisov felt the reason the Devils were no longer interested had more to do with a lawsuit he filed against the team last year than his age, salary or fading skills.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why they didn&rsquo;t sign me, but I have an idea,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was probably (the lawsuit). It&rsquo;s hard to say. I still think I was right. I was new to the American legal system and I had to protect myself.&rdquo;Slapped with a $1-million lawsuit from agent Mark Malkovich, Fetisov found himself in a Newark, N.J. federal court last December. Malkovich claimed he was owed a percentage of the contract the defenseman signed with the Devils in 1989.Fetisov, in turn, filed a counter claim against the Devils, stating general manager Lou Lamoriello promised to pay his legal fees and any losses he suffered because of the suit by Malkovich.On Dec. 17, 1993, a federal court jury ruled that neither Fetisov nor the Devils owed Malkovich anything. However, the jury also ruled that the Devils were not liable to pay Fetisov&rsquo;s court costs, which were estimated to be in excess of $100,000. That counter suit, Fetisov believed, angered Lamoriello and was behind the Devils&rsquo; decision not to re-sign him.&ldquo;I never had anything against the team. It was a personal matter,&rdquo; Fetisov explained. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t (Devils&rsquo; owner John) McMullen. It was Lou. He leave me a personal guarantee.&rdquo;Lamoriello said he made no such guarantee and insisted the lawsuit against the Devils had nothing to do with the decision not to bring the former Central Red Army star back.&ldquo;Absolutely not. There is nobody I have more respect for than Slava,&rdquo; Lamoriello said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all hockey. Nothing personal. I feel bad Slava would have that type of thought.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question Slava can still play. He showed that last year. It was a decision we had to make with our players to give the young guys ice time.&rdquo;BAD TIMING: The Devils finally promoted promising center Brian Rolston from the Albany River Rats of the American League, but it was done only as a cost-cutting measure for the NHL club.With a one-way contract that paid him $250,000, the Devils were expected to save that money by calling Rolston up to join the rest of the NHLers who were not being paid.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no money coming in and we don&rsquo;t know when the season will start,&rdquo; Lamoriello said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s apparent that franchises are going to have to cut back.&rdquo;Defenseman Jason Smith, on the other hand, was on a two-way deal. He received none of his $210,000 NHL salary before being assigned to Albany on Oct. 13.In addition to the $68,000 signing bonus he already obtained, Smith began earning his $40,000 minor-league salary.NOTEBOOK: GM Lou Lamoriello said he still hoped to re-sign goalie Martin Brodeur despite agent Gilles Lupien&rsquo;s promise that Brodeur would play out his option no matter what the offer&hellip;Coach Jacques Lemaire did some player grading at Albany, where assistants Larry Robinson and Jacques Caron were already helping out River Rats&rsquo; coach Robbie Ftorek.<h2>TRANSACTIONS</h2>Oct. 13: Jason Smith, D, assigned to Albany (AHL). Brian Rolston, C, recalled from Albany. &#9632;

Fetisov believes lawsuit being held against him

<div class="byline">By Dave Joseph</div>There are times when John Vanbiesbrouck feels like he&rsquo;s fighting a losing battle.As the Florida Panthers&rsquo; player representative, Vanbiesbrouck has answered most of the questions in South Florida about the NHL&rsquo;s lockout of players and its decision to postpone the start of the season.Vanbiesbrouck has answered questions from fans, Panther players and media outlets throughout the region.He also spends a lot of time battling to set the record straight.&ldquo;People always ask why the players are striking. It happens all the time,&rdquo; Vanbiesbrouck said. &ldquo;I guess it&rsquo;s because their only reference to something like this is the basebail strike. But it&rsquo;s something I always find myself correcting people about.&rdquo;Recently on a local sports television show co-hosted by Miami Dolphins&rsquo; player Keith Sims, Vanbiesbrouck took questions about the lockout. Vanbiesbrouck, a baseball fan, said he is unhappy there won&rsquo;t be a World Series this year and said he understands if hockey fans are angry about the postponed season.&ldquo;But there were also a lot of questions about why there was a strike,&rdquo; Vanbiesbrouck said. &ldquo;Even Keith Sims asked about the strike. I kept telling them it&rsquo;s not a strike because there is a very big difference here and people should know that.&rdquo;Vanbiesbrouck, a finalist for the Hart Trophy last year, said he has tried to keep his teammates informed during these tough times.&ldquo;I gets faxes and phone calls every day,&rdquo; Vanbiesbrouck said. &ldquo;Some guys have split up. but I&rsquo;d say three-quarters of the team is still in Florida.&ldquo;We had a gym offered to us, so if I need to call a meeting I know where most of the guys are going to be. Other than that, I&rsquo;ve just been trying to keep my sanity. I think the most difficult thing to come to terms with hasn&rsquo;t been the fact that we&rsquo;re not making money, but the intensity everyone put forth in anticipation of the start of the season. Because right now, there&rsquo;s no season.&rdquo;RINK OF DREAMS: Since Panthers&rsquo; owner Wayne Huizenga sold his controlling interest in Blockbuster Entertainment to Viacom, controlled by Sumner Redstone, there is some question when and where a new hockey arena will be built.Under Huizenga, Blockbuster was preparing to build an entertainment park, complete with an arena and baseball stadium. But there is some question whether Redstone will go through with the park.Huizenga told the NHL when he paid the $50 million expansion fee in 1993 that he would have a new arena by 1997.Panthers&rsquo; president Bill Torrey said representatives of Viacom are currently reviewing the park project. One of the sticking points is that, according to Blockbuster, $100 million is needed to build new roads to such a park.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re all waiting to see what happens,&rdquo; Torrey said. &ldquo;Are they or are they not going forward with the park? The decision has not yet been made.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: No. 1 overall draft pick Ed Jovanovski, back with the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario League, had 13 penalty minutes in his first game, including one fight&hellip;Kevin Weekes, the Panthers&rsquo; second round pick in 1993, continued to sit out and wait for a trade rather than play for his junior team, the Owen Sound Platers of the OHL.Bill Torrey, who negotiated for the owners in past labor disputes when he was with the New York Islanders, said he&rsquo;s unhappy with the sporadic meetings between owners and players. &ldquo;We had a lot of confrontational situations in the past,&rdquo; Torrey said. &ldquo;There were some heated exchanges too, but we met and slugged it out with the other guy until we got things sorted out.&rdquo; &#9632;

Vanbiesbrouck becomes Florida’s lockout expert

<div class="byline">By Wayne Fish</div>If there&rsquo;s someone who definitely didn&rsquo;t need a delayed start to the NHL season, it&rsquo;s Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; veteran Dave Brown.The longest-serving player on the Flyers, Brown looked like he had battled his way onto the team for one more year.But the 32-year-old right winger said a long lockout might jeopardize his chances. He knows youngsters in the organization such as Phil Crowe and Dan Kordic may be ready to fill his tough-guy role.Some wonder whether Brown&rsquo;s services are still needed. They Flyers asked him to sign a termination contract before the season.Even though he&rsquo;s a well-liked, respected leader, Brown hasn&rsquo;t convinced fans the Flyers can afford a &ldquo;one-dimensional&rdquo; player anymore.&ldquo;This (delay) doesn&rsquo;t help me, but it is going to help the players in the future,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;I stand by the union. I don&rsquo;t have any bad feelings, but I need to have a good year and they&rsquo;ve put a stop to that right now.&rdquo;Brown stands sixth on the Flyers&rsquo; all-time penalty list with 1,329 minutes in 524 games. Brown played 140 games with the Edmonton Oilers from 1989 to 1991.In the mid-1980s, Brown was one of the league&rsquo;s top heavyweights, logging seasons of 277 and 274 minutes. Those totals dwindled to 78 in 1992-93, although they did go up to 137 last season.In 11 full seasons, Brown has 41 goals in 664 games and 1,690 penalty minutes.Brown has been through three losing seasons with the Flyers after winning the Stanley Cup in Edmonton in 1990. He would like to stick around long enough to see the Flyers turn it around.&ldquo;It certainly would be nice,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m here now and hopefully I can stay a while longer. Things are starting to turn around here and we were looking forward to having a great year.&ldquo;I feel fortunate to have been able to play this long. Hopefully, I can play a little longer.&rdquo;Brown has a few other things working for him in that quest to stick. He took Eric Lindros under his wing during the star player&rsquo;s 1992-93 rookie season and showed a willingness to stick up for him on and off the ice. They&rsquo;ve been friends since.And general manager Bob Clarke and coach Terry Murray have been trying to build an &ldquo;all-for-the-team&rdquo; climate in the Flyers&rsquo; dressing room. No one is more of team player than Brown.BOWEN OF CONTENTION: A year ago, Jason Bowen was one of the rising stars of the Flyers organization. The 20-year-old defenseman, a first-round (15th overall) pick in the 1992 draft, played in 56 games with the Flyers last season.But with a new GM and coach this season, plus an unplanned move to left wing, Bowen fell into disfavor. He did not have a good training camp and was sent to the Hershey Bears of the American League on the last roster cut.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t been happy with Jason,&rdquo; Terry Murray said. &ldquo;His training camp (wasn&rsquo;t) good. He has to be more of a physical presence, more of a physical-type player on a more consistent basis.&rdquo;Left wing is Bowen&rsquo;s natural spot from his junior playing days, but he spent the past two years trying to leant defense.NOTEBOOK: The lockout has helped some of the ailing Flyers mend. Rob DiMaio&rsquo;s sprained wrist has begun to come around and Garry Galley&rsquo;s surgically repaired shoulder has had time to gain strength. Both are ready to play. Kevin Dineen, who broke a thumb in a pre-season game Sept. 24, was also progressing&hellip;A contingent of Mark Recchi, Dineen, Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour and Dave Brown met with team owner Ed Snider and Bob Clarke on Oct. 4 to discuss the NHL work stoppage. Snider offered the players a chance to look at his accounting books, but the players declined. &#9632;

Delay could kill Brown’s chances

<div class="byline">By Roy Cummings</div>The Tampa Bay Lightning has officially kicked off its long-awaited youth movement. And the first victim of the trend was fourth-line center Adam Creighton.In a move brought on by the emergence in training camp of rookies Jason Wiemer and Alexander Selivanov, the Lightning traded Creighton to the St. Louis Blues for defenseman Tom Tilley on Oct. 6.While announcing the trade, Lightning general manager Phil Esposito issued a warning to his other veteran players: Creighton won&rsquo;t be the last to go.&ldquo;This is definitely the start of us going with the younger players and I&rsquo;ll tell you something else, I&rsquo;m not done,&rdquo; Esposito said. &ldquo;Jason and Alex made this team and they took up two forward spots doing it. That means somebody else will probably have to go.&rdquo;Esposito wouldn&rsquo;t speculate on who would be next, but the top candidate to be shipped out is left winger Gerard Gallant.Gallant, who saw little playing time last season after signing on as a free agent during the off-season, failed to impress the Lightning during camp this year. In fact, there is talk the Lightning may try to buy him out of his $525,000 contract.Other candidates to be moved include Marc Bureau and Rob Zamuner, but Esposito said the Creighton trade has improved the chances of them staying in Tampa Bay.&ldquo;As it stands right now, one of those two guys will probably step into Adam&rsquo;s spot,&rdquo; Esposito said. &ldquo;Bureau is a natural center and Robby played very well there during camp. We liked what we saw of him there.&rdquo;The addition of Tilley, 29, will probably have little effect on the Lightning roster. Esposito said there is a chance Tilley will be sent to the Atlanta Knights of the International League.&ldquo;We needed another defenseman just in case something happens with one of our regulars and that&rsquo;s why we got him,&rdquo; Esposito said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a very capable defenseman who has had some experience in the NHL.&rdquo;Tilley hasn&rsquo;t had much. He has played in just 174 NHL games over the course of his career and 48 of those came last year after Tilley returned from a two-year stint in Italy. But Tilley hopes the move to Tampa Bay will give him a fresh start in the NHL.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy to be going somewhere where they want me,&rdquo; Tilley said. &ldquo;I really just want the chance to play.&rdquo;Creighton, who came to the Lightning in the 1992 waiver draft, scored 29 goals and 59 points in 136 games while playing in Tampa Bay. He scored just 10 goals and 20 points in 53 games last season, but missed a good portion of the campaign with a knee injury and never regained a regular spot in the lineup after that.REMEMBER WHEN: Phil and Tony Esposito have been on both sides of NHL labor disputes. As players, each served as presidents of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association and as team executives, each has been on the other side of the current labor battle.With that experience in mind, the brothers suggested that an old-fashioned way of negotiating might speed up the process of getting a new collective bargaining agreement in place.&ldquo;When we were doing it, we used to start at 9 or 10 in the morning and we&rsquo;d go until 10 at night,&rdquo; said Tony, the Lightning&rsquo;s director of player personnel. &ldquo;And then, we&rsquo;d go to the bar and we&rsquo;d keep talking there. Nobody left the room, only to go to the bathroom.&rdquo;Said Phil: &ldquo;The bottom line was, we got the deal done. We didn&rsquo;t goof around with these short meetings. We had lunch and dinner brought in and we sat there and hammered it out. That&rsquo;s what needs to be done right now.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Roman Hamrlik was the only member of the Lightning skating on a regular basis. Hamrlik was using the ThunderDome&rsquo;s ice surface to rehabilitate his reconstructed right knee. &#9632;

Trader Phil not finished after dealing Creighton

<div class="byline">By Rick Carpiniello</div>The lockout continued to be a blessing in disguise for the New York Rangers.Left winger-center Adam Graves, who scored more goals than any two Rangers combined last season, underwent back surgery Oct. 11 and will not be ready to play until at least December.Thanks to the labor dispute, he may not miss any games.Graves, who scored 52 goals for the Rangers last season, underwent successful surgery to remove a disc in his lower back. His back began bothering him in the late stages of training camp and two weeks off skates was prescribed. Graves was re-evaluated after the two weeks and flew to Los Angeles Oct. 9.He was examined by noted back surgeon Robert Watkins Oct. 10, and Watkins performed the surgery the next morning. Watkins has handled back surgeries on many famous professional athletes, including Dave Winfield, Troy Aikman, Payne Stewart, Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman and Phil Housley.Graves initially injured his back during the playoffs last spring and played at least the last two rounds with pain. The injury, however, didn&rsquo;t bother him over the summer or through the early training-camp scrimmages.&ldquo;But as soon as he started to have contact again, it flared right up,&rdquo; said Rangers&rsquo; coach Colin Campbell. &ldquo;He could deal with the pain, but it was the weakness in his legs that started to worry him. Some athletes could get by with it, even some hockey players.&ldquo;But not a guy who plays the way Adam plays, the way he plays along the boards and in front of the net and gets cross-checked in the back. Not the way he hits and just drives guys. There was no way he wasn&rsquo;t going to have problems this season.&ldquo;Adam played hurt every shift of the last two series. I guess this is the price you pay when you win the Stanley Cup.&rdquo;Graves is the latest to be sidelined. Graves, Sergei Zubov (sprained knee), team captain Mark Messier (contract), goalie Mike Richter (contract), Kevin Lowe (shoulder surgery), Joey Kocur (shoulder surgery) and rookie Joby Messier (sprained knee) would have missed the season opener had it been played on time.LOCKOUT STALLS: The lockout has also stalled the contract negotiations between the Rangers and star players Mark Messier and Mike Richter.Messier&rsquo;s talks have apparently completely halted and the captain has returned home to Hilton Head, S.C.In the days before the originally scheduled season opener, both sides seemed optimistic they could compromise and come to an agreement so that Messier would be in uniform when the Stanley Cup banner was raised. Messier wants more than $6 million a year for three years, and will accept a two-year deal for similar dollars.Richter, meanwhile, had agreed in principle on a four-year contract worth about $10.7 million Sept. 28, but never actually finalized the deal. Therefore, he remains technically unsigned.NOTEBOOK: The Stanley Cup has returned from the engraver and Eddie Olczyk&rsquo;s name is not on it. Olczyk didn&rsquo;t fulfill the requirements of playing at least 40 regular-season games (he played 37) or one game in the Stanley Cup final. Despite the Rangers&rsquo; pleas, the Hockey Hall of Fame would not bend the strict rules. Therefore, the names of two former team governors, the manager of team services, the public relations director, three trainers and a team masseuse are engraved on the Cup, but Olczyk, who was voted as the Players&rsquo; Player award winner, was left off. &#9632;

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October 28, 1994

Demotion OK for La Fayette

Musil can go home again

Top stars itching to play

ELSTON