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.

July 1, 1981

The Hockey News July 1, 1981

<div class="byline">BY RICH FRIEDMAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011889/8617502-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Herb Brooks, right, newly appointed coach of the New York Rangers, joined his two bosses, Craig Patrick, team vice president and general manager, and president Sonny Werblin, at his first press conference. (Photo By Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Coming when it did, the unveiling of Herb Brooks as the Rangers&rsquo; new coach was more of a coronation than an appointment.The former Olympic coach set the tone for his reign in a press conference that could have been an anti-climax after the weeks of speculation over his signing, but wasn&rsquo;t. He was forthright about his expectations, stickhandled his way around a few tough questions with the ease of an experienced politician, and presented himself with a mixture of humor and his own lunchpail work-ethic.Brooks&rsquo; candor was welcome; now, it is up to his players to deliver.Madison Square Garden president Sonny Werblin referred to Brooks as &ldquo;a disciplinarian but not an autocrat&rdquo;, and the new coach answered early on the question raised by observers who doubted the ability of NHL players to produce under the methods Brooks used to drive the U.S. Olympic team to a Gold medal.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m a slave-driver,&rdquo; said Brooks. &ldquo;If I was such a slavedriver, I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;d have seen the players at Lake Placid play with such emotion.&rdquo;Speaking of Lake Placid, Brooks also discounted any problems he might have with his reversal of roles with Craig Patrick, who was his assistant general manager during the Olympics and maintained day-to-day contact with the players. Now, Patrick is Brooks&rsquo; boss; in fact, he was elevated to the Rangers&rsquo; Vice-Presidency the day Brooks was introduced as coach.&ldquo;Craig was more than a buffer for me,&rdquo; said Brooks. &ldquo;He provided a lot of the expertise. I went to him day in and day out.&ldquo;Now he is my boss and reports to Mr. Jennings, Mr. Werblin and Mr. Krumpe,&rdquo; said Brooks, referring to the Rangers&rsquo; president Bill Jennings, and Werblin&rsquo;s second-in-command, Jack Krumpe. &ldquo;I accept what I am supposed to do; a lot of coaches get upset without communication.&rdquo;The only player present that day was Rangers&rsquo; captain Barry Beck, with whom Brooks planned to sit down and work out a dryland conditioning program for the summer.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll evaluate each player and work out a conditioning program accordingly,&rdquo; said Brooks. &ldquo;An athlete&rsquo;s most valuable asset is his body and it must be protected.&rdquo;There was something almost Olympian about the way Brooks continually referred to his charges as &ldquo;athletes.&rdquo;Speaking of Beck, Brooks said: &ldquo;Right now, Barry Beck can do more for me than I can do for him. I&rsquo;d like to build around Barry. He&rsquo;s shown himself to be a tower of strength and one of the most talented players in the NHL. He seems to thrive on responsibility, judging by the way he handled the captaincy at the end of last year. I think he&rsquo;s a potential Hall of Famer.&rdquo;One of the lighter moments of the press luncheon came when Brooks was asked what his timetable was for the Stanley Cup. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s my timetable?&rdquo; he asked as he turned to Patrick. &ldquo;I have a two-year plan,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;and they tell me I&rsquo;d better do it in a year.&rdquo;Brooks&rsquo; other comments that day ranged from fans&rsquo; expectations to strategy to the big apple.&ldquo;I want the players to justify the fans&rsquo; belief in them,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to report to work and give consistent effort the way they [the fans] do. I want the players to justify the hard-earned dollars the fans spend to watch them play.&ldquo;The fans want, and deserve, consistency, enthusiasm and conditioning on their team. And I think the team should justify their support.&ldquo;I would like to create an environment that is a challenge to the players, and that would constitute the breaking-down of some stereotypes, to establish a familiar atmosphere. It&rsquo;s important to establish a proper work-rest ratio. I&rsquo;m not a whip-and-chain man. I believe in strictness in terms of mental discipline, not brute force.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to cry wolf when a situation arises. I like to pick my spots, maximize a situation to make my point. My players will judge me on my sincerity, knowledge, and action under pressure.&rdquo;Two announcements were quickly forthcoming. One, that the Rangers would train in Europe and will participate in a tournament that will include two teams Brooks&rsquo; Olympic squad faced, Finland and Sweden. And the Rangers announced that Walter Tkaczuk, who was sidelined with an eye injury in February, would serve as Brooks&rsquo; assistant, although there still apparently is a chance that the veteran center&rsquo;s eye will heal sufficiently for him to play again.Brooks joins the Rangers six months after they thought they had snared him; he originally was slated to replace Fred Shero as coach when Shero was fired last fall. From all indications, the Rangers will have to work harder than they ever have before, which could lead to the discipline some of them have acknowledged the team has lacked.&ldquo;I think athletes will do things in a reasonable way to stay here,&rdquo; said Brooks. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to sound selfish and talk about the almighty dollar but&mdash;if you do the job here, dash, dash, dash.&rdquo; Dash, as in dollars, but his athletes will find there is a price to be paid first in sweat. &#9632;

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The NHL

Brooks Six Months Tardy Ascending Ranger Throne

BOSTON&mdash;The Bruins are going to remain in Boston after all.The decision to scrap plans to move the Bruins to Salem. N.H., was made by the Delaware North Company, a firm that owns not only the Bruins but the basketball Celtics and the Boston Garden as well.Bruins&rsquo; president Paul Mooney informed NHL president John Ziegler and the board of governors at a meeting in Chicago that the team would continue to operate at the 57-year-old Garden, which has been home to the Bruins since they entered the league in 1924.Mooney said plans now call for either a renovation of the Garden or for a meeting with a committee from the city to decide if a new arena can be constructed. &#9632;

Bruins Set To Remain In Boston

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-011143/8619116-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02794/8619109-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="1473" height="716"></div><h2>GOALKEEPING RECORDS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03653/8619102-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="1468" height="458"></div> &#9632;

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The Minors

Eastern Hockey League Final Statistics

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-011231/8618882-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02822/8618875-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="1541" height="2003"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-011135/8618868-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="1497" height="2102"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02747/8618861-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="1569" height="2102"></div> &#9632;

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Features

Your Ice Rink Buyers’ Guide

<div class="byline">FRANK ORR&#x2019;S</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011656/8617134-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="309" height="349"></div><h2>Scotty&rsquo;s Big Challenge</h2>THE MURMUR OF surprise was considerable in the Montreal Forum when the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; turn to make their selection in the 1981 National Hockey League Entry Draft arrived and the club&rsquo;s general manager-coach Scotty Bowman said: &ldquo;From Czechoslovakia, Jiri Dudacek, right wing.&rdquo;Not that Dudacek&rsquo;s name was unknown! The NHL&rsquo;s Central Scouting Bureau had him as the No. 1 prospect on the globe&mdash;and in Quebec, too&mdash;this year. Scouts who had watched Dudacek play this season offered only rave reviews of his play and potential.Bowman does have one small problem. Dudacek is in Czechoslovakia, Buffalo is in North American and if the Czechs have their way, never the twain shall meet officially.Oh perhaps, the Czechs will relent and allow him to leave&mdash;when Dudacek is 33 years of age and the Czech national team doesn&rsquo;t need him any more.Of course, Jiri could go over the wall, defecting to Buffalo. There have been rumors that a few people in Buffalo are thinking about defecting to Czechoslovakia.Undoubtedly, the Czechs will do everything possible to make certain Dudacek doesn&rsquo;t get away. Losing the brothers Stastny to the Quebec Nordiques was quite enough of that sort of thing.Thus Bowman is faced with the biggest challenge of his hockey career, &lsquo;bigger even than getting Rick Chartraw to observe curfew or making Bob Plager be serious about anything.After all Dudacek isn&rsquo;t much good to Scotty and the Sabres if he&rsquo;s on right wing with Kladno in the Czech major league. Having him on the wing in Buffalo is a major test to even Bowman&rsquo;s noteworthy amount of ingenuity.Bowman has under consideration a variety of methods to get Dudacek across the Czech frontier to the Niagara Frontier.A HOCKEY NEWS operative has unearthed a top secret Sabre file on the Dudacek matter. The code for the caper is Keep Seymour Happy and the dossier contains several possible plans the Sabres might use to try to get Dudacek to Buffalo.Plan One: Sabre scout Bucky Kane will watch the movie, The Great Escape 15 or 20 times and study closely the tunnelling techniques used by the POWs to escape from the concentration camp.Kane then will fly to Austria, disguised as a kolbassa salesman from Buffalo. He&rsquo;ll be armed with a shovel and will try to dig a tunnel to Kladno through which Dudacek can escape.<h2>Roger&rsquo;s Last Sabre Hurrah</h2>PLAN TWO: As part of his severance pay from the Sabres, with whom he parted company at the conclusion of the 1980-81 season, Roger Neilson will be offered an all-expenses paid trip to Czechoslovakia to study land training methods.While he&rsquo;s there, Sabre double agents will kidnap Neilson and substitute Dudacek for him. Dudacek&rsquo;s hair will be curled by sticking his nose into an electrical outlet and he&rsquo;ll be fitted with a suit that looks as if it&rsquo;s made from a thousand little pieces of videotape of Jimmy Jones killing penalties.Armed with Neilson&rsquo;s passport, Dudacek should have little trouble crossing the border and reaching Buffalo.Plan Three: Buffalo will be encouraged to adopt Kladno as a &ldquo;brother&rdquo; city in Czechoslovakia. After all, the two towns have a great deal in common: Good hockey teams and a big steel plant.When the cities become familiar with each other, Buffalo will suggest a cultural exchange with Kladno. If the idea is accepted, Buffalo will dispatch a beer-drinking team to Kladno and while the team is there for a competition, it will attempt to smuggle Dudacek out of the country in an empty Bud case.Plan Four: The Sabres will make certain that Dudacek receives a black market copy of a film entitled &ldquo;Great Happenings in Buffalo History.&rdquo;The highlights of it are the big snowstorm a few winters back and O.J. Simpson leaving town.<h2>Ramsay To The Rescue</h2>PLAN FIVE: Bowman will accept the position as head coach of Team Canada in this year&rsquo;s Canada Cup tournament&mdash;on one condition. He must be allowed to name the Sabres&rsquo; Craig Ramsay to the team.Ramsay will take a crash course in the Czechoslovakian language and then be assigned to shadow Dudacek in the tournament.Ramsay will do such a thorough selling job on the joys of playing in Buffalo that Dudacek simply will refuse to return home with the Czech team.Plan Six: To be used only as a last resort. The Sabres will grease a few palms in Czechoslovakia with a few bucks from the Knox Bowman has noted on that plan that the Sabres would hate to do anything so crass just to land a hockey player. &#9632;

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Columnists

HOCKEY VIEWPOINT

The Canada Cup!In the August issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS, you&rsquo;ll find everything you wanted to know about the Canada Cup, which starts on September 1 and will involve round robin competition between Team Canada and teams from the USA, Finland, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and, of course, the Soviet Union.We&rsquo;ll have a complete rundown on all of the participants, with features on the key players, as well as rosters, statistics, interviews with coaches, analysis of styles and much, much more!If you&rsquo;re interested in the Canada Cup and plan on following it this fall, don&rsquo;t miss this issue! &#9632;

Coming Next Month

<div class="byline">BY BOB KEISSER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-012012/8617189-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Charlie and Terri met last October were engaged in December and planned on being married in July But they eloped to Las Vegas in April and were wed in a place called the We&rsquo;ve Only Just Begun Wedding Chapel. The wedding plans had just gotten a little out of hand, said Charlie, so we took the easy way out. (Photo by Viktor Spigulis)</figcaption></div>This is a Love Story about a hockey player and a beautiful girl. It could star Ryan O&rsquo;Neal and Ali MacGraw, but it doesn&rsquo;t. This one is real.Hollywood is well-known for famous couples. Burton and Taylor. Burt and Sally. The Dereks, Bo and John. Belushi and Aykroyd. Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. The Rams and Vince Ferraga&hellip;oops. Few of these pairings, though, are as popular at the moment as the duo of Charlie Simmer and Terri Welles.Simmer, as everyone who reads this publication knows, is the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; star left winger, an NHL record-holder, member of hockey&rsquo;s highest scoring trio, and owner of a mending broken leg. And if you&rsquo;ve been watching, you might have noticed that Simmer recently married Miss Welles.She, of course, has blessed pages much slicker and prettier than these. The December Playboy centerfold, Terri was named 1980 Playmate of the Year. Her dream of a career as an actress and model is fast becoming a reality.The two met in October of last year. They were scheduled to be married in July, but for a number of reasons, they eloped in April. Ah, love.It isn&rsquo;t often that THE HOCKEY NEWS lets something so sentimental push hard puck news off page three. But this is the summer, you know. And stories like this only come along once every few decades.To begin, an assist must be credited to former King winger Glenn Goldup and his Playboy playmate girlfriend (April &rsquo;81), Lorraine Michaels. Charlie and Glenn were roommates. Lorraine and Terri were best friends. Chaz and Terri knew who each other were, but they didn&rsquo;t meet until the night of a Doobie Brothers concert at the Los Angeles Forum in late October. Casual hellos took place.Two weeks later, Terri attended the Kings&rsquo; encounter with St. Louis along with Lorraine. After the game, Charlie asked Terri out for coffee. &ldquo;I thought he was cute and kind of shy,&rdquo; recalls Terri, 24. &ldquo;I knew he cared about me because we talked about my taxes.&rdquo; Said Charlie: &ldquo;I drove home that night knowing I liked her and wondering how I&rsquo;d take her out again.&rdquo;That proved to be no problem. But the chapters of this love story did prove to be as bumpy as anyone&rsquo;s. Take the morning when Terri, wearing no makeup, bumped into an unshaven Simmer.&ldquo;I was on my way for a shooting with Lorraine, and you don&rsquo;t wear makeup to a shooting. I looked just awful,&rdquo; she laughs. &ldquo;Charlie drove up with Lorraine and I just went into a panic. I jumped into my car, threw my hair over my face and drove off. I never did stop to think how grungy he looked.&rdquo;&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t shave on one-day road trips,&rdquo; shrugged Charlie.Or, take the night Charlie asked Terri to accompany him to a game. Nice, except Charlie had forgotten that he already had a date for that night. &ldquo;I made a quick phone call,&rdquo; smiles Charlie.And. there was the night of November 21, Terri&rsquo;s birthday and the day Charlie had to leave on a short road trip. &ldquo;We had some nice champagne and wine the night before,&rdquo; says Terri. &ldquo;The next day, I got flowers from friends all day long, but none from Charlie.&ldquo;My friends had a party planned for me that night. By the time I got there, I was mad. No flowers, no phone call, nothing. But as soon as I walked in, there were two dozen long stemmed roses from Charlie. It was the sweetest thing.&rdquo;&ldquo;I think I saved myself that night,&rdquo; smiles Charlie.The relationship was soldered that night, even though Chaz was some 3,000 miles away in Toronto. The next big step came on Dec. 27, again while the Kings were entertaining St. Louis, when Charlie asked for her hand in marriage. She said yes.<blockquote class="pullQuote">At the press conference that was called to announce Charlie&rsquo;s signing of a new contract with the Kings, somebody asked him where Terri was. &ldquo;Probably taking her clothes off somewhere,&rdquo; he replied.</blockquote>&ldquo;We sort of mellowed into each other,&rdquo; says Terri. &ldquo;Our relationship had a calming effect on our lives, which is another reason why I know this isn&rsquo;t just an infatuation. I didn&rsquo;t respond with &lsquo;Oh, wow&rsquo; when I first met Charlie, or had my heart flutter away. There&rsquo;s been plenty of flash since, but it&rsquo;s the way this developed that makes me sure as I can be that this is love.&rdquo;Terri winced. &ldquo;Real boring, huh?&rdquo;&ldquo;We spend a lot of time with ourselves,&rdquo; says Charlie. &ldquo;We like being alone and we feel comfortable with each other. But we also laugh a lot, at and with each other.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s for sure. These two needle each other unmercifully sometimes, Terri denigrating Charlie&rsquo;s hockey skills and Charlie making bad jokes about Terri&rsquo;s body.&ldquo;The first time I ever saw him play was against the Islanders on television. He scored four goals,&rdquo; says Terri. &ldquo;I thought that was normal, so I don&rsquo;t get too excited when he scores two in a game.&rdquo;At his press conference to announce a new contract, Charlie was asked where his wife was. &ldquo;Probably taking her clothes off somewhere,&rdquo; he grinned.Perhaps the best example of the solid relationship between these two came in the wake of Charlie&rsquo;s injury late in period three of a March 2 game in Toronto. As Simmer tried to turn, his right skate tip dug into the Maple Leaf Gardens ice. Charlie suffered a clean break of the large fibula and a fracture of the smaller tibia.Terri was on a plane to Toronto before the night was over and stood vigil with him through the early traumatic days in the hospital. &ldquo;Having her there with me at that point was a big boost to my morale,&rdquo; says Charlie.Simmer&rsquo;s progress since his bad break has been tremendous. He was already doing rehabilitative exercises two weeks after the injury, and doctors promised him he&rsquo;d be able to step down the aisle for his July wedding date. He expects to report to camp on time come September.He beat the walking deadline by about two months, stepping into his May press conference when he signed an extension to his contract in a walking cast. Of course, he&rsquo;d already jumped his wedding date, too.&ldquo;We decided to elope for the obvious reasons,&rdquo; said Charlie. &ldquo;The wedding plans had just gotten a little out of hand with all the planning and all of the people we would have had to invite. So we just took the easy way out.&rdquo;Charlie and Terri grabbed a flight to Las Vegas and were wed in the &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve Only Just Begun Wedding Chapel.&rdquo; The proprietor, a Mrs. Tubbs, conducted the services. The chapel was just the kind of rest stop marriage hall you&rsquo;d expect. And the kindly Mrs. Tubbs had a build to match her name.&ldquo;It was great,&rdquo; says Charlie. &ldquo;When Mrs. Tubbs got to the part &lsquo;let anyone speak&hellip;&rsquo; Terri and I looked around. Except for me, Terri and Mrs. T and the paid witness, the chapel was empty.&rdquo;Charlie wore a huge smile while telling this story. But then the left winger always manages to find a smile even in the most difficult situations.Our first recollection of Charlie, for instance, was of the tall winger doing cross-ice sprints during Ron Stewart&rsquo;s first and last training camp as the Kings&rsquo; coach. Simmer was trailing the field and trailing it badly, yet he still wore a bemused smile.And the latest, of course, was his return from a Toronto hospital bed after breaking his leg. Even then, he found reason to make a joke and bare some teeth.&ldquo;I like to think everything has its own place and reason for happening,&rdquo; says Charlie. &ldquo;There have been things in my past that I regret, like spending so much time in the minors. And no one wants to break a leg.&ldquo;But when I balance my life and career out over the last few years, I have to admit I wouldn&rsquo;t change very much, especially when it comes to Terri.&rdquo;&ldquo;You often say to yourself &lsquo;things shouldn&rsquo;t be happening so quickly,&rsquo;&rdquo; says Terri. &ldquo;But when you find the right person, it happens like this. And you shouldn&rsquo;t shy away from it.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Charlie And Terri: Love Story, Hollywood Style

<div class="byline">BY HARVEY ROSEN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011965/8617220-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dale Hawerchuk, the No. 1 choice in the 1981 Entry Draft, holds the sweater of his new team, the Winnipeg Jets. (Photo By Ian MacAlpine)</figcaption></div>WINNIPEG&mdash;Last season, when the time came for the Winnipeg Jets to make their selection in the first round of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s Entry Draft, there was an element of suspense surrounding the proceedings, as onlookers wondered just who the Jets, picking second overall, would choose. After the Montreal Canadiens snatched Doug Wickenheiser as the first pick overall, the Jets picked the player they had coveted all along, David Babych, a highly rated defenseman from the Portland Winter Hawks. Although the Jets ultimately got the player they wanted, there was much apprehension on the Jets&rsquo; part since the Canadiens kept silent about whom they wanted until just before they picked Wickenheiser.This year&rsquo;s plot, however, had no Alfred Hitchcock-style ending. To the surprise of no one. Jets&rsquo; general manager John Ferguson opened the draft proceedings by announcing that his organization was choosing center Dale Hawerchuk of Cornwall of the QMJHL.Fergy conceded at a pre-draft news conference in Winnipeg in early June that there had been more than a few inquiries regarding the top pick in the draft.He wasn&rsquo;t, however, of a mind to trade a battleship for a half dozen rowboats. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been waiting for Dale for two years,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;When I saw him as a 16-year-old in Brandon, I was sold on him then.&rdquo;Jets&rsquo; scouts, especially Tom Savage, have been shadowing the 5-11, 170-pound center like a private investigator on the trail of an unfaithful spouse. Savage, the eastern &ldquo;bird dog&rdquo; has watched Hawerchuk play 45 games.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve watched him off ice too. He&rsquo;s genuine,&rdquo; Savage added.Will the Toronto native have much pressure on him during his freshman year? Well, that depends upon whether or not you rate the Oilers&rsquo; Wayne Gretzky, with whom Dale is being compared, as much of a talent.&ldquo;Dale&rsquo;s got the same mannerisms,&rdquo; said Ferguson. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got great puck sense; he knows how to put his wingers in.&rdquo;The latter trait is well documented by the fact that in addition to scoring a league-leading 81 goals this past season, Hawerchuk was the premiere playmaker with 102 assists to easily outdistance Trois-Rivieres&rsquo; Alain Lemieux for the league scoring championship.More important, Ferguson contended that the youngster can &ldquo;control a game.&rdquo; Then, without any trepidation in his voice, he added, &ldquo;Look for Dale Hawerchuk to be a superstar within two years.&rdquo;The 18-year-old lefthanded shooter, while not surprised at the turn of events, was much relieved to finally learn that his selection as top player had officially become a reality.&ldquo;It has finally happened,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been waiting a long time. I&rsquo;m glad I&rsquo;m coming to Winnipeg. It&rsquo;s been my dream. I can&rsquo;t wait.&rdquo;Hawerchuk, a first team All Star and MVP in the Memorial Cup, won&rsquo;t be making the trek to Winnipeg alone. The Jets were both surprised and elated to discover that when it was time to exercise their option for the first selection in round two of the lottery that Dale&rsquo;s teammate, 18-year-old Scott Arniel, a center-left winger, was still unclaimed.This had produced a dilemma for the organization since trading their 22nd pick overall for an established skater or goaltending had been considered very seriously.Winnipeg&rsquo;s scouting staff had Arniel, who scored 52 goals and 71 assists last year, ranked as a first rounder, as did several other entries.The long-standing philosophy to build on youth dictated that the 6-1, 170-pound Memorial Cup star not be bypassed.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll come to camp, but I doubt he&rsquo;ll make the big club this season,&rdquo; said Ferguson. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be content to wait. He&rsquo;s going to be a good one.&rdquo;The Kingston native is rated by many as an excellent skater and has improved rapidly in the past four months.If there is going to be a surprise ending to the Jets&rsquo; 81-82 campaign, the two players from Cornwall must play key roles, especially Hawerchuk.JETS JABBER: The Jets drafted two Canadian juniors, four players from the U.S. colleges, one each from Finland, Sweden, Czechoslo-vakia, and the U.S. High School ranks&hellip;The club was awarded a bonus pick after the 10 rounds were completed for reasons which have not been made public. &#9632;

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Hawerchuk’s Dream Finally Comes True

<div class="byline">BY FRED PIETILA</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021652/8617275-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg"></div>DENVER&mdash;Defense has been a way of life in Bert Marshall&rsquo;s National Hockey League career.So, it was no surprise that the 37-year-old former NHL defenseman emphasized that he intended to stress defense in his first head coaching job with the Colorado Rockies.The Rockies followed Marshall&rsquo;s queue by making Oshawa defenseman Joe Cirella their No. 1 choice in the June 10 Entry Draft and then came back and picked a West German defenseman, Ulrich Heimer, as the third-round selection.&ldquo;I think the potential for good things to happen is right here,&rdquo; Marshall told the Denver-area media in his official introduction as new Rockies&rsquo; coach. &ldquo;All we have to do is develop it.&ldquo;What we&rsquo;ll have is an extension of a Billy MacMillan team. I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;re gonna change that much. One thing I know, Bill laid some good, solid groundwork last year.&ldquo;My job will be pushing &rsquo;em, prodding &rsquo;em, patting &rsquo;em on the back and kicking &rsquo;em in the butt, making sure we keep moving in the right direction,&rdquo; Marshall said.The primary emphasis in his first NHL head coaching job will be on defense. &ldquo;If you can&rsquo;t keep the puck out of your net, you can&rsquo;t win. And if you can keep the puck out of your net, you can win lots,&rdquo; Marshall said.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no relationship between offense and defense other than the fact that there&rsquo;s a transition. An offensive player can be a very, very good defensive player, if he wants. The best offensive player can be the best defensive player. You can&rsquo;t teach offensive talent, but you can teach defensive talent. If you can&rsquo;t teach, you can&rsquo;t learn. If you can teach it, you can learn it.&rdquo;The Rockies were hopeful that Cirella, a 6-2&frac12;, 210-pounder would be able to step in and play right away. But, as usual, it was a hope with considerable caution.In the meantime, the Rockies&rsquo; bids to sign Czechoslovakian defenseman Jiri Bubla and Finnish defenseman Taplo Levo were stalled in mid-June, Bubla by the Vancouver&rsquo;s Canucks&rsquo; signing and Levo by a vacation in Spain. The Rockies, who drafted Bubla in a special draft for non-playoff teams, filed formal tampering char-ges with the NHL against Vancouver.The addition of one or both Europeans on the Rockies&rsquo; defense would go a long way toward strengthening what was regarded as their weakest position toward the end of last season.Meanwhile, while new general manager MacMillan was concerned about the matters of Bubla and Levo and about trying to re-sign right winger Lucien DeBlois, who became a free agent June 1, he was enthusiastic about the Entry Draft tn which the Rockies had one selection in each round&mdash;a rarity for them.The Rockies&rsquo; coup in switching first-round picks with Washington in order to get the Capitals&rsquo; second-round choice to fill a void was the key to the draft. At the same time, they still got the player in the first round&mdash;Cirella&mdash;they wanted. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve wanted him since February,&rdquo; MacMillan said of the defenseman rated highest among draft eligibles by Central Scouting. The Rockies also relinquished one of their two third-round choices to the Caps in the trade.The Rockies used their second round pick to select Victoria right winger Rich Chernomaz, who barely was eligible for the draft because of his Sept. 1 birthdate. Previously, the Rockies had traded their second-round pick to Toronto for Jack Valiquette.&ldquo;I think it was our best draft, in numbers anyway,&rdquo; MacMillan said. &ldquo;For once we had a pick in every round. I think we&rsquo;ve done well.Who knows?&rdquo; MacMillan reasoned. &ldquo;Time will tell. We&rsquo;re certainly happy. But I&rsquo;m sure every team is. They all think they had the best draft.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Rockies’ Marshall Intends To Emphasize Defense

<div class="byline">BY BOB KEISSER</div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;For the first time since he purchased the Los Angeles Kings, Jerry Buss has to wonder if he made a mistake.Bob Berry, who coached the Kings to more wins last season than any other edition of the club, quit in a huff on May 22, just a couple of weeks after agreeing to come back for another season.Let us review. In March of J980, Buss met with U.S. Olympic coach Herb Brooks, raising speculation that Berry&rsquo;s days with the Kings were numbered. Buss refuted the rumor, but the Kings went to camp for 1980-81 with Berry at a shaky helm. The prevailing theory was a slow start would be Berry&rsquo;s end.The Kings proceeded to go 10-1-1 in their first dozen, came home with 99 points, finished fourth in the overall standings, and had plenty of hope going into the playoffs. Still, even before the Kings swanned against the Rangers, there was speculation over Berry&rsquo;s future.Despite the season&rsquo;s glossy totals, Buss admittedly didn&rsquo;t know how much Berry meant to the team&rsquo;s good fortunes. &ldquo;My problem,&rdquo; said the Kings&rsquo; owner at the time, &ldquo;is that I don&rsquo;t know how much a coach really means in hockey.&rdquo;Two weeks after the playoffs, Berry, Buss and general manager George Maguire met to discuss the coaching position. Buss exercised one of the option years on Berry&rsquo;s existing contract. No raise, but Berry had a job, the one he wanted most, and he left the offices that day wearing a smile.&ldquo;But,&rdquo; says Berry now, &ldquo;the more I thought about it, the worse I felt. I asked myself &lsquo;what did I have to do to be considered a success?&rsquo; I took a lot of pride in the 99-point season. I understood I had to accept part of the blame for the playoff showing.&ldquo;Ultimately, though, I found myself in a worse situation than I had been in a year ago. The contract deal they handed me&mdash;it wasn&rsquo;t an offer, they drew up the deal and gave it to me to sign&mdash;wasn&rsquo;t much of a commitment. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt it just wasn&rsquo;t fair.&ldquo;It seemed he [Buss] was waiting for me to stumble and fall. My entire coaching career here was judged not on the basis of what I&rsquo;d done, the success, but on the failures. We had a good season, but the jury was still out on whether I was a good coach or not.&rdquo;Berry discussed his feelings with Buss during the Kings&rsquo; vacation in Hawaii. A few days after his return, feeling he had no alternative, he submitted his resignation. The Kings quickly accepted and named Parker MacDonald, a well-liked assistant to Berry last season, his successor.Buss took a very dim view of Berry&rsquo;s decision. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a little surprised, but I knew he was a little paranoid about the situation,&rdquo; said Buss. &ldquo;I was hoping he&rsquo;d take a little more time before coming to such a decision. I&rsquo;m not sure he thought things out very carefully.&ldquo;Commitment? That&rsquo;s where I&rsquo;m disappointed. I&rsquo;m lossing $10,000 a day playing hockey and I sure wouldn&rsquo;t put my faith in a coach I didn&rsquo;t think could improve the team&rsquo;s standing. I&rsquo;d call that a pretty high level of confidence.&rdquo;Berry says he quit without any employment lead. It didn&rsquo;t take long, though, for his name to be mentioned for jobs in Hartford, Edmonton and Montreal. The Canadiens search for a coach, which had featured about two dozen different names as possible successors to Claude Ruel, ended quickly.The Canadiens will find Berry a very hard-working fellow who believes in disciplined, basic hockey, a no-frills approach. It&rsquo;s doubtful any coach in the NHL worked any harder to become a good coach and make sure his team was prepared than Berry did last year.The only raps he&rsquo;s taken in L.A. centered on his occassional impatience, obvious through line shuffling, and a lack of rapport on a one-to-one basis with his players, a criticism that can be made of many NHL coaches past and present.&ldquo;If he thinks he had problems here, let him try to communicate in two languages up there,&rdquo; said one King player on the sly. &ldquo;If they leave Bob alone to do things his way, he&rsquo;ll be a big hit. He&rsquo;s basically a good coach. But when has anyone in Montreal&mdash;the media, the fans, even the players&mdash;ever left the coach alone?&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011973/8617306-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="602" height="730"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Kings quickly elevated assistant coach Parker MacDonald when Bob Berry quit his post.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Berry Leaves Kings’ Buss Wondering

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div>BUFFALO&mdash;That Scotty Bowman, he&rsquo;s full of surprises.First, just before the National Hockey League meetings in Montreal, Bowman shocked the Buffalo media by announcing that he will coach the Sabres again next season.This was a shock because practically every radio and TV sportscaster and at least one writer had Jim Roberts taking over as coach right up to the time of Scotty&rsquo;s announcement.Roberts had been figured as the leading candidate since Roger Neilson left the club, because of differences with general manager Bowman, after the Sabres were eliminated by the Minnesota North Stars in the Stanley Cup quarterfinals.Then, during the meetings, in the first round of the entry draft. Bowman astounded the assemblage by picking a Czechoslovakian player. In the first round, yet!The Czech Bowman selected is a fine prospect; in fact, the NHL Central Scout Bureau had Jiri Dudacek. 19-year-old right winger, rated first among all the juniors in the world.But how does Bowman expect to get Dudacek out of Czechoslovakia, even if the speedy skater wants to get out?That&rsquo;s the question that had the Montreal Forum buzzing that day of the draft.Bowman said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re hopeful and expect that he will be able to play for us in the future through normal channels. Dudacek was clear and away the best hockey player available. He&rsquo;s the best junior prospect to come along since Gil Perreault.&rdquo;The Sabres&rsquo; general manager would not elaborate on how he expects to get Dudacek to Buffalo. He explained that the youngster is so good that it was worth the gamble.&ldquo;We now have the negotiating rights to Dudacek,&rdquo; Bowman mentioned, &ldquo;and whenever he comes here, he belongs to us. Nobody else can get him.&rdquo;People at the draft meeting were saying that Dudacek will be 30 years old before Bowman gets him. But Bowman isn&rsquo;t the kind of person to make a maneuver without knowing all the angles.The Buffalo GM says he has good relations with the Czechoslovakia Ice Hockey Federation and noted that he got a Czech out of the country to play for him in St. Louis.Jaroslav Jirik played for the Blues in 1969-70, when Bowman was coach and general manager of that club.It will be interesting to see if the Czech ever does get to Buffalo. &lsquo;He wasn&rsquo;t the only European taken by the Sabres in the 1981 draft.Their second choice was Hannu Virta, a defenseman from Finland, and their sixth pick was Anders Wikberg, a left wing from Sweden.Then came another Finn, Mauri Eivola. a center. Vinci Sebeck, a defenseman from the Niagara Falls Flyers, a ninth-round pick, is a United States citizen but his parents are from Czechoslovakia.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like when baseball broke the color line,&rdquo; Bowman explained. &ldquo;The baseball clubs that realized how many good black and Latin ball players there were, and went after them, were the teams that did well on the field in those days.&ldquo;There are a lot of really good hockey players in Europe. They have proved it against North American teams that went over there. NHL clubs are just beginning to dig into a deep supply of talent.&rdquo;Bowman twice traveled to Europe on scouting trips during the 1980-81 seasons.His scouting trips will be curtailed in 1981-82 by his coaching duties. He named Roberts associate coach and said they will operate as Bowman and Neilson did in 1979-80. That season the Sabres finished second in the regular season and went to the Stanley Cup semifinals, where they lost to the New York Islanders, eventual champions.Bowman expects to name an assistant coach to the job Roberts had when he first joined the Sabres. It is not likely to be Ron Smith, however, although Smith has another year to run on his contract.Smith was brought in by Neilson and might follow Roger to Vancouver.Bowman said the Sabres will continue the three-man system of wireless communication from pressbox to bench during games. &#9632;

Buffalo Hopes To Cash In On Czech

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012185/8617361-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="300" height="350"></div><h2>Hockey&rsquo;s First Dynasty</h2>WITHIN SECONDS AFTER, the New York Islanders had won their second consecutive Stanley Cup, dozens of typewriters were pounding out the term &ldquo;dynasty&rdquo; with the same speed that the champions had filled enemy nets with pucks.Whether or not you agree that general manager Bill Torrey&rsquo;s Isles are dynastic, the fact remains that dynasty was the story after two straight Cups.Unfortunately, most of those scribes on the dynasty expedition were too young to have witnessed the majestic clubs to whom the Islanders are now being compared. They heard about them, yes; knew about them, no.Sad to say, the Louie-Come-Latelys on the hockey beat talked about the Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings but completely overlooked the original genuine NHL dynasty&mdash;the one the Islanders most closely resemble in terms of personnel.That would be the Toronto Maple Leafs of 1947, 1948, 1949, the first club ever to win three consecutive Stanley Cups and a team that has been unfairly slighted by critics.How good were those Maple Leafs? Only one of the best hockey teams of all time. With a break here or there they could have won five straight cups. As it is they won four out of five, winning their fourth in 1951. (The Red Wings beat the Leafs in the 1950 semis, taking the last two games of the seven-game series in sudden death.)Like the Isles of 1980, the Leafs weren&rsquo;t supposed to win The Cup the first time (1947) around. For one thing, they were believed to be too young. They had a &ldquo;Kid Line&rdquo; of Ted Kennedy at center with Howie Meeker and Vic Lynn and a couple of youngsters on defense named Gus Mort-son and Jim Thomson, who were dubbed &ldquo;The Gold Dust Twins.&rdquo; In mid-season they unearthed &ldquo;Bashin&rsquo;&rdquo; Bill Barilko, a rambunctious defenseman from the Hollywood (California) Wolves, of all teams.The 1981 Isles had a veteran center (Butch Goring) and a seasoned goaltender (Bill Smith) to provide perfect counterpoint for the kids, and so did the 1947 Leafs. Their number one pivot was Syl Apps, like Goring in his early 30s, and the goalie was Walter (Turk) Broda.They say Billy Smith lacks style but comes through with the big ones. Likewise, 35 years ago an equally style-less Broda was Mister Clutch. Apps was best described by a caption in the old New York World-Telegram as &ldquo;Hockey&rsquo;s Greatest Star.&rdquo;What a blend, GM Conn (The Little Major) Smythe had concocted. &ldquo;I should have figured it out years ago,&rdquo; Smythe said. &ldquo;Youth is the answer in this game. Only the kids have the drive, the fire, and the ambition. Put the kids in with a few old guys who still like to win, and the combination is unbeatable.&rdquo; (Smythe&rsquo;s words hold equal value today.)The Leafs wiped out the Red Wings in a five-game semifinal (after shrugging off a 9-1 whipping) and then completed the saga with a six-game upset of the first-place Canadiens for their first Cup.Like Torrey, Smythe believed in strength down the middle. Early the following season The Major traded his formidable &ldquo;Flying Forts Line&rdquo; of Gus Bodnar, Bud Poile and Gaye Stewart, as well as defensemen Bob Goldham and Ernie Dickens, for center Max Bentley who was, pound for pound, the most artistic player I have seen in 42 years of hockey-watching.Max, the Dipsy-Doodle Dandy from Delisle, Sask., orchestrated the NHL&rsquo;s first potent power play from the right point. He would take a pass from Apps and then sprint like a scared jackrabbit, bobbing and weaving past the outfeinted enemy, until he put the world&rsquo;s greatest wrist shot on the net.With Bentley on a third line with Joe (Duke of Paducah) Klukay and Ray Timgren, the Leafs boasted a balance of power displayed only by the Red Wings and Canadiens in later years. &ldquo;Our club was the best,&rdquo; said Max. &ldquo;We finished first and beat a real good Detroit club in the 1948 finals in four straight. Our goaltender, Turk Broda, was the best and I say that from experience because I shot at him for years.&rdquo;Still another similarity between the Leafs and Islanders existed on the bench. If Al Arbour is a fixture on Long Island, so was Clarence (Hap) Day, who had won his first Cup as a coach in 1942, a landmark in Toronto. A former defenseman like Arbour, Day believed in tough practices. One afternoon Bruins&rsquo; defenseman Pat Egan watched the Leafs complete the last minutes of a rugged scrimmage. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why they win everything,&rdquo; said Egan. &ldquo;Day could tell those kids to go into the wall head first and they&rsquo;d do it.&rdquo;Winning the Cup was more difficult for Toronto the third time around. Both Apps and another sweetheart of an oldtimer, Nick Metz, had retired and the middle needed support. Smythe swung a deal with New York and obtained Rangers&rsquo; center Cal Gardner as Apps&rsquo; replacement.Filling Apps&rsquo; skates was tantamount to replacing a Lou Gehrig or a Stan Musial. You don&rsquo;t. Toronto finished fourth and was given little hope of even reaching the finals. Yet, they routed Boston in five games, setting up a rematch with Detroit in the finals. The Wings finished first, 18 fat points ahead of the Leafs. So, what happened? Toronto clobbered Detroit in four straight for the third straight Cup. The dynasty was complete.<h2>The Fat Belly Syndrome</h2>WHERE THE ISLANDERS go from here in their quest for number three is a moot point. Relatively speaking, Torrey is now in better shape, personnel-wise, than Smythe was in 1949. But he has to confront a dilemma that threatens all champions, fat bellies. In Toronto, the fat belly was on Broda, whose waist grew and grew until Smythe sounded the alarm, otherwise known as &ldquo;The Battle of The Bulge.&rdquo;Broda, who had bloated to 197 pounds from 185 two seasons earlier, was given four days to trim down to 190. Smythe set the final weigh-in for a Saturday afternoon in November, 1949, just before an evening match with the Rangers. Smythe threatened a $500 fine if Turk didn&rsquo;t make it.The hockey world held its collective breath as Broda stepped on the scales that Saturday afternoon. The numbers finally settled&mdash;just under 190 pounds. That night Broda shut out the Rangers, 2-0.In winning the fourth and final Stanley Cup of the dynasty, in 1951, Smythe alternated Broda with young Al Rollins, one of the NHL&rsquo;s most underrated goaltenders. Rollins was in the nets for the fifth game of the Montreal-Toronto final with the Leafs leading the series three games to one.Max Bentley organized Toronto&rsquo;s tying goal in the last minute of regulation time, setting up the sudden-death finale. The Cup-winner by the effervescent Barilko was the most ironic score in NHL annals.Leafs&rsquo; coach Joe Primeau, who had replaced Hap Day, had reprimanded his defenseman for incautious maneuvering in the enemy zone. &ldquo;He&rsquo;d stay in the opposition end too long,&rdquo; said Primeau, &ldquo;and consequently get caught up-ice when Montreal captured the puck. I said, &lsquo;Bill, if you get caught up there once more, I&rsquo;m going to fine you $100, and $100 for every time after that.&rdquo;Barilko was on the ice in the early minutes of sudden death as his teammates hemmed the Canadiens into Montreal&rsquo;s zone. &ldquo;Bill,&rdquo; said Primeau, &ldquo;remembered what I had warned him and was still hanging back outside their blueline.&rdquo;Canadiens&rsquo; goalie Gerry McNeil stopped shots by Howie Meeker and Harry Watson when the puck rebounded out to the left point where Barilko was supposed to be&mdash;but wasn&rsquo;t. He had laid back on the other side, protecting himself against a $100 fine.&ldquo;When the puck came out,&rdquo; said Primeau, &ldquo;Barilko made this tremendous drive, getting himself inside the blueline and swinging at the puck simultaneously. A split-second after he whacked the rubber, Barilko hung in the air&mdash;looking very much like Superman&mdash;as the puck sailed over McNeil&rsquo;s shoulder and into the net.&rdquo;Primeau leaped over the boards and dashed over to his now fallen hero. &ldquo;Bill looked up at me,&rdquo; Primeau recalled, &ldquo;and remembered that I had been harping at him about playing back. &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;you didn&rsquo;t want the hook on me that time, did you?&rsquo;&rdquo;Barilko was the reigning king of hockey that summer of 1951. One day in August the defenseman was invited on an airplane trip over the northern Ontario lake and forest country with Dr. Henry Hudson, a pilot friend. It was the last time anyone ever heard from Bill Barilko. The plane crashed, claiming the lives of Dr. Hudson and the Leafs&rsquo; defenseman.&ldquo;The loss of Barilko,&rdquo; said Rangers&rsquo; manager Frank Boucher at the time, &ldquo;will be felt a great deal more than anyone realizes.&rdquo;That it was. Without Bashin&rsquo; Bill, the Leafs were a team without heart and so ended the NHL&rsquo;s first legitimate dynasty&mdash;four Stanley, Cups in five years. Now the Isles have a chance to become dynastic in capital letters.With the likes of Bossy, Potvin, Smith, Trottier and Goring, such a possibility exists&mdash;as the Toronto Maple Leafs proved three decades ago. &#9632;

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ON THE CONTRARY

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div>VANCOUVER&mdash;Put aside for the moment whatever convictions you have as to who was right and who was wrong in the great Czech caper pulled off at the National Hockey League meetings.Whether you agree that Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; general manager Jake Milford was a thief in the night or a man who struck while the iron was hot, consider his public image.For once in Vancouver, the Canucks&rsquo; management was perceived by media and fans alike as aggressive, hard working, industrious and as a group ready to challenge all the eastern biggies and go for the gusto. For once they were not on the receiving end of all the guff. Their players weren&rsquo;t being tampered with and the management was making strides to improve the club. This was the case and with-out exception, every media outlet praised the Canucks for their moxy when they signed Ivan Hlinka and Jiri Bubla after it became apparent the Czechoslovakian Hockey Federation had not agreed to National Hockey League president John Ziegler&rsquo;s terms this year.Milford was no longer pictured as the bumbling buffoon who was too old to handle things. Instead, he was the man who had pulled the fast one for a change, whether or not he gets away with it. And after the club had announced a price increase of season tickets, it couldn&rsquo;t have come at a better time for the whole operation.Whatever happens, the Canucks had virtually nothing to lose. It may cost them a few dollars to take the NHL ruling to court, but they probably won&rsquo;t lose any key hockey players. And if the league sticks to it&rsquo;s guns and rules the Canucks cannot register the contracts of the two 31-year-old Czechoslovaks, then everybody will lose, for the Winnipeg Jets and Colorado Rockies didn&rsquo;t have a chance to sign either one separately as it was. The league will simply be missing out on the opportunity of watching two pretty fair hockey players.&ldquo;We have signed our contracts and we are sticking with the Canucks,&rdquo; said Hlinka through Czechoslovak interpretor-journalist Peter Adler. &ldquo;Mr. Ziegler knew right from the beginning that we would only come in pairs. It isn&rsquo;t because we want to be together all the time. I can make myself understood in English and I&rsquo;m sure I could learn more. We like to be on the ice at the same time because we work well together.&rdquo;Judging from the way the Stastny brothers play for Les Nordiques, they mav have a point.&ldquo;We were told by the national Federation that there would be no agreement with the NHL and that we were free to make arrangements as free agents anywhere we wanted to go abroad,&rdquo; said Hlinka. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how they can have a draft when nobody even knew about it and nobody agreed to come.&rdquo;The truth appears to be that Ziegler presumed there was an agreement and he went ahead with the draft without any documentation. And as many people know, there is only an agreement if the two parties are willing to come to the same terms.The Canucks have made the contracts subject to registration by the league so if they lose any arbitration or compensation ruling, they will not get hooked for any money to the players or to the Federation.Almost obliterated in the international fiasco was Vancouver&rsquo;s same day confirmation that Roger Neilson was indeed becoming the associate coach of the Canucks under Harry Neale. The three-year contract states Neilson will become head coach next season and for the season after that.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always been impressed with the organization and with Frank Griffiths, Jake and Harry,&rdquo; said Neilson both before and after the signing. &ldquo;Vancouver has a young hard working team and although I wanted a head coaching job right away I&rsquo;ll be happy in Vancouver.&rdquo;Neilson, 47, moves over after rather shaky relations with management in Toronto and Buffalo and he&rsquo;s hoping there will be stability in Vancouver. But that will be part his doing because this town wants a winner so bad, it applauds somebody taking on the whole NHL to get one. &#9632;

Canucks Become Aggressors In Czech Signings

<div class="byline">BY STEVE WINTER</div>LANDOVER&mdash;While all eyes were focused on Winnipeg&rsquo;s inevitable selection of Dale Hawerchuk as the National Hockey League&rsquo;s No. 1 draft choice, the Capitals were pulling off the season&rsquo;s biggest coup as they swapped selections with the Colorado Rockies to land Bob Carpenter, the highly-sought American star from St. John&rsquo;s Prep in Danvers, Mass., who was all but signed, sealed and delivered to the Hartford Whalers.Understandably, that sudden and alarming 11th hour move by Max McNab and Co. did little to create harmonic relations between the Washington and Hartford heirarchies, but little did the Capitals also realize at the time that they had created a potentially uncomfortable situation for their 17-year-old future superstar and his family.&ldquo;I have nothing to say to anyone from Washington,&rdquo; huffed Bob Carpenter, Sr., upon first learning of the Capitals&rsquo; deal with the Rockies and their subsequent selection of his son as the third player chosen, overall. He stormed out of the NHL draft headquarters at the Montreal Forum, barely acknowledging McNab as he passed by.Time, however, healed those wounds, and the senior Carpenter changed his tone a few hours later. &ldquo;At first it was a pride thing, what with Hartford being so close to home,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But when we thought about it for awhile, we realized it was a good thing for Bob to have been drafted so high.&rdquo;Bob, Jr., was apparently just as surprised as his father, having been cooed and wooed by Hartford scouts and management for months prior to the draft.&ldquo;I was shocked to find out Washington had picked me,&rdquo; Carpenter told Robert Fachet of the Washington Post. &ldquo;I had no idea until [the morning of the draft my father called from Montreal. All the papers [in the Boston area] said Hartford would pick me, but it didn&rsquo;t matter where I went.&ldquo;I just want to play in the best place for me, where I&rsquo;ll do my best.&rdquo;Yet exactly where that place will be is still&mdash;as of this writing&mdash;undecided. Prior to the draft, Carpenter signed a letter of intent to play for Providence College in Rhode Island, a choice which is still a possibility for the young Carpenter.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a very good chance he&rsquo;ll wind up at Providence,&rdquo; said Bobby Orr, Carpenter&rsquo;s friend and confidant who&rsquo;s trying to guide the youngster through the initial media onslaught which accompanies such a high selection. &ldquo;Providence has a good program, and Bob&rsquo;s only 17 years old, 18 in July. He&rsquo;s got lots of time. The NHL is a tough league, and he&rsquo;s a young man who&rsquo;s never been away from home.&rdquo;Orr, of course, was the idol of young Carpenter, as he was for practically every youngster growing in urban or suburban Beantown. But Carpenter admits he doesn&rsquo;t remember seeing Orr play, being that &ldquo;I was only five or six at the time.&rdquo; Still, legend lives on, and perhaps this one worked in reverse as Orr learned about Carpenter from former teammates John McKenzie and Gerry Cheevers. &ldquo;Now, I&rsquo;m a friend of the family,&rdquo; Orr admits.Orr, apparently, is genuinely impressed with Carpenter&rsquo;s abilities, but he readily admits that a year or two of seasoning might work more to his advantage than a direct jump from high school to the NHL. The one major plus that the Capitals have in Carpenter is that unlike amateur junior players drafted, should Carpenter sign on with the Caps, the team can assign him to their Hershey farm club. In the case of a junior draftee, the player chosen must either play with the parent NHL team, or else he&rsquo;s returned to the junior ranks for another season. And should that player not be signed to a contract at the end of that second year, then he becomes eligible once again for the following year&rsquo;s draft. Carpenter&mdash;on the other hand&mdash;is pure Capitals&rsquo; property.It wasn&rsquo;t an easy road to obtain him though.&ldquo;This was not a spur of the moment thing,&rdquo; McNab said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve followed this boy for two years and we rated him the No. 1 prospect. In that case, you do everything you can to get him. We&rsquo;re so excited and happy, but it&rsquo;s unfortunate for Hartford not to get him.&rdquo;What the Capitals did to get Carpenter was trade their first- and second-round selections to the Rockies for Colorado&rsquo;s first- and third-round choices. This left the Capitals out of the picture in the second round and with only one choice in the third as they lost their original third round choice as part of a previous deal for Wayne Stephenson.With that third round selection, the Capitals picked 17-year-old defenseman Eric Calder from the Memorial Cup champions, the Cornwall Royals of the QMJHL.A teammate of Dale Hawerchuk, Calder has two years of junior eligibility remaining, at least one of which will probably be spent with the Royals.On subsequent rounds, the Capitals selected 17-year-old defenseman Tony Kellin of Grand Rapids, Minn., Mike Siltala, an 18-year-old right wing from the Kingston Canadians of the OHL; 18-year-old goaltender Peter Sidor-kiewicz from the OHL Oshawa Generals; 18-year-old center Jim McGeough of the Billings Bighorns (WHL); Risto Jalo, an 18-year-old left wing from Finland; Gaetan Duchesne, an 18-year-old left wing from the Quebec Remparts (QMJHL); 20-year-old George White, a left wing from the University of New Hampshire and Chris Valentine, a 20-year-old center from the Sorel Eperviers of the QMJHL.&ldquo;Overall, we&rsquo;re extremely pleased with our selections, this year,&rdquo; McNab said, &ldquo;and that goes from Carpenter on down.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011984/8617416-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="602" height="822"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Washington Capitals were pleased with their 1981 draft, which included Kingston&rsquo;s Mike Siltala.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0007-01

Nailing Carpenter Capitals’ Shocker

EVER SINCE JOHN ZIEGLER took Clarence Campbell&rsquo;s place as president of the National Hockey League prior to the 1977-78 season, he has been striving to earn the universal respect from the hockey world that Campbell enjoyed during his 31-year reign.After several false starts and a couple of frustrating years, Ziegler finally seemed to gain the strength, support and respect he had been seeking when he masterfully cajoled the NHL&rsquo;s 21 team owners into agreeing on a cost-saving realignment plan for the 1981-82 season. Even the most ardent Ziegler-baiters&mdash;Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; owner Harold Ballard being the most vocal&mdash;expressed a begrudging admiration for Ziegler&rsquo;s impressive work.Now, less than six months after his greatest triumph, John Ziegler&rsquo;s credibility is on the line once again&mdash;this time as the result of an agreement he made with the Czech Hockey Federation during last April&rsquo;s World Championships in Sweden.What it all boils down to is this: The Czechs, wanting to prevent quality players like the Stastny brothers from defecting to the NHL, suggested to Ziegler that a plan be devised which would allow some of their players to be made available to NHL teams. Any Czech player who moved to the NHL in any manner other than the one agreed upon would be unable to play in the NHL for 18 months.Ziegler worked out an agreement with the Czechs during the World Championships and signed it. The Czechs took it home with them and promptly made four veterans of their national team available to the NHL&mdash;forwards Ivan Hlinka, Vladimir Martinec and Bohuslav Eberman and defenseman Jiri Bubla.The NHL Board of Governors, according to Ziegler, then decided that the four Czechs should be dispersed in a special draft based on the reverse order of the NHL&rsquo;s final standings last season. Accordingly, Winnipeg took Hlinka, Detroit drafted Eberman, Colorado claimed Bubla and Hartford took Martinec.Then at the NHL&rsquo;s June Congress, the Vancouver Canucks dropped a bombshell when they announced they had signed Hlinka and Bubla&mdash;with the blessing of the Czech Hockey Federation who, according to Vancouver, said there was no agreement with the NHL.Both Colorado and Winnipeg filed tampering charges against Vancouver and it was left up to Ziegler to make a ruling on the matter.Vancouver is claiming that the draft of the four players was contingent on the NHL having an agreement with the Czechs. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;ve never seen that agreement,&rdquo; says Vancouver GM Jake Milford, &ldquo;and our legal advice is that the players belong to us.&rdquo;Ziegler, of course, disagrees. &ldquo;The NHL position,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;is that the Czech players were drafted by Winnipeg and Colorado in a special draft which was approved by the Board of Governors&hellip;It&rsquo;s not contingent on any agreement with the Czechs.&rdquo;What all of this adds up to is a huge international mess that Ziegler must unravel to the satisfaction of all parties involved&mdash;quickly and, most importantly, out of court. If he can accomplish this task internally, his already strong position will become even stronger. But if the whole fiasco ends up in court, Ziegler&rsquo;s presidency could sustain irreperable damage.Not only that, but the whole draft system could be jeopardized. Player agent Alan Eagleson recently stated that the validity of the NHL&rsquo;s annual Entry Draft could be challenged in court if the Canucks are permitted to retain Hlinka and Bubla without compensation. Eagleson said that he was prepared to &ldquo;bust the whole mess wide open&rdquo; by offering three of his underage clients to the highest bidder. &ldquo;If the case goes to court,&rdquo; Eagleson says, &ldquo;Vancouver will be doing all the work for us. And I think it is a case we can win.&rdquo;All of which means that the next few months are going to be very long, very hot and very important for John Ziegler. &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUE

Ziegler’s Hot Summer

With the Canada Cup scheduled to start on September 1, less than two months from now, there has been some concern on the part of many people involved with the event that preparations have been too hasty and that not enough time was allowed to enable the press, potential licensees, advertisers and spectators to take advantage of it.In a recent interview with THE HOCKEY NEWS, Alan Eagleson, the organizer of the tournament, discussed these and other topics.ON MEDIA COVERAGE: I have no worries. I am a full believer in one major aspect of the media: They are not fools. They will report significant events and they will give them the support that the event deserves&mdash;not what Eagleson suggests. The reason that I find it fairly easy to have a press conference on 24 hours notice and get 100, 200 or 300 people there is that I make certain that it&rsquo;s a newsworthy event. And if I see that the event itself is a little sluggish, I&rsquo;ll make certain that I give the press their money&rsquo;s worth by talking on two or three other issues. I don&rsquo;t restrict any press conference to the event of that day or the reasons for which it was called alone.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-012076/8617471-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="392" height="452"></div>ON ADVERTISERS: The only concern I have at the moment is the sale of television spots. I would not have finalized the details on the Canada Cup unless Labatts had committed as they did to a $600,000 or $700,000 expenditure. Once they indicated that they were looking at that amount for television purposes and support for press conferences and so on, I knew that the rest would fall into place. But I didn&rsquo;t want to start at a base of zero. We have commitments from a lot of companies and we know traditionally that if we have 50 percent of them sold by July 15, we&rsquo;ll have 100 percent sold by September 1. And I would say that by July 15 we&rsquo;ll have 60 percent sold. That&rsquo;s the bedrock of the financial strength of the tournament. I want to make sure that we make a million or two million on our television. If we do that, I&rsquo;m satisfied that the gate receipts can cover the rest of our expenses.ON LACK OF COVERAGE NOW: The first news we had on the Canada Cup in 1976 was on May 15, when we announced that Carling O&rsquo;Keefe was a sponsor. There wasn&rsquo;t a drop of news about the Canada Cup after that until July 8, when we chose the team. And I&rsquo;m satisfied that on July 8, when we get Trottier, Potvin and all the other top players assembled in Montreal for the press conference we will be all over the papers. And when training camp starts in August, I will be very disappointed if from the moment it starts we are not on the front page of every sports section at least every other day and on the front page of the paper once a week. I expect to see cover stories on Wayne Gretzky and Marcel Dionne and so forth on coast to coast newspapers.Those players and the proximity of the event will make that happen. I can tell you that there is a great deal of interest in the Canada Cup. We recently had a press conference on 24-hour notice in Montreal and drew 100 people in the media. And the others who came were people who are important, people who want to do things for the players&mdash;give them watches, TV sets&hellip;not conditional on winning, just to let the players know that they are behind them.ON INTEREST OF PLAYERS IN EVENT: I recently saw Bryan Trottier at the Players Association meetings in Las Vegas and he&rsquo;s still nursing a sore shoulder from last season. But he came up to me and said, &ldquo;Al, I just want to tell you this: I want to be named to that team. I&rsquo;ll work on my shoulder all summer and I&rsquo;ll be ready to play.&rdquo;I would doubt that we will have one turndown or one degree of negativism expressed by any player who will be chosen. I know the players as individuals and in the 1976 Canada Cup no one turned his back on us and I don&rsquo;t expect it to happen in &rsquo;81. It&rsquo;s natural, as soon as you finish a tough season, not to be that enthusiastic. But Trottier said it for everybody when someone suggested that he&rsquo;d probably be too tired for the Canada Cup. &ldquo;Hey, just a minute,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be ready. Nobody will turn down the Canada Cup.&rdquo;He&rsquo;s the vice president of the Players Association and when he says that, it makes me feel very comfortable.ON THE OVERALL MARKETING PLAN: We don&rsquo;t have one for each one of the host cities. We&rsquo;ll leave that to the local municipal and provincial governments. The games themselves will be our strongest selling point, what with the United States beating the Russians at the Olympics, the Czechs having tied the Soviets at the World Championships, the Swedes and Finns knocking each other off gradually&hellip;we&rsquo;re entering this tournament with five teams that are strong enough to win and a sixth, Finland, that&rsquo;s strong enough to pull off a couple of upsets. If you were handicapping them, you&rsquo;d have to say that the Soviets and Canada are going in at 2-1, the Czechs and Swedes 3-1, the USA at 5-1 and the Finns at 10-1.The momentum for an event of this nature is self-generating. And if it isn&rsquo;t, it&rsquo;s a non-event. I don&rsquo;t believe in pumping up a balloon. Either it&rsquo;s going to float on its own or it&rsquo;s not. The public will determine whether it&rsquo;s an event or not. And I&rsquo;m satisfied on the basis of the response to our TV sales, to our preliminary work and to the fees that we&rsquo;ve been able to get in such areas as licensing that this is going to be a quality product and that people are going to watch. I&rsquo;ll tell you one thing: When Canada plays Russia on the 9th of September, it&rsquo;ll be the largest TV crowd in history. That&rsquo;s my bet. It has been every other time. Why would it be different? Everybody says it&rsquo;s too early in the tournament. Well, just a minute, we did it that early in &rsquo;72 and &rsquo;76. If the dates are so bad, how come it&rsquo;s always been a success?Wait until it&rsquo;s over. If it flops, I can take the blame. I&rsquo;ll know it&rsquo;s in trouble if we have only 2,000 seats sold for the first game. But I don&rsquo;t even have to take a big risk in that area because of the 18-game package. I have 10 that are going to be sellouts. The other eight? If they weren&rsquo;t in a package, they&rsquo;d probably only draw about 30 percent of capacity. But since they&rsquo;re in a package, if you want to see Canada play Russia, you also have to see Finland play the USA. If you don&rsquo;t like it, fine, don&rsquo;t buy the ticket.I think these games are automatic to sell out: The final, the two semi-finals, the five Canada games, Russia-Czechoslovakia and Russia-Sweden. And the Russia-USA game is probably the next hottest item and may turn out to be the biggest game of the tournament, depending on what&rsquo;s happening by that time, because everybody wants to see if the USA can bump off the Russians again. That&rsquo;s why I built the whole schedule around that one game&mdash;Saturday, September 5, Russia-USA&mdash;to try and create some interest in the States. The TV people there said the only date they could get it on national TV was that one. So I said fine, we&rsquo;ll play it then and we&rsquo;ll fit the whole schedule to suit it. Now, we just have to wait and see if it works. All I&rsquo;ve done is given an opportunity to the networks in the States to determine if there&rsquo;s enough public demand for the game. If there isn&rsquo;t, they won&rsquo;t televise it. &#9632;

f0008-01

SOME OTHER VIEWS

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-012047/8617533-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Irving Grundman, left, the Canadiens&rsquo; managing director, had about 10 serious candidates in mind for the Habs&rsquo; coaching job before he chose the Montreal-born Bob Berry. (Photo by Ian McAlpine)</figcaption></div>MONTREAL&mdash;The winner of the Canadiens&rsquo; coaching sweepstakes is&hellip;Bob Berry.In a logical move, Canadiens&rsquo; managing director Irving Grundman made Berry his choice just under two weeks after the former Sir George Williams University star had left a similar job with the Los Angeles Kings.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it will be any more difficult coaching here than it was in Los Angeles,&rdquo; said the 37-year-old Berry, who was officially named June 3. &ldquo;As a coach, you have to adjust some of your philosophies with the team you have.&ldquo;There will be some adjustments on my part, but they won&rsquo;t be made in my basic philosophy. I&rsquo;m a believer in mental preparation, hard work, and discipline on and off the ice. I don&rsquo;t think that will change wherever I go.&rdquo;The Canadiens have needed a disciplinarian ever since Scotty Bowman packed his bags and went to Buffalo following the 1978-79 season. Under coach Bernard Geoffrion, there was little of it and it showed in the first 30 games of the 1979-80 season. Claude Ruel, who resigned in April after 110 games behind the bench, was too nice a guy for his own good.&ldquo;Discipline was one of my top priorities in hiring a coach,&rdquo; said Grundman. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something our club has benefitted from in the past and something we have to get back to.&rdquo;Grundman also promised that the management would take a dim view of any players mouthing off as happened so often under the Ruel regime.&ldquo;We have to back the coach 100 percent,&rdquo; he said, perhaps realizing he should have done the same for Ruel when people such as Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson sounded off last season.&ldquo;Bob&rsquo;s lived through some old times and the new times,&rdquo; Grundman added. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s about the right age as far as I&rsquo;m concerned. I know this man does a lot of preparation and is a student of the game.&rdquo;Berry won&rsquo;t have the same rules and regulations here as he did in LA. For example, he had a $500 fine for any player who showed up with a suntan at the rink.Players on the Canadiens get the off-white arena tan from under-exposure to the sun as the result of over exposure to the practice rink.&ldquo;I am going to have to give some thought to a few rules, but I am not going to change my coaching philosophy to please anybody. We&rsquo;re going to have curfews. We&rsquo;re going to make sure people are on time for everything. I don&rsquo;t think that is too much to ask of a professional athlete.&rdquo;Berry, who had 104 victories in a three-year coaching stint with the Kings, left Los Angeles after a contract dispute with LA owner Dr. Jerry Buss. Simply put. Berry didn&rsquo;t receive a reward for leading the Kings to a fourth-place finish in the overall standings, not even a pat on the back.He signed a multi-year (read two plus option) deal with Montreal, stepping into the limelight many others had longed for since Ruel stepped aside.There were about 10 serious candidates and about 25 more who were promoted at one time of another in the local newspaper or on radio and a handful of others who Grundman might have liked to have had, but couldn&rsquo;t because they were under contract to other teams.There was a suggestion that Berry was approached while still under contract to the Kings, but both he and Grundman denied the allegation.As June wore on, there was no indication who Berry would have as an assistant. Jacques Laperriere, the Canadiens&rsquo; director of special assignments who helped Ruel fast season, indicated he would not mind working alongside Berry, who had two assistants at Los Angeles last season.There was also speculation that a local college coach might be hired, but Grundman downplayed that idea.Berry, Grundman and the rest of the Canadiens&rsquo; hierarchy spent some time going over the player personnel and while some changes are in the offing, they were not accomplished during the NHL&rsquo;s 64th annual congress.Guy Lapointe, Pierre Larouche, Doug Jarvis, Denis Herron and Yvon Lambert were the names bandied about in various trade rumors, but Grundman was not able to pull off any deal with his confreres.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re still trying to make changes,&rdquo; Grundman said. &ldquo;But we aren&rsquo;t going to give anyone away.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-01

Habs Pick Berry To Restore Winning Ways

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div>HARTFORD&mdash;For 21 years, Dave Keon, one of the more professional of professional hockey players, has made the hills a little flatter for all those who have played alongside him.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one game that sticks out in my mind,&rdquo; said Don Blackburn, former coach of the Hartford Whalers. &ldquo;It was in Hartford against Quebec. We were leading something like, 9-2, with about three minutes left. I caught myself watching David and I couldn&rsquo;t help smiling.&ldquo;I mean, the game was history. Do you think Mike Rogers was out there backchecking? Do you think Blaine Stoughton was backchecking? There&rsquo;s David backchecking just as if it were a tie game. I&rsquo;ll tell you, they only made one of him. He&rsquo;s the last of a dying breed.&rdquo;The oldest player in the NHL, Keon, who turns 42 next March, has decided to go to the wars one more time.Well-tanned from a Florida vacation and wearing a diamond-studded Stanley Cup ring, compliments of the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; circa 1962-63-64-67, Keon admitted that there had been much &ldquo;soul-searching&rdquo; concerning his return.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very critical of myself,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m more aware now of what to expect. I don&rsquo;t have a weight problem and I&rsquo;ve never had a serious injury. I think I can still contribute.&rdquo;Pressed on the issue that it is often the athlete himself who last realizes that the party&rsquo;s over, Keon smiled that half-smile of his.&ldquo;I wondered about that for a long time,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think I can help the Whalers. I really don&rsquo;t mind the practices or the games. The hitch was the travel. I wasn&rsquo;t sure if I wanted to go through that drudgery again. But if you don&rsquo;t travel, you don&rsquo;t play. I can&rsquo;t very well ask just to play the home games.&rdquo;Counting four years in the WHA, Keon has appeared in 1,519 professional hockey games. In 17 NHL seasons, he has collected 967 points, including 388 goals. He is one of 20 players to amass more than 900 NHL career points and needs 33 to join the l, 000th-point club, which currently boasts 15 members. Keon is 17th on the all-time NHL list, six points behind Andy Bathgate and two points ahead of Maurice Richard.Keon won the Calder Trophy in 1960-61, the Conn Smythe in 1967, two Lady Byngs. and was instrumental in four of the Leafs&rsquo; Stanley Cup titles.He knows where the Hockey Hall of Fame is located, but for the moment, there&rsquo;s more backchecking to be done.The underlying suspicions that the clock has struck midnight have not disappeared altogether, but Keon seems almost eager to roll the dice again.&ldquo;I want the Whalers to be successful which means making the playoffs,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I hope that we&rsquo;re good enough. If I can&rsquo;t play, I&rsquo;ll get out. I don&rsquo;t want to clutter up the ice. But when I made my decision, the thing I kept thinking was, I&rsquo;m still pretty good at it.&rdquo;Keon&rsquo;s teammates best understand. &#9632;

Whaler Keon Back For 22nd Year

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div>TORONTO&mdash;Punch Imlach had to rub his eyes and ears a couple of times to make sure he wasn&rsquo;t hallucinating. Five players had been selected in the first round of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s Entry Draft during the June meetings in Montreal and the player that the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; general manager wanted most was still available.So with the sixth pick, Imlach called the name of Jim Benning, a splendid offensive-defenseman from the Portland Winter Hawks of the Western League and the defensively-porous Leafs, who gave up more goals (367) than all but two other NHL teams in 1980-81, had themselves one of the few players from the 1981 draft who just might be able to step right into an NHL lineup.&ldquo;He skates well, handles the puck extremely well and has the opportunity to be a superstar in the NHL,&rdquo; said Imlach of Benning, a 6-0, 190-pound 18-year-old who set WHL records for consecutive games with at least one point (breaking new teammate Bill Derlago&rsquo;s mark of 37) and assists and points by a defenseman. In his first year in the WHL, Benning finished with 28 goals and 111 assists.Imlach&rsquo;s three-pronged assessment of Benning was the direct antithesis of the performance of the 1980-81 Maple Leafs&rsquo; rearguard and with the Leafs employing their top three picks in the 1980 draft to procure defensemen, albeit of the defensive variety in the persons of Bob McGill (Victoria), Fred Boimistruck (Cornwall) and Craig Muni (Windsor), it appears that the Leafs&rsquo; incumbents will have some able competition in a market where the performers are getting younger and younger.But while the Leafs could count on the three 1980 kids to join the battle for starting positions at training camp&mdash;and that includes center Normand Aubin, who led New Brunswick in scoring, as well as Serge Boisvert, Bill McCreary, Stewart Gavin and Paul Marshall&mdash;getting a top-notch quality defenseman like Benning was an unexpected bonus.The key to the Leafs&rsquo; good fortune was probably. Los Angeles&rsquo; move to take center Doug Smith of Ottawa rather than a defenseman with their first selection, the No. 2 choice overall. Winnipeg resisted several offers from NHL clubs to make Dale Hawerchuk the first player taken in the draft and the Kings were expected to follow with a defenseman, likely Joe Cirella, of Oshawa. But they took Smith instead.Next came the famous Washington Through The Back Doors ploy as the Capitals persuaded Colorado to give them the third choice draft in exchange for fifth choice overall (originally Washington&rsquo;s pick) and the Capitals&rsquo; second round draft choice. With Colorado&rsquo;s pick, the Caps nabbed Bobby Carpenter, the Massachusetts schoolboy phenom who was about to be signed, sealed and delivered to the Whalers as the fourth player in the draft. The Whalers even had a jersey with his name on the back for a press conference, but Washington got there first, saying that they had wanted Carpenter right from the start.The stunned Whalers recovered to select center Ron Francis, which made it four forwards in a row before Colorado opted for defenseman Joe Cirella, a 6-2, 190-pounder from Oshawa. That cleared the way for Toronto to choose Benning.Imlach kept his hot hand going early in the second round when he managed to acquire Benning&rsquo;s teammate, center Gary Yaremchuk, with the 24th pick overall, a spot earned when the Leafs sent Jack Valiquette to Colorado in 1978.Yaremchuk, 5-10, 180 pounds, was Portland&rsquo;s most valuable player and contributed 56 goals and 79 assists to his club Central Scouting had him rated as a definite first-round draft choice and again many people found it hard to believe that he was still available when it came time for the Leafs to draft.One of the first things that is noted about Yaremchuk is his on-ice intelligence. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a plugger, a hard worker who can score,&rdquo; summed up Portland coach Brian Shaw. &ldquo;He is a very intelligent player who&rsquo;s good defensively. There&rsquo;s no way he should have been the No. 24 pick. A few teams will regret that.&rdquo;Yaremchuk is tackling a difficult position to break in on the Leafs&mdash;center&mdash;where Darryl Sittler, Bill Derlago, Laurie Boscbman, Bruce Boudreau and Aubin rate ahead of him, but the Leafs are finally establishing some depth with their draft choices which could lead to trades for veteran players who do not fill the Leafs&rsquo; bill.Their third choice, Ernie Godden, who set an Ontario Hockey League record with 87 goals, is a darkhorse candidate for the team who was coveted by Detroit&rsquo;s Wayne Maxner who coached him at Windsor. Godden is suspect because of his 5-7, 154-pound frame, but is reputed to have the skills and the heart of a big leaguer.In the hopeful department are the Leafs&rsquo; other six draft choices, which were in order, Trois Rivieres&rsquo; left winger Normand Lefrancois. a 52-goal scorer as a rookie, Calgary center Barry Brigley. defensemen Andrew Wright of Peterborough. Richard Turmell (6-3, 212 pounds) from Shawinigan and Greg Barber, Victoria, plus rugged left winger Mark Magnan, of Lethbridge. &#9632;

Imlach Delighted By Leafs’ Draft

<div class="byline">BY FRANK FONTAINE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011805/8617588-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Quebec&rsquo;s Czech mates Peter, left, and Anton Stastny, center, were joined by their 28-year-old brother Marian, who fled from Czechoslovakia via Austria with his wife and three children to play for Quebec. (Photo By Raynald Lavoie)</figcaption></div>QUEBEC&mdash;Another Stastny has joined the Nordiques. He&rsquo;s 28-year-old Marian, a 5-11, 192-pound rightwinger who had spent six years with the Czechoslovakian National Team before being suspended by the Czech federation, last fall, in reprisal for the earlier defection of brothers Peter, 26, and Anton, 21.According to those in the know, Marian is the most talented of the Stastnys. Says Anton: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the best of us. You&rsquo;ll see next season.&rdquo; Peter, who was voted Rookie of the Year in the NHL, says: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a more natural scorer than Anton and me. He&rsquo;s also very aggressive and very strong. He&rsquo;s not afraid to go into corners and he doesn&rsquo;t mind when the play gets physical.&rdquo; As for Marian, who followed his brothers&rsquo; first season in the NHL via THE HOCKEY NEWS, he said he expected to do a little better than they did! And he added: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m anxious to play with Anton and Peter in the NHL. We have been dreaming about this for many years.&rdquo;To achieve this dream, Marian had to endure a long, black nightmare, ft all started in August 1980, when he, Anton and Peter signed long-term contracts with the Nordiques while they were in Vienna, with the Czechoslovakian National Team for a European Hockey Tournament. Marian, who evidently has always been the leader of the Stastny brothers, was the one who first encouraged Anton and Peter to sign with the Nordiques and to fly back to Quebec right away with team president Marcel Aubut and director of player development Gilles Leger. Marian had no choice but to return to Czechoslovakia. His wife Eva and their three children were still there. (Peter&rsquo;s pregnant wife was traveling with him in Vienna and Anton was a bachelor at the time.) Before his brothers left, however, Marian, a lawyer by profession and the most fluent of the three brothers in English, negotiated contracts for Peter and Anton.From the moment he set foot back in his country, Marian was kept under constant surveillance by the secret police. He was bumped from the National Team as well as from the Bratislava club for which he played in the Czechoslovakian National Hockey League. Moreover, he was forced to give up his law practice. Marian Stastny, one of the world&rsquo;s truly great players and a successful lawyer, was reduced to working as a laborer to support his family.Stastny was to serve as an example of what could happen to a Czechoslovakian player who tried to escape to the West, or to someone who helped in such an escape. And so Marian labored&hellip;to escape! At first, he and the Nordiques each tried in their own way to go through normal channels. Marian applied for a permit to immigrate to Canada, but his request was ignored by the Czech government&hellip;as were the Nordiques&rsquo; overtures to the Czech Ice Hockey Federation. Marian and the Nordiques quickly realized that Czech authorities would never allow him to join his two younger brothers. He had to be made to pay the price for their defection and for the ridicule which had been heaped on the Czech secret police, following their escape.&ldquo;We had boasted about having fooled the Czech KGB agents,&rdquo; Aubut recently related. &ldquo;We had hit their self-respect quite hard. That had burned us out with the Czech authorities. It was Marian who was left holding the bag. To get back at us, they swore never to let him out.&rdquo;And so, Marian dutifully changed his attitude. He resigned himself to the fate which had been layed out for him. All that was left for him to do was to make the best of his circumstances. He worked out with the Junior National Team of Czechoslovakia&hellip;And since he had a lot of spare time, he set to work on renovating his house. Day in. day out, he spent as much time and money as he could, working on his house. It became evident to the secret police that he had given up his ideas of escape. He had learned his lesson, so much so that the chastened barrister even planned a holiday in other communist countries.Nobody said a word when he drove off for Hungary, with his family, in early June. There were no great problems crossing into Yugoslavia. Entering Austria was rather easy. Getting out of Vienna was most urgent!As soon as he got to the Austrian capital, Marian set about getting word to Leger and Aubut that he was now ready to fly to freedom. That was done through highly secret contacts. The Nordiques people had to act quickly, for Marian&rsquo;s tourist permit to visit Austria was limited to three days. If he did not escape within those three days, he would be forced to return to Czechoslovakia&hellip;and to all the consequences which would surely follow. Fortunately, communications were quick and efficient. Aubut and Leger were airborne as soon as contact was made. Meantime, the Canadian government was cutting a lot of red tape in order to facilitate the liberation of Marian and his family. As immigration minister Lloyd Axworthy explained: &ldquo;There was a very real danger for them if they&rsquo;d stayed in Austria for 15 days, as is usually required according to normal procedures.&rdquo;Marian&rsquo;s arrival at Montreal&rsquo;s Mirabel airport reminded him of his return to Czechoslovakia 10 months before. &ldquo;There too I was asked to give a press conference,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but there were no newsmen in the room. The questions all came from policemen who wanted to know about my brothers&rsquo; defections.&rdquo;Marian, who will be the Nordiques&rsquo; first natural rightwinger, will play on a line with his two brothers, Anton on the left and Peter at center. He is confident that his year away from competition will not have any lasting effects on his play. &ldquo;It may have been a beneficial rest since I had been playing almost without interruption for the last 10 years,&rdquo; he said.Marian Stastny is the type of man around whom great teams of all kinds are built. As president Aubut said: &ldquo;It takes a special kind of man to do what the three Stastnys did. And I can tell you, if Anton and Peter&rsquo;s escape was tumultuous and complicated, Marian&rsquo;s was 20 times more perilous and complicated.&rdquo;Let director of player development Gilles Leger translate that into hockey terms: &ldquo;Any guy who has the guts to go ahead with the escape he just pulled, has got to be somebody special. Opposing NHL players will quickly find that out. They&rsquo;re going to be less audacious with Peter and Anton. He won&rsquo;t let his brothers be pushed around.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Marian’s Arrival Reunites Stastny Brothers

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div>BOSTON&mdash;&ldquo;If he was a writer or a painter he would have been great,&rdquo; his old friend Rob Gilbert was saying. &ldquo;He would have excelled in any area. He cared a lot about what he did. He dedicated himself to beauty.&rdquo;There may have been a little hyperbole in Gilbert&rsquo;s remarks but it was understandable in view of the circumstances, for his old friend Jean Ratelle was retiring after 30 years in hockey, pee wee to old pro.He played in all or part of 16 seasons with the New York Rangers and six more for the Boston Bruins, appearing in 1,281 games, scoring 491 goals, setting up 776 more, and amassing 1,276 points. He&rsquo;s a sure thing for the Hall of Fame, probably in 1984.So it was fitting that the Bruins threw a retirement party for 40-year-old Jean Ratelie and that they invited a few of the old Rangers&mdash;his old linemates, Gilbert and Vic Hadfield, and his old coach. Emile Francis&mdash;to see him off in his new role as assistant to Bruins&rsquo; coach Gerry Cheevers.As it turned out, Francis couldn&rsquo;t come because the NHL had thoughtfully scheduled a draft of Czech elder skatesmen for that very day and he had to remain in St. Louis, but Gilbert and Hadfield were there so it was a day to tell Jean Ratelle stories.Of course, someone noticed that Gentleman Jean, twice the winner of the Lady Byng Trophy, was assessed only 276 minutes of penalties in 1,281 games. Dave Schultz used to run that up in a couple of weeks.He never had a fight in two decades in the NHL and that used to fascinate his often belligerent Bruins teammates. They were discussing it one snowy morning in the Buffalo airport when Ratelle allowed that he once had a fight in junior hockey.&ldquo;Who was it, Ratty? piped up Cheevers. then the goalie. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll get him for you.&rdquo;&ldquo;If he had a fight, he probably won it.&rdquo; said Gilbert, who was Ratelie&rsquo;s teammate since their bantam days at Roussin Academy in Montreal. &ldquo;He was the strongest son of a gun I ever played against in practice. If he had a fight he probably beat the guy up and that&rsquo;s why he didn&rsquo;t fight any more.&rdquo;&ldquo;It just has to do with my style,&rdquo; said Ratelle. &ldquo;I used the style I&rsquo;ve used all my career because it was the best for me. If I had been the kind of guy to fight and play rough I don&rsquo;t think I would have achieved what I have achieved.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m a hundred per cent with the people who like to see a good fight once in a while. I agree with Clarence Campbell that it&rsquo;s a release. It&rsquo;s a way of releasing your frustrations without using sticks and things like that.&ldquo;I guess I always needed more to get mad than most. I found my release by working harder and by showing the opposition that we&rsquo;re going to beat them.&rdquo;Ratelie came to the Bruins on Nov. 7, 1975, in one of the biggest NHL deals ever. The Rangers sent Ratelle and Brad Park to the Bruins for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais. Actually, it was Esposito for Park with Ratelle and Vadnais to fill position vacancies on the two rosters.&ldquo;We knew Ratelie was a good player but we never dreamed he was as good as he turned out to be.&rdquo; said Tom Johnson, the Bruins&rsquo; assistant general manager. &ldquo;When we saw him play every day we appreciated him more. And he added so much class to the organization.&rdquo;Class is a word that is often associated with Ratelle. He was a little bit of a square, too, in a day when &ldquo;do your own thing,&rdquo; and &ldquo;if it feels good, do it,&rdquo; are the watchwords of the times.&ldquo;When the coach didn&rsquo;t provide much discipline, Jean established the rules for both of us,&rdquo; said the exhuberant Gilbert, who liked a good time as much as anybody else.&ldquo;He hated to travel because he said, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m missing one or two days of watching my kids grow.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s why it was so important for him to play well on the road. If he had to leave home and miss his family, he had to do something good. So we had these rules.&ldquo;The day before a game, we couldn&rsquo;t drink more than three beers. We couldn&rsquo;t eat pork the night before a game. We&rsquo;d eat five or six hours before a game. We&rsquo;d go to the rink and fix our sticks and start concentrating on the game.&ldquo;We couldn&rsquo;t make love the night before the game, for cris&rsquo;sakes. He&rsquo;d say, &lsquo;Well, if I don&rsquo;t, you don&rsquo;t.&rsquo; I&rsquo;d say, &lsquo;How the hell does that apply to me?&rsquo;&ldquo;I cheated one time. I didn&rsquo;t come in. I had some friends in the city and I stayed over. The next night, we were playing Chicago, and I threw the puck in the corner, he didn&rsquo;t go and get it.&ldquo;I said. &lsquo;What&rsquo;s the matter with you? He said, &lsquo;You showed me little respect You don&rsquo;t want to play. I said, &lsquo;Whaddya mean I don&rsquo;t want to play? I&rsquo;m playing. Let&rsquo;s go.&rsquo; He said, &lsquo;No. No. God only helps those who help themselves.&rsquo;&ldquo;I still don&rsquo;t know what that&rsquo;s got to do with getting the puck in the corner. But that was Jean Ratelle. He was the kind of individual who treated his profession with a lot of respect.&rdquo; &#9632;

Classy Ratelle Epitome Of Dedication

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div>MONTREAL&mdash;Cliff Fletcher is used to challenges.The silver-haired native of Montreal faced more than his share of tests while trying to keep the National Hockey League alive in Atlanta.His next test was the Flames&rsquo; move to Calgary last season and making sure the team stayed among the upper echelon to keep the critical Southern Alberta hockey fans happy.Now, Fletcher faces one of his most difficult tasks.The Calgary Flames&rsquo; general manager was named to a similar post to the Canadian entry in this fall&rsquo;s Canada Cup, thus riveting the eyes of every Canadian hockey fan on each move he will make in the next two and a half months.&ldquo;We want to reverse the embarrassment of the loss in the Challenge Cup in 1979 and win the 1981 Canada Cup,&rdquo; said Fletcher, who agreed to take the job in mid-June. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be a very different tournament from the one in 1976. It&rsquo;s going to take a total commitment from the players, coaches and management associated with the club to win.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s the type of dedication Team Canada had in 1976 when former Montreal general manager Sam Pollock was in charge. Pollock, who is a special adviser to Hockey Canada, will lend Fletcher a hand this time around as will Islanders&rsquo; general manager Bill Torrey. Irving Grundman, managing director of the Canadiens, is assistant general manager of the team with Scotty Bowman as head coach.&ldquo;I feel we have the best coach in the modern era of hockey,&rdquo; said Fletcher, referring to Bowman&rsquo;s record with the Canadiens (five Stanley Cups, including four straight). Bowman, who recently announced he would return to coach the Buffalo Sabres, was in Florida the day his Team Canada appointment was announced.Just who will be assisting Bowman in the coaching area will be announced before training camp gets under way at the Montreal Forum during the first week in August.Not only will there be a new look among the management team, but the Canadian on-ice personnel will be altered as well.There is a young kid from Edmonton named Wayne Gretzky who was playing junior when Darryl Sittier scored the cup-winning overtime goal against the Czechoslovakians five years ago. Gretzky, who could win every NHL Trophy except the ones they give to the defensemen and goaltenders before his career ends, is a sure bet for the team as are players such as Islanders&rsquo; Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin, Montreal&rsquo;s Larry Robinson and Guy Lafleur, perhaps Dave Taylor and Marcel Dionne of Los Angeles and Boston&rsquo;s Raymond Bourque, Philadelphia&rsquo;s Ken Linseman and Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Randy Carlyle.It&rsquo;s Fletcher&rsquo;s view and that of his committee that Team Canada must rely on speed to have any hope of beating the Soviets or Czechoslovaks.&ldquo;To beat the European teams, speed is a must,&rdquo; Fletcher said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been proven in the past that you can&rsquo;t intimidate these teams.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be much more difficult than it was in 1976. The Soviets had a team that year that was competitive but had no realistic chance of winning.&ldquo;After what happened to them in Lake Placid [when Team USA won the Olympics], they are out to prove a lot of things. I&rsquo;m sure they are going to bring the best club they&rsquo;ve ever brought over here.&rdquo;Fletcher also expected the Czechoslovaks to be strong and Teams USA, under coaches Bob Johnson and Mike Smith, and Sweden should have competitive squads. Finland is the other team entered in the round-robin event which gets under way in Edmonton and Winnipeg on Sept. 1.In 1976, only two teams qualified for a best-of-three playoff, but in quest for more revenue and a better chance for Team Canada to make the post-round robin activity, the new format was decided. &#9632;

Winning ’81 Canada Cup Fletcher’s Big Challenge

The Licensing Corporation of America (LCA) has been designated by Hockey Canada as the worldwide licensing and promotion agency for the 1981 Canada Cup.LCA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Warner Communications Inc., a New York Stock Exchange Company engaged in world-wide licensing activities on behalf of many clients, including sports, TV and movie properties as well as famous cartoon characters.Sports Representatives Ltd. is the exclusive Canadian representative for LCA and Canada Cup &rsquo;81. They are located at 594 Mount Pleasant Rd., Toronto, Ontario M4S 2M8. Contacts are Robert Haggert and George Gross Jr., and their number is 416-485-4189. &#9632;

LCA Licensee Of Canada Cup

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011988/8617739-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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Tentative Schedule

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT&mdash;Red Wings got their man&mdash;sort of.He&rsquo;s Claude Loiselle, an 18-year-old center from across the river in Windsor where he scored 68 goals and added 38 assists last season in his first year of junior hockey with the Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League.It was a bittersweet draft for the Wings, and getting Loiselle was the sweet part.There was no first round pick&mdash;what would have been the second choice overall after Winnipeg took Dale Hawerchuk. That went to Los Angeles as final payment in the Rogie Vachon compensation package.So the Wings had to wait until the second round.That was bad enough&hellip;but let Jimmy Skinner, the director of hockey operations, tell it.&ldquo;First of all, it was disappointing for us but we recovered,&rdquo; Skinner said. &ldquo;We thought we might get the second kid on our list. We were halfway through the first round and we figured we might get through. But Boston took him.&rdquo;The Bruins&rsquo; first-round choice was 18-year-old Norman Leveille, a left wing from Chicoutimi.&ldquo;Then when the first round ended and Scott Arniel [Cornwall] was still available, we were ready to pounce on himr&rdquo; Skinner said.The Wings, picking second after Winnipeg on each round, were frustrated once again when the Jets grabbed Arniel, a teammate of their No. 1 pick, Hawerchuk.&ldquo;We, were disappointed but it made us feel a lot better to get Loiselle,&rdquo; Skinner said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very smart and, besides, we need centers in our system. It was a satisfying pick, especially after losing Arniel.&rdquo;How&rsquo;s that for honesty?Still, the Wings were indeed very pleased to select Loiselle in the second round. Central Scouting projected him as a middle-first round pick.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen him play a lot and feel he&rsquo;ll be able to help us at center,&rdquo; Skinner said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big kid and looks like he&rsquo;s still growing.&rdquo;Loiselle is 5-11, 171. He&rsquo;s a native of Ottawa and played for Gloucester in Tier II before joining the Spitfires last season.The Wings&rsquo; second pick, in the third round, was goaltender Corrado Micalef of Sherbrooke, who went on to star in the Memorial Cup with Cornwall.In all, the Wings picked eight players. They didn&rsquo;t have a fourthround pick (to Philadelphia in the Dennis Sobchuk deal), either.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m especially pleased with our goaltending selection,&rdquo; Skinner said. &ldquo;I thought Micalef played outstanding in the Memorial Cup. In fact, I feel Micalef could be our back-up goalie right now.&rdquo; &#9632;

Getting Loiselle Wings’ Sweet Deal

<div class="byline">BY JAY GREENBERG</div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;If the Flyers still can&rsquo;t figure out why 15 teams passed over Steve Smith, maybe it was because nobody could fit him through the door.&ldquo;A steal,&rdquo; said Terry Crisp, who coaches Smith in junior hockey, but that&rsquo;s hard to picture. Who could lift Steve Smith to take him?&ldquo;We couldn&rsquo;t believe he was still there,&rdquo; said Keith Allen, but then on any draft day 20 other National League general managers will, at one time or another, say the same thing. And if Steve Smith wasn&rsquo;t still there, he&rsquo;d be hard to miss.He&rsquo;s the son of a Trenton, Ont., fireman, which might explain why, at 5-9, 202 pounds, he looks like a plug. &ldquo;Broke a lot of plexiglass this year,&rdquo; said Crisp, the former Flyers&rsquo; center and assistant coach who&rsquo;s now coach of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a killer.&rdquo;So maybe the reason the Flyers were able to make Steve Smith their first pick in the 1981 entry draft was that everybody was afraid of him. &ldquo;After the first few picks, I honestly expected every team to call out his name,&rdquo; said scout Eric Coville, &ldquo;We never, ever, thought he&rsquo;d be there.&rdquo;The Flyers had Smith rated seventh overall, and third among the defensemen available. &ldquo;We thought there was some chance that maybe Tony Tanti [taken 12th by Chicago] would come down to us,&rdquo; said Allen. &ldquo;We really were looking for the best player available, but if the defensemen we liked were gone we would have gone for a forward. We drafted Mike Stothers, another defenseman, last year, so we were looking at some forwards who maybe would have offered more immediate help. Maybe Gary Yaremchuk or Scott Arniel. But with Smith still there, we didn&rsquo;t hesitate. He&rsquo;s a couple of years away but he&rsquo;s an outstanding prospect.&rdquo;&ldquo;He was hurt [shoulder] at the end of the year.&rdquo; said Crisp. &ldquo;Maybe some teams didn&rsquo;t get that final look they wanted before the draft. But he&rsquo;s a great kid. Easy going, a card, a jokester. If he seemed a little bit quiet, I think it was because he was excited about being drafted. He&rsquo;ll fit in very well with the Flyers.&rdquo;If they widen the Spectrum doors. Mom and dad, beaming fire-eqgine red, said that even if the guys at the firehouse think the Flyers are a bunch of cheapshot artists, they&rsquo;re still proud to have their son become one. Steve allowed that, had he remained uncalled any longer, dad might have had to hose him down.The second-round progressed with the Flyers waiting for someone to take Rich Costello. When nobody had by the 37th pick, the Flyers had drafted their first-ever American high school kid.&ldquo;I like him better than Bobby Carpenter,&rdquo; said Walter Atanas, who scouts the Northeast for the Flyers. Since Carpenter, the more ballyhooed Boston-area prep-schooler, was taken third in the entire draft by Washington, Walter&rsquo;s view&rsquo;s did not represent the NHL consensus. But the Flyers thought Costello had an outside chance of going in the first round.The Flyers had two picks in the third round. No sooner than the one (from Washington) dedicated to Wayne Stephenson&rsquo;s memory been announced than there was a great commotion 15 rows up in the Forum stands. Closer examination revealed Barry Tabobon-dung, the Flyers&rsquo; selection, trying to remove his foot from the folded seat.&ldquo;At least,&rdquo; said Brian O&rsquo;Neill, who was conducting the draft from the podium, &ldquo;he will be available for the games in Montreal.&rdquo;&ldquo;We gotta play the kid.&rdquo; said Flyers&rsquo; coach Pat Quinn. &ldquo;Obviously, we can&rsquo;t afford to have him sit.&rdquo;It took almost five minutes and an attendant with a screwdriver to free Tabobondung under the watchful eye of Joe Watson, who was sent over to protect the Flyers&rsquo; investment.&ldquo;I was so excited,&rdquo; said Tabobondung, a full-blooded Ojibway Indian, &ldquo;I jumped up and my foot went through. Embarrassing? Nah, I was just happy to be drafted. The Flyers are my kind of team. Anyway, I gotta do something to get the attention off the first-rounders&rdquo; &#9632;

‘Soo’ Smith’s Selection Fivers’ Surprise Steal

<div class="byline">BY PAT CALABRIA</div>LONG ISLAND&mdash;The Stanley Cup shines. It glows and it sparkles and it glitters. It also gets dirty.&ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t believe all the thumbprints that get on it.&rdquo; Jim Higgins said. &ldquo;I got a towel and wiped them off. I felt I should do it.&rdquo;The Cup inspires such attention and Higgins&rsquo; job is to attend to the Cup. As public relations director for the Islanders, Higgins is responsible for planning the travels of the Cup, which was hosted by the players in their homes for one evening apiece. Imagine the Cup on the kitchen table.Or imagine the Cup in the back seat of a small foreign car. which is where Higgins placed it after the Stanley Cup parade and the reception that followed at Eisenhower Park on Long Island. &ldquo;The Cup was in my car,&rdquo; Higgins said. &ldquo;Mine!&rdquo;The Cup usually can be found in the four-foot black wooden case with the green felt cushion inside and the hook that wraps around the neck of the Cup to keep it immobile. It is not unlike the latch that keeps the arm of a stereo in place. One thing: the case does not fit into the back seat of a small foreign car.&ldquo;So I had to take the Cup out of the case,&rdquo; Higgins said. &ldquo;I left the case with someone and I put the Cup on the back seat. Then I wrapped a blanket over it. It looked like a dead body. It reminded me of those westerns, where the good guy stuffs two pillows under the sheets to make it look like a body and the bad guy comes and shoots the two pillows, only he thinks it&rsquo;s the good guy. You know?&rdquo;So with the Cup resting on the back seat and looking rather dead, Higgins began to leave Eisenhower Park and head for his apartment in locust Valley. &ldquo;It was a feeling of elation,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was a beautiful summer night and there were parents strolling with their children in the park. I wanted to shout to them: &lsquo;Hey, I&rsquo;ve got it.&rsquo; But I knew better.&rdquo;Higgins knew enough to take precautions. He had a friend follow him in another car. &ldquo;I was more concerned about getting a flat tire than I was about someone saying, &lsquo;Stick &rsquo;em up, we want the Cup,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said.But it should be noted that Higgins once drove his car into a puddle on Woodlands Road in Brookville, which would not have been so bad except that the puddle was six feet deep. Considering that, having an escort for the Cup seemed like a good idea.So Higgins drove at an excruciatingly slow pace, partly because he did not want the Cup sailing into the dashboard if he had to brake for a dog, or even a cat. Mostly, he drove at an excruciatingly slow pace for a much better reason. He wanted to.When he arrived at his tiny apartment above a flower shop, Higgins took the Cup from the back seat, climbed up the stairs and placed the Cup on a large desk in his bedroom. Then he polished it. And when it was polished, he invited a few friends over to take a look, called his mother, who asked if she, too, could peek at it, and finally went to bed knowing he had the Stanley Cup to himself for an entire night.That was the problem.&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t get to sleep,&rdquo; Higgins said. &ldquo;I kept wondering, &lsquo;What happens if someone steals the Cup?&rsquo; I got up at three o&rsquo;clock, then at four and at five. I slept in spurts, you might say.&rdquo;The next morning, Higgins came down the stairs carrying the Cup and walked through the flower shop, where several of the customers did not quite know what to make of the sight of a blonde, elfish fellow in horn-rimmed glasses and baggy pants cradling this, this&hellip;thing over his shoulder.No one offered to plant geraniums in the Cup. No one decided to water it. And when they finally realized that the Cup was, indeed, the Cup. Higgins said, &ldquo;most of them just stared.&rdquo;From there, Higgins took the Cup to Nassau Coliseum for the team picture and it was then taken for an evening by general manager Bill Torrey, who in turn passed it on to John 0. Pickett, the managing general partner. Pickett threw a cocktail party for the Cup at his home in Upper Brookville having invited, he said, &ldquo;200 of my closest friends.&rdquo;Higgins then resumed custody of the Cup at a team outing organized on a party yacht that cruised around Manhattan, with the Cup set in a corner of the boat, a spotlight shirting on it while the players and their wives recited a champagne toast against the darkness of the New York skyline. Only a cynic would suggest it was the closest the Cup had been to Madison Square Garden in 41 years.Then it was on to the players. Last year, Bobby Nystrom sat his six-month old daughter in the Cup and snapped photographs. Lome Henning posed for pictures with the Cup and his cocker spaniels Buffy and Brandy. Bryan Trottier slept with it.This year, John Tonelli was the first player to take the Cup home, then it moved on to Bill Smith and Butch Goring, who set it in the living room of his home in Dix Hills. &ldquo;You ask me if I&rsquo;m nervous being responsible for the Cup,&rdquo; Goring said. &ldquo;Why should I be? It&rsquo;s not like I have a million dollars. It&rsquo;s not like someone would steal it.&rdquo;He paused. &ldquo;Would they?&rdquo;Garry Howatt was next in line to receive the Cup. He invited over a few friends and neighbors, but the one who seemed most impressed was the newspaper boy. &ldquo;He came to deliver the piper and he saw the Cup through the door,&rdquo; said Howatt&rsquo;s wife. Karen. &ldquo;He said, &lsquo;Do you think&hellip;uh, would you mind&hellip;uh, could I?&rsquo; So we let him. in.&rdquo;Just a look was not enough, though. &ldquo;He came over to it, and stared at it,&rdquo; Karen said. &ldquo;Then he got down orrhis knees. He just kept staring. He stayed there for 20 minutes.&rdquo;The question, of course, is what does one actually do with the Cup? How many poses can you photograph? How many times can you drink from it? How many times can you point to your name engraved on it? How many times can you hoist it over your head and dance around the den with it?Considering Goring&rsquo;s reputation for frugality, there was the suggestion he might have charged one dollar each to those wishing to view the Cup in his home. Goring conceded it was an intriguing thought, then laughed and said: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s something my teammates probably expected me to do.&rdquo; &#9632;

Isles’ Labor Of Love: Keeping Tabs On Cup

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;June 1981 probably will be remembered as one of the&rdquo; busiest and most productive months in Penguin history.Randy Carlyle was named winner of the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the National Hockey League&rsquo;s best defenseman. and was selected to the league&rsquo;s first All Star team. In addition. Penguin teammate Rick Kehoe was awarded the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy as the NHL player who best exhibited sportsmanship and playing ability.Carlyle scored 16 goals and added 67 assists for 83 points, tops among the league&rsquo;s defensemen. Kehoe was the Penguins&rsquo; leading scorer with 55 goals and 33 assists for 88 points and only three minor penalties for six minutes.They were the first major award winners in the Penguins&rsquo; 14 seasons in the NHL and, ironically, both Carlyle and Kehoe were traded to Pittsburgh by the Toronto Maple Leafs in separate deals. Carlyle&rsquo;s All Star selection was also a Penguin first.Pittsburgh signed three of their 1980 Entry Draft choices and added a second assistant coach.Randy Boyd played for Ottawa and was the Ontario Hockey League&rsquo;s Most Outstanding Defenseman award winner. Boyd was the Penguins&rsquo; third selection in last year&rsquo;s Entry Draft, and they were offered a first round pick in this year&rsquo;s draft by a number of teams for his rights.The Penguins also signed forwards Doug Shedden and Pat Graham. Shedden scored 51 goals and 72 assists for Sault St. Marie, while Graham tallied 40 goals and 54 assists for Niagara Fails, both in the OHL.Pittsburgh signed former Penguin Lou Angotti as an assistant coach. Angotti, who played for the Penguins in 1968-69, joins Mike Corrigan as an assistant to Eddie Johnston.&ldquo;Lou will do a lot of scouting of NHL teams right before we play them and of college, junior and high school players,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;He may also keep tabs on the minor leagues and will spend time working with our new farm club in Erie.&rdquo;Johnston tended goal for Angotti when Lou was coach of the St. Louis Blues in 1974-75. Corrigan will be able to concentrate more on the Penguin team than last season when he pre scouted the opposition.Johnston and general manager Baz Bastien have decided against offering a contract to left wing Ross Lonsberry, and will wait until training camp in September to see how center Orest Kindrachuk has progressed from last season&rsquo;s back surgery.Both Lonsberry and Kindrachuk are free agents, along with goaltender Rob Holland, center Greg Malone and left wing Gary Rissling. Bastien was attempting to sign all but Holland.The Penguins did sign a free agent goaltender Michel Dion from the Winnipeg Jets, but then lost goalie Greg Millen to the Hartford Whalers who will have to compensate the Penguins.Dion, 27, played for Quebec and Winnipeg last season and was a free agent without compensation. Dion, who played five seasons in the World Hockey Association, married an Indianapolis girl and reportedly was unhappy playing in Canada.The Penguins were without a first round draft choice for the fourth time in five years, but selected nine players in this year&rsquo;s Entry Draft.Pittsburgh&rsquo;s top selection was right wing Steve Gatzos from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. Gatzos, 20, scored 78 goals and 50 assists in 68 games. Only one other Penguin pick is 20 years old, defenseman Rod Buskas of Medicine Hat.The Penguins other draft choices were: Tom Thornbury, defense, Niagara Falls; Norm Schmidt, defense, Oshawa; Paul Edwards defense, Oshawa; Geoff Wilson, right wing, Winnipeg; Mitch Lamoureux, center, Oshawa; Dean DeFazio, left wing, Brantford; and Dave Hannan, center, Brantford.PENGUIN TRACKS&mdash;Kehoe underwent two successful minor operations to remove bone scrapings from his right ankle and a growth from his left forearm. Defenseman Russ Anderson had one of three pins removed from his right ring finger, which he broke three times last season. Doctors told Anderson the finger was healing properly. &#9632;

Busy Penguins Enjoy First Signs Of Success

<div class="byline">BY ARNOLD IRISH</div>ST LOUIS&mdash;There was no mistaking what the St. Louis Blues believe their short and long term weaknesses to be: Lack of quality defensemen. That was evident by their behavior in the National Hockey League entry draft as they selected backliners on each of the first three rounds.Drafting 20th, they picked Marty Ruff of the Lethbridge Broncos on the first round. In the second round, using the 15th pick they obtained from Calvary (then Atlanta) two years ago as part of the Garry Unger trade, they tabbed Hakan Nordin from Farjestads in Sweden. And on the third round they snapped up Gordon Donnelly from Sherbrooke of the Quebec Major Junior League.Confident that all three can help them down the road, the Blues are naturally hopeful that Ruff, 18, can make a quick transition to the NHL, arid the 6-1, 185-pound defenseman the younger brother of Buffalo Sabres defenseman Lindy Ruff, thinks he could step right in and help St. Louis after only one year of Junior A competition.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a big step, but I intend to come to camp and do as well as possible, said Ruff, who in 71 games last season had nine goals, 37 assists and 222 penalty minutes. &ldquo;If I don&rsquo;t make it. another year of Junior would probably help me a lot.&rdquo;However, Emile Francis, the Blues president and general manager, is realistic about any of the club&rsquo;s 1981 picks winning a job with the parent team.&ldquo;Our draft is a lot more like base ball&rsquo;s since we&rsquo;ve gone to 18-year-olds,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;With kids that young, you&rsquo;re drafting strictly for the future. When we had the 20-year-old draft, you were picking people Who could come right in and play. Young men like Wayne Babych and Perry Turnbull. But that&rsquo;s all changed. I doubt that more than two or three players in this year&rsquo;s draft will play regularly in the NHL next season.&rdquo;The Blues thought defenseman Gilbert Delorme of the Chicoutimi Sagueneens was one of those &ldquo;two or three players&rdquo; who might be able to play in the NHL next season, even though he wasn&rsquo;t that highly rated by the league&rsquo;s Central Scouting Bureau, and they had reason to believe Montreal agreed with them. The Canadiens were drafting seventh, with a choice obtained from Pittsburgh, as well as 18th (from Los Angeles) and 19th.Some behind-the-scenes trade offers are believed to have been made by the Blues to find a pick above seventh. Their best bet appeared to be Washington, who reportedly turned down a St. Louis trade offer for their fifth pick.The Capitals, of course, had other fish to fry. They were busy making a deal for Colorado&rsquo;s No. 3 spot, one pick ahead of the Hartford Whalers, and snapped up highly-touted 17-year-old Massachusetts high school center Bobby Carpenter, who many (including the youngster himself) thought was headed for the Hartford Whalers.Montreal thus was left with three picks before St. Louis drafted. With their seventh choice, the Canadiens selected winger Mark Hunter of Brantford. But, when their 18th pick rolled around. Les Habitants invested it in Delorme.So the Blues took Ruff, who is looking forward to playing against his older brother. &ldquo;I know how tough he is on the farm, but now I&rsquo;ll get a chance to see how tough he is on the ice, Marty Ruff said.The lefthanded-shooting Nordin had 10 goals and eight assists in 34 games for Farjestads in the Swedish Elite Division. That&rsquo;s the same league that produced slick wing Jorgen Pet-tersson, the Blues&rsquo; top rookie last season Nordin is 5-10 and 189 pounds.Donnelly, 6-1 and 194 pounds, is a righthanded-shooting defenseman who had 15 goals, 23 assists and 252 penalty minutes at Sherbrooke. Despite the latter figure, he says he doesn&rsquo;t go looking for fights. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say I&rsquo;m a fighter,&rdquo; Donnelly said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just the penalties you get from playing the man.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011964/8617866-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="583" height="650"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marty Ruff, the Blues&rsquo; top draft, looks forward to competing against his brother, Lindy, of Buffalo.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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St. Louis Concentrates On Defense

<div class="byline">BY JIM MATHESON</div>EDMONTON&mdash;With due apologies to Yesterday&rsquo;s Hero Andy Moog, the Oilers jumped at the chance to draft another goalie in the annual junior lottery June 10.Operating on the time-honored theory that you can never have too much of anything, the Oilers chose Victoria Cougars&rsquo; netminder Grant Fuhr as their No. 1 draft pick&mdash;eighth overall. Fuhr, who had a remarkable 2.78 average in 59 junior games in &rsquo;80-81, joined 21-year-old Moog and veterans Ron Low, 30, and Eddie Mio, 26. Low, who almost singlehandlely held off the Philadelphia Flyers in the &rsquo;79-80 playoffs, is coming off two broken thumbs. Mio, who played in more games than any other Oiler goalie (43), is recuperating from a broken finger.If you&rsquo;re preparing a depth chart Moog&mdash;the &rsquo;81 Stanley Cup playoff hero who robbed the Montreal Canadiens&mdash;goes to the head of the class. It&rsquo;s a three-way tie for second. &ldquo;In any event,&rdquo; said Oiler GM Glen Sather, &ldquo;training camp should be interesting.&rdquo;While the Oilers could have taken a center in the draft&mdash;they coveted the Soo&rsquo;s Ron Francis, but he went No. 4 overall to Hartford&mdash;they felt they couldn&rsquo;t pass up such a dandy talent as Fuhr. Goalies are usually hit-or-miss in the draft&mdash;some of the best like Pete Peeters and Moog didn&rsquo;t get picked until the seventh or eighth rounds. Fuhr seems too good to be true. Not only does he live outside of Edmonton in a little town called Spruce Grove, which should keep the local fans happy, but his stats speak for themselves. &ldquo;There hasn&rsquo;t been a better junior propect since Bernie Parent,&rdquo; raved Oiler chief scout Barry Fraser, who touted Sather on Fuhr as long as a year ago. &ldquo;He handles his blocker the best I&rsquo;ve ever seen, and that includes pros. He&rsquo;s very cool and he knows what is going on at all times. He doesn&rsquo;t play like an 18-year-old [turns 19 in late September!&rdquo;&hellip;It&rsquo;s this thinking, that the black goalie could be a franchise builder, that swayed the Oilers. Excellent goalies aren&rsquo;t growing on trees in the NHL. For every team that has a capable netminder, there&rsquo;s two that don&rsquo;t. Fuhr may be around for 15 years. &ldquo;As Gump [Worsley] says, you can&rsquo;t live without &rsquo;em,&rdquo; chuckled Sather.Fuhr, a very shy youngster, knows it&rsquo;s going to be a battle at training camp. But then he&rsquo;s had to battle ever since being cut by two Tier II teams in the area&mdash;before moving on to Victoria. &ldquo;I know they&rsquo;ve got a lot of goaltenders,&rdquo; said Fuhr. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll just have to go to training camp, play well and beat somebody out.&rdquo;Moog, only 21, started every Oiler game in the playoffs. Unless he&rsquo;s a one-shot wonder, he figures to be around for a few more years. Ron Low has two years to go on his contract after an injury-plagued &rsquo;80-81 season. Mio is on his option year.If Fuhr doesn&rsquo;t pan out, he has to be returned to Victoria as an underage junior. That&rsquo;s remote, however. Chances are Sather will keep him around, even as a third goalie and see how the chips fall. Fuhr wants to stay with the Oilers, but won&rsquo;t kick if he has to go back to junior. &ldquo;The extra year&rsquo;s experience could do me a lot of good, but I wouldn&rsquo;t want to go back for two years.&rdquo; Considering Sather&rsquo;s penchant for sticking with kids, Fuhr may never see Victoria again.The youngster is really quite a story. He was adopted by white parents when he was 17 days old and began playing goal in Spruce Grove when he was six. He was cut by a Tier 11 team in his home town and in Sherwood Park&mdash;another outlying district of Edmonton. After a year with a midget team in Spruce Grove, he fashioned a 3.14 average his first year with Victoria. It was even better this past season (2.78) as he led the Cougars to the Memorial Cup playdowns.If Fuhr is QUICK with his hands, a few of the Oilers&rsquo; other drafts have quick feet. Their second-round pick, Todd Strueby of Regina, had 105 points with the national midget champion team from Notre Dame, Sask, in 79-80. Last season he struggled a bit with 45 points in major junior, but Oilers Western scout Lome Davis isn&rsquo;t overly worried. &ldquo;Todd had a frustrating year with Regina, but he&rsquo;s a big strong kid who will develop,&rdquo; said Davis. Strueby was a borderline first-round pick by some teams, including the Calgary Flames.Fourth-round draft Paul Houck, 17 of Kelowna, had 108 points in Tier II play. The rightwinger has signed a letter of intent to attend the University of Wisconsin. &ldquo;He was one of the five best skaters in the draft,&rdquo; said Davis.One other interesting pick was Czech defenseman Miroslav Horava in the ninth round. Horava, 20, was rated as the Czechs&rsquo; second best blueliner in the recent world championship.ON THE BENCH&mdash;Sather tried unsuccessfully to peddle free agent right winger Don Murdoch during the NHL meetings. He had four or five clubs interested, but no takers. Goalie Gary Edwards has indicated a desire to play for an American team and he 11 probably be accommodated for a draft pick. &#9632;

Fuhr Too Good For Oilers To Resist

<div class="byline">BY PAT THOMPSON</div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;When the second round of the National Hockey League draft rolled around, it seemed like Lou Nanne was playing trump after every other selection.Of the 21 players picked that second round, the North Stars made five selections of 18-year-old players that apparently will be banked for the future in junior and collegiate programs.Overall, the Stars selected 14 players, and Nanne talked enthusiastically about how well he thought the Stanley Cup runners-up did in the selection of amateur talent.&ldquo;We had a great draft and accumulated some players I think can become exceptional,&rdquo; Nanne said. &ldquo;We got 11 of the 18 players we had rated highest in the draft, including eight of our top 11.&rdquo;Great draft, said Nanne, who got the extra turns from trades.Great big draft, coach Glen Sonmor said.&ldquo;We saw something we might have been lacking in the Stanley Cup finals against the Islanders,&rdquo; Sonmor told St Paul Pioneer Press writer Charley Hallman. &ldquo;That something was size. The kids we took might be a bit away from joining us. but most of them share the same attribute: Excellent size.&rdquo;They&rsquo;re all young, and most everyone of them are potential giants, especially if you consider their growth potential.The top selections included:&bull; Defenseman Ron Meighan, 18, 6-3, 194 pounds, first round, Niagara Falls (Ont.) junior with two seasons remaining, had 35 points (eight goals) in 63 games.&bull; Center Dave Donnelly, 18, 5-11. 185, second round, St. Albert (Alb.) Saints junior, with 243 penalty minutes and 94 goals in 53 games.&bull; Goalie Mike Sands. 18, 5-9, 146. second round, Sudbury (Ont.) junior, 5.8 average in 50 games.&bull; Defenseman Tom Hirsh, 18, 6-3, 195, second round, Minneapolis Henry high school, 42 goals and 35 assists in 23 games.&bull; Right wing Dave Preuss, 18, 6-2, 215, second round. St. Paul&rsquo;s St. Thomas high school, 37 goals and 15 assists in 23 games.&bull; Center Jali Wahlesten, 18, 6-2, 185. second round, Finland, 34 goals and 32 assists in 41 games.Hirsh Preuss and fourth-round center Jim Malwitz of Grand Rapids are advancing from brilliant Minnesota high school seasons as a group to the University of Minnesota for collegiate grooming before turning professional. Steve Kudebeh, an outstanding Minnesota prep goalie headed for Rensselaer Poly in New York, was the final player taken by the Stars&rsquo;on the 10th round.Wahlesten, in good time, will be joined by Kari Kanervo, another Finn taken on the eighth round.Meighan, who has two years of junior left, grew up in Ottawa, which produced Bobby Smith and Steve Payne.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy going to a young team, Meighan said. &ldquo;I know they&rsquo;ve got a lot of players, but I&rsquo;m going to their camp with the attitude that I&rsquo;m intending to make it.&rdquo;Sands played for the same junior team that produced rookie sensation Don Beaupre and was described by scouts as a carbon of Minnesota&rsquo;s 19-year-old goalie. &#9632;

Sizeable ’81 Draft Choices Please North Stars’ Brass

<div class="byline">BY CHARLIE HALPIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011789/8617959-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Typical of the new look at the 1981 NHL awards&rsquo; presentation in Montreal was the presence of Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Rick Kehoe, left, and Randy Carlyle. Both Penguin players won major awards for the first time in their pro careers. Kehoe was voted the Lady Byng Trophy for best combining sportsmanship and high standard of play while Carlyle received the Norris Trophy as the NHL&rsquo;s defenseman of the year. (Photo by Ian MacAlpine)</figcaption></div>There was a distinctive new look surrounding the National Hockey League&rsquo;s annual awards&rsquo; presentation at Montreal&rsquo;s fashionable Queen Elizabeth Hotel this year.Watching the customary silverware show under the glitter of lights and popping of photographers&rsquo; bulbs, you couldn&rsquo;t help but notice that the cast of players had definitely changed.Some of the NHL&rsquo;s top names, such as Wayne Gretzky, Marcel Dionne, Charlie Simmer, Larry Robinson and Raymond Bourque, were back to be acclaimed for their efforts during the 1980-81 NHL season, but beyond these great stars, everyone else among the actual 21 trophy and All Star winners were new.Of the 10 major individual trophy winners, eight were new. Of the 12 players who stepped up to receive first and second All Star team plaques, seven were not picked last year and four of them were honored for the very first time in their pro careers.Two major factors contributed to the many new faces at the awards&rsquo; show. Voting for the individual NHL awards was the closest in years and the All Star balloting was distributed among a record-equalling eight teams. Selections were made by the Professional Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association and there were no easy picks.Not even the irrepressible Gretzky, despite his magnificent season, totally dominated the voting. The Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; ace, who won the 1980-81 NHL point scoring championship, walked away with two trophies, the Ross, as scoring champ and the Hart, as the league&rsquo;s most valuable player. Winning the Hart seemed a lot tougher for Gretzky than winning the Ross. He collected 242 points to narrowly edge out goaltender Mike Liut of St. Louis in the MVP balloting among the writers in the 21 league cities. Liut earned 237 points in the virtual two-man voting for the award.Even though he was hard pressed by Liut to win his second straight Hart award, the 20-year-old Gretzky still emerged as the big winner as he pocketed $11,700 in bonus money. He received $1,500 for winning the Hart, $750 as runnerup in the Byng Trophy voting, $2,000 as a first team All Star, $1,750 as the Ross Trophy winner and another $5,700 as his share of the Oilers&rsquo; team award money from the NHL.The only other trophy winner to make a return appearance was Bob Gainey of the Montreal Canadiens, who has a lock on the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the NHL&rsquo;s best defensive forward. It marked the fourth year in succession Gainey has won the award since it was first presented in 1978.The closeness of the NHL&rsquo;s regular season races appear to have been reflected in the trophy voting by the PHWA. Actually, there was only one award that could be termed &lsquo;one sided.&rsquo; That was Peter Stastny&rsquo;s selection as Rookie of the Year. The Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; center, who defected from Czechoslovakia before the start of last season, won the Calder Trophy with an eye-popping 230 points. Runner-up Larry Murphy of the Los Angeles Kings received 127 points and Minnesota goalie Don Beaupre had only 82 points.Balloting in all other trophy voting was extremely close. Randy Carlyle of the Pittsburgh Penguins capped his best NHL season ever by winning the Norris Trophy as the best defenseman in the league. But the 25-year-old Carlyle encountered plenty of opposition from Denis Potvin of the Islanders and Montreal&rsquo;s Larry Robinson. Carlyle received 120 points, Potvin 113 and Robinson 100.The same situation prevailed in the Selke Trophy voting. Gainey drew 142 points as he finished only 12 ahead of Buffalo&rsquo;s Craig Ramsay and 43 up on Larry Patey of St. Louis. Rick Kehoe of the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Lady Byng Trophy as the player who best combined sportsmanship and hockey skills. But it wasn&rsquo;t easy for Keough either. He gained 138 points to beat out Gretzky, who had 120 and Boston&rsquo;s Rick Middleton, who had 82.All the other NHL trophy recipients were newcomers to the awards&rsquo; table. The Islanders&rsquo; Butch Goring captured the Smythe Trophy as the best player in the playoffs; Blake Dunlop of the St. Louis Blues won the Masterton Trophy as the NHL&rsquo;s &lsquo;Unsung Hero&rsquo;; Red Berenson, also of the Blues, was named coach of the year and received the Jack Adams Award; and the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; goaltending team of Richard Sevigny, Denis Herron and Bunny Larocque combined to win the Vezina Trophy with the best goals-against average despite the fact Larocque was traded and finished the final eight games of the season with Toronto. It was the first time in NHL history that three goalies had their name on the Vezina in the same year.The NHL All Star voting produced several firsts as well. The final balloting revealed that only two of the pre-1967 teams had players named and both ended up on the second team, the first time that a pre-1967 team had not been represented on the first team. The Montreal Canadiens, who have been perennial first-team selections, did not place one player on the first team. In contrast, the Los Angeles Kings, a post-1967 expansion team, won four All Star berths, one on the first and three on the second, to lead all NHL clubs.The Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders placed Denis Potvin on defense and Mike Bossy at right wing on the first team. Liut was selected as the No. 1 goalie with a leading 306 votes among All Star picks, Carlyle was named as the other defenseman, Simmer was picked on left wing and Gretzky was the center, with 305 votes, second only to Liut. A unanimous vote was 315.On the second team, Mario Lessard of the Kings was in goal, Larry Robinson and Ray Bourque of the Boston Bruins comprised the defense; Marcel Dionne was named center with Bill Barber of Philadelphia at left wing and Dave Taylor, also of the Kings, on right wing. For Liut, Carlyle, Simmer, Lessard and Taylor, it was their first ever All Star selection as NHLers.Following are the complete results of the voting for the 1980-81 individual trophy awards:HART: Gretzky, 242; Liut, 237; Dionne, 24; Bossy, 20; Bryan Trottier, NY Islanders, 9; Robinson, 7; Dan Bouchard, Quebec, 6; Kent Nilsson, Calgary. 5; Potvin, 4; Danny Gare, Buffalo, 3; Carlyle, 2; Peter Stastny, 2; Lessard. 2; Don Edwards, Buffalo, 1; Dave Williams, Vancouver, 1; Lafleur, 1; Bourque 1.CALDER: Peter Stastny. 230; Larry Murphy, 127; Beaupre. 82; Darryl Sutter, Chicago, 40; Denis Savard, Chicago, 30; Jorgen Pettersson, St. Louis, 20; Steve Kasper, Boston, 11; Sevigny, 10; Dave Christian. Winnipeg, 8; Anton Stastny. Quebec, 6; Glenn Anderson, Edmonton, 1; Mike Allison, NY Rangers, 1; Steve Christoff. Minnesota, 1.SELKE: Gainey, 142; Ramsay, 125; Patey, 99; Kasper, 70; Bob Bourne, NY Islanders, 31; Robbie Ftorek, Quebec, 15; Taylor, 9; Mel Bridgman, Philadelphia, 7; Trottier, 7; Don Lever, Calgary, 6; Goring, 6; Anders Kallur, NY Islanders, 6; Mike Zuke, St. Louis, 6; Terry O&rsquo;Reilly, Boston, 5; Tony Currie, St. Louis, 4; Paul Holmgren, Philadelphia, 4; Paul Woods, Detroit, 3; Bobby Clarke, Philadelphia, 3; Wayne Merrick, NY Islanders, 3; Don Marcotte, Boston. 2; Jerry Butler, Vancouver, 2; Bill Clement, Calgary, 2; Doug Jarvis, Montreal, 2; Al MacAdam, Minnesota, 1; Dave Langevin, NY Islanders, 1; Gerry Minor, Vancouver, 1; Ric Seiling, Buffalo, 1; Ed Johnstone, NY Rangers, 1; Don Maloney, NY Rangers, 1; Tom Gorence, Philadelphia, 1; Wayne Babych, St. Louis, 1.NORRIS: Carlyle, 120; Potvin, 113; Robinson, 100; Bourque, 53; Rod Langway, Montreal, 38; Brian Engblom, Montreal, 21; Murphy, 16; Rob Ramage, Colorado 15; Brad Park, Boston, 14; Borje Salming, Toronto. 11; Mark Howe, Hartford, 11; Jim Schoenfeld, Buffalo, 10; Dave Langevin, NY Islanders, 9; Ron Greschner, NY Rangers, 8; Bill Hajt, Buffalo, 5; Stefan Persson, NY Islanders, 5; Kevin McCarthy, Vancouver, 5; John Van Box-eer, Buffalo, 4; Reed Larson, Detroit, 4; Dave Lewis, Los Angeles, 2; Risto Siltanen, Edmonton, 1; Curt Giles, Minnesota, 1; Rick Lapointe, St. Louis, 1.BYNG: Kehoe, 138; Gretzky, 120; Middleton, Boston, 82; Kent Nilsson, Calgary, 69; Bossy, 60; Dionne, 26; Goring, 25; Ramsay, 8; Tom Lysiak, Chicago, 7; Peter McNab, Boston, 5; Dunlop, 5; Tony McKegney, Buffalo, 3; Mark Napier, Montreal, 3; Lafleur, 3; Mike Rogers, Hartford, 2; Bernie Federko, St. Louis, 1; Gainey, 1; Peter Stastny, 1; Pettersson, 1; Christian, 1; Robinson, 1; Chico Resch, Colorado, 1; Dave Keon, Hartford, 1; Ed Kea, St. Louis, 1; Anton Stastny, Quebec, 1; Per-Olov Brasar, Vancouver, 1.<h2>NHL&rsquo;s Trophy Winners, All Star Teams</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-021289/8617952-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="864" height="478"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-03907/8617945-1-eng-US/f0015-032.jpg" title="f0015-03" width="1108" height="512"></div> &#9632;

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HOCKEY NEWS STATISTICS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011745/8618053-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"></div>For the second straight year, THE HOCKEY NEWS, is providing individual statistics under its new format. Rather than breaking each player&rsquo;s stats down into the traditional team-by-team or league-by-league style of the past, we are giving to you, in alphabetical order, all of the statistics of all of the players in pro hockey for 1980-81-no matter what level (s) at which he performed (NHL all the way to the IHL and EHL). Separate statistics for the IHL and EHL are on pages 21 and 35 respectively. Goaltending statistics for all the pros are on page 23. The statistics for OHL, WHL and QHL are on pages 24 and 25. The NHL&rsquo;s plus-minus figures are on pages 22 and 23 and the 1981 NHL Entry Draft, with all 211 player selections, can be found on page 26 of your statistical pullout.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-021367/8618046-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="1425" height="3545"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011560/8618039-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="1464" height="2632"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-021215/8618032-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="1453" height="2586"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011627/8618025-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="1437" height="3613"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-021253/8618018-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="1451" height="3579"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011490/8618011-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="1453" height="3067"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-021131/8618004-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="1449" height="3015"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011389/8617997-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="1471" height="3615"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-021009/8617990-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="1443" height="3613"></div> &#9632;

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<h2>MOST ACCURATE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03888/8618098-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="974" height="778"></div><h2>TOP SHOOTERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-04657/8618091-1-eng-US/f0017-042.jpg" title="f0017-04" width="970" height="784"></div><h2>BEST ROOKIES</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-05461/8618084-1-eng-US/f0017-052.jpg" title="f0017-05" width="966" height="774"></div> &#9632;

f0017-03

The NHL’s Leading Shooters For 1980-81 Season

<h2>NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE</h2><h3>ADAMS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-03793/8618192-1-eng-US/f0019-032.jpg" title="f0019-03" width="536" height="165"></div><h3>NORRIS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-04613/8618185-1-eng-US/f0019-042.jpg" title="f0019-04" width="546" height="131"></div><h3>PATRICK DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-05456/8618178-1-eng-US/f0019-052.jpg" title="f0019-05" width="540" height="165"></div><h3>SMYTHE DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-06343/8618171-1-eng-US/f0019-062.jpg" title="f0019-06" width="550" height="162"></div><h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2><h3>NORTHERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-07287/8618164-1-eng-US/f0019-072.jpg" title="f0019-07" width="527" height="139"></div><h3>SOUTHERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-08245/8618157-1-eng-US/f0019-082.jpg" title="f0019-08" width="529" height="159"></div><h2>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</h2><h3>EAST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-09203/8618150-1-eng-US/f0019-092.jpg" title="f0019-09" width="533" height="134"></div><h3>WEST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-10171/8618143-1-eng-US/f0019-102.jpg" title="f0019-10" width="530" height="144"></div><h2>CENTRAL LEAGUE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-11154/8618136-1-eng-US/f0019-112.jpg" title="f0019-11" width="535" height="214"></div><h2>EASTERN LEAGUE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-12143/8618129-1-eng-US/f0019-122.jpg" title="f0019-12" width="531" height="163"></div> &#9632;

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How The Pro Races Finished For The 1980-81 Season

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0021-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-011128/8618244-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02729/8618237-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="1491" height="2227"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-04526/8618230-1-eng-US/f0035-042.jpg" title="f0035-04" width="1467" height="428"></div><h2>GOALKEEPING RECORDS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-05443/8618223-1-eng-US/f0035-052.jpg" title="f0035-05" width="1467" height="720"></div> &#9632;

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International Hockey League

MONTREAL&mdash;Little Marcel Dionne of the Los Angeles Kings continues to be one of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s most scintillating and hardest working performers.Last season the diminutive Kings&rsquo; ace was the third best plus-minus player in the NHL while leading the league in shots on goal for the second straight year. This season, Dionne went one better. He has emerged as the No. 1 plus-minus skater and again topped the NHL in most shots on goal.The 29-year-old Dionne led everyone who played in a minimum of 40 games during the 1980-81 season as he posted a 17.0 percentage to record the best plus-minus rating. Dionne was on the ice for 51.4 percent of the Kings&rsquo; goals scored against the Kings with both sides playing even. Second to Dionne was linemate Dave Taylor, whose offensive mark of 45.4 percent compared with a defensive record of 30.1 percent for a plus difference of 15.3. Despite missing the last 15 games of the season with a severely broken leg, the third member of the Kings&rsquo; Triple Crown Line, Charlie Simmer, ended up in sixth place among the top 10 with a plus-minus mark of 13.0.The leading rookie plus-minus player for the past season was center Denis Savard, the Chicago Black Hawks&rsquo; No. 1 draft pick of 1980, who collected 75 points in 76 games in his rookie season. Savard had an ll.5 plus difference in his offensive and defensive performance to grab the eighth spot and place himself among some of the NHL&rsquo;s elite players.Others in the top 10 after Dionne and Taylor were Edmonton&rsquo;s Wonderful Wayne Gretzky, who finished with a 14.9 plus-minus figure for third place. Mark Howe of Hartford was fourth with 14.7, to lead all NHL defensemen, Brian Engblom of Montreal was fifth with 13.4, Simmer ranked sixth, Vancouver&rsquo;s Lars Lindgren was seventh with 12.5, Savard eighth, Craig Ramsay of Buffalo and Tony Currie of the St. Louis Blues rounded out the leading 10 with identical 11.3 records.Simmer was last year&rsquo;s plus-minus leader while defenseman Raymond Bourque of Boston, who led all rookies in 1979-80, continued to flourish as a top plus-minus player, finishing in 15th place with a 10.4 rating.Meanwhile, in the NHL&rsquo;s shooting competition this past season, Dionne and Simmer cornered the market for the Kings. Dionne led all NHL players in shots on goal for the third straight season as he fired off 342 shots while scoring 58 goals, which gave him a 17.0 shooting percentage. For the three seasons he has led in shots, Dionne&rsquo;s accumulative totals are 170 goals, 1,052 shots and a 16.2 percent. He had 362 shots and 59 goals in 1978-79 and 348 shots and 53 goals in 1979-80.Six players, including Dionne, had at least 300 shots on goal during the past season. Second to the Kings&rsquo; star was Mike Gartner of Washington with 326, Reg Leach of Philadelphia with 321, Islanders&rsquo; Mike Bossy with 315, Wayne Babych of St. Louis with 306 and Toronto&rsquo;s Wilf Paiement, who wound up with 302 shots on goal.The distinction of being the most accurate shooter went to Simmer, who was No. 3 on last year&rsquo;s list. This season, Simmer became the first 50-goal scorer in NHL history to lead all individuals in shooting accuracy and he did it with a record 32.7 percent.Simmer scored 56 goals on 171 shots to set a league record. The Rangers&rsquo; Steve Vickers established the mark last season with 29 goals on 98 shots for a mark of 29.6 to top the NHL.<h2>Plus-Minus Leaders</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011273/8618443-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="757" height="1117"></div><h2>BOSTON</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02938/8618436-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="757" height="756"></div><h2>BUFFALO</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03715/8618429-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="761" height="645"></div><h2>CALGARY</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-04524/8618422-1-eng-US/f0022-042.jpg" title="f0022-04" width="761" height="665"></div><h2>CHICAGO</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-05394/8618415-1-eng-US/f0022-052.jpg" title="f0022-05" width="761" height="677"></div><h2>COLORADO</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-06310/8618408-1-eng-US/f0022-062.jpg" title="f0022-06" width="761" height="732"></div><h2>DETROIT</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-07255/8618401-1-eng-US/f0022-072.jpg" title="f0022-07" width="765" height="741"></div><h2>EDMONTON</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-08202/8618394-1-eng-US/f0022-082.jpg" title="f0022-08" width="765" height="557"></div><h2>HARTFORD</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-09176/8618387-1-eng-US/f0022-092.jpg" title="f0022-09" width="765" height="737"></div><h2>LOS ANGELES</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-10154/8618380-1-eng-US/f0022-102.jpg" title="f0022-10" width="765" height="628"></div><h2>MINNESOTA</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-11135/8618373-1-eng-US/f0022-112.jpg" title="f0022-11" width="790" height="749"></div><h2>MONTREAL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-12123/8618366-1-eng-US/f0022-122.jpg" title="f0022-12" width="790" height="601"></div><h2>ISLANDERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-13111/8618359-1-eng-US/f0022-132.jpg" title="f0022-13" width="790" height="677"></div><h2>RANGERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-1498/8618352-1-eng-US/f0022-142.jpg" title="f0022-14" width="770" height="676"></div><h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03598/8618345-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="764" height="729"></div><h2>PITTSBURGH</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-04436/8618338-1-eng-US/f0023-042.jpg" title="f0023-04" width="764" height="725"></div><h2>QUEBEC</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-05320/8618331-1-eng-US/f0023-052.jpg" title="f0023-05" width="764" height="649"></div><h2>ST. LOUIS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-06256/8618324-1-eng-US/f0023-062.jpg" title="f0023-06" width="764" height="620"></div><h2>TORONTO</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-07211/8618317-1-eng-US/f0023-072.jpg" title="f0023-07" width="786" height="693"></div><h2>VANCOUVER</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-08177/8618310-1-eng-US/f0023-082.jpg" title="f0023-08" width="786" height="596"></div><h2>WASHINGTON</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-09144/8618303-1-eng-US/f0023-092.jpg" title="f0023-09" width="786" height="640"></div><h2>WINNIPEG</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-10125/8618296-1-eng-US/f0023-102.jpg" title="f0023-10" width="786" height="684"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-011144/8618289-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="736" height="580"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marcel Dionne&hellip;He&rsquo;s No. 1</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02804/8618282-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="744" height="580"><figcaption class="caption-body">Denis Savard&hellip;Top Rookie</figcaption></div><h2>Final Goaltending Records</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-11104/8618275-1-eng-US/f0023-112.jpg" title="f0023-11" width="1494" height="3596"></div> &#9632;

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Dionne Plus-Minus Leader, Top Shooter

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011231/8618502-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="584" height="3519"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02874/8618495-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="594" height="2071"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03623/8618488-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="606" height="2075"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-04437/8618481-1-eng-US/f0024-042.jpg" title="f0024-04" width="600" height="2073"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-05303/8618474-1-eng-US/f0024-052.jpg" title="f0024-05" width="590" height="2065"></div> &#9632;

f0024-01

Ontario Hockey League Scoring

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-06238/8618582-1-eng-US/f0024-062.jpg" title="f0024-06" width="595" height="1269"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-07197/8618575-1-eng-US/f0024-072.jpg" title="f0024-07" width="609" height="1268"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-08157/8618568-1-eng-US/f0024-082.jpg" title="f0024-08" width="604" height="1273"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-09138/8618561-1-eng-US/f0024-092.jpg" title="f0024-09" width="586" height="1232"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-06201/8618554-1-eng-US/f0025-062.jpg" title="f0025-06" width="586" height="735"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-07167/8618547-1-eng-US/f0025-072.jpg" title="f0025-07" width="591" height="885"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-08136/8618540-1-eng-US/f0025-082.jpg" title="f0025-08" width="577" height="882"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-09111/8618533-1-eng-US/f0025-092.jpg" title="f0025-09" width="613" height="876"></div> &#9632;

f0024-06

Quebec Hockey League Scoring

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-011103/8618641-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="610" height="3545"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02758/8618634-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="574" height="2645"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03524/8618627-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="576" height="2651"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-04349/8618620-1-eng-US/f0025-042.jpg" title="f0025-04" width="565" height="2651"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-05251/8618613-1-eng-US/f0025-052.jpg" title="f0025-05" width="607" height="2654"></div> &#9632;

f0025-01

Western Hockey League Scoring

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02882/8618703-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg"></div>Legend: OHL&mdash;Ontario Hockey League; WHL&mdash;Western Hockey League; QHL&mdash;Quebec Hockey League; ECAC&mdash;Eastern College Athletic Conference; WCHA&mdash;Western Collegiate Hockey Association; CCHA&mdash;Central Collegiate Hockey Association; USHS&mdash;United States High School; USML&mdash;United States Midwest League. &#9632;

f0026-02

How The NHL Teams Drafted The Amateurs

<div class="byline">BY CHARLIE HALPIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011239/8618672-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Illustration by Garner)</figcaption></div>MONTREAL&mdash;Until this year, goaltenders had become a forgotten species as far as the National Hockey League&rsquo;s Entry Draft was concerned. In recent years they had been almost totally ignored.That all changed in the 1981 draft at Montreal where suddenly the men in the big pads were major attractions for many of the 21 NHL teams. After three years of relative draft obscurity, 25 goalies were picked, the most the league has seen in years.Hockey people were adamant that two things contributed to the renewed interest in goalies this year. First, the almost total dissatisfaction with the goalkeeping around the NHL last season (a total of 78 goalies were tested by the 21 NHL teams). And secondly, the overnight success of an underage netminder named Don Beaupre with the Minnesota North Stars.The Stars thrust Beaupre, a small but tough 19-year-old draft pick, into NHL action at an age when most youngsters are still trying to learn the art of puck stopping. Beaupre was a test case and his success (3.20 goals-against average in 44 games) didn&rsquo;t exactly go unnoticed.The 1981 draft will go down as the year the goaltender returned to prominence and credit the spectacular junior play of Grant Fuhr of the Victoria Cougars for helping launch the rejuvenation. Fuhr, a 19-year-old whiz who backstopped Victoria to the Western Hockey League championship, was selected eighth in the Montreal draft by the Edmonton Oilers.Two things make Fuhr unique. He is the first black goalie ever to be drafted and he&rsquo;s also the first netminder chosen in the first round since 1975, a statistic that hasn&rsquo;t exactly endeared the pros to aspiring young goalkeepers on the way up.The selection of 25 netminders this year compared with 16 in 1980 and 11 in 1979 when the NHL drafted only 126 players as compared to 211 this season.Only five of the 21 teams, Buffalo, Colorado, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Toronto, failed to draft a goalkeeper this year. The Winnipeg Jets, who had the most inept netminding in the league in 1980-81, picked three U.S. college goalies and could experiment with either Wisconsin&rsquo;s Marc Behrend or Bob O&rsquo;Connor of Boston College in the NHL next season in an effort to stabilize their future.As expected, defensemen were once again the top priority in the 1981 draft. Some 67 rearguards were selected and they accounted for 11 of the 21 first round picks. After the backliners, centers were the most in demand with 52 being drafted, including the first four picks. A total of 38 right wingers were chosen and 29 left wingers.Dale Hawerchuk, the high-scoring center of the Cornwall Royals and Canada&rsquo;s Player of the Year, was chosen No. 1 as everyone predicted. What was not predicted was the selection of Massachusetts schoolboy whiz Bob Carpenter by the Washington Caps. Carpenter, considered the greatest hockey prospect to come out of the Eastern seaboard in years, was slated to be drafted fourth by the Hartford Whalers. But an 11th hour trade of draft picks in which Colorado, which had third choice, turned over its spot to Washington enabled Washington to claim Carpenter&mdash;much to the dismay of the Whalers, who chose center Ron Francis from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League.Carpenter, who was only 17 at the time of the Montreal draft (he&rsquo;ll be 18 on July 13) became a cause celebre as a result. Since the draft began in 1970, the NHL had never before picked a high school performer in the first round. He also became the highest American-born player ever chosen in the draft. But NHL fans will likely have to wait two years before they get a chance to watch the solid, six-foot, 185-pound Carpenter perform with the pros. He is slated to enter Providence College this fall and will probably not play in the NHL before the 1983-84 season.The Los Angeles Kings, who drafted second, took another center, Doug Smith of the Ottawa 67s, to trigger an onslaught of OHL players. Ontario League teams provided the second, fourth, fifth and seventh top picks in the first round and contributed 59 players among the 211 who were drafted. The Western League had 37 drafted and the Quebec League 27. The three major U.S. college conferences, the ECAC, WCHA and CCHA, lost 21 players to the pros with 13 coming from the ECAC.The NHL drafted 32 Europeans, 15 from Sweden, 11 from Finland, four Czechoslovakians and two from West Germany. But the big surprise had to be the picking of 17 United States high school players, the most ever by the NHL since expansion in 1967. Another 14 players were grabbed from Canada&rsquo;s Tier II junior teams, an unexpected testimonial to the improved calibre of play below the major junior hockey level. &#9632;

f0026-01

Goalies Feel Wanted Again After NHL Draft

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0027-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-011186/8618734-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Here is a panoramic view of the new Edmonton Coliseum, home of the NHL Oilers, which seats 17,475 and is fully equipped with Irwin Gladiator and Citation chairs, which also appear in many of the rinks around the National League.</figcaption></div>That slamming noise one hears isn&rsquo;t the sound of arena doors closing throughout North America. It might have been a few years ago, but now it&rsquo;s the sound of a puck bouncing off the boards on a lazy summer&rsquo;s day or perhaps the Zamboni putting down another fresh layer of ice. Yes, The Crunch has come, but the past two or three years have brought about an increased awareness that operating an ice skating rink isn&rsquo;t all fun and games; those who are really serious about the business are asking questions, pushing ideas and getting the answers to making arena operation a viable business.What are the major problems? ENERGY, of course, that&rsquo;s the big one, followed by higher costs for practically everything&mdash;insurance, maintenance, equipment, taxes, and so on.Following the hockey boom which swept the United States in the late 60s after the National Hockey League had expanded into six new U.S. cities in 1967 and then blossomed with an amazing growth in the first half of the 70s with the further expanded NHL and the birth of the World Hockey Association, the market ab-ruptly sank in the latter portion of the decade when many arenas were forced to close because they could not keep up with rising costs.At the peak of the arena building boom, communities, with state and federal funding behind them, rapidly lined up volunters to help operate the arenas which seemed to be springing up almost overnight. But when the rinks began to operate at a loss, taxpayers took notice and the desire to bring new arenas into various communities began to abate. So, too, did the state and federal funds.Even today, although the prospects of owning or operating an arena are more stablized, there are probably still more rinks closing than there are new structures being built. What arena operators face today, then, are two main concerns: 1) Cheaper and more efficient ways must be found to run existing facilities and 2) New facilities being planned must be operated more economically and with perhaps different guidelines than their predecessors.Skip Butler, general manager of Skyrink in Manhattan says: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re located on top of a building, on the 16th floor, and if I could get a windmill big enough&hellip;I could probably produce enough energy to run my building.&ldquo;There have been several facilities which have gone into cogeneration of energy,&rdquo; Butler said, &ldquo;That is, they&rsquo;re producing energy, but they&rsquo;re using diesel fuel to do it. For instance, there&rsquo;s Babson College in Massachusetts, which uses this idea and when they first started out six or seven years ago, it was a great idea. But at today&rsquo;s cost of oil, they could buy cheaper energy from the power company than they could produce themselves.&ldquo;Canadian rinks have had somewhat the same problems,&rdquo; Butler continued, &ldquo;although I don&rsquo;t think their energy problems are what ours are. I don&rsquo;t think they&rsquo;ve gotten into the crunch that we have because most of their rinks are working off hydro power which is obviously a lot cheaper.&ldquo;However, their insurance costs are about the same and their labor problems would be the same.&rdquo;Solutions?One man, Michael Booker, who happens to be the president of the Ice Skating Institute of America, as well as the vice president of Ice Capades Inc., and the president of Ice Capades Chalets, which operate 14 rink facilities throughout the United States, feels the industry is on the right track. &ldquo;I think the industry is attempting to respond to the needs of the general public in upgrading every facet of their operations, including the physical side, the aesthetic quality and the service given the public by the personnel,&rdquo; Booker says.Boyd Wiecheter of the South County Recreation Complex in St. Louis County, Mo., looks for cooperation as a key factorin the development of the arenas. &ldquo;Through intensive cooperation by all ice skating organizations, the industry can improve itself. This cooperation would not only help the managers, but would improve the overall skating operations of the rinks.We should be looking at ways of improving the management of facilities through the use of seminars, technical papers and professional assistance,&rdquo; Wiecheter says. &ldquo;More exchange of information on a management level is needed.&rdquo;That would seem to cover most of the bases With the exception of perhaps one of the major ones&mdash;the rink itself. Can a less expensive rink be built? Or can rinks use less expensive sources of energy to carry out their functions?Butler and Booker have some ideas.&ldquo;We were in the process of trying to build a rink out on Long Island, an idea which is still sitting on the fire, by building underground,&rdquo; explains Butler. &ldquo;That way you would at least work off of the temperature of the ground, which is considerably less than what it would be with any kind of free-standing structure; something in the neighborhood of 50 degrees.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&rsquo; for a fact, but I understand in the mid-West, there&rsquo;s a full arena, with a seating capacity of 17,000-18,000, now being built underground.&rdquo;&ldquo;So far as the industry improving itself,&rdquo; Booker contends, &ldquo;I think it is going to continue to go through changes as it has in the past four years and will emerge in a somewhat different form.&ldquo;Energy costs are a major factor in the profitability of an ice rink, so it&rsquo;s only a matter of time before some other substance, either manufactured without energy or less energy, is available on the market and proves more viable than the present substances that substitute for natural ice. I say this in deference to the present substances on the market. I don&rsquo;t want to appear critical; however, to a degree, they are not sufficiently sophisticated to enable the ice rinks to carry on all the programs they presently conduct.&ldquo;These new substances will produce another market,&rdquo; Booker contends, &ldquo;They will cater to another market which means that everyone in the business will have to adjust to that market.&rdquo;Other adjustments may have to be made by the public, according to Booker. &ldquo;Ice surfaces will most definitely be smaller in the future. The days of building rinks 100x200 and 185x85 are over,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I think, too, that ice rinks will become part of multi-purpose facilties like recreational centers and shopping malls.&rdquo;THE HOCKEY NEWS would like to thank Bob Stampleman for his help in compiling material for this section. &#9632;

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ICE RINK BUYERS’ GUIDE

The Philadelphia Little Flyers performed in an exhibition game this past season and what made the event so unique was that it was played entirely on &lsquo;plastic ice,&rsquo; the newest concept in energy conservation.Provided by Uncle Ned&rsquo;s Inc. of Orlando, Florida, the ice surface was set up in a Philadelphia mall and the response was overwhelming from bystanders who watched the game.The doubting Thomases were really amazed to see synthetic ice being used for all kinds of skating, with the same results as if the skaters were using a refrigerated rink. First a professional man and woman team from New York presented their skating act, complete with spins, camels, and comedy&mdash;and they thought the polymer plastic material was great. Then for the next few hours about 500 amateur skaters tried the ice, and were able to skate with no problems. And the big event consisted of a hockey-match between the Little Philadelphia Flyers and another team of 12-year-old boys, the match lasting 30 minutes. The whole show was outstanding, one of the best displays to occur in the last 100 years of ice-skating.For six years, Ned R. Steele, chairman of the board of Uncle Ned&rsquo;s Inc., worked at convincing people that any kind of skating can be done on a synthetic floor as well as it can be done on refrigerated ice. Steele says the Philadelphia story was definite proof to anybody who saw it that the age of the refrigerated rink is about over, and plastic ice is here to stay.&ldquo;The synthetic material is a little slower than &ldquo;real&rdquo; ice at first,&rdquo; added Steele, &ldquo;but when the top film gets &ldquo;skated off&rdquo; the fibres, we are able to make the surface as slow or as fast as is desired, by changing the viscosity of the fluid we apply. For example, if 40,000 to 50,000 viscosity is used, it could get gummy, but when the fluid is cut 6 to 8 times with water, the resulting spray will stay uniform, with no gumming.&rdquo;&ldquo;One fine feature of the material is that it is much easier to learn to skate on such a surface, because the fibers make one skate true, and you are less prone to injure your ankles, since the surface is smooth at all times.&ldquo;It seems apparent that a properly prepared and installed synthetic ice rink will be the only answer for hockey players in the future, when we accept the fact that energy costs will continue to rise, making refrigerated ice-rinks far too costly to maintain. Another factor which is attractive is that anybody with spare space in a basement or garage, for instance, can own his own rink at home for practice sessions, etc. The ice can be used indoors or outdoors, is very easy to maintain, and you need no pipes or refrigeration whatsoever,&rdquo; concluded Steele.Steele is optimistic about the future of &lsquo;plastic ice.&rsquo; There are now 14 rinks in various places, from British Columbia to Philadelphia, being used for schools, mall promotions, figureskating shows, etc. The number is still growing. &#9632;

Plastic Ice Comes Of Age

Along with new developments and improvements in ice skates, there is also a significant shift taking place in the maintenance and sharpening of skate blades. Canadian Skate Contours Limited of Mississauga, Ontario, has engineered and through the manufacturing facilities of TSM Industries, developed, skate contouring or rockering systems, providing better stability, movement, straightaway, speed, shooting accuracy, puck control and reduced muscle fatigue. These are all achieved from correct contouring and adjustment of the skate lie&mdash;that is the heel-to-toe shape of the blade.CSC and TSM have developed two systems: One, the Custom Radius system, basically allows a relatively inexperienced operator to adjust a person&rsquo;s skate blade to match exactly with a corresponding contour that is deemed correct for his style of skating. Continual adjustments can be made to the contour until it is felt to be the perfect&rsquo; shape. Both skates can be matched and continually sharpened with the same contour on the blade. The second system, Canadian Skate Contours system, is also called the owner&rsquo;s system by company president, Bill Walley, as it allows the operator more flexibility in determining the correct heel-to-toe condition to the center-line of the body. CSC aptly calls it &lsquo;Prescription skating achieved by a professional system.&rsquo;The new breed of combined contouring and skate sharpening systems will open new areas for sales and service to skate grinder operators, who provide the skate care services throughout Canada and the U.S.A.For further information contact: TSM Industries. 2459 Dixie Road, Mississauga, Ont. L4Y 2A1 or phone (416) 279-8514.<h2>CSC Custom Radius</h2>For the 1981-1982 hockey season Custom-Radius Corporation and Canadian Skate Contours announces a full line of equipment and supplies for supporting a skate care facility.The primary offering is a full range of BLADEMASTER skate sharpeners, including a single wheel, bench top sharpener, the team portable sharpener in its own container, a dual head machine with both sharpening and roughing heads, a triple header with two sharpening heads and a roughing head and cabinet mounted single head machines for either roughing or sharpening. This is the most complete range of size and capability of skate sharpeners available from any source.CUSTOM RADIUS reminds the operator must not overlook comfort, health and the cleanliness of his facility and this dictates the use of a dust control system. All cabinet mounted BLADEMASTER sharpeners will accept the self contained BLADEMASTER 80XF dust control unit, a highly efficient, high capacity system which scrubs the airborne dust out of over 200 cubic feet of air every minute.The patented (US & Canada) Custom Radius System is the original system for contouring, balancing and matching hockey skates. This indisputably accurate equipment is in use by National Hockey League teams, minor league, colleges, schools, rinks, arenas and skate shops throughout the United States and Canada. Custom Radius was used as part of the. exclusive skate care service provided for the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. It uses precision templates to establish and control the shape of the blade and a controllable skate clamp to establish and maintain the balance of the blade while assuring that both blades have exactly the same skating characteristics.Skate sharpening is but one facet of good skate care. Other considerations must include blade straightening, attachment of blade to boot and replacement of eyelets and hooks.For further information contact: Custom Radius Corporation, 249 Boston Street, Topsfield, MA 01983, (617) 887-8531-2 or Canadian Skate Contours, 2459 Dixie Road, Mississauga, Ont., L4Y 2A1 (416) 249-8544. &#9632;

Skate Care Developments

You can hardly walk into a professional hockey dressing room or arena these days and not be impressed with the brightly-colored flooring. It&rsquo;s the new look in those once barren and dull hockey rinks that invariably greeted you when you walked through the door.Skatetile and Pro-Lok have taken the drudgery out of the facial look of hockey rinks today with widely used arena flooring materials in the United States and Canada. Both products are manufactured by the Pawling Rubber Corporation of Pawling, N.Y.Skatetile features a reversible 24x24 rubber tile with a unique interlock system that allows tiles, when they are worn or damaged, to be reversed or readily replaced. They also give a more pleasing look to any arena and dressing room.Pro-Lok on the other hand is a hard rubber floor tile designed for use in skating rinks, penalty boxes, player benches, walkways, pro shops, locker rooms and weight rooms. The surface has small, slightly raised circles to provide excellent traction so important to athletes and public alike. The unique inter-lock design allows for simplified installation.Hockey operators are particularly interested in Skatetile and Pro-Lok flooring for many reasons. The tiles are cut resistant, they&rsquo;re long wearing, they absorb sound, prevent injury due to falls and probably most significantly to hockey players and teams, they protect skate blades from dulling.Pawling Rubber can provide color textures in black, blue, terra cotta, green, brown and tan. Custom colors are also available with minimum orders of 200 tiles. &#9632;

Floor Tiles Provide New Look In Arenas Plus Better Traction

Here&rsquo;s good news and bad news for ice skating enthusiasts across North America. First, if you live in an area where an arena services your hockey and ice skating needs, the word is positive because although costs continue to climb, most areas find that their skating programs are showing continuing growth rates. The negative aspect of the situation is that if you live in an area that doesn&rsquo;t already have an existing facility for skating, you aren&rsquo;t likely to get one in the near future.The Ice Skating Institute of America (1SIA) recently held its major annual congress and provided arena operators. program directors and people who are simply interested in ice skating as a recreational activity an opportunity to compare notes and discuss possible improvements which will make ice skating a more accessible sport for all those wishing to be involved. Some of the ideas that were discussed pertaining to ice skating and hockey programs will be mentioned in this article, while on page 27 the article features the energy problem as it relates to arena operation and some of the methods that the ice skating industry is using or should employ to combat the problems they are facing.For those areas fortunate enough to have an arena available for year-round use, there is some solace when you consider that arena managers are finding that there aren&rsquo;t enough hours in the day to accommodate the interest people of all ages have in ice skating. But they are trying, and the response from the general public to compromise their own preferences has led to a strong give-and-take situation between operators and participants.Hockey programs across the continent seem to be attracting steady growth at practically all age levels. Here are some of the typical rele-vations of arena operators throughout the United States:&bull; &ldquo;Our hockey program has improved over 70 percent in the past few years in both quality of instruction and number of participants,&rdquo; said Wally Kormylo, of the Glenview Ice Center, in Glenview, Ill. &ldquo;It just keeps going, getting bigger and bigger each year.&ldquo;Adult hockey is also definitely getting bigger,&rdquo; Kormylo added. &ldquo;We just don&rsquo;t have enough time in our rink to accommodate adult hockey. Our program is for those over the age of 35&mdash;it&rsquo;s no checking, no slapshots. These men are finding hockey a lot of fun and it&rsquo;s a good way to exercise.&rdquo;&bull; &ldquo;Our hockey program is quite successful,&rdquo; said Sandy MacDonald, of McCann Ice Arena of the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., &ldquo;we have an off-season hockey development program and a winter program.&ldquo;The yardstick we use to measure success is ice usage and we have over 3,000 hours of ice usage a year,&rdquo; MacDonald reported. &ldquo;We have 280 kids in our hockey programs and minor hockey uses practically all the ice time on weekends from 6 a.m. until midnight, although we also have a couple of public skating sessions in there as well.&ldquo;There is no question that adult hockey is growing, with the players leaning towards a non-checking type game. Kids aged five to seven increased from 56 to 82 this year and there is an increase in interest for those between the ages of seven and 17.&rdquo;&bull; Even increasing costs are doing little to stem the tide of rising interest in skating and hockey, as Barry Wolkon of Rockland Sport-O-Rama in Monsey, N.Y., points out: &ldquo;We have found a steady growth of five to 20 percent in all age levels every year. I think the biggest problem is with the Mites because of the cost factor. We have gone from a factor of about $150.00 per player for our recreational program to $250.00 in seven years. And that does not include equipment&mdash;that&rsquo;s just for joining the league.&ldquo;We have two Mite programs. One we run and the other is run by an outside organization. This year, we found no increase in our group, but a tremendous jump in the other league because an individual connected with the group financed all the equipment and ice time,&rdquo; said Wolkon.&bull; Boyd Wietecter, of the South County Recreation Complex in St. Louis County, Mo., also runs an arena where an outside organization has had success in running a hockey program.&ldquo;Our hockey program is operated by AHAUS [Amateur Hockey Association of the United States) and has had a 50 percent growth in the last two years, so it&rsquo;s gone a long way in helping us through the rental of ice time. We are a municipal rink and since AHAUS is serving youngsters with their programs, we&rsquo;re not going to compete with them. But if they weren&rsquo;t around, we would probably have a hockey program of our own.&ldquo;The biggest growth in hockey in our area has been in youth hockey, Wietecter points out, &ldquo;although there has been interest in adult hockey. We do have some recreational hockey programs for adults and they have had good results and continue to grow, although not as fast as youth hockey.&rdquo;Rockland Sport-O-Rama&rsquo;s Wolkon operates a program that caters to skaters&rsquo; recreational needs but doesn&rsquo;t overlook those seeking more competitive pursuits, foreshadowing the type of program differentiation which could become an essential part of the future operation of arenas.&ldquo;We have a unique program, promoting hockey as a recreational sport and trying to keep it like Little League,&rdquo; explained Wolkon. &ldquo;All our youngsters get equal ice time and we develop our own house league program which, at various times of the year, has from 30 to 40 teams. We give them coaching and try. I&rsquo;m afraid a bit unsuccessfully, to de-emphasize competition.&ldquo;I think our hockey program is one of the most successful in the country,&rdquo; Wolkon added. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not familiar with all of them, but from the financial and numbers aspect, our program is very successful.&ldquo;From our house league program we can then select our most highly competitive players, those who want to travel and compete in AHAUS programs nationally. All told, from a rather small area of population, we have about 600 to 700 boys and girls.&rdquo;So take heart, arena operators. Boys, girls and adults alike are out there waiting to use your facilities. Apparently, they&rsquo;ve got plenty of energy to burn. Just give them a chance. &#9632;

Skating Programs’ Popularity Still Growing

The Ice Skating Institute of America (ISIA) is an organization open to all those interested in or associated with ice skating whether as a skater or involved with the operation of an ice rink facility.The purposes of the Institute are:To encourage ice skating for recreation and, if interested, as a participant sport.To provide information and help for the mutual benefit of the members.To provide information for the development and construction of an ice rink facility.To hold an annual meeting and seminars throughout the year for the exchange of information and ideas.The ISIA-designed recreation testing program encompasses all skating interests. After passing basic tests, the skater may pursue that phase of skating that appeals to him the most: Freestyle, ice dancing, couples, pairs, figures, hockey or speedskating. Many skaters, however, after passing their tests are happy just to attend public sessions and skate for recreation and fitness. &#9632;

Ice Skating Institute Open To The Public

A pair of multi-use products is now available from NOVUS Inc. of Minneapolis, MN.Providing complete care and maintenance for NOVUS Plastic Polishes are in use now on clear acrylic dasher boards, booths and display cases, vending machines and most other plastic surfaces.NOVUS No. 1, polishes, protects, and glazes to a finish that resists finger markings, dust buildup and smudges.NOVUS No. 2 reconditions scratched, hazy, or dirty surfaces and restores them to a like-new condition.NOVUS polishes are suitable for processing plastic parts, pre-shipment protection and finishing, dealer preparation for display, and pre-delivery cleaning and touchup.Distributor inquiries invited. Write NOVUS Inc., 5301 Edina Industrial Blvd., Minneapolis, MN 55435 or phone (612) 831-2434. &#9632;

Multi-Use Featured By Novus

<div class="byline">BY JIM LEAHY</div>NEW HAVEN&mdash;A Hollywood script writer couldn&rsquo;t have come up with a better plot. For New Haven Nighthawks&rsquo; fans, it was a month during which they suffered through the proverbial agony of defeat and then celebrated the ecstasy of victory when their American Hockey League franchise was saved with a dramatic series of events and a sensational announcement during a press conference in New HavenNighthawks&rsquo; owner Joel Schiavone was ready to call it quits. The New Haven Coliseum Authority refused to stop harassing his club, claiming that the city was suffering a huge financial loss at the Coliseum due to the energy costs they attributed to the operation of the building for the AHL. A concurrent drop in attendance last season due to the Nighhawks&rsquo; terrible record caused a drop in revenue for the NHCA while their electric bill was skyrocketing to $700,000. Clearly, both sides were backed into a corner. Schiavone and his Nighthawks were not about to fork over more money since his team already pays the highest rent in the AHL. He lost a reported $125,000 last year on the Nighthawks. Enter New Haven Mayor Biagio DiLieto.Like a knight in shining armor, DiLieto interceded and used his political muscle to call an uneasy truce. He wants hockey in New Haven and pledged his support to the Nighthawks. He named a task force to study the energy-related problems at the Coliseum as well as the contactural differences between the two parties. Schiavone responded by announcing that his team would be back for their 10th season next October.Now that hockey was assured for another year in New Haven, the matter of a NHL affiliation was yet to be settled. As suggested in the last issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS, an association with the Los Angeles Kings seemed to make sense. But for now, the scene shifts to Montreal and the annual NHL meeting.The Nighthawks were in a great negotiating position in Montreal. They didn&rsquo;t want Rod Gilbert back as coach (he had parted company with the Rangers a few days earlier) and L.A. was interested in New Haven for their top development team. Another club, probably Boston, was also looking at New Haven. Usually, AHL owners go begging for a good NHL affiliation. Not the Nighthawks. Many hockey people know that they run a classy operation.Now the stage was set for the wealthy and flamboyant Schiavone to connect with a stranger from the West. Enter Dr. Jerry Buss and his Los Angeles Kings. But first, the New York Rangers must exit.High-level negotiations were conducted in Montreal and the Nighthawks eventually decided to end a five-year association with the Rangers and go with the Kings. As for their new connection, Parker MacDonald, exNighthawks&rsquo; GM-coach was in New Haven negotiating when the Kings named him head coach, replacing Bob Berry, who eventually went to Montreal.Thursday, June 11 turned out to be quite a day in New Haven. Even Mayor DiLieto proclaimed it &ldquo;New Haven Nighthawks Day.&rdquo; Schiavone called a press conference. A huge contingent of media people was on hand. It was an extravagant affair, one that Dr. Buss would have been proud of. The Nighthawks then announced the signing of a multi-year deal with the Los Angeles Kings. Under the terms of the arrangement, the Kings will send 19 players to New Haven. Promises were made that frequent recalls would be minimized since New Haven is 3,000 miles away from the Fabulous Forum. However, the best was yet to come.Schiavone stood at the microphone at the head table and asked &ldquo;the next coach of the New Haven Nighthawks&rdquo; to come from behind the door. Enter Don Perry, the guru of hockey in New Haven to legions of his fans.To say that Perry means something to New Haven hockey fans is an understatement. After being a hero during his days as both a player and then coach of the old New Haven Blades of the Eastern Hockey League, he was exiled to Saginaw of the International Hockey League when the Nighthawks were born. Perry made the Blades the top attraction in the EHL and a ticket to their games was a pass to a great evening of entertainment. Virtually every game was sold out, but the fan enthusiasm for his teams was never matched by the Nighthawks.A Don Perry-coached team will never be pushed around on their home ice. &ldquo;I want hockey players who will pay the price for success,&rdquo; said Perry during the press conference. He knows how to motivate young players, as evidenced by the fact that his Saginaw Gears won two 1HL titles, including last season. His teams have always featured hard hitting and aggressive skating, something that was noticeably lacking on last year&rsquo;s Nighthawks&rsquo; club.AHL NOTES: The Springfield Indians took over where New Haven left off when they signed a working agreement with the Rangers&hellip;Rod Gilbert was nominated by the Rangers to coach the Indians, but he turned it down&hellip;Boston will probably send players to the new Erie franchise. The Erie Blades will be stocked with skaters from Pittsburgh and Boston if that happens&hellip;Quebec&rsquo;s new AHL team, the Fredericton Express, will play in the tiny Aitken Center, which seats only 3,500. That&rsquo;s the smallest rink in the AHL&hellip;Fredericton, Moncton (New Brunswick) and Nova Scotia should build up quite a Maritime rivalry starting this October when AHL action resumes&hellip;As though winning the Harry &ldquo;Hap&rdquo; Holmes Trophy and being named to the first team of the 1980-81 All Stars was not enough, Maine Mariners&rsquo; goalie Pelle Lindbergh is the AHL&rsquo;s Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player. The Swedish import, who wore the orange and black of the Mariners last October in his first year as a professional, is the winner of both the Les Cunningham Plague (MVP) and the Dudley &ldquo;Red&rdquo; Garrett Award (Rookie) in the voting conducted by the AHL.Nova Scotia&rsquo;s record setting defenseman Craig Levie is the winner of the Eddie Shore Plaque, emblematic of the Defenseman of the Year, and Hershey&rsquo;s Tony Cassolato is winner of the Fred Hunt Award, given to honor the former AHL player, coach and executive. All of these awards were determined in the balloting from the players and media in each of the nine Cities in the AHL.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-011207/8618968-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="604" height="657"><figcaption class="caption-body">Fortner New Haven player and coach Don Perry has returned to take over the Nighthawks for 1981-82.</figcaption></div><h2>AHL All Star Teams</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02802/8618961-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="1138" height="624"></div> &#9632;

f0032-01

Hockey Born Again In New Haven As Kings’ Affiliation Saves Hawks

<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div>NASHVILLE&mdash;The Central Hockey League has rebounded from two franchise defections last season to a nine-team, two-division alignment for the 1981-82 season,Nashville, Tn., and Cincinnati, Oh., are the newest members to join the CHL family for next season after the league closed the 1980-81 campaign with seven teams after losing both Houston and Birmingham to financial troubles along the way.Both new CHL teams will have direct NHL operation and affiliation. Nashville was confirmed as the eighth member when the Minnesota North Stars beat the Chicago Black Hawks to the punch and decided to sponsor the team. The Cincinnati team, which will likely be known as the Firebirds, will be sponsored and operated by the Toronto Maple Leafs, who will be making their first direct venture into the CHL after years of functioning with teams in the American League.Lou Schmittau, who also heads the Nashville baseball club, was introduced as president of the newest CHL member. The North Stars later announced the appointment of Gene Ubriaco, formerly coach at Milwaukee in the U.S. and International Leagues, as coach of the new club.The new team is to be named by the fans in a contest this summer, Schmittou announced. But the nickname is expected to have something to do with the fact that Nashville is the country and western music capital of the U.S.The Nashville team will play in Memorial Auditorium, seating almost 9,000. It was the home of the Dixie Flyers in the Eastern Hockey League until that club folded in 1971.Shortly before the North Stars revealed their move to Nashville, Oklahoma City announced a new working agreement with the NHL Calgary Flames. OC general manager Gary Hail said his team would retain its nickname of Stars, adopted when the Minnesota-sponsored team came into the CHL in 1978-79.Flames&rsquo; general manager Cliff Fletcher and assistant GM David Poile were to announce the new OC coach at a press conference and mammoth party in the Myriad, but the Calgary execs were keeping everyone in the dark as to the name of the new mentor. There was speculation it would be John Muckier.Ubriaco was the first CHL coach to be confirmed for the coming season. Then the champion Salt Lake Golden Eagles announced that Jack Evans would be back at the helm.Ace Bailey, who coached the Wichita Wind into the playoff finals, and Danny Belisle of the Dallas Black Hawks, were expected to return, but no announcement had been made by the parent clubs at Edmonton and Vancouver, respectively.Belisle was recently named Coach of the Year by the CHL, while Oklahoma City Club president John Hail was named CHL Executive of the Year.The Wind did announce that defenseman Byron Baltimore, their playing assistant coach last season, had been named assistant to general manager Larry Gordon.The fate of Bobby Guindon, who became coach of the Tulsa Oilers last December, was still to be announced by the parent Winnipeg Jets.The Fort Worth Texas were definitely to get a new coach, as the parent Colorado Rockies did not renew Ron Ullyot&rsquo;s contract.At Indianapolis the Checkers were looking for both a general manager and coach. General manager Jimmy Devellano had moved up to the parent New York Islanders, while coach Bert Marshall had gone to the Rockies.In Oklahoma City, GM Hail announced the Stars had already reached 1,000 season ticket sales, which was 300 more than were sold a year ago at the same point. &#9632;

Nashville, Cincinnati Restore CHL to 9 teams

PENTICTON&mdash;The hockey world and the Wichita Wind of the Central Hockey League in particular were saddened by the untimely and tragic death of center Don Ashby in a head-on collision at Summerland, B.C., just two miles north of his Kamloops, B.C., home.The likeable 26-year-old Ashby and his wife were returning to Canada from Wichita, Kan., after he had participated in the Adams Cup final against Salt Lake. The mishap occurred May 30, just 12 days after Ashby and his wind linemates, Don Murdoch and Tom Roulston, had tried vainly to lift Wichita past Salt Lake in a seven-game cup final. Murdoch had contributed a playoff record 17 goals, Roulston 15 and Ashby nine in a torrid post-season performance which saw the three finish one, two, three in the playoff scoring race. They scored a total of 41 goals between them in 18 games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-011090/8619023-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="566" height="834"><figcaption class="caption-body">Don Ashby of the Wichita Wind was killed in a highway accident less than two miles from his home in British Columbia.</figcaption></div>Police reports indicated that charges were being laid in Penticton by the crown prosecutor against the driver of a pick-up truck that collided with the car driven by Ashby. The mishap happened at 10:30 AM in the rain and rescuers said Ashby was trapped in his vehicle for about an hour before they could extricate him. He was first taken to the hospital in Summerland and then later transferred to Penticton, where he died at 5:30 the same afternoon. Doctors said he suffered extensive internal injuries. His wife was treated for a broken jaw and facial lacerations and later released.Ashby had been a pro since 1975-76 when the Toronto Maple Leafs made him their first draft choice. He was traded to Colorado in 1979 with Trevor Johansen for center Paul Gardner. The Rockies swapped him to Edmonton in 1980 in exchange for Bobby Schmautz. He played a total of 188 games in the NHL and this past season he spent most of the year with Wichita in the CHL where he scored 46 goals and had 95 points in 70 games for the Wind. &#9632;

f0033-01

Wind Star Don Ashby Killed On Way Home

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div>SAGINAW&mdash;The International Hockey League is ready to face the 1981-82 season a little short on quantity but longer in quality.The league, which operated as an eight-team curcuit in its 36th season last year, could launch its 1981-82 campaign as a five-team league. It would mark the first time in 23 years the IHL has operated with that small a membership. The 1958-59 season featured five teams&mdash;Louisville, Fort Wayne. Troy, Indianapolis and Toledo. Of those five, only Fort Wayne has survived.Toledo is one of two teams which has put its IHL franchise in escrow for at least a season. That dropped the membership to six. It shrunk to five&mdash;or at least that possibility exists&mdash;when Saginaw announced on the eve of the league&rsquo;s annual summer meeting that it was having financial problems and was trying to reorganize. If the reorganization fails, Saginaw will join Toledo and Port Huron on the sidelines.The Saginaw announcement came as quite a surprise to the league&rsquo;s board of governors. Saginaw won the playoff championship this season and until the announcement came, there was no hint the franchise was in trouble.&ldquo;It was a surprise,&rdquo; said Fort Wayne general manager Ken Ullyot. &ldquo;But we aren&rsquo;t discouraged. We are ready to go with five teams if we have to. And looking down the road, things look good. Peoria will come in in 1982-83. Grand Rapids is still looking good for the same year.&rdquo;The five teams which are ready to go are Fort Wayne. Milwaukee, Muskegon, Flint and Kalamazoo.Saginaw, which reported losses this past season in the neighborhood of $290,000, is trying to reorganize under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Act. Linder Chapter 11, a company obtains a federal court order that frees it from the threat of creditors&rsquo; lawsuits until it can develop a plan to put its finances in order. While the reorganization proceeds, the activities of management must be approved by the court. A limit of 120 days to complete reorganization is in force.The Gears are owned by TriCity Investment Co., Inc., comprised of eight Saginaw businessmen and former owner. Wren Blair. TriCity Investment purchased the franchise from Blair in 1979. He still owns 20 percent of the team.Kenneth H. MacDonald, Sr., is chairman of the board of TriCity Investment and he made the announcement. Blair, who attended the IHL summer meeting in Montreal, said the group is trying very hard to keep the franchise alive and expressed optimism the mission would eventually prove successful.Meanwhile a move to keep the Toledo franchise in operation for the coming season apparently has hit a snag. Bill Beagan, former IHL commissioner and recently dismissed as commissioner of the shaky Eastern League, was trying to organize a group to put Toledo back in the league for the coming season. He was working with Al Savill, once an IHL owner in both Columbus and Grand Rapids but now out of hockey.Beagan and Savill wanted to lease the franchise from the Toledo Sports Arena, which owns the team. Virgial Gladieux is president and board chairman of the Sports Arena.The Beagan-Savill proposal called for a two-year lease with an option to buy. The snag apparently centered around the purchase price. Savill reportedly also lost some enthusiasm in the wake of the Saginaw situation.Should Saginaw fail to answer the faceoff for the start of next season it would increase to five the number of Turner Cup champions who have dropped out of the league in the last 13 years.During that span, Saginaw, Toledo, Port Huron and Kalamazoo have won two Turner Cups, Dayton was a threetime winner and Fort Wayne and Des Moines each won once. Of that group, only Fort Wayne and Kalamazoo appear certain to compete next season.Dayton bowed out after the 1976-77 season, a year after winning its last Turner Cup. Des Moines left the fold following the 1974-75 campaign&mdash;also a year after winning the playoff crown. Port Huron struggled through nine years after winning its last Turner Cup (1972) before yielding. Toledo won its last championship in 1978.The league&rsquo;s most successful team&mdash;on the ice&mdash;was the old Cincinnati Mohawks who won six straight league titles (1952-57) and five straight playoff titles (1952-56) but then dropped from the league after failing in its bid fora sixth straight playoff crown. &#9632;

Financial Strain Mav Put Saginaw Out Of IHL

<div class="byline">BY PATRICK LYON</div>BUFFALO&mdash;The Eastern Hockey League, given up for dead by many hockey observers following the conclusion of last season, was showing some signs of life as this issue went to press.At the EHL&rsquo;s annual meeting in Buffalo, N.Y., owners met for over four hours and restructured the loop and also announced that two cities who have been EHL participants in the past will become franchises again in 1981-82.League spokesman and owner of the Salem Raiders, Bob Payne, made known the fact that the EHL officially decided to operate after the get-together in Buffalo. The head man of the Raiders revealed Salem and the Richmond Rifles would return along with the Mohawk Valley Stars of Utica, N.Y., and Johnstown, Pa. Both Mohawk Valley and Johnstown are getting back into professional hockey after a one-year absence.Payne noted that one to three more teams will be added before July 1, which was agreed on as the cutoff for new clubs. An August 1 deadline was also established as the final date for scheduling for the 1981-82 campaign.Syracuse and Winston-Salem, N.C., are among those being considered for franchises. The Hampton Aces, who operated last season, weren&rsquo;t counted on to return.Both the Erie Blades and Baltimore Clippers were still making news. The Blades announced an agreement with the Pittsburgh Penguins which would make Erie a Pittsburgh farm team in the American Hockey League.Baltimore was continuing to seek an AHL franchise and a hook-up with an NHL club and told EHL officials even if they didn&rsquo;t receive an American league franchise this year, they would work towards that goal for 1982-83. Payne related that Baltimore could at some later date elect to return for their third EHL season.The EHL also cleaned house when they fired commissioner Bill Beagan in late May after Beagan served two years of a three-year contract. Erie, Baltimore, Salem and Richmond voted unanimously to oust the former IHL boss and seek a new com-missioner. Four candidates are eyeing the post and the league will make its choice sometime in July.John Karr, president of the EHL and the NHL&rsquo;s Minnesota North Stars, saw his term expire and the Board of Governors decided to hold off their voting for new league officers until the final determination of just how many teams would be in the EHL.&ldquo;Despite all the problems that we had in the past, everyone left the meeting with plenty of enthusiasm and optimism,&rdquo; said Payne. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not quitting or throwing in the towel.&rdquo;Apparently, the EHL granted a franchise to Cincinnati, but there seemed to be some confusion at press time as to what kind of a deal, if any, the new owners, Dave and Maureen Guskey, made with the city-owned arena where the proposed Cincinnati Firebirds would play their games. At the same time that the EHL was announcing Cincinnati as a possible new franchise, the Central Hockey League declared it had set up a press conference in Cincinnati, which CHL president Bud Poile attended, to officially approve Cincinnati as the ninth franchise for the Central League. &#9632;

New Franchises May Keep EHL In Business

<div class="byline">BY GREGG DRINNAN</div>CALGARY&mdash;In a move that shocked and mystified the entire Western Hockey League, the Regina Pats announced in late May that they have decided not to rehire coach Jack Sangster.Then, early in June, Regina general manager Bob Strumm announced that Bill Laforge, formerly of the Ontario Hockey League&rsquo;s Oshawa Generals, had signed a two-year contract as Sangster&rsquo;s replacement.In his first year behind the Pat&rsquo;s bench, Sangster guided the club through the most successful regular season&mdash;49 wins and 100 points&mdash;in the history of the organization.The Pats were eventually eliminated from post-season play, dropping the Eastern Division final to the Calgary Wranglers in six games.But, Strumm said the coaching change was not connected with that playoff setback.&ldquo;We examined the long term objectives for the club and personnel involved,&rdquo; explained Strumm, &ldquo;and we felt a change had to be made. Certain things in the future necessitated that, but I can&rsquo;t elaborate now.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m obviously pleased with our season. The total picture was good, but it gets back to a philosophy and policy decision made by our executive committee.&rdquo;In the meantime, Sangster was&mdash;to say the least&mdash;in a state of shock.&ldquo;I wonder what they would have told me if we had won the Memorial Cup,&rdquo; Sangster said in an interview with Regina Leader-Post writer Dave Senick. &ldquo;I had thought about the pros and cons of them not wanting me back. The reason they gave me never entered my mind.&ldquo;I was told they wanted someone with better management qualifications&hellip;someone who could step into a management position if the need arose.&ldquo;If we had finished fourth or fifth and they had come to me and said I can&rsquo;t coach in this league, I might have been able to accept that. But, we finished first.&rdquo;Laforge, meanwhile, resigned his position as coach of the Generals the day before the Pats announced that Sangster wouldn&rsquo;t be returning. But, Laforge&rsquo;s signing with the Pats was not made official until two weeks later.Had Laforge stayed with Oshawa he wouldn&rsquo;t have been able to step in behind the Generals&rsquo; bench until Jan. 1, 1982, as the OHL suspended him until that date following an altercation prior to a playoff game between the Generals and the Peterborough Petes.David Branch, OHL commissioner, cleared the way for the Pats to hire Laforge by letting it be known that his league wouldn&rsquo;t object to Laforge&rsquo;s working in the WHL.Meanwhile, two other clubs&mdash;neither of which fared all that well last season&mdash;have also made coaching changes.In Winnipeg, the Warriors have named Bruce Southern head coach. Southern served as the team&rsquo;s assistant coach last season, under head coach Fran Huck.Huck is giving up his role behind the bench to devote more time to his law practice, although he will remain with the Warriors as a vice-president.The Warriors, an expansion entry last season, finished seventh in the eight-team Eastern Division, just three points out of a post-season berth.And. the Spokane Flyers will have Ron Harris behind the bench-when the 1981-82 season gets underway.Harris, who spent most of last winter with the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League, takes over from Wayne Coxworth, who was named coach midway through last season. With Coxworth at the controls, the Flyers scrambled into the Western Division playoffs&mdash;edging the New Westminster Bruins in overtime in a sudden-death game to decide fourth place&mdash;before being eliminated in four straight at the hands of the Victoria Cougars.The Flyers, in fact, announced a major reshuffling. Don Miller purchased the club from Portland businessman Bob Cooper. As well, Miller is The club&rsquo;s new general manager, replacing Tom Gauthier, who resigned following completion of the season. And, Vann Chinchen has been signed as public relations and marketing director.One coach who hasn&rsquo;t yet found work is Monte Miron, who was let go by the Seattle Breakers late last season.Miron told THE HOCKEY NEWS that he was let go for financial reasons and that &ldquo;I have a contract until the end of June but it is not being honored.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-011116/8619147-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="595" height="874"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill Laforge, who would not have been able to coach in Ontario until 1982, will coach Regina.</figcaption></div>Two coaches who will be back for another goround are old friends Les Jackson and Doug Sauter.Jackson has signed on for a second season as head coach of the Brandon Wheat Kings, while Sauter will continue with the Calgary Wranglers.This time around, though. Sauter will also serve as general manager of the Wranglers. Russ Farwell, who spent last season coaching the Calgary Canucks of the Alberta Junior League, will serve as Sauter&rsquo;s assistant. &#9632;

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The Amateurs

Pats Pick Suspended Coach Laforge As Surprise Successor For Sangster

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BROPHY</div>TORONTO&mdash;Dan Quinn, Brian Bradley, Pat Verbeek, Steve Yzerman, Mike Rowe, Andrew McBain, Paul Lawless, Steve Linseman, Scott Stevens, Dave McLean, Gord Hamilton, Jim Kyte, Adam Creighton and Steve Graves.This list of names may mean absolutely nothing to you. A couple might be familiar, but only because they share the same last name of someone else already a little more famous.What this list represents is the top 14 players selected in the Ontario Hockey League&rsquo;s midget draft in June. Each player is presumed to be the best player available at the time he was selected by the individual teams who took them. While their names might not mean much to you now, a few years down the road they just might.This particular group of players also represents a new trend in the drafting of midget hockey players. As an obvious direct result of the National Hockey League raiding juniors and taking players before they graduate, the juniors have in turn raided the minor midgets. Teams used to be allowed to select minor midget hockey players only in the first two rounds. This year, they were allowed to pick them in the first three.As a result, eight of the first 14 players selected were minor midgets who will have four years of junior eligibility. Likewise, those players must play at least two years of junior before they can make the jump to the big time. Teams which selected full midgets as their first picks stand to lose them after one year of junior.1. Dan Quinn&mdash;Belleville Bobcats.A left shooting center, Quinn was rated No. 1 by Central Scouting so it was no surprise that the Bobcats, an expansion team in the OHL, made him their first choice and first overall. Quinn, 5-11, 160 pounds, played junior B in London last season and scored 28 goals and 38 assists as a minor midget. He had 78 penalty minutes. He has good hockey sense, isn&rsquo;t overly aggressive but is a hustler. Good stick handler.2. Brian Bradley&mdash;London Knights.An exceptionally talented 5-10 and 155 pound center, Bradley scored 31 goals and 40 assists in 42 games with the Guelph Platters last season in Tier II junior A. He had 59 penalty minutes and was a minor midget. Bradley is a great playmaker who anticipates and goes to where the puck will be. Because he is such a talented playmaker, he will work wonders on the Knights&rsquo; power play.3. Pat Verbeek&mdash;Sudbury Wolves.Verbeek was the first full midget player selected and is a sturdy 5-9 and 175 pound center who shoots right. He scored 44 goals and 44 assists for the Petrolia junior B&rsquo;s last season and was the team&rsquo;s top scorer and toughest player. He is physically stronger than both Bradley and Quinn.4. Steve Yzerman&mdash;Peterborough Petes.Yzerman (pronounced eye-zer-man) is a shifty 5-11 and 170-pound center who is already being compared to Gretzky and Dale Hawerchuk because of his great puck sense. He was the second leading scorer in his Tier II junior A league with Napean as a minor midget with 38 goals and 54 assists for 92 points with 44 penalty minutes. The only player ahead of him was his winger, who was 20 years old.5. Mike Rowe&mdash;Toronto Marlboros.Rowe was the first real surprise in the draft. Rated by Central Scouting as a second rounder (every team would have taken him in the second round if he had still been available too), Rowe was the toughest player available. A rugged 6-0, 200-pounder, Rowe managed five goals and 12 assists for Hawkesbury in Tier II and had 183 minutes in penalties. Has good skill and great potential. Might not star right away but will in a few years.6. Andrew McBain&mdash;Niagara Falls Flyers.McBain is 6-2 and 180 pounds and could be the steal of the entire draft. A year ago he made the successful jump to Tier II hockey at Aurora from bantam and the Flyers hope he will make the same progress in major A. McBain is a center-right wing who scored 16 goals and 21 assists for 37 points with 21 penalty minute&rsquo;s. He is a good puck carrier, hits cleanly and has lots of pro potential.7. Brian Lawless&mdash;Windsor Spitfires.Since he played midget hockey last season in Wexford, his statistics were not available. Lawless was the first full midget player selected from a midget league. Some feel he may blosom like Mike Bullard did a few years ago right out of midget hockey. He led his Wexford team past a lot of better Toronto teams in the playoffs almost by himself.8. Steve Linseman&mdash;Brantford Alexanders.This name should be somewhat familiar. His brother Kenny plays for the Philadelphia Flyers while another brother John recently graduated from junior with the Ottawa 67&rsquo;s. While his older brothers are on the small side. Steve is 6-0 and weighs 166 pounds. Like Bradley and Yzerman, Linseman uses his wingers well.9. Scott Stevens&mdash;Kitchener Rangers.The Rangers needed a defenseman and got a good one in Stevens, a full midget who played junior B in Kitchener last season. He scored seven goals and 33 assists for 40 points and 82 penalty minutes.10. Dave McLean&mdash;Oshawa Generals.McLean was somewhat of a surprise when the Generals took him in the first round. Actually more of a risk than a surprise. McLean is 6-1, weighs 205 pounds and plays right wing. The reason he was a risk is because he played just 10 games last season before he broke his wrist. The break was bad and required a plate and screws to fix. Two years before that he suffered a broken ankle.11. Gord Hamilton&mdash;Kingston Canadians.12. Jim Kyte&mdash;Cornwall Royals.13. Adam Creighton&mdash;Ottawa 67&rsquo;s.14. Steve Graves&mdash;Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds. &#9632;

Minor Midgets Popular In Early OHL Drafting

<div class="byline">BY HERB ZURKOWSKY</div>GRANBY&mdash;The defunct Sorel Black Hawks, expected to return to the Montreal suburb of Verdun, will instead begin the 1981-82 season in Granby, 45 miles southeast of Montreal.The team&rsquo;s nickname is the Bisons and they&rsquo;ll operate out of the 2,304 seat Granby Sports Palace. Seating capacity, if necessary, can be increased by 1,000.Ten local businessmen are involved in team ownership, headed by John Murray, president of hockey operations. Murray&rsquo;s son, Patrick, a defenseman, was the Montreal Juniors&rsquo; first-round midget draft pick this year.Vice-president is Roch Bruneau, while the general manager is Pierre Phaneuf, who was involved with the Sherbrooke Beavers in various capacities for eight years.Attending league meetings will be governor Bernard Dube and vicepresident Jean-Guy Grenier.No coach has been selected, but a leading candidate is former Hawks&rsquo; coach Ron Lapointe.Prior to the Memorial Cup, Rodrigue Lemoyne, owner and president of the Hawks, made a request for a new franchise at league meetings in Trois-Rivieres.Lemoyne subsequently met the mayor of Verdun and arranged a rental agreement with the Verdun Auditorium.On May 26, Lemoyne was supposed to meet certain financial obligations expected of any new club. Lemoyne informed league representatives he did not haye the necessary funds and would not operate a team out of Verdun.The Granby party originally made a formal request for a franchise at the Trois-Rivieres meetings, but were turned down because the league had decided to operate with only nine teams with the loss of the Cornwall Royals to the Ontario Hockey League.However a league governor contacted Phaneuf when Lemoyne&rsquo;s plans fell through.Phaneuf, Murray and Bruneau met Lemoyne in his Sorel office and made an offer for the Hawks, but Lemoyne did not accept it, at which time the matter was turned over to the league.The league subsequently made an offer to Lemoyne that was accepted and the Granby party then bought the team from the league for $160,000.The Bisons were allowed to protect two players&mdash;goalie Michel Dufour (.3.64 goals-against-average) and defenseman Daniel Naud (17 goals and 32 assists).The remaining players went into a collective pool. The eight remaining Quebec teams were permitted to select one player at a cost of $5,000. All players not drafted then became Bisons&rsquo; property.Laval selected Jean-Marc Lanthier (19 goals, 65 assists); Hull, Jean-Marc Gaulin (50-40); Quebec, Andre Chartrain (35-73); Montreal, David Charbonneau (5-14); Shawinigan, Dan Campbell (11-42); Sherbrooke, Doug Baren (13-43); Chicoutimi, Richard Gagne (3-7); and Trois-Rivieres, Real Gagne (16-24).That left the Bisons with a nucleus of nine returning players plus the drafted midgets, among them first-round pick Bobby Dollas, a 15-year-old defenseman-forward from Lac St. Louis midget AAA, and second pick Michel Larose, a right wing-center-man from Gatineau. &#9632;

Ninth OMJHL Franchise Shifted To Granby

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>CALGARY&mdash;The No. 1 player chosen by the Calgary Flames in the National Hockey League entry draft, defenseman Allan Maclnnis, does not expect to be in the lineup when the season opens next September.At the same time, the Flames do not intend to start the year with the same five-man defense corps they had last season. At any given time, an injury to one of the five would have created serious trouble for the team.As an organization, the Flames have never been blessed with exceptional depth on defense. Not until now, that is.The Flames signed the top defenseman in the Swedish first division, free agent Kari Eloranta of Finland, to a multi-year contract the day before they drafted Maclnnis.At 6-2 and 200 pounds, the 25-year-old Eloranta is expected to step right into the lineup and play for the Flames. Calgary outbid seven other team for the services of Eloranta, who played the last three seasons for the Leksand team. Eloranta is from Lahti. Finland originally and says the presence of countryman Pekka Rautakallio on the Flames&rsquo; roster induced him to sign with Calgary.&ldquo;With the trend of the game heading more and more to speed, mobility and handling the puck, I feel fortunate that we were able to get Kari,&rdquo; said Calgary general manager Cliff Fletcher. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve enjoyed a lot of success with our European players in the past.&rdquo;In addition to Eloranta, the Flames have added another two free agents in the offseason, although both Bill Hobbins and Mike Prestridge, a pair of centers, are long shots to make the club.Hobbins played as an overage with the Calgary Wranglers last season and led the club to the Western Hockey League final.Coach Al MacNeil had a chance to scout the 21-year-old Hobbins on a number of occasions and liked what he saw of his leadership qualities.&ldquo;He fits the mold of players we&rsquo;re looking for,&rdquo; said MacNeil. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good skater and forechecker. Basically, we started out looking at younger players, but we kept coming back to him. Game in and game out, he was the guy out there hustling and leading the Wranglers. He&rsquo;ll get a good chance with us.&rdquo;&ldquo;From our standpoint, we feel we signed a player&mdash;Hobbins&mdash;who&rsquo;s better than any of the 19-year-olds available in the draft,&rdquo; said Fletcher.Prestridge, from Clarkson College. was signed to a deal at the NHL meetings in Montreal. At 6-3, 198, he had only an average year because of knee problems, but led the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference in scoring as a sophomore.As for the draft itself, the Flames went in with only one selection in the first two rounds. Their second-round pick belonged to the St. Louis Blues, compensation for the signing of Garry Linger two years ago.On their shopping list was the player they wanted, Maclnnis, the goaltender they needed, Mike Vernon, and the European they were told to gamble on, Peter Madach.The Flames made no secret of the fact they wanted Maclnnis and were a little surprised he was still available when their turn to draft came up. Maclnnis missed two months with a broken wrist last year, but finished strongly for the Kitchener Rangers, Memorial Cup finalists.&ldquo;We have a good feeling about Maclnnis,&rdquo; said Fletcher. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s going to be a lot of questions as to whether any of the top players drafted can step in and play right away. To us, Maclnnis is a terrific prospect. How soon he can play is open to conjecture.&ldquo;In a young draft, you want to stockpile your clubs with a list of players who can play sometime down the road.&rdquo;IN BRIEF: Calgary is said to have offered former Atlanta and Boston coach Fred Creighton the coaching job with Flames&rsquo; new minor-league affiliate. Oklahoma City, but Creighton turned it down&hellip;Flames would have liked to get Todd Strueby, Edmonton&rsquo;s second-round choice, but could not acquire an additional choice prior to the draft, despite a number of attempts by Fletcher.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-011005/8619226-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="586" height="1170"><figcaption class="caption-body">First draft pick Allan Maclnnis, a defenseman from Kitchener, isn&rsquo;t likely to crack the Calgary lineup next season.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Flames Use Draft To Bolster Defense

<div class="byline">BY NEIL MILBERT</div>CHICAGO&mdash;The accent was French-Canadian and the words came straight from the heart.&ldquo;If the Black Hawks would offer me a lifetime contract tomorrow, I would take it,&rdquo; said Denis Savard. &ldquo;I am so glad now that I didn&rsquo;t go to Montreal last year in the draft.&ldquo;Yes, Montreal is where my family and old friends are. But Chicago is my home. I have just bought a house [in the western suburbs] and next year I think my girlfriend is coming from Montreal to work in Chicago.&ldquo;I can tell you now that the first week in Chicago last year in training camp was very tough for me and I was homesick. But then I got to know the guys and the coaches. From then on I liked it more and more until pretty soon I knew I loved it.&rdquo;Likewise, the Black Hawks swiftly came to the realization that they had a special hockey player in this 5-9, 157-pound wisp with a flair for engendering excitement on the ice.Not only was Savard a success artistically last season, he excelled statistically as well. Many consider the plus-minus ratings the bottom line in evaluating a player. Using the National Hockey League&rsquo;s official ratings as a standard of excellence, the Hawks made the best move of the 1980 draft in selecting Savard.The Hawk center ranked eighth among all of the players in the NHL and first among the rookies with a plus 11.5 rating. Savard also was second to Tom Lysiak (by one point) in team scoring with 75 points on 28 goals and 47 assists.Loved by those who have high marks and loathed by those with low grades, the ratings calculate the percentage of goals scored by a player&rsquo;s team and the opposition when he is on the ice. (Savard&rsquo;s statistics were 37.3 goals-for and 25.8 goals-against.)&ldquo;That makes me very proud,&rdquo; said Savard. &ldquo;I had no idea I would rank so high.&rdquo;The league leader was Marcel Dionne of Los Angeles, plus 17.0. Savard was the only Hawk in the top 10. (Runnerup in Chicago was defenseman Miles Zaharko, who compiled a plus 11.0 rating after being recalled from New Brunswick of the American League in December.)A year ago, Montreal&rsquo;s hockey aficionados were skeptical when the Canadiens passed up hometown hero Savard to choose another center, Doug Wickenheiser from Regina, as the first selection overall in the draft. Then, Winnipeg picked Portland defenseman David Babych. And then the Hawks (who had the third selection overall for allowing Quebec to retain Real-Cloutier when the World Hockey Association was absorbed by the NHL) drafted Savard.Now, skepticism has been preempted by disgruntlement in the Holy City of Hockey. While Savard starred as a rookie for the Hawks, Wickenheiser played only bit parts in Montreal. (Wickenheiser&rsquo;s rating was plus .1 and Babych&rsquo;s was minus .1. The rating of Peter Stastny, the Czech defector chosen Rookie of the Year, was plus 4.5, also substantially lower than Savard&rsquo;s figure.)Savard was conspicuous by his presence at the 1981 draft in the Montreal Forum in which the Black Hawks picked Oshawa right wing Tony Tanti, a 5-9, 181-pounder, in the first round. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t listen to anyone who says that you are too small,&rdquo; Savard told Tanti. &ldquo;Look at me; I&rsquo;m littler than you and I made it. You will love it in Chicago&mdash;wait and see.&rdquo; &#9632;

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