The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.

September 7, 1990

The Hockey News September 7, 1990

<div class="byline">BOB MCKENZIE</div>In our haste to heap praise on the National Hockey League and its bid to aggressively pursue expansion in the 1990s, let us not lose sight of reality.Yes, it is wonderful that 10 groups in eight locales across North America have anted up $100,000 each for the right to bid on an expansion franchise.Yes, it is encouraging that of the 10 groups, many appear ready, willing and able to meet the demands of the $50-million (U.S.) admission fee.But no, this does not necessarily mean we should be lavishing praise on the product and the process, proclaiming that the 1990s will be the decade that belongs to hockey.The NHL, specifically the board of governors, could yet screw it up.They could get greedy.The expansion blueprint calls for the birth of a new club in the fall of 1991 in the California Bay Area.Two more clubs, which would begin play in the fall of 1992, are expected to be awarded in December. The league&rsquo;s stated long-range goals aim for an additional four clubs by the year 2000.Admittedly, the process so far has gone strictly according to plan. Of the 10 applications submitted, there are at least two that will make fine NHL members. The theory goes that those who are victims of a numbers game this time will be back in a few years to re-apply.But Alan Eagleson, outgoing executive director of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association, expresses a sentiment which could conceivably find support at the board level.That is, if, say, six of these expansion applications meet all the criteria and would be glowing additions to the NHL brotherhood, why not boldly move to a 28-tean&iota; league in one fell swoop?The governors could undoubtedly come up with 300 million compelling reasons to go for it. That would be the total revenue generated by admitting six clubs at $50 million apiece.Given that the Gund brothers&rsquo; Bay area club will share in all subsequent expansion monies, the 22 NHL partners would walk away with more than $13 million each.Men, especially NHL owners, would kill for less.You need only recollect the details of the NHL television deal in the United States.SportsChannel America paid $51 million (U.S.) in 1988 to the NHL for a three-year deal. That was more than double what the previous contract, with ESPN, had been worth. As a result, each NHL club picked up approximately $2.5 million from the SCA deal.It didn&rsquo;t matter that SCA&rsquo;s market penetration, even in NHL cities, wasn&rsquo;t strong or that in the markets it was available, hockey games could be bumped for anything from car wax commercials to baseball games.The bottom line for the owners was the bottom line.It could be this time, too.Certainly, circumstances are ripe. NHL salaries are in a state of flux, threatening to explode. Some owners see a cash-flow crisis on the horizon. The negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement next summer only fuels the notion that the cost of business will continue to rise.Would the owners bite at a $l3-million quick fix and bet that, long-term, the game could weather too-rapid expansion?Obviously, the thought has crossed my mind.It would, of course, be a grave mistake. Expansion, even when it is handled properly, is a painful process that retards the overall quality of the game for a time.Finding competent players&mdash;even with the opening up of the European market&mdash;will be difficult for three teams; impossible for six or seven.But these admirable considerations would be flicked aside in an instant if the owners express the need. Or greed.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021555/8436562-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="503" height="582"></div> &#9632;

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COLUMNISTS

EXPANSION’S GREAT…IF NHL STICKS TO ITS PLAN

<div class="byline">BY GRANT McGinnis</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011468/8437175-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pat Elynuik, above, tied Paul Fenton for the team lead in goals with 32 and his 74 points were second to since-departed Dale Hawerchuk last season.</figcaption></div>The worrying officially ceased on July 26, 1990.That&rsquo;s when Pat Elynuik signed on the dotted line for two years plus an option with the Winnipeg Jets, erasing all fears that the cash-poor NHL franchise would fail to sign its brightest young star.Jets&rsquo; general manager Mike Smith had said all along it was only a matter of time and, as with most issues of contention during his nearly two years of running the team. Smith was correct again.&ldquo;I had other offers and things didn&rsquo;t work out,&rdquo; said Elynuik, who entertained but never seriously considered a deal with Bolzano of the Italian League and had overtures from the proposed Saskatoon franchise in the Global League. &ldquo;Really, it was up to them (the Jets) to make things work. Only if I couldn&rsquo;t strike a deal would 1 have had to go elsewhere.&ldquo;I think both sides are happy with the deal. I know I am.&rdquo;The 22-year-old free agent right winger came close to a contract last summer but instead elected to play out his option at $I25,000, lowest on the Jets, and gamble. It paid off.After his second full NHL season yielded 32 goals (tied with Paul Fenton for the team lead), 74 points (second best behind Dale Hawerchuk) and the second-best shooting percentage (24.2, second to Luc Robitaille of Los Angeles) in the league, the first-round draft pick from Prince Albert of the Western League (seventh overall in 1986) had some leverage.He used it to get a contract which reportedly begins in excess of $200,000 for the 1990-91 season.Elynuik said the negotiations, dragged out by agent Don Meehan&rsquo;s vacation, were never in danger of breaking off.&ldquo;Not really,&rdquo; he said from Calgary, where he&rsquo;s been training harness horses all summer. &ldquo;They went the way normal negotiations go&mdash;back and forth. There were no real snags. It was more or less a matter of time.&rdquo;That did not help alleviate a persistent fear among the public and certain segments of the Winnipeg media that the club would somehow fail to sign Elynuik. Bar-stool speculation was rampant that he would not return.Instead, the negotiations repeated the pattern Smith established last year with Thomas Steen and Dave Ellett and earlier this year with Fredrik Olausson. All three signed for substantial increases. All three signed multi-year deals. All three were star attractions rumored to be headed elsewhere.Although Smith was unhappy with Elynuik&rsquo;s decision last fall to refuse the club&rsquo;s contract offer, he agreed it could work out in the player&rsquo;s best interests.This time around, Smith knew it was imperative that the Jets sign Elynuik, particularly in light of the departure of offensive leader Dale Hawerchuk to Buffalo in June.&ldquo;It was important for us to get Pat resigned,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;He has become one of our core players and with the kinds of numbers he has put on the board in the past two seasons (58 goals, 125 points in 136 games), he has proven that he is a bonafide National Hockey League player.&rdquo;With Hawerchuk&rsquo;s departure, Elynuik and Steen now form Winnipeg&rsquo;s undisputed one-two scoring punch.Elynuik is satisfied that he did the right thing.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to think I&rsquo;m farther ahead,&rdquo; Elynuik said, &ldquo;the way I had a year of showing consistency. It&rsquo;s hard to say what position I&rsquo;d be in if I&rsquo;d signed. To me, I think it has paid off.&rdquo;<h2>WINNIPEG</h2>TRANSACTIONSJuly 23: Dave McLlwain. C, signed three-year contract.July 26: Pat Elynuik, RW, signed two-year contract. &#9632;

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THE NHL

CITY’S FEARS LAID TO REST AS ELYNUIK RE-SIGNS

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DEPARTMENTS

ELSTON

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE FISH</div>Ken Hitchcock&rsquo;s long-awaited arrival in the NHL was a load off his mind, not to mention his waistline.But it&rsquo;s okay to mention waistlines around the veteran junior coach. Hitchcock, who at one time weighed 400 pounds, doesn&rsquo;t mind talking about his recent 116-pound weight reduction. He claims it has nothing to do with his appointment as the Flyers&rsquo; new assistant coach, but many see it as a symbol of his commitment to succeed in the pro ranks.Hitchcock believes the bigger issue is whether he can make a smooth transition from working with underage players to the big leagues.If he works at it with as much determination as his diet program, it should be no problem.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s always been the rap that junior coaches have a tough time making the adjustment to pro,&rdquo; said Hitchcock, who was hired from the Kamloops Blazers of the Western League on Aug. 8.&ldquo;Coming into the pros as an assistant is great for me because I can offer a lot but I&rsquo;m not under the microscope and the pressure that goes with it,&rdquo; he said.Flyers&rsquo; general manager Russ Farwell, hired from the WHL&rsquo;s Seattle Thunderbirds June 6, remembered Hitchcock&rsquo;s success against his former club when putting together a new coaching staff for head coach Paul Holmgren. Hitchcock is no stranger to the Flyers, either. He watched about 50 of their games on a satellite dish last season.As Holmgren said, Hitchcock&rsquo;s record &ldquo;speaks for itself.&rdquo; The 38-year-old coach&rsquo;s .693 winning percentage during the past six seasons is the highest in the history of the WHL. In five of those seasons, the Blazers won the WHL West Division title.Four times the Blazers made it to the league finals and twice went to the Memorial Cup, including last season. Hitchcock was named WHL Coach of the Year and the top coach in all of Canadian major Junior hockey.One of Hitchcock&rsquo;s selling points is his knack for developing young talent. That&rsquo;s just what the Flyers are looking for. Among Hitchcock&rsquo;s proteges are the Flyers&rsquo; Len Barrie, Edmonton&rsquo;s Geoff Smith, Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Rob Brown and Mark Recchi and Greg Hawgood, who was with Boston and chose to play in Italy this season.&ldquo;The biggest thing about the young players coming in (to the Flyers) now is that they&rsquo;re going to be expected to play on a regular basis,&rdquo; said Hitchcock. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re going to go through the emotional ups and downs like most young guys do. I think 1 can help there because I&rsquo;ve dealt with the young guys.&rdquo;Hitchcock&rsquo;s teams, have always been known for their high-intensity style. He would like to see the Flyers strive for a similar identity.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011950/8436958-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="539" height="604"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ken Hitchcock&rsquo;s teams are known for their high intensity.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a pressure, quick transition coach,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;In junior, we were known as the hardest forechecking team in the league. We put pressure on in all three zones. We didn&rsquo;t wait for things to happen.&ldquo;We (the Flyers) have to come up with an identity, a style of play that we can count on every night.&rdquo;Farwell is convinced Hitchcock can help in that respect.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s an extremely thorough individual and is very sound tactically,&rdquo; said Farwell. &ldquo;His head-coaching experience is an added plus.&rdquo;As for his much heralded weight loss, Hitchcock said he just got fed up with the physical burden of too many pounds.&ldquo;It had nothing to do with the NHL because I learned two years ago you can have the best record in junior hockey and still not go to the NHL. You have to have someone who knows you and feels comfortable with you. That&rsquo;s where Russ helped. Without our knowing each other, I don&rsquo;t get this job.&ldquo;The diet thing was not done to be an NHL coach. People blew it up that way. The diet thing was done because it was getting ridiculous. 1 was making excuses to not climb stairs.&rdquo;He was approached by a weightloss company about doing a promotion to help raise money for a new hockey rink in Kamloops. The weight started coming off, the money started coming in and Hitchcock was on his way. Hitchcock, now at 284 pounds, said he wants to weigh 200 pounds within a year.&ldquo;The key thing is I&rsquo;ve changed my eating habits so much,&rdquo; Hitchcock said. &ldquo;Before I had tire marks at every drive-thru (restaurant) in Kamloops. Now I haven&rsquo;t been to one in so long I don&rsquo;t know what it looks like.&rdquo;<h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2>TRANSACTIONJuly 26: Bernie Parent named goaltending instructor. Glenn Resch, goaltending instructor, released.Aug. 8: Ken Hitchcock, Craig Hartsburg named assistant coaches John Blackwell named assistant general manager. Mike Eaves named coach of Hershey (AHL). Kevin McCarthy named pro scout and player development coordinator.Aug. 12: Simon Nolet, Bill Dineen named scouts. &#9632;

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WAIT IS OVER FOR NEW ASSISTANT COACH

<div class="image-hero"><img title="Cover" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover45/8438029-1-eng-US/cover2.jpg"></div> &#9632;

Cover

IN THIS ISSUE

CZECH IN

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011629/8436500-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="549" height="1002"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dick Todd</figcaption></div>In the next issue of The Hockey News, which will be coming your way in approximately two weeks (cover dated Sept. 14), we&rsquo;ll check in at each and every training camp in the National Hockey League.Not only will we supply a complete composite schedule of all pre-season games, including date, time and venue, we&rsquo;ll list, by position, the training camp rosters of all 21 NHL clubs.Each NHL team story will focus on the major questions being asked as clubs prepare for training camp openings of Sept. 7.In addition to all that, we&rsquo;ll present the first of our three annual buyer&rsquo;s guide to equipment. It will be an invaluable aid to anyone who&rsquo;s contemplating the purchase of skates this season.At the junior level, we&rsquo;ll have an in-depth report from Canada&rsquo;s summer evaluation camp in Saskatoon as the Canukcs prepare to defend their World Junior Championship on home ice this year. Coach Dick Todd and his staff will have 40-plus players from which to choose.Don&rsquo;t miss all that and more in the next issue of The Hockey News. &#9632;

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NEXT ISSUE

Add my name to the list of fans who think the NHL&rsquo;s playoff system is an experience in sheer boredom.It&rsquo;s bad enough that we have to see the same teams play each other so often during the regular season, but then we have the potential to see them for 14 more games during the first two-rounds of the playoffs.Give us fans a break. If the NHL insists on keeping an unbalanced schedule during the regular season, it should go back to the No. 1 versus No. 16, No. 2 versus No. 15 format. That would eliminate what happened this year when Buffalo and Montreal, who finished third and fourth overall, played each other in the first round.Robert ReintgesBowie, Md.<h2>BAD MOVE</h2>As a diehard Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; fan since the Bobby Hull era, I can&rsquo;t understand why they would trade Denis Savard.Not only is he the most exciting and electrifying player in the NHL, he&rsquo;s an institution in Chicago and always will be.In one pointless transaction, Mike Keenan has given away the heart and soul of the team.Joe Francella&nbsp;Toronto, Ont.<h2>BROWNIE POINTS</h2>In Murray Townsend&rsquo;s list of players with consecutive years of service with the same team (THN. August), in between all-stars Doug Wilson and Ray Bourque is the not-so-obvious omission of defenseman Keith Brown, who has played 11 unsung seasons starting in 1979-80 for the Chicago Blackhawks.Ellen Sullivan&nbsp;Boston, Mass.<h2>GIVE IT A REST</h2>Bob Clarke definitely made some questionable trades as general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers. I am a die-hard Flyers&rsquo; fan and was horrified to see him give away my favorites, Dave Poulin and Brian Propp.But the Bobby-bashing has got to stop. Steve Simmons&rsquo; column (THN, August) was particularly biased and unfair.Give Clarke a chance with the &ldquo;new&rdquo; Minnesota North Stars.Melissa Wilson&nbsp;Philadelphia, Penn.<h2>IT&rsquo;S INEVITABLE</h2>A prediction for the 1990-91 season:When a healthy, fully-recovered, post-operative Mario Lemieux, free of debilitating back pain, resumes his scoring domination, and the Penguins consequently roll to a playoff berth, the media, ever so eager to discredit his pre-eminent contributions, instead will attribute the team&rsquo;s success to the leadership influence of veteran acquisition Bryan Trottier.M.A. DevendittisHempstead. N. Y.<h2>CHECK THE FACTS</h2>In Stan Fischler&rsquo;s column (THN, August), he wrote that Phil Housley made a big mistake comparing himself to Bobby Orr on his arrival in the NHL.For starters, it was Scotty Bowman&mdash;then coach and general manager of the Sabres&mdash;who when drafting Housley said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the closest thing to Bobby Orr I&rsquo;ve seen.&rdquo; Housley has been trying to live that down ever since.The Hockey News readers would appreciate it if your columnists would do some research before writing their storiesFrits HoffmanEast Aurora, N. Y.(Ed. note: On the day he was drafted, Housley did, in fact, suggest he played a Bobby Orr-style of game. He didn&rsquo;t say he was the next Bobby Orr. but it was interpreted as such by many.)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011971/8436531-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="558" height="835"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Pens were the Bart Simpsons of the NHL, says a reader.</figcaption></div><h2>NHL&rsquo;S BARTS</h2>In sports, you don&rsquo;t always get what you pay for. Witness Mark Davis of the Kansas City Royals. When you gamble on talent, you gamble on your entire environment.Craig Patrick, on the other hand, decided to pay out for a much-needed attitude adjustment for the Penguins.If you look closely at the roster of the 1990-91 Pittsburgh Penguins you&rsquo;re looking at a team that should dominate the league. But, if the &ldquo;Bart Simpsons&rdquo; of the NHL choose to merely show-up rather than excel, we&rsquo;ll see the biggest waste of talent in the history of hockey.Here&rsquo;s to Craig Patrick and the hope he&rsquo;s obtained the right whips to motivate this potentially devastating team.Jim ParkinsonPhiladelphia, Penn.Make your feelings known. Send your comments to: Letters, The Hockey News,&rsquo;85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont., M3B 2R2. Include home and business phone numbers. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

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TIME TO CHANGE PLAYOFF FORMAT

&bull; Ten NHL expansion applications. Quality, not quantity, is the true measuring stick of any application, but the fierce competition for two franchises should force all involved to put their best foot forward. That permits the NHL true choice and rein forces that pro hockey is an attractive commodity.&bull; Bernie Federko. The classy center, among the elite as a playmaker, wasn&rsquo;t always front and center in the publicity department during his 14-year NHL career. But he skillfully played the game at a high level&mdash;the way it is meant to be played. On the occasion of his retirement, we wish him well and offer our thanks&mdash;he was a pleasure to watch play.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03983/8436600-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="352" height="352"></div>&bull; Hartford&rsquo;s broadcast media. For being duped into broadcasting a trade (see page 38) that never happened. They fell for a Kevin Dineen and Ray Ferraro for Luc Robitaille hoax. No one is infallible, but as errors go, this one was grievous. Shame, shame.&bull; The Soviet Ice Hockey Federation. It threatened to sever all ties with the NHL in the wake of Sergei Fedorov&rsquo;s decision to play in Detroit this season. That was a threat? Many wished it was a promise. Fact is: the Soviets need the NHL (and its money) more than it needs them; and, until the Soviets put their players on valid contracts signed freely, they will always run the risk of losing their natural resources. Spare us the &ldquo;kidnapping&rdquo; rhetoric.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-04551/8436593-1-eng-US/f0003-042.jpg" title="f0003-04" width="354" height="358"></div> &#9632;

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CHEERS JEERS

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>There are some who suggest the Wendel Clark-for-Shayne Corson deal is still being discussed by the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens. It came within a hair of being completed in June and while it apparently fell apart because other components of the transaction couldn&rsquo;t be worked out, the Clark-Corson nucleus is still a reality. Claude Lemieux&rsquo;s name continues to pop up on the Montreal side while Leaf Todd Gill is mentioned often. One thing seems certain&mdash;the Habs will unload the disgruntled Lemieux before training camp. If he doesn&rsquo;t end up in Toronto, Chicago is a good bet&hellip;Jacques Demers&rsquo; successor, Bryan Murray, was the recipient of an encouraging phone call from Demers after Murray had been canned by the Washington Capitals. Jacques encouraged Murray, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry, Bryan, you&rsquo;re a good man; you&rsquo;ll be back in the NHL soon.&rdquo;<h2>BOMBER ROCKS</h2>New York Islandery Ken (Bomber) Baumgartner will soon see tangible evidence that he was not the target of a practical joke last winter when a dressing room visitor said he wanted Baumgartner to sing on a professional rock record. Baumgartner&rsquo;s CD and cassettes will go on sale when training camp opens. The gig involving the rugged defenseman was orchestrated by Metal Blade Records owner Brian Slagel. who arranged the recording session after the playoffs. Ken collaborated with a heavy metal band and produced a three-song cassette and CD. Slagel says he selected Baumgartner over other NHLers because a lot of people in the metal community are fans of his. He&rsquo;s real aggressive and tough. He&rsquo;s a good character and he certainly didn&rsquo;t embarrass himself on the tapes.&rdquo; Ken&rsquo;s rock efforts will benefit the City of Hope Leukemia Fund&hellip;American amateur hockey moguls wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if Herb Brooks surfaces as coach of the 1992 U.S. Olympic team. The Minnesotan, who coached the U.S. to a 1980 gold medal, does not reject the idea. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d be willing to talk about the future of American hockey,&rdquo; says Brooks.<h2>A BITTER RED</h2>Viacheslav Fetisov of the New Jersey Devils still shakes his head over the differences in freedom between NHL players and the Soviets. &ldquo;I remember arguing with Soviet hockey authorities that we should not be held in the camps they had for us,&rdquo; Fetisov recalls. &ldquo;They answered, &lsquo;If we let you go, even for one day, you will get so drunk that you will not be able to move your arms and legs during a game.&rsquo; But this happens anyway. If a Soviet player is locked in camp that is 15 minutes away from home for two weeks in a row, then he breaks out, he will drink for sure. The Russian player celebrates his birthday not on the day he was born but on the date his coach lets him go home. A person in camp is the same as in prison.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Strong-willed Hall of Famer Ted Lindsay boycotted the Canadian Society of New York&rsquo;s annual hockey dinner because Vladislav Tretiak&mdash; along with Ken Dryden&mdash;was one of the honorees. Lindsay says Tretiak, a Soviet, has no business in the Hockey Hall of Fame.<h2>PROFITS UP</h2>The Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; income statement reveals failure is again rewarded at the bank. Despite missing the playoffs, the Canucks grossed more dollars at the gate than ever before in their 20-year history. Apart from off-ice revenue increases, the Canucks increased their gate revenue by some $3 million, according to the statement of Northwest Sports Enterprises Ltd., parent corporation of the club. In cash-flow profits, the Canucks will show some $3-$4 million&hellip; Buffalo&rsquo;s Alexander Mogilny says a crew from Central Soviet Television attempted to interview him but he rebuffed the comrades. &ldquo;As I walked away,&rdquo; says Mogilny, &ldquo;one of them screamed, &lsquo;What are you going to do when you finish playing hockey?&rsquo; I replied to them, without turning around, that I will move to Hawaii where it is always warm.&rdquo;<h2>TAKING A STAND</h2>Like ex-teammate Mike Bossy before him, Pat LaFontaine has no fears about going public with an antifighting stand. &ldquo;The object of the game,&rdquo; says LaFontaine, &ldquo;is to put the puck in the net, not to fight someone or take your stick and spear someone. Many teams feel pressure to fight and that&rsquo;s hard to overcome. Still, all it takes is one person to take a stand and say &lsquo;stop.&rsquo; The one who stops the fight may be looked down upon at first. But in the long run, that&rsquo;s the person who will be looked up to with respect. Fighting is not the answer.&rdquo;&hellip; Ex-International League commissioner and Hall of Fame inductee Bud Poile remembers when he was a totally unknown rookie Flyer GM in baseball-mad Philadelphia in 1967 when the expansion club entered the NHL. &ldquo;I was invited to a sportswriters&rsquo; banquet,&rdquo; Poile recalls, &ldquo;and followed local baseball heroes Curt Simmons and Robin Roberts with the introductions. The emcee looked at my name on the paper, took a second look, cleared his throat and said, &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s Bud Pooley of the, uh, looal hockey team.&rsquo;&rdquo;<h2>HUBBY&rsquo;S CHOICE</h2>Reports to the contrary, Jari Kuril&rsquo;s wife, Tiina Kurri, insists she had nothing to do with her husband skipping to Milan for a European tour of hockey duty. &ldquo;I was happy in Edmonton,&rdquo; says Tiina, who had been Canadian correspondent for a Finnish newspaper, &ldquo;and the people liked us. It wasn&rsquo;t as if I wanted to go home to continue my journalism career.&rdquo; &#9632;

ISA LEAF-HAB DEAL STILL COOKING?

<h2>WALT PODDUBNY</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021621/8436686-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="516" height="1142"></div>Born: Feb. 14, 1960, Thunder Bay, Ont. Height: 6-foot-1. Weight: 205 pounds. Team: New Jersey Devils. Position: Center. Acquired: Traded from Quebec in 1989.Career highlight: &ldquo;The &rsquo;86 playoffs is one. I had three gamewinning goals for the Leafs. Playing in the All-Star Game (1989) was also a big thrill.&rdquo;Most respected opponent: Mark Messier. &ldquo;He embodies the total game. His skill level and his physical presence are dominating.&rdquo;Favorite actors: Morgan Freeman and William Hurt.Favorite food: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s my weak spot. I like everything.&rdquo;Favorite book: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t read fiction. but I do carry a book called An Incomplete Education with me nearly everywhere I go.&rdquo;Favorite movie:&nbsp;The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.Drives: A black Porsche 911.In a movie about his life he would be portrayed by: James Belushi. &ldquo;1 think I have a good sense of humor and I like (Belushi&rsquo;s) acting abilities.&rdquo;Scariest moment: &ldquo;When I was playing for Quebec, (Hartford&rsquo;s) Joel Quenneville tried to clear the puck and it caught me in the left eye for 23 stitches. I had to spend the night in hospital before I found out there wouldn&rsquo;t be any permanent damage.&rdquo;Alternative career if he wasn&rsquo;t playing hockey: &ldquo;I probably would have furthered my education and pursued some form of law career.&rdquo;Ideal evening: &ldquo;Dinner with Albert Einstein and Michelle Pfeiffer for dessert.&rdquo; &#9632;

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PRO FILE

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011931/8436717-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Michal Pivonka looked every bit the franchise-type player at the 1986 World Junior Championships in Hamilton, Ont., but has struggled in the NHL.</figcaption></div>It started as a mere trickle back in 1974, when Vaclav Nedomansky and Richard Farda defected from Czechoslovakia.It soon became a stream, defector after defector dotting the rosters of pro clubs&mdash;the Stastnys, Petr Klima, Frantisek Musil, Petr Svoboda, Michal Pivonka, David Volek, Petr Prajsler&hellip;Today, it is a wave.If last season was the Year of the Soviet in the I National Hockey League, then count on 199091 being a campaign of Czechs and balances.No fewer than nine players who played all of last season in Czechoslovakia will be in the NHL this year. Calgary has center Robert Reichel, the all-time leading scorer of the World I Junior Championships. Chicago has netminder Dominik Hasek and defenseman Jiri Kucera, both front-line members of the Czechoslovak national team. Hartford has phenom center Bobby Holik and defenseman Jergus Baca. New Jersey has national team left winger Zdeno Ciger. Pittsburgh has gifted right winger Jaromir Jagr, the No. 5 pick overall in the 1990 draft. And Vancouver has national team right winger Robert Kron and is also expecting 1990 second-round draftee Jiri Slegr, a defenseman.More are undoubtedly on the way. A total of 21 Czechoslovaks were taken by NHL clubs in the 1990 entry draft, compared to only eight the I year before.And unlike the vast majority of their Czechoslovak predecessors, this year&rsquo;s group of nine and those who will follow are benefactors of sweeping political and social reform in eastern Europe.The new-wave Czechoslovaks&rsquo; ticket to the NHL is exactly that&mdash;a ticket. They&rsquo;ll step onto a plane and take a trip that, on the surface, looks frighteningly simple.None of their families at home face persecution, as it was in the defection days of Nedomansky and Farda. None have to sneak out under cover of darkness while on tour with the national team, like Peter and Anton Stastny in 1980. None have to crawl on his belly across the border to freedom, like Jan Ludvig in 1981. None have to be involved in clandestine Ludlum-esque capers, like those involving Pivonka in 1986 or Klima in 1985.Yes, the road to the NHL is easily travelled these days by young Czechoslovakians, but is there not still a rough ride in store?With the exception of Peter Stastny, no Czechoslovak-born and-trained player has become a dominant player in the NHL.None have ever been named to a first or second all-star team. None have ever scored 50 goals in a season. And none, except for Stastny (who has done it seven times), have had a 100-point season.In many instances, the overall development, or lack of it, has created an aura of disappointment around Czechoslovak players.At the World Junior Championships in 1986 in Hamilton, Pivonka l&infin;ked every bit like a potential franchise player. Here, though, he&rsquo;s struggled to gain his niche as an everyday player.Will it be any different for Holik, Reichel and Jagr, the three brightest young Czechoslovaks who were being groomed as the core of the national team?Clearly, the cutural, political, personal and physical pressures have been enormous, especially for those who defected.No one understands them better than Peter Stastny, who was 24 when he defected with his 21-year-old brother Anton. A third brother, Marian, was then suspended from the Slovan Bratislava team before he joined his brothers with the Quebec Nordiques in 1981.&ldquo;Oh yes, those were tactics, part of the strategy on their (Czechoslovak officials) part to make sure nobody left or, if you did leave, you could count on what might happen. They used to be very nasty with your family and friends, those who are dear to you,&rdquo; Stastny says.&ldquo;There was no direct punishment but indirect, like you lose your job or you lose your promotion. Your brothers or sisters can&rsquo;t go to school, to the university, college or high school.It was basically intellectual punishment. Sometimes these things are more painful than physical punishment.&rdquo;A player may be able to block that from his mind, but once he arrived in North America he faced a vast array of new pressures. Tantamount was communication.When he arrived, Stastny could read English but could not speak it. By his first North American Christmas, however, he was able to give interviews.Stastny&rsquo;s foresight made his adjustment easier. But he believes fortitude and mental toughness are the key factors in succeeding in the NHL.&ldquo;It depends on the quality of a player, how hard he is willing to work and how much abuse he is willing to take,&rdquo; Stastny says. &ldquo;Sometimes you need to be in the right place at the right time. t&infin;. If you don&rsquo;t make an impact, it&rsquo;s a question of confidence. If you don&rsquo;t get what you dreamed immediately or at least soon, you start doubting yourself.&ldquo;This is when you have to rebuild and start all over. Then it takes time. It might take a year, two or three to really make an impact because when you don&rsquo;t make it immediately they&rsquo;d mote you to the minors.&rdquo;Pivonka experienced such a setback.&ldquo;Pivonka is starting to play better and more consistent hockey for our team, but he&rsquo;s alread played four seasons,&rdquo; says Caps&rsquo; GM Davi Poile. You can&rsquo;t make a generalization c Czechs or any European player. You have 1 look at an individual, the type of player he is an his experience.&rdquo;Then there are the many physical adjustments to the NHL game.&ldquo;None of the players, not even those who train with the national team for years, are physically ready to make it in the NHL immediately,&rdquo; Stastny says. &ldquo;European teams train differently. There&rsquo;s a difference in North American players in their endurance.&ldquo;Most are used to playing tough, 80-game schedules with travelling. None of the Euro peans are used to that. With the 80-game season plus the exhibition season, plus the playoffs you play more than 100 games. Not just games but tough games. In Europe, when you play in the league, you play one-third tough games one-third so-so and one-third really easy game; that you know you&rsquo;re going to win no matter what. NHL competition is incomparable.&rdquo;Stastny&rsquo;s warning to the new-wave Czechoslovaks is not to let down, even if they have success as rookies. NHL fame and fortune, he says, can be fleeting.Peter and Anton each scored 39 goals in theii rookie seasons. While they went on to star, the jury is still out on Volek, the New York Islander left winger who enjoyed a 25-goal, 59-point rookie season in 1988-89, but slumped last season to 17-22-39.&ldquo;He struggled for a while last year, but so did (Vancouver&rsquo;s) Trevor Linden,&rdquo; says Isles&rsquo; GM Bill Torrey. &ldquo;David wasn&rsquo;t the first guy who had a very good first year and struggled a bit in his second before finally getting his legs going again.&ldquo;A lot of things distracted him last year. He was married, his wife had a difficult pregnancy and he moved into a new house. That could&lsquo;ve had an effect on him.&rdquo;Devils&rsquo; GM Lou Lamoriello, who vows not to rush Ciger, believes it&rsquo;s important to temper expectations, despite the fact many of the Czechoslovaks arrive with the &ldquo;world-class&rdquo; label.Except for the 10 or 15 per-cent real elite player, the other fellows have some ups and downs,&rdquo; Lamoriello says. &ldquo;Insecurity sets in, which has a lot to do with confidence, coaching changes and how people are perceived.&ldquo;I think what has transpired is when these players come in we have such high expectations that we expect immediate success and when they don&rsquo;t have immediate success we look for the reasons why it didn&rsquo;t go right. Maybe it wasn&rsquo;t their fault. Maybe we didn&rsquo;t approach it or handle it a certain way.&rdquo;NHL GMs are older and wiser now. The incoming Czechoslovaks, for the most part, are younger and more inexperienced.What does all that mean?It&rsquo;s tough to say, but Stastny offers one clue that transcends a player&rsquo;s nationality.&ldquo;Most important is your personality,&rdquo; says Stastny. &ldquo;For me it was a question of pride, to succeed and make it at whatever cost. I was ready to pay the price. That&rsquo;s why a lot haven&rsquo;t succeeded. They were just not ready to pay the price.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0005-01

BRAVE NEW WORLD

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KILEY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012141/8436748-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Fan favorite Denis Savard was dealt a month after Mike Keenan (inset) added the GM duties to his coaching title. The pair had a rocky player-coach relationship.</figcaption></div>As a rookie general manager in the National Hockey League, Mike Keenan doesn&rsquo;t intend to re-invent the wheel. Perhaps just copy it.Keenan the copy cat? Whatever. The Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; GM-coach has been called much worse. And will be again.Copy cat is just fine with him as long as he&rsquo;s copying the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; wheel of fortune.Five Stanley Cups in seven years may be a lofty goal that no reasonable man could dream of matching. But then Keenan hasn&rsquo;t always been considered reasonable.As a coach, he pushed his players to their limit. Some say beyond. Now, since becoming the Hawks&rsquo; GM in June, he has taken bold measures in his quest to emulate the success of the Oilers.Keenan sees himself as a man of vision. When he couldn&rsquo;t see the Hawks winning the Stanley Cup with center Denis Savard, he made a blockbuster deal with the Montreal Canadiens, acquiring Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Chris Chelios.With that move, he&rsquo;s made a good start at emulating the qualities he sees and admires in Glen Sather.&ldquo;(Sather) isn&rsquo;t fearful of making any moves he feels are important to improve his club,&rdquo; Keenan says.&ldquo;He deals with a certain level of confidence and it doesn&rsquo;t matter to him what other people might think.&ldquo;I remember he once traded five players after he won the Stanley Cup. This was before they traded Wayne Gretzky. That&rsquo;s responsiveness, because they came back to win the Cup two or three more times after those five players were traded.&rdquo;When Sather coached, he had assistant John Muckier to lean on when managerial duties pressed. Muckier subsequently became co-coach and, prior to last season, head coach.The Hawks are following in Edmonton&rsquo;s footsteps.Former Hawk Darryl Sutter, who coached Indianapolis to the International League title last season, is Keenan&rsquo;s new associate coach. When Keenan decides to retire as head coach (no date has even been considered yet), Sutter will be the replacement.Owner Bill Wirtz has said Sutter is &ldquo;in line&rdquo; to be the next head coach, just as he said two years ago that Keenan was positioned to replace Bob Pulford as GM.Pulford accepted a new title within the organization as senior vice president.Anyone who questions if &lsquo;Pully&rsquo; still controls the Hawks, wonders no more. Making the Savard deal&mdash;a blockbuster by anyone&rsquo;s standards&mdash;less than a month into the GM&rsquo;s chair, indicates Keenan has all the buttons within his reach.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what my style as a GM will be,&rdquo; Keenan says. &ldquo;Too early to tell. Pully had a deliberate style, but the opportunity to work with him for two years makes me better prepared to be a GM.&ldquo;I talk to him almost every day.&rdquo;Keenan likes to use words heard more often at a convention of psychologists than hockey GMs. So don&rsquo;t be surprised to hear that he wants his style to be one of &ldquo;responsiveness.&rdquo;Break down his buzz words, however, and Keenan most certainly has method to what sometimes seems like madness. He plans to respond at a moment&rsquo;s notice to any possibility of any magnitude.The Savard trade, for example, came about over a two-week period&mdash;not a long time for a transaction of note.&ldquo;Sather&rsquo;s responsive and I want to be, too,&rdquo; Keenan says. &ldquo;You run through all the options presented to you every day. You have to make responsible decisions and evaluations, but at the same time be able to have a mind set for dealing with potential possibilities. Like getting Chelios for Savard.&ldquo;I know some comments have been made about my impulsiveness. That&rsquo;s not the case at all. If that&rsquo;s the perception of me, it&rsquo;s untrue.&ldquo;Most things I do are well thought out beforehand. Even all the goaltending changes I made last season during games, those were well thought out, not impulsive.&rdquo;Also well thought out after being fired by the Philadelphia Flyers after four seasons was Keenan&rsquo;s plan to receive assurances from the Hawks that he would eventually be GM and coach.&ldquo;I had no plans to become a GM when I first came into the league (1984-85),&rdquo; Keenan says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something that evolved. I learned the owner, coach and general manager of a team must share the same vision or it won&rsquo;t work.&ldquo;I like to look at models that have succeeded and that&rsquo;s why I first mentioned Sather. Another type is the (New York) Islanders and what (coach) Al Arbour and (GM) Bill Torrey have been able to do. My perception is Torrey is almost like the owner there.&ldquo;The only other example I can give you of being closely aligned in vision like this was (ex-Washington Capitals&rsquo; coach) Bryan Murray and (Caps&rsquo; GM) David Poile. If you&rsquo;re not thinking as one, there will be problems.&rdquo;Keenan insists, however, that he was never frustrated in Philadelphia.&ldquo;I learned a great deal from Bob Clarke and Keith Allen and the Sniders,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;People think I&rsquo;m inclined that way, to frustration. But although we obviously didn&rsquo;t share the same vision there&mdash;or else I&rsquo;d still be there&mdash;I learned a lot and wasn&rsquo;t frustrated.&rdquo;Mostly, he learned he wanted to be in control of his own fate. Holding both jobs provides a better opportunity to make it happen.&ldquo;I grew up as a boy in Toronto closely watching Punch Imlach be coach and GM of the Maple Leafs,&rdquo; Keenan says. &ldquo;He relied on the people around him and I have that same sense of defined organizational skills.&rdquo;Told that some believe he craves control and will find it difficult to delegate. Keenan again takes issue with what he is say is a misjudgment of his character.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a perception that&rsquo;s not totally true,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I have a need for control, yes. but 1 can &ldquo;delegate effectively.&ldquo;From talking to other GMs, I can see I don&rsquo;t have as high a need for control as some of them.&rdquo;Asked to elaborate on that, Keenan declines. He is still fitting into the GM fraternity and doesn&rsquo;t want to make waves for the sake of gossip.&ldquo;I know most of the GMs and it&rsquo;s not a difficult task for me,&rdquo; he says of finding his niche with his peers. &ldquo;Some days I call them all and some days I don&rsquo;t talk to any of them.&ldquo;I have a good handle on most of the NHL players, but not on the Europeans or some of the juniors just coming out. It&rsquo;s going to take time, but I need to work on my overall knowledge of these players.&rdquo;So, during the summer, Keenan didn&rsquo;t spend a lot of time sunning himself at his cottage on Georgian Bay, north of Toronto. He worked diligently in an attempt to settle into a manager&rsquo;s routine, determined to get the Hawks off the dark side of the moon and moving toward a NHL championship season&mdash;something they haven&rsquo;t experienced since 1961.&ldquo;I still need to learn all the rules and regulations,&rdquo; Keenan says, adding that Pulford will handle all contract details and negotiations&mdash;for now.But in trading Savard, one rule has been laid down loud and clear. As GM and coach, Keenan is holding a double-barreled shotgun and it could go off at any time. &#9632;

f0006-01

TAKING CHARGE

<div class="byline">BY THN STAFF</div>It was the Cold War revisited.But after weeks of posturing on both sides, the National Hockey League and Soviet Ice Hockey Federation emerged with their exchange program intact.The Soviets had threatened to cancel NHL-related programs because Sergei Fedorov, a star 20-year-old center, abandoned his national team at the Goodwill Games in July to sign a five-year contract with the Detroit Red Wings.Fedorov did not defect. He applied for an H-l Visa, a work permit all foreigners must get in order to work in the United States. Soviet authorities then vowed to cancel the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; and Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; eight-game Friendship Tour &rsquo;90 of the Soviet Union in September and the annual 21-game Super Series involving four Soviet club teams touring the NHL in December and January.NHL president John Ziegler and NHL Players&rsquo; Association executive director Alan Eagleson condemned the Soviet threats, vowing to launch legal action if the games were cancelled.On Aug. 17, the Soviets and NHL finally confirmed all 29 games would be played. The Soviets claimed they received guarantees the NHL would not &ldquo;kidnap&rdquo; any more players, but Ziegler and Eagleson refuted the notion any terms or conditions had changed.Fedorov was able to sign with the Red Wings because: a) they had drafted him, and b) he was not, in the estimation of the NHL, bound by a valid legal contract with his Soviet club, Central Red Army.Ziegler said until the Soviets take steps to put their players under internationally legal and binding contracts, the NHL has no grounds on which to refuse a Soviet employment.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve offered on two occasions to assist them in this matter,&rdquo; Ziegler said. &ldquo;We would like to have orderly transfers.&ldquo;My recommendation to them all along has been to go ahead with all the tours and take us up on our offer of establishing contracts for their players. Our message couldn&rsquo;t be more clear: &lsquo;Let us help you.&rsquo;&rdquo;<h2>EAGLE ATTACKED</h2>If, as the saying goes, bad things come in threes, Alan Eagleson may want to take cover.First, the outgoing executive director of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association was on the receiving end of harsh criticism from former client Bobby Orr.Then, in mid-August, Eagleson was sued for $23 million by Edmonton-based player agent and lawyer Rich Winter.Orr&rsquo;s comments came in reaction to reports the former Boston Bruin superstar abandoned a $90,000 pledge made in 1978 to fund a sports medicine clinic in Toronto. Orr told the Toronto Star Aug. 5 Eagleson made the pledge knowing full-well Orr wasn&rsquo;t in a financial position to honor it.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011943/8436779-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="521" height="697"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alan Eagleson is the defendant in a $23-million lawsuit.</figcaption></div>The Bruin legend went on to say he had no financial security, as Eagleson had assured him, when he was forced to retire due to knee problems in 197879.&ldquo;Al promised me that, with my income, I&rsquo;d be a millionaire by the time I was 30,&rdquo; Orr said. &ldquo;He had total control. He said we were brothers. And I trusted him like a brother.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m fed up. I&rsquo;ve kept quiet for 10 years, but now I&rsquo;m going to tell my story, a little of my story.&rdquo;Eagleson, who initially described the allegations as &ldquo;a crock of b.s.&rdquo;, later said he was disappointed.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to talk with my lawyers,&rdquo; said Eagleson. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like a divorce. Both sides have done well since. I&rsquo;m leaving him alone and why doesn&rsquo;t he leave me alone? But now that he&rsquo;s said some things, 1&rsquo;11 probably have to come up with a response, a public statement.&rdquo;Winter, who has lost his two most prominent clients&mdash;Grant Fuhr and Ron Hextall&mdash;in the last year, filed a personal damages suit against Eagleson in the Court of Queen&rsquo;s Bench of Alberta in July.The suit states Eagleson has repeatedly defamed Winter, insinuating to people in the hockey world Winter is dishonest, unethical, untrustworthy and incompetent, in turn causing Winter a loss of business.Winter also claims in the suit he&rsquo;s suffered &ldquo;great embarrassment and humiliation&rdquo; as well as &ldquo;mental anguish and bodily pain&rdquo; because of Eagleson&rsquo;s remarks.<h2>TRIAL COMING</h2>Calgary Flame defenseman Gary Suter has been ordered to stand trial on charges stemming from an altercation with two plainclothes policemen outside a Madison, Wise., tavern.Suter is charged with felony battery to a police officer after a June 28 incident in which two policemen were trying to arrest Chicago Blackhawk defenseman Chris Chelios.Dane County court commissioner Todd Muerer ruled there was sufficient evidence to warrant a trial following a preliminary hearing Aug. 1. No trial date was set.Police sergeant Mark Bradley testified Suter approached the policemen who were struggling with Chelios. He said he displayed his badge and told Suter: &ldquo;Police officers, we need help. Call police.&rdquo;Bradley said Suter looked at his badge, then punched him in the mouth. Bradley said he suffered facial cuts, loosened teeth and a stiff neck.Suter did not testify, but his attorney, Bruce Rosen, said Suter did not know Bradley was a policeman.Suter is free on a $5,000 signature bond.<h2>SOVIET WIN</h2>Propelled by three goals by Valery Kamensky, the Soviet Union beat Team USA 4-3 in an overtime shootout to take the gold medal at the Goodwill Games Aug. 5.Kamensky&rsquo;s third goal of the game came at 19:39 of regulation time, lifting the Soviets into a 3-3 tie. After a scoreless overtime period, the Soviets managed to score twice on four shootout attempts on American goalie Guy Hebert, while the Americans couldn&rsquo;t put one past Russian netminder Artur Irbe. &#9632;

f0007-01

NHL, SOVIETS REACH AGREEMENT ON TOURS

<div class="byline">BY SCOTT MORRISON AND RAND SIMON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-012032/8436810-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Errors abound in prototype hockey cards issued by Score, Pro Set and Upper Deck. Or did Mark Messier really win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP?</figcaption></div>Talk about expansion in the National Hockey League and you will likely think first of the addition of new franchises, one next season, two more the following year.But the merchandising arm of the league is also expanding&mdash;to include the lucrative hockey card market. The NHL is following the lead of Major League Baseball, National Football League and National Basketball Association.&ldquo;With the growth in the whole market.&rdquo; says Fred Scalera, the NHL&rsquo;s general manager of retail licensing, &ldquo;the timing was right to expand. There has been an explosion in the card market and there has been a lot of interest from card companies to get involved in hockey.&rdquo;Thus, after a five-year arrangement dealing exclusively with Topps in the United States and O-Pee-Chee in Canada, the league has spread out. The deals with Topps and O-Pee-Chee remain, but new ones exists with three U.S. card companies&mdash;Upper Deck, Pro Set and Score.Cards have proven in major-league sports to be an excellent advertising vehicle. The collectables business has become huge both in Canada and the U.S. And the more cards sell, the more leagues are able to charge for licensing. That is the essence of the NHL&rsquo;s venture into an expanded card market.&ldquo;Clearly,&rdquo; says Scalera, &ldquo;this gives us a tremendous amount of exposure in the market, an opportunity to expand our presence. And it also creates a nice revenue source for the league, the Players&rsquo; Association and the teams.&rdquo;Scalera won&rsquo;t reveal the figures or the breakdown, but sources indicate each of the card manufacturers is paying anywhere from $250,000 to $350,000 for the right to use NHL players on their cards. A portion of the fee is guaranteed up front, while the remainder is from royalties (a percentage of sales).It will be interesting to monitor how hockey cards sell, particularly in the U.S., and whether they become a staple of the collectables market. Over the years, the buying, selling and collecting of baseball cards has become big business. Oakland slugger Jose Canseco&rsquo;s rookie card, which is only four years old, is already worth $100.&ldquo;Baseball is the granddaddy of the card market,&rdquo; says Scalera. &ldquo;Football followed, then the NBA and us most recently. Each of the leagues has had great success. They are a bit of a barometer for us and they bode well for us to be successful.&rdquo;Scalera says that by including the three additional companies, the league will hit all levels of the market, from the casual collector or young fan to the ultra-serious.&ldquo;This is a complete industry unto itself,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We feel the combination of companies gives us a nice mix. Each has a unique style of product and distribution. We&rsquo;re trying to hit on all different levels.&rdquo;<h2>COMPANIES ARE AMAZED WHAT PEOPLE WILL PAY FOR CARDS.</h2>It&rsquo;s the card companies, of course, that have risked the most, but the feeling is the boom that has become substantial in baseball, football and basketball, will extend to hockey. The thinking is, give the public a card, any pro card, and they will collect, whether they are casual fans or serious speculators.According to a spokesman for Upper Deck, the most expensive of the cards, &ldquo;research conducted by the company showed the potential for a lot of growth and we felt it was a good time to get active in hockey. Our research also indicated that there is considerable interest in hockey cards outside of the NHL markets in both Canada and the United States.&ldquo;Our research also indicates that hockey cards will be a big seller. It&rsquo;s amazing what has happened with baseball cards. We&rsquo;re amazed to see the money people pay for those cards and the value they have. It&rsquo;s quite possible a similar growth will happen with hockey cards.&rdquo;Upper Deck has a perfect record in producing baseball cards. It has been in business two years and is two-time winner of card of the year. It has signed Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; star center Wayne Gretzky as its hockey spokesman, joining former slugger Reggie Jackson, who represents baseball. The Los Angeles-based company is also the official card of the NHL All-Star Game, and the Kings.Unfortunately for Upper Deck, though, their first steps into the hockey market were not without a bit of a stumble. Prototype cards of both Gretzky and Montreal goaltender Patrick Roy listed their height as being six inches tall, instead of six feet.But they aren&rsquo;t the only ones to err with prototypes. Score describes Mark Messier as the winner of the 1990 Conn Smythe Trophy. (Edmonton Oiler goaltender Bill Ranford was the real Smythe winner). Pro-Set&rsquo;s card says Mario Lemieux missed 11 games with a bad back when he actually missed 21.There are other errors in the prototypes&mdash;most of which will likely be corrected in the regular issue of cards: Pro-Set has Brett Hull playing 85 games in 1987-88 (he played 65, and, Score has Roy&rsquo;s goals-against average as being 2.53 in its English copy (which is correct) but 2.23 in its French version.O-Pee-Chee will make the largest set&mdash;528 cards&mdash;and will feature two Soviet teams, the Soviet Wings and Moscow Dynamo. In addition, in each wax pack, there will be one card of a player from the Central Red Army.Score will produce a 440-card set, including an exclusive card of Eric Lindros, the Oshawa Generals&rsquo; center who is expected to be the first pick overall in the 1991 entry draft. Lindros will be shown in his Generals&rsquo; uniform, becoming the first junior player to be featured on an NHL card. As a bonus, a five-card Lindros subset will be included in complete sets. Those cards will not be available in wax pacsSet, which makes the.<h2>THREE-CARD GRETZKY TRIBUTE HIGHLIGHTS TOPPS SET.</h2>Pro Set, which makes the official card of the NFL, will have a 336-card set.The highlight of the Topps set is a three-card tribute to Gretzky, which will show him in each of the three pro uniforms he&rsquo;s worn in his career&mdash;the Kings and Edmonton Oilers of the NHL and the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association. Topps will also produce a 264-card set for its subsiduary company, Bowman, which will be released about a month into the season.Scalera was ecstatic by the interest shown by the card companies when the previous contract expired this past summer.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s yet to be seen what will happen,&rdquo; says Scalera. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not sure what the market will bear, but we&rsquo;re very optimistic and the card companies are optimistic.&rdquo;And so they should be if the skyrocketing value of current cards is a reliable precedent. A mint-condition Gretzky rookie card has risen in value from $100 to $600 in just more than a year. Newer rookie cards have also proven lucrative. Hull&rsquo;s rookie card is only two years old but the St. Louis sniper&rsquo;s worth is already $35.While rookie cards are the most valuable, all cards of star players are hot commodities. The most valuable cards from last season&rsquo;s set are those of Gretzky, Hull and Lemieux.From this season&rsquo;s cards, the most valuable will be the error cards, Score&rsquo;s Lindros cards and, of course, all top rookie cards.One thing is certain: collectors will have more choice than ever before in hockey cards. Only baseball, with seven regular-issued sets, provides more variety for collectors. &#9632;

f0008-01

FIVE-CARB DREW

<div class="byline">BY GARY LOEWEN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011858/8436841-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pat LaFontaine is one of several of NHL players who have played in the Compuware system. The Michigan computer firm is vying for an expansion team.</figcaption></div>At NHL headquarters, they call it. The Vision of the &rsquo;90s.In the aftermath of the overwhelming response for expansion franchises, that self-styled vision would appear to be 20/20.Ten groups from eight hockey hotbeds&mdash;literally and figuratively speaking&mdash;have pledged $50 million (U.S.)each for a 1992-93 expansion team. The bids rolled into the NHL&rsquo;s New York office in the days leading up the Aug. 15 midnight deadline.Initially, there were 11 applications, but the Phoenix group, headed by lawyer Mike King, decided to make an early exit from the race. King cited inabilities to meet the league&rsquo;s expansion requirements.Considering the lofty price tag and the fact the bidders had to deliver a $ 100.000 fee along with the extensive application, the response would seem to confirm investors&rsquo; confidence in the future of the NHL. Bidders do. however, have the option of withdrawing by Sept. 7&mdash;as Phoenix did Aug. 19&mdash;with a full refund. For those who stay in the running, only $65,000 is refundable.While the interest in expansion may be unprecendented, the &ldquo;vision&rdquo; itself, isn&rsquo;t new. The NHL merely borrowed the dream from the late Clarence Campbell.Campbell, the league president from 1946 to 1977, envisioned the same potential for expansion two decades ago&rsquo;.&ldquo;The NHL must expand to 24 teams in North America in the &rsquo;70s,&rdquo; Campbell said as he announced the NHL&rsquo;s third expansion on Dec. 30, 1971. &ldquo;In our further expansion, we recognize fully the necessity for additional teams in the western U.S. and in Canada.&rdquo;Campbell might have seen his dream fulfilled if he had at his disposal a skinny kid from Brantford, Ont., and a shrewd California coin collector.But back in 1971, Wayne Gretzky was merely a minor-hockey phenomenon and Bruce McNall was tinkering with coins instead of Kings.&rsquo; &lsquo;The NHL should take advantage of the positive hockey atmosphere in the west and expand on what (Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; owner) Bruce McNall and Wayne Gretzky have done to generate excitement,&rdquo; says Harry Cooper, who is backing one of two bids to bring the NHL to San Diego.Of the 10 applications, the majority came from warm climes. Dr. Jerry Buss, who sold the Los Angeles Kings to McNall, also is bidding for a San Diego franchise, although he is keeping his options open and is eyeing other southern California markets, too.There are three bids from Florida&mdash;Miami, St. Petersburg and Tampa&mdash;with the other fair-weather bidder being Houston. Milwaukee. Seattle, Hamilton and Ottawa also are in the running.The league, buoyed by record attendance figures, announced last year a goal of expanding from 21 to 28 teams by the end of the century. The California Bay Area has been granted a franchise for 1991-92 with further expansion planned for the following year.Initial expectations were that two teams would be added in 1992-93 but the league has set no limit.In response to the surge of applicants, Alan Eagleson. the executive director of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association, suggested that six teams be absorbed in one swoop&ldquo;From the players&rsquo; perspective, let&rsquo;s bite the bundle, let&rsquo;s take six teams. It would bring in $300 million now,&rdquo; Eagleson says.Prospective owners hope Eagleson&rsquo;s suggestion has planted a seed among the board of governors. It&rsquo;s one they plan to nurture in the coming months.The board of governors&rsquo; expansion committee will examine the 10 bids and each group will be interviewed within about eight weeks. A group of finalists will be selected and they will make final presentations at the board meetings at Palm Beach, Fla., Dec. 5-8.The league has set a tentative date of Dec. 10 to announce the winners.Eagleson anticipates no problem in finding an extra 120 NHL-calibre players.&ldquo;Water finds its own level,&rdquo; he says.With borders opening in eastern Europe and with a growing influx of players from U.S. colleges, the player pool should be adequate, Eagleson&rsquo;s backers say.Gerry Patterson, who is fronting an as-yet anonymous ownership group in Hamilton, says the proposal bodes well for Canada&rsquo;s hopes of landing a franchise. Most hockey insiders believe the Hamilton and Ottawa bids are long-shots should only two teams be added. However, Ziegler has assured the two groups that the Canadian/U.S. border is no greater an obstacle these days than the Berlin Wall.&ldquo;What we&rsquo;re most confident about is that we have 5.35 million people within 50 miles and they all know what a puck is,&rdquo; Patterson says.In southern California, they know about pucks, too&mdash;chlorine pucks, the ones they put in their swimming pools.They also know about bucks.Cooper proposes to build a new arena in a wealthy region of San Diego near the Torrey Pines golf club.Cooper has spoken to Buss about joining his group. Should Buss continue to go it alone and win the bid. Cooper will try to convince him to locate on his prime San Diego site. Cooper&rsquo;s prospective arena has been designed by Gino Rosetti, who built the Detroit Pistons&rsquo; state-of-the art Palace in Auburn Hills, Mich.Rosetti also is the architect of the proposed Palladium, the centrepiece of Ottawa&rsquo;s bid.Terrace Investments Ltd., the Ottawa backer, submitted a hefty, 800-page, leather-bound application, 2&frac12; years in the making. Terrace is promoting the fact the Ottawa Senators won nine Stanley Cups during the team&rsquo;s earlier incarnation from 1917 to 1934.The Florida bids have former NHL players Jim Rutherford, Phil Esposito and Brad Park fronting them.Rutherford is the spokesman&mdash;and future general manager&mdash;of the St. Petersburg bid. He&rsquo;s a long-time employee of Compuware, the Michigan-based computer software company that has a history of involvement in amateur hockey.Al Iafrate and Pat Lafontaine are among the NHLers who grew up in the Compuware chain while Eric Lindros played part of last season with the company&rsquo;s junior team. Compuware previously owned the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario League and now own the Detroit Ambassadors, an OHL expansion club.Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos said several months ago that $50 million for an NHL expansion franchise was ludicrous. But he and Rutherford have arrived at a favorable deal to lease the Florida Suncoast Dome&mdash;the site of an NHL pre-season game this fall.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re able to use some revenue sources we normally maybe wouldn&rsquo;t have got. After exploring all options, we decided that NHL expansion is our best option,&rdquo; Rutherford says.Esposito is involved in the Tampa Bay bid. The backer is the wealthy and highly-respected Pritzker family, which owns the Hyatt Hotel chain. Their application includes a new arena to be built by Spectacor, which operates the Spectrum in Philadelphia and is owned by the Snider family. The Sniders, of course, own the Philadelphia Flyers.Tampa and St. Petersburg are neighboring cities&mdash;the Suncoast Dome is only a 10-15 minute drive from the Tampa airport.The Miami group features Godfrey Wood and Park, who inititally sought a Global League franchise. Wood, a former Harvard University goaltender, was part of a conglomerate that attempted to buy the Boston Bruins five years ago. The proposed team would lease the Miami Arena, home of the National Basketball Association&rsquo;s Heat.The Seattle and Houston bids are both tied to NBA franchises. Barry Ackerley owns the Seattle SuperSonics and plans to build a new rink.NBA Rockets&rsquo; owner Charlie Thomas and president Ray Patterson are behind the Houston franchise. The hockey team would share The Summit with the Rockets.The Milwaukee bid, headed by Lloyd and Jane Pettit, has long been a front-runner for a franchise. The city has a hockey background and a large, modem facility in the Bradley Center. &#9632;

f0009-01

20/20 VISION

<div class="byline">STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-012000/8436879-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="482" height="596"></div>Hate is not an emotion you normally associate with the Lady Byng Trophy winner, the NHL&rsquo;s official Mr. Clean. So when 1990 winner Brett Hull spews venom, it&rsquo;s a better story than man-bites-dog or Mike Keenan reconciles with Denis Savard.Hull&rsquo;s hate is directed at that peculiar brand of hockey player known as &ldquo;the shadow.&rsquo;&rsquo;Shadowing is not only illegal and obscene, in Hull&rsquo;s view, but also an affront to his artistry and sensibilities. Ask Brett and he&rsquo;ll tell you that &ldquo;shadowing&rdquo; should be to hockey what X-rated movies are to child-care centers.&ldquo;I hate shadowing,&rdquo; says Hull. &ldquo;I hate the stuff. To tell you the truth, I&rsquo;d be embarrassed if I was a guy like that.&rdquo;Embarrassed if he were the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; pesky left winger Esa Tikkanen?&ldquo;Absolutely, He&rsquo;s got so much skill, he shouldn&rsquo;t have to do things like that,&rdquo; says Hull. &ldquo;What Tikkanen does when he&rsquo;s shadowing is not really playing the game. He&rsquo;s out there for no reason but to follow the guy around.&rdquo;Hull doesn&rsquo;t want to leave the impression he&rsquo;s singling out Tikkanen for his case against shadows. The league is afflicted with these pests from coast to coast the way New Jersey is with mosquitoes.&ldquo;I got my first taste of a first-class shadow after 1 came to St. Louis,&rdquo; Hull recalls. &ldquo;Stu Gavin of Minnesota showed me first-hand what a shadow does. They hook you, trip you all the time. When you go for the opening, they put the stick between your legs. And the referees never call anything like that. If they did. they&rsquo;d be calling it on the guy every shift. Sure, once in a while you&rsquo;ll get a call on it but that really doesn&rsquo;t do any good.&rdquo;So how would Hull eliminate shadowing if he were running the league.&ldquo;The first thing I&rsquo;d do is get rid of the holding; 1 mean the holding of the stick; the holding of the jersey in front of the net, that kind of stuff. Brad Marsh is typical of the guys who do that. Why, he&rsquo;s made a living out of it.&ldquo;What the league should do is sit down with the referees and tell them, &lsquo;You call those (restraining) infractions from Day 1 of the season to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.&rsquo;&rdquo;Even though it would jeopardize the status of players like Marsh?&ldquo;Sorry, but the NHL is trying to sell the game&rsquo;s big-time players like Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. They&rsquo;re what hockey is all about, not shadowing.&rdquo;In case Brett hadn&rsquo;t read any hockey history books lately, he ought to know that his father, Bobby Hull, was tortured by such shadowy pests as Bryan (Bugsy) Watson and Claude Provost for too many years than he cares to remember.Every so often nice-guy Bobby would wave his mosquito repellant (a heavy hockey stick) and suggested that his son do likewise nowadays. Brett waved his arms in the motion of a lumberjack to articulate his father&rsquo;s advice for a listener.But Brett allows that he&rsquo;s &ldquo;not a physical player&rdquo; and will not go the Paul Bunyan route, just to please his father.&ldquo;Mind you, 1 really believe that fighting is part of the game,&rdquo; adds Brett, &ldquo;and there should be some allowed. What I&rsquo;m against is the blatant two-hander; the kind that can cost you a nose or an eye.&rdquo;Fortunately for the Blues, Hull has found the ideal antidote to shadowing. It&rsquo;s called money and the cool million-plus a year he&rsquo;ll be banking is enough to enable him to smile through the whole ugly, hooking, holding and strangling mess.And speaking of Mess, Hull was advised that he is now earning more money than the impervious-to-shadows. Hart Trophy-winner, Mark Messier. The Golden Bynger thought for a moment and then shook his head.&ldquo;Can you believe that Mark makes only eight or nine-hundred thousand a year,&rdquo; says Hull. &ldquo;That man has been grossly underpaid.&rdquo;But not overshadowed.Good news-bad news:The good news is that hockey is booming in Europe, which could pave the way for eventual NHL overseas expansion. The bad news is that the NHL is losing good players to European teams; one of the latest being gifted Greg Haw-good of the Boston Bruins. NHL owners had better worry when the trickle becomes a flow.The good news is that nice guy and fully-deserving Paul Holmgren signed a two-year extension of a contract that would have expired after the 1990-91 season. The bad news is that Holmgren is in the same leaky boat Ted Sator occupied when Phil Esposito took over as general manager for the New York Rangers. Sator was safe as long as he won. When he lost, he went bye-bye because rookie GMs like to have their own people do the coaching. Holmgren had better win.<h2>FLASHBACK</h2>August 26, 1961: Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker officially opened the Hockey Hall of Fame, located on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. Also on hand at the ceremony was league president Clarence Campbell. The Hall of Fame is relocating to a site in downtown Toronto. It is expected to be ready by the 1991-92 season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021445/8436872-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="426" height="399"><figcaption class="caption-body">John Diefenbaker</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0010-01

MR. CLEAN WANTS SHADOWING REMOVED

<h2>RANGERS</h2>Defenseman Brian Leetch resumed skating July 23, about two weeks ahead of schedule. Medical trainer Dave Smith declined to detail Leetch&rsquo;s first efforts since he suffered a compound fracture of his left ankle at Toronto March 14 but, during the next three weeks, word leaked out through other players the 22-year-old defenseman has made a remarkable recovery and was skating like his former self&hellip;The ever-changing status of center Corey Millen took another turn recently, this time backwards. At one time rumored to be heading for Italy, Millen then decided to report to the Rangers&rsquo; training camp but, as he began preparations, he encountered more problems and underwent surgery on his left knee for the third time in a year. Millen missed almost all of last season following a Sept. 18 check by the Islanders&rsquo; Bryan Trottier in a pre-season game. Millen will be out at least until December.<h2>CAPITALS</h2>Craig Laughlin, who was one of the most popular Capitals when he played in Washington from 1982-83 to 1987-88, has returned to do color commentary for the team&rsquo;s television broadcasts. Laughlin played last season in Landshut. West Germany, and was set to return there when the TV deal came about&hellip;Michal Pivonka returned to his home in Kladno, Czech., for the first time since his defection. &ldquo;Not a lot has changed in four years,&rdquo; Pivonka said of the suburb of Prague&hellip;The Capitals have 18 players in the organization going into the option year of their contracts, including Michal Pivonka, Mike Liut, Rod Langway, Mike Ridley, Bob Rouse, Steve Leach, Alan May. Nick Kypreos. Neil Sheehy and Peter Zezel.<h2>PENGUINS</h2>Tom Reich, the agent representing Paul Coffey in his contract negotiations, said he has &ldquo;philosophical differences&rdquo; with Pittsburgh GM Craig Patrick, but was optimistic a deal could be reached. The root issue: Whether the megadeal Scott Stevens signed with St. Louis should affect Coffey&rsquo;s salary. Coffey is entering his option year&hellip;The Penguins will play, a nine-game exhibition schedule, including five meetings with the Los Angeles Kings. Pittsburgh will open pre-season play Sept. 15 in Detroit and have games in Richfield, Ohio, Tampa, Dallas, Houston and Oakland (two), as well as two at the Civic Arena&hellip;Right winger Rob Brown, whose disdain for conditioning has long annoyed management, began working out at the Civic Arena more than a month before the start of training camp.<h2>DEVILS</h2>The Devils may work out a deal in which right winger Janne Ojanen will play this season in Europe then return to New Jersey for the 1991-92 season. Ojanen returned to Finland last season angry after not playing at all in the playoffs&hellip; Hall of Famer Marcel Pronovost, who was with the NHL&rsquo;s Central Scouting Bureau since August of 1985, was hired to fill the Devils&rsquo; scouting position which has been vacant since Tim Burke became John Cunniffs assistant coach last November. Pronovost, a former Detroit Red Wing and Toronto Maple Leaf player and ex-NHL and WHA coach, is based in Windsor, Ont &hellip;Goalie coach Bob Bellemore has been reassigned as a scout&hellip;By sending Randy Velischek to Quebec to complete the Peter Stastny deal, the Devils have lost four starting defensemen in less than a year&mdash;Tom Kurvers, Craig Wolanin, Reijo Ruotsalainen and Velischek.<h2>FLYERS</h2>Tim Kerr underwent minor surgery July 14 to have a cyst removed from his collarbone. The cyst was discovered after Kerr took a hit in a late-season game. The right winger began rehabilitation shortly after the surgery and is expected to be ready for training camp&hellip;Bernie Parent was named goaltending instructor to replace Glenn Resch, who was released. Parent served as Flyers&rsquo; goaltending instructor for seven years before leaving midway through last season to pursue business interests&hellip;Mike Eaves, 30, was named coach of the Hershey Bears of the American League. Eaves, who served as Paul Holmgren&rsquo;s assistant the past two years, said he looks forward to the challenge. &ldquo;My long-term goal is to, be a (NHL) head coach and this is an excellent opportunity to get that experience.&rdquo;&hellip;John Blackwell, 41, was named Russ Farwell&rsquo;s new assistant, replacing John Paddock. Blackwell had served as Edmonton&rsquo;s director of operations for their AHL team in Cape Breton since 1984.<h2>ISLANDERS</h2>Butch Goring, who played on the Isles&rsquo; four Stanley Cup teams in the early &rsquo;80s. rejoined the organization when he was named head coach of its American League affiliate in Troy, N.Y. Aug. 17. Goring had been out of hockey since leaving his coaching job, with the Spokane Chiefs of the Western League early in the 1988-89 season&hellip;The Islanders will be without a familiar face and longtime favorite behind their bench this season. Jim Pickard, who became the Isles&rsquo; equipment manager-assistant trainer in their first season and served in that capacity for 17 of the following 18 years, decided to leave Long Island and return to his home in the Pacific northwest. Pickard&rsquo;s relationship with Islanders&rsquo; GM Bill Torrey goes back even further. Torrey hired him to work for the California Golden Seals when Pickard was a teenager. Pickard has been replaced by John Doolan, who previously worked in the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; organization. &#9632;

INJURED LEETCH AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div>Dave Maley heard all the excuses for the New Jersey Devils&rsquo; meteoric exit from the Stanley Cup playoffs last season: The failure of the team&rsquo;s two Soviets, inconsistent goaltending, a lack of physical play, the willingness to be bullied by the Washington Capitals.None of them satisfied the veteran forward, who claimed the Devils were simply worn out after making a misguided attempt at finishing first in the Patrick Division.&ldquo;I think the guys on our team were tired,&rdquo; said Maley. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why. I can&rsquo;t tell you how, when or why it happened. Washington had more jump and you could it see from their first-line down to their fourth-line players. I don&rsquo;t know, but it might have had to do with busting our humps trying to get to first place at the end of the year.&ldquo;If they (Devils&rsquo; management) read this they&rsquo;ll be ticked off, but I believe that. I saw it in myself and I saw it in others. You want to go for first place but I don&rsquo;t know the last time a first-place team even got out of that division.&rdquo;The answer is the Philadelphia Flyers in 1987. The last three Patrick Division winnersand four of the last five were eliminated in the playoffs before getting out of the division.&ldquo;A lot of it has to do with giving your older guys, the leaders, rests during the year,&rdquo; Maley said. &ldquo;Bring guys up to play, let the guys relax a little more and don&rsquo;t have as much tension. But, hey, I&rsquo;m not the coach or general manager. That&rsquo;s only me and that&rsquo;s my assessment. Maybe they should&rsquo;ve skated us more. Whatever it was, we weren&rsquo;t in good enough skating shapeMaley, entering his sixth NHL season and fourth with the Devils, became a valuable player for the team in 1989-90. Despite missing 13 games because of injuries, he set new career highs with eight goals and 25 points and was voted the Devils&rsquo; unsung hero by members of the New Jersey media.His most memorable game of the season came Jan. 4 at the Meadowlands Arena against the Los Angeles Kings when Maley scored two goals, held Wayne Gretzky to one assist and won a second-period fight with Marty McSorley.Still, Maley felt he may have made a mistake with his own physical conditioning last year. Last summer he spent three weeks at the Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Ariz., checking in at 215 pounds and reaching a low of 192. However, when he reported to training camp at 196, he did not feel strong.&rsquo; &ldquo;If you look back, I think I almost came in too light,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;With all the weight I dropped I just didn&rsquo;t feel that strong. My biggest concern was, &lsquo;Will I have anything left going into camp?&rsquo; I ended up pulling my hip flexor.&rdquo;The injury occurred Sept, l6during training camp and slowed Maley down during the team&rsquo;s poor start under ex-coach Jim Schoenfeld. It was not his only injury. On Jan. 24 he underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee to repair cartilage damage and missed eight games. Then, on Feb. 22, Maley suffered strained right knee ligaments that cost him five games.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s too bad that happened to my knee,&rdquo; Maley said. &ldquo;(Coach) John Cunniff was giving me a lot of chances to play more and to play center. I think that&rsquo;s my position, whether or not they think that this year. I think they know my feelings. It&rsquo;s a position where I feel more comfortable. I look back at last year and I feel I can double my points.&rdquo;Of course, doubling his points does not concern Maley as much as avoiding a repeat of last spring&rsquo;s playoff disaster.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m anxious to see everybody and get back into things,&rdquo; said Maley. &ldquo;Everybody knows the talent is there. The way the Stanley Cup went last year, it gets you excited to think anyone can win this thing next year.&rdquo;<h2>NEW JERSEY</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 13: Randy Velischek, D. traded to Quebec to complete March 6 trade.Aug.15: Marcel Pronovost, scout, signed contract. &#9632;

FIRST-PLACE DRIVE TOO DRAINING: MALEY

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div>In North America for more than a month, Jaromir Jagr is, by all accounts, adapting quite nicely to his new world.He&rsquo;s been taking English classes, training with stunning frequency and has even made a point of asking an acquaintance where MTV could be found on his table TV dial.Clearly, he is settling into his new home without a lot of trouble.But where Jagr, the Czechoslovakian forward who was the Penguins&rsquo; first-round choice in the June 16 entry draft, will fit into Pittsburgh&rsquo;s lineup during his first season in the NHL is a lot less certain.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011775/8436989-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="525" height="968"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jaromir Jagr had 60 points in 51 games last season.</figcaption></div>The Penguins projected him as a right winger when they made him the fifth player drafted, but have not ruled out the possibility Jagr will end up at another position. Barring a trade, it&rsquo;s almost guaranteed that someone now listed at right wing on the depth chart will undergo a position transplant when training camp begins Sept. 7.For now, Pittsburgh&rsquo;s right side includes Joey Mullen&mdash;acquired from Calgary in a draft-day trade&mdash;Tony Tanti, Mark Recchi and Jay Caufield. What&rsquo;s more. Jamie Leach and Jamie Heward are considered quality prospects at that position.&ldquo;It seems like we&rsquo;re awfully strong on the right side,&rdquo; coach Bob Johnson said. &ldquo;Someone&rsquo;s going to have to make an adjustment there.&rdquo;Wherever he plays, Jagr does not figure to fit the stereotype of the European player who shies away from body contact. Johnson has seen Jagr, who is 6-foot-2,208 pounds, in several international competitions and came away impressed.&ldquo;They always say a European will have a tough adjustment along the boards or in the corners (in the NHL),&rdquo; Johnson said. &ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re going to see this guy go in the corners and bang with the best of them.&rdquo;Just how much banging Jagr will get to do early in his career remains to be seen. The Penguins plan to bring him along slowly, resist the urge to force-feed the NHL to him.&ldquo;Long-term, he&rsquo;s going to be a great asset to this organization,&rdquo; general manager Craig Patrick said. &ldquo;How quickly he&rsquo;s going to adjust to the National Hockey League and how quickly he&rsquo;s going to be able to contribute a lot to the Penguins, we don&rsquo;t know. But long-term, he will contribute a lot.&rdquo;Johnson, however, does not believe Jagr&rsquo;s transition will be as difficult as many outsiders expect.&ldquo;I think he&rsquo;ll feel very comfortable being on the ice, because the game is played on ice,&rdquo; Johnson said. &ldquo;And whether you have great hockey sense as a North American or great hockey sense as a European, it&rsquo;s still the same game.&rdquo;Jagr played the game well enough to pile up 30 goals and 30 assists in 51 games with Kladno in the Czechoslovakian Elite League last season.&ldquo;He scored in the Czech Elite League, which is as good as any league in the world, possibly,&rdquo; Patrick said.Most observers probably can think of at least one that&rsquo;s better. And it won&rsquo;t be long before Jaromir Jagr gets a chance to prove to everyone that he belongs in it. &#9632;

f0013-01

JAGR’S ON-ICE ROLE REMAINS UNCERTAIN

<div class="byline">BY MARK HERRMANN</div>For the third time in the past four years, Wayne McBean has spent his off-season as a champion. Only this time, he is determined to show the New York Islanders he can start a season as well as he can finish it.Previously a member of two Memorial Cup title teams with Medicine Hat of the Western League, McBean was able to reflect on his prominent role on the Calder Cup champion Springfield Indians as he visited Los Angeles, went fishing and swimming with his family and skated with friends at home in Calgary this summer. More often, however, he has been looking forward.This finally could be the year when the flickering career of the highly regarded 6-foot-2, 190-pound defenseman catches fire.&ldquo;I want to play for the Islanders. I&rsquo;ve thought about that a lot,&rdquo; said the 21-year-old McBean, who has played parts of three seasons in the NHL. &ldquo;If I don&rsquo;t make it this year, I&rsquo;m going to be very disappointed.&rdquo;Whether it has been a lack of consistency, focus or poise, McBean has yet to deliver on the promise that convinced the Kings to take him with the fourth pick overall in the 1987 entry draft and quickly promote him to the NHL.&ldquo;You take someone who was a high draft pick,&rdquo; said Isles&rsquo; general manager Bill Torrey, &ldquo;with a lot of publicity, a two-time Memorial Cup championship team member&mdash;someone with all those credentials&mdash;then he sits, he sits.&ldquo;All that happens when a young player like that sits is that his confidence goes away. His physical skills don&rsquo;t go away.&rdquo;&ldquo;Confidence is a funny thing. One day it&rsquo;s there, one day it&rsquo;s gone,&rdquo; said McBean. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to go out and play the same way all the time. I look up to a guy like Doug Crossman. who goes out and plays the same way every day.&rdquo;Torrey, who got McBean in 1989 from Los Angeles along with Mark Fitpatrick and later Crossman in exchange for Kelly Hrudey, said McBean has grown, both in physical stature and maturity. That wasn&rsquo;t obvious in his regular-season statistics. McBean collected only six goals and 33 assists in 68 games with Springfield, and one assist in five games with the Islanders.But he was typically strong in the clutch, collecting a goal and an assist in two playoff games with the Islanders. Torrey believes McBean raised his game another notch when he returned to Springfield after the Islanders were eliminated by the Rangers in their Patrick Division semifinal. In the Calder Cup finale against Rochester, he scored the tying goal late in the third period and set up the game-winner in overtime.&ldquo;You hate to say it, but I&rsquo;d have rather been with the Islanders,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But we wound up winning the Calder Cup. It was a big moment in my life as a professional hockey player.&rdquo;Both McBean and the Islanders, who desperately need creative defensemen, hope there are more memorable moments.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just got to calm down,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to read my position and pick my spots. It&rsquo;s a matter of letting the play happen and reacting. It&rsquo;s a game you have to react to, and read off.&rdquo;He said he has worked out rigorously this summer, even during the two months he spent in Los Angeles, visiting TV star Alyssa Milano from the series Who&rsquo;s the Boss? They began dating when McBean played for the Kings. She visited him regularly last season in Springfield. Her autograph-seeking fans clogged walkways at the Springfield Civic Center between periods of the Calder Cup finale.As if he didn&rsquo;t have enough incentive for making the Islanders&rsquo; opening day roster, McBean is aware that the team will spend its last week of training camp in California.&ldquo;Oh, I wouldn&rsquo;t mind that,&rdquo; he said.<h2>N.Y. ISLES</h2>TRANSACTIONSJuly 25: Mick Vukota, RW, signed multi-year contract.Aug. 1: Jari Gronstrand, D, and Bill Berg, LW, signed multi-year contracts.Aug. 7: Randy Wood, LW, and Glenn Healy, G, signed multi-year contracts.Aug. 15: Don Maloney, LW, signed one-year contract.Aug. 17: Butch Goring hired to coach Capital District Islanders (AHL).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011927/8437020-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="582" height="605"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne McBean, 21, has played parts of three years in the NHL.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0014-01

McBEAN KEEN ON MAKING A SPLASH THIS SEASON

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div>Maybe if he weren&rsquo;t 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, coaches wouldn&rsquo;t be quite so dis-appointed when Jody Hull goes wide instead of heading right for the net.&ldquo;I guess that some people see a big guy and expect a certain style,&rdquo; Hull said after becoming a New York Ranger July 9.&ldquo;A lot of people say I sit on the outside of the play too much, but I think one of my strengths is being able to read the play and not rush it.&rdquo;Obtained from Hartford in ex-change for veteran center Carey Wilson and future considerations, Hull&rsquo;s finesse style apparently was not Carey Wilson&rsquo;s age was a factor appreciated by the Whalers.Ranger general manager Neil Smith realizes Hull isn&rsquo;t going to skate over people and it doesn&rsquo;t bother him.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011756/8437051-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="529" height="727"><figcaption class="caption-body">Carey Wilson&rsquo;s age was a factor in the decision to trade him.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Jody&rsquo;s not as physical as he looks like he could be, but he has never been a physical player,&rdquo; said Smith, who scouted Hull as a junior star at Peter-borough (OHL).&rsquo;He&rsquo;s not afraid of traffic, though, and he will hit and accept being hit to make a play. He just isn&rsquo;t the kind of player who looks for it. He&rsquo;s a highly-skilled player but, apparently, that isn&rsquo;t the kind of player (Whaler coach) Rick Ley was looking for.&rdquo;With Kevin Dineen, Pat Verbeek and Scott Young ahead of Hull on the Whalers&rsquo; right wing depth chart, Ley wanted him to be more of a grinder. And Hull tried to accommodate his coach.&ldquo;I thought I changed my game to the way he (Ley) wanted,&rdquo; the 21-year-old right winger said, &ldquo;but it just didn&rsquo;t work out in Hartford.&rdquo;In an injury-filled 1989-90 season, Hull collected seven goals and 10 assists in 38 games for Hartford and added seven more goals and 10 assists in 21 games at Binghamton (AHL). Hull has accumulated 23 goals and 28 assists in 98 NHL games over parts of two seasons.The Whaler&rsquo;s first-round draft choice (18th overall) in 1987, Hull played 60 games as a rookie in 1988-89 under Larry Pleau, now an assistant GM under Smith.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not often that you&rsquo;re able to bring a young player into your organization that you feel you have so much direct, inside information about,&rdquo; said Smith. &ldquo;Not only are we trading for a player that we have good feeling for from having scouted and watched but we believe we know this young man pretty well.&rdquo;From the Rangers&rsquo; point of view, the gamble made sense. They lost nothing in terms of muscle because Wilson was also a big finesse forward (6-foot-2, 205 pounds) who seldom threw his weight around.&ldquo;The big thing for us is the age difference,&rdquo; Smith said. Hull is 21; Wilson 28. &ldquo;We feel as though we&rsquo;ve assembled a pretty good group of young forwards&mdash;Troy Mallette, Hull, Steven Rice, Dave Archibald, Doug Weight, Tony Amonte&mdash;who should be here for quite a while.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll remember that we had to trade some young players to get Bernie Nicholls and Mike Gartner (Tomas Sandstrom, Tony Granato and Ulf Dahlen) but I think now we&rsquo;ve got a pretty good balance of youth and experience.&rdquo;<h2>N.Y.RANGERS</h2>TRANSACTIONSJuly 25: John Paddock named head coach at Binghamton (AHL).Aug. 8: Louie Debrusk, RW, signed multi-year contract.Aug. 13: Paul Broten, RW-C, signed multi-year contract. &#9632;

f0015-01

NEWLY-OBTAINED HULL NOT TYPICAL BIG MAN

<div class="byline">BY DAVE SELL</div>August is usually slow in Washington. Congress is recessed. The weather is often too hot and muggy to contemplate doing much. This year, however, Iraqnaphobia in the Persian Gulf has stirred things up in the U.S. capital.Down the road in Landover, Md., it&rsquo;s just as hot and muggy and almost as busy, at least for Capitals&rsquo; general manager David Poile.Scott Stevens, who signed with the St. Louis Blues July 12, wasn&rsquo;t the only key player from last season to play out his option. Goalie Don Beaupre, who carried the load in the first half of the season and improved his goals-against average in the playoffs, was still without a new contract. The other free agent is 23-year-old defenseman Bill Houlder, who played 41 games for the Capitals in a season that saw many defensemen injured.&ldquo;The opening of training camp is a little less than a month away and I don&rsquo;t think anybody is panicking,&rdquo; Poile said.Beaupre agreed that there was plenty of time.&ldquo;I will be patient,&rdquo; Beaupre said from suburban Minneapolis, where he lives in the off-season. If things are the same at the end of August maybe he will be a little more concerned.Beaupre made $225,000 last season, which was the fifth-highest base salary on the team by season&rsquo;s end, according to NHL Players&rsquo; Association figures. Ahead of him were goalie Mike Liut, right winger Dino Ciccarelli and defensemen Rod Langway and Stevens. Center Dale Hunter had a lower base salary but made more with deferred compensation.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-021263/8437082-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="528" height="626"><figcaption class="caption-body">Beaupre had the fifth-highest base salary on Caps last year.</figcaption></div>Beaupre held out for one day last year to work out a better deal for that season, using the young and unstable goaltending situation as leverage. This time, the Capitals have a quality, established goalie in Mike Liut. But Beaupre also had a good season, did as well in the playoffs as Liut and helped the team reach the Stanley Cup semifinals for the first time.Early last season, then-coach Bryan Murray relied heavily on Beaupre using him in 32 of the first 40 games. Beaupre missed five games in December with a groin pull. For the season, Beaupre was 23-18-5 with a 3.22 goals-against-average. In the playoffs, he was 4-3 with a 2.69 GAA.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to get some security,&rdquo; said Beaupre, who will turn 29 on Sept. 19. &ldquo;But if we can&rsquo;t agree on that, then I&rsquo;ll have to go for one year. I&rsquo;d like to sign for a few.&rdquo;The Capitals had the second-lowest payroll last season, with only the Blues behind them. And with St. Louis signing Stevens and Brett Hull to big contracts, the Capitals, who set attendance records last season, are likely to start the year at the bottom of the pay scale.While many will agree with Poile that matching the Blues&rsquo; offer for Stevens would have been unsound, the Capitals may get up to five first-round draft choices as compensation. But some fans still will want Poile to spend more money to push the team to the next level.Poile bristles even at the hint that he is a too thrifty and he points to California Angels pitcher Mark Langston as an example of how giving up big money can backfire. Last winter, Langston signed a multi-year contract for $16 million and had a 5-15 record as of Aug. 14. It is an important point for Poile, who has those 18 players in the organization going into their option year. Among those 18 are Liut, Langway, Mike Ridley and newly-acquired Peter Zezel.&ldquo;I think we will re-invest and I&rsquo;m trying to get them signed, but I don&rsquo;t think our situation is any different than any other team,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;You would like to sign as many players as you feel comfortable with. Some of the best years players have are going into option years and then you see a bust. Look at Mark Langston. There&rsquo;s no formula, nothing in Management 101.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0015-02

BEAUPRE SEEKING LONG-TERM CONTRACT

<h2>KINGS</h2>The much-travelled Brian Lawton. a free agent who spent time with Hartford, Quebec and Boston last year, signed a Kings&rsquo; contract July 27. The Kings are hoping Lawton, 25, can give them some depth at left wing. He had seven goals and seven assists in 35 NHL games last year. Since being drafted first overall by Minnesota in 1983, Lawton has played parts of seven NHL seasons with five teams. He has produced just 95 goals and 124 assists in 403 games&hellip;Kyosti Karjalainen, a 23-year-old right winger, is expected to be in camp when the Kings report to Hull, Que., Sept. 6. Karjalainen, who had 17 goals and 15 assists for Brynas in Sweden last season, was a no-show a year ago because of differences between the NHL and the Swedish Hockey Federation. He was a seventh-round pick in the 1987 draft.<h2>CANUCKS</h2>The Canucks said there&rsquo;s a possibility center Petr Nedved, the team&rsquo;s top pick (second overall) in the June entry draft, might go to training camp without a contract. Brian Burke, the Canucks&rsquo; director of operations, said management waited for three weeks after its initial offer before hearing from Nedved&rsquo;s agent, Don Meehan, Burke said he expected a protracted round of negotiations. &ldquo;Based on what Owen Nolan signed for (with the Quebec Nordiques), it&rsquo;s not going to be easy,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s quite a gap.&rdquo;&hellip;After a year of negotiations, the Canucks and agent Ron Perrick finally reached an agreement that bound left winger Greg Adams to the club for another three years. Adams, 26, who led the team last season with 30 goals, signed Aug. 13 after he played out his option and became a free agent with compensation July l.,.The Canucks are hoping to have defenseman Jiri Slegr, their second-round draft pick (23rd overall). in Victoria for the start of training camp. Slegr, the son of former Canuck defenceman Jiri Bubla, had an outstanding series at the Goodwill Games tournament. The sticking point is that Slegr is under contract to play for his club team (Litvinov) in Czechoslovakia.<h2>OILERS</h2>Two proposed exhibition games in London, England were scratched, cutting the Oilers&rsquo; pre-season European tour to possibly two matches in Dusseldorf, West Germany. &ldquo;Politics got in the way,&rdquo; said GM Glen Sather. &ldquo;The English part of the tour is sponsored by Molson&rsquo;s. But the Heineken brewery is a big sponsor of the British Ice Hockey Federation. There was a conflict.&rdquo; Apparently the dates were already booked at London&rsquo;s Wembley Arena. The Oilers will, however, play the St. Louis Blues Sept. 7 and the West German champions the following night in the three-team Epson Cup Tournament in Dusseldorf. Another exhibition somewhere in Europe was also being considered.<h2>JETS</h2>From darkhorse to workhorse. That was the path Dave McLlwain&rsquo;s career with the Winnipeg Jets took last season. On July 23, the 24-year-old center signed on for more work with the Jets for one year plus an option. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty happy with it,&rdquo; McLlwain said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;sonly foroneyear. Hopefully I&rsquo;ll have a good year and I&rsquo;ll be back at the table.&rdquo; Somewhat of an unknown commodity when he arrived June 17, 1989 in a six-player trade with Pittsburgh, McLlwain proved he belonged in the NHL in a hurry. Of the six players involved in the deal (Andrew McBain, Jim Kyte, Randy Gilhen, Rick Tabaracci and Randy Cunneyworth were the others) it was McLlwain who had the best season. He collected 25 goals and 26 assists in 80 games and set a team record with seven shorthanded goals. That tied him with Detroit&rsquo;s Steve Yzerman for the league lead. &ldquo;I guess there&rsquo;s a bit of security there,&rdquo; he said when asked about his play. &ldquo;But there are only a certain few guys who&rsquo;ve nailed down a spot. There are always guys trying to take your job and it&rsquo;ll be like that every year.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Winnipeg opens training camp Sept. 7 at Saskatchewan Place in Saskatoon.<h2>FLAMES</h2>The Flames&rsquo; decision to replace Terry Crisp with Doug Risebrough as coach should have a positive impact on Colin Patterson&rsquo;s career. Patterson, a Selke Trophy finalist in 1989, was used sparingly in an injury-filled season (groin, knee and ankle injuries) last year. Patterson broke into the NHL as Risebrough&rsquo;s right winger in 1983. &ldquo;Last year was not a great year to evaluate Colin Patterson,&rdquo; said Risebrough. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of quiet things he does well that were noticed the year he played on the big line (with Doug Gilmour and Joey Mullen). Then last year, there was a lot of mixing of lines and shifting of players dictated by circumstance. But that didn&rsquo;t give him a chance to shine.&rdquo;&hellip;A Joe Nieuwendyk update: GM Cliff Fletcher bumped into him on the golf course in mid-August and reported Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s bad knee&mdash;the one he injured at the World Championships&mdash;is actually stronger than his good knee. &ldquo;The proof will be in the pudding when he gets on the ice with the other guys,&rdquo; said Fletcher, &ldquo;but he&rsquo;ll be there the first day of training camp ready to go.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Contract talks with defenseman Al Maclnnis continued to drag on with no ending in sight. Asked if he could foresee the two sides coming to a resolution, Fletcher said: &ldquo;1 couldn&rsquo;t even hazard a guess. All 1 know for sure is that Allan Maclnnis and everybody else will be here on Sept. 6 to start camp on the seventh.&rdquo; &#9632;

LAWTON TRIES HIS LUCK ON THE COAST

<div class="byline">ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011598/8437144-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="541" height="595"></div>The howls of outrage from 900 ex-Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; employees reached my ears in midsummer.My first thought: Not a good way for the team&rsquo;s new owner, Norman Green, to endear himself to a community that turned its back on professional hockey about 1985.My second thought, though, was: What did people expect?Green bought a team that lost millions and finished last in attendance a year ago&hellip;and decided to make changes.The nerve of the guy.So you&rsquo;re asking yourself, who is this Norm Green and why does nobody seem to have a good word for him?The first strike against him is he&rsquo;s a businessman. He wears a suit better than anybody 1 know. He doesn&rsquo;t suffer fools. The people that work for him long-term find him demanding, but fair. They become fiercely loyal.Maybe his biggest problem now is that he needs an interpreter. In his previous NHL incarnation as part-owner of the Calgary Flames he kept a low profile. So when he bought the North Stars and stepped out of the shadows, he came right out and told people his primary goal was to run the team in the black.Now right away, that&rsquo;s the kind of truth the Public doesn&rsquo;t want to hear.They want him to say, &lsquo;We&rsquo;ll do whatever it takes to bring a Stanley Cup to Minnesota,&rsquo; which in his mind is exactly what he did say. Green believes that to make money, the product, (i.e. the team) must improve. It must win and it must entertain.In many ways, Green represents a normal extension of the NHL&rsquo;s new direction. Previously, owners used to treat their involvement in the league as a kind of hobby.Now the game, as defined by its bottom-line president, John Ziegler, is thought of as product. Product is something you sell. If you sell enough product, you make a profit. The bottom line becomes the bottom line.This is why Green swapped his 18 per-cent interest in the Flames for a 51 per-cent share of the North Stars&mdash;he saw a profit potential.&ldquo;They lost $7 million last year,&rdquo; says Green. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to make at least a million or two. There&rsquo;ll be a $9-milIion turnaround in one year&hellip;and we&rsquo;ll make far more once we&rsquo;re finished doing our things.&rdquo;His track record supports that bold prediction. In the 10 years since the Atlanta Flames became the Calgary Flames, they&rsquo;ve become a model NHL franchise.On the ice, they&rsquo;ve been in the top six for six consecutive years. Off the ice, they led the league in attendance last year. This year, they could average 20,000 fans per game.All that money in the bank allowed general manager Cliff Fletcher to shop for U.S. college free agents and to keep his players reasonably satisfied with their salaries.&ldquo;If you want to be competitive with the other teams, you have to create sources of income different from the sources from the last several years,&rdquo; says Green. &ldquo;TV is limited. It&rsquo;s not like other sports who live and die off television revenue. We are an event-oriented business. You have to make your money from the event, which means luxury seating, advertising, concessions, scoreboards&hellip;&rdquo;And the firings? Nobody likes to hear about people losing their jobs.&ldquo;We came in and had our lawyers give out 900 dismissal slips. Nine hundred part-time and and what they called super part-time people. What is super part-time? You&rsquo;ve never heard that expression before, right? I hadn&rsquo;t either.They had a hundred and some odd permanent employees and were told that was their maximum. They wanted more so they hired a bunch of guys, who worked every day, but were called super part-time. They were considered part-time, but they were in effect permanent employees. That&rsquo;s how they snuck it in. A total of 900 altogether.&ldquo;So I took the pictures of our front-office in Calgary out of our program and applied it here. It&rsquo;s amazing how this company went backwards. Not only were there more people than we needed, but nobody becomes efficient that way. Everybody does a crappy job because they don&rsquo;t care. It&rsquo;s always somebody else&rsquo;s job.&rdquo;Clearly, though, the glamor of pro sport has seduced him. It&rsquo;s much sexier than building shopping malls.&ldquo;Sexy. That&rsquo;s a good word. For sure, it&rsquo;s far more stimulating. I used to say I worked very hard to build up my realty company, but I never worked this hard. I never had as good a time either. This is the ultimate enterpreneur&rsquo;s dream. You take something that&rsquo;s screwed up that should have been great and make it great&hellip;in a sport that I love. That is the ultimate dream for a business guy.&rdquo;And that is Green&rsquo;s bottom line. He is the ultimate business guy.<h2>THEN & NOW</h2>A right winger for the Philadelphia Flyers and Colorado Rockies between 1971-72 and &rsquo;79-80, Don Saleski, 40, is an area vice-president for a major American food services company in Radnor, Penn. Though he hasn&rsquo;t entertained thoughts of returning to the game. Saleski remains a casual fan. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to just walk away from something you&rsquo;ve done almost your entire life.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-021235/8437137-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="580" height="390"><figcaption class="caption-body">Don Saleski</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0018-01

IS GREEN SO BAD FOR BEING BOTTOM LINE?

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>By anybody&rsquo;s standards, he was the team&rsquo;s forgotten man last season.Mark Hunter, once a 44-goal scorer for the St. Louis Blues, got into only 10 games for the Calgary Flames last season.The presence of rookie Sergei Makarov plus Theoren Fleury&rsquo;s switch to the right side meant the Flames hardly missed a step when Hunter underwent major reconstructive surgery in December and missed the rest of the season.Only in retrospect, following the Flames&rsquo; early playoff exit to the Los Angeles Kings, did people remember the contributions of the rock-steady right winger. Not only can Hunter shoot, but he can also ride shotgun when the going gets tough.Under new coach Doug Risebrough, Hunter will get more of a chance to play. Risebrough played a season with Hunter in Montreal, then coached him one year in Calgary.Moreover, the trade that sent Joey Mullen to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a second-round pick in 1991, opened up a spot for a goal-scorer on the right side, a job that Hunter&rsquo;s resume suggests he could fill.&lsquo;&lsquo;We missed him last year more than people probably would admit,&rsquo; said Risebrough. &ldquo;Maybe that&rsquo;s hindsight because of the playoffs, but he&rsquo;s a rugged up-and-down guy who&rsquo;s got a great shot. He has a physical presence on the ice. More importantly, he understands winning and understands that you have to pay a price to win&mdash;and I think that&rsquo;s important.&rdquo; That was a quality many feel the Flames lacked last season, though Risebrough doesn&rsquo;t necessarily agree.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say that,&rdquo; said Risebrough, &ldquo;but you can&rsquo;t have enough of those guys. Let&rsquo;s face it, he&rsquo;s been around enough to know what it is to be successful, not only individually but from a team standpoint.&rdquo;In some ways, people in Calgary may not have seen the real Mark Hunter yet. Acquired from St. Louis in the deal that also brought Doug Gilmour and Steve Bozek to Calgary for Mike Bullard. Craig Coxe, Tim Corkery and Michael Dark in September, 1988, Hunter&rsquo;s second year in the Flames&rsquo; organization was almost completely lost to injury. The year before, he played behind Hakan Loob and Mullen, who received the bulk of the ice time on the right side.&ldquo;I think there&rsquo;s been three quality right wingers on the team and two played more than the other guy (Hunter),&rdquo; said Risebrough. &ldquo;That probably reduced his ice time compared to other teams he&rsquo;s played on. So you&rsquo;re right, we haven&rsquo;t seen the total picture of Mark Hunter.&ldquo;And yet, he&rsquo;s made a contribution on a winning level here in a quiet way.&rdquo;Hunter actually started skating before in the second week of April and had the Flames gone to the Stanley Cup finals again, there was an outside chance that he could return in an emergency. The fact that he didn&rsquo;t gave him some extra time to rehabilitate his knee.&ldquo;The knee feels good,&rdquo; said Hunter. &ldquo;There was no pain when I was skating. I still have a little bit of an irritation in it where they opened up the scar tissue, but it&rsquo;s stable.&ldquo;They can take a test on it to see how loose it is. Before I was operated on, there was an eight millimeter difference in that it would move that much more in one knee than the other. Now, it&rsquo;s the same in both knees.&rdquo;Typically blunt. Hunter discounted the theory that his presence in the lineup might have made a difference in the Flames&rsquo; first-round loss to Los Angeles Kings.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a lot of bull,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t play as a team. That&rsquo;s what we missed more than anything. If we had played more as a team, I think we would have won. That&rsquo;s my opinion anyways.&rdquo;Nor is Hunter taking anything for granted as far as his projected ice time goes, even with Mullen in Pittsburgh.&ldquo;I hope I get a chance, but I have to make the best of my chances. We&rsquo;ve got a lot of talent here&rdquo; &#9632;

HUNTER’S 1989-90 ABSENCE LARGELY OVERLOOKED

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div>Is boring hockey better hockey?Tom Webster thinks it&rsquo;s time the Los Angeles Kings found out. &ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re faced with in this division,&rdquo; the Kings&rsquo; head coach said of competing in the speed-burning Smythe. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t just play run and gun and be successful, hope that we&rsquo;re going to be able to beat a team that way. We&rsquo;re going to have to play some boring games, some checking games.&rdquo;Good luck.The Kings have been scoring piles of goals, and been giving up bundles of them, for more than a decade. Last season, Webster&rsquo;s first behind their bench, the Kings scored 338 goals, second-best in the NHL. But they were scorched for 337, the fourth-worst figure in the league. They&rsquo;ve permitted more than 300 goals nine consecutive seasons.Is it possible to teach an old dog new tricks?&ldquo;Checking is hard. It&rsquo;s demanding physically and mentally,&rdquo; Webster said. &ldquo;But I really feel we have to play that way. That&rsquo;s the only way we&rsquo;re going to be able to cut down our goals against. We&rsquo;re going to have to try to cut that by at least 50 goals. That way we can try and make up the 20 points that we lost last year (from 91 in 1988-89 to 75), which is 10 losses.&ldquo;Instead of trying to blow out a team in the first period and wasting all kinds of energy, we&rsquo;ve got to play for the breaks, stay out of the penalty box and keep the shots down. 1 mean, you can&rsquo;t say, &lsquo;OK, goalie, stop the puck,&rsquo; and then let him face 45 shots. We have to be able to stick to a game plan, maybe put off some personal (statistical) success, do what&rsquo;s best for the team.&rdquo;The Kings did throw a simple but effective game plan at the Calgary Flames in the playoffs, when they upset the then-defending Stanley Cup champions in the first round. Included in the series was a 2-1 overtime win and a 4-3 double-overtime victory.&ldquo;We played a kind of wait-for-the-breaks system against Calgary and it worked,&rdquo; Webster said. &ldquo;Then we got ourselves into run-and-gun situations with Edmonton (in the division finals) and we ended up losing. So it&rsquo;s got to be implemented right from camp.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m telling you, we&rsquo;re going to stick to it. We could be boring at times, but as long as we&rsquo;re boring and winning, that&rsquo;s all I care about. All anyone remembers is whether you won or if you lost.&rdquo;Webster believes his first season in Los Angeles taught him a lot. General manager Rogie Vachon had told him the Kings would be the toughest team he ever coached.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re in a tough division that has a lot of speed, we do so much travel and we&rsquo;re an older club,&rdquo; Webster said. &ldquo;You find out you better carry more people on the roster, especially when you play back-to-back games on the road. You&rsquo;ve got to be able to keep fresh bodies in there, to sit some players out.&ldquo;Rogie was right. You&rsquo;re dealing with some superstar hockey players who need to be given the freedom to do their thing, and yet you&rsquo;re still dealing with a structure, with what you feel you have to implement to be successful.&ldquo;Using four lines, playing boring hockey, sitting some players out from time to time&hellip;all those things we&rsquo;ll have to implement. I went through a transition period last year, getting to know the players and getting to know the league, how to match players against certain players on other teams, being able to recognize down times and up times, that kind of thing.&ldquo;1 have to understand the players and they have to understand me. I&rsquo;m still going through that process and will continue to do it.&rdquo;<h2>LOS ANGELES</h2>TRANSACTIONSJuly 27: Brian Lawton, LW, signed contract as a free agent. &#9632;

WEBSTER SPELLS WINNING D-E-F-E-N-S-E

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BEAMISH</div>Pavel Bure&rsquo;s great grandfather was a famous Russian watchmaker. His father, Vladimir, won Olympic medals for the Soviet Union in swimming.Pavel, 19, maintains the family tradition of speed and excellent timing. He is coming of age at a time when shocking changes are giving Soviet athletes some freedom of choice; at a time when NHL salaries are about to take off.He is one of the jewels of the Soviet national hockey team, and many of the NHL people who witnessed his dazzling form at the Goodwill Games figure Bure could step into the league right away.Vancouver claimed the 5-foot-lO, 170-pound Bure in the sixth round of the 1989 NHL entry draft and had to wait for almost a year before their claim was ruled valid. Several NHL teams argued Bure was ineligible for last year&rsquo;s draft and bitterly denounced president John Ziegler&rsquo;s decision when he ultimately ruled in the Canucks&rsquo; favor.It&rsquo;s understandable why the Canucks&rsquo; rivals were so upset.&ldquo;Bure&rsquo;s got tremendous speed and he&rsquo;s not afraid of traffic,&rdquo; said Canuck general manager Pat Quinn. &ldquo;They use him for that explosiveness. That&rsquo;s his job&mdash;to spread the defense out and back people off. He&rsquo;s dangerous every shift out there.&rdquo;Quinn watched the darting right winger score four goals and an assist in five Goodwill Games&rsquo; matches. Bure also picked up a gold medal as the Soviets beat Team USA 4-3 in a game decided by a shootout.But it may have made Quinn&rsquo;s heart ache to hear Bure insist there&rsquo;s no way he&rsquo;d emulate former linemates Alexander Mogilny and Sergei Fedorov and head west for big dollars. Mogilny defected last year to join the Buffalo Sabres and Fedorov ducked out on the eve of the Goodwill Games and secretly signed with the Detroit Red Wings.The trio of Mogilny-Fedorov-Bure was being groomed to replace the fabled but aging KLM line of Vladimir Krutov, Igor Larionov and Sergei Makarov, who were sold to the NHL for hard currency. Now only Bure is left.&ldquo;I want to win three gold medals in the World Championships before 1 think about playing in the NHL,&rdquo; said Bure. &ldquo;Maybe this is two. Maybe. But I don&rsquo;t think this (Goodwill Games&rsquo; gold) counts.&rdquo;Bure already has the 1990 World Championship gold to his credit, so his decision indicates that it could be 1992, at the earliest, before he becomes a Canuck.There is also the matter of Valery Bure, 16. Pavel&rsquo;s kid brother joined the Central Red Army club last season and is regarded as another outstanding prospect. Already, NHL clubs have talked to Valery about drafting him.&ldquo;My 1ittle brother is a good hockey player,&rdquo; Pavel said. &ldquo;He is playing his first season with Red Army. Maybe we will play together. We want to play together.&rdquo;While officials no longer hold a gun to the head of Soviet athletes, compelling them to play for the national team, Pavel knows that little brother&rsquo;s hockey aspirations could be blunted if he were to leave without an official blessing. Bure&rsquo;s father, a swim coach, is also vulnerable to the system.Is his need to win three World Championships Pavel&rsquo;s own, or a thought implanted by Viktor Tikhonov, the coach of the Soviet national team?Quinn said he has never talked one-on-one with Bure, nor is he trying to grease the skids by getting the Soviets to release him earlier.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re doing everything above board,&rdquo; Quinn said. &ldquo;He won&rsquo;t be coming (soon). Nineteen-ninety-two, 1994? Who knows?&rdquo;Judging by the pace of change within the USSR, it could be sooner. Just over two years ago, Soviet hockey czar Anatoly Tarasov told a news conference in Vancouver, &ldquo;No Soviet will ever play in the NHL.&rdquo; Last year, however, nine did, including two with the Canucks&mdash;Larionov and Krutov.<h2>VANCOUVER</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 13: Greg Adams, LW. signed three-year contract.Aug. 15: Gary Valk, LW, signed conntract. &#9632;

BURE IN NO HURRY TO PLAY IN NORTH AMERICA

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div>Now that Jari Kurri has said arrivederci to the Edmonton Oilers, the task will be to replace the talented sniper.Actually, you can&rsquo;t replace Kurri. You just try to fill as much as the void as possible.The Oilers lost the NHL&rsquo;s all-time playoff goal-scoring leader and arguably the finest European ever to play in the league when he signed a two-year deal with the Milan Devils of the Italian League July 27.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re losing the best right winger I in hockey, no doubt of that,&rdquo; said Oilers&rsquo; coach John Muckier. &ldquo;I have no idea how you go about replacing him.&rdquo;Kurri&rsquo;s departure leaves the Oilers a little thin on the right side. Glenn Anderson is a given, but he has been I inconsistent the last two years. After Anderson, the Oilers have two youngsters in Kelly Buchberger, 23, and Joe Murphy, 22, and veteran tough guy Dave Brown. Help from the farm could come in the form of Kim Issel or Trevor Sim, but neither is I a Droven NHL performer.One option Muckier has is shitting Petr Klima from left to right wing. Or, he can wait and hope general manager Glen Sather can pull off yet another profitable deal.&ldquo;You&rsquo;re never going to find one player capable of doing the things Jari could do,&rdquo; said Muckier. &ldquo;He scored so many important goals for us at critical times. And, he&rsquo;s such a character person. We&rsquo;ll miss his dedication.&rdquo;A record 92 of Kurri&rsquo;s 566 regular- and post-season NHL goals came during Stanley Cup playoff competition&mdash;three more than the incomparable Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles Kings.There is a break clause in the 30-year-old&rsquo;s $350,000 (U.S) annual contract that could escalate rapidly I with healthy bonus clauses. After one year he could leave, while another clause allows him to take time off to join the Finnish national team for the world tournament and Canada Cup.&ldquo;I might be back in the NHL, you never know, I&rsquo;m not saying &lsquo;no&rsquo; off the bat,&rdquo; said Kurri, who requires 26 regular-season goals to become the I 17th NHL player to record 500. &ldquo;Ten years in Edmonton is a long time. I have played all my adult life in Canada. The Oilers offered more money (upwards to $1 million Cdn.), I can&rsquo;t deny that. But, this was not a financial deal.&rdquo;The way Kurri sees it, the Stanley Cup champion Oilers will survive without his settling presence.&ldquo;They have a lot of young talent,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think my leaving will change things.&rdquo;Kurri&rsquo;s long and winding road to Milan began last September. That&rsquo;s when the Devils made their initial pitch. When Kurri turned them down, they set their sights on Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; left winger Mats Naslund, who eventually ended up in Switzerland. But when negotiations broke down with the veteran Swede, they again turned to the talented Finn.Before departing on a fishing excursion, Sather expressed &ldquo;profound regret&rdquo; that Kurri was leaving.&ldquo;Jari has been a cornerstone of the Oilers for the past decade,&rdquo; the Edmonton GM said in a prepared statement. &ldquo;His contributions to our success (five Stanley Cups in seven years) will never be forgotten. I did everything possible to keep him in an Oiler uniform, but it became clear he wanted to go back to Europe to participate in the World Championships.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02790/8437285-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="583" height="965"><figcaption class="caption-body">Petr Klima may be switched from left to right wing.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-011125/8437278-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="593" height="1032"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jarri Kurri isn&rsquo;t ruling out a return to the NHL.</figcaption></div><h2>EDMONTON</h2>TRANSACTIONSJuly 27: Jari Kurri, RW, signed two-year contract with Milan (Italy). &#9632;

f0023-02

RIGHT FLANK WOUNDED BY KURRI’S DEPARTURE

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011203/8437316-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="463" height="609"><figcaption class="caption-body">DAVE MOLINARI</figcaption></div>Dave Hannan will report to his I0th NHL training camp Sept. 7, ready for his annual bout with blood, sweat and fears.It&rsquo;s been that way since he was a l0th-round draft choice (196th overall by Pittsburgh) in 1981; it will stay that way until he finally leaves this game.Hannan&rsquo;s place in the NHL is in mortal peril every autumn.There are always more gifted veterans in front of him and talented prospects threatening from behind.And so it will be again in Toronto this fall. The Maple Leafs list Hannan at center, where&mdash;barring a trade&mdash;he will share space with Ed Olczyk, Tom Fergus and Gilles Thibaudeau while trying to fend off promising youngsters John McIntyre, Rob Pearson and Scott Thornton. And the spectre of a trade with Montreal for Shayne Corson still looms.The names change from time to time, but the situation is all-too-familiar.Hannan has Iived on the edge for so long that he probably owns the mineral rights there by now.&ldquo;When you&rsquo;re a fringe player and a grinder, you&rsquo;re concerned about your job every year,&rdquo; he said.His concerns are not entirely unfounded because, on paper, Dave Hannan looks like a heck of an industrial-league player.He is neither large (5-foot-10, 185 pounds) nor inordinately skilled. He needed 75 games in 1985-86 to pile up his career-best total of 35 points.But he has played 445 games in this league and, at age 28, has become kind of an Everyman in the NHL. Proof that speed and self-sacrifice count for something. That it&rsquo;s possible to build a solid career on guts and guile.Hannan has shared dressing rooms with Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh and Wayne Gretzky in Edmonton, but it&rsquo;s taken him nearly a decade to pile up the kind of numbers&mdash;74 goals and 108 assists&mdash;those guys would put together in a bad year.Hannan wouldn&rsquo;t mind owning more gaudy statistics and surely wouldn&rsquo;t object to commanding the salary they bring, but he&rsquo;s never had delusions about his skill level.&ldquo;One thing 1 learned coming out of junior was that I had to play well defensively,-&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s one thing I caught onto quickwhen I went to Pittsburgh my first year.&rdquo;So he long ago adapted to life on the checking line, got comfortable with the gritty side of the game and left the glory for others. He&rsquo;s never lost sight of where he&rsquo;s going, nor forgotten where he&rsquo;s come from. He remembers what it was like being a kid trying to earn a job in the NHL before he needed more than a bi-weekly run-in with his razor.&ldquo;You&rsquo;re so in awe when you go to your first training camp." Hannan said. &ldquo;I can remember looking at guys like Randy Carlyle and Denis Herron, guys I watched on television. You&rsquo;re in such awe that you don&rsquo;t concentrate on what you&rsquo;re supposed to be doing and your legs feel like lead pipes.&rdquo;So Hannan understands what prospects like McIntyre, Pearson and Thornton will be going through. More to the point, he wants to assist in their development. That was proven last season, when McIntyre was promoted to the Leafs after Hannan was injured.&ldquo;1 was one of his biggest boosters,&rdquo; Hannan said. &ldquo;I helped him. He was young, 19 or 20 years old at the time. We&rsquo;d chat on a daily basis. I&rsquo;d watch the game from the press box and he&rsquo;d make a couple of mistakes that developed into goals. I know how that feels when you&rsquo;re young.&rdquo;Helping a player being groomed to take your job can be tantamount to professional suicide, but Hannan figures he simply is returning a favor done for him years ago.&ldquo;When I was a young Turk, the centermen always helped me,&rdquo; he said. "Gregg Sheppard knew I was a young buckaroo coming in wet behind the ears, but guys like that always talked to me and made me feel comfortable.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always been a team player, put the team ahead of myself, because that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s been successful for me since Day 1.&rdquo;Hannan parlayed that attitude into a Stanley Cup ring in Edmonton in 1988, and used the money he has earned to bankroll a successful hockey-equipment store in suburban Pittsburgh. He could leave hockey tomorrow and still have a lifetime of memories, but he&rsquo;s not ready to give up the game that has made it all possible.&ldquo;The game&rsquo;s been great to me,&rdquo; Hannan said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to play a couple more years, hopefully, then I&rsquo;m going to say, &lsquo;Hockey&rsquo;s been good to me, it&rsquo;s given me everything I have and it&rsquo;s given me a head start on life.&rsquo;&rdquo; &#9632;

f0024-01

HANNAN’S BECOME USED TO LIVING ON THE EDGE

<h2>BLACKHAWKS</h2>Veteran Blackhawks&rsquo; defenseman Doug Wilson underwent surgery July 27 to tighten ligaments in his right ankle. Wilson, who was expected to be in a cast for six weeks, likely won&rsquo;t be ready for the start of training camp Sept. 7 but should be in the lineup for the Hawks&rsquo; regular-season opener Oct. 4 against the New York Rangers. Wilson injured his ankle during the playoffs last spring against Edmonton. The surgery was delayed because there was a chance the ankle would heal on its own. The Hawks&rsquo; medical staff said it&rsquo;s nearly 100 per cent certain Wilson will recover fully from the surgery&hellip;Goalie Darren Pang must undergo intense rehabilitation on his left knee after re-injuring it playing tennis. No surgery was scheduled for Pang, who had the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee repaired last September. That injury sidelined Pang for most of the season&hellip;The Hawks announced Aug. 13 they resigned free agent left winger Greg Gilbert to a new three-year contract. Gilbert, 28, was the club&rsquo;s top defensive forward last season (a club-high plus-28).<h2>RED WINGS</h2>The Wings say they will suspend recently-signed Swedish forward Johan Garpenlov if he doesn&rsquo;t show up for training camp. And the Swedish Hockey Federation says it will suspend him if he does. The problem is a $140,000 fee the Wings owe Garpenlov&rsquo;s team. Djurgarden of the Swedish Elite League. That money is sitting in an NHL bank account while the league negotiates a new agreement with the Swedes. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been told by (NHL president) John Ziegler that, under no circumstances are we to pay money directly to Swedish teams until an agreement is reached,&rdquo; said Wings&rsquo; assistant GM Nick Polano, who negotiated Garpenlov&rsquo;s contract&hellip;Steve Yzerman finally spoke his mind about his alleged role in the firing of coach Jacques Deniers It was implied in various news reports that owner Mike Hitch met with Yzerman. heard what he had to say and decided then to fire the coach and bring in Bryan Murray. Yzerman said he is not guilty of first-degree backstabbing, but he did say there was a meeting with Hitch. &ldquo;It was in April. I had a little contract thing to talk about with Mr. Hitch,&rdquo; Yzerman told the Detroit Free Press. &ldquo;After that, we talked some hockey. But he never asked me any questions. He never said, &lsquo;Do you think Jacques should stay or go?&rsquo;&rdquo;<h2>MAPLE LEAFS</h2>Defenseman Al Iafrate, hoping to overcome off-season knee surgery to repair a tom anterior cruciate ligament, resumed skating recently and said his rehabilitation is coming along well. Whether or not he&rsquo;ll be ready to join the team once daily workouts begin Sept. 8 at the Newmarket Recreational Complex remained questionable. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re very pleased with the way Al has worked to come back and very happy with the way the knee has responded,&rdquo; said GM Floyd Smith&hellip;Another of the walking wounded, defenseman Darryl Shannon, recently had the cast removed on his right leg. Shannon was involved in a car accident this summer in which he broke his leg and wrist and also suffered a slipped disc&hellip;Former University of Toronto coach Bill Purcell, was hired by the Leafs as an assistant coach with Newmarket (AHL). Purcell, 57, joins former Lake Superior State coach Frank Anzalone, who was hired to replace fired Saints&rsquo; head coach Paul Gardner earlier this summer.<h2>BLUES</h2>Defenseman Scott Stevens is one of several current and former Blues who have been working out in St. Louis in preparation for training camp. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sort of anxious to get started,&rdquo; said Stevens, who left Washington as a free agent to sign a four-year contract with the Blues worth $5.145 million (U.S.). &ldquo;They made a big commitment to me. and I&rsquo;ve made a big commitment to them. Now, it&rsquo;s up to me to work hard and do the best 1 can.&rdquo;&hellip;Goalie Guy Hebert opened some eyes with his strong performance for the silver-medal winning U.S. team at the Goodwill Games. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the least-known goalie we own, but we&rsquo;ll give him a chance to be known,&rdquo; said GM Ron Caron&hellip;Caron said his talks with Montreal about acquiring defenseman Craig Ludwig have died down. &ldquo;It remains a possibility which is dwindling,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Montreal won&rsquo;t part with anybody unless they get what they want. They&rsquo;re not anxious to move Ludwig.&rdquo;<h2>NORTH STARS</h2>After much speculation, Andy Murray, an assistant to Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; coach Paul Holmgren, was officially named a North Stars&rsquo; assistant coach Aug. 14&hellip;Glenn (Chico) Resch, a 14-year veteran with the New York Islanders, Colorado Rockies, New Jersey Devils and Flyers, was reportedly close to signing as a part-time goalie coach&hellip;Norm Green, the team&rsquo;s newest owner, will recover the multi-color (gold, white, green and black) seats at Met Center. The new, one-color look will be maroon&hellip;Patty Reid, lured back to the North Stars as director of public and community relations, was fired less than a week later. She had worked for the team for 11 years before resigning earlier this summer amid the turmoil of the ownership change. Green, who hired her, citied a &ldquo;lack of chemistry&rdquo; for her dismissal. Joan Preston, a public relations assistant fired during Green&rsquo;s personnel housecleaning, was rehired as communications manager and will work with Elaine Waddell, director of public relations and advertising. &#9632;

WILSON UNDERGOES ANKLE SURGERY

Calgary Flame left winger Paul Ranheim scored the most even-strength goals, 25. among NHL rookies in 1989-90. Pittsburgh Penguin Mark Recchi was runner-up with 24. New York Ranger Darren Turcotte was third with 22. Recchi scored six power-play goals and Turcotte 10. Ranheim scored 26 goals, but only one on the power play and finished seventh in rookie scoring.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02859/8437371-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="682" height="408"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Ranheim</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0024-02

DEPARTMENT

NUMBERS

<div class="byline">BY TIM SASSONE</div>Mike Keenan believes a team can&rsquo;t have too many experienced defensemen.The Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; general manager and coach said as much after signing free-agent defenseman Rick Lanz to a multi-year contract Aug. 13.The addition of Lanz gives the Hawks eight defensemen with at least two seasons of NHL experience. He joins a veteran group that includes Doug Wilson, Chris Chelios, Keith Brown, Steve Konroyd, Dave Manson, Trent Yawney and Bob McGill.The 6-foot-2, 195-pound Lanz comes to Chicago after playing in Switzerland last season for Ambri Piotta. Lanz last played in the NHL for Toronto in 1988-89. Before his 2&frac12; years with the Maple Leafs, Lanz played for 6&frac12; seasons in Vancouver. He was the Canucks&rsquo; No. 1 draft pick (seventh overall) in 1980.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re pleased because Rick has a great deal of experience, yet he&rsquo;s only 28,&rsquo;&rsquo; said Keenan. &ldquo;We feel he can add some offense to our club, and with the movement of the goal line out a foot this year it&rsquo;s going to be advantageous to have people who can move the puck.&rsquo;&rsquo;Since ending last season by losing to Edmonton in the Campbell Conference finals, the Hawks have added two strong puckhandling and offensive defensemen&mdash;Lanz and Chelios.&ldquo;I never considered our puckhandling to be a weakness,&rdquo; Keenan said in defense of the defense. &ldquo;This was just a way to make us better offensively and to make our size better.&rdquo;After a year in Europe, Lanz was looking for a return ticket to the NHL.&ldquo;I talked to a couple other clubs, but after speaking with Mike one-on-one in Vancouver at the draft I got a very positive feeling about what they are trying to accomplish,&rdquo; Lanz said. &ldquo;At the time I played in Vancouver and Toronto the situations weren&rsquo;t positive because the teams were struggling. Getting the chance to play for the Hawks is a real step up for me. It seems like a very positive atmosphere.&rdquo;Lanz, who has 65-221-286 totals in 568 NHL games, said one of the reasons he played out his option with Toronto in 1989 and headed for Switzerland was to get himself back on track as a player after some tough times with the Maple Leafs.&ldquo;The two and a half years I was in Toronto, the team struggled and some of the players weren&rsquo;t playing like they knew how to,&rdquo; Lanz said. &ldquo;There seemed to be a lack of communication over how they were supposed to play, and I was probably one of those players. 1 wasn&rsquo;t playing like I felt I knew how.&ldquo;The people in Switzerland made me an offer I just couldn&rsquo;t turn down, and it was a good period for me to go over there because I needed a change in my career. I think I&rsquo;m back on track now. The whole object was to go over there and then come back to the NHL, and now it has worked out.&rdquo;<h2>CHICAGO</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 13: Rick Lanz, D, signed multiyear contract. Greg Gilbert. LW, signed three-year contract<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011218/8437402-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="553" height="728"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Lanz wasn&rsquo;t happy with his situation in Toronto.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0026-01

LANZ BACK IN NHL AFTER EUROPEAN VACATION

<div class="byline">BY KEITH GAVE</div>Any hope Bernie Federko had about prolonging his almost certain Hall-of-Fame career another season evaporated long before he made his retirement official in the middle of August.The unwelcome trade to Detroit last season was bad enough after 13 years with the St. Louis Blues. But no man deserved the resentment Federko received both in the Red Wings&rsquo; dressing room and from fans. Federko suffered on and off the ice in the wake of the ill-conceived trade of the popular and ever-capable Adam Oates to the Blues along with Paul MacLean for Federko and Tony McKegney&mdash;who was later traded to the Quebec Nordiques.Federko, 34, needed ice time, and that was a precious commodity behind centers Steve Yzerman and Jimmy Carson.Oates&rsquo; absence hurt the Wings, and Federko, six years older, wasn&rsquo;t able to fill the void. Worse, even the leadership qualities that then-Detroit coach Jacques Demers raved about on Federko&rsquo;s arrival were challenged by his new teammates.At one point early in the season, when the Wings were struggling to win just four of their first 20 games, some players began to congregate around Federko&rsquo;s dressing-room stall. Not for long. One player interceded, confronting Federko with this blunt message: &ldquo;This is Stevie&rsquo;s team.&rdquo; A few days later, Federko found himself benched for three games.Though he finished his final NHL season as Detroit&rsquo;s third-highest scorer with 17 goals and 57 points, he finished his career as an unwanted player on an also-ran club.Federko ended his career after 1,000 games, in which he scored 1,130 points&mdash;16th highest in NHL history. His 761 assists are good for 11th place on the all-time list.During his years with the Blues he had four seasons of 100-or-more points with his career-best of 107 scored in 1983-84. He also had 11 straight 20-or-more goal seasons.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve played this game so long, and everything has to come to an end,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little bit sad, but 1 had to decide to let it go.&rdquo;Many say Bernie Federko deserved better, that he was betrayed by the Blues, the club he served so well for so long.&ldquo;I was hurt very deeply at having to leave St. Louis,&rdquo; Federko said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s everyone&rsquo;s dream to play their whole career with the same team. My dream came to an end last year.&ldquo;But I have no bitterness. Things happen. I think I wasn&rsquo;t in the same situation that Adam Oates was. Here, playing behind Steve Yzerman, you don&rsquo;t get a lot of ice time.&rdquo;Now, Federko hopes to put up some different numbers in the world of commerce. He and his wife, Bernadette, and their three sons, Jordy, Dusty and Andrew, plan to return to St. Louis, where Federko hopes to re-establish the close business ties he had there as a star player.<h2>DETROIT</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 15: Bernie Federko, C, retired.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02868/8437433-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="541" height="655"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bernie Federko retired in 11th place in career assists.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0026-02

STELLAR CAREER COMES TO AN END

<div class="byline">BY GARY OLSON</div>Seven seasons after the most unpopular trade in Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; history sent him packing, 32-year-old center Bobby Smith returned to the Twin Cities to write the finish to a proud career.In a trade rumored for weeks, North Stars general manager Bobby Clarke got Smith from Montreal Aug. 9, sending the Canadiens a 1992 fourth-round draft pick. The deal brings Smith back to Minnesota seven years after he was sent to the Canadiens for Keith Acton, Mark Napier and a third-round pick in the 1984 draft (Ken Hodge).The Oct. 28, 1983, trade has been an albatross around the neck of then-GM Lou Nanne ever since. Smith, the first pick of the 1978 draft, was the most popular of all the North Stars when he asked to be traded.The year before the deal, Smith was benched by interim coach Murray Oliver and in Bill Mahoney&rsquo;s defense-first system, Smith was quickly demoted to fourth-line status.&ldquo;I asked Lou Nanne to trade me because I thought I could help another team more than I could help the North Stars,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;It turned out to be a very good thing. I felt my future was in Montreal and I was an important player for the Canadiens for seven years.&ldquo;The temptation may be for me to look back when I wear this sweater and there is a sense of deja vu to be back in this building. But I don&rsquo;t want to look back. I want to look forward because I think I have a lot to give to the Minnesota North Stars. I can&rsquo;t wait to get out on the ice this fall.&rdquo;Smith may not want to look back but it&rsquo;ll be hard for fans not to think about his 43 goals and 114 points from the 1980-81 season and dream about what might have been. How many times could the North Stars have gotten back to the Stanley Cup finals had he stayed?<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-011204/8437464-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="549" height="640"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Smith&rsquo;s best offensive season was 1980-81.</figcaption></div>Instead, he helped the Canadiens get to the finals twice&mdash;winning the Cup in 1986&mdash;and scored 172 goals and 482 points. He never had a season as big as &rsquo;80-81, but he scored more than 70 points four of the last five seasons for one of the best defensive teams in the NHL.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re very excited to have Bobby back with the North Stars,&rdquo; Clarke said. &ldquo;(Smith) is a quality player who will help provide leadership for our young players. Bobby is a high-class person both on and off the ice. He&rsquo;ll be a great asset in developing our team because he comes from a winning environment in Montreal.&rdquo;Smith rejoins coach Bob Gainey, a teammate for six of his seven seasons as a Canadien. The deal gives Minnesota four quality centers&mdash;Smith, Neal Broten, Dave Gagner and Mike Modano&mdash;and should help Modano learn his role as the team&rsquo;s big center.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s certainly more pressure on me here than if I&rsquo;d been traded to Pittsburgh or Washington,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;I welcome that. (The North Stars) have had trouble but I know what kind of a hockey town the Twin Cities can be.&rdquo;Smith returns to Minnesota after his worst season&mdash;12 goals and 26 points in 53 games. He missed 27 games last season with a variety of injuries including a broken jaw when he was hit by the puck while sitting on the bench.When Smith left Minnesota, he was the team&rsquo;s best player. He returns as its oldest player.<h2>MINNESOTA</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 9: Bobby Smith, C. acquired from Montreal for a 1992 fourth-round draft pick. &#9632;

f0028-01

SMITH LOOKING FORWARD TO SECOND STINT

<div class="byline">BY MARK HARDING</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-011203/8437495-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Scott Thornton, left, Steve Bancroft and Rob Pearson were all first round picks in 1989 and are some of the young talent that Floyd Smith is banking on.</figcaption></div>Tronto Blue Jays&rsquo; vice-president Pat Gil-lick has seriously tested fans&rsquo; patience with his reluctance to make trades, thus earning the moniker &lsquo;Stand Pat&rsquo;.While Stand Floyd doesn&rsquo;t really work. Maple Leafs&rsquo; general manager Floyd Smith seems to be following in his baseball counterpart&rsquo;s footsteps.Granted, Smith has worked diligently over the summer months to put the Leaf house back in order following the late Harold Ballard&rsquo;s destructive reign. Smith has made a number of front-office and organizational changes, but the actual player roster has remained relatively untouched.Meanwhile, Leaf rivals in Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit and Minnesota have each made significant player acquisitions which figure to make each club stronger. Thus, Toronto&rsquo;s challenge to improve on its .500 performance last season has been made even more difficult.There will be some new faces to look at once training camp opens Sept. 7. Wingers Kevin Maguire and Greg Johnston will likely add some spark to the Leaf lineup, but the names don&rsquo;t have the same impact as Chris Chelios (Chicago), Scott Stevens (St. Louis), Sergei Fedorov (Detroit) or Bobby Smith (Minnesota).But just as Gillick refuses to be pressured into making a move, so too does Smith remain unflappable in light of the considerable happenings around the rest of the Norris Division.&ldquo;Why should I be looking to make a deal?&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;Just because other people go out and do some things doesn&rsquo;t mean we have to do the same thing.&ldquo;All those teams lost a lot in order to get something. Chicago doesn&rsquo;t have Denis Savard any more and that suits us just fine. He caused us a lot of agony over the years. Peter Zezel and Mike Lalor are gone in St. Louis and they&rsquo;re two good players. Lalor always seemed to play well against us.&ldquo;No, I am not going to make a trade for the sake of making a trade or because other people have. At this point, I&rsquo;m not pursuing any trades. If something happens, it&rsquo;ll happen.&rdquo;Smith conceded it would have been easy to make a pitch for Bobby Smith, who was dealt to the North Stars by Montreal. but said the Leafs already have a full complement of veterans.&ldquo;The more veterans you have means the less your younger people play,&rdquo; saidSmith. &ldquo;Asfar as I&rsquo;m concerned we have enough veterans.&ldquo;I just think it&rsquo;s time some of our younger guys got some (playing) time. We&rsquo;re a young club and we&rsquo;re going to get better.&rdquo;The Leafs have an army of young talent at their disposal, but it&rsquo;s uncertain as to how many, if any, are ready to make the jump to the NHL. Several of the up-and-comers, such as Scott Thornton and Rob Pearson and a host of college signees, will be given plenty of attention during camp.Smith said it will probably be well into training camp before he decides whether a trade is necessary to bolster the Leafs&rsquo; chances of keeping up with the Blackhawks, Blues, Wings and Stars.&ldquo;If we feel that we&rsquo;re not good enough, for whatever reason, and we feel that something has to be done, then we&rsquo;ll do something at that time,&rdquo; said Smith. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m going to do anything until I see all our kids and determine what we have and don&rsquo;t have.&rdquo;<h2>TORONTO</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 8: Bill Purcell named as assistant coach at Newmarket (AHL). &#9632;

f0030-01

SMITH HOLDS FIRM UNDER TRADE PRESSURE

<div class="byline">BY DAVE LUECKING</div>Paul Cavallini said he learned a lot from Scott Stevens when they played together on the Washington Capitals. Now he may earn a lot because he&rsquo;ll be playing with Stevens on the St. Louis Blues.The Blues gave Stevens $5,145 million (U.S.) over four seasons to leave Washington as a free agent this summer, and the inevitable trickle-down effect will benefit his new teammates, Cavallini in particular.Cavallini, who is entering the option year of his contract, is coming off a career season in 1989-90&mdash;he played in the All-Star Game and led the league with a plus-38 plus-minus rating&mdash;and he&rsquo;s the most prominent of the 15 players in the Blues&rsquo; system up for new contracts. He earned $135,000 (U.S.) last season and should earn substantially more this season. He also should earn more than he would have if the Blues had not signed Stevens.&ldquo;With the money Stevens got and the changes in the market around the league, Paul&rsquo;s value has increased clearly.&rdquo; said Cavallini&rsquo;s Boston-based agent, Bob Murray.Before the Stevens&rsquo; signing, Cavallini probably would have been happy to get what Jeff Brown signed for last season, roughly $250,000 (U.S.) per year. In the wake of the Stevens&rsquo; signing, he could command from $350,000 to $500,000.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to get greedy just because they paid an enormous amount to Scott.&rdquo; Cavallini said. &ldquo;If I&rsquo;m reasonable, they&rsquo;ll be reasonable.&rdquo;General manager Ron Caron said to count on it.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not worried; he&rsquo;ll ask for enough,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;Paul improved his game, and we&rsquo;re ready to acknowledge that.&rdquo;Negotiations began early in the summer, with the Blues offering an estimated $150,000. While that figure may seem insulting, it reflects the minimum 15 per-cent required by the collective bargaining agreement. The Blues&rsquo; first offer to Brett Hull last season was $145,000, a 15 per-cent increase over his $ 125.000 salary. Hull ended up signing for $7 million (U.S.) over four years.&ldquo;The assumption is that it&rsquo;s merely an offer to comply with the rules,&rdquo; Murray said.Cavallini and Murray want an agreement before Sept. 10, the deadline for players to decide whether they want to play out their options. Cavallini said playing out his option is not an option.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s in my best interests,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Being a defenseman I run a bigger risk than Brett Hull. I&rsquo;m not in the same situation he was.&ldquo;He scored 41 goals the year before, and coming off the trade from Calgary, he hadn&rsquo;t established himself. I&rsquo;ve established myself They know what I can do. Maybe they didn&rsquo;t know what Brett could do.&rdquo;As well as leading the league in plus-minus and being named to the Campbell Conference All-Star team last season, Cavallini established career highs with eight goals, 39 assists and 47 points.Caron, though, didn&rsquo;t put much stock in the All-Star selection because of the impact of fan voting, even though Cavallini was an addition by then Calgary coach Terry Crisp, not selected by the fans.&ldquo;The All-Star Game means very little,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;All-Stars selected by fans are meaningless. It&rsquo;s political. You&rsquo;re proud your player&rsquo;s called upon to play, and it&rsquo;s not like Paul didn&rsquo;t deserve to be there, but the fans shouldn&rsquo;t dictate values.&ldquo;That the fans are selecting the guys, I&rsquo;m not against that. But to rate the real value of players, that should not happen.&rdquo;The Cavallini camp, of course, disagreed.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the typical management reaction to anything they don&rsquo;t select,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;No. 1. Paul being an All-Star is an honor. And No. 2, it&rsquo;s indicative of the season Paul had last year.&rdquo;It may be difficult for Cavallini to duplicate-last season, what with Stevens and Brown possibly infringing on some of his prime ice time. Still, he&rsquo;s determined to do so and has been working out all summer.&rsquo;&ldquo;Hopefully, they&rsquo;ll make a commitment to me like I&rsquo;ve made to them,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I hope we come to an agreement. The Blues have treated me great and gave me a chance to play in the NHL. Hopefully, they feel the same way about me as I do about them.&rdquo;<h2>ST. LOUIS</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 15: Dave Lowry, LW, signed three-year contract. Paul MacLean. RW. signed two-year contract.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02812/8437526-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="691" height="638"><figcaption class="caption-body">Defenseman Paul Cavallini led the NHL with a plus-38 rating.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0030-02

CAVALLINI IN LINE FOR BIG RAISE

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN OKLOBZIJA</div><h2>AHL</h2>John Van Boxmeer always said he was happy coaching the Rochester Americans, that being his own boss in the American League was better than taking orders as an assistant in the NHL.But when his goal of coaching in the NHL went unfulfilled after six AHL seasons, Van Boxmeer realized he might be wrong.So when management of parent Buffalo proposed that he and Sabres&rsquo; assistant coach Don Lever trade places, Van Boxmeer was willing.Van Boxmeer accepted a position as associate coach to Sabres&lsquo;coach Rick Dudley while Lever, an assistant in Buffalo the past three seasons, will take his first head-coaching job with the Americans.Van Boxmeer and Lever, both 37, believe the change will enhance their chances of becoming NHL head coaches. Van Boxmeer will receive more exposure and Lever can try his own ideas.&ldquo;Initially I didn&rsquo;t want to do it but I talked to a lot of people and they said I should,&rdquo; said Van Boxmeer, who had a regular-season record of 226-177-46 in nearly six full seasons as head coach. His Amerk teams won two Southern Division championships, including one last season, and one Calder Cup (1986-87).&ldquo;I talked to Ted Sator (the former Sabre coach who is now an assistant in Boston) and he said if you want to get to the National League as a head coach, this is your next step.&rdquo;Sabres&rsquo; general manager Gerry Meehan said the title of associate coach means Van Boxmeer will have &ldquo;very serious responsibilities.&rdquo; John Tortorella remains Buffalo&rsquo;s assistant coach.Lever didn&rsquo;t hesitate to move. He had grown stale as an assistant.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired of picking up pucks; I didn&rsquo;t have enough to do in Buffalo. I was willing to accept the apprenticeship with the Sabres (in 1987-88) but I&rsquo;m not an assistant, I want to be a head coach,&rdquo; said Lever, who ended his 15-year playing career in 1986-87 as the player-assistant coach on Rochester&rsquo;s Calder Cup-winning team.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough being an assistant, it&rsquo;s tough not being able to make final decisions. I&rsquo;ve wanted this job since we won the Calder Cup.&rdquo;<h2>EAVES IS IN</h2>Mike Eaves, an assistant to Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; coach Paul Holmgren the last two years, was named head coach of the Hershey Bears Aug. 9.Eaves played eight seasons in the NHL with Minnesota and Calgary, retiring after 1985-86. He was head coach at Division III University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 1986-87 and an assistant at Division I St. Cloud State University in 1987-88.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a promotion and positive move in my coaching career.&rdquo; Eaves said. &ldquo;This is a step up the ladder.&rdquo;<h2>ITALY BOUND</h2>Center Fabian Joseph, the Cape Breton Oilers&rsquo; second-leading scorer last season with 86 points, has signed with Brunico of the Italian first division&hellip; Hershey Entertainment and Resort Company, owners of the Bears, announced that Jay Feaster will serve as GM this season and succeed president Frank Mathers, who will retire after the 90-91 season. Mathers has operated the Bears for 34 years and been associated with six Calder Cup championships. &#9632;

BOTH PARTIES WELCOME AMERK COACHING CHANGE

<div class="byline">BY BILL PICKETT AND KEVIN OKLOBZIJA</div><h2>IHL</h2>The challenge and excitement of being close to the ice appeals to Ken Morrow just slightly more than a shirt-and-tie job behind a desk.As a result, the former Flint Spirits&rsquo; assistant coach changed his mind about a front-office job in Albany and went west, signing as co-coach with the Kansas City Blades Aug. 3.Morrow had been ready to join former Fort Wayne owner David Welker in Albany as general manager for the expansion Choppers.&ldquo;I got the offers at about the same time,&rdquo; Morrow said, &ldquo;and 1 went to Albany and talked with Mr. Welker. 1 considered his offer highly, but my decision came down to the duties I would have.&ldquo;I feel a little more comfortable staying in coaching. Albany was strictly a front-office situation. Now I&rsquo;ll be in coaching, but there still will be some administrative responsibilities.&rdquo;The Blades will be one of four independent teams in the IHL this season, but Morrow doesn&rsquo;t see the talent thinning out.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-011109/8437581-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="533" height="649"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bruce Boudreau will be a player-coach in Fort Wayne.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;The competition to sign players will be greater,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but the talent is there. With our expansion and the NHL plans to expand, it&rsquo;s a great time to be a player.&rdquo;The Blades acquired their first player, Rick Barkovich, on Aug. 3. A 26-year-old center, Barkovich had 20-23-43 totals in 71 games for Salt Lake last season.Albany, meanwhile, announced the signing of former Rensselaer coach Jim Salfi as GM July 31.<h2>STARS ON MOVE</h2>The Minnesota North Stars announced they will end their four-year working agreement with the International League&rsquo;s Kalamazoo Wings after the 1990-91 season and operate an American League franchise in St. John&rsquo;s, Nfld., the following year.While the Aug. 4 announcement came as a surprise to the Wings, they weren&rsquo;t panicking about the future.&ldquo;This is probably one of the most financially stable operations in minor-league hockey, so we don&rsquo;t anticipate a problem getting another NHL affiliate, but you never know what can happen.&rdquo; said Steve Doherty, director of public relations and marketing for the Wings. &ldquo;Right now we are very happy with the North Stars being here and we&rsquo;re not in a position to make a commitment to any NHL team right now.&rdquo;The North Stars and the NHL&rsquo;s new Bay Area franchise have an equal stake in Kalamazoo this season. The Bay Area team will receive several young players from the North Stars after this season.Bay Area GM Jack Ferreira said his group would consider having its minor-league operations in Kalamazoo.<h2>CHANGES COMING</h2>Changes are in store for the Phoenix Roadrunners this season as a result of their affiliation with the Los Angeles Kings.&ldquo;We definitely will have a new coach,&rdquo; said GM Adam Keller. &ldquo;Naturally, the NHL team wants a say about who is coaching here. At the same time, we will try to keep Garry (Unger, last season&rsquo;s coach) in the organization and have him gain some experience with us.&rdquo;The Roadrunners also lost team scoring leader Bruce Boudreau to Fort Wayne, where he will be a player-assistant coach. &#9632;

f0031-01

HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0032-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-04412/8437619-1-eng-US/f0032-042.jpg"></div><h2>OHL</h2>Danny Flynn is taking the Belleville Bulls to court.Flynn, through lawyer David Marks, filed a suit in Toronto District Court July 30, seeking $275,000 from the Bulls for wrongful dismissal and the balance owing on a five-year contract he signed in April, 1988.Flynn had three years remaining on his contract when Bulls&rsquo; owner Dr. Robert Vaughn fired him March 23&mdash;three games into Belleville&rsquo;s opening-round playoff series against the Kingston Frontenacs. Flynn was replaced by assistant Shawn McKenzie, who guided the Bulls to a seven-game victory over Kingston before losing four straight to Peterborough. Larry Mavety took over as coach-general manager this season.Flynn led the Bulls to a 36-26-4 record, good for fifth in the Leyden Division last season. The 76 points the Bulls amassed was the second-highest point total in Belleville&rsquo;s nine-year Ontario League history.Marks said he tried to settle Flynn&rsquo;s contract&rsquo; with the Bulls &ldquo;several times but got nowhere,&rdquo; and that the terms of Flynn&rsquo;s contract are &ldquo;cut and dried.&ldquo;He was signed for five years and fired after two. He is owed three years by the Bulls.&rdquo;Flynn, hired as assistant coach-assistant general manager by the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds May 9, refused comment on the lawsuit.Dr. Vaughan, reached at the Belleville office where he practises medicine, also declined comment.<h2>CONFIDENCE VOTE</h2>Wayne Maxner said he is disturbed by reports Brad Smith is on his way out as coach of the Windsor Spitfires.Maxner, who took over as Spitfire GM from Terry McDonnell June 25, said he hopes Smith &ldquo;coaches this team for 15 years if he wants to.&rdquo;Ever since Maxner was named Windsor GM there has been considerable doubt that he and Smith&mdash;two colorful personalities with large egos&mdash;can co-exist.Maxner disagrees.&ldquo;I respect Brad as an up-and-coming coach,&rdquo; said Maxner. &ldquo;I think I can help him become a better coach. But I&rsquo;m here to be general manager and to market this team&ldquo;During my four seasons (as coach-GM) in London, I got away from coaching more and more every year. My assistants handled most of the practices and were with me behind the bench.&ldquo;Being both coach and general manager is tough. And I hope that I&rsquo;m the general manager and Brad is the coach of the Windsor Spitfires for a long time.&rdquo;Smith, who guided the Spitfires to a last-place finish in the Emms Division during his rookie season in 1989-90, said he and Maxner &ldquo;have the potential to be the most colorful and the best coach-general manager combination in the league.&rdquo;<h2>DARPER DEALT</h2>The Dukes of Hamilton traded on July 30 the rights to Canadian national team center-left winger Kris Draper, 19, to the Ottawa 67&rsquo;s for goalie George Dourian, 19, left winger Gairin Smith, 18, and a sixth-round 1991 draft pick. Ottawa coach-GM Brian Kilrea said Draper will be at the 67&rsquo;s camp, which opens Aug. 31&hellip;A hot summer OHL trade rumor had the Niagara Falls Thunder dealing left winger Brad May to the Oshawa Generals for center Jarrod Skalde. Skalde was reportedly unhappy about moving to the second line following the arrival of Eric Lindros&hellip;Don Chrysler has left his job as chief scout of the Dukes of Hamilton for a similar post with Oshawa. To replace Chrysler, the Dukes lured Mike MacFarlane from his scouting post with the Owen Sound Platers&hellip;Scott Ferguson has left the OHL Central Scouting Bureau to be chief scout of the Windsor Spitfires.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-011179/8437612-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="667" height="852"><figcaption class="caption-body">Goalie George Dourian was traded to Hamilton by the Ottawa 67&rsquo;s.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-04

FLYNN TAKING THE BULLS BY THE HORNS

<div class="byline">BY VANCE OLIVER</div><h2>WHL</h2>The sigh of relief following minor surgery to Pat Falloon&rsquo;s knee could&rdquo; be heard all the way from Manitoba to the state of Washington.The Spokane Chiefs&rsquo; center, who is heralded as a top-five prospect for the 1991 NHL draft, underwent arthroscopic surgery Aug. 3 to remove damaged cartilage in his right knee.Falloon injured his knee while playing baseball near his home in Foxwarren, Man., on July 24.&ldquo;Any time a player injures himself, it&rsquo;s cause for concern, especially with a franchise player like Pat Falloon,&rdquo; said Tim Speltz, newly-hired general manager in Spokane. &ldquo;(But) it was a relief to hearthat he&rsquo;ll be back on his feet within the next couple of days and should be skating in the next couple of weeks.&rdquo;Falloon, who turns 18 Sept. 22, collected 60 goals and 124 points as a sophomore last season with the Chiefs.<h2>NEW SHOES</h2>Rob Daum isn&rsquo;t worried about filling the giant-sized shoes of junior legend Terry Simpson. He&rsquo;s more concerned with setting his own imprint on the Prince Albert Raiders.Daum, assistant GM-assistant coach of the Raiders in 1989-90, inherited the difficult task of replacing Simpson July 26.Simpson left the Saskatchewan-based team July 18 to join the Winnipeg Jets as an assistant coach.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t replace Terry Simpson (and) I&rsquo;m under no illusions that way,&rdquo; said the 32-year-old Daum. &ldquo;Terry has been a legend in Prince Albert and junior hockey as a whole for a number of years. So, I&rsquo;m not going to make any attempt to fill his shoes.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just going to try as much as possible to put a competitive team on the ice.&rdquo;Daum left the Nipawin Hawks of the Saskatchewan Junior League Aug. 14, 1989 to serve his apprenticeship under Simpson with the Raiders.Almost three weeks after promoting Daum, the Raiders announced they had hired Mark Odnokon as an assistant Aug. 14. Odnokon previously coached the Melfort Mustangs of the SJHL.<h2>NO GOODWILL</h2>When push came to shove, Saskatoon Blades&rsquo; center Scott Scissons opted for the national junior evaluation camp (Aug. 18-25) instead of the Goodwill Games. (July 27-Aug. 5).Scissons, a first-round pick (sixth overall) of the New York Islanders in June, was forced to make a choice when the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association issued a decree which stated that junior players under 20 (as of Dec. 31, 1990) could participate in either the junior camp or the Goodwill Games, but not both.The CAHA decree, which was delivered &ldquo;because of the extraordinary demands placed upon high-performance players&rdquo; affected only four individuals who were invited to both events: Scissons, left wingers Kris Draper of the Canadian national team and Kent Manderville of Cornell University and Brandon Wheat Kings&rsquo; netminder Trevor Kidd.But the 18-year-old Scissons was the one player who could ill-afford to miss the junior camp, since the other three were members of the Canadian junior team last season.&ldquo;Without being guaranteed a spot (on the junior national team), they&rsquo;re in the driver&rsquo;s seat.&rdquo; Scissons explained. &ldquo;But for myself, I don&rsquo;t have the luxury of thinking I can come back and have a spot without earning it.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02787/8437657-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="666" height="1031"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pat Falloon underwent arthroscopic knee surgery Aug. 3.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03573/8437650-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="667" height="914"><figcaption class="caption-body">Scott Scissons chose the national junior camp over the Goodwill Games.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-02

FALLOON UNDERGOES SUCCESSFUL SURGERY

<div class="byline">BY HERB ZURKOWSKY</div>Acting in the best interests of his family, Laval Titan head coach Pierre Creamer resigned just one week before the team&rsquo;s training camp was to open.Creamer, 46, a father of three, left the Titan Aug. 10 for a position with the City of Laval&rsquo;s leisure department, which pays approximately $50,000 annually.Creamer, who had been with the city for a number of years, took a leave of absence in 1984 to coach the AHL&rsquo;s Sherbrooke Canadiens, then went on to coach the NHL&rsquo;s Pittsburgh Penguins and the Titan. His leave of absence officially ends Sept. 1, 1990.&ldquo;I think this is the best decision for myself and my family,&rdquo; said Creamer, who replaced the fired Paulin Bordeleau last December. &ldquo;It was tough because I like coaching, but I had to go with my head.&rdquo;Creamer and the Morrissette family, the Titan&rsquo;s owners, spent most of the summer trying to reach an agreement with the City of Laval.The Morrissettes investigated the possibility of Creamer working both jobs although Creamer said it was physically impossible. The team&rsquo;s owners then attempted to lengthen Creamer&rsquo;s leave of absence from the city, which already had been extended from June I to September.&ldquo;The delay was mainly because we wanted to take our chance until the last minute,&rdquo; said governor Jean-Claude Morrissette. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t blame him (Creamer) even though our organization looks bad.&ldquo;I was praying for the comeback of Pierre. I&rsquo;m displeased he&rsquo;s not with us, but I&rsquo;m not upset.&rdquo;Creamer&rsquo;s decision left the defending Quebec League champions scrambling to find a new coach by Aug. 17 and the start of training camp. Possible replacements included Real Paiement and Guy Chouinard, fired last season by Granby and Victoriaville, respectively.<h2>DARPEAU LEAVES</h2>Gaston Drapeau, the coach and GM of the Chicoutimi Sagueneens, left that organization to take a similar job with the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs, but there&rsquo;s some question whether he did it legally.Drapeau signed a two-year contract with the Draveurs Aug. 3 even though he was sti 11 under contract to the Sags. As of Aug. 14 no successor had been named in Chicoutimi.When Drapeau asked Sagueneens president Yves Bouchard for permission to talk to the Draveurs, it was neither granted nor denied. Drapeau and the Draveurs both contend that he had an escape clause in his contract but the&rsquo; Sagueneens claimed there wasn&rsquo;t one and were contemplating sueing their former coach for breach of contract.Barring legal action, Drapeau will replace coach Dany Dube, who resigned to become the head coach and assistant athletic director for the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivieres, and GM Michel Boucher, who left hockey to become the director of student services at a private junior college in Trois-Rivieres. Both resignations were announced in late July.Drapeau, upon hearing of Dube&rsquo;s and Boucher&rsquo;s resignations, contacted the Draveurs through a third party.Although Drapeau&rsquo;s contract didn&rsquo;t expire until the end of the 1990-91 season, he apparently wanted out of Chicoutimi because he didn&rsquo;t feel comfortable.<h2>CHANGE OF HEART</h2>Hull Olympiques&rsquo; head coach Alain Vigneault was named an assistant coach for Canada&rsquo;s 1991 national junior team July 19.Vigneault, an assistant under Tom Webster on the 1989 team, had verbally expressed for several months an interest in joining the team&mdash;only to have his nomination rejected by QMJHL president Gilles Courteau. Courteau, part of the team&rsquo;s selection committee, penalized Vigneault for not applying in writing for the position.&ldquo;I changed my mind,&rdquo; said Courteau. &ldquo;We needed a coach from Quebec and Vigneault is one of the best available.&rdquo; &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUS

CREAMER RESIGNS TO TAKE MUNICIPAL POST

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-011089/8437712-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="495" height="579"><figcaption class="caption-body">SCOTT MORRISON</figcaption></div>Eight months later, the mind drifts back to that December day when John Ziegler stood tall upon a podium in a Palm Beach hotel, announcing the grand plans for a sixth expansion in the NHL.&ldquo;&hellip;and the franchise fee,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;will be no less than $50 million.&rdquo;How much?&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; repeated Ziegler, &ldquo;the franchise fee will be no less than $50 million.&rdquo;Throughout the room that day, the tall foreheads of the assembled media at first furrowed in utter disbelief, before settling into lasting confoundment.Soon there were snickers. No way, they all muttered, the NHL could ever charge $50 million for a franchise. The league was loony. Make that loonier than usual.Perhaps, the scribes concluded, Ziegler had been high sticked by a croquet mallet the previous day and rendered senseless.Or maybe his mind did not function clearly in the rarified, and previously unvisited, air six feet above the floor.Yeah, that was it.Whatever the reason, the NHL couldn&rsquo;t even contemplate a $50-million fee, not without a lucrative national television contract in the United States, not when sales of the Hartford Whalers and Minnesota North Stars could muster just $31 million each, and not unless Harold Ballard had secretly rewritten the script.They had surely erred everyone believed, and they would ultimately endure public embarrassment for it.Why, even the outrageous Ballard had considered the plan ludicrous and Ballard knew of losers.It was rumored Ballard had bet on Germany in two world wars, thought his family life normal, and he did own the Maple Leafs, after all.Alas, even if the majority of the free world thought otherwise, time has proven that Ziegler had not taken leave of his senses that day, and the NHL board of governors were quite astute in their appraisal of the economic climate and the interest in pro hockey when they decided on a $50-million price tag for expansion.And, as inconceivable as the notion once seemed, this means we all must now hand it to the NHL owners&mdash;only because 10 apparently wise and wealthy investors throughout North America are prepared to do exactly that, hand $50 million each to the league for one of the two precious expansion franchises they will award this December.It isn&rsquo;t often the board of governors are deemed worthy of praise, of course, but this time they deserve it. They gambled in setting a whopping franchise fee, but they have assuredly now won big time.The three teams they will add (the Bay Area already having received a franchise) will reap them the $ 150 million they sought, bring instant credibility, and their dissenters be damned.If all that wasn&rsquo;t enough, don&rsquo;t forget, either, that all the money must be paid up front, months before the first puck is dropped.Unlike the past, there are no deferred payments. It&rsquo;s pay now, play later. Guaranteed profits.Even though no one, not even Ziegler or the most optimistic of owners, ever dreamed of receiving 10 applications, not with the price so high, the requirements fgr ownership so stringent, and a $100,000 deposit (of which $35,000 is non-refundable) to ensure sincerity, the reality is that 10 groups are willing to part with the cash.The message, clearly, is that there apparently is potential for growth in the NHL we all overlooked, and that maybe, just maybe, owning an NHL team is a viable investment, an opportunity to make money.The other message is that the governors may have a little more on the ball than any of us assumed.They acted confidently and wisely when they set their fee and further enhanced their position when they announced their plan for the decade to possibly include expansion by seven teams in total.That&rsquo;s why, in part, they received 10 bids, because even those who know they have no hope in the first wave of expansion, still believe there is hope in the future. A fool and his money, right?So, for a change, you have to give the NHL owners credit&hellip;because the principle and interest is soon to follow. &#9632;

f0036-01

YES, THE GOVERNORS DESERVE CREDIT

&hellip;Calgary&rsquo;s Joe Nieuwendyk and Edmonton&rsquo;s Jeff Beukeboom are first cousins? Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s mother, Joanne, and Beukeboom&rsquo;s father, John, are siblings. The two cousins, who now play on different sides in one of hockey&rsquo;s most bitter rivalries, grew up together in the Oshawa, Ont., area.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-03592/8437743-1-eng-US/f0036-032.jpg" title="f0036-03" width="966" height="504"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Nieuwendyk</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0036-03

DID YOU KNOW…

<h2>CANADIENS</h2>The site of the new Forum, which has all but been selected, will come as a shock to those who were promoting other sites. The Canadiens are leaning towards a spot at the comer of Bleury and de Maisonneuve, just on the eastern edge of the city&rsquo;s downtown shopping area. The site is on the east-west subway line and is close to two major expressways. It is also near the Place des Arts cultural center. Many had been pressing for the Canadiens to build the new Forum near the Olympic Stadium in the city&rsquo;s east end, where few go to watch baseball in the summer. Another favored site was at Notre Dame and Peel, where the O&rsquo;Keefe Brewery plant is located. No one in the Canadiens&rsquo; front office would confirm the choice had been made, but an announcement is expected before this season&hellip;Claude Lemieux was still on the Canadiens&rsquo; roster but managing director Serge Savard said there was interest in the pugnacious right winger. &ldquo;But I am waiting a bit so that I can make the best deal possible,&rdquo; said Savard, who doesn&rsquo;t feel he owes Lemieux any favors.<h2>SABRES</h2>The Sabres announced an eight-game exhibition schedule that will place the team in such non-NHL cities as Albany, Orlando and Phoenix and includes just one home date. The schedule was prompted in part by Memorial Auditorium renovations that will have the club scrambling to clean up the building in time for a Sept. 28 exhibition game with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Aud renovations include a new roof, the installation of a much-needed air conditioning system and an elevator that serves the handicapped and provides access to the luxury boxes. The building has also undergone an extensive environmental rehabilitation to remove pockets of asbestos insulation. Memorial Auditorium will be the site of the 1990 NHL entry draft&hellip;Newly-acquired center Dale Hawerchuk has purchased a house in suburban Clarence, N.Y., where he&rsquo;ll be neighbors with right winger Rick Vaive. Hawerchuk plans to live in the Buffalo area year-round.<h2>WHALERS</h2>Dr. John Fulkerson was named team physician to replace Dr. Vincent Turco. Turco had been the team physician since the Whalers first arrived in Hartford in 1974. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have a Stanley Cup ring,&rdquo; said Turco, &ldquo;but I do have a lot of memories and a lot of bad knees examined.&rdquo; Among his memories, Turco said he won&rsquo;t soon forget the time he rushed out to attend to Mark Howe after the Whaler had been impaled on a goal post&hellip;Besides working on 20 player contracts, GM Ed Johnston was working on extending coach Rick Ley&rsquo;s and assistant coaches Brent Peterson&rsquo;s and Jay Leach&rsquo;s contracts&hellip;Todd Krygier, who probably will rent a condominium with Czechoslovakian rookie Bobby Holik, underwent a hernia operation in late July but should be ready for the start of the season.<h2>NORDIQUES</h2>Ex-coach Michel Bergeron finally arranged a buyout of his contract with the Nords and was hired Aug. 13 by Montreal radio station CKAC to work on a talk show. He will also work as an analyst on the TVA television network for Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; games&hellip;Also hitting the airwaves soon in Quebec will be fired Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; coach Jacques Demers. Demers has reportedly agreed to work as an analyst on the Nordiques&rsquo; radio network and will cover a few TV games on the Quatre-Saisons net&rsquo; work&hellip;When Nords&rsquo; GM Pierre Page said he was no longer looking for a second assistant after hiring Gilles Leger, he stated his top priority was solidifying the scouting department. Former scout Simon Nolet&rsquo;s departure to the Philadelphia Flyers this summer left the Nordiques without an advance pro scout.<h2>BRUINS</h2>Looming ominiously in the back-round of the Ray Bourque negotiations is the potentially sticky contract talks of Cam Neely. The 55-goal scorer, who earned $325,000 last season, has been promised&mdash;like Bourque&mdash;that his contract will be renegotiated up to a &ldquo;fair&rdquo; figure. &ldquo;I know what I&rsquo;d like. I know how I feel about my situation,&rdquo; Neely said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just waiting to see how the situation with Harry (Sinden) and Ray turns out.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Bruin free-agent forwards Bobby Carpenter and Bob Sweeney both filed for salary arbitration&hellip;The Bruins were expected to sign journeyman defenseman Ken Hammond, who has played for Los Angeles, Edmonton, the New York Rangers and Toronto in parts of six NHL seasons&hellip;The Bruins&rsquo; management moved into spacious new offices located in the same Garden building on Causeway Street.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02710/8437774-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="553" height="772"><figcaption class="caption-body">Cam Neely is the next Bruin in line for salary renegotiation.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0036-02

FORUM’S NEW SITE MAY BE A SURPRISE

<div class="byline">BY STEVEN HARRIS</div>Early this summer, the renegotiation of Ray Bourque&rsquo;s contract&mdash;highly sensitive and potentially devastating for the on- and off-ice chemistry of the Boston Bruins&mdash;had remained mostly private.Only dribs and drabs of generally vague information were let out by general manager Harry Sinden or Bourque&rsquo;s agent. Steve Freyer.With three years remaining on his current pact at $500,000 per year, the Bruins&rsquo; star defenseman was seeking a contract extension and probably a signing bonus.Bourque was thought to be looking for a deal increasing the worth of the contract to more than $1 million per year, a figure commensurate with his value to the team and the recent salary escalation ongoing in the league.Sinden was willing to oblige in some fashion, saying from the outset he wanted to give his superstar a raise.Publicly, Bourque studiously avoided saying anything.But that all changed in early August with the publication of a column by Joe Fitzgerald in the Herald, which challenged Bourque&rsquo;s honor and loyalty to the team.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s more than a matter of money,&rdquo; wrote Fitzgeradd, &ldquo;it is indeed a matter of honor.&rdquo;Fitzgerald added that by wanting to renegotiate. Bourque, having signed a contract in good faith, was going back on his word.Within hours after the column ran, an irate Bourque was on the phone to another Herald columnist, Tim Horgan, defending his honor.&ldquo;It really bothers me when somebody says that what I&rsquo;m doing is dishonorable, that I have no right to renegotiate my contract,&rdquo; said Bourque. &ldquo;Perhaps they forget it was the Bruins&rsquo; idea, not mine, to renegotiate my contract.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been with the Bruins for 11 years and I&rsquo;ve done everything possible to be the best player I can be. For 11 years, I&rsquo;ve given my heart and soul to the Bruins. I think I&rsquo;ve played well and that my statistics speak for themselves and I don&rsquo;t have to say what I&rsquo;ve done for the Bruins.&rdquo;Reportedly, Sinden will tack on one year to the three remaining on Bourque&rsquo;s contract, bringing the pact&rsquo;s total value to $4 million. That figure did not appear to make Bourque happy, and talks could very easily be a distraction through training camp.&ldquo;Players are blowing by me salary-wise,&rdquo; Bourque told Horgan. &ldquo;Players are getting a lot more money, not hundreds of thousands, but millions more. Hockey is a very healthy business right now, and the way things are going, there will be 20 millionaires in the league next year.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s business. I don&rsquo;t take it personally until people question my honor and my loyalty. They don&rsquo;t seem to understand that it&rsquo;s not a question of whether or not I should get more money from the Bruins. The only question is how much?&rdquo;And therein lies the difficulty. Sinden&rsquo;s offer apparently has not satisfied the defenseman. The Bruins boss&rsquo; may not be willing to bend any further, however.&ldquo;I never like to say it&rsquo;s the last offer,&rdquo; Sinden said. &ldquo;A guy like Raymond Bourque is not the type you should treat with ultimatums. But I just don&rsquo;t see any more room.&rdquo;But if Bourque doesn&rsquo;t get what he wants, things could get ugly.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never threatened to hold out or demanded to be traded. I&rsquo;ve tried to do this the right way and I hope things will be settled long before training camp opens,&rdquo; Bourque said.If not?&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll cross that bridge when we come to it,&rdquo; Bourque said.<h2>BOSTON</h2>TRANSACTIONSJuly 11: John Mokosak, D, signed contract as a free agent. &#9632;

FIERY BOURQUE DEFENDS HIS LOYALTY AND HONOR

<div class="byline">By JIM KELLEY</div>The Buffalo Sabres concluded a summer of change by switching two coaches and saying goodbye to a fan favorite.Sabres&rsquo; assistant coach Don Lever moves from Buffalo to take over the head-coaching duties with the team&rsquo;s American League affiliate in Rochester. John Van Boxmeer moves from Rochester to an associate position with Buffalo.&ldquo;The move was brought about after both men expressed a desire for change,&rdquo; Sabres&rsquo; GM Gerry Meehan said.In addition to that move, Larry Playfair, one of the most respected &ldquo;big men&rdquo; in Sabres&rsquo; history, announced he was ending his career as a player. He said the decision was prompted by a back problem&mdash;a disc injury he first sustained in the 1989-90 pre-season&mdash;that simply won&rsquo;t go away.&ldquo;I thought it was coming along,&rdquo; Playfair said. &ldquo;I thought that way right up until I tried skating these past few weeks. I&rsquo;d been free of pain for two months now but as soon as I started skating it started up again.&ldquo;In a way I feel fortunate. The back injury is a sort of blessing in disguise because it makes the decision for me. A player always wants to keep playing and in my own mind I was already wrestling with the problem of when to quit. This way the decision has been made for me.&rdquo;Known primarily for his size (6-foot-4, 225 pounds) and physical play, Playfair, 32, leaves the Sabres after nearly nine years of service sandwiched around parts of four seasons in Los Angeles. In all he played 688 regular-season games over 12 years, compiling 26-64-120 totals and 1,812 penalty minutes.The two team records he held in Buffalo&mdash;most penalty minutes in a season (258) and career penalty minutes (1,390)&mdash;were recently eclipsed by Mike Hartman (316) and Mike Foligno (1,405) respectively. Still, Playfair leaves a legacy that, in its own way, was every bit as important to team success as the contributions of any star.The Sabres first pick (13th overall) in the 1978 draft, Playfair was a leader on an off the ice and one of those rare players who commanded the kind of respect that opened up the ice for all of his teammates. He was, for most of his career, a fighter, but one who was feared only for his fistic skills.A caring and oft-times sensitive player, team policeman was a role Playfair didn&rsquo;t always enjoy. He admitted, however, that in his early years, it was one he readily accepted.&ldquo;I always felt everybody had to contribute in the best ways they could,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I had size and in a certain way 1 was good at it. Towards the end 1 really didn&rsquo;t want to do it anymore, but for most of my years I embraced it.&rdquo;Playfair said he leaves the game satisfied in many ways, but with some lingering regrets. He said he never wanted to leave Buffalo, an event brought about by a trade that sent him, Sean McKenna and Ken Baumgartner to Los Angeles for center Doug Smith and defenseman Brian Engblom in January of 1986. He also carries the frustration of so many first-round playoff failures with Buffalo.He returned to the Sabres Oct. 21, 1988 in a trade that sent Bob Logan and a ninth-round draft pick in 1989 to the Kings.&ldquo;I never, ever wanted to leave Buffalo,&rdquo; Playfair said. &ldquo;I had nothing against Los Angeles or the Kings and 1 actually liked it there. They were very good to me there, but I always felt this was home and I never wanted to leave.&rdquo;<h2>BUFFALO</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 8: John Van Boxmeer, coach at, Rochester (AHL), named associate coach. Don Lever, assistant coach, named head coach at Rochester.Aug. 14: Larry Playfair, p, retired. &#9632;

PLAYFAIR CALLS IT A CAREER

<div class="byline">BY JEFF JACOBS</div>Granted, they didn&rsquo;t have the dramatic, ramifications of Sergei Fedorov&rsquo;s Motown special delivery, but the Hartford Whalers did have their own brand of mystery and international intrigue during the summer.On July 25, a Hartford TV station announced Kevin Dineen and Ray Ferraro had been traded to the Los Angeles Kings for Luc Robitaille.The 6 p.m. broadcast created more than a mild stir throughout Connecticut. But WVIT, Channel 30, proved to be the victim of a hoax. The trade wasn&rsquo;t made.As August dragged on, meanwhile, Whalers&rsquo; general manager Ed Johnston made it sound as if he had every intention of bringing over defenseman Jergus Baca from Czechoslovakia. But by the middle of the month, Johnston was still without formal approval from Baca&rsquo;s Kosice team or the NHL.After Channel 30 dropped the Dineen-Ferraro bombshell, Scott Gray of WTIC-AM, the anchor radio station for all the Whalers&rsquo; games, then discussed the reported trade on his nightly talk show.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been around 10 years and still made a rookie mistake,&rdquo; said Paul Frega, WVIT news director. &ldquo;I got a cal! from someone who said he was Phil Langan (Whalers&rsquo; public relations director) telling me about the trade.&ldquo;The guy knew the routine, said he was faxing the releases to everyone. I told (sports announcer) Tony Terzi and he went with it. It was a stupid thing to do. If it hadn&rsquo;t been two or three minutes before air time&hellip;&rdquo;The perpetrator of the hoax, who was not caught, had asked for Terzi, but Frega could not locate him. A correction was not made at Channel 30 until the 11 p.m. news.Gray said he used the story on his talk show because Terzi cited Langan as his source.&ldquo;I took the bull by the horns and addressed it, because 1 knew that we would get calls on it,&rdquo; Gray said. &ldquo;We were trying to reach Phil at that time, but were getting a busy signal. When we finally got him I felt awful. I&rsquo;m feeling very foolish.&rdquo;Langan, who received 22 calls in the hour after the Channel 30 announcement, finally got Gray at 7:20 p.m.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand why they didn&rsquo;t check,&rdquo; Langan said. &ldquo;In a situation like a trade, we just don&rsquo;t rush into an announcement. I feel very bad for Kevin and Ray.&rdquo;Dineen was not amused. He did undergo a minor surgical procedure on his right knee the first week in August, but he doesn&rsquo;t like people pulling his leg on such an important subject as his trade. Dineen began dryland training almost immediately after surgery and will be ready for the start of camp.&ldquo;Trades are part of the business and you have no control of them,&rdquo; Dineen said. &ldquo;But I didn&rsquo;t find the hoax funny because it upset some people close to me.&ldquo;I guess I can understand how a TV station right before the news could make that mistake. But I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s any excuse for a sports radio program, particularly our own radio network, to go along with it without checking it out first.&rdquo;Baca, 25, meanwhile, agreed to terms with the Whalers in late July. The holdup, however, was that Baca, drafted in the seventh round in June, still had another year left on his contract with his Kosice club.&ldquo;Baca&rsquo;s position is that he was forced to sign under the old communist regime and his old contract is no longer valid,&rdquo; said Johnston.As for NHL approval, president John Ziegler was working on a formal agreement with the Czechoslovakians, the result of which will be a guideline for cases such as Baca&rsquo;s.<h2>HARTFORD</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 14: Yvon Corriveau, LW. signed multi-year contract. &#9632;

TRADE HOAX, POLITICS LIVEN QUIET SUMMER

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div>In the world of future considerations, Randy Velischek likely fits among the elite.A steady, experienced NHL defenseman, Velischek became the newest member of the Quebec Nordiques Aug. 13 when it was announced he was the future considerations in the deal that brought Craig Wolanin to Quebec and sent Peter Stastny to New Jersey March 6.Generally, future considerations are throw-ins or afterthoughts. The Nords, however, were intent on landing the eight-year NHL rearguard from the moment the deal was struck; they considered him a major component of the trade.But when Velischek turned up his play a notch towards the end of last season, the Devils started to have second thoughts about giving him up.&ldquo;Randy was one of their best players in the last stretch of the season as well as in the playoffs,&rdquo; said Nords&rsquo; general manager Pierre Page. &ldquo;(New Jersey GM) Lou Lamoriello didn&rsquo;t want to part with him.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-011057/8437877-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="553" height="622"><figcaption class="caption-body">Randy Velischek excelled in last season&rsquo;s playoffs.</figcaption></div>So the Devils submitted a list of alternative players to Page, but the Nords&rsquo; GM wasn&rsquo;t interested.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re really happy to be able to count on an experienced player like Randy,&rdquo; said Page. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had the chance to work with guys like Brad McCrimmon (in Calgary) and Curt Giles (in Minnesota) and I hope Randy can do the job they did with the young players of their respective teams.&rdquo;Velischek had mixed emotions about the deal, but has no qualms about coming to Quebec. In fact, Quebec was one place he asked to be dealt to when he demanded a trade early last season. He was unhappy at that time because he wasn&rsquo;t being used on a regular basis.And language won&rsquo;t be a barrier as the Montreal native is fluent in French, as well as English and German.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sad because I&rsquo;m leaving New Jersey, a place I loved enormously,&rdquo; said Velischek. &ldquo;But I also have to be a little selfish and think about my own career. And in Quebec, I&rsquo;ll get the chance to help a team that&rsquo;s rebuilding. It&rsquo;s an interesting challenge.&rdquo;Also faced with an interesting challenge will be Gilles Leger, Page&rsquo;s new assistant.Hired Aug. 9 to assist the GM both administratively and in hockey matters, Leger has been in the organization for 11 years. He is back with the big club after a stint as director of the farm club system.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m back in Quebec and I feel very good about it,&rdquo; said Leger. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m getting the chance to join a group of dedicated hockey people who want to work as a team.Page was so impressed with Leger that he changed his mind about hiring a second assistant. Initially, Page said he wanted one administrator and one hockey man to help him in his duties.<h2>QUEBEC</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 9: Gilles Leger, director of the farm club system, named assistant general manager.Aug. 13: Randy Velischek, 0, acquired from New Jersey to complete March 6 trade. &#9632;

f0038-01

VELISCHEK NOT YOUR TYPICAL THROW-IN

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01982/8437915-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="287" height="464"><figcaption class="caption-body">TONY GALLAGHER</figcaption></div>When learned colleague Eric Duhatschek was discussing the Scott Stevens affair in the August issue of The Hockey News, he noted it sent the salary structure bonkers.&ldquo;Before the deal,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;there was Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux at the top, then Steve Yzerman and everyone else pretty much fell into line.But he neglected the mysterious case of the goalie, the most important guy in the playoffs and the forgotten man when it comes contract time.Ron Hextall and Patrick Roy are presently trying to put an end to the chronic underpayment of goaltenders. For his troubles, Hextall is viewed as both totally unreasonable and having the most rotten timing imaginable given his suspensions and trick groin.If we assume Hextall is the top or second best goalie in hockey, why shouldn&rsquo;t he make in the range of the top forwards?According to fired agent Rich Winter, Hextall was offered a new contract calling for $700,000 per year and a bonus providing for a maximum of another $700,000. He refused, according to Winter, preferring to go for the $1-million mark.If this is true&mdash;and every other agent always tells you to believe nothing Winter says&mdash;Hextall, to many, appears to be unreasonable.But why shouldn&rsquo;t a guy who took a defensive team to two Stanley Cup finals as the top goalie make half of what a center who&rsquo;s only been in one post-season (Lemieux) makes?&ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny how the general managers to a man will say it&rsquo;s who has the best goaltending will win at playoff time, but when you ask them to recall those words at contract time they convie-niently forget,&rdquo; says Winter, who fought the same goalie&rsquo;s battle for Grant Fuhr, who won Cup after Cup and got pocket change compared to Gretzky, Mark Messier and Paul Coffey.The goalie pay structure is so ensconced in the hockey mind, players are vilified as overpaid clods for making reasonable money. Mike Liut has been cast as wearing a real mask for his $450,000, as was Richard Brodeur before his buyout.If you look at some of the historical situations, goalies have been the relative galley slaves of the NHL. Fuhr&rsquo;s situation whereby he was making $ 110,000 and winning Stanley Cups was unquestionably the most bizarre, but look elsewhere.Clearly Roy is underpaid. He and agent Pierre Lacroix say serious negotiations have not begun but he&rsquo;s looking for more than the alleged $4 million over four years he&rsquo;s been offered. Good luck to him, because he&rsquo;s earned it.Kirk McLean was a Vezina finalist two years ago, played in the All-Star Game last year and carried a ridiculous work-load for the Canucks, starring in most of their games. Total salary, just over $150,000 per year, $100,000 less than Pat Quinn and $200,000 less than a Russian left winger&mdash;Vladimir Krutov&mdash;who skates like the Fuji blimp.If McLean had an aggressive nature or an agent with a sense of urgency, he would have downed tools in the middle of the season until some accommodation was made. No chance. He&rsquo;s a victim of the goalie as indentured servant syndrome.McLean&rsquo;s situation will no doubt persist. Though he shouldn&rsquo;t dream of signing anything lower than six or seven hundred grand, both he and agent Rick Curran have their sights set a lot lower.&ldquo;I saw it all through my playing days and I guess it&rsquo;s because the goalie, in his defensive mode, doesn&rsquo;t create the same excitement as a goal scorer,&rdquo; says Gary (Suitcase) Smith, who played for eight NHL clubs and two in the WHA.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure everyone is watching Hextall&rsquo;s situation with interest,&rdquo; says Curran, who also acts on behalf of Ken Wregget. &ldquo;I know we&rsquo;re not in any particular hurry to sign Kirk.&rdquo;The nature of the game, which makes it difficult for a goalie to star year after year, works against them. But surely players like Hextall, Roy, Fuhr, McLean and eventually Daren Puppa, Sean Burke and the like deserve a better financial shake. Tony Gallagher is a columnist for the Vancouver Province and hosts a sports talk show on the Satellite Radio Network in Western Canada.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02639/8437908-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="1759" height="1453"><figcaption class="caption-body">Maple Leaf Hall of Famers Ted Kennedy and George Armstrong shoot the breeze while spending time in the infirmary. Though Kennedy (five)and Armstrong (four) combined to play on nine Stanley Cup winners during the &rsquo; 40s, &rsquo;50s and &rsquo;60s in Toronto, they didn&rsquo;t win any as teammates.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0039-01

IT’S TIME GOALIES GOT THEIR FAIR SHARE

<div class="byline">BY MURRAY TOWNSEND</div>By and large, the teams that are in the running for first place in the regular season can be expected to do well in the playoffs.Last season&rsquo;s regular-season champion Boston Bruins lost in the Stanley Cup final to the fifth-place Edmonton Oilers. Two seasons ago, it was the first-place Calgary Flames defeating the second-place Montreal Canadiens for the Cup.Not surprisingly, the finalists for the last two Cup finals also are the top four teams in terms of points for the last five years. Calgary had the highest total of the last five years (505 points) followed by Edmonton (498), Montreal (490), and Boston (454).Unexpectedly, the team one might expect to have the worst record for the last five years, the Quebec Nordiques, actually have the third worst&mdash;at 325 points. The Nordiques managed to beat out the Vancouver Canucks (322) and Toronto Maple Leafs (321).Listed below are a total of the teams&rsquo; points for the last five years. Also listed are the top 10 players for goals and points for the same period.Of the goal and points leaders, about half have been traded in the last five years. A further four players will start the 1990-91 season with new teammates&mdash;Jari Kurri, Dale Hawerchuk, Denis Savard and Joe Mullen. Talk about holding on to franchise-type players.<h2>FIVE-YEAR SCAN</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-03494/8437967-1-eng-US/f0039-032.jpg" title="f0039-03" width="858" height="297"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-04407/8437960-1-eng-US/f0039-042.jpg" title="f0039-04" width="860" height="517"></div><h2>GOAL SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-05342/8437953-1-eng-US/f0039-052.jpg" title="f0039-05" width="861" height="438"></div><h2>POINTS LEADERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-06291/8437946-1-eng-US/f0039-062.jpg" title="f0039-06" width="856" height="399"></div> &#9632;

f0039-03

RICH GETTING RICHER

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div>Is Charles Thiffault the answer to the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; power-play woes?Team management thinks Thiffault can give coach Pat Bums a helping hand in developing a better attack.Thiffault, who served under Michel Bergeron as an assistant coach with the Quebec Nordiques and the New York Rangers, signed a two-year contract Aug. 6 as an assistant. He&rsquo;s expected to spend a good deal of his time working on the club&rsquo; s anemic power play, which finished dead last in the league last season with a 15.9 per-cent efficiency rating.&ldquo;I spoke to Pat at the end of last season and we felt that another assistant would be a good idea,&rdquo; said managing director Serge Savard. &ldquo;It was a necessity. The head coach seems to have more and more to do.&rdquo;Thiffault, who joins assistant Jacques Laperriere and goaltending coach Francois Allaire on the Habs&rsquo; coaching staff, thinks a portion of his work has already been done.&ldquo;Really, the club improved its - power play when it got Denis Savard from Chicago,&rdquo; he said.After working in Europe last season. Thiffault, who has also coached at the University of Sherbrooke and Laval University, is glad to be back in North America.&ldquo;After spending a year over in Italy, I realized there is only one leagu, to coach in and that&rsquo;s the NHL,&rsquo; Thiffault said. &ldquo;I was glad to have the opportunity to learn more about the European style and how the game is played on a bigger surface, but there it a lot of politicking that goes on&rdquo;Thiffault, whose contract with the New York Rangers ran out at the enc of July, had an offer to go back tc Italy, but jumped instead at the opportunity to return to his home province. Thiffault was ousted from New York along with Bergeron towards the end of the 1988-89 season.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not easy to get back into the NHL,&rdquo; Thiffault said. &ldquo;There are 21 teams, 21 head coaches and 42 assistant coaches. It&rsquo;s a small and select group.&rdquo;Thiffault met with Burns and Laperriere several times after being hired and came away feeling he will make a solid contribution.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not a genius, but I think I bring a different outlook to things,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We will pool our ideas and come up with the best possible strategies.&rdquo;For his part. Bums welcomes the additional helping hand.&ldquo;The game has become more sophisticated and we realize that it takes a good coaching staff to be successful,&rdquo; Bums said. &ldquo;Charles has had a good deal of experience and I am open to all ideas.&rdquo;<h2>MONTREAL</h2>TRANSACTIONSAug. 6: Charles Thiffault named assistant coach.Aug. 7: Frederic Chabot, G, Guy Darveau, D. Luc Gauthier, D, and Steve Cadieux, C. signed contracts.Aug. 8: Bobby Smith, C, traded to Minnesota for a fourth-round draft choice in 1991.Aug. 15: Brent Bobyck, LW. and Brent Fleetwood, LW. signed two-year contracts.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/c4-01233/8437998-1-eng-US/c4-012.jpg" title="C4-01" width="594" height="614"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pat Burns, above, welcomes the addition of Charles Thiffault.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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September 7, 1990

EXPANSION’S GREAT…IF NHL STICKS TO ITS PLAN

CITY’S FEARS LAID TO REST AS ELYNUIK RE-SIGNS

ELSTON

WAIT IS OVER FOR NEW ASSISTANT COACH