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Hockey Annual 1960

The Hockey News Hockey Annual 1960

<div class="byline">By Dave Anderson</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0068-01194/10380282-1-eng-US/f0068-012.jpg" title="f0068-01" width="645" height="1337"></div>What&rsquo;s He Really Like? this Lou Fontina to of the New York RangersNew York Writer Dave Anderson Brings a Vivid Picture of the Blues AceTHE CBS-TV camera trained its magic eye on Lou Fontinato. But this was no moment of glory for the gladiator of the Rangers. He stumbled off the ice in the midst of the second period. His left hand blotted his blood-soaked left ear. Gordie Howe had gouged it with his stick.The wound required 12 tedious stitches. The doctor inspected the ear, crusted with dried blood.&ldquo;He can play in the third period,&rdquo; he told Muzz Patrick, general manager of the Rangers. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tape him up.&rdquo;The doctor grabbed a three-inch-wide trip of white adhesive.&ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; Lou said, sitting erect on the rubbing table. &ldquo;No big bandages. My mother&rsquo;s watching this game on television. If she sees that, she&rsquo;ll think I&rsquo;m hurt bad.&rdquo;&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry, Lou,&rdquo; Patrick interrupted. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go to Bud Palmer, who&rsquo;s announcing the game on TV. I&rsquo;ll tell him to tell your mother not to worry, that you&rsquo;re okay.&rdquo;&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Lou said. &ldquo;As long as you tell him. I don&rsquo;t want my mother worryin&rsquo;.&rdquo;This is the Lou Fontinato nobody knows. That&rsquo;s what this story is about. It&rsquo;s not about hockey, it&rsquo;s about a hockey player. About what he&rsquo;s like, this trigger-tempered man who fights at the drop of a glove, who leaps at the point of a referee&rsquo;s finger.<h2>What Makes Him Tick?</h2>What kind of a guy is Lou Fontinato? What manner of man sat out 202 minutes in penalties to set an NHL record two seasons ago? Where&rsquo;s he from? How does he live? What does he do with his money? In a word, how is Lou Fontinato as &ldquo;human&rdquo; as all of us?You&rsquo;ll learn how, in his words or in the words of those who know him best.&ldquo;I had the best mother and father a kid could have,&rdquo; Lou says. &ldquo;My mother never kept me from being a hockey player. She never had the money to give me to go to the Junior games in Guelph but she never kept me from going. We&rsquo;d get in somehow. Carry somebody&rsquo;s bag. Or sneak in.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-01163/10380275-1-eng-US/f0069-012.jpg" title="f0069-01" width="2677" height="3580"></div>&ldquo;My mother figured if I had my hockey stick, I&rsquo;d be out of trouble. There was plenty of it where we lived. They called it The Ward, the roughest part of town. People used to say &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t ever go down there alone.&rsquo; But it&rsquo;s better now than it was then.&ldquo;I had five older sisters and I was the only boy. People say to me, &rsquo;I bet you were spoiled, being the only boy.&rsquo; Let me tell you I wasn&rsquo;t. Five older sisters. I don&rsquo;t wish it on anybody. Today I&rsquo;ll say they couldn&rsquo;t be better. But I&rsquo;ll tell you, I don&rsquo;t wish it on anybody.&rdquo;&ldquo;Lou has a genuine devotion to his family,&rdquo; says Muzz Patrick. &ldquo;And I can see why. They&rsquo;re wonderful people. Phil (Watson) and I, we&rsquo;ve been at their house in Guelph. The real Italian welcome. Piles of food and the wine on the table. There&rsquo;s a bocci court in the back yard. They tell me that&rsquo;s where Lou first played hockey.&rdquo;Lou earns an estimated $10,000 with the Rangers. He works in the off-season for the Tamroth Construction Co. in Guelph, Ont. His income is as energetic as he is.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve invested a little,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;About 10 different stocks. Wheat. Oil. Uranium. Copper. Liquor. Nothing big.&rdquo;<h2>Telephone Man</h2>Remembered here is an afternoon in Lou&rsquo;s hotel room in Montreal during last April&rsquo;s Stanley Cup playoffs. Lou was on the phone with his broker on the Toronto Stock Exchange.&ldquo;I know it&rsquo;s gone up two points, but let me call you in a couple days &hellip; all right, you call me. Good. So long.&rdquo;&ldquo;That your broker, J. P.?&rdquo; I asked.&ldquo;Yea, but do me a favour. Don&rsquo;t tell Phil (Watson). He&rsquo;ll think I don&rsquo;t have my mind on the playoffs.&rdquo;Lou is a bachelor. So he rooms with other bachelors on the Rangers when the team is in New York. He lives with Larry Cahan, Gerry Foley and Hank Ciesla in a three-room suite at the Kimberly Hotel, 74th St. and Broadway. Each player has his chores. Lou is the cook.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good cook,&rdquo; Foley says. &ldquo;His best dish is spare ribs. But we don&rsquo;t eat anything fancy. Steak. Roast beef. He cooks the breakfasts. Eggs any style. Everything.&rdquo;Does the trigger-temper explode occasionally?&ldquo;Oh, yeah,&rdquo; Foley smiled. &ldquo;We do the dishes. He gets mad if something&rsquo;s not clean. Starts banging pots around.&rdquo;Later, I asked Lou if he cooks the steaks to the boys&rsquo; orders &mdash; rare, medium, well-done?&ldquo;All medium,&rdquo; Lou grunted. &ldquo;When they start sayin&rsquo;, &rsquo;I want mine medium-rare,&rsquo; that&rsquo;s when they start cookin&rsquo; for themselves.&rdquo;Lou Fontinato is the only NHL player to grow up in Guelph. He&rsquo;s also one of the few hockey players ever recognized by the average New Yorker more than a block away from Madison Square Garden.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0070-01171/10380268-1-eng-US/f0070-012.jpg" title="f0070-01" width="1088" height="1888"><figcaption class="caption-body">Lou is a hard worker during the summer months away from hockey grind.</figcaption></div>In Guelph, his insignia is a yellow Pontiac convertible.&ldquo;They see that car,&rdquo; Lou says, &ldquo;and they know who it is without lookin&rsquo;.&rdquo;In New York last Winter, his insignia was the adhesive patch on the left ear gouged by Gordie Howe. As Lou strolled past Radio City Music Hall one day, a painter called down from his ladder:&ldquo;Hey, Lou, how&rsquo;s the ear?&rdquo;&ldquo;Okay,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;How&rsquo;s yourself?&rdquo;A few steps later, he turned to his companion and said, &ldquo;See, they know me in this town.&rdquo;<h2>Well-known Fellow</h2>They know him in Toronto, too. At least the man who handles players&rsquo; ticket requests at Maple Leaf Gardens, he knows Lou Fontinato.&ldquo;When we&rsquo;re in Toronto, my mother and father, my five sisters, their husbands, my nieces, my nephews, some friends, they all want to see the game. One game I had to buy 23 tickets. Usually, I need eight or 10.&ldquo;Gettin&rsquo; those tickets drives me crazy but I love it when my family and friends see me play. I used to try too hard in Toronto. But I&rsquo;m okay now.&rdquo;Lou&rsquo;s in love. He doesn&rsquo;t say it like that. He says:&ldquo;She&rsquo;s a real nice girl. How&rsquo;d you know her name was Marie Clancy? I&rsquo;m not gettin&rsquo; married, though. Not right away. Not for a couple of years.&rdquo;Marie Clancy is 23. She&rsquo;s a stewardess for Trans-Canada Airlines. She&rsquo;s a pretty Irish girl, with &ldquo;brownish hair with a touch of red in it.&rdquo;<h2>Roomed With Lou</h2>&ldquo;I roomed with Lou in training camp,&rdquo; said the old pro of the Rangers, Bill Gadsby. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s some sleeper. Eats a lot of fresh fruit. Reads a little, adventure magazines, that sort of stuff. Takes good care of himself.&rdquo;&ldquo;Does Lou smoke?&rdquo; I asked.&ldquo;Smokes mine,&rdquo; Bill smiled.What does Lou do in New York? The Kimberly Hotel is 30 blocks from Times Square, four blocks from Central Park, three blocks from Riverside Drive.&ldquo;All we do,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;is get up, come down to the Garden to practice, go back, eat, go to a movie, go to bed, come to practice, the whole thing all over again &hellip;&ldquo;Where do you go to the movies,&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Up near the hotel. Or down here, around Times Square?&rdquo;&ldquo;Down here,&rdquo; Lou smiled. &ldquo;We get in free down here.&rdquo;<h2>Good Golfer</h2>Andy Bathgate claims that when Lou plays golf, he throws his club farther than he hits the ball.&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t talk to Bathgate,&rdquo; Lou says. &ldquo;Talk to me. I had a 39-42 last Summer. I&rsquo;ve had a 79. Here, ask Creighton.&rdquo;&ldquo;Lou can hit &rsquo;em,&rdquo; Dave Creighton agreed. &ldquo;I played with him pretty often last Summer.&rdquo;&ldquo;You know that second hole,&rdquo; Lou said. &ldquo;I hit a drive one day, I had a chip shot from here to the door from the green. The ground was hard &hellip; but &hellip;&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a 360-365-yard hole,&rdquo; Creighton said. &ldquo;Lou hits &rsquo;em 270, 280 under normal conditions.&rdquo;&ldquo;Sometimes 280 into the bush,&rdquo; Lou said.<h2>Knew Where He Was Going</h2>Lou remembers the day in Guelph&rsquo;s Sacred Heart school when Sister Cuthbert asked her pupils what they wanted to be when they grew up.&ldquo;Some kids said, &rsquo;Doctors, lawyers,&rsquo;&rdquo; Lou said. &ldquo;I said, &rsquo;I want to be a hockey player.&rsquo;&ldquo;So Sister Cuthbert said to me, &rsquo;Louis, you will never be a hockey player until you learn to control your temper.&rsquo;&ldquo;Mind you,&rdquo; Lou adds proudly, &ldquo;I was 14 at the time.&rdquo;Couple years ago, Lou&rsquo;s first full season in the NHL, it seemed he had a fight every week, if not every game.&ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened?&rdquo; I asked him last season. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t get in fights as often any more.&rdquo;&ldquo;Well, I guess the other guys have more &hellip;,&rdquo; and he groped for the proper word &hellip; &ldquo;more respect for me now.&rdquo;<h2>Good Ambassador</h2>Lou seldom gropes for the proper word at an after-dinner speech. He&rsquo;s the Ranger ambassador to many neighborhood sports banquets around New York. He&rsquo;s got two standard jokes.&ldquo;I tell &rsquo;em the one about when I first came up to the Rangers,&rdquo; Lou says. &ldquo;How I used to buy a lot of tickets and hand them out. So during the game, I&rsquo;d be on the bench but my fans would be shouting, &rsquo;We Want Louie &hellip; We Want Louie.&rsquo;&ldquo;In the third period, the coach, Muzz Patrick then, he says to me, &rsquo;Okay, Louie&rsquo; and I put my foot over the boards. &rsquo;Okay,&rsquo; he says, &rsquo;those people up there want you, you&rsquo;d better go up to the balcony and see what they want.&rsquo;&ldquo;I tell &rsquo;em, &rsquo;That was the year I played for nothin&rsquo;. I used up all my salary buying those tickets and passin&rsquo; them out.&ldquo;The other one&rsquo;s about the time we&rsquo;re losing to Montreal, 7-1, and I finally get on the ice with two minutes to go. I&rsquo;m swinging my leg over the boards and I say to Muzz:&ldquo;&rsquo;Coach, do you want me to tie it or win it?&rsquo; &ldquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-01161/10380261-1-eng-US/f0071-012.jpg" title="f0071-01" width="1061" height="1482"><figcaption class="caption-body">Here&rsquo;s Lou with Mom and Pop</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0068-01

IN THIS ISSUE

Rangers’ Leapin Lou

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0094-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0094-01117/10381003-1-eng-US/f0094-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0094-01

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

f0085-01

New Defence Star

<div class="byline">By Charlie Halpin</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-012262/10378739-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Defenceman St. Laurent and goalie Glenn Hall enjoy private joke after Black Hawks game.</figcaption></div>No pro athlete relishes the idea of being traded away from a winner, especially front the world hockey champion Montreal Canadiens, without a certain amount of misgivings.It would be folly to say Dollard St. Laurent, now a full-fledged member of the Chicago Black Hawks, rejoiced at the thought of parting company with Les Canadiens, or of being relegated from first to possibly last place in the twilight of his big league career.But the colorful French-Canadian defenceman isn&rsquo;t deterred by the chain of circumstances that have whisked him off to Chicago. A true-blue pro who has given the game his best years, St. Laurent revealed that he would go all out for the Hawks, and added, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think a guy can do any more than that.&rdquo;One person who shares St. Laurent&rsquo;s unselfish outlook is Tommy Ivan, the general manager of the Black Hawks, who is certain the Montreal-born rearguard will become an integral part of the Hawks once he is completely adjusted to his new surroundings.&ldquo;After all", said Ivan, &ldquo;Dollard wouldn&rsquo;t be normal if he weren&rsquo;t disappointed at being traded from a Stanley Cup winner. But I know St. Laurent. When he becomes settled, he&rsquo;ll be with us all the way. That&rsquo;s the kind of player he is.&rdquo;St. Laurent was one of five off-season acquisitions picked up by the Hawks in a desperate but successful attempt by Ivan to elevate Chicago from the doldrums of the National Hockey League. The Hawks finished second only to Montreal, which was quite a remarkable achievement when you stop to think that in 12 previous years they ended last nine times.<h2>Hard to Understand</h2>St. Laurent said he found it difficult to comprehend why he was discarded by the Canadiens after completing his most successful season during his eight years in the N.H.L.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-012468/10378732-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="1044" height="1655"></div>The Habs explain it merely by saying it was done to protect younger players.In the case of St. Laurent, it was a question of retaining him and risking losing an up and coming star rookie like Junior Langlois in the draft, or selling St. Laurent to protect Langlois.The Canadiens&rsquo; management pointed out that while it wasn&rsquo;t an easy decision to make, it was deemed necessary to provide for the future. St. Laurent is now 30 years of age, while Langlois just turned 25.The free-wheeling, 5&rsquo;11", 180-pound St. Laurent registered three goals and 20 assists for 23 points in 65 games in 1957-58, which made him the seventh highest scorer among NHL defencemen.&ldquo;I can say in all fairness that I enjoyed my most pleasing season with the Canadiens in 1957-58. I don&rsquo;t think I ever felt more relaxed since I reached the NHL from the Royals,&rdquo; said St. Laurent, whose defensive record was surpassed only by Bob Turner although neither player logged as much &lsquo;ice time&rsquo; as the club&rsquo;s two super stars along the blue-line, Doug Harvey and Tom Johnson.<h2>Dollard St. Laurent</h2>In all, he has played on four Stanley Cup winners with Canadiens, participated in 65 playoff games and scored one goal.<h2>Counting Heavily on Newcomers</h2>Both Tommy Ivan and Coach Rudy Pilous were counting heavily on St. Laurent last season, just like they had high hopes for Tod Sloan, Ted Lindsayj Jack Evans and Al Arbour, to lead the Hawks out of the woods and they weren&rsquo;t disappointed.Dollard played a full 70-game schedule, scoring four times to tie his previous NHL high attained in 1955-56, and ended with 12 points. He also got into the Chicagoians six playoff games and though he didn&rsquo;t see as much action as he would have liked, he, nevertheless, was a valued performer with the Hawks.Ivan was as optimistic as Pilous that Chicago could make the playoffs and their faith in the Tribe was justified. The addition of Sloan, who fell out of favor with the Toronto Leafs, proved to be the most significant venture for Ivan because Tod came through admirably with 62 scoring points in 59 games to give the Hawks the offensive lift they had been seeking.Now that the Hawks have tasted the wines of victory, what of next year and how did the management feel about last season?Owner James D. Norris may have echoed the sentiments of the Chicago team about the future when he said after the Hawks&rsquo; semi-final Stanley Cup playoff loss to Canadiens, &ldquo;We did the best we could and that wasn&rsquo;t enough.&rdquo;Ivan feels the Hawks are on their way but he refuses to become complacent in the face of Chicago&rsquo;s new found successes. And Pilous reiterated his sentiments after the season ended.&ldquo;All in all, we had a pretty good year. We may have not been as consistent as I would have liked us to be, but I guess we just didn&rsquo;t have enough players capable of coming up with solid performances game in and game out.&rdquo;Where does Pilous feel the Hawks must improve to become a solid contender for the title and possibly the cup this season?&ldquo;I&rsquo;d say we are going to have to come up with a better third line than we were able to put together last season, and I think we could use another solid defenseman.&rdquo;Ivan pointed out that the Hawks could dip into their now flourishing farm system and produce at least three players for the NHL, maybe even next season. One such stalwart is junior centre ace Stan Makita from St. Catharines Teepees. Two others are defenceman Wayne Hillman, brother of Boston&rsquo;s Larry Hillman, and rearguard Reno Robazza from the Calgary Stampeders.&ldquo;I would like to point out that we&rsquo;re not going to make any deals or bring up new players just for the sake of a change. We&rsquo;re going to take our time and choose them carefully,&rdquo; said Ivan, meaning that guys like Evans, Arbour, Sloan and St. Laurent are likely to be around as steady competitors again next season.St. Laurent has always had a wholesome love for hockey. It started back when he was a young sprout struggling for maturity on the same frozen outdoor rinks in Verdun, a Montreal suburb, that produced other notable National Leaguers like Buddy O&rsquo;Connor, Jimmy Peters, Frankie Eddolls, Donnie Marshall, Buck Holling-worth, Jimmy Morrison, Gump Worsley and Jim Bartlett.Even at an early age, St. Laurent was being tabbed for the big time. He progressed through Canadiens&rsquo; minor hockey empire, stopping briefly with the Quebec Hockey League Royals, before he was lifted midway in the 1952-53 season after scoring 10 goals in 27 games, to become an established star in the NHL. He has been there ever since.The personable St. Laurent is a proud family man and recently became a father for the fourth time.<h2>Partnering Harvey</h2>The rollicking backliner admits today that his days with the Canadiens will always be his most cherished ones. Partnering hockey&rsquo;s greatest modern time defenceman, Doug Harvey, has given Dollard a tremendous lift in the game and allowed him to secure wide experience at the same time. He is a natural left rearguard with a pretty fair left-handed slap shot.The fact most of hockey&rsquo;s big stars, Howe, Litzenberger, Bathgate, Armstrong, Toppazzini, Stasiuk and more, all divert to the right side when attacking, places greater impetus on St. Laurent&rsquo;s ability to check well. Now that he is a Hawk, he&rsquo;ll be confronted by two more of hockey&rsquo;s famous right-board nemesis, Maurice Richard and Bernie Geoffrion.St. Laurent has a few momentos by which he&rsquo;ll remember the game when his playing days are terminated. One in particular he won&rsquo;t forget was the day he was accidentlly nicked in the eye by Gordie Howe&rsquo;s stick. The blow almost ended his hockey career.He also has broken both his cheek-bones, suffered a fractured jaw and nose among sundry other injuries. But always he has bounced back with amazing resilience.Many are of the opinion he has several more good years of hockey left and now that he is far removed from the shadows of the Canadiens&rsquo; super stars, these same people see the switch to Chicago as meaning full-scale stardom for St. Laurent.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-012179/10378725-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="502" height="500"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tommy Ivan</figcaption></div>So it may well be, for Dollard St. Laurent is a player of proven big league ability.In Chicago, his star may rise to new heights and the Black Hawks with him.<h2>ST. LAURENT, DOLLARD HERVE</h2>Born, Verdun, Quebec, May 12, 1929. Shoots Left. Height, 5 feet, 11 inches. Weight, 180 pounds.Defence Last Amateur Club: Montreal Royals (Seniors)<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021523/10378718-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="2088" height="1166"></div>a&mdash;Sold to Chicago Black Hawks for undisclosed sum of cash. &#9632;

f0007-01

Spreading New Wings

<div class="byline">By D. Leo Monahan</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0002-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011675/10378687-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg"></div>On Saturday, January 24, the Boston Bruins were playing in Toronto. The game was vital to the playoff aspirations of both clubs. The Bruins were sitting on a tight 2-1 lead when right wing Vic Stasiuk busted in and let fly a scoring shot which screeched past goalie Ed Chadwick, tore a hole in the back of the net and fell outside.The goal judge did not flick the light for what would have been Stasiuk&rsquo;s 19th goal of the season. Referee Red Storey ruled it was no goal, then instructed a linesman to repair the hole in the net.Victor John Stasiuk of Lethbridge, Alta, blew his stack. He ranted and raved at Storey. His language was on the salty side.&ldquo;That was in and you know it,&rdquo; Stasiuk fumed. &ldquo;What are you doing to me? You&rsquo;re taking the food off my kids&rsquo; table.&rdquo;Storey was adamant. &ldquo;No goal,&rdquo; he gestured.Boston Coach Milt Schmidt was discussing the disputed play the next day.&ldquo;Vic was mad,&rdquo; said Schmidt. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t blame him. He works hard for everything he gets.&rdquo;Schmidt summed up the hockey career of Stasiuk in one short sentence.Stasiuk has worked hard for whatever he has in hockey.Vic is a workhorse. He well could be the hardest worker in the National Hockey League. Moving up to the 20-goal-a-season class was not easy for him.&ldquo;The first thing I remember about Vic was his capacity for work,&rdquo; recalls General Manager Lynn Patrick. &ldquo;That and his interest in the game.&rdquo;Patrick first noticed Stasiuk when the Bruins would be working out on the Olympia rink in Detroit. Vic was mostly a spare spear-carrier with the Red Wings. He always was the first man on the practice ice and the last man off.<h2>Sitting Up In Stands</h2>&ldquo;After Detroit had worked out, Pd notice Stasiuk sitting up in the corner of the stands watching the Bruins practice,&rdquo; said Patrick. &ldquo;He was looking over our players, scouting them for little habits and trying to learn something. I made a mental note that a player who worked so hard and studied the game that much would be a nice one to have on our side.&rdquo;Patrick&rsquo;s chance to grab Stasiuk came four seasons ago. Vic had split the season between the Red Wings and Edmonton. He had finished out the season with Detroit as the Wings went on to the Stanley Cup championship.Detroit General Manager Jack Adams wanted several Boston players in return for goalie Terry Sawchuk. Various player combinations kept being tossed about and Patrick kept insisting Stasiuk be included in the deal.&ldquo;Some people claim Stasiuk was a throw-in in the trade,&rdquo; said Patrick. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not true. I wanted Vic from the very outset. I kept insisting he be included in the deal.&rdquo;When Sawchuk visited Boston for a mid-summer visit, he told hockey writers:&ldquo;Stasiuk could be the sleeper in this deal. He&rsquo;s a good hockey player, but he hasn&rsquo;t had too much chance to play.&rdquo;Boston writers rushed to the NHL Guide to check Stasiuk&rsquo;s past performances. There wasn&rsquo;t much evidence that Vic was a ball of fire. True, he had 37 goals and 80 points with Edmonton in the Western League in 1952-53, but all too many hot-shot minor league scorers had fizzled out before in the NHL.Patrick and Sawchuk, however, had made very true appraisals. Vic scored 19 goals in 59 games his first season in Boston. A torn rib muscle in training camp put him off to a slow start. The following year he potted 24 and last season he had 21 while playing a new position &mdash; right wing &mdash; on the newly-formed Uke Line with former Edmonton playmates Bronco Horvath and Johnny Bucyk.How did Stasiuk suddenly bloom into a consistent scorer? He has the answer.<h2>Steady Job</h2>&ldquo;The Bruins gave me a steady job,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;They let me play regularly. The more I play, the better. I need a lot of work, during games and in practice. You can&rsquo;t make a good showing when you&rsquo;re up and down from the minors like a yo-yo.&rdquo;Vic never had been assured of regular employment until, he came to Boston. He spent parts of two seasons in Chicago. He was with Detroit for parts of four seasons, commuting to Indianapolis and Edmonton between spins in the NHL. Stasiuk was with the Wings for two Stanley Cup championships &mdash; 1952 and 1955.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know of any player who works harder than Stasiuk,&rdquo; says Coach Milt Schmidt. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s always in excellent condition and just thrives on work. Many times I&rsquo;ll have a pretty rugged practice for an hour, scrimmaging and all. Most of the others will go in for a shower when were through. Not Vic. He&rsquo;ll stay out another 20 minutes or a half hour to get in more skating or to practice shooting. He has made himself into a topflight hockey player through sheer hard work.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-012342/10378680-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="2281" height="1026"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stasiuk is hemmed in by goalie Ed Chadwick and Dickie Duff during game with Toronto Maple Leafs.</figcaption></div>One of Stasiuk&rsquo;s favorite practice procedures was developing a strong, accurate back-hand shot. He used it to good advantage when he was playing left wing. Last season Vic, a lefthand shot shifted to right wing, had little occasion to use the shot, but it&rsquo;s in his repertoire if he needs it.Every move Vic makes in practice is the result of considerable thought and is designed to make him a better hockey player.Before each period in a game, you&rsquo;ll see him racing from one side of the rink to the other, stopping quickly, then dashing back.<h2>Good Warm-up</h2>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good warm-up,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;When I do that then I&rsquo;m ready to step right in. Otherwise I might be cold. It could make the difference between scoring and not scoring, or that extra stride you need to pick up a man on the backcheck.&rdquo;Stasiuk, like many of the Bruins, is a rough, tough player. He&rsquo;ll step into an opponent if he gets a chance and he seems to take special delight in taking a run at a goalie who wanders too far from his domain. The goalies know it, too, and think twice before roaming far afield.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021975/10378673-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="2263" height="984"><figcaption class="caption-body">Doug Harvey and Jacques Plante sandwich Stasiuk during action between Bruins and Canadiens.</figcaption></div>One of Vic&rsquo;s favorite plays this season has been roaring right in on a goalie and jamming the puck between his legs or under him. It&rsquo;s very disconcerting to a goaltender to see the six-foot-one-inch Stasiuk barreling in, all 185 brawny pounds of him. One of the prize-winning pictures in the NHL photo contest was of Stasiuk falling over Chicago&rsquo;s Glenn Hall. Stasiuk twice has rammed Montreal&rsquo;s Jacques Plante. Once he was driven right in on Plante by defenseman Doug Harvey. Plante suffered a facial injury and possible concussion in that game a year ago.&ldquo;Harvey was riding me into the crossbar,&rdquo; said Stasiuk, &ldquo;I had no choice. I had to get my stick up to protect myself. When I did, I hit Plante. It was an accident.&rdquo;Vic will be 30 years old this May. He and his pretty, blonde, Norwegian-born wife Mary have three blue-eyed children, daughters Vanessa Lynn and Elsa Jay and Victor Guy.<h2>&ldquo;Gets Big Kick&rdquo;</h2>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s great around the children,&rdquo; says Mrs. Stasiuk. &ldquo;He gets a big kick out of some of the things they do, and he&rsquo;s very patient.&rdquo;Unlike many NHL players who come from small towns and move to the city after a taste of the more cosmopolitan life, Vic Stasiuk was born and raised in Lethbridge, Alta, and still makes it his home. He bought some farm land with his first important money earned as a pro.&ldquo;It was a pretty good investment, too,&rdquo; Vic smiles. &ldquo;The land today is worth about 10 times what I paid for it.&rdquo;A solid citizen, a family man and devoted to his chosen profession, Vic Stasiuk is an easygoing guy until he&rsquo;s riled.Like the day after Storey nullified his goal. The Bruins were playing the Rangers at Boston Garden. Stasiuk still was fuming in the dressing room as he prepared for the game. Teammates, writers and friends gave him a wide berth. You almost could see the smoke coming out his ears.&ldquo;Vic&rsquo;s still steaming,&rdquo; smiled Schmidt. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s still talking about that goal.&rdquo;So what happened that night? After 2.23 of the first period, Stasiuk blazed a screecher past goalie Lorne Worsley for goal No. 19.&ldquo;Imagine that,&rdquo; said Stasiuk. &ldquo;That would be my 20th if that&hellip;&rdquo;The rest is censored.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012582/10378666-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="512" height="765"></div>Received first real chance with Rangers last season &hellip; Originally drafted from Montreal organization in 1955-56 &hellip; Scored 20 points in 70 games for New York last season &hellip; Aggressive type player despite a lean frame, he goes best in heavy action &hellip; Spent three years with New York&rsquo;s Providence farm club, scoring 74 goals &hellip; Rangers still have hopes he&rsquo;ll become a front-line star.BARTLETT, JIMRangers; b. Verdun, Que., May 27/32, 5&rsquo; 9&rdquo;, 165 lbs., shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021760/10378659-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="638" height="133"></div>After three years struggling in minors: has finally made grade with Boston &hellip; Can play centre or left wing &hellip; Product of Bruins&rsquo; western junior farm club &hellip; Stands over six feet tall &hellip; Played in final 29 games of last season and Stanley Cup playoffs for Bruins &hellip; Will get full test this season &hellip; Finished 9th in rookie voting last year.LEACH, LARRYBoston; b. Edmonton, shoots left Alta., June 18/36; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-031052/10378652-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="657" height="124"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-04679/10378645-1-eng-US/f0006-042.jpg" title="f0006-04" width="504" height="768"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-05536/10378638-1-eng-US/f0006-052.jpg" title="f0006-05" width="514" height="758"></div>Making third attempt this season to crash big time &hellip; Divided 1958-59 campaign between Detroit and Seattle of WHL &hellip; Played final 14 games of NHL year with Red Wings without scoring &hellip; Started year at Seattle getting 41 points in 50 games &hellip; Nephew of Detroit immortal late Larry Aurie &hellip; Will wear his famed No. 6 &hellip; Still young, has chance to make Wings this year.BURTON, CUMMINGDetroit; b. Sudbury, Ont., May 12/36; 5&rsquo;10", 175 lbs., shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-06386/10378631-1-eng-US/f0006-062.jpg" title="f0006-06" width="645" height="113"></div>Bright new prospect with Red Wings &hellip; Received chance last season after three years toiling at Edmonton farm club in WHL &hellip; Counted 14 goals in 68 games during first year &hellip; Husky, blond centre who will be fitted into regular berth this season &hellip; Scored 59 times in last two years at Edmonton &hellip; One of taller men in NHL at 6&rsquo; &hellip; Finished sixth in rookie award voting in &rsquo;58-59.LUNDE, LENDetroit; b. Campbell River, B.C., Nov. 13/36; 6&rsquo;, 180 lbs., shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-07261/10378624-1-eng-US/f0006-072.jpg" title="f0006-07" width="642" height="117"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-08165/10378617-1-eng-US/f0006-082.jpg" title="f0006-08" width="511" height="759"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-09115/10378610-1-eng-US/f0006-092.jpg" title="f0006-09" width="507" height="757"></div>Success came late to him last season with Toronto &hellip; Picked up by Leafs from Detroit for stretch run &hellip; Played vital role in getting Leafs into playoffs and came up with several payoff goals in Stanley Cup playoffs &hellip; Kicked around minors in Detroit chain for six years &hellip; Was outstanding playoff figure with 13 points in 12 games last season &hellip; Snap shot highly effective.EHMAN, GERRYToronto, b. Cudworth, Sask., Nov. 3/32; 6&rsquo;, 175 lbs; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1086/10378603-1-eng-US/f0006-102.jpg" title="f0006-10" width="648" height="120"></div>A newcomer to the NHL with Montreal&hellip; Last season scored 36 points in 69 games for Canadiens in his rookie year &hellip; Placed third in Calder Cup voting &hellip; Won chance in NHL after 63-point season at Rochester in 1957-58 &hellip; One of pro game&rsquo;s &lsquo;big men&rsquo; &hellip; Stands 6&rsquo;2", 190 pounds &hellip; Skating once a problem for him but improvement shown in last two years &hellip; Should be regular again this season.McDonald, abCanadiens; b. Winnipeg, Man., Feb. 18/36; 6&rsquo;2&frac12;&rdquo; 190 lbs., shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1170/10378596-1-eng-US/f0006-112.jpg" title="f0006-11" width="642" height="121"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1256/10378589-1-eng-US/f0006-122.jpg" title="f0006-12" width="509" height="760"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1341/10378582-1-eng-US/f0006-132.jpg" title="f0006-13" width="515" height="755"></div>Looks like carbon copy of Lou Fontinato &hellip; Has drive and aggressiveness &hellip; Rangers drafted him from Chicoutimi off Montreal list &hellip; Starting second year with New Yorkers &hellip; One of few Mari-timers playing in NHL &hellip; Registered 11 points in 70 games during first season with Rangers &hellip; Of Syrian extraction, speaks three languages &hellip; Could come into his own this season with Blues.HANNA, JOHNRangers; Sydney, N.S., Apr. 5/35; 5&rsquo;10&rsquo;A&rdquo;, 175 lbs. shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1428/10378575-1-eng-US/f0006-142.jpg" title="f0006-14" width="645" height="133"></div>Will get chance this season with New York &hellip; Secured by Rangers in trade with Cleveland of AHL&hellip; Second highest scorer on team and seventh in league last year with 76 points in 62 games &hellip; Was hot early-season choice for rookie award&hellip; Won same honor previous year in WHL&hellip; Rangers will give him shot at gaping centre ice hole &hellip; Tall player at 6&rsquo;1", 180 pounds.STRATTON, ARTRangers; b. Winnipeg, Man., Oct. 8/35; 6&rsquo;1&rdquo; 180 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1524/10378568-1-eng-US/f0006-152.jpg" title="f0006-15" width="504" height="755"></div><h2>The Best Hockey Guide Published!</h2>YES, that&rsquo;s the 1959-60 Edition of the N.H.L. PRESS & RADIO GUIDE&bull;Send for YoursTODAY!&bull;Consult page 16<h2>STASIUK, VICTOR JOHN</h2>Born, Lethbridge, Alberta, May 23, 1929 Shoots Left. Height, 6 feet, 1 Inch. Weight, 185 pounds. Left Wing.Last Amateur Club: Wetasklwin Canadiens (Juniors).<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-012188/10378561-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="1475" height="1254"></div>a&mdash;Traded to Detroit Red Wings with Bert Olmstead for Lee Fogolin and Steve Black.b&mdash;Traded to Boston Bruins with Marcel Bonin. Terry Sawchuk and Lorne Davis for Eddie Sandford. Real Chevrefils, Norm Corcoran, Warren Godfrey and Gilles Boisvert. &#9632;

f0002-01

Hockey’s Hardest Worker

<div class="byline">By Vince Lunny</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-012451/10378896-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marcel Pronovost (3) is one of best defenders in the National Hockey League.</figcaption></div>Marcel Pronovost was patrolling the area behind the blueline for the Detroit Red Wings in a National Hockey League game in Madison Square Garden.Suddenly a wayward puck, propelled high and fast, streaked through the air and headed like a jet on target for his nose. Before Pronovost could act instinctively, it crashed into his beak. The skin split, the bone splintered and blood oozed through a painful gash.The Red Wing defenseman, just this year winning all-star acclaim, took over his gloves and with experienced fingers explored the damage.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the 12th or 13th time I&rsquo;ve broken my nose,&rdquo; he remarked sadly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure which.&rdquo;Five minutes and four stitches later, after first aid in the Garden clinic, he was back on the ice wondering when it would happen again, speculating on how many more stitches would be added to his already impressive total of 200-odd. One time he had an 18 stitch job when he went flying through a defence and landed in rather unorthodox fashion on his left eyebrow. Another time he had 12 stitches after being nicked by Pierre Pilote&rsquo;s stick in Chicago.Apparently ruggedness and the ability to absorb such punishment without missing too much ice time are yielding dividends in fame for Marcel Pronovost who, in his seventh full season with the Red Wings, looks as though he is going to make the 1959-60 first all-star team. Last year he got a taste of recognition when he was named to the second squad. That was a kind of chuck roast. This year, only six ballot points behind Canadiens&rsquo; Tom Johnson in the first half poll, he seems likely to end up by feasting on the prime ribs.<h2>Pleasant Surprise</h2>The results of the early all-star voting came as a pleasant surprise to Pronovost. &ldquo;I was sure Tom Johnson would make the first team,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been playing terrific hockey. But I was inclined to think that Bill Gadsby of the Rangers would get the other spot. Gadsby had more scoring points than I. However things went my way and I&rsquo;m thankful.&rdquo;Pronovost attributes his recognition to the fact that he is playing more conspicuously this season because he&rsquo;s doing more puck carrying.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-012033/10378889-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="2677" height="3580"></div>&ldquo;You always look a lot better when you are galloping out of your own end with the puck than when you are standing around with it on your stick, looking for someone to pass to,&rdquo; he said.Always a deft puck carrier, a fast skater and a sharp shooter, Pronovost attributes his good fortune this season to Coach Sid Abel, who has encouraged him to indulge his natural inclinations.&ldquo;If you see a chance go,&rdquo; Abel told Pronovost, a converted forward. &ldquo;Someone will cover up for you.&rdquo;Strictly defensively, Pronovost thinks he played just as well last year but failed to catch the eyes of the critics.Generally it takes longer for a defenseman to win recognition than it does for a forward. The yardstick is more elastic. Experts and fans alike are less likely to notice a sparkling defensive play because the end result is negative&mdash;just one shot less on a netminder who might have stopped the puck anyway. A forward&rsquo;s fine play is climaxed by a red light blinking in clinching confirmation. It has all the finality of a dropped egg.<h2>Good Defensive Play</h2>What people don&rsquo;t realize, argues Pronovost, is that good defensive play limits the shots on net, or renders them less accurate. In the final analysis the fewer the shots, the fewer the goals.What manner of man is this hard-hitting, agile rearguard who discusses the game with such a heroically rational approach?Marcel Pronovost is a mild, even-tempered individual who enjoys the stimulation of a challenge whether it&rsquo;s on the ice, on a golf course or at the bridge table. As a matter of fact he and Gordie Howe have been conducting a marathon bridge game against Norm Ullman and Billy McNeill all season. In trains, in hotel rooms, wherever they have an hour or two to spare, which is often in the nomadic life of a hockey player, they open a deck of cards and the battle of wits and skill is continued.At one stage Pronovost and Howe were ahead 10,000 points. But Ullman and McNeill cut the lead to 1,800 points. At a tenth of a cent a point, there isn&rsquo;t much at stake. That suits Pronovost who confesses no particular desire to risk any greater amount which is typical of his characteristic conservativeness.Pronovost is a self-taught bridge player. He learned by watching others and now he can discuss Goren point count bidding and the Blackwood convention with an air of authority.<h2>Home-Loving Man</h2>The Detroit defenseman is a home-loving man, the type of upright citizen who finds his greatest comforts in the family circle. He is married to the former Cindy Lapierre of Pembroke, Ont., whom he met while playing softball at Shawinigan Falls, Que., a booming power harnessing and chemical manufacturing centre on the broad, green flood of the St. Maurice river. Cindy&rsquo;s brothers were on the squad which represented Fraser-Brace Engineering Co.The couple have two adopted children, a boy of four and a girl of two. Cindy is talking about adopting a third child but Marcel would like to wait until the others are a little older.The Pronovost family provides a sterling example of the mutual benefits of adoption. Here are two wonderful children, who otherwise almost certainly would have been confined to an institution, enjoying all the loving care that a fine home affords. And here is a happy couple, unselfishly reaping the joys of parenthood although they have no children of their own.&ldquo;It never enters my mind that the children are adopted,&rdquo; said Marcel. &ldquo;They are simply a vital part of a family, my family. My wife and I love them for what they are.&rdquo;The Pronovosts live in Detroit in the winter, in a cozy west side home rented from a couple who prefer to spend their winters in Florida. In summer they live in a new house at Beauharnois, Que., on the south shore of the mighty St. Lawrence river, not far from Montreal. Marcel kept his muscles strong and supple last summer by doing all the landscaping himself.<h2>Moved Tons of Earth</h2>&ldquo;I moved 30 tons of earth,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and screened 10 tons of it. But there is a lot of solid satisfaction later in seeing what has been accomplished by one&rsquo;s own toil.&rdquo;A versatile athlete who caught and played the outfield for the Fraser-Brace softball team in Shawinigan Falls, Pronovost now finds his off-season recreation on the golf course. As a youngster he lived about a quarter-mile from the nine-hole links at Shawinigan South and by the time he was 12 he was caddying. As most caddies do, he found an irresistible fascination in the game and soon he was swinging woods and irons with easy rhythm and controlled power.Modestly he admits that Gordie Howe and Nick Mickoski are better Red Wing golfers than he is, but in three rounds at Montreal&rsquo;s ruggedly hazardous Islesmere club last summer he shot 76, 75 and 74, clipping a stroke off his total each time.Pronovost was born at Lac a la Tortue, Que., June 15, 1930, but his family moved to nearby Shawinigan Falls when he was three. There, even before he plaved his first hockey game, he suffered his first broken nose. Marcel was only seven when a friend on a bicycle collided with him. In the spill Pronovost&rsquo;s nose was shattered, the first indication that it was to be a tender and susceptible part of his skeletography.<h2>Stepped on Rake</h2>&ldquo;Another time I stepped on a rake,&rdquo; Marcel recalled. &ldquo;It happened just as you see it in the cartoons. The handle flew up and clipped me on the nose. I remember another break as a kid when I peaked around a corner in a mud ball fight and took one square in the face. When I was 12 years old, I had my most serious break. I was playing hockey on a neighborhood rink. Another player fell over me and his skate chopped through my nose, missing the eyeball by an eighth of an inch.&rdquo;That harrowing experience didn&rsquo;t deter Pronovost who is made of stern stuff. A few years later he was good enough to play for the Shawinigan Tech team against Montreal in the Quebec juvenile playoffs. Teammates included Johnny and Larry Wilson, who were born in Kincardine, Ont., but grew up in the Falls.Shawinigan beat Montreal 14-0 and at a celebration dinner Marcel Cote, a Detroit scout operating in the shadow of the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; organization in Quebec, approached him.&ldquo;I had been shifted from centre to defence because they needed big fellows behind the blueline and at five-foot-ten and weighing nearly 160 pounds, I was one of the biggest fellows on the team,&rdquo; Pronovost said.&ldquo;Cote came over to the table and asked the Wilsons if they would be interested in playing for Detroit some day. Then he turned to me and asked, &rsquo;how about you?&rsquo; I was so thrilled I could hardly answer. Words stuck in my throat but I guess Cote read my answer in the expression on my face. Anyway he came to Shawinigan later that summer and, after talking things over with my father, I signed a Detroit agreement. In August I got my orders to report to the Red Wing training camp at Kitchener, Ont.&rdquo;Some fifty youngsters were trying out for the Windsor Spitfires, the Detroit affiliate in the Ontario Hockey Association. Against this competition, Pronovost persevered with typical tenacity and made the grade. He remained for two years at Windsor and in both seasons the Spitfires won the OHA title.<h2>Set League Record</h2>In 1949 he yielded to the lure of professionalism and was assigned to the Omaha Knights of the United States League. He set a league record for point scoring by a defenseman, captured the league rookie award and, when the Knights were eliminated in the U.S. League playoffs, was called up by Detroit to join the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup playoffs.He played nine games against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Rangers and, still only 19 years old, saw his name engraved on the Stanley Cup, one of the youngest players in history to achieve that honor.The following season, Marcel started with the Wings, but a fractured cheek bone in training camp retarded his development and he was sent to Indianapolis. Playing a half season for the Capitals under Coach Ott Heller, his outstanding work won him a place on the American Hockey League&rsquo;s second all-star team.Pronovost slipped into a Detroit uniform again in February, 1951, and has retained his spot ever since, breaking in first with Leo Reise as a partner and playing later with Bob Goldman.Marcel credits &ldquo;the advice I got at home in Shawinigan Falls from Mr. C. N. Crutchfield, the coaching I got at Windsor from Jimmy Skinner and the fine example set by Reise and Gold-ham&rdquo; as valuable stepping stones in his progress.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-012368/10378882-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="500" height="761"></div>One of the super-stars of the NHL today &hellip; Hailed by New Yorkers as the Rangers&rsquo; greatest player since the days of Frank Boucher and the Cook brothers &hellip; Last season ended second in NHL scoring race with 88 points, won MVP award and Hart Trophy and was picked on first all-star team &hellip; Playing fifth season with Blues &hellip; Gifted with great shot, crafty stickhandling ability &hellip; Excellent off-season golfer as well.BATHGATE, ANDYRangers; b. Winnipeg, Man., Aug. 28/32; 6&rsquo;, 175 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021759/10378875-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="638" height="119"></div>Reminds Boston fans of old time Bruin great Bill Cowley &hellip; Led team in scoring last season with 62 points in 70 games &hellip; Joined Boston&rsquo;s 30-goal club last year &hellip; Noted for his playmaking artistry having compiled 143 assists in five seasons with Boston &hellip; Edged out of second all-star team centre spot by Henri Richard last season by mere one vote.MCKENNEY, DONBoston; b. Smiths Falls, Ont. Apr. 30/34; 6&rsquo;, 170 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-031188/10378868-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="631" height="118"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04814/10378861-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="503" height="768"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-05561/10378854-1-eng-US/f0014-052.jpg" title="f0014-05" width="502" height="760"></div>One of hockey&rsquo;s most fabulous players &hellip; Beginning seventh full season with Canadiens and always a prolific scorer &hellip; Has amassed 436 scoring points in 377 games since becoming a Habitant&hellip; Last year ended runner-up in NHL point race with 91 &hellip; Led loop in goals with 45 &hellip; Has won Calder Trophy and Ross Trophy &hellip; In six seasons he has collected 208 goals &hellip; Truly a super star in hockey.BELIVEAU, JEANCanadiens; b. Trois-Rividres, Que., Aug. 31/31; 6&rsquo; 3", 205 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-06435/10378847-1-eng-US/f0014-062.jpg" title="f0014-06" width="621" height="123"></div>Skyrocketed into prominence in NHL during past two seasons with Montreal&hellip; Won scoring title and named to first allstar team left wing for past two years &hellip; Won Ross Trophy as No. 1 point-getter in 1957-58 with 84 points and repeated last season with 96 points &hellip; Playing fifth straight year as Hab regular &hellip;Has sustained many injuries since coming into NHL.MOORE, DICKIECanadiens; b. Montreal, Que., Jan. 6/31; 5&rsquo; 11", 172 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-07339/10378840-1-eng-US/f0014-072.jpg" title="f0014-07" width="633" height="119"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-08277/10378833-1-eng-US/f0014-082.jpg" title="f0014-08" width="506" height="766"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-09241/10378826-1-eng-US/f0014-092.jpg" title="f0014-09" width="492" height="757"></div>Greatest of all the Red Wings and to many the greatest player of all time &hellip; Ranks as second highest scorer in NHL history with 418 goals, topped only by Maurice Richard &hellip; Has won just about everything in NHL &hellip; Scoring champion five times, picked on ten all-star teams, played on four cup winners, won Hart Trophy four years, second all-time pointgetter.HOWE, GORDIEDetroit; b. Floral, Sask., Mar. 31/28, 6&rsquo;, 200 lbs.;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-10215/10378819-1-eng-US/f0014-102.jpg" title="f0014-10" width="627" height="120"></div>One of main reasons for Canadiens&rsquo; popularity and success &hellip; Won Vezina Trophy last four years in NHL &hellip; Prides himself in being best of his profession and has record to prove it &hellip; Most colorful goalkeeper to come into big time hockey&hellip; His roving style of play has revolutionized game &hellip; Has been on last four cup winners with Habs &hellip; First all-star goaler for second time last year.PLANTE, JACQUESCanadiens; b. Shawinigan Falls, Que., Jan. 17/29, 6&rsquo;, 175 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-11189/10378812-1-eng-US/f0014-112.jpg" title="f0014-11" width="637" height="118"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-12172/10378805-1-eng-US/f0014-122.jpg" title="f0014-12" width="502" height="762"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-13144/10378798-1-eng-US/f0014-132.jpg" title="f0014-13" width="497" height="764"></div>Still going strong in NHL with Black Hawks after 15 years, 13 as Red Wing great &hellip; Perennial high scorer with Detroit &hellip; One of most dynamic and controversial figures hockey has ever known &hellip; Second season with Chicago &hellip; 5&rsquo;8&rdquo; veteran winger has played in more than 900 NHL games &hellip; Chosen on first all-star team eight times, won NHL scoring in 1949-50 &hellip; Third highest scorer of all-time with 358 goals.LINDSAY, TEDChicago; b. Renfrew, Ont., July 29/25; 5&rsquo; 8", 160 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-14120/10378791-1-eng-US/f0014-142.jpg" title="f0014-14" width="635" height="129"></div>Returned to early NHL form last season with Black Hawks &hellip; Purchased from Toronto after falling out with Leafs&rsquo; management &hellip; Collected 62 points in 59 games for Hawks in 1958-59 &hellip; Veteran of nine full years in NHL, eight with Leafs &hellip; Brainy hockey player who is fine playmaker and able scorer &hellip; Has tallied 189 goals in NHL career &hellip; Made second all-star team once.SLOAN, TODChicago; b. Vinton, Que., Nov. 30/27; 5&rsquo;. 10&rdquo;, 175 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-15110/10378784-1-eng-US/f0014-152.jpg" title="f0014-15" width="625" height="124"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-1696/10378777-1-eng-US/f0014-162.jpg" title="f0014-16" width="497" height="763"></div><h2>PRONOVOST, RENE MARCEL</h2>Born, Lac la Tortue, Quebec, June 15, 1930 Shoots Left. Height, 6 feet. Weight 190 pounds.Defence Last Amateur Club: Windsor Spitfires (Juniors)<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-012080/10378770-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="2110" height="1077"></div> &#9632;

f0010-01

Pronovost’s Nose Knows

<div class="byline">By Charlie Halpin</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-012053/10378948-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Phil Goyette gets into the swing of things at left during Hab-Rangers tilt.</figcaption></div>You have to pack a little something extra to make the plunge into hockey&rsquo;s big time. Brawn alone isn&rsquo;t enough.You&rsquo;ve got to be a thinker as well. Or as they say in the hockey vernacular, &ldquo;you have to be able to play with your head".That&rsquo;s the way it is with the &lsquo;Thin Man&rsquo; of the Montreal Canadiens, Phil Goyette, a scholarly-looking young man who, out of uniform, could pass for an office clerk.Hockey is a bruising, bone-crushing game. So it&rsquo;s truly remarkable that a player of such slight stature as Goyette should be working on a record of 104 successive NHL games without even so much as sustaining a broken finger nail, prior to the beginning of the 1958-59 season.It has been proven many times in the past that the little guys invariably find the going rough. Yet they couldn&rsquo;t hold down such mighty mites of the ice lanes as Mush March, Normie Himes, Rabbit McVeigh, Aurel Joliat, Tony Leswick and in more recent times, Billy Mosienko and Henri Richard among others.How did such recognized &lsquo;squirts&rsquo; of the ice pastime escape the rough going that has become part of the rigorous NHL grind? Many had certain attributes that extended their careers, Joliat, for example, could dangle a puck on the end of his stick with such magic and dexterity that few were able to lay a glove on him.But primarily, they were all rational thinkers on the ice and like the Habs &ldquo;toothpick&rdquo; centre, Goyette, they merely eluded trouble by outguessing their more frisky rivals.The 25-year-old Goyette is embarking on his fourth season in the NHL and there are many who wouldn&rsquo;t have thought he would last this long after being plucked off the Quebec Hockey League Royals in the waning weeks of the 1956-57 year to meet a centre-ice emergency. He hasn&rsquo;t missed a game since.<h2>Avoids Trouble</h2>Goyette modestly admits he has been able to come this far unscathed principally because he avoids trouble on the ice. &ldquo;If I can possibly skate away from a check without messing up a play, I will do so,&rdquo; says &lsquo;Phantom Phil&rsquo;. &ldquo;I know I can last longer in the NHL that way.&rdquo; But don&rsquo;t get the idea Phil runs away from anyone.The wiry centre recalled a thudding bodycheck Marcel Pronovost of the Red Wings tossed at him last season in the Detroit Olympia.&ldquo;It sure flattened me. I think I may have been, skating with my head down for an instant,&rdquo; he confessed.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-012137/10378941-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="1305" height="1854"><figcaption class="caption-body">Phil Goyette</figcaption></div>The fact he is considered by the hockey press as a &lsquo;little guy&rsquo; doesn&rsquo;t deter Phil in the least. Truth of the matter is, he doesn&rsquo;t think he is small. He stand 5&rsquo;11&frac12;. &ldquo;There are plenty of guys smaller than me in this league,&rdquo; he says.Goyette is naturally thrilled at being a member of Les Canadiens. &ldquo;Signing a pro contract was my biggest thrill in hockey,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;What about the three goals you scored in the Stanley Cup playoff last spring with Detroit, doesn&rsquo;t that rate as your top thrill?&rdquo; he was asked.&ldquo;It certainly was a wonderful experience for me,&rdquo; admitted Goyette, &ldquo;but you feel like you&rsquo;re walking on a cloud the first time you sit down to sign an NHL contract with Canadiens. I still think that was my big moment,&rdquo; he said.Phil revealed that he actually played his first 14 league and 10 playoff games without inking an NHL pact. He was on a game-to-game basis and only signed a Canadiens&rsquo; contract last year. It also enabled him to be classified as a rookie and pocket an extra $1,000 when Canadiens thought enough of his services to award him the bonus even though he trailed both Frank Mahovlich of Toronto and Chicago&rsquo;s Bobby Hull for the Calder Cup award.<h2>Dislikes Voting</h2>The regulations governing the rookie award voting have become a bone of contention with the French-Canadian star, who started playing hockey in a church league in Lachine, a Montreal suburb. He thinks balloting should be conducted at the close of the schedule rather than divided into first and second half selections.In 1957-58, Goyette, who is like baseball&rsquo;s Rocky Nelson &mdash; a notoriously slow starter &mdash; found he was facing an insurmountable deficit when Mahovlich opened the season with a flurry and captured the majority of the sports writers&rsquo; votes. As it turned out, Goyette ultimately ended up 10 scoring points ahead of Mahovlich, who won the actual rookie honors.But Phil&rsquo;s agility on the ice didn&rsquo;t go unnoticed. Canadiens&rsquo; managing director, Frank J. Selke, sounded off for the benefit of the press when he said, &ldquo;can you imagine that kid not winning the rookie award. As far as the Canadiens are concerned, he&rsquo;s the best rookie in the league. If he can&rsquo;t win the award, then we&rsquo;ll give him the $1,000 anyway.&rdquo;Phil&rsquo;s coach, Toe Blake, cites Goyette&rsquo;s great determination and good hockey sense as two vital factors for his elevation to the NHL.During the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1957-58, Toe paid Goyette a rare testimonial when he inferred, &ldquo;Mahovlich &hellip; Hall &hellip; heck I wouldn&rsquo;t trade Goyette for either of them.&rdquo;One of the three Canadien regulars &mdash; the others were Dickie Moore and Claude Provost &mdash; who travelled the gruelling 70-game schedule in 1957-58 without missing a single encounter, Goyette is probably the most deceiving performer under the &lsquo;big top&rsquo;.<h2>Tricky Fellow</h2>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t&rsquo;let his appearance fool you, he&rsquo;s tricky and deceptive on the ice,&rdquo; says Toe Blake. &ldquo;He might look like anything but an athlete, but he&rsquo;s hard. He can move out of the way quickly and most important, he&rsquo;s a smart player. Phil never makes a wrong move and he rarely makes a bad pass,&rdquo; commented the Habs&rsquo; coach.Blake admits there was a time when his confidence in Goyette may have wavered. It happened early last season when Phil went into a tailspin and looked only mediocre on the ice. Blake thought he would have no recourse but to bench him. But Toe stuck with him and he came through.Phil couldn&rsquo;t beg, borrow or steal a goal last season during the frustrating first 15 games. When asked what goalkeeper gave him the most trouble, Phil quipped, &ldquo;all of them.&rdquo; He said he actually hit the post 10 times during the early games. &ldquo;The puck just wouldn&rsquo;t roll for me,&rdquo; he said.Playing in the shadow of the Habs&rsquo; super stars, Rocket Richard, Jean Beliveau, Doug Harvey, Geoffrion and others, likely cost Phil the rookie award last year. It undoubtedly discouraged the selectors, who seemed to have eyes only for the club&rsquo;s big guns.But Phil has no qualms about playing second fiddle to the Richards, Beliveaus and Geoffrions. &ldquo;I just like being a Canadien,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It gives you a wonderful feeling of security to be playing with those fellas.&rdquo;Goyette finished 47th in the NHL scoring list last year and was 12th on the Canadiens&rsquo; point parade. Phil pivots wingers Andre Pronovost and Claude Provost and the best thing that can be said in their favor is that they are the best third line in the NHL and possibly better than some first lines of other teams.Phil, who is a deft stickhandler, scored ten goals and helped set up 18 others for 28 points during the schedule. His line had only 30 goals scored against it, which was tops defensively for the Habs last season.Goyette scored four of the Canadiens&rsquo; first nine goals in the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1957-58 &mdash; three in one game against Detroit &mdash; to set the &ldquo;Flying Frenchmen&rsquo; rolling towards another world championship.The even-tempered Goyette incurs few penalties. He was assessed only eight minutes in 195758 but despite his &lsquo;gentlemanly&rsquo; play he was a central figure in one of the Forum&rsquo;s wildest free-for-alls against the belligerent Chicago Black Hawks.&ldquo;It was the strangest mix-up I had ever seen,&rdquo; said Phil. &ldquo;I was standing back sizing up the situation when all of a sudden Bailey (Hawks&rsquo; Bob Bailey) grabbed me and we were wrestling on the ice.&rdquo; Phil looked like a disheveled figure as he skated off after the fracas with sweater in hand.Bailey had ripped it off his back.But Phil took it all in stride. It is pretty difficult to rattle hockey&rsquo;s &lsquo;Thin Man&rsquo;, who is making a determined bid for stardom with his thinking cap at a jaunty angle.<h2>THE BEST HOCKEY GUIDE PUBLISHED!</h2>The 1959-60 Edition of the NHL PRESS & RADIO GUIDE also includes Hendy&rsquo;s Who&rsquo;s Who in Hockey.This compact 224-page book answers every question imaginable about the National League. Gives complete professional records of every player in the National, American, Western and Eastern Professional Leagues.Price: $1.00 per copy.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-021618/10378934-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="1079" height="667"></div><h2>GOYETTE, PHILIPPE (PHIL)</h2>Born, Lachine, Quebec, October 31, 1933. Shoots Left. Height, 5 feet, 1 &frac12; inches. Weight, 170 pounds. Centre.Last Amateur Club: Montreal Canadiens (Juniors).<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011825/10378927-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="2100" height="963"></div> &#9632;

f0015-01

Canucks’ Thin Man

f0018-01

MEMOIRS OF AN OLD PRO

<div class="byline">By Steve Whalley</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0024-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011586/10379157-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">George Armstrong, of the Maple Leafs, gets ready for another trip on the road.</figcaption></div>It&rsquo;s a lonely life, the life of a hockey player.Even though one is surrounded by team mates, there are times when the hours drag by like weary snails because diversions are necessarily limited by the monastic aspects of athletic life.But the average player, intent upon his responsibilities on the ice, doesn&rsquo;t allow his thoughts to dwell upon the duller off-ice side of his job.Take George Armstrong, the hard-skating, rugged checking right winger of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The long train rides from city to city with the inevitable card games and the dreary days in hotel rooms with little to do but sleep don&rsquo;t faze him.When the Leafs were on a road trip to Montreal, for one of their seven Thursday engagements against the Canadiens, we called George Armstrong in his room at the Sheraton Mount Royal Hotel. It was noon of a bright, crisp day but George answered in a sleepy voice and confessed that he was still abed.The Leafs had played in Toronto the night before and he had tossed and turned in his berth on the overnight train, playing the game over and over in the seething caldron of his mind as most hockey players generally do.Would we call him back between four and five o&rsquo;clock, George pleaded. By that time he would be up and would have eaten with his mates around 3:30.We called from the lobby of the hotel at 4:30. Dick Duff, Army&rsquo;s room mate on this trip, answered and said, &ldquo;come on up.&rdquo; We found Duff absorbed in a magazine and Armstrong back in bed, but awake.<h2>Likes Plenty of Rest</h2>&ldquo;I like to get plenty of rest the day of a game,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;Gotta store up energy if I&rsquo;m going to expend it.&rdquo;Duff, who is less inclined to rest being of a different temperament, decided to go out and buy a tie. &ldquo;The fellows are always kidding me because I&rsquo;ve been wearing the same one for weeks,&rdquo; he confessed.Armstrong said it wasn&rsquo;t unusual for him to stay in bed almost all day on a road trip although &ldquo;sometimes I get up and go to a show with some of the fellows.&rdquo;&ldquo;Cowboy and Indian pictures?&rdquo; we enquired.George grinned non-committally. His mother is an 0jibway Indian and he is proud of his heritage.&rsquo; Stories have claimed that Army&rsquo;s mother is full-blooded but George set the record straight. Some French-Canadian blood flows through her veins, too. Her maiden name was Decarie. His father is of Irish descent and, while George resembles his mother&rsquo;s people, he inherited his athletic ability from his dad. A Falconbridge miner, Mr. Armstrong was a star soccer fullback in his young days.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-011381/10379150-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="2318" height="1490"><figcaption class="caption-body">Syl Apps, left, Ted Kennedy, centre, and current Leaf Armstrong get together for gag shot.</figcaption></div>The Leafs&rsquo; Army is an honorary chief of the Stoney tribe which dwells on a reservation near Calgary in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.His title? Big Chief Shoot-the-Puck.&ldquo;It all happened when I went to Calgary in 1950 with the Toronto Marlboros for the Allan Cup finals,&rdquo; George recalled as he hopped himself up on a pillow. &ldquo;We had an off day during the series and a gracious host chartered a bus to take us to Banff. When we stopped at the foot of a mountain everyone seemed to know what was going on except me. We were met by some tribal leaders, who placed a ceremonial headpiece on me and conferred the title.&rdquo;<h2>George the Chief</h2>The players started calling George the Chief. Even now, nine years later, that name is heard as often as Army in the Toronto dressing room.Sometimes on road trips, George goes into the big department stores and wanders around.&ldquo;Are you ever recognized?&rdquo; we asked.&ldquo;Seldom,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;unless it&rsquo;s around the rink where people seem to expect to encounter hockey players. It&rsquo;s the exception rather than the rule to be recognized out of town, even in Montreal where the people are more knowledgeable about hockey players than those in the American cities. At home it&rsquo;s different. A player is usually recognized in his own city, especially by the kids.&rdquo;As George relaxed, we talked about the social life of a hockey player. Was he able to make up in Toronto for the long hours on the road?&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there isn&rsquo;t time. Let&rsquo;s run over a typical week. Last night we played in Toronto. Tonight we&rsquo;re in Montreal. Friday night we&rsquo;ll be back in Toronto. I&rsquo;ll probably look at television and take it easy in preparation for another game on Saturday night. Sunday we&rsquo;ll be in Detroit for our fourth game in five nights. Monday we&rsquo;ll be back home but after the two weekend games, I won&rsquo;t feel like doing much. Then comes Tuesday &mdash; time to rest up for another Wednesday night game. Once or twice a season, if there is a lull in the schedule, I take my wife dancing.&rdquo;&ldquo;Do you like to dance?&rdquo; we asked.George smiled. &ldquo;No. But Betty does.&rdquo;Armstrong and Betty Shannon, a Falconbridge girl, were married five years ago. They have two youngsters, Brian, 4, and Betty Ann, 2.<h2>Watches Telecast</h2>At home on Saturday afternoons, George watches the National Hockey League telecast over the Columbia Broadcasting System&rsquo;s network. Young Brian shows interest for a few minutes but, being somewhat less than appreciative of his father&rsquo;s interests, quickly deserts the TV set in favor of the things in life that interest a healthy boy.Betty goes to the Saturday night games in Maple Leaf Gardens with defenseman Marc Reaume&rsquo;s wife and the two girls cheer lustily for their husbands.After the game the foursome usually indulges in a tasty snack although on off nights George doesn&rsquo;t eat before going to bed. To keep his weight at 192 pounds, he must affix a firm martingale to his appetite. Otherwise, like a horse that requires that gear, his appetite would be beyond control.Often a notoriously slow starter, George got off at a good pace this season for the Leafs. In 1957-58 he sank only three goals by Christmas, scored 14 in the remainder of the season. This year at Yuletide he had seven goals although out of the lineup for 11 games. He attributes his better first half showing this year to revised weight control.&ldquo;In other years,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I worked hard all summer and went to camp tired. Two years ago I found myself weighing 218 pounds in mid-August. I went on a drastic crash diet and dropped 18 pounds before reporting for training. But I was as weak as cream cheese.<h2>Watched Weight</h2>&ldquo;In 1957-58 I wound up the season at 195 pounds. I watched my weight all summer, played a little baseball and this year I didn&rsquo;t have to tax myself to get into shape. I was only three pounds overweight when I reported. I took that excess poundage off in three days and, frankly, I never felt better in my life.&rdquo;George likes baseball. Once he considered it as a career. He was good enough to play against the St. Louis Browns in an exhibition game in Toronto. After that game the baseball Leafs suggested he sign a contract and join a class C or class D club.&ldquo;As I was playing top minor league hockey at Pittsburgh by then, I decided to forget about baseball and concentrate on hockey as a career,&rdquo; he said.Army moved into a new home in Sudbury in 1958 and he spent a good deal of the summer putting the finishing touch to it, landscaping a 70 x 150 foot lot and cultivating a vegetable garden. The Armstrongs live in a rented home in Toronto in winter but once four-year-old Brian becomes a scholar they&rsquo;ll have to revamp their living pattern. George won&rsquo;t want to move him during a scholastic year.Although Army came up from junior hockey with a glowing reputation as a scorer, he has never quite realized his full potential in the National Hockey League. In six seasons he had failed to hit the 20-goal mark, until he finally succeeded last season.<h2>Tremendous Team Player</h2>&ldquo;George Armstrong is a great worker, a tremendous team player,&rdquo; said King Clancy, a great defenseman of another era, as we sat in the press box a few hours after talking to Armstrong in his hotel room. &ldquo;You can always count on him for 100% effort.&rdquo;In 1947-48 with Stratford in the Ontario Hockey Association&rsquo;s junior section, Army led the league in scoring with 73 points, 33 goals and 40 assists. He was awarded the Red Tilson Memorial Trophy as the OHA&rsquo;s most valuable player. The following year he joined the Toronto Marlboros but missed a number of games through injury.In 1949-50, still with the Marlies, he bagged 64 goals and amassed 51 assists for an incredible total of 115 points setting a league record since broken by Toronto&rsquo;s Brian Cullen. Again he won the Red Tilson Memorial Trophy and was hoisted from junior ranks to the senior Marlboro club for the hazardous trip down the Allan Cup trail.Toiling magnificently on a line with Bob Hassard and Danny Lewicki, Armstrong potted 19 goals and added 19 assists for 38 points in 19 playoff games as the Toronto club won the cup that&rsquo;s emblematic of senior amateur hockey supremacy in Canada. That was the year George became Chief Shoot-the-Puck at Banff.&ldquo;When I went to training camp that fall, I thought I&rsquo;d step right into a permanent spot with the Leafs,&rdquo; Armstrong recalled as time drifted by in the hotel room. &ldquo;But I didfl&rsquo;t make the team. I was sent to Pittsburgh for seasoning and to make matters worse I was far from being a star with the Hornets. Tommy Anderson was coach then and he did everything he could to try to help me recover my scoring punch. That was one of my worst years in hockey.&rdquo;<h2>Back to Minors</h2>Army went back to Pittsburgh the following season, scored 30 goals in 50 games in a remarkable reversal of form, and was promoted to Toronto. He scored his. first National Hockey League goal in his first game.&ldquo;We were playing the Canadiens in Maple Leafs Gardens,&rdquo; he said, pulling the facts from memory&rsquo;s storehouse and savoring them. &ldquo;I took a pass from Max Bentley, went around Butch Bouchard and drilled the puck past Gerry McNeil. It turned out to be the winning goal in a 3-2 game.&rdquo;<h2>Auspicious Start</h2>After that auspicious start, Armstrong went 18 games without another goal. Then in the last game of the season he beat Sugar Jim Henry twice in Boston.Army missed 14 games at the start of his first full season without even stepping onto the ice. While chasing a medicine ball in training camp, he collided with goaltender Harry Lumley and wrenched a shoulder. He wound up with 14 goals that year. And so it has gone season after season, his best production being 18 goals in 1956-57 when he got into 54 games. Last year&rsquo;s strong finish gave him 17 goals in 59 games.&hellip; It was well after six o&rsquo;clock now and outside the Sheraton Mount Royal in Montreal the shades of evening had been drawn. Dick Duff had returned from his shopping expedition with a natty new tie.George Armstrong was about to arise. In a few hours he&rsquo;d be skimming over the ice in the Forum, in quest of some of those elusive goals. Then, the final whistle blown, there would be a mad dash with his mates to the Toronto train, panting impatiently in the station, and waiting to take him home. &#9632;

f0024-01

A Day On The Road

f0027-01

Boston’s Mighty Mite

<div class="byline">By Charlie Halpin</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0033-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-011376/10379373-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Murphy gets in close on Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante. Bob Turner is defenceman.</figcaption></div>It has taken seven frustrating years but Ron Murphy has finally &lsquo;arrived&rsquo; as a big league hockey star.The 26-year-old fireball left winger of the Chicago Black Hawks is really hitting the high spots in the NHL this season and even Ron himself would have to admit, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s about time.&rdquo;Murphy&rsquo;s surge into major league prominence last year has been a long time coming for a guy who was labelled a &lsquo;blue-ribbon&rsquo; prospect after a phenomenal junior career.They said he couldn&rsquo;t miss in those days and it has taken seven years to prove they were right.&rsquo;Murph&rsquo; can&rsquo;t particularly explain his rejuvenated play with the Hawks in his second year as a member of the Chicago team, but he is nevertheless elated with the new Ron Murphy and needless to say, so are the Black Hawks.For the first time since he accomplished the rare feat of jumping from the junior Guelph Biltmores to the big leagues with the New York Rangers back in 1952-53, Ron is ranked with eclat among the NHL&rsquo;s &lsquo;Big 10&rsquo; scorers this year and he is presently duelling with Eddie Litzenberger for the distinction of leading the Hawks in the little matter of point scoring.It&rsquo;s a big switch for the solidly-built Murphy, who was abruptly &lsquo;dumped&rsquo; by the Rangers three years ago when he failed to live up to his press clippings.Murphy&rsquo;s new found success with the Hawks is a far cry from the dark days of December, 1953, when as a Ranger he lay in a New York hospital with a badly shattered jaw bone, his future in hockey hanging precariously in the balance while incensed New Yorkers screamed for the blood of one of the game&rsquo;s most colorful troupers, Bernie &lsquo;Boom Boom&rsquo; Geoffrion of Montreal Canadiens, the culprit who inflicted the injury on Murphy in the now infamous Madison Square Garden sticking duel.It happened quite unexpectedly during the first few weeks of the turbulent 1953-54 campaign&mdash;Ron&rsquo;s second with the Rangers. The Garden vibrated with an air of expectancy that night for 13,000 fans had flocked to the game to be a witness at the latest episode of the seething feud that had been building up between the Rangers&rsquo; heart throb of that particular era, Ivan &lsquo;The Terrible&rsquo; Irwin and Canadiens&rsquo; temperamental scoring whizz, Maurice &lsquo;Rocket&rsquo; Richard.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-011587/10379366-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="1460" height="2872"><figcaption class="caption-body">Here&rsquo;s Ron Murphy when he was cutting up touches with New York Rangers.</figcaption></div>The two had been at each other&rsquo;s throats all season and this was to be the showdown, so the blood-thirsty New Yorkers were led to believe. But quite by accident it remained for Murphy, a virtual &lsquo;nobody&rsquo; who had scored only one goal in 23 games and Geoffrion, a fiery French-Canadian with an uncontrollable temper, to steel the Garden spotlight as they violently erupted to produce one of the league&rsquo;s most controversial incidents since the great Eddie Shore slugged Ace Bailey into unconsciousness during the mid 30&rsquo;s in a near tragic hockey mishap.The brawl started serenely enough in the 16th minute of the second period. Paul Masnick of the Canadiens and Rangers&rsquo; rookie defenceman Bob Chrystal started scuffling as they sought control of the puck along the boards. Geoffrion it seems went to &lsquo;Masnick&rsquo;s aid and Leo Reise of the Broadway Blueshirts butted in as well.Murphy intervened and before anyone could utter Fred Saska-moose, the fiery Ranger was fencing with the Boomer. Geoffrion swung his stick viciously, catching the New York player squarely on the side of his jaw. Murphy crumpled to the ice while a frantic call went up for Dr. Vincent Nardiello, the famed fight physician who was also the Rangers&rsquo; medico.Murphy was hurried to hospital after a preliminary examination by Nardiello, who hastily predicted Murphy would not play hockey again that season.The ruckus became headline news from Manhattan to Mana-waki. Resentment built up in New York as Murphy nursed a fractured left cheek bone and a broken iaw bone, plus other injuries. The Gotham press rankled at the attack and clamored for speedy justice.NHL President Clarence Campbell conducted a tedious investigation into the affair and after much deliberation, suspended Geoffrion for eight games against Rangers and Murphy for five against the Canadiens. The case had its repercussions, too.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-011453/10379359-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="697" height="1301"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Murphy as a Black Hawk.</figcaption></div>The Canadiens were reportedly miffed at the sentence imposed on the Boomer and sought an appeal. Meanwhile, New York fans grew antagonistic toward Geoffrion. One threathened to go to Montreal and personally shoot the Boomer dead. Another started a petition to have him barred. And so it went.But what of the principals, what where their feelings in the ensuing years? Hockey players are not known to carry grudges and today neither feels any animosity towards the other nor have they ever clashed seriously since on the ice.The event had little or no impact on Geoffrion&rsquo;s career. He went on to become one of hockey&rsquo;s truly great players. For Murphy it was the start of the road down. Following recovery of his injuries, he barely set foot inside the Ranger dressing room when he was assigned to Saskatoon of the Western League as a replacement for Doug Bentley, a hockey great who was past his peak but making one last effort at the urgence of the Rangers in their frantic bid to catch a playoff berth.But Murphy vowed he would be back and it wasn&rsquo;t long before he was knocking on the New Yorkers&rsquo; door again. After one mediocre season, he finally clicked in 1955-56 and enjoyed his best year in the NHL with 44 points in 66 games.Murphy fell out of favor with the vociferous Phil Watson the following year and was finally traded to Chicago in exchange for Hank Ciesla in a straight player trade. The Hawks&rsquo; motive behind the deal was to acquire some much-needed left wing strength.In Murphy, General Manager Tommy Ivan felt he had the brash type of player he was looking for to fill the role and all he had to do was convince the youngster to put all his bad memories behind him. Ron collected 28 points in 69 games for the Hawks last season but failed to come up to Ivan&rsquo;s expectations but then Tommy is a notably tolerant man, and he-refused to condemn his new hockey protege.Last season, the Hawks became one of the early surprises of the National League by managing to remain out of the cellar for the first time in years and towards the half-way mark in the schedule, were running in the vicinity of second position, something almost totally unheard of in the Windy City.Ivan&rsquo;s psychology was to merely demand a little more than last season of the holdovers, rest, and a supreme effort from the newcomers like Sloan, Wharram, St. Laurent, Evans, and Lewicki, and the team could conceivably go places.Murphy has already fulfilled his pledge to Ivan having scored more points in his first 33 games this season than his entire output of last season in 69 games. His scintillating offensive showing and his aggressive style of play&mdash;he&rsquo;s a &lsquo;holler guy&rsquo; who still likes to mix it up&mdash;have been among the bright moments in the Hawks sudden rise to power again in the NHL.There are several things going for the now serious-minded Murphy this season. He proudly wears an &lsquo;A&rsquo; on his uniform as an assistant captain&mdash;a tribute of his Haw teammates faith in him. He also has several lucrative bonuses attached to his contract this year like many of the Hawks. He is a father again for the second time giving him added responsibilities. But most important, he is a better hockey player this season.The new Ron Murphy has taken on considerable prowess as a playmaker. Through his first 34 games he had accumulated 20 assists, eclipsing his 1957-58 record and leaving him but eight behind his all-time high compiled with the Rangers in &lsquo;55-&rsquo;56. Now a point man with the Hawks, &lsquo;Murph&rsquo; is also giving Chicago more of a power play than has been evident through countless years.Now performing on a line with bullish Bobby Hull and lanky Eric Nesterenko, they were the Hawks&rsquo; top scoring trio last season.Ron remains the steady, fairly cautious type who always seems to want to be sure where he is going and at the same time what the opposing checkers are going to do. This makes his value on the &lsquo;points&rsquo; particularly noteworthy and right now he&rsquo;s the best forward Chicago has had back there in a decade.If there were an award in the NHL for the most improved player it would most deservingly belong to Ron Murnhy, the comeback kid of the Chicago Black Hawks.<h2>Read THE HOCKEY NEWS</h2>THE INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY WEEKLY &#9632;

f0033-01

The New Ron Murphy

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-011493/10379537-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Red Kelly tries to stop young Henri Richard in thrust on Detroit goal.</figcaption></div>Pale and haggard and wearing the look of a man with grave and almost insoluble problems, Terry Sawchuk strolled through Boston&rsquo;s dingy North Station. His nerves were like raw wounds and something akin to hate was in his eyes.He turned to reporters, snapping like persistent terriers at his heels, and said in measured tones: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve quit hockey and I&rsquo;m going to stay quit.&rdquo;The date was January 17, 1957, and Sawchuk having deserted the Boston Bruins, was going home to Detroit, a confused young man, suffering from a blood disorder known as mononucleosis.Time is a great healer. Today the same Terrance Gordon Sawchuk, back in hockey, is a key factor as the Detroit Red Wings seek to regain some of their former glory.The Wings finished third in the 1957-58 season, their lowest position in 11 years, and perhaps a significant observation that has eluded many hockey analysts is that Sawchuk had his worst season statistically as a National Leaguer. Of course trying to proportion credit or discredit, as the case may be, between a goalie and his mates is like trying to solve the old riddle of the hennery &mdash; which came first, the chicken or the egg?<h2>Not Favorable</h2>Be that as it may the fact remains that Terry had a not-too-respectable goals against average of 2.96 for 1957-58 compared with a range of between 1.90 and 1.98 in his five previous seasons with the Wings.He played on five consecutive championship teams, won the Vezina Trophy three times, led the league in shutouts three times, made the first all-star team three times and the second team in the other two years. He equalled a playoff record by turning in four consecutive home shutouts in the 1952 Stanley Cup games as the Wings swept to victory in eight straight games.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-011311/10379530-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="2251" height="1476"><figcaption class="caption-body">The spectacular Maurice &ldquo;Rocket&rdquo; Richard gives Sawchuk a hard time.</figcaption></div>After the 1955 season &mdash; one of his Vezina Trophy years &mdash; he was traded to the Bruins in one of those wholesale swaps characteristic of Detroit manager Jack Adams to make way for Glenn Hall. After he quit the Bruins in a huff and was suspended by the Boston management, Adams reacquired his contract.If Sawchuk, who yielded 209 goals to the opposition in 70 games last year, can revert to the impressive average of his heyday, it follows that the Red Wings must give the Montreal Canadiens and all other contenders, a stiffer battle than they did in 1957-58.The question is: can he? And to answer it properly one must first seek the answer to another question: what manner of man is Terry Sawchuk?<h2>Man of many Moods</h2>He&rsquo;s a man of many moods. Affable one time, unduly reserved another time. He can go from the peaks of wild enthusiasm to the blackest, deepest depths of despair. He is easily inspired, easily upset. He is emotional and temperamental.Somewhere in his makeup there is a reflection of adversity, but no weakness, for Sawchuk has withstood pressures that would have made a lesser man quail long before he did.Only 29 years old, young Terry has had more than his share of troubles. He is not a whole man. He has had 66 bone chips removed from an elbow, several broken teeth extracted from his jawbone, an emergency appendectomy, his chest crushed in an automobile accident, a serious eye injury.&ldquo;I collect the parts they remove from my body,&rdquo; he confessed once. &ldquo;I have one bottle for the teeth I&rsquo;ve lost, another for the bone chips and another for my appendix. I had it especially pickled to add to my collection.&rdquo;As a youngster Sawchuk saw his older brother die of a heart ailment. His father, a Hungarian tinsmith who migrated to western Canada and settled in Winnipeg, once tumbled from a ladder and broke his back. His mother was ill in Winnipeg when Terry left the Bruins.Perhaps the succession of troubles built up an irresistible force in Sawchuk and suddenly, when he could no longer stand the pressure, he exploded.<h2>Complete Rest Needed</h2>Cause of mononucleosis, called glandular fever by laymen, is believed to be a virus. The only known treatment is rest &mdash; complete rest. Terry contracted the disease in December, 1956, and many thought he wouldn&rsquo;t return to the Boston lineup for the rest of the year. But in just two weeks, the persevering Sawchuk was back between the pipes.Said one doctor when we discussed this with him: &ldquo;Sawchuk went back far too soon. His mental reaction was a result of the extreme depression that goes with the disease. Patients just feel listless and below par and, because their temperature isn&rsquo;t too high, they can&rsquo;t understand what&rsquo;s wrong with them. I&rsquo;m sure that was Sawchuk&rsquo;s mood when he quit the Bruins.&rdquo;Last year, a wiser, repentant young man, Sawchuk was a model of stability and this season he seems to be tackling his job with determination aimed at forgetting the past.If he needs a mental crutch to support him he might find it in the confidence expressed in him by Adams. Not one to base his judgment strictly on figures, the Detroit manager calls Sawchuk, &ldquo;the greatest goalie in the world in a Red Wing uniform.&rdquo;Sawchuk says he would not have come back to hockey with any other club. &ldquo;When Mr. Adams got permission from the Bruins to contact me about playing for Detroit I was surprised and happy,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The happiest guy in the world.&rdquo;Terry Sawchuk encountered hisfirstphysicalmisfortune when he was 12. He fell while playing ball, dislocated his right arm.It healed so poorly that it is a little shorter than his left and the elbow joint is as stiff as a frozen fish. Of the myriad stitches in his body, three are in his right eyeball. They were put into it the night of December 28, 1947, Terry&rsquo;s eighteenth birthday, in a Houston, Texas, hospital. A rookie netminder then with Omaha in the old United States League, Sawchuk was clipped by a stick in a melee around his net.&ldquo;I was pretty lucky,&rdquo; Terry recalls grimly as the ghosts of the hospital room stalk across his mind. &ldquo;If I had been looking straight ahead, the stick would have taken my eye out. I was looking to my right and my head was cocked a little as I followed the flight of the puck. The doctors told me that was all that saved me.&rdquo;In three consecutive years &mdash; 1950, 1951 and 1952 &mdash; Sawchuk had bone chips removed from his right arm. In his third season with the Red Wings he dropped from a pudgy 210 pounds to a skinny 176. His mother claimed he dieted that year and has never been the same since.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-011448/10379523-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="1617" height="2259"></div>When he skidded as low as 166 and was nervous and fretful, doctors examined him but could find nothing organically wrong. There were times when he couldn&rsquo;t eat and couldn&rsquo;t sleep. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d lie awake and smoke,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and when I&rsquo;d get up, I&rsquo;d have no appetite. The Wings sent me to hospital but all they could tell me was that I had a low blood count. Two weeks after I got home from hospital, I had my attack of appendicitis and had to go back in again for an operation.&rdquo;The next year Sawchuk suffered severe chest injuries in an automobile accident. &ldquo;I was coming home from a golf course and the steering rod broke in my car,&rdquo; he recalled. &ldquo;The next thing I knew I was back in a hospital.&rdquo;Doctors found that the pleural space was punctured, permitting outside air to enter the right lung. They pumped the air out with a tube.Born in Winnipeg, Sawchuk like most Canadian youngsters began skating when he was four years old, soon developed a sturdy stride, a hard accurate shot. Later as a clever centre with a bantam team in Winnipeg, he led the league in scoring.Promoted the following year to the midget classification, Terry was making his mark as a playmaker when the club&rsquo;s goalie got cold feet and quit. Terry was selected to fill the gap because the necessary equipment was available in his home.&ldquo;My brother had been a goalie, a good one, too,&rdquo; Terry relates. &ldquo;When he died of a heart ailment, his pads and other paraphernalia were left undisturbed, perhaps in the hopes that some day I might use them.&ldquo;Anyway they were there in the house and once in a while, timidly, Pd try them on. The day I wore them for the first time in the nets for that midget team, I played a good game. You know the rest &mdash; I&rsquo;ve been in the nets ever since.&rdquo;<h2>Sharp Talent</h2>Sawchuk displayed such remarkable puck-stopping talent that by the time he was 15 he was playing for the Winnipeg Rangers, a junior team of Memorial Cup calibre. One day Baldy Northcott, a star left winger long ago with the Montreal Maroons and later a scout for Chicago, saw Sawchuk in a particularly scintillating performance and was duly impressed.Northcott called at the Sawchuk home and offered Terry a bonus to sign with the Black Hawks for future delivery.&ldquo;My dad advised me against it,&rdquo; said Terry. &ldquo;He said the Hawks had no future. The next day Bob Kinnear, a Detroit scout, visited us, extolled the glories of the Red Wing organization and asked me to sign. This time my dad said yes.&rdquo;The Wings sent their prize package to Galt, Ont. A studious lad, he continued his studies, completed his high school education while playing spectacularly for the Galt team in the Ontario Hockey Association, and planned to enter college.Terry started the 1947 season in Windsor with the Spitfires and about that time, his dad having suffered a broken back, was in a brace. To help maintain the family exchequer, Terry turned professional with the Omaha Knights.The rest is history. He was selected rookie of the year in the United States league and was hoisted a notch in the Detroit organization to Indianapolis for the next campaign. There he repeated his personal triumph over other rookie contenders, winning the Red Garrett Trophy as the American League&rsquo;s outstanding young performer.Promoted to the parent Red Wings in 1950-51, he won the Calder Memorial Trophy, becoming the only player in history to win three rookie awards in three professional leagues.Whether Terry can bounce back into the limelight remains to be seen. Any success he achieves from now on will depend upon a lot of things &mdash; his overall ability, his personal attitude toward the game and its players, his physical health, his mental outlook.It&rsquo;s never safe to predict too much in sport but Terry Sawchuk, high strung and sensitive, has overcome so many of fate&rsquo;s dirty digs in the past, that he looks like a reasonably good bet for the future.At least that&rsquo;s Jack Adams&rsquo; contention and Adams is paying Sawchuk&rsquo;s salary.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-011043/10379516-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="491" height="768"></div>Won spurs with Montreal last season with best showing of nine-year pro career &hellip; Garnered 43 points in 57 games for Habitants and added 15 more in Stanley Cup playoffs, including 10 goals &hellip; Factor in Canadiens&rsquo; unprecedented cup win &hellip; Drafted from Boston Bruins in 1957-58 &hellip; Formerly in Detroit chain &hellip; Played two seasons with Red Wings &hellip; Lacks class but is tireless worker on ice.BONIN, MARCELCanadiens; b. Montreal, Que., Sept. 17/31, 5&rsquo; 9", 175 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02677/10379509-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="616" height="118"></div>Playing with third NHL team at Toronto &hellip; Secured by Leafs last season from Montreal &hellip; Formerly played with Chicago &hellip; Counted 41 points in 70 games with Leafs last year &hellip; Still holds NHL record for assists in one season, 56 &hellip; Played on four cup winners with Montreal &hellip; Twice selected to second all-star team &hellip; Nearing end of career in big time with Leafs.OLMSTEAD, BERTToronto; b. Sceptre, Sask., Sept. 4/26, 6&rsquo; 2", 175 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-03524/10379502-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="617" height="130"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-04410/10379495-1-eng-US/f0040-042.jpg" title="f0040-04" width="494" height="778"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-05348/10379488-1-eng-US/f0040-052.jpg" title="f0040-05" width="488" height="760"></div>Came into prominence with Boston in last two seasons &hellip; Kicked around minors Seven years &hellip; Now pivots Bruins&rsquo; famed Uke line with Stasiuk and Bucyk &hellip; Flopped with Rangers &hellip; Scored 49 goals for Boston before sidelined by broken jaw last season &hellip; Became member of Bruins&rsquo; select 30-goal club in first year with team &hellip; Possesses terrific wrist shot.HORVATH, BRONCOBoston; b. Port Colborne, Ont., Mar. 12/30, 5&rsquo; 11", 170 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-06310/10379481-1-eng-US/f0040-062.jpg" title="f0040-06" width="611" height="128"></div>Hockey&rsquo;s greatest all-time scorer with 525 goals &hellip; Called &lsquo;Mr. Hockey&rsquo; after 17 sensational years with Montreal Canadiens &hellip; Truly the most amazing, controversial and spectacular competitor ever to play in NHL &hellip; Holds many records but has never won an NHL scoring title &hellip; An all-star 14 years, on seven cup winners, scored most points in NHL 930 &hellip; Injuries have slowed him down in recent years.RICHARD, MAURICECanadiens; b. Montreal, Que., Aug. 4/21, 5&rsquo; 10", 180 lbs. shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-07270/10379474-1-eng-US/f0040-072.jpg" title="f0040-07" width="625" height="130"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-08231/10379467-1-eng-US/f0040-082.jpg" title="f0040-08" width="491" height="756"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-09170/10379460-1-eng-US/f0040-092.jpg" title="f0040-09" width="488" height="760"></div>New scoring throb of Black Hawks &hellip; Has averaged 32 goals in last three seasons &hellip; Perfect example of change of livery right tonic for pro player &hellip; Was nothing performing with Canadiens before Hawks took him in draft &hellip; Won rookie award in 1954-55 with Chicago &hellip; One of biggest players in NHL &hellip; Paced Hawks in point-scoring last three years &hellip; Owns deadly slap shot.LITZENBERGER, EDDIEChicago; b. Neudorf, Sask., July 15/32, 6&rsquo; 3", 194 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-10155/10379453-1-eng-US/f0040-102.jpg" title="f0040-10" width="620" height="123"></div>Topper once almost decided to give up hockey because of serious facial injury in 1956-57 against Detroit&hellip; Has developed into real star with Bruins &hellip; In last three years he has scored 61 times &hellip; Won Dufresne Trophy twice as most valuable Bruin on home ice &hellip; Shot 13 goals in Stanley Cup playoffs past two seasons &hellip; Also played with Detroit, Chicago.TOPPAZZINI, JERRYBoston; b. Copper Cliff, Ont, July 29/31, 5&rsquo; 11", 180 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-11134/10379446-1-eng-US/f0040-112.jpg" title="f0040-11" width="624" height="129"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-12123/10379439-1-eng-US/f0040-122.jpg" title="f0040-12" width="491" height="762"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-13106/10379432-1-eng-US/f0040-132.jpg" title="f0040-13" width="487" height="761"></div>Finest prospect to come up with Toronto organization in years &hellip; Starting third full season with Leafs &hellip; Collected 49 points in 63 games in 1958-59 &hellip; Has averaged 20 goals in first two years in NHL &hellip; Won rookie award in &rsquo;57-58 &hellip; Product of Toronto junior system &hellip; Heralded as Leafs&rsquo; answer to Jean Beliveau &hellip; Big, strong and aggressive &hellip; Should become super star for Leafs.MAHOVLICH, FRANKToronto; b. Timmins, Ont, Jan. 10/38, 6&rsquo; 1", 195 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1479/10379425-1-eng-US/f0040-142.jpg" title="f0040-14" width="624" height="140"></div>Quick-witted and quick-handed, has been Rangers&rsquo; regular goalkeeper for better part of last six years &hellip; Called &lsquo;Gump&rsquo; because of his diminutive form &hellip; Has survived injuries and criticism to keep New York job &hellip; Won rookie award in first season but landed in minors following year &hellip; A Ranger farm product, he is often said to be best puck-stopper in big time.WORSLEY, LORNERangers; b. Montreal, Que., May 14/29, 5&rsquo; 8", 170 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1577/10379418-1-eng-US/f0040-152.jpg" title="f0040-15" width="605" height="127"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1666/10379411-1-eng-US/f0040-162.jpg" title="f0040-16" width="488" height="761"></div><h2>SAWCHUK, TERRANCE GORDON</h2>Born, Winnipeg, Manitoba, December 28, 1929Shoots Left. Height, 5 feet, 11 inches. Weight, 180 pounds. Goaltender.Last Amateur Club: Windsor Spitfires (Juniors).<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-011311/10379404-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="1389" height="1110"></div>a&mdash;Won USHL &ldquo;Outstanding Rookie&rdquo; award.b&mdash;Won Dudley? Red? Garrett Award for &ldquo;Outstanding Rookie of the. Year.c&mdash;Won Calder Memorial Trophy for? &ldquo;Outstanding Rookie of the Year&rdquo;.d, e, g&mdash;Won Vezina Trophy.z&mdash;Credited with an assist.h&mdash;Traded with Marcel Bonin, Vic Stasiuk, and Lorne Davis to Boston Bruins for Eddie Sandford, Real Chevrefils, Norm Corcoran, Warren Godfrey and Gilles Boisvert.i&mdash;Trade to Detroit Red Wings for John Bucykand an undisclosed sum of cash. &#9632;

f0036-01

The Trails of Terry Sawchuk

<div class="byline">By Dave Anderson</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0041-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01899/10379596-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry popein</figcaption></div>When the Rangers were training in Niagara Falls, Ont. for the 1958-59 NHL season, either Muzz Patrick or Phil Watson regularly interrupted the roar of the Falls to pronounce, &ldquo;we&rsquo;d like a better center on that line with Bathgate and Prentice. Think we&rsquo;ll try Ciesla there in the next exhibition game.&rdquo;Hank Ciesla was tried there, but Ciesla&rsquo;s name is only an example. At one time or another, every center in the camp was tested between Andy Bathgate and Dean Prentice.There was Ciesla &hellip; even Red Sullivan &hellip; rookie Earl Ingar-field &hellip; rookie Orland Kurtenbach &hellip; rookie Bill Sweeney &hellip; rookie Ted Hampson. Once the NHL season began, Sullivan got another shot. Even left winger Camille Henry played a few games between Bathgate and Prentice.This is not a condemnation of Watson for experimenting in training camp. That&rsquo;s the best time to do it. And that&rsquo;s what training camps are for. But if general manager Patrick or coach Watson had bothered to ask Bathgate and Prentice, they probably would&rsquo;ve been told:&ldquo;What&rsquo;s wrong with Pope. You know he&rsquo;s the center we like to play with. As far as we&rsquo;re concerned, there&rsquo;s nobody better.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s what Bathgate and Prentice think of Larry Popein, the invisible man who skates, skates, skates while they score, score, score. Eventually, the Blues&rsquo; brass restored Popein to his proper place. That&rsquo;s when Bathgate and Prentice started scoring at a pace you&rsquo;d expect from All-Star wing candidates.<h2>Center By Default</h2>Despite Popein&rsquo;s production, he still seems to be the center by default on that line. Watson would rather talk down Pope than talk him up. But from Watson&rsquo;s size-up of the other centers used between Bathgate and Prentice, you can discover Popein&rsquo;s slick skill.Of Sullivan, the spitfire Watson &ldquo;always wanted to try&rdquo; between Bathgate and Prentice, the coach admits &ldquo;they didn&rsquo;t concentrate defensively.&rdquo;Of Ciesla, the 6-2,190-pounder whose powerful physique would make it easier for Bathgate and Prentice, Watson admits &ldquo;he can&rsquo;t pass the puck.&rdquo;Of rookie Ingarfield, Watson admits &ldquo;he doesn&rsquo;t have the experience. But he&rsquo;s all right. He&rsquo;s a better shot and a better stickhandler than Pope.&rdquo;Of rookie Kurtenbach (farmed to Buffalo of the AHL), Watson says &ldquo;even Bathgate and Prentice raved about him, all my players did. But no stamina yet.&rdquo;Of the other rookies, Bill Sweeney and Ted Hampson, Watson simply shrugged them off as &ldquo;no experience.&rdquo; But boil this down and Popein emerges as:1) a center who helps Bathgate and Prentice &ldquo;concentrate defensively;&rdquo; 2) a center who can pass the puck; 3) a center with stamina despite penaltykilling duties and 4) a center with the experience to fit in with Bathgate and Prentice.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01973/10379589-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="703" height="1240"><figcaption class="caption-body">&rsquo;Red&rsquo; Sullivan</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02632/10379582-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="696" height="1232"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hank Ciesla</figcaption></div><h2>Experience is Vital</h2>To Popein himself, this experience is the most vital reason for his success. Experience on the ice, of course, and also the experience of knowing his linemates&rsquo; personalities.&ldquo;I know their attitudes,&rdquo; Pope confesses. &ldquo;You gotta give one guy a pat on the back. The other guy you gotta needle. And we talk a lot together. We&rsquo;re always chewing each other out. We say what we think. And nobody gets mad about it.&rdquo;Prentice is the player who needs &ldquo;a pat on the back&rdquo; occasionally. Bathgate gets the needle.&ldquo;Deano gets down on himself if he&rsquo;s not going well, so we just tell him to forget about it, he&rsquo;ll get going&gt; But the other guy, you gotta shove a fork in him once in a while. He&rsquo;s got the ability, but he gets lazy. That&rsquo;s when he gets it.&rdquo;Popein, who seldom speaks unless spoken to, dismisses his ability to play with Bathgate and Prentice better than any other center. To him, it&rsquo;s all because he knows their attitudes.But to Bathgate and Prentice, it&rsquo;s more than that &mdash; though the &ldquo;attitude&rdquo; angle is important. Ponein is the slickest skater on the Rangers. He&rsquo;s also one of the most unselfish. With Bathgate and Prentice available, he seldom shoots.<h2>Cuts Corner Too Fine</h2>&ldquo;And when I do,&rdquo; Pope laughs, &ldquo;I usually try to cut the corner too fine. This season, I&rsquo;m just letting it go.&rdquo;Bathgate points out that he&rsquo;s been playing with Popein off and on for 7 seasons, ever since they first were united on the same line at Vancouver of the WHL. When Pope joined the Rangers five seasons ago, Bathgate was there waiting for him.&ldquo;I remember Muzz (Patrick) put us together &hellip; Dean, Pope and myself &hellip; around January or February in 1954,&rdquo; Bathgate recalls. &ldquo;We fit right in. And even when we&rsquo;ve been separated for a while, when we get back together we click right away.&rdquo;Popein fits in because he never stops skating, forcing Bathgate and Prentice to keep up with him.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s it,&rdquo; says Prentice, &ldquo;Pope skates so hard, we have to skate hard to keep up with him. And he knows where we are all the time on the ice. We think he&rsquo;s the best. Maybe it&rsquo;s because we&rsquo;ve played so long. But we rave about him.&rdquo;Patrick and Watson aren&rsquo;t blind to Popein&rsquo;s ability, of course. But Patrick seems more conscious of Popein&rsquo;s value.&ldquo;Pope would be good with any winger,&rdquo; the general manager says. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a good hockey head. And he covers up for Bathgate and Prentice. Those two like to roam around. That&rsquo;s when Pope covers up.&rdquo;About the best you can get out of Watson is that Popein &ldquo;has a powerful pair of legs. And he backchecks.&rdquo;<h2>Doesn&rsquo;t Go For Puck</h2>Otherwise, Watson will tell you that Popein &ldquo;doesn&rsquo;t go for the puck. He waits for the puck to come to him. And a centerman should do the work for the two wings. He won&rsquo;t do it. But I never said it wasn&rsquo;t a good line. I never said that.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01924/10379575-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="706" height="1010"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Popein</figcaption></div>Watson once defined this line this way: Popein was the skater, Prentice the worker and Bathgate the brains.&ldquo;But I cut that out quick,&rdquo; Watson laughs. &ldquo;Pope and Prentice kept saying, &rsquo;C&rsquo;mon, brains, pass me the puck.&rdquo;But despite Watson&rsquo;s apparent unconcern for Popein, the 29-year-old Vancouver resident recalls how Watson reassured him his job on the Rangers wasn&rsquo;t in jeopardy during the training camp experiments for a &ldquo;better center on that line.&rdquo;&ldquo;Are you worried about your job,&rdquo; Watson asked Popein at camp.&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Popein told the coach. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s 18 spots on this club. I know I&rsquo;ll be on it somewhere.&rdquo;&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the attitude to take,&rdquo; winked Watson. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the attitude.&rdquo;Popein strolled off to a movie, with Bathgate and Prentice. As they walked down the street, there was Popein in the center with Bathgate on right wing, Prentice on left. Bathgate and Prentice weren&rsquo;t experimenting. They knew.<h2>POPEIN, LAWRENCE THOMAS (LARRY)</h2>Born, Yorkton, Sask., August 11, 1930 Shoots Left. Height, 5 feet, 10 inches. Weight, 165 pounds. Centre.Last Amateur Club: Regina Caps (Seniors).<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02647/10379568-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="2087" height="1013"></div> &#9632;

f0041-01

Rangers’ Invisible Man

<div class="byline">By Vince Lunny</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0044-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01853/10379746-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Toronto&rsquo;s Duff gets rough treatment during action against the New York Rangers.</figcaption></div>The Toronto Maple Leafs were in a particularly distressing early season slump and manager Punch Imlach was threatening to demote Dick Duff and a few other assorted chattels to Rochester in the American Hockey League.Phil Watson, loquacious coach of the Rangers, learned of the threats through dispatches to the New York newspapers.&ldquo;Ha! Ha! Ha!&rdquo; he bellowed, lifting his eyes from the public prints and addressed assorted characters in his office in Madison Square Garden. &ldquo;I get a laugh outa this story. The Leafs talking about sending Duff to Rochester. Any time the Leafs want to get rid of Dick, we&rsquo;ll give &lsquo;em the waiver price of $15,000, plus another $25,000. That&rsquo;s $40,000 in any denominations. And the price would be a bargain because Duff is worth more than $40,000 to any National Hockey League club.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s typical of the high esteem in which rival coaches hold the youthful Toronto left winger.To be truthful, the Leafs probably wouldn&rsquo;t take $50,000 for Dick Duff. Talk of a demotion might be described accurately as a psychological manoeuvre to convey to the team as a whole that management wasn&rsquo;t satisfied with over-all performances.Duff leaped from St. Michael&rsquo;s College, where promising young puck chasers are nurtured like precious hothouse plants, to the Leafs and has never spent a day in the minor professional leagues.<h2>&ldquo;Get Rough, Duff&rdquo;</h2>Always an aggressive player, reflecting boyhood influence of Chicago&rsquo;s Ted Lindsay, Duff is throwing his weight around with more abandon than usual this season, apparently because deposed Coach Billy Reay of the Leafs issued a &ldquo;Get Rough, Duff&rdquo; edict in training camp.&ldquo;Reay told me I would help the team if I were more aggressive,&rdquo; said Duff. &ldquo;And anything that helps the Leafs, helps me. I didn&rsquo;t get as much salary increase this year as I had hoped for but if the Leafs make the playoffs I&rsquo;ll get a bonus. If I&rsquo;m more aggressive now, it&rsquo;s not because I&rsquo;m mad at anybody. It&rsquo;s just because I want that bonus money.&rdquo;Duff was born in Kirkland Lake Feb. 18, 1936, the son of a surface worker for a gold mine, and one of a brood of 13. As a youngster he lived on Taylor Drive, only a few blocks from the house occupied by Lindsay on Government Road.Lindsay spent his summers there, before he became engaged in a business venture in Detroit, and often he&rsquo;d drive 90 miles to Schumacher, where there was a year-round rink, to keep his skating muscles in trim.&ldquo;Sometimes he&rsquo;d take me and some of my pals with him,&rdquo; Duff recalled, &ldquo;and we&rsquo;d be proud as punch to skate with such a great star. I learned a lot skating with Lindsay and talking to him.&rdquo;<h2>Watched Him Develop</h2>Said Lindsay: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy to see Duff in the National League. I&rsquo;ve watched him develop and I can tell you he&rsquo;s got what it takes. He&rsquo;s only five-foot-eight, or nine, and he doesn&rsquo;t weigh much more than 160 pounds, but a lot of players have learned they can&rsquo;t push him around.&rdquo;&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the most important lesson I learned from Ted,&rdquo; Duff conceded. &ldquo;Ever since I was a kid up there in Kirkland Lake he kept telling me, &rsquo;take nothing from anyone.&rsquo; He showed me how to be aggressive.&rdquo;Stan Houston of the Toronto Telegram recalls that early in Duff&rsquo;s career the Leafs and the Rangers became embroiled in a game in which tempers were running like molten metal. Blood flowed in a crimson torrent when Rangers&rsquo; Jack Evans highsticked Duff in a corner, cutting the Toronto wingman for four stitches on the right eyelid.&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; says Stan, &ldquo;although Evans was 20 pounds heavier and a lot broader, Duff promptly dropped his stick and shed his gloves and hoisted Evans off his feet. He pummelled him as he fell to the ice. From then on, players were wary of Duff.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01740/10379739-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg" title="f0045-01" width="670" height="673"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dick Duff</figcaption></div>Dickie embarked on his career at the age of nine when he won a spot on the Holy Name Flyweights at Kirkland Lake. He worked his way up the ladder and, showing flashes of brilliance as a juvenile, was observed by Doc Dickenson, a school teacher, who tipped off the Leafs. Dick finally landed at St. Michael&rsquo;s College in Toronto where coach Charlie Cerre placed a lot of emphasis on shooting ability and decided that Duff would perform best as a left winger.Up to that time he had led a nomadic existence on ice, toiling as a winger, a centre and sometimes on defence.&ldquo;Charlie made us spend half our practice time shooting and woe betide any player who didn&rsquo;t dig in seriously,&rdquo; Duff said. &ldquo;He wanted us to keep our eyes on the net and our shots low.&rdquo;<h2>Played Lend-Lease Games</h2>Duff played three lend-lease games with the Maple Leafs in 1954-55 but didn&rsquo;t distinguish himself enough to get into the scoring summary, except for a two-minute banishment. Hap Day, then general manager of the Leafs, wasn&rsquo;t prepared to offer the slender scrapper a contract as Dick was still eligible for junior hockey.Coach Cerre of St. Mike&rsquo;s told Day that Duff has a tremendous future.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a great competitor. I&rsquo;ve never seen him come out second best. He can wiggle out of impossible situations, he&rsquo;s on a loose puck like a questing hawk,&rdquo; said Cerre. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s our bread and butter. We need him with the Majors for at least the balance of this season.&rdquo;The youngster justified Cerre&rsquo;s confidence by leading the Majors in scoring that year with 33 goals and 20 assists. In the Fall, on September 22, 1955, to be exact, Duff signed his Toronto contract at the age of 19 and was in the starting lineup for the 1955-56 opener. Two weeks later the Leafs defeated the Canadiens 2-1 in Maple Leaf Gardens and both Toronto goals came off the stick of Duff. They were his first tallies in professional hockey.<h2>Scored First Goal Against Canadiens</h2>He scored his first goal late in the middle period, equalizing an earlier Montreal counter by Jackie Leclair.&ldquo;I was so excited,&rdquo; said Duff, &ldquo;I forgot to retrieve the puck as a souvenir. Luckily George Armstrong was thoughtful enough to dive into the net and get it for me.&rdquo;Duff broke the 1-1 tie in the third period. As the puck nestled into a corner of the net, King Clancy exclaimed enthusiastically: &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t trade that kid for any other left winger in the league. And there&rsquo;s some pretty fine talent on left wing, too.&rdquo;Dickie, encouraged now, went on to bag 16 more goals that season, a total of 18. In his sophomore year he scored 26 goals, a total he matched last season although missing five games. He saddled a charley horse in Boston and it ran straight, place and show for two weeks.&ldquo;Elmer Lach doesn&rsquo;t believe there is a second year jinx,&rdquo; said Duff, &ldquo;and neither do I. Lach scored 18 goals in his first season with the Montreal Canadiens and 24 in his second season. He always held to the theory that too many rookies after a fine start get overconfident and don&rsquo;t try so hard. Next thing they know they are off the score sheet, maybe even on their way to the minors.&ldquo;I was mindful of Lach&rsquo;s words. I kept trying. I watched all the best players. Fellows like the Rocket and Howe and Lindsay and Geoffrion. When they got the puck, they shot. Observing that and remembering what Charlie Cerre had taught me at St. Mike&rsquo;s, I kept shooting.&ldquo;It paid off. I remember one game against Detroit. I got the puck at the Red Wing blueline and Marcel Pronovost started to take me out of the play. I didn&rsquo;t figure I had a ehance to score and there was no one to pass to so I figured I might as well see if Glenn Hall was alert. I flipped the puck toward the net. It bounced crazily and as Hall reached for it, it hopped into the net. Now, there&rsquo;s a goal I wouldn&rsquo;t have had if I didn&rsquo;t shoot.&rdquo;Dick Duff has strong wrists and he gets the puck away with a quick flick.<h2>Developed Backhand</h2>&ldquo;The faster you can get the puck in flight, the less chance the goaltender has to get a line on it. That&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;ve worked to develop my backhand. With a sound backhand, like Maurice Richard&rsquo;s for instance, you don&rsquo;t have to turn or juggle the puck to get set for a shot,&rdquo; he explained.Lack of physical stature hasn&rsquo;t hampered Duff any more than it has been a handicap for Camille Henry of the Rangers, another fast shooter.&ldquo;Perhaps it would help to be a 200-pound, six-footer like Jean Beliveau of the Canadiens,&rdquo; conceded the Toronto star, &ldquo;but there&rsquo;s nothing I can do about it. So I&rsquo;ve made up my mind to stay in the league by skating as fast as I can, living as clean as I can and working as hard as I can.&rdquo;Billy Reay didn&rsquo;t worry about Duff&rsquo;s size either.&ldquo;I was afraid he&rsquo;d drift away to a shadow a year ago when he had the Asian flu and lost five pounds. I was afraid to give him much work. But, funny thing. I discovered that the more work he gets, the sharper he becomes.&rdquo;<h2>Studious Type</h2>A studious type but not pedantic, Duff would like to be a school teacher when he retires. Realizing that he must acquire a sound education to qualify as a dispenser of knowledge, he has been taking a summer course at Assumption College in Windsor. In three more years he hopes to obtain his Bachelor of Arts.Besides his scholastic pursuits, Duff found time last summer for extracurricular activity designed to strengthen his muscles and to keep him in shape for the hockey season. He worked hard as a construction man on a new motel at Kitchener.Occasionally he left his workaday worries on the fairways and greens of the Rockway Golf Club at Kitchener, where Moe Norman became famous as a delightful but eccentric par buster. One of Duff&rsquo;s frequent companions on the links was Frank Udvari, the referee who gets into more hot water than a dishwasher&rsquo;s hands.Duff, however, echoes the sentiments of a great many players when he says that the much maligned Mr. Udvari is a good referee.<h2>Likes Referee Udvari</h2>&ldquo;One of his qualities is an appreciation of the players&rsquo; view. You might call him an understanding man. He assesses a lot of early penalties and then tapers off. The players would rather that than a man who ignores infractions of the rules in the early part of a game and then asserts his authority by cracking down at the end.&rdquo;Some students of hockey oppose both views. They insist that a referee should call all infractions regardless of the time element, there being no rule book provisions for leniency at any stage of a game.From a player&rsquo;s point of view, what infraction irks Duff most? What he would like to see stamped out by the men in the striped shirts?Interference! That&rsquo;s it.&ldquo;I hate interference,&rdquo; Duff told this writer. &ldquo;It deprives a man of a fair chance, a chance to which he is justly entitled, to take part in a play. I think it spoils the game for the spectators, too.&ldquo;Boarding? I don&rsquo;t mind that nearly as much. Generally you know when you are going to be hit and if you&rsquo;re careful, sort of relax, you won&rsquo;t be hurt.&rdquo;Apparently the prospect of having his slim body rammed against the end of the rink doesn&rsquo;t annoy a player as much as having an over zealous opponent tugging at his sweater or grabbing his stick when he&rsquo;s in a position to snare a pass or grab a rebound.At least that&rsquo;s what Duff says and having played well over 200 games in the National Hockey League, he&rsquo;s well qualified to speak his mind.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01678/10379732-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg" title="f0047-01" width="504" height="767"></div>Returned to big time hockey last season for second time with Toronto &hellip; 14-year veteran of pro hockey &hellip; Previously played in NHL with Rangers in 1953-54 &hellip; Credited with getting Leafs into playoffs last year &hellip; Spent 11 seasons tending goal in AHL with Cleveland and Providence &hellip; Always at best at playoff time &hellip; Will be retained by Leafs again this season.BOWER, JOHNNYToronto; b. Prince Albert, Sask., Nov. 8/25, 5&rsquo; 9", 170 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02441/10379725-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg" title="f0047-02" width="630" height="123"></div>Heading into fifth season with Montreal &hellip; Not considered a great scorer but steady &hellip; Still looking for first 20-goaI season &hellip; Last year production slipped to 16 after 1957-58 total of 19 &hellip; Member of last four cup winners &hellip; Stocky winger, solid and strong on skates&hellip; Not fast but hard to knock over at 170 pounds &hellip; Came up with six timely playoff goals to help Habs win cup last season.PROVOST, CLAUDECanadiens; b. Montreal, Que., Sept. 17/33, 5&rsquo; 8&rsquo;/a", 168 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-03343/10379718-1-eng-US/f0047-032.jpg" title="f0047-03" width="627" height="122"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-04260/10379711-1-eng-US/f0047-042.jpg" title="f0047-04" width="508" height="763"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-05203/10379704-1-eng-US/f0047-052.jpg" title="f0047-05" width="504" height="759"></div>The buffoon of the Bruins &hellip; Has tapered off considerably in last two seasons as scorer &hellip; An eight-year man with Boston &hellip; With only 16 goals for past two years, he has become defensive stalwart for Bruins and proficient penalty killer &hellip; A rugged performer, he has always been well up in penalty parade &hellip; Product of Bruins&rsquo; junior farm system.LABINE, LEOBoston; b. Haileybury, Ont., July 22/31, 5&rsquo; 10", 170 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-06169/10379697-1-eng-US/f0047-062.jpg" title="f0047-06" width="621" height="123"></div>New high scoring defenceman who is being likened to some of the old time Toronto immortals &hellip; Last season counted 23 goals in 70 games to finish as fifth highest scorer on Toronto team &hellip; Has counted 48 times in three years with Leafs &hellip; Product of junior farm program &hellip; Performed with two Memorial Cup winners for Toronto Marlboros &hellip; Good rusher and accurate shot.PULFORD, BOBBYToronto; b. Simcoe County, Ont., Mar. 31/36, 5&rsquo; 11", 184 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-07133/10379690-1-eng-US/f0047-072.jpg" title="f0047-07" width="628" height="120"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0898/10379683-1-eng-US/f0047-082.jpg" title="f0047-08" width="502" height="753"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0973/10379676-1-eng-US/f0047-092.jpg" title="f0047-09" width="500" height="761"></div>A ten-year man in professional hockey eight in the NHL &hellip; Entering second season with Red Wings &hellip; Came to Detroit December, 1957 in eight-player deal with Chicago &hellip; Last season he scored 15 times in 55 games, average for his career &hellip; Noted as perhaps hockey&rsquo;s streakiest performer, running hot at one time and slumping cold at others &hellip; Two years with Boston, four with Hawks.MCINTYRE, JACKDetroit; b. Brussels, Ont, Sept. 8/30, 6&rsquo;, 190 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-1063/10379669-1-eng-US/f0047-102.jpg" title="f0047-10" width="653" height="137"></div>Late-season acquisition by Toronto last year &hellip; Played key role getting Leafs into playoffs &hellip; Won NHL rookie award in 1956-57 with Boston but gimpy knee and sophomore jinx made it rough campaign for him last season &hellip; A fast skater and excellent stickhandler, he virtually flies on the ice lanes &hellip; Started in game as centre, now plays left wing.REGAN, LARRYToronto; b. North Bay, Ont., Aug. 9/30, 5&rsquo; 9", 155 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-1153/10379662-1-eng-US/f0047-112.jpg" title="f0047-11" width="620" height="136"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-1246/10379655-1-eng-US/f0047-122.jpg" title="f0047-12" width="503" height="758"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-1340/10379648-1-eng-US/f0047-132.jpg" title="f0047-13" width="501" height="763"></div>Beginning fourth year in pro hockey but still to play full season in NHL &hellip; Used only sparingly by Toronto last year &hellip; Appeared in 28 games without registering any points and used in five playoff games &hellip; Came up through Leafs&rsquo; farm system with St. Mike&rsquo;s juniors &hellip; Spent season with Rochester in AHL and Winnipeg in WHL.PRICE, NOELToronto; b. Brockville, Ont., Dec. 9/35, 6&rsquo;, 183 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-1435/10379641-1-eng-US/f0047-142.jpg" title="f0047-14" width="637" height="136"></div>Has become fixture with Toronto after seven seasons &hellip; Started out as centre but switched to defense in recent years &hellip; One of more popular players on Toronto club &hellip; Reached NHL peak last season with 21 goals in 70 games &hellip; Came out of junior hockey highly-touted &hellip; Made jump directly to NHL &hellip; Has scored 105 goals in seven years with Leafs.STEWART, RONToronto; b. Calgary, Alta., July 11/32, 6&rsquo;, 191 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-1530/10379634-1-eng-US/f0047-152.jpg" title="f0047-15" width="620" height="119"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-1627/10379627-1-eng-US/f0047-162.jpg" title="f0047-16" width="498" height="762"></div> &#9632;

f0044-01

Duff Has The Stuff

<div class="byline">By Randy Fraser</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0048-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-01552/10379798-1-eng-US/f0048-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Turner goes hurtling over kneeli member of New York Rangers to make goalie Lorne, Worsley stretch for a shot. Turner is most improved player in Canadiens organization.</figcaption></div>Bob Turner and his wife were driving along a country road. The sun was shining, and there was the hint of a refreshing day in the air.For Turner, it promised to be a good summer. He had been a key figure a few weeks before in Canadiens&rsquo; rush to the Stanley Cup.He felt that when the time came for him to discuss salary for the 1958-59 season, he would find something extra in his pay envelope.Nothing to worry about &hellip;Then the happy voice of the announcer blared from the car radio. It snapped Turner out of his lazy day-dreaming.&ldquo;The Montreal Canadiens today sold one of their defencemen to the Chicago Black Hawks, of the National Hockey League,&rdquo; reported the announcer.Turner sat upright in his seat, anxious and afraid. His wife glanced hurriedly at the Canadiens defenceman, and bit her lip as the announcer prepared to continue.&ldquo;Managing - director Frank Selke announced that Dollard St. Laurent &hellip;&rdquo;Turner heaved a sigh. So did his wife. Suddenly, it was a nice day all over again.Turner, slightly-built man with a high forehead that makes him appear older than his 25 years, still recalls that day in June of 1958:&ldquo;I thought for sure it was me going to Chicago. Okay, I would have gone, but nobody likes to leave the Canadiens. The bonus money is too good.&rdquo;What Turner was referring to was the money earned by the players on teams like the Canadiens. These are days when a playoff berth is almost automatic with the club. Last season, with the team winning everything, it meant $4,000 added to the salary earned by the player.&ldquo;And it&rsquo;s like savings,&rdquo; points out the thrifty Turner. &ldquo;One lump sum. Not bad, huh?&rdquo;There may have been a time when Turner would have had considerable cause to worry about his job with the Canadiens&mdash;like his first full season with the team, in 1956-57, when he went sour after making a brilliant debut with the team during the last half of the 1956-57 season. But people around the Canadiens front office are prepared to agree now, that Turner has arrived to stay. He&rsquo;s a regular now, and he stays that way.It was during the &rsquo;56-57 season, as a matter of fact, that Turner did lose his job with the Canadiens, for a brief period. Bud McPherson had joined the team, caught fire, and there was nothing for the Canadiens to do but to hold onto him. Turner was the goat. He was hustled off to Rochester but returned in a couple of weeks, and hasn&rsquo;t taken a backward step since.&ldquo;Any hockey player&rsquo;s biggest worry is being shipped out to the minors. I worried about it all the time, from my first days with the Canadiens.&ldquo;Then they finally sent me down, and I stopped worrying. I promised myself that if I ever got back, they&rsquo;d never send me down again. It&rsquo;s worked out that way, and I&rsquo;m glad.&rdquo;Turner&rsquo;s name didn&rsquo;t appear in the all-star voting, nor is it likely to this season. But from Canadiens coach &ldquo;Toe&rdquo; Blake and elsewhere in the organization, they speak kindly of Turner.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the most improved player on the team, and perhaps in the league,&rdquo; says Blake. &ldquo;Nobody does more work.&rdquo;<h2>Turner Likes It</h2>And frankly, that&rsquo;s the way Turner likes it. In addition to taking his regular shift on the ice, he kills penalties for the Canadiens&mdash;not from his usual defense post but as a forechecker. It&rsquo;s a tribute to his speed on the ice, and along with Don Marshall, there isn&rsquo;t a more potent pair of penalty-killers in the league.He&rsquo;s almost fanatic, at times, about trying to keep an opposing team off the scoresheet when he&rsquo;s on the ice. It embarrasses him to see a goal scored against him. Not too many are, it seems.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-01536/10379791-1-eng-US/f0049-012.jpg" title="f0049-01" width="1897" height="2981"><figcaption class="caption-body">Turner far right, joins with teamates mate in congratulating &ldquo;Rocket&rdquo; Richard after the latter scored overtime goal in fifth game of last season&rsquo;s Stanley Cup finals.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-01543/10379784-1-eng-US/f0050-012.jpg" title="f0050-01" width="2251" height="901"><figcaption class="caption-body">Turner is partially hidden behind Ralph Backstrom during action with Detroit Red Wings.</figcaption></div>When the Canadiens, who started the season badly&mdash;for them&mdash;and thus where fighting for the league leadership during the first few weeks of the schedule, finally came out of their slump, Turner rode with them. In 13 games, only 13 goals were scored on the team, and Turner was on the ice for only one of them.Artistic contributions like these have prompted hockey men to describe him as the most improved player in the National Hockey League. From a fringe player, so to speak, they&rsquo;ve watched him develop into a solid regular, and no other defenceman in the league is called on regularly to forecheck during the killing of penalties.How Turner got into the business of a penalty-killer in addition to his other duties, still draws a chuckle from him.Floyd Curry, the team&rsquo;s ace penalty killer last season, was iniured. Nothing seemed to help. The club turned sour when they were shorthanded.One day, after the team arrived in New&rsquo;York for a game with the New York Rangers. Turner somehow found himself in the same cab with coach Blake.&ldquo;Do you know how to kill penalties?&rdquo; Blake asked the defenceman.For Turner, this was something new.&ldquo;Yeah, sure, I guess I do,&rdquo; he answered.&ldquo;Okay, you&rsquo;re my penaltykiller from now on,&rdquo; said Blake.Turner swallowed hard, but things have turned out well for the man.For Turner, it all starts in Regina, where he still lives, and has an interest in two properties.He worked his way up through the minor ranks, caught the eye of the Canadiens front office. He was invited to the Canadiens preseason camp, and was impressive.Canadiens, though, were overloaded with defencemen, and he completed a full tour of duty with the Shawinigan team in the Quebec Hockey League. That was during the 54-55 season, when the club went all the way to the Edinburgh Trophy, and the following season, Turner was back in the big league camp.<h2>Starred in Camp</h2>He was one of the outstanding defencemen in the camp, but Canadiens were still overloaded with defencemen.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re sending you back to Shawinigan,&rdquo; he was told by Canadiens managing director Frank Selke. &ldquo;But if you play there the way you played in camp, you&rsquo;ll be back with us.&rdquo;Turner played well with Shawinigan. But the motivating force behind his promotion to the Canadiens was a string of injuries to Canadiens defencemen, and suddenly, Turner was with the big club. He didn&rsquo;t miss a game that season and along with other rookies like Henri Richard, Claude Provost and Andre Pronovost, helped the club to the league championship and the Stanley Cup.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what happened the next season. I went sour,&rdquo; said Turner. It left the way open for McPherson to take over a regular job with the Canadiens briefly, and Turner was on his way to Rochester. He came back after several weeks, and nobody has put him out of a job since. Nor is anyone likely to, he says.Turner doesn&rsquo;t look like a defenceman. He&rsquo;s not the bash &lsquo;em type, but playing alongside Doug Harvey, he has developed into an expert blocker.Most of all, though, he likes to rush. He&rsquo;s hungry around the net, and if he hasn&rsquo;t managed to satisfy his appetite, at the very least he&rsquo;s scared the bejeebers out of opposing goalies.Two or three times a game, especially during his penaltykilling assignments, he manages to get in on a goalie with dangerous shots. His production hasn&rsquo;t been awesome, only two goals before this season, but now he thinks he&rsquo;s finally cracked the jinx. He had two goals and 11 assists this year in the Canadiens&rsquo; first 36 games.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0051-01406/10379777-1-eng-US/f0051-012.jpg" title="f0051-01" width="1506" height="2091"><figcaption class="caption-body">Here&rsquo;s young defenceman Turner winding up for attack.</figcaption></div>He&rsquo;s exceptionally fast. It&rsquo;s one of his greatest assets.Says Blake: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve come close to converting him to a forward several times. But he&rsquo;s more valuable doing what he has been doing these past few seasons.&rdquo;Hockey has been good to him.He&rsquo;s only been in the professional end of the game for four years, yet he&rsquo;s been on championship teams each season&mdash;the Edinburgh with Shawinigan, and three straight Stanley Cups with the Canadiens.&ldquo;Those bonuses come in handy,&rdquo; he grins. &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t forget, they&rsquo;re all savings. You get the money in one nice, fat cheque during the summer.&rdquo;People don&rsquo;t crowd him for autographs the way they do the Doug Harveys and the Tom Johnsons. It doesn&rsquo;t bother Turner.He&rsquo;s thankful for his years in the game, and for the years that lie ahead.He&rsquo;d like one more thing this season:&ldquo;Another Stanley Cup,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and the nice, fat bonus that comes with it.&rdquo;<h2>HOCKEY PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE</h2>To be fully informed about hockey rules and records in the National and American Hockey Leagues make sure your library includes the following publications:1-1959-60 EDITION OF THE NHL PRESS & RADIO GUIDE with WHO&rsquo;S WHO IN HOCKEYPrice: $1.00(See Page 16)2-1959-60 EDITION OF THE AHL YEAR BOOKPrice: 50&rsquo; cents(See Page 66)3&mdash;OFFICIAL HOCKEY RULE BOOKPrice: 25 cents(See Page 73)4&mdash;HOCKEY PICTORIALThe World&rsquo;s Largest Hockey Publication. Published Monthly Oct. thru May. 8 issues.Price: $2.00 for 8 issues.(See Inside Front Cover) &#9632;

f0048-01

Canadiens’ Surprise Package

<div class="byline">By D. Leo Monahan</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0052-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0052-01425/10379857-1-eng-US/f0052-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Flaman sends Canadiens&rsquo; Henri Richard flying during National Hockey League action.</figcaption></div>Your name is Ferny Flaman and you are the 32 year-old captain of the Boston Bruins. Around the circuit they say you&rsquo;re the toughest guy in the National Hockey League. You wish they would knock off that kind of talk.Because everybody says you&rsquo;re the toughest defenseman in the league, you win yourself a lot of arguments you don&rsquo;t ask for. Every time a big fresh kid comes into the league, he wants to try you on for size. They figure they&rsquo;ll show everybody just how tough they are by tangling with you. So when they ask for it, you oblige and maybe cork them a couple of beauties. Then maybe they&rsquo;ll leave you alone. Yes, but then maybe it&rsquo;s just the start of another feud.This is your 14th season in the N.H.L. You&rsquo;ve been around so long people take you for being older than you are. They don&rsquo;t realize you left Dysart, Sask, when you were just 14 years old and came to the States to play for the Brooklyn Crescents and the Boston Olympics back around 1943-44.That was rugged amateur hockey and there aren&rsquo;t many kids around today who learned the lessons of survival at such an early age. You were just 17 years old when you played in your first N.H.L. game back in &rsquo;44. You&rsquo;ve seen a lot of guys come and go since then. After all, coming in to this season you&rsquo;ve got 78 regular season games under your suspenders plus 63 more in the playoffs. You played on a Stanley Cup Champion in Toronto in 1950-51. That was the year the Bruins traded you to the Leafs in midseason for Bill Ezinicki and Vic Lynn.<h2>Trade Was Shocker</h2>That trade was a shocker. The Boston management said it had to give you up because it needed a couple of good wings to make the playoffs. That wasn&rsquo;t much consolation to you. After all, Boston was your home. You had built a three-bedroom home in nearby Westwood. Your wife Jean comes from Brookline, Mass. You had to haul up stakes every season for Toronto. That meant taking Terry and Lori along. Thank goodness Ferny, Jr. wasn&rsquo;t born then. He came along alter you were traded back to the Bruins.You played well for the Leafs, but deep down you weren&rsquo;t happy. You resented the Boston team trading you and gave that little extra every time you played against the Bruins. The Boston fans were on your back. Now they&rsquo;re with you, but you remember a couple of times when you came in with the Leafs when they really gave you the business. One night in Toronto Real Chevrefils tried to reef you coming around the net and he wound up in the hospital with a compound fracture of the leg. Another night in Boston Garden you collided with Dave Creighton in a corner and Creighton&rsquo;s leg was broken. This irked the Boston fans no end. They gave you a broad-A bazoo every time you showed up. Now they&rsquo;re on your side again.They call you the Bruins policeman. They say you&rsquo;re the rugged, two-fisted character who takes charge when there is trouble on the ice. You&rsquo;re expected to move right into the argument and iron out any opponent who is getting out of line. It&rsquo;s your job and you know it, but sometimes you wonder why some of your teammates don&rsquo;t finish what they start. If they look for trouble and get into a scrape, why not let them bail themselves out of it?<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0053-01387/10379850-1-eng-US/f0053-012.jpg" title="f0053-01" width="1487" height="2249"><figcaption class="caption-body">Here&rsquo;s Flaman taking Canucks&rsquo; Jean Beliveau out of play.</figcaption></div><h2>Everybody Knows You&rsquo;re Tough</h2>You learn early that sometimes a harsh look can run a guy off. Everybody knows you&rsquo;re tough so sometimes they turn tail when they see you coming. A lot of them won&rsquo;t, though. Then it&rsquo;s a problem of judgement. Sometimes you have to poke a guy. Other times you just argue with him. The biggest thing you remember is to get in the first lick. That&rsquo;s half the fight, that first punch.A lot of guys around the league respect you and you respect them, too. Take Gordie Howe of Detroit. If he leaves you alone, you&rsquo;ll lay off him. You don&rsquo;t have to prove anything to each other. Most of your trouble comes from the newcomers in the league. Take Eddie Shack of the Rangers for instance. You tangled with him in an exhibition game in Providence a year ago. Everybody told Shack how big and rough and strong he was, so he had to prove it to Ferny Flaman. Now Shack is in the National League and he remembers that night in Providence.Bob Pulford of the Leafs is a good young hockey player. He elbowed Doug Mohns and put him out six weeks with a broken jaw back in October. You mark Mr. Pulford for extra attention. One night in Boston you catch him with his head down and really cream him. Now you know he&rsquo;s going to be looking for his spot to get even.You&rsquo;ve got one or two vendettas with veterans. One&rsquo;s with Dave Creighton of Toronto. Oddly enough, you were traded for each other back in &rsquo;54. You don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s burning Creighton and you don&rsquo;t care. You were roommates one time with the Bruins. Henri Richard of Montreal is another feudist. Sparks seem to fly every time he&rsquo;s on the ice against you. C&rsquo;est la guerre.<h2>Closest Thing to Schmidt</h2>Because of your reputation, you&rsquo;ve got to be a Spartan. You&rsquo;re the closest thing the Bruins have had to Milt Schmidt since he quit playing and started coaching. Schmidt played despite tremendous physical odds at times. You&rsquo;ve done the same. You block a lot of shots and sometimes your body is polka-dotted with black and blue marks. You&rsquo;ve had angry-looking stripes inside your upper thigh from opponent&rsquo;s spearings. You&rsquo;ve had painful cuts and bruises, but you&rsquo;ve never missed more than nine games a season in the last seven campaigns. You&rsquo;ve got to be half dead before you won&rsquo;t play.Training camp is a grind for you, but you don&rsquo;t mind the games and you seem to be skating better than ever. You figure you&rsquo;ve got two or three or four more good seasons left. You think of the Rocket still in orbit at 38 and figure you can go that long, too.You think of the future. Last year you started a modest little sideline which is developing by leaps and bounds. You have made little bear mascots with the jersies of your favorite N.H.L. team and they&rsquo;re catching on. Last season you had just a Boston sweater, but now you&rsquo;ve added them all&mdash;Rangers, Leafs, Canadiens. You are a consultant for a skate concern and they&rsquo;d like you as a sales representative when your playing days are through. Hockey has been your life for so long that you&rsquo;d like to stay with it in some connection when you finally retire.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0054-01408/10379843-1-eng-US/f0054-012.jpg" title="f0054-01" width="415" height="580"><figcaption class="caption-body">Henri Richard</figcaption></div>Right now, though, you&rsquo;re concerned with helping Boston win hockey games. You are helping with your hustle and occasionally with your muscle. You&rsquo;re not looking for trouble, but you&rsquo;re not running from it, either. Why? Because your name is Ferny Flaman and everybody says you&rsquo;re the best fighter in the league.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0055-01359/10379836-1-eng-US/f0055-012.jpg" title="f0055-01" width="2677" height="3580"></div><h2>FLAMAN, FERDINAND CHARLES (FERNIE)</h2>Born, Dysart, Sask., January 25, 1927.Shoots Right. Height, 5 feet, 10 inches. Weight, 190 pounds. Defense.Last Amateur Club: Boston Olympics (Seniors).<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0054-02243/10379829-1-eng-US/f0054-022.jpg" title="f0054-02" width="2128" height="1245"></div> &#9632;

f0052-01

Boston’s Strong Boy

<div class="byline">By Charlie Halpin</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0056-01337/10380021-1-eng-US/f0056-012.jpg" title="f0056-01" width="707" height="1672"><figcaption class="caption-body">Eric Nesterenko</figcaption></div>From weekend hockey player to full-blown big league stardom in the amazingly short space of two years.That&rsquo;s the incredible success story of Eric Nesterenko, one of the most enthusiastic bits of hockey ivory to grace the Chicago Black Hawks in many a moon.In this modern day of high-pressured hockey business, who would have thought that a guy could go to college five days a week and play in the major leagues Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and still survive. Yet it has happened and it is truly one of the most dramatic stories to occur in the modern history of the National Hockey League.Nesterenko is the 26-year-old right winger of the Hawks, who is now devoting his time to a full NHL schedule but still manages to duck out between games to attend university (450 miles from Chicago), where he is majoring in business administration at Western U in London, Ont., a school which doesn&rsquo;t even have hockey on its athletic curriculum.&rsquo;Nester&rsquo;, as he is affectionately known by his Chicago hockey mates, is an enterprising young man who is aware of the fact his days on the ice lanes are not going to go on forever. He knows what he wants and it is conceivable to believe he&rsquo;s getting it in the form of a college education for the day when the Hawks feel they have no further need for his services as a player.Nesterenko is a unique performer in that he rarely sees his coach, Rudy Pilous, or his teammates, between games. He seldom ever practices with them. He shows up for all regular league fixtures and then goes back to school loaded down with transportation money from Pilous in $200 gobs.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0057-01316/10380014-1-eng-US/f0057-012.jpg" title="f0057-01" width="2627" height="1508"><figcaption class="caption-body">Nesterenko and Canadiens&rsquo; Doug Harvey in race for the puck.</figcaption></div><h2>Unusual Arrangement</h2>While the arrangement is an entirely unusual one, it nevertheless has the blessing of General Manager Tommy Ivan and Pilous, who are content to let the 6&rsquo;1", 185-pound winger combine school and hockey just so long as he gets his share of goals.In 1957-58 Nesterenko was a 20-goal man for Chicago, a feat that won him a $500 bonus. Only big Eddie Litzenberger triggered more goals than Nester, who was also the fourth highest point-getter on the team as he finished his most successful NHL season in six years.Could Nesterenko still play in the big time and have a comparable set-up with any other NHL team? It&rsquo;s not likely. There was a report this season that the native of Flin Flon, Man., was heading back to the Toronto Leafs, the club with which he first broke into pro hockey in 1952-53 after a phenomenal junior career. But the uncompromising Leafs would never have consented to such a deal today.Nesterenko is happy in Chicago and little wonder. The Hawks, who have been striving desperately for years to remove the stigma of a last-place team, went begging for Nester in January of 1957 and they haven&rsquo;t regretted the move in the least.While playing only weekend games in 1956-57, Nesterenko collected 23 points in 24 games, and last year he ended up with 38 points in 70 games &mdash; including his first 20-goal season as a big leaguer.Eric hasn&rsquo;t exactly hit his peak as yet this year but there are indications he will and the Hawks may be able to afford to wait if they keep bouncing in and out of the higher echelons of the NHL in their hour of resurgence.Now paired with young Bobby Hull at centre, and fiery Ron Murphy at left wing, the new Chicago attacking unit had its greatest moment of glory this season in a slam-bang 5-5 tie game against the World champion Montreal Canadiens right in Chicago&rsquo;s spacious stadium.Embittered by a personal $100-per-player fine imposed by Ivan for &lsquo;indifferent play&rsquo; in a previous 9-1 whomping at the hands of Les Canadiens, the Hawks came back all steamed up for the return tiff with the &lsquo;Flying Frenchmen&rsquo; but it seemed it wasn&rsquo;t in the books for them. They trailed 5-2 with the big stadium clock revealing only six minutes left to play in the game. Some of the fans had already moved out through the exits having written the Hawks off for dead.But in just as many minutes as it takes to walk from your seat in the Chicago rink to Madison street and Warren avenue the Hawks had caught fire to knot the score and it was Nesterenko. Hull and Murphy who provided the fireworks &mdash; three goals in three minutes and 14 seconds.Remaining on the ice for the final six minutes of the game, the dynamic Chicago trio clicked for three lightning goals, two by Murphy and one by Hull with Nesterenko credited with setting up all three scores.There was a moral to the story. Don&rsquo;t be surprised if more NHL managers go on a fine-levying spree this season. It-certainly worked wonders for the Black Hawks.Nesterenko was asked if the players had been refunded their one hundred dollars following the game. He replied emphatically in the negative.<h2>Long Time Coming</h2>But things are looking up for Ivan, Pilous and the Hawks, and for Nesterenko, too. The wheel is starting to spin now for Nester but he readily admits it has been a long time coming.When he first entered pro hockey with Toronto, he was heralded as the Leafs&rsquo; answer to Jean Beliveau. His astonishing scoring exploits with the junior Toronto Marlboros earmarked him as a surefire &lsquo;super&rsquo; star of the future. Torontonians had come to believe he was the greatest thing that ever pulled on a pair of skates.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0058-01339/10380007-1-eng-US/f0058-012.jpg" title="f0058-01" width="503" height="665"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tommy Ivan</figcaption></div>But what they didn&rsquo;t know was that Nesterenko just never fitted into Toronto&rsquo;s drab defensive style of hockey. He wasn&rsquo;t cut out for the clutch-and-grab system employed by the Leafs and he was soon pondering retirement after four mediocre seasons with Toronto.Nesterenko was a confused young hockey player. It was inconceivable to think he was washed up at 23, an age when most big leaguers are just starting out. However, it certainly appeared that way when Eric announced that he was quitting hockey in favor of finishing his studies at University of Toronto.Leafs soon gave up on the youth and he was thrust on the open hockey market. Chicago grabbed him for $15,000 in the draft. Nester made his retirement stick until Ivan went calling on him one chilly January night to coax him into coming back to the NHL wars if even for only the weekends.In 1957-58 he gave it a serious whirl with the Hawks but after a disparaging first half of the schedule, he was again seriously considering hanging up his skates for good because of an inferior goal record.But Ivan consoled him to the fact there was&rsquo; nothing wrong that a few goals couldn&rsquo;t rectify and he was right. Nester went on a scoring binge in the latter part of the season and racked up eight goals in 15 games to finish with a flurry for 36th position in the final NHL point tabulations.Nesterenko is now a full-fledged big leaguer and rapidly becoming one of the Hawks&rsquo; most colorful stars in many years. Last season he had the rare distinction of knocking the boards right out of the Chicago ice rink when he was jostled by a shuddering bodycheck thrown by Montreal defenseman Dollard St. Laurent, now one of his Chicago teammates.Ten minutes were required to repair the rink boards, but Eric wasn&rsquo;t the least bit perturbed by the incident. He came right back for more. &ldquo;I just fell right when he hit me. It didn&rsquo;t hurt me a bit,&rdquo; he explained calmly to visiting newsmen after the game. It was hard to figure how he ever stayed in one piece when the boards didn&rsquo;t.Nesterenko is a durable player, who gives and takes with equality. Last season he was a nominee as the most stitched Hawk of the year. He plays the game hard and rugged but most significant he is now playing it regularly.He hasn&rsquo;t talked much about retirement lately and it&rsquo;s the hope around Chicago that he will stick to his guns and become an integral part of the Black Hawks&rsquo; plans this season to &lsquo;shoot the works&rsquo; for that long, elusive playoff berth.Being a guy with brains, Eric Nesterenko likely will.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-01274/10380000-1-eng-US/f0059-012.jpg" title="f0059-01" width="509" height="754"></div>Getting his second wind as big leaguer with Bruins &hellip; Drafted from Rangers last season after three dismal years with New York &hellip; Scored 15 goals in debut with Bruins, tops for his career &hellip; Fast and aggressive &hellip; Snatched by Rangers from under noses of Montreal Canadiens &hellip; An assistant golf pro in Montreal during off-season &hellip; Rated excellent penalty killer.GENDRON, JEAN-GUYBoston; b. Montreal, Que., Aug. 30/34, 5&rsquo; 9", 157 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-02181/10379993-1-eng-US/f0059-022.jpg" title="f0059-02" width="636" height="116"></div>Despite his 28 years should prove valuable addition to Detroit defense this season &hellip; Picked up by Wings in recent trade with Boston for Nick Mickoski &hellip; Playing with third NHL club in Red Wings &hellip; Returned to Bruins last season after six years with Toronto Leafs &hellip; Product of crack Barrie Junior team along with Labine, Chevrefils and Toppazzini &hellip; Rugged, rushing type defenceman.MORRISON, JIMMYBoston; b. Montreal, Que., Oct. 11/31, 5&rsquo; 10", 183 lbs.; shoots left<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-03128/10379986-1-eng-US/f0059-032.jpg" title="f0059-03" width="624" height="121"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-04102/10379979-1-eng-US/f0059-042.jpg" title="f0059-04" width="496" height="758"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-0567/10379972-1-eng-US/f0059-052.jpg" title="f0059-05" width="509" height="751"></div>Eight-year veteran with Toronto and still going strong &hellip; Produced usual point output in 1958-59, 26 points in 70 games &hellip; Steady defenseman who came up through Toronto organization. Came out of junior hockey hailed as potential super star &hellip; Good rushing-type player and solid checker &hellip; Missed half season in 1955-56 with serious injury.HORTON, TIMToronto; b. Cochrane, Ont., Jan. 12/30, 5&rsquo; 10", 175 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-0653/10379965-1-eng-US/f0059-062.jpg" title="f0059-06" width="636" height="115"></div>Three-year performer in NHL with Montreal&hellip; Speed his main attribute &hellip; Last season goal production fell off to nine in 70 games &hellip; Has been member of last three Stanley Cup teams with Canadiens &hellip; Product of Habs&rsquo; junior farm system &hellip; Often rumored in trades but still hanging on with Montreal &hellip; Has potential to become first line star, can skate and shoot.PRONOVOST, ANDRECanadiens; b. Shawinigan Falls, Que., July 9/36, 5&rsquo; 9&rsquo;/a", 165 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-0740/10379958-1-eng-US/f0059-072.jpg" title="f0059-07" width="626" height="110"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-0826/10379951-1-eng-US/f0059-082.jpg" title="f0059-08" width="503" height="753"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-0917/10379944-1-eng-US/f0059-092.jpg" title="f0059-09" width="513" height="762"></div>Playing with third NHL club in nine years as pro &hellip; Came to Chicago via Montreal in draft last season &hellip; Performed four years with New York after failing to reach stardom predicted for him with Toronto &hellip; Fast skater but disdains bodily contact &hellip; Best year in &lsquo;54-55 with Rangers, 29 goals &hellip; Last season counted only eight times for Hawks.LEWICKI, DANNYChicago; b. Fort William, Ont., Mar. 12/31, 5&rsquo; 9&rdquo;, 165 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-1012/10379937-1-eng-US/f0059-102.jpg" title="f0059-10" width="645" height="119"></div>Rapidly becoming hard-luck goaler of big time hockey &hellip; Shoulder dislocation and appendectomy shelved him part of last two seasons with Boston &hellip; Starting fourth campaign as Bruin. &hellip; No NHL rookie ever placed in tougher position &hellip; Made debut on Jan. 26, 1957 when despondent Terry Sawchuk walked out on Bruins &hellip; Rated great &lsquo;glove&rsquo; man.SIMMONS, DONBoston; b. Port Colborne, Ont., Sept. 13/31, 5&rsquo; 10&rsquo;&rsquo;, 150 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-1110/10379930-1-eng-US/f0059-112.jpg" title="f0059-11" width="623" height="120"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-127/10379923-1-eng-US/f0059-122.jpg" title="f0059-12" width="506" height="770"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-136/10379916-1-eng-US/f0059-132.jpg" title="f0059-13" width="510" height="756"></div>Starting season with his fourth NHL team &hellip; Recently obtained by Boston Bruins from Detroit in exchange for defenceman Jim Morrison in straight player trade &hellip; One of big time&rsquo;s truly 11-year men &hellip; Last season registered 26 points in 66 games &hellip; Started with Rangers in 1947-48 &hellip; Has played with New York, Chicago and Detroit &hellip; Has 157 life-time NHL goals.MICKOSKI, NICKBoston; b. Winnipeg, Man., Dec. 7/27, 6&rsquo; 1", 193 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-144/10379909-1-eng-US/f0059-142.jpg" title="f0059-14" width="658" height="136"></div>Well-seasoned defenseman who has now worn four NHL uniforms &hellip; Leafs secured him from Boston last season and he proved valuable acquisition &hellip; Earned 22 assists in 70 games for Toronto and was big cog in getting Leafs into playoffs &hellip; Spent 6J^ years with New York, 1 with Chicago and two with Boston &hellip; Has collected 61 goals during 11 years in NHL.STANLEY, ALLANToronto; b. Timmins, Ont., Mar. 1/26, 6&rsquo; 2", 187 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-154/10379902-1-eng-US/f0059-152.jpg" title="f0059-15" width="649" height="151"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-164/10379895-1-eng-US/f0059-162.jpg" title="f0059-16" width="509" height="746"></div><h2>NESTERENKO, ERIC PAUL</h2>Born, Flin Flon, Manitoba, October 31, 1933.Shoots Right. Height, 6 feet, 1 inch. Weight, 185 pounds. Centre.Last Amateur Club: Toronto Marlboros (Juniors).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0058-02225/10379888-1-eng-US/f0058-022.jpg" title="f0058-02" width="990" height="947"></div>a&mdash;Traded to Chicago Black Hawks with Harry Lumley for $40,000. &#9632;

f0056-01

Hockey — And Books

<div class="byline">By Steve Whaley</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0060-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0060-01290/10380073-1-eng-US/f0060-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Delvecchio, No. 10, sweeps through Canadiens defence in attempt to get at flying puck being hunted by Canucks&rsquo; goalie, Jacques Plante. No. 4 is Detroit&rsquo;s Red Kelly.</figcaption></div>One of the nicest guys on the hockey club.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s how coach Sid Abel of the Detroit Red Wings describes left winger Alex Delvecchio.&ldquo;A potentially great player. He should be among the six or seven greatest in the world.&rdquo;That is what manager Jack Adams says.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s inclined to be lazy.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s what his critics say.There is no gainsaying Abel&rsquo;s succinct description. Friend and foe alike agree. But somewhere between the extreme views of Adams and those of critical fans lies a true appraisal of the player&rsquo;s worth.Abel denies the charge that Delvecchio is inclined to be lazy.&ldquo;Put it this way,&rdquo; said the coach, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s just such an easy-going chap he finds it hard to give 100 percent all the time. It would be fair to say that he paces himself. He&rsquo;s such a good skater, he makes it look easy. Some fellows who seem to be trying a lot harder actually are not doing any more work.&rdquo; Abel paused and seemed to be gathering his thoughts. &ldquo;Perhaps Alex should get mad more often and take a swing at someone,&rdquo; he added reflectively.<h2>Meek Fellow</h2>When the meek inherit the earth, there should be a substantial grant of real estate for Alex Delvecchio &mdash; a mild-mannered gentleman who never carries a chip on his shoulder, never acts vindictively, never utters a word of dubious propriety within ear-shot of a referee. Never utters a nasty word anywhere, for that matter.In all last season, while toiling conspicuously for the Red Wings, Delvecchio served only 3 minor penalties. His all-time high was 17 minors in 1953-54 and he hasn&rsquo;t incurred a major banishment since 1954-55. In fact he has had only two majors in his professional career.Delvecchio wasn&rsquo;t always such an exemplary character. As a junior he acquired quite a reputation for yapping at officials and only when he came under the tutelage of Larry Aurie, a Red Wing star of another era, did he learn to curb his temper and affix a firm martingale to his tongue.&ldquo;Larry Aurie was the greatest individual force in my development,&rdquo; says Alex. &ldquo;He taught me a lot about hockey and he taught me to control my temper. I used to get more than my share of misconduct penalties as a junior. Aurie explained that I was only hurting myself, biting my nose to spite my face as it were. When I finally realized that you can&rsquo;t score from the penalty box, I settled down to concentrate on hockey.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0061-01251/10380066-1-eng-US/f0061-012.jpg" title="f0061-01" width="704" height="1251"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alex Delvecchio</figcaption></div>Today around the National Hockey League Delvecchio is recognized as a competent marksman who combines his shooting ability with a distinct flair for playmaking.<h2>Could Score 30 Goals</h2>Adams, who cackles over his players like a mother hen harboring her brood, thinks Delvecchio might score 30 goals this season and collect liberally on a bonus clause in his contract.When he finds the range and the red light blinks in clinching confirmation 25 times, Alex will start collecting. And don&rsquo;t think the happy prospect isn&rsquo;t on his mind. He aims to earn that bonus money and he has his heart set on a successful quest of the Stanley Cup, too. Having been on three cup-winning Red Wing teams, he knows the financial distinction between victory and defeat.&ldquo;To the winners goes the lions&rsquo; share of the loot,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;And, believe me, it is nice to get a big cheque from league headquarters in early summer.&rdquo;Adams apparently was right when he said: &ldquo;We put bonus clauses in Delvecchio&rsquo;s contracts because we think he likes money.&rdquo;Last season Delvecchio scored 19 goals while functioning on a variety of lines, mostly as a centre. This season he is occupying Ted Lindsay&rsquo;s old spot at left wing on a line with Gordie Howe at right wing and Norm Ullman&ldquo;We think he&rsquo;ll be better at left wing than at centre,&rdquo; said Adams. &ldquo;We brought him into our organization as a centre and he has played about every centre spot on the club but we feel now that he will finally realize his full potential in his new position.&rdquo;<h2>No Trouble on Left Wing</h2>Although Delvecchio misses the freedom that mid-ice affords, he has had no trouble adjusting himself to the portside. One of his most eloquent boosters is Howe who says Delvecchio can give a smooth, feathery pass from any location on the rink.&ldquo;He has the knack of faking the defence out of position and giving you the puck with an open door &mdash; just the goalie to beat,&rdquo; says Howe, who with nearly 400 goals to his credit can be classed as an authority on the subject. &ldquo;With Ullman at centre and Fatso on left wing, I&rsquo;m getting a lot of help this year.&rdquo;Delvecchio was nicknamed Fatso when he was a youngster, skating with gay abandon and chilling his juvenile marrow on the windswept rinks of Fort William, Ont., where he was born December 4. 1931. He was a chunky kid. Today his 190 pounds are well distributed on a five-foot-eleven frame and although he has no tendency to gain weight and, consequently, no dietetic problems, most of his teammates call him Fatso.Although he wears his hair in a brush cut, Delvecchio has an air of unmistakable maturity. It is reflected in his eyes and is accentuated in little flecks of grey in his hair, especially around the temples. It shows in serious lines around his mouth and it is apparent in his speech.He&rsquo;s only 28 years old but Delvecchio already has plans to assure a smooth transition from active athletics to business life.<h2>Looks Into Future</h2>Two summers ago he decided to settle permanently in Fort William, bought a house for his growing family and with a partner established a sporting goods and furniture store. He figures the business will provide him with a livelihood when the time comes to leave the hockey wars to younger fellows.Alex is married to the former Teresa Di Guiseppe of nearby Port Arthur. They have three children &mdash; Kenneth, 6; Janice, 4; and Corrine, who is just 2 years old. For the winter the whole family moved to Detroit and there Kenneth Delvecchio is going to kindergarten and is being indoctrinated as a hockey fan. His mother takes him to see daddy play when the Red Wings have a Saturday afternoon game.Kenneth has not learned to appreciate all the finer points of the game yet but his mother is a fine teacher. She used to attend all the junior games at the Lakehead, cheering loudest for a kid called Fatso.What a difference a generation makes! Today Kenneth&rsquo;s interest in hockey is being encouraged. When Alex was growing up his father, Frank Delvecchio, an engineer on the Canadian Pacific Railway, didn&rsquo;t want him to play hockey at all. Alex&rsquo;s grandfather had come to Canada from Italy on a wave of immigration and in the family background the Old World attitude toward sport as a waste of time persisted.&ldquo;Think about something besides hockey,&rdquo; Poppa Delvecchio used to admonish his son.<h2>Sage Advice</h2>&ldquo;Think about something you can do to eat three times a day, put a roof over your head and buy some clothes. You could be a railroad engineer, maybe.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0062-01282/10380059-1-eng-US/f0062-012.jpg" title="f0062-01" width="677" height="2752"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sid Abel</figcaption></div>Little Fatso listened with filial respect but his heart was set on hockey. His castles in the sky looked a lot like Maple Leaf Gardens, the Forum in Montreal, the Detroit Olympia and other rinks in National Hockey League cities. His hero was Syl Apps, a tall, smooth-skating centre with the Leafs.Delvecchio might have grown up to ride a cab on a modern diesel locomotive. But one day when he was 16 the Red Wings enlisted him to play for the Fort William Hurricanes, a Detroit-sponsored junior club. He was scouted by Lou Passador and, so far as Alex knows, no other club ever showed any interest in him.Poppa Delvecchio protested vehemently when the Wings asked Alex to sign a C form. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll sign nothing. No A form, B form, C form. No nothing,&rdquo; exclaimed the engineer. &ldquo;If Alex is smart he&rsquo;ll think of how he can get a regular pay envelope in a good job.&rdquo;Poppa Delvecchio mellowed as his son began to show flashes of brilliance. When the time came for Alex to move up in the Detroit organization and a form had to be signed, Poppa nodded his head and wisely said: &ldquo;I want Alex to do what he can do best and that seems to be hockey.&rdquo;After making his mark with the Hurricanes, Delvecchio went to the Oshawa Generals with his Fort William linemates, Lou Jankowski and Stan Miller.<h2>Developed Rapidly</h2>There, guided patiently by Aurie, he developed rapidly as a scorer and a playmaker. In 1950-51 at Oshawa, he scored 51 goals and assisted on 69 others for 120 points. Here was a kid, not yet 20, who couldn&rsquo;t be ignored by an organization that likes to get its rookies with the bloom of youth still on their cheeks.Didn&rsquo;t Howe turn professional with the Red Wings&rsquo; Omaha farm when he was only 17? Didn&rsquo;t Terry Sawchuk go to Omaha when he was just 18? And Red Kelly &mdash; he was playing in the National Hockey League when he was 20.So Delvecchio, two months before his 20th birthday, affixed his signature to a contract and was dispatched to Indianapolis. In just two weeks he set the American League on fire, bagging three goals and providing passes for six others in six games.<blockquote class="pullQuote">He&rsquo;s Looking for 30 Goals</blockquote><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0063-01221/10380052-1-eng-US/f0063-012.jpg" title="f0063-01" width="995" height="1595"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jack Adams</figcaption></div>Indianapolis players heard that Larry Wilson was being sent down from Detroit. &ldquo;We figured Earl Reibel would go up,&rdquo; Delvecchio recalls. &ldquo;Imagine my surprise when the coach took me aside and told me to catch a plane for Detroit. Two days later I joined the Red Wings for a game in Toronto.&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ask me how I did in that game because I don&rsquo;t remember. I was too busy trying to get the butterflies in my stomach to keep still.&rdquo;History records that Delvec chio did well enough to stick with the club. He hasn&rsquo;t been back to the minors since. A durable chap, he has had only one injury in his career. In the second game of the 1956-57 season he suffered a broken ankle bone in Toronto and missed 22 of the club&rsquo;s contests.&ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;ve been lucky,&rdquo; Alex confessed the other day. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve realized my ambition. When I was a little fellow in Fort William I used to take my older brother Tony&rsquo;s skates, stuff them with extra stockings and glide over all the ice I could find. Now I command a good salary for doing something I enjoy. It&rsquo;s great.&rdquo;Give Alex those 25 goals or more this season and he&rsquo;ll be on top of the world.<h2>HOCKEY PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE</h2>To be fully informed about hockey rules and records in the National and American Hockey Leagues make sure your library includes the following publications:1-1959-60 EDITION OF THE NHL PRESS & RADIO GUIDE with WHO&rsquo;S WHO IN HOCKEYPrice: $1.00(See Page 16)2-1959-60 EDITION OF THE AHL YEAR BOOKPrice: 50 cents(See Page 66)3-OFFICIAL HOCKEY RULE BOOKPrice: 25 cents(See Page 73)4-HOCKEY PICTORIALThe World&rsquo;s Largest Hockey Publication. Published Monthly Oct. thru May. 8 issues.Price: $2.00 for 8 issues.(See Inside Front Cover) &#9632;

f0060-01

A NICE GUY GOES FAR

The sun had drenched the streets of Ottawa last spring with a sign of warm hope.The snows were now grey lumps, and inside the Ottawa Auditorium, where the Junior Canadiens were on their way to scoring the vital, clinching victory in their Memorial Cup struggle with Regina, the heat waves had wrapped themselves like clinging vines to the per-spiring athletes.There was one who attracted most of the attention of visiting officials from the National Hockey League.Actually, this attention was nothing new for Ralph Back-strom. They&rsquo;re been looking at him and romancing him since his juvenile days in the game of shinny. For Backstrom, this was just another night.He did what he has been accustomed to since he joined the Junior Canadiens several years before. He took his regular turn on the forward line. He operated on the power play. He killed penalties. Once in a while, he slipped back on defence. If there was anything to be done at all, Backstrom was the man, and though he didn&rsquo;t score a goal for the Junior Canadiens that night, he still was the most glittering figure among all of the hopeful.The pressure of playoff competition didn&rsquo;t bother him.Actually, pressure hasn&rsquo;t bothered him since his early &rsquo;teens.He can recall one night when the entire NHL had scouts watching him from the Kirkland Lake Arena stands. Backstrom had started his minor hockey with one of the Lions Club teams, and somehow, word had drifted out to the scouts that here was a youngster to watch. With lemming-like instinct, they moved in on the game, and watched.<h2>Goes on Rampage</h2>Backstrom didn&rsquo;t let them down. He scored nine times and assisted on two other goals during the evening.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0064-01236/10380230-1-eng-US/f0064-012.jpg" title="f0064-01" width="701" height="1972"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ralph Backstrom</figcaption></div>&ldquo;After the game,&rdquo; he grinned, &ldquo;I got to speak to all of the scouts in the National Hockey League.&rdquo;Two weeks later, in another game, the full complement of talent hunters were hatching him again.&ldquo;I scored nine goals for my club,&rdquo; he recalls. Then he added: &ldquo;But I didn&rsquo;t get any assists.&rdquo;For the last couple of years, there have been rumblings from the upper levels of hockey to watch this Backstrom. He was certain NHL timber. He played for four years with the Junior Canadiens, and appeared to have all of the ingredients that make a player big league. Last season, for example, he scored 45 goals and assisted on 53 more in 60 games against Junior A and Senior A opposition. It had reached the point where Sam Pollock, manager of Montreal&rsquo;s farm system, called Backstrom &ldquo;the best junior prospect in more than five years. Maybe 10 years,&rdquo; added Pollock.Sammy was right, but he didn&rsquo;t know how right he was.Canadiens managing-director Frank Selke had plans for Backstrom this season.He wanted the youngster to train with the Canadiens, and then ship him to the Rochester team of the American Hockey League for a season of experience.But Backstrom fooled him. He led the entire team during the training season, and when, one day, he was called to the Canadiens front office to sign a two-year contract, it was to be with the big club.&ldquo;I made up my mind that I was going to stay with the Canadiens,&rdquo; said Backstrom. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to go to the minors. It was as simple as that.&rdquo;<h2>Quiet Player</h2>He doesn&rsquo;t say this with a hint of bravado. He&rsquo;s perhaps one of the quietest players in the league&mdash;a non-smoker and non-drinker. But he was determinated to make the NHL in this one jump, and these are days when no one is arguing that he&rsquo;s in the league to stay.Still, there were moments after signing this contract when Backstrom wondered whether he had made the right move about staying in the NHL. He was jittery and nervous. He over-skated the puck time and again. Some of the Montreal fans started to murmur that the Canadiens had made a mistake with him. Even managing-director Selke criticized himself from time to time that he should have followed his first planning and send Back-storm to Rochester for seasoning.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0065-01239/10380223-1-eng-US/f0065-012.jpg" title="f0065-01" width="1476" height="1601"><figcaption class="caption-body">Backstrom gets glad eye from his junior coach, Sammy Pollock.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Of all the players I&rsquo;ve had play for me in hockey,&rdquo; said Selke, &ldquo;Backstrom is the hardest worker. He has to have time to get used to it, though.&rdquo;Backstrom was benched early in the season by coach &ldquo;Toe&rdquo; Blake. He had made several errors that had resulted in goals for opposing teams, and with some of the other players going well, there was no room for Backstrom.It didn&rsquo;t bother the youngster too much.&ldquo;I knew that sooner or later, I&rsquo;d have to get my chance. And when I did &hellip;&rdquo;The chance, as Backstrom describes it, came when Jean Beliveau suffered a freak accident during a game with Detroit. Backstrom, who had been used as a left winger, was moved to centre, position he always liked above all others. He went on a spree.<h2>Starts on His Way</h2>In his first game as centre for &ldquo;Boom Boom&rdquo; Geoffrion and Ab McDonald, Geoffrion scored three times, with Backstrom setting up most of the plays.A few days later, he got both of the goals against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a game which ended in a 2-2 deadlock.Two days later, against the New York Rangers, he scored a delightful goal and assisted on one or two others.It reached the point where, with the mid-season voting for the Calder Trophy, awarded each season to the youngster judged the best rookie in the league, Backstrom emerged as the only candidate to whom the selectors could give more than a passing glance.It all started for Backstrom in Kirkland Lake, which has sent a great many players to the National Hockey League.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve got a fine minor hockey system up there,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and with the long, hard winters, there&rsquo;s little else for anyone to do there but play hockey. I was no exception.&rdquo;He caught the eye of the scouts early and often, and his progression has been steady.They tell an interesting story, however, on the opening that finally got Backstrom and the Canadiens together.Years ago, Canadiens managing-director Selke was employed by the Toronto organization, which included the Syracuse team in its farm system.The coach of the Syracuse team was Eddie Powers, Sr., father of the NHL referee, and one night, Powers was stricken with the &rsquo;flu. Selke was told to handle the Syracuse team that night.&ldquo;The other team got a penalty,&rdquo; recalls Selke, &ldquo;and even as I was thinking what to do, a voice behind me said: &rsquo;Send on Bummer Doran.&rsquo; &ldquo;&ldquo;I turned around, and it was Powers.&rdquo;&ldquo;&rsquo;What are you doing at the rink?&rsquo; I asked, &rsquo; you&rsquo;re supposed to be sick.&rsquo; &ldquo;&ldquo;&rsquo;I couldn&rsquo;t stay in bed,&rsquo; said Powers. &rsquo;Send on Doran, he&rsquo;s a good man on the power play.&rsquo; &ldquo;As Doran slipped over the boards, Powers leaned across to him: &ldquo;Now Pm warning you, Doran,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t get a penalty.&rdquo;Doran was called to take the faceoff. The referee had no sooner dropped the puck, when Doran cross-checked the opposing centreman, and the referee whistled him down for a two-minute penalty.Doran blew up. He went at the referee. All it got him was another five minutes.Powers watched all this, his face turning purple with anger, and when Doran prepared to step into the penalty box, Powers reached across, grasped the player by the sweater and tugged hard. Doran&rsquo;s head hit the iron railing and split open for 18 stitches.Several years later, Selke, who had moved to the Canadiens by this team, received a call from Kirkland Lake. It was Bummer Doran.&ldquo;&rsquo;You&rsquo;ve always treated me like a gentleman,&rsquo; he told Selke, &rsquo;so I want you to have a look at a young hockey player we&rsquo;ve got up here. Everybody else wants him too, but I thought you&rsquo;d like to see him first.&rsquo; &ldquo;Selke despatched his front office aide, Ken Reardon, to Ontario and Reardon watched Doran&rsquo;s hockey player.It was Ralph Backstrom.<h2>Good Friend of Family</h2>&ldquo;Bummer is a good friend of the family,&rdquo; Backstrom recalls. &ldquo;He always writes me, telling me what to do when I get tired, or when I happen to fall into a slump.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a nice man. I owe him a lot.&rdquo;There are other nice men who have taken an interest in the young hockey players.&ldquo;Last summer, I spent two months in Ottawa in the car business. The man I worked for has taken an interest in men, and since he doesn&rsquo;t have any children of his own, he&rsquo;s already told me he&rsquo;d like me to go into business with him when I get out of hockey.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a wonderful opportunity, and right now, that&rsquo;s exactly what I have in mind.&rdquo;The promotion from junior to NHL hockey hasn&rsquo;t been easy. During the first half of the schedule, Backstrom has had more than a passing acquaintance with butt ends of hockey sticks, players&rsquo; elbows, knees, and so on. Along the way, he&rsquo;s managed to pick up a number of scratches and bumps and scars and stitches, but he shrugs them off.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve learned to accept them as part of the game,&rdquo; he grins. I can&rsquo;t complain.&ldquo;In this league,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve found that you don&rsquo;t get too many scoring opportunities. Maybe, you&rsquo;ll get one or two a game, and you&rsquo;ve got to make the most of them. You&rsquo;ve got to watch your man more closely, and they hit you harder than in Junior hockey. Then, when you get your shot away at a goalie, he moves faster than goalies in other leagues.&ldquo;Aside from all that,&rdquo; grinned Backstrom, &ldquo;there isn&rsquo;t much difference between junior and NHL hockey.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-01177/10380216-1-eng-US/f0067-012.jpg" title="f0067-01" width="508" height="772"></div>Finally crashed big leagues last season after two years in minors with Rochester &hellip; Picked up by Chicago in draft for $15,000 from Toronto &hellip; Developed into top penalty killer with veteran Glen Skov for Hawks &hellip; Spent seven years in Toronto chain but only one in NHL with Leafs &hellip; Tall, raw-boned, scored 10 goals for Hawks in 1958-59.BALFOUR, EARLChicago; b. Toronto, Ont., Jan. 4/33, 6&rsquo; 1", 180 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-02108/10380209-1-eng-US/f0067-022.jpg" title="f0067-02" width="639" height="113"></div>Seven-year performer in NHL &hellip; Has played with Boston and Detroit before joining Hawks midway through 1957-58 campaign &hellip; Came to Chicago in eightplayer swap with Red Wings &hellip; Deceptive in appearance, looks frail on ice but is surprisingly durable player &hellip; Once led AHL in goals with 45 in 1953-54 &hellip; NHL point production has fallen off in last two season.FERGUSON, LORNEChicago; b. Palmerston, Ont., May 26/30, 6&rsquo;, 185 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0376/10380202-1-eng-US/f0067-032.jpg" title="f0067-03" width="632" height="110"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0443/10380195-1-eng-US/f0067-042.jpg" title="f0067-04" width="500" height="767"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0529/10380188-1-eng-US/f0067-052.jpg" title="f0067-05" width="503" height="756"></div>Bounced back to form last season with 21 scoring points in 70 games &hellip; Missed most of 1957-58 year with foot injury and appendectomy &hellip; Playing eighth season in NHL, two with Toronto and six as Bruin &hellip; Chosen by NHL captains as hardest body checker in circuit &hellip; Likes to roll with puck &hellip; Has scored 20 goals in NHL career mostly with low, accurate shooting.BOIVIN, LEOBoston; b. Prescott, Ont., Aug. 2/32, 5&rsquo;. 7", 177 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0622/10380181-1-eng-US/f0067-062.jpg" title="f0067-06" width="621" height="108"></div>Heralded as great prospect of future for Rangers &hellip; Flopped last season with 21 points in 67 games but better things expected of him this year &hellip; Failed to get vote in rookie poll last season &hellip; Has natural ability to go far in hockey, good skater, drive and stamina, hard shot and willingness to take the puck &hellip; Played one season in minors.SHACK, EDDIERangers; b. Sudbury, Ont., Feb. 11/37, 6&rsquo;, 190 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0719/10380174-1-eng-US/f0067-072.jpg" title="f0067-07" width="639" height="118"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0816/10380167-1-eng-US/f0067-082.jpg" title="f0067-08" width="503" height="754"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0912/10380160-1-eng-US/f0067-092.jpg" title="f0067-09" width="496" height="746"></div>Rangers traded him to Toronto Maple Leafs this season after he refused to report to the Springfield Indians of the AHL. Currently with Rochester Americans of that league. Started his career with Chicago Black Hawks. Was traded to Rangers for Ron Murphy. As a junior was scoring champion with St. Catharines Teepees of the OHA Jr. &ldquo;A&rdquo; Series. Hank is being converted to defense by the Leafs for use in Rochester.CIESLA, HANKToronto; b. St. Catharines, Ont., Oct. 15/34, 6&rsquo; 2", 190 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-106/10380153-1-eng-US/f0067-102.jpg" title="f0067-10" width="639" height="118"></div>Beginning fifth season with Montreal Canadiens &hellip; Has performed in the shadow of Habs&rsquo; super-stars, Harvey and Johnson, but is still rated first-line defenceman &hellip; Picked up 21 points in 69 games last year &hellip; Member of last four Stanley Cup winning teams &hellip; Came up through Montreal farm system &hellip; Shows good burst of speed and is dependable checker.TALBOT, JEAN-GUYCanadiens; b. Cap de la Madeleine, Que., July 11/32, 5&rsquo; 11", 170 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-115/10380146-1-eng-US/f0067-112.jpg" title="f0067-11" width="619" height="119"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-124/10380139-1-eng-US/f0067-122.jpg" title="f0067-12" width="503" height="756"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-132/10380132-1-eng-US/f0067-132.jpg" title="f0067-13" width="497" height="755"></div>Hoping to make new start with New York this season &hellip; Drafted by Rangers from Toronto breaking up one of NHL&rsquo;s few brother acts &hellip; Also had dismal season in 1958-59 with only four goals in 59 games &hellip; Enjoyed best season previous year with 20 goals for Leafs &hellip; Had fabulous junior career along with brother Barry &hellip; Were most sought after players in Ontario minor hockey.CULLEN, BRIANRangers; b. Ottawa, Ont., Nov. 11/33, 5&rsquo; 10", 164 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-142/10380125-1-eng-US/f0067-142.jpg" title="f0067-14" width="631" height="124"></div>Had all but given up hope of getting back into NHL last season with Chicago after five years in minors &hellip; Fragile looking in appearance, he is extremely strong and wiry &hellip; Played 66 games for Hawks in 1958-59 and registered 19 points &hellip; A prodigious 214 point spree in three AHL seasons with Buffalo prompted second chance by Hawks &hellip; Rated good puck carrier.WHARRAM, KENChicago; b. Ferris, Ont., July 2/33, 5&rsquo; 9", 15 lbs., shoots right<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-152/10380118-1-eng-US/f0067-152.jpg" title="f0067-15" width="621" height="122"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-16/10380111-1-eng-US/f0067-162.jpg" title="f0067-16" width="494" height="751"></div><h2>Ralph&rsquo;s &lsquo;Partner&rsquo;</h2>The fellow whom Ralph Backstrom says has &ldquo;treated me like a son&rdquo; is Mr. Gordon Johnson, president of Gordon Johnson Motor Sales Limited. Mr. Johnson has offered Ralph an outstanding opportunity to become a partner with him in the car business, or become the general manager of the firm, when his playing days are over. Speaking of Ralph, Mr. Johnson said, &ldquo;he is a real gentleman and one of the most reliable fellows I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.&rdquo;&ldquo;When his playing days are over, I will be most happy to have him join our firm on a permanent basis.&rdquo;<h2>AMERICAN HOCKEY LEAGUE 1959 - YEAR BOOK - 1960</h2><h3>SECOND ANNUAL EDITION</h3>&bull; Contains complete professional records of all American Hockey League players, both present and past. &bull; Complete team and individual records for the twenty three year history of the American Hockey League. &bull; Pictures of league officials, championship teams, trophies and star players of the past and present.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0066-01243/10380104-1-eng-US/f0066-012.jpg" title="f0066-01" width="1494" height="879"></div> &#9632;

f0064-01

This Star Is Super

<div class="byline">By Vince Lunny</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0072-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0072-01169/10380446-1-eng-US/f0072-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Billy (The Kid) Harris</figcaption></div>In the National Hockey League, where big, burly fellows command a premium and coaches look askance at the skinny chaps, Billy Harris seems as out of place as a wine tester at a WCTU convention.Harris has achieved a certain status with the Toronto Maple Leafs without putting any strain on the dressing room scales. He&rsquo;s a lithe, 165-pound six-footer, up from 155 pounds a year ago. He&rsquo;s overcome other handicaps too. For one thing he didn&rsquo;t impress Coach Billy Reay when both were picking up their pay cheques in Rochester. For another, Billy Harris in his younger days was a notoriously poor skater, slipping and sliding around and supporting himself mostly on his ankles like toddlers on a play-ground rink.There was a time, too, when Harris, a pessimistic perfectionist with a long-range plan to become a school teacher, entertained thoughts of quitting hockey and completing his education.<h2>American League Not For Him</h2>&ldquo;Three years ago when the Leafs sent me down to Rochester, I was discouraged and down-hearted,&rdquo; he told Jim Proudfoot of the Toronto Star. &ldquo;I got worse instead of better and in the last month of the season I hardly played at all. I saw enough of the minors though to know that a career as an American League player wasn&rsquo;t for me. I decided that if I didn&rsquo;t make the grade with the Leafs in 1957-58, I&rsquo;d think seriously of packing away my skates.&rdquo;Harris was in that frame of mind &mdash; bewildered, uncertain, burdened by doubts &mdash; when he reported to the Toronto camp in the Autumn of 1957.One thing he did have in his favor was a large measure of determination. He wasn&rsquo;t going to yield without a fight and he became even more determined to make the grade when Coach Reay was reported as saying: &ldquo;Is Billy Harris really a hockey player? He showed me absolutely nothing at Rochester.&rdquo;There is some doubt as to whether Reay actually used those words but the quote (or misquote, as the case may be) was enough to spur young Harris.Resolutely he won a berth on the team and remained in the National Hockey League for the full season. At the halfway mark Staff Smythe, head of the Leaf management committee, was calling Harris &ldquo;the prettiest centre in the league to watch,&rdquo; and Reay was hailing him as one of the 12 best players in the league.<h2>Sharp Point-Getter</h2>Not only did Harris stick but he ended up as second highest point getter on the squad with 44 &mdash; 16 goals and 28 assists. Only Leaf to outrank him in the final statistics was Dickie Duff with 49 points.Figures in themselves don&rsquo;t reveal much unless, of course, they are in the nature of those featured by a chorus girl. In Harris&rsquo; case they show serious deficiency. Even an eloquent advocate, pleading for Harris against the logic of a statistician, would have a hard time. The reason? Harris bagged 31 of his points in the first half of the season, only 13 in the second half. But more about that later.A versatile forward, Harris plays both left wing and centre.&ldquo;When I first played minor league hockey, I was a left winger,&rdquo; Harris recalled, &ldquo;but I prefer the freedom I find at centre. I like to roam around, look for openings and set up plays.&rdquo;When Frank Mahovlich was basking into the glow of a hot streak last mid-season, the big, easy-going rookie was at left wing and his centre was Harris.Perhaps Harris is better at centre because he is endowed with peripheral vision just like Sam Etcheverry, famed passing quarterback of the Montreal Alouettes. People with this type of vision have a wider range of sight, picking up a side view as it were while looking straight ahead.<h2>Receivers Spotted</h2>This optical advantage helps Sam to detect potential receivers while keeping a wary eye peeled for tacklers. It helps Billy to locate his wingmen while watching rival defenders.That also could be the reason why Harris, despite his lack of weight, has never been seriously hurt. He has the uncanny knack of being able to duck away from defencemen bent upon physical destruction.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s see now,&rdquo; says Harris. &ldquo;I remember only two really hard checks. Gordie Howe belted me once and I thought I&rsquo;d been hit by a two-ton truck. Another time Marcel Pronovost nailed me against the boards and I was completely winded but not hurt.&ldquo;You know what the secret is? Well, I&rsquo;ll tell you. Relax. That&rsquo;s it. When you start worrying about the boards, you tighten up, you&rsquo;re nervous and jittery and easily hurt. When you take things as they come, sort of relax and cushion the checks, you can take an awful lot of jolts.&rdquo;A man with that heroically rational approach to his way of life should gain more weight. While his thinness isn&rsquo;t a source of concern to Harris, he would like to see the needle on the dressing room scales show some significant change on the upside. He admits trying everything &mdash; weight lifting, vitamin pills, extra thick succulent steaks and vast cargoes of potatoes and other vegetables. All to not much avail.<h2>Sticks to Education</h2>In the off-season Harris pursues his education, taking subjects that will eventually lead to a degree qualifying him to teach in Ontario schools.Billy Harris was born in Toronto on July 29, 1935, but when he was two years old, the family moved to South Porcupine, where his father operated a gas station. When Billy was six, the brood trekked back to Toronto. Young Billy manifested such early interest in hockey that his dad took him to Maple Leaf Gardens two or three times.Like most Canadian kids he used to collect pictures of the stars and among his favorites was Syl Apps, smooth-skating centre of another era.Suddenly tragedy entered the boy&rsquo;s life. It was 1944, a decisive year in World War II. Flying with the Royal Canadian Air Force on a bombing mission over battle-torn Europe, Harris&rsquo; father was killed. Besides a widow and young Billy, Mr. Harris left two other children &mdash; Barbara, who is now married, and Doug, who is 16.Billy, the eldest, buckled down, assumed responsibility beyond his years and helped his mother with all family problems. At Riverdale Collegiate he proved an apt pupil, quiet, studious, unassuming. In one term he was voted &ldquo;Boy of the Year&rdquo; and was given the Dr. G. W. Steele Award for general proficiency.<h2>Showed Finesse</h2>Meanwhile, although an awkward skater, he showed a certain finesse on the hockey rinks, starting with the Marlboro bantams and steadily climbing the ladder of success in the amateur farm chain of the Toronto club.He was with the Weston Dukes in 1952 when they won the Ontario Junior &ldquo;B&rdquo; championship. The next year he was promoted to the Toronto Marlboros and in 1955, with Harris scoring deciding goals with almost monotonous regularly, Marlies won the Memorial Cup, emblematic of. the Canadian junior title.Showing more potential that he has so far realized as a National Leaguer, Harris bagged 37 goals in Marlies&rsquo; regular games and added 15 more in the playoffs.Quickly he was signed to a Maple Leaf contract and the more enthusiastic Toronto supporters began to hail him as the logical successor to Ted Kennedy.That placed a heavy burden on the kid, already worried about weaknesses in his legs.&ldquo;I was really worried about my legs,&rdquo; he recalled. &ldquo;They always troubled me in junior hockey, aching and throbbing so badly I&rsquo;d have to admit to the coach that I couldn&rsquo;t help the team. Then when I got my knee banged up in the last few weeks of the Marlies&rsquo; schedule, I was really concerned. It gave me a lot of trouble in the playoffs.&rdquo;<h2>Worked on Legs</h2>Knowing that an athlete is only as good as his legs, Harris worked to strengthen them all summer, going to a gymnasium three or four nights a week and taking other exercises at home. Perseverance pays off. Harris has had no trouble with his legs since.With his legs in shape, Billy spent the summer of 1957 equipping himself as a marksman on ex-coach Howie Meeker&rsquo;s recommendation. He took home three dozen pucks at the end of his first season with the Leafs and three times a day he fired the whole batch against his basement walls.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0074-01158/10380439-1-eng-US/f0074-012.jpg" title="f0074-01" width="507" height="499"><figcaption class="caption-body">Frank Mahovlich</figcaption></div>Again perseverance paid off. On Oct. 19 1957 Harris scored a third period hat-trick as the Leafs trounced the Boston Bruins 7-0.&ldquo;Shooting those pucks gave me confidence,&rdquo; said Billy. &ldquo;I used to be so afraid of making a shooting mistake that I was always looking for someone to pass the puck to. I&rsquo;m still not satisfied with my shot, though. I don&rsquo;t think it is hard enough. That summer shooting helped me to strengthen my wrists, too, just as Max Bentley used to strengthen his by milking cows.&rdquo;In his earlier full season with the Leafs, 1955-56, Harris with Ted Kennedy&rsquo;s mantle thrust at him was inclined to press so that he made more mistakes than the average rookie.&ldquo;He made beautiful offensive plays,&rdquo; is the way Happy Day expressed it, &ldquo;but he had trouble with his checking. He kept getting coaxed out of position in the other team&rsquo;s end.&rdquo;<h2>Finally Sent Down</h2>In that sad era of emphasis on defensive qualities in Toronto, it is amazing that Harris lasted the season. His demotion didn&rsquo;t come until the following year when after 23 games he was dispatched to Rochester to make his initial acquaintance with Reay.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0074-0280/10380432-1-eng-US/f0074-022.jpg" title="f0074-02" width="671" height="1137"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stafford Smythe</figcaption></div><h2>Stafford Smythe</h2>In 1957-58 Harris found a new regime at Toronto, a new awareness of the importance of scoring goals.&ldquo;No longer was I reminded constantly of my defensive mistakes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I had time to think about goals. You can give a lot of the credit to Reay. He builds up players&rsquo; confidence and they want to play their best for him.&rdquo;If Mahovlich and Tod Sloan, on right wing last season, had maintained their first half pace Harris at centre might have had a better second half record.&ldquo;If Sloan had cashed in on half the goals Harris set up for him, Billy would have been one of the top scorers in the league,&rdquo; said Reay.Sloan had 10 first half goals, only three in the second half in which he contended with injuries and a bout of chicken pox. Mahovlich, strong and healthy but inclined to be lackadaisical, bagged 15 first half goals, only five in the second half.It can be argued that Harris&rsquo; playmaking ability might have declined but the consensus among the Toronto brass is that the blame rested with the wingmen.There is evidence to support this contention in the fact that Sloan was axed like a Christmas fowl while Harris was given the chance to prove this season that he really is a National Leaguer.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy that the Leafs have confidence in me,&rdquo; said Bill Harris the other day. &ldquo;I want to really make good with this team and, you know, a fellow tries pretty hard when he knows someone has faith in him.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-01136/10380425-1-eng-US/f0075-012.jpg" title="f0075-01" width="505" height="763"></div>One of hockey&rsquo;s merry travellers &hellip; Has played with four of the six NHL clubs, missing only Detroit & Montreal &hellip; Drafted by Montreal last season from Rangers but shipped to Rochester for 33 games &hellip; Toronto grabbed him for stretch drive and playoffs last year &hellip; Began NHL career with Boston&rsquo;s chain, playing six years with Bruins &hellip; Three seasons with New York &hellip; Has 139 goals in NHL.CREIGHTON, DAVEToronto; b. Port Arthur, Ont, June 24/30, 6&rsquo; 1", 181 lbs., shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-0290/10380418-1-eng-US/f0075-022.jpg" title="f0075-02" width="634" height="124"></div>Seven-year veteran defenceman with Rangers &hellip; Good competitor and sound positional player for Blues &hellip; Was youngest captain in history of club &hellip; Product of Rangers&rsquo; junior farm club at Guelph &hellip; His low goals-against record factor in keeping him in big time &hellip; His brother, Ron, also in Rangers&rsquo; chain &hellip; Consistant player, missing only 11 out of 490 games.HOWELL, HARRYRangers; b. Hamilton, Ont, Dec. 28/32, &rsquo;6&rsquo; 1", 195 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-0353/10380411-1-eng-US/f0075-032.jpg" title="f0075-03" width="616" height="112"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-0431/10380404-1-eng-US/f0075-042.jpg" title="f0075-04" width="494" height="748"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-0524/10380397-1-eng-US/f0075-052.jpg" title="f0075-05" width="503" height="759"></div>Younger of two hockey-playing brothers with Toronto &hellip; Purchased by Detroit during off-season in exchange for Johnny Wilson &hellip; Will be separated from brother Brian for first time in NHL career &hellip; Experienced disappointing season in 1958-59 &hellip; Scored but six times in 40 games &hellip; Shot 16 goals previous year for Leafs &hellip; Won WHL rookie award in 1955-56 at Winnipeg.CULLEN, BARRYDetroit; b. Ottawa, Ont, June 16/35, 6&rsquo;, 175 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-0616/10380390-1-eng-US/f0075-062.jpg" title="f0075-06" width="658" height="120"></div>Blossomed into top fill-in playoff goalkeeper in NHL last two years for Boston &hellip; Veteran of 13 seasons in big time &hellip; Has played with four NHL teams &hellip; Won Vezina Trophy in 1953-54 with Toronto &hellip; Posted 13 shutouts &hellip; Performed on one cup winner at Toronto &hellip; Drifted back to minors but recalled by desperate Bruins &hellip; Runs harness horses during off-season.LUMLEY, HARRYBoston; b. Owen Sound, Ont., Nov. 11/26, 6&rsquo; 1", 200 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-0717/10380383-1-eng-US/f0075-072.jpg" title="f0075-07" width="621" height="120"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-0814/10380376-1-eng-US/f0075-082.jpg" title="f0075-08" width="501" height="757"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-0911/10380369-1-eng-US/f0075-092.jpg" title="f0075-09" width="502" height="762"></div>Perhaps most improved defense player in NHL past two seasons &hellip; Starting his eighth year in big time, three with Boston and now in fifth with Detroit &hellip; Last season his best in NHL with six goals in 69 games &hellip; Sound blocker, effective rusher and possesses hard shot &hellip; First spotted by Rangers in WHL but Bruins already had him tabbed for NHL.GODFREY, WARRENDetroit; b. Toronto, Ont., Mar. 23/31, 6&rsquo; 1", 190 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-107/10380362-1-eng-US/f0075-102.jpg" title="f0075-10" width="619" height="125"></div>Boston grabbed Dutchman in draft from Chicago after 1957-58 season &hellip; Failed to live up to expectations last year as scorer &hellip; Detroit regular for 4&frac12; years after winning AHL rookie award, WHL scoring title &hellip; Finished among NHL&rsquo;s top 10 point-getters first three years in league &hellip; Won Lady Byng Trophy in &rsquo;55-56 with Wings &hellip; Good man on &lsquo;points&rsquo;.REIBEL, EARLBoston; b. Kitchener, Ont., July 21/30, 5&rsquo; 8", 160 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-116/10380355-1-eng-US/f0075-112.jpg" title="f0075-11" width="619" height="128"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-125/10380348-1-eng-US/f0075-122.jpg" title="f0075-12" width="495" height="764"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-134/10380341-1-eng-US/f0075-132.jpg" title="f0075-13" width="499" height="748"></div>Received big chance last season with Detroit and proved one of most rugged defensemen in NHL &hellip; Wings bought him from Cleveland in 1957-58 season &hellip; Last year scored once, had 11 assists in 67 games &hellip; Hard-going, fearless performer who added umph to Detroit defense &hellip; Will have to show stronger checking game to hold berth with Wings this season.GOEGAN, PETEDetroit; b. Fort William, Ont., Mar. 6/34, 6&rsquo; 1", 195 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-144/10380334-1-eng-US/f0075-142.jpg" title="f0075-14" width="620" height="126"></div>One of truly big men in pro hockey &hellip; Stands 6&rsquo;3", 210 pounds &hellip; Starting fourth year as regular defenseman with Chicago &hellip; Underwent knee operation during off-season and expects to start anew this year &hellip; Product of Hawks&rsquo; St. Catharines junior farm team &hellip; Known around NHL as &lsquo;Moose&rsquo; &hellip; Once called million dollar prospect by Late Dick Irvin &hellip; Rushing, colorful type player.VASKO, ELMERChicago; b. Duparquet, Que., Dec. 11/35, 6&rsquo; 3", 210 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-154/10380327-1-eng-US/f0075-152.jpg" title="f0075-15" width="624" height="134"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-163/10380320-1-eng-US/f0075-162.jpg" title="f0075-16" width="496" height="760"></div><h2>HOCKEY RULE BOOK NOW AVAILABLE!</h2>&bull; WANT TO CHECK A REFS DECISION?&bull; WANT TO BE A HOCKEY KNOW-IT-ALL?Here&rsquo;s your chance. With this handy pocket-size rule book you&rsquo;ll be able to check a decision on the spot. Fill in the coupon below and enclose 25 cents for handling and mailing.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-01152/10380313-1-eng-US/f0073-012.jpg" title="f0073-01" width="1075" height="802"></div> &#9632;

f0072-01

Billy (The Kid) Harris

<div class="byline">By Dick Bacon</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0076-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0076-01152/10380491-1-eng-US/f0076-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Henri Richard, right, spills Jack Evans along the boards.</figcaption></div>During one of the tense struggles of the Stanley Cup finals between the Canadiens and the Boston Bruins in 1957-58, the Little Rocket came bursting in on Boston Goalie Don Simmons who was already having his troubles with Jean Beliveau who was playing with the puck as if he had a yo-yo on the end of his stick. At the last split second, Beliveau flipped to the speeding Henri Richard who only had to steer the puck in the net. Instead, the shot went wild and the Bruins had a temporary life.&ldquo;I was so mad at myself and felt so small that I would have kept skating right on out to St. Catherine St. if the gate had been open,&rdquo; said Henri.That little incident occurred in the first game of the best-of-seven tiff with the Bruins. The Canadiens eventually won that first game at the Forum on Dickie Moore&rsquo;s second period goal, 3-2. It illustrates that in some respects, the two Richards, though separated by almost 15 years, are identical nature, if not in outward physical appearance. When the elder Richard was Henri&rsquo;s age, he possessed the same low boiling point which naturally was one of the contributing factors to the number of embroglios in which he has been associated.<h2>Keeps It to Himself</h2>The Pocket Rocket seldom telegraph&rsquo;s his feelings when he loses his temper on ice, whether he&rsquo;s livid with rage at some manoeuver the opposition has employed to stop him or for a mistake of his own doing.&ldquo;I guess it&rsquo;s because there are too many people watching you,&rdquo; he volunteered. &ldquo;But I know that sometimes I get so mad that I just can&rsquo;t do anything right. I know there are some players who can get mad at themselves for something they did wrong and it helps them to play better, but not me &hellip; at least not so far.&rdquo;If you don&rsquo;t believe this junior-sized whirlwind on skates can blow his top with the best of us, ask Henri sometime how many sets of golf clubs or how many tennis rackets he&rsquo;s gone through, not counting those he wore out.Another shortcoming of Henri&rsquo;s that was more apparent last year was his inability to score on breakaways. During his rookie season and the following year the Little Rocket scored 19 and 18 goals respectively and many of them came on breakaways. In 1957-58 he increased his production to 28, finished second in the scoring race, four points behind linemate Dickie Moore with 80 points and won the first team All-Sar spot hands down. It would hardly seem that there was room for criticism.However, around the Forum, and certainly among the league&rsquo;s other five netminders, it was noticeable that Henri wasn&rsquo;t fooling the goalies on breakaways as he had during most of his first two years. And no one is more aware of it than the Little Rocket himself.<h2>Should Shoot More</h2>&ldquo;Sure I know it,&rdquo; he admits with a trace of disgust. &ldquo;I should shoot more and not try all the time to pull the goalie out of his nets. The coach told me several times last year to shoot sometimes instead of going all the way in and trying to fool the goalie.&rdquo;One reason the goalies have been catching up with Henri is that his pattern on breakaways has become too predictable. He will sweep in on the nets, try to draw the goalie out as he veers to the left and then attempt to slip the puck in behind net-minder. He tried the same manoeuver on Simmons in the opening game of the Stanley Cup finals &mdash; this was previous to the shot he missed on a relay from Beliveau that was mentioned earlier. Simmons just held his ground and stopped the shot.Coach Toe Blake has one explanation for Henri&rsquo;s lack of variation on his breakaways.&rsquo;&rsquo;He just has it in his mind that he can beat a goalie better by pulling him out than shooting,&rdquo; said Blake. &ldquo;Maybe he could when he first came up and the goalies weren&rsquo;t used to him. But now they know just what he&rsquo;s going to do almost everytime. I&rsquo;ve tried to tell him to shoot once in awhile, but he insists on trying to pull the goalie out.&rdquo;Blake holds practice drills to improve the shooting eyes of his players and give them the confidence they need to use it during a game situation.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve watched him during these drills,&rdquo; Blake went on, &ldquo;and I see him miss the net completely sometimes. He just doesn&rsquo;t concentrate, I guess. It&rsquo;s kind of funny, because if we hold a scrimmage I can&rsquo;t keep him out of it. Sometimes I&rsquo;ll want to rest him because I know that he needs it, but do you think I can keep him on the bench?&rdquo;Blake may be in for a pleasant surprise this year.&ldquo;I know I need to practice my shot,&rdquo; Henri confessed when Blake&rsquo;s observation was related to him. And I know that I make the same-move too often when I get a breakaway, but this year I&rsquo;m really going to work on it.&rdquo;<h2>Bad News for Goalies</h2>That warning should be enough to enemy goalers not to get too confident the next time they see the Little Rocket boring in all alone with the puck. Furthermore, when Henri makes up his mind to do something it takes some doing to stop him. It was his determination and single-mindedness that was largely responsible for making the Canadiens in the first place, despite the fact the management told him on more than one occasion that he wouldn&rsquo;t be kept but would be sent down to the minors.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0077-01149/10380484-1-eng-US/f0077-012.jpg" title="f0077-01" width="1664" height="2028"><figcaption class="caption-body">The &ldquo;Pocket&rdquo; is seen flying toward superstar status in the rugged NHL.</figcaption></div>Henri was only 19 when the Canadiens opened their Verdun, Que. training camp in September 1955. He had a remarkable record as a junior, scoring as many as 50 goals one season. But there were several reasons why the Forum brass had already decided that Henri would not be brought up that year. He was young, inexperienced in professional hockey and perhaps the pressure on him and the Canadiens in signing him to play on the same team with Maurice might prove to have an adverse effect on the youngster that could&rsquo;&rsquo;possibly interfere with his career.General Manager Frank Selke, farm club director Kenny Reardon and Coach Blake didn&rsquo;t reckon with Henri&rsquo;s determination. The smallish, but swift and smooth skating Henri dominated almost every practice and as Blake is fond of recalling, &ldquo;everytime you looked at him he had the puck.&rdquo;&ldquo;I figured that if I had the puck all the time they&rsquo;d have to watch me &hellip; and maybe keep me. Mr. Selke told me during the training camp that I wasn&rsquo;t going to make it. Then the day the Canadiens were going to play the Royals in an exhibition game they told me that I was to play with the Canadiens but that I would later join the Royals, although I would be paid by the Canadiens. I guess I still figured I had a chance and when the season opened I got a chance right away because (Bernie) Geoffrion got hurt and they put me in at right wing on the line with (Jean) Beliveau and (Bert) Olmstead.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0078-01147/10380477-1-eng-US/f0078-012.jpg" title="f0078-01" width="1970" height="1265"><figcaption class="caption-body">Richard, right joins with mates Doug Harvey, left, and Bernie Geoffrion, in fastball.</figcaption></div><h2>Determined to Stay</h2>Henri played for three games, the first three of the season, and under the devious rules of hockey, he could still be returned to the Junior Canadiens without losing his &ldquo;amateur&rdquo; standing. But Henri had made up his mind that he would turn pro that year and sure enough, after his third game &mdash; the point of no return, so to speak &mdash; Selke called him in and together, with Maurice counselling him (one of the few times this strange brother relationship has teamed together off the ice),Henri signed a two-year contract with the Canadiens.That night I visited Henri at his home in the Bordeaux section in the northern part of Montreal to interview him for the United Press International. It was then he first disclosed perhaps the real reason he confounded the experts by busting into the powerful lineup of the Canadiens.&ldquo;This is the year I wanted to make it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;For several years I have worked toward making the Canadiens this year. I never told anyone about it. I never mentioned it to Maurice, or to my mother or father, or anyone else.&rdquo;&ldquo;Ever since I can remember I&rsquo;ve always wanted to play on the same team with Maurice,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;And I figured it had to be this year because I didn&rsquo;t think Maurice would be playing much longer.&rdquo;There were many others who felt the same way about the Rocket. But the old man is still around and starting his 18th season with the Canadiens, his fourth with young Henri. Maurice has a ready explanation for his new-found staying power.&ldquo;Henri.&rdquo;&ldquo;He makes me feel like 28 instead of 38,&rdquo; the Rocket offered just before Les Habs began training for defense of their league title.It&rsquo;s a matter of record that Henri got his break through the loss of Geoffrion, who suffered a shoulder injury in the first five minutes of the very first game of the season.&ldquo;It was tough on him (Geoffrion),&rdquo; Henri said at the time, &ldquo;but it was a break for me.&rdquo;However, according to Henri himself, it now seems doubtful that he could have made a living playing on right wing alongside Beliveau and Olmstead. Normally a center, Henri recalls that he found it very difficult to perform effectively in Geoffrion&rsquo;s right alley, and in fact, noted that he still has trouble combining with Beliveau, acknowledged as the most stylish and accomplished center man in the game.<h2>Different Styles</h2>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re both centers but we both have different styles,&rdquo; he explained recently in an interview for BLUELINE. &ldquo;Jean likes to skate more slowly and when he carries the puck in over the blueline he will move around looking for an opening. If I&rsquo;m carrying the puck I usually just drive straight in and Maurice or Dickie will cut for the goal just as fast, looking for a pass. I guess it&rsquo;s just our style.&ldquo;When I was playing right wing with Jean I was all over the ice,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;Being a center I found it hard to stay in position on the wing and would roam around.&rdquo;Getting back to Henri&rsquo;s temper, rival defensemen may have to work a little harder this season to spoil the Little Rocket&rsquo;s concentration and diminish his effectiveness by needling tactics that are designed as much to upset player&rsquo;s mental equilibrium as they are his physical balance.Henri has a reputation as being shy and probably is one of the least talkative members of the team. The story goes that when he first attended the Habs training camp in that fall of 1955-56, Blake was asked by an English-speaking sportswriter if Henri spoke English. Without hesitating Blake replied:&ldquo;He talks so little I don&rsquo;t even know if he talks French.&rdquo;Henri makes up for it on the tennis court or the golf course. Of course, most of his conversation is directed at the ball or himself and very little of it is complimentary.&ldquo;I guess it&rsquo;s because I like to win so much that I get so mad when I play sports,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;And if I&rsquo;m on a tennis court or a golf course usually there is nobody around but myself and whoever I&rsquo;m playing with, so I don&rsquo;t watch myself like I do when I&rsquo;m playing hockey.&rdquo;<h2>Temper Control in Sight</h2>The Little Rocket indicated, however, that perhaps he&rsquo;s learned to control his unruly temper.&ldquo;This summer, all of sudden I found that I would still get mad and swear at myself and my opponent but there was a difference. Instead of losing all control of my game I began to concentrate more than ever. Several times I would be losing 0-3 or 0-4 and I&rsquo;d tell my opponent that I was going to beat him. The funny part is I usually did.&ldquo;I just hope I can react the same way in hockey this season,&rdquo; he added.One place his new-found patience and concentration may come in handy is in his contact with Boston&rsquo;s rough-house defenseman, Fern Flaman.&ldquo;That Flaman,&rdquo; said Henri, &ldquo;he bothers me more than anybody else in the league. I can&rsquo;t think of anyone else who gives me such a bad time. He&rsquo;s always got his stick between my legs or hooks my stick, or something.&rdquo;Like most hockey players, Henri doesn&rsquo;t look for fights but doesn&rsquo;t back down from one either. One notable battle he was involved in occurred a couple of years ago at the Forum. He and Pierre Pilote, a compact but smallish Chicago defenseman, squared off behind the nets at the St. Catherine St. end of the Forum. Pilote decked Henri at least once and the consenus in the press box was that Pilote took a unanimous decision and then held his own against older brother Maurice who stepped in moments after Henri had been pulled out of the melee.When it was suggested to Henri that he might have lost the decision, he refused to acknowledge such a fact, but added:&ldquo;That was my first real fight in the National Hockey League and I was awful nervous.&rdquo;Such was not the case during a free-for-all at Boston Garden early in 1957-58. As might be expected, those two protaganists &mdash; Henri and Flaman &mdash; got the brawl under way and Henri was doing quite well, before other players joined the principals. Henri&rsquo;s attentions were diverted next to big Jack Bionda whom he dispatched post haste.&ldquo;By that time I was really tired,&rdquo; Henri recalled. &ldquo;My arms felt so heavy that I didn&rsquo;t think I could lift either one. But then I saw (Leo) Labine jumping over the fence from the Boston bench and heading for me. I don&rsquo;t know how I managed it, but I got my right up and Labine ran right into it. I think he had a pretty good cut over his eye.&rdquo;&ldquo;No. I wasn&rsquo;t so nervous that time.&rdquo;Henri and Maurice give every evidence of operating like a brother team on ice and together with Moore this trio at times seem to have eyes in the back of their heads. However, if Henri scores a goal he get the same perfunctory slap on the backside from his other teammates as he does from Maurice. And while for a time it appeared as if the Rocket intended to make Henri&rsquo;s battles his battles, Maurice now just skates over and offers a big brotherly piece of caution to Henri and lets it go at that.<h2>Sit Apart in Dressing Room</h2>In the dressing room they sit apart, and any talking Henri does while pulling on his uniform is usually exchanged with such players as Claude Provost, Andre Pronovost, Phil Goyette, all of whom he has known since his junior hockey days. While he will play an occasional game of tennis or a round of golf with Maurice, his partners are more apt to be Provost, Goyette, or other friends.Ultimately, in discussing the Richards, there always arises the provocative conjecture over how close will the Little Rocket come to equalling the Rocket&rsquo;s talents and exploits. General Manager Selke had this to say about Henri recently.&ldquo;Henry (sic) is till young and has a lot to learn. But I&rsquo;m convinced that as he matures through the necessary experience he will be one of the real great ones of the game.&rdquo;The end of the hockey season does not mark the end of work for Henri &ldquo;Pocket&rdquo; Richard. In the summer, Henri works as a special service station representative for BP Canada Limited, Montreal, one of the country&rsquo;s newest oil companies.During this period he travels many hundreds of miles every month visiting BP stations in Ontario and Quebec. This summer, he attended the official opening ceremonies of some 40 new BP stations scattered across Quebec, giving autographed photographs and posing for pictures with some of his fans.Henri is also a frequent speaker and guest at service club luncheons and meetings and often pays surprise visits to local hospitals and orphanages. &#9632;

f0076-01

Hockey’s Biggest small Package

<div class="byline">By Dave Anderson</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0080-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0080-01131/10380655-1-eng-US/f0080-012.jpg"></div>When I worked in the gold mines, I went underground as far as 3,000 feet,&rdquo; Dean Prentice said. &ldquo;But I didn&rsquo;t go down that far very often. Most of the time, I&rsquo;d just take the powder down and put it where the blasters wanted it.&rdquo;&ldquo;What powder?,&rdquo; his companion wondered.&ldquo;The dynamite powder,&rdquo; Prentice said.&ldquo;Well, wasn&rsquo;t that dangerous?&rdquo;&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Prentice shrugged. &ldquo;Not in boxes.&rdquo;&ldquo;Well, couldn&rsquo;t it go off some-how?&rdquo;&ldquo;No &hellip; I don&rsquo;t think so.&rdquo;The Rangers&rsquo; lean left wing, one of the most fearless forwards in the NHL, slouched in his seat on the bus bouncing the Rangers from the Detroit Olympia to Willow Run Airport for a midnight flight to New York &mdash; where gold miners are hard to find.&ldquo;My father was underground for 30 years up in Timmins, Ont. I was underground four years and on the surface two years,&rdquo; Prentice continued. &ldquo;Since I moved to Guelph in the off-season, I&rsquo;ve been working in a limestone quarry. Same work &hellip; with powder.&rdquo;&ldquo;Well, isn&rsquo;t there some danger that it just might go off when you&rsquo;re carrying it around?&rdquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s easy in the quarry,&rdquo; Dean said. &ldquo;I just go down and fill up the holes they bore in the rocks. Then somebody else comes along and lights them.&rdquo;&ldquo;I get it,&rdquo; his companion laughed. &ldquo;You do all the dirty work, then somebody else has all the fun setting off the firecrackers &mdash; like on the Rangers.&rdquo;Prentice smiled at this. On the Rangers, he skates in the shadow of the more glamorous goalscorers such as Andy Bathgate and Camille Henry. No one hustles harder than Prentice, yet Red Sullivan and Andy Hebenton are the headlined hustlers.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; Dynamite Dean grinned. &ldquo;I can get away with more mistakes than they can.&rdquo;If you know Prentice, this was quite a lengthy conversation. Among hockey players, he&rsquo;s one of the nicest non-committal competitors I know. Asking him a question doesn&rsquo;t mean you will get an answer. But you can&rsquo;t get mad at him.Early in 1957-58, I trapped him on the then controversial question of whether or not Detroit&rsquo;s Gordie Howe missed Ted Lindsay, his long-time linemate exiled to Chicago.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0081-01141/10380648-1-eng-US/f0081-012.jpg" title="f0081-01" width="2232" height="1296"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hilda Chester, left, and Rangers Fan Club Lillian Greenberg visit Prentice in hospital.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Prentice began. But I kept him talking about it for a few minutes. Finally, Dean forgot himself. &ldquo;Howe looked a little lost without Lindsay,&rdquo; he blurted.The next day, I wrote it that way in the New York Journal-American. The next night, Howe helped the Red Wings blank the Rangers, 4-0, behind Terry Saw&mdash;chuk who also came in for some backfiring quotes from All-Star defenseman Bill Gadsby.After the game, coach Phil Watson barred sports writers from the Rangers&rsquo; dressing room. While the press cooled its heels, Watson blistered his players for &ldquo;popping off,&rdquo; aiming his lecture at the quotes from Prentice and Gadsby.Neither Prentice nor Gadsby whined that they had been misquoted &mdash; the standard defense for prima donnas. They knew they said it, and stuck by it.For Gadsby, the old pro of 13 NHL seasons, this was nothing to worry about. But for Prentice, it was different. He probably never before was involved in a controversial quote &mdash; especially one that should get the coach so excited.For Prentice then, it was a lesson learned. As I found out some two weeks later.At the time, Rocket Richard had just been injured in the freak accident that severed his left Achilles tendon. The Canadiens were due in New York the next Sunday, so I was questioning players on Henri Richard&rsquo;s ability to fly solo.&ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; Prentice winced when I asked him. &ldquo;I said something once and I heard about it. Ask the other guys but do me a favor. Leave me out of this one.&rdquo;Prentice is Bathgate&rsquo;s silent partner on the Rangers. They pal around together, along with Larry Popein. But Bathgate does most of the talking &mdash; in fact, virtually all of the talking while Dynamite Dean nods and smokes his cigar.Despite his verbal cautiousness, Prentice is a fierce competitor whom Watson considers ideal. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll go through the wall for you,&rdquo; the coach beams.Right now, the Rangers are hoping Prentice merely goes through the season without a serious injury. Now 26, he&rsquo;s approaching his peak. For sheer ability, he&rsquo;s capable of earning the left wing slot on the NHL&rsquo;s first-team All-Stars.&ldquo;Nobody&rsquo;s got left wing wrapped up, not even Dickie Moore,&rdquo; Watson says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a wide-open position on the All-star team, not like right wing that you know is going to be Howe, Bathgate or maybe the Rocket. Prentice has a good chance.&rdquo;The Rangers were booming Prentice for All-Star honors last season, at least until two freak skate cuts trimmed his season to 38 games &hellip; in which he scored 13 goals.After a goal and two assists in the pre-season All-Star Game at Montreal, Prentice took &ldquo;first-star&rdquo; honors. Shortly after, sitting with New York writers in his Detroit office, Red Wing general manager Jack Adams volunteered that:&ldquo;Prentice looks like the best left wing in the NHL. Maybe this&rsquo;ll be his big year.&rdquo;But in December, Prentice and Lou Fontinato teamed up to scrape the puck out of a corner. In the tangle, Fontinato&rsquo;s skate accidentally sliced through Prentice&rsquo;s skate boot, gashing the little toe of his left foot for six stitches.Dynamite Dean missed six games, killing his chances for much of an All-Star vote in the half-season ballot. Then in January, another skate cut killed his chances for any All-Star mention.This was another scramble in the corner, Prentice&rsquo;s favorite haunt &mdash; a habit that helps endear him to Watson and his teammates. Prentice and the Canadiens&rsquo; Phil Goyette collided. Goyette skated away. Prentice weaved to the bench.&ldquo;I never felt it at first,&rdquo; Dean recalls. &ldquo;It was just like a razor cut. Right here on the back of my left calf. The skin nerves are still dead. But the leg&rsquo;s okay. I never saw it but they tell me there was blood all over the ice.&rdquo;There was. Goyette&rsquo;s skate had dug deep into Prentice&rsquo;s calf, a wound requiring 45 stitches an hour later in the operating room at St. Clare&rsquo;s Hospital &mdash; &ldquo;about 35 inside the leg itself, and about 10 on the outside.&rdquo;At first, Ranger Dr. Kazo Yanagisawa predicted that Prentice was through for the season and the Stanley Cup playoffs. But general manager Muzz Patrick disagreed.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got the greatest respect in the world for Dr. Yanagisawa&rsquo;s prediction,&rdquo; Muzz admitted, &ldquo;but he doesn&rsquo;t know these young athletes like I do. Let&rsquo;s wait and see. These kids heal awfully quick sometimes.&rdquo;To make a long layoff short, Prentice was in uniform a week before the end of the season. He took a regular turn in the playoffs. Dr. Yanagisawa still shrugs his shoulders.&ldquo;Maybe this year will be Prentice&rsquo;s big year,&rdquo; Watson says now, echoing the hopes of the entire Ranger organization. &ldquo;I want to keep him with Bathgate. They team up terrific together. They&rsquo;re happiest together.&rdquo;&ldquo;By now, we never even look for each other on the ice,&rdquo; Prentice says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve played with Andy &hellip; and the last few years with Pope (Larry Popein) &hellip; for about six straight years except for the years Andy was away.&rdquo;Bathgate was away in the minor professional leagues, at Vancouver of the WHL and Cleveland of the AHL, a formality Prentice never bothered with.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0083-01116/10380641-1-eng-US/f0083-012.jpg" title="f0083-01" width="706" height="970"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dean Prentice</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I jumped right from the Juniors to the NHL,&rdquo; says Prentice. &ldquo;Funny thing, but when I was in Guelph, I honestly never thought about playing NHL. It just never entered my mind. When it came, I was really excited.&rdquo;The moral of that story is &mdash; don&rsquo;t tell Dean about that dynamite powder. It might go off. And don&rsquo;t anybody tell him what a good left wing he is. He&rsquo;ll surely get hurt again.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-01119/10380634-1-eng-US/f0084-012.jpg" title="f0084-01" width="503" height="750"></div>Rangy rearguard who has hung in there with Boston Bruins for seven seasons &hellip; Demoted to Springfield farm club in latter part of 1957-58 but bounced back in NHL last year as regular &hellip; Scoring 10 goals in 39 AHL games won him second chance with Bruins &hellip; Rated good clutch player &hellip; Played vital role in getting Boston into playoffs.ARMSTRONG, BOBBoston; b. Toronto, Ont., Apr. 7/31, 6&rsquo; 1", 180 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-0260/10380627-1-eng-US/f0084-022.jpg" title="f0084-02" width="638" height="119"></div>Always ranked high as minor league player &hellip; Last season got third chance at NHL when purchased by Chicago from Vancouver &hellip; Played in final 24 games, but not regularly &hellip; Previous NHL experience with Toronto and Boston &hellip; Small, but elusive as centre &hellip; Won WHL scoring title and MVP award in &rsquo;55-56 with Vancouver &hellip; Will have to hustle to catch berth with Black Hawks.MALONEY, PHILChicago; b. Ottawa, Ont., Oct. 6/27, 5&rsquo; 9", 170 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-0338/10380620-1-eng-US/f0084-032.jpg" title="f0084-03" width="629" height="121"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-0413/10380613-1-eng-US/f0084-042.jpg" title="f0084-04" width="508" height="755"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-058/10380606-1-eng-US/f0084-052.jpg" title="f0084-05" width="503" height="752"></div>A newcomer to the Toronto hockey scene who is expected to stay around for some time &hellip; Starting third year with Leafs &hellip; Has scored but two goals in 138 games however his defensive play has been inspiration to Toronto team &hellip; Product of Leafs&rsquo; junior farm team &hellip; Fast skater and solid checker &hellip; Played on two Memorial Cup junior winners with Toronto Marlboros.BAUN, BOBBYToronto; b. Lanigan, 182 lbs., shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-069/10380599-1-eng-US/f0084-062.jpg" title="f0084-06" width="637" height="114"></div>A Red Wing right from the start&hellip; Commencing his fourth as a regular with Detroit&hellip; Product of Wings&rsquo; junior farm system &hellip; Played with Detroit&rsquo;s Edmonton club in WHL two years &hellip; Blond, stocky and powerful, turned pro at only 19 &hellip; Counted only two goals in 54 games last season &hellip; A diversified player, he could become big star with Red Wings.McNEILL, BILLY<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-074/10380592-1-eng-US/f0084-072.jpg" title="f0084-07" width="632" height="125"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-084/10380585-1-eng-US/f0084-082.jpg" title="f0084-08" width="506" height="744"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-093/10380578-1-eng-US/f0084-092.jpg" title="f0084-09" width="497" height="758"></div>Only Welsh-born player in professional hockey &hellip; Grabbed by Chicago last season in draft from Rangers &hellip; Has been in pro game nearly 12 years, eight in NHL with New York &hellip; Proved valuable defensive addition to Hawks last season &hellip; Hands out heavy bodycheck though inclined to be in and outer &hellip; Should be fixture with Chicago again this season.EVANS, JACKChicago; b. Garnant, South Wales, Apr. 21/28, 6&rsquo; 1", 185 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-103/10380571-1-eng-US/f0084-102.jpg" title="f0084-10" width="635" height="123"></div>Old war-horse of Black Hawks &hellip; Now established as top defensive player and penalty killer in NHL &hellip; Came to Chicago in 1955-56 after five years with Detroit &hellip; Playing fifth season with Black Hawks &hellip; Possesses amazing flip shot &hellip; Member of three cup winners with Red Wings &hellip; Played through 422 successive NHL games before injury ended string.SKOV, GLENChicago; b. Wheatley, Ont, Jan. 26/31, 6&rsquo; 1&rdquo; 185 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-113/10380564-1-eng-US/f0084-112.jpg" title="f0084-11" width="638" height="124"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-123/10380557-1-eng-US/f0084-122.jpg" title="f0084-12" width="502" height="756"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-133/10380550-1-eng-US/f0084-132.jpg" title="f0084-13" width="493" height="752"></div>Starting second year in NHL with Detroit &hellip; Crashed big time last year but experienced disappointing season &hellip; Scored only twice in 57 games &hellip; Left unprotected in draft by Wings but went unclaimed &hellip; Detroit got him from Montreal in 1957-58 in draft &hellip; Considered hard-rock performer who likes to mix it&hellip; Came up through Canadiens&rsquo; farm system &hellip; Could become star in time.LAFORGE, CLAUDEDetroit; b. Sorel, Que., July 1/36, 5&rsquo; S&rsquo;/i", 160 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-142/10380543-1-eng-US/f0084-142.jpg" title="f0084-14" width="632" height="131"></div>Young defenceman striving to make it with Boston this season &hellip; Drafted by Bruins from Chicago &hellip; Played with Calgary in WHL last year, scoring 22 points in 64 games &hellip; Rated up and coming prospect by Hawks after graduating from Chicago&rsquo;s Sarnia junior team &hellip; Spent two seasons with Buffalo &hellip; Had three-game stint with Hawks in 1957-58.WARD, DONBoston; b. Sarnia, Ont., Oct. 19/35, 6&rsquo; 2", 200 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-152/10380536-1-eng-US/f0084-152.jpg" title="f0084-15" width="638" height="125"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0084-162/10380529-1-eng-US/f0084-162.jpg" title="f0084-16" width="505" height="757"></div><h2>AMERICAN HOCKEY LEAGUE</h2>1959&mdash;YEAR BOOK-1960<h3>THIRD ANNUAL EDITION</h3>Contains complete professional records of all AHL Players, both present and past.ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY I(See Page 66)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0083-0274/10380522-1-eng-US/f0083-022.jpg" title="f0083-02" width="648" height="951"></div>PORTRAITS BYTEX COULTERWRITE P. O. BOX 560, MONTREAL FOR INFORMATION &#9632;

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<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0082-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0082-01130/10380686-1-eng-US/f0082-012.jpg"></div>This compact 224-page book answers every question imaginable about the National League. Gives complete professional records of every player in the National, American, Western and Quebec Leagues.VERY LIMITED SUPPLY, SO GET YOUR ORDER IN EARLY!All This For Only $1.00(Postage Paid) &#9632;

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The Best Hockey Guide Published

<div class="byline">By Steve Whalley</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0090-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0090-01129/10380972-1-eng-US/f0090-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ex-Detroit&rsquo;s Johnny Wilson (8) is watched closely by Canadiens&rsquo; Doug Harvey.</figcaption></div>Durability is an important asset for a hockey player. But Johnny Wilson wasn&rsquo;t thinking about the word or its significance when he skated onto the ice in Detroit&rsquo;s Olympia one night in February, 1952, to play in a Red Wing uniform after being promoted from the Detroit reserve corps at Indianapolis. A rookie, raw and eager, doesn&rsquo;t think about such things.Johnny Wilson was thinking about durability though when he lined up with the Red Wings on Sunday night March 1, 1959, for a game against the Chicago Black Hawks. Now a seasoned campaigner he was well aware that the starting whistle would signal his 500th consecutive National Hockey League game.He was approaching the record left by Murray Murdoch when he shed his New York Ranger sweater at the end of the 1936-37 season.Between 1952 and 1959, Wilson has acquired some thoughts on the subject of durability and, as the league&rsquo;s new consecutive game champion, he is well qualified to speak.&ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;ve been lucky,&rdquo; Johnny conceded with appropriate modesty the other day as he looked back on more than seven full seasons with the Red Wings. &ldquo;There were times when I was helped by a break in the schedule.<h2>Injured in Practice</h2>&ldquo;I remember once in a practice in Detroit I was hit over the right eye by a flying puck. It was a Tuesday and, luckily, we had no games until Saturday. If we had had a mid-week date, I couldn&rsquo;t possibly have played. When I awoke Thursday morning the eye was closed. I couldn&rsquo;t see out of it at all. It didn&rsquo;t open until Friday afternoon and was sufficiently improved for me to play on Saturday night.&rdquo;Another time last season Johnny thought his streak had come to an untimely end, well short of the 500-game mark. The Red Wings were playing the Rangers, the club with which Ironman Murdoch had battled his way through 508 consecutive games.&ldquo;I was carrying the puck out of our own end of the rink,&rdquo; Johnny recalled. &ldquo;One of the New York players crashed into me. I think it was Harry Howell. I tumbled over backwards and hit my head on the ice. I tried to move my hands to rub out the pain but the muscles didn&rsquo;t respond. I seemed to be paralyzed from the waist up. What I remember most vividly is that when I looked up, the rink was going around and around like a merry-go-round and the lights were spinning in crazy circles.&ldquo;I managed to roll over and other players came and helped me to the bench. After sitting quietly for a few minutes, the paralysis disappeared and everything was all right. I must have pinched a nerve or something. Certainly I was stunned and, believe me, it was frightening for a while.&rdquo;Johnny Wilson has had his share of minor injuries &mdash; charley horses, elbow bruises, cuts and lacerations &mdash; but nothing serious enough to force him out of the line-up.<h2>Rock-Ribbed Individual</h2>Carrying 170 pounds well distributed on a sturdy five-foot-ten frame, Wilson is a rock-ribbed individual as well anchored as a brick wall on a concrete foundation. No pilgrim on the line of least resistance, he doesn&rsquo;t shy away from bodily contact in a game that is noted for bruising checks. But he has developed the happy knack of being able to absorb punishment much as a well conditioned boxer is able to withstand blows that would spell oblivion for a lesser man.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been playing with Johnny ever since we were kids together on the outdoor rinks at Shawinigan Falls in Quebec,&rdquo; said Detroit defenseman Marcel Pronovost. &ldquo;I think one of his assets is elusiveness. He&rsquo;s a hard man to knock down. He can twist and turn and weave while making the big play. And when he does get hit hard, he&rsquo;s so solid that often it&rsquo;s the other fellow who feels the pain.&rdquo;There was a time at the start of the 1957-58 season when some observers thought Wilson&rsquo;s streak might have been in jeopardy. He was deep in a depressing slump that plagued him through 28 consecutive scoreless games.We asked Johnny: &ldquo;Were you not afraid you&rsquo;d be benched then?&rdquo;He replied without hesitation. &ldquo;No. I wasn&rsquo;t playing that bad. I was doing my best, skating hard, checking, passing well and shooting as often as before. But the goals weren&rsquo;t coming. I&rsquo;ll bet I hit the posts a dozen times.<h2>Too Cautious</h2>&ldquo;At first I was too cautious. I kept trying to pick the corners, going for those narrow targets and missing. Then as I grew more and more distressed, I started to fight the slump, firing the puck wildly in the hopes that perhaps a miracle would occur to get me back on the right path.&rdquo;The Red Wings played their first game that season on October 10 against the New York Rangers. Finally more than two months later, on December 15 in New York, Johnny ended the dearth. Midway through the third period of his 28th game of the 1957-58 season he took a pass from Alex Delvecchio and flipped the puck past Marcel Paille in the New York net.Something taut snapped inside of Johnny. All the tension melted like butter in a summer&rsquo;s sun. A week later Wilson scored the 100th goal of his major league career and he went on that season, after his disastrous start, to bag 12 tallies.It is a tribute to Wilson that he wasn&rsquo;t benched nor was he criticized by any of the Detroit brass.&ldquo;Johnny kept trying harder and harder,&rdquo; said Jack Adams, general manager of the Wings. He&rsquo;s a digger, a hustler, a real team player. It wouldn&rsquo;t have been fair to him or to the club to bench him simply because his run of luck was appalling.&rdquo;While Wilson&rsquo;s physical equipment makes him quite capable of acquitting himself with distinction in any brawl that might develop, he has achieved his consecutive games record without incurring a single major or misconduct penalty.Only minors for run of the mill infractions besmirch his record. His highest total for a season was 12 minors in 1956-57, his last of two campaigns with the Chicago Black Hawks.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0091-01107/10380965-1-eng-US/f0091-012.jpg" title="f0091-01" width="1060" height="926"><figcaption class="caption-body">Here&rsquo;s John Kelly Wilson, adopted son of Detroit&rsquo;s Johnny.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t score goals from the penalty box,&rdquo; said Johnny, dusting off a hackneyed truism. &ldquo;I prefer to stay on the ice where I might be of some help to my team. Let fellows like Lou Fontinato and Ted Lindsay get the penalties. That&rsquo;s their style of play and I have no quarrel with it. I suppose that without players like that the game would be less interesting for the spectators. Come to think of it, Lindsay isn&rsquo;t so bad. His penalty total is well padded with misconduct penalties and it takes five little minors to make up for one misconduct.<h2>Doesn&rsquo;t Argue</h2>&ldquo;Personally, I prefer not to argue with the officials. What would I accomplish? A referee has never yet changed his mind to accommodate a hockey player, no matter how eloquent the plea.&rdquo; Wilson and Murdoch have a lot in common.The old New York player, now coach of Yale University&rsquo;s hockey team, set his 508-game record over 11 years, before the 70 game season came into effect. He played every Ranger game from the opening of the 1926-27 season to the final contest of the 1936-37 campaign.Both were 22 years old when their streaks started. Both are left wingers. They are the same height, five-foot-ten. Both were born in Ontario, Murdoch in Lucknow and Wilson in Kincardine. His parents had emigrated from Northumberland, England.However Johnny was brought up in Shawinigan Falls, playing hockey with his brother Larry, now with the Buffalo Bisons in the American Hockey League. Their family moved to Shawinigan when the boys and a sister, Margaret, were young so Papa Wilson could take a job in one of the big chemical plants of Canadian Industries Limited.&ldquo;Those were depression years,&rdquo; said Johnny, &ldquo;and I pestered my father for a long time to buy me a pair of skates. I guess he got tired of hearing me complain that the other fellows in the neighborhood had skates and I didn&rsquo;t. One night he surprised me with a new pair. Believe me, it was a big night in a young fellow&rsquo;s life.&ldquo;At Shawinigan Falls Larry and I had a rink in the backyard with makeshift lights strung up so we could skate at night. We were on the ice at every opportunity. We even wore our skates at supper so no time would be wasted taking &rsquo;em off and putting &rsquo;em on again.&ldquo;Mother didn&rsquo;t mind &mdash; well, not much,&rdquo; he recalled. &ldquo;And dad understood our interest in athletics. Over in England he had been a pretty fair professional soccer player.&rdquo;Both Wilson and Murdoch established reputations as gentlemanly players. The most penalty time assessed against Murdoch in any one season was 32 minutes compared with Wilson&rsquo;s 24 minutes.<h2>Didn&rsquo;t Blow The Fuse</h2>Neither managed enough goals in any season to blow the fuse that controls the red light behind the net. Murdoch netted 83 goals in his 11-year streak with the Rangers while Wilson has scored 120-odd.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-01107/10380958-1-eng-US/f0093-012.jpg" title="f0093-01" width="500" height="770"></div>Finally received opportunity at big time hockey last season with New York &hellip; Rangers called him up from Buffalo of AHL for final 35 games of NHL season &hellip; Got one goal in debut &hellip; Kicked around Montreal organization for eight years before Rangers drafted him in 1958-59 &hellip; Good defensive player and keen competitor &hellip; Will have to stick out to stay with Rangers this year.BOWNASS, JACKRangers, b. Winnipeg, Man., July 27/30, 6&rsquo; 1&rdquo;, 185 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-0267/10380951-1-eng-US/f0093-022.jpg" title="f0093-02" width="610" height="106"></div>Still eligible for another year of junior hockey &hellip; Hawks turned him pro after three game tryout last season &hellip; Was leader of St. Catharines Teepees of the OHA JR. &ldquo;A&rdquo; Series &hellip; Was born in Soholce, Czechoslovakia, but hasn&rsquo;t seen his parents in ten years &hellip; Now lives in St. Catharines, Ont. with an uncle and aunt&hellip; Highly rated by Hawks, although small, he takes bumps well.MIKITA, STANChicago; b. Soholce, Czechoslovakia, May 20/40 5&rsquo; 9&rsquo;&rsquo;, 140 lbs, shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-0336/10380944-1-eng-US/f0093-032.jpg" title="f0093-03" width="507" height="780"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-0416/10380937-1-eng-US/f0093-042.jpg" title="f0093-04" width="508" height="784"></div>Made debut in NHL last season with Detroit &hellip; Drafted by Boston this summer for $20,000 price &hellip; Finished fourth in Calder Trophy race &hellip; Collected 20 points in 70 games in auspicious start with Wings &hellip; Starred for Whitby Dunlops and helped win World hockey title in Europe &hellip; Plays with helmet because of plate in his skull as result of near-fatal hockey injury.BURNS, CHARLIEBoston; b. Detroit, Mich., Feb. 14/36, 5&rsquo; 11&frac12;&rsquo;, 170 lbs., shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-056/10380930-1-eng-US/f0093-052.jpg" title="f0093-05" width="611" height="111"></div>Comes into NHL this season with Montreal after wrecking AHL last year in rookie pro start &hellip; Won everything at Rochester in 1958-59 &hellip; Topped scoring race with record 97 points, tallied 41 goals, picked on first all-star team, named outstanding rookie of year and most valuable player &hellip; Rated &lsquo;can&rsquo;t miss&rsquo; prospect for NHL &hellip; Right wing joined Habs for last year&rsquo;s playoffs but played only one game.HICKE, BILLYCanadiens; b. Regina, Sask., Mar. 31/38, 5&rsquo; 8&rdquo;. 160 lbs., shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-066/10380923-1-eng-US/f0093-062.jpg" title="f0093-06" width="506" height="772"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-073/10380916-1-eng-US/f0093-072.jpg" title="f0093-07" width="510" height="775"></div>Getting his first National League break after four seasons with Seattle in the WHL &hellip; Playing on line with Billy MacNeill and Gerry Melnyk, he has been a great asset to the Wings thus far &hellip; Turned pro with New Westminster in 1954-55 after playing with Medicine Hat, Alta. Juniors.FONTEYNE, VALEREDetroit; b. Wetaskiwin, Alta, Dec. 2/33, 5&rsquo; 9&rdquo;, 160 lbs.Saw only limited service with Detroit and then Boston &hellip; Has blossomed into good defenceman with regular work by Bruins &hellip; Was one of five Boston players to play entire 70-game schedule in 1957-58 &hellip; One of three brothers in hockey, all defence players &hellip; Starting third year as Boston regular &hellip; An aggressive youngster, who can lug puck out of his end of rink.HILLMAN, LARRYBoston; b. Kirkland Lake, Ont., Feb. 5/37, 6&rdquo;, 180 lbs.; shoots left.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-084/10380909-1-eng-US/f0093-082.jpg" title="f0093-08" width="612" height="105"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-093/10380902-1-eng-US/f0093-092.jpg" title="f0093-09" width="507" height="775"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-103/10380895-1-eng-US/f0093-102.jpg" title="f0093-10" width="510" height="775"></div>Newcomer to NHL last season with Rangers &hellip; Signed by New York as part of move to inject young blood into Blues &hellip; Produced only 13 points in 69 games but may improve with another season &hellip; Came out of Western pro league after three seasons on Ranger farm teams &hellip; Strong, silent player &hellip; New York still expecting big things of him in coming years.COLWILL, LESRangers; b. Divide, Sask., Jan. 1/35, 5&rsquo; 11&rdquo;, 170 lbs.; shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-112/10380888-1-eng-US/f0093-112.jpg" title="f0093-11" width="607" height="107"></div>Received break last season when Detroit called him up for final 21 games of NHL season &hellip; Big, rugged defenseman who may find his way into regular Red Wings lineup this year &hellip; Went goal-less in first fling at NHL &hellip; Also played in 47 games for Edmonton of WHL &hellip; Picked up by Detroit organization in 1957-58 from Montreal Canadiens in draft &hellip; Hands out hard body-check.MARCON, LOUDetroit; b. Fort William, Ont., May 28/35, 5&rsquo; 9&rdquo; 168 lbs., shoots right.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-122/10380881-1-eng-US/f0093-122.jpg" title="f0093-12" width="608" height="77"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0093-132/10380874-1-eng-US/f0093-132.jpg" title="f0093-13" width="499" height="764"></div><h2>READ HOCKEY PICTORIAL</h2>THIS MONTH AND EVERY MONTH<h2>WILSON, JOHN EDWARD</h2>Born, Kincardine, Ontario, June 14, 1929.Shoots Left. Height, 5 feet, 10 Inches. Weight, 170 pounds. Left Wing.Last Amateur Club: Windsor Spitfires (Juniors).<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0092-01127/10380867-1-eng-US/f0092-012.jpg" title="f0092-01" width="2108" height="1144"></div>a&mdash;Traded to Chicago Black Hawks With Benny Woit, Tony Leswick, and Glen Skov for Gcrry Gordon Hollingworth. John McCormac, and Dave Creighton.b&mdash;Tradod to Detroit Red Wings with Forbes Kennedy. Hank Bassen, Bill Preston and an undisclosed sum of cash for Ted Lindsay and Glenn Hall.c&mdash;Traded to Toronto Maple Leafs with Frank Roggeveen for Barry Cullen. &#9632;

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