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: Page 18, Marcti 11, 1979 - Sunday News

Between excessive injuries and a galloping case
of . ineptitude, there is reason to believe the
Canucks won’t win another hockey game this

season.

As this piece was written
before the Saturday teatime
game here against Colorado
Rockies, another pallid
excuse for a major league
team, there’s just achance I
could be wrong. But the
Canucks are travelling so.
rapidly in reverse these days,

_ even the Rockies may not
crumble in their presence
anymore. |

Statistically, the team
‘from Denver is the worst in
the league right now.
Statistically, the Vancouver
club is only the fourth worst.
But figures can lie and ever
since the all-star breaking
they have been fibbing
outrageously in favor of the
Canucks.

During the last month
their record has been equally

as bad as Colorado's. At

their current rate of

' Fetrogression, St. Louis
Blues are a good bet to catch
up and push them out of the
Smythe Division's second
playoff spot.’

Little League
Registration

Registration for Cypress
Park Little League baseball
players will be held at
Cypress Park School on
Saturday and Sunday, March
17 and {8 between the hours
of 2-4 pm.

Both boys and girls are
elegible between the ages of
eight to twelve - not to be 13
before August 1, 1979.

The area covered by the
league is werst of 25th
Street, West Vancouver.

”

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GUNPOINT HOCKEY

‘Just what that 11-1 lacing
by Montreal Canadiens on
Thursday evening will do to
the Canucks’ declining
morale during the remaining
four weeks of the schedule is
open to conjecture. Such as:
will they have to be driven
out of the dressing room and
onto the ice at gunpoint for
the rest of their games?

This was not their first 11-
1 defeat. But it was their first
game since April 6, 1974,
when Los Angeles Kings

beat them by that score, So .

it ties the record for the
biggest losing margin the
team has ever known. But it
is one short of the club
record for giving up goals in
a single game. They lost 12-4
to Atlanta on March 21,
1975.

If goalie Glen Hanlon,
defenceman Kevin Mc-
Carthy and centres Chris
Oddleifson and Bill Derlagd
were able to play, there’s no

by Jim Kearney -

they wouldn't be
ggling as much as they
But they'd still be
struggling, for even with
these people healthy, there
is a woeful lack of adequate
talent.

BAD, BAD, BAD

What marks the Canucks
as a singularly untalented
Minor league team

_ Masquerading as a major

league operation is this one
salient example:

The team’s most effective
forward line all season has
been the trio of Stan Smyl

‘and Curt Fraser on the wings

and Thomas Gradin at
centre.

Just turned 21, Fraser and
Smyl are second and third
round choices, respectively,
from last year’s amateur
draft. Gradin, just turned
23, is a Swedish import
playing his first season as a
pro and having to adjust to
an entirely new style of play
ona smaller ice surface.

Yet these three relatively
inexperienced players make
up the best forward unit on

‘that the Canucks’

for all the holdovers from
past years? For past
management? For’ past

' scouting. and recruiting?
_ Frightening, wot?

The implication is that the

_ Canucks have two or three

seasons, at least, of strenuous
rebuilding ahead. Of get-rid
of the old and streaming in --
if they can find it — the new.

YOU PAY

Of course, they will expect
‘you to subsidize all this, as
you did ali those past
rebuilding jobs which wound

- up in such monumental

screwups, at the usual $10
and $12 a seat.

And it should be noted
owner,
Frank Griffith didn’t do his
coach and general manager
any favors in this respect
with his anti-WHA merger
vote at the NHL meeting in
Florida this past week.

You are aware, no doubt,
that the league governors
voted 11 to 6 in favor of

ending their senseless war
™ with the other leagues and

absorbing the Edmonton,
Winnipeg, Quebec and New
England franchises as new
NHL members.

But the NHL does not go
along with the usual
democractic process of a
simple majority vote. Thre
had to be a 75 percent
majority.

Thus the merger was
scuttled by the minority, this

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WEEKENDS 12 until 5

the team. What does this say

being, as far as is known,
Vancouver, Montreal,
Toronto, Boston, Los
Angeles and New York

Islanders. Most of the teams *

want an end to hostilities,
but they aren’t going to get
it.

For its part, the WHA
must eventually go out of
business. But it’s not going to
go until it has taken some of
the weaker NHL franchises
along with it.

RAIDING PARTIES .

Before the NHL meeting it
announced that in the event
of a turndown, it would raid
major junior hockey in
Canada for every talented 17
and 18-year-old prospect it
can sign up. What it will do
is grab these kids before
their final junior year, when
they would normally be
available to the NHL in the
amateur draft.

The WHA won't have any
trouble getting them. What
lad, currently being ex-
ploited at $75 a week by a
junior operator, won't leap
at $50,000 or $60,000 a
season?

Where, then, will the
talent-short back end of the
NHL find the young guys it
needs to help build to
respectability? The Canucks
are absolutely dependent on
good drafts for the next two
or three seasons to become
even semi-respectable.

However, .before landing
on Griffith and company
with both feet, remember

that his motivation — and ©
likely Montreal’s and ‘the ~
Islanders’, too — ‘was:'the ©.
terms of the merger, not an

: anti-merger. stance.

TOUGH TERMS

The terms apparently
would be so tough on the
WHA teams coming into the
NHL, they might not sur-
vive. They voted against
merger, then, because they
felt the conditions were so
totally unfair, they would be
accused of making a joke of
the process; of putting the
WHA teams out of business

- in most devious fashion. Sort

of like inviting those four
teams over for dinner, then
paling 2 a gun and lifting their
wallet.

Fair enough, but for the
sake of his team, the fans
and his reputation as a
Canadian, one hopes that
Griffith and also Molson’s,
the Montreal owners, now
will bend. every effort for a
softening of the terms. And
that they'll bend them
quickly.

Right now the only course
open to the WHA is to fight
for its existence any way it
can. Unfortunately for the ©
Canucks, its fight plan is to
rob them and all those other
talent-short franchises of
their future player supply.

If you think the Canucks
have problems now, you
haven't seen anything if this
inter-league war carries on
much longer.

+

Near-disaster i in NV in NV gas spill: P.3 TV Page 65 |

Suadec LOST SEEMING GOOD SNOW

=. |Five young skiers
-= |rescued on n Grouse.

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