There’s a certain irony in the way the Kitchener Rangers have slipped from a commanding lead to a precarious 5-3 margin in the eight-point Ontario Hockey League Emms Division championship series, which resumes tonight with a pivotal contest at the Auditorium.
     The Rangers’ defence, which played so well in the 6-2 and 6-1 victories in Kitchener, committed costly late-game turnovers in both matches in the Soo on the weekend to enable the Hounds to rally for a 4-4 tie and a 5-3 win.
     Now, if the Hounds can snap their nine game winless streak in Kitchener tonight, they’ll have the home-ice advantage for the rest of the series.
     “All you have to do is make one mistake and if the other team capitalizes, you look bad,” all-star defenceman Al MacInnis said Monday at practice.
     “But those things are going to happen in the playoffs.  You can’t let them bother you.  You have to shake them off and put them out of your mind.  Everybody’s going to be confident tomorrow (tonight) because we know we’ve played better hockey than the Soo in all four games.”
     MacInnis was the victim of Friday’s tying goal with only 18 seconds left.  His stick got jammed along the boards as he attempted to clear the puck out of the Kitchener end and his weak shot was stopped by Dirk Rueter, Rueter quickly fed the puck into the corner to Ken Latta, who threw it out front to Wayne Groulx for the dramatic equalizer after the Hounds had fallen behind 4-1 in the second period.
     Sunday, it appeared that the Rangers were breezing along with a 3-3 tie, which would have put them into position to end the series tonight.
     With 3:51 left and the Rangers outshooting the Hounds 17-3 in the period, a bouncing puck got tied up in the skates of rookie defenceman Dave Shaw deep in Kitchener’s end.  Kevin Conway poked the puck loose and shovelled it past Wendell Young.  Conway then scored into an empty net with 59 seconds left to clinch the win.
     The Rangers outplayed the Hounds in both games and deserved more than a point, but the Hounds, who don’t have as much overall talent as Kitchener, scraped by on their own persistence and Kitchener’s mistakes.
     “I knew it was going to be a tough weekend even before we went up there,” Rangers coach Joe Crozier said.
     “The Soo had the best home record (25-7-2) in the league in the regular season, losing only seven games, so it’s not easy going up there and winning.”
     The Rangers had the second best home record during the 68-game regular schedule.  Finishing one point behind the Hounds at 25-8-1.  The Rangers have dropped only one of their last 16 home games and haven’t lost at home to the Hounds since Nov. 15, 1980.  Since then the Rangers have won eight and tied one against the Soo.
     “We have to get some more guys scoring goals,” said left winger Jeff Larmer, who has scored in all eight playoff games and leads the Rangers with 12 goals.
     Larmer has five goals against the Soo while linemates Brian Bellows and Grant Martin have three and one, respectively.  Although the star trio has clicked for nie of the Rangers 19 goals in the series and has shown some occasional razzle-dazzle, something is wrong somewhere because the heavily used line – which is on the ice for penalties and power plays as well as its regular shift – isn’t dominating the way it should be.
     The other three lines are getting their share of chances but haven’t been scoring constently.  In eight playoff games, veterans like Mike Eagles, Mike Moher, Mario Michieli, Kevin Casey and Brad Schnurr have a combined total of only six goals.  Eagles has two, Moher, Michieli and Casey one each and Schnurr none.
     Forward Mike Hough, a valuable rookie who had three goals in the first seven games, missed Sunday’s contest after being slashed on the foot Friday by ex-Ranger Jim Pavese.  Hough is a questionable starter for tonight’s crucial contest.
 
 

      When you’re a five-foot-10, 184 pounder like the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds’ Kevin Conway, you don’t go around looking for trouble.
     If you get flattened in the line of duty, fine.  That’s all part of life in the slam-bang world of major junior A hockey.  But there’s not much sense matching muscle with the heavyweights unless you have to, and that’s the approach the 18-year-old Soo native takes.
     Conway knows his limitations.  So he concentrates on doing what he does best.  Until very late in the season, that simply meant patrolling his section of the ice as diligently as possible.
     Good defence was the name of the game, and Conway was well aware when he was called up as a fill-in from the junior B Thunderbirds just before Christmas that he’d better perform well in that area.
     But Conway is a versatile type, an energetic lad who can do a few other things besides nullify a dangerous opponent.  It’s maybe hard to believe but this seven-goal scorer during the regular schedule (three in a 6-5 final game victory in Sudbury), is also quite adept at putting the puck where it counts most.
     Yes indeed, he has a goal scoring knack that the Kitchener Rangers found out about a little too late Sunday night in game four of the eight-point Emms Division final in the north country.
     After rallying with two goals in the final minute and 15 seconds to gain a 4-4 tie at home Friday, the desperate Hounds overcame an all-out Ranger assault in the final period Sunday and won 5-3 on two late goals by Conway, his and third of the night.
     The Hounds can tied the round tonight at the auditorium where they were embarrased 6-2, and 6-1.  If that happens, Conway’s convinced the Soo will take the series.
     “The whole team was down after those first two games,” he said Monday night after being lured away from a card game at the Hounds’ Days Inn headquarters in Cambridge.  “But the coach (Terry Crisp) told us he knew we could come back.”
     Now after taking three of four points from an explosive Kitchener crew that could have applied the coup de grace in game three, the Hounds no longer have to be told by the optimistic Crisp that they can rebound.  They know they can.
     Conway’s three goals Sunday have renewed his confidence as well, although he was quick to point out that he had a little luck going for him.
     “The fist one hit a skate and went in,” said the quiet-spoken hero of game four, with a grin.  “I was trying to pass the puck into the slot but it hit someone and deflected in.”
     Not the second one, though.  Conway’s opening goal made it 2-0 late in the first.  No. 2 at 16:09 of the third snapped a 3-3 tie and resulted from what Crisp described as “a third effort.”
     Second and third efforts are something familiar to Crisp.  As a player, he was a hustler who gave it his all during a 10-year career in the big time.  That’s partly why he’s wearing two Philadephia Flyers’ Stanley Cup rings today.
     When told that he had victimized Rangers’ defencemen Dave Shaw on the winning goal.  Conway smiled and admitted that he didn’t know who he had taken the puck from.  All he knew was that he had lugged it out of his end from a faceoff, pokechecked it away from some Ranger (Shaw) deep in Kitchener territory and backhanded it home on the shortside.
     “Dave Shaw?  Is that who it was?” he said.  “I don’t know the other players very well, I don’t know their names.  They’re sure strong, though.  That big line (Martin, Larmer and Bellows) is really dangerous, and that big No. 3 defenceman Scott Stevens) is pretty good for such a young player.”
     Conway, who scored his third goal into an empty net with the teams four skaters aside at 19:07, can be excussed for his lack of familiarity with the Rangers or with any of the OHL teams for that matter.
     It wasn’t until the midway point in the season that he eventually cracked the Hound’s lineup on a regular basis.  He had been toiling at the B level with the hometown T-Birds (55 points in 22 games).  What a pleasant surprise when he received an SOS from the A’s who were having injury problems.
     Conway didn’t expect to stay up.  But he impressed enough in one outing to gain a practice invitation.  Now, 36 regular season and 11 playoff games later (seven versus Brantford), Conway is one of the key contributors.
     What makes him all the more valuable is that he’s one of 15 on this young Soo team who will be back next season.
     His has been a checkered career to date.  After being overlooked in the midget draft, the slim 150-pound travelled to Newmarket with a friend to try out for the tier two Flyers, an Oshawa General farm club.  He made it; his friends, Mike Johnson didn’t.
     Conway popped in 53 goals for the Flyers last year, and was elevated to the Generals for the last 10 games of the season.  He was never told why, but the Gens didn’t invite him back.
     A tryout with the expansion Belleville Bulls also fizzled last fall.  So he returned to the Soo to play B attend Grade 13, his hopes of making it in major A all but dashed.
     Then came the call last December.