I
   
   
  |
|
|
| By: Tom Conaway, KW Record - April 30th, 1982 |
|
HOCKEY TALK: Ask Vancouver Canucks’ scout Mike Penny about his team’s fantastic success story this season, and you’ll get an honest answer. “Surprised, yeah I’m surprised,” Penny said at a recent Kitchener Rangers playoff game. “If someone had told me before the playoffs started that we’d make it to the semifinals I’d have told him he belonged on a funny farm.” Mind you, Penny thought that Canucks had a chance of making it past the Calgary Flames in the opening round, even with star defenceman Kevin McCarthy gone for the season with a broken ankle. But like almost everyone else, he expected the division-winning leading Edmonton Oilers to be waiting in the wings. L.A. Kings ruined that possible sequence of events by ousting the Oilers three games to two. The Canucks then dethroned the Kings and moved in to do battle with the Chicago Black Hawks who evened that tight-checking semi-final at a game apiece with a victory in the Windy City Thursday night. Penny’s a believer now of course. Nothing Roger Neilson’s hard-working, defensive-oriented club does from here on in will surprise him. Nor will anything the Kitchener Rangers accomplish shock him unduly, not even a third straight triumph over the Ottawa ‘67s before what should be a capacity crowd of 7,000 plus at the Auditorium tonight. It was late in the Ottawa-Oshawa series when Penny predicted that the team he helped build as general manager would win the Ontario Hockey League championship. In fact, the night the Generals’ tied that eight-point series with a 6-2 home victory, Penny forcast that the Rangers would not only win their league, but the Memorial Cup as well. “I think the Rangers will take either of these teams,” he said referring to the Generals and ‘67s. “I don’t think they’ll have too much trouble with anyone else either. There’s nothing in Quebec this year.” Of course Penny had no idea at the time who’d be representing the Quebec and Western leagues in the national final in Hull, Que. (May 8-15). Portland Winter Hawks, whose defensive ace Gary Nylund is challenging the Rangers’ Brian Bellows as the No. 1 selection in the ’82 NHL draft, are currently leading the Regina Pats two games to one in the best-of-seven WHL championship series (game four is in Portland tonight). In Quebec, Sherbrooke Beavers lead three games to none after downing Trois-Rivieres Draveurs in a third straight game 4-2. The Beavers finished first, two points ahead of Hull Olympiques, during the QHL regular schedule. But they had to prove their slim superiority all over again when eight of the nine Quebec teams were allowed into a double round-robin series. Sherbrooke (9-5) would up second to Laval (10-4) in the round-robin. But what a shock for Hull’s Memorial Cup organizers when the Olympiques finished fifth with a 7-7 record and failed to qualify for the semi-finals. Adding to the promoters’ nightmare is the plight of the ‘67s down five points to one heading into tonight’s game against an enthused Ranger squad that intends to continue clobbering anything that moves. The ‘67s finished five points ahead of the Rangers in the overall standings. But they were the least penalized team in the OHL and feeling is that there’s no way they’ll survive a war of attrition against Joe Crozier’s tougher, more experienced troops. Bellows, who played perhaps his finest game of the season in Wednesday’s 4-3 triumph in Ottawa (two goals, two assists), went so far as to label the ‘67s a bunch of pansies after last Sunday’s 4-1 home win. Picking up on Bellows’ zinger, the Ottawa Citizens’ Bob Elliott led off his Tuesday column with these words: “The droopy daffodils and tiny crocus may already be in bloom around Ottawa. Kitchener Rangers’ Brian Bellows says he’s seen some pansies.” Whew, that’s nasty stuff, the kind of talk that can often backfire in a playoff series. It didn’t Wednesday, the Rangers outshooting the ‘67s 40-29 in a ugly, brawling affair and winning on defenceman Joel Levesque’s second goal of the playoffs midway through the third. Nevertheless, Bellows, who set up Levesque, has repented and promised he’ll create no more monsters. After Wednesday’s sensational display, it’s pretty obvious that the 17-year-old whiz prefers scoring goals rather than left hooks and right crosses. But if he ever changes his mind, Ottawa coach Brian Kilrea says any of his boys will gladly accommodate Joe Louis Bellows. Kilrea doesn’t for a minute believe that Bellows wants to fight. He thinks the multi-talented center is simply serving as the mouthpiece for such pugilistic types as Louis Crawford, Mike Moher and Mario Michieli and other Ranger scrappers who, he says, appear destined to carve successful careers for themselves in the International League boondocks. Hostilities could break out in places other than the Falklands tonight.
|
