Hull,
Que. – Never has there been such a wacky start to the Memorial Cup tournament
since the Canadian Junior hockey championships adopted a round-robin format
10 years ago.
The
reason is that the Kitchener Rangers went into a Jekyll and Hyde act, losing
10-4 to the Sherbrooke Beavers Saturday, then clobbering the Portland Winter
Hawks 9-2 Sunday.
Going
from their worst to their best, the Rangers are now the talk of the tournament.
But the combined total of 5,000 fans who watched the weekend madness, don’t
quite know what to say about the Ontario Hockey League champions.
“I
know one thing, Rangers forward Mike Moher said, “Sherbrooke’s not
six goals better than us and we’re not seven better than Portland.”
So,
just where does that leave the Rangers?
Their
status may become clear Tuesday night when they play Sherbrooke again.
“We
played better tonight, but we can still play better,” superstar winger
Jeff Larmer said.
“We
could still be sharper defensively, I know myself that I could be playing
a bit better defensive hockey. It would have made me a lot happier
if I had.”
Most
players would have been happy with Larmer’s performance. He piled
up two goals and two assists after scoring two goals and one assist in
the opener.
He
now has 25 goals, in 17 playoff games, scoring in every game but one.
Linemate
Grant Martin also struck twice Sunday and third member of the Rangers’
big line captain Brian Bellows, contributed one goal and two assists as
the unit hit for 5 goals and dominated play as it did throughout the OHL
playoffs.
The
line scored three goals Saturday as the Rangers contributed to a tournament
record for most goals in the opening two games.
In
58 round-robin matches, only five teams have scored nine or more goals.
The last time was in 1980 when Regina trounced the Cornwall Royals 11-2.
The Royals rebounded to win the first of two straight cups.
Rangers’
turnaround was similar to the way last year’s tournament unfolded in Windsor.
Rangers were trounced 6-3 by Cornwall and 7-4 by Victoria in their first
two games, but they won their next two and backed into the championship
final when Cornwall beat Victoria in the last preliminary match.
“We
didn’t want to hide in our rooms like last year, when people were saying
we didn’t belong in the tournament,” Moher said, “And this year we don’t
want to back into the finals either.”
The
Rangers did everything wrong Saturday. Their goaltending, although
not responsible for the loss, was weak. The forwards were bad and
the defencemen were worse.
The
Rangers outshot the Beavers 52-33 but, although Sherbrooke goalie Michel
Morisette was named the first star, the shots on goal were deceiving.
“I’ve
never seen a team skate that fast before,” Martin said of the Beavers.
“Sherbrooke
looked faster than they are because we were just standing around watching
them,” defencemen Al MacInnis said.
Things
were so bad that coach Joe Crozier pulled Wendell Young after the eighth
goal and inserted Darryl Boudreau, who hadn’t played in three months.
Boudreau sat out Sunday as Crozier dressed 67’s pickup Jim Ralph as Young’s
backup.
Young
returned to his old form Sunday, the defence stood up at the blueline and
rocked the Hawks and most of the forwards skated hard both ways.
Crozier
once again juggled three of his four lines and it produced results as Moher,
Mario Michielli and Dave Nicholls ended scoring goals.
Moher
fired his second goal of the playoffs while Michelli and Nicholls each
scored their third.
Mike
Hough’s sixth goal of the playoffs round out Kitchener scoring while center
Mike Eagles contributed three assists.
Brian
Shaw and Rob Geale replied for the Hawks.
The
Rangers fired four goals from 6:33 to 16:38 and chased Darrell May from
the net. He was replaced by Mike Vernon a pickup from the Calgary
Wranglers and the Western Hockey League’s nominee for the Canadian Junior
Hockey League’s player of the year award.
Vernon
is up against John Chabot of Sherbrooke and Dave Simpson of the London
Knights.
Larmer
with two, Martin and Eagles were the Kitchener marksmen Saturday.
Gerard Gallant led Sherbrooke with three goals.
Three
top draft choices lock horns at tourney
Larry Anstett, KW Record - May 10th, 1982
HULL,
Que. – Brian Bellows, Gary Nylund, and Ken Yaremchuk – generally considered
the best three players available for the National Hockey League draft next
month – were on display Sunday night in the second game of the Memorial
cup championships.
Bellows
stole the limelight from the opening faceoff and won the first round in
the battle of the stars.
For
one of the few times in the playoffs, Kitchener Rangers coach Joe Crozier
used his big line of Bellows, Jeff Larmer and Grant Martin to start the
game and it paid off.
Bellows
slammed Larmer’s passout into the net after only 11 seconds – a cup record
for the fastest opening goal. The old mark was 14 seconds set by
Mark Lefthouse of New Westminister in 1976.
Bellows
set up two other goals, assisted on another, but didn’t get credit for
it, missed on a breakaway, was named the game’s No. 2 star behind Larmer,
and was, perhaps the most dominant figure on the ice in the Rangers 9-2
romp over the Portland Winter Hawks.
“Bellows
was outstanding,” praised Nylund, a 6-foot-4, 200 pound defenceman.
“He
started playing right from the start and never let up,” said Nylund, who,
at 18, is a year older than Bellows.
“One
of the things he does best is go wide on the defence with a lot of power,”
Nylund said. “But even better than that, he goes to the openings.
One minute he’s there, the next minute he’s gone. He gets his stick
on the ice and if you give him some net, it’s in.”
What
did Bellows think of Nylund.
“I
thought he was good. He can really motor and he’s terribly mobile
for a big defenceman. If you notice nobody went around him.”
Bellows
praise may have been a bit extravagant. Nylund played a steady game,
but as Kitchener defenceman Al MacInnis noted, “he didn’t do anything super.”
“But,
then again,” MacInnis added quickly, “who stood out for us when we lost
10-4 last night.”
Portland
Manager Brian Shaw said Nylund was “less than mediocre.”
The
Winter Hawks starting four defencemen average six feet two inches and 205
pounds, but they didn’t do much effective hitting and the hustling Rangers
forwards often pinned them up in their own end.
Nylund’s
effort was at least matched by Kitchener’s two outstanding rookie defencemen
Scott Stevens and Dave Shaw.
Stevens,
the No. 3 star, showed no ill-effects from a tender right shoulder which
he injured in practice last week.
He
threw the hardest check of the game as he wiped out a Portland forward
at the Rangers blueline in the third minute of play.
Yaremchuk
showed some bursts of speed in the first half of the game and set up Portland’s
first goal.
But,
along with his teammates, he didn’t do much once the game was beyond Hawk’s
reach – which was at 16:38 of the first period, when the Rangers led 5-1.
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