The New York Rangers edged the Chicago Black Hawks 3-2 last night in Chicago before an irate crowd of over 16,000 fans. The Black Hawk faithful are upset with both the recent shoddy play of their heroes, and with a questionable decision on playoff television broadcasts by co-owner Jim Norris.
On the ice, the Hawks dropped their third straight game in the one-goal loss to the Rangers. Rod Gilbert was the scoring star for New York, netting his 24th and 25th goals of the season. Harry Howell clicked for his second of the season to account for the other New York marker. Kenny Wharram and Matt Ravlich replied for Chicago.
The Hawks were without superstar Bobby Hull. With no chance to finish anywhere but third place, the team has decided to rest him for the rest of the schedule.
Stan Mikita set up Wharram’s goal, his 24th. Mikita’s assist on the goal was his 59th of the season, a new NHL record. Jean Beliveau of Montreal and Toronto’s Andy Bathgate held the previous mark of 58. That was the only bright spot in a drearily-played game before a hostile home crowd that was in a surly mood before the opening face off, and with good reason, according to many.
Earlier in the day, the Black Hawks announced a ticket price hike for the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs. The raise in price follows unpopular changes to the club’s playoff television broadcast policy.
Chicago fans were already upset with plans by their team to black out all Hawks’ road playoff games. Those games are going to be shown via closed-circuit cable television at local theatres, and no home television will be allowed. Ticket prices for the closed-circuit viewing will be $4, $3, and $2.
To call this decision unpopular would be a vast understatement.
Yesterday’s ticket price announcement riled up an already unhappy fan base. Prices for home playoff games will top off at $9 for box seats. The scale for playoff tickets is $9, $7, $6, $4.50 and $3.50. This is a $1 increase across the board from regular season prices.
Toronto, on the other hand, has kept their prices the same as last year – $6, $5, $4, and $3, with no playoff increase.
The Chicago Sun Times last week reported receiving hundreds of letters and telephone calls over the scheme to cut out home television. One petition had over 1,000 signatures.
So, last night’s game afforded fans a forum to vent their collective spleen at Hawks’ management, and vent they did.
All through the game, every announcement about home playoff games was greeted with hoots and booing. Fans also took to chanting “Norris is a fink”, or words to that effect. The ugly mood continued to build until an incident in the third period caused the anger to boil over.
Referee John Ashely, hardly at crowd favourite at the best of times, fingered the Hawks’ Red Hay for slashing, and when the redhead protested to strenuously, he added a 10-minute misconduct to the sentence. The game was then delayed as fans littered the ice will all sorts of debris. It took 15 minutes to clear the garbage from the playing surface and resume the game.
Players fined for brawl
National Hockey League president Clarence Campbell handed out a total of $1,075 in fines to members of the Montreal Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings for their parts in a brief bench-clearing brawl during a game in Montreal on March 13.
Claude Larose of Canadiens, first of the bench to join the fray, was fined $125. Nine Habs and 10 Red Wings were each nicked for $50. Both coaches, Toe Blake of Montreal and Sid Abel of Detroit, escaped any monetary penalty.
The brawl occurred in the closing moments of the game. Detroit defenceman Doug Barkley caught Montreal forward Dave Balon with a thundering bodycheck that sent him flying through the air. Balon suffered a shoulder injury that had kept him out of the lineup since that game. Both teams spilled onto the ice, but no real fighting took place, other than some very brief fisticuffs involving Larose, Terry Harper of Montreal, and Barkley.
OHA Playoffs
The Peterborough Petes edged the Toronto Marlboros 2-1 in the first game of their semi-final Junior A playoff series last night. In the other OHA game, Niagara Falls trounced Oshawa 8-2 to grab a 3-2 lead in that quarter-final series.
Goddard stars for Petes
Peterborough goalie Chuck Goddard was the star for the winners. He made 39 saves as Toronto threw everything they had at him, with almost no success.
First-period goals by Andre Lacroix and Danny Grant stood up for the Petes, thanks to Goddard’s heroics. Neil Clarke brought Toronto to within one with a second period tally, but that was as close as the Marlies would get.
The final frame was all Goddard. The Marlies attacked in waves for the entire 20 minutes, blasting 16 drives at the Peterborough net, but Goddard rebuffed them all, and the Petes walked off with a one-game lead in the series.
Flyers score early and often
The Niagara Falls Flyers scored five times in the first period and coasted the rest of the way in their lop-sided win over the Generals. They scored their first only 25 seconds into the match.
Brian Bradley and rookie Jim Lorentz each scored two goals for the hometown Flyers. Other Niagara goal scorers were Bill Goldsworthy, Bud Debrody, Gilles Marotte and Ted Snell.
Bill Bannerman scored both Oshawa goals.
The last five minutes of the game took over 90 minutes to play, thanks to the outbreak of several incidents sparked by the extremely rough play. Referee Lou Maschio assessed a total of 96 penalty minutes, including 12 major penalties and three misconducts, in that stretch.
OHA trophy winners
The Ontario Hockey Association announced three of its major trophy winners for the 1964-65 season yesterday.
Winner of the Dave Pinkney Trophy for the leading goaltender in the OHA Junior A Series was Bernie Parent of the Niagara Falls Flyers. Pinkney was a long-time executive member of the OHA.
Ken Hodge of St. Catharines won the Eddie Powers Trophy, awarded to the OHA Junior A leading scorer. Powers was a former coach in the OHA and the father of former NHL referee Eddie Powers.
The Andy Bellemer Trophy was won by Vance Millar of the Welland Burloaks of the OHA Senior A Series. That trophy is awarded to the player in the OHA who gives his best and tries the hardest at all times. Bellemer was a former player and referee in the OHA.
Notes
- Chicago coach Billy Reay doesn’t put much stock in winning the Stanley Cup. “The best team over 70 games is the best team – period.” Reay has never won a Stanley Cup as a coach.
- New York Ranger coach Red Sullivan says that the Toronto Maple Leafs will win the Stanley Cup. Sullivan’s Rangers were outscored 14-2 by the Leafs this past weekend.
- Wednesday night’s game in Toronto against Montreal will be an experiment in colour television broadcasting. The ice at Maple Leaf Gardens has been tinted a light blue to accommodate the colour television cameras. Home broadcasts, however, will receive only the black and white feed.
- Punch Imlach says that Johnny Bower will be Toronto’s starting goalie in the playoffs.
- Toronto made nine minor league players eligible for the Stanley Cup playoffs. Some of those included are goalie Gerry Cheevers, defenceman Al Arbour and Larry Hillman, all of Rochester, Marc Reaume and Mike Walton of Tulsa, Larry Keenan of Victoria and Brit Selby of the Marlboros.
- Carl Brewer set a Toronto record by accumulating 169 penalty minutes so far this season.
- The Detroit Red Wings have set a team record with 1,091 penalty minutes.
- Victora Maple Leafs eliminated the Los Angeles Blades from the WHL playoffs with a 5-0 win last night. Larry Keenan scored twice for Victoria.
- Vancouver city council has decided to support the Pacific National Exhibition plan to build an NHL-quality sports arena. The new arena would be built on the present site of the Forum in east-end Vancouver.
