As the year 1964 left us forever, the National Hockey League scheduled one game last night to say good-bye. In the lone New Year’s Eve contest, played in Detroit, the Red Wings and the Chicago Black Hawks skated to a 1-1 tie.
DeJordy dominates for Hawks
At Detroit, it was the Denis DeJordy show as the Chicago goaltender put on a spectacular display of netminding artistry. DeJordy made 38 saves, most of them difficult, to enable the Hawks to grab a point in their tie with the Red Wings. DeJordy is now undefeated in nine games, while the team is unbeaten in 12.
All the scoring in this one came in the first period. Only 45 seconds into the initial frame Norm Ullman had Detroit up 1-0 with his 15th goal of the season. He deflected a point shot from Al Langlois past DeJordy on a play that gave the Chicago goaltender no chance. In this case, it was not a harbinger of things to come.
The Black Hawks did not wait long to even the score. Eric Nesterenko notched his 7th of the campaign, beating Detroit goalkeeper Roger Crozier with a 25-foot slap shot. Both puckstoppers performed flawlessly the rest of the way to keep the score knotted at ones. However, Crozier did not have the tough chances that DeJordy had to face from the Red Wings.
Red Armstrong leads Amerks
In the only American Hockey League game, the Rochester Americans dropped the Springfield Indians 3-1 at Rochester.
Norman (Red) Armstrong, who scored only 17 goals in 67 games last season for the Americans, potted a pair last night, his 14th and 15th goals already this year. Rookie Pete Stemkowski, now third in AHL scoring, connected for his 15th for the other Amerks goal.
Yves Locas, acquired by Springfield from Hershey earlier this week, was the only Indians goal-getter.
The game featured some strange coaching strategy by the visitors. Indians’ owner Eddie Shore was on the bench for the game, along side regular Springfield coach Pat Egan. In an effort to slow the game and Rochester’s high-powered offence down to a crawl, the Indians deliberately iced the puck 21 times in the opening frame. This made that first frame a dull affair, and the idea wasn’t particularly successful. The Indians managed no offence themselves, while Stemkowski did score the game’s opening goal.
