Sticks Down, Gloves Off, Play!

The hockey teams of New York and Boston are worlds apart in style, but the moody Rangers and the rugged Bruins have two aims in common. The first is to vault past Montreal in the National Hockey League. The second is to maim one another. Sometimes it is a little difficult to tell which goal is the more important. For years the talentless Bruins and Rangers exchanged stitches merely for the entertainment of their violence-prone fans—at one time it got so fierce that the Rangers' president put a bounty on the head of Boston's Ted Green—but now that they can skate, shoot and check just like big-league teams they are looking beyond the emergency wards to wonderful, impossible things like Stanley Cups.

Last week, hard behind Montreal in the standings, the teams met for their first massacre of the season, and the big, bad Bruins gave the Rangers a big, bad beating, both on the ice and on the scoreboard. Did this mean that the Bruins now must be considered the one team with a chance of catching the Canadiens? By no means. In the volatile world of hockey a team can be magnificent one night and appalling the next. Those disgusting Rangers were the same men who had whipped the Canadiens in a brilliant game the previous Sunday, those masterful Bruins the same patsies who seem to have terrible trouble with the expansion division. It is the fans' hope that the race for the pennant will continue to be as tight in March as it was last week, and their prayer that Boston and New York will have a little something left, after their private war, with which to pursue the chase.

For the first few minutes of Saturday's game in Boston there was nothing to bring forth the "gutter language" of the galleries that later was to dismay the gentleman from The New York Times. The teams sparred casually, working to establish control of the tempo of play.

Then it happened. Dave Balon of the Rangers hit one of the Bruins with his stick. Defenseman Green—Terrible Teddy, as he is known in New York—went after Balon and knocked him down. Reggie Fleming, the Rangers' interim policeman in the absence of tough Orland Kurtenbach, who is out with a back injury, cruised to the scene. Don Awrey, another Boston defenseman, grabbed Fleming and the two of them became locked in a pushing match. Green got to Balon with a few more punches, and soon the dispute was over.

But it was in that melee that the Bruins took charge of the game and sapped the Rangers' will to win. Big forwards like Ken Hodge, Eddie Shack and Johnny Bucyk crashed into New York players again and again. The Rangers never retaliated, and soon their attack collapsed completely as their usually crisp passing game deteriorated into a series of icing violations. With the Boston forwards roaming at will, and with Bobby Orr, the best defenseman of them all—and possibly of all time—controlling play from the blue line, the Bruins methodically beat down the Rangers 5-1. Only the superior goaltending of New York's Eddie Giacomin prevented the Bruins from doubling the score.

So the Bruins won Round 1, and at the same time they tied the Rangers for second place. At the end of the week, as the race reached the quarter pole, the Bruins and Rangers were only a point behind the Canadiens. It is an interesting fact that all three teams had favorable schedules during the season's first 18 games. Each played expansion teams 10 or more times, Montreal losing only once and New York twice. But Boston blew three games to the expansionists. In the next three weeks the schedule offers some respite for Toronto, Chicago and Detroit—teams which might conceivably make their own passes at the Canadiens. But if they do so it will be over stern resistance from New York and Boston.

This stretch especially will test the mettle of the Rangers and their rookie coach, Bernie (Boom Boom) Geoffrion. Geoffrion, who has much respect for money, believes that all opponents should be treated as stickup men out to take your life savings. That is the way he played for Montreal and New York, and he finds it difficult to accept the idea of the Rangers not being keyed up for every game. "We played against Montreal at home last week," he said, "and we could not have played a better game. Before it started I came into the dressing room and could tell right away that they were up. Really up. Then we win and go into first place.

"So a couple of nights later we play against Los Angeles. My guys should be up just by thinking about the game they played against Montreal. But I go into the dressing room before the game, and I can tell you they're not ready to play. And look what happened. I got to speak to them before the third period. I won't tell you what I tell them. That is my secret. But we score three goals and we win."

Part of the reason for the Rangers' inconsistency has been the season-long slump of their most productive line—one with Jean Ratelle at center and Rod Gilbert and Vic Hadfield at the wings. As of now Ratelle has eight goals, Gilbert seven and Hadfield only five—a marked drop from their early performance a year ago. "You cannot blame a center [Ratelle] when a line has a slump," Gilbert said. "You blame the wings. We are supposed to put the puck into the net. We are not doing that." Both Gilbert and Hadfield have had more than their share of shots on net (Gilbert 73 through mid-November, Hadfield 64), but the puck refuses to go in. "Rod is taking too much time to get off his shot, and he is bringing his stick up too high," said Geoffrion, once one of hockey's most feared goal scorers. "He's got to use his wrists more." Hadfield winds up for his shot, too. Gilbert, the team's boulevardier, is optimistic. "You get into slumps like this," said Rod, "and then you come out of them with two or three goals in a game."

Fortunately for the Rangers, their second line, with veteran Phil Goyette at center and Bobby Nevin and Don Marshall on the wings, has responded during the Ratelle line's out-to-lunch hiatus. Nevin, in fact, was at the top of the goal-scoring list for a time, and as the week ended he had 13. He always has been one of the best two-way players in hockey; only now, however, is he getting the recognition he deserves. "I'm not doing anything different," says Nevin, who scored 28 goals last year. "But I don't kill penalties anymore, so I've got a little more strength every time I go out on the ice."