| As a
teenager in Toronto, Paul Hoganson played catcher on an amateur baseball team, but was
only mediocre. "Definitely not major league material," he assures. Mike Pelyk
confirms this. Mike Pelyk was a pitcher. "Paul wasn't bad," he says, "but
he didn't like to go after the low ones. He caught a lot of those bouncing back off the
screen behind." Hoganson has since improved his style on the low ones, and if he is
not major league catcher material, he's quite efficient as a major league goalie. Saturday he shut out the Indianapolis Racers, 4-0 with the help of defenseman
Pelyk and the rest of the Cincinnati Stingers. He did this in Indianapolis, which makes it
special. And he did it at the end of a four game losing streak, when the Stingers were
sinking dangerously in the standings, which makes it extra special. 'We had to win the
game and that;s all there is to it," Hoganson explains. "We were behind New
England and one point behind Cleveland and just three ahead of Indianapolis. If we'd lost
the game, we'd have been just a point ahead instead of five points ahead. It was just a
must game. I knew we had to have it. As goalie, you sort of have to take it on yourself in
a situation like this. That's a goalie's game."
Altogether he stopped 40 shots in the shutout, the 11th of his
career and his third in the WHA. Many he stopped in remarkable fashion. Once after falling
to his knees, he managed to stretch out a leg and deflect away a shot with his skate
blade. Another time, unbelievably, he caught the puck with his knees. "I didn't see
that shot until it was right on me," he says. "I couldn't get the stick on it in
time so I closed my knees real quick and luckily I caught it right between my knees.
Anytime you have a shutout, you've got to get a few breaks," he admits. But maybe the
biggest stops came in the opening two minutes when the Racers, incited by the emotion of
some 14,123 fans, came at the Stingers like Mack trucks, checking fiercely and battering
brutally hard shots at the goalie.
But Hoganson held and that pleases him. "The way they came out
after us, if they'd gotten a couple goals it would have killed our confidence and we
wouldn't have had a chance." Coach Terry Slater agrees, "They came out like
gangbusters," he says, "but they started slowing down and slowing down as the
game went on. That's what a goalie is supposed to do. If he comes up with those three or
four big saves a game, then they team keeps building momentum."
The offense came in goals by Pierre Guite, Claude Larose, Bryan
Campbell and Murray Myers. Three of them came in the second period, the last one in the
fourth. Slater is particularly pleased with the victory because he says. "We had a
mental block about Indianapolis before. The first time we played there , we lost 7-1 and
it scared us. Then the second game we lose 2-1. This time we shut them out and now we lose
2-1. This time we shut them out and now we know we can beat them on the road. The block is
gone.
The Racers, however, used none of the four players they just
acquired from the defunct Ottawa club. The next time they will. "We'll see how we do
against them then," Slater worries. For shutting out Indy, Hoganson receives no bonus
of any kind, which is customary, and this upsets him "It's the only contract I've
ever had, the only one I've ever seen, that didn't have a bonus clause for a
shutout," he says disappointedly. But still it was a personal triumph for the former
catcher. "It's a great feeling," he says. "It's like a no-hitter." |
