| Terry Ball
has been a Ranger four times, but he;s never been a Stinger before. He's been a Canuck, a
Knight, and Ace, a Flyer, Wrangler, a Golden Eagle, a Sword, a Sabre, a Fighting Saint and
a Crusader. But nope, he's never been a Stinger. That's alright, though. "I adjust
quickly," says the little. 31-year-old veteran traveler, and no one debates this.
"It's no big problem changing teams. I'm happy to be with the Stingers and I hope to
play well for them. I believe you've got to play for your team, give it your best effort
all the time, no matter where you go." To illustrate his
point, Ball came to Cincinnati Wednesday afternoon on the Cleveland Crusaders bus. He said
farewell to his old teammates, crawled into a Cincinnati sweater and three hours later
scored a goal for the Stingers in their 8-2 victory over the Crusaders. "You get used
to moving," he says. Anyway, it wasn't that great in Cleveland. "I liked the
city itself real well, but I didn't get to play much, for reasons unknown to me," he
says. "I didn't even dress for six or seven games this month. We had eight
defenseman. It was a tough situation."
In moving to Cincinnati, Ball returns to where he played in the
minors with the old Swords, but he has no special sentiment for the place. He says he
doesn't even remember anything, except the great ice they had at Cincinnati Gardens.
Details get a little blurry when you've played in Winnipeg, Vancouver, Kitchner, Omaha,
Quebec, Philadelphia, Amarillo, St. Lake City, Buffalo, St. Paul and Cleveland. Ball
doesn't even bring his family with him anymore. "They stay home in Winnipeg," he
explains. "The kids are in school there and we don't like to take them out. I just
live in an apartment so it's no trouble moving."
Wherever Ball has gone, he's impressed people. He was an American
Hockey League all-star the year he played for the Swords. He's widely known for an
incredibly hard shot inside the blue line. But he's so small for a defenseman, 5 foot 8,
165 pounds and he thinks that's why he's had to move so much. "I'm not too small, but
a lot of coaches think I am," he declares. "I must be big enough; I've been
playing 11 years so far. But people still look at my size. Maybe that's why I wasn't
playing in Cleveland. I don't know. Maybe the coach thought I was small. He had a lot of
defensemen so maybe he decided to go with the big ones."
In any case, he'll play for the Stingers. To emphasize that, the
Cincinnati team sent down Bruce Abbey Wednesday, leaving just five defenseman including
Balll. Abbey refused to go to Hampton, but presumably will go to the American Hockey
League or the Central League. Ball played almost a regular rotation Wednesday and would
again in tonight's makeshift game in Indianapolis. "At my size, it doesn't tale long
to get in condition," he says, "not like a big guy."
* * *
Tonight's game was arranged hurriedly earlier this week
then the Denver-Ottawa team folded, leaving gaps in everyon'es schedule. It will probably
benefit the Stingers in the long run, since under the arrangment Indianapolis will make a
special trip to Cincinnati later in the season to fill in for Ottawa here. That means that
the last couple months, while in that stretch drive, the Stingers will have five home
games against the Racers. |
