| Except for
Rick Dudley, there are no former Cincinnati Swords among the new Stingers, but there is
Steve Andrascik, an anti-Sword. For him, the night the tornadoes struck fateful. He was
scouted in the Cincinnati Gardens during the Calder Cup playoffs and signed shortly
afterwards, while the ruins and the Stingers were both in construction. It was all a coincidence, really. The scouts were looking for Swords players
who could make the team. They found none, since Dudley had already been called up by
Buffalo. But by accident they found Andrascik, who was a hated Hershey Bears player, hated
all the more because he was killing Cincy in the playoffs. "I was having some real
good games" he remembers now, "I think I had like three goals and 10 assists.
Jerry Rafter (the Stingers' player personnel director) was there and came down to talk to
me after one of the games"
|
Steve Andrascik |
Having vagabonded around the minors for five years, Andrascik
was pleased he attacked some major league interest, but had misgivings about Cincinnati.
"During the playoff games, there weren't very many people who came to watch" he
explains. "But I guess it was the tornadoes. You can't expect people to worry about
hockey at a time like that. The new building here is beautiful," he continues, gazing
around the Riverfront Coliseum after practice Wednesday. "I don't think we'll have
any trouble drawing people".
Andrascik is quick to point out he himself is a pitcher for a senior
men's team back home in Northern Manitoba. "Not much of a curve," he smiles.
"And I'm not to fast. But I've got pretty good control. I hit the corners a lot. And
I have a pretty good change-up". Having found a place on the Stingers' roster, in a
lime with Jacques Locas and Dale Smedsmo, the affable right winger hopes he can settle
down some. If he wrote a book about his hockey career so far, Andrascik could title it Travels
With Steve. In the last five years he's played in nine cities.
Before the Stingers signed him, the only time he reached the majors
is when the New York Rangers called him up for the playoffs in 1972. "I played in one
game," he sneers good-humoredly. "For two shifts. We were playing against
Chicago in the semi-finals and I was matched against Bobby Hull." The rest of his
career had been spent traveling around the minors, and it was frustrating. He had some bad
breaks.
But like there are bad accidents, there are good accidents. It
happened that in touring the minor league's he landed in Hershey, and as a part of that
team he came storming into Cincinnati with the tornadoes. They were looking for Swords,
but the antiSword was sharper.
* * *
NOTES - The Stingers leave today on a three game tour
of Canada. They play at Calgary Friday, Edmonton Sunday and at Winnipeg on Tuesday. Their
home opener is next Thursday against Edmonton. It caused club officials some concern when
the schedule first came out, showing the Stingers with four road games to start the
season. It's tough enough for a new team to win at home. It was decided a 2-2 record going
into the opener would be encouraging. But with a 1-0 victory over Cleveland already
behind, Jeffy Rafter says, "We're sure to win two of the four and could do
better".
The team practiced Tuesday and Wednesday on the new ice
at Riverfront Coiliseum and came away complaining that it was too slow. "That's
really heavy ice" righ winger Gene Sobchuk groaned. "Its like carrying around
10-pound weights on your legs". The Coliseum floor also has been found to be not
level. While the ice is over an inch thick in some places, it barely covers the concrete
in others. Officials hope to have the problms resolved by the time the team returns from
the road trip. |
