| ST. PAUL,
MINN - The Minnesota Fighting Saints' president Wayne Belisle, said yesterday, "I
don't know what they're feeding those people in Cincinnati these days. I bet on the Red
Sox and the Reds won the World Series, the Bengals can't lose a football game and now the
Stingers come in here and make us look silly." Cincinnati's
new World Hockey Association team did just that to the Fighting Saints here Wednesday
night as 12,210 fans watched the Stingers' version of the "French Connection"
score four times for a 6-4 victory. Cincinnati coach Terry Slater acknowledged his
surprise at his team's fast start. "I thought it might take us 15 to 20 games to get
everything together, this being a new team and all. But apparently our guys don't feel
that way because we're doing very well."
Despite playing only two games at home, Cincinnati's is off to a
fast 5-2 start and leads the WHA East Division. And rookie Clyde (sic) Larose now has six
goals and three assists for the season. Last summer the Stingers made the 20-year-old
Frenchman their choice in the WHA's amateur draft and he's off to the best start any
rookie has ever had in the WHA. "I'm impressed with Larose,yes," said Slater.
"But I'm more impressed with all out rookies as a unit. Little Jacques Locas is
playing great for us at center ice and we have other youngsters playing nearly as
well."
Slater did some quick thinking after the pregame warm-ups and
altered his plan of attack after noticing poor ice conditions here at the Civic Center.
"This ice was very slow and after the pre-game skate, I changed my entire game plan,
" said Slater "I was going to send two men in to forecheck but after noticing
the bad ice conditions, I sent in only one player and hoped the Saints' defense would have
problems with the puck. It worked. For the first 50 minutes, the puck was rolling like a
rubber ball and we just kept picking off their passes for goals."
Minnesota coach Harry Neale said, "The ice was bad but it was
the same for both teams. Cincinnati just outplayed us on a fair and square basis. They've
got a helluva team and they beat us without their best player. The Stingers' best
player," according to Neale, "is Rick Dudley ", a 31-goal scorer with the
National Hockey League Buffalo Sabres last year.
Cincinnati led 2-0 after the first period on goals by Bryan Campbell
and Bernie MacNeil. The latter's tally was his fourth of the season, the third in a
short-handed situation. Larose, from Locas and Pierre Guite and Locas, from Larose and
Guite, scored to make it 4-0 Cincinnati by the midway point in the second period.
Minnesota put in tow scores in 71 seconds later in the period to cut the margin to 4-2 but
Guite thwarted the Saints' comeback hopes by drilling his third goal of the season at
16:46 of the period. In the third period, Minnesota's Henry Boucha scored twice and Larose
once to make the final margin 6-4.
The Stingers play tonight in Winnipeg against Bobby Hull and his
Winnipeg Swedes before returning to the Riverfront Coliseum to host Calgary. The last time
the Stingers and Hull met, Bobby took a walk for two games because of Cincinnati's
supposedly dirty play. |
