| HAMPTON,
Va. - The riot was won eventually by the Cincinnati Stingers, which presumably rebuilds
their pride, but the price of victory was high. Smarting from a 7-5 defeat Sunday,
the Stingers came back Tuesday to down the Hampton farm club, 7-4 in a fight-wrecked game
that resulted in 165 minutes if penalties. Injured during the ruckus were center Jacques
Locas and left wing Pierre Guite. Locas suffered a minor shoulder separation and Guite
pulled a leg tendon. "The doctor says both of them will
miss at least 10 days." said a furious Stingers coach, Terry Slater. "That means
they'll both miss the Cleveland game (Cincinnati's WHA debut)". Slater was fuming.
"The officiating was terrible," he exclaimed. "The other team was hitting
us over the head all night and we were getting all the penalties. We didn't want to hurt
anyone and we didn't want to get hurt. The officials just let it get out of hand. I'd like
to know what's going on. Obviously someone in the league (WHA) has told the officials to
watch for us, that we've got to be tamed. I'll tell you. If they keep it up, they're going
to hurt this franchise. This is a good team and we don't have to play stupid. It's a good
franchise and if they don't let us play, it's going to hurt us and it's going to hurt the
league - and the league has troubles enough already."
Three games misconduct's were handed out by the officials, including
one to normally placid Cincinnati Stingers center Dennis Sobchuk. Fights occurred with
regularity and twice both benches emptied onto the ice. Stingers forward Dale Smedsmo was
involved in three different fights and with two minutes left in the game was personally
escorted off the ice by two officials. "The officials were letting the other team get
away with everything, "Slater hissed. "Somebody had to do something to protect
us and Smedsmo did."
The Hampton players were going all out in the game hoping to win
jobs in Cincinnati and ironically, by injuring the two Stingers, did just that. "Now
we've got to take at least two of them," Slater conceded. "We can't go up to
Cleveland with half a team. We might take more than two. We're going to review the whole
situation. I feel there are some players on our roster who are not contributing."
Slater said he liked the play of Hampton's Don O'Donohue and Pat Donelly, each of whom
scored a goal. "And I like (Gordie) Lane's guts," Slater added. Lane was
involved in one of the fights with Smedsmo. After the two had been separated and put in
separate penalty boxes, Lane hopped out of his box and into Smedsmo's starting the fight
all over again.
In the beginning, the Stingers showed an inability to kill
penalties, just as they did in Sunday's loss to Hampton. The Gulls scored twice in the
first period, both times when Cincy was shorthanded. But Stinger defenseman Ron Plumb
retaliated with a goal and two assists on goals by Claude Larose and Gary Veneruzzo to
give his team a 3-2 edge. In the second period, Hampton's Mike Sauter and Donelly put in
successive goals, again with the Stingers one man short. But Steve Andrascik came back
with a Brian Campbell assisted goal to even the score at 4-4. In the third period, the
Stingers defense finally congealed and shut out the Gulls even through several shorthanded
situations. "I guess we finally decided we had to do something," Slater
analyzed. "We hadn't shown much until then." Cincy's final three goals were
scored by Larose. Veneruzzo and Andrascik. Defenseman Dabe Inkpen assisted on two of them.
The Stingers take on the Tidewater Sharks tonight in Norfolk. |
