Scorecard

HOCKEY BRUTALITY

Amid the furor over repeated and increasingly savage hockey violence (page 22), some sane and insightful thoughts were offered in the Montreal Star by veteran hockey writer Red Fisher:

"They are playing a little boy's game and adults who have been properly forewarned are using their fists and sticks to hurt people. They are using the brutish tools of the mugger and the street gang in what should be no more than an excursion into show biz, and when the judiciary intervenes and threatens reprisals called for by the law, a lot of people who should know better cluck with astonishment and react angrily....

"What in thunderation is going on here? How many times do these people have to be warned and charged before they realize there is no place in hockey for savagery? How many athletes must be hauled into court before they and others understand that the bludgeon is not what rules here? Where is it written that to inflict pain and injury is good and that the game belongs to the thug and the goon?

"This is my 22nd year of covering professional hockey and, despite the irritations and the burdens of too many late nights, it has been a love affair of long standing.... There is a beauty in its thud and thwack of body against body. There is breathtaking excitement in its speed and the thunder of its shooters. It is not a sport for the weak of heart and mind, but a Guy LaFleur and others with considerably less talent bring a majesty and grace to the arena....

"Most of the hockey people I know share my love for the game, so why are a few being allowed to bring it down to the gutter level? Don't they realize what they have and what they're doing to it? Does a game have to die before tears are shed?"

PLAY BUT NO PAY

With all this trouble in hockey, it's nice to deal with what is, by comparison, good news: the financial woes of the San Diego Mariners of the WHA.

Until the playoffs, the Mariners hadn't been paid since March 1, when the franchise went bust. In the interim, players on the road have subsisted on $18 a day meal money and at home on their wits. Goalie Russ Gillow confessed things got so bad that he and his wife had to cut out buying cashews and potato chips and fill snack bowls with popcorn.

But Defenseman Joe Noris reached all-league depths by being forced to quaff draft beer instead of the more expensive bottled variety during the payless weeks. If the Mariners go on to win the league championship this year, management might have to pop for champagne—but served in paper cups?