Man On The Move

Just beyond the knot of quaint colonial-looking shops and pubs, past the quaint little colonial church and all the quaint little colonial people of Avon, Conn., there is a quiet lane called Climax Road that parts two thickets of trees. Climax runs up a small hill, then jogs past a quaint, quiet, colonial graveyard. Even county planners must have their little joke.

A left at the first headstone off Climax takes you to the home of Andr� Lacroix, the quaint little semi-colonial (he is 33) center for the the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association. Lacroix, his wife Suzanne and their two children moved into the house two months ago, so Andr� hasn't had time to visit the cemetery that lies brooding at the end of his block. For the time being Lacroix can imagine that the graveyard is populated by the ghosts of the WHA, franchises that were weak or sickly and had to be rooted out.

Lacroix knows all about this Hamlet business; in his seven seasons with the WHA he has watched five franchises expire around him, and he is now with his sixth team. All of that might not be so bad if Lacroix were just an ordinary journeyman hockey player, but with 710 points in six seasons he is the league's alltime leading scorer and one of its most formidable stars.

So shed a tear along with Lacroix for the New York Raiders, New York Golden Blades, New Jersey Knights, San Diego Mariners, Houston Aeros, Philadelphia Blazers, Vancouver Blazers, Calgary Broncs, Alberta Oilers, Calgary Cowboys, Minnesota Fighting Saints, Chicago Cougars, Denver Spurs, Ottawa Civics, Ottawa Nationals, Toronto Toros, Miami Screaming Eagles, Los Angeles Sharks, Michigan Stags, Baltimore Blades, Cleveland Crusaders, Minnesota New Fighting Saints and Phoenix Roadrunners. R.I.P. Dayton and San Francisco, too.

In spite of Lacroix' accomplishments on the ice—twice he has been the WHA scoring champion, and until a sprained ankle sidelined him in midseason last year he had played in 443 consecutive league games—his teams have shown a distressing tendency to wind up in the sports world's East River wearing cement skates.

To be fair about it, Lacroix personally was involved in the deaths of only the Philadelphia Blazers, the New York Golden Blades, the New Jersey Knights, the San Diego Mariners and the Houston Aeros. But his reputation as a plague on solvency is prodigious, and it preceded him to New England. "A lot of the guys on the Whalers have already asked me if I would mind not buying a house here," says Lacroix. "They've heard that every time I buy a house the team I'm playing for folds."

Andr� Lacroix don't get no respect. And yet.... He has been selected for every All-Star Game in the league's brief history, played for Team Canada against the Soviets in 1974 and is admired by hockey connoisseurs for his deft stick-handling. "Andr� doesn't have great speed," says Whaler Coach Bill Dineen, who also was Lacroix' coach last season in Houston, "but he's very elusive and hard to hit. There are some guys that the puck just seems to follow around, and that's the way it is with Andr�. The hardest thing to do in hockey is pass the puck well, and Andr� does it as well as anybody."

Lacroix' ability to deal the puck to his wings effectively will be crucial to the Whalers' Avco Cup hopes this season. To Lacroix' right on the Whalers' No. 1 line will be the venerable (50 years' worth of venerable) Gordie Howe, and to his left will be Gordie's 23-year-old son Mark. For Lacroix, this means that he will have centered for both Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe in his peripatetic career.

Lacroix has never been a charismatic player like Hull or Howe or Bobby Orr, and perhaps there is a certain symmetry in the fact that the best scorer in the second-best league has had to suffer all the same sort of indignities the WHA itself has had to endure. Last winter, as if in anticipation of Lacroix' arrival, the roof of the Hartford Civic Center, the Whalers' home, collapsed under the weight of a heavy snow. The Whalers have had to relocate until 1979 in the smaller Springfield, Mass. Civic Center, and their fans in Hartford must make the 35-mile drive up I-91 to follow the team.

That is the kind of disaster that has dogged the WHA and, in a smaller way, Lacroix. "Everybody tells me I've finally gotten lucky because the Whalers are a solid franchise and aren't likely to fold," says Lacroix. "Well, I once played for Ray Kroc, who is worth about $500 million, and when he decided he didn't like hockey anymore, his team went under. If I'm able to stay in New England even one season, I'll consider it a bonus."