Pro Stars Take Swipe At Violence, NAHL takes steps, Norsemen look like contender, Riot on Ice, articles (Hockey News, 1975-11-28)
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Pro Stars Take Swipe At Violence, NAHL takes steps, Norsemen look like contender, Riot on Ice, articles (Hockey News, 1975-11-28)
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Pro Stars Take Swipe At Violence
MONTREAL-
There is mixed emotion about the growing violence in professional hockey. Some argue that it is blown out of all proportion. Others acknowledge that it is on the increase.
Curt Bennett of the At lanta Flames hates to have to use his fists to teach rival NHL players the meaning of respect.
But if he had to, Bennett will react. “I don’t particularly like to go out and beat people up,” said the 195-pound forward who holds a brown belt in Karate. ‘‘That’s not part of my game. In college it was against the rules and considered unsportsmanlike but in the pros it’s looked on with favor.”
Bennett is ranked as one of the NHL’s better fighters but he detests fighting. Thinks it takes too much away from hockey. He also thinks the Philadelphia Flyers have gone overboard in their intimidation program in recent years.
Bennett isn’t the only pro to draw a bead on the rough stuff that’s going on around hockey. Bobby Hull staged a one-weekend strike to emphasize his discontent over the increasing rough stuff and brawling that was becoming a part of the WHA. He says hockey was getting too brutal and players were being seriously injured by stick-swinging players. Hull said that unless the WHA cleaned up its act, he was ready to quit the game.
The recent at tack by Dan Maloney on Toronto’s Brian Glennie has again aroused the diehards who are campaigning to have hockey cleaned up. Maloney is facing an assault with bodily harm charge Dec. 1 in Toronto after beating up on Glennie as he lay helpless on the ice. The Maloney affair is being compared to the Dave Forbes-Henry Boucha incident of last season when Forbes struck Boucha in the eye during an altercation on the ice.
Punch Imlach of Buffalo thinks, minor, double “the whole hockey violence thing has been blown out of proportion. It’s hard to define what this guy (Ontario at torney general Roy McMurty) is talking about. The law is the law and hockey business is hockey business. Everyone has their definition of violence in hockey. Mine is two guys standing there hitting each other over the head with their sticks,” said Imlach.
Punch said he wouldn’t change his thinking of hockey for anyone. “People take this stuff too seriously. In all my years with the Sabres I haven’t seen excessive violence. We’ve got some guys that play tough but don’t break the law.”
Glennie, who suffered a mild concussion and was hospitalized overnight after the pummeling by Maloney, didn’t comment on the incident or the violence in hockey but his wife, Barbara, did. She said that she has noticed an increase in rough stuff in hockey since her husband began playing proeight years-ago.
NAHL Takes Unprecedented Steps To Curb Growing Hockey Violence
BUFFALO—
Commissioner John E. Timmins of the North American Hockey League has announced unprecedented rule revisions that if universally adopted could change the face of hockey. He instituted the most sweeping changes in league penalties for player misconducts and the most severe penalty for the “third man” in a fight in the history of professional hockey.
The NAHL had been plagued with an unusually high incidence of misconducts and major brawls early this season, a situation seemingly besetting all pro leagues and a situation which precipitated the commissioner’s action.
Effective Nov. 13 the following structure for league fines and suspensions as a result of player misconducts went into effect in the three year old league:
MISCONDUCTS
1st offense: fine $50.00; suspension one game.
2nd offense: fine $100.00; suspension two games.
3rd offense: fine $150.00; suspension indefinite.
GAME MISCONDUCTS
1st offense: fine $100.00; suspension two games.
2nd offense: fine $150.00; suspension three games.
3rd offense: fine $200.00; suspension indefinite.
MATCH MISCONDUCTS
1st offense: fine $250.00; suspension two games.
2nd offense: fine $300.00; suspension five games.
3rd offense: fine $350.00; suspension indefinite.
The revised structure makes the NAHL the only league in all of professional hockey to assess automatic suspensions for all misconducts. In the past misconducts in the NAHL resulted in a fine of only 10 dollars, while game and match misconducts resulted in a fine of only 25 dollars; there were no automatic suspensions.
In an equally significant change Timmins announced that henceforth the third man in any fight would be assessed a five minute match misconduct.
This move extends by one step the rule adopted by the National Hockey League prior to the 197172 season, and since adopted by most professional leagues, whereby the third man is assessed a game misconduct.
The distinction is a major one. Under the NHL rule only the individual is penalized. Under the NAHL version the team may also be severely penalized. When a player is given a match misconduct he is not only barred from the game but his team skates shorthanded for the full duration of the penalty, regardless of how many times the opposition scores. A team may immediately substitute for a player handed a game misconduct.
Furthermore, under the new structure dealing with misconducts any “third man” will automatically receive at least a four game suspension and only that if it is his first such offense.
The NAHL had used the NHL version of the third man rule during its first two years. But this year the league had been operating under the World Hockey Association rule, also revised this year, of allowing the referee discretion to penalize the third man with either a minor, or misconduct penalty.
In making the changes Timmins commented, “We want a tough, hard hittings action packed hockey league. We do not want endless dead spots where players argue with referees, mill about endlessly, and bore the fans who pay to see. hockey with their needless charades and histrionics. We do not want a league where a clean one on one fight is at any time liable to erupt into a vicious brawl,”
The immediate reaction to the change was almost universally positive. When notified of the change WHA supervisor of officials Bob Frampton, whose referees officiate all NAHL games, was enthusiastic. Robbie Roberts, director of operations of the league’s Erie Blades commented, “Finally hockey will give its game and its officials the same sanctity that baseball and football do. This is a major step for our sport. “
A major step indeed. The intent of the revisions is the virtual elimination of the behavior that leads to misconducts and therefore all misconducts themselves, said Tim-mins, “misconducts add nothing to the game; eliminating the behavior that results in misconducts will not diminish the game in the least. Misconducts don’t add to skating. They don’t add to stick handling. They don’t add to shooting, passing, checking, or even fighting. All they add to is the self-glorifying badgering of officials by players and also to senseless brutality. Who needs that? If the other leagues want that let them have it. We don’t and we wont.”
One of the few negative comments came from a Syracuse Broadcaster who editorialized that the move would make the game fall into the hands of the referee.
To which the commissioner replied, “the people we are going to give the game to are the fans who want a tight, action packed two and one half hour hockey game, not a three hour plus waltz. Besides, can you think of anyone better to give the game to than the referee?”
Expansion Norsemen Look Like Strong Contender
Gary Clark
BUFFALO—
Philadelphia Flyers…Buffalo Sabres…Vancouver Canucks. It hardly seems possible that less than a decade has passed since the beginning of the expansion era in hockey especially when you consider that three of the four divisional races in the NHL last year were won by those three teams, expansion teams all.
The NHL claims an excellent achievement in parity to have created competitive expansion teams so soon. But the North American League will take second seat to none when it comes to successful expansion teams. They too have produced winners from new clubs, but will a difference. The NAHL has the knack for doing it instantaneously.
In 1974-75 the NAHL introduced the Philadelphia Firebirds, and in doing so created a fine team. The Birds battled for first place most of the season and finished with a record of 40-31-.3 for a strong second place standing.
In 1975-76 the League has another expansion team performing like a genuine contender, the Buffalo Norsemen. The parallels between the new Norsemen and the 1974-75 Firebirds are striking.
Both teams are located in areas that are hockey mad. Both teams share their cities with fabulously successful NHL franchises. Both teams have working agreements with the “big brother” of their cities. And most importantly, the Norsemen are waging a see-saw battle for first place with the defending Lockhart Cup champions just as did the Firebirds last season.
The Norsemen lost their first two games, but ever since their 12-1 rout of Mohawk Valley in their third, they have been rolling. Their record just prior to a two-game trip to Beauce and Maine stood at nine wins, four losses. That gave them 18 points, just one more that the Johnstown Jets, with whom they have been neck and neck since the second week of the season.
The Norsemen have the look of a legitimate contender and not just an early-season pretender. They are strong in the nets and they have the firepower to match anyone goal for goal.
In goal they have been receiving strong performances from young Houston Aero property Bill Cheropita and veteran major leaguer Les Binkley. They form an interesting tandem. Cheropita is long on natural ability and short on experience. Binkley makes up for what the years may have taken from his abiltiy with the savvy acquired in 271 major league games.
But the Norsemen are not going to win any trophies for allowing the fewest goals in the NAHL. Their game is “you score six, I’ll score seven.” They have the horses to play it well.
Their number one line has Steve At kinson centering for right wing Bryan McSheffrey and left wing Larry Gould. Whenever the Norsemen have a power play that trio is joined on the ice by player-coach Guy Trottier.
A potent combination it is. Through 13 games all four of them were scoring at a pace that would shatter the NAHL season scoring record of 124 points held by Luc Simard. At kinson and Gould each had 26 points while McSheffrey had 21 and Trottier was close behind with 18. Trottier had scored 12 goals and seven of them had come on power plays. No figures are yet available from the NAHL for team power-play efficiency, but the Norsemen had to rank at or near the top.
The Norsemen are thinnest at defense, where the recall of Paul Heaver left the team with only four blueliners, three of them pro rookies. No one realizes that problem better than general manager Willie Marshall who has been searching everywhere for experienced defensemen.
So far the Norsemen’s formula for success seems to be to score as many goals as they can as quickly as they can and not to look back. Since they were leading the NAHL in scoring and were in first place in the League’s Western Division to boot, that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. ■
“Riot On Ice” Mars NAHL
MONTREAL-
There is mixed emotion about the growing violence in professional hockey. Some argue that it is blown out of all proportion. Others acknowledge that it is on the increase.
Curt Bennett of the At lanta Flames hates to have to use his fists to teach rival NHL players the meaning of respect.
But if he had to, Bennett will react. “I don’t particularly like to go out and beat people up,” said the 195-pound forward who holds a brown belt in Karate. ‘‘That’s not part of my game. In college it was against the rules and considered unsportsmanlike but in the pros it’s looked on with favor.”
Bennett is ranked as one of the NHL’s better fighters but he detests fighting. Thinks it takes too much away from hockey. He also thinks the Philadelphia Flyers have gone overboard in their intimidation program in recent years.
Bennett isn’t the only pro to draw a bead on the rough stuff that’s going on around hockey. Bobby Hull staged a one-weekend strike to emphasize his discontent over the increasing rough stuff and brawling that was becoming a part of the WHA. He says hockey was getting too brutal and players were being seriously injured by stick-swinging players. Hull said that unless the WHA cleaned up its act, he was ready to quit the game.
The recent at tack by Dan Maloney on Toronto’s Brian Glennie has again aroused the diehards who are campaigning to have hockey cleaned up. Maloney is facing an assault with bodily harm charge Dec. 1 in Toronto after beating up on Glennie as he lay helpless on the ice. The Maloney affair is being compared to the Dave Forbes-Henry Boucha incident of last season when Forbes struck Boucha in the eye during an altercation on the ice.
Punch Imlach of Buffalo thinks, minor, double “the whole hockey violence thing has been blown out of proportion. It’s hard to define what this guy (Ontario at torney general Roy McMurty) is talking about. The law is the law and hockey business is hockey business. Everyone has their definition of violence in hockey. Mine is two guys standing there hitting each other over the head with their sticks,” said Imlach.
Punch said he wouldn’t change his thinking of hockey for anyone. “People take this stuff too seriously. In all my years with the Sabres I haven’t seen excessive violence. We’ve got some guys that play tough but don’t break the law.”
Glennie, who suffered a mild concussion and was hospitalized overnight after the pummeling by Maloney, didn’t comment on the incident or the violence in hockey but his wife, Barbara, did. She said that she has noticed an increase in rough stuff in hockey since her husband began playing proeight years-ago.
NAHL Takes Unprecedented Steps To Curb Growing Hockey Violence
BUFFALO—
Commissioner John E. Timmins of the North American Hockey League has announced unprecedented rule revisions that if universally adopted could change the face of hockey. He instituted the most sweeping changes in league penalties for player misconducts and the most severe penalty for the “third man” in a fight in the history of professional hockey.
The NAHL had been plagued with an unusually high incidence of misconducts and major brawls early this season, a situation seemingly besetting all pro leagues and a situation which precipitated the commissioner’s action.
Effective Nov. 13 the following structure for league fines and suspensions as a result of player misconducts went into effect in the three year old league:
MISCONDUCTS
1st offense: fine $50.00; suspension one game.
2nd offense: fine $100.00; suspension two games.
3rd offense: fine $150.00; suspension indefinite.
GAME MISCONDUCTS
1st offense: fine $100.00; suspension two games.
2nd offense: fine $150.00; suspension three games.
3rd offense: fine $200.00; suspension indefinite.
MATCH MISCONDUCTS
1st offense: fine $250.00; suspension two games.
2nd offense: fine $300.00; suspension five games.
3rd offense: fine $350.00; suspension indefinite.
The revised structure makes the NAHL the only league in all of professional hockey to assess automatic suspensions for all misconducts. In the past misconducts in the NAHL resulted in a fine of only 10 dollars, while game and match misconducts resulted in a fine of only 25 dollars; there were no automatic suspensions.
In an equally significant change Timmins announced that henceforth the third man in any fight would be assessed a five minute match misconduct.
This move extends by one step the rule adopted by the National Hockey League prior to the 197172 season, and since adopted by most professional leagues, whereby the third man is assessed a game misconduct.
The distinction is a major one. Under the NHL rule only the individual is penalized. Under the NAHL version the team may also be severely penalized. When a player is given a match misconduct he is not only barred from the game but his team skates shorthanded for the full duration of the penalty, regardless of how many times the opposition scores. A team may immediately substitute for a player handed a game misconduct.
Furthermore, under the new structure dealing with misconducts any “third man” will automatically receive at least a four game suspension and only that if it is his first such offense.
The NAHL had used the NHL version of the third man rule during its first two years. But this year the league had been operating under the World Hockey Association rule, also revised this year, of allowing the referee discretion to penalize the third man with either a minor, or misconduct penalty.
In making the changes Timmins commented, “We want a tough, hard hittings action packed hockey league. We do not want endless dead spots where players argue with referees, mill about endlessly, and bore the fans who pay to see. hockey with their needless charades and histrionics. We do not want a league where a clean one on one fight is at any time liable to erupt into a vicious brawl,”
The immediate reaction to the change was almost universally positive. When notified of the change WHA supervisor of officials Bob Frampton, whose referees officiate all NAHL games, was enthusiastic. Robbie Roberts, director of operations of the league’s Erie Blades commented, “Finally hockey will give its game and its officials the same sanctity that baseball and football do. This is a major step for our sport. “
A major step indeed. The intent of the revisions is the virtual elimination of the behavior that leads to misconducts and therefore all misconducts themselves, said Tim-mins, “misconducts add nothing to the game; eliminating the behavior that results in misconducts will not diminish the game in the least. Misconducts don’t add to skating. They don’t add to stick handling. They don’t add to shooting, passing, checking, or even fighting. All they add to is the self-glorifying badgering of officials by players and also to senseless brutality. Who needs that? If the other leagues want that let them have it. We don’t and we wont.”
One of the few negative comments came from a Syracuse Broadcaster who editorialized that the move would make the game fall into the hands of the referee.
To which the commissioner replied, “the people we are going to give the game to are the fans who want a tight, action packed two and one half hour hockey game, not a three hour plus waltz. Besides, can you think of anyone better to give the game to than the referee?”
Expansion Norsemen Look Like Strong Contender
Gary Clark
BUFFALO—
Philadelphia Flyers…Buffalo Sabres…Vancouver Canucks. It hardly seems possible that less than a decade has passed since the beginning of the expansion era in hockey especially when you consider that three of the four divisional races in the NHL last year were won by those three teams, expansion teams all.
The NHL claims an excellent achievement in parity to have created competitive expansion teams so soon. But the North American League will take second seat to none when it comes to successful expansion teams. They too have produced winners from new clubs, but will a difference. The NAHL has the knack for doing it instantaneously.
In 1974-75 the NAHL introduced the Philadelphia Firebirds, and in doing so created a fine team. The Birds battled for first place most of the season and finished with a record of 40-31-.3 for a strong second place standing.
In 1975-76 the League has another expansion team performing like a genuine contender, the Buffalo Norsemen. The parallels between the new Norsemen and the 1974-75 Firebirds are striking.
Both teams are located in areas that are hockey mad. Both teams share their cities with fabulously successful NHL franchises. Both teams have working agreements with the “big brother” of their cities. And most importantly, the Norsemen are waging a see-saw battle for first place with the defending Lockhart Cup champions just as did the Firebirds last season.
The Norsemen lost their first two games, but ever since their 12-1 rout of Mohawk Valley in their third, they have been rolling. Their record just prior to a two-game trip to Beauce and Maine stood at nine wins, four losses. That gave them 18 points, just one more that the Johnstown Jets, with whom they have been neck and neck since the second week of the season.
The Norsemen have the look of a legitimate contender and not just an early-season pretender. They are strong in the nets and they have the firepower to match anyone goal for goal.
In goal they have been receiving strong performances from young Houston Aero property Bill Cheropita and veteran major leaguer Les Binkley. They form an interesting tandem. Cheropita is long on natural ability and short on experience. Binkley makes up for what the years may have taken from his abiltiy with the savvy acquired in 271 major league games.
But the Norsemen are not going to win any trophies for allowing the fewest goals in the NAHL. Their game is “you score six, I’ll score seven.” They have the horses to play it well.
Their number one line has Steve At kinson centering for right wing Bryan McSheffrey and left wing Larry Gould. Whenever the Norsemen have a power play that trio is joined on the ice by player-coach Guy Trottier.
A potent combination it is. Through 13 games all four of them were scoring at a pace that would shatter the NAHL season scoring record of 124 points held by Luc Simard. At kinson and Gould each had 26 points while McSheffrey had 21 and Trottier was close behind with 18. Trottier had scored 12 goals and seven of them had come on power plays. No figures are yet available from the NAHL for team power-play efficiency, but the Norsemen had to rank at or near the top.
The Norsemen are thinnest at defense, where the recall of Paul Heaver left the team with only four blueliners, three of them pro rookies. No one realizes that problem better than general manager Willie Marshall who has been searching everywhere for experienced defensemen.
So far the Norsemen’s formula for success seems to be to score as many goals as they can as quickly as they can and not to look back. Since they were leading the NAHL in scoring and were in first place in the League’s Western Division to boot, that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. ■
“Riot On Ice” Mars NAHL
ST. GEORGES DE BEAUCE—
The North American’ Hockey League, like all other hockey leagues, has had its share of unfortunate incidents so far this season. But by far the most serious occurred on Fri. Nov. 7 when the Mohawk Valley Comets Beauce Jaros game being “played” in the Quebec city was halted after two periods of play because of what Brian Conacher called a “riot on the ice”. The game was declared “no contest” by referee Eric Manship.
Manship’s action came after a fight-filled game erupted into total mayhem as the teams were leaving the ice for the second intermission. It was uncertain what precipitated the clash, but what was know was that there were idiotic acts of brutality by players of both teams. Among the incidents cited in referee Manship’s report to the commissioner: one player viciously biting another on the nose; one player breaking another player’s nose with a twohanded swing of a stick; one player beating on another despite the. second player’s apparent unconsciousness.
Ugly would seem hardly a sufficient description for the scene. The Beauce fans were reported to have jeered and littered the ice in protest of what they were witnessing. Some were said to have demanded refunds for their season tickets.
The reaction to the brawl by the or NAHL League Office was swift and stern. Commissioner Jack Timmins conferred by phone throughout Saturday with Manship and WHA Supervisor of Officials Bob Frampton. Within 24 hours of the game he had handed out four indefinite suspensions. Bannished were Jaros coach Marc Picard, Jaros’ players Gilles Bilodeau and Michel Gameau and Comets’ defenseman Bob O’Reilly.
The commissioner pursued the investigation, taking a complete written report from Manship and meeting with him to confer personally. By the middle of the following week Timmins had announced the following suspensions: Michel Garneau, 10 games; Gilles Bilodeau, three games; Yves Arch-ambeault, three games; and O’Reilly, four games. Coach Picard continued under indefinite suspension. Stiff fines were also given with the suspensions.
Garneau, who had been accused of other unjustifiable altercations and who had once before been suspended, was immediately placed on waivers by the Jaros and then released.
Date
1975-11-28
Collection
Citation
“Pro Stars Take Swipe At Violence, NAHL takes steps, Norsemen look like contender, Riot on Ice, articles (Hockey News, 1975-11-28),” North Tonawanda History, accessed November 26, 2025, https://nthistory.com/items/show/4666.