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The Goderich Signal-Star, 1984-10-31, Page 19G&Ierich r I NAL- . - T RECREATIO 136 YEAR -44 GODERICH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1984 fel CENTS PER COPY Goderich Senior Vikings defender Ken Van Osch (26) ended up on the bottom of the pile when a Clinton Central Huron Redmen runn- Huron -Perth Conference football game 49-0 and ended up on top of ing back went plowing Wrought the line. The Vikings won the the conference, with a perfect record. (photo by Patrick Raftis) Senior Vikings shut out Central Huron Redmen to finish season BY TD The GDCI Senior Vikings needed a good game here Thursday, to get back on track before going into the Huron -Perth Con- ference senior football playoffs. They got it. The Vikings shut out the Central Huron Redmen 49 - 0 in a game featuring excellent execution, both offensively and defensively, by the Vikings. The victory gave the Vikings a perfect regular season record of six wins and no losses. The first place Vikings take on the Stratford Northwestern Huskies here Thursday at 2 p.m. in one sudden -death semi-final. The other semi-final matches Listowel and the Exeter South Huron Panthers. The league final will be played Saturday, November 10. The Vikings piled up over 400 yards offen- sively against Central Huron, while holding the Redmen to 79 yards. John McGraw had three touchdowns for the Vikings, on a run of 35 yards, and two goal -line plunges. Ed Craig had two Viking touchdowns on runs of five and six yards. A two -yard run by Shawn Rahbek and a 70 - yard pass and -run play, from quarterback John Thompson, to end Dave Almasi ac- counted for the other Viking majors. Joe Melady was good on all seven 'convert at- tempts. The Viking offensive line was particularly effective, with their downfield blocking. As coach Ray Donnelly put it, "We have no lazy linemen." The blocking helped both tailbacks John McGraw and Ed Craig to gain over 100 yards, each on the day. The Vikings threw only four passes, but one went for Almasi's major score. The always -strong Goderich defence was led by fine efforts on the part of linebackers I,ee Frisby, Dave Weaver, Rick Haas and Dave Almasi, as well as strong perfor- mances by the secondary of Grant Garrow, Ken Van Osch and Shawn Doherty. The defensive secondary held Clinton to one completion in nine attempts and a total gain of three yards. The Vikings also got some big yardage on punt returns while holding the Redmen to short returns. Cliton's kicking game had been one of their strengths during the season. An interesting feature of this year's Strat- ford Northwestern team is their reliance on two former Viking players. Quarterback Mike Evans and running back Jeff Wood both cut their eye-teeth in the Viking junior program, before moving to Stratford and becoming key factors in the Huskies' attack. The Viking defence shut them down in their regular season encounters and will be endeavouring to do so again here Thursday. Midget hockey team hits rough streak dropping four games The Goderich Midget hockey team has had some rough luck lately, with the team dropping their last four Shamrock League games, including an 11-2 drubbing at the hands of Parkhill. On October 17 the Midgets Jost 4-2, in Ex- eter. After scoring the first goal, Goderich let in two by Exeter. Goderich scored again in the second period, but two third -frame markers by Exeter put the game on ice. Jim Beattie and Gary Erb scored for Goderich, while Torn Bean, Brian Chambers and Mark Cauchi all drew an assist. The final score was 6-2 when t. Marys Midgets came to Goderich on O ober 21. Goderich was down only 2-1 after two periods, but four unanswered St. Marys' goals in the third put it out of reach for the local team. Mark Cauchi scored both Goderich goals. Brent Fowler assited twice and Darcy McGee and Richard Boddy each got an assist. The team was met by an 11 -goal barrage, when they travelled to Parkhill on October 21, and managed only two goals in return by the final buzzer. Richard Boddy scored, assisted by Jim Beattie and David Duncan, in the first period and Gary Erb got the other Goderich tally, unassisted, in the second. Things were a quite a bit closer when Ex- eter played in Goderich, on October 27, as the Midgets lost by only a narrow 3-2 margin. Gary Erb and Shawn Larder scored for Goderich. Steve Hutchins scored assisted on Erb's goal. Loss to Madill ends Vikes regular season a run by Sandy MacDonald gave the Mustangs the lead for the first time in the game, with 15 seconds remaining on the clock. MacDonald was the obvious standout for Wingham, a team with many third year junior players. Rookie Bill Trebish again led the viking attack with 146 yards on 22 carries. The Vik- ings naged a total offence of 258 yards. Pena ,° s at crucial times also worked against the injury -riddled Vikings. Injuries and a one game suspension to Kevin Telford will leave the Vikings in less than ideal shape, heading into Thursday's rematch in Wingham, but coaches Bill Gar - row and Bruce Baker should have no trouble motivating their team as they try to gain revenge for last week's set -back. Doug Smith of the Goderich Signal -Star Juveniles battles Stratford goaltender John Simons for the the teams riod goals to win here Sunday. Stratforuck in firstd sc red ourriodrtion straight midwac- third ay through the fina tion SignalStar Juveniles The Goderich Signal Star Juveniles split a pair of games on the weekend, beating Ex- eter 9-2, Saturday in Exeter and losing 8-6, in an exhibition game agains Stratford, in Goderich on Sunday. Darren Doak had two goals and two assists for Goderich in the Exeter game and Todd Graham also had a`pau of goals. Brent Williamson had a goal and three assists, John Cartwright had one goal, one assist; Jeff Lebeau, Chris Sideris and Ken Huff all scored once. Trevor Martin came up with a pair of assists, while Lee Frisby and John Graham eac had one. On Sunda oderich lead 6-4 early in the third period, hen Stratford exploded for the game 8-6, erasing a two -goal Star lead 1 period. ( photo by Dave Sykes) split pair BY TD The GDCI Junior Vikings lost a dramatic 22 - 21 verdict. to the Wingham Madill Mustangs here Thursday, in the final game of the Huron -Perth Conferenc,e regular foot- ball season. The victory preserved Wingham's undefeated season while the loss left the Vikings with three wins and three losses, in their six games. The same two teams meet Thursday in Wingham at 2 p.m. in sudden -death semi- final playoff action. In last week's game, a few big plays at critical times, allowed the Mustangs to win a game they probably shouldn't have. The Vikings scored first, when Bill Trebish scored a first-quarter touchdown, on an eight yard sweep. Shawn Larder's convert put the Vikings on top 7 - 0. The Mustangs got their first big play in the second quarter, when their ace running - back Sandy MacDonald went 70 yards for a touchdown on a sweep play. The Mustangs missed the convert and the Vikings still led 7 -6. With under a minute left in the half, the Vikings went into their quick count offence and caught the Wingham defence napping. Kevin Telford caught a Steve Bugler pass and raced 32 yards for a touchdown. Larder's convert, gave Goderich a 14 - 6 halftime lead. The big play hit again when the second half began. The Mustangs Dave Gilchrist returned the opening kickoff 85 yards for a touchdown and a successful two-point con- version tied the score. The Vikings once more took the lead, when Gerry Kingsley blocked a Wingham punt from the Mustang end zone and Mur- ray Lane pounced on the loose ball for a Goderich touchdown. Shawn Larder again was good on the convert and the Vikings led 21-14. It looked as though the Vikings would prevail and end the Mustangs' goal of an undefeated season, but once more the big play came into prominence. With under a minute left in the game, and Wingham pinn- ed inside their own 20, the Vikings lead look- ed safe. However, the Mustangs put together ,a penalty, a 30 -yard pass play and a 45 -yard counter run by Sandy MacDonald, to score six points. Another two-point conversion on GDCI Senior Vikings Ken Van Osch runs back a kick, during the Vikes season final against Clinton Central Huron. The Vikings won the game 49-01 (photo by Patrick Raf- tis) Atoms play to2-2.....tie with Strathroy team Goderich Atoms played to a 2-2 deadlock with Strathroy, in a Shamrock League game played October 27, in Strathroy. Chad Papple scored the first Goderich goal, unassisted at 6.39 of the third period to tie the score at one apiece. Strathroy went up 2-2 with 1:31 remaining in the game, but Andrew McLarty scored for Goderich just nine seconds later to salvage the tie. Jason Jeffrey drew the assist. Goaltenders Jason Duckworth and Chuck MacLennan were outstanding between the pipes for Goderich. On October 29, and exhibition game between the Goderich Atom A's and the Goderich Pee Wee B's was played. The Pee Wee's scored in the last two minutes of period three to win 1-0. The Atom A's put forth a good effort and almost tied the game in the last few seconds, with their goaltender pulled for an extra at- tacker. Note: last week a caption incorrectly identified a Goderich player as Chad Pap- ple, while actually pictured was Sam Hosack. four unanswered goals to win the game. Brent Williamson scored twice for Goderich, Chris Sideris had a goal and an assist; Rob Dupee, Lee Frisby and Trevor Martin each struck for a goal. Single assists went to Darren Doak, Todd Graham, Doug Smith and Jeff Lebeau. Statistics don't lie! Right away, I want to make clear this is not an anti -Wayne Gretzky Column. I am among the man's greatest fans and I have nothing but admiration for the job he has done, as official re -write man for the NHL record book. However, despite his unquestionable supremacy as today's most prolific goal - scorer and playmaker, because of the fast - paced nature of modern -era hockey (For the purpose of this column 'modern -era' means anything those of us in our early 20's can remember) Gretzky-detractors like to downplay his accomplishments by comparing him with stars of past, more defence -oriented times. Of his closest competitors for the unof- ficial title of "All-time Greatest", Maurice (Rocket) Richard has publicly admitted he believes Gretzky would have been the best on skates no matter what era he played in, while Bobby Orr, as far as I know, has remained mute on the subject. Gordie Howe, while admittedly the NHL's dominant player for years, never scored high enough single -season point totals to merit real consideration. So many factors must be considered, that a fair overall comparison is impossi- ble. The easiest way to do this type of ap- ples and oranges comparison might be to look at a single aspect of the game. Some enterprising writer for The Hockey News, recently dug into what must have been a pretty musty set of files, to come up with some interesting statistics on all-time NHL playmakers. Although Gretzky, who regularly earns over 100 assists each season, holds the single -season record (120), neither he nor Orr is tops in this category, according to the formula worked out by Hockey News. A ording to their computations, the aa -way to determine the extent to which an assist man is better than his peers in any given season, is to compute the percentage by which the leading playmaker "out -assists" his nearest com- petitor. They call this percentage, the Quality of Victory (QVA). For example, if a player wins the scor- ing title with 40 assists in 48 games, or .83 assists per game ( APG) and the runner-up that season got 30 assists in 50 games, or .60 APG, the QVA of the winner is the percenta6e by which his APG total is bet- ter than the runner-up, or in this ease, 27.71 percent. r� It sounds confusing, (read it a couple of times. I had to) but simply put, the winner in the example scored almost 28 percent more assists than the runner-up.. On this scale, Gretzky s best season was '83-84, when he got 1«:; assists in 74 games. BY 'PATRICK RAFTIS His QVA that season was 32.58, but that's only good for fifth, on the all-time scale. Orr fared a little better, with 87 assists in 76 games during the '69-70 season, for a QVA of 35.63 and third place in the all-time standings. So enough already! Who is the all-time QVA man you say? Why none other than Corb Denneny. Unless you are a well- established member of the rocking chair set, you can be forgiven for not having the faintest inkling of who Denneny is. That's because he had his best season, QVA vise, in the '19-20 season, when he played for Toronto. Presumably the runner-up that year couldn't get an assist to save his life, because Corb himself came up with only 12, in 23 games, but managed a QVA of over 36 per cent. Second on the all-time list, is Bill Cowley, who played for the Boston Bruins. His QVA in the '40-41 season was only frac- tionally lower than Denneny's. Coming in fourth, between Orr and Gret- zky, was Ted Lindsay, of the Gordie Howe era Detroit Red Wings, who is at least so- meone most hockey fans have heard of. So what does all this statistical double talk prove? Nothing really, except that, while statistics don't really lie, if you have enough of them they can be used to bend the truth to support any theory you like. It boggles the mind the trotible some statistics buffs will go to to lend credence to an absurd theory. Such backward com- parisons as this one, overlook the progress and evolution that happens in sport, as in everything else. With all due respect to Corb's memory, if he were in his prime today, he probably couldn't come up with 12 assists in 76 games against today's NHL competition. By contrast, a player used to tbday's faster game could probably score about 300 points playing with the slower skaters of Corb's day. It's a shame that sports nostalgians, like the one who dreamed up this ludicrous gauge of hockey ability, can't acknowledge today's superior game and sit back and enjoy the offensive magic that Gretzky has brought to the game.