Hockey

The most important change in the rules of the National Hockey League which opened its season last week is a new preamble specifying that players shall wear skates. There was no widespread doubt about skates being customary, but a disturbing incident occurred about eight years ago in a game at Iroquois Falls, Ontario. A goalie was injured. Having no regular substitute his team sent in a friend who could play lacrosse but could not skate. The friend wore rubber overshoes. The opposing team protested indignantly but could point to no rule prescribing skates.

Other new rules this season, less simple of enforcement, are designed to prevent players on offense from roughing the goalie. One provides that no player may cross a dotted line 57 in. from the goal mouth unless he is carrying the puck. Another defines, by dots in the ice, a defensive area which no attacking player may enter ahead of the puck-carrier. In stead of making both the chief referee and his associate follow the play over the whole rink, the ice is now divided between them. The chief will wear white, his assistant blue.

Teams. The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs whom they nosed out for last season's Stanley Cup (league championship) are again the favorites this year. Besides retaining their crack regulars--Ching Johnson, Frank Boucher, Bill & Bun Cook, who have been with the team since 1926--the Rangers have acquired two notable recruits. One is a defense man named Jean Pusie who played with Vancouver and was last year's high scorer in the Western Canada League. Pusie is 23, has a cauliflower ear from professional wrestling, never plays without his "lucky cap." The other recruit is Lome Carr, a right-winger from the Buffalo Bisons. The Toronto team, which had been after Ottawa's Hec Kilrea for years, finally got him this season.

Last week the Rangers and Maple Leafs met for their opener at Toronto. It was a fast, furious game in which oldtime grudges flared up in bumpings, trippings, crashing collisions and penal ties. The Rangers led 3-to-2 when Toronto's Hec Kilrea shot a high one which bounced off Ching Johnson's head into the net. In less than three minutes Toronto's Red Horner fired in the winning goal, 4-to-3.

The Rangers moved on to Chicago to play the Black Hawks. For roughness, that game made the Toronto affair look like a tea party. Thirteen players took turns in the penalty box, mostly for tripping and roughing. Both sides played recklessly brilliant offense, but the goaltending by Chicago's Chuck Gardiner and New York's Andy Aitkenhead was more brilliant. Of innumerable smashing attacks only one got through for a goal--against the Rangers, 1-to-0.

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