Hobbling off with the Cup

ICE HOCKEY

One of the enduring fascinations of the postseason playoffs is the way the pros-- except for football-- enjoy making monkeys of the experts when big money is at stake. Take hockey. At the end of the 70-game season, the league leaders are rewarded with $2,250 per man. Then the first four teams meet in the Stanley Cup playoffs for $5,250 per man--and all bets are off. Last week, the Toronto Maple Leafs walloped the Montreal Canadiens for their fourth Stanley Cup in six years. Only once in that time have they finished No. 1 in regular season play.

This year, hardly anybody outside of Toronto gave the Leafs much chance to make even the playoffs. Coach George ("Punch") Imlach's team was the oldest in the league, held together with stitches, tape and pride. Captain George Armstrong was 36 and quite possibly in his last season; Forward Red Kelly was 39; Defenseman Allan Stanley, 41. Goalie Johnny Bower admitted to 42. And behind him in the nets was Terry Sawchuk, 37, bothered by a chronically bad back and talking about retirement after an illustrious 20-year career that won him four Vezina trophies as hockey's top goalie. The experts considered it a minor miracle when Toronto wound up the season third behind the Chicago Black Hawks and Montreal Canadiens--and awaited their speedy demise in the Stanley Cup.

"Down Their Throats." They should have remembered that long green is the color for Leafs. In the semifinals against the Black Hawks, the old pros put together a fierce, brutally checking defense that smothered the scoring rushes of Chicago's super stars Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull. Filling in for Johnny Bower with the series tied at two games apiece, Terry Sawchuk loomed like a bull walrus in the nets. At one point, Chicago's Hull rifled a 15-ft. slap shot with such force that Sawchuk toppled to the ice. Out rushed the Toronto trainer to see if Terry was all right. "I stopped it, didn't I?" growled Sawchuk, and scrambled to his feet to make a fantastic 37 saves as Toronto skated off with a 4-2 victory. After that, the sixth game was an anticlimax. Toronto won it 3-1 and went on to the finals against Montreal.

The younger, faster skating Canadiens got the same treatment. Again with the series at two games apiece, Sawchuk replaced Bower, now out for good with a groin injury. In three periods he beat back another 37 shots, allowed only a single goal as the Leafs won 4-1. With just one more win to go in the best-of-seven series, Toronto Coach Imlach told his team: "They said you old men couldn't possibly win the Stanley Cup. For some of you it's farewell. Now go out there and stick the puck down their throats." And so they did--with three goals, while Sawchuk was blocking, catching and kicking away everything the desperate Canadiens could fire at him. It was well into the third period before Montreal finally got one past him. But that was all. At the buzzer, the old folks skated off with a 3-1 victory and the Stanley Cup. Terry Sawchuk could now retire.

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