On Thin Ice

First they lost their cheerleaders, then their paychecks, and finally the New York Golden Blades lost their home and name. The cheerleaders, called the Golden Belles, were hooted off the ice for their hokey pregame shows. The paychecks stopped when the last-place team went broke and only resumed when the World Hockey Association stepped in to keep the team skating. Then the Blades were evicted from Madison Square Garden and forced to relocate in Cherry Hill, N.J., a suburb of Camden, as the Jersey Knights.

The problems of the Blades-Knights are unique in degree but not in kind; big-league hockey is in trouble. Average attendance in the W.H.A. is a dismal 5,200 per game. None of the twelve teams has turned a profit since the league was founded two years ago. In the established National Hockey League, where sharp play and packed arenas were traditional, attendance has begun to slip. and there is a shortage of top performers. "There used to be 18 true professionals on each team," says Bobby Hull, the former Black Hawks star who is now player-coach of the W.H.A. Winnipeg Jets. "Now there's an influx of mediocre pros, guys who don't put out every night. There's an inability to perform the fundamentals. The skating isn't keen, the passing is off, and the hitting is not strong."

It is not difficult to find the reason. Hockey has expanded faster than any other professional team sport--so fast that it is still in a state of shock. The N.H.L. has grown from six to 16 teams since 1967. The rival W.H.A. added another twelve. Staffing 22 new teams required increasing the number of pro skaters, more than 90% of whom are reared in Canada, from about 100 to more than 500. Finding so many first-class prospects in hockey's existing farm system proved impossible.

The dilution of talent has sent some teams scrambling to Europe, of all places, in search of players. The faltering Toronto Maple Leafs recruited two Swedes. The teams have also turned to the raw and the overripe. N.H.L. rosters this year contain 60 rookies, some of them getting $100,000 or more. At the other end of the age scale, Tim Horton, 43, has been lured out of retirement to steady a young Buffalo Sabres defense. So has Gordie Howe, 45, the legendary Detroit Red Wings star, who could not resist a big contract from the W.H.A. Houston Aeros to form the only father-son trio in hockey with his sons Marty and Mark.

The uneven level of players inevitably produces imbalanced play. "You can still see good hockey on given nights in both leagues," says Hull, "but on other nights teams can stink." Earlier this season, for instance, the impoverished California Golden Seals skated into Boston like somnambulists. Losing 4-1, they challenged the Bruins' goalie with only 19 shots during the entire game--offensive ineptitude equivalent to that of a football team that cannot cross midfield more than two or three times in a game. The New York Islanders displayed their own brand of indifferent play through the entire season last year, winning twelve of 78 games while giving away twice as many goals as they scored.

Fans are hardly captivated by that kind of competition. This year, for the first time in 192 consecutive home games, Boston Garden was not filled to capacity for a Bruins game. Overall league attendance last year was 7% less per game than six years ago. Even in Canada, hockey's heartland, interest appears to be on the decline. The nationally televised Saturday night game of the week slipped slightly in the ratings last year. As avid a fan as Canadian Senator Keith Davey, who concedes that "I always organize my life around hockey," admits that he went to "a lot fewer games last year."

Signs of Life. In some cities, hockey shows healthy life signs. The game has caught on in Atlanta, where thousands of fans follow the expansion Flames, a young team that is displaying play-off potential in the Western Division of the N.H.L. The Buffalo Sabres and Philadelphia Flyers, also expansion teams, are doing well. Ironically, the team that has benefited most from expansion is the one that needed help the least--the Montreal Canadiens. Under the direction of General Manager Sam Pollock, the Canadiens have exploited expansion to replenish their bench and keep their dynasty in power. Unlike Washington Redskins Coach George Allen, who trades football draft choices for veterans, Pollock trades veterans for future draft selections.

Two years ago, for instance, he engineered a dazzling deal that brought Guy LaFleur, a top minor-league prospect, to Montreal. Having already procured the California Seals' first-round draft pick in an earlier trade, Pollock helped ensure that the Seals would finish last and therefore have the first choice of rookies. He accomplished this by selling a reliable veteran center, Ralph Backstrom, to the Los Angeles Kings, who were struggling with the Seals to stay out of last place. Backstrom's arrival kept the Kings out of the cellar. Pollock is such a shrewd trader that the Canadiens consistently come up with a spectacular crop of rookie stars; as a result, Montreal has won the Stanley Cup six out of the past nine years. "Expansion," says Pollock, "has been a great thing." What is great for Pollock, however, is not necessarily great for hockey.

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