The NHL / Jerry Crowe : Vancouver Shows That There Is No Trade Deficit in Canada

Defenseman Willie Huber, traded last November from the New York Rangers to the Vancouver Canucks, said last month that it was unsettling to play for the Rangers, who have made 33 trades in 20 months under General Manager Phil Esposito.

“It’s like life and death over there,” said Huber, intimating that he felt more secure in Vancouver. “It’s really tough going into the locker room and not knowing if your stuff has been packed.”

Last week, Huber’s stuff was packed again. The Canucks traded him to the Philadelphia Flyers.

The National Hockey League has ordered the Canucks to stop using audio and video messages to poke fun at officials during games at the Pacific Coliseum.

“I think it was the toilet flushing that really got to them,” said Glen Ringdal, the Canucks’ vice president of marketing.

Ringdal, though, said the officials never complained to the Canucks about the sound effects. Nor did they complain about the eye chart, the cartoon of an official rubbing his eyes or the simple message: “Say What?”

Still, a directive arrived from the office of Brian O’Neill, executive director of the NHL.

“I guess he thought it was insulting to the referees,” Ringdal said. “We tried to be discreet about it. We only used it when it was really apparent (that an official had blown a call.)”

Trivia Time: If two or more players end the season with the same number of points and goals, and have played in the same number of games, how is the scoring champion determined? (Answer in column 5.)

Goaltender Andy Moog, who quit the Edmonton Oilers last fall and joined the Canadian Olympic team because of his dissatisfaction with being used in a supporting role by the Oilers, was elated Monday with the trade that sent him to the Boston Bruins.

“I felt I was becoming stale and complacent in the Edmonton Oilers’ atmosphere,” Moog told the Boston Herald. “They’d require me to play 40 to 45 games during the regular season, then when the games counted (in the playoffs), they’d call on the other guy (Grant Fuhr) regardless of what I had contributed. I wasn’t willing to go through that again.”

Robb Stauber of the University of Minnesota, a sixth-round pick of the Kings in the 1986 draft, is the only goaltender among the 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker Award, which is presented annually to the outstanding player in college hockey.

Stauber, a 5-foot 10-inch, 165-pound sophomore, has a 32-8 record with a 2.67 goals-against average, a .913 save percentage and 5 shutouts for the Gophers, the nation’s No. 1-ranked team.

Bob Johnson, executive director of the Amateur Hockey Assn. of the United States, said Stauber, who had three shutouts last week and has four in his last six games, is the best amateur goaltender in the United States.

“He’d be the Olympic goalie in ‘92,” Johnson said, “but how are we going to get him to wait two years?”

For what it’s worth: On Jan. 13, Petr Klima of the Detroit Red Wings was left home from a game against the Rangers at New York because of “selfish play,” Coach Jacques Demers said.

At the time, Klima had 25 goals and 6 assists. In the two months since then, he has 7 goals and 18 assists.

Jiri Hrdina of Czechoslovakia, who joined the Calgary Flames after the Olympics, said he had no problem bidding farewell to his Czech teammates.

“They wished me luck in the NHL, and I wished them luck,” he told the Calgary Sun through an interpreter. “They’ll probably need it more than me, going home to explain a sixth-place finish in the Olympics.”

What does Harold Ballard, owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, think of the suggestion by Alan Eagleson, executive director of the NHL Players Assn., that the NHL might suspend play during future Olympics and make players available to the U.S. and Canadian teams?

“An idiotic idea,” he said.

After the Detroit Red Wings squandered a 5-1 lead in an 11-6 loss to the Flyers, Red Wing goaltender Glen Hanlon told reporters: “I’d like to get ahold of the guy who switched the hockey net to a soccer net in the third period.”

Scotty Bowman, former NHL coach and general manager, said he is not interested in leaving his job as a color commentator for “Hockey Night in Canada.”

Said Bowman, whose name has been mentioned in connection with possible openings in Toronto and St. Louis: “I have the perfect job now. I’ve already qualified for the playoffs.”

Taking wing: Mark Messier of the Oilers, considered to be among the NHL’s quickest and most powerful skaters, has been called the best two-way center in hockey.

Said Coach Jean Perron of the Montreal Canadiens: “I call him a 747. When he’s flying (on the ice), he moves the air. He makes the rinks look too small.”

Trivia Answer: The scoring title would go to the player who scored his first goal of the season at the earliest date in the season.

Comment: Isn’t that ridiculous?