HOCKEY / LISA DILLMAN : Dave King Has Mixed Feelings on NHL Stars in ’94 Olympics

There were many games when Dave King would have enjoyed dividing playing time among Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Mark Messier and Steve Yzerman.

King, the new Calgary Flame coach and former Canadian Olympic coach, doesn’t believe the 1994 Winter Games have to be limited to amateurs or to a few pros willing to leave their NHL teams. King does, however, have mixed feelings about the issue.

“In my nine years with the national team, the Dream Team concept crossed my mind several times,” said King, who led the Canadian Olympic team to a silver medal in 1992.

“Lots of good young players developed through our Olympic program. It’s a nice intermediate step. I look at it as developmental. But I realize we have to sell and market our game. I understand why it’s come up. Hockey needs that type of exposure.”

Unlike the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, the hockey results would not be a foregone conclusion. With the European talent, the Olympics would be similar to a Canada Cup, but in the winter with maximum exposure.

“The best-on-best concept is very intriguing,” King said. “We’ve never had best against best, not even the Canada Cup because it’s in the summer.”

But King hopes a decision is reached during the next couple of months, “so they don’t keep (the young players) on a string.”

Gil Stein, the NHL president, and a league subcommittee on the Olympics will meet with Hockey Canada on Thursday in Toronto and USA Hockey on Oct. 22 in Chicago. A report is planned for the next NHL Board of Governors meeting Dec. 9-13 at West Palm Beach, Fla.

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The three-pronged Jari Kurri deal didn’t seem to work well for the Kings, the Philadelphia Flyers or the Edmonton Oilers last season.

Kurri, overweight and uninspired, floundered in Los Angeles. Defenseman Steve Duchesne, the former King, had a roller-coaster season in Philadelphia. Center Steve Kasper played in 16 games for the Flyers before a knee injury required surgery.

The fate of all three is looking up this season. Kurri is working much harder as a converted center and the results were evident last week against Detroit and Winnipeg.

Duchesne, traded to Quebec in the Eric Lindros deal, is back home and held out for a new contract worth about $850,000 per season. Because of the contract dispute he missed training camp but played in the 20- to 25-minute range during the Nordiques’ first two games.

“He was a little stiff in the first couple of games,” said Pierre Page, Quebec general manager and coach. “We took Sunday off and he really needed that since he missed all of camp. He’s been on the power play, and I think he’s been playing more than he expected.”

Kasper hurt his right knee early last season against Edmonton and had surgery in December for the torn ligament.

“It’s getting better every game,” Kasper said. “It’s got to the point where I don’t even have to ice it down afterward.

“For me, I just looked at it as another hurdle I had to get past.”

Kasper isn’t the excitable sort, but he recognizes that the Flyers are developing an identity with the acquisition of Lindros.

“With Eric, (Mark) Recchi and (Rod) Brind’Amour we are a team of the future,” he said. “Now, even if we’re not winning now, and I’m not saying we won’t, we have a legitimate league superstar.

“It’s no different than L.A. The fans in Philly have an owner who goes out and gets a legitimate star to bring in and make the team a contender.”

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The last time Gordie Howe inspired national headlines was during Gretzky’s quest to pass him as the NHL’s all-time leading scorer.

Before Gretzky broke the record on Oct. 15, 1989, Howe garnered attention by saying he would consider playing again--a shift or two--to make him the only hockey player to compete in six decades, the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ’80 and ‘90s. But the idea faded quickly.

Now, Howe and his wife and business partner, Colleen, are planning another project, Gordie’s 65th birthday tour this season.

The event would begin in Detroit and move to 64 other cities and might include an on-ice ceremony and black-tie dance. Colleen Howe says that hockey owners don’t know how to market their own sport. “If they could realize for five minutes that they are promoting show business and not hockey,” Colleen Howe told the Detroit Free Press Sunday Magazine in a cover story on the Howe family.

Howe’s long-term contract with the Hartford Whalers expired last summer and wasn’t renewed. In 1991, Howe and a handful of NHL veterans sued the league, alleging that it underfunded the old-timers’ pension by about $25 million and diverted the funds to the pensions of current players.

Howe, whose first NHL season was in 1945, makes only $13,000 a year from his pension.

NHL Notes

Front-office transaction No. 1: It was just a matter of time before Jack Ferreira, the former San Jose Shark general manager, landed a new job in the league. Last week, the Canadiens hired Ferreira as a pro scout. The Sharks, inexplicably, parted ways with Ferreira last summer after a behind-the-scenes power struggle and left the decision-making to a three-man committee.

Front-office transaction No. 2: John Ziegler, the former NHL president, isn’t spending his days playing bridge. Mike Ilitch, the new Detroit Tiger owner, recently hired Ziegler as a consultant to help him navigate the unfamiliar territory of baseball’s league meetings. Ilitch owns one of hockey’s most successful franchises, the Detroit Red Wings. Ziegler got his start in hockey when he started doing legal work for the Red Wings and then-owner Bruce Norris in 1959. Ziegler will also rejoin his former Detroit-based law firm of Dickinson, Wright, Moon, Van Dusen and Freeman on Dec. 2.