What did we learn
from Canada-USSR

hockey games?

By MAURICE RUSH

Perhaps nothing has sent more shock waves through
Canada since the Soviet Union sent up its first Sputnik a few
years ago than the Canada-USSR hockey games which wound
up their Canadian series at Vancouver’s Coliseum last Friday
evening.

After all, hockey is Canada’s national game. Even though the
U.S. has taken it over in recent years, we are still proud of the
fact that Canada produces great hockey players and until
recently, we thought, the best hockey in the world.

There is no sporting or cultural event about which Cana-
dians get more excited than hockey, no matter what part of
Canada they are from or what their nationality. It is one of

the truly national phenomenas in a country which has yet to .

develop its full national consciousness.

It is easy to understand the shock many Canadians felt,
therefore, at the outcome of the four games which saw the
Soviet team come out on top with two wins and a draw to
Canada’s one win and a draw.

It was my good fortune to have the opportunity of seeing the
game at the Coliseum last Friday, and before going out to the
game to have interviewed one of the top Soviet officials
travelling with the team in Canada.

He saw the hockey contest as a further step towards the grow-

ing co-operation between Canada and the Soviet Union and the

growth of peaceful competition between our two countries.
“We can both learn much from each other in such competi-
tions’’, he said.

Most hockey fans will agree with that after watching the
series either on TV or live. It applies in hockey as it does in
many other fields in which co-operation is developing between
the two northern neighbors.

He told me the Soviet team was nervous about playing Team
Canada. Canadian superstars are well known among Soviet
hockey fans and their exploits highly regarded. They looked
forward to the games because they hoped to learn much from
playing the Canadian team. As it turned out, they came not
only as pupils but also as teachers.

‘“‘Five minutes after the game in Montreal started they
knew they could give the Canadian team a good match’’, the
Soviet official told me.

** *

I know Canada has hundreds of sports writers who are
“experts’’ in the game, and also millions of amateur hockey
analysts. It would be presumptious for me to pose as an
expert in the game for I certainly am not. But having watched
all the games on TV and the Vancouver clincher live, there are
some observations I would pass on.

It seems to me that the clash between Team Canada and the
Soviet national team was a clash in concepts as to how the
game should be played. There were two different styles which
in fact have their roots deep in our social values and ways of
life.

The Canadian game centres on the superstar. The player who
can make himself most indispensible and put on the most
spectacular individual performance gets a million dollar
contract and his team and its owners make millions at the box
office. The emphasis and highpoint of the game is what the
superstar does. Because profit— or richness is the prize— both
for the individual and his club, the game is built around this
concept although much teamwork goes into making the super-
star’s performance possible.

The Soviet game, it seems to me, is based on the concept of
teamwork, with each player a star in his own right — and
excelling in his game— but each orchestrating his play with
his teammates to produce the best result. There is no profit
motive here. There is no compulsion by talented individuals to
outshine all others because of the material gains he as an
individual will receive.

Perhaps the best example of what is wrong with Canadian
hockey is demonstrated by the performance of superstar
Frank Mahovlich last Friday. A couple of times he made
sweeping charges down the ice, trying to go through the whole
Soviet team and to score by himself in a spectacular char ge.

There were no such big individual, spectacular drives
attempted vee Soviet team. As soon as one of them got the
puck they im¥nediately went into formation, coming down the
ice with beautiful fast puck-passing, with invariably a Soviet
player coming up behind the man with the puck to cover him. It
was beautiful to watch.

If anything was proven by the Canadian series it is that team
play, with each member of the team excelling in their
individual contribution to the success of the team, won out
over the concept of the superstar and the great individual per-
formance. If the Soviet game spells an end to anything in Cana-
dian hockey it should be the Superstar system and its replace-
ment by new team-style play. If Canadian hockey does not
adapt, it will find itself increasingly relegated to second place
hockey, and that will never do for Canadians.

Above all, the series proved that peaceful competition is
wonderful. Let’s have more of it between our two countries in
every field of human activity.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1972—PAGE 12

Business tries to scuttle
proposed minimum wagé

By MABEL RICHARDS

Even before the NDP gov-
ernment takes office, the heat is
being applied to get them to
water down a major election
promise.

Saturday’s edition of the Van-
couver Sun headlined a story in
the financial pages with the
bleat: ‘A $2.50 minimum wage
will hurt business.’ They quote
Robert Berger, Liberal candi-
date in the provincial election
and an officer of the Service
Employees International Union
as saying ‘‘Many borderline busi-
nesses will be hurt, and marginal
jobs eliminated 2 teeMr:
Berger represents 1400 janitori-
al employees, maids, restaurant
workers, etc., who are being
paid less than $2.50 an hour.

The Sun also quotes the former
owner of Sandringham hospital
in Victoria, Neil Cook, who
fought tooth and nail to keepa
handful of women from attain-
ing a living wage in that hospital
as well as others which his:
company controls.

The points which stand out in
all the wailing ‘and gnashing of
teeth about a hike in the
minimum wage in this province
are these: The businesses which
it will affect most sharply are

mainly those where women work-

FOOD CHAINS

Cont'd. from pg. 1

a recent statement by Charles -

Gracy, manager of the Cana-
dian Cattlemen’s Association,
who said the farm-gate price for
cattle has declined in the past
month by at least 8 percent but
the price of most beef cuts has
risen.

Rush said the blame for this
situation cannot be laid at the
door of labor. Quoting from
Information Canada, Rush
pointed out that total wages in
the meat industry in 1963 was
$11.50 in every $100 in costs. By
1971 it was down to.$9.70!

He lashed out at Conservative
leader Robert Stanfield’s
proposal for wage and price
controls. ‘‘That would be like
punishing the victim of highway
robbery instead of the robbers.

Workers wages are not
responsible, but excessive
profiteering by the big

companies is, and that’s where
the cure has to be sought”’, said
Rush.

PROFITS

Cont'd. from pg. 2
while retail beef prices have
increased by 8 percent.

Mr. Gracey added, ‘‘In our
experience, retailers are all too
ready to pass any increased
costs along to the consumers as
rapidly as possible, but, when
prices are falling, they are very
reluctant to reduce retail

prices.’’

The only conclusion we can
come to is that the large food
monopoly interests, by their
throttle hold on all facets of the
food processing industry right
down to the retail supermarket
outlets, have the wage earner
completely enslaved in a price
gouge process unprecedented in
history unless all sections of
wage earners insist on strong
government action to halt it.

‘tember 28 to

ers have been literally sub-
sidizing the operations for
years. Secondly, it reveals that
big business, which has called
the tune for both the Vancouver
Sun andthe government, are
opposed to increases in the mini-
mum wage because it will bring
up the wage floor as a whole and
they see it as a threat to their
profits.

It is not surprising that an
economist in the former Social
Credit government says “‘It
would be better to have people
working at substinence wages
than not working. . .”’. Thatis
the premise on which the
Socreds functioned so long, and
on which Welfare Minister
Gaglardi based his ill-famed
Alliance of Businessmen and
other plans which kept wages for
unskilled and marginal workers

NGRES & PAR

William Kashtan

coming to B.C.

William Kashtan Canadian
Communist leader, will be in
Vancouver Thursday,  Sep-
meet with
election workers and address
membership meetings on the
Lower Mainland. He will also
hold a press conference.

Kashtan will return in mid-Oct-
ober for public rallies as part of

a national speaking tour. This ,

was announced by Nigel
Morgan, campaign manager in
B.C. He told the PT the party’s
provincial committee was
meeting Saturday and will
consider the nomination of
candidates in two additional
ridings.

Morgan made an urgent appeal
for funds- for the federal
campaign. Contributions should
be sent to Rm. 408, Ford Bldg.,
193 E. Hastings St. Vancouver 4.

‘is listed as $115 a week, al

-are women. And the

at such an obscenely low level
As of January, 1970, the
were 258,000 women employed!
B.C., according to the Lab!
Gazette. It would be intereslil
to learn just what proportitial
them received an hourly!”
equal to the proposed $2.58
hour. Unfortunately, sat
figures are nowhere available
the ordinary citizen at this |
It is safe to say, however, ta a
a province where relatively @
women are engaged in them
industries, the level of 4 :
hovers around the $1.65 to gor)
mark. |
In the clerical field, on
‘higher paid’’ areas, th Al
average wage for yer
employees in Vancouver IM.)

category includes key arr
operators, senior secreta
and senior clerks only. 9 ar
clerical workers get as jittle i
$75 per week in some instante
Consider hospitals. In 19 i
‘‘predominant
cording to a al
report, for nursing auxiliat yt ‘
certified, was $370 to $4! i)
month, which works oe
considerable less than $2: 4
hour on a. 40-hour week: oi
average for hospital maid Z, i
to $460, which one ware”
interviewed said was MP -
than she received. tal
And so it goes, with res
ant. workers, many z
dressers, and even thos i
piecework in the needle 14° a4
many cases getting les
$2.00 an hour. mall
It is no secret that ing
women workers are sect sil
the injustice of the wage met

Some of them are WP cay
breadwinner for their fan :
many of them must pay a
sitters out of their sma jirstl
They will be among the ; of!
protest if the govel “ist!
should weaken inits ef
set a standard which Wa
them out of the subs!

level. of all

It is in the interes! sel

trade union movement a
it that the $2.50 minimU ome
is fought for until it bee Pray
reality. Although sone a
workers do not rece! ip)
proposed $2.50 minimum «if

vast m4
present, by far the a ce

—-

th
elie

—Eccles, British Morning Star

“i wish they’d find some way to freez