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A sight which has become all too common in professional.hockey, an
injured player down on the ice. In this case it’s Alexander Maltsev of
the Soviet nationals who was the victim of a Canadian high stick during
the Team Canada-Soviet series last year.

The law of the ice

A couple of weeks ago Bobby
Hull of the WHA Winnipeg Jets
packed up his skates and an-
nounced that he: was ‘quitting
hockey indefinitely’, in protest
over the rising violence and
“brutality” in the game. At that
time he said that he would not
return until he had some assurance
that World Hockey Association
officials will take steps to reverse
the trend towards butchery.

If Bobby Hull was looking for
evidence to back his claim that
hockey was degenerating it was
there the next night ina nationally
televised match between the
Boston Bruins and the Montreal
Canadiens. If you remember, that
game. featured a -bench-clearing
brawl between the two teams in
which a total of eight players were
ejected, and 170 minutes in penalty

time was assessed.

In another game that night,-the
NHL’s resident goon squad, and
incidentally, defending Stanley
Cup champions, the Philadelphia
Flyers ran up 94 minutes -in
penalties doing battle against the
Pittsburgh Penguins. So, in two
games on one night we have 264
penalty minutes assessed, only six
minutes short of five complete
games.

And then, last Wednesday,
Ontario’s attorney-general Roy
McMurtry announced that. police
and crown attorneys in Ontario
have been instructed to lay more
charges against professional
hockey players who ‘‘commit
criminal acts on the ice.”’

McMurtry said that he gave the
order because he was concerned,
with the rising violence in the
game, particularly the impact it
was having on minor hockey
players.

Reaction to McMurty’s move
was swift, and expected. A great
number of hockey fans, spoiled by
memories of the time when hockey
players were judged by their
ability to skate and shoot instead of
the quickness of their left hook,
were elated.

The hockey hierarchy, spoiled by
the fast buck which came with
expansion and fisticuffs, screamed
bloody murder. They dragged out
all of the tired old assertions that
“hockey is a violent game, and
capable of policing itself in its own
manner,”’ in order to tell Mc-
Murtry to butt out.

Hockey’s manner of policing
itself is well known, the league
fines a player, his team pays the
fine, and the player goes on to
carve up someone else with his
stick the next night. All very cozy .
.. and neat.

With this nice little arrangement
is it any wonder that Gordie Howe
would say ‘‘Tell McMurtry that
he’ll have to put on skates to catch

us.” Howe’s statement, coming
unfortunately from one of the all-
time greats in the game, is a
reflection of hockey’s grossly in-
flated image of its own im-
portance.

Somehow and somewhere the
hockey establishment got the idea
that they were sacred and un-
touchable, that the rules that
society lives by do not apply to the
16,000 square feet of ice where the
game is played.

And up until now, it’s been that
way. ;

No professional hockey player
has ever been convicted of a
criminal offence which took place
in front of 15,000 witnesses in the
middle of a+ game. The only
amazing part of that is the fact that
until now no player has ever been
killed as the result of an attack
from -an opposing player. But
maybe that’s what professional
hockey is waiting for before they’ll
take any action. :

Allan Eagleson, the originator of
the cheap shot, has said: that
McMurtry .is trying to legislate
Canadians to play the European
style of hockey. “Take away
fighting’’ said Eagleson, ‘and
we'll have more spearing.”’ :

Is there a need for either? Of
course not, and now we have both
Spearing and fighting, not to
mention slashing; butt-ends, and
kicking. ;

And, as for playing the European
style of hockey, why not? The
European hockey players have
proven themselves to be among the
best in the world. They certainly
display a lot more finesse and
skating than North American
hockey does these days.

And as for violence, if a
European hockey player
physically attacks another player
either with his fists or with his
stick, he’s charged with assault
and dealt with according to the
law.

A few months in the pokey might
do-Dave Schultz some good, at
least it couldn’t hurt. ;

In view of hockey’s inability, or
more properly put, unwillingness
to police itself, it seems that the
only way the needless violence in
the game will be stopped is through
legal action. a

So go to it, Roy McMurtry, now
that Bobby Hull has ‘unquit”’
without a commitment from WHA
officials to act against violence, the
question becomes, ‘“‘Can Roy
McMurtry succeed where Bobby

Hull has failed?”

I don’t know for sure, but it’s
beginning to appear that actions
such as his may be the only way
that anything will be done.

It most certainly is not going to
come from the hockey establish-
ment.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 7, 1975—Page 10

plan) RO

B.C. Fed. pledges fight

against controls program

The B.C. Federation of Labor’s
opposition to wage and price
controls was made unanimous
Wednesday morning with the
approval of an executive resolution
to ‘‘state in the strongest possible
terms that we completely reject
the anti-worker, pro-big business
program of wage controls
proposed by the federal govern-
ment.”

The resolution cited the federal

minister of labor’s admission that:

the program was aimed at wages
and could have little effect on
prices and profits and stated that

the “‘trade union movement has-a.

comprehensive. alternative
program to fight inflation.”

The Federation went-on record
as “fully endorsing’? the CLC

’ campaign to fight the controls and

pledged to ‘‘do everything it can to
mobilize rank and file support for
the Congress program.’

Delegates crowded to the
microphones to support the
resolution. Not a single speaker
rose in opposition.

“The government’s program is a
tremendous farce and a great lie,”
CUPE delegate Dave Werlin said
in leading off the debate, “It is
based on. the false premise that
wages are responsible for inflation
and on the false premise that
prices and profits can be con-
trolled.’ :

Werlin said that control program
is the government’s way out of the
economic crisis of the system, ‘‘to
shift the burden of the crisis from
the creators, the multi-national
corporations, onto the backs of the
working class.”’. “oh

The controls, he said, are aimed

at shoring up the federal govern-
ment’s intention of promoting
“trade wars” with other capitalist
countries. eee

“Wage controls will not work in
the first place because the workers
will not allow it,” he asserted,
“and. where a. government is
controlled by monopoly it is naive
to think that monopoly prices will
be controlled.”

The CUPE delegate pointed to
his union’s national convention and
mass demonstration in Toronto
last week as an example to the
labor movement of the kind. of

- action that was needed.

United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union president Homer
Stevens echoed the call for
demonstrative action and urged a
“massive demonstration of trade
unionists” to meet labor minister
Munro.

The role of the provincial
government cannot -be shielded
from the debate, Stevens warned.
“We have got to call on the premier
of this province to repudiate his
endorsement of the wage control
program,” he Stressed, ‘‘If the
premier is capable of instituting a
price freeze for a temporary
period, then they are capable of
maintaining it over a longer
period. It should be maintained but
without any wage controls.”

The United Steelworkers of
America made it clear that they
would not abide by wage controls.
Steelworkers’ representative
Monty Alton pointed to the Anvil
Mines in the Yukon where the
company had turned a whopping
$8.9 million profit in the first
quarter of 1975. “‘They could earn
$36 million this year,” Alton said,
“and we are going to get our
share.” Moreover he noted the

profits accrue from the export of
lead and zinc to foreign nations,
“Our workers could get a $10 per
hour increase without affecting
inflation in Canada one bit.”’

CLC.and ACTE representative
Art: Kube offered more facts and
figures that showed that labor’s
share of the gross national income
had actually declined in the years

' 1970 to 1974. He noted a CLC fact

sheet-which showed that taxes on
worker’s income had risen 11% in

* the same period while corporate

profits had declined by 19 per cent.

But when Kube suggested that
the labor movement should back
off from demonstrating their op-
position to wage controls and
concentrate on an ‘‘education
program” instead, he met with
considerable opposition.

‘“‘The rank and file don’t need to
be lectured,’’ New Westminster
Labor council delegate Rod Doran
responded, ‘‘They know they have
been screwed. What we need is

Spanish civil war books q
gift to Toronto library

TORONTO — An important
collection of rare books and
ephemera on the Spanish Civil War
has been assembled at the
University of Toronto Library. To
be known as The Canadian Com-
mittee for a Democratic Spain —
Spanish Civil War Colléction, it will
be housed in the Thomas Fisher
Rare Book Library.

The new collection was made

-possible partly through the

University Library’s acquisition
program and partly through a
donation by The Canadian Com-
mittee for a Democratic Spain, a
group concerned with Spanish
social and political life and the
struggle for human rights in Spain.

The basic collection of 600 titles
already has been augmented by a

‘ further donation of another 30 titles

and a quantity of ephemera, in-
cluding several large posters from
the period. Among the collection is
arare copy of Joe Dallet’s ‘‘Letters
from Spain’’ published in Toronto
in 1938 and a copy of ‘‘Estampas de
la Revolucion Espanola’ published
in Spain early in the Civil War. The

Gloria Montero, president of the Canadian.Committee for a Democrat!
Spain assists David Esplin of the: University of Toronto library at the
handing over ceremony which marked the opening of the Spanish civil
War Collection at the university's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library: :

‘pamphlets published in Spai®|

-ficials of the University of Toro!"

leadership to mobilize our mell|-
bers and defy this legislation.

“Trudeau told us that we wi
march in line whether we like it
not,” he continued, ‘‘Well
should march — but aga
Trudeau and. against wage
trols.”’

Another UFAWU deleg
George Hewison, told the
vention that the execut
resolution could be strengthe
by including a plan of action fd
supporting unions who fill
themselves in trouble over
legislation. ‘The working class ha
got to know where it stands whé
we go to the bargaining table nex

” “4
year,” he said. *

The noon adjournment killed thé)
debate with a score of speakels)
still waiting. But the unanimol
approval of the resolution left ™
doubt as to the kind of recepti!
that federal labor minister Mun
can expect when he greets tht
convention later this week.

collection also includes some 15)

which recently were acquired y
the University Library. | od
The collection was inaugural)
officially Oct. 21 at a brief handi! i
over ceremony attended by ®

Library, members of the facully
‘and representatives .of :
Canadian. Committee for
Democratic Spain. Also pres!
was a group of veterans of t
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalia!
which fought for the Repub!
during the Spanish Civil War. .
“Establishment of this collecti®!
at the University of Toronto ope,
up many new avenues for student ‘
of Spanish affairs and for thos,
interested in documenting h
involvement of Canadians in
Spanish Civil War,” said R. *
Blackburn, chief  libraria!|
University of Toronto. ee Y
Gloria Montero, president of 14
Canadian Committee for

Democratic Spain, praised ##
University of Toronto for its acl
and the fact that the collecti®:
would be available to the public: