Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 9, 1994 TAG: 9401090028
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: RANDY KING
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The East Coast Hockey League's Nashville Knights, already the league leaders in penalty minutes with 1,384, have ECHL heads turning in disgust after adding notorious villain Link Gaetz to their roster last week.
Gaetz, whose checkered past on and off the ice earned him the moniker "The Missing Link," didn't waste any time introducing his barbaric nature to the ECHL, wasting two Birmingham Bulls in Nashville's 6-5 win last Sunday.
Birmingham coach Phil Roberto says Gaetz gave the Bulls' 150-pound Jay Schiavo a two-hander with his stick and "pushed in his two front teeth."
"[Gaetz] cross-checked [Schiavo] in the mouth for no apparent reason," Roberto said. "The puck wasn't even around. [Gaetz] weights 250 pounds. To me, it's sickening."
Roberto also accused the former San Jose Sharks defenseman of "running" 150-center Mark Beran head-first into the boards.
In his Nashville debut on Dec. 29, Gaetz knocked Huntsville center Pat Cavanaugh unconscious with a savage cross-check.
"Nashville is the league's most penalized team, and every time you go in there, there is an incident," Roberto said. "And when you bring in a player like Link Gaetz, you can expect trouble. I'm really upset by what happened. I thought they were trying to get this goonish-style of play out of hockey."
Roberto, who was part of Birmingham's days in the wild and woolly World Hockey Association, threatened to load his guns if ECHL Commissioner Pat Kelly doesn't intercede.
"If I have to," said Roberto, "I'll go out and recruit some goons to go into Nashville. I don't think Mr. Kelly would like that. There should have been some drastic steps taken."
Gaetz reportedly promised to "get suspended before the puck was dropped" after being assigned to Nashville by Cape Breton of the American Hockey League.
In 65 career NHL games with Minnesota and San Jose from 1988-92, Gaetz spent 412 minutes in the penalty box.
Appropriately, Nashville is coached by ex-NHL cement-head Nick Fotiu, who racked up 1,362 penalty minutes from 1976-89 with five different NHL clubs.
\ SOMMER SOUNDS BACK: Expectedly, Richmond coach Roy Sommer wasn't too amused by the verbal salvo fired his way in Tuesday's Roanoke Times & World News by John Gagnon, majority owner-president of the Roanoke Express.
Gagnon accused Sommer and his Renegades of roughhouse tactics in a penalty- and fight-filled game in Roanoke on Dec. 30.
"[Gagnon] says he doesn't like that . . . that he wants a family atmosphere in the Roanoke Valley," Sommer told The Richmond Times-Dispatch in a story Friday. "That's fine, but the guy who started the whole thing [Roanoke's Dave "Moose" Morissette] is fourth in the league in penalty minutes. He's the one who took the five-minute charging penalty. He's the one who slugged our goaltender [Jon Gustafson] on the back of the head going to the penalty box.
" . . . They're the ones with three game misconducts. We didn't have any. And he says we went in there and started it. Come on."
Gagnon went to say that Sommer "can't coach."
"For someone to downgrade someone in his own profession . . . I've never seen that in all my years of hockey," Sommer said. "This guy's got a lot to learn. He better stick to driving his trucks and stay out of the papers. He's only going to get his team in trouble."
The two teams, who are battling for the one wild-card berth in the playoffs, don't meet again until Feb. 18 in Roanoke. Perhaps that's a good thing.
\ EXPRESSIONS: Roanoke's Jeff Jestadt is your classic finisher. Entering Friday, the left wing had 10 goals in his past nine games but only one assist his past 12. Jestadt has 21 goals this season, three times his assists total. . . . Entering Friday, Morissette had received 15 major penalties, tying him with for the ECHL lead in that category with league penalty-minute leader Stephen Corfmat of Nashville. . . . Roanoke is 9-3-0 against the ECHL East at home but is 5-11-1 vs. the East on the road. . . . The Express is 11-0-1 when leading after two periods; 1-13-0 when trailing after two.
\ CALLING ALL FANS: Greensboro is billing its Jan. 15 home game with Charlotte as "Break the All-Time Attendance Night."
The Monarchs, who drew an ECHL single-game record 13,445 last season in a similar promotion, are hoping to top the all-time single-game minor-league mark of 17,845.
The Monarchs certainly have the space to handle such a crowd, playing in the cavernous Greensboro Coliseum, which seats 21,000 for hockey after its remodeling job.
\ SUITCASE MIKE: Forward Mike Chighisola, the most traveled player in ECHL history behind goon Ron Aubrey, has changed addresses again.
Chighisola, who scored 45 goals for the Virginia Lancers in 1988-89, was traded Dec. 31 from Nashville to Louisville for former Express forward Gerry Daley.
Louisville is the seventh ECHL stop for Chighisola, who began the season in ninth place on the ECHL's all-time scoring list with 252 points. He also has played for Hampton Roads, Cincinnati, Raleigh and Knoxville.
Aubrey, who at last report was creating mischief in the Central Hockey League, has worn eight ECHL jerseys.
\ BOOM BOOM SHOT: Maybe professional golfer Fred Couples should give hockey a shot. The PGA Tour star recently attended a Dallas Stars game and stepped into the slap-shot cage on the Reunion Arena concourse. Couples recorded the night's hardest shot, clocked at 104 mph.
\ ICE CHIPS: Forward Mark Woolf, who had 50 goals and 101 points for the Roanoke Valley Rebels in 1991-92, has a league-leading six game-winning goals this season for Columbus. . . . Ex-Roanoke Valley Rebels goalie Bill Horn has resurfaced in Wheeling, W.Va. Horn, sent down from Rochester of the American Hockey League, won his first two starts, permitting only three goals. . . . The second ECHL All-Star Game will be played Tuesday, Jan. 25, in Norfolk. . . . Shootouts. They must love 'em in Richmond and hate 'em in Raleigh. Richmond hasn't lost in five shootouts this season; Raleigh has yet to win in seven shootouts.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.