THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504090171
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
John Brophy has much to sell in the offseason when he is recruiting players for the Hampton Roads Admirals: a rabid fan base, a winning tradition and an arena just 25 minutes from a resort beach.
But perhaps most attractive is the Admirals' ``never say no'' policy. Unlike many ECHL coaches, he doesn't say no when a team from a higher league asks for a player.
That policy helped Brophy mine a mother lode of talented players who won ECHL championships in 1991 and '92. Yet Brophy acknowledges the never-say-no policy is no longer winning championships - instead it is hurting the Admirals during the postseason.
The Admirals have continued to win during the regular season - they claimed the 1993-94 East Division title - but have become also-rans in the playoffs.
Eleven days ago the Admirals were knocked out in the first round by Tallahassee, three games to one. In 1994, Wheeling ousted them in the second round, 3-1. In '93, Raleigh knocked them out in the first, 3-1.
Brophy has one word to describe his franchise's playoff performance the last three years: ``Unacceptable.''
``The playoffs mean everything,'' Brophy said. ``That's when champions are crowned.''
Brophy says late-season call-ups have hurt his team, especially the last two seasons, and that he is considering something previously unthinkable: saying no to higher leagues in March.
``Other teams in our league say no,'' Brophy said. ``And then they tell people to call us . . . because they know we won't say no.''
Yet it was more than call-ups that hurt this season. The Admirals bludgeoned themselves with a late-season trade Brophy now admits was a ``big mistake,'' and they were felled by Tallahassee in large part because they couldn't score.
This was the lowest-scoring team in franchise history, and that was especially true in the final two games of the playoffs when the Admirals fell, 3-2, in overtime, and 2-0.
It hurt the Admirals that John Porco, the team's scoring scorer, was injured prior to their final loss. It also hurt that Brophy traded Jim Brown to Knoxville in February for George Zajankala.
Brown starred for Knoxville, netting one hat trick and a game-winning goal in a shootout. The Admirals' scoring faltered without Brown and Zajankala was out a month with an injured shoulder that Brophy says wasn't injured severely.
``At most he had a bruised shoulder,'' Brophy said. ``Who'd know the guy would come here and wouldn't play?''
That wasn't the only time the Admirals were outmanuevered for a player. They unsuccessfully tried to recruit several players last summer who wound up starring for other teams.
Privately, they say other teams cheated on the salary cap to outbid them. They are prevented from commenting publicly on the salary cap by a gag order from commissioner Pat Kelly that was issued after Columbus coach Moe Mantha blasted other teams for cheating.
But Admirals' veteran Rob MacInnis said: ``This is the only team I know of that doesn't cheat on the salary cap. There may be one or two others, but most everyone is paying players under the table.''
Admirals president Blake Cullen hopes the cap will be increased or abolished during negotiations with the fledgling players' union.
Regardless, the Admirals are working to end the flurry of late-season call-ups that seem to come every February and March.
Brophy said he will attempt to negotiate a more comprehensive deal with Portland, the team's American Hockey League affiliate. The Pirates provide players for both Hampton Roads and Wheeling. Brophy wants to make it an exclusive deal.
He hopes Pirates will agree to provide the Admirals with six or more players (they provided three this season). Hampton Roads, in turn, would allow only Portland to call up its players.
``We're going to talk with them about it,'' Brophy said. ``I don't know if we can get it worked out but we're going to try like hell to get it done.''
In recent years, it seems as if everyone but the Admirals' affiliates have called up players. Last season the Admirals lost three all-stars - Victor Gervais, Shawn Wheeler and Richie Walcott - to call-ups for most of the playoffs.
This season the Admirals were on the most successful streak in franchise history - winning 16 of 18 games in January - when massive call-ups and injuries combined to knock them from first to fourth in the East.
They lost Porco (twice), Rick Kowalsky, Matt Mallgrave, Brian Goudie, Corwin Saurdiff, Patrick LaLime and Ron Pascucci to call-ups. All but LaLime and Pascucci returned, though most returned late in the season and some didn't come back with the same intensity.
``When you get players dragging back and forth, where can their minds be?'' Brophy said. ``It's hard for a player. He gets off to a great start here, then goes up to the American League. What is there left for him to prove when he comes back?
``No matter what the reason for him coming back, there's a letdown.''
And sometimes they don't return at all. Pascucci, an All-ECHL defenseman, was called up by Kansas City of the IHL two weeks before the playoffs began. Kansas City officials promised they would return him before the playoffs.
But Pascucci never returned.
``I didn't want to let him go,'' Cullen said. ``I only agreed to it when they guaranteed that he'd be back for the playoffs.
``I think that was a devastating blow..''
Cullen will make several proposals he hopes will help solve his team's problems at ECHL meetings in May. He will ask that higher leagues be required to pay a transaction fee whenever they call up a player. He also hopes to place a cutoff date after which the IHL and AHL can't call up anyone from the ECHL unless they sign the players to binding contracts.
``We can't get players from Europe after Feb. 1. Maybe Feb. 1 is the date after which they should kind of leave us alone.''
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Brophy acknowledges losing Pascucci and Porco hurt, but says his remaining players are at fault for not filling the holes, as UCLA did after losing its point guard before the NCAA basketball championship game.
``We had three or four guys who never had the games they were capable of having,'' he said. ``We had so many chances in the last game with Tallahassee to bury the puck and missed. Even with the call-ups, we had our chances and just didn't get it done.''
Regardless, he said he has to find a way to get it done in the playoffs.
``What's happened in the last three years in the playoffs isn't what we expect or what our fans deserve,'' he said.
``We have to do better.'' by CNB