By DAVID SHOIHET
If your name is Dave Evans, you spent most of yesterday being sick.
If your name is Jim Bishop, you spent the day worrying about beating Boston Bolts in a do-or-die situation.
If your name is Bolts’ coach Jim Logan, you were probably preparing for a victory celebration, following a victory over Montreal Quebecois to take the best-of-seven National Lacrosse League semi-final 3-1.
And if you were a typical fan, you were probably setting an hour for the Quebecois’ funeral.
Well folks, Evans found out just before the warmup to last night’s contest that he was playing goal for Montreal which added to his stomach problems.
And the Forum throng, all 7,878 of them who attended last night’s 13-5 victory over Boston, are probably making plans to return to the Atwater rink for game seven Tuesday. The funeral plans have been temporarily shelved.
Coach Bishop isn’t worrying about last night’s game but concentrating on tomorrow night’s sixth encounter in the Boston Garden.
Bolts’ coach Logan feels that there won’t be a seventh game next Tuesday in the Forum.
“I was nervous as hell,” Evans remarked after the Quebecois’ key victory last night, reducing Boston’s lead in the series to three games to two.
“I was sick all day, then Jim (coach Bishop) told me just before the warmup that I would be starting. I was surprised at the news.
I thought Ernie (Mitchell) would start. I was so nervous, I thought my stomach was going to come out through my eyeballs.”
Well. Evans came through when the going was the roughest. In fact, he set an NLL playoff record last night for the fewest goals allowed.
Just then Bishop came up to Evans, “That was your finest game of the year,” the boss man said.
“The pressure was really great before this game,” Evans went on. “You know, you want to win before a big home crowd. You don’t want to let them down.”
How about tomorrow night in Boston? Can Quebecois tie up the series?
“Montreal will win the series,” Long Island Tomahawks’ coach Morley Kells predicted the other night.
“That’s very nice,” smiled Bishop when told of the remark. “Now we’ll have to prove him correct.”
What was the secret to Montreal’s victory last night?
“We were consistently more aggressive tonight,” Bishop explained. “I reminded them between the first and second periods when we were up 9-1 that they should watch their shots and that we couldn’t afford any mental letdowns like we had last Monday night in Boston.” Bishop pointed out.
“But our shooting was good tonight. We were well-prepared mentally. This team deserves a tremendous amount oi credit to come up with a Jioalthy attitude even though we were down in the scries three games to one.”
How’s this for confidence?
Gordie Floyd, a giant on defence for the Quebecois all season, sat out last night’s game because of a back injury.
“I told Gordie he better rest tonight because we’ll need him Sunday,” Bishop said.
Bright spots
The game had some bright spots for the Forum’s largest playoff crowd.
• There was Dave Tasker’s three first-period goals.
• How about scoring nine goals in 17 minutes on Boston netminder Ted Gernaey … a standout during the first five games?
• There was Serge (Togo) Loiselle’s battle with Chris Hall in the third period. Hall goes 6-foot-5 and weighs 210 pounds. Serge measures 5-foot-10 and tips the scales at 160. They each got seven minutes, while Quebecois’ Wayne Finck got a game misconduct for being the third man in the fight.
Tasker collected two assists in addition to his three goals. John Davis had two goals and three assists. Finck and Gerry Pinder each netted a pair. Singles went to Dave Litzenberger, Bill Sheehan, Loiselle and Bruce Arena.
Boston marksmen were Joe McCrea, Kevin Parsons, Ivan Thompson, Brian Davidson and goalie Ron Driscoll, who came up the floor in the third period, took a pass from Dave Johnston and put the ball past Evans.
Meanwhile, regular-season champion Long Island Tomahawks coasted to a 20-10 victory over Quebecois Caribous before 3,976 fans at the Nassau County Coliseum.
Quebec loads the series 3-2 with the sixth game in the Quebec Colisee tomorrow night.
