By RON THOMAS - The Times Union - 8/6/1974
Don’t be surprised if Rick Dudley’s name doesn’t appear on the Rochester Griffins’ scoresheet after their two lacrosse road games this week, because Dudley isn’t going to be there. There has been no suspension or disciplinary action.
Instead Dudley, the Griffins’ 75-goal scorer, thinks he’ll benefit by a short rest away from any sport. And Coach Morley Kells thinks it’s about time the Griffins remembered that they can win without their psychological crutch. So until Friday’s home game against Toronto, Dudley will be taking things slow and easy at his family’s apple orchard in Colborne, Ontario. “I love it there. It’s quiet,” he said.
Dudley’s most strenuous activity will be having his own 26 acres of land surveyed in preparation for the trout pond he’d like to construct someday. “It will help me for sure,” said Dudley, who also plays professional hockey for the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. “I need a rest. I’ve only had two weeks off since last September. And I’ve had the flu for the last four games.”
And overall, playing National Lacrosse League games has burdened Dudley with much more pressure than he ever imagined. “At the start of the season I played because it was a new league and they told me I could put some people in the stands since I play hockey.
“I owe Morley a lot (Kells recommended that Sabres’ Coach-GM Punch Imlach sign him as a free agent) and I didn’t start to play to become a star, but to help the game. “Then I started scoring (13 goals in the opening four games) and the team started depending on me a lot. But I play better when I’m relaxed, and I can’t afford to get mentally drained right now because hockey camp is starting soon (Sept. 12) and that’s where I make my money.”
Kells will be glad to have a well-rested Rick Dudley on Friday. But mostly he wants his Griffins to “get in sync with Dudley so that we don’t ride on his super-highs and die on his lows.”
Kells said the Griffins established a reputation as a come-from-behind team in pre-season games before Dudley arrived. But he believes that recently they’ve adopted a wait-for-Rick attitude. So this weekend Kells figures “No Dudley, no crutch.” Kells ideally sees Dudley as the explosive charge that blows the top off the opposition’s confidence, but not as someone a team is built around.
Another reason for Dudley’s vacation is that slowly but surely several things have been chipping away at his game. It deteriorated badly this past weekend. The main problem is that Dudley is just plain tired.
He hadn’t played amateur lacrosse since 1970, and the schedule was 25 games at the most. The Griffins already have played 30 games (18-11-1) and have 10 regular season plus playoff games remaining.
“Lacrosse is such a demanding sport and never have I had to play back-to-back games before, except maybe in playoffs,” he said. “It’s terribly difficult — almost incredible.
“You sweat so much in lacrosse. Usually you lose seven or eight pounds in a game. With a day’s rest you can gain it back. But between back-to-back games you can only eat twice so you can’t get it back. And you don’t rest. I know I can’t get to sleep until about 4 a.m. after a game. “It’s all right in hockey (where Dudley’s job is defensive checking) because you can play a good game by just skating up and down your wing. And sometimes in hockey I may not touch the puck all night. “But in lacrosse you’re touching the ball all the time and always getting hit.”
Dudley also has been hampered by a change in his playing style and, oddly, his repaired lacrosse stick.
Together they’ve thrown him into a shooting slump in which he’s made only six goals in the past four games and just twice with his last 15 shots on goal. Dudley’s generosity when Dave Wilfong and Al Gordanner were hot partly led to his erratic shooting.
“I was trying to get more assists and I did that,” Dudley said. “But as I did, I started to hesitate on my shot, and you can’t do that in lacrosse.” However the main culprit seems to be Dudley’s belief in superstition.
Dudley, wears wristbands because they bring him good luck and always wears the “oldest T-shirt I can find” under his uniform, thinks his real problems began when his lacrosse stick was repaired before the Montreal game that started his scoring slump. “If your stick feels just rigid for you, you have confidence in it,” he said. “It got cracked in the handle and now it doesn’t feel the same. I have to get used to it again.”
While Dudley has been fighting his shooting slump, he’s also become more and more impatient with himself, opponents and referees. So he’s been drawing penalties and fighting more, while playing much less than needed.
This weekend he was penalized for 56 of the Griffins’ 120 playing minutes, including missing 35 minutes of Sunday’s game against Philadelphia after being ejected by the refs for leaving the penalty box.
“It might be frustration,” said Dudley. “Come to think of it, when I get frustrated it manifests itself in violence. It always has. “In any sport I’ve played I always was a hitter, a fighter. I play all out and when I get mad, I guess that’s what happens.
I don’t mean that I’m violent by nature, but it’s just part of the game. “I know all the mothers who read this may hate me for saying this, but when I was a kid I used to get in street fights and since I got into sports, I haven’t been in a street fight. So I think it’s better to put those feelings into sports.”
Dudley doesn’t consider himself the Griffins’ policeman, “I only fight when I’m particularly mad at one guy, not because it’s my job,” he said. “There are certain people who irritate me. With referees I can’t open my mouth now or I get 10 minutes (a misconduct penalty).” The refereeing in the National Lacrosse League doesn’t annoy Dudley because all of them are bad, but because as a group they are inconsistent.
“Bill Dicks and Tom Brown would be excellent in any sport,” he said. But a lot of these guys had to handle crowds the size that we have. “In one game they (the league) sent two French-Canadian referees to a game in Montreal. One thing is the language barrier; they couldn’t understand you. And then if they could they wouldn’t listen to you, but to those 10,000 Montreal fans.”
Dudley has had several run-ins with referees, but he thinks only one (Bryan Lewis, whom Dudley considers a friend) has intentionally given him any “cheap calls.” “I’ve just got to learn to control myself,” Dudley said. “In a big game when you get cheap calls, it just serves to make it tougher. I’ve got a very volatile temper. I can’t help it. “But that’s twice in a row that I’ve been thrown out against Philly. Everyone always says I’m more valuable on the floor. So I think that’s enough.” “
