Rob Tanenbaum - The Courier Post - 9/5/1974
PHILADELPHIA—There’s no room for sympathy in Carm Collins’ world. “I’d do the same thing to them and you better believe it,” Carm said belligerently. “They’re out there for one reason, to win, anyway they know how.”
No, Collins won’t hold any grudges for any of the Maryland Arrows led by Gord Keates, who deliberately set out to maim him. Collins, on the shelf since July with a separated shoulder, was just happy to be playing.
But playing is putting it sanely. What Collins did, coming back just five days after the pins were removed from his separated right shoulder, is more sanely classified as insane.
“I played because I had to,” Collins stated simply. “Sitting up in the press box for the last few games when we already had clinched first didn’t hurt too much. But I guess it was just because we were playing Maryland. I think they are the team to beat in the playoffs, beside us. I guess you could call this the championship series.”
Although Collins’ motives might have been rational, his actions weren’t. The pins were removed from his shoulder last Thursday and with a doctor’s warning to take it easy, he flew back to Peterborough.
Anyone who’s seen Collins play box lacrosse knows Carm doesn’t know what “take it easy” means. Soon he was doing isometrics, lifting weights and doing push-ups.
By a Monday practice he was pleading to put his equipment on and get hit.
Coach Bobby Allan squawked, but eventually let Collins have his way. “Every day I could do more and more things,” Collins said. “It just gave me more incentive to go on.
The doctor told me the operation was perfect and my shoulder was as strong as ever. I just couldn’t lift it. I had no muscles.” When Collins asked if we could play in the first playoff game he was initially told no. But just before game time, the doctor gave his okay.
“If the doctor told me it wasn’t healed and that I faced permanent injury, I would have been foolish to play,” Collins said. “But all I had to take was the pain, and what’s that?” *
But there was even a little more pain in store than even he expected. The first time he took to the box, midway through the first period, he was greeted with a round of cheers from the fans and a crashing slash to the shoulder by Keates.
Later, he was cracked into the backboards behind the goal in a play similar to the one he was hurt on. But he bounced back up and, dragging the shoulder, continued on. Despite the lessened mobility, it was the same Carm Collins.
By the third period he was slashing away at the Arrows and collecting the loose balls, the Wings had failed to pick up in the early going. “He’s got more guts than any man I know,” said teammate Larry Lloyd. “In fact, I think he’s got more guts than Evel Knievel.”
Collins Fails to Heal Desperate Wings... By DICK WEISS - Philadelphia Daily News - 9/23/1974
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Wings’ captain Carm Collins went to shake hands after his team’s disappointing 17-12 Nations Trophy playoff loss to the Rochester Griffins last night but his right shoulder wouldn’t let him.
No matter what he says Collins is still in pain. The unintentional contortions he makes with his face betray the fact the separated shoulder he suffered in July hasn’t healed. “I use a pad,” Collins said, “and I take a pain killer after every game.” THEY ARE crutches.
Crutches that have rotting wooden supports. “Right now,” said Wings’ coach Bobby Allan, “he’s playing strictly on guts. He can’t help us offensively. I put him in there for loose balls and checking.” Occasionally Allan turns fight promoter too.
Last night he sanctioned an unscheduled three-minute prelim between Collins and the Griffins’ muscular defenseman Kevin Parsons. “Parsons is the toughest guy in the league,” Allan said. “He’s a sleeping giant.
Carm has no real way of protecting himself either. He’s fighting with one arm. He did it because it might help wake up the team.”
Someone may be slipping the Wings’ an overdose of sleeping pills during this best-of-seven final series.
ROCHESTER leads 2-1 in games, prying open a 4-4 tie with five straight goals. The Griffins excited a sparse crowd of 1,500 at the War Memorial by completely outhustling, outrunning the Wings. “I don’t care what you say,” said Griffins’ coach Morely Kells. “I still think the Wings are tired.
We just seem to have more legs than they do. We have three lines to their two. We have much better players from seven through 17.” It would appear so.
The Griffins have been getting numerous contributions from their fringe players. Gomer Conner scored a goal for them,” Allan lamented, “and Bill Foote, who hadn’t scored on us all year, got three.”
THERE IS NO question the Wings are struggling. “We went back to all the bad habits we had in our first game,” Allan said. “We didn’t play good defense and we were just standing around on offense.”
John Grant appeared to be one of the few lights in an otherwise desolate wasteland, scoring four goals and one assists. Zeny Lipinski and Larry Lloyd both scored two goals, but the Wings had difficulty penetrating the superb goaltending of Merv Marshall who had 31 saves.
Game four is scheduled here tomorrow night and Kells is getting the message. He knows why Collins is playing hurt. “It tells me the Wings are getting desperate,” Kells said.
WINGING IT:
Al Gordaneer continued to plague the Wings with three goals . . .
The War Memorial is antique. There is only one opening to the bench on either side and players must jump over a 4-ft. wooden barrier to reach its safety . . .
The fans in Section One don’t ask for much. They contended themselves with one cheer throughout the game, “Kill Grant!” . . .
