By JOHN DELL - Philadelphia Inquirer - 9/11/1974
LANDOVER, Md.—Philadelphia Wings’ general manager Jack Bionda and director of player personnel Ken Wood have been suspended for the balance of the National Lacrosse League playoffs because of their post-game conduct here Monday night.
League president Spence Lyons also fined Bionda $1,000 in the aftermath of the altercation with referee Bill Dicks following the Wings’ 15-12 loss to the Maryland Arrows. The Wings lead the playoff series, 2 to 1. Earlier in the day, Bionda insisted he did not punch Dicks. Instead, he said he swung and missed.
“He pushed me and said, ‘Get out of here,’ and I pushed him back,” Bionda said. “Oh, I did throw sort of a half-hearted punch at him — but I missed. “I was making sort of a frustrated appeal,” said Bionda, who before his suspension threatened to keep his Wings in the lockerroom if Dicks and Charles Phillips of Haverford turn up to officiate the third game in the best-of-seven Nations Trophy series tonight at Capitol Centre (TV 29, 8 P. M.).
Still Bionda admitted he really had no intention of letting the Wings fall into a tie by forfeit. He wants the Wings to go into the fifth game on Thursday night at the Spectrum with a 3-1 lead. “I was just trying to point up how I felt about the officials, who let the Arrows get away with too much, but jumped on our guys as soon as they got out of line,” Bionda contended.
He believes the best officials aren’t working playoff games, mainly because the best also happen to be hockey referees. The National Hockey League has told its officials they cannot work lacrosse now that the NHL exhibition season is nigh.
“That leaves us with American officials,” Bionda, a Canadian, said. “Now, I have nothing against them ’cause they’re Americans, but American officials haven’t had experience in a pro playoff like this. “This is the best lacrosse there is and it’s the toughest lacrosse there is.”
Bionda wants to compensate for the officiating deficiencies he sees by having a third man on the floor for remaining playoff games. The NLL has assigned a standby official for playoff games. Monday night, the third official worked the 30-second clock.
Bionda wants him on the court. “We have used three officials in playoff games (in Canadian leagues) before. We thought two would be enough this year, but I see now that two guys can’t handle the thing,” Bionda said.
Cy Coombes, the Arrows’ coach, didn’t have any complaints, possibly because he believes the Arrows have outplayed the Wings six of nine periods.
“I don’t know if they outplayed us, but they outbumped us,” Bionda replied. “I know one thing, though, next year I’m going to go out and hire a bloody idiot.” Biondas was talking about the type of man who said: “Evel Knievel just ripped them off . . . I’d do it for $6 million, what he did. Wouldn’t you?”
Gord Keates probably would. The Arrows’ hit man does things that are crazy as well as dirty — like picking the only fight of his life with Carm Collins when Collins has only one good arm, thus making a deposit for a whipping next year.
Being his usual nasty self, Keats was his very nastiest when he blind-sided Wings’ goalie Wayne Platt, stretching him out for a long count.
It was one time Wings’ coach Bobby Allan, a mild-mannered educator who returned to Peterborough, Ont. to work at his vice principal’s job on the day between games here, wished that Bionda had already hired his bloody idiot. “It’s the kind of thing you have to expect from Keates,” Platt said without rancor. And a lack of rancor irked Bobby Allan. “I wish that had provoked a strong reaction,” Allan lamented.
After talking to the team about it, Bionda believes maybe it will. “You have to fight fire with fire,” he reasoned, “but how are you going to do it if the officials keep putting out our fire — then go on letting the Arrows blaze away?”
