By JOHN DELL
Inquirer Staff Writer
Unmindful of a struggle for control raging in their front office, the Wings continued their drive toward the National Lacrosse League’s first pennant with a 15-14 victory over the Toronto Tomahawks Friday night at the Spectrum.
As Ed Tepper, the team’s chairman of the board, moved to take over full control from his 50-50 partner, Dave Natale, the club president, the Wings widened their first-place margin over the Rochester Griffins to seven points.
The Wings have four games left, all at home. Rochester has eight games remaining.
“I would assume full control,” Tepper said of negotiations that are now being finalized.
Natale, a Media lawyer and long-time friend and 1959 classmate of Tepper, got up the money to buy the franchise when the league was organized last winter. Judge Don Orlowski, of the Delaware County Common Pleas Court, became a one-quarter partner in the deal.
Tepper, a former Wynnewood builder and developer, now is moving to buy out Natale and Orlowski for a reported quarter-million dollars. Tepper’s father, Dr. Maurice Tepper of Wynnewood, who first refused to invest in the team, reportedly now is ready to come in on the deal.
The Wings, whom their backers expected to lose money for a season or two, have been an instant success. They went into the season with $300,000 in season ticket sales and have a chance to show a slight profit for their first season.
Even so, they reportedly have been having some financial difficulties recently and were looking for a quick infusion of operating money.
But management has announced a total attendance of 144,723 for 16 home games, with playoff money still to be earned, giving hope for a profitable year.
Friday 8,234 saw Jim Hinkson, who started the season with Toronto, score four goals against his old teammates.
It’s not surprising that Hinkson knows how to go about playing lacrosse. He wrote a book, “Box Lacrosse—the Fastest Game on Two Feet.” He wrote the book because he believed it had to be done.
“There was no book on box lacrosse,” the 31-year-old Windsor physical education teacher noticed and buckled down to his typewriter.
Paul Jones didn’t say whether he read Hinkson’s book, but the little-used sub forward acted as if he had memorized it page by page.
Jones—like goalie Wayne Platt a Peterborough, Ont., mail carrier—delivered the goal that broke a 12-12 tie and gave the Wings the lead for keeps in an intense game. It was his second score of the season.
(Philadelphia Inquirer, August 17, 1974)