By Brian Handley - The Patriot Ledger - 6/6/1975
Yesterday was not Ted Gernaey’s day — he couldn’t even win at miniature golf.
Gernaey’s bad streak got off near Westport, Connecticut at a driving range-miniature golf area and carried over to the Boston Bolts’ game with the Long Island Tomahawks here last night.
“I like to make the fans happy and tonight I sure did,” said Gernaey, who was the victim of an impotent Bolts’ game and faced 60 shots. He allowed all 19 Tomahawk goals during the 19-12 National Lacrosse League game.
“I don’t have many words for this sort of game,” Gernaey said. “I guess everybody’s due to have games like this.”
Gernaey was relieved after the 19th goal. Rookie Ron Driscoll, who had only played five minutes (last Thursday when the B’s lost here, 20-11), came on, made five saves and picked up his first NLL point on an Ivan Thompson goal.
“We just weren’t running out there. We looked tired, but we shouldn’t have been,” said Joe McCrea, who scored one Boston goal. “We weren’t running our plays and we just weren’t thinking. There was only one or two times when we showed some life.
“There’s no explanation. It’s just such a contrast to when we beat these guys the other night (17-11 in Boston Sunday). Our defense was lost out there. They scored five or six goals off our power play. That just doesn’t happen to a poised team,” McCrea said.
Not to mention the offense.
Although the Bolts hung into the game score-wise through the first two periods, they were never effective.
Long Island jumped out to a 4-0 lead but the Green closed the gap to two on goals by Chris Hall and Guy Legault. The Bolts got one more in the first period (Stan Ignatczyk) to the Tomahawks three and after 20 minutes the home team led 7-3.
“I think we came unprepared,” said Thompson. “We came expecting a zone defense and they threw up a man-to-man and we had trouble working with it.”
The Bolts took the first two scores of the second period, but each time they’d seem to close, Long Island would hit for a goal or two off its fast break. Both teams traded five goals in the second period. The score was 12-8 after two.
Tempers and sticks flared away in the second and third periods and after the New Yorkers put it away with two goals in the first 1:19 of the third the game became a match of who could hit who harder.
There was one fight in the third period, between Stan Cox and Long Island’s man of the night, Doug Hayes. Hayes, the Tomahawks’ first draft pick this winter, picked up 10 points on four goals and six assists.
Ivan and Brian Thompson worked for a pair of goals by Ivan late in the period, but by then the Bolts were out of it.
“We just weren’t moving out there. When your plays aren’t working you gotta keep trying — you can’t stand around and watch and that’s what killed us tonight,” bemoaned McCrea.
“We were letting them hit us and push us around,” he continued. “This team is known for the rough stuff and you got to take it. It doesn’t hurt because of all the pads and you shouldn’t let it interfere with your game. But you still have to give it back and we weren’t whacking back either.”
“I don’t want to make excuses,” Ivan Thompson said. “But I thought the refs did more harm than good. They were slack calling it when they’d send someone off the bench early. They had lots of breakaways that way, but then it was us too for not hustling back more.”
“I hate to cut the refs down, because it doesn’t help and it’s a cop out,” said Duffy McCarthy. “They definitely were missing the calls off the bench. I think they’re intimidated by their coach, Morley Kells, because he’s one of the founders of the league and they were rookie refs. He really yells at them.”
