Sorry guys. forgot to look for this stuff and post it as promised. A couple of articles on the Oct. 4/78 Oilers Canucks game. Thought you might find it interesting.
Oilers take the brawl
Edmonton Sun
Written by Dick Chubey
Halloween came four weeks early for 6,260, Coliseum customers last night.
The Edmonton Oiler disciples sat in on a lengthy evening of tricks, treats and fights. And they witnessed the unveiling of the big pumpkin - Vancouver Canucks gawdy orange and yellow and black uniforms.
With a WHA coach (Harry Neale) and goalie for two periods (Gary Bromley), the Canucks could have been easily mistaken for the second coming of the Vancouver Blazers.
They even lost the interlocking exhibition affair 5-3 in a game that saw the Canucks absorb 19 of 37 penalties. The time clock total for the match, Oilers first win in three games against North American opponents, was 167 minutes.
Things even got a bit ugly midway through the third period when Canucks Randy Holt tackled Oilers' Steve Carlson from behind at the back of the Vancouver net, and attempted to band the Oiler wingers head on the ice. The end result was everyone on the ice becoming involved and when things were finally halted nine penalties were dished out, and Holt was given a match penalty for deliberate attempt to injure.
The first period boxscore in so far as fights were concerned was scored even - one victory a side and a pair of draws.
Canucks' Don Lever, a renown non-combatant, started the preliminaries a minute and eight seconds into the fixture when he took objection to an elbow from Oiler defenceman Cal Sandbeck. Decision Lever.
Next came the draws in separate (1:37 and 9:51) skirmishes between Vancouver's Jere Gillis and Oiler rookie Dave Hunter. It appears to be a two out of three falls situation.
The anticipated heavyweight battle then took place behind the Canucks' net at the 11:54 mark. Vancouver's 190 pound Jack McILHargey and Oilers' Dave Semenko, with a 19 pound weight advantage, squared off. Decision Semenko after he successfully pulled the Canuck blueliner's sweater over his head.
In all, there were 52 minutes in penalties in the spirited session, which also saw the Oilers assume a 2-1 lead.
Doug Berry initiated things by banging Cowboy Flett's pass out into the open corner on a power-play at 12:35. Forty nine seconds later Brett Callighen hammered home a rebound off the backboards.
The Canuck's goal came with less than two minutes left in the period and qualifies as a weird tally when defenceman Bob Manno's seemingly harmless shot wound up behind Dave Dryden after bouncing off two Oiler defenders.
In the second period, the Oilers maintained their one-goal edge on the scoreboard, but dropped well off the pace in the fight boxscore.
Again, there were four scraps as they started and ended with Canucks newest bad boy, Randy Holt, as the feature attraction. In his first shift of the game, Holt chopped down Oilers' Pierre Guite and then, went on to score a decision when the two shed the gloves.
With five seconds left in the period Holt and Semenko exchanged greetings in a bout that wound up fairly even.
In the meantime Paul Shmyr and Vancouver's John Grisdale wrestled to a draw, while Sandbeck dropped his second decision of the night, this time to ex-Victoria junior Curt Fraser was the winner.
The period's secondary statistics were the goals - Ron Chipperfield for Edmonton and Chris Oddliefson for the visitors. The scoreboard count was 5-3 Oilers, but in the ring the Canucks were well in front 3-1-4.
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Edmonton Journal
Written by Jim Matheson
It looked like a Saturday night at the Cromdale (Notorious sleeze bar in Edmonton) or maybe Rollerball.
Anything but a good, old-fashioned hockey game. You know about old style hockey. It's a game where guys skate and shoot pucks instead of right hooks. The only real way to score Wednesday's 5-3 Edmonton Oiler victory over the Vancouver Canucks at the Coliseum was on the 10 point must system. There were more fights than goals, if you can believe it. When the dust had cleared after almost three hours of mayhem and madness, referee Ron Harris had called 20 major penalties two game misconducts and one match misconduct to Canuck's Randy Holt for deliberate intent to injure. Throw in minors for other crimes and there were 162 penalty minutes in all. A nauseating display.
An example: the bearded Holt (who laughs about his mean streak) tried to double-dribble Steve Carlson's head on the ice midway through the final period. It was his third skirmish of the night for the stocky defenceman, who also planted a right hand in hte face of burly linesman Ron Asselstine. His ugly action should call for a stiff penalty from National Hockey League president John Ziegler - but who knows these days? "if that was in the WHA, he'd get a suspension and a $1,000 fine," said Oiler general manager Larry Gordon after the 6,260 fans had filed out of the Coliseum.
Harris employed the gag rule after the game, refusing to answer questions from reporters on the incident but Asselstine a former street fighter in his youth was boiling mad. "I really had to restrain myself." said the veteran linesman, who struggled with Holt for a good five minutes trying to calm him down after he jumped Carlson from behind. "Can't condone his actions." said Canucks coach Harry Neale, minutes after the game which should have had Don Dunphy, instead of Rod Phillips, doing the play-by-play. "He stood up to (Dave) Semenko earlier (in a good, head-to-head scrap that ended in a draw), " said Neale "but he's got to know when to stop in others. It was totally unnecessary."
Fortunately, Carlson was wearing a helmet at the time or his head would have been a bloody mess. "I never go without it," said Carlson, who checked Holt into the boards cleanly before the assault. "He really surprised me... all I could do was cover up."
The fans had barely started munching their popcorn when the fights started in the first period. Canucks winger Don Lever got defenceman Cal Sandbeck off-guard at 68 seconds and it was a junior hockey display after that. Oilers' Dave Hunter had two separate scraps with Vancouver winger Jere Gillis. Guite took on Holt then Ron Sedlbauer in retaliation for the Carlson-Holt backstab, and Semenko had two good, legitimate tussels with Jack McILHargey and Holt.
The WHA heavyweight champ scored a clear decision in the first bout but fought to a draw in the second with the smaller Holt in the middle period. He cut his hand for three stitches and sprained the thumb on this left, exiting for the night with a game misconduct for hair-pulling.
The fights clogged up the flow of the game so much it was impossible to get a tempo going. "There wasn't much hockey played." admitted Neale, who watched his Canucks try to fight their way out of their blinding, neon sign uniforms.
When the players were skating and shooting, Oilers clearly outplayed the Canucks to up their exhibition record to 4-3-2, even if it took an empty net goal by Stan Weir with eight seconds left to cement the victory. It was 2-1 after the first 20 minutes, and 3-2 after two periods. Rookie Doug Berry (on a scramble) and first-star Brett Callighen (15-foot slap-shot), scored for the Oilers in the first before Canuck rearguard Bob Manno scored on a deflection.
In the second, Ron Chipperfield caught Canuck net minder Gary Bromley napping and banked a shot in off his skate from behind the net. But, Canucks fought back with Chris Oddliefson slipping a five-footer past Oilers Dave Dryden.
Oiler defenceman Al Hamilton beat Canuck reliever Glen Hanlon with Vancouver two-men short in the dying minutes to make it 4-2 but Canucks centre Roland Ericksson made it interesting with a goal at 19:29.
The victory for the Oilers healed a four-year-old wound. Canucks whipped the WHA club 4-1 in the Edmonton Gardens in a pre-season game in 1974.
