The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 29

Scoreboard 2 High Schools Jim Bashline Comics 14 Features 15 section sports Tuesday. Jan. 13. 1976 By NHL standards and particularly Flyer standards it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Just another mugging on Broad Street.

By BILL LYON XT SOS It Was All in the Name of Sport By FRANK DOLSON i py 'fv to lose this last stand in Philadelphia. Its teams had already lost this series decisively despite the considerable advantage of playing on home ice under NHL rules. A defeat for the Flyers at the Spectrum, where they hardly ever lose to NHL teams, would have been the final, humiliating blow. One thing about this series, it made friends of old NHL rivals at least for a while. "This is the first time in 54 years I rooted for Montreal," Toronto's assistant general manager King Clancy said before the Cana-diens played the Soviet Army at the Forum.

And surely it was the first time in a few years that so many NHL types from the president of the league to the guy in the striped shirt with the whistle in his mouth loved every vicious check, every elbow to the head, every form of violence their Stanley Cup champions could devise in those first 11 minutes and 21 seconds. After that, it was no conlcsi. The Flyers were brilliant. They showed, the Russians they could play hockey as well as play dirty. The Russians? We never saw them play their game.

The Flyers never gave them the chance. "I think in a seven-game series we'll beat them in five games," Joe Watson said. "Maybe even four (See DOLSON on 2-D) The funny thing is, they call it sport. It's carried on the sports pages, described by sports announcers, controlled by sportsmen. Obviously Webster never saw pro hockey, Canadian style.

Or heard Ed Snider, the American capitalist whose team of Canadians played a team of Russians for the right to say, "We're No. 1," at the Spectrum on Sunday. "I may be subjective," Snider said on his TV interview following the second period, "but I don't think we did anything dastardly By Canadian pro hockey standards, no. Merely a little charging and slashing and elbowing and hooking and intimidating. After all, the pride of a team, of a league, of a nation was at stake.

Damnit, this was war spelled S-P-O-R-T. "They said we were giving them elbows in the head," Snider was saying on television. Let me tell you, their guys are very subtle. They've mastered the art of giving you a stick in the gut when you're not looking." Only the slightest of pauses, then: "I admire it. I think it's great Go ahead.

Read that over a couple of times. It should tell you all you need to know about the thinking that made big league hockey what it is today. The elbow, the high stick, the cheap shot has become as much of this S-P-O-R-T as skating and passing and The Robots Are Human MIAMI BEACH They weren't a football team; they were a collection of computer printouts. The Dallas Robots, or, Cowboys. They were programmed by a coach whose constant facial expression was one of silent suffering, of quiet, persistent agony.

Tom Landry always looked like a man stricken with terminal constipation. They always led the league in stats, low salaries, player grumbling, offensive acts and frustration. They were today's Oakland Raiders, stumbling always in the big games, choking on their own Adam's apples. But it vas hard to feel any sympathy for the Cowboys because they appeared so, well, so inhuman. More machines than man.

Aloof. Wooden. The manifestation of a plastic society. Well, the puppets have come to life. The Dallas Robots are suddenly very human.

They sweat and they have nervous stomachs and they wave clenched fists and they pound each other with exuberance that is very real, not manufactured. They won one playoff game on a Hail Mary pass. They won another one by playing an absolutely perfect game. And now, here they are in Super Bowl and for maybe the first time in their existence they are the underdogs and they are getting support from the same people who used good, clean checking. "(The Russians) taking the team off the ice was a calculated move to intimidate the Philadelphia Flyers," the majority owner of the Flyers said over the air.

Maybe so, but the devastating physical assault the Canadian pros unleashed against the Soviet "amateurs" in the 11 minutes and 21 seconds of gang warfare that preceded the walkout was clearly intimidation of another sort. It was a legalized mugging the early part of this hockey game. Legalized because Lloyd Gilmour, the NHL referee assigned to this last, desperate NHL stand, did what any NHL referee would be expected to do. He watched the Russians get mauled; he mistook elbows for clean checks; he let the Flyers play their style of hockey, engage in their brand of sport. Frankly, the NHL couldn't afford United Press International An interpreter explains Soviet protest to officials Heart Attack Victims Can Look to Hiller to root against them.

Ail oecause they seem to be men, not machines, with real, live internal organs, not transistor batteries, inside all that padding. 'Emotional Team' "We are a very emotional team," agreed Roger Staubach. "All those rookies, they've been good for us. All of their enthusiasm has rubbed off on us." Eager? Well, Too Tall Jones, the gargantuan Dallas defensive end, says he awoke on the day of the playoff game against the Rams, showered, dressed and was ready to leave for the stadium when he suddenly noticed it was only 2 a.m. Emotional? Well, Lee Roy Jordan, who could be forgiven for being nonchalant, this being his 13th professional season and all, remembers when Drew Pearson caught that Hail Mary pass to beat the Vikings: "I was standing there on the sideline and when he caught it I got so choked up I couldn't even speak.

I opened my mouth to yell but nothing would come out." Excitable? Well, Thomas Henderson, a linebacker and one of 12 Dallas rookies, ran 97 yards with an interception for a touchdown against St. Louis and celebrated with the familiar spiking of the ball. Only Henderson spiked it OVER the goal post crossbar. Robots simply can't jump that high. yv jV Phi'adelphia Inquirer RICHARD M.

TITLE opinion of many, the best relief pitcher in the American League. "In 1974 he threw as well as anybody can throw," Red Sox second baseman Denny Doyle said before last night's Philadelphia Sport Writers' dinner, at which Hiller received the Most Courageous Athlete award. "It made me determined from the day I had the heart attack that I was going to go out and play baseball again," Hiller said. His ability to do that, and to achieve stardom, has provided a mental lift to other youthful heart-attack victims. "I hope I've helped a lot of people by talking to them," the 32-year-old athlete said.

"I hope they understand when you have a heart attack you haven't come to the end of your life or the end of your career. "I wasn't in good shape (before the attack). I smoked too much, I drank too much, I ate too much Because of not producing too well, I was very insecure on the mound. I ne.ver thought I was good. From the day I signed (without a bonus) I thought, 'If I make it I'll be very But he did make it and he made it big after a heart attack that endangered his life.

"If I'd had it the day before I probably would've died," he said. "I was snowmobiling 150 miles up North (from Duluth) And now five years later, John Hiller is the most valuable member of a major league pitching staff, and the Most Courageous Athlete of the year. Pete Rose and Archie Griffin joined John Hiller in receiving major awards at the Philadelphia Svorts Writers' banquet last night. Story on Page 2-D. By FRANK DOLSON Jnauirer Statt Writer In January, 1971, John Hiller had a heart attack.

"I was having a cup of coffee and a cigaret he said, recalling that frightening moment when the pain hit him. In July, 1972, he returned as a big league pitcher, arriving on the mound at White Sox park as the enemy crowd gave him a standing ovation. "Dick Allen hit a home run off me," he said. "Other than that I pitched well. I was in a fog just trying to throw the ball, throw strikes.

I figured even if I didn't pitch another game after that, I had accomplished what I wanted." But he did pitch more games. Lots of games. In 1973 he had 38 saves for the Detroit Tigers; in 1974 he had 17 victories. What kind of pitcher is John Hiller? This kind: Opening day, 1975, in New York. The Tigers were beating Catfish Hunter, 5-3, in the seventh, but the Yankees loaded the bases with nobody out against Mickey Lolich.

The middle of the batting order was due up Bobby Bonds, Bob Oliver, Thur-man Munson, all dangerous right-handed hitters. In came lefthander Hiller to face them. He struck out Bonds on a 3-2 pitch, got Oliver to bounce into a double play and allowed one ball to be hit out of the infield the next two innings. Not bad pitching for a man who had apparently come to the end of a mediocre career that January day in Duluth, Minn. How courageous a man is John Hiller? This courageous: After undergoing intestinal surgery to remove the blockage in his arteries, after being told by 10 doctors in two Michigan hospitals that his pitching career was over, after seeing his weight plummet from a portly 220 to a skinny 148, he came back to become a far better pitcher than before in the TIGERS' reliever John Hiller, sporting a non-hairy look, is this year's winner of the Philadelphia Sports Writers' Most Courageous Athlete award.

Swann: No More Zonks, Please were enthralled that Swann could focus in on any part of his adventurous life past, present or future. What Swann tried to make clear was that he was knocked unconscious in last week's playoff against Oakland by what he suspects was a premeditated blow to the head. "You look back at that particular game and the way the Oakland players played," he said, "and you get the feeling they go after people's heads more than any other part of the body. It makes you wonder if they're not taught this technique." Swann, the Steelers' leading pass By GORDON FORBES Inouirer Statt Wrter MIAMI BEACH Lynn Swann couldn't be blamed for momentarily looking back yesterday while his Pittsburgh Steeler teammates began psyching up for the Dallas Cowboys. As a matter of fact, tp Stpelers 'A Fun Season' "This has been a fun season," said Tom Landry as he wrinkled his face into an unfamiliar expression.

Yes, that really was a smile trying to break through. "This is the hittingest team I have ever had. Boy, do they love to hit." Fun? Tom Landry actually used the word fun? Yes, he did. And this same coach, who used to run the gamut of emotions from A to has been seen shouting, brandishing a fist heavenward, crumpling his hat, doing, in short, all sorts of things poker faces aren't supposed to do. "This has been," said Jordan, "more enjoyable than any other season.

It's been so, well, so damn exciting. You never knew what was gonna happen next." Indeed. The Cowboys played eight games this year that were decided by six points or less. They played five games decided by three points or less. They played two overtime games.

They beat the Eagles on the last play of the game. They beat the Vikings in the last 40 seconds. No computer can manufacture endings like that. Still, there is the lingering suspicion that the Cowboys are more hicky than good, more miraculous than tough, more flukey than smart. No wav their fortune holds out "My personal health is more important than any one football game." However, a Steeler spokesman said flatly that Swann would be in the starting lineup.

"I was out for a while," Swann recalled. "I was getting up after being hit and I didn't tven realize I had fumbled the football. I went to get up and when I stood up, everything went blank. Things were just missing. But after that day, things bagaji to conja back.

"The character of tbjs makes everyone very close. We all relate extremely well to ope another. WJien something happens to one of us, it happens to the entire (yarn. They try to make up for that person and attain a certain amount of revenge." In Swann's case, the counter-blow was struck by fellow receiver John Stallworth who blindsided two Raiders, springing Franco Harris loose on a weakside sweep for a vital touchdown. "There are a lot of backs in me league who go for the head'' Swann said.

"Oakland, their entire secondary seems to tackle that way. They go after people from the head up. That's on the borderline of being a cheap shot or is sometimes in fact a cheap shot. Dallas doesn't play that way." Lynn is thankful for that receiver, was zonked after a third-period sideline catch by George Atkinson, the Raiders' strong safety. He was forced out of the game with a mild concussion that kept him hospitalized for two days.

"I wasn't really knocked out just felt that dizzy feeling," Swann said. "I never did like clotheslines anyway. He (Atkinson) came around on the top of my head." What puzzles Swann is the fact that wide receivers are prevented from jamming linebackers inside with the outlawed crackback block. "We go up for balls and guys are taking shots at our heads and they are deliberate shots," he said. "They can hit us any way they want.

Yet, when a receiver comes back and blocks on a 250-pound linebacker, he can only hit from the waist tip. "You can always recover from leg and knee injuries, but ycu take too many shots to the head and you're not aiming back." Swann apparently will be back to start Sunday's Super Bowl. He rejoined the team yesterday as the Steelers fled their city's blustery weather and romped about in near SO-degree weather at Biscayne College. "I'll have to check it out day-to-day and see wbit happens," Swann said when a.skcd about his playing status. sY vi I J-rX ry a fgsinst the Steclers.

"Off the top of my head," agreed Jne Scibelli, the veteran LA guard, "I would have picked Pittsburgh, b't the more we talk I'm not so sure. You can't sell Landry and his assistants short. Dallas was prepared for us, really prepared. You know, I'm leaning more and nmre to Da'las all the time. Thev use'' to just try to finesse you.

Now they just pound hell out of you." Which is, come to think of it, the reaction of a human. Not a machine. United Press tniei n. BOBBY BOVYDEN is laughing now, but will State. At left is the No.

1 Seminoles' fan, Sol he be smiling in the fall? The West Virginia Carroll who is also pleased at the appointment, coach Is the new football coach at Florida See item in The Scene on Page 3-D..