Daily News from New York, New York • 156

DncCt Vcbcsg, Page 20 BAILYfl NEWS LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY PAPER IN AMERICA iTINAL 40 New York, Saturday, April 28, 1979 Cosmos QUStt Coo DD (oGIiU Dan Kelly will handle the play-by-play on this afternoon's telecast, while Lou Nanne, g.m. of the Minnesota North Stars, will do color. Cablevision will run wire service sports reports during the game. The turnaround is a boon for the ticket-poor met area hockey fans. Seats at the Garden for the semis cost $6.50 to $22, and the Nassau Coliseum is only a couple of bucks below that range.

But the big winners in the blackout are the scalpers, who stand to get $100 a pair for seats between the blue lines. Steve Goldstein Game Two of the RR Series is on the air! The free air, that is. At-l p.m. today, the Rangers and the Islanders will face off, live, on WOR-TV, Ch. 9, according to station sports director Curtis Reid.

The game will not be simulcast on cable TV. The surprise about-face occurred when the NHL Network decided to make the RR clash its game of the week and televise it locally on Ch. 9. Cablevision, which has an exclusive contract to televise the Islanders' home game, bowed to the league's wishes. "We think we have some rights in our Islander contract that might have caused some fuss, but we're not going to make an issue of it," said John Tatta, executive vice-president of Cablevision.

"It's a league preemption," he added. "We're not objecting to it," Next Saturday, assuming both semis go beyond four games, the league plans to pick up the Boston-Montreal game. But what happens if only the New Yorkers are still at it? "We might have to be preempted again," Tatta conceded. "But I called up the Bruins and asked them to please win a game." nmS lfj-firxV tin mm iu i ilii i uTiiirr mmmkaik If Cn jj. MmMilr-ltwtfll AP photo Rangers congratulate goalie John Davidson after that big win over Isles Thursday night Isles fighting Rangers' storybook ending MIKE LUPICA in some kind of crazy storybook deal.

Maybe they didn't hit the Islanders with a right hand the other night Maybe it was that storybook. The New York Islanders made their reputation as workers. They have always been our most valued blue-collar team. Now their work is cut out for them. The Islanders are going to have to sweat and get their hands dirty.

In the opener of the Railroad Series, they played like a team deathly afraid to lose, and that is simply not their style. The Islanders are not supposed to sit back and watch the other team give a total clinic in passing and checking and positional hockey. Maybe that was the most significant sub-plot of Thursday night's drama. The Rangers stole the Islanders act In fact: they improved it The Rangers added a necessary ingredient of this new season. They added (the Islanders) kept arriving a split second late" said Ranger coach Fred Shero.

That was his analysis of the hockey game. It was, of course, typically Shero, and right on the money. The Islanders were late: to the man; to the puck; to the semifinals. They kept waiting for the Ranger Dead End Kids to expose themselves- as frauds. By the time the Islanders found out they were wrong, they were down a game, and the home-ice edge was gone.

And they had painfully discovered how hungry Shero's Dead End Kids are. -wnen tney have the puck," said Pat Hickey, "we smile and give them all the credit in the world. And then we go after them" The Rangers are going after the Islanders and logic. They seem to have realized that in the new season, anything is possible. If you play hard, and hit a hot roll, you can be anything you want to be.

The Rangers have decided they want to own New York. The Islanders found that out Thursday night The Islanders are a game late for this strange new season LL OF A SUDDEN, the best regular season record in all of hockey does not matter. It is a awfcA trivia question for now. The Islanders played 80 games for the home-ice edge, won it in dramatic fashion on the last night of the regular season, and lost it in 60 a terrible minutes Thursday night. The edge is gone.

The Islanders are in a new season, a strange new season where more than talent is involved. It is a season where lucks counts, and emotion, and maybe even the belief in miracles. The Islanders are playing a whole new season against the New York Rangers. The Islanders realize now that the season is going to be a hard, mean one. "This is a game of streaks," Steve Vickers said after the Rangers took Round One of the Railroad Series, 4-1.

"You have to deal with streaks. You have to be ready to play every night. Hey, listen. We weren't ready for the Flyers in the first game of that series, and we got beat, too." The Islanders got beat Thursday nightThey got beat bad, at home, in a place where they have been almost invincible for two seasons. It was like the start of a prizefight where one fighter runs quickly to the center of the ring, and immediately straightens his opponent up with a right hand.

That was the way the Rangers greeted the Islanders in the semifinals of the Stanley Cup playoffs, at the opening of this dramatic New York event. It was a very good right hand, straight and true, and it stunned the Islanders. By the time they recovered, they'd lost the round. They were down 0-1 in the semis. The Islanders played sluggish, dull, lifeless hockey, hockey that did not at all resemble the standard of excellence we have come to expect of them.

The Islanders seemed to experience 60 minutes of throat-tightening. Mike Bossy did not score a goal. He did not get a shot on John Davidson. Mike Bossy, he of the 69 regular-season goals, did not seem to like being pushed around by people named Vickers and Pierre Plante. Mike Bossy, he of the 69 regular-season goals, better learn fast that being pushed, being abused by sticks, comes with the teritory.

He could ask Phil Esposito all about it Bryan Trottier scored the Islander goal, but he did not play much better than Bossy, or the rest of the Islanders. One of Trottier's quiet gifts is his use of his body; he is normally a devastating checker. He didn't so much as sneer at a Ranger all night long. The Rangers kept taking the puck away from Trottier. In fact the Islanders as a group treated the puck quite casually Thursday night They kept treating it like Larry Csonka and Joe Pisarcik treated a football one Sunday against the Eagles.

It is a new season. The old one is for the record books. Nothing that came before matters against the Rangers. If the Islanders do not build on their regular-season record, link it up somehow with a Stanley Cup, then they have turned the 80-game record into dishwater. All that matters right now is this: the Rangers are on a white hot roll of the dice, and they are playing with the house's money, and the chips keep piling up in front of them.

They don't think they can lose. They've got that cocky gambler's edge. They really do believe they are involved.