The Show Must Go On? Not In This Case • by Bill Fleischmann • The Philadelphia Daily News • October 14, 1972 World Hockey Association results: New England at Blazers, iced out. Jim Cooper has changed his opinion of Friday the 13th. "When people asked me about opening on Friday the 13th, I used to tell them it was my lucky day. Not anymore," a dejected Cooper said last night after the Blazers home opener was postponed by — are you ready — bad ice. The Civic Center convention hall ice base failed to support the weight of the Zamboni ice cleaning machine, which incredibly didn't arrive until 40 minutes after the scheduled 7:30 p.m. face off. However, even during warm up players realized the ice was in atrocious condition. "Instead of lying flat, the ice was buckling," said center Andre Lacroix. This wasn't how the Blazers intended to break the ice with Philadelphia hockey fans. After inspection by referee Bill Friday, he conferred with Blazers president Cooper, board chairman Bernie brown and New England Whalers' officials. "Rather than have anyone hurt, we decided to postpone the game," Friday said. Cooper's embarrassing announcement to the estimated crowd of 6,000 drew the predictable boos and more. Some blockheads in the upper deck through souvenir Blazers pucks onto the ice near where Cooper, game and Civic Center officials were standing. Only when Cooper asked the blockheads to "stop before somebody gets killed" did a ceasefire occur. "You can't blame the people for being upset," said Blazers captain Derek Sanderson, who tried to pacify the crowd by talking over the public address system. "It would be very dangerous for the players," Sanderson told the audience, adding, "Please come back, we need your support after they get this bloody ice fixed." Then, in more characteristic bluntness, Sanderson said, I hope you can get out of the building — the parking situation isn't that great. Later, the lingering Sanderson (I can't pick up my date until 11:30) supported Blazers management. "It was a very wise decision," Sanderson said. "The guys are proud of him Cooper for thinking of their safety. You've got to expect things like this in an infant league. Imagine how Cooper and Brown feel — all this work and you get the heave-ho because of a bad bleeping pond." Cooper interrupted a discussion with writers to lean over and say to Sanderson, "I feel sorry for you guys — we tried to be first class and something like this happens. What happened has seriously damaged the Blazers' claim of a class production. And Cooper knows it. "It's self-evident how much this hurts us," he said. "We've created ill will. It's not our fault but we have to suffer for it. We will do everything we can to rectify it, but I don't think it should detract from the quality of hockey we'll be presenting. Cooper emphasized that the Blazers aren’t responsible for the ice installation. It's the operation of the Civic Center, he said. Cooper's only display of anger occurred when referring to city landlords. He said, "If we can put together a whole club and organization in three and a half months, they should be able to put ice out there in five days." The Blazers next home game scheduled for Tuesday night against Quebec has been postponed to give the construction firm hired by the city time to fix the defective ice base. Sanderson was about the only one to peer through the muddled picture and find a silver lining. "It could be a blessing in disguise," Derek said. "We'll get more publicity out of this than if we had played."

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