The Northern Michigan "Beattie Line" of Scott Beattie, Jim Hiller, and
Dallas Drake has already scored over 60 goals.  At the season-long rate
they've been exhibiting this line has a good chance to score 100 goals
Does anyone out there know the record for a single line?  (I'm more
interested in goals than overall scoring, but information on both would
be interesting.)
 
On the questions of assists in general:  Who determines these?  Someone
in the press box equivalent to the scorers in baseball and basketball?
Maybe it's just because since I've become reindoctrinated into hockey
my vantage point has been down low, close to the ice, but I often feel
that "assists" are handed out for pretty "distant" contributions to
the goals they allegedly set up.  It sometimes (usually, in fact!)
seems the only time a goal is called "unassisted" is when the puck has
been in the hands of the other team prior to the goal scorer himself
getting control of it.  I mean, come on . . . a lot of passes are just
that; they can't be said to lead all that readily to a goal which is
eventually scored.
 
In basketball, as far as I know, there is NEVER more than one assist
given on a score--and even here, at least in the pros, there has been
a suspicion of "assist inflation" in recent eras.  Oscar Robertson,
who I had the privilege of watching when Cincinnati had an NBA team,
said recently when he played your pass had to actually set up a basket
to be scored as an assist, while now whoever passes to the scorer seems
to get one.  It seems that in hockey two assists are virtually always
awarded, as long as at least two   different players on the scoring
team have handled the puck in addition to the scorer.  If you're going
to follow this kind of logic, it should be perfectly possible and in
fact relatively common to give players both a goal and an assist on
on the same play--whenever a "give and go" type of play results in a
goal, which is fairly often.
 
Just wondering (and passing the time while anxiously waiting for the
Saturday evening start of the Badger-Wildcat series this weekend).
                      ***********************************
                     *      Steve Christopher, NMU       *
                    *  "Go 'Cats!''Going for two in '92!" *
                     *        [log in to unmask]         *
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