Height: 6-0
Weight: 185
Shoot: R
Born: 18 Jun 1947, North Bay ON
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Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)
| year | team | |||||||||||
| 1972-73 | Houston | |||||||||||
| 1973-74 | Houston | |||||||||||
| Totals: |
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Once A Right Wing, Always... • by Joey LeBourgeois • The Hockey Spectator • January 19, 1973
Don Grierson has been playing right wing since he's been playing hockey. Now he's playing it for the Houston Aeros, and he's happy with the situation. Working on a line with center Larry Lund and left winger Ted Taylor, one of Houston's All-Stars, Grierson has found that everything works well when you're together. "We're really playing well together," says the 25-year-old, "and it's getting better all the time. Teddy's real strong. He can go into the corner and bring out the puck real well. Larry's a super stick handler, and he's strong, too, he can go into the corners just as well. I just skate around and shoot." Shooting is something Grierson has been able to do well all his life, although he has only eight goals for Houston this year. Last year, his fourth in the pro hockey ranks, the North Ray, Ont., native played in 72 games for the Port Huron Wings of the International Hockey League. He scored 45 goals and had 32 assists for 77 points. He had 28 points in 49 games in the same league the year before, and had 20 points in 49 games with Denver in the 1969-70 Western Hockey League season. He's not a stranger to Houston, either. Grierson broke in as a pro with the Houston Apollos of the Central Hockey League in 1968, picking up 49 points in 59 games. Twenty-two of them were goals. "Last year was my best," says Grierson, "but this is just my fifth year, I've always had a good shot, and although I haven't broken any records this year I know I can do a lot better." One of the things that Grierson thinks may be slowing him down is his attempt to keep down his penalty minutes total. Last year he spent 234 minutes in the penalty box, and so far this year it's just 37. "I got in a few fights last year," he concedes. "But things are a lot different this year. You can't take that many bad penalties in this league. They cost you goals. In the International League you could take a run at a guy and get away with it because it wouldn't hurt you that much if you got a penalty. Your team could still get out of it all right. Maybe not being able to do that has kept me down this year." "Our line has been doing pretty well, though," he continues. "We pride ourselves on not letting too many goals be scored while we're on the ice. We've been fortunate in that it's really working out well. I don't know how many we've had against us, but it's not many. What we do is try to create as much action on the other end of the ice as we can. If you can get in on the defense fast, you've got a good chance to score." "A lot of the defensemen in this league are inexperienced. They can all come up with the good play — there's a lot of talent around. But a lot of times you can get them to mishandle the puck with some good pressure. It's working for us." Another thing that's working for the Aeros, according to Grierson's way of thinking, is coach Bill Dineen's try at using four lines. They only lost one of their first ten with the system in effect. "What can you say bad about it?" be asks. "It's really paid off for us far." Grierson's also in favor of the overtime period the WHA uses, something he considers a great boon to the fans. "The fans like to see a decision in a hockey game, and I'm all for it, too, it's kind of bad on the road, though. When you're playing away from home you have to really work for a goal, and it's hard to picture losing a game on a deflected screen shot or a tip in. But what the hell, I'd just as soon have it. It'll even out over the course of a year." So will the Aeros, says the 6-foot, 185-pounder. "I think we've got the best-balanced club in the league," he says proudly. "We don't have any superstars, but there's not a weak position on the team, We'vo got six good defensemen, two good goalies in Wayne Rutledge and Don McLeod (and another in Billy Hughes, who's our third) and good forwards." "It puts us in a good position. Earlier in the year, when we had a lot of injuries, it didn't burt us as much as it could have hurt another team. We still had nothing but good hockey players left. Look what it did to Philadolphia when Derek Sanderson and John McKenzie were both hurt. We don't have to worry about losing a superstar with an injury, and with all our good players we're in better shape for it." |
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