The Deek Man

The husky, seven-year-old boy saw the cyclist change direction and, just for the hell of it, veer straight for him. But instead of leaping out of the way as the cyclist had assumed he would, the lad defiantly planted his feet, held his ground--and ended up with a broken leg. Last week, at 29, Dickie Moore could still grow stiff with anger when he recalled the incident. "I didn't like being pushed around then," he said, "and I don't like to be pushed around now."

No one pushes Dickie Moore around. Playing left wing for the proud Montreal Canadiens, Moore last week was in the thick of the early-season scramble for leading scorer of the National Hockey League, a title he won in both 1958 and 1959. Paradoxically, Moore's spectacular feats have not brought him the customary flood of publicity, partly because he refuses to play to the gallery, partly because the Canadiens are loaded with such colorful stars as agile Jacques Plante, the masked goalie, and strapping (6 ft. 3 in 205 lbs.) Jean Beliveau, who leads the team's famed power play at center.

''As Long As It's Clean." But the Canadiens know full well the value of Moore. "You can throw Moore into any line, any play, right wing or left, and he'll do a first-class job," says Coach Toe Blake. "Remember, he had a cast on his hands both years he won the scoring title. I know a lot of players who wouldn't even play under the same conditions."

Moore has mellowed since he came up as a 20-year-old "chippy" (jargon for a player with a chip on his shoulder), but he still approaches the game as though it were football on ice. "When I give a guy a good body check and get a penalty, it's still worth it," he admits, "as long as the check's a clean one."

For relaxation in the old days, Moore and Teammate Tom Johnson used to get a puck, square off a few yards apart and fire point-blank shots at each other. This palled after Blake threatened to slap a $100 fine on them each time blood was drawn. But Moore is still a leader of the violent horseplay that the Canadiens use to lower tension. One standard trick: the "initiation ceremony," in which a rookie--and an occasional sportswriter--is seized by the entire squad of naked bellowing Canadiens as he saunters into the locker room. The victim can count himself lucky if he is merely stripped to the buff and given a snow bath.

"Shoot for the Net." On the ice Moore is one of the league's best players in the split-second art of faking a goalie out of position. "I've developed a little play of my own," he says. "It's a kind of fake shot--we call them 'deeks' for decoys. Sometimes the goalie gives you an opening deliberately and then breaks your heart by blocking the shot. I pretend I'm taking the opening by flicking my stick over the top of the puck. The goalie moves, and then I either flick it between his legs or into the other side.

"But you know deeks and plays and fakes are not much use unless the puck goes into the net. 'Shoot for the net! Shoot for the net!' was what Maurice Richard used to tell us, and he was right " Says the forgotten man of the Canadiens: "It's the goals that count, not the player who scores them."

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