1963

Barry Elson seemed to be in an ebullient mood when I finally caught up with him. That could have had something to do with the come-back that the Denver Rockies hockey team had perpetrated on national television over the previous weekend in which, after trailing 4-1 midway through the game against the St. Louis Blues, the team had fought its way to a 5-5 tie. The Wire is now executive vice president and chief operating officer, in charge of both the business and playing sides, for the young Denver hockey franchise.

I wanted to find out how he had made the switch from basketball and baseball to mayhem and ice, and it turned out to be a complicated story, though we should all recall that hockey coach Eddie Jeremiah was also Barry's freshman baseball coach. After graduating, he had worked for an insurance company for a while before going into the Army and heading for Vietnam. After that he was stationed at West Point where he was assistant to the athletic director, and helped basketball coach Bobby Knight. He also got to know Army hockey coach Jack Riley (Dartmouth '44). After the Army, Barry got his M.B.A. at Cornell under the GI Bill. From there Barry went first to Owens Corning Fiberglas, where he became general manager of the aerospace division, and then into management consulting with the Commonwealth Group in Stamford, Conn. While there he was tapped by an executive recruiter who was trying to find a vice president for the New York Islanders and Nets. Barry filled that post until last summer.

Then he was recruited again, this time by Mark McCormack, the super-agent who handles the affairs of, among others, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. McCormack generally doesn't deal with front-office types (except, of course, to extort money from them in behalf of his clients), .but he had gotten to know Barry through Dave DeBusshere, who was general manager of the Nets after his playing career with the Knicks.

McCormack introduced Elson to Denver oilman Jack Vickers, who was looking for management help with his fledgling, and stumbling, hockey franchise. Barry initially came out to Denver this past summer as a consultant, and then took over as chief operating officer in October.

He would have us believe that things in Denver are on the upswing, hockey-wise. Attendance is up to 45 per cent over last year, and revenues up a hefty $400,000 over figures the year earlier. The highlight of the year, he apparently couldn't resist mentioning, was the Rockies' 6-4 upset of the Flyers before 14,000 fans. An even larger crowd — 15,404 — showed up a few days later to watch the Rockies lose gallantly to the Canadiens, 5-3. (A capacity house in Denver is 16,300.)

"This is a screwy business," he acknowledged. "Of the 14 or 15 I have been involved in it is the most difficult because there are more variables. You have to set ticket prices — and make sure the tickets are color coded correctly. ... put the right messages on the message board, play the right music, have the right food in the concession stands, worry about the style of your radio announcer, and the look of your television sportscaster. "The Rockies, for those of you who are wondering, play "upbeat rock."

Barry went on, rather wildly I thought, talking about the possibility of the Denver team playing the Flyers in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. His team will need more than the right color tickets, I assured him, if they encounter the Broad Street Bullies on the Flyers' home ice.

Millimeter Magazine featured Doug Clark in their December issue. Doug is now operating his film company, Douglas Clark Associates, out of a two-story home in Sausalito, outside San Francisco. The editing tables, mixing facilities, screening room, and offices are on the first floor. Doug, his wife Marge, their two children, and pet schnauzer are on the second floor.

Doug had started out as a magazine photographer, and his pictures appeared in Time, Life,Fortune. Playboy, and the NationalGeographic, among others, before he joined with a partner to start a company to produce TV commercials. He achieved success, or seemed to. "I had all of the things one usually thinks of as goals, like driving a Porsche and living in a penthouse," he told the magazine. "But I was miserable, so I decided to move to a place where I wanted to live and then try to make a film career happen there."

It has. He has directed for such clients as Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Water Pik, Burlington Northern Railroad, Lone Star Beer, Crocker Bank, and Smuckers. "No one's ever asked to see my degree from Dartmouth, though," says Doug. "In this business you're only as good as your last job. You can do fifty commercials that satisfy everybody, win awards, and so on - but you do one turkey and that'll get around and do you more damage in the shortest period of time than you can imagine."

Howard Culver has been elected assistant vice president-regulatory law of Western Airlines. Howard has been with Western's regulatory law department since 1973, and before that he had been an attorney With the Civil Aeronautics Board in Washington. He and wife Monique live in Rancho Palos Verdes. They have two children.

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