Photos from Clarkson QF 1 are up

Have at 'em.

Did anyone else notice that during the Saturday and Sunday night games (after Nickerson’s beat down) many of the Clarkson players did not have their fight straps attached? IIRC, this is a minor penalty in the NHL ... does anyone know if that rule holds for the NCAA's? My thought is since fighting is not legal in college the rule does not apply but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Thoughts ... ?

For fun I just read the NCAA rules equipment section. There was no mention of the fight strap in the equipment requirements.

Also amusing... "Jewelry shall not be worn, except for religious or medical medals, which shall be taped to the body under the uniform." (3-4, Section 5b) Watching the Maine-UMass game on TV, it didn't look like Howard's shell necklace was taped down and it didn't seem either religious or medical... can we challenge all his games?

similar rule here in NJ high school hockey which is enforced..."inconsistently"!

[Q]RichS Wrote:

similar rule here in NJ high school hockey which is enforced..."inconsistently"! [/Q]

So my club lax team had a game at Mitchell College yesterday. They are a NJCAA team so they have a coach, and had a scorer's table and real NJCAA officials at the game.

At one point, Mitchell got whistled for a procedural violation for having a guy play the ball without having his mouthpiece in. Meanwhile, the officials didn't seem to notice that we had 2 guys playing without any shoulder pads....

Speaking of mouthpieces, I was covering a state HS hockey playoff game a few weeks ago and asked one of the coaches why one of his top players suddenly was assessed a ten minute misconduct in the face off circle early in the third period of a one goal game. The player had not appeared to have said or done anything objectionable towards the ref.

Turns out that the penalty was for wearing a mouth piece that was not connected to the bars of his cage as required by rule. According to the coach, the kid had used that mouthpiece all year and had never been penalized. I asked him if the ref had warned the kid earlier in the game. "Nope".

Well okay, you can jump on the coach for taking an unncessary chance by knowingly allowing the kid to play with illegal equipment but how can a ref in all fairness make that call without at least a warning in a tight state playoff game?

Sounds to me like the official is "qualified" to become an ECAC ref!

IMO, there should not have to be a warning by an official. The rules are known to all and players should know them so that exact situation does not occur. I think the burden falls on the coach and the player, to know the rules and follow them accordingly.


And RichS ... c'mon ECAC refs are far more "qualified" than this guy they even get to make up their own penalties ...

Ben,

In the strictest sense I agree with you about responsibility, and if the call had been made on a team I had been coaching against, I certainly would have accepted it.

However, as a practical matter, I've seen HS refs issue a warning to kids about all sorts of infractions related to physical fouls, bad language, the wearing of jewelry, and others BEFORE calling a penalty. Especially if a misconduct will be the result. In this case, I think it's a case of "over-officiating" to make the call without first having warned the kid.

Of course, this coach has a well-deserved reputation as a "whiner" so I wasn't exactly feeling bad for him.

The mouthpiece stories remind me of Rob Gemmel '79. Robbie was missing his four front teeth already and saw no point in using a mouthpiece, but was required by the ECAC to have one. He used to play with one side of his mouthpiece tucked into his cheek and the other sticking backward outside his mouth. Completely non-functional, but he did have a mouthpiece.

I also remember that a friend of mine who was one of the assistant trainers at the time said they were instructed that if it looked like they were checking for mouthpieces, he should toss one on the ice near the bench. Since masks or cages weren't used then, the player could claim it fell out. I suppose that doesn't work any more with the cage helmets.

JH