Life imitates college hockey (or, Anybody remember Leeor Shtrom?)

It's taken seven years, but we finally have a winner of the Leeor Shtrom Memorial Dunce Cap. Tuesday night, in the last minute of a game, Calgary goaltender Philippe Sauve skated the length of the ice and went after Colorado goaltender David Aebischer during a scrum in the Colorado end. [sports.espn.go.com]

For those who don't know or recall, Shtrom was the Union goalie who pulled something similar at Lynah back in December of '98. With something like two minutes left, a shoving match broke out near the Cornell net and, as things were dying down, Shtrom came down from the other end and went after Big Red goaltender Ian Burt. Unlike Sauve, Shtrom got himself a pair of game DQ's for his little tantrum.

I not only remember Shtrom and that game's melee, I remember your classic "height of stupidity" crack in your game recap on Hockey-L, I remember Arthur's equally classic "We've got a whole mess of penalties" PA announcement, and I remember Burt's hysterical, mischievous recounting of the conversation with Shtrom that preceeded their fight.

Incidentally - at least Sauve had a "reason" for going the length of the ice and throwing a punch, as he said it was "six on five" at that point. Shtrom was just an idiot.

Beeeej

Beeeej
Incidentally - at least Sauve had a "reason" for going the length of the ice and throwing a punch, as he said it was "six on five" at that point. Shtrom was just an idiot.

I was only half paying attention this morning, but I thought I heard them say on SportsCenter that there are bad feelings between Sauve and Aebischer from when they were teammates, which probably inspired Sauve to get his fightin' skates on.

Beeeej
I remember Arthur's equally classic "We've got a whole mess of penalties" PA announcement

A friend and I talk about this game pretty often. I can't believe I forgot about that part.
Awesome.

I was there, such craziness! What did Burt say was said?

Ben Rocky 04
I was there, such craziness! What did Burt say was said?

Burt explained how things heated up between himself and Shtrom.

"We were just having a conversation, I just asked him how the game was," Burt said. "I asked him why he didn't jump me and he was like, 'Oh, your back was turned.' He was like, 'You want to go with me?' and I [said], 'Not really, you'll probably beat me up.' He said, 'Well, let's go then,' and throws his gloves off."

[www.uscho.com]

I had fun digging out and re-reading my Ithaca Times column from that week:

AND IN THIS CORNER...
----
It wasn't the sort of game where you might expect a large brawl. There were no little skirmishes here and there, no gradual escalation of hostilities. Perhaps it was because Cornell's lead over Union wasn't definitive until late in the game; perhaps the teams were just bottling up the animosity until it was too late to control it. The officials had even managed fairly well to control the game most of the night.

This was a weekend that the Big Red have traditionally performed poorly in the last several years; the games immediately before finals week had tallied them an 0-5-3 record since December, 1993. Even worse, Cornell had not managed to defeat perennial ECAC cellar-dweller Union since early 1996. So there was a lot to prove on both sides, and both teams played hard. Two quick goals shocked the crowd and the coaches; a 1-1 tie with over 59 minutes left is unusual to say the least.

Cornell's Ian Burt and Union's Leeor Shrtom both seemed much more alert in the nets after those goals, though, and the period ended with the same score. Both teams showed great defensive prowess, despite Cornell's injury-depleted blue-line squad. Certainly there were a few good hits along the way, but nothing to portend what was to come.

Cornell was leading 3-2 through most of the third period, and both teams were skating hard and trying to create opportunities. But it was Cornell that managed to do it, twice in rapid succession with about four minutes left. Ryan Moynihan and Andrew McNiven added to Tyler Sutherland's goal and Denis Ladoceur's two, both pulling Shtrom off in the wrong direction with their shots. Suddenly, it was 5-2, and the Skating Dutchmen were not happy.

Union forward Jay Varady skated into Burt just after a covered-puck whistle with 1:49 left to go, and the Big Red showed their displeasure as they always do, by pulling him away from the goal. Somehow, this started a fight that involved everyone on the ice at the time. Unlike your typical college hockey fight, this wasn't just pushing and shoving with the officials getting in between; this was a helmets-and-gloves-off, rolling-around-on-the-ice, boxing match. The Marquis of Queensbury would have been appalled.

John Gallagher's officiating team seemed to have gotten things mostly under control; only one pair was still fighting, and the other players had more or less calmed down. Then the Lynah Faithful witnessed perhaps one of the worst lapses of judgement ever committed on that ice; Leeor Shtrom left his crease and skated the length of the ice towards the fray.

The NCAA rulemakers made that an automatic penalty for a good reason; there is no justifiable cause for a goalie to leave his crease during a fight unless it is to join in the fight. So by skating past the Union blue line at all, Shtrom had incurred a five-minute major and a game disqualification. As the crowd watched in horror, he skated past the officials, the fighters, and the other skaters, to where Ian Burt was standing in a corner watching the whole fracas... and started a conversation. To the crowd, it looked for all the world like the goalies were sharing recipes, or talking about the previous night's "Seinfeld."

Shtrom later claimed that it was Burt who unnecessarily provoked an actual fight, but Burt told a different story immediately after the game. Ian reported being surprised that his counterpart hadn't taken advantage of the situation to take him down, so he asked why in a frank manner. According to Ian, the conversation went like this:

Burt: "Why didn't you just jump me?"

Shtrom: "Your back was turned. Why, do you want to fight?"

Burt: "Not really, no. You'd probably beat me up."

Shtrom: "Let's find out."

...at which point, the gloves came off and the netminders joined their teammates in the violence.

When it was all over, and both teams had been sent back to their benches, all twelve players had been penalized (despite Dutchman Ryan Campbell's claim that he was already back on his bench by the time the fighting started, confirmed by Union head coach Kevin Sneddon). The ten skaters had each incurred a double minor and a ten-minute misconduct, and the goalies had each been slapped with a five minute major and a game disqualification. Since that was Shtrom's second game DQ of the season (the first one having been the automatic DQ of a few minutes earlier), NCAA rules dictate that it would be two games in itself; Leeor had managed to bench himself for three straight games. Sneddon added a fourth later to make his disappointment clear.

Records fell by the wayside: Union's 116 penalty minutes set a new mark for a single ECAC team, and 217 penalty minutes set a new mark for two teams in one game (185 of them came on that one stoppage in play). Shtrom tied a record for individual penalty minutes in a game with 30, a record he shares with 1980s Cornellian Rob Levasseur.

Cornell head coach Mike Schafer was stoic about the fight aftewards. "It happens. I was surprised it happened tonight, because things had kind of disippated. When I saw [Shtrom] skate down the ice I knew it was trouble." He referred obliquely to his old reputation as a scrapper in his own right when he added later, "I know if I'd been out on the ice for that, I wouldn't have been playing tomorrow night." Burt's game DQ also sent Schafer scrambling to find one of the Red's former back-ups who might still happen to be on-campus, so they could dress a back-up. Luckily, they reached Nathan Hicks, now a senior.

Also luckily, Hicks didn't need to come into the Rensselaer game the following night; freshman Matt Underhill performed well, stopping 33 of 36 and keeping the Big Red in a game that eventually ended in a 3-3 tie with no serious boxing matches to speak of. Cornell had escaped both the Union jinx and the study-week jinx with a three-point weekend and sole possession of third place in the ECAC.
--

Beeeej

And here's the account I related to my German girlfriend the following year:

Letzte Saison konnten wir endlich
den Union-Fluch mit zwei Siegen hinter uns bringen. Aber nicht ohne
Verlust. Spät im Heimspiel gab es in der Cornell Zone einen Kampf, wo
alle zehn Verteidiger und Stürmer an einander hielten. Es war aber
keine echte Schlägerei, bis der Union Torhüter, Leor Shtrom, aus
seinem Gegend kam, und ein Gespräch mit Cornell Goalie Ian Burt
begann. Die Resultate dieses Gespräches war, dass die zwei sich ohne
Handschuhe schlagen sollten, wofür die beiden rausgeworfen wurden.
Burt kriegte die automatische Matchstrafe, aber für Shtrom gab es
eine, weil er aus seinem Torraum während einem Kampf kam, und noch
eine für die Schlägerei selbst. Deshalb musste er drei Spiele
verpassen, weil die Suspendierungen mit jeder Matchstrafe wachsen.

Okay, so it's not exactly "Bob Gaudet ist ein Arschloch".

Why, John? Why?

Trotsky
Why, John? Why?

Because I had a German girlfriend I was trying to introduce to Cornell hockey. Her English was better than my German, but it was good practice, especially after moving out of a German-speaking country.

I think the question was more "why post it here, John, why?" ...