Sorry for the late reply, but I get the Digest version and I'm here
in front of the computer mostly at night recently.
Joe Lacour wrote:
>From the rumor mill.... Heard a rumor this past week-end that was
>disturbing. If it is true, we may be seeing the beginnings of a
>dramatically new direction for
>the ECAC and maybe for all college hockey. It seems as if someone has
>overheard an ECAC referee tell Team Captains in his pre-game spiel that
>he has
>been instructed to assess penalties for "big hits". One can only
>speculate that this decree has come from "On-high". Is this the reason
>why so many apparently
>clean bodychecks are being whistled down for "elbowing", "holding",
>"roughing", etc... Will it be just a matter of time until "Body Contact"
>becomes a penalty
>infraction in the official ECAC/NCAA hockey rules? Why is this happening?
>Is there a concern that some darting "water beetle" will have his compass
>scrambled by some mean, North Country human-missile hockey opponent? Will
>it lead to more of the vicious stick-work (hooking, hacking, slashing,
>spearing, etc.) which cowards use instead of open-ice face-to-face
>bodychecks, shoulder-checks or hip-checks? Is non-contact college
>football next! I can't
>wait! Anybody else have any thoughts on this subject?
>====
>That's the post....
>
>If Jason Moy has not asked Commish Fenter yet about this in part 2 of his
>article in USCHO on the new ECAC Commish, I'd like him to. I find this
>disturbing if it is true. Apparently in the RPI - Cornell game 3
>elbowing calls were made (also from another post on the board) that could
>have been classified as "big hits".
I can think of at least two calls like this that went against Cornell in
the RPI game. David Adler was called for elbowing early in the second period
on a "big hit" in the neutral zone. When I saw the refs hand go up for
this one I was incredulous because the play in RPI's end just before this
had the RPI defenders hooking, holding and tripping with abandon and without
a call. This is the kind of a "big hit" that can fire a team up. Instead
the penalty was called (and admittedly the hit was "high" on the upper body"),
and the rest of the second period was history (c.f. 4 RPI goals).
In another incident...a Cornell player (sorry can't remember who it was),
dumped an RPI player into the RPI bench with a "big hit" (also "high")
and was again whistled for elbowing. I'll admit that I may be
biased, but this didn't seem to be a penalty type check unless the rumor
above is true.
If the rumor above is true...and I feel there is some circumstantial
evidence for it to be so from the Cornell v RPI game...then I would
have to agree with Joe's concerns regarding increases in stick work
and other dangerous infractions.
Some other observations from Cornell's weekend in the Capital District:
@ Union Friday night.
OK it's official. I hate Achilles rink. Mostly because Cornell seems
unable to do anything right when they come to Schenectady. Correct
me if I'm wrong (like that's a problem on this list :-)), but I believe
Cornell's overall recored against Union now stands at 5-6-2. At
Achilles its a lowly 2-4-1. Pathetic. Does Union own a winning record
against any other team in the ECAC? In the last three years I've seen:
a 5-5 tie in which Union tied it up with 8 seconds to go after winning
a faceoff in their OWN defensive zone and going the length of the ice;
a 8-1 pasting in which Union outhustled Cornell to every loose puck all
night long, and a 4-2 stinker in which Union made the most of all its
chances and Cornell just couldn't get the puck to bounce right. My friends
and I who have attended all but one of the games at Achilles kept saying
to each other "What is it about this place???"
Give all the credit in the world to Union though. They seem to know how
to beat the Big Red. I felt like Cornell controlled the tempo and most
of the play all night put just couldn't seem to get good shots off at
Koening. It was also annoying to see the Red get all three forwards
in the corner together, come up with the loose puck and have no one
to pass to as the Union defenders made sure to hang on to the other
two along the boards. How about some cycling fellas?
@ RPI Saturday night
I would have to disagree somewhat with Mark Lewin's earlier assesment
that it was an evenly played game. I certainly didn't feel that way
when the score was 6-2 and RPI had just scored on a 3 on zero (Elliot's
good but he can't make the puck disappear), and a 2 on 1 in which
the RPI forward's toyed with the Cornell defense by passing back and forth
at will until the wide open net was available on a pass practically across
the goal mouth. Anyway, Cornell showed some grit in scoring late in
the second to make it 6-3. Still with a 3-goal lead it was RPI's game
to lose and they didn't. In my opinion, this was a 6-4 game that wasn't
all that close except Cornell got a late goal with 6 attackers to make it
6-5 before Alain St. Hillaire lofted a shot high into the air off a neutral
zone faceoff that landed in the empty Cornell net to make the final 7-5.
Anyway, on both nights I felt like the Cornell players were holding onto
the puck much too long before either making the pass or taking a shot.
This usually translated into the defense recovering just enough to tip the
pass or block the shot or for the other Cornell players to be effectively
checked. Cornell really needs to improve in this area or it will be
a long season.
Here's hoping we can do some damage and get in synch over the long break.
Eric
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Eric Hoffman | "It was...an afternoon scraped out |
Graduate Student | of the dog dish of meteorology..." |
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ES-333 | Tom Robbins describing an August |
Dept. of Earth and | day in Richmond, VA. |
Atmospheric Sciences |---------------------------------------|
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State University of New York | Big Red Hockey |
1400 Washington Ave. | 1996,1997 ECAC and Ivy League |
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