Bob comments (following my game summary and commentary),
 
"To the coaches defense.  I think that the coach needed to do what
he did.  I imagine the crime was a little more that just being late
to a practice or two.  They should have know that this was the "GLI"
and they were playing Michigan (winner of the last seven GLI's).  If
the coach has a discipline problem with seven freshman, he has to
deal with it by the book if he wants these seven freshman to learn
to be a team over they next four years at MTU."
 
Discipline is a coaching tool. It must be chosen wisely and fit not
only the crime but the circumstances.  Without knowing what the
players did, it is very difficult to understand why such harsh
measures are called for. We can not coach; we can only criticize or
support depending on the information made available to us. I would
suspect a major infraction such as underaged drinking or missing
scheduled practices or missing the team bus to be the cause of the
discipline. This is all surmise: I don't really know what happened.
 
Yet, there must be a graduated system of discipline; game suspension
if probably the penalty penultimate to being dropped from the team.
Thus, it seems that MTU has had too many disciplinary actions
as of late without much success. When this occurs, it is often the
discipliner that is wrong and not those disciplined. I don't know
if that is the case here but a track record is being formed that is
less than desireable. I believe that it was General Patton who once
said (paraphrased) "You must use discipline with great care: in ratio
to rewards, you should reward 10 times for every disciplinary action."
We probably are not aware of the reward system in place as it does
not have necessarily the same impact on a game that discipline has.
Discipline, overused, is neagative to spirit and performance.
 
Most of all, I want to see the MTU hockey team succeed. If yesterday's
action furthers this, then it was justified. I hope this to be the
case borne out by future victories.
 
Walt Olson
MTU