Kevin writes:
>Merrimack came out in the second and scored again.  On a goal that I don't
>think the refs knew who scored it, John Barron was given credit for a goal.
> Theassists went to Greschuck and Alex Weinrich.  It came at 7:00 of the
 second.
 
    By the way, I don't know if this is how it is done in the other leagues,
    but in Hockey East games (league & nonleague), the referee only calls the
    goal scorer.  Assists are the responsibility of the press box.  At
 Merrimack,
    that is done by myself and SID Jim Seavey.  On this play, for example,
    Greschuk and Weinrich were at the points with Greschuk taking the shot,
    and the question was whether Barron tipped it or not.  Referee Scott
    Leavitt determined that he did, and the game tape, which I saw after the
    game, bears this out.
 
    The rules do not explicitly state that what the referee calls goes, as
    far as I know.  We have overruled the referee on a number of occasions,
    particularly when NESN is doing the game and we have easy access to a
    replay.  Sometimes he awards the goal to a player who wasn't even on
    the ice, too.
 
    Of course, we are not perfect, either.  In this last game, watching the
    goals on tape showed that we missed an assist on Danny Hodge's goal
    and we had to add it (D/LW Bryan Miller started the play back in the
    Merrimack end).
 
>Merrimack played well, but I was surprised.  I thought Kent played better than
>they did last year when they visited Merrimack.  I think Merrimack has improved
>that much more though than the Golden Flashes.  Kent gave Lowell a game the
>night before, but lost 3-2.
 
    Last year, Kent had one big line that created most of their opportunities,
    but I believe two of the three players on it have graduated.  They are
    a young team, mostly freshmen and sophomores, and they only have eight
    scholarships to award right now.  Like Coach Schafer pointed out, you
    really need to be able to offer closer to 20 if you are going to compete
    with conference teams.  Kent will improve as they play tougher competition,
    too (27 games against Division I teams this year, as opposed to 16 last
    year).  And again, as you pointed out, Merrimack is much-improved over
    last year's 10-24-1 team.  They are no BC/BU/Maine/PC, but they are no
    longer the doormat - they will battle it out with NU and Lowell for
    6th-8th with an outside shot of making a run at 5th, depending on
    how they do against the better teams and how UNH holds up on its end.
 
    Kent's hockey SID, Dave Knight, told me he thinks chances are pretty good
    for the Flashes when the CCHA votes in January on whether or not to accept
    them for the 1992-93 season.  He indicated that a restructuring of the CCHA
    would be likely in that case, with the league adopting a scheduling policy
    similar to the ECAC where teams have "travel partners" and play another
    set of travel partners on a weekend.  Clearly, the CCHA could not
    continue with playing 4 games against each opponent if there will be
    nine opponents.  We will see what happens in January.  I hope someday
    soon all of the independents will be absorbed by one of the existing
    leagues - at least, all the independents that want to enter a league.
 
 
    - mike