Comments on several things I've seen on HOCKEY-L lately. Index:
* "Competitive" programs?
* Penalties in BU-Merrimack
* Dave Silk credit for BU's 1000th?
* Updates on Carney and Rosenblatt
* I guess it's up to me to defend the programs at OSU, UIC, Union, and
Merrimack against the charge of being "not competitive at the moment".
I realize this wasn't the intent of the original post, but since it
has been referred to again once or twice since then...tell the
opponents of those teams that they're not competitive. Let's look at
how many games each of those teams has lost by more than 3 goals this
season:
OSU 6 of 23
UIC 6 of 26
Union 2 of 17
Merrimack 2 of 25
I would say if you're consistently getting hammered, then you're not
competitive. There is a difference between not being competitive and
not being a CONTENDER. The latter better describes all four teams.
If you want to talk about teams that are not competitive think about
Scranton in the ECAC West which is 0-16-0, been outscored by something
like 15-1 each game and it's been that way for years.
As well, it wasn't long ago that other than Union (which moved up very
recently), the other 3 teams were all more than competitive - they
were DivI championship contenders. UIC finished third in the CCHA in
1988-89 and narrowly missed a tourney bid. OSU finished second in the
CCHA in 1983-84, also missing a bid just barely. And Merrimack went
to the tourney in 1988 and posted wins over HE champion Northeastern
and eventual NC$$ champion Lake Superior before bowing to the Lakers
in the total goals series. Just like in pro sports, there is an ebb
and flow and many programs will experience a rough period from time to
time. It would make more sense to use as an example a program that has
either never been able to climb out of the cellar or one that has been
there for a long, long time. Consider this: it was only 5 years ago that
Brown was 1-25-0, prompting talk that hockey should be dropped there. Last
year they went to the tourney.
* Regarding Fri's BU-Merrimack game: first, Prendergast apparently did
say something worthy of 10. That from folks who were sitting near
there. Whether what he said was deserving of being tossed is what I
would question, since it happened so quickly and without warning.
Usually a referee will give a player a misconduct after such an
incident and only give him the gate if the player keeps on.
Prendergast did not appear to have even the chance to continue before
Leavitt ran him. It seemed that he signaled "10" and "you're gone" in
one move.
>If you look at the second and third periods,
>I believe you'll find that Leavitt called
>all penalties against BU, and Fowkes matched
>every penalty Leavitt called with a penalty
>against Merrimack.
I don't know where you got your information, but it isn't true. First,
the most obvious example I can think of is that on BU's 3rd goal,
Leavitt chose not to disallow it despite a blatant crosscheck by BU's
Jacques Joubert on Merrimack D Dan Hodge. Joubert committed the
infraction to knock Hodge away from the net and then was able to
screen the goaltender so that teammate Jon Coleman could score the
easy goal. A good play if you can get away with it, which Joubert
did. Leavitt was the referee deep in the zone and saw the play
all the way. If what you say is true, if he really had it in for BU,
then he should have immediately called off the goal.
The problem I had with this was that both referees to this point had
been calling anything and everything. The Joubert crosscheck was no
more or less a penalty than most of the other 13 minors that had been
called to that point in the period (goal came at 11:47). It should
have been called mainly because it would have been consistent but also
because the fact that it was committed allowed a goal to occur.
Next, let's look at the stat sheet. Over the last two periods, BU had
19 minors called to Merrimack's 14. 7 times consecutive penalties
were called against Merrimack to 3 times against BU. In the game, BU
had 16 power plays to Merrimack's 11; BU had 12 of those over the last
two periods to Merrimack's 7.
Finally, while Leavitt may have been the one calling most of the BU
penalties in the 2nd because he was in the Merrimack zone (and Fowkes
in the BU zone called most of the Merrimack penalties), the referees
worked the same zones for the third which meant that they were calling
penalties mostly against the OTHER team. That's my recollection, anyway.
* No one has mentioned this yet...but shouldn't BU assistant Dave Silk
get the credit for BU's 1000th win? He finished out the final 40:32
after Jack Parker was ejected. I doubt it will go into the record
books as a win for Silk, but hey. I recall a few years ago when
former NU head coach Fern Flaman took ill prior to a game and Don
McKenney ran everything that day from the bench, but McKenney was not
given a record until he officially became head coach. Schools don't
seem to watch these things too closely. I wonder if Grant Standbrook
will receive credit for the games he coached Maine for during Walsh's
suspension; I doubt it since they didn't seem to have credited whoever
filled in during Walsh's one game suspension in the NC$$s a couple of
years back.
* Finally, updates on two of Rhode Island's favorite native sons: Maine's
Keith Carney is listed as having played with 3 teams this season -
Indianapolis of the IHL (20 GP, 0-10--10), Louisville of the ECHL (15
GP, 1-4--5), and Flint of the Colonial League (2 GP, 0-1--1). Howie
"The Hammer" Rosenblatt (BU SID Ed Carpenter's nickname for him) of
Merrimack has played with two teams: Providence of the AHL (14 GP,
4-1--5, 54 PIM) and Charlotte of the ECHL (16 GP, 9-6--15, 56 GP). I
do not know if Howie's fan club has followed him to Charlotte. Numbers
from the HE press release, through games of 1/18/94.
--- ---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93
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