George Politis writes:
>Over the past several years, I've been noticing a trend in players taking
>dives to draw penalties.  A player will either lay down as if he was
>unconscious or writhe around wildly to draw as much of a penalty as he can.
>Then the team trainer will be brought to the ice, delaying the flow of the
>game, the player will get up-get the obligatory applause- then be out
>on the ice next shift skating his butt off.
...
>Following one of the
>Vermont goals, Askew of RPI crosschecked #10 Perrin (sp?) of Vermont, if
>you could call it a crosscheck.  From where I was sitting it didn't look
>bad at all.  Askew got a 5 minute major, and after around a 3 minute delay,
>play began.  Roughly 2 minutes later, Perrin was back out, with his
>dynamic-duo twin #8 St. Louis (sp?), playing up a storm.
 
OK, I think we've got a couple of different things here.  First, dives
do happen, and sometimes the referee doesn't realize it and makes the
call.  He shouldn't, but hey, some players should also be up for an
Academy Award.
 
However, I have also noticed that some folks seem to think that if a
major is going to be called, the player who drew the penalty had
better be seriously hurt - at least enough not to return to the ice
before the penalty is up (eye for an eye thinking, I suppose).  This is
not the case.  A major can be called for many different infractions
where the referee thinks the action was serious enough to warrant a
major rather than a minor.  Injury to the recipient of the hit doesn't
have to be part of the equation.
 
As for players being down and even attended to by a trainer, and then
returning almost immediately to play - and play well...I have seen up
close enough situations where the player *was* somehow injured but was
able to carry himself on his own drive and adrenalin to just get the
job done.  Then he really feels it later, in the hotel room after the
game.  Think of how many guys you see coming out of the locker room
carrying ice and you never even realized they were hurt.  During the
game, it is your job to put it all aside, if you are able, and do
what it takes to get the team a win...especially when you are a player
who is as key to his team's success as Perrin is to UVM.  (With the
way Vermont has struggled, maybe he should try to get hit more often.)
 
Sure, it's possible Perrin was playing it up a bit.  I don't know, I
didn't see the game...I do realize that occasionally it happens.  But
in general, I sure wouldn't say that if a player is down and attended
to by the trainer, then skates off and returns to play well, then he
must have been acting.  There are a lot of things we can't know about
what effect it really did have on him, because we aren't in his skates.
 
Something that really annoys me - and I am not referring to George
here - is when a player is down and REALLY hurt, and the fans boo and
yell for him to quit acting and get up.  If you are a member of a home
crowd, and want the other team to come out fired up and take it out on
your team, this is one of the quickest ways to do it...the opponents
will thank you later when they've won the game. :-)
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93