>The game-winning goal, of course, goes to the player who scored BU's
>5th goal - I believe it was Jay Pandolfo.  And the goalies who get the
>decision are supposed to be the ones who are in net at the time that
>the game-winning goal is scored.
 
I wouldn't say "of course". That's the way the sport of hockey (at least at
every level I've been involved with it) has chosen to define it. Baseball
has defined it differently, as the run that puts the winning team ahead for
good. Neither definition is inherently "right" or "wrong".
 
>Do you follow the NHL (and generally accepted method, in my
>experience) and award it to the goalie who allowed the GWG?  Or do you
>give it to the goalie who allowed the goal that put your team behind
>to stay?
 
I follow the rule we've chosen to follow in the ECAC, which is that the
goalies in the game when the GWG (or GTG) is scored get the decisions.
 
>
>I suspect there is a wide variance of opinions on this.  My experience
>has been that there are almost as many different ways of keeping hockey
>stats as there are teams.  There is no book like the NC$$ Ice Hockey
>Rules and Interpretations that tells you specifically how assists,
>goalie decisions, GWGs, +/-, etc. are to be kept.  So everyone
>interprets this to mean that they can do it however they choose -
>understandable, but wouldn't it be better to have a national agreement
>on how stats will be kept so everyone is doing the same thing?
 
If a league has adopted an interpretation, there's no excuse for any of its
teams not to follow it. But that's not to say that using this
interpretation is any more "right" than using the baseball interpretation.
An argument can be made for either one, but once an organization has chosen
its interpretation, it should be followed consistently. I agree with you
that the degree of consistency of interpretation in college hockey is very
low; I've had some interesting discussions with Joe Bertagna on this
subject over the years as well.
 
>
>Even a better example than the above: we all know that assists go to
>the last two guys to touch the puck other than the goal scorer.
 
We do? Rule 6, section 15d says "When a player scores a goal, an assist
shall be credited to the player or players taking part in the play
preceding the goal, even though the play may originate in the defensive
zone." TAKING PART IN THE PLAY, not TOUCHING THE PUCK.
 
 
>Two scenarios:
>
 
In addition to the two you described, here's another: defenseman for team A
carries the puck out of his zone. He's body-checked at the blue line by
player B1, player B2 picks up the loose puck, skates in on a breakaway and
scores. I award an assist to player B1, who "participated in the play" (the
goal would not have occurred without his check) although he did not touch
the puck.
 
>I would do something about it, but I don't believe it would make a
>difference...unless I heard from a number of SID or similarly-affiliated
>folks who believe I am raising good points.
 
You're raising good points, points that I've brought up (in my capacity as
official scorer at Cornell) many times over the years with my SID and
Bertagna, the ECAC's director of ice hockey. These interpretations aren't
really part of the playing rules per se; they belong in a separate
Scorekeeper's Manual. But they certainly need to be documented SOMEPLACE!
 
Other questions in the same category:
When a team pulls its goalie at the end of the game to try for the tying
goal, the time the goalie is out of the game is not credited to the goalie
(e.g., if the goalie skates off with 25 seconds left, he gets credit for
59:35 played, not 60:00). No argument with that; makes sense, right? I
claim that the same interpretation should be applied to the time a goalie
spends on the bench when there's a delayed penalty against the opposing
team. What do you think?
 
Can a goal be scored at 20:00 of a period?
 
Is a goal scored exactly two minutes after a penalty is called a power play
goal?
 
When there's a faceoff in team B's defensive zone, and a defenseman from
team A is standing at his team's bench talking to the coach, and he's
taking a long time, why does the linesman blow the whistle and skate over
to him and tell him to get back and line up. He's onside, why not just drop
the puck and let team A figure out what to do because their guy is out of
position?