A few days ago I wrote to the list explaining the situation that occurred in
the first period of the WMU-MSU game Friday in Kalamazoo, where a tripping
penalty was called on Spartan goaltender Chad Alban and it appeared (at
least from the radio broadcasts) that Western Michigan got to choose which
Spartan went into the penalty box (Anson Carter ended up serving the penalty).
 
I was informed privately that my assumption was correct; the rules state that
the captain of the team assessed the penalty chooses one of the players that
was on the ice at the time the goaltender was penalized to serve the penalty.
 
What went wrong in K-zoo on Friday was that referee Jim Sotiroff (and this is
according to Ron Mason in yesterday's LSJ) forgot which Spartans were on the
ice when he called the infraction.  When he skated over to the MSU bench, he
rattled off some numbers of players who weren't even dressed (28 and 44, which
are Fleming [been out most of the year] and Slater [who has dressed off and
on the past few weeks]) and when Mason was confused, Sotiroff felt he was
stalling and told Mason that he would put Carter in the box if Mason couldn't
make up his mind.  When Mason said "OK, put 44 in," Sotiroff stated that 44
wasn't on the ice.  When Mason told Sotiroff that that was one of the numbers
he had just given him, Sotiroff accused him of stalling and put Carter in
(since Carter is captain).  At the time, it was a crucial point since WMU
was up 1-0 and scored on the ensuing power play to go up 2-0.  In the long
run, it was inconsequential as MSU got lit up 7-1 (which gave Ron a chance
to put Mike Brusseau in goal for some work, since in Mason's mind it wouldn't
have mattered if God played goal).
 
The incident on Saturday night when Carter was cross-checked into the right
goalpost by WMU forward Kyle Millar deserves some note also.  Supposedly,
tapes of this game went to CCHA commissioner Bill Began.  Carter was standing
in front of the Western goal on a power play in the second period when Millar
hit him from behind.  Anson, who was waiting to score, all of the sudden, in
his words, saw the goalpost coming at him at "about 1000 miles an hour."  He
bled on the ice for a little bit and then went back to the dressing room for
five stitches to his forehead.  Refereee Matt Shegos was watching the puck
and didn't see the incident, so he couldn't call a penalty.  According to
Mason, one of the linesmen did see it and thought it deserved a minor, but
since the penalty wasn't behind the play, he couldn't call it.  Needless to
say, the Munn Arena crowd was looking for blood (so to speak, and not Anson's
on the ice).  It's actually the only good hit Millar had all night, since
most of the time he was on his rear end from checks by Chris Bogas et al.
(Seems like Chris isn't hitting people as often or as hard as he used to.
Maybe I'm getting accustomed to them, other players are watching out for
him, or he went on a diet.)
 
G. M. Finniss
Michigan State University 21-4-0, 25-7-0
 
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