G.M. Finniss writes:
>I would also favor removing men from the ice on coincidental minors to create
>4 on 4 or 3 on 3 situations.  The argument that this would give an unfair
>advantage to the better teams (e.g. the "Edmonton" rule) always seemed to be
>bogus to me.
 
However, this is not why college hockey has the coincidental minor
rule.  Through most of the years of the NHL's coincidentals rule,
college hockey remained without it.  When it was put in, I believe I
was at a Hockey East pre-season luncheon where a representative of the
rules committee or officials got up to speak about the rule changes
for that season.  When he came to this rule, he explained that the
driving intent behind it was to give more players a chance to play.
The archives may even contain a copy of the message I posted to
explain this and other new rules, although I can't recall which year
it was.
 
I agree that the Edmonton argument is rather shaky.  But that's not
what the committee had in mind when changing the rule.  I think I'd
tend to lean towards allowing more 3x3/4x4 play, but I can see why
they chose to force 5x5 play as often as possible.
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93
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