--- You wrote:
1. Attempt to injure is grossly misleading as defined. Any reasonable person
would read that phrase as implying there was an INTENT to injure. Surely a
better phrase could be found.
2. Why on earth does the commissioner have the power to increase penalty
minutes but no power to reduce them? If the on-ice official makes a call that
results in a DQ but tapes later prove that the call was in error, this means
the situation cannot be fixed. If a commissioner can fix an insufficient
on-ice call, why not be able to fix an overly-aggressive on-ice call?
--- end of quote ---
1) They could call it a dangerous play like soccer, but even that doesn't quite
fit the bill. The easiest way to think of the Attempt to Injure clause as it
was used in this case is to think of the Felony Murder law many states use,
where if you kill someone while comitting a felony, it is automatically a 1st
Degree Murder charge brought against you, regardless of whether the actual
killing was intentional or not. In this case if you injure someone while
comitting an act that would be penalized anyway, the ref can bump it up to a
5-minute major and assess a game DQ regardless of your intentions.
2) First off, I believe conferences have the power to review tape to make sure
the penalties are handed out to the right players, especially in the case of
brawls. So they can correct officiating calls somewhat. But to answer your
question more directly, it makes sense they can add on but not reduce
penalties, in so much as there are many possible offenses which cannot be fully
penalized under the on-ice rules. Say someone pulls a Happy Gilmore and attacks
someone with a skate blade. The on-ice officials can kick him out, but such an
act would likely warrent further discipline beyond the reach of a ref's
jurisdiction.
However, if you start reducing penalites called by on-ice officials, you are in
effect overruling their judgement calls after the fact, and that opens up a
whole new can of worms as any on-ice call could then be subject to review.
Most if not all leagues basically will say that judgement calls are not
reviewable, and all referee's decisions are final. What if a team scores a
power play goal on a penalty that video clearly shows was a dive/bad call, what
do we do then?
In this case, the only thing the on-ice officials did was make a judgement call
that Eaves' hit deserved a game DQ (I would hope we all agree that the fighting
major/DQ was an automatic call and not in question). By NCAA rules, as his 2nd
DQ of the year that carries with it a 2-game suspension. Note that it is
therefore NCAA rules giving him the 5-game suspension (2 for the hit, 3 for the
fight), and not Bunyon. You could argue the hit deserved only a game misconduct
and not a game DQ (indeed, as an amatuer official I probably would've just
given him a major and misconduct, not a DQ, but that's having seen the replay a
dozen times or so, no clue what I would've called in the heat of the moment),
but again that is a judgement call of the on-ice official. Even the NFL doesn't
allow instant replay to review such judgement calls.
No matter how it goes down, even if Hockey East were to come out and say,
"Bunyon made the worst call in the history of organized hockey, and we
apoligize to BC and Patrick Eaves," they are still in a position of being
forced to let the on-ice call of a Game DQ stand. In that case, they cannot
reduce the penalty without breaking NCAA rules - namely that each subsequent
Game DQ carries with it additional suspensions.
If you want to rectify this, have them change NCAA rules so that rather than
having set suspensions based on how many DQ's you've taken, go to a more
NHL-like rule where any match penalty carries a one game suspension plus
automatic review to determine further action, if any is needed. If they found
the hit wasn't malicious in intent, they could just leave it at him missing one
game and move on.
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