Todd Beaton writes:
 
> I was at Saturday night's game, and I saw a misguided soul throw a cup of
> pop on the ice.  The Sioux got a penalty, and the thrower of the pop got
> kicked out of the arena.  The thrower had a jersey on, and on the jersey
> there was a "M".
> So penalizing the home team every time something lands on the ice
> live, dead, or other is not fare.
 
 William Groskreutz III replied:
>
>I agree with you on the penalizing of the team.  I think the person should be penalized in
some >way.  The team can't control their fans or the fans of the other team.
 
While I agree that penalizing the home team for every single throwing incident (as some
have suggested) may not be fair I do not believe that they should be held harmless as
William suggests. When we talk about teams in this context, were not just talking about the
coaches and players, we#re talking about the whole athletic department. They CAN control
the fans through ejections, revoking tickets and other mechanisms.
 
The basic idea behind these types of rules is that the home team is responsible for
providing the facilities and proper environment for conducting the game.  Part of that
responsibility is controlling the fans (all of them).  Based on that premise, it should be
possible to penalize the home team for fan misconduct, but first you have to give them a
chance to deal with the problem in some way.
 
In Major League Baseball, for example, the home any fan throwing things onto the field is
generally thrown out of the stadium.  However, if the home team cannot control the crowd
within a reasonable time (left to the judgement of the officials) the home team forfeits
the game.  Talk about a penalty!  The actual manner of dealing with the fans is not part of
the rules but is left up to the home team.  However, with that kind of penalty facing them,
most teams are pretty strict.
 
What we really need is a combination of rules.  A fan misconduct rule that causes anyone
throwing things on the ice to be ejected or somehow penalized (this could be left up to the
individual teams) and a team penalty rule with some kind of time or judgement limitation.
Perhaps as Bryan Priem suggests, some limit on the number of items thrown or the number of
incidents is the right idea (1st incident gets a warning, second gets a bench minor?).
 
Kurt Jaeger, RPI #81
 
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