Charlie Shub writes:
>air force gained a split with the u-mass lowell river rats by winning
>4-3 tonight.  no details.
 
That's the same score I got from the folks at UMass-Amherst as we were
on our way out the door.  Congrats to USAFA on the big road win, btw.
 
Also on the HE scoreboard, other than BU & Maine's tie:
 
Merrimack 3, at UMass-Amherst 1
UNH 8, at PC 2
at Northeastern 6, BC 3
 
Latter 2 scores were again from UMA people, I have not heard them
elsewhere yet.
 
UNH has now rebounded to blow out two teams that beat them in
shootouts on a Friday night.  You'd think opponents would learn.  Let
them have the point! :-)
 
Being the only HE team to collect all 10 points available, Merrimack
went from a tie for 7th into being all alone in 5th.  As their reward,
the 4-8-2 Warriors get to be paid a visit by 11-0-4 Maine next weekend.
Maine has taken all 16 meetings between the two since MC joined HE in
1989.  Maine has also won 20 straight over Merrimack, whose last win
over the Black Bears came nearly 15 years ago when Maine was in its
first year of DivI play and in its third year of varsity hockey.
Maine's come-from-behind 6-4 win near the end of last season was the
closest game played between the two teams since a 5-3 win by Maine 5
years ago.
 
I caught the end of the BU-Maine shootout on WABU.  In BU's 5th and
final shot, with the score of the shootout 2-1, BU forward Matt Wright
attempted to wrap it up for the Terriers by carrying the puck directly
through Maine goalie Blair Allison.  The goal was waved off, but
Allison, who crashed backwards against the post when Wright seemingly
made no attempt to stop, had to be attended to by the trainer.  He
seemed to be ok, but we really don't know his status since he never
had to face another shot.  Do any Maine people know?
 
That leads to a new SO rule question.  What facility is in place to
handle transgressions of the rules during a SO?  I don't know that
Wright would have been ruled to have gone too far, but what if he did?
What is there to discourage this from happening?  There are all sorts
of nasty things that could take place...I'd like to think we would
never have to worry about it, but after all, anything is possible.
Waving off the goal just might not be enough (and what if a player
doesn't score...or if a goalie does something like whacking a player
as he skates away).  I'm not sure if penalties can be handed out during
a SO, but unless it's a DQ, a penalty won't have any effect other than
if a player can be ruled ineligible to shoot if the SO is tied and he
comes up again.
 
Something new to think about.  I will try to get an answer on it sometime.
 
I heard Mike Eruzione say that BU's shooters are determined by
practice SOs they hold during the week.  I know that this is the case
at Merrimack too.  Do any other teams do this?
 
With 4 ties already through 10 HE games, Maine is only 2 away from
tying the record set by Northeastern last season, and they have 14
games left in which to do it.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93