Yesterday I mentioned that there was at least one situation where there
was a forfeit because a team did not have enough players to continue.
I checked my collection of programs and can now supply a few more
details.
 
On January 13, 1968 Colgate played RPI at the then-called RPI Field
House.  At 19:10 of the second period with Colgate leading RPI 5-1 a
fight broke out.  At the time Colgate was on a power play.  The
following is what I wrote in my program/scorecard:  "Game forfeited to
Colgate 5-1 at 19:10 of 2nd period with neither side able to field the
four players needed to continue play.  7 RPI players and 8 Colgate
players received major and game misconduct penalties for fighting.
Since an equal number of players had to sit in the penalty box to serve
the major penalties and RPI was already one man short, this left RPI
with only two players and Colgate with one."
 
In case anyone tries to do the math, note that at the time only 17
players were allowed to suit-up for a game (15 + 2 goalies).  At least
at that time fighting penalties did not carry with them automatic
disqualifications for the next game.  It is hard to believe that
situations like this did not happen more often.
 
I should add that RPI was favored to win this game and was playing
rather poorly prior to the game's termination (RPI's record prior to
the game was 8-4 [counting an 18-2 victory over U. Pennsylvania which
was a club team that year] while Colgate was 3-6).  As historically
always seems to happen, and 1993/94 is certainly proving to be no
exception, RPI was unable to get itself up for this game although
earlier in the month they had beaten both Harvard and BU as well as
Michigan Tech in the RPI Holiday Tournament in late December (and then
lost to ECAC Div-II Middlebury).  Colgate was dominating the game as
evidenced by the 28-14 shot advantage.
 
I also checked a recent edition of the RPI media guide/yearbook -- the
game is entered as 5-1, the score at the time that the game was
forfeited, not 1-0 or some other standard forfeit score.  I do not know
if this is the correct score for this situation, and I do not know if
Colgate has used the same score.  I suspect that at least RPI counted
the individual stats for the game although I wonder about the penalties
that caused the game to end -- they were not announced over the public
address system.
 
Ralph N. Baer  RPI '68, '70, '74