>From:    Pamela Sweeney <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: NMU-Minn Officiating
>
>Just thought I'd post something Doug Woog said on his radio show this morning.
>Although Otto "Inconclusive" Breitenbach (my name for him, not Woog's) refused
>to overturn McAlpine's suspension, WCHA supervisor of officials Ron Foyt told
>Woog that McAlpine's offense was not as serious as others in the game and that
>the officiating was "deplorable" --Woog's quote of Foyt.
>
>That's small consolation to us in light of having to play without McAlpine this
>weekend after his second extremely questionable DQ (the first one was objected
>to by both Woog AND the opposing coach, Mancini), but at least SOMEONE in the
>WCHA recognizes that the kind of officiating we saw last weekend was simply not
>acceptable.
 
Pam - I wasn't going to say anything else about the McAlpine incident,
unless by back channel, but since you brought it up in this way, I can't
hold myself back.  Your own local newspaper's account of McAlpine's
fouling of Carpenter was put on the list by you yourself.  I too saw the
video replay, and McAlpine's foul could not have been "not as serious"
 regardless of Breitenbach's comment.  Your newspaper had it exactly
right.  Carpenter was down on the ice; McAlpine put his stick between
Carpenter's legs and pulled it up hard into his crotch.  How can you say
a deliberate attack on another player's genitals with a stick is
anything less than a disqualifying foul?
 
I realize that Carpenter may have speared someone earlier in the game,
and that the officials didn't see it.  Carpenter's foul  certainly
doesn't in any way lessen McAlpine's.     I think most would agree that
a regular spear, with the butt end of the stick being shoved into the
victim's stomach, is a bad foul and deserves a severe penalty; but that
also an attack on the crotch with the stick blade, particularly on a
player who is down, is even worse.  I'm not saying Carpenter, if he did
spear, shouldn't have been penalized and disqualified; I'm saying that
McAlpine's penalty was extremely appropriate.  As I noted in my summary
of Friday's game here with St. Cloud, this weekend (at least in
Marquette) the new directive was definitely being enforced.  (Remember,
your own newspaper characterized McAlpine's action as "ugly.")
 
 
Steve Christopher, Northern Michigan University
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