Ironically, the exact same thing happened at Cornell last year. The refs issued a warning to the fans after the warm-ups, but some idiot threw his fish on the ice late in the first, and Harvard quickly converted on the subsequent Big Red bench minor. The game ended 6-5, Harvard. When will the fans learn? Great point, though. And it'd be a terrific way for a couple of daring supporters to get their boys an early power play on the road... Ian Kennish Harvard '94 On Mon, 13 Feb 1995, Jeffrey T. Anbinder wrote: > Okay, I think we may have dealt with this one before, but I honestly don't > recall the concensus or applicable rules, so I'm going to ask again, since > it came up at this weekend's Harvard/Cornell game. > > The referees were understandably upset on Friday night when the ice was > suddenly covered with fish during the pre-game introductions, and they were > quite justified in asking the fans not to throw anything else on the ice. > They also issued a warning that if any further foreign objects were thrown > on the ice, they would call a bench minor against Cornell. > > Well, some yutz in Section D was either late to the game, or just plain > stupid, and threw something right before the second period started anyway. > Cornell gets called for a bench minor, Sancimino serves it, Harvard breaks > the scoreless tie 56 seconds into the penalty, and wins by one goal. > Everybody's pissed, because Cornell stayed in the game with Harvard for 60 > minutes, and it's been a LONG time since that happened in the regular > season (and going on four (five?) years since it happened at all). > > Here's the problem: What's to stop me from going to Bright Arena at > Harvard next year and throwing something on the ice every few minutes, to > get penalties called against Harvard? Not that I'm going to do it, but > here's the sticky point - what rule in the book allows the officials to > assume that it was a Cornell fan that threw the foreign object? If it was > a Harvard fan, there was nothing that either the Cornell team or the > Cornell fans could have done to stop it, and although I'm fairly confident > that it was probably just some idiot sophomore who didn't get there until > after play had started, it *could* have been a Harvard fan. Gentlemen, > start your rulebooks. > > So did anybody else also notice that the officials' discussion with > McCutcheon about the bench minor delayed the game about three times as much > as the removal of the offending object did? > > -- > Jeffrey "Beeeej" Anbinder [log in to unmask] > Development Assistant, Cornell University [log in to unmask] > Editor/Novelist/Freelance Writer [log in to unmask] > DJ, 93.5 WVBR-FM http://beeeej.cit.cornell.edu > > "An artist is never ahead of his time, but most people are far behind > theirs." > - Edgard Varese