Did you see Anchorage coach Dave Shyiak’s comments after last night’s game? Hmmm…. Shyiak was upset about a hit from behind call that created a 5-on-3 and Minnesota’s game-winning goal.

“Too many players are turning their backs. Hitting is part of the game. I think [the checking from behind call] is ruining the game,” Shyiak said. “As coaches we gotta make up our minds. Do we want to allow hitting? Otherwise we should just the say no checking and play women’s hockey. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

Ruining the game? I wouldn’t go that far. In fact, I think the hit from behind call is very important. However, I happen to agree with him about that call. It was a lousy call. It was a borderline 2-minute penalty at best, and in no way deserved a 5-plus-game DQ.

So maybe it was just Shyiak’s emotions getting the better of him, but the hit from behind call is important — but we need to get it right.

The ironic thing is, this comes in the WCHA, where things are relatively laissez-faire. The league took a couple of extra years than the other leagues to install the officiating mandate to crack down on obstruction. And the league has seen more flat out fights — or something closely resembling them — this year than probably the rest of the leagues combined. And the WCHA office does very little about it, choosing to allow a certain level of this stuff without making fighting Game DQ calls, and without suspensions. The general policy of the WCHA is to allow the teams to suspend players before they take any action, and usually the league just goes along with it.

So the irony is clear there, and I think the WCHA officials should be more pro-active, not less. Though, again, in this particular case, Shyiak had a right to be upset.

Sunday, February 15th, 2009 - 11:26 am | Commentary