Ice It
Posted by: adamwAs Denver Post writer Mike Chambers pointed out in his blog post after last night’s 4-3 win by Ohio State over the Pioneers, Denver coach George Gwozdecky got very upset when J.P. Testwuide was forced to stay on the ice despite an injury. That’s because the new rule in college hockey this year states that a team can’t replace the players on the ice after an icing call. The rule, as the NHL implemented a couple of years ago, is supposed to further penalize a team for icing the puck.
But the NHL rule, as you can see here, makes an exception for injuries:
81.4 Line Change on Icing – A team that is in violation of this rule shall not be permitted to make any player substitutions prior to the ensuing face-off. … However, a team shall be permitted to make a player substitution to replace a goalkeeper who had been substituted for an extra attacker, to replace an injured player or goalkeeper, or when a penalty has been assessed which affects the on-ice strength of either team. The determination of players on ice will be made when the puck leaves the offending player’s stick.
The college hockey rule doesn’t appear to include that language. This seems like something that needs clarification. But as far as I can find, the college hockey rule book did not add language on injuries. If so, that’s a bad oversight.
Other observations from the weekend: Did you see where Alabama-Huntsville defeated Tennessee 13-0 in an exhibition game. The shots were 64-8. Yeah, Tennessee — a club team, obviously, since the Volunteers are not playing varsity hockey. Why did UAH bother playing this game? They may as well have played the Delaware Valley Midget team from down the road. It would sure be great if Tennessee had varsity hockey … but I don’t see this as being a stepping stone to that.
Of course, as one astute observer pointed out — and, it’s funny, but he wasn’t kidding — this game will draw more in Huntsville than a game against Colorado College. … Also, it seems UAH lost to Tennessee when it kicked off its program in 1979. So this was revenge. Ha.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
The problem was that the rule wasn’t properly applied. It does indeed make an exception for injured players, in the college version too — which is almost identical to the NHL wording:
6-27(a) … A team that is in violation of this rule shall not be permitted to make any player substitutions before the next faceoff. This includes stoppages for team or commercial timeouts. However, a team shall be permitted to make a player substitution to replace a goalkeeper who had been substituted for an extra attacker, to replace an injured player, or when a penalty is assessed that affects the on-ice strength of either team. The determination of players on the ice will be made when the puck leaves the offending player’s stick.
On another note, that Tennessee-UAH game drew more fans than all but two other UAH home games over the last three seasons. And as some may have noticed, getting the start in goal and posting the shutout was sophomore Wyatt Russell — son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn — in his first collegiate action.