The Real Problem With the Five-Minute Majors
Posted by: bciskieAdam had an interesting post about hits from behind.
He mentioned some comments over the weekend by Alaska-Anchorage head coach Dave Shyiak, who was peeved over a major penalty issued to one of his players.
While I understand Shyiak’s frustration, and I agree that the NCAA mandate is kind of dumb, I don’t share his take that it’s “ruining the game”. In fact, I think we have a problem in that we aren’t getting enough of these major penalties called.
Mat Robinson clearly didn’t mean to hit Nico Sacchetti from behind. Sacchetti turned his back at the last second, and Robinson had already committed to what would have been a clean shoulder-to-shoulder check. Sacchetti wasn’t necessarily turning to draw a five-minute major, but those last-second turns sure do seem to happen a lot these days.
To me, the problem is twofold.
For starters, too many officials are finding a way around the five-minute major mandate. Instead of labeling obvious hits from behind as such, they call minor penalties for boarding, cross-checking, charging, elbowing, or whatever. Until all officials are following the mandate at all times, instead of almost applying it when they feel like it, there is no reason to continue with the mandate. If the problem is that “five and a game misconduct” is too much, how about just assessing a five-minute major and not taking the offending player out of the game?
The other problem is that we are seeing a ton of these last-second turns. I can’t imagine players are intentionally trying to take hits in the back so they can fall into the boards and risk a serious injury. Nobody is that stupid. However, how can you tell Mat Robinson not to hit Nico Sacchetti because the latter turns his back at the last second? It makes absolutely no sense, if for no other reason than the fact that it’s probably physically impossible to pull up in many of these situations.
I’m all for eliminating hits from behind in our game. I think it’s an important component toward restoring respect for the game from all who play it. But I think we need to take a serious look at how it’s being done, and realize that it’s not working the way anyone intended.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:20 am
If it’s clear that players are “turning to draw the penalty”, and lets face it, many times the guy being hit isn’t injured in the least, maybe the refs need to call an embellishment penalty, just as they do for diving.
I’ve watched the Robinson hit over and over, and it was a bad call plain and simple. The refs need to be called to task for their errors. Calls like this can cost teams a game, and that needs to be looked at. Especially when the refs don’t call it both ways.