Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2010-11 - Part II - The Dream is Still Alive <<<
If you look at the rule book this year, it doesn't matter so much if it was from behind or not, boarding has been change as I learend the hard way this year. The determining factor is if the contact is in "a manner that causes the opponent to be thrown violently into the boards".
Now if you look at the hit, I see it as the same hit that been so talked about with Zdeno Chara. McReynolds Acutually got in front of the player and got his own body into the glass and squeeze him out. There also did not seem to be a lot of contact to the head, the AIC player (Peake) shoulders went into the boards and his head was not targetted by McReynolds. I think that is why they reduced the DQ to a Misconduct. I think also....You can get in hot water second guessing an injury, but one thing I see in the replay is Peake rasing his head about 3 seconds after he went down like you ran right in a Forman knockout punch and look around for a second, one has to be thinking that he was thinking "Is anyone buying this?" and then he puts his head down. Given the fact that he walked to the locker room under his own power makes me very suspicious. I do not know the player enough to know for sure, but if this was acting like the "sportmanship" acting we see in Soccor so much it makes me sick.
Go figure, the future Mrs. made me leave the game early and I missed the Favot DQ. But enough people who I know and trust are saying it was a terrible call than I am willing to beleive it.
Number 1. Ed calm down let us handle the bombs man, don't get yourself in trouble.
Number 2. Bob DeGregorio (AHA Commissioner) and Eugene Binda (Supervisor of Officials), the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. At this point you owe to the fans and the players who have giving you a job with pay to at least admit that you have problems with officiating.
Number 3.NCAA the rule should be change that gives an on ice official the ability to decide a penalty that carries over to another game. This is coming as a former umpire who did some faily serious baseball. You can get to involved to make a decision that affects another game. Your job is that game and that game only untill you get to the next game and then that game is your only job. In this day and age ov TV and video, if a hit like McReynolds or Favots comes up. A ref should fill out a report and that report and a copy of the film should be reviewed by a league official and a deteremination should be made by the league not the on ice official.
Can someone also let me know which blind zebra called the penalty of Favot?
Tom- I sat next to Eugene Binda earlier this season at a game. He openly admitted to me that the quality of officiating in the AHA isn't where they would like it to be, that it lags behind other conferences in terms of quality and consistency, and it is very much an area they are well aware of and are working on improving, although he admitted it wasn't an area they were going to be able to improve overnight. He felt like they had come quite a ways over the past 2 seasons, but still had the rest of the mountain to climb. And I'm sure if you ask DeGreggorio, he'd tell you the same thing. I know he felt that way a year ago, and I don't think anything has gone on to change that opinion.
Regarding the call on Favot, I hate to say it because his suspension potentially hurts the program greatly and I know Andrew as a person and I know how much him not being able to play will hurt him, but it was the right call. He made a bad decision in the heat of a moment, in a game that was all but over. The player he hit was defenseless and in a compromised position, and had his back to him. There was no reason for him to deliver that hit. None. That hit was right in front of me, I watched the whole thing develop. And as soon as it happened I turned to my wife and said "that's 5 and a game, if he's lucky" and he wasn't.
If the roles had been reversed, the RIT faithful would have been screaming about what a cheap shot it was, how ugly the play was, and would still be complaining about it today. Now the shoe is on the other foot and we have to live with the consequences of it.
The reality of it all is that the AHA is what it is. It's better than when RIT first entered the league, but it will never be confused with HE, ECAC, WCHA, etc. To put it in baseball speak Tom, this is kind of like the difference between AAA and the bigs. Things are done in a minor league fashion in this league, and are done in a major league fashion in others.
While I understand your point about how an official should not have the ability to control a players ability to participate in future contests, and should only concern themselves with the present game, I disagree. Unfortunately, we play in a league where on most nights the only video available is the video shot by the 2 teams playing, sometimes from angles that could be considered poor at best, and as was seen when Canisius submitted a tape of the fight at RIT to the league that was highly edited, not always reliable. I'd be hard pressed to depend on video review. The ability to get an appeal or review of a play done between game 1 and game 2 of a series is probably beyond the capability of the league to do and to do right as well, so it has to fall with someone who witnesses the action, and who is present. The referee seems like the logical person to do this, unless you want to add a level of officiating where you have some sort of supervisor of officials in an off ice capacity present at each league game to handle supplemental discipline.
The bigger picture answer to his is that RIT will get its chance to move up the ladder in terms of conferences someday, probably not too far into the future, because when Penn St. comes into the scene there will more than likely be a reshuffle of the conferences of some sort and RIT has been mentioned as a prime candidate to be a part of the realignment. Then we can put the day behind us where we had to deal with some of the minor league aspects of the AHA. But for now we have to play the hand we are dealt, and that's life in the AHA.
