Playing Rough

It is easy to read the stats sheet for the Harvard hockey team. It shows many goals for the Crimson, few for the opposition. It is an elementary formula for a winning team.

It is equally easy to decipher the penalty column. Because the usual Harvard penalty lasts two minutes, the total penalty minutes for a Harvard player is his number of penalties multiplied by two. One typical Harvard skater shows three penalties for six minutes, another eight for 16.

But it is much more difficult to read the penalty section on the Bowling Green stats sheet.

For here, there is no "multiple of two" correlation. Forty-three penalties for 105 minutes are shown for one Bowling Green player, and 53 penalties for 133 minutes for a second.

Bob Cornell, sports communications director of Colgate, explains it this way: "The Western style [of hockey] is a more physical, more professional style of hockey. Everyone's known that for years."

Not all of the 513 penalties whistled on the Falcons this year were for fighting, however. For example, in the two-game series played against Princeton last December, 20 of the 66 minutes called on Bowling Green were misconducts. "They were arguing with the referee," says Princeton SID Greg Garber.

But Bowling Green's odyssey of penalties this year was far from unique.

Armed with an NCAA rules commitee edict, the referees started calling tighter CCHA games. "Everything was being called. In the corners, behind the net, everwhere," said Ted Halm, SID of Ferris State. "We set a new team penalty record."

Bowling Green has committed 1219 minutes of penalties this year, a staggering number, but nonetheless six less than its opposition. But that's still way above Harvard's total of 438.

Even if you allow for the added length of the western schedules, Harvard remains relatively penalty free. Bowling Green players sit in the sin bin for 28.7 penalty minutes a game, while the Crimson serves a paltry 14.6 minutes per game.

But hold your "you--you--you--you" cheers and your expectations of five-on-three power plays. Bowling Green has committed nearly 20 misconducts this year, accounting for a good amount of the extra penalty time. The issuance of a 10-minute misconduct does not mean a power play, though.

But too many penalties by a team can be costly. With Michigan Tech down by a goal in the dying seconds of a CCHA playoff game some years ago, an opposing player butt-ended the Tech student manager, drawing a five-minute major. Tech scored on the power play to send the game into overtime, then won in overtime--on the same five-minute major.