Ice Hockey: DOPS and the repeat offenders
A new ice hockey season has barely started and already we have players on the radar of the sport’s disciplinary body.
And, as sure as overtime follows a tied game, fans are picking apart the deliberations and struggling to detect much in the way of consistency.
DOPS - the Department of Player Safety - has worked on many levels, but it can mix opinion into its very welcome forensic analysis of a player’s actions. The blend can come across as clunky.
This week it labelled two players as repeat offenders. In other words, they are on DOPS radar and any further misdemeanours should - in theory - attract potentially significant punitive action.
Former Fife Flyers import, Brett Bulmer, started his Nottingham Panthers career serving the last of a three-game ban from the kneeing penalty which ruled him out of last season’s play-offs.
He then kitted up and did the exact same thing again, resulting in a two -game suspension.
That broke down a one for the kneeing incident and one for being a repeat offender.
Significantly DOPS described him as “a high risk player” and issued a clear warning that he “ must eliminate the use of his knee as a means of checking.”
He is now on their watch. It could be a very long season if the player - a hugely talented skater who could be one of the EIHL's stars - doesn’t heed their advice.
Another on DOPS' radar is Eglis Kahns of Dundee Stars whose check to the head left Glasgow Clan defenceman Craig Moore prone on the ice.
It was a bad hit. Kahns has no excuse.
The fact DOPS found a second similar incident noteworthy from the same game prompted another shot across the bows.
The organisation noted “a trend in his behaviour” and bluntly told the player he “is going to have to change his style of game by simply having a regard for the puck and avoiding illegal or excessive means of checking.”
DOPS also noted: “It is felt Egils Kalns is making checks, more in an effort to separate the puck carrier from the game.”
Maybe that sort of comment - one that can be viewed as subjective - is one it should share with the
player and coach rather than as part of a formal sanction.
The third case this week was slightly out of left-field - a player banned for throwing the goal pegs into the crowd. Only in ice hockey ...
Michael Davies of the Sheffield Steelers seemed to lose the plot at the end of the derby against Nottingham when he lifted the nets off their pegs before the post-match presentations.
He tapped one with his stick, aiming it along the ice and then threw the other one into the crowd as he headed down the tunnel.
It wasn’t done in anger - it was an under-arm throw - but it was a dumb moment for which the player, presumably red faced with embarrassment, duly apologised, calling it “a misguided action.”
DOPS suspended Davies for two games, but interestingly, also considered him a repeat offender for the next 24 months.
Two years. Really?
Dumb actions need to be punished, but surely players who go knee on knee and check to the head are of much greater danger to others and ought to be given that sort of clear warning as well?
Comments
Post a Comment