this from 'BEHIND THE NET
02
Sep
If you’re gonna be dumb you gotta be tough…
This weekend marks the start of the 2013/14 Elite League season following a pre season that saw teams a mix of international travel take place from Nottingham and Sheffield travelling abroad to a number of teams welcoming teams here.
One of these teams in question was EIK Esbjerg who were invited over to play in a mini tournament between the Cardiff Devils and the Coventry Blaze. The team stayed in Cardiff’s WMC (Welsh Millennium Centre) and spent a day or two having a look around the city to see what was on offer, but come game time all pleasantries were left at the door as the two teams embarked in a physical encounter that caught everyone by surprise.
The Danish side are a young team, not known for fighting and with an allowance of only seven imports they don’t have space to consider carrying an enforcer. The Devils however are a side this year stacked with guys who are more than willing to drop them if they are called upon.
On the Friday night the Devils head coach Gerad Adams assured the Esbjerg side that despite the guys he had signed the game the following evening would not become fight night in the bay, Adams however had not banked on an Esbjerg player taking a run and subsequently injuring his number one net minder. This gesture by Esbjerg combined with the rough and tumble style of this seasons Devils team meant that no soon had Dan LaCosta hit the ice his team mates were throwing punches. From this moment onwards the niggles would continue until the point where Devils 88 Andrew Conboy head butted an Esbjerg player to the ice.
Conboy was ejected from the game and given a match penalty by the referee Tom Darnell. The Elite League has since stepped in and announced that this has been upped to a five game suspension which is automatically carried with that penalty and this will be reviewed this week. What Conboy did was stupid and he will probably be the first person to tell you this and no one is disagreeing that he shouldn’t be punished for what he did. He is after all accountable for his actions. The problem I find in this however is that this was not an Elite League game, this was organised by the two teams and the Devils even posted the rules of the tournament up on the official website so people could clarify any changes. The only notable change being that line icing was played as opposed to touch icing that is used in the EIHL.
Does that mean that Elite League discipline can step in if it isn’t one of the games that they organised? If we look at it from the perspective that it was an Esbjerg player that head butted a Cardiff player, would the Elite League then contact the Danish league and make sure that the player in question was banned there, the answer is of course no. As it stands the Devils currently have a number one goalie showing concussion symptoms and listed as day to day and the Esbjerg player didn’t even receive a call on the ice let alone it escalating any further.
My personal opinion is this should come down to fair play and treating the team as equals. This is not a game that was under the EIHL banner, the EIHL would not be able to treat the opposition the same, the Devils have clearly got injury issues resulted from other incidents that occurred that evening that were not called on the ice which resulted in players stepping into protect each other. Does Conboy deserve five games? Yes of course he does, what he did was stupid and an illegal play for a reason. If this was a league game then this article would never have been written but the issue here is it was not a league game, so can the same rules apply?
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By admin in EIHL 1 Comment »
Interesting taken things eh?
