WCHA league officials are apparently reviewing Friday’s game between the Gophers and Minnesota State Mankato, determining whether any additional punishment is warranted.

Gophers coach Don Lucia, speaking on his half-hour WCCO-radio show in the evening, said he talked with someone from the WCHA earlier in the day about the weekend games which the Mavericks swept 6-2 and 3-1.

He said he told the conference official — my guess is it was Greg Shepherd, the supervisor of officials – that the WCHA is not doing enough to protect its players.  

“It was an ugly game [Friday] as we all saw with some of the physical stuff that went on,” Lucia said.

Two players received game disqualifications, a third a game misconduct. There were four major penalties.

One of majors — and the game misconduct — was on sophomore defenseman Channing Boe of MSU for checking from behind on the Gophers’ Jay Barriball in the eighth minute of the third period.

Seconds later the Gophers’ enforcer, Brian Schack, was jumping on Boe’s back and wrestling him to the ice. A scrum ensued, Boe’s helmet came off, and Schack kept slugging Boe, who was on all fours, pretty much defenseless on the ice, until the officials finally got Schack off.

Somehow during the scrum, one of Boe’s ankles was broken. He is out for the rest of the season.

“That’s not the way we like to play,” Lucia said, “but in some of our kids’ defense, Brian Schack included — and I’ve said it, at some point, we got to protect our own players, too. Brian did that and that’s to his credit.

“Now I am going to sit down with Brian about what happened on Friday night because I did think he did cross the line a little bit on Friday night. I am going to talk to him about that and show him the video of the play because you don’t want to be in a situation where somebody is vulnerable and they can get hurt.

“There were some vicious hits. The elbowing, the five minute majors, the disqualifications, the checks from behind. It shouldn’t be part of the game. Especially — you don’t see it very often where the  team that is winning like that is initiating some of the things that went on.”

Lucia’s son, Tony, a junior forward, suffered a concussion at the end of the second period.

Doug Spencer, the WCHA’s associate commissioner for public relations, said the league usually spends Mondays reviewing any controversial incidents that happen over the weekend and typically announces added punishment, if any, on Tuesdays.

Asked whether Boe’s season-ending injury makes it more likely Schack will receive an additonal penalty, Spencer implied no. “From what I heard,” Spencer said, “there was a big pileup. Somebody’s knee [or ankle in Boe’s case] can get bent in those.”

I expect Schack to get an added penalty from this incident. He started a fight,  tried to beat a player who couldn’t defend himself and who wasn’t wearing a helmet.

I know there is code in hockey: Defend your teammates. But the Schack-Boe fight wasn’t a fair fight. Boe had no chance.

I am not as sure whether Trevor Bruess of the Mavericks will get punished. He also missed Saturday’s game because of a game disqualification. He threw the elbow which injured Tony Lucia. At the time, the referees only gave Bruess a game misconduct. It was changed to a game disqualification by the officials after the game. Mavericks coach Troy Jutting, when notified of the change, was not too happy. 

 What do you think the WCHA will do in this situation? Several hockey blog sites are going crazy, comparing Schack to Todd Bertuzzi, who in 2004 assaulted  Steve Moore in an NHL game, calling Schack every name possible.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 8:42 pm and is filed under Gophers men's hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.