Chutzpah / Hits-puh.

 

The coach of New Richmond's hockey team -- Mal's sister's son -- always has an excuse when his team loses... It's never that his team was outplayed, outhustled, or his opponent brought a smarter, more efficient game.

If he were an attorney, he's be known more for 'procedural' wins -- rather than winning on the merits.

For a long time the biggest fish in a little pond that is the Middle Border conference, the Tigers have some true competition of late with the addition of an Eau Claire-Chippewa Falls co-op team representing Regis-McDonnell private schools.

They beat the Tigers last week 5-4, but I see reading the hometown news coverage that after the crucial loss, Coach Swanda had complaints:

Tiger coach Adam Swanda was seething after the game, after his goalie was knocked out of the game after being hit at the same time by two Saints players. The Tigers were leading 2-0 at the time, but the injury to goalie Adam Dilley completly (sic) changed the game. Dilley tried to continue playing, but gave up goals on three of the next four Regis shots before pulling himself out of the game.

“I won’t ever forget it,” Swanda said about Regis’ tactics in the game. “They played really chippy and really hard. It’s not the way the game is being played any longer.” With the emphasis on preventing head contact in hockey this season, coaches around the area have worked to prevent concussions through head contact. Swanda said the Dilley injury was the final straw.

“In my opinion, that was the third contact to the head of our players in the first period,” Swanda said. “I’m not going to play that way to try to win a conference title. The bottom line is you don’t run (into) a goaltender in late January or February. It’s literally a blatant attempt to injure a player.”

Hmm...
odd to me that if he had such concern about his player's head, coming on such an allegedly cheap trick, he didn't bother to pull the goalie immediately. That's what they teach at the prep level now: put the players' health before the need to earn a win in a high-school level, non-professional game. (emphasis on the last word.)

More likely in my humble opinion?
In a hard-fought game, with offensive players rushing the net at high speed, you have collisions sometimes with goaltenders on both sides of the ice, plenty that put the net off-post. If it was such a cheap shot to mention in print after the loss, surely the refs would have tossed both players?

Also, if this allegedly was such a risky maneuver, why would it be acceptable earlier in the season -- as his words seem to indicate -- when there was less direct impact on the final conference standings? Hmmmm.

No matter: the young man was well enough to start in goal up here against Rice Lake this week, but I wonder if others reading critically, with a basic understanding of the high-school game, had the same reaction as me...

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* Photo credit above: New Richmond News.
New Richmond uses a hip check to upend a Somerset player, after the New Richmond player lost his stick and went into full 'hit' mode, prior to the Regis game last week.