Comments on: Championship Hockey Game Goes 109 Minutes, Eight Overtimes, Ends in Tie

By: Gene

Gene — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:42:06 +0000

They made the right decision. Reader Denny mentioned the conditions. these are high schol kids, not pros. If a major injury (or worse) had resulted from the ninth or tenth overtime, then you would have seen seven or eight figure lawsuits against everyone involved. It would have been gross negligence for sure.

I’m surprised they went eight overtimes. Even though I dislike the concept, they could have gone to a shootout like NHL players or soccer players do.

I think both teams should be happy with the designation of co-champion. They left everything they had out there and neither side would give in.

By: SpinMax

SpinMax — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:15:59 +0000

Those kids wouldn’t be running out of gas if they were allowed to use roids. Think about the children!

By: Denny

Denny — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:49:18 +0000

I’ve got to say the right call was made – there were reports that trainers were ready to keep some of the kids out of 9th OT due to severe dehydration (the told the coaches that some kids had stopped sweating).

If you saw the smiles and relief of everyone involved, you’d feel confident the right decision was made (from the student’s standpoint) – the play was real ugly over the last 3 OT’s – breakaways and 2 on 1’s were ending with 40 foot soft wristers or – worse yet – kids not able to keep the puck on their sticks after skating toward the crease. The kids were gassed.

Normal game is 45 minutes – they played 109 and the wosr almost came in last overtime when both goalies had near own goals …. a team would dump and run for a line change and BOTH goalies nearly misplayed pucks off the boards into their own nets.

The coaches were the ones who met w/ tournament officials and had a big say in the decision. It was the health of the players that made the decision very easy.

Keep in mind, high school hockey has no media time outs so there’’s very little room to rest other than the 10 minute intermissions to resurface the ice!