Running up the score

[CSteamer]

Lindenwood B beat North Texas B 22-0. Is that really necessary? C'mon.

[Jkahn09]

it puts them to sleep at night

[oldschool22]

Nope.. not necessary... nor is having a nation championship for the B division.

[quick_dry]

could goals for and against make a difference for standings? If so I have no problem, it might be necessary.

(I don't know the structure and rules of your finals series)

[hockeynuts]

Play hard the whole game from begining to end . Thats what I tell my team that I coach. Win or lose play your hardest. When the score is 22-0 one of the teams may be in the wrong division. I would never fault any team who shows up, plays hard ,and goes home. Just my opinion.

[NCSU17]

Play hard the whole game from begining to end . Thats what I tell my team that I coach. Win or lose play your hardest. When the score is 22-0 one of the teams may be in the wrong division. I would never fault any team who shows up, plays hard ,and goes home. Just my opinion.

I agree to some extent, play hard and control the puck. But to score 22 goals, you have to be trying to score every time you get the puck. Don't show the team up by just sitting behind your net, but don't skate around looking to pad your stats. There's a balance there.

[Snipes09]

Too bad those goals couldn't carry over to the Penn State game. Lindenwood could have used a few of them to make the score a little closer.

[teamcarramrod]

This is why you have a mercy rule. Does anybody understand this concept?

[BEEZERAL]

22-0 is to much, unless its a rivalry game. scoring 22 goals is just classless.

[socalhockey]

The NCRHA should evaluate the level of each team at the beginning of the season and put them in the correct divisions. If a D2 team is really strong then move them to D1 and if a B team is really strong put them in D2. It's that easy.

[thereal54]

I will agree with you...but it's far from easy. It's not easy to standardize talent across divisions and regions. In college it's also very hard to gauge what teams are "good" and "bad" from year to year since there's total turn over ever 3 to 4 years.

I think the league needs to push towards a D1, D2 focus and I think that's part of the long term direction (not that I speak for the league, just in my time around what I see happening). Here's what I'd like to see...

You have 1 team, you have to play D1, D2, or D3 (entry level) type of thing. You want to go to nationals? Put up or shut up in any of those, focus being on D1, little less focus on D2, almost no focus on D3. Push the entire country into those three brackets (if you will). Your a big program and have 3 teams (like Lindenwood, PSU a long time ago, Drexel, others) you have a D1, D2, D3 team. You can't have 2 teams in the same league (like B) and you can't have 2 teams unless you have a D1 team.

I know there are some schools that do things for various reasons but I think SLOWLY (very slowly) this is what the NCRHA and all the other CRHA's need to transition towards. I think you're already seeing this with total focus on D1, little less focus on D2, and little to no focus on JC / B divisions. This isn't a bad thing, the sport is trying to build up and promote the most talented, biggest teams that come out and claim to be.

As it stands currently, I'm very happy with the structure of the leagues. 5 years from now I think it will start to move towards what I said, guess time will tell.


As for bitching about running up the score... this is College, this isn't little league. Big boys and girls are accepting bids to play for a national championship, everyone there should play to the best of their ability. Nothing less.

------------
Bryan Ollendyke
PSU B Coach

[RichardGraham]

Hi Folks,

This post is directed at no one in particular, but I am concerned that some of these college threads might turn into flame wars.

Keep your cool as much as possible. The game is supposed to be fun, remember? ;)

Thanks for your consideration.

[Jkahn09]

As for bitching about running up the score... this is College, this isn't little league. Big boys and girls are accepting bids to play for a national championship, everyone there should play to the best of their ability. Nothing less.

------------
Bryan Ollendyke
PSU B Coach



a lot of class coming from a coach who's team beat up on teams 19-0, 15-0, and 9-0 three times.

[ianmackie]

The LU B team actually talked to the other team during the game because of the difference in talent from the teams. The LU organization has a ton of respect for John Berry and what he is building with the North Texas teams. At no point would they want to do anything that would hurt what John is building. John was the one that actually said to keep playing the game and his kids will be ok.

I know that I saw the score and winced as well, but in reality why do we not have a mercy in these situations?

Just passing on this info for you all.

[MBurke]

I know that I saw the score and winced as well, but in reality why do we not have a mercy in these situations?

Having played on both ends of these kind of games in college, I would rather lose 22-0 and get as much experience against quality competition as possible instead of the game ending after a period because my team couldn't keep up.

At nationals, those minutes of rink time are REALLY expensive when you factor in how much money it costs a team to travel out to the event - an especially bad team could get just over one game's worth of floor time if we played by traditional mercy rules used in most other roller tournaments.

If anything it's a boring affair for the better team, but most teams use it as an opportunity to give players who normally are left out when the bench is shortened a few more shifts.

... the other point I want to make (maybe a bit less harshly than others here have) is that sports are supposed to be teaching life lessons. While I don't think these type of games are especially fun for anyone and the scores make people cringe, I do think both teams can take something out of an especially lopsided game. Learning to keep your head high and try your hardest in the face of adversity can be a valuable asset in the "real world".

Throwing this out there as a possible alternative - how would people feel about leaving the decision to continue play to the losing team in a mercy situation?

[ianmackie]

Nice post Mike. I like that different view on it.

The scary thing about those lopsided games is when 1 team decides to even the score. It hasn't happened, but may.

[mustachemarty5]

Having played on both ends of these kind of games in college, I would rather lose 22-0 and get as much experience against quality competition as possible instead of the game ending after a period because my team couldn't keep up.

... the other point I want to make (maybe a bit less harshly than others here have) is that sports are supposed to be teaching life lessons. While I don't think these type of games are especially fun for anyone and the scores make people cringe, I do think both teams can take something out of an especially lopsided game. Learning to keep your head high and try your hardest in the face of adversity can be a valuable asset in the "real world".

Throwing this out there as a possible alternative - how would people feel about leaving the decision to continue play to the losing team in a mercy situation?

I agree with almost all of this. For one, losing by a lot to a good team, especially at nationals isn't the worst thing in the world. If your getting beat up like that all season, it sucks. But especially at Nationals, you get to play some special teams. A bad loss is never fun, but there really is so much you can learn from good teams like that. And these games do teach life lessons in patience and being a good loser (of course winning is better, but work with me). Hopefully, teams will continue to work hard despite the score and in the off season, i would only hope it would motivate a team to work harder to try and beat that team the next year instead of complaining about fairness.

As for the winning teams, if this is a consistent scenario, do yourself and the other teams a favor and move up to a higher division. I can tell you from experience, it is far more gratifying playing the highest competition in the country and trying to be the best at that level.

And I think the mercy rule is fine as is. Allowing teams to quit isn't good sportsmanship and doesn't look good for the teams and the league. If you don't like losing like that, you need to work harder. I've been on those teams and trust me, it builds character. My teams have never worked harder than after seasons like that. I'm convinced any team can get themselves to a highly competitive level if they want to work at it.

[terrorcoach]

Ian is correct. We were approached about the lopsided score in the first period. LU didn't want to embarrass my boys and didn't want them to try to retaliate with a cheap shot against one of their players. I told them that they should keep playing hard against us. It would do no one a favor for them to play keep away for 20 minutes. To a man everyone on my team agreed that they wanted Lindenwood to keep playing hard.

In my opinion the LU boys played the game with class and showed respect for my team throughout the game. They didn't showboat or try to show us up. They just played the game. And in fact my boys came out of the game with more respect for Lindenwood.

John Berry
University of North Texas

[kleinberg13]

Ian is correct. We were approached about the lopsided score in the first period. LU didn't want to embarrass my boys and didn't want them to try to retaliate with a cheap shot against one of their players. I told them that they should keep playing hard against us. It would do no one a favor for them to play keep away for 20 minutes. To a man everyone on my team agreed that they wanted Lindenwood to keep playing hard.

In my opinion the LU boys played the game with class and showed respect for my team throughout the game. They didn't showboat or try to show us up. They just played the game. And in fact my boys came out of the game with more respect for Lindenwood.

John Berry
University of North Texas

Ive come to realize that is simply LU's fans who are obnoxious. After we beat them in the semis they were the most humble group of guys when shaking hands.

[CSteamer]

I've also noticed that most of the players are pretty humble. Their fans are downright atrocious though.

[DannyG]

As noted above by one coach, it is very possible to play the game, win on the scoreboard by a large margin, and still maintain the respect of your soundly defeated opponent.

As a coach and player who has participated in six USAHIL National Championship games, I teach that one of your objectives as a player and a team is to be the team that wins handily, and your opponent is glad to have had the opportunity to have played you.

We all know there are dozens of things you do in the game to be that team.

[GoRangrHky]

We had the same situation against Lindenwood in the Sweet 16 in DI. The final score was 10-0.

Here's the box score: http://ncrha.org/game.php?game_id=87565

After the first period, we trailed 1-0. Half way through the game, it was 3-0. And at 4-0, we had a 4 on 2 that we just couldn't capitalize on. This was a bit lopsided, but not a blowout by any means.

But by the third period, we knew that we were on the short end. So we emptied the bench. Anyone who saw us this weekend knew that we had 16 players (max allowed) dressed for every game. Still had to scratch 4 for each one, but we were able to get these guys on the rink. Got our other goalie some time too. Now these guys were able to see where they stacked up against the guys who ended up winning the national championship. Yeah, they scored a bit on some of these guys, but that is something I know they'll remember, and believe me, regardless of the score, it was worth every second to everyone out there.

[oldschool22]

A Mercy rule needs to be in place. As with the league's inconsistent rules from region to region, some have it some don't. It just takes one angry punk to cheap shot some one on the team running up the score to make things ugly. A 10 goal mercy rule is plenty to declare a winner and is a lot more likely to prevent cheap shots or a brawl that could (and will someday) result from it.

[c1ockwerk]

This is a major topic in most sports. Sportsmanship is something of a creed in collegiate sports yet across all major sports we see scores being run up and these are sports that are shown on national tv.
College football sees scores of 63-0 when a top tier school like Florida plays a lower tier D1 school.
College basketball will have games of 100-50.
Even in college hockey's frozen four tournament you saw 7-1 and 8-1 scores.

So is 22-0 running up the score?

Granted roller hockey does not have the same coverage and draw as these other sports the top teams will draw the top players from around nation becuase of their consistent winning and high publicity.

[BEEZERAL]

Ian is correct. We were approached about the lopsided score in the first period. LU didn't want to embarrass my boys and didn't want them to try to retaliate with a cheap shot against one of their players. I told them that they should keep playing hard against us. It would do no one a favor for them to play keep away for 20 minutes. To a man everyone on my team agreed that they wanted Lindenwood to keep playing hard.

In my opinion the LU boys played the game with class and showed respect for my team throughout the game. They didn't showboat or try to show us up. They just played the game. And in fact my boys came out of the game with more respect for Lindenwood.

John Berry
University of North Texas

In a situation like this there are no issues. Both teams played with class but one team was clearly better than the other. It happens.

The problem is when you have a team of douchbags that love to run it up and shove it in the other teams face. Ive been on both sides of it. When the other team is running it up and celebrating like they are in the stanley cup finals, it is a disaster waiting to happen. They are egging on the other team to take a cheap shot. During the regular season it is pretty much necessary to run up the score when you can due to the process for selecting teams to nationals. There is no formula, no nothing. Just the opinions of a group of people, so winning by as much as possible becomes necessary. It is not an excuse for players to act like douchebags on the rink, but it happens, and thats where problems start

[William Bourque]

The players of the league can vote for rule changes...

...the teams in the ECRHA seem to be happy with the current mercy rule.

[quick_dry]

Congratulations to the coaches and players of teams that understand that being beaten soundly is not a personal insult to you (and to temas taht win and lose with class and dignity). If you play and coach enough hockey you'll eventually end up on either side of one of those scorelines.

oldschool: is the 'goon' element that big in college roller hockey? Why mercy rules in roller hockey and not ice hockey? (based upon not knowing any ice leagues that use mercy rules despite tending to attract more goon-type personalities). Is a mercy rule really required given the number of otehr leagues that successfully run without mercy rules? (be it inline hockey, ice hockey, basketball, softball, tiddlywinks, beer-pong, etc)

[hockeynuts]

Great post, I agree with everything.On the lighter side, I have played the version of beer pong where if you are shut out you have to do a n**ed lap. I dont know if that qualifies as a mercy rule, but it's a fan favorite.