THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 26, 1996 TAG: 9603260438
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
The Hampton Roads Admirals will pay dearly for their violent indiscretion Saturday night against the Richmond Renegades.
ECHL commissioner Pat Kelly ruled Monday that the Admirals must open the playoffs Wednesday against the Renegades without their head coach and three key players.
Coach John Brophy was suspended for the first two games of the best-of-five series. Brophy's crime, according to Kelly, was losing control of his team during a raucous third period in which referee Terry Koharski handed out 244 minutes in penalties.
Center Mike Barrie, who left the penalty box 22 seconds early to engage in a couple of brief fights in the third period of the 5-2 loss, was suspended for five games.
Forward Aaron Downey, whose cross-check against Richmond's Trevor Senn 1:46 into the third period ignited the fighting, was suspended for three games.
And forward David St. Pierre was suspended for one game for kicking Richmond's Mike Taylor, also in the third period.
``This puts us in a terrible hole for the playoffs,'' Admirals president Blake Cullen said.
No Renegades were suspended for Saturday's incidents. Richmond's Brian Goudie received an eight-game suspension from Kelly on Monday for hitting linesman John Shiery with the puck with one second to play in the Admirals' 5-3 victory at Richmond on Friday night.
None of the suspended Admirals can be replaced on the roster, meaning Hampton Roads will have just 12 skaters and two goalies for the opener at the Richmond Coliseum. Assistant coach Al MacIsaac will take over behind the bench during Brophy's two-game absence.
The bitter feelings between the clubs, which resurfaced recently when the Renegades sent a tape of Admirals ``cheap shots'' to the league office, resulting in a one-game suspension for Steve Richards, may only intensify once the Admirals hear the details of one of Kelly's rulings.
Sources in Richmond say that after viewing film of the episodes, Kelly was not going to suspend St. Pierre, the Admirals' second-leading scorer. But Renegades officials wouldn't let the matter die, finally persuading him that St. Pierre deserved punishment.
Kelly's rulings came at the same time ECHL teams had to submit their 20-man playoff rosters. As expected, the Admirals included forward Victor Gervais on their final list, though Cullen classified Gervais' chances of joining Hampton Roads as ``not very good.'' Gervais was the only Admiral not currently playing in Hampton Roads to be included.
Gervais, the team's third all-time leading scorer and all-time assist leader, plays for Cleveland of the International Hockey League. He is not on Cleveland's playoff roster, but the IHL postseason doesn't begin for two weeks.
None of the suspensions came as a great surprise to the Admirals, though they hoped Brophy wouldn't be held accountable for something Barrie did on the other side of the ice.
``If someone comes off the bench, it's pretty much open and shut,'' Brophy said of his penalty. ``I can't possibly control what happens with someone in the penalty box, but the (league) can still do it to you. It's not like I waved him out or something.
``Nobody in their right mind would come (out of the penalty box). Nobody orders a guy out of the box anymore. Nobody. Not even me.''
Brophy argued that St. Pierre should not have been suspended. What the Renegades - and, ultimately, Kelly - classified as a kick, he saw as an attempt to trip.
``(Mike) Taylor is a mouthy guy, always spitting at our bench and yapping and shooting his mouth off all the time,'' Brophy said. ``He's a little guy, and when somebody confronts him, that's his alibi - he's a little guy. Saint (St. Pierre) says he's going to straighten the guy out a little bit, you know, then (Taylor) runs away from him and Saint tries to take his legs out from under him. That's it.''
But Brophy also admitted that after his team allowed four second-period goals to fall behind 5-1, the Admirals returned for the third period focused on something other than hockey.
``We were stupid, there's no other word for it, stupid,'' Brophy said. ``I can't say the game didn't mean anything. It did mean something. But we had that (bad) second period. We should have come out and tried to have a good third period and taken that into the playoffs. We didn't.
``A lot of things went on that shouldn't have gone on. And we were stupid. No question about that. That's my fault. When you lose control of the team, it's the coach's fault.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Aaron Downey
John Brophy
David St. Pierre
B\W Photo
Victor Gervais is on the Admirals' playoff roster even though he's
still with Cleveland of the IHL.
by CNB