By Joe Bertagna/Special to USCHO
Joe Bertagna has spent the better part of the last half century in hockey as a player, coach, college administrator and commissioner. The final role in that list – that as commissioner – was a position he held for a significant period of time and one he recalls in his new book, “Late in the Third.” You can order the book through the website www.lateinthethird.com.
The following is an extended excerpt from the book:
Of all the discipline-related situations I had to address, two stand out among all others. They were serious and more challenging than the rest.
When the 2002-03 Hockey East regular season came to an end, Boston College was tied for first with New Hampshire but, having failed to beat the Wildcats during the year, lost the tie-breaker and so the Eagles were the #2 seed for the tournament.
That meant BC would be hosting seventh-seeded Merrimack. The Eagles took two out of three from Merrimack during the year, and when all the games were played out, Boston College would be winners of twice as many games as Merrimack (24 for BC, 12 for MC).
Weeks earlier, the two teams had played a regular-season game in which one of Merrimack’s best players, Marco Rosa, had been injured. Rosa took a hard hit from Boston College defenseman Andrew Alberts that knocked him out. As he fell to the ice, he broke his wrist and was lost for the season.
At 6´ 5´´, Alberts was a solid, physical defenseman who would go on to play in the NHL. While some on the Merrimack side thought it was a dirty hit, those on the BC side pointed out that it is difficult for someone with Alberts’ height to completely avoid head contact when lining up a shorter player for a clean hit. Alberts was not a dirty player.
Regardless of your position on that play, it certainly provided a tense background for the quarterfinal match-up between the two programs. Also factoring into the equation was the David and Goliath feel to MC vs. BC. Merrimack, a small (then) NCAA Division II school in suburban North Andover, MA, often felt disrespected and was now going up against the biggest and arguably most successful school in the conference.
Well aware of this background, I assigned myself to the MC-BC series as site director because I was afraid something might happen. For most of the opening game, my fears were unfounded as the game was without incident, BC leading 2-0 with just over six minutes remaining in the third period.
Then, as BC killed off the end of a penalty, there was a loose puck flipped toward the Merrimack end. Warriors goalie Joe Exter decided to race out to beat BC forward Patrick Eaves to the puck, Eaves coming with pretty good speed. They arrived at the puck at the same time, Exter going low, Eaves seemingly trying to vault over Exter.
When I saw the play live, my first reaction was that Exter was the aggressor and that he took Eaves out by going low. What happened is that as they collided, Exter’s helmet was knocked off and as he went down, his head hit the ice hard. He started convulsing and the sight of his distress set off a reaction on the already fragile Merrimack squad.
Merrimack players swarmed on Eaves and fights broke out all over the ice. Eaves, among others, had to defend himself and engaged in the
fisticuffs while referee Jeff Bunyon and his crew tried to control the situation. It was everything I had feared when I put myself on that game.
Exter was taken off the ice in a stretcher, was put in an induced coma for over a week, but made a full recovery. As I write, he is an assistant coach at Michigan State and just completed his term on the Board of Governors of the American Hockey Coaches Association. Eaves went on to a long NHL career after BC.
Eaves was heavily penalized that night but not, as was commonly reported, because Hockey East took action against him. Under NCAA rules, a game disqualification means you sit the next game. On your second DQ, you miss two games. On your third, three games and so forth. He had received a DQ for spearing in the fall and was given two for what happened in that Merrimack game. The first was for the collision with Exter and the second for the ensuing fight. Since these were DQ’s #2 and #3, he received, by the NCAA rule book, five games.
The following memories remain vivid all these years later:
• As conference commissioner, I worked for both BC and MC and had to be sensitive to what was happening on both campuses. The two teams had to return for Game #2 the next night, so I made sure to visit each school early on Saturday to speak to both teams about the importance of keeping their emotions in check.
• Game #2 was uneventful, thankfully. BC won 2-1, the game staying close long enough to keep both teams focused on playing hockey.
• Then there was the week between quarterfinals and the championships at the Garden. Boston College was concerned about the effect on Patrick Eaves and how he would be perceived if Exter did not recover from his ordeal. At that time, the NCAA rule book still used the term “intent to injure” and if Eaves was saddled with that term and Exter died, how would he be perceived? BC began an effort to vindicate, or at least protect, Eaves.
• Having lost Marco Rosa earlier and now seeing their goalie go down, emotions were particularly raw at Merrimack and they bristled at any talk of diluting the penalty to Eaves. They suggested that any attempt to make Eaves a priority while their goalie lay in a coma would be an insult to the Merrimack community and another example of BC having its way.
• When the tournament banquet took place the following Thursday night at the Royal Sonesta hotel, I noticed that Eddie Swift was there, sitting at the BC table. Swift, a former Princeton goalie of my vintage, was writing for Sports Illustrated at the time. The magazine assigned Swift to this story and the piece he would author was titled, “Two Victims.” It was welcomed at BC, a national story that portrayed Eaves as a victim alongside the injured Exter.
• As the article explained, Boston College and the Eaves family took issue with the calls made on the ice. Specifically, they wanted the officials and the conference to acknowledge that a mistake was made in the initial major called on Patrick Eaves. Suggesting as much, Swift wrote, “The referee, Jeff Bunyon, was 100 feet and two zones away, but he raised his arm to signal a penalty.”
• With this as background, I can recall how my work week went following the incident. First, I consulted with lawyers to understand any liability the conference could face. Next, I summoned the on-ice officials to my office. I wanted to understand their thought process in making the calls they did. A referee often has choices as to what can be called in a given situation. There is a matter of matching the right call to the offense committed. But there is also, in the midst of injury and multiple altercations, the matter of game management. There can be legitimate debate over the first major, which was initially called roughing and then changed, before the sheet was signed, to charging. Complicating the situation was the presence of a replacement scorekeeper at ice level that led to the game sheet having errors. This was unintentional but an element of sloppiness. I never considered criticizing the officials. They made a judgment call under duress. I was interested, however, in taking some burden off of Patrick Eaves. I asked if the second DQ, for fighting, could have been a roughing. They responded that Eaves and his opponent were trading punches and that refs had always been advised to call “fighting” when it was that obvious. Then I asked all three officials if they thought Eaves had intended to injure Exter. When all three said, “No,” I decided to issue a press release on our findings, emphasizing up front that we found no reason to believe that Patrick Eaves meant to injure Joe Exter.
• When both Boston College and Merrimack expressed displeasure with my statement, I figured we had gotten it right. BC didn’t think it went far enough. Merrimack didn’t understand why we would be so moved to give BC and Eaves this attention.
