Update: Another major penalty and game disqualification were added after the box score was posted. The latest totals are indicated below.
The Ohio State and Bemidji State women’s teams had combined for a innocuous 16 penalty minutes by the time the horn sounded to end their WCHA game Friday night.
What happened after the clock ran out is what put the game into the record books and left both teams depleted for Saturday’s rematch.
A postgame brawl led to 19 fighting majors and accompanying game disqualifications — nine to Bemidji State and 10 to Ohio State. Another major and game DQ was issued for grabbing the face mask, and one minor for instigating was added for good measure.
Add it up and you have 302 penalty minutes dished out at the 20-minute mark of the third period of the Beavers’ 3-2 victory.
Here’s the video:
[youtube_sc url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ZSIgJkQ-o]
The 318 penalty minutes for the game shattered the NCAA record for penalty minutes in a college hockey game, men or women, Division I or Division III.
The all-levels, both-genders record had been 268 penalty minutes racked up by Boston University and Maine on Jan. 24, 2004.
The record for a Division I women’s game was published in the NCAA record book as 83, listed as set by Minnesota and Minnesota-Duluth on Dec. 14, 2003. But those teams didn’t play on that date.
The Division III men’s record is 266, by Bemidji State and Wisconsin-Stevens Point on Nov. 6, 1993. The record in Division III women’s hockey is 58 penalty minutes between Plattsburgh and Cortland on Jan. 15, 2005.
A game disqualification carries an automatic one-game suspension, and that left the Buckeyes and the Beavers with short benches for Saturday’s rematch.
How short? Both teams dressed six forwards and four defensemen in a game that went to overtime and a shootout. Bemidji State won the shootout 1-0 after a 2-2 tie.
Buckeyes coach Nate Handrahan addressed the brawl at the 1:49 mark of this video of his postgame news conference on Friday:
[youtube_sc url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw7HGHQdsag]
“I don’t really know what happened, to be quite honest,” Handrahan said. “All I know is there were players taking liberties with our players. There was some chippiness throughout the course of the game.
“I’ve got to believe that our players, and as a staff, as a program, we’re not happy with teams celebrating on our ice surface and going off the ice yipping and hooting and hollering. What happened at the end of the game doesn’t happen often in women’s hockey.
“But I can tell you this: We’re happy to at least see our girls show some fight and some spirit. Outside of that, I think hockey in general is trying to get that stuff out of the game. We have our own issues to deal with.”
Check out the penalty roundup from Friday’s game here, and see the bare-bones lineups for Saturday’s game here.
