First-year varsity program Wayne State will apparently forfeit six wins and a tie due to its use of an ineligible player, freshman winger David Peca, the Detroit Free Press reported Monday.
Peca, the younger brother of Buffalo Sabres captain Michael Peca, enrolled at WSU and joined the nascent hockey team without notifying school officials that he played eight games with Belleville in the major-junior Ontario Hockey League.
Peca did not report his professional experience on his NCAA application, nor did he tell WSU head coach Bill Wilkinson. Under NCAA rules, major junior play requires that players sit out at least one season before regaining their eligibility.
“It was kind of dumb for me to not tell Wilkinson,” Peca, a 21-year-old native of Brampton, Ont., told the Free Press.
The Associated Press reported Monday that Wayne State learned of Peca’s OHL experience when one of college hockey’s league commissioners contacted Wilkinson to ask about it.
Peca, who has left school, apparently believed he might be able to appeal his period of ineligibility based on a conversation with NCAA officials, but did not actually file such an appeal.
