Postgame fight carries severe penalties for St. Mary’s

LYNN – The St. Mary’s High boys hockey season just got a little shorter.The team must forfeit its next game and is ineligible for the MIAA tournament after five players received game misconducts as a result of a postgame fight with Arlington Catholic Wednesday night at Connery Rink.The fracas broke out during the postgame handshake when all 44 players were on the ice. Five players from each team were assessed game misconduct penalties. Arlington Catholic won the game, 3-1.”The officials did everything they could to break it up,” said St. Mary’s athletic director Jeff Newhall in a statement released by the school. “From our point of view, all of our players share equal blame for our role in the incident.”Under MIAA rule 72.12, any team whose players receive a total of three game misconduct penalties over the course of the season is ineligible for the MIAA tournament. Rule 72.14 states that any team getting more than four game misconduct penalties collectively must forfeit one game.According to Newhall, St. Mary’s will forfeit Saturday’s scheduled game at Gloucester, which will bring the Spartans’ record to 7-5. The five players who received game misconducts will serve two-game suspensions after that. AC faces the same repercussions as far as the state tournament, the forfeit and the individual suspensions.The Spartans have 10 games remaining (including the forfeit) on their 22-game schedule.”It was an unfortunate situation that happened,” coach Mark Lee said. “It was an extremely intense Division 1 high school hockey game. The game itself was a great game. As a fan, as a player, it was a highly emotional game and at the end, emotions continued to be high and an unfortunate situation occurred.”Lee said up until this game his team hadn’t had any major penalties or misconducts.”We had a spotless record. Any penalties we had were all minor infractions,” he said.”We understand hockey is a contact sport in which emotions run high, but we expect our players to do a much better job controlling those emotions,” Newhall said. “We support the rules of the MIAA and accept the penalties for breaking them.”St. Mary’s head of school Dr. Raymond A. Bastarache echoed those thoughts in the school’s statement.”Regardless of the circumstances, this type of conduct by anyone representing St. Mary’s is unacceptable,” Bastarache said. “We have worked hard to build a reputation as a school with outstanding academics, outstanding athletics and, most importantly, outstanding people, and we have no interest in seeing that reputation damaged.”St. Mary’s has the option of appealing the tournament disqualification to the MIAA. Bastarache said the school would consider that option if the remainder of the season is played without incident.”I will consult with our principal (Carl DiMaiti), athletic director and head coach (Lee) and we will make that decision at a later time. Our first priority is ensuring our student-athletes learn and grow from this experience,” Bastarache said.Barring a successful appeal, if the school goes that route, the Spartans now find themselves playing the rest of the season without a trip to the tournament for motivation.”They’ll be playing for each other. For every one that sits in the locker room,” Lee said.”This really is one of the best groups of kids (I’ve coached),” Lee said. “They got caught up in the emotion of the moment. I’m not justifying it. It just happened. We’ll learn and grow as a team from this experience.”