Just when you think you’ve heard every hockey story, there’s a minor-league game that saw a goalie get taken out on a stretcher following a dirty hit ordered by a coach in defense of his own female goaltender.
A coach in the Southern Professional Hockey League (yes, that’s a thing) is accused of instructing his team to take out the opposing goalie during a game on Saturday night in a hit that caused the netminder to be carried out of the game on a stretcher.
Columbus Cottonmouths’ head coach Jerome Bechard supposedly ordered his team to take out Kyle Rank, the Peoria Rivermen goalie, in response to a first-period hit on their own goalie — Canadian Olympian Shannon Szabados, the only female playing men’s professional hockey. But it’s also been noticed that Rank is the two-time defending goalie of the year in the SPHL, leading some to suspect the attack was borne out of frustration.
Regardless of the cause, the Cottonmouths’ Craig Simchuk took a run at the crease of Rank early in the second period, knocking the goalie into the post and leaving him motionless as players began to fight.
Rank was carried out of the arena and taken to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a “significant concussion,” while Bechard was later tossed from the game for mocking the refs after they’d ejected a different Cottonmouths player for slashing.
Minor-league hockey: It’s just like Slap Shot!
(Via CBS Sports)
