Last weekend, some members of the Penn State Icers found themselves heading to the showers a bit earlier than their teammates.
On Friday it was Eric Steinour.
On Saturday, Dan Loucks and George Saad left early .
The one common thread that ties all of their early exits together is they were all for five minute fighting majors and a game misconduct.
They were the first fighting majors for the Icers this season, and they did not sit well with coach Scott Balboni.
"Obviously we don't tolerate that kind of behavior here," Balboni said after the weekend set, "I can credit our guys for coming to a player's defense, but we don't put up with fighting."
Balboni wasn't any happier later in the week.
While the ACHA mandates an automatic one-game suspension for any game misconduct, meaning Loucks and Saad will miss Friday's game against West Chester, Balboni instituted his own personal discipline upon the trio but wouldn't elaborate on what that entailed.
Even though some of the Icers lost their cool this weekend, they know fighting isn't what Penn State hockey is all about.
"We can't have that," forward Paul Daley said. "Obviously it's against the rules of college [hockey], and they don't want it in the game at all, but there are times in hockey where it just happens. Tempers get the best of them, someone makes a cheap move. We don't encourage it but it does happen."
Those tempers weren't cooled any bit with their opponent this past weekend.
The Icers took on Ohio, which as been a fierce rival of Penn State's for decades, and the matchups between the two have always been physical battles.
Those battles are what the Icers believe led to the fights and suspensions.
"If you can't score, you're getting frustrated, you're not having a good night you might be frustrated, especially if you take a cheap shot," Tim O'Brien said.
Rivalry or no rivalry, these misconducts forced the Icers to switch things up on the go and affected Penn State's in-game strategy. On Tuesday, Balboni talked to the team and stressed that the Icers can't be doing this regularly. With each progressive fighting major and misconduct, the suspension is lengthened a game.
He voiced his displeasure about having to make adjustments.
"It was frustrating because it was guys, that coming down the stretch in a close game, have been playing a lot for us," Balboni said. "We adjust our power plays and penalty kill and had people out there that maybe hadn't had a lot of experience out there so it was very frustrating."
