A post entitled ‘Updated Standings’ with a note ‘Revised Standings’.
A check of the SMAAAHL rankings brought the reveal.
The Warriors had been docked four points from two early-season wins and dropped from second place to fifth in the league standings, all due to a clerical error that was out of their hands when it came to affiliated players.
To say the very least, Warriors head coach Trevor Weisgerber was not happy with the news.
“It’s a gong show. SHA is such a… it’s so frustrating,” Weisgerber said, choosing his words as carefully as possible.
“It’s too bad, for the year that we had and for them to do this on a clerical error that we had, it’s so frustrating. They always talk about wanting to develop players and things like that, so we’re bringing up APs to develop them and you’re going to punish us for a clerical error.”
The situation came out filing AP forms for Quinn Mantei and Matt Perkins back in October.
The format currently used sees teams filing through their respective minor hockey organizations for such changes as opposed to in the past when the teams themselves would send information in. Both were sent in at the same time; Mantei’s information went through without issue, but something went awry with Perkins’ filing.
And the Warriors knew nothing about it.
“On the league website it showed that Perkins and Mantei were both APed on October 10 and were good to go,” Weisgerber explained. “So we played them on the [30th] and played them again in November. And then we find out that Perkins was the only one whose paperwork didn’t go through and something happened in the process.
“It wasn’t common knowledge, so we fixed it and out of the blue with seven games remaining they get an anonymous e-mail saying that we had played with an illegal player. It’s unbelievable.”
The Warriors won both games Perkins played as an AP – 2-1 in a shootout over the Regina Pat Canadians on Oct. 30 and 2-1 over the Saskatoon Contacts on Nov. 17 – but the rookie forward had no points in either contest.
Initially, it appeared that the team would see Weisgerber suspended for a pair of games – a non-factor considering he is currently at home recovering from kidney transplant surgery – and possibly see a fine, and that would be that.
Then Feb. 17 came, and the note on the website.
“We tried to have an appeal with the SHA, and they won’t let us have an appeal, so we’re going to appeal to Hockey Canada and see what happens,” Weisgerber said.
“The league itself, we’re trying to go through them and it sounded like there was just going to be a suspension, then the SHA jumped in and said ‘no, we’re taking the four points away’. And not only did they take those points away, they gave them to the other teams.”
Making things all the more frustrating for the Warriors is that bringing up Perkins in the first place wasn’t a malicious act to get around rules.
“It’s not like Perkins played very many shifts or anything like that, he didn’t have any points or anything,” Weisgerber said. “And it’s not like we needed to bring him up, we could have played with 11 forwards, but they’re going to punish us for that. It’s just mindboggling how they do things.”
The positive thing is the SMAAAHL standings are close enough that with a pair of wins in their final two games and a bit of help, the Warriors could still land in second place when all is said and done.
“If we win both games this weekend, even with those points gone we’ll have home ice against Notre Dame,” Weisgerber said. “We just have to take care of business… and not let a clerical error end up hurting our season.”
