Saturday, May 23, 2009

Grossman Gets Major Penalty:


This is on the Grande Priaire web site:

Grossman Gets Major Penalty:
Hockey Alberta has handed down a suspension that will prevent former Storm forward Elias Grossmann from playing in a sanctioned hockey league in Canada or the United States until December 1, 2010.

Grossman made national sports headlines in April for his interaction with linesman Brandon Liefke during Game 2 of the Doyle Cup against the BCHL’s Vernon Vipers.

Late in the game Grossmann became involved with Vipers forward Bryce Kakoske along the boards following a faceoff. Grossman jostled with Liefke and was accused of spitting in the linesman’s face in the ensuing scrum before being led off the ice.

“In his case he had two congruent infractions in the same incident that carried two different suspensions,” said Brad Robbins, senior manager with Hockey Alberta. “We had the match penalty on the official plus the spitting. That carries two specific suspensions to it.”

Grossmann apologized to the officials immediately after the game and said he didn’t intentionally spit at the linesman, but rather was trying to spit his mouthguard out so he could speak to the linesman.

While the Storm Hockey Club accepts the fact there should be some repercussion for Grossmann’s physical handling of the linesman they question why one of the Vipers players Grossmann had become involved in was allowed to chase him around the ice and continue to taunt him without being restrained or warned to back off.

“Elias was physical with the linesman and that’s something players should never do and Elias has to pay for that,” said Storm business manager Don Moon. “But a lot of what happened could have been avoided had the Vipers player not been allowed to continue to taunt Elias.”

Grossmann said he never intentionally spit at the linesman.

“Anyone who knows Elias would know he wouldn’t do that, but I guess they didn’t believe him when he spoke to them at his hearing. Elias told the team he didn’t intentionally spit at Liefke and we believe him.”

Grossmann is in Australia and intends on playing hockey there this season. His plans to move to Australia were set before the Vernon incident.

Here is the video wich was posted on youtube,

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