[dlavery]

Wow, you guys have done it! And it took you less than four hours! By figuring out a loophole in the rules, you have found a way to violate the obvious intent of the rules, break the spirit of the game, and potentially bring all the collusion arguments from last year back into the fray.

(haven't figured it out yet? Think about this: "ohh, we can give our downtroden opponents 50 points by intentionally goaltending 10 times, and raise their score" "hey, they can do the same for us" "so wouldn't that raise BOTH our scores?" ... the rest of the discussion is obvious)

The goaltending PENALTY is called a PENALTY for a reason! Rule G-20 is pretty clear - goaltending is a bad thing. The intent of the rule is unmistakable.

PLEASE remember what was said during the kick-off. A very significant effort went into creating a minimal set of rules this year, and get away from the encyclopedic tome full of exceptions, fine print, and legalese that they had become. This was done to make the rules easier to understand, simpler, and better for everyone. But along with that comes some additional responsibility on your part. That responsibility requires that you make a resonable effort to understand the intent of the rules, and abide by that intent.

Yes, you can probably find and exploit this and other loopholes in the rules. But when you do, your entire team better be involved in the discussion about it. Everyone must be comfortable with the example that they are setting, and the standards of behavior that they have chosen. Because EVERYONE on the team will likely be labelled with certain derogatory terms by all the other teams that chose to abide by the rules.

Lawyers find loopholes. Engineers find solutions. For which would you rather be known?

-dave