From The Archives: AHL's Big Dog Has Bite

In our latest dive through the THN Archives, AHL's President and CEO David Andrews prepares his league for the potential rigors of the NHL by imposing strict sanctions on infractions, handing out a whopping number of suspensions to would-be offenders.

By: Ken Campbell

David Andrews’ official title with the American League is president and chief executive officer, but this season he should be known as ‘The Hangin’ Judge.’

That’s because Andrews and his hockey operations man Mike Murray have been dishing out suspensions at a dizzying rate in 2011-12, or at least in the ’11 part of it. Through 503 games, the AHL levied 35 suspensions totaling 82 games, in comparison to the same point last season when just 16 suspensions accounting for 21 games were issued.

As the president of the feeder system to the NHL, Andrews realizes the players in his league should be prepared to deal with the NHL’s standard for headshots and illegal hits, even though there is no directive from the NHL as to how the AHL should handle its supplementary discipline. 

Andrews points out that in any given season, the league has about 350 players – roughly half its player pool – that go up to play in the NHL full-time or temporarily.

“We believe we should be following at least the same standard and in some cases with the nature of our league, perhaps a tougher standard,” Andrews said. “With the younger players and emotion in our game, we call them the way we see it.”

And the way they see it is one of the main differences between the NHL and AHL. The minor pro league doesn’t possess near the technology the NHL has and doesn’t have a war room with people keeping a close eye on every game. A good number of games are televised and if needed, the league will accept a team’s video of the game to make a ruling.

“Our games are all streamed on-line and we have the coaches’ tape as well, so we have video of every incident,” Andrews said. “Is it of the same quality and the same look as the NHL? No way. There are often incidents where we have one camera angle and it may be from a more distant position than what the NHL gets. But you do the best you can with what you have.”

The upside for the league is it has much more authority to impose discipline than the NHL has. For example, the AHL’s collective bargaining agreement with its players does not provide the player with an opportunity to have a hearing with the league, so the league imposes discipline based solely on the referees’ reports and the video evidence available. 

“Over the years – maybe last year a little less so – we’ve been very sensitive to serious infractions,” Andrews said. “We don’t grandstand with it, but we’ve been very strong going back a long way with head checking and boarding and checking from behind.”

THN Archive is an exclusive vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 stories for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today. Visit THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com