Reserve jersey red herring

gefunden auf iihf.com von
Andrew Podnieks / May 9

A funny incident occurred last night in the Finland-Denmark game as a result of the IIHF's replacement jersey program. The IIHF mandates that any player who has blood on his jersey has to go to the dressing room and put on a clean sweater. It's all part of trying to present the sport as a bloodless, gentlemanly game.

Nike, the official sponsor, can't possibly produce double the sweaters just for this rule, so it produces one "reserve jersey" per team. Any player with blood dons the nameless togs and goes back on the ice. Referees were perplexed last night when Pekka Rinne, the Finnish goalie, appeared to have a large area of blood on his sweater. But when they asked him about it they realized the problem.

The ice crew had painted the goalposts too soon before the game to allow them to dry, and when Rinne fell against the post on one play, his jersey absorbed a healthy slice of the paint! No blood, no foul.