Canada's Griffin Reinhart Suspended Four Games for High-Sticking
 

Canadian defenceman Griffin Reinhart has received a four-game suspension at the 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey World U20 Championship. He will miss the bronze medal game against Russia on Saturday.

The infraction occurred at 14:21 of the second period in the Canada-USA semifinal on Thursday.

As per the IIHF Disciplinary Panel review and interpretation of the situation, Reinhart entered the corner with the puck and was checked by USA forward Vince Trocheck. Both players became tangled up with Reinhart dropping to his knees. Trocheck made contact in an attempt to continue to play the puck.

Once on his knees, Reinhart made eye contact with his opponent, raised his stick and delivered a two-handed slash to the head and neck area of Trocheck, who fell to the ice as a result of the infraction. Reinhart was assessed a minor penalty for high-sticking. There was no apparent injury incurred by Trocheck.

Following the conclusion of the game, the Tournament Chairman asked the Disciplinary Panel to review this incident according to rule 510.

Upon review of the video material, the written referees’ report, the verbal report of the referee supervisor and the hearing with the player and a senior team official, the IIHF Disciplinary Panel deemed this action to be very careless, dangerous and avoidable, and for this the player shall be held accountable.

Based on the aforementioned, the Disciplinary Panel came to the unanimous conclusion that although there was no injury to the opposing player, the action was dangerous to the safety of Trocheck and was avoidable. The decision by the panel is to suspend Reinhart for four games.

This means that Griffin Reinhart cannot play in the bronze medal game with Canada versus Russia on January 5, and is not eligible to play in the first three games of the next IIHF championship in which he may participate.

Kevin Gibson ‏@TSNResearch
Players at WJC have been suspended a total of 13 games, CAN representing 8 of those games. If you're not first, you're last.

Here's a video of the incident.

Griffin Reinhart Slashes Vince Trocheck - 4 Game...

Seriously? That makes the NHL look like a gong show. If this is the future this sport is completely ****ed.

Fighting is gone, hitting is next...

Everyone is just going to hold hands and rub each other out from now on like the Women.

Reinhart was invisible all tournament, one more game won't matter much.

Reinhart is usually invisible. Sometimes to his his credit as he isn't a flashy defenseman by any means and a lot of times he won't be noticeable. However with his size you'd like to see him throw a damn hit from time to time. Or maybe that's a bad idea in a tournament like this? :no:

Either way he's a very frustrating player, IMO.

Are we watching the same video? It's pretty obvious this was on purpose. I usually disagree on suspensions but he used his stick as a baseball bat! There's no room for that in the game! The player could have easily been knocked out or seriously injured. This has nothing to do with hitting or fighting, the player recklessly tried to use his stick as a weapon. 4 games is fair.

Are you serious? Holy hell, I don't even know what to say. If he used his stick as a baseball bat he must be one hell of an awful batter. At least make it count. That was hardly anything at all. I've seen gloved punches with more force than that. Reinhart is a ***** anyway but I highly doubt that was intentional. Typically he wouldn't hurt a fly. Part of the reason why I don't like him. A guy his size should be much more of a physical force.