From the article:
Well crap....Bowling Green freshman defenseman Ralfs Freibergs has been suspended for 33 games by the NCAA, the result of his junior hockey team in Latvia playing in a professional league, Falcon hockey coach Chris Bergeron said.
The Latvian born Freibergs has played junior hockey in the United States the last 2 1/2 seasons, but played in his home country before that.
He played with the Latvian national team in the World Junior Championships in 2009 and 2010 . To prepare the team for the WJC, Latvian officials had the team play in a Latvian professional league.
The NCAA penalized Freibergs one game for each game he played in the league.
"Ultimately, anything professional, when it comes to the NCAA, is something that will have penalties with it," Bergeron said. "We knew, as a program, as a staff, this was a possibility. It's not something out of left field."
BG has 36 regular-season games this season, so Freibergs will be eligible to play the Saturday game of its next-to-last series of the regular season.
Freibergs still can practice and participate in all day-to-day activities with the team. The 21-year-old and his family still are trying to have the suspension reduced by the NCAA.
I knew he was going be suspended for a number of games, but was hoping it would be for no more than 20 games.
On a brighter note:
The puck drops in 65 days!
