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Rebels Cowen suspended eight games (video)

Josh Cowen will be inactive for the next three weeks after the long arm of the Western Hockey League law came down hard on the Red Deer Rebels winger on Tuesday.
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Josh Cowen will be inactive for the next three weeks after the long arm of the Western Hockey League law came down hard on the Red Deer Rebels winger on Tuesday.

Cowen was hit with an eight-game suspension by the league’s head disciplinarian, Richard Doerksen, who made the ruling after viewing videotape of a punch the Rebels veteran delivered to the face of an apparently unsuspecting Saskatoon Blades defencemen Stefan Elliott on Saturday.

“There’s not much you can do,” said Rebels head coach/VP of hockey operations Jesse Wallin. “I understand what (the league) is trying to accomplish. And I don’t condone the way Cowey went about it, but I think the intention was to stand up for a teammate.”

Wallin was referring to a fight between Lukas Sutter and Rebels star forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins six seconds earlier, a dust-up that was instigated by the Blades forward while Nugent-Hopkins was being called for a high-sticking penalty.

“We’ll live with the suspension, but I’m a little bit perturbed that there’s no suspension to Sutter, who sucker-punched Hoppy,” said Wallin. “His (Doerksen’s) explanation to me was that Hoppy was aware that Sutter was there and coming at him and he had a penalty on the play, and in Cowey’s case the play was going completely the other way and Elliott was completely unsuspecting.”

Cowen made a beeline for Elliott directly off a faceoff and punched and then pummelled the Saskatoon rearguard.

“The suspension is certainly excessive and while I don’t condone the hit that Cowey made, I appreciate that he was defending a teammate,” said Wallin. “I understand the league is trying to eliminate that and trying to send a message, but I’m a little bit upset — given the severity of this suspension — that nothing happened the other way.”

Cowen will be eligible to return to duty when the Rebels host the Moose Jaw Warriors on Sept. 22.

Meanwhile, the Rebels will welcome three players back from international events as early as today. Defencemen Matt Dumba and Lucas Grayson competed with Team Pacific in the World Under 17 Challenge and forward Andrej Kudrna was a member of Team Slovakia in the world junior championship at Buffalo, N.Y.

Dumba was particularly impressive, assisting on a pair of goals as Team Pacific recorded a 5-4 overtime win over Quebec in Tuesday’s World U17 bronze-medal game at Winnipeg, where Lacombe native and Prince George Cougars defenceman Joshua Smith assisted on the winning goal. Dumba racked up an impressive 12 points — all assists — in six games to lead Team Pacific in scoring.

“It sounds like he played real well,” said Wallin. “The people I talked to there said that he handled himself very well and really stuck out. Hopefully he comes back with that much more confidence because of this experience.”

All three returning Rebels will be available for duty Friday when the Regina Pats visit the Centrium for a 7:30 p.m. engagement. Red Deer takes on the Kootenay Ice 24 hours later at Cranbrook.

gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com