Rigidly Following The Rules, or Trying To Skate?

Which is it--are the powers that be being too literal with the rules, especially when notice was given, or is the coach trying to get over on something?

In one of the more bizarre and over-the-top moves in recent memory, a junior hockey coach in Canada has been banned for coaching his team for a full year because he allowed his players to skip the opening and closing ceremonies of a tournament so they could study for exams.

The incident occurred in Newfoundland, where Brian Cranford served as the coach of the Mount Pearl Junior Blades. As reported by CBC and the Cape Breton Post — and brought to Prep Rally's attention by Deadspin and Puck Daddy's Sean Newell — Cranford and his team competed in April's Don Johnson memorial tournament, but the coach could only convince his players to compete if they were allowed to skip the opening and closing ceremonies for the event to study for their forthcoming final exams...

Cranford agreed to let the team miss the opening and closing speeches and notified all of the officials at the event. Roughly a month later, the coach was notified by the organizing committee of Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador that his decision was unacceptable, and that he would be assessed a year-long ban from coaching and a $2,000 penalty for the Junior Blades skipping the tournament's opening and closing ceremonies.

According to CBC, Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador Hockey president Jack Lee said the decision was made strictly on the bottom line: The regulations for the tournament stipulated that teams were required to take part from start to finish. Clearly, the organization's interpretation of "start" was quite literal.

By the way, I hope you got my pun. I'm usually not very good at them so I'm especially proud of this one :)