CB West ice hockey coach, players testify
They say Ridley team started on-ice brawl
NORRISTOWN >> During his 15 years of coaching Central Bucks West ice hockey, David Baun told a jury he’d “never seen anything like that,” referring to the alleged assault of his players by members of the Ridley Raiders during an emotional playoff game at a Hatfield ice rink.
“The puck was dropped and immediately the Ridley players, in virtual unison, all together began to throw punches at my players. That’s what it looked like to me. I’ve never seen anything like that,” Baun told a Montgomery County Court jury on Wednesday during the second day of the assault trial for Ridley players Brock Anderson, Jake Tyler Cross and Ryan Anthony Gricco.
“I didn’t think my players were acting aggressively at that time.
I thought my players were acting defensive,” Baun added.
Anderson, 19, of the 500 block of Ridley Circle, Morton; Cross, 20, of the 900 block of Greenhouse Lane, Secane; and Gricco, 19, of the 1500 block of Blackrock Road, Swarthmore, each face charges of simple assault, conspiracy to commit simple assault and harassment in connection with the 10:19 p.m. March 9, 2017, incident at Hatfield Ice on County Line Road in Hatfield during the Eastern Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey Association Regional High School “Flyers Cup” Class 2A quarterfinal game between Ridley and CB West.
Assistant District Attorney John N. Gradel rested his case on Wednesday with Baun, a string of CB West players, referees and a scorekeeper who witnessed
the alleged assaults.
“Based on the facts of the game, the Ridley team started the fight,” one referee testified for Gradel, adding the Ridley players’ actions were not acceptable youth hockey conduct.
Defense lawyers Mark Phillip Much, who represents Anderson, Michael J. Malloy, who represents Gricco, and Lindsay McDonald, who represents Cross, did not reveal if any of the accused will testify when the trial resumes on Thursday before Judge Richard P. Haaz.
During the trial, Gradel argued Anderson, Cross and Gricco were part of a coordinated on-ice assault and conspired to attack the CB West players late in the third period, with about seven minutes left to play, when Ridley was losing 7-1 and facing elimination from the playoff tournament.
Christopher Travis Trefz, who was 15 and a freshman player at CB West at the time, recalled that before
one faceoff he heard a Ridley player say, “We’re coming.”
“I just laughed it off, thought nothing of it. I recall one of the Ridley players saying, ‘This kid thinks we’re kidding’ and then the puck dropped,” Trefz testified, adding he suffered a bruise, jaw pain and headaches after the alleged coordinated assault.
Owen Shields, another CB West player, testified that with about 11 minutes remaining in the game Anderson told him, “you have four minutes left.” Shields testified initially he was confused by Anderson’s alleged remark, that is, until about the 7 minute mark when the Ridley players began their alleged assaults.
Authorities alleged Cross, during a stoppage of play, said something to each of his teammates and at the drop of the puck, the Ridley players immediately and simultaneously attacked the CB West players, punching them in the head and face,
even when CB West players were forced down on the ice.
“I came to the rink to play hockey, not to be attacked by the other team. I was kind of shocked to see what was happening,” CB West player Christian Young, who was 15 at the time, testified.
Prosecutors alleged Cross punched Young in the head, knocked him to the ice and continued to beat him until a referee intervened.
Jurors appeared riveted as they viewed video footage of the hockey brawl throughout the trial. Jurors also viewed photographs of the broken nose, broken orbital and facial lacerations sustained by CB West player Shawn Philipps during what prosecutors alleged was an assault by Gricco.
“I knew I would have gotten suspended so I definitely did not want to fight,” Philipps testified.
Several of the CB West players testified they didn’t fight back because they feared they would be suspended
from their next game, the semi-final game of the tournament.
Prosecutors said for CB West, at the time the top seed in the tournament, the injuries inflicted by Ridley players prevented two CB West players from participating in their next game against William Tennent. CB West was eliminated from the 2017 “Flyers Cup” Championship during that next game.
Defense lawyers challenged some of the alleged victims’ claims they didn’t want to fight, suggesting nothing prevented them from leaving the ice and going to their bench.
During the trial, the defense lawyers suggested to the jury that fighting is a natural part of hockey and that the CB West players also were aggressive during the highly emotional elimination playoff game.
Under cross-examination, the CB West players and other eyewitnesses to the incident agreed with defense lawyers that the game was “chippy, physical and emotional,” involved a lot of “trash talk” and resulted in numerous penalties for both teams.
The defense lawyers urged jurors to carefully watch videotape footage of the fights, suggesting they will find reasonable doubt and hesitate to convict the men. The lawyers stressed the Ridley players did not strike the CB West players with hockey sticks or kick them with skates nor tried to take masks off the players.
Prosecutors argued the single elimination tournament’s design and zero tolerance policy on intimidation or fighting are significant in the case because late in the game and down 7-1, Ridley had no real chance of winning and advancing. Ridley’s season was all but over and for the seniors at Ridley it was their final game and an ejection and suspension from play for fighting would have no effect on them, prosecutors implied.