WATERLOO REGION — The Minor Hockey Alliance of Ontario is going to reassess how it deals with lopsided games in the wake of a 41-0 rout between two local novice squads.

"I'm going to form a committee that looks at how we can avoid this and what we need to do if we get into this situation in the future," said executive director Tony Martindale, whose organization is the governing body for hockey associations in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, among other centres.

The issue arose after the Kitchener Jr. Rangers Red team dominated the Cambridge Hawks Red side in a novice minor development rep clash at Dickson Park Centre in Galt on Oct. 20.

The game, played between eight-year-olds, was the most one-sided score in Alliance history, according to Martindale.

The match sparked debate locally but it attracted attention nationally after a story on the game appeared in The Record on Tuesday.

"It is something we need to look at," said Martindale. 'We have to."

Read more: When is enough, enough? Novice hockey game ends in 41-0 rout

There is no mercy rule in the Alliance at this level even though there have been seven games decided by 15 or more goals. Cambridge is 0-7 so far this season and has been outscored 132-4.

But it's the team's 41-0 loss that has spurred activity. Besides exploring ways to curb clubs from running up scores, Martindale says he also wants to look at ways to improve programming and structure.

"How can we help Cambridge out so that their team is more competitive?" he said. "How can we look at structure and what do we look at in terms of getting into games where things get out of hand. What are things we can do?"

Kitchener coach Chris Berscht was running out of ideas when his team was throttling Cambridge.

The bench boss made his players pass the puck five times before shooting and sent five defencemen out on the power play. Players peeled back on breakaways and retreated into their own zone after gobbling up offensive rebounds.

"We felt really bad," said Berscht. "I'm not sure what more I could have done with my kids on the ice because of the vast gap."

The game was broken down into two 10-minute periods and a third 15-minute frame of stopped time. Every Kitchener player scored at least once but the team stopped celebrating after goals early in the affair.

"Once the second or third goal went in we got a feel for what was going to happen," said Berscht. "We had a couple of kids score their first goal of the year. If there was any celebration it was for that kid.

"There was no ill intent. There are no rules in place. We didn't know what to do. We implemented everything we could to be good sports. We're always harping on the kids about being good sports."

Berscht said his club could have set up a box to play keep-away to kill time but didn't think that would help.

"To see us eating up the clock passing it around, that looks really bad," he said. "That would have been worse. That's disrespectful to parents and the kids that are actually at the game."

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Martindale doesn't want to see another outrageous score but isn't in favour of a mercy rule.

"If you shut the game down after 10 minutes there are still 20 minutes of ice time that kids aren't utilizing," he said. "I'd rather see something where, at this level, the two coaches get together after the first period and they throw their sticks in the middle and just play."

The Niagara District Hockey League changed its rules this season after years of dealing with teams running up scores. Now, coaches can be punished when member clubs win by more than 10 goals.

First offenders are issued a warning, second offenders must attend a verbal meeting with the league, third offenders get a one-game suspension and fourth timers face a disciplinary hearing.

"No one wants to go down the disciplinary route," said Chris Berube, the rep convener for Lincoln Minor Hockey and an NDHL board member. "It was more about getting the message out there."

According to Berube, the league hasn't had any issues since the rule was adopted in mid-October.

"It's almost like everybody put the foot on the breaks and all of a sudden they learned how to coach," he said.

The Alliance novice division should see some relief in a few weeks when teams are tiered into groups based on skill level. But that won't stop Martindale from looking at other ways to even the playing field.

"At the end of the day it's supposed to be about fun," he said.

- When is enough, enough? Novice hockey game ends in 41-0 rout