Whitley Warriors - All Time Penalty Leaders

There has been a lot of talk between Warrior’s players recently about who is the team’s leader in penalties.

* The club released their list in the programme for the Solihull game last weekend with ‘big bad’ Dave Ross, unsurprisingly at the top of the list with 1,624 PIMs taken over 429 games.

* However, Rob Wilson, second on that list is only 30 PIMs behind him, with many former team mates and fans alike urging him on to make another Warriors comeback to become the out-right leader. Rob, is the only player anywhere near close enough to snatch the lead so it makes perfect sense for him to do so.

* Another impressive stat is that Rob’s 1,594 PIMs were achieved in a far less number of games than that of Dave Ross.

* Put another way, if the stats were adjusted to PIMs per games played Rob has a much better rate of nearly 5.2 minutes per game. Dave Ross would be down in fifth with just 3.78 behind both Rob and Bryan ‘Bowling Ball’ Dunn.

But both Rob and Dave still lag way behind the Warriors worst offenders. That of Daniel Ord and Stephen Winn.

* ‘Ordy’ can now be found behind the microphone on match nights as my color commentator, offering expert analysis, fantastic insight and some great ‘one-liners’ with his wit and wisdom. But back in his playing days [1997-02] Dan picked up a whopping 597 PIMs in just 93 games played, which is some achievement and equates to 6.42 PIMs per game. Sadly, Dan’s career was cut short due to a serious ankle injury, but had he played the same number of games as Dave Ross [429], he would be well ahead on the list with 2,754 PIMs. That would be some kind of record I’m sure but it still wouldn’t be enough to claim top spot.

* No, that honour falls to Stephen Winn, a gifted stick handler who wouldn’t have looked out of place on the movie ‘Slap Shot’. He would have easily felt at home with the Syracuse Bulldogs, alongside such players as Tim ‘Dr. Hook’ McCracken, Ogie Ogilthorpe and Gilmore Tuttle.

* Winn, was one of the best center’s the Warriors has had over the past 20 years and started out forming a very strong partnership with Karl Culley and Norwegian Student Trond Gunderson, during the 1998-99 season. However, the following year saw a lengthy ban for an unfortunate mishap with one of the officials. During a fight the referee tried to get involved and break it up, but Winn, thinking it was one of the opposing players jumping in as ‘third man in’ shrugged him off. That earnt him a one year ban which seemed a little extreme given the circumstances.

* During his Whitley career, Winn had an ongoing feud with rotund Scottish defenseman Lee Mercer. To be fair many Warriors players did at that time. During the 2001-02 season Mercer had found himself with the Birmingham Rockets and after both players dropped the gloves, Mercer decided he would put his hand in Winn’s mouth and try and snap his jaw off. Understandably, Winn bit Mercer’s hand so he would let go, but the Scotsman started to over-exaggerate and went crying to the referee showing his hand. That sadly earnt Winn another ban but he would return again and was able to rack up more PIMs and goals along the way.

* For the record, had he played the same number of games as Dave Ross, Stephen Winn would have 3,066 PIMs. An incredible number I’m sure you will agree.

* A special mention too, for Alan 'The Rocket' Yarrow, who has amassed 420 PIMs in just 67 Warriors appearances. 237 of those minutes came during the 1997-98 season which saw some memorable battles with the Solihull Blaze, and included fights in the crowd and an old fashioned bar brawl.
* Rocket returned in 2003-04 and in just five games accrued 98 PIMs. Wrapping his stick around the back up goalie of the Flintshire Freeze was a fine way to sign off, before moving to Australia, but then the Rocket returned last year and picked up where he left off, with a series of scraps and a further 65 PIMs.

Below is a list of the top 20 Penalty takers for the Warriors with their adjusted stats to show their PIMs per Games Played ratio:

 

#	Player	GP	PIMs	PIM/GP
10	Steven Winn	115	822	7.147826
15	Daniel Ord	93	597	6.419355
2	Rob Wilson	308	1594	5.175325
3	Bryan Dunn	302	1314	4.350993
1	Dave Ross	429	1624	3.785548
8	Kevin Bucas	284	990	3.485915
12	Andrew Carter	215	740	3.44186
18	Hilton Ruggles	152	506	3.328947
20	Paul McGinnety	122	394	3.229508
11	Mike Rowe	251	802	3.195219
6	John Iredale	391	1150	2.941176
13	Ryan Sample	233	638	2.738197
5	Simon Leach	435	1167	2.682759
19	Dale Howey	195	497	2.548718
7	Martin King	423	993	2.347518
14	David Barrett	273	628	2.300366
4	Terry Ord	570	1193	2.092982
9	Stephen Smith	457	938	2.052516
16	Shaun Kippin	300	567	1.89
17	David Longstaff	309	557	1.802589