What Is The Deal With BHL Point Totals?!?

[SIUECOUGAR7]

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/bhl1997.html

The British Hockey League, apparently active for about 15 seasons, is confusing the hell out of me. Have you seen the league leaders page? The point totals are ridiculous!!

Patrick Scott [http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php3?pid=00033082] scored 319 points in 56 games!! WTF!!??

Does anyone know if the goalies in this league were just that bad? Or if there were any goalies at all? Or if they were shooting into soccer goals?

GO BLUES!
--jeff
St. Louis, MO

[Ralph Slate]

That was a weird era in British Hockey. Each team was allowed a handful (I think 3) of non-British players, but the return of organized hockey hadn't been going that long in England at that point. So ex-AHL/IHL players like Dave Stoyanovich and Tim Salmon were just racking them up. If you look at each team, there are 3 players who scored a ton, and the rest seemed to be just watching.

Within a few years more foreign-born players were allowed, and the high scorers started to be held to more respectable numbers. Kevin Conway, who scored 148 goals in 29 games in 87-88, scored just 35 in 95-96, because he not only had a few more teammates to take the load off, but was now going up against higher-level defenders like ex-NCAA players Dale Jago, Jeff Lindsay, Steve Barnes, etc. Prior to that he was going up against guys who had less skill than most Junior C players.