Monday, March 26, 2007
And the hits just keep on coming
Another week another punch, another week, another stretcher case. Such is life in the NHL. Not a whole lot different if at all from the past, less frequency if anything but still – the collective conscious of the non-hockey fans and the mind set of some in the main stream media have raised a verbal fist of anger at hockey for it’s seemingly blind-eye to these barbaric acts. Please hold my calls while I dab my eyes with Kleenex.
We didn’t have to wait long for the next suspension after Chris Simon’s melt down. Jordin Tootoo took care of that with one, albeit lucky shot, to the incoming Stephane Robidas. Tootoo has amassed nearly 30 fighting majors at this juncture of his brief NHL career. He is no shrinking violet and Canadian hockey fell in love with this guy during the 2003 World Junior Championships in Halifax. From game one against Sweden right through the gold medal tilt against the Russians he hit everything that moved and this only a short while after his brother had committed suicide so the story wrote itself and he took care of business on the ice. In my opinion he was the most effective, truculent player I had seen in a Team Canada sweater since Eric Lindros first burst on the scene and Wendel Clark was in his prime. Granted both of them had much more skill however it should be noted that Tootoo scored over 100 goals in his junior A career and over 200 points to go along with his 874 pim’s. He had been a regular part of the Nashville landscape this season and his five game suspension was too long in my opinion. Given how he plays the game, hit first ask questions later, Robidas had to know he was going to engage a very willing combatant. And this after yet another ‘clean’ hit of a megastar, this time Mike Modano. What really baffles me is the exclusion of Modano from most of the discussion even though he smacked Tootoo in the back with his stick right after Jordin caught Robidas on the button with a wild right hand. It reminded me of the situation involving Scott Niedermayer who chopped Peter Worrell right over the head with his stick not long after the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore incident. Niedermayer received a ten game suspension for that act which if anything shows even the superstars can ‘lose it’ in the game of hockey yet you’d be hard pressed to read any account of that now. In the annals of hockey history a number of the top players have been suspended for brutal stick work but throw one punch and it’s the anti-fighting activists who lobby so passionately they make the anti-Vietnam protests look like a Boy Scout meeting.
Next up was Todd Fedoruk of the Flyers taking it on the chin, literally from Colton Orr of the New York Rangers. Fedoruk should not have been in this game much less back in the league after his destruction at the hands of Derek Boogaard earlier this year. Sometimes a guy just has to know when to hang it up and it’s my hope that this is the case with Fedoruk at this time even though thankfully he does not appear to have been hurt badly in the Orr fight so who knows – he may and the Flyers might just allow him to continue at some point.
Fedoruk earns 450,000.00 US a year. How many of you reading this right now make that kind of money? He has been a pro for seven years, more than 300 games and of course his contract is guaranteed. If he decides to play again and fight again and gets hurt again – that’s his decision. It’s not yours, it’s not mine nor should it be.
This is what you backward thinking neophytes need to understand about the game. When you play pro sports you assume a risk. There is an inherent risk of getting hurt no matter what sport you play. Hockey is vastly different. With the speed of the game and the collisions of bodies at more than thirty miles an hour you also have players carrying weapons. A hockey stick. Contact with the stick in some way, shape or form even sometimes when deemed to be clean – has led to some of the most drastic consequences that you can imagine. No sense revisiting history, most of you have heard it and know it. Unless you have felt the sting of a slash, the spear of the blade, the shaft of a cross check, the butt end, you are incapable of forming an opinion of what is right in terms of retaliation, retribution or otherwise. These men know the risks going in and for more than 100 years these men doled out their own form of punishment to those who crossed the line. For the past 10-15 the rule changes have made these reprisal acts a moot point. For the most part they only exist now in the most heinous way, McSorley on Brashear, Bertuzzi on Moore, Niedermayer on Worrell and Simon on Hollweg. And the list goes on. Several media out of Toronto are championing their editorial right with this grandiose statement, ‘somebody is going to get killed,’ Yes guys, in fact players have already been killed on the ice. From stick work, from skate blades and one death already recorded in the NHL. Bill Masterton died in 1968 after striking his head on the ice. All anybody has to do is google this and you’ll find it. Not that hard but that would deflate some of these pompous asses. In their typical callous listen-to-me, know-it-all attitude, they of course don’t mention this. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If you are that much concerned about the player’s safety and the elimination of anything, absolutely anything that could be construed as life threatening then lobby for a non-contact league with protection from head to toe, no slap shots and what the heck, while we’re at it let’s not keep score because that could only incite nastiness late in a game that’s not winnable.
Sorry for the length folks but this is a serious issue. It’s serious enough for me to say that I have a dream. I have a dream of an NHL that I watched as a young boy growing up. This is an NHL of accountability, of respect, with dazzling plays and incredible goals and yes, controlled and sometimes uncontrolled violence. It’s my opinion that no amount of legislation or punitive measures will eliminate all acts of violence in the NHL just like the non-fighting rule in the NBA has not eliminated some of the wildest out of control moments you’ll ever see in sport or the endless bean balls and bench brawls in baseball.
Does anybody know the name Eric Medlen? He was a drag racer. He passed away on March 23, 2007 – that’s three days ago folks, three days ago. He is the 127th person do die in a race car of some sort since 1980. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_racing_drivers_who_died_in_racing_crashes) I simply cannot believe the callousness and wash-your-hand-of-it mentality of you the know-it-all who wants to dictate how hockey should be played but who obviously cares nothing about the endless carnage and violence in other sports. To me that’s gutless. Please leave my sport alone, you have no business even watching it and clearly are unable to suggest any cognitive solutions.
Liam Maguire
We didn’t have to wait long for the next suspension after Chris Simon’s melt down. Jordin Tootoo took care of that with one, albeit lucky shot, to the incoming Stephane Robidas. Tootoo has amassed nearly 30 fighting majors at this juncture of his brief NHL career. He is no shrinking violet and Canadian hockey fell in love with this guy during the 2003 World Junior Championships in Halifax. From game one against Sweden right through the gold medal tilt against the Russians he hit everything that moved and this only a short while after his brother had committed suicide so the story wrote itself and he took care of business on the ice. In my opinion he was the most effective, truculent player I had seen in a Team Canada sweater since Eric Lindros first burst on the scene and Wendel Clark was in his prime. Granted both of them had much more skill however it should be noted that Tootoo scored over 100 goals in his junior A career and over 200 points to go along with his 874 pim’s. He had been a regular part of the Nashville landscape this season and his five game suspension was too long in my opinion. Given how he plays the game, hit first ask questions later, Robidas had to know he was going to engage a very willing combatant. And this after yet another ‘clean’ hit of a megastar, this time Mike Modano. What really baffles me is the exclusion of Modano from most of the discussion even though he smacked Tootoo in the back with his stick right after Jordin caught Robidas on the button with a wild right hand. It reminded me of the situation involving Scott Niedermayer who chopped Peter Worrell right over the head with his stick not long after the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore incident. Niedermayer received a ten game suspension for that act which if anything shows even the superstars can ‘lose it’ in the game of hockey yet you’d be hard pressed to read any account of that now. In the annals of hockey history a number of the top players have been suspended for brutal stick work but throw one punch and it’s the anti-fighting activists who lobby so passionately they make the anti-Vietnam protests look like a Boy Scout meeting.
Next up was Todd Fedoruk of the Flyers taking it on the chin, literally from Colton Orr of the New York Rangers. Fedoruk should not have been in this game much less back in the league after his destruction at the hands of Derek Boogaard earlier this year. Sometimes a guy just has to know when to hang it up and it’s my hope that this is the case with Fedoruk at this time even though thankfully he does not appear to have been hurt badly in the Orr fight so who knows – he may and the Flyers might just allow him to continue at some point.
Fedoruk earns 450,000.00 US a year. How many of you reading this right now make that kind of money? He has been a pro for seven years, more than 300 games and of course his contract is guaranteed. If he decides to play again and fight again and gets hurt again – that’s his decision. It’s not yours, it’s not mine nor should it be.
This is what you backward thinking neophytes need to understand about the game. When you play pro sports you assume a risk. There is an inherent risk of getting hurt no matter what sport you play. Hockey is vastly different. With the speed of the game and the collisions of bodies at more than thirty miles an hour you also have players carrying weapons. A hockey stick. Contact with the stick in some way, shape or form even sometimes when deemed to be clean – has led to some of the most drastic consequences that you can imagine. No sense revisiting history, most of you have heard it and know it. Unless you have felt the sting of a slash, the spear of the blade, the shaft of a cross check, the butt end, you are incapable of forming an opinion of what is right in terms of retaliation, retribution or otherwise. These men know the risks going in and for more than 100 years these men doled out their own form of punishment to those who crossed the line. For the past 10-15 the rule changes have made these reprisal acts a moot point. For the most part they only exist now in the most heinous way, McSorley on Brashear, Bertuzzi on Moore, Niedermayer on Worrell and Simon on Hollweg. And the list goes on. Several media out of Toronto are championing their editorial right with this grandiose statement, ‘somebody is going to get killed,’ Yes guys, in fact players have already been killed on the ice. From stick work, from skate blades and one death already recorded in the NHL. Bill Masterton died in 1968 after striking his head on the ice. All anybody has to do is google this and you’ll find it. Not that hard but that would deflate some of these pompous asses. In their typical callous listen-to-me, know-it-all attitude, they of course don’t mention this. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If you are that much concerned about the player’s safety and the elimination of anything, absolutely anything that could be construed as life threatening then lobby for a non-contact league with protection from head to toe, no slap shots and what the heck, while we’re at it let’s not keep score because that could only incite nastiness late in a game that’s not winnable.
Sorry for the length folks but this is a serious issue. It’s serious enough for me to say that I have a dream. I have a dream of an NHL that I watched as a young boy growing up. This is an NHL of accountability, of respect, with dazzling plays and incredible goals and yes, controlled and sometimes uncontrolled violence. It’s my opinion that no amount of legislation or punitive measures will eliminate all acts of violence in the NHL just like the non-fighting rule in the NBA has not eliminated some of the wildest out of control moments you’ll ever see in sport or the endless bean balls and bench brawls in baseball.
Does anybody know the name Eric Medlen? He was a drag racer. He passed away on March 23, 2007 – that’s three days ago folks, three days ago. He is the 127th person do die in a race car of some sort since 1980. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_racing_drivers_who_died_in_racing_crashes) I simply cannot believe the callousness and wash-your-hand-of-it mentality of you the know-it-all who wants to dictate how hockey should be played but who obviously cares nothing about the endless carnage and violence in other sports. To me that’s gutless. Please leave my sport alone, you have no business even watching it and clearly are unable to suggest any cognitive solutions.
Liam Maguire
# posted by Liam Maguire @ 12:35 PM 
