Thursday, March 10, 2011

Thoughts from a REAL hockey fan.

So, like I said last night, I am not a big hockey fan. My friend Pat is, and he took exception to some of what I had to say. I thought he said it well, and asked if I could share it. He said sure...here is it:


As a Boston fan and a Chara fan, I’m surprised that he wasn’t suspended. The NHL has consistently suspended people for their actions on the ice if they result in a devastaing injury (except for Matt Cooke hitting Marc Savard, but more on that later), as this clearly was. More so, this injury came on a penalty – not a penalty like Cooke boarding Fyedor Tyutin or head hunting Savard – but none the less a penalty, and if an injury occurs on a penalty then there should be a suspension of some kind. I was expecting no more than 2-3 games. That being said, I understand the NHL’s position, Chara was assessed nothing more than an interference and has no prior history of dirty play like some one like Cooke. Ray Shero, GM of the Penguins, said after Cooke’s four-game suspension for boarding Tyutin, “Cooke got 1 game for boarding, 1 game for not using his head, and 2 games for being Matt Cooke.” In the NHL your reputation precedes you, whether that’s fair or not isn’t the point. It’s just how it is.

After the game, Chara talked about how he pinched in at the same time Pacioretty jumped – as wingers are taught to do – to avoid the pinching d-man. These two combined to have disastrous and devastating results. This was only because of where those two men were on the ice at the time. Opposite side of the ice? Chara gets 2 minutes for interference and it’s over. It was a hockey play that happened at the wrong place on the ice. To try and get into what Chara was thinking as the play was happening or what motivations he had to hit Pacioretty at that time and place is both a waste of time and prose. There’s one person that knows what Chara was thinking and that’s Chara, and he’s not telling.

 
 In case you were wondering how many teeth Matt Cooke has...

The NHL has come to the same crossroads as the NFL. They are putting a product out for fans that is inherently dangerous. These men are being paid exorbitant sums (in both leagues) because they are being paid to be gladiators. They are paid to use up their bodies for our entertainment. Boston University just released the results of an autopsy on the brain of former enforcer Bob Probert, a 16-year NHL vet, and found that he had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy something similar too, if not the same as has been popping up in the brains of deceased NFLers, and the second case in an NHL player. (CTE is similar to Alzhiemers in that both inhibit the brain from functioning properly.) Both of these leagues need to look long and hard at the games they are playing, the equipment that they are using, and, in the NHL’s case, the arenas that they play in and how they contribute to the danger of the product that they put that they are selling.

Chara’s hit wasn’t dirty – even a friend who’s a Bruins hater agrees. Is it unfortunate? Of course, there’s not doubt that Max Pacioretty’s life will probably never be the same. Having watched Savard’s struggle over the last year, I can’t begin to imagine what lies ahead for Max Pacioretty. However, this is a league that doesn’t “act”, much like the NFL. They didn’t go out of their way to make sweeping rule changes to keep players from hitting the head until Cooke changed Savard’s hockey career, and more importantly, life for the worse. Part of the reason that Chara wasn’t suspended was due to the strict interpretation of the rules by Mike Murphy, the NHL’s Senior VP of operations. There was nothing in the rules that said Chara needed to be suspended beyond the game misconduct he already received. This is no different to the NHL and Colin Campbell deciding that Cooke’s hit on Savard last year merited no suspension. At the time there were no rule outlawing a hit to the head with one’s shoulder as the principle point of contact.  They “react” to incidents like Savard’s, like Pacioretty’s, and make changes to rules – and possibly rink design – based on what HAS happened, not what COULD happen. If the NHL was proactive and “acted” instead of “reacted” it’s possible the Marc Savard is still playing and Max Pacioretty’s head never hits that stanchion.

1 comment:

PaddyWaggn said...

Two things. The quote from Ray Shero should be attributed to former Penguin (and Bruin) BIll Guerin and can be found in this article on Cooke from Michael Farber of SI.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1182974/1/index.htm

I was worried I was gonna get nicked for plagarism even though maybe 8 people will read it.