It seems as if during every hockey season there is some hot-button issue that seems to find its way into the late-season general managers’ meeting. Whether it be fighting, mandatory visors or movement/contraction, a new topic always seems to crop up in the springtime to get everyone’s juices flowing and to prompt an instant or soon-to-be implemented rule change.
This year’s issue du jour happens to be hits to the head. Recently, the league implemented and instant ban on any blindside hit where the receiver is in a defenseless position or is unable to see and/or brace himself for the oncoming hit. Vicious hits to the head have been around hockey almost as long as toothless smiles, but this is one of the game’s more violent aspects that has, fittingly, come to an end. These open ice car accidents are often times exciting and dangerous, but the collateral damage associated with the aftermath is going to result in someone’s on ice death. That’s a fact. It’s a sad reality that unless something was done, we were, pardon the pun, on a collision course with on-ice fatality.
The early-season hit to Florida’s David Booth by Flyer Captain Mike Richards posed an interesting question. How can this be suspendable or even classified as “wrong” if it’s legal and allowed by the NHL rule book? For all intents and purposes, Mike Richards delivered the dirtiest hit in the last five years while somehow staying within the rule book. There was no penalty, no suspension, no nothing. Just a stretcher, a brawl and an uneasy feeling of “something’s not right here” rippling through the collective stomach of the hockey world. If that hit opened the discussion and started the inevitable move towards the ban, than Matt Cooke’s 456th head shot offense in one season sealed the deal. Cooke is a repeat offender who nearly murdered Marc Savard a few weeks ago with a devastating cheapie a good two seconds after Savard ceased being the puck-carrier. It was an almost exact replica of a hit he layed on Ranger Artem Anisimov earlier in the season.
A lot of people in the hockey world are worried about the physical essence of the game being eroded due to rule changes such as this. Amazingly, these people feel that banning things such as head shots is part of a gradual movement towards total hockey non-violence. Yeah, sure it is. It’s a ridiculous argument. I am all for the new regulation banning these hits because these regulations could not only be saving careers, but lives as well. In all seriousness, who knows if Marc Savard or David Booth (who was recently concussed AGAIN) will ever be the same again? I am not even talking about being the same player. I am talking about being the same person. We all remember what happened to Eric Lindros as his career became a series of “what if’s?” because of concussions. He still says that the effects of multiple concussions rear their ugly head in everyday life to this very day.
The one thing I do have a problem with, however, is the way current and retired players are harkening back to the good ol’ days. You know, when there was a mutual respect between teams and players. We keep hearing about how players back in the day respected each other. How they played hard and fierce, but ultimately respected their opponent at the end of the day. We are being told that the old timers didn’t have any intent to injure their opposition or play with the recklessness that results in mind-numbing violence. My response to this is, ummmm what? Bill Masterson was crushed by a double body check from two Oakland Seals and fell head first onto the ice. He died two days later. A lot of respect was present in the blood spouting from his mouth and nose when he hit the ice on that night. How about the sword-I’m sorry, stick fighting incident between Ted Green and Wayne Maki? Was Maki respecting Green when he connected on the final blow to the head, fracturing Green’s skull and giving him brain damage? Were the Broad Street Bullies respecting their opponents when they committed four to five actual felonies per night on the ice in Philadelphia? Was Ulf Samuelsson respecting Cam Neely when he would consistently and predictably go after Neely’s knees and hips with vicious hip checks hoping to end his career early (in which he was successful)? Were Mike Milbury and the Boston Bruins respecting the New York Rangers by beating them to a pulp, and when bored with just beating up the Rangers, climbing into the stands at Madison Square Garden to give some to the fans as well? Some beaten with their own shoes! Want some more recent stuff? You got it. Marty McSorely and everyone’s favorite, Todd Bertuzzi. C’mon, folks.
Hockey has always been violent and jaw-dropping with instances of unspeakable mayhem. This, “It was the best of times” BS is almost laughable. The bottom line is hockey has always had a respect problem among opponents, but today the players have gone from bogged-down coasters, to missiles on skates. Today the athletes are bigger, stronger, and infinitely faster than before and they treat their bodies and everything they put in them like the investments they are. Add that these specimens are playing in an era without any clutching, grabbing, hooking or holding and the result is that the game and the athletes have absolutely no speed bumps. The game is now faster than ever due to the athletes and the rule changes. That’s why you are seeing these hits with more frequency. From a pure bloodlust and dirtiness standpoint, I think the players today are calmer than that of any other era. There aren’t anymore brawls, stick swinging incidents or occurrences looking like clips from “Slap-Shot” happening on NHL rinks anymore.
The bottom line is that respect has nothing to do with any of this. Hockey is the ultimate blood sport and you aren’t going to win the Cup by respecting thy fellow man or caring about his safety. Like it or not, that’s the way it is and it will never change. That’s why putting the necessary regulation in place to stop or deter open-ice headshots is a good and necessary step. And anyone who thinks players from the previous eras operated under a different level of respect and understanding must be a concussed, memory-sapped victim of an open-ice headshot themselves.
Photo courtesy of the Associated Press
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