AHL- Apolyton Hockey League 09/10 (II): We're very perverse

[Asher]

Sparrow got lucky.

[Sparrowhawk]

Sparrow got lucky.

Perhaps, but just to be sure (and because I had no real way to compare my team to anyone), I went and compared my team to all the other teams, and it looks like I am middle of the pack right now (I would have beat about half of you, and lost to the other half) so I am okay with that. And as Flubber pointed out to Krill, one week doesn't kill his chances, and doesn't help me long term all that much. One benefit of head to head, is it basically resets next week, so my 8-0 (or maybe 7-0-1 not sure if I get shutouts or not) doesn't really help me the rest of the season.

Still glad it was me Krill was playing and not one of you

[action=Sparrowhawk][/action]

[notyoueither]

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/edmonton-oilers/When+time+hockey+lacks+fashioned+accountability/2091865/story.html

When old-time hockey lacks old-fashioned accountability
Quinn, Iginla were both out of line on Thursday night
By Dan Barnes, Edmonton JournalOctober 10, 2009

Inappropriate and unjustified. The words apply equally to Edmonton Oilers head coach Pat Quinn's ill-timed public embrace of old-time retribution and Calgary Flames captain Jarome Iginla's negligent on-ice aggression. So the crime isn't that Quinn was fined$10,000 by the National Hockey League for appearing to advocate stick violence over the more accepted fisticuffs, rather that Iginla didn't receive supplemental discipline for causing Oilers defenceman Sheldon Souray to crash face-first into the end boards on Thursday night.

Because, despite their stated intentions to do no harm, the impact of Iginla's carelessness and the context in which Quinn delivered his nostalgic appreciation for vigilante justice demanded they both receive a slap. Iginla was penalized for tripping, but should have been fined or suspended because he placed his stick in a dangerous position and Souray suffered a concussion as a direct result. Quinn was fined Friday because anyone listening to his post-game remarks could easily have come away thinking he wanted one of his players to club rather than fight Iginla, though Quinn stressed Saturday that was not his intent.

"Not at all. No. I was stating a fact of years gone by."

He did it before launching into criticism of his own captain, Ethan Moreau, for challenging Iginla to a subsequent fight.

"You don't give him honour. Why would you give a man honour for that kind of play?He honoured him with a fist-fight."

In the context of Thursday night, it was logical to conclude that if Quinn wanted somebody on his team to react at all, the only appropriate way would have been to do it dishonourably. As he said, in his day, you did dirt with dirt.

Quinn last played in 1977. Thankfully the game has evolved, mostly for the better, and the safety of today's players has been given the priority it did not receive in Quinn's day.

A myriad of other differences exist and it is hardly a surprise that Quinn began addressing the incident by saying he doesn't understand today's players and that in his day the situation would have led to violence. He is 66 and many of his players are 20-somethings. He can't be expected to understand everything they do, say or think, no more than Sam Gagner should get Quinn's references to Barbara Ann Scott and morning glories. However, Quinn should understand today's game and respond appropriately. The NHL fined him for falling short on that front.

The league could also have fined Iginla for disregarding Souray's wellbeing. It was inexcusable, but not a window into Iginla's soul. That much was obvious mere minutes later during his fight with Moreau. The Oilers captain fell and was momentarily vulnerable to attack. Iginla's response was to allow Moreau to get back up before another punch was thrown. That's the behaviour of an honourable man. Moreau even acknowledged the gesture of sportsmanship as the linesmen stepped in to break up the scrap.

At that moment, each was doing the right, time-honoured thing.

"I've played in the league a long time. That's usually the appropriate response," Moreau said Saturday. "I've played 14 years. That's the way I was taught."

Moreau's teammates, young and old, backed the captain's actions.

"I think that's basically all you can do in today's game," said 22-year-old Andrew Cogliano. "It's tough for you to really go after a guy in a more violent way. As captain, he stepped up and fought him. He didn't look down the bench for somebody else to do it, he didn't ask anybody else to do it. He did his job."

"I thought it was great," added 36-year-old Steve Staios. "Within the boundaries of the rules of today's game and the way it shapes up--I think you know where I'm going with that, the instigator rule--that's the completely correct response."

Quinn's response on Thursday was troubling and ultimately expensive. On Saturday, he clung to the notion it was a dishonourable play and clarified his original intent, which was apparently to advocate safety, not more violence.

"I was not trying to be inciting. That wasn't the intention by any means."

But intention and outcome don't always go hand in hockey glove. Iginla said he didn't mean to trip Souray into the end boards. I believe that's true, because I have seen him play the game for a decade. But it happened. Quinn said Saturday he didn't mean to suggest one of his players should have beaten Iginla over the head with a hockey stick. I believe that is also true, because I cannot imagine anyone sees such an act as justifiable. But his foray into hockey history on that night was open to misinterpretation.

There is nothing wrong with a good fight between captains and everything wrong with the kind of violence that severely injured former Oilers head coach Ted Green, who was struck on the head with a stick by the late Wayne Maki during a pre-season game in 1969. There is no situation in hockey that should be addressed with a stick to the head. There never was.

Just as surely, there should be no tolerance for the kind of play that injured Souray. Muddling that message so completely, as Quinn did, was unfortunate. Missing a chance to reinforce that message, as the NHL surely did by letting Iginla off the hook, was negligent.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

[Asher]

While not as incendiary as Quinn, Barnes is equally being a douche. Just more politely.

It's quite clear from the footage that it was nothing but an accident. If you look at the video, Iginla was lucky he didn't get a concussion himself as he went head-first into the boards pretty hard. He also has a sterling track record and is widely known as one of the most respectful and classiest guys in the league.

So supplementary discipline? Even throwing around the word 'suspension'?

Give me a ****ing break.

It's a fast-paced sport with hard-fought battles and a lot of room for a lot of things to go wrong. Sometimes they do. To call for the suspension of a player for something that was indisputably an accident is the height of stupidity that I've seen from sports journalism this year. So, congratulations Edmonton Journal...

[Asher]

Thanks for the link, nye. I took my rant responding to it and turned it into a blog post.

[notyoueither]

While not as incendiary as Quinn, Barnes is equally being a douche. Just more politely.

It's quite clear from the footage that it was nothing but an accident. If you look at the video, Iginla was lucky he didn't get a concussion himself as he went head-first into the boards pretty hard. He also has a sterling track record and is widely known as one of the most respectful and classiest guys in the league.

So supplementary discipline? Even throwing around the word 'suspension'?

Give me a ****ing break.

It's a fast-paced sport with hard-fought battles and a lot of room for a lot of things to go wrong. Sometimes they do. To call for the suspension of a player for something that was indisputably an accident is the height of stupidity that I've seen from sports journalism this year. So, congratulations Edmonton Journal...

Iginla put his stick directly into the feet of a player moving towards the boards at a rapid pace. He was reckless and it resulted in injury. That sort of thing should be discouraged by the league, and it isn't. That is Barnes' point.

[Asher]

Iginla put his stick directly into the feet of a player moving towards the boards at a rapid pace. He was reckless and it resulted in injury. That sort of thing should be discouraged by the league, and it isn't. That is Barnes' point.

The rapid pace is the key. They were going into the boards fast and Iginla was attempting to position the stick to get to the puck, but it got caught on Souray's skate going on which caused the tumble.

It was a pure, honest-to-god, and rather obvious accident that was flukey more than anything else. Additionally, both players were put in the same position and Iginla himself is lucky he didn't break his neck or get a concussion as well.

There is a reason that Dan Barnes, a homer journalist for the Edmonton Journal, is the only person in the hockey galaxy asking for supplementary discipline for Iginla. And it's not because he's being right or sensible.

You simply cannot suspend players with impeccable track records for obvious accidents just because you want to assign fault and justify the loss of one of your only star players. These things happen in fast-paced sports, Dan Barnes should know that. He probably does, he's just writing to his audience...

[notyoueither]

When an experienced hockey player puts his stick into someone's skates, it is rarely regarded as an accident.

The homers in this case are not in Edmonton. There are a number of respected people in the hockey world who are wondering why players are not discouraged by league discipline from making plays that are extremely dangerous for other players.

Different names, same idea.

http://www.tsn.ca/columnists/bob_mckenzie/?id=293993

MCKENZIE: HORDICHUK HIT RAISES QUESTIONS EARLY IN THE SEASON
BOB MCKENZIE
10/6/2009 5:51:35 PM

I promised myself this season I wasn't going to be the *****(cat) of the NHL on TSN panel.

But here we are, less than one week into the 2009-10 regular season, and I find myself have to go back on my New Season's resolution already.

Did you see Darcy Hordichuk's hit last night on Jared Boll? I did and I don't like it.

Would I have been happier had the NHL decided to suspend the Vancouver Canuck tough guy forward for what I think was a blindside and gratuitous hit that caused a head injury to the Columbus Blue Jacket tough guy forward?

I suppose so.

But the issue isn't so much Hordichuk on Boll specifically as it the widespread acceptance and belief that hits happen, players get hurt, so be it, it's a rough game and if you dare to question any of that, you're branded a *****(cat).

Like I said, I don't want to let Hordichuk off the hook. He needs to be responsible for his actions, although I'm not sure how his two-minute minor for roughing equates with responsibility. The truth is, Boll could have just as easily been on the giving end as the receiving end. It's how the game is being played today.

I don't believe hockey's age-old concept of "finishing your check" has ever been embraced as fully as it is now. Today's players – bigger, faster and stronger than at any time in the history of the game – are like machines, as well they should be.

The NHL game has never been more competitive. There has never been greater parity. The NHL regular season games are as fiercely contested as they ever have been. Every shift of every game counts. Jobs are on the line; pressure is at an all-time. If a fourth-line player such as Hordichuk, or Boll for that matter, doesn't "finish his check" then their coaches will find someone else who will.

But I would submit somewhere along the line, the hitting game in the NHL has changed, and not necessarily for the better. I'm not suggesting for a moment there was more "respect" in bygone eras because as my pal Mike Milbury likes to point out, he played in the 1970s against the Broad Street Bullies and the Philadelphia Flyers were not about "respecting" him. Point well taken.

But I'm not sure when it became acceptable to hit a player when he has his back turned and is totally vulnerable and defenceless.

The Hordichuk hit on Boll wasn't about Boll putting himself in a vulnerable position. Boll was doing his job. He was racing to get a puck on the boards in his own end. He corralled the puck, turned and fired it out of the zone, just as he's supposed to in order to not incur the wrath of coach Ken Hitchcock.

And what happened next was fine, too.

Boll was hit by Vancouver forward Rick Rypien That was fine. Rypien was the first Canuck on the scene, Boll was the last player to touch the puck and, therefore, fair game to be hit. Rypien just finished his check and he did so legally, with Boll fully aware that he was going to pay the price for clearing the puck. Which is all as it should be.

But Boll had no clue, nor should he have been expected to, that he would be hit a second time, from the blindside, by Hordichuk. Boll was already off balance and arguably going down when the force of Hordichuk's hit drove Boll's head into the dasher board. Boll clearly suffered a concussion, he was down and out for a relatively long period of time and even as he was helped to the dressing room, he appeared groggy and dazed.

I am not saying the Hordichuk hit was malicious or that was off-the-scale dirty. That's the problem, though. He felt like he was just doing his job, but I would maintain that if you hit someone from the blind side and he suffers a significant head injury as a result, there should be a price to be paid.

I don't need to go into my feelings on head injuries and how the NHL, as well as all levels of the game, needs to do a better job of preventing them. It is well documented. (By the way, every member of the NHL community, especially the players, should read current issue of GQ magazine and a frightening but insightful article by Jeanne Marie Laskas on the tragic lives and deaths of multiple-concussed, retired NFL players).

And while I understand hits happen in hockey and sometimes head injuries happen, too, I remain unconvinced that this one to Boll served any purpose whatsoever in the context of the game. Boll had been eliminated from the play, as he should be, and he got rapped a second time for no reason other than Hordichuk doing what he thinks is necessary to play “his game.”

No one wants to see hitting taken out of the game. A well-timed big hit is as good as it gets in hockey. But somewhere along the line, and I'm not sure exactly when it was, the hitting in the game got a more lot more reckless and cavalier and intense and devastating. This concept of “finishing your check” has been taken to the nth degree. Once upon a time, it was a violation, of the rules and the spirit of the game, to hit another player when he had his back turned.

Now? Not so much. Hordichuk hit a player from behind, with some potentially serious consequences for that player, if not now, perhaps down the road. Hordichuk did receive a two-minute penalty but that's not really anything that's going to make him think twice about doing the same thing again the next time the hit is there for the taking.

So, yeah, maybe I would have felt a little better if Hordichuk had been suspended by the NHL, but not much. Because the larger issue for me is how accepted a hit like Hordichuk's has become. I would suggest the NHL community – from the league's hockey operations to the managers to the coaches to the players to the Players' Association – should at least bat around this notion of what type of hitting is acceptable and what's not. Is it really the end of the world as we know it to perhaps consider that the hitters need to exercise judgment before they deliver their hit? Or has the game become so much about hitting and “finishing the check” that it's done with no regard whatsoever on the consequences?

The other big problem now is that it's difficult to even have a responsible dialogue about this subject. The minute you do, the reaction from the traditionalists and hard-liners is that ''you're going to take hitting out of the game.'' It's a knee-jerk reaction to avoid having to talk about the issue and if that fails, the next step is to challenge the machismo of the person raising the issue.

Hitting is not in danger of leaving hockey any time soon, even if certain aspects of hitting are challenged. I think it's a gross overreaction and fear-mongering at its worst to suggest any discussion on this subject is going to neuter the physicality of the sport. It's not an all or nothing proposition.

But if, at the end of a legitimate and/or earnest exercise to truly discuss this issue, the consensus is that Hordichuk's hit on Boll was just fine and dandy and exactly what the NHL game today is all about, then this *****(cat) will zip the lip. Or at least try.

But I couldn't help myself this one time. I was never very good with resolutions.

[Asher]

When an experienced hockey player puts his stick into someone's skates, it is rarely regarded as an accident.

The homers in this case are not in Edmonton. There are a number of respected people in the hockey world who are wondering why players are not discouraged by league discipline from making plays that are extremely dangerous for other players.

Show me one respected person in the hockey world who thought Iginla should face supplementary discipline for that play who isn't a homer journalist.

The homers in this case are in Edmonton. The only journalists calling for supplementary discipline are in Edmonton, the rest of the hockey world are not. What does that tell you?

The Hordicuk case is not at all the same. He showed exceptionally poor judgment with his hit, and it was not an accident. It is not at all the same thing.

The problem with the idea you and other folks in Edmonton have is you believe Iginla intentionally placed his stick in the skates of Souray, or at the very least he "should have known better". Words cannot describe how absurd this is, it's like you guys don't comprehend the definition of the word "accident" or understand the speed at which the game is played. Iginla's eyes are on the puck in that case, as it should be, and not at the absolute positioning of Souray's skates.

It was so plainly obvious a fluke play that I thought there was no further discussion on it. Until I read Barne's article.

So for you to claim that there is are respected people in the hockey world calling for supplementary discipline for Iginla is disingenuous, and then to compare it to the Hordichuk hit is just absurdly disingenuous.

[notyoueither]

I fail to see how a stick into the skates of a player heading towards the boards is any less serious than a push or a cross-check, or a body check when the player is in a dangerous position. The Commissioner is given a lot of latitude to excercise discression for supplementary discipline.

Nobody in Edmonton is defending Quinn's comment about sticks over heads. It was very illconsidered. The homer part in this is ignoring what Iginla did because he is a Flame.

[Asher]

I fail to see how a stick into the skates of a player heading towards the boards is any less serious than a push or a cross-check, or a body check when the player is in a dangerous position.

Yes, I can see that.

The difference is really quite simple. In Hordichuk's case, he had every opportunity to back off from the check and chose not to. Hordichuk's case was fundamentally different from Iginla's case because one was clearly an accident, the other was clearly intentional.

They are not even close to being the same thing.

The homer part in this is ignoring what Iginla did because he is a Flame.

But the problem is no one is "ignoring" what he did. What happened was an accident. And when everyone outside of Edmonton sees it that way, it ceases to become a "homer" position. In fact, the "homer" position in this case would be the one contrary to the rest of the hockey world, which is to call for disciplinary action against Iginla.

Honestly, nye, why do you think no one else is talking about this aside from Edmonton papers if the position that Iginla should not be punished is the "homer" position?

The argument that Iginla intentionally tripped Souray into the boards (and also sent himself careening head-first into the boards at high speed) is patently absurd. The argument that Iginla, being a professional hockey player, is capable of preventing any and all accidents or mistakes from occurring on the ice is also very absurd.

What happened was awful, but it's really time for Edmonton to suck it up and move on. All of this whining afterwards is very, very bad for the city's image and very, very indicative of homerism.

In any case, what good would disciplining Iginla do? You discipline people to discourage certain activities, and unless you want to discourage going into the boards to fight for a puck, there's no point to it.

I'm still waiting for you to find any articles from any reputable hockey person outside of Edmonton calling for supplemental punishment for Iginla. You won't find it, because it doesn't exist.

[notyoueither]

Most reckless plays that result in injury can be described as accidents. The players dishing it out seldom intend to injure. The point is how to stop the sorts of serious injuries that result from recklessness in hockey.

I don't need to go into my feelings on head injuries and how the NHL, as well as all levels of the game, needs to do a better job of preventing them. It is well documented. (By the way, every member of the NHL community, especially the players, should read current issue of GQ magazine and a frightening but insightful article by Jeanne Marie Laskas on the tragic lives and deaths of multiple-concussed, retired NFL players).

How ever those injuries are being caused should be a concern to the league and everyone involved, including the fans.

Saying that what Iginla did was just an accident, and he should skate, is to ignore the seriousness of what he did. Sooner or later, someone is going to end up dead due to one of these 'accidents' from a reckless check or other play around the boards.

Incidentally, I don't think Iginla should be suspended. He should at least have been interviewed though. The NHL is essentially saying they don't care. It's normal.

It'll be normal right up to the point that the NHL is a party to a large law suit for negligence when some reckless play or another results in a death.

[notyoueither]

I'm still waiting for you to find any articles from any reputable hockey person outside of Edmonton calling for supplemental punishment for Iginla. You won't find it, because it doesn't exist.

Nobody is really talking about it because of the outrageousness of what Quinn said. Quinn became the story.

[Asher]

The NHL doesn't care because it is normal.

I think we've come full circle on this though, so I'll retire from the discussion.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yeah, if Iggy wore a Canucks uniform, he'd be calling him a 'thug' just like Todd Bertuzzi. I find it hilarious to see him standing up for 'classy' Iggy. He's a hockey player ffs.