Even by UFC standards, the knee to the
head by Penguins' forward James Neal on the Bruins' super pest Brad Marchand in the Boston's 3-2 victory over Pittsburgh last
Saturday night is considered a viscious and calculated blow. Neal took advantage of Marchand's vulnerability,
and it is one of the most cowardly and unmanly cheap shots ever in recent memory. That
was followed up by an equally heinous retaliatory slew foot and face pounding by Shawn Thornton
on a prone and defenceless Brooks Orpik.
The NHL, and its officials, have allowed this situation to escalate, and has moved one step
closer to reporting its first death as a direct result of a violent act since
Bill Masterton died in 1968. Former NHL referee Wally Harris characterized the Masteron hit by saying, "he was checked hard, but I'm sure it wasn't a dirty play." That argument sounds vaguely familiar to some of the asinine explanations we have been provided in recent years by many NHL media outlets and "old school" thinkers.
So long as
the discussion of fighting keeps getting bastardized with acts of violence that
fall outside a conventional dropping of the gloves, the NHL will never turn the pendulum
away from barbarism and towards beautiful skillful artistry.
If violence was a successful strategy to
glory, then explain why these acts of violence do not take place in the
playoffs? Explain why the Montreal Canadiens have 24 Stanley Cups, and Boston
and Philadelphia, teams known for their brutish styles of play, only have a handful?
When five year old children register to play hockey for the
first time, do we teach them to skate, stop, and pivot
turn, or do we teach them boxing and wrestling moves?
The day is coming when NHL Commissioner
Gary Bettman will have to look the NHL's Chairman of the Board of Govornors, and Bruins' owner Jeremy Jacobs
in the eye and tell him that violence needs to be reduced for the sake of the
game, and that a cultural shift needs to start happening in cities like Boston
and Philadelphia.
This is exactly what it is...a cultural gap
that exists between our two countries.
In Canada, we see spots of societal devastation that
involve mass murder. It hits the nation’s citizens hard, and we reject it as being tolerable.
In the USA, they hide behind the
constitution and learn to accept the almost daily occurrence of such inexplicable
destruction of human life, and it is only inevitable, and somewhat expected, that
such inner feelings carry over into the field of sports.
Fighting in hockey was nothing more than a
policing measure to make up for the pathetically inept and biased officiating
that existed in the game today. And now, we find ourselves one step closer to a ferocious
beating, an unexpected clubbing or a senseless kneeing of a hockey player when
in a defenseless position that will not only knock a player out or end his career,
but will no doubt kill him.
Mr. Bettman, I hope you have a R.I.P.
message ready, because it will be needed sooner rather than later unless you
put an end to this garbage goon mentality pushed by a few, but powerful owners.
