Leafs/Sabres: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

This dead horse really takes a beating, doesn't it. I was going to decide I didn't care any more, but this is too good to pass up:

The notion that we should let players “police themselves” is the highest of high comedy, as if Cam Janssen is a modern-day Wyatt Earp, dispensing justice on the hockey frontier when referees can’t get the job done. 

Seriously, I think that article should be considered the premier anti-fighting article thus far.

Related: NHL coaches don't like the fact that the Sabres coach was fined for "player selection" in sending out a goon with his line change. Toronto tried to calm the situation by putting skilled players out against the goon, but hilarity ensued nevertheless. In this I agree with the coaches, in that if a player is on the bench, a coach should have the option of putting him out at any given legal time. To decide that some players can't be played in certain incidents only illustrates the degree to which the NHL will bend good sense in the pursuit of... I don't even know.

NHL Logic

So the whole mess that is the Leafs-Sabres pre-season brawl has been done to death, but I just want to beat a particular part of this dead horse one more time:

Kessel Swings His Stick Not Once, But Twice – Whether or not he connected, and whether or not it was in self-defense (the first one, not the second), brandishing your stick in such a manner as a weapon is definitely contravening the rules and could be (and was) construed as an attempt to injure.

Attempt to injure, huh? Later, in the same article:

As of now, however ridiculous it sounds in the real world, punching someone of any size with your fist is not considered an attempt to injure in the NHL.

Yeah.

That said, I'm yet to read anyone really standing up and enthusiastically justify the thuggery that was a part of this "game".  It is all back-of-the-hand justification, half-assed references to "The Code", and generally not providing a ringing endorsement.

Beating That Dead Horse

The fighting debate in a nutshell:

• On what possible level can you even begin to justify having more than $9 million worth of starting goalies fighting each other in a meaningless exhibition game? 
• Notwithstanding the above, can we all agree that goalie fights are the greatest?

(Linked because it is funny.)

This is what happens when I pay even a passing attention to the NHL.  Somehow my urge to watch hockey is at a five- or six- year low.

That said, there seems to be more noise in the blog-o-sphere which are sounding tired of fighting.  A couple of entries:

• What’s The Deal?: Fighting After A Clean Hit Without Instigator Penalty 
• NHLers fight through loophole in rule book 
• I Don't Know What The Code Is Anymore
• There’s no need for all this NHL preseason fighting

The last article is interesting, as it compares the incidences of fighting in the pre-season (more than one per game) to the incidences during the regular season (0.8 per game) to incidences during the no-holds-barred, put-the-whistle-away playoffs (just over 0.5 per game).  In other words, the more the game "means", the less fighting there is.

I'm still following things, even if disinterestedly, so my interest level is still higher than 2005 when it was "who cares?"  But I wonder how much of even this minimal interest level is sheer inertia.

Fight Night

So on Saturday morning, I saw the 17-minute "highlight" reel of the Islanders-Penguins game the night before. This reel included such classics as the full-ice-brawl, the blind-side sucker punch, a skater fighting a goalie, and someone leaving the bench to get involved in a fight. By the end of it, Pittsburgh had five skaters on the ice and three on the bench. Everyone else had been tossed out.

On Saturday there was the predictable round of lamentations that this was a disgrace to hockey. On Monday, Pittsburgh owner Mario Lemieux gets on his high horse over the lack of action taken over the event, saying something to the point that he needed to "reconsider his involvement" with the league.

The whole thing was sickening to watch.

The kicker for me? The commentator on the highlight reel mentioned that the evil deed perpetrated by Pittsburgh had been deemed a clean hockey hit. Now I have not seen the offense myself, but this goes to show you how out-of-control the "self-enforcement" of fighting has become, when a clean hockey hit leads to this kind of carrying on.

The sick feeling carried over into Saturday's afternoon game between Ottawa and Edmonton, where there was some pushing and shoving after some non-event or other on the ice. There were a couple points in the game where I nearly gave up on it.

I'm for contact in hockey.

I'm just not for fighting.

If the players fight because the refs don't call the rules, then either fix the rulebook or fix the reffing.

Ditch The Enforcer

Five Hole Fanatics on ditching the enforcer.

From 2008.

A little more specific than my "I don't like fighting" stance, but still interesting.

Sens Beat Another Dominator

OK -- my number one comment for this game is where the hell are the refs at the end of the second? Stajan piles into Kelly just off the boards and both refs stand there with their thumbs up their asses. Letting a dangerous hit like that go uncalled is why the players feel justified in piling on each other. And what happens? Players pile on each other. Call the damn rules, OK? That's your job. If you don't call the rules, then it doesn't matter what rules you make because if the refs ignore them, the players will ignore them, and we'll be back to the league's Random Wheel of Consequences.

OK. Enough of such drivel.

Tonight's win is the first time Ottawa has beat Calgary since some time in 2004. Now this is distorted by the lockout and the fact that east and west just don't play each other very often in this new-look NHL, but Calgary has owned Ottawa pretty consistently.

It was turnover-city for most of the early-going. The color-commentator said that the NHL recorded 14 turnovers in the first period, and by his count they had missed 3 or 4. Most of those had been Ottawa turnovers, but fortunately Calgary didn't capitalize too often.

500-game-man Jonathan Cheechoo had a good game tonight, lots of quality chances, some he just didn't put away. Cheechoo is one of those guys I want to like. He always seems to be putting in the effort, even if it comes up half a step late or half a step slow, which is why he comes up short in the results as well. He's aggressive on the forecheck, and isn't afraid to grind in the corners. Tonight's effort was rewarded when his pass to Michalek banked off a Calgary skate to give Spezza an opportunity he didn't miss, one of those bounces that go in rather than one that doesn't. If he keeps getting chances like this, the goals will come.

So right now I am undecided as to whether Cheechoo stepped up his game for his pairing with Spezza and Michalek, or whather Spezza and Michalek flattered Cheechoo's effort. Probably a little of column A, and a little from column B. Hopefully for him this line will stay together, and hopefully for all of us his game will continue to rise.

Next up: Washington comes to town on Thursday. Buckle up, boys, we probably won't win this one. But here's hoping the team brings their A-game so we can see how this team stacks up to one of the best in the East right now.

Clean Hit

TSN's Bob McKenzie on hitting in hockey:

The truth is if we actually fear "taking hitting out of the game" we wouldn't allow a player to start a fight over a perfectly clean hit in a game that is suppose to encourage body contact. Unless, of course, the desire for fighting in hockey trumps bodychecking.

This is what I've been on about. Fighting is allegedly a way for the players to police themselves for bad actions on the ice by others. However the recent trend is for monkey-bashing to happen after a perfectly clean hit. Ottawa is not immune to this -- witness Michalek jumping on Pittsburgh's Craig Adams after the hit that injured Alfredsson in December 2009. It was a clean hit, and Alfredsson later admitted he'd got himself out of position a bit so that the hit hurt more than it should have.

So -- clean hit == monkey bashing?

Not to mention the baying for blood when the Senators re-played Pittsburgh later. It was just stupid. Of course Ottawa didn't indulge in such stupidity, and won the game instead. Winning is much better revenge.

Defending fighting on the grounds that the officiating is bad is defensible, although I would much rather see proposals or efforts to fix the officiating instead.

Defending fighting as a means to intimidate other teams and players is just stupid.

It's Cherry's Fault

MD Blames Don Cherry For Hockey Violence

A Toronto neurosurgeon speaking at a Regina seminar about concussions in hockey says the promotion of an aggressive style of play by commentators like Don Cherry is contributing to serious injuries in the sport.

"He's a negative influence," Dr. Charles Tator told CBC News in reference to Cherry, a popular personality on Hockey Night in Canada. "The aggressive, lack-of-respect hockey that he preaches — we need to get that out of the game."

Cue the baying hounds.

Enough Brain Damage Already

Enough Brain Damage Already:

[...]Mr. Burke is regarded as one of the smartest thinkers in hockey management, perhaps in part because he never went through the mind-numbing apprenticeship that is an NHL playing career.[...] In Russia, as it happens, hockey culture evolved out of low-contact soccer traditions rather than from the arts of war and, as a result, clever puck movement is still prized over mindless pugnacity.

This is why my favorite kind of hockey is four-on-four sudden-deathvictory overtime hockey. Even in the NHL, the guys can't screw around hitting each other -- they have to play the game.

Conspiracy Theory

Sensay examines the suspicious penalty record of this year's Ottawa Senators.

This all feeds into the "fighting" debate because the single best argument in favor of fighting is that it is required so the players can regulate the rules-breaking that the officials don't call penalties on.

Sensay on hitting in hockey

SenSay talks about hitting in hockey.

I love this GAME. I don’t love the idea of a person suffering a life long injury for no good reason, and least of all for my entertainment.

I'm still grinding through the backlog in my RSS reader, so there are likely to be a few more quick-shots like this in the near future.

Would You Like Fries With That?

Quick, cheesy links dump with extra cheese:

• Sensay wants to know: where are the goals? Because, you know, you'd like the top line to actually behave as if it was the top line. So far, basically all we have is way more secondary scoring than we had last year -- and a penalty shot.
• The 6th Sens wishes the Battle of Ontario was a little more relevant. I've long said that beating Toronto would be far more satisfying if it was hard-earned, and Toronto wasn't a bag of pucks truculent bag of pucks.
• Sensay again, this time musing on the difference between the instigator rule and unsportsmanslike conduct. He basically comes to the same conclusion that I have on the subject of fighting -- that is, if the reffing was any good at all, there wouldn't be a "need" for fighting in the game.

Fighting: You're doing it wrong

Off The Posts talks about fighting in baseball:

Oh, I completely understand why Kevin Youkilis charged Rick Porcello. The kid has a good fastball and he planted it right in the middle of Youk's back. But how does Youkilis get away with throwing his helmet at the pitcher? And why does everyone have to jump in? They should be left to settle their differences, like men. Like hockey players.

Or, you know, maybe we'd have the designated hitter, who'd be permitted to charge the mound and try to fight the pitcher. Unless the shortstop got to the mound first, in which case the DH would be obligated to fight him, instead.

Fighting

I've been thinking about this whole "fighting in hockey" issue that has been floating around recently.

I'm clear about my position: I don't like fighting. I also don't like some of the plays that go on around fighting, and I especially don't like the fact that the referees seem oddly disinterested in calling some of these plays.

Fighting, some of its proponents claim, is a way for the players to police each other. You'll be less likely to commit some of the various fouls if you know that the pest or enforcer on the other team is likely to come and share his fists with you.

Well if the refs actually called the rule book, and not just the "when they feel like it", the game would be policed already.

I'll even respond to Five for Smiting's comments on the matter:

I want the proponents of a fighting ban tell me that the game is more entertaining without a fight than it is with one, that the 18000 or so ticket buying souls who stand and roar during every single fight have been wrong all along. I want them to swear to me that now that fighting has been eliminated, they will flock to the rink and buy jerseys and beer and pizza and car flags in numbers never seen before.

OK, in order:

• The most entertaining hockey I've ever seen is four-on-four sudden-death overtime. And the reason for that is that since there's less margin for surviving a possible penalty, you can't piss around hitting, hooking, or holding: you have to play the damn game. So yes, for me, "less fighting" is equivalent to "more entertaining".
  
• I'm not going to presume to tell people who buy their tickets whether or not they are wrong. That's up to them. They clearly like fighting.
  
• Bitter Leaf Fan has the numbers on that: suffice it to say that if you want to grow your hockey audience, you have to consider what those who are not in your audience (who by definition are the ones you need to pull from to grow) do, or do not, want to see.
  

Now of course I'm not going to sit here and claim that eliminating fighting will cause all of those non-hockey-following people to start demanding season tickets -- that's just stupid. Just like I'm sure that fighting proponents are not predicting that every current fan is going to burn their season tickets if fighting is eliminated. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

(O.B. Maple Leafs shot: although that might happen in Toronto, since people are clearly not buying tickets to see skilled hockey.)

I suspect it's closer to the "no fighting" side than it is the "fighting" side, and the quantity of vitriol being spewed suggests that they suspect that, too.

I'm going to skip the rest of Five For Smiting's comments because it mostly boils down to the players need to be reactive to rules violations not punished by the refs -- and honestly my view is the fix for that problem is to fix the officiating at all levels. Yes the system is broken, but trying to band-aid it with another broken system is still stupid.

But in the end does it matter what I think?

Fighting can end in the NHL in a number of ways:

• The players stop fighting. Unlikely due to the state of the players (typically impressionable, adrenaline-driven young men) and the "history" of fighting in the game. Fighting gives an advantage, and attempting to get that advantage is blessed, or at leased tolerated, by the rules and officials, so giving that up would be stupid on the part of the players.
  
• The owners and the league deciding to get rid of it. But unless the issues with the officiating are addressed at the same time, this avenue will be pointless.
  
• The fans not showing up for games unless or until fighting is banned, although realistically this will just be the trigger for the owners and league deciding to follow through.
  

None of those ways have my name on it. But since this is the internet, I get to write my opinion.

Personally I suspect fighting will be in the NHL for quite a while to come yet.