LET’S be clear on this. Though the 20-game suspension levied against Steve Downie for concussing Dean McAmmond with malice aforethought in the Sept. 25 exhibition game between the Flyers and Senators was an appropriate sentence, Colin Campbell’s decision ultimately can be evaluated only in the context of future rulings on vicious head-hunting attacks.
It was both easy and popular for NHL VP Campbell to make an example of the notorious Downie, the 20-year-old Philadelphia prospect who will pose an immediate challenge to Sean Avery’s title as the NHL’s Most Hated Player the moment he actually becomes an NHL player; easy and popular for Campbell to assume the guise of a hanging judge in this case by handing down a sentence 20 times more severe than the one he assessed against Chris Pronger for concussing the same McAmmond with a blatant forearm shiver to the head in Game 3 of last year’s Stanley Cup Finals that all four officials on the ice somehow failed to detect.
But beyond easy and popular, the suspension will be proven constructive and legitimate if the next intentional blow to the head is punished proportionately. In order for Campbell’s ruling to maintain integrity, the NHL and its VP must commit to punishing the crime, not the criminal.
No one is favor of placing NHL players in more physical jeopardy than they already assume every time they skate a shift. At the same time, cries that all hits to the head should be punishable by automatic penalties and accompanying severe suspensions miss the mark. The safety of the players is paramount, but so, too, is maintaining the fundamental physical – indeed, violent – character of the sport.
It’s bad enough players controlling the puck now routinely turn their backs on would-be checkers in order to draw hitting-from-behind or boarding penalties. It would be even worse were players to be rewarded for ducking into checks in order to draw hits to the head and ensuing automatic power-plays the sanitizers would inflict upon the game.
“There’s no easy answer; it’s not a one-size-fits-all issue,” Chris Drury, concussed last season on a controversial and properly unpenalized high blow from Chris Neil, told Slap Shots. “I don’t believe that every hit to the head should be penalized, but I do believe that we should do more to protect the players, and by ‘we’ I mean the league and the players ourselves.
“There’s always going to be a gray area, especially when you have a smaller player involved against a bigger player. There are always going to be unintentional hits to the head, and some of those might cause injuries. I don’t necessarily believe those incidents should draw penalties and suspensions.
“If the league wasn’t looking at these incidents and reviewing hits to the head, then it would be a problem. But in my opinion, this is being handled the proper way.”
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From Page Six: Which NHL head coach subjected his players to room-by-room, curfew bed-checks conducted by his assistants in the team’s hotel two nights before the season opener on the road?
The prospective transfer of the Predators to local Nashville ownership isn’t the only potential NHL franchise sale that’s in jeopardy, Slap Shots has learned.
A well-placed source reports that Doug MacLean‘s Absolute Hockey Enterprises group that apparently had reached an agreement to buy the Lightning, is having ongoing issues meeting the financial requirements necessary to complete the deal and is seeking additional investors.
Sidney Crosby might want to begin to distance himself from prominent and public connection with the Reebok uniform issue with mounting anecdotal evidence of the fiasco it’s well on its way to becoming.
Forget the sloppy look that’s accompanied the unnecessary rebranding of NHL apparel; the overriding issue is that a large majority of players hate the way the uniforms trap moisture inside the new material and thus soak not only the jerseys but the players’ equipment.
There’s a revolt brewing around the league, a serious revolt, and Crosby’s Pollyanna-like, “It’s great that [Reebok] is listening to the players for their feedback,” comments don’t reflect especially well on the independence of the Reebok paid-endorser and spokesperson.
When Brian McGrattan vowed to retaliate against Downie in the aftermath of the Sept. 25 incident – “He’ll get what’s coming to him the next time we play him, that’s for sure,” the Ottawa enforcer threatened – he opened himself, his team and the NHL to potential civil liability. As such, Campbell should have sanctioned McGrattan for everyone’s own good, suspending him from the first four Ottawa-Philadelphia games in which Downie is on the Flyers’ roster and eligible to play.
Seeing Mike Mottau and Johnny Oduya on the ice as a defensive pair for the Devils in the final minutes of a tie game makes one yearn for the good old days of New Jersey hockey, doesn’t it, for the days of . . . Brad Lukowich and Ken Klee, that is?
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Finally, this just in. Willie Randolph says the Olympics ruined the season for the Mets.