You know something? If referees Tom Peel and Marc Joannette simply had done their jobs last Sunday in Pittsburgh, the NHL would have been able to avoid the fine-print absurdity that league disciplinarian Colin Campbell presented the world this week — refusing to suspend serial headhunter Matt Cooke for his drive-by shoulder on Marc Savard.
Though there was debate this week on exactly what rule Cooke broke in targeting the helpless Boston center just as he was in full extension following a shot, there is no doubt the aforementioned referees should have given the Pittsburgh predator a match penalty on the spot for intent to injure.
This is Rule 21.1 in the rulebook with which neither Peel nor Joannette seemed to be familiar: “A match penalty shall be imposed on any player who deliberately attempts to injure or who deliberately injures an opponent in any manner.”
There. That’s the rule that Cooke broke, if Campbell and the league needed to be able to include such a reference in the press release that should have announced Cooke’s suspension for the remainder of the season.
Is that clear enough for everyone? Is that clear enough for Campbell and the Ministry of Injustice over which he presides? Is that clear enough for Peel and Joannette, referees whose failure to respond appropriately is, sadly, not uncommon around the league?
For reasons known only to him (and presumably commissioner Gary Bettman), Campbell refused to retroactively apply Rule 21.1 to the case. The league’s hockey operations department reverses game-misconduct penalties after the fact as a matter of course, but here, with the whole world watching, Campbell refused to push the rewind button.
Cooke intended to injure Savard. There is no other way to interpret this cowardly player’s cowardly play. He intended to injure him and he concussed Savard, ending his season and thus weakening a potential Pittsburgh playoff opponent.
Campbell reportedly did not want to rule on Cooke’s “intent.” But he rules on intent in dispensing suspensions (or declining to dispense them) every day. But for whatever reason, not this time. Campbell choked last week, choked on the fine print.
If Cooke, who somehow also escaped punishment for injuring Tampa Bay’s Vincent Lecavalier two years ago, had been suspended for the remainder of the season, there wouldn’t have been a soul in the league who would have protested.
Well, except for Mario Lemieux.
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In each of the previous two seasons, the Rangers took one road trip on which players were accompanied by their fathers. One of the highlights of last season, in fact, was when the fathers chanted, “Let’s Go Rangers!” in the corridor outside the locker room in Chicago on Jan. 16 during then-coach Tom Renney‘s postgame press conference after their kids’ team defeated the Blackhawks in overtime.
But this year, though we’re told that preliminary planning had taken place for a trip including the players’ mothers, there was no such event. Repeated requests for an official explanation went unanswered, but several sources told Slap Shots that current head coach John Tortorella had put the kibosh on the event.
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We understand that Phoenix coach Dave Tippett likely is to win the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year, but we would cast our vote for Carolina’s Paul Maurice, who somehow held his team together through an unimaginably ugly, injury-decimated first couple of months and has the Hurricanes on the brink of playoff contention.
Plaudits as well to Carolina general manager Gentleman Jim Rutherford, who refused to push the panic button and fire Maurice, even with assistant coach Ron Francis an obvious popular replacement.
There’s a strain of loyalty that permeates the Hurricanes’ organization that, hidden away in Raleigh, N.C., seems to operate as an old-time, mom-and-pop operation that approaches its business in a way that might serve as a model for some of its more glamorous brethren.
Not that we would expect the fine folks in Hartford, Conn., to second the endorsement of the ownership of Peter Karmanos.
Why is it that over time, none of the Panthers’ most highly touted young players — like Jay Bouwmeester, Stephen Weiss, Nathan Horton, Rostislav Olesz — ever seem to reach their projected potential?
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There was Denis Potvin on the NHL Network the other night, accurately forecasting trouble for the Capitals in their home game against Dallas. In speaking about the tendency to overlook an opponent, Potvin then referenced his experience with the Islanders in losing 2-1 to the Colorado Rockies when the Islanders had won 14 straight back in the 1981-82 season.
But the Islanders beat the Rockies, 3-2, on Feb. 21, 1982, to establish an NHL record (since broken by the 1992-93 Penguins), with their 15th straight victory.
In other words, people do sometimes misremember.
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The Islanders’ John Tavares has been in the spotlight from the age of 14, was the first overall pick in the draft, and is playing his rookie season on the Island without notice.
That’s what they mean by hiding in plain sight, isn’t it?