O O Ø O O O O
Bloodsport
For This We Pay Good Money? You Betcha!
So you’re playing in a game that’s all but over because you’ve had your ass handed to you eight ways from Sunday, and there’s no way you can score six goals in ten minutes. The team you’re playing is a rival and, during a game earlier in the season, your leading player got knocked out for a few games on a hit of questionable legality by one of their players. You could just let it go, like you did during the last game with the same team that ended in a tie, but this game’s long been over. There’s not much else to lose - you decide to go headhunting.
Welcome to the NHL, and any other North American semi-professional hockey league that’s running today. The scenario depicted is a very common one, and in most cases leads to a big hit, a fight, or (rarely) an injury that may or may not put the target out of the game for a little while. That’s the way it’s always been, at almost every level, and it’s classified as acceptable behaviour. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s a little more serious and people really get hurt.
We cheer for it, and pay to see it, and the league tolerates it because that’s the way its always been and, oh yeah, it sells.
Last night Todd Bertuzzi grabbed Steve Moore’s jersey to hold him in place, and sucker-punched him from behind. Moore looked like he was out or dazed from the instant he was hit, and fell to the ice without making any effort to break his fall. He hit face first, with Bertuzzi landing on top of him, driving Moore into the ice. Ice is hard, Bertuzzi is heavy, and ithe net result was Steve Moore ended up in the hospital with two cracked vertebrae. Now that’s hockey!
I’m appalled, but not surprised. If Moore had been able to break his fall on the way down, the end result would have been much different. We probably would have seen a scuffle, which may have led to a fight between the two, and that would’ve been as bad as it got. A misconduct or two might be handed out, but no one would be talking about Moore’s season ending and Bertuzzi’s probably ending. The act would have been the same, but the results wouldn’t have.
It was the same thing when Marty McSorley whacked Donald Brashear with his stick, and Brashear, whose helmet wasn’t squarely on his head, fell to the ice and cracked his melon. Had Brashear not landed the way he did or had his helmet done up in such a way that it would serve a useful purpose, he probably would have got right back up and gone after McSorley. That’s not what happened, and McSorley was suspended for a year and never got back into the game he played for seventeen seasons at the NHL level. Brashear continues to play, and his latest claim to fame is taking credit for starting the brawl that led to the NHL record for penalty minutes in a single game because a player on Ottawa (who was in the penalty box at the time) slashed Mark Recchi in an earlier game. Glad to see lessons were learned.
It’s bred into you, and it’s expected of you, and that’s “the code” you follow
Retribution in the NHL happens all the time. It’s tolerated, and it’s expected. Look at all the coaches and players who make thinly veiled threats about what’s going to happen to players who injure a teammate, and then follow through. Usually the retribution is limited to something relatively minor, and life goes on. It’s an accepted practice and everyone loves it.
Now I see a longtime hockey analyst using this unfortunate incident as a soapbox for removing the instigator rule so that “justice” can be handed out by enforcers at the time of the foul in a more acceptable manner. Another analyst talked about how sickening Bertuzzi’s actions were, and yet they have advocated this type of enforcement in the past. It’s funny how their tune changes when someone really gets hurt and the replays make hockey players look like thugs. It doesn’t just smack of hypocrisy, it is hypocrisy defined.
The reality of it is, hockey can be an ugly, brutal, thuggish sport. Ask anyone who plays the game if they’ve ever gotten mad at another player and wanted to take them out. If they answer “no”, they either never played anything more than table hockey or are liars. You’re taught from the time you’re ten to remember the number of the guy that hit you, to stand up for your teammates when they get whacked, and to dole out some pain when—in your eyes—the other guy crosses the line. It’s bred into you, and that’s “the code” you follow.
You’re taught from the time you’re ten to remember the number of the guy that hit you
We can’t be indignant or act surprised by what happened last night, it was only a matter of time. Players, fans, and coaches expect violence at hockey games. We expect to see justice served when liberties are taken with their star players. We enjoy a good fight, a flying body check, or Claude Lemieux down on the ice after being pummeled for one too many cheap shots. We cheer for it, and pay to see it, and the league puts up with it because that’s the way its always been and, oh yeah, it sells.
It wasn’t just one person committing a heinous act, it was one person doing what’s been done time and again in the past, just with disastrous results. If we didn’t want to see this kind of thing, we’d expect the officials of the game to punish players who injure other players, and I don’t mean giving Kasparitus two games for knocking someone out for the season. We’d stop teaching our kids to seek revenge, and focus them on playing fairly no matter what. We’d expect our coaching staffs not to send theirr enforcers out to goon it up whenever they think it’s necessary. We’d treat hockey as a game to be enjoyed first and foremost, and celebrate it for the skillful display it can be. Unfortunately, we don’t.
We pay to see blood, you’d think we’d understand the consequences of actually seeing it once in a while.
Tuesday, Mar 09, 2004
PD DCXLII
P.S. - Tonight, Brian Marchment hit yet another player from behind into the boards. He got a game misconduct, and the player he hit was helped from the ice, but was ok. It wasn’t retaliatory, but the next time the hit on Marchment may be, and everyone will say he had it coming. And the cycle continues...