A New Way.

With the whole Colin Campbell debate still raging about supplemental discipline and the implied conflict of interest, it makes me believe that the things I said 5 years ago remain my opinion today and in fact lead me to believe that it is more important than ever. Colin Campbell is a solid hockey man in an impossible situation. In the position he is in right now as it relates to supplemental discipline, it is not and can never be pure. There is simply too much input, too much politicking, too much coercion from too many different sources involved in almost every case.

When a case is reviewed there are league pressures, marketing pressures, seat sale pressures, team pressures, opposing team pressures, player pressures and everyone at every level has the ability to call Colin and talk to him. They all have their case to make and it is impossible for any human to field all those pressure tactics and consistently come out with the proper ruling and precedent based decision.

So, as I have said before, like arbitration a third party should be the one deciding supplemental discipline in the NHL. That person would be sent all the relevant video evidence along with written perspectives from the two teams involved. No one from the league, the NHLPA or the teams would be allowed to have any contact with the adjudicator unless he or she requests direct contact for the purposes of clarification. Decisions would be based on the exact interpretations of the rule book and precedent.

This would take politics out of the process and remove any hint of bias. One of the important byproducts would also be the NHL being forced to make its rule book and the often talked about but never seen, "situation book" more clear with fewer things open to interpretation. One of the biggest problems in the NHL is that almost every rule and every call are open to interpretation which leads to every call being debated. That continually undermines the NHL's ability to have fans, media, players, coaches and managers believe that the rules of the game are called with consistency.

The NHL employs the best officials in the hockey world yet almost everyone agrees that the biggest problem with the game is officiating. No one seems to know what a foul is on a night to night basis. The ambiguity of the rule book and its application is a huge part of that and the NHL would do itself a favor by dealing with that.

See you at the rink.

Sobering perspective

I have to admit that right now talking about the Power Play or which team is the best one in the East or the lack of trades in the NHL all seems pretty trivial right now. The suicide death of Luke and Stephanie Richardson's youngest daughter Daron has put so many things into a different perspective for all of us who are around Luke, this team and this league.

Maybe because all of us who live in this NHL life have an unsaid arrogance that this type of horrific tragedy doesn't happen in our world. Clearly it does.

This tragic loss of this young life is no different than any other. It is the same grief and sorrow that comes with any teen suicide, but this is different because its public. Working in the NHL means that you must forfeit some of your privacy and anonymity. The Richardson's know that and have been remarkably public about the details of their daughters death. If I were in their shoes I doubt I could be that strong and I admire their grace during what is the very worst time in all of their lives.

What has come of this so far is remarkable though. Out of such a brutally heart wrenching situation is some good that benefits all of us who have children. First was the organ donation and second the conversations. There are parents all over the city, the region and the league who are having conversations with their children about suicide. Conversations about depression and dark thoughts. Conversations about making sure there are open lines of communication with their children. Conversations about what to do if you ever feel like you have no options and the world is not worth living in.

There is nothing that can ever erase the pain the Richardson family is going through and even with that, by being so public about their situation they have given all of us a gift. The gift is a sobering perspective on teen suicide which may help prevent one or two or five or ten other ones.

There is nothing any of us can say to the Richardson's to ease their pain. Sadly it is theirs to carry for the rest of their lives. But we can say thank you for finding the very little that is good from this and sharing that sliver of good with the rest of us, to help the rest of us foresee and avoid the horror you are now going through.

God be with you.

I am still alive and blogging

Yesterday I was driving my daughter to school. Kenny Walls the producer of the morning show called and asked if I was listening to the show. I had my 10 year old daughter in the car, so no I wasn't listening. Love the show but never have it on when the kids are in the car. I don't even want to begin trying to explain the Turkey Skin Luggage song to my kids.

Kenny wanted to know if I was listening as JR slagged me on the air about never writing in my blog. I went on the air with the boys ready with my excuses. Unfortunately I didn't have any good ones. I still don't. Just stopped at the end of last season and never really started again at the start of this season.

generally I write my stuff in a separate file and then after I tweak it I copy and paste it to the blog. I have a new laptop with Microsoft Office 10 and I have not yet learned all the nuances of this great software. For some reason it allows me to copy but will not paste to the blog. So the 3 or 4 pieces that I have written, I have not posted because I am simply too lazy to re-write them from scratch.

I wish I had some better excuses but I don't.
I am simply the laziest blogger out there and now being shamed into changing my ways.

I promise to write something sometime about something somebody might care about.

See you at the rink.

No Shame

After the Senators lost last night and their season came to an end, I listened to the Team 1200 Post Mortem with JR for a while. There was the usual questioning of earlier trades, and the use of the goaltenders over the run of the season and all the usual “what ifs”.

The overwhelming sense I got from the fans while listening on the web from my hotel room in Boston was that they were disappointed “for” the team and not disappointed “in” them. Two very small words which make a very big difference. Years ago after the 4 game sweep at the hands of the Leafs fans were disappointed in that team. The compete level, the emotion level, the courage, in fact everything was questioned.

Losing to the defending champs in 6 games, 2 of which went to overtime, is no shame. Especially considering Ottawa was missing one veteran top-4 defenceman (Kuba), two top-6 forwards (Kovalev, Michalek) and the captain played the entire series with a torn abdominal muscle with a rookie defenceman logging the most minutes in the series.

Their compete level was high. The emotion level was high. The resolve to beat the odds was high. Their grit level was high and for all those reasons there is no shame in this loss.

Now more than ever I believe these players became a much better team the day Heatley was traded. They swapped a me for a we and traded goals for character and this team had plenty of that against Pittsburgh.

See you at the rink.

The Sutton hit

As I am working the Buffalo/Boston series for HNIC during the first round I am surrounded by people who are not Senators fans nor are they media who regularly follow or cover the Senators. With no bias to be found I can tell you there is no hockey person I have spoken to here in Buffalo who does not think the Sutton hit was a clean, legal, hockey hit. None were surprised that there was no supplementary discipline.

Most of the surprise is that a veteran like Leopold was caught like that. Sutton’s continued use of that move is because players continue to come down the wing with their head's down, apparently unaware that he is on the ice and he has done this many, many times. If something works keep doing it until it doesn’t.

Penguins defenceman Brooks Orpik admitted as much after the game when he was asked about the hit. He said it was a clean hit and they had all watched video of Sutton’s tendencies both good and bad.

It continues to beg the question, why aren’t today’s players more tuned in to who is on the ice and what they tend to do. It was the same story after Chris Neil hit Tampa’s Viktor Hedman. It drove him backwards and he suffered a concussion when his head hit the boards while falling. It was a clean hit from the front, and Hedman saw it coming but said he didn’t think Neil would hit him. What did you expect him to do? Did no one tell him what Chris Neil does for a living? Did no one warn him that #25 plays hard, finishes his checks and will drop the gloves? How could this have possibly been a surprise?

Did Daniel Alfredsson complain when he was injured after a hit in Pittsburgh? He blamed himself for allowing himself to be vulnerable. Just because a player gets injured doesn’t mean that the play that injured him was illegal.

See you at the rink.

Paging Kreskin

The NHL playoffs started last night and I watched the opening games from my hotel room in Buffalo. While I will call the Buffalo/Boston series for HNIC, the Senators opened up against the Pens with a 5-4 win. Some shaky goaltending at both ends and Ottawa doing a very good job at closing gaps and jumping up into the play. With a team like the Penguins, laying back and trying to defend is a quick way to lose.

Ottawa is certainly the underdog in this series, but it’s probably the toughest series to predict. A bunch of us were throwing some ideas around and realized that Ottawa sweeping Pittsburgh is a legitimate possibility. Pittsburgh sweeping Ottawa (which is now impossible) was also just as legitimate. This series going the full 7 games is also very easy to envision. The Senators have been so streaky this year that it makes it hard to handicap this thing.

When Ottawa has been hot this year, there is no team they have been unable to beat. When the Senators have been cold, they have been ice cold and at times looked like they couldn’t win a practice. So what will happen in this series?

I have no clue. I only know how tired Pittsburgh must be after playing more games than any team in the last 2 years. I also know how much it would mean to the Senators and the city if they can rebound from missing the playoffs to upsetting the defending champs in round #1.


See you at the rink.

Where is the honour?

Ok let’s start the debate again. Was Matt Cooke’s blindside hit on Marc Savard legal or not? It was clearly cruel and intentional but was it illegal?

I have listened to the guys who call themselves “old school” and claim its part of the game and Savard has a responsibility to protect himself.

I am old school but obviously I went to a very different school. I love hard hockey but I greatly dislike hockey without honor and that hit had no honor. I watched it 20 times on Youtube and Cooke clearly saw what he wanted to do and also clearly knew Savard had no clue he was behind him. That is the key for me. Hitting a man like that simply because you can, knowing he doesn’t see it coming is just wrong.

I have spoken to Matt Cooke several times and have always enjoyed the conversations. He seems like a wonderful guy, but you can’t escape the history. All you have to do is type his name into Youtube and you can find all the video you want. His hit on Shean Donovan that blew his knee out. His head shot on Artem Anisimov which got him a measly 2 game suspension. The time he kicked Detroit goaltender Chris Osgood. His kneeing of young Zach Bogosian. Blowing out Eric Cole’s knee. Slew footing Kurtis Foster. Crosschecking Andrei Markov from behind into the boards. Anyone can go to Youtube and type in his name and these are some of the videos’ that come up, but these aren’t the only incidents.

There is a very serious pattern here. The pattern is a complete disregard for other player’s safety. There also seems to be too much evidence to suggest this is just a series of coincidences from a player who has to play on the “edge”.

My question is, why is a player with this history not seeing the level of supplementary discipline escalating? You don’t injure this many people by accident.

Talk of a “new rule” this summer to be added which will curb these kind of hits kind of makes me chuckle. The NHL rule book is already twice as thick as it needs to be. Officials can’t call current rules consistently enough now and we are going to add more rules? How about this for a revelation. The rule already exists. It’s called intent to injure. That is already in the book and is next to never used despite the fact players in this league intend to injure each other every night.

Officials need to use the power they currently have to do their part. The NHL needs supplementary discipline at a high enough level to change behavior and players need to find a way to inject a little honor back into the game.

The countdown clock is ticking. We are getting closer and closer to the next on-ice death. Mark my words it will happen and when it does all 3 of the above mentioned bodies will have questions to answer.

See you at the rink.