For the sake of curing the NHL’s woes, we look at a different way to deal with the game’s goons.
I was going to wait until Colin Campbell, the National Hockey League Director of Hockey Operation and All Things Impossible, handed down his edict and the obligatory there's no place in our game for these kinds of hits speech regarding Jessie Boulerice's cross-check to the mouth of Ryan Kessler, but why bother?
Let's for a moment -- and for no good reason other than we just can't bring ourselves to write about how the Toronto Maple Leafs season is going so far -- assume that the punishment for the Philadelphia Flyers newest hit man won't exceed the 20-game suspension Campbell handed Philly's other Criminal Element Club member Steve Downie for his sorry hit on Ottawa's Dean McAmmond.
And, for no reason other than we don't care how good the ratings are for Hits of the Week, let’s apply something we will call New Rules a concept we stole form satirist Bill Maher that will show up here from time to time as we attempt to explore changes to the status quo in hockey.
OK, New Rule: a player who commits a major foul in the good ol' hockey game, oh, say like a two-handed cross-check to the face or a flying leap to drive a shoulder into a players head, will still have his mandatory hearing with Campbell. He will still be a candidate for supplemental discipline and he will be tossed from the game by the on-ice officials, BUT (and this is a really big BUT), he can't leave the game until he also serves a five-minute major (in this case for intent to injure) and for that five minutes he cannot leave the ice.
OK, stop laughing for a moment and read me out.
As crazy as it sounds at first, think of the upside.
Upside No.1: Maybe, just maybe, an on-ice atonement would act as a real deterrent since obviously suspensions handed out to the likes of Todd Bertuzzi, Chris Simon and Downie haven't worked.
If you knew you had to play a five-minute shift, a shift during which you can't leave the ice and your opponent has a 5-4 advantage for the full five minutes (that's right, no end of penalty if the other team scores) and that it could happen even though you may have already been on the ice for a minute or more, would you perhaps think twice about committing a stupid, gutless foul?
As the rules play out now, what's the downside of taking a vicious swing, tossing a nasty elbow or taking such a powerful run or a dirty chop at an oft-times defenseless opponent in what coaches have now come to call the Kill Zone (plays great on TV doesn't it)? Sure, there's a penalty and yeah you're team is shorthanded and you're likely to get tossed, but if you've got good penalty killers, it's still a low-risk play. Chances are you're a goon. Chances are the player you took out is one you targeted to take out because his absence could help your team or maybe even your coach told you to “get that guy.” If he's gone and your PK unit is decent, you get the advantage. Worked for Bobby Clarke and Team Canada in the '72 Summit Series, right?
OK, you could get a suspension, but hey if it's a regular season game it's not likely to be more than two or three games unless you bring a gun and if it's a playoff game it's likely to be one or none. Besides if you've taken out a player that can hurt your team and your team wins it's only a relatively small price to pay. Your coach and teammates will secretly thank you and you might even get an “attaboy” from some blowhard on TV as long as you did it under the "code." If it's the playoffs, hell, the league might even send a car around to get you back on the ice as soon as the media howl dies down.
But what if the NHL actually made you pay for your hit in real time as well as an after the fact suspension? If you had to play the full five minutes with your opponent dumping the puck in on you and running you all while having the man advantage, well, that could hurt you and your team and, as we all know from hearing countless interviews with these guys, no player ever wants to let his teammates down.
Upside No. 2: You might actually feel shame, enough shame to actually think about the consequences of your actions.
Nothing and we repeat, nothing, upsets a hockey player more than being singled out. Unlike NFL and NBA “gangstas,” the guys who “lace 'em up” just hate to be spotlighted as “da bad dude” and believe me if you have to play a five-minute shift with some 18,000 following your every failing move, you're not going to like it. Couple that with the “hurting the team” tune and lunkers from all 30 squads are likely to think twice before jumping into a head-on, capping a few teeth with a stick bridge or even throwing the well-placed elbow, especially if the target happens to be good for 20-or-more power-play goals per season. You can bet that if he can get up he'll be coming at your lactose-burning legs so many times that when the five minutes is up you likely won't even be able to bend down and pick up that copy of the morning paper that has your sorry face plastered on a couple of hundred thousand copies of the rag you claim you don't read the next morning.
And think of how your coach is going to act and feel. Yeah, in the past, maybe he actually put you on the ice for the very real possibility that there might be a “hockey hit” but do you think he's going to do the “Stand by his Man” routine after you've cost your team a win, two points and created a reputation even Marc Crawford could never live down? We don't think so.
And besides, do you really want to go back in the room and face the guys who had to try and kill that five-minute penalty while dragging your sorry backside up and down the ice all the while the other team is piling up more points than you can count?
Upside No. 3: No one will have to ever again listen to "Who Let the Dogs Out?"
Do you really think Simon, Downie, Bertuzzi, Boulerice or even Chris Pronger would try leaving a mark when he knows he'll be skating a full five minutes with a target on his back? I mean if you're a believer in “the code” or in “hockey justice” or even a member of the “Part of the Game Kool-Aid Club” just think of the possibilities. You could rack up a couple of goals, pretty much salt away a win and you still might have enough time to take a couple of runs at the helpless, mush-legged cement head who's now panting in the corner like the last dog standing in Michael Vick's kennel. That's hockey justice.
Downsides? Sure, I can see a few. Making a guy who might not get five minutes in an entire game play five minutes nonstop might pull the league into court to defend the concept of cruel and unusual punishment, but what the heck, it's not like it hasn't been there before.
There might even come a time when one of those so-called soft players, maybe a guy with a shield or some other protective device, gets his stick up a little high or “accidentally” kicks an opponent in the head after he “inadvertently” can-openers him face first into the boards, but hey, those things happen and a simple press release stating those kinds of things “aren't a part of our game” and “no suspension is warranted” should suffice.
After all, what good are New rules if they can't be bent a bit, eh?
