Jim Kelley

Jim Kelley writes regularly on the NHL for Sportsnet.ca and can be heard on Primetime Sports on the FAN590.

NHL players are quite often a reflection of their coach, so suspend him too.

Given the actions of the Philadelphia Flyers this season, I owe Bob McCown an apology.

In the last chapter of his best-selling book McCown's Law: The 100 Greatest Hockey Arguments my colleague, and PrimeTime Sports host, has an interesting take on head-hunting in hockey.

McCown argues that if the NHL wants to get serious in regards to some of the more serious personal fouls (namely head-hunting fouls) in the game today the league should not just suspend the player, but suspend the coach who put him on the ice.

At first read I thought McCown made that the last argument because he had run out of good ones at 99.

In the second printing, the "nail-the-coach" argument should be moved up to somewhere in the top 10.

My change of heart came about after viewing the newest in a seemingly endless list of Philadelphia Flyers 'enforcers' take out yet another opponent with yet another blow to the head.

This time the mantle of senseless thuggery fell on the shoulders of rookie enforcer Riley Cote, who for no good (or apparent) reason ran Dallas Stars rookie defenceman Matt Niskinen Saturday night. Cote hit him mostly from behind and with an elbow to the head. NHL Prefect of Discipline Colin Campbell, clearly scaling back after protests from some general managers about a recent upsizing in regards to the length of suspensions, nailed Cote for just three games. Since Campbell seems to put a great deal of weight on whether or not the player gets up, three games is not surprising.

What makes this one interesting however is Campbell's boss, Gary Bettman, may be taking McCown's 'punish-the-coach' suggestion to heart.

Commissioner Bettman reportedly warned Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren that 52 games worth of suspension might be enough and, according to Holmgren, issued a stern warning from his New York office.

"The question was raised about ramifications if it happens again," Holmgren said. "Obviously, we're under watch. Whether it's fair or not it's out there. We need to take a look at it and discuss it and we will."

Memo to Paul Holmgren: It's not only fair and out there, it's necessary and overdue.

Just look at the track record.

Cote joins a list of suspended Flyers that reads like the solitary confinement roster at a maximum-security prison. Steve Downie (20 games for an airborne check to the head of Ottawa's Dean McAmmond); Jesse Boulerice (25 games for a cross-check to the face of Vancouver's Ryan Kesler); Randy Jones (two games for checking Boston's Patrice Bergeron from behind); and Scott Hartnell (two games for driving Boston's Andrew Alberts' head into the boards); Cote (three games for a blow to the head of Niskinen).

That's 52 games worth of suspension in only 25 games played, a margin so newsworthy it may actually get a mention on ESPN. The Flyers, even before this incident, had more players on suspension than the other 29 teams combined. Cote (who has a hit-from-behind reputation based on his devastating and reprehensible hit on Andrew MacDonald before he ever "graduated" to the big hit league) is now so notorious even the BCS selectors couldn't overlook him.

This has become so contentious that Holmgren announced that although he wants his team to "play physical" it might also consider "playing within the rules."

That must have been one stern threat from Bettman. That or Holmgren is worried someone on the current Flyers roster may someday surpass his spot as the No. 2 all-time Flyers penalty minute leader (1,600 minutes).

Okay, I'm getting a bit facetious, but you get the point.

Holmgren has said all the right things in this regard (except for the fact that the hit was out of character for Cote). The GM also said that kind of play is "something the league and all of us don't want to see in the game anymore." He also said the three-game suspension was "very fair."

All well and good, but his words came in the wake of Jones and after Hartnell. As a result, Holmgren, the Flyers and perhaps even coach John Stevens are now on the league's watch list.

I for one don't have a problem (other than it shouldn't take this long) with that and if anyone in Flyers management is fined and/or suspended, it should be Stevens.

Like Holmgren, he said all the right things including that he did not condone Cote's hit on the Dallas player and that he would be "the first one to tell you that what he (Cote) did was undisciplined and can't happen."

But the problem is that like the Downie hit and the Boulerice hit and the Jones hit and the Hartnell hit and now the Cote hit, reasonable people, and perhaps even the Commissioner of the National Hockey League, aren't buying it.

Stevens had Cote (no goals, one assist and a team-high 61 penalty minutes in 18 appearances) on the ice in the closing minutes of play trailing by three goals. Maybe he didn't think what Downie, Boulerice, Jones or Hartnell did could possibly happen again, but if that's true, he's the only one.

After all, he need only have looked at the tape when Cote hit MacDonald into the boards in junior (seriously, try to YouTube the incident) or when he hit Sean Hill into the boards in his NHL debut.

Then again, maybe he did.

A suspension might very well be what Stevens deserves.