“There is never any excuse for cruelty to animals.” — Dan Shannon, a spokesman for PETA, when Craig MacTavish ripped out the tongue of Harvey the Hound.
Let’s face it: I shake a margarita harder than Rick Rypien shook that fan in Minny on Monday night.
He didn’t use his stick, the way Theoren Fleury once did when he gaffed San Jose Sharks mascot S.J. Sharkie, and he didn’t steal the man’s brogue and beat him with it, the way Mike Milbury so famously did one night in New York, earning the Bruins tough guy a punitive two-game suspension.
But this is 2010, and Rypien is up for a ban of likely five or more games. This was a $40,000 mistake by a guy who was revved up and running hot after a scrap.
“I can see why he did it,” said an NHL player Monday. “I’m not saying it’s right, but I can see why.”
“It’s like being a caged animal,” said a sympathetic Oilers heavyweight Steve McIntyre. “If somebody keeps poking you with a stick, you’ll take a bite out of his arm.”
We’re wagering that Rypien won’t portray himself as an animal when he gets his day in NHL court. Alas, if only he could opt for a jury of his peers, he might have a prayer of being back in the Vancouver Canucks lineup sometime before the next big road trip starts on Nov. 9.
Of course, those peers would have to have names like Orland Kurtenbach, Alain Vigneault, Henrik Sedin and Manny Malhotra.
“I just think the fan got a little bit too involved,” Malhotra said immediately after the game Tuesday, where Rypien reached into the stands, grabbed a clapping fan with both fists, and gave him a momentary shake. “There's just no place for that in our game.”
Remember that, Canucks fans. No more clapping. And never stand.
Though Malhotra had obviously not seen a replay, we pose the question: How severe was Rypien’s altercation with the fan in Minnesota Tuesday night?
Thirty years ago it wouldn’t have even got you a telegram from the league. Today, however, Rypien will fly to New York for a trip down the league’s red carpet. There, Gary (The Count) Bettman will hear Rypien’s remorse, straighten the collar on his cape, and begin his shtick:
Nick Kypreos on the Rypien incident: Read what Hockeycentral's Nick Kypreos thinks about Rick Rypien's altercation with a Minnesota Wild fan here on sportsnet.ca
“ONE game suspension! TWO games suspension! THREE game suspension…! HA HA HA!”
What has happened to our game, where today a fan can say whatever he wants and you can’t even give him a little shake? It leaves us pining for the day Rob Ray speed-bagged that fan in Quebec back in 1992, or the time Glen (The Bully) Sather ripped the radio head set off the melon of a Vancouver fan, who in turn charged him with assault. (It ended in an absolute discharge).
In fact, depending on which television broadcast you were watching, it was hard to discern who was at fault Monday night. The two accounts of the incident were wholly opposite:
Minnesota announcer: “That’s going to be suspendable right there. When you start mixing it up with the fans, that’s when it’s going to get ugly.”
Vancouver announcer: “Where's the security there? You can’t have the fans reaching over (the railing). You paid your tickets to watch the game not to be part of the game. That guy’s got to go. Sorry.”
Minnesota announcers, upon seeing the replay: “That fan should not have been kicked out of his seat. He did nothing. He shouldn’t be ejected. They should move him up to a suite.”
Vancouver coach Vigneault claimed not to see the offence, as he was speaking with a linesman. Malhotra spoke like a man who had witnessed it, and if he did, he may have a second career as a defence lawyer.
“There are boundaries that should never be crossed,” he said of the fan. “We’re in our area of work. As soon as you cross that line and want to become physical with a player, we have to make sure we take care of ourselves and we're protected.”
You can watch that replay 100 times and not see where the fan “wanted” to become physical with Rypien. No doubt, in that great country they call America, our boy is currently bartering on percentages with a mitt full of ambulance-chasing attorneys, a lawsuit for mental suffering forthcoming.
I’ll give you mental suffering: I can recall a time when this happened three or four times a year.
Now, a couple of shakes that scarcely wrinkle some leather-lung’s shirt, and it’s a trip to New York?
I’ll take that margarita now, please.
