There are messages that can be drawn from the awful video of the hit on Ben Fanelli.
There are messages that can be drawn from the awful video of the hit that landed Kitchener Rangers defenceman Ben Fanelli in hospital with a fractured skull.
I don’t imagine that the right messages are going to get out there.
There’s much discussion and room for dispute about whether the hit laid out by Erie Otters forward Mike Liambas was clean, dirty or malicious. And there’s certainly room to argue whether Ontario Hockey League commissioner Dave Branch had it right when he suspended Liambas for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs.
Because Liambas is an over-ager that suspension is effectively a lifetime ban.
I figure the play was loose at worst but not malicious. I don’t think that Liambas intended to put Fanelli down for the count.
Yes, Liambas had two full seasons in the OHL, 115 games in total, and scored only four goals while racking up 338 penalty minutes. As a left winger it’s clear his role is to be a physical presence. Yes, maybe he’s supposed to scare opponents but assaulting them and leaving them in critical condition is neither the role expected of him nor the role he envisioned. Further, there wasn’t any history between the two principals. And if the sequence of events unfolded 100 times, I imagine that the 16-year-old Fanelli would be knocked down but be able to skate away from the vast majority of them.
It was a tough situation for a defenceman. You couldn’t call it an accident because Liambas was intending to finish his check. But nothing like the outcome was intended.
Okay, that’s out of the way but here’s the message that has to get out there: 16-year-olds are in deep in a league that’s deep with 19-year-olds and overagers.
The video of that play should be required viewing of young men entering the league—just so that they have some idea of the potential physical risks of playing in a league with older, more physically mature players. Moreover, video of Liambas’s hit on Fanelli should be required viewing for parents who have an inkling of applying for early entry for their 15-year-old sons.
More than casual fans believe, talent doesn’t fully bridge the gaps in age in junior hockey. There’s a good reason Hockey Canada regards the world juniors as a 19-year-old tournament and is loath to put 16- or 17-year-olds in significant roles. There’s a heck of a physical difference between a 19- or 20-year-old and a 16-year-old, however talented the younger player might be.
When you look at rosters of teams in a pre-game, age is always the best marker when you’re predicting what team will have the physical advantage. Moreover, if you have a home team with a lot of 19-year-olds a coach will surely be trying to match his older players versus the visitors’ 16-year-olds.
I’m not shocked by Fanelli’s awful injury. I’m just surprised and relieved that it doesn’t happen more often.
Some parents will believe the success of John Tavares tracks back to the decision of his family to get him into the OHL at 15. (He was actually just 14 in the first few games he played for the Oshawa Generals) His success at the junior level and any subsequent achievements as a pro have almost nothing to do with his making the jump a season early.
Nothing.
Sidney Crosby wasn’t held back by having to wait until his 16th birthday and Tavares would not have been adversely affected by waiting.
In fact, you could make the case that playing four full seasons of major junior hockey had, if anything, an adverse effect on him—given that his numbers and team performance were disappointing in his third season in Oshawa.
I’ve always thought that junior teams that roll a bunch of 16-year-olds over the boards on a regular basis are probably not doing most of them any favours. It’s one of my pet peeves. I feel the same way about the NHL and its rush to get 18-year-olds straight out of junior into the pros.
If you look at the history of 18-year-olds who are moved up, the numbers and the degree of injuries are scary stuff. Even physical players like Ilya Kovalchuk and Rick Nash couldn’t finish NHL seasons because of injuries.
Yeah, Crosby made it through, but Gilbert Brule’s injury was pretty gruesome.
I haven’t done research on 16-year-olds in the junior ranks, but I’d bet anything that, overall, they are at far greater physical risk than 19-year-olds and overagers.
The youngest kids in major junior are coming out of minor midget hockey while many of the oldest kids they play against have a couple of NHL training camps behind them. If coaches went at things blind to age, I’m sure the numbers of injured 16-year-olds would spike dramatically but the fact is the coaches do everything they can to protect the rookies.
Branch has made his decision and I suppose Liambas has no avenue of appeal. I think it was harsh. I suspect the commissioner’s hands were tied. It was an awful bit of bad publicity and damage had to be controlled. I’d bet that if there wasn’t video of the hit that events after the fact might have turned out differently—that Liambas would probably still get some sort of suspension but his season wouldn’t have been nuked.
And if Fanelli was just winded, there wouldn’t have been a suspension and maybe not a penalty.
But in the game of what-ifs I’ll offer this up: Things would have been very different if Fanelli hadn’t been a 16-year-old learning the junior game but someone who had been through the league for two or three or even four seasons—supposing that all talent is equal.
So if you have a 14-year-old phenom, keep him home until he can at least drive to games. And if you’re a major junior coach, put your 16-year-olds in situations where they have a chance to succeed or, at least, survive. But if you’re a major junior coach, you already knew that.
Side note along the same theme: I remember talking to Patrick O'Sullivan about his time with the Starthroy Rockets in Junior B before going to Ann Arbor and later Mississauga. Junior B's age rules were a little looser. I asked him what the age difference was like:
"I was 14 and I played on a line with a 21-year-old guy who had a wife and a kid."