From time to time I like to give this space over to young writers with a point of view. Today it's Andrew Franklin - Longtime Pred fan, goaltender and student at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. He will be contributing his take on hockey from time to time.

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As you may be aware of, Viatcheslav (Slava) Voynov of the Los Angeles Kings was arrested early Monday morning for domestic abuse. He was found at a hospital with a female who looked to have suffered serious trauma, and taken into custody around 2 am. Voynov later posted a $50,000 bond at 9:00 am the same morning.

Furthermore, the NHL took quick action to jump on this case as swiftly as possible. The NHL and NHLPA agreed to suspend Voynov indefinitely with pay. Now you are probably asking, “well, is he guilty… and if not what happens then?” This is where it gets sticky, as Redondo Beach Police Officers are investigating this case he is innocent until proven. Voynov is scheduled to appear in Torrance court on December 1, 2014.

If Voynov is proven innocent then I have a feeling that the NHL and NHLPA will revoke the ban and may simply be back to normal but that is still unclear.

TSN reporter Eric Macramalla said it best, “Ray Rice changed everything.” And this is 100 percent true, because without the NFL’s awkward and delayed reaction to the recent domestic violence charges brought up, the NHL might not have known how to react to this situation.

The NFL has made mistakes these past couple of months as Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL have had their troubles dealing with Adrian Peterson, and especially Ray Rice. They have received widespread criticism on how they conducted their recent cases. They now have an idea of how to handle these situations without the media and public going haywire with many opinions.

The NHL nipped this in the bud the minute they heard about it. They wasted no time in making a solid decision and sticking with it. Although some might think this is too much and the NHL has gone overboard with the banning, I have not heard many complaining about the decision made by the NHL and NHLPA.

Thanks to Craig Custance per his Twitter feed for Gary Bettman's statement on the matter…

Gary Bettman was asked about NHL's domestic violence program in LA. Here's his full response: pic.twitter.com/hIaDLi1v6N

— Craig Custance (@CraigCustance) October 20, 2014

Gary Bettman handled this better than I expected, but otherwise the NHL does not usually have problems like these. When these issues come up, the public gets a little frazzled and waits for more details and then builds their opinion from there on. This happens so rarely in the NHL that this does surprise us all, while compared to recent developments with the National Football League, it doesn’t seem very out of the blue for this issue to pop up.
Let me hear your opinion on the matter by commenting on the thread!

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