A revelation Thursday regarding the on-ice conduct of Vancouver Canucks winger Alex Burrows did not cast him in the best light. Indeed, when former NHLer Patrick O’Sullivan tweeted about an encounter with Burrows – one in which he said he wanted to hurt O’Sullivan like O’Sullivan’s abusive father, John, did – the sense of revulsion across the hockey world was palpable. It was beyond wherever beyond the pale is. Even if you knew Burrows to be vastly different off the ice and/or among his teammates, you couldn’t defend something that reprehensible, that heartless, that appalling.
Well, most people couldn’t, anyway. A few referred to the nature of Burrows’ job as an agitator, that he plays “on the line… and sometimes crosses that line, and the fact hockey players trash talk each other all the time. In effect, all those arguments a variation on the “whatever it takes to win… line of thinking that has governed the sport for decades.
The trouble with that philosophy: it’s incorrect, and plainly so. We don’t do whatever it takes to win in hockey. Both with our thoughts and actions, we insist players abide by a certain level of decency, and if they choose not to, we insist they not be permitted to play.
In the modern NHL, “whatever it takes… doesn’t include racist epithets. It also doesn’t include blindside headshots, slew-footing, Bobby-Clarke-on-Valeri-Kharlamov-baseball-bat-swings-of-the-stick, and the Sean Avery Rule prohibiting players from standing in front of a goalie and waving a stick in their face. This isn’t some primordial swampland where laws and expectations are laughed at by savages. For one reason or another, the hockey world has recognized why certain acts are unacceptable, and players have adjusted to change whether they were fully prepared to or not.
And believe me, players have adjusted. That’s one thing I don’t think today’s NHLer gets enough credit for: when you watch the grand majority of players pull up on an unsuspecting opponent with his head down and not drill them into next week with a brutal bodycheck, you realize they are listening to the league and player safety department and have made some serious alterations to the way they play. Of course, that can’t be said for each and every NHLer, but the reality that most have changed makes the ones who don’t, won’t or can’t change stick out like sore thumbs (read: Raffi Torres).
Knowing, then, that NHLers are able to listen and respond to direction, there’s no excuse for not cracking down on egregiously over-the-line verbal abusers. If we can ask them to pull up on brain-changing hits, we surely can ask them to pull their tongues up and avoid emotionally-devastating hits.
To be sure, it isn’t only Burrows who’s been guilty of this kind of heinous, classless transgression. He’s not the boogeyman of the issue, and anyone wishing him grievous bodily harm is as wrong as he is. That said, it also isn’t the first time he’s been accused of doing something thoroughly awful. In fact, it’s the second time in a month he’s been called out for it: in November, Devils winger Jordin Tootoo – the NHL’s first Inuit player and someone well-known for struggling with, and overcoming alcoholism – said Burrows Link made disparaging remarks about his personal life and family during a game.
Burrows said he didn't believe he’d crossed any line with his comments to Tootoo, and who knows, maybe he’s got a justification in his mind for what he said to O’Sullivan. But when your name is coming up in more than one of these accusations, maybe there’s some fire behind that smoke.
In any case, it really shouldn’t matter who’s saying garbage like the garbage that was said to O’Sullivan, or how many times they've said the garbage before. There is a line you can cross that there’s no excuse for, and taunting someone over the heartbreaking abuse a child suffered at the hands of their father most certainly qualifies as crossing it. And the NHL, on-ice officials who hear these kind of things, and the NHLPA ought to be doing whatever they can – including ejections, big-time fines and suspensions – to send the strongest message possible to players and the public.
That message: you can’t do whatever it takes to win. You can go too far. If you do, you’ll be dragged back across the line. And it won’t be a comfortable ride.