Follow @james_tanner123 It appears that the NHL is taking a cavalier attitude towards player safety and possibly even making exceptions for star players when they commit atrocious acts.
Just in the last month:
-Dustin Byfuglien cross checked a player who was already on the ice in the neck. He received a pathetic four game suspension.
-P.K Subban slashed a player in the arm hard enough to break his wrist. He was not suspended.
-Shane Doan ran a player into the boards 100ft away from the puck. No one even thought he should have been suspended.
Even though many people are critical of the NHL Player Safety Department for these calls, the fact is the NHL is just following its own conventions and the NHLPA are clearly party to them because they signed the collective bargaining agreement.
For whatever reason, the NHL and the NHLPA are content with a system that is not just broken, but idiotically and unnecessarily dangerous.
It's unnecessary because the NHL could do more to protect it's players, and it doesn't. It's idiotic because those players the sole asset the NHL has. It's also idiotic because there are sensible alternatives that are not implemented for one reason, and one reason only: the culture surrounding the game is a laughable and preposterous mixture of bro-ish machismo and romance for a time that never existed.
The narrative was always that fighting protected players and kept "respect" in the game. The fact is, hockey has always been a dirty game - but now every single game is televised and every play is re-playable. You only think today's game is dirtier because that's what you've been told and that's what you've seen.
The reality is that, as in any sport, sometimes people go too far in the name of competitiveness. Hockey just happens to be played on ice with everyone carrying a huge stick - it's inherently dangerous even before Dustin Byfuglien takes to the ice.
But, if the old time game was more respectful - even just a bit - it is probably because people didn't wear helmets and didn't dress in equipment that made them feel invincible. Psychologically, you're going to be less reckless the less safe you feel.
For whatever reason, we've never been able to admit that we want fighting in hockey because we like it. Instead we make up B.S about it protecting players and making the game more respectful. But it doesn't.
Fighting is just the most obvious example of a dangerous, unthinking, old-school culture that surrounds and permeates the NHL - one that puts toughness and the ability for players to take matters into their own hands. One that accepts disproportionate risks because they want the game to tough.
It's the culture that allows (inexplicably) visors to not be mandatory. Let alone face masks, neck protection, or properly done up helmets.
It keeps suspensions short, encourages vigilantism.
It has done nothing to curb the hard plastic, nearly midieval equipment or to prevent the use of composite high-flex sticks that allow players to shoot the puck harder then they used to be able to.
But he best example I can give of the ridiculous culture that surrounds the NHL is this:
Last night, when Subban slashed Stone, he was incredulous that he was even getting a penalty. He used a downward trajectory, overhand motion with two hands on his stick to slash a player in the arm with a six foot stick, hard enough to break a bone, and he can't believe he is even getting a penalty.
And why would he? The culture of the NHL is such that slashing a guy in the bare arm with your stick raised above your head is never a major penalty, let alone a suspension.
Then the announcer, seconds after says : "A Five Minute Major, for a slash?" It is so common place to hit people with your stick that he literally cannot believe a slashing penalty would earn a major penalty, as viscous as it was.
"That's not as hard as a game-misconduct has to be in the Playoffs," he said after seeing the replay.
And that is precisely the problem. If the league doesn't want to be a joke, if it cares about it's players, it can't have two sets of rules for the Playoffs and the regular season. It is not harder to get injured in the Playoffs. That is down-right stupid.
Secondly, it cannot be kind of OK to hit people with sticks. If you tired to explain that is illegal just not that illegal to hit someone with a stick, to someone who wasn't steeped in hockey-culture, they would think you where an insane person. If you hit someone with a stick anywhere else other than a hockey arena, you'd go to jail. It's a serious thing to break someone's bones by hitting them with a stick. That that that is sloughed off like 'just a normal play, not that bad' is scary, stupid, reckless, moronic and asinine.
If the NHL wants to make the game safer, and they do, they have to attack the culture that says it's not too big of a deal if you hit a guy with your stick. They have to get rid of the tough-guy, we police our own, fighting prevents injuries B.S. Because it really doesn't. In a game where the rewards are fame, money and immortality, on top of winning, and where careers are so short and playing time is earned in a desperate fashion because the difference in skill levels are so marginal, of course players are going to cross the line in order to win. No matter what rules you put in place, this will happen.
But it's going to happen a lot more when a) there is so little incentive to not cross that line, and b) no one knows where or what the line even is, and, most importantly, c) no one wants to fix any of the problems because they'll look weak. Because real men and real players know how the game is and those who question it just don't get it.
The NHL is ran by very smart people. They know the risks that they are taking by letting P.K Subban play tomorrow night - they aren't ignorant of the fact that they are potentially dealing with another Bertuzzi situation here.
They know that giving Dustin Byfuglien 20 games and forcing him to miss the playoffs they could all but eliminate that kind of blatant disregard for human life from their game.
But they can't do it because the culture surrounding the NHL is a joke. The fear is that if you start to punish dangerous plays severely, that you will take all the hitting out of the game, that you'll turn it into some euro league (and feel free to sub in any pejorative term you hear people say, but won't print, in your own italics).
The fear is that the game will be ruined if it's safer, apparently. How many ex-players need to reveal that their brains are basically mush before something is done - not just about suspensions being tough, although that's a good start - but about the stupidity of the culture that surrounds the game? Do we have to wait for someone to die on the ice before something is done?
I really hope not, because it's pretty obvious that something needs to be done.