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Just when I think I've written my last blog mentioning Zac Rinaldo -- I don't really know what's left to see about the chronically reckless-and-proud-of-it player except that he is a blight on the game -- he does something else that leaves me shaking my head.

The latest: Rinaldo blamed linesman David Brisebois for injuring him in a Dec. 14 game while breaking up a short fight between the Boston forward and the Edmonton Oilers' Matt Hendricks. Rinaldo told CSN New England's Joe Haggert that he was "cranked to the ice" and forcibly held down by the linesman while Brisebois was breaking up the fight and Rinaldo was trying to rise to skate to the penalty box.

Rinaldo went to the penalty box wincing, and has missed time with injury since then. You be the judge and then I'll tell you what I saw:



I am laughing at Rinaldo on this one. What a bogus story he told! He had three or four violent and strenuous moves the entire time: the initial hit and then the confrontation he arm wrap with the guy he fought, then the squirming with the same guy and finally the liney. There's not much of anything to it, however, with the linesman.

Let's be honest here. The NHL and its teams are so nebulous about "upper body" and "lower body" injuries, there is no precise information about the exact nature of Rinaldo's injury nor do we know if he aggravated a previous issue or even exactly when this one occured. Have had my share of upper-body issues during my playing days, I know from experience that a good team trainer and treatment plan can make you feel much better before you go out on the ice and you can sometimes go a week or two where you don't feel an injury (or at least not enough to inhibit you) only for it to suddenly recur on a seemingly innocuous play.

Was that the case here with Rinaldo? I have no idea. But in watching the entire sequence, it seems like the linesman's very routine and not particularly forceful restraint of Rinaldo -- I've licked my lips harder in a rainstorm than that -- was the least likely direct cause. Maybe that's when he felt the twinges, but I doubt that anything the linesman did was the direct cause of inflicting a brand-new injury.

To throw the linesman under the bus like he'd been manhandled by an out-of-control zebra was a joke. For lack of a printable descriptive word on a family-friendly website, it was a punk thing to say and a punk thing to go to the media about in the first place. This guy fancies himself a fearless tough guy who intimidates opponents. But for the fact that he skates fast and launches himself and vulnerable opponents, he's a lightweight in every sense of the term.

Just weak, weak stuff. I guess it shouldn't surprise me one iota. It's par for the course for Rinaldo to treat everyone else in the game with disrespect.

As someone who lived by and understood "the Code" from both the playing and officiating sides of the game, my final word on Rinaldo is that this poseur never would have made it in the old-school game. He wouldn't have earned any respect among his own teammates, let alone instilled fear in opponents. As a matter of fact, opponents would have used their stick -- legally, as they were trained to do -- as a self-defense shield and simply let this reckless fool run himself headlong into the lumber. Problem solved.

In past blogs, I have discussed why as a former NHL/WHA enforcer but just as importantly as a referee with 1,010 games of NHL experience that I feel the contemporary instigator rule is one of the myriad of NHL rules that were not thought through carefully enough when the league implemented it. In a nutshell, I find instigator penalties to be a non-deterrent to players and, at least in my opinion, more of a headache than a help to officials.

Rinaldo is a good example of the type of player who twists the instigator rule into something it wasn't theoretically intended to be: a means to do something reckless to an opponent and then get a second opposing player out of the game for 17 minutes simply for being a good teammate and responding on the other player's behalf.

Columbus Blue Jackets forwad Brandon Dubinsky could be the poster chlld for why the instigator penalty can actually encourage dangerous/reckless play. I've seen Dubinsky deliver gratutious head shots to opponents, such as Saku Koivu. I've seen Dubinsky two-hand an opponent who was trying to skate away and then go back to the bench grinning after provoking a responsive fight that put his team on the power play.

Just this season, I saw Dubinsky cross-check Sidney Crosby (with whom he has a history) hard enough in the back of the neck to break the stick. The Penguins' completely passive "response" was basically a bright yellow highlighter pen calling attention to the disunity problems that got their most recent coach fired and has the club in turmoil despite its nucleus of star talent. Dubinsky got a one-game suspension out of it from the NHL.



The latest incident: Dubinsky led with the knee to deliver a dangerous hit to Philadelphia Flyers forward Jakub Voracek in the neutral zone. Voracek was OK, but rather fortunate to escape unharmed. In the meantime, Philadelphia's Wayne Simmonds did not wait around for an investigation. He responded immediately.



As the NHL Rule Book dictates, Simmonds received an instigation minor and an automatic 10-minute misconduct in addition to the fight since he was the one who directly initiated the fight. Dubinsky got a kneeing minor and a fighting major. All of this is right by the book.

Ah, but who was the actual "instigator" as common sense would dictate? It's the player who kneed a vulnerable opponent. Dubinsky has compiled a history that suggests he either is exceptionally careless or else he knows fulls well what he's doing even given the speed of play in today's game.

When I talk about the chasm between the human rule book, the dynamics of being a supportive teammates and the dictates of the NHL Rule Book, this is a perfect example. Dubinsky ended up getting rewarded here -- albeit at the cost of receiving a few punches -- by recklessly endangering another player.

As a referee, it was actually often easier to restore order it we got the inevitable fight out of the way when the game's friction and emotion was at fever pitch rather than letting it stew. I'd say, "Are we done now?" The answer was usually yes. If the answer turned out be no, I knew how to be as forceful as I needed to be to ensure fairness and preserve a reasonable level of safety for the remaining participants.
Sometimes there are borderline boarding plays where the guy who gets hit is halfway between being turned to the side and facing the boards when he gets drilled. Sometimes, a player turns at the last instant, and it's too late to avoid the contact. In future blogs, I am going to talk about my views on the standards for boarding calls, high sticks and other infractions that can end up in major penalties and suspensions. In the two most recent cases, these were pretty obvious reckless hits so there's no need to dissect the plays here.

Instead, I want to talk about the on-ice response to these situations from my perspective as a referee who played an enforcer role when I was a minor league, WHA and NHL player. The short version of my view: I disliked the instigator rule from Day One, and I still don't like it now.

A lot of fans and some media types who don't do their homework mistakenly say that it was Gary Bettman who brought the instigator rule to the NHL. That is incorrect.

There were many previous attempts by the League to implement a similar rule. It was before the start of the 1992-93 season, prior to Bettman becoming commissioner, that the current rule was implemented: two minute minor/10-minute misconduct, game misconducts for late-game instigation, automatic NHL suspension upon a third instigator penalty in a season with increasing suspensions for additional instigation penalties.

I've told this anecdote before, but I think it bears a re-telling: I was a young referee in my first training camp in September 1983. I was sitting in a room, leaning back on my chair -- and maybe, just maybe, daydreaming a bit -- during a rule enforcement meeting. Scotty Morrison, John McCauley and Jim Gregory were standing at the front of the room. Most of it was stuff we already knew. However, when they got to part about John Ziegler (then the NHL's President) and the Board of Governors demanding officials to penalize fight instigators regardless of the circumstance, I literally fell out of my chair.

At any rate, I disliked the rule from the very start. It runs counter to the culture of the game I always knew and, quite frankly, it doesn't do a damn thing to serve as a deterrent. I just know that if I were a player on the ice and I saw my teammate get victimized by a dirty hit or careless swing of the stick, I was going to make the other side answer for it, instigator penalty or not. This is the Udvari Rule, expressed to me as a young official by Hall of Fame ref Frank Udvari: use your hockey sense and the Rule Book as your guides and you will be fine.

As a player, I usually tried to take care of business instinctively and immediately. But maybe the opportunity wouldn't arise right away for me or one of my teammates. Maybe I would be a scratch in that particular game or maybe I wouldn't get another shift because of the time and score of the game. Ah, but I had a long memory. Hockey players (and refs) always do.

What it we didn't play that team again? Then I would make sure we settled it after the game in the parking lot, under the stands, or wherever else. That is truly how the game was policed by the players when I was playing. You settled it on the ice if possible, off the ice if necessary, but you settled it.

Well, things aren't done that way anymore in this era where lawyers and bureaucrats run things, where everything is PC to the hilt and everythng hits social media and the sports talk shows. That's just the reality and that's all well and good.

Have we really made progress, through? Has the game really become more civilized, safer and more enlightened? As the Rule Book forever becomes more bloated, convoluted and even self-contradictory, have we created a better game? Even if the enforcer role is increasingly obsolete and more and more folks kowtow to Corsi Almighty as the ultimate judge of value, have we really made the game better in the process?

As a referee, things need to be as black-and-white as possible: Something either is or is not a penalty, and you get paid to know and enforce it. As far as the friction goes, when I was refereeing games, I would often say "go ahead" when two guys were acting like they wanted to square off. Believe me, there was no better way to separate the tough guys from the bluff guys.

I don't consider the Zac Rinaldos and Alex Burrows and Brandon Dubinskys of the world to be tough guys. Sneaky opportunists and whiners, yes. Tough guys, no.

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Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.

Today, Stewart serves as director of hockey officiating for the ECAC at both the Division 1 and Division 3 levels.

The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials. Stewart also maintains a busy schedule as a public speaker, fund raiser and master-of-ceremonies for a host of private, corporate and public events. As a non-hockey venture, he is the owner of Lest We Forget.