What a glorious, glorious morning friends! It's another gloomy, gray, rainy day here in Vancouver. I woke up this morning to find the chairs on my balcony had been raped 5 times over from the hurricane force winds last night, and the Oilers are back to having a .500 record! Now I don't want to get ahead of myself and start sounding like a Leaf's fan, but if last nights game was any indication I think our boys may finally be over this whole flu bullshit that's been molesting them at a Graham James like pace, and the ship may slowly be righting itself. Who am I kidding, would anyone be surprised if the Oilers went on another 5 game losing streak? Either way we might as well enjoy this feeling for as long as we can, because it's probably not going to last. So while our joy curve is on an upswing right now, may I present to you this weeks Righteous Sack Beating.
Sack Beating to the NHL discipline committee, or Colin Campbell or whoever is in charge of handing out suspensions on any particular day. Curtis Glencross got suspended today for 3 games for this hit on Chris Drury.
While Mike Richards got nothing but a finger shaking for this hit on David Booth.
And I don't think anything at all happened to Willie Mitchell after he cleaned Johny Toews clock.
Now you tell me which one looks worse? The one where Toews gets a shoulder pad square to the mouth at full speed? The one where David Booth does a 360 in the air after also eating a set of shoulder pads, followed by a trip off the ice on a stretcher? Or the one where Chris Drury gets slightly clipped and probably saw a couple stars?
I don't think any of these hits are worthy of a suspension. I think they are all clean, hard hits, err, uhh, well, even though Drury didn't ever touch the puck, but still, it didn't look like Glencross was going in for the kill, it looked to me like he was just trying to bump him in anticipation of the puck being there. But I've said it before and I'll say it again; the NHL needs to find some kind of consistency in their discipline. If two hits that looked far, far worse, one where a guy had to be carried out on a stretcher, aren't suspendable infractions why the hell should this one be any different? Again, it looked to me like Glencross was just finishing his check, and tried to go shoulder to shoulder, but in yet another freak accident his shoulder bounced off Drury's and clipped him in the chin. The Mitchell and Richard's hits however were clear cases of guys trying to crush another player with a huge open ice hit. Seems to be a bit of a difference there, no?
This is clearly just another case of the NHL trying to appease all these fucking talking heads in the media that have nothing better to do than complain about players getting hurt playing a full contact game at high speeds. It's bound to happen. And again I think this whole trying to eliminate head shots thing is a futile effort, but if you're trying to set a precedent make sure everyone falls under the same umbrella. It's getting fucking ridiculous, the double standard the league has for superstars as opposed to lower tier guys. But I guess someone has to be the example right? Sack Beating to Colin Campbell and his forever spinning wheel of justice. Maybe next time Glencross will think about which line he plays on before he decides to throw a hit.
On a completely different note I'd like to make a tearful goodbye, to a mountain of a man, and all around good guy Steve MacIntyre. Steve, I still remember the day you kicked the door open and made yourself a cozy little home inside the hearts of the Oilers faithful. That day when you crushed the life out of Dustin Boyd, followed by a pretty great scrap with an undersized, but willing Brandon Prust, I'm pretty sure all of us shed a single tear of joy that day. "We've finally found someone to replace Big George" we screamed in unison! You may not have, what's the word I'm looking for here, "skill" but you were a hard worker and your progression from clear non-NHL'er to maybe a borderline NHL'er has been nice to see. You're a great dude who was willing to do anything and everything to help out the community, and can do one hell of a bubbles impression, so we here at JSBM wish the best for you in the future Steve MacIntyre. Gone but not forgotten.
And I'd just like to add in a talking point here that we can perhaps discuss in the comments; Does anyone else think it's weird that the dudes responsible for getting Paul Kelly fired from the PA, are now jumping ship right before the internal investigation begins? Hmmmm.
-jeanshorts
Curtis Glencross: *Bip!*..."Hey, sorry man."
ReplyDeleteChris Drury: "MEDIC!!!!!"
Seriously. I'm not a massive Lowe hater like some other people. But I'm pretty sure the worst move he made in his 300 year tenure as GM was letting Glencross walk down the highway for nothing.
ReplyDeleteMan that guy was sweet. And is it just me or does he seem to somehow get better every season in Calgary? I guess he's got some decent line mates, but still. Fuck.
So what your saying is, if you pass the puck, take a couple strides and someone flys into your face with their shoulder going mach... you'd be cool with that?
ReplyDeleteThe Richard's one was boarder line, I'll give you that. But pretty much every other "head shot" that's gotten people up in arms this season has been a clean hit, with unfortunate results.
ReplyDeleteAnd back to the Richards hit, that was my whole point. If a hit like that, which could be seen as clean by some people, or dirty by others isn't worty of a suspsension then why should Glencross be suspended for his? If the NHL is going to try and stop hits the head via punishment they need to be consistent with it. Either suspended everyone for a hit like that or no one. You can't just pick and choose if you want it to be succesful.
Very good point, but as we know history repeats itself. The NHL has never been consistent with any of these issues, and I doubt this one will be black and white as well.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that bothers me, is that Richards is known for playing like that. He put Booth in a stretcher on what was a plane as day head shot. Look how he aims his shoulder in slow mo. It's like he's trying to kill the guy.
You shouldn't have to watch your back 3 mississippi's after your pass. The point of hitting is to take a guy outta the play, not end his career. Hit 'em hard, but hit 'em square. It's a fine line.
Yeah, I still like the Richards hit, but I can definitely see why other people think it's cheap. It's right in the gray area.
ReplyDeleteI think it's just terrible timing for this suspension. Between the crazy amount of concussions that have happened in such a small time frame, and the fact that a bunch of other, far worse hits than the Glencross one went unpunished, everything just lines up kind of wonky, in my eyes anyway.
I also think there should be longer suspensions for hits like those 2 bullshit ones Steve Ott pulled last week where he low bridged those guys and blatantly went to take out there knees. There's way more intent to injure in a hit like that as compared to the Mitchell or Glencross hits where someone unfortunately happened to get knocked out.
Nothing to add, agree completely.
ReplyDeleteTOTALLY agree with you about Lowe's handling of Glencross. Here we have the most awesome 4th line in the NHL and Lowe pisses it away. Not to mention that Glencross would now be pretty close to a top 6 on our club the way he's playin'. What in the flying fuck was he thinking?????? Strippers after work maybe, I dunno.
ReplyDeleteFuck giving suspensions to the Men that dished out these hits, how about a suspension to the Boys who failed to receive them.
ReplyDeleteKEEP YOUR FUCKING HEAD UP! Be concious of your surroundings for fuck sakes. You shouldnt be dumb enough to admire your pass in the NHL, stupid enough to dish out a suicide pass in the NHL or pussy enough to spin towards the boards to deflect an incoming check... IN THE NHL.
It absolutely drives me batshit crazy when I see players 3 feet away from the boards about to play the puck, see someone coming and at the very last micro-second, spin towards the boards and away from the incoming player. And then bitch, or even worse get hurt when the attacking player hits them from behind.
As far as Im concerned, this problem lies with the players GETTING hit, and NOT the players dishing them out.
__DrPow__
Brett Hull said it best on Saturday; Be aware of who is on the ice with you.
ReplyDeleteIf you're out against a line of Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Filpula you can play a little more loose, as your more than likely not going to get creamed every time you touch the puck.
But if you're out there against Mike Richards, Scott Hartnell and Riley Cote you better have your fucking head on a swivel because they're going to be coming at you from all angles.
That guy that got suspended from the OHL for the rest of the season; bullshit suspension. I feel bad that the other kid got hurt so bad, but fuck man what do you expect to happen when you turn to face the boards a half second before a guy creams you? He saw it coming and turned his back on purpose to keep control of the puck and look where it got him. If he would have just dumped the puck around the boards and braced for the hit he'd still be playing right now instead of propped up in a hospital bed.
There's a fine line between a cheap shot and a guy not paying attention and getting his bell run. But to me it seems the guys that are getting hurt the worst are the guys not paying attention.