A Spiral into Utter Silliness

The tweet came in just before midnight from an intriguing source, future Hall of Famer Mike Modano.

"Really selling the game," tweeted Modano under the Twitter handle @9modano. "No wonder our TV deals suck ass."

Joining a growing list of players and former players - Jonathan Toews, David Perron, Henrik Zetterberg - disgusted or frustrated with what has transpired over the first week of NHL playoff competition, Modano's tweet appeared to be in reaction to yet another ugly incident, this time Raffi Torres - oh yes, Torres again - and his vicious hit on Chicago star winger Marian Hossa that sent Hossa to hospital.

On a night when we should have been discussing Nashville's second straight win in Detroit, Florida's comeback against the Devils or 39-year-old Ray Whitney's brillance in a 3-2 overtime win for Phoenix over the Blackhawks, once again a controversial hit and injury took centre stage.

Modano's point, of course, and he should know, is that the NHL has constantly found itself with tiny TV ratings and revenue in the U.S. below sports like bowling because it has consistently failed to produce a package in which skill is featured ahead of goons and blood. (Of course, you can now expect the CBC's first intermission clown to take umbrage and first insult Modano's nationality, then call him a turncoat and a "puke," blame him for the bloodshed at Vimy Ridge then throw out a series of inaccurate and misleading "stats" that he will claim proves the 1999-00 Mississauga Ice Dogs were the greatest junior team ever to play.)

UPDATE: Torres suspended indefinitely

These days, meanwhile, it would certainly appear the best players in the game are being hunted and targetted, with little meaningful response from the NHL. Embattled Department of Player Safety boss Brendan Shanahan, who increasingly seems completely overmatched by the task he's been given, will face a challenge with the Torres-Hossa hit as Torres didn't even receive a minor penalty on the play.

That underlined another problem for Shanahan and the NHL. The officiating hasn't just been bad in recent days. Its been negligent and sometimes weirdly absent.

There was Ryan Clowe playing the puck from the bench in the final days of the season without any official knowing. There was an obvious offside goal for Philly to start a comeback in Game 1 against Pittsburgh. Last night, Nashville's David Legwand closed his hand on the puck in the crease and no official saw it, and then came the hit on Hossa, a blatantly illegal play that went uncalled as NHL commissioner Gary Bettman sat in the stands at the United Centre.

"I can't believe four guys missed it," said Chicago head coach Joel Quenneville.

Torres, of course, is a serial offender and well-established backstabber, frequently punished but sometimes allowed to get away with dangerous and reckless play. In this instance, his hit on Hossa in front of the benches was late - the puck was long gone - and saw the Phoenix forward launch himself into Hossa's head, making it both a charge and a classic Rule 48 head shot.

"Just trying to finish my hit out there," said Torres, quoting from Page 1 of the NHL Players Excuse Guide.

Still, don't underestimate the NHL's ability to let Torres escape justice. He did so last spring when he delivered a brutal head shot to Brent Seabrook and was exonerated because the hit occurred in a "hitting zone" that no one had previously heard of.

In this case, a reasonable person might sugges Torres' suspension should begin with the remainder of the post-season and grow from there. Time and time again, this is a player who has demonstrated no regard for the health and well-being of his fellow NHLers, not to mention the rules of the game.

He is the new Matt Cooke, now that Matt Cooke is the new Matt Cooke, if you get my drift.

But who really has any idea whether Shanahan will take any action at all? Moreover, since the NHL owns the Coyotes and would love a springtime playoff run to improve the franchise's saleability, the league is, you could argue, in a rather massive conflict of interest here.

"I don't know what to expect anymore," said Toews afterwards. "I don't think anyone does."

That's because we appear to have moved into Phase 3 of the Shanahan Darts-At-A-Board Justice program.

Phase 1 was to flex his muscles and hand down suspensions of 10 or more games before being shut down by outraged general managers.

Phase 2 was to let players get away with murder - including two head shots from Torres for which he received a $2,500 fine for one and a two-game suspension for the other - while claiming education and discussion was a better strategy than suspensions.

Phase 3, meanwhile, appears to be to issue a blizzard of meaningless and illogical mini-suspensions, giving slightly larger ones to grunts and grinders while giving one game or less to star players. On Tuesday alone, Shanahan suspended four players, but none for more than four games, with the reasoning for each detached from a general, understandable guiding philosophy.

At this point, he's just guessing, trying simultaneously to please his boss and avoid getting censured by the GMs again while still trying to affect the manly pose of a former player with insight into the modern game.

So with respect to Torres, here are the possible outcomes:

--Torres could get 25 games, with Shanahan noting he once expressed an interest in playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, and all Penguins deserve to be suspended because the Flyers are angels and would never do anything wrong.

--He might get a $2,500 fine, with Shanahan showing footage in his video of Hossa being able to walk out of hospital and a simulated presentation of the Slovak dancing at a late night Chicago blues bar.

--Torres could get a one-game suspension because Halifax came back to beat Quebec in the QMJHL playoffs. In other words, for no logical reason at all.

--The Coyote cranium-crusher might get four games because he reminds Shanahan of a left-handed Arron Asham.

--Or Torres might get no games and no fine because he outscored Sidney Crosby between Jan. 5, 2011 and Nov. 20, 2011, and then again between Dec. 6, 2011 and March 14, 2012, demonstrating emphatically that he is an elite skill player and not a rat, and therefore doesn't deserve any discipline at all.

Look, you've just gotta laugh at what's going on, because otherwise you'd be thoroughly disgusted at a league that is so dazed and confused another lockout might well be the best medicine for what ails it.

RELATED:

Coyotes-Blackhawks series turns ugly in an instant

UPDATE:

Coyotes concede Torres hit on Hossa was a 'scary' sight

Torres suspended indefinitely for hit

 

 

Comments

[Mike Diver]

I would take your comments a lot more seriously if you didn't show a video that included 3 advertisments....guess its ok for the star to make a buck off the hit........equally shameful as far as i'm concerned

[Nixon]

First, Cherry must have really ruffled your feathers with that tennis comment. Excellent response but perhaps you should have left out the later part of your rebuttal. Highlighting his incoherent ramblings and flawed logic is, although correct, bordering on agesim. No?
Second, great inclusion of the Hossa picture/video mid article to reinforce your premise. The shocking image of him on a stretcher operates well on the conscious of the reader and is certain to result in more support for your point of view.
Finally, I wonder if Toews talked to Duncan Keith after he sidelined Sedin with arguably a more egregious hit than the one Torres delivered last night. Players should address concerns with their union and not the Media. It is counter productive on many levels. For example, becoming credible evidence in an article criticizing the very league which makes them millionaires.

[Jason]

Could you just imagine if this was the NFL playoffs and all people were talking about were all the illegal plays and late hits to the QBs?.. Folks, football is physical and an intense game. I've played both. Once the snap happens, it's all emotion and intense quickness, so i don't buy all that BS about letting the emotions out. You get revenge by making good plays and LEGAL hits. You better believe that they want to make it hurt in football. But you don't see this BS in the NFL and the NFL is the richest league going.

[Gord]

What a bunch of panzi azz europeans. Hossa lifts Torres up off his feet then head butts him in the shoulder. You'll notice the refs got it right because Phoenix went on the powerplay after Hossa's dive. - Don Cherry

[Ryan]

Love the product on the ice and totally agree with Burke on this one. Great hockey surrounded by a few bad hits.

[E.G. III, MD]

The players need to respect the purpose of checking in the game. The purpose is not to deliver the hardest shot you possibly can without getting penalized, suspended or arrested. The purpose is to stop the other team from scoring and help your team regain the puck. Good hard hits have a place in the game, but guys like Torres just look for opportunities to unleash on players with their heads turned away for a split second so they never see it coming.

I've been a player, coach parent and physician at different times for almost 50 years. I can tell you that when I played Jr. A and college, the players were nowhere near as big, fast and strong. There was more room out there and more time to prepare for the big hits. There was usually no more than one or two guys that went 6'2" and over 210, but they were defenseman and usually couldn't skate fast enough to blindside anyone. Now you've got 10 huge guys with speed and strength and feather light gear. Humans are not built to survive more than one or two 40mph collisions.

The players need to respect the game and one another and not be so predatory when a guy has his head turned. The league also should consider a bigger ice surface like Olympic ice to give bigger faster players more space and increase the risk/reward trade-off of looking for the knockout hits after the puck is gone. Today's game requires more room for these guys to demonstrate their skill without killing each other slowly with high speed collisions. Lester Patrick wouldn't hesitate to point out the obvious and he would tell us that if the rink doesn't get larger we'll need to go down to a 4 against 4 game or simply wait to watch someone die from one too many 40 mph collisions