By Lance McCaskey
Staff Writer
Playoff hockey is known for being one of the most intense, physical, all out sporting events in the world. Hockey is a full contact sport. Tension is bound to build up, and emotions are bound to boil over.
It is the leagues job to contain these emotions, and prevent its players from serious bodily harm. The National Hockey League’s correctional board is not doing its job.
If you have ever watched a NHL playoff game, you know just how intense, and emotional the game can become. Old rivalries surface, “unfinished business” is attended to, and fights are definitely not out of the norm. Playoff games over the past few years have been relatively calm in the physical sense. Players used the playoffs to show off their great talent and ability, and the games were more an intense, yet friendly and competitive environment rather than a hostile one.
This year this has not been the case. We are barely into the first round, and we already have eight games with over 20 minutes in penalties, and at least three full ice brawls. But why the sudden, sharp raise in penalties and brawls this year? Where is this coming from?
It is simple; players have begun to take on acts of vigilante justice to punish dirty plays on their star players. But why the vigilante justice? The Chairman of the Disciplinary Board, Brendan Shanahan and the disciplinary board is failing to do their job, which is to suspend players who exhibit dirty acts of aggression on opponents.
Shanahan, who was by no means a clean player throughout his career, has failed as the chairman of the disciplinary board. He shows no consistency in his decisions. An average hit to the head cost Duncan Keith (Chicago Blackhawks) five games at the end of the regular season, where a vicious head slam to the glass by Shea Webber (Nashville Predators) got no discipline from the league. Some times, it seems Shanahan is in his office in New York, spinning a “Wheel of Fortune”-esqe wheel to decide how many games suspensions to give the players of the NHL.
This dirty and unsportsmanlike play throughout these playoffs is disgusting as a fan. Ask anyone what their favorite part of hockey is and chances are they will tell you big hits, slap shots or fighting. While I agree that physicality is part of the game, it frustrates me both as a player and a fan to see the image of the sport I love based solely on physical violence.
There is so much more to this great game. Great athleticism, heart, passion and skill that I wish people would love just as much I do. Shanahan and his inconsistency in these playoffs is only contributing to the bad name that hockey already has in America.
What the NHL is failing to realize, with its lack of proper and consistent suspensions and penalties, what it does to the youth and upcoming generation of hockey players. As a kid, you look up the stars of the NHL as role models, people to base your game off of when you are searching for an identity on the ice.
When I was 12, Jussi Jokinen played for the Dallas Stars, and used this ridiculous move in shootouts in the 2005-2006 season, the year shootout was introduced. That year, I must have tried that same move thousands of times in practice, until I was able to execute it to perfection, and would eventually use it to score in a shootout.
The same principal applies in this situation. When kids see their favorite players running around, acting like fools and taking matters into their own hands, they are bound to behave the same. Kids look up to these players, and imitate their every move, just as I did with that shootout move.
If Shanahan allows this system of vigilante justice to take over the NHL, you are going to see a massive increase in violence on the ice in these youth games.
Just last year, in the Varsity Silver championship game between Keller and Arlington High School, a brawl broke out with minutes left in the contest. Four players were banned from the league, and multiple others received hefty suspensions for their actions. This is just the tip of the iceberg. You are going to continue to see more and more violence in the amateur levels unless we put an end to these dirty actions and brawls right now.
It is time that Shanahan puts on his thinking cap, his big boy pants and starts to face the truth in todays NHL. Dirty hits and violence are slowly beginning to take over the game, and he must be the one to stop it. Its time we let people see hockey for what it is, a great, athletic and fun sport to play, instead of the ugly image we have let it gain over the years.
