Take the most skilled forward on the Boston Bruins. Pair him with a Pittsburgh Penguin who has a reputation for being a dirty player. Mix in a shot to the head to a player in a vulnerable position, yet another player who is unable to leave the ice under his own power, and you have an incident that is going to get some attention. Thank you very much Matt Cooke—you’ve put this issue right back in the spotlight on the eve of the general manager meetings. Talk about an agenda-setter.
Savard was in a vulnerable position and never saw Cooke coming and then you add the head shot to it. Somehow none of the on-ice officials saw anything wrong with the hit, but my guess is that they will be wearing out the rewind and pause buttons on the DVD player in Colin Campbell’s office tonight. –Stanley Cup of Chowder
The truth is that this could be any two players. It doesn’t even matter that one of the players is the skilled Marc Savard and the other is pest, Matt Cooke (who has a questionable past). It could have been a member of Team Canada who is the captain of his team in Philadelphia hitting a Florida Panther with a shoulder/elbow to the head. It could be any two players. It’s not the participants that make this a dirty play that needs to be looked at—it’s the act itself.
In the aftermath and ensuing debates, we get into discussions of whether or not the elbow was up. Did they lead with the elbow at all? Was it late? Was the puck in the area? Was the player in a vulnerable position? Did the checker leave his feet before or after he made the hit?
He's not the first... he's just the latest...
Let me get this straight: A man left the ice on a stretcher and the discussion is whether or not it was a penalty? The question wasn’t if it was dirty, it was if it was legal. That’s all I need to hear. The system is broken.
Why don’t we compare this to real life? We all know that there are things in real life that are just WRONG. I don’t need a law that tells me murder is wrong. I don’t need a rule that tells me that I shouldn’t steal something from someone that doesn’t belong to me. So when we all know that hitting someone in the head is wrong (yet still do it), maybe it’s time to step in and MAKE it illegal.
Keeping with the real life theme, think about that being your kid out there. Can you imagine seeing that happen, then having to deal with the fact that the hit that knocked him out is legal? How the hell do you deal with that?
Here’s the deal: when someone hits someone else in the head, THAT’S the issue. That should be the suspendable offense. The aggressor might get be suspended after the fact for an elbow that wasn’t an elbow or for hitting a player that wasn’t near the puck. But isn’t that kind of missing the point? It’s exactly like sending Al Capone to jail for mail fraud. But there is no rule in the NHL rule book that specifically prohibits a hit to the head. Why the hell not?
International hockey has it right. A hit to the head is a penalty. The end. In theory I didn’t think that I’d like the international rule. Personally, it’s an interesting change of opinion. Initially, I was a little afraid that it would take out some of the hitting in the game because players would be apprehensive to make contact. But after watching the rule in practice, I’m a huge fan. It takes out so much of the guess work in high hits. Whether the hit was an elbow or not never plays into the equation.
This isn’t a knee jerk reaction, either. We’ll hear plenty of reactionary answers from people that don’t follow hockey. It’s not the first time that someone has been hit in the head this season without the player being penalized. And if something isn’t done in the near future, it won’t be the last.
Does anyone want to see this again?
At some point, we have to go with the “common sense” approach to rulemaking. It’s common sense that one player can’t drop kick another when they have the puck. Its common sense that you can’t take your skate blade and stomp on an opponent (unless you’re Chris Pronger). And it’s common sense that, in a sport with players traveling at high speeds in opposite directions, you should not hit each other in the head.
There’s already enough of an outcry and movement started that, at some point, we’re going to end up in a hockey world that completely bans shots to the head. But what is going to be the incident that finally convinces everyone? Clearly, watching David Booth wheeled off the ice wasn’t enough. Hopefully, watching Marc Savard carted off the ice will be a gruesome enough visual to get the decision-makers’ attention. Because if not, what will it take? Honestly, I don’t want to know—and hope I never have to see it.
Interestingly enough, the GMs are getting together in Florida this week for their semi-annual meetings. Whether headshots were on the agenda Sunday morning or not, they certainly were added by Sunday night. By no means am I the kind of fan that thinks the sport is too dangerous and is always looking for ways to dilute the game and make it safer. Hockey is an inherently dangerous sport. There are big bodies in a confined space moving extremely fast with bad intentions. Shit is going to happen. But when we find something we can do to protect players from UNNECESSARY injuries, we do it.
At this point, there’s no reason NOT to make this a punishable offense—a hit to the head is NOT part of the game. Nor should it be. It’s about time the NHL realized that.
Matt Reitz
Matt Reitz is an NHL Writer for ProHockeyTalk on NBCSports and the Editor-In-Chief here at ViewFromMySeats.com. When he's not shoving a mic in the face of NHLers or explaining why home teams should wear white, he's usually trying to figure out what song to play next on his iPod. It's a never-ending job.
