Polemic Hockey

Scott, I couldn't agree with you more. I'm not sure when clean, open ice hits became a reason to start a fight and “stand up for a teammate” but it's a bad trend. I think back to the Detroit-Edmonton game this season when Danny Markov destroyed Jarret Stoll with a clean open-ice hit. If you recall, Ethan Moreau tried to pay back Markov by fighting him late in the game and Moreau threw out his shoulder and missed the rest of the season. Moreau is a valuable player to the Oilers and they will justify what he did, but I thought it was a stupid way to end the season for him. Stupd, because does anyone think Moreau going after Markov to fight him is going to convince Markov not to lay any more open ice hits? The notion is ridiculous. Markov is a hard rock defenceman who will always deliver the big hit if it's there, and bless him for that. In a later game, Steve Staios fought Markov and Markov obliged him. Great. Justice was served. That clean bodycheck on Stoll was avenged. None of it makes any sense.

I am sure there are some occasions on a questionable hit on a star player when a statement needs to be made, but most of the clean hits you are talking about still result in a fight and also some ridiculous argument about how if there were no instigator penalty, this wouldn't be happening. I mean, do you think the instigator penalty or lack thereof would have any impact on Danny Markov doing what he does best. Of course not. The truth is we want more hitting in our game, clean hitting, and if every time a great clean check is leveled, there has to be a fight, well, I don't get it and never will.

Now, again, I'd like to see some stats run, but does fighting reduce clean checks? The only problem I'm having here is how often the same people call clean checks dirty based on the results.

Labels: Violence

// posted by Rick @ 3:43 PM