In addition to their usual drills and medical assessments, every player in the NHL recieved something new in training camp this year—a DVD compiled by the NHL that detailed what is acceptable in a bodycheck, plus a set of criteria defining suspendable shots to the head. The perception heading into the season was that the league, spurred by the media, was ready to take more serious action to prevent dangerous acts resulting in injury, whether they be “hockey plays gone bad” (questionable checks) or the “gratuitous violence” (sticks to the face, sucker punches, etcetera) end of the spectrum.
Unfortunately, this season has been off to a rough start. Jesse Boulerice of the Philadelphia Flyers—a team known for both its success and brutality in the 1970s—is but the latest player whose goal-scoring prowess will never make headlines whose egregious on-ice conduct has earned a place in the media spotlight. The league’s chief disciplinarian, Colin Campbell, handed Boulerice a 25-game suspension for a vicious cross-check to the face of Vancouver Canuck Ryan Kesler, matching the punishment given to Chris Simon last year for taking a two-handed swing at Ryan Hollweg’s face. While it is encouraging that the punishment for these actions has been severe by NHL standards—25 games is an NHL record—the fact that the Boulerice incident, the second of its kind in less than a year, even occurred is evidence that the deterrent isn’t working.
Boulerice fits the profile of the typical on-ice violence perpetrator to a tee. He already had a violent stick incident on his resume from his OHL days. The Flyers placed Boulerice, with eight NHL career goals to his name, on waivers Monday in an attempt to clear up roster space. In short, Boulerice is expendable. While some star players have committed dangerous on-ice acts—Todd Bertuzzi’s sucker punch that ended Steve Moore’s career, and Chris Pronger’s two illegal head shots in last year’s playoffs come to mind— these have been the exception. It’s the fourth-line players with a tenuous hold on an NHL job and a history of suspension who fit the bill.
For most of these players, the risk of crossing the line separating physical from violent play does not outweigh the reward of playing near it. When a player is at the bottom of the depth chart, he’ll do what he has to do to keep his job, and the only way to defend his spot against the scores of minor-leaguers dying to take it is to make up for a lack of skill with grit. While most teams and fans certainly don’t condone outright violence, they do feel that tough, physical play can help their team by getting opposing stars off their game. When Flyers prospect Steve Downy leveled Dean McAmmond of the Ottawa Senators with an illegal blow to the head during pre-season action (to which Campbell responded with a 20-game suspension), he explained to reporters that he was “just trying to earn a spot on the roster.” There’s a reason why penalty minutes earn you points in fantasy hockey leagues. Would the Nashville Predators’ Jordin Tootoo have an NHL job if he played a gentleman’s game? Is the league better off because he’s in it? According to CBC hockey analyst Kelly Hrudey, who passionately sounded off on Tootoo in his weekly Behind the Mask segment after a questionable check, “we don’t need him in the game.” If Nashville’s not your thing, remember Toronto’s own Tie Domi?
So, while 25 games may be a significant blow to players like Boulerice, who earn significantly less money than their more skilled teammates, the thought of missing 25 (or more) NHL games is still better than never playing one to begin with.
If the league can’t deter dangerous play on the players’ end, then perhaps it’s time to look at taking action against the teams that sign them. While it would be difficult to argue that teams or coaches are the instigators of violence, it would be equally difficult to argue that they are helpless to prevent it.
The always outspoken Don Cherry was quick to point out on this week’s Coach’s Corner segment on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada that there was no need for coach John Stevens to put an enforcer like Boulerice on the ice with the Flyers up 7-2. Losing an easily- replaced player like Boulerice may not seem like a huge loss to the Flyers, but an inability to replace a suspended player on their roster, or even something as severe as losing a draft pick, might make them think twice about signing players with a history of violent conduct. If the rewards for dangerous play are minimized, they may no longer outweigh the risks.
One of the knocks to NHL discipline is the allegation that the league is soft on star players, on the rare occasion that they do commit infractions. Each of Pronger’s two suspensions while playing for Anaheim last year kept him out of action for only one game. While Pronger’s offences occurred before the NHL set out its new guidelines for suspensions, which stipulate that repeat offenders are punished more harshly, there remains skepticism that the league won’t be consistent the next time it happens. While it’s unlikely that punishments for teams’ on-ice actions will prevent them from employing elite players like Pronger, there’s a chance that holding teams responsible when their players break the rules will change coaches’ and general managers’ views on their role in cleaning up the game. In the time leading up to the Bertuzzi- Moore incident, Bertuzzi made it clear that the next time he faced Moore, he’d be out for blood to avenge the concussion sustained by his Canucks teammate Markus Naslund. If Canucks general manager Bryan Burke and head coach Marc Crawford had felt responsible for Bertuzzi’s actions, would they have supported Bertuzzi’s desire for vigilante justice? Would Burke, now GM of the Anaheim “Fighting” Ducks, have defended Pronger’s actions after his first suspension if he felt it was his job to prevent the second?
Like anyone else in society, professional hockey players are, of course, responsible for their own actions. But if the NHL can do something to take dangerous plays and dangerous players out of the game by acting through the teams. Doesn’t the league owe it to players?
