What does NHL stand for again? No Hit League?
So there’s no hitting in hockey now? And when there is, the violating player is singled out and suspended from the game.
Just like that, hockey has become basketball, soccer, baseball, figure skating, ballet or opera.
Hockey is supposed to have body checking. And you can get hurt in that physical game. What’s next, no slapshots?
It’s not a video game. But it sometimes looks like one.
I was curious to know what legendary coach Don Cherry thought of the Ryan Reaves hit on Darnell Nurse and wished, as I do every week, he was still on Coach’s Corner — another body blow to hockey fans that made the game softer and more politically correct.
But luckily with his son Tim and grandson Del, Grapes made the call on Sunday morning in his taping of the Grapevine podcast and we got to find out his views there.
“You know, it’s a funny thing, nobody ever came around the corner like that with their head down,” in his day of playing pro hockey or coaching in the NHL, he said.
You just didn’t do that, Cherry said, “because the wingers, as soon as they saw you do that once, they would get you the next time.”
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Don, Tim and Del all agreed if this was the 1980s NHL there probably would not have been a penalty called, let alone a suspension.
But it isn’t that era. Things are a little more woke now.
Cherry predicted in today’s game “he will get five games” and that is exactly what Reaves got.
Maybe the NHL is actually the No Hemoglobin League since if there is any red stuff spilled, out come the whistles, major penalties suspensions and fines.
Maple Leafs enforcer Reaves found out about that. The NHL has suspended him without pay ($35,156.25 in wages) for his Saturday night open-ice hit in the corner on the Edmonton Oiler star defenceman that sent him flying and resulted in a cut on his head that nobody likes to see happen.
But was this really a match penalty as was called, or suspension as was ruled by the disciplinary committee? Or was this even a penalty at all?
It’s a great debate. Cherry made his views known, but how about you?
Former NHLer P.K. Subban argued that it wasn’t a clean hit.
“No one looks like that after a clean hit,” Subban said.
Meanwhile, former NHL tough guy Paul Bissonnette said he believes Reaves went into the hit “with no ill intentions.”
Depending on who you ask, Reaves’ hit on Nurse was a dirty shot or a routine check. There does not seem to be a consensus among fans, those who cover the games and, of course, the players who played or coached in that league.
I heard what Don said about players knowing when a player has a habit of keeping his head down and could be caught at a later time because of it. But this didn’t look intentional to me. It looked like a forward laying the body on a player trying to come out of the scene with the puck. It was a player doing his job.
There are a whole range of opinions. Some say this kind of hit does not belong in hockey. Othersa say hockey is now is one big power play where hitting has been replaced by shootouts and 3-and-3 overtime.
Whatever way you look at this, the one thing everybody agrees on is the result was ugly. Nobody wants to see a player taken off the ice, not knowing where they are, covered in blood.
But if the NHL is going to lay down the law, it should be when there is a truly illegal play. This was one wasn’t. It was a body check in a league where you are allowed to body check.
Or used to be.
Don, Tim and Del all agreed if this was the 1980s NHL there probably would not have been a penalty called, let alone a suspension.
But it isn’t that era. Things are a little more woke now.
Cherry predicted in today’s game “he will get five games” and that is exactly what Reaves got.
Maybe the NHL is actually the No Hemoglobin League since if there is any red stuff spilled, out come the whistles, major penalties suspensions and fines.
Maple Leafs enforcer Reaves found out about that. The NHL has suspended him without pay ($35,156.25 in wages) for his Saturday night open-ice hit in the corner on the Edmonton Oiler star defenceman that sent him flying and resulted in a cut on his head that nobody likes to see happen.
But was this really a match penalty as was called, or suspension as was ruled by the disciplinary committee? Or was this even a penalty at all?
It’s a great debate. Cherry made his views known, but how about you?
Former NHLer P.K. Subban argued that it wasn’t a clean hit.
“No one looks like that after a clean hit,” Subban said.
Meanwhile, former NHL tough guy Paul Bissonnette said he believes Reaves went into the hit “with no ill intentions.”
Depending on who you ask, Reaves’ hit on Nurse was a dirty shot or a routine check. There does not seem to be a consensus among fans, those who cover the games and, of course, the players who played or coached in that league.
I heard what Don said about players knowing when a player has a habit of keeping his head down and could be caught at a later time because of it. But this didn’t look intentional to me. It looked like a forward laying the body on a player trying to come out of the scene with the puck. It was a player doing his job.
There are a whole range of opinions. Some say this kind of hit does not belong in hockey. Othersa say hockey is now is one big power play where hitting has been replaced by shootouts and 3-and-3 overtime.
Whatever way you look at this, the one thing everybody agrees on is the result was ugly. Nobody wants to see a player taken off the ice, not knowing where they are, covered in blood.
But if the NHL is going to lay down the law, it should be when there is a truly illegal play. This was one wasn’t. It was a body check in a league where you are allowed to body check.
Or used to be.
There are a whole range of opinions. Some say this kind of hit does not belong in hockey. Othersa say hockey is now is one big power play where hitting has been replaced by shootouts and 3-and-3 overtime.
Whatever way you look at this, the one thing everybody agrees on is the result was ugly. Nobody wants to see a player taken off the ice, not knowing where they are, covered in blood.
But if the NHL is going to lay down the law, it should be when there is a truly illegal play. This was one wasn’t. It was a body check in a league where you are allowed to body check.
Or used to be.
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