I think the current Olympic tournament absolutely must be an eye opening experience for the NHL and its owners - 8.2m Americans tuned into MSNBC to watch Canada vs US in men's hockey. Even game 7 of the Stanley Cup final on NBC only brought in 8m last year! Some analysts are saying that if the US and Canada make it to the Gold Medal final against that game could draw 50m viewers in Canada and the US combined.
The NHL position of maybe not playing in Sochi is now an absurd situation. The NHL absolutely MUST grab on to this momentum and do something with it. Maybe people are interested in more than Dallas vs Nashville on their TV. I know as a fan, the Norway vs Switzerland game was awesome to watch.
Rather than go against the tide, maybe the NHL should swim with it. Bring back the World Cup. Play it during the last two weeks of February every fourth year (two years after the Olympics) and put some real money into the pot for the players to compete for. Maybe even talk to the KHL, the Swiss Elite League, the Swedish Elite League and whoever else and put together some kind of World Club Championship.
How do we fit all of this hockey in? Shorten the NHL season and kill a few teams! I know its blasphemy to say it, but the owners need to think outside the square a bit. That major TV contract they've been looking for is not coming any time soon with the way the NHL is currently setup. Clean out some of those rubbish franchises and improve the talent pool of existing teams. The idea being that rather than try and milk more revenue from your existing fan base by bludgeoning the ticket holders to death, you increase the overall size of the pie and lower your costs.
I think watching Modo play Pittsburgh in December for the World Club Cup sounds like a game worth watching - I'd sure rather that then watching the Islanders play the Devils for the fifth time in three months.
I watched the Canada vs. Norway match from Vancouver yesterday and it was a fairly interesting game. I thought the Canadians were a bit tentative and maybe a tad awestruck by the occasion (which is saying something for a group of NHLers) in the first period. Obviously Babcock got them fired up between periods and much of the rink wide passing in the offensive zone turned into direct shots on goal. Once Canada starts shooting, driving the net and playing the puck down low, there isn't a team in this Olympics that will stop them.
A few things I noticed:
- Iginla fit like a glove with Crosby and Nash. Crosby's ability to find the open man and Iginla's ability to get open with his stick on the ice in shooting positions will be lethal for Canada's opposition. I think that game by itself showed that Calgary in the summer must try and move one of those stud defenceman they have for a centre that can get Iggy the puck;
- I could write a whole blog entry about Rick Nash. I love watching the guy play. He's fast, he's big, he drives to the goal, he's got great hands, he plays the man and he hustles back to play a good defensive game. It is a pity he re-signed, I would have loved for Burke to throw the bank at him and bring him to Toronto. Yesterday, in five-on-five play, he was the best player on the ice;
- Roberto Luongo continues to mystify me. He seemed like he was constantly fighting the puck, reaching for things rather than letting it come to him. When he would venture outside of his crease to play the puck, well, it was an adventure to say the least. Then again, he stopped all fifteen shots. Still, for me, it is Brodeur from here on in - he will play his role of Sweeper/Keeper which should help Canada's very mobile, puck moving defense look better;
- I'd like to watch more of Duncan Keith - he's just solid. I will be watching more Kings hockey just to watch Drew Doughty develop - that move he put on the Norway defenceman yesterday was silky, the guy is still looking for his jock. Oh, and there was that hit! I saw Doughty play live earlier this year in LA, I enjoyed it;
- Babcock will be the difference maker in this tournament for Canada. When you watch him run his bench and then compare that to Ron Wilson, its a joke. Babcock is "in" the game, a line has a good shift, he gives them a quick break and throws them back out there. He spent the first ten minutes of the game getting everybody a turn to get them into the game right away. He juggled his lines effectively to shift energy players around - his use of Patrice Bergeron, Jonathan Toews and Mike Richards was amazing to watch;
- The depth on the team is staggering - if Perry, Getzlaf and Stoll are your third line, you're in good shape. Mike RIchards as your spare forward is also pretty enviable;
- It will be interesting to see how the game of the defencemen change when they have a tougher opponent. They were high-flying, wheeling and dealing, coast-to-coast and very mobile against Norway. It is going to be fun watching Keith, Seabrook, Weber and Pronger knuckle down against the Russians or Swedes;
- Shea Weber is the business - put him in a proper hockey market and he's going to win some Norris Trophies. He and Phaneuf are like the prototype of the modern Canadian defenceman - big shot, aggressive, quick and physical;
- Best thing we ever did was reinstate the touch up rule for offsides, kids are learning to play the puck offensively as defencemen again. There is a ten year hole in Canadian hockey history in relation to offensive defencemen - you had Orr, Bourque, Coffey, Neidermeyer and then nothing until the 2005 batch;
- Speaking of 2005, seven players on Team Canada played on the Gold Medal Junior team in 2005 - that's just amazing. I think people like the Hunter brothers and the Sutter brothers should all be given kudos for their work in developing young players, they have their fingerprints on quite a few of the best young players Canada has produced in the past five to ten years.
Living in Australia, it is hard to be an NHL fan. Regular TV coverage on Foxtel is terrible, but thankfully Gamcenter from the NHL has made it very easy to watch every game live. I am taking this opportunity to introduce my six year old to the Leafs and more importantly hockey in general. Unforunately, he was subjected to Florida Panthers trap on the weekend.
The little fella did really well, he sat through two full periods. As the Leafs/Panthers were a few minutes in front of the Habs/Rangers game, it let me flip back and also introduce him to Don Cherry and in the second intermission the Hot Stove. He took it all in, pretty much sat still the entire time and is gaining a better understanding of the finer details of the game, like offsides and icing - things the PA Announcer in hockey mad Miami has to tell the crows about.
Then a moment of sheer brilliance happened - mid-way through the second period he said to me, "Why are Florida all standing around in the middle?" Even to a six year old with almost no understanding of the game he could spot the trap and what a nightmare it is. I tried explaining the defensive strategy behind it and his response was simple, "Florida look slow."
Which turns us over to the Leafs. They used their team speed to get around the trap fairly effectively. They used their team speed to create plenty of time on the puck in the offensive zone. They didn't use either of those things to create good scoring chances. To me, it all boils down to their unwillingness to drive to the goal and contentment to fire shots from the perimeter with nobody screening the goalie or available to pick up rebounds. Their best moment of the game came when Colton Orr moved to the slot, took a shot and Jeff Finger broke to the goal and bounced the rebound off the post.
The biggest area of embarrassment for the Leafs though has to be specialty teams. The umbrella shooting is ridiculous because nobody is creating traffic in front of the goalie and Tomas Kaberle must be paying for his own sticks because he appears fearful of shooting and breaking one. The Leafs consistently passed themselves into lower percentage shooting spots on their powerplay. Even Bill Lindsay doing colour commentary for the Panthers asked why they were making low percentage cross ice passes instead of firing it from the point and using their numbers advantage down low. Phil Kessel is more or less useless out on the hashmarks - he's never going to score from out there. They've got to get back to basics - two point men staying out high to spread the defenders, one man screening the goalie and two wingers buzzing in and out as appropriate to try and pull a penalty killer out of position to create a higher pecentage shot. This is coaching - draw it on the whiteboard before practice and spend fifteen minutes working on it and it will improve.
Moving on to the penalty kill and again, Lindsay nailed it - the Leafs may end up being the worst penalty killing team in the history of the NHL since they began keeping these type of statistics. Again it is coaching. Blind Freddy can see that the Leafs forwards are playing too deep - they are giving up plenty of point shots and goals are coming off either the players running round or rebounds. Cory Stillman's goal was the classic example, the point shot was easy as the player had nobody on him, three Leafs were inside the hashmarks and not one took the man standing at the top of the crease who tapped in a shot that banked off the end boards. Simple stuff, make the powerplay team play outside the box and take low percentage shots OR force them into risky passes across the ice to find the open man.
I think part of the problem is the Leafs terrible powerplay must practice against their terrible penalty kill. They seem to be just getting worse and worse. Ron Wilson MUST get involved and sort this out - just go back to basics, do the easy stuff right before focussing on the complex.
Which leads us to personnel. I can honestly say, I've never seen a player out of position as much as Francois Beauchamin was against Florida, and for that matter, just about every time I watch the Leafs. He pinches at the wrong time, he wanders around aimlessly in his own end and he's prone to stupid passes up the middle. He is proof positive that Scott Neidermeyer is a Hall of Famer - anyone who can make Beauchamin look that good deserves a spot in the Hall.
Here's a stunning thought - Komisarek and Kaberle are the two best defensemen on the Leafs. The way Luke Schenn has played the last couple of games, he seems to have gotten the simplicity back in his game and is looking good, so he's number three for me. That means that at best Beauchamin is your number four and over the course of the year, Ian White has been arguably the best defenseman on the club, so does that not put him ahead on the depth chart meaning Beauchamin is the fifth best defenseman on the third worst team in the league. Oh dear, Brian Burke - not good at all.
Speaking of Ian White, he was terrible against Florida and teaming him with Luke Schenn is a disaster for the young Schenn. Ian White gave the puck away on bad passes out of his own end at least a half dozen times. Then because of his smaller stature, he's unable to physically make up for his mistake by rubbing someone out. On more than one occasion Schenn had to recover the situation for White, but with a young guy like that, struggling for confidence, making him do extra is a bad recipe. I've watched White the last few games and his play has been average.
One thing that surprises me is how ordinary many of these Leaf pending free agents have played. Ponikarovsky just doesn't go to the net like a big man should. When he does, he tends to score, but watch him in front of goal, he never screens properly, he stays slightly off to the side so that he doesn't get hit with a shot. Goalies on streaks like Vokoun is in right now eat that up. There's talk the Leafs will move Stajan and Ponikarovsky pre-deadline, I'd move Ian White too, I think long term he's more of a question than an answer. I'd re-sign Gustavsson because he's shown glimpses, although his lateral movement on the second goal was brutal, he had two chances to move sideways before the shot came and didn't get over fast enough, but on the three on one he stoned them - he's worth another season with a seasoned backup behind him who could step in if he fails.
Overall, my six year old is getting the same treatment from the Leafs that I got as a kid in the 80's. The team was so awful that any sign of hope, no matter how small, made the day a bit brighter. Hopefully the next game he watches doesn't involve Florida and their horrible trap.
I watched Patrice Cormier's hit on Mikael Tam - sickening is the only word I can use to describe it. That was a vicious elbow that would make Gordie Howe wince. That kind of thing must be removed from the game, full stop and Cormier, needs to be made an example of. I don't think the Q suspending him for the remainder of the year and the playoffs is too harsh at all - I think that's fair.
I think people in the hockey establishment need to look at a few aspects of the game and maybe make some changes to start protecting the overall health of the players:
Four on Four - I know it is a big change, but the players are getting so much bigger at the professional level and the NHL refused to move to Olympic size ice fifteen years ago before all the new arenas started popping up, so now few players on the ice is the only way to create more room. Also, it creates a more entertaining form of the game, less obstruction, more skill. Change like this is scary, but it needs to happen!
Equipment - Shoulder pads and elbow pads are now out of control. Some players in the NHL look like NFL linebackers their shoulder pads are so big. More importantly is the materials these things are made out of - space age plastics and foams that have nearly the density of steel without the weight. I also am not aware of any specific safety advantage that those monster shoulder pads have. Same with elbow pads, they are huge pieces of foam and plastic fastened with super velcro. I think they can certainly diminish in size with little impact on player safety.
Government Regulation - I don't mean government's making laws about headshots. I think the Canadian government really needs to give the CSA a mandate to rigourously test all helmets, shoulder pads and elbow pads on the market today. With helmets, they need to work out if the current designs are protecting players from concussion and maybe the government should fund some research with a few leading universities around the country to potentially come up with a better industrial design for helmets. Look at everything, materials, design, usability, etc. With elbow pads and shoulder pads, they should be compared to models from the 80's and work out what, if any the safety advantages are in the newer equipment versus some of the potential dangers.
I'm not against hitting or anything like that. I think the recent hit Ryan Wilson of Colorado put on Patrik Elias of the Devils was totally clean. Elias came through the neutral zone at speed and the WHOLE TIME if you look closely he had his head down. Then as he comes towards the blue line he looks up and it is far too late - he doesn't take a peek up until he's dumped the puck. Sorry folks, teach your kids to skate with their heads up.
Personally, I'm not hopeful that any of these changes will happen. I think the biggest opposition would come from equipment manufacturers and strangely, the NHLPA. The NHLPA would lose membership because in a four on four league, you could reduce the number of players required. I believe this would get rid of the Colton Orr's and the Derek Boogaard's of the NHL - I'm not saying it would eliminate fighting, but you couldn't carry those kind of players in a faster, more skilled league with a smaller bench.
I think that being the case, the people who should drive it are the three men I reckon are the most powerful people in the game: Bob Nicholson, David Branch and John Gardner. Nicholson, through Hockey Canada could revolutionise coaching standards that put an emphasis on 4-on-4 player tactically and really focus on player safety. David Branch could work with the WHL, OHL and QMJHL to move to 4-on-4 straight away and change the NHL's main feeder system. John Gardner controls the largest minor hockey organisation in the world, an organisation with a $3.5m running cost that gets ZERO government funding, yet for the past 30 years under Gardner's leadership, the GTHL (formerly MTHL) has thrived and grown to develop some of the best players in the world - Rick Nash, Jason Spezza, John Tavares, Sam Gagne, Andrew Cogliano, etc. If Gardner could find a way to turn the GTHL into a safer, 4-on-4 league, then it would be a fait accomplis that hockey would change.
I believe this revolution in safety must come from below and not from on high. The NHL doesn't care about the several hundred thousand kids playing the game in small parts of Canada. Those kids will see on TV and YouTube some of the outlandish cheap shots to the head that have become part of today's game and think that's ok. Then thousands of those kids will be concussed each year. That's a price too high to pay so that Easton can sell "cool" shoulder pads and the NHLPA can keep the worst 10% of its players around.
Ok, Brian Burke - time to step up and pull the trigger. Ron Wilson's tenure in Toronto most certainly has to be finished now. Losing to Buffalo 3-2 was bad - made worse by the fact that all three Buffalo goals were on the powerplay further emphasising Wilson's inability to put out an effective unit of penalty killers. I'm trying not to harp on it, but the Leafs players aren't THAT bad! They are a bottom six or seven team, but they aren't an expansion team - no team should be so miserable on the penalty kill based on a lack of skill. It is purely mental now and the coach can't fix it. It is costing games regularly. Wilson absolutely must go now - if the Leafs continue to bumble along until after the Olympics and THEN Burke fires Wilson, I would be the first to vote for firing Burke next. He would simply have not been firing Wilson to allow him to save face running the US Olympic team.
Burke is in all sorts of strife in my books. If the Leafs finish bottom five and somehow come out with the #1 pick and that goes to Boston, Burke is done. You would absolutely have to fire him. Taylor Hall, another first rounder and a second rounder for Phil Kessel is getting fleeced. I like Kessel and I think he'll be an all-star one day (on merit, not just because each team needs a rep), but Taylor Hall AND two more picks would be a bad deal.
Burke either needs to punt Wilson now and get a new bench staff or bring in some troops to help them out. Why not bring a guy like Dominic Moore back - he'd cost nothing to acquire I'd bet and he can penalty kill. He might even bring back some scoring touch to Jason Blake. Bringing in someone with a scoring touch might not hurt - someone like Jonathan Cheechoo who wouldn't cost alot, has scored in the NHL and is willing to go to the net.
Something has got to give. While it might be impossible in today's NHL with the salary cap to make big trades, it isn't impossible to shake things up by bringing in a new coach.
Yesterday I wrote that Ron Wilson needs to be sacked along with his coaching staff because the team isn't progressing. I think that's a fair call. Today I read that Wilson has gone on the practice ice and bagged out Phil Kessel "within earshot" of the media. This is the same Ron Wilson who gets grumpy whenever the media questions him, yet he's quite willing to throw his 22 year old star player to the wolves. Wow!
I accept that Kessel isn't scoring. I accept that he makes millions of dollars. I accept that he's a professional athlete and criticism and media spotlight are part of the job.
HOWEVER!
He's 22! He's still a young man! He's still learning who he is. He's moved to the biggest hockey market in the world and become the biggest star on a rubbish team - that's a considerable amount to deal with for anyone, let alone one so young.
Why didn't Wilson call out the pylons he's playing with? Come on Matt Stajan, lift your game! Or how about calling himself out for putting Rickard Wallin (zero goals this season) on his line. What about calling out his boss, Brian Burke for signing Wallin and not getting a true first line centre to play with Kessel.
Wilson is trying to employ backyard psychology, shaming the young man into focusing and lifting his game. What if Kessel came out and said, "I'm not playing for the US in the Olympics, I want to be traded from Toronto, Ron Wilson has no class." I think he'd be well within his rights to do that now. Why not? If my boss has something to say to me, I sure hope he doesn't do it in front of my staff or colleagues - let alone tell the news media (who wouldn't care). If Kessel came out and said he didn't appreciate Wilson's diatribe or his style, Burke would be in a pickle - he'd never get his two first rounders back and he'd either have to fire Wilson (and give into a player) or turn the blow torch on his best young player.
It all comes back to something Don Cherry was criticised heavily for saying, "Ron Wilson is a bully." Like all bullies, he's also a coward. Rather than admitting that his terrible coaching has lead to an inept penalty killing unit and he's unable to instill disciplined play in his defencemen, he blames Kessel for not scoring. When you get your ass handed to you by the Flyers 6-2, Kessel could have been the best player on the ice and they still would have lost. The problem there is, you gave up six goals!
Burke needs to fire Wilson now before he makes things worse.
I'm a Brian Burke fan. I like the kind of teams he chooses to ice - they compete, they are tough, they tend to play an open style of the game that's attractive to watch and they more often than not have a bona fide mean streak to them, a real edge. This Leafs team is a rabble and more and more, Burke's fingerprints are starting to appear at the scene of the crime.
The loss today against Philly was a good indication of what's wrong. Undisciplined penalties are not to be confused with a mean streak or an edge. High sticking a guy is not being tough. Scott Hartnell beatdown Jeff Finger. Dan Carcillo mocked them after not being able to engage with Colton Orr, who serves no other purpose than to engage the likes of Carcillo. Exelby did manage to give it to Carcillo and despite his antics, getting your ass whooped in a fight and running around "like a rock star" is still deflating to your team. However Exelby is what, the Leafs seventh or eighth defenceman on a pretty below average Leafs team is something and he was a Burke acquisition.
The Leafs do not compete at the drop of the puck - you cannot fall behind 2-0 in 22 games out of 43 and expect to make the playoffs. I think you can look at the players all you like, but the bottom line is the coaching staff are not getting them properly prepared. I know it is easy to blame the coach, but let's face it there are a few things in hockey that coaches have some influence over: special teams, goals against (team defence) and mental preparedness.
The Leafs are 14th in the NHL right now on the power play with 18.8% efficiency. Strangely enough, they finished the year last year in 16th with, 18.8% efficiency. No improvement there.
On penalty kill, Toronto are 30th with a woeful 70.5%! They are nearly 6% behind the 29th ranked team Edmonton! Boston, who are ranked #1 at 87.5% have been shorthanded more than the Leafs (152 to 149) and have given up less than half the same number of goals (19 to 44). That's just embarrassing. It gets worse, Toronto were 30th last year with a 74.7% efficiency rating - so they've gone significantly backwards.
They say your primary penalty killer is your goalie, well let's face it, Jonas Gustavsson looks like he'll be a good one and Toskala is slightly better than he was last year, so really, the Leafs have upgraded their primary penalty killer.
This leads into goals against. The Leafs were the worst in the NHL last year with a 3.49 GAA. At this point they are 29th with 3.36 GAA - so there is a slight improvement. I do think if Gustavsson had not had two heart issues and a groin problem, he'd be the clear starter in Toronto and that GAA would be lower, but only marginally.
Which ultimately brings us back to the causes of the problem, mental preparedness. I don't think anyone would argue that the Leafs defence corps this year on paper looks alot better than last year's. Yet, Beauchemin and Komisarik are a bit all over the place. Luke Schenn seems to have traded in for a new pair of cement skates and blinkers. Kaberle is doing his thing and Ian White has proven he is an NHL defenceman. So with Beauchemin and Komisarik the issue is one of two things, Brian Burke signed two guys for top four money who aren't really top four or Ron Wilson and staff can't seem to get the best out of them - again, our old friend mental preparedness. Luke Schenn is baffling, how did he lose his hockey sense over a summer or get slower? He needs to go to the Marlies and get some seasoning.
It all comes down to Brian Burke and he's been around long enough that things should be getting better and they are not. The penalty kill and the falling behind are in my books down to poor coaching. Killing penalties is about patience and applying pressure. They routinely end up running around, getting out of position and leaving open men for tap ins. You can teach NHLers and Wilson for two years has proven incapable of doing that.
So if your theory is to build a young team you need a coach who can teach - clearly, Wilson isn't doing the job. He's seemingly taught a lightweight offensive player in Nikolai Kulemin to forecheck and backcheck, but really, that's marginal stuff. Wilson and Burke are friends, but maybe Burke needs to clear the decks behind the bench, including Keith Acton who's been behind the bench as assistant in all five consecutive years of non-playoff hockey.
If Burke doesn't decide to bring in a coach who can get some consistent effort and have the team competing from the opening faceoff for sixty minutes, then we need to look at his recruitment. None of the college players he's signed seem good enough at this stage to crack one of the worst line-ups in the NHL. The leading scorer for the Marlies is tough guy, Andre Deveaux - that's not promising. Christian Hanson looks like he could be a second line player one day is scoring at almost a point per game, but Tyler Bozak has only 4 goals. Gustavsson in goal looks like he'll become a #1 in the NHL, so full marks to Burke there, but he's a restricted free-agent next season. The jury is out on Beauchemin and Komisarik - they are just inconsistent. Colton Orr is doing exactly what Colton Orr was signed for. Finally, Phil Kessel is in a slump and after tonight's game, Wilson dumped on him to the press without naming him. I don't think Kessel is the kind of player who can take that kind of heat in the Toronto media at this point in his career. If the guy takes it the wrong way and shuts the engines down, those two first round picks are going to look pretty expensive, especially if one ends up being Tyler Hall.
Personally, I think Burke has to can Wilson and his staff now. I can go into statistics and everything else, but the truth is, the team isn't improving. Your stud young defenceman is going backwards. Your star young forward is slumping, playing on a line with third liners at best and the coach dumps on him publicly - and he's promoted Rickard Wallin (of no goals) to the first line to play with him. Your veteran defencemen who everyone knows are solid players are playing silly undisciplined hockey. I don't know who you replace the coaching staff with, but its time for them to go. Toronto fans shouldn't have to wait until after the Olympics (to avoid making Ron Wilson look bad) for Brian Burke to start improving the hockey club right away!
Previously I've written about the need for NHL Contraction. Today however, I'm very excited by a comment made by Larry Quinn, part owner of the Buffalo Sabres. In an article, Quinn makes the comment, "Obviously, Toronto is the centre of the hockey universe, so draw your own conclusions about a second team (being a success)," Quinn said yesterday. "I've said the same thing, whether it pertains to a team in Toronto, Hamilton or Australia. If the league has a plan, we'll listen."
Well, let me be the first to put my hand up and lobby for a team in Sydney, Australia! I will buy two season tickets right now, 50% deposit. Nevermind Toronto or Hamilton, focus on the untapped demand here in Sydney.
Growing up a Leafs fan in the 80's was tough. The Norris division generally came down to who was worse in a given season, Toronto or Detroit. The one thing that always gutted you as a Leafs fan was that we had players like Clark and Vaive, but the Red Wings had Steve Yzerman. When Gretzky and Lemieux were beginning their assault on the scoring records, there was Yzerman, racking up 120 points for a terrible team. There were seasons he was 50 or 60 points better than anyone else on the Wings.
As his career progressed and the Red Wings became a better club, Yzerman became one of the best all-round players ever to play the game. Watching him and Brett Hull (a fellow inductee and big-time offensive machine in the 80's/90's) kill penalties in the Stanley Cup final was unbelievable when you think about it and a credit to the calibre of these players.
Yzerman has been heaped with accolades this week and there's nothing I can add about his prowess as a player or a leader that hasn't been said by someone more eloquently than I ever could. I will say this though, Yzerman has always carried himself like a true gentleman and a class act. My personal memory of him is when I was young after a game at Maple Leaf Gardens, waiting around the side of the "Cashbox on Carlton" for an autograph. Yzerman was heavily iced on the shoulder and the knee as he walked out to the bus. He stopped and signed autographs for every single kid waiting, probably forty or fifty.
In his acceptance speech, he makes reference to the great Bryan Trottier - a play I also admired when he was with the Islanders and later the Penguins. Yzerman says he wore #19 because of Trottier and hoped he did so with honour. I know there are a generation of children wearing #19 today because of Yzerman (and Joe Sakic).
Possibly the highest honour you can attribute someone is to say that if your son grew up and carried themselves with the class and dignity of Stevie Y, you'd be a very proud parent.
I've watched the Michael Liambis hit on Ben Fanelli about a half dozen times. I'm not sick or perverse, I'm just trying to find something wrong with the hit. Certainly the end result, a fractured skull and numerous other injuries to a 16 year-old boy is grotesque, but the actual hit itself, I'm not so sure. Smarter people than me, like Steve Simmons and Damien Cox have all more or less deemed it a clean hit as well. Liambis, didn't leave his feet, he was finishing his check, it wasn't late and it was shoulder on shoulder. It was extremely violent, but hockey is a tough game.
Much discussion is being had about whether or not the removal of obstruction, an effort to open the game up and show off the speed had a hand in this. I think there's a bit of that, but overall, the game is better off without the obstruction that existed pre-NHL lockout.
Another vein that I've seen some discussion in was around whether players respect one another. I don't think Michael Liambis disrespected Ben Fanelli - he just finished his check. I think hard checking is a sign of respect, it says that, "if I don't try and put some doubt in your mind, I think you're a good enough player who's passes will hurt my team."
I think the biggest problem with this hit comes from bad coaching and weak administration of the game at the amateur level. That's a big statement I know, but here's my argument.
Ben Fanelli turned his back to an on coming, rushing forechecker. Twenty years ago, when I was Ben Fanelli's age, playing the same game he plays, same position (not nearly with as much skill sadly), I knew and had been taught that you NEVER turn your back to an on coming player and put yourself in a position to be hit from behind. I'm not saying Ben Fanelli caused his own injuries, but, I am saying he didn't make a safe play. If you watch the replay again, he also had his head down when he picked up the puck. He certainly knew Liambis was coming, that's why he reversed the play, BUT turning your back like that is not smart, you are placing your safety totally in the hands of the other guy.
I think this fatal mistake is a result of poor coaching of kids and an amateur administration that hasn't dealt with hitting from behind properly. When I was playing in novice, checking started at minor bantam, so teenagers. The administrators in Ontario decided to drop the age to minor Pee Wee - they didn't grandfather it in or anything, just brought it in one year. Luckily, I was only Atom age and at the end of that season our coaching staff worked with us in practice on how to take a hit (especially along the boards) and how to check effectively. This was also the time when "hitting from behind" formally became a penalty.
I can say that in several years of full-contact hockey at many levels (House League, Rep, A, AA, High School, etc) I was never once hit from behind into the boards. I also have no memory of any game I was ever involved in where someone got hammered into the boards from behind. We were all taught to take the hits front and side on.
A few years ago, I went to watch some kids play. They had "STOP" signs sewn onto the back of their shirts between the shoulder blades. In that single game and the game after, I must have seen a half dozen, questionable hits and two or three squarely from behind into the boards. More horrifying, at GTHL AA level, I saw a 13 year old boy go into the corner in his own end, face first to the boards, fishing the puck out with his stick. He got hammered from behind and speared himself with his own stick. The kid who hit him was tossed from the game. I'd never seen anything like it in all the years that I played.
To me, it was clear that the kid who was hit could have had a flashing neon sign on his back and the boards lined with airbags, but he hadn't been properly coached enough to protect himself. It was sickening. These kids could pass at speed, shoot like pros and stickhandle like crazy, but in two games, I saw several kids turn their back to the play along the boards. Newsflash - a stitched on "STOP" sign won't protect you! It is a small sample admittedly, but these kids need to be taught to play contact hockey properly.
As for the administrators, I would suggest you make it mandatory for all coaches to teach their kids self-preservation. Hockey is fast and violent, contact is legal, being a beautiful skater with silky slick stickhandling won't help you if you have your head down. Let' get back to teaching kids to protect themselves and not rely on the good sense of others - teach them to take matters into their own hands!
Finally, to David Branch who has suspended Michael Liambis for the rest of the season. Perhaps part of the problem is that you had a 16 year old child, playing against a 20 year old young man. This is the same David Branch who's argued for "special" 15 year olds to play junior. I think it is a bad idea for boys to play against men. Rather than blame a kid for a clean hit, perhaps we should figure out a way to deliver high quality hockey to 15 - 16 year olds, but not dump them in with 17 - 20 year olds. I think the overage junior rule should be banished - no 20 year olds. I think we should consider a "Minor Junior" league of 15 - 16 year olds who can "graduate" to the full Junior A squad for 17 -19 year olds. Branch should address the real issues here, not play around the edges.
For those of you think I'm crazy, I'm going to attach the video of the hit on Ben Fanelli. I hear Ben has been released from hosptial, which is awesome - I wish him the best of luck. I also hope Michael Liambis recovers, clearly he was emotionally distraught from the outcome of his hit. Goog luck in the future to both young men!
