BY / JOHN CULLEN
Hockey Now Blogger
The police just ain’t what they used to be.
In the wake of the Lucic-Miller aftermath, which has been written about, parodied, and dissected faster than a stray cow’s eye in a high school science lab, there were a lot of cries of “well, the game needs to start policing itself again.” Paul Gaustad called on his teammates to come to the aid of Ryan Miller(despite being on the ice himself), Lindy Ruff lambasted his team in the media(and rumors of closed-door tongue lashings abounded), and even Mark Howe, gaining attention for the first time in years for something other than his last name, said to the media that in his day, Lucic running Miller(he absolutely, 100% ran Miller. This is the only comment I’m making on the actual incident itself) wouldn’t have happened because other players would have taken care of it. I somewhat doubt this claim, however, since the players in his day couldn’t “take care of” wearing Cooperalls, which have been the not-so-secret shame of the Philadelphia Flyers and the ESPN Classic network for years.
 |
| I'm embarrassed FOR him. |
I’m getting really tired of the whole “the game should police itself” argument, because when was the last time the game actually policed itself? Nowadays, the only time guys drop the gloves in response to attacks on teammates are open-ice hits. It seems when a dirty hit or play happens, the referees make the call before the players have a chance to do anything, or they all stand around in shock at what just happened, and a scrum ensues(much like what happened to Lucic).
Another major problem I have with the argument is that the game simply isn’t able to police itself like it used to. In the old days, the game policed itself because if you did something, you PAID THE PRICE. And not “ooh, a $2,500 fine on my $7.5m salary” price, you paid a PHYSICAL, PAIN-FILLED PRICE(pain-filled sounds like a delicious donut). Someone didn’t step up to fight you for 30 seconds, someone smashed their stick over your head and didn’t care how many pieces they left you in when you were finished. Eddie Shore was a player famous for his violence. He had an ear stitched up without anesthetic(an ear he lost fighting a TEAMMATE in training camp because the guy did something he didn’t like), and he ended Ace Bailey’s career with a hit from behind after he felt Red Horner(a teammate of Bailey’s) hit him dirty. So get that: Horner hits Shore, Shore doesn’t like it, nearly kills Bailey. The punishment? A 16-game suspension. He literally ended a man’s career, and he only got 16 games and Ace Bailey shook his hand months later at a benefit game. A benefit game for Bailey. Because his career was over. Which Shore was allowed to play in.
Maurice Richard was one of the greatest players to ever play the game and was supposed to be a goal-scorer, yet he criticized the league in the newspaper, punched a linesman, slapped a referee, and purposely slashed Bill Ezinicki IN THE FACE because the Leafs were pissing him off. Result? A one game suspension. The NHL let guys police the game, and that’s a key aspect that so many people are missing when they say “let the players sort it out”.
One of my favorite personal stories from this era comes from Frank Bathe, a journeyman defender who played 9 seasons for the Flyers and Red Wings. He lived in a cottage near mine and had a scar that ran from the tip of his nose up his forehead. When asked how he got it, he said that he had been bugging Bob Nystrom during a game(father of Eric, winner of 4 Stanley Cups with the Islanders in the 80s) and Nystrom told him, “bug me one more time and I will open you up.” Sure enough, Bathe bugged him one more time, and Nystrom opened him up just before this fight with his stick, then during this fight to the tune of multiple stitches and a lifetime scar. I love YouTube.
This pattern continued throughout history. You hit a guy dirty, you didn’t have to do a square-off dance around centre ice with them and that was the end of it. You got hacked, slashed, high-sticked, insulted, sucker-punched, hit hard, and generally tormented until you stopped being a dirty player. Coaches would even bench players for doing stupid things during a game because they were “disrespecting” it. Now they encourage that sort of play. It’s hard to compare the two forms of “policing”. Even if Gaustad dropped the gloves with Milan Lucic following his hit on Miller, does Lucic care? Does that actually curb Lucic from doing that again? He’s laid a number of questionable hits in his career, and has been challenged on a number of occasions for it. He often wins those “challenges” where he is being “policed”. The argument that those things would stop if we let the players “police the game themselves” is garbage because there’s nothing a player can do now to curb someone from doing something again, when all they can do is drop the gloves with them and hope for the best.
Let’s look at the list of guys who have been suspended this season, those who have doled out questionable hits where they might have been “policed” by players, instead of the league.
 |
| Is this the face of a man afraid to fight? Umm...no. |
Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond(334 PIM in the AHL last season)
Jody Shelley(career fighter)
Brad Staubitz(173 PIM for the Wild last year)
J-F Jacques(career fighter)
Tom Sestito(over 280 PIM for three teams last season)
Brendan Smith(124 PIM last year in the AHL)
Andy Sutton(6’6”, 245 lbs., not afraid to fight)
Daniel Carcillo(career pest/fighter)
Patrick Kaleta(ditto)
Do you think any of those guys care about getting into an NHL fight after a dirty hit? They could care less. The other players suspended were James Wisniewski, Brad Boyes, Clarke MacArthur, P-M Bouchard, and Kris Letang. Boyes and MacArthur’s hits were largely accidental, the jury is out on whether or not Bouchard high-sticked Matt Calvert on purpose, and neither Wisniewski nor Letang would be much affected if they had to drop the gloves.
The idea of the game policing itself has become a romantic notion, espoused by Don Cherry, Mark Howe, and other guys from the game’s past, when the reality is that now, that feat is nearly impossible. With cameras catching absolutely everything, dirty plays(and players) are protected now even more than before, and unfortunately, the only true weapons the NHL has against these sorts of plays are fines and suspensions. Then there’s the whole matter of the instigator penalty, too.
The game hasn’t policed itself in years, and it’s not going to ever again. So it’s time we stop thinking about what players can do on the ice to protect themselves and each other, because it’s clear they don’t fear the consequences. The NHL has made themselves the new police of the game, and they are the ones who need to take responsibility for stupidity on and off the ice, because with HD cameras recording every game from every angle, the media watching every move, and 4 referees skating around with watchful eyes, the days of players policing the game are long since past.
Great post. Very interesting take on what "policing" used to mean and how it doesn't apply any more.