2-game suspension, or 1 game for each incident.
 
Chris Pronger works the cheap and dirty. Apparently being a repeat offender and having 8 suspensions in his career isn’t enough for the league to step back and say, we should maybe re-evaluate this. Instead they said, let me dust that dirty hit off of you, Chris.
 
Fuck you, NHL. And even though the league is supposedly going to “crack down on hits to the head”, they’re apparently not going to crack down the players delivering those hits to the head.
 
Thanks again, guys, for failing the fans and the game once more. It’s just another thing to add to the list of shit incidents that occurred this year.

Last year, around this time, I wrote a post titled The Sunday Edition: Lord Stanley Does – well, a lot of things. It’s a quick and dirty history of the Stanley Cup’s more colourful outings and a quick reminder of why you shouldn’t eat out of the cup.

I was prompted to remember the Cup’s more colourful moments by Theory of Ice’s The Big Shiny, which is a lovely look at the significance of the Stanley Cup both to hockey players and hockey fans alike.

Still pissed off about how the Canucks were eliminated, I’ve basically shied away from the WCF/ECF except to be even more pissed off that the Sens (I like the Sens, actually – I just don’t like Emery) eliminated Buffalo, and to feel bad that Bertuzzi was re-injured in game 5. But pissed off or not, this is the time of the year to remember why this game is beautiful.

And, again, why you shouldn’t eat out of the Stanley Cup.

My favourite anecdote about Lord Stanley: in 2004, after the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Calgary Flames in game 7, Brad Richards took the Cup jetskiing – complete with its very own life jacket.

It’s been a rough year for the NHL.
 
In February, Ray Emery finds himself actually accountable for a slash to Montreal’s Maxim Lapierre FACE. He… bitches about it, because a 3-game suspension for trying to take out someone’s eye, nose, or mouth is just “a bit much.” I want to make this clear for anyone reading: I think Ray Emery is a fucking douchebag.
 
March was a busy month for the NHL. Devil Cam Janssen delivered a late hit to Leaf Tomas Kaberle which resulted in Karbele sustaining a head injury. No call on the play but Janssen was later assessed a three game suspension.
 
A few days later, Chris Simon hacked away at Ryan Hollweg‘s face after Hollweg delivered a clean hit to Simon, right on the 3-year anniversary of the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore Incident With A Capital I. Hollweg thankfully made it through with a cut on the chin, while Simon later claimed that he was ‘groggy’ and his judgment was impaired. The league retaliated by first suspending Simon indefinitely, thenholding a hearing, then suspending Simon for “a minimum of 25 games” including and up to the 06-07 regular and post season, bleeding into the 07-08 regular season if need be.
 
Fast forward to the playoffs. Back-up extraordinaire Jamie McLennan pulls a Ray Emery and hacks away at Johan Franzen, earning himself a five game suspension. A couple of rounds later, Chris Pronger gets suspended for all of one game for an elbow to the head of Red Wing Tomas Holmstrom. Chris Pronger then proceeds to bitch about it instead of sucking it up and serving one damn game. Although the league did, in typical league fashion, manage to drop the ball on his suspension: they didn’t assess him any penalty during the game itself but, thanks to video review, decided that the hit involved elbow then suspended him after the fact. However, Pronger continues to chase said ball into traffic. He now blames his good friend the Canadian Media for the suspension. I think Chris is still pissed about the whole banging some weathergirl story that came out when he, mysteriously and without explanation to the fans, demanded a trade out of E-town. There is a startling lack of acknowledgement (hey, that hit was kind of dirty and maybe I should be glad that Holmstrom just got a cut) in his hockey world.
 
The sad thing is that I know I’m missing one more suspension, but googling it brings up too many results to sift through.
 
All year long, the NHL has been in the American headlines for being a goon sport, and this makes me fucking pissed off. The NHL is not a goon sport. The media (American and Canadian alike) just love to pick up any negative things so they can sensationalize it and sell it to the millions who only want their pre-conceived notions affirmed. It’s easier to sell headlines of “HOCKEY GAME ENDS IN NEAR DEATH” than “HOCKEY GAME ENDS OKAY, AND DID YOU SEE THAT BEAUTIFUL SET UP BY THE KID?” Neither the players nor the NHL are doing anything to disprove the fact.
 
I love hockey dearly. Otherwise, I wouldn’t spend money to pay for the blog, or go to games, or proudly wear my Trevor Linden jersey. I wouldn’t even drop money by going to a pub to watch a game with other non-Garage bound fans. So it kills me that:
 
1. The players clearly no longer have respect for each other; and
2. The NHL clearly doesn’t know how to discipline their wayward players.
 
Back when the Bertuzzi suspension was handed out (and the term used there was “indefinitely”), yes, I was pissed. I was pissed because the NHL hadn’t given out a firm number for his return. Instead, they pussy-footed around the issue. Over a year later, he was reinstated and returned, albeit not to form. However, I was also glad. I thought that the league had reached a turning point. I thought that maybe the league was starting to take discipline seriously.
 
Try again, you naive dumbass.
 
A 3-game suspension for a slash to the face; a 3-game suspension for a dangerous late hit; a 1-game suspension for an elbow. Each time, with exception to Simon-Hollweg, the league has reiterated the fact that it doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing. These days, like the rest of the days before it, suspensions are based on the outcome and not the intent or even the infraction. If a guy goes barelling towards another player with his elbow up or, hell, even his stick up, ready to hit from behind or into an area that’s not meant to be hit, he won’t be thinking, “Oh, shit, this is a 5-game suspension, isn’t this?” He’ll probably be thinking, “Chances are they won’t suspend me at all for this” then deliver the hit as-is.
 
In 04, the league asked the players to save the owners and GMs from themselves. Now in 07, the players are asking the league for the same. In both instances, neither party was heard until it was forced upon them. The players are forcing this upon themselves now. It’s an issue because it’s here and it’s affecting the game. The league needs to protect more than its image: they need to protect the product and the people who produce that product. There’s a line and for some reason, the new NHL has stepped over that line. It’s time to pull them back.
 
Hockey isn’t a goon sport, but the league and the players alike are making it out to be. For every dirty hit or late and meagre suspension, there have been a thousand other beautiful, exciting, unbelievable plays. The game isn’t going to be represented as it should be unless everyone – officials and players alike – do their jobs. So do your jobs.

From the Vancouver Sun:

SCENE & HEARD: It will be awhile before Dallas Stars goaltender Marty Turco has dinner again at Umberto Menghi’s signature eatery, Il Giardino on Hornby Street. Not that Turco has anything against the food or service at the charming Tuscan-style villa. He loves the place. But as Turco’s superstitions go, forget it.
 
Turco picked up the tab for eight of his teammates last Sunday on the eve of Game 7 in the Canucks-Dallas playoff series. Funny thing is, Il Giardino isn’t open Sundays. But Turco insisted. He had wined and dined the same eight teammates earlier in the week and when the Stars won Game 5 the next night at GM Place, Turco wasn’t taking no for an answer prior to Game 7. The Dallas players would sit in the same seats, order the same meal and drink the same wine.
 
After several desperate calls from Turco, the chef and two senior staff members agreed to open the restaurant for his private sitting. All in, it would cost Turco close to $10,000 to have the lights turned on, the grills fired up and the tab delivered for the nine hearty diners.
 
Dallas, of course, lost 4-1 the next night and Turco to this day is unaware that there was a Canucks souvenir collectible coin — Roberto Luongo edition — securely taped to the bottom of his chair. Turco should have known. As the team’s rallying cry goes: “We are all Canucks”.

I love this city during the playoffs. And if I should die today, with last night’s game being the last game I ever see as a Canucks fan, then I should die happy.
 
I wrote my second final in the morning, went to Authentix to finally get my playoff towel (there weren’t any left), then ran home, changed, and ran back out to bus to Legends in time for the pre-game show. By the time I reached the pub, I was thirsty enough to down a vodka sprite. My friends and I settled in, ordered some food, and got ready.
 
As soon as Luongo came on the screen, the crowd at the pub started to buzz. We deflated a bit after that goal that beat Luongo – MC had said to me a few weeks prior that the one-time shots from the point on the glove side is his weakest spot, and I remembered that as soon as the goal went in – but picked it back up in the 2nd with the power plays.
 
Things were grim in the first, I have to admit. That’s when I went through my second vodka and sprite. “I think that if I drink enough, the ’0′ will look like an ’8′.”
 
Well, I got halfway there.
 
In the 2nd, things started to spark. They were moving faster; they were winning more face-offs (thanks, Mo!) and finally, finally their PP clicked.
 
Every time the whistle blew with a call for the Canucks, the pub cheered.
 
“We’re getting closer,” I said when Ohlund hit the side of the net. “Soon we might be able to hit the Dallas logo.”
 
I distinctly remember tucking into my third drink, eyes cast down looking for the straw, while mumbling, “Not drunk enough yet,” when Sedin netted that goal. I nearly choked. The pub exploded. One of my friends jumped so high there was half a metre of air between the bottom of his feet and the floor. We screamed, and danced, and yelled.
 
Through the second, right until the third, that didn’t stop. Everything was loud and electric. Every move elicited a reaction.
 
When Trevor scored, I saw every moment, and wanted to cry.
 
I screamed myself hoarse and stumbled home crazy drunk, babbling to my best friend about the cute bartender and calamari, of all things. Right across the street was the bus back to my parents’ place and every car we passed down 3 Road had a Canucks fan in it, honking their horns and waving their flags.
 
This is the city during playoffs. This is every hope, every dream, riding on one goal, the winning one that you hope comes from one of your boys. The streets are awash with the Canucks, displaying the team’s logo history with pride. It’s all we talk about; it’s all we know.
 
Walking home – stumbling home, after even more drinking, really – was an exercise in caution (kids, don’t do this at home). But the streets were bare. The odd car or two drove past but the air was warm and I had a message on my voicemail from my sister and her husband, who were looking out from the window of their downtown apartment telling me about the celebrations.
 
Every year we wait for this. Sometimes it comes; usually it doesn’t. But there’s a buzz in the city that runs down Robson street and through the outlying areas that sings, and hums, and cheers for the one week, two weeks, month that the team makes it past 82. Every year I wait for this.
 
So here’s to round 2.