Liam Responds
Defending Canadian Hockey, March 24, 2004
A CANADIAN GAME
Liam's response to an article written by Jim Kelley - Read
the full article.
Thank goodness we can always count on our American brethren in the hockey community to set us straight on the where for and the why of what is good and bad about our national sport. Heaven forbid Canadians weigh in on chop blocks in football, the show boating which has directly led to some of their infrequent but wilder brawls in recent years and the bean ball pitch to the head in baseball. I’ll have more on that later. What I’d like to do at this point, and first I’ll thank those of you who emailed me asking to review Mr. Kelley’s piece and perhaps respond to it, is we’ll take a look at some of his quotes and try and try to get the gist of why he’s taken a shot at Canadian hockey.
“He left the bench to participate in an altercation four games into the 2001-02 season and was suspended 10 games, a penalty that arguably cost him the scoring title.” (JK)
Mr. Kelley writes this about Bertuzzi’s action in a game against ironically, the Colorado Avalanche late in 2001. I happen to have been at this game in Vancouver. The rule is in place for a reason, no question about it. It has been one of the main deterrents of bench clearing brawls and most fans are happier about that. In this case, there was a line brawl happening, which for the uninitiated means all of the players on the ice were wrestling or fighting. Ed Jovanovski of the Canucks was engaged with Colorado tough guy Scott Parker and it was not going well at all. In fact he was on the verge of taking a real good pounding and nobody on the Canucks was able to help out. Should Bertuzzi have done what he did? He left the bench, knowing full well he would have been looking at a substantial suspension. No player even in the involuntary world that hockey sometimes is, would make that decision lightly. Regardless, Bertuzzi came off the bench and helped his teammate and was subsequently suspended. In the numerous interviews after the game and in fact after the suspension, Bertuzzi was 100% supported by his teammates. Perhaps it cost him a scoring championship, perhaps it hurt his team to a point – regardless, it is ingrained in our culture that you support and defend a teammate in trouble. I do not believe any true American hockey fan would decry that notion or that move. There are some elements of hockey that are intrinsic and I submit to Mr. Kelley that using this particular incident as a way to support a trend in Todd Bertuzzi’s behavior is a cheap shot of his own.
“But he isn't the only one. At the risk of being charged with stereotyping, Bertuzzi's behavior is typical of the hockey culture in Canada, a country that has long claimed the game as its own.” (JK)
I would never profess to be as accomplished a writer as Mr. Kelley is renowned to be. Yet, I bristle at a tactic that is employed in columns that I’ll call ‘the sweeping generalization’ to further augment ones point. Did Canada invent hockey? According to parts of Holland and in fact even parts of the United States, we did not. Have we long claimed the game to be our own? No. At various points in the past 30+ years we have claimed to be the best at it but when you have the top league in the world represented by 28 different countries by birth origins one would never be so pompous as to “claim the game as their own.” You take the risk of stereotyping Mr. Kelley you therefore assume the responsibility. Your diatribe is the prototypical response many of us in Canada are accustomed to hearing and reading after an incident such as Bertuzzi-Moore.
Your list of Canadian hockey’s most wanted; from Marty McSorley to Tie Domi is obviously a brief synopsis of the countless names one could bring to the fore when discussing hockey’s most violent acts. My concern here is how you’ve subjugated our ‘good ‘ol Canadian boys’ while supplanting villains of equal notoriety from other countries. You make mention of the fact that Tie Domi likely had the support of the rest of the league for his sucker punch of Ulf Samuelsson costing Domi an eight game suspension. Why wouldn’t they? A more gutless cheap shot artist than Samuelsson may never have existed in the history of the NHL.
“Samuelsson might have been a poster boy for dirty European hockey, but I don't recall him ever hitting an opponent in the head with a stick from behind.”(JK)
Samuelsson espoused an American military virtue – ‘heart breaker and a life taker.’ Samuelsson just modified the wording somewhat to stand for “cheap shot giver-career taker.” You’re right though Mr. Kelley, he did not hit Pierre Mondou of the Montreal Canadiens with a stick from behind, he just hit him straight up, in the eye, ending his career. Having been put on crutches from a knee on thigh hit myself, I cringe every time I see the replays of that gutless puke Samulesson’s hit on Cam Neely which in effect ended his career. Fortunately in my case the bone did not calcify like Neely’s did. The mere mention of this cowards name in your diatribe circumvents what effect if any, you hoped to accomplish with your hand wringing piece. Tomas Sandstrom died by the very sword he lived under. You do your loyal readers a great disservice invoking his name as the foil under Dave Brown’s stick when in fact Sandstrom’s stick infractions at that time in the NHL, were happening at an epidemic rate.
Legendary Russian defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov was fast tracking his way to undermining all of the accolades he had reaped for countless years throughout his career as he took out knee after knee until he ran into Wendel Clark. Yessir, a good ‘ol Canadian boy, who after barely escaping the vicious knee on knee attempt, dropped his gloves, perish the thought, and thoroughly hammered Fetisov. Funny how Fetisov rarely made such a dangerous move again on the ice.
Peter Stastny will go down as the second leading scorer in the decade of the 1980’s and one of the leagues most notorious stick men at that same time. Donald Brashear, who is American by the way, should have been suspended along with Marty McSorley in the last ‘black mark’ incident in the NHL. At one point Brashear was standing in front of the Bruin bench mocking McSorley. His throat slashing and hand washing gestures should be punishable by way of suspension for unsportsmanlike behavior. Didn’t you find it somewhat ironic to listen to Colorado coach and American Tony Granato comment on the Moore incident? Here’s a guy who is on the list of player suspended the longest in NHL history for one of the worst stick swings at a players head you’ll ever witness. Neil Wilkinson was the recipient of that dirty play.
“America has its share of dirty players, and certainly there are noteworthy Europeans who could be accused of the same, but clearly there is a trend here.” (JK)
The trend Mr. Kelley is that in the culture of Canadian hockey we are taught to play physical as much as we are taught to stick handle and shoot the puck. The list of suspensions now include many nationalities and there are some serious questions about the game of hockey at the NHL level that need to be addressed – however your very weak attempt to generalize the majority of these as a by product of Canadian hockey is actually incorrect. Truth is told that when the NHL was a much more Canadian league by denomination, as you point out, 66% just twelve years ago, much higher thirty years ago, the cheap shots and stick work that precipitate these careless, wanton acts of revenge were far less frequent. Do you see a trend there sir? I submit that the proliferation of Europeans and their stick work and Americans from their college system who play physical but who do not have to answer for transgressions because fighting is all but non existent in that system, are one of the main reasons that the NHL has seen an increase in the types of incidents like Bertuzzi-Moore.
Perhaps people like yourself and the Ken Dryden’s of the world, who to a large extent is a hypocrite, should advocate for a separate league with no Canadian’s participating. Angst driven media types like you cannot have it both ways. Steve Moore should have been suspended a couple of games for his gratuitous head shot on Markus Naslund. The league did not find the hit to be illegal. Fair enough. Then you have to remove the instigator rule from the game because no team, absolutely none, is going to stand by and have their star player and one of the league’s marquee names smoked with what was in my opinion a cheap shot to the head from a rookie, Canadian born, American school trained, visor wearing player. Herein lies the very foundation, the fundamental problem with the game at the NHL level today. Your opinion may differ. I submit that if these theories were put to NHL fans throughout North America and in fact, I will solicit responses as I always do on this notion on my web site and various radio shows I appear on, I feel that the overwhelming majority will agree with me. Perhaps you’d care to debate it on the air? I can set that up.
Donald Brashear should have been kicked out of the game for standing in front of the Boston bench pointing at his arm muscles and washing his hands in front of Marty McSorley. There is absolutely no room in the game for that type of conduct nor should there be for what McSorley did but to eliminate the effect you first have to go after the cause. You mention that Marty McSorley was Wayne Gretzky’s body guard. I’m curious as to what your thoughts were of Wayne Gretzky appearing in Vancouver during McSorley’s trial, offering his verbal support of McSorley on the air and no doubt in person as their friendship stood up to the scrutiny of hundreds of media types, most of course who couldn’t skate across a court room. I wonder if in your hockey world the greatest scorer the game has ever seen should have been accountable in some way, shape or form for his obvious support of a player so vilified by many, yourself included? What do you make of that?
“The reason is simple: It's not in their culture. The Russians of the '60s, '70s and '80s produced some of the most remarkable combinations of talent and toughness the game has ever seen, but none of them ever attempted to take someone's head off from behind, bulldog them face first into the ice and then attempt to deliver what could well have been a killer blow while their opponent lay helpless or unconscious.” (JK)
Are you kidding me? Would you like to watch the tape of interviews from Team Canada 1972, specifically Gary Bergman’s comments and Phil Esposito’s who were kicked, right through the shin pad may I add and butt ended in the mouth respectively? Yes, this is the same series that Bobby Clarke slashed Valerie Kharlamov. The Russians showed in 1972 just how brutal they could be. Every bit as dirty and disrespectful as their Canadian counter parts were. This is simply ridiculous Mr. Kelley. The Russian culture besides developing some very talented hockey players is one of notorious stick work and cheap shots and the very prominent feigning of injury like their soccer counterparts only to bounce back up and start the power play.
I’d like to take a final exception to Mr. Kelley’s comparison with some of the other pro sports, almost exclusively American based. The showboating mockery that is the National Felony League, a.k.a. the NFL, has led to some wild on field incidents in the past few seasons. Dancing on a teams logo at mid field, running through an oppositions lineup during pre game warm-ups, the endless trash talking that has become the norm in the NFL is in my opinion fueling a much more violent league than in decades past and I believe it only a matter of time before some sort of retribution probably with a blind sided hit from behind possibly takes a life or at the very least adds to an already growing list of players that are paralyzed playing football.
There is no retribution in any sport that rivals that of baseball’s ‘eye for an eye.’ If a player on one team is hit while at the plate you can bet the mortgage, ten fold, that the first player up to bat for the opposition in the next inning is going to take one and we can only hope that it’s not in the head. The dreaded bean ball and the image of a baseball player lying unconscious or barely moving after taking a deliberate ball to the head is as equally graphic and disturbing compared to the Steve Moore incident. Baseball doesn’t allow fighting right? Yet according to USA Today there were 34 bench clearing brawls in baseball last year. Nice league. How long, given the American preponderance for violence, before we see someone struck with a bat other than a mascot?
“But in a larger sense, so does every coach who has ever led a kid to believe that retribution is part of the game and ever parent who has never told a child otherwise. It extends to every member of every front office -- from the grass-roots level, to major junior and to the pros -- who has subscribed to Conn Smythe's adage "If you can't beat them in the alley, you can't beat them on the ice" and assembled their team to do both.”(JK)
American writers such as you Mr. Kelley like to hide behind a veil of apple pie and the glow of the ball park on a warm summer’s night. Hockey’s image is a cold rink, intense, physical and a don’t back down mentality. I believe it’s a product of a game that was spawned in the 1800’s by first or second generation Canadians whose own existence was predicated on an ability to survive tough circumstances. The weather, the conditions, the land – all of this produced players who played the way they lived. Charles Masson killed Owen McCourt with his stick in a game in 1908 but it was ruled inconclusive. Sprague Cleghorn was once asked how many fights he had in his NHL career and he replied, “do you mean just stretcher cases?” Eddie Shore almost killed Ace Bailey. Rocket Richard probably could have killed Hal Laycoe. Gordie Howe was suspended several times for attempt-to-injure an opponent. Bobby Orr dove into a Buffalo bench to fight Larry Hillman. Jean Beliveau once held the NHL record for the most penalty minutes in a season by a centreman. Even many of the superstars of the game of hockey, all of who I’ve mentioned are Canadian born, did not back down or take any unnecessary crap.
I’ve played hockey all my life and I currently coach minor hockey in the ODMHA (Ottawa District Minor Hockey Association) I take great exception to your comment that there would be any more coaches of minor hockey in Canada who call for retribution than there would be American coaches who call for the same in baseball after one of their players is hit by a pitch. You paint an entire populace with the same brush and it’s disgusting but typical. I look forward to any response.
Liam Maguire
