I'm trying new things here at the blog to see what works best and what you guys (all 5 of you that read this thing) most like reading about.
Today, I'm going to look at some of the goings on around the NHL. Some "Quick Hits" if you will.
Game of the night: Nashville 5, San Jose 8
No, that's not a mis-print! After Nashville carried a 4-2 lead into the 2nd period, piling 30 shots on Evgeni Nabokov, San Jose came out posessed in the 3rd. After managing just 11 shots on goal through 2, the Sharks scored 6 goals (one was an empty-netter) on just 15 shots in the 3rd.
Goal of the night: Has to be Patrice Bergeron's complete undressing of Chris Pronger. He serves this goal to Marco Sturm on a silver platter.
You can see it here >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5BYz8SUnmI
Fantasy team of the night:
LW: Dany Heatley - 2 goals and an assist, including a PP marker
C: Eric Staal - 14 faceoff wins, over 20 minutes on the ice, 1 G 1 A
RW: Tomas Holmstrom - also with 1 G 1 A, includes the game winner
LW: Henrik Zetterberg - a goal and 2 helpers, 9 faceoff wins
C: Joe Pavelski - 4 point night
RW: Phil Kessel - 1 G (the game-winner) and an assist.
D: Mark Streit - played over 31 minutes (!!!), 1 helper on the lone Islanders goal
D: Brian Pothier - scored the game-winner and added an assist
D: Dennis Seidenberg - 2 helpers, +3, 4 blocked shots
D: Tom Gilbert - 2 assists, +1, almost 28 minutes on the night, 4 blocks
G: Craig Anderson - picked up a shutout against his former team
G: Miikka Kiprusoff - also with a shutout
Thoughts?
Friday, March 12, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Headshots
So, another sickening hit on the weekend delivered to Marc Savard has started the chatter again on headshots in hockey. I personally don't like the term "headshots"; sometimes they aren't even "shots" at all, sometimes it's a clean hit gone horribly wrong. But, that's what everyone's calling it, and really I'm wasting time discussing semantics.
It baffles me how people can sit there and defend hits to the head, in any capacity. You elbow a guy in the head, that's a 2 minute minor for elbowing, even if the intent wasn't there. You hit a guy in the head with a stick, even if you didn't mean to, that's high sticking, and sometimes it even gets you 4 minutes in the box. You drive a guy's head into the boards, again, intent is not a factor, that's a boarding call and most times that's 5 minutes in the box. So how can there be any doubt that a hit to the head from the body of another player (shoulder, forearm, whatever), however accidental, would constitute at least a minor penalty???
To me, it doesn't even make sense how these calls aren't ALREADY being made. The NHL has a cover-all call for dangerous play. It's called roughing. At the very least, shouldn't some of these hits be called for a roughing violation? These days, roughing seems to be reserved to people getting pissed off after a whistle has been blown...but that's another blog perhaps.
Now, I never played hockey growing up (give me a break, I was born and raised in Australia :P) but I did play contact sports. I played a lot of rugby and Aussie Rules football to be more specific. Any contact to the head was an automatic penalty, and if the referee deemed it to be intentional or particularly wreckless, that player would get sent off (the Australian equivalent of "ejected from the game") AND receive an automatic 1 game suspension with the option for further discipline (keep in mind they only play once per week).
And no, hockey is not rugby, or any other sport. But how can the gap be so WIDE when it comes to head contact, even just within the NHL rules? Something needs to be done.
I appreciate your comments/thoughts on this issue.
It baffles me how people can sit there and defend hits to the head, in any capacity. You elbow a guy in the head, that's a 2 minute minor for elbowing, even if the intent wasn't there. You hit a guy in the head with a stick, even if you didn't mean to, that's high sticking, and sometimes it even gets you 4 minutes in the box. You drive a guy's head into the boards, again, intent is not a factor, that's a boarding call and most times that's 5 minutes in the box. So how can there be any doubt that a hit to the head from the body of another player (shoulder, forearm, whatever), however accidental, would constitute at least a minor penalty???
To me, it doesn't even make sense how these calls aren't ALREADY being made. The NHL has a cover-all call for dangerous play. It's called roughing. At the very least, shouldn't some of these hits be called for a roughing violation? These days, roughing seems to be reserved to people getting pissed off after a whistle has been blown...but that's another blog perhaps.
Now, I never played hockey growing up (give me a break, I was born and raised in Australia :P) but I did play contact sports. I played a lot of rugby and Aussie Rules football to be more specific. Any contact to the head was an automatic penalty, and if the referee deemed it to be intentional or particularly wreckless, that player would get sent off (the Australian equivalent of "ejected from the game") AND receive an automatic 1 game suspension with the option for further discipline (keep in mind they only play once per week).
And no, hockey is not rugby, or any other sport. But how can the gap be so WIDE when it comes to head contact, even just within the NHL rules? Something needs to be done.
I appreciate your comments/thoughts on this issue.
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