NHL 2010-2011: Rick Rypien

Dysplastic wrote:

The impression I get from the Bruins is that the worthiness of a suspension is directly inversely proportional to the actual injury delivered.

I guess your impression can be put to the test now. Way to play clean hockey, guys.

Suspension is warranted, but won't help much. Seventh defenseman took out a starting line player, and a top goal scorer for the series. A suspension on Rome won't even the imbalance.

Dirty, dirty play.

It was a reasonable hit that came maybe a full second too late. Rome was skating backwards and positioned his shoulder correctly. It was not a 'rule 48' violation, so I'll be surprised if they suspend him. Rome did, of course, skate laterally into a hitting position when he no longer had license to do so, and Horton wasn't watching where he was going.

Compared to Stevens-Lindros, this one was pretty bad. Could just be that I like the Devils, but watching the two hits and my responses were: Stevens "Ack!" whereas Rome was "WHAT the f*ck?"

If they conclude it wasn't a dirty hit, Boston TD Bank North Fleet Center Garden is going to be a disaster area next game.

Taking another look at it, I could see giving him 1-2 games. Horton should not have been watching his pass, and Rome should not have been setting up hits based on where he would like the puck to be in 2 seconds; of course, since Rome committed an actual rule violation on the play he bears the responsibility (and it would be silly to say Horton is responsible for avoiding Rome's interference). Aside from this is the fact that Horton is a star while Rome is a replacement (and, in a hilarious turn of events, a Vancouver team populated largely by Scandinavians has managed to gain the perception of being dirtier than the Boston Bruins).

I still wouldn't agree with the assertion that it was a blindside hit, an elbow or a charge, however.

I would rather have Ballard or Tanev in than Rome. I have said all the way along that Ballard should be in, but coach V wanted Rome. I hope he is suspended for a couple of games for his actions and to let better players play.

Currently Vancouver has some fan zone areas to watch the games on big screens in the city. When the hit happened people cheered because it was a big hit, what disappointed me is that people kept cheering when Horton could not get up and got louder once they realized it was Horton. It was a sad day to be a Canucks fan or Vancouverite

Stay classy Vancouver.

I wish...

Lol welcome to the no spin zone. If Boston makes that same hit the RCMP would be invading Massachusetts right about now looking for blood.

Btw, nhl.com is reporting that Horton is out for the rest of the playoffs. Stay classy Vancouver.

Gumbie wrote:

Lol welcome to the no spin zone. If Boston makes that same hit the RCMP would be invading Massachusetts right about now looking for blood.

Btw, nhl.com is reporting that Horton is out for the rest of the playoffs. Stay classy Vancouver.

I agree completely it was a dirty, headhunting hit, and if I was in charge of discipline I'd suspend Rome for the rest of the playoffs.

But I'd also have handed out a bunch of suspensions to the Bruins through the stretch and the playoffs, starting with Chara but not ending there.

Listen, nothing justifies Rome's hit, but if you're Boston, you live by the sword, well, you die by the sword too. What irks me is that when Boston plays violent, dangerous hockey, it's justified as "strong hockey play", but if it gets turned on them it's murder. At least have some consistency.

It sucks that all we can talk about in this SCF is suspensions etc - really goes to show how badly the league has lost a handle on discipline. They had a chance to send a message a long time ago, whatever they do to Rome will be too little, too late.

Rome received a 4 game suspension. He's out for the rest of the playoffs.

Horton is out for the playoffs as well. He is talking to his teammates at least, so that's something. Hope he makes a full recovery.

4 games for Rome, on the low end for me, but I guess they got it right.

That said,it's bullsh*t...

"Two factors were considered in reaching this decision," said NHL senior vice president of hockey operations Mike Murphy. "The hit by Rome was clearly beyond what is acceptable in terms of how late it was delivered after Horton had released the puck and it caused a significant injury."

"Not captain of my boss' son team" seems to be the other criteria. One of the TSN reporters tweeted that the hit was 29/30 frames after Horton had released the puck (so 1-second). The Chara hit was, as far as I could time it consistent without figuring out how to count frames, was 1.2-1.4 seconds after Pacioretty had chipped the puck out of the Habs' zone.

The NHL has the consistency of really bad pudding.

That hit was a teensy bit late and unnecessary.

Roke wrote:

4 games for Rome, on the low end for me, but I guess they got it right.

That said,it's bullsh*t...

"Two factors were considered in reaching this decision," said NHL senior vice president of hockey operations Mike Murphy. "The hit by Rome was clearly beyond what is acceptable in terms of how late it was delivered after Horton had released the puck and it caused a significant injury."

"Not captain of my boss' son team" seems to be the other criteria. One of the TSN reporters tweeted that the hit was 29/30 frames after Horton had released the puck (so 1-second). The Chara hit was, as far as I could time it consistent without figuring out how to count frames, was 1.2-1.4 seconds after Pacioretty had chipped the puck out of the Habs' zone.

The NHL has the consistency of really bad pudding.

Agreed completely. I don't mind the suspension at all but this being suspension worthy and Chara's hit not is just beyond me.

I had the game on while I was on the PC last night (with no sound). At one point I looked over and Lucic was punching a Vancouver player in the back of the head (who was defenseless on his knees). No suspension for that? Did he even get a penalty?

carrotpanic wrote:

I had the game on while I was on the PC last night (with no sound). At one point I looked over and Lucic was punching a Vancouver player in the back of the head (who was defenseless on his knees). No suspension for that? Did he even get a penalty?

He punched Burrows. No penalty.

Gravey wrote:
carrotpanic wrote:

I had the game on while I was on the PC last night (with no sound). At one point I looked over and Lucic was punching a Vancouver player in the back of the head (who was defenseless on his knees). No suspension for that? Did he even get a penalty?

He punched Burrows. No penalty.

The punch came after a slash on Thomas by Burrows. No penalty there either.

That said the NHL seems to have a policy of awarding freebies based on past behavior. There's no doubt it's baffling and inconsistent.

As a side not, I kind of disagree that the Bruins' reputation is deserved. Are they more physical than many current NHL teams? Possibly. But violent and dirty? I don't think any more than anyone else in the league. But perspectives are filtered through the lens of bias, so that's really all I can say about that.

Leroyog wrote:

That hit was a teensy bit late and unnecessary.

I think the main thing that should have been looked at is him leaving his feet and raising his elbow.

IMAGE(http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd327/gamerwithjob/feetup2.gif)

Errr...he didn't raise his elbow. The elbow naturally comes up after shoulder contact like that.

I just have a hard time imagining a four-game suspension for a hit in open ice on a player entering the offensive zone, from the recieving player's precise 12-o'clock. He didn't have the puck, and that makes it a penalty. But for it to be a suspesion, doesn't the hit itself have to be egregious? Rome literally could not have been more square to the front of the man; at what point is it simply the offensive player's responsibility to keep his head up? If it had been a regular check with no injury, as any such check would have been 99 times out of 100, this would have been a 2-minute minor. Turning that into a 4 game suspension seems odd. All Chara precedent aside.

Morro wrote:

Rome literally could not have been more square to the front of the man; at what point is it simply the offensive player's responsibility to keep his head up?

I imagine the point at which Horton should no longer expect a hit. Horton believed he had already made a pass through the neutral zone, while Rome (due to wishful thinking) expected him to make a pass right at the blue line; even though Horton failed to protect himself, the rules say he should not have to expect a hit there.

To me this is very similar to that hit on Hamhuis by Getzlaf in the regular season, where Hamhuis was watching his pass and ended up with a concussion on a (slightly less) late hit. Getzlaf, of course, does not receive a suspension (or even a penalty, IIRC) for that one. Take that as you will.

Also, Rome did not elbow, charge, or leave his feet (until after the hit, which is considered to be the natural result of most hits).

Gravey wrote:
carrotpanic wrote:

I had the game on while I was on the PC last night (with no sound). At one point I looked over and Lucic was punching a Vancouver player in the back of the head (who was defenseless on his knees). No suspension for that? Did he even get a penalty?

He punched Burrows. No penalty.

Uhhh, he got a penalty. Three actually (slashing, roughing, misconduct). Vancouver got a PP out of it and promptly gave up a SHG.

Rome's suspension is well deserved and almost entirely due to the severity of the injury he inflicted. If Horton had bounced back up I doubt he would have been suspended.

Rome Might appeal the suspension. No direct quotes about the reasoning, but the authour made references to Rome's agent referring to the Chara hit on Pacioretty as well as Pronger's hit on Dean McAmmond when Anaheim won the cup.

I think the suspension is fine (an excessive hit that was late, though the NHL doesn't care about excess) but I hope Rome appeals. Gary Bettman's the one who takes care of the appeal so Rome is probably out of luck, but more coverage of the discipline roulette wheel can't hurt.

Koz wrote:
Gravey wrote:
carrotpanic wrote:

I had the game on while I was on the PC last night (with no sound). At one point I looked over and Lucic was punching a Vancouver player in the back of the head (who was defenseless on his knees). No suspension for that? Did he even get a penalty?

He punched Burrows. No penalty.

Uhhh, he got a penalty. Three actually (slashing, roughing, misconduct). What game were you watching?

Vancouver-Chicago Game 4.

Sorry, I missed that Lucic had been penalized there. I was probably tuning out a lot around then.

imbiginjapan wrote:

As a side not, I kind of disagree that the Bruins' reputation is deserved. Are they more physical than many current NHL teams? Possibly. But violent and dirty? I don't think any more than anyone else in the league. But perspectives are filtered through the lens of bias, so that's really all I can say about that.

Right, and if hockey discussions are ruled by anything, it's by a) emotion and b) a woeful understanding of probability. I'm thinking more and more accusations of this or that team being dirty is a result of bias. Any team is no more to blame than any other; and while each team is responsible for its conduct, I believe the main culprit is the league itself, mandating or condoning this level of violence in all its forms. And as Bonnonon points out, it's because the league knows there's a paying audience for it (which means we're just as culpable). But I'm a softie pinko, and my favourite player is a yappy French hair-pulling pest, so all you kids out there, don't listen to me.

I've been on and off all day about posting that, but there you go. What this series has really done for me so far is just not make me want to talk about hockey.

Gravey wrote:

Sorry, I missed that Lucic had been penalized there. I was probably tuning out a lot around then.

No problem, and I apologize for my post sounding snarkier than was intended. I edited it out but you were too quick for me.

Koz wrote:
Gravey wrote:

Sorry, I missed that Lucic had been penalized there. I was probably tuning out a lot around then.

No problem, and I apologize for my post sounding snarkier than was intended. I edited it out but you were too quick for me.

No, snark was deserved: how can I bemoan bias and then neglect to do something as simple as check a boxscore for a fact before posting?

Dysplastic wrote:

Listen, nothing justifies Rome's hit, but if you're Boston, you live by the sword, well, you die by the sword too. What irks me is that when Boston plays violent, dangerous hockey, it's justified as "strong hockey play", but if it gets turned on them it's murder. At least have some consistency.

I think this is true of most teams - a hit (dirty or not) on your favourite team and people call for blood. A hit on the other guy? That's just awesome hockey and everyone cheers.

Last night when Horton went down, fully half the patrons in the bar I was at, cheered. And when they replayed the hit in slo-mo, and the crowd watched his head bounce off the ice, they cheered again. I was thoroughly disgusted with them for that. A possible head and neck injury is not worthy of cheering for, but that's the mentality among a good deal of the fans out there: violence is alright so long as it's not your team taking the hits.

I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert on hockey, so I have no idea if Rome deliberately hit him (a high hit coming too late) or if he really believed that Horton was about to have the puck passed pack to him, and hit him not realizing Horton couldn't see him coming and react. At those speeds it must be hard to make good decisions quickly and even watching the replay, I still couldn't quite grasp what had happened.

I just hope the injury isn't a permanent one and that it triggers more consistent calls and enforcement of the rules - regardless of things like home advantage and who the player is.

I can say that I have no horse in this race, at this point I'm just watching as an outsider. I thought it was a bad/late hit, especially given the league has said outright that they are trying (O RLY?!) to stop hits to the head. It doesn't matter if he had his head down and should have been looking, it doesn't matter if it was an understandable follow-through, it was a high and dangerous hit.

That said, 4 games seems very high to me; it didn't seem like a malicious hit as much as a poor choice made at high speed combined with hitting someone who didn't have his head up as much as he probably should have.

In the end, the NHL has said (YA RLY!) that they want to reduce head hits. Part of that is changing players' habits, and making them more aware of certain types of situations that put you in a position where you're more likely to cause damage. If they're going to fine big to get that point across, I can understand it, but it means they have to be freakin' consistent in that, which has really been the problem all along.

Mimble wrote:
Dysplastic wrote:

Listen, nothing justifies Rome's hit, but if you're Boston, you live by the sword, well, you die by the sword too. What irks me is that when Boston plays violent, dangerous hockey, it's justified as "strong hockey play", but if it gets turned on them it's murder. At least have some consistency.

I think this is true of most teams - a hit (dirty or not) on your favourite team and people call for blood. A hit on the other guy? That's just awesome hockey and everyone cheers.

Last night when Horton went down, fully half the patrons in the bar I was at, cheered. And when they replayed the hit in slo-mo, and the crowd watched his head bounce off the ice, they cheered again. I was thoroughly disgusted with them for that. A possible head and neck injury is not worthy of cheering for, but that's the mentality among a good deal of the fans out there: violence is alright so long as it's not your team taking the hits.

I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert on hockey, so I have no idea if Rome deliberately hit him (a high hit coming too late) or if he really believed that Horton was about to have the puck passed pack to him, and hit him not realizing Horton couldn't see him coming and react. At those speeds it must be hard to make good decisions quickly and even watching the replay, I still couldn't quite grasp what had happened.

I just hope the injury isn't a permanent one and that it triggers more consistent calls and enforcement of the rules - regardless of things like home advantage and who the player is.

It's a (disgusting) part of the culture in hockey Mimble. Zdeno Chara got a standing ovation in his first game back in Boston after the hit on Pacioretty. If in a game against Montreal Milan Lucic suffered the same injury Horton or Pacioretty received I guarantee there would be idiots standing up and whooping in the stands.

Hitting isn't what it was from what I've seen of games from the early 60s (using your body to take the puck from the guy), it's now about absolutely obliterating a guy. People (in Canada) have grown up watching Don Cherry's big hits/fights videos and listened to him every Saturday night for decades spout his point of view about the "right way" to play the game. Scott Stevens (a defenseman for the New Jersey Devils) was deified for hits very similar to Rome's. Heck, in the Montreal-Boston series Pk Subban laid a massive hit on a Bruin (I think it was Marchand) in the corner that hit got a tremendous cheer and was on the highlight reels. It was a very dangerous hit, and excessive, but the "right way" to play the game.

Often when somebody (especially an outsider) brings up the issue the game maybe getting too dangerous and the need for change to make things safer there will be a push-back against them with cries of "taking the hitting out of the game" or as Mike Milbury insensitively put the "pansification of hockey". Appealing to "the tradionalist" is an easy and cheap tactic though. At least in Canada it plays on a little nationalism (why are they trying to change OUR game?) a bit of bigotry and xenophobia (Russians are soft, "only French guys and Swedes wear visors"), and to the typical things were better in the good old days when bench-clearing brawls happened and if a guy hit you with his stick you'd shove your fist down his throat.

The "don't change the game" crowd is looking back on the past through an imperfect lens, not recognizing that hockey has evolved as life itself does. Forward passes are allowed, the rover position doesn't exist, players play all-out 40-second shifts rather than pacing themselves for minutes at a time, goaltenders are better because of a reasoned and technical approach to the position, and the nutrition and training of players year-round means they are bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before.

I have a box set of " 'Greatest' Habs games" and I was struck by how different the game from 1960 was: slower, almost no body contact, and Jean Beliveau got a penalty for a hit against the boards that was commonplace today. Things have changed in a big way and they need to change to make things safer, especially to prevent brain injuries. Some of the recent studies about the effects of concussions are scary. Frankly, unless there are changes from top to bottom in hockey I do not believe I can in good conscience allow my children (if I have any) to play the sport and if it's not safe enough for them to play, I don't know how I could watch it with them either.

The four games thing would seem to follow the understanding that neither Rome nor Horton will play another game in this series. I am fine with this so long as Horton doesn't return tomorrow perfectly okay (while I do hope he recovers completely, I feel like the suspension was made under the assumption that he was out for the series).

The sad thing about it is that it's clear they only suspended Rome because they could; because he isn't a star player and because Horton's loss damages Boston more than Rome's loss damages us. For all the league's talk about headshots, the odds are they will never suspend a star player unless it's a Todd Bertuzzi-type situation, and the league's many lower-tier people will receive virtually no protection in the event they get run by someone more valuable than them.

Roke wrote:

The "don't change the game" crowd is looking back on the past through an imperfect lens, not recognizing that hockey has evolved as life itself does. Forward passes are allowed, the rover position doesn't exist, players play all-out 40-second shifts rather than pacing themselves for minutes at a time, goaltenders are better because of a reasoned and technical approach to the position, and the nutrition and training of players year-round means they are bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before.

I have a box set of " 'Greatest' Habs games" and I was struck by how different the game from 1960 was: slower, almost no body contact, and Jean Beliveau got a penalty for a hit against the boards that was commonplace today. Things have changed in a big way and they need to change to make things safer, especially to prevent brain injuries. Some of the recent studies about the effects of concussions are scary. Frankly, unless there are changes from top to bottom in hockey I do not believe I can in good conscience allow my children (if I have any) to play the sport and if it's not safe enough for them to play, I don't know how I could watch it with them either.

I think it is also likely that most NHL players are on steroids or other such performance-enhancing drugs (no matter what any tests, 'league insiders', or media people say). I too would advocate restructuring the game so that people don't take years off their lives or lose their minds working in what is essentially an entertainment industry.

4xis.black wrote:

I think it is also likely that most NHL players are on steroids or other such performance-enhancing drugs (no matter what any tests, 'league insiders', or media people say). I too would advocate restructuring the game so that people don't take years off their lives or lose their minds working in what is essentially an entertainment industry.

For the fringe guys at least, they would be crazy not to. The league's drug testing isn't anything resembling stringent and the incentives (especially the money) are there for you to do whatever you can to get to the NHL. The belief among the NHL as articulated by a few former head-office guys (specifically John Shannon who's somehow a hockey analyst for Sportsnet after being the NHL's main broadcast executive) is that steroids would not help NHL players because it only helps you bulk up and that isn't all that useful. They're ignoring of course the fact that there are other PEDs other than steroids and NHL GMs seem to have a fetish for bigger and stronger players. Even if players aren't using PEDs for strength I can sure as hell seeing them use them for endurance.

I believe hockey is 20 years behind baseball in terms of statistical analysis. In terms of performance-enhancing drugs they're probably at least fifteen years behind as well. The "steroids won't help in hockey" sound like batters needing to stay lean in order to remain flexible to hit.

4xis.black wrote:

The sad thing about it is that it's clear they only suspended Rome because they could; because he isn't a star player and because Horton's loss damages Boston more than Rome's loss damages us. For all the league's talk about headshots, the odds are they will never suspend a star player unless it's a Todd Bertuzzi-type situation, and the league's many lower-tier people will receive virtually no protection in the event they get run by someone more valuable than them.

If it was Ryan Kesler or Henrik Sedin making that hit (I can't think of a big-enough-name Canucks defenseman) they don't get suspended. I think you're absolutely right.