Bill The Butcher Approves Of NHL Player Safety
It’s somehow comforting that, in a season where the NHL has done so much properly, the league still finds a way to seem like Bill the Butcher on player safety. Despite bold proclamations and new guidance the issue of player safety— particularly at playoff time—is fast frozen in the Brian Burke principle.
That would be, no player is bigger than the playoffs. So when Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher had his jaw broken on a vicious crosscheck from Philadelphia’s Matt Niskanen, the penalty from The Department of Player Safety was a single game. With their spark plug Gallagher out of the lineup, the Habs lost to the Flyers in six games.
Clearly the punishment would have been harsher in the regular season, but the Solomons of Safety at NHL HQ adopt a different standard in the postseason. One game is the equivalent of four regular season games. Hacking and whacking skill players by spares in the regular season is a point of emphasis for discipline. In the playoffs it’s a point forgotten. And so on.
We use the expression player safety advisedly, of course. Traditionally the NHL Department of Player Safety is to safety what Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety was to justice. Just ask Paul Kariya. The brilliant Anaheim forward was crosschecked in the face by Gary Suter in 1998. Burke, then deciding discipline for the NHL, gave Sutter just four games for the vicious attack. (He admits now that had he known the severity he’d have given more games.)
Kariya missed the 1998 Olympics and the rest of that season— and was never the same star again after suffering post-concussion syndrome for the fourth time. “If the league wants to stop that kind of conduct, it will have to punish players,” Kariya said at the time. “Ten-game suspensions ... and more, have to be brought back to help wake up players.”
There was much noise at that time about agreeing with him. But it melted like ice in July. Ironically, with Don Cherry banished, Burke is now the crypt-kicker on Hockey Night In Canada’s panel. He was asked about the punishment to Niskanen and said he could live with with two games, but that one was insufficient for the crime. Who knew?
None of which lessened the NHL blunder of Niskanen skating free for a a serious attack on another team’s key player. Like malaria, carelessly expending NHL players is something the league just can’t seem to shake.
Speaking of Burke, he was supposed to be the big dog on the Huawei Fun Bunch, also known at the HNIC intermission panels. With Cherry going Burke would step in and assume the curmudgeon role so beloved of HNIC sweats. So far Burke has provided lots of grumpy asides but has failed to adopt the rascal role Cherry embraced. It’s a bit like watching Benny Hill without the goofy music.
But the summertime postseason has brought about a new, perhaps unanticipated star on the broadcasts in the person of former Canuck Kevin Bieksa— or “Bieska”, as Grapes was fond of calling him. Bieksa is making a lot of the Colby Armstrong cookie-cutter HNIC analysts look pale by comparison. Brutal honesty. Insight. Humour. Inadvertent gossip about ex-teammates and foes.
He talked about how Flyers coach Alain Vigneualt, his coach in Vancouver, likes to challenge players to bench-press contests in the gym. He also suggested former teammate “(Roberto) Luongo had a clause in his contract where he didn’t have to play back-to-back games on the road if he didn’t want.” (A claim Luongo disputed.)
Can’t win them, all. But Bieksa has raised the bar with his wit and willingness to acknowledge he’s not a player anymore (Some TV talkers just never get over that hump that they’re not still part of the team). For a show whose biggest talking point for a time was Elliotte Friedman’s caveman beard, Bieksa is a pleasant revelation.
A good example of Bieksa working the medium was a simple chalk talk about how passing from one right-handed shot to another right-handed shot is easier because of the rotation on the puck as it’s passed. It settles easier on the blade in a one-timer. Bieksa and the producers showed a few examples. He added that the same goes for a left-handed shot to a left-handed shot.
It’s definitely insider baseball… er, hockey… but it’s what television is all about. Visual. An insight to help us understand the nuances better. Or as Grapes said, “All you kids out there, watch this…”
Meanwhile, other HNIC stalwarts are still reading the chicken’s entrails, relaying that this team seemed keyed-up in warmups or that player is looking to bounce back after a bad game. How is this quantified? What does it even mean? In one instance Louis DeBrusk was extolling how motivated Dallas was in warmups against Calgary. Then they were scored on 15 seconds into the game.
Bieksa is going to make mistakes as he learns the TV game. But last least he’s trying. Will the broadcasters ask the same from the others populating their hockey panels?
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his next book Personal Account with Tony Comper will be available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca this fall.