Recently in the NHL there haven't been any players carted off on stretchers or suffering life threatening injuries. Which is exactly why it's time to be thinking about the topic. In a few weeks the trade deadline will be looming and the playoff race will begin heating up...which is when you will see more of the "ugly" side of hockey rear it's head.
I've always appreciated the "goon factor" in the game. Hockey is an intense game, played at high speed by large men with sticks. Things happen. Goons are there to make those "things" don't happen to the star players on the team. Just as the high riser is a necessary evil in baseball...so too, is the (most often) lovable goon in hockey. When the NHL mistakenly tried to remove this natural deterrent from the game, is arguably, what gave rise to the increase in hits from behind, late hits, stick swinging incidents and various other cheap shots that mar the game at times.
A few years ago it would have been a non issue really. Hockey had no TV interest and with it's labor woes, the sport was floundering to a level where it was competing with the likes of "Rock, Paper, Scissors Matches (they really televise that you know?). Ah, but then came hockey wunderkids galore; Crosby, Ovechkin, Toews, Semin and Kane (to name a few). All of a sudden the NHL had what it hasn't had since Sergei Fedorov came into the league. Bona Fide "marketable" superstars in the making. These kids have the goods to turn hockey around period. The skill, talent and natural ability these players bring to the game must be akin to the buzz that had to be happening in the days of young Wayne Gretztky and Mario Lemieux. Each and every one of these kids a compelling personality to boot. The cash registers in Hockey Heaven surely have had to be re-fitted with extra zeros since these kids have hit the ice.
With all that being said, the LAST thing the league needs as the world warms to the dazzle of these young superstars, is another Todd Bertuzzi-esque moment to drive potential fans away. So what to do? I've proposed this a number of times before and though it is "extreme" in some senses, it would be one sure fire way to curb the extra curriculars that often go so wrong in the NHL.
Simply put, it's time for the NHL and NHLPA to endorse a code of punishment truly fitting the crime. If a blatant, purposeful act results in the injury of another player, then the instigator should be fined and given a suspension equal to the time the injured player is out. Sorry Todd B, you can't play anymore. Simple, direct and fitting to the action calling for discipline. You injure another player with an action outside of the rules and you sit the same amount of time it takes for that player to return to the game. With a rule like this, I believe FAR less players would take the chance of cheap shotting someone on the hope that they might get off "easy" now and then. There would be no getting off easy.
The NHL has an opportunity to gain REAL momentum as a top professional sport again with the insurgence of some great charismatic rookie players over the past couple of drafts. Hell, if the hockey REVIVAL seen in Chicago since Kane and Toews have come to town isn't enough of an eye opener for the league as to what "could be", then maybe Todd Bertuzzi needs to play a little pond hockey game with Mr. Betman behind the league offices--and knock some sense into him.
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