Blame the league, not the player

Christina Strynatka
Staff Writer
After Boston’s Zdeno Chara’s concussion-causing, neck-breaking body check on Montreal’s Max Pacioretty, hockey fans were expecting the league to suspend the Bruins player. Instead, the NHL did something few expected: they let Chara off.
For those who found the play to be dirty and reckless, especially since the hit carries whispers of Todd Bertuzzi’s career-ending sucker punch to Steve Moore seven years ago, many were left dumb-founded.
But people are getting sidetracked from what actually happened. Chara body checked Pacioretty when he didn’t have the puck. That’s all. And in today’s National Hockey League (NHL), the penalty for that is a five-minute major and game misconduct. The concern for the Canadiens player’s health is one thing, but perhaps people should direct some of their ire at those responsible for making the rules – until that happens, the rule and resulting penalty stand.
The NHL has ignored the numerous injuries that have happened in the past few years. The most recent upset was the crown jewel of the NHL, Sidney Crosby, who suffered through two hits to the head last year and has been unable to do anything more than light exercises on the bike – a far cry from captaining his team to hockey’s ultimate glory.
Now more than ever, it seems as though everybody – players, coaches, fans – are getting on board the brain injury bandwagon and advocating a safer environment for hockey players, and rightfully so: our brains, unlike our bones and muscles, are not designed to absorb impact. Even the most innocuous looking hit can sideline a person for months.
But this is the NHL, and changes occur at a glacial pace. Rule 48, the rule instituted to protect players against blind side hits to the head, took years to be enacted. Not to mention the fact the helmet, the only piece of real protective equipment hockey players wear, has not undergone major changes like the game has.
And it’s simply because officials who make obscene amounts of money from the game are worried that any new change, no matter how major or minor, will turn fans away, decreasing revenue and lightening their pockets. Make no mistake: in hockey, money is the bottom line and everything else is second.
You see this in Air Canada’s threat to remove its sponsorship – nothing more than a joke and a way to appease the public.
If the company really didn’t want to be associated with such goonery, it would have simply closed its pocketbook and walked away instead of posturing by writing a letter that proclaimed its disgust with the direction in which the NHL is moving.
Life will continue on this way, with changes being implemented agonizingly slowly, until the league cannot turn a blind eye any more. Perhaps the only thing that will wake them up is if a star like Sidney Crosby dies on the ice.