In long run, does Rempe have fighting chance?
The NHL trade deadline has come and gone, so we now return you to the Original 32’s regularly scheduled programming, including the highly irregular case of one Matt Rempe.
Rempe, the 21–year-old Rangers behemoth, commanded center stage for the couple of weeks leading up to the league’s annual swap meet. His size alone (6 feet 7 inches, 240 pounds) drew the spotlight, as it did initially upon Zdeno Chara’s NHL arrival in the late 1990s. But it has been Rempe’s utter eagerness to fight, and eat some big punches in the exchanges, that has stirred up viewer juices like sugary springtime sap from a maple tree.
So much for the fight game being dead in the New NHL, right? Out of the night, when the full moon is bright, comes a big kid, born in Calgary and straight from WHL “Slap Shot Deux” casting, willing to play his unique brand of 200-foot hockey, dragging his knuckles every inch of the way across the ice.
The guess here: It doesn’t end well for Rempe, unless he can lean on and develop an underlying set of hockey skills, something beyond his pterodactyl-like wingspan and ability to clamp down on a combatant’s sweater collar.
“Sorry, can’t go there,” said one team executive, requesting anonymity when asked whether Rempe could be the fight game’s renaissance man.
What if, added the team exec, one of Rempe’s opponents, or Rempe himself, is left permanently disabled, or fatally injured? We’re a long way from the rock ’em, sock ’em NHL of the 1960s and ’70s. We live in litigious times. A bad outcome around Rempe could lead to a very bad day in the courtroom for the NHL.
“‘So, you allowed this to go on?’ ” said the exec, conjuring up the plaintiff ’s courtroom case. “‘And by doing so, you encouraged it?’ Sorry, nope, I’m staying away from that one.”
The only real precedent here, pound for pound and inch for inch, is the phenomenal Chara, whose 1997-98 arrival with the Islanders had most pundits sizing up the unknown Slovakian strongman as a sideshow curiosity. The oversized son of an Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler, so went the narrative, at least would provide some bread-andcircus entertainment for fans already nearly a generation removed from the franchise’s dynasty days.
Mike Milbury, the Islanders general manager at the time, recently recalled his pre-draft interview with Chara.
“I asked, ‘So, can you fight?’ ” said Milbury. “And he looks over at me and says, with that deep voice, ‘Best not [expletive] with me.’ ”
There was no telling, perhaps even on Chara’s part, how the next quartercentury would play out. In his rookie season (25 games), Big Z fought four times, including one bout with Louie DeBrusk (Jake DeBrusk’s father), making clear that, yes, he could handle all comers, and yes, they best stay away.
Otherwise, Chara was far more interested in developing his game and finding a skating lane that ultimately would last 1,680 regular-season and 200 playoff games. He was, for most of his career, a reluctant fighter, initially out of concern that he could be typecast and utilized as just a hired gun, and later because the exercise largely became a workplace annoyance. Also, along the way, the league embraced skill over violence, diminishing fighting’s place on the stage.
Milbury, still an ardent follower of the NHL, noted his range of emotions when asked if Rempe reminded him of a young Chara, who took his first NHL shifts at age 19.
“Most of the time, he’s dusting off his mitts,” said Milbury, chuckling in admiration. “I feel bad for him in some ways, because everyone feels now he’s obligated to fight, you know, it’s, ‘OK, it’s Rempe, he’s this size, let’s see what he’s got.’ He’s not even given the chance to see if he can play some, which I think he might be able to do.
“I guess it’s baptism by fire, based on his size — he’s huge! I guess he needs to get through this and earn people’s respect enough — not that I think that is necessary these days — but it’s sort of the traditional way to go about it.”
Rempe’s bouts, added Milbury, are even more striking because of his youthful looks, masked of late by raccoon-like black eyes after four bouts in his first eight games against Matt Martin (Islanders), Nicolas Deslauriers (Flyers), Mathieu Olivier (Blue Jackets), and Ryan Reaves (Maple Leafs).
“He seems willing enough,” said Milbury, who had his share of bouts in his playing days with the Bruins’ Lunchpail AC. “But sometimes I look at him and he looks like he’s 13, and I think, ‘Geez, he’s fighting Ryan Reaves, who’s like twice his age, done it a million times, and clearly has a stone head.’
“I feel bad for [Rempe], actually, but I feel admiration for the fact that he’s got the courage and the willingness to put himself through it. I hope that he gets through it sooner rather than later so that he proves that he can be an effective player — third line, fourth line, or better — but I can’t figure that yet, because most nights he’s been in the penalty box for a good period of time.”
In summation, Milbury added, “I’d like to be able to look down the bench and see a guy like that in my jersey.”
Nonetheless, even as an admirer of the sweet science, Milbury does not see Rempe rekindling the NHL fight game.
“I can’t see it,” he said, “And there aren’t that many being groomed for that kind of role, and not many that are 6-8. I mean, Chara got through it. It’s pretty tough to fight a guy that big, especially after he learns how to do it. I saw [Chara] at times string a guy out, grab an opponent’s shoulder and string him out, with 6 inches of reach on him, and what’s the point of fighting a guy when you throw punches and you can’t hit him?
“I just don’t see it as a return to the Big Bad Bruins and the Broad Street Bullies. I think different forces will come to play, especially if someone gets seriously hurt.”