NHL should follow NFL lead
IF WE LEARNED one thing this past week, it is that the NFL knows how to hide the blood, while the NHL doesn’t have a clue. The NFL produces a terribly violent, ugly spor t t hat is embraced by a wide audience, in par t because spectators rarely see the actual gore. The players may be bleeding or breaking somewhere under that pile, but they don enough helmets and pads to deflect the view of the camera. Badly injured gladiators are quickly carted out of sight, out of mind, leaving behind only an injury update. Overt fighting among the players is not tolerated.
Thanks to Roger Goodell, football fans also can know the league is doing its best to prevent deliberate maiming. The commissioner has never come off smarter than when he suspended Sean Payton for a full sea son, t a nt amount to a fine of nearly $ 6 million. Payton is a man whose moral authority has always been in question, regarding players. A scab during the most recent NFL strike in 1987, Payton again showed a lack of concern and consciousness regarding his own workers by tacitly approving the injury bounty. It’s just a shame the players on the Saints didn’t mutiny against him earlier.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, meanwhile, once again stood by powerlessly after the Rangers and Devils staged a sixman beat-down among enforcers immediately after the opening faceoff last Monday. Ryan Carter’s blood spilled all over the ice at the Garden, a truly sickening sight for the vast majority of hockey followers. The result? Offsetting penalties, as usual. No power plays. No fines for the coaches.
The NHL commissioner recently said his league has “no pressing issues,” but clearly these vicious, oft-manufactured fights qualify as a priority problem. In the recent past, the NHL Players Association has resisted efforts by the league’s general managers to install any anti-fighting legislation, even a rule change aimed only at staged fights. This is nearly as shortsighted and Stone Aged as the baseball u n ion’s longtime resistance to anti-steroid amendments.
T here’s a simple rule that would rid the game of all the nonsense. Perhaps, until the NHLPA becomes more enlightened, there could be a less formal understanding among referees: Every fight must result in a power play. The first player to drop his glove to the ice, even by the length of a nanosecond, automatically is penalized for instigating, in addition to a fighting major. That would instantly end capricious, coach-mandated melees. Imagine for a moment if there were fights like these in the NBA, where past, less frequent altercations among African-american players have led fans to complain that thugs were wrecking the game. David Stern, like Goodell, recognized long ago the need to penalize and suspend fighters. It’s time for Bettman to protect his ow n players and rescue the game. Until then, the blood is on his hands, even as it pools on the ice.