Slava Voynov’s arrest subjects the NHL to the same public scrutiny the NFL has endured.
Slava Voynov’s swift suspension is a Rice reaction
Abetter test of the National Hockey League’s staunch commitment to fight domestic violence would be to see how it would have handled the Slava Voynov case before the Ray Rice video turned the sports investigation landscape on its ear.
Oh, wait. We already witnessed that.
It was the Semyon Varlamov affair, last year at this time. The Colorado Avalanche goalie was charged after his Russian girlfriend reported that she had been beaten and kicked, and bruises noted by police responding to the incident were documented.
The NHL’s reaction, last Halloween?
“At this point,” said deputy commissioner Bill Daly in a statement, “we are monitoring the developing legal situation and do not intend to intervene in that process. There may come a point in time where we feel it is either necessary or appropriate to take a different approach, but that’s not where we are right now.”
Varlamov was released on US$5,000 bail, was not suspended, flew with the team, and played the next game.
A year later, it’s as though it was a figment of someone’s imagination. Nothing happened, the girlfriend was dismissed as a Russian quack hoping to extort money from the goalie, her testimony dis- credited. Prosecutors decided they didn’t have enough evidence to proceed, and the matter was dropped.
Varlamov was exonerated, which effectively closed the file on NHL domestic abuse. And that loud whooshing sound New Yorkers heard along Avenue of the Americas was the sigh of relief coming from the NHL offices when the case didn’t go to court.
Cut to Monday morning. Police in Redondo Beach, Calif., were called to a hospital where a woman had been admitted with “alarming” injuries indicative enough of domestic violence that Voynov, the Los Angeles Kings’ 24-year-old defenceman (who was present at the hospital), was arrested under California Penal Code 273.5, which covers a whole range of domestic crimes. He has not yet been charged. Before news had even broken in L.A., the NHL released a statement announcing that it had suspended Voynov, with pay, under Section 18-A.5 of the CBA, which states that the league may suspend a player when “failure to do so would create a substantial risk of material harm to the legitimate interests and/or reputation of the League.”
No due process required, this time. No “innocent until proven guilty” benefit of the doubt.
So, before we all heap praise on the NHL for its swift and decisive action, we should probably consider who or what precipitated this 180-degree turnabout.
The answer is, of course, Ray Rice. In a twisted sort of way, we should all be grateful to TMZ, the celebrity muckraking website/TV show, for its role in exposing the National Football League’s shocking inaction after the Baltimore running back clocked his then-fiancée, knocking her out cold, in that casino elevator.
It tilted the sports world off its axis, and it may never be quite the same again.
When the child-injury revelations about Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson emerged on the heels of the graphic Rice footage, the NFL was placed under a highpowered microscope, and the fallout was vastly more farreaching than just a couple of cannon shots amidships to pro football’s leviathan.
The attempted coverup of the Rice assault — beyond the heat it rightly put on dithering, double-talking NFL commissioner Roger Goodell — caused smouldering tire fires to reignite in domestic abuse allegations against three other NFL players.
Subsequent investigations by journalists shed light on the role of teams’ security departments in cover-ups and silencing victims through intimidation, and revealed cozy arrangements between teams and friendly members of local police forces, who provide yet another layer of insulation between the perpetrators and formal charges.
Those practices, too, are being scrutinized as never before.
So now, when awareness is at an all-time high and everybody is in butt-covering mode, is the worst possible time to cross the line.
This is the hornet’s nest Voynov brought down on himself late Sunday night. That’s not to say he’s guilty, and Varlamov was not prosecuted, so that’s that.
But all the stones will be turned over this time. The NHL needs that to happen. It needs — Gary Bettman needs — to be perceived as having learned from the Goodell’s mess.
Last month at a luncheon in Toronto, Bettman foreshadowed the league’s heightened awareness of its responsibility.
“Whenever that phone rings, and sometimes it does at two in the morning, you’ve got to respond and you’ve got to have your A-game, other- wise you’re liable to make a mistake. And when you make a mistake in this position, it gets magnified,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter if you’re right 99 out of 100 times, which is a pretty good batting record, it’s that one that you’ll have to live with and deal with.”
Slava Voynov is free on a US$50,000 bond and cannot practise or play or be around the team for an unspecified period. His court date is Dec. 1. Until something is resolved, the defending champions lose their No. 2 defenceman, to whom they committed US$25million over six years last season, a guy who has been on both Stanley Cup teams … and yet they haven’t uttered a peep of complaint.
The c l ub’s s tatement: “These developments are of great concern to our organization. We support the NHL’s decision to suspend Slava Voynov indefinitely during this process, and we will continue to take appropriate action as the legal proceedings and the investigation by the NHL take their course.”
The cloak of invisibility is gone, and they’ve all been rattled by it. Nothing more noble than that should be inferred.