NHL safety squad cranks down heat
Shanahan brainchild gets results by policing punishable offences in every game around the clock
NEW YORK— It’s been a quiet night in the NHL’s player safety room so far, and Patrick Burke is OK with that.
“Brendan Shanahan used to say this job is a lot like being at an airport waiting for a plane to crash,” Burke says dryly. “You hope nothing bad happens.”
It doesn’t stay that way. Late in the Edmonton-Pittsburgh game, Penguins forward Chris Kunitz trips Oilers defenceman Jeff Petry dangerously in the corner. Kunitz seems to be reaching for the puck, but his stick bounces off Petry’s and back toward the Oiler, who falls awkwardly. No penalty, but it looks bad.
Burke, son of former Leafs president Brian Burke, is one of two directors of player safety on the league’s eight-man team, third on the command totem pole and the senior man this night. He springs into action: pausing the game on his laptop, rewinding, looking at it close up. He’ll watch the replays — both the home and road feeds — in a room with 25 monitors linked to all of the night’s action. He’ll listen to what the announcers are saying and monitor Twitter.
“Good non-call,” he mutters to himself after reviewing the play. But now he’s listening to the TV coverage and both the home and road crew analysts are wondering if the hit from behind might require supplemental discipline.
This is the sort of thing Stephane Quintal, senior vice-president of player safety, needs to know about quickly — not just because Kunitz’s transgression might lead to a suspension, but because one team is mad and the media will soon be asking questions.
Within seven minutes of the incident, an email is sent to everybody in the department documenting the hit, with video: Who was involved? Was a penalty called? Was anyone injured? Did the targeted player leave the game? Does the aggressor have a history of on-ice violence? Is there history between the players involved? When does the aggressor’s team play next (for scheduling possible hearing)?
Quintal (with family in Montreal), vicepresident Damian Echevarietta (taking in the Rangers-Bruins game at Madison Square Garden), director Chris Pronger (in St. Louis) and manager Evan Rand (sitting to Burke’s right) will review it.
So will co-ordinator Paul Treyman (to Burke’s left) and co-ordinators Chris Nastro and Peter Livera (taking a rare night off ).
“Everybody’s email is getting a ding,” says Burke. “Who knows. Quintal and Pronger were defencemen for a long time. They might think it was intentional. I could still get overruled, but my feeling is, it’s not much. But I’m going to send it out and see what everyone says.”
The silence that follows confirms it: No supplemental discipline required. Nothing to see here. Move along. The Sharks-Flames game is starting.
This hub of activity on the 12th floor of the NHL’s headquarters in Manhattan, three floors below commissioner Gary Bettman’s corner office, is one of Shanahan’s legacies as founder of the player safety department. In a league facing a class-action lawsuit by former players over concussion-related injuries, the group was tasked with the monumental challenge of turning the tide after a century of malicious intent.
“It’s moving a battleship,” says Burke. “It’s changing an entire culture of hitting. It’s a slow process, but now we’re seeing guys who get it. Guys come into the hearing and say, ‘I see it. I shouldn’t have hit him there.’ ”
Colin Campbell had been the sheriff, but it was a one-man show and he had other duties as executive vicepresident of hockey operations. Hockey ops, as they call it, continues to review goals out of the Roger Neilson Video Room in Toronto, but player safety is a New York thing.
“We should call this the Brendan Shanahan Memorial room,” someone quips. “He’s not dead,” replies another. There’s a bit of a locker room feel with eight guys — there is an opening for a ninth — watching hockey all the time. Each is assigned at least one game: afternoons, nights, east coast, west coast.
“You can’t just like hockey doing this job,” says Burke. “You’ve got to love hockey.”
There is occasionally time for play. A net, sticks and balls parked in one corner see some use in the hallways during intermissions. Snack runs are quick to avoid missing any action. They often bring lunches, but sometimes order out in a shift that wraps up around 1:30 a.m., after which some race an hour-long commute. If there’s a hearing pending, the next day could start as early as 9 a.m.
Hearings, by the way, don’t always result in suspensions. Some players have talked their way out of trouble. After Washington’s Tom Wilson hit Philadelphia’s Brayden Schenn last year on a play that looked predatory, the league was set to issue a suspension until the Capitals forward surprised the committee with his side of the story.
“We were talking that he was coming in at a high rate of speed to drill Schenn,” says Burke. “His response was: ‘No, I get off the bench, I’m the last guy in. I have to get in there hard or else my coach is going to be on me.’
“He wasn’t flying because he wanted to hurt somebody. He was flying because he was a 20-year-old rookie whose coach is saying, ‘Get your a-in there.’ That made sense to us.”
Teams aren’t allowed to call Quintal or the department for 48 hours after a game or they face a $25,000 fine — another Shanahan legacy, made to protect his team.
Shanahan essentially created this department four years ago. With the league getting serious about cutting down on head shots, more information was needed and faster. So, a staff was hired to monitor every game, every incident, to change player behaviour. Notably:
GMs, coaches, players and the media can sit in with the safety committee to find out firsthand how it works.
There’s a summer rookie orientation, where the next generation of NHL stars watches videos that range from clean hits to suspension-worthy offences and gets to play sheriff. They even create videos explaining their reasoning, like Shanahan used to do.
“Gary (Bettman) was big on videos; that’s the way the players learn,” said John Dellapina, the NHL’s senior director of public relations. “You don’t tell players anything any more. You show them videos.”
The clips explaining why some plays deserve suspensions and other don’t — now voiced by Burke — seem to be having the desired effect:
As of Jan. 31, there were 19 incidents requiring supplemental discipline this season, worth 58 games.
At the same point last season, 47 incidents totalled 121 games.
And that point in 2012-13, there were 66 incidents worth 120 games.
“Most of our suspensions now are guys that just miss,” says Burke. “He meant to hit him in the chest, but he caught him in the jaw. Back in the day when Shanahan was doing it, or Colin Campbell, there were guys tomahawking each other, guys going 30 feet out of their way to attack each other. There were malicious, incredibly violent things that nowadays would be 30, 40 games. There’s always going to be an accidental hit. What we’re seeing a drop in is those incredibly ridiculous, malicious, predatory hits.”
The progress comes later than some would have liked, but the positive change is unmistakeable.
“There was 100 years of hockey where certain hits were entirely legal,” says Burke. “There were guys who played 1,000 games. Then we came in and said, you can’t do that any more. Old habits had to change. The way we teach young players to hit had to change.”