NHL needs to stick to its guns on cross-checks
It’s just so NHL. So Gary Bettman.
Pretend something isn’t happening that is happening. Try to convince you that you’re not seeing what you’re seeing.
Then, months later, make significant change to address what the Bettman administration denied was happening in the first place.
We’ve seen it over and over and over through the years. They’re so focused on zealously selling their product, on never being seen as criticizing it, that they end up playing this silly game of denial followed by action to address an issue.
Such is the case once more this fall as the NHL “cracks down” on cross-checking.
To anyone with a pair of eyes, this is an area of the game that has either gotten out of control or simply has never been controlled by the rules as they are set out in the NHL book.
Was it once worse? Sure. Ed Van Impe couldn’t have played in the league if he couldn’t cross-check forwards in his day. Forwards will tell you how the crease area once was a no-fly zone unless you were willing to absorb some lumber in the lower vertebrae.
But guess what? It’s not Van Impe’s time any more. The game has changed drastically since the 1970s, and even more drastically since the mid-1990s.
The lockout of 2004-05 was followed by a major reorganization of the way the NHL game was called — Bettman, naturally, vehemently denied any such change was required before it happened — and the rule book as it pertains to interference, slashing and hooking was actually enforced. A better, faster game has resulted.
Still, even with the advent of the two-referee system, the NHL has been notorious over the years for having referees “manage” the game, rather than enforce the rules, and for calling the game differently depending on the score and time left on the clock. A hook in the first period, in other words, was not always a hook in the third.
Moreover, a referee might be presented with a clear foul 15 feet in front of him, but wouldn’t necessarily call a penalty if he felt one team had already been called for too many, or if he decided a penalty didn’t fit his narrative of how the game was unfolding.
Cross-checking was probably the No. 1 penalty that wasn’t called.
The size and strength of the modern player, however, meant that a player allowed to cross-check with relative impunity could do a lot more damage to an opponent.
It was an on-ice crime carried out in plain sight, and the league just seemed to shrug.
Last season it seemed out of control — from opening night, when Shea Weber of the Canadiens delivered a vicious and uncalled cross-check to Auston Matthews of the Maple Leafs, to the post-season, when the New York Islanders took delight in repeatedly cross-checking Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning, hobbling the Tampa star. On one particularly noteworthy call, referee Chris Lee was literally staring at Islanders defenceman Scott Mayfield as he cross-checked Kucherov to the ice from behind, but made no call.
After the Weber-Matthews incident, Connor McDavid’s agent, former NHL player Jeff Jackson, took to Twitter to register his concerns: “Such amazing athletes & so much speed & skill in the game now. But watching the abuse that star players take is hard to watch. Felt like the 80’s with the cross checks in the back & the hacking & slashing. NFL protects QB’s? Why don’t we?”
Part of the backdrop to all of this, meanwhile, was the Tim Peel scandal in which the veteran referee was caught by a live microphone after he called a penalty on Nashville’s Viktor Arvidsson, telling players: “It wasn’t much, but I wanted to get a f---ing penalty against Nashville early.”
Peel was essentially fired, and the NHL tried to make him out to be some sort of rogue referee, but the incident just illustrated what everybody already suspected about NHL refereeing. Cross-checking, as the season went on, became the prime illustration of this style of officiating, going uncalled unless a referee decided it was required to even up the calls in a game or for some other reason.
As usual, Bettman denied any of this was a problem, or that his officials were not following the rule book in a fair and impartial fashion.
“It seems every season, it’s a playoff ritual for me to address some aspect of officiating,” Bettman said. “Let’s be clear. Our officials are not only the best hockey officials in the world, they’re the best officials in any sport.”
So, look what’s happening this fall. A crackdown on crosschecking, or a new effort by the league to allow the officials to enforce the rule book. The idea is that players with two hands on their stick can “push or guide” an opponent, but not use “excessive force.” What constitutes excessive force will, of course, probably have a great deal to do with the score of a game, how much time is left and how many penalties have been called.
In other words, don’t hold your breath for this to last past Christmas.
But it does underline the actual problem here. NHL referees are not incompetent, but they are constantly hamstrung by a head office that won’t do what is necessary to free up the most skilled players in the game and is terrified of critics who complain the game isn’t physical enough any more.
If the cross-checking problem is solved effectively, it will be good for the game. Even though, according to Bettman, there was never a problem in the first place.