Rangers should protect rookie Matt Rempe from himself
Matt Rempe is a throwback. Old school. There was a time when every hockey team had an “enforcer” and they were the fan favorites.
“I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out,” went a staple line in Rodney Dangerfield’s stand-up act in the 1970s. The story of the Whalers can’t be told without detailing the 1975 “Brawl at the Mall.” They even sold a 45-rpm record of its blow-by-blow. The pro leagues marketed the violence, but it’s not like that anymore, and there is a reason for it. The sport is dangerous enough without this becoming a nightly occurrence again.
Rempe, called up from the Hartford Wolf Pack two weeks ago to join the Rangers, has become the folk hero of the moment in New York for his willingness to hit hard, which is fine, and throw hands in support of his teammates. Thanks to his black eyes, he’s become easy for fans to spot in restaurants.
“It’s been awesome,” Rempe told reporters, who surrounded him this week. “I’m getting to live my dream playing in the NHL. Got a goal, got an assist, winning hockey games, had some good fights and I’m just playing hard. It’s been good.”
Rempe, 21, is 6 feet 7, without his skates, and 240 pounds, and he brought a reputation for fighting with him to the NHL. In Hartford, he got into seven fights this season, three away from the AHL’s limit before automatic one-game suspensions kick in for dropping the gloves. He had 12 goals and 16 fights in 96 games in the American League. The NHL has no such limit, and its aging tough guys are anxious to challenge, get a piece of the youngster.
In his first game, before 79,000 fans in the outdoor event at MetLife Stadium, Rempe fought Matt Martin of the Islanders before the puck dropped, and the Rangers came from behind to win 6-5 in OT. His big league debut, Feb. 18, came six years to the day he lost his father to a heart attack, and his many Hartford admirers felt great for him.
In his second game, Rempe was ejected after a hit on the Devils’ Nate Bastian, who is still out.
The hits, the wins and the fights have kept coming. Rempe and the
Flyers Nicolas Deslauriers started chatting in warmups and, during the game, sized each other up, then took turns bashing each other’s head as the crowd roared. Trying to count ’em, it looked like they each landed more than 20 blows before Rempe, helmet off, crashed to the ice. Rempe scored a goal as the Rangers extended their winning streak to 10.
The next night in Columbus, Rempe fought Mathieu Olivier. who left his helmet on while pummeling Rempe and throwing him to the ice. Just part of the show, nothing spontaneous about these fights. Three significant fights in seven days, 20 minutes on the ice, 25 in the penalty box.
So you’re seeing the predictable narratives. Rempe has brought old-time brawling back to hockey because, you know, the current soft generation was foisting upon us the silly notion, with all we now know about concussions, that men punching each other in the side of the head over and over again isn’t a good thing.
Rempe, bruises, swelling, shiners and all, is a darling of fans, teammates, coaches, even opponents. He enforces, sticks up for his guys, provides a spark. The Rangers (40-17-3) were the first NHL team to 40 wins and lead the Metropolitan Division.
Not trying to be a buzz kill here, just trying to capture the spirit of the thing like Dickie Dunn. I’m here to praise Matt Rempe, but ask that he not bury himself. He’s a big, tough kid from Calgary who loves hockey, plays hard and has a lot of potential. In addition to all the brawling,
Rempe has strengthened the Rangers’ fourth line.
But to see a 21-yearold get whacked again and again, thrown to ice without a helmet by 30-something opponents, looking like he just went the distance with Ali, it all concerns me — even as a New Haven guy who remembers the bloody Blades.
Feels exploitative. Does the NHL really want to throw back to that? The league and the Rangers should be thinking, if they are not already, about ways to protect Matt Rempe from himself, not just normalize it and hand him a beefsteak for a black eye and enjoy the ride.
Those in the know believe the Rangers will likely add a veteran player at the trade deadline next week and send Rempe, since he wouldn’t have to clear waivers, back to Hartford. If so, he could be back in New York for the playoffs. I hope so. I hope Matt Rempe has a long, productive, lucrative career in hockey — and is able to tell his kids and grandkids about it. I don’t want to read one day about long-term health problems resulting from 15 minutes of fame gained in this gratuitous way. There are safer ways to see “Slap Shot.”
More for the Sunday Read:
Storm of protest
Continuing with a theme, traditions don’t have to last forever. Culture doesn’t have to be permanent. That’s how I’ll begin a weigh-in on the court-storming issue. As you know by now, Duke’s Kyle Filipowski was
injured when Wake Forest fans stormed the court after pulling an upset last week in Winston-Salem, N.C., last weekend. Fortunately, Filipowski’s knee sprain wasn’t serious; he played 29 minutes four days later. This is hardly the point.
Court-storming needs to be phased out of the college basketball culture before someone, and not necessarily a player, is seriously hurt. Even when there isn’t intent to injure, that kind of chaos is dangerous to anyone caught in the storm. How to do it? Arrest stormers more aggressively, punish more powerfully, put up some kind of barrier to slow things down. (Anyone else remember when basketball players were called “cagers,” because the game was originally played on a caged-in court? … Didn’t think so.)
I’m open to trying anything, but for it to work, court-storming has to be made uncool, not something exuberant fans are looking for an excuse to do.
Sunday short takes
One by one, college football independents seem to vanish in the haze. Now that UMass is joining the MAC, UConn is on an even more remote island. No easy answer here. UConn is not Notre Dame, the remaining independent with the mega-TV deal. … Nor can UConn afford to join a conference in all sports that would damage basketball, as the sevenyear hitch in the American Athletic Conference did (and as UMass is doing in departing the A-10). … Nor can UConn play as an over-resourced FCS program. So for now, it’s wait and see what happens next in the ACC. The conundrum got more difficult.
Dan Toatley, senior D-lineman and captain with the CCSU football team, donated bone marrow this week through NMDP, a national marrow-donor program. “I was able to give the gift of life,” Toatley said, in a social media post as he was recovering in a hospital. Toatley has been a starter the last two seasons, and has been on the Northeast Conference’s academic honor roll.
Former Husky Nick Ahmed, 33, released after a distinguished decade as Diamondbacks shortstop, has hooked on with the Giants, where he is in spring training on a minorleague contract but will be given a chance to win the starting shortstop job. He homered in his first game Friday.
*Remember, there are two UConn guys in the NBA coaching ranks. Mark Daigneault, who rose from a grad assistant at UConn to head coach in the NBA with the Thunder, is the favorite of oddsmakers to win the coach of the year honors. Daigneault, 39, who took over OKC in 2020, and was the organization’s G League coach before that, has helped the Thunder build from the ground up. At 41-18, he has them second in the Western Conference.
*Shot in the dark here: Anybody out there, or know someone out there old enough to have gone to Bulkeley Stadium when Ted Williams and Warren Spahn faced off there in 1949? Drop me an email at damore@courant.com.
Last word
Peter King, who played soccer, basketball and baseball at Enfield High, made his name reporting and writing about pro football with the utmost distinction for 44 years. Always quick to help or offer a word of praise to another sportswriter (even me), he has been widely admired and respected in our industry.
He’s calling it a career, his last “Football Morning in America” column will post Monday.
King beat himself up a bit this week for his one regret, a mistake he made in his reporting of Deflategate, but even there, in owning and wearing it, he showed a level of professionalism for which all should strive. Here is wishing Peter well as he moves on, and thanking him for the example he has set.