March 06, 2006
The Waiting Game
Brooks Orpik doesn’t think he should get the boot for hitting Erik Cole from behind on Saturday:
"I've never been accused of playing dirty," Orpik said yesterday. "I've never had a hitting-from-behind penalty, or been accused of that. I don't know where that comes from.”
(snip)
"I've seen way worse than that that doesn't even come close to getting [the offending player] suspended," Orpik said. "But whenever a guy gets hurt, they always look at it a little more closely, and that's a team that's in first place and [Cole is] one of their best players.
"As much as they say that doesn't play a role in things ... I think they're going to hold you a little more accountable when it's one of their star guys."
Perhaps, but you have to wonder if Orpik is suffering from a little amnesia. Just a few months ago, Kyle Wanvig went after the Penguin defenseman after he drilled Marc Chouinard into the boards. A few years back, Orpik was fortunate to avoid disciplinary action during the AHL playoffs for boarding a player.
It’s not surprising that Orpik has forgotten these incidents now that he’s on the verge of losing some serious cash over the next few weeks. His mind is obviously preoccupied. Having said that, I’m inclined to believe the hit wasn’t intentional. When a guy plays the game on the edge, he’s inevitably going to hurt people every now and again. It doesn’t mean he’s a malicious human being.
But don’t tell that to the Acid Queen:
If I said I'm not angry at what happened, I'd be lying. If I said that I didn't want to beat the ever-living crap out of the low-lifes that cheered that hit and said that Cole "had it coming", I'd be Richard freaking Nixon. How anyone can call that hit clean is just beyond me--and yet, that's what some Pens fans (and others, including Brooks Orpik) are doing.
Of course, these are the same people that defended Billy The Rapist when the Pens signed him right out of the joint, so really I can't say I'm surprised.
(snip)
HANGIN'S TOO GOOD FOR HIM! BURNIN'S TOO GOOD FOR HIM! HE SHOULD BE CHOPPED INTO ITSY BITSY PIECES AND BURIED ALIVE!
While I certainly understand the negative sentiments coming out of North Carolina, I can understand Orpik’s argument. Anyone who has played hockey knows that when you’re on defense and a player is driving wide on the wing, you assume he’s going to cut towards the net. Players don’t anticipate the puck carrier stopping on a dime and trying to pivot away from them.
Nevertheless, players have to be held accountable for their actions, and I anticipate the league will administer a hefty suspension on Orpik come tomorrow afternoon. If I had to guess, I’d say he’ll miss a minimum of six games and upwards of ten. The Penguins are going nowhere and Orpik’s a marginal NHLer, at best, so Colin Campbell isn't under any pressure to go easy on him.
Orpik claimed that the league considers the drawing power of the injured player when doling out suspensions, but I think he’s got it backwards. In my estimation, the league considers the drawing power of the offending player, and since Brooks Orpik wouldn’t be remembered if he retired tomorrow, he’s likely going to pay a severe toll.
POSTSCRIPT: With all due respect to the Acid Queen, I don’t recall her screaming bloody murder when the Hurricanes had Jesse Boulerice on their roster. Boulerice, if you’ll recall, was charged with and convicted of assault after clubbing Guelph Storm forward Andrew Long in the head with his stick during an OHL playoff game in 1998. Long went into convulsions on the ice and suffered a severe concussion and facial injuries.
Boulerice was banned from the OHL. But he was upstanding enough to play in Carolina.
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"When a guy plays the game on the edge, he’s inevitably going to hurt people every now and again. "
By the same token, when a guy plays on the edge, he's going to get hurt every now and again. Not many players are ballsy enough to put themselves in the position Cole was in. He knew Orpik was bearing down on him, and made a gutsy decision when he could have easily peeled away. That's what distinguishes Cole from a player like Stillman.
Posted by:
at March 6, 2006 12:01 PM
A long time ago, long before he came to Carolina, I made peace with Jesse Boulerice.
I mean, let's look at this--Boulerice has never tried to justify what he did. He's never tried to defend it, he's never tried to make himself look like the wronged party, and he's had no repeat incidents. Plenty of fans have tried to justify that horrifying incident, but every time Jesse's been asked about it he's been pretty consistent in saying that it was stupid of him to do it and that he wishes he could have that moment back so he could make a better decision and NOT swing that stick.
But hey, don't let me keep you from swinging the tar brush at me.
Posted by:
at March 6, 2006 04:59 PM
Without having seen the Orpik hit, I believe the NHL needs a clear-cut way to differentiate between a player who turns into the boards at the last moment before a hit and embellishes a check to make it seem more violent than it was as opposed to a truly vicious, blindside intent-to-injure check. I've seen too many of the former this season that resulted in unwarrented penalties IMO and several vicious blindside hits that went uncalled.
I'm all for protecting players from cheapshot hits that cause injury, but I also like to see some physical play. However, the way the game is being called now, there's very little hard, finish-the-check hitting. It's making it almost impossible to play defense and taking some of the fun out of the game.
If the league wants to reduce the chance of injury, it could adopt an automatic icing rule, and ban hip checks along the boards. It could also start calling diving penalties when players embellish hits along the boards that they see them coming.
Good hockey is played physically and passionately, not with a purse.
Posted by:
at March 7, 2006 05:31 PM
The problem with the whole 'I want this guy chopped up and set on fire because he put a dirty hit on a guy' thing is well, eventually a player on your favorite team is going to lay a dirty hit out there too.
Not sure why people just don't say we want him fined and suspended because he injured a guy on my favorite team. That is all it really is, isn't it? It doesn't really have anything to do with the hit being dirty, or accidental. It is that Cole got injured because Brooks hit him.
It is an understandable reaction from a fan, not sure why people just don't say that rather than try to justify it with a bunch of nonsense about Billy Tibbets. If the Carolina scouts find a guy they think can play hockey whatever he did in his past, if that guy is free for Carolina to sign, they will sign him. I do not believe any hockey team has an ethics test players have to pass before the team signs them.
Hell, I would lay money that Colorado would take Bertuzzi in a moment if he was cheap enough.
There are no morals or ethics in sports. Or if there is I don't see it. There are the presures of winning and losing and making money while doing it.
Nicanor
Posted by:
at March 8, 2006 12:11 AM
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