The Devil's Advocate

One of the things that I hope this blog offers is an alternative to what you can get in the papers, on sports radio and from the TSN's and Sportsnets of this world.

I'd like to think of it as a really engaging conversation among people who love hockey. And like any good conversation it will have funny parts, controversial bits, occassional lulls (well maybe more than the occassinal one) and even disagreements. I'd also like to think that this space moves above and beyond the two-dimensional qualities and false dichotomies that marr so much sports coverage and so many exchanges (yeah, I know the Leafs suck, thanks for posting).

With that in mind, I really wanted to know what a fan of the Devils made of the Kaberle hit (as Winnie the Pooh says to Tigger in one of my daughter's books, "Good manners are mostly about looking at things from someone else's point of view.") so I fired an email to Tom at The Out Route (he and I have exchanged music tips over at Glorious Noise for years) and asked him if he wanted to send a paragraph or two my way.

He did, and here it is:

OK, let’s get this out of the way: I’m a Devils fan. I’m the enemy.

But take pause, Leafs fans, before you sling your iBarbs into my skin. I know we haven’t been at harmony over the recent years. We dislike you because you remind us a little too much of the Rangers, with your tradition, free-spirited spending, and blue jerseys. You dislike us because we win Stanley Cups and you don’t. Kidding, kidding. I just had to get that one out of the way.

I know that tensions are high after Tomas Kaberle’s injury, and that someone defending Cam Janssen is probably the last person you’d want to hear (read?) from. ANYWAY, I ask that you look at me today not as a Devils fan, but as a beacon of logic.

Was Janssen’s hit illegal? It was, in the sense that it came just a teensy bit too late. When watching the play develop, there seems an eternity between the pass and the check in which anxiety sets in, because you can see disaster ahead and are helpless to stop it. It’s that feeling you get watching a foolish victim in a horror movie open the closet door (the killer is always in the closet) or when a rollercoaster reaches the top of its initial ascent. In reality, it was 1.2 seconds. Certainly late, and certainly illegal by NHL rules.

In my mind, that’s the extent of Janssen’s wrongdoings. Go back and check the tape – the elbow is down, the players are facing each other, Janssen is gliding and not striding. All the benchmarks of a good, clean hit. The rest is circumstantial. Kaberle wasn’t looking and thus had no way to brace himself which, combined with the proximity to the boards, made the hit about 10 times more devastating than it would have been under normal circumstances. Because of the injury, I think a game misconduct or one-game suspension would have sufficed. But honestly, Janssen’s infraction typically costs a player two minutes. Suspensions should come with intended malice, I just don’t see that being the case here. I mean, it wasn’t like he intentionally elbowed Scott Niedermayer in the face at the end of a certain second-round playoff game (cough. cough.).

The logical reader now asks him or herself this: Well, smarty-pants, even if, fundamentally, Janssen’s hit was legal, why did he throw it? It wasn’t necessary in the context of play. That’s a good question. And I know you assume that it was intentional because of the role Janssen plays on the team and because of people’s natural instinct to think their worst of their peers. I’ve got no factual evidence to dissuade you, but I can say with a straight face that Janssen is not a dirty player.

I hate the term “goon.” It’s derogatory towards a group of hockey players that help define the sport. Janssen is a role player. His role is to be physical and to bring energy to the ice. He’s also young and on the periphery of this league. With the new rules, players of his ilk are being eradicated. He’s fighting (literally) for a job, and he gets precious few minutes on the ice to prove his worth. In this instance, he got overzealous and made a mistake. He is not the type of player to deliberately injure a player, and he showed genuine concern for Kaberle’s well-being and contrition after the game. It should be noted he hasn’t protested the check or tried to defend himself. The Devils have always been unapologetically physical, which may or may not be boring to watch, but they’ve never been a dirty team. I wouldn’t support one.

I’ve heard a lot of hyperbole about the hit, using it as a way to blast the NHL – because, I’m sure even we can agree, the only time the U.S. media touches hockey is to complain about its physical nature – and throwing Janssen to the lions. Frankly, I just don’t get it. This isn’t to undermine Kaberle’s injury – I hate to see anyone injured, and I hope Kaberle’s recovery is of the speediest kind. But to me it seems that this pales in significance to the Todd Bertuzzi and Marty McSorely incidents, as well as the one earlier this season that sparked a brawl between Buffalo and Ottawa.

The exaggerated punishment is a clear attempt at further eradicating the physical element of hockey, and that’s something I can’t stand for. Forget about Janssen. Doesn’t everyone love a good fourth-liner? I’m sure the Leafs will want revenge, and though I don’t necessarily believe the hit warrants it, I’m not objecting because I understand that’s the way hockey is, and that’s how I like it.

If we are going to be suspending players for hits with clean intentions, we are changing one of hockey’s core functions. Players will forever be afraid to throw a good body check because of the potential ramifications. That’s worse than bigger nets, shootouts, or tighter jerseys. It’s castrating the sport as we know it. Janssen’s suspension is the starting point on a slippery slope. If we continue on this path, the NHL will lose the roguish charm that attracted us all. It will be run with an iron first, a place where unintentional high sticks are sins and fights are viewed with the same affection as a malevolent tumor. The NHL will become a Nazi state, or something far worse – the NBA.



Feel free to post your comments here or to visit Tom over at The Out Route...