Random thoughts

HTML is nice, but it doesn't type easily. I suppose I should use something that builds content more easily ... because, after all, this is my career. I can do stuff like that, you know.

Yet another reason why the NHL is not a major league outside Canada.
Even the NFL, a Neanderthal among leagues, realizes that hey, people getting hit in the head is baaaad. In the NHL, it's perfectly acceptable.

Well, to be more precise, there are probably only two people in the league who think it's acceptable, but because they are a) the commissioner (the worst in NHL history) and b) the VP responsible for discipline (the second-worst in NHL history, behind only the jerk who's now a GM and has been consistently finding players who hit like this), nothing will change.

At some point, one of two things will happen: either the NHL will realize that they can't be protected from the real world much longer and they'll actually make changes to improve player safety, or something will happen on the ice and the legal ramifications will change things forever. It may be hyperbole to talk about what happens if someone dies on the ice, but hey, in recent history there has been a player whose career was ended by this same kind of thuggery, and absolutely nothing changed as a result of that.

It's also the same league that welcomed a guy who assaulted another player with his stick. Guess what? The guy is an "enforcer", which is a hockey term for "career thug", and apparently he fits the role well. This is the image that the NHL wants to promote. Well, there you go. Maybe it does belong on Vs, right before "When Wolves Attack".

Health care reform isn't dead yet.
The President is still trying to get the word out. Some kind of reform will pass, I think, and it will take effect eventually, but it'll be much less than what we need, and as a result there will be a lot of blame. Most of it, naturally, should be on the people who oppose any change whatsoever; some of it should fall on the shoulders of those who want total change or none at all. (This is Washington, folks: nothing that involves the Senate gets done quickly.)

All I want is for it to get fixed before I really need health insurance. I have no expectations any more. Our system is completely broken and assholes who are still covered (because they're rich and have connections) want to keep it broken.

The NCAA tournament is around the corner.
Three weeks ago, I'd have said I can't wait. Then Robbie Hummel tore his ACL, and now, well, I guess it'll be fun to watch. In the meantime, off to the Big Ten tournament I go ...

Other notes

I'm still working on losing weight; I sort of put it aside for a while to focus on other things. The weather's better now, I'm getting back into Wii Fit, and so I may have more to report later. For now, just know I basically maintained over the winter. Actually, I also unlocked the pushup challenge on Wii Fit. Apparently I need more upper-body strength. (I may end up getting Wii Fit Plus too.)

The work situation is about to change dramatically, but I have no way to know in what way this will happen. I have a number of promising leads that will either all hit at once or all disappear at once. Of course, this will probably all happen next Thursday and Friday.

I tossed a small burlap-ish bag of catnip onto the couch. Naturally, the cats ignored it because it's old and it was purchased. (Free things make the best toys.) Later, I looked over at the couch and saw what looked like a small, long little hairball or not-hairball. I stood up to get a better look, but you, the clever reader, already know what happened: it was simply the bag viewed at an angle. No cleanup required. (Thankfully. There has been enough of that recently. Someone ate something she shouldn't have eaten.)

So there

ESPN's Sheldon Burnside has a nice little post about the NHL playoff schedule.

You remember the NHL? No? Oh, well, there was a playoff game on Tuesday. There's another tonight, but in the other conference. Don't worry, we'll get there eventually.

I posted a long reply ...

Back in the day (early to mid '90s), games were every other night until the series was over, and it was great. You knew when each game of the series was, good series got to keep the momentum going, and the best series seemed to end too soon.

Now, particularly during the conference and Stanley Cup finals, it's easy to forget that hockey is still going on, especially when it's on a third-tier network (at best).

The NHL's excuse about breaks is ridiculous ... if anything, spacing out games makes it even more likely you'll wait forever for the next series. If the Wings sweep the Hawks and the Pens-Canes series goes 7, Detroit will be waiting 9 days just for the series to end, never mind for the Finals to begin! Game 4 of the East is 2 days after Game 4 in the West.

A good commissioner would regain control of the schedule and tell the minor networks how it's going to be. Vs doesn't have that much that it needs to show, and the ratings for NHL playoff games are bad anyway ... of course on a real network like ESPN, there would be options other than delaying by days (moving a game to ESPN2, News, Classic, whatever).

Of course this one is too concerned with not letting THAT MAN have an NHL franchise to care. Hey, it's the same guy who thought fans would come streaming back after the lockout. Why expect anything better from him?

No Consequences League

Here's proof.

No suspension.

I suspect part of it is that they didn't want to "hurt" the Ducks' chances. No word on whether the tactics of a player like Brown hurt the Wings' chances. Franzen's postseason struggles last season were largely caused by a blow to the head. The Wings were lucky. (Feel free to look up any number of NHL players who were forced to retire due to head injuries. I would guess few, if any, were the result of legal hits, because, you know, it's illegal to hit someone in the head.)

That's why you have teams like the Ducks and Flyers. Why bother to follow the rules if you don't ever have to pay?

Wings 1, Thugs 0

And so it begins ...

So here is a guy who was averaging almost 5 PIM a game for Vancouver (you'd think Crawford was still coaching there). Anaheim acquires him, and surprisingly he drops to "only" 2ish a game. I'm sure Carlyle had a talk with him ...

After picking up a mere three minors in six games against San Jose, he nearly triples that on a single cheap shot to Jiri Hudler's head. The only question was whether the stick was involved, or if it was simply a straight elbow.

To the referees' credit, Brown was summarily ejected: major plus misconduct, which IIRC means an automatic review. He'll probably get a one-game suspension. (It's his third misconduct of the season, but the other two were fighting-related, one for instigation.)

He should get a 20-game suspension. Guys like Brown and teams like Anaheim are the main reason why the NHL is what it is today. Instead of prattling about how it's the instigator rule that is mysteriously causing all this, the NHL needs to sit with the NHLPA (which needs to remember it represents the injured as well as the thugs) and put an end to this behavior.

You would have thought that the McSorley and Bertuzzi incidents would have been enough, but no. Apparently the NHL is waiting for a player to be carted off in a coffin. That sounds like hyperbole, and I really hope it is, but if they do not make the penalty for intentional blows to the head severe enough to stop the behavior, it's going to happen.

Teams like Anaheim, Philadelphia, and Calgary have been doing this for years, and Bettman hasn't seen fit to address it. (Obviously it wasn't going to change with Brian Burke in charge of "discipline". Toronto was 16th in PIM this season. I wouldn't be surprised if they were in the top 5 in 09-10.) We saw what happened the last time his hand was forced ... or maybe we didn't because we can't find Vs.

Dear NHL,

I'd send this to you myself, but your website doesn't have a link for that. (Given your total lack of marketing acumen, this doesn't come as a surprise.)

I'm glad you stood up and sent a message that cheap play like we saw at the end of Game 5 of the Wings-Flames series simply won't be tolerated. After all, it took a lot of courage to suspend a star like Iginla for a pivotal game based on his late-game actions.

Oh wait, that's right. Iginla didn't get anything at all.

Well, at least you suspended Daymond Langkow for his cheap-shot sucker-punch that knocked Jeff Lebda out of Game 6 and possibly more.

Right, he wasn't suspended either.

But you certainly stood up to Hatchet Jamie McClellan. After all, a match penalty not a minute into his appearance in the game means something, right?

Five games? Right, that'll put a stop to it. Wonder what Chris Simon thought of that penalty.

The one thing you did right was fine Playfair and the Flames, although frankly, given Playfair's postgame reactions, where he did everything but challenge you openly, $25K was nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if a Calgary newspaper took up a collection to pay it. (Then again, maybe they won't. George Johnson's article in the Calgary Herald took Playfair and the Flames to task for their antics.)

One of the reasons why hockey is pretty much a joke outside its core group of fans is garbage like this. "I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out." You know why that joke is funny? Because you make it happen. You don't instruct refs like Marc Joannette to call penalties as soon as things get a little chippy. You don't crack down on on-ice violence, whether it's McLellan's slashing of Franzen or Todd Bertuzzi's body-slam of Dion Phaneuf (to be fair, I'm not sure how that ended up as offsetting majors). Part of the reason why we see retaliation penalties, or actions like Langkow's punch, is because players don't believe that the league and the referees will do something to stop cheap shots, especially by cheap players. (How long did Bryan Marchment play in the league? About 17 seasons too long. And what a coincidence ... his last NHL action was with the Flames.) Because they don't think the league will do anything, they take matters into their own hands, which makes things worse.

Some "old-school" fans would have you believe that in the "old days," this never happened, because enforcers like Dave Schultz and Marty McSorley would put a stop to this behavior. What they fail to mention is how those guys racked up 250-300 penalty minutes year in and year out. If that thuggery actually stopped cheap shots, they wouldn't have had to do it for very long. What it really did was add to the problem.

You have a chance to stop this. Starting next year, crack down on this behavior, whether it's late in the Finals or opening day. If that means suspending a star like Iginla, do it. If it means fining a team $250K or more, do it. If the punishment isn't painful, teams and players won't stop the behavior.

But you need to do something. Hockey is a beautiful sport to watch when it's played cleanly. Don't let it regress.

P.S. It's also beautiful to watch in HD. Next time, you might try signing a deal with a network that actually shows games in HD. Sure, no-longer-OLN has an HD station, but almost nobody gets it, and the DirecTV HD feed is standard-width. Also, NBC is irrelevant now, in case you hadn't noticed. Look for a network that covers sports and has the space to do it. Hint: ESPN.