What are your thoughts on last night's violent antics?
Friday, March 7, 2008 | 03:42 PM ET
Want to get a quick bit of feedback before we do the Hockey Night in Canada Radio show this aft (4 p.m. ET Sirius channel 122) on last night’s antics.
Quite a violent night of hockey around the NHL last night highlighted by Nashville’s Jordin Tootoo going berserk on both Vancouver defencemen Aaron Miller, which you can argue was a fair, clean hit, and then a cross-check to the face of the recently recalled Luc Bourdon.
Now, the league will not suspend Tootoo for his actions, which I do have an issue with considering how we’ve seen too many times Tootoo lead with his stick and then follow with his fists.
Nor will the league suspend Canucks blue-liner Kevin Bieksa for receiving an instigator penalty with less than five minutes left to play in last night’s game. Normally, such an offence carries with it an automatic one-game suspension but the league felt that a suspension would have violated the ‘spirit of the rule,’ perhaps feeling that Vern Fiddler firing the puck at Bieksa tipped off the fracas.
Elsewhere, in Raleigh, Aaron Voros of the Minnesota Wild absolutely creamed the Hurricanes’ Eric Staal from behind into the boards.
I’ve pretty well given up trying to figure out how this is a suspension.
So I have no idea how the league will rule on the Voros hit on Staal or if they will at all.
What do you think?
And finally, this two fight sequence between the Lightning’s Andre Roy and the Flyers’ Riley Cote.
Here’s the first one.
And the kayo by Cote on Roy in the second scrap.
Roy was caught on the broadcast gesturing at Cote between benches after coach Tortorella grabbed him in attempt to calm the enforcer down. There were some reports online that Roy made a throat slashing gesture to Cote but I went back over the game tape and found nothing other than Roy pointing to his eyes and then pointing to Cote.
We’ll go over all this with Scott Morrison of Hockey Night in Canada and CBCSports.ca on today’s show.
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Jeff Marek, one of sports talk radio's brightest stars, is the host of the all-new HNIC Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. A twelve-year sports-talk radio veteran, the Toronto native provides intelligent hockey talk, insight and debate during the two-hour national daily drive-time hockey program.
Well known for his previous work on Leafs Lunch on AM 640 Toronto Radio, Marek is one of sports talk radio's most respected personalities. He joined AM 640 in 2000, hosting The Jeff Marek Show, a nightly open-line talk show, while working as the stations' morning news anchor. He quickly became the director of sports news and joined host Bill Watters on Leafs Lunch.
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Comments
Durdy
Philly
Markus is correct, the throat slash sign was there. It was just a dumb gesture and hopefully not much to it. Roy was upset because he felt Cote took a cheap shot while he was messing with his elbow pad, I gotta say though if you've dropped the gloves and started grappling with the other guy you better be ready to get hit because no one is going to wait for you. Kid's let that be a lesson to you.
Posted March 10, 2008 12:26 PM
mac
michigan
bertuzzi and his ilk should not be suspended,they should be jailed. you just don't get it,clearly dirty or injurious "hits" are completly unnecessary and uncalled for, unless you are a punk.
Posted March 10, 2008 08:31 AM
Scott
Tootoo is a joke. He runs around like a little Psycho. Somebody needs to put him in his place and then bounce him from the league. A blatant cross check to the mouth is unacceptable, along with his constant sucker punches. Some anger management paired with learning some respect for the safety of his fellow hockey players is in order. Won't happen tho, he'll continue to run around recklessly until he hurts someone significantly. Another example of how getting rid of the instigator rule would get rid of pukes like tootoo.
Posted March 10, 2008 08:31 AM
Joe
Calgary
Violent? I wish the media would stop blowing things out of proportion to get ratings. A night of good physical hockey and the media wants to put all the tough guys in the clink. If the NHL was played like women's Olympic hockey (skillful as it is), it would get as much media attention, and you guys who call it violent would be out of a job. Smarten up.
Posted March 9, 2008 10:37 PM
Joe Blake
Calgary
Scraps and the hits were all great . Old time
hockey .
Roy was lucky he did not get tagged by quick left from Cote in first scrap, but not so
lucky in bout #2.
Tootoo should have received a suspension for
cross check on Bourdon . Intent to injure.
Canucks seem to be worst whiners in the league
right now.
Posted March 9, 2008 04:18 PM
af
toronto
What does one expect when you have completely incompetent management of the league. Yes, the game is well beyond the control of this pathetic garage league. There's no consistency between rule enforement in West vs. East. Western teams get to play REAL hockey, while the east is limited to pond hockey because of TERRIBLE OFFICIATING. And worse, the league doesn't even see that. What does that tell you? A league run by stupid people yeilds a stupid result: what we see now. Good job bettman, stick to hoops.
Posted March 9, 2008 01:07 PM
DJD
Kamloops,B.C.
Rivet's hit was the same as the Bergeron hit and should be treated as such.Consistency,Colin,is the key.As for the hypocritical Canuck fans,what would you be saying if it would have been the other way around? Yeah,I thought so.By the way,I'm a Canuck fan as well....(loserrr)...did I say that out loud???
Posted March 9, 2008 12:10 PM
James
Edmonton
It seems that the NHL is becoming seriously out of control. Campbell needs to toughen his stance or they need to find another Brian Burke to bring things back in line. If a player is blatantly hit from behind? Suspension. An obvious attempt to injure? Suspension. For fear of sounding like I'm defending Bertuzzi, do you think that if the league had suspended Moore for an obviously illegal hit on Naslund, that the Canucks would have sought their own justice?
Posted March 8, 2008 12:00 PM
Mike
Edmonton
I am not a huge Tootoo fan, I think he is playing hard, just so you know. I am tired of sportscasters saying things about an event, that simply isn't true. Just look at the video, slow it down if you have to. I didn't have to slow it down, but I could tell that Tootoo had his stick out (on the 2nd hit) and it rode up the Canuck players body, and up to his face, I think because Bourdon lifted his arms up as the hit happened. I guess it could have been crosschecking...but Bourdon is coming at him. And Tootoo thinks to himself, why is this guy coming at me, that hit I just gave was a good and fair hit.
The Canucks coach complains about Tootoo doing this so 'late in the game'. Well, I think Rypien hit a Predator late in the game, (I think Tootoo's hit was in response to that) and I don't hear the Canucks coach complaining about his players hit.
I'm not saying Tootoo never crosses the line, but in this case I don't think he did.
As the Canucks' Mitchell said, its just hockey.
Mike
Posted March 8, 2008 02:33 AM
Markus
Vancouver
The throat slash gesture was shown on Sportsnet Pacific highlights (if I remember correctly). Regardless of the network it definitely did happen... that I can say for certain.
Posted March 7, 2008 11:49 PM