Posted by Recently the talk of hockey round tables all over the world has been whether to completely dump fighting from the game or not, but after seeing hits like the one below continue unabated one has to believe that incidents like these are a close second on the NHL’s to-do list.
The play took place as the Montreal Canadiens met up with the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday, and as you’ll see Los Angeles Kings’ defenseman Denis Gauthier leaves his feet to complete a high hit on the Canadiens’ Josh Gorges, nearly taking his head off and knocking him loopy. Coincidentally (or possibly not) Gauthier is the nephew of former WWF personalty The Mountie.
Gauthier was given a game misconduct and has been suspended indefinitely until the NHL hockey operations department can sit down and dole out a proper punishment.
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Thanks for the clip, I hadn’t seen that hit yet. I think it’s about time that the NHL took a serious stance on Head Shots. Unlike fighting (except for ultra-rare cases) these hits can not only end a career but give somebody serious brain injury/neck injury and headaches for the rest of your life. The only way to end it is to take an unwavering stance. First offense = 40 games, second offense = out of the league.
It should be a privilege to play in the NHL, especially where the salaries are. Hard Hitting is part of what makes this game great but scrambling somebody’s noggin’ is too much.
There was a similar hit by Komisarek on Gagne earlier this season that sent Gagne out for a period of the game. As many know Gagne had a concussion last season sidelining him for most of it as well as the playoffs. The hit was not called during the game and the league did not intervene. Though conspiracy theories are out there about the league having “favorite” teams where to suspend a player from those teams would insight a lot of negative publicity I don’t believe that the league itself would analyze into the situation that much. What I do believe is that the league is undeniably misguided when handling situations like this. They want to get the play called right of course and keep the safety of the players in mind. Unfortunately this leads to their decision making process being more about the result than the action. On top of that their suspensions go all over the place ranging on importance of the player to the league. Less important players get longer suspensions because their attacks in the view of the league are more malicious as if they’re based on jealousy. Players more important to the league usually get ignored as if they’re just making a big play to spark their team. The league needs to set its priorities and stop guessing whether or not the player had “intent”. I wrote a long article on this before that got quite a bit of attention on NHL.com. It’s a large issue, and unless the league decides whether it wants to crack down or not suspensions will go up and down. The players don’t know what they can do and what they can’t. It’s the same issue with the penalties. The league has to make up their minds at some point because letting the refs decide and guessing whether a not a player “intends” to hurt another is playing a game completely based on speculation.
I can’t help but think that hits like this take place because the offending party wants (emphasis on wants) to hurt someone. Say what you will about “the heat of battle” but when a guy leaves his feet with his elbow in the air that, to me, indicates intent to injure.
Regardless, there’s no place in the game for shit like this. The NHL needs to get rid of it and get rid of it now.
Chris – if you have a link to that article why don’t you put it in a comment here. There needs to be stable, serious standards on head shot. As always it comes from the top. There is a lack of strong leadership. It’s time for change.
There doesn’t seem to be any consistancy to the punishment the league hands down. If they want to get serious about this issue, they must have consistancy. It shouldn’t matter if you’re a rookie or a 20 year veteran all-star. I’m not holding my breath for the league as they have proven they are all over the map when it comes to punishment.