NHL Hockey thread

[Zoupa]

Isn't french mandatory in Canadian schools?

[Zoupa]

In a crucial game 3, Jets have 10 shots to 25. Habs up 3 nil with a short handed goal.

Sometimes karma's a bitch 

[Threviel]

A decade or two ago we had the same discussion in the Swedish league. Someone did something violent and stupid and there was an uproar. Eventually the police got involved and there was a charge and trial over assault. I don't remember the verdict, but the result was that the league cleaned itself up a bit. They realized that it's not all fun and games when the police comes knocking.

And fair game, if someone does something on the ice with the intent to harm police bloody well should get involved.

[Valmy]

Half the Caps starting line would be in prison 

[crazy canuck]

Which all supports my point that the NHL has a real problem with dealing with violence in the sport, when it can be so easily equated to the considerations in criminal sentencing.

What we do in court is not some arcane mystery - we're just trying to apply principles of fundamental justice.  Sentence should be proportional to the seriousness of the offence and moral culpability of the offender.

Just as another example, Habs player Corey Perry knocked out Toronto captain John Tavares in game 1 of that series.  Despite Perry being a repeat offender, and despite it being a very serous consequence (again a concussion, and Tavares didn't play for the rest of the series) Perry received no suspension, as it was assessed to be an accident i.e. no moral culpability.

What you do in court is deal with people accused of criminal offences.  The fact the NHL still tolerates behaviour that would constitute a criminal offence is the point.

[crazy canuck]

You guys in the ROC have been raised since birth on Don Cherry. I guess I can't fault you too much when you take the same stances.

Shrugging it off as "well, that's just hockey. Unfortunate incident!". Especially you BB. Wouldn't you want the game and the mentality around it to change before your kids reach the age where body checks are allowed?

As I said, in Evans' case it WILL have lifelong consequences. Chara broke Pacioretty's fucking neck. Literally broke his neck. Zero games suspended, all on the strength of the game's "culture" (lol) and the much touted fact that he had never been suspended before. Which honestly is an incredibly stupid metric.

These offenders are professional players with hundreds of games under their belt. They know that DoPS is a joke, and it definitely factors in to how they play.

Some of us who grew up watching Cherry recognized him for what he was and rejected his hate filled messages.

[crazy canuck]

Isn't french mandatory in Canadian schools?

It is also our second official language.  But whatever I learned was quickly unlearned through lack of use.  I notice that in my boys as well.  Both feel much less comfortable using their other language which is a real shame.

[HVC]

Mines still ok, but no where what it used to be (especially my verbal). when reading i can get the gist of stuff when its a more complicated sentences, but a lot of that has to do with my being able to read portuguese.

[Jacob]

It is also our second official language.  But whatever I learned was quickly unlearned through lack of use.  I notice that in my boys as well.  Both feel much less comfortable using their other language which is a real shame.

Yeah you really need a consistent stream of cases where using the language is necessary or cool even while not perfect to maintain a second language.

[Grey Fox]

Kings of the North!

Olé Olé Olé

Na Na Na hey hey hey good bye!

[viper37]

Which is odd because by moving to other incidents he seems to imply that Montreal was never on the giving side of a dirty hit. 

He's a Montreal fan, it comes with the territory.  Their team is perfect, never plays dirty and their only flaw is to not have enough French speaking players when they are losing.  Right now, I do not hear any complaints about this.  Weird, huh?

And while I'm not as adamant as BB I do agree that that was pretty childish, zoupa. 

Yes it was childish Zoupa, you should apologize.

[viper37]

Mines still ok, but no where what it used to be (especially my verbal). when reading i can get the gist of stuff when its a more complicated sentences, but a lot of that has to do with my being able to read portuguese.

I'm struggling more&more to speak english.  Writing is ok, reading is ok, understanding is mostly fine - I usually understand as much as French, but speaking the darn language, it seems my accent is getting thicker and thicker, even though it sounds totally fine in my head before I speak.

[viper37]

You guys in the ROC have been raised since birth on Don Cherry. I guess I can't fault you too much when you take the same stances.

I'm not one to let a good Canadian bashing opportunity pass by me, but...  We ain't that different.

There are still a lot of minor leagues where there's a lot of fighting.  It's almost scripted that there is a need to be at least two "good" fights by game, and if you think the hits like you see in the NHL are dirty, that's nothing to what sometimes goes on in these leagues.  And the people are happy.  And they're demanding it again&again. 

And those who comment NHL hockey and call about "a disagracious scene" whenever a Habs is down are hypocrites.  They're the first ones to cheed when there's a fight and the Canadien player is winning.  They're the first one to say in those after sports show "had I been a coach, after so many solid [legal] hit, I would have sent my toughest player after their best" to scare them.  How many times did you hear Habs fans complaining their club was too small, they were getting too many hits in the corners?  They weren't talking about lacking a Chara.  They wanted a new Brashear on the team.

The NHL will not change the rules much because it's what the people want.  Still today, in the NHL, whenever there's a fight, are people booing?  Are they in Montreal?  No, they're all cheering.  Until their player goes down.  If he's the one on top, they're cheering.

So let's leave Cherry aside and before looking for the straw in thy neighbour's eye...

I understand if you dislike violence in hockey.  I do too.  I think CC doesn't even watch hockey because he's tired of this violence.  I don't even light fighting in hockey and I wish any player starting a fight be expelled for the game.  And during playoffs, I wished that every dirty hit, every little fistfight during the last seconds of the game had a carryover penalty to the next game.  Sure go ahead, do that double check in the back of the player and get a 5 min penalty when there's 10 seconds to play and you're losing 4-1.  But keep that penalty at the start of the next game.  That will dissuade such dirty hits.  And the Habs have done their share of hypocrit acts like that whenever they were losing during the playoffs, in other years.

It has nothing to do with Cherry, it's equally popular in Quebec than in Canada, equally popular among French speakers than English speakers.

The only thing unique to Cherry is that he carried his dislike of Euro players through the 2000s and beyond while our own commentors dropped the act sometimes in the late 90s/early 2000s.  Before that, you'd regularly read comments about how Euro players "have no heart" and don't care what happens to their clubs, unlike good French Quebec players who had to spend the summer home and live the humiliation of an early defeat.

Can't comment on 90s sports journalism in English Canada, I didn't have the internet back then.  What I do know is that nowadays, their hockey coverage is pretty similar to what we have.  Minus the focus on Cherry, but Quebec&French bashing is Canada's #2 sports and even permeates throught politics, so it's obvious he got a pass for so long.  It's like being an anti-semite in 1920s Germany, no one would have lost his job for that.

[Valmy]

Let us all now join together to laugh at the Ottawa Senators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pJeLCQCxUY

This is amazing. UT is always good to reignite my love of the game.

[Grey Fox]

Quite crazy how back then the league almost didn't want their expansion team to succeed.