bucks_oil
Registered User
- Aug 25, 2005
- 8,398
- 4,613
Oh yeah, and I'm sympathetic to it. In the neck of the woods I learned to play competitive sports you were always looking for incoming. The very nature of how kids used to play. I come from the wrong side of the tracks where the intent to hurt would also be there, and stated. So if you gave a guy half a chance out there...
Well you get the jist.
One thing you haven't covered is that hockey used to be the pro sport domain of the working class kid from the working class neighborhood. The one who knew there would be fights, that you could get jumped at any time, and that that's what life just was like. Its not just on the ice or a football field I would have my head on a swivel. In the neighborhood it was more just a fact of life.
The contrast now being that pro players now largely come from more affluent backgrounds that are not as hard scrabble. So that lifes lessons learned away from the arena equate to the lessons not being learned at the arena.
So that the first time a smiling Sam Gagner, with a quality affluent background encounters a Zack Kassian, they're actually somewhat surprised such actions, people, and players exist.
Right... well the other part of my longer post above (about blindside hits and the arbitrary distinctions we now make) is that those rules of the jungle you describe ACTUALLY HAD SOME ETHICS.
If you were going to make a predatory, cheap shot hit, (a somewhat cowardly play)... you better back it up.
Now we're trying to regulate it out of the game... starting first by removing the deterrent to making such hits (retribution through pummeling) and it's no wonder that we have chaos.
I'd argue that the safety advocates didn't succeed in regulating ENOUGH of the nonsense out of the game (or they took too much), and Hall's hit is a perfect example.
Hall's hit was never OK on your best player, but it was commonplace in the jungle and you either learned to avoid it (because you were good enough) or your team would prevent it (because you were even better and to be protected). Thus it required a response from Hendricks.
Hendricks is too old school to draw a distinction between a hit in the numbers and a suicide crunch in the neutral zone.... because the sportsmanship ETHICS of the play are the same: Don't hit a defenseless player harder than necessary unless you mean it. If you mean it... be ready for retribution.