Some Dirty Laundry Of The NHL Exposed

[ClassLessCoyote]

This is also being discussed on the main board right now. At the bottom of the webpage in the link provided is over 290 documents available for the public to read. Read as many as you want and enjoy. Share your thoughts after reading this stuff.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/spor...dst-of-an-existential-crisis/article29419071/

After the unsealing of frank and provocative e-mails between top National Hockey League officials on Monday, the league has two problems. Or, fairer to say, two more problems.

The 2011 e-mail chains, first revealed by TSN’s Rick Westhead, show the NHL in the midst of a slow-rolling existential crisis. At this point, a class-action lawsuit by former players is still months in the distance. There isn’t any panic in the tone. Rather, it’s one of unguarded curiosity.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2778992-NHL0031593.html

Doug Whine Wilson

Click to read more...

 

[ClassLessCoyote]

 

[TheLegend]

What is this? *********** now??

 

[ClassLessCoyote]

Some of this stuff is funny but yet sad to see some lack of professionalism at the top.

Now I want to see more than ever all of the emails with regards to the Coyotes ownership mess after reading some of this stuff.

 

[XX]

Given how random suspensions seem at times, especially under Campbell, that's about how I expected conversations to go.

 

[XX]

Some of these exchanges are priceless.

Here's Bob McKenzie (the LOL at the end )
https://embed.gyazo.com/a5eb7c68b308b2b731cd0d9435527322.png

Colin's reply reminds me of rt:

Some gold in there for those of you that don't hold the old boys club in high regard. Especially (Brian) Burke.

https://embed.gyazo.com/c7156bb55ca682c30788c8c052fe1dcc.png - sitting NHL exec.

 

[ck26]

Picked one at random ... Fighting Analysis Powerpoint Briefing, GM's meeting, 9 March 2009.

Page 5: Regular Season Fighting Majors By GM
Paul Holmgren 82
Don Maloney 34
Glen Sather 31
Bob Gainey 12
Brett Hull 1

Kris King 169
Colin Campbell 72

Page 6: Early Years
Fighting penalized 2 minutes until 1937, when the player who initiated the fight got 5. Both fighters got 5 in 1947.
Toronto Star Headline, 29 Jan 1918, one month into first NHL season, "Two NHL Players Under Arrest On A Charge Of Fighting; Players Remanded For Sentencing" ... the culprits were Joe Hall (MTL) and Alf Skinner (TOR).
1917-1949: 1 fight for every 10 games played.

Slide 8: Original Six Era
1950-1967, 1 fight for every 4 games.
Fight leaders combined skill and toughness.
League leader in 1954 George Armstrong (Hall of Famer), 6 fights in 70 games
League leader in 1959 Ted Lindsay (4)
1964 Terry Harper (8)
1966 Vic Hadfield (4)
1968 John Ferguson (8)

Slide 10: Expansion Era 1967-1979 Fighting Popularized
12 year period from 1967 to 1979, NHL expanded from 6 to 21 teams -- 500 new player jobs.
500% increase in fights
"Safety valve theory" from Original Six (prevent stick-swinging, etc) replaced with fighting as intimidation. One-on-one fights replaced by two-on-ones and bench-clearing brawls
League leader in 1971, Dennis Hextall (21)
1975 Dave Schultz (26)
1979 Dave "Tiger" Williams (20)

Slide 14: Expansion Era
Fighting rose dramatically in the 1970's, but was still not as bad as today (2009). "Big Bad Bruins" were 1972 Stanley Cup champs and only had 24 fighting majors as a team. Jared Boll alone had 20 by March 2009.

Slide 15: 1980's were the "Golden Era of Fighting"
About 1 fight per game
7.5 goals per game, most lopsided games in NHL history
Average attendance of 13,000 per game (80% capacity)
40% more fights in 1980's than 2000's
1982: increase to 8 division games per season
1983: rosters increase from 17 to 18 skaters
Teams employ two enforcers ... Probert/Kocur, Secord/Dupont, McSorley/McClelland, etc
Teenagers in the 1970's idolized Big Bad Bruins and Broad Street Bullies ... then became goons.
1984: Chris Nilan 30 fights
1986: Joey Kocur (36) --> more than 18 entire teams in 2009
1988: Jay Miller (34)
1989: Basil McRae (28)

Slide 19: "The Instigator's Role"
1993: instigator penalty (game misconduct) ... fighting dropped by 33%
1997: changed to 10 minute misconduct ... 13% increase in fighting majors
1997: Paul Laus 39 fights (all-time record) ... I actually remember Laus being a good tough defenseman, but not a goon. Stunned by this.

Goes on 50 more slides ... really interesting read

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2778842-NHL0022969.html

 

[MIGs Dog]

Picked one at random ... Fighting Analysis Powerpoint Briefing, GM's meeting, 9 March 2009.

Goes on 50 more slides ... really interesting read

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2778842-NHL0022969.html

In my world when you do a study like this you provide a conclusion, recommendations, or actual analysis of what it means. This slide show is more of a history lesson.

The slides showed injuries and games missed for certain seasons, but how many players careers have ended because of a fight, or multiple fights? Joey V might be one.

I fear that one day a player will actually die from a fight related injury. You may think that's preposterous, but a referee just died after falling during warm-ups (no helmet), and at least 51 boxers have died from injuries sustained in the ring. If this tragedy were ever to occur, sanctioned hockey fighting would finally meet its well deserved demise.

 

[BackBringCam]

A senior hockey player in Ontario did die from an on ice scrap a few years back

 

[Coyotes2000]

This.is.awesome

 

[Mosby]

Searched for some Coyotes-related terms -- "Glendale", "Maloney", "Tippett", "LeBlanc", "Weiers" -- but didn't find anything juicy.

 

[ClassLessCoyote]

If only there were stuff about the Coyotes in the documents but it looks like the documents have to do with the concussion issue.

Bettman comes off as the most professional from what I have seen.

Bob McKenzie is funny.

Here's an example.

 

[SniperHF]

Well that definitely matches the personality that he displayed during his brief time on HF

 

[ck26]

In my world when you do a study like this you provide a conclusion, recommendations, or actual analysis of what it means. This slide show is more of a history lesson.

Remember that the audience is GM's; they don't vote on rule changes, but they can influence the game. The whole presentation (slides in the 40's and 50's in particular) have an anti-fighting tone ... hell, the first thing discussed is that most NHL GM's didn't play this way when they played and that the "old time hockey" myth was created by expansion, the Broad Street Bullies and the Hanson Brothers ... Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay and Eddie Shore didn't actually play that way. Most GM's were players in the 1970's and 1980's, so it's what they remember, but the fighting culture was new and unique in the 1970's and 1980's, so what these old man GM's remember wasn't always true. That's the impression I got out of it.

Another huge limfac is that we don't know what the speaker was saying during this presentation. Sometimes the slides don't tell the whole story. I don't think it's explicitly clear what the tone of the presentation was, but I see one that is majority anti-fighting. IMHO.

 

[rt]

Some of these exchanges are priceless.

Here's Bob McKenzie (the LOL at the end )
https://embed.gyazo.com/a5eb7c68b308b2b731cd0d9435527322.png

Colin's reply reminds me of rt:

Some gold in there for those of you that don't hold the old boys club in high regard. Especially (Brian) Burke.

https://embed.gyazo.com/c7156bb55ca682c30788c8c052fe1dcc.png - sitting NHL exec.

Holy ****. Campbell's emails and my posts are dead ringers. The one thing is, though, I email like an adult when I'm at work.

 

[_Del_]

It isn't surprising at all to me that friends in the hockey world talk his way. It'd be far more surprising if they didn't.
The thing is to me, that some of them didn't recognize the difference between texting among friends and using your work email for this sort of stuff. THAT surprises me.

 

[DomiToDuclair]

I haven't read through it all yet but holy cripes, NHL was completely in the dark with concussions.

I always thought it was silly that they would return players out to the game who had a concussion because they wanted to play. Seem to think as well that players recover in less than a week from one.

 

[YotesFan47]

In my world when you do a study like this you provide a conclusion, recommendations, or actual analysis of what it means. This slide show is more of a history lesson.

The slides showed injuries and games missed for certain seasons, but how many players careers have ended because of a fight, or multiple fights? Joey V might be one.

I fear that one day a player will actually die from a fight related injury. You may think that's preposterous, but a referee just died after falling during warm-ups (no helmet), and at least 51 boxers have died from injuries sustained in the ring. If this tragedy were ever to occur, sanctioned hockey fighting would finally meet its well deserved demise.

Tell ya what, as someone who spent a LONG time enjoying the sport competitively, if they handed me a waiver suggesting that I could die but still play, I'd have signed it. Any player on the ice naive enough to think that they couldn't receive a major, life threatening injury, wasn't meant to survive anyway.

Sounds curel? It is, much like life. If given the oppertunity, I'd still play in a rough, tough, fighting NHL. Let's not be tree huggers about this, we love a violent sport and shouldn't be surprised about injuries that have long term effects.

 

[hbk]

So NHLPA fought on implementation of helmets, mandatory use of visors, etc. and yet NHL is blind towards concussions?

 

[XX]

I haven't read through it all yet but holy cripes, NHL was completely in the dark with concussions.

In the dark? No, they knew, which is why these emails have been released as part of a lawsuit designed to prove that. Shanahan even admits in one of the emails that guys are popping pills and doing blow to cope.

 

[MIGs Dog]

Tell ya what, as someone who spent a LONG time enjoying the sport competitively, if they handed me a waiver suggesting that I could die but still play, I'd have signed it. Any player on the ice naive enough to think that they couldn't receive a major, life threatening injury, wasn't meant to survive anyway.

Sounds curel? It is, much like life. If given the oppertunity, I'd still play in a rough, tough, fighting NHL. Let's not be tree huggers about this, we love a violent sport and shouldn't be surprised about injuries that have long term effects.

Not sure what hugging trees has to do with any of this, but hockey will always be a high impact game with the potential for injury. I don't believe I, or anyone else, is petitioning for these aspects to change.

Fighting does not need to be part of the game for the sport to still be entertaining, exciting, and yes, violent.

Only about a quarter of NHL games have a fighting major. http://www.hockeyfights.com/stats/
The trend is heading down. Is there anyone out there pushing for more fights? Maybe you, but I mean normal people.

It probably will not take a fatality for the rules to change. If what has happened to Joey V this year were to happen to one of the league's marque players (think Crosby, 7 career fights; Ovechkin, 3 career fights), mainstream news outlets would be talking about it, and the GMs would receive pressure to change like never before.

 

[rt]

The league does not have a fighting problem. It's fine.

 

[MIGs Dog]

The league does not have a fighting problem. It's fine.

NASCAR didn't have a seat-belt problem until Dale Earnhardt was killed.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

NASCAR didn't have a seat-belt problem until Dale Earnhardt was killed.

NASCAR still doesn't have a seat-belt problem. What they had was a problem with crippling head injuries and basilar skull fractures due to poor helmet design, a lack of head and neck stabilization, and the lack of a soft-wall system in high-speed corners.

That may sound pedantic and off-topic but identifying the correct problem is key to protecting athletes. It's disingenuous to blame fighting for all NHL concussions when many, many more concussions occur because of head contact with another player's protective equipment (shoulder/arm pads with hard plastic shells, etc.), or because of the head hitting a hard surface and sustaining injury since the helmets hockey players wear are ludicrously underengineered and moreover almost universally worn incorrectly and loosely.

The NHL is extremely slow to recognize player risk, not just because of fighting specifically but because - as these e-mails show - the majority of people in positions of influence, including in the media, are irretrievably stuck in some sort of cro-magnon mindset where you're not injured unless you're in a coma and it's perfectly all right to throw an elbow check at a guy if he pisses you off. Fighting is risky and can lead to injury, sure, but you're even more prone to injury if you've got your mouthguard dangling from your lips during play while your helmet chinstrap is hanging down by your nipples.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

The league does not have a fighting problem. It's fine.

Yeah, certainly not as many "you wanna go?" BS fights as before. Fights like Doan/Getzlaf last year and Max jumping that guy a few weeks ago I have no problem with.

NASCAR still doesn't have a seat-belt problem.

Now it's a visibility problem.