On the Wings

Update (1:12 PM, 11. Nov): Sisu Hockey has a good breakdown of the charging penalty here. As he says at the end, the League already has a mechanism in place to deal with this thing. They just aren’t using it. (via A2Y) - Matt

Update (7:25 PM): A later edition of the same McKenzie column has more from Orr:

“I just think in today’s game, with the crackdown on hooking and holding and interference, we have to call penalties for hitting people in the head,” Orr said. “Think about it, you can’t touch a guy anywhere with your stick without getting a penalty, you can’t make a little tug or get in a guy’s way, but you can hit him in the face and knock him unconscious and there’s no penalty for it. There’s something wrong there.”

Also, Bob McKenzie had some good points himself. Here’s one:

In a recent Detroit-Edmonton game, Wings’ defenceman Danny Markov leveled Oiler forward Jarret Stoll with a clean open ice hit, shoulder to chest, that knocked Stoll upside down, but without any injury. Late in that game, Oiler forward Ethan Moreau attempted to fight Markov. Never mind that Moreau dislocated his shoulder and will be out five months, in the hockey vernacular, he was sending a message to Markov and the Oilers that they weren’t about to let the clean, open-ice hit go without a response. This, according to many traditionalists, is what the game is all about.

Which is what Oiler defenceman Steve Staios was doing in the first period of Tuesday’s game when he dropped the gloves and fought Markov, who readily accepted the invitation. Staios, in his mind, was settling a two-week old score.

Later in the game, of course, Torres leveled Williams with the devastating check that has widely been accepted as legal. The Wings did not respond with retribution of any kind, unless you consider a 3-0 shutout win as a form of payback. Some of the same people who lauded the Oilers for their payback against Markov suggested there was no need for the Red Wings to do the same against Torres. It was a clean hit, after all.

It would appear there’s an incongruity there, but that’s not unusual in the game of hockey.

What, Bob? The Wings aren’t wimps because they didn’t go after Torres? What a novel idea! - Matt

After the Torres hit on Jason Williams, which sent the Red Wings forward to the hospital, and a few similar hits have occurred this season, the debate on what a legal hit is has escalated. Now entering the debate is legend Bobby Orr, via TSN.

He calls for the elimination of all hits to the head, regardless of legality within the current set of rules: “I don’t want to see hitting taken out of the game, I love hitting in hockey, but if someone puts his shoulder into a player’s face, if he puts anything — an arm, an elbow, a glove — I think that player should get a penalty. Definitely, it should be a penalty. We are having players getting knocked unconscious before they even hit the ice and carried off on stretchers. How can that be legal? When did hitting someone in the head with your shoulder or any part of your body become part of the rules? Anything above the neck, it’s wrong.

Hey, I got hit a lot when I played and I didn’t get hit in the head with checks. Players didn’t always hit like that. To me, that’s not part of bodychecking. I mean, don’t you have to be responsible for your actions? If you hit a guy in the face with your stick by accident, you’re going to get a penalty. Two minutes, four minutes, five minutes, something. If you go to bodycheck a guy and you hit him in the face or head, and injure him, that’s legal? That’s fair? That’s not a penalty? I’m sorry, I don’t think that is right. It should be a penalty.