Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.
I don't doubt that he is feeling very contrite right now.
But I think it's fair to point out that if the concept of the team enforcer wasn't promoted as some type of justice-wielding measure, then the Thornton-type incidents would decrease.
Thornton is running around on the ice because he feels that as the team's enforcer, this is part of his job. Conversely, he probably felt a bit under pressure to go out and enforce some justice for his teammate because he senses (rightly or wrongly) that the coaching staff expects that of him. He was a little desperate to mete out justice, knew that he had not yet been able to do so, and lost his head.
So yes he got caught up, but I don't think we should excuse the pressure that these enforcer types feel because of how their role is defined by the coaches. Although I don't excuse Thornton for what he did, I also don't excuse the team and the coaching staff because they're the ones who define the roles for their players.
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Except that, until this incident, Thornton had never committed a suspendable infraction. So really, correlation does not equal causation. This was a one-off incident that, frankly, had little to nothing to do with his role as an enforcer. Consequently, removing the enforcer role is highly unlikely to prevent incidents like this in the future. It's just contrived anti-fighting rhetoric.