Quote:
Originally Posted by kingkahuna
And the beauties:
"Even just by turning down a fight, the rats lose momentum for their team" - by staying out of the box and ahead on the scoreboard?
It didn't work very well when there were arguably a few rats on the Canucks a few years ago in the Cup final who turned the momentum in that series in a big way. I'm sure the refs notice it as well.
"what happens when the rest of the league sees that hit and we don’t do anything about it" - probably nothing.
Do the same thing again in a big game?
|
But what people seemingly fail to grasp is that it's gonna keep on happening, because THAT is part of the game. Enforcers do not prevent things from happening on the ice. "Answering the bell" does not prevent anything from happening in the next game.
How many players have been shamed and put in their place by getting beat by Brandon Prust and never did anything violent to anyone on the ice ever again? Yeah. On the contrary I bet most of the players who "answered the bell" are pretty pumped themselves afterwards. There is still a Matt Cooke in the league mind you, and he's been surrounded by fighters his whole career, and he only got "better" when called out by EVERYONE.
It's a silly narrative, and of course Prust is going to bang that drum to legitimize his role. It would be strange if he didn't.