I suggest you watch again - it's a shoulder to the head check from the side less than a second after the puck is passed. This type of hit was not a rare occurrence less than a decade ago.
For reference, here are some great 90's hits from one of the best all time:
Unfortunately nowadays Stevens would be suspended after each of these and there would be a Royal Commission into his conduct.
Yup. Don Cherry would put together a half an hour of hitting footage each year all full of hits like Hall's and Scott's. There was no "blind side" or "principle point of contact" that put the onus on the hitter. It was always the onus of the player to skate with their head up. That culture is still engrained in the players.
Look at Gaudreau, he explicitly understands that he's going to get chopped and he will also be doing some chopping in his career, and puts the onus on himself to wear more protective gear. He doesn't place the onus on the refs to call these penalties or if he shouldn't have to wear different gloves.
It wasn't until about 2005 when defensemen weren't allowed to lay out guys who dump and chase did I really start noticing a changing hockey. Guys like Lindros and Kayira were making headlines while Crosby is missing seasons, and all of a sudden fighting, "head as the principal point of contact", and big open hits were under the gun. Now lawsuits, players apprehensive about suspensions, and every hit gets posted and scrutinized on HF, Reddit, TSN and Twitter, and all of a sudden the whole hockey fan base suddenly goes full pansy and forgets about decades of Hockey before Sidney Crosby.
We don't even question if things are conventionally "dirty" or not, we only know the Bettman modern precedents worthy of punishment and follow them as if they're dogma. It's maddening.
Dude...if Scott Stevens was in the NHL right now they'd execute him at Centre Ice during the first Intermission.
No GM would sign him. He would be suspended for half the season, not practicing with the team. His salary would still count against the cap, and coaches risk getting penalties against their team if they even ice him.
But Scott is right about one thing, we're really confused about the violence in hockey. Sure, we don't want players like Stevens throwing their body, yet we complain that Monahan is too soft and praise Tkachuk for playing with an edge. It's wanting our cake and eating it too. You can't praise Tkachuk for wanting to hurt is fellow brethren and then turn around and call edgy players dirty the moment someone gets actually hurt.
These edgy players need to carry something with them to play the way they do. Finishing checks, clearing the crease, sticking up for teammates, and "going into the dirty areas" means they need to pursue violence. That can't just stop at a moment's notice in the event they might be skating too fast, or happen to be on a blind-side, or otherwise in a position where someone could get legitimately hurt from their actions. That's why its the same old players (ie, Scott, Cooke, Marchant, Burrows, Bieksa) who are prone to causing injury to others and therefore labelled dirty or whatever. But Monahan is labelled soft, also in a negative connotation. It's a double standard.
No GM would sign him. He would be suspended for half the season, not practicing with the team. His salary would still count against the cap, and coaches risk getting penalties against their team if they even ice him.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I find it telling that Bettman was leary of meeting John Scott and needed to confirm “So, are we O.K.?” That's getting close to admitting orchestrating his trade and demotion to the "edge of the earth"
No GM would sign him. He would be suspended for half the season, not practicing with the team. His salary would still count against the cap, and coaches risk getting penalties against their team if they even ice him.
But Scott is right about one thing, we're really confused about the violence in hockey. Sure, we don't want players like Stevens throwing their body, yet we complain that Monahan is too soft and praise Tkachuk for playing with an edge. It's wanting our cake and eating it too. You can't praise Tkachuk for wanting to hurt is fellow brethren and then turn around and call edgy players dirty the moment someone gets actually hurt.
These edgy players need to carry something with them to play the way they do. Finishing checks, clearing the crease, sticking up for teammates, and "going into the dirty areas" means they need to pursue violence. That can't just stop at a moment's notice in the event they might be skating too fast, or happen to be on a blind-side, or otherwise in a position where someone could get legitimately hurt from their actions. That's why its the same old players (ie, Scott, Cooke, Marchant, Burrows, Bieksa) who are prone to causing injury to others and therefore labelled dirty or whatever. But Monahan is labelled soft, also in a negative connotation. It's a double standard.
? That's the whole point of the rules' evolution.
Hit a guy shoulder to shoulder or body to separate him from the puck but now we know head as principle point of contact is unacceptable.
Now lawsuits, players apprehensive about suspensions, and every hit gets posted and scrutinized on HF, Reddit, TSN and Twitter, and all of a sudden the whole hockey fan base suddenly goes full pansy and forgets about decades of Hockey before Sidney Crosby.
What a load of crap. It started to change when people realized that these hits were destroying careers and lives. I'd take one Eriksson over ten Scotts and I'd rather have seen Lindros and Kariya play any day of the week over Stevens. There is a difference between physical play and attempting to injure players that you can't keep up with. Hockey doesn't need people getting their melons smashed in to be entertaining. Headhunting, slashing hands, etc. can be entirely eliminated as far as I'm concerned.
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I agree that hits to the head and head hunting should be abolished. It's not necessary.
But any of those hits Stevens placed not to the head, or even that Scott to Ericsson hit, should be fair game in my opinion. It was mentioned here a couple times, but it should be equally on the onus of the recipient of said hits to have their head up, and not admire their passes or play.
I grew up playing minor/junior hockey during the early 90s as a defenseman, and loved giving those hits, so long as they were straight to the chest. If i hit the head, which was rare, I took my licks and sat my butt in the box (usually would be called for roughing or charging). I never once aimed for the head, and if it did, I felt utterly terrible.
My adult life, I moved to wing, and played in a contact league in my early 20s. I learned pretty quick not to admire my passes, and I knew it was my own damned fault both times i got my clocks cleaned. These guys in the NHL are significantly faster and smarter, and should have it ingrained in their heads to keep their heads up.
While I agree that the game is nice to watch now because of the skill (guys like Gaudreau etc), I feel it's lost a bit of it's identity.
Not everybody will agree with me, but that's just my 2 cents.
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