[News] NHL announces $2000 fine to James Neal for diving

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Philly06Cup

Why is diving cheating. Why is it classless. Someone explain.

Diving is a penalty under NHL rules. Therefore, to do it is cheating no different than tripping or hooking. If certain players constantly and obviously hooked other players and were never penalized for it, the argument would be the same. If Burrows slashed opposing players' sticks in half during every battle for the puck and wasn't being penalized it would be infuriating. There was a crackdown on obstruction and it lead to more diving. Now theres a crackdown on diving.

People would probably not be so mad about it if it wasn't seemingly increasing AND if it was actually penalized more often. These retroative fines/shaming is fine, but penalizing in-game would be much more affective IMO.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by stone hands

I'm sure this is going to dissuade players from trying to embellish to give their teams powerplays, great job nhl

that will show james neal, who's 5,000,000 salary means that this fine is a whole 3% of the 61,000 he earned for that one game

what a joke, why bother fining these guys at all. does anyone think these guys really care about being shamed/what people think of them?

What you've said is so true. What the league should really do is give the ref the power to penalize the "diver" with a 5 minute major penalty. I bet that would stop the diving real quick.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by CMPunk

By your definitions, doesn't that make any penalty classless and cheating?

Yes. That's why they're penalties...

[heep223]

Originally Posted by stone hands

does anyone think these guys really care about being shamed/what people think of them?

Yes, way more powerful than any fine because they will be getting incessantly chirped about it. I mean we chirp guys in beer league I can only imagine when the entire NHL knows about it.

[Weitz]

I wonder how few players actually care. I'm sure if they are successful and draw a penalty they laugh it up in the dressing room.

Do what you need to to win. Not that I agree.

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by codynw

I think there are two things here that will improve the diving problem.

1. They get a reputation, so refs are less willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

2. Coach fines. Think the coach will be happy losing money because of a player's garbage?

This. We all saw what happened to Vancouver once they dived their way to finals and stopped getting those calls. You would also hope the players have some pride and don't want to be publically shamed. Just look how big of a story this Neal fining is. A lot of people are talking about it. You don't think that every single official in the NHL and AHL has read this story. It really isn't beneficial for a player to continue down this road.

[Chingas]

I like that the coach may be held accountable with fines as well. That being said I have a question, which side of the negotiations or a collective bargaining agreement are the coaches? I sort of giggled to myself think about how that might go? Players side is like " we want a cap of $5k so how about you just put the rest of the fines on the coach" , owners side " we are ok with that". Arbitrator " motion passed next...

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Chingas

I like that the coach may be held accountable with fines as well. That being said I have a question, which side of the negotiations or a collective bargaining agreement are the coaches? I sort of giggled to myself think about how that might go? Players side is like " we want a cap of $5k so how about you just put the rest of the fines on the coach" , owners side " we are ok with that". Arbitrator " motion passed next...

Does a team have the ability to pay the fine for coaches in this situation?

[CMPunk]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Yes. That's why they're penalties...

Well yes I know, but you don't generally hear about someone talking about how classless a hooking call was.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Rerun

What you've said is so true. What the league should really do is give the ref the power to penalize the "diver" with a 5 minute major penalty. I bet that would stop the diving real quick.

How about starting with just calling diving by itself more often. Diving penalties are usually called in conjunction with another penalty which pisses me off.

I'm used to the soccer standard of officiating. A player is diving to dupe the ref. If an offense happened first then it is no longer considered diving.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

How about starting with just calling diving by itself more often. Diving penalties are usually called in conjunction with another penalty which pisses me off.

Just because a player dives from a hook, doesn't mean the hook didn't happen. I'm all in favour of both being called if both happened. Never understood the fury some have for not just calling the dive.

[Resolute 14]

Exactly. The only time when two penalties are mutually exclusive are tripping and diving.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Just because a player dives from a hook, doesn't mean the hook didn't happen. I'm all in favour of both being called if both happened. Never understood the fury some have for not just calling the dive.

Actually it probably really didn't.. or if it did it was so minor that it didn't have any significant effect... thus the aggrieved player felt the need to embellish and amplify, in order to bring it to the attention of the ref.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by CMPunk

Well yes I know, but you don't generally hear about someone talking about how classless a hooking call was.

A few points have been made on that:

a) Because hooking is actually called with sufficient regularity, there's not as much bitching when there's a missed one. Dives are either routinely missed, or offset with other penalties.

b) A dive is disadvantaging yourself (ie, not trying as hard) to try for a potential team advantage, rather than taking it over the line to try and beat someone else (ie, you hook someone to either slow them down, or to try and get ahead of them).

c) It's like tanking on an individual level. Oilers have lost respect because they are making a mockery of the draft rules and (seemingly) being bad on purpose to try and gain an advantage. This loses them respect due to the lack of class and integrity it shows. Diving is the same thing on a individual level. It makes a mockery of the NHL obstruction rules and therefore shows a lack of class and integrity.

Lot's of talk about soccer in here and how people don't watch the game for the amount of diving alone. No mention about the great parts of the game, people only remember the diving. Why? Because it stands out as childish and classless. It's a slippery slope towards that and IMO, the NHL is a lot closer to soccer in terms of diving than many hockey fans would care to admit.

Hockey prides itself on being a grind sport that requires grit and toughness along with great skill to be successful. People falling on purpose flies right in the face of this and so it irks people moreso than someone punching another player to try and get at the puck would.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Just because a player dives from a hook, doesn't mean the hook didn't happen. I'm all in favour of both being called if both happened. Never understood the fury some have for not just calling the dive.

But if the point is to curb diving as much as possible, you need to make this change regardless IMO.

I hear this reasoning a lot, and while it's true, if someone feels the need to embellish the penalty is either a) not enough to actually impede the player, hence the need for a dive. Or b) there, but the player has decided himself that what happened might not have been enough to warrent a penalty and so they dive.

I think what enrages people the most is that many teams employ people who will fight through those weak checks and not end up with powerplays. So why are the players who are purposefully falling being rewarded moreso than the people actually fighting though the checks, as the game is designed?

High sticking with blood is auto 4 min. Make diving auto 4 min and even when there's an offset, there will still be a PK to the diving team. Diving is as bad as it is because players know more often than not they get a 4 on 4 AT WORST. If that's the worst in-game punishment for diving, why wouldn't you do it?

If it were me, it would be a gross misconduct. But I absolutely despize diving.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Sometimes you come across as a petulant child in your posts.

Oh really? That's funny because you don't see me insulting people and getting emotional unlike yourself. I won't read people's posts that start off condescending and that makes me a petulant child?

On the other hand I get insulted, people dig through my posting history and even get told that I should die and those posts get thanked. It's amazing how people can act so authoritarian and make sweeping generalizations based on an opinion they don't like. I stated an opinion on vaccines or something you didn't like months ago and you've been holding a grudge for a long time. How does that make me a child?

[codynw]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Just because a player dives from a hook, doesn't mean the hook didn't happen. I'm all in favour of both being called if both happened. Never understood the fury some have for not just calling the dive.

Simple solution, make diving a double minor.

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by codynw

Simple solution, make diving a double minor.

I would have no problem with that for blatant dives like Neal's.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Just because a player dives from a hook, doesn't mean the hook didn't happen. I'm all in favour of both being called if both happened. Never understood the fury some have for not just calling the dive.

I disagree. If a player is hooked that is a penalty, even if the player doesn't fall. So whether he falls or not is irrelevant.

That's a hooking penalty.

If the ref feels a player falls to make it appear that he was hooked, that can't be called hooking because the ref never saw the hook. He saw the fall only.

That's a diving penalty.

They can't happen at the same time. This is how soccer, football and basketball are officiated.

MattyC: Basketball and football are actually way closer to soccer in diving then hockey is. In basketball the ref has to make about 20 block/charge decisions per game. In football players embellish to get personal fouls.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

If the ref feels a player falls to make it appear that he was hooked, that can't be called hooking because the ref never saw the hook. He saw the fall only.

False dichotomy. There is absolutely no reason why a ref could not see the hook and feel the diver tried to embellish it.