By the end of the day, we may know how the NHL decides to punish Philadelphia's Jesse Boulerice for having Canucks forward Ryan Kesler taste-test his stick without asking first. The predictions, naturally, are pouring in. FanHouse's Jes Golbez asks you for yours, and opines that Boulerice should be out until 2008. ESPN's EJ Hradek thinks he should receive the Downie Minimum of 20 games. William Houston of the Globe & Mail actually believes it should be a 40-gamer -- not likely, unless Boulerice was also running his own gambling ring on the side. Even Kesler appointed himself junior commissioner of the NHL for a few moments and called for a suspension of "a serious amount of games," while teammate Matt Cooke set the suspension at 25.Suspending Boulerice is the easy part; unless the NHL seriously minimizes the incident with a paltry punishment, anywhere between 20-30 games will be seen as "getting it right." The harder part is taking the next step and punishing those who have also contributed to yet another black-eye for hockey's ever-tarnishing image. That's why it's time to...
Fine the Flyers -- CBC's Elliotte Friedman (as usual) gets it right: "The Canucks were fined $250,000 for not controlling their players the night Todd Bertuzzi mauled Steve Moore. So, let's look at the Flyers." There have been two major offenses from the same franchise within the span of a month. Broad Street Bullies B.S. aside, that's inexcusable for the Flyers or any other team. You'd hate for the specter of financial penance to be the determining factor in a coach's decisions, but perhaps that will help keep a player like Boulerice in line -- or off the ice completely. The only point in which I differ with Friedman is the notion that a coach should "be suspended and fined should their teams incur multiple suspensions in one season." Fined, yes, but a suspension for even a single game is a tremendous price to pay -- in an "any given night" league -- for the utter stupidity of two or more players.
Give Colin Campbell 10 Games -- The Boulerice incident has survived at least two sports news cycles, which is one too many for the NHL. The fact that a penalty from Wednesday night will result in a suspension on Friday (at the earliest) fuels these "guess the suspension" games in the media, once again taking the spotlight away from the good news on the ice. That some cheap-shot artist on the Flyers has grabbed more headlines after Wednesday night than Jonathan Toews or Carey Price should give Gary Bettman douche chills. What the hell does the NHL need a hearing for anyway with a guy who has already missed a season because of a stick foul? Are they waiting to hear Boulerice blame it on the effect of violent movies, or that he chased a Twinkie with a Red Bull between the periods and went nuts-o? If the NHLPA is mandating a hearing in a situation like this, then the NHLPA is complicit in damaging the reputation of the NHL along with idiots like Boulerice.
Give Dennis LaRue and Kelly Sutherland 20 Games (10 Apiece) -- LaRue and Sutherland were the officials in Vancouver when Boulerice committed his match-penalty stick foul. The game was a chippy affair by all accounts, yet for the first two periods of the game there were four hooking calls, two interference calls, a tripping call and only one cross-checking penalty. The NHL should look at this game from start to Boulerice, and examine whether the referees' blase approach in a blowout game contributed to this happening. Unless, of course, the NHL only sacks up and takes a stand against ineffective officiating during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-12-2007 @ 2:45PM
Jes Golbez said...
It speaks volumes about the mentality of the Flyers that they would even carry Boulerice on their roster. HE has absolutely no business being in the NHL with a skillset so bad that he couldn't survive the ECHL. He's a thug, plain and simple, and he has a past history of such incidents.
Ask Andrew Long, who was almost killed by Boulerice, about how it feels to have a stick to the head.
Absolutely fine the Flyers. The team, obviously, promotes this kind of behaviour. Teams need to start taking responsbilities for their employees, just as a normal business would.
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10-12-2007 @ 3:10PM
Steve said...
25 for Boulerice:
http://tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=220462&hubname=
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10-12-2007 @ 3:46PM
RC said...
If the league truly wants these suspensions to have an impact on the team, it should be ruled that the player cannot be replaced on the roster for the duration of his suspension, and the player’s salary cap hit should remain during the suspension. Because otherwise, what do the Flyers care right now that Downie and Boulerice have been suspended?
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10-12-2007 @ 8:33PM
Stu said...
Waaaaaa, you all sound like a bunch of cry babies. What about Tootoo, and his constant cheap shots? Of course no one cares that Kesler took a run at our player right before Boulerice cocked him. Is what he did wrong? 100% yes, but that doesn't mean the whole team should be punished for it. Kesler has made it a habit of running his mouth and talking about people behind their backs, but then he never backs it up on the ice.
You want to get rid of all the cheapshots in the league? Let the players police themselves, get rid of the instigator penalty. Players would be less willing to talk smack and take cheap shots if they knew they would have to back up their words, instead of hiding behind their team goons.
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10-19-2007 @ 9:02PM
Pee Pee Goo Goo said...
It truly is a corporate world in all major sports. These type of moronic comments by the so called fans of hockey about suspensions and team fines is so idioic that one who has been around as long as I have and have witnessed some almost criminal attacks of players toward other players can only say GO BACK TO OLD TIME HOCKEY and let the players, afterall they're the ones getting sticks in the ribs and high sticked and slashed deal with the infractions not some coporate GENIUS that conducts business ventures during a game or spends all their time on a cell phone or has the building seating designed so that their fat corporate asses can have the PLEASURE of saying they were at a hockey game, PA....LEEZE, these fans don't know how when OLD TIME HOCKEY was being played and which is how and why the league still exists, none of this CORPORATE BULLSHIT, even came to the forefront, the players play the game let them also control the cheap shots, not some spoiled little rich kid that went running to mommy and daddy because little jimmy down the street called him a brat!
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10-21-2007 @ 9:31PM
Sanganoski said...
I am a Philadelphia Flyers fan, BIG TIME, and have been since there inception, in fact Doug Favell, was my favorite player growing up, but I am sick and tired of how the Flyers are percieved as thugs, goons, criminals and any other derogatory term, because,WHY??, they won a Stanley Cup with the Broad Street Bullies!! Get over it already!, that was 30 years ago!, This squad today has the nucleus of having a championship caliber team, on talent alone, no goonery, o.k., what Boulerice did was a cheap shot, but they happen in EVERY hockey game, not just the Flyers games, and to hold the franchises responsible is just plain MORONIC!!! The League Officials have already morphed the sport into a cheap immitation of the "Ice Capades" with all of their idiodic rule changes, heck, a player can't even deliver a DECENT CHECK without having to spend time in the box, go back, as another poster stated, to OLD TIME HOCKEY and the cheap shot artists will be judged by their peers, right there, ON THE ICE, not standing in front of some "firing squad" league officials because they didn't follow the "please don't check so hard" rules.
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