Filed under: Canucks, NHL Fans, NHL Discipline
Wednesday night when Rick Rypien reached into the stands, the NHL department of Twitter exploded. Later that night and into the next day, hockey blogs devoured the news. Everyone had an opinion - not a negative, that's what we all do best - and debated about how long the impending suspension would be. After all of that subsided, we started to go off the deep end and point blame at anyone and everyone. Justifiably, Rypien himself took a lot of the heat. The Canucks announcers and Manny Malhotra were convinced the fan came after Rypien. Others went after the arena staff that had not pulled out the tarp that covers the runway to the locker room. The tide even turned against the assaulted fan when he decided to lawyer up. Then there's the targeting of the NHL to 'take a stand' and 'get back control of the league'.
No one is safe in this blame game.
Yes, NHL players are running amok like the wild zombies in the movie 28 Days Later and are destroying the world as we know it. It's almost like this was an apocalypse and Rypien was another zombie that had been discovered. Then again, we're already in the middle of another apocalypse - the headshot debate. And before that, we spent a lot of oxygen and keystrokes debating the place of fighting in hockey. It's the debate du jour.
Rypien is the latest media-manufactured fire the NHL has to put out. Sure, Rypien created the situation by making contact with a fan and that's an obvious no-no. But you'd think he poured gasoline on him and was reaching for a lighter the way the reactions have come in.
For example, a headline on Hockey Independent reads "Gary Bettman- Take Back Control of Your League". It makes me wonder if it's simply trying to stir up pageviews with such sensationalism implying that after the Rypien incident the league is somehow spiraling out of control. That idea was confirmed in my mind when I saw the accompanying picture, a photoshop of Colin Campbell forcing Rick Rypien to kiss Gary Bettman's behind a la Vince McMahon of the WWE.
The article itself is actually very thoughtful and intelligent and I love a good joke or a funny photoshop as much as anyone else. I also enjoy thoughtful debate. The two don't always mix well, at least if your aim is to be taken seriously. However, the title and picture do seem to encapsulate the ridiculousness that seems to permeate from some circles these days.
Wes Goldstein of CBSSports.com declares the Rypien incident a "black eye" for the NHL and calls it nothing like Ron Artest's foray into the stands and at the same time exactly the same.
"This wasn't anything like the incidents involving former Bruins tough guy Mike Milbury and NBA brawler Ron Artest , which saw those players wade into the stands to take on fans -- but it was just as threatening."
Wait - it's not like the Artest incident but it's just as damaging? He's saying it's not the same but also it is the same. OK, I'll bite.
Goldstein is referring to the impact the Rypien incident will have on how hockey is perceived by hockey fans, sports fans and outsiders. I'm pretty sure the Rypien incident isn't going to have nearly the impact the Artest incident did. That was on every news show, every channel, the lips of every person in the country. The sports world stopped. The 24 hour news networks stopped to cover it.
Rypien? The hockey world stopped. Everyone else went on about their business. There's a big difference. The story about Rypien on Deadspin - a decent barometer for sports in America - hasn't even cracked the top seven stories at the top of the page. In fact, a story published two hours before the Rypien story entitled "Ever Wonder What It's Like When The Police Get You Stoned And Make You Drive Around?" has 2,000 more hits.
Goldstein goes on to play the 'OH GOODNESS THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!' card.
"In addition to tussling with Staubitz, Rypien had the audacity to push a linesman. You can just imagine what the fan felt like seeing a beefy-looking and angry Rypien training his sights on him... This isn't what the league's marketers mean by family entertainment. It's certainly not what they are thinking about when they talk about bringing fans closer to the game."
Please, please, PLEASE can we cut the family crap? Who are we kidding, really? This is a sport that still has fighting, is very physical, has players giving lewd gestures on camera and will bring beer directly to your seat. Sure, the NHL wants to be more family friendly and it's a good idea but they're also selling themselves to many other demographics. As much as the NHL has become about a family atmosphere, it's still targeted to many more not so family friendly demographics.
Hockey is a brutal, physical, trash-talking, almost-no-holds-barred, knock down, drag out battle watched by thousands who often times carry on - drunkenly, mind you - those brutish characteristics of the sport in the stands.
Now before you jump on me for calling out hockey fans, I don't mean all hockey fans. I don't mean every single person out there is a boozed up low-life looking to pick a fight. Let's be clear about that.
The point that I'm trying to make is that the game is what it is. The game is physical. The game is tough. There is trash talking and lots of it. Many times, all of that is going on in the stands as well. Everyone, players and fans alike plays a part.
Over decades and decades this game has become what it is. This game is never going to get rid of every headshot. Even if you managed to, there would still be concussions. Ice is hard. Someone is bound to fall on it the wrong way.
No matter how hard Gary Bettman comes down on Rick Rypien a player will - WILL - have another altercation with a fan.
James Wisniewski's action was unprecedented. We will - again, will - see something obscene that we haven't seen before on an NHL rink. That's one of the things that makes sports great is that, for better or worse, there's always another 'first' right around the corner.
The fact is that this sport was not built solely upon skill or speed or shooting ability. It was built upon those things, but it was also built upon -- or became very closely allied with -- physical strength, scare tactics, retribution, retaliation and anger.
People are drawn to hockey to see highly skilled players make amazing plays. They are also drawn to it to yell at their rival teams and fans and cheer when their boys get in a fight and lay a big haymaker on a rival goon.
Despite the 'human' tag, somewhere, deep down, however small, there is a part of us that makes us animals with animal instincts. This is a sport that, at times, plays to some of the darker and hot-headed of those instincts. Take Rypien. He looked like a Tiger at the zoo taking a swipe at a tourist that had gotten a little too close to the cage for his liking. That's not to excuse him or anyone else. It's simply stating the hot-headed, reactive, reflexes that are involved.
When we play this media blame game, many times the blame goes a lot deeper than what happened in a given instance.
"The arena didn't put out the tunnel."
"The player shouldn't have gone after the fan."
All along, it was the sport at fault. The sport created the environment the player was in. It helped to mold his attitude throughout his life. It also created the necessity of shielding the visitors from the raucous home crowd and that someone needed to perform a duty to set up that shield.
The list goes on and on.
The problem and faults go a lot deeper than one character in one event. They are part of the history of the sport and are deeply ingrained in the culture of it. To satisfy all of the complaints and break the old habits you'd have to completely revamp the sport from the ground up. Punishing a player or an arena staff member isn't going to stop the next incident. Did Todd Bertuzzi take note when Dale Hunter got 21 games for intentionally injuring Pierre Turgeron? Did Chris Simon take anything from Bertuzzi's assault of Steve Moore? Obviously, even long suspensions are not sending messages to future generations.
So if we're serious about the blame game we are playing and the need to eliminate certain hits or certain altercations we need to stop being reactive and start being proactive. Either stop playing this ridiculous blame game or put your money where your mouth is.
If we are to be of the opinion that this is not what hockey is about and want to get rid of all the horrible injuries and long suspensions, we would have to change the sport itself at its very core. We would have to reset 50+ years of the aggression and testosterone.
That's an awfully big project.
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