Nathan Horton displays the "fencing response," a sign of neurological damage.

On Tuesday morning, the Bruins announced that Horton would miss the rest of the playoffs with a severe concussion.

Tuesday afternoon, NHL disciplinarian Michael Murphy announced that Rome would be suspended for four games.

So we are supposed to feel sorry for… Aaron Rome?

According to Manny Malhotra, we are:

“It’s devastating,” said center Manny Malhotra. “To be so close, to be playing in your dream, to now have it taken away, it obviously hurts a lot. That being said, he’s still a huge part of our team in that room. Just his attitude, his mentality, his focus, he’s going to help our guys a lot. I think as a group we don’t agree with the suspension.”

Here’s an idea: You don’t want to miss the Stanley Cup playoffs, don’t leap off your skates and drill a guy in the head more than a second after he’s released the puck.

Canucks coach Alain Vigneault says Rome “isn’t a dirty player, never has been, never will be.” Whether he is or not is irrelevant. It was a dirty play.

Here’s Andrew Ference in February, after teammate Daniel Paille (not a dirty player; never disciplined before) was suspended four games for a head shot on Raymond Sawada (who was unhurt):

“It’s a bad hit, right?” said Ference. “You hear it from every player after they do it, they feel bad, and same thing, I talked to Danny [Paille] and he feels bad.

“You can’t be a hypocrite about it, though. I’ve thought about this a lot and had plenty of time to put things in perspective over the last year. Sidney Crosby has been very vocal about the head shots and blindside hits since he suffered one in the Winter Classic, but what did Crosby say after Cooke hit Savvy last year? Nothing.

“I thought a lot about that. You want to be a good teammate, but you shouldn’t be a hypocrite about it.” 

So here’s the question: If that was Henrik Sedin being strapped to a backboard and carted off on a stretcher, would Alan Vigneault be protesting that it wasn’t a dirty hit?

Photo: Nathan Horton from Getty Images

The Bruins celebrate around (but don't touch!) the Prince of Wales trophy.

The answer: Because neither one is for sissies.

It’s been a couple of days since the Boston Bruins beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals. I think I’m starting to recover. I can actually watch the DVR now (for the fifth time – or is it sixth?) without twitching and flinching at every Tampa shot.

But Friday night almost did me in.

I was at work. I’m a newspaper editor (yes, we still exist!), and at times I work in news, at times in sports. In the sports department, we watch games on TV. In the news department, those of us who are fans watch surrepticiously. Unfortunately, I can only see the TV in the news department if I turn and crane my neck. Once, when I did so earlier in the playoffs, my co-worker across the desk got up and turned the TV off. I managed not to kill her (she is a nice person, really; she just has a blind spot when it comes to sports).

This time around, I didn’t chance it, just followed the game on NHL.com’s Icetracker, and via the Bruins’ Twitter updates (turning the notification sound so low that only I could hear it). I stayed busy, keeping the nerves at bay by throwing myself into my work.

Unfortunately, work petered out just after 10 p.m., as the scoreless game moved well into the third period. I picked up my phone, announced I was going outside for a break, and headed for the parking lot.

9:00 to go. Timeout Bruins.

I sat on a bench, hunched over, staring at the phone, as the seconds crawled by.

Shot toward Thomas. Deflected wide, but not far off.

Oh, thanks. Very reassuring. I leaned over, muttering, c’mon guys, c’mon, c’mon…

Bruins score! Horton!

I leaped off the bench, cheered, danced.

1-0 BOS. Horton (Ference, Krejci)

“When?” I asked the phone. Usually Bish (John Bishop, the Bruins’ PR man) gives the time of the goal. Not this time. I imagined the Garden, the noise, the crowd going wild, Krejci and Horton celebrating… I got up to pace. Surely there must not be much time left. Surely. Back and forth I went, back and forth…

6:00 to go.

SIX MINUTES!?!!?

Huge save by Roloson on Ryder.

Rydes!! Gah!!

Tampa Bay continues to be relentless.

OK, I didn’t need that.

Just under 2:00 to go.

I paced maniacally, watching the digital numbers change in the upper right corner of my phone, trying to prove to myself that time had not stopped.

Stoppage with 44 seconds left in regulation.

My heart was ready to burst out of my chest.

B’s control…. win!

I screamed up at the cloudy sky. I danced a quick jig, then ran inside, to the TV in the sports department, and watched the Bruins celebrate. I cried a little.

Then I went back to my seat. The editor across from me looked up. “Are you OK?” she asked.

“I had to go outside. I was too nervous to watch the game,” I said.

She shook her head and laughed. “It’s just a hockey game.”

No, no it isn’t. Trust me on this one. It isn’t.

Photo: Boston Bruins courtesy of slidingsideways at bestlaidplans.org

Dennis Seidenberg, Milan Lucic and David Krejci say climb on.

Ryan dutifully chronicled Thursday night’s game here, noting that the last time the Bruins had had such a successful road trip was in the 1971-72 season, when they last won the Stanley Cup. Then he dropped this little bombshell:

… the question right now is whether or not this team is worth a serious emotional investment on the part of any Bruins fan.

Um, what?

A “serious emotional investment”? Isn’t that, y’know, what being a fan is all about? Isn’t that the whole point? What kind of “fan” studies the standings, sees a seven-game win streak, and says to him/herself, “hmmm, well, they’re winning, looks like they have a shot at the Stanley Cup, I guess I’ll be a fan now. Say, who’s this Krejci fellow? And how do you pronouce that?”

No. Those aren’t fans. They’re bandwagon-jumpers. Or what hard-core Red Sox fans cynically dubbed “pink hats,” the people who climbed aboard when the Red Sox won their first World Series in 2004 and suddenly became Fashionable.

Of course, this doesn’t just happen in Boston. When the Blackhawks won the Cup last spring, out of the hundreds of thousands (millions?) clogging the streets of Chicago for the parade, how many of those folks, do you think, had stuck with that team through thick and thin, suffered through the bad times, watched the drafts in which they selected Kane and Toews, dared to hope and cheer and dream?

Most importantly, how much did that parade mean to those fans, who never lost faith?

Nobody’s going to turn away bandwagon fans. They fill the arena, they create a buzz, they encourage the players (everyone likes to be loved and talked about). I for one am happy to welcome anyone who wants to be a Bruins fan.

But, y’know, there’s something to be said for swimming through bitter waters until you reach the sweet. You simply can’t appreciate having without going through the wanting, the dreaming, the hoping. When, someday (hopefully soon), the Bruins win the Stanley Cup, my tears — and those of my fellow black-and-gold faithful — will be all the more blessed, because we didn’t “decide to make a serious emotional investment,” we were there already. Fans — real fans – keep the faith.   

 Photo from boston.com

And then an offensive lineman punches the linebacker in the face.

Ridiculous, you say? Well, something akin to that has been going on with increasing regularity in the NHL in the past few years, as it seems more and more often players are responding to a solid check on a teammate by dropping the gloves and pummeling (or being pummeled by) the “offending” player.

This has got to stop. Since when did a clean check become a fighting offense? Why does Mark Stuart have to protect himself when Anze Kopitar gets caught with his head down? Watch…

The worst part of this whole episode is that Stuart broke his finger in that unecessary fight, had to have surgery, developed an infection and missed months of action. He returned for the playoffs but obviously wasn’t himself. All because of some stupid, misguided “code of honor” or some damned thing.

It’s one thing if it’s a dirty hit. If a stick goes high, or it’s knee-to-knee, or a head shot. And I realize that to players on the ice, the action is lightning-fast and at times a clean hit can appear dirty. But the majority of these “sticking up for my teammate” retaliatory attacks are unwarranted. Players don’t need their teammates running around like assassins trying to “protect” them from one of the basic parts of the game – rough, physical play. If a guy’s that delicate, he shouldn’t be playing professional sports in the first place.

Fans need to realize this too. It’s amazing the amount of comments you see on Internet chat sites about this. Oddly enough, it’s most often the posters who advocate for “old-time hockey” who insist that guys should throw down if an opposing player so much as breathes hard on one of theirs.

Just as an example, there were Bruins fans howling for T.J. Oshie’s head when he hit David Krejci a few weeks ago along the boards. Let’s take a look…

I love Krejci, but I saw nothing wrong with that hit. Krejci suffered his concussion because he banged his head on the dasher, not because of the hit itself. Oshie did nothing wrong.

I have nothing against fighting in hockey. There’s a time and a place for it, and sticking up for a teammate is certainly one of those times. But picking a fight because someone gets hurt playing a dangerous game is ridiculous. And fans have to stop insisting on that response, or else start following gentler sports, like tennis.

Milt Schmidt vs. the Maple Leafs

Seventy-five years ago, a wide-eyed 18-year-old boy pulled on a black-and-gold sweater for the first time and skated his first few strides into hockey history. His name was Milton Conrad “Milt” Schmidt.

Last week, before their game with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Boston Bruins honored 92-year-old Milt Schmidt, player, captain, coach, general manager and living symbol of one of the most storied franchises in professional sports.

Milt, along with his boyhood friends Bobby Bauer and Woody Dumart, was part of the fabled “Kraut Line” of the 1930s and 1940s that led the Bruins to two Stanley Cups (in ’39 and ’41). All three are in the Hockey Hall of Fame. God knows how many Cups they would have won if they, like so many other athletes of their generation, had not had their careers derailed by World War II (they served in Europe in the Royal Canadian Air Force). They all survived and returned to play, but never hit the heights again.

After winning the Hart Trophy in 1951 and retiring as a player in 1955, Milt went on to coach the Bruins for 11 years in the 1950s and 1960s, but it was in the front office where he repeated his success on the ice as he was the architect of the “Big Bad Bruins” Stanley Cup-winning teams of 1970 and 1972.

After a brief stint with the Washington Capitals as coach and GM in the mid-1970s, Milt returned to Boston and has been here ever since. He is still active with the Bruins’ alumni team, and can frequently be seen taking in games at the TD Garden.

I have never met him, but I have heard more praise for Milt Schmidt the man than Milt Schmidt the hockey player, which for someone with his resume is difficult to believe. But as I watched the ceremony honoring him on the evening of October 28, I could understand.

Patrice Bergeron, Bobby Orr and Milt Schmidt

Still sharp as a tack, he walked to the podium unassisted and thanked the Bruins and the fans for their love and support. “The spoked B is practically my family crest,” he said. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He was presented with two miniature copies of the Stanley Cup, specially commissioned by the Bruins in conjunction with the Hall of Fame, and hauled his retired Number 15 to the rafters, which he had not had the privilege of doing before (it wasn’t standard practice when his number was retired). Assisting him were not only members of his family (son and daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren), but former Bruins Bobby Orr, Johnny Bucyk, Terry O’Reilly, Ray Bourque and Cam Neely.

We cheered and whistled and shook the rafters, and more than a few tears were shed. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one thinking of Milt’s former teammates, of Bobby Bauer, who died in 1964, and Woody Dumart, who died in 2001. One of the most difficult parts of living such a long life must be leaving behind so many friends and members of your family.

But then I thought of his words about the Bruins, and as I watched the ceremony end, and the past and present Bruins crowd around him for handshakes and hugs, I thought: He still has them. Bobby Orr and Johnny Bucyk are his sons. Cam Neely and Ray Bourque are his grandsons. And Patrice Bergeron and Jordan Caron and Tyler Seguin are his great-grandsons. They — and we, as Bruins fans, and as hockey fans — are his family.

Oh, and the Bruins won the game, of course, 2-0. For Milt.

Photos: Milt Schmidt from bostonbruins.com

More than 25,000 people attended two Bruins/Islanders rookie games this week at TD Garden in Boston. On Wednesday night, I was one of them. Some impressions from a seat five rows behind the Bruins bench:

I’ve been missing hockey, but it hit home with even more force when I saw the first kid wearing the Spoked-B jersey pop onto the ice for pre-game warmups to the appropriate tune of U2′s “Vertigo.” Why does that sight, after so many years, both up and down, still bring a lump to my throat? I don’t know, but from the looks on the kids’ faces (most trying to appear businesslike, but many unable to keep from shooting wide-eyed peeks at the crowd filling the lower bowl of seats), a lot of them shared that feeling.

Tyler Seguin elicited a significant number of screams from teen-age girls. I’m sure his teammates let him hear about it.*

* Actual converstion overheard in bathroom post-game, between apparently clueless teen-age girl, and teen-age girl wearing Lucic T-shirt with “19″ inscribed on both cheeks:

“Who’s 19?”

In disbelieving voice: “Tyler Seguin?”

“Oh, is he cute?”

“Um… yeah.”

“Where’s he from?”

Appalled silence.

The game itself was what you’d expect from a couple of rookie squads — exciting plays, busted plays, end-to-end action, missed shots, awkwardness, brilliance, and, as the game went on, increased belligerence, including several fights, assorted scrums and a large amount of yapping.

All three of the Bruins’ latest first-round picks played well — Seguin (’10), Jordan Caron (’09) and Joe Colborne (’08) — but it was Caron who stole the show by completing a hat trick with 37 seconds left to secure a 5-2 win. (His first goal came off a lovely redirect in front of the net, the second on a Savard-like feed from Seguin on a PP). Hats flew, a perfect capper (haha!) to the night.

The lone sour note came about halfway through the third period when Colborne took a stick in the mouth from teammate Lane MacDermid, who lost control of it when he was elbowed by New York’s Justin Dibenedetto. Bleeding and staggering, Colborne was helped from the ice, but thankfully was fine the next day, albeit with more than 25 stitches in his upper lip. He reportedly wanted to play in the rematch Thursday night but sat out as a precaution.

I didn’t attend the second game but caught some glimpses of the live stream at the Bruins’ web site. Boston won again, 2-1, on two goals by Ryan Spooner (second round, ’10 draft), the last on a breakaway with 30 seconds left in overtime. Cue an even wilder celebration.

Yeah, it’s just a couple of rookie games. Yeah, that’s the closest to the NHL a majority of these kids will ever get. But as a Bruins fan (and as a hockey fan), I couldn’t help but get excited. Because a lot of these kids are the real deal, to say the least.

Russian defenseman Yury Alexandrov was solid, with good positioning and obvious stick skills. Wings Max Sauve and Jamie Arniel displayed amazing wheels. Goalies Adam Courchaine (first game) and Michael Hutchinson (second game) are going to make decisions about their landing spots this fall difficult.

And bottom line, after watching this game, I believe one of the Bruins’ most pressing (yet often overlooked) needs has been addressed: Depth.

Last year, with members of the big club dropping like flies, right through the playoffs, the lack of suitable replacements hobbled the Bruins. Of course, it’s a rare team that has such depth in its system — most can’t afford to stash studs in the minors. But this year, it appears the Bruins just might have the perfect storm of good young players in the AHL, just a one-hour drive south of Boston. Caron, Colborne, Sauve, MacDermid, Alexandrov, Steve Kampfer, Matt Bartkowski, are just a few of the players who’ll be eligible  for the American Hockey League.

The future not only looks amazingly bright, it’ll be here faster than a lot of people think.

Marc Savard: NOT on the block.

The Boston Bruins are shopping Marc Savard!

Trying to pin down the source of rumors is something like trying to find the source of the Nile. It’s a trip through the jungle, with a thousand wrong turns and dead ends. It appears the trickle begain with TSN’s Darren

Dreger, who Tweeted about the Toronto Maple Leafs expressing “some interest” in Savard. But what really turned that trickle into a stream was TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the Grand Poobah of hockey reporting, who said “IF Marc Savard goes to TOR, and there is a chance it may happen, Kaberle won’t be part of it. It would be a ‘softer’ trade.”

Now the stream turned into a veritable flood. The Boston Bruins want to dump Marc Savard because they need to get under the cap!

And then, of course, came all the attendant flotsam and jetsam washing through the airwaves and the Internet. Questions about Savard’s character, about his teammates’ feelings toward him. Rumors that he had requested a trade (later proven untrue), that he’d been asked to waive his no-trade clause (also untrue). Rampant speculation about who he’d be traded FOR.

And under it all, from the more thoughtful hockey fans, a sense that the entire proposal made no sense whatsoever. Why would the Bruins, a team whose offense struggled mightily last year, but a team with legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations, trade their top point-scorer, who had just a few months before signed a cap-friendly deal ($4 million annual hit) with an eye to spending the rest of his career in Boston? In a soft trade, no less, to get under the cap? It just didn’t add up.

Meanwhile, the flood of rumors churned merrily on. Savard is going to Los Angeles. Savard is going to Calgary (for Robyn Regehr). From James Murphy (ESPN.com/Boston): “Interesting tid-bit from one of my most trusted sources: ‘Don’t rule out Chicago and Ottawa trading for Marc Savard.’ Sharp? Spezza?” (Never mind that Spezza’s cap hit is 7 million dollars!!)

Finally, just as Murphy and his merry band of media cohorts were crossing the line from ridiculous to ludicrous, Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun tracked down Savard himself:

“They hurt me a little bit just because I went to Boston and I helped to build that team back up,” Savard said in his first public comments since trade rumors started running rampant. “I’ve really tried to work hard with the young guys and being a core player. I was really focused on staying there for the rest of my career. To hear all this stuff this summer bothered me inside more than anything else. Right now I’m a Bruin and that’s the way it is, but it’s been tough.”

Now the tide began to turn, helped along by Bruins broadcaster Jack Edwards, who wrote an It Would Be Stupid For The Bruins To Trade Marc Savard, And They’re Not Stupid manifesto for NESN.com, which caused

James Murphy: Do you trust this guy?

 James Murphy go into a rage on Twitter, with a rapid-fire series ranging from the likes of “I don’t want them to trade Savard, I was just reporting it!” and “My integrity is being questioned!” to “I got the Nathan Horton deal right!”

But the final word came from Chiarelli, via the Boston Globe, on Sept. 3:

“Chiarelli talked to Savard after reading his comments and told him he would not be traded. Savard had 10 goals and 23 assists in 41 games last season, as he was sidelined by foot, knee, and head injuries. ‘I made it clear that I was not moving him,’ Chiarelli said. ‘I wanted to make sure Marc knew he was part of the organization.’’’

Lessons learned (or remembered):

1. Don’t believe everything you hear/read.
2. If it doesn’t make sense, odds are it won’t happen.
3. Some media are more interested in being first than being right.

Photos: Marc Savard from swerve at bestlaidplans.org; James Murphy from bostonsportsmedia.com

- You buy a copy of THN’s 2010 draft preview issue and watch the NHL draft (both days) while following along with their predictions.

- You get up at 7 a.m. and drive an hour and a half to watch a bunch of 20-year-olds run through skating drills.

Summer hockey! Woohoo!

- You DVR your team’s playoff run on the NHL Network and watch the games they won over and over.

- You keep checking ESPN’s NHL Rumor Central even though you swore you wouldn’t because it’s nothing but speculative bullcrap.

- You read Watership Down and see the rabbits as your favorite players (Bigwig = Zdeno Chara; Dandelion = Marc Savard).

- You vacation in Newport and get giddy on the Cliff Walk because you heard David Krejci visited two weeks prior, and he must have walked there!

David Krejci was here! I think.

- You scour Twitter to find hockey players/media to follow (Mine: Joff Lupul, Scottie Upshall, Mike McKenzie, Bob McKenzie, the Bruins).

Bruins camp opened Tuesday with dry-land testing and training, featuring the dreaded shuttle run. Thirty yards, up and back, eight times. And they do it three times over. In 100-degree heat. ::clunk::

It’s like boot camp, I guess. Physical testing is secondary. I think they just want to put these guys through torture to see how close they come to cracking. Mwahahahaha. Also, by the time they hit the ice (first session is Wednesday afternoon), they’ll probably be so happy/eager to be out there they’ll do anything they’re told. (More evil laughter).

First things first, though. Wednesday morning, I got a Tweet with this picture, before I even got out of bed:

Everybody into the pool!

Jump in with sweatshirts on, tread water, take sweatshirt off, hold over head, put back on, swim to side. (And I’m thinking, what if one of these kids can’t swim? Well, apparently they all can. Thank goodness.)

John Bishop of www.bostonbruins.com is live blogging the camp, and also has provided local media updates here. Day one in a nutshell, the media are swarming around Tyler Seguin (no surprise), his teammates don’t mind (no surprise) and Joe Colborne has taken up the leadership mantle in his third camp (mild surprise).

And in a (sort of) related note, Tyler Seguin has been discovered by the local gossip media. He’s sooo cute!

Sigh.

I’ll be attending camp Friday at the practice arena in Wilmington, so I’ll have a report here. Stay tuned!

Lost B: Vladimir Sobotka skates away

I spent most of the day Saturday watching the second round of the draft and stressing over the Marc Savard trade rumors. Then I received this Tweet from the Bruins:

GM Peter Chiarelli just announced that the Bruins have acquired unsigned draft choice David Warsofsky in exchange for Vladimir Sobotka.

And I cried.

I cried over the Bruins losing Vladimir Sobotka, a little guy with a huge heart, a guy who hits like like a freight train.

The big man in a little man’s body. Or, as he has been dubbed on the Web, the SOB. The Little Ball of Hate. A pest, but not a punk, who plays the game the right way. I always thought of him as a minature bull, charging around, hitting anything bigger than him. Which was pretty much everything.

Used sparingly, moved from role to role (set-up center; checking center; wing), never logging enough ice time, up and down from Providence to Boston, he hung in there and finally got a chance to shine in the first round of the playoffs this year, driving the Sabres mad. Unfortunately, he aggravated a shoulder injury late in the series and was consequently robbed of his effectiveness against Philadelphia, one of myriad (but unreported) Bruins injuries. Sobotka’s ineffectiveness against Philly was ignored in the rush to scream about the Bruins’ collapse, but it was a factor.

And now he’s gone. And the worst part of it, beyond losing a player who was born to wear the Spoked B, is that next to nobody cares. “Garbage in, garbage out,” one message board poster wrote.

How sad. How wrong. How cavalier, not only to disparage a player who laid it on the line every time he stepped on the ice, but to dismiss the feelings of those of us who love him.

Take good care of him, St. Louis. Appreciate him, because he’ll give you everything he’s got. He can’t play any other way.

Photo: Courtesy of swerve/bestlaidplans.org.

It's going to be OK.

I knew when the Bruins lost four straight to the Flyers in the Eastern Conference semifinal that a significant percentage of  Bruins fans were going to go off the deep end, but it’s gone beyond ridiculous. Blogs calling for GM Peter Chiarelli and/or coach Claude Julien to be fired, half the team to be traded, HAVEN’T WE SUFFERED ENOUGH?

Enough already.

What short memories people have. How quickly they forget how mired in mediocrity the Bruins were before the Chiarelli/Julien administration. How many other teams would give anything to be in the Bruins’ situation right now?

I certainly expected frustration and disappointment. I didn’t expect the hysteria and stupidity that is running rampant in New England right now. Even the media has succumbed: Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe (sorry, I’m not going to link his joke of an article) wanted nothing less than an abject apology from Chiarelli at his end-of-season press conference. An apology for what, exactly? A team that was within a hit goalpost (by Milan Lucic, late in Game 7) of moving on to the EC finals despite its players dropping like flies? For not trading half the farm for Ilya Kovalchuk? (Fat lot of good he did for the Devils.) For trading Phil Kessel for Taylor Hall/Tyler Seguin?

I heard a caller to sports radio (yeah, stupid me, but I figured they would have moved on to baseball by now) complain that the Bruins were steamrolling the Flyers in the first three games, and then choked. Already with the revisionist history: The Bruins won the first game 5-4 in overtime, the second 3-2. The score of the third game was 4-1, but that was misleading; it was a one-goal game until late in the third, when a fortuitous bounce put the puck on Mark Recchi’s stick for the third goal, and then Patrice Bergeron added an empty-netter.

Game 4 was a 5-4 Philly win, and the turning point in more ways than one: the Bruins lost David Krejci and the Flyers regained Simon Gagne. Game 5 was the only lopsided game of the series, 4-0 Flyers; then back to one-goal games: Flyers 2-1, and 4-3. Bottom line, this is a series that, with a lucky bounce here or there, could have gone either way. I’m amazed that nobody in the hockey media seems to have pointed this out; guess they’re all too gleeful about the OMG THEY BLEW A 3-0 SERIES LEAD. Yeah, whatever. To paraphrase that noted hockey observer Getrude Stein, a loss is a loss is a loss.

Life goes on. You cry, you pick yourself up, you move on. You don’t let a loss, no matter how devastating, define your career (believe it or not, I actually got into a back-and-forth with a Bruins blogger who is certain this is going to RUIN THE FRANCHISE FOREVER. Seriously.)

Krejci: “It seems like every year we’re getting much closer. We were really close this year but it didn’t happen. Next season everybody is starting from zero points. It’s going to be a new season, new year and everybody’s going to have the same chance, so obviously we’re going to have a good year again, make the playoffs and make a good run.”

Well said. At least the players have some sense, if nobody else does.

Image: Boston Bruins logo from NHL.com.

When “High Sticking” is an Understatement

Anyway, as fans, we can whine and complain about the officials. It’s what we do. And we’ll be sure to note that (obviously) the officials have it in for OUR boys, who are clean-living, honest and reverent, and would never dive, high-stick or surreptitiously punch an opponent.

Coaches, however, are not fans. And a coach should not be whining about the officials. Yes, I’m looking at you, Lindy Ruff.

The officials were not out to get the Buffalo Sabres in their first-round series against the Boston Bruins. Trust me on this. That goalie interference that Ruff whined about in Game 4 was identical to one called on the Bruins in Game 1. In six games, the Bruins were whistled for 34 penalties, the Sabres for 36. And the officials missed calls on BOTH sides.

What Ruff really should cry about is the fact that the Sabres went 0-for-19 on the power play. THAT would be understandable.

But no. At the end of Game 5 in Buffalo, Zdeno Chara was returning to the bench when he was slashed from behind by Paul Gaustad. Chara turned around and punched Gaustad in the face. And Ruff wanted Chara suspended as the instigator. (!)

“It’s a serious risk of an instigator when you come in throwing punches,” said Lindy Ruff. “They’ve got to take a hard look at that. Anything in the last five minutes is stupid to do. I like the fact that we had one grab him around the knees, one guy grab him around the waist, and another guy grab him around the neck. And the big man went down. You get in a situation like that, everybody knows the rules. You can’t start slugging people. That’s exactly what Chara was doing. Our response was good to that play.”

Look, you poke a bear, don’t be surprised (or outraged) when the bear turns around and slugs you back, or worse. Anyway, how Ruff could actually make a statement like that and keep a straight face is beyond me (He LIKED the fact that it took three Sabres to bring Chara down? And while we’re on the subject, where’s the penalty for third – and fourth – man in?)

For the record, Chara was given an automatic suspension, which was rescinded less than an hour after the game (probably amongst laughter and a few “are you kiddings”?). Here’s the official rule:

“An instigator of an altercation shall be a player or goalkeeper who by his actions or demeanor demonstrates any/some of the following criteria: distance traveled; gloves off first; first punch thrown; menacing attitude or posture; verbal instigation or threats; conduct in retaliation to a prior game (or season) incident; obvious retribution for a previous incident in the game or season.”

Um yeah, so no suspension for belting someone who slashes you with two seconds left in the game.

Anyway, the bottom line is, blaming the officials for the failure of a team (and the failure, by extention, of the coach) is childish, classless and embarrassing. Lindy Ruff should be happy he’s not coaching in the NBA, or his wallet would be decidedly lighter. Like, $35,000 lighter.

1. Know the sport. This seems like a given, but I’ve actually known of hockey “fans” who don’t know what icing is. There’s no shame in admitting your ignorance. We all had to start somewhere. Learn the game, THEN you can spout off.

2. Know the players. You don’t have to know the entire roster of every team (even the “experts” don’t), but at the very least you should know your own team.

3. Pronounce their names correctly. You may say you are a Bruins fan, but if you can’t pronounce “Lucic,” you are not a Bruins fan. (Hint: it’s not “Loo-shick.”)

4. Don’t wax nostalgic for the “good old days.” Hockey players are bigger, stronger, faster, and, with a few exceptions, better than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago.

5. Don’t whine that you can’t tell who the players are because they wear helmets. If you can’t tell the difference between Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin because of their helmets, you either never watch hockey, or you’re blind.

5a. And don’t opine that the game would be “better” if the players didn’t wear helmets. That is, in a word, insane.

6. Anyone who leaves a game early deserves this:

7. Don’t play the blame game. The other team doesn’t always score because your guy screwed up. Sometimes, the other guy makes a stupendous play. They get paid too.

8. Sometimes, shit happens. The game is played on ice. The puck bounces around. Guys fall down, the puck takes funny bounces. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes the other guy gets lucky. It’s part of the game.

9. Don’t ever, ever, EVER call an NHL player a pussy. Because, you know, they aren’t. And this is you:

Reportedly during a radio interview yesterday from the NHL general managers’ meeting, you responded to a question about possible discipline regarding Matt Cooke’s hit on Marc Savard Sunday by saying “it wasn’t an elbow.”

Please. Let’s watch the video one more time.

Cooke could have hit Savard with a solid open-ice body check. Instead, he deliberately moved his arm so it made contact with Marc’s head. Whether it was his elbow, shoulder, knee, foot, stick or a tire iron makes no difference (for the record, you can see that it’s neither precisely his elbow nor his shoulder, but somewhere in between that makes the connection). Are you going to make a decision on a suspension based on a few inches? Matt Cooke deliberately attempted to injure Marc Savard, and succeeded. No ifs, and, or buts about it.

I’m certainly not counting on you giving Cooke the 10-game suspension he deserves. Not after you handed Derek Boogard a pathetic two games for a hideous knee-on-knee hit. Not after you ignored Tomas Plekanec butt-ending David Krejci in the face. NHL discipline is, in a word, a joke. But as Marc Savard suffers the pain of a Grade 2 concussion, maybe, just maybe, this time, you’ll do the right thing.

Just imagine this: What if that was Sidney Crosby being carried off the ice on a stretcher? Because if you don’t stop this now, it very well may be, in the very near future.

Sincerely yours,
Savvy