CHICAGO — There’s nothing normal about hockey’s norms.
This is the only team sport in which full-blown fistfights are not just condoned, they’re also romanticized, woven into the very fabric of the game. It’s a sport in which players routinely play with shattered teeth, broken fingers, bloodied faces. Clean hits are met with vicious retaliation, and empty net slap shots are met with cross-checks to the face. It’s a modern game of incredible skill, speed and athleticism, but much of its charm is found in its throwback viciousness, an inherent meanness that harks back to another era.
So maybe it really wasn’t a big deal when the Colorado Avalanche’s Josh Manson lunged forward and hacked Connor Bedard’s wrist with a two-handed chop of his stick in the third period Thursday night. That’s hockey, right? “It’s a great play,” former Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Brent Sopel, as tough a player as they come, wrote in reply to the video on Twitter. “Big boy hockey.”
Was it, though?
What could possibly be the purpose of this slash to the wrist/hand other than intent to injure? https://t.co/5koT5YI0ZC
— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) March 1, 2024
Bedard didn’t have the puck. It was miles behind the play. It was a sneak attack from behind when Bedard wasn’t looking. And it was right on one of the most vulnerable parts of a hockey player’s body — no chance that was a coincidence — just below the glove, right on the wrist bone. Regardless of whether it was retaliation or intimidation — nobody in the Blackhawks dressing room seemed to know — there’s no possible purpose to the slash other than an intent to injure. Bedard escaped without injury, but he was doubled over in pain afterward, so you know Manson hit his spot.
This is big-boy hockey? Really? A sucker slash from behind seems more cowardly than macho, no?
Regardless of what side of The Discourse you find yourself on, it is part of the game. Always has been.
“It happens every game,” 17-year NHL veteran Nick Foligno said. “It’s just magnified because it’s (Bedard). Obviously, we don’t want anyone taking liberties on him, but it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen again. Bedsy’s going to have to learn to play through some things. Every player has. Connor McDavid had to learn to play through all the cross-checks and whacks he gets. Sid (Crosby), too. It’s the reality of the game.”
He’s right. But why do we allow it to be the reality of the game? To appeal to the old-school fans clinging to a more archaic and violent form of the sport, one that’s been gradually getting memory-holed for two decades now? There are fewer fights, there’s less clutching and grabbing, and goons who can barely skate have all but gone extinct, and the game is so much better for it. Yet the hockey world still shrugs its shoulders when it comes to protecting its players, particularly its best ones. Crime, boy, I don’t know.
Hockey doesn’t have to be this way. Hockey doesn’t have to accept this. Hockey can be a sport that prioritizes its stars. Not enough people are tuning in as it is, but the ones who are tuning in are doing so to see the Connor Bedards of the world make magic, not the Josh Mansons of the world trying to injure guys for … reasons. Who really wants this nonsense? Who benefits from it?
Yes, this is what hockey is. But should it be?
“Is it and should it be might be different answers,” Blackhawks center Jason Dickinson said. “I mean, it is. It happens all the time. But should it? Probably not. Because guys get hurt that way and miss time. It’s not anything you want to see when it’s blatantly intentional like that. If a guy has the puck, it’s a different situation, where I’m trying to get the puck. Maybe that’s an opportunity to get an extra little bump on him or even a little whack. But whacking a guy with your stick like that in that situation is not something I’m keen on.”
If Manson was sending a…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .