As the General Managers of the NHL gather in sunny Boca Raton, Florida for their annual meeting, Gary Bettman has been hard at work. Between publicly stating that his team of executives was “extraordinarily comfortable” with the decision made to not levy any supplemental discipline on Zdeno Chara and petulantly insulting an NHL sponsor, Bettman has found the time to focus on the true issues at hand and has developed a five step plan to help deter concussions in the NHL. The plan, which was unveiled on March 14, 2011, has five main facets which include the following:
Step 1 – Equipment reform
Step 2 – In-game concussion protocol changes
Step 3 – Fines assessed to the team and the coach of repeat hit-to-the head offenders
Step 4 – An analysis of the 30 NHL arenas by safety engineers
Step 5 – A blue ribbon panel to assess the state of concussions in the league going forward
Those steps all seem to be logical and thought out, no? Except there is just one thing. Where is the step that deters players from delivering hits to the head to begin with? Sure, the repeat offender step is great as it forces teams, coaches and general managers alike to be accountable for the actions of their players or else they will have some price to pay. And sure, the assessment of concussion like symptoms of a player during the game in a quiet room and not on the bench probably should have been instituted years ago.
But how has Bettman addressed players initializing dangerous hits that happen to fall within the current NHL rule book to begin with? He hasn’t. If we had the ability to go back in time and have this five step plan applied to the NHL season at the start of the 2010-2011 year, the only step that could have potentially diminished the impact of the Zdeno Chara hit on Max Pacioretty would be the safety engineer assessing the viability of the stanchions in place across the league. And even at that, there would have been no absolute certainty that those middle stanchions present at the Bell Centre and other arenas in the NHL would have be altered to a 45 degree angle or removed all together. Because at the time, the engineer would not have had the knowledge that one of the most viscous hits in the NHL had taken place with a stanchion playing a key role in a so-called “hockey play”.
As far as step 1 is concerned, if Chara was wearing soft elbow and shoulder pads instead of hard-shell pads when he rammed Pacioretty into the stanchion, nothing would have changed. He used his core body strength and his glove while he illegally interfered, he did not use a hard shell portion of his equipment to inflict injury. So that is also out.
Good thing step 2 was created, because Max Pacioretty would be telling Graham Rynbend fabrications of his true symptoms as he lay on the ice looking like a paraplegic just so he could go back on the ice and play.
And step 5 simply seems to fill the void of what can be compared to the role that an audit committee plays in a public company situation. Evidently Colin Campbell’s and Mike Murphy’s “extraordinarily comfortable” decisions need to be assessed but what can be characterized as an independent committee.
But this committee wouldn’t have helped Max Pacioretty. These steps wouldn’t have changed a thing. So what has Betteman really done? Absolutely nothing.
Until the NHL recognizes that they need to place a significant deterrent for players to really think twice before leveling a hit on a player in a compromising situation, nothing will change. The most significant deterrent would be in a player’s wallet and a suspension that lasts long enough to make a player go a little stir crazy.
Thanks for nothing, Bettman. Enjoy that first class seat on an Air Canada flight.
