NHL: Reckless, violent, corrupt, collusive (an open letter to CNN)

I am a hockey fan of the storied Montreal Canadiens (and share my love with the Chicago Blackhawks as well). However my allegiance is redundant at this very moment.

The NHL has broken my hockey heart with it’s failure to even give us the notion that it cares one of it’s players was nearly killed on the ice in front of 21-thousand people who saw it live and millions watching from their televisions. It was seven years to the very day when Todd Bertuzzi ended Steve Moore’s career, a similar notion of escalation and the inaction of the League. A rising star in the USA hockey program, Max Pacioretty, was within millimeters of paralysis and is now a victim of gross injustice as the NHL is trying desperately to sweep it under the rug.

When I heard one of your reporters was told to vacate the room after the Bruins lost to the Islanders on Friday, March 11, I was happy to hear CNN took an interest in the story. “It wasn’t a hockey related question,” I believe the reporter was told yet VP of Hockey Operations Mike Murphy deemed the incident a hockey play (which it wasn’t). The injustice Pacioretty is enduring right now is just a tip of the corruption and collusion that muddles the NHL, and I’m hoping said reporter doesn’t give up on the issue.

The failure to suspend or even fine Zdeno Chara, captain of the Boston Bruins, sets a dangerous precedent. However it’s not shocking to us who know how the NHL works. Everyone stands up for their friends and alienates their enemies, a notion further solidified by the NHL giving the giant Bruins captain a free pass. Everyone knew Chara was “out to get” Pacioretty because of a little tap on the back Pacioretty delievered after he scored a game winning goal three games ago in the season series. (Dialogue from the Bruins room to the media and on Twitter prior to the game added fuel to this notion). It was such a minor tap from a guy moving forward celebrating victory who was suddenly faced with the back of a player moving slowly and in his way that we barely gave it a second thought. It was public knowledge that Chara was extremely insulted by such actions as minor as they were.

The next meeting between the two teams was an 8-6 Bruins victory slug fest that got uglier as the game went on. We saw noted fighters beating on non-fighting veterans, and witnessed Gregory Campbell use his elbow pad as a weapon to pound Canadiens forward Tom Pyatt’s face. All through the game, Chara was after Pacioretty but only when he thought no one could see him go after him. A scrum behind the Canadiens net that started when one of the Canadiens defencemen was hit after the whistle on an icing call (which is a penalty) had Pacioretty remove his friend Steve Kampfer from the pile because the first thing hockey players do is find their friends on the ice to take care of each other. Chara came into the scrum and jumped Pacioretty from behind and started to engage combat while Pacioretty was holding on to his friend and fell down. Chara was guilty of “the third man” rule there, however the officials didn’t throw him out of the game even though that’s the rule. Moments later while on the power-play, Pacioretty was slashed in the back of the knee by Chara so viciously that he could barely make it to the bench and had to leave the game for a long time. Chara was not penalized for the vicious slash. As the game ended, Bruins defencemen Adam McQuaid tried to engage Pacioretty in a fight who wanted nothing to do with it as the game was almost over. According to the rules, if you attempt to insitigate a fight with 5 minutes left in the game you are automatically suspended.

No suspensions came from this gong show, not even the automatic suspensions as per dictated by the rules. (A day or two later, a similar gong show happened in Long Island between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Islanders, also from escalation). I suppose it wasn’t enough for Chara’s revenge on the nothing-love tap because Pacioretty is now stuck at home with a broken neck.

And the NHL’s ineptitude leaves us all wondering: Is it over? Are they done? Are the satisfied now? Who will be next? Will they break Benoit Pouliot’s neck for accepting a fight with Bruins’ David Krejci and one-punch KO-ing him clean and respectfully not engaging with him after that? Because in the very same game Chara broke Pacioretty’s neck, the very large and strong Boston forward Milan Lucic hooked and speared at Pouliot and wanted to engage in a fight with barely three minutes left in the game the Canadiens were winning 4-1.

Somehow I don’t see the NHL telling the Bruins that enough is enough, and I don’t understand why the coaches (two of which used to work for the Canadiens) refuse to keep their players under control. Perhaps under marching orders from management who believe violence sells?  The failure to reprimand the Bruins or their players (for the most part, it’s special rules for special players) smells of the corruption and hints at the collusion that the NHL finds itself buried in.

Let us recap some facts:

• Jeremy Jacobs, owner of the Boston Bruins, is also Chairman of the Board of Governors. Board of Governors hired Commissioner Gary Bettman, and Jacobs has the final word. A 5-year 7-million dollar extension was quietly negotiated at the start of the season for Bettman’s contract.
• Gregory Campbell is the son of Senior VP and Director of Hockey Operations, Colin Campbell, and plays for the Boston Bruins. Colin Campbell is the NHL’s principle disciplinarian. Earlier this year, emails sent by Campbell to then Director of Officiating Stephen Walkom were discovered where Campbell complained about the work of referees who gave his son penalties. Despite all controversy and admiting to the inapproriate content and accusations of biased behaviour, Campbell still retained his job and was strongly supported by the NHL.
• When cases involve the Bruins, Campbell gives the disciplinarian power to his second in command, Mike Murphy. There really is no outside party involved in any disciplinary action the League must take. Mike Murphy did not speak to Pacioretty concerning the incident, and only took one side of the story, thus oblivious to the “history” of the matter.
• While Pacioretty remains in a neck brace from the extra shove Chara gave to his head to put him into the stanchion (a stanchion which is present 4 times in every arena because there will always be a section where the glass ends and the benches begin), Gary Bettman lies to Congress about the concussion situations in the NHL being unfortunate accidents.
• Trevor Gillies’ assault on an unsuspecting Eric Tangradi for elbowing to the head, trying to engage in a fight with the injured player on the ice, and then taunting that player as he stood on the side gave him a 9-game suspension. Sean Avery’s “sloppy seconds” comment towards his ex-girlfriend gave him a 6-games suspension. James Wisniewski’s lewd gesture towards Sean Avery in a game gave him a 2-game suspension. A reckless hit resulting in a broken neck that could have paralysed a player or even killed him results in…nothing.
• The very next game the Bruins played, Zdeno Chara was given a standing ovation by the Bruins faithful on his first shift, and then Chara promptly pushed ex-teammate Steve Montador of the Buffalo Sabres from behind into the boards, taking a boarding penalty.

In Pacioretty’s case, he’s one lucky kid. Of course there are countless analysts putting their spin on the incident, pontificating the “what ifs”. What if it were at center ice? Well, Pacioretty’s neck wouldn’t be broken and he’d still be playing, until probably the next Bruins game where Chara would continue to attack him and who knows what would happen then. What if it were in the corner, or anywhere else by the glass? Well, Pacioretty would have had a chance to maybe protect himself a little better, however because he was left with nowhere to go due to the interference by Chara he wasn’t. (Also take note, since the lockout, the rules have changed for zero tolerance to interference, so Mike Murphy calling this a hockey play gone wrong is false. The puck was long gone and Chara’s partner had already recovered possession of the puck with 15 seconds left to play in the second period). No one mentions the biggest “what if” though: What if this were Brian Gionta? Pacioretty’s a big kid. If that were 5’7″ Brian Gionta, he’d be dead and the League would have a case of involuntary manslaughter on its hands.

We the fans can blog and talk all we want about it but our abilities are limited. All we want is for the NHL to be more severe with their punishments in accordance to dangerous, reckless hits much in the same way the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and Ontario Hockey League has adapted. There was a time when we looked upon the Bruins as our favourite enemy, our prime rival team. Many of us fans of the Canadiens have friends who are Bruins fans and we commonly get together to enjoy the games between our two teams as they are the oldest surviving rivalry in hockey. Now I find it hard to even give the team that respect.

Perhaps it’s funny to the rest of the world how this incident has completely galvanized not just a city but an entire people but what most fail to realize is up here, hockey is everything. It’s the one thing that brings us all together regardless of language and origin, and the players of OUR Canadiens become a part of one large extended family.

The city of Montreal is commonly known as the cradle of organized sports, the birthplace of hockey and the beginning of the NHL a little over 100 years ago. We don’t like what we’re seeing right now. We don’t like watching the Trevor Gillies of the world assault players as they rack up more suspensions than games played. We don’t want to see more players carted off the ice unconscious and on a stretcher. We don’t want to hear the sickening sound of a player’s head hitting a wall. We don’t enjoy seeing parents on TV carry their crying children out of arenas because they believe a player has died. And what’s sad about it all is that this was predicted.

The well respected Ken Dryden, former player and current member of Parliament, predicted the escalation in violence back when the Philadelphia Flyers were allowed to run rampant and bully their way to victory. (The League didn’t stop them, but a player did. It took a hard, clean hit that nearly broke the Montreal Forum to stop them albeit temporarily in the 1970s).

We the fans of this great sport want our hockey back. And right now we feel we’re screaming at a wall and are flabbergasted how such a traumatic event wasn’t enough to make the League really show us they care about what’s going on like they claimed last year when we pressured them to change the rules long after the Mike Richards/David Booth and Matt Cooke/Marc Savard incidents. However a strongly respected news network such as yourself has the power to investigate these claims further and tell the world the truth about the hypocrites that run and ruin the NHL who have continuously abandoned their players when they needed support the most. After all, any business that disregards its “product” fails miserably in the end.

I apologize for the length of my letter, and I thank you for listening. Whether you proceed with the investigation or not, I still thank you for hearing my voice.

Thank you,

Charlotte Niedzviecki

Montreal, Quebec, Canada