Hockey Rhetoric

In sports like hockey, winning is what observers use to measure success. Similar to most other competitive endeavors, winning in hockey is relative to its environment and every year the competition changes; players switch teams and grow older; managers and coaches get replaced. But the most volatile aspect of this business – not to mention the one that has perhaps has the greatest influence on success – is in the collective motivation of the players that make up individual teams. The sports industry is about as pure of a meritocracy as there is. Each team is saturated with talent and strong coaching. Eventually what separates the teams that win from the teams that lose is how motivated they are to win. It’s not that the losers don’t care so much as the winners want it so bad, they can’t even finish a bowl of Fruity Pebbles without thinking at least twenty times of their names being engraved on the hardware. » Read the rest of this entry «

I’ll be honest, I was upset after Chris Neil tried to take Chris Drury’s head off three years ago. I’m obviously biased but it seemed like Neil deliberately targeted Drury and used his elbow as a weapon. Chaos ensued and the league did nothing. I don’t know if it’s coincidental but not even a year after the Neil/Drury hit, Patrick Kaleta joined the team. Maybe Neil wouldn’t have been looking for trouble had Pat Kaleta been on the Sabres at that time. I find myself fascinated with Kaleta. More than anything else, his presence on the team represents a physical threat to break someone’s forehead, legally, at any time. So everyone better behave, or else. What once was a job handled by fighters has been taken over by punishing, and at times dangerous, body checkers. Should that really be necessary?

It doesn’t have to be a player of prominence like Drury, but it could be and that’s all that matters. If it’s clean, if it’s dirty, it doesn’t make a difference because injuries happen on both. Granted, their more likely to happen and are generally more severe on dirty hits. A broken bone is one thing but some hits, especially those to he head, are threatening the life and well-being of the player that is being hit. After it happens, the circumstances are irrelevant; the hit was delivered, and the injury sustained. » Read the rest of this entry «