The good news is that the NHL has noticed and recently began serious talks of change. It’s encouraging to read a report like this . Here’s a few things I’d like to see happen:

• Colin Campbell must take a lesser role. Currently he’s the Director of Hockey Operations. He’s basically the leagues principal disciplinarian. He really hasn’t done a very good job lately, in my opinion. I understand the punishment that he distributes reflects the current rules but the fact that his office treats star players differently than ordinary role players is unacceptable. Plus, his son is a player in the NHL ! Talk about a conflict of interest. I’m sure he’s professional but how can emotions not get involved some of the time? He’s human. I’m sorry, but someone with such a powerful position who needs to have an unbiased outlook on all players, can’t have an immediate family member within that group. The league needs someone new making these decisions.

• Publicize the rule changes to players, coaches, managers, owners, media, and fans. There can’t be any more media members watch a hit and unanimously say this incident will be a suspension of five games then tomorrow we find out there’s no suspension at all. Everyone has a different interpretation of the rules. It’s chaos. Unbiased observers can’t decide whether the hit is fair or not and they certainly can’t predict what the league is going to do about it. There’s no standard.

• Make the following illegal. Any hit delivered to a player from behind in which the player receiving the check is unable to realistically protect himself. That’s different from a player that has his head down. Hits made from behind are totally unexpected. Hits should only be made on players that have the puck or had the puck just moments before. Players that do not have the puck are not expecting to be in a situation where they must protect themselves. Also, any hit where the head absorbs the majority of the contact. This is obvious. Body checks have to be done safely. It’s like blocking someone in football by taking out there knees. It’s just cheap and unsafe.

• Increase and standardize the punishment. I realize that hits from behind are already illegal and are already considered a penalty but these situations need to be handled differently than a tripping infraction. I suggest that the first time something like this happens, the league office issues an official warning. After that, the next incident is a ten game suspension and every incident after that is twenty games. In the playoffs, a player who has been warned should be suspended for the rest of the playoff series. No more of this discussion of whether the player should get three games or two games or five games. Just make it the same across the board and make it severe. Mistakes happen on the ice, but some players are habitual offenders. Those are the players that need to be reprimanded. As far as knee on knee hits and other obscure dirty plays like a deliberate elbow or something of that matter, the current disciplinary policy seems to address those incidents well.

All these changes are done for two reasons. (1) Players need to be given a fair opportunity to protect themselves and (2) they need to be checked in a way that is safe. I think we can all agree that protecting players is in everyone’s best interest. And to the hockey purists/traditionalists: I refuse to believe that the intensity with which hockey is played will be sacrificed if the league takes a renewed approach to safety.

Update:

I just got an email that raises a good point. There will always be a lot of ambiguity in what qualifies as a suspendible hit and what is considered legal. There will always be players that push the limits. That’s why the punishment should be severe. After the new boundary is established, players will back off. Implementing new rules with stricter punishments restricts the margins. In a few years after the new rules, fans will no doubt be discussing the difference between a hit on a player who has the puck and a hit on a player who passed the puck just a half second before he was hit. Should the latter be legal, they’ll wonder. If that’s the new margin between questionably legal hits and illegal hits, I can live with that. There shouldn’t even be a discussion as to whether or not a defenseless hit to the head is legal or not which at the present is basically what the league disciplinary committee must determine. The stakes are too high, in my opinion. Just accept that ambiguity will always exist in a league that must rely on a subjective opinion to enforce rules. Some actions though shouldn’t be legally ambiguous. They should be declared as totally unacceptable and intolerable.

Looking back, I think that one of the reasons I kept my hair longer than most was because of how insecure I felt about my appearance as a teenager. It wasn’t that I was overly insecure, this was just how I dealt with those feelings. When something matters so much, like personal appearances did at that age, one thing you can do to reduce potentially hurtful judgment from others is to do something that proves you’re immune to that kind of criticism. People couldn’t criticize my appearance because by growing my hair out it sent the message that my appearance was of little concern to me. Actually, just like everyone else, it was of concern to me, this was just one of the ways I managed those feelings of insecurity.

* * *

I came across a video the other day that made my jaw drop. Then it broke my heart.

This is Stefani Germanotta, a former NYU student, performing two of her totally original songs . You know her now as the famous Lady Gaga. What the hell happened, you’re probably wondering?

Of course I can only speculate but it seems to me that the way in which Germanotta battled her insecurities as a creative musician and a young adult, was to concede to what the pop culture machine wanted to make her into. And now she has lousy songs and a sleazy image attached to her name. To her, she’s probably still that same person she was on stage the night of that NYU talent show. But the world never sees that side of her anymore.

* * *

Everyone at some point in their lives — usually when we’re adolescents or teenagers or young adults — are attracted to the hipster culture (not like in the ’50s sense but behaving like a social critic, sorta). This is when we’re defining ourselves and creating our identity. At this time, we are acutely aware of what we feel is cool and what is cliche. Think about the irony that’s at the core of being a hipster. And at the core of irony, in the context of creating an identity, is loathing.

“I really hate when people label me a bookworm so I’m going to lie and insist I don’t read or study when infact it’s pretty much all I do.”

So how is it that we even begin to loathe something? Well that’s leading into a nature/nurture discussion. Without getting too over the top with all this, I consider loathing to be a cocktail of sorts with different mixtures of fear, ignorance, and anger. During a personal transition period, these feelings are awakened because we’re adjusting the identity we previously created or were in the process of creating. The fact of the matter is, we fear change, we’re ignorant of what’s really ahead, and we’re a little pissed off that we’re loosing some of the stability in our lives. Those are strong feelings and are very difficult to acknowledge, let alone manage. You better believe they can effect our actions in real life. They can make us do bizarre and uncharacteristic things.

* * *

I think we all need to remember that, when we watch young professional athletes. Tyler Myers is 19-years-old. Remember Patrick Kane ? These are young adults that are suddenly put under a tremendous amount of pressure to perform a game based on a great deal of luck and fortune. There is no substitute for experience. They may understand what to expect, but you can’t prepare yourself for the emotions you’re going to feel in the moment and after.

From a fans perspective, there is so much ambiguity in predicting the performance of an athlete that most expectations are often inaccurate. There will be signs, but even those can be misleading. They’re human, after all. And with the high pressure nature of professional sports, insecurities, that everyone has, can be particularly troublesome for all players to overcome, particularly for the younger ones. You always hear coaches tell rookies and young players to keep it simple so mistakes are minimized and to forget about them quickly when they’re made. Who knows though how players are going to react after crisis moments that, by the way, are absolutely inevitable? I think we can all come up with four or five players formerly or currently on the Sabres that had trouble managing their response to crisis, veterans and rookies. Everybody is different. It’s how they respond that matters.

They could do what Stefani Germanotta did and become something that they’re not. Instead of allowing people to judge her for who she really is and risking the possibility of being disliked, criticized or even hated, she wears costumes and sings provocatively about sex because in this society there is a large preexisting group that will accept you with open arms for that.

What’s the best way to overcome and manage these insecurities digging at our emotional bellies during our most vulnerable moments? Granted, I’m not a professional athlete or talented musician but for me, it was learning to not be so fucking hard on myself. Along the same lines, there’s no reason to fear a friend or family member or audience member or fan’s reaction because ultimately their response can never change an action or choice you already made. Just process these things and move forward, assuming your judgment is clear. If that’s the case, trust your instincts but know your limitations too. Then, after reaching a margin, try and expand it through knowledge and by the accumulation of experiences. Actions based on ignorance will lead down dangerous roads. With regards to your flaws, be honest and acknowledge them like you would a stain on a shirt. Just wash it out, don’t be lazy and let the shirt sit in the corner of your bedroom where the stain will soak in. It’s okay , everyone has flaws. Accept and manage them.

The worst thing you can do is cover up and ignore your flaws by becoming someone that you’re not out of fear that once you present your genuine, flawed self, you might make a mistake and, worse, someone might criticize or hate you for it.

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.

The idea is to avoid all that nonsense altogether, right? I mean, Kaleta is a great player, but I’d rather see him lay someone out who has the puck, as a means of separating him from the puck. Instead, because of the way the league is enforced, his role is primarily that of a statement player – a threat that reminds opponents what goes around, comes around. If you hit one of the Sabres best players at any time, for any reason, Kaleta will return the favor.

You know what the Florida Panthers do not have? They don’t have a Pat Kaleta type player. So when Mike Richards was on the ice last Friday, he was willing to take a chance for a big play and lined David Booth up in the middle of the ice for a ferocious hit . Bad things always happen when players skating across the ice make contact with players skating up the ice because the head is always vulnerable in that position.

There are a couple things I want to say about this hit. First of all, the hit itself looks technically fair and legal. Richards made contact with his shoulder, not his elbow. He didn’t jump into Booth. Even though Richards’ feet left the ground after contact, it was clearly the collision that caused his skates to leave the ice. That’s about all I liked about the hit though. The timing was awful. Booth had passed the puck (and was on his linemates stick) long before Richards even initiated contact. Clearly, Richards didn’t anticipate that Booth would slide the puck over to his winger. The game speed is very fast in hockey and it would be impossible to expect Richards to recognize the pass and change his course. Had Booth held onto the puck he probably would have seen Richards approaching. Everything could have been different.

But things didn’t work out the way Richards planned or expected. The hit was late and struck a vulnerable, unsuspecting Booth in the head. I’m not suggesting that contact needs to be down-scaled. There are plenty of opportunities to deliver hard, fair hits in this game. I think we all can agree though that the type of hit that Richards delivered does not belong in the NHL. Hits like that should never happen. The NHL is sending the wrong message to players and fans by continuing to allow it.

Not only are they allowing it, but they’re enabling it. Richards was not suspended for the hit which I find to be ridiculous. The evidence of the hit being late is irrefutable. Whether or not Richards meant for the hit to be late is not important. I haven’t seen anything about his game that suggests he’s a dirty player but again the fact of the matter is the hit was late. What does intent have to do with what happened? He took a chance in hopes of making a big play. Richards made a choice and the league should stand up and say, okay, you took a chance and while your intent was tolerable, the result is not and for that reason you’re suspended.

The league maintains that Richards’ hit did not reflect an intent to injure. If that’s the only standard the league uses when considering suspensions as it appears to be, then I don’t agree with it. If Richards’ hit falls into what is considered acceptable by league standards, then they need to be changed. Two things: (1)The league needs to set higher infractions for hits to the head and for (2) hits to unsuspecting players who don’t have control of the puck. This seems obvious to me but apparently not the NHL. These are just the issues brought about by the Richards hit on Booth.

It sucks that this is such a large enough issue that I felt I had to write about it. These incidents (usually involving the boards) happen every year and the media does a good enough job addressing it. Eventually the sentiment of hockey being a contact sport overrules the plea for head safety. No one wants to see contact leave the sport but where do we draw the line? An unsuspecting hit to the head seems like a good place to me. I’m willing to sacrifice some clean body shots if it meant we wouldn’t see any more of these devastating collisions to the head.

Why wouldn’t the league want to protect their players? I don’t have an answer. The NHL is controlled by too many purists and not enough sensible innovators. Their leadership has held the progress of this league back for years. I find myself feeling frustrated by it. Just as much to blame though is the players union. This is their issue more than the leagues. Too bad they seem completely inept and totally dysfunctional.

What is it going to take? Does someone have to die? It’s not unreasonable to say it could happen. It might happen in fact if these dangerous hits are allowed to continue.