Author’s Note: The recent injury to pro hockey player Richard Zednik has re-opened the debate of if the NHL should require it’s players to wear protective neck guards. For the purposes of today’s article, I have turned to an anonymous hockey player to get his opinion. I have supplied footnotes where need be.
No, I don’t think we need neckguards. Why the hell would we?
Look at it like this: all it took to slice open Zednik’s neck was a skate that had been flipped up in the air. It was an accident. It doesn’t happen all the time. Hasn’t happened since that goalie got kicked in the neck like 25 years ago.(1)
But no doubt that the sportwriters will all say we need them now. Neckguards. They’re what, two inches high? Padded with foam?(2) That’s not going to stop anything. When that defenceman got hit in the neck(3), a neckguard wouldn’t have stopped that.
Did you know that even the minor leagues don’t have neckguards(4)? That’s right, when I played major junior back out west in Moose Jaw, we didn’t have to wear them. When I was in the minors last spring, I didn’t have to either.
I haven’t had to wear a neckguard since I was 16 years old, back in Sudbury.
So why should I have to now? Why should I be punished?
Yeah, that’s right – punished. Treated like a kid. If I want to wear a neckguard, like if I want to wear a visor, it’s up to me and only me.
Look, I’ve been playing hockey my whole life. I think I know better then some jock-sniffer, sitting way up in the rafters, who’s never played a game in his life.
Let me lay it out for you. In baseball, people get hit by pitches all the time. In fact, a guy died from it a while back(5). But they don’t wear chest pads or a mask, just a helmet(6).
Small wonder that they call baseball the man’s game(7).
**************
1 – Clint Malarchuk, a goalie for the Buffalo Sabres, had his jugular vein cut by the skate of Steve Tuttle in 1989. His life was saved by the immediate actions of trainer Jim Pizzutelli. Afterwards, the NHL started to require all goalies to wear neck protection.
2 – Most neck guards are actually padded with Kevlar.
3 – Montreal Canadiens defenceman Trent McCleary was hit in the neck by a slapshot in 2000, resulting in a fractured larynx. After his neck began to swell up, he underwent an emergency tracheotomy. He retired shortly afterward. He was not wearing a neck guard.
4 – Of the three CHL major-junior leagues, only the QMJHL requires neck guards. The AHL does not require neck guards.
5 – He’s either talking about Ray Chapman, who died in 1920 after being struck by a pitch in the head, or Michael Marano, a 12-year old player who died after being hit in the chest by a pitch in 1994. Chapman's death led to a number of rule changes, such as the elimination of the spitball. However, Marano's was quickly forgotten in the light of the baseball strike.
6 - They're not required by the MLB, but you can buy batting helmets with masks and both leg and arm guards. Barry Bonds is the best known user of such equipment.
7 - I don’t think anybody calls it this.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Friday, February 08, 2008
In his own way, Kevin Hart got what he wanted
To be a two-star lineman in the US high school system is usually an end to it’s own road. Maybe you go to a college someplace, some small school, but usually that where the path ends for your football career.
You have to move on. Adopt a team, cheer for them on Sundays. Maybe even play some touch football in the summer, but it’s really about it.
But, people have dreams. Kevin Hart had one, and it ate him alive.
“I wanted to play D-1 ball more then anything,” said Hart in a statement where he admitted his story was a fabrication.
“When I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I made up what I wanted to be reality.”
He told anybody who would listen about how he was recruited by Cal and by Oregon. He told a gym full of people, he told TV cameras. He made a show of it all, with two hats on a table and a pause.
Thing was, neither school wanted him. Or knew who he was.
Lies can destroy things. They build up, each one demanding another to validate it, until it’s too much for one man to bear. It happens from time to time. Just look at Stephen Glass, Jay Foreman or Jayson Blair.
They all got tangled up in their own lies. They have all paid quite heavily for it.
To be recruited by a big-name football program is a big deal in the US. It’s to be known all over the country by fanatics of the sport, to be seen on television and maybe, just maybe, can give you a shot at a pro career. ESPN even has a special day of programming, just for when high school seniors commit to a school.
And it gives you all the attention you want. What Hart appears to have wanted.
They say that nobody works harder then offensive line, slogging away in the trenches for little acclaim. They don’t win the Heisman, they don’t get lucrative deals from pro teams and they rarely, if ever, get their picture in the paper.
But ironically, by lying to everybody, Hart has already got more attention then he would have ever got at Cal or Oregon as a lineman. In a way, he’s gotten what he was looking for all along.
Funny, isn’t it.
You have to move on. Adopt a team, cheer for them on Sundays. Maybe even play some touch football in the summer, but it’s really about it.
But, people have dreams. Kevin Hart had one, and it ate him alive.
“I wanted to play D-1 ball more then anything,” said Hart in a statement where he admitted his story was a fabrication.
“When I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I made up what I wanted to be reality.”
He told anybody who would listen about how he was recruited by Cal and by Oregon. He told a gym full of people, he told TV cameras. He made a show of it all, with two hats on a table and a pause.
Thing was, neither school wanted him. Or knew who he was.
Lies can destroy things. They build up, each one demanding another to validate it, until it’s too much for one man to bear. It happens from time to time. Just look at Stephen Glass, Jay Foreman or Jayson Blair.
They all got tangled up in their own lies. They have all paid quite heavily for it.
To be recruited by a big-name football program is a big deal in the US. It’s to be known all over the country by fanatics of the sport, to be seen on television and maybe, just maybe, can give you a shot at a pro career. ESPN even has a special day of programming, just for when high school seniors commit to a school.
And it gives you all the attention you want. What Hart appears to have wanted.
They say that nobody works harder then offensive line, slogging away in the trenches for little acclaim. They don’t win the Heisman, they don’t get lucrative deals from pro teams and they rarely, if ever, get their picture in the paper.
But ironically, by lying to everybody, Hart has already got more attention then he would have ever got at Cal or Oregon as a lineman. In a way, he’s gotten what he was looking for all along.
Funny, isn’t it.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Super Bowl, Super Team
It was under the watchful eyes of FBI sharpshooters that the New York Giants defence crushed them under a pile of blue jerseys, keeping their high-powered offense off the field, running down the clock.
Their offence, neither great nor bad, did it’s job, keeping the ball in the hands of the Giants.
And although the game came down to just one play, a last minute field goal, it was a sign of the Giant’s superb defence, which kept it as close as it was.
But that was in 1991, at Super Bowl XXV.
The Giants then, as now, were a huge underdog to a powerful AFC team, the Buffalo Bills. The Bills offence was one of the best ever, led by Jim Kelly, who threw for over 2,800 yards and 24 touchdowns, most of them to Andre Reed .
And on the surface, the Patriots seem a lot like the Bills.
But they’re not.
That Bills team didn’t have the depth, especially in the receiving corps, that this Patriots team does. You have a hall-of-fame receiver in Randy Moss, a deep threat in Dante Stallworth a short threat in Wes Welker.
Most importantly, you have a phenomenal runner in Lawrence Maloney who can chew up the clock and keep the Giants off the field.
This season’s Giants are far from the 1990 Giants as well. They do not have the crushing defence they had then. They do not have the offense that can burn down the clock.
However, they do have a good QB who’s been hot this postseason. They have two good wideouts who are a good downfield threat. And they have a kicker who, under tremendous pressure, didn’t fold.
Which could be all the difference. Remember, Adam Vinitari won the Patriots a Super Bowl. Scott Norwood lost one for the Patriots.
At the same time, though, I haven’t listened to the hype this year. I’ve barely watched Sportscenter, haven’t watched any pre- or post-game show since the end of the NFC Championship game.
I still haven’t seen any clips of Tom Brady’s booted foot (which already seems like it happened a month ago).
But I don’t think I need to, lest I get caught up in the hype.
At the end of the day, it boils down to just one thing. The Patriots are maybe the best team I’ve ever seen, and I hate them for it.
I hate the ease in which they score, I hate the way their defence covers up any mistakes Brady makes and I hate just how good they are.
I don’t feel any which way about the Giants, which is never a good thing.
I may hate the Patriots, but I have a reason to, since they are such a good team. And although I’m trying to be objective here, I’m going to take them to win.
My pick: Patriots over Giants
Their offence, neither great nor bad, did it’s job, keeping the ball in the hands of the Giants.
And although the game came down to just one play, a last minute field goal, it was a sign of the Giant’s superb defence, which kept it as close as it was.
But that was in 1991, at Super Bowl XXV.
The Giants then, as now, were a huge underdog to a powerful AFC team, the Buffalo Bills. The Bills offence was one of the best ever, led by Jim Kelly, who threw for over 2,800 yards and 24 touchdowns, most of them to Andre Reed .
And on the surface, the Patriots seem a lot like the Bills.
But they’re not.
That Bills team didn’t have the depth, especially in the receiving corps, that this Patriots team does. You have a hall-of-fame receiver in Randy Moss, a deep threat in Dante Stallworth a short threat in Wes Welker.
Most importantly, you have a phenomenal runner in Lawrence Maloney who can chew up the clock and keep the Giants off the field.
This season’s Giants are far from the 1990 Giants as well. They do not have the crushing defence they had then. They do not have the offense that can burn down the clock.
However, they do have a good QB who’s been hot this postseason. They have two good wideouts who are a good downfield threat. And they have a kicker who, under tremendous pressure, didn’t fold.
Which could be all the difference. Remember, Adam Vinitari won the Patriots a Super Bowl. Scott Norwood lost one for the Patriots.
At the same time, though, I haven’t listened to the hype this year. I’ve barely watched Sportscenter, haven’t watched any pre- or post-game show since the end of the NFC Championship game.
I still haven’t seen any clips of Tom Brady’s booted foot (which already seems like it happened a month ago).
But I don’t think I need to, lest I get caught up in the hype.
At the end of the day, it boils down to just one thing. The Patriots are maybe the best team I’ve ever seen, and I hate them for it.
I hate the ease in which they score, I hate the way their defence covers up any mistakes Brady makes and I hate just how good they are.
I don’t feel any which way about the Giants, which is never a good thing.
I may hate the Patriots, but I have a reason to, since they are such a good team. And although I’m trying to be objective here, I’m going to take them to win.
My pick: Patriots over Giants
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