Bench Clearing Brawls

To hear the media, after the Penguins-Islanders game Friday night, you would think bench clearing brawls are a common event in the NHL.

Imagine how surprised people would be to hear that the last bench clearing brawl in the NHL was February 26th, 1987. Not February 11, 2011. A difference of 24 years. The latest date I could find for Major League Baseball in the US was ... last September, 2010.

When baseball players fight, and bench clearing brawls occur, the players are called "chippy". When 2 people, or more but not the entire bench, fight in hockey they are called hooligans by the media. Hooligans. Goons. They are ruining the sport.

Last Friday the Islanders DID act like a bunch of goons. They were destroying the Pittsburgh Penguins and kept starting stupid fights. Some of it was "retaliation" for a previous game. Hell, they brought a "goon" up from the minors just to attack people. His claim to fame was having 4 NHL games and a shit load of penalty minutes.

To hear the pundits and media drone on you would think that it was a bench clearing brawl. One CBC talking head DID call it a bench clearing brawl, but it wasn't. ONE player, from the Pengiuns, left the bench when his goalie was being attacked by a "goon". He got an automatic 10 game suspension for leaving the bench.

A lot of the blame for what happened lies with the officials. They lost control of the game and never really regained it. When the Islanders were obviously just gooning it up the refs didn't respond strongly enough.

The Islanders were winning an humiliating the Pens 6-0 when they started the stupidity. They did it just to be goons.

Colin Campbell when talking about Godard's (Penguins) automatic 10 game suspension said;

With respect to the Godard suspension, there can be no circumstance that allows for a player to leave his bench for the purpose of coming to the aid of a teammate.

Hmmmmm ... let's see Coli. The officals had so little control of the game that a goon was able to skate to the OTHER end of the ice and attack the goalie. No circumstance?

Micheal Haley, the guy who skated down to attack the goalie, and had another fight earlier in the game, got an instigator penalty and a 2 game misconduct. Doesn't something seem off?

"The Islanders also must bear some responsibility for their failure to control their players,” Campbell added.

And so must the 4 officals. And the League. And the owners.

Then you have the Penguins owner Mario Lemieux lamenting about what happened and chastising the league for not doing enough to stop the stupidity. If Matt Cooke didn't play for the Penguins I would have more sympathy for Mario and put more stock in what he had to say. Cooke is arguably the dirtiest player in the NHL and if Mario REALLY wants the NHL to take a stronger stand maybe he should take one as owner of the Penguins and do to Cooke what he wants done to others. If he isn't willing to do that he is just crying crocodile tears.

Was there too much fighting/stupidity in the game last Friday? Yeah, somewhat. Just as there was some stupidity in the penalties handed down. Just as there was some stupidity in the rhetoric being thrown about by all parties, including the media.

When the media is as hard on bench clearing brawls in other sports as they are for the non-existant ones in the NHL since 1987 I may put more stock in what they have to say. Fighting and physicality is a part of hockey and it isn't usually as bad, or in the case of bench clearing brawls as common, as the media makes it sound.