from Sean Gentille of The Sporting News,

Is what Richard Sherman did more disrespectful than, say, Shawn Thornton's seek-and-destroy run at Brooks Orpik, or what James Neal did to Brad Marchand a few seconds before? Be honest — and then ask yourself, Why did I dislike what Richard Sherman did in the first place?

Another way of looking at it: the hockey community turned itself in a knot when Peter Gammons referred to it as a "minor sport" on Sunday morning in the wake of the Canucks-Flames debacle. In the big picture, he's wrong, because a $3.5 billion industry, by definition, can't be minor. He's also speaking when his own house isn't exactly in order, but that's another issue entirely.

But if you are willing to concede that hockey is, at best, fourth or fifth in the American sporting conscience, and if you are interested in growing the game — if you think it's the greatest game of all, and if you want it to get the attention it deserves — you should be willing to admit that the weird, hypocritical Fun Police act that regularly unfolds isn't helping. At all.

So yeah, let's see a few more Richard Shermans. Let's see some self-awareness. Or, at minimum, let guys have fun in the heat of the moment when they do cool stuff. It doesn't need to get more complicated than that.

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