from Cam Cole of the Vancouver Sun,
Mad Mike Milbury, if he gets the daily clips, will regard this column as more evidence of the “pansification” of hockey. Many veteran hockey writers will deplore a lack of support for the law-of-the-jungle ethos that informs their points of view.
Old Time Hockey clingers-on will advise me to go cover figure skating or ringette if I can’t see the team-building value of retribution for a hit on a star player.
But here’s the thing: how is hockey ever going to evolve past the point of being a concussion factory when coaches tacitly approve and teammates applaud a ruthless hit like the one the Edmonton Oilers’ Matt Hendricks laid on Florida Panthers’ great young defenceman Aaron Ekblad on Sunday night?
Never mind that the National Hockey League has suspended Hendricks for three games, as it should have. Never mind that Ekblad returned to the game even though the hit that drove him face first into the glass left him in a heap on the ice, then on Bambi-legs as he tried to get back to his feet — one more in the endless string of incidents that make reasonable people roll their eyes at the NHL’s “strict” concussion protocol.
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