June 7, 2011, column on NHL's inadequate response to Aaron Rome's hit on Nathan Horton for HockeyPrimeTime.com

Horton's injury should be another wake-up call

Columns

Written by Denis Gorman

Tuesday, June 07, 2011 19:41

Dangerous and illegal hits to the head are still occurring in the NHL, as Aaron Rome demonstrated on Nathan Horton in Game 3. In that sense – to say nothing of Rome's four-game suspension – the league has failed its objective. For a league that has often acted as if it graduated egregia cum laude from the Sarah Palin School of History, the NHL was presented an opportunity to prove that it had learned from its past. It has not. The league announced Tuesday that it suspended Vancouver Canucks defenseman Aaron Rome for four games for his Game 3 hit on Boston right wing Nathan Horton. Should the Canucks or Bruins win the series in less than seven games, the suspension will carry over to the 2011-12 season. The hit was one of the defining moments of what has rapidly become a very personal and very ugly Stanley Cup Final. Rome ended Horton’s season 303 seconds into Game 3 with a blind-side check. Horton had moved the puck to linemate Milan Lucic two full seconds before Rome's shoulder exploded into Horton's chin. Horton jerked backward, then stiffened, before crashing to the ice. His head bounced frighteningly off the unforgiving surface. The game stopped as medical professionals tended to Horton, who had to be placed on a gurney and taken to Massachusetts General Hospital while on-ice officials Stephen Walkom and Dan O’Rourke conferred to determine that Rome had committed a five minute major for interference and a game misconduct. The hospital reported that Horton was able to move his extremities and was aware of his surroundings. The Bruins announced Tuesday that Horton would miss the rest of the season with “a severe concussion.” “I probably viewed it like most of you did,” Mike Murphy told reporters in Boston on the off-day. “I thought it was a late hit. I thought that the body was contacted. But I also thought that the head was hit. It caused a serious injury to Nathan Horton. So the key components are: the late hit, which I had it close to a second late. We have our own formula at NHL Hockey Operations for determining late hits, and it was late. We saw the seriousness of the injury with Nathan on the ice last night. That's basically what we deliberated on. We tried to compare it with some of the other ones in the past. But it stands alone. It's why we made the ruling.” Myriad arguments have been offered about the sociology of blind side hits. The speed of the game, the lack of respect the athletes have for each other, hard plastic pads, the instigator rule are all subtexts to a greater issue: The NHL’s obfuscation of its message. The league implemented rule 48.1 before the season in an attempt to eliminate hits to defenseless players. As part of the punishment process, the league said it would look at a player’s history. Both worked after Matt Cooke was suspended for the rest of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs after the Pittsburgh Penguins left wing elbowed New York Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh in a 5-2 nationally televised loss on March 20. But in the playoffs, the league has not followed through with its disciplining of its athletes, despite Murphy’s belief that it has “ramped (suspensions) up through the year.” Andrew Ference was not suspended for his elbow to the head of Montreal’s Jeff Halpern in Game 7 of the Bruins-Canadiens first round series. Raffi Torres was not punished for his leaping check to Chicago’s Brent Seabrook in Game 3 of the Canucks-Blackhawks series. Alex Burrows escaped reprimand for biting Patrice Bergeron in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. What, exactly, will it take for the NHL to implement zero-tolerance legislation on head shots and real disciplinary action for those who feel compelled to assault their colleagues? Will the NHL have to have a Jack Tatum-Darryl Stingley incident? Will someone have to die on the ice? Let’s be honest. Punishments need to be severe. To call it an unpardonable sin for the NHL to make an example out of players and franchises is foolish. For example, if the league suspends a first offender 10 games, and a repeat offender 20 games, and penalizes their organization $100,000, the statement that the league will not abide these acts will have been made. How do you think teammates would react if they lost a component for one-eighth or one-fourth of the season? Murphy revealed that he spoke with Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke, Terry Gregson, Kris King, Brendan Shanahan and Rob Blake, amongst others. He claimed that he did not have a number of games suspended in mind, rather that the verdict comes down to a feeling. “My number is four. It is what it is. It stands alone. I looked at it alone. I know where we are in the Final. I don't want to put what it would be in the regular season. It could be eight, 10. I don't know what it could be. I didn't look at it in the regular season. I looked at it in the context of the Final,” Murphy explained. “Aaron Rome is an important part of the Vancouver team. Guys play all their lives to get to this series on both teams, and you might never get back. So I take it very seriously. That's all I can say. I do not make light of this. I wish I wasn't sitting here. I wish Aaron was playing, and I wish Nathan was playing.” There is no doubt of Murphy’s and the league’s sincerity. But the harsh truth is that neither Nathan Horton or Aaron Rome will play another game this season, and once again that the NHL failed in its responsibility to send an unmistakable messages to its greatest asset, the players. This time the failure occurred on the league’s grandest stage. On Twitter: @HockeyPrimeTime and @DenisGorman Photos of Nathan Horton by Getty Images

Last Updated on Tuesday, June 07, 2011 19:55

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