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24/7 Sports Media - Boulerice/Kesler - Kypreos/Watters |
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What would we, the sports fan, do without today’s 24/7 Sports Media? It wasn’t that long ago that there wasn’t such a thing as all-sports programming on TV and Radio, not to mention Al Gore’s little invention, the internet. We had to get our daily fix from the newspaper, or waiting for the five minutes allotted to sports on the nightly news. Never before has a sports junkie like you and me had so many choices, an unlimited supply of information and opinions … sometimes it’s hard to understand how we even survived in those prehistoric times.
All of these new mediums, out of necessity, have created many new “stars”. Competition dictates that you have to have a specialty, a niche, or a “shtick” in order to attract, and most importantly, keep your target audience. You are here right now, reading this submission on Hockeybuzz.com. A Website created by the “Anonymous Hockey Blogger” Eklund, who specializes in rumours surrounding the National Hockey League. Need I say more?
If you fail to distinguish yourself from the masses, then you will become extinct. If you don’t offer something to keep them coming back, then they won’t. I have heard Dave Pratt of Team 1040 fame say numerous times that he doesn’t care if you like him or hate him, as long as you listen to him, preferably every day. Bob McCowan of The Fan 590 in Toronto strikes me as someone who would probably have this same viewpoint, and he just signed a contract rumoured to be in the 500K per annum range. Not a bad way to make a living, eh?
If you’re not being noticed and talked about, you’re nothing. This has created many a “personality” for us to love and/or hate, but when does it go too far? Where do we draw the line? When do morals, ethics and common sense start to take on greater importance than ratings? And more importantly, who is responsible to ensure that said line is maintained and not crossed?
On Saturday’s edition of Sportsnet’s Hockey Central, one of the topics was the suspension handed down to Philadelphia’s Jessie Boulerice for his cross check to the face of Vancouver’s Ryan Kesler. This was nothing short of a sickening assault that had absolutely nothing to do with any part of the game of Hockey and had been universally condemned by everyone who has anything to do with the sport.
**Disclaimer – I did not watch the aforementioned show, nor have I been able to find any Video evidence or transcripts of the show. I have emailed Sportsnet requesting same, with no reply. The only reason this matter even came to my attention was from a message sent to me by Hockeybuzz member, Lost Canuck. Subsequent to this message, I have read various accounts of what numerous different people witnessed and heard on the show and the validity of their comments is reinforced by the sheer volume of people who all remember seeing and hearing the same things, albeit those witnesses were, and are, Canuck fans.**
Apparently, the two panelists, Nick Kypreos and Bill Watters, both insinuated that Kesler was as much to blame for the incident as Boulerice saying that he is a pest on the ice and hides behind the instigator rule and it is players like him who are ruing the game of hockey. They said that he should have dropped the gloves when he had the opportunity (I’m assuming implying before the incident, yet I remember no such “opportunity”) and that after taking a run at Jones behind the net he should have known that Boulerice was on the ice and have been ready for him.
How can they justify passing the blame, or even part of the blame of this grotesque incident off of the shoulders of Jesse Boulerice? This is the same Jesse Boulerice who nearly ended one Andrew Long’s life in 1988 after wielding his stick like a battle axe, two-handing him in the face. Long was unconscious and having a seizure on the ice. He suffered a grade-three concussion, a brain contusion, multiple facial fractures, a crushed nasal cavity, and a blood spot on his brain. Now this same thug turns around and does something eerily similar and somehow Kesler is partially to blame? Give me a break!
Those who watched the game saw an excellent “iso” camera that followed Kesler and Boulerice around the ice as they battled one-on-one on a shift prior to the attack. And battle they did … but there was absolutely nothing unusual about it, nor was any one player more dirty in their tactics than the other, just two players trying to earn their space of ice in an NHL game. It is this video clip that I am assuming led Kypreos and Watters to believe that Kesler had something “coming to him”.
In my mind, and I believe, pretty much every other human being on this planet who has ever watched a hockey game before, there is nothing that Ryan Kesler could have done to provoke such an attack. So why would these two analysts say differently? I can only assume it is to be noticed, be edgy, and create some sort of controversy which will in turn create publicity and ratings. Do they really believe the things they said? I think in part they probably do, especially Kypreos, but there's no doubt in my mind that there had to be at least a little "showtime" involved.
The part of all this that really gets under my skin is the fact that these two men have both earned a very handsome living off of the game of hockey and are aware that the NHL is trying to crack down on hits to the head, concussions in general, and excessive violence in the game. Anyone with any common sense knows that for the good of the game we just can’t have incidents such as this. There has been far too many in the past and if they are to continue in the future then someone is going end up dead. The NHL is stepping up disciplinary measures and is to be commended for doing so. These two are biting the hand that feeds them by indirectly defending such attacks. It makes no sense in so many different ways.
Kypreos’ career was suddenly ended from a severe concussion he received when he was knocked unconscious in a fight, collapsing and slamming his head into the ice. Kypreos was a Keynote Speaker at a conference in Nov 2006 titled “Brain Injury and Beyond, Looking Back, Thinking Forward”. His presentation was called “Personal Effects of Head Injuries in Athletes.” Would a cross-check to the face potentially cause a concussion? Anyone else find this just a little ironic?
The following is an interview with Kypreos conducted by the NY Times days after the Bertuzzi Moore incident in March 2004 … the exact exposure that these incidents create that the NHL is still trying to avoid. It perhaps spreads a little light into what makes him tick and how he comes to form his opinions.
Nick Kypreos, who played nine seasons in the N.H.L. for four teams including the Rangers (1993-96), served 1,275 penalty minutes. His career ended after he sustained a concussion during a fight on the ice in 1997. In the aftermath of a hit by the Canucks' Todd Bertuzzi on the Avalanche's Steve Moore on Monday in Vancouver, and Bertuzzi's suspension for at least the rest of the season and the playoffs, Kypreos reflected on the culture of fighting in the N.H.L. Following are excerpts from a telephone interview Thursday from his home in Toronto. Jason Diamos
Q. What point does fighting serve in hockey?
A. It was always my understanding, from the way I was brought up in the game, that first and foremost, it's supposed to deter you from wanting to use your stick more; it's supposed to keep high-sticking and dirty cheap shots from happening, believe it or not. Fighting's something that keeps your opponent honest. It was the one thing to keep another team from taking cheap shots and taking liberties at your teammates. It's supposed to be a valve, an outlet, an alternative from using your stick as a weapon.
Q. Has your view of fighting in hockey changed since you retired?
A. No, I don't think so. I much prefer to see two guys fighting than one taking his stick and clubbing the other guy over the head with it.
Q. What situation would lead you to fight during a game?
A. Now we're starting to get into maybe a hundred-year-old code: as a team, you want to stick together. You've got grudges and you've got rivalries. And when you have teammates that are skilled, you do everything you can to protect them. And that includes sometimes standing up for them and making sure other teams don't take liberties. You do that by fighting for them.
People want to compare incidents on the ice to society and say, 'You can't get away with that.' Incidents like Bertuzzi or Marty McSorley, and people want to say, 'If I did that at a bar or a supermarket, I'd be in jail for 10 years.' And that should be the case, just not in the arena.
You've asked athletes to be confined in an arena that's 200 feet by 85 feet, and asked them to battle each other within the established N.H.L. rules of body-checking and fighting, for 60 minutes, and they expect you to be in total control of your emotions. Yea right! Ask the person in the supermarket or the bar to do the same thing and see if any of them can be in total control of their emotions 100 percent of the time. Think they'll be able to draw a line between what's acceptable and what's not? Fat chance!
And every once in a while, someone in our game goes overboard, not only pushes the envelope, but goes way above and beyond it, and we're all ready to crucify him. The game's boundaries are set up for someone to snap once in a while. Over the course of the last hundred years, guys have. That's the nature of the game. And unless you drastically change the rules of hockey, we'll always be talking about incidents that challenge the viewer on whether they are tolerable.
Q. Should the rules be changed?
A. No, they shouldn't be changed. Tweaked a little, absolutely, but not drastically changed. There are a lot of people that like the rules the way they are. I'm one of them. Seventeen thousand is the average attendance around the league, and they come because they love other aspects of the game.
Q. What did you think of the Bertuzzi incident?
A. The Todd Bertuzzi incident is few and far between. I played 12 seasons of pro hockey and never saw anything so bad. He stepped way over the line. Because he hit someone that was defenseless, that's why. If he did the exact same thing from the front and Steve Moore had a chance to get his hands up to defend himself, Bertuzzi would still be playing today. I thought the league did the appropriate thing. There are people in the N.H.L. office that don't understand what it's like to be on the ice at the highest level (a k a Gary Bettman). Without guys like Colin Campbell and Claude Loiselle, who understand what it's like to be out there, Bertuzzi might have been suspended for life. And that would have been wrong.
Finally, I’ll end this blog with a letter that was sent to Sportsnet by one of the aforementioned witnesses to the show on Saturday as it signifies the shock and dismay of many of those who saw the telecast:
To whom it may concern,
I turned on Hockey Central today just in time to take in the opinions of Bill Watters and Nick Kypreos regarding the Jesse Boulerice/Ryan Kesler incident. I was so appalled by their "insight" that I felt compelled to write this email, something I have never been inclined to do after any other show or column I have ever encountered. I understand that the show is meant to be a showcase of differing opinions from different hockey points of view, however at some point a network has to take responsibility for the opinions of their employees being broadcast to a national audience. Kypreos' suggestion that Kesler should have dropped the gloves in response to the incident is as outrageous as it is absurd. How an individual should have been able to respond to such a vicious attack is beyond me. Kypreos' suggestion that Kesler should have seen it coming because he knew he was five feet away is the type of comment that is terrible for the game of hockey, terrible for the image of hockey, and terrible for the image of your network. Might I suggest a suspension of some kind should be handed out to anyone on your staff that considers an attack of this nature to be somehow justified? Kypreos' and Watters suggested that Kesler is the type of player that hides behind the instigator rule and somehow had this coming to him because he was playing hard (and clean) all night, while failing to mention that Kesler has stepped up to the plate with much larger opponents than himself when the bell has tolled (ie. Jerome Iginla on two occasions).
Kypreos and Watters should be ashamed of themselves for promoting this type of buffoonery, either explicitly or implicitly through their careless use of such a public forum. Hockey has enough black eyes from the actions of such individuals as Jesse Boulerice, Chris Simon, Todd Bertuzzi, Marty McSorley, and so on. It does not need the simply appalling opinions of certain analysts furthering isolation of the game to a small number of loyal markets. Perhaps it would be prudent to have another segment involving Kypreos, Watters, and a couple of other individuals (perhaps Andrew Long would make an interesting candidate) debate the topic more thoroughly. At least then the reputation of Ryan Kesler and the game of hockey as a whole will have a fair opportunity to rebut such glaringly offensive remarks.
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