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I was driving to the arena in Moscow yesterday, listening to an English-language radio station. They spent several minutes talking about the "huge line brawl" in Vancouver on Saturday night, and what a violent spectacle it was.
Went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. This is why hockey will never be taken seriously as a major sport.
You know the drill.
In one of the American newspapers, a veteran columnist -- someone who only writes about hockey when there's a chance to denigrate a sport he knows next to nothing about -- called it an "explosion of mass violence."
I checked my email inbox and there were no less than a dozen messages from friends and colleagues wanting to know my take on the events at the start of the Canucks game against the Calgary Flames. A few said things along the lines of "Too bad you weren't refereeing (or playing) in that one -- it would have been your kind of game."
After watching the video, my reaction is this: I must be getting very old indeed. I guess I played when dinosaurs and giants roamed the earth and stalked the ice.
What I saw was eons from being among the most out-of-control brawls or violent things I've ever seen on the ice. Rather, it was a bunch of posturing by the coaches.
Comparatively speaking, what happened in Vancouver was a big pillow fight. It was all but agreed to before the opening faceoff, and the combatants fought half-heartedly with no genuine anger or emotion. The coaches are a different story, but I'll get to them later.
What I saw from the players on the two sides was more along the lines of "OK, guys, let's get this over with now" than "I'm gonna tear those S.O.B.s heads off!"
I know the difference. Believe me, even the designated enforcers sent on the ice by their respective sides for the first shift on Saturday were not all that eager to fight. They didn't exactly resist being separated.
I am not in the heads of Calgary coach Bob Hartley and president/GM Brian Burke, nor of Vancouver counterparts John Tortorella and Mike Gillis. However, having been around this game all my life and involved on the professional side in various capacities for parts of five decades, I think I know or thing or two about people's mentalities within the game.
There is a lot of bluster in this sport, especially nowadays. It's just the way it is. I came from the era where fights during warmups before the game, bench clearers during games and bouts under the stands after games were not uncommon. I'm NOT saying that things were better that way. What I'm saying is that, back then, you couldn't afford just to talk the talk because you'd inevitably have to back it up.
What we had on Saturday night was something that was very much calculated and not genuine. I disagree with the reasoning behind it, too.
On the Calgary side, you have a bad team and a franchise that is trying to rebuild itself. Burke wants to create an identity of toughness and intimidation. His past teams were built with that image in mind, too. Hartley, meanwhile, is desperate to finds ways to make opponents fear a team that can neither score (second worst offense in the NHL) nor keep the puck out of its own net (28th in goals against average).
The Flames started the game with their toughest but least skilled lineup. The sole purpose for Hartley doing this was to bait Tortorella.
On the Vancouver side, you have a frustrated team that has been a Stanley Cup contender in recent years. Gillis, who was briefly a teammate of mine with the Philadelphia Firebirds, is under pressure to win now and erase a perception that his team is too soft at its core. As for Tortorella, I don't really get what makes him tick. His schtick is to be constantly angry and adversarial. It wears thin pretty quickly.
As the coach of the home team, Tortorella had the right to the last line change when lineups were set 15 minutes before the opening faceoff. Hartley muscled up, so Torts countered with muscle.
Personally, I think Tortorella handled it wrong. Back in the 1970s, when the Broad Street Bullies started an arms race around hockey, there may have been a risk of Calgary's tough guys jumping the Sedins and other skill players after the opening faceoff. Nowadays, that risk is non-existent.
You know what would have happened if Tortorella had sent out his skill players? Calgary would have immediately recalled their tough guys to the bench at the first opportunity -- making Hartley seem foolish for sending them out for the opening faceoff -- and that would have been the end of it.
If I were Tortorella, just on the off-chance that Calgary showed intent to go after my best players a few seconds into the opening shift, I would have instructed them to be ready to dump the puck in deep and for players like Tom Sestito to be ready to hop onto the ice.
To me, it was funny about what Torts said after the game about being motivated by protecting the Sedins. In saying that, he unwittingly reinforced the image of softness that gets thrown at his two best players.
The way my generation learned the game, teams as a group all faced the same challenges together when they put the sweaters on. Everybody, including the finesse players, sometimes had to fight.
Is the coach saying in essence that he decided to emasculate the Sedin twins and Alex Burrows? Is he saying he's among those who believe his two most important players carry eggs rather than manhood inside their pants?
Either which way, I think Tortorella did the opposite of what he wanted to accomplish. Teams win, lose, sink, swim, fight, together making those guys NOT part of the group separates the team into fragmented pieces and not a cohesive whole.
I'm also not really sure what Tortorella hoped to accomplish with his stunt of trying to force his way into the Calgary dressing room after the first period. What was he going to do if he actually got in there; say "nice room you've got" and leave? They should have let him in and then locked the door.
I don't want to pile on Tortorella here. I just think what happened in Vancouver was a bunch of paper tigers on both sides posturing. It's a lot easier to do that from behind the bench, from the executive office and when you know you'll be pulled away in a crowded hallway than it is to actually be the ones fighting.
To be honest, I'm always a bit amused by guys who were not fighters during their own playing careers getting tougher and braver when they replace the uniform for a suit and tie.
Gillis was on the Firebirds the night that several Maine Mariners jumped me. A high-end first round draft pick by the Colorado Rockies, he was a non-fighter and stayed far away. Burke, who was Flyers property for a year and played with Maine. He was a checking liner and not an enforcer, although he did sport some impressive facial hair.
Hartley never played a game of professional hockey. Tortorella topped out in the secondary minor leagues (ACHL) and, as a 5-foot-8 player, was more of an agitator than a fighter.
I have nothing against any of these guys personally. These are just facts.
Hockey has changed a lot since I played the game professionally. As I mentioned in a previous blog, my own career in the WHA started as a result of a scenario much like the one in Vancouver. I told the story in detail in my
Tales from the End of the Bench blog.
The short version is that the Birmingham Bulls sent out their muscle at the start of a game, and the Cincinnati Stingers sent out their undersized skill players. Under orders from the bench, the Bulls players jumped and beat up the Cincy players at the drop of the opening faceoff. Shortly after that, the Stingers signed me to add toughness to the roster.
Nowadays, the chances of Hartley doing to Vancouver's top line with his unethused Calgary players what Birmingham coach Glen Sonmor did with his group to Cincy's were slim and none. Nevertheless, Tortorella took the bait, sent out his equally unenthused muscle.
The Great Vancouver Pillow Fight ensued. In the end, it was just a big exercise in futility that made Hartley look bad and Tortorella even worse.
Then again, what do I know? I'm a relic of Jurassic Hockey,
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Recent Blogs by Paul Stewart
Rambunctious Fans and Rogue Zamboni Drivers
Penalty Shot Mania Runnin' Wild (or Not?)
Slew Footing, Match Penalties and Aggressors
Making Friends in Bratislava
The Miracle Before the Miracle
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Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.
Today, Stewart is an officiating and league discipline consultant for the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and serves as director of hockey officiating for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).
The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials, while also maintaining a busy schedule as a public speaker, fund raiser and master-of-ceremonies for a host of private, corporate and public events. As a non-hockey venture, he is the owner of Lest We Forget.
Stewart is currently working with a co-author on an autobiography.
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
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