The always truculent Brian Burke, stepped up to the podium late yesterday morning with a burr in his saddle. Having watched the equally truculent Colton Orr be passed over by 29 other teams on the waiver-wire, the happy Irishman decided it was time for him to express his opinions on the state of the league.
Burke feels that the only way to deal with the "rats" in the NHL today, is to have "non-skilled" guys who only match up against each other, take 5-minute shifts, and tune each other up in the process. I'm not really sure how this solves the problem, because I'm pretty sure in the fighter's "code" a Colton Orr, isn't allowed to go after a Max Lapierre.
Of course rats like Raffi Torres, Steve Downie, and Dan Carcillo are still running around and making the NHL a dangerous place, however some truly sensible Shanabans really could fix this situation. 5 game, and 7 game suspensions aren't enough. Torres and company have been given too much rope in the past, and Brendan Shanahan needs to take a stand. If you want to make these guys start to listen, slap them with 20+ game suspensions. Those sorts of suspensions will not only get the perpetrators thinking, it will get the guys signing their pay cheques thinking too. Does Stan Bowman really want to be shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for a dude who's not allowed to play? I don't think so. The NHL's "rat problem" can be solved with a solid extermination effort by Shanahan.
An elimination of rat-like behaviour would eliminate the need for goons like Colton Orr (who I'm sure really is a swell guy) and make way for a safer and more skilled NHL.
Well put. This is probably the greatest hockey blog I have ever read and I have read every single hockey blog ever posted to the internet.
ReplyDeleteMcG that hurts man
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