Now that the Finals are over with, we can start discussing New York hockey again. There's just one thing I wanted to get off my chest.
We all saw Gary Roberts take a cheap shot at Johan Franzen's head in Game 2. I have to admit, I cringed when I saw this. Concussions are no joke. I suffered a concussion last year in a car accident and it affected me for days. Even now, I have to be really careful, because you're that much more susceptible to another concussion once you've had the first one.
We're seeing the danger of concussions - namely, that the dangers we don't know are far scarier than those we do know - with Ryan Church of the New York Mets now. For those who don't follow baseball, Church suffered a concussion a few weeks back trying to break up a double play. The Mets, in all their infinite wisdom, kept trotting him out there to pinch-hit. Now, he's totally disoriented and can't play. Oh, and Church has been their best player all year. So, in their rush to get the team going, they might have dug themselves an even deeper grave.
How many great athletes have lost their abilities due to concussions? Eric Lindros, Bret Hart, and Wayne Chrebet come to mind. How many others never got the chance to succeed because of concussions? Say what you want about Brett Lindros, but he was a top-ten draft pick and could have been a solid player if head trauma didn't end his career before it even began.
Another player who lost something after a concussion was Kenny Jonsson. With that in mind, let's bring Gary Roberts back into the picture.
No Islander fan will ever forget April 26, 2002. That night, the Islanders didn't just get blown out by the Toronto Maple Leafs, but the wind was taken from their sails in a big way. It could be argued that the franchise is still trying to recover from this night. In the first period, Roberts skated the length of the ice to drill Jonsson into the boards so hard that his helmet cracked. One period later, in the more famous of the two hits, Darcy Tucker took out Michael Peca's legs and put him out of action for seven months.
Peca's injury still bothers me to this day (less so since he tried to do the same thing to Zdeno Chara after returning), but the more important one is Roberts' hit on Jonsson. People look up to Gary Roberts for returning from his own injuries, and he's played an important role on quite a few good teams now. But he now has two strikes against him. However, what has the NHL given him for his transgressions? Five minutes in the penalty box.
Five minutes. For essentially killing one man's NHL career (Jonsson was never the same) and endangering another's. And yet, Chris Simon gets 55 total games for his attacks on Ryan Hollweg and Jarko Ruutu. Now, I'm not going to compare who did worse things to who; that's irrelevant. All I'm saying is that Roberts has gotten off extremely easy. What if Roberts' punch to Franzen's head triggered something in his brain that caused him serious brain damage? It's not out of the realm of possibility; after all, Franzen did have blood seep between his brain and his skull.
There's "old-time hockey", which we all associate with grizzled veterans and playoff beards and guys playing hurt and players policing themselves, all that good stuff. That's fine. But there's a very fine line between "old-time hockey" and the thuggery that many associate with the league thanks to people like Todd Bertuzzi and Chris Simon. Gary Roberts, somehow, is still considered a "good guy". I'm sure he's a wonderful person off the ice; however, I really don't care. He not only put Johan Franzen's career in jeopardy, he could have killed the sport completely. After all, with a record audience tuning in, how would it have looked had Roberts done some serious damage to Franzen? Imagine the field day the hockey-hating media would have had with that one.
We all saw Gary Roberts take a cheap shot at Johan Franzen's head in Game 2. I have to admit, I cringed when I saw this. Concussions are no joke. I suffered a concussion last year in a car accident and it affected me for days. Even now, I have to be really careful, because you're that much more susceptible to another concussion once you've had the first one.
We're seeing the danger of concussions - namely, that the dangers we don't know are far scarier than those we do know - with Ryan Church of the New York Mets now. For those who don't follow baseball, Church suffered a concussion a few weeks back trying to break up a double play. The Mets, in all their infinite wisdom, kept trotting him out there to pinch-hit. Now, he's totally disoriented and can't play. Oh, and Church has been their best player all year. So, in their rush to get the team going, they might have dug themselves an even deeper grave.
How many great athletes have lost their abilities due to concussions? Eric Lindros, Bret Hart, and Wayne Chrebet come to mind. How many others never got the chance to succeed because of concussions? Say what you want about Brett Lindros, but he was a top-ten draft pick and could have been a solid player if head trauma didn't end his career before it even began.
Another player who lost something after a concussion was Kenny Jonsson. With that in mind, let's bring Gary Roberts back into the picture.
No Islander fan will ever forget April 26, 2002. That night, the Islanders didn't just get blown out by the Toronto Maple Leafs, but the wind was taken from their sails in a big way. It could be argued that the franchise is still trying to recover from this night. In the first period, Roberts skated the length of the ice to drill Jonsson into the boards so hard that his helmet cracked. One period later, in the more famous of the two hits, Darcy Tucker took out Michael Peca's legs and put him out of action for seven months.
Peca's injury still bothers me to this day (less so since he tried to do the same thing to Zdeno Chara after returning), but the more important one is Roberts' hit on Jonsson. People look up to Gary Roberts for returning from his own injuries, and he's played an important role on quite a few good teams now. But he now has two strikes against him. However, what has the NHL given him for his transgressions? Five minutes in the penalty box.
Five minutes. For essentially killing one man's NHL career (Jonsson was never the same) and endangering another's. And yet, Chris Simon gets 55 total games for his attacks on Ryan Hollweg and Jarko Ruutu. Now, I'm not going to compare who did worse things to who; that's irrelevant. All I'm saying is that Roberts has gotten off extremely easy. What if Roberts' punch to Franzen's head triggered something in his brain that caused him serious brain damage? It's not out of the realm of possibility; after all, Franzen did have blood seep between his brain and his skull.
There's "old-time hockey", which we all associate with grizzled veterans and playoff beards and guys playing hurt and players policing themselves, all that good stuff. That's fine. But there's a very fine line between "old-time hockey" and the thuggery that many associate with the league thanks to people like Todd Bertuzzi and Chris Simon. Gary Roberts, somehow, is still considered a "good guy". I'm sure he's a wonderful person off the ice; however, I really don't care. He not only put Johan Franzen's career in jeopardy, he could have killed the sport completely. After all, with a record audience tuning in, how would it have looked had Roberts done some serious damage to Franzen? Imagine the field day the hockey-hating media would have had with that one.
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