Stomp the rink

The NHL announced today that Anaheim Ducks defenceman Chris Pronger would be suspended for eight games for his stomp on Ryan Kesler of the Vancouver Canucks. Outstanding CKNW and Canucks TV colour man Tom Larscheid nailed it towards the end of the clip, calling it "A deliberate play by Pronger just to stomp on Kesler with his skate." In my mind at least, this was out-and-out dirty, right up there with the infamous Chris Simon on Jarkko Ruutu play. Of course, Simon's a fringe player, so the full book (a 30-game suspension) got thrown at him: Pronger wouldn't even have been suspended without the NHL suspiciously finding a "new angle" after they'd already ruled it was inconclusive. According to Pronger, the league told him Thursday night there would be no suspension, but then re-reviewed the tape on Friday and came up with the new punishment. I don't see how they deemed it inconclusive in the first place: even the original camera angle was far better than most of the footage of the Simon-Ruutu incident. Simon also hit Ruutu's skate, while Pronger went straight for Kesler's leg. Methinks perhaps Simon's widely reported comments and the increasing media and fan pressure targeting the obvious inequity here got league disciplinarian Colin Campbell to reconsider: there are those who agree, like the Battle of California's Earl Sleek.

It would be nice to have things treated fairly, at least," Simon told the Associated Press after the Wild practised on Friday. "I don't think in that instance it's fair at all. I couldn't believe right away that nothing was going to be done about it. I still can't believe it."

Simon should start believing it. Even with a suspension handed out, the NHL's two-tiered system of justice is still blatantly obvious. There's one code for superstars like Pronger and a different one for everyone else: consider Pronger's pair of one-game suspensions last playoffs for offenses that likely would have meant multiple games for anyone else. Campbell cited history as a factor in determining the length of the Simon decision, but Pronger's history is almost as bad: Simon has 8 suspensions in 15 years, while Pronger's racked up 7 in 14 (including three in the last calendar year). The relative lengths further demonstrate the special treatment Pronger gets. The longest suspension he'd ever received previously was four games, and his total suspensions including this one only total 20 regular season games and two post-season games. By contrast, Simon's two longest suspensions amounted to 25 and 30 games each, respectively.

The offenses aren't that dissimilar, either. ESPN has a great breakdown of the incidents involving Pronger, which include hitting Pat Peake in the throat with a stick, swinging a stick at Jeremy Roenick's helmet, cross-checking Brendan Morrow in the face and kicking Ville Nieminen. By contrast, Simon's suspensions are generally less physically harmful: his longest suspension prior to the March 2007 stick-swinging incident (similar to both of Pronger's stick incidents, but worth a 25-game suspension instead of a four-game ban) was three games for alleged racial remarks. Add the incidents up, and it's Pronger who looks like the bigger goon, but Simon with the harsher punishment.

The league's also giving Pronger the benefit of the doubt, as the Vancouver Province's Jason Botchford reports. "In attempting to free himself, Pronger carelessly and recklessly brought his foot down," Campbell said in a statement. As Botchford writes, "The other possibility is that Pronger wasn't careless at all, that he intended to injure in an act of frustration."
Campbell's release makes Pronger's actions sound like an accident, unlike his comments in Simon's case. "But he just snaps," he told the Canadian Press back then. "And we can't have that. Because now we're talking about the safety of other players on the ice. ... You would hope he wouldn't do it again but maybe he can't help himself. I don't know. He's never actually come out and said, 'I will never do this again.'"

Oh really, Mr. Campbell? Where's your concern for other players in the Pronger incident? This guy's done a lot to hurt players over the years: look at the concussion he gave Dean McCammond last playoffs. Playing with skates is a dangerous business: see Zednik, Richard, Perry, Corey, and Bieksa, Kevin, to name just a few. However, he's a star who sells jerseys and draws fans, so he gets the kid-gloves treatment while Campbell muses about ending Simon's career. That's not right, and it's not fair.

I have every bit of respect for Pronger's abilities as a player, but there can't be one standard for stars and one for role players. The Globe's Allan Maki summed that up nicely on the Globe on Hockey blog. "Simon deserved his suspension, no one’s quibbling about that," he wrote. "But letting Pronger go unpunished only raises more incriminating questions, such as: Is the NHL afraid of affecting Anaheim’s playoff push by suspending Pronger? Is the NHL afraid of invoking the wrath of Ducks’ general manager Brian Burke? Is the NHL hiding behind the old bit about not knowing what a player’s true intent is in such heat-of-the-moment moments? Based on what we’ve seen thus far, we certainly know what the NHL’s intent is: suspend the easy targets but let’s not be so hasty when it comes to our superstars."

Another intersting take is from New York Islanders' media relations VP, Chris Botta. Botta hits most of the points I've already elaborated on, but adds this about the initial Simon on Ruutu incident. "I'm going to step out just a bit here and share something that Chris said to me a few times," he wrote. "In all honesty, when he volunteered his thoughts I was torn between being sympathetic and concerned that Chris had lost his way. Basically, Chris felt that on judgment day he was treated differently than other players. I never let the conversation get to the subject of why." What's interesting here is what Botta doesn't say. Clearly, a PR guy wouldn't bring up anything this controversial (I'm impressed that he was so vocal about this in the first place), but one gets the impression Simon might have felt that race could have played a role (Simon is half Ojibwa): there have been suggestions that racism played a role in Islanders' coach Ted Nolan getting blacklisted from the NHL for years after winning the Jack Adams Trophy, and he certainly had to struggle with racist taunts while coaching junior hockey. I really hope that this isn't the case, that our society has moved beyond that, and that Colin Campbell treated Chris Simon the same way he would have treated a white role player (we already know it's not how he would have treated a superstar), but the shadow of possible racism still lingers.

In the league's defence, it wouldn't have been easy to suspend Pronger for 30 games, particularly with the playoffs looming: that would have taken the Ducks from favorites to repeat as Stanley Cup champions back down to the realms of the merely mortal contenders. They did it with Todd Bertuzzi, though, which certainly hurt the Canucks that year. That incident was different, and obviously more serious in terms of its consequences, but the precedent was set that the league didn't mind severely reducing a team's playoff chances via suspension if the situation warranted it. The Canucks of that year took the eventual Stanley Cup finalist Calgary Flames to seven games and overtime in the first round that year: who knows what they could have accomplished with Big Bert? Pronger should have gotten the same treatment as Simon, regardless of where the season was at.

Related:
- James Mirtle's take: interestingly, 77% of respondents to his poll (122 people) agree with me that the suspension was too short.
- Tom Benjamin's take
- Alanah's take

Update: As usual, the Globe's Eric Duhatschek nails this one: "Simon's act may have been slightly more egregious than Pronger's, but it's hard to understand why the sentence was almost four times as long – unless you're prepared to consider that Pronger is a former Hart Memorial Trophy winner and an important cog on the defending Stanley Cup champion Ducks, whereas Simon is a fringe player and thus a far-easier target for NHL justice. ... Under the current NHL rule of law, it isn't justice for all. It is justice for some."

Thursday roundup of the sporting world

Lots of news going on at the moment: here's the highlights.

Hockey

Flapping in the breeze

The Dallas Stars apparently think Roberto Luongo's equipment is controversial. According to Grant Kerr of the Globe and Mail, Marty Turco and Mike Smith both took to the practice ice this morning wearing exaggerated cardboard flaps to question the flaps on Luongo's pads that supposedly extend wider than the maximum width permitted by the league. This surprised me a bit, as Luongo isn't one of the goalies regularly mentioned in the same paragraph as bulky equipment, unlike a certain Stanley Cup-winning netminder. It will be interesting to see if anyone at league HQ takes notice.

Related: Alanah's take on the issue.


Simon's attempt to save himself

According to a Roy MacGregor piece in today's Globe, Chris Simon is planning to appeal his 30-game suspension.
"I don't think it was fair," Simon told MacGregor. "I'm not a complainer. I've never complained before. I took my suspensions and moved on. But I don't think this one was fair." He went on to say that the act was unintentional.
"I wasn't trying to injure him," Simon said. "I tripped him and I was telling him to [expletive], and I did step on his foot. I pushed down on his skate, I don't deny that, but I wasn't trying to hurt him. I don't think a player has ever missed a game from one of my suspensions."
Simon brings up an interesting point here: is it the intent, the action itself, or the results that should be considered? For example, is Simon's act worthy of a longer suspension than Todd Bertuzzi's attack on Steve Moore because the intent and the action itself were worse, even though the results were nowhere near as bad? I think the NHL got this one about right, particularly given Simon's long history of suspensions: however, it is interesting to note that the legal system takes the opposite approach (for example, Simon and Jesse Boulerice aren't too likely to get in legal trouble over their suspendable activities as they didn't cause severe damage to anyone, whereas Bertuzzi and Marty McSorley did). The other possibility to consider is that the league recognizes it was too lenient in the McSorley/Bertuzzi days and would apply an even stricter penalty for such an incident today.

Related:
- Takes from James Mirtle, Eric Duhatschek, James Duthie, and The Puck Stops Here.
- The National Post has a story quoting Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, as saying that Colin Campbell perpetuated a stereotype about First Nations people with his comments on Simon's suspension. Fontaine is demanding an apology.

The Moore-Bertuzzi saga continues to spiral...

Many people are all in a flutter about the latest testimony to come out of the Bertuzzi trial. It's nicely summarized in James Christie's Globe story here.
Basically, whether you believe Bertuzzi saying that Crawford told the team to get Moore during the intermission or Dave Nonis who said the conversation occured earlier in the day, it's pretty clear that the Canucks were out to get Moore. However, this isn't all that shocking, given the hit he laid on Naslund: retribution has been part of the hockey code for eons. As Ed Willes of the Vancouver Province points out, the case "isn't as cut and dried as Danson (Moore's lawyer) would lead you to believe." Willes adds that the evidence that has been introduced so far would lead to massive outrage and a summary conviction in any other arena, but in sports, it's tough to define what is and what isn't accepted: Bertuzzi's actions were certainly beyond the pale (which he was found criminally responsible for and served his sentence), but calling for someone to "pay the price" is a normal part of hockey and doesn't mean to go break his neck. As Willes writes, "The end result, of course, was terrible. But you can watch any hockey game and see something similar, or a lot worse, take place. There was Chris Simon's attack on Ryan Hollweg; Marty McSorley's attack on Donald Brashear; Steve Downie's hit on Dean McAmmond; Jesse Boulerice's cross-check to the face of Ryan Kesler. We could go on, but you get the picture. What Bertuzzi did was dangerous and mindless, but within the context of the game it wasn't that unusual. Maybe it's not the most admirable defence, but it's an effective one."

Related:
- Christie Blatchford at the Globe has a well-written piece along the same lines as Willes' column
- The take over at Orland Kurtenblog.
- The related court transcript from the Toronto Star: thanks to Zanstrom for the link

Other hockey links:

- James Mirtle on the Canadian franchises' contribution to NHL revenues
- Tom Benjamin on how league parity isn't such a good thing (including the following hilarious lines: "Is more parity really good for the hockey fan and good for the NHL coffers? Bettman thinks so, but he's incompetent and the incompetent are seldom right.")
- George Johnson has a great story in today's National Post about the Flames' recent 6 for 6 road trip (including memorable lines such as "Six out of six? C'mon. It's still hard to get the old head around the idea, much less the reality. Timothy Leary on his best trip couldn't come up with something that far out.")
- Neil Stevens of Canadian Press on the IIHF inducting three women (Angela James, Geraldine Heaney, and Cammi Granato) into their Hall of Fame
- The Edmonton Journal's David Staples on how the NHL should href="http://communities.canada.com/edmontonjournal/blogs/hockey/archive/2007/12/19/are-nhl-players-on-steroids-and-other-powerful-performance-enhancing-drugs.aspx">strengthen its drug policy
- Alanah on Stephen Harper's promos for the World Juniors on TSN



Soccer

Edu seeking bigger pastures?
According to a National Post story by Mark Masters, Toronto FC's rookie sensation Maurice Edu may soon be heading to the English Premier League. Manager Mo Johnston was quoted as saying, "There's a couple teams who have contacted us. You'll have interest any time you have a great young talent." British papers have Aston Villa (who saw him first-hand during their summer exhibition against TFC) making a strong play for Edu. It would be a shame to see him go, as he impressed me quite a bit in his debut season, but he's certainly very talented and would fit in well with the core of strong young players at Villa. Hopefully Mo will get enough cash to buy a capable replacement if he leaves.

Jonny Evans arrested
The Associated Press reports that Manchester United defender Jonny Evans has been arrested and released on bail in connection with a rape case, which allegedly took place at the club's Christmas party. Whether this particular allegation is true or not, it certainly gives the club a black eye in the public relations realm. Evans is only a fringe player, but he's one of the up-and-coming talents at the club, and has seen some first-team duty this year (including last week's meaningless Champions League match against Roma). It's definitely not the first or last time that athletes have been accused of rape: see Stephon Marbury, the Minnesota Vikings, and the Duke lacrosse team. Even in the case of those later proved innocent, such as the Duke players, questions need to be raised about the situation they put themselves into. I'm not advocating for all athletes to be upstanding moral citizens, but they need to at least try to be discreet and somewhat careful about their carousing so it doesn't hurt their own image and that of their club. The paparazzi make too much of many of these cases, but that doesn't mean that there is no problem.
Related: Football Corner's post on the story.


United going after Larsson again?
Still on the Manchester United front, Football Corner has them linked with another move to re-acquire Swedish star Henrik Larsson on a short-term loan. Larsson did very well in his short stint with United last year, and I think he'd be a great fit as a depth striker, particularly as fixture congestion tends to become an issue in the New Year. He's very capable of scoring off the bench, much in the way Ole Gunnar Solskjaer used to do, and he's familiar with the United team. On United's side, it's an obvious move, as they tried to get him to stay last year. The only question is if he can be persuaded to leave Sweden again.
Related: Richard Starnes has more on this proposed move.


Nick Dasovic becomes men's Olympic coach

The Canadian Press reports that Nick Dasovic has been named to coach the Canadian Olympic (U-23) men's soccer team. Dasovic had a great playing career with the full national team and several clubs including Croatian side Dynamo Zagreb and the Vancouver Whitecaps, where he served as a player-coach. He has recently been Dale Mitchell's assistant with the full national team.

Dasovic is a good choice in my books: I saw him play several times with the Whitecaps, and was impressed not only with his on-field play but with his direction of those around them. The Olympic side is important, as it's an area where we have a greater chance of success than we do with the full national team: players must be under 23, except for three over-agers per country, which allows some non-traditional football powers to excel (2004 saw Paraguay finish second and Iraq come in fourth). It also plays a key role in developing young players for the full national team. Dasovic should have the right blend of playing and coaching experience to succeed in this role. Kudos to the Canadian Soccer Association for getting one right.

Bayern advances with rout

Bayern Munich pulled off a stunning 6-0 defeat of Greek side Aris to advance to the next round of the UEFA Cup. Luca Toni recorded four goals, while Philipp Lahm and Christian Lell added the others. I bet the four-goal performance probably felt pretty good for Toni, after the recent criticisms of him by teammate (and captain) Oliver Kahn. Also, Lahm, who has recently been linked with a move to Manchester United, continued to impress with his offensive ability from the wingback slot.

Other soccer links of note:

Ben Knight on The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, which he calls "the best soccer book of the past decade – flat-out adored by every fan and writer I know who’s ever read it?"


Other fun sporting links:
- Matthew Sekeres of the Globe has a nice post on the From Deep basketball blog about the Raptors' game in Portland
- The Globe's Michael Grange has to write a post about the Trailblazers on an ESPN blog, due to losing a bet
- A great Sports Illustrated story by L. Jon Wertheim on Paul Allen, owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers
- Apparently Terrell Owens doesn't actually have a problem with Jessica Simpson watching Cowboys games
(includes the great TO quote "If I don't get the ball this week, then I am going to have to go to Hollywood and bake some cakes or something and find me a Hollywood star or something.").
- Jonathan Papelbon's dog ate his World Series ball
- Some more names using steroids come out of Jason Grimsley's affidavit