I’m sure that everyone’s seen the hit. David Booth was cutting through the middle of the zone just past the blue line. He passed the puck off to the wing and Richards just leveled him.
According to Paul Holmgren, Richards will not be disciplined by the NHL.
First of all, let me say that I hope that David Booth makes a speedy recovery.
In my opinion, what happened was a hockey play with an unfortunate result. Mike Richards makes a lot of big hits catching players with their heads down. But they are never dirty hits and they are never cheapshots. Richards is a hardnosed and intense player who respects the game and the players. He has no history of cheap play.
Now let me break down the hit. A lot of people say it’s a late hit. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Richards hit Booth about a half second after the puck was gone. There’s nothing wrong with that, as Richards was already committed to making the hit. Calling it late is really stretching it to find something wrong with the hit. Richards doesn’t take any strides to try to gain speed to hit Booth. He coasts for quite some time before delivering the hit. And when he does deliver the hit, he keeps his feet on the ice, his elbows tucked in, his hands down, and his shoulder down. And he doesn’t “flick” up his shoulder to drive through the player like many players who commit cheapshots do. Richards was backchecking through the middle and stepped up to eliminate Booth from the play. Based on this, it was a perfectly clean hit. However, Richards connected mostly with Booth’s head.
Headshots are nasty, plain and simple. No one ever wants to see them and the NHL should do it’s best to get them out of the game. Richards is ultimately responsible for where his hits land, whether he intends to injure Booth or not. Personally, I don’t think there was any intent to injure. It’s easy to fall into the slow motion trap, which makes a hit look a lot worse than it actually is. Hockey is a fast game, and had Booth turned his shoulder just slightly, Richards probably would have gotten all shoulder. Maybe Richards anticipated that Booth would see him or have his body positioned otherwise. But the thing is, we really don’t know what was going through Richards’ head. We can speculate all we want, but the only one who knows what Mike Richards’ intentions were are Mike Richards. Saying definitively what he was trying to do either way is silly and takes us nowhere. This wasn’t a Steve Downie on Dean McAmmond type hit or an elbow to the chops, this was a (like it or not) 100% legal hit. However, legality doesn’t always guarantee cleanliness.
The other thing that needs to be discussed about the hit is what David Booth did. They teach it from when you first start playing hockey: Skate with your head up! I don’t mean it to sound like some he-man type attitude. It’s more self-preservation than anything else. Other players are trying to hit you and they’re trying to hit you hard. They may not be trying to injure you, but they really want to make you think twice about doing what you’re trying to do again. In this case, it was cutting across the middle. A player really needs to protect himself and always keep his head on a swivel, especially in dangerous areas. Look at football, it’s the same thing. If you go through the middle of the field, there are several players looking to crush you, and for the same reasons as they do in hockey. Many times if a player feels the pressure, he’ll immediately drop and curl up to avoid a big hit. And the anticipation of a big hit also leads some receivers to develop “alligator arms.” On top of going through the middle, what made it even worse was that Booth turned around to look at his pass. But what’s interesting to me is that it looked as though Booth was looking directly in Richards’ direction, then turned his head. Did he not see him coming? Did he not think Richards would try to hit him? Like we don’t know what went through Richards’ mind, we don’t know what went through Booth’s. But we do know that Booth’s responsible to protect himself, and he didn’t.
The best thing for Richards to do is simply put this behind him, especially if he didn’t have any intentions to hurt Booth. He can’t afford to lose the edge to his game because he’s constantly afraid that he’s going to hurt someone. Let me compare this to a baseball scenario. When a batter squares around to bunt with a man on third the pitcher is supposed to throw the ball high and inside. The point is not to hit the batter, it’s to force him to bail out, or at worst, induce a popup. Once in awhile, the ball might actually hit the batter. Should the pitcher be punished or never throw inside again? Of course not. He’s got to put it behind him and keep going.
I haven’t seen what the NHL’s reasoning behind not suspending Richards is. Since it was a legal hit, I would assume that they felt he had no malicious intentions. However, something does need to be done about headshots in the game. All three parties all responsible for the safety of the players: the hitters have to make sure they’re not getting chin with their shoulders, the players on the receiving end have to make sure they adequately protect themselves, and the league has to ensure the safety of the players. I’ve discussed the first two points, but not the league’s involvement yet. The league needs a comprehensive set of rules that makes it very clear what’s allowed and what’s not allowed. And what’s more, and most important, is that the league MUST consistently enforce these rules. Until the league does this, the league’s disciplinary system will be a joke.
The league has been just completely inconsistent with handing out discipline. Is it a star player? Was the player on the receiving end of the hit injured? And if so, how badly? Each of those questions should have absolutely nothing to do with how the league should handle questionable hits. It should be based on exactly what the hitter does and what their intent can best be determined as. I’ve seen too many times that a filthy hit goes unpunished because the victim of the hit popped right back up. It’s backwards logic and just asking for some players to go over the line. Star power should ignored as well. How does Chris Simon get 30 games for stomping on someone’s leg while Chris Pronger only gets 8? And the worst part is, the NHL wasn’t going to discipline Pronger at first. Another example are the similar slewfoots given by Ovechkin and Artyukhin. They were both virtually the same play, but Ovechkin only got a small fine. All of this garbage with extent of the injury and name on the back of jersey has to stop.
The league should adopt a zero tolerance policy when it comes to hits to the head, something where no interpretation is necessary. A hit to the head equals whatever penalty they decide. It doesn’t matter if it’s intentional or not. When it comes to the health of the players, the league should have had a policy like this a long time ago. It makes it so much easier for the league and they’ll catch a lot less flak when they make a decision. In the case of something like the Richards hit, I think that the maximum penalty should be a 2 game suspension or a hefty fine. Players who wind up in unfortunate situations when they try to do everything right don’t deserve to get heavy suspensions. I even think that a two game suspension could be a bit much. We don’t want our players to lose their edge and playing in fear of a suspension. It’s something the league would have to figure out. And naturally, if the hit itself was dirty and/or there were malicious intentions, then they can make the penalty for severe. But as it stands, the league doesn’t do a good enough job, on many levels.
Hopefully David Booth can make a fast and full recovery. Hopefully the players can learn to protect themselves a little better. And hopefully the league can adopt a policy to protect its players.
Cranium Carom! 