League News: NHL Talk - (News n' Scores n' Stuff) | 2023-24 Regular Season Edition

[Ridley Simon]

What a shitty post.

Gee, I can only guess who you’re talking about. Do yourself a favour and just block the clown.

 

[trick9]

I know the Red Wings eventually got the 2 points but the way they got there... that's not a Playoff team. They were facing an absolutely brutal Blue Jackets team, got dominated and managed to squeeze out an OT win. Kudos for getting the points from a game where they absolutely had to get the points from but if they play like that they'll struggle to crack 85 points. Red Wings don't get to see another bottom-feeder until the final week of the season.

 

[g00n]

This is one of those uncomfortable truths that might get you flamed.

Imagine taking someone's tragic death, assuming suicide, and then injecting your own personal crusade without any data or other information.

Why not look at an obese person who dies of heart disease and immediately start tisk-tisking and blaming a certain food because you saw them eating it 20 years ago? It's an assumption based on zero causal evidence, and nothing but one's personal biases.

Yes, he should be flamed. It was a shitty post.

 

[895]

Imagine taking someone's tragic death, assuming suicide, and then injecting your own personal crusade without any data or other information.

Why not look at an obese person who dies of heart disease and immediately start tisk-tisking and blaming a certain food because you saw them eating it 20 years ago? It's an assumption based on zero causal evidence, and nothing but one's personal biases.

Yes, he should be flamed. It was a shitty post.

What are you talking about dude? His family literally said it was suicide caused by CTE?

 

[g00n]

What are you talking about dude? His family literally said it was suicide caused by CTE?

At the time the comment was made there was no evidence of anything at all.

The only thing that's come out since is a statement by the family and his agent about what they believe. That's not proof of anything. They may be trying to sue for all we know.

And even if an autopsy does show CTE it's still very difficult to make a causal link between that and suicide, given there are so many other potential coinciding factors.

CTE takes a long time to develop. With many players like Simon there's already a history of questionable behavior that could indicate some pre-existing mental issues, addictions, or other elements that might predispose toward bad, self-destructive decisions. He did not have CTE when he was playing in the NHL and cross-checking people in the face or stomping their legs or punching them in the face.

The fact is none of us know exactly what caused it and making it about a personal opinion regarding fighting instead of merely expressing condolences is deplorable.

 

[twabby]

I realize the NHL's lawyers have surely advised Bettman, Daly, and others to keep to the script on this one but I think we as fans can be a little more skeptical.

It seems fair to bring up fighting as a potential cause of his death and bringing it up now after a tragedy is perfectly valid. A lot of enforcers have curiously taken their own lives over the years. A lot of athletes in other sports where blows to the head are more common have also taken their lives.

Let's not play dumb here!

 

[Empty Goal Net]

I realize the NHL's lawyers have surely advised Bettman, Daly, and others to keep to the script on this one but I think we as fans can be a little more skeptical.

It seems fair to bring up fighting as a potential cause of his death and bringing it up now after a tragedy is perfectly valid. A lot of enforcers have curiously taken their own lives over the years. A lot of athletes in other sports where blows to the head are more common have also taken their lives.

Let's not play dumb here!

Having lived through Big Tobacco's push back regarding the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer in the Sixties, I can see similarities in the NHL's position here. I imagine the lawyers and accountants have done a cost:benefit analysis and found that the League's stated position, while not entirely defensible, is the one that "should" most protect the owners' pocketbooks.

 

[Calicaps]

I realize the NHL's lawyers have surely advised Bettman, Daly, and others to keep to the script on this one but I think we as fans can be a little more skeptical.

It seems fair to bring up fighting as a potential cause of his death and bringing it up now after a tragedy is perfectly valid. A lot of enforcers have curiously taken their own lives over the years. A lot of athletes in other sports where blows to the head are more common have also taken their lives.

Let's not play dumb here!

Yeah... f*** that. The science is clear. Dithering on this costs lives. Just give people the facts and let them make their own informed decisions whether to take the risk. Shame on Daly for this.

 

[Calicaps]

At the time the comment was made there was no evidence of anything at all.

The only thing that's come out since is a statement by the family and his agent about what they believe. That's not proof of anything. They may be trying to sue for all we know.

And even if an autopsy does show CTE it's still very difficult to make a causal link between that and suicide, given there are so many other potential coinciding factors.

CTE takes a long time to develop. With many players like Simon there's already a history of questionable behavior that could indicate some pre-existing mental issues, addictions, or other elements that might predispose toward bad, self-destructive decisions. He did not have CTE when he was playing in the NHL and cross-checking people in the face or stomping their legs or punching them in the face.

The fact is none of us know exactly what caused it and making it about a personal opinion regarding fighting instead of merely expressing condolences is deplorable.

I agree that using Simon's death as a soapbox is gross, especially so soon, but I think the reality is that hockey fighting--which I love--carries a real risk of CTE. And as I just said, the problem isn't the fighting itself, it's the bullshitting. Tell people the truth so they can make informed choices.

 

[Hivemind]

What are you talking about dude? His family literally said it was suicide caused by CTE?

I agree that using Simon's death as a soapbox is gross, especially so soon, but I think the reality is that hockey fighting--which I love--carries a real risk of CTE. And as I just said, the problem isn't the fighting itself, it's the bullshitting. Tell people the truth so they can make informed choices.

Based on some context clues here, someone on my ignore list has a problem with my post regarding Simon's death and its linkage to CTE?

The reason I chose to call for a ban on fighting is specifically in memory of Simon, and the struggles he had following his retirement from the NHL. He was very publicly critical of the NHL's handling of concussions and CTE. He also spoke publicly about his struggles with anxiety and depression. The linkage between his mental health struggles and his enforcer career was established long before his death, and his cause of death was immediately reported on twitter as early as 3PM yesterday (and later confirmed by his family's statements). Chris Simon was part of the Caps teams I grew up with. My post in this thread was up before the Tribute thread had opened. I'm not using this as a "soapbox" for any personal agenda beyond honoring what Chris Simon fought for after his retirement, helping mitigate future players from struggling with CTE the same way he did.

I think my previous post supports the linkage between CTE and depression pretty well, as well as the long terms morbidity risks of enforcers in the NHL.

 

[hb13xchamps]

I think the league as a whole would not be kosher with a full on fighting ban. A lot of ex players talk about how fighting allows the players to police themselves.

You’d be looking at some real shit heads running around throwing borderline hits without any repercussions. Maybe I’m completely off base, but it really seems like fighting is way down this year. Other than the Rempe kid being a side show of course.

 

[twabby]

I think the league as a whole would not be kosher with a full on fighting ban. A lot of ex players talk about how fighting allows the players to police themselves.

You’d be looking at some real shit heads running around throwing borderline hits without any repercussions. Maybe I’m completely off base, but it really seems like fighting is way down this year. Other than the Rempe kid being a side show of course.

Tooth for a tooth: Does fighting serve as a deterrent to greater violence in the modern NHL - PMC

Fighting has been part of the fabric of the NHL for nearly a century. Recent sharp declines in the frequency of fighting and increased understanding of the long-term consequences of traumatic brain injuries have led many to question whether fighting ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I examine data on all regular season penalties from 2010–2019 to determine whether fighting and the threat of fighting is empirically related the level of violence in NHL games. Using a mix of descriptive and quasi-experimental approaches, I find no quantifiable evidence that fighting serves as a deterrent to undesirable violent behaviors in the NHL. To the contrary, I find that teams and players who fight are responsible for a disproportionate amount of the violent penalties that happen across the league. These results have implications for player safety in the many professional—and especially junior—hockey leagues around the world that sanction in-game fighting.

Fighting isn't a deterrent. The deterrent argument has been used without proof for years in order to defend fighting.

 

[g00n]

I realize the NHL's lawyers have surely advised Bettman, Daly, and others to keep to the script on this one but I think we as fans can be a little more skeptical.

It seems fair to bring up fighting as a potential cause of his death and bringing it up now after a tragedy is perfectly valid. A lot of enforcers have curiously taken their own lives over the years. A lot of athletes in other sports where blows to the head are more common have also taken their lives.

Let's not play dumb here!

Nobody's playing dumb. We're not making assumptions.

Weird that all this guesswork and leaping to conclusions is coming from the "hard data" people.

Do blows to the head carry health risks? Unquestionably.

Do we know for sure Chris Simon killed himself due to CTE, allowing his death be a platform to immediately start up a crusade against fighting again? Absolutely not.

Based on some context clues here, someone on my ignore list has a problem with my post regarding Simon's death and its linkage to CTE?

The reason I chose to call for a ban on fighting is specifically in memory of Simon, and the struggles he had following his retirement from the NHL. He was very publicly critical of the NHL's handling of concussions and CTE. He also spoke publicly about his struggles with anxiety and depression. The linkage between his mental health struggles and his enforcer career was established long before his death, and his cause of death was immediately reported on twitter as early as 3PM yesterday (and later confirmed by his family's statements). Chris Simon was part of the Caps teams I grew up with. My post in this thread was up before the Tribute thread had opened. I'm not using this as a "soapbox" for any personal agenda beyond honoring what Chris Simon fought for after his retirement, helping mitigate future players from struggling with CTE the same way he did.

I think my previous post supports the linkage between CTE and depression pretty well, as well as the long terms morbidity risks of enforcers in the NHL.

If you weren't such a coward you could read what everyone says to you instead of blindly replying behind a shield of "someone I'm ignoring appears to have said something", since I already addressed this.

 

[VaCaps Fan]

The Matt Cooke players in the world need to be policed.

 

[g00n]

Tooth for a tooth: Does fighting serve as a deterrent to greater violence in the modern NHL - PMC

Fighting has been part of the fabric of the NHL for nearly a century. Recent sharp declines in the frequency of fighting and increased understanding of the long-term consequences of traumatic brain injuries have led many to question whether fighting ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Fighting isn't a deterrent. The deterrent argument has been used without proof for years in order to defend fighting.

Strange how correlation without causation is accepted in one case (CTE->novel case of depression->suicide due to CTE) but not the other (fighting->deterrent or any other reason to allow it).

 

[Hivemind]

The Matt Cooke players in the world need to be policed.

Matt Cooke sliced Eik Karlsson's achilles tendon in a game in which Chris Neil played. Cooke boarded Fedor Tyutin despite the opposing line-up having Derek Dorsett and Jared Boll. Cooke ended Marc Savard's career with a blindside hit in a game against a Boston line-up featuring both Milan Lucic and Shawn Thornton.

Enforcers failed to stop Matt Cooke through-out his entire career. Fighting isn't a deterrent to players like Cooke.

 

[hb13xchamps]

Matt Cooke sliced Eik Karlsson's achilles tendon in a game in which Chris Neil played. Cooke boarded Fedor Tyutin despite the opposing line-up having Derek Dorsett and Jared Boll. Cooke ended Marc Savard's career with a blindside hit in a game against a Boston line-up featuring both Milan Lucic and Shawn Thornton.

Enforcers failed to stop Matt Cooke through-out his entire career. Fighting isn't a deterrent to players like Cooke.

The era of having an enforcer is over. Those guys are getting phased out of the NHL without looking there are only a handful of them left. The “staged” fighting was absolutely a gong show and did not need to be a part of hockey. Fighting a guy who chicken winged your star player should absolutely still be in the game. The players themselves are saying this. I’m sure if you did a blind poll of NHL players there still would be an overwhelming majority that want it in the game.

 

[Hivemind]

The era of having an enforcer is over. Those guys are getting phased out of the NHL without looking there are only a handful of them left. The “staged” fighting was absolutely a gong show and did not need to be a part of hockey. Fighting a guy who chicken winged your star player should absolutely still be in the game. The players themselves are saying this. I’m sure if you did a blind poll of NHL players there still would be an overwhelming majority that want it in the game.

Active players aren't known for taking a long term view on things, or having the best mentality towards safety. Helmets had to be grandfathered into the NHL because active players refused to wear them at first. Same with visors after that. Neck guards face resistance now. It's only when they step away from the daily medical care provided by their orgs and have to start living with the physical consequences (and the lack of NHL care towards its retirees) that they realize how important player safety and health truly is. There's a reason retired players tend to take a much more aggressive stance towards the NHL's handling of CTE, and even former enforcers like Jim Thomson have made cases that fighting should be banned.

Plenty of guys fought Matt Cooke over the years for what he did. Brassard jumped him right after that Tyutin hit I mentioned in the previous post. Shawn Thornton took his revenge on Cooke after the Savard hit. That kind of fighting didn't deter Cooke, it just meant that Cooke (plus whoever he was punching back) also suffered repetitively head trauma in addition to whoever Cooke injured in the first place. It's retaliation, not deterrence.

I think the first step to having an really productive conversation about fighting is to be honest about it. It's not about "the code" or deterrence or "policing" players. We like fighting because we enjoy watching these guys fight. It's fun. It's entertaining. It's an "exclamation mark" moment in a sport that only has a handful of goals scored over the course of 60 minutes. It's a spectacle that draws in both casual and hardcore fans. It's a sign of commitment to a player's franchise that they're willing to take a punch for their team. That's why we honestly like fighting. If we stop pretending that it's something else, we can have a more honest dialogue about what it's worth to the game.

 

[traparatus]

The Matt Cooke players in the world need to be policed.

Matt Cooke played his whole career in the league that allows fighting and players policing themselves. He still did all the things that he did.

 

[YippieKaey]

Imagine taking someone's tragic death, assuming suicide, and then injecting your own personal crusade without any data or other information.

Why not look at an obese person who dies of heart disease and immediately start tisk-tisking and blaming a certain food because you saw them eating it 20 years ago? It's an assumption based on zero causal evidence, and nothing but one's personal biases.

Yes, he should be flamed. It was a shitty post.

Heart disease and obesity ARE linked though. With plenty causality. So we should definitely do something about obesity since we know it has negative health effects.

Same for head trauma, CTE and various mental issues (not to mention the psychological pressure of being expected to get into fights all the time, a situation i have lived in and it was not particularly healthy).

It's ok to like something as entertainment AND see the dangers of it.

 

[IafrateOvie34]

I'm not against fighting or physical play at all, however I'm against stupid, blatant cheap shots and the gladiator mentality endorsing fights for no reasoning. I love physical hockey and I do believe there is place for responsible fights. Remember the NYR "Horrible Acts of Violence" letter? The same organization that made a big fuss now chants, "Rempe!" at games like it's some Roman Coliseum event encouraging clown show fighting. Before someone claims what about former Caps and current Caps who have done these things, those players paid the price in suspensions and money. If the NHL was really serious about this, the fines and suspensions by the NHL DOPS should be more than just four games and do away with the first time offender argument. Fighting isn't like most of us here have watched over the decades. It's really not that common anymore, however I don't see the league doing much about cheap shots much at all. I'm all for fighting when protecting against those who intent to injure. The league has all these camera angles, instant replay, and player reputations to take in account to make better decisions on this stuff, so is it that hard to make a good decision with fines and suspensions? What about players who were run over in the goal crease during a critical playoff game or take Sandstrom style stick infractions? If you take fighting out of the game there will be more stuff like that happening. Don't tell me a four game suspension is enough either with intent to injure players.

 

[YippieKaey]

I agree that using Simon's death as a soapbox is gross, especially so soon, but I think the reality is that hockey fighting--which I love--carries a real risk of CTE. And as I just said, the problem isn't the fighting itself, it's the bullshitting. Tell people the truth so they can make informed choices.

If they tell the truth they might become liable so not gonna happen.

I'm not against fighting or physical play at all, however I'm against stupid, blatant cheap shots and the gladiator mentality endorsing fights for no reasoning. I love physical hockey and I do believe there is place for responsible fights. Remember the NYR "Horrible Acts of Violence" letter? The same organization that made a big fuss now chants, "Rempe!" at games like it's some Roman Coliseum event encouraging clown show fighting. Before someone claims what about former Caps and current Caps who have done these things, those players paid the price in suspensions and money. If the NHL was really serious about this, the fines and suspensions by the NHL DOPS should be more than just four games and do away with the first time offender argument. Fighting isn't like most of us here have watched over the decades. It's really not that common anymore, however I don't see the league doing much about cheap shots much at all. I'm all for fighting when protecting against those who intent to injure. The league has all these camera angles, instant replay, and player reputations to take in account to make better decisions on this stuff, so is it that hard to make a good decision with fines and suspensions? What about players who were run over in the goal crease during a critical playoff game or take Sandstrom style stick infractions? If you take fighting out of the game there will be more stuff like that happening. Don't tell me a four game suspension is enough either with intent to injure players.

A four game sussy in the playoffs trumps any fight.

 

[IafrateOvie34]

If they tell the truth they might become liable so not gonna happen.


A four game sussy in the playoffs trumps any fight.

In the playoffs possibly, however some of those events over the years justified suspension for the entire playoff even if their teams advance. I'm talking legitimate cheap shots too, not clean hits. Four games in the regular season is nothing, imho.

 

[Hivemind]

In the playoffs possibly, however some of those events over the years justified suspension for the entire playoff even if their teams advance. I'm talking legitimate cheap shots too, not clean hits. Four games in the regular season is nothing, imho.

I think most of the folks who want to see changes to fighting would also be on board with harsher punishments for illegal checks, cheap shots, and hits to the head.

 

[g00n]

Heart disease and obesity ARE linked though. With plenty causality. So we should definitely do something about obesity since we know it has negative health effects.

Same for head trauma, CTE and various mental issues (not to mention the psychological pressure of being expected to get into fights all the time, a situation i have lived in and it was not particularly healthy).

It's ok to like something as entertainment AND see the dangers of it.

You completely missed my point.

I didn't say obesity is good or it wasn't related to poor health. I said "Why not look at an obese person who dies of heart disease and immediately start tisk-tisking and blaming a certain food because you saw them eating it 20 years ago?" The point was related to ascribing causality to this one thing from the past instead of the balance of potential factors, especially lacking any clear evidence of a single cause.

Maybe the metaphor also wasn't perfect enough because you can diagnose obesity while living. Not so for CTE. There is no test. It can only be found on autopsy. Then you have to examine all the other events and habits and traits that played a role in shaping a person's life and maybe make some assumptions about influences.

It is NOT as simple as "these guys are all dying from depression and suicide just because they were fighters".

Plus, again, there are many MANY other factors at play in a person's life, in addition to the circumstances and traits that even lead someone to be a professional face-puncher who does various other crazy things on and off the ice in the first place.

There is no test for someone's brain that says "this is guaranteed to cause depression and suicide". There are only increased probabilities, which is true for all dangerous things, including skating around a rink with blades on your feet and your neck exposed.