Area Coaches Weigh in on NHL’s Growing Problem of Violence

The events that occurred between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Islanders at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum last Friday – frequent hits to the head and a number of senseless fights – represent what has become a dangerous pattern of violence in the National Hockey League. What was once an openly physical game designed to play on skill and toughness is now tarnished by acts of blatant violence.

One can go back about a decade ago to find an example of when aggression in hockey is taken too far.

On Feb. 21, 2000, the Boston Bruins’ Marty McSorley intentionally hit opposing player Donald Brashear in the head with his stick. As a result of the blow, coupled with falling headfirst onto the frozen surface below, Brashear was diagnosed with a Grade III concussion and suffered a seizure on the ice.

McSorley was suspended for the remainder of that season and was later found by a jury to be guilty of assault with a weapon. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation and never played another NHL game.

Even more recently, on March 8, 2004, the Vancouver Canucks’ Todd Bertuzzi attempted to provoke an opposing player, Steve Moore, into a fight by grabbing the back of Moore’s jersey and punching him in the head from behind. Moore fell headfirst onto the ice as well, also suffering a Grade III concussion. Moore also suffered three fractured vertebrae in his neck, vertebral ligament damage and nerve damage.

While Brashear eventually recovered from his injuries and returned to the sport, the attack by Bertuzzi ended Moore’s career.

The issue of on-ice violence couldn’t hit any closer to home for the Penguins these days, as their captain and perhaps the world’s finest hockey player, Sidney Crosby, who was hit in the head with a blind-side shoulder by the Washington Capitals’ David Steckel during the 2011 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic on New Year’s Day and again in the head by the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Victor Hedman just days later, hasn’t played since being diagnosed with a concussion of uncertain severity.

Crosby is out indefinitely while feeling lingering effects of the injury.

Then, of course, there’s the recent events on Long Island that resulted in 346 total penalty minutes between the two teams, three suspensions and a $100,000 fine against the Islanders. In the wake of that game, Penguins legend and co-owner Mario Lemieux had the following to say.

“Hockey is a tough, physical game, and it always should be,” Lemieux said. “But what happened Friday night on Long Island wasn’t hockey. It was a travesty. It was painful to watch the game I love turn into a sideshow like that ...

“If the events relating to Friday night reflect the state of the league, I need to re-think whether I want to be a part of it.”

Now, the NHL is left with trying to figure out how to curtail such behavior on the ice.

“Unfortunately, I think it’s definitely a black eye for the sport,” ’s varsity ice hockey Head Coach Kevin Becker said. “The problem is they’re trying to get away from the head shots, but they’re inconsistent in the way they discipline or penalize players.”

Former high-school coach and youth official Dave Fryer agrees about the dichotomy that the NHL has created with overly aggressive play and how it isn’t consistently enforced.

“The NHL is in a tough spot,” Fryer, who is the head coach of ’s top men’s club team, said, “because the issues of head shots and concussions arose very quickly. But they have also dug themselves a hole by loosening their grip on the standard of play and rules enforcement they established during the [2004-05 season] lockout.

“It’s tough for them to be consistent on this when they constantly seem to have a floating standard for everything else.”

“I think they let people get away with hitting people from behind, head shots and stuff that just shouldn’t be in hockey,” ’s Head Coach Larry Marks said.

But Marks also said that better awareness and prevention has to also include changing the equipment that players wear.

“The helmets, really, they’re not for concussions,” he said. “They’re basically to help if someone gets a stick off the helmet or a puck, but they need to do something so it’s better for concussions.”

Becker said that the NHL has to find a new way to crack down on the kind of violent behavior seen in the Penguins-Islanders game and the recent Sidney Crosby head hits, suggesting stiffer suspensions like the ones that McSorley and Bertuzzi received or even penalizing teams by taking away roster spots to make them play shorthanded for longer than just two, four or five minutes.

He believes that something must be done to change the dynamic.

“Until they discipline the players at all,” Becker said, “it’s not going to change.”