To me, the situation is similar to that of hitting from behind.  I by no means am in favour of hits from behind (or hits to the head), but that being said, if the victimized player puts himself in position for that to happen (either by turning when a hit is coming, or putting their head on par with people’s elbows/shoulders) then they fully deserve what they have coming.  Weight’s hit was 100% legal.  Full-stop.

To me, you fix the situation by telling Sutter not to put himself in that position, just like you tell Lindros to keep his head up, and others not to feed suicide passes.  That being said, I am in full agreement with somehow policing [deliberate/i]hits to the head, similar to that of hits from behind.  I just hate when it’s good clean hits like Weights that start this discussion.  No one ever brought things like this up when Stevens was knocking Kariya, or Lindros, or Ron Francis was getting knocked out. 

Aaaand…
Thus ended the italics.

Posted by SENShobo from Waterloo, ON on 10/28/08 at 12:47 PM ET

what is the reason for a hockey player in doug weight’s position to hit a player in sutter’s position in the head?  is it somehow more effective at separating him from the puck than hitting him in the chest or shoulders?  when a guy is stretching for the puck like it is completely possible to aim your hit at the body and get exactly the same result, complete with all the “ooooh” factor of blowing someone up. the situation is exactly analagous to the boarding situation where a player is required to show restraint when the opponent is in a vulnerable position.  it’s also extremely similar to the nfl rule about destroying a receiver when he’s in the air trying to make a catch.

also, the fact that the hit is currently 100% legal or calling it a good hockey play has no bearing on this discussion, which is about whether that kind of hit should be legal.

Posted by bitterguy from san francisco, ca on 10/28/08 at 12:53 PM ET

My apologies for the italics.

As for whether or not the hit should be legal, I say definitely.  I love the look of a huge open-ice hit.  And if you ban a hit like this, do you ban one where the player cuts into the middle (the “trolley tracks”) and gets leveled like Stajan did by Wideman, or Alfreddson did by Bell, etc?  If players put themselves in that position, they deserve whatever comes to them.  No one forced Sutter to reach for the puck like that, just like no one forced Lindros to stickhandle while looking at the puck.  If you take out hits on vulnerable players, you’ll have a whole league of Lindros’ who will skate around with their heads down, or slumped over, just to make themselves vulnerable and thus unhittable.

The end result of the hit is unfortunate, and no one wants to see a serious injury occur.  But that being said, these things happen, and have happened, as far as the NHL has existed, I see no reason to change things because (in this case) one player put himself in a bad position, and paid the price for it.

Posted by Lordosis on 10/28/08 at 01:09 PM ET

It’s always hard to say, I think. Yes, Weight’s hit was unfortunate in many ways, but would you call him a headhunter? How about Colby Armstrong, who has two head hits I can remember from recent memory? Or what about Hollweg always seeming to find himself hitting the wrong person in the wrong position at the wrong time?

When the Sens played the Bruins, and Chara smattered Winchester into the boards, popping off his helmet, I was relieved to find that he wasn’t hurt, but couldn’t help but think that there was some extra follow-through from Chara’s elbow, at least from the camera angle, not that I don’t respect Chara as a great force in the game. There also seemed to be a very upward focus from Lucic on Van Ryn, when he was forced through the glass (again, not to pick on anyone).

It’s a hard battle to win, and yet decisions and calls do seem to be made. When Chris Simon stepped on Jarkko Ruutu’s leg, there was deemed to be intent and deliberate effort, and he received a stiff (30 games) suspension. When Chris Pronger’s skate was applied with pressure to Ryan Kessler’s leg, there was deemed to be carelessness with less intent, and a less stiff (8 games) suspension was doled out. I’m sure that there have been incidents where more skate-on-leg action has happened - perhaps because of a lack of intent or the player has actively been noted to avoid causing the overly dangerous act, heaven protect that player who would put safety first - and the League has given no punishment whatsoever.

Could players be safer, work to avoid these precipitous situations? Could other players work to lessen their hits, maybe even go for a hip check with less head-crushing focus, when they see their target set themselves up to be the victim? Can the League evaluate and discern between incidents of misfortune, negligence, and deliberate malicious intent, and act appropriately based on that evauation? I think in all cases, the answer is yes.

Posted by SENShobo from Waterloo, ON on 10/28/08 at 01:17 PM ET

“around with their heads down, or slumped over, just to make themselves vulnerable and thus unhittable.”

I don’t buy that at all.

” I see no reason to change things “

Maybe you didn’t see the concussion stats that Mirtle did up yesterday. I think that’s a good reason to look at changing things.

Posted by Shane from Saskatoon on 10/28/08 at 01:23 PM ET

“There also seemed to be a very upward focus from Lucic on Van Ryn, when he was forced through the glass (again, not to pick on anyone).”

Yep, at the point of contact both of Lucic’s skates were off the ice.

Posted by Shane from Saskatoon on 10/28/08 at 01:25 PM ET

To be as unbiased as I can, while still being a Sens fan, I can’t accept the Bell on Alfie hit as legit. If you watch the video (and believe me, I’ve seen it plenty), you’ll see that Alfie has his head up, and the only point where it goes is because it’s part of the full body follow through on his shot, something you will see over and over in any game. The big issue with the Alfie hit is that, as far as you can tell, Bell’s working most with his hands and arms, not body, to be a bushel-swinger, bringing his full force to punch through Alfie’s head. If you can find the good footage, you’ll notice that Alfie’s head swings out before his body does, showing that it was the first (and pretty much only) part of Alfie’s body to be hit.

It’s a very hard argument to win, suggesting that NHL players can rifle a shot through the tiniest of holes, blitz around the rink on tiny razor blades, but they can’t aim their bodies well enough to make contact with other bodies rather than other heads, targets 6-12” in different directions.

Posted by SENShobo from Waterloo, ON on 10/28/08 at 01:26 PM ET

Maybe I didn’t make it clear enough, but my proposal is designed to punish blatant hits to the head with an exception for when a player puts himself in a vulnerable situation (see my last bullet point). In a case like Brandon Sutter, he’s gotta take responsibility for putting himself in that situation.

However, if you go in with a shoulder to someone’s jaw while they’re upright, that means you could have easily gone in for a standard body check that starts in the mid-chest and lifts upward. That kind of stuff should be punished.

And the St. Louis/Chara argument will always be some sort of gray area for this issue, one that I’m not going to get into right now. My idea is just a way to hopefully get some sort of reasonable middle ground discussion going.

Posted by Mike Chen on 10/28/08 at 01:29 PM ET

I for the most part agree with you Mike, and for intentional headhits, fine, I have no problem with that, as long as we limit intentional to acts such as sticking an elbow up, or leaving ones feet.  I do feel that shoulders to the head happen, in a split second, and these are not intentional.  I guess my solution is come down on the obvious ones hard, and leave the ones in the grey area alone.

As for Dr. Mirtle’s stats, the trend is alarming, but different measures could be taken.  To name a few, ensure helmets are on properly, tied up tightly, so that they don’t come off as easily as they do now.  Additionally, how bout we start listening to Don Cherry and fixing these elbow and shoulder pads so they aren’t as injurous?  There’s your correlation:  as body armour gets harder, concussions go up.  Fix these things, and I guarantee concussions go down without altering the bodychecks that have existed long before these issues were brought up.

Posted by Lordosis on 10/28/08 at 01:42 PM ET

what is the reason for a hockey player in doug weight’s position to hit a player in sutter’s position in the head?  is it somehow more effective at separating him from the puck than hitting him in the chest or shoulders?

Yeah since after all Weight tried to do it and Weight wanted to hit him in the head, and the fact that at last second Sutter ducked his head down had NOTHING to do with what happened, entirely Weight’s fault, lets just string the man up and kill him.

Can we just stop this crap? Yeah, it was unfortunate what happened, but it was an accident, it wasn’t the fault of the hitters at all, there was nothing he could have done differently.
Let me say that again, no one seems to hear it,....There is nothing Doug Weight could have done differently.
Once he was commited to hitting Sutter, he was going to hit him, by the time Sutter had ducked his head down, there was nothing Weight could have done to not hit him in the head. Had Sutter not ducked his head down, he wouldn’t have been hit in the head.

Of course we should stop hits to the head, it is a real problem. Concussions can end a career, its that simple. But what happened with the Weight/Sutter thing was unavoidable, it wasn’t Weight’s fault, and under any rule in the NHL it isn’t a penalty. And when they come up with new rules about hits to the head, what happened should not be a penalty in those either.

Posted by Kevin from Pittsburgh on 10/28/08 at 02:46 PM ET