Thugs in Hockey

Why don’t we just admit that Patrick Roy’s son, Jonathan Roy, is a spoiled brat, and his father is a thug. I say that without taking anything away from Mr. Roy Sr.’s brilliance as a goaltender in the NHL. Apparently Mr. Roy Jr. has amazing budding abilities as a goaltender in the QHL. However, just as I could not stand the Denver Bronco player, whose name I cannot remember, who actually creamed his fellow player so badly in training camp that he crippled him and almost certainly was involved in drug trafficking, I can still call him a thug despite the fact he was a Pro Bowl player.
Unlike what the National Post thinks, the occurrence of that individual in the NFL was such a rarity, that I can only think of his case in that league. I can’t think if a single other case of such thuggery. The NFL doesn’t even allow plyaing with popcorn or a videocamera or the wearing of a jacket that looks like a Hall of Fame jacket. That would incur penalties. Let alone doing anything to hurt another player after the play is over. Heck, in the NFL you get fines and penalties even if you deliver clean blows if they were found to have been brutal and gratuitous.
That’s the difference between the NFL and the NHL and nearly every other hockey league I can think of.
People like the fans and the National Post really do think that fighting is part of the game. Even my son thinks that. I had to convince him that we didn’t have to have it like that. Look at football, I said. Do you see any of them fighting after they’ve beaten each other up for an entire play? Of course not. There’s hitting in hockey during the play. Why does there need to be some after? It is ridiculous and no less dangerous in hockey as they are just as well equipped or padded as football players are.
Fighting in hockey has to stop or Americans will continue to refer to hockey the way they used to refer to football in the bad old days as really nothing better than pro wrestling.
The problem for hockey is that unlike what the National Post says, this behaviour is not rare and unexpected. It may be in the sense that goaltenders are, by the very nature of their position, less likely to be involved in this behaviour, but it is not just the goaltenders. It is players of every position. It’s kids of all ages now. It’s their parents. It’s even officials. It’s got to stop and frankly while I am always reluctant to involve the government in any sport, the League should understand that if it doesn’t put an end to this scandal, then one day some government might do it. Might there be an opportunity for the Government of Ontario, for instance, to do something useful for once? No. Leave it alone, let hockey sort it out. But sort it out it must. It needs to be done as soon as possible.
When will the constabulary of Quebec City arrest Jonathan Roy for what was almost certainly a pre-meditated assault on another individual without any justification in sport? The assaulted party offered no resistance and signalled clearly he had no intention of fighting. This was all captured on video for us. When will the police lay charges against Patrick Roy for abetting his behaviour, for inciting him to attack this person?
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Amongst the various ludicrous observations at this so-called milestone of 4,000 dead Americans in Iraq, the comment of Saeed Rafai, the LA Times reporter in Iraq are foolish. He says the average civilian casualty figure is 150,000 and therefore the American losses are not significant to the civilian losses to native Iraqis.
It does, however, certainly far exceeds the number of Iraqi soldiers who have died defending the US.
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Is Canada going to let the Olympic torch go through? I hope not. It’s the least we could do to register our displeasure about the Tibet question.
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If there is one problem with Mr. Friedman’s flat earth book, and God knows that some people will point to problems already because of the economic issues in China, it is his tendency to attempt to be a creative writer. My favourite: "It wasn’t only Americans and Europeans who joined the people of the Soviet Empire in celebrating the fall of the Wall and claiming credit for it. Someone else was raising a glass, not of champagne but of thick, Turkish coffee. His name was Osama bin Laden and he had a different narrative."
My goodness! Does he really drink Turkish coffee? If he does, maybe there’s hope. Better than Russian tea. If he drank Brazilian, it would be a real breakthrough.
If Osama bin Laden thought that he had brought down the Soviet Union by forcing the Red Army to withdraw from Afghanistan, he is not alone. So do Mike Nichols and Tom Hanks.
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One thing that strikes me about university tuitions and admittances in the US is how a state like California that claims it is in a fiscal crisis doesn’t just sell USC and allow itself to have a surplus. One has to wonder how the home of the brave and the land of the free still owns AMTRAK, TVA and most of the states still own their own universities. Doesn’t make much sense, not just in terms of expenses but in terms of conflict of interest. They may be forced to confront this when they really have a fiscal crisis. It would be nice for them to confront it on a philosophical level, but that’s unlikely.
Let these universities grow voluntarily or privately like some many of the best institutions that are still private have done. Certainly, one cannot understand how it would be possible for USC not to survive as a private institution without government tutelage. I have a gigantic private endowment, it is a large school with great facilities that have been publicly and privately funded over the years.
In California’s case, the politics of Sacramento have to change before that changes. At least one house has to come into Repubican control, I suspect. It also have to find a governor who actually has beliefs.
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It’s been pointed out by a historian in a documentary about the British empire that one great legacy of the English to the Indians when they came to India was the language. The main importance there is that now it is the only thing that unites Indians.