Suspensions? Are you kidding me Bettman?
Posted by Scott on January 23, 2009
Apparently last year the NHL and the GM’s got together and decided to punish injured players for missing the All-Star game. I get the fact that the league is using all of the stars to sell the brand of the NHL to increase viewership and revenue. But, to punish a player who doesn’t participate because they are injured? Can you imagine the screaming and yelling that the MLBPA would be doing if they tried doing this in baseball where players don’t even need to be injured very much to find a way to skip showing up for the All-Star game, or the NFL, where a lot of players are pretty dinged up and miss out on the All-Pro game.
What can be a realistic criteria for suspending players? What exactly is the threshold for missing time? If a player leaves the final game prior to the all-star break with an injury and that injury is considered to be “day-to-day”, why should that player be “forced” to sit out a game if they are capable of playing? I’m going to use the case of Pavel Datsyuk for this argument. Datsyuk left the game last Tuesday night against the Phoenix Coyotes in the second period and didn’t return. The Red Wings aren’t scheduled to play again until this upcoming Tuesday night. That is one full week off for an injured player who is listed as “day-to-day” on the injury report. The week off is more beneficial to the player, their team, and in the end, the league by getting that rest instead of potentially worsening the injury by participating in on ice activities for the All-Star weekend.
What about the player that was voted in by the fans (What a joke), who has been out injured most of the season and is scheduled to come back right before the All-Star break? Is the league going to compensate his team if he reinjures himself participating in the All-Star Weekend? I highly doubt it. Oh, and putting the blame on the two Detroit players who were picked by the coaches as the scapegoats for enforcing this “rule”…totally classless. But it’s what is to be expected from this pack of fools that runs the NHL. Watch them manage to blow a potential return to ESPN in 2011.
