Suspended II

In the on-going series of Beth talking about things she only marginally understands, we’re back to hockey suspensions.

New York Islanders forward Chris Simon was hit with a 30-game suspension. While that’s the kind of suspension that I would’ve liked to see the Canuck’s Mathias Ohlund get for breaking Mikko Koivu’s leg, I’ll concede that the Ohland suspension was appropriate, as well as the Simon suspension. Ohlund, as far as I know, has never been suspended before, and has no history of breaking the legs of one of Beth’s favorite players–which should be an automatic suspension, no matter what circumstances. There was no way for the league to know how long Mikko Koivu would be out, so there was no way of dictating a longer penalty based on time missed. Besides, the original guess was that Mikko Koivu would be out approximately one week. No one could’ve guessed it would be more than a month.

Simon was caught, in a recent game purposely stepping on the player’s leg with his skate (youtube video). It’s Jarko Ruutu’s good fortune that he wasn’t injured, and certainly he was smiled upon by lady fortune in that he was not seriously injured. This type of behavior isn’t out of the norm for Simon, as he’s been suspended seven times previously, in fifteen years.

Simon used to hold the league in the length of a suspension at 25 games. He now has a new record. His team is on record saying that drugs and alcohol are not part of Simon’s behavioral problems. He’s simply “Chris is a good, solid guy,” teammate Bryan Berard said. “He does have that switch where he can snap…”

This is not something to be taken lightly. Hockey is a very intense sport–one of the reasons I like it–and there is a lot of emotion. However, people need to keep emotions in check. It seems Simon has never learned to this–there’s no shame in it. People who can’t do certain things, however, need to be taught them, or taught measures to deal with their problems. Hockey players cannot be dangerously attacking one another.

League disciplinarian Colin Campell is on record saying the past suspensions led to the extremity of this one. Obviously, his past suspensions haven’t taught him anything, or at least, they haven’t deterred him from committing these dangerous actions.

The other part of this story that is tragic to me is that the a guy in the Islanders system turned pro, possibly to join the team. Kyle Okposo left the U of MN, Twin Cities, Gopher Hockey team to play in the Islanders’ system. I could wax long on the poor move for Okposo to leave his team in the middle of the season, and the poor move on the Islanders side to take a kid from his team, but that’s neither here nor there. It just simply means my favorite player has left the Gophers (see this play as a point of reference as to his play).

Hey, Ryan–our Ryan–is guest-blogging at Barry Melrose Rocks (www.melroserocks.blogspot.com) today. Check it out! We here at the Victoria Times hopes that his fame won’t go to his head, causing him to forget the little people.