The punishment handed down by the league office to the New York Islanders’ Chris Simon on Sunday is the largest sentence in league history: 25 games. That means, beginning from this past Saturday’s game with Washington, the Isles enforcer is not eligible to play again until 25 total games have elapsed – regular season and playoffs combined. If New York should reach the postseason, the number of games would be reduced at the start of the 2007-2008 regular season.
Simon should hope his teammates rally and capture a playoff berth so that only this current year is disrupted.
Unlike Marty McSorley, whose 23-game suspension in February, 2000 for assaulting Vancouver’s Donald Brashear with a two-handed swing amounted to a premature end to the last-ditch effort of a veteran to earn a paycheck, removing Simon for 25 games brings a colorful and useful player’s career to a screeching halt.
The fact that the penalty was so stiff is surprising, given that the NHL has set a low bar in terms of precedent for stick-swinging infractions.
In 1973, when all but a handful of NHL players skated without head gear, California Seals defenseman Barry Cummins was suspended three games and fined $300 for cracking Bobby Clarke over the head which produced freely-flowing blood. All Dino Ciccarelli of the Minnesota North Stars had to do was spend one night in jail, booked on an assault charge, when he clubbed Toronto’s Luke Richardson on the side of the head with a two-handed chop in 1988. Ten years earlier, in 1978, Colorado’s Wilf Paiement drew a 15-game ban for giving a roundhouse swing to the mug of Detroit’s Dennis Polonich. The biggest of the bunch was a 16-game suspension handed down to Boston’s Eddie Shore in 1933, for slamming his stick full into the head of Toronto’s Ace Bailey and nearly killing him.
However, while I commend the swift action of league discipline czar Colin Campbell for acting quickly and first suspending Simon indefinitely, then handing down the weighty sentence, I still think there is room enough for more punishment in this case.
The 25th pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1990 draft made his NHL debut for Quebec in 1992, and has crafted a reputation during an eventful 14-year career for causing chaos and mayhem for the Nordiques and five other franchises including the Islanders. His first suspension came in 1997, when he allegedly called Sabres forward Mike Grier a very forbidden six-letter word to his face. The incident was all the more perplexing given that Simon is a Native Canadian, and had to endure similar racial intolerance and epithets growing up.
Two more suspensions followed before this one, which did little to quell the raging spirit within the Wawa, Ontario native. He has amassed over 1700 penalty minutes in 692 career games. No stranger to the net as well as the penalty box, Simon also scored 29 goals in 1999-2000 for the Washington Capitals in a typically calm year.
So, I feel comfortable in saying that Simon should be subjected to more than 25 games for this jarring, heinous, and disturbing offense. Being a fighter by trade, one respected by teammates and opponents, Simon knows the ins and outs of those mysterious, unwritten hockey rules referred to as “The Code.”
Let’s be honest here. Hollweg’s hit was far from legal, as he caught Simon on a cross-check with his back fully turned to the boards, in that perilous position which can cause significant head and neck injuries if a skater is knocked off-balance. Hollweg knows that a player of his caliber is not to make snap decisions like that and get by without a response from a respected veteran. Likewise, Simon knows full well that he cannot make such a rash, impulsive and dangerous decision like the one that led to Hollweg’s injury and maintain the level of respect he worked so long to cultivate.
Through a decade and a half of prowling the ice, he is well aware that the proper response should be to wait until Hollweg is looking him squarely in the eyes before settling his differences by dropping the gloves. That’s why Simon’s retroactive excuse that he possibly suffered a concussion on the hit and thus may not have had his faculties about him at the time of the misdeed rings very hollow. Several former NHL tough guys have admitted to going toe-to-toe with an opponent after that player caused them to see stars and lived to fight again, so why should Chris Simon be any different?
That’s why the penalty can be and should be stiffer. Simon, a player who supposedly knows better, who knows exactly how to cause damage and how to relent when necessary, did cause harm to a fellow player in such a vicious and disrespectful manner.
There is widespread agreement that the NHL dropped the ball on the Todd Bertuzzi incident three years ago, exchanging 20 games plus a cancelled season for one player’s career and health. This time around, while it is comforting that Campbell has decided to set a new precedent, there is room for a greater stand.
Just look at the tape. There is nothing in Simon’s actions that should cause anyone to plead for clemency, and there is plenty to view which may cause the most even-tempered minds to be moved to pure shock, disgust and rage. Thank God whatever impulses prevented him from taking a full-on baseball-style swing with a full wind-up from stopped him from doing so, because if there was any pre-meditated thought like Bertuzzi’s head-slam on Simon’s part, Hollweg would have wound up as gravely injured as Steve Moore.
Barry Melrose has spoken at length on the incident beginning last Thursday night, when he emphatically called for a 40-game suspension. A virtual half-season ban even suggested in the heat of the moment is too excessive in my opinion. I think starting at 25 games, then re-evaluating the situation after that limit has elapsed, is a suitable comfort zone. That way, Simon has had plenty of time to apologize to Hollweg, to his team, to make his mea culpa to the league, and to assess where that violent impulse may have originated.
Simon’s shame and Hollweg’s suffering can also work for the greater good. The NHL should now take a huge step forward by framing stick infractions in the same manner they did for abuse of officials two decades ago. At one time, Paul Holmgren punched referee Andy Van Hellemond square in the face in a dispute over a penalty and received five games; outrage from NHL officials was so great that all further infractions towards the zebras carried an immediate 20-game sentence.
Let’s abolish the current system of minor for high-sticking, four minutes for drawing blood and a major plus a match penalty for egregious harm. Make the act of merely drawing blood due to careless stick work a major plus a match penalty and a one-game suspension, intent-to-injure a match penalty plus a five-game suspension, and turn a Simonesque wielding of the stick into a 25-gamer or more.
I need to make one more thing clear before I wrap this up, and I address this to the common fan as well as students of the game: the Simon-Hollweg incident is absolutely NOT an indicator that the NHL is evolving (or devolving) into a much more wanton, brutal, lawless entity. The league has persevered and prospered despite being peppered every so often by random, inexplicable acts which far outstrip the kinetic nature of the game – and will continue to evolve though incidents and accidents will continue to occur.
Nonetheless, when a stern hand is called for, the NHL should have no qualms about stepping in and bringing the hammer down. Chris Simon may feel that he’s been unfairly made an example of at some point during his suspension. But he should also counter that by knowing he brought shame and outrage upon a game which he is fortunate to have played in the first place, and was punished for the betterment of all.
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