The Morning Skate: Will Hockey Heed the Message of Cormier’s Ban?

By STU HACKEL

New York Times

JANUARY 26, 2010

If the suspension of Patrice Cormier for the balance of the Q.M.J.H.L. season by the league commissioner Gilles Courteau is supposed to send a message to players in all three Canadian major junior leagues that head shots must stop, the columnist Wayne Scanlan of the Ottawa Citizen, for one, is highly skeptical.

“It would be comforting to believe that this stiff penalty on Cormier, which followed a 20-game suspension in the Ontario Hockey League to the Windsor Spitfires’ Zack Kassian for a hit on Barrie’s Matt Kennedy, might actually deter head shots. However, there is no evidence that tough love from junior hockey lords like Courteau or the OHL’s David Branch, has much impact on the culture of the game.

“Why would it, when fans and junior players alike can tune into any N.H.L. game on TV and witness more of the same, hits to the head, in the league all young players emulate.

“Until the N.H.L. decides to take a zero-tolerance stand against head shots, we can’t expect junior players and minor leaguers to ease up on the head. The youth of the game receive mixed messages when league officials say one thing and their hockey heroes do another. One could string together a highlight package several minutes long of shoulder and elbow hits to the head from this N.H.L. season alone.”

In The Toronto Star, Kevin McGran spoke with Peter Donnelly, director of the center of sport policy studies at the University of Toronto, who doubted the game could clean up the head shot plague on its own. He suggested that the police and the courts get involved.

McGran then spoke with Branch, who said he didn’t favor that approach and didn’t support it, but added, “It’s a real interesting area and one that deserves ongoing discussion.”

McGran also quoted Kings Head Coach Terry Murray saying: “Criminal record, police record, it would have an effect. For the good of the game, we have to learn from these kinds of situations. There has to be a message sent. It’s important that the vicious hits get cleaned up in the game of hockey.”

In The Globe and Mail, Roy MacGregor (with help from David Shoalts) quoted Leaf defenseman Mike Komisarek and Kings center Ryan Smyth both favoring some sort of action against head shots. MacGregor noted that N.H.L. general managers are studying the situation in preparation for their meeting in March.

MacGregor then asked, “What on earth is there left to study? No one knows what, if anything, will be done, but at least the Cormier incident has even tough players saying out loud that such head shots should have no place in the game.”

Tam suffered brain trauma, he went into convulsions on the ice, and Cormier’s elbow broke a number of Tam’s teeth. It is not certain if he will be able to continue his hockey career.

Cormier is a Devils draft choice, a second rounder in 2008. He was captain of Team Canada at the recent World Junior Championship and his hit to Mikael Tam this month (video) was not his first such incident. He delivered a head shot in December to a Swedish player in a pre-W.J.C. exhibition game, for which he was not punished.

The Devils still regard Cormier as a valuable prospect and General Manager Lou Lamoriello yesterday expressed support for Cormier, while not condoning his actions.

Just what Cormier might do the the balance of the season is not 100 percent clear at the moment. In a statement (quoted onThe Bergen Record’s Devils blog), Lamoriello said, “We will honor the league’s suspension, have not considered, and will not explore other avenues for his return this season.”

But Lamoriello may have given himself a bit of wiggle room on that when he told the news media yesterday he intended to honor the suspension for the season and the playoffs “at this given time.” He would not speculate on anything in the future, saying the Devils had not considered any options.

A league that respects the Q.M.J.H.L.’s decision will not permit Cormier to play until his team, the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, is eliminated from the playoffs. The American League has said Cormier must petition that league if the Devils wanted him to play for their Lowell, Mass, affiliate in that league once the Huskies are done for the year. But Lamoriello’s remarks indicated he was ruling out the A.H.L. even if the league approved and the Huskies season were over.

The possibility of Cormier playing in the K.H.L. was raised this morning during Pierre McGuire’s segment on Ottawa’s Team 1200 (audio). McGuire was doubtful that was a path Cormier would follow, although he did acknowledge that Lamoriello remains close with Slava Fetisov, the former Devils defenseman who is now, among other things, president of the K.H.L. club C.S.K.A. Moscow, the Red Army team.

It doesn’t mean it will happen, but McGuire didn’t rule out the possibility that Fetisov might convince Lamoriello that Cormier should continue the season playing for a K.H.L. team.