THE TRAVESTY OF HYPOCRISY: The Isles vs Pens Fallout
BDGallof | Feb 17, 2011 | Comments 20
Mario as he stares at a NHL league of violence and inconsistent discipline that he helps keep afloat.
“We, as a league, must do a better job of protecting the integrity of the game and the safety of our players. We must make it clear that those kinds of actions will not be tolerated and will be met with meaningful disciplinary action. If the events relating to Friday night reflect the state of the league, I need to rethink whether I want to be a part of it.”
Mario Lemieux, Penguins Owner, 2011
Fights by Penguins:
Courtesy HockeyFights.com
Recent Year-by-Year Fight Totals
| Season | Records | Fight Total | |
| 2010-2011 Regular Season | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 61 |
| 2010-2011 Preseason | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 8 |
| 2009-2010 Postseason | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 1 |
| 2009-2010 Regular Season | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 48 |
| 2009-2010 Preseason | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 12 |
| 2008-2009 Postseason | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 7 |
| 2008-2009 Regular Season | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 39 |
| 2008-2009 Preseason | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 9 |
| 2007-2008 Postseason | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 3 |
| 2007-2008 Regular Season | Schedule | Fight Card – Leaders | 48 |
Yeah, that’s right, over 61 and we still have a ton on the season still to play.
Maybe it was that day Mario floated the Penguins cup in his pool with his team. Perhaps there was a diving board incident with Sidney, and Super Mario plunked his cranium into that floating trophy that they tried to make disappear from the Internets.
Let’s not get anything wrong here. The Isles/Pens game was dangerous, but one also has to put it in proper perspective. The Pens out physical the Isles several times. And it was not the Brent Johnson knock out of DP that had this team looking for redemption, as some bloggers and fans say.
Wrong.
It has all to do with Blake Comeau and his concussion thanks to Talbot….something also lost in many blogs.
Revenge, Mario, is part of hockey. The Pens of the 80s and 90s knew it well. There was no hiding behind whines and crabby statements to the fawning press.
The 2010-2011 Pens had it coming. And it came from a 29th out of 30th team. Maybe that’s what El Whino was really crying about. Makes it just far more embarrassing and poignant. The hapless Isles, who have played victim to the physical teams of the NHL for the past 5 to 6 years habitually, finally grew up and blew it back in one team’s face.
The travesty, indeed.
Hilariously, these kinds of games, when you take out the homer factor of complaints and panic, are a fascinating event. We all have watched teams go over the edge, and there is not a doubt that the Isles did so. They deserved all the punishment meted out by the NHL. Lets not get that thrown under a rug. They probably deserved more, not as some bloggers putting forth the concept of NHL lovetaps. The Isles deserved a book thrown. As did the Pens, where responding to brute force with brute force is also a crime and should have also had a book thrown. But not in the NHL whose inconsistency and flummoxing of punishments is a yearly issue.
In fact, it is the NHL handling, policing, and punishments that is the travesty and has created the Pens/Isles game. Had this league caught, punished those plays and violence in past games, this game would have never blown up the way it did.
But from the Isles point of view, worth every bit of it.
For a developing team whose vets are either disappeared, traded or signed elsewhere, this team just took and took. Players carted off the ice left and right.
One night, from the kids, it poured back onto the ice and…mostly forgotten by some….with a goal torching as well.
The Isles bullied the Pens.
Let’s repeat that, because it’s worth repeating. Bullied.
And the Pens parents complained publicly. All that was missing was tears coming down Mario’s face as he threatened to take his puck home.
But like any parent in denial, it deserves a shaking of the head. The bully got bullied. Excuse me but we’ll try not to shed any tears over here for poor Mario and his team.
Someone should hand him some tissues, but not to wipe the tears, but to wipe up the blood that seeps from his own yard.
It won’t be long until Matt Cooke or someone else puts forward a dirty hit or play that hurts someone else.
Will Mario cry then?
Certainly not. He’s skimming the pool waiting for the next Stanley Cup party.
Mario…next time, stay away from the mic. Suck up the sucker punch, because it’s the bed you help make. Your statement is more than hypocritical. It is facetious. It is duplicitous. It purposely ignores the travesty you pay so that the end justifies the means.
Let me repeat that so it’s clearer.
Mario, it’s your fault. Everyday dirty hitters and pugilists sit on your own payroll, you cannot cry woe is me.
Clean up your own team, and then come and talk to the press.
As for the Isles …
Well, they’ll lose again. Maybe they’ll win a few. But something happened that night that was important for a rebuild’s development, so excuse Isles fans for not buying the “travesty”. You won’t see more games like the Pens game from them. You sill simply see a team who banded together and say they will police themselves and woe to the team that tries to take advantage of them again.
Filed Under: Featured • New York Islanders • NHL • Pittsburgh Penguins
Well said, BD. As good as Mario was as a player, he always whined. Glad my boys layed the smack down on the Pens. The league failed the Isles so the Isles took care of business. End of story. Mario’s lucky that the bench rule exsists.
Cooke or Talbot concussed Comeau?
Correct, thx. Revised it in blog.
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Very well put.
“And it was not the Brent Johnson knock out of DP that had this team looking for redemption, as some bloggers and fans say.” Who said that, however, instead of making fun of DP for getting ko’d by a forearm/elbow to the face you should have given him credit for taking that shot at Cooke when he buzzed by the crease because it ended up waking up this organization. Whom else on the team answered the Pens antics that night Gallof? Everything else you stated I have to agree with because I posted the same points myself. The Pens as a victim what a joke!
Good way to look at that Isles27…DP actually was the catalyst even tho at the time we thought of it as an embarrassment
So you, along with every other brainless Islanders fan out there, keep trying to boil this down to “well if Matt Cooke’s on your team then everything you say or do is garbage and you deserve anything you get.”
Employing Cooke has nothing to do with Matt Martin sucker-punching Talbot or Gillies charging across the ice to elbow a player in the head, then punching said player while he lays on the ice.
The Islanders gooned up the game. They didn’t play tough, they played dirty. Fighting and tough play is a part of hockey, but the actions of Martin and Gillies aren’t. If you can’t recognize the difference then it means you don’t understand hockey and from your comments, it’s clear that you just don’t get it.
Mario criticized the NHL for letting a player almost murder another man on the ice and gave him 9 games. Gillies should’ve had the book thrown at him and been suspended for 20+ games. The Islanders entire game plan was premeditated and they were set on drawing blood from the drop of the puck. Why else would you only start gooning it up once you had a 6 goal lead? Their plan was to injure everyone on the ice and they were shocked when they were winning a game by their hard work. So instead of taking that at face value and enjoying a strong, winning effort, they turned loose the goon squad and started assaulting players.
And the Talbot hit on Comeau was shoulder to shoulder. It’s unfortunate that he has a concussion, but it was a clean hit so would all you Islanders fans please stop bitching about a routine hit to the shoulder?
“Mario criticized the NHL for letting a player almost murder another man on the ice and gave him 9 games.”
Mario’s mouth was oddly quiet when Cooke almost murdered Savard. At least it ended what was shaping up to be a magnificent career.
Hypocrisy indeed.
And BD?
“It has all to do with Blake Comeau and his concussion thanks to Talbot….something also lost in many blogs”…
Let’s not forget or lose sight of the fact that in the opening game of the year between the Isles and Pen’s, Kris Letang was given a 5 minute major and a game misconduct for “a hit to the head” on….GUESS WHO? Blake Comeau.
Which begs an answer to the questions.
Why Comeau? Why is he an apparent “target” of the Penguins? Is there a BOUNTY on him? Why?
How many players in the NHL this year have endured 2 head shots from the same team?
I would be interested to hear Lemieux’s take on that.
But that ain’t gonna happen.
As an Islanders fan, I appear to be a lone gunman in the fact that I agree with Mario. Watching that game seeing Trevor Gillis concuss that kid Tangradi than pummel him while unconscience, than instead of being a human being and stepping of the ice like he was supposed too. Yelling at an unconscience body.
Lemieux was not in the wrong with his statement. It was Gretz when he said the players still respect each other. Thats not respect, thats not even hockey, that was savagery.
Its now how Bobby Nystrom played, its not how Denis Potvin played and as much as I am disgusted by Cookes play, he has never done that. Picture what Gillis did in any other venue? Last time I saw something so disgusting was Chris Simon and he is not in the league anymore. Gillis should be gone as well.
Also in criticizng Lemieux its funny how so many were horrified by the Bertuzzi suckerpunch of retribution, but were fine by Moulson one?
Its sad that the majority of talk on my Islanders is this crap, and not that they have been improving game in and game out. I will always be an Islanders fan, but I wont support garbage or savagery. Sal as a fellow hockey fan I think you were right on.
The writer of this article needs to get off his high horse like the rest of the hockey media. So Lemieux does not give interviews to you whiners, now you call him out when he says something of substance? Give me a break. No wonder he does not say anything, you all sensationalize everything anyhow. 12 goals scored in that game and all the highlights had to show was fights, just a joke!
Gillies didnt know he was hurt, he thought he was turteling like the rest of the pussies on the Pens… And get off the yelling, it isnt a big deal…he was pissed off because he fucked up one of his team mates…Thats raw emotion…If Gillies proves to be that bad a guy and does it again then Id agree w u…Simon fucked up twice so the Isles released him…Gillies fucked up once but it was out of pure anger towards a guy who was out to hurt his friend, his teammate…Maybe they will think twice next time
@ Sal
A couple key quotes, just in case you forgot to read the article you were posting about:
“Let’s not get anything wrong here. The Isles/Pens game was dangerous..”
“We all have watched teams go over the edge, and there is not a doubt that the Isles did so. They deserved all the punishment meted out by the NHL. Lets not get that thrown under a rug. They probably deserved more, not as some bloggers putting forth the concept of NHL lovetaps. The Isles deserved a book thrown. “
Amen, brother.
Just because it was a borderline legal hit doesnt mean it wasnt an intent to injure…If you try to injure our players we will go and break your heads…get over it
@Islander505: The Kris Letang hit was also shoulder to shoulder. Even the Islanders announcers during the broadcast agree with that fact so you’re talking out your ass just like the writer here.
How many teams fans see two shoulder to shoulder hits on the same player and somehow think they’re hits to the head? Only Islanders fans.
please don’t use the @… this isn’t twitter.
I love the homerism from Pens fans…not to Pens fans: your not helping, your part of the problem, not the solution.
Eric Goddard started the fisticuffs after it was 3-0 Isles. Goddard is every bit the goon Gillies is, neither are hockey players, and Isles owner Charles Wang had for years campaigned to have fighting removed from Hockey. It took the moving of mountains to change Wang’s views on this (180 degrees), and that Mountain moving was the abuse of young Isles star players by lesser talented opponents who could not compete any other way.
The revisionism – comparing Martin’s actions to Bertuzzi is nothing but homerism…it is much more comparible to Pens’ home boy Jordan Staal’s sucker punch on Ranger Brandon Prust (which was more dangerous b/c of the way Prust fell) . Pens are the most penalized team in the league for a reason. There is no doubt some of the dirty hits on Crobsy were in retaliation from other teams for dirty hits from Pens goons and thugs who shouldn’t even be in the NHL. Goddard should have had more games for third man in. It was a cowardly act for two to punch one man repeatedly. Pittsburgh should have been fined for man leaving bench. This was suppose to be automatic. The problem is there is no consistency to NHL rulings. Bettman is a lawyer, he knows legislation and he knows his league lacks it. Instead, what the NHL has is what Robert’s Rules of Order clearly states is “an Arbitrary Chair” i.e. Campbell. The NHL has failed under Bettman to protect players. Accountability needs to take place. Changes in management at the top, and proper legislation. First time hits to the head or blindsides, 10 games, regardless of what you use (elbows, etc.). If there is an injury, more games can be added. Second time, 20 games, 3rd, 40, 4th 80. Most of these fringe players who commit these acts would never be able to come back if out for a whole season. The average NHL career is five years.
Finally, there is the fact that the NHL, with its arbitrary none legislative system, is reactionary to press. This is why anyone – and I mean anyone – can do a little bit of research and point out the major discrepencies in handing out discipline. The league has still not said a word about that charge and high hit to Travis Hamonic’s head from a goon called up by the Sabres.
The league has still not said a word about that charge and high hit to Travis Hamonic’s head from a goon called up by the Sabres.
And they never will. Only way Isles are going to get respect is if they win AND beat the snot out of teams.
Isles are a couple of seasons and a handful of players away from competing anyway.
Isles Fans: Take note- the Pens will have a Day of Rage in remembrance of the February debacle on Long Island. It won’t happen in April, because we’ll be headed to the playoffs, and your LOSER season will be over. It will be in Pittsburgh next year when we’re back to full strength. We’re gonna bring torches, we’re gonna bring pitchforks, we’re gonna bring horse whips, and we’re gonna bring camels. That’s right, camels. ‘Cause at the end of the year, the only player on your team that people will remember is Trevor Gilles. And that’s way sadder than a sucker punch. Two of them, even.
Hey Sal youve done enough bitching for everyone on this blog, im sorry your so upset the pens got there asses kicked every way possible, maybe next time matt cooke tries to kill someone you’ll express the same indignation.