Matt Cooke is a hockey player who has lost his mind on numerous occasions and has been suspended 5 times in his NHL career and is the guy responsible for Marc Savard hockey career to practically ending his career as Cooke hit Savard in the head and ever since this time he has been dealing with a concession and has not been able to play too many games since this hit. Sadly Matt Cooke was not suspended for this hit but he has now been suspended twice in the 2010-2011 NHL regular season as February 9Th, 2011 was the first suspension of the season was Matt Cooke tried to put Fedor Tyutin of Columbus Blue Jackets through the boards as he got a head of steam and left his feet at the second to hit Fedor Tyutin from behind and he got 4 games for the charge and it had been days after Cooke had tried to take out Alexander Ovechkin's knee.
So on US TV yesterday (NBC) there was a hockey game going up against the first Mach Madness of the day and it was the Pittsburgh Penguins against the New York Rangers and the top story of the game should of been that the Rangers man handled the Penguins 5-2 but it was not. Instead it was Matt Cooke in the headlines again when he elbowed Rangers defenceman Ryan McDonagh in the head. He got suspended for the final 10 games of the regular season which will prevent him from collecting the last $250,000 of his 2 million dollar salary for this season and instead that money will be put into a pot for former hockey players down on their luck. He will also not be able to play for the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round of the playoff which does not really matter because his supposed effectiveness on the ice getting under the opposing team's player's skin would be more of a hazard then a benefit for the Penguins and will not lose his playoff money even if the Penguins are knocked out in the first round because the players decide on who receives the playoff bonus and if you play most games there is no way you will not receive the money.
But there is of course a subplot in this and that is the owner of the Penguins Mario Lemieux who came out publicly against head hits and this is because the Penguin Captain Sidney Crosby has been out since practically since the first of the year with a concession and maybe part of the punishment is the NHL taking a swat at Mario. So the thing is going to be if and how the Penguins will get rid of Matt Cooke during the off-season because they are still on the hook for Cooke's salary for next two seasons.
Looking at the Discipling of Matt Cooke and looking at the idea that the league is making a statement towards getting tough on hits to the head so looking at Matt Cooke it is very easy to give him a long suspension and really if they wanted to set a bar it could of only been to exile him from the NHL which did not happen. So I am going to wait for to see what happens to the next player that hits someone in the head and if they get the book thrown at them then I think people will take the punishment seriously and may curve the act of head hits but if the next player gets a slap on the wrist like having a phone interview (less than 5 game suspension) instead of a in person interview (more than 5 game suspension) would put everything at the start again. Which would put in Jeopardy the seriousness of the NHL cracking down on head shots so lets hope the next player gets the same kind of treatment that Matt Cooke just received.
Come on NHL do the right thing and get head shots out of the game immediately
Tom Mehegan
No comments:
Post a Comment