{"id":48,"date":"2015-08-13T16:26:18","date_gmt":"2015-08-13T16:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tegemaitsolutions.com\/?page_id=48"},"modified":"2024-01-11T18:48:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T18:48:42","slug":"ted-barris-the-barris-beat","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/columnists\/ted-barris-the-barris-beat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Barris Beat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Boldness. Not belligerence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">It was the end-of-year party for our oldtimers hockey club at a pub in town. After some wings, some beer and a lot of laughs, we got down to the serious stuff of discussing the game we love. And it didn\u2019t take long, before the elephant in the room emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">\u201cWhat\u2019re they going to do about fighting in hockey?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Somebody said, \u201cNothing.\u201d Somebody else said, \u201cThe NHL will never do anything because it draws fans.\u201d Most said at rep and junior levels, the parents are the problem. Another blamed bad coaching. One said he knew a way to stop it. But most of us just threw up our hands, as if to say nobody\u2019s going to do anything about it anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">That all changed a week ago during a hockey telecast, when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jenniferbotterill.com\/meet-jennifer.html\" title=\"\">Jennifer Botterill<\/a>, a three-time Olympic champion and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\" title=\"\">Sportsnet<\/a> analyst, challenged the views of male panelist, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jamal_Mayers\" title=\"\">Jamal Mayers<\/a>, a former NHL player, about \u201cgetting even\u201d in hockey. What sparked the debate? During a New Year\u2019s Eve NHL game, Ryan Hartman of the Minnesota Wild and the Winnipeg Jets\u2019 Cole Perfetti came together in a face-off. Hartman intentionally ripped his stick up into the face of Perfetti, cutting him, as payback for an apparent Jets\u2019 cross-check on the Wild\u2019s Kirill Kaprizov in a game the day before. Hartman was penalized and then fined $4,400 for the infraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Cole Perfetti back on the ice for the Jets after taking a high stick to the face by Ryan Hartman off the faceoff during his first shift. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/LgD6wmMtwo\">pic.twitter.com\/LgD6wmMtwo<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Dave Minuk (@ICdave) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ICdave\/status\/1741542807884513564?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 31, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">But the real showdown occurred when Jamal Mayers, who played 915 games in the NHL with five different teams during his career, tried to rationalize the incident. \u201cHartman is (saying) you\u2019re not going to go after our star player,\u201d Mayers said in the Sportsnet broadcast. \u201cIt\u2019s not about fighting. To me, sending a message is important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">In other words, Botterill retorted, highsticking is acceptable because revenge has to be exacted in the NHL? \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s selling your game for your biggest stars, your skilled players coming up. You\u2019re saying, \u2018Get ready because this could happen to you at any point.\u2019 And you\u2019re OK with that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Hockey belligerence has come and mostly gone in 50 years. There were times such as the 1970s when the Philadelphia Flyers, a.k.a. the Broad Street Bullies, won games by intimidation. Then in the 1980s, the Edmonton Oilers used speed and European-style finesse to win their five Stanley Cups in six years. I know. Some will say the only reason Wayne Gretzky excelled was because Dave Semenko was his enforcer \u2013 making sure that anybody who took a run at the star got a taste of it back. Well, I covered the Oilers\u2019 home games for a full season in Edmonton, and I think I saw Semenko fight at the Northlands Coliseum once, and Gretzky\u2019s welfare had nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The dressing room was the place to be on tonight&#39;s panel. \ud83c\udf7f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zqpfHg3xdH\">pic.twitter.com\/zqpfHg3xdH<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Sportsnet\/status\/1742745651958448191?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 4, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Jamal Mayers represents a significant segment of NHL hockey fans who believe that the league and its owners should leave the sport alone, that the key elements of the game \u2013 speed, size and physical intensity \u2013 are what make it great. Like Don Cherry, they say \u201crock\u2019em sock\u2019em\u201d players will always be there. That group, like Mayers, often says, \u201cWhen we get into the playoffs there is an element of meanness \u2026 out there. And if you don\u2019t like that kind of hockey, then maybe you don\u2019t like playoff hockey. This isn\u2019t archaic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">\u201cYes it is,\u201d Botterill interrupted. \u201cThere\u2019s a difference between tough and physical and cheap and dirty. And to me (what Hartman did) is cheap and dirty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">I personally don\u2019t think NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman wants to clamp down on fighting; quite the opposite. I think he views it as a means of drawing more fans through turnstiles in lucrative U.S. markets where people will really never understand the intricacies of hockey, but will always pay to see a rumble on the ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">By the way, if you want to end fighting in the NHL, one of my hockey buddies says it\u2019s easy. He recommends the rugby model. In rugby, even so much as the hint of a punch and a player is red-carded\/ejected from the game. His\/her team plays the rest of the game short one player. \u201cHave an NHL team down a player for the rest of the game,\u201d he said, \u201cand fighting will stop overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">It\u2019s worth noting that the first 11 days of this month have featured the birth of the Women\u2019s Professional Hockey League. All WPHL games have already sold out. The players make less, play harder and don\u2019t fight. What does that tell us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">I agree wholeheartedly with Jennifer Botterill\u2019s insight, keep the toughness, penalize the cheap shots, and save a beautiful game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>For more Barris Beat columns, go to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tedbarris.com\">www.tedbarris.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boldness. Not belligerence It was the end-of-year party for our oldtimers hockey club at a pub in town. After some wings, some beer and a lot of laughs, we got down to the serious stuff of discussing the game we love. And it didn\u2019t take long, before the elephant in the room emerged. \u201cWhat\u2019re they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":46,"menu_order":35,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"content-sidebar-sidebar","footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":617,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17782,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48\/revisions\/17782"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/46"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thecosmos.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}