Six degrees of gruesome Fanelli injury

There's a Kingston connection with the awful story about Ben Fanelli, the Kitchener Rangers rookie defenceman who is in intensive care with skull and facial fractures.

The firsts-thing-first hoping Fanelli has a full recovery (not the same as whether he'll return to competitive hockey). It was not a head shot although it did look like Michael Lianbas, the 20-year-old Erie Otters player, took a good three full strides before hitting Fanelli, who had turned his back to play the puck up the boards behind his own goal.

The odd part is Fanelli went in the fourth round of the OHL draft in May, one round after the Rangers selected forward Keli Grant, a Kingston boy who attends Ernestown Secondary School, where my mother teaches. Mike Koreen, the Kingston Whig-Standard's excellent sports editor, wrote a while back about how Grant's experience this fall "will hit home for those who feel it's tough to force 15-or 16-year-olds to make such an important decision about their athletic future at an early age."

Perhaps that's where the debate is, whether it's necessarily good to force 16-year-olds to skate alongside 20-year-olds. For every player who's ready for it emotionally and physically, there are a few who are not, speaking generally.

The Rangers kept Fanelli instead of Grant to fill out their maximum allotment of three 16-year-old players. Grant ended up being caught up in a numbers game in Kitchener and with his hometown Kingston Kimco Voyageurs Junior A, who are only allowed two 16-year-olds (one of whom is his twin, Kris Grant.) He also lost his NCAA eligibility in the process by playing in an exhibition game with the Rangers.

Needless to say, all of that is a trifle compared to what is ahead for Fanelli and his family. Strange how that works. (Bob McKenzie might have Twitter updates on Fanelli later.)

Hoserdome 2009: Playoffs, Day 4

Having six of the seven series at 2-0 seems like a bit of a rip, especially since, as From The Rink notes, teams almost never come back after dropping the first two games in the other guys' barn.

1. It's a frightening concept, but the Chicago Blackhawks are set to sweep the Calgary Flames because of this thing called "better players." (Glove tap: Michael Schur as Ken Tremendous.)
   
   It's hard to get your mind wrapped around that after a lifetime of being spoon-fed pabulum about heart and veteran leadership by commentators on Canadian networks, so let it sink in.
   
   Incidentally, Jonathan Toews for the 2010 Olympic team? Coming Down The Pipe! wants to know.
2. Patrice Bergeron's takedown of Mike Komisarek was a laugh and a half. You have Komisarek running across the ice like an idiot to take a head shot at a player who's got a history of concussions, getting his ass handed to him and then having NESN's Jack Edwards mine it for head-injury humour: "Concuss that!"
   
   
   
   Brilliant. And people think I'm weird for preferring baseball and basketball to hockey. Then again, I'm a pansy.
3. Canadian Roberto Luongo, Swede Henrik Lundqvist, American Tim Thomas, Swiss Jonas Hillier and Russian Nikolai Khabibulin have been the best goalies in the post-season, for anyone thinking about Vancouver 2010.
   

Blackhawks 3 Flames 2 (Chicago leads 2-0) — The good news for Calgary, beyond getting to go home, is they finally scored on the power play after an 0-for-47 drought. The bad news is they were shut out while playing 5-on-5.

By the way, Patrick Sharp, who scored the second Blackhawks goal, played at the University of Vermont. Since fellow UVM product Martin St. Louis is in Tampa Bay, it's rare to see a former Catamount in the playoffs (yes, yes, there's Torrey Mitchell on the San Jose Sharks).

Rogers Sportsnet's Calgary correspondent Roger Millions is off the air for a few days after saying you-know-what on the air. It wasn't a firing offence, since it was a team mistake, but at this rate, the Flames might be done by the time he's back.

Bruins 5 Canadiens 1 (Boston leads 2-0) — The epitaph for a Habs season gone horribly asunder came from a Montreal-aligned friend who said, "The only forward they've got who's any good as Alex Kovalev and I don't want him back next season."

The Bruins likely lose Milan Lucic to a one-game suspension, but that should not hurt much in the long run.

Between Montreal getting skated out of the rink and the New York Yankees getting shelled for 22 runs, there was a run on Haterade on Saturday. The logical explanation is that the Habs overachieved in 2007-08, overplayed their top guys (a condition known as being "Paddock-ed" and didn't have enough in the tank for this season. The fun explanation is that their fans flew to the close to the sun on wings of vote-robots.

Red Wings 4 Blue Jackets 0 (Detroit leads 2-0) — Michigan have its hockey team, but Ohio is first in home foreclosures.

Rangers 1 Capitals 0 (New York leads 2-0) — Apparently, Henrik Lundqvist has decided to spoil the Capitals' season, but just less than one-quarter of the teams which lose the first two games at home actually manage to come back and win.

The thumbnail sketch of the Rangers is that the veterans responded after John Tortorella was brought in as coach. Strangely enough, Ryan Callahan, obviously a grizzled 24-year-old third-year pro, has a team-high 10 goals since the coaching change. That all comes back to veteran leadership.

(Last but not least, a tip of the cap is due to Ian Duval, who scored two goals in the Kelowna Rockets' win over the Vancouver Giants in Game 1 of the WHL semi-final series last night. Duval played triple-A midget hockey for the Central Plains Capitals, based in Portage la Prairie, Man., during two OOLFers' tenure at the Portage Daily Graphic.)

Sean Avery once again saves a slow hockey news day...

Sean Avery's brilliance is beyond question. Through the use of non-violent resistance, he managed to ...

• Give New York Rangers coach John Tortorella a rhetorical wedge; you can hear the, "Avery can't do anything because he's a marked man in this league," already;
  
• Give the sports broadcasting industry that has, thank you Kelly McParland, "committ(ed) itself to hours of airtime every day, whether or not it has anything of interest to report," something to talk about for the next news cycle; good on him for doing it on a night when there were only three games on the NHL docket, then;
  
• Keep his teammates from having to address serious questions about how they can manage to get into a higher playoff seed with a remaining schedule that consists of Carolina, Boston, Montreal and Philadelphia, twice;
• Took hockey hammerheads' minds off the Sunday Times feature which called him a "fashion-fascinated dandy";
  
• Cheesed off the New Jersey Devils.

Avery is far from the only reason to pay attention to the NHL, but he sure can liven up an otherwise dull night where there were only two other games on the schedule. Greater minds have said this already, but be glad there is a hockey player who will, when speaking for the record, refer to a recent tussle with Cal Clutterbuck of the Minnesota Wild as, "... the most honest moment of clarity I have on any level of life, as funny as that sounds. Before I went away and after I went away, it's still the quietest time I ever have in my head — when I’m about to engage someone in that manner."

That beats the hell out of hearing, "It's part of the game," every day of the week. It shows there is one guy out there trying to be somewhat original in a sport, which in Canada at least, is strangling the life out of itself. That McParland editorial in the National Post was just a wee bit withering, but it got at how the way saturation coverage of the NHL is killing the golden goose, for a lot of people who like a varied sports diet:

"in the age of 24/7 sports coverage, intelligence is way down the priority list.

Cable is a great invention, but it's ruined hockey. Maybe all sports for all I know, but hockey in particular. Televised hockey coverage consists of inane softball questions, rehearsed responses and panels of nattering heads.

" ... The players have been conditioned to expect such pap, and trained to respond in kind. Any young prospect with promise undergoes media conditioning in which they're coached on a handful of key methods for filling 20 seconds while saying nothing. Most barely make eye contact; few bother to break out of a monotone. It's excruciatingly dull, but you can't blame the players. The industry has brought this on itself by committing itself to hours of airtime every day, whether or not it has anything of interest to report. The time has to be filled, so pointless interviews, repetitious replays and mindless banter become crucial to filling gaps between the commercials.

The players have been conditioned to expect such pap, and trained to respond in kind. Any young prospect with promise undergoes media conditioning in which they're coached on a handful of key methods for filling 20 seconds while saying nothing. Most barely make eye contact; few bother to break out of a monotone. It's excruciatingly dull, but you can't blame the players. The industry has brought this on itself by committing itself to hours of airtime every day, whether or not it has anything of interest to report. The time has to be filled, so pointless interviews, repetitious replays and mindless banter become crucial to filling gaps between the commercials."

It's a reminder why the best time to be a hockey fan is during the Stanley Cup playoffs, which are not so far away. The game speaks for itself. Turn the TV on in time for the opening faceoff, shut it off when the game ends, go on living your life. Bliss.

Related:
Will someone please save hockey from cable TV? (Kelly McParland, National Post)
The Demon on his shoulder (Allen Salkin, The New York Times)

Whose game is it a part of anyway?

This doesn't quite meet Neate's less than 5,000 views rule, and it certainly won't in a day or two more, but it needs to be watched by anyone that claims to love the game of hockey in this country.



Sadly, you can likely find similar videos out there. When watching I was reminded of a situation in the Madoc, Ont. arena many years ago. A young referee was walking off the ice after officiating an atom DD league play-off game (yes, DD. And don't mistake league play-off with OMHA playoff. This was a game involving teams that had been eliminated from meaningful -- as meaningful as 10-year-olds play, anyway -- games and that were playing out the string).

Said referee had called a penalty with about two minutes left in the then tied game (slashing. Although the referee was not the most skilled in the world, he had never been more sure of a call than he had been of that one). The visiting team scored on the power play to win.

When leaving the ice surface the official was met by a father, possibly drunk, who shoved him hard. Losing his balance (he was on skates, on land, after all) the referee fell backwards, slamming into the boards. Although the official's partner quickly stepped in between to prevent further damage, the man wasn't done. He waited several minutes for the official to come out of the dressing room before arena staff asked him to leave. Then, he stood by the referee's car until he left the rink.

Have I mentioned that the official was 17?

Upon seeing the man standing by his car, the referee swallowed his pride and went back into the rink and did something that he had never done before and would never have the misfortune of doing again -- he called his dad to come help.

Only after his father -- a police officer -- arrived was the referee allowed to go home and enjoy the rest of his day. It would be his last year officiating.

I'm sure by now you've figured out who the official was. It's good to see, he says sarcastically, things haven't changed in the last 15ish years. The great game is still ruined by the morons.

The most telling part of the above video is the voices of those not on the camera. They are quick to place blame on what's happening. Clearly, they are yelling, it's the officials fault they were attacked because they let the game "get out of control" ) something that usually means that their kid's team wasn't getting the calls they wanted to see.

Writing this I'm fully aware that I'm preaching to the choir and that it doesn't matter what I, or anyone else, says about the inherent violence that surrounds the game at all its levels. That violence is on the ice and all too often in the crowd.

And, you know, it's all part of the game. What game, it's hard to say, but it's not the game I fell in love with.

Hockey violence: New meaning to left-wing lock

The old line about how youth condemns, maturity condones seems germane after reading a semi-screed about hockey violence in the Saturday Star.

Most of us who are thinking, feeling people realize there is something a little twisted about cheering when two 19-year-olds fight at a major junior hockey game. The guilt is evident in how many synonyms exist for it — donnybrook, punch-up, brouhaha, mêlée, tussle. That doesn't constitute a "venomous, backward support for brawling," as the Star screedster, Sarah Barmak, claims.

It's an understanding that there is only what is, not what should be. Once again, for people who think they can pontificate on the Canadian zeitgeist even though they've never stepped out of their Toronto mindset (Barmak is a former editor at the U of T paper, The Varsity): "The notion of clean hockey in Canada is a pipe dream, unless the sport drops sharply in social import."

One would hope that some day that wouldn't be the case, but Barmak's bombast about hockey being a "bar room-style bloodsport" is not going to serve that purpose. It's only going to make a bigger wedge between the people who still defend fighting and those who have an open mind about banning it.

Change comes gradually, not from belittling people and quoting academics who actually claim that, "The NHL has not had a history of violence until quite recently." Gordon Russell of the University of Lethbridge, has evidently never heard of Eddie Shore or Red Horner, both of whom set records for penalties — and are both in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He's never heard of Sprague Cleghorn, either.

Do some research, people. The major misunderstanding of pieces of Barmakian bombast, beyond the obvious left-of-centre literalism, is not appreciating that every game has a view of the world attached. It's not like someone sat down one day and wrote out the rules of hockey and said, "Hey, let's allow fighting."

Hockey came into being in the late 19th and early 20th century, which was a time of social tension that goes way beyond our contemporary understanding. Canadians — and perhaps Barmak's apparent failure goes to show how poorly Canadian history is taught — weren't always so nice and genial.

In those days, there was virulent English-French tension (ever heard of D'Arcy McGee?), the Riel Rebellion, the struggle for women's suffrage, the Winnipeg General Strike and so on. Life was tough if you weren't a white man and we are so much better off that is not the case anymore. The idea that sports was a healthy release for male aggression, for boys to be boys, was also in vogue in that era in between the Civil War in the U.S. and the First World War. Of course, that was later discredited a thousand times over, but that doesn't mean it can be discounted for shaping the hockey mentality.

That helps explain why hockey has evolved differently in the U.S., Scandinavia and continental Europe. It is not media-inculcated; it's not because of big money, except to people who like to hate on the media and big money.

As for the apologists who point out that Canadians watch the World Juniors en masse even though it has no fighting, please. The short duration of the tournament, the automatic ejection for fighting, the unwillingness of U.S. and European players to drop their gloves and the panopticon effect of saturation media coverage all act to keep a lid on the rough stuff. No one fights at the World Juniors because there is so much emphasis placed on the games and so many people watching; it's a little different than a Saturday night game in Salmon Arm.

The fact also remains that the tournament took on a cultural significance for Canadians after one of our teams lost a gold medal for fighting. It would be too glib by half, but you could take from that the World Juniors have come mean so much because we want to prove we can win a major hockey tournament without resorting to the lowest common denominator (well, there's that, plus what else is on during the holidays?).

The point is, you change in drips and drabs, not through badgering. Not to be a condescending dickhead about it, but a writer such as Sarah Barmak will get a lot farther by trying to understand instead of thinking the worst of anyone who doesn't read from her songbook.

This notion of hockey free from skulduggery is way, way off, but if people gradually get less and less animated when there's a fight, if the leagues increase the penalties for it, it will start to disappear. The fact two OHL players were each suspended a game this week for removing their helmets before a fight will do more good (although it's only a modest start) than anything so doctrinaire.

Related:
Canada, we have a problem: Our national game has become inextricably linked with brutal violence (Sarah Barmak, Toronto Star)
OHL takes a stand on helmets (Terry Doyle, Loose Pucks, Jan. 8)

Don Sanderson's death: A swirl of thoughts

Far be it to expect people to stay from the fighting-in-hockey rubric on the day Don Sanderson died.

That is how the media works, for good or ill. No doubt you have your thoughts, so if you are so inclined, read the symposium and leave a comment.

Michael Den Tandt, Sun Media, "Hockey fights have to stop": "Proponents of fighting in hockey will argue that such accidents are exceedingly rare. They'll say that most hockey fights end with nary a bloody nose on either side. They'll repeat, as they always do, that fighting is an integral part of the game, without which it would be somehow less Canadian.

"Bollocks.

"Can anyone who has gotten a taste of World Juniors action in Ottawa in recent days doubt that hockey is better off without the incessant scuffles and mock battles that now impede the Canadian game, at virtually every level?

"Elite hockey players are just that. They're not trained fighters. Most have no idea how to throw a punch."

Ryan Hollweg, Toronto Maple Leafs forward, via citynews.ca: "It's part of the game and things like that happen sometimes. You gotta try not to think about it and go about your business."

Ken Campbell, The Hockey News, "Sanderson's death must re-open fight debate": "... if the people who run this game are unwilling or feel they are unable to do something about this blight on a great game, then perhaps it might be time for those who make the laws to do it for them."

Jamal Mayers, Leafs forward, via citynews.ca: "... it's a terrible story. It should never come to that. To think that it happened in somewhat of a recreational game makes it even tougher on the families and my heart goes out to everyone involved."

Roy MacGregor, The Globe & Mail: "Hockey discipline needs a fighting chance": "Accident or non-accident is not the debate here, but what can, and must, be done to remove as much violence from the game as would still allow hockey to be a collision sport requiring tenacity from its players.

"It seems simply obvious that heads require as much protection as possible in the game. This would include simply doing up the chin straps supplied with each helmet. (Though how not doing it up became a hockey "fashion" is as unfathomable, as is how doffing one's helmet before fighting became part of hockey chivalry.)"

Patrick, commenter at the Toronto Star: "Fighting is in NHL hockey because THE PLAYERS want it in. Until the 700 or so players in the nhlpa put up a protest fighting will never leave the NHL game.

Last, but not least, here's a take from someone who knew the young man.

Don Sanderson, 1987-2009, hockey player

Don Sanderson is dead. The 21-year-old defenseman for the Whitby Dunlops died last night from the injuries he received in a hockey fight Dec. 12.

At the heart of hockey's Code of Intimidation there has always been the silence. What happens in hockey stays in hockey. The shroud of silence blanketed those who got hurt and those that did the hurting. It was insurance, a guarantee that the outside world would never disrupt the comfortable culture of intimidation within the sport. The silence meant outsiders could never make a case against on-ice violence." -- Bruce Dowbiggin, The Meaning of Puck

Silence. Throughout the heartland of hockey violence is met with indifference and silence. If you never played the game, you can't understand.

Todd Bertuzzi was misunderstood by those liberal, urban sissies. He paid his price. Steve Moore was a whiny little punk. He should have known better than to hit a star with an open ice check. Clean or not, there had to be a price to pay. It was the code. A code that had been followed in hockey for generations and the same code Don Sanderson was following when he fought Brantford's Corey Fulton last month.

And now he's dead. What happens in hockey stays in hockey.

For years the mantra of the sport's apologists was that no one ever got hurt in a hockey fight. Fighting was to be encouraged. It helped stop players from engaging in truly dangerous practices like slashing and high sticking. Let the boys play.

It was a fluke. It could have happened anywhere, any time. It wasn't the fight that killed him, it was his head hitting the ice. My buddy knew a guy that hit his head off the ice while coaching his boy's novice team. Could happen to anyone.

We can anticipate the arguments. There is no need to tune into Coach's Corner for Sanderson's two-minute eulogy. He was a good Canadian boy. He wouldn't want the fuss. He certainly wouldn't want to be a martyr used by enemies of the game to attack the code. They never played the game.

We'd ask him what he thinks about it. Except he's dead. From a hockey fight.

So instead, silence. The code lives on.

What happens in hockey stays in hockey.

Related:
A Hockey Tragedy (Damien Cox, The Spin)
Previous:
The horror, the horror... frankly, it's beyond our ken (Dec. 15, 2008)

Snark break ...

Anyone who made a joke about Muntadhar al-Zaidi -- his name's not Shoe Thrower -- being signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a pitcher or by the Detroit Lions as a quarterback is officially worthless and weak. Making fun of the Lions got old weeks ago, making fun of the Pirates got old years ago, plus there is the whole issue about making light of a genocide.

Someone, please, should try to figure out what makes hockey people so obsessed about what athletes wear. Don Cherry goes on about the Sennies' Mike Fisher looking like a "thug," which he repeated it on The Hour last night. John Buccigross, who writes about hockey for ESPN.com, attacked Terrell Owens for his "Hogan’s Heroes jacket and his Fat Albert hat," and no, that's not the least bit disturbing.

Look at what's in someone's heart, not on someone's body, is that so hard?

Shorter version of TSN's quarterly report: "After school, you're dead, Sportsnet."

The Raptors are making people less angry about the Rogers/TSN2 standoff. It was a blessing to not watch that fourth quarter against New Jersey last night where "(Chris) Bosh and (Jermaine) O'Neal were dominated by a frontcourt of Brook Lopez, Ryan Anderson and Josh Boone" (to quote The Passion That Frustrates Us All).

This post was worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• Jim Kelley at sportsnet.ca is the latest to start soap-boxing over violence in hockey.
• Steve Sullivan -- 11 years later, people still haven't shut up about the Leafs dropping him -- is back skating with the Nashville Predators. He had a serious back injury two years ago.

The horror, the horror... frankly, it's beyond our Ken

The next sportswriting trope that has to go: The notion of hockey in Canada, free from skulduggery.

That thought has been rattling around for the past 24 hours, since news of a 21-year-old Ontario man named Don Sanderson (it was noted in today's Snark Break) suffering a critical injury in a senior hockey game last Friday in Brantford began making the rounds. Every sportswriter — present company very included — has written that column in the wake of some disturbing incident, calling upon people to realize there is a stain on the great game of hockey. The Hockey News' Ken Campbell, God love him, wrote a post this afternoon saying this is a reminder that it's only a matter of time until the NHL has a fatality from a fight. Someone could die from a cut from a skate blade, but they don't pad the skates with foam rubber.

It's a false sentiment based on an illusion that needs to be taken down. This idea that one day hockey in Canada will be free of all this is nothing but a cynical conjurer's canard. Well-meant sentiments aside, it won't prevent something like this from happening again to some obscure player in an obscure league.

There is a problem with unchecked aggression. The corrosive effect of the NHL and its media partners condoning violence (Colin Campbell's Wheel of Justice, Don Cherry's rhapsodizing about the swapping of knuckles and such) has probably shaped how people behave at rinks, but whether it's even the biggest influence is debatable. The loss of a sense of community, the disconnect people feel from each other, the swath that globalization has cut through rural Ontario, all of that can be seen as to contributors to how people carry on at the rink.

True there are places where the hockey culture is largely free of all this — college hockey, female hockey, the United States, Russia, Scandinavia, pretty much all of Europe, really. Football and rugby are contact sports with just as much head-knocking, but the level of respect shown toward opponents and officials is completely different.

The truth, which no one likes to confront, might be way beyond the ken of some ass-talking blog-writin' guy, but there is something so elemental about hockey that cannot be expunged. It's been there for more than a century, and there's as many explanations for it as there are poor bastards who were left with a permanent reminder of this cold, hard hockey truth. I've said it before, I'll say it again: We never learn. Sanderson's situation, while tragic, is not going to do anything to diminish any sportswriter, anywhere, from writing raptorously about the local team's enforcer, or a team's need for toughness (although holding off on it for a while would be a good idea). This is about what is, and not what should be.

This particular league had safeguards in place (as Campbell notes, the OHL senior league automatically ejects players for fighting, which is not the case in many amateur leagues). There will be more to come, including a ban on players removing their helmets before a fight (no one's said if this happened in Sanderson's case).

Point being. It still happened. Perhaps there's a counter-point that Sanderson, who previously played in a Provincial Junior A league that doesn't have fighting, was ill-equipped to be in a fight. It sounds monstrous, but so is the thought of parents losing their son.

It will happen again, and then it will happen again. The point is the notion of clean hockey in Canada is a pipe dream, unless the sports drops sharply in social import. The danger draws people in, for good and ill.

Related:
Latest fighting injury another warning for NHL (Ken Campbell, The Hockey News)
Is Don Sanderson story the wake-up call hockey needs? (LoosePucks.com)