**BREAKING NEWS** - No Fine Or Suspension For Chara

[Darkstone42]

I am not even going to pay any mind to that post, I guarantee I have been a Bruins fan longer than 99.99% of the Penguins fan base.

Hey! I'm on your side in this debate!


I feel slighted.

 

[SLY]

This argument gets tiring...

 

[SLY]

Hey! I'm on your side in this debate!


I feel slighted.

This is a whole different debate... And your in the 0.01%

 

[elocomotive]

On a serious note, people need to lighten up on the star player thing. Ovechkin was suspended TWICE last year. It has less to do with that and more to do with this... reckless and dirty players are not going to get the benefit of the doubt, clean players will.

Good post by Dacks above.

 

[IPostedWhat]

This argument gets tiring...

I gave the quarter to the fat guy with the moustache, so I better see the monkey dance!

 

[SLY]

I gave the quarter to the fat guy with the moustache, so I better see the monkey dance!

 

[TheRobotDevil]

Chara didn't deserve a suspension. He finished his check in what proved to be a bad spot, but how many times do we see this exact same type of hit in that same location not turn out badly at all? On the same night as the Chara hit, Ben Lovejoy hit a guy into the scansion with no consequence. I don't think serious injuries like this happen often enough on this sort of play for players to really keep it in the forefront of their minds while they're playing.

We can sit here and say that he was irresponsible for hitting a guy in that spot because hindsight is 20/20 and we're not making decisions at that speed. When I played hockey and hit a guy along the benches, the though never occurred to me that they could get seriously injured on the scansion. It's just not something you see enough. How irresponsible can we say Chara is when most players in the league probably never think about the consequences of where along the boards they're hitting someone?

I personally think it's an unreasonable expectation.

The league on the other hand, has records and documentation of all these sorts of plays throughout the history of the league and the resources to do something about it, like, for example, changing the engineering of the rink in some way to make it safer. They haven't done that, and are therefore, in my mind, the ones who were irresponsible. Suspending Chara would be using him as their own personal scapegoat.

So in my mind, step one for the league is complete by absolving the player of blame here. It remains to be seen if they will engage in step 2: doing something about the engineering of the rinks to make it safer for the players without detracting from the game itself.

EDIT: I would also like to point out a significant difference between this hit and boarding: the NHL hasn't specified to players that they can't do this. Players have been told that checking guys in the back near the glass is dangerous and not allowed, and they have a nice obvious giveaway in the form of the numbers on the back of the other guy's jersey. That's like a stop sign. That doesn't exist for hitting guys near the scansion. There is no league mandate, no rule in place, no automatic stop sign that should be going up in players' minds.

To be fair I was using boarding as an example of how players have to use restraint in certain situations.I understand your A scientist but not everything is always black and white.There's several different unwritten rules in life as well as hockey.Just because there is no written rule doesn't mean its ok to play in a reckless or careless fashion.I'm sorry I can't justify A player being seriously injured because of a lack of a rule to prevent it.

 

[SLY]

To be fair I was using boarding as an example of how players have to use restraint in certain situations.I understand your A scientist but not everything is always black and white.There's several different unwritten rules in life as well as hockey.Just because there is no written rule doesn't mean its ok to play in a reckless or careless fashion.I'm sorry I can't justify A player being seriously injured because of a lack of a rule to prevent it.

He only plays a scientist on TV.

 

[Darkstone42]

To be fair I was using boarding as an example of how players have to use restraint in certain situations.I understand your A scientist but not everything is always black and white.There's several different unwritten rules in life as well as hockey.Just because there is no written rule doesn't mean its ok to play in a reckless or careless fashion.I'm sorry I can't justify A player being seriously injured because of a lack of a rule to prevent it.

My point is that it's hard to be responsible about things that don't occur to you.

 

[IPostedWhat]

My point is that it's hard to be responsible about things that don't occur to you.

Like illegitimate childern born out of one hell of a heroin filled weekend?

 

[NullDefault]

To be fair I was using boarding as an example of how players have to use restraint in certain situations.I understand your A scientist but not everything is always black and white.There's several different unwritten rules in life as well as hockey.Just because there is no written rule doesn't mean its ok to play in a reckless or careless fashion.I'm sorry I can't justify A player being seriously injured because of a lack of a rule to prevent it.

I just wanted to say Dacks that's my sentiments exactly. Blame in this situation falls squarely on the league for allowing a known hazard to go unchanged. Also I see the point about Chara needing to be more responsible and I think for the most part throughout his career he has been, but this was a split second decision and it was the wrong one. At this point I have seen the replays more times than I care to count and I don't see Chara forcibly pushing Pacioretty's head into the boards. If it were the case that Chara had forcibly and with intent put Max's head into the boards yes he should be suspended. I know this maybe slippery slope logic here but I thinks it's applicable, if you punish Chara for this hit you set a precedent for supplemental punishment regardless of circumstance whenever a player is injured. If that becomes standard operating procedure for the league fine, but I personally want nothing to do with it and I would hope that none of the other hockey fans on this site would either.

 

[TheRobotDevil]

Don't get me wrong its just my opinion and I'm not calling Chara A dirty player.Even the cleanest players are capable of A dirty play.After watching the clip A few more times I can't say whether he intended to injure Pac but it was definately A very poor decision.From my experience when your down 4-0 seconds from the period ending there is no to try and level A guy.The fact that he didn't have the puck and was in the area of the partition is even more reason to back off.As far as setting precedents by not punishing Chara the league is setting A precedent as well by saying its acceptable.Does it mean its ok for hall gill to rub ryder in to the partition should the opportunity arise.Or A guy like Gilles who already has a screw loose to get ideas.To me its opening A box of worms.Truth is the league is guilty on a few levels yes I think they dropped the ball by letting it go.But on A bigger level this is something that should have been addressed years ago when it happened to Ryan Smyth.It shouldn't take three incedents and a serious injury for them to figure that out.

 

[NullDefault]

Don't get me wrong its just my opinion and I'm not calling Chara A dirty player.Even the cleanest players are capable of A dirty play.After watching the clip A few more times I can't say whether he intended to injure Pac but it was definately A very poor decision.From my experience when your down 4-0 seconds from the period ending there is no to try and level A guy.The fact that he didn't have the puck and was in the area of the partition is even more reason to back off.As far as setting precedents by not punishing Chara the league is setting A precedent as well by saying its acceptable.Does it mean its ok for hall gill to rub ryder in to the partition should the opportunity arise.Or A guy like Gilles who already has a screw loose to get ideas.To me its opening A box of worms.Truth is the league is guilty on a few levels yes I think they dropped the ball by letting it go.But on A bigger level this is something that should have been addressed years ago when it happened to Ryan Smyth.It shouldn't take three incedents and a serious injury for them to figure that out.

I don't feel the league is setting that precedent. At the time of the injury Chara was given a double minor and a game misconduct which called for a disciplinary review as per the rules. As far as I can tell from the most recent broadcasts this will be a major issue addressed during the next board of Governors meeting so I'm hoping that they mandate padding for those areas on the ice along the stanchions. As the league stated based on the available evidence, and the fact that Chara isn't known for being this type of player, they can only conclude that the result was unintentional. A player like Gillies would certainly have been more heavily scrutinized especially given his most recent history. As far as one of the Bruins being injured in a similar situation, I'm a fan of hockey before I'm a fan of any team. Before I formulated any response to this incident I weighed all of the tangibles that I could glean from the evidence given. I haven't once come out and said that Chara was acting in a responsible way, in fact my posts in other threads clearly states that this incident and his conduct in the situation was very unprofessional given the circumstances, but I'm not going to pass judgment on the guy when clearly it's looks to be no more than a bad decision with disastrous and tragic results. We walk a fine line in shaping the sport we all love and going too far in meting out punishments. The end result from any punishment in this league is that we want greater accountability, perhaps with improvements to the safety of the arena's we will have the appropriate accountability leveled on the proper recipient. That's my stance on this whole situation.

 

[TheRobotDevil]

I don't feel the league is setting that precedent. At the time of the injury Chara was given a double minor and a game misconduct which called for a disciplinary review as per the rules. As far as I can tell from the most recent broadcasts this will be a major issue addressed during the next board of Governors meeting so I'm hoping that they mandate padding for those areas on the ice along the stanchions. As the league stated based on the available evidence, and the fact that Chara isn't known for being this type of player, they can only conclude that the result was unintentional. A player like Gillies would certainly have been more heavily scrutinized especially given his most recent history. As far as one of the Bruins being injured in a similar situation, I'm a fan of hockey before I'm a fan of any team. Before I formulated any response to this incident I weighed all of the tangibles that I could glean from the evidence given. I haven't once come out and said that Chara was acting in a responsible way, in fact my posts in other threads clearly states that this incident and his conduct in the situation was very unprofessional given the circumstances, but I'm not going to pass judgment on the guy when clearly it's looks to be no more than a bad decision with disastrous and tragic results. We walk a fine line in shaping the sport we all love and going too far in meting out punishments. The end result from any punishment in this league is that we want greater accountability, perhaps with improvements to the safety of the arena's we will have the appropriate accountability leveled on the proper recipient. That's my stance on this whole situation.

Dont get me wrong I can understand what your saying but I really dont see the need for what he did given all the circumstances.I don't think of Chara as A dirty player but I don't agree with the play.To be honest I am more upset with the way the league has handled this issue.Its all fine and good that they are going to discuss padding during the board of governers meeting but that should have been done after the Smyth inccident years ago.I think if the league addressed the issue when the should have we may not even be having this conversation.This isn't A new issue its been neglected for quite some time.

 

[PhillyPhaithful48]

I heard there was a tornado warning today somewhere

 

[NullDefault]

Dont get me wrong I can understand what your saying but I really dont see the need for what he did given all the circumstances.I don't think of Chara as A dirty player but I don't agree with the play.To be honest I am more upset with the way the league has handled this issue.Its all fine and good that they are going to discuss padding during the board of governers meeting but that should have been done after the Smyth inccident years ago.I think if the league addressed the issue when the should have we may not even be having this conversation.This isn't A new issue its been neglected for quite some time.

I totally agree with that. Like I said hopefully this will act as the impetus to make sure these changes, which are long overdue, to actually be set into motion. On the other point, I don't think it's necessarily the play itself that is subject but rather that the check was severely late. Any fan of any team wants a player to finish their checks but not late and not in an irresponsible way that could lead to injury. Chara is guilty of both and I won't defend him on either of those points.

 

[Winged_Wheel88]

I heard there was a tornado warning today somewhere

Iowa. Auto's taking the Wings' loss pretty hard.

 

[dare2be]

I am not even going to pay any mind to that post, I guarantee I have been a Bruins fan longer than 99.99% of the Penguins fan base.

This argument gets tiring...

Agreed. :mmph:

 

[Automattic]

Iowa. Auto's taking the Wings' loss pretty hard.

:phone: "Hey, you gotta come bail me out of jail again."

 

[Automattic]

The NHL should take a cue from Nascar and react to these unfortunate accidents by making the rinks safer.

But instead we change the game by increasing the number of penalty calls to increase scoring.