In defense of Torres

[Darkstone42]

I don't know if I fully agree there. If your skates are still on the ice and you are driving upwards, you are still accelerating. Once you've gone airborne, you are at your maximum possible velocity.

Keeping your skates on the ice allows you to apply a greater total force - because you can keep pushing after the initial imparct, but going airborne delivers the greatest possible instantaneous impact.

Which is more dangerous for player safety?

You start decelerating as soon as your feet leave the ice, though.

Highest greatest impact velocity is if your feet leave the ice simultaneous with making contact.

 

[Slimpikins]

Just don't lose sight of the main point of this thread: Torres is a ****.


Carry on.

 

[IPostedWhat]

Just don't lose sight of the main point of this thread: Torres is a ****.

I don't know, this statment seems a bit fishy.

 

[Eddie_Shack]

Tyler Dellow ... attorney ... says it isnt a defense of Torres but seems like it is to me

in summary ... "Torres' has always played on the edge; is it his fault that hockey is redefining where the edge should be?"

interesting read Cost of a big hit | mc79hockey.com ... good comments section too - i still think his continued repeated stupidity needs to be punished severely

I initially had a whole thing written about Torres, offering some defence of him. I decided to delete it. I don’t intend to pick on Spector here – he’s not alone in having swung so much against hits like the one Torres threw on Hossa. The fact of the matter is, what’s acceptable in hockey is changing and it’s made a bit more complicated by the fact that the role of hitting has changed over the years. Whereas it used to be about separating players from the puck, it’s become de rigeur to put hit a guy even once he’s released the puck. The longer a guy has to be worry about getting drilled after losing the puck, the more likely his attention will waver and the more likely he’ll get caught by someone who made a bad decision. *SEE #1*

As far as I can tell, nobody can say that the hit on Hossa was anything more than a hockey play that he botched. Like screwing up his timing on a shot, only with a guy leaving the ice on a stretcher. *SEE #2*You can say he jumped – he did come off the ice – but if Hossa’s a step closer, Torres drives up through his chest with his legs, which is sort of the textbook way to hit these days. *SEE #3*It’s funny – I’m not sure the whole “Are his feet on the ice?” standard even makes any sense. I’m not a physicist but it seems unlikely to me that there’s much difference between driving through a guy with your legs and jumping – driving through a guy with your legs is just a jump that ran into something. One’s legal, the other isn’t. *SEE #4*

Whatever you might say about Torres, he doesn’t have the track record of a guy like Matt Cooke. He doesn’t have a rap sheet full of nasty elbows, cross checks to the face, knee on knee hits or dangerous hits from behind. *SEE #5*Spector says he’s predatory and, in a sense, I suppose he is. He’s close enough to the edge though that on basically all of the plays that people condemn (Ference was an exception), you can say it’s a hockey play gone wrong. Some of them, like the Eberle hit, are still difficult to understand (at the very least, the elbowing major was incomprehensible). Whether it’s Torres or someone else, as long as the line is drawn where it currently is, a guy who makes what can reasonably be seen as a mistake in judgment is going to result in guys getting absolutely destroyed. *SEE #6*

In other words, Torres isn’t really the problem. The problem, to the extent that there is one, is a system of rules that renders guys fair game for a long time after they get rid of the puck.*SEE #7* The problem is a mishmash rule about when you can hit a guy in the head. *SEE #8*As long as hits like the Torres hit can be within a step of being legal, guys are going to miss their assessment of the line and cross it. When you draw these lines, you have to allow for some user error – it’s a fast game. Drawing the lines where the NHL has drawn them, you’re just begging for incidents like Torres on Hossa. The easy thing to do afterwards is to pretend that Torres is a really dirty player and that he always has been. *SEE #9*

That doesn’t make it the truth and, if it’s not the truth, suspending Torres for ten games doesn’t really do anything to address the problem. Listing his history of hits that are over the line misleads, because, as Spector used to know, those hits were clean hockey hits for a long time. If you’re worked up about the Hossa hit and don’t acknowledge that the line being drawn where it is practically begs for guys to miss the line like Torres did, well, I don’t think you’re serious about solving the problem. You want the morality of being outraged while still getting the rush of watching all the awesome hits that fall on just the right side of the line (or that involve a star, or where the hittee doesn’t get hurt and we pretend it wasn’t as bad as the Torres hit).

The world does not, I would suggest, work that way. As long as you have a line, you’re going to have people who, in good faith, miss it. Condemning them for doing that might result in a pleasing sense of moral goodness, but it’s not a serious way to eliminate these sorts of incident in the future*SEE #10*

#1. What's acceptable in hockey hasn't changed that much since Torres entered the league, what's legal may have but when Torres was throwing high hits, elbows, and cheap shots in '06 with the Oilers I don't remember anyone going "Gee, that Torres sure is a badass, I sure hope the league doesn't change and frown upon his hard nosed brand of physical play!". No, everyone said the EXACT SAME THINGS they are saying now. "Fuck Torres, he's a bitch, he throws cheap hits and tries to turn guy's brains into butter". It may be "less legal" to hit a guy upstairs than it was five or seven years ago, but it's NEVER been acceptable. If anything, guys have less respect for each other now than they did. The fans and the guys who play with honor have never found those types of hits to be acceptable.

#2. Sure, you can argue it was a hockey play gone bad. No one knows what was going through Torres's head, maybe it was a mistake. But he sure has a history. If it was Martin St. Louis, Patrick Marleau, or someone with a clean record they would maybe get a pass. But sorry Torres, if you want the benefit of the doubt you have to earn it.

#3. Or, if Hossa is one step closer, then Torres launches at his head one step closer.

#4. Lots of guys don't "drive through" with their legs, lots of guys tense up and use their momentum to steam roll someone. Also, you may not be a physicist like Burke and Pronger aren't physicists, but surely you understand the danger of leaving your feet; you're more likely to contact the head. Anyone who's played a minute of hockey understands that rule and concept.

#5. No, he doesn't have the track record of Matt Cooke. Kind of like OJ Simpson doesn't have the track record of Timothy McVeigh. But if you see the Juice coming out of your dead wife's house covered in blood holding a knife, does that comparison even cross your mind? Torres has a a track record of filthy and dangerous hits. It's time to put a stop to it.

#6. Why is it that so many other guys who play hard hitting, on the edge hockey don't have so many "hockey plays gone wrong" on their records? How come SO MANY GUYS, like Brendan Morrow, Nicklas Kronwall, Shane Doan, Dustin Brown, and many others all play hard hitting, sometimes questionable hockey, but don't have reputations for giving guys concussions? How come all these other players play on the edge but have never put anyone in the hospital?

#7. I don't care if you hit a guy ten minutes after he got rid of the puck, if it's a clean hit it's interference, if it's a dirty hit then it doesn't matter when you threw it.

#8. I don't think the rule is all that mishmash, but I somewhat agree with this. There shouldn't have to be a rule, a head shot is a head shot.

#9. Yes. In any league, with any set of rules, there are gray areas and opportunities for guys to cross the line, sometimes inadvertently. If they break a rule and do something dangerous as hell, they should pay the consequences. Hey, I was driving my car and accidentally crossed the double yellow line, it's not my fault my lane is so close to oncoming traffic. It's the DOT's fault. It was an accident, a mistake, I didn't mean to do it, so it's cool that I put that guy in a stretcher, right? Again, how come SOME guys are constantly crossing the yellow line? Are they just unfortunate, unlucky victims of a poorly worded rulebook? Or are they pieces of shit? I vote piece of shit. NO ONE IS PRETENDING TORRES HAS ALWAYS BEEN DIRTY! People have been calling him dirty since 2006, this is nothing new! Who wrote this, Torres's grandma? Someone who just started watching hockey yesterday?

#10. I'm sorry, a history of cheap shots doesn't make Torres a cheap player? What are you getting at here? Ten games doesn't address the problem? What does? What are you suggesting, a "flag football" version of hockey? Should we just let it slide because it's not Torres's fault? Those hits were never clean hockey hits, they were just quasi-legal. No one thought they were clean at the time aside from 410 nation. How is the line drawn where it begs to be crossed? Where do we need to move "the line" to? What don't you understand about a head shot being illegal? You have NO SOLUTIONS, only vague criticisms about the current rulebook. Elaborate, or shut the fuck up. Yup, there will always be people crossing the line. And when they do, it's time for justice. And if they constantly cross it, the justice should be more and we should call them dirty bitches. End of story.


Any other poorly written hack articles for me to dismantle? I kind of like doing it.

 

[Eddie_Shack]

Glad Shanny didn't listen to this clown.