How does the NHL handle the Cammalleri incident?
by Kevin van Steendelaar on Oct 3, 2010 3:16 PM EDT
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By now fans have seen the incident involving the Montreal Canadiens Mike Cammalleri and New York Islanders rookie Nino Niederreiter.
After what can be argued as a blindside hit by Neidermeitter earlier in the sequence, Cammalleri confronted the Isles' winger and, after the youngster swung his stick (possibly accidentally) in the direction of his head, proceeded to cross-check and then slash him in the back of the leg.
Stu Hackell, who now posts regularly for HabsInsideOut.com, questions whether Neidermeitter's hit, which went without a penalty with two referees on the ice, will factor in the league's decision.
Hackell also noted Sean Leahy's piece in Yahoo! which notes a previous incident involving Cammalleri,
"During the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, Cammalleri escaped suspension after he smacked then-Chicago Blackhawk Martin Havlat in the head after a face-off because, according to the NHL, he was not a repeat offender. Now with no "Get Out of Jail" free cards to use, it's likely Cammalleri will face a ban of a game or two to begin the season."
Undoubtedly, Cammalleri will face some sort of suspension. The question is, how many games?
Followers of our SBNation counterpart Lighthouse Hockey, are screaming for a penalty as high as 20 games, but realistically, it won't be more than five games. With Colin Campbell running the show though, it's hard to tell.
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I understand the guys at Lighthouse calling for Cammalleri’s head on a pike. But I see 3 games.
That incident reminded me of a quote from a player in D’arcy Jenish’s book on the Canadiens. It was about a small player making his way to the big leagues in the late 30’s-early 40’s. Guy was from Toronto and was at some point asking a Leafs player of the time how he defended himself against bigger opponents (they both were small men). The Leafs guy picked up his stick and told him something along the lines of “See this? Don’t take shit from anybody. Use it.”
Anyway, I quote from memory, so it’s probably all wrong, but the basic notion is there and it looks like this is what Cammalleri did. Stickworks is a bad thing, something you never want to see. But if a small goalscorer decide not to take shit from a bigger guy, well…
I guess we should be glad he didn’t pull a Pronger on us and slashed the kid with his skate…
Oh, the Humanity!
What a ridiculous rinky-dink sequence of events leading to the ejection.
I was expecting to see N.N. without an eye or missing half his nose the way people were going on about the "gutless’, “classless”, “dangerous”, blah blah blah.
The kid doesn’t have a scratch on him and maybe he’ll think next time before he decides he wants to be the hero and take out a high powered star in mid ice.
Of course, I realize for the bleeding hearts out there this makes me part of the problem with hockey culture. Since when the f. did hockey culture mean circle time in kindergaarten?
Give him a game if you want, but let’s be clear, Cammi will get suspended because of the means he chose to communicate his displeasure— not their actual results.
On to the next paper tiger problem
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