Chris Simon Suspended

On Thursday March 8th New York Islanders enforcer Chris Simon struck New York Rangers forward Ryan Hollweg in the face with his stick.Thankfully Hollweg was able to get up right away and had no type of serious injury. This was ugly to say the least and came on the anniversary of the infamous Todd Bertuzzi when he ambushed Steve Moore knocking him on concious.

The following day Chris Simon's status changed to suspended indefinitely and rightfully so. Simon had intent to swing at Hollweg in the face after he was knocked down, and this is being compared to the Marty McSorley incident as the worst hockey has ever seen. McSorley was suspended for 23 games in 2000 when he deliberately swung his stick and struck Donald Brashear in the head and caused him to never play in the NHL again. Simon had this to say after the game “I saw the look on my face after being hit into the boards, I was completely out of it. When I met with the media about 30 minutes later I was still not feeling well.”

Simon was due to meet with the league's director of hockey operations Colin Campbell on Sunday. A few hours after meeting with Simon, Campbell came down hard on the Islanders' forward. The suspension is as follows; Chris Simon will miss 25 games which will include the remaining 15 regular season games and all of the playoffs. If the Islanders play fewer then 10 games in the playoffs then Simon will fill the remainder of his suspension with games from next year's schedule. Campbell had this to say in a statement “The National Hockey League will not accept the use of a stick in the manner and fashion in which Mr. Simon used his Thursday night.”

This episode comes in a time when over the past few weeks there have been a number of head injury incidents in the NHL. Cam Janssen of the New Jersey Devils knocked out Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Thomas Kaberle by throwing a late hit with his shoulder; Janssen was suspended for three games following the unpleasant hit. About a week earlier Buffalo Sabres star forward Chris Drury was knocked out by a hit to the head from Ottawa Senators forward Chris Neil. There was no penalty on the play as Neil shouldered Drury, taking him out of action for a few weeks.

So this brings up the question of the roughness that the game of hockey brings and the age old argument of whether fighting should be allowed in hockey. There is a trend pointing to the types of players involved in these nasty incidents, they are all the so called “enforcers” maybe they should do more enforcing and less head hunting.

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