Ahhh yes, the head shot debate rages on in all of its glorious forms today. All thanks to Matt Cooke and his crushing blow on Marc Savard on the weekend, which has now left Savard's season in doubt. Now, I've attached the video below to try and have a review of what actually happened, in order to encapsulate the whole issue.
It's a pretty brutal looking video, without a doubt, but I would like to go back on my look at how suspensions are governed to also kick start the point.The first point, which I believe is a very important jumping off point, is the player in question a first time or repeat offender? This is important, from how I read how suspensions are levied is that a player in question will get less benefit of the doubt and a more severe penalty for his action, solely on the basis that he's been there before. In Cooke's case, according to his player bio here, he's been suspended three times in the past. Okay, so this doesn't look good on him to start and it's taken into account.
Secondly, the circumstance of the hockey play beforehand. There was nothing to suggest that this hit was in relation to another clean check or payback for another incident in the game, it was in a tight, competitive one-goal hockey game with under six minutes to go in the game, where everyone should still be playing hard and to win.
Next, the incident's relation to an actual hockey play. In this case, I believe its safe to deem this play as finishing an open-ice check on a player that has gotten rid of the puck by passing or shooting. In this case, there is very little time in between Savard letting go of the puck and Cooke hitting him, so it can't be deemed a 'late hit' and these sort of hits happen all the time, so it's definitely not a rare hockey play that hasn't been governed on much before.
The incident in question comes into play next, as we try to look at what happened. As you can see from the first picture, Savard has just let go of the puck and Cooke is about to hit him in the open-ice. Cooke's arm is down and his shoulder is poised ready for a hit not unlike a normal one. The extenuating circumstance of this hit from Savard's standpoint is that he is not expecting the body contact to come, because Cooke was not in his field of vision when taking the shot, but in the open ice, players are going to come from all 360 degrees and when a player is backing himself up with all that ice surrounding him, he cannot be 100% sure as to what is coming from all 360 degrees.
For argument's sake, Cooke is listed at 5'11" and Savard is 5'10" standing up, but in taking the shot from Cooke, his head would have been lower, which I think is a valid point in the argument. If Savard's head is down around the height of Cooke's shoulder, then it's hard to govern at break-neck speeds (sorry for the terminology) where a player is going to make contact with a player in a split second. Cooke committed to the hit once the puck was going into the direction of Savard, which is legal from the interference standpoint, and only hit Savard after he had possession of the puck, which is still legal. Cooke skated through Savard without lifting his elbow, so contact wasn't make with the joint in his arm with Savard's head intentionally and the play was deemed to be a good check on the ice, no penalty was called.The fifth and final point, which will carry a good portion of the weight, amplified by point number one, is the result of the play in question, which in this case is Marc Savard's likely severe concussion. This will likely have the biggest impact on the decision of Cooke's supplementary discipline, because he rocked Savard, for a lack of a better term. In the three middle points, there really wasn't enough there to warrant a suspension, but in the case of a major head injury, some extra consideration is going to be laid down in this decision.
Combining points number one and five, I can easily say that four games will come down on Matt Cooke and that's fair from the perspective on he's been here before and it was a huge hit. Without a doubt though, Marc Savard took his safety for granted coming over the blueline on a rush, skating backwards and not acknowledging that Cooke, who is a very physical player, is on the ice.
Without question, its a horrible thing when a player becomes injured for a substantial length of time, but at what point does the game decides to change itself vastly to curb long-term injuries? If this hit was deemed legal by the letter of the law on the ice and if it was a player with no priors on his record hitting Savard, there would be a good chance that this play would have gone unpunished and the debate would centre around whether or not these open-ice hits should be legal, from a player who is or isn't expecting it at all.
It may not be "right" to blame Marc Savard for allowing himself to be blindsided, but in this case, awareness is half the battle. It's a very fast game and mistakes are going to be made. Some result in the player making the mistake getting hurt and others in a player hurting another with a mistake in judgment. In a physical sport, the line of questioning has to start from a better point than singling out a certain incident and making it right. If you try and fix one incident from the standpoint that its the know-all and end-all of incidents, you will find that you are wrong and you've likely affected the rest of the game in some way, which was likely not your intention in the first place.
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