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“Let them play” is a cop-out

This is why.

When an entire series worth of uncalled cheap play (high hits, late hits, after-the-whistle hits) by a larger, more physical team boils over, you get this. (The only reason it hadn’t happened already was because Carolina kept winning games.)

A hands-off, “let them play” officiating policy only works if you have two teams who play at comparable levels of physicality and respect for the rules. (For Carolina, New Jersey and Pittsburgh would be comparable.) But the whole reason for penalty codes in sport is to allow officials some opportunity to control play in unbalanced situations such as Carolina-Boston. When game officials abdicate their responsibility to do so and resentment accumulates on the part of the victimized team, acting-out happens, no matter the sport, no matter the level, no matter the audience.

Back to Raleigh, and probably without Scott Walker, Wheel of Morality Discipline pending. Game 6 is a must-win for so many reasons. Closing the door on this crap is just one more.

Canes-Bruins Game 4 trip thoughts

Call this the stuff I wasn’t tweeting.

• The Hampton Inn and Suites Cary is easily the best hotel for games at RBC Center, unless the Comfort Suites directly across from the arena somehow far exceeds that chain’s usual standards. There’s a well-stocked convenience store/gas station (with diesel!) across the street, and access is a straight shot up Trinity Road to the arena without having to deal with Edwards Mill traffic.
• Tailgate report: with my Leatherman 200 miles away, using a flat-head screwdriver as a bottle opener was highly non-optimal. For future missions, perhaps I should get one of these to leave in the car.
• Let’s just say I’m very glad the price I paid for my ticket, obtained through a season ticket holder, bore little relation to face value.
• Cranking a storm warning siren is way better than dropping a ceremonial first puck. The puck drop always struck me as a bad port from baseball anyway.
• The RBC Center volume brought the pain. In related news, a North Carolina crowd cheering for the fourth line as they change after a stellar forechecking shift is as effective a response as I can come up with to the Canadian chauvinists Balsillie propagandists people pronouncing Bettman’s Southern experiment a complete failure.
• The friend with whom I attended the game wanted to wait outside the players’ parking area postgame for autographs, so I went with him and his friends. Probably 3/4 of the players simply sped by, and the remaining 1/4 stopped and signed about 50 autographs each. Props to the guys who did stop, but I can’t share the indignation of some of the other folks in line toward the drive-bys. It’s easy to say “If I were making a million dollars, I’d stop every single night and sign as many autographs as people wanted.” If you were getting in that car at the end of a long game, hoping for a little bit of time with your kids before the next morning’s flight, and had seen the same faces all season with curiously new memorabilia for you to sign each time, it’d be pretty easy to hit the gas rather than the brake.
• Jack Edwards update: he had to walk past that whole line, looking surly. Somehow I avoided shouting “Mine eyes have seen the glory!”, and instead just listened to him grumble to his friend that “this isn’t the team we saw for seven months.” I actually felt a little bad for him as he left, packed into the back seat of a Kia Spectra rental. What, NESN couldn’t spring for the upgrade? Weak.
• US 29 to VA/NC 86 to I-40 is about as quick a route as possible from Charlottesville, but meal stops are not as common as one might prefer, nor are they well-signed. In particular, if you want food in Danville, avoid the Danville Expressway, and instead follow 29 Business south to US 58 in town. Get back on 29 Business southbound after you eat; as soon as you cross the river, continue south on VA 86 rather than following the exit ramps to stay on 29.

All over but the howling

The Phoenix Coyotes have filed for bankruptcy. I can hear the victory cheers from four hundred miles away, as “[t]he near-fanatic obsession of the Canadian media with the failure of this franchise” is validated and RIM tycoon James Balsillie readies his third attempt to pull a team out of the U.S. into Southern Ontario.

As usual, if you want long-form analysis with a heavy dose of facts, go read Stu Hackel’s briefing from January in the NYT Slap Shot blog, and for coherent quick reaction, Puck Daddy’s your man. The bottom line is twofold: one, as much as Canadians love to pile on Gary Bettman, this isn’t on him; and two, the problems that led to the Coyotes’ collapse are not generalizable to other Sun Belt franchises, so back off.