Montreal Canadiens Lose Game- Molson Canadian Threatens Lawsuit

Everyone can remember when Air Canada threatened to pull its sponsorship of the NHL after Zdeno Chara wasn't suspended for his vertebrae cracking "hit" on Max Pacioretty (it happend like a week ago). At the time, it seemed like an extreme way of saying something every important- that player safety needs to become a greater priority within the league, and that a lack of suspension on this hit was utterly unacceptable. With that being said, I think it's clear that not everyone entirely understood why Air Canada was making those threats.

"Wait they were actually pissed about the hit? I thought it was just cuz it was on a Canadien!" Said a clearly intoxicated CEO of Molson Coors. "Where was all this when Cooke hit Savard, or Richards hit Booth? The Montreal Canadiens are Canada's favorite team, if it had been a Minnesota Wild, you wouldn't have heard anything." He then mumbled for another good 30 seconds before I think passing out. To gain further insight into this, I talked to Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger, I-Iz-Kulemin.

"Well firstly," I asked, "Why is your pen name so stupid?"

"Next question."

"Okey dokey- why do you think Air Canada threatened to pull its ad money from the NHL."

"Well that's easy, it was a reckless hit that severely injured a player. You have to be responsible for your actions on the ice, and in this case the player wasn't held responsible. Hence the anger."

"Well what do you say to people who wonder there this outrage was after all the other hits? Why wasn't this threatened after the Kostopolous hit, or the Gillies incidents?"

"Well, you know, it's a different situation."

There was something strange in this rhetoric- why were so many people expressing utter outrage over player safety now, when this has all been going on for over a year. Yes, this incident is the tipping point in the argument. However, those of us that crusade on this hit and don't stay true to the cause of player safety don't look any better than those in the NHL disciplinary process. The NHL didn't suspend Chara because it didn't look like the other head hunting hits that had dominated the conversation previously. So now that we've crossed this point of no return, we need to ask ourselves what the NHL is asking itself right now- what are we trying to do? Do we want to cut out head hunting? Do we want to make the league look better by reducing ugly hits? Do we want to slow down the game and make it boring? Do we want to ignore the problem entirely? Or do we maybe want to remind ourselves that hockey players are people too, and have mothers and fathers that watch them play everyday, in addition to children of their own? The increase in discussion of player safety is fantastic for the game- but let's remember what the priority is here and that's player safety. It's not the image, it's not the brand, it's not even the game- it's the players. Especially the ones that don't get to have their names put up in lights in the big leagues.