The NHL - Still Run by Pondscum

And so another shining example of NHL Front Office fraud and corruption has laid itself at our feet. This time in the form of a $10,000 fine to head coach Lindy Ruff after Thursday's melee.

Now, it's not the fine I take issue with. Ruff did exercise poor discretion after the game in telling the press he essentially told his guys to "go out and run 'em." He may simply have forced the NHL's hand.

The fraud and corruption comes in when we consider A) the extent of the fine, B) compare it to the $100 fine given to Ovelchuk for his viscious, very dangerous hit-from-behind on Daniel Briere, and finally C) the total lack of consequences administered to our dear friends in Ottawa.

You see, Ottawa had clearly lost the momentum in the game. They wanted it back, and in a fashion very typical of players of his ilk, Chris Niel thought the best way to do that was to kill somebody. Somebody turned out to be team captain, class-act, and widely respected around the league player Chris Drury, who had already fired a shot and now had his head turned away from the charging bull who was steaming towards him with blood in his eyes and foam on his lips. Drury was helpless, and Neil tried to decapitate him.

So many Senators fans make the argument that the hit was clean. "Clean" is a relative word ... in this case meaning that it was not breaking any current NHL rules. So yes, it was clean in the same sense that Kasparitis' low hip-check to the knee on Tim Connolly last season was clean. Here "clean" is simply a word used to describe a vicious, inexcusable hit with clear intent to inflict pain, that simply happens to keep elbows or sticks out of the equation.

Because the bottom line was that it was a late blow, delivered to a vulnerable player, and it was delivered intentionally to the head, whether it was a shoulder or an elbow that did the damage.

Not that anybody should be surprised. Neil is exactly the kind of player that is a wart on the raging, masculine erection that is the NHL. He is a shameless headhunter ... a player whose sole purpose is inflicting pain, and who never even tries to disguise this fact. What was it Neil himself said after the game ... oh yah, he said, "there's a reason I lead the NHL in hits." What a guy.

But Ottawa's shame is not limited to this player alone. No, it extends to all levels, all the way up to coach Bryan Murray, who had this very emotional thing to say ... "Ssch, sshhh, chxsh, shishle, shrrxxx, shhsch!!!!!!!"

And in between his incoherent, jackass slobberings, he managed to make some other fine points ... such as the only reason Drury was injured was because "his helmet wasn't fastened properly," and how shocked he is that Lindy would send out his goons to go after the talented players. The latter of these comments I shall deal with further ... the former - well, they are just among the most inane, mistifyingly stupid words I've ever heard come out of professional sports.

Cheers to the Ottawa spin machine, by the way. They certainly have done a fantastic job making Lindy Ruff and Buffalo seem like the bad guys. A neutral observer might almost be tempted to think that all that happened was a star player was nearly decapitated, and his team wanted to come out and send a message ... "don't fuck with us!" Nope. Thanks to the brilliant machinations of the Senators, we have all learned that it was a clean hit, that Drury should keep his head up, and that the Sabres are the type of criminals who would then send out huge goons to attack the innocent finesse players on the other team.

All of which begs the question ... who in their right fucking mind puts out their star players on the very next shift when he hears the fans going insane, sees Lindy incenses and screaming at the referees, and knows Drury is now back in the lockerroom bleeding all over everybody and everything that comes within six feet of him? Clearly Murray is either savagely retarded, or he is a manipulative, scheming prick.

Given the length and success of his career, we're inclined to go with option B - he's a scheming prick. Because sure enough ... Lindy and the Sabres are out for some physical payback on the next shift, which leaves Murray free to go prancing out to the media and put on his best "thunderously indignant" face, and bitch about how these clowns attacked his best players and Buffalo has no class.

Which brings us back to Lindy's fine. Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems to me that two coaches made two separate decisions about who was going out on the ice next. And even if Lindy has the last line change by virtue of being at home, as anybody whose watched hockey for more than two weeks can tell you, Murray didn't exactly have to consult a psychic to know which players Lindy was going to put out. That puts the responsibility for Mair and Peters going after Heatley and Spezza on Murray ... he deliberately put them in a hostile and aggressive situation so that he could deflect criticism away from Neil's cowardly attack on Drury by putting the aggressor status on Buffalo.

So fine ... Lindy gets a black eye here for being an honest, emotional guy, while the manipulative prick wins the post-game spin session. That's usually how these things go.

On a side note ... I'm reminded of an incident several seasons ago when a goaltender was bumped into. The goaltender's coach deemed the play to be cheap, and so he sent out his goons to fight the Jarome Iginla line of Calgary (the first line). Yes, that coach was indeed Bryan Murray. So in addition to being a scheming asshole, he is also apparently a scheming asshole who is a hypocrite. Selah.

Back to our main point, however ... the league has once again punished the wrong person. Or at least not punished enough people. We've had too many examples over the years that have shown Gary Bettman to be a mindless, savagely deranged psychopath, and this is already the second time this year his front office has done Buffalo a great injustice. First, Ovechkin is given a $100 fine for a brutal, potentially disasterous hit on Daniel Briere that sends him face and neck-first into the boards. Now it intercedes on Thursday night's proceedings only to give Lindy a $10,000 fine for "putting out his tough guys against the other team's top line," as if this is actually a punishable offense.

Cheers to Gary Bettman! The NHL has gone from a more popular national sport than the NBA to not even hardly garnering a mention on ESPN during his tenure, and if we're lucky we'll continue to be treated to the greatest trainwreck in the history of crumbling entertainment industries.

Fuck you Gary Bettman, fuck you Colin Campbell, fuck you Bryan Murray, and go fuck yourself Chris Neil. You are worth less than a pocketfull of pondscum, the lot of you.