When Sheldon Souray got dumped into the end boards face first on Thursday night the last person anyone thought would be involved is Jarome Iginla. I’m an Oiler fan through and through, but no matter how much dislike and or hate I try to conjure up for players on the Flames roster, even I can’t bring myself to dislike Iginla. If you ask the question of who is the most classy player in the NHL, the answer was Joe Sakic, but he isn’t here anymore, and I think 9 out of 10 fans would now answer now Jarome Iginla. That didn’t change last Thursday in my opinion either.
The scary crash into the end boards, that Souray took the worst of, was an accident. In fact if you look at some of the replays at how Jarome went into the boards, head and face first, and awkward as hell, it’s amazing he wasn’t hurt as well. About the only fault I can find in Iginla’s involvement in this is that his stick didn’t have to be near Souray’s feet as the two went into the boards after the puck. Then again when your getting ready to play the body the only thing your concerned about is keeping your stick down, so I don’t really know where else it could have been. Either way you cut it, the 2 minutes for tripping call made by the refs was the right call on the play. Oilers Coach Pat Quinn didn’t agree.
“I don’t understand the players of today,” Quinn said on Thursday. “If that had happened in the old days he would have got hit over the head with a stick right after. It was a pretty dirty play in my opinion. He poked his feet out and then piled on top of him. Somehow they never deal with that crap and they won’t let the vigilante stuff happen to deal with it. It’s disappointing.”
I like the fact that Quinn thinks the league should do more to prevent hits from behind. He is right when he says the league lets dangerous plays slide time and time again. It’s to bad that this play wasn’t one of those moments to take a stand, and it’s never right to suggest that vigilante sticks to the head would have been a fair response to this play. Iginla didn’t intentionally try to hurt Souray and it would be a tragedy to have watched another player try to hurt Iginla in this situation. The NHL was right in handing down the $10,000 fine to Pat Quinn. I hope Souray gets back on the ice soon and that all of us that play hockey take the real lesson from this. Hockey is a great game, but come with it’s risks. It doesn’t take much to to have a rutine play turn into a injury without anyone being at any real fault.
Then again, this is just another damned opinion.
